Roden's Corner Part 37

"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 And he looked regretfully at the hand she had withdrawn.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 sc.r.a.ps 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 pa.s.sable 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 un.o.btrusively. Roden arrived to make inquiries, and Mrs. Vansittart, and a messenger from more than one emba.s.sy. 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 a.s.s 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 a.s.suredly 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 a.s.suaged 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 b.u.t.tered 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 appet.i.te 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 G.o.d!" 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 pa.s.sage 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.

CHAPTER XXIX.

A LESSON.

"Whom the G.o.ds mean to destroy, they blind."

Mrs. Vansittart had pa.s.sed the age of blind love. She had not the incentive of a healthy compet.i.tion. She had not that more dangerous incentive of middle-aged vanity, which draws the finger of derision so often in the direction of widows. And yet she took a certain pleasure in playing a half-careless and wholly cynical Juliet to Percy Roden's _gauche_ Romeo. She had no intention of marrying him, and yet she continued to encourage him even now that open war was declared between Cornish and the malgamite makers. Cornish had indeed thanked Mrs.

Vansittart for her a.s.sistance in the past in such a manner as to convey to her that she could hardly be of use to him in the future. He had magnified her good offices, and had warned her to beware of arousing Von Holzen's anger. Indeed, her use of Percy Roden was at an end, and yet she would not let him go. Cornish was puzzled, and so was Dorothy. Percy Roden was gratified, and read the riddle by the light of his own vanity. Mrs. Vansittart was not, perhaps, the first woman to puzzle her neighbours by refusing to relinquish that which she did not want. She was not the first, perhaps, to nurse a subtle desire to play some part in the world rather than be left idle in the wings. So she played the part that came first and easiest to her hand--a woman's natural part, of stirring up strife between men.

She was, therefore, gratified when Von Holzen made his way slowly towards her through the crowd on the Kursaal terrace one afternoon on the occasion of a Thursday concert. She was sitting alone in a far corner of the terrace, protected by a gla.s.s screen from the wind which ever blows at Scheveningen. She never mingled with the summer visitors at this popular Dutch resort--indeed, knew none of them. Von Holzen seemed to be similarly situated; but Mrs. Vansittart knew that he did not seek her out on that account. He was not a man to do anything--much less be sociable--out of idleness. He only dealt with his fellow-beings when he had a use for them.

She returned his grave bow with an almost imperceptible movement of the head, and for a moment they looked hard at each other.

"Madame still lingers at The Hague," he said.