Adrian Savage

“ Then Adrian, moved by compassion, came close to him and spoke kindly.
"See here, my poor boy," he said. "I am commissioned by persons who have a regard for you to provide for you. You need not worry about your pay. I will take care of all that. For months I have tried to find you to tell you this. I am Adrian Savage, a cousin of your late father, and his executor."
The tears ceased, and the young man's face was overspread by an expression of almost imbecile rapture. Adrian turned sick. Exactly thus had Joanna looked, more than once.
"Is my father dead, then?" Bibby asked. ”

“ Come and sit down, Colonel Haig."
Anastasia raised her voice slightly.
"Here—yes—on the settee. And now about Adrian Savage. I confess I begin to look upon this executorship as an imposition. It is not quite fair on him, poor dear fellow. It occupies time and thought which would be expended much more profitably elsewhere. He is as good as gold about it all, but I know he feels it a most inconvenient tie. It interferes with his literary work, which is serious, and with his social life here—with his friendships." ”

“ A woman doesn't openly affirm her regard for a man unless that regard is of purely platonic and innocuous character. And then, after all—excellent thought!—was it not he, Adrian Savage, who had been admitted even during the tragic hours of poor Horace's agony; who had watched by the corpse through a stifling summer night, a night too hot for sleep, restless with the continual sound of footsteps and voices, the smell of the asphalt and of the river? And, since then, was it not to him Gabrielle and her mother, Madame Vernois, had repeatedly turned for advice in matters of business? ”

“ For the past week Paris had cowered, sunless, in the grip of a black frost. If those leaden heavens would only elect to unload themselves of their burden the weather might take up! To Adrian Savage, in excellent health and prosperous circumstances, the cold in itself mattered nothing—would, indeed, rather have acted as a stimulus to his chronic appreciation of the joy of living but for the fact that he had to-day been suddenly and unexpectedly called upon to leave Paris and bid farewell to one of its inhabitants eminently and even perplexingly dear to him. ”

“ I don't want to be inhuman, but I can only say that, for the sake of my future wife's peace of mind, I most sincerely and cordially trust he is dead—dead and done with. Judging by what you told me yourself, Colonel, from a child he has been a downright bad lot, a regular waster. You may also be interested to hear we owe this precious bit of business to Mr. Adrian Savage. He came to Joanna, when he was over last, with some cock-and-bull story about young Smyrthwaite's turning up, half-starved, in Paris last winter. ”

“ She felt humiliated, as though detected in a secret villainy, in an act of detestable meanness. It is an ugly thing to pillage the dead. But she was also very angry, for she understood what had happened. Not Horace—poor, undesired Horace—but Adrian Savage was there in the dining-room. ”

“ Anastasia listened, now fanning herself, now punctuating his discourse with incredulous ejaculations and gestures descriptive of the liveliest dissent.
"Incredible! my dear Colonel," she cried. "You must be misinformed. Savage is regarded as a most desirable parti here in Paris. He can marry whom he pleases. Impossible! I know better."
"Then do you tell me it is unhappily quite true that M. René Dax is ill, M. Byewater?" Gabrielle St. Leger inquired in unnecessarily loud, clear accents. ”

“ And out of the farthings and half-farthings, the very fractions of half-farthings, indeed—of such small change, Joanna had constructed a great and serious romance terminating in matrimony! The young man could have beat his breast, torn his hair, poured ashes upon his thus forcibly denuded scalp, and rent his up-to-date and particularly well-tailored garments. He, Adrian Savage, the husband of Joanna!—From this his lively Gallic imagination galloped away, blushing in humorous horror, utterly refusing to contemplate the picture. ”

“ My work and my interests are here right enough—very much here. I'm not ashamed of the word 'local,' or of the word 'provincial' either, Mr. Savage. My father invented Stourmouth, as you may say, and I've patented his invention. Stourmouth owes a good deal to the two Joseph Challoners, father and son; and I propose it should owe a long sight more, one way and another, before I join my poor old daddy 'under the churchyard sod.'"
"It is an act of piety to devote one's talents and energies to the welfare of one's native place," Adrian returned. ”

“ Once she kissed the hand which Adrian Savage had kissed.
But the figures and voices came nearer. Amy Woodford, her Oxford undergraduate brother, and the two Busbridge boys were saying good-night. Their feet tapped and scraped on the quarries of the veranda. Somebody ran into a chair, toppled it over, gave a yelp, and the whole company laughed. These playful goings-on came between Joanna and her brooding. She rose impatiently, crossed the room to her bureau, lighted the candles, and sat down to write.
"August 21, 190-
"We are never alone. ”

“ So I simply put 'At his residence, the Tower House, Baughurst Park Estate, Stourmouth, Hants, Montagu Priestly Smyrthwaite, formerly of the Priestly Mills and of Highdene, Leeds, aged seventy-six. No flowers, by special request.' I suppose Andrew Merriman and others from the mills will attend the funeral. I dread seeing Andrew Merriman again. It will bring back all the terrible trouble about poor Bibby. And I cannot think how Mr. Savage will get on with the people from the mills. It would have been simpler to have Mr. Challoner act officially in the capacity of host. ”

“ Challoner said. "Poor girl," he went on presently, pronouncing that dangerous catch-word as though it rhymed with curl—"poor girl, poor Miss Margaret! It'll be an awful blow to her. She is so sensitive. She's given me to understand—indirectly, of course—when we've been talking over business, what an out-and-out rotter this precious brother of hers was. To my mind, you know, Mr. Savage, it's not a nice thing to turn such vermin as young Smyrthwaite loose on two defenseless women. ”

“ Like marriage with a dissenter, they felt doctoring wasn't exactly the thing for a Savage. So he was advised, if he must follow the medical profession, to follow it at a distance. I remember I heard he settled in Paris and married there. This journalist fellow may be a son of his." The speaker cleared his throat. He was put about, uncertain what line it would be best to take. "At one time I used to be over there often. As a young man I knew my Paris well enough—"
"I'll be bound you did, Colonel," Challoner put in, with a flattering suggestiveness. "Silly old goat!" he said to himself. ”

“ You are not acquainted with Chambéry, M. Byewater? Ah! but you make a mistake. You should be. It is quite the old France, very original, quite of the past ages. I love it; but this year—"
"In my opinion it is quite time Savage was set free." Anastasia's tone waxed increasingly emphatic. "You must forgive my saying the Smyrthwaite ladies are very exacting, Colonel Haig. They appear to trade upon his chivalry and forbearance to a remarkable extent. Doesn't it occur to them that a young man, in his position, has affairs of his own in plenty to attend to?" ”

“ Savage is, undoubtedly, very kind, and seems most anxious to save us trouble and take care of us. Margaret evidently likes this. I am unaccustomed to being taken care of. I find it embarrassing. It adds to my nervousness.
"I feel dissatisfied with myself, and anxious lest I should not behave with the dignity which my position, as head of the household, demands; but I am tired and so many new duties and new ideas crowd in on me. I seem to have lost my identity. Ever since I can remember, papa has occupied the central place in my thoughts and plans. ”

“ Adrian questioned.
"After a fashion you can hardly be expected to indorse enthusiastically."
Miss Beauchamp shaded her eyes with her left hand again, while the many bracelets slipping up her thin wrist clinked and rattled.
"See here, my dear Savage," she said, "among all the destructions and reconstructions, the changes—many of them nominal rather than real, and, consequently, superfluous—of which Modernity is made up, one change is very real and has, I sincerely believe, come to stay. I mean the widespread change in thought and attitude of my sex toward yours."
"Feminism, in short." ”

“ But an uncommon amount of property, in which I am interested, is changing hands; and honest, trustworthy persons are pretty scarce." He glanced from under penthouse eyebrows across the room to where Challoner, shifting his weight uneasily from one foot to the other, dancing-bear fashion, stood talking to Colonel Haig. "At least in my experience they are, Mr. Savage. When a family is dying out you generally find the males are debilitated specimens and the females the strongest. In this family, if Miss Smyrthwaite had been born a boy it would have been better for the name and for the business. ”

“ Challoner returned somewhat roughly, throwing his big body back from the hips and moving a step aside, as though to conceal justifiable annoyance,—"you really must excuse me, Colonel. Standing in the relation I do to both the Smyrthwaite ladies, it is a subject I hardly care to discuss. I can't help knowing a good deal, and I can't help what I've noticed; but I don't feel at liberty to speak. Mr. Savage stayed twice at the Tower House this year, as you are aware; and—people have eyes in their heads. ”

“ Challoner and Andrew Merriman discuss business. Smallbridge valets him, not Edwin. I was uncertain whether Smallbridge would like to do so, but he said he preferred it. I think Mr. Savage has made a good impression upon the servants. I am glad of this. He is certainly very courteous to them. After Margaret and I came up-stairs, the first evening he was here, she remarked that he was very handsome. She has repeated this frequently since. I suppose it is true. Margaret is always very much occupied about personal appearance. ”

“ His retina still holding that northern elfin landscape and seascape, his ears the voices of the forest and of the wildly yelping gulls, his mind still working on the thought of that new moral and social order now coming into being, his heart and his manhood crying out for the woman he loved, Adrian—the keen freshness of the winter morning pouring in through the open door along with him—entered the hall of the Tower House. ”

“ And Adrian, watching, found himself, though unwillingly, impressed by and admiring the force, not only the great brute strength but determination of the man, which bestowed a certain dignity upon the game, raising it from the level of a mere amusement to that of a serious duel. ”

“ Leger. Miss Beauchamp intimated as much; intimated, too, that while he lost ground others had gained it, had done their best to jump his claim, so to speak, and had, in a measure at least, succeeded—take Mademoiselle Zélie de Gand, for example.
Whereupon Adrian ceased to take any interest, philosophic or otherwise, in the wonderful midnight streets and midnight people; becoming himself actively, even aggressively, individualist, as he brushed his way through the throng, his expression the reverse of urbane and his pace almost headlong. ”

“ This renewed contact, though of a comparatively perfunctory and unofficial character, proved by no means displeasing to Adrian. In truth it gave him such a lively sense of happiness, that to his dying day he will cherish a romantic affection for those remote and unfashionable pleasure-grounds upon the southern heights. Happiness is really the simplest of God's creatures—easily gratified, large in charity, hospitable to all the minor poetry of life. ”

“ Of course, of course—a neat, little, tea-party subaltern, out in camp with some militia regiment, in general request for answering questions and running messages, and so on; qualifying, even then, as a walking hand-book of the English landed and titled gentry."
"He has continued in that line until his genealogical learning has reached truly monumental proportions," Adrian returned, in the same harsh voice. "It possesses and obsesses him, keeping him in a perpetual ferment of apprehension lest he should be called upon to associate with persons of no family in particular. ”

“ Challoner returned.
"Probably not. I suppose hardly any one here is aware of it. In a watering-place like Stourmouth, a place that has come up like a mushroom in a night, as you may say, only a very small and exclusive circle do know who is who. That is one of the things one has to put up with, though I confess I find it annoying at times. Well, you see, my grandmother and poor Smyrthwaite's mother were first cousins once removed—both Savages, the Yorkshire, not the Irish, branch of the family. I have reason to believe there was a good deal of opposition to Mrs. ”

“ If, in the twentieth century, a man is to subscribe to the constraints of marriage at all, let it at least be in some sort marriage by capture! And, as he told himself, what man worth the name, let alone what artist, what poet—vowed by his calling to confession of the transcendental, the eternally mystic and sacred in this apparently most primitive, even savage, of human relations—would choose to capture his exquisite prey amid the blatant materialism, the vulgar noise and chaffer of the modern social highway ”