In the Face of the World. A novel

Front matter

NEW LIBRARY NOVELS. JACK DOYLE'S DAUGHTER. By R. E. Francillon. 3 vols. A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE. By L. T. Meade. 3 vols. SAINT ANN'S. By W. E. Norris. 2 vols. TOM SAWYER ABROAD. By Mark Twain, i vol. A DOG AND HIS SHADOW. By R. E. Francillon. i vol. THE KING'S ASSEGAI. By Bertram Mitford. i vol. THE ONE TOO MANY. By E. Lynn Linton. 3 vols. IN DIREST PERIL. By David Christie Murray. 3 vols. THE COMMON ANCESTOR. By John Hill. 3 vols. DOROTHY'S DOUBLE. By G. A. Henty. 3 vols. THE BURDEN OF ISABEL. By Maclaren Cobban. 3 vols. THE QUEEN AGAINST OWEN. By Allen Upward, 1 vol. London : CHATTO & WINDUS, 214 Piccadilly. £ "jHooel BY ALAN ST. AUBYN — r~ — •»\ AUTHOR OF 'A FELLOW OF TRINITY, THE JUNIOR DEAN, ETC IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I. it on Don CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY "Ho ARCHDEACON FARRAR THE ADVOCATE OF SPECIAL INDIVIDUAL EFFORT THE ENTIRE CONSECRATION OF SELF-DEVOTED LIVES TO GRAPPLE EFFECTUALLY WITH THE PROBLEMS OF SIN AND SUFFERING OF WRONG AND WRETCHEDNESS WHICH THREATEN THE STABILITY OF OUR MODERN CIVILIZATION THIS NOVEL WITH HIS VERT KIND PERMISSION IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR CONTENTS OF VOL. I. CHAPTER PAGE I. GOING nOWN ----- 1 II.

CHESHAM PLACE - - - - - 15 in. lushington's entire - - - 30 IV. GARLANDS - - - - - 44 V. BREDWARDINE - - - - - 59 VI. LADY BREDWARDINE'S WALK - - - 74 VII. ST. NEOT'S MISSION - - - - 87 VIII. THE SILVER CORD - - - - 98 IX. THE GOAT AND COMPASSES - - - 113 X. SISTER WINIVER - 129 XI. 'THE VOICE OF THE WEEPElt' - - - 142 XII. A WHISPER ACROSS THE GRASS- - - 156 XIII. IN THE TWILIGHT - 169 XIV. THAT MILLION OF MONEY ! - - - 185 XV. MRS. LOWRY LOMAX ... -

Chapter I. Going Down

' Armed with his dainty, ribbon-tied degree, Pleased and yet pensive, Exite and A.B.' It was the last night of term. Everyone was ' going down.' Some of the men who were ' going down ' would come up again next term to apply themselves with renewed vigour to their work or to their play ; to live again the old happy, thoughtless life, to repeat the old follies, to make the old mistakes. Others were ' going down,' really and altogether, for the last time. They would never come up again. The old college days, with their bright vol. i. memories, were all over. For them University life, with its hopes and ambitions, its heartburnings and failures, its rewards and distinctions, was already a thing of the past. They had taken their degrees, they had been sorted and labelled according to thenmerit, and they were ' going down.' How quickly the years had run ! ' One wave, two waves, three waves, four — Gliding up the sparkling floor ; Then they ebb to flow no more, Wandering off from shore to shore With their freight of golden ore !' A man who was ' going down ' had just recalled the dear old Autocrat's lines, and was moralizing upon them on that last night.

He had been up four years, and he had taken a First in two Triposes. He was a Wrangler and the Senior Theologian of his year. He had taken such high honours that he was sure of a Fellowship. His college was justly purod of him. It did not turn out many ' Double Firsts.' It had only turned out one Senior Wrangler in a hundred years. It had sent out into the world a good many theologians, who did respectably in their calling— quite respect ably — and who, it was remarked of them, always did their duty. If St. Neot's had not produced many brilliant scholars, it had sent out, year after year, a larger number of good average men — men who had drifted into the Church and done good work there, but never risen to distmction — than any other college of its size in Cambridge. Now it had turned out a scholar.

Harold Beech's success created quite a flutter among the Dons of St. Neot's. There was not a Fellowship vacant, or they would have presented it to him forthwith ; but they offered him a lecture ship, and begged him to stay among them and take pupils. But Harold Beech was not to be entreated. His work here was quite done, he told them. It had never been his intention to stop here, cooped up in these old walls, living a slow, musty life, when there was a great wide world outside this place — there was all Christendom — clamouring for champions. He had been getting his armour ready all this time; he had been proving it, and testing it, and getting used to wielding the weapons the University had put into his hands, and now he must needs go out in the world and use them. He had nothing to detain him a day longer in Cambridge.

He had taken his degree, and he had packed his books, and his clothes, and his new B.A. hood, and his well-worn surplice, and his shabby undergraduate gown. He had little else to pack. His income had been too slender to waste it upon bric-a-brac, to buy anything, indeed, that he could do without, so that when the time came to go away he had very little to pack. He had corded the box of books, and tightened the strap of his portmanteau, and taken a half regretful look round the old room, at the empty shelves, and the table where he had worked, and he had gone over in the sweet June twilight to say good-bye to a college friend who, like himself, was ' going down ' on the morrow. Tristram Lushington had taken his degree, only a Poll degree, and his life here was ended. He was a pale, pensive-looking young man with the face of a poet.

He had no right to look like a poet, for he was only a brewer. At least, his father was a brewer, an enormously rich London brewer, and he was his eldest son ; he would be worth by-and by something like a million, perhaps two millions, of money. He had everything now, in those hand some college rooms of his, that money would buy — pictures, books, china, carvings, tapestry, objects of art, and articles of vertu in endless variety. The eye was quite weary with travelling over the beautiful things that were scattered about on walls and tables in such profusion. 'It's deuced slow "going down," old fellow, with all one's dreams unrealized,' the poet, or rather the brewer, remarked thoughtfully, knocking the ashes out of the pipe he had been smoking. ' I had made up my mind to do so much when I came up —and — and I have done nothing.' Harold Beech smiled.

He was sitting at the open window, looking down at the slow dark waters of the Cam that flowed beneath, at the college bridges, and the willows, and the beautiful greenery of the Backs. He had seen these things hundreds of times before, but to-night they seemed to have a new interest to him. Because he was going away, perhaps. ' No,' he said, smiling, ' I suppose not. A great many men come up intending to do great things, but they seldom do them. What did you propose to do ?' ' I ? Oh, there was so much I was going to do ; I hardly know where I was going to begin.' ' But you must have had some definite plans.' ' Oh yes, I had some definite plans. They were not all dreams. I was going ' 'What were you going to do?' Harold Beech asked, seeing he paused. GOING DO WN 7 ' I — I was going to get up a University Temper ance League.

I was going to start a New Crusade.' ' You — you !' Harold Beech didn't exactly laugh, but he could not keep a tone of mocking incredulity out of his voice. He was sorry for it a moment after, when he saw a white, pained look come into the other's face. 'I don't wonder at your crying out "You!"' Tristram said bitterly. ' It was the dread of the derision it would bring down on me, it was the fear of what men would say, that kept me back, and now — now — the opportunity is gone!' ' There are plenty more opportunities, if you are really in earnest,' Harold said cheerfully. ' I don't think from your position — which you couldn't help, but which everybody would remember — you would have done much here, and you have the world before you.' Tristram shook his head sadly. 'I have lost an opportunity,' he said; 'I shall never meet these men again.

They have gone their way, and I am going mine, and our paths may never cross again. Think what I might have done in three years in this place, by my influence, by my example, if I had been brave enough, if I had been manly enough, to come out and take a stand ! We, I and the rest — there would have been many gather round me if I had come out — we should have carried all before us. Oh, you don't know what the force of example is ! It would have been another Crusade; only, instead of rescuing the empty tomb of our risen Lord, we should be rescu ing the souls and bodies of our fellow-men !' His pale, pensive face had flushed, and his pale blue eyes were shining, and he was trembling with eagerness. Harold Beech's face was flushed too ; it was a brave, strong face, but the tell-tale blood would leap up into it hi a moment. 'I know something about example,' he said, feeling his way, and with his voice not quite steady ; ' but — but I don't quite catch what you mean.

You surely do not mean ' He stopped, and looked at the other across the table. Their eyes met, and a question that was unspoken was answered in the June twilight. ' I do mean,' said the brewer eagerly. ' Good Heavens ! Beech, what else could I do ? I mean to throw the whole business up,!' They sat silent in the darkling room, while the sweet June night rose outside, and the shadows collected in the corners, and a faint breath of air, like a sigh, was wafted in at the open window. It was so faint that neither of the men felt it, but it stirred the petals of a rose that was blooming in a pot on the window-ledge, and scattered them on the pavement of the court beneath ; it moved the peacock-feathers over the mirror, it rustled the papers that were scattered about the table— it was like a hand in the room moving everything. ' Have you counted the cost ?' Harold Beech said, breaking the silence. ' Yes ; I have counted the cost.' His voice was fairly steady, but there was a faint quiver in it; he could not keep the quiver out of it. ' Do your people know ?

Have you told them ' ' I have told no one !' Tristram interrupted im patiently ; ' I only made up my mind to-day. I only made it up an hour ago. If I had made it up before, I should have done differently. I should not have lost these three years.' ' Are you sure you have not decided hastily ? Think ; it is a great deal to give up. Are you sure you will not reconsider it ?' ' For God's sake, don't tempt me, Beech ! You, above all men ! I am sure of nothing. I only know I have made up my mind — I have taken a vow. See here, I have written it down. I could not be sure of myself if I had not written it down. I am not doing it in my own strength. I should not keep it a day if — if it depended on my own weak will. I have committed it all to God — my weakness, and my desire to get rid of this burden that has been weighing upon me for years.

I have sworn on my knees never to touch a penny of that accursed money ; and I am trusting to the Lord Jesus, who has put it in my heart, to give me strength to keep the oath I have taken. See, read it for yourself.' He pushed a paper towards Beech as he spoke, a paper with some writing on it in a shaky, almost illegible hand. The ink seemed still wet, or it had been blotted and blurred by some big drops that had fallen and blistered the page. Harold Beech read the opening words on the paper, ' 0 God, who art the Strength of all who put their trust in Thee ' and then a mist came before his eyes, and he pushed the paper away from him. ' It is between you and God,' he said ; ' it was not written for human eyes. I am sure you have done right, Lushington. Feeling as you do, you could do nothing else.

But you will find it harder than you think ; you will meet with great opposition. How will you break it to your father ?' ' I have thought about all that. I have thought of all— everything. I shall go to him at once, and tell him all. He has another son. There is Cecil. It will be a great disappointment to him. People will say that I am mad — a fanatic' ' They will say that you have the courage of your opinions, which few men have.' ' They may say what they will. It is not of the world I am thinking — what men may say. The world's praise or blame is a very small matter to me. In doing this — that has been borne upon my soul that I must do, that I cannot help doing — I am not only flying in the face of the world, but I am giving up what I value most on earth — the woman I love.' Harold Beech smiled his slow, quiet smile. ' I don't think you should put these things in the same category — the love of a woman and the loss of a great fortune.

They have nothing to do with each other. Money and love ! They ought not to be named in the same breath.' ' Oh, you don't know, Beech — how should you ?' Tristram said, with a touch of impatience in his voice. ' If — if I give up the brewery, I shall have to give up the girl I am engaged to. Mary Gas coigne would never marry me without the brewery. She has been counting upon it, and her mother has been counting upon it. It is all we shall have to live upon.' ' No,' said the other, with a sudden flush of colour in his face ; ' you are quite right. How should I know ? The women I am accustomed to meet, in my own station, have another standard. They do not measure a man by his money. No woman whose love was worth the name could throw over a man who did this noble thing.' ' You think so ?' Tristram said eagerly ; ' you think she will look at it in that light ?' ' If she loves you, she can do no other.

It will be a test of her love. It is better that it should be tried now than after — when it is too late. It may be the alchemy that was needed to purge the dross away from it; to make it shine like gold — pure gold.'

Chapter II. Chesham Place

' Like a storm he canie And shook the house, and like a storm he went.' Tristram Lushington ' went down ' the next day. He arrived at the railwaystation in a hansom five minutes before the train started. He brought no luggage with him but a portmanteau, which was thrown up on the top of the cab. He had left all his ' things ' behind at his rooms, to be packed by professional packers and sent after him. As he strolled down the long Cambridge platform, which was crowded with men ' going down,' he saw Harold Beech superintending the transfer of a particularly shabby box into the luggage van. He was so concerned about that box that he had no eyes for anything else. 'I was afraid the bottom would come out,' he ex plained, when Tristram tapped him on the shoulder. ' All my books are in that box ; I wouldn't have anything happen to it for the world.' He went up to town in a third-class carriage adjoining the luggage van, that he might be near that box, and Tristram jumped in beside him. ' You've made a mistake, sir,' the porter said, when he took Tristram's first - class ticket, just before the train started. ' Oh no, I've made no mistake,' he said cheer fully.

He wasn't thinking about the ticket ; he was thinking of that other matter he had been talking to Harold Beech about the night before. He had suddenly remembered that he had started in life with a first-class ticket for the whole of the journey, and that he had voluntarily thrown it up, and cast in his lot with the poor, despised third class — with Beech and his books. They parted at Liverpool Street : Harold Beech in a four-wheeler, with the shabby box between his knees, to a lodging in Bloomsbury, and Lushington in the paternal carriage for Belgravia. He had left Cambridge so early in the day that he reached Chesham Place in time for luncheon. Sir Tristram was in the morning-room when his son arrived ; he was reading the Times in a wide easy-chair under a big window, and he looked up when Tristram came in. ' How d'ye do, Trim ?' he said, nodding over the top of his paper, and holding out two or three fingers to his firstborn.

He was a big, rather handsome man, very well fed and nurtured generally, and more aristocratic looking than his son. He had iron-gray hair, beautifully cut, and a gray moustache, and a beard with a good deal of white in it — rather a long beard for the present fashion, but beautifully trimmed. He had a red, full face and dark eyes, full, too, like his cheeks, and his figure had a vol. 1. corresponding fulness. He wore a black morning coat and light waistcoat and trousers, and they were beautifully cut, and he had a flower in his button-hole. He looked exactly like a country squire, a magistrate, a member for the county, a descendant of a long, long line of baronets. He was all these things — all but the last. The room was a beautiful room ; it looked as if it had belonged to an old, old family.

Everything in it had the appearance of age — of having been handed down for generations. The portraits by Old Masters on the walls, the beautiful crewel embroidered hangings to the windows, the Chip pendale furniture, the old china and bronzes and enamels, all denoted the accumulated heirlooms of an ancient family. There were no gimcrackeries here, nothing modern or frivolous. Everything was in the best possible taste ; there was not a flaw any where. ' Lady Cornelia will be in presently,' the Baronet said, when he had greeted his son ; ' she will be in to lunch.' Lady Cornelia was Tristram's mother, a daughter of the Earl of Sark, and he was said to have in herited his pale, clear-cut features from her. He was distinctly unlike his father, as he stood before him in the clear June sunlight, with his lips twitching nervously, and a cold dew breaking out on his forehead.

He had inherited nothing from him but — but a million of money, and he was going to renounce that. He was going to get it over before lunch. Sir Tristram couldn't think why his son was standing there in that ridiculous attitude, shifting himself uneasily from one leg to the other, with his lips quivering and that sickly pallor on his face. He jumped at once to the conclusion that most men would have jumped at under the circumstances. Tristram had got into trouble, money trouble, and he was going to make a clean breast of it. There was going to be a mauvais quart d'heure, and then it would be all over. It was only a question of money. When there was so much to fall back upon, a few thousands more or less didn't matter. A stroke of the pen would put things right in a moment. These pleasing reflections passed through the Baronet's mind as he glanced at his firstborn over the columns of the Times, but he did not make the confession that was coming any easier.

He only looked at his watch, and remarked that Lady Cor nelia was late for lunch. The luncheon was spread in the adjoining room. The heavy embroidered hangings that separated the morning-room, where Sir Tristram was reading the Times, from the dining-room beyond were drawn aside. It was quite a lordly room, and the big dining-table was spread for a lordly meal. A dozen people might have been coming to partake of the luncheon that was spread, instead of three. The table shimmered in the June sunshine with silver and frosted glass, and there was a faint, delicious perfume of flowers, an indescribable air of bien-etre about the place that appealed to Tris tram, as he stood there, with a strange sinking at his heart, as it had never appealed to him before. He had been used to these things all his life.

He had grown up amid these surroundings. They had never appealed to him before, but they had a new attraction for him to-day. , ' I have got something to say to you, sir,' he said, moistening his dry lips, and with that terrible sinking at his heart that he could not understand. ' I should like to say it before Lady Cornelia comes in.' ' Whatever you have to say, I hope you will get it over before lunch. I have an appointment at two o'clock. Have you got into a scrape. Trim ?' He took it so easily, this trouble of his son's ; he spoke quite in an airy tone of that ' scrape ' that he had made up his mind Tristram had got himself into. ' No, sir, I have not got into a scrape ; it is some thing more serious. I — I have ' It was very hard to get it out. ' Something more serious? Egad ! you haven't had a flare-up with Mary Gascoigne?

Nothing wrong in that direction, I hope ?' ' It has nothing to do with Mary Gascoigne ; at least, my decision has nothing to do with Mary. I am going to give up the brewery, sir, that is all.' ' Going to do what ?' thundered the Baronet. He didn't shout, he thundered. Parkyn, the footman, who was coming in with a letter on a silver tray, almost jumped the letter off the tray into the Baronet's lap, and he shook a cloud of powder out of his hair. ' I am going to give up my share in the brewery, sir. I cannot reconcile it to my conscience as a Christian to engage in a traffic that is bringing misery to thousands of my fellow-creatures.' The Baronet dropped the paper he was reading, CHE S HA M PI A CE 23 and he threw back his head with an involuntary gesture of scorn. ' Good Lord !' he exclaimed, in a voice that thrilled through the poor trembling fellow before him. ' He can't reconcile it to his conscience !' ' I have had it on my mind to tell you for a long time,' Tristram went on, speaking rapidly, and not seeming to notice the interruption. ' If I hadn't been a coward I should have told you years ago.

I should never have touched a penny of these ill gotten gains. I will never touch another penny so long as I live. I am sorry to disappoint you, sir ; but I desire to give up from this time my connection with the brewery.' The Baronet had dropped the Times, and his hands were grasping the knees of his beautifully fitting trousers, and he was looking at his son — his firstborn — with an air of amusement, in which scorn and ridicule were equally blended. ' Humph !' he remarked in a tone that made the poor white-faced fellow blush like a girl. IN THE FACE QF THE WORLD 24 ' You have no sympathy with my motives, sir. You do not see with me,' the poor fellow blurted out, hanging his head, and looking a sorry spectacle for the leader of a New Crusade. 'I certainly have no sympathy with your motives,' Sir Tristram said bluntly, in a dry, hard voice that did not belie his words. ' The brewery has been good enough for me, and for my father before me, for three generations of Lushingtons.

The money that the brewery has brought in, and it has brought in a good deal in its time, has been well spent. It has not been selfishly hoarded or squandered upon selfish gratifications. It has been distributed, as few rapidly-built fortunes have been distributed, in works of usefulness and philan thropy. The Lushingtons have headed every public subscription list for years past. Their liberality in some cases, in most cases, has been princely. There is no good work, no work of far reaching philanthropy or Christian usefulness, that has been set afoot during the last fifty years but the Lushingtons have taken a prominent part in it. A tithe, a considerable deal more than a tithe, of the profits of the brewery, that you speak so disparagingly of, has been set apart for years past for philanthropic purposes.

Go down into the East End and see what the brewery has done for the people there. Ask who built that row of lodging-houses that are matchless in all Europe for their accommodation and the perfection of their sanitary arrangements, and you will be told Lushingtons. Ask who built and endowed that great institute, with its libraries and reading-rooms, its great hall for lectures and concerts, its classes for instruction, its gymnasium and grounds for outdoor games and recreation, the People's Insti tute, as it is well called, and you will be told Lushingtons. Ask who built the almshouses, where one hundred poor men and women are com fortably housed, and fed, and clothed, where all the wants of their age are anticipated and pro vided for, and you will be told Lushingtons. Ask who supports the local charities, the soup kitchen, the coffee palace, the clothing clubs, the coal, the blanket, the provident sick societies, the night schools, the infirmary, and you will get the same answer.

And in the face of all this benevolent work that the brewery is carrying on at its own cost, and out of its own legitimate profits, you talk of your conscience not permitting you to share in its ill-gotten gains !' The son of the house that had done such great things, that was doing such great things, looked very red and uncomfortable as he stood crestfallen and in a most unheroic attitude while Sir Tristram condescended to make this explanation, not defence. Oh dear no, not defence ! If the truth must be told, Tristram Lushington had no idea that the great house with which he had the honour of being connected had done all these things — had done half these things. He had a vague idea that it was grinding the faces of the poor ; that it was taking all, everything, and giving nothing. It was quite a new thing to learn that it had made this use of the great wealth it was accumulating year by year.

It almost justified its existence. The end almost justified the means. Still, the question of the morality of making beer had not been solved. Tristram was silenced for the moment, but he was not convinced. ' I did not know that the brewery was doing all this, sir,' he said presently, feeling just a little small. He had only now begun to realize that his com plaint against the great house had been a tacit charge against his father with living upon ill gotten gains. Whether ill-gotten or not. he cer tainly flourished upon them — they agreed with him exceedingly ; he had never looked so pros perous and portly as he did now, posing as a philanthropist, the great benefactor of the East End. Lady Cornelia came in while Tristram was stammering his excuses, and then he had to kiss his mother and sit down to lunch, which was already half an hour late.

The servants were coming in and out of the room all through the meal, and Sir Tristram talked about the debate in the House the night before, and the division, and the pass that the country was commg to. He was a Tory of the old, old school, and he brewed Conservative beer. He had no patience with the Radical notions of the present day. He wouldn't have sent his son to Cambridge for the world, if he had dreamt that he would be led away by these so-called advanced thinkers. The knowledge had fallen upon him like a bomb, but it had not interfered with his appetite. No one, to have seen him looking at the wine in his glass with the approving eye of a connoisseur, and despatching with equal relish that pdte-de-foie-gras, would have surmised that the interview with his son had been a disquiethig one.