Herb of Grace

CHAPTER XXVIII

"THE LADY CALLING HERSELF MISS JACOBI"

Master, master! news, old news, and such news as you never heard of!—Taming of the Shrew.

The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat oneself.—BAILEY, Festus.

Malcolm had telegraphed to Verity to pack his Gladstone bag and send it by special messenger to Paddington. Verity, who was accustomed to these commissions, had fulfilled her orders with neatness and despatch, and he found it waiting for him on his arrival at the station. It was nearly half-past six when the spires and pinnacles of the old collegiate city came in sight, so he drove straight to the "Randolph," ordered his room, then dined and refreshed himself after his journey; and it was not until after eight that he went across to St. John's and found his way to Cedric's rooms.

Cedric's sisters had taken great pride and pleasure in furnishing them, and they were the envy of all his friends. A rather impatient "Come in," answered Malcolm's knock.

Cedric was at his writing-table, but he was evidently not at work. He gave a surprised exclamation when he saw his visitor's face; but Malcolm at once perceived that he was not welcome. Cedric frowned slightly and closed his blotting-case, but not before Malcolm's sharp eyes had caught sight of a cabinet photograph of Leah Jacobi.

"What on earth has brought you to Oxford?" asked Cedric in rather an uneasy tone. "I thought it was one of our fellows, and was just swearing to myself for forgetting to sport the oak. I suppose you are staying with Dr. Medcalf as usual?"

"No, I had no time to let him know; I am sleeping at the 'Randolph,'" returned Malcolm quietly. "I am sorry to interrupt you, my boy," with another glance at the blotting-case; "but I have only a few hours, so I have no time to lose. May I take this comfortable chair?"—sinking into it as he spoke. "I have just dined, so we might as well smoke a friendly weed together."

"You can help yourself—there are some excellent cigars in that drawer—but I do not feel like smoking myself." Cedric spoke rather sulkily and with none of his accustomed amiability. "Shall I give you some whiskey and soda?" But Malcolm refused this refreshment—no man was more abstemious than he.

"If you want to finish your letter I can look at the paper for half an hour;" but this suggestion seemed only to irritate Cedric.

"Oh, there is no hurry," he returned hastily; "I could not write a sentence decently, feeling you were waiting for me to finish. Well," struggling with his ill-humour, "what have you been doing with yourself since you left Staplegrove? You look rather seedy and a bit pale about the gills—do you and the giant smoke too much?"

"Oh, I am well enough," replied Malcolm hurriedly. "If we come to that, you have rather a weedy appearance yourself;" for Cedric looked decidedly thinner, and his eyes were almost unnaturally bright. He seemed older, too, and changed in some undefinable way; but he had never looked handsomer. Malcolm forgot his own troubles in his anxiety to prevent his protege falling into the hands of the adventurer, Saul Jacobi. For the moment his own soul seemed to yearn over the boy who was his sisters' darling and the object of their thoughts and prayers.

"Look here, old fellow," he went on, as Cedric seemed relapsing into moody silence, "there is no use beating about the bush. I have come down to-night to have a talk with you, because a report has reached my ears. Is it true that you have been mad enough to engage yourself to the lady calling herself Miss Jacobi?" Then Cedric flushed up, and his eyes blazed with anger.

"May I ask if the report be true?" went on Malcolm, taking no notice of Cedric's fiery looks.

"I object to the manner in which you frame your question," returned Cedric proudly. Strange to say, at that moment he reminded Malcolm of Elizabeth. "Granted that such a report were true, I fail to see where the madness comes in. Any man might consider himself fortunate in winning the affections of a woman like Leah Jacobi."

"And you are engaged to her? Speak out, man; I suppose you don't intend to keep your engagement dark?"

"Of course not," angrily; but Cedric's manner was decidedly embarrassed, and he seemed unwilling to look Malcolm in the face. "But I must tell you, Herrick, that I strongly object to the way you are questioning me. I don't want to quarrel with you, but what the deuce can it matter to you if I choose to keep my private affairs to myself for a week or two! I have reasons of my own for not wishing my sisters to hear of my engagement for a fortnight or so. I—I," hesitating and floundering in his sentence, "meant to tell them myself, and to introduce Leah to them. It is a confounded shame," lashing himself up to great wrath, "that it should have leaked out in this underhand fashion. May I ask how you got your information?"

Malcolm considered for a moment; then he made up his mind that it was best to be perfectly open.

"I had it from a man who knows the Jacobis. His name is Hugh Rossiter. He is a friend of the Godfreys."

Cedric started. "I had quite forgotten that," he muttered; "the fat's in the fire with a vengeance." Then aloud, "Why, the fellow's in love with Leah himself. He made up to her, only Jacobi would not hear of it. He said he could not bear the idea of the roving, uncomfortable life she would have to lead as his wife."

"Mr. Rossiter is not well off, is he?" asked Malcolm tentatively. Then Cedric looked at him as if he suspected some arriere pensee.

"No, he has lost a good bit of money lately—invested it in some rotten concern or other. Jacobi says he can't afford to have a wife."

"I should have thought he would have said the same of you," rather pointedly. "He must be aware that you have only an allowance from your sisters?" And at this plain speaking Cedric reddened again with annoyance.

"I suppose I shall have a profession some day," he returned with a lordly air; "and as my sisters are rich, and Dinah is certainly not likely to marry, I think I may safely count on a pretty handsome allowance."

"If you marry in accordance with your sister's wish, I should think you are right," returned Malcolm coolly. "My dear fellow, would it not have been as well to find this out before you pledged yourself to the lady?"

"There was no necessity for that," replied Cedric; "Jacobi seemed quite satisfied with my prospects. He is not a bit grasping. He told me that he wished his sister to marry a gentleman; that he had been to the Wood House and seen my sisters, and he was quite willing to give his sanction to the engagement; and as Leah and I understood each other perfectly, I had no difficulty with her. Why don't you congratulate me, Herrick," exclaimed the lad excitedly, "instead of badgering and cross-examining me like an Old Bailey witness? I am the happiest fellow in existence! Leah's a darling—there is not such a woman in the world!"

"Is there not?" returned Malcolm quietly. His face looked a little haggard as he spoke, and there was a wistful, pining look in his eyes. Oh, why was the boy so like Elizabeth? There was no real similarity—it was only a trick of expression, a turn of the head, a sudden impulsive movement that recalled her. "May I ask one more question, old fellow? Is it by your own or Mr. Jacobi's wish that the engagement is kept a secret?" But Cedric refused to answer this. He said with a good deal of dignity that there were limits to everything. He had a great respect for Herrick, and always looked upon him as his best friend, but he must excuse him answering this.

"Well—well, we will talk of that again," returned Malcolm; but in his own mind he was certain that Saul Jacobi had his own reasons for preventing the news of Cedric's engagement from reaching his sisters' ears. "There is another question I must ask you. Why do you call your fiancee Miss Jacobi?"

Cedric stared at him.

"I suppose because it is her name," he replied rather impatiently. "What a fellow you are, Herrick! I think your wits must be wool-gathering."

"Oh dear, nothing of the kind; I am not mad, most noble Felix, but in my sane, sober senses. I am quite aware the lady you wish to marry was at one time Leah Jacobi, but her married name is the Countess Antonio Ferrari."

"What!" exclaimed Cedric, springing to his feet; but he added something rather stronger. "Confound you, Herrick, what do you mean by talking such infernal rot?"

"Sit down," returned Malcolm calmly; "I can't talk while you are walking to and fro like the old gentleman. My dear boy, I am sorry to give you this shock, but do you actually mean to tell me that you do not know, that Leah Jacobi is a widow—that neither she nor her brother have informed you of her previous marriage?"

"No," broke from Cedric's lips; he seemed quite stunned. Then he exclaimed indignantly, "But it is a lie—a cursed lie!"

"You would hardly dare to say that to Hugh Rossiter's face, Cedric," returned Malcolm somewhat sternly. "He was my informant; he knew the Jacobis when Saul Jacobi was a billiard-marker in San Francisco, and his sister living with her husband in Verona. You have been badly treated, my dear boy—how badly you little know. You have been encouraged to make love to a married woman. When you were at Fettercairn, Count Antonio was still alive; he only died last month."

Cedric seemed too dazed to take it in. He got up from his chair, in spite of his friend's remonstrance, and began to pace the room again. "Impossible," he muttered; "I will not believe it. She knew then that I loved her, and she promised to marry me if Saul gave his consent. For some reason he seemed to hold off a bit, but we were as good as engaged then."

"Ah, I thought so," returned Malcolm drily; and then, like a skilful surgeon, he did his work thoroughly; to be kind it was necessary to be cruel, so he spared Cedric no particulars. He told him all he knew himself; he saw him wince when he spoke of the Roman models and the billiard-marker turned into a valet.

"Saul Jacobi told me his father was a banker and his mother of noble blood, one of the Orsinos; I suppose he was ashamed of it all, and wanted to keep it back. He might have trusted me and told the truth," faltered the lad.

"Instead of which he told you this pack of lies. And his sister is no better, for she has lied to you too; and this is the sister-in-law you propose to introduce at the Wood House—a woman who has allowed you to make love to her in her husband's lifetime!"

"Look here, Herrick," returned Cedric hoarsely—his fresh young face looked quite gray—"not a word against her—not a word against my Leah. You may be right about Jacobi—I have had my doubts about him once or twice myself; he is not always kind to Leah, he bullies her dreadfully and she is afraid of him, and he is too fond of getting his own way. But I won't believe that she is to blame. Anyhow, she is more sinned against than sinning. I will go to her to-morrow and make her tell me everything. No one shall come between us—not even Saul Jacobi. Leah shall account to me for this deception. I will get to the bottom of it as sure as my name is Cedric Templeton."

Cedric spoke with an air of resolution that secretly surprised Malcolm. "It will make a man of him," he said to himself—"it will make a man of him." Then he put his hand on his shoulder.

"My dear boy," he said kindly, "I feel for you from the bottom of my heart, but you must be very firm. There can be no compromise or vacillation in a case like this; you must give her up, Cedric—you must break off this unlucky engagement." But Cedric would not be induced to promise this; he would decide nothing until he had seen Leah and heard the whole story from her lips. "No one shall come between us," cried the poor lad; "she is my promised wife." Then Malcolm's manner changed and became more resolute.

"It will be a wrench, of course," he returned; "desperate diseases require desperate remedies. But, Cedric, listen to me. If you refuse to take my advice you will repent it all your life. If you go to Gresham Gardens to-morrow you will be a lost man. The Jacobis will talk you over and persuade you that black is white. At least let me accompany you?" But Cedric absolutely refused this, and Malcolm could not press it.

"You mean kindly, Herrick," he observed hurriedly, "but a man must manage his own business. I shall have to leave you now, if I am to see the Dean to-night and get permission for a few hours' absence; and as I shall probably go up by the early train to-morrow, I shall not see you again."

"I shall be in my rooms at Lincoln's Inn by mid-day," returned Malcolm, "will you come to me there?" But Cedric hesitated.

"I shall have to go back to Oxford," he returned; "I think I had better write to you." But this proposal by no means satisfied Malcolm.

"That will not do," he said decidedly. "I would rather you wired to me from Paddington—the letter can follow. Surely you can have no objection," he continued, as Cedric seemed reluctant to do this; "it will set my mind at rest, and I shall have a better night;" and then Cedric rather ungraciously promised that a telegram should be sent.

"You must be very firm," were Malcolm's parting words, and Cedric nodded impatiently as he put on his cap and gown.

Malcolm slept restlessly; he was tired and anxious, and had done a hard day's work. His failure to influence Cedric troubled him greatly.

"They will talk him over," he repeated, "and that woman will lure him into her wiles again;" and Malcolm felt there was grave cause for fear, as he remembered Leah's rare beauty, and the strange brilliancy of her dark, melancholy eyes. Oh, what would Dinah Templeton say if she knew of the danger that threatened her cherished boy!

Malcolm tossed restlessly on his bed as he tried to formulate plans, which he rejected one by one. "If it comes to the worst, I must do as Mrs. Godfrey suggests," he thought—"I must go down to the Wood House and take counsel with them;" and in all probability it was this thought that kept him wakeful.

The next morning Malcolm learnt from Cedric's scout that his master had left by an early train; and as he himself had one or two appointments that morning, he only waited to swallow a hasty breakfast before he followed him.

For the next few hours he was very busy, and could hardly give Cedric a thought; but as work slackened and the afternoon wore on, he wondered at the non-arrival of the telegram. It was half-past four before Malachi brought in the yellow envelope. Malcolm frowned as he read it.

"Know all—have forgiven all—engagement holds good—sorry cannot take advice.—TEMPLETON."

"Unhappy boy," he groaned, "the fowler has him in his net again." Then he scrunched the thin paper in his hand, and set his teeth hard like a man who sees the dentist coming towards him with the forceps.

"I must go down to them; there is nothing else for me to do. I dare not take the responsibility of keeping this to myself an hour longer. It is all in the day's work, as the lion-tamer said when the lion prepared to bite off his head." And after this grim jest Malcolm summoned Malachi and confided the Gladstone bag to his care, and they sallied forth together. At Waterloo he sent off a telegram to Verity; a few minutes later he was in the train and on his way to Earlsfield.