TEMPTATION.
AT Mentone the sun continued to shine, and the world to bask in the joy of his rays in spite of the snow on Kent’s Hill and the white fogs that enwrapped the county of Surrey. To Paul’s great surprise, too, when once the dreaded secret was out, the burden of bearing it became infinitely lessened. He had shrunk with all the shyness of a sensitive nature from letting the loungers on the Promenade du Midi know the real truth about his false position.
He thought they would find in it nothing but cause for veiled ridicule. But, as a matter of fact, on that very evening the indefatigable Armitage, pursuing his quest through every villa he knew in town, discovered at last in a friend’s library a copy of Debrett’s invaluable work on the people whom one can really know, don’t you know, in England. Turning over the pages with a triumphant hand to put to rout and confusion this absurd scallywag with his cock-and-bull-story about his fine relations, Armitage was fairly dumfounded to come upon the entry, “GASCOYNE, SIR EMERY, 14th baronet,” followed by half a page of the usual profoundly interesting genealogical detail, and ending with the final abrupt but concise information, “Residence, Plowden’s Court, Hillborough, Surrey.”
The Plowden’s Court of real life was a narrow entry off the main street of the sleepy little country town, but the Plowden’s Court which these words naturally conjured up before Armitage’s fancy, seen in such a connection, was a stately and dignified Elizabethan mansion, standing in its own grounds of heaven knows how many statute acres, and surrounded by garden, lawn, and park-lands.
Armitage rubbed his eyes in blank amazement. Was it possible, then, that the scallywag had spoken the truth? In spite of all appearances to the contrary, was he really the heir to a baronetcy of Charles II.’s creation, and to the noblest estate in the county of Pembroke?
He glanced through the profoundly interesting genealogical details with a curious eye. Yes, that was all plain sailing enough. “Succeeded his second cousin, Sir Emery Charles Emeric Gascoyne, 13th baronet, vide infra.” Armitage proceeded to vide infra accordingly, and noticed at once that the name of Paul seemed to alternate regularly throughout the list with the name of Emery as the distinctive mark of the Gascoyne baronetcy. So far, clearly, the scallywag’s story seemed to hold together much better than he expected. And next as to the estates? Not a word said about them, to be sure; but then, the respected and esteemed Debrett deals only in exalted rank, and has nothing to say on such inferior subjects as filthy lucre. “Residence, Plowden Court, Hillborough!” Fancy the scallywag coming after all from a baronial mansion in the county of Surrey!
Next day the entire little world of Mentone had duly digested the singular news that the unobtrusive Oxford undergraduate who had come out to the Riviera, strictly incog., as tutor to the blond young man at the Continental, was really the heir to a baronetcy, in disguise, and the scion of a distinguished Pembrokeshire family.
And all the world remarked at once, with its usual acuteness, that, in spite of his shyness, they had said from the first Paul Gascoyne was a delightful young man, and had most charming manners.
All the world, indeed, has always divined these things beforehand, and is immensely surprised at all the rest of the world’s stupidity in not having perceived them.
Three days later, however, at the usual little conclave in the Jardin-Public — The School for Scandal, Mme. Ceriolo christened the particular corner affected by Armitage and his group of intimates — that ardent inquirer came down quite triumphant with a letter in his hand. “After all,” he said, as he seated himself, with a comprehensive nod, on his favorite bench, “it turns out the scallywag’s nobody much. I’ve just had a line from my friend Rimington at Hipsley, near Hillborough, and he says, though the lad’s supposed to be heir to a baronetcy, his father’s a fellow in a very small way of business; reasons of delicacy, he writes, prevent him from particularizing further, and not at all in society, or anything like it, in Surrey. It seems the grandfather of the present baronet was a very bad lot, a scapegrace of low habits, who consorted chiefly with grooms or stable boys, and married a milkmaid or something of the sort; no doubt after circumstances which, as Herodotus says, it is not lawful to mention; after which he was very properly cut off by his papa, the baronet of the time, with the traditional shilling. With that modest capital, as his whole start in life, the scallywag’s ancestor set up in town, and there his descendants, living on the change for the shilling, I suppose, went from bad to worse, till the present man has sunk practically to the level of the working classes. When old Sir Emery — whom I knew in Pembrokeshire — popped off the hooks, some six or seven years ago, he entirely ignored this debased stock — they’d intermarried, meanwhile, with cooks or scullery maids — and left the estates at Gascoyne Manor, and elsewhere, to a younger branch, who had always kept up their position as gentlemen. So the scallywag’s papa’s only a bare courtesy baronet after all; by birth and education the scallywag himself is — well, just what you’d expect him to be. Rimington says in a postcript,” Armitage went on, glancing around him with an air of virtuous self-abnegation, “he hopes I won’t mention these facts to anyone, for young Gascoyne’s sake; so I’m sure I can count upon all of you not to breathe a word of it, or to let it make the very slightest difference in any way in your treatment of the scallywag.”
Mme. Ceriolo, raising a pair of dove-like eyes, saw her chance to score a point. “But he really is the heir to a baronetcy, in spite of everything, you see,” she put in languidly. “That’s very satisfactory. When people who are born of noble blood happen to be poor, or to be placed in any dependent position, other people often cast most unjustifiable doubts upon the truth of what they say about their own families. I sympathize with Mr. Gascoyne.”
And she glanced down with a meaning look at the countess’ coronet engraved on the plain silver locket she wore at her bosom.
“He’ll be a Sir, though, anyway, won’t he?” Isabel Boyton asked, going straight to the point with true American business perception.
“He’ll be a Sir, anyway, Miss Boyton,” Armitage retorted sharply. “And he’ll make his wife, when he catches one, into a real My Lady.”
“For my part,” Nea Blair put in with quiet firmness, “I don’t care a pin whether he’s heir to a baronetcy or whether he’s not. I take him for himself. I think he’s a very nice, good, sensible young man, and, whoever his parents are, he’s a born gentleman.”
“One of Nature’s gentlemen!” Mme. Ceriolo interjected lackadaisically, with a darted glance from her tortoiseshell eyeglasses at Armitage, who, playing with his button, and feeling the sense of the meeting was entirely with the scallywag, retired gracefully upon a safe commonplace.
“After all, it doesn’t so much matter what a man’s father is as what he is himself — except, of course, for purposes of probate.”
So in the end, as it turned out, the world of Mentone agreed to accept Paul Gascoyne with a very good grace as a future baronet, and to invite him freely to the afternoon teas and mild “at homes” which form the staple of its innocent invalidish entertainments. A baronet is a baronet, if it comes to that, be he more or less, as the lawyers would gracefully put it; and a baronet’s son who has been to Oxford, no matter how poor, has always a possible future open before him. Nay, more, the mere fact of the little mystery as to his origin, and the whispered story about the lady’s maid and the dubious grandmamma, added just a touch of romance to the whole affair which made up in piquancy for whatever Paul lacked in exterior adornment. If there’s anything odd about a man’s antecedents (and still more about a woman’s) it’s a mere toss-up whether Society chooses to pet him or damn him. But when once Society has made up its mind to accept him, it becomes forthwith a point of honor to stick up for him at all risks, and to see in him nothing but the most consummate virtues. The very oddity is held to constitute a distinction. In point of fact, accordingly, Paul Gascoyne became the fashion at Mentone. And having once attained that proud position, as the small tame lion of a provincial show, everybody, of course, discovered in him at once unsuspected mines of learning or talent, and agreed unanimously over five o’clock tea-tables that young Gascoyne was really a most charming and interesting person.
The consequence was that for the next six weeks Paul saw a good deal of society at Mentone — more, in fact, than he had ever seen of that commodity anywhere in his life before, and among it of Nea Blair and Isabel Boyton.
Nea he liked and admired immensely. And with good reason. For it was the very first time he had ever had the opportunity of meeting an educated English lady and conversing with her on equal terms about subjects that both could alike discourse of. He was always flattered when Nea talked to him; the subtle delight of finding one’s self able to hold one’s own fairly with a beautiful and clever woman moved him strangely. Hitherto he had only seen and admired such beings from afar. To stand face to face with Nea Blair and find that she did not disdain to talk with him — nay, that she evidently preferred his society to Thistleton’s or Armitage’s — was to the shy young man from Plowden’s Court a positive revelation of delight and gladness. It is to be feared that he even neglected Aristotle’s Ethics and his duty to Mr. Solomons, more than once, in his readiness to go where Nea Blair might possibly meet him. He paid for it afterward in qualms of conscience, to be sure; but, as long as it lasted, it was perfect bliss to him.
Not that he believed or knew he was falling in love with Nea. If that explanation of his mental phenomena had ever occurred to his honest soul, Paul would have felt that those mysterious claims which weighed on him so heavily made it quite necessary for him to see as little as possible of the fair enchantress. He knew he was bound by solemn bond and pact to Mr. Solomons to sell himself finally in the matrimonial market for hard cash to the highest bidder; and though even then uncomfortable doubts as to the justice or morality of such a proceeding sometimes forced themselves obtrusively upon Paul’s mind, while the day of sale seemed still so far off, he would, nevertheless, have shrunk from letting himself get entangled in any other bond which might prove adverse in the end to Mr. Solomons’ fair chance of repayment. After all, he thought casuistically to himself, there was always a possibility that he might finally happen to fall in love with some nice girl who was also the heiress Mr. Solomons dreamed about; and then, in that case — but there he broke down. The nearer he drew to the actual fact and pact of marriage the more repugnant did the whole wild scheme appear to him.
One sunny afternoon, a week or two later, the whole little coterie of the Rives d’Or had made an excursion together on to the rocky hills that bound either side of the mule-path to Castellar. When they reached the ridge where great rounded bosses of ice-worn sandstone form a huge hog’s back overlooking the twin-valleys to right and left, they dispersed by twos and threes, as men and maidens will do, among the rosemary bushes and the scanty umbrella-pines, or sat down in groups upon the bare, smooth rocks, in full view of the sea and the jagged summit of the gigantic Berceau. Paul found himself quite unconsciously wandering among the low lentisk scrub with Nea Blair, and, seating themselves at last on the edge of the slope, with the lemons gleaming yellow in the Carei Valley far below their feet, they discoursed together, as youths and maidens discourse, of heaven and earth and fate and philosophy, but more particularly of their own two selves, with that profound interest which youth and a free heart always lend to that entrancing subject when discussed à deux, under the spreading shade of a romantic pine tree.
“And when you’ve taken your degeee, what then?” Nea asked with some eagerness after Paul had duly enlightened her mind as to the precise period of his Greats examination, and the chances for and against his obtaining a First in that arduous undertaking.
“Well, then,” Paul answered with some little embarrassment, “after that, I suppose I must go in for a fellowship.”
“But if you get a fellowship you won’t be able to marry, will you?” Nea inquired with interest. “Haven’t they got some horribly barbarous rule at Oxford that if a fellow marries he must lose his position?”
“No, no; not now,” Paul answered, smiling. “C’était autrefois ainsi, mais nous avons changé tout cela, as Sganarelle says in the play. A fellowship now is for a fixed period.”
“Well, that’s well, anyhow,” Nea went on, more easily. “I hope, Mr. Gascoyne, you’ll get your fellowship.”
“Thank you,” Paul replied. “That’s very kind of you. But I’m ashamed of having bored you with all this talk about myself — the subject upon which, as somebody once put it, all men are fluent and none agreeable.”
“The somebody was wrong, then,” Nea answered, with decision. “Whenever one meets an interesting individuality one wants to know as much as possible about it. Don’t you think,” and she looked up at him with her charming smile, “in our society nowadays we never really get to know half enough about one another?”
“I know nothing about society,” Paul replied frankly.
“I’ve never been in it. I’ve had no chance. But I think in as much of the world as I know — which is a very tiny world indeed — we do somehow seem to go round and round, like the people in the maze at Hampton Court, and never get at the heart and core one of the other.”
Dangerous ground, dangerous ground, dear Paul, for Mr. Solomons’ chance of recovering in full on that long investment.
Nea felt it so, perhaps, for she paused a moment, and examined a little pink rock-cistus that sprang from a cleft in the sandstone at her feet with unnecessarily close attention for anyone who was not a professed botanist. Then she said suddenly, as if with a burst of inspiration, “I shall be up in Oxford myself, I expect, next summer-term. Mrs. Douglas, the wife of the Accadian professor — at Magdalen, you know — means to ask me up for the Eights or something.”
“That’ll be just delightful!” Paul answered warmly.
“We shall have some chance then of really getting to know one another.”
“I always like Oxford,” Nea murmured, looking down, and half afraid the conversation was leading her too far.
“I just love every inch of it,” Paul replied with fervor.
“But then I’ve much reason to be grateful to Oxford. I owe it everything.”
“You’ll live there when you’re a fellow?” Nea asked, looking up again.
Paul hesitated a second, and pulled grasses in his turn. “I’ve got to get my fellowship first,” he said with some reserve. “And then — and then I suppose I must do something or other to make some money. I have heavy claims upon me.”
“Oh, dear! what a pity!” Nea cried with genuine regret.
“Why so, Miss Blair?”
“Because it’s so dreadful you should have to enter the world with claims, whatever they may be, to clog you. If you were free to choose your own walk in life, you know, you might do such wonders.”
“I should like literature,” Paul went on, relapsing once more into that egoistic vein. “But, of course, that’s impossible.”
“Why impossible?” Nea asked quickly.
“Because nobody can make money at literature nowadays,” Paul answered with a sigh; “and my circumstances are such that it’s absolutely necessary before everything else I should make money, and make it quickly. I must sacrifice everything to my chance of making money.”
“I see,” Nea answered with a faint tinge of displeasure in her tone. And she thought to herself “Perhaps he means he must get rich so as to keep up the dignity of the title. If so, I’m really and truly sorry; for I thought he had a great deal better stuff than that in him.’
“There are so many claims I have to satisfy,” Paul went on in a low voice, as if answering her inmost unspoken thought. “My time’s not my own. It’s somebody’s else I’ve mortgaged it all by anticipation.”
Nea gave a start.
“Then you’re engaged,” she said, putting the obvious feminine interpretation upon his ambiguous sentence. (A woman reads everything by the light of her own world — courtship and marriage.)
“Oh, no,” Paul answered, smiling. “I didn’t mean that, or anything like it. I wouldn’t mind that. It was something much more serious. I start in life with a grave burden.”