The Man Between: An International Romance

“Dora was not reticent, I assure you.”

“I am sorry. A wife’s complaints are self-inflicted wounds; scattered seeds, from which only misery can spring. I hope you will not see her again at this time.”

“I made no promise to do so.”

“And where all is so uncertain, we had better suppose all is right than that all is wrong. Even if there was the beginning of wrong, it needs but an accident to prevent it, and there are so many.”

“Accidents!”

“Yes, for accident is God’s part in affairs. We call it accident; it would be better to say an interposition.”

“Dora told me Mostyn intended to buy Rawdon Court in September, and he has even invited the Stanhopes to stay there next summer.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing against it.”

“Very good. Do you think Mostyn is in London now?”

“I should not wonder. I am sure Dora is expecting him.”

In fact, the next morning they met Dora and Basil Stanhope, driving in Hyde Park with Mostyn, but the smiling greeting which passed between the parties did not, except in the case of Basil Stanhope, fairly represent the dominant feeling of anyone. As for Stanhope, his nature was so clear and truthful that he would hardly have comprehended a smile which was intended to veil feelings not to be called either quite friendly or quite pleasant. After this meeting all the joy went out of Ruth and Ethel’s shopping. They wanted to get back to the Court, and they attended strictly to business in order to do so.

Mostyn followed them very quickly. He was exceedingly anxious to see and hear for himself how his affairs regarding Rawdon stood. They were easily made plain to him, and he saw with a pang of disappointment that all his hopes of being Squire of Rawdon Manor were over. Every penny he could righteously claim was paid to him, and on the title deeds of the ancient place he had no longer the shadow of a claim. The Squire looked ten years younger as he affectionately laid both hands on the redeemed parchments, and Mostyn with enforced politeness congratulated him on their integrity and then made a hurried retreat. Of its own kind this disappointment was as great as the loss of Dora. He could think of neither without a sense of immeasurable and disastrous failure. One petty satisfaction regarding the payment of the mortgage was his only com-fort. He might now show McLean that it was not want of money that had made him hitherto shy of “the good investments” offered him. He had been sure McLean in their last interview had thought so, and had, indeed, felt the half-veiled contempt with which the rich young man had expressed his pity for Mostyn’s inability to take advantage at the right moment of an exceptional chance to play the game of beggaring his neighbor. Now, he told himself, he would show McLean and his braggart set that good birth and old family was for once allied with plenty of money, and he also promised his wounded sensibilities some very desirable reprisals, every one of which he felt fully competent to take.

It was, after all, a poor compensation, but there was also the gold. He thanked his father that day for the great thoughtfulness and care with which he had amassed this sum for him, and he tried to console himself with the belief that gold answered all purposes, and that the yellow metal was a better possession than the house and lands which he had longed for with an inherited and insensate craving.

Two days after this event Ethel, at her father’s direction, signed a number of papers, and when that duty was completed, the Squire rose from his chair, kissed her hands and her cheeks, and in a voice full of tenderness and pride said, “I pay my respects to the future lady of Rawdon Manor, and I thank God for permitting me to see this hour. Most welcome, Lady Ethel, to the rights you inherit, and the rights you have bought.” It was a moment hardly likely to be duplicated in any life, and Ethel escaped from its tense emotions as soon as possible. She could not speak, her heart was too full of joy and wonder. There are souls that say little and love much. How blessed are they!

On the following morning the invitations were sent for the dinner and dance, but the time was put forward to the eighth of August. In everyone’s heart there was a hope that before that day Mostyn would have left Rawdon, but the hope was barely mentioned. In the meantime he came and went between Mostyn and Rawdon as he desired, and was received with that modern politeness which considers it best to ignore offenses that our grandfathers and grandmothers would have held for strict account and punishment.

It was evident that he had frequent letters from Dora. He knew all her movements, and spoke several times of opening Mostyn Hall and inviting the Stanhopes to stay with him until their return to America. But as this suggestion did not bring from any member of the Rawdon family the invitation hoped for, it was not acted upon. He told himself the expense would be great, and the Hall, in spite of all he could do in the interim, would look poor and shabby compared with Rawdon Court; so he put aside the proposal on the ground that he could not persuade his aunt to do the entertaining necessary. And for all the irritation and humiliations centering round his loss of Rawdon and his inabilities with regard to Dora he blamed Ethel. He was sure if he had been more lovable and encouraging he could have married her, and thus finally reached Rawdon Court; and then, with all the unreason imaginable, nursed a hearty dislike to her because she would not understand his desires, and provide means for their satisfaction. The bright, joyous girl with her loving heart, her abounding vitality, and constant cheerfulness, made him angry. In none of her excellencies he had any share, consequently he hated her.

He would have quickly returned to London, but Dora and her husband were staying with the Stanhopes, and her letters from Stanhope Castle were lachrymose complaints of the utter weariness and dreariness of life there the preaching and reading aloud, the regular walking and driving—all the innocent method of lives which recognized they were here for some higher purpose than mere physical enjoyment. And it angered Mostyn that neither Ruth nor Ethel felt any sympathy for Dora’s ennui, and proposed no means of releasing her from it. He considered them both disgustingly selfish and ill-natured, and was certain that all their reluctance at Dora’s presence arose from their jealousy of her beauty and her enchanting grace.

On the afternoon of the day preceding the intended entertainment Ruth, Ethel, and the Squire were in the great dining-room superintending its decoration. They were merrily laughing and chatting, and were not aware of the arrival of any visitors until Mrs. Nicholas Rawdon’s rosy, good-natured face appeared at the open door. Everyone welcomed her gladly, and the Squire offered her a seat.

“Nay, Squire,” she said, “I’m come to ask a favor, and I won’t sit till I know whether I get it or not; for if I don’t get it, I shall say good-by as quickly as I can. Our John Thomas came home this morning and his friend with him, and I want invitations for the young men, both of them. My great pleasure lies that way—if you’ll give it to me.”

“Most gladly,” answered the Squire, and Ethel immediately went for the necessary passports. When she returned she found Mrs. Nicholas helping Ruth and the Squire to arrange the large silver and cut crystal on the sideboard, and talking at the same time with unabated vivacity.

“Yes,” she was saying, “the lads would have been here two days ago, but they stayed in London to see some American lady married. John Thomas’s friend knew her. She was married at the Ambassador’s house. A fine affair enough, but it bewilders me this taking up marriage without priest or book. It’s a new commission. The Church’s warrant, it seems, is out of date. It may be right’ it may be legal, but I told John Thomas if he ever got himself married in that kind of a way, he wouldn’t have father or me for witnesses.”

“I am glad,” said the Squire, “that the young men are home in time for our dance. The young like such things.”

“To be sure they do. John Thomas wouldn’t give me a moment’s rest till I came here. I didn’t want to come. I thought John Thomas should come himself, and I told him plainly that I was ready to do anyone a favor if I could, but if he wanted me to come because he was afraid to come himself, I was just as ready to shirk the journey. And he laughed and said he was not feared for any woman living, but he did want to make his first appearance in his best clothes—and that was natural, wasn’t it? So I came for the two lads.” Then she looked at the girls with a smile, and said in a comfortable kind of way: “You’ll find them very nice lads, indeed. I can speak for John Thomas, I have taken his measure long since; and as far as I can judge his friend, Nature went about some full work when she made a man of him. He’s got a sweet temper, and a strong mind, and a straight judgment, if I know anything about men—which Nicholas sometimes makes me think I don’t. But Nicholas isn’t an ordinary man, he’s what you call ‘an exception.’” Then shaking her head at Ethel, she continued reprovingly: “You were neither of you in church Sunday. I know some young women who went to the parish church—Methodists they are—specially to see your new hats. There’s some talk about them, I can tell you, and the village milliner is pestered to copy them. She keeps her eyes open for you. You disappointed a lot of people. You ought to go to church in the country. It’s the most respectable thing you can do.”

“We were both very tired,” said Ruth, “and the sun was hot, and we had a good Sabbath at home. Ethel read the Psalms, Epistle and Gospel for the day, and the Squire gave us some of the grandest organ music I ever heard.”

“Well, well! Everyone knows the Squire is a grand player. I don’t suppose there is another to match him in the whole world, and the old feeling about church-going is getting slack among the young people. They serve God now very much at their ease.”

“Is not that better than serving Him on compulsion?” asked Ruth.

“I dare say. I’m no bigot. I was brought up an Independent, and went to their chapel until I married Nicholas Rawdon. My father was a broad-thinking man. He never taught me to locate God in any building; and I’m sure I don’t believe our parish church is His dwelling-place. If it is, they ought to mend the roof and put a new carpet down and make things cleaner and more respectable. Well, Squire, you have silver enough to tempt all the rogues in Yorkshire, and there’s a lot of them. But now I’ve seen it, I’ll go home with these bits of paper. I shall be a very important woman to-night. Them two lads won’t know how to fleech and flatter me enough. I’ll be waited on hand and foot. And Nicholas will get a bit of a set-down. He was bragging about Miss Ethel bringing his invitation to his hand and promising to dance with him. I wouldn’t do it if I were Miss Ethel. She’ll find out, if she does, what it means to dance with a man that weighs twenty stone, and who has never turned hand nor foot to anything but money-making for thirty years.”

She went away with a sweep and a rustle of her shimmering silk skirt, and left behind her such an atmosphere of hearty good-nature as made the last rush and crowd of preparations easily ordered and quickly accomplished. Before her arrival there had been some doubt as to the weather. She brought the shining sun with her, and when he set, he left them with the promise of a splendid to-morrow—a promise amply redeemed when the next day dawned. Indeed, the sunshine was so brilliant, the garden so gay and sweet, the lawn so green and firm, the avenues so shady and full of wandering songs, that it was resolved to hold the preliminary reception out of doors. Ethel and Ruth were to receive on the lawn, and at the open hall door the Squire would wait to welcome his guests.

Soon after five o’clock there was a brilliant crowd wandering and resting in the pleasant spaces; and Ethel, wearing a diaphanously white robe and carrying a rush basket full of white carnations, was moving among them distributing the flowers. She was thus the center of a little laughing, bantering group when the Nicholas Rawdon party arrived. Nicholas remained with the Squire, Mrs. Rawdon and the young men went toward Ethel. Mrs. Rawdon made a very handsome appearance—“an aristocratic Britannia in white liberty silk and old lace,” whispered Ruth, and Ethel looked up quickly, to meet her merry eyes full of some unexplained triumph. In truth, the proud mother was anticipating a great pleasure, not only in the presentation of her adored son, but also in the curiosity and astonishment she felt sure would be evoked by his friend. So, with the boldness of one who brings happy tidings, she pressed forward. Ethel saw her approach, and went to meet her. Suddenly her steps were arrested. An extraordinary thing was going to happen. The Apollo of her dreams, the singer of the Holland House pavement, was at Mrs. Rawdon’s side, was talking to her, was evidently a familiar friend. She was going to meet him, to speak to him at last. She would hear his name in a few moments; all that she had hoped and believed was coming true. And the clear, resonant voice of Lydia Rawdon was like music in her ears as she said, with an air of triumph she could not hide:

“Miss Rawdon, I want you to know my son, Mr. John Thomas Rawdon, and also John Thomas’s cousin, Mr. Tyrrel Rawdon, of the United States.” Then Mr. Tyrrel Rawdon looked into Ethel’s face, and in that marvelous meeting of their eyes, swift as the firing of a gun, their pupils dilated and flashed with recognition, and the blood rushed crimson over both faces. She gave the gentlemen flowers, and listened to Mrs. Rawdon’s chatter, and said in reply she knew not what. A swift and exquisite excitement had followed her surprise. Feelings she could not voice were beating at her lips, and yet she knew that without her conscious will she had expressed her astonishment and pleasure. It was, indeed, doubtful whether any after speech or explanation would as clearly satisfy both hearts as did that momentary flash from soul to soul of mutual remembrance and interest.

“I thought I’d give you a surprise,” said Mrs. Rawdon delightedly. “You didn’t know the Tyrrel-Rawdons had a branch in America, did you? We are a bit proud of them, I can tell you that.”

And, indeed, the motherly lady had some reason. John Thomas was a handsome youth of symmetrical bone and flesh and well-developed muscle. He had clear, steady, humorous eyes; a manner frank and independent, not to be put upon; and yet Ethel divined, though she could not have declared, the “want” in his appearance—that all-overish grace and elasticity which comes only from the development of the brain and nervous system. His face was also marred by the seal of commonness which trade impresses on so many men, the result of the subjection of the intellect to the will, and of the impossibility of grasping things except as they relate to self. In this respect the American cousin was his antipodes. His whole body had a psychical expression—slim, elastic, alert. Over his bright gray eyes the eyelids drew themselves horizontally, showing his dexterity and acuteness of mind; indeed, his whole expression and mien

“Were, as are the eagle’s keen,
All the man was aquiline.”

These personal characteristics taking some minutes to describe were almost an instantaneous revelation to Ethel, for what the soul sees it sees in a flash of understanding. But at that time she only answered her impressions without any inquiry concerning them. She was absorbed by the personal presence of the men, and all that was lovely and lovable in her nature responded to their admiration.

As they strolled together through a flowery alley, she made them pass their hands through the thyme and lavender, and listen to a bird singing its verses, loud and then soft, in the scented air above them. They came out where the purple plums and golden apricots were beginning to brighten a southern wall, and there, moodily walking by himself, they met Mostyn face to face. An angry flash and movement interpreted his annoyance, but he immediately recovered himself, and met Ethel and his late political opponent with polite equanimity. But a decided constraint fell on the happy party, and Ethel was relieved to hear the first tones of the great bell swing out from its lofty tower the call to the dining-room.

As far as Mostyn was concerned, this first malapropos meeting indicated the whole evening. His heart was beating quickly to some sense of defeat which he did not take the trouble to analyze. He only saw the man who had shattered his political hopes and wasted his money in possession also of what he thought he might rightly consider his place at Ethel’s side. He had once contemplated making Ethel his bride, and though the matrimonial idea had collapsed as completely as the political one, the envious, selfish misery of the “dog in the manger” was eating at his heartstrings. He did not want Ethel; but oh, how he hated the thought of either John Thomas or that American Raw-don winning her! His seat at the dinner-table also annoyed him. It was far enough from the objects of his resentment to prevent him hearing or interfering in their merry conversation; and he told himself with passionate indignation that Ethel had never once in all their intercourse been so beautiful and bright as she revealed herself that evening to those two Rawdon youths—one a mere loom-master, the other an American whom no one knew anything about.

The long, bewitching hours of the glorious evening added fuel to the flame of his anger. He could only procure from Ethel the promise of one unimportant dance at the close of her programme; and the American had three dances, and the mere loom-man two. And though he attempted to restore his self-complacency by devoting his whole attentions to the only titled young ladies in the room, he had throughout the evening a sense of being snubbed, and of being a person no longer of much importance at Rawdon Court. And the reasoning of wounded self-love is a singular process. Mostyn was quite oblivious of any personal cause for the change; he attributed it entirely to the Squire’s ingratitude.

“I did the Squire a good turn when he needed it, and of course he hates me for the obligation; and as for the Judge and his fine daughter, they interfered with my business—did me a great wrong—and they are only illustrating the old saying, ‘Since I wronged you I never liked you.’” After indulging such thoughts awhile, he resolved to escort the ladies Aurelia and Isolde Danvers to Danvers Castle, and leave Miss Ethel to find a partner for her last dance, a decision that favored John Thomas, greatly relieved Ethel, and bestowed upon himself that most irritating of all punishments, a self-inflicted disappointment.

This evening was the inauguration of a period of undimmed delight. In it the Tyrrel-Rawdons concluded a firm and affectionate alliance with the elder branch at the Court, and one day after a happy family dinner John Thomas made the startling proposal that “the portrait of the disinherited, disowned Tyrrel should be restored to its place in the family gallery.” He said he had “just walked through it, and noticed that the spot was still vacant, and I think surely,” he added, “the young man’s father must have meant to recall him home some day, but perhaps death took him unawares.”

“Died in the hunting-field,” murmured the Squire.

John Thomas bowed his head to the remark, and proceeded, “So perhaps, Squire, it may be in your heart to forgive the dead, and bring back the poor lad’s picture to its place. They who sin for love aren’t so bad, sir, as they who sin for money. I never heard worse of Tyrrel Rawdon than that he loved a poor woman instead of a rich woman—and married her. Those that have gone before us into the next life, I should think are good friends together; and I wouldn’t wonder if we might even make them happier there if we conclude to forget all old wrongs and live together here—as Rawdons ought to live—like one family.”

“I am of your opinion, John Thomas,” said the Squire, rising, and as he did so he looked at the Judge, who immediately indorsed the proposal. One after the other rose with sweet and strong assent, until there was only Tyrrel Rawdon’s voice lacking. But when all had spoken he rose also, and said:

“I am Tyrrel Rawdon’s direct descendant, and I speak for him when I say to-day, ‘Make room for me among my kindred!’ He that loves much may be forgiven much.”

Then the housekeeper was called, and they went slowly, with soft words, up to the third story of the house. And the room unused for a century was flung wide open; the shutters were unbarred, and the sunshine flooded it; and there amid his fishing tackle, guns, and whips, and faded ballads upon the wall, and books of wood lore and botany, and dress suits of velvet and satin, and hunting suits of scarlet—all faded and falling to pieces—stood the picture of Tyrrel Rawdon, with its face turned to the wall. The Squire made a motion to his descendant, and the young American tenderly turned it to the light. There was no decay on those painted lineaments. The almost boyish face, with its loving eyes and laughing mouth, was still twenty-four years old; and with a look of pride and affection the Squire lifted the picture and placed it in the hands of the Tyrrel Rawdon of the day.

The hanging of the picture in its old place was a silent and tender little ceremony, and after it the party separated. Mrs. Rawdon went with Ruth to rest a little. She said “she had a headache,” and she also wanted a good womanly talk over the affair. The Squire, Judge Rawdon, Mr. Nicholas Rawdon, and John Thomas returned to the dining-room to drink a bottle of such mild Madeira as can only now be found in the cellars of old county magnates, and Ethel and Tyrrel Rawdon strolled into the garden. There had not been in either mind any intention of leaving the party, but as they passed through the hall Tyrrel saw Ethel’s garden hat and white parasol lying on a table, and, impelled by some sudden and unreasoned instinct, he offered them to her. Not a word of request was spoken; it was the eager, passionate command of his eyes she obeyed. And for a few minutes they were speechless, then so intensely conscious that words stumbled and were lame, and they managed only syllables at a time. But he took her hand, and they came by sunny alleys of boxwood to a great plane tree, bearing at wondrous height a mighty wealth of branches. A bank of soft, green turf encircled its roots, and they sat down in the trembling shadows. It was in the midst of the herb garden; beds of mint and thyme, rosemary and marjoram, basil, lavender, and other fragrant plants were around, and close at hand a little city of straw skeps peopled by golden brown bees; From these skeps came a delicious aroma of riced flowers and virgin wax. It was a new Garden of Eden, in which life was sweet as perfume and pure as prayer. Nothing stirred the green, sunny afternoon but the murmur of the bees, and the sleepy twittering of the birds in the plane branches. An inexpressible peace swept like the breath of heaven through the odorous places. They sat down sighing for very happiness. The silence became too eloquent. At length it was almost unendurable, and Ethel said softly:

“How still it is!”

Tyrrel looked at her steadily with beaming eyes. Then he took from his pocket a little purse of woven gold and opal-tinted beads, and held it in his open hand for her to see, watching the bright blush that spread over her face, and the faint, glad smile that parted her lips.

“You understand?”