CHAPTER IX.
A KNOT SUMMARILY SEVERED.
Rufus Black’s heart grew heavier still, and his sense of dread deepened, as he steamed down to Canterbury in the express train. He had a seat by a window in a second-class compartment in which were four other passengers, but he was as much alone as if he had had the compartment to himself. His travelling companions chatted and laughed and jested among themselves, while he looked from his window upon hop-gardens, green fields, and clustering hamlets, with sad, unseeing eyes, and thought of his poverty, his friendlessness, and the slow starvation that lay before him and his young wife.
“I could bear it for myself,” he thought bitterly. “But it is hard to see Lally suffer, and I know she does suffer, although she seems so light-hearted and brave. My poor little wife! Ah, what place have I in the world of gay idlers and strong workers? I am neither the one nor the other. What is to be the end of it all?”
He looked enviously at the workers in a brick-yard the train was passing at that moment. There were men there, coarse and ignorant, but brawny of limb and broad of chest; and there were children too, boys and girls of tender years, working steadily for scanty pay; but they were all workers, and they looked stolidly contented with their lot.
“With all my university education,” thought the boy artist bitterly, “I am less capable of self-support than those ignorant brick-makers. Why did my father bring me up with expensive tastes and like the heir of fine estates, only to cast me off to starve at the first moment I displeased him? What is the empty name of gentleman worth, if one cannot keep it and be a worker? If he had put me to some trade, I should not have been half so miserable to-day. I am only twenty years old, and my life is a failure at the outset.”
The train swept on through new scenes, and the course of the young man’s musings was changed, but their bitterness remained in full strength.
“I wonder what my father can want of me,” he said to himself presently. “How can he put me in the way of a fortune? He promised that I should study law, but he has forgotten the promise. With a profession to depend upon, I know I could win a competence. Perhaps it is to speak of this he has sent for me this morning. He surely cannot mean for me,” and the young man’s brow darkened, “to become a gambler, as he has been? I shall refuse, if he proposes it. For my innocent Lally’s sake, I will keep myself pure of his vices.”
This resolution was strong within him when he alighted from the train at Canterbury and took a hansom cab to Wyndham village. The drive of several miles was occupied with speculations as to what his father wanted of him, and with thoughts of his young wife in her dingy lodgings at New Brompton, and he did not even notice the houses, farms and villas they passed, nor any feature of the scenery, until the horse slackened his speed to a walk, and the driver opened his small trap in the roof, and said:
“The house yonder on the ridge, sir, is Hawkhurst, the seat of the Wynde family. Sir Harold Wynde died in India a year ago, you know, sir, and the property belongs to his only child, a daughter. A mile or so beyond is Wyndham village.”
Rufus Black turned his gaze upon the fair domain of the Wyndes. It lay on both sides of the highway, stretching as far as his eye could reach. The grand old mansion of gray stone, with outlying houses of glass glittering in the summer sunshine like immense jewels, the great lawns, the gardens, the park, the cool woods, all these made up one of the fairest pictures the eyes of Rufus Black had ever rested upon.
“How glorious!” he said involuntarily. “And it all belongs to a lady!”
“Yes, sir, a mere girl,” replied the cabman. “She is at school in France. It’s a great place, is Hawkhurst.”
He dropped the trap and urged on his horse, but Rufus continued to look upon the house and estate with great, envious eyes. Why should all this belong to one, and that one a mere girl, while he wanted for bread? His soul was convulsed with bitterness and repining, and the shadow of his trouble rested upon his face.
A few minutes of brisk driving brought them to Wyndham village, which consisted merely of one long straggling street, lined with houses and gardens. In the very centre of the street, upon four corners formed by the intersection of a country road, was gathered the business portion of the hamlet. Upon the corner was the village smithy, from whose open door came the ringing sound of hammer upon anvil. A group of countrymen were gathered about the door of the smithy, and a few carts stood before it on the paved street. Upon a second corner was a general shop and postoffice in one. Upon a third corner was a rival establishment, of the same description, but without the advantage and prestige of the postoffice, and on the fourth corner stood the Wyndham Inn, with its swinging sign, ample court-yard and hospitable look.
It was an old stone building, with a wide portico in front, on which were tables and chairs. Rufus Black was driven into the court, and sprang out of the cab, at the same moment that the portly, rubicund landlord came out to receive him. The young man inquired for his father, and was informed that he was in his rooms at the inn. Rufus paid and dismissed the cabman, and followed the landlord into the inn.
He was conducted up a flight of uncarpeted stairs, and the landlord pointed out to him the door of a front chamber as the one at which he was to knock. Rufus quietly lifted the latch and ushered himself into the room, closing the door behind him.
The room was a pleasant little country parlor, with three casement windows, a faded carpet on the floor, cane-seated furniture, and a jug of flowers on the mantel-shelf. The sunlight streamed in, but its heat was tempered by the delicious breeze. The Honorable Craven Black was not in the room, but there were vestiges of his occupancy on every side. Upon a small table stood his massive dressing case with mirror and brushes mounted in exquisitely carved ivory, and with boxes and bottle-stoppers of finely chased and solid gold. All the appointments of the large case were luxurious in the extreme, and Rufus thought bitterly that the sum which that Sybaritic affair had cost would be a fortune to him in his own present destitution.
A beautiful inlaid writing case, a tobacco jar of the finest Sevres porcelain, a Turkish pipe mounted in gold and amber, a liqueur case, and various other costly trifles, were scattered lavishly about. The Honorable Craven Black had never denied himself a luxury in his life, and these things he carried with him wherever he went, as necessary to his comfort and happiness.
Rufus Black’s lips curled as he looked on these luxuries and mentally calculated their cost. He was in the midst of his calculation when the door of the adjoining bedroom was opened from within, and his father came out, habited in slippers and dressing-gown, and with an Indian embroidered cap of scarlet and gold poised lightly on his fair head.
His light eyes opened a little wider than usual as he beheld his son, and his usual cynical smile showed itself disagreeably around his white teeth.
“So you’ve come at last, have you?” he exclaimed. “I expected you yesterday.”
“I received your letter this morning, soon after breakfast, sir,” answered Rufus, “and I came on at once in the express train. I have changed my lodgings from the one you knew, and the letter was sent on from my old to my new address.”
Mr. Black eyed his son critically, his cynical smile deepening.
“You have a general out-at-the-elbows look,” he observed. “You’ve gone down hill since I threw you over. You look hungry and desperate!”
“I am both,” was the reply, in a reckless tone. “And I have reason to be. I am starving!”
Mr. Black flung himself into the only easy chair the room afforded, and made a gesture to his son to be seated upon the couch. Rufus obeyed.
“You are in the mood I hoped to find you,” declared the father, with a disagreeable laugh. “Desperate—starving! That is better than I expected. What has become of all your fine anticipations of wealth and fortune achieved with your brush? You do not find it easy to paint famous pictures?”
“I mistook my desires for ability,” cried Rufus, his eyes darkening with the pain of his confession. “I have a liking for painting, and I fancied that liking was genius. I find myself crippled by not knowing how to do anything well. My pictures bring me in fifteen shillings apiece, and cost me three days’ work. I could earn more at brick-making—if I only knew how to make bricks. When you sent me to the university, father, you said I should study a profession. I demand of you the fulfilment of that promise. I want some way to earn my living!”
“Better get a living without work,” said Mr. Black coolly. “I don’t like work, and I don’t believe you do. You want to study law, but your talents are not transcendent, my son—you will never sit upon the woolsack.”
“If I can earn two hundred pounds a year, I will ask nothing more,” said Rufus bitterly. “I have discovered for myself that my abilities are mediocre. I shall never be great as anything—unless as a failure! But if I can only glide along in the great stream of mediocre people, and be nothing above or below them, I shall be content!”
“And you say this at twenty years old?” cried his father mockingly. “You talk like one of double your years. Where have your hopefulness, your bright dreams, your glowing anticipations, gone? You must have had a hard experience in the last three months, to be willing to settle down into a hard-working drudge!”
“My experience has been hard.”
“I believe you. You look beaten out, worn out, discouraged. Now, Rufus, I have sent for you that I may make your fortune as well as mine. There is a grand prospect opening before you, and you can be one of the richest men in England, if you choose to be sensible. But you must obey my orders.”
“I cannot promise that before knowing what you demand,” said the son, his face clouding. “I have no sympathy with your manner of life, father. If you had not the advantage of titled connections, and did not bear the title of ‘Honorable,’ you would be called an adventurer. You know you would. I want nothing to do with your ways of life. I will not be a gambler—not for all the wealth in England!”
“Don’t refuse till you are asked,” said Mr. Black harshly. “Don’t imagine that I want to corrupt your fine principles by making a gambler of you. I am no gamester, even though I play at cards. I play only as gentlemen play. The game I have in hand for you is easily played, if you have but ordinary skill. I can make you master of one of the finest estates in England, if you but say the word!”
“Honorably? Can you do it honorably?” cried Rufus eagerly.
“Certainly. I would not propose anything dishonorable to one of your nice sense of honor,” said Mr. Black, with sarcastic emphasis.
“What is it you would have me do?”
“You are young, enthusiastic, well looking and well educated,” said Mr. Black, without paying heed to his son’s questions. “In short, you are fitted to the business I have in hand. I intended to give you a professional education, but if you obey me you won’t want it, and if you do not obey me you may go to the dogs. I suppose your poverty has driven that little low-born music teacher out of your head?”
“What has she to do with this business?”
“Nothing whatever. I want to make sure that you are well rid of her, but perhaps it would be as well to leave her name out of the question. You say you are starving. Now, if you will solemnly promise to obey me, I will advance you fifty pounds to-day, with which you can fit up your wardrobe and gratify any luxurious desires you may have.”
Rufus Black’s eyes sparkled.
“Speak,” he said impatiently. “I am desperately poor. I would do almost anything for fifty pounds. What do you want done?”
Again Craven Black laughed softly, well pleased with his son’s mood.
“Did you see Hawkhurst as you came?” he asked, with seeming irrelevancy. “It’s one of the grandest places in Kent.”
“I saw it. The driver pointed it out to me.”
“How did it look to you?”
“Like heaven.”
“How would you like to be master of that heaven?”
Rufus stared at his father with wide, incredulous eyes.
“You are chaffing me,” said the young man, his countenance falling.
“I am in serious earnest. The owner of Hawkhurst is a young girl, who is expected home from school to-day. She has lived the life of a nun in her French school, and does not know one young man from another. She will be beset with suitors immediately, and the one who comes first stands the best chance of winning her. I want you to make love to her and marry her.”
Rufus Black’s face paled. The suggestion nearly overcame him. The project looked stupendous, chimerical.
“I wondered that you should be down here at Wyndham, father,” he said, “and I suppose you are here because you had formed some design upon this young heiress. Do you know her?”
“No, but I know her step-mother, who is her personal guardian,” explained Craven Black. “Do you remember the handsome widow, Mrs. Hathaway, whom you saw once at the theatre in my charge? She married Sir Harold Wynde. He died in India last year, leaving her well-jointured. I came down to see her the other day, and it seems she remembers me with her old affection. In short, Rufus, I am engaged to marry Lady Wynde, and the wedding is to take place in October. She is her step-daughter’s guardian, as I said, and will have unbounded influence to back up your suit. The field is clear before you. Go in and win!”
Rufus grew yet paler, and his voice was hoarse as he asked:
“And this is your scheme for making me rich?”
“It is. The girl has a clear income of seventy thousand pounds a year. As her husband, you will be a man of consequence. She owns a house in town, a hunting box in the Scottish Highlands, and other houses in England. You will have horses and hounds; a yacht, if you wish it, at your marine villa, and a bottomless purse. You can paint wretched pictures, and hear the fashionable world praise them as divine. You can become a member of Parliament. All careers are open to the fortunate suitor of Neva Wynde.”
The picture was dazzling enough to the half-starved and desperate boy. He liked all these things his father enumerated—the houses, the horses, the luxuries, the money, and the luxurious ease and the honors. He had found it hard to work, and harder to dispose of his work. All the bitterness and hardness of his lot arose before him in black contrast with the brightness and beauty that would mark the destiny of the favored lover of young Neva Wynde.
He arose and walked the floor with an impetuous tread, an expression of keen anguish and keener longing in his eyes. His father watched him with a furtive gaze, as a cat watches a mouse. It was necessary to his plans that his son should marry Neva Wynde, and he was sanguine that he would be able to bring about the match.
“Well?” he said, tiring of the quick, impetuous walk of his son. “What do you say?”
“It is impossible!” returned Rufus abruptly. “Utterly impossible.”
“And why, if I may be allowed to ask?” inquired Mr. Black blandly, although a scowl began to gather on his fair forehead.
“Because—because—the young lady may have other designs for herself—I can’t marry her for her money—I can’t give up Lally!”
“The—the young person who taught music? I understood you to say that she was a corn-chandler’s daughter. And you prefer a low-born, low-bred creature to a wealthy young lady like Miss Wynde? For a young man educated as you have been, your good taste is remarkable. You have a predilection for high-class society, I must say. What is the charm of this not-to-be-given-up ‘Lally?’ Is she beautiful?”
“She is beautiful to me.”
“Which means that she is beautiful to no one else. The beauty which requires love’s spectacles to distinguish, is ugliness to every one but the lover. Low-born and low-bred,” repeated Mr. Black, dwelling upon the words as if they pleased him, “with a pack of poor and ignorant relations tacked to her skirts, ugly by your own confession, what a brilliant match she would be for the son of the Honorable Craven Black!”
“She has no poor relations,” said Rufus hotly. “She has no relations except a great-aunt, whose name she does not know, and who very likely does not dream of her existence. It is true that Lally’s father was a corn-chandler, but he was an honest one, and more than that, he was an intelligent, upright gentlemen. You arch your brows, as if a man could not be a tradesman and a gentleman. If the word gentleman has any meaning, he was a gentleman.”
“I do not care to discuss the subtle meaning of words; I am willing to accept them at the valuation society puts upon them. The pedigree of ‘Lally’ is of no interest to me. I merely want to know if you mean to marry Neva Wynde and be rich, or marry your ‘Lally’ and starve. And if you are willing to starve yourself, are you willing to have ‘Lally’ starve also? With your fine ideas of honor, I wonder you can wish to drag that girl into a marriage that will be to her but a slow death.”
A groan burst from the youth’s lips. He wrung his hands weakly, while the secret of his marriage trembled on his tongue. But he dared not tell it. He was afraid of his father with a deadly fear, and more than that, he had yet some hope of receiving assistance from his parent.
“I cannot give her up, father,” he said hoarsely. “I beg you to help me in some way, and let me go. You are not rich, I know, but you have influence. You could get me a situation under government, in the Home office, Somerset House, or as secretary to some nobleman. If you will do this for me, I will bless you while I live. Oh, father, be merciful to me. Give me a little help, and let me go my ways.”
“By Heaven, I will not. If you cling to that girl, you shall have not one penny from me, not one word of recommendation. You can drift to the hospital, or the alms-house, and I will not raise a finger to help you! I will not even give one farthing to save you from a pauper’s burial. I swear it!”
Craven Black uttered the oath in a tone of utter implacability, and Rufus knew that the heavens would sooner fall than his father would relent. A despair seized upon him, and again he wrung his hands, as he cried out recklessly:
“I must cling to her, father. Cast me off if you will, curse me as you choose—but Lally is my wife!”
Craven Black was stupefied for the moment. An apoplectic redness suffused his face, and his eyes gleamed dangerously.
“Your wife? Your wife?” he muttered, scarcely knowing that he spoke.
“Yes, she is my wife,” declared Rufus, his voice gathering firmness. “I married her three months ago. We have been starving together in a garret at New Brompton. Oh, father—”
“Not one word! Married to that girl? I will not believe it. Have you a marriage certificate?”
“I have. Here it is,” and Rufus drew from his pocket-book a slender folded paper. “Read it, and you will see that I tell the truth. Lally Bird is my wife!”
Craven Black took the paper and perused it with strange deliberation, the apoplectic redness still suffusing his face. When he had finished, he deliberately tore the marriage certificate into shreds. Rufus uttered a cry, and sprang forward to seize the precious document, but his father waved him back with a gesture of stern command.
“Poor fool!” said the elder man. “The destruction of this paper would not affect the validity of your marriage, if it were valid. But it is not valid.”
“Not valid.”
“No; you and the girl are both minors. A marriage of minors without consent of parents and guardians is not binding. The girl is not your wife!”
“But she is my wife. We were married in church—”
“That won’t make the marriage binding. You are a minor, and so is she. She had no one to consult, but you married without my consent, and that fact will render the marriage null and void. More than this,” and Mr. Black’s eyes sparkled wickedly, “you have committed perjury. You obtained your marriage license by declaring yourself of age, and you will not become of age under some months. Do you know what the punishment is for perjury. It is imprisonment, disgrace, a striped suit, and prison fare.”
The young man looked appalled.
“Who would prosecute me?” he asked.
“I would. You have got yourself in a tight box, young man. Your marriage is null and void, and you have committed perjury. Now I will offer you your choice between two alternatives. You can make love to Miss Wynde and marry her, and be somebody. Or, if you refuse, I will prosecute you for perjury, will have you sent to prison, and will brand that girl with a name that will fix her social station for life. Take your choice.”
Craven Black meant every word he said, and Rufus knew that he meant it. The young fellow shuddered and trembled, and then broke into a wild appeal for mercy, but his father turned a deaf ear to his anguished cry.
“You have my decision,” he said coldly. “I shall not reconsider it. The girl is not your wife, and when she knows her position she will fly from you.”
Rufus groaned in his anguish. He knew well the pure soul of his young wife, and he felt that she would not remain in any position that was equivocal, even though to leave him might break her heart. The disgrace, the terror, the poverty of his lot, nearly crushed him to the earth.
“What is your answer to be?” demanded Mr. Black.
The poor young fellow sat down and covered his face with his hands. He was terribly frightened, and the inherent weakness and cowardice of his character, otherwise full of noble traits, proved fatal to him now. He gasped out:
“I—I don’t know. I must have time to think. It is all so strange—so terrible.”
“You can have all day in which to consider the matter. I have engaged a bedroom for you on the opposite side of the hall. I will show you to it, and you can think the matter over in solitude.”
Mr. Black arose and conducted his son across the hall to a bedroom overlooking the street and the four corners, and here, with a last repetition of the two alternatives offered him, he left him.
Poor Rufus, weak and despairing, locked the door and dropped upon his knees, sobbing aloud in the extremity of his anguish.
“What shall I do? What can I do?” he moaned. “She is not my wife. My poor Lally! And I am helpless in my father’s hands. I shall have to yield—I feel it—I know it. I wish I were dead. Oh, my poor wronged Lally!”