CHAPTER III
THE BURDEN
"My dear Edward, I am deeply sorry for you."
The Squire leant back in the big easy-chair and wiped his brow, which was beaded with perspiration. He had told his story, and it had been the bitterest task he had ever undertaken.
Lord Sedbergh's face was very serious. The two men had lunched together at his club, and were sitting in the inner upstairs library, with coffee and liqueurs at their elbows, by the window looking on to the green of the park—two men of substantial fortune and accredited position, entrenched in one of the rich retreats dedicated to the leisure of their exclusive kind.
But the Squire's curaçoa was untouched, and his cigar had gone out. The retired and tranquil luxury of his surroundings brought no sense of refuge; he felt naked before those others of his untroubled equals who, out of hearing in the larger room, would have looked up with reprehensive curiosity if they could have imagined what breath from the sordid outer world was tainting the temple of their comfort.
"I appreciate your courage in coming to tell me this; it must have cost you a deal. But I almost wish you hadn't."
The Squire sat forward again, and drank his liqueur at a gulp.
"I couldn't leave it as it was," he said.
"Perhaps not; though most men in your case would have been inclined to do so. Have another cigar, Edward. That one hasn't lighted well."
The Squire accepted this offer. The worst was over; and his friend had taken the disclosure with all the kindness he had expected of him.
"I couldn't do anything myself to stop its coming out," he said, when his wants had been supplied. "But I can't find it in my heart to blame Humphrey for what he did. You couldn't say that this money that has been paid to somebody who knows nothing about it, by somebody who knows nothing about it, is in any way hush-money."
Whether you could or not, Lord Sedbergh was not prepared to say it. "No, no," he said comfortably, "you were quite right there, Edward. You acted honourably—nothing to reproach yourself with. But what an astonishing story it is! To think that we were wrong all the time! And Susan Clinton, of all people! Did you say she was hidden in the room when my wife was talking about the secret?"
His mind was running on details which had long ceased to occupy the Squire. His curiosity had to be satisfied to some extent, and his surprise vanquished, before he was ready to consider the story in its actual bearings. Without intending to add to the pangs of his friend, he made clear by the way he discussed it, the position that Susan must occupy in the view of anyone not influenced by the fact of relationship. She was the thief, found out and condemned, to the loss of all reputation and right of intercourse with her equals. So had Mrs. Amberley been condemned, by the self-protective code of society. The Squire saw Susan in Mrs. Amberley's place, more vividly and afflictively than he had seen her hitherto.
"She will be kept out of the way," he said, struggling against the hurt to his pride. "Humphrey is going to take her abroad. You don't think it is necessary for anyone else to know?"
"Oh no, no. Good heavens, no! What you have told me shall be kept absolutely sacred, Edward. I shouldn't breathe a word, or a hint, to any living soul."
The Squire breathed more freely. "We shall look after her," he said with a stronger feeling of the measure to be dealt out to the culprit than he had yet experienced. "She won't go scot-free. But exposure would bear so hard on the innocent—I couldn't have come to you, I believe—though I know it's the only right thing to do—if I hadn't been pretty sure that you would have felt that."
"Oh, of course, I feel it. It mustn't happen. It won't happen. It needn't happen."
"Thank you, Jim," said the Squire simply. "You were always a good friend of mine."
"Don't think any more of it, Edward. Lord, what a terrible time you must have gone through! Let's put it out of our minds, for good. You and I have done nothing wrong, at any rate. Why shouldn't we sustain ourselves with another——"
"There's a detail that has to be settled between us," interrupted the Squire, "before we can put it aside. What did you value that necklace at? Seven thousand pounds, wasn't it? I have been to my people this morning. I can let you have it within a week or ten days."
"That's a matter," said Lord Sedbergh after a pause of reflection, "that can only be considered with the help of some very old brandy. It hadn't occurred to me."
"Wonderful stuff this." Neither of them had spoken since the brandy had been ordered. "I don't believe you'll get anything like it anywhere else. Well now, my dear Edward, I think we shall have to leave that business alone."
"Oh, I couldn't do that. Humphrey doesn't want to, either. He mentioned it before I did. It is he who will pay it in the long run. That's only fair. But I can provide the money now, and he can't."
"Well, I don't want the money; and I'm glad to be in the position of being able to say so. What could I do with it? Buy another necklace? That would be running the risk of questions being asked that it might be difficult to answer."
"I don't think so. You are rich enough to be able to replace an heirloom—it was an heirloom, wasn't it?—and make up to your wife what has been lost, without occasioning remark. Oh, you must take the money, Jim. You're as generous as any man living—I know that. But the loss cannot fall on you, now it is known where the money went to. That poor misguided creature had it and spent it. It would be a burden on me all my life, if I couldn't put that right—and on Humphrey too. He would feel it as much as I should."
"I'm afraid you can't put it right," said Lord Sedbergh, speaking more seriously. "And it's a burden that you and Humphrey will have to shoulder. I'll do everything I can for you, Edward; but I won't carry that burden."
"What do you mean?" asked the Squire.
Lord Sedbergh did not speak for a moment. Then he looked up and asked, "What about Mrs. Amberley?"
The Squire frowned deeply. The question was a surprise to him. He had not thought much about Mrs. Amberley, except as an example of what Susan might be made to appear before the world.
"I ought to have told you how I regard that," he said unwillingly. "I didn't, because it seems to me perfectly plain, and I thought you would see it in the same light as I do."
Lord Sedbergh waited for him to explain the light in which he saw it.
"She isn't in prison any longer. They let her out, because she was ill—or so they said. She's as free as you or I. Nothing that could be done—somebody else suffering in the same way—would wipe out what she has already undergone—and done with. Besides, it wasn't on account of the necklace that she was sent to prison. It was on account of the other thing; and that she did steal."
"Yes, that's perfectly true. She has had no more than her deserts—rather less in fact. No, you couldn't reinstate her by publishing the truth."
"Well, then, what's the difficulty?"
"There's no difficulty, Edward, in my mind, about keeping quiet. It would be too much to expect any man in your situation to bring the heaviest possible misfortune on himself, and others, for the sake of doing justice to someone who could hardly benefit by it. At least that's how it seems to me."
"Justice!" echoed the Squire. "There's no question of justice. She was punished for something quite different. If she had been found guilty of stealing the necklace, and were still undergoing punishment for it, the whole question would be different altogether. Thank God, we haven't got to face that question. It would be terrible. As it has so mercifully turned out, no injustice is done to her at all. Can't you see that?"
"Well, do you think she would, if she were asked?"
Lord Sedbergh did not leave time for his question to sink in. "My dear fellow," he went on, "your course is as difficult as it could be. Who am I that I should put my finger on any one of its difficulties, and make it heavier? You have done nothing that I shouldn't have done myself if I had been in your place. At the same time, you have to take the responsibility for whatever you do, and I haven't."
"Yes, I know that; and it's just what I want to do—put things right wherever I can."
"But you wouldn't be putting anything right by paying me money. You would only be making me share your difficulties—your great and very disagreeable difficulties; and that, with all the good will in the world towards you, my dear Edward, I won't do."
The Squire saw it dimly, and what he saw did not please him. Nor was his light enough to prevent him from pressing his point.
When Lord Sedbergh had combated it for some time, with firm good humour, he said more seriously, "Can't you see that if this story were ever to come out, and I had taken your money, I should be in a very awkward position?"
"It never will come out now."
"That's your risk, Edward. I may be a monster of selfishness, but I won't make it mine."
When the Squire left the club half-an-hour later, his face was not that of a man who had been set free of a debt of seven thousand pounds.