The Sorrows of Satan Part 35

"Everything!--the dancers,--the number of servants and pages--why, there must have been two or three hundred of them,--those wonderful 'tableaux,'--the illuminations,--the supper,--everything I tell you!--and the most astonishing part of it now is, that all these people should have cleared out so soon!"

"Well, if you elect to call money devil's magic, you are right,"--said Lucio.

"But surely in some cases, not even money could procure such perfection of detail"----I began.

"Money can procure anything!"--he interrupted, a thrill of pa.s.sion vibrating in his rich voice,--"I told you that long ago. It is a hook for the devil himself. Not that the devil could be supposed to care about world's cash personally,--but he generally conceives a liking for the company of the man who possesses it;--possibly he knows what that man will do with it. I speak metaphorically of course,--but no metaphor can exaggerate the power of money. Trust no man or woman's virtue till you have tried to purchase it with a round sum in hard cash! Money, my excellent Geoffrey, has done everything for _you_,--remember that!--you have done nothing for yourself."

"That's not a very kind speech,"--I said, somewhat vexedly.

"No? And why? Because it's true? I notice most people complain of 'unkindness' when they are told a truth. It _is_ true, and I see no unkindness in it. You've done nothing for yourself and you're not expected to do anything--except," and he laughed--"except just now to get to bed, and dream of the enchanting Sibyl!"

"I confess I am tired,"--I said, and an unconscious sigh escaped me--"And you?"

His gaze rested broodingly on the outer landscape.

"I also am tired," he responded slowly--"But I never get away from my fatigue, for I am tired of myself. And I always rest badly. Good-night!"

"Good-night!" I answered,--and then paused, looking at him. He returned my look with interest.

"Well?" he asked expressively.

I forced a smile.

"Well!" I echoed--"I do not know what I should say,--except--that I wish I knew you as you are. I feel that you were right in telling me once that you are not what you seem."

He still kept his eyes fixed upon me.

"As you have expressed the wish,"--he said slowly--"I promise you you _shall_ know me as I am some-day! It may be well for you to know,--for the sake of others who may seek to cultivate my company."

I moved away to leave the room.

"Thanks for all the trouble you have taken to-day,"--I said in a lighter tone--"Though I shall never be able to express my full grat.i.tude in words."

"If you wanted to thank anybody, thank G.o.d that you have lived through it!" he replied.

"Why?" I asked, astonished.

"Why? Because life hangs on a thread,--a society crush is the very acme of boredom and exhaustion,--and that we escape with our lives from a general guzzle and giggle is matter for thanksgiving,--that's all! And G.o.d gets so few thanks as a rule that you may surely spare Him a brief one for to-day's satisfactory ending."

I laughed, seeing no meaning in his words beyond the usual satire he affected. I found Amiel, waiting for me in my bedroom, but I dismissed him abruptly, hating the look of his crafty and sullen face, and saying I needed no attendance. Thoroughly fatigued, I was soon in bed and asleep,--and the terrific agencies that had produced the splendours of the brilliant festival at which I had figured as host, were not revealed to me by so much as a warning dream!

XXV

A few days after the entertainment at Willowsmere, and before the society papers had done talking about the magnificence and luxury displayed on that occasion, I woke up one morning, like the great poet Byron, "to find myself famous." Not for any intellectual achievement,--not for any unexpected deed of heroism,--not for any resolved or n.o.ble att.i.tude in society or politics,--no!--I owed my fame merely to a quadruped;--'Phosphor' won the Derby. It was about a neck-and-neck contest between my racer and that of the Prime Minister, and for a second or so the result seemed doubtful,--but, as the two jockeys neared the goal, Amiel, whose thin wiry figure clad in the brightest of bright scarlet silk, stuck to his horse as though he were a part of it, put 'Phosphor' to a pace he had never yet exhibited, appearing to skim along the ground at literally flying speed, the upshot being that he scored a triumphant victory, reaching the winning-post a couple of yards or more ahead of his rival. Acclamations rent the air at the vigour displayed in the 'finish'--and I became the hero of the day,--the darling of the populace. I was somewhat amused at the Premier's discomfiture,--he took his beating rather badly. He did not know me, nor I him,--I was not of his politics, and I did not care a jot for his feelings one way or the other, but I was gratified, in a certain satirical sense, to find myself suddenly acknowledged as a greater man than he, because I was the owner of the Derby-winner! Before I well knew where I was, I found myself being presented to the Prince of Wales, who shook hands with me and congratulated me;--all the biggest aristocrats in England were willing and eager to be introduced to me;--and inwardly I laughed at this exhibition of taste and culture on the part of 'the gentlemen of England that live at home at ease.' They crowded round 'Phosphor,' whose wild eye warned strangers against taking liberties with him, but who seemed not a whit the worse for his exertions, and who apparently was quite ready to run the race over again with equal pleasure and success. Amiel's dark sly face and cruel ferret eyes were evidently not attractive to the majority of the gentlemen of the turf, though his answers to all the queries put to him, were admirably ready, respectful and not without wit. But to me the whole sum and substance of the occasion was the fact that I, Geoffrey Tempest, once struggling author, now millionaire, was simply by virtue of my ownership of the Derby-winner, 'famous' at last!--or what society considers famous,--that fame that secures for a man the attention of 'the n.o.bility and gentry,'

to quote from tradesmen's advertis.e.m.e.nts,--and also obtains the persistent adulation and shameless pursuit of all the _demi-mondaines_ who want jewels and horses and yachts presented to them in exchange for a few tainted kisses from their carmined lips. Under the shower of compliments I received, I stood, apparently delighted,--smiling, affable and courteous,--entering into the spirit of the occasion, and shaking hands with my Lord That, and Sir Something n.o.body, and His Serene Highness the Grand Duke So-and-So of Beer-Land, and His other Serene Lowness of Small-Princ.i.p.ality,--but in my secret soul I scorned these people with their social humbug and hypocrisy,--scorned them with such a deadly scorn as almost amazed myself. When presently I walked off the course with Lucio, who as usual seemed to know and to be friends with everybody, he spoke in accents that were far more grave and gentle than I had ever heard him use before.

"With all your egotism, Geoffrey, there is something forcible and n.o.ble in your nature,--something which rises up in bold revolt against falsehood and sham. Why, in Heaven's name do you not give it way?"

I looked at him amazed, and laughed.

"Give it way? What do you mean? Would you have me tell humbugs that I know them as such?,--and liars that I discern their lies? My dear fellow, society would become too hot to hold me!"

"It could not be hotter--or colder--than h.e.l.l, if you believed in h.e.l.l, which you do not,"--he rejoined, in the same quiet voice--"But I did not a.s.sume that you should say these things straight out and bluntly, to give offence. An affronting candour is not n.o.bleness,--it is merely coa.r.s.e. To act n.o.bly is better than to speak."

"And what would you have me do?" I asked curiously.

He was silent for a moment, and seemed to be earnestly, almost painfully considering,--then he answered,--

"My advice will seem to you singular, Geoffrey,--but if you want it, here it is. Give, as I said, the n.o.ble, and what the world would call the quixotic part of your nature full way,--do not sacrifice your higher sense of what is right and just for the sake of pandering to anyone's power or influence,--and--say farewell to _me_! I am no use to you, save to humour your varying fancies, and introduce you to those great,--or small,--personages you wish to know for your own convenience or advantage,--believe me, it would be much better for you and much more consoling at the inevitable hour of death, if you were to let all this false and frivolous nonsense go, and me with it! Leave society to its own fool's whirligig of distracted follies,--put Royalty in its true place, and show it that all its pomp, arrogance and glitter are worthless, and itself a nothing, compared to the upright standing of a brave soul in an honest man,--and, as Christ said to the rich ruler--'Sell half that thou hast and give to the poor.'"

I was silent for a minute or so out of sheer surprise, while he watched me earnestly, his face pale and expectant. A curious shock of something like compunction startled my conscience, and for a brief s.p.a.ce I was moved to a vague regret,--regret that with all the enormous capability I possessed of doing good to numbers of my fellow-creatures with the vast wealth I owned, I had not attained to any higher moral att.i.tude than that represented by the frivolous folk who make up what is called the 'Upper Ten' of society. I took the same egotistical pleasure in myself and my own doings as any of them,--and I was to the full as foolishly conventional, smooth-tongued and hypocritical as they. They acted their part and I acted mine,--none of us were ever our real selves for a moment. In very truth, one of the reasons why 'fashionable' men and women cannot bear to be alone is, that a solitude in which they are compelled to look face to face upon their secret selves becomes unbearable because of the burden they carry of concealed vice and accusing shame. My emotion soon pa.s.sed however, and slipping my arm through Lucio's, I smiled, as I answered--

"Your advice, my dear fellow, would do credit to a Salvationist preacher,--but it is quite valueless to me, because impossible to follow. To say farewell for ever to you, in the first place, would be to make myself guilty of the blackest ingrat.i.tude,--in the second instance, society, with all its ridiculous humbug, is nevertheless necessary for the amus.e.m.e.nt of myself and my future wife,--Royalty moreover, is accustomed to be flattered, and we shall not be hurt by joining in the general inane chorus;--thirdly, if I did as the visionary Jew suggested----"

"What visionary Jew?" he asked, his eyes sparkling coldly.

"Why, Christ of course!" I rejoined lightly.

The shadow of a strange smile parted his lips.

"It is the fashion to blaspheme!" he said,--"A mark of brilliancy in literature, and wit in society! I forgot! Pray go on,--if you did as Christ suggested----"

"Yes,--if I gave half my goods to the poor, I should not be thanked for it, or considered anything but a fool for my pains."

"You would wish to be thanked?" he said.

"Naturally! Most people like a little grat.i.tude in return for benefits."

"They do. And the Creator, who is always giving, is supposed to like grat.i.tude also,"--he observed--"Nevertheless He seldom gets it!"

"I do not talk of hyperphysical nothingness,"--I said with impatience--"I am speaking of the plain facts of this world and the people who live in it. If one gives largely, one expects to be acknowledged as generous,--but if I were to divide my fortune, and hand half of it to the poor, the matter would be chronicled in about six lines in one of the papers, and society would exclaim 'What a fool!'"

"Then let us talk no more about it,"--said Lucio, his brows clearing, and his eyes gathering again their wonted light of mockery and mirth--"Having won the Derby, you have really done all a nineteenth-century civilization expects you to do, and for your reward, you will be in universal demand everywhere. You may hope soon to dine at Marlborough House,--and a little back-stair influence and political jobbery will work you into the Cabinet if you care for it. Did I not tell you I would set you up as successfully as the bear who has reached the bun on the top of the slippery pole, a spectacle for the envy of men and the wonder of angels? Well, there you are!--triumphant!--a great creature Geoffrey!--in fact, you are the greatest product of the age, a man with five millions and owner of the Derby-winner! What is the glory of intellect compared to such a position as yours! Men envy you,--and as for angels,--if there are any,--you may be sure they _do_ wonder! A man's fame guaranteed by a horse, is something indeed to make an angel stare!"

He laughed uproariously, and from that day he never spoke again of his singular proposition that I should 'part with him,' and let the "n.o.bler"

nature in me have its way. I was not to know then that he had staked a chance upon my soul and lost it,--and that from henceforward he took a determined course with me, implacably on to the appalling end.

My marriage took place on the appointed day in June with all the pomp and extravagant show befitting my position, and that of the woman I had chosen to wed. It is needless to describe the gorgeousness of the ceremony in detail,--any fashionable 'ladies paper' describing the wedding of an Earl's daughter to a five-fold millionaire, will give an idea, in hysterical rhapsody, of the general effect. It was an amazing scene,--and one in which costly millinery completely vanquished all considerations of solemnity or sacredness in the supposed 'divine'

ordinance. The impressive command: "I require and charge ye both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment,"--did not obtain half so much awed attention as the exquisite knots of pearls and diamonds which fastened the bride's silver-embroidered train to her shoulders. 'All the world and his wife' were present,--that is, the social world, which imagines no other world exists, though it is the least part of the community. The Prince of Wales honoured us by his presence: two great dignitaries of the church performed the marriage-rite, resplendent in redundant fulness of white sleeve and surplice, and equally imposing in the fatness of their bodies and unctuous redness of their faces; and Lucio was my 'best man.' He was in high, almost wild spirits,--and, during our drive to the church together, had entertained me all the way with numerous droll stories, mostly at the expense of the clergy. When we reached the sacred edifice, he said laughingly as he alighted--

"Did you ever hear it reported, Geoffrey, that the devil is unable to enter a church, because of the cross upon it, or within it?"

"I have heard some such nonsense,"--I replied, smiling at the humour expressed in his sparkling eyes and eloquent features.