Part 22

"I knew there was some infernal mystery at the bottom of our troubles. But, by Jove, I never guessed that it was _you_ who'd played false."

"Richard, don't abuse me."

"Abuse you? I shan't waste breath on abusing you. You have cheated me--or you've _tried_ to cheat me. For I'm not going to let you;" and he turned towards the others. "Take notice, all of you, that I shan't submit to this. Prentice, do you understand? You were always hostile to me. I suppose you helped to hatch this plot."

Mr. Prentice was looking so absolutely bewildered that his face should have been sufficient proof of his innocence.

"No," he said feebly. "All this has come upon me as a complete surprise."

"Then you, Mr. Collins--understand it's all mighty fine, but it won't wash."

"Won't it?" said Collins.

"No, I don't allow myself to be cheated--even by my wife."

"Richard," said Mrs. Marsden, "don't call me a cheat again."

"You there--Bence--take notice. I'll bring you to account for this. I'm not the sort to be tricked and fooled by any little swine that gets plotting with my wife. No, not if I know it. Cheating people is very clever, but--"

Mrs. Marsden sprang up from her chair by the wall.

"How dare you call me a cheat?"

Her eyes were blazing. She had clenched her fists; and, trembling with passion, she came to the table and faced her husband.

"What have you ever given me in exchange for all I gave you--except shame and sorrow?"

"I'm not going to listen to your yelling and--"

"I gave you my love, and you trampled on it--I gave you my home, and you polluted it--I gave you the work of my life, and you pulled it to pieces before my eyes. Yet still I was true and loyal to you. I could have divorced you, and I wouldn't do it. I promised you that I'd hold to you till you yourself consented to set me free; and I kept my promise. You were a liar--but I respected your words. You were a thief--but I dealt with you as if you had been an honest man. I fed and clothed you when you were well, I nursed you when you were sick--I hid your crimes, I sheltered you from their consequences. At this minute I am keeping you out of the prison that is your only proper place.... And yet--great God--he has the audacity to say that I am cheating him!"

And then Mrs. Marsden, shaking in excitement and anger, went back to her chair and sat down.

"You asked for that," said Collins, with renewed facetiousness, "and you got it."

Bence was looking out of the window; and he whistled and gently clapped his hands, as if applauding the passionate force of Mrs. Marsden's unexpected tirade.

"I don't know what she means," said Marsden hoarsely. "And I dare say she doesn't know, herself." He had been staggered by his wife's attack; and at her last words he recoiled from the table, as if suddenly daunted, almost cowed. Now he was pulling himself together again. "Who cares what a woman says?" And he cleared his throat, and spoke loudly and defiantly. "I don't, for one."

"Richard," murmured Mrs. Marsden, in a still tremulous voice. "I'm sorry I said it."

"All right. That's enough.... But now, if you please, we men will talk;" and he looked from one to another. The veins showed redly on his forehead; his glistening jaw was protruded; and he squared his huge shoulders pugnaciously. "I tell you, once for all, I'm not going to stand any damned rot. As to the sale--Mr. Clever Bence,--I repudiate it utterly. It was obtained under false pretences, and I'll have it set aside. As to the separation--I'm speaking to you, Prentice,--that bargain falls through with the other.... And to show you what I think of it--I am now going to tear up the deed."

"Oh no, you're not," said Collins.

"I warn you all," said Marsden furiously: "if anyone touches me, he'll be sorry for it. Now, Prentice, fetch out your deed again. You shoved it away in that safe, didn't you? Well, out with it." And he moved to the side of Mr. Prentice, and stood over him threateningly. "Out with it--d'you hear?"

Bence and Collins had both begun to clap their hands loudly. And with this noisy applause other sounds were mingling. Mr. Prentice, as he rose to confront Marsden, heard quick footsteps in the passage. The door was abruptly opened, and two policemen came into the room.

"This way, officers," said Collins pompously. "You are just in time to prevent a breach of the peace. There's your man--keep your eyes on him."

Marsden, turning hurriedly, saw the two uniforms and helmets solemnly advance, and showed a craven dissatisfaction at the sight.

"What are you up to now?" he asked glumly.

But Collins, ignoring the question, continued to talk pompously to the new arrivals.

"As I told your superintendent, he is a dangerous character. He has been threatening us with assault and battery--but we do not wish to give him in charge, if we can help it. Your presence will probably be sufficient to restrain him."

"Very good, sir."

"He is the same man who made the disturbance at the Red Cow--and I think he has been charged once or twice as a drunk and disorderly."

"You needn't introduce him so carefully," said Bence, with a snigger. "Mr. Marsden is already well known to the police."

"Yes, Mr. Bence," said one of the policemen, "_we_ know the gent."

"Very well," continued Collins, with the air of a magistrate presiding over a crowded court. "He is leaving the town to-night--forever,--and I shall ask for a constable to see him off. From the mayor down to the humblest citizen, Mallingbridge is tired of him--so he is going to the western states of America. He will be more at home among the desperados of some mining camp than he can be in a peaceful hum-drum town like this." And Mr. Collins turned to Marsden, as though haranguing the prisoner. "Now, sir, will you behave yourself, and let us finish our conversation quietly and decently?"

"Oh, you can finish your chin-music in any tune you like." Marsden growled this out; but the voice was heavy and dejected, altogether lacking in animation. Very obviously the arrival of the police had crushed his spirit.

"So be it," said Collins. "Then I think, officers, that will do. You may safely leave us for the moment. But please wait outside the door, to protect us if necessary."

"Yes," said Bence, "we'll give you the same signal, if you're wanted again."

"All right, Mr. Bence."

And the policemen left the room. To their eyes the famous Mr. Bence was the natural chieftain of any assemblage, no matter how pompously anybody else talked. Here, they were at his service, detailed for Bence's just as much as if it had been a sale day and they and their mates were regulating the traffic in front of the shop.

"Now," said Collins, with a change of manner, and speaking in a conciliatory if argumentative tone, "we can pick up our little debate. Mr. Marsden, come now, after all, what is this fuss about?"

Marsden laughed; but his laughter was dull and spiritless.

"Go on--jabber, jabber."

"Really now. What is the grievance? You have sold your business and been paid for it. Of your own free will, you have parted with your interests. You have renounced all claims upon your wife."

"Yes--but I've been tricked into doing it."

"Where's the trick?"

"She made me think we were done."

"So you were. You came to her and told her so. You prevailed on her to agree to the sale. It wasn't her proposition, but yours."

"I shouldn't have made it if I had known."

"You thought you had got all you could out of her--and that was the fact. You thought she was poor; and you find that she has made a good investment--with her own private funds, mark you,--and she is therefore not poor, but rather the reverse. Where's your quarrel with that?"

"I am entitled to my share in her investment."

"Oh, bosh! That's simply absurd."

Marsden was standing up, resting his red hands on the back of a chair. Now he moved the chair to Mr. Prentice's end of the table, sat down, and spoke in an eager whisper.

"Prentice, hostile or not, you _are_ honest. I call on you to see fair play. She can't do this, can she?"

"She _has_ done it," said Prentice feebly.

"But tell her it isn't fair. She knows you're straight, and above board. It's all mighty fine to bowl me out--and perhaps you don't think I deserve any pity. But still, speak for me. She can't round on me like this--she can't say 'Your firm is killed, and I've transferred myself across the road to the firm that killed it.' Surely the law wouldn't allow her to spoof me like that?"

But sharp-eared Mr. Collins had heard the whisper.

"Prentice, don't answer him. Mr. Marsden, I'll answer that question. I answer for the law. I am your wife's legal adviser in all this. Please address me, sir."

Marsden turned with a final burst of fierce rage.

"Then I say, curse you, I'll have the law on it."

"Now look here, Marsden," and Mr. Collins's voice changed once more--to an uncompromisingly ugly tone. "If you want the law, we'll give you your bellyful of the law."

"A good deal more than you'll like," said Bence, failing to ask for moderation of language.

"Your wife," Collins went on, "dropped a plain hint just now; and I was very pleased to hear it, because I thought you'd understand. But I see I must amplify it for you. Mrs. Marsden has been good enough to entrust to my care all her private papers--that is, papers she has kept private to oblige you."

"I--I don't in the least follow--what you're driving at."

"Oh, you know what I'm talking about. Specimens of your handwriting, and so on--papers that the law would call incriminating documents,--papers that the law would call conclusive evidence,--papers that the law would call forgeries."

"Prentice! Don't believe him."

"Never mind Mr. Prentice. Attend to me.... Ah-ha,--you're beginning to look rather foolish.... Now, how much law do you want?"

"I think," said Bence, "if he has time to get safely out of the country, that's all the law he ought to ask for."

Marsden was cowed and beaten. He sat heavily and limply on his chair, sprawling one red hand across the table, and nervously fingering his lips with the other hand.

"Well," said Collins mockingly, "what are you going to do--keep your bargain, or go to law with us?"

Marsden was thoroughly cowed and beaten. He cleared his throat several times, and even then spoke huskily.

"I must say a word or two to my wife;" and he rose from his chair slowly.... "Of course, when a man's down, everyone can jump on him."

And he went over to Mrs. Marsden, stooped, and whispered.

Collins tapped his nose jocosely, and smiled at Mr. Prentice--seeming to say without words, "What do you think of that, old boy? That's the way Hyde & Collins tackle this sort of troublesome customer."

Little Bence, resuming his dandified air and ostentatiously leaving Mrs. Marsden and her husband to whisper together, picked up his glossy hat, and dusted it with a neatly folded silk handkerchief.

"Jane," said Marsden pleadingly, almost whimperingly, "you come out on top--and I mustn't bear malice. But you _have_ been hard--cruelly hard."

"Dick," said Mrs. Marsden, in a shaky whisper, "don't reproach me."

"But don't you think you have been a _little_ hard."

"No. Or it is _you_ who have made me hard. I wasn't hard--once. And remember this, Dick. Even at the end, I tried to get one word of tenderness from you--to make you say you cared just a little for what happened to me. But no--"

"I _did_ care."

"No. You hadn't one kind word--or one kind thought. You and your--your companion were going to new scenes, new hopes; and I might be left to starve."

"Jane, I swear I thought you were all right. I said so, again and again. And now, you're rich--you're really rolling in money; and it is I who may starve. Jane--for auld lang syne--do a bit more for me."

"No;" and she shook her head resolutely.

"Jane! Be like yourself.... I'm not grasping or avaricious. But at least I ought to get as much as the business fetched. Let me have that extra fifteen hundred."

"Well--perhaps. I'll think about it."

"Do it now--hand over now, or they'll only persuade you not to."

"No--but I'll give it you later. I promise. I'll send it to your address in California--as soon as I am sure that you have really arrived there."

"All right. Thanks. Jane--I'll say it once again. I wish you luck. You're a good plucked 'un--I always knew that."

Then the meeting broke up.

Marsden was the first to go. His wife watched him as he went slouching down the street. When he disappeared she did not immediately turn from the window. She had furtively produced her pocket handkerchief, and the gentlemen heard her blow her nose loudly and strenuously; but no one saw her wipe the tears from her eyes.

Mr. Collins, on the threshold of the room, was dismissing the policemen with pompous thanks, and promising to drop in upon their superintendent shortly.

"By the way," he said, looking round; "shall we let them escort Mrs. Marsden home?"

"No," said Mr. Archibald gallantly. "That shall be my honour and pleasure. And there's no danger of his molesting her now."

"I agree with you," said Collins. "We've fairly knocked the bounce out of _him_." And he spoke to Mrs. Marsden with sentimental solicitude. "There will be a plain-clothes constable in St. Saviour's Court, watching your door till the evening. But you needn't be afraid. Our friend won't venture to go there."

Mr. Prentice sat at the head of his table, looking dazed and confused. He and his whole house were taken possession of by Collins; policemen walked in and out; astounding things happened--the morning's work had been almost too much for him.

With an effort he got upon his legs to bow and smile at Mrs. Marsden, as she and Bence went out.

"Well now," said Collins; and he shut his black bag. "I don't think that, under the peculiar conditions of the case, anything could have been more satisfactory--do you?"

"Of course," said Mr. Prentice, sitting down again "you know, as well as I do, that what Marsden said was true. He could make her account to the firm for all her profits in Bence's. Such an investment isn't allowed--it isn't lawful."

"I'll tell you what it is," said Collins, enthusiastically blinking behind his spectacles. "It's _great_--that's what it is; and I'm proud to have carried it through for her."

Mr. Prentice really did not know what to say.

"And I'll tell you something more. If it isn't law, it's _justice_. I've never been such a stickler as you for mere outward form. Here were two people in terrible difficulty--Bence and Mrs. Marsden. She saw the way to save them both, and had the grit to take all risks and do it. That was good enough for me. As I say, I'm not so formal as you. I don't let a string of red tape trip up a brave woman when she's running for her life--that is, if I can prevent it.... Good morning, Prentice. Good morning to you."

XXIX

However he might demur at first, Mr. Prentice soon came to the conclusion that it was truly great.

Perhaps at first he was so completely flabbergasted by the surprise of the thing that he could not really take it all in; his numbed brain, only partially working, fixed upon technical objections to the conduct of affairs by Hyde & Collins; and then, with awakening comprehension of a masterly coup, the sense of having been left out in the cold diminished his delight. But this soon passed, and he began to glow joyously.

Yes, _great_! No other word for it! Magnificent justification of all that he had ever said and thought of her!

_Not_ weak, but strong--as strong as she used to be; no, stronger than at any time. And he thought of her, overwhelmed with misfortunes, hemmed round by insurmountable difficulties, brought lower and lower, until she was apparently so impotent and negligible a unit in the town's life that she had become an object of contemptuous pity to the very crossing-sweepers. He thought of what the scientists say about the conservation of energy and the indestructibility of matter. Great natural forces cannot be wiped out. Just when they seem gone, you get a fresh manifestation--the same force in another form. And so it was here. Mrs. Marsden, seemingly abolished, bursts out in another place, explodes the debris of ruin that was holding her down, changes direction, and rises in blazing triumph on the other side of the street.

Wonderful! "Not now; but perhaps later, when the time comes"--he remembered her words. "I must do things my own way." Yes, her own way was right--because her way is the way of genius. A veritable stroke of genius--no lesser term will do,--seeming so simple to look back at, although so impenetrable till it was explained! She had seen the only means by which she could successfully extricate herself from an impossible situation. Only she could have escaped the imminent disaster. Only she could have turned an overwhelming defeat into a transcendent victory.

"Talk about giving women the vote," cried Mr. Prentice noisily. "That woman ought to be prime minister."

Mrs. Prentice, rejoicing at the good news, wished that her husband could have told it less vociferously. It happened that this evening she was the victim of a bilious headache, and she lay supine on a sofa, unable to sit up for dinner. The slightest noise made her headache worse, and the mere smell of food was distressing.

Mr. Prentice, banging in and out of the room, let savoury odours reach her; and his exultant voice set up a painful throbbing. "I told you so all along.... What did I say from the beginning?... Colossal brain power! No one like her!"

This really was the substance of all that he had to say, and he had already said it; yet he kept running in from the dinner table to say it again.

A bottle of the very best champagne was opened; and he brought the invalid a glass of it, to drink Mrs. Marsden's health. Mrs. Prentice, staunchly obeying, drank the old, still wine, and immediately felt as if she had stepped from an ocean-going liner into a dancing row-boat.

In the exuberance of his rapture, Mr. Prentice also invited the parlourmaid to drink Mrs. Marsden's health.

"There, toss that off--to the most remarkable lady _you_'ve ever seen."

"Yes, sir. She _is_ a nice lady, sir--and always speaks so sensible."

"_Sensible!_ Why, bless my soul, there's no one in the length and breadth of England that can hold a candle to her for sheer--" But he could not of course talk freely of these high matters to a parlourmaid. So he trotted off to the other room, to tell Mrs. Prentice once again.

As he walked to the office next morning, he hummed one of the comic songs that he had not sung for years, and snapped his fingers by way of castanet accompaniment. He felt so light-hearted and joyous that he would have willingly thrown his square hat in the air, and cut capers on the pavement.

He could not work. For two or three days he was quite unable to attend to ordinary business. When clients came to talk about themselves, he scarcely listened; but, giving the conversation a violent wrench, began talking to them about Mrs. Marsden.

Then one afternoon he was taken with a burning desire for a quiet chat with Archibald Bence. If he could get hold of little Archibald and ply him with questions, he would obtain all sorts of delightful explanatory details concerning Mrs. Marsden's splendid mystery.

He hurried down High Street, and, approaching the old shop, was puzzled by a strange phenomenon.

The pavement in front of Marsden & Thompson's seemed to be blocked by a dense crowd. The blinds were drawn on the upper floor; the iron shutters masked the windows and doors on the ground floor: the whole shop was closed--and yet there were infinitely more people lingering outside it than when it had been open.

White bills on all the shutters showed the cause of the phenomenon. "Astonishing Bargains"--these two portentous words headed each white placard in monstrous red capitals;--"Bence Brothers, having acquired this old-established business, will clear the entire stock, together with surplus and slightly soiled goods from their own house, at heart-breaking reductions on cost;"--"Opening 9 A.M. Monday next. Come early. This is not an ordinary bargain sale, but a forced sacrifice by which only the public can benefit." And the public, eager for the benefit, wishing that it was already Monday, pressed and strove to read and reread the white and red notices on the iron shutters.

"Don't push," said one nursemaid to another. "Take your turn. I've just as much right to see as you have."

Mr. Prentice laughed heartily and happily. He thought as he crossed the road and entered Bence's, "What a dog this Archibald is--to be sure!"

He found the grand little man in his private room, and was affably received by him.

"Oh, yes," said Archibald, sniggering modestly. "We hope to make rather a big thing of our clearance sale.... How long shall we keep it going? Well, that depends. It wouldn't last long, if we'd nothing to dispose of beyond what's left over there; but we shall clear this side at the same time."

And Bence rattled on glibly, as though Mr. Prentice had come to interview him for an article in an important newspaper.

"The ancient notion was that this kind of special selling took the cream off one's ordinary trade. But experience has taught us that such is not the case. We find that trade breeds trade. And you can't _tire_ your public--you can't over-stimulate them. It is the excited public that is your best _buying_ public."

Mr. Prentice listened respectfully; and then, after the manner of a good interviewer, begged the host to pass from general views to personal reminiscences.

"What is it you wish to know?"

"About you and her," said Prentice. "I should enormously like to know the inward history of it."

"Well, now that the secret's out," said Archibald, rubbing his chin, and wrinkling the flesh round his bright little eyes, "I suppose there's no harm in speaking about it."

"Certainly not to me," said Prentice. "Although I wasn't in her confidence about this, I am a real true friend of hers."

"I know you are," said Bence cordially. "She has said so a hundred times."

"Tell me how it began--the very beginning of things."

A gloomy cloud passed over Bence's animated face.

"Upon my word, I don't care to look back upon those days. I _was_ in such bitter trouble, Mr. Prentice."

"When did you think of going to her?"

"I never thought of it. _She_ came to me. I couldn't believe my ears when she opened the matter."

"What did she say?"

"Oh, she didn't beat about the bush. She said, if it was really true that I wanted money, she might supply it--on certain terms."

"Yes, yes--and tell me, my dear fellow, what were her terms?"

"Mr. Prentice," said Bence solemnly, "her terms were terrible--it was just buying me at a knock-out price."

"You don't say so?"

"The fact.... This is as between Masons, isn't it?... I may consider that we are tiled in."

"Yes, yes--as brother to brother."

And then Bence, who was never averse to hearing the sound of his own voice when safe and suitable occasions offered, talked with unchecked freedom and confidence.

"You know, I'd always entertained the highest and most genuine respect for her. When they used to say she was the best man of business in Mallingbridge, there was no one more ready to admit it than I was. I regarded her as right up there," and he waved his hand towards the ceiling. "Right up--one of the largest and most comprehensive int'lects of the age."

"Just so--just so."

"And I don't mind confessing I was always a bit afraid of her. Years ago--oh, I don't know how many years ago--when I was passing compliments to her, she'd look at me, not a bit unkind, but inscrutable--yes, that's it--inscrutable, and say, 'You take care, Mr. Bence. Don't jump too big, or one day you'll jump over yourself.'"

"Meaning your various extensions?"