Chapter 24. After The End Of All

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_ CHAPTER XXIV. AFTER THE END OF ALL

"MY DEAR COUSIN--I shall faithfully obey your commands--Yours very truly, H. A. F. TRISTRAM." And below--very formally--"THE LADY TRISTRAM OF BLENT."

To write it took him no more than a moment--even though he wrote first, "The commands of the Head of the House," and destroyed that, ashamed of the sting of malice in it. To send it to the post was the work of another moment. The third found him back at his Blinkhampton plans and elevations, Cecily's letter lying neglected on the table by him. After half an hour's work he stopped suddenly, reached for the letter, tore it into small fragments, and flung the scraps into his waste-paper basket. Just about the same time Cecily and Mina were getting into the train to return to Blent.

This returning to Blent was epidemic--not so strange perhaps, since mid-August was come, and only the people who had to stayed in town. Harry met Duplay over at Blinkhampton; Duplay was to join his niece at Merrion in about ten days. He ran against Iver in the street; Iver was off to Fairholme by the afternoon train; Mr Neeld, he mentioned, was coming to stay with him for a couple of weeks on Friday. Even Southend--whom Harry encountered in Whitehall, very hot and exhausted--cursed London and talked of a run down to Iver's. Blentmouth, Fairholme, Iver's, Merrion--they all meant Blent. Cecily had gone, and Mina; the rest were going there--everybody except the man who three months ago had looked to spend his life there as its master.

And business will grow slack when autumn arrives; it is increasingly difficult for a man to bury himself in deeds, or plans, or elevations, or calculations, when everybody writes that he is taking his vacation, and that the matter shall have immediate attention on his return. Harry grew terribly tired of this polite formula. He wanted to build Blinkhampton out of hand, in the months of August and September. The work would have done him good service. He was seeking a narcotic.

For he was in pain. It came on about a week after he had sent his curt acknowledgment of Cecily's letter, laying hold of him, he told himself, just because he had nothing to do, because everybody was taking his holiday, and Blinkhampton would not get itself bought, and sold, and contracted for, and planned, and laid out, and built. The politicians were at it still, for two more hot, weary, sultry weeks, but they were of little use. Lady Flora had fled to Scotland, Disney was smothered in arrears of work which must be made up before he got a rest. London was full of strange faces and outlandish folk. "I must take a holiday myself," said Harry in a moment of seeming inspiration. Where, where, where? He suffered under the sensation of having nowhere whither he would naturally go, no home, no place to which he could return as to his own. He found himself wishing that he had not torn up Cecily's letter; he remembered its general effect so well that he wanted to read the very words again, in the secret hope that they would modify and soften his memory. His own answer met and destroyed the hope; he knew that he would have responded to anything friendly, had it been there.

Yet what did the letter mean? He interpreted it as Cecily had declared he would. When he held Blent, he held it in peace of mind, though in violation of law, till one came who reproached him in a living body and with speaking eyes; faced with that, he could find no comfort in Blent. Cecily violated no law, but she violated nature, the natural right in him. To her then his presence would be intolerable, and she could not find the desperate refuge that he had chosen. Her only remedy was to forbid him the place. Her instinct drove her to that, and the instinct, so well understood by him, so well known, was to him reason enough. She could not feel mistress of Blent while he was there.

Indeed he had not meant to go. He had told Iver that in perfect good faith. It would have been in bad taste for him to think of going--of going anything like so soon as this. Whence then came his new feeling of desolation and of hurt? It was partly that he was forbidden to go. It was hard to realize that he could see Blent now only by another's will or sufferance. It was even more that now it was no question of refraining from going at once, in order to go hereafter with a better grace. He awoke to the idea that he was never to go, and in the same moment to the truth that he had always imagined himself going again, that Blent had always held a place in his picture of the future, that whatever he was doing or achieving or winning, there it was in the background. Now it was there no more. He could almost say with Mina and with Cecily herself, "This is the end of it."

What then of the impressions Mina had gathered from Mr Disney's dinner-party? It can only be said that when people of impressionable natures study others of like temperament they should not generalize from their conduct at parties. In society dinners are eaten in disguise, sometimes intentional, sometimes unconscious, but as a rule quite impenetrable. If Harry's had been unconscious, if the mood had played the man, the deception was the more complete.

He went to see Lady Evenswood one day; she had sent to express her desire for a talk before she fled to the country. She had much that was pleasant to say, much of the prospects of his success, of his "training-on," as easy-mannered Theo had put it to Mina Zabriska.

"And if you do, you'll be able to think now that you've done it all off your own bat," she ended.

"You've found out my weaknesses, I see," he laughed.

"Oh, I doubt if there's any such thing as an absolute strength or an absolute weakness. They're relative. What's an advantage in one thing is a disadvantage in another."

"I understand," he smiled. "My confounded conceit may help me on in the world, but it doesn't make me a grateful friend or a pleasant companion?"

"I believe George Southend agrees as far as the grateful friend part of it is concerned. And I'm told Lord Hove does as to the rest. But then it was only Flora Disney herself who said so."

"And what do you say?"

"Oh, pride's tolerable in anybody except a lover," she declared.

"Well, I've known lovers too humble. I told one so once; he believed me, went in, and won."

"You gave him courage, not pride, Mr Tristram."

"Perhaps that's true. He's very likely got the pride by now." He smiled at his thoughts of Bob Broadley.

"And you've settled down in the new groove?" she asked.

He hesitated a moment. "Oh, nearly. Possibly there's still a touch of the 'Desdichado,' about me. His would be the only shield I could carry, you see."

"Stop! Well, I forgive you. You're not often bitter about that. But you're very bitter about something, Mr Tristram."

"I want to work, and nobody will in August. You can't get the better of your enemies if they're with their families at Margate or in the Engadine."

"Oh, go down and stay at Blent. No, I'm serious. You say you're proud. There's a good way of showing good pride. Go and stay in the very house. If you do that, I shall think well of you--and even better than I think now of the prospects."

"I've not been invited."

"Poor girl, she's afraid to invite you! Write and say you're coming."

"She'd go away. Yes, she would. She consents to live there only on condition that I never come. She's told me so."

"I'm too old a woman to know your family! You upset the wisdom of ages, and I haven't time to learn anything new."

"I'm not the least surprised. If I were in her place, I should hate to have her there."

"Nonsense. In a month or two----"

"If anything's certain, it's that I shall never go to Blent as long as my cousin owns it."

"I call it downright wicked."

"We share the crime, she and I. She lays down the law, I willingly obey."

"Willingly?"

"My reason is convinced. Maybe I'm a little homesick. But your month or two will serve the purpose there."

"There's a great deal more in this than you're telling me, Mr Tristram."

"Put everything you can imagine into it, and the result's the same."

She sighed and sat for a moment in pensive silence. Harry seemed to ponder too.

"I'm going to think of nothing but my work," he announced.

"So many young men in their early twenties succeed in that!" she murmured mockingly.

"Don't those who succeed in anything succeed in that?"

"Not all, happily--and none would if they were your mother's sons. My dear boy, just open a window in you anywhere--I know you keep them shut when you can--but just open even a chink, and Addie peeps out directly! Which means great success or great failure, Harry--and other things on the same scale, I fancy. Thank goodness--oh, yes, saving your presence, really thank goodness--I'm not like that myself!"

"Shall I prove you wrong?"

"I'm safe. I can't live to see it. And you couldn't prove me wrong without opening all the windows."

"And that I shouldn't do, even to you?"

"Do you ever do it to yourself?"

"Perhaps not," he laughed. "But once a storm blew them all in, Lady Evenswood, and left me without any screen, and without defences."

"Have another storm then," she counselled. She laid a hand on his arm. "Go to Blent."

"As things stand, I can never go to Blent, I can go only to--Blinkhampton."

"What does little Mina Zabriska say to that?"

"Oh, everything that comes into her head, I suppose, and very volubly."

"I like her," said the old lady with emphasis.

"Is there such a thing as an absolute liking, Lady Evenswood? What's pleasant at one time is abominable at another. And I've known Madame Zabriska at the other time."

"You were probably at the other time yourself."

"I thought we should agree about the relativity!"

"There may always be a substratum of friendship," she argued. "You'll say it's sometimes very _sub_! Ah, well, you're human in the end. You're absolutely forgetting Blent--and you spend your time with an old woman because she can talk to you about it! Go away and arrange your life, and come back and tell me all about it. And if you're discontented with life, remember that you too will reach the stage of being just told about it some day."

Things will come home to a man at last, strive he never so desperately against them--if the things are true and the man ever honest with himself. It was one night, a little while after this conversation, that the truth came to Harry Tristram and found acceptance or at least surrender. His mind had wandered back to that scene in the Long Gallery, and he had fallen to questioning about his own action. There was a new light on it, and the new light showed him truth. "I must face it; it's not Blent," he said aloud. If it were Blent, it was now Blent only as a scene, a frame, a background. When he pictured Blent, Cecily was there; if he thought of her elsewhere, the picture of Blent vanished. He was in love with her then; and what was the quality that Lady Evenswood had praised in a lover? Let him cultivate it how he would--and the culture would be difficult--yet it would not serve here. If he went to Blent against Cecily's commands and his own promise, he could meet with nothing but a rebuff. Yes, he was in love; and he recognized the _impasse_ as fully as Mina herself, although with more self-restraint. But he was glad to know the truth; it strengthened him, and it freed him from a scorn of himself with which he had become afflicted. It was intolerable that a man should be love-sick for a house; it was some solace to find that the house, in order to hold his affections, must hold a woman too.

"Now I know where I am," said Harry. He knew what he had to meet now; he thought he knew how he could treat himself. He went down to Blinkhampton the next morning, harried his builder out of a holiday expedition, and got a useful bit of work in hand. It was, he supposed, inevitable that Cecily should journey with him in the spirit to Blinkhampton; he flattered himself that she got very little chance while he was there. She was the enemy, he declared, with a half-peevish half-humorous smile. It was not altogether without amusement to invent all manner of devices and all sorts of occupations to evade and elude her. He ventured to declare--following the precedents--that she had treated him shamefully. That broke down. Candor insisted once again on his admitting that he himself would have done exactly the same thing. It never occurred to him to regret, even for a moment, that he had not taken her at her word, and had not accepted her offer. That would have been to spoil his dream, not to realize it. He asked perfection or nothing, being still unhealed of that presumptuous way of his, which bade the world go hang if it would not give him exactly what he chose. The Tristram motto was still, "No compromise!"

An unexpected ally came to his assistance. He received a sudden summons from Mr Disney. He found him at work, rather weary and dishevelled. He let Harry in at once, but kept him waiting while he transacted some other business. Here was the place to see him, not in a drawing-room; his brusque words and quick decisions enabled him to do two men's work. He turned to Harry and said without preface:

"We're going to arbitrate this Barililand question, on behalf of the Company, you know, as well as ourselves. Another instance of my weakness! Lord Murchison's going over for us. He starts in a fortnight. He asked me to recommend him a secretary. Will you go?"

Here was help in avoiding Cecily. But what about Blinkhampton? Harry hesitated a moment.

"I should like it, but I've contracted certain obligations of a business kind at home," he said.

"Well, if you're bound, keep your word and do the work. If you find you're not, I should advise you to take this. It's a good beginning. This is Tuesday. Tell me on Saturday. Good-by." He rang a hand-bell on the table, and, as his secretary entered, said, "The Canadian papers, please."

"I'm very grateful to you, anyhow."

"That's all right, Tristram. Good-by."

There was no doubt what would be the practical way of showing gratitude. Harry went out.

He left Mr Disney's presence determined to accept the offer if Iver could spare his services for the time. The determining cause was still Blent, or his cousin at Blent. Blinkhampton was not far enough away; it rather threw him with people who belonged to the old life than parted him from them. He was weak himself too; while the people were at hand, he would seek them, as he had sought Lady Evenswood. At the Arbitration he would be far off, beyond the narrow seas and among folk who, recognizing the peculiarity of his position, would make a point of not mentioning Blent or speaking of anybody connected with it. It was from this point of view that he was inclined toward the offer, and he did not disguise it from himself; but for it he would rather have gone on with Blinkhampton, perhaps because he had a free hand there, while he could go to the Arbitration only as a subordinate. Blent apart, the offer was valuable to him as a sign of Disney's appreciation rather than on its own account.

He went home and wrote to Iver. The letter weighed all considerations save the one which really weighed with him; he put himself fairly in Iver's hands but did not conceal his own wish; he knew that if Iver were against the idea on solid business grounds, he would not be affected by Harry's personal preference. But the business reasons, when examined, did not seem very serious, and Harry thought that he would get leave to go. He rose from his writing with a long sigh. If he received the answer he expected, he was at the parting of the ways; and he had chosen the path that led directly and finally away from Blent.

An evening paper was brought to him. A tremendous headline caught his notice. "Resignation of Lord Hove! He will not arbitrate about Barililand. Will the Government break up?" Probably not, thought Harry; and it was odd to reflect that, if Lord Hove had got his way, he would have lost his heroic remedy. So great things and small touch and intersect one another. Perhaps Theo (who could now settle that question about the kicking with his friends) would maintain that Flora Disney had talked too much to Harry at dinner, instead of taking all pains to soothe Lord Hove!

It was his last struggle; he had no doubt that he could win, but the fight was very fierce. Impatient of his quiet rooms, he went out into the crowded streets. At first he found himself envying everybody he passed--the cabman on his box, the rough young fellows escaped from the factory, the man who sold matches and had no cares beyond food and a bed. But presently he forgot them all and walked among shadows. He was at Blent in spirit, sometimes with Addie Tristram, sometimes with Cecily. His imagination undid what his hand had done; he was smiling again at the efforts of Duplay to frighten or to displace him. Thus he would be happy for a moment, till reality came back and a dead dulness settled on his soul. Half afraid of himself, he turned round and made for home again; he could not be sure of his self-control. But again he mastered that, and again paced the streets, now in a grim resolution to tire mind and body, so that these visions should have nothing to work on and, finding blank unresponsive weariness, should go their ways and leave him in an insensible fatigue. Ever since he disclaimed his inheritance he had been living in a stress of excitement that had given him a fortitude half unnatural; now this support seemed to fail, and with it went the power to bear.

The remedy worked well; at eight o'clock he found himself very tired, very hungry, unexpectedly composed. He turned into a little restaurant to dine. The place was crowded, and rather shamefacedly (as is the national way) he sat down at a small table opposite a girl in a light-blue blouse and a very big hat, who was eating risotto and drinking lager beer. She assumed an air of exaggerated primness and gentility, keeping her eyes down toward her plate, and putting very small quantities into her mouth at a time. Glad of distraction, Harry watched her with amusement. At last she glanced up stealthily.

"A fine evening," he said, as he started on his chop.

"Very seasonable," she began in a mincing tone; but suddenly she broke off to exclaim in a voice and accent more natural and spontaneous, "Good gracious, I've seen you before, haven't I?"

"I'm not aware that I ever had the honor," said Harry.

"Well, I know your face, anyhow." She was looking at him and searching her memory. "You're not at the halls, are you?"

"No, I'm not at the halls."

"Well, I do know your face--Why, yes, I've seen your face in the papers. I shall get it in a minute now--don't you tell me." She studied him with determination. Harry ate away in contented amusement. "Yes, you're the man who--why, yes, you're Tristram?"

"That's right. I'm Tristram."

"Well, to think of that! Meeting you! Well, I shall have something to tell the girls. Why, a friend of mine wrote down to the country, special, for your photo."

"That must have proved a disappointment, I'm afraid. The romance was better than the hero."

"You may say romance!" she conceded heartily. "To be a lord and----!" She leant forward. "I say, how do you get your living now?"

"Gone into the building-trade," he answered.

"You surprise me!" The observation was evidently meant to be extremely civil. "But there, it isn't so much what your job is as having some job. That's what I say."

"I wish I always said--and thought--things as sensible;" and he took courage to offer her another glass of lager. She accepted with a slight recrudescence of primness; but her eyes did not leave him now. "I never did!" he heard her murmur as she raised her glass. "Well, here's luck to you, sir! (He had been a lord even if he were now a builder). You did the straight thing in the end."

"What?" asked Harry, a little startled.

"Well, some did say as you'd known it all along. Oh, I don't say so; some did."

Harry began to laugh. "It doesn't matter, does it, if I did the straight thing in the end?"

"I'm sure as I shouldn't blame you if you had been a bit tempted. I know what that is! Well, sir, I'll say good-evening."

"Good-evening, miss, and thank you very much," said Harry, rising as she rose. His manner had its old touch of lordliness. His friends criticised that sometimes; this young lady evidently approved.

"You've no cause to thank me," said she, with an admiring look.

"Yes, I have. As it happened, I believe I wanted somebody to remind me that I had done the straight thing in the end, and I'm much obliged to you for doing it."

"Well, I shall have something to tell the girls!" she said again in wondering tones, as she nodded to him and turned slowly away.

Harry was comforted. The stress of his pain was past. He sat on over his simple meal in a leisurely comfortable fashion. He was happy in the fact that his enemy had at least nothing with which she could reproach him, that he had no reason for not holding his head erect before her. And the girl's philosophy had been good. He had a job, and that was the great thing in this world. He felt confident that the struggle was won now, and that it would never have to be fought again in so severe a fashion. His self-respect was intact; if he had been beaten, he would never have forgiven himself.

He regained his rooms. A letter lay waiting for him on the table. He opened it and found that it was from Mina Zabriska.

"We are back here," she wrote. "I am staying at Blent till my uncle comes down. I must write and say good-by to you. I dare say we shall never meet again, or merely by chance. I am very unhappy about it all, but with two people like Cecily and you nothing else could have happened. I see that now, and I'm not going to try to interfere any more. I shan't ask you to forgive me for interfering, because you've made the result quite enough punishment for anything I did wrong. And now Cecily goes about looking just like you--hard and proud and grim; and she's begun to move things about and alter arrangements at Blent. That's what brings it home to me most of all. ('And to me,' interposed Harry as he read.) If I was the sort of woman you think me, I should go on writing to you. But I shan't write again. I am going to stay at Merrion through the winter, and since you won't come here, this is the last of me for a long time anyhow. Oh, you Tristrams! Good-by,

MINA ZABRISKA."

"Poor little Imp!" said Harry. "She's a very good sort; and she seems about right. It's the end of everything." He paused and looked round. "Except of these rooms--and my work--and, well, life at large, you know!" He laughed in the sudden realization of how much was left after there was an end of all--life to be lived, work to be done, enjoyments to be won. He could know this, although he could hardly yet feel it in any very genuine fashion. He could project his mind forward to a future appreciation of what he could not at the moment relish; and he saw that life would be full and rich with him, even although there were an end of all. "But I don't believe," he said to himself, slowly smiling, "that I should ever have come to understand that or to--to fulfil it unless I had--what did the girl say?--done the straight thing in the end, and come out of Blent. Well, old Blent, good-by!" He crumpled up Mina's letter, and flung it into the grate.

The maid-servant opened the door. "Two gentlemen to see you, sir," she said.

"Oh, say I'm busy----" he began.

"We must see you, please," insisted Mr Jenkinson Neeld, with unusual firmness. He turned to the man with him, saying: "Here is Mr Tristram, Colonel Edge." _

Read next: Chapter 25. There's The Lady Too!

Read previous: Chapter 23. A Decree Of Banishment

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