XIV
Tatham arrived at Duddon by the earliest possible train on the followingmorning.
On crossing the hall he perceived in the distance a very slight thingirl, dressed in black, coming out of his mother's sitting-room. When shesaw him she turned hurriedly to the stairs and ran up, only pausing onceon the first landing to flash upon him a singularly white face, lit bysingularly black eyes. Then she disappeared.
"Who is that lady?" he asked of Hurst in astonishment.
"Her ladyship expects you, my lord," replied Hurst evasively, throwingopen the door of the morning-room. Victoria was disclosed; pacing up anddown, her hands in the pockets of her tweed jacket. Tatham saw at oncethat something had happened.
She put her hands on his shoulders, kissed him, and delivered her news.She did so with a peculiar and secret zest. To watch how he took thefresh experiences of life, and to be exultantly proud and sure of him thewhile, was all part of her adoration of him.
"Melrose's wife and daughter! Great Scot! So they're not dead?" Tathamstood amazed.
"He seems to have done his best to kill them. They're starved--anddestitute. But here they are."
"And why in the name of fortune do they come to us?"
"We are cousins, my dear--and I saw her twenty years ago. It isn't a badmove. Indeed the foolish woman might have come before."
"But what on earth can we do for them?"
The young man sat down bewildered, while his mother told the story,piecing it together from the rambling though copious narrative, which shehad gathered that morning from Netta in her bed, where she had beenforced to remain, at least for breakfast.
After her flight, Melrose's fugitive wife had settled down with her childin Florence, under the wing of her own family. But they were a shiftless,importunate crew, and, in the course of years, every one of them camemore or less visibly to grief. Her sisters married men of the samedubious world as themselves, and were always in difficulties. Netta'seldest brother got into trouble with the bank where he was employed, andanother brother, as a deserter from the army, had to make his escape toSouth America. The father, Robert Smeath, had found it more and moredifficult to earn anything on which to keep his belongings, and as apicture dealer seemed to have fallen into bad odour with the Italianauthorities, for reasons of which Netta could give no account.
"And how much do you think Mr. Melrose allowed his wife and child?" askedVictoria, her eyes sparkling. "_Eighty pounds a year_!--on which in theend the whole family seem to have lived. Finally, the mother died, andMr. Smeath got into some scrape or other--I naturally avoided theparticulars--which involved pledging half Mrs. Melrose's allowance forfive years. And on the rest--forty pounds--she and her daughter, and herold father have been trying to live for the last two. You never heardsuch a story! They found a small half-ruined villa in the mountains northof Pisa, and there they somehow existed. They couldn't afford nursing ordoctoring for the old father; they were half starved; the mother anddaughter have both actually worked in the vineyards; and, of course, theyhad no servant. You should see the poor woman's hands! Then she began towrite to her husband. No reply--for eighteen months, no reply--till justlately, an intimation from the Florentine bank, that if any more similarletters were addressed to Mr. Melrose the allowance would be stopped."
"Old fiend!" cried Tatham, "now we'll get at him!"
Victoria went on to describe how, at last, an English family who hadtaken one of the old villas on the Luccan Alps for the summer had comeacross the forlorn trio. They were scandalized by the story, and theyhad impressed on Mrs. Melrose that she and her daughter had a legalright to suitable maintenance from her husband. Urged by them--andstarvation--Netta had at last plucked up courage. The old father was leftin the charge of a _contadino_ family, a small loan was raised for themto which the English visitors contributed, and the mother and daughterstarted for home.
"But without us, or some one else to help her," said Victoria, "she wouldnever--never!--get through the business. Her terror of Melrose is aperfect disease. She shakes if you mention his name. That was what madeher think of me--and that visit I paid her. Poor thing! she was ratherpretty then. But it was plain enough what their relations were. Well,now, Harry, it's for you to say. But my blood's up! I suggest we see thisthing through!"
The door slowly opened as she spoke, and two small figures came insilently, closing it behind them. There they stood, a story inthemselves; Netta, with the bearing and the dress of a shabby littlehousekeeper; the girl ghastly thin, her shoulder-blades cutting herflimsy dress, blue shadows in all the hollows of the face, but withextraordinary pride of bearing, and extraordinary possibilities of beautyin the modelling of her delicate features, and splendid melancholy eyes.Tatham could not help staring at her. She was indeed the disinheritedprincess.
Then he walked up to them, and shook hands with boyish heartiness.
"I say, you do look pumped out! But don't you worry too much. My motherand I'll see what can be done. We'll set the lawyers on, if there'snothing else. It's a beastly shame, anyway! But now, you take it easy.We'll look after you. Sit down, won't you? Mother's chairs are the mostcomfortable in the house!"
He installed them; and then at once took the serious, business air,which still gave his mother a pleasure which was half amusement. Felicia,sitting in a corner behind her mother's sofa, could not take her eyesfrom him. The tall, fair English youth, six foot two, and splendidlydeveloped, the pink of health, modesty, and kindly courtesy, wasdifferent from all other beings that had ever swum into her view. Shewatched him close and furtively--his features, his dress, his gestures;comparing the living man in her mind with the photograph upstairs, and soabsorbed in her study of him that she scarcely heard a word of thetriangular discussion going on between her mother, Tatham, and Victoria.The whole time she was drinking in impressions, as of a god-likecreature, all beneficence.
After an hour's cross-examination of the poor, shrinking Netta, Tatham'sblood too was up; he was eager for the fray. To attack Melrose was a joy;made none the less keen by the reflection that to help these two helplessones was a duty. Lydia's approval, Lydia's sympathy were certain; hekindled the more.
"All right!" he said, rising. "Now I think we are agreed on the firststep. Faversham is our man. I must see Faversham at once, and set him towork! If I find him, I will report the result to you, Mrs. Melrose--sofar--by luncheon time."
He departed, to ring up the Threlfall office in Pengarth and inquirewhether Faversham could be seen there. Victoria left the room with him.
"Have you forgotten these rumours of which Undershaw wrote you?"
"What, as to Faversham? No, I have not forgotten them. But I shan't takeany notice of them. He can't accept anything for himself till these twohave got their due! What right has he to Melrose's property at all?"said the young man indignantly.
* * * * *
The mother and son had scarcely left the room when Netta turned to herdaughter with trembling lips.
"I haven't"--half whispering--"told them anything about the Hermes!"
"It was no theft!" said Felicia passionately. "I would tell anybody!"
Netta was silent, her face working with unspoken fear. Suddenly, Feliciasaid in her foreign English, pronounced with a slight effort, and veryprecisely:
"That is a very beautiful young man!"
Netta was startled.
"Lord Tatham? Not at all, Felicia. He is very nice, but I do not evencall him good-looking."
"He is a very beautiful young man," repeated Felicia with emphasis, "andI am going to marry him!"
"Felicia! for heaven's sake--do not show your mad ways here!" criedNetta, white with new alarm.
For the first time for many, many days Felicia smiled. She got up andwent to a glass that hung on the wall. Taking one of the sidecombs fromher curls, she began to pull them out, winding them round her tinyfingers, making more of them, and patting them back into place, till herhead was one silky mass of ripples. Then
she looked at herself.
"I must have a new dress at once!" she said peremptorily.
"I don't know where you'll get it!" cried Netta--"you foolish child!"
"The young man will give it me." And still before the glass, she gave alittle bound, like a kitten. Then she ran back to her mother, tookNetta's face in her hands, dashed a kiss at it, and subsided, weak andgasping, on to a sofa. When Victoria reappeared Felicia was motionlessas before, but there was a first streak of colour in her thin, cheeks,and a queer brightness in her eyes.
Faversham was sitting in his Pengarth office, turning over the morning'spost. He had just ridden in from the Tower. Before him lay a telephonemessage taken down for him by his clerk, before his arrival:
"Lord Tatham will be at Mr. Faversham's office by 12:30. He wishes tospeak to Mr. Faversham on important business."
Something, no doubt, to do with the right-of-way proceedings to whichTatham was a party; or, possibly, with a County Council notice which hadroused Melrose to fury, to the effect that some Threlfall land would betaken compulsorily for allotments under a recent Act, if the land werenot provided by arrangement.
"Perfectly reasonable! And every complaint that Tatham will make--if hehas come to complain--will be perfectly reasonable. And I shall have totell him to go to the devil!"
He sat pen in hand, staring at the paper on his desk, his mind dividedbetween a bitter disgust with his day's work and the consciousness of adeep central resolve, which that disgust did not affect, and would not beallowed to affect. He was looking harassed, pale, and perceptibly older.No doubt his general health had not yet fully recovered from hisaccident. But those who disliked in him a certain natural haughtiness,said that he had now more "side on" than ever.
A bell below warned him of Tatham's arrival. He hurriedly took out papersfrom various drawers, and arranged them on the office table. They relatedto the matter on which he thought Tatham might wish to confer with him.
His door opened.
"Hullo, Faversham! Hope you're quite strong," said the incomer.
"All right, thank you." The two men shook hands. "You've been doingScotland as usual?"
"Two months of it. Beastly few birds. Not at all sorry to come back.Well, now--I've got something very surprising to talk to you about. Isay"--he looked round him--"we shan't be disturbed?"
Faversham rose, gave a telephone order and resumed his seat.
"Who do you think we've got staying at Duddon?"
"I haven't an idea. Have a cigarette?"
"Thanks. Has Melrose ever talked to you about his wife and daughter?"
Faversham stared, took a whiff at his cigarette, and put it down.
"Are you her to tell me anything about them?"
"They are staying at Duddon at this moment," said Tatham, watching hiseffect; "arrived last night--penniless and starving."
Faversham flushed.
"You're sure they are the right people?" he said after a pause.
Tatham laughed.
"My mother remembers Mrs. Melrose twenty years ago; and the daughter, ifit weren't that she's little more than skin and bone, would be the imageof Melrose--on a tiny scale. Now, look here! this is their story."
The young man settled down to it, telling it just as it had been told tohim, until toward the end a tolerably hot indignation forced its way, andhe used some strong language with regard to Melrose, under whichFaversham sat silent.
"I've no doubt he's told you the same lies he's told everybody else!"exclaimed Tatham, after waiting a little for comments that were slow incoming.
"I was quite aware they were alive," said Faversham, slowly.
"You were, by Jove!"
"And I have already appealed to Melrose to behave reasonably towardthem."
"Reasonably! Good heavens!" Tatham had flushed in his turn. "A man isbound to behave rather more than 'reasonably'--toward his daughter,anyway--I don't care what the mother had done. I tell you the girl's areal beauty, or will be, when she's properly fed and dressed. She's agirl anybody might be proud of. And there he's been wallowing in wealth,while his child has been starving. And threatening to stop their wretchedallowance! Well, you know as well as I, what public opinion will be, ifthese facts get about. Public opinion is pretty strong already. But, byGeorge, when this is added to the rest! Can't you persuade him to behavehimself before it all gets into the papers? It will get into them ofcourse. There the poor things are, and we mean to stand by them. Theremust be a proper provision for the wife--that the courts can get out ofhim. And as to the girl--why, she is his heiress!--and ought to beacknowledged as such."
Tatham turned suddenly, as he spoke, and fixed a pair of very straightblue eyes on his companion.
"Mr. Melrose is not bound to make her his heir," said Faversham quietly.
"Not bound! I daresay. But who else is there? He's not very likely toleave it to any of _us_," said Tatham with a grin. "And he's not the kindof gentleman to be endowing missions. Who is there?" he repeated.
"Mr. Melrose will please himself," said Faversham, coldly. "Of that wemay be sure. Now then--what is it exactly that these ladies have come toask?" he continued, in a sharp businesslike tone. "You are aware ofcourse that Mrs. Melrose left her husband of her own free will--withoutany provocation?"
"You won't get a judge to believe that very easily--in the case ofMelrose! Anyway she's done nothing criminal. And she's willing, poorwretch! to go back to him. But if not, she asks for a maintenanceallowance, suitable to his wealth and position, and that the daughtershould be provided for. _You_ can't surely refuse to support us so far?"
Tatham had insensibly stiffened in his chair. His manner which at first,though not exactly cordial, had still been that of the college friend andcontemporary, had unconsciously, in the course of the conversation,assumed a certain tone of authority, as though there spoke through himthe force of a settled and traditional society, of which he knew himselfto be one of the natural chiefs.
To Faversham, full of a secret bitterness, this second manner of Tatham'swas merely arrogance. His own pride rose against it, and what he felt itimplied. Not a sign of that confidence in the new agent which had been sofreely expressed at Duddon a couple of months before! His detractors hadno doubt been at work with this jolly, stupid fellow, whom everybodyliked. He would have to fight for himself. Well, he would fight!
"I shall certainly support any just claim," he said, as Tatham rose, "butI warn you that Mr. Melrose is ill--he is very irritable--and Mrs.Melrose had better not attempt to spring any surprises on him. If shewill write me a letter, I will see that it gets to Mr. Melrose, and Iwill do my best for her."
"No one could ask you to do any more," said Tatham heartily, repentinghimself a little. "They will be with us for the present. Mrs. Melroseshall write you a full statement and you will reply to Duddon?"
"By all means."
"There are a good many other things," said Tatham--uncertainly--ashe lingered, hat in hand--"that you and I might discuss--Mainstairs, forinstance! I ought to tell you that my mother has just sent two nursesthere. The condition of things is simply appalling."
Faversham straightened his tall figure.
"Mainstairs is a deadlock. Mr. Melrose won't repair the cottages. Heintends to pull them down. He has given the people notice, and he isreceiving no rent. They won't go. I suppose the next step will be toapply for an ejectment order. Meanwhile the people stay at their ownperil. There you have the whole thing."
"I hear the children are dying like flies."
"I can do nothing," said Faversham.
Again a shock of antagonism passed through the two men. "Yes, you can!"thought Tatham; "you can resign your fat post, and your expectations, andput the screw on the old man, that's what you could do." Aloud he said:
"A couple of thousand pounds, according to Undershaw, would do the job.If you succeed in forcing them out, where are they to go?"
"That's not our affair."
Tatham caught up his hat and stick, and abrupt
ly departed; reflectingindeed when he reached the street, that he had not been the mostdiplomatic of ambassadors on Mrs. Melrose's behalf.
Faversham, after some ten minutes of motionless reflection, heavilyreturned to his papers, ordering his horse to be ready in half an hour.He forced himself to write some ordinary business letters, and to eatsome lunch, and immediately after he started on horseback to find his waythrough the October lanes to the village of Mainstairs.
A man more harassed, and yet more resolved, it would have been difficultto find. For six weeks now he had been wading deeper and deeper into amoral quagmire from which he saw no issue at all--except indeed by thedeath of Edmund Melrose! That event would solve all difficulties.
For some time now he had been convinced, not only that the mother anddaughter were living, but that there had been some recent communicationbetween them and Melrose. Various trifling incidents and cryptic sayingsof the old man, not now so much on his guard as formerly, had ledFaversham to this conclusion. He realized that he himself had beenhaunted of late by the constant expectation that they might turn up.
Well, now they had turned up. Was he at once to make way for them, asTatham clearly took for granted?--to advise Melrose to tear up his newlymade will, and gracefully surrender his expectations as Melrose's heir tothis girl of twenty-one? By no means!
What is the claim of birth in such a case, if you come to that? Look atit straight in the face. A child is born to a certain father; is thentorn from that father against his will, and brought up for twenty yearsout of his reach. What claim has that child, when mature, upon thefather--beyond, of course, a claim for reasonable provision--unlesshe chooses to acknowledge a further obligation? None whatever. The fatherhas lived his life, and accumulated his fortune, without the child'shelp, without the child's affection or tendance. His possessions aremorally and legally his own, to deal with as he pleases.
In the course of life, other human beings become connected with him,attached to him, and he to them. Natural claims must be considered anddecently satisfied--agreed! But for the disposal of a man'ssuperfluities, of such a fortune as Melrose's, there is no law--thereought to be no law; and the English character, as distinct from theFrench, has decided that there shall be no law. "If his liking, or hiscaprice even," thought Faversham passionately, "chooses to make me hisheir, he has every right to give, and I to accept. I am a stranger tohim; so, in all but the physical sense, is his daughter. But I am not astranger to English life. My upbringing and experience--even such as theyare--are better qualifications than hers. What can a girl of twenty,partly Italian, brought up away from England, hardly speaking herfather's tongue, do for this English estate, compared to what I coulddo--with a free hand, and a million to draw on? Whom do I wrong byaccepting what a miraculous chance has brought me--by standing by it--byfighting for it? No one--justly considered. And I will fight forit--though a hundred Tathams call me adventurer!"
So much for the root determination of the man; the result of weeks ofexcited brooding over wealth, and what can be done with wealth, amidincreasing difficulties and problems from all sides.
His determination indeed did not protect him from the attacks ofconscience; of certain moral instincts and prepossessions, that is,natural to a man of his birth and environment.
The mind, however, replied to them glibly enough. "I shall do the justand reasonable thing! As I promised Tatham, I shall look into the storyof these two women, and if it is what it professes to be, I shall pressMelrose to provide for them."
Conscience objected: "If he refuses?"
"They can enforce their claim legally, and I shall make him realize it."
"Can you?" said Conscience. "Have you any hold upon him at all?"
A flood of humiliation, indeed, rushed in upon him, as he recalled hiseffort, while Melrose was away in August, to make at least some temporaryimprovement in the condition of the Mainstairs cottages--secretly--out ofhis own money--by the help of the cottagers themselves. The attempt hadbeen reported to Melrose by that spying little beast, Nash, andperemptorily stopped by telegram--"Kindly leave my property alone. It isnot yours to meddle with."
And that most abominable scene, after Melrose's return to the Tower!Faversham could never think of it without shame and disgust. Ten timeshad he been on the point of dashing down his papers at Melrose's feet,and turning his back on the old madman, and his house, forever. It was,of course, the thought of the gifts he had already accepted, and of thatvast heritage waiting for him when Melrose should be in his grave, whichhad restrained him--that alone; no cynic could put it more nakedly thandid Faversham's own thoughts. He was tied and bound by his own actions,and his own desires; he had submitted--grovelled to a tyrant; and he knewwell enough that from that day he had been a lesser and a meaner man.
But--no silly exaggeration! He straightened himself in his saddle. He wasdoing plenty of good work elsewhere, work with which Melrose did nottrouble himself to interfere; work which would gradually tell upon thecondition and happiness of the estate. Put that against the other. Menare not plaster saints--or, still less, live ones, with the power ofmiracle; but struggling creatures of flesh and blood, who do, not whatthey will, but what they can.
And suddenly he seemed once more to be writing to Lydia Penfold. Howoften he had written to her during these two months! He recalled the joyof the earlier correspondence, in which he had been his natural self,pleading, arguing, planning; showing all the eagerness--the sincereeagerness--there was in him, to make a decent job of his agency, to standwell with his new neighbours--above all with "one slight girl."
And her letters to him--sweet, frank, intelligent, sympathetic--they hadbeen his founts of refreshing, his manna by the way. Until that fatalnight, when Melrose had crushed in him all that foolish optimism andself-conceit with which he had entered into the original bargain! Sincethen, he knew well that his letters had chilled and disappointed her;they had been the letters of a slave.
And now this awful business at Mainstairs! Bessie Dobbs, the girl ofeighteen--Lydia's friend--who had been slowly dying since the diphtheriaepidemic of the year before, was dead at last, after much suffering; andhe did not expect to find the child of eight, her little sister, stillalive. There were nearly a score of other cases, and there were threechildren down with scarlet fever, besides some terrible attacks ofblood-poisoning--one after childbirth--due probably to some form of thescarlet fever infection, acting on persons weakened by the long effect offilthy conditions. What would Lydia say, when she knew--when she came?From her latest letter it was not clear to him on what day she wouldreach home. After making his inspection he would ride on to Green Cottageand inquire. He dreaded to meet her; and yet he was eager to defendhimself; his mind was already rehearsing all that he would say.
A long lane, shaded by heavy trees, made an abrupt turning, and he sawbefore him the Mainstairs village--one straggling street of wretchedhouses, mostly thatched, and built of "clay-lump," whitewashed. In acounty of prosperous farming, and good landlords, where cottages hadbeen largely rebuilt during the preceding century, this miserablevillage, with various other hamlets and almost all the cottages attachedto farms on the Melrose estate, were the scandal of the countryside.Roofs that let in rain and wind, clay floors, a subsoil soaked in everypossible abomination, bedrooms "more like dens for wild animals thansleeping-places for men and women," to quote a recent Government report,and a polluted water supply!--what more could reckless human living,aided by human carelessness and cruelty, have done to make a hell ofnatural beauty?
Over the village rose the low shoulder of a grassy fell, its patches ofgolden fern glistening under the October sunshine; great sycamores, withtheir rounded masses of leaf, hung above the dilapidated roofs, as thoughNature herself tried to shelter the beings for whom men had no care; thethatched slopes were green with moss and weed; and the blue smoke wreathsthat rose from the chimneys, together with the few flowers that gleamedin the gardens, the picturesque irregularity of the houses, and thegeneral setting o
f wood and distant mountain, made of the poisonedvillage a "subject," on which a wandering artist, who had set up hiscanvas at the corner of the road, was at the moment, indeed, hard atwork. There might be death in those houses; but out of the beauty whichsunshine strikes from ruin, a man, honestly in search of a few pounds,was making what he could.
To Faversham's overstrung mind the whole scene was as the blood-stainedpalace of the Atreidae to the agonized vision of Cassandra. He saw itsteeped in death--death upon death--and dreaded of what new "murder" hemight hear as soon as he approached the houses. For what was it butmurder? His conscience, arguing with itself, did not dispute the word.Had Melrose, out of his immense income, spent a couple of thousand poundson the village at any time during the preceding years, a score of deathswould have been saved, and the physical degeneracy of a whole populationwould have been prevented.
* * * * *
Heavens! that light figure in Dobbs's garden, talking with the oldshepherd--his heart leapt and then sickened. It was Lydia.
A poignant fear stirred in him. He gave his horse a touch of the whip,and was at her side.
"Miss Penfold!--you oughtn't to be here! For heaven's sake go home!"
Lydia, who in the absorption of her talk with the shepherd had notheard his approach, turned with a start. Her face was one of passionategrief--there were tears on her cheek.
"Oh, Mr. Faversham--"
"The child?" he asked, as he dismounted.
"She died--last night."
"Aye, an' there's another doon--t' li'le boy--t' three-year-old," saidold Dobbs sharply, straightening himself on his stick, at sight of theagent.
"The nurses are here?" said Faversham after a pause.
"Aye," said the shepherd, turning toward his cottage, "but they can donowt. The childer are marked for deein afore they're sick." And he walkedaway, his inner mind shaken with a passion that forbade him to stay andtalk with Melrose's agent.
Two or three labourers who were lounging in front of their houses cameslowly toward the agent. It was evident that there was unemployment aswell as disease in the village, and that the neighbouring farms, wherethere were young children, were cutting themselves off, as much as theycould, from the Mainstairs infection, by dismissing the Mainstairs men.
Faversham meanwhile again implored Lydia to go home. "This whole placereeks with infection. You ought not to be here."
"They say that nothing has been done!"
Her tone was quiet, but her look pierced.
"I tried. It was impossible. The only thing that could be done was thatthe people should go. They are under notice. Every single person is herein defiance of the law. The police will have to be called in."
"And where are we to goa, sir!" cried one of the men who had come up."Theer's noa house to be had nearer than Pengarth--yo' know thatyoursen--an' how are we to be waakin' fower mile to our work i' t'mornin', an' fower mile back i' t' evening? Why, we havena got t'strength! It isna exactly a health resort--yo' ken--Mainstairs!"
"I'll tell yo' where soom on us might goa, Muster Faversham," saidanother older man, removing the pipe he had been stolidly smoking;"theer's two farmhouses o' Melrose's, within half a mile o' thisplace--shut oop--noabody there. They're big houses--yan o' them wor an'owd manor-house, years agone. A body might put oop five or six familiesin 'em at a pinch. Thattens might dea for a beginnin'; while soom o'these houses were coomin' doon."
Lydia turned eagerly to Faversham.
"_Couldn't_ that be done--some of the families with young children thatare not yet attacked?" Her eyes hung on him.
He shook his head. He had already proposed something of the sort toMelrose. It had been vetoed.
The men watched him. At last one of them--a lanky youth, with a frowning,ironic expression and famous as a heckler at public meetings--said withslow emphasis:
"There'll coom a day i' this coontry, mates, when men as treat poor foaklike Muster Melrose, 'ull be pulled off t' backs of oos an' our like. Andmay aa live to see 't!"
"Aye! aye!" came in deep assent from the others, as they turned away. Butone white and sickly fellow looked back to say:
"An' it's a graat pity for a yoong mon like you, sir, to be doin' MusterMelrose's dirty work--taakin' o' the police--as though yo' had 'em oopyour sleeve!"
"Haven't I done what I could for you?" cried Faversham, stung by thereproach, and its effect on Lydia's face.
"Aye--mebbe--but it's nowt to boast on." The man, middle aged butprematurely old, stood still, trembling from head to foot. "My babe aswor born yesterday, deed this mornin'; an' they say t' wife 'ull ligbeside it afore night."
There was a sombre silence. Faversham broke it. "I must see the nurses,"he said to Lydia; "but again, I beg of you to go! I will send you news."
"I will wait for you. Don't be afraid. I won't go indoors."
He went round the houses, watched by the people, as they stood at theirdoors. He himself was paying two nurses, and now Lady Tatham had sent twomore. He satisfied himself that they had all the stores which Undershawhad ordered; he left a donation of money with one of them, and then hereturned to Lydia.
They walked together in silence; while a boy from the village ledFaversham's horse some distance in the rear. All that Faversham had meantto say had dropped away from him. His planned defence of himself couldfind no voice.
"You too blame me?" he said, at last, hoarsely.
She shook her head sadly.
"I don't know what to think. But when we last met--you were so hopeful--"
"Yes--like a fool. But what can you do--with a madman."
"Can you bear--to be still in his employ?"
She looked up, her beautiful eyes bright and challenging.
"Mainstairs is not the whole estate. If I'm powerless here--I'm notelsewhere--"
She was silent. He turned upon her.
"If _you_ are to misunderstand and mistrust me--then indeed I shall loseheart!"
The feeling, one might almost say the anguish, in his dark, commandingface moved her strangely. Condemnation and pity--aye, and something elsethan pity--struggled within her. For the first time Lydia began to knowherself. She was strangely shaken.
"I will try--and understand," she said in a voice that trembled.
"All my power of doing anything depends on it!" he said, passionately. "Ican say truly that things would have been infinitely worse if I had notbeen here. And I have worked like a horse to better them--before youcame."
She was silent. His appeal to her as to his judge hurt her poignantly.Yet what could she do or say? Her natural longing was to console; butwhere were the elements of consolation? _Could_ anything be worse thanwhat she had seen and heard?
The mingled emotion which silenced her, warned her not to continue theconversation. She perceived the opening of a side-lane leading back tothe river and the Keswick road.
"This is my best way, I think," she said, pausing, and holding out herhand. "The pony-cart is waiting for me at Whitebeck."
He looked at her in distress, yet also in anger. A friend might surelyhave stood by him more cordially, believed in him more simply.
"You are at home again? I may come and see you."
"Please! We shall want to hear."
Her tone was embarrassed. They parted almost coldly.
Lydia walked quickly home, down a sloping lane from which the ravines ofBlencathra, edge behind edge, chasm beyond chasm, were to be seen againstthe sunset, and all the intermediate landscape--wood, and stubble, andferny slope--steeped in stormy majesties of light. But for once the quickartist sense was shut against Nature's spectacles. She walked in a blindanguish of self-knowledge and self-scorn. She who had plumed herself onthe poised mind, the mastered senses!
She moaned to herself.
"Why didn't he tell me--warn me! To sell himself to that man--to act forhim--defend him--apologize for him--and for those awful, awful things! Anagent must."
And she thought of some indignant talk of Undersh
aw, which she had heardthat morning.
Her moral self was full of repulsion; her heart was torn. Friend? Sheowned her weakness, and despised it. Turning aside, she leant a whileagainst a gate, hiding her face from the glory of the evening. Week byweek--she knew it now!--through that frank interchange of mind with mind,of heart with heart, represented by that earlier correspondence, stillmore perhaps through the checks and disappointments of its later phases,Claude Faversham had made his way into the citadel.
The puny defences she had built about the freedom of her maiden life andwill lay in ruins. Her theories were scattered like the autumn leavesthat were scuddering over the fields. His voice, the very roughenedbitterness of it; his eyes, with their peremptory challenge, their soreaccusingness; the very contradictions of the man's personality, nowdelightful, now repellent, and, breathing through them all, the passionshe must needs divine--of these various impressions, small and great, shewas the struggling captive. Serenity, peace were gone.
Meanwhile, as Faversham rode toward the Tower, absorbed at one moment ina misery of longing, and the next in a heat of self-defence, perhaps thestrongest feeling that finally emerged was one of dismay that herabrupt leave-taking had prevented him from telling her of that othermatter of which Tatham's visit had informed him. She must hear of itimmediately, and from those who would judge and perhaps denounce him.
Nevertheless, as he dismounted at the Tower, neither the burden ofMainstairs, nor the fear of Lydia's disapproval, nor the agitation of thenews from Duddon, had moved him one jot from his purpose. A man surely isa coward and a weakling, he thought, who cannot grasp the "skirts ofhappy chance," while they are there for the grasping; cannot take whatthe gods offer, while they offer it, lest they withdraw it forever.
Yet, suppose, that by his own act, he raised a moral barrier betweenhimself and Lydia Penfold which such a personality would never permititself to pass?
His vanity, a touch of natural cynicism, refused, in the end, to let himbelieve it. His hope lay in a frank wrestle with her, a frank attack uponher intelligence. He promised himself to attempt it without delay.