There was a pause. At last Lydia said slowly:
"How will you test Mr. Faversham? I don"t understand."
"Unless the man is an adventurer," said Victoria, straightening her shoulders, "he will, of course, do his best to put this girl--who is the rightful heiress--into her proper place. What business has he with Mr.
Melrose"s estates?"
Lady Tatham spoke with imperious energy.
Lydia"s eyes showed an almost equal animation.
"May he not share with her? Aren"t they immense?"
"At present he takes everything--so they say. It looks ugly. A complete stranger--worming himself in a few weeks or months into an old man"s confidence--and carrying off the inheritance from a pair of helpless women! And making himself meanwhile the tool of a tyrant!--aiding and abetting him in all his oppressions!"
"Oh, Lady Tatham! no, no!" cried Lydia--the cry seemed wrung from her--"I--we--have only known Mr. Faversham this short time--but _how_ can one believe--"
She paused, her eyes under their vividly marked eyebrows painfully searching the face of her companion.
Victoria said to herself, "Heavens!--she _is_ in love with him--and she is letting Harry sit up at nights to write to her!"
Her mother"s heart beat fast with anger. But she held herself in hand.
"Well; as I have said, we shall soon be able to test him," she repeated, coldly; "we shall soon know what to think. His letter will show whether he is a man with feeling and conscience--a gentleman--or an adventurer!"
There was silence. Lydia was thinking pa.s.sionately of Mainstairs and of the deep tones of a man"s voice--"If _you_ condemn and misunderstand me--then indeed I shall lose heart!"
A humming sound could be heard in the far distance.
"Here they are," said Lady Tatham rising. Victoria"s half-masculine beauty had never been so formidable as it was this afternoon. Deep in her heart, she carried both pity for Harry, and scorn for this foolish girl walking beside her, who could not recognize her good fortune when it cried out to her.
They hastened back to the drawing-room; and at the same moment Tatham and Felicia walked in.
Felicia advanced with perfect self-command, her small face flushed with pink by the motion of the car. In addition to the blue frock, Victoria"s maid had now provided her with a short cape of black silk, and a wide straw hat, to which the girl herself had given a kind of tilt, a touch of audacity, in keeping with all the rest of her personality.
As she came in, she glanced round the room with her uncannily large eyes--her mother"s eyes--taking in all the company. She dropped a little curtsey to Mrs. Penfold, in whom the excitement of this sudden appearance of Melrose"s daughter had produced sheer and simple dumbness. She allowed her hand to be shaken by Lydia and Susy, looking sharply at the former; while Susy looked sharply at her. Then she subsided into a corner by Lady Tatham. It was evident that she regarded herself as under that lady"s particular protection.
"Well?" said Lady Tatham in an eager aside to her son. She read his aspect as that of a man preoccupied.
Tatham shrugged his shoulders with a glance at Felicia. Victoria whispered to Lydia: "Will you tell your mother I want to speak a few words to Harry on business?"
Mother and son pa.s.sed into the garden together.
"A declaration of war!" said Tatham, as he handed a letter to her. "I propose to instruct our solicitors at once."
Victoria read hastily. The writing was Faversham"s. But the mind expressed was Melrose"s. Victoria read him in every line. She believed the letter to have been simply dictated.
"DEAR LORD TATHAM:
"I have laid Mrs. Melrose"s statement before Mr. Melrose. I regret to say that he sees no cause to modify the arrangements made years ago with regard to his wife, except that, in consideration of the fact that Miss Melrose is now grown up, he will add 20 yearly to Mrs. Melrose"s allowance, making it 100 a year. Provision will be made for the continuance of this allowance to Mrs. Melrose till her death, and afterward to the daughter for her lifetime; _on condition that_ Mr.
Melrose is not further molested in any way. Otherwise Mr. Melrose acknowledges and will acknowledge no claim upon him whatever.
"I am to add that if Mrs. Melrose is in difficulties, it is entirely owing to the dishonest rapacity of her family who have been living upon her. Mr. Melrose is well acquainted with both the past and recent history of Mr. Robert Smeath, who made a tool of Mrs. Melrose in the matter of a disgraceful theft of a valuable bronze from Mr. Melrose"s collection--"
"The Hermes!" cried Victoria. "She has never said one word to me about it."
"Miss Melrose has been telling me the story," said Tatham, smiling at the recollection. "By George, that"s a rum little girl! She glories in it.
But she says her mother has been consumed with remorse ever since. Go on."
"And if any attempt is made to blackmail or coerce Mr. Melrose, he will be obliged, much against his will, to draw the attention of the Italian police to certain matters relating to Mr. Smeath, of which he has the evidence in his possession. He warns Mrs. Melrose that her father"s career cannot possibly bear examination.
"I regret that my reply cannot be more satisfactory to you.
"Believe me,
"Yours faithfully,
"CLAUDE FAVERSHAM."
Victoria had turned pale.
"How _abominable_! Why, her father is bedridden and dying!"
"So I told Faversham--like a fool. For it only--apparently--gives Melrose a greater power of putting on the screw. Well, now look here--here"s something else." He drew another letter from his pocket, and handed it to her.
Victoria unfolded a second note from Faversham--marked "confidential,"
and written in evident agitation.
"MY DEAR TATHAM:
"I am powerless. Let me implore you to keep Mrs. Melrose quiet! Privately a great deal may be done for her. If she will only trust herself to me, in my private capacity, I will see that she is properly supplied for the future. But she will simply bring disaster on herself if she attempts to force Melrose. She--and you--know what he is. I beg of you to be guided--and to guide her--as I advise."
"An attempt, you see, to buy us off," said Tatham scornfully. "I propose to take the night train from Pengarth this evening, and consult old Fledhow to-morrow morning."
"Old Fledhow," _alias_ James Morton Fledhow, solicitor, head of one of that small group of firms which, between them, have the great estates of England in their pigeon-holes, had been the legal adviser of the Tatham family for two generations. Precipitation is not the badge of his tribe; but Victoria threw herself upon this very natural and youthful impulse, before even it could reach "old Fledhow."
"My dear Harry, be cautious! What did Mrs. Melrose say? Of course you showed her the letter?"
Tatham candidly admitted that he hardly knew what Mrs. Melrose had said.
The letter had thrown her into a great state of agitation, and she had cried a good deal. "Poor papa, poor papa!" p.r.o.nounced with the accent on the first syllable, seemed to have been all that she had been able to articulate.
"You know, Harry, there may be a great deal in it?" Victoria"s countenance showed her doubts.
"In the threat about her father? Pure bluff, mother!--absolute bluff! As for the bronze--a wife can"t steal from her husband. And under these circ.u.mstances!--I should like to see a British jury that would touch her!"
"But she admits that half the proceeds went to her father."
"Twenty years ago?" Tatham"s shrug was magnificent. "I tell you he"ll get no change out of that!"
"But he hints at other things?"