CHAPTER II
Mrs. Lintern arrived by appointment, for while one instinct of his nature pressed Humphrey to evade this problem and take no hand in the solution, another and more instant impulse acted in opposition.
He surveyed the sweep of events as they struck at those involved in Nathan's ruin and death; and acting upon reasons now to be divulged, he sent first for the mistress of Undershaugh; because in his judgment her right to consideration was paramount.
Even in the act of summoning her, he told himself that these claims were no business of his to investigate; and that he was a fool to meddle. He repudiated responsibility at one breath, and deliberately assumed it with the next. His own motives he did not pause to examine.
Introspection irritated him and he turned from his conflicting ideas with impatience. In himself he only saw a very ill-balanced, imprudent, and impertinent person; yet he proceeded.
Now came Mrs. Lintern to know what he would have, and he saw her with an emotion of hearty regret that he had invited her.
In answer to his first question she assured him that she and her children were well.
"I'm afraid putting off the wedding has annoyed your nephew a good bit," she said; "but Cora felt that it was better; and so did I."
"Why did you think so?"
"Well, your brother held it so much to heart; and he was Ned's uncle. We could only have made a very quiet business of it in decency; and Cora felt 'twould be sad to marry under the cloud of death."
"Half the sorrow in the world is wasted on what can't be helped. It's folly to mourn what's beyond altering—just as great folly as to mourn the past. Surely you know that?"
"No doubt; but who can help it that's made on a human pattern?"
"The world would be a cheerful place if none wept for what can't be altered. There was nothing in reason to stand between us and the wedding. 'Twas my brother's last wish, for that matter."
She did not answer and a silence fell between them. He was determined that she should break it, and at length she did so.
"Your brother was very fond of Cora. Of course, we at Undershaugh miss him a very great deal."
"You would—naturally."
"At present the idea is that they get married in spring; and that won't be none too soon, for everything's altered now. They'll have to sell half they bought, and get rid of their fine house and their horses, and much else. This business has entirely altered the future for them, poor things."
"Utterly, of course. 'Twill have to be real love to stand this pinch. Better they wait a bit and see how they feel about it. They may change their minds. Both are pretty good at that."
She sighed.
"They understand each other, I believe. But Ned won't change, whatever Cora does. He's wrapped up heart and soul in her."
"He'll have to seek work now."
"Yes; he is doing so."
"The one thing he's never looked for. Harder to find work than foxes."
"He's not good for much."
"You say that of your future son-in-law?"
"Truth's truth. A harmless and useless man. I can't for the life of me think what he'll find to do."
"Nathan would have given him a job—eh? How wonderful he was at finding work for people. And what does Cora think of it all?":
"She's a very secret girl."
"And Heathman?"
"Heathman be going to make my home for me—somewhere. 'Tisn't decided where we go."
"You leave Undershaugh, then?"
"Yes."
"Nathan wouldn't have wished that, I'm sure."
"We were to have stopped, but the new owner wants to raise the rent to nearly as much again."
"What used you to pay?"
She hesitated. Like many people whose position has forced them into the telling of countless lies, she was still tender of truth in trifles.
"No matter," he said. "I can guess the figure very easily, and nought's the shape of it."
A sinister foreboding flashed through her mind. It seemed impossible to suppose such an innuendo innocent. Miss Gollop had said many offensive things concerning her after Nathan's death; but few had believed them, and still fewer shown the least interest in the subject. It was absurd to suppose that Humphrey Baskerville would trouble his head with such a rumour.
"Your brother was generous to all," she answered.
"Why, he was. And if charity shouldn't begin at home, where should it?"
"He was very generous to all," she repeated.
"I've been seeing Mr. Popham to-day."
"He's a true kind man, and wishful to do what he can. The rent asked now for Undershaugh is too high, even in the good state we've made it. So I've got to leave."
"'Twill be a wrench."
"Yes, indeed."
"But not such a bad one as his death?"
"That's true."
He probed her.
"Never to see him come down your path with his bustling gait; never to hear the laughter of the man. You held his hand when he went out of life. He loved you—'twas the master passion of him."
A flush of colour leapt and spread over her face. She gasped but said nothing.
"A cruel thing that he left you as he did."
"What was I?" she began, alert and ready to fight at once and crush this suspicion. "What are you saying? We were nothing——"
He held up his hand.
"A fool's trick—a lifelong fool's trick to hide it—a cruel, witless thing—a wrong against generations unborn—scandalous—infamous—beyond belief in a sane man."
"I don't understand you. God's my——"
"Hush—hush! I'm not an enemy. You needn't put out your claws; you needn't lie to me. You needn't break oaths to me. It's a secret still; but I know it—only me. You were his mistress, Priscilla Lintern—his mistress and the mother of his children."
"He never told you that."
"Not he."
"Who did tell you?"
"Cora told me."
"She'd rather have——"
"She told me—not in words; but every other way. I knew it the hour she came to see me, after she was engaged to marry my son. She strokes her chin like Nat stroked his beard. Have you marked that? She thinks just like Nat thought in a lot of ways, though she's not got his heart. She's not near so silly as he was. Her voice was the echo to his as soon as I got the clue. Her eyes were his again. She handles her knife and fork just like he was wont to do it; she sets her head o' one side to listen to anybody in the way he did. There's birds do it too—when they gather worms out of the grass. And from that I took to marking t'others. Your second girl be more like you; but Heathman will be nearer his father every day as he gets older. If he growed a beard, he'd be nearer him now. Wait and watch. And he's got his heart. Don't speak till you hear more. From finding out that much, I sounded Nathan himself. Little he guessed it, but what I didn't know, I soon learned from him. Cora was the apple of his eye. She could do no wrong. 'Twas Vivian and Ned over again. He spoke of you very guarded, but I knew what was behind. It came out when he was dying, and he was too far gone to hide it. And let me say this: I'll never forgive him for doing such a wicked thing—never. God may; but I won't. I wouldn't forgive myself if I forgave him. But you—you—dull man as I am, I can see a bit of what your life was."
"A better life—a more precious life than mine no woman ever lived."
He took a deep breath.
Here she tacitly confessed to all that he had declared. She did not even confirm it in words, but granted it and proceeded with the argument. And yet his whole theory had been built upon presumption. If she had denied the truth, he possessed no shadow of power to prove it.
"If ever I pitied anybody, I pity you; and I admire you in a sort of left-handed way. You're a very uncommon creature to have hid it in the face of such a village as Shaugh Prior."
"What I am he made me. He was a man in ten thousand."
"I hope he was. Leave him. Let me say this afore we get on. I don't judge you and, God knows it, I'm alive to this thing from your point of view. You loved him well enough even for that. But there's no will. He had nothing to leave; therefore—unless you've saved money during his lifetime——?"
"I don't want you to have anything to do with my affairs, Mr. Baskerville."
"As you please. But there are your children to be considered. Now it may very much surprise you to know that I have thought a lot about them. Should you say, speaking as an outsider, that I'm under any obligation to serve them?"
The sudden and most unexpected question again startled the blood from Mrs. Lintern's heart.
"What a terrible curious man you are! What a question to ask me!" she said.
"Answer it, however—as if you wasn't interested in it."
"No," she declared presently. "None can say that they are anything to do with you. You wasn't your brother's keeper. They be no kin of yours in law or justice."
"In law—no. In justice they are of my blood. Not that that's anything. You're right. They are nought to me. And you are less than nought. But——" He stopped.
"Why have you told me that you have found this out?" she asked. "What good can come of it? You'll admit at least 'tis a sacred secret, and you've no right whatever to breathe it to a living soul? You won't deny that?"
"There again—there's such a lot of sides to it. You might argue for and against. Justice is terrible difficult. Suppose, for instance, that I held, like Jack Head holds and many such, that 'tis a very improper thing and a treachery to the unborn to let first cousins mate—suppose I held to that? Ought I to sit by and let Cora marry Ned? Now there's a nice question for an honest man.
"You were going to let Cora marry your own son."
"I don't know so much about that. They were engaged to each other before I found it out, and then, as she soon flung him over, there was no need for me to speak. Now, the question is, shall I let these two of the same blood breed and maybe bring feebler things than themselves into the world?"
"This is all too deep for me. One thing I know, and that is you can say nought. You've come to the truth, by the terrible, wonderful brains in your head; but you've no right to make it known."
"You're ashamed of it?"
She looked at him almost with contempt.
"You can ask that and know me, even so little as you do? God's my judge that I'd shout it out from the top of the church tower to-morrow; I'd be proud for the world to know; and so much the louder I'd sing it because he's gone down to his grave unloved and in darkness. It would make life worth living to me, even now, if I could open my mouth and fight for him against the world. Not a good word do I hear now—all curse him—all forget the other side of him—all forget how his heart went out to the sorrowful and sad.... But there—what's the use of talking? He don't want me to fight for him."
"If you feel that, why don't you stand up before the people and tell 'em?"
"There's my children."
"Be they more to you than he was?"
"No; but they are next."
"I hate deceit. Who'll think the worse of them?"
"Who won't?"
"None that are worth considering."
"You know very little about the world, for all that you are deep as the dark and can find out things hidden. What about my darters? No, it wouldn't be a fair thing to let it out."
"I hold it very important."
"It shan't be, I tell you. You can't do it; you never would."
"You're right. I never would. But that's not to say I don't wish it to come out. For them, mind you, I speak. I leave you out now. I put you first and you say you'd like it known. So I go on to them, and I tell you that for their peace of mind and well-being in the future, 'tis better a thousand times they should start open and fair, without the need of this lie between them and the world."
"I don't agree with that. When the truth was told them on his deathbed, 'twas settled it should never go no further."
"Wait and think a moment before you decide. What has it been to you to hide the truth all your life?"
"A necessity. I soon grew used to it. Nobody was hurt by it. And Nathan kept his money."
"Don't fool yourself to think that none was hurt by it. Everybody was hurt by it. A prosperous lie be like a prosperous thistle: it never yet flourished without ripening seed and increasing its own poisonous stock a thousandfold. The world's full of that thistledown. Your children know the truth themselves; therefore I say it should come out. They've no right to stand between you and the thing you want to do. I'll wager Heathman don't care—it's only your daughters."
"More than that. Nathan would never have wished it known."
"No argument at all. He was soaked in crookedness and couldn't see straight for years afore he died."
"I won't have it and I won't argue about it."
"Well, your word's law. But you're wrong; and you'll live to know you're wrong. Now what are you going to do? We'll start as though I knew nought of this for the moment."
"I stop at Undershaugh till spring. I've got no money to name. We shall settle between ourselves—me and Heathman."
"I'll——"
He stopped.
"No," he said; "I can't promise anything, come to think of it; and I can't commit myself. 'Tis folly to say, 'let the position be as though I didn't know the truth.' It can't be. I do know it, and I'm influenced by it. I'll do nothing at all for any of you unless this comes out. I say that, not because I don't care for my brother's children, but because I do care for them."
"I don't want you to do anything. I've got my son. I refuse absolutely to speak. Until my children are all of one mind about it, the thing must be hidden up—yes, hidden up for evermore. I won't argue the right or the wrong. 'Tis out of my hands, and so long as one of them says 'no,' I hold it my duty to keep silent. And, of course, 'tis yours also."
"Who knows what my duty would be if Ned was going to marry Cora? I'd sacrifice the unborn to you; but not to your daughter and my nephew. There have been enough tongues to curse that worthless pair already. You don't want their own children to do the same in the time to come? But perhaps I know as much about Cora as you do about Ned. Wait and see if she changes her mind, since he has lost his fortune."
Priscilla rose.
"I will go now," she said. "Of course, you can't guess how this looks to a woman—especially to me of all women. To find that you knew—and no doubt you thought I'd come here and drop dead afore you of shame."
"No, I didn't. If you'd been that sort, I shouldn't have plumped it out so straight. You are a brave creature, and must always have been so. Well, I won't deny you the name of wife in secret—if you like to claim it."
She was moved and thanked him. Satisfaction rather than concern dominated her mind as she returned homeward. She felt glad that Nathan's brother knew, and no shadow of fear dimmed her satisfaction; for she was positive that, despite any declared doubts, he would never make the truth public.
Her own attitude was even as she had described it. She would have joyed to declare her close companionship, if only to stop the tongues of those who hesitated not to vilify the dead before her.
Eliza Gollop had told many stories concerning Mrs. Lintern's attendance in the sick room; but few were interested in them or smelt a scandal. They never identified Priscilla with the vanished innkeeper; they did not scruple to censure Nathan before her and heap obloquy on his fallen head.
Often with heart and soul she longed to fight for him; often she had some ado to hide her impotent anger; but a lifetime of dissimulation had skilled her in the art of self-control. She listened and looked upon the angry man or woman; she even acquiesced in the abuse by silence. Seldom did she defend the dead man, excepting in secret against her daughters.