Part 13

“There are places within half a mile of everywhere in this town,” he said, “where one can be as secure from observation as if one were in a back street of the city of Damascus. And if I had designed this afternoon for meeting you and talking confidentially with you, nothing could have been better. The people who live in these houses seem always to be asleep or dead, and if they knew our names, they couldn’t recognize us ten feet off. Now,” he continued, “tell me what is troubling you—for I have seen ever since that first glimpse of you that something is preying upon you.”

Elizabeth remained silent.

“What is it?” asked Clavering again, with authority in his voice. And Elizabeth, still with that strange feeling of being obliged to do what Clavering required, told him the whole story of the necklace.

Clavering listened attentively. Elizabeth had tried to keep out of it the personal note, the shame and disappointment and resentment she felt at Pelham’s conduct; but she was dealing with a very astute man, who read her with extraordinary keenness, and who saw the good policy, from his own point of view, of still further embittering her feelings toward Pelham.

“I should say that fellow Pelham ought to have shown you a little more consideration, especially as you say he inherited everything.”

“Yes.”

“A woman, standing alone, is almost bound to fall in with just such brutes as Pelham and that Scotch solicitor. Mind, I say that you were obliged to meet with some men who were traitors, all in fact except those who happen to be in love with you. Look—” he opened his watch, and on the inner case Elizabeth saw a Greek sentence engraved, [Greek: memnêstein apistein]. “You didn’t think I knew Greek. Of course I don’t. No man born and raised in my circumstances ever knew Greek, and I never expect to know it. I have heard about some one of those old classics learning to play the fiddle when he was eighty, and always thought him a great fool for so doing. No, I only had this put in Greek to puzzle fools; it means, ‘Remember to distrust.’ It was a pity that you had not remembered to distrust that Pelham scoundrel.”

Elizabeth remained silent and almost stunned at this characterization of Pelham, and Clavering, seeing he had gone far enough in that direction, said:—

“If the diamond broker—pawn–broker, I should call him—gave you five hundred pounds on the necklace, it was probably worth fifteen hundred. However, fifteen hundred pounds is a small matter.”

“It is a great deal to me and always was, except for that short time in London when we thought ourselves the richest people in the world,” replied Elizabeth.

“You may, if you choose, be one of the richest women in America.”

Elizabeth’s face had grown deathly pale. She was sensible of the dishonor of any proposal Clavering might make to her. All of the stories she had heard from the beginning about Clavering’s intention to divorce his wife rushed upon her mind—all of her own vague and haunting speculations for the past few weeks. She remained silent, but every moment she grew more agitated.

Clavering was silent for a few moments, allowing the leaven to work. Then he continued: “Of course there is but one way to do this. I can get a divorce and then you must marry me. No doubt you have a lot of unpractical ideas about divorce, but let me tell you that when a man and a woman are indispensable to each other—as you are to me—what does anything on earth matter?”

No one listening to Clavering’s cool and measured tones would have surmised what he was proposing to Elizabeth; nor did he attempt the smallest endearment, free as they were from observation, for the fog grew denser every moment and the little park was wholly deserted except for themselves.

At his last remarks Elizabeth attempted some faint protest, which went unheeded by Clavering, who spoke again: “People call me a successful man. So I am, with money, politics, cards, and horses. But I have no luck with women. First, I married before I was twenty–one—cursed folly that it was! You have seen my wife—I’ll say no more. Then, my eldest and youngest daughters—well, they are like me in some ways, that’s enough. Élise has been through the divorce court. It cost me something like fifty thousand dollars to keep the truth about her from coming out. Lydia will go the same way. My best plan with them will be to marry them to men who will get the upper hand of them—keep a tight rein over them. So far, I haven’t succeeded; and I am seriously considering giving them each a handsome fortune, marrying them to foreigners, and getting them out of the country.”

Elizabeth’s pale face had grown red while Clavering was speaking. He was close enough to see it, even by the uncertain light that penetrated the mist.

“You think I’m a brute, eh? No, on the contrary I have a strong hankering after decency in my womenkind.”

“Your daughter Anne—” Elizabeth spoke falteringly.

“Ah, yes, bad luck again. Anne has twice the sense of her sisters, is really more attractive and is perfectly certain to behave herself. But she is on her mother’s side, and if—or when—I do get a divorce, I shall have to fight her, and she is the only one of my children whose opposition would amount to anything. You know what a Miss Nancy Reginald is.”

“But—but—how can you get a divorce if Mrs. Clavering—“

“Doesn’t want it? Well, I never was properly married to her in the first place. She didn’t know it at the time, and I was a youngster and didn’t know it, either; but our marriage wasn’t regular at all. I should have got the license in Kentucky instead of in Ohio, where we crossed the river to get married. So we are not really married and never have been, according to law. When I mention the subject to Mrs. Clavering, I shall offer to get the divorce; if she is contumacious, I shall simply prove that we have never been married at all. That will be hard on the children, and on that account I think there is no doubt she would agree to the divorce, if it were not for Anne. Anne, however, doesn’t know anything about the defect in the marriage, and I rather think she will back down when she finds out just where we stand.”

Elizabeth listened to this with horror. But it was horror of the deed, not of the man. Clavering’s calm and lucid presentation of the case, the absence of hypocrisy, his quiet determination, seemed to lift him out of the class of vulgar criminals and make him almost respectable. And then he went on to give his side of the case, and his voice had in it a strange note of longing.

“I have before me twenty years yet, and although I am reckoned a man who can live on bonds and stocks and lawsuits and fighting other men, still I’ve had my dreams—I have them still. If I could find a woman who would be a wife to me, and yet could be an intellectual companion for me—that would be something that all my money hasn’t brought me. Do you blame a man for longing after it? Don’t you think I am more nearly human for wanting it than if I were satisfied to go on all my life as I have done for the last thirty–five years?”

“Yes.” Elizabeth spoke unwillingly, but the assent was forced out of her. And whether it was his words, his voice,—always singularly captivating,—his compelling glance, or his powerful personality, Elizabeth began to feel a toleration, along with a reprehension, of him. For Clavering, like all men, was made up of things to admire and things to abhor; only he possessed both in a stronger degree than common. He was much older than Elizabeth, but he had not lost the fire and vigor of youth.

Elizabeth’s agitation had subsided somewhat, but she was still unable or unwilling to speak. The gray mist was becoming denser, and they could see the gas–lamps studding the fast–falling darkness like jewels; the sound of wheels and hoofs upon the asphalt was deadened by the fog and grew fainter, the street was quieter, more deserted even than Washington streets usually are. In the little park, with the masses of evergreen shrubbery around them, they were as alone, as little subject to intrusion, as if they had been on a desert island. After a considerable pause Clavering spoke again.

“I saw you first, just ten years ago, one night as you were waiting on the street with your father, for some lady to take you to a ball. You dropped a little trinket from around your neck.”

Elizabeth started with surprise. “That was the night I first met my husband—and Hugh Pelham. And I lost my little pearl heart and never found it.”

“I was the guilty man,” said Clavering, with a smile. “I crushed your heart under my foot.” It was an accidental joining of words, but Clavering wished he had expressed himself otherwise. The words had an ominous sound, and Elizabeth, after looking at him intently for a few minutes, turned her head away.

Clavering, hastening to recall his lost ground, added: “The day will come when I will give you the most superb diamond locket that the South African mines can produce. I will make duchesses envy you your jewels and princesses cry with envy of them. I remembered you ever after that night, and a month ago I met you. Don’t think people are fools who talk of love at first sight for anybody at any age, or under any circumstances. The moment my eyes fell upon you I was anxious to know you. When I knew you, I wanted to know you better. When I knew you better, I became willing to do anything for you, to jeopardize anything in order to marry you. And I will give you a great fortune, millions of money, of which I shall get very little benefit, because you will outlive me many years and probably marry some other man and endow him, by gad, with my money. I will go anywhere you may desire to live, for I don’t believe you would consent to live in Washington. You may have a splendid house in London or Paris, a great country house, a château, any and everywhere you like, and you may command me as no other woman has ever commanded me. Now will you marry me after I am divorced?”

Elizabeth felt dazed. She had known from the first what was coming, but when Clavering put his wish into words it was as strange and staggering as if the idea had never before occurred to her. The thought of committing so great a wrong upon another woman, as Clavering suggested, appalled her—a wrong so vast and far–reaching that she turned away from the contemplation of it. But she did not fly from the temptation, and the temptation which is not fled from is the conqueror.

Clavering interpreted her silence with ease. He took her hand, pulled off her glove, and held her soft palm between his two strong ones. Five minutes passed; they seemed an hour to Elizabeth, frightened yet fascinated, her mind overwhelmed with what Clavering had told her, had promised her, had urged upon her. Through it all came the cry of her heart for Pelham. Had he been true to her, this temptation would never have come in her way. And as he had forgotten her and had even persecuted her, what did it matter what became of her, so she had ease instead of this frightful poverty, companionship instead of this dreadful loneliness, security instead of this perpetual terror over the small and sordid matter of a few hundred pounds? Clavering was too clever a man to urge her overmuch when he saw that he had a tempter always with her in her own self. At last, after five minutes of agitated silence, she managed to withdraw her hand and rise. Clavering, without a word, walked with her out of the little park, hailed a passing hansom in the dusk and put her in, only saying at the last:—

“I will see you again as soon as possible. Meanwhile, remember you have but to say one word and all is yours.”

The hansom rolled off, and Clavering, putting his hands in his pockets, walked away at a quick gait. The expression on his face was like that of a successful gladiator. It was not pleasant to see.

_Chapter Thirteen_

The next night but one, Clavering had an appointment with General Brandon at the usual hour of half–past nine. And at nine o’clock promptly he was sitting with Elizabeth in the little study, waiting for General Brandon’s return.

The first thing he said to her was: “Of course that affair about the necklace must be straightened out at once. I can cable to my London agent, and he can find out all about it and recover it, for it can be easily traced and recovered. And leave me to deal with the solicitor on the quiet.”

“I hardly think you know what you are offering,” replied Elizabeth, with involuntary haughtiness. “I could not accept money or services from you. It is not to be thought of for a moment.”

“Then what are you going to do about it?” asked Clavering, coolly, in the words of a celebrated character.

Ah, what was she going to do about it? thought poor Elizabeth. Tell her father and see him turned out of the only shelter he had for his aged head? If only she had been more experienced, had known more! She had been so very, very ignorant in those London days. If Pelham had not behaved so basely to her!

Clavering talked on, quietly assuming that he would take charge of the matter for her; but Elizabeth, after listening to him in silence and even in weakness, suddenly and impulsively rose and said, “I desire you never to speak to me on that subject again.”

Then General Brandon’s step was heard upon the stair, and nothing more was said between them. Elizabeth remained in the room while Clavering was there, and he honestly thought he was progressing quite as fast as he had any right to expect.

It was now the middle of January, and the investigating committee continued to sit and the newspapers to print the proceedings. This did not tend to make it any pleasanter for Clavering’s family. Anne, with a touch of her father’s courage, continued to go out and to entertain, but it was with an aching heart. To add to her other anxieties, Mrs. Clavering was very ailing and unhappy. By some strange accident—for the poor lady never read the newspapers—she got an inkling that Clavering was under fire, and she often asked questions which Anne had difficulty in answering. Whatever love Mrs. Clavering had ever felt for Clavering had long since been cast out by fear; but she had the true feminine instinct which makes a dove fierce in the presence of the despoiler of her nest. Reginald Clavering redoubled his attention to his mother, and was of more help to Anne than she had thought possible.

It had been determined, chiefly at Clavering’s suggestion, that a grand musical, followed by a ball, should be given at the Clavering house on Shrove Tuesday, as a wind–up to the splendid entertainments for which the house had long been noted; and the undisguised intention was to eclipse everything that had hitherto been done in Washington in the way of entertaining. Anne opposed it, but Élise and Lydia carried the day, backed up by their father.

Only Clavering suspected that it was likely to be the last entertainment given there. He felt confident of knowing the decision of the committee before Shrove Tuesday, and he fully realized the possibility that it might mean expulsion from the Senate on his record alone; as, unluckily for him, there was a very complete and authentic legal record of his doings, which Baskerville had unearthed. So far Clavering had kept out of jail; but there had been more than one true bill found against him, and even verdicts in criminal cases, which had never been enforced. He was still fighting, and meant to go down fighting; but he devoted far more thought to planning what he would do if he were compelled to leave public life than if he were permitted to stay in it. He reckoned that by expediting matters he could get the divorce granted and the decree entered by the first of June, when he would marry Elizabeth Darrell, go abroad for the summer, and then arrange his life for the future. And while he was taking it for granted that he could marry Elizabeth, and was seeing her in private two or three times a week by General Brandon’s innocent connivance, Clavering had touched her hand but once and had never pressed his lips to her cheek, nor had she ever allowed him one word of acknowledged love–making. And this was a woman he was ready to dower with millions, which, as he grimly thought, a young husband, his successor, would get! Clavering concluded that some women were ungrateful. At the same time, he did not seriously doubt that he could marry Elizabeth in June.

He began to congratulate himself on his good luck in his constant presence at General Brandon’s house escaping notice. No one but himself, the General, and Elizabeth seemed to have any knowledge of his visits, although General Brandon, at his club, did some innocent bragging about the assistance he was giving to Senator Clavering “in the unholy warfare against a man incapable of the smallest dishonesty.” “Why, sir,” he would say to any one who would listen to him, “Senator Clavering has assured me, on his word of honor, that there is not one scintilla of truth in the shameful allegations brought against him in the public prints. Wait, however, until the senatorial committee has made its report. Then you will see Senator Clavering triumphantly vindicated; mark my words, sir, triumphantly vindicated.”

Nobody but General Brandon, however, really believed this. Certainly Anne Clavering did not, and every day that she read the newspaper accounts of what had occurred and what had not occurred at the meeting of the investigating committee, her heart sank lower. To keep her mother from suspecting anything, Anne pursued her usual course of life; but it required all her resolution to do it. Every time she entered a drawing–room she called up all her courage to meet an affront, if one should be offered her. Not one was passed upon her, but she lived in dread of it.

During this time Baskerville had gone everywhere he thought it likely that he should meet Anne Clavering, but so far he had not been fortunate. He did not repeat his visit to Clavering’s house. He had doubted the propriety of his going in the first instance, and he doubted it still more as time passed on. But it did not keep him from falling deeper and deeper in love with the image of Anne Clavering in his mind. On the Thursday which was Constance Thorndyke’s day at home, he felt tolerably confident that Anne Clavering would be paying her dinner call; and so on the stroke of four he presented himself, armed and equipped as the law directs, at Mrs. Luttrell’s door, to accompany that redoubtable person upon a round of Thursday visits.

After several perfunctory calls where Baskerville was bored to death but behaved himself beautifully, he arrived with Mrs. Luttrell at Constance Thorndyke’s door precisely at five o’clock. Constance Thorndyke received them with the same charming grace and cordiality which always distinguished her and which was powerful enough to draw within her circle, as her guest on her reception day, her husband. Thorndyke never felt so proud of his wife as when he saw her in his own drawing–room, and she collected about her, from the wide field of Washington, persons who made her drawing–room shine. He frankly admitted to Constance that hers were the only receptions in Washington which he really enjoyed. He was delighted to see Baskerville and Mrs. Luttrell, the latter being to him, as to most men, an ever blooming tree of delight. He came up and established Mrs. Luttrell in a chair by the fireside, with a good cup of tea and with a man on each side of her; and Mrs. Luttrell found herself as happy as it is given to mortals to be on this distressful planet. Thorndyke’s conversation interested her on the one side, and Admiral Prendergast, a superb specimen of the old–time chivalrous naval officer, with whom Mrs. Luttrell had had an intermittent flirtation for not less than forty years, on her other side.

“What a blessed comfort it is,” sighed Mrs. Luttrell to a listening group, “to be able to come into a drawing–room like this and have a good cup of tea, with some cups and saucers and tea–spoons that did not come out of a curio shop, and some honest bread and butter. I declare I am tired to death of these brazen retired tradespeople who have come to this town and undertaken to receive in their Louis Quinze drawing–rooms, and in their English dining rooms, with a great big table full of pink and green kickshaws, and candelabra three feet high all over it, and a big placque of roses just like an old–fashioned feather bed.”

“Will you listen to Sara?” asked her dutiful nephew. “She has hauled me about this day from one retired tradesman’s house to another, scattering compliments as she went, and embracing every man, woman, and child she met of the smart set—the smarter the better. She couldn’t be kept from going with those people unless she were chained up.”

“Well,” faintly replied Mrs. Luttrell, “one has to be a hypocrite in this world; but I do say, Constance, that next my own yours is the best drawing–room in Washington.”

“That is indeed high praise,” replied Constance Thorndyke, smiling, “and I am vain enough to believe it is sincere, especially when I can get my own husband to come home early Thursday afternoon.”

Mrs. Thorndyke had never been strictly beautiful nor even remarkably pretty before her marriage, but since then she had developed a late–flowering loveliness which was much more than beauty. She was happy, she loved and was beloved; she had it in her power to assist the man she loved without making him hate her; she had, in fact, all that she had ever asked of high heaven, except one thing—she was childless. But that one supreme disappointment gave to her face and to her soul a touch of softness, of resignation, that disarmed fate. With a tender feminine superstition, she believed that, this last gift having been denied her, she would be suffered to retain the happiness already hers. Thorndyke himself had to be both husband and children to her, and on him she concentrated all the love and solicitude of her nature. That he was happy there could be no doubt. In Constance he had all that he had ever wished for.

The Thorndyke house was one of the few in Washington which Baskerville could enter with a clear conscience in the matter of duty calls. He always paid them promptly to Constance Thorndyke, and often went when there was no obligation for him to go. He had some one besides Constance Thorndyke in view, however, in paying that particular visit; it was Anne Clavering whom he had really come to see. Mrs. Thorndyke found means to let him know that Anne had not been there yet; and while Baskerville was taking what comfort he could out of this Anne walked into the drawing–room. She looked pale and worn and much older than she really was. Baskerville’s keen eye took this in at a glance; but like a sincere lover he admired her none the less for not being in a flush of spirits, and felt an increased tenderness for her. A delicate rosy color flooded her face when she saw who was present, and rosier still when Baskerville established her in a corner, that he might have a monopoly of her sweet company.

Bearing in mind his promise to discipline his aunt, almost the first words Baskerville said to Anne were: “I hear my aunt was quite impertinent to you the other night; but before I slept I made her promise to apologize to you.”