Mrs. Vansittart nodded her head slowly. "Then, _mon ami_," she said, "the time has come for plain speaking?"
"I suppose so."
"It is always the woman who wants to get to the plain speaking," she said, with a smile, "and who speaks the plainest when one gets there.
You men are afraid of so many words; you think them, but you dare not make use of them. And how are women to know that you are thinking them?" She spoke with a sort of tolerant bitterness, as if all these questions no longer interested her personally. She sat forward, with one hand on the arm of her chair. "Come," she said, with a little laugh that shook and trembled on the brink of a whole sea of unshed tears, "I will speak the first word. When my husband died, my heart broke--and it was Otto von Holzen who killed him." Her eyes flashed suddenly, and she threw herself back in the chair. Her hands were trembling.
Cornish made a quick gesture of the hand--a trick he had learnt somewhere on the Continent, more eloquent than a hundred words--which told of his sympathy and his comprehension of all that she had left unsaid. For truly she had told him her whole history in a dozen words.
"I have followed him and watched him ever since," she went on at length, in a quiet voice; "but a woman is so helpless. I suppose if any of us were watched and followed as he has been our lives would appear a strange mixture of a little good and much bad, mixed with a ma.s.s of neutral idleness. But surely his life is worse than the rest--not that it matters. Whatever his life had been, if he had been a living saint, Tony, he would have had to pay--for what he has done to me."
She looked steadily into the keen face that was watching hers. She was not in the least melodramatic, and what was stranger, perhaps, she was not ashamed. According to her lights, she was a good woman, who went to church regularly, and did a little conventional good with her superfluous wealth. She obeyed the unwritten laws of society, and busied herself little in her neighbours" affairs. She was kind to her servants, and did not hate her neighbours more than is necessary in a crowded world. She led a blameless, unoccupied, and apparently purposeless life. And now she quietly told Tony Cornish that her life was not purposeless, but had for its aim the desire of an eye for an eye and a life for a life.
"You remember my husband," continued Mrs. Vansittart, after a pause.
"He was always absorbed in his researches. He made a great discovery, and confided in Otto von Holzen, who thought that he could make a fortune out of it. But Von Holzen cheated and was caught. There was a great trial, and Von Holzen succeeded in incriminating my husband, who was innocent, instead of himself. The company, of course, failed, which meant ruin and dishonour. In a fit of despair my husband shot himself.
And afterwards it transpired that by shooting himself at that time he saved my money. One cannot take proceedings against a dead man, it appears. So I was left a rich woman, after all, and my husband had frustrated Otto von Holzen. The world did not believe that my husband had done it on purpose; but I knew better. It is one of those beliefs that one keeps to one"s self, and is indifferent whether the world believes or not. So there remain but two things for me to do--the one is to enjoy the money, and to let my husband see that I spend it as he would have wished me to spend it--upon myself; the other is to make Otto von Holzen pay--when the time comes. Who knows? the Malgamite is perhaps the time; you are perhaps the man." She gave her disquieting little laugh again, and sat looking at him.
"I understand," he said at length. "Before, I was puzzled. There seemed no reason why you should take any interest in the scheme."
"My interest in the Malgamite scheme narrows down to an interest in one person," answered Mrs. Vansittart, "which is what really happens to all human interests, my friend."
CHAPTER XVIII.
A COMPLICATION.
"La plus grande punition infligee a l"homme, c"est faire souffrir ce qu"il aime, en voulant frapper ce qu"il hait."
Cornish had, as he told Mrs. Vansittart, been living a week at Scheveningen in one of the quiet little inns in the fishing-town, where a couple of apples are displayed before lace curtains in the window of the restaurant as a modest promise of entertainment within. Knowing no Dutch, he was saved the necessity of satisfying the curiosity of a garrulous landlady, who, after many futile questions which he understood perfectly, came to the conclusion that Cornish was in hiding, and might at any moment fall into the hands of the police.
There are, it appears, few human actions that attract more curiosity for a short time than the act of colonization. But no change is in the long run so apathetically accepted as the presence of a colony of aliens. Cornish soon learnt that the malgamite works were already accepted at Scheveningen as a fact of small local importance. One or two fish-sellers took their wares there instead of going direct to The Hague. A few of the malgamite workers were seen at times, when they could get leave, on the Digue, or outside the smaller _cafes_.
Inoffensive, stricken men these appeared to be, and the big-limbed, hardy fishermen looked on them with mingled contempt and pity. No one knew what the works were, and no one cared. Some thought that fireworks were manufactured within the high fence; others imagined it to be a gunpowder factory. All were content with the knowledge that the establishment belonged to an English company employing no outside labour.
Cornish spent his days un.o.btrusively walking on the dunes or writing letters in his modest rooms. His evenings he usually pa.s.sed at the Cafe de l"Europe, where an occasional truant malgamite worker would indulge in a mild carouse. From these grim revelers Cornish elicited a good deal of information. He was not actually, as his landlady suspected, in hiding, but desired to withhold as long as possible from Von Holzen and Roden the fact that he was in Holland. None of the malgamite workers recognized him; indeed, he saw none of those whom he had brought across to The Hague, and he did not care to ask too many questions. At length, as we have seen, he arrived at the conclusion that Von Holzen"s schemes had been too deeply laid to allow of attack by subtler means, and as a preliminary to further action called on Mrs. Vansittart.
The following morning he happened to take his walk within sight of the Villa des Dunes, although far enough away to avoid risk of recognition, and saw Percy Roden leave the house shortly after nine to proceed towards the works. Then Tony Cornish lighted a cigarette, and sat down to wait. He knew that Dorothy usually walked to The Hague before the heat of the day to do her shopping there and household business. He had not long to wait. Dorothy quitted the little house half an hour after her brother. But she did not go towards The Hague, turning to the right instead, across the open dunes towards the sea. It was a cool morning after many hot days, and a fresh, invigorating breeze swept over the sand hills from the sea. It was to be presumed that Dorothy, having leisure, was going to the edge of the sea for a breath of the brisk air there.
Cornish rose and followed her. He was essentially a practical man--among the leaders of a practical generation. The day, moreover, was conducive to practical thoughts and not to dreams, for it was grey and yet of a light air which came bowling in from a grey sea whose sh.o.r.es have a.s.suredly been trodden by the most energetic of the races of the world. For all around the North Sea and on its bosom have risen races of men to conquer the universe again and again.
Cornish had come with the intention of seeing Dorothy and speaking with her. He had quite clearly in his mind what he intended to say to her.
It is not claimed for Tony Cornish that he had a great mind, and that this was now made up. But his thoughts, like all else about him, were neat and compact, wherein he had the advantage of cleverer men, who blundered along under the burden of vast ideas, which they could not put into portable shape, and over which they constantly stumbled.
He followed Dorothy, who walked briskly over the sand hills, upright, trim, and strong. She carried a stick, which she planted firmly enough in the sand as she walked. As he approached, he could see her lifting her head to look for the sea; for the highest hills are on the sh.o.r.e here, and stand in the form of a great barrier between the waves and the low-lying plains. She swung along at the pace which Mrs. Vansittart had envied her, without exertion, with that ease which only comes from perfect proportions and strength.
Cornish was quite close to her before she heard his step, and turned sharply. She recognized him at once, and he saw the colour slowly rise to her face. She gave no cry of surprise, however, was in no foolish feminine flutter, but came towards him quietly.
"I did not know you were in Holland," she said.
He shook hands without answering. All that he had prepared in his mind had suddenly vanished, leaving not a blank, but a hundred other things which he had not intended to say, and which now, at the sight of her face, seemed inevitable.
"Yes," he said, looking into her steady grey eyes, "I am in Holland--because I cannot stay away--because I cannot live without you.
I have pretended to myself and to everybody else that I come to The Hague because of the Malgamite; but it is not that. It is because you are here. Wherever you are I must be; wherever you go I must follow you. The world is not big enough for you to get away from me. It is so big that I feel I must always be near you--for fear something should happen to you--to watch over you and take care of you. You know what my life has been...."
She turned away with a little shrug of the shoulders and a shake of the head. For a woman may read a man"s life in his face--in the twinkling of an eye--as in an open book.
"All the world knows that...." he continued, with a sceptical laugh.
"Is it not written ... in the society papers? But it has always been aboveboard--and harmless enough...."
Dorothy smiled as she looked out across the grey sea. He was, it appeared, telling her nothing that she did not know. For she was wise and shrewd--of that pure leaven of womankind which leaveneth all the rest. And she knew that a man must not be judged by his life--not even by outward appearance, upon which the world pins so much faith--but by that occasional glimpse of the soul of him, which may live on, pure through all impurity, or may be foul beneath the whitest covering.
"Of course," he continued, "I have wasted my time horribly--I have never done any good in the world. But--great is the extenuating circ.u.mstance! I never knew what life was until I saw it ... in your eyes."
Still she stood with her back half turned towards him, looking out across the sea. The sun had mastered the clouds and all the surface of the water glittered. A few boats on the horizon seemed to dream and sleep there. Beneath the dunes, the sand stretched away north and south in an unbroken plain. The wind whispered through the waving gra.s.s, and, far across the sands, the sea sang its eternal song. Dorothy and Cornish seemed to be alone in this world of sea and sand. So far as the eye could see, there were no signs of human life but the boats dreaming on the horizon.
"Are you quite sure?" said Dorothy, without turning her head.
"Of what...?"
"Of what you say."
"Yes; I am quite sure."
"Because," she said, with a little laugh that suddenly opened the gates of Paradise and bade one more poor human-being enter in--"because it is a serious matter ... for me."
Then, because he was a practical man and knew that happiness, like all else in this life, must be dealt with practically if aught is to be made of it, he told her why he had come. For happiness must not be rushed at and seized with wild eyes and grasping hands, but must be quickly taken when the chance offers, and delicately handled so that it be not ruined by over haste or too much confidence. It is a gift that is rarely offered, and it is only fair to say that the majority of men and women are quite unfit to have it. Even a little prosperity (which is usually mistaken for happiness) often proves too much for the mental equilibrium, and one trembles to think what the recipient would do with real happiness.
"I did not come here intending to tell you that," said Cornish, after a pause.
They were seated now on the dry and driven sand, among the inequalities of the tufted gra.s.s.
Dorothy glanced at him gravely, for his voice had been grave.
"I think I knew," she answered, with a sort of quiet exultation.
Happiness is the quietest of human states.
Cornish turned to look at her, and after a moment she met his eyes--for an instant only.
"I came to tell you a very different story," he said, "and one which at the moment seems to present insuperable difficulties. I can only show you that I care for you by bringing trouble into your life--which is not even original."
He broke off with a little, puzzled laugh. For he did not know how best to tell her that her brother was a scoundrel. He sat making idle holes in the sand with his stick.
"I am in a difficulty," he said at length--"so great a difficulty that there seems to be only one way out of it. You must forget what I have told you to-day, for I never meant to tell you until afterwards, if ever. Forget it for some months until the malgamite works have ceased to exist, and then, if I have the good fortune to be given an opportunity, I will"--he paused--"I will mention myself again," he concluded steadily.
Dorothy"s lips quivered, but she said nothing. It seemed that she was content to accept his judgment without comment as superior to her own.
For the wisest woman is she who suspects that men are wiser.