Itall came back like lightning when the policeman came once more. The family party were almost as before, when the man was announced again, bringing back the former excitement.
No one noticed when Dolff stole out of the room. The lamps had not been brought in, though the afternoon had become dark. The fire glowed, but gave no flame. But it is wrong to say that no one noticed. Janet did not lose a movement of the unhappy young man, nor did Meredith, though he took no notice. Meredith said little: he was struggling with the force of this new discovery that had flashed upon his mind, and which not only cleared up the knotty point, but put meaning and reason into a business hitherto incomprehensible to him.
When the aspect of Dolff suddenly struck upon his dormant memory and roused it into keen life, he no longer found any difficulty in understanding the whole matter. Dolff had seen him with Janet, with whom the lout imagined himself in love. He had heard, perhaps, certain words of the conversation: he had seen the clinging of Janet to Meredith’s arm, the hands held in his. Meredith thought he remembered now a figure with hat drawn down and collar up at the window of Mimpriss’s shop. It was all explicable now; he understood it. Dolff! It flashed upon him without doubt or uncertainty. There was something whimsical, bizarre about it which made him laugh. Dolff, whom he had always despised, a rowdy undergraduate, a music-hall man. Dolff, a troublesome boy,wanting even in the matured strength of a man, not his own match in any way. And to think that he had been carried into the house, and nursed with the profoundest devotion under the same roof with the cub who had tried to take his life.
Nobody had the least idea why Meredith laughed. It was at the detective, he said, though the detective was not ridiculous at all. And this was what had changed the looks of Janet, and given her that tranquil air which, now he thought of it, was so ludicrous too. He had to make an effort to restrain that laugh. After the first thrill of anger, Meredith rejected as impossible the punishment of Dolff. It was not a thing that could be done. Such a scandal and disturbance of all existing ties was inexpedient, even for himself—to have it published to the world that he had been knocked down and almost killed by the son of the house in which he spent most of his evenings, was impossible. At all hazards that danger must be staved off. But Meredith saw means of torturing both those culprits which would be very effectual without any intervention of the law. He would have Dolff at his mercy; he would pierce him with arrows of ridicule from which it would be impossible for the young man to defend himself; and Janet, who had forsaken him, who held apart, and even played for him, when she was bidden to do so, unwillingly—Janet should suffer too.
Lights of malice and mockery woke up in Meredith’s eyes. He anticipated a great deal of fun from the appearance of the witness, who, no doubt, would collapse and come to nothing when inquired into. Meredith saw nothing but sport in this unthought-of catastrophe. He had something of the feeling of the excited boy who has a cat or a dog to torture. He knew how to tickle Dolff up in the tenderest places, to keep him in a perpetual ferment of alarm, to hold endless threats over him; and to watch his writhings would be all the more fun that the fellow would deserve it all, and more than that if he got his due. Thus delightedly pursuing his revenge, Meredith missed the moment when Dolff withdrew. But Janet saw it, with a terror impossible to describe. She could not go after him or advise him. Since these miseries had happened, it had become her charge to make the tea, and there she sat, conspicuous even in the fading light, unable to budge. She saw the unhappy young man steal out, and she knew that all kinds of desperate resolves must be in his mind. He would not have the courage to face it out. He would go away and he would conceal himself—do something to heighten suspicion and make every guess into certainty. And she could not goafter him to warn him—to implore him to stand fast! The tortures which Meredith had imagined with such pleasure had begun in Janet’s breast.
Dolff got out into the hall in a condition impossible to describe—his limbs were limp with misery and fear. Great drops of perspiration hung upon his forehead. He went blindly to snatch a hat from the stand; then took his coat, for he was cold with mental agony, and struggled into it. While he was doing this, Vicars suddenly appeared by him, he could not tell how, and laid a hand on his shoulder, which made Dolff jump. He darted back with an oath, and would have that moment turned and fled had not Vicars caught his arm again.
“Mr. Dolff, what’s up? For goodness’ sake don’t fly out like this. There’s one of those d——d policemen watching on the other side of the road.”
Dolff stared wildly in Vicars’s face.
“Let me go,” he said. “I must go; I don’t care where.”
“What’s up?” said Vicars. “You’re in some row, Mr. Dolff?”
“Don’t you know?” said Dolff, wildly. “That man’s coming back. If he comes back before I’m gone, it’s all up with me, Vicars. Get out of my way. I’ll go—by the garden door.”
“And show yourself to all the women,” said Vicars, “who’ll tell the first word, ‘Oh, he’s in the garden.’ Mr. Dolff, is it life or death?”
Dolff could not speak. He stared dully at his questioner, unable to reply. The sound of the outer door pushed open, and men’s footsteps upon the path, came in like a sort of horrible accompaniment and explanation. The perspiration stood in great beads on Dolff’s forehead. He tried to make a bolt at the passage to the garden, which led by the open door of the kitchen. Then he drew himself up against the wall, in a half stupor, as if he could conceal himself so.
“Is it life or death?” said Vicars, in his ear; but Dolff could not speak.
He had a dim vision of the man’s face, of the light swimming in his eyes, of the knock upon the door of the house, ominous, awful, like a knell; and then he suddenly found himself drawn into darkness, into a warm, close atmosphere, beyond the reach of that, or apparently of any other sound.
Priscilla, always correct, but a little surprised, not knowing how to account for such an invasion of the drawing-room, ushered in the detective, accompanied by a man in a shabby coat, very inappropriate certainly to that locality. Mr. Dolff hadalways spoken to such men in the hall. A parlor-maid is, above all things, an aristocrat. To have to introduce two such persons to her mistress’s presence offended her in her deepest sense of right and wrong.
“Is this the man?” said Meredith. “Mrs. Harwood, do you think we might have a little light?”
“Priscilla is bringing in the lamps,” said Mrs. Harwood, looking with a little suspicion and annoyance at the men, who certainly were much out of place: a feeling that there was danger in them somehow, though she could not tell how, crept into her mind.
She looked anxiously at the dim figures looming against the light, and a thrill of alarm went through her. Why did Charley insist on having them here? Why did not Dolff see them in the hall, as he had done before? She had never had a policeman in her house; never, except—Trouble and tremor came over her as she sat there growing breathless in her chair. As for Gussy, she was insensible to every appeal, to every claim upon her attention but one. She was Meredith’s sick-nurse, watching lest he should be over-fatigued, thinking of nothing else. There was no help or support in her for her mother’s anxieties.
When the lamps were brought in matters were no better. A sort of Rembrandt-like depth of shadow fell upon the two strange figures, throwing a blackness over the tea-table at which Janet was sitting, and showing only the form of Meredith in his chair, which was full within the influence of the shaded light, and the awkward attitudes of the two men in the middle of the room.
“So this is the man who saw me—knocked down?” said Meredith. His face, which was the central light in that strange picture, was lit up with what seemed more like malicious fun than any other sentiment. “And you think you could identify the fellow who did it? Is that so?”
“You may thank your stars as you weren’t killed,” said the new-comer. “He meant it, sir, that fellow did.”
“You think so? Well, he hasn’t succeeded, you see; and you think you can identify him?”
“Among a thousand, sir,” said the man. “Just you put him before me in a crowd and I’ll pick him out afore you could say——”
“Then why,” said Meredith, “haven’t you done it before now? Here are three weeks gone, and plenty of time for him to have got away.”
“He’s not got away; I’ve kept my eye upon him, and Ihave said to the police, times and times, as I could lay my hands upon him as soon as ever he was wanted.”
“I thought,” said Meredith, “a criminal was wanted from the moment he put himself in the power of the law. You should have secured him at once; to keep your eye upon a man is not a process known to the law.”
“I don’t know about the law, sir,” said the man. “I know that I have been ready any day. I told ’em so the very first night, but they’ve never paid no attention to me—not till this gentleman was put on as knows me, and knows as he can trust in my word.”
“Yes?” said Meredith, solemnly, “I’m glad to hear you can have such good recommendations. Is it necessary you should have a thousand to choose from before you tell us who my assailant is?—because, you see, it would be a little difficult to have them in here.”
“Oh,” cried the man, angrily, “a deal fewer than a thousand will do—if you’ll just collect all there is in the house——”
“In the house!” cried Mrs. Harwood, “but what is the use of that? We know beforehand that there is nobody in this house who would lay a finger——” she stopped with an indefinite choking sensation in her throat, suddenly perceiving that Dolff had gone away. It was not distinct enough to mean suspicion of Dolff—suspicion of Dolff! what folly and insanity! but why should he have gone away?
“I thought as you said the young gentleman was here,” said the witness, turning to his guide. “I told you as you’d never find him when you came back.”
“It don’t matter much,” said the other, in a low tone, “he can’t go far, there’s two of my mates outside.”
The ladies did not catch the meaning of this colloquy, though it raised the most bewildering alarm in Mrs. Harwood’s breast. Gussy still thought of it alone as it affected the health of her beloved. She stood by him, her attention concentrated on him, watching whether he grew pale, whether he flushed, if he seemed tired. Her mother’s anxious look awakened no sympathy in Gussy’s mind. If she observed it at all she set it down to the same cause as made herself anxious, the fear that Meredith might be over-excited or fatigued.
“Do you want the maids and all?” said Meredith, in his familiar tone of banter. “You don’t think much of me, my good man, if you think I could be battered like that by—Priscilla, for instance,” he said, turning to Mrs. Harwood with a laugh.
“I wasn’t thinking of no Priscilla,” said the man, angrily. “If it suits you to laugh at it, gentleman, it don’t suit me. There’s a reward out. And when I see as clear as I sees you—I should think itwasa man, and a strong one too. Lord, how savage he took you up again and dashed your ’ead against the pavement! I should know him anywhere, among a thousand.”
“Charley,” said Mrs. Harwood, faintly, “there is something dreadful in all this. Do you think it could be put off to another time? or couldn’t they just go and do their duty, whatever it is, without freezing the blood in our veins, and,” she added, catching Gussy’s look, “exhausting you?”
“I’m sorry to trouble the lady, sir,” said the detective. “I shouldn’t have said anything if I could have helped it; but, to tell you the truth, suspicion does attach to a person in the house. If the young gentleman had stayed and faced it, things might have been done quiet. But as he’s gone away—I’m sorry, very sorry, to disturb the ladies—but I’ve got a search-warrant, and I must find my man. You’ll explain it to ’em, sir, as I can’t help it, and it was no wish of mine to upset the house.”
“A search-warrant! Oh, my God! what does he mean?” cried Mrs. Harwood. She added, in her bewilderment, “That could have nothing to do with Charley,” under her breath.
“I have no more idea than you have,” said Meredith; “some one in this house? It must be old Vicars they mean. Come, my man, don’t be too absurd. If you think that old fellow could play at pitch-and-toss with me in the way you describe, you must have a precious poor opinion of me. But I suppose Vicars can be sent for—if he’s in the house.”
“I don’t know nothing about Vicars, nor who he is. Where’s that young gentleman? What did he go away for when he knew as he was wanted? You produce that young gentleman, and then you’ll see what we means,” said the witness, in great wrath.
“Hold your noise,” said the policeman. “I daresay it’s all nonsense when we come to the bottom of it; and I’m sure I’m very sorry to disturb the ladies; but I must just ’ave a few words with the young gentleman. Most likely he can clear it all up.”
“Dolff!” said Mrs. Harwood, with an amazed cry.
“Dolff!” cried Meredith, with a burst of laughter.
His apparent appreciation of this as an excellent joke confused the two men. They looked at each other again for mutual support.
“You’d not have laughed if you’d seen him, as I did,” growled the stranger.
“I felt—him, whoever he was, as you didn’t, my man; and it is evident you think me a poor creature, to be battered about by a boy—or a woman. Come, there’s enough of this nonsense,” he said. “Why didn’t you seize the fellow when you saw him? What do you mean, coming with this cock-and-bull story three weeks after—and to me?”
“Produce the young gentleman, sir, and let me just ask him a few questions.”
“I haven’t got him in my pocket,” said Meredith. “Probably he has gone out. If he were here, I should not allow him to answer your questions. I’m his legal adviser. Come, come, don’t let us have any more of this.”
“If he has gone out,” said the policeman, “by this time he’s in the hands of my mate—and if he haven’t I’ve a right to search the house. You’d better produce him, mister—or you, lady, before it’s too late.”
Janet, unable to bear the scene which was thus rising to a climax, had got up out of the shadow and left the room a moment before. The hall was perfectly vacant, not a trace of any one in it—not even Priscilla going about her business, or the nurse in the dining-room, which was still sacred to the invalid. The lamp burned steadily, the silence was dreadful to the excited girl. It seemed like the pause of fate—not a sound within or without—even the voices, subdued by distance, but generally audible in a cheerful hum from the kitchen, were hushed to-night. All perfectly silent—calm as if tumult or tragedy had never entered there.
“I mustgo after them; I must—I must follow them! Oh, Dolff, where are you—where are you?” cried Mrs. Harwood.
She was wild with excitement and alarm, her face alternately flushed and paled, her form trembling with endeavor to move, to push herself forward, to follow those dreadful emissaries of the law whose heavy steps were very audible, now on the stairs, now overhead.
The other members of the party were in strange contrast to her anxiety. Meredith lay back in his chair rubbing his hands moved apparently by the supremest sense of the ludicrous, unable to see it in any but a ridiculous light. Gussy leaned on the back of his chair, smiling in sympathy with him, yet a little pale and wondering, beginning to realize that something disagreeable, painful, might be going on, though it did not mean fatigue or excitement to her patient. Julia, finally roused from her book, had got up bewildered, and stood asking what was the matter, getting no reply from anyone.
The door of the drawing-room had been left open, and across the hall, at the opposite door of what was now Meredith’s room, stood the nurse in her white cap and apron, with a wondering face, looking out.
“I thought I knew a great deal about the folly of the authorities,” said Meredith, “and of Scotland Yard in particular, but this is the climax. By-the-bye, I see an opportunity for a great sensation, which, if I were at the Old Bailey, would make my fortune. ‘The prisoner, accused of a murderous assault upon Mr. Meredith, was defended by that gentleman in person.’ What a situation for the press—one might add, ‘who is a family connection,’ eh, Gussy?” he said, putting up his hand to take hers, which was upon the back of his chair.
“Oh, Charley! but speak to mamma. Mamma is miserable. Everything about Dolff makes her so anxious.”
“Even such an excellent joke?” said Meredith: but he did not say anything to comfort Mrs. Harwood.
In the midst of his laugh a sudden gravity came over him. He looked at her again with a quick, scrutinizing glance. Dolff was not all. She had been bewildered—taken by surprise, but was not really anxious about her son. Now, however, as she sat listening, waiting, her suspense became unbearable. A woman imprisoned in her chair never moving, unable to walk a step, she looked as if at any moment she might dart out of it and fling herself after the invaders. Her hands moved uneasily upon the arms of her chair, plucking at them as if to raise herself. The light in her eyes was a wild glare of desperation. The color fluttered on her face, now ebbing away and leaving her ghastly, now coming back with a sudden flush. He remembered suddenly all that might be involved in a search of that house, and that for anything he knew a secret which it was of the utmost importance he should fathom now lay, as it were, within reach of his hand. He became serious all at once, the laugh passing suddenly from his face. He got up but not to stop the examination, as Gussy hoped. He did not even stop to soothe Mrs. Harwood, but strolled out into the hall on his unsteady limbs, forgetting them all.
“I must go after them,” Mrs. Harwood cried again, halfraising herself in her chair. “I must go after them. Gussy, they may go—how can we tell where they may go?”
“No, mamma, there is nothing to be alarmed about. Vicars will see to that.”
“How can we tell where Vicars is? I have been afraid of something of the kind all my life. Gussy, I must go myself. I must go myself!”
“Oh, hush, mamma,” said Gussy; she was not alarmed about a risk which had never frightened her at all. Mrs. Harwood was always nervous; but Gussy, who had been used to it for years, had never believed that anything would happen. So long as Charley did not throw himself back—was not over-excited. This was what Gussy most feared.
“I’ll take you wherever you like, mamma,” said Julia, coming with a rush to the back of the chair, and projecting her mother into the hall with a force which nearly shook her out of it. Mrs. Harwood’s precipitate progress was arrested by Meredith, who called out to Julia to go softly, and caught at the arm of the chair as it swung past.
“Are you coming too, to keep an eye on them?” he said.
“I don’t like,” said Mrs. Harwood, trying to subdue the trembling of her lips, “to have such people all over my house.”
“Oh, they are honest enough; there will be no picking or stealing. As for the thing itself, it’s a farce. I daresay Dolff has gone out. And, if not, what does it matter? If there is any such ridiculous idea about, you had better meet it and be done with it. It’s a wonder they don’t arrest me for knocking down myself.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Harwood faintly, “I am not afraid for Dolff.”
“You can have nothing else to be afraid of,” said Meredith, in his careless tones. “A search by the police is nothing unless there happens to be something for them to find out. Nothing is of any importance unless it is true. They may search till they are tired, but, so long as there is nobody in hiding, what can it matter? Don’t trouble yourself about nothing. Let me take you back to your comfortable fireside.”
“No, no,” said Mrs. Harwood, more and more troubled; “I will stay here.”
He had not, it was evident, found the way to save her, with all his philosophy.
“No?” said Meredith, interrogatively. “It’s rather cold here, however, after the cosiness of the drawing-room. I hope you’ll not catch cold. If it is any satisfaction to you, of course, there’s nothing to be said: but I should think you might let me look out for these fellows and send them off. Juliaand me,” he added, with a wave of his hand to Julia, and the smile which was so exasperating.
He kept wondering all the time where Janet was—Janet, who had disappeared without attracting any notice, and who probably, he thought, had helped to smuggle Dolff away somewhere, uselessly—because when such an accusation was once made, it was much better to brave it out. It was like the folly of a woman to try to smuggle him away, when the only thing was to brave it out.
“This is the only place where there is no draught,” he said, pushing Mrs. Harwood’s chair directly in front of the door which led to the wing—the door, which, on the night of the ball, he and Janet had miraculously found unfastened.
The door, he remarked once more, had every appearance of being a door built up and impracticable. To say, in a carefully-kept house like this, that it was covered with dust would not have been true, but there was an air about it as if it had been covered with dust. Meredith smiled at himself while he made this reflection. His heart was singularly buoyant and free, full of excitement, yet of pleasurable excitement. He was on the eve of finding out something he wanted to find out, and he was most particularly concerned that the circumstances which favored him should overwhelm Mrs. Harwood. He placed her almost exactly in front of the door as if she had intended to veil it, and drew over one of the hall chairs beside her and threw himself down upon it.
“This is the most sheltered spot,” he said, “out of reach of the door and several other draughts. If you will stay out in the hall and catch cold, Mrs. Harwood, you are safest here.”
She glanced at the door as he drew her up to it with a repressed shudder. She had become deadly pale, and in the faint light looked as if she had suddenly become a hundred years old, withered and shrunken up with age. Julia, very much startled, and with eyes wide open and astonished, stood by her mother.
“I shouldn’t have put her by that nasty shut-up door; there is always a wind from under it,” she said.
“Hush—oh, hush!” said Mrs. Harwood, with a shiver.
The detective and his companion were coming downstairs, led by the sniffing and contemptuous Priscilla. They came down cautiously with their heavy boots, as if they might have slipped on the soft carpets.
“Well,” said Meredith, as they came in sight, “found anything? We are waiting here to hear your news.”
“No, sir; the young gentleman have got clean away, so faras I can see,” said the policeman; “but you know, sir, as well as me, for a man that’s known to struggle with the p’leece is no good. He’ll be got at, sooner or later, and it’s far better to give himself up at once.”
“That is exactly my opinion,” said Meredith, “and I should have given him that advice if either of us had known what you meant; but, you see, a young gentleman who has nothing on his conscience does not think what is the wisest thing to do about the police—for he does not expect to have anything to do with them.”
“I hope he have as easy a conscience as that,” said the detective.
“I hope he has, and I don’t doubt it, either. Well—what are you going to do now? You’ve looked through all this part of the house, I suppose?”
“We began with the upper rooms first.”
“That was scarcely wise of you,” said Meredith, “he might have popped out of one of those rooms and run for it, while you were busy upstairs.”
“Scarcely that, sir,” said the policeman, with a grin—and he opened the door, revealing suddenly a colleague erect and burly in his blue uniform upon the step outside.
This sight made even Meredith silent for a moment. It made the peril and the watch real, and brought before him all the difficulties to be encountered if Dolff (which seemed incredible) should actually be taken, committed to prison, and tried for a murderous attack upon his own life. It was so appalling, and he knew so little how to meet it if it really became an actual situation to be reckoned with, that for a moment he was stunned; then he thought it best to burst into a laugh. The effect on Mrs. Harwood was naturally still more serious. The poor lady began to cry:
“Is it my boy, my Dolff, that they are hunting down like that? Oh! Charley, you are the only one that can tell them how—how ridiculous it is—tell them it’s not true.”
“I’m very sorry, ma’am, to disturb you,” said the policeman, “but will you just move your chair from that door? I beg your pardon, I didn’t know the lady couldn’t move—let me do it—thank you, miss—away from that door.”
“That’s not a door,” said Julia, promptly, “it’s been shut up since ever I remember; that other is the dining-room where Charley Meredith lives, and that is the library that is standing open. And this is the passage that leads to the kitchen and the pantry. And there’s the drawing-room on the other side, And this is a cupboard, and this——”
“Beg your pardon, miss, we’ll find them all out as we comes to them,” the man said. “It’s hard work, and it’s harder still when we haves to do it in the face of a lot of ladies as is innocent of everything, and don’t even know what we means when we speak. Won’t you say to the lady, sir, as she’ll be far better in her own room, and to let us do what is our painful dooty?”
“It is unnecessary for you to say anything, Charley,” said Mrs. Harwood; “if my house is to be treated like a thieves’ den, at least I shall stay here.”
“If it upsets you, lady, don’t blame us,” said the policeman, respectfully enough.
They went through all the rooms while she sat watching, Meredith lounging beside her in a chair, occasionally getting up to take a turn about the hall. If the policeman had been a man of any penetration, he would have seen that his investigations in these rooms were of no interest to the watchers, but that their excitement grew fierce every time he emerged into the hall.
Meredith felt the fire in his veins burn stronger as they came back and forward. It was with difficulty he could restrain his agitation. Mrs. Harwood’s chair had been pushed aside, leaving the access open to that mysterious door. She sat with her head turned away a little, her hands clasped together, an image of suspense and painful anxiety, listening for the men’s steps as they drew nearer. Gussy had followed the rest of the party, though it was against all her principles to yield to this excitement and make a show, as she said, of her feelings. She was vexed especially to see her mother “give way.”
“Let me put you back into the drawing-room, mamma. What is the use of staying here? Dolff has gone out, evidently. It is very silly of him, but still he has done so. It will do him no good for you to catch cold here. Charley, do tell her to come in. As for you, you will throw yourself back a week at least. Oh, for goodness’ sake, do not make everything worse by staying here!”
Mrs. Harwood made no reply. She shook her head with speechless impatience, and turned her face away. She was beyond all considerations but one, and she could not bear any interruptions, a voice, a sound, which kept her strained ears from the knowledge of the men’s movements, and where they were. Gussy’s whisper continued to Meredith was torture to her. She raised her hand with an imperative gesture to have silence, silence! her heart beating in her ears like a sledgehammer rising and falling was surely enough, without having any whispering and foolish, vain, ineffectual words.
“There’s nothing now but this door,” said the policeman, coming out somewhat crestfallen. “He’s nowhere else, that’s clear. If he ain’t here he’s given us the slip—for the moment. Hallo! it’s locked, this one is! I’ll thank you, sir, to get me the key.”
“I have always understood,” said Meredith, blandly, “that the door was built up, or fastened up. It has never been used since I have known the house.”
“I told you so,” said Julia, “if you had listened to me. It isn’t a door at all, and leads to nowhere. It was once the door of the wing,” she continued, with the liking of a child for giving information, “but it has never once been opened since ever I was born.”
“The wing! that’s them empty rooms as we see from the garden—the very place for a man to hide. Tell you what, sir, I can’t bear to upset the lady—but we must break in if we can’t get in quietly. You might try if you couldn’t get us the key, and take the ladies away—anyhow, get the old lady to go away—whatever happens, she’d better not be here.”
Mrs. Harwood spoke quickly, in a hoarse and broken voice.
“There is no key,” she said.
“I give you five minutes to think of it, lady,” said the man; “otherwise we must break in the door.”
There was a dreadful silence—a silence which no one dared to break.
“I am telling you the truth; you cannot open it, it has always been shut up. There is no key.”
Thepoliceman’s epigrammatic assertion that it was difficult for a known man to struggle with the police, is still more true when it is only a door which stands before a couple of men excited and exasperated by failure and a probable discovery. The door was a strong door, it was partially plated with iron, and its lock was cunningly devised, but after a while it began to give way.
Meredith, altogether absorbed in this new turn of affairs, and carried away by the prospect which it opened to him as well as to its assailants, seemed to the bystanders to have altogether gone over to the enemy. He stood by them, encouraging them in a low tone, suggesting how to strike, examining into the weak points with the keenest critical eye; in fact, in the excitement of the moment, forgetting all his precautions and pretence of indifference, and throwing himself on the side of the assailants. He had, it is true, the safe ground to fall back upon that, as he had always been assured there was nothing there, he could do no possible harm in helping to prove that fact to the men who would not be convinced in any other way.
Mrs. Harwood sat with her face to the door, her arms crossed upon her breast, her whole frame swaying and moving with the strokes that rained upon it. When a crash came she shivered and shrank into herself as if the blow had struck her—a low moan came involuntarily to her lips. Gussy, who had abandoned Meredith after trying in vain to restrain him, came and stood by her mother’s chair, with a hand upon her shoulder.
“Oh, mamma, for God’s sake,” said Gussy, in her ear, “don’t! Don’t let them see you mind it so.”
The mother half turned to her a face which was livid in its terror. Her eyes, so clear usually, had lost their color even, and seemed to float in a sort of liquefication, the iris disappearing into the watery black globe—her mouth was open. She uttered a murmur of inarticulate passion, and made as though she would have struck the soothing hand. But the men at this exciting work took no notice of Mrs. Harwood. The officer of the law was more fit to break down a resisting door than to draw subtle deductions from the looks of the besieged family. The practical matter was within his sphere. He only looked round with an exclamation of triumph when the door at last burst from its holdings, and the dark passage gaped open before them with its curtains drawn back.
“There!” he shouted, turning round for a moment, “there’s your door that never was used,” and would have dashed in had not his attendant held him back.
“I say,” said the man who had hitherto followed him like a shadow, “how do ye know that he hasn’t got a revolver up there?”
The detective fell back for a moment.
“We’ve got to risk it,” he said, with the professional stoicism of a man bound to meet danger at any time. He was not of much use in scenting out a mystery, but he could face a possible revolver with the stolid courage of his class. He made a pause, however, and added, with a rare effort of reflection, “And this one’s new to it; he’s not up to their dodges——”Theywere the criminal class with which a straightforward policeman is accustomed to deal.
Meredith followed with an excitement which made him forget everything, even the group of women bewildered in the hall. He knew his way, though he dared not show that he did. He followed the burly figure, and the smaller ill-trained one of the attendant informer and witness, as they wound themselves up in the curtains and came to a pause opposite every obstacle. The passage was perfectly dark, but the inner doors were not closed, notwithstanding the sounds of assault which those within must have heard. It turned out that the only individual within who had his wits about him had been too closely occupied to be able to look to those means of defence.
For a moment the group of the ladies below hung together in bewildered horror. Then Julia launched herself after the men into the dark passage, drawn by inextinguishable curiosity and the excitement of a child in sight of the unknown. Mrs. Harwood had covered her face with her hands, and lay back in her chair, fallen upon herself like a fallen house, lying, so to speak, in ruins. Gussy, with her arm round her mother’s shoulders, whispered, with tears and a little gasping, frightened crying, some words that were intended to be consolatory in her inattentive ears.
“It is nothing wrong,” Gussy said; “it is nothing wrong. It was to save him. It is nothing wrong.”
But by-and-bye the strong attraction of that open way along which the unseen party were stumbling seized upon her also. And her patient, who had to be taken care of—who was throwing himself back! Gussy cast a piteous glance upon her mother, lying there with her face upon her hands, paying no attention, whatever comfort might be poured into her ear, and presently impatience got the better of her sympathy, and she too followed in the train. She knew the secret of the wing. She was the only other in the house, except Mrs. Harwood, to whom that secret was known. But in how innocent and simple a way! She was troubled, but she had no sense of guilt; and Gussy said to herself that it was her duty to go and explain, to make it known to the others how simple it all was, when the fascination became too much for her to resist, and, with one glance at her mother, she too stole away. As for Dolff, he had disappeared from their minds, and the incredible suspicion attached to him, as if he had never been born. From the moment that the search began it had been to Mrs. Harwood a search for her secret, and nothing more.
Janet had been all this time hanging about unseen. She could not rest, she who knew so much more than any one else in the house—both the mystery of the wing and the miserablestory of Dolff and his guilt, both of them—as nobody else did: neither Mrs. Harwood, whose thoughts were concentrated upon one, nor Meredith, who had discovered or divined the other, but did not know as Janet did, who knew everything, what had been the cause of Dolff’s terrible folly, and what its results, and even when and how he had disappeared. She had been hanging about now in one room, now in another, terrified to show herself, incapable of concealing herself, her very terror of being mixed up in it yielding to the fellow-felling of a general misery in which she had but her share, and that not so great a share as the others.
When she saw that the mother of the house, who was the most to be pitied of all in this dreadful emergency, was left there forlorn and alone, lying helpless, unable to go after the others, to confront the catastrophe, at least, as her children could, Janet’s heart was touched. She stole down the stairs where she had been watching, looking down upon them all, and came to Mrs. Harwood’s side. It was not for her to console or comfort. Janet was aware that she had been more or less the cause of all the trouble. She had found out the family secret, without in the least understanding it, and this was no blame of hers; but she had betrayed it to one who did understand it, and who might, for all she knew, use his knowledge unmercifully, being, as she knew him to be, a man with very little truth or inclination to spare another. And she had been, without any doubt, the cause of Dolff’s misfortune in every way. She had taken him into her toils innocently enough, with no more guiltiness than that of any other girl who had let a foolish young man fall in love with her, and then had driven him mad by her falsehood, and led him into crime—almost to the crime of murder. All this was in Janet’s mind as she stole down the stairs to his mother’s side. She had plenty of excuse for herself had any one accused her, but in her heart she was impartial, and knew very well how much she was to blame. Her heart beat loudly in consonance with the sounds of that exploring party in the dark passage, going to find out—how much more than they sought! She understood it all better than anyone. Meredith’s keen satisfaction in unveiling the mystery, and the stupid astonishment of the strangers, who had no suspicion, and Gussy——but what Gussy would feel was the one thing that Janet did not divine, for she was unaware how much or how little Gussy knew.
She stood by the chair in which Mrs. Harwood lay, all sunken upon herself like a fallen tower, her face hidden, her shoulders drawn together, sinking to her knees. Janet darednot say anything. She put her hand upon the arm of the chair, not even upon the unhappy lady’s arm, which she felt that she dared not touch—and stood by her. It was all that any one could do. The two were left there like wrecks on the shore, from, which everything had ebbed away, even the tumult and the storm which had been raging round. The sounds went on getting fainter, the voices dropped, the footsteps seemed to mount and then grow still, stumbling at first a little, gradually dying out. Mrs. Harwood did not move, nor did Janet, standing by her, scarcely breathing. Were they both following, in imagination, the darkling way which both knew, or had the mother, at last, fallen into a blind insensibility, hearing and knowing no more?
This imagination was, however, suddenly put an end to by a moaning from the chair.
“I can’t bear this any longer; I can’t bear this!” said Mrs, Harwood. “Oh, my God! my God! Have they gotthere?” Then she cried, loudly, “I can’t bear it! I can’t bear it!” and with a sudden wrench, as if she were tearing herself like a limb from its socket, the disabled woman rose.
Janet, terrified, gave a cry of dismay as, stumbling and tottering, she flung herself out of the chair. Whether Mrs. Harwood had been aware of her presence before this she could not tell; but, at all events, now she was beyond all sentiment of displeasure or reproof. She put out her shaking hand and grasped at Janet’s arm as if it had been a post. The girl’s slight figure swayed and almost gave way at the sudden weight flung upon it; but the burden steadied her after the first moment’s uncertainty. Mrs. Harwood’s face had collapsed with the extreme anguish of the crisis past; her features seemed blurred, like the half-liquid, vaguely floating eyes, which did not seem to see anything. She made a heavy, uncertain step forward, carrying her prop with her by mere momentum of weight and weakness.
“Come,” she said, hoarsely, “come!”
Janet never knew how these dark passages were got through. She was herself enfolded, carried away in the burden of the helpless woman who leaned upon her guidance for every step. Their progress was wildly devious and uneven, every step being a sort of falling forward, which nevertheless carried them on with spasmodic rapidity, though terrible effort. The voices and steps in front of them grew audible again, but before they reached the last door, which stood open with curtains drawn aside, disclosing a warm blaze of light, there arose asudden tumult, a roar as of some wild creature, with answering cries of panic and dismay. The opened doorway suddenly darkened with a crowd of retreating figures, and Julia darted out from the midst and came blindly flying upon the tottering group that was struggling forward.
“Go back, go back!” cried Julia, “whoever you are. There’s a madman there!” and then she gave a shriek as wild as the sounds that came from the room, “Oh,” cried the girl, her shrill voice dominating even that riot, “it’s mamma! My mother’s here!”
Nextmoment they had surged as on the top of a wave to the room within. Nothing could be more strange than the scene presented there. The room was curtained all round with red, hung above a man’s height with ruddy thick folds, upon which the firelight threw a still warmer flicker. A shaded lamp filled it with softened light, and from above, from what seemed a large skylight, a white stream of moonlight fell in, making a curious disturbing effect in the warm artificial light. These accessories, however, though they told afterwards, were as nothing to the sight that burst upon the eyes of the new-comers. In the centre of the room stood a tall old man, with a long pallid face, straggling white hair, and a white beard. His face was distorted with excitement, his voice bellowing forth a succession of cries, or rather roars, like the roars of a wild animal. His loose lips gave forth these utterances with flying foam and a sort of mechanical rapidity:
“I know what you’ve come for? I can pay up! I can pay up! I’ve plenty of money, and I can pay up! But I won’t be taken, not if it costs me my life!”
These were the words that finally emancipated themselves from the stammering utterance and became clear.
Vicars stood behind this wild figure holding both his arms, but it was only by glimpses that the smaller man was visible holding the other as in a vise.
“Come, sir, come, sir, no more of this; they’ll take you for a fool,” he said.
And then this King Lear resumed. The foam flew from his lips; his great voice came out in its wild bellowing, the very voice which Janet had heard so often. It had seemed to her to utter but an inarticulate cry, but this, it would seem, was what it had been saying all the time—words in which therewas some meaning—though what that meaning was, or whether the speaker himself understood it, who would say?
The policeman and his attendant had edged towards the doorway, and stood there huddled upon one another. The leader of the search had been willing to face a revolver, but the madman was a thing for which he was not prepared. He stood against the doorway ready to retreat still further in case there should be any further advance. Meredith and Gussy had passed into the room, and stood together, she very anxious, he very eager, at the side, where those wild eyes had not caught them. Behind was Dolff very pale, standing half concealed by the group formed by the madman and his attendant, raising his head to look over them to the two in the doorway who had come to look for him, and had received so unexpected a check.
Mrs. Harwood stumbled into the midst of this strange scene with her tottering uncertain stride, driving Janet with her. She put up her hand to hold back the dreadful insane figure. She was at one of the moments in life when one is afraid of nothing, shrinks from nothing.
“Take him back to his seat, Vicars,” she said, “take him back. Adolphus!” The tottering, helpless woman stood up straight, and put her hand upon the madman’s breast. The eyes that had been blind with misery changed and dissolved as if to dew in their orbits, consolidated again, opened blue and strong like a relighted flame. She fixed them upon the staring red eyes of the maniac. “Adolphus, go back, be silent, calm yourself. There is no need for you to say anything. I am here to take care of you. Let Vicars put you back in your chair.”
“I will not be taken,” he said, “I will not be taken! I can pay up. I have got money, plenty of money. I will pay up!”
“Vicars,” cried Mrs. Harwood, imperiously, “put him back in his chair.”
She held her hand on his breast, and fixed her eyes upon his, pushing him softly back. The roarings grew fainter, fell into a kind of whimpering cry.
“I’ll pay it all—I have plenty of money. Don’t let them take me away—I’ll pay everything up!”
“Go back and rest in your chair, Adolphus. Put him in his chair.”
The astonished spectators all stood looking on while the old servant and this woman, whom force of necessity had moved from her own helplessness, subdued the maniac. Vicarshad partially lost his head, he had lost control of his patient, but this unlooked-for help restored him to himself. Between them they drew and guided the patient back to the chair, which was fitted with some mechanical appliances, and held him fast. Mrs. Harwood seemed to forget her weakness entirely; she tottered no longer, but moved with a free step. She turned round upon the frightened policeman at the door.
“Now go,” she said, “you have done your worst; whatever you want, go; you can get no further satisfaction here.”
The intruder breathed more freely when he saw the madman sink into quietude. He said, with a voice that quivered slightly.
“I am very willing to go: but that young gentleman has to go along with me!”
“Come on,” cried the other man, whose teeth were chattering in his head. “Come on; we’ve got nothing to do here.”
“I’m going: when that young gentleman makes up his mind to come with me.”
“What young gentleman? Why, bless you,thatain’t the young gentleman!” said the man, who had struggled out into the passage, and was now only kept from running by the other’s strong retaining grasp.
It was not wonderful that the policeman was indignant. He let his friend go with an oath, and with a sudden push which precipitated him into the outer room.
“You d——d fool! to have led me such a dance; and as much as our lives are worth, and come to nothing at the end.”
The man fell backward, but got up again in a moment and took to his heels, with the noise as of a runaway horse in the dark passage. The policeman, reassured to see that the madman was secured, had the courage to linger a moment. He turned to Meredith with a defiant look.
“It has come to nothing, sir, and I ask your pardon that I’ve been led into giving you this trouble by an ass. But I make bold to ask is this house licensed? and what right has anyone got to keep a dangerous madman in it without inspection, or any eye over ’im? I’ll have to report it to my superior.”
“Report it to the—devil, and be off with you,” Meredith said.
The party stood round, staring into each other’s faces, when the strangers thus withdrew. The madman struggled against the fastenings that secured him.
“Julia,” he said, “don’t let them take me!” He tried to get hold of her with his hands, feeling for her as if he did not see,and began to cry feebly, in a childish, broken voice, “Don’t let them take me! I have got enough to pay everybody. I kept it for you and the children. It was for you and the children; but I’ll pay up, I’ll pay everybody; only don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me!” he whimpered, tears—piteous, childish tears—suffusing the venerable face.
“Oh,” cried Gussy, “don’t let him cry; for God’s sake don’t let him cry! I cannot bear it—I cannot bear it—it is too much.”
“I’ll never complain any more,” said the patient; “I’m very comfortable, I don’t want for anything. You shall pay them all up yourself if you don’t believe me. I’ll give you the money—only don’t let them send me away! I’ve got it all safe here,” he said. “Stop a moment, I’ll give it you: and all these ladies and gentlemen can prove it, that I gave it you to pay up.” He struggled to get his arms free, trying to reach his breast-pocket with one hand. “Vicars, get it out, and give it to your mistress. The money—the money, you know, to pay everybody up. Only,” he cried, putting the piteous hands together which were held fast and could do so little, “don’t, Julia—don’t let them take me away!”
“Oh, mamma,” cried Gussy, “I can’t bear it—I can’t bear it.”
She fell on her knees and covered her face.
“Who is he?” said Dolff. They had all of them, and even Dolff himself, forgotten what was the cause of this revelation. The young man came forward, very pale. “I know nothing about this,” he said, looking round; “nothing. I hope everybody will believe me. I want to know who he is!”
No one said a word, they all stood round, struck silent, not knowing what to think. Mrs. Harwood stood with her hand upon the table, supporting herself, asking no other support. She was perfectly pale, but her countenance had recovered its features and expression. She did not even look at her children—one on her knees, one standing up confronting her, demanding to know the truth. To neither of them did she give a word or look. Her eyes were fixed upon the man who was thus utterly in her hands. Vicars extracted an old, large pocket-book from the pocket of the patient, and handed it to her, not without a sort of smile—half-mocking—on his face. She took it, glancing at it with a certain disdain, as if the trick, often employed but no longer necessary, had disgusted her, and flung it on the table.
“There are in this book,” she said, “old scraps of paper of no value. This is what I am to pay his debts with. He hasgiven it to me twenty times before. I get tired in the end of playing the old game over and over.”
“Mother who is he?” cried Dolff. “You have had him in your house, in secret, never seeing the light of day, and I, your son, never knew. Who is he?”
Mrs. Harwood made no reply.
It was a question to which no one there could give any answer, except perhaps Gussy—on her knees, with her hands covering her face—who did not look up or give any attention to what was going on. Meredith alone seemed to have some clear idea in his mind: his face shone with aroused interest and eagerness, like a man on the very trace of knowledge of the utmost importance to him. A rapid process of thought was going on in his mind, his intelligence was leaping from point to point.
“You will perhaps be surprised,” he said, “to hear that I have known this for some time.”
“You!” Mrs. Harwood half turned to him, a gleam as of fire passing over her face. “You!”
“Yes, I, who have several interests involved. I had just received information on the subject when that young fool, thinking heaven knows what other folly, knocked me down, taking me unawares, and nearly killed me. Oh, yes, it is perfectly true it was Dolff who did it. You start as if I were likely to make any fuss on that subject. Is it true that he had the money to pay everybody?—that is what I want to know.”
“Charley, Charley, do you mean to say that Dolff——”
“Oh, I mean nothing about Dolff,” he said, impatiently: “answer me, Mrs. Harwood.”
“I can’t answer for nothing, Mrs. Harwood,” cried Vicars, “if you keep a lot of folks round him. He is working himself up into a fury again.”
The madman was twisting in his chair, fighting against the mechanical bonds that secured him. He was looking towards the pocket-book which lay on the table.
“She has got my money, and she throws it down for anybody to pick up,” he cried. “My money! there’s money there to pay everything! Why don’t you pay those people and let ’em go—pay them, pay them and let them go! or else give me back my money!” he cried, wildly straining forward, with his white hair falling back, his reddened eyes blazing, struggling against his bonds. Mrs. Harwood took up the pocket-book, weighing it, with a sort of forced laugh, in her hand.
“You think there may be a fortune here—enough to pay?And he thinks so. Give it to him, Vicars. We’ve tried to keep it all quiet, but it seems we have failed. You may leave the door open now—you may do as you please. It can’t matter any longer. I have thought of the credit of the family, and of many things that nobody else thinks of. And of his comfort—nobody will say I have not thought of his comfort. Look round you: there is everything, everything we could think of. But it is all of no use now.”
The old man had caught the pocket-book from Vicars’ hands with a pitiful demonstration of joy. He made a pretence of examining its contents, eagerly turning them over as if to make sure that nothing was lost, kissing the covers in enthusiasm of delight. He made an attempt with his confined arms to return it to his pocket, but, failing in that, kept it embraced in both his hands, from time to time kissing it with extravagant satisfaction.
“As long as I have got this they can do nothing to me,” he said.
While this pantomime was going on, and while still Mrs. Harwood was speaking, a little movement and rustle in the group caught everybody’s attention as if it had been a new fact: but it was only Janet stealing away behind the others who had a right there which she did not possess. She had been watching her moment. She herself, who had nothing to do with it, had received her share of discomfiture too. Her heart was sinking with humiliation and shame. What had she to do with the mysteries of the Harwoods, the things they might have to conceal? What was she to them but a stranger of no account, never thought of, dragged into the midst of their troubles when it pleased them, thrown off again when they chose? Nobody would have said that Janet had any share in this crisis, and yet it was she who had received the sharpest arrow of all; or so, at least, she thought. She slipped behind Julia, who was bigger and more prominent than she, and stole through the bewildering stairs and passages. How well she seemed to know the way, as if it had been familiar to her for years! And it was she who had given the information—she who had been the cause of everything, drawn here and drawn there into affairs alike alien to her, with which she had nothing to do. They were all moved by her departure; not morally, indeed, but by the mere stir it caused.
Gussy rose from her knees, showing a countenance as pale as death and still glistening with tears. She said,
“Mamma, shall we go away? Whatever there may be tobe said or explained, it ought not to be done here.” She went up to the old man in the chair, who was still embracing his pocket-book, and kissed him on the forehead. “If any wrong has been done to you, I don’t know of it,” she said; “I thought it was nothing but good.”
“No wrong has been done to him—none—none,” cried Mrs. Harwood, suddenly dropping from her self-command and strength. “Children, you may not believe me, since I’ve kept it secret from you. There has been no wrong to him—none—none. If there has been wrong, it has not been to him. Oh, you may believe me, at least, for I have never told you a lie. Everything has been done for him. Look round you—look round you and you will see.”
“Who is he?” said Dolff, obstinate and pale, standing behind the chair.
“You have no thought for me,” said the mother. “You see me standing here, come here to defend you all, in desperation for you, and you never ask how I am to get back, whether it will kill me—— No, no, Janet has gone, who supported me, who was a stranger, and asked no questions, but only helped a poor woman half mad with trouble and distress. Ah!” she said, “he could go mad and get free—he who was the cause of it all: but I have had to keep my sanity and my courage and bear it all, and look as if nothing was the matter, for fifteen years. For whom? Was it for me? It would have been better for me to have died and been done with it all. For you, children, to give you a happy life, to do away with all disgrace, to give you every advantage. Yes, I’ll take your arm, Ju: you have not been a good child, but you know no better. Get me to my chair before I drop down; get me to my chair——” She paused a moment, and looked round with a hard laugh. “For I am very heavy,” she said, “and I would have to be carried, and who would do it I don’t know. Ju, make haste, before my strength is all gone. Get me to my chair.”
Gussywas the last to leave of that strange procession, of whom no one spoke to the other. She closed the door after her, and the curtains, and followed the erect figure of Dolff, drawn up as it never had been in his life before, and walking stiffly, as if carrying a new weight and occupying a position unknown. They all came into the hall, defiling solemnly oneafter the other, to find Mrs. Harwood deposited in her chair and awaiting them, almost as if the whole events of the evening had been a dream and she had never left that spot. It was with a strange embarrassment, however, that they looked at each other in the pale, clear light as they emerged from the doorway, almost like making new acquaintance, as if they had never seen each other before. Nobody certainly had seen Dolff in that new manifestation; nor was Gussy, she whose very existence had been wrapped up in that of Meredith, who had only lived to watch him for weeks past, recognizable. It was she who came out the last, but who made herself the first of the group.
“There may be a great many things to say,” said Gussy; “but not to-night. We have all had a great many agitations to-night. My brother has been hunted for his life. My mother has done a thing which, so far as we know, she hasn’t been able to do for years. Mr. Meredith has had a bad illness, for which it appears this unfortunate family is responsible too. I only and my little sister”—she paused here with an effort—“no; I will not pretend; I have had my share of the shock, too. We’d better all separate for the night.”
“Gussy!” cried Mrs. Harwood, with a sharp tone of appeal.
“Gussy!” cried Meredith, astonished, trying to take her hand to draw her towards him.
“Gussy!” said Dolff, with a certain indignation.
“It is of no use,” she said, quickly, “to appeal to me. I think I am the one who has been deceived all round. I thought I knew everything, and I’ve known nothing. Whatever may be the meaning of it, I for one am not able for any more to-night, and none of the rest ought to be able for it. I don’t know whether I may have been deceived there, too, about how much invalids could bear. Good-night, mamma. I advise you to get to bed.”
Gussy waved her hand to the others without a word, and walked upstairs without turning her head. The sudden failure of a perfect faith in all the world, such as she had entertained without entering into complications for which her mind was not adapted, is no small matter. It is alarming even for others to see. They all stood for a moment huddled together as if a rock or a tower had fallen before their eyes. They could scarcely see each other for the dust and darkness it made. All the other events of this startling night seemed to fall into the background. Gussy! who had been the central prop of the house, who had kept everybody together, doneeverything! When she thus threw up her arms they were all left in dismay, and fell into an assemblage of atoms, of units—no longer a united party ready to meet all comers.
Meredith, perhaps, he who had been the most eager, was the most discomfited of all. He had claimed Gussy’s interest as his right for years. When she thus withdrew, not even asking if he were fatigued, speaking almost as if she thought that fatigue a pretence, he was so bewildered that he could do nothing. An anxious believer like this is accepted perhaps with too much faith and considered too inalienable a possession; and when she fails the shock is proportionately great. Without Gussy to stand by him, to make him believe himself a universal conqueror, always interesting, always important, Meredith for the moment was like an idol thrown from his pedestal. He was more astonished than words could say. He exclaimed, hurriedly,
“I think Gussy is right, as she always is. Mrs. Harwood, I will say good-night.”
Mrs. Harwood was altogether in a different mind. The period of reaction had not come with her as yet. She had got herself deposited in her chair in time enough to save her from any breaking down. And her spirit was full of excitement.
“I am ready,” she said, with a panting hot breath of mental commotion, “to explain—whatever it is necessary to explain. Take me back to my room, Dolff. It is cold here.”
“Good-night,” said Meredith. “I will not encroach upon you longer to-night.”
“As you like,” she said. “I warn you, however, that to-morrow—— Dolff, take me back to my fire.”
Dolff was unsubdued, like his mother. The reaction from a long period of suspense, and the sense of safety after a great alarm, no doubt acted upon his mind: though, so far as he was aware, he was moved by nothing save the overwhelming discovery he had made, and his indignant sense of wrong in finding such a secret retreat unsuspected, in his mother’s—in his own—house.
“We’ll be better alone,” he said, in the stern tone which was so new to him, putting his hand upon her chair; “but perhaps you could walk if you tried,” he added, with rude sarcasm.
He drove rather than wheeled her before him into the deserted room, where all was so brilliant and warm, the light blinking in the bright brass and steel, the lamps serenely burning, everything telling of the tranquil life, unbroken byany but cheerful incidents, which had gone on there for so many years.
“Now, mother,” said Dolff, “we have got to have it out. Who is that man upstairs?”
Julia had followed them unremarked, and remained behind her mother’s chair. Dolff stood before them, in the full firelight, very erect, inspired with indignation and that sense of superiority which injury gives. It had elevated him altogether in the scale of being. His own shortcomings had fallen from his consciousness. He was aware of nothing but that he, Dolff, in reality the head of the family, had been deceived and compromised.
Mrs. Harwood took but little notice of her son. She took up her work which had been thrown upon the table and turned it over in her fingers.
“Gussy was right,” she said, “though she was a little brusque in her way of saying it. I am certainly unable to bear anything more to-night.”
“I suppose, however, you can answer my question,” said Dolff.
“Go to bed, boy,” said his mother, “and don’t worry me. We have two or three things to talk over, you and I, which are too much for to-night.”
“I am not a boy any longer,” cried Dolff; “you have made me a man. Who is it you have been hiding for years upstairs?”
She gave vent to a little fierce laugh.
“For my pleasure,” she said; “for my amusement, as anybody may see.”
“Whether it is for your amusement or not,” said Dolff, “I am of age, and I have a right to know who is living in my house.”
“Inyourhouse!” Her exasperation was growing. “Don’t force me, Dolff, to go into other questions to-night.”
“Whose house is it?” he said. “There’s been no question, because you have kept everything in your hands; but if I am to be driven to it, and claim my rights——”
“Your rights!” she cried, again repeating his words. “Was it one of your rights to knock down a man like a coward from behind? It appears this is what you think you may be permitted to do with impunity—to have your home searched in every corner and to destroy all that I have been doing for years, and to bring shame and disgrace to a house that I have kept free of shame, almost at the risk of my life!”
“I did not,” cried Dolff, interrupting her eagerly. “I didnot knock him down from behind. I had not time to think. I let fly at him as I passed. It’s a lie to say I knocked him down from behind.”
“You did the same thing; you took him unawares. And you dare to question me! You killed a man at my door—or meant to do it—and never breathed a word to warn us, to keep us from the disgrace——”
Dolff was not clever enough to know what to say. His snort of rage was not attended by any force of bitter words. He only could repeat, with rage and incompetence,
“Atyourdoor?”
“Perhaps,” said Mrs. Harwood, half carried away by passion, half influenced by the dismay which she knew she had it in her power to call forth, “it would be better, since you are exact, to say at your father’s door.”
Dolff responded with a strange cry. He did not understand it, but he felt all the same that a blow which stunned him had been directed at him, and that the ground was cut from beneath his feet.
“He has neither been tried, nor sentenced, nor anything proved against him,” cried Mrs. Harwood, carried away now by the heat of her own excitement. “All that has to be gone through before he can be put aside. And at this moment everything’s his—the roof that covers you, the money you have been spending. It is no more your house—yourhouse!—than it is Julia’s. It is your father’s house.”
“My father is dead,” said Dolff, who had again grown very pale, the flush of passion dying out of his face.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Harwood, “and might have remained so, had it not been for your cowardly folly and Vicars’s infatuation for you. How was it the man had not the sense to see that a fool like you would spoil all?”
“You are dreaming, you are mad,” said Dolff; “you are telling me another lie.”
But, though he said this with almost undiminished passion, the young fellow’s superiority, his erect pose, his sense of being able to cow and overwhelm her, had come to an end. He fell into his usual attitude, his shoulders dropped and curved, his head hung down. He could fling a last insult at his mother, but no more. And his own mind began to be filled with unfathomable dismay.
Julia had been very uncertain what side to take. Her mind went naturally with her brother, who was most near herself. But a mother is a mother after all. You may feel her to be in some way your natural enemy when the matter is betweenyourself and her; but when another hand plucks at her it is different. A girl is not going to let her mother be insulted, who after all means her own side, without interposing. Julia suddenly flew forth from behind her mother’s chair and flung herself upon Dolff’s arm, seizing it and shaking him violently.
“How dare you speak to her like that?” cried Ju, “you that can’t do anything you try—not even kill Charley Meredith when you have the chance! I should be ashamed to look any one in the face. Go away, go away, and leave us quiet, you that have done it all: that brought the police into the house, and yet did not hurt him to speak of, you great, useless, disappointing boy!”