Mr. Montague Nevitt rubbed his hands with delight in the sacred privacy of his own apartment. Mr. Nevitt, indeed, had laid his plans deep. He had everybody’s secrets all round in his hands, and he meant to make everybody pay dear in the end for his information.
Mr. Nevitt was free. His holidays were on at Drummond, Coutts and Barclay’s, Limited. He loved the sea, the sun, and the summer. He was off that day on a projected series of short country runs, in which it was his intention strictly1 to combine business and pleasure. Dartmoor, for example, as everybody knows, is a most delightful3 and bracing4 tourist district; but what more amusing to a man of taste than to go a round of the Moor2 with its heather-clad tors, and at the same time hunt up the parish registers of the neighbourhood for the purpose of discovering, if possible, the supposed marriage record of Colonel Kelmscott of Tilgate with the Warings’ mother? For that there WAS a marriage Montague Nevitt felt certain in his own wise mind, and having early arrived at that correct conclusion, why, he had quietly offered forthwith, in Plymouth papers, a considerable reward to parish clerks and others who would supply him with any information as to the births, marriages, or deaths of any person or persons of the name of Waring for some eighteen months or so before or after the reputed date when Guy and Cyril began their earthly pilgrimage.
For deaths, Nevitt said to himself, with a sinister5 smile, were every bit as important to him as births or marriages. He knew the date of Colonel Kelmscott’s wedding with Lady Emily Croke, and if at that date wife number one was not yet dead, when the Colonel took to himself wife number two, who now did the honours of Tilgate Park for him, why, there you had as clear and convincing a case of bigamy as any man could wish to find out against another, and to utilize6 some day for his own good purposes.
As he thought these thoughts, Montague Nevitt gave the last delicate twirl, the final touch of art, to the wire-like ends of his waxed moustache, in front of his mirror, and, after surveying the result in the glass with considerable satisfaction, proceeded to set out, on very good terms with himself, for his summer holiday.
Devonshire, however, wasn’t his first destination. Montague Nevitt, besides being a man of business and a man of taste, was also in due season a man of feeling. A heart beat beneath that white rosebud7 in his left top button-hole. All his thoughts were not thoughts of greed and of gain. He was bound to Tilgate to-day, and to see a lady.
It isn’t so easy in England to see a lady alone. But fortune favours the brave. Luck always attended Mr. Montague Nevitt’s most unimportant schemes. Hardly had he got into the field path across the meadows between Tilgate station and the grounds of Woodlands than, at the seat by the bend, what should he see but a lady sitting down in an airy white summer dress, her head leaning on her hand, most pensive8 and melancholy9. Montague Nevitt’s heart gave a sudden bound. In luck once more. It was Gwendoline Gildersleeve.
“Good morning!” he said briskly, coming up before Gwendoline had time to perceive him—and fly. “This is really most fortunate. I’ve run down from town today on purpose to see you, but hardly hoped I should have the good fortune to get a tete-a-tete with you—at least so easily. I’m so glad I’m in time. Now, don’t look so cross. You must at any rate admit, you know, my persistence10 is flattering.”
“I don’t feel flattered by it, Mr. Nevitt,” Gwendoline answered coldly, holding out her gloved hand to him with marked disinclination. “I thought last time I had said good-bye to you for good and for ever.”
Nevitt took her hand, and held it in his own a trifle longer than was strictly necessary. “Now don’t talk like that, Gwendoline,” he said coaxingly11. “Don’t crush me quite flat. Remember at least that you ONCE were kind to me. It isn’t my fault, surely, if I still recollect12 it.”
Gwendoline withdrew her hand from his with yet more evident coolness. “Circumstances alter cases,” she said severely13. “That was before I really knew you.”
“That was before you knew Granville Kelmscott, you mean,” Nevitt responded with an unpleasantly knowing air. “Oh yes, you needn’t wince14; I’ve heard all about that. It’s my business to hear and find out everything. But circumstances alter cases, as you justly say, Gwendoline. And I’ve discovered some circumstances about Granville Kelmscott that may alter the case as regards your opinion of that rich young man, whose estate weighed down a poor fellow like me in what you’ve graciously pleased to call your affections.”
Gwendoline rose, and looked down at the man contemptuously. “Mr. Nevitt,” she said, in a chilling voice, “you’ve no right to call me Gwendoline any longer now. You’ve no right to speak to me of Mr. Granville Kelmscott. I refused your advances, not for any one else’s sake, or any one else’s estate, but simply and solely15 because I came to know you better than I knew you at first; and the more I knew of you the less I liked you. I am NOT engaged to Mr. Granville Kelmscott. I don’t mean to see him again. I don’t mean to marry him.”
Nevitt took his cue at once, like a clever hand that he was, and followed it up remorselessly. “Well, I’m glad to hear that anyhow,” he answered, assuming a careless air of utter unconcern, “for your sake as well as for his, Miss Gildersleeve; for Granville Kelmscott, as I happen to know in the course of business, is a ruined man—a ruined man this moment. He isn’t, and never was, the heir of Tilgate. And I’m sure it was very honourable17 of him, the minute he found he was a penniless beggar, to release you from such an unequal engagement.”
He had played his card well. He had delivered his shot neatly18. Gwendoline, though anxious to withdraw from his hateful presence, couldn’t help but stay and learn more about this terrible hint of his. A light broke in upon her even as the fellow spoke19. Was it this, then, that had made Granville talk so strangely to her that morning by the dell in the Woodlands? Was it this which, as he told her, rendered their marriage impossible? Why, if THAT were all—Gwendoline drew a deep breath and clasped her hands together in a sudden access of mingled20 hope and despair. “Oh, what do you mean, Mr. Nevitt,” she cried eagerly. “What can Granville have done? Don’t keep me in suspense21! Do tell me what you mean by it.”
Montague Nevitt, still seated, looked up at her with a smile of quiet satisfaction. He played with her for a moment as a cat plays with a mouse. She was such a beautiful creature, so tall and fair and graceful22, and she was so awfully23 afraid, and he was so awfully fond of her, that he loved to torture her thus and hold her dangling24 in his power. “No, Gwendoline,” he said slowly, drawing his words out by driblets, so as to prolong her suspense, “I oughtn’t to have mentioned it at all. It’s a professional secret. I retract25 what I said. Forget that I said it. Excuse me on the ground of my natural reluctance26 to see a woman I still love so deeply and so purely—whatever she may happen to think of ME—throw herself away on a man without a name or a penny. However, as Kelmscott seems to have done the honourable thing of his own accord, and given you up the minute he knew he couldn’t keep you in the way you’ve been accustomed to—why, there’s no need, of course, of any warning from me. I’ll say no more on the subject.”
His studied air of mystery piqued27 and drew on his victim. Gwendoline knew in her own heart she ought to go at once; her own dignity demanded it, and she should consult her dignity. But still, she couldn’t help longing28 to know what Nevitt’s half-hints and innuendoes29 might mean. After all, she was a woman! “Oh, do tell me,” she cried, clasping her hands in suspense once more; “what have you heard about Mr. Kelmscott? I’m not engaged to him; I don’t want to know for that, but—” she broke down, blushing crimson30, and Montague Nevitt, gazing fixedly31 at her delicate peach-like cheek, remarked to himself how extremely well that blush became her.
“No, but remember,” he said in a very grave voice, in his favourite impersonation of the man of honour, “whatever I tell you—if I give way at all and tell you anything—you must hear in confidence, and must repeat to nobody. If you do repeat it, you’ll get me into very serious trouble. And not only so, but as nobody knows it except myself, you’ll as good as proclaim to all the world that you heard it from ME. If I tell you what I know, will you promise me this—not to breathe a syllable32 of what I say to anybody?”
Gwendoline, glancing down, and thoroughly33 ashamed of herself, yet answered in a very low and trembling voice, “I’ll promise, Mr. Nevitt.”
“Then the facts are these,” the man of feeling went on, with an undercurrent of malicious34 triumph in his musical voice. “Kelmscott is NOT his father’s eldest35 son; he’s NOT, and never was, the heir of Tilgate. More than that, nobody knows these facts but myself. And I know the true heirs, and I can prove their title. Well, now, Miss Gildersleeve—if it’s to be Miss Gildersleeve still—this is the circumstance that alters the case as regards Granville Kelmscott. I have it in my hands to ruin Kelmscott. And what I’ve taken the trouble to come down and say to you to-day is simply this for your own advantage; beware, at least, how you throw yourself away upon a penniless man, with neither name nor fortune! When you’ve quite got over that dream, you’ll be glad to return to the man you threw overboard for the rich squire’s son. No circumstances have ever altered him. He loved you from the first, and he will always love you.”
Gwendoline looked him back in the face again, as pale as death. “Mr. Nevitt,” she said scornfully, unmoved by his tale, “I do not love you, and I will never love you. You have no right to say such things to me as this. I’m glad you’ve told me, for I now know what Mr. Kelmscott meant. And if he was as poor as a church mouse, I’d marry him to-morrow—I said just now I didn’t mean to marry him. I retract that word. Circumstances alter cases, and what you’ve just told me alters this one. I withdraw what I said. I’ll marry Granville Kelmscott to-morrow if he asks me.”
She looked down at him so proudly, so defiantly36, so haughtily37, that Montague Nevitt, sitting there with his cynical38 smile on his thin red lips, flinched39 and wavered before her. He saw in a moment the game was up. He had played the wrong card; he had mistaken his woman and tried false tactics. It was too late now to retreat. An empty revenge was all that remained to him. “Very well,” he said sullenly40, looking her back in the face with a nasty scowl—for indeed he loved that girl and was loath41 to lose her—“remember your promise, and say nothing to anybody. You’ll find it best so for your own reputation in the end. But mark my words; be sure I won’t spare Granville Kelmscott now. I’ll play my own game. I’ll ruin him ruthlessly. He’s in my power, I tell you, and I’ll crush him under my heel. Well, that’s settled at last. I’m off to Devonshire to-morrow—on the hunt of the records—to the skirts of Dartmoor, to a place in the wilds by the name of Mambury.” He raised his hat, and, curling his lip maliciously42, walked away, without even so much as shaking hands with her. He knew it was all up. That game was lost. And, being a man of feeling, he regretted it bitterly.
Gwendoline, for her part, hurried home, all aglow43 with remorse16 and excitement. When she reached the house, she went straight up in haste to her own bedroom. In spite of her promise, all woman that she was, she couldn’t resist sitting down at once and inditing44 a hurried note to Granville Kelmscott.
“Dearest Granville,” it said, in a very shaky hand, not unblurred by tears, “I know all now, and I wonder you thought it could ever matter. I know you’re not the eldest son, and that somebody else is the heir of Tilgate. And I care for all that a great deal less than nothing. I love you ten thousand times too dearly to mind one pin whether you’re rich or poor. And, rich or poor, whenever you like, I’ll marry you.
“Yours ever devotedly45 and unalterably,
“GWENDOLINE.”
She sealed it up in haste and ran out with it, all tremors46, to the post by herself. Her hands were hot. She was in a high fever. But Mr. Montague Nevitt, that man of feeling, thus balked47 of his game, walked off his disappointment as well as he could by a long smart tramp across the springy downs, lunching at a wayside inn on bread and cheese and beer, and descending48 as the evening shades drew in on the Guildford station. Thence he ran up to town by the first fast train, and sauntered sulkily across Waterloo Bridge to his rooms on the Embankment. As he went a poster caught his eye on the bridge. It riveted49 his attention by one fatal phrase. “Financial News. Collapse50 of the Rio Negro Diamond and Sapphire51 Mines!”
He stared at the placard with a dim sense of disaster. What on earth could this mean? It fairly took his breath away. The mines were the best things out this season. He held three hundred shares on his own account. If this rumour52 were true, he had let himself in for a loss of a clear three thousand!
But being a person of restricted sympathies, he didn’t reflect till several minutes had passed that he must at the same time have let Guy Waring in for three thousand also.
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1
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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moor
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| n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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bracing
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| adj.令人振奋的 | |
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sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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6
utilize
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| vt.使用，利用 | |
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rosebud
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| n.蔷薇花蕾，妙龄少女 | |
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8
pensive
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| a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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persistence
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| n.坚持，持续，存留 | |
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coaxingly
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| adv. 以巧言诱哄，以甘言哄骗 | |
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recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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wince
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| n.畏缩，退避，（因痛苦，苦恼等)面部肌肉抽动；v.畏缩，退缩，退避 | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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24
dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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25
retract
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| vt.缩回，撤回收回，取消 | |
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reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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piqued
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| v.伤害…的自尊心( pique的过去式和过去分词 )；激起（好奇心） | |
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28
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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innuendoes
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| n.影射的话( innuendo的名词复数 )；讽刺的话；含沙射影；暗讽 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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fixedly
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| adv.固定地；不屈地，坚定不移地 | |
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32
syllable
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| n.音节；vt.分音节 | |
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33
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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34
malicious
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| adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的 | |
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35
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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36
defiantly
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| adv.挑战地，大胆对抗地 | |
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37
haughtily
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| adv. 傲慢地, 高傲地 | |
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38
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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39
flinched
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| v.（因危险和痛苦）退缩，畏惧( flinch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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40
sullenly
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| 不高兴地，绷着脸，忧郁地 | |
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41
loath
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| adj.不愿意的；勉强的 | |
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42
maliciously
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| adv.有敌意地 | |
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43
aglow
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| adj.发亮的；发红的；adv.发亮地 | |
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inditing
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| v.写（文章，信等）创作，赋诗，创作( indite的现在分词 ) | |
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45
devotedly
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| 专心地； 恩爱地； 忠实地； 一心一意地 | |
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46
tremors
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| 震颤( tremor的名词复数 )； 战栗； 震颤声； 大地的轻微震动 | |
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47
balked
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| v.畏缩不前，犹豫( balk的过去式和过去分词 )；（指马）不肯跑 | |
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48
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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49
riveted
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| 铆接( rivet的过去式和过去分词 )； 把…固定住； 吸引； 引起某人的注意 | |
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50
collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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51
sapphire
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| n.青玉，蓝宝石；adj.天蓝色的 | |
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52
rumour
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| n.谣言，谣传，传闻 | |
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