CHAPTER XIII
LORD MALVIN
If Sir William Gouldesbrough represented all that was most brilliant, modern, and daring in the scientific world of Europe, Lord Malvin stood as its official figure-head. He was the "grand old man" of science, and was regarded by every one as a final court of appeal in all such matters.
He was of a great age, almost eighty, in fact, yet his health was perfect, his intellect unimpaired, and his interest in human events as keen and vigorous as that of a man but half his age and in the full prime and meridian of life.
In science, he represented what the President of the Royal Academy represents in art, or the Lord Chief Justice in the law, and although he had almost ceased independent investigations, he was always appealed to and consulted when anything new and revolutionary in science was discovered or promulgated by any of the younger men.
The younger men themselves, while allowing their chief's vast knowledge and experience, his real and undeniable eminence, were apt to call him conservative, and to hint that he was of an alien generation. They would say that his judgment was sometimes obscured by his veneration and love for the past, and because he found himself unable to leap so rapidly to conclusions as they did, they put him down as an old fogey who had done valuable and remarkable work in his time, but who ought to be content with his peerage and immense fortune and retire to the planting of cabbages or the growing of roses in the country.
In the public eye, nevertheless, Lord Malvin remained as familiar and necessary a part of the English landscape as St. Paul's; and, whenever a great man died and the newspapers enumerated the few remaining veterans of the Commonwealth, Lord Malvin was usually the first to be mentioned.
For many years there had been an antagonism between Lord Malvin and Sir William Gouldesbrough. It was not personal so much as scientific, an abstract and intellectual antagonism. When Sir William's star first began to rise above the horizon--he was only Mr. Gouldesbrough then--Lord Malvin had recognized his talent as an inventor, but deprecated many of his theories. These ideas, these possibilities for the future which Gouldesbrough was fond of giving to the world in lectures and reviews, seemed horribly dangerous, subversive, and fantastic to the older man.
He said so in no uncertain voice, and for some years, though he was always kind and civil to Gouldesbrough, he certainly did much to discount the rising star's power of illumination.
But as time went on, each daring theory put forth by Gouldesbrough passed into the realm of actual fact. Lord Malvin saw that Sir William had been almost invariably right. He saw that the new man not only told the world that some day this or that marvel would come to pass, but immediately afterwards set to work and himself made it come to pass!
Lord Malvin was a noble man as well as a nobleman--sometimes a rare combination to-day--and he confessed himself in the wrong. Directly he saw that he had been mistaken, and that Sir William was no charlatan, but one of the most daring and brilliant scientists the world had ever known, the peer gave the newer man all the weight of his support.
Nevertheless, while forced by circumstance and Gouldesbrough's justification of his own ideas into a scientific brotherhood, Lord Malvin, who constantly met the other, found a new problem confronting him.
While he had not believed in Gouldesbrough's theories, Lord Malvin had rather liked him personally.
Now that he was compelled to believe in Gouldesbrough's theories, Lord Malvin found that he experienced a growing dislike for the man himself.
And as he was a fair and honourable man, Lord Malvin did everything he possibly could to rid himself of this prejudice, with the result that while his efforts to do so were quite unavailing, he redoubled his kindness and attentions to the man he disliked.
All the scientific world knew that Sir William was perfecting some marvellous discovery. In Berlin, Paris, Petersburg, Vienna, and Buda Pesth, learned savants were writing to their _confreres_ in London to know what this might be. The excitement was intense, the rumours were endless, and it is not too much to say that the whole scientific intellect of the globe was roused and waiting.
Now when a number of leading brains are agitated upon one subject, something of that agitation begins to stir and move in the outside world.
Already some hints had got about, and the press of Europe and America was scenting some extraordinary news.
The whole business had at length culminated in the giving of a great reception by Lord Malvin.
Everybody who mattered was asked, not only in the scientific but also in the general world.
And everybody knew, that not only was the reception given in Sir William Gouldesbrough's honour, but that he would say something more or less definite about what he had in hand.
In short, a pronouncement was to be made, and the ears of every one were tingling to hear it.
Among the idle and frivolous section of society the promised revelation had become the topic of the hour. Everything else was quite forgotten.
Gerald Rathbone's disappearance was already a thing of the past. Eustace Charliewood's suicide had not lasted for the proverbial nine days as a subject of talk. But here was something _quite_ new! Something all the more attractive because of its mystery.
Some people said that Sir William had invented a way in which any one might become invisible for a few pence.
This suggested delightful possibilities to every one, save only the newly rich, whose whole endeavour was to be seen.
On the other hand there was a considerable section of people who asserted that Sir William had succeeded in supplying the lesion in the brain of the ape, and that now that intelligent animal would be able to talk, own property, and become recognized as a British citizen. Every one began to read the _Jungle Book_ again, and a serious proposal was made in an Imperialistic Journal that England might thus colonize and secure the unexplored forests of Central Africa, by means of drilling and civilizing the monkeys of the interior.
A Gorilla-General was to be appointed, who should know the English language, but no other, and it was thought that by this means the British dominions and population would be enormously increased. The "Smart Set" especially welcomed this recruitment of their numbers.
In city circles both these conjectures were scouted.
The well-informed insisted that Sir William had discovered a method of solidifying alcohol, so that in future one would buy one's whiskey in chunks, and one's champagne in sticks like barley sugar.
Lord Malvin lived in Portland Place, in one of those great stone houses which, however sombre without, are generally most pleasant and attractive within. He was unmarried, and his niece Dorothea Backhouse acted as hostess and generally controlled his domestic affairs.
The stately rooms were crowded with well-known people of all sorts and conditions. Yet this assembly differed from others in a marked manner.
All the society people who lived solely for amusement had been invited, and were there. But mingled with the butterflies, one saw the ants and bees. By the carefully groomed, and not ill-looking face of a young and fashionable man about town, could be seen the domed forehead, and the face gashed and scored with thought, of some great savant or deep thinker.
It was indeed an unusual assemblage that passed through the large and brilliant rooms, laughing and talking. In the blue drawing-room, Kubelik had just arrived and was beginning to play. Every one crushed in to hear the young maestro. Melba was to sing a song, perhaps two, later on in the evening, and the ball-room was filled with supper-tables.
In so much Lord Malvin's party did not differ in any way from that of any other famous and wealthy London host. There was the same light and sparkle of jewels. The warm air was laden with perfume, the same beautiful and tired faces moved gracefully among all this luxury. But the men and women who worked and thought for the world were in this Portland Place palace also. They talked together in eager and animated groups, they paid little or no attention to this or that delight which had been provided for them. All these things were phantoms and unreal to these people. The real things were taking place within the brain as they conversed together. The army of intellect was massing within the citadel of thought, to wrest new territory from the old queen nature, mistress of the kingdom of the unknown.
Lord Malvin and his niece had received their guests at the head of the grand staircase. Now, when almost every one had arrived, the great scientist had withdrawn to an inner room at the end of a long series of apartments, and stood there talking with a small knot of friends.
This inner drawing-room was the culminating part of the suite, the throne room as it were; and the people standing there could look down a long and crowded vista of light and movement, while the yearning and sobbing of Kubelik's violin came to their ears in gusts and throbs of delicious sound.
Lord Malvin, a tall, upright old man with a long white beard, a high white brow beneath his velvet skull-cap, and wearing a row of orders, was talking to Sir Harold Oliver. Sir Harold was the principal of a great Northern University, a slim, hard-faced man of middle age, and the pioneer in the movement which was allowing a place to both philosophy and psychology in modern science.
A third person stood there also, a youngish man of middle height, Mr.
Donald Megbie, the well-known journalist and writer on social and religious matters. Donald Megbie held rather a curious position in the literary world. He was the friend of many great people, and more often than not his pen was the vehicle chosen by them to first introduce their ideas and discoveries to the general public. When it was time to let the man in the street know of some stupendous discovery, Megbie was called in, and his articles, always brilliant and interesting, explained the matter in popular terms for the non-technical mind.
"So Gouldesbrough has not yet come?" Sir Harold Oliver said.
"Not yet," Lord Malvin answered. "I have had a telegram from him, however, to say that he is compelled to be rather later than he had expected. I have told the butler to wait in the hall for him, and to bring him straight through here directly he arrives."
"A remarkable man," said Mr. Megbie, in that low and pleasant voice which had become so familiar in high places--even in the private rooms of cabinet ministers it was said--during the last few years.
"A man none of us can afford to ignore," Sir Harold answered with a slight sigh of impatience.
Megbie smiled.
"My dear Donald," Sir Harold went on, "please don't smile in that superior sort of manner. I know what you are thinking. You're thinking 'how these scientists love one another.' You are accusing me of envy, jealousy and uncharitableness. I'm not jealous of Gouldesbrough, great as his attainments are, and I'm sure I don't envy him."
"Any one might be forgiven a little envy on such an occasion as this,"
Megbie answered. "I confess that if I thought every one of importance in London were met together in Lord Malvin's house to welcome _me_, to hear what _I_ was going to do next, I should be rather more than pleased."
Lord Malvin smiled kindly, but the noble old face grew sad for a moment.
"Ah!" he said, "you are young, Mr. Megbie. I thought as you think when I was your age. But one finds out the utter worthlessness of fame and applause and so on, as one grows older. The work itself is the thing!
Yes! There, and therein only, lies the reward. All else is vain and hollow. I am a very old man, and I am near my end. I suppose I may say that such honours as can be given have fallen to my share. Yet I can honestly say that I would give them all up, I would efface myself utterly if I thought that I was on the brink of the discovery which I believe William Gouldesbrough has made and will tell us something of to-night!"