The Golden Butterfly
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"Go on, if you please, Mr. Jagenal."
"Believing that statement to be untrue," he repeated, "for otherwise I could not give this advice, I recommend to all parties concerned – silence. Your husband's paralysis is attributed to the shock of his bankruptcy – "
"His what?" cried Victoria, who had heard as yet nothing of the City disaster.
"His bankruptcy. Mr. Cassilis is ruined."
"Ruined! Mr. Cassilis!"
She was startled out of herself.
Ruined! The thought of such disaster had never once crossed her brains. Ruined! That Colossus of wealth – the man whom she married for his money, while secretly she despised his power of accumulating money!
"He is ruined, Mrs. Cassilis, and hopelessly. I have read certain papers which he put into my hands this morning. It is clear to me that his mind has been for some weeks agitated by certain anonymous letters which came to him every day, and accused you – pardon me, Mrs. Cassilis – accused you of – infidelity. The letters state that there is a secret of some kind connected with your former acquaintance with Mr. Colquhoun; that you have been lately in the habit of receiving him or meeting him every day; that you were in his chambers one evening when Mr. Cassilis called; with other particulars extremely calculated to excite jealousy and suspicion. Lastly, he was sent by the writer to Twickenham. The rest, I believe you know."
She made no reply.
"There can be no doubt, not the least doubt, that had your husband's mind been untroubled, this would never have happened. The disaster is due to his jealousy."
"I could kill her!" said Mrs. Cassilis, clenching her fist. "I could kill her!"
"Kill whom?"
"The woman who wrote those letters. It was a woman. No man could have done such a thing. A woman's trick. Go on."
"There is nothing more to say. How far other people are involved with your husband, I cannot tell. I am going now into the City to find out if I can. Your wild words, Mrs. Cassilis, and your unguarded conduct, have brought about misfortunes on which you little calculated. But I am not here to reproach you."
"You are my husband's man of business, I suppose," she replied coldly – "a paid servant of his. What you say has no importance, nor what you think. What did Lawrence bid you tell me?"
Joseph Jagenal's face clouded for a moment. But what was the good of feeling resentment with such a woman, and in such a miserable business?
"You have two courses open to you," he went on. "You may, by repeating the confession you made in the hearing of Mr. Cassilis, draw upon yourself such punishment as the Law, provided the confession be true, can inflict. That will be a grievous thing to you. It will drive you out of society, and brand you as a criminal; it will lock you up for two years in prison; it will leave a stigma never to be forgotten or obliterated; it means ruin far, far worse than what you have brought on Mr. Cassilis. On the other hand, you may keep silence. This at least will secure the legitimacy of your boy, and will keep for you the amount settled on you at your marriage. But you may choose. If the statement you made is true, of course I can be no party to compounding a felony – "
"And Lawrence?" she interposed. "What does Lawrence say?"
"In any case Mr. Colquhoun will leave England at once."
"He will marry that Phillis girl? You may tell him," she hissed out, "that I will do anything and suffer anything rather than consent to his marrying her, or any one else."
"Mr. Colquhoun informs me further," pursued the crafty lawyer, "that, for some reason only known to himself, he will never marry during the life of a certain person. Phillis Fleming will probably marry the Honourable Mr. Ronald Dunquerque."
She buried her head in her hands, not to hide any emotion, for there was none to hide, but to think. Presently she rose, and said, "Take me to – my husband, if you please."
Joseph Jagenal, as a lawyer, is tolerably well versed in such wickedness and deceptions as the human heart is capable of. At the same time, he acknowledges to himself that the speech made by Victoria Cassilis to her husband, and the manner in which it was delivered, surpassed anything he had ever experienced or conceived.
Gabriel Cassilis was sitting in an arm-chair near his table. In his arms was his infant son, a child of a year old, for whose amusement he was dangling a bunch of keys. The nurse was standing beside him.
When his wife opened the door he looked up, and there crossed his face a sudden expression of such repulsion, indignation, and horror, that the lawyer fairly expected the lady to give way altogether. But she did not. Then Mrs. Cassilis motioned the nurse to leave them, and Victoria said what she had come to say. She stood at the table, in the attitude of one who commands respect rather than one who entreats pardon. Her accentuation was precise, and her words as carefully chosen as if she had written them down first. But her husband held his eyes down, as if afraid of meeting her gaze. You would have called him a culprit waiting for reproof and punishment.
"I learn to-day for the first time that you have suffered from certain attacks made upon me by an anonymous writer; I learn also for the first time, and to my great regret, that you have suffered in fortune as well as in health. I have myself been too ill in mind and body to be told anything. I am come to say at once that I am sorry if any rash words of mine have given you pain, or any foolish actions of mine have given you reason for jealousy. The exact truth is that Lawrence Colquhoun and I were once engaged. The breaking off of that engagement caused me at the time the greatest unhappiness. I resolved then that he should never be engaged to any other girl if I could prevent it by any means in my power. My whole action of late, which appeared to you as if I was running after an old lover, was the prevention of his engagement, which I determined to break off, with Phillis Fleming. In the heat of my passion I used words which were not true. They occurred to me at the moment. I said he was my husband. I meant to have said my promised husband. You now know, Mr. Cassilis, the whole secret. I am deeply humiliated in having to confess my revengeful spirit. I am punished in your affliction."
Always herself; always her own punishment.
"We can henceforth, I presume, Mr. Cassilis, resume our old manner of life."
Mr. Cassilis made no answer, but he patted the head of his child, and Joseph Jagenal saw the tears running down his cheeks. For he knew that the woman lied to him.
"For the sake of the boy, Mr. Cassilis," the lawyer pleaded, "let things go on as before."
He made no sign.
"Will you let me say something for you in the interests of the child?"
He nodded.
"Then, Mrs. Cassilis, your husband consents that there shall be no separation and no scandal. But it will be advisable for you both that there shall be as little intercourse as possible. Your husband will breakfast and dine by himself, and occupy his own apartments. You are free, provided you live in the same house, and keep up appearances, to do whatever you please. But you will not obtrude your presence upon your husband."
Mr. Cassilis nodded again. Then he sought his dictionary, and hunted for a word. It was the word he had first found, and was "Silence."
"Yes; you will also observe strict silence on what has passed at Twickenham, here or elsewhere. Should that silence not be observed, the advisers of Mr. Cassilis will recommend such legal measures as may be necessary."
Again Gabriel Cassilis nodded. He had not once looked up at his wife since that first gaze, in which he concentrated the hatred and loathing of his speechless soul.
"Is that all?" asked Victoria Cassilis. "Or have we more arrangements?"
"That is all, madam," said Joseph, opening the door with great ceremony.
She went away as she had come, with cold haughtiness. Nothing seemed to touch her; not her husband's misery; not his ruin; not the sight of her child. One thing only pleased her. Lawrence Colquhoun would not marry during her lifetime. Bah! she would live a hundred years, and he should never marry at all.
In her own room was her maid.
"Tomlinson," said Mrs. Cassilis – in spite of her outward calm, her nerves were strung to the utmost, and she felt that she must speak to some one – "Tomlinson, if a woman wrote anonymous letters about you, if those letters brought misery and misfortune, what would you do to that woman?"
"I do not know, ma'am," said Tomlinson, whose cheeks grew white.
"I will kill her, Tomlinson! I will kill her! I will get those letters and prove the handwriting, and find that woman out. I will devote my life to it, and I will have no mercy on her when I have found her. I will kill her – somehow – by poison – by stabbing – somehow. Don't tremble, woman; I don't mean you. And Tomlinson, forget what I have said."
Tomlinson could not forget. She tottered from the room, trembling in every limb.
The wretched maid had her revenge. In full and overflowing measure. And yet she was not satisfied. The exasperating thing about revenge is that it never does satisfy, but leaves you at the end as angry as at the beginning. Your enemy is crushed; you have seen him tied to a stake, as is the pleasant wont of the Red Indian, and stick arrows, knives, and red-hot things into him. These hurt so much that he is glad to die. But he is dead, and you can do no more to him. And it seems a pity, because if you had kept him alive, you might have thought of other and more dreadful ways of revenge. These doubts will occur to the most revenge-satiated Christian, and they lead to self-reproach. After all, one might just as well forgive a fellow at once.
Mrs. Cassilis was a selfish and heartless woman. All the harm that was done to her was the loss of her great wealth. And what had her husband done to Tomlinson that he should be stricken? And what had others done who were involved with him in the great disaster?
Tomlinson was so terrified, however, by the look which crossed her mistress's face, that she went away that very evening; pretended to have received a telegram from Liverpool; when she got there wrote for boxes and wages, with a letter in somebody else's writing, for a reason, to her mistress, and then went to America, where she had relations. She lives now in a city of the Western States, where her brother keeps a store. She is a leader in her religious circle; and I think that if she were to see Victoria Cassilis by any accident in the streets of that city, she would fly again, and to the farthest corners of the earth.
So much for revenge; and I do hope that Tomlinson's example will be laid to heart, and pondered by other ladies'-maids whose mistresses are selfish and sharp-tempered.
CHAPTER XLV
"Farewell to all my greatness."
The last day of Gilead Beck's wealth. He rose as unconscious of his doom as that frolicsome kid whose destiny brought the tear to Delia's eye. Had he looked at the papers he would at least have ascertained that Gabriel Cassilis was ruined. But he had a rooted dislike to newspapers, and never looked at them. He classed the editor of the Times with Mr. Huggins of Clearville or Mr. Van Cott of Chicago, but supposed that he had a larger influence. Politics he despised; criticism was beyond him; with social matters he had no concern; and it would wound the national self-respect were he to explain how carelessly he regarded matters which to Londoners seem of world-wide importance.
On this day Gilead rose early because there was a good deal to look after. His breakfast was fixed for eleven – a real breakfast. At six he was dressed, and making, in his mind's eye, the arrangements for seating his guests. Mr. and Mrs. Cassilis, Mrs. L'Estrange and Phillis, Lawrence Colquhoun, Ladds, and Jack Dunquerque – all his most intimate friends were coming. He had also invited the Twins, but a guilty conscience made them send an excuse. They were now sitting at home, sober by compulsion and in great wretchedness, as has been seen.
The breakfast was to be held in the same room in which he once entertained the men of genius, but the appointments were different. Gilead Beck now went in for flowers, to please the ladies: flowers in June do not savour of ostentation. Also for fruit: strawberries, apricots, cherries and grapes in early June are not things quite beyond precedent, and his conscience acquitted him of display which might seem shoddy. And when the table was laid, with its flowers and fruit and dainty cold dishes garnished with all sorts of pretty things, it was, he felt, a work of art which reflected the highest credit on himself and everybody concerned.
Gilead Beck was at great peace with himself that morning. He was resolved on putting into practice at once some of those schemes which the Golden Butterfly demanded as loudly as it could whisper. He would start that daily paper which should be independent of commercial success; have no advertisements; boil down the news; do without long leaders; and always speak the truth, without evasion, equivocation, suppression, or exaggeration. A miracle in journalism. He would run the great National Drama which should revive the ancient glories of the stage. And for the rest he would be guided by circumstances, and when a big thing had to be done he would step in with his Pile, and do that big thing by himself.
There was in all this perhaps a little over-rating the power of the Pile; but Gilead Beck was, after all, only human. Think what an inflation of dignity, brother De Pauper-et-egens, would follow in your own case on the acquisition of fifteen hundred pounds a day.
Another thing pleased our Gilead. He knew that in his own country the difficulty of getting into what he felt to be the best society would be insuperable. The society of shoddy, the companionship with the quickly grown rich, and the friendship of the gilded bladder are in the reach of every wealthy man. But Gilead was a man of finer feelings; he wanted more than this; he wanted the friendship of those who were born in the purple of good breeding. In New York he could not have got this. In London he did get it. His friends were ladies and gentlemen; they not only tolerated him, but they liked him; they were people to whom he could give nothing, but they courted his society, and this pleased him more than any other part of his grand Luck. There was no great merit in their liking the man. Rude as his life had been, he was gifted with the tenderest and kindest heart; lowly born and roughly bred, he was yet a man of boundless sympathies. And because he had kept his self-respect throughout, and was ashamed of nothing, he slipt easily and naturally into the new circle, picking up without difficulty what was lacking of external things. Yet he was just the same as when he landed in England; with the same earnest, almost solemn, way of looking at things; the same gravity; the same twang which marked his nationality. He affected nothing and pretended nothing; he hid nothing and was ashamed of nothing; he paraded nothing and wanted to be thought no other than the man he was – the ex-miner, ex-adventurer, ex-everything, who by a lucky stroke hit upon Ile, and was living on the profits. And perhaps in all the world there was no happier man than Gilead Beck on that bright June morning, which was to be the last day of his grandeur. A purling stream of content murmured and babbled hymns of praise in his heart. He had no fears; his nerves were strong; he expected nothing but a continuous flow of prosperity and happiness.
The first to arrive was Jack Dunquerque. Now, if this youth had read the papers he would have been able to communicate some of the fatal news. But he had not, because he was full of Phillis. And if any rumour of the Eldorado collapse smote his ears, it smote them unnoticed, because he did not connect Eldorado with Gilead Beck. What did it matter to this intolerably selfish young man how many British speculators lost their money by the Eldorado smash when he was going to meet Phillis. After all, the round world and all that is therein do really rotate about a pole – of course invisible – which goes through every man's own centre of gravity, and sticks out in a manner which may be felt by him. And the reason why men have so many different opinions is, I am persuaded, this extraordinary, miraculous, multitudinous, simultaneous revolution of the earth upon her million axes. Enough for Jack that Phillis was coming – Phillis, whom he had not seen since the discovery – more memorable to him than any made by Traveller or Physicist – of the Coping-stone.
Jack came smiling and bounding up the stairs with agile spring – a good-half hour before the time. Perhaps Phillis might be before him. But she was not.
Then came Ladds. Gilead Beck saw that there was some trouble upon him, but forbore to ask him what it was. He bore his heavy inscrutable look, such as that with which he had been wont to meet gambling losses, untoward telegrams from Newmarket, and other buffetings of Fate.
Then came a letter from Mrs. Cassilis. Her husband was ill, and therefore she could not come.
Then came a letter from Lawrence Colquhoun. He had most important business in the City, and therefore he could not come.
"Seems like the Wedding-feast," said Gilead irreverently. He was a little disconcerted by the defection of so many guests; but he had a leaf taken out of the table, and cheerfully waited for the remaining two.
They came at last, and I think the hearts of all three leaped within them at sight of Phillis's happy face. If it was sweet before, when Jack first met her, with the mysterious look of childhood on it, it was far sweeter now with the bloom and blush of conscious womanhood, the modest light of maidenly joy with which she met her lover. Jack rushed, so to speak, at her hand, and held it with a ridiculous shamelessness only excusable on the ground that they were almost in a family circle. Then Phillis shook hands with Gilead Beck, with a smile of gratitude which meant a good deal more than preliminary thanks for the coming breakfast. Then it came to Ladds's turn. He turned very red – I do not know why – and whispered in his deepest bass —
"Know all about it. Lucky beggar, Jack! Wish you happiness!"
"Thank you, Captain Ladds," Phillis replied, in her fearless fashion. "I am very happy already. And so is Jack."
"Wanted yesterday," Ladds went on, in the same deep whisper – "wanted yesterday to offer some slight token of regard – found I couldn't – no more money – Eldorado smash – all gone – locked in boxes – found ring – once my mother's. Will you accept it?"
Phillis understood the ring, but she did not understand the rest of the speech. It was one of those old-fashioned rings set in pearls and brilliants. She was not by any means above admiring rings, and she accepted it with a cheerful alacrity.
"Sell up," Ladds growled, – "go away – do something – earn the daily crust – "
"But I don't understand – " she interrupted.
"Never mind. Tell you after breakfast. Tell you all presently."
And then they went to breakfast.
It was rather a silent party. Ladds was, as might have been expected of a man who had lost his all, disposed to taciturnity. Jack and Phillis were too happy to talk much. Agatha L'Estrange and the host had all the conversation to themselves.
Agatha asked him if the dainty spread before them was the usual method of breakfast in America. Gilead Beck replied that of late years he had been accustomed to call a chunk of cold pork with a piece of bread a substantial breakfast, and that the same luxuries furnished him, as a rule, with dinner.
"The old life," he said, "had its points, I confess. For those who love cold pork it was one long round of delirious joy. And there was always the future to look forward to. Now the future has come I like it better. My experience, Mrs. L'Estrange, is that you may divide men into two classes – those who've got a future, and those who haven't. I belonged to the class who had a future. Sometimes we miss it. And I feel like to cry whenever I think of the boys with a bright future before them, who fell in the War at my side, not in tens, but in hundreds. Sometimes we find it. I found it when I struck Ile. And always, for those men, whether the future come early or whether it come late, it lies bright and shinin' before them, and so they never lose hope."
"And have women no future as well as men, Mr. Beck?" asked Phillis.
"I don't know, Miss Fleming. But I hope you have. Before my Golden Butterfly came to me I was lookin' forward for my future, and I knew it was bound to come in some form or other. I looked forward for thirty years; my youth was gone when it came, and half my manhood. But it is here."
"Perhaps, Mr. Beck," said Mrs. L'Estrange, who was a little rococo in her morality, "it is well that this great fortune did not come to you when you were younger."
"You think that, madam? Perhaps it is so. To fool around New York would be a poor return for the Luck of the Butterfly. Yes; better as it is. Providence knows very well what to be about; it don't need promptin' from us. And impatience is no manner of use, not the least use in the world. At the right time the Luck comes; at the right time the Luck will go. Yes," – he looked solemnly round the table, – "some day the Luck is bound to go. When it goes, I hope I shall be prepared for the change. But if it goes to-morrow, it cannot take away, Mrs. L'Estrange, the memory of these few months, your friendship, and yours, Miss Fleming. There's things which do not depend upon Ile; more things than I thought formerly; things which money cannot do. More than once I thought my pile ought to find it easy to do somethin' useful before the time comes. But the world is a more tangled web than I used to think."
"There are always the poor among us," said the good Agatha.
"Yes, madam, that is true. And there always will be. More you give to the poor, more you make them poor. There's folks goin' up and folks goin' down. You in England help the folks goin' down. You make them fall easy. I want to help the folks goin' up."
At this moment a telegram was brought for him.
It was from his London bankers. They informed him that a cheque for a small sum had been presented, but that his balance was already overdrawn; and that they had received a telegram from New York on which they would be glad to see him.
Gilead Beck read it, and could not understand it. The cheque was for his own weekly account at the hotel.
He laid the letter aside, and went on with his exposition of the duties and responsibilities of wealth. He pointed out to Mrs. L'Estrange, who alone listened to him – Jack was whispering to Phillis, and Ladds was absorbed in thoughts of his own – that when he arrived in London he was possessed with the idea that all he had to do, in order to protect, benefit, and advance humanity, was to found a series of institutions; that, in the pursuit of this idea, he had visited and examined all the British institutions he could hear of; and that his conclusions were that they were all a failure.
"For," he concluded, "what have you done? Your citizens need not save money, because a hospital, a church, an almshouse, a dispensary, and a workhouse stand in every parish; they need not be moral, because there's homes for the repentant in every other street. All around they are protected by charity and the State. Even if they get knocked down in the street, they need not fight, because there's a policeman within easy hail. You breed your poor, Mrs. L'Estrange, and you take almighty care to keep them always with you. In my country he who can work and won't work goes to the wall; he starves, and a good thing too. Here he gets fat.
"Every way," he went on, "you encourage your people to do nothing. Your clever young men get a handsome income for life, I am told, at Oxford and Cambridge, if they pass one good examination. For us the examination is only the beginning. Your clergymen get a handsome income for life, whether they do their work or not. Ours have got to go on preachin' well and livin' well; else we want to know the reason why. You give your subalterns as much as other nations give their colonels; you set them down to a grand mess every day as if they were all born lords. You keep four times as many naval officers as you want, and ten times as many generals. It's all waste and lavishin' from end to end. And as for your Royal Family, I reckon that I'd find a dozen families in Massachusetts alone who'd run the Royal Mill for a tenth of the money. I own they wouldn't have the same gracious manners," he added. "And your Princess is – wal, if Miss Fleming were Princess, she couldn't do the part better. Perhaps gracious manners are worth paying for."