Wingrave

“ Wingrave bowed, his glass in his hand. His lips were curled into the semblance of a smile, but he did not say a word. Lady Ruth leaned a little across the table so that the feathers of her hat nearly brushed his forehead.
“Wingrave,” she asked, “do you know what fear is? Perhaps not! You are a man, you see. No one has ever called me a coward. You wouldn’t, would you?”
“No!” he said deliberately, “you are not a coward.”
“There is only one sort of fear which I know,” she continued, “and that is the fear of what I do not understand. And that is why, Wingrave, I am afraid of you.” ”

“ It was so like the Marchioness to claim, as a matter of course, the best of everything that was going. Lady Ruth watched them with a curious sense of irritation for which she could not altogether account. It was impossible that she should be jealous, and yet it was equally certain that she was annoyed. If Wingrave resisted his present fair captor, he would enjoy a notability equal to that which his wealth already conferred upon him. No man as yet had done it. Was it likely that Wingrave would wear two crowns? Lady Ruth beckoned Aynesworth to her. ”

“ Sooner, perhaps, than even he imagined, for that night Aynesworth came, pale and travel-stained, with all the volcanic evidences of a great passion blazing in his eyes, quivering in his tone. The day had passed to Wingrave as a dream, more beautiful even than any in the roll of its predecessors. They sat together on low chairs upon the moonlit lawn, in their ears the murmur of the sea; upon their faces, gathering strength with the darkness, the night wind, salt and fragrant with all the sweetness of dying flowers. ”

“ Wingrave answered, “that it depends upon the point of view, to use a hackneyed phrase. You study people with a discerning eye for good qualities. Nature—and circumstances have ordered it otherwise with me. I see them through darkened glasses.”
“It is not the way to happiness,” Aynesworth said.
“There is no highroad to what you term happiness,” Wingrave answered. “One holds the string and follows into the maze. But one does not choose one’s way. You are perhaps more fortunate than I that you can appreciate Mrs. Travers’ wit, and find my neighbor, who has done Europe, attractive. ”

“ Wingrave have seen a good deal of one another. You are a very impressionable woman; he is a singularly cold, unimpressionable man. You have found his personality attractive. You fancy—other things. Wingrave is not the man you think he is. He is selfish and entirely without affectionate impulses. The world has treated him badly, and he has no hesitation in saying that he means to get some part of his own back again. He does not care for you, he does not care for anyone. ”

“ Then, as young Lechmere approached him, Spencer Coyle grew conscious of an unwonted intensity in the round and ingenuous face. The boy was nervous, but he tried to behave like a man of the world. "Of course, it's between ourselves," he stammered, "and I wouldn't breathe such a word to any one who wasn't interested in poor Wingrave as you are. ”

“ Would that adequate intensity all have sprung from the fact that while I sat there in the immense mild summer rustle and the ever so softened London hum a young man should have taken his place on another chair within my limit of contemplation, a tall quiet slim studious young man, of admirable type, and have settled to a book with immediate gravity? Did the young man then, on the spot, just become Owen Wingrave, establishing by the mere magic of type the situation, creating at a stroke all the implications and filling out all the picture? ”

“ Wingrave regarded her critically and realized, perhaps for the first time, how beautiful. Her eyes were large and clear, and her eyebrows delicately defined. Her mouth, with its slightly humorous curl, was a little large, but wholly delightful. The sun of the last few weeks had given to her skin a faint, but most becoming, duskiness. Under his close scrutiny, a flush of color stole into her cheeks. She laughed not altogether naturally. ”

“ They talked of his scruples as you wouldn't talk of a cannibal's god. His grandfather had called him outrageous names. "He called me—he called me—" Here the young man faltered, his voice failed him. He looked as haggard as was possible to a young man in such magnificent health.
"I probably know!" said Spencer Coyle, with a nervous laugh.
Owen Wingrave's clouded eyes, as if they were following the far-off consequences of things, rested for an instant on a distant object. Then they met his companion's, and for another moment sounded them deeply. "It isn't true—no, it isn't. It's not that!" ”

“ Aynesworth murmured.
“He must be more a sort of an upper servant,” Wingrave continued. “I should require him to obey me implicitly, whatever I told him to do. You have a conscience, I presume?”
“Very little,” Aynesworth answered. “I have been a journalist.”
“You have the remnants of one, at all events,” Wingrave said, “quite sufficient, no doubt, to interfere with your possible usefulness to me. I must have someone who is poor—too poor to question my will, or to dispute my orders, whatever they might be.” ”

“ It seemed to Wingrave that the days which followed formed a sort of hiatus in his life—an interlude during which some other man in his place, and in his image, played the game of life to a long-forgotten tune. He moved through the hours as a man in a maze, unrecognizable to himself, half unconscious, half heedless of the fact that the garments of his carefully cultivated antagonism to the world and to his fellows had slipped very easily from his unresisting shoulders. ”

“ Wingrave murmured, “Nature has lavished upon me. I am a poor liar. It is perfectly true that my object in life has been exactly as Aynesworth has stated it. I may have been more or less successful—Aynesworth can tell you that, too. As regards yourself—”
“Yes?” she exclaimed.
“I congratulate you upon your escape,” Wingrave said. “Aynesworth is right. Association of any sort with me is for your evil!”
She covered her face with her hands. Even his tone was different. She felt that this man was a stranger, and a stranger to be feared. Aynesworth came over to her side and drew her away. ”

“ My first glimpse of his character was the cold brutality with which he treated Lady Ruth when she went to see him. Then we went down to his country place in Cornwall. There was a small child there, whose father had been the organist of the village, and who had died penniless. There was no one to look after her, no one to save her from the charity schools and domestic service afterwards. The church was on Wingrave’s estate, it should have been his duty to augment the ridiculous salary the dead man had received. Would you believe it, Wingrave refused to do a single thing for that child! ”

“ Wingrave looked thoughtfully at the box between his fingers.
“If you took one of these, Mr. Richardson,” he said, “you would never have another, at any rate. Now, tell me, sir, how you came by them!”
“I know nothing about—” the young man began.
“Don’t lie to me, sir,” Wingrave said sharply. “I have been wondering what the —— you meant by hanging around after me, giving the deck steward five shillings to put your chair next mine, and pretending to read, while all the time you were trying to overhear any scraps of conversation between my secretary and myself. ”

“ Wingrave remained a study of impassivity. His guest’s whole demeanor, his uneasy words and nervous glances were an unspoken appeal to be helped out in what he had come to say. And Wingrave knew very well what it was. Nevertheless, he remained silent—politely questioning. Barrington sat down a little heavily. He was not so carefully dressed as usual; he looked older, his appearance lacked altogether that air of buoyant prosperity which was wont to inspire his friends and creditors with confidence.
“I’ve been a fool, Wingrave,” he said. ”

“ The carriage had scarcely stopped when she sprang out and crossed the pavement in a few hasty steps. The tall commissionaire looked in amazement at her. She wore an opera cloak—she was a bewildering vision of white satin and diamonds, and her eyes were terrible with the fear which was in her heart.
She clutched him by the arm.
“Come up with me to Mr. Wingrave’s rooms,” she exclaimed. “Something terrible has happened. I heard through the telephone.”
The man dashed up the stairs by her side. Wingrave’s suite was on the first floor, and they did not wait for the lift. ”

“ Coyle was made to shudder a little at the profession of which he helped to open the door to harmless young men. Miss Wingrave, moreover, might have made such a bad conscience worse—so cold and clear a good one looked at him out of her hard, fine eyes, and trumpeted in her sonorous voice. ”

“ Aynesworth returned to the sitting room. Wingrave had lit a cigarette and watched him as he arranged some papers.
“Quite a comedy, isn’t it?” he remarked grimly.
“It doesn’t present itself in that light to me,” Aynesworth answered.
Wingrave blew the smoke away from in front of his face. “Ah!” he said, “I forgot that you were a sentimentalist. I look upon these things from my own point of view. From yours, I suppose I must seem a very disagreeable person. I admit frankly that the sufferings of other people do not affect me in the slightest.” ”

“ Pengarth took up his bag with a sigh.
“Sir Wingrave,” he said, “I am a simple man, and life with me has always been a very simple affair. I recognize the fact, of course, that I am not in a position to judge or to understand the mental attitude of one who, like yourself, has suffered and passed through great crises. But I cannot help wishing that you could find it possible to try, for a time, the quiet life of a countryman in this beautiful home of yours.”
Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.
“Mr. Pengarth,” he said, “no two men are born alike into this world. ”

“ Wingrave repeated, leaning back in his chair, “if only—”
His face darkened. It seemed to Mr. Pengarth as he sipped his tea under the cool cedars, drawing in all their wonderful perfume with every puff of breeze, that he saw two men in the low invalid’s chair before him. He saw the breath and desire of evil things struggling with some wonderful dream vainly seeking to realize itself.
“Some of us,” the lawyer said timidly, “build our ideals too high up in the clouds, so that to reach them is very difficult. Nevertheless, the effort counts.” ”

“ Before seeing young Lechmere, Mr. Coyle had determined to telegraph an inquiry to Miss Wingrave. He had prepaid the answer, which, being promptly put into his hand, brought the interview we have just related to a close. He immediately drove off to Baker Street, where the lady had said she awaited him, and five minutes after he got there, as he sat with Owen Wingrave's remarkable aunt, he repeated over several times, in his angry sadness and with the infallibility of his experience: "He's so intelligent—he's so intelligent!" He had declared it had been a luxury to put such a fellow through. ”

“ Wingrave smiled grimly.
“I am not prepared to defend my namesake,” he said; “but every man has a right to do what he likes with his own, hasn’t he? And as for hospitals, Mr. Wingrave probably thinks, like a good many more, that they should be state endowed. People could make use of them, then, without loss of self respect.” ”

“ But the man who starts before he is called finds no welcome at the end. The greatest in life are those who are content to wait!”
“I am not in the least disposed to doubt it, Mr. Pengarth,” Wingrave said calmly. “Now I must really send you away.”
So Mr. Pengarth went, but Wingrave was not long destined to remain in solitude. There was a sound of voices in the hall, Morrison’s protesting, another insistent. Then the door opened, and Wingrave looked up with darkening face, which did not lighten when he recognized the intruder.
“Aynesworth!” he exclaimed, “what are you doing here? ”

“ Aynesworth said, “recognized you as Sir Wingrave Seton.”
Wingrave frowned thoughtfully for a moment.
“Who was it?” he asked.
“A most unlikely person,” Aynesworth remarked smiling. “Do you remember, when we went down to Tredowen just before we left for America, a little, long-legged, black-frocked child, whom we met in the gardens—the organist’s daughter, you know?”
“What of her?” Wingrave asked.
“It was she who was with me,” Aynesworth remarked. “It was she who saw you in the box with the Marchioness of Westchester.” ”

“ His former employer, in an Islington emporium, gave him a good character, and offered to take him back. So that was an end of Mr. Richardson, and the romance of his days!
A worm like that to have brought him—the strong man, low! Wingrave thought with sullen anger as he leaned back in his chair with half-closed eyes. Here was an undignified hiatus, if not a finale, to all his schemes, to the even tenor of his self-restrained, purposeful life! The west wind was rippling through the orchards which bordered the garden. ”

“ It occurred to Spencer Coyle that she might really have had more at stake than her imagination appeared to take account of; whatever it was, at any rate, he had never seen a young woman at less pains to be on the safe side. He wondered inevitably how the peace was kept between Jane Wingrave and such an inmate as this; but those questions of course were unfathomable deeps. Perhaps Kate Julian lorded it even over her protectress. The other time he was at Paramore he had received an impression that, with Sir Philip beside her, the girl could fight with her back to the wall. ”

“ Travers was not so easily to be disposed of. For some reason or other, she had shown a disposition to attach herself to Wingrave.
“Please put me in my chair,” she said to him, holding out her rug and cushion. “No! Not you, Mr. Aynesworth. Mr. Wingrave understands so much better how to wrap me up. Thanks! Won’t you sit down yourself? It’s much better for you out here than in the smoking room—and we might go on with our argument.” ”