Part 10

He spoke with a hard, metallic voice; scarce a trace of feeling was in it, save of the grate of animosity; his strong eye had no yielding in it, no light, only a sort of phosphorescent glimmer passing over it. He stooped, picked up the cane, and held it in his right hand, like a quarter-staff, and in his firm, knotted fist, cane though it was, it had the appearance of being a weapon capable of being used with deadly emphasis.

'Now, then,' said Philip, 'put down that bag; there, on the chair near me. Instantly.'

Schofield looked into his face and did not venture to disobey. The iron resolution, the forceful, earnest, the remorseless determination there were not to be trifled with. Schofield put down the bag as desired.

'The key.'

Sulkily, the fellow drew it from his trousers-pocket and flung it on the ground.

'Pick it up.'

Schofield hesitated. He would not stoop. He dreaded a blow on the head; on the back of the head, which would fell him if he stooped, such a blow as he would himself deal the man before him if he had a stick in his hand, and could induce him to bend at his feet.

As he hesitated, and a spark appeared in the eye of Philip, Salome stooped, rose, and handed the key to her husband.

He did not thank her. He did not look at her. He kept his eye steadily on Schofield--scarcely glancing at the bag as he opened it, and then only rapidly and cursorily at its contents--never for more than a second allowing it to be off his opponent, never allowing him to move a muscle unobserved, never to frame a thought unread. But, for all the speed with which he glanced at the contents of the bag, he saw that it contained a great deal of money. It was stuffed with bank-notes, and the figures on these notes were high. Philip leisurely reclosed and relocked the bag, put the key in his pocket and passed the strap over his own head.

Then only did a slight, almost cruel smile, stir the corners of his lips as he saw the blankness of Schofield and the break-up of his assurance.

'Now, I suppose, I may go?' said the rogue.

'No,' answered Philip, 'I do nothing by half. I have my old scores against Schofield as well as the new scores--which are not my own--against Beaple Yeo.'

'But,' said the man, in a shaking voice, 'it will be so terribly bad for you to have the concern here mixed up with me--and you should consider that--the Bridlington scheme was a famous one, and was honest as the daylight. It must have rendered twenty-five per cent.--twenty-five as I am an honest man--and I should have become a millionaire. Then wouldn't you have been proud of me, eh?--it was a good scheme and must have answered, only who was to dream that no land could be bought?'

He eyed Philip craftily, then looked at the door, then again at Philip--as soon expect to find yielding in him as to see honey distil out of flint. So he turned to Salome. 'Speak a word for your father, child!' he said in a low tone.

Salome shrank from him and turned to Philip, who put out his steady hand and thrust her back, not roughly but firmly, towards Schofield.

Then in a sudden frenzy of fear and anger the fellow screamed, 'Will you let me pass?'

'The constable will be here directly, and then I will; not till then,' said Philip.

'Bah! the constable!' scoffed Schofield. 'You have sent to have a constable summoned. But where is he? Looking for a policeman is like searching for a text. You know he's somewhere, but can't for the life of you put your thumb on him. Look here, Philip,' he lowered his voice to a sort of whine, 'I'm awfully penitent for what I have done. Cut to the heart, gnawing of conscience, and all that sort of thing. It is a case of the prodigal father returning to the discreet and righteous son, and instead of running to meet me and help me, and giving me a good dinner--a good dinner, you know, and all that sort of thing, you threaten me with constables and conviction. I couldn't do it myself. 'Pon my word I couldn't. I suppose it is in us. I'm too much of a Christian--a true Christian, not a mere professor. I'm ashamed of you, Philip; I'm sorry for you. I sincerely am. I'm terribly afraid for you that you are the Pharisee despising me the humble, penitent Publican.' The fellow was such a rascal that he could adapt himself to any complexion of man with whom he was, and he tried on this miserable cant with Philip in the hope that it would succeed. But as he watched his face, and saw no sign of alteration of purpose in it, he changed his tone, and said sullenly, with a savagery in the sullenness: 'Come, let me go; if I am brought to trial, I can tell you there will be pretty things come out, which neither you nor your wife will like to hear, and which will not suffer her to hold up her head very stiffly--eh?'

He saw that he had made Philip wince.

At that moment the house door-bell rang, and he heard that the police-constable had arrived.

He turned, went to the fireplace, grasped the poker, and swinging it above his head rushed upon Philip. Salome uttered a cry. Mrs. Cusworth's hand let go its grasp of the chimney-piece and she fell.

All happened in a moment--a blow of the poker on Philip's arm--and Schofield was through the door and down the passage to the garden.

'Run after him, policeman, run!' screamed Mrs. Sidebottom, as she admitted the constable.

But Schofield had gained the start, and when the policeman reached the door in the wall of the lower garden he found it locked, and had to retrace his steps to the house. Time had been gained. No sooner was Schofield outside the garden than he relaxed his steps, and sauntered easily along the path till he reached the canal. He followed that till he arrived at a barge laden with coal, over the side of which leaned a woman, with a brown face, smoking a pipe.

'My lass!' said Schofield, 'I've summat to tell thee--in private;' and he jumped on board and went down the ladder into the little cabin.

The woman, Ann Dewis, slowly drew her pipe out of her mouth and went after him to the hatch, looked in, and said, 'What be 't, lad? Eh, Earle! Tha'rt come. Tak' t' pipe, I've kept it aleet a' these years. Ah sed ah would, and ah've done it.'

*CHAPTER XXXI.*

*ESTRANGEMENT.*

One! Two! Three!

Hark! on the church bell: then, again--

One! Two! Three!

'It is a woman or a little girl,' said those listening.

Then again--

One! Two! Three!

'A woman. Who can she be? Who is ill? But--how old?' Then, again, the bell--

One! Two! Three!--------up to forty-six.

'Aged forty-six! Who can it be?'

Many faces appeared at the windows and doors of the street at Mergatroyd, and when the sexton emerged from the belfry, he was saluted with inquiries of, 'Who is dead? Forty-six years old--who can she be?'

'Mrs. Cusworth. Dropped dead with heart complaint.'

Now, in Yorkshire, when a man dies, then the bell tolls, Four, four, four; when a boy, then Four, four, two; when a woman dies, then as above, Thrice three; and when a girl, Three, three, two; after which, in each case, the age is tolled.

'Fiddlesticks!--you may say what you will, it is fiddlesticks,' said Mrs. Sidebottom impatiently. She was in the study with Philip. 'I never heard of anything so monstrous, so inhuman. I could not have believed it of you. And yet--after what I have seen, I can believe anything of you.'

Philip was unmoved. 'The plunder of that wretched fellow,' he said unconcernedly, 'shall be placed in proper hands. How much there is I cannot now say, and I do not know how many persons he has defrauded, and to what an extent. Whether all will get back everything is not certain; probably they will receive a part, perhaps a large part, but not all.'

'It is preposterous!' burst in Mrs. Sidebottom, 'I have been the means of catching him. No one would have had a farthing back but for my promptitude, my energy, and my cleverness. Did not I track him here, and act as his gaoler, and drive him into a corner whilst you secured the money? And you say that I am to share losses equally with the rest! No such a thing. I shall have my money back in full; and the rest may make the best of what remains, and thank me for getting them that. As for what you say, Philip, I don't care who hears me, I say it is fiddlesticks--it is fiddlestick-ends.'

'I should have supposed, Aunt Louisa, that by this time you would have known that when I say a thing I mean it, and if I mean a thing I intend to carry it out unaltered.' Then after a pause: 'And now I am sorry to seem inhospitable, but under the painful circumstances--with death again in this house, and with my child ill, I am obliged to recommend you to return at once to York, and when there, not again to consult Mr. Smithies. It is more than probable that this reliable man of business of yours, whom you set to watch me, has sold you to that rascal Beaple Yeo--or whatever his name be.'

'Oh, gracious goodness!' exclaimed Mrs. Sidebottom. 'To be sure I will return to York. I wouldn't for the world incommode you in a house of mourning. I know what it is; the servants off such heads as they have, which are heads of hair and nothing else, and everything in confusion, and only tongues going. I wouldn't stay with you at this most trying time, Philip, not for worlds. I shall be off by the next train.'

Philip was left to himself.

His wife was either upstairs with the baby, or was below with the corpse of one whom she had looked up to and loved as a mother. Surely it was his place to go to her, draw her into the room where they could be by themselves, put his arm about her, and let her rest her head on his breast and weep, to the relief of her burdened heart.

But Philip made no movement to go to his wife.

She was alone, without a friend in the house. Her sister was away, her baby was ill. A death entails many things that have to be considered, arranged, and provided. Philip knew this. He sent word to the registrar of the death; he did nothing more to assist Salome. He rang the bell, and when after a long time a servant replied to the summons, he gave orders that clean sheets should be put on the bed lately occupied by Mrs. Sidebottom. He would, he said for awhile, sleep there.

Did it occur to Philip that there was cruelty in leaving his young wife alone at night, with a sick baby, and with the body of the woman, who had been to her as a mother, lying waiting for burial downstairs? Did it occur to him that she might feel infinite desolation at night, if he were away from her? He thought only of himself, of the wrong done to him.

'She married me, and never told me who she was. She married me, lying under a false name.'

Salome had not realized, indeed, had not perceived, how deep and fatal a rift had been cloven in her relations with Philip. The fall of her mother, the efforts to restore life, the arrival of the doctor, the conviction struggled against but finally submitted to that life was extinct, had concentrated and engrossed all her faculties. Then, when she knew that death was again in the house, there sprang out of that knowledge many imperious duties that exacted of Salome full attention and much thought. Mrs. Sidebottom had volunteered no help. Upon Salome everything depended. She had not the time to consider how Philip would take the startling revelation made to him. Salome was not one to give up herself to emotion. She braced herself to the discharge of the duties that devolved on her. Quiet, very pale, and hollow-eyed, she went about the house. From the nursery she found that the nurse had escaped, deserting the baby, that she might talk over the events that had occurred in the kitchen. The cook, Salome found, had made the pastry with washing instead of baking powder, and the housemaid had found too much to talk about to make the beds by four o'clock in the afternoon.

Only, when everything in the house had been seen to, a woman provided to attend to the dead, and all the trains off their lines set on them again, only then could Salome sit down and write to her sister of their common loss.

After this was done she wrote a few notes to friends, and then, lacking stamps, came with the packet to Philip's door.

He was seated at his secretaire writing, or pretending to write, with his brows bent, when he heard her distinct and gentle tap at the door. He knew her tap, it was like that of no one else, and he called to her to enter.

'My dear,' she said, 'I have not been able to come to you before. I have had so much to do; and--dear, I have wanted to speak to you; but, as you know, in such a case as this, personal wants must be set aside. Have you any stamps? I require a foreign one.'

He hardly looked up from the desk, but signed with the quill that she should shut the door. He was always somewhat imperious in his manner.

She shut the door, and came over to him, and laid the letters on his desk.

'You will stamp them for me, dear?' she said, and rested her hand lightly on his shoulder.

Then she saw how stern and set his face was, and a great terror came over her.

'Oh, Philip!' she said; and then, 'I know what you are taking to heart, but there is no changing the past, Philip.'

Sometimes we have seen the reflection of the sun in rippled waters out of doors sent within on the ceiling. How it dances; is here and there; now extinct, then once more it flashes out in full brilliancy. So was it with the colour in Salome's face; it started to one cheek, burnt there a moment, then went to the temples, then died away wholly, and in another moment was full in her face, the next to leave it ashy pale. Her voice also quivered along with the colour in her face, in rhythmic accord. Philip withdrew his shoulder from the pressure of her hand, and slowly stood up.

'I shall be obliged if you will take a chair,' said he formally, 'as I desire an interview, but will undertake to curtail it as much as possible, as likely to be painful to both.'

She allowed her hand to fall back, and then drew away a step. She would not take a chair, as he had risen from his.

'Philip,' she said, 'I am ready to hear all you have to say.'

She spoke with her usual self-possession. She knew that they must have an explanation about what had come out. There was always something in her voice that pleased; it was clear and soft, and the words were spoken with distinctness. In nothing, neither in dress, in movement, nor in speech, was there any slovenliness in Salome. There was some perceptible yet indefinable quality in her voice which at once reached the heart.

Philip felt this, but put the feeling from him, as he had her hand.

'Salome,' said he, not looking at her, except momentarily, 'a cruel trick has been played on me.'

'Philip,' said she quietly but pleadingly, 'that man, as I told you, is my father, but I did not know it till yesterday. I had no idea but that I was the daughter of those who had brought me here, and who gave themselves out to be my parents. I will tell you what I know, but that is not much. He--I mean that man--had married my mother, who was the sister of her who is below, dead. He got into trouble somehow; I do not know what kind of trouble it was, but it was, I suppose, a disgraceful one, for he had to leave the country, and it was thought he would not venture back to England. My real mother, grieved at the shame, died and left us to her sister, who with her husband, Mr. Cusworth, cheerfully undertook the care of us, adopted us as their own, and when they came here shortly after, gave out that we were their children, partly to save us the pain of knowing that our father had been a----well, what he was, partly also to screen us from his pursuit should he return, and also, no doubt, the more to attach us to themselves. As you know, shortly before Mr. Cusworth, our reputed father, was to be taken into partnership, a terrible accident happened and he was killed. Janet and I do not remember him. Since then mamma--I mean my aunt--and we children lived in this house with dear, kind, Uncle Jeremiah. Whether he knew the truth about us I have not been told. We never had any doubt that she whom we loved and respected as a mother was our real mother. Then, on the occasion of the terrible flood and the death of Uncle Jeremiah' or just after, he--I mean our father--reappeared suddenly, and without having let mamma know that he was yet alive. He came here in great destitution, wanted money, and even clothing. Mamma--you know whom I mean, really aunt--she was in great straits what to do. She did not venture openly to allow him to appear, and she suffered him to visit her secretly through the lower garden-door, and to come to her sitting-room; she gave him money and he went away. That was how her two hundred and fifty pounds went, about which you asked so many questions, and which she was afraid of your inquiring too much about. My father had then assumed the name of Beaple Yeo. She also allowed him to take uncle's great-coat and hat, which were laid out in the spare room for distribution. You told her to dispose of them as she saw fit.'

Philip hastily raised his hand.

Mrs. Sidebottom had hit the right nail on the head in her explanation of that mysterious visit to his house--and then he had scouted her explanation. He lowered his hand again, and Salome, who had supposed that he desired to speak, and had stopped, resumed what she was relating. 'Mamma heard nothing more of him after that till yesterday, when he reappeared. He was, he said, again in trouble, which meant, this time, that he must leave the country to avoid imprisonment. But he was not in a hurry to leave too hastily; he would wait till the vigilance of the police was relaxed, nor would he go in the direction they expected him to take. He had come, he said, to ascertain Janet's address. He intended, he said, to go to her. My mother refused to give it. I trust she remained firm in her refusal, but of that I am not sure. He said that if I had not been married he would have carried me off with him; it would not be so dull for him if he had a daughter as a companion. Janet knew about him and her relationship to him. I did not. When he came here first of all, Janet was in my mother's room, and the matter could not be concealed from her.'

'Do you mean seriously to tell me that till yesterday you were ignorant of all this?'

'Yes.'

'Ignorant when you married me that your name was Schofield, and not Cusworth?'

'Of course, Philip; of course.' She spoke with a leap of surprise in her tone and in her eyes. It was a surprise to her that he should for a moment suppose it possible that she was capable of deceiving him, that he could think her other than truthful.

'Then at that first visit you were told nothing; only Janet was let into the secret?'

'Yes, dear Philip.'

'What! the giddy, light-hearted Janet was made a confidante in a matter of such importance, and you the clear of intellect, prompt in action, close of counsel, were left in the dark? It is incredible.'

'But it is true, Philip.'

Thereupon ensued silence.

She looked steadily at him with her frank eyes.

'Surely, Philip, you do not doubt my word? Mamma only told Janet because the secret could not be kept from her. At that time my sister slept in mamma's room, and spent the greater part of the day with her, so that it was not possible to keep from her the sudden arrival of--of him.' She shuddered at the thought of the man who was her father. She put her hands over her face that burnt with an instantaneous blaze, but withdrew them again directly, to say vehemently, 'But, Philip, surely it cannot be. You do not doubt me?' She looked searchingly at him. '_Me!_'

He made no reply. His face was set. Not a muscle moved in it.

'Philip!' she said, with a catch of pain--a sudden spasm in her heart and throat. 'Philip, the sense of degradation that has come on me since I have known the truth has been almost more than I could bear Not because of myself. What God sends me, that I shall find the strength to bear. I am nobody, and if I find that I am the child of someone worse than nobody--I must endure it. What crushes me is the sense of the shame I have brought on you, Philip, and the sorrow that a touch of dishonour should come to you through me. But I cannot help it. There is no way out of it. It has come on us without fault of ours, and we must bear it--bear it together. I'--she spread out her hands--'I would lay down my life to save you from anything that might hurt you, that might grieve your proud and honourable spirit. But, Philip, I can do nothing. I cannot unmake the fact that I am his daughter and your wife.'

'I shall never, never forgive that the truth was kept from me. The marriage was a fraud practised on me.'

'My dear mother--you know whom I mean--acted with the kindest intentions, but I cannot excuse her for not speaking.'

'Janet knew, as you tell me, and she said nothing.'

'Mamma urged her to remain silent.'

'I was sacrificed,' said Philip bitterly. 'Upon my word, this is a family that transmits from one generation to another the fine art of hoaxing the unsuspicious.'

'Philip!' A rush of indignant blood mantled her face, and then left it again. She heaved a sigh, and said, 'If I had known before I married you whose daughter I was I would on no account have taken you. I would have taken no honest man for his own sake, no other for my own.'

'You know what Schofield was to me--to me above every man. I can recall when I told you and Janet and your mother how he had embittered my life, how he had ruined my father--and you all kept silence.'

'Philip, you are mistaken; I never heard that.'

'At all events your mother and Janet heard me--heard me when they knew I was engaged to you, and they told me nothing. It was infamous, unpardonable. They knew how I hated that man before I was married. They knew that I would rather have become allied to a Hottentot than to such an one as he. They let me marry you in ignorance--it was a fraud; and how, I ask'--he raised his voice in boiling anger--'how can I trust _you_ when you profess your ignorance?' He sprang to his feet and walked across the room. 'I don't believe in your innocence. It was a base, a vile plot hatched between you all, Schofield and the rest of you. Here am I--just set on my feet and pushing my way in an honest business, and find myself bound by an indissoluble bond to the daughter of the biggest scoundrel on the face of the globe.'

Salome did not speak. To speak would be in vain.

He was furious; he had lost his trust in her.

She began to tremble, as she had trembled when Mrs. Sidebottom had seen her on the stairs--a convulsive shivering extending from the shuddering heart outwards to the extremities, so that every hair on her head quivered, every fold in her gown.

'And now,' pursued Philip, 'the taint is transmitted to my child. It might have been endurable had I stood alone. It is intolerable now. These things run in the blood like maladies.'

She was nigh on fainting; she lifted one hand slightly in protest; but he was too angry to attend to any protest.

'Can I doubt it? The clever swindler defrauded my father, and the clever daughter uses the inherited arts and swindles the son. How do I know but that the same falsehood, low, cunning, and base propensities may not lurk inherent in my child, to break out in time and make me curse the day that I gave to the world another edition of Beaple Yeo, alias Schofield, bearing my hitherto untarnished name?'