The paladin

Front matter

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Book I Chapter Page

I Which Introduces Our Paladin . 1

II Tpie Paladin’s Little Mater ... 14

III We Move Amongst Mummers ... SO

IV In Bloomsbury 45

V Contains a Communication .... 58

VI A Cloud in a Clear Sky 73

VII Miranda Consults the Cards ... 90

BOOK II VIII The Paladin's Quest 101

IX The Pleasant Land of France . . . 115

X The Paladin Perceives that Virtue

May Bring Its Own Reward . . . 137

XI The Little Mumsie Sits Up . . . .149

XII A Tower of Strength *..... 1 62

XIII The Quest Begins Again 176

XIV Which Establishes the Axiom, “ It

Pays to be Good ” 186

BOOK III XV After Four Years

XVI Esther Justifies Expectation XVII Miranda Writes a Letter

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XVIII Our Paladin Flirts with Opportunity 240 XIX Alice Adorns Herself for the Paladin 252

XX Esther's Vision is Blurred .... 265

XXI Rain in Cavendish Square .... 280

XXII The Paladin Lets Himself Go . 293

XXIII At the Telephone 300

XXIV We Behold the Paladin Cornered . 315

XXV Talin 330

XXVI De Profundis 345

XXVII An Ideal 361

XXVIII The Paladin Beholds Himself as He Is 380

Chapter I Which Introduces Our Paladin

Esther shed no tears when the lamentable news was told to her by the doctor, who had been summoned hastily in the middle of the night. The blow was so sudden and heavy, as if dealt by a bludgeon, that its effect was to deaden rather than quicken the girl’s sensibilities. Her father had died by his own hand! The other blows which followed — loss of fortune, the sense that she must leave her home and the things she loved — hardly made impress at the moment, so dazed was she by the first brutal assault of fate. Not till long afterwards did she realise that, in the highest sense, she had never loved a father who had given undivided energies and interest to an immense business. To his only child Douglas Yorke had offered toys and sweetmeats, and, as she grew older, whatever else she might want. To ask for anything became to Esther a synonym for receiving it. She never asked for love, because she did not know what love is. Before she was fifteen she had been told that her father spoiled her terribly. This intelligence was accepted calmly, without reflection, in the same spirit with which she accepted chocolates and trinkets. Probably she believed that her father adored her because he gratified every girlish whim. Most undoubtedly she was convinced that she adored him because he had never scolded her, or found fault, or behaved like the fathers of other girls she knew. Once or twice she had wondered why many fathers kissed and caressed their little daughters. Mr. Yorke had never caressed her, and his kiss, morning and evening, was impressed upon the centre of her forehead.

Next day a sealed envelope was brought to her. It contained a pathetic message:

“ I have no excuse to offer for what I am about to do except this: I am too old and too tired to begin life again.”

Too old and too tired! Esther wept when she read the unsigned lines. For the first time in her life the ministering angel, ardent to soothe and console, leapt into being. She asked herself passionately: Had she been blind to the fact that he was old and tired? She had never thought of him as old; she had never suspected that he might be tired. Always she had watched him come and go, punctual to the minute, an automaton, the pattern man of business, never flurried, never irritable, never untidy; the very pink of respectability and integrity.

His ruin involved others in ruin. Esther read the papers with a heart-sickness impossible to describe. At the end of a dreadful week she realised that her father was not only dead but dishonoured. A hundred thousand depositors were reviling him.

Of course she had friends who stood by her with a slightly frightened expression in their eyes, which Esther was at no loss to interpret. All these good people were trying to readjust a point of view: always

S a delicate, and in this case a somewhat harrowing, achievement. Esther, as the penniless daughter of a splendid imposter, seemed in her turn to have imposed upon everybody who knew her. No one put the common thought into common words till Esther said to Harry Rye : “ They look at me as if I ought to have chosen another father.”

To this the young man replied promptly, “ The beasts ! ”

“ I am the same,” continued Esther vehemently. “ I’ve not altered, but they have changed — every one of them.”

Rye was in the diplomatic service, and prided himself upon the possession of tact. How could he tell this poor little dear that she had changed enormously. An appalling catastrophe had transmuted her from clay into marble. And he had admired in her the soft qualities, ingenuous faith in others, a sweet disposition, generosity, and kindliness. She had been adorable. Really, it was incredible that she should not know that she, not her friends, had changed.

For some years Rye had told himself that Esther would make him an admirable little wife, provided always that her dot was what the world said it ought to be, although he, for his part, would be willing to take her without a sou. That, however, would be unfair on her. He had only seven hundred a year. Esther spent at least as much upon her clothes, probably more. Esther, dowdily dressed, counting sixpences and considering the expediency of rehashing the mutton was quite inconceivable.

It is only fair to Rye to add that from the time he had left Eton the necessity of seeking a mate in the habitations of the very rich had been rubbed like ointment into his plastic and receptive mind. Lady Matilda Rye, his mother, was too clever and charming a person to uphold marriages of convenience, or to worship in public the Golden Calf ; and everybody, of course, knew that she had married for love, made a romantic affair of it, a runaway match with a blue-eyed Guardsman! And everybody knew, also, that she had bobbed up, serenely unwrinkled, after fifteen years of storm and stress with her poor dear Reginald, who died miserably of that almost universal disease, intemperance in all things. Lady Matilda and her two children settled down in Pont Street. Three months before the death of Mr. Yorke, the elder of these children, Dorothea — so named because the gift came from heaven just when the blue-eyed Guardsman was beginning to slide rapidly in the opposite direction — had married George Treherne, the head of the famous shipbuilding firm, and at the marriage ceremony, which was honoured by the presence of royalty, Lady Matilda had beamed upon Esther in green gooseberry chiffon, a bridesmaid obviously destined to become in her turn a lovely and happy bride. Dear Harry might have gone a-courting in Surbiton, or at the stage door of the Jollity Theatre, or in some obscure country parsonage. Thanks to Lady Matilda’s teaching, never didactic, never obtrusive, her boy had grasped the great truth that sweet, rich, charming girls may be found in dozens upon the wrong side of Hyde Park.

The suspension of payments at Yorke’s Bank in Fleet Street nearly reduced Lady Matilda to a condition of collapse. She sent for Harry and implored him to do nothing rash. Harry came away from a memorable interview (Lady Matilda was in bed) acutely sensible that he was “awfully sorry” for the little Mater, “ awfully sorry” for Esther, and “ awfully sorry ” for himself. To a friend at the Foreign Office he muttered gloomily that this was a hard world. The friend, who sometimes asked indiscreet questions, said abruptly:

“What are you going to do, Harry?” and to this Harry replied that he was damned if he knew, but that he could be counted on to do the real right thing.

“ This is rather a hard case,” said his friend thoughtfully. “ How are you going to do the real right thing by your mother and by Miss Yorke? ”

“ I wish you wouldn’t mention names,” said Harry fretfully.

To another friend he complained that the Fates were not providing a square deal. The young fellow belonged to that gallant company of British youths who believe that the world owes them something. Harry had always been modest, and, under somewhat cruel circumstances, cheery and optimistic. He admitted candidly that the marriage, late in life, of his uncle, Lord Camber, and the subsequent appearance of twin sons, had been “ a nasty jar.” It is true that his uncle continued his allowance, but Harry felt vaguely that he was one of the unlucky brigade. Camber Castle and forty thousand a year would have suited him down to the ground, and — if he said it himself — the world would have been a cheerier place if — well, if those confounded twins had not knocked him out.

In presenting our paladin as he was, and allowing him to express himself in his own words, the risk, not a light one, is run of raising a prejudice against him in the minds of the thoughtful and serious. His own medical attendant, Sir Bedford Slufter, who (before knighthood was conferred upon him) had treated in him to a successful issue whooping-cough, mumps, chicken-pox, and German measles, may be quoted as affirming that Harry was a capital fellow, a good sportsman, an affectionate son and brother, a sound cricketer, and an Imperialist. In a popular magazine photographs of Harry at the interesting ages of three, seven, eleven, seventeen, and twenty-four had been reproduced with the significant words beneath: One of the best . At seven we see him in a white sailor suit, but, oddly enough, grasping a stick by the wrong end ! Why the wrong end? Dare we affirm that coming events were casting shadows before? At eleven he exhibits proudly his first gun, a single-barrelled weapon of small bore. What a handsome curly-headed youngster it is ! And he looks the camera straight in the face. We behold him at seventeen in flannels, a member of the Eton XI. and, obviously, a tremendous swell. The large central picture (taken free of charge and copyrighted by an eminent firm in Baker Street) represents him as one of the Gentlemen of England after a glorious victory over the Players.

To Harry Rye Esther turned in her trouble. What she thought of him may be indicated — no more. Esther, when a small girl, had seen Harry make a century at Lord’s in the Eton and Harrow match. After this fine performance he took Esther for a stroll, and treated her to strawberry ice. She said that she preferred vanilla, but Harry was positive that strawberry ice, made from real strawberries, was the better. Esther accepted this statement as gospel, regarding young Rye as a sort of Gamaliel in flannels. She adored him, and he knew it.

Afterwards she came to occupy a definite place in his present and future. Esther, so to speak, was always there. He could think of her comfortably as his for the asking. One of these days they were going to be as happy as larks. Part of the charm — and even Esther would have admitted this — bloomed in the fact that they were not engaged. Harry was twenty-six and Esther twenty. Lady Matilda and innumerable friends smiled and used the word “ idyll.” The affair, in their eyes, was so appropriate, so obviously fashioned in heaven, so “ deevy ” — a word coined in those days, and now regrettably become obsolete.

Harry came to Palace Gardens, and sat beside the stricken girl, holding her hand. In a garden of roses by Bendemeer’s stream he would have taken Esther into his arms and kissed the tears from her eyes. In a huge drawing-room, upholstered in primrose satin, such ardour might be stigmatised as unseasonable and exuberant. Harry held her hand, and from time to time gently pressed it.

Not many words passed at this first interview, which took place the day after the banker’s death, and before the full extent of the catastrophe was realised. Harry knew that a smash was impending, but his optimistic temperament jumped to the conviction that there must be pickings. The primrose satin upholstery fortified this belief. Esther surely was provided for — decently. Twenty thousand pounds at the very least. That meant economy. He would have to stick to his profession. Esther was just the sort of girl to appreciate the man who worked for her. Accordingly, when Esther whispered, 44 I suppose you know the bank is shut up ? ” he replied reassuringly : 44 Money is not every-

thing; we shall pull through, we shall pull through.”

The 44 we ” and the repetition comforted poor Esther. She edged nearer to the cricketer and the Imperialist, but he did nothing rash. Esther told herself that Harry was thinking of the dead man upstairs. Harry told himself that he was doing the right thing, and that the Mater, God bless her! would applaud his self-control and consideration. Don’t imagine for an instant that he was invertebrate or cold-blooded. When Esther edged close to him, the desire to do something rash became almost overmastering. For a fraction of a second he could hear himself saying : 44 My own girl, if

I loved you when you were happy and prosperous, don’t you know that I love you now ten times as much? ” That is what he would have said, had not the little Mater been lying in bed and dabbing a fevered brow with eau de Cologne and water.

George Treherne, with whom Harry dined that same evening, talked mysteriously of defalcations, trust money misapplied, and so forth. Harry rather despised

George, both as man and brother-in-law, but as a financier he was admittedly sound. George shook his long head when Harry muttered something about pickings.

44 It’s going to be worse than we thought. Will you have another glass of port wine? ”

44 Thanks,” said Harry. As he filled his glass, he added: 44 Of course Esther has been provided for? 99

Dorothea had gone upstairs, leaving the men alone.

44 What do you mean ? 99 George replied. 44 1 don’t suppose Yorke made a settlement on her and his will, I’m told, is ten years old. If that is the case, Esther probably has been left a large fortune which no longer exists. Old Sol told me this afternoon that the house in Palace Gardens and everything in it was mortgaged a few months ago.”

44 Who the deuce is Old Sol? ”

44 The moneylender. It’s his business to know these little things. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if the girl had nothing.”

44 There must be — er — something.”

44 No 4 must ’ about it. Shall we join Dorothea? ”

Dorothea was in the hall lined with Cipolino marble with panels of blue sodolite from Canada and a mosaic ceiling. The source of light was invisible; a soft glow suffused things and persons with a faint rose-coloured tone. In such a room pessimism is impossible. Harry smoked one of Treherne’s best and biggest cigars and drank a glass of 1808 brandy. Dorothea stared at him as if trying to pierce an exterior of wellbred impassivity. For the moment Harry puzzled her.

She divined his distress, but could not measure it. He smoked imperturbably and enjoyed his cigar. He sipped the old brandy. Dorothea had the strange and reprehensible conviction that this indicated heartlessness. Had Harry tossed off three glasses of brandy in swift succession she would have felt more sorry for him. Presently George went to his own room.

“Business?” said Harry, with uplifted brows.

“ Business,” replied his sister coldly.

“ He knew that I wanted to talk to you.”

“ He would have gone anyway.”

Harry said nothing. He had acquired the invaluable habit of shunting disagreeable reflections and conclusions. He was awfully fond of Doll, and it was quite intolerable to think that she had made a mess of her marriage. She must have known what George was like before she married him: a good, steady, plodding fellow, with a heart of solid gold, not to mention a dessert service. But Doll had come back from her honeymoon looking as blue as the sodolite from Canada ; and had settled down in Park Lane with an amazing indifference to her position, which provoked from Lady Matilda the word “ ungrateful.”

“Have you seen Esther?” said Dorothea.

“ Of course. I rushed off there the moment I left the office.”

A pause followed. Then Dorothea said nervously:

“ Are you very fond of her? ”

“ Good Lord ! What a question ! ”

“ Do you care for her more than you care for anybody else in the whole world? ”

“ If you put it that way, of course I do. Why, Doll, what’s up? ”

He saw that her cheeks were red and her eyes sparkling. How pretty she was ! All the Ryes were good-looking — except those confounded twins, who had taken after their confounded mother.

“ If you care for her,” said Dorothea vehemently, “this is the opportunity of your life. It’s not easy for a woman to know whether she is wanted for herself, or for her beauty, or her money, or her position, but you can prove to Esther that you want her. Are you going to do it? I suppose mother has been at you ? ”

“ We are in a very complicated position.”

“ What— humbug! ”

“ Really, Doll, if I hadn’t seen you drink water at dinner, I should say that the Dagonet had been too much for you. Are you mad? ”

“ I am, at last, hopelessly and incurably sane.”

“ I don’t pretend to understand women. The more they have, the more they seem to want. At any rate, out of regard for the Mater, to whom you’ll admit I owe something, and in common decency — Mr. Yorke won’t be buried till the day after to-morrow — I’m going to mark time.”

“ Poor Esther!”

“ Suppose she has nothing. George says it’s quite possible. Do you think she could be happy on seven hundred a year ? ”

“ Yes.”

“ You are quite cracked.”

Dorothea made the last attempt.

“ If you spoke to Uncle Camber, he might — I believe he would — increase your allowance.”

Harry stiffened immediately.

44 When I marry I’m not going to pass round the hat. I told Esther that money was not everything, and it isn’t to me,” he added with slight emphasis. 64 One can’t talk about such things ; you know I could have had that little millionairess from Michigan; but first and last I’ve been faithful to Esther. I’m thinking of her, not of myself.”

Dorothea yawned and opened a book. It was not polite, but it inspired the reflection in Harry’s mind that whenever a woman begins by being grossly unfair to a fellow, she generally ends by being rude into the bargain. Shortly afterwards the young man took his leave and returned to Pont Street, walking home, as the night was fine. He strolled down Park Lane, beholding the motives which inspired marking time by the light of the moon, shall we say, rather than the sun. Had he, after all, done the real right thing? Dorothea indicated a high adventure, a romantic opportunity. Long ago, upon the occasion of his famous century against Harrow, made at a moment when experts in the Pavilion were beginning to fear that a 44 rot ” was setting in, one of the many gentlemen who write with ease rather than elegance upon British pastimes had described him as 44 lion-hearted.” Our Harry had tried to live up to this transcendent adjective. And, afterwards, in greater matches, when he had valiantly faced the most deadly bowlers in the kingdom, other epithets had been showered upon his embayed head* He was a 44 tryer,” he was 44 the famous Old Etonian,” he was 44 fearless ” — 44 dauntless ” — 44 a thruster ! ” In a rosy-hued paper, where some licence is allowed, he was acclaimed enthusiastically as possessing — let us turn the monstrous monosyllable into Latin — viscera ! Many cricketers, apparently, lack these organs. Would Bertrand du Guesclin have turned his broad back upon a dowerless Tiphaine?

Our paladin felt uncomfortably warm when he put these questions to himself. And then, very insidiously, Dorothea’s subtle suggestion of an increased allowance from his uncle percolated to the core of his being.

Perhaps George Treherne would do something!

CHAPTER II THE PALADIN’S LITTLE MATER , f

Lady Matilda glanced with satisfaction at her pretty drawing-room in Pont Street. To this smiling, goodnatured, self-complacent lady possession was not nine-tenths of the law, but the law itself and all the prophets. She loved everything that belonged to her; and she beheld her possessions (we include the children) magnified and embellished beyond compare. Many of the objects upon which her eye lingered with special affection had been bought, at a price considerably below their value, in country curiosity shops and cottages. Lady Matilda invariably offered a sum less than that asked, and, as invariably, she indicated blemishes. But the articles paid for, blemishes vanished. Her treasures became perfect specimens because they belonged to her. Very seldom indeed did she admire what belonged to others. Even the snuff-boxes at Hertford House left her perfectly calm, although she would rave for a quarter of an hour over a “ ducky ” little Lowestoft teapot which 66 1 got, my dear, for a song from a funny old woman in Somerset; it came to her from her grandmother.”

The world liked Lady Matilda because she was plucky and cheery. Only Lord Camber knew how she managed to pay her bills, but paid they were on the first of every month. Her servants, four in number, 14 did the work of six, not because they received high wages, but because, instead, the kind word in season was never lacking. Lady Matilda kept very careful accounts, but it is doubtful whether she computed the value of the kind word.

She had been the best or the worst of mothers, according to your point of view. The least we can do is to believe that she acted according to her lights. No one questioned her devotion.

When it became certain that Esther Yorke was dowerless, Lady Matilda sought and found solace in the contemplation of her furniture, bought before Chippendale and Sheraton became the rage. Each inanimate object represented the triumph of good over evil, accepting as 64 good,” without any perplexing reference to the New Testament, Lady Matilda’s own comfortable code of ethics. The Chippendale cabinet, for instance, had been bought at a moment when poor dear Reginald was obliged to give up hunting owing to a weak heart — a condition caused by excessive smoking of cigarettes. The money which hunting represented was spent by Captain Rye upon himself ; but in recognition of his wife’s devotion as nurse he allowed her to buy the cabinet.

Staring at the cabinet, and faintly smiling, Lady Matilda came to a decision. It was alien to her principles to hit anyone who happened to be down. When down herself, people had been kind to her. Nevertheless it would be mistaken kindness to allow Esther to linger any longer in a fool’s paradise. She was fortified in this decision by the strange and unfilial conduct of her Harry, who, for the first time in his life, was withholding his confidence. When she mentioned this to Dorothea, the daughter said coldly:

44 1 may be to blame. I advised him to marry Esther, $ money or no money ! ”

44 What!”

44 She is a girl in ten thousand.”

44 Would George support them? ”

44 If I asked him, George might do something ; so might Uncle.”

44 1 thought my daughter had some pride.”

44 Disillusion yourself, mother. I hav’n’t a scrap left. Let me add this for your comfort: I don’t think Harry will take my advice. He thinks me mad.”

44 So do I,” said Lady Matilda, with much asperity for so sweet-tempered a woman.

Of course she knew in her heart that Harry was quite likely to take any advice that might happen to chime with his inclinations, which at the present moment must be ringing a wedding peal. And if, as was more than probable, Dorothea had indicated the heroic opportunity, the high adventure, Harry might do something rash, because he was Reginald Rye’s son, with his father’s seductive blue eyes and, latent within him, that father’s recklessness and contempt of consequences. Years of patient training might be obliterated in one ill-considered moment.

Instinct told her that moment was at hand. Thanks to her, the first and second and third interviews between the young people had produced nothing more fervent than protestations of sympathy and friendship. Harry was marking time. But now the worst was known. Esther had nothing but her frocks and her trinkets. Harry could mark time no longer, and that odious friend of his in the Foreign Office was a sentimentalist, a love-and-a-cottage simpleton l

Lady Matilda took a last look at the cabinet, and went upstairs. She arrayed herself carefully in black and lavender, and, on her way to Palace Gardens, stopped at a florist’s to buy a large bunch of Parma violets. These, with an affectionate kiss, she presented to Esther, who had wit enough to scent the Danaan nature of the gift.

44 1 suppose Harry has told you everything? ” began Esther.

44 Yes,” said Lady Matilda with bland assurance. If Harry had deliberately hidden anything of importance, this full-throated 44 yes ” might bring it to light.

44 1 hav’n’t a halfpenny,” said Esther. 44 To be accurate,” she added, 44 there is a small sum which will keep me alive till I get work.”

44 Work? What work, dear? ”

44 I’m thinking of the stage. Why not? ”

The interrogation had an uplifting note of defiance. Some of Esther’s friends had answered the question in a spirit of indignation and finality. Esther, it was pointed out, had no affiliations with the stage; she had exhibited no special aptitudes for such a profession: the competition was heart-breaking and everlasting ; and the associations with persons regarded, until quite lately, as rogues and vagabonds must be stigmatised as lowering and undesirable. One friend, Mrs. Rockingham Trigg, had offered Esther the situation of companion to an aged and infirm aunt, who lived in Eaton Place, and was willing to pay thirty pounds a year, with board and lodging, to an amiable, ladylike young person. Esther replied that Eaton Place was too far from the Thames. When her astonished visitor demanded an interpretation, Esther laughed, pleasantly enough, and said: “ You see, I could never drown myself in cold blood. The walk from Eaton Place to Westminster Bridge would take all the starch out of me.” The good Samaritan went away shaking her head. She remarked to her aunt: “Not even Providence can help those who refuse to help themselves ! ” A stickler for the powers plenipotentiary of the Creator might have taken exception to this observation, but we know what the good, kind soul meant : and she liked her little aphorism so well that she repeated it to everyone of her acquaintance.

Lady Matilda paused for an instant before speaking. Then she said gently:

“ Don’t think me impertinent, but surely you have some relations ? ”

Esther shook her head.

“ My father’s people are furious with him; I couldn’t stand their pity or their patronage.”

“ And your mother’s people, dear ? ”

“ My mother’s people? I suppose my mother had people. Father never spoke of her or them.”

“ How very, very odd ! ”

“ So, you see, I have nobody to consider but myself. And I might do well on the stage, don’t you think so ? ”

“ You are pretty, clever, and you have a delightful voice.”

“ I know Henry FitzRoy, the actor-manager.”

Lady Matilda nodded.

“ I’m sure he’ll help. Don’t forget to mention my name. I introduced him to the dear Prince, and he was so grateful.”

“ Then you really think well of my little plan ? ”

Lady Matilda blinked. Then she took Esther’s hand in hers and patted it maternally. Her manner was perfection.

“ I do — I do. If a girl can earn a living on the stage or anywhere else, let her do it, say I.”

“ Harry is not of your opinion.”

“ Oh! Does he suggest anything?”

“ He says I must mark time.”

An inaudible sigh of relief parted Lady Matilda’s lips. Perhaps, after all, she had done Harry an injustice.

“ Knowing Harry,” she began softly, “ knowing the tenderness of his heart, and his temperament, so like his father’s, I was terrified lest he should propose something rash.”

“ What do you mean ? ”

Lady Matilda permitted the shadow of a frown to flit across her placid forehead. Esther’s question displayed a certain lack of breeding and tact. Nothing is so exasperating as to be compelled to use a blunderbuss when you are master of a rapier.

“ He is very chivalrous, my dear.”

“Is he?” Esther considered this seriously.

w

44 You must know what he is. He has the nice old-fashioned ideas about women.”