“Did you say?” he asked of the doctor, as they strode together across the striped dark sands by the darkening sea, “Did you say that young man was betrothed to Miss Darnaway by a family compact or something? Sounds rather like a novel.”
“But an historical novel,” answered Dr. Barnet. “The Darnaways all went to sleep a few centuries ago, when things were really done that we only read of in romances. Yes, I believe there’s some family tradition by which second or third cousins always marry when they stand in a certain relation of age, in order to unite the property. A damned silly tradition, I should say; and if they often married in and in, in that fashion, it may account on principles of heredity for their having gone so rotten.”
“I should hardly say,” answered Payne a little stiffly, “that they had all gone rotten.”
“Well,” replied the doctor, “the young man doesn’t look rotten, of course, though he’s certainly lame.”
“The young man!” cried Payne, who was suddenly and unreasonably angry. “Well, if you think the young lady looks rotten, I think it’s you who have rotten taste.”
The doctor’s face grew dark and bitter. “I fancy I know more about it than you do,” he snapped.
They completed the walk in silence, each feeling that he had been irrationally rude and had suffered equally irrational rudeness; and Payne was left to brood alone on the matter, for his friend Wood had remained behind to attend to some of his business in connection with the pictures.
Payne took very full advantage of the invitation extended by the colonial cousin, who wanted somebody to cheer him up. During the next few weeks he saw a good deal of the dark interior of the Darnaway home; though it might be said that he did not confine himself entirely to cheering up the colonial cousin. The lady’s melancholy was of longer standing and perhaps needed more lifting; anyhow, he showed a laborious readiness to lift it. He was not without a conscience, however, and the situation made him doubtful and uncomfortable. Weeks went by and nobody could discover from the demeanour of the new Darnaway whether he considered himself engaged according to the old compact or no. He went mooning about the dark galleries and stood staring vacantly at the dark and sinister picture. The shades of that prison-house were certainly beginning to close on him, and there was little of his Australian assurance left. But Payne could discover nothing upon the point that concerned him most. Once he attempted to confide in his friend Martin Wood, as he was pottering about in his capacity of picture-hanger; but even out of him he got very little satisfaction.
“It seems to me you can’t butt in,” said Wood shortly, “because of the engagement.”
“Of course I shan’t butt in if there is an engagement,” retorted his friend; “but is there? I haven’t said a word to her of course; but I’ve seen enough of her to be pretty certain she doesn’t think there is, even if she thinks there may be. He doesn’t say there is, or even hint that there ought to be. It seems to me this shilly-shallying is rather unfair on everybody.”
“Especially on you, I suppose,” said Wood a little harshly. “But if you ask me, I’ll tell you what I think—I think he’s afraid.”
“Afraid of being refused?” asked Payne.
“No; afraid of being accepted,” answered the other. “Don’t bite my head off—I don’t mean afraid of the lady. I mean afraid of the picture.”
“Afraid of the picture!” repeated Payne.
“I mean afraid of the curse,” said Wood. “Don’t you remember the rhyme about the Darnaway doom falling on him and her.”
“Yes, but look here,” cried Payne; “even the Darnaway doom can’t have it both ways. You tell me first that I mustn’t have my own way because of the compact, and then that the compact mustn’t have its own way because of the curse. But if the curse can destroy the compact, why should she be tied to the compact? If they’re frightened of marrying each other, they’re free to marry anybody else, and there’s an end of it. Why should I suffer for the observance of something they don’t propose to observe? It seems to me your position is very unreasonable.”
“Of course it’s all a tangle,” said Wood rather crossly, and went on hammering at the frame of a canvas.
Suddenly, one morning, the new heir broke his long and baffling silence. He did it in a curious fashion, a little crude, as was his way, but with an obvious anxiety to do the right thing. He asked frankly for advice, not of this or that individual as Payne had done, but collectively as of a crowd. When he did speak, he threw himself on the whole company, like a statesman going to the country. He called it “a showdown.” Fortunately the lady was not included in this large gesture; and Payne shuddered when he thought of her feelings. But the Australian was quite honest; he thought the natural thing was to ask for help and for information, calling a sort of family council at which he put his cards on the table. It might be said that he flung down his cards on the table, for he did it with a rather desperate air, like one who had been harassed for days and nights by the increasing pressure of a problem. In that short time the shadows of that place of low windows and sinking pavements had curiously changed him and increased a certain resemblance that crept through all their memories.
The five men, including the doctor, were sitting round a
