Stella Fregelius E-Book

H Rider Haggard

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

This is another of Haggard’s eternal love stories. This novel tells of intersecting fates, the triangle: scholarly Morris Monk, inventor; his first cousin, Mary Porson; and the daughter of the new church rector, Stella Fregelius. The story at one point plays with the idea that love cannot exist between man and woman without lust, which implies a rare power to Morris and Stella’s bond. The moral of this story is: love that lives after death, and that spiritual connection is much more important than physical and temporary.

Leseprobe

Contents

Dedication

Author’s Note

Chapter 1. Morris, Mary, And The Aerophone

Chapter 2. The Colonel And Some Reflections

Chapter 3. “Poor Porson”

Chapter 4. Mary Preaches And The Colonel Prevails

Chapter 5. A Proposal And A Promise

Chapter 6. The Good Old Days

Chapter 7. Beaulieu

Chapter 8. The Sunk Rocks And The Singer

Chapter 9. Miss Fregelius

Chapter 10. Dawn And The Land

Chapter 11. A Morning Service

Chapter 12. Mr. Layard’s Wooing

Chapter 13. Two Questions, And The Answer

Chapter 14. The Return Of The Colonel

Chapter 15. Three Interviews

Chapter 16. A Marriage And After

Chapter 17. The Return Of Mary

Chapter 18. Two Explanations

Chapter 19. Morris, The Married Man

Chapter 20. Stella’s Diary

Chapter 21. The End Of Stella’s Diary

Chapter 22. The Evil Gate

Chapter 23. Stella Comes

Chapter 24. Dreams And The Sleep

DEDICATION

My Dear John Berwick,

When you read her history in MS. you thought well of “Stella Fregelius” and urged her introduction to the world. Therefore I ask you, my severe and accomplished critic, to accept the burden of a book for which you are to some extent responsible. Whatever its fate, at least it has pleased you and therefore has not been written quite in vain.

H. Rider Haggard.

Ditchingham, 25th August, 1903.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The author feels that he owes some apology to his readers for his boldness in offering to them a modest story which is in no sense a romance of the character that perhaps they expect from him; which has, moreover, few exciting incidents and no climax of the accustomed order, since the end of it only indicates its real beginning.

His excuse must be that, in the first instance, he wrote it purely to please himself and now publishes it in the hope that it may please some others. The problem of such a conflict, common enough mayhap did we but know it, between a departed and a present personality, of which the battle- ground is a bereaved human heart and the prize its complete possession; between earthly duty and spiritual desire also; was one that had long attracted him. Finding at length a few months of leisure, he treated the difficult theme, not indeed as he would have wished to do, but as best he could.

He may explain further that when he drafted this book, now some five years ago, instruments of the nature of the “aerophone” were not so much talked of as they are to-day. In fact this aerophone has little to do with his characters or their history, and the main motive of its introduction to his pages was to suggest how powerless are all such material means to bring within mortal reach the transcendental and unearthly ends which, with their aid, were attempted by Morris Monk.

These, as that dreamer learned, must be far otherwise obtained, whether in truth and spirit, or perchance, in visions only.

1903.

CHAPTER 1

MORRIS, MARY, AND THE AEROPHONE

Above, the sky seemed one vast arc of solemn blue, set here and there with points of tremulous fire; below, to the shadowy horizon, stretched the plain of the soft grey sea, while from the fragrances of night and earth floated a breath of sleep and flowers.

A man leaned on the low wall that bordered the cliff edge, and looked at sea beneath and sky above. Then he contemplated the horizon, and murmured some line heard or learnt in childhood, ending “where earth and heaven meet.”

“But they only seem to meet,” he reflected to himself, idly. “If I sailed to that spot they would be as wide apart as ever. Yes, the stars would be as silent and as far away, and the sea quite as restless and as salt. Yet there must be a place where they do meet. No, Morris, my friend, there is no such place in this world, material or moral; so stick to facts, and leave fancies alone.”

But that night this speculative man felt in the mood for fancies, for presently he was staring at one of the constellations, and saying to himself, “Why not? Well, why not? Granted force can travel through ether,– whatever ether is–why should it stop travelling? Give it time enough, a few seconds, or a few minutes or a few years, and why should it not reach that star? Very likely it does, only there it wastes itself. What would be needed to make it serviceable? Simply this–that on the star there should dwell an Intelligence armed with one of my instruments, when I have perfected them, or the secret of them. Then who knows what might happen?” and he laughed a little to himself at the vagary.

From all of which wandering speculations it may be gathered that Morris Monk was that rather common yet problematical person, an inventor who dreamed dreams.

An inventor, in truth, he was, although as yet he had never really invented anything. Brought up as an electrical engineer, after a very brief experience of his profession he had fallen victim to an idea and become a physicist. This was his idea, or the main point of it–for its details do not in the least concern our history: that by means of a certain machine which he had conceived, but not as yet perfected, it would be possible to complete all existing systems of aerial communication, and enormously to simplify their action and enlarge their scope. His instruments, which were wireless telephones–aerophones he called them–were to be made in pairs, twins that should talk only to each other. They required no high poles, or balloons, or any other cumbrous and expensive appliance; indeed, their size was no larger than that of a rather thick despatch box. And he had triumphed; the thing was done–in all but one or two details.

For two long years he had struggled with these, and still they eluded him. Once he had succeeded–that was the dreadful thing. Once for a while the instruments had worked, and with a space of several miles between them. But–this was the maddening part of it–he had never been able to repeat the exact conditions; or, rather, to discover precisely what they were. On that occasion he had entrusted one of his machines to his first cousin, Mary Porson, a big girl with her hair still down her back, rather idle in disposition, but very intelligent, when she chose. Mary, for the most part, had been brought up at her father’s house, close by. Often, too, she stayed with her uncle for weeks at a stretch, so at that time Morris was as intimate with her as a man of eight and twenty usually is with a relative in her teens.

The arrangement on this particular occasion was that she should take the machine–or aerophone, as its inventor had named it–to her home. The next morning, at the appointed hour, as Morris had often done before, he tried to effect communication, but without result. On the following day, at the same hour, he tried again, when, to his astonishment, instantly the answer came back. Yes, as distinctly as though she were standing by his side, he heard his cousin Mary’s voice.

“Are you there?” he said, quite hopelessly, merely as a matter of form –of very common form–and well-nigh fell to the ground when he received the reply:

“Yes, yes, but I have just been telegraphed for to go to Beaulieu; my mother is very ill.”

“What is the matter with her?” he asked; and she replied:

“Inflammation of the lungs–but I must stop; I can’t speak any more.” Then came some sobs and silence.

That same afternoon, by Mary’s direction, the aerophone was brought back to him in a dog-cart, and three days later he heard that her mother, Mrs. Porson, was dead.

Some months passed, and when they met again, on her return from the Riviera, Morris found his cousin changed. She had parted from him a child, and now, beneath the shadow of the wings of grief, suddenly she had become a woman. Moreover, the best and frankest part of their intimacy seemed to have vanished. There was a veil between them. Mary thought of little, and at this time seemed to care for no one except her mother, who was dead. And Morris, who had loved the child, recoiled somewhat from the new-born woman. It may be explained that he was afraid of women. Still, with an eye to business, he spoke to her about the aerophone; and, so far as her memory served her, she confirmed all the details of their short conversation across the gulf of empty space.

“You see,” he said, trembling with excitement, “I have got it at last.”

“It looks like it,” she answered, wearily, her thoughts already far away. “Why shouldn’t you? There are so many odd things of the sort. But one can never be sure; it mightn’t work next time.”

“Will you try again?” he asked.

“If you like,” she answered; “but I don’t believe I shall hear anything now. Somehow–since that last business–everything seems different to me.”

“Don’t be foolish,” he said; “you have nothing to do with the hearing; it is my new receiver.”

“I daresay,” she replied; “but, then, why couldn’t you make it work with other people?”

Morris answered nothing. He, too, wondered why.

Next morning they made the experiment. It failed. Other experiments followed at intervals, most of which were fiascos, although some were partially successful. Thus, at times Mary could hear what he said. But except for a word or two, and now and then a sentence, he could not hear her whom, when she was still a child and his playmate, once he had heard so clearly.

“Why is it?” he said, a year or two later, dashing his fist upon the table in impotent rage. “It has been; why can’t it be?”

Mary turned her large blue eyes up to the ceiling, and reflectively rubbed her dimpled chin with a very pretty finger.

“Isn’t that the kind of question they used to ask oracles?” she asked lazily–”Oh! no, it was the oracles themselves that were so vague. Well, I suppose because ‘was’ is as different from ‘is’ as ‘as’ is from ‘shall be.’ We are changed, Cousin; that’s all.”

He pointed to his patent receiver, and grew angry.

“Oh, it isn’t the receiver,” she said, smoothing her curling hair; “it’s us. You don’t understand me a bit–not now–and that’s why you can’t hear me. Take my advice, Morris”–and she looked at him sharply –”when you find a woman whom you can hear on your patent receiver, you had better marry her. It will be a good excuse for keeping her at a distance afterwards.”

Then he lost his temper; indeed, he raved, and stormed, and nearly smashed the patent receiver in his fury. To a scientific man, let it be admitted, it was nothing short of maddening to be told that the successful working of his instrument, to the manufacture of which he had given eight years of toil and study, depended upon some pre-existent sympathy between the operators of its divided halves. If that were so, what was the use of his wonderful discovery, for who could ensure a sympathetic correspondent? And yet the fact remained that when, in their playmate days, he understood his cousin Mary, and when her quiet, indolent nature had been deeply moved by the shock of the news of her mother’s peril, the aerophone had worked. Whereas now, when she had become a grown-up young lady, he did not understand her any longer– he, whose heart was wrapped up in his experiments, and who by nature feared the adult members of her sex, and shrank from them; when, too, her placid calm was no longer stirred, work it would not.

She laughed at his temper; then grew serious, and said:

“Don’t get angry, Morris. After all, there are lots of things that you and I can’t understand, and it isn’t odd that you should have tumbled across one of them. If you think of it, nobody understands anything. They know that certain things happen, and how to make them happen; but they don’t know why they happen, or why, as in your case, when they ought to happen, they won’t.”

“It is all very well for you to be philosophical,” he answered, turning upon her; “but can’t you see, Mary, that the thing there is my life’s work? It is what I have given all my strength and all my brain to make, and if it fails in the end–why, then I fail too, once and forever. And I have made it talk. It talked perfectly between this place and Seaview, and now you stand there and tell me that it won’t work any more because I don’t understand you. Then what am I to do?”

“Try to understand me, if you think it worth while, which I don’t; or go on experimenting,” she answered. “Try to find some substance which is less exquisitely sensitive, something a little grosser, more in key with the material world; or to discover someone whom you do understand. Don’t lose heart; don’t be beaten after all these years.”

“No,” he answered, “I don’t unless I die,” and he turned to go.

“Morris,” she said, in a softer voice, “I am lazy, I know. Perhaps that is why I adore people who can work. So, although you don’t think anything of me, I will do my honest best to get into sympathy with you again; yes, and to help in any way I can. No; it’s not a joke. I would give a great deal to see the thing a success.”

“Why do you say I don’t think anything of you, Mary? Of course, it isn’t true. Besides, you are my cousin, and we have always been good friends since you were a little thing.”

She laughed. “Yes, and I suppose that as you had no brothers or sisters they taught you to pray for your cousin, didn’t they? Oh, I know all about it. It is my unfortunate sex that is to blame; while I was a mere tom-boy it was different. No one can serve two masters, can they? You have chosen to serve a machine that won’t go, and I daresay that you are wise. Yes, I think that it is the better part–until you find someone that will make it go– and then you would adore her–by aerophone!”

CHAPTER 2

THE COLONEL AND SOME REFLECTIONS

Presently Morris heard a step upon the lawn, and turned to see his father sauntering towards him. Colonel Monk, C.B., was an elderly man, over sixty indeed, but still of an upright and soldierly bearing. His record was rather distinguished. In his youth he had served in the Crimea, and in due course was promoted to the command of a regiment of Guards. After this, certain diplomatic abilities caused him to be sent to one of the foreign capitals as military attache, and in reward of this service, on retiring, he was created a Companion of the Bath. In appearance he was handsome also; in fact, much better looking than his son, with his iron-grey hair, his clear-cut features, somewhat marred in effect by a certain shiftiness of the mouth, and his large dark eyes. Morris had those dark eyes also–they redeemed his face from plainness, for otherwise it showed no beauty, the features being too irregular, the brow too prominent, and the mouth too large. Yet it could boast what, in the case of a man at any rate, is better than beauty–spirituality, and a certain sympathetic charm. It was not the face which was so attractive, but rather the intelligence, the personality that shone through it, as the light shines through the horn panes of some homely, massive lantern. Speculative eyes of the sort that seem to search horizons and gather knowledge there, but shrink from the faces of women; a head of brown hair, short cut but untidy, an athletic, manlike form to which, bizarrely enough, a slight stoop, the stoop of a student, seemed to give distinction, and hands slender and shapely as those of an Eastern–such were the characteristics of Morris Monk, or at least those of them that the observer was apt to notice.

“Hullo! Morris, are you star-gazing there?” said Colonel Monk, with a yawn. “I suppose that I must have fallen asleep after dinner–that comes of stopping too long at once in the country and drinking port. I notice you never touch it, and a good thing, too. There, my cigar is out. Now’s the time for that new electric lighter of yours which I can never make work.”

Morris fumbled in his pocket and produced the lighter. Then he said:

“I am sorry, father; but I believe I forgot to charge it.”

“Ah! that’s just like you, if you will forgive my saying so. You take any amount of trouble to invent and perfect a thing, but when it comes to making use of it, then you forget,” and with a little gesture of impatience the Colonel turned aside to light a match from a box which he had found in the pocket of his cape.

“I am sorry,” said Morris, with a sigh, “but I am afraid it is true. When one’s mind is very fully occupied with one thing–” and he broke off.

“Ah! that’s it, Morris, that’s it,” said the Colonel, seating himself upon a garden chair; “this hobby-horse of yours is carrying you–to the devil, and your family with you. I don’t want to be rough, but it is time that I spoke plain. Let’s see, how long is it since you left the London firm?”

“Nine years this autumn,” answered Morris, setting his mouth a little, for he knew what was coming. The port drunk after claret had upset his father’s digestion and ruffled his temper. This meant that to him–Morris –Fate had appointed a lecture.

“Nine years, nine wasted years, idled and dreamt away in a village upon the eastern coast. It is a large slice out of a man’s life, my boy. By the time that I was your age I had done a good deal,” said his father, meditatively. When he meant to be disagreeable it was the Colonel’s custom to become reflective.

“I can’t admit that,” answered Morris, in his light, quick voice– “I mean I can’t admit that my time has either been idled away or wasted. On the contrary, father, I have worked very hard, as I did at college, and as I have always done, with results which, without boasting, I may fairly call glorious –yes, glorious–for when they are perfected they will change the methods of communication throughout the whole world.” As he spoke, forgetting the sharp vexation of the moment, his face was irradiated with light– like some evening cloud on which the sun strikes suddenly.

Watching him out of the corner of his eye, even in that low moonlight, his father saw those fires of enthusiasm shine and die upon his son’s face, and the sight vexed him. Enthusiasm, as he conceived, perhaps with justice, had been the ruin of Morris. Ceasing to be reflective, his tone became cruel.

“Do you really think, Morris, that the world wishes to have its methods of communication revolutionised? Aren’t there enough telephones and phonograms and aerial telegraphs already? It seems to me that you merely wish to add a new terror to existence. However, there is no need to pursue an academical discussion, since this wretched machine of yours, on which you have wasted so much time, appears to be a miserable failure.”

Now, to throw the non-success of his invention into the teeth of the inventor, especially when that inventor knows that it is successful really, although just at present it does not happen to work, is a very deadly insult. Few indeed could be deadlier, except, perhaps, that of the cruelty which can suggest to a woman that no man will ever look at her because of her plainness and lack of attraction; or the coarse taunt which, by shameless implication, unjustly accuses the soldier of cowardice, the diplomat of having betrayed the secrets of his country, or the lawyer of having sold his brief. All the more, therefore, was it to Morris’s credit that he felt the lash sting without a show of temper.

“I have tried to explain to you, father,” he began, struggling to free his clear voice from the note of indignation.

“Of course you have, Morris; don’t trouble yourself to repeat that long story. But even if you were successful–which you are not–er –I cannot see the commercial use of this invention. As a scientific toy it may be very well, though, personally, I should prefer to leave it alone, since, if you go firing off your thoughts and words into space, how do you know who will answer them, or who will hear them?”

“Well, father, as you understand all about it, it is no use my explaining any further. It is pretty late; I think I will be turning in.”

“I had hoped,” replied the Colonel, in an aggrieved voice, “that you might have been able to spare me a few minutes’ conversation. For some weeks I have been seeking an opportunity to talk to you; but somehow your arduous occupations never seem to leave you free for ordinary social intercourse.”

“Certainly,” replied Morris, “though I don’t quite know why you should say that. I am always about the place if you want me.” But in his heart he groaned, guessing what was coming.

“Yes; but you are ever working at your chemicals and machinery in the old chapel; or reading those eternal books; or wandering about rapt in contemplation of the heavens; so that, in short, I seldom like to trouble you with my mundane but necessary affairs.”

Morris made no answer; he was a very dutiful son and humble-spirited. Those who pit their intelligences against the forces of Nature, and try to search out her secrets, become humble. He could not altogether respect his father; the gulf between them was too wide and deep. But even at his present age of three and thirty he considered it a duty to submit himself to him and his vagaries. Outside of other reasons, his mother had prayed him to do so almost with her last breath, and, living or dead, Morris loved his mother.

“Perhaps you are not aware,” went on Colonel Monk, after a solemn pause, “that the affairs of this property are approaching a crisis.”

“I know something, but no details,” answered Morris. “I have not liked to interfere,” he added apologetically.

“And I have not not liked to trouble you with such sordid matters,” rejoined his parent, with sarcasm. “I presume, however, that you are acquainted with the main facts. I succeeded to this estate encumbered with a mortgage, created by your grandfather, an extravagant and unbusiness-like man. That mortgage I looked to your mother’s fortune to pay off, but other calls made this impossible. For instance, the sea-wall here had to be built if the Abbey was to be saved, and half a mile of sea-walling costs something. Also very extensive repairs to the house were necessary, and I was forced to take three farms in hand when I retired from the army fifteen years ago. This has involved a net loss of about ten thousand pounds, while all the time the interest had to be paid and the place kept up in a humble fashion.”

“I thought that my uncle Porson took over the mortgage after my mother’s death,” interrupted Morris.

“That is so,” answered his father, wincing a little; “but a creditor remains a creditor, even if he happens to be a relative by marriage. I have nothing to say against your uncle John, who is an excellent person in his way, and well-meaning. Of course, he has been justified, perfectly justified, in using his business abilities–or perhaps I should say instincts, for they are hereditary–to his own advantage. In fact, however, directly or indirectly, he has done well out of this property and his connection with our family–exceedingly well, both financially and socially. In a time of stress I was forced to sell him the two miles of sea-frontage building-land between here and Northwold for a mere song. During the last ten years, as you know, he has cut this up into over five hundred villa sites, which he has sold upon long lease at ground-rents that to-day bring in annually as much as he paid for the whole property.”

“Yes, father; but you might have done the same. He advised you to before he bought the land.”

“Perhaps I might, but I am not a tradesman; I do not understand these affairs. And, Morris, I must remind you that in such matters I have had no assistance. I do not blame you any more than I blame myself–it is not in your line either–but I repeat that I have had no assistance.”

Morris did not argue the point. “Well, father,” he asked. “what is the upshot? Are we ruined?”

“Ruined? That is a large word, and an ugly one. No, we are no more ruined than we have been for the last half-dozen years, for, thank Heaven, I still have resources and–friends. But, of course, this place is in a way expensive, and you yourself would be the last to pretend that our burdens have been lessened by–your having abandoned the very strange profession which you selected, and devoted yourself to researches which, if interesting, must be called abstract–”

“Forgive me, father,” interrupted Morris with a ring of indignation in his voice; “but you must remember that I put you to no expense. In addition to what I inherited from my mother, which, of course, under the circumstances I do not ask for, I have my fellowship, out of which I contribute something towards the cost of my living and experiments, that, by the way, I keep as low as possible.”

“Of course, of course,” said the Colonel, who did not wish to pursue this branch of the subject, but his son went on:

“You know also that it was at your express wish that I came to live here at Monksland, as for the purposes of my work it would have suited me much better to take rooms in London or some other scientific centre.”

“Really, my dear boy, you should control yourself,” broke in his father. “That is always the way with recluses; they cannot bear the slightest criticism. Of course, as you were going to devote yourself to this line of research it was right and proper that we should live together. Surely you would not wish at my age that I should be deprived of the comfort of the society of an only child, especially now that your mother has left us?”

“Certainly not, father,” answered Morris, softening, as was his fashion at the thought of his dead mother.

Then came a pause, and he hoped that the conversation was at end; a vain hope, as it proved.

“My real object in troubling you, Morris,” continued his father, presently, “was very different to the unnecessary discussions into which we have drifted.”

His son looked up, but said nothing. Again he knew what was coming, and it was worse than anything that had gone before.

“This place seems very solitary with the two of us living in its great rooms. I, who am getting an old fellow, and you a student and a recluse –no, don’t deny it, for nowadays I can barely persuade you to attend even the Bench or a lawn-tennis party. Well, fortunately, we have power to add to our numbers; or at least you have. I wish you would marry, Morris.”

His son turned sharply, and answered:

“Thank you, father, but I have no fancy that way.”

“Now, there’s Jane Rose, or that handsome Eliza Layard,” went on the Colonel, taking no notice. “I have reason to know that you might have either of them for the asking, and they are both good women without a breath against them, and, what in the state of this property is not without importance, very well to do. Jane gets fifty thousand pounds down on the day of her marriage, and as much more, together with the place, upon old Lady Rose’s death; while Miss Layard–if she is not quite to the manner born–has the interest in that great colliery and a rather sickly brother. Lastly– and this is strange enough, considering how you treat them–they admire you, or at least Eliza does, for she told me she thought you the most interesting man she had ever met.”

“Did she indeed!” ejaculated Morris. “Why, I have only spoken three times to her during the last year.”

“No doubt, my dear boy, that is why she thinks you interesting. To her you are a mine of splendid possibilities. But I understand that you don’t like either of them.”

“No, not particularly–especially Eliza Layard, who isn’t a lady, and has a vicious temper–nor any young woman whom I have ever met.”

“Do you mean to tell me candidly, Morris, that at your age you detest women?”

“I don’t say that; I only say that I never met one to whom I felt much attracted, and that I have met a great many by whom I was repelled.”

“Decidedly, Morris, in you the strain of the ancestral fish is too predominant. It isn’t natural; it really isn’t. You ought to have been born three centuries ago, when the old monks lived here. You would have made a first- class abbot, and might have been canonised by now. Am I to understand, then, that you absolutely decline to marry?”

“No, father; I don’t want you to understand anything of the sort. If I could meet a lady whom I liked, and who wouldn’t expect too much, and who was foolish enough to wish to take me, of course I should marry her, as you are so bent upon it.”

“Well, Morris, and what sort of a woman would fulfil the conditions, to your notion?”

His son looked about him vaguely, as though he expected to find his ideal in some nook of the dim garden.

“What sort of a woman? Well, somebody like my cousin Mary, I suppose –an easy-going person of that kind, who always looks pleasant and cool.”

Morris did not see him, for he had turned his head away; but at the mention of Mary Porson’s name his father started, as though someone had pricked him with a pin. But Colonel Monk had not commanded a regiment with some success and been a military attache for nothing; having filled diplomatic positions, public and private, in his time, he could keep his countenance, and play his part when he chose. Indeed, did his simpler-minded son but know it, all that evening he had been playing a part.

“Oh! that’s your style, is it?” he said. “Well, at your age I should have preferred something a little different. But there is no accounting for tastes; and after all, Mary is a beautiful woman, and clever in her own way. By Jove! there’s one o’clock striking, and I promised old Charters that I would always be in bed by half-past eleven. Good night, my boy. By the way, you remember that your uncle Porson is coming to Seaview to-morrow from London, and that we are engaged to dine with him at eight. Fancy a man who could build that pretentious monstrosity and call it Seaview! Well, it will condemn him to the seventh generation; but in this world one must take people as one finds them, and their houses, too. Mind you lock the garden door when you come in. Good night.”

“Really,” thought Colonel Monk to himself as he took off his dress-shoes and, with military precision, set them side by side beneath a chair, “it does seem a little hard on me that I should be responsible for a son who is in love with a damned, unworkable electrical machine. And with his chances–with his chances! Why he might have been a second secretary in the Diplomatic Service by now, or anything else to which interest could help him. And there he sits hour after hour gabbling down a little trumpet and listening for an answer which never comes–hour after hour, and month after month, and year after year. Is he a genius, or is he an idiot, or a moral curiosity, or simply useless? I’m hanged if I know, but that’s a good idea about Mary; though, of course, there are things against it. Curious that I should never have considered the matter seriously before–because of the cousinship, I suppose. Would she have him? It doesn’t seem likely, but you can never know what a woman will or will not do, and as a child she was very fond of Morris. At any rate the situation is desperate, and if I can, I mean to save the old place, for his sake and our family’s, as well as my own.”

He went to the window, and, lifting a corner of the blind, looked out. “There he is, still staring at the sea and the sky, and there I daresay he will be till dawn. I bet he has forgotten all about Mary now, and is thinking of his electrical machine. What a curiosity! Good heavens; what a curiosity! Ah, I wonder what they would have made of him in my old mess five and thirty years ago?” And quite overcome by this reflection, the Colonel shook his grizzled head, put out the candle, and retired to rest.

His father was right. The beautiful September dawn was breaking over the placid sea before Morris brushed the night dew from his hair and cloak, and went in by the abbot’s door.

What was he thinking of all the time? He scarcely knew. One by one, like little clouds in the summer sky, fancies arose in his mind to sail slowly across its depth and vanish upon an inconclusive and shadowy horizon. Of course, he thought about his instruments; these were never absent from his heart. His instinct flew back to them as an oasis, as an island of rest in the wilderness of this father’s thorny and depressing conversation. The instruments were disappointing, it is true, at present; but, at any rate, they did not dwell gloomily upon impending ruin or suggest that it was his duty to get married. They remained silent, distressingly silent indeed.

Well, as the question of marriage had been started, he might as well face it out; that is, argue it in his mind, reduce it to its principles, follow it to its issues in a reasonable and scientific manner. What were the facts? His family, which, by tradition, was reported to be Danish in its origin, had owned this property for several hundred years, though how they came to own it remained a matter of dispute. Some said the Abbey and its lands were granted to a man of the name of Monk by Henry VIII., of course for a consideration. Others held, and evidence existed in favour of this view, that on the dissolution of the monastery the abbot of the day, a shrewd man of easy principles, managed to possess himself of the Chapter House and further extensive hereditaments, of course with the connivance of the Commissioners, and, providing himself with a wife, to exchange a spiritual for a temporal dignity. At least this remained certain, that from the time of Elizabeth onwards Morris’s forefathers had been settled in the old Abbey house at Monksland; that the first of them about whom they really knew anything was named Monk, and that Monk was still the family name.

Now they were all dead and gone, and their history, which was undistinguished, does not matter. To come to the present day. His father succeeded to a diminished and encumbered estate; indeed, had it not been for the fortune of his mother, a Miss Porson and one of a middle class and business, but rather wealthy family, the property must have been sold years before. That fortune, however, had long ago been absorbed–or so he gathered–for his father, a brilliant and fashionable army officer, was not the man to stint himself or to nurse a crippled property. Indeed, it was wonderful to Morris how, without any particular change in their style of living, which, if unpretentious, was not cheap, in these bad times they had managed to keep afloat at all.

Unworldly as Morris might be, he could easily guess why his father wished that he should marry, and marry well. It was that he might bolster up the fortunes of a shattered family. Also–and this touched him, this commanded his sympathy–he was the last of his race. If he died without issue the ancient name of Monk became extinct, a consummation from which his father shrank with something like horror.

The Colonel was a selfish man–Morris could not conceal it, even from himself–one who had always thought of his own comfort and convenience first. Yet, either from idleness or pride, to advance these he had never stooped to scheme. Where the welfare of his family was concerned, however, as his son knew, he was a schemer. That desire was the one real and substantial thing in a somewhat superficial, egotistic, and finessing character.

Morris saw it all as he leaned there upon the railing, staring at the mist-draped sea, more clearly, indeed, than he had ever seen it before. He understood, moreover, what an unsatisfactory son he must be to a man like his father–if it had tried, Providence could hardly have furnished him with offspring more unsuitable. The Colonel had wished him to enter the Diplomatic Service, or the Army, or at least to get himself called to the Bar; but although a really brilliant University career and his family influence would have given him advantages in any of these professions, he had declined them all. So, following his natural bent, he became an electrician, and now, abandoning the practical side of that modest calling, he was an experimental physicist, full of deep but unremunerative lore, and–an unsuccessful inventor. Certainly he owed something to his family, and if his father wished that he should marry, well, marry he must, as a matter of duty, if for no other reason. After all, the thing was not pressing; for it it came to the point, what woman was likely to accept him? All he had done to-night was to settle the general principles in his own mind. When it became necessary–if ever –he could deal with the details.

And yet this sort of marriage which was proposed to him, was it not an unholy business? He cared little for women, having no weakness that way, probably because of the energy which other young men gave to the pursuit of them was in his case absorbed by intense and brain-exhausting study. Therefore he was not a man who if left to himself, would marry, as so many do, merely in order to be married; indeed, the idea to him was almost repulsive. Had he been a woman-hater, he might have accepted it more easily, for then to him one would have been as the other. But the trouble was that he knew and felt that a time might come when in his eyes one woman would be different from all others, a being who spoke not to his physical nature only, if at all, but to the core within him. And if that happened, what then?

Look, the sun was rising. On the eastern sky of a sudden two golden doors had opened in the canopy of night, and in and out of them seemed to pass glittering, swift-winged things, as souls might tread the Gate of Heaven. Look, too, at the little clouds that in an unending stream floated out of the gloom –travellers pressed onwards by a breath of destiny. They were leaden- hued, all of them, black, indeed, at times, until they caught the radiance, and for a while became like the pennons of an angel’s wings. Then one by one the glory overtook and embraced them, and they melted into it to be seen no more.

What did the sight suggest to him? That it was worth while, perhaps, to be a mere drift of cloud, storm-driven and rain-laden in the bitter Night of Life, if the Morning of Deliverance brought such transformation on its wings. That beyond some such gates as these, gates that at times, greatly daring, he longed to tread, lay the answer to many a mystery. Amongst other things, perhaps, there he would learn the meaning of true marriage, and why it is denied to most dwellers of the earth. Without a union of the spirit was there indeed any marriage as it should be understood? And who in this world could hope to find his fellow spirit?

See, the sun had risen, the golden gates were shut. He had been dreaming, and was chilled to the bone. Wretchedness, mental and bodily, took hold of him. Well, often enough such is the fate of those who dream; those who turn from their needful, daily tasks to shape an angel out of this world’s clay, trusting to some unknown god to give it life and spirit.

CHAPTER 3

“POOR PORSON”

Upon the morning following his conversation with Morris, Colonel Monk spent two hours or more in the library. Painfully did he wrestle there with balance-sheets, adding up bank books; also other financial documents.

“Phew!” he said, when at length the job was done. “It is worse than I thought, a good deal worse. My credit must be excellent, or somebody would have been down upon us before now. Well, I must talk things over with Porson. He understands figures, and so he ought, considering that he kept the books in his grandfather’s shop.”

Then the Colonel went to lunch less downcast than might have been expected, since he anticipated a not unamusing half-hour with his son. As he knew well, Morris detested business matters and money calculations. Still, reflected his parent, it was only right that he should take his share of the family responsibilities–a fact which he fully intended to explain to him.

But “in vain is the net spread,” etc. As Morris passed the door of the library on his way to the old chapel of the Abbey, which now served him as a laboratory, he had seen his father bending over the desk and guessed his occupation. Knowing, therefore, what he must expect at lunch, Morris determined to dispense with that meal, and went out, much to the Colonel’s disappointment and indignation. “I hate,” he explained to his brother-in-law Porson afterwards, “yes, I hate a fellow who won’t face disagreeables and shirks his responsibilities.”

Between Monksland and the town of Northwold lay some four miles of cliff, most of which had been portioned off in building lots, for Northwold was what is called a “rising watering-place.” About half-way between the Abbey and this town stood Mr. Porson’s mansion. In fact, it was nothing but a dwelling like those about it, presenting the familiar seaside gabled roofs of red tiles, and stucco walls decorated with sham woodwork, with the difference that the house was exceedingly well built and about four times as large as the average villa.

“Great heavens! what a place!” said the Colonel to himself as he halted at the private gateway which opened on to the cliff and surveyed it affronting sea and sky in all its naked horror. “Show me the house and I will show you the man,” he went on to himself; “but, after all, one mustn’t judge him too hardly. Poor Porson, he did not arrange his own up-bringing or his ancestors. Hello! there he is.

“John, John, John!” he shouted at a stout little person clad in a black alpaca coat, a straw hat, and a pair of spectacles, who was engaged in sad contemplation of a bed of dying evergreens.

At the sound of that well-known voice the little man jumped as though he had trodden on a pin, and turned round slowly, muttering to himself,

“Gracious! It’s him!” an ungrammatical sentence which indicated sufficiently how wide a niche in the temple of his mind was filled with the image of his brother-in-law, Colonel Monk.

John Porson was a man of about six or eight and fifty, round-faced, bald, with large blue eyes not unlike those of a china doll, and clean-shaven except for a pair of sandy-coloured mutton-chop whiskers. In expression he was gentle, even timid, and in figure short and stout. At this very moment behind a hundred counters stand a hundred replicas of that good-hearted man and worthy citizen, John Porson. Can he be described better or more briefly?

“How are you Colonel?” he said, hurrying forward. He had never yet dared to call his brother-in-law “Monk,” and much less by his Christian name, so he compromised on “Colonel.”

“Pretty well, thank you, considering my years and botherations. And how are you, John?”

“Not very grand, not very grand,” said the little man; “my heart has been troubling me, and it was so dreadfully hot in London.”

“Then why didn’t you come away?”

“Really I don’t know. I understood that it had something to do with a party, but I think the fact is that Mary was too lazy to look after the servants while they packed up.”

“Perhaps she had some attraction there,” suggested the Colonel, with an anxiety which might have been obvious to a more skilled observer.

“Attraction! What do you mean?” asked Porson.

“Mean, you old goose? Why, what should I mean? A young man, of course.”

“Oh! I see. No, I am sure it was nothing of that sort. Mary won’t be bothered with young men. She is too lazy; she just looks over their heads till they get tired and go away. I am sure it was the packing, or, perhaps, the party. But what are you staring at, Colonel? Is there anything wrong?”

“No, no; only that wonderful window of yours–the one filled with bottle-glass–which always reminds me of a bull’s-eye lantern standing on a preserved-beef tin, or the top of a toy lighthouse.”

Porson peered at the offending window through his spectacles.

“Certainly, now you mention it, it does look a little odd from here,” he said; “naked, rather. You said so before, you remember, and I told them to plant the shrubs; but while I was away they let every one of the poor things die. I will ask my architect, Jenkins, if he can’t do anything; it might be pulled down, perhaps.”

“Better leave it alone,” said the Colonel, with a sniff. “If I know anything of Jenkins he’d only put up something worse. I tell you, John, that where bricks and mortar are concerned that man’s a moral monster.”

“I know you don’t like his style,” murmured Porson; “but won’t you come in, it is so hot out here in the sun?”

“Thank you, yes, but let us go to that place you call your den, not to the drawing-room. If you can spare it, I want half-an-hour with you. That’s why I came over in the afternoon, before dinner.”

“Certainly, certainly,” murmured Porson again, as he led the way to the “den,” but to himself he added: “It’s those mortgages, I’ll bet. Oh dear! oh dear! when shall I see the last of them?”

Presently they were established in the den, the Colonel very cool and comfortable in Mr. Porson’s armchair, and Porson himself perched upon the edge of a new-looking leather sofa in an attitude of pained expectancy.

“Now I am at your service, Colonel,” he said.

“Oh! yes; well, it is just this. I want you, if you will, to look through these figures for me,” and he produced and handed to him a portentous document headed “List of Obligations.”

Mr. Porson glanced at it, and instantly his round, simple face became clever and alert. Here he was on his own ground. In five minutes he had mastered the thing.

“Yes,” he said, in a quick voice, “this is quite clear, but there is some mistake in the addition making a difference of 87 pounds 3s. 10d. in your favour. Well, where is the schedule of assets?”

“The schedule of assets, my dear John? I wish I knew. I have my pension, and there are the Abbey and estates, which, as things are, seem to be mortgaged to their full value. That’s about all, I think. Unless–unless”– and he laughed, “we throw in Morris’s patent electrical machine, which won’t work.”

“It ought to be reckoned, perhaps,” replied Mr. Porson gravely; adding in a kind of burst, with an air of complete conviction: “I believe in Morris’s machine, or, at least, I believe in Morris. He has the makings of a great man –no, of a great inventor about him.”

“Do you really?” replied the Colonel, much interested. “That is curious –and encouraging; for, my dear John, where business matters are concerned, I trust your judgment.”

“But I doubt whether he will make any money out of it,” went on Porson. “One day the world will benefit; probably he will not benefit.”

The Colonel’s interest faded. “Possibly, John; but, if so, perhaps for present purposes we may leave this mysterious discovery out of the question.”

“I think so, I think so; but what is the point?”

“The point is that I seem to be about at the end of my tether, although, as yet, I am glad to say, nobody has actually pressed me, and I have come to you, as a friend and a relative, for advice. What is to be done? I have sold you all the valuable land, and I am glad to think that you have made a very good thing of it. Some years ago, also, you took over the two heaviest mortgages on the Abbey estate, and I am sorry to say that the interest is considerably in arrear. There remain the floating debts and other charges, amounting in all to about 7,000 pounds, which I have no means of meeting, and meanwhile, of course, the place must be kept up. Under these circumstances, John, I ask you as a business man, what is to be done?”