Lucia and Kitty had listened attentively to the masterly a.n.a.lysis of Mr. Rickman"s motives; and at the end Kitty admitted that appearances were certainly against him; while Lucia protested that he was a poet and therefore const.i.tutionally incapable of the peculiar sort of cleverness imputed to him. The man of law submitted that because he was a poet it did not follow that he was not an uncommonly knowing young man too. Whereupon Kitty pointed out one or two flaws in the legal argument. In the first place, urged Kitty, the one thing that this knowing young man did not know was the amount of security the library represented.
Mr. Schofield smiled in genial forbearance with a lady"s ignorance. He _must_ have known, for such information is always published for the benefit of all whom it may concern.
But Kitty went on triumphantly. There was nothing to prove it, nothing to show that this knowing young man knew all the facts when he first undertook to work for Miss Harden. So far from concealing the facts later on, he had, to her certain knowledge, written at once to Mr.
Jewdwine advising him to buy in the library, literally over old Rickman"s head. That old Rickman"s action had not followed on young Rickman"s visit to town was sufficiently proved by the dates. The letter to Mr. Pilkington enclosing the cheque for twelve hundred had been written and posted at least twelve hours before his arrival. What the evidence did prove was that he had moved heaven and earth to make his father withdraw from his bargain.
Mr. Schofield coldly replied that the better half of Miss Palliser"s arguments rested on the statements of the young man himself, to which he was hardly inclined to attach so much importance as she did. If his main a.s.sertion was correct, that he had written to inform Mr. Jewdwine of the facts, it was a little odd, to say the least of it, that Mr.
Jewdwine made no mention of having received that letter. And that he had _not_ received it might be fairly inferred from the discrepancy between young Rickman"s exaggerated account of the value and Mr.
Jewdwine"s more moderate estimate.
Lucia and Kitty first looked at each other, and then away to opposite corners of the room. And at that moment Kitty was certain, while Lucia doubted; for Kitty went by the logic of the evidence and Lucia by the intuition which was one with her desire. Surely it was more likely that Rickman had never written to Horace than that Horace should have failed her, if he knew? Meanwhile the cold legal voice went on to shatter the last point in Kitty"s defence, observing that if Rickman had not had time to get up to town before his father wrote to Mr.
Pilkington he had had plenty of time to telegraph. He added that the young man"s moral character need not concern them now. Whatever might be thought of his conduct it was not actionable. And to the legal mind what was not actionable was irrelevant.
But for Lucia, to whom at the moment material things were unrealities, the burning question was the honesty or dishonesty of Rickman; for it involved the loyalty or disloyalty, or rather, the ardour or the indifference of Horace. If Rickman were cleared of the grosser guilt, her cousin was, on a certain minor count, condemned; and there could be no doubt which of the two she was the more anxious to acquit.
"I suppose you"ll see him if he calls?" asked Kitty when they were alone.
"See who?"
"Mr. Savage Keith Rickman." Even in the midst of their misery Kitty could not forbear a smile.
But for once Lucia was inaccessible to the humour of the name.
"Of course I shall see him," she said gravely.
CHAPTER x.x.xVI
He called soon after six that evening, coming straight from the station to the house. Miss Palliser was in the library, but his face as he entered bore such unmistakable signs of emotion that Kitty in the kindness of her heart withdrew.
He was alone there, as he had been on that evening of his first coming. He looked round at the place he had loved so well, and knew that he was looking at it now for the last time. At his feet the long shadow from the bust of Sophocles lay dusk upon the dull crimson; the level light from the west streamed over the bookshelves, lying softly on brown Russia leather and milk-white vellum, lighting up the delicate gold of the tooling, glowing in the blood-red splashes of the lettering pieces; it fell slant-wise on the black chimney piece, chiselling afresh the Harden motto: _Invictus_. There was nothing meretricious, nothing flagrantly modern there, as in that place of books he had just left; its bloom was the bloom of time, the beauty of a world already pa.s.sing away. Yet how he had loved it; how he had given himself up to it; how it had soothed him with its suggestion of immortal things. And now, for this last time, he felt himself surrounded by intelligences, influences; above the voices of his anguish and his shame he heard the stately generations calling; they approved; they upheld him in his resolution.
He turned and saw Lucia standing beside him. She had come in unheard, as on that evening which seemed now so long ago.
She held out her hand. Not to have shaken hands with the poor fellow, would, she felt, have been to condemn him without a hearing.
He did not see the offered hand, nor yet the chair it signed to him to take. As if he knew that he was on his trial, he stood rigidly before her. His eyes alone approached her, looking to hers to see if they condemned him.
Lucia"s eyes were strictly non-committal. They, too, seemed to stand still, to wait, wide and expectant, for his defence. Her att.i.tude was so far judicial that she was not going to help him by a leading question. She merely relieved the torture of his visible bodily constraint by inviting him to sit down. He dropped into a chair that stood obliquely by the window, and screwed himself round in it so as to face her.
"I saw my father this morning," he began. "I went up by the early train."
"I know."
"Then you know by this time that I was a day too late."
"Mr. Pilkington sent me your father"s letter."
"What did you think of it?"
The question, so cool, so sudden, so direct, was not what she felt she had a right to expect from him.
"Well--what did you think of it yourself?"
She looked at him and saw that she had said a cruel thing.
"Can"t you imagine what I think of it?"
This again was too sudden; it took her at a disadvantage, compelling her instantly to commit herself to a theory of innocence or complicity.
"If you can"t," said he, "of course there"s no more to be said." He said it very simply, as if he were not in the least offended, and she looked at him again.
No. There was no wounded dignity about him, there was the tragic irremediable misery of a man condemned unheard. And could that be her doing--Lucia"s? She who used to be so kind and just? Never in all her life had she condemned anybody unheard.
But she had to choose between this man who a month ago was an utter stranger to her, and Horace who was of her own blood, her own cla.s.s, her own life. Did she really want Mr. Rickman to be tainted that Horace might be clean? And she knew he trusted her; he had made his appeal to the spirit that had once divined him. He might well say, "could she not imagine what he thought of it?"
"Yes," she said gently, "I think I can. If you had not told me what the library was worth, of course I should have thought your father very generous in giving as much for it as he has done."
"I did tell you I was anxious he--we--should not buy it; because I knew we couldn"t give you a proper price."
"Yes, you told me. And I wanted you to buy it, because I thought you would do your best for me."
"I know. I know. If it wasn"t for that--but that"s the horrible part of it."
"Why? You did your best, did you not?"
"Yes. I really thought it would be all right if I went up and saw him.
I felt certain he would see it as I did--"
"Well?"
He answered with painful hesitation. "Well--he didn"t see it. My father hasn"t very much imagination--he couldn"t realize the thing in the same way, because he wasn"t in it as I was. He"d seen n.o.body but Pilkington, you see."
Something in her face told him that this line of defence was distasteful to her, that he had no right to make a personal matter of an abstract question of justice. It was through those personalities that he had always erred.
"I don"t see what that has to do with it," she said.
"He--he thought it was only a question of a bargain between Pilkington and him."
"What you mean is that he wouldn"t admit that I came into it at all?"
She saw that she was putting him to the torture. He could not defend himself without exposing his father; but she meant that he should defend himself, that he should if possible stand clear.
"Yes. He hadn"t seen you. He wouldn"t go back on his bargain, and I couldn"t make him. G.o.d knows I tried hard enough!