Moreover, he and his uncle had understood each other from the start. They had seen each other only once, a year ago, in England, and immediately a great and edifying rapport had sprung up betwen them. This was the son I should have had!
Mr. Gorth had contemplated some difficulty in the person of the young lady who had married his nephew. She had a mother, it was reported to him, a sufferer from some sort of some obscure ailment. She might not desire to live in America, away from friends and family, and so might persuade Andrew to return. Young English ladies were notoriously disdainful of America, and coolly amused at its roughness and uproar. But to Mr. Gorth’s amazed and delighted gratitude, young Mrs. Bollister had expressed her considered opinion that she would like to remain in this new land, and her quiet approval, calm and toneless, conferred a compliment upon America which Mr. Gorth sardonically told himself ought to be received with humble and adoring gratitude by that country. Though he was proud of his English ancestry and birth, he secretly loathed and despised and ridiculed the English for a race of people who had a delusion of superiority, a delusion shared with their cousins, the Germans. He admired his countrymen for their ruthlessness, but derided them for covering this ruthlessness with a polite and moral polish, as if Biblical texts and noble sentiments uttered in measured tones would deceive others as to the underlying exigency and greed. “Be a scoundrel, but don’t be a damned hypocrite about it,” he would say. “Stand on your sins, and be proud of them, and damned to the rest of the world.” It was the Englishman’s refined aversion to admitting his rascality which so annoyed Mr. Gorth, who had no such reticence himself.
He had quickly taken the measure of young Mrs. Bollister. Ah, a ruthless piece, cold, authoritative, determined, inflexible and relentless! And a lass with a mind, and with hard sharp thoughts of her own, too. An excellent wife for Andrew, one of his own kidney. Mr. Gorth was gratified at the strange resemblance between the young man and his bride. A fine pair. He had soon discerned that Andrew, despite his reserve, was overwhelmingly in love with his young wife, and for some mysterious reason, seemed to be constantly amused by her.
Mr. Gorth, even while he conversed with his nephew tonight, kept glancing furtively at his newly acquired niece. Not pretty or buxom, perhaps, not of any obvious or startling loveliness. But he was a connoisseur, and the blatant never appealed to him. He admired her hauteur, the cool disdainful curve of her mouth, the tilt of her small gleaming head, the large chill brilliance of her gray eyes. This was a lady, and Mr. Gorth excessively admired ladies. Their control and repression hinted of delightful things when the icy barrier was broken down. There was no opulence about them, no obviousness, and Mr. Gorth loved the subtle.
Though so small, she had an admirable and perfect figure, he thought. Her taste was perfect. Clad tonight in rich wine-dark silk, the bodice a waterfall of deep creamy lace, her neck and little white shoulders revealed in their dainty perfection, her smooth brown hair parted and rolled with simplicity and decorated by one or two dark red rosebuds, he could find no fault in her. About her neck she wore a slender chain of garnets, and there was a bracelet of the same stones upon her wrist. When she breathed, so quietly and slowly, little jets of crimson flame danced over her white skin. She sat with grace and silence in her armless chair, the voluminous hoops belling about her, and her whole attitude expressed compact control, authority and pride.
Her manners, too, were exquisite, perfectly suited to every occasion. No wonder she made poor Mrs. Gorth look like an elderly spinster servant despite the new French gown of vivid blue velvet which the lady had donned this evening. For Mrs. Gorth had no taste at all. The blue velvet, with the immense hoops, the lace and bows and intricacy of her toilette, were grotesque on that large masculine frame, enhanced the yellowish cast of her coarse skin which no emollients could soften, and increased the sallowness of her big lean arms and leathery neck. Mrs. Gorth had never been a beauty. Her fortune had been her chief attraction, but until the scheming Mr. Gorth had chanced by, no suitor, however indigent, had been able to overlook that furtive cavernous countenance, those little muddy brown eyes, that hawklike nose, that mean tight expression full of piety, envy and spite, that little puckered mouth pursed so primly into a look of chronic meanness. Her dull brown hair was coquetishly dressed this evening in a coiffure of lank curls, utterly unsuitable.
Even her hatreds were not strong, though constant and poisonous. When she saw her husband’s affection for his nephew, she hated Andrew with a vitriolic detestation quite unusual for one of her monotonous temperament. She hated Eugenia for her youth and delicate breeding and exquisite manners. She regarded both as interlopers, but was helpless to destroy them. Since their coming, she prayed nightly that they might remove themselves, or die.
She sat on a love-seat of buttercup satin with Eugenia, her jaundiced long face set in an expression of prim politeness, apparently listening to the girl’s quiet and even voice. But her sluggish little brown eyes were fixed upon her husband, as usual. She tried to listen to everything that was said everywhere, for she was suspicious by nature, and either hoped to hear a derogatory remark about herself or a vicious remark about an absent acquaintance. She fingered the greasy curls at her ears and at the yellow nape of her furrowed and oily neck, and occasionally, as Eugenia paused, she pursed her dry and puckered lips in a mechanical smile. Mrs. Gorth exhaled an odour of musk, for she was lavish with scent as if to hide the stench of her own spirit. Eugenia found the odour unbearable whenever Mrs. Gorth would lift her fan of blue ostrich feathers to create a restless breeze about herself. Then would Eugenia lift her own fan, of white lace, and create a gentle counter-wind.
Andrew had expressed himself with frank surprise that evening that America was far more agreeable than he had expected. With smiling candour he informed his uncle that he had not expected such genteel and civil gentlemen and ladies in New York, but rather bluff coarse traders and buxom peasant wives. Richard Gorth smiled. “You were not really mistaken, Andy,” he said. “Your first impression was quite right. But they are slowly acquiring a gloss.”
Mrs. Gorth broke feverishly into speech, in the middle of some remark of Eugenia’s, which indicated that she had not been listening to the girl at all:
“Oh, these Americans are so unrefined, Andrew! You have no idea! It is a great trial to entertain them!”
Her voice, uneven and cracked, made Andrew wince. He raised his blond brows courteously. “But you are an American, are you not, Aunt Arabella?”
A rough flush rose under her yellowed skin and she tossed her head uneasily. “I never was, at heart, Andrew. Not at heart, even though I was born here. And now I am an English subject, through your uncle.”
Andrew’s brows remained elevated, though he said nothing. But Richard Gorth scowled, and his pale eyes, so like Andrew’s, shot a baleful gleam at his wife.
Because he found looking at his wife so oppressive, he glanced at Eugenia for refreshment. Andy was a lucky dog to be able to sleep with this formidable young creature and conquer her. Mrs. Gorth, seeing his glance, gave Eugenia one of her own, furtively malefic. She whined, after a titter: “O Mr. G., you know you really find Americans odious! You’ve said so, yourself.”
Mr. Gorth looked at her with bland brutality. “Only to you, my dear,” he said, smoothly. “And only when I mean it.”
This passed completely by Mrs. Gorth, who looked blankly baffled as usual whenever her husband made one of his ambiguous remarks. But Andrew touched his delicate lips with the tips of his fingers to hide his smile, and looked swiftly at his young wife. She had lifted her fan swiftly to cover the lower half of her face, and her eyes met Andrew’s. Before she could control herself she had exchanged a look of complete accord and discreet and mirthful understanding with him. Then as if she remembered that she disliked him, that she truly loathed him, she cast down her lashes, dropped her fan, and allowed him to see that her face was stern and withdrawn. For some reason this amused Andrew.
As if s
he felt his thought, she looked at him straightly with intense coldness, and lifted her head with bitter hauteur. This further amused Andrew. He bit his lip. Only last night she had clung to him with wild grief, weeping in his arms, and then as his tenderness deepened to passion, she had thrust his arms from her and had fled from him. But he remembered how soft and misty her gray eyes had appeared for an instant or two, how bewildered, how shamed and lost. He felt that she was one of those who, once convinced of a thing, once set upon a thing, must, to maintain their own confidence and self-pride, cling to it grimly, and would pursue it until exhausted.
Since she had known that John was to come that evening, she had displayed a hard repressed restlessness that day. She seemed to lose flesh even in a few hours. There were mauve shadows in her cheeks, and her eyes were over-brilliant. Her emotions communicated themselves to Andrew, in spite of his self-control.
It was then that Richard Gorth, who had spoken often to his nephew about John Turnbull, made his remark that he trusted his new secretary. Andrew had replied in his languid and sardonic tones, but he watched Eugenia as he spoke. Her lips had parted, pale and dried.
Andrew had not yet told his uncle of his last meeting with John, but now he did so, with so much wit and vivid detail that Mr. Gorth listened with delight. But Eugenia’s small pointed face became transfixed as though she tasted immense sickness in her mouth. As for Mrs. Gorth, she smiled with sly pleasure, and licked her lips furtively.
“He appeared to think,” said Andrew, with a lift of his bloodless hand, “that I had something to do with his marrying that impossible barmaid. A plot, sir, nothing less than a plot. Of course, I did not struggle with him. That would have been quite beneath me. The strange thing is that I had no real animosity towards him at any time, though I always considered him a boor—” He inclined his head towards his wife apologetically. “Please forgive me, my dear, I often forget he is your cousin.” He resumed: “Because he was so loud and boisterous, he had few friends at Carruthers’. He always seemed excessively uphappy, too, and I was quite sorry for him. I had the impression that he was lonely and bewildered, so tried to be a friend to him.”
At this, a strange dark gleam passed over Eugenia’s face. It was a brief and evil light, and seeing it, Andrew was sincerely disturbed. He frowned momentarily.
He continued, with less assurance, and more incisively: “I repeat, uncle, that I have no animosity towards him, and am pleased that he has obtained a post in your firm. I only hope that he has become less violent and unreasonable, and that he will realize that I do not intend to come into conflict with him. I hope, too, that he has not forgotten that it was I who recommended that he approach you for a post before we had our—disagreement. I even suggested that I correspond with you on the matter. Apparently, though, by some fortuitous circumstances connected with your Mr. Bob Wilkins, this was not necessary.”
“Wilkins,” said Mr. Gorth meditatively, “says he has a ‘nose,’ and that that worthy organ detected Johnnie long before he actually saw him.”
“A mystic,” commented Andrew with a smile, but with an uneasy eye on his wife, who seemed to have sunken into some deep apathetic meditation of her own.
Mr. Gorth laughed. “A fat rosy mystic, then, if he is. But you’d go far before you’d find a more subtle and useful man. By the way, he is dining with us tonight, also.”
At this, Mrs. Gorth broke out into a flutter. “Dear me, Mr. G., I did not know this! You never condescend to inform me about my own guests, and I find this very distracting. Is it not bad enough to entertain a—a creature who served liquor to coarse gentlemen without being afflicted by Mr. Wilkins, who is no gentleman, and has no gentility?”
“I take exception to your remarks, ma’am,” replied her husband. “Mr. Wilkins has my highest respect. He has a great heart. He has assured me of that, himself,” he added, with a wink at his nephew.
Ignoring his wife, then, and her whining flutters, he continued to discuss Mr. Wilkins with his nephew. “A rascal, Andy, if there ever was one. A mountebank, malefactor, and blackguard and thief. But a very useful man. And quite delightful to converse with, his remarks always distinguished by shrewd wit and pungent observations.”
“I found him very interesting, when he visited me in England,” said Andrew, abstractedly. He was filled with a cold and wandering apprehension as he gazed at Eugenia out of the corner of his eye. Now he acknowledged to himself frankly that he had believed that upon meeting her cousin and his wife, upon hearing this conversation about him and observing Mr. Gorth’s faintly contemptuous if indulgent attitude towards his new secretary, she would be embarrassed, her pride aroused, her native inexorability awakened and strengthened. But nothing that had been said about John had caused a flush to appear upon her cheek, an embarrassment to make her lips uncertain. She seemed to be congealing into a statue of ice. For the first time he guessed the full depths of her strength and implacability and pride. And, he thought, her vengefulness. For now, she suddenly lifted her eyes to his, and he saw her naked hatred, her wild and frozen antagonism for him, and her despair.
CHAPTER 19
The first guests were arriving, a bevy of ladies elaborately dressed and begemmed, fluttering their fans and conversing in the bright twitters suitable to the occasion, and elegant gentlemen in gleaming hats and cloaks. Behind them, like a fat and jovial rooster, Mr. Wilkins beamed sunnily. Mrs. Gorth rose with magnificence, and discharged her duties as a hostess. Behind her stood Eugenia, in her deep and, to Andrew, her suddenly terrible silence. She was deathly pale. But she smiled frigidly at her aunt’s guests, and her curtsey was controlled and graceful. She acknowledged every introduction with dignity, her head tilted. Her breeding antagonized the ladies, charmed the gentlemen, but intimidated them. Though so small, so slight, so silent, she threw the ladies, for all their finery, quite into the shade, made their dull haughty faces appear plebeian and coarse, their studied manners affected. There were thick diamond necklaces galore, and heavy diamond bracelets, but Eugenia’s delicate garnets made the former take on a vulgar look, and dimmed them to a glassy lustre. Her contained and perfect gestures seemed to make their own gauche and awkward, her cool tranquil voice, when she spoke, contrasting so acutely with the voices of the ladies that they sounded too shrill, too hard and too loud.
No one but the watching Andrew saw the rigid intensity under her quietness, but later Mr. Wilkins was to discern this also. Now that ebulient and cherubic gentleman came forward, bowing at each step, blushingly affable, radiating cheer, respect and passionate admiration. His bald pink head almost touched his knees when he was presented to Eugenia, and this combined with his lavish and courteous speech spoken in purest Cockney, brought the first involuntary smile to the girl’s face, even though the barely perceptible gleam of moisture on her brow testified, to the inner stress and anguish which were almost destroying her. She surveyed his gray broadcloth, cut cunningly over his plump belly, his polished boots, his astounding weskit, his fluted linen and amazing cravat, and her lips drew in involuntarily.
As for Mr. Wilkins, though he appeared not to be doing anything of the kind, he was keenly studying and analysing the young lady. In a few seconds, he had such an understanding of her as to be almost incredible. Her faults and her virtues were arranged in orderly columns in his mind, and her probable responses to all circumstances and provocations.
When she glided away to assist her aunt with the ladies, he looked after her with a malignant smiling point in his eyes. Then, with this same expression, his eye passed over all the others. So Lucifer might gaze. He knew them all; he had assisted them all, “for a fee.” These were the courtiers of his vast kingdom, the nobles of a foul world of greed, rapacity, cruelty and murder. In a way, they were his servants, his panderers, for all he appeared to serve and pander to them. He looked at the smirking and attitudinizing ladies, the bowing and grinning gentlemen, and his round fat mouth twisted. He could destroy them all, if he wished. The thought of this power d
id not exhilarate him. He only hated them the more. He accepted their lofty condescension, their agreeable smiles, with the proper servility and eagerness, but he knew how they searched him, wondering how they could use him again. Within five minutes at least six gentlemen had furtively whispered in his ear, asking his opinion about certain stocks, suggesting that he call upon them in their offices.
He was relieved that John and Lilybelle had not yet arrived. He wished to be on hand when John encountered his cousin. It was very important for this to be so. Then he could judge.
The voices in the drawing-room rose to an amiable confusion. Fans fluttered, hoops tilted and swept, tittering laughter mingled with the booming of men’s mirth. The radiant lamplight gleamed down upon jewels, bare necks and arms, and dainty slippers gliding over the soft luminous rugs. The fire on the white marble hearth roared and snapped. Mr. Wilkins was not unsusceptible to beauty; he looked at everything approvingly, nodding his head sagely, meanwhile, as two gentlemen simultaneously tried to get his large roseate ear.
Then, Mr. and Mrs. John Turnbull were announced. The name evidently meant nothing to those assembled, for they turned and stared curiously at the still empty archway. Mr. Gorth hurriedly explained that the gentleman was his new secretary, also cousin to his new niece. Faces became satisfyingly respectful and anticipatory.
John and Lilybelle appeared in the archway, and a deep silence fell in the room. The young man and his wife were suddenly transfixed by two dozen pairs of staring eyes and blank secretive faces. They stood there, dazzled and confused, more than a little awkward and distrait, and unsure of themselves, John’s handsome face darkly flushed, his eyes glittering belligerently, his big round head with its black curls held in a defiant attitude. As for Lilybelle, lurking timidly at his side, her gaudy beauty appeared overwhelmingly theatrical. She was obviously frightened, for her cheeks flushed and paled, and her large hands fumbled with the cherry bows on her purple velvet gown. She knew that John was suddenly and wildly ashamed of her, that some vast wretchedness and despair had taken possession of him, and that because of all this, he was frantically enraged.