Chapter 22

Nadân was an exemplary Mussulman in all outward matters; but I was not long in discovering that he had two ruling passions--jealousy of the chief priest of Tehran, and a hunger for money. My earliest duty was to gratify his second passion by negotiating temporary marriages for handsome fees. In these transactions we prospered fairly well; but unfortunately Nadân's desire to supplant the chief priest led him to stir up the populace to attack the Christians of the city, and plunder their property. The Shah was then in a humour to protect the Christians; consequently, Nadân had his beard plucked out by the roots, was mounted on an ass with his face to its tail, and was driven out of the city with blows and execrations.

Once more homeless and almost penniless, not knowing what to do, I strolled in the dusk into a bath, and undressed. The bath was empty save for one man, whom I recognized as the chief priest. He was splashing about in a manner that struck me as remarkable for so sedate a character; then a most unusual floundering, attended with a gurgling of the throat, struck my ear. To my horror, I saw that he was drowned. Here was a predicament; it was inevitable that I should be charged with his murder.

Suddenly it occurred to me that I bore a close resemblance to the dead man. For an hour or two, at any rate, I might act as an impostor. So, in the dim light, I dressed myself in the chief priest's clothes, and repaired to his house.

I was there received by two young slaves, who paid me attentions that would at most times have delighted me; but just then they filled me with apprehension, and I was heartily glad when I got rid of the slaves and fastened the door. I then explored the chief priest's pockets, and found therein two letters. One was from the chief executioner--a notorious drunkard--begging permission to take unlimited wine for his health's sake. The other was from a priest at the mollah's village saying that he had extracted from the peasantry one hundred tomauns (£80), which would be delivered to a properly qualified messenger.

To the chief executioner I wrote cheerfully granting the permission he sought, and suggesting that the loan of a well-caparisoned horse would not be amiss. I wrote a note to the priest requesting that the money be delivered to the bearer, our confidential Hajji Baba. Next morning I rose early, and made certain alterations in the chief priest's clothes so as to avoid detection. I went to the chief executioner's house, presented the letter, and received the horse, upon which I rode hastily away to the village. Having obtained the hundred tomauns I escaped across the frontier to Bagdad.

_IV.--Hajji and the Infidels_

On reaching Bagdad, I sought the house of my old master, Osman Aga, long since returned from his captivity, and through his assistance, and with my hundred tomauns as capital, I was able to set up in business as a merchant in pipe-sticks, and, having made myself as like as possible to a native of Bagdad, I travelled in Osman Aga's company to Constantinople. Having a complaint to make, I went to Mirza Ferouz, Persian ambassador on a special mission to Constantinople.

"Your wit and manner are agreeable," he said to me; "you have seen the world and its business; you are a man who can make play under another's beard. Such I am in want of."

"I am your slave and your servant," I replied.

"Lately an ambassador came from Europe to Tehran," said Mirza Ferouz, "saying he was sent, with power to make a treaty, by a certain Boonapoort, calling himself Emperor of the French. He promised, that Georgia should be reconquered for us from the Russians, and that the English should be driven from India. Soon afterwards the English infidels in India sent agents to impede the reception of the Frenchman. We soon discovered that much was to be got between the rival curs of uncleanness; and the true object of my mission here is to discover all that is to be known of these French and English. In this you can help me."

This proposal I gladly accepted, and went forth to interview a scribe of the Reis Effendi with whom I had struck up a friendship. He told me that Boonapoort was indeed a rare and daring infidel, who, from a mere soldier, became the sultan of an immense nation, and gave the law to all the Europeans.

"And is there not a tribe of infidels called Ingliz?" I asked.

"Yes, truly. They live in an island, are powerful in ships, and in watches and broad-cloth are unrivalled. They have a shah, but it is a farce to call him by that title. The power lies with certain houses full of madmen, who meet half the year round for the purposes of quarrelling. Nothing can be settled in the state, be it only whether a rebellious aga is to have his head cut off and his property confiscated, or some such trifle, until these people have wrangled. Let us bless Allah and our Prophet that we are not born to eat the miseries of the poor English infidels, but can smoke our pipes in quiet on the shores of our own peaceful Bosphorus!"

I returned to my ambassador full of the information I had acquired; daily he sent me in search of fresh particulars, and before long I felt able to draw up the history of Europe that the Shah had ordered Mirza Ferouz to provide. So well pleased was the ambassador with my labours, that he announced his intention of taking me back to Persia and continuing me in Government employ. To this I readily agreed, knowing that, with the protection of men in office, I might show myself in my own country with perfect safety.

On out return to Tehran we found an English ambassador negotiating a treaty, the French having gone away unsuccessful. Owing to the knowledge I had acquired of European affairs when at Constantinople, I was much employed in these transactions with the infidels, and when I gained the confidence of the grand vizier himself, destiny almost as much as whispered that the buffetings of the world had taken their departure from me.

The negotiations reached a difficult point, and threatened to break down; neither the Persians nor the infidels would give way. I was sent by the grand vizier on a delicate mission to the English ambassador. I prevailed. I returned to the grand vizier with a sack of gold for him and the promise of a diamond ring, and the treaty was signed.

It was decided to send an ambassador to England. Mirza Berouz was appointed, and I was chosen as his first mirza, or secretary. What pleased me most of all was that I was sent to Ispahan to raise part of the money for the presents to be taken to England. Hajji Baba, the barber's son, entered his native place as Mirza Hajji Baba, the Shah's deputy, with all the parade of a man of consequence, and on a mission that gave him unbounded opportunity of enriching himself. I found myself, after all my misfortunes, at the summit of what, in my Persian eyes, was perfect human bliss.

* * * * *

DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY

The Way of the World

David Christie Murray was born at West Bromwich, England, April 13, 1847, and began his journalistic career at Birmingham. In 1873 he moved to London and joined the staff of the "Daily News" and in 1878 he was correspondent of the "Times" and the "Scotsman" in the Russo-Turkish war. He now began to transfer his abundant experience of life to the pages of fiction. His first novel, "A Life's Atonement," was published in 1880, and was followed a year later by "Joseph's Coat." In "The Way of the World," published in 1884, his art as a story-teller and his keen observation of men and manners were displayed as strikingly as in any of his later works-- several of which were written in collaboration with other authors. Altogether he produced over thirty volumes of short stories and novels single-handed. At the end of last century he emerged from his literary seclusion in Wales and became active in current affairs; he was one of the leading English champions of Dreyfus, and obtained the warm friendship of Emile Zola. He died on August 1, 1907.

_I.--The Upstart_

Your sympathies are requested for Mr. Bolsover Kimberley, a gentleman embarrassed beyond measure.

Mr. Kimberley was thirty-five years of age. He was meek, and had no features to speak of. His hair was unassuming, and his whiskers were too shy to curl. He was a clerk in a solicitor's office in the town of Gallowbay, and he seemed likely to live to the end of his days in the pursuit of labours no more profitable or pretentious.

A cat may look at a king. A solicitor's clerk may love an earl's daughter. It was an undeniable madness in Kimberley even to dream of loving the Lady Ella Santerre. He knew perfectly well what a fool he was; but he was in love for all that.

To Bolsover Kimberley, seated in a little room with a dingy red desk and cobwebbed skylight, there entered Mr. Ragshaw, senior clerk to Messrs. Begg, Batter, and Bagg, solicitors.

"My dear Mr. Kimberley," said Mr. Ragshaw, "allow me the honour of shaking hands with you. I believe that I am the first bearer of good news."

Mr. Kimberley turned pale.

"My firm, sir," pursued Mr. Ragshaw, "represented the trustees of the late owner of the Gallowbay Estate, who died three months ago at the age of twenty, leaving no known relatives. We instituted a search, which resulted in the discovery of an indisputable title to the estate. Permit me to congratulate you, sir--the estate is yours."

Bolsover Kimberley gasped, and his voice was harsh.

"How much?"

"The estate, sir, is now approximately valued at forty-seven thousand per annum."

Kimberley lurched forward, and fell over in a dead faint. Mr. Ragshaw's attentions restored him to his senses, and he drank a little water, and sobbed hysterically.

When he had recovered a little, he arose weakly from the one office chair, took off his office coat, rolled it up neatly, and put it in his desk. Then he put on his walking coat and his hat and went out.

"Don't you think, Mr. Kimberley," asked Mr. Ragshaw, with profound respect, "that a little something----"

They were outside the Windgall Arms, and Kimberley understood.

"Why, yes, sir," he said; "but I never keep it in the 'ouse, and having had to pay a tailor's bill this week, I don't happen----"

"My _dear_ sir, allow me!" said Ragshaw, with genuine emotion.

The champagne, the dinner that followed, the interviews with pressmen, the excitement and obsequiousness of everybody, conveyed to Kimberley's mind, in a dizzy sort of a way, that he was somebody in the world, and ought to be proud of it. But his long life of servitude, his shyness and want of nerve, all weighed heavily upon him, and he was far from being happy.

Mr. Begg, senior partner of Messrs. Begg, Batter, and Bagg, was sitting in his office a day or two later when a clerk ushered in the Earl of Windgall.

"What's this news about Gallowbay, Begg? Is it true?" asked the earl.

"It is certainly true," answered Begg.

"What sort of fellow is this Kimberley?"

"Well, he seems to be a shy little man, _gauche_, and--and--underbred, even for his late position."

"That's a pity. I should like to see him," added the grey little nobleman. "I suppose you will act for him as you did for poor young Edward?"

Poor young Edward was the deceased minor whose early death had wrecked the finest chances the Windgall family craft had ever carried.

"I suppose so," said Begg.

"I presume," said the earl, "that even if he wanted to call in his money you could arrange elsewhere?"

"With regard to the first mortgage?" asked Mr. Begg. "Certainly."

"And what about the new arrangement?" asked the earl nervously.

"Impossible, I regret to say."

"Very well," returned the earl, with a sigh. "I suppose the timber must go. If poor Edward had lived, it would all have been very different."

Next day, when Kimberley, preposterously overdressed and thoroughly ashamed of himself, was trying to talk business in Mr. Begg's office, the Earl of Windgall was announced. There was nothing in the world that could have terrified him more. And when the father of his ideal love, Lady Ella Santerre, shook him by the hand, he could only gasp and gurgle in response. But the earl's manner gradually reassured him, and in a little time he began to plume himself in harmless trembling vanity upon sitting in the same room with a nobleman and a great lawyer.

"I am pleased to have met Mr. Kimberley," said the earl, in going; "and I trust we shall see more of each other."

Mr. Kimberley flushed, and bowed in a violent flutter.

As the earl was driven homeward he could not help feeling that he was engaged in a shameful enterprise. People would talk if he invited this gilded little snob to Shouldershott Castle, and would know very well why he was asked there. Let them talk.

"A million and a quarter!" said the poor peer. "And if I don't catch him, somebody else will."

Meanwhile, Captain Jack Clare, an extremely popular young officer of dragoons, was in the depths of despair. He was the younger brother of Lord Montacute, whose family was poor; he loved Lady Ella Santerre, whose family was still poorer. The heads of the families had forbidden the match for financial reasons. He had stolen an interview with Ella, and had found that she bowed to the decision of the seniors.

"It is all quite hopeless and impossible," she had said. "Good-bye, Jack!"

As he rode dispiritedly away, he could not see, for the intervening trees, that she was kneeling in the fern and crying.

_II.--A Peer in Difficulties_

The Lady Ella slipped an arm about her father's neck.

"You are in trouble, dear," she said. "Can I help you?"

"No," said the poor nobleman. "There's no help for it, Beggs says, and they'll have to cut down the timber in the park. Poverty, my dear, poverty."

This was a blow, and a heavy one.

"That isn't the worst of it," said Windgall, after a pause. "I am in the hands of the Jews. A wretched Hebrew fellow says he _will_ have a thousand pounds by this day week. He might as well ask me for a million."

"The diamonds are worth more than a thousand pounds, dear," she said gently.

"No, no, my darling," he answered. "I have robbed you of everything already."

"You must take them, papa," she said in tender decision. She left him, only to return in a few minutes' time with a dark shagreen case in her hands. The earl paced about the room for a minute or two.

"I take these," he said at last, "in bitter unwillingness, because I can't help taking them, my dear. I had best get the business over, Ella. I will go up to town this afternoon."

During the whole of his journey the overdressed figure of Kimberley seemed to stand before the embarrassed man, and a voice seemed to issue from it. "Catch me, flatter me, wheedle me, marry me to one of your daughters, and see the end of your woes." He despised himself heartily for permitting the idea to enter his mind, but he could not struggle against its intrusion.

Next day Kimberley entered his jewellers to consult him concerning a scarf-pin. It was a bull-dog's head, carved in lava, and not quite life-size. The eyes were rubies, the collar was of gold and brilliants. This egregious jewel was of his own designing, and was of a piece with his general notions of how a millionaire should attire himself.

As he passed through the door somebody leapt from a cab carrying something in his hands, and jostled against him. He turned round apologetically, and confronted the Earl of Windgall.

His lordship looked like a man detected in a theft, and shook hands with a confused tremor.

"Can you spare me half an hour?" he asked. Then he handed the package to the shop-man. "Take care of that," he stammered. "It is valuable. I will call to-morrow."

That afternoon Kimberley accepted an invitation to stay at Shouldershott Castle.

He was prodigiously flattered and fluttered. When he thought of being beneath the same roof with Lady Ella, he flushed and trembled as he had never done before.

"I shall see her," he muttered wildly to himself. "I shall see her in the 'alls, the 'alls of dazzling light." It is something of a wonder that he did not lose his mental balance altogether.

When he was daily in the presence of Ella, the little man's heart ached with sweet anguish and helpless worship and desire. Yet before her he was tongue-tied, incapable of uttering a consecutive sentence. With her sister, Lady Alice Santerre, who had been the intended bride of the deceased heir to the Gallowbay Estate, Kimberley felt on a different footing. He had hardly ever been so much at ease with anybody in his life as this young lady made him.

Kimberley's own anxious efforts at self-improvement, Lady Alice's good-natured advice, and the bold policy of the earl, who persuaded him to undergo the terrors of an election, and get returned to Parliament as member for Gallowbay, gradually made the millionaire a more presentable person. He learned how to avoid dropping his h's; but two vices were incurable--the shyness and his appalling taste in dress.

The world, meanwhile, had guessed at the earl's motives in extending his friendship to Kimberley, and the little man's name was knowingly linked with that of Lady Alice. Kimberley came to hear what the world was saying through meeting Mr. Blandy, his former employer. Mr. Blandy invited him to his house, honoured the occasion with champagne, drank freely of it, and became confidential.

"The noble earl'll nail you f' one o' the girls, Kimbly. I'm a lill bit 'fected when I think, seeing my dear Kimbly 'nited marriage noble family. That's what makes me talk like this. I b'leeve you're gone coon already, ole man. 'Gratulate you, allmy heart."

Kimberley went away in a degradation of soul. Was it possible that this peer of the realm could be so coarsely and openly bent on securing him and his money that the whole world should know of it? What had Kimberley, he asked himself bitterly, to recommend him but his money? But then, triumphing over his miseries, came the fancy--he could have his dream of love; he had cried for the moon, and now he could have it.

_III.--Ella's Martyrdom_

The earl's liabilities amounted roughly to ninety thousand pounds. The principal mortgagee was insisting upon payment or foreclosure, and there was a general feeling abroad that the estate was involved beyond its capacity to pay.

Kimberley learned these circumstances in an interview with Mr. Begg. A few days afterwards he drove up desperately to the castle and asked for a private interview with his lordship.

"My lord," he said, when they were alone, "I want to ask your lordship's acceptance of these papers."

The earl understood them at a glance. Kimberley had bought his debts.

"I ask you to take them now," Kimberley went on, "before I say another word."

He rose, walked to the fire, and dropped the papers on the smouldering coal. The earl seized the papers and rescued them, soiled but unsinged.

"Kimberley," he said, "I dare not lay myself under such an obligation to any man alive."

"They are yours, my lord," replied Kimberley. "I shall never touch them again. You're under no obligation to me, my lord. But"--he blushed and stammered--"I want to ask you for the hand of Lady Ella."

It took Windgall a full minute to pull himself together. He had schooled himself to the trembling hope that Alice might be chosen; but Ella! "Forgive me," he began, "I was unprepared--I was not altogether unprepared--" Then he lapsed into silence.

"I will submit your proposal to my daughter," he said after a time, "but--I am powerless--altogether powerless."

Kimberley went home in a tremor of nervous anxiety, and Windgall sent for his daughter.

"I want you to understand, my dear," he began nervously, "that you are free to act just as you will. Mr. Kimberley gave these into my hands this morning"--showing her the papers. "He gave them freely, as a gift. If I could accept them I should be free from the nightmare of debt. But in the same breath with that unconditional gift, he asked me for your hand in marriage."

She kept silence.

"You know our miserable necessities, Ella," he pleaded. "But I can't force your inclinations in a matter like this, my dear."

She ran to him, and threw her arms about his neck.

"If it depends upon me to end your troubles, my dear, they are ended already."

"Shall I," he asked lamely, "make Kimberley happy?"

She answered simply, "Yes."

Kimberley came to luncheon next day. Lady Ella gave him a hand like marble, and he kissed it. Her father, anxious to preserve a seeming satisfaction, put his arm about her waist and kissed her. Her cheek was like ice and her whole figure trembled.

It was a dull, dreadful meal to all three who sat at table, and the millionaire's heart was the heaviest and the sorest.

If Ella suffered, she had the consolation, so dear to the nobler sort of women, that she was a sacrifice. If Windgall suffered, he had a solid compensation locked in the drawers of his library table. But Kimberley had no consolation, and knew only that he was expected somehow to be happy, and was, in spite of his prosperous wooing, more miserable than he had ever been before.

As time went on, Kimberley grew no happier. The gulf between Lady Ella and himself had not been bridged by their betrothal. She was always courteous to him, but always cold. She had accepted him, and yet----

The first inkling that something was wrong came through the altered demeanour of Alice. The girl was furious at her father for sacrificing her sister, and furious with her sister for consenting to the sacrifice; her former half-humourous comradeship for Kimberley was changed into chilly disdain.

The suspicions that were thus suggested to him were confirmed by a meeting with Ella outside the castle lodge. As he approached, he caught sight of her face as she was nodding a smiling good-bye to the old gate-keeper. She saw Kimberley, and the smile fled from her face with so swift a change, and left for a mere second something so like terror there, that he could scarcely fail to notice it.

He returned home possessed with remorse and shame. There was no doubt what the end should be. Ella must be released.

"She never cared about the money," he said, pacing the room with tear-blotted face. "She wanted to save her father, and she was ready to break her heart to do it. But she shall never break her heart through me. No, no. What a fool I was to think she could ever be happy with a man like me!"

_IV.--The Renunciation_

Jack Clare, with a heart burning with rage at what he deemed Ella's treachery, had resigned his commission and bought an estate in New Zealand with a sum of money that had been left him. He became possessed of a desire to see Ella once more. He wrote to her that he was about to start for New Zealand, and wished to say good-bye to her. This letter he brought to the castle gate-keeper, and caused it to be taken to Ella. Then he paced up and down the avenue, impatiently awaiting her.

Destiny ordained that Kimberley should come that way just then on his fateful errand of releasing Ella from her engagement. As he entered the park his resolve failed him; he wandered unhappily to and fro, until he became aware of a strange gentleman prowling about the avenue in a mighty hurry. The stranger caught sight of him.

"Pardon me," said Kimberley nervously, "have you lost your way?"

Jack eyed him from head to foot--the vulgar glories of his attire, the extraordinary bull-dog pin. This, he guessed, was Kimberley--the man to whom Ella had sold herself. He smiled bitterly, and turned on his heel.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said Kimberley ruffled. "I did myself the honour to address you."

"You pestilential little cad!" cried Jack, wheeling round and letting out his wrath; "go home!"

"Cad, sir!" answered Kimberley in indignation.

"I call any man a cad, sir," answered Jack, "who goes about dressed like that."