Our Friend the Charlatan Part 63

He looked into her eyes, and nodded.

"What do you say to a boat, Mrs. Woolstan?" shouted Barker the son.

This suggestion was acclaimed, and Lashmar was urged to join the party, but he gladly seized this chance of escape. Wandering along the gra.s.sy edge of the cliffs, he presently descried the Barkers and their friend putting forth in two little boats. The sight exasperated him. He strode gloomily on, ever and again turning his head to watch the boats, and struggling against the fears that once more a.s.sailed him.

In a hollow of dry sand, where the cliffs broke, he flung himself down, and lay still for an hour or two. Below him, on the edge of the tide, children were playing; he watched them sullenly. Lashmar disliked children; the sound of their voices was disagreeable to him. He wondered whether he would ever have children of his own, and heartily hoped not.

Six o'clock seemed very long in coming. But at length he found himself at Sunrise Terrace again, and was admitted to an ordinary lodging-house parlour, where, with tea on the table, Mrs. Woolstan awaited him. The sea air had evidently done her good; she looked younger and prettier than when Dyce last saw her, and the tea-gown she wore became her well.

"How did you know where I was?" she began by asking, rather distantly.

Lashmar told her in detail.

"But why were you so anxious to see me?--Sugar, I think?"

"It's a long story," he replied, looking t her from under his eyebrows, "and I don't much care or telling it in a place like' this, where all we say can be heard by anyone on the other side of the door."

Iris was watching his countenance. The cold politeness with which she had received him had become a very transparent mask; beneath it showed eager curiosity and trembling hope.

"We can go out, if you like," she said.

"And most likely meet those singular friends of yours. Who on earth are they?"

"Very nice people," replied Mrs. Woolstan, holding up her head.

"They are intolerably vulgar, and you must be aware of it. I felt ashamed to see you among them. What are you doing at a place like this?

Why have you shut up your house?"

"Really," exclaimed Iris, with a flutter, "that is my business."

Lashmar's nervous irritation was at once subdued. He looked timidly at the indignant face, let his eyes fall, and murmured an apology.

"I've been going through strange things, and I'm not quite master of myself. The night before last"--his voice sunk to a hollow note--"I very nearly took poison."

"What do you mean? Poison?"

Mrs. Woolstan's eyes widened in horror. Lashmar regarded her with a smile of intense melancholy.

"One thing only kept me from it. I remembered that I was in your debt, and I felt it would be too cowardly."

"What has happened?--Come and sit near the window; no one could hear us talking here. I have been expecting to read of your election. Is it something to do with Lady Ogram's death? I have wanted so much to know about that, and how it affected you."

A few questions gave Dyce the comfortable a.s.surance that Iris had not seen Mrs. Toplady for a long time. Trouble with servants, she said, coming after a slight illness, had decided her to quit her house for the rest of the summer, and the Barkers persuaded her to come to Gorleston. When Leonard left school for his holidays, she meant to go with him to some nice place.

"But do tell me what you mean by those dreadful words? And why have you come to see _me_?"

She was her old self, the Iris Woolstan on whom first of all Lashmar had tried his "method," who had so devoutly believed in him and given such substantial proof of her faith. The man felt his power, and began to recover self-respect.

"Tell me one thing," he said, bending towards her. "May I remain your debtor for a little longer? Will it put you to inconvenience?"

"Not at all!" was the impulsive reply. "I told you I didn't want the money. I have more than six hundred pounds a year, and never spend quite all of it."

Lashmar durst not raise his eyes lest a gleam of joy should betray him.

He knew now what he had so long desired to know. Six hundred a year; it was enough.

"You are very kind. That relieves me. For two or three days I have been in despair. Yes, you shall hear all about it. I owe you the whole truth, for no one ever understood me as you did, and no one ever gave me such help--of every kind. First of all, about my engagement to Miss Bride. It's at an end. But more than that it wasn't a real engagement at all. We tried to play a comedy, and the end has been tragic."

Iris drew a deep breath of wonder. Her little lips were parted, her little eyebrows made a high arch; she had the face of a child who listens to a strange and half terrifying story.

"Don't you see how it was?" he exclaimed, in a subdued voice of melodious sadness. "Lady Ogram discovered that her niece--you remember May Tomalin? thought rather too well of me. This did not suit her views; she had planned a marriage between May and Lord Dymchurch. You know what her temper was. One day she gave me the choice: either I married Constance Bride, or I never entered her house again. Imagine my position. Think of me, with my ambitions, my pride, and the debt I had incurred to you. Can you blame me much if, seeing that Lady Ogram's life might end any day, I met her tyranny by stratagem. How I longed to tell you the truth! But I felt bound in honour to silence. Constance Bride, my friend and never anything more, agreed to the pretence of an engagement. Wasn't it brave of her? And so things went on, until the day when Dymchurch came down to Rivenoak, and proposed to May. The silly girl refused him. There was a terrible scene, such as I hope never to behold again. May was driven forth from the house, and Lady Ogram, just as she was bidding me take steps for my immediate marriage, fell to the ground unconscious--dying."

He paused impressively. The listener was panting as if she had run a race.

"And the will?" she asked.

"It dates from a year ago. May Tomalin is not mentioned in it. I, of course, have nothing."

Iris gazed at the floor. A little sound as of consternation had pa.s.sed her lips, but she made no attempt to console the victim of destiny who sat with bowed head before her. After a brief silence, Lashmar told of the will as it concerned Constance Bride, insisting on the fact that she was a mere trustee of the wealth bequeathed to her. With a humorously doleful smile, he spoke of Lady Ogram's promise to defray his election expenses, and added that Miss Bride, in virtue of her trusteeship, would carry out this wish. Another exclamation sounded from the listener, this time one of joy.

"Well, that's something! I suppose the expenses are heavy, aren't they?"

"Oh, not very. But what's the use? Of course I withdraw."

He let his hand fall despondently. Again there was silence.

"And that is why you thought of taking poison?" asked Iris, with a quick glance at his lowering visage.

"Isn't it a good reason? All is over with me. If Lady Ogram had lived to make her new will, I should have been provided for. Now I am penniless and hopeless."

"But, if she had lived, you would have had to marry Miss Bride."

Dyce made a sorrowful gesture.

"No. She would never have consented, even if I could have brought myself to such a sacrifice. In any case, I was doomed."

"But--"

Iris paused, biting her lip.

"You were going to say?"

"Only--that I suppose you would have been willing to marry that girl, the niece."

"I will answer you frankly." He spoke in the softest tone and his look had a touching candour. "You, better than anyone, know the nature of my ambition. You know it is not merely personal. One doesn't like to talk grandiloquently, but, alone with you, there is no harm in saying that I have a message for our time. We have reached a point in social and political evolution where all the advance of modern life seems to be imperilled by the growing preponderance of the mult.i.tude. Our need is of men who are born to guide and rule, and I feel myself one of these.

But what can I do as long as I am penniless? And so I answer you frankly: yes, if May Tomalin had inherited Lady Ogram's wealth, I should have _felt it my duly_ to marry her."

Iris listened without a smile. Lashmar had never spoken with a more convincing show of earnestness.