CHAPTER IV
A CONCLAVE
"Good heavens! What on earth can be the meaning of this?"
Dick was standing in his pyjamas at the window of Virginia's bedroom. They were in a country house on the Yorkshire coast, to which they had come for a few days on their way from Scotland. Letters had just been brought up to them with their morning tea.
"What is it, Dick?" said Virginia from the bed. "Give it to me."
He hesitated for a moment, and then crossed the room to give her the letter he had been reading. As he did so he looked through the other envelopes he held in his hand. "Here is one from the Governor," he said, "which may explain it."
The two letters ran as follows:
DEAR CAPTAIN CLINTON,
I suppose your father has told you of the conversation he and I had together a few days ago, and of his refusal to entertain the request I made of him, to which I had understood him to assent. This is just a friendly note of advice to you to help him to see how absurd his refusal is, and what it will entail, not only to him but to you and all your family. I shall not take any steps for a day or two, so that you may have time to bring him to reason. But if that cannot be done, I shall take the steps of which I warned him.
Yours sincerely,
RACHEL AMBERLEY.
MY DEAR DICK,
I want you to come home at once. A very serious trouble has arisen with regard to an action of poor Susan's, of which I have known for some time, but which I was unable to talk to you about. I had thought we should hear no more about it, but I am afraid it must now be known. I wish to consult you about any steps that can be taken; but I fear that none can. In any case I want you to hear the whole story. Your mother sends her love, and wants you and Virginia here. She would like me to tell you the story, but I feel I cannot write it. You must wait until I see you.
Love to Virginia.
Your affectionate father,
EDWARD CLINTON.
Dick's face was grave enough when he looked up from this missive, and handed it, without a word, to Virginia.
"Rachel Amberley!" she exclaimed.
"Yes—and Susan," said Dick. "Trouble indeed! Trouble and mystery! I wish the Governor had told me what it is. Just like him to keep us on tenterhooks for hours! We shall have to start early, Virginia."
Virginia was frightened. "But, Dick dear, what does it mean?" she cried.
He went and stood at the window, looking out over the sea. His face was very grave. "It means," he said slowly, "that Susan was concerned, somehow, in that Amberley business; and she has found it out, and is asking for money to keep it dark."
"But how could she have been concerned in it? Oh, how dreadful, Dick!"
"She was at Brummels at the time." He pieced his thoughts together slowly. "Perhaps she knew, and took money to hold her tongue. She wanted money almost as much as the other woman. She did something she ought not to have done; the Governor says so. Something that she could have been punished for, or this Amberley woman wouldn't have any grounds to go on. She has been punished, and can't be punished any more—for that. She could for blackmail, though. She says the Governor gave way to her. That would have been extraordinarily foolish. He refused afterwards, though—seems to have told her to go to the devil. I'm glad he did that. Lord, how he must have been rushed! I wish I'd been there to lend him a hand."
"Oh, poor Mr. Clinton! But what can she do, Dick, this woman?"
"If Susan had known——!" He paused. "She can't have been in it...."
"Oh no, Dick!" Virginia said in a frightened whisper.
"No, the Amberley woman would have given her away. I don't think she has found out anything. I think she has waited until she was free of everything herself, and now proposes to let out what she knew all the time about Susan, unless she is paid to keep it to herself. That would be it, or something like it. Well, we shan't know, if we cudgel our brains all day. I must go and dress; and you must get up. I'll tell Finch to look up trains. Don't worry about it, Virginia."
They arrived at Kencote in the late afternoon. Joan was on the platform. Her face was troubled. Virginia kissed her warmly. "What is it, darling?" she asked.
"I don't know," said Joan, as they walked out of the station together. "It is something about Ronald. He is not to come here yet. Oh, what can it be?"
"It isn't anything about Ronald," Virginia said. "We know that much. But it is some great trouble, and I suppose your father has asked him not to come for the present."
"Yes," said Joan. "Mother said she would tell me more after they had talked to you and Dick. Father has been indoors all day. I believe he is ill. Oh, Virginia, I am sure something dreadful is going to happen."
They drove straight to the house, and Dick went in at once to his father's room. The Squire was sitting in his chair, doing nothing. He looked aged and grey.
"Well, Dick," he said, looking up, without a smile. "This is a black home-coming. Ask your mother and Virginia to come in. Virginia must know. I'll tell you the story at once."
He told his story, without the circumlocutions he had used to Mrs. Clinton. His voice was tired as he told it, and his narrative was almost bald. "There it is," he ended up. "I don't know whether I'm right or not. Your dear mother says I am. I hope I am. It means untold misery and disgrace. But I shan't pay her a penny, directly or indirectly."
Virginia looked anxiously at Dick, who had been sitting with downcast eyes, and now looked up at his father.
"You needn't worry yourself about that, father," he said.
The Squire's face brightened a little.
"You mean that you think I'm right," he said. "I suppose I am. But I can't be certain of it."
"I can," said Dick. "She can disguise it as she likes; but it's blackmail. We don't pay blackmail."
There were visible signs of relief at this uncompromising statement. The Squire began to argue against it, not because he was not glad it had been made, but to justify his doubts.
"I know it's a difficult case," said Dick. "It's a most extraordinarily difficult case. The only way through it is to act on a broad principle, and stick to it through thick and thin. That's what you've done, and I'm very glad of it. You couldn't have done anything else, really, though you may think you could. Under no circumstances do we pay money to anybody to keep anything dark."
"Money was paid," said the Squire.
"I had no idea whatever," said Virginia, with frightened eyes.
"Oh, of course not," said Dick. "It wasn't your fault."
His face was clouded. "I can't blame Humphrey," the Squire said, with his eyes on him.
Dick made no reply.
"He came on purpose to ask you," said Virginia. "He didn't try to keep it from you."
"He did keep it from me," said Dick. "I ought to have known."
"What should you have done?" asked the Squire.
Dick did not answer. Mrs. Clinton broke in. "Let us leave that alone," she said. "Humphrey had poor Susan to consider. We have no right to blame him for what he did."
"I say nothing about that, for the present," said Dick. "I must think it over. If I had been there he would not have got the money."
"He wouldn't have told you why he wanted it," Virginia said. "I think you would have paid it—to Gotch—as I did."
"You see how difficult it all is, Dick," said Mrs. Clinton. "At every moment there have been difficulties. Do not think harshly of poor Humphrey."
"He is out of it," said Dick, "at the other side of the world. See what comes of his actions. We couldn't be touched if it were not for that—in any way that will harm us. Susan is dead. Nobody else had done anything they could have been accused of, or made sorry for, up till that time."
"Susan had," said Mrs. Clinton. "She was alive then; and she was Humphrey's wife. And wouldn't it have been terrible for us then if she had been punished?"
Dick's face was hard.
"Dick, supposing it had been me!" said Virginia.
"Oh, my dear!" he exclaimed impatiently.
"No, but you must think of it in that way. He stood by her. He couldn't let that happen to her."
"Well," said Dick unwillingly, "when you've said that at every stage it has been a difficult question, perhaps you have said all that can be said. The trouble is that it is that payment to Gotch that is coming home to us. That's why, even if father had thought it right, otherwise, to pay her this money now, it would have been the most foolish thing he could have done. He would have been endorsing that transaction. As it is, he can say quite truly that he refused to do it, and we, who did do it, had no idea what it was done for."
"Yes, I see that," said the Squire, "and I never thought of it before. The two things would have hung together."
"She would have made further demands," said Dick. "We should have been under her thumb."
"She said she would satisfy me of that," said the Squire.
"She may have said so. She would have been too clever for you. She would have drawn us in, until we should have had to do something downright dishonourable—that there couldn't have been any doubt about—or defy her and take the consequences, as we've got to do now. We should have been living under the sword, perhaps for years, never knowing when it was going to fall, shelling out money all the time. Oh, it doesn't do to think about! And no better off at the end of it than we are now."
"It's true," said the Squire. "I wish I'd had you to show it all so clearly to me while I was going through that awful time, making up my mind. Oh, Lord!" He wiped his brow, damp with the horror of thinking of it.
"You made up your mind without seeing clearly," said Mrs. Clinton. "You did what was right because it was right."
"And now we've got to take our punishment for it," said the poor Squire, with a wry smile.
"That is what we'd better talk about," said Dick. "The other is all over. We can talk about that later."
"Herbert Birkett is coming down to-morrow," said the Squire. "I wrote and told him he must, and he sent me a wire. He is playing golf at North Berwick. It is her threat of an action for conspiracy that I want to ask him about."
"That's bluff," said Dick. "Who conspired to do what? Humphrey is out of the country. He had better stay there. She can't get at him. Everybody else is blameless. You refused, and you were the only one besides him who knew anything about it."
"I can't prove that, and she won't stick at lies."
"That's true enough. But you can prove it. She will have to get the Gotches over to prove anything at all, and his evidence will clear you. Besides, you refused her the second time."
"I can't prove that. There were only she and I."
"By Jove!" Dick felt in his breast pocket. "She's given herself away there. I've got a letter from her. She says you refused. She isn't as clever as I thought she was."
"It's all bluff," said Dick contemptuously, when the letter had been read. "I don't think she could get the Gotches over, for one thing. And supposing she did succeed in bringing it before a court, you could tell your story in the most public way. Nobody would have a word of blame for you, or for any of us. I'm not certain it wouldn't be the best possible thing that could happen for us."
"I shouldn't like it to come to that," said the Squire.
"Well, I don't think it will. We've got other things to face—perhaps worse things. I shan't answer her letter, though I'll take good care to keep it. When she sees that nothing is coming she'll begin to spread reports. That's when we shall have to be on the lookout."
"We have done nothing wrong," said Mrs. Clinton. "She will only be attacking poor Susan; and anybody whose opinion of us we should value will think that a wicked thing to do, now that Susan is dead."
"But ought we not to defend Susan's memory?" Virginia asked.
All three of them were silent. Dick was the first to speak.
"We have to think straight about it," he said. "You can't defend Susan, alive or dead. It was shielding her that has put us in the wrong, where we are in the wrong. All that we can do is not to admit anything, not to deny anything; let people think what they will. Keep quiet. That's a good deal to do, for if we liked to take the offensive we could clear ourselves once and for all."
"How could we do that?"
"Have her up for slander."
"But what she will say about Susan will be true."
"Do you think she will stick to that? No, she will try to blacken us in every way she can. She'll tell lies about us. It's no good saying people won't believe them. They will believe them, if we don't defend ourselves. We may have to have her up for slander, after all."
"What can she get out of it all?" asked Virginia in a voice of pain. "It will be horrible. Every right-thinking person must abhor her."
"She will have a right to try and clear herself," said Mrs. Clinton. "It is true that she was accused of doing what Susan really did, and the accusation has never been cleared up."
"That is true," said Dick, "and if she confines herself to truth, we have no right to try and stop her. Under all the circumstances—her trying to get money for her silence, and so on—I don't see that we are under the smallest obligation—of honour or anything else—to help her. If we come out into the open we shan't be able to keep Susan's guilt dark. That's why I think she will drag us into attacking her. We shall see what Herbert Birkett says. All we have to do in the meantime is to live on quietly here as usual, and wait for what comes."
"There are the others to be thought of," said Mrs. Clinton. "Jim and Cicely, Walter and Muriel, Frank, all of them. They must be prepared."
"Yes," said Dick unwillingly. "They are bound to hear of it. We must tell them. Get them down here as soon as possible. I will go over and tell Jim and Cicely to-morrow."
The Squire had been sitting in a blessed state of quiescence. He had done his part. Dick had a clearer head than he. In his bruised state, he was only too ready to let Dick take the lead in whatever had to be done.
"There is my poor little Joan to think of," he said. "Young Inverell—I have put him off. Joan must be told why."
"I will tell her," Mrs. Clinton said. "Poor child, it is hardest for her, just now. But he will not give her up—I am sure of it."
"I don't know," said the Squire. "If the whole country is going to ring with our name—— His stands high. But I won't have him here until the worst has happened that can happen; and then only if he comes of his own accord. We stand on what honour is left to us. It won't be much. We've been talking as if we could all clear ourselves at Susan's expense, if everything comes out. We can't. She was one of us, poor girl. We suffer for her sins."