Ancestors: A Novel

  XVII

  Gwynne wondered if he should ever shake off the pall-like memories ofthe past week: the testimony before the coroner, in which every word hadto be weighed as carefully as if life instead of the honor of theworthless dead were at stake, the reporters from the less dignified ofthe British newspapers, and the American correspondents, two of whomdodged the vigilance of the servants, entered the Abbey by a window, andtook snap shots of the lower rooms and of the coffins in thedeath-chamber; the painful scenes with the women of the family, who haddescended in a body; the wearisome interview with the family solicitor,in the course of which he had learned that he was heir to little morethan the entailed properties; which must be let in order to insure anincome for his three unmarried aunts, Zeal's five girls, and himself;the hideous reiteration of "your lordship" by the obsequious servants,that reproduced in his mind the slow deep notes of the passing bell,tolled in the village for his grandfather and cousin.

  A letter from Julia Kaye had fluttered in like a dove of promise, but hehad never been able to recall anything in the six pages of gracefulsympathy but her allusions to the dead as "the marquess" and "the earl."He told himself angrily that his brain must have weakened to notice asolecism at such a time, but it is in moments of abnormal mental strainthat trifles have their innings; and during the beautiful service in thechapel he caught himself wondering if any woman of his own class couldhave made such a slip. Always deaf to gossip, he had no suspicion thathis Julia had been laughed at more than once for her inability to graspall the unwritten laws of a world which she had entered too late. Withan ear in which a title lingered like a full voluptuous note of music,she was blunt to certain of the democratic canons of modern society.Although it gave her the keenest pleasure to address the highestbulwarks of the peerage off-handedly as "duke" and "duchess," there hadbeen moments of confusion when she had lapsed naturally into "yourgrace." And it would have seemed like a lost opportunity to have alludedto a titled foreigner without his "von" or "de," even where there was amore positive title to use as often as she pleased. It was the one weakspot in a singularly acute and accomplished mind.

  But of all this Gwynne knew nothing, and he was dully wondering if agreat love could be affected by trifles, and if his brain and characterwere of less immutable material than he had believed, his mental visionstill straying through the insupportable gloom of the past week, when heheard a light foot-fall beyond the door. He sprang to his feet, cursinghis nerves, and was by no means reassured upon seeing the long figure ofa woman, dressed entirely in white, a candle in her hand, approachinghim down the dark corridor. He had never given a moment's thought in hisactive life to psychic phenomena, but he was in a state of mind wherenothing would have surprised him, and he had turned cold to hisfinger-tips when a familiar voice reassured him.

  "I am not Lady Macbeth," said Isabel, with a tremor in her own voice, asshe entered and blew out the candle. "But I felt like her as I bravedthe terrors of all those dark corridors and that staircase in my wilddesire to talk to a living person. I had arrived at that stage where allyour ancestors gibbered at the foot of my bed. Flora has been sleepingwith me, but your mother wanted her to-night, and I am deserted."

  "What a lot of babies you are!" Gwynne was delighted to wreak hisself-contempt on some one else, but glad of the interruption, andunexpectedly mellowed by the sight of a pretty woman after the red nosesand sable plumage of the past week. It was true that he had seen Isabelat dinner, but like Flora she had worn a black gown out of respect tothe family woe, and he hated the sight of black.

  Now she wore a gown of soft white wool fastened at the throat and waistwith a blue ribbon; and even her profile, whose severity he haddisapproved, having a masculine weakness for pugs, was softened by theabsence of the coils or braids that commonly framed it: her hair hung inone tremendous plait to the heels of her slippers.

  "I see that you have no more sleep in you than I have," he said. "Let usmake a night of it."

  It had rained all day and he was suddenly alive to a sense of physicaldiscomfort. He rang and ordered a servant to make a fire and bring thetea-service.

  "How did you know I was here?" he asked Isabel, when they were aloneagain.

  "I felt that you were, but I went first to your room and tapped. I wasquite capable of waking you up. Thank heaven I summoned the courage tocome down. This is delightful."

  The fire was crackling in the grate, the water boiling in the big silverkettle. Isabel made his tea almost black, but diluted her own, lest sheshould be left alone before she too was ready for sleep.

  "You have had a beastly time these last days," he said, for he wasgenuinely hospitable. "I am sorry you did not happen to come a monthearlier. Have you seen anything of Hexam? He was going on to Arcot."

  "He rode over, or walked over, every day. We should have fallen a preyto melancholy without him, although you may believe me when I assure youthat we thought more of you than we did of ourselves. I am your ownblood-relation, so I have a right to feel dreadfully sympathetic--may Ihave a cigarette?"

  "What a brick you are to smoke! I don't mind being sympathized with fora change. I have had to do so much sympathizing with others in the lastweek that I have not had time to pity myself. Even my mother went topieces, for she was fond of Zeal, poor old chap, and her consciencescorched her because she was always rather nasty to my grandfather--shelikes and dislikes tremendously, you know; although to most people sheis merely indifferent. But when she dislikes--" He blew the ashes fromthe tip of his cigarette with a slight whistling sound.

  Flora Thangue had extracted all the particulars of the death and suicidefrom Lady Victoria--who knew nothing, however, of the tragic cause ofboth--and imparted them to Isabel, whose mind, in consequence, was freeof morbid curiosity. She had also read the newspapers. The speculationsand veiled hints of the sensational sheets had not interested her, butshe had pondered deeply over leaders in the more dignified organs, whichhad abounded in comment upon the changed conditions in the meteoriccareer of the young man who was no longer Elton Gwynne, but a peer ofthe realm.

  "Do you mind it so awfully much?" she asked, after a short silenceduring which they had both smoked absently and gazed at the fire.

  "What?" Gwynne turned the cold surprise of his eyes upon her. "Losingtwo of the four people I cared most for on earth?"

  "Of course not. Being suddenly made a peer and having to begin all over.You never will be called Elton Gwynne again, and you will have as muchtrouble educating the public up to your new name as if you were emergingfrom obscurity for the first time."

  The words, brutally direct, rolled away the last clouds of his lethargy.He vividly realized that he had been skulking before the closed shuttersof his understanding, accepting the new conditions with but the dulledsurface of his brain.

  Now his naked soul stared at her out of his white face and torturedeyes, and she looked away. She had not believed that he could be rackedwith feeling of any sort, and it was as if she heard him cry: "Oh, God!Oh, God!" although his lips were silent.

  But she did not change the subject.

  "I suppose you haven't seen the newspapers," she said. "I cut out allthe editorials and paragraphs I thought would interest you. One of thebig dailies, I forget which, said that the interruption of your careerwas a greater political tragedy than Parnell's or Lord RandolphChurchill's."

  "Do they say that?" asked Gwynne, eagerly. "Well, God knows, it is atragedy for me."

  "Don't you like being a peer the least little bit? I am too feminine,possibly too American, not to see a certain picturesqueness in a title,especially in such a pretty one as yours; and there is no doubt that youare a more imposing figure in the eyes of the world to-day than you werea week ago. Are you really indifferent to that side of it?"

  "Am I? One does such a lot of self-posing and self-imposition. There arefew things in this world that gratify a man's vanity more than being apeer of Great Britain, and, no doubt, had I happened to be born withoutwhat you might call a fighting
ambition, and certain abilities, Ishould--barring natural grief--feel that I was one of the favorites ofdestiny--that is to say if I had a commensurate income. The fact that Imust let the Abbey and Capheaton, and after portioning off all theunmarried women of the family, shall have barely enough left to keep upmy flat in Charles Street, may have something to do with my absence ofenthusiasm. But--yes--I _am_ sure of myself!" he burst out. "I am themost miserable man on earth to-night, and the reason is not that I havelost two good friends, but because my career is ruined, broken off inthe middle."

  "You could become a militant Liberal peer."

  "Paradoxes don't happen to appeal to me. And the only chance for agenuine fighter is the House of Commons. Besides, it is impossible for aman to be a peer and remain a true Liberal. Power, and inheritedinfluence, and exalted social position have a deadly insinuation. Idon't believe any man is strong enough to withstand them. There is neveran hour that a peer is not reminded of his difference from the mass ofhumanity; and human nature is too weak to resist complacency in theend--long before the end. And complacency is the premature old age ofthe brain and character. If this tragedy had not occurred, even if mygrandfather had lived on for fifteen years more, as there was everyreason to believe he would, I might have gone on that much longer beforediscovering weak points in my character. Now God knows what I shalldevelop."

  "Have you made any plans?"

  "Plans? I hadn't faced the situation until you spoke."

  "You have weak spots like other people, of course. You would be a horridprig if you hadn't. But you surely must know if your Liberalism issincere, ingrained. There is no question that you are a hopelessaristocrat in essentials. But so have been certain of America's greatestpatriots--Washington and Hamilton, for instance. I do not see that itmatters. One can hold to what seems to me the first principles ofadvanced civilization--that hereditary monarchy is an insult toself-respecting and enlightened men--without wishing to associate withthose that offend grammar and good taste. Education, intellect,breeding, would create an aristocracy among anarchists on a desertisland--supposing any possessed them; and in time it would become asintolerant of liberties as if it harked back to the battle of Hastings.There is no plant that grows so rapidly in the human garden asself-superiority, and it is ridiculous only when watered by nothing moreexcusable than the arbitrary social conditions that exist in the UnitedStates. I don't see that the qualities you have inherited shouldinterfere with your ability to see the justice and rationality ofself-government."

  "They do not!" She seemed to beat his thoughts into their old coherentand logical forms. "Whatever may have been the various motives thatimpelled me into the Liberal party in the beginning, there is noquestion that I have become even more extreme and single-minded than Ihave let the world know. Perhaps it is my American blood, although Inever thought of that before. At all events, had the time been ripe Ishould have devoted all the gift for leadership I now possess, and allthe power I could build up, to overturning monarchy in this country andestablishing a republic. There! I never confessed as much to a livingsoul, but I think you have bewitched me, for I never have been less--ormore--myself!"

  "With yourself as President?"

  "Sooner or later--the sooner the better. But I waste no time in dreams,my fair cousin--although I have something of a tendency that way. It wasenough that I had a great and useful career before me and might havegone into history as the prime factor of the great change."

  "Well, that is over," said Isabel, conclusively. "There is only onething left you and that is to come over and be an American."

  "What?" He stared, and then laughed. "Ah!"

  "You will have all the fighting you want over there. You will have towork twenty times harder than you ever did here, for your accent, yourpersonality, the thirty years you have lived out of the country you wereborn in, all will be against you. You will have to be naturalized inspite of your birth--I happen to know of a similar case in my father'spractice--and that will take five years. In those five years you willencounter all the difficulties that strew the way of the foreigner whowould gain the confidence of the shrewd American people--they are mostcharacteristic in the small towns and farming districts. You will winbecause you were born to win, but you will learn for the first time whatit is to stand and fight absolutely alone--for if they learn of yourexalted birth they will but distrust you the more; and you will tastethe sweets of real success for the first time in your life. In spite ofyour youth and enthusiasm, there is in you a vein of inevitablecynicism, for you have had far too much experience of the flatterer andthe toady. You are too honest not to confess that if you had been bornJohn Smith there would have been no editorial comments of any sort uponthe tragic end of your relatives, and the great world would have takenas little notice of your abilities until you had compelled its unwillingattention by many more years of hard work. America will take you forexactly what you are and no more. But you will have to become moreAmerican than the Americans; although you may continue to say 'ain't it'and 'it's me' and drop your final gs, because those are all thehall-marks of the half-educated in the United States, and will ratherhelp you than otherwise. Of course you will assume charge of your ownranch, for that will not only give you plenty to do, but it will be thequickest way of becoming one of the people; and after you have been outin all weathers for a year or two, turned a dark brown down to yourchest, ridden a loping horse on a Mexican saddle, talked politics onstreet corners and in saloons, left your muddy or dusty wagon once aweek at the Rosewater hitching-rail while you transact business in alinen duster, or yellow oil-skin overalls and rubber boots, you willfeel so American--Californian, to be exact--that the mere memory of thisformal cut-and-dried Old World will fill you with ennui."

  There was a glint of laughter in Gwynne's eyes, but they were widelyopen and very bright.

  "I see! You are determined to make a convert of me. You began the nightof your arrival. I suspect you of having come over on a crusade."

  "That was the moment of inspiration--that first night. I won't deny thatI have thought a great deal about it since--of little else since I readthose editorials."

  He leaned back and regarded the sole of his shoe as if it were afamiliar. "That is a large order," he said, in a moment. "Colossal!There might be worse solutions. And the life of a cow-boy, for a whileat least--"

  "Don't delude yourself. You would not be the least bit of a cow-boy.You wouldn't even look picturesque--if you did you might be sorry.You would just be a plain northern California rancher. Of courseyou would have all the riding you wanted, but there are no round-upsworth speaking of on a ranch the size of Lumalitas. And probably youwould continue to let sections of it to men that wanted to raise cattleor horses on a small scale. You had better devote yourself to the dairyand to raising hay and grain, and turn about five hundred acres into achicken-ranch--nothing pays like that."

  He threw back his head and laughed as heartily as if death and disasterhad never been.

  "From the English hustings and the greatest parliamentary body the worldhas ever known to chickens and butter in California! From Capheaton toRosewater, oil-skin overalls and a linen 'Duster!' Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!But give me a comprehensive idea of the place, in your own inimitableunvarnished diction. That will keep the ghosts off, at all events."