Mrs. Wilfrid Ward - Great Possessions

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GREAT POSSESSIONS

by

MRS. WILFRID WARD

Author of
"One Poor Scruple," "Out of Due Time," etc.

G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1909
Copyright, 1909
by
G. P. Putnam's Sons
The Knickerbocker Press, New York

CONTENTS

BOOK I

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE AMAZING WILL 1

II. IN THE EVENING 13

III. "AS YOU HOPE TO BE FORGIVEN" 21

IV. THE WICKED WOMAN IN FLORENCE 32

V. "YOUR MOTHER'S DAUGHTER" 42

VI. MOLLY COMES OF AGE 55

VII. EDMUND GROSSE CONTINUES TO INTERFERE 68

VIII. AT GROOMBRIDGE CASTLE 78

IX. A LITTLE MORE THAN KIND 91

X. THE PET VICE 98

XI. THE THIN END OF A CLUE 109

XII. MOLLY'S NIGHT-WATCH 120

XIII. SIR DAVID'S MEMORY 126

BOOK II

XIV. MOLLY IN THE SEASON 136

XV. A POOR MAN'S DEATH 151

XVI. MOLLY'S LETTER TO HER MOTHER 165

XVII. THE BLIND CANON 173

XVIII. MADAME DANTERRE'S ANSWER 180

XIX. LADY ROSE'S SCRUPLE 187

XX. THE HEIRESS OF MADAME DANTERRE 194

BOOK III

XXI. AN INTERLUDE OF HAPPINESS 213

XXII. SOMETHING LIKE EVIDENCE 220

XXIII. THE USES OF DELIRIUM 231

XXIV. MRS. DELAPORT GREEN IN THE ASCENDANT 238

XXV. MOLLY AT COURT 243

XXVI. EDMUND IS NO LONGER BORED 249

XXVII. MOLLY'S APPEAL 256

XXVIII. DINNER AT TWO SHILLINGS 266

XXIX. THE RELIEF OF SPEECH 272

XXX. THE BIRTH OF A SLANDER 280

XXXI. THE NURSING OF A SLANDER 285

BOOK IV

XXXII. ROSE SUMMONED TO LONDON 294

XXXIII. BROWN HOLLAND COVERS 304

XXXIV. THE WRATH OF A FRIEND 312

XXXV. THE CONDEMNATION OF MARK 322

XXXVI. MENE THEKEL PHARES 330

XXXVII. MARK ENTERS INTO TEMPTATION 339

XXXVIII. NO SHADOW OF A CLOUD 350

XXXIX. "WITHOUT CONDITION OR COMPROMISE" 357

GREAT POSSESSIONS

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

THE AMAZING WILL

The memorial service for Sir David Bright was largely attended. Perhaps
he was fortunate in the moment of his death, for other men, whose
military reputations had been as high as his, were to go on with the
struggle while the world wondered at their blunders. It was only the
second of those memorial services for prominent men which were to become
so terribly usual as the winter wore on. Great was the sympathy felt for
the young widow at the loss of one so brave, so kindly, so popular among
all classes.

Lady Rose Bright was quite young and very fair. She did not put on a
widow's distinctive garments because Sir David had told her that he
hated weeds. But she wore a plain, heavy cloak, and a long veil fell
into the folds made by her skirts. The raiment of a gothic angel, an
angel like those in the portico at Rheims, has these same straight,
stern lines. "Black is sometimes as suggestive of white," was the
reflection of one member of the congregation, "as white may be
suggestive of mourning." Sir Edmund Grosse, who had known Rose from her
childhood, felt some new revelation in her movements; there was a fuller
development of womanhood in her walk, and there was a reserve, too, as
of one consecrated and set apart. He heaved a deep sigh as she passed
near him going down the church, and their eyes met. She had no shrinking
in her bearing; her reserves were too deep for her to avoid an open
meeting with other human eyes. She looked at Sir Edmund for a moment as
if giving, rather than demanding, sympathy; and indeed, there was more
trouble in his eyes than in hers.

The service had gone perilously near to Roman practices. It was among
the first of those uncontrollable instinctive expressions of faith in
prayer for the departed which were a marked note of English feeling
during the Boer war. Questions as to their legality were asked in
Parliament, but little heeded, for the heart of the nation, "for her
children mourning," sought comfort in the prayers used by the rest of
the Christian world.

Rose's mother went home with her and they talked, very simply and in
sympathy, of the tributes to the soldier's memory. Then, when luncheon
came and the servants were present, they spoke quietly of the work to be
done for soldiers' wives and of a meeting the mother was to attend that
afternoon. Lady Charlton was the mother one would expect Rose to
have--indeed, such complete grace of courtliness and kindness points to
an education. Afterwards, while they were alone, Lady Charlton, in
broken sentences, sketched the future. She supposed Rose would stay on
although the house was too big. Much good might be done in it. There
could be no doubt as to how money must be spent this winter; and there
were the services they both loved in the Church of the Fathers of St.
Paul near at hand. Lady Charlton saw life in pictures and so did Rose.
Neither of them broke through any reserve; neither of them was curious.
It did not occur to Rose to wonder how her mother had lived and felt in
her first days as a widow. Lady Charlton did not wonder how Rose felt
now. Rose, she thought, was wonderful; life was full of mercies; there
was so much to be thankful for; and could not those who had suffered be
of great consolation to others in sorrow?

They arranged to meet at Evensong in St. Paul's Chapel, and then Lady
Charlton would come back and stay the night. On the next day she was due
at the house of her youngest married daughter.

Rose was presently left alone, and she cried quite simply. For a moment
she thought of Edmund Grosse and the sadness in his eyes. Why had he not
volunteered for the war? What a contrast!

A large photograph of Sir David in his general's uniform stood on the
writing-table in the study downstairs. There were also a picture and a
miniature in the drawing-room, but Rose thought she would like to look
at the photograph again. It was the last that had been taken. Then too
she would look over some of his things. She wanted little presents for
his special friends; nothing for its own value, but because the hero had
used them. And she would like to bring the big photograph upstairs.

The study, usually cold and deserted since the master had gone away,
was bright with a large fire. Rose did not know that it was an
expression of sympathy from the under-housemaid, whose lover was at the
war. But when she stood opposite the big photograph of the fine manly
face and figure, and the large open eyes looked so straight into hers,
she shrank a little. Something in the room made her shrink into herself.
Her eyes rested on the Victoria Cross in the photograph, on the medals
that had covered his breast. "I shall have them all," she said, and then
she faltered a little. She had faltered in that room before now; she had
often shrunk into herself when the intensely courteous voice had asked
her as she came into his study what she wanted. She blamed herself
gently now, and for two opposite reasons: she blamed herself because she
had wanted what she had not got, and she blamed herself because she had
not done more to get it. "He was always so gentle, so courteous. I ought
to have been quite, quite happy. And why didn't I break through our
reserve, and then we might----" Dimly she felt, but she did not want to
own it to herself, that she had married him as a hero-worshipper. She
had reverenced him more than she loved him. "I ought not to have done
it," she thought, "but I meant what was right, and I could have loved
him---- Oh, I did love him afterwards--only I never could tell him,
and----" Further thoughts led the way to irreverence, even to something
worse. They were wrong thoughts, thoughts against faith and truth and
right; there was no place for such thoughts in Rose's heart. She moved
now, and opened drawers and dusted and put together a few
things--paper-knives, match-boxes, a writing-case, a silver sealing-wax
holder, and so on; the occupation interested and soothed her. She had
the born mystic's love of little kind actions, little presents, things
treasured as symbols of the union of spirits, all the more because of
their slight material value. Then, too, the child element, which is in
every good woman, gave a zest to the occupation and made it restful.

Lady Rose had put several small relics in a row on the edge of the lower
part of the big mahogany bookcase, and was counting on her fingers the
names of the friends for whom they were intended. Her grief was
sufficiently real to make her, perhaps, overestimate the number of those
to whom such relics would be precious. A tender smile was on her lips at
the recollection of an old soldier servant of Sir David's who had been
with him in Egypt. She hesitated a moment between two objects--one, a
good silver-mounted leather purse, and the other an inkstand of brass
and marble. These two things were the recipients of her unjust aversion
for long after that moment.

Simmonds, the butler, opened the door, quite certain that the visitor he
announced must be admitted, and conscious of the fitness of the big
study for his reception. It was Sir David's solicitor. But the butler
was disappointed at the manner of his entrance. He did not analyse the
disappointment. He was half conscious of the fact that the _role_ of the
family lawyer on the occasion was so simple and easy. He would himself
have assumed a degree of pomp, of sympathy, of respect, carrying a
subdued implication that he brought solid consolation in his very
presence. Simmonds grieved truly for Sir David, but he felt, too, the
blank caused by the absence of all funeral arrangements in a death at
the war. He had been butler in more than one house of mourning before,
and he knew all his duties in that capacity. After this he would know
how to be butler in the event of death in battle. But now, when the
memorial service had taken, in a poor sort of way, the place of the
funeral, of course the solicitor ought to come, and past deficiencies
could be overlooked. Why, then, should the man prove totally unequal to
his task? Mr. Murray, Junior, had usually a much better manner than
to-day. Perhaps he was startled at being shown at once into the widow's
presence. Probably he might have expected to wait a few moments in the
big study, while Simmonds went to seek his mistress.

But there was Lady Rose turning round from the bookcase as they came in.
Mr. Murray stooped to-day, and his large head was bent downwards, making
it the more evident that the drops of perspiration stood out upon his
brow. He cast a look almost of fear at the fair face with its gentle,
benignant expression. He had seen Rose once or twice before, and he knew
the old-fashioned type of great lady when he met it. Was it of Rose's
gentle, subtle dignity that he was afraid?

Rose drew up a chair on one side of the big square writing-table, and
signed to him to take the leather arm-chair where he had last seen Sir
David Bright seated. Mr. Murray plunged into his subject with an
abruptness proportioned to the immense time he had taken during the
morning in preparing a diplomatic opening.

"May I ask, first of all," he said, "whether you have found any will, or
any document looking like a will, besides the one I have with me?"

"No," said Lady Rose in surprise, "there are no papers of any
importance here, I believe; there is nothing in the house under lock and
key. Sir David gave me a few rings and studs to put away, but he never
cared for jewellery, and there is nothing of value."

"And do you think he can have executed any other will or written a
letter that might be of use to us now?"

Rose looked still more surprised. Mr. Murray held some papers in his
hand that shook as if the wintry wind outside were trying to blow them
away. Rose tried not to watch them, and it teased her that she could not
help doing so. The hand that held them was not visible above the table.
Mr. Murray struggled to keep to the most absolutely business-like and
unemotional side of his professional manner, but his obviously extreme
discomfort was infectious, and Rose's calm of manner was already
disturbed.

"I cannot but think, Lady Rose, that some papers may be forwarded to you
through the War Office." He hesitated. "You had no marriage
settlements?" he then asked abruptly.

"No, there were no settlements," said Rose. She spoke quickly and
nervously. "We did not think them necessary. Sir David offered to make
them, but just then he was ordered abroad and there was very little
time, and my mother and I did not think it of enough importance to make
us delay the wedding. It was shortly after my father's death." She
paused a moment, and then went on, as if speech were a relief.

"You know that, when we married, Sir David had no reason to expect that
he would ever be a rich man. We hardly knew the Steele cousins, and only
had a vague idea that Mr. John Steele had been making money on the
Stock Exchange. When he left his fortune to Sir David, who was his first
cousin, and, in fact, his nearest relation, my mother did ask me if my
husband intended to make his will. More than once after that she tried
to persuade me to speak to him about it, but I disliked the subject too
much."

Mr. Murray looked as if he wished that Lady Rose would go on talking; he
seemed to expect more from her, but, as nothing more came, he made a
great effort and plunged into the subject.

"The will I have here"--he held up the papers as he spoke--"was, in
fact, made a few months after Sir David inherited Mr. John Steele's
large fortune, and there was no subsequent alteration to it, but this
time last year we were directed to make a codicil to this will, and I
was away at the time. My brother, who is my senior partner, ventured to
urge Sir David to make a new will altogether, but he declined."

There was silence in the room for some moments. Mr. Murray leant over
the writing-table now, and both hands were occupied in smoothing out the
papers before him.

"It is the worst will I have ever come across," he said quite suddenly,
the professional manner gone and the vehemence of a strong mind in
distress breaking through all conventionality. Rose drew herself up and
looked at him coldly. In that moment she completely regained her
self-possession.

"It is absolutely inexplicable," he went on, with a great effort at
self-control. "Sir David Bright leaves this house and L800 a year to
you, Lady Rose, for your lifetime, and a few gifts to friends and small
legacies to old servants." He paused. Rose, with slightly heightened
colour, spoke very quietly.

"Then the fortune was much smaller than was supposed?"

"It was larger, far larger than any one knew; but it is all left away."

Rose was disturbed and frankly sorry, but not by any means miserable.
She knew life, and did not dislike wealth, and had had dreams of much
good that might be done with it.

"To whom is it left?" she asked.

"After the small legacies I mentioned are paid off, the bulk of the
fortune goes"--the lawyer's voice became more and more business-like in
tone--"to Madame Danterre, a lady living in Florence."

"And unless anything is sent to me from South Africa, this will is law?"

"Yes."

Rose covered her face with her hands; she did not move for several
moments. It would not have surprised Mr. Murray to know that she was
praying. Presently she raised her face and looked at him with troubled
eyes, but absolute dignity of bearing.

"And the codicil?"

"The codicil directs that if you continue to live in this house----"

Rose made a little sound of surprised protest.

"----the ground rent, all rates, and all taxes are to be paid. A sum
much larger than can be required is left for this purpose, and it can
also be spent on decorating or furnishing, or in any way be used for the
house and garden. It is an elaborate affair, going into every detail."

"Should I be able to let the house?"

"For a period of four months, not longer. But should you refuse to live
in this house, this sum will go with the bulk of the fortune. We had
immediate application on behalf of Madame Danterre from a lawyer in
Florence as soon as the news of the death reached us. It seems that she
has a copy of the will."

"Has she"--Rose hesitated, and then repeated, "Has Madame Danterre any
children?"

"I do not know," said Mr. Murray. "Beyond paying considerable sums to
this lawyer from time to time for her benefit, we have known nothing
about her. There has been also a large annual allowance since the year
when Sir David came into his cousin's fortune." There was another
silence, and then Mr. Murray spoke in a more natural way, though it was
impossible to conceal all the sympathy that was filling his heart with
an almost murderous wrath.

"After all, the General had plenty of time before starting for the war
to arrange his affairs; he was not a man who would neglect business. I
came here with a faint hope--or I tried to think it was a hope--that you
might have another will in the house. I'm afraid this--document
represents Sir David Bright's last wishes." There was a ring of
indignant scorn in his voice.

Rose looked through the window on to the thin black London turf outside,
and her eyes were blank from the intensity of concentration. She had no
thought for the lawyer; if he had been sympathetic even to impertinence
she would not have noticed it.

She was questioning her own instincts, her perceptions. No, it was
almost more as if she were emptying her mind of any conscious action
that her whole power of instinctive perception might have play. When
the blow had fallen, her only surprise had been to find that she was not
surprised, not astonished. It seemed as if she had known this all the
time, for the thing had been alongside of her for years, she had lived
too close to it for any surprise when it raised its head and found a
name. Her reasoning powers indeed asked with astonishment why she was
not surprised. She could not explain, the symptoms of the thing that had
haunted her had been too subtle, too elusive, too minute to be brought
forward now as witnesses. But while the lawyer looked at the open face
and the large eyes, and the frank bearing of the figure in the
photograph, and felt that outer man to have been the disguise of a
villain, Rose, the victim, knew better. It was a supreme proof of the
clear vision of her soul that she was not surprised, and that, even
while she seemed to be flayed morally and exposed to things evil and of
shame, she did not judge with blind indignation. He had not been wholly
bad, he had not been callous in his cruelty; what he had been there
would be time to understand--time for the delicacies, almost for the
luxuries of forgiveness. What she was feeling after now was a point of
view above passion and pain from which to judge this final opinion of
the lawyer's, from which to know whether Sir David had left another
will.

"There has been another will," she said very gently, "but, of course, it
is more than likely that it will never be found. I am convinced"--she
looked at the black and green turf all the time, and obviously spoke to
herself, not to Mr. Murray--"that he did not intend to leave me to open
shame"--the words were gently but very distinctly pronounced--"or to
leave a scandal round his own memory. Perhaps he carried another will
about with him, and if so it may be sent to me. Somehow I don't think
this will happen. I think the will you have in your hand is the only one
I shall ever see, but I do not therefore judge him of having faced death
with the intention of spoiling my life. I shall live in this house and I
shall honour his memory; he died for his country, and I am his widow."

That was all she could say on the subject then, and she could only just
ask Mr. Murray if he could see her again any time the next morning.
After answering that question the lawyer went silently away.

Rose stood by the table where he had sat a moment before, looking long
and steadfastly at the photograph. She looked at the open face, she
looked at the military bearing, she looked at the Victoria Cross,--it
had been the amazing courage shown in that story that had really won
her,--she looked, too, at the many medals. She had been with him once in
a moment of peril in a fire and had seen the unconscious pride with
which he always answered to the call of danger. She had, too, seen him
bear acute pain as if that had been his talent, the thing he knew how to
do.

"Ah, poor David!" she said softly. "What did she do to frighten you?
Poor, poor David, you were always a coward!"

CHAPTER II

IN THE EVENING

But this was a trial to search out every part of Rose's nature. She had
too much faith for sickness, death, or even terrible physical pain, to
be to her in any sense a poisoned wound. There are women like Rose whose
inner life can only be in peril from the pain and shame of the sin of
others. To them it is an intolerable agony to be troubled in their faith
in man.

Lady Charlton, swept out of the calm belonging to years of gentle
actions and ideal thoughts into a storm of indignation and horror, might
have lost all dignity and discretion if she had not been checked by
reverence for the dumb anguish and misery of her favourite daughter. She
had some notion of the thoughts that must pass in Rose's mind, now dull
and heavy, now alert and inflicting sudden deep incisions into the
quivering soul. Marriage had been to them both very sacred. They hated,
beyond most good women, anything that seemed to materialise or lower the
ideal. If there can be imagined a scale of standards for the relations
of men and women, of which Zola had not touched the extremity at one
end, the first place at the other extremity might be assigned to such
Englishwomen as Rose and her mother. The most subtle and amazingly high
motives had been assigned to Lord Charlton's most ordinary actions, and
happily he had been so ordinary a person that no impossible shock had
been given to the ideal built up about him. And it had not been
difficult or insincere to carry on something of the same illusion with
regard to the man who had won the Victoria Cross and had been very
popular with Tommy Atkins. David Bright's very reserves, the closed
doors in his domestic life, did not prevent, and indeed in some ways
helped, the process. The mother had known in the depth of her heart that
Rose was lonely, but then she was childless. Rose had never, even in
moments when the nameless mystery that was in her home oppressed her
most in its dull, voiceless way, tried to tell her mother what she did
not herself understand. Sir David had been courteous, gentle, attentive,
but never happy. Rose knew now that he had always been guiltily afraid.

Lady Charlton had had a few moments' warning of disaster, for she was
horrified at the change in Rose's face when she met her at the door of
the church after Evensong. She herself had been utterly soothed and
rested by the beauty of the service. There was so much that fitted in
with all her ideals in mourning the great soldier. Little phrases about
him and about Rose flitted through her mind. Widows were widows indeed
to Lady Charlton. Rose would live now chiefly for Heaven and to soothe
the sorrows of earth. She did not say to herself that Rose would not be
broken-hearted and crushed, nor did she take long views. If years hence
Rose were to marry again her mother could make another picture in which
Sir David would recede into the background. Now he was her hero whom
Rose mourned, and whose loss had consecrated her more entirely to
Heaven; then he would unconsciously become in her mother's eyes a much
older man whom Rose had married almost as a child. There would be
nothing necessarily to mar the new picture if all else were fitting.

But the peace of gentle sorrow had left Rose's face, and it wore a look
her mother had never seen on it before. The breath of evil was close
upon her; it had penetrated very near, so near that she seemed evil to
herself as it embraced her. She was too dazed, too confused to remember
that Divine purity had been enclosed in that embrace. What terrified her
most was the thought that had suddenly come that possibly the unknown
woman in Florence had been the real lawful wife, and that her own
marriage had been a sin, a vile pretence and horror. For the first time
in her life the grandest words of confidence that have expressed and
interpreted the clinging faith of humanity seemed an unreality. Rose had
never known the faintest temptation to doubt Providence before this
miserable evening. She resented with her whole being the idea that
possibly she had been the cause of the grossest wrong to an injured
wife. And there was ground in reason for such a fear, for it seemed
difficult to believe that any claim short of that of a wife could have
frightened Sir David into such a course. The other and more common view,
that it was because he had loved his mistress throughout, did not appeal
to her. Vice had for her few recognisable features; she had no map for
the country of passion, no precedents to refer to. It seemed to Rose
most probable that Sir David had believed his first wife to be dead
when he married her; that, on finding he was mistaken, his courage had
failed, and that he had carried on a gigantic scheme of bribery to
prevent her coming forward. This view was in one sense a degree less
painful, as it would make him innocent of the first great deception, the
huge lie of making love to her as if he were a free man. The depths and
extent of her misery could be measured by the strange sense of a bitter
gladness invading the very recesses of her maternal instinct, and
replacing what had been the heartfelt sorrow of six years. "It is a
mercy I have no child!" she cried, and the cry seemed to herself almost
blasphemous.

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