Part 14
This was quite loud enough for Mrs. Luttrell to hear, and she promptly turned her smiling, sharp old face toward Anne. “My dear, he did, as I am a sinner! Well, it’s a great thing at my time of life to discover a new sensation, and I’ve found one in the act of apology. Now listen, all of you—Constance, make these people stop chattering—Jack Prendergast, be quiet, and Senator Thorndyke, stop laughing. Miss Clavering, I was rather impertinent to you at Secretary Slater’s the other night, but I declare it was those two foolish women, Mrs. Hill–Smith and Eleanor Baldwin, who were really to blame. However, I think you got the better of me—ha, ha! I always liked you, and like you better for your spirit. I offer you my sincere apologies—on condition that you never again make the least objection to anything I say or do—for, look you, Sara Luttrell has been used to speaking her mind too long to change. But I apologize.”
At which Admiral Prendergast remarked piously, “Lord, now lettest Thou thy servant depart in peace.”
Anne rose and took Mrs. Luttrell’s hand in hers. “I’ll forgive you,” she said, smiling; “but don’t think I am afraid of you—I like you too much for that.”
“I know you’re not afraid of me—you and my nephew, Richard Baskerville, are the only two creatures yet who openly defy me—and when you join forces, as you have done to–day, you are too strong for me.”
This coupling of their names did not lose anything by Mrs. Luttrell’s emphatic manner of saying it, and it deepened the color in Anne’s face and brought the light to Baskerville’s eyes. And as if directly inspired by Satan, the old lady kept on:—
“You ought to have seen how angry my nephew was with me when he heard of my behavior—we were having a quiet chat in my bedroom while I was undressing, and he gave me such a rating as you never heard in your life. Oh! he took it to heart much more than you did. His language to me was something shocking. He threatened to tell my age all over town, and to throw my ermine cape into the fire if I ever misbehaved to you again. I never saw him in such a way before.”
How much inadvertence and how much malice aforethought there were in this speech only Sara Luttrell knew, but it was distinctly disconcerting to Anne Clavering, and visibly shortened her visit. Mrs. Luttrell went out at the same time, and, after being helped into her big coach by Baskerville, turned to speak to him as the carriage rolled off.
“Didn’t I do it handsomely? Why, he isn’t here!” And at that moment she caught sight of Baskerville sitting by Anne Clavering’s side in her brougham, then whirling around the corner. Mrs. Luttrell smiled and then sighed. “The scamp,” she said to herself. “I remember how once—” She took from her pocket the miniature which never left her, and her memory went back to the days when to recline in that man’s arms and to feel his kisses upon her lips were Paradise, a paradise to which the gate had been forever closed to any other man.
Baskerville had got into his present agreeable situation by simply not waiting for an invitation, and furthermore by saying authoritatively to the footman, “Miss Clavering wishes to drive out Connecticut Avenue until she directs you to turn.”
It was all done so suddenly that Anne did not realize it until it was over; but what woman who loves is averse to having the man of her choice sitting by her side in the intimate seclusion of a brougham at dusk of a winter’s evening? Baskerville, however, was there for a purpose—a purpose quickly formed but to be resolutely carried out. He said to Anne: “I saw that my aunt’s heedless words embarrassed you, and I felt sorry for you. But it was quite true—I made her promise to apologize to you; and as long as I live, as far as I have the power, I shall force everybody who injures you to make you amends.”
Baskerville’s eyes, fastened upon Anne, gave a deeper meaning to his words. The flush faded from Anne’s cheeks, and she looked at Baskerville with troubled eyes, knowing a crisis was at hand. “I am very bold in forcing myself on you,” he said, “but the time has come for me to speak. I have not the same chance as other men, because I can’t go to your father’s house. I went once upon your mother’s kind invitation, but I doubt whether I should have done so; I can only plead my desire to see you, and I feel I can’t go again. You know, perhaps, that I am one of the lawyers engaged in prosecuting this investigation before the Senate. If I had known you before I began it, I would have never gone into it. But being in it I can’t honorably withdraw. Perhaps you can’t forgive me for what I have done, but it has not kept me from loving you with all my soul.”
Anne shrank back in the carriage. At any other time she would have heard these words with palpitating joy; and even now they opened to her a momentary glimpse of Paradise. But the memory of all that was said and done about her father, the conviction of his impending disgrace, overwhelmed her. She sat silent and ashamed, longing to accept the sweetness of the love offered her, conscious of her own integrity, but with a primitive honest pride, reluctant to give any man the dower of disgrace which she felt went with her father’s daughter.
Silence on the part of the beloved usually augurs well to the lover, but when Anne’s silence was accentuated by two large tears that dropped upon her cheeks Baskerville realized that they were not happy tears. He would have soothed her with a lover’s tenderness, but Anne repulsed him with a strange pride. “You are not to blame for what you have done in my father’s case, but I know, as well as you do, that before this month is out my father may be a disgraced man. And although you may not believe it—you with your generations of ladies and gentlemen behind you”—she spoke with a certain bitterness—“may not believe that the daughter of people like my father and my mother can have any pride, yet I have—whether I am entitled to it or not. I would not take a disgraced name to any man.”
Baskerville’s answer to this was to take her two hands in his. It became difficult for her to be haughty to a man who plainly indicated that he meant to kiss her within five minutes. And he did.
Anne’s protests were not those of a woman meaning to yield; Baskerville saw that she felt a real shame, the genuine reluctance of a high and honorable spirit. But it was swept away in the torrent of a sincere and manly love. When they parted at Anne’s door Baskerville had wrung from her the confession of her love, and they were, to each other, acknowledged lovers.
That night Anne and her father dined alone. Élise and Lydia were dining out with some of their “larky” friends, and Reginald was out of town. Clavering noted that Anne was rather silent. Anne for her part looked at her father with a kind of resentment she had often felt before. What right had he to dower his children with his own evil deeds? Why, instead of acquiring a vast fortune, which he spent on them, as on himself, with lavishness, should he not have given them a decent inheritance. Was it not wholly through him that she had not been able to give herself freely and joyfully to the man who loved her and whom she loved? With these thoughts in her mind she sat through the dinner, silent and distrait; but she could not wholly subdue the happiness that Baskerville had given her, even though happiness with her could never be without alloy.
When dinner was over she went up to her mother’s room, and spent the rest of the evening cheering and comforting the poor soul. After Mrs. Clavering was in bed Anne came downstairs to remain until Élise and Lydia returned from their party. She sat in the library with a book in her hand, but her thoughts were on Baskerville. And, thinking of him, she fell into a soft, sweet sleep to dream of him. When she awakened it was almost midnight, and Élise and Lydia had not returned.
To keep herself from falling asleep again she took up at random one of a pile of periodicals on the table. It was a scurrilous newspaper which she loathed; but the first paragraph in it which, before she could lay it down, fell under her eye enchained her attention. An hour afterward Élise and Lydia came in and tiptoed softly up to their rooms; but Anne remained in the same position in the great library chair in which she had been for the last hour, still holding the newspaper in her hand.
Clavering had gone out directly after dinner, and after a visit to the club, which he found rather chilling, went to General Brandon’s house, as usual in advance of his appointment. It seemed to Clavering on that evening as if Elizabeth relaxed a little of her reserve, which was at the same time both timid and haughty. Later he went down town and managed to put up a tolerably stiff game of poker, and it was two o’clock in the morning before he found himself at his own door. He let himself in, and went into the vast, luxurious library, where the fire still glowed. He turned up the electric light in a superb bronze electrolier on his library table, stirred the fire, and then perceived Anne sitting in a chair drawn up to the fender.
“Why, what are you doing here?” asked Clavering, good–naturedly.
“I wanted to speak to you to–night,” Anne replied quietly.
“Go on,” said Clavering, seating himself and lighting a cigar. “Make it short, because when a woman wants to ‘speak’ to a man it always means a row.”
“I hope this does not,” replied Anne.
Her father looked at her closely. She had a wearied and anxious look, which belied her youth, and she had good cause to be both wearied and anxious a good part of the time. She handed him the newspaper which battened upon scandal, and the first paragraph in it announced the forthcoming divorce of Senator Clavering and his subsequent marriage to a Chicago widow, nearly his age, with a fortune almost as large as his own. Clavering’s strong–beating heart gave a jump when he began reading the paragraph, but when he found how far off the scent was the report his countenance cleared. It was as good an opportunity as he could have desired to have it out with Anne, and he was not sorry she had broached the subject.
“Well,” he said, laying the paper down, “are you surprised?”
“No,” replied Anne, looking at him steadily.
“Then we may proceed to discuss it,” said Clavering. “I intend to provide handsomely for your mother, and I dare say she will be a hundred times happier out in Iowa among her relations and friends than she can be here.”
“I hardly think my mother would look at it from that point of view,” said Anne. She controlled her agitation and her indignation admirably, and Clavering saw in her his own cool courage and resource. “Of course my mother has felt and known for years that you had no further use for her, now that her drudgery is not necessary to you. But she is, as you know, a very religious woman. She thinks divorces are wrong, and, timid as she is, I believe she would resist a divorce. She would, I am sure, be willing to go away from you and not trouble you any more—and I would go with her. But a divorce—no. And I have the same views that she has, and would urge her to resist to the last; and she will.”
She had not raised her tones at all, but Clavering understood her words perfectly. She meant to fight for her mother. He smoked quietly for several minutes, and Anne knew too much to weaken her position by repeating her protest. Then Clavering leaned over to her and said: “I think, when you know the circumstances, you will be more than willing to let your mother get the divorce. We were never legally married.”
The blood poured into Anne’s face. She rose from her chair, and stood trembling with anger, but also with fear. “I don’t believe—I can’t believe—” She stopped, unable to go on.
“Oh, there’s no reflection on your mother or on me, either. We ran away to be married—a couple of young fools under twenty–one. I got the license in Kentucky, but we crossed the Ohio River into Ohio. There we found a minister, an ignorant old fellow and a rogue besides, who didn’t know enough to see that the license had no effect in Ohio. And then I found out afterwards that he had been prohibited from performing marriage services because of some of his illegal doings in that line. I knew all about it within a week of the marriage, but being ignorant then myself, I thought the best way was to say nothing. Afterward, when I came to man’s estate, I still thought it best to keep it quiet for the sake of you children. And I am willing to keep it quiet now—unless you force me to disclose it. But, understand me, I mean to be divorced in order to marry a lady to whom I am much attached—not this old whited sepulchre from Chicago”—for so Clavering alluded to the widow with millions—“but a lady without a penny. Have you any suspicion to whom I refer?”
“I have not the least suspicion of any one,” Anne replied, as haughtily as if she had all the blood of all the Howards, instead of being the nameless child she was.
Clavering was secretly surprised and relieved to know this. Then the tongue of gossip had not got hold of his attentions to Elizabeth Darrell. This was indeed rare good fortune. He spoke again. “So now you know exactly where you stand. If you will let me have my way, the thing can be managed quietly. If you oppose me, you will be sorry for it.”
“And you mean, if my mother doesn’t consent, that you will brand us all—us, your children—as—as—I can’t speak the word.” Anne fixed a pair of blazing eyes on her father, and Clavering never felt more uncomfortable in his life. He had no shame and no remorse, but he really wished that Anne Clavering would not gaze at him with those eyes sparkling with anger and disgust.
“I think you don’t exactly understand the masculine nature,” he said. “I simply mean that I shall have a divorce, and if you don’t choose to accept my terms—for, of course, I am dealing with you, not your mother—it will be you and not I who proclaim to the world what I have kept quiet for thirty–five years.”
The interview lasted barely ten minutes, but to Anne Clavering it seemed as if æons of time separated her from the Anne Clavering of half an hour ago. Clavering was unshaken. He had been contemplating this event in his life ever since it happened, thirty–five years before, and had reckoned himself a magnanimous man in determining not to reveal the truth about his marriage unless he was compelled to—that is to say, unless he could not get the divorce by other means. But Anne had forced his hand, as it were; so let her take the consequences. The repudiation of his wife cost Clavering not a pang. He took no thought of her patience, her years of uncomplaining work for him, her silence under his neglect and abandonment. The thought, however, that he had admitted to any one the illegitimacy of his children, gave him a certain degree of discomfort; he felt an inward shock when he spoke the words. But it was not enough to turn him from his will.
Anne sat still for so long that Clavering did not know what to make of it. She had grown very pale, and Clavering suspected that she really had not the strength to rise, which was the truth. The room was so profoundly still that when a smouldering log in the fireplace broke in two and fell apart with a shower of sparks, the slight noise made both Clavering and Anne start.
Anne rose then, somewhat unsteadily. Clavering would have liked to offer his arm and to have assisted her to her bedroom, but he was afraid. She walked out of the room without looking at him or speaking to him again. Halfway up the broad and splendid staircase he heard her stop, and, looking out of the half–open door, he saw her shadowy figure sitting on the stairs. After a few moments more she went on up, and he could hear only the faint sound of her silken skirts as she moved. Opposite her mother’s door she stopped. There was no sound within, and she passed on.
* * * * *
It was one of Elizabeth Darrell’s sleepless and harassed nights. About three o’clock she rose from her bed and went to the window. In the great house opposite, Clavering’s library windows were lighted up, and so were the windows of Anne’s boudoir. A sudden suspicion of the truth flashed into Elizabeth’s mind.
“His daughter suspects something—has discovered something,” she thought to herself, panting and terrified. “They have had a scene.”
Neither Elizabeth nor Clavering nor Anne had any sleep that night.
_Chapter Fourteen_
The next day was Mrs. Luttrell’s day at home, and in spite of her declared preference for small receptions, a choice little circle of friends, tea and good plain bread and butter, she contrived to have crowds of visitors, resplendent drawing–rooms, and in the dining room a brilliant table, glowing with floral feather beds and sparkling with lights, whereon were served most of the kickshaws which Mrs. Luttrell had so severely animadverted on the day before.
It was a field–day with Mrs. Luttrell. All the Cave–dwellers and all of the smart set seemed to be in evidence at one time or another during the afternoon. The street was blocked with carriages, lackeys stood ten deep around the handsome doors, and the air fluttered with the tissue paper from the many cards that were left. The splendid and unique drawing–rooms were at their best, and Mrs. Luttrell, arrayed in the immortal black–velvet gown, was standing in the centre of the middle drawing–room, dispensing flatteries to the men and civilities to the women with great gusto. Baskerville was present, doing his part as host, helping out the shy people like Eleanor Baldwin’s mother, the handsome, silent Mrs. Brentwood–Baldwin, who was known to be cruelly dragooned by her up–to–date daughter. But there are not many shy people to be found in Washington. Mrs. James Van Cortlandt Skinner was not at all shy when she came sailing in, toward six o’clock, with a very handsome young man, dressed in the height of ecclesiastical elegance. The private chaplain was, at last, an attained luxury.
“My dear Mrs. Luttrell,” she said cooingly, “may I introduce to you the Reverend Father Milward of the Order of St. Hereward?”
Mrs. Luttrell’s handsome mouth widened in a smile which was subject to many interpretations, and she shook hands cordially with Mrs. James Van Cortlandt Skinner’s protégé. Father Milward himself gave Mrs. Luttrell a far–away, ascetic bow, and then, turning to Baskerville, began discussing with him the status of the English education bill. Father Milward gave it as his solemn opinion that the bill did not go far enough in opposing secular education, and thought that the Dissenters had been dealt with too favorably by it and under it.
Mrs. Van Cortlandt Skinner had felt a little nervous at the way her newest acquisition might be received by Mrs. Luttrell, but had determined to put a bold face upon it. And why should anybody be ashamed of achieving one’s heart’s desire, so long as it is respectable? And what is more respectable and likewise more recherché, than a domestic chaplain? And the Reverend Father Milward had been domestic chaplain to an English duke. Nor had his severance with the ducal household been anything but creditable to Father Milward, for the duke, a very unspiritual person, who kept a domestic chaplain on the same principle as he subscribed to the county hunt, had said that he “wouldn’t stand any more of Milward’s religious fallals, by gad.” The chaplain had therefore discharged the duke, for the young clergyman’s fallals were honest fallals, and he was prepared to go to the stake for them. Instead of the crown of martyrdom, however, he had fallen into Mrs. James Van Cortlandt Skinner’s arms, so to speak; and he found it an ecclesiastical paradise of luxury and asceticism, God and mammon, full of the saintliness of the world.
Before Mrs. Van Cortlandt Skinner had a chance to tell what position the Reverend Father Milward held in her family, Mrs. Luttrell said to her, aside: “So you’ve got him! I thought you’d get the upper hand of the bishop. The fact is you’re cleverer than any of the Newport people I’ve heard of yet. They’ve got their tiaras and their sea–going yachts and they have the Emperor to dinner, but not one of them has a private acolyte, much less a full–grown chaplain. You’ve done something really original this time, my dear.”
Mrs. Van Cortlandt Skinner did not know exactly how Mrs. Luttrell meant to be taken, but smiled faintly and said: “You can’t imagine, my dear Mrs. Luttrell, the blessed privilege of having Father Milward under my roof. He has been with me a week, and every day we have had matins, compline, and evensong. I have had the billiard room turned into a chapel temporarily, and it is really sweet; but of course I shall have an early English chapel built at each of my houses. I have plenty of ground for a chapel at my Washington house. My servants have been most attentive at the services, and when Lionel or Harold is absent my butler, a very high churchman, acts as clerk. It is really edifying to see and hear him. You know persons in very humble walks of life sometimes possess great graces and virtues.”
“So I have heard,” replied Mrs. Luttrell, earnestly.
“I am determined to take Father Milward everywhere with me. I want his holy influence to be shed in the best society. It is beautiful to see him with Lionel and Harold. I hope that one or both of them will develop a vocation for the priesthood. I could do so much for them—build them beautiful parish houses and everything. If one of them should wish to organize a brotherhood, in America, as you once suggested, I would build a beautiful brotherhood house at my place on the Hudson. To give to the Church is such a privilege, and to give to these beautiful and poetic orders which our beloved Mother Church in England is organizing has a peculiar charm for me.”
“I see it has,” answered Mrs. Luttrell; “and if you have everything else you want, why not get a domestic chaplain, or a couple if you like, just as the Empress Elizabeth of Russia used to get her a new lover whenever she wanted one?”
Mrs. Skinner gave a little start at this. She was a guileless woman and never knew when people were joking unless they told her so. She had never heard of the Empress Elizabeth, and moreover she was sincerely afraid of Mrs. Luttrell.
“And,” continued Mrs. Luttrell, “now that you have walloped the bishop of the diocese, for I understand that he made a terrible row about the domestic chaplain, I would, if I were in your place, get an archbishop to preside over the Church in the United States. The archbishop is clearly the next move in the game, after the domestic chaplain. One wants a little elegance now in religion, you know, and an archbishop is just twice as stylish as a mere bishop; and in time”—Mrs. Luttrell laid her hand approvingly on Mrs. Van Cortlandt Skinner’s imperial sable boa—“Lionel or Harold may live to be Archbishop Skinner. There isn’t any reason in the world why you people who have loads of money shouldn’t have everything you want. Don’t forget that, my dear Mrs. Skinner.”
Mrs. Skinner felt that she was being trifled with; so she laughed a little and moved away, saying: “I see Bishop Slater, the secretary’s brother, across the room, and I must speak to him. I think the secretary is a dear, and so is the bishop, so nice and high in his Church views.”