Chapter Forty.
A bomb falling in their midst could scarcely have caused a greater sensation than was produced by Prudence’s request. The effect of her speech and of her action was electrical. Only the child remained unmoved; and he, reassured doubtless by the quiet composure of her bearing amid the general tension, which he realised without understanding it, and the sweet gentleness of her voice, ceased his plaintive whimpering and stared at her with round eyes filled with wonderment, and forgot his fear.
Bessie Clapp stared also, a solemn light in her dark eyes, and with a face grown tender and womanly, with all the hardness gone from its look. But William Graynor, flushed with anger, strode forward to intervene; and the old man, looking with disfavour upon the grouping, uttered: “No, no!” in tones of sharp protest, and put out a hand and touched Prudence’s sleeve.
“The child will be all right,” he said. “Leave this to me.”
She turned to him with a wistful smile.
“He’s nobody’s bairn,” she said. “Nobody wants him—except me.”
“Your husband wouldn’t like it,” he remonstrated. “You have to consider him. Take the child away,” he added, addressing Bessie Clapp. “I will communicate with you later.”
Prudence gave the boy into his mother’s charge and walked with them to the door.
“If I can arrange it, are you willing to give him up to me entirely?” she asked.
“Yes, miss,” Bessie answered in awed tones; and added, almost in a whisper: “It ’ud be a fine thing for ’im, any’ow.”
“’E’s good,” she said, with the door open and her hand upon it. “’E ban’t like ’is father; ’e ban’t mean.”
Prudence returned to confront her father and brother, both of them disturbed, though in different degrees, by her unlooked for interference. Mr Graynor regretted having allowed her to be present at the interview, while William resented deeply the fact that his double life should have been revealed to the young sister whom he had systematically snubbed and preached to all the years she had lived in the home. The knowledge that she wished to adopt his bastard son was insupportable.
“Let me beg, sir,” he said, crimson and spluttering for words, “that you won’t permit this. It’s indecent. It’s—unthinkable. I can’t agree to it.”
“It has nothing,” Prudence answered quietly, “to do with you.”
Mr Graynor fixed his dim angry eyes on his son’s face, the passion which he had kept under until now blazing up like a conflagration fanned by a sudden draught. He had never felt so humiliated and ashamed in all the years of his long life. For generations they had lived in Wortheton, honourable men and women, with an unsullied record which it remained for the present generation to smirch. It hurt him in his most vulnerable spot, his pride, that this base and sordid sin should be laid to his son’s charge.
“You despicable hypocrite!” he shouted. “How dare you question the right of any one to undertake a responsibility you are not man enough to shoulder? Had I known before of this low intrigue I would have compelled you to marry the mother of your child. Fortunately for her, she has found a better fate. As for the child—” He broke off abruptly, and turned in his seat and sat looking into the fire. “Prudence and I will settle that matter,” he added more quietly. “Leave it to us.”
Without uttering another word, William went heavily out of the room. Prudence approached the old man, who sat, a shrunken dejected figure, before the hearth, and kneeling on the carpet beside him, put her arms about him lovingly, and remained so in silence, while he looked steadily into the fire, thinking back—hearing again in imagination her indignant young voice speaking out of the past: “I will pray hard night and morning that God will befriend Bessie Clapp.” He put a hand upon her hair and smoothed it caressingly.
“This is a blow, Prue,” he said. “It hits me hard.”
He roused himself after a while and sat straighter in his chair and looked at her inquiringly.
“What makes you think you would like to have the child?” he asked.
“Because I have no little one of my own,” she answered. “And this little child’s life promises to be a sad one. He has a claim on our consideration; the same blood runs in his veins.”
“That is what makes your proposition impossible, as I see it,” he said. “Edward would not wish it. Think of the disgrace, my dear. One likes to hide these things.”
“That’s where I don’t see with you,” she replied gently. “In my opinion it is in refusing to accept our responsibilities that we merit disgrace. I’ve learned that quite lately. Let me try to explain.”
She clung closer to him and laid her head on his shoulder and was silent for a space, plunged in thought. The old man continued his occupation of stroking the bright hair, and was silent too, wondering what it was that needed explanation.
“You never asked me,” Prudence said presently, “what it was that brought me home so unexpectedly.”
“I was so glad,” he replied, “to see you. It never occurred to me to ask the reason of your coming. It’s sufficient for me that you are here.”
“Dear!” she said, and pressed his hand fondly. “I’m always glad to come. I’m sorry that ever I went away. I came home because of a quarrel with Edward. I left him in anger. I had thoughts of leaving him altogether. You see, dear, I too have behaved badly. I meant to shirk my responsibilities because they had grown irksome. Don’t grieve, daddy; that’s all past. I’ve come to see that life can’t be twisted to suit each person’s needs. We should make a hopeless tangle of it if we followed that principle. There’s one simple course for the straight and decent liver—to accept life as it is and make the best of it. I mean to write to Edward to-day and ask him to come down and fetch me. Then I will tell him about the child. If he consents to my adopting him, I shall take him back with me.”
“You will make Edward’s consent a condition to your reconciliation?” Mr Graynor asked.
“Oh, no!” Prudence looked swiftly into his face. “I am hoping that he will give it as a concession.”
She twined her arms about the old man’s neck and drew his cheek to hers and pressed hers against it.
“I’m just hungry for a little child,” she said. “I long to hear little footsteps about the house, to know the clinging feel of little hands. I’m just a sackful of motherhood tied down and repressed. I feel that I can’t go on like this much longer.”
“I wish you had a dozen babies of your own,” he said wistfully.
“My dear!” She was laughing now, though the tears shone behind the laughter. “Half that number would serve.”
“I still don’t like the idea of you adopting this child,” Mr Graynor said after a pause. “He comes of bad stock, Prue.”
“Not bad stock,” she contradicted. “I’ve known his mother all my life. She made a mistake. That was largely due to environment: many girls in her position would have done the same. And William... we won’t judge William. We don’t know—everything, do we? I am a great believer in training. I know the faults I have to watch for. I shall teach my child to be honest and generous and self-controlled.”
He smiled at her a little sadly. Youth is so hopeful and so sanguine. But experience had proved to him that there is something which strikes deeper than training, something which no training can overcome—the nature which lies at the root of every human being.