The Rogue. A novel

Chapter I. Kennedy The Younger

FOUR men had been dining together, and were now drinking coffee and smoking in a private room of the Cafe Anglais in Paris. Of these the eldest was middle aged, or perhaps something more than that. Burly, broad shouldered, of considerable stature, wearing his thick, grizzled hair cut short a la brosse, and the tips of his waxed moustache twirled slightly upwards, he had, even in this moment of digestive calm and peace, a certain provocative air which seemed to warn all and sundry that, upon the whole, he would rather quarrel with them than not. An experienced observer of Gallic types would unhesitatingly have pronounced this gentleman to be a Bonapartist, a duellist, in all probability a deputy; and the experienced observer would not have been wrong. Nobody knows how many duels M. de Castaignac has fought; he himself has forgotten ; for indeed, although his colossal person might seem to offer a mark fair to an antagonist, he does not carry in any part of it one single memento of these unnum bered affrays.

It is perhaps as much owing to this wellknown circumstance as to the diminished aggressiveness which advancing age may be supposed to bring that his encounters have of late years been less frequent than here tofore. One thinks twice about wounding the suscepti bilities of an individual upon whose body it is so very difficult to inflict a wound, and who has never been in the habit of allowing his adversaries to escape unharmed. On his left hand sat a man of a very different description. If M. de Castaignac was an unmistakable Bona partist, Count d'Arc^y was a not less obvious Legitimist. There is no older blood in France than that which courses languidly through the veins of the D'Arcays. Probably it would be difficult for a D'Arcay to marry any one but a more or less remote cousin, unless, indeed, he should be guilty of a mesalliance, and among the many crimes and follies which might be laid to the charge of that illustrious family there is no record of so grievous a lapse as this.

Consequently, their sole representative at the present day is a frail young man, with delicately-moulded features, fair hair, pale blue eyes which are always half closed, a chin which is seen to recede, despite the short, reddish beard which masks its outline, a moderate fortune, and no more vices than the majority of his contemporaries. To sum up, une quantite negligeable, as his next neighbour might have said of him. M. Boucher would not say that of himself, nor would anybody say it of him ; though his capacities are but moderate, his experience slight, and his information curiously restricted Every dog has his day, and in these days a Frenchman who is an ardent Republican, possesses a thick skin, and has sense enough to wait for his opportunity, may go far. M. Boucher expects to be included in some future ministry, and really there is no reason in the world why his ambition should not be gratified.

At the time spoken of he was private secretary to a minister who is considered to be astute ; he was to some extent a personage in political circles ; he was a hard worker ; he had abrupt, disagreeable manners, and his appearance, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, was essentially plebeian. Clever people said that Boucher was the coming man. In France anybody may be the coming man, and why not Boucher? Leaders of men are not, as a general thing, distinguished by low foreheads, snub noses, thick lips, and fat hands ; but to all rules there must be excep tions, and there are many indications that Europe is just now passing through an exceptional and transitional stage. If ever the Bouchers are to sit in high places, now is their time. The fourth member, and the host of this singularly ill assorted party, was an Englishman.

Few people, seeing him in such company and hearing him converse with his guests in accents which had but the faintest suspicion of an alien inflection, would have suspected his nationality; yet when once you had been told what was his native land you would have perceived that he could not possibly have hailed from any other. Many men have their clothes made in London ; but only Englishmen look as if those clothes belonged to them. Then, again, there are certain attitudes, gestures, and fashions of eating and drinking which are peculiar to Englishmen. Nevertheless, Oswald Kennedy was an Eng lishman of a very unusual kind. That much was shown by his audacity in assembling the three men above described round a dinner table. In England he might of course have invited, say, Lord Salisbury, Mr. Parnell, and Mr. Joseph Arch, or any three followers of those personages, to dinner, and there would have been nothing supremely astonishing in such an invitation ; but on the other side of the Channel political differences are more forcibly accentuated.

The three gentlemen who have been mentioned had never met before in private life, and would probably never meet again. They had consented to do so on the present occasion, simply because they all liked Oswald Kennedy, and because, as superior persons, they felt able to make allowance for insular eccentricity. Having accepted the indiscreet invitation, they enjoyed themselves far more than they had expected to do. This rehearsal of the millennium in miniature was not without piquancy, and it is likely enough that the good-humour of two out of the three was maintained by an inner apprecia tion of the urbanity and self-command which enabled them to tolerate their neighbours. M. d'Arcay, it may be assumed, would have behaved himself under any circumstances ; but perhaps there was only one man in Paris at that moment who could have brought Boucher and De Castaignac into a small room and kept them for a quarter of an hour from flying at one another's throats.

They had now spent two harmonious hours together, and had not once suspected that their mutual courtesy was in any way due to the in fluence of their host, who indeed was not much of a talker, and whose conversational interventions were so neatly contrived that he always appeared to be following what he was in reality directing. From this it will be perceived that if Mr. Kennedy's guests weie enjoying the entertainment provided for them, Mr. Kennedy himself was probably enjoying it even more. To look on at the drama of life is the amusement of middle aged and old men ; to make the puppets dance, upon occa sion, is the amusement of a very select few, and among that select few one suspects that there are more women to be found than men. Certainly one would not have anticipated finding a man of Oswald Kennedy's age so employed.

He was good-looking, without being exactly handsome ; he had a broad forehead, which had become a high one through some premature falling off of the curly hair which covered the rest of his head ; his nose was rather large ; his brown eyes had a suggestion of melancholy, modified, every now and again, by a fugitive twinkle ; his mouth, scarcely con cealed by a yellowish moustache, was the mouth of a humourist, possibly of a sceptic — the kind of mouth which so many non-professional men of the nineteenth century display to the physiognomist. His age might have been computed at thirty or thereabouts ; though, as a matter of fact, he was not quite twenty-seven. Now, a person of any tact who had accomplished the feat of throwing a Legitimist, a Republican, and a Bona partist together would, one might imagine, take some pains to prevent the introduction of topics likely to lead to a free fight.

What proved Oswald Kennedy to be, as M. d'Arcay would have said, tres-fort was that he deliberately led them on to talk politics ; and it was owing to him (little as they supposed it) that they were debating these matters from a lofty and disinterested standpoint. " In spite of our disasters," M. Boucher was saying, " France continues to lead Europe. France has pronounced for democracy, and Europe, consciously or unconsciously, is following her. The day after the Emperor William's death you will see that the Germans will refuse to be any longer slaves. As for England, which during many years remained an oligarchy, she has now definitely become a republic. The despotism of Russia is completely under mined. Turkey is upon the point of being driven back into Asia. The Austro- Hungarian monarchy is doomed to fall to pieces.

I venture to predict that before the middle of the next century the democratic principle will be trium phant throughout the civilised world." " .Vhat is the democratic principle?" M. de Castaignac inquired. " Government by the people," replied the Repub lican. " You mean to say government by the will and choice of the people. It is precisely upon that principle that the Empire has always relied. Evidently, the people, being fully occupied in keeping themselves alive, must delegate the functions of government to some individual or set of individuals. The only question is who will do the work best and most economically. It is instructive to note that since 1869 the budget has nearly doubled." "You will not, I presume," observed M. Boucher blandly, "hold the Republic responsible for the liabilities bequeathed by the Empire ?

" "I hold it responsible for Tunis and Tonquin," answered M. de Castaignac. " I daresay we may take it for granted that a democratic form of government is always expensive," remarked the host. "By all accounts, you are likely to find it so," said M. d'Arcay. " When you have lost India " " And your colonies," put in M. Boucher. " And your prestige — but that has vanished already," added De Castaignac. "Then," continued M. d'Arcay, quietly finishing his sentence, " you will perhaps regret having cut your own throats. As for me, I am a Reactionist, pure and simple. It is ridiculous perhaps ; but one is born like that. Would you believe that, in my humble opinion, the democratic principle is leading the nations of Europe quite gently and easily to the devil ? " " You intend that, perhaps, to be synonymous with the restoration of absolute monarchy ?

" said M. Boucher, with a sneer. To this he obtained no answer, and a short silence supervened. " For my part," said Mr. Kennedy, presently, " I am quite of Boucher's opinion : Europe is drifting towards republicanism, and very likely the experiment will have to be tried. It will be amusing to watch, if one lives long enough." " You think it amusing to sink to the level of a second Holland ! " cried De Castaignac. " What it is to be a phlegmatic Englishman ! " " Only Kennedy is not so very much an Englishman," M. Boucher remarked. " I am very English, and not particularly phlegmatic," Kennedy declared, with a smile; "but as I can't stop the advance of democracy, I may be permitted to take a friendly interest in its development, which will not, I hope, cost us India and the Colonies. If the worst comes to the worst, democracies, as De Castaignac says, are very apt to produce dictators."

"Where will you find 3 our dictator?" De Castaignac asked. " He ought to be discoverable, at a pinch, among the thirty-five million inhabitants of the British Isles ; but per haps, after all, we shall not want him. What I was thinking of as amusing to watch was the probable social effect of democracy." "You can study it in the country which, according to M. Boucher, leads the world,'' remarked D'Arcay. "It is the apotheosis of wealth and vulgarity, and war to the knife against religion." " In other words," said Boucher, " recognition of the truth. Wealth is power and Christianity is dead." "Not so dead as you think," retorted De Castaignac. " Do you believe in it, by any chance ? " "The question is not one of my personal creed. You are trying to fight the Church, and you have had some suc cesses and some conspicuous failures.

The last word has not yet been spoken. How many enemies do you think you have made for yourselves by your policy, without counting the priests? Would you like me to tell you? Every mother in France. That is a serious danger for you, my dear sir." There seemed to be a serious danger that this remark would disturb the hitherto academic tone of the conversa tion. All the three men began to speak at once, and it was perhaps just as well that an interruption was caused by the entrance of a servant who handed a telegram to their host. Mr. Kennedy glanced at it, then at his watch, and laid the blue envelope down upon the table unopened. The action seemed to tickle De Castaignac, who burst out laughing. " No Englishman could be more English ! - he exclaimed. " In all France you would not find a man who would have done that.

And you who say you are not phlegmatic ! It is a hundred to one that if I could read your telegram it would not interest me in the least ; yet only to see that closed envelope lying there irritates my nerves so that I am tempted to beg you to open it." " Why should I ? " asked Kennedy. " A telegram con tains either a summons or a piece of news. If this is a summons, I can't obey it before to-morrow morning, because all the mail-trains have left ; if it is a piece of good news it will keep ; if— as is much more likely — it is a piece of bad news, I would rather not mar the pleasure that I derive from your society by thinking about it." " Kennedy," said De Castaignac gravely, " I pity your wife." " But I haven't got one," observed Kennedy. " You will have one. English respectability demands that a man in your position should marry.

I pity that poor lady from the bottom of my heart ; for without any doubt you will drive her to end her days in a madhouse." This gloomy forecast of the fate of the future Mrs. Kennedy, and the reflections upon marriage as an English and as a French institution to which it naturally gave rise, drove politics from the field. After a time, Boucher, remarking that he had work to do which would keep him up till daylight, took his leave, and was soon followed by De Castaignac. D'Arcay lingered a little longer, while Kennedy paid the bill, and then the two men strolled away together down the boulevard. "Well," said the Englishman, "how did you find them ? " "Candidly," answered D'Arcay, "they wearied me. For the first half-hour one was curious to see how they would behave ; after that they became simply uninteresting.

I have not your facility for being amused. These beggars on horseback seem to me to be actors in a grotesque farce which has not even the merit of exciting laughter. The best plan is to forget it and them. Fortunately, there are still some pleasant people in France and life is not yet unendurable." He added, after a pause, " I saw Blanche de Revigny to-day." " Ah ! " said Kennedy, stopping to light a cigar. "She begged me to recall her to your remembrance." " That was very amiable of her, but really not neces sary. I should never forget so charming a person." D'Arcay laughed a little. " There are many men," said he, " who would feel very much flattered at hearing that Blanche de Revigny wished to be remembered by them." " Yourself among the number, perhaps ? " " Perhaps. Have you any objection ?

" " None in the world. When you see Madame la Comtesse, will you give her my respectful compliments and say that I will endeavour to call upon her some day, if I can find the time ? " D'Arcay laughed again. " Do you know, my dear friend," said he, " I think I will not deliver that message, if you will kindly excuse me. Will one see you at the club to morrow ? " "Yes, in all probability. Good-night." So the two men parted, little suspecting that their paths, which for a long time past had run in more or less parallel lines, were to diverge then and there for ever. Kennedy walked slowly on to the hotel in the Rue de la Paix, where he was accustomed to reside when in Paris. On reaching his sitting-room, where a lamp was burning, he sank down into an arm-chair. He was a man much given to solitude, and, like other solitary men, he had a habit of thinking aloud.

" D'Arcay was right," he muttered ; " they were rather dull. Most people are rather dull. You can't strike sparks out of flints without friction, and then you have to run the risk of setting the house on fire — which is hardly worth while." By-and-by he resumed : " I wonder whether he will give my message. After all, I don't care whether he does or not ; what does it signify ? Anyhow, I won't see her." For fully a quarter of an hour after this he smoked and mused in silence ; then he drew the unopened telegram from his pocket. He did not imagine it to be of any importance, although he had taken the precaution of look ing at his watch before deciding to postpone the perusal of it ; but when at length his eyes fell upon the paper he started and sprang to his feet, a sudden rush of colour coming into his face and then slowly ebbing away.

" Poor old fellow ! " he murmured ; "poor dear old fellow ! " He rang the bell sharply twice before a sleepy waiter appeared in answer to his summons. " Has my servant gone to bed? " he asked. The man rather sulkily replied that he supposed so. " Then go and tell him to get up and begin packing immediately. I shall leave for England by the first mail in the morning. See that my bill is ready and that I am called in time." The telegram which had slipped from between his fingers, and had fluttered down on to the floor, ran as follows : " Gertrude Heywood, Bletchingham Hall, to Os wald Kennedy, Hotel Mirabeau, Rue de la Paix, Paris. Grandpapa is dying. Please conte at once."

Chapter II. Bletchingham

Beneath the chalk hills of Surrey, and close to the boun dary line which divides that county from Kent, there stands a substantial red-brick mansion which is said to date from the sixteenth century, and of which a portion may perhaps have been in existence at that comparatively remote period. The three gables, the twisted chimneys, and the mellow colouring of the east front, where the entrance is, lend it indeed a certain appearance of antiquity ; but the southern side of the building, which is that seen by those who approach it across the park, exhibits bay-windows which are obviously of much more recent construction, and brickwork not yet softened down by years and weather to the tint beloved of artists. In summer-time, however, not much of the southern wall is visible, that side of the house being veiled beneath a mantle of wistaria, banksia rose, and Virginia creeper.

A broad terrace, a sloping green bank, and an old fashioned flower-garden separate it from the park, which is well-timbered and fairly extensive. In fact, the distance from the hall door to the lodge is, as old Mr. Kennedy used to be fond of informing his visitors, a trifle over two miles, a pleasant enough walk up hill and down dale, skirting the margin of a broad sheet of artificial water and leading across stretches of pasture-land, where cattle are feeding in the shade and where rabbits scurry off towards the woods at the sound of approaching footsteps. Taking note of all this, and of the coverts which trend upwards behind the house to the base of the chalk hills, a man with a taste for rural pursuits and rural sports might very well say to himself that to be Squire of Bletchingham, with an income of seven or eight thousand a year, would be as enjoyable a lot as could be desired.

Of course there are persons to whom rusticity is hateful, and who would not be country squires at any price. One knows that such persons exist, because one has met them ; but it would not have been easy to persuade old Oswald Kennedy, who never saw anybody except his immediate neighbours, that individuals so abnormal form any appreciable portion of the community at large. Like the statesman who declared that a man who said he liked dry champagne would say anything, Mr. Kennedy was disposed to doubt the sincerity of all who professed not to share his own tastes. He was a kind-hearted and generous man, wishing well to all the world, and promoting the world's welfare as far as his limited means and opportunities would allow of his doing so ; but it was out of his power to sympathise with those who differed from him, and, being perfectly contented him self, he was not very tolerant of discontent in others.

People possessed of characters of that description are usually among the happiest of mankind, and there is every reason to believe that Mr. Kennedy's long life was a happy one. Some crosses and disappointments he did, to be sure, encounter in the course of his earthly pilgrimage, by far the heaviest of which was the absence of an heir to the estate which he loved so well. Marrying early in life, he had but one child, and that a daughter — a most distressing and provoking dispensation, yet one which could not be articulately deplored, lest his wife should feel herself to be too much to blame in the matter. Privately Mr. Kennedy fretted a good deal, but he made the best of a bad business, and when, in the course of years, his daughter grew up and married Captain Lleywood, and had a son, the grandfather was in a great measure consoled.

The boy would, of course, be his heir— would succeed him in the old place, and would, perhaps, also assume his name, so that a Ken nedy might still reign at Bletchingham. Mrs. Heywood assured her father that there would be no difficulty about that, nor did Captain Heywood, a not very wealthy officer in a cavalry regiment, object to his son's brilliant prospects being saddled with so modest a condition. But the position of an heir-presumptive must always be precarious. Who could have anticipated that old Mr. Kennedy, becoming a widower about the period of the grand climacteric, would marry again within eighteen months of a bereavement which had seemed to leave him inconsolable, and would, in the course of the following year, be blessed by the advent of that son and heir for whom he had so often sighed in vain ?

Nevertheless, that was what happened. The Oswald Kennedy whom we saw in the last chap ter dining with his French friends was born into a world of sorrow, and Mrs. Heywood, with a bitterness which was perhaps pardonable under the circumstances, declared that all men were heartless. " Poor, poor mamma ! " she exclaimed, though she probably meant " Poor Tommy !." She had not greatly resented her father's re-marriage, because the second Mrs. Kennedy was almost middle-aged, and it had seemed utterly unlikely that any such catastrophe as this would occur. But the occurrence of the catastrophe of course made a difference. A liberal-minded daughter may forgive her aged father for marrying again, so long as it is clearly under stood that what he wishes for is not so much a wife as a housekeeper and nurse ; but that a man of Mr. Kennedy's age should have a son and exult over the circumstance, is enough to try the most angelic temper.

It must be admitted that Tommy Heywood was rather ill-used by fortune He was only ten years old when his supplanter was born, so that there was plenty of time for him to make arrangements in accordance with his altered circumstances ; still, one is never too young, perhaps, to have a grievance, and if he did not feel his bad luck very deeply at the time, it was not for want of being told by his parents that he was unlucky. Nothing is more apt to make a generous man ungenerous than a half-admitted conviction that he has wronged others, while keeping strictly within the limits of his own rights. Possibly Mr. Kennedy was not quite as generous to his grandson as he might have been. No one could deny that he was entitled to a direct male heir, nor did his daughter deny it. If she had flown into a passion with him they would no doubt have become better friends ; but she did not do that.

She only sighed at him and looked meekly resigned to her fate, and so a gradual estrangement sprang up between them which was never quite healed. Years passed on ; the second Mrs. Kennedy died ; Mrs. Heywood also died, while still a comparatively young woman ; Tom Heywood grew up to manhood, and Oswald Kennedy to boyhood. It would be difficult to say exactly why Tom Heywood was never liked by his grandfather. He was liked by everybody else with whom he came into contact, but, somehow or other, he did not manage to hit it off with old Mr. Kennedy, who thought him an impudent young puppy, and did not refrain from calling him so to his face. He was not often seen at Bletchingham, although his sister Gertrude, a grave little blue-eyed child, came down from time to time and conquered the old Squire's heart by her pretty face and her gentle, quiet ways.

Something like an open rupture took place between the grandfather and the grandson when the latter was in his twenty-sixth year, and when the former paid certain debts incurred by him. " That fellow of yours will ruin you, but I don't mean him to ruin me," the old gentleman wrote, somewhat ungra ciously, to his son-in-law upon this occasion. Colonel Heywood, who had retired from the service upon half-pay, and who was leading an existence in London which may be succinctly described by the one word " whist," pocketed the cheque and the affront. He was a lazy and not very strong-minded man ; he had an impression that old Kennedy ought to do something for Tom, and was not free from apprehensions that old Kennedy's prediction about Tom might be fulfilled. Tom had been plucked for the army, had had a try at the bar without success, and was now about to proceed to the United States with some vague notion of making money there.

Oddly enough, he did make money there — though not more than was sufficient to keep him in food and raiment — and, contrary to all expectation, no further demands were made by him upon the resources of his relatives in England. He passed through some varied experiences before he reached the age of thirty, when his father's death placed him in possession of a modest fortune. His sister — as was almost inevitable under the circumstances — was provided with a home at Bletchingham ; he himself did not return to England until some years later. " He will never do any good," growled old Mr. Ken nedy ; and Gertrude, who seldom contradicted anybody, did not contradict him, although she happened to entertain a different opinion. Neither then nor at any subsequent time did the old man interest himself much in that errant grandson of his.

He had other and more important matters to think about, foremost among which was the curious perversity of disposition manifested by his son Oswald. Oswald, who by this time had developed into a young Oxford undergraduate, had done little or nothing during his childhood and boy hood to cause anxiety to a fond parent. A certain indolence of temperament, combined with a dormant vein of cynicism, may have kept him from kicking over the traces while the early period of his training lasted, but his nature also con tained a capacity for enthusiasm, and this -broke out in a startling and unexpected manner before he had been two years at the University. Dreadful rumours about him reached Surrey. He had, it appeared, taken up the most extreme Radical, not to say Republican, ideas, and had proclaimed them in such a fashion as to have earned noto riety.

Worse than this— supposing, for the sake of argument, that anything could be worse — he had become an avowed freethinker, if not an absolute atheist. Here was a pretty piece of business ! Old Mr. Kennedy, sorely per turbed, went off post-haste to Oxford to interrogate his son and heir, found him entertaining several juvenile esprils forts, and listened with open eyes and mouth to the conversation which they graciously consented to resume at his request. " A nice set of blasphemous young blackguards you seem to have chosen for your friends ! " he burst out, as soon as Oswald and he were alone. " Many a lad has begun with dissipation and extravagance and has sown his wild oats and ended as a decent member of society ; but hang me if I know where you are likely to end, except upon the gallows, if this is the way you start !