CHAPTER XXX LIAR AND COWARD

"It's the book of the day."

"It's decidedly the cleverest thing of its sort I ever read."

"Have you read the review in the Athenæum?"

"And in the Saturday Review."

"They all praise it, even the Spectator."

"Who's the author? Whose initials are R. D.?"

"Why, don't you know? It's Major Rupert Devereux, the man who wrote that awfully clever article in the Fortnightly last month. He's an M.P., and a great man on committees. Sort of practical philanthropist."

I was standing in front of a bookshop leading out of the Strand amongst a little group of other passers-by, who had halted for a moment to turn over the volumes which were out on view, and this was the conversation which I heard being carried on almost at my elbow. I listened eagerly for more, but the speakers had passed on.

My Uncle Rupert was a great man, then, I thought, bitterly. Curse him! I was scarcely surprised, for there was in his pale face all the nervous force of imaginative intellect. What was it he had written? I wondered. I took up the Times, and glanced through its columns. Ah, there it was—a review two columns long—"Richard Strathdale, novelist," by R.D.

I glanced through the review; it was one long eulogy. A profound metaphysical romance! The most brilliant work of fiction of the age, and so on, and so on. I stopped at a bookseller's, and asked for "Richard Strathdale." They were sold out. I tried another with the same result—there had been a tremendous run on it, they told me. But at last, at a railway bookstall, I was just in time to purchase their last copy, and hurried back with it to my hotel.

I commenced to read, and I read on deeply interested. There was much that I could not understand, much that betrayed an intimate knowledge with schools of philosophic thought the names of which even were unknown to me. But there was a great deal which, despite my prejudice against the writer, seemed to me almost sublime. It was written from a noble, almost an idyllic standpoint. There were no carping pessimisms in it, no Nineteenth Century disputativeness. It seemed to be the work of a man who believed in all that was pure and lofty in nature and in human nature. The spirit of a good, high-minded man seemed to be breathing through it in every line. I laid it down when I was half-way through with a startled little gasp. Could this be my Uncle Rupert! this the man whose life was a living lie? Never had my faith in my father wavered for one moment, but just then everything seemed chaos. I read on until I came to a passage where the hero of the story was speaking of another man:

"An unhappy man! Of course he is an unhappy man! He always will be! Go and ask him what it is he desires. He will tell you a larger fortune, or a peerage, or something of that sort. He is a fool—a blind fool—not to have realised by this time that desires expand with possessions, and the more the one increases the more ravenous the other becomes. Bah! the principle is as simple as ABC. 'Tis the moralists of the earth, be they Christians or Chinese, who win here! Logic and philosophy may knock Christianity into a cocked hat. But Christianity can make a man happy, which is exactly what philosophy won't do. Happiness is internal, not external. It must sit in the heart, and not float in the senses. And what gratification is there which a man can get out of the good things of the world which can strike deeper than the senses? Happiness is a consciousness; it is the consciousness of goodness. Dreadfully common-place talk this, but common-placisms are often truisms!"

I closed the book, and walked up and down the room restlessly. A great bewilderment seemed to be closing in upon me. My faith in my father was never really shaken, and yet this book seemed to me to ring with evidences that it was written by a high-minded, naturally good man. All my ideas were disarranged. A great wave of wondering doubt seemed beating against the prejudice which had grown up in my heart against my Uncle Rupert. At last I could bear it no longer. With the book still in my hand I hurried out into the street. Within ten minutes I stood before Rupert Devereux's house in Mayfair, and almost immediately was ushered by the servant into his study.

He was bending close over his writing-desk with his back to me, writing fast, and sheets of foolscap lay on the floor all around him. He had not heard me announced, and he wrote on without looking up.

I stepped into the middle of the room and spoke to him:

"Rupert Devereux," I cried, "it is I, Herbert Devereux's son. Turn round, for I have something to say to you."

He started to his feet, and turned an eager face towards me. Then he advanced a step or two, half holding out his hand.

"Hugh, you have come to accept my offer. God grant that you have."

I shook my head. "I have come to ask a question of the man who wrote this book," I answered, holding it out. "I have come to ask the man who writes that happiness is the abstract product of a consciousness of right doing, whether he is happy? Rupert Devereux, you know what happiness is. Tell me, are you happy?"

He sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands. My heart grew lighter as I looked upon him.

"They tell me that you are a successful man," I continued, mercilessly. "You are a member of Parliament, and a noted one. You are spoken of as a philanthropist, and a zealous one. You have written a book which any man might be proud of having written. You are rich, you are well spoken of everywhere. And you are a miserable man."

He never answered me, never changed his dejected attitude.

"Out of your own mouth you stand convicted," I cried, stretching out the book towards him. "You are not happy because none of these things can bring you happiness. You are not happy because you have not that consciousness of right doing in your heart! You are miserable because you have wrecked another's life that you might gain his wealth. Fool! Villain!"

Still he did not answer; only he stretched out his hand as though to implore my silence.

"Rupert Devereux," I cried, passionately, "it is not too late to make amends even now. Confess that lie which you uttered so many years ago, and you will be a happier man than you are now! You know it! The man who wrote this book knows it. I will forgive you, my father shall forgive you everything, if you will lift this weight from him which is dragging him down to death. You will lose your name, your wealth, your position. But you will gain something which none of these can give you. Rupert Devereux, as there is a God above us I charge you to speak the truth this night!"

Ghastly pale, with the wild agony of his remorse written into his face, he tottered rather than rose to his feet.

"I admit nothing, I deny nothing," he faltered out in a broken voice. "But supposing circumstances were as you imagine them to be, I have gone too far to retract. There are my children!"

"What of them?" I cried. "This is not a censorious generation, and none would visit on them their father's sin. Francis is one whom money would make happy, and he should have it! Maud! I love Maud, and would make her my wife."

He looked up amazed, and then an eager hope flashed out from his sunken eyes.

"You love Maud!" he repeated. "Then marry her, Hugh; marry her, and I will dower her with every penny I have, and go and live—anywhere. Only let this other matter drop between us. If I have sinned in a mad impulse of folly, I have sinned. What is done cannot be recalled! The best years of Herbert's life have gone, and by this time he will have become resigned. Let me call Maud, or go to her. She is in her room."

I stretched out my hand, but with a great effort withdrew it. What should I gain by striking this man? I made one last appeal to him.

"There is but one thing I want from you," I cried, "and nothing else will I have. All that I want to know is whether you will go down to hell with this lie upon your soul, or whether you will do that which alone can bring you any peace of mind. Answer!"

"I have answered, Hugh," he said, sadly. "What you ask of me I cannot, I will not do. If you will accept nothing else—I am sorry."

"Then curse you for a coward!" I cried, springing up. "A liar and a coward! Live on your false life, fair before men, but black and corrupt within; live it on! But see whether their praises, their admiration or your success will ever lift for one moment from your heart my curse!"

Then I left him, mad and white with anger, and rushed out into the busy streets.

*****

Wearily the days dragged on for me, bringing me no news from abroad, no answer to the passionate entreaty which every morning appeared in the agony column of the Times. I grew disheartened and dispirited, feeling every day more bitter against my kinsman, whose name seemed to be in every one's mouth, and every day a keener longing to stand face to face with my father, and feel his hand clasped in mine. Fool that I had been to let him wander off alone, bearing in his heart that dead weight of misery! What if he were dead—had fallen in the petty quarrels of some fourth-rate Principality! Had there been war anywhere I should have known where to look for him; but Europe was at peace, and I knew not in which country of the globe to commence my search.

One evening I had taken up a society journal, and as usual Rupert Devereux's name headed one of the paragraphs. He was giving a fancy dress ball to-night, at which Royalty was expected to be present. I threw the paper from me in disgust, and a wild storm of anger laid hold of me. Rupert Devereux, a great man, a leader of society, everywhere quoted as brilliant, talented, and withal kind-hearted; whilst my father, his victim, wandered about in miserable exile, holding his life in his hand! It was the thought that was with me day and night, but that moment it gained such a hold on me as to cry out for action of some sort. But what could I do? All idea of physical punishment which naturally leaped first into my mind revolted me, for he was a weak man, and would have been like a lath in my hands. And what other means had I? Denunciation would make me ridiculous without injuring him; for, when a man stands firm in the world's esteem, they are slow to believe ill of him. I caught up the paper again, and a sudden idea flashed into my mind which I first scouted as ridiculous, then reconsidered, and finally embraced. I called a hansom, and drove to several costumiers. At last I found what I wanted, and returned to the hotel to dress, for I was going to Major Rupert Devereux's fancy dress ball.

*****

A suite of reception rooms, decorated like the rooms of a palace, and the strains of the Hungarian band floating softly on an air heavy with the rich perfume of banks of rare exotics. Distinguished-looking men and beautiful women, in the picturesque garb of all ages and nations, gliding over the smooth floor. Powdered footmen noiselessly passing backwards and forwards over the thick carpets of a succession of satin-draped ante-rooms. Flowers, light, music, and perfume; fair faces and soft words. That night seems like a confused dream of all these to me, save for one brief minute. One brief minute, when the giver of all these, the flattered recipient of endless compliments from noble lips, came face to face with the image of the man on whose misery all these things were built up, came face to face with him, in the very uniform, and with the same fiercely reproachful gaze, which he had worn more than twenty years ago.

"It was the heat—the excitement—the overwork!" his sympathising guests declared, as their host was carried from their midst in a dead faint, with his face like the face of a corpse. But I knew better, and I laughed as I strode into my room at the hotel, and flung myself into an easy chair. Something on the mantelpiece attracted my attention, and I sprang up with a quick cry, and caught hold of a thin foreign envelope. I tore it open with trembling fingers, and read:—"My dear son. Come to me at Palermo, if you will.—Yours affectionately, H. D——"

It had come at last, then! Thank God! Thank God!