The Masquerader

IX

Loder slept soundly and dreamlessly in Chilcote's canopied bed. To him the big room with its severe magnificence suggested nothing of the gloom and solitude that it held in its owner's eyes. The ponderous furniture, the high ceiling, the heavy curtains, unchanged since the days of Chilcote's grandfather, all hinted at a far-reaching ownership that stirred him. The ownership was mythical in his regard, and the possessions a mirage, but they filled the day. And, surely, sufficient for the day—

That was his frame of mind as he opened his eyes on the following morning, and lay appreciative of his comfort, of the surrounding space, even of the light that filtered through the curtain chinks, suggestive of a world recreated. With day, all things seem possible to a healthy man. He stretched his arms luxuriously, delighting in the glossy smoothness of the sheets.

What was it Chilcote had said? Better live for a day than exist for a lifetime! That was true; and life had begun. At thirty-six he was to know it for the first time.

He smiled, but without irony. Man is at his best at thirty-six, he mused. He has retained his enthusiasms and shed his exuberances; he has learned what to pick up and what to pass by; he no longer imagines that to drain a cup one must taste the dregs. He closed his eyes and stretched again, not his arms only, but his whole body. The pleasure of his mental state insisted on a physical expression. Then, sitting up in bed, he pressed the electric bell.

Chilcote's new valet responded.

“Pull those curtains, Renwick!” he said. “What's the time?” He had passed the ordeal of Renwick's eyes the night before.

The man was slow, even a little stupid. He drew back the curtains carefully, then looked at the small clock on the dressing-table. “Eight o'clock, sir. I didn't expect the bell so early, sir.”

Loder felt reproved, and a pause followed.

“May I bring your cup of tea, sir?”

“No. Not just yet. I'll have a bath first.”

Renwick showed ponderous uncertainty. “Warm, sir?” he hazarded.

“No. Cold.”

Still perplexed, the man left the room.

Loder smiled to himself. The chances of discovery in that quarter were not large. He was inclined to think that Chilcote had even overstepped necessity in the matter of his valet's dullness.

He breakfasted alone, following Chilcote's habit, and after breakfast found his way to the study.

As he entered, Greening rose with the same conciliatory haste that he had shown the night before.

Loder nodded to him. “Early at work?” he said, pleasantly.

The little man showed instant, almost ridiculous relief. “Good-morning, sir,” he said; “you too are early. I rather feared your nerves troubled you after I left last night, for I found your letters still unopened this morning. But I am glad to see you look so well.”

Loder promptly turned his back to the light. “Oh, last night's letters!” he said. “To tell you the truth, Greening, my wife”—his hesitation was very slight—“my wife looked me up after you left, and we gossiped. I clean forgot the post.” He smiled in an explanatory way as he moved to the desk and picked up the letters.

With Greening's eyes upon him, there was no time for scruples. With very creditable coolness he began opening the envelopes one by one. The letters were unimportant, and he passed them one after another to the secretary, experiencing a slight thrill of authority as each left his hand. Again the fact that power is visible in little things came to his mind.

“Give me my engagement-book, Greening,” he said, when the letters had been disposed of.

The book that Greening handed him was neat in shape and bound, like Chilcote's cigarette-case, in lizard-skin.

As Loder took it, the gold monogram “J.C.” winked at him in the bright morning light. The incident moved his sense of humor. He and the book were cooperators in the fraud, it seemed. He felt an inclination to wink back. Nevertheless, he opened it with proper gravity and skimmed the pages.

The page devoted to the day was almost full. On every other line were jottings in Chilcote's irregular hand, and twice among the entries appeared a prominent cross in blue pencilling. Loder's interest quickened as his eye caught the mark. It had been agreed between them that only engagements essential to Chilcote's public life need be carried through during his absence, and these, to save confusion, were to be crossed in blue pencil. The rest, for the most part social claims, were to be left to circumstance and Loder's inclination, Chilcote's erratic memory always accounting for the breaking of trivial promises.

But Loder in his new energy was anxious for obligations; the desire for fresh and greater tests grew with indulgence. He scanned the two lines with eagerness. The first was an interview with Cresham, one of Chilcote's supporters in Wark; the other an engagement to lunch with Fraide. At the idea of the former his interest quickened, but at thought of the latter it quailed momentarily. Had the entry been a royal command it would have affected him infinitely less. For a space his assurance faltered; then, by coincidence, the recollection of Eve and Eve's words of last night came back to him, and his mind was filled with a new sensation.

Because of Chilcote, he was despised by Chilcote's wife! There was no denying that in all the pleasant excitement of the adventure that knowledge had rankled. It came to him now linked with remembrance of the slight, reluctant touch of her fingers, the faintly evasive dislike underlying her glance. It was a trivial thing, but it touched his pride as a man. That was how he put it to himself. It wasn't that he valued this woman's opinion—any woman's opinion; it was merely that it touched his pride. He turned again to the window and gazed out, the engagement book still between his hands. What if he compelled her respect? What if by his own personality cloaked under Chilcote's identity he forced her to admit his capability? It was a matter of pride, after all—scarcely even of pride; self-respect was a better word.

Satisfied by his own reasoning, he turned back into the room.

“See to those letters, Greening,” he said. “And for the rest of the morning's work you might go on with your Khorasan notes. I believe we'll all want every inch of knowledge we can get in that quarter before we're much older. I'll see you again later.” With a reassuring nod he crossed the room and passed through the door.

He lunched with Fraide at his club, and afterwards walked with him to Westminster. The walk and lunch were both memorable. In that hour he learned many things that had been sealed to him before. He tasted his first draught of real elation, his first drop of real discomfiture. He saw for the first time how a great man may condescend—how unostentatiously, how fully, how delightfully. He felt what tact and kindness perfectly combined may accomplish, and he burned inwardly with a sense of duplicity that crushed and elated him alternately. He was John Loder, friendless, penniless, with no present and no future, yet he walked down Whitehall in the full light of day with one of the greatest statesmen England has known.

Some strangers were being shown over the Terrace when he and Fraide reached the House, and, noticing the open door, the old man paused.

“I never refuse fresh air,” he said. “Shall we take another breath of it before settling down?” He took Loder's arm and drew him forward. As they passed through the door-way the pressure of his fingers tightened. “I shall reckon to-day among my pleasantest memories, Chilcote,” he said, gravely. “I can't explain the feeling, but I seem to have touched Eve's husband—the real you, more closely this morning than I ever did before. It has been a genuine happiness.” He looked up with the eyes that, through all his years of action and responsibility, had remained so bright.

But Loder paled suddenly, and his glance turned to the river-wide, mysterious, secret. Unconsciously Fraide had stripped the illusion. It was not John Loder who walked here; it was Chilcote—Chilcote with his position, his constituency—his wife. He half extricated his arm, but Fraide held it.

“No,” he said. “Don't draw away from me. You have always been too ready to do that. It is not often I have a pleasant truth to tell. I won't be deprived of the enjoyment.”

“Can the truth ever be pleasant, sir?” Involuntarily Loder echoed Chilcote.

Fraide looked up. He was half a head shorter than his companion, though his dignity concealed the fact. “Chilcote,” he said, seriously, “give up cynicism! It is the trade-mark of failure, and I do not like it in my friends.”

Loder said nothing. The quiet insight of the reproof, its mitigating kindness, touched him sharply. In that moment he saw the rails down which he had sent his little car of existence spinning, and the sight daunted him. The track was steeper, the gauge narrower, than he had guessed; there were curves and sidings upon which he had not reckoned. He turned his head and met Fraide's glance.

“Don't count too much on me, sir,” he said, slowly. “I might disappoint you again.” His voice broke off on the last word, for the sound of other voices and of laughter came to them across the Terrace as a group of two women and three men passed through the open door. At a glance he realized that the slighter of the two women was Eve.

Seeing them, she disengaged herself from her party and came quickly forward. He saw her cheeks flush and her eyes brighten pleasantly as they rested on his companion; but he noticed also that after her first cursory glance she avoided his own direction.

As she came towards them, Fraide drew away his hand in readiness to greet her.

“Here comes my godchild!” he said. “I often wish, Chilcote, that I could do away with the prefix.” He added the last words in an undertone as he reached them; then he responded warmly to her smile.

“What!” he said. “Turning the Terrace into the Garden of Eden in January! We cannot allow this.”

Eve laughed. “Blame Lady Sarah!” she said. “We met at lunch, and she carried me off. Needless to say I hadn't to ask where.”

They both laughed, and Loder joined, a little uncertainly. He had yet to learn that the devotion of Fraide and his wife was a long-standing jest in their particular set.

At the sound of his tardy laugh Eve turned to him. “I hope I didn't rob you of all sleep last night,” she said. “I caught him in his den,” she explained, turning to Fraide, “and invaded it most courageously. I believe we talked till two.”

Again Loder noticed bow quickly she looked from him to Fraide. The knowledge roused his self-assertion.

“I had an excellent night,” he said. “Do I look as if I hadn't slept?”

Somewhat slowly and reluctantly Eve looked back. “No,” she said, truthfully, and with a faint surprise that to Loder seemed the first genuine emotion she had shown regarding him. “No, I don't think I ever saw you look so well.” She was quite unconscious and very charming as she made the admission. It struck Loder that her coloring of hair and eyes gained by daylight—were brightened and vivified by their setting of sombre river and sombre stone.

Fraide smiled at her affectionately; then looked at Loder. “Chilcote has got anew lease of nerves, Eve,” he said, quietly. “And I—believe—I have got a new henchman. But I see my wife beckoning to me. I must have a word with her before she flits away. May I be excused?” He made a courteous gesture of apology; then smiled at Eve.

She looked after him as he moved away. “I sometimes wonder what I should do if anything were to happen to the Fraides,” she said, a little wistfully. Then almost at once she laughed, as if regretting her impulsiveness. “You heard what he said,” she went on, in a different voice. “Am I really to congratulate you?”

The change of tone stung Loder unaccountably. “Will you always disbelieve in me?” he asked.

Without answering, she walked slowly across the deserted Terrace and, pausing by the parapet, laid her hand on the stonework. Still in silence she looked out across the river.

Loder had followed closely. Again her aloofness seemed a challenge. “Will you always disbelieve in me?” he repeated.

At last she looked up at him, slowly.

“Have you ever given me cause to believe!” she asked, in a quiet voice.

To this truth he found no answer, though the subdued incredulity nettled him afresh.

Prompted to a further effort, he spoke again. “Patience is necessary with every person and every circumstance,” he said. “We've all got to wait and see.”

She did not lower her gaze as he spoke; and there seemed to him something disconcerting in the clear, candid blue of her eyes. With a sudden dread of her next words, he moved forward and laid his hand beside hers on the parapet.

“Patience is needed for every one,” he repeated, quickly. “Sometimes a man is like a bit of wreckage; he drifts till some force stronger than himself gets in his way and stops him.” He looked again at her face. He scarcely knew what he was saying; he only felt that he was a man in an egregiously false position, trying stupidly to justify himself. “Don't you believe that flotsam can sometimes be washed ashore?” he asked.

High above them Big Ben chimed the hour.

Eve raised her head. It almost seemed to him that he could see her answer trembling on her lips; then the voice of Lady Sarah Fraide came cheerfully from behind them.

“Eve!” she called. “Eve! We must fly. It's absolutely three o'clock!”