Part 2

Satirical compliments are more difficult to meet than most forms of attack, but Farquhar’s unconsciousness was a perfect piece of acting. Lucian wondered whether Maude knew the motive of his philanthropy. As a fact, Maude knew nothing and suspected merely because Farquhar was a virtuous person; he would have believed that the Apostle Peter got himself martyred for a consideration, and canonised by a piece of celestial jobbery. Being put to rebuke, he confined his conversation to the subject of Lucian’s illness, and in a short time the prodigal was installed in the best room and fed with the fatted calf under the form of tinned essence of beef.

III

THE PROPER STUDY OF MANKIND IS MAN

For several days Lucian was kept dumb by the tactics of his host, who walked punctually out of the room as soon as the invalid opened his lips. In half an hour he would return to the chafing guest; and then, if Lucian remained silent, he heard the paper read aloud, but if he dared to speak he was once more left to himself. As Lucian was eminently gregarious and hated his own society, the discipline achieved its object. He was treated like a royal guest, and repaid his host by vivisecting his character. The ground of his suspicions seemed trivial, but was substantial. Feeling the letter in its old place, Lucian sometimes wondered if he had dreamed that scene. But, no, he knew it was real; for the reason that he had seen on Farquhar’s face as he read an expression which he could never have imagined. What he suspected was not very clear; but Lucian had an inquisitive disposition, and his interests at this time were limited in number. Hence his exaggerated curiosity.

The church at Monkswell was heated by pipes which on mild days brought the temperature up to seventy degrees Fahrenheit, and in cold weather left the air in such a condition that to uncover his bald head was a severe trial of the parson’s faith. The weather had changed, and Farquhar, coming in after service on Sunday afternoon, went straight to the fire to warm his hands. He was an exemplary church-goer.

“Cold?” inquired Lucian, who was now allowed to talk a little.

“Bitterly. The snow-wind’s blowing; we shall be white to-morrow, if I don’t err.”

“Gale at seventy miles an hour, temperature twenty degrees below zero; yes, I’ve tried that out in Athabasca, and it didn’t suit me,” said Lucian, whose rebellious body appreciated luxury though his hardy spirit despised it.

“My faith, no! but I’m not sure that twenty degrees below isn’t better than a hundred and twenty above.”

“That’s a nice preparation for the bad time coming,” said the incorrigible Lucian. “Talking of which, what was that devilry you used when you carried in my fainting form?”

“Devilry, indeed! It was massage.”

“Not the ordinary, common or garden English massage, sonny; I’ve tried that.”

“Massage is massage all the world over, I should have said. However, I learned mine in Africa.”

“And who was your moonshee?”

“An old Arab sheikh who wore immaculate robes, and carried a dagger with a handle of silver filigree and a very sharp point, with which he prodded his slaves when they failed in their duties. Are you satisfied now?”

“No, not in the least; but I didn’t expect to be. Who’s old Fane?”

“My dear fellow,” said Farquhar, mildly, “your mind reminds me of a flea. Mr. Fane is a farmer hereabouts, a kind of local squire.”

“Is he well off?”

“Tolerably, I believe. Why do you ask?”

“Old curmudgeon!” said Lucian. “Stingy old miserly murderer!”

“One at a time, I beg,” said Farquhar.

“Well, he may be an angel incognito, but his war-paint’s unco guid, that’s all.”

“How has he roused your righteous wrath?”

Lucian related Mrs. Searle’s story, waxing eloquent over her wrongs, and illustrating his points with rapid foreign gestures, as his manner was. Farquhar compressed his lips, which already joined in a sufficiently firm line. “I know those houses,” he said; “they are unfit for habitation. I tried to get them condemned a year ago. Want a copper, do they? They’ll never get it from Fane.”

“I wish he’d tried what starvation’s like, that’s all.”

“Have you?”

“Have I? I was a thousandaire till I was four-and-twenty,” said Lucian, clasping his lean, brown hands behind his head—“but since then, devil a penny have I had to spend! My head is bloody but unbowed beneath the bludgeonings of Fate—W. E. Henley. I’m proud to say I could take the shine out of Orestes.”

Farquhar sat down by the fire and pulled the tea-table towards him. He was very useful at an afternoon party: could always remember the precise formula for every person’s several cup. “How did you lose your money?” he inquired, flavoring his own tea with lemon, in the Russian style.

“Sixteen thousand in one night playing écarté, sonny. No, don’t preach; I never gamble now I’ve got no money. Besides, on that memorable occasion my circumstances were exceptional.”

“Exceptionally bad, I should think. What did you do?”

“What did I do? Commenced author, and I flatter myself I should have made a decided hit, only I was overtaken by what another distinguished author calls Bluidy Jack. The medico swore it was the writing brought it on. I also swore, in many tongues, and had a second go; I held on gallantly for three months, and then went to a hospital, and a nurse fell in love with me. ‘Those lips so sweet, so honey-sweet—’ We swore fidelity. I shared with her my fortune—we broke a sixpence. She had three hundred a year and a large soul. Inconstant creature! On getting my ticket-of-leave from the hospital I introduced her to my chief pal; and would you believe it? the base villain borrowed my first fiver to elope with her with.”

“Good Heavens, de Saumarez!” said Farquhar, laughing against his will, “you don’t mean to tell me that all this is true?”

“True? _True?_ Every blessed word of it. I then tried to ’list, but couldn’t pass the medical. So I got another pal and started as a tomato-johnny in Guernsey. We’re Guernsey people, you know,” he added, his voice taking a different intonation. “I’ve a certain affection for it, too; there I’ll hope to lay these carious old bones of mine when I’ve done with them. Mighty poor crops they’ll make, too. Well, I thought Guernsey, being my own, my native land, might be a sort of all-inclusive mascot for me. But, Lord bless you, sonny, it rained thunderbolts! Give you my word, no sooner were our glass-houses up than there arrived a record shower of aerolites; sticky, shiny, black things they were, for all the world like liquorice. Two-thirds of the panes went. As I didn’t want to wreck the bosom friend’s boat, we dissolved partnership, and Jonah went off on his own.”

Farquhar could himself corroborate this story; he remembered the meteoric shower, which had attracted some attention.

“The stars in their courses came out of them to fight against me, you see. Well, I went back to town and held horses. I fared sumptuously every day at coffee-stalls, or at Lockhart’s when I was in funds. I draw a veil over this period. I was submerged. Then, in hospital, I met a very decent fellow who got me a berth in Miss Inez Montroni’s travelling company, where I lived gaily on a pound a week till that memorable Sawbath which I broke by knocking up. I was discovered by a kind angel: adsum. Are you insured against fire?”

“Oh, I’m not afraid of ill-luck!” said Farquhar.

“Aren’t you, now? I detect a kind of arrogance, a sort of healthy scepticism in your tone, my friend. I wonder what you are afraid of? Not much, I guess.”

“Was your ill-health hereditary?” asked Farquhar, who as a temperance advocate studied the question of transmission.

“Don’t know. My parents died ere I was born, and never saw their son, you see. I inherited my bad luck, anyway.

‘Oh, Keith of Ravelston, The sorrows of thy line!’”

“It hasn’t depressed your spirits.”

“Oh, I don’t believe in letting trouble beat you.”

“You talk as though trouble were a living personality.”

“So it is; a force inimical, to be conquered, held down, and trampled into the earth.”

“I don’t see how you’re going to conquer trouble. It has its way, and that’s all.”

“It’s not all. Trouble will make a man despair, or drink, or gamble, or go mad, or maybe even shoot himself. Well, I’d defy it to make me deflect a hair’s-breadth from myself, come all the shafts of fate. As long as I’ve lips I’ll grin.”

“That’s how you take things?” said Farquhar. “Well, it’s not my way.” His face lighted up with a heady defiance, his lips shut in a straight line, his eyes sparkled with quite unregenerate fire.

“What is your way, then?”

Farquhar’s expression went instantly out, and he lowered his eyelids. “Well, you know, things are different for you and me,” he said, diffidently. “I’m lucky in having a religious faith to fall back on.”

“Oh, I _do_ like you!” said Lucian, after a few seconds, smitten with an admiration which was not wholly admirable. He solemnly stretched out his hand. “Sonny, you’re a great man,” he declared. “I wish I had your cheek. Shake!”

Farquhar smiled politely, deprecated the compliment, and evaded the point at issue; and shortly afterwards conveyed himself out of the room on the plea that the invalid had done enough talking. It was fortunate for him that the language of the eye cannot be put in as evidence, for Lucian knew that he had detected, in Farquhar’s too candid orbs, a tacit acknowledgment of all the deceit wherewith he was desirous of charging him.

Next morning in country and city men awoke to a white, silent world under a dome of blue, immaculate sky. There was no wind; and the breath of horse and rider hung still in the air after Noel Farquhar as he rode up to Burnt House. A huge sweep of bare, white country lay outspread, sparkling in the sun; the hedges were so thickly thatched with snow that they did not break the even whiteness of the prospect. The miserable little group of black, wooden cottages, Farquhar’s goal, was discernible a great way off; they were so lonely that when Farquhar rode back an hour later only his own tracks, black where the crushed snow had melted, confronted him upon the road.

The day passed, and several beside, and a week later the soiled rags of the snow still lingered under hedges and by tussocks in the fields when Farquhar took another morning ride, this time in the direction of Fanes. The house lay low; its E-shaped façade, built of bright-red brick and ornamented with facings of freestone, and with diagonal bands of dark brown crossing one another, looked across shaven lawns and wide gravel paths to a stream formally laid out with cascades and little islands, in summer bright with roses. Some noble trees sprang from the lawn; in particular, a most beautiful silver birch, whose slight, tapering branches sustained a colony of ragged black blots, which were the nests of the rooks of Fanes. The birds took toll from all the orchards around, and were almost as well hated as their owners.

Mr. Fane had a thin, tall figure, with stooping shoulders and forward-thrusting head. A pair of keen, cold eyes looked suspiciously forth from under penthouse brows; self-sufficiency had compressed his lips, selfish study had hollowed his cheeks, and his thin, even voice, precise in enunciation even to pedantry, was the true index of a steadfastly unamiable character. The Fanes enjoyed great unpopularity; father, son, and daughter, they were all shunned like lepers. Old Fane had married abroad; no one heard his wife’s maiden name, and when he came back as a widower nobody cared to ask. The two children grew up as they would. The son, Bernard, was notoriously a poacher; the daughter was a beauty, a wild rider, untutored and untamed, and shared, so it was said, her brother’s heinous crimes in the preserves. It was this business which shut off the young Fanes from the society of their peers. Once in past years they had made their appearance at the first meet of the season, but they never went again; and thenceforward avoided society more scrupulously than society avoided them.

All this happened before Noel Farquhar came to The Lilacs. He had more than once tried to make friends with young Fane, and had been snubbed for his pains; and thus to this hour matters stood. Nobody knew much about them, but they possessed a fearsome reputation, which caused nervous ladies to skip nimbly over fences when they saw Bernard Fane approaching on his big black horse.

Eumenes Fane received in his library, a long, low room walled with books. One case held tier on tier of novels in their native French, both old and new; another was devoted to theology, and put a row of Blair’s most unchristian sermons across the middle shelf as a gilded breastplate against the assaults of modern heresies. Mr. Fane was a ferocious Calvinist; he felt it his duty to go in for hell, and wished to exact consent in the same beliefs from his children, his servants, and in ever-widening circles from the ends of the earth. Over the mantel hung an interesting old design in black and white, which represented the Last Day: a small queue of saints in stained-glass attitudes ascending the celestial mountains under the convoy of woolly angels, a large corps of sinners being haled out of their tombs by demons armed with three-pronged spears, which they used as toasting-forks. His Satanic Majesty was gleefully directing their operations, amid tongues of realistic flame. On the card-board mount of the picture the following verse was inscribed in youthful round-hand:

_Perdition is needful; beyond any doubt Hell fire is a thing that we can’t do without. Saltpetre and pitchforks with brimstone and coals Are arguments new to rescue men’s souls. We must keep it up, if we like it or not, And make it eternal, and make it red-hot._

_Mirabelle Fane._

The signature seemed to indicate that Mr. Fane was not always implicitly obeyed by his children.

He remained sitting when Farquhar was announced, and looked as forbidding as possible. Farquhar bowed, and looked as pleasant as possible. The interview promised to be unconventional.

“You are Noel Farquhar?”

“That’s my name, sir,” said Farquhar, always particularly respectful to an elderly man.

“You write to me that you have made some alterations in my cottages at Burnt House,” continued old Fane, referring to a letter in his hand.

“I have, sir; and I hope you will forgive my officiousness in acting without your leave.”

“I understand that you have put in a copper.”

“It hasn’t damaged the property; I’ll answer for that; and it was pretty badly wanted. If you’d looked at the place yourself—”

“Where is the copper set?”

“As a lean-to on the last house.”

“What are the dimensions?”

Farquhar supplied him with precise particulars. “I happened to hear the story from one of your tenants, and I ordered the thing at once, without a thought of the landlord’s right in the matter. When I did remember, it was too late; the work was begun. I can assure you, sir, that it actually adds to the value of the property.”

“So I supposed. What should you say at a guess is the rental worth of the improvement?”

“Oh, something very small; not more than sixpence a week, sir.”

Mr. Fane made an entry in his book. “Thank you; I am much obliged to you. Good-morning.”

“You’ll overlook my indiscretion?”

“Overlook it? Indiscretion? I am a poor man, and you have put into my pocket three shillings a week, Mr. Farquhar; I am greatly indebted to you.”

“I have put into your pocket three shillings a week?”

“The additional rent of the six houses, you understand.”

“You mean to raise the rent?”

“Certainly. Indiscriminate charity is against my principles.”

“But, sir, they’ll never be able to pay it.”

“I shall, I hope, find other tenants who will.”

“And the charity is mine, Mr. Fane.”

“And the houses are mine, Mr. Farquhar. Would you be so good as to let yourself out? The men are out on the farm. You cannot well miss your way.”

Farquhar took up his hat and retired. He really could not attempt to argue the matter, and was aware that he had been neatly outwitted. So great a philanthropist should have been saddened by thoughts of the Searles, victims of his blunder; but Noel Farquhar, as he walked down the hall, was smiling, in candid appreciation of the nice precision of his defeat.

IV

MY ACTIONS ALWAYS HARMONISED WITH MY OWN SWEET VOLITION; I ALWAYS DID WHAT I DEVISED AND RARELY ASKED PERMISSION.

Ere he was able to let himself out, however, he was recalled.

“Mr. Noel Farquhar!”

Farquhar turned, and saw on the stairs a girl with a small head and a crown of chestnut hair. She came leisurely down with her hand on the balustrade, planting each foot lightly but with decision; her gait was very characteristic. The light was from behind and left her features dark. When she had reached the hall, “I want to speak to you,” said she, calmly; “please to come in here.”

Farquhar held his peace and followed her into another low room, littered with more books and with Miss Fane’s somewhat masculine appurtenances—a pair of dogskin gloves, a hard felt hat, and a riding-whip among them. Armorial bearings were carved upon the lintel and traced again in silver upon the uprights of the andirons, across which logs were lying, in primitive style. The girl went first to the fire and stooped to warm her hands before she confronted him.

“Have you been talking to my father?”

“Am I speaking to Miss Fane?”

“Of course; why do you ask such a question as that?”

“Because I really was not sure; I thought you were younger.”

“Most people know us by sight, though we are too wicked to be received,” returned Miss Fane, indifferently. “I don’t know whether you mistook me for a servant. However, that doesn’t matter; have you been speaking to my father?”

“I came by appointment on a business matter, Miss Fane.”

“About those cottages at Burnt House. You should have written to my brother Bernard; he manages the farm, and he is reasonable to deal with. Does my father mean to raise the rents?”

“He said such was his intention, but I hope he will think better of it.”

“Oh no, he won’t. Are you going to acquiesce, and let your protégés be evicted?”

“I can hardly make Mr. Fane lower the rents, can I?”

“You could make up the difference yourself.”

As this was precisely what Farquhar had determined to do, he was, of course, struck by her intelligence. But he did his alms in modest secrecy. “I dare say they will find the extra sixpence,” he said.

“They can’t. Searle drinks, and the others are as bad, or worse. They’re helpless.”

Farquhar did not answer her. She had just moved into the sunlight, and he was startled by her beauty. No flower-loveliness was hers, delicate and evanescent; she glowed like a jewel with colour, the brighter for the sunlight which illumined the rich damask of her cheeks, the rich whiteness of her brow, the rich hazel of her eyes, the rich chestnut of her hair. Dolly Fane possessed in its full splendour the misnamed devil’s beauty, the beauty of colour, vitality, youth. Her lips were virginally severe, her figure slight, girlishly formed, not yet mature; she was not so old, nor yet so self-possessed, as she wished to appear.

“Well, if you are giving in there is no more to be said,” she added, with a slight contemptuous movement which was plainly a prelude to showing him out.

Farquhar hastily cast to the winds his modest reserve. “I am not giving in; I do mean to make up the difference,” he said.

“You do?” said Dolly, fastening her eyes upon him.

“You’re very charitable, Miss Fane,” said Farquhar, smiling.

“Not in the least. I am sorry for Mrs. Searle; but I did not ask you for that reason. I wanted to see what you are like. You’ve spoken to my brother Bernard once or twice, haven’t you?”

“I have; but he did not seem interested in my conversation.”

“Oh, that’s Bernard’s way; he always thinks people mean to patronise him. You know London well, don’t you?”

“I’ve lived a good deal in town, certainly.”

“Should I pass muster in society?”

“Pass muster?” Farquhar repeated. It was not easy to abash him, but this young beauty, with her odd questions, contrived to do it.

“Yes. I know I am behaving in an unusual way now, but have I the accent and the appearance of a lady?”

“Most certainly you have.”

“Do you think so? Should I get on in town? Do you think I am sufficiently presentable to be an actress?”

“An _actress_? Yes, I should say you were.”

“You’ve not seen me act, of course; I can do it. And I’ve a passable voice, and I’m fairly good-looking. Books say that theatre-goers will put up with poor acting for the sake of a pretty face; is that true?”

“It depends on the prettiness of the face. It would be true in your case.”

“I don’t in the least want compliments. I want the plain truth.”

“And I’m giving it.”

“Oh,” said Dolly, evidently disconcerted. He had checked her for the minute, and she remained silent, though fresh questions were at her very lips.

“Are you fond of acting?” Farquhar asked, to loosen her tongue. “Are you burning to play Juliet?”

“Juliet? Oh no! I’d like to be Cleopatra or Lady Macbeth, though. Some one powerful and perhaps wicked; but not like La Dame aux Camélias, or Iris, or Agnes Ebbsmith. If _I_ threw the Bible in the fire, I should keep it there.”

“And make it eternal, and make it red-hot,” suggested Farquhar.

“Did you read those lines? Aren’t they good? Years ago I wrote them there, and father never could make me rub them out, though he tried with his riding-whip. But that wouldn’t interest you. On your honour, do you think I should have a chance on the stage?”

“On my honour, I do. But why do you want to go? I should have thought you’d too much sense to be stage-struck.”

“I’m not stage-struck, but I want to leave this place, and that seems the simplest way. We are badly off. I never see any one except my brother. I do not know how to behave. I have never had the chance of speaking to a gentleman before: which was why I called you in and asked you these questions. I expect no girl you know would have done it, would she?”

“You’re right—she wouldn’t; the more fool she, if she wanted the answer as badly as you did.”

“Exactly,” said Dolly; “for, after all, it doesn’t matter what you think of me.”

Farquhar slightly altered his whole bearing. He leaned against the chimney-piece and looked her in the face. “My opinion does matter, you know,” he said. “I’ve some influence, which I could use either to promote or to frustrate your interests. I know plenty managers, and so forth, and I’m popular.”

“It does not matter,” Dolly corrected swiftly; “for I would under no circumstances consent to be beholden to you for anything beyond the piece of truth you’ve already given me.”

“You’re independent.”

“I hope so.”

“I’d much like to teach you to obey.”

“Mathematicians have always wanted to square the circle.”

“You’ve a will of your own; you’re worth talking to.”

“Is this how a gentleman speaks to a lady?”

“No, it’s how a man speaks to a woman.”

Dolly glanced out of the window. “That’s my brother Bernard with his dogs. He stands six foot three, and he’s the best wrestler in Kent.”

“Meaning you’d set him to turn me out? He’d never do it.”

“Do you think you’re as strong as Bernard?”

“Stronger,” answered Farquhar, stretching out his arm. Pride of strength was in that gesture, and more than pride—arrogance.

Dolly had a primitive admiration for strength, and his self-confidence tingled through her veins. She liked him the better that he was dangerous to handle; she was more at her ease that they were outside convention.

“At least, you’re not stronger than Bernard plus half a dozen men whom I could call in a minute,” she remarked, evenly. “Wouldn’t it be wiser to make no fuss, but go?”