The Golden Butterfly

"After all," she summed up, as she rose to go to bed, "it is as well. Lawrence and I should never have got along. He is too selfish, much too selfish."

Down-stairs they were watching over the stricken man. The doctor came and felt his pulse; he also looked wise, and wrote things in Latin on a paper, which he gave to a servant. Then he went away, and said he would come in the morning again. He was a great doctor, with a title, and quite believed to know everything; but he did not know what had befallen this patient.

When Gabriel Cassilis awoke there was some confusion in his mind, and his brain was wandering – at least it appeared so, because what he said had nothing to do with any possible wish or thought. He rambled at large and at length; and then he grew angry, and then he became suddenly sorrowful, and sighed; then he became perfectly silent. The confused babble of speech ceased as suddenly as it had come; and since that morning Gabriel Cassilis has not spoken.

It was at half-past nine that his secretary called, simultaneously with the doctor.

He heard something from the servants, and pushed into the room where his chief was lying. The eyes of the sick man opened languidly and fell upon his first officer, but they expressed no interest and asked no question.

"Ah!" sighed Mr. Mowll, in the impatience of a sympathy which has but little time to spare. "Will he recover, doctor?"

"No doubt, no doubt. This way, my dear sir." He led the secretary out of the room. "Hush! he understands what is said. This is no ordinary seizure. Has he received any shock?"

"Shock enough to kill thirty men," said the secretary. "Where was he yesterday? Why did he not say something – do something – to avert the disaster?"

"Oh! Then the shock has been of a financial kind? I gathered from Mr. Colquhoun that it was of a family nature – something sudden and distressing."

"Family nature!" echoed the secretary. "Who ever heard of Mr. Cassilis worrying himself about family matters? No, sir; when a man is ruined he has no time to bother about family matters."

"Ruined? The great Mr. Gabriel Cassilis ruined?"

"I should say so, and I ought to know. They say so in the City; they will say so to-night in the papers. If he were well, and able to face things, there might be – no, even then there could be no hope. Settling-day this very morning; and a pretty settling it is."

"Whatever day it is," said the doctor, "I cannot have him disturbed. You may return in three or four hours, if you like, and then perhaps he may be able to speak to you. Just now, leave him in peace."

What had happened was this:

When Mr. Cassilis caused to be circulated a certain pamphlet which we have heard of, impugning the resources of the Republic of Eldorado, he wished the stock to go down. It did go down, and he bought in – bought in so largely that he held two millions of the stock. Men in his position do not buy large quantities of stock without affecting the price – Stock Exchange transactions are not secret – and Eldorado Stock went up. This was what Gabriel Cassilis naturally desired. Also the letter of El Señor Don Bellaco de la Carambola to the Times, showing the admirable way in which Eldorado loans were received and administered, helped. The stock went up from 64, at which price Gabriel Cassilis bought in, to 75, at which he should have sold. Had he done so at the right moment, he would have realised the very handsome sum of two hundred and sixty thousand pounds; but the trouble of the letters came, and prevented him from acting.

While his mind was agitated by these – agitated, as we have seen, to such an extent that he could no longer think or work, or attend to any kind of business – there arrived for him telegram after telegram, in his own cipher, from America. These lay unopened. It was disastrous, because they announced beforehand the fact which only his correspondent knew – the Eldorado bonds were no longer to be paid.

That fact was now public. It was made known by all the papers that Eldorado, having paid the interest out of the money borrowed, had no further resources whatever, and could pay no more. It was stated in leading articles that England should have known all along what a miserable country Eldorado is. The British public were warned too late not to trust in Eldorado promises any more; and the unfortunates who held Eldorado Stock were actuated by one common impulse to sell, and no one would buy. It was absurd to quote Eldorado bonds at anything; and the great financier had to meet his engagements by finding the difference between stock at 64 and stock at next to nothing for two millions.

Gabriel Cassilis was consequently ruined. When it became known that he had some sort of stroke, people said that it was the shock of the fatal news. He made the one mistake of an otherwise faultless career, they said to each other, in trusting Eldorado, and his brain could not stand the blow. When the secretary, who understood the cipher, came to open the letters and telegrams, he left off talking about the fatal shock of the news. It must have been something else – something he knew nothing of, because he saw the blow might have been averted; and the man's mind, clear enough when he went in for a great coup, had become unhinged during the few days before the smash.

Ruined! Gabriel Cassilis knew nothing about the wreck of his life, as he lay upon his bed afraid to speak because he would only babble incoherently. All was gone from him – money, reputation, wife. He had no longer anything. The anonymous correspondent had taken all away.

CHAPTER XLIII

"This comes of airy visions and the whispersOf demons like to angels. Brother, weep."

Gilead Beck, returning from the Twickenham party before the explosion, found Jack Dunquerque waiting for him. As we have seen, he was not invited.

"Tell me how she was looking!" he cried. "Did she ask after me?"

"Wal, Mr. Dunquerque, I reckon you the most fortunate individual in the hull world. She looked like an angel, and she talked like a – like a woman, with pretty blushes; and yet she wasn't ashamed neither. Seems as if bein' ashamed isn't her strong point. And what has she got to be ashamed of?"

"Did Colquhoun say anything?"

"We had already got upon the subject, and I had ventured to make him a proposition. You see, Mr. Dunquerque" – he grew confused, and hesitated – "fact is, I want you to look at things just exactly as I do. I'm rich. I have struck Ile; that Ile is the mightiest Special Providence ever given to a single man. But it's given for purposes. And one of those purposes is that some of it's got to go to you."

"To me?"

"To you, Mr. Dunquerque. Who fired that shot? Who delivered me from the Grisly?"

"Why, Ladds did as much as I."

Mr. Beck shook his head.

"Captain Ladds is a fine fellow," he said. "Steady as a rock is Captain Ladds. There's nobody I'd rather march under if we'd the war to do all over again. But the Ile isn't for Captain Ladds. It isn't for him that the Golden Butterfly fills me with yearnin's. No sir. I owe it all to you. You've saved my life; you've sought me out, and gone about this city with me; you've put me up to ropes; you've taken me to that sweet creature's house and made her my friend. And Mrs. L'Estrange my friend, too. If I was to turn away and forget you, I should deserve to lose that precious Inseck."

He paused for a minute.

"I said to Mr. Colquhoun, 'Mr. Dunquerque shall have half of my pile, and more if he wants it. Only you let him come back again to Miss Fleming.' And he laughed in his easy way; there's no kind of man in the States like that Mr. Colquhoun – seems as if he never wants to get anything. He laughed and lay back on the grass. And then he said, 'My dear fellow, let Jack come back if he likes; there's no fighting against fate; only let him have the decency not to announce his engagement till Phillis has had her first season.' Then he drank some cider-cup, and lay back again. Mrs. Cassilis – she's a very superior woman that, but a trifle cold, I should say – watched him whenever he spoke. She's got a game of her own, unless I am mistaken."

"But, Beck," Jack gasped, "I can't do this thing; I can't take your money."

"I guess, sir, you can, and I guess you will. Come, Mr. Dunquerque, say you won't go against Providence. There's a sweet young lady waiting for you, and a little mountain of dollars."

But Jack shook his head.

"I thank you all the same," he said. "I shall never forget your generosity – never. But that cannot be."

"We will leave it to Miss Fleming," said Gilead. "What Miss Fleming says is to be, shall be – "

He was interrupted by the arrival of two letters.

The first was from Joseph Jagenal. It informed him that he had learned from his brothers that they had received money from him on account of work which he thought would never be done. He enclosed a cheque for the full amount, with many thanks for his kindness, and the earnest hope that he would advance nothing more.

In the letter was his cheque for £400, the amount which the Twins had borrowed during the four weeks of their acquaintance.

Mr. Beck put the cheque in his pocket and opened the other letter. It was from Cornelius, and informed him that the Poem could not possibly be finished in the time; that it was rapidly advancing; but that he could not pledge himself to completing the work by October. Also, that his brother Humphrey found himself in the same position as regarded the Picture. He ended by the original statement that Art cannot be forced.

Mr. Beck laughed.

"Not straight men, Mr. Dunquerque. I suspected it first when they backed out at the dinner, and left me to do the talk. Wal, they may be high-toned, whole-souled, and talented; but give me the man who works. Now Mr. Dunquerque, if you please, we'll go and have some dinner, and you shall talk about Miss Fleming. And the day after to-morrow – you note that down – I've asked Mrs. L'Estrange and Miss Phillis to breakfast. Captain Ladds is coming, and Mr. Colquhoun. And you shall sit next to her. Mrs. Cassilis is coming too. When I asked her she wanted to know if Mr. Colquhoun was to be there. I said yes. Then she wanted to know if Phillis was to be there. I said yes. Then she set her lips hard, and said, 'I will come, Mr. Beck.' She isn't happy, that lady; she's got somethin' on her mind."

That evening Joseph Jagenal had an unpleasant duty to perform. It was at dinner that he spoke. The Twins were just taking their first glass of port. He had been quite silent through dinner, eating little. Now he looked from one to the other without a word.

They changed colour. Instinctively they knew what was coming. He said with a gulp:

"I am sorry to find that my brothers have not been acting honourably."

"What is this, brother Humphrey," asked Cornelius.

"I do not know, brother Cornelius," said the Artist.

"I will tell you," said Joseph, "what they have done. They made a disingenuous attempt to engage the affections of a rich young lady for the sake of her money."

"If Humphrey loved the girl – " began Cornelius.

"If Cornelius was devoted to Phillis Fleming – " began Humphrey.

"I was not, Humphrey," said Cornelius. "No such thing. And I told you so."

"I never did love her," said Humphrey. "I always said it was you."

This was undignified.

"I do not care which it was. It belongs to both. Then you went down to her again, under the belief that she was engaged to – to – the Lord knows which of you – and solemnly broke it off."

Neither spoke this time.

"Another thing. I regret to find that my brothers, having made a contract for certain work with Mr. Gilead Beck, and having been partly paid in advance, are not executing the work."

"There, Joseph," said Humphrey, waving his hand as if this was a matter on quite another footing, "you must excuse us. We know what is right in Art, if we know nothing else. Art, Joseph, cannot be forced."

Cornelius murmured assent.

"We have our dignity to stand upon; we retreat with dignity. We say, 'We will not be forced; we will give the world our best.'"

"Good," said Joseph. "That is very well; but where is the money?"

Neither answered.

"I have returned that money; but it is a large sum, and you must repay me in part. Understand me, brothers. You may stay here as long as I live: I shall never ask more of you than to respect the family name. There was a time when you promised great things, and I believed in you. It is only quite lately that I have learned to my sorrow that all this promise has been for years a pretence. You sleep all day – you call it work. You habitually drink too much at night. You, Cornelius" – the Poet started – "have not put pen to paper for years. You, Humphrey" – the Artist hung his head – "have neither drawn nor painted anything since you came to live with me. I cannot make either of you work. I cannot retrieve the past. I cannot restore lost habits of industry. I cannot even make you feel your fall from the promise of your youth, or remember the hopes of our father. What I can do is to check your intemperate habits by such means as are in my power."

He stopped; they were trembling violently.

"Half of the £400 which you have drawn from Mr. Beck will be paid by household saving. Wine will disappear from my table; brandy-and-soda will have to be bought at your own expense. I shall order the dinners, and I shall keep the key of the wine-cellar."

A year has passed. The Twins have had a sad time; they look forward with undisguised eagerness to the return of the years of fatness; they have exhausted their own little income in purchasing the means for their midnight séances; and they have run up a frightful score at the Carnarvon Arms.

But they still keep up bravely the pretence about their work.

CHAPTER XLIV

"So, on the ruins he himself had made.Sat Marius reft of all his former glory."

"Can you understand me, sir?"

Gabriel Cassilis sat in his own study. It was the day after the garden-party. He slept through the night, and in the morning rose and dressed as usual. Then he took his seat in his customary chair at his table. Before him lay papers, but he did not read them. He sat upright, his frock-coat tightly buttoned across his chest, and rapped his knuckles with his gold eyeglasses as if he was thinking.

They brought him breakfast, and he took a cup of tea. Then he motioned them to take the things away. They gave him the Times, and he laid it mechanically at his elbow. But he did not speak, nor did he seem to attend to what was done around him. And his eyes had a far-off look in them.

"Can you understand me, sir?"

The speaker was his secretary. He came in a cab, panting, eager to see if there was still any hope. Somehow or other it was whispered already in the City that Gabriel Cassilis had had some sort of stroke. And there was terrible news besides.

Mr. Mowll asked because there was something in his patron's face which frightened him. His eyes were changed. They had lost the keen sharp look which in a soldier means victory; in a scholar, clearness of purpose; in a priest, knowledge of human nature and ability to use that knowledge in a financier, the power and the intuition of success. That was gone. In its place an expression almost of childish softness. And another thing – the lips, once set firm and close, were parted now and mobile.

The other things were nothing. That a man of sixty-five should in a single night become a man of eighty; that the iron grey hair should become white; that a steady hand should shake, and straight shoulders be bent. It was the look in his face, the far-off look, which made the secretary ask that question before he went on.

Mr. Cassilis nodded his head gently. He could understand.

"You left the telegrams unopened for a week and more!" cried the impatient clerk. "Why – Oh, why! – did you not let me open them?"

There was no reply.

"If I had known, I could have acted. Even the day before yesterday I could have acted. The news came yesterday morning. It was all over the City by three. And Eldorado's down to nothing in a moment."

Mr. Cassilis looked a mild inquiry. No anxiety in that look at all.

"Eldorado won't pay up her interest. It's due next week. Nothing to pay it with. Your agent in New York telegraphed this a week ago. He's been confirming the secret every day since. O Lord! O Lord! And you the only man who had the knowledge, and all that stake in it! Can you speak, sir?"

For his master's silence was terrible to him.

"Listen, then. Ten days ago Eldorados went down after Wylie's pamphlet. You told him what to write and you paid him, just as you did last year. But you tried to hide it from me. That was wrong, sir. I've served you faithfully for twenty years. But never mind that. You bought in at 64. Then the Eldorado minister wrote to the paper. Stock went up to 75. You stood to win, only the day before yesterday, £260,000; more than a quarter of a million. Yesterday, by three, they were down to 16. This morning they are down to 8. And it's settling-day, and you lose – you lose – your all. Oh, what a day, what a day!"

Still no complaint, not even a sigh from the patient man in the Windsor chair. Only that gentle tapping of the knuckles, and that far-off look.

"The great name of Gabriel Cassilis dragged in the dust! All your reputation gone – the whole work of your life – O sir! can't you feel even that? Can't you feel the dreadful end of it all – Gabriel Cassilis, the great Gabriel Cassilis, a Lame Duck!"

Not even that. The work of his life was forgotten with all its hopes, and the great financier, listening to his clerk with the polite impatience of one who listens to a wearisome sermon, was trying to understand what was the meaning of that black shadow which lay upon his mind and made him uneasy. For the rest a perfect calm in his brain.

"People will say it was the shock of the Eldorado smash. Well, sir, it wasn't that; I know so much; but it's best to let people think so. If you haven't a penny left in the world you have your character, and that's as high as ever.

"Fortunately," Mr. Mowll went on, "my own little savings were not in Eldorado Stock. But my employment is gone, I suppose. You will recommend me, I hope, sir. And I do think that I've got some little reputation in the City."

It was not for want of asserting himself that this worthy man failed, at any rate, of achieving his reputation. For twenty years he had magnified his office as confidential adviser of a great City light; among his friends and in his usual haunts he successfully posed as one burdened with the weight of affairs, laden with responsibility, and at all times oppressed by the importance of his thoughts. He carried a pocket-book which shut with a clasp; in the midst of a conversation he would stop, become abstracted, rush at the pocket-book, so to speak, confide a jotting to its care, shut it with a snap, and then go on with a smile and an excuse. Some said that he stood in with Gabriel Cassilis; all thought that he shared his secrets, and gave advice when asked for it.

As a matter of fact, he was a clerk, and had always been a clerk; but he was a clerk who knew a few things which might have been awkward if told generally. He had a fair salary, but no confidence, no advice, and not much more real knowledge of what his chief was doing than any outsider. And in this tremendous smash it was a great consolation to him to reflect that the liabilities represented an amount for which it was really a credit to fail.

Mr. Mowll has since got another place where the transactions are not so large, but perhaps his personal emoluments greater. In the evenings he will talk of the great failure.

"We stood to win," he will say, leaning back with a superior smile, – "we stood to win £260,000. We lost a million and a quarter. I told him not to hang on too long. Against my advice he did. I remember – ah, only four days before it happened – he said to me, 'Mowll, my boy,' he said, 'I've never known you wrong yet. But for once I fancy my own opinion. We've worked together for twenty years,' he said, 'and you've the clearest head of any man I ever saw,' he said. 'But here I think you're wrong. And I shall hold on for another day or two,' he said. Ah, little he knew what a day or two would bring forth! And he hasn't spoken since. Plays with his little boy, and goes about in a Bath-chair. What a man he was! and what a pair – if I may say so – we made between us among the bulls and the bears! Dear me, dear me!"

It may be mentioned here that everything was at once given up; the house in Kensington Palace Gardens, with its costly furniture, its carriages, plate, library, and pictures. Mr. Cassilis signed whatever documents were brought for signature without hesitation, provided a copy of his own signature was placed before him. Otherwise he could not write his name.

And never a single word of lamentation, reproach, or sorrow. The past was, and is still, dead to him; all the past except one thing, and that is ever with him.

For sixty years of his life, this man of the City, whose whole desire was to make money, to win in the game which he played with rare success and skill, regarded bankruptcy as the one thing to be dreaded, or at least to be looked upon, because it was absurd to dread it, as a thing bringing with it the whole of dishonour. Not to meet your engagements was to be in some sort a criminal. And now he was proclaimed as one who could not meet his engagements.

If he understood what had befallen him he did not care about it. The trouble was slight indeed in comparison with the other disaster. The honour of his wife and the legitimacy of his child – these were gone; and the man felt what it is that is greater than money gained or money lost.

The blow which fell upon him left his brain clear while it changed the whole course of his thoughts and deprived him partially of memory. But it destroyed his power of speech. That rare and wonderful disease which seems to attack none but the strongest, which separates the brain from the tongue, takes away the knowledge and the sense of language, and kills the power of connecting words with things, while it leaves that of understanding what is said – the disease which doctors call Aphasia – was upon Mr. Gabriel Cassilis.

In old men this is an incurable disease. Gabriel Cassilis will never speak again. He can read, listen, and understand, but he can frame no words with his lips nor write them with his hand. He is a prisoner who has free use of his limbs. He is separated from the world by a greater gulf than that which divides the blind and the deaf from the rest of us, because he cannot make known his thoughts, his wants, or his wishes.

It took some time to discover what was the matter with him. Patients are not often found suffering from aphasia, and paralysis was the first name given to his disease.

But it was very early found out that Mr. Cassilis understood all that was said to him, and by degrees they learned what he liked and what he disliked.

Victoria Cassilis sat up-stairs, waiting for something – she knew not what – to happen. Her maid told her that Mr. Cassilis was ill; she made no reply; she did not ask to see him; she did not ask for any further news of him. She sat in her own room for two days, waiting.

Then Joseph Jagenal asked if he might see her.

She refused at first; but on hearing that he proposed to stay in the house till she could receive him, she gave way.

He came from Lawrence, perhaps. He would bring her a message of some kind; probably a menace.

"You have something to say to me, Mr. Jagenal?" Her face was set hard, but her eyes were wistful. He saw that she was afraid. When a woman is afraid, you may make her do pretty well what you please.

"I have a good deal to tell you, Mrs. Cassilis; and I am sorry to say it is of an unpleasant nature.

"I have heard," he went on, "from Mr. Colquhoun that you made a remarkable statement in the presence of Miss Fleming, and in the hearing of Mr. Cassilis."

"Lawrence informed you correctly, I have no doubt," she replied coldly.

"That statement of course was untrue," said Joseph, knowing that no record ever was more true. "And therefore I venture to advise – "

"On the part of Lawrence?"

"In the name of Mr. Colquhoun, partly; partly in your own interest – "