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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
In "The Robe of Lucifer," Fred M. White delves into the realms of supernatural fiction, merging gothic elements with intrigue and moral philosophy. Set against a backdrop of Victorian society's fascination with the occult, this novel explores the themes of temptation, ambition, and the consequences of hubris. White's prose is rich and evocative, weaving a narrative that grips the reader while provoking deep reflection on the nature of desire and the human condition. His deft craftsmanship shines through in his ability to create suspenseful moments that resonate with the reader, both intellectually and emotionally. Fred M. White was a prolific British author known for his contributions to early 20th-century literature, particularly in the genres of adventure and supernatural tales. His works often reflect the societal anxieties of his time, especially regarding the moral and ethical implications of the burgeoning modern world. This background, paired with his own curiosities about the arcane, likely influenced the compelling narrative choices in "The Robe of Lucifer," as he navigates the tension between enlightenment and darkness. "The Robe of Lucifer" is an essential read for enthusiasts of gothic literature and those intrigued by the moral complexities posed by seduction and power. White's ability to blend thrilling narrative with philosophical undertones makes this book a profound addition to any literary collection, inviting readers to ponder their own struggles with temptation and morality.
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The Robe of Lucifer
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE.
I.
ONE traveller alighted at Port Gwyn Road, accepting his environments upon faith. There was a slip of worn platform, obviously pensioned from more prosperous areas, and now dank and mouldering an Lethe's Wharf. A hut, fashioned in the trunk of a decayed tree, served the dual purpose of waiting-room and ticket-office. A small steady rain pattered on the crumbling boards. Beyond lay a shelving sandbank and the sea—the only thing in motion there.
The traveller was quite alone, the station functionary having disappeared. A battered portmanteau stood at the traveller's feet. Under such circumstances, the most seasoned wanderer had fain been excused a resigned melancholy. Visions of cheerful hotels might have been fostered in that dreary spot. But Arthur Greenstrand was filled with the beatitude of a new sensation.
He turned out of the station, carrying his bag. Greenstrand had a destination and a welcome awaiting him on a contiguous spur of that ironclad coast. He saw the cliffs sweeping upwards, lifting their shoulders to the grey mist; he saw a clutch of white houses to his left, and boats keel-deep in the gritty sand. Despite the rain, a group of fisher-folk foregathered on what at one time might have been a granite quay. Thus Greenstrand's introduction to Cornwall. On the whole, he was rather disposed to like it.
No spot is devoid of redeeming features; even hell may possess natural advantages. At any rate, it is impossible for any one to refute the theory at present. Thus, the air of this place was superb. It came booming up from the Atlantic fields, crisp and fresh, and reeking with salt spume, nitrous as old wine. Greenstrand made his way across to the fishermen with a curious feeling of expansion and lightness. The group before him was picturesque enough, and lacking the vice of curiosity. There were grey beards and brown, there were deep-set eyes blue as the sea itself, there were hands oaken and wrinkled as the sails, nails with a firm rim of tar under them. The presence of a stranger excited no curiosity, and aroused no comment.
"I want to go to Port Gwyn," Greenstrand remarked.
An old sea-dog regarded him with a gaze so blank that the speaker was conscious of some confusion. He felt like a seal in the net.
"Well, you can go," the native responded gravely.
Nobody laughed, because neither rudeness nor repartee were intended. Whereupon the fishers fell to sea-chat again. As a matter of fact, they talked nothing else. They rarely saw a paper; letters came to them as birthdays, marked with gentle enthusiasm. But of all the human race, Cornish fishermen and country parsons have tapped the well-spring of true idleness; the rest are merely amateurs.
These men fish one tide daily for mackerel with hook and line; the rest of the time they spend in bed, or sitting on the shingle. To sit for hours on shingle and be happy is an art. In the winter they subsist upon salt herrings and potatoes, and sit upon a bench. Believe me, there are worse lives.
Greenstrand returned to the attack again. A man who can command the servile attention of millions is not to be baffled by a mere fisherman. The richest man in the world stood there before those primitive people, neglected and alone. Still, the situation was not without its charm.
"Do you happen to know," he asked with becoming humility, "where Mr. Julien Ray lives? I am on my way to his house."
Every face was turned quietly in his direction. Did Greenstrand but know it, this was enthusiasm, or the nearest approach to it to which the Cornish fishers aim. And it encouraged Greenstrand. Evidently Ray's fame had penetrated down here.
"Take yonder path over the cliff," one of the men explained, "and follow it till you come to the village. There's only one house there you can properly call a house, and that's Mr. Ray's. You see the path there?"
"Don't unnecessarily fatigue yourself," Greenstrand murmured as the speaker rose, the better to point out the way. "Will any one carry my bag?"
No reply came. Carrying the bag obviously implied largesse therefor, but what is vile dross compared with artistic laziness? So Greenstrand bore his own burden, like Christian of old, and rather enjoyed the sensation. He had reached a limit of civilization where money appeared to be a negative force.
And this man had literally the command of millions. He was in a position to make as much money as he desired. Did he require a yacht, or a continent, or a dodo, or a specially rare kind of canvas-back duck, he had only to give the order, and it was executed. He had everything he wanted. Yet this fact did not prevent his dragging a heavy portmanteau along three miles of vile cliff road in the pouring rain, and on an exceedingly empty stomach. For the nonce the tenant of an acre of furzy common and eke owner of a donkey was better equipped than he.
Greenstrand was, however, neither miserable nor unhappy. His old cynical boredom, his want of sympathy with humanity, seemed to have fallen from shoulders burdened with many millions. He saw the spume breaking on the rocks below, he saw the sea-wrack trailing in crystal pools, like a dead maiden's hair. The great heart of the sea throbbed responsive to his own. His lips were salt, a sense of sweetness filled his nostrils, underneath his feet the crushed wild thyme exuded a dying pungent perfume. Hundreds of ghostly sea-birds fluttered round his head, crying like familiar spirits. And God had the ocean in the hollow of His hand; the tide, spilt through His fingers, crashed upon the forehead of the world. The mystery of the sea is the mystery of life.
A benign sense of his own littleness filled Greenstrand; the consciousness of this had never been so forcibly brought home to him before. In the town he was great, men lisped his name with awe; here he was a mere unit—a wet one, without an umbrella. You can get a very good one for a guinea; but they are not to be purchased in the wilderness, even by the Squire of Golconda, who plays upon the money-market as on a barrel- organ.
The whimsical side of the argument tickled Greenstrand. What on earth was the good of all his money to him at this moment? Here, the unit plodded along in the wet; there, the capitalist was all-powerful. To-morrow he could say to himself, "I will go out and make some millions;" to-day he couldn't smoke a cigarette, because he hadn't any matches. You can't light a pipe with a cheque-book, though you may set a continent ablaze with one. And what is the use of tobacco at a guinea a pound when the rain gets into one's pouch? For once in a way Greenstrand could afford to indulge in the philosophy of the poor, a luxury usually denied to the rich.
And he was rich beyond the dreams of a philanthropist, or a religious man of business. Fortune had selected him as the recipient of her most frequent favours. In plain English, Arthur Greenstrand's late lamented father had invented a chemical process by which coal—or, at any rate, an equally good substitute—could be manufactured from refuse matter. The thing was simplicity itself. You had only to take a waste piece of ground, a huge pile of matter out of place—anything material, in fact—and charge the whole mass with the formula. A few hours afterwards it was, to all practical purposes, coal. Just think what this means!
It means one of the great necessities of life at the door of every dweller in towns. It means the same thing in every great ocean port all over the world. It means something like solid profit for allowing people to take away, at a fancy price, what you do not require for yourself. It means that you can shut up any coal-field in the country by depreciating the market value, and then demanding anything you like for your own article. In Greenstrand's case it meant the possession of so much money that he was bent, and almost broken, under the weight of it. Not that he had taken any unfair advantage of the family discovery to the detriment of others; he was too honest for that. But the possession of so large a fortune was to him the salt in the herring-barrel, the hair in the cider-press. It had crushed all ambition, all that was good out of him. Ambition, to the possessor of millions, is impossible. Why strive for fame or reputation in politics, or art in letters, when you can buy it as a cabman does his beer—by the quart? Consider what a man can do in politics—provided that he has means—by keeping one hand rigidly over his mouth, and the other constantly in his pocket!
It may be urged, perhaps, that a man of genuine ambition could put this wealth out of his life, and start from scratch, like the other runners in the race. But, whatever his faults might have been, Greenstrand was no fool. On the contrary, he was a man who knew his world very well indeed. He knew that genius does not necessarily imply success; besides, he did not labour under the delusion that the afflatus divine was his. Looking round him, he could see that the huckster's instinct was requisite to-day to turn "Shakespeare and the musical glasses" into good business, and that "the popular taste"—a thing he abhorred—was the thing to cater for to become successful. Suppleness Greenstrand did not possess. No; success, as we understand her to-day, was not for him.
It is a great deal easier, and more soothing, to be misunderstood and shunned with a large income and a house in Park Lane, than it is in a cottage furnished on the hire system. The slights are not so pointed. Also, your blighted genius has his corners, like the rest of us. Greenstrand preferred to view the drama from the stalls. The pit may be the best place in the house, but there would not be much trouble in persuading the pittite to change seats with an occupant of the dress circle.
Yet, without doubt, the possession of so much money embittered Greenstrand's life. Blessed—or cursed—with a sense of humour and a cynical temper, he judged the sycophants who fawned upon him correctly. He saw the worst and most sordid side of life; he gradually lost his faith in all that is good and pure. Belief in God or man he had none; in his eyes every action had a motive. There was no future state—nothing. The rest was a blank, and every man a devil in disguise. He had no friends, and all those who knew him were actuated by designs upon the coaly millions. Greenstrand hated the world, but he hated himself most of all. There was only one thing worse than life—death.
There is a certain temptation to the rich man to become his own deity. What can one expect else from the being whose calves are all golden ones?
Thus Greenstrand. He had tried everything, and found it empty. Society he had exhausted in a year. He could discern no real difference between Lady Midas, prating of the price of her carpets, and the Duchess of Sang Azul, smothered in diamonds what time there was an execution in Prehistoria Castle. The same vulgar ostentation ruled all, and reduced them to a common plane. In his despair, Greenstrand had even tried religions—not one of which he had found to fit. The bishop in lawn, escorted to the pulpit by a cringing throng of acolytes, and preaching the simple doctrine of a single Christ, drove back his soul in revolt from the blasphemy; the Methodist, unlettered, agibe with jealousy, and spattering frantic diatribes, flavoured with the gall-political, at those he would fain rub shoulders with, disgusted him.
There was a certain egotism underlying Greenstrand's lack of faith in everything. Had he been less clever, he had been a happier man. Instead of which, he was driven back upon himself by the open flattery of others. Perhaps none really cared for him, because he took no pains to conceal his contempt for others. If he had one grain of Platonic affection in his nature, it was for Julien Ray, the poet. Ray was the tonic his consumptive vanity needed, the North wind blowing over the hotbed of schisms and doubts which choked a really kindly nature.
Now, here was a man possessing unlimited wealth, a fine intellect, good health, and a fair presence, and yet there was no more unhappy individual in England. Why? It would have puzzled Greenstrand to answer the question. What is termed the perfectly happy man, the one who has everything he can require, and no wish ungratified, must be intensely miserable. Fancy any human being with nothing to long for, no ultimate goal to reach, no Promised Land afore! Picture the misery of him! Greenstrand was the individual in question.
Think of it! This man might have done anything, become anything. With his wealth and intelligence, nothing was impossible to him. That probably accounted for the fact that he was standing at this moment, tired and wet, dragging a portmanteau along, and regarding a little village lying in a hollow at his feet, girt in by broomy hills, and washed by the creamy tide. Our refined tramp stood there with a look of something like admiration in his eyes. However extravagant her moods are, Nature is never a snob; her work is thoroughly artistic. Greenstrand smiled with the feeling of one who stumbles by accident upon a perfect picture.
II.
GREENSTRAND'S exotic enthusiasm was not misplaced. A spur of the sea ran like a spear into the green heart of the mainland, whilst terraces of foliage uprose on either side, crowned by rocky diadems. The tiny bay formed a perfect harbour of refuge, where ships ran what time the west wind raged along that cruel coast. There were many cottages peeping out of the foliage here and there, but Greenstrand saw that most of them were ruined and deserted. The only house of any note—and that anything but a dominant one—stood upon a rocky shelf on the opposite side; a ferny hollow lay behind, and a pretty garden in front. There was nothing else that suggested the Home of Poesy.
A ragged ray of light, penetrating the hood of cloudland, lighted up Port Gwyn for a brief moment, but nothing disturbed the perfect silence there. There were no boats on the silver strand, and consequently no fishermen either. Was there yet another somnolent way of getting a living in these parts, Greenstrand wondered?
He dropped into the valley, and climbed up the other side. Before the comparative cottage of gentility he stopped. Under the thatched roof the swallows were building, on the tiny stretch of lawn a few dove-hued gulls were squatting. A tall fuchsia covered the front of the cottage, begonias and maiden-hair fern ran riot in the borders.
Greenland rapped with his knuckles on the door, and a voice bade him enter.
The traveller had made no mistake, he knew that voice well enough. Few people heard it save in song; therein it was familiar enough everywhere that the Queen's writ runs. There was no inky controversy as to Julien Ray's position as the foremost of modern poets; even the Superlatives admitted the fact in guarded aphorism.
The poet rose from a white deal table, innocent of a cloth, on which, from a pewter platter, he was making a hearty tea on brown bread and fried mackerel. In figure he was tall and spare, his hair was cropped short to the long lean head, his eyes were blue and tranquil. There was absolutely nothing striking-looking about him. In the company of Cornish farmers he would pass as one of themselves, for Ray had a fine faculty for adapting himself to his company; he had mastered the art of being at home everywhere.
"I did not expect to see you for some days," he said; "indeed, you are so erratic that I really did not expect to see you at all."
"The very reason why you might have looked for my coming at any time," Greenstrand replied gravely. "Julien, I'm wet through."
Ray replied that he was glad to hear it. A millionaire, wet, and draggled, and miserable, is a sight that reconciles poverty to the inevitable.
"Of course, I can give you a bed," Ray went on; "only you will have to take your share in the work of the house, because I keep no servant, and do everything myself. This is my living-room, drawing-room, and library, all in one. Like the Irishman's description of a wigwam, so is this house. If you want to go from the drawing-room to the library, you just stay where you are."
Greenstrand looked around him with some interest. The door of this double-fronted cottage gave directly upon one room. On the stone floor lay a Turkey carpet. The uncurtained windows were full of flowers. The furniture was of the plainest. A few pictures on the walls were set off by gleaming domestic utensils. One wall was entirely lined with books; and under a window, let into the centre of these tomes, and commanding a magnificent view seaward, was the one handsome piece of upholstery there, an oak writing-table littered with papers. There was a double settle round the fireplace for use on cold or winter evenings. From the bagman point of view, five and twenty pounds would have covered the lot, the books excepted.
"I suppose you find eccentricity pays," Greenstrand remarked. "Commercially, it must be good business for a poet of your standing to live in a workman's cottage. That's where Salisbury gets the pull of Rosebery—one possesses a mysterious, Janus-like reserve, whilst the other is compelled to grin through the horse-collar of politics. During the seven years you have been here, you must have saved a lot of money."
"I haven't a penny," Ray responded cheerfully. "I had to borrow five pounds this morning from a farmer friend to pay a county court summons from a bookseller. The people about here take all my earnings as fast as I get them. But things are getting better; it's nothing like such a struggle as I had last year."
"You mean to say that you keep half the people about you?"
"My dear fellow, it's no exaggeration to say that I keep them all. You can be a great poet, and earn far less money than a third-rate novelist. In the spring I was so hard put to it, that I came very near to writing a detective romance, but happily the tragedy was averted. An American pork-packer started the fashion for early editions of my first volume, and I was saved. I happened to have a lot of copies by me."
"And you are actually happy here, Julien?"
"Greenstrand, I believe I am the happiest man alive. I have dreamed and hoped of fame, and it has come to me at thirty-five. Think of that! Again, I have not an enemy in the world. My health is perfect, my wants are few. With my limited means, I do more good than you with your millions. I have brought happiness here. When I came to Port Gwyn first, the people were starving—you should see them now. Port Gwyn lace will be as valuable as Rose-point some of these days."
"I heard that you had started a lace industry here. I read it in one of the evening papers, coupled with the information that you cleaned your teeth with cigar ash. There was also something about the kind of socks you wear; but I forget that priceless item."
"I have studied lace-making for years," Ray observed. "The people here used to catch pilchards in due season, and live on the proceeds for the rest of the year. But the pilchards don't come any more, and the people were starving. Perhaps you noticed the deserted cottages as you came along. Well, I taught the women how to make the lace."
"Incidentally finding the capital, I presume?"
"Of course. Where else do you suppose it came from? They took to the work splendidly. The men are picking it up too, but much more slowly. What we want now is a market, plus a call for our goods. The price obtained up to now hardly keeps body and soul together. So I buy it all myself, And sell it for what it will fetch. With your money and influence you might make the thing go for as."
"You mean as a commercial speculation for yourself?"
"Nothing of the kind," Ray cried indignantly. "I'm not a tradesman. If I could see a fair wage for my poor people I should be quite content. Then I could put a lot more hands on, all of whom want work at present. The greater the demand, the greater the profit for them. I should refuse to touch a penny of the money."
Greenstrand declined curtly. He was a trifle annoyed to find the hated topic of his money cropping up directly, even here. He had hoped to get away from that. The old familiar demon danced before him as he changed in his tiny bedroom. Ray was after his shekels already, like the rest—even Ray, to whom money was as last year's leaves. Doubtless before long the poet would be asking him for a subsidy, and artfully luring him into a broad scheme of philanthropy. Legions of hypocrites had tried the same thing before. Utopian programmes breathing Arcadian atmospheres—with a large margin for current expenses. Blest is the patron blind to the balance-sheet, only he is getting extinct.
Greenstrand came down to his brown bread and fried mackerel moodily. In his mind's eye he could see the sycophants who were fattening upon Ray's mistaken generosity. They would have none of his, for certain. Yet Dives enjoyed his meal as he had not relished one for many days; he expanded as he ate. Ray produced tobacco afterwards, and two clay pipes, also creamy ale in stone mugs.
"This is practically your fare whilst you are here," the poet explained. "More or less, I live on fish and potatoes. But, if you prefer a change, I'll go over to Port Jacob and get some meat for you, Greenstrand."
"No, thanks," Greenstrand said dryly. "You are a sufficiently good poet to be an indifferent cook. Besides, I came down here to get well out of the beaten track. I came quite alone, having given my secretary the slip at Bristol. But he knows my intentions, and I dare say he will find his way down here in a day or two. Death is a necessity to me. I suppose you can find room for him somewhere?"
"There is a furnished attic overhead," Ray replied hospitably. "I shall be glad to see Death again; the fellow is an enigma to me, and I am never tired of studying him. Let him come, by all means."
"Death is a curiosity," Greenstrand resumed. "You and he are the poles in emotional feeling. You have them all; Death has none. I believe that man to be absolutely devoid of feeling of any kind. If you stuck a pin in him, he would be none the wiser. Did you ever see him smile? He has a face like a wax mask. He would have made a magnificent judge, so great is his sense of fairness. He would acquit his greatest enemy on a nice technicality, and hang his own mother upon another. Misfortune marked that man for her own years ago, and pursued him as relentlessly as one Christian quarrelling with another on a point of faith. I dragged him out of a blacking factory, for which he was writing poetical advertisements—a Balliol scholar and Newdigate prizeman! That man will do anything I tell him; he never asks questions. Yes, Death is a curiosity."
"He is a very faithful servant," Ray remarked.
"Precisely. I pay him liberally, buying his virtues by the pound."
Ray smiled slightly. Friendship was not a cardinal virtue at all in Greenstrand's eyes. It existed only in books.
"I'm glad your views are not mine," the poet said; "if they were, I should be compelled to shut up shop to-morrow. It must be a horrible thing to believe in nothing, Arthur. And yet I have found goodness and faith and honour enough in the world. I believe it to be a good world, and the people in it good people."
Greenstrand paced the floor impatiently. A trailing wreath of smoke drifted round his head as he went. His dark grey eyes gleamed with scornful anger. He felt a passionate contempt, an envious contempt for Ray's happiness.
"Am I angry, or am I jealous to hear you talk thus?" he exclaimed. "What do you owe the world? Absolutely nothing. For years you were crushed and beaten down. Those who reviled you then come cringing to kiss your feet now. And yet you speak as if you had been cradled in purple."
"Well, it was a pull," Ray admitted, "but I am the better now for it. Is there nothing in fighting fortune as successfully as I have done?"
"You say nothing of three years' semi-starvation."
"It was worse than that," Ray said cheerfully. "More than once I have known the real want of food. The hard life killed one of the sweetest and dearest women that God ever gave to a struggling mortal. For five years I only tasted meat by accident, as it were; ay, I have picked up and eaten bread from the gutter. Once, when I was nearly crazy with hunger, I picked up a sovereign. What do you know about money, Arthur? Wait till you find a gold coin under the same circumstances. And all that time, thank God, I never lost faith in myself, my fellows, or my Maker."
"I am not acquainted with the disease," Greenstrand said cynically.
"No, unfortunately. Far better for you if you were. Without faith I should have gone headlong to perdition. I placed my trust in God."
"I have heard of others who are prone to lean upon the shoulder of Jupiter," Greenstrand replied thoughtfully. "You pray for assistance in the same faint hope that a struggling man goes to his banker for an overdraft—not that you expect it to come, but because it is the proper kind of thing to do. How truly English and insular, this asking the Almighty to back our bills for us! My poor mother used to say that unless I went to church I should never prosper. Therefore going to church is a pure matter of business, in which case the rich man could send a clerk instead. Ergo, the more clerks, the more pious."
"You speak as if there were no God," said Ray.
"There is no God," Greenstrand replied passionately. "It is a mere chimera. And if your God is the God of writ, how much greater is the devil? You call him a fallen angel, in revolt against the Deity. In revolt! Why, the devil is master of the universe! What a splendid lieutenant I should make with all my money. Backed by the power of the gold I have at my command, I could corrupt a continent I could place such temptations in the way of the best of people that they would fall miserably. At the outlay of a few thousands I could turn your little paradise here into a hell."
"There are thousands of good people beyond your power," Ray cried.
Greenstrand smiled as he took up his candle, a tallow one, in an earthern candlestick. The argument was not worth pursuing further.
"Good night, my simple child," he said, "and may you sleep better than I shall."
The rain pattered on the casement of Greenstrand's tiny room, the roar of the sea sounded hollow in his ears. Yet he lay back upon the coarse linen pillow, and slept as he had not slept for years.
III.
MORNING came with a wind fresh from the North- west. The sea lay bright and crisp; the sunshine danced on the blue jewels of the waters. Ray, early astir, dragged Greenstrand from the snug somnolence of the coarse brown sheets, and placed a towel in his hand.
"We are going to bathe before breakfast," he explained. "Into your garments quickly. Do not tarry for the sleep-berries to leave your eyes, but dress and come."
Greenstrand complied laggardly. A heavy surf was plunging upon the crisp sand, the rocks were dank and chill to his unfamiliar feet. Like a white arrow shot from a bow, Ray flashed into the grey bath of spume, shimmering like some great fish in a fathom of crystal flood. Greenstrand followed down to the tangled sea- wrack. The flying spume lashed his shoulders; the salt sting was on his forehead, wild and glorious. A new vigour thrilled in every limb; Samson before meeting Delilah felt no stronger.
"That's fine!" he gasped, as he emerged from the bath. "I feel like another man. I shall be quite ready for breakfast by the time we get back."
"Death is cooking the soles," Ray replied. "I forgot to tell you that he turned up an hour ago. He got a conveyance from Port Jacob, and drove."
"So like him," Greenstrand murmured, as they started back. "Now, at Port Jacob, yesterday, I could get no conveyance for love or money. If Death and I were stranded in the Great Sahara, and I asked him to do his best, he would find me a caravan in half an hour. And if I requested the same day's Times under the same circumstances, it would be forthcoming. I——"
Greenstrand suddenly paused. Like some predatory Adam under parallel circumstances, he felt comparatively startled by what he saw. For, coming towards them, of a verity, was Eve in the guise of Aphrodite. She was tall and dark and queenly. She wore a dress of rough grey cloth with a divine grace. Her long hair was streaming in the breeze; her bare white feet kissed the sand. But for the milky feet, Aphrodite might have been the bride of broad acres. She carried her head haughtily and well. A smile cleft her red lips, and lingered in her splendid eyes. She seemed to see nothing strange in the two figures before her.
"Can't we go and hide ourselves?" Greenstrand suggested. "The lady might——"
But Ray was innocent of confusion. From his point of view, the situation was natural enough. At Port Gwyn they had gone back to the better part of nature. He shook hands with the glowing goddess, who blushed not, for the simple reason that she saw nothing whereat to blush in her lack of hose, and extended her taper fingers to Greenstrand.
"I have heard of you," she said. "I am glad to meet you. But you must not keep me now, because I am going down to the lobster pots."
"What a lovely lunatic!" Greenstrand remarked, as the stately figure passed on. "Have you any more eccentric angels of the same kind here, Julien?"
"There is very little of the lunatic about Margaret Trefroch," Ray said seriously. "You are a bit annoyed because her simple virtue and innocent chastity were too much for your boasted self- possession. You may admire that "front of brass" contact with the world brings, but it is nothing compared to the pure gaze of a little child. And yet Margaret is no child, apart from her unworldliness. Her father was accounted fairly well off until these cottages were deserted. Now he has to work like the rest. But Margaret and her brother Mark—for whom I have procured a situation in London—possess a rare intelligence. I educated Margaret myself; for five years she has been my pupil."
"Take care that she does not become your mistress," Greenstrand laughed. "Nay, man, I mean in the Elizabethan sense of the word, not as it is perverted to-day."
"I shall never marry again," Ray said gravely. "I buried my heart in my wife's grave. Yet Margaret could be a mate for any man. She has beauty and intellect. Few women in England are better educated, though I say it."
Greenstrand pursued the subject no further. Yet this chance meeting with the ocean goddess occupied his sole attention whilst dressing. Not that his speculations prevented a complete enjoyment of the fish and coffee prepared by Death.
The latter greeted his employer quietly enough. George Death never spoke unless spoken to first; he sat through the simple meal, his face disguised as a mask. There was no expression there, no speculation in his hard steel-grey eyes. He allowed himself to be quietly ignored; the others took no notice of his presence there.
After breakfast he rose, and quietly proceeded to wash the dishes. He appeared to be perfectly at home at the task, as he would have been waiting upon a Cabinet Minister. He was equally ready to negotiate the purchase of an estate for his employer. Liberally paid, everything came in the day's work.
Death invariably dressed in black; he wore no jewellery; he had no tastes or habits, and no dislikes or prejudices. What he did with his money, Greenstrand neither knew nor cared. He did know that Death was scrupulously honest in all his dealings; he was quite aware that his right-hand man could have robbed him of thousands had he liked. And Death professed no liking for or gratitude to his employer. His keen sense of justice told him that the arrangement between them was perfectly mutual.
The morning passed quickly with an examination of the place, and an inspection of the house where the lace-manufacture was in progress. Ray was doing a good work, perhaps, but it smacked of professional philanthropy too much for Greenstrand.
"Let us go on the cliffs and smoke," he said presently. "I'm getting somewhat tired of these ceaseless expressions of gratitude one hears from these people. Besides, I have been dragged over these kind of places so often before. I shall give you nothing."
Ray led the way up the cliffs. The boyish gaiety contrasted strongly with Greenstrand's sombre mood. They sat looking over the wrinkled sea, flushed with the love of the sunshine. The great heart beat and throbbed upon the rocks; there were voices in the wind.
"Why can't I be happy like you?" Greenstrand cried suddenly. "Why am I so full of discontent?"
"Because you have nothing to do," Ray replied. "And yet you have a fine intellect. With your opportunities and advantages you might become anything. Literature——"
"I might become a minor poet," Greenstrand sneered. "I can write verses sufficiently badly for that. And I should certainly be exploited in the evening papers. The more rude I was to them, the more they would extol my virtues. A rich man's failings are a poor man's vices. No; on the whole, I think I will steer clear of literature."
"Then why not politics ? It is the pastime of tin prosperous."
"Because I could succeed in attaining any position I required. My dear Julien, consider the want of stimulus politics offer to one in my position. With the millions at my disposal, I could actually found a party. Suppose I take up the occupation of waste lands. I might establish industries in the desert; whether they paid or not would matter little, because the subsidy would be always fattening. With money I could bribe the electors. I could choose my own candidates, and endow them with ample funds. There are hundreds of men of influence, apparently in a prosperous condition, who are tottering to ruin. Indirectly, I could buy the electorate as I would a flock of sheep. In five years I should become Premier. And where would the satisfaction be? My wealth, and not myself, would deserve the praise. No; I can see nothing in politics."
"Then why not deprive yourself of your money altogether?" Ray asked.
Greenstrand hesitated for a moment before he replied.
"Because I dare not," he murmured with the tone of one who makes a humiliating confession. "I lack the necessary belief in myself. So many better men never rise superior to circumstance. Should I, given your genius, have ever forced my way to the front? I think not. I have had a better opportunity of judging the greed of humanity than yourself. I have but one weapon, and I dare not lay that aside. And yet its might is crushing me. I want some mission, some occupation that money cannot buy. Everything has been tried. I thought I had found it once in philanthropy, but I was mistaken. On the whole, that seems to me to be the most sordid business of the lot."
"It seems to be a pitiable state of things," Ray remarked.
"Pitiable is no word for it. I am without hope, and without faith. Julien, do you believe, really and truly believe, that there is a God directing us somewhere?"
"I am certain of it," Ray cried. "I have proved it. I feel that God is, and will be. I feel His presence now; I seem to see evidence of it in the great waters. Without the help of Christ I should have gone down into desolation and darkness. Do not mistake what I say for the Shibboleth of the Churches; in the cant phrase of the day, I am not a religious man. For instance, I never by any chance enter a place of worship. The set parrot prayers day by day drive me to madness. The sermon is an invention of the devil. Fancy the smug, narrow sectarian preaching Christ's holy charity, and denying a dissenter burial in his churchyard—God's Acre, mind you! Picture the Nonconformist minister yelling his hideous secular politics, and quoting the Deity in support of his argument, as if God were a Gladstonian. See the prelate at the altar marrying innocent crushed May to scrofulous December, and telling his perfumed gallery that whom God has joined together no man shall put asunder. Oh, the pity of it! And yet one can feel the life of Christ to be the true one. God is everywhere, the just kind God that Jesus spoke of, and He prevails."
"I don't believe a word of it," Greenstrand retorted. "You evoke all this out of your brilliant imagination. If things are as you say, why is Satan all-powerful? I could be Satan myself. I could spoil your Arcadia here in a week. If I could but put a dozen men to the test, place in their way blazing temptations, and find them come out of the ordeal unscathed, I think I could believe myself."
"You think all men are corrupt at heart, then?"
"I am absolutely certain of it. My worldly experience has never shown me a single instance to the contrary. Mind, I grant there are certain instances where you must make the bribe big enough, or disguise the bait carefully. Julien, I have a great mind to turn devil, and test my theory practically."
"You would fail," Ray cried—"fail miserably. And if you did succeed in breaking up and ruining a home or two, what then? What would you do with your victims?"
"Send them down here to make lace," Greenstrand smiled grimly. "I should feel that I owed them something for the sport they had given me, in which case I should not mind giving you money for an extension of the colony."
Ray caught his breath quickly. He saw a way to extending his scheme, and confounding his friend at the same time. It might also be possible to fill Greenstrand with the faith through which real happiness alone lies.
"I have a great mind to accept your challenge," he said thoughtfully. "There are other places besides Port Gwyn along the coast where help is sorely needed, and I confess to a great desire to handle some of the thousands which represent so little to you. But what a Nemesis would be yours, were you to make the attempt."
"Why? The devil flourishes after the lapse of countless years. He has revolted successfully. There is no reason why I should not go and do likewise."
"You really are prepared to make the attempt, then?"
"Since you challenge me, I may say that I am both willing and eager."
Ray's eyes glowed with the light of battle. He was for humanity against mammon.
"So be it, then," he cried. "You shall go out into the world and tempt man, you shall play upon his weakness and his vanity, you shall fall like Lucifer. The collapse will be great, but God is merciful to all. I believe you will not succeed in one solitary instance, arrogant as the power of your money renders you. But who is to select the victims?"
"That shall be Death's portion," Greenstrand said eagerly. "And I will inform him that none but the strongest are to be chosen. My intention is not to pick out those who are in difficulties or dangers. Let us see what the best are made of. Death's strong sense of justice will be your safeguard; you can rely upon him thoroughly. He shall have carte blanche to go through the country and select subjects for my experiment, as a collector of old china goes afield for curios. And you will judge as to fair play."
"I shall certainly live to rejoice in your discomfiture," Ray replied.
"The challenge is made and accepted," Greenstrand cried. "Already I feel that I have an object in life. I am itching to be at work. Let us dispatch Death upon his errand without delay. Meanwhile, I shall remain here till Death returns. He will show no surprise when he hears what he has to do."
Greenstrand did not exaggerate. Death listened to the commands of his employer with no signs of animation or surprise upon his graven face.
"I am to start at once," he replied, "and I have no limit as to space, provided that I confine myself to England. It will cost a deal of money."
"It will," Greenstrand agreed. "You will want a blank signed cheque-book, and use your own discretion as to what you spend. And take your time."
Death departed like a shadow. For good or evil the die was cast. Ray's face was grave, whilst Greenstrand's features were flushed and triumphant.
"You fear for me?" be demanded.
"It is in God's hands," the poet replied. "I tell you I am frightened. Whether I have done right or wrong, the future alone will show. There is no turning back now."
IV.
NOT without some hesitation, Ray confided the story of the experiment to Margaret Trefroch. He did this because it was his custom to tell her everything. To the poet's surprise, Margaret displayed no signs of anything but pleasure.
The trio were seated on the cliffs at the time. In Margaret's eyes, something of awesome mystery hung around Greenstrand. The girl possessed a strong romantic bias. With her head in the mist, she saw men's virtues looming large; through the same phantascope their faults became mere miasmas. Greenstrand was a god; in his hands the gold was Aaron's rod to strike the barren rock, and cause the stream of goodness to flow until the flood-tide of the millennium was reached.
The girl sincerely pitied his doubts. She saw in the experiment a means of removing them, and rendering Greenstrand's future peaceful. She only knew three men—her father, her brother, and Julian Ray, the poet. And they were all noble.
Therefore mankind must be noble likewise. Greenstrand's experiment would fail hopelessly. He would realize what a good world it was. The sunward facet of it dazzled her eyes till the flaw was invisible.
"I am glad," she said simply.
Her long hair was blowing in the wind like a wild mane about her ivory shoulders; she spoke in prophecies reminiscent of the classics she had read. She babbled wildly as Cassandra, yet with the gentleness of Ruth. Greenstrand would be gathered into the fold, the flood-gates of his millions would be raised, and the golden stream flow over the land balmily.
"You will fail!" she cried. "I am certain of it. Then you will be utterly crushed for a time, but your faith will return. But you are not going to pick those people out who are likely to favour your theory?"
Greenstrand smiled into the beautiful face. "I am no professional politician, Miss Margaret," he said. "I have not yet learnt the art of moulding my theories to my facts. On the contrary, failure would please me particularly. I want to fail. I want to believe that people like yourself and Ray comprise the lump, and not the leaven. For this reason I have instructed Death, by letter, to fly at the highest game. Hut he will not fail."
"He will," Margaret retorted. "I am certain of it. God will not permit a mere human to stand between Him and the great scheme of salvation. You must be mad to dream such a thing."
"How do you know that I am not an instrument in God's hands?" Greenstrand suggested. "The mighty are put down from their seat sometimes. My whole scheme may be inspired to break the pride of an arrogant unit, in which case I am not a free agent."
"Heaven ordains everything," Margaret murmured.
"But does it?" Greenstrand urged. "If Heaven ordains everything, everything is predestined. Therefore, if you commit a murder, you should not be punished for a thing you cannot help. Your Deity, not you, is the real criminal. On the other hand, if man is entirely a free agent——"
"A truce to all this," Ray cried. "Out upon your free-agent theory! Take the birth and life of a flower, ponder over it, and tell me you cannot see God's handiwork there if you dare, Arthur. I am sorry, now, that I had anything to do with your experiment. When the crash comes, I hope I shall not be too near the ruins."
"The ruins will not be mine," Greenstrand said cynically. "It is a month now since Death went away, and every day I expect to hear from him as to the result of the first experiment. All I know, as yet, is the name of the intended victim."
Ray looked up with languid interest. "I suppose we should be none the wiser if you were to inform us who it is?" he asked. "Death is anything but an ambitious man."
"Ambition has nothing to do with it," Greenstrand replied. "What is mere ambition—only an emotion, at best—compared to the superb arrogance the contact with much money produces? Death has been with me long enough to know that gold can procure practically anything. Allied to this, he has a vivid imagination. He has gone, as I expected he would, to the top of the tree. After all, a prince is only a man in disguise. You can't strangle greed with a purple robe, any more than you can homicide with a rope of hemp. And Wallingford Hope is only human, like the rest of us."
Ray burst into a hearty laugh. Margaret smiled with amusement.
"Wallingford Hope!" the poet cried. "Is he to be the victim? Why not the Pope, or Mr. Gladstone, at once? Why, if there is one public man in this country more than another——"
