A Gamble with Life

"Oh! I don't know. This endless whirl and excitement has got on my nerves, I think."

"But you complained of Cornwall getting on your nerves some time ago."

"Did I? Well, it did seem rather flat and tame at first."

"No, it was not at the beginning. You were delighted with it on your arrival – "

"And I am still," she interrupted. "I think it is just too lovely for anything."

"But have you really got tired of London life?"

"I think it is too stupid for words. Oh! no, I don't mean that exactly. Pardon me, Sir Charles" – seeing the pained look in his eyes – "I won't complain any more if I can help it, I won't really."

"I am very anxious that you should enjoy yourself all you possibly can. Beryl is dreading the time when she will have to go back again."

"She knows so many people," Madeline said, reflectively.

"And you have made hosts of acquaintances, have you not?"

"Yes, acquaintances, but they don't mean anything. I never realised before, I think, how many people there are in the world, and how many things there are in the world I can do without."

"That oughtn't to be a very startling discovery," he said, with a smile.

"But you don't feel it in a place like St. Gaved," she said. "There everybody seems necessary to everybody else."

"Indeed?" he questioned, dryly.

"Well, I mean that in a little community where each one plays his part, and each one's part is known to all the rest – "

"Yes?" he questioned, seeing she hesitated.

"Oh! I can't explain myself very well, but you must know very well what I mean."

"No; really you flatter me," he said, in a tone of banter, "for in reality your meaning is quite beyond me."

"Then I must be stupider than I thought," she answered, with a pout, and relapsed into silence.

Sir Charles was not only perplexed, he was more or less troubled. If he dared he would have been angry, but he knew that anger would defeat the particular end he had in view. Whatever Madeline might or might not be she was not the kind of person to be coerced. She might be led in many directions, but no one could drive her. At the least suggestion of the lash, she would jib and back, and nothing short of physical force would move her a step forward.

Hence Sir Charles had felt from the first that his task was one of extreme difficulty and delicacy. Moreover, every day as it passed increased the difficulty. Madeline was swiftly growing out of girlhood into womanhood, and the things that fascinated her as a girl quickly palled upon her as a woman, and Sir Charles was growing desperately afraid lest when she saw Gervase again she might be disillusioned, as she evidently had been in other matters.

He was more troubled also than he liked to confess over her intimacy with Rufus Sterne. He could not forget the romantic circumstances under which they had met, the signal service he had rendered her, and the long weeks of suffering and idleness that followed as a consequence, and on a romantic and generous nature like Madeline's, these things would make an abiding impression. For that reason he had got her away from St. Gaved as quickly as possible after he had made the discovery that she was in the habit of visiting him, and for the same reason he intended to keep her away until within a few days of his son's return.

Sir Charles had counted so long on annexing the American heiress for his son, that any thought of failure now was too humiliating to be entertained. It was his last hope of rehabilitating Trewinion Hall, and the historic name of Tregony. Gervase's record was of such a character that no English heiress would look at him unless, indeed, he consented to marry the daughter of a tradesman, and even in such case as that his chances would be very doubtful.

The beautiful thing about an American heiress was that nobody inquired into her antecedents. So long as she had the requisite number of dollars nothing else mattered. Her father might be a pork-butcher, or a pawnbroker, or an oilman; that was no barrier to his daughter becoming a countess or even a duchess.

Poor as Sir Charles was, he would have fainted at the idea of Gervase marrying the daughter of a Redbourne tradesman, however rich or beautiful or accomplished she might be. The very suggestion of "trade" was an offence to his aristocratic nostrils. But Madeline came from a country where the only aristocracy was that of cash, hence by virtue of her uncounted millions she was eligible for the highest positions on this side the water. The logic might not be very sound, but it was satisfying. If the Earl of this and the Duke of that had regilded their coronets with American dollars, why might not he refurbish the Tregony coat of arms with the same precious metal? The reasoning appeared to him to be without a flaw.

Moreover, there was the additional argument of necessity. In consequence of the low price of corn along with nearly all other articles of food, agriculture was in a terribly depressed condition. In other words, the farmer could pay only about half the amount in rent that he would be able to do if wheat and barley, and bacon and butter, stood at twice their present prices.

Sir Charles always grew white with anger when he thought of the foolish men who, in a previous generation, abolished the corn-laws and gave cheap food to the people.

"Look at me," he would say; "my rent roll is only about one-half of what it was in my father's day, and there are hundreds and thousands of the best families up and down the country who have been reduced in circumstances by the same means. What the Government ought to do is to put a high duty on all imported corn and foodstuffs, that would send up the price of English wheat, and English beef, and everything else that is English, and so give the English nobility a chance of getting out of their estates all that they are capable of producing."

The logic of this, if not quite sound, was also satisfying from his point of view. There seemed, however, no prospect just then that the food of the people would be taxed for the benefit of the noble and indispensable class to which he belonged. The working classes for some selfish reason, appeared to object to it. They were possessed by the stupid idea that the higher their wages and the cheaper their food, the better off they would be; and against such unreasoning prejudice as that, logic spent its strength in vain.

Failing, therefore, any Government help in the shape of protection, he would have to guard his interests in some other way, and Madeline appeared to be an excellent way out of the difficulty. In fact, she almost reconciled him to the idea of free imports. If England had suffered loss through the importation of American wheat, it was only fair that England should be compensated by having the pick of America's richest and fairest women. Since there was no duty on corn, it was only just and right that heiresses should be free.

But as the time drew near when Sir Charles hoped to see the full fruition of his little scheme, he grew increasingly nervous. Until the last few weeks everything had gone as smoothly as heart could desire. Madeline seemed like a ripe apple that would drop directly the tree was touched. Without any undue influence, with scarcely a suggestion from anyone, she was inclining in the very direction most desired.

Then suddenly she had become captious and uncertain. The moment she reached the point when she was desired to make up her mind definitely she drew back. The increasing warmth of the Captain's letters she had appeared to reciprocate to the full. She had talked about him with a simple ingenuousness that had delighted the baronet's heart. The proposal seemed to have arrived in the very nick of time. She had gathered from Sir Charles, in detached fragments, the full story of her father's wish in the matter. She had been given one glimpse of London, with its life and gaiety, she had been supplied with every newspaper cutting that spoke of Captain Tregony's prowess as a hunter of big game, and she had tacitly accepted the situation, as though Providence had shaped her lot, and shaped it to her entire satisfaction. And then she hesitated, and became silent, and demanded time for further consideration.

Sir Charles had broached the subject in the most delicate manner possible when they happened to be alone. Gervase's letter to the family had been left on the drawing-room table. The Baronet picked it up and read it again.

"Gervase seems terribly impatient to get home this time," he remarked, casually.

Madeline glanced up from her book, but did not reply.

"I really do not wonder," Sir Charles went on. "Poor old boy, it is nearly three years since he saw you, and he must be pining for a sight of your face."

"He seems a little home-sick," Madeline said, indifferently.

"I don't think it is that altogether. Now that he has definitely proposed to you, it brings all the longing to a head, if I may say so. I hope you have written to him and put an end to his suspense?"

"No, I have not replied yet. I thought of writing this afternoon."

"I wish you would; I am sorry you have not written before."

"I have been too busy with other things, Sir Charles."

"Oh, well, I am not complaining, my dear. Take your own time, of course. But, naturally, I feel for my son, and I know how anxious he will be. It will be nice for him to meet you here in his ancestral home as his affianced wife."

"I suppose it would simplify matters, wouldn't it?"

"It would simplify matters a very great deal," Sir Charles said, in a tone of relief. "There is no reason why you should not go away on the Continent in the early spring for your honeymoon, and so escape our bitter east winds."

"That would be lovely, wouldn't it?"

"Lovely! Ah! well, I almost envy you young people. If one could only be young a second time how much he would appreciate it! But I will not detain you now if you are going to write letters," and he thrust Gervase's epistle into his pocket, and walked slowly out of the room.

Later in the day he discovered that instead of writing letters she had been visiting Rufus Sterne at St. Gaved, and his anger almost got the better of him. By a tremendous effort, however, he kept himself well in hand, and talked to her with a seriousness that did full justice to the occasion.

Two days later he learned that she had not yet replied to Gervase's letter; he made no remark, however, but on the following day he made a proposition that they should spent the late autumn in London.

The experiment, however, had not been altogether satisfactory. Madeline had not been at all like her old self. She was moody and absent-minded, and by no means easy to please. That she had written to Gervase he knew, and written more than once, but she gave no hint to anyone of the nature of her communications.

Sir Charles hoped for the best, but he was troubled all the time by serious misgivings. Her very uncommunicativeness was a disturbing factor. Several times he was strongly tempted to put a point-blank question to her; but when it came to the point his courage failed him. Moreover, his reason told him that the more anxious he appeared to be the more stubborn and intractable she would become. The only thing he could do was to wait patiently until Gervase's return, and trust to luck or Providence for what would follow.