“some man holdeth his tongue, because he hath not to answer:
and some keepeth silence, knowing his time.”
those who live for themselves alone must at least have the consolatory thought that when they die the world will soon console itself. for it has been decreed that he who takes no heed of others shall himself be taken no heed of. we soon learn to do without those who are indifferent to us and useless to us. lord ferriby had so long and so carefully studied the culte of self that even those nearest to him had ceased to give him any thought, knowing that in his own he was in excellent hands—that he would always ask for what he wanted. it was lord ferriby's business to make the discovery (which all selfish people must sooner or later achieve) that the best things in this world are precisely those which may not be given on demand, and for which, indeed, one may in nowise ask.
when major white and cornish were left alone in the private salon of the h?tel des indes—when the doctor had come and gone, when the blinds had been decently lowered, and the great man silently laid upon the sofa—they looked at each other without speaking. the grimmest silence is surely that which arises from the thought that of the dead one may only say what is good.
“would you like me,” said cornish, “to go across and tell joan?”
and major white, whose god was discipline, replied, “she's your cousin. it is for you to say.”
“i shall be glad if you will go,” said cornish, “and leave me to make the other arrangements. take her home tomorrow, or tonight if she wants to, and leave us—me—to follow.”
so major white quitted the h?tel des indes, and walked slowly down the length of the toornoifeld, leaving cornish alone with lord ferriby, whose death made his nephew suddenly a richer man.
the wades had gone out for a drive in the wood. major white knew that he would find joan alone at the hotel. bad news has a strange trick of clearing the way before it. the major went to the salon on the ground floor overlooking the corner of the vyverberg. joan was writing a letter at the window.
“ah!” she said, turning, pen in hand, “you are soon back. have you quarrelled?”
white went stolidly across the room towards her. there was a chair by the writing-table, and here he sat down. joan was looking uneasily into his face. perhaps she saw more in that immovable countenance than the world was pleased to perceive.
“your father was taken suddenly ill,” he said, “during the meeting.” joan half rose from her chair, but the major laid his protecting hand over hers. it was a large, quiet hand—like himself, somewhat suggestive of a buffer. and it may, after all, be no mean r?le to act as a buffer between one woman and the world all one's life.
“you can do nothing,” said white. “tony is with him.”
joan looked into his face in speechless inquiry.
“yes,” he answered, “your father is dead.”
then he sat there in a silence which may have been intensely stupid or very wise. for silence is usually cleverer than speech, and always more interesting. joan was dry-eyed. well may the children of the selfish arise and bless their parents for (albeit unwittingly) alleviating one of the necessary sorrows of life.
after a silence, major white told joan how the calamity had occurred, in a curt military way, as of one who had rubbed shoulders with death before, who had gone out, moreover, to meet him with a quiet mind, and had told others of the dealings of the destroyer. for major white was deemed a lucky man by his comrades, who had a habit of giving him messages for their friends before they went into the field. perhaps, moreover, the major was of the opinion of those ancient writers who seemed to deem it more important to consider how a man lives than how he dies.
“it was some heart trouble,” he concluded, “brought on by worry or sudden excitement.”
“the malgamite,” answered joan. “it has always been a source of uneasiness to him. he never quite understood it.”
“no,” answered the major, very deliberately, “he never quite understood it.” and he looked out of the window with a thoughtful noncommitting face.
“neither do i—understand it,” said joan, doubtfully.
and the major looked suddenly dense. he had, as usual, no explanation to offer.
“was father deceived by some one?” joan asked, after a pause. “one hears such strange rumours about the malgamite fund. i suppose father was deceived?”
she spoke of the dead man with that hushed voice which death, with a singular impartiality to race or creed, seems to demand of the survivors wheresoever he passes.
white met her earnest gaze with a grave nod. “yes,” he answered. “he was deceived.”
“he said before he went out that he did not want to go to the meeting at all,” went on joan, in a tone of tender reminiscence, “but that he had always made a point of sacrificing his inclination to his sense of duty. poor father!”
“yes,” said the major, looking out of the window. and he bore joan's steady, searching glance like a man.
“tell me,” she said suddenly. “were you and tony deceived also?”
major white reflected for a moment. it is unwise to tell even the smallest lie in haste.
“no,” he answered at length. “not so entirely as your father.”
he uncrossed his legs, and made a feeble attempt to divert her thoughts.
but joan was on the trail as it were of a half-formed idea in her own mind, and she would not have been a woman if she had relinquished the quest so easily.
“but you were deceived at first?” she inquired, rather anxiously. “i know tony was. i am sure of it. perhaps he found out later; but you—”
she drew her hand from under his rather hastily, having just found out that it was in that equivocal position.
“you were never deceived,” she said, with a suspicion of resentment.
“well—perhaps not,” admitted the major, reluctantly. and he looked regretfully at the hand she had withdrawn. “don't know much about charities,” he continued, after a pause. “don't quite look at them in the right light, perhaps. seems to me that you ought to be more business-like in charities than in anything else; and we're not business men—not even you.”
he looked at her very solemnly and wisely, as if the thoughts in his mind would be of immense value if he could only express them; but he was without facilities in that direction. if one cannot be wise, the next best thing is to have a wise look. he rose, for he had caught sight of tony cornish crossing the toornoifeld in the shade of the trees. perhaps the major had forgotten for the moment that a great man was dead; that there were letters to be written and telegrams to be despatched; that the world must know of it, and the insatiable maw of the public be closed by a few scraps of news. for the public mind must have its daily food, and the wise are they who tell it only that which it is expedient for it to know.
lord ferriby's life was, moreover, one that needed careful obituary treatment. everybody's life may for domestic purposes be described as a hash; but lord ferriby's was a hash which in the hands of a cheap democratic press might easily be served up so daintily as to be very savoury in the nostrils of the world. some of its component parts were indeed exceedingly ancient, and, so to speak, gamey, while the malgamite scheme alone might easily be magnified into a very passable scandal.
tony came into the room, keen and capable. he did not show much feeling. perhaps joan and he understood each other without any such display. for they had known each other many years, and had understood other and more subtle matters without verbal explanation. for the world had been pleased to say that joan and tony must in the end inevitably marry. and they had never explained, never contradicted, and never married.
while the three were still talking, a carriage rattled up to the door of the hotel, and then another. there began, in a word, that hushed confusion—that running to and fro as of ants upon a disturbed ant-hill—which follows hard upon the footsteps of the grim messenger, who himself is content to come so quietly and unobtrusively. roden arrived to make inquiries, and mrs. vansittart, and a messenger from more than one embassy. then the wades came, brought hurriedly back by a messenger sent after them by tony cornish.
marguerite, with characteristic energy, came into the room first, slim and bright-eyed. she looked from one face to the other, and then crossed the room and stood beside joan without speaking. she was smiling—a little hard smile with close-set lips, showing the world a face that meant to take life open-eyed, as it is, and make the best of it.
before long the two girls quitted the room, leaving the three men to their hushed discussion. tony had already provided himself with pen and paper. in twelve hours that which the world must know about lord ferriby should be in print. there was just time to cable it to the times and the news agencies. and in these hurried days it is the first word which, after all, goes farthest and carries most weight. a contradiction is at all times a poor expedient.
“i have silenced the paper-makers,” said cornish, sitting down to write. “even that ass thompson, by striking while the iron was hot.”
“and roden won't open his lips,” added mr. wade, who, as he drove up, had seen that brilliant financier uneasily strolling under the trees of the toornoifeld, looking towards the hotel, for lord ferriby's death was a link in the crooked malgamite chain which even von holzen had failed to foresee.
indeed, lord ferriby must have been gratified could he have seen the posthumous pother that he made by dying at this juncture. for in life he had only been important in his own eyes, and the world had taken little heed of him. this same keen-sighted world would not regret him much now and would assuredly mete out to that miserly old screw, his widow, only as much sympathy as the occasion deserved. lady ferriby would, the world suspected, sell off his lordship's fancy waistcoats, and proceed to save money to her heart's content. even the thought of his club subscriptions, now necessarily to be discontinued, must have assuaged a large part of the widow's grief. such, at least, was the opinion of the clubs themselves, when the news was posted up among the weather reports and the latest tapes from the house that same evening.
while lord ferriby's friends were comfortably endowing him with a few compensating virtues over their tea and hot buttered toast in pall mall and st. james's street, mr. wade, tony, and white dined together at the hotel of the old shooting gallery at the hague. the hour was an early one, and had never been countenanced by lord ferriby, but the three men in whose hands he had literally left his good name did not attach supreme importance to this matter. indeed, the banker thought kindly of six-thirty as an hour at which in earlier days he had been endowed with a better appetite than he ever possessed now at eight o'clock or later. while they were at table a telegram was handed to cornish. it was from lord ferriby's solicitor in london, and contained the advice that tony cornish had been appointed sole executor of his lordship's will.
“thank god!” said tony, with a little laugh, as he read the message and handed it across to mr. wade, who looked at it gravely without comment. “and now,” said cornish, “not even joan need know.”
for cornish, having perceived percy roden under the trees of the toornoifeld, had gone out there to speak to him, and in answer to a plain question had received a plain answer as to the price that lord ferriby had been paid for the use of his name in the malgamite fund transactions.
joan had elected to remain in her own rooms, with marguerite to keep her company, until the evening, when, under white's escort, she was to set out for england. the major had in a minimum of words expressed himself ready to do anything at any time, provided that the service did not require an abnormal conversational effort.
“i shall be home twenty-four hours after you,” said cornish, as he bade joan good-bye at the station. “and you need believe no rumours and fear no gossip. if people ask impertinent questions, refer them to white.”
“and i'll thump them,” added the major, who indeed looked capable of rendering that practical service.
they were favoured by a full moon and a perfect night for their passage from the hook of holland to harwich. joan expressed a desire to remain on deck, at all events, until the lights of the maas had been left behind. major white procured two deck chairs, and found a corner of the upper deck which was free alike from too much wind and too many people. there they sat in the shadow of a boat, and joan seemed fully occupied with her own thoughts, for she did not speak while the steamer ploughed steadily onwards through the smooth water.
“i wonder if it is my duty to continue to take an active part in the malgamite fund,” she said at length.
and the major, who had been permitted to smoke, looked attentively at the lighted end of his cigar, and said nothing.
“i am afraid it must be,” continued joan, whose earnest endeavours to find out what was her duty, and do it, occupied the larger part of her time and attention.
“why?” asked major white.
“because i don't want to.”
the major thought about the matter for a long time—almost half through a cigar. it was wonderful how so much thought could result in so few words, especially in these days, which are essentially days of many words and few thoughts. during this period of meditation, joan sat looking out to sea, and the moon shining down upon her face showed it to be puckered with anxiety. like many of her contemporaries, she was troubled by an intense desire to do her duty, coupled with an unfortunate lack of duties to perform.
“i wish you would tell me what you think,” she said.
“seems to me,” said white, “that your duty is clear enough.”
“yes?”
“yes. drop the malgamiters and the haberdashers and all that, and—marry me.”
but joan only shook her head sadly. “that cannot be my duty,” she said.
“why? 'cos it isn't unpleasant enough?”
“no,” answered joan, after a pause, in the deepest earnestness—“no—that's just it.”
out of which ambiguous observation the major seemed to gather some meaning, for he looked up at the moon with one of his most vacant smiles.
