“Yes.”
“But you did not mean it then?” she answered — though very gently. “It was to shield me you said it?”
He looked at her, astonished at her insight and her boldness. How different, how very different was this from that to which he had looked forward! At last, “I think I meant it,” he said gloomily. “God knows I mean it now! But that evening,” he continued, seeing that she still waited with averted face for the rest of his explanation, “he challenged me at dinner before them all, and I,” he added jerkily, “I was not quite sure what I meant — I had no mind that you should be made the talk of the — of my friends — —”
“And so — you denied it?” she said gently.
He hung his head. “Yes,” he said.
“I think I — I understand,” she answered unsteadily. “What I do not understand is why you are here to-day. Why you have changed your mind again. Why you are now willing that I should be — the talk of your friends, sir.”
He stood, the picture of abasement. Must he acknowledge his doubts and his hesitation, allow that he had been ashamed of her, admit that he had deemed the marriage he now sought, a mésalliance? Must he open to her eyes those hours of cowardly vacillation during which he had walked the Clifton Woods weighing I would against I dare not? And do it in face of that new dignity, that new aloofness which he recognised in her and which made him doubt if he had an ally in her heart.
More, if he told her, would she understand? How should she, bred so differently, understand how heavily the old name with its burden of responsibilities, how heavily the past with its obligations to duty and sacrifice, had weighed upon him! And if he told her and she did not understand, what mercy had he to expect from her?
Still, for a moment he was on the point of telling her: and of telling her also why he was now free to please himself, why, rid of the burden with the inheritance, he could follow his heart. But the tale was long and roundabout, she knew nothing of the Vermuydens, of their importance, or his expectations, or what he had lost or what he had gained. And it seemed simpler to throw himself on her mercy. “Because I love you!” he said humbly. “I have nothing else to say.”
“And you are sure that you will not change your mind again?”
There was that in her voice, though he could not see her face, which brought him across two squares of the carpet as if she had jerked him with a string. In a second he was on his knees beside her, and had laid a feverish hand on hers. “Mary,” he cried, “Mary!” seeking to look up into her face, “you will! You will! You will let me take you? You will let me take you from here! I cannot offer you what I once thought I could, but I have enough, and, you will?” There was a desperate supplication in his voice; for close to her, so close that his breath was on her cheek, she seemed, with her half-averted face and her slender figure, so dainty a thing, so delicate and rare, that he could hardly believe that she could ever be his, that he could be so lucky as to possess her, that he could ever take her in his arms. “You will? You will?” he repeated, empty of all other words.
She did not speak, she could not speak. But she bowed her head.
“You will?”
She turned her eyes on him then; eyes so tender and passionate that they seemed to draw his heart, his being, his strength out of him. “Yes,” she whispered shyly. “If I am allowed.”
“Allowed? Allowed?” he cried. How in a moment was all changed for him! “I would like to see — —” And then breaking off — perhaps it was her fault for leaning a little towards him — he did that which he had thought a moment before that he would never dare to do. He put his arm round her and drew her gently and reverently to him until — for she did not resist — her head lay on his shoulder. “Mine!” he murmured, “Mine! Mine! Mary, I can hardly believe it. I can hardly think I am so blest.”
“And you will not change?” she whispered.
“Never! Never!”
They were silent. Was she thinking of the dark night, when she had walked lonely and despondent to her new and unknown home? Or of many another hour of solitary depression, spent in dull and dreary schoolrooms, while others made holiday? Was he thinking of his doubts and fears, his cowardly hesitation? Or only of his present monstrous happiness? No matter. At any rate, they had forgotten the existence of anything outside the room, they had forgotten the world and Miss Sibson, they were in a Paradise of their own, such as is given to no man and to no woman more than once, they were a million miles from Bristol City, when the sound made by the opening door surprised them in that posture. Vaughan turned fiercely to see who it was, to see who dared to trespass on their Eden. He looked, only looked, and he sprang to his feet, amazed. He thought for a moment that he was dreaming, or that he was mad.
For on the threshold, gazing at them with a face of indescribable astonishment, rage and incredulity, was Sir Robert Vermuyden. Sir Robert Vermuyden, the one last man in the world whom Arthur Vaughan would have expected to see there!
XX
A PLOT UNMASKED
For a few moments the old man and the young man gazed at one another, alike in this only that neither found words equal to his feelings. While Mary, covered with confusion, blushing for the situation in which she had been found, could not hold up her head. It was Sir Robert who at last broke the silence in a voice which trembled with passion.
“You viper!” he said. “You viper! You would sting me — here also.”
Vaughan stared at him, aghast. The intrusion was outrageous, but astonishment rather than anger was the young man’s first feeling. “Here also?” he repeated, as if he thought that he must have heard amiss. “I sting you? What do you mean? Why have you followed me?” And then more warmly, “How dare you, sir, spy on me?” And he threw back his head in wrath.
The old man, every nerve and vein in his lean, high forehead swollen and leaping, raised his cane and shook it at him. “Dare? Dare?” he cried, and then for very rage his voice failed him.
Vaughan closed his eyes and opened them again. “I am dreaming,” he said. “I must be dreaming. Are you Sir Robert Vermuyden? Is this house Miss Sibson’s school? Are we in Bristol? Or is it all — but first, sir,” recalling abruptly and with indignation the situation in which he had been surprised, and raising his tone, “how come you here? I have a right to know that!”
“How come I here?”
“Yes! How come you here, sir?”
“You ask me! You ask me!” Sir Robert repeated, as if he could not believe his ears. “How I come here! You scoundrel! You scoundrel!”
Vaughan started under the lash of the word. The insult was gratuitous, intolerable! No relationship, no family tie could excuse it. No wonder that the astonishment and irritation which had been his first feelings, gave way to pure anger. Sir Robert might be this or that. He might have, or rather, he might have had certain rights. But now all that was over, the relationship was a thing of the past. And to suppose that he was still to suffer the old gentleman’s interference, to put up with his insults, to permit him in the presence of a young girl, his promised wife, to use such language as he was using, was out of the question. Vaughan’s face grew dark.
“Sir Robert,” he said, “you are too old to be called to account. You may say, therefore, what you please. But not — not if you are a gentleman — until this young lady has left the room.”
“This — young — lady!” Sir Robert gasped in an indescribable tone: and with the cane quivering in his grasp he looked from Vaughan to the girl.
“Yes,” Vaughan answered sternly. “That young lady! And do not let me hear you call her anything else, sir, for she has promised to be my wife.”
“You lie!” the baronet cried, the words leaping from his lips.
“Sir Robert!”
“My daughter — promised to be your wife! My — my — —”
“Your daughter!”
“Hypocrite!” Sir Robert retorted, flinging the word at him. “You knew it! You knew it!”
“Your d
aughter?”
“Ay, that she was my daughter!”
“Your daughter!”
This time the words fell from Arthur Vaughan in a whisper. And he stood, turned to stone. His daughter? Sir Robert’s daughter? The girl — he tried desperately to clear his mind — of whom Wetherell had told the story, the girl whom her mother had hidden away, while in Italy, the girl whose reappearance in life had ousted him or was to oust him from his inheritance? Mary Smith — was that girl! His daughter!
But no! The blood leapt back to his heart. It was impossible, it was incredible! The coincidence was too great, too amazing. His reason revolted against it. And “Impossible!” he cried in a louder, a bolder tone — though fear underlay its confidence. “You are playing with me! You must be jesting!” he repeated angrily.
But the elder man, though his hand still trembled on his cane and his face was sallow with rage, had regained some control of himself. Instead of retorting on Vaughan — except by a single glance of withering contempt — he turned to Mary. “You had better go to your room,” he said, coldly but not ungently. For how could he blame her, bred amid such surroundings, for conduct that in other circumstances had irritated him indeed? For conduct that had been unseemly, unmaidenly, improper. “You had better go to your room,” he repeated. “This is no fit place for you and no fit discussion for your ears. I am not — the fault is not with you, but it will be better if you leave us.”
She was rising, too completely overwhelmed to dream of refusing, when Vaughan interposed. “No,” he said with a gleam of defiance in his eyes. “By your leave, sir, no! This young lady is my affianced wife. If it be her own wish to retire, be it so. But if not, there is no one who has the right to bid her go or stay. You” — checking Sir Robert’s wrathful rejoinder by a gesture— “you may be her father, but before you can exercise a father’s rights you must make good your case.”
“Make good my case!” Sir Robert ejaculated.
“And when you have made it good, it will still be for her to choose between us,” Vaughan continued with determination. “You, who have never played a father’s part, who have never guided or guarded, fostered or cherished her — do not think, sir, that you can in a moment arrogate to yourself a father’s authority.”
Sir Robert gasped. But the next moment he took up the glove so boldly flung down. He pointed to the door, and with less courtesy than the occasion demanded — but he was sore pressed by his anger, “Leave the room, girl,” he said.
“Do as you please, Mary,” Vaughan said.
“Go!” cried the baronet, stung by the use of her name. “Stay!” said Vaughan.
Infinitely distressed, infinitely distracted by this appeal from the one, from the other, from this side, from that, she turned her swimming eyes on her lover. “Oh, what,” she cried, “what am I to do?”
He did not speak, but he looked at her, not doubting what she would do, nor conceiving it possible that she could prefer to him, her lover, whose sweet professions were still honey in her ears, whose arm was still warm from the pressure of her form — that she could prefer to him, a father who was no more than the shadow of a name.
But he did not know Mary yet, either in her strength or her weakness. Nor did he consider that her father was already more than a name to her. She hung a moment undecided and wretched, drooping as the white rose that hangs its head in the first shower. Then she turned to the elder man, and throwing her arms about his neck hung in tears on his breast. “You will be good to him, sir,” she whispered passionately. “Oh, forgive him! Forgive him, sir!”
“My dear — —”
“Oh, forgive him, sir!”
Sir Robert smoothed her hair with a caressing hand, and with pinched lips and bright eyes looked at his adversary over her head. “I would forgive him,” he said, “I could forgive him — all but this! All but this, my dear! I could forgive him had he not tricked you and deceived you, cozened you and flattered you — into this! Into the belief that he loves you, while he loves only your inheritance! Or that part,” he added bitterly, “of which he has not already robbed you!”
“Sir Robert,” Vaughan said, “you have stooped very low. But it will not avail you.”
“It has availed me so far,” the baronet retorted. With confidence he was regaining also command of himself.
Vaughan winced. In proportion as the other recovered his temper, he lost his.
“It will avail me still farther,” Sir Robert continued exultantly, “when my daughter understands, as she shall understand, sir, that when you came here to-day, when you stole a march on me, as you thought, and proposed marriage to her behind my back, you knew all that I knew! Knew, sir, that she was my daughter, knew that she was my heiress, knew that she ousted you, knew that by a marriage with her, and by that only, you could regain all that you had lost!”
“It is a lie!” Vaughan cried, stung beyond endurance. He was pale with anger.
“Then refute it!” Sir Robert said, clasping the girl, who had involuntarily winced at the word, more closely to him. “Refute it, sir! Refute it!”
“It is absurd! It — it needs no refutation!” Vaughan cried.
“Why?” Sir Robert retorted. “I state it. I am prepared to prove it! I have three witnesses to the fact!”
“To the fact that I — —”
“That you knew,” Sir Robert replied. “Knew this lady to be my daughter when you came here this morning — as well as I knew it myself.”
Vaughan returned his look in speechless indignation. Did the man really believe in a charge, which at first had seemed to be mere vulgar abuse. It was not possible! “Sir Robert,” he said, speaking slowly and with dignity, “I never did you harm by word or deed until a day or two ago. And then, God knows, perforce and reluctantly. How then can you lower yourself to — to such a charge as this?”
“Do you deny then,” the baronet replied with contemptuous force, “do you dare to deny — to my face, that you knew?”
Vaughan stared. “You will say presently,” he replied, “that I knew her to be your daughter when I made her acquaintance on the coach a week ago. At a time when you knew nothing yourself.”
“As to that I cannot say one way or the other,” Sir Robert rejoined. “I do not know how nor where you made her acquaintance. But I do know that an acquaintance so convenient, so coincident, could hardly be the work of chance!”
“Good G — d! Then you will say also that I knew who she was when I called on her the day after, and again two days after that — while you were still in ignorance?”
“I have said,” the baronet answered with cold decision, “that I do not know how you made, nor why you followed up your acquaintance with her. But I have, I cannot but have my suspicions.”
“Suspicions? Suspicions?” Vaughan cried bitterly. “And on suspicion, the base issue of prejudice and dislike — —”
“No, sir, no!” Sir Robert struck in. “Though it may be that if I knew who introduced you to her, who opened this house to you, and the rest, I might find ground for more than suspicion! The schoolmistress might tell me somewhat, and — you wince, sir! Ay,” he continued in a tone of triumph. “I see there is something to be learned! But it is not upon suspicion that I charge you to-day! It is upon the best of grounds. Did you not before my eyes and in the presence of two other witnesses, read, no farther back than the day before yesterday, in the drawing-room of my house, the whole story of my daughter’s movements up to her departure from London for Bristol! With the name of the school to which she was consigned? Did you not, sir? Did you not?”
“Never! Never!”
“What?” The astonishment in Sir Robert’s voice was so real, so unfeigned, that it must have carried conviction to any listener.
Vaughan passed his hand across his brow; and Mary, who had hitherto kept her face hidden, shivering under the stroke of each harsh word — for to a tender heart what could be more distressing than this strife between the two beings she most cherished? — ra
ised her head imperceptibly. What would he answer? Only she knew how her heart beat; how sick she was with fear; how she shrank from that which the next minute might unfold!
And yet she listened.
“I — I remember now,” Vaughan said — and the consternation he felt made itself heard in his voice. “I remember that I looked at a paper — —”
“At a paper!” Sir Robert cried in a tone of withering contempt. “At a detailed account, sir, of my daughter’s movements down to her arrival at Bristol! Do you deny that?” he continued grimly. “Do you deny that you perused that account?”
Vaughan stood for a moment with his hand pressed to his brow. He hesitated. “I remember taking a paper in my hands,” he said slowly, his face flushing, as the probable inference from his words occurred to him. “But I was thinking so much of the disclosure you had made to me, and of the change it involved — to me, that — —”
“That you took no interest in the written details!” Sir Robert cried in a tone of bitter irony.
“I did not.”
“You did not read a word, I suppose?”
“I did not.”
Before the baronet could utter the sneer which was on his lips, Mary interposed. “I — I would like to go,” she murmured. “I feel rather faint!”
She detached herself from her father’s arm as she spoke, and with her face averted from her lover, she moved uncertainly towards the door. She had no wish to look on him. She shrank from meeting his shamed eyes. But something, either the feeling that she would never see him again, and that this was the end of her maiden love, or the desperate hope that even at this last moment he might explain his admission — and those facts, “confirmation strong as hell” which she knew, but which Sir Robert did not know — one or other of these feelings made her falter on the threshold, made her turn. Their eyes met.
He stepped forward impulsively. He was white with pain, his face rigid. For what pain is stronger than the pang of innocence accused?
“One moment!” he said, in an unsteady voice. “If we part so, Mary, we part indeed! We part forever! I said awhile ago that you must choose between us. And you have chosen — it seems,” he continued unsteadily. “Yet think! Give yourself, give me a chance. Will you not believe my word?” And he held out his arms to her. “Will you not believe that when I came to you this morning I thought you penniless? I thought you the unknown schoolmistress you thought yourself a week ago! Will you not trust me when I say that I never connected you with the missing daughter? Never dreamed of a connection? Why should I?” he added, in growing agitation as the words of his appeal wrought on himself. “Why should I? Or why do you in a moment think me guilty of the meanest, the most despicable, the most mercenary of acts?”
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 526