The Royal End. Harland Henry
in pounds sterling from your client's purse.”
But Bertram's incredulity was great. “Harry Pontycroft is himself rich,” he said.
“Yes,” Mrs. Wilberton at once assented, “he's rich now. But he wasn't always rich. There were those lean years when he was merely his cousin's heir—and that's a whole chapter of the story. Besides, is his sister rich? Is Freddie Dor rich?”
“Ah, about that of course I know nothing,” Bertram had with humility to admit.
“Freddie Dor is an Irish baronet, whose sole fortune consists of an Irish bog. Then where does Lucilla Dor get her money? She spends—there's no limit to the extravagance with which she spends, to the luxury in which she lives. She has a great house in town, a great house in the country—Lord Bylton's place, Knelworth Castle—she's taken it on a lease. She has a villa near Florence. She entertains like a duchess. She has a box at the opera. She has motor-cars and electric broughams—you know what they cost. And sables and diamonds, she has as many as an Indian begum. Where does she get her money?”
Mrs. Wilberton eyed him with a kind of triumphant fierceness. Bertram had an uncomfortable laugh.
“It's conceivable,” he suggested, “that her husband's bog produces peat. But I should imagine, in the absence of other evidence, that her brother subsidises her.”
Mrs. Wilberton stared at him for a second doubtfully. “Of course you're not serious,” she said. “Brothers? Brothers don't do things on quite such a lavish scale.”
“Oh, but Ponty's different,” Bertram argued. “Ponty's eccentric. I could imagine Ponty doing things on a scale all his own. Anyhow, I don't see what there is to connect Lady Dor's affluence with Miss Adgate.”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Wilberton, with an air of being about to clench the matter, “the connection is unfortunately glaring. Lady Dor's affluence dates precisely from the moment of Miss Adgate's entrance upon the scene.” And with an air of having clenched the matter, she threw back her head.
Bertram bent his brow, as one in troubled thought. Then, presently, reviewing his impressions, “I never saw a nicer-looking girl,” he said. “I never saw a face that expressed finer or higher qualities. She doesn't look in the least like a girl with low ambitions—like one who would try to buy her way into society, or pay people to find her a titled husband. And where, in all this, does Harry Pontycroft himself come in? I think you said that she had bought them both, brother and sister.”
“Ah,” cried Mrs. Wilberton, triumphing again, “you touch the very point. Harry Pontycroft was head over ears in debt to Miss Adgate's father.”
“Oh——?” said Bertram, his eyebrows going up.
“It's wheels within wheels,” said the lady. “Miss Adgate's father was a mysterious American who, for reasons of his own, had left his country, and never went back. He never went to his embassy, either: you can make what you will of that. And even in Europe he had no settled abode; he lived in hotels; he was always flitting—London—Paris, Rome, Vienna. And wherever he went, though he knew no one else, he knew troops of young men—young men, mark, and young men with expectations. He wasn't received at his embassy; he wasn't received in a single decent house; he was an utter outcast and pariah; but he always managed to surround himself with troops of young men who had expectations. He was nothing more or less, in short, than a money-lender. Yes, your 'nice-looking' girl with the face full of high qualities, whom you think incapable of low ambitions, is just the daughter of a common money-lender—nothing better than that. And Henry Pontycroft was one of his victims. This, of course, was while Pontycroft was poor—while his rich cousin was alive and flourishing. And then, when the old usurer had him completely in his toils, he proposed a compact. If Pontycroft would exert his social influence on behalf of his daughter, and get her accepted in the right circles, Adgate would forgive him his debt, and pay him handsomely into the bargain. The next one knew, Miss Adgate was living with Lucilla Dor, like a member of the family, and Lucilla was beginning to spend money. Not long afterwards old Adgate died, and his daughter came into his millions. And so the ball goes on. They haven't ensnared a Duke for her yet, but that will only be a question of time.”
Mrs. Wilberton tilted her head a little to one side, and smiled at poor Bertram with the smile, satisfied yet benevolent, of one who had successfully brought off a promised feat—a smile of friendly challenge to criticise or reply.
But Bertram had his reply ready.
“A compact,” he said. “How can any human being have any knowledge of such a compact, except the parties to it? Besides, I know Harry Pontycroft—I've known him for years, intimately. He would be utterly incapable of such a thing. Sell his 'social influence' for money? Worse still, sell his sister's? Old Adgate may have been a moneylender, and Harry Pontycroft may have owed him money. But to get out of it by a proceeding so ignoble as that—his character is the negation of the very idea. And then, a titled husband! Surely, a girl of Miss Adgate's beauty and wealth would need little assistance in finding one, if she really cared about it. And anyhow, to act as her matrimonial agent—that again is a thing of which Harry Pontycroft would be incapable. But, for my part, I can't believe that Miss Adgate has any such desire. She looks to me like a young woman of mind and heart, with ideas and ideals, who would either marry for love pure and simple, or not at all.”
His visitor's lips compressed themselves—but failed to hide her amusement. “Oh, looks!” she said. “Ideas, ideals? What do we know of the ideas and ideals of those queer people? Shylock's daughter. You may be sure that whatever their ideals may be, they're very different from any we're familiar with. A young woman who never had a home, whose childhood was passed in hotels.” Mrs. Wilberton shuddered.
“Yes,” agreed Bertram, “that's sad to think of. But Shylock's daughter—even Shylock's daughter married for love.”
“If you come to that,” Mrs. Wilberton answered him, “it's as easy to love a peer as a peasant.”
“By the bye,” questioned Bertram, thinking of Lewis Vincent, “if the Pontycrofts are really as mercenary as all this would show them to be, why doesn't Ponty marry her himself? He's not a peer, to be sure, but in England the headships of some of your ancient untitled families almost outrank peerages, do they not?”
Mrs. Wilberton's face resumed its look of mystery. “Henry Pontycroft would be only too glad to marry her—if he could,” she said. “But alack-a-day for him, he can't, and for the best of reasons. He is already married.”
Bertram stared, frowning.
“Pontycroft married?” he doubted, his voice falling. “But since when? It must be very recent—and it's astonishing I shouldn't have heard.”
“Oh no, anything but recent,” Mrs. Wilberton returned, a kind of high impersonal pathos in her tone; “and very few people know about it. But it's perfectly true—I have it on the best authority. When he was quite a young man, when he was still an undergraduate, he made a secret marriage—with some low person—a barmaid or music-hall singer or something. He hasn't lived with her for years—it seems she drank, and was flagrantly immoral, and had, in short, all the vices of her class—and most people have supposed him to be a bachelor. But there his wife remains, you see, a hopeless impediment to his marrying the Adgate millions.”
“This is astounding news to me,” said Bertram, with the subdued manner of one who couldn't deny that his adversary had scored. But then, cheering up a little, “Why doesn't he poison her?” he asked. “Or, better still, divorce her? In a country like England, where divorce is easy, why doesn't he divorce her, and so be free to marry whom he will?”
Mrs. Wilberton gave him a glance of wonder.
“Oh, I thought you knew,” she murmured. “The Pontycrofts are Roman Catholics—one of the handful of families in England who have never recanted their Popish errors. But I beg your pardon—you are a Roman Catholic yourself? Of course. Well, surely, your Church doesn't permit divorce.”