“No!” Gerard said, his voice jumping nervously. “No, but—but I knew it was you who sent me to Eton, and now Ch-Charlie as well, and—”
“Did I tell you so?”
“No,” Gerard muttered, quite unable to meet those brilliant, angry eyes. “My mother—”
“Then how dare you speak to me like that, you insufferable cub?” Rotherham said sternly.
Scarlet-faced, Gerard faltered: “I—I beg your pardon! I didn’t mean—Of course, I am excessively grateful to you, C-Cousin Rotherham!”
“If I had wanted your damned gratitude I should have told you that I had taken upon myself the charge of your education! I don’t want it!”
Gerard cast a fleeting look up at him. “I’m glad you don’t! To know that I’m beholden to you—now!”
“Make yourself easy! You owe me nothing—any of you! I have done nothing for you!” Gerard looked up again, startled. “That surprises you, does it? Do you imagine that I cared the snap of my fingers how or where you were educated? You were wonderfully wrong! All I cared for was that your father’s sons should be educated as he was, and as he would have wished them to be! Anything I’ve chosen to do has been for him, not for you!”
Crestfallen, and considerably shaken, Gerard stammered: “I—I didn’t know! I beg your pardon! I didn’t mean to say—to say what I did say, precisely!”
“Very well,” Rotherham said curtly.
“I didn’t really think you would—”
“Oh, that will do, that will do!”
“Yes, but—I lost my temper! I shouldn’t have—”
Rotherham gave a short laugh. “Well, I must be the last man alive not to pardon you for that! Have you come to the end of your catalogue of my past crimes? What is my present offence?”
Mr Monksleigh, having been obliged to offer his guardian an apology, now found it extremely difficult to hurl his culminating accusation at him with anything approaching the passion requisite to convince him of the magnitude of the charge, and of his own desperate sincerity. He had been forced into a position of disadvantage, and the knowledge of this filled him with annoyance rather than with noble rage. He said sulkily: “You have ruined my life!”
It had sounded better, when he had uttered it in the Green Saloon. If Rotherham had been privileged to have heard it then, it would have shocked him out of his scornful indifference, and might even have penetrated his marble heart, and touched him with remorse. It certainly would not have amused him, which was the only effect it appeared now to have upon him. Venturing to steal a glance at him, Gerard saw that he was faintly smiling. The relaxing of his face from its appalling grimness, the quenching of the menacing glitter in his eyes, enabled Gerard to breathe much more easily, but did nothing to endear his guardian to him. Flushing angrily, he said: “You think that ridiculous, I daresay!”
“Damned ridiculous!”
“Yes! Because you have no more sensibility yourself than—than a stone, you think others have none!”
“On the contrary! I am continually being sickened by the excessive sensibility displayed by so many persons of my acquaintance. But that is beside the point! Don’t keep me in suspense! How have I so unexpectedly achieved what you are persuaded has been my object for years?”
“I never said that! I daresay you may not have intended to destroy all my hopes! I can readily believe you never so much as thought of what must be my sensations when I heard—when I discovered—”
“Do try to cultivate a more orderly mind!” interposed Rotherham. The very fact that I take a malicious pleasure in thwarting you shows intention. I ought to have sent you to Oxford, after all. Clearly, they don’t make you study Logic at Cambridge.”
“Oh, damn you, be quiet!” exclaimed Gerard. “You think me a child, to be roasted and sneered at, but I am not!” His under-lip quivered; angry tears sprang to his eyes. He brushed them away, saying in a breaking voice: “You did not even tell me—! You left me to discover it, weeks afterwards, when you must have known—you must have known the shock—the c-crushing blow it would be to me—!” His pent-up emotions choked him. He gave a gasp, and buried his face in his hands.
Rotherham’s brows snapped together. He stared at Gerard for a moment, and then rose, and walked across the room to where a side-table stood, bearing upon it several decanters and glasses. He filled two of the glasses, and returned with them, setting one down upon his desk. He dropped a hand on Gerard’s shoulder, gripping it not unkindly. “Enough! Come, now! I’ve told you I don’t like an excess of sensibility! No, I am not roasting you: I see that things are more serious than I had supposed. Here’s some wine for you! Drink it, and then tell me without any more nonsense what it is that I have done to upset you so much!”
The words were scarcely sympathetic, but the voice, although unemotional, was no longer derisive. Gerard said thickly: “I don’t want it! I—”
“Do as I bid you!”
The voice had sharpened. Gerard responded to it involuntarily, starting a little. He took the glass in his unsteady hand, and gulped down some of its contents. Rotherham retired again to his chair behind the large desk, and picked up his own glass. “Now, in as few words as possible, what is it?”
“You know what it is,” Gerard said bitterly. “You used your rank—and your wealth—to steal from me the only girl I could ever care for!” He perceived that Rotherham was staring at him with sudden intentness, and added: “Miss Laleham!”
“Good God!”
The ejaculation held blank astonishment, but Gerard said: “You knew very well—must have known!—that I—that she—”
“No doubt!—had I half the interest in your affairs with which you credit me! Asit is, I did not know.” He paused, and sipped his wine, looking at Gerard over the rim of the glass, his brows frowning again, the eyes beneath them narrowed, very hard and bright. “It would have made no difference, except that I should have informed you of the event. I am sorry, if the news came as a blow to you, but at your age you will very speedily recover from it.”
This speech, uttered, as it was, in a cold voice, was anything but soothing to a young gentleman suffering the pangs of his first love-affair. It was evident that Rotherham thought his passion a thing of very little account; and his suggestion that it would soon be forgotten, instead of consoling Gerard, made his bosom swell with indignation.
“So that is all you have to say! I might have known how it would be! Recover from it!”
“Yes, recover from it,” said Rotherham. His lips curled. “I should be more impressed by these tragedy-airs if it had not taken you so long to make up your mind to enact me an affecting scene! I know not how many weeks it is since the engagement was announced, but—”
“I came into Gloucestershire the instant I knew of it!” Gerard said, half starting from his chair. “I never saw the announcement! When I’m up at Cambridge, very often I don’t look at a newspaper for days on end! No one told me until only the other day, when Mrs Maldon asked me—asked me!—if I was acquainted with the future Lady Rotherham! I was astonished, as may be supposed, to learn that you were engaged, but that was as nothing to the—the horror and stupefaction which held me s-speechless, when Em—Miss Laleham’s name was disclosed!”
“I wish to God you were still suffering from horror and stupefaction, if that is the effect such feelings have upon you!” broke in Rotherham. “Be damned to these periods of yours! If you would play-act less, I might believe more! As it is—!” He shrugged. “You came down at the beginning of June, it is now August, your mother is well aware of my engagement, and you say you heard no mention of it until a few days ago? Coming it too strong, Gerard! The truth is that you’ve talked yourself into this fine frenzy—putting on airs to be interesting!”