Part 16
The next morning brought Anne a letter from Baskerville. Clouded as Anne Clavering’s love–affair was, with many outside perplexities, restraints, shames, and griefs, she did not miss all of what the French call the little flowers of love—among others the being wakened from sleep in the morning by a letter from her lover. Her first waking thought in her luxurious bedroom was that a letter from Baskerville would soon be in her hands. And when the maid entered and laid it on her pillow and departed Anne held it to her heart before breaking the seal. Then, lighting her bedside candle in the dark of the winter morning, she read her precious letter. In it Baskerville told her that he was urgently called to New York that day, but would return the next; and his first appointment after his return would be to see Senator Clavering, for they must arrange, for obvious reasons, to be married at the earliest possible moment. There were not many endearing terms in the letter—for Baskerville, like most men of fine sense and deep dealing, did not find it easy to put his love on paper; but those few words were enough—so Anne Clavering thought. And Baskerville told her that she would receive a letter from him daily, in lieu of the visit which he could not pay her at her father’s house.
Baskerville returned to Washington on the following night, for a reason rare in the annals of lovers. The last meeting of the investigating committee was to be held the next day, and Baskerville, having succeeded in exposing Clavering, must be on hand to complete the work. But before doing this he had to tell to Clavering his intention to marry his daughter.
The committee met daily at eleven o’clock, but it was not yet ten o’clock on a dull, cold winter morning when Baskerville took his way to the Capitol, certain of finding Clavering at work by that hour; for the Senator had most of the best habits of the best men—among them, industry, order, and punctuality in a high degree.
Baskerville went straight to the committee–room set apart for Clavering, for, not being a chairman of a committee, he had no right to a room. His colleagues, however, on the same principle that a condemned man is given everything he wishes to eat, supplied Clavering generously with quarters in which to prepare his alleged defence. Two of the handsomest rooms in the Senate wing were therefore set apart for him, and to these Baskerville made his way. The messenger at the door took in his card, and he heard Clavering, who was walking up and down the floor dictating to a stenographer, say in his agreeable voice, “Show the gentleman into the room at once.”
Baskerville entered, and Clavering greeted him politely and even cordially. He did not, however, offer to shake hands with Baskerville, who had purposely encumbered himself with his hat and coat; so the avoidance on the part of each was cleverly disguised.
“Pray excuse me for calling so early, Senator,” said Baskerville, composedly, “but may I have a word in private with you?”
Clavering was infinitely surprised, but he at once answered coolly: “Certainly, if you will go with me into the next room. It is my colleague’s committee–room, but there is no meeting of the committee to–day, and he allows me the privilege of seeing people there when it is vacant. You see, I am snowed under here,” which was true. The masses of books and papers and type–writers’ and stenographers’ desks filled the room in an uncomfortable degree.
Clavering led the way into the next room. It was large and luxuriously furnished with all the elegances with which legislators love to surround themselves. He offered Baskerville one of the large leather chairs in front of the blazing fire, took another one himself, and fixed his bright, dark eyes on Baskerville, who took the advice of old Horace and plunged at once into his subject.
“I presume that what I have to tell you will surprise you, Senator, and no doubt displease you. I have asked your daughter, Miss Anne Clavering, to marry me, and she has been good enough to consent. And I feel it due to you, of course, to inform you at the earliest moment.”
Clavering was secretly astounded. No such complication had dawned upon him. He knew, of course, that Anne and Baskerville were acquainted and met often in society; he had by no means forgotten that solitary visit of Baskerville’s, but attached no particular meaning to it. His own pressing affairs had engrossed him so that he had given very little thought to anything else. But it was far from James Clavering to show himself astonished in any man’s presence, least of all in an enemy’s presence. His mind, which worked as rapidly as it worked powerfully, grasped in an instant that this was really a good stroke of fortune for Anne. He knew too much of human nature to suppose that it counted for anything with him. Men like Baskerville do not change their characters or their principles by falling in love. Baskerville might possibly have altered his methods in the investigation, but this happened to be the very last day of it, and things had gone too far to be transformed at this stage of the game. However, it gave Clavering a species of intense inward amusement to find himself in a position to assume a paternal air to Baskerville. After a moment, therefore, he said with a manner of the utmost geniality:—
“Displease me, did you say? Nothing would please me better. Anne is by long odds the best of my children. She deserves a good husband, and I need not say that your high reputation and admirable character are thoroughly well known to me, as to all the world.”
All interviews with prospective fathers–in–law are embarrassing, but perhaps no man was ever more embarrassingly placed than Baskerville at that moment. He could not but admire Clavering’s astuteness, which made it necessary for Baskerville to explain that while seeking to marry Clavering’s daughter he would by no means be understood as countenancing Clavering. Baskerville colored deeply, and paused. Clavering was entirely at ease, and was enjoying the humor of the situation to the full. It is a rare treat to be enabled to act the benevolent father–in–law, anxious only for the welfare of his child, to a man who has been trying for two years to railroad the prospective father–in–law into state’s prison.
“I think, Senator,” said Baskerville, after a moment, “that we needn’t beat about the bush. My course in this investigation has shown from the beginning my views on the case. They are not favorable to you. I have no right to expect your approval, but Miss Clavering is of age and can make her own choice. She has made it, and I have no intention of giving her time to back out of it. It is, however, due to you as her father that I should speak to you of certain matters—my means, for example. I can’t give your daughter the luxuries, I may say magnificence, with which you have surrounded her, but I can give her all that a gentlewoman requires. She does not ask for more.”
Clavering stroked his chin meditatively, and with a gleam of acute satisfaction in his eye looked at Baskerville, uncomfortable but resolute, before him. “My dear boy,” said he, “I’ve given my consent already; and I rather think, with such a pair as you and my daughter Anne, it wouldn’t do much good to withhold it.”
Baskerville could have brained him with pleasure for that “My dear boy,” but he only said: “Quite right, Senator. I also ask the privilege of speaking to Mrs. Clavering.”
“Mrs. Clavering is very ailing—hasn’t been out of her room for a week. But she’s the last person in the world likely to oppose Anne.”
“I shall try to persuade Miss Clavering to have our marriage take place very shortly,” said Baskerville, presently.
“Certainly, as soon as you like.” Clavering sat back in his chair, smiling. Never was there so obliging a father–in–law.
Baskerville rose. The interview had lasted barely five minutes, and both men were conscious of the fact that Clavering had had the best of it from beginning to end. He had gotten a great deal of amusement out of what Baskerville would not have gone through with again for a great pile of money.
“Thank you very much for your acquiescence. Good morning,” said the prospective bridegroom, bowing himself out. Not one word had been said about any fortune that Anne might have, nor had Baskerville touched Clavering’s hand.
The Senator went back to his stenographers. He was thoughtful and did not get into full swing of his work for at least fifteen minutes. He felt a kind of envy of Richard Baskerville, who had no investigations to face and never would have. He had no divorce problem in hand and never would have. His love was not of the sort which had to be forced upon a woman, and the woman coerced and overborne and almost menaced into accepting it. On the whole, Clavering concluded, looking back upon a long career of successful villany, that if he had his life to live over again, he would live more respectably.
That day the last meeting of the committee was held, and within an hour the two men, Baskerville and Clavering, faced each other in the committee–room, each a fighting man and fighting with all his strength. Baskerville took no part in the oral arguments, but, sitting at one end of the long table in the luxurious mahogany–furnished and crimson–curtained committee–room, he supplied data, facts, and memoranda which proved Clavering to have been a habitual thief and a perjurer.
The committee–room was only moderately full. The hearings had been open, but the crush had been so great that it was decided to exclude all except those who were directly interested in the hearing and those lucky enough to get cards of admission. It was an eager and even a sympathetic crowd. The same personal charm which had been a great factor in Clavering’s success was still his. As he sat back, his leonine face and head outlined against the crimson wall behind him, his eyes full of the light of combat, cool, resolute, and smiling, it was impossible not to admire him. He had no great virtues, but he had certain great qualities.
As the hearing proceeded, Clavering’s case grew blacker. Against some of the most damning facts he had some strong perjured evidence, but the perjurers were exposed with the evidence. Against all, he had his own strenuous denial of everything and the call for proof. But proof was forthcoming at every point. And it was all Richard Baskerville’s handiwork. Clavering knew this so well that although perfectly alert as to the statements made by the keen–eyed, sharp–witted lawyers from New York, he kept his eyes fixed on Baskerville, who was handing out paper after paper and making whispered explanations—who was, in short, the arsenal for the weapons so mercilessly used against Clavering.
The two men engaged in this deadly and tremendous strife, which involved not only millions of money and a seat in the United States Senate, but also the characters and souls of men, eyed each other with a certain respect. It was no man of ordinary mould whom Baskerville had sought to destroy, and that Clavering would be destroyed there was no reasonable doubt. The last day’s work meant expulsion from the Senate, a disgrace so huge, so far–reaching, that it was worse than sentencing a man to death. Apart from the degree of honesty in Clavering’s own party, it was perfectly well understood that no party would dare to go before the country assuming the burden of the gigantic frauds of which he was being convicted. And it was due to Baskerville that the evidence to convict had been found. All that the other lawyers had done was insignificant beside the two years of patient research, the disentangling of a thousand complicated legal threads, which was Baskerville’s work. Some of the evidence he presented had been collected in the wildest parts of the West and South at the imminent risk of his life; all of it had required vast labor and learning.
Being a natural lover of fighting, Baskerville in the beginning had taken a purely human interest in tracking this man down and had thought himself engaged in a righteous work in driving him out of public life. He still knew he was right in doing this, but it had long since become a painful and irksome task to him. He had come to love this man’s daughter, of all the women in the world,—to love her so well and to confide in her so truly that not even her parentage could keep him from marrying her. But he knew that he was stabbing her to the heart. She had forgiven him in advance; like him, love and sacrifice had asserted their rights and reigned in their kingdom, but that she must suffer a cruel abasement for her father’s iniquities Baskerville knew. And, with this knowledge, nothing but his sense of duty and honor kept him at his post.
The committee sat from eleven in the morning until two in the afternoon. Then, after a short adjournment, it met again. It sat again, with another short recess, until nearly nine o’clock, and a final adjournment was reached at midnight. Not a person of those entitled to be present had left the room, during that long and trying stretch of hours. All were acting a part in a great tragedy, a tragedy of which the last act was to take place in the United States Senate chamber, and was to be one of the most fearful ever enacted in that historic spot. Clavering had gone down fighting. The committee recognized as much, and when, in the midst of a deep silence, the chairman declared the meeting adjourned and Clavering rose to go, every man present, acting involuntarily and quite unconscious of what he was doing, rose as if to do honor to the man whose infamy had been proved before them. A line was made for Clavering, and he passed out of the room. It was as if his crimes were so great, his audacity so huge, his courage so vast and unquenchable, that they saluted him, as a firing squad salutes a guilty officer condemned to be shot.
When James Clavering walked out into the sharp January night, the Capitol behind him showing whitely in the gleaming of the multitude of stars, he knew himself a beaten and ruined man, beaten and ruined by two men—James Clavering and Richard Baskerville.
Baskerville determined to walk the long stretch between the Capitol and his own house; he wanted the fresh air and the solitude, in order to recover himself—for he, too, had been under a terrific strain. As he walked rapidly down the hill Clavering’s carriage passed him—the same brougham in which Baskerville had told Anne Clavering of his love. An electric lamp shone for a moment into the carriage and revealed Clavering sitting upright, his head raised, his fists clenched; he was a fighting man to the last.
_Chapter Sixteen_
It was the gayest season Washington had ever known. There was a continuous round of entertaining at the White House, unofficial as well as official. The different embassies vied with one another in the number and splendor of their festivities; and the smart set entered into a merry war among themselves as to which should throw open their doors oftenest, collect the largest number of guests, and make the most lavish and overpowering display of luxury.
The Claverings did their part, chiefly engineered by Clavering himself, and abetted by Élise and Lydia. Clavering had good reason to suspect that the report of the investigating committee would be ready within the month. It was now the middle of January. Shrove Tuesday came on the fourteenth of February, St. Valentine’s Day, and this was the evening selected for the grand ball and musical which were to complete the season. Other musicals had been given in Washington, but none like this; other balls, but this was meant to surpass them all. It had heretofore been enough to get artists from the Metropolitan Opera in New York; it remained for Clavering to import a couple of singers from Paris for the one occasion. A Hungarian band, touring America, was held over a steamer in order to come to Washington and play at the ball. The shops of Vienna were ransacked for favors for the cotillon; and the champagne to be served came from a king’s cellars.
All this Anne Clavering regarded with disgust and aversion. She felt sure that her father was soon to be hurled from public life, and deservedly so. Her mother’s health was giving her grave alarm. She was at all times opposed to the excess of luxury and fashion which delighted the pagan souls of Élise and Lydia, and now it was an additional mortification to her on Baskerville’s account. He, she felt convinced, was conscious of the brazen effrontery, the shocking bad taste, of it all, and considerate as he was in not speaking of it, her soul was filled with shame to suppose what he thought. She began to hate the lavish luxury in which she dwelt, and looked forward eagerly to the time when she could live modestly and quietly in a house not so grand as to excite the transports of all the society correspondents who got a sight of its stupendous splendors.
Mrs. Clavering’s illness, though slight, continued, and gave Anne a very good excuse for withdrawing somewhat from general society. And it also gave her time for those charming meetings at Mrs. Luttrell’s house, where she and Richard Baskerville tasted the true joy of living. Mrs. Luttrell nobly redeemed her promise, and would have sent every day for Anne to come to tea. As Mrs. Luttrell did not often dine at home without guests, the best tête–à–tête she could offer the lovers was tea in the little morning–room by the firelight. But Anne, with natural modesty, did not always accept Mrs. Luttrell’s urgent invitations. When she did, however, she and Baskerville always had an enchanted hour to themselves in the dusk, while Mrs. Luttrell considerately disappeared, to take the half hour’s beauty sleep which she declared essential, during some part of every day, for the preservation of her charms.
The lovers also met more than once at the Thorndykes’, at little dinners _à quatre_. Mrs. Thorndyke would write a note to Anne, asking her on various pleas to come and dine with Thorndyke and herself; and as soon as Anne had accepted there would be a frantic call over the telephone for Thorndyke, in which Mrs. Thorndyke would direct him at the peril of his life to go immediately in search of Baskerville and to bring him home to dinner. And Thorndyke, like the obedient American husband, would do as he was bidden, and produce Baskerville with great punctuality. How far Constance Thorndyke’s own acute perceptions were accountable for this, and how far Mrs. Luttrell’s incurable propensity for taking the world into her confidence, nobody could tell. At all events, it made four people happy; and if anything could have made Baskerville and Anne more in love with the ideal of marriage it was to see the serene happiness, the charming home life, of Senator and Mrs. Thorndyke.
Baskerville had not ceased to press for an early date for his marriage, but Mrs. Clavering’s indisposition and the position of Clavering’s affairs deferred the actual making of the arrangements. It was to be a very simple wedding, Anne stipulated; and Baskerville, with more than the average man’s dread of a ceremony full of display, agreed promptly. Some morning, when Mrs. Clavering was well, Anne and he would be quietly married, go from the church to the train, and after a few days return to Baskerville’s house. And Anne promised herself, and got Baskerville to promise her, the indulgence of a quiet domestic life—a thing she had not known since the golden shower descended upon James Clavering.
Clavering had said nothing to Anne in regard to Baskerville’s interview with him, nor had the father and daughter exchanged one word with each other, beyond the ordinary civilities of life, since that midnight conversation in which Mr. Clavering had announced his intention of getting a divorce. Neither had he said anything to Mrs. Clavering, and his plans were entirely unknown to his family. By extraordinary good fortune not the smallest suspicion fell on the pale, handsome, silent Mrs. Darrell across the way, with her widow’s veil thrown back from her graceful head.
In those weeks, when Anne Clavering saw as little of the world as she could, she occasionally took quiet and solitary walks in which Baskerville would gladly have joined her. But Anne, with the over–delicacy of one who might be open to the suspicion of not being delicate enough, would not agree to see him except under the chaperonage of Mrs. Luttrell. And twice in those solitary walks she met Elizabeth Darrell, also alone. Both women regarded each other curiously, meanwhile averting their eyes.
Anne knew quite well who Elizabeth was, and at their second meeting, which was quite close to Elizabeth’s door, Anne was moved by the true spirit of courtesy and neighborly kindness to speak to her. She said, with a pleasant bow and smile: “This, I believe, is Mrs. Darrell, our neighbor, and I am Miss Clavering. I have the pleasure of knowing your father, General Brandon.”
Elizabeth received this advance with such apparent haughtiness that Anne, her face flushing, made some casual remark and went into her own house. In truth Elizabeth was frightened and surprised beyond measure, and felt herself so guilty that she knew not where to look or what to say, and literally fled from the sight of James Clavering’s innocent daughter as if she had been an accusing conscience.
Meanwhile the preparations for the grand St. Valentine’s musical and ball went gayly on. Clavering himself showed unwonted interest in it. He was as insensible of public approval or disapproval as any man well could be; nevertheless, he hoped that the report of the investigating committee would not be made public until after the great function on Shrove Tuesday. It pleased his fancy for the spectacular to think that the last entertainment he gave in Washington—for he well knew it would be the last—should be full of gorgeous splendor, so superbly unique that it would be remembered for a decade.
He told this to Elizabeth Darrell, for although the investigation was closed Clavering trumped up some specious requests for more of General Brandon’s information and assistance on certain alleged general points, and by this means still contrived to see Elizabeth once or twice a week. He tried to persuade Elizabeth to come to the grand festivity, and was deeply in earnest in his effort. He counted on its effect upon her when he should tell her that she could have similar entertainments whenever she liked, in a much larger and more splendid city than Washington—London or Paris, for example.
Elizabeth, however, recoiled with something like horror from the idea of going to Clavering’s house and being hospitably received by his wife and daughters; for she had reached the point when Clavering’s bribes—for so his love–making might be considered—were always in her mind. At one time she would feel so oppressed with her loneliness, her poverty, her disappointments, that she would be almost eager for the splendid destiny which Clavering offered her; at another time she would shrink from it with horror of it and horror of herself. All her social and religious prejudices were against divorce and were strong enough to have kept her from marrying Clavering if he had ever really been married to Mrs. Clavering, but as he had never been married to her no moral obligation existed. Elizabeth would also have been incapable of the meanness, the iniquity, of taking Clavering away from another woman who had a much better right to him than she; only she knew that Mrs. Clavering would suffer nothing in parting with Clavering. The feeling that his children might be wounded made no strong appeal to Elizabeth.