the earl set the candle on the mantelshelf, and its feeble rays dimly revealed the massive handsome chamber, the rows of books on carved shelves, the dark pictures, the heavy furniture.
marius fingered his cravat, and was silent; he felt constrained and ill at ease—troubled, not so much by the threatened revelation of misfortune as by the presence of his magnificent brother, who was a more splendid gentleman than any he had seen.
“i wished to tell you first and alone,” said rose lyndwood, “for i dare swear my lady will make a scene.”
he leant against the wall by the fireplace, the candle-light full over him. his light brown hair was unpowdered and tied with a turquoise ribbon in his neck; he wore no jewels; the silk flowers, pink and red, on his waistcoat sparkled with threads of gold. his complexion was naturally pale; at the corner of his full lower lip a patch of black velvet cunningly cut into the shape of a bat showed in contrast with it. his delicate fair brows were slightly frowning, and his languid lids almost concealed his eyes. he did not seem to see marius, shyly observing him.
“i have been looking into my affairs,” he said. this remark meant nothing to marius, and his brother saw it. “it’s a damned unpleasant thing to say,” he added, with a half-insolent smile, “but—it’s ruin.”
marius stared.
“what do you mean?” he cried.
rose lyndwood opened his eyes wide now and gave his brother a full glance.
“i mean i am as far in debt as i can go—that my credit is no longer good for—anything. that lyndwood must go to pay its mortgage, that is what i mean.”
“i don’t understand,” answered marius stupidly.
“have you never heard of a man being ruined before?” asked the earl. “gad, it is not so rare!”
“but in such a fashion—so suddenly.”
rose lyndwood shrugged his shoulders.
“not so suddenly, only we ignored everything until now. the crash—who cared as long as the money came from somewhere? neither i nor you, nor my lady.”
marius took a step towards his brother.
“and my fortune?” he said.
lord lyndwood gave him a kindly glance.
“for that i am sorry,” he answered, “and blame myself that ye have ever been led to believe there was anything solely yours, for now that i can no longer pay your allowance ye stand there as poor as i.”
marius sat down by the desk against the wall.
“nothing?” he muttered. “nothing at all?” and his lips trembled.
“when they have sold me up,” replied my lord slowly, “here and in london, i do not see that there will be a groat between us.”
“i cannot credit it!” muttered marius.
“believe me, you may. i have told you the truth in the fewest words.”
marius took his head in his hands, resting his elbows on the desk.
“and i am a pauper!” he said—“a pauper!”
lord lyndwood crossed and stood beside him.
“what can i say, marius? when my lord died he left all in confusion, and in confusion all has remained. while the money sufficed we shared it. i could never have done differently to what i did, not being by nature thrifty.”
marius was silent.
“my lady has a few hundreds of her own,” continued the earl. “susannah’s money, too, is safe, of course”—he glanced at his brother, whose face was concealed from him—“but as for us——”
marius looked up now. his cheeks were red, his eyes suffused.
“well, what for us?” he asked hoarsely.
lord lyndwood answered the abrupt question with another.
“do you blame me, marius?”
the younger man rose.
“blame you—yes, i do blame you!” he cried. “you had no right, by god, you had no right!”
“so this is how you take it,” remarked the earl quietly. “well, it will help neither of us.”
he crossed to the fireplace, and his brother’s fierce eyes followed him.
“you take it very easily, my lord, but i cannot be so patient. you have told me that i am penniless—penniless!”
lord lyndwood looked at him steadily.
“yes,” he said.
“then,” answered marius, very pale, “i tell you that you have behaved bitterly to me, and that i can never forgive you!”
the earl fingered the silver braid on his sleeve.
“why, you are very fierce,” he said.
his languid manner maddened marius.
“reflect on what you have done, my lord. you have brought me up as a gentleman to think nothing of money—to imagine it was there for me when i was a man. i have seen it spent on all sides, and now you dare face me with this tale of ruin.”
“by gad, it is not very pleasant for me,” answered the earl.
“you!” cried marius, goaded. “a spendthrift, a prodigal! oh, i have heard of your reputation! if you chose to squander a fortune on your pleasures you had no right, i say, no right to involve me in paying the price.”
he sank into the chair beside the desk again. he was trembling from head to foot, clutching and unclutching his hands in the fine lace at his cuffs.
the earl looked at him with narrowed eyes.
“have you done?” he demanded.
“what is the use of speech?” cried marius bitterly.
rose lyndwood faintly smiled.
“railing easeth rage,” he said. “hear me a little longer, and i have done. there is the entailed property in genoa; i will make that over to you——”
“nay,” interrupted marius hotly, “that is poor charity, my lord. i will not be exiled in a dead city.”
the earl slightly flushed.
“i could get you a captaincy in the guards.”
“to starve on my pay!”
“beyond that i can do nothing.”
marius pressed his hand to his forehead.
“you have wronged me bitterly,” he said in a rough voice.
the earl set his beautiful mouth sternly.
“these reproaches,” he said, “do nought but display your ill-manners!”
marius gave an ugly laugh.
“i am not a town rake, so i pray you excuse my behaviour. i have not yet learnt to disguise my vices and my passions.”
“enough of that!” said lord lyndwood shortly.
“oh, i have heard things of you!” cried marius, with gleaming eyes. “this fortune was not lost soberly.”
“ye speak like a boy,” said rose lyndwood, “and there is no answer to what you say. what i have done, i have done, and to no one, marius, will i justify myself.”
“there is no justification of what you have done,” answered his brother, gazing at him. “a pauper, a beggar! i think i hate you, my lord!”
the earl moved slightly towards him.
“as you will,” he said quickly; “but remember ye held no bond of mine for the fortune you imagined. all you had i gave you.”
marius rose; his face was pale and passionate. since they had entered the room his expression had changed utterly.
“so ye would remind me that i have been living on your charity!” he cried. “that ye have educated me——”
lord lyndwood interrupted.
“i had not thought you would take it so hardly, marius. i did the only thing there was to do—what my father would have desired me to do. while the money was there we spent it.” he looked into his brother’s angry eyes and his face hardened. “i can say no more.”
marius struck his hand on the lace at his breast.
“there will be much more to be said, much more,” he answered. “you have spoilt my life for me”—he suddenly laughed—“and i suppose i take it damned ungracefully. good night, my lord.”
he went out of the room and closed the heavy door after him with a force that caused the candle flame to flicker and the window to shake.
rose lyndwood looked in front of him with an aimless gaze into the shadows; his drooping lids and his pallor gave him an expression of weariness.
the carved clock in the corner struck ten; as the last note quivered to stillness, my lady entered the library.
“oh, rose, rose!” she said before she had closed the door. “marius tells me, in one sentence, this—that we are ruined!”
“yes,” answered the earl.
lady lyndwood dropped into the chair marius had pulled out of place and clasped her shaking hands on the desk.
“marius also?” she whispered.
“yes,” said my lord again. “he blames me——”
“do you wonder?” cried the countess bitterly. “do you wonder, rose?”
“it seems you too find me at fault,” he answered. the candle-light only faintly revealed her, sitting by the massive desk, but fell bright over his tall restrained presence, over his grave tired face.
“what did you expect of me?” asked lady lyndwood; then added, with a kind of feeble energy, “rose, it cannot happen—it must not, however entangled you are. it must not come to—to that—to selling the place.”
“not selling it,” he corrected.
“i don’t understand any of it,” she answered, “but it is impossible for us to leave lyndwood.”
“it is impossible for us to keep it. believe me, my lady, i have considered it all. if i had seen any means to help myself i should not be here to-night.”
“but marius!” cried the countess miserably. “marius to come home to this—marius penniless!”
the earl’s lids flickered a little.
“there are chances for marius.”
the countess rose with a movement of impatience.
“it is bitterly unfair on him. he has been brought up to wealth; he was as ignorant as i that the money you squandered was all we had.”
rose lyndwood flushed.
“we have all been thriftless and careless, my lady,” he said. “i the most of any, and if i could have done anything to avert this——”
“oh, you talk!” she interrupted with a quivering voice. “and that is easy; but you have no right to stand there and tell me you are ruined. how is it with others? you had as fair chances as any.”
“by gad—no!” said the earl softly. “i had no chance to do anything—but what i did.”
my lady’s anger could find no direct expression; she wavered from one charge to another.
“you could have married,” she cried. “most gentlemen strengthen their fortunes by a wealthy match. but you—who received your attentions? i forbear to name them! and now it is too late.”
“too late for a fine match—yes,” said rose lyndwood. “i have not time to hunt an heiress before the bailiffs are in, and——”
“you would not if you could,” interrupted the countess.
“i would rather sell the estates than myself, madam.”
“your bearing is out of joint with your fortune,” she returned. “ye speak proudly. it had been a finer pride that had prevented ye coming to tell your mother ye had disgraced your name thus!”
the earl looked away from her into the shadows at the far end of the room.
“prudence was not in my inheritance,” he said slowly. “if you take it as a disgrace that my fortune was not equal to my position—” he broke off. “in any case, my lady, ’tis tedious and painful to discuss the matter.”
“you have no thought for me!” the countess flung reproaches at him. “oh, none at all! nor what this means to me, or to marius! did you ever consider us when you wasted your father’s heritage?”
“my father?” repeated the earl. “i have lived as he lived, only ’tis my misfortune to have faced the consequences.”
lady lyndwood very tightly clutched the back of the chair; the wavering candle-light sought out her face and showed it wild and sad beneath the loose blonde hair.
rose lyndwood suddenly turned his beautiful head and looked at her.
“have you nothing but bitterness for me, my lady?” he asked.
“i think of marius,” she answered.
the earl’s face hardened again.
“marius has the world before him.”
“you have broken his heart—you! and to-night he came back to me so joyously! listen! he met a lady abroad; he hoped to marry her.”
“at one-and-twenty?” rose lyndwood half smiled. “how many marry their first loves, my lady?”
the countess sank into the chair.
“i did,” she murmured in an uncontrolled voice, “and i had nothing but happiness.” and she began weeping for the twelve years dead.
“marius was my lord’s heir with you,” said the earl, “and i have brought you nothing but misfortune. do not shed tears, my lady, and shame me, for maybe i can still sell myself to buy marius his romance.”
the countess struggled with sick sobs; half under her breath she murmured incoherent railings and feeble complaints. the earl became paler as he listened to her.
the candle was burning to the socket; the moonlight lay on the floor between them, in a shifting, widening patch.
“i am returning to london to-night,” said rose lyndwood at last.
my lady got to her feet and supported herself against the side of the desk, holding her handkerchief to her eyes.
“go when you will,” she answered; “nay, go soon, for i have no desire to see you in the house—let me be alone with marius.” a sudden gleam of anger shone through her weak tears. “nay, i doubt not you have companions in london in whose society ye can soon forget my unhappiness.”
he made no answer, nor did he move, and without a look between them the countess left the room.
as the door closed after her the candle guttered and went out in the gust of air.
for a moment or two the earl walked up and down in the dark, crossing and recrossing the patch of moonlight.
then he returned to the withdrawing-room.
it was empty, the window still stood open on to the terrace, and the air was full of the pungent smell of the flowers without.
rose lyndwood seated himself at the table where miss chressham had written, earlier that evening, the letter whose fragments were now being swirled down the stream into the open country.
he picked up a pen and slowly mended it, pulled out a sheet of susannah’s gilt-edged paper, and paused.
what had happened since he had left london that morning—his meeting with his cousin, the fierce disappointment and anger of marius, the foolish, bitter reproaches of the countess—had hardly touched his real feelings, and, personally, moved him not at all.
he had endured these scenes, disdainful of them; he knew that neither his mother nor marius had ever attempted to avert the ruin that so overwhelmed them, and that they knew nothing of his real position.
to both he was a stranger in all things save blood, and now as he sat alone, his thoughts were where they had been on the ride from london, with the people and things of his own world, though through all was the stinging recollection of his brother’s sneers and his mother’s tears.
presently he began to write, slowly but without hesitation.
“madam,—you will remember that i acquainted you with the fact that my affairs approached a crisis, and that i considered accepting the appointment at venice as a retreat from a life my fortunes would no longer support. you know what other hope i dared to cherish—believe that i have ever held dear the assurances you once gave me, and that in writing this i taste fully the bitterness of poverty.
“i cannot go to venice, since both my lady and marius, my brother, find me at fault in this entanglement of my fortunes, and ’tis but decent that i should strive to repair losses that affect them, since they demand it of me.
“more ’tis difficult to say on paper, yet i have no fear that you will not understand since we never found it hard to comprehend one another. when last you wrote you said that you were being pressed in the matter of your betrothal to your cousin francis—he is one to whom i should have given my esteem in other circumstances, and one whom, even as it is, i cannot hate, though his fortune is more brilliant than mine——”
the earl broke off and stared out at the night with darkening eyes, then he signed his name and the date.
without reading the letter through he folded and addressed it to:
miss selina boyle,
bristol.
as he finished he looked round, for he heard the door softly open.
“susannah,” he said. his intonation held welcome; he half smiled.
miss chressham crossed the room; within a little distance of her cousin’s chair she paused; he was again gazing out at the night, and she saw only his back, the blue ribbon at his neck, and the long smooth curls that hung beneath it.
“what have they said to you?” she asked.
“that which i might have expected.”
he fingered his letter, still with his face from her; she came round his chair, her scarlet dress rippled out of the shadows with colour.
“of course they cannot forgive,” she said intensely.
now he looked round at her suddenly, and his expression startled even her strained anticipation.
“what are they doing?” he demanded.
“my lady is weeping—and marius—raving like the boy he is.”
the earl leant back.
“they blame me, susannah—curse me, i think, make me the thief of their happiness, and—” he checked himself. “i am to blame, but i will repay.”
“how?” she asked, and her voice was almost frightened.
again he gave her his stormy grey eyes.
“marius is in love,” he smiled, not softly. “principally my lady thinks of that—spendthrift, you, she says, ruining this romance—well, marius must not be a pauper either for this love or the next, and so——”
“and so—what?” breathed miss chressham.
“i must mend my fortunes even as i ruined them—i must resort to an expedient not pleasant—but i keep you standing”—he rose, his glance sought the clock—“and it is late.”
“i know what you mean to do,” said miss chressham. “and if i had been one with any claim on you”—she checked herself for fear of the extravagant—“i cannot understand how they can force you,” she finished.
“they do not think of me,” answered lord lyndwood. “my lady considers marius, and marius himself—i have done nothing that they should think of me.”
“but you take the obligation of their future upon you,” cried susannah chressham.
he answered her in the spirit of the words he had written to miss boyle.
“i am the elder—it is but decent; and, after all,” he turned to her with a touch of his usual lightness, “’tis the fashion to marry for money.”
that glimpse of his old self unnerved her utterly.
“oh, rose,” she protested in trembling accents, “think what you are doing—why should you sell yourself because of marius?”
the earl was silent; miss chressham looked at him a little space, then moved towards the window.
“but as you say,” she said in another and heavier tone, “everyone does it, and perhaps you do not care.”
as she finished her glance fell on the letter lying on the little desk between them, and she saw the name on it.
“ah!” she added swiftly. “do you care?”
he answered the eager look in her hazel eyes.
“enough not to wish to speak of it,” he said quietly. “enough to ask you to forget that i have said even that——”
“this for marius!” she cried, hardly knowing what she did or what words she spoke.
“nay, for myself,” he answered recklessly, “that i may not hear their reproaches all my days—it had to be-by gad, we cannot hope to end our lives in fairy tales.”
he picked up the letter and put it in his pocket.
“tell my lady to rest tranquil and marius that he shall not starve—and for yourself—thank you, my sweet cousin.”
she turned her head away.
“you will stay here to-night?”
“no, i do not need to sleep to-night.”
“you have been riding all day—you cannot go back—like this.”
she made an effort to look at him now; he was taking his hat and gloves from the chair where he had thrown them on his entry.
“i shall walk to brenton and get a horse there; i must be in london as soon as may be.”
he put on his cloak over his bright shining dress and fastened the heavy clasps.
“you will leave them, like this?” asked miss chressham.
“there is no more to say,” he answered.
“you will think hardly of them,” said susannah; her voice, her eyes, her pose expressed intense excitement.
rose lyndwood smiled.
“nay, i am the culprit;” he hesitated a moment, then his voice fell beautifully soft, “do not you think hardly of me?”
“i!” she smiled bravely; “i—i understand.”
“i will write soon, to you and to my lady.”
he moved towards the window, and the sweet breeze stirred the loose hair on his forehead.
miss chressham followed him.
“we shall see you again?” she bit her lip, and the colour rose under her eyes.
“ah, soon.” he took her hand and kissed it; she saw the white corner of the letter addressed to miss boyle showing from the glimmering brocade of his waistcoat, and her mouth tightened.
“my duty to my lady,” said the earl; “and—you will know what to tell them—good-night.”
his tone, his smile were endearments; to her alone that evening had he shown anything of his usual manner; this his thanks for her patient sympathy.
“good-night,” she answered.
he stepped out on to the terrace; the moon was directly overhead and the trees mighty with black shadows; the white flowers looked as if carved out of silver, and the red tulips, half seen, seemed to pulse in the obscurity of the shade cast by the gleaming balustrade.
rose lyndwood looked up at the house; in his mother’s room burnt a pale light; he glanced down again at miss chressham standing before the ruddy candle glow of the chamber he had just left; bright colour showed in her scarlet dress, in her heated cheeks and brilliant eyes; she had one hand on her bosom, and her slack fingers were soft and fair.
“good-night,” he said again, and turned away towards the shallow steps.
miss chressham watched him go; the stillness was, to her, rent with voices—marius speaking in the hot bitterness of youth, lady lyndwood weeping complaining words, the soft tones of selina boyle and the sad laugh of rose lyndwood.
“rose lyndwood.” she repeated the name to herself, then closed the window and drew the heavy curtain across the prospect of the stars.
