Trent’s Last Case

he would say nothing. I don’t know how it began or what was behind it; and all she would tell me on that point was that he had no cause in the world for his attitude. I think she knew what was in his mind, whatever it was; but she is full of pride. This seems to have gone on for months. At last, a week ago, she wrote to me. I am the only near relative she has. Her mother died when she was a child; and after John Peter died I was something like a father to her until she married⁠—that was five years ago. She asked me to come and help her, and I came at once. That is why I am here now.”

Mr. Cupples paused and drank some tea. Trent smoked and stared out at the hot June landscape.

“I would not go to White Gables,” Mr. Cupples resumed. “You know my views, I think, upon the economic constitution of society, and the proper relationship of the capitalist to the employee, and you know, no doubt, what use that person made of his vast industrial power upon several very notorious occasions. I refer especially to the trouble in the Pennsylvania coalfields, three years ago. I regarded him, apart from an all personal dislike, in the light of a criminal and a disgrace to society. I came to this hotel, and I saw my niece here. She told me what I have more briefly told you. She said that the worry and the humiliation of it, and the strain of trying to keep up appearances before the world, were telling upon her, and she asked for my advice. I said I thought she should face him and demand an explanation of his way of treating her. But she would not do that. She had always taken the line of affecting not to notice the change in his demeanour, and nothing, I knew, would persuade her to admit to him that she was injured, once pride had led her into that course. Life is quite full, my dear Trent,” said Mr. Cupples with a sigh, “of these obstinate silences and cultivated misunderstandings.”

“Did she love him?” Trent enquired abruptly. Mr. Cupples did not reply at once. “Had she any love left for him?” Trent amended.

Mr. Cupples played with his teaspoon. “I am bound to say,” he answered slowly, “that I think not. But you must not misunderstand the woman, Trent. No power on earth would have persuaded her to admit that to anyone⁠—even to herself, perhaps⁠—so long as she considered herself bound to him. And I gather that, apart from this mysterious sulking of late, he had always been considerate and generous.”

“You were saying that she refused to have it out with him.”

“She did,” replied Mr. Cupples. “And I knew by experience that it was quite useless to attempt to move a Domecq where the sense of dignity was involved. So I thought it over carefully, and next day I watched my opportunity and met Manderson as he passed by this hotel. I asked him to favour me with a few minutes’ conversation, and he stepped inside the gate down there. We had held no communication of any kind since my niece’s marriage, but he remembered me, of course. I put the matter to him at once and quite definitely. I told him what Mabel had confided to me. I said that I would neither approve nor condemn her action in bringing me into the business, but that she was suffering, and I considered it my right to ask how he could justify himself in placing her in such a position.”

“And how did he take that?” said Trent, smiling secretly at the landscape. The picture of this mildest of men calling the formidable Manderson to account pleased him.

“Not very well,” Mr. Cupples replied sadly. “In fact, far from well. I can tell you almost exactly what he said⁠—it wasn’t much. He said, ‘See here, Cupples, you don’t want to butt in. My wife can look after herself. I’ve found that out, along with other things.’ He was perfectly quiet⁠—you know he was said never to lose control of himself⁠—though there was a light in his eyes that would have frightened a man who was in the wrong, I dare say. But I had been thoroughly roused by his last remark, and the tone of it, which I cannot reproduce. You see,” said Mr. Cupples simply, “I love my niece. She is the only child that there has been in our⁠—in my house. Moreover, my wife brought her up as a girl, and any reflection on Mabel I could not help feeling, in the heat of the moment, as an indirect reflection upon one who is gone.”

“You turned upon him,” suggested Trent in a low tone. “You asked him to explain his words.”

“That is precisely what I did,” said Mr. Cupples. “For a moment he only stared at me, and I could see a vein on his forehead swelling⁠—an unpleasant sight. Then he said quite quietly, ‘This thing has gone far enough, I guess,’ and turned to go.”

“Did he mean your interview?” Trent asked thoughtfully.

“From the words alone you would think so,” Mr. Cupples answered. “But the way in which he uttered them gave me a strange and very apprehensive feeling. I received the impression that the man had formed some sinister resolve. But I regret to say I had lost the power of dispassionate thought. I fell into a great rage”⁠—Mr. Cupples’s tone was mildly apologetic⁠—“and said a number of foolish things. I reminded him that the law allowed a measure of freedom to wives who received intolerable treatment. I made some utterly irrelevant references to his public record, and expressed the view that such men as he were unfit to live. I said these things, and others as ill-considered, under the eyes, and very possibly within earshot, of half a dozen persons sitting on this veranda. I noticed them,