Chapter Thirty Two.
“That Sting Each Other Here in the Dust.”
Father and son had the house to themselves, for the servants had long since gone to bed, and Lady Orlebar had done likewise, in a towering passion. Softly Philip returned to the library, where he had left his father, and then for a few moments they stood silently gazing into each other’s faces, the expression of each equally wretched, equally blank, equally hopeless.
“He has told you—that infernal villain!” said Philip, at length. “I can see it.” Sir Francis nodded. He could not speak just then. “And this,” went on Philip, drawing forth Fordham’s communication. “You know what he says here? Oh, father, for God’s sake, is it true?”
“It is impossible to say for certain,” gasped the baronet, in a strange, jerky tone, after several futile attempts to speak. “It is impossible to—prove anything—either way.”
He did not upbraid his son, as many a father might and would have done. He did not say, “If you will go and throw your life away upon your own weak and foolish judgment, if you will go and do things in such hurried and hole-and-corner fashion, if you will go and buy a pig in a poke, you have got no more than you deserve—you have only yourself to thank?” But he did think—and that bitterly—that but for the hurry and secrecy on the part of Philip in the matter, the weight of this horror would never have fallen upon them at all.
“Father, what do you think—candidly? Do you think that scoundrel Fordham spoke the truth?”
It was the bitterest moment in Sir Francis’s life. To answer in the negative would be but to perpetuate the horror; besides he could not so answer. His glance avoided that of his son, and his head drooped forward on his chest, as he faltered, like a man who talks in his sleep—
“I believe he did. I cannot say otherwise—I believe he did.”
And then Philip knew that his life was ruined at the outset—wrecked almost before leaving port.
“Father!” he said, at last, breaking the terrible silence which had fallen between them. “What does this villain mean when he says, ‘Remember by the time you get this you will have been married two whole days...’? Has he given it me two days sooner than he meant to?”
“Oh no—oh no. This would make it just about the time,” muttered Sir Francis, drearily.
“But how do you make that out? How can I have been married two whole days when I was only married this morning?”
The change in Sir Francis’s demeanour was in the last degree startling.
“What?” he almost shrieked. “What’s that you say, Phil? You were only married this morning?”
“Of course I was. I left Lau—I left her—almost at the church door.” And then he went on to detail Mrs Daventer’s inexorable insistence upon his breaking the news to his father at once.
“But the telegram, Phil? What of the telegram?” cried Sir Francis, wildly. “Look—look at the date. The 22nd—that was yesterday. And it says ‘this morning.’”
Philip had caught up the slip of paper and was staring at it with a puzzled look. “It’s as you say, father,” he said. “The office stamp does give the 22nd. Well, it is a mistake, and Fordham has been so far sold, for the most awful side of his ghastly, diabolical plot has been spared me. What an infernal fiend, in the literal sense of the word, the man must be!”
“Oh, thank God! thank God?” ejaculated poor Sir Francis, falling back in his chair. “So you parted at the church door. Oh, thank God! that unutterable horror is spared us. But the rest. My poor boy—my poor boy! You can never see them again—it would be too fearful.”
“Once, father—once I must,” was the reply, accompanied by a hard-set frown. “Once—but once only.”
Fordham’s chambers were situated in a quiet street just off Park Lane. They were comfortable, but not luxurious, as became one who was a confirmed wanderer—here to-day, there to-morrow. He never cared to accumulate a collection of things, for that very reason. Here on the day after Philip’s meeting with his father did Fordham sit. He was writing—answering a letter from Wentworth urging him to join the latter at Les Avants the following week—a suggestion which rather fell in with his own inclinations—for London at the end of September was insufferably close, abominably dusty, and blatantly vulgar. He hardly knew himself why he had stayed so long.
Well, that was not quite accurate either. He did know. He wanted to watch the explosion of the infernal machine he had so craftily pieced together, to note its results.
His letter finished, he pushed his chair from the table and began to think. He was in one of his worst moods that morning—cool, cynical, utterly without ruth. As he thought on his interview of the previous evening he laughed at himself because of the temporary softening he had undergone. When others had got the drop on him, did they relent? Not they. Now he had got the drop on them, why should he feel any compunction? He would not. While in this vein he heard steps quickly ascending the stairs. The door opened and there entered—Philip.
The latter stopped short. At first it seemed as if he could not speak. His broad chest was heaving, and a red spot burned in each of his livid cheeks. Then, slowly, he brought out three words—
“You—infernal villain!”
Fordham slightly shrugged his shoulders, and the expression of his face was not goodly to look upon.
“Is that all you came here to say? Well, at any rate you can’t say I didn’t warn you—didn’t give you every chance. Why, man, I did nothing but warn you.”
“Yes—by the rule of contraries. And now what have you got to say? Putting myself aside for the present, for what you have done to my father you shall answer to me. Yes, to me!”
His tone had attained a loud and threatening pitch, and he made a step forward. Fordham, who had risen when he first came in, drew himself together with a nearly imperceptible movement which reminded one of nothing so much as a snake ready to strike. Thus they confronted each other, these two who had been such close, such intimate friends.
“What have I got to say?” repeated Fordham, dropping out his words with a steely deliberation. “The question ought rather to come from me. No; stop! Stand back!” he added, warningly, as the other made towards him, a move whose nature was unmistakably aggressive. “You’ll do no good in that line, I promise you. Why remember, boy, all the best tricks you know with your hands I taught you, and there remain a great many better ones for you to learn. I’m the best man of the two in that way.”
None knew this better than Philip, tall, powerful, and in good training as he himself was. The other was a splendid boxer, and all wire and whipcord. He would stand no chance against him.
“Will you meet me in the old-fashioned way, then?” he said, with difficulty restraining his rage. “We can cross the Channel and exchange a few shots. What! You won’t!” for the other had burst into a derisive chuckle. “Hang it, Fordham, you may pretend to laugh, but I never thought you were such an infernal coward!”
“You may well talk about hanging,” replied Fordham, with that same sardonic chuckle. “Do you know, you young fool—do you know that all this time you have been bellowing out enough to hang you a dozen times over in this happy contingency for which you are thirsting? Do you know, also, that in the event of my being the one to go under, one single word construable into an arrangement of the meeting, uttered by you over here would be enough to hang you as surely as if you had cut a man’s throat to steal his watch?”
It was Philip’s turn to look slightly foolish now; and in spite of his anger and misery he did so—such is the power of a master-mind and a sarcastic tongue.
“Just do me the favour to open that door suddenly, will you?” went on Fordham. “Ah! The coast’s clear, is it? Well, then”—as the door was shut again—“if you really mean business, this is how you ought to have put it: ‘Fordham, old man, are you really going to St. Jean-de-Luz this week or next? Because if so I might join you there.’”
Philip started, and stared. Then it dawned on him.
“And where the deuce is St. Jean-de-Luz?” he said.
“About equidistant between Biarritz and the Spanish border, and very near both,” was the tranquil answer. “Well, I was going to Les Avants, but if you prefer it I will alter my destination. Do you prefer it?” with a keen glance into the other’s eyes.
“I understand,” said Philip, slowly. “Yes, certainly, I do prefer it.”
“Very well, then. There is no more to be said. I will be at St. Jean-de-Luz by the middle of next week at the latest. And now a word of caution for your own sake. Do not breathe one syllable with regard to our—er—rendezvous, while you are on this side of the English Channel. Remember that on this side of that geographical feature we are both within British jurisdiction. I suppose you don’t want to spend the rest of your life in penal servitude in the event of gaining your object?”
“I understand,” said Philip, again. “Till this day week, then—over there.”
“You may rely upon me.” And then the speaker rang the bell, and Philip, hardly knowing where he went, found himself following a manservant to the street door.
He had gone in there on violence intent. That was a mistake. Fordham was right to keep cool. It is what he ought to have done himself. Ah, well, he was learning his lesson gradually. He had acted upon impulse hitherto—the warm, generous impulse of youth. No more of that. But he would be cool enough that day week, when they two should meet.
No compunction did he feel—nothing but hate, and horror, and loathing towards his former friend. The diabolical and coldblooded cruelty which could predestine his life to shipwreck from the very cradle, which could watch him grow up, and then under the guise of friendship lure him to his ruin, effaced at one sweep all the recollection of their former intimacy, of many an act of kindness on the part of the older man, of strong and reliable comradeship in moments of danger. And his father—if he had injured Fordham in times past, he had given him full satisfaction. That ought to have closed the matter. And now this coldblooded villain, after all these years, rose again to persecute and hound him into the grave. Never while he was there. And then at the recollection of his father’s white, stricken face and pitiable aspect, Philip clenched his fists and wished he had insisted upon an earlier meeting.
When he reached the Great Western terminus the Welsh train was already moving, but with an effort and at imminent risk to life and limb he managed to fling himself into a compartment, and then, speeding over the familiar landscape, his thoughts turned from those he was leaving behind to those to whom he was going. Why, it was very little more than twenty-four hours since he had parted from his bride, and what a cataclysm had taken place within that time. His bride! Horror! How should he even meet her, knowing what he did? How could he even bear to look at her? And then, as he sat there throughout the day, gazing out vacantly upon the flying trees and hedges, the scales seemed to drop from his eyes. He had fallen a prey—a contemptibly easy prey—to a couple of designing adventuresses. All the kind and gracious attentions of the mother—the winsome ways of the daughter—all struck him now as so many arts to lure him into their net, and they had succeeded. He had fallen a victim to a couple of the basest tools ever employed to carry out a base and villainous scheme. Well, after that night they should look upon his face no more.
Then another thought struck him. If the more horrible side of Fordham’s scheme, as set forth in his revelation, were true, Mrs Daventer—so-called—could not be in ignorance of it. Could she, as a mother,—under no matter what pressure of circumstances—consent to become a party to so monstrous a crime? It did not seem possible. Yet, to poor Phil, now beginning to realise the sublimity of iniquity to which some will soar, it occurred that the woman acting under baser, stronger motives, might even have been brought to sacrifice her own daughter. Well, she would know, at any rate, and—she should tell.
Chance favoured him. It was late when he reached the house. Laura, having given him up for that night, had gone upstairs; but her mother was still sitting in the drawing-room reading. The French window, neither curtained nor shuttered, stood ajar, for the night was hot and stuffy. Standing there for a moment in the starlight, the fresh salt air fanning his brow, the murmur of the waves on the beach hard by, humming confusedly in his ears, Philip felt quite sick and faint. He had been continuously on the move since this horror had burst upon him—had eaten next to nothing, and had not slept a wink—and now it was all beginning to tell. Recovering himself, he pushed open the window and stepped into the room.
“Why, Philip! What a way to come back!” cried Mrs Daventer, recovering from the momentary start this unexpected invasion had thrown her into. “Laura will be delighted! Why—what is the matter? Has anything gone wrong?” she broke off, noting his haggard face and the miserable expression of his eyes; and her own cheeks grew livid with a horrible boding fear.
His first answer was to step to the door and turn the key.
“We had better not be interrupted for a few minutes,” he said shortly. “Now I want you to tell me. What is Cecil Garcia to you?”
She started, swayed, as if to fall, then recovered herself, as if by an effort of will.
“You know, then?” she gasped. “He has told you?”
“Everything?”
“Everything! Oh, the infamous fiend! He was always that way.”
“Maybe. Now I must have an answer to this! Who is Laura’s father? Cecil Garcia or—Sir Francis Orlebar?”
She started from her chair, and stood gazing at him, unutterable horror in her eyes, her lips livid and shaking. Her next words were gulped out, as though between the gasps of strangulation.
“He—told you—?”
“That your daughter’s father is my father. That I had married my half-sister. Is it true?”
She tried to speak—the words would not come. The full horror—the diabolical ingenuity—of Fordham’s plan, burst upon her now—for the first time, and burst upon her with crushing force. This was the blow then. While the barest taint of such suspicion lurked in Philip’s mind, Laura might go through life alone. This was how Fordham had chosen to strike her. And she had half credited him with benevolent motives! Him, a devil in human shape!
“Is it true?” repeated Philip.
But his voice hummed in her ears with a far-away sound. She made a convulsive clutch at her throat, gasping as if to speak. No words would come. Then swaying heavily, with a low cry that was half a groan, she tottered and fell.
“She has answered the question,” said Philip to himself, as he caught her just in time and placed her on the sofa. “She has answered the question, and now I know the worst.”
Stepping to the door he unlocked it, just as Laura was turning the handle. She had heard her mother’s cry and the sound of voices. Among the latter she recognised that of Philip, and had flown down, grievously dreading that something had happened.
And at sight of him all her fears were realised. That pale, stern man with the haggard eyes, and the hand stretched forth as though to bar her approach, was that her bright-hearted Philip, who had left her so gaily, yet so lovingly, but the morning before? Heavens, what did it all mean?
“No; it is all over,” he said, putting forth his hand again, as she was about to fling herself upon his neck. “I know all now. Heavens—it is too horrible!” he added with a shudder. “But I suppose you are in the secret too. To think of it!”
“I think you have gone mad,” she answered, a defiant fierceness taking the place of the soft love tones wherein she had at first addressed him. “But—what have you been doing to my mother?” she added in half a scream, as she caught sight of the latter lying there white and still, and rushed over to her side.
“She has fainted. You had better see after her while I go for a doctor. The knowledge that I had been made aware of the infamous plot to which I have fallen a victim has been too much for her.”
Even in the midst of her attentions to her fainting mother the girl turned upon him with flashing eyes and a livid countenance.
“Infamous plot!” she cried. “You dare? Mark this, then. Never come near me again—never again until you have apologised most humbly to her and to me. I mean it! Do you hear?”
“That makes it easier,” he replied, with a faint sneer. “Now I am going for the doctor.” And he went out. “She is in it too,” he soliloquised as he sped along through the cool night. “It is a horrible business—horrible—horrible! But the mother? Well, she answered the question. Still, when she comes round, I shall insist upon her answering it again in words, or in writing.”
But his question was destined to remain unanswered, for Mrs Daventer never did come round. A couple of hours after Philip’s return with the medical man she died. But she never spoke again.
The doctors pronounced it a plain case of heart disease, though they wrapped their definition up in a layer of technical jargon that was anything but plain. So the only person who could have cleared up the doubt was silent for ever, and the true secret of Laura’s paternity lay buried in her mother’s grave.