Beatrice

"So I come to tell you that I love your daughter Beatrice, and want to make her my wife. I have never loved anybody else, but I have loved her for years; and I ask your consent."

"Very flattering, very flattering, I am sure, especially in these hard times," said Mr. Granger apologetically, shaking his thin hair down over his forehead, and then rumpling it up again. "But you see, Mr. Davies, you don"t want to marry me" (here Beatrice smiled faintly)--"you want to marry my daughter, so you had better ask her direct--at least I suppose so."

Elizabeth made a movement as though to speak, then changed her mind and listened.

"Beatrice," said Owen Davies, "you hear. I ask you to marry me."

There was a pause. Beatrice, who had sat quite silent, was gathering up her strength to answer. Elizabeth, watching her from beneath her hand, thought that she read upon her face irresolution, softening into consent. What she really saw was but doubt as to the fittest and most certain manner of refusal. Like lightning it flashed into Elizabeth"s mind that she must strike now, or hold her hand for ever. If once Beatrice spoke that fatal "yes," her revelations might be of no avail.

And Beatrice would speak it; she was sure she would. It was a golden road out of her troubles.

"Stop!" said Elizabeth in a shrill, hard voice. "Stop! I must speak; it is my duty as a Christian. I must tell the truth. I cannot allow an honest man to be deceived."

There was an awful pause. Beatrice broke it. Now she saw all the truth, and knew what was at hand. She placed her hand upon her heart to still its beating.

"Oh, Elizabeth," she said, "in our dead mother"s name----" and she stopped.

"Yes," answered her sister, "in our dead mother"s name, which you have dishonoured, I will do it. Listen, Owen Davies, and father: Beatrice, who sits there"--and she pointed at her with her thin hand--"_Beatrice is a scarlet woman!_"

"I really don"t understand," gasped Mr. Granger, while Owen looked round wildly, and Beatrice sunk her head upon her breast.

"Then I will explain," said Elizabeth, still pointing at her sister.

"She is Geoffrey Bingham"s _mistress_. On the night of Whit-Sunday last she rose from bed and went into his room at one in the morning. I saw her with my own eyes. Afterwards she was brought back to her bed in his arms--I saw it with my own eyes, and I heard him kiss her." (This was a piece of embroidery on Elizabeth"s part.) "She is his lover, and has been in love with him for months. I tell you this, Owen Davies, because, though I cannot bear to bring disgrace upon our name and to defile my lips with such a tale, neither can I bear that you should marry a girl, believing her to be good, when she is what Beatrice is."

"Then I wish to G.o.d that you had held your wicked tongue," said Mr.

Granger fiercely.

"No, father. I have a duty to perform, and I will perform it at any cost, and however much it pains me. You know that what I say is true.

You heard the noise on the night of Whit-Sunday, and got up to see what it was. You saw the white figure in the pa.s.sage--it was Geoffrey Bingham with Beatrice in his arms. Ah! well may she hang her head. Let her deny if it she can. Let her deny that she loves him to her shame, and that she was alone in his room on that night."

Then Beatrice rose and spoke. She was pale as death and more beautiful in her shame and her despair than ever she had been before; her glorious eyes shone, and there were deep black lines beneath them.

"My heart is my own," she said, "and I will make no answer to you about it. Think what you will. For the rest, it is not true. I am not what Elizabeth tells you that I am. I am _not_ Geoffrey Bingham"s mistress.

It is true that I was in his room that night, and it is true that he carried me back to my own. But it was in my sleep that I went there, not of my own free will. I awoke there, and fainted when I woke, and then at once he bore me back."

Elizabeth laughed shrill and loud--it sounded like the cackle of a fiend.

"In her sleep," she said; "oh, she went there in her sleep!"

"Yes, Elizabeth, in my sleep. You do not believe me, but it is true. You do not wish to believe me. You wish to bring the sister whom you should love, who has never offended against you by act or word, to utter disgrace and ruin. In your cowardly spite you have written anonymous letters to Lady Honoria Bingham, to prevail upon her to strike the blow that should destroy her husband and myself, and when you fear that this has failed, you come forward and openly accuse us. You do this in the name of Christian duty; in the name of love and charity, you believe the worst, and seek to ruin us. Shame on you, Elizabeth! shame on you! and may the same measure that you have meted out to me never be paid back to you. We are no longer sisters. Whatever happens, I have done with you.

Go your ways."

Elizabeth shrank and quailed beneath her sister"s scorn. Even her venomous hatred could not bear up against the flash of those royal eyes, and the majesty of that outraged innocence. She gasped and bit her lip till the blood started, but she said nothing.

Then Beatrice turned to her father, and spoke in another and a pleading voice, stretching out her arms towards him.

"Oh, father," she said, "at least tell me that _you_ believe me. Though you may think that I might love to all extremes, surely, having known me so many years, you cannot think that I would lie even for my love"s sake."

The old man looked wildly round, and shook his head.

"In his room and in his arms," he said. "I saw it, it seems. You, too, who have never been known to walk in your sleep from a child; and you will not say that you do not love him--the scoundrel. It is wicked of Elizabeth--jealousy bitter as the grave. It is wicked of her to tell the tale; but as it is told, how can I say that I do not believe it?"

Then Beatrice, her cup being full, once more dropped her head, and turned to go.

"Stop," said Owen Davies in a hoa.r.s.e voice, and speaking for the first time. "Hear what _I_ have to say."

She lifted her eyes. "With you, Mr. Davies, I have nothing to do; I am not answerable to you. Go and help your accomplice," and she pointed to Elizabeth, "to cry this scandal over the whole world."

"Stop," he said again. "I will speak. I believe that it is true. I believe that you are Geoffrey Bingham"s mistress, curse him! but I do not care. I am still willing to marry you."

Elizabeth gasped. Was this to be the end of her scheming? Would the blind pa.s.sion of this madman prevail over her revelations, and Beatrice still become his rich and honoured wife, while she was left poor and disgraced? Oh, it was monstrous! Oh, she had never dreamed of this!

"n.o.ble, n.o.ble!" murmured Mr. Granger; "n.o.ble! G.o.d bless you!"

So the position was not altogether beyond recovery. His erring daughter might still be splendidly married; he might still look forward to peace and wealth in his old age.

Only Beatrice smiled faintly.

"I thank you," she said. "I am much honoured, but I could never have married you because I do not love you. You must understand me very little if you think that I should be the more ready to do so on account of the danger in which I stand," and she ceased.

"Listen, Beatrice," Owen went on, an evil light shining on his heavy face, while Elizabeth sat astounded, scarcely able to believe her ears.

"I want you, and I mean to marry you; you are more to me than all the world. I can give you everything, and you had better yield to me, and you shall hear no more of this. But if you won"t, then this is what I will do. I will be revenged upon you--terribly revenged."

Beatrice shook her head and smiled again, as though to bid him do his worst.

"And look, Beatrice," he went on, waxing almost eloquent in his jealous despair, "I have another argument to urge on you. I will not only be revenged on you, I will be revenged upon your lover--on this Geoffrey Bingham."

"_Oh!_" said Beatrice sharply, like one in pain. He had found the way to move her now, and with the cunning of semi-madness he drove the point home.

"Yes, you may start--I will. I tell you that I will never rest till I have ruined him, and I am rich and can do it. I have a hundred thousand pounds, that I will spend on doing it. I have nothing to fear, except an action for libel. Oh, I am not a fool, though you think I am, I know.

Well, I can pay for a dozen actions. There are papers in London that will be glad to publish all this--yes, the whole story--with plans and pictures too. Just think, Beatrice, what it will be when all England--yes, and all the world--is gloating over your shame, and half-a-dozen prints are using the thing for party purposes, clamouring for the disgrace of the man who ruined you, and whom you will ruin. He has a fine career; it shall be utterly destroyed. By G.o.d! I will hunt him to his grave, unless you promise to marry me, Beatrice. Do that, and not a word of this shall be said. Now answer."

Mr. Granger sank back in his chair; this savage play of human pa.s.sions was altogether beyond his experience--it overwhelmed him. As for Elizabeth, she bit her thin fingers, and glared from one to the other.

"He reckons without me," she thought. "He reckons without me--I will marry him yet."

But Beatrice leant for a moment against the wall and shut her eyes to think. Oh, she saw it all--the great posters with her name and Geoffrey"s on them, the shameless pictures of her in his arms, the sickening details, the letters of the outraged matrons, the "Mothers of ten," and the moral-minded colonels--all, all! She heard the prurient scream of every male Elizabeth in England; the allusions in the House--the jeers, the bitter attacks of enemies and rivals. Then Lady Honoria would begin her suit, and it would all be dragged up afresh, and Geoffrey"s fault would be on every lip, till he was _ruined_. For herself she did not care; but could she bring this on one whose only crime was that she had learned to love him? No, no; but neither could she marry this hateful man. And yet what escape was there? She flung herself upon her woman"s wit, and it did not fail her. In a few seconds she had thought it all out and made up her mind.

"How can I answer you at a moment"s notice, Mr. Davies?" she said. "I must have time to think it over. To threaten such revenge upon me is not manly, but I know that you love me, and therefore I excuse it. Still, I must have time. I am confused."

"What, another year? No, no," he said. "You must answer."

"I do not ask a year or a month. I only ask for one week. If you will not give me that, then I will defy you, and you may do your worst. I cannot answer now."

This was a bold stroke, but it told. Mr. Davies hesitated.

"Give the girl a week," said her father to him. "She is not herself."

"Very well; one week, no more," said he.

"I have another stipulation to make," said Beatrice, "You are all to swear to me that for that week no word of this will pa.s.s your mouths; that for that week I shall not be annoyed or interfered with, or spoken to on the subject, not by one of you. If at the end of it I still refuse to accept your terms, you can do your worst, but till then you must hold your hand."