Anthony Pennell had promised to let Margaret Pullen hear the result of his visit to the Red House, and as he entered her presence on the following evening, she saluted him with the queries,
“Well! have you been there? Have you seen her?”
To which he answered soberly,
“Yes! I have been there and I have seen her!”
“And what do you think of her? What did she say? I hope she was not rude to you!”
“My dear Mrs. Pullen,” said Pennell, as he seated himself, and prepared for a long talk, “you must let me say in the first place, that I should never have recognised Miss Brandt from your description of her! You led me to expect a gauche schoolgirl, a half-tamed savage, or a juvenile virago. And I am bound to say that she struck me as belonging to none of the species. I sent your note of introduction to Madame Gobelli, and received a very polite invitation in return, in accordance with which I dined at the Red House yesterday.”
“You dined there!” exclaimed Margaret with renewed interest. “Oh! do tell me all about it, from the very beginning. What do you think of that dreadful woman, the Baroness, and her little humpty Baron, and did you tell Miss Brandt of Ralph’s impending marriage?”
“My dear lady, one question at a time, if you please. In the first place I arrived there rather sooner than I was expected, and Madame Gobelli had not returned from her afternoon drive, but Miss Harriet Brandt did the honours of the tea-table in a very efficient manner, and with as much composure and dignity as if she had been a duchess. We had a very pleasant time together until the Baroness burst in upon us!”
“Are you chaffing me?” asked Margaret, incredulously. “What do you really think of her?”
“I think she is, without exception, the most perfectly beautiful woman I have ever seen!”
“What!” exclaimed his companion.
She had thrown herself back in her armchair, and was regarding him as if he were perpetrating some mysterious joke, which she did not understand.
“How extraordinary; how very extraordinary!” she exclaimed at length, “that is the very thing that Ralph said of her when they first met.”
“But why extraordinary? There are few men who would not endorse the opinion. Miss Brandt possesses the kind of beauty that appeals to the senses of animal creatures like ourselves. She has a far more dangerous quality than that of mere regularity of feature. She attracts without knowing it. She is a mass of magnetism.”
“O! do go on, Mr. Pennell! Tell me how she received the news you went to break to her!”
“I never broke it at all. There was no need to do so. Miss Brandt alluded to the magnificent Captain Pullen’s marriage with the greatest nonchalance. She evidently estimates him at his true value, and does not consider him worth troubling her head about!”
“You astonish me! But how are we to account then for the attitude she assumed towards Miss Leyton, and the boast she made of Ralph’s attentions to her?”
“Bravado, most likely! Miss Leyton goes to the Red House all aflame, like an angry turkey cock, and accuses Miss Brandt of having robbed her of her lover, and what would you have the girl do? Not cry Peccavi, surely, and lower her womanhood? She had but one course—to brave it out. Besides, you have heard only one side of the question, remember! I can imagine Miss Leyton being very ‘nasty’ if she liked!”
“You forget the letters which Miss Brandt wrote to Ralph and which were found in his empty grate at Richmond!”
“I do not! I remember them as only another proof of how unworthy he is of the confidence of any woman.”
“Really, Mr. Pennell, you seem to be all on Miss Brandt’s side!”
“I am, and for this reason. If your ideas concerning her are correct, she displayed a large amount of fortitude whilst speaking of your brother-in-law yesterday. But my own belief is, that you are mistaken—that Miss Brandt is too clever for Ralph, or any of you—and that she cares no more for him in that way than you do. She considers doubtless that he has behaved in a most ungentlemanly manner towards them all, and so do I. I did not know what excuse to make for Ralph! I was ashamed to own him as a relation.”
“Harriet Brandt did then confide her supposed wrongs to you!”
“Not at all! When she mentioned Ralph’s name, it was like that of any other acquaintance. But when she was out of the room, the Baroness told me that he had behaved like a scoundrel to the girl—that he had never confided the fact of his engagement to her, but run after her on every occasion, and then after having promised to join their party in Brussels, and asked Madame Gobelli to engage his room for him, he left for England without even sending her a line of apology, nor has he taken the least notice of them since!”
“Ah! but you know the reason of his sudden departure!” cried Margaret, her soft eyes welling over with tears.
“My dear Mrs. Pullen,” said Anthony Pennell, sympathetically, “even at that sad moment, Ralph might have sent a telegram, or scratched a line of apology. We have to attend to such little courtesies, you know, even if our hearts are breaking! And how can you excuse his not having called on them, or written since? No wonder the Baroness is angry. She did not restrain her tongue in speaking of him yesterday. She said she never wished to see his face again.”
“Does she know that Elinor went to the Red House?”
“I think not! There was no mention of her name!”
“Then I suppose we may at all events consider the affair une chose finie?”
“I hope so, sincerely! I should not advise Master Ralph to show his face at the Red House again. The Baroness said she longed to lay her stick across his back, and I believe she is quite capable of doing so!”
“Oh! indeed she is,” replied Margaret, smiling, “we heard a great many stories of her valour in that respect from Madame Lamont, the landlady of the Lion d’Or. Has Miss Brandt taken up her residence altogether with Madame Gobelli?”
“I think not! She told me her life there was very dull, and she should like to change it.”
“She is in a most unfortunate position for a young girl,” remarked Margaret, “left parentless, with money at her command, and in a strange country! And with the strange stigma attached to her birth—”
“I don’t believe in stigmas being attached to one’s birth,” returned Pennell hastily, “the only stigmas worth thinking about, are those we bring upon ourselves by our misconduct—such a one, for instance, as my cousin Ralph has done with regard to Miss Brandt! I would rather be in her shoes than his. Ralph thinks, perhaps, that being a stranger and friendless she is fair game—”
“Who is that, taking my name in vain?” interrupted a languid voice at the open door, as Captain Pullen advanced into the room.
Margaret Pullen started and grew very red at being detected in discussing her brother-in-law’s actions, but Anthony Pennell, who was always ruffled by his cousin’s affected walk and drawl, blurted the truth right out.
“I was,” he replied, hardly touching the hand which Captain Pullen extended to him, “I was just telling Mrs. Pullen of the high estimation in which your name is held at the Red House!”
It was now Ralph’s turn to grow red. His fair face flushed from chin to brow, as he repeated,
“The Red House! what Red House?”
“Did they not mention the name to you? I mean the residence of Madame Gobelli. I was dining there yesterday.”
“Dining there, were you? By Jove! I didn’t know you were acquainted with the woman. Isn’t she a queer old party? Baroness Boots, eh? Fancy your knowing them! I thought you were a cut above that, Anthony!”
“If the Gobellis were good enough for you to be intimate with in Heyst, I suppose they are good enough for me to dine with in London, Ralph! I did not know until last evening, however, that you had left them to pay for your rooms in Brussels, or I would have taken the money over with me to defray the debt.”
Ralph had seated himself by this time, but he looked very uneasy and as if he wished he had not come.
“Did the old girl engage rooms for me?” he stammered. “Well! you know the reason I could not go to Brussels, but of course if I had known that she had gone to any expense for me, I would have repaid her. Did she tell you of it herself?” he added, rather anxiously.
“Yes! and a good many more things besides. As you have happened to come in whilst we are on the question, I had better make a clean breast of it. Perhaps you have heard that Miss Leyton has been to the Red House and had an interview with Miss Brandt!”
“Yes! I’ve just come from Richmond, where we’ve had a jolly row over it,” grumbled Ralph, pulling his moustaches.
“Your family all felt that sort of thing could not go on—that it must end one way or the other—and therefore I went to the Red House, ostensibly to view Madame Gobelli’s collection of china, but in reality to ascertain what view of the matter she and Miss Brandt took—and to undeceive them as to your being in a position to pursue your intimacy with the young lady any further.”
“And what the devil business have you to meddle in my private affairs?” demanded Captain Pullen rousing himself.
“Because, unfortunately, your mother happened to be my father’s sister,” replied Pennell sternly, “and the scrapes you get in harm me more than they do yourself! One officer more or less, who gets into a scrape with women, goes pretty well unnoticed, but I have attained a position in which I cannot afford to have my relations’ names bandied about as having behaved in a manner unbecoming gentlemen.”
“Who dares to say that of me?” cried Ralph angrily.
“Everybody who knows of the attention you paid Miss Brandt in Heyst,” replied Anthony Pennell, boldly, “and without telling her that you were already engaged to be married. I do not wonder at Miss Leyton being angry about it! I only wonder she consents to have any more to do with you in the circumstances.”
“O! we’ve settled all that!” said Ralph, testily, “we had the whole matter out at Richmond this afternoon, and I’ve promised to be a good boy for the future, and never speak to a pretty woman again! You need not wonder any more about Elinor! She is only glad enough to get me back at any price!”
“Yes? And what about Miss Brandt?” enquired Pennell.
“Is she worrying about this affair?” asked Captain Pullen, quickly.
“Not a bit! I think she estimates your attentions at their true value. I was alluding to the opinion she and her friends must have formed of your character as an officer and a gentleman.”
“O! I’ll soon set all that right! I’ll run over to the Red House and see the old girl, if you two will promise not to tell Elinor!”
“I should not advise you to do that! I am afraid you might get a warm reception. I think Madame Gobelli is quite capable of having you soused in the horse-pond. You would think the same if you had heard the names she called you yesterday.”
“What did she call me?”
“Everything she could think of. She considers you have behaved not only in a most ungentlemanly manner towards her, but in a most dishonourable one to Miss Brandt. She particularly told me to tell you that she never wished to see your face again.”
“Damn her!” exclaimed Captain Pullen, wrathfully, “and all her boots and shoes into the bargain. A vulgar, coarse old tradesman’s wife! How dare she——”
“Stop a minute, Ralph! The Baroness’s status in society makes no difference in this matter. You know perfectly well that you did wrong. Let us have no more discussion of the subject.”
Captain Pullen leaned back sulkily in his chair.
“Well! if I did flirt a little bit more than was prudent with an uncommonly distracting little girl,” he muttered presently, “I am sure I have had to pay for it! Lord Walthamstowe insists that if I do not marry Elinor before the Rangers start for Malta the engagement shall be broken off, so I suppose I must do it! But it is a doosid nuisance to be tied up at five-and-twenty, before one has half seen life! What the dickens I am to do with her when I’ve got her, I’m sure I don’t know!”
“O! you will find married life very charming when you’re used to it!” said Pennell consolingly, “and Miss Leyton is everything a fellow could wish for in a wife! Only you must give up flirting, my boy, or if I mistake not, you’ll find you’ve caught a tartar!”
“I expect to have to give up everything,” said the other with a sour mouth.
As soon as he perceived a favourable opportunity, Anthony Pennell rose to take his leave. He did not wish to quarrel with Ralph Pullen about a girl whom he had only seen once, at the same time he feared for his own self-control, if his cousin continued to mention the matter in so nonchalant a manner. Pennell had always despised Captain Pullen for his easy conceit with regard to women, and it seemed to him to have grown more detestably contemptible than before. He was anxious therefore to quit the scene of action. But, to his annoyance, when he bade Margaret good-evening, Ralph also rose and expressed his wish to walk with him in the direction of his chambers.
“I suppose you couldn’t put me up for the night, old chappie!” he said with his most languid air.
“Decidedly not!” replied Pennell. “I have only my own bedroom, and I’ve no intention of your sharing it. Why do you not go back to Richmond, or put up at an hotel?”
“Doosid inhospitable!” remarked Captain Pullen, with a faded smile.
“Sorry you think so, but a man cannot give what he does not possess. You had better stay and keep your sister-in-law company for a little while. I have work to do and am going straight home!”
“All right! I’ll walk with you a little way,” persisted Ralph, and the two young men left the house together.
As soon as they found themselves in the street, Captain Pullen attacked his cousin, eagerly.
“I say, Pennell, what is the exact direction of the Red House?”
“Why do you want to know?” enquired his companion.
“Because I feel that I owe the Baroness a visit. I acknowledge that I was wrong not to write and make my apologies, but you must know what it is—with a deuce of a lot of women to look after, and the whole gang crying their eyes out, and everything thrown on my shoulders, coffin, funeral, taking them over from Heyst to England, and all—it was enough to drive everything else out of a man’s head. You must acknowledge that.”
“You owe no excuses to me, Pullen, neither do I quite believe in them. You have had plenty of time since to remedy your negligence, even if you did forget to be courteous at the moment!”
“I know that, and you’re quite right about the other thing. I had more reasons than one for letting the matter drop. You are a man and I can tell you with impunity what would set the women tearing my eyes out. I did flirt a bit with Harriet Brandt, perhaps more than was quite prudent in the circumstances—”
“You mean the circumstance of your engagement to Miss Leyton?”
“Yes and No! If I had been free, it would have been all the same—perhaps worse, for I should not have had a loophole of escape. For you see Miss Brandt is not the sort of girl that any man could marry.”
“Why not?” demanded Pennell with some asperity.
“Oh! because—well! you should hear old Phillips talk of her and her parents. They were the most awful people, and she has black blood in her, her mother was a half-caste, so you see it would be impossible for any man in my position to think of marrying her! One might get a piebald son and heir! Ha! ha! ha! But putting all that aside, she is one of the demndest fascinating little women I ever came across—you would say so too, if you had seen as much of her as I did—I can’t tell you what it is exactly, but she has a drawing way about her, that pulls a fellow into the net before he knows what he is about. And her voice, by Jove!—have you heard her sing?”
“I have, but that has nothing to do that I can see with the subject under discussion. You, an engaged man, who had no more right to philander with a girl, than if you had been married, appear to me to have followed this young lady about and paid her attentions, which were, to say the least of them, compromising, never announcing the fact, meanwhile, that you were bound to Miss Leyton. After which, you left her, without a word of explanation, to think what she chose of your conduct. And now you wish to see her again, in order to apologise. Am I right?”
“Pretty well, only you make such a serious matter out of a little fun!”
“Well, then, I repeat that if you are wise, you will save yourself the trouble, Ralph! Miss Brandt is happily too sensible to have been taken in by your pretence of making love to her. She estimates you at your true value. She knows that you are engaged to Elinor Leyton—that you were engaged all the time she knew you—and, I think, she rather pities Miss Leyton for being engaged to you!”
But this point of view had never presented itself before to the inflated vanity of Ralph Pullen.
“Pities her!” he exclaimed, “the devil!”
“I daresay it seems incomprehensible to you that any woman should not be thankful to accept at your hands the crumbs that may fall from another’s table, but with regard to Miss Brandt, I assure you it is true! And even were it otherwise, I am certain Madame Gobelli would not admit you to her house. You know the sort of person she is! She can be very violent if she chooses, and the names she called you yesterday, were not pretty ones. I had much trouble, as your relative, to stand by and listen to them quietly. Yet I could not say that they were undeserved!”
“O well! I daresay!” returned Ralph, impatiently. “Let us allow, for the sake of argument, that you are right, and that I behaved like a brute! The matter lies only between Hally Brandt and myself. The old woman has nothing to do with it! She never met the girl till she went to Heyst. What I want to do is to see Hally again and make my peace with her! You know how easily women are won over. A pretty present—a few kisses and excuses,—a few tears—and the thing is done. I shouldn’t like to leave England without making my peace with the little girl. Couldn’t you get her to come to your chambers, and let me meet her there? Then the Baroness need know nothing about it!”
“I thought you told us just now, that you had had a reconciliation with Miss Leyton on condition that you were to be a good boy for the future. Does that not include a surreptitious meeting with Miss Brandt?”
“I suppose it does, but we have to make all sorts of promises where women are concerned. A nice kind of life a man would lead, if he consented to be tied to his wife’s apron-strings, and never go anywhere, nor see anyone, of whom she did not approve. I swore to everything she and old Walthamstowe asked me, just for peace’s sake,—but if they imagine I’m going to be hampered like that, they must be greater fools than I take them for!”
“You must do as you think right, Pullen, but I am not going to help you to break your word!”
“Tell me where the Red House is! Tell me whereabouts Hally takes her daily walks!” urged Captain Pullen.
“I shall tell you nothing—you must find out for yourself!”
“Well! you are damned particular!” exclaimed his cousin, “one would think this little half-caste was a princess of the Blood Royal. What is she, when all’s said and done? The daughter of a mulatto and a man who made himself so detested that he was murdered by his own servants—the bastard of a——”
“Stop!” cried Pennell, so vehemently that the passers-by turned their heads to look at him, “I don’t believe it, and if it is true, I do not wish to hear it! Miss Brandt may be all that you say—I am not in a position to contradict your assertions—but to me she represents only a friendless and unprotected woman, who has a right to our sympathy and respect.”
“A friendless woman!” sneered Captain Pullen, “yes! and a doosid good-looking one into the bargain, eh, my dear fellow, and much of your sympathy and respect she would command if she were ugly and humpbacked. O! I know you, Pennell! It’s no use your coming the benevolent Samaritan over me! You have an eye for a jimper waist and a trim ancle as well as most men. But I fancy your interest is rather thrown away in this quarter. Miss Brandt has a thorny path before her. She is a young lady who will have her own way, and with the glorious example of the Baroness the way is not likely to be too carefully chosen. To tell the truth, old boy, I ran away because I was afraid of falling into the trap. The girl wishes intensely to be married, and she is not a girl whom men will marry, and so—we need go no further. Only, I should not be surprised if, notwithstanding her fortune and her beauty, we should find Miss Harriet Brandt figuring before long, amongst the free lances of London.”
“And you would have done your best to send her there!” replied Anthony Pennell indignantly, as he stopped on the doorstep of his Piccadilly chambers. “But I am glad to say that your folly has been frustrated this time, and Miss Brandt sees you as you are! Good-night!” and without further discussion, he turned on his heel and walked upstairs.
“By Jove!” thought Ralph, as he too went on his way, “I believe old Anthony is smitten with the girl himself, though he has only seen her once! That was the most remarkable thing about her—the ease with which she seemed to attract, looking so innocent all the while, and the deadly strength with which she resisted one’s efforts to get free again. Perhaps it is as well after all that I should not meet her. I don’t believe I could trust myself, only speaking of her seems to have revived the old sensation of being drawn against my will—hypnotised, I suppose the scientists would call it—to be near her, to touch her, to embrace her, until all power of resistance is gone. But I do hope old Anthony is not going to be hypnotised. He’s too good for that.”
Meanwhile Pennell, having reached his rooms, lighted the gas, threw himself into an armchair, and rested his head upon his hands.
“Poor little girl!” he murmured to himself. “Poor little girl!”
Anthony Pennell was a Socialist in the best and truest sense of the world. He loved his fellow creatures, both high and low, better than he loved himself. He wanted all to share alike—to be equally happy, equally comfortable—to help and be helped, to rest and depend upon one another. He knew that the dream was only a dream—that it would never be fulfilled in his time, nor any other; that some men would be rich and some poor as long as the world lasts, and that what one man can do to alleviate the misery and privation and suffering with which we are surrounded, is very little. What little Pennell could do, however, to prove that his theories were not mere talk, he did. He made a large income by his popular writings and the greater part of it went to relieve the want of his humbler friends, not through governors and secretaries and the heads of charitable Societies, but from his own hand to theirs. But his Socialism went further and higher than this. Money was not the only thing which his fellow creatures required—they wanted love, sympathy, kindness, and consideration—and these he gave also, wherever he found that there was need. He set his face pertinaciously against all scandal and back-biting, and waged a perpetual warfare against the tyranny of men over women; the ill-treatment of children; and the barbarities practised upon dumb animals and all living things. He was a liberal-minded man, with a heart large enough and tender enough to belong to a woman—with a horror of cruelty and a great compassion for everything that was incapable of defending itself. He was always writing in defence of the People, calling the attention of those in authority to their misfortunes; their evil chances; their lack of opportunity; and their patience under tribulation. For this purpose and in order to know them thoroughly, he had gone and lived amongst them; shared their filthy dens in Whitechapel, partaken of their unappetising food in Stratford; and watched them at their labour in Homerton. His figure and his kindly face were well-known in some of the worst and most degraded parts of London, and he could pass anywhere, without fear of a hand being lifted up against him, or an oath called after him in salutation. Anthony Pennell was, in fact, a general lover—a lover of Mankind.
And that is why he leant his head upon his hand as he ejaculated with reference to Harriet Brandt, “Poor little girl.”
It seemed so terrible in his eyes that just because she was friendless, and an orphan, just because her parents had been, perhaps, unworthy, just because she had a dark stream mingling with her blood, just because she needed the more sympathy and kindness, the more protection and courtesy, she should be considered fit prey for the sensualist—a fit subject to wipe men’s feet upon!
What difference did it make to Harriet Brandt herself, that she was marked with an hereditary taint? Did it render her less beautiful, less attractive, less graceful and accomplished? Were the sins of the fathers ever to be visited upon the children?—was no sympathetic fellow-creature to be found to say, “If it is so, let us forget it! It is not your fault nor mine! Our duty is to make each other’s lives as happy as possible and trust the rest to God.”
He hoped as he sat there, that before long, Harriet Brandt would find a friend for life, who would never remind her of anything outside her own loveliness and loveable qualities.
Presently he rose, with a sigh, and going to his bookcase drew thence an uncut copy of his last work, “God and the People.” It had been a tremendous success, having already reached the tenth edition. It dealt largely, as its title indicated, with his favourite theory, but it was light and amusing also, full of strong nervous language, and bristling every here and there, with wit—not strained epigrams, such as no Society conversationalists ever tossed backward and forward to each other—but honest, mirth-provoking humour, arising from the humorous side of Pennell’s own character, which ever had a good-humoured jest for the oddities and comicalities of everyday life.
He regarded the volume for a moment as though he were considering if it were an offering worthy of its destination, and then he took up a pen and transcribed upon the fly leaf the name of Harriet Brandt—only her name, nothing more.
“She seems intelligent,” he thought, “and she may like to read it. Who knows, if there is any fear of the sad destiny which Ralph prophesies for her, whether I may not be happy enough to turn her ideas into a worthier and more wholesome direction. With an independent fortune, how much good might she not accomplish, amongst those less happily situated than herself! But the other idea—No, I will not entertain it for a moment! She is too good, too pure, too beautiful, for so horrible a fate! Poor little girl! Poor, poor little girl!”