For the Term of His Natural Life

by Marcus Andrew Hislop Clarke

  The house in Clarges Street was duly placed at the disposal of Mrs.Richard Devine, who was installed in it, to the profound astonishmentand disgust of Mr. Smithers and his fellow-servants. It now onlyremained that the lady should be formally recognized by Lady Devine. Therest of the ingenious programme would follow as a matter of course. JohnRex was well aware of the position which, in his assumed personality, heoccupied in society. He knew that by the world of servants, of waiters,of those to whom servants and waiters could babble; of such turfitesand men-about-town as had reason to inquire concerning Mr. Richard'sdomestic affairs--no opinion could be expressed, save that "Devine'smarried somebody, I hear," with variations to the same effect. He knewwell that the really great world, the Society, whose scandal would havebeen socially injurious, had long ceased to trouble itself with Mr.Richard Devine's doings in any particular. If it had been reported thatthe Leviathan of the Turf had married his washerwoman, Society wouldonly have intimated that "it was just what might have been expectedof him". To say the truth, however, Mr. Richard had rather hopedthat--disgusted at his brutality--Lady Devine would have nothing moreto do with him, and that the ordeal of presenting his wife would notbe necessary. Lady Devine, however, had resolved on a different lineof conduct. The intelligence concerning Mr. Richard Devine's threatenedproceedings seemed to nerve her to the confession of the dislike whichhad been long growing in her mind; seemed even to aid the formation ofthose doubts, the shadows of which had now and then cast themselves uponher belief in the identity of the man who called himself her son. "Hisconduct is brutal," said she to her brother. "I cannot understand it."

  "It is more than brutal; it is unnatural," returned Francis Wade, andstole a look at her. "Moreover, he is married."

  "Married!" cried Lady Devine.

  "So he says," continued the other, producing the letter sent to him byRex at Sarah's dictation. "He writes to me stating that his wife, whomhe married last year abroad, has come to England, and wishes us toreceive her."

  "I will not receive her!" cried Lady Devine, rising and pacing down thepath.

  "But that would be a declaration of war," said poor Francis, twistingan Italian onyx which adorned his irresolute hand. "I would not advisethat."

  Lady Devine stopped suddenly, with the gesture of one who has finallymade a difficult and long-considered resolution. "Richard shall not sellthis house," she said.

  "But, my dear Ellinor," cried her brother, in some alarm at thisunwonted decision, "I am afraid that you can't prevent him."

  "If he is the man he says he is, I can," returned she, with effort.

  Francis Wade gasped. "If he is the man! It is true--I have sometimesthought--Oh, Ellinor, can it be that we have been deceived?"

  She came to him and leant upon him for support, as she had leant uponher son in the garden where they now stood, nineteen years ago. "I donot know, I am afraid to think. But between Richard and myself is asecret--a shameful secret, Frank, known to no other living person. Ifthe man who threatens me does not know that secret, he is not my son. Ifhe does know it----"

  "Well, in Heaven's name, what then?"

  "He knows that he has neither part nor lot in the fortune of the man whowas my husband."

  "Ellinor, you terrify me. What does this mean?"

  "I will tell you if there be need to do so," said the unhappy lady. "ButI cannot now. I never meant to speak of it again, even to him. Considerthat it is hard to break a silence of nearly twenty years. Write tothis man, and tell him that before I receive his wife, I wish to see himalone. No--do not let him come here until the truth be known. I will goto him."

  It was with some trepidation that Mr. Richard, sitting with his wife onthe afternoon of the 3rd May, 1846, awaited the arrival of his mother.He had been very nervous and unstrung for some days past, and theprospect of the coming interview was, for some reason he could notexplain to himself, weighty with fears. "What does she want to comealone for? And what can she have to say?" he asked himself. "She cannotsuspect anything after all these years, surely?" He endeavoured toreason with himself, but in vain; the knock at the door which announcedthe arrival of his pretended mother made his heart jump.

  "I feel deuced shaky, Sarah," he said. "Let's have a nip of something."

  "You've been nipping too much for the last five years, Dick." (She hadquite schooled her tongue to the new name.) "Your 'shakiness' is theresult of 'nipping', I'm afraid."

  "Oh, don't preach; I am not in the humour for it."

  "Help yourself, then. You are quite sure that you are ready with yourstory?"

  The brandy revived him, and he rose with affected heartiness. "My dearmother, allow me to present to you--" He paused, for there was that inLady Devine's face which confirmed his worst fears.

  "I wish to speak to you alone," she said, ignoring with steady eyes thewoman whom she had ostensibly come to see.

  John Rex hesitated, but Sarah saw the danger, and hastened to confrontit. "A wife should be a husband's best friend, madam. Your son marriedme of his own free will, and even his mother can have nothing to say tohim which it is not my duty and privilege to hear. I am not a girl asyou can see, and I can bear whatever news you bring."

  Lady Devine bit her pale lips. She saw at once that the woman before herwas not gently-born, but she felt also that she was a woman of highermental calibre than herself. Prepared as she was for the worst, thissudden and open declaration of hostilities frightened her, as Sarah hadcalculated. She began to realize that if she was to prove equal tothe task she had set herself, she must not waste her strength inskirmishing. Steadily refusing to look at Richard's wife, she addressedherself to Richard. "My brother will be here in half an hour," she said,as though the mention of his name would better her position in some way."But I begged him to allow me to come first in order that I might speakto you privately."

  "Well," said John Rex, "we are in private. What have you to say?"

  "I want to tell you that I forbid you to carry out the plan you have forbreaking up Sir Richard's property."

  "Forbid me!" cried Rex, much relieved. "Why, I only want to do what myfather's will enables me to do."

  "Your father's will enables you to do nothing of the sort, and you knowit." She spoke as though rehearsing a series of set-speeches, and Sarahwatched her with growing alarm.

  "Oh, nonsense!" cries John Rex, in sheer amazement. "I have a lawyer'sopinion on it."

  "Do you remember what took place at Hampstead this day nineteen yearsago?"

  "At Hampstead!" said Rex, grown suddenly pale. "This day nineteen yearsago. No! What do you mean?"

  "Do you not remember?" she continued, leaning forward eagerly, andspeaking almost fiercely. "Do you not remember the reason why youleft the house where you were born, and which you now wish to sell tostrangers?"

  John Rex stood dumbfounded, the blood suffusing his temples. He knewthat among the secrets of the man whose inheritance he had stolen wasone which he had never gained--the secret of that sacrifice to whichLady Devine had once referred--and he felt that this secret was to berevealed to crush him now.

  Sarah, trembling also, but more with rage than terror, swept towardsLady Devine. "Speak out!" she said, "if you have anything to say! Ofwhat do you accuse my husband?"

  "Of imposture!" cried Lady Devine, all her outraged maternity nervingher to abash her enemy. "This man may be your husband, but he is not myson!"

  Now that the worst was out, John Rex, choking with passion, felt all thedevil within him rebelling against defeat. "You are mad," he said. "Youhave recognized me for three years, and now, because I want to claimthat which is my own, you invent this lie. Take care how you provoke me.If I am not your son--you have recognized me as such. I stand upon thelaw and upon my rights."

  Lady Devine turned swiftly, and with both hands to her bosom, confrontedhim.

  "You shall have your rights! You shall have what the law allows you!Oh, how blind I have been all these years. Persist in your infamousimposture. Call yourself Richard Devine
still, and I will tell theworld the shameful secret which my son died to hide. Be Richard Devine!Richard Devine was a bastard, and the law allows him--nothing!"

  There was no doubting the truth of her words. It was impossible thateven a woman whose home had been desecrated, as hers had been, wouldinvent a lie so self-condemning. Yet John Rex forced himself to appearto doubt, and his dry lips asked, "If then your husband was not thefather of your son, who was?"

  "My cousin, Armigell Esme Wade, Lord Bellasis," answered Lady Devine.

  John Rex gasped for breath. His hand, tugging at his neck-cloth, rentaway the linen that covered his choking throat. The whole horizon ofhis past was lit up by a lightning flash which stunned him. His brain,already enfeebled by excess, was unable to withstand this last shock.He staggered, and but for the cabinet against which he leant, wouldhave fallen. The secret thoughts of his heart rose to his lips, and wereuttered unconsciously. "Lord Bellasis! He was my father also, and--Ikilled him!"

  A dreadful silence fell, and then Lady Devine, stretching out her handstowards the self-confessed murderer, with a sort of frightful respect,said in a whisper, in which horror and supplication were strangelymingled, "What did you do with my son? Did you kill him also?"

  But John Rex, wagging his head from side to side, like a beast in theshambles that has received a mortal stroke, made no reply. Sarah Purfoy,awed as she was by the dramatic force of the situation, neverthelessremembered that Francis Wade might arrive at any moment, and saw herlast opportunity for safety. She advanced and touched the mother on theshoulder.

  "Your son is alive!"

  "Where?"

  "Will you promise not to hinder us leaving this house if I tell you?"

  "Yes, yes."

  "Will you promise to keep the confession which you have heard secret,until we have left England?"

  "I promise anything. In God's name, woman, if you have a woman's heart,speak! Where is my son?"

  Sarah Purfoy rose over the enemy who had defeated her, and said inlevel, deliberate accents, "They call him Rufus Dawes. He is a convictat Norfolk Island, transported for life for the murder which you haveheard my husband confess to having committed--Ah!----"

  Lady Devine had fainted.

  CHAPTER XVI. FIFTEEN HOURS.