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A Prince of Sinners, a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Part 2 - Chapter 6. Kingston Brooks, Philanthropist |
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_ PART II CHAPTER VI. KINGSTON BROOKS, PHILANTHROPIST "It is my deliberate intention," Lord Arranmore said, leaning over towards her from his low chair, "to make myself a nuisance to you." Lady Caroom smiled at him thoughtfully. "Thank you for the warning," she said, "but I can take care of myself. I do not feel even obliged to deny myself the pleasure of your society." "No, you won't do that," he remarked. "You see, so many people bore you, and I don't." "It is true," she admitted. "You pay me nothing but unspoken compliments, and you devote a considerable amount of ingenuity to conceal the real meaning of everything you say. Now some people might not like that. I adore it." "Catherine, will you marry me?" "Certainly not! I'm much too busy looking after Sybil, and in any case you've had your answer, my friend." "You will marry me," he said, deliberately, "in less than two years--perhaps in less than one. Why can't you make your mind up to it?" "You know why, Arranmore," she said, quietly. "If you were the man I remember many years ago, the man I have wasted many hours of my life thinking about, I would not hesitate for a moment. I loved that man, and I have always loved him. But, Arranmore, I cannot recognize him in you. If these terrible things which you have suffered, these follies which you have committed, have withered you up so that there remains no trace of the man I once cared for, do you blame me for refusing you? I will not marry a stranger, Arranmore, and I not only don't know you, but I am a little afraid of you." He sighed. "Perhaps you are right," he said, softly. "I believe that the only thing I have carried with me from the beginning, and shall have with me to the end, is my love for you. Nothing else has survived." Her eyes filled with tears. She leaned over to him. "Dear friend," she said, "listen! At least I will promise you this. If ever I should see the least little impulse or action which seems to me to come from the Philip I once knew, and not Lord Arranmore, anything which will convince me that some part, however slight, of the old has survived, I will come to you." He sighed. "You alone," he said, "might work such a miracle." "Then come and see me often," she said, with a brilliant smile, "and I will try." He moved his chair a little nearer to her. "You encourage me to hope," he said. "I remember that one night in the conservatory I was presumptuous enough--to take your hand. History repeats itself, you see, and I claim the prize, for I have fulfilled the condition." She drew her hand away firmly, but without undue haste. "If you are going to be frivolous," she said, "I will have all the callers shown in. You know very well that that is not what I mean. There must be some unpremeditated action, some impulse which comes from your own heart. Frankly, Arranmore, there are times now when I am afraid of you. You seem to have no heart--to be absolutely devoid of feeling, to be cold and calculating even in your slightest actions. There, now I have told you just what I feel sometimes, and it doesn't sound nice, does it?" "It sounds very true," he said, wearily. "Will you tell me where I can buy a new heart and a fresh set of impulses, even a disposition, perhaps? I'd be a customer. I'm willing enough." "Never mind that," she said, softly. "After all, I have a certain amount of faith. A miracle may happen at any moment." Sybil came in, dressed in a fascinating short skirt and a toque. Her maid on the threshold was carrying a small green baize box. "I am going to Prince's, mother, just for an hour, with Mrs. Huntingdon. How do you do, Lord Arranmore? You'll keep mother from being dull, won't you?" "It is your mother," he said, "who is making me dull." "Poor old mummy," Sybil declared, cheerfully. "Never mind. Her bark's a good deal worse than her bite. Good-bye, both of you." Lord Arranmore rose and closed the door after her. "Sybil is a remarkably handsome young woman," he said. "Any signs of her getting married yet?" Lady Caroom shook her head. "No! Arranmore, that reminds me, what has become of--Mr. Brooks?" Lord Arranmore smiled a little bitterly. "He is in London." "I have never seen him, you must remember, since that evening. Is he still--unforgiving? "Yes! He refuses to be acknowledged. He is taking the bare income which is his by law--it comes from a settlement to the eldest son--and he is studying practical philanthropy in the slums." "I am sorry," she said. "I like him, and he would be a companion for you." "He's not to be blamed," Lord Arranmore said. "From his point of view I have been the most scandalous parent upon this earth." Lady Caroom sighed. "Do you know," she said, "that he and Sybil were very friendly? "I noticed it," he answered. "She has asked about him once or twice since we got back to town, and when she reads about the starting of this new work of his at Stepney she will certainly write to him." "You mean--" "I mean that she has sent Sydney to the right-about this time in earnest. She is a queer girl, reticent in a way, although she seems such a chatterbox, and I am sure she thinks about him." Lord Arranmore laughed a little hardly. "Well," he said, "I am the last person to be consulted about anything of this sort. If he keeps up his present attitude and declines to receive anything from me, his income until my death will be only two or three thousand a year. He might marry on that down in Stepney, but not in this part of the world.'' "Sybil has nine hundred a year," Lady Caroom said, "but it would not be a matter of money at all. I should not allow Sybil to marry any one concerning whose position in the world there was the least mystery. She might marry Lord Kingston of Ross, but never Mr. Kingston Brooks." "Has--Mr. Brooks given any special signs of devotion?" Lord Arranmore asked. "Not since they were at Enton. I dare say he has never even thought of her since. Still, it was a contingency which occurred to me." "He is a young man of excellent principles," Lord Arranmore said, dryly, "taking life as seriously as you please, and I should imagine is too well balanced to make anything but a very safe husband. If he comes to me, if he will accept it without coming to me even, he can have another ten thousand a year and Enton." "You are generous," she murmured. "Generous! My houses and my money are a weariness to me. I cannot live in the former, and I cannot spend the latter. I am a man really of simple tastes. Besides, there is no glory now in spending money. One can so easily be outdone by one's grocer, or one of those marvellous Americans." "Yet I thought I read of you last week as giving nine hundred pounds for some unknown tapestry at Christie's." "But that is not extravagance," he protested. "That is not even spending money. It is exchanging one investment for another. The purple colouring of that tapestry is marvellous. The next generation will esteem it priceless." "You must go?" she asked, for he had risen. "I have stayed long enough," he answered. "In another five minutes you will yawn, and mine would have been a wasted visit. I should like to time my visits always so that the five minutes which I might have stayed seem to you the most desirable five minutes of the whole time." "You are an epicurean and a schemer," she declared. "I am afraid of you." * * * * * He bought an evening paper on his way to St. James's Square, and leaning back in his brougham, glanced it carelessly through. Just as he was throwing it aside a small paragraph at the bottom of the page caught his attention. A NOVEL PHILANTHROPIC DEPARTURE. THE FIRST BUREAU OPENED TO-DAY. INTERVIEW WITH MR. KINGSTON BROOKS. He folded the paper out, and read through every line carefully. A few minutes after his arrival home he re-issued from the house in a bowler hat and a long, loose overcoat. He took the Metropolitan and an omnibus to Stepney, and read the paragraph through again. Soon he found himself opposite the address given. He recognized it with a little start. It had once been a mission hall, then a furniture shop, and later on had been empty for years. It was brilliantly lit up, and he pressed forward and peered through the window. Inside the place was packed. Brooks and a dozen or so others were sitting on a sort of slightly-raised platform at the end of the room, with a desk in front of each of them. Lord Arranmore pulled his hat over his eyes and forced his way just inside. Almost as he entered Brooks rose to his feet. "Look here," he said, "you all come up asking the same question and wasting my time answering you all severally. You want to know what this place means. Well, if you'll stay just where you are for a minute, I'll tell you all together, and save time." "Hear, hear, guv'nor," said a bibulous old costermonger, encouragingly. "Let's hear all about it." "So you shall," Brooks said. "Now listen. I dare say there are a good many of you who go up in the West End sometimes, and see those big houses and the way people spend their money there, who come back to your own houses here, and think that things aren't exactly dealt out square. Isn't that so?" There was a hearty and unanimous assent. "Well," Brooks continued, "it may surprise you to hear that a few of us who have a little money up there have come to the same conclusion. We'd like to do our little bit towards squaring things up. It may not be much, but lots more may come of it." A modified but a fairly cordial assent. "We haven't money to give away--not much of it, at any rate," Brooks continued. "More bloomin' tracks," the costermonger interrupted, and spat upon the floor. "Fair sickens me, it does." "As for tracts," Brooks continued, calmly, "I don't think I've ever read one in my life, and I don't want to. We haven't such a thing in the place, and I shouldn't know where to go for them, and though that gentleman down there with a herring sticking out of his pocket seems to have done himself pretty well already, I'd rather stand him a glass of beer than offer him such a thing." A roar of laughter, during which a wag in the crowd quietly picked the costermonger's pocket of the fish with a deftness born of much practice, and sent it flying over the room. It was promptly returned, and found a devious way back to its owner in a somewhat dusty and mauled condition. "There is just one thing we have to ask for and insist upon," Brooks continued. "When you come to us for help, tell us the truth. If you've been drunk all the week and haven't earned any money, well, we may help you out with a Sunday dinner. If you've been in prison and won't mind owning up to it, we shan't send you away for that reason. We want your women to come and bring us your children, that we can have a look at them, tell us how much you all make a week between you, and what you need most to make you a bit more comfortable. And we want your husbands to come and tell us where they work, and what rent they pay, and if they haven't any work, and can't get it, we'll see what we can do. I tell you I don't care to start with whether you're sober and industrious, or idle, or drunkards. We'll give any one a leg-up if we can. I don't say we shall keep that up always, because of course we shan't. But we'll give any one a fair chance. Now do you want to ask any questions?" A pallid but truculent-looking young man pushed himself to the front. "'Ere, guv'nor!" he said. "Supposing yer was to stand me a coat--I ain't 'ad one for two months--should I 'ave to come 'ere on a Sunday and sing bloomin' hymns?" "If you did," Brooks answered him, "you'd do it by yourself, and you'd stand a fair chance of being run out. There's going to be no preaching or hymn-singing here. Those sorts of things are very well in their way, but they've nothing to do with this show. I'm not sure whether we shall open on Sundays or not. If we do it will be only for the ordinary business. Now let's get to work." "Sounds a bit of orl right, and no mistake," the young man remarked, turning round to the crowd. "I'm going to stop and 'ave a go for that coat." A young man in a bright scarlet jersey pushed himself to the front, followed by a little volley of chaff, more or less good-natured. "There's Salvation Joe wants a new trombone." "Christian Sall's blown a hole in the old one, eh, Joe?" Breathless he reached Brooks' side. The sweat stood out in beads upon his forehead. He seemed not to hear a word that was said amongst the crowd. Brooks smiled at him good-humouredly. "Well, sir," he said, "what can I do for you?" "I happened in, sir, out of curiosity," the young man said, in a strange nasal twang, the heritage of years of outdoor preaching; "I hoped to hear of one more good work begun in this den of iniquity and to clasp hands with another brother in God." "Glad to see you," Brooks said. "You'll remember we're busy." "The message of God," the young man answered, "must be spoken at all times." "Oh, chuck 'im out!" cried the disgusted costermonger, spitting upon the floor. "That sort o' stuff fair sickens me." The young man continued as though he had not heard. "Such charity as you are offering," he cried, "is corruption. You are going to dispense things for their carnal welfare, and you do nothing for their immortal souls. You will not let them even shout their thanks to God. You will fill their stomachs and leave their souls hungry." The costermonger waved a wonderful red handkerchief, and spat once more on the floor. Brooks laid his hand upon the young man's shoulder. "Look here, my young friend," he said, "you're talking rot. Men and women who live down here in wretchedness, and who are fighting every moment of their time to hang on to life, don't want to be talked to about their souls. They need a leg-up in the world, and we've come to try and give it to them. We're here as friends, not preachers. We'll leave you to look after their souls. You people who've tried to make your religion the pill to go with your charity have done more harm in the world than you know of." The young man was on fire to speak, but he had no chance. They hustled him out good-naturedly except that the costermonger, running him down the room, took his cap from his head and sent it spinning across the road. Lord Arranmore left the hall at the same time, and turned homewards, walking like a man in a dream. _ |
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