"Then since you hold me in such esteem, why not act in my interests?" he asked, for in argument he was as shrewd as a man could possibly be, and had pa.s.sed with honours through that school of _finesse_, the Foreign Office.
"I--well, I decline to release you, if your freedom is to be used in dallying at the side of another woman," she replied, heedless of his question.
"But I have no intention of doing so. Surely you know my nature well enough? You know how fully occupied I am as Under-Secretary, and that my presence here from time to time has scarcely been in harmony with my duties at the Foreign Office and in the House. I have little leisure; and I do not possess that inclination for _amourettes_ which somehow appears to seize half the legislators sent to Westminster."
"I know! I know!" she replied, still clinging to him, stroking the dark hair from his brow with the velvety hand which he had so often kissed.
"I admit that you have always been loyal to me, Dudley. Sometimes, with a woman"s quick jealousy, I have doubted you, and have watched you carefully, always, however, to find my suspicions utterly unfounded. Do you remember what you told me when we walked together in the park at Wroxeter that morning last summer? Do you recollect your vows of eternal friendship to me--unworthy though I may be?" She paused, and there was a slight catch in her voice.
"Alas! I am fully aware of all my failings, of all my indiscretions, of all my caprices; but surely you do not heed this spiteful gossip which is going the rounds? You do not believe me so black as I am painted--do you?" and again she stroked his brow with her caressing hand.
"I believe only what I have seen with my own eyes," he answered rather ambiguously. "You have been indiscreet--extremely indiscreet--and I have often told you so. But your ambition was to become the most _chic_ woman in town, and you have accomplished it. At what cost?"
She made no response. Her head was bowed.
"Shall I tell you at what cost?" he went on very gravely. "At the cost of your reputation--and of mine."
"Ah! forgive me, Dudley!" she cried quickly. "I was blind then, dazzled by the compliments heaped upon me, bewildered by the wealth that had so suddenly become mine after poor d.i.c.k"s death. I was rendered callous to everything by my foolish desire to shine as the smartest and most popular woman in London. I did not think of you."
"Exactly," he said. "Your admission only clinches my argument that, although we have been close friends, no real affection has of later years existed between us. Frankly, had you loved me, you could not have acted with such reckless indiscretion as to risk my name, my position, and my honour."
He spoke a truth which admitted of no question.
"Now," he went on at last, slowly unclasping her clinging arms from his neck. "It is already late and I have an important appointment at the Foreign Office, for which I am overdue. We must part."
"Never!" she cried wildly. "You shall not leave me like this! If you do, I shall call at your chambers every day, and compel you to see me."
"Then I must give orders to Parsons not to admit you," he answered quite calmly.
"That man of yours is an old bear. Why don"t you get rid of him, and have some one less fossilised?" she exclaimed in a gust of fury. "When I called the other day with Lady Meldrum, he was positively rude."
"Lady Meldrum!" exclaimed Chisholm, p.r.i.c.king up his ears. "Who"s she?"
"Oh, a woman who has rather come to the front of late--wife of old Sir Henry Meldrum, the great Glasgow iron-master. We were driving past, and I wanted to see you, so she came in with me, rather than wait in the cold. Quite a smart woman--you ought to know her."
"Thanks," responded the Under-Secretary coldly. "I have no desire to have that pleasure. Smart women don"t interest me in the least."
"That is meant, I suppose, as a compliment," she observed. "You are certainly in a very delightful mood to-day, Dudley."
"I have at least spoken the truth," he said, piqued by the knowledge that for some mysterious reason this woman was conniving with a new star in the social firmament, Lady Meldrum, wife of his pet abomination, a Jubilee knight, to effect his marriage with the unknown Muriel--her daughter, of course.
"You have unearthed and placed before me all the most ugly phases of my career," cried the unhappy woman with a quick, defiant glance; "and now, after your flood of reproaches, you declare that in future we are to be as strangers."
"For the sake of our reputations."
"Our reputations? Rubbish!" she laughed cynically. "What reputation has either of us to lose?" He bit his lip. A hasty retort arose within him, but he succeeded in stifling it.
"We need not, I think, discuss that point," he said very coldly.
She stood in silence waiting for him to proceed.
"Well," she asked at last, with an air of mingled defiance and sarcasm.
"And what more?"
"Nothing. I have finished. I have only to wish you adieu."
"Then you really intend to abandon me?" she asked very gravely, her small hand trembling.
"I have already explained my intentions. They were quite clear, I think."
"And you decline to reconsider them?"
"They admit of no reconsideration," he answered briefly.
"Very well then, adieu," she said in a cold and bitter voice, for in those few moments her manner had changed, and she was now a frigid, imperious woman with a heart of stone.
"Adieu, Claudia," he said, bending with a stiff courtliness over the hand she had extended to him. "You will one day see that this step of mine has saved us both from degradation and ruin. Good-bye. Recollect that even though we are apart, I remain still, as I have ever been, your devoted friend."
Her hand dropped limply from his grasp as she stood there like a beautiful statue in the centre of the room. With a final glance at her he turned and walked straight out.
For a moment after the door had closed, she still remained in the same position in which he had left her. Then, in a sudden frenzy of uncontrollable pa.s.sion, she hooked her nervous fingers in her chiffons and tore them into shreds.
"He has defied me!" she exclaimed wildly, bursting into a flood of hot tears. "He has defied me, and cast me off--_me, who love him_!"
CHAPTER FIVE.
DESCRIBES AN ENGLISH HOME.
Three miles from the long white road that runs between sedate old Shrewsbury and the town of Wellington, there stood a prominent object in the landscape, high upon a wooded hill to the right. It was the ancient castle of Wroxeter, one of the best preserved and most historic of the Norman castles of England.
Seen through the trees, golden in their autumn tints, it was an imposing grey pile, rich in turrets with narrow windows, whence, long ago, archers had showered their shafts, but which were now half concealed by an evergreen mantle. Closer inspection showed that it was a fortress no longer. The old moat, once fed from the winding Severn close by, was now a well-kept garden with gravelled walks and trees cut into fantastic shapes, while around the building were level lawns sweeping away to the great park beyond.
One wing of the fine old feudal castle was in decay. The shattered state of the tower was due to a siege conducted by Cromwell, and the ivy had overgrown the ruins. All the other parts were in good order, stern and impressive in regard to the exterior, yet luxurious within. In the great courtyard, that had through the Middle Ages so often rung with the clank of sword and the tread of armed men, moss grew between the pebbles, and the echoes were only nowadays awakened by the wheels of the high dog-cart which conveyed its owner to and from the railway station at Shrewsbury. The old drawbridge had been replaced by a gravel drive a century ago; yet in the fine oak-panelled hall there still stood the rust-stained armour of the departed Chisholms, together with the faded and tattered banners carried by them in tournament and battle.
Built on the site of the Roman city called Vriconium, whilst in the park and in neighbouring meadows traces of the city wall could still be seen, the fosse and the basilica were still visible. The history of Wroxeter began with the Norman survey, the account given of it in Domesday Book being as follows:
"Chisholme holds a hide and three roodlands in Wroxeter in this manor, which was always included in the district of Haughmond, where the castle is situated. Roger had half a hide, and Ralph two roodlands. There is one plough and a half in the demesne, and seven villeins with ten bondmen have four ploughs and a half. The whole value in the time of the Confessor was six pounds, it has since been estimated at six: but it is now appreciated at nine pounds."
The portion now ruined was standing in those early days of England"s history, but it was not until the third year of Richard the Second"s reign that the other portion of the old fortress was completed by Sir Robert Chisholm, who (together with Sir John Calveley of Chester and Sir John Hawkwood of Haughmond Castle), was a celebrated captain of those marauding bands that shared in the triumphs of Cressy and Poitiers. The following distich, by a mediaeval poet, records his prowess:
"O Roberte Chisholme, per te fit Francia mollis, Ense tuo tollis praedas, dans vulnera collis."
_O Robert Chisholm, the stubborn souls Of Frenchmen well you check; Your mighty blade has largely preyed, And wounded many a neck_.
During those stormy days of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Wroxeter withstood many a fierce a.s.sault and sheltered not a few of England"s kings and queens as guests of the Chisholms, many of whom had been favourites at Court and held official positions of high importance.
Queen Elizabeth was the last monarch to visit the castle, and the memory of that event was kept green by the name given to the old-world garden over-looking the Severn, which was known as the Queen"s Garden.
It was a grand old building, this feudal home to which Dudley Chisholm returned on the night following the farewell scene which had taken place between himself and the frivolous woman with whose name his own had been linked. He had invited for three days" shooting two men--Colonel Murray-Kerr, a retired military attache, and Henry Benthall, a man who had been at college with him, and who had, after being called to the bar, successfully contested East Glamorganshire. All three had travelled down from Euston together; but Dudley, after a sleepless night, had risen long before his guests and wandered through the vast and lonely chambers, full of melancholy musings. He would have put the men off, for he was in no mood to entertain, but there had been no time.