The Price of Things Part 15

"I heard by chance that you were in town. I suppose your regiment will be going out at once. It is your cousin, John Ardayre, speaking, we have not met since you were a boy. I have something rather vital I want to say to you. Could you possibly come round?"

The two voices were so alike in tone it was quite remarkable, each was aware of it as he listened to the other.

"Where are you, and what is the time?".

"I am in our house in Brook Street, number 102, and it is nearly seven.

Could you manage to come now?"

There was a second or two's pause, then Denzil said:

"All right. I will get into a taxi and be with you in about five minutes," and he put the receiver down.

John Ardayre grew paler still, and sank into a chair. His hands were trembling, this sign of weakness angered him and he got up and rang the bell and ordered his valet who had come up with him, to bring him some brandy.

Murcheson was an old and valued servant, and he looked at his master with concern, but he knew him too to make any remark. If there was any one in the world beyond the great surgeon, Lemon Bridges, who could understand the preoccupations of John Ardayre, Murcheson was the man.

He brought the old Cognac immediately and retired from the room a moment or two before Denzil arrived. Very little trace of emotion remained upon the face of the head of the family when his cousin was shown in, and he came forward cordially to meet him. Standing opposite one another, they might have been brothers, not cousins, the resemblance was so strong! Denzil was perhaps fairer, but their heads were both small and their limbs had the same long lines. But where as John Ardayre suggested undemonstrative stolidity, every atom of the younger man was vitally alive.

His eyes were bluer, his hair more bronze, and exuberant perfect health glowed in his tanned fresh skin.

Both their voices were peculiarly deep, with the p.r.o.nunciation of the words especially refined. John Ardayre said some civil things with composure, and Denzil replied in kind, explaining how he had been most anxious to meet John and Amaryllis and heal the breach the fathers had made.

John offered him a cigar, and finally the atmosphere seemed to be unfrozen as they smoked. But in Denzil's mind there was speculation. It was not for just this that he had been asked to come round.

John began to speak presently with a note of deep seriousness in his voice. He talked of the war and of his Yeomanry's going out, and of Denzil's regiment also. It was quite on the cards that they might both be killed--then he spoke of Ferdinand, and the old story of the shame, and he told Denzil of his boyhood and its great trials, and of his determination to redeem the family home and of the great luck which had befallen him in the city after the South African War--and how that the thought of worthily handing on the inheritance in the direct male line had become the dominating desire of his life.

At first his manner had been very restrained, but gradually the intense feeling which was vibrating in him made itself known, and Denzil grew to realise how profound was his love for Ardayre and how great his family pride.

But underneath all this some absolute agony must be wringing his soul.

Denzil became increasingly interested.

At last John seemed to have come to a very difficult part of his narration; he got up from his chair and walked rapidly up and down the room, then forced himself to sit down again and resume his original calm.

"I am going to trust you, Denzil, with something which matters far more than my life." John looked Denzil straight in the eyes. "And I will confide in you because you are next in the direct line. Listen very carefully, please, it concerns your honour in the family as well as mine.

It would be too infamous to let Ardayre go to the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Ferdinand, the snake-charmer's son, if, as is quite possible, I shall be killed in the coming time."

Denzil felt some strange excitement permeating him. What did these words portend? Beads of perspiration appeared on John's forehead, and his voice sunk so low that his cousin bent forward to be certain of hearing him.

Then John spoke in broken sentences, for the first time in his life letting another share the thoughts which tortured him, but the time was not for reticence. Denzil must understand everything so that he would consent to a certain plan. At length, all that was in John's heart had been made plain, and exhausted with the effort of his innermost being's unburdenment, he sank back in his chair, deadly pale. The quiet, waiting att.i.tude in Denzil had given way to keenness, and more than once as he listened to the moving narration he had emitted words of sympathy and concern, but when the actual plan which John had evolved was unfolded to him, and the part he was to play explained, he rose from his chair and stood leaning on the high mantelpiece, an expression of excitement and illumination on his strong, good-looking face.

"Do not say anything for a little," John said. "Think over everything quietly. I am not asking you to do anything dishonourable--and however much I had hated his mother I would not ask this of you if Ferdinand were my father's son. You are the next real heir--Ferdinand could not be; my father had never met the woman until a month before he married her, and the baby arrived five months afterwards, at its full time. There was no question of incubators or difficulties and special precautions to rear him, nor was there any suggestion that he was a seven months' child. It was only after years that I found out when my father first saw the woman, but even before this proof there were many and convincing evidences that Ferdinand was no Ardayre."

"One has only to look at the beast!" cried Denzil. "If the mother was a Bulgarian, he's a mongrel Turk, there is not a trace of English blood in his body!"

"Then surely you agree with me that it would be an infamy if he should take the place of the head of the family, should I not survive?"

Denzil clenched his hands.

"There is no moral question attached, remember," John went on anxiously before he could reply. "There is only the question of the law, which has been tricked and defamed by my father, for the meanest ends of revenge towards me--and now we--you and I--have the right to save the family and its honour and circ.u.mvent the perfidy and weakness of that one man.

Oh!--can't you understand what this means to me, since for this trust of Ardayre that I feel I must faithfully carry on, I am willing to--Oh!--my G.o.d, I can't say it. Denzil, answer me--tell me that you look at it in the same way as I do! You are of the family. It is your blood which Ferdinand would depose--the disgrace would be yours then, since if Ferdinand reigned I would have gone."

The two men were standing opposite one another, and both their faces were pale and stern, but Denzil's blue eyes were blazing with some wonderful new emotion, as they looked at John.

"Very well," he said, and held out his hand. "I appreciate the tremendous faith you have placed in me, and on my word of honour as an Ardayre, I will not abuse it, nor take advantage of it afterwards. My regiment will go out at once, I suppose, the chances are as likely that I shall be killed as you--"

They shook hands silently.

"We must lose no time."

Then John poured out two gla.s.ses of brandy, and the toast they drank was unspoken. But suddenly Denzil remembered as a strange coincidence that he was drinking it for the third time.

Amaryllis arrived from Ardayre the next afternoon, after John's medical board had been squared into p.r.o.nouncing him fit for active service--and he met his wife at the station and was particularly solicitous of her well-being. He seemed to be unusually glad to see her, and put his arm round her in the motor driving to Brook Street. What would she like to do? They could not, of course, go to the theatre, but if she would rather they could go out to a restaurant to dine--there were going to be all kinds of difficulties about food. Amaryllis, who responded immediately to the smallest advance on his part, glowed now with fond sweetness. She had been so miserable without him; so crushed and upset by the thought of war, and his possible partic.i.p.ation in it. All the long night, alone at Ardayre, she had tried to realise what it all would mean. It was too stupendous, she could not grasp it as yet, it was just a blank horror.

And now to be in the motor and close to him, and everything ordinary and as usual seemed to drive the hideous fact further and further away. She would not face it for to-night, she would try to be happy and banish the remembrance. No one knew what was happening, nor if the Expeditionary Force had or had not crossed to France. John asked her again what she would like to do.

She did not want to go out at all, she told him; if the kitchenmaid and Murcheson could find them something to eat she would much rather dine alone with him, like a regular old Darby and Joan pair--and afterwards she would play nice things to him, and John agreed.

When she came down ready for dinner, she was radiant; she had put on a new and ravishing tea-gown and her grey eyes were shining with a winsome challenge, and her beautiful skin was brilliant with health and freshness. A man could not have desired a more delectable creature to call his own.

John thought so and at dinner expanded and told her so. He was not a practised lover; women had played a very small part in his life--always too filled with work and the one dominating idea to make room for them.

He had none of the tender graciousness ready at his command which Denzil would very well have known how to show. But he loved Amaryllis, and this was the first time he had permitted the expression of his emotion to appear.

She became ever more fascinating, and at length unconscious pa.s.sion grew in her glance. John said some rather clumsy but loving things, and when they went back to the library he slipped his arm round her, and drew her to his side.

"I love to be near you, John," she whispered; "I like your being so tall and so distinguished-looking. I like your clothes--they are so well made--" and then she wrinkled her pretty nose--"and I adore the smell of the stuff you put on your hair! Oh! I don't know--I just want to be in your arms!"

John kissed her. "I must give you a bottle of that lotion--it is supposed to do wonders for the hair. It was originally made by an old housekeeper of my mother's family in the still room, and I have always kept the receipt--there are cloves in it and some other aromatic herbs."

"Yes, that is what I smell, like a clove carnation--it is divine. I wonder why scents have such an effect upon one--don't you? Perhaps I am a very sensuous creature--they can make me feel wicked or good--some scents make me deliciously intoxicated--that one of yours does--when I get near you--I want you to hold me and kiss me--John."

Every fibre of John Ardayre's being quivered with pain. The cruel, ironical bitterness of things.

"I've never smelt this same scent on any one else," she went on, rubbing her soft cheek up and down against his shoulder in the most alluring way.

"I should know it anywhere for it means just my dear--John!"

He turned away on the pretence of getting a cigarette; he knew that his eyes had filled with tears.

Then Murcheson came into the room with the coffee, and this made a break--and he immediately asked her to play to him, and settled himself in one of the big chairs. He was too much on the rack to continue any more love-making then; "what might have been" caused too poignant anguish.

He watched her delicate profile outlined against the curtain of green silk. It was so pure and young--and her long throat was white as milk. If this time next year she should have a child--a son--and he, not killed, but sitting there perhaps watching her holding it. How would he feel then? Would the certainty of having an Ardayre carry on heal the wild rebellion in his soul?

"Ah, G.o.d!" he prayed, "take away all feeling--reward this sacrifice--let the family go on."

"You don't think you will have really to go to the war, do you, John?"

Amaryllis asked after she left the piano. "It will be all over, won't it, before the New Year, and in any case the Yeomanry are only for home defence, aren't they?" and she took a low seat and rested her head against his arm.