"Thank G.o.d," said he. "There"s one less. But my mother will be up soon, will she not?"
"Not yet," replied Maggie. "Edward, dear, do try and tell me what you have done. Why should the police be after you?"
"Why, Maggie," said he with a kind of forced, unnatural laugh, "they say I"ve forged."
"And have you?" asked Maggie, in a still, low tone of quiet agony.
He did not answer for some time, but sat, looking on the floor with unwinking eyes. At last he said, as if speaking to himself:
"If I have, it"s no more than others have done before, and never been found out. I was but borrowing money. I meant to repay it. If I had asked Mr.
Buxton, he would have lent it me."
"Mr. Buxton!" said Maggie.
"Yes!" answered he, looking sharply and suddenly up at her. "Your future father-in-law. My father"s old friend. It is he that is hunting me to death! No need to look so white and horror-struck, Maggie! It"s the way of the world, as I might have known, if I had not been a blind fool."
"Mr. Buxton!" she whispered, faintly.
"Oh, Maggie!" said he, suddenly throwing himself at her feet, "save me! You can do it. Write to Frank, and make him induce his father to let me off. I came to see you, my sweet, merciful sister! I knew you would save me. Good G.o.d! What noise is that? There are steps in the yard!"
And before she could speak, he had rushed into the little china closet, which opened out of the parlor, and crouched down in the darkness. It was only the man who brought their morning"s supply of milk from a neighboring farm. But when Maggie opened the kitchen door, she saw how the cold, pale light of a winter"s day had filled the air.
"You"re late with your shutters to-day, miss," said the man. "I hope Nancy has not been giving you all a bad night. Says I to Thomas, who came with me to the gate, "It"s many a year since I saw them parlor shutters barred up at half-past eight.""
Maggie went, as soon as he was gone, and opened all the low windows, in order that they might look as usual. She wondered at her own outward composure, while she felt so dead and sick at heart. Her mother would soon get up; must she be told? Edward spoke to her now and then from his hiding-place. He dared not go back into the kitchen, into which the few neighbors they had were apt to come, on their morning"s way to Combehurst, to ask if they could do any errands there for Mrs. Browne or Nancy. Perhaps a quarter of an hour or so had elapsed since the first alarm, when, as Maggie was trying to light the parlor fire, in order that the doctor, when he came, might find all as usual, she heard the click of the garden gate, and a man"s step coming along the walk. She ran up stairs to wash away the traces of the tears which had been streaming down her face as she went about her work, before she opened the door. There, against the watery light of the rainy day without, stood Mr. Buxton. He hardly spoke to her, but pushed past her, and entered the parlor. He sat down, looking as if he did not know what he was doing. Maggie tried to keep down her shivering alarm.
It was long since she had seen him; and the old idea of his kind, genial disposition, had been sadly disturbed by what she had heard from Frank, of his severe proceedings against his unworthy tenantry; and now, if he was setting the police in search of Edward, he was indeed to be dreaded; and with Edward so close at hand, within earshot! If the china fell! He would suspect nothing from that; it would only be her own terror. If her mother came down! But, with all these thoughts, she was very still, outwardly, as she sat waiting for him to speak.
"Have you heard from your brother lately?" asked he, looking up in an angry and disturbed manner. "But I"ll answer for it he has not been writing home for some time. He could not, with the guilt he has had on his mind. I"ll not believe in grat.i.tude again. There perhaps was such a thing once; but now-a-days the more you do for a person, the surer they are to turn against you, and cheat you. Now, don"t go white and pale. I know you"re a good girl in the main; and I"ve been lying awake all night, and I"ve a deal to say to you. That scoundrel of a brother of yours!"
Maggie could not ask (as would have been natural, if she had been ignorant) what Edward had done. She knew too well. But Mr. Buxton was too full of his own thoughts and feelings to notice her much.
"Do you know he has been like the rest? Do you know he has been cheating me--forging my name? I don"t know what besides. It"s well for him that they"ve altered the laws, and he can"t be hung for it" (a dead heavy weight was removed from Maggie"s mind), "but Mr. Henry is going to transport him.
It"s worse than Crayston. Crayston only ploughed up the turf, and did not pay rent, and sold the timber, thinking I should never miss it. But your brother has gone and forged my name He had received all the purchase-money, while he only gave me half, and said the rest was to come afterward. And the ungrateful scoundrel has gone and given a forged receipt! You might have knocked me down with a straw when Mr. Henry told me about it all last night. "Never talk to me of virtue and such humbug again," I said, "I"ll never believe in them. Every one is for what he can get." However, Mr.
Henry wrote to the superintendent of police at Woodchester; and has gone over himself this morning to see after it. But to think of your father having such a son!"
"Oh my poor father!" sobbed out Maggie. "How glad I am you are dead before this disgrace came upon us!"
"You may well say disgrace. You"re a good girl yourself, Maggie. I have always said that. How Edward has turned out as he has done, I cannot conceive. But now, Maggie, I"ve something to say to you." He moved uneasily about, as if he did not know how to begin. Maggie was standing leaning her head against the chimney-piece, longing for her visitor to go, dreading the next minute, and wishing to shrink into some dark corner of oblivion where she might forget all for a time, till she regained a small portion of the bodily strength that had been sorely tried of late. Mr. Buxton saw her white look of anguish, and read it in part, but not wholly. He was too intent on what he was going to say.
"I"ve been lying awake all night, thinking. You see the disgrace it is to you, though you are innocent; and I"m sure you can"t think of involving Frank in it."
Maggie went to the little sofa, and, kneeling down by it, hid her face in the cushions. He did not go on, for he thought she was not listening to him. At last he said:
"Come now, be a sensible girl, and face it out. I"ve a plan to propose."
"I hear," said she, in a dull veiled voice.
"Why, you know how against this engagement I have always been. Frank is but three-and-twenty, and does not know his own mind, as I tell him. Besides, he might marry any one he chose."
"He has chosen me," murmured Maggie.
"Of course, of course. But you"ll not think of keeping him to it, after what has pa.s.sed. You would not have such a fine fellow as Frank pointed at as the brother-in-law of a forger, would you? It was far from what I wished for him before; but now! Why you"re glad your father is dead, rather than he should have lived to see this day; and rightly too, I think. And you"ll not go and disgrace Frank. From what Mr. Henry hears, Edward has been a discredit to you in many ways. Mr. Henry was at Woodchester yesterday, and he says if Edward has been fairly entered as an attorney, his name may be struck off the Rolls for many a thing he has done. Think of my Frank having his bright name tarnished by any connection with such a man! Mr. Henry says, even in a court of law what has come out about Edward would be excuse enough for a breach of promise of marriage."
Maggie lifted up her wan face; the pupils of her eyes were dilated, her lips were dead white. She looked straight at Mr. Buxton with indignant impatience:
"Mr. Henry! Mr. Henry! What has Mr. Henry to do with me?"
Mr. Buxton was staggered by the wild, imperious look, so new upon her mild, sweet face. But he was resolute for Frank"s sake, and returned to the charge after a moment"s pause.
"Mr. Henry is a good friend of mine, who has my interest at heart. He has known what a subject of regret your engagement has been to me; though really my repugnance to it was without cause formerly, compared to what it is now. Now be reasonable, my dear. I"m willing to do something for you if you will do something for me. You must see what a stop this sad affair has put to any thoughts between you and Frank. And you must see what cause I have to wish to punish Edward for his ungrateful behavior, to say nothing of the forgery. Well now! I don"t know what Mr. Henry will say to me, but I have thought of this. If you"ll write a letter to Frank, just saying distinctly that, for reasons which must for ever remain a secret..."
"Remain a secret from Frank?" said Maggie, again lifting up her head.
"Why?"
"Why? my dear! You startle me with that manner of yours--just let me finish out my sentence. If you"ll say that, for reasons which must forever remain a secret, you decidedly and unchangeably give up all connection, all engagement with him (which, in fact, Edward"s conduct has as good as put an end to), I"ll go over to Woodchester and tell Mr. Henry and the police that they need not make further search after Edward, for that I won"t appear against him. You can save your brother; and you"ll do yourself no harm by writing this letter, for of course you see your engagement is broken off.
For you never would wish to disgrace Frank."
He paused, anxiously awaiting her reply. She did not speak.
"I"m sure, if I appear against him, he is as good as transported," he put in, after a while.
Just at this time there was a little sound of displaced china in the closet. Mr. Buxton did not attend to it, but Maggie heard it. She got up, and stood quite calm before Mr. Buxton.
"You must go," said she. "I know you; and I know you are not aware of the cruel way in which you have spoken to me, while asking me to give up the very hope and marrow of my life"--she could not go on for a moment; she was choked up with anguish.
"It was the truth, Maggie," said he, somewhat abashed.
"It was the truth that made the cruelty of it. But you did not mean to speak cruelly to me, I know. Only it is hard all at once to be called upon to face the shame and blasted character of one who was once an innocent child at the same father"s knee."
"I may have spoken too plainly," said Mr. Buxton, "but it was necessary to set the plain truth before you, for my son"s sake. You will write the letter I ask?"
Her look was wandering and uncertain. Her attention was distracted by sounds which to him had no meaning; and her judgment she felt was wavering and disturbed.
"I cannot tell. Give me time to think; you will do that, I"m sure. Go now, and leave me alone. If it is right, G.o.d will give me strength to do it, and perhaps He will comfort me in my desolation. But I do not know--I cannot tell. I must have time to think. Go now, if you please, sir," said she, imploringly.
"I am sure you will see it is a right thing I ask of you," he persisted.
"Go now," she repeated.
"Very well. In two hours, I will come back again; for your sake, time is precious. Even while we speak he may be arrested. At eleven, I will come back."
He went away, leaving her sick and dizzy with the effort to be calm and collected enough to think. She had forgotten for the moment how near Edward was; and started when she saw the closet-door open, and his face put out.
"Is he gone? I thought he never would go. What a time you kept him, Maggie!
I was so afraid, once, you might sit down to write the letter in this room; and then I knew he would stop and worry you with interruptions and advice, so that it would never be ended; and my back was almost broken. But you sent him off famously. Why, Maggie! Maggie!--you"re not going to faint, surely!"
His sudden burst out of a whisper into a loud exclamation of surprise, made her rally; but she could not stand. She tried to smile, for he really looked frightened.
"I have been sitting up for many nights--and now this sorrow!" Her smile died away into a wailing, feeble cry.