XVI
Victoria very soon perceived that a crisis had come and gone. She hadbeen accustomed for a while before they went to Scotland to send aboutonce a week a basket of flowers and fruit from the famous gardens ofDuddon, with her "kind regards" to Mrs. Penfold. The basket was generallybrought into the hall, and Tatham would slip into it the new books ormagazines that seemed to him likely to attract the cottage party. He hadalways taken a particular pleasure in the dispatch of the basket, and inthe contrivance of some new offering of which it might be the bearer.Victoria, on the other hand, though usually a lavish giver, had taken buta grudging part in the business, and merely to please her son.
On the day following the visit to the cottage, the basket, in obedienceto a standing order, lay in the hall as usual, heaped with a gorgeousmass of the earliest chrysanthemums. Victoria observed it--with anunfriendly eye--as she passed through the hall on her way to breakfast.
Harry came up behind her, and she turned to give him her morning kiss.
"Please don't send it," he said abruptly, pointing to the basket. "Itwouldn't be welcome."
She started, but made no reply. They went into breakfast. Victoria gavethe butler directions that the flowers should be sent to the Rectory.
After breakfast she followed Tatham into the library. He stood silent awhile by the window, looking out, his hands in his pockets; she besidehim, leaning her head against his arm.
"It's all over," he said at last; "we decided it last night."
"What's over, dear old boy?"
"I broke our compact--I couldn't help it--and we saw it couldn't go on."
"You--asked her again?"
He nodded. "It's no good. And now it only worries her that I should hangabout. We can't--even be friends. It's all my fault."
"You poor darling!" cried his mother indignantly. "She has played withyou abominably."
He flushed with anger.
"You mustn't say that--you mustn't think it, mother! All these weeks havebeen--to the good. They haven't been the real thing. But I shall alwayshave them--to remember. Now it's done with."
Silence fell upon them again, while their minds went back over thehistory of the preceding six months. Victoria felt very bitter. And so,apparently, in his own way, did he. For he presently said, with avehemence which startled her:
"I'd sooner be shot than see her marry that fellow!"
"Ah! you suspect that?"
"It looks like it," he said reluctantly. "And unless I'm much mistaken,he's a mean cad! But--for her sake--we'll make sure--we'll give him everychance."
"It is of course possible," said Victoria grudgingly, "that he hashonestly tried to do something for the Melroses."
"I daresay!" said Tatham, with a shrug.
"And it is possible also that if he is the heir, he means to make it upto Felicia, when he comes into it all."
Tatham laughed.
"To throw her a spare bone? Very likely. But how are we to know thatMelrose won't bind him by all sorts of restrictions? A vindictiveold villain like that will do anything. Then we shall have Favershamcalmly saying, 'Very sorry I can't oblige you! But if I modify theterms of the will in your favour, I forfeit the estates.' Besidesisn't it monstrous--damnable--that Melrose's daughter should owe to_charity_--the charity of a fellow who had never heard of Melrose orThrelfall six months ago--what is her _right_--her plain and simpleright?"
Victoria agreed. All these ancestral ideas of family maintenance, and thepractical rights dependent on family ties, which were implied in Harry'sattitude, were just as real to her as to his simpler mind. Yet she knewvery well that Netta and Felicia Melrose were fast becoming to him themere symbols and counters of a struggle that affected him moreintimately, more profoundly than any crusading effort for the legal andmoral rights of a couple of strangers could possibly have done.
Lydia had broken with him, and his hopes were dashed. Why? Becauseanother man had come upon the scene whose influence upon her wasclear--disastrously clear.
"If he were a decent fellow--I'd go out of her life--without a word. Buthe's a thievish intriguer!--and I don't intend to hold my hand till I'vebrought him out in his true colours before her and the world. Then--ifshe chooses--with her eyes open--let her take him!" It was thus hismother imagined his thought, and she was not far from the truth. Andmeanwhile the sombre changes in the boyish face made her own heart sore.For they told of an ill heat of blood, and an embittered soul.
At luncheon he sat depressed and silent, doing his duty with an effort tohis mother's guests. Netta also was in the depths. She had lost the powerof rapid recuperation that youth gave to Felicia, and in spite of thecomforts of Threlfall her aspect was scarcely less deplorable than whenshe arrived. Moreover she had cried much since the delivery of theThrelfall letter the day before. Her eyes were red, and her small facedisfigured. Felicia, on the other hand, sat with her nose in the air,evidently despising her mother's tears, and as sharply observant as everof the sights about her--the quietly moving servants, the flowers, andsilver, the strange, nice things to eat. Tatham, absorbed in his ownthoughts, did not perceive how, in addition, she watched the master ofthe house; Victoria was uncomfortably aware of it.
After luncheon Tatham took up a Bradshaw lying on a table in the panelledhall, where they generally drank coffee, and looked up the night mail toEuston.
"I shall catch it at Carlisle," he said to his mother, book in hand."There will be time to hear your report before I go."
She nodded. Her own intention was to start at dusk for Threlfall.
"Why are you going away?" said Felicia suddenly.
He turned to her courteously:
"To try to straighten your affairs!"
"That won't do us any good--to go away." Her voice was shrill, her blackeyes frowned. "We shan't know what to do--by ourselves."
"And it's precisely because I also don't know exactly what to do next,that I'm going to town. We must get some advice--from the lawyers."
"I hate lawyers!" The girl flushed angrily. "I went to one in Luccaonce--we wanted a paper drawn up. Mamma was ill. I had to go by myself.He was a brute!"
"Oh, my old lawyer is not a brute," said Tatham, laughing. "He's a jollyold chap."
"The man in Lucca was a horrid brute!" repeated Felicia. "He wanted tokiss me! There was a vase of flowers standing on his desk. I threw themat him. It cut him. I was so glad! His forehead began to bleed, and thewater ran down from his hair. He looked so ugly and silly! I walked allthe way home up the mountains, and when I got home I fainted. We neverwent to that man again."
"I should think not!" exclaimed Tatham, with disgust. For the first timehe looked at her attentively. An English girl would not have told himthat story in the same frank, upstanding way. But this little elfishcreature, with her blazing eyes, friendless and penniless in the world,had probably been exposed to experiences the English girl would knownothing of. He did not like to think of them. That beast, her father!
He was going away, when Felicia said, her curly head alittle on one side, her tone low and beguiling:
"When you come back, will you teach me to ride? Lady Tathamsaid--perhaps--"
Tatham was embarrassed--and bored--by the request.
"I have no doubt we can find you a pony," he said evasively, and takingup the Bradshaw he walked away.
Felicia stood alone and motionless in the big hall, amid itsGainsboroughs and Romneys, its splendid cabinets and tapestries, achildish figure in a blue dress, with crimson cheeks, and compressedlips. Suddenly she ran up to a mirror on the wall, and looked at herselfvindictively.
"It is because you are so ugly," she said to the image in the glass."Ugh, you are so ugly! And yet I can't have yellow hair like thatother girl. If I dyed it, he would know--he would laugh. And she is allround and soft; but my bones are all sticking out! I might be cut out ofwood. Ah"--her wild smile broke out--"I know what I'll do! I'll drink_panna_--cream they call it here. Every night at tea they bring in whatwould cost a _lira_ in Florenc
e. I'll drink a whole cup of it!--I'll eatpounds of butter--and lots, lots of pudding--that's what makes Englishpeople fat. I'll be fat too. You'll see!" And she threw a threatening nodat the scarecrow reflected in the tortoise-shell mirror.
The October evening had fallen when Tatham put his mother into the motor,and stood, his hands in his pockets--uncomfortable and disapproving--onthe steps of Duddon, watching the bright lights disappearing down thelong avenue. What could she do? He hated to think of her in the oldmiser's house, browbeaten and perhaps insulted, when he was not there toprotect her.
However she was gone, on what he was certain would prove a futile errand,and he turned heavily back into the house.
The head keeper was waiting in the inner hall, in search of orders for asmall "shoot" of neighbours on the morrow, planned some weeks before.
"Arrange it as you like, Thurston!" said Tatham hurriedly, as he came insight of the man, a magnificent grizzled fellow in gaiters and a greenuniform. "I don't care where we go."
"I thought perhaps the Colley Wood beat, my lord--"
"Yes, capital. That'll do. I leave it to you. Sorry I can't stay to talkit over. Good-night!"
"There's a pair of foxes, my lord, in the Nowers spinney that have beendoing a shocking amount of damage lately...."
But the door of the library was already shut. Thurston went away, bothastonished and aggrieved. There were few things he liked better than achat with the young fellow whom he had taught to hold a gun; and Tathamwas generally the most accessible of masters and the keenest ofsportsmen, going into every detail of the shooting parties himself, withan unfailing spirit.
Meanwhile Victoria was speeding eastward in her motor along the Pengarthroad. Darkness was fast rushing on. To her left she saw the spreadingwaste of Flitterdale Common, its great stretches of moss livid in thedusk: and beyond it, westward, the rounded tops and slopes of the rangethat runs from Great Dodd to Helvellyn. Presently she made out, in thedistance, looking southward from the high-level road on which the car wasrunning, the great enclosure of Threlfall Park, on either side of theriver which ran between her and Flitterdale; the dim line of its circlingwall; its scattered woods; and farther on, the square mass of the Toweritself, black above the trees.
The car stopped at a gate, a dark and empty lodge beside it. The footmanjumped down. Was the gate locked?--and must she go round to Whitebeck,and make her attack from that side? No, the gate swung open, and in spedthe car.
Victoria sat upright, her mood strung to an intensity which knew nofears. It was twenty years since she had last seen Edmund Melrose, and itwas thirty years and more since she had rescued her sister from hisgrasp, and the duel between herself and him had ended in her finalvictory.
How dim they seemed, those far-off days!--when for some two or threeyears, either in London or in Paris, where her father was Ambassador, shehad been in frequent contact with a group of young men--of young"bloods"--conspicuous in family and wealth, among whom Edmund Melrose wasthe reckless leader of a dare-devil set. She thought of a famous pictureof the young Beckford, by Lawrence, to which Melrose on the youngerside of forty had been frequently compared. The same romantic beauty offeature, the same liquid depth of eye, the same splendid carriage; and,combined with these, the same insolence and selfishness. There had beenin Victoria's earlier youth moments when to see him enter a ballroom wasto feel her head swim with excitement; when to carry him off from a rivalwas a passionate delight; when she coveted his praise, and dreaded hissarcasm. And yet--it was perfectly true what she had said to Harry. Shehad never been in love with him. The imagination of an "unlessoned girl"had been fired; but when the glamour in which it had wrapped the man hadbeen torn away by the disclosure of some ugly facts concerning him; whenshe broke with him in disgust, and induced others to break with him; itwas not her feelings, not her heart, which had suffered.
Nevertheless, so complex a thing is a woman, that as Victoria Tatham drewnearer to the Tower, and to Melrose, she felt herself strangely meltingtoward him--a prey to pity and the tears of things. She alone in thiscountryside had been a witness of his meteor like youth; she alone couldset it beside his sordid and dishonoured age.
What did she hope to do with him? The plight of his wife and daughter hadroused her strongest and most indignant sympathy. The cry of wrong orinjustice had always found her fiercely responsive. Whatever an outsidercould do to help Melrose's local victims she had done, not once but manytimes. Her mind was permanently in revolt against him, both as a man anda landlord. She had watched and judged him for years. Yet, now thatyet another of his misdeeds was to bring her again into personal contactwith him, her pulse quickened; some memory of the old ascendencysurvived.
It was a still and frosty evening. As the motor drew up in the walledenclosure before the Tower, the noise of its brakes echoed through theprofound silence in which the Tower was wrapped. No sign of life in thedark front; no ray of light anywhere from its shuttered windows.
Yet, to her astonishment, as she alighted, and before she had rung thebell, the front door was thrown open, and Dixon with a couple of dogs athis heels ran down the steps.
At sight however of the veiled and cloaked lady who had descended fromthe motor, the old man stopped short, evidently surprised. With anexclamation Victoria did not catch, he retreated to the threshold of thehouse.
She mounted rapidly, not noticing that a telegraph boy on a bicycle hadcome wheeling into the forecourt behind her.
"Is Mr. Melrose at home?"
As she threw back her veil, Dixon stared at her in dumb amazement. Thenshe suddenly perceived behind him a tall figure advancing. She made a fewsteps forward through the dimly lighted hall, and found herself within afoot of Edmund Melrose himself.
He gave a start--checked himself--and stood staring at her. He worespectacles, and was leaning on a stick. She had a quick impression ofphysical weakness and decay.
Without any visible embarrassment she held out her hand.
"I am lucky to have found you at home, Mr. Melrose. Will you give metwenty minutes' conversation on some important business?"
"Excuse me!" he said with a profound bow, and a motion of the lefthand toward the stick on which he supported himself--"or rather myinfirmities."
Victoria's hand dropped.
His glittering eyes surveyed her. Dixon approached him holding out atelegram.
"Allow me," said Melrose, as he tore open the envelope and perusedthe message. "Ah! I thought so! You were mistaken, Lady Tatham--foranother visitor--one of those foreign fellows who waste so much ofmy time--coming to see a few little things of mine. Shut the door,Dixon--the man has missed his train. Now, Lady Tatham!--you have somebusiness to discuss with me. Kindly step this way."
He turned toward the gallery. Victoria followed, and Dixon was left inthe hall, staring after them in a helpless astonishment.
The gallery lit by hanging lamps made a swift impression of splendidspace and colour on Lady Tatham as she passed through it in Melrose'swake. He led the way without a word, till he reached the door of his ownroom.
She passed into the panelled library which has been already described inthe course of this narrative. On this October evening, however, itsaspect was not that generally presented by Melrose's "den." Its ordinaryhugger-mugger had been cleared away--pushed back into corners and out ofsight. But on the splendid French bureau, and on various other tables andcabinets of scarcely less beauty, there stood ranged in careful ordera wealth of glorious things. The light of a blazing fire, and of manylamps played on some fifty or sixty dishes and vases from the great daysof Italian majolica--specimens of Gubbio, Faenza, Caffagiolo, of therarest and costliest quality. The room glowed and sparkled with colour.The gold of Italian sunshine, the azure of Italian skies, the purple ofItalian grapes seemed to have been poured into it, and to have takenshape in these lustrous ewers and plaques, in their glistering greens andyellows, their pale opalescence, their superb orange and blue. While as abackground to the show, a couple of curtains--Venetian
cut-velvet of theseventeenth century, of faded but still gorgeous blue and rose--had beenhung over a tall screen.
"What marvellous things!" cried Victoria, throwing up her hands andforgetting everything else for the moment but the pleasure of a trainedeye.
Melrose smiled.
"Pray take that chair!" he said, with exaggerated deference. "Yourvisits are rare, Lady Tatham! Is it--twenty years? I regret I have nodrawing-room in which to receive you. But Mr. Faversham and I talk offurnishing it before long. You are, I believe, acquainted with Mr.Faversham?"
He waved his hand, and suddenly Victoria became aware of another personin the room. Faversham standing tall and silent, amid the show ofmajolica, bowed to her formally, and Victoria slightly acknowledged thegreeting. It seemed to her that Melrose's foraging eyes travelledmaliciously between her and the agent.
"Mr. Faversham and I only unpacked a great part of this stuff yesterday,"said Melrose, with much apparent good humour. "It has been shut up in oneof the north rooms ever since a sale in Paris at which I bought most ofthe pieces. Crockett wished to see it" (he named the most famous Americancollector of the day). "He shall see it. I understand he will be hereto-morrow, having missed his train to-day. He will come no doubt with hischeck-book. It amuses me to lead these fellows on, and then bid them goodmorning. They have the most infernal assumptions. One has to teach themthat an Englishman is a match for any American!"
Victoria sat passive. Faversham took up a pile of letters and movedtoward the door. As he opened it, he turned and his eyes met Victoria's.She wavered a moment under the passionate and haughty resentment theyseemed to express, no doubt a reflection of the reply to his letter senthim by Harry that morning. Then the door shut and she was alone withMelrose.
That gentleman leant back in his chair observing her. He wore the curiouscloaklike garment of thin black stuff, in which for some years past hehad been accustomed to dress when indoors; and the skullcap on hissilvery white hair gave added force to the still splendid head andaquiline features. A kind of mocking satisfaction seemed to flickerthrough the wrinkled face; and the general aspect of the man was stillformidable indeed. And yet it was the phantom of a man that she beheld.He had paled to the diaphanous whiteness of the Catholic ascetic; hishand shook upon his stick; the folds of the cloak barely concealed theemaciation of his body. Victoria, gazing at him, seemed to perceivestrange intimations and presages, and, in the deep harsh eyes, a spiritat bay.
She began quietly, bending forward:
"Mr. Melrose, I have come to speak to you on behalf of your wife."
"So I imagined. I should not allow any one else, Lady Tatham, to addressme on the subject."
"Thank you. I resolved--as you see--to appeal once more to our old--"
"Friendship?" he suggested.
"Yes--friendship," she repeated, slowly. "It might have been calledso--once."
"Long ago! So long ago that--I do not see how anything practical can comeof appealing to it," he said, pointedly. "Moreover, the manner in whichthe friendship was trampled on--by you--not once, but twice, not onlydestroyed it, but--if I may say so--replaced it."
His hollow eyes burned upon her. Wrapped in his cloak, his white hairgleamimg amid the wonderful ewers and dishes, he had the aspect of somewizard or alchemist, of whom a woman might ask poison for her rival, or aphilter for her lover. Victoria, fascinated, was held partly by theapparition before her, partly by an image--a visualization in the mind.She saw the ballroom in that splendid house, now the British Embassy inParis, and once the home of Pauline Borghese. She saw herself in white, awreath of forget-me-nots in her hair. She has just heard, and from awoman friend, a story of lust and cruelty in which Edmund Melrose was theprincipal actor. He comes to claim her for a dance; she dismisses him, inpublic, with a manner and in words that scathe--that brand. She sees hislook of rage, as of one struck in the face--she feels again the shudderpassing through her--a shudder of release, horror passing intothanksgiving.
But--what long tracts of life since then!--what happiness for her!--whatdecay and degeneracy for him! A pang of sheer pity, not so much for himas for the human lot, shot through her, as she realized afresh to whatevening of life he had come, from what a morning.
At any rate her manner in reply showed no resentment of his tone.
"All these things are dead for both of us," she said quietly.
He interrupted her.
"You are right--or partly right. Edith is dead--that makes it easier foryou and me to meet."
"Yes. Edith is dead," she said, with sudden emotion. "And in her lastdays she spoke to me kindly of you."
He made no comment. She resumed:
"I desire, if I can--and if you will allow me--to recall to you the yearswhen we were cousins and friends together--blotting out all that hashappened since. If you remember--twenty years ago, when you and your wifearrived to settle here, I then came to ask you to bury the feud betweenus, and to let us meet again at least as neighbours and acquaintances.You refused. Then came the breakdown of your marriage. I was honestlysorry for it."
He smiled. She was quite conscious of the mockery in the smile; but shepersevered.
"And now, for many years, I have not known--nobody here has known,whether your wife was alive or dead. Suddenly, a few days ago, she andyour daughter arrived at Duddon, to ask me to help them."
"Precisely. To make use of you, in order to bring pressure to bear on me!I do not mean to lend myself to the proceeding!"
Victoria flushed.
"In attempting to influence me, Mrs. Melrose, I assure you, had no weaponwhatever but her story. And to look at her was to see that it was true.She admits--most penitently--that she was wrong to leave you--""And to rob me! You forget that."
Victoria threw back her head. He remembered that scornful gesture in heryouth.
"What did that matter to you? In this house!"
She looked round the room, with its contents.
"It did matter to me," he said stubbornly. "My collections are the onlysatisfaction left to me--by you, Lady Tatham--and others. They are to mein the place of children. I love my bronzes--and my marbles--as you--Isuppose--love your son. It sounds incredible to you, no doubt"--the sneerwas audible--"but it is so."
"Even if it were so--it is twenty years ago. You have replaced what youlost a hundred times."
"I have never replaced it. And it is now out of my reach--in the BerlinMuseum--bought by that fellow Jensen, their head man, who goes nosinglike a hound all over Europe--and is always poaching in my preserves."
Victoria looked at him in puzzled amazement. Was this mad, this childishbitterness, a pose?--or was there really some breakdown of the oncepowerful brain? She began again--less confidently.
"I have told you--I repeat--how sorry she is--how fully she admits shewas wrong. But just consider how she has paid for it! Your allowance toher--you must let me speak plainly--could not keep her and her childdecently. Her family have been unfortunate; she has had to keep them aswell as herself. And the end of it is that she--and your child--your ownchild--have come pretty near to starvation."
He sat immovable. But Victoria rose to her task. Her veil thrown backfrom the pale austerity of her beauty, she poured out the story of Nettaand Felicia, from a heart sincerely touched. The sordid years inFlorence, the death of Netta's mother, the bankruptcy of her father, thebitter struggle amid the Apuan Alps to keep themselves and their wretchedinvalid alive--she described them, as they had been told to her, notrhetorically, for neither she nor Netta Melrose was capable of rhetoric,but with the touches and plain details that bring conviction.
"They have been _hungry_--for the peasants' food. Your wife and childhave had to be content day after day with a handful of bread and a_salata_ gathered from the roadside; while every franc they could earnwas spent upon a sick man. Mrs. Melrose is a shadow. I suspect incurableillness. Your little daughter arrived fainting and emaciated at my house.But with a few days' rest and proper food she has revived. She is young.She has
not suffered irreparably. One sees what a lovely little creatureshe might be--and how full of vivacity and charm. Mr. Melrose--you wouldbe proud of her! She is like you--like what you were, in your youth. WhenI think of what other people would give for such a daughter! Can youpossibly deny yourself the pleasure of taking her back into your life?"
"Very easily! Your sentimentalism will resent it; I assure you,nevertheless, that it would give me no pleasure whatever."
"Ah, but consider it again," she pleaded, earnestly. "You do not knowwhat you are refusing--how much, and how little. All that is asked isthat you should acknowledge them--provide for them. Let them stay here afew weeks in the year--what could it matter to you in this immensehouse?--or if that is impossible, at least give your wife a properallowance--you would spend it three times over in a day on things likethese"--her eye glanced toward a superb ewer and dish, of _verreeglomisee_, standing between her and Melrose--"and let your daughter takeher place as your heiress! She ought to marry early--and marrybrilliantly. And later--perhaps--in her children--"
Melrose stood up.
"I shall not follow you into these dreams," he said fiercely. "She is notmy heiress--and she never will be. The whole of my property"--he spokewith hammered emphasis--"will pass at my death to my friend and agent andadopted son--Claude Faversham."
He spoke with an excitement his physical state no longer allowed him toconceal. At last--he was defeating this woman who had once defeated him;he was denying and scorning her, as she had once denied and scorned him.That her cause was an impersonal and an unselfish one made no difference.He knew the strength of her character and her sympathies. It was sweet tohim to refuse her something she desired. She had never yet given him theopportunity! In the twenty years since they had last faced each other, hewas perfectly conscious that he had lost mentally, morally, physically;whereas she--his enemy--bore about with her, even in her changed beauty,the signs of a life lived fruitfully--a life that had been worth while.His bitter perception of it, his hidden consciousness that he hadprobably but a short time, a couple of years at most, to live, onlyincreased his satisfaction in the "No"--the contemptuous and final "No!"that he had opposed, and would oppose, to her impertinent interferencewith his affairs.
Victoria sat regarding him silently, as he walked to themantelpiece, rearranged a few silver objects standing upon it, andthen turned--confronting her again.
"You have made Mr. Faversham your heir?" she asked him after a pause.
"I have. And I shall take good care that he does nothing with my propertywhen he inherits it so as to undo my wishes with regard to it."
"That is to say--you will not even allow him to make--himself--provisionfor your wife and daughter?"
"Beyond what was indicated in the letter to your son? No! certainly not.I shall take measures against anything of the sort."
Victoria rose.
"And he accepts your condition--your bequest to him, on these terms?"
Melrose smiled.
"Certainly. Why not?"
"I am sorry for Mr. Faversham!" said Victoria, in a different voice, thecolour sparkling on her cheek.
"Because you think there will be a public opinion against him--that hewill be boycotted in this precious county? Make yourself easy, LadyTatham. A fortune such as he will inherit provides an easy cure for suchwounds."
Victoria's self-control began to break down.
"I venture to think he will not find it so," she said, with quickenedbreath. "In these days it is not so simple to defy the commonconscience--as it once was. I fear indeed that Mr. Faversham has alreadylost the respect of decent men!"
"By becoming my agent?"
"Your tool--for actions--cruel, inhuman things--degrading to both you andhim."
She had failed. She knew it! And all that remained was to speak the truthto him, to defy and denounce him.
Melrose surveyed her.
"The ejectment order has been served at Mainstairs to-day, I believe; andthe police have at last plucked up their courage to turn those shiftlesspeople out. There, too, I understand, Lady Tatham, you have beenmeddling."
"I have been trying to undo some of your wrong-doing," she said, withemotion. "And now--before I go--you shall not prevent me from saying thatI regard it perhaps as your last and worst crime to have perverted theconscience of this young man! He has been well thought of till now: adecent fellow sprung from decent people. You are making an outcast--apariah of him. And you think _money_ will compensate him! When you and Iknew each other, Edmund"--the name slipped out--"you had a _mind_--one ofthe shrewdest I ever knew. I appeal to that. It is not so much now thatyou are wicked or cruel--you are playing the _fool_! And you are teachingthis young man to do the same."
She stood confronting him, holding herself tensely erect--a pale,imperious figure--the embodiment of all the higher ideals and traditionsof the class to which they both belonged.
In her agitation she had dropped her glove. Melrose picked it up.
"On that I think, Lady Tatham, we will say farewell. I regret I have notbeen able to oblige you. My wife comes from a needy class--accustomed tomanage on a little. My daughter has not been brought up to luxury. Hadshe remained with me, of course, the case would have been different. Butyou will find they will do very well on what I have provided for them. Iadvise you not to waste your pity. And as for Mr. Faversham, he will takegood care of himself. He frames excellently. And I hope before long tosee him married--to a very suitable young lady."
They remained looking at each other, for a few seconds, in silence. ThenVictoria said quietly, with a forward step:
"I bid you good evening."
He stood at the door, his fingers on the handle, his eyes glittering andmalicious.
"I should have liked to have shown you some of my little collections,"he said, smiling. "That _verre eglomisee_, for instance"--he pointed toit--"it's magnificent, though rather decadent. They have nothing like itin London or Paris. Really--you must go?"
He threw the door open, bowing profoundly.
"Dixon!"
A voice responded from the farther end of the corridor.
"Tell her ladyship's car to come round. Excuse my coming to the door,Lady Tatham. I am an old man."
The car sped once more through the gloom of the park. Victoria sat withhands locked on her knee, possessed by the after tremors of battle.
In Melrose's inhuman will there was something demonic, which appalled.The impotence of justice, of compassion, in the presence of certainshameless and insolent forces of the human spirit--the lesson goes deep!Victoria quivered under it.
But there were other elements besides in her tumult of feeling. The tone,the taunting look, with which Melrose had spoken of Faversham's possiblemarriage--did he, did all the world know, that Harry had been played withand jilted? For that, in plain English, was what it came to. Her heartburnt with anger--with a desire to punish.
The car passed out of the lodge gates. Its brilliant lamps under thetrees seemed to strike into the very heart of night. And suddenly, in themidst of the light they made, two figures emerged, an old man carrying asack, a youth beside him, with a gun over his shoulder.
They were the Brands--father, and younger son. Victoria bent forward witha hasty gesture of greeting. But they never turned to look at the motor.They passed out of the darkness, and into the darkness again, theirfrowning, unlovely faces, their ragged clothes and stooping gait,illuminated for an instant.
Victoria had tried that very week, at her son's instance, to try andpersuade the father to take a small farm on the Duddon estate, Tathamoffering to lend him capital. And Brand had refused. Independence,responsibility, could no longer be faced by a spirit so crushed. "Idarena' my lady," he had said to her. "I'm worth nobbut my weekly wage. Icanna' tak' risks--no more. Thank yo' kindly; but yo' mun let us be!"