Anthony Hope

“ His own mood was in harmony, gloomy and dark, in rebellion against the burden he carried, yet with no thought of laying it down. He did not notice a man who came up the road and took his stand just behind him, waiting there for a moment in silence and apparent irresolution.
"Mr Tristram."
Harry turned his head and saw Major Duplay; the Major was grave, almost solemn, as he raised his hat a trifle in formal salute.
"Do I interrupt you?"
"You couldn't have found a man more at leisure." Harry did not rise, but gathered his knees up, clasping his hands round them and looking up in Duplay's face. ”

“ In later days Harry came to look back on that afternoon as the beginning of many new things for him. Iver and Southend talked; old Mr Neeld sat by, listening with the interest of a man who feels he has missed something in life and would fain learn, even though he is too old to turn the knowledge to account. Harry found himself listening too, but in a different way.
They were not talking idly; they talked for him. That much he soon discerned. And they were not offering to help him. His vigilant pride, still sore from the blow that Cecily had dealt it, was on the look-out for that. ”

“ The man with whom the fighters and the doubters were concerned, in whose defence or attack efforts and hopes were enlisted, round whom hesitation and struggles gathered, was thinking very little about his champions or his enemies. No fresh whispers of danger had come to Harry Tristram's ears. He knew nothing of Neeld and could not think of that quiet old gentleman as a possible menace to his secret. He trusted Mina Zabriska and relied on the influence which he had proved himself to possess over her. He did not believe that Duplay would stick to his game, and was not afraid of him if he did. ”

“ Harry Tristram had come back to Blent in the mood which belonged to the place as of old—the mood that claimed as his right what had become his by love, knew no scruples if only he could gain and keep it, was ready to play a bold game and take a great chance. He did not argue about what he was going to do. He did not justify it, and perhaps could not. Yet to him what he purposed was so clearly the best thing that Cecily must be forced into it. She could not be forced by force; if he told her the truth, he would meet at the outset a resistance which he could not quell. ”

“ Cecily was beautiful that evening, in her black frock, with her fair hair, her pale face, and her eyes full of tragedy. She had been writing, it appeared; ink and paper were on the table. She was very quiet, but, Mina thought, with the stillness that follows a storm. Unasked, the Imp sketched the dinner party, especially Harry's share in it. Her despair was laced with vitriol and she avoided a kind word about anybody. This was blank ingratitude to Mr Disney, and to Theo too; but our friends can seldom escape from paying for our misfortunes. ”

“ Gainsborough was very fussy over the news; a deeper but quieter excitement glowed in Cecily's eyes as, listening to Sloyd, she feigned to pay no heed. She had designs on the check. Beauty unadorned may mean several things; but moralists cannot be right in twisting the commendation of it into a eulogium on thread-bare frocks. She must have a funeral frock.
Sloyd came to the door which opened on the garden, and greeted her. He was as smart as usual, his tie a new creation, his hat mirroring the sun. Cecily was shabby from necessity and somewhat touzled from lolling in the hammock. ”

“ His blood spoke strong in him. Suddenly he smiled. It was at the thought that all this belonged in law to Miss Cecily Gainsborough—the house, the gallery, the pictures, the treasures, the very chair where Addie Tristram had used to sit. Every stick and stone about the place was Cecily Gainsborough's, aye, and the bed of the Blent from shore to shore. He had nothing at all—according to law.
Well, the law must have some honor, some recognition, at all events. The Gainsboroughs should, as he had promised, be asked to the funeral. ”

“ In spite of his attempted calmness his voice grew a little louder. "I want nothing but what's my own. If nothing's my own, well and good—I can wait till I make it something."
"But, my dear Harry——!" began the discomfited Southend. Harry cut him short, breaking again into impetuous speech.
"There's nothing between my cousin and me. There's no question of marriage and never can be. And if there were——" He seemed to gather himself up for a flight of scorn—"If there were, do you think I'm going to save my own pride by saddling the family with a beastly new viscounty?" ”

“ Iver, keen at a bargain, hard in business hours (had not Mina Zabriska discovered that?) , confident that nobody would care to incur his enmity—he was powerful—by forestalling him, had refused Masters his price; the old gentleman would have to come down. But some young men stepped in, with the rashness of their youth, and acquired an option of purchase from Masters. Iver smiled in a vexed fashion, but was not dismayed. He let it be known that anybody who advanced money to the young men—Sloyd, Sloyd, and Gurney was the firm—would be his enemies; then he waited for the young men to approach him. ”

“ You were looking as if you couldn't understand how anybody could want to talk to uncle when you were there. But he's better-looking than you are, and much more amusing."
"I don't set up for a beauty or a wit either," Harry observed, not at all put out by the Imp's premeditated candor.
"No—and still she ought to want to talk to you! Why? Because you're Mr Tristram, I suppose?" Mina indulged in a very scornful demeanor.
"It's very friendly of you to resent my behavior on Miss Iver's behalf." ”

“ Mina looked from one to the other.
"Do you mean there's anything possible?" she asked.
"My dear, you're a very good friend."
"I'm not very happy. I don't know what in the world Cecily will do. And yet——" Mina struggled with her rival impulses of kindness and curiosity. "It's all awfully interesting," she concluded, breaking into a smile she could not resist.
"That's the only excuse for all of us, I suppose," sighed Lady Evenswood.
"Not that I like the boy particularly," added Southend.
"Is there anything?" asked Mina. The appeal was to the lady, not to Southend. ”

“ She could not endure it; she must justify herself, revenge herself at a blow on Harry for his rudeness and on her uncle for his scepticism. The triumph would be sweet; she could not for the moment think of any seriousness in what she did. She could not keep her victory to herself; somebody else now must look on at Harry's humiliation, at least must see that she had power to bring it about. With the height of malicious exultation she looked up at Duplay and said:
"Suppose he wasn't Tristram of Blent at all?" ”

“ She meant, and intended Harry to understand, that without the marriage the thing could not be done at all. Mina had reported Mr Disney faithfully, and Lady Evenswood's knowledge of her cousin Robert was not at fault. "Apart from anything else, there would be the sordid question," she ended, with a smile that became propitiatory against her will; she had meant it to be merely confidential.
There was ground for hope; Harry hesitated—truth will out, even where it impairs the grandeur of men. ”

“ What was all this to ears that listened for a whisper of Harry Tristram?
"The most delightful thing is," Janie pursued, "that our marriage is to make no change at all in his way of life. We're going to live at Mingham just as he has lived all his life—a real country life on a farm!" There was no hint that other ideals of existence had ever possessed an alluring charm; the high life with Harry, the broad and cosmopolitan life with the Major—where were they? ”

“ Happily, in the smoking-room the talk shifted to less embarrassing subjects. Iver told of his life and doings, and Neeld found himself drawn to the man: he listened with interest and appreciation; he seemed brought into touch with life; he caught himself sighing over the retired inactive nature of his own occupations. He forgave Iver the hoardings about the streets; he could not forgive himself the revenge he had taken for them. Iver and Southend spoke of big schemes in which they had been or were engaged together—legitimate enterprises, good for the nation as well as for themselves. ”

“ Yet Neeld was no happier after his effort than before it. A silence fell on them all. Mina glanced from her uncle's face to Iver's. Both men were stern and gloomy. Her sense of heroism barely supported her; things were so very uncomfortable. If Harry could know what she suffered for him, it would be something. But Mina had an idea that Harry was thinking very little about her. Moreover, in taking sides in a controversy, perhaps the most important practical question is—whom has one got to live with? She had to live not with Harry Tristram, but with that glowering uncle, Major Duplay. ”

“ Harry looked across with a surprised air; he seemed to wonder that she should be enjoying herself. Mina was annoyed, and set herself to be merry; a glance from Lady Flora converted vexation into rage. She turned back to Theo; somehow Mr Disney had taught her how to like him—often a valuable lesson, if people would keep their eyes open for it.
"Everybody else I've met has been horribly afraid of Mr Disney," she said in a half-whisper.
"Oh, you aren't in a funk of a man who's smacked your head!" ”

“ Even toward Robert's caprices, even to the oddest people, Lady Flora prided herself on a becoming bearing. And in the end this little Madame Zabriska had rather amused her; she was funny with her airs of ownership about Harry Tristram.
Well poor Mina understood! All that the enemy thought was legible to her; all the misery that keen perceptions can sometimes bring was sure to be hers. She had spent the most notable evening of her life, and she got into her cab a miserable woman. ”

“ There were such infinite varieties of things to do, such a multitude of people doing them. To some men this reflection brings despair or bewilderment; to Harry (as indeed Lord Southend would have expected from his observation of him) it was a titillating evidence of great opportunities, stirring his mind to a busy consideration of chances. Thus then it seemed as though Blent might fall into the background, his loved Blent. ”

“ On her death-bed Addie Tristram had exerted her charm once more—and over her own son. Once more a man, whatever his own position, thought mainly of her—and that man was her son. Did Neeld see this? To Neeld it came as the strongest reinforcement to the feelings which bade him hold his peace. It seemed an appeal to him, straight from the death-bed in the valley below. Harry found the old gentleman's gaze fixed intently on him. ”

“ Now the Imp's efforts had looked like that—just like it. She chafed under conscious inferiority; Lady Flora had smiled at being thought to need such a reminder.
"Men never see it unless it's absolutely crammed down their throats," Lady Flora pursued. "They always think it's all themselves, you know. It would be very clumsy to be found out."
In perfect innocence she sprinkled pepper on Mina's wound. Able to endure no more, the Imp declared that she must go back to Cecily.
"Oh, poor girl, I quite forgot her! You're going back to Blent with her, I suppose? ”

“ Friendliness based on a thorough sympathy of mind was his attitude if his demeanor revealed it truly; while Lady Tristram was to her son as she was to all the world at this time, a creature of feelings now half cold and of moods that reflected palely the intense impulses of her youth. But a few years over forty, she grew faded and faint in mind, it seemed, as well as in body, and was no longer a merry comrade to the boy who never left her. Yet he did not wish to leave her. To her, indeed, he was not a boy, and nobody about the place regarded him as other than a man. ”