Wilfrid Cumbermede

‘Nothing that I know of,’ I replied. ‘I am under no obligation to myself. How can I divide myself, and say that the one-half of me is indebted to the other? To my mind, it is a mere fiction of speech.’

‘But whence, then, should such a fiction arise?’ objected Charley, willing, perhaps, to defend Clara.

‘From the dim sense of a real obligation, I suspect—the object of which is mistaken. I suspect it really springs from our relation to the unknown God, so vaguely felt that a false form is readily accepted for its embodiment by a being who, in ignorance of its nature, is yet aware of its presence. I mean that what seems an obligation to self is in reality a dimly apprehended duty—an obligation to the unknown God, and not to self, in which lies no causing, therefore no obligating power.’

‘But why say the unknown God, Mr Cumbermede?’ asked Mary.

‘Because I do not believe that any one who knew him could possibly attribute to himself what belonged to Him—could, I mean, talk of an obligation to himself, when that obligation was to God.’

How far Mary Osborne followed the argument or agreed with it I cannot tell, but she gave me a look of something like gratitude, and my heart felt too big for its closed chamber.

At this moment the housemaid who had, along with the carpenter, assisted me in the library, entered the room. She was rather a forward girl, and I suppose presumed on our acquaintance to communicate directly with myself instead of going to the housekeeper. Seeing her approach as if she wanted to speak to me, I went to meet her. She handed me a small ring, saying, in a low voice,

‘I found this in your room, sir, and thought it better to bring it to you.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, putting it at once on my little finger; ‘I am glad you found it.’

Charley and Clara had begun talking. I believe Clara was trying to make Charley give her the book he had pocketed, imagining it really of the character he had, half in sport, professed to believe it. But Mary had caught sight of the ring, and, with a bewildered expression on her countenance, was making a step towards me. I put a finger to my lips, and gave her a look by which I succeeded in arresting her. Utterly perplexed, I believe, she turned away towards the bookshelves behind her. I went into the next room, and called Charley.

‘I think we had better not go on with this talk,’ I said. ‘You are very imprudent indeed, Charley, to be always bringing up subjects that tend to widen the gulf between you and your sister. When I have a chance, I do what I can to make her doubt whether you are so far wrong as they think you, but you must give her time. All your kind of thought is so new to her that your words cannot possibly convey to her what is in your mind. If only she were not so afraid of me! But I think she begins to trust me a little.’

‘It’s no use,’ he returned. Her head is so full of rubbish!’

‘But her heart is so full of goodness!’

‘I wish you could make anything of her! But she looks up to my father with such a blind adoration that it isn’t of the slightest use attempting to put an atom of sense into her.’

‘I should indeed despair if I might only set about it after your fashion. You always seem to shut your eyes to the mental condition of those that differ from you. Instead of trying to understand them first, which gives the sole possible chance of your ever making them understand what you mean, you care only to present your opinions; and that you do in such a fashion that they must appear to them false. You even make yourself seem to hold these for very love of their untruth; and thus make it all but impossible for them to shake off their fetters: every truth in advance of what they have already learned, will henceforth come to them associated with your presumed backsliding and impenitence.’

‘Goodness! where did you learn their slang?’ cried Charley. ‘But impenitence, if you like,—not backsliding. I never made any profession. After all, however, their opinions don’t seem to hurt them—I mean my mother and sister.’

‘They must hurt them if only by hindering their growth. In time, of course, the angels of the heart will expel the demons of the brain; but it is a pity the process should be retarded by your behaviour.’

‘I know I am a brute, Wilfrid. I will try to hold my tongue.’

‘Depend upon it,’ I went on, ‘whatever such hearts can believe, is, as believed by them, to be treated with respect. It is because of the truth in it, not because of the falsehood, that they hold it; and when you speak against the false in it, you appear to them to speak against the true; for the dogma seems to them an unanalyzable unit. You assail the false with the recklessness of falsehood itself, careless of the injury you may inflict on the true.’

I was interrupted by the entrance of Clara.

‘If you gentlemen don’t want us any more, we had better go,’ she said.

I left Charley to answer her, and went back into the next room. Mary stood where I had left her, mechanically shifting and arranging the volumes on a shelf at the height of her eyes.

‘I think this is your ring, Miss Osborne,’ I said, in a low and hurried tone, offering it.

Her expression at first was only of questioning surprise, when suddenly something seemed to cross her mind; she turned pale as death, and put her hand on the bookshelves as if to support her; as suddenly flushed crimson for a moment, and again turned deadly pale—all before I could speak.

‘Don’t ask me any questions, dear Miss Osborne,’ I said. ‘And, please, trust me this far; don’t mention the loss of your ring to any one, unless it be your mother. Allow me to put it on your finger.’

{Illustration: “I THINK THIS IS YOUR RING, MISS OSBORNE."}

She gave me a glance I cannot and would not describe. It lies treasured—for ever, God grant!—in the secret jewel-house of my heart. She lifted a trembling left hand, and doubtingly held—half held it towards me. To this day I know nothing of the stones of that ring—not even their colour; but I know I should know it at once if I saw it. My hand trembled more than hers as I put it on the third finger.

What followed, I do not know. I think I left her there and went into the other room. When I returned a little after, I know she was gone. From that hour, not one word has ever passed between us in reference to the matter. The best of my conjectures remains but a conjecture; I know how the sword got there—nothing more.

I did not see her again that day, and did not seem to want to see her, but worked on amongst the books in a quiet exultation. My being seemed tenfold awake and alive. My thoughts dwelt on the rarely revealed loveliness of my Athanasia; and, although I should have scorned unspeakably to take the smallest advantage of having come to share a secret with her, I could not help rejoicing in the sense of nearness to and alone-ness with her which the possession of that secret gave me; while one of the most precious results of the new love which had thus all at once laid hold upon me, was the feeling—almost a conviction—that the dream was not a web self-wove in the loom of my brain, but that from somewhere, beyond my soul even, an influence had mingled with its longings to in-form the vision of that night—to be as it were a creative soul to what would otherwise have been but loose, chaotic, and shapeless vagaries of the unguided imagination. The events of that night were as the sudden opening of a door through which I caught a glimpse of that region of the supernal in which, whatever might be her theories concerning her experiences therein, Mary Osborne certainly lived, if ever any one lived. The degree of God’s presence with a creature is not to be measured by that creature’s interpretation of the manner in which he is revealed. The great question is whether he is revealed or not; and a strong truth can carry many parasitical errors.

I felt that now I could talk freely to her of what most perplexed me—not so much, I confess, with any hope that she might cast light on my difficulties, as in the assurance that she would not only influence me to think purely and nobly, but would urge me in the search after God. In such a relation of love to religion the vulgar mind will ever imagine ground for ridicule; but those who have most regarded human nature know well enough that the two have constantly manifested themselves in the closest relation; while even the poorest love is the enemy of selfishness unto the death, for the one or the other must give up the ghost. Not only must God be in all that is human, but of it he must be the root.

CHAPTER XLIII. THE SWORD IN THE SCALE

The next morning Charley and I went as usual to the library, where, later in the day, we were joined by the two ladies. It was long before our eyes once met, but when at last they did, Mary allowed hers to rest on mine for just one moment with an expression of dove-like beseeching, which I dared to interpret as meaning—‘Be just to me.’ If she read mine, surely she read there that she was safe with my thoughts as with those of her mother.

Charley and I worked late in the afternoon, and went away in the last of the twilight. As we approached the gate of the park, however, I remembered I had left behind me a book I had intended to carry home for comparison with a copy in my possession, of which the title-page was gone. I asked Charley, therefore, to walk on and give my man some directions about Lilith, seeing I had it in my mind to propose a ride on the morrow, while I went back to fetch it.

Finding the door at the foot of the stair leading to the open gallery ajar, and knowing that none of the rooms at either end of it were occupied, I went the nearest way, and thus entered the library at the point furthest from the more public parts of the house. The book I sought was, however, at the other end of the suite, for I had laid it on the window-sill of the room next the armoury.

As I entered that room, and while I crossed it towards the glimmering window, I heard voices in the armoury, and soon distinguished Clara’s. It never entered my mind that possibly I ought not to hear what might be said. Just as I reached the window I was arrested, and stood stock still: the other voice was that of Geoffrey Brotherton. Before my self-possession returned, I had heard what follows.

‘I am certain he took it,’ said Clara. ‘I didn’t see him, of course; but if you call at the Moat to-morrow, ten to one you will find it hanging on the wall.’

‘I knew him for a sneak, but never took him for a thief. I would have lost anything out of the house rather than that sword!’

‘Don’t you mention my name in it. If you do, I shall think you—well, I will never speak to you again.’

‘And if I don’t, what then?’

Before I heard her answer, I had come to myself. I had no time for indignation yet. I must meet Geoffrey at once. I would not, however, have him know I had overheard any of their talk. It would have been more straightforward to allow the fact to be understood, but I shrunk from giving him occasion for accusing me of an eavesdropping of which I was innocent. Besides, I had no wish to encounter Clara before I understood her game, which I need not say was a mystery to me. What end could she have in such duplicity? I had had unpleasant suspicions of the truth of her nature before, but could never have suspected her of baseness.

I stepped quietly into the further room, whence I returned, making a noise with the door-handle, and saying,

‘Are you there, Miss Coningham? Could you help me to find a book I left here?’

There was silence; but after the briefest pause I heard the sound of her dress as she swept hurriedly out into the gallery. I advanced. On the top of the steps, filling the doorway of the armoury in the faint light from the window, appeared the dim form of Brotherton.

‘I beg your pardon,’ I said. ‘I heard a lady’s voice, and thought it was Miss Coningham’s.’

‘I cannot compliment your ear,’ he answered. ‘It was one of the maids. I had just rung for a light. I presume you are Mr Cumbermede?’

‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘I returned to fetch a book I forgot to take with me. I suppose you have heard what we’ve been about in the library here?’

‘I have been partially informed of it,’ he answered, stiffly. ‘But I have heard also that you contemplate a raid upon the armoury. I beg you will let the weapons alone.’

I had said something of the sort to Clara that very morning.

‘I have a special regard for them,’ he went on; ‘and I don’t want them meddled with. It’s not every one knows how to handle them. Some amongst them I would not have injured for their weight in diamonds. One in particular I should like to give you the history of—just to show you that I am right in being careful over them.—Here comes the light.’

I presume it had been hurriedly arranged between them as Clara left him that she should send one of the maids, who in consequence now made her appearance with a candle. Brotherton took it from her and approached the wall.

‘Why! What the devil! Some one has been meddling already, I find! The very sword I speak of is gone! There’s the sheath hanging empty! What can it mean? Do you know anything of this, Mr Cumbermede?’

‘I do, Mr Brotherton. The sword to which that sheath belongs is mine. I have it.’

‘Yours!’ he shouted; then restraining himself, added in a tone of utter contempt—‘This is rather too much. Pray, sir, on what grounds do you lay claim to the smallest atom of property within these walls? My father ought to have known what he was about when he let you have the run of the house! And the old books, too! By heaven, it’s too much! I always thought—’

‘It matters little to me what you think, Mr Brotherton—so little that I do not care to take any notice of your insolence—’

‘Insolence!’ he roared, striding towards me, as if he would have knocked me down.

I was not his match in strength, for he was at least two inches taller than I, and of a coarse-built, powerful frame. I caught a light rapier from the wall, and stood on my defence.

‘Coward!’ he cried.

‘There are more where this came from,’ I answered, pointing to the wall.

He made no move towards arming himself, but stood glaring at me in a white rage.

‘I am prepared to prove,’ I answered as calmly as I could, ‘that the sword to which you allude is mine. But I will give you no explanation. If you will oblige me by asking your father to join us, I will tell him the whole story.’

‘I will have a warrant out against you.’

‘As you please. I am obliged to you for mentioning it. I shall be ready. I have the sword, and intend to keep it. And by the way, I had better secure the scabbard as well,’ I added, as with a sudden spring I caught it also from the wall, and again stood prepared.

He ground his teeth with rage. He was one of those who, trusting to their superior strength, are not much afraid of a row, but cannot face cold steel: soldier as he had been, it made him nervous.

‘Insulted in my own house!’ he snarled from between his teeth.

‘Your father’s house,’ I corrected. ‘Call him, and I will give explanations.’

‘Damn your explanations! Get out of the house, you puppy; or I’ll have the servants up, and have you ducked in the horse-pond.’

‘Bah!’ I said. ‘There’s not one of them would lay hands on me at your bidding. Call your father, I say, or I will go and find him myself.’

He broke out in a succession of oaths, using language I had heard in the streets of London, but nowhere else. I stood perfectly still, and watchful. All at once he turned and went into the gallery, over the balustrade of which he shouted,

‘Martin! Go and tell my father to come here—to the armoury—at once. Tell him there’s a fellow here out of his mind.’

I remained quiet, with my scabbard in one hand, and the rapier in the other—a dangerous weapon enough, for it was, though slight, as sharp as a needle, and I knew it for a bit of excellent temper. Brotherton stood outside waiting for his father. In a few moments I heard the voice of the old man.

‘Boys! boys!’ he cried; ‘what is all this to do?’

‘Why, sir,’ answered Geoffrey, trying to be calm, ‘here’s that fellow Cumbermede confesses to have stolen the most valuable of the swords out of the armoury—one that’s been in the family for two hundred years, and says he means to keep it.’

I just caught the word liar ere it escaped my lips: I would spare the son in his father’s presence.

‘Tut! tut!’ said Sir Giles. ‘What does it all mean? You’re at your old quarrelsome tricks, my boy! Really you ought to be wiser by this time!’

As he spoke, he entered panting, and with the rubicund glow beginning to return upon a face from which the message had evidently banished it.

‘Tut! tut!’ he said again, half starting back as he caught sight of me with the weapon in my hand—‘What is it all about, Mr Cumbermede? I thought you had more sense!’

‘Sir Giles,’ I said, ‘I have not confessed to having stolen the sword—only to having taken it.’

‘A very different thing,’ he returned, trying to laugh. ‘But come now; tell me all about it. We can’t have quarrelling like this, you know. We can’t have pot-house work here.’

‘That is just why I sent for you, Sir Giles,’ I answered, replacing the rapier on the wall. ‘I want to tell you the whole story.’

‘Let’s have it, then.’

‘Mind, I don’t believe a word of it,’ said Geoffrey.

‘Hold your tongue, sir,’ said his father, sharply.

‘Mr Brotherton,’ I said, ‘I offered to tell the story to Sir Giles—not to you.’

‘You offered!’ he sneered. ‘You may be compelled—under different circumstances by-and-by, if you don’t mind what you’re about.’

‘Come now—no more of this!’ said Sir Giles.

Thereupon I began at the beginning, and told him the story of the sword, as I have already given it to my reader. He fidgeted a little, but Geoffrey kept himself stock-still during the whole of the narrative. As soon as I had ended Sir Giles said,

‘And you think poor old Close actually carried off your sword!—Well, he was an odd creature, and had a passion for everything that could kill. The poor little atomy used to carry a poniard in the breast-pocket of his black coat—as if anybody would ever have thought of attacking his small carcass! Ha! ha! ha! He was simply a monomaniac in regard of swords and daggers. There, Geoffrey! The sword is plainly his. He is the wronged party in the matter, and we owe him an apology.’

‘I believe the whole to be a pure invention,’ said Geoffrey, who now appeared perfectly calm.

‘Mr Brotherton!’ I began, but Sir Giles interposed.

‘Hush! hush!’ he said, and turned to his son. ‘My boy, you insult your father’s guest.’

‘I will at once prove to you, sir, how unworthy he is of any forbearance, not to say protection from you. Excuse me for one moment.’

He took up the candle, and opening the little door at the foot of the winding stair, disappeared. Sir Giles and I sat in silence and darkness until he returned, carrying in his hand an old vellum-bound book.

‘I dare say you don’t know this manuscript, sir,’ he said, turning to his father.

‘I know nothing about it,’ answered Sir Giles. ‘What is it? Or what has it to do with the matter in hand?’

‘Mr Close found it in some corner or other, and used to read it to me when I was a little fellow. It is a description, and in most cases a history as well, of every weapon in the armoury. They had been much neglected, and a great many of the labels were gone, but those which were left referred to numbers in the book-heading descriptions which corresponded exactly to the weapons on which they were found. With a little trouble he had succeeded in supplying the numbers where they were missing, for the descriptions are very minute.’

He spoke in a tone of perfect self-possession.

‘Well, Geoffrey, I ask again, what has all this to do with it?’ said his father.

‘If Mr Cumbermede will allow you to look at the label attached to the sheath in his hand—for fortunately it was a rule with Mr Close to put a label on both sword and sheath—and if you will read me the number, I will read you the description in the book.’

I handed the sheath to Sir Giles, who began to decipher the number on the ivory ticket.

‘The label is quite a new one,’ I said.

‘I have already accounted for that,’ said Brotherton. ‘I will leave it to yourself to decide whether the description corresponds.’

Sir Giles read out the number figure by figure, adding—

‘But how are we to test the description? I don’t know the thing, and it’s not here.’

‘It is at the Moat,’ I replied; ‘but its future place is at Sir Giles’s decision.’

‘Part of the description belongs to the scabbard you have in your hand, sir,’ said Brotherton. ‘The description of the sword itself I submit to Mr Cumbermede.’

‘Till the other day I never saw the blade,’ I said.

‘Likely enough,’ he retorted dryly, and proceeding, read the description of the half-basket hilt, inlaid with gold, and the broad blade, channeled near the hilt, and inlaid with ornaments and initials in gold.

‘There is nothing in all that about the scabbard,’ said his father.

‘Stop till we come to the history,’ he replied, and read on, as nearly as I can recall, to the following effect. I have never had an opportunity of copying the words themselves.

‘“This sword seems to have been expressly forged for Sir {–} {–},”’ (He read it Sir So and So.) ‘“whose initials are to be found on the blade. According to tradition, it was worn by him, for the first and only time, at the battle of Naseby, where he fought in the cavalry led by Sir Marmaduke Langdale. From some accident or other, Sir {–} {–} found, just as the order to charge was given, that he could not draw his sword, and had to charge with only a pistol in his hand. In the flight which followed he pulled up, and unbuckled his sword, but while attempting to ease it, a rush of the enemy startled him, and, looking about, he saw a Roundhead riding straight at Sir Marmaduke, who that moment passed in the rear of his retiring troops—giving some directions to an officer by his side, and unaware of the nearness of danger. Sir {–} {–} put spurs to his charger, rode at the trooper, and dealt him a downright blow on the pot-helmet with his sheathed weapon. The fellow tumbled from his horse, and Sir {–} {–} found his scabbard split halfway up, but the edge of his weapon unturned. It is said he vowed it should remain sheathed for ever.”—The person who has now unsheathed it has done a great wrong to the memory of a loyal cavalier.’

‘The sheath halfway split was as familiar to my eyes as the face of my uncle,’ I said, turning to Sir Giles. ‘And in the only reference I ever heard my great-grandmother make to it, she mentioned the name of Sir Marmaduke. I recollect that much perfectly.’

‘But how could the sword be there and here at one and the same time?’ said Sir Giles.

‘That I do not pretend to explain,’ I said.

‘Here at least is written testimony to our possession of it,’ said Brotherton in a conclusive tone.

‘How, then, are we to explain Mr Cumbermede’s story?’ said Sir Giles, evidently in good faith.

‘With that I cannot consent to allow myself concerned.—Mr Cumbermede is, I am told, a writer of fiction.’

‘Geoffrey,’ said Sir Giles, ‘behave yourself like a gentleman.’

‘I endeavour to do so,’ he returned with a sneer.

I kept silence.

‘How can you suppose,’ the old man went on, ‘that Mr Cumbermede would invent such a story? What object could he have?’

‘He may have a mania for weapons, like old Close—as well as for old books,’ he replied.

I thought of my precious folio. But I did not yet know how much additional force his insinuation with regard to the motive of my labours in the library would gain if it should be discovered that such a volume was in my possession.

‘You may have remarked, sir,’ he went on, ‘that I did not read the name of the owner of the sword in any place where it occurred in the manuscript.’

‘I did. And I beg to know why you kept it back,’ answered Sir Giles.

‘What do you think the name might be, sir?’

‘How should I know? I am not an antiquarian.’

‘Sir Wilfrid Cumbermede. You will find the initials on the blade.—Does that throw any light on the matter, do you think, sir?’