"Bluff again! Why the man"s helpless in his bed!"
"I suppose even dying can be made more unpleasant by the police," said Victoria. She pondered, walking thoughtfully beside a rather thwarted and impatient youth, eager to play the champion of the distressed in his own way; and that, possibly, from more motives than one. Suddenly her face cleared.
"I will go myself!" she said, laying her hand on her son"s arm.
"Mother!"
"Yes! I"ll go myself. Leave it to me, Harry. I will drive over to Threlfall to-morrow evening--quite alone and without notice. I had some influence with him once," she said, with her eyes on the ground.
Tatham protested warmly. The smallest allusion to any early relation between his mother and Melrose was almost intolerable to him. But Lady Tatham fought for her idea. She pointed out again that Melrose might very well have some information that could be used with ghastly effect even upon a dying man; that Netta was much attached to her father, and would probably not make up her mind to any drastic step whatever in face of Melrose"s threats.
"I don"t so much care about Mrs. Melrose," exclaimed Tatham. "We can give her money, and make her comfortable, if it comes to that. But it"s the girl--and the hideous injustice of that fellow there--that Faversham--ousting her from her rights--getting the old man into his power--boning his property--and then writing hypocritical notes like that!"
He stood before her, flushed and excited; a broad-shouldered avenger of the s.e.x, such as any distressed maiden might have been glad to light upon. But again Victoria was aware that the case was not as simple as it sounded. However, she was no less angry than he. Mother and son were on the brink of making common cause against a grasping impostor; who was not to be allowed to go off--either with money that did not belong to him, or with angelic sympathies that still less belonged to him. Meanwhile on this point, whatever may have been in their minds, they said on this occasion not a word. Victoria pressed her plan. And in the end Tatham most reluctantly consented that she should endeavour to force a surprise interview with Melrose the following day.
They returned to the little drawing-room where Felicia Melrose, it seemed, had been giving the Penfolds a difficult half hour. For as soon as the Tathams had stepped into the garden, she had become entirely monosyllabic; after a drive from Duddon at Harry Tatham"s side, during which, greatly to her host"s surprise, she had suddenly and unexpectedly found her tongue, talking, in a torrent of questions, all the way, insatiably.
Mrs. Penfold, on her side, could do little but stare at "the heiress of Threlfall." Susy, studying her with shining eyes, tried to make her talk, to little purpose.
But Lydia in particular could get nothing out of her. It seemed to her that Felicia looked at her as though she disliked her. And every now and then the small stranger would try to see herself in the only mirror that the cottage drawing-room afforded; lengthening out her long, thin neck, and turning her curly head stealthily from side to side like a swan preening. Once, when she thought no one was observing her, she took a carnation from a vase near her--it had been sent over from Duddon that morning!--and put it in her dress. And the next moment, having pulled off her glove, she looked with annoyance at her own roughened hand, and then at Lydia"s delicate fingers playing with a paper-knife. Frowning, she hastily slipped her glove on again.
As soon as Tatham and his mother reappeared, she jumped up with alacrity, a smile breaking with sudden and sparkled beauty on her pinched face, and went to stand by Victoria"s side, looking up at her with eager docility and admiration.
Victoria, however, left her, in order to draw Lydia into a corner beside a farther window.
"I am sorry to say Harry has received a very unsatisfactory letter from Mr. Faversham."
"May I ask him about it?"
"He wants to tell you. I am carrying Miss Melrose back with me. But Harry will stay."
Words which cost Victoria a good deal. If what she now believed was the truth, how monstrous that her Harry should be kept dangling here! Her pride was all on edge. But Harry ruled her. She could make no move till his eyes too were opened.
Meanwhile, on all counts, Faversham was the enemy. To that _cha.s.se_ first and foremost, Victoria vowed herself.
"Well, what do you think of her?" said Tatham, good-humouredly, as he raised his hat to Felicia and his mother disappearing in the car. "She"s more alive to-day; but you can see she has been literally starved. That _brute_ Melrose!"
Lydia made some half audible reply, and with a view to prolonging his _tete-a-tete_ with her, he led her strolling along the road, through a golden dusk, touched with moonrise. She followed, but all her pleasant self-confidence with regard to him was gone; she walked beside him, miserable and self-condemned; a theorist defeated by the incalculable forces of things. How to begin with him--what line to take--how to undo her own work--she did not know; her mind was in confusion.
As for him, he was no sooner alone with her than bliss descended on him.
He forgot Faversham and the Melroses. He only wished to talk to her, and of himself. Surely, so much, "friendship" allowed.
He began, accordingly, to comment eagerly on her letters to him, and his to her, explaining this, questioning that. Every word showed her afresh that her letters had been the landmarks of his Scotch weeks, the chief events of his summer; and every word quickened a new remorse. At last she could bear it no longer. She broke abruptly on his talk.
"Mayn"t I know what"s happened at Threlfall? Your mother told me--you had heard."
He pulled himself together, while many things he would rather have forgotten rushed back upon him.
"We"re no forrader!" he said impatiently. "I don"t believe we shall get a bra.s.s farthing out of Melrose, if you ask me; at least without going to law and making a scandal; partly because he"s Melrose, and that sort--sooner die than climb down, and the rest of it--but mostly--"
He broke off.
"Mostly?" repeated Lydia.
"I don"t know whether I"d better go on. Faversham"s a friend of yours."
Tatham looked down upon her, his blunt features reddening.
"Not so much a friend that I can"t hear the truth about him," said Lydia, smiling rather faintly. "What do you accuse him of?"
He hesitated a moment; then the inner heat gathered, and flashed out.
Wasn"t it best to be frank?--best for her, best for himself?
"Don"t you think it looks pretty black?" he asked her, breathing quick; "there he is, getting round an old man, and plotting for money he"s no right to! Wouldn"t you have thought that any decent fellow would sooner break stones than take the money that ought to have been that girl"s--that at least he"d have said to Melrose "provide for her first--your own child--and then do what you like for me." Wouldn"t that have been the honest thing to do? But I went to him yesterday--told him the story--he promised to look into it--and to use his influence. We sent him a statement in proper form, a few hours later. It"s horrible what those two have suffered! And then, to-day--it"s too dark for you to read his precious letter, but if you really don"t mind, I"ll tell you the gist of it."
He summarized it--quite fairly--yet with a contempt he did not try to conceal. The girl at his side, m.u.f.fled in a blue cloak, with a dark hood framing the pale gold of the hair, and the delicate curves of the face, listened in silence. At the end she said:
"Tell me on what grounds you think Mr. Melrose has left his property to Mr. Faversham?"
"Everybody believes it! My Carlisle lawyers whom I saw this morning are convinced of it. Melrose is said to have spoken quite frankly about it to many persons."
"Not very strong evidence on which to condemn a man so utterly as you condemn him," said Lydia, with sudden emotion. "Think of the difficulty of his position! May he not be honestly trying to steer his way? And may not we all be doing our best to make his task impossible, putting the worst construction--the very worst!--on everything he does?"
There was silence a moment. Tatham and Lydia were looking into each other"s faces; the girl"s soul, wounded and fluttering, was in her eyes. Tatham felt a sudden and choking sense of catastrophe. Their house of cards had fallen about them, and his stubborn hopes with it.
She, with her high standards, could not possibly defend--could not possibly plead--for a man who was behaving so shabbily, so dishonourably, except--for one reason! He leapt indignantly at certainty; although it was a certainty that tortured him.
"There is evidence enough!" he said, in a changed voice. "I don"t understand how you can stick up for him."
"I don"t," she said sadly, "not if it"s true. But I don"t want to believe it. Why should one want to believe the worst, you and I, about anybody?"
Tatham kept an explosive silence for a moment, and then broke out hoa.r.s.ely:
"Do you remember, we promised we"d be real friends?--we"d be really frank with each other? I"ve kept my bargain. Are you keeping it? Isn"t there something you haven"t told me!--something I ought to know?"
"No, nothing!" cried Lydia, with sudden energy. "You misunderstand--you offend me."
She drew her breath quickly. There were angry tears in her eyes, hidden by the hood.
A gust of pa.s.sion swept through Tatham, revealing his manhood to itself.
He stopped, caught her hands, and held them fiercely, imprisoned against his breast. She must needs look up at him; male strength compelled; they stood motionless a few seconds under the shadows of the trees.
"If there _is_ nothing--if I _do_ misunderstand--if I"m wrong in what I think--for G.o.d"s sake listen to me--give me back my promise. I can"t--I can"t keep it!"
He stooped and kissed the fingers he held, once, twice, repeatedly; then turned away, shading his eyes with his hand.
Lydia said, with a little moan: