CHAPTER XVIII

ALDWYTH ASKS A QUESTION

Less than thirty miles from the monster city, now festering and malodorous under the September sun, high in a breeze-swept garden, Aldwyth Westwood, with a book upon her knees, sat gazing at the fleecy clouds. Slowly they sailed across the sky, casting deep shadows on the fields and woods. Anon the darkened tracts of country again were bathed in brilliant sunshine, and, far as the eye could reach, the face of Nature smiled.

“Sunshine and shadow--in Nature and in life,” she thought. A sigh succeeded--a sigh that sprang like tears “from the depth of some divine despair,” a girl’s tribute to the burden and the mystery

“Of all this unintelligible world.”

Here, if anywhere, near the summit of Leith Hill, was a refuge from the outward stress of life, a place of peace and quiet breathing. Sir John had benefited greatly from the pure air and calm of the retreat. The high gardens were a glory, and the house--bought ready furnished from a wealthy man’s executors--contained a well-stocked library, in which the jaded refugee from Parliament and Law Courts renewed with some zest the varied reading of his earlier years.

Westwood was fifty-four--an age when, if a man allows himself to think at all, the length of life’s journey and its destination are thoughts that recur to him with deepening gravity. Behind him--the years that the locust had eaten; before him--what? Great numbers of men still feel young and vigorous at fifty-four, and much later, but the fact remains that it is the wrong side of the fifty. To some, but to few, celebrity, success, promotion, may come later; but if so, it lacks the heart-flush of early triumph; in some indefinable way the prize, so long fought for and looked forward to, proves something less than solid gold. Rewards tardily won savour of a short lease--an annuity bought late in life, an eleemosynary provision.

At fifty-four the artist’s finest picture has been hung; the author’s best book has been published; the great surgeon has performed his greatest operation; the great advocate has scored the most brilliant of his forensic victories; the engineer has built his biggest bridge; the parliamentarian, sick and savage with hope deferred, then sees the biggest prize of all eluding him, or, if it comes at last, it is bestowed hesitatingly, not because of what he is and can accomplish, but of what he was, and tried to do, when at the zenith of his powers.

Westwood had been wonderfully successful, as success is reckoned by the man in the street; but success is only relative. You have got something, but it sharpens the appetite for the “little more,” and so the chase continues.

The prospect of a judgeship offered him few attractions; _that_ meant finality on five thousand a year. His aims were higher, but politically and professionally his position was complex. The parliamentary situation, and the state of parties and sub-parties, made further progress, even if his health permitted it, quite impossible for the time being. He was alive to that, and conscious oftentimes that probably he had already secured the best that life was likely to offer him.

What were his spoils? Abundance of this world’s goods, the envy of hosts of less successful men, and the affection----? He paused at that; affection of whom? It was not a pleasant thought that there were only two beings in the whole world genuinely attached to him; an old and faithful servant, a woman whose fidelity withstood the outbursts of his petulance, and his daughter. Aldwyth was fond of him--yes, he was sure of that. But there was a lurking feeling that she would have been fonder still if he had only given her a chance. His cold reserve had kept her at a needless distance. He had denied her nothing that she asked for, but he had volunteered little for which she had not asked. He had shown no real concern in her interests or pursuits. Yet he had reason to know hers was a warm, impulsive nature like her mother’s, quick to believe and love, swift to be rebuffed and chilled. The possibilities of closer intimacy were now remote. Young Herrick, as was natural, would have the first place in her thoughts. Presently she would marry, and he, the envied and successful man, would be--alone.

Of that strange interview with Marcus White, Aldwyth had told her father nothing. The condition of his health forbade it at the time; but now that the mysterious nervous attack which had caused her so much alarm seemed to have been wholly shaken off; now that his step was firm and his colour healthier, her mind was exercised as to her duty.

Westwood, at his table, looked up as his daughter, with reflective face, walked past the open window of the library.

“Deep in thought?” he said, inquiringly.

She stopped, and returned a pace or two.

“I was wondering where we should go when we leave here,” she answered.

“Back to town,” her father replied, with raised eyebrows; “but of course it won’t be until the third week of October.”

“The House won’t be sitting then, will it?”

“No, but the judges will.”

“Father,” she said impulsively, “need you go back to the Bar?”

“I need not, but I shall,” he answered rather coldly. “Why do you ask?”

“Is it--is it wise?” she stammered.

“Wise!” he exclaimed, amazed.

“Why need you do it?”

“In the first place, I shall have to prosecute those scoundrelly incendiaries, who have already gone for trial.”

“But, surely, that will be dangerous?”

“For whom?”

“For you, father; you know that you were threatened.”

“Threatened men live long,” he answered, with a lightness that perhaps was a little strained. “You surely would not have me neglect an obvious duty because some unknown blackguard sends me an empty threat?”

“The threat may not be empty. At Folkestone you told us others had been threatened, that there was a real conspiracy, and if so----”

“If so, one must do one’s duty all the same. My health was broken down at Folkestone. I was not myself. Why, my dear girl, if I kept out of this case they would end by calling me a coward. I should be virtually driven into private life.” There was a pause.

“Perhaps there is something I ought to tell you,” she said slowly.

“Well, what is it?”

“When we were at Folkestone, and you were ill, some one came to see you.”

“Go on, go on”--impatiently.

“His name was Marcus White.”

Westwood made no comment, but his face grew paler.

“What he said was a sort of warning. I was to tell you when I pleased--that you had better give up everything--Parliament, the Bar,--father, what does it mean?” She advanced swiftly to the broad table on the other side of which he sat, his eyes bent upon the blotting pad and balancing a paper knife between his fingers. “Won’t you tell me what it means?” she repeated, entreatingly.

“It only means that this man is an old enemy of mine, and, it seems, one who does not forgive or forget.”

“But is there any reason--any ground? If you never wronged him in any way--father, say you never did!”

“No, I never did”--the words were somewhat laboured. “But I married your mother, Aldwyth. That was the cause of quarrel.”

“Ah!” she exclaimed; “he spoke of her. Were they to have been married, if you----”

“Something of the kind,” he answered, rising, then turning to the window. “It was many years ago; we need not talk of it.”

“But he has not forgotten.”

“No, it seems he has not forgotten.”

“What shall you do?”

“I think there is nothing to be done.” He sat again, and drummed on the table with his fingers.

“Do you believe this man would really harm you if he could?”

“You saw him. You can judge as well as I,” he said, evasively.

“He must be mad.”

“Mad with the long-nourished passion of hate, mad with the long-cherished desire for revenge--mad in that sense, yes.”

“Then God help you, father,” said Aldwyth solemnly.

“Yes, God help me,” and he buried his face in his hands.