CHAPTER XXVII.

A BLACK CRIME.

Mrs. Ives’s appearance on the scene roused Clara. She questioned her mother eagerly. Very soon she had got to the bottom of the old woman’s knowledge. Mrs. Ives completely exonerated the boy of having broken his word.

“There’s not a more truthful nor a braver little chap in existence,” she cried. “He were always a near telling me, dear lamb! The whole thing worrited him awful, but he never did tell, never. Because he had given his word to you, Clary, nothing would make him break it. I don’t think red-hot irons would have wrung the truth from him, but he let it out in his sleep, bless him. He was restless, he had a bad headache. I gave him some quieting medicine, and he went to sleep in my arms, and in his sleep he began to talk and to mention the name of Pelham and Pelham Towers, and he cried out for some one called Dick and for a young lady of the name of Barbara.

“You’ll judge it were easy for me to put two and two together after that. But I thought I’d make certain sure afore I come to you, Clary, and I did. A month ago I went to Pelham Towers and I saw the young lady, the baronet’s wife, and I saw the housekeeper. I also saw the family vault. Dear heart! I heard a mighty piteous story about a coffin being put in and about one who went into the vault and who mourned as if his heart were broken. It was a deep plot, Clary, a deep plot, but I ha’ found it out. It ain’t your secret any more. It’s mine now.”

“What do you mean to do?” asked Clara at last.

“Tell me first if it’s true, Clary. I know it is, but I’d like to hear it from your own lips.”

“Yes, mother, it’s true,” said Clara slowly. “Now I want to know what you mean to do.”

“I must know all the reasons,” said the old woman.

“I am not at liberty to give you the reasons.”

“But, Clary, my girl, you’ve done an awful thing—something that will bring you under the power of the law. Am I to stand the disgrace of having one of my own locked up in one of her Majesty’s prisons and going through penal servitude, and being spoke of in all the papers? I’m poor, but I’m honest, and I has a respectable name, and this thing will kill me, that’s what it will.”

“Well, mother, if you keep the secret the catastrophe you dread will never happen,” said Clara. “You have only to keep it faithfully, and all will be well.”

“That’s very fine,” said the little woman; “but the secret worries me. Why should the boy be cut out of his own?”

“It is absolutely necessary that for the present he must remain unknown to his relatives,” said Clara. “It is a deep and a dreadful plot, mother, but it is too late to go back now. I may as well confess that I am bitterly sorry I ever took part in it.”

“It’s worse than a plot—it’s a black crime,” said the little woman. “Why, there’s the mother of the boy mourning him as if he were dead, and there was the old housekeeper crying fit to break her heart, and the young lady who has come in for all the money, she looked as sad as sad could be when she spoke of him, and they’re putting up a tablet to him in the old church. Clary, it’s past bearing. ’Tain’t likely as I’ll keep it burdening my soul. Even for you I can’t do that.”

“You’ll do great and terrible mischief if you let out what you know,” said Clara.

“But why did you do it, Clary? ’Pon my word, to think that a girl of mine should have grown up such a desperate woman. You was always masterful as a little ’un, but I didn’t think you’d stoop to open sin—the sort of sin, that means, to be tried and put in prison. Why, it’s very near murder. What do it all mean, Clary?”

“It means something dreadful,” said Mrs. Tarbot; “but I have put my hand to it, and it is too late to turn back now.”

“But why did you do it?”

“Look at me, mother.”

“I do look at you. I’m a-staring at you, and I don’t think you look at all well. You’re drawn and pale in the face past knowing. It’s ugly to see the skin stretched as tight as that. To be sure, you has a beautiful dress on, far too grand for my taste—it looks something like a snake’s skin. Why on earth did you choose that color? Oh, dearie me, Clara, I wouldn’t know you. I never did think you’d grow up so wicked. It’s a pity the good God didn’t take you when you was so bad with the croup that time, when you was a little mite. Oh, I prayed mighty ’ard that you might be spared, but I wish now to my heart that I hadn’t.”

“There’s no good in regretting the past, mother. I am as I am. I don’t pretend to be a good woman.”

“No, that you ain’t. You’re a rare bad ’un. I wish I’d never brought you into the world. It’s terrible to think what you ha’ done—it’s terrible.”

The poor old lady began to sob; she was shaken to her very depths. Presently she raised her trembling old hand, and laid it on her daughter’s cold fingers.

“Give it up, Clary,” she said. “Confess your sin, and give it up.”

“I cannot do what you want, mother.”

“Why can’t you?”

“I cannot.”

“You haven’t told me yet why you done it at all.”

“Very well, I’ll tell you. I suppose I was mad at the time. Mother, did you ever love anybody?”

“Did I ever love anybody? Lawk a mercy! to be sure I did. I loved your poor father, and I loved my children when they come, and I love you now, though you are such a bad ’un, and I love that little chap. What does this mean?”

“I want you to consider, mother. The sort of love you’re speaking about is not what I mean. When you were engaged to my father, and when you married him, did you ever feel that you would have committed even a crime if he wanted it, just because you loved him so well?”

“A mercy me! no,” said the little woman. She rose now and dropped a curtsey. “My word! you are upsettin’, Clary. To be sure I loved Thomas. He was a good man when he wasn’t in his tantrums, but as to committing a crime for him, no, no, nothing of that sort. I wouldn’t have sinned for him, not I.”

“Then you don’t understand anything about desperate, passionate love,” said the younger woman. “You don’t understand the love I feel. I love Luke, for years I have loved him. What I did was my one and only chance of winning him.”

“Then you’re a greater fool than I gave you credit for,” said the old woman. “It’s all past bearing, and I don’t think I can keep the secret any longer.”

“Sleep over it, mother,” said Clara. “You are tired. I will get you a room ready for you.”

“Oh, I’d be frightened to sleep in this grand house. I’ll go out and get a lodging near by.”

“No, you won’t. I won’t have it said that I turned my own mother out of doors at this hour. You must sleep here. Come, I’ll take you up-stairs.”

“You are as masterful as of old, Clary; but, dear heart, I don’t like sleeping in a house of this sort. However, as it’s late, and if you promise to give me the smallest room and the plainest you has, I’ll stay.”

“Yes; I can give you a nice little dressing-room beyond mine, with a snug bed in it. I’ll have a fire lit.”

“Sakes alive! don’t give me a fire in my bedroom. I hates ’em past bearing, they’re not healthy.”

“Very well, mother, just as you please, but it’s late now, and you must rest.”

Clara took her mother up-stairs, gave her every requisite for the night, and left her. Then she went to her own room. Prepared as she supposed herself to be for every possible emergency, it had not occurred to her that her mother would first discover her secret and then refuse to keep it.

She knew that the present danger was great. Whatever she herself might resolve to do in the future it would never, never do for her mother to forestall her. The child must be removed from the old woman, and if Mrs. Ives did not promise to respect Clara’s secret she would have to be deprived of her liberty. To do this was no easy matter.