SOME MUTUAL COMPLIMENTS AND A CONFESSION.
In silence husband and wife stared at each other—she as furious with anger at discovery as with the knowledge that therewith all chance of her retaining wealth and position was at an end; he, astonished at the utter want of scruple, at the horrid immorality in the nature of the woman whom he had chosen to bear his name. It was as much as he could do to contain himself. Every instinct within him revolted at the cowardly criminality at which he had caught her red-handed. He wondered she had not been afraid, if only of her own skin.
"Do you realise what I have saved you from?" he asked sternly; "that but for the innocent betrayal of you by that little boy downstairs, you would now be a common felon and answerable to the law—you, my wife, the mistress of Thorpe Manor! Hilda, speak—for God's sake speak."
For some moments she did not answer. One feeling now had come uppermost in her—the feeling of hate and loathing for Miriam, intensified by the knowledge of her husband's admiration for her, while she, his wife, stood debased utterly in his eyes. The whole fury of her puny vindictive nature was striving to be let loose. At last she answered him.
"I have nothing to say," she said, "beyond this—that I am glad at last you know your friend for what she is—that even if your wife, as you say, was in danger of jeopardising her liberty, the pure, beautiful, saintly creature whom you so admire has done so long ago, since she is nothing but a common thief!"
"Hilda, how dare you! Upon my word, I begin to think you've lost your senses."
"Indeed; you'll find that whatever I may have lost, I still have them. You must allow me to repeat that your friend is a common thief, and therefore a criminal. She stole this will."
"She stole that will?—why, woman, how can you say such a thing. Mrs. Arkel is the soul of honour."
"I thought you'd be surprised. Evidently Dicky didn't tell you everything. As it happens, I myself saw it abstracted by him quite accidentally this afternoon from some false bottom, or rather, top, of her work-box, which no doubt has proved eminently useful to her before this, during her career."
"Hilda, for God's sake don't be so spiteful—if you have any decent womanhood in you don't crush it. Miriam Arkel is no thief. You may have found this will in her box, as you say. But she did not steal it. It was taken from Barton's table on Christmas night by—by Julia Darrow!"
"Julia Darrow? Impossible! Who told you that tale?"
"The person who saw her take it."
"I don't believe it—what motive had she?—none; besides, if that is so, how came it in the saintly Miriam's keeping—such very secure keeping too—at least she thought so."
The Major listened to her no longer. He became intent upon the contents of the will, and motioned to his wife to sit down. She continued her verbal fusillade none the less scathingly for lack of reply. At last she seemed to be approaching finality.
"You may talk as you like," she said (perhaps because he was not talking at all), "nothing will convince me that the woman is innocent. She stole that will out of sheer spite at me—to prevent my marrying Gerald."
"Oh, indeed!" This had roused the Major. "Would not the fact of your having elected to marry me have been a little inconvenient?"
"Not in the least—I should never have elected to marry you in those circumstances."
"Oh!" He looked at her in amazement. He was learning about women at a rate which threatened speedy disaster to his appreciation of them. He began firmly to hope that his education might become a trifle less rapid if less complete.
"You can look, and look, and look," she continued, "I don't care; you may as well know the truth, though goodness knows you might have guessed it long ago—I detest you!"
"Why—may I ask?"
"Why?—for lots of reasons. Chiefly I suppose because I love Gerald."
"Then in Heaven's name why didn't you marry him?"
"Because this wretched creature by her thievish trickery ruined him. I couldn't marry a man who had not the means of keeping me, could I?"
"That depends—on the man, and on yourself. In any case you and Gerald Arkel—you won't mind the frankness being mutual, will you?—no matter how situated, would in my opinion have made an easy and expeditious descent into—well, shall we say oblivion?—that is, of course, unless you had chosen to achieve notoriety of a wholly undesirable order. You, Gerald Arkel, and ample means!—nothing could have saved you. So perhaps, even as it is, you are better off. What think you, Hilda?"
"I don't know what to think—I don't understand you. I don't understand this universal outcry against Gerald, that simply because he is possessed of a few pounds he must go to the dogs altogether."
"Then you evidently don't understand the young gentleman himself. No self-respecting kennels would tolerate him, I assure you, for all the relegating to them we humans might choose to indulge in. You probably know nothing about dogs. They are plucky, honourable animals, with a maximum of virtue and a minimum of vice; and they resent pretty hotly, I can tell you, the arrival amongst themselves of a lot of our refuse. Now the young man whom you have chosen to honour with your 'love' must unfortunately be so described."
"It is cowardly of you to abuse him when he is not here to defend himself."
"He would not attempt to defend himself to me. Now come, Hilda—you are little more than a child after all. Let my attitude be parental, if you won't have it marital. Believe me, if it had not been for that very noble woman whom you have been slandering for the last quarter of an hour, Gerald Arkel, as it is, would have already reached his disastrous end."
"That's right; praise her—you have nothing but blame for me!—I believe you're in love with the woman still."
"Do you? Well, I suppose it's logical you should, from your point of view. Yet, if I were to admit it, I believe you'd have the audacity to be angry—or pretend to be! We've started well, Hilda—that is, you did—why not let us be wholly frank. You married me for my money and for the position you would acquire as my wife. That you admit."
"Yes—I was forced to."
"Never mind the force—you admit the desire. Very well, I married you, why? 'Pon my soul I couldn't tell you—that's the truth. Because I wanted a wife, I imagine, or thought I did, in the new circumstances in which I found myself. Grant then that our motives tie—they are equally unworthy of each of us—I have been a good husband to you. Have you been anything of a wife to me—I ask you, Hilda, from the day we married, have you given me a thought?"
"I'm not good at sentiment—I don't understand it. I never did."
"I am well aware of that. I begin to think you understand nothing but the promptings of your own badly drilled—excuse my swearing—your damned badly drilled mind."
"I had rather you swore than sat there preaching at me. For goodness sake say what you've got to say, and have done with it."
"As you will. Then I have this to say. You are my wife—that's a deplorable, unalterable fact. You will respect my name by keeping your own out of the mud; therefore in future you will be careful to refrain from these little amateur felonies of yours, as well as from risking prosecution for slander, which you certainly will do if you allow your tongue free rein. For the rest, if you are sensible, you'll keep up appearances before the world."
"It's difficult to keep up appearances when one is thrown into contact with adventuresses of that woman's class. God knows where she came from—the slums I believe. Ask Julia about her—ask her to tell you what she told me."
"Surely you can tell me yourself, without my further imperilling Julia's lot in the next world."
She stamped her foot with impatience. She had never known him quite in this mood before. She wished he would get thoroughly angry, like he had been when he came in.
"You will be shocked at the downfall of your immaculate angel. However, if you want to know I will tell you. She was in the habit of making assignations with some low man who came down from London and used to meet her about Thorpe—once they were caught actually in the churchyard late at night—some man named Jabez! What do you think of that?"
"Very natural under the circumstances!"
"Very——" She looked at him utterly perplexed. "Under what circumstances?"
"Under the circumstances that he is her brother, and that she lived with a cat."
"Her brother! Her br-o-th-er!—as much her brother as you are, or would like to be! It's just like you to believe a tale like that."
"Not only do I believe it, but it is true. It is also true that Julia stole this will. The creature Shorty—Mrs. Parsley's protégé that is—was prowling about the house the night we were all dining there—Christmas Eve, when the poor old man was killed—and swears he saw her enter the library during Barton's absence for a moment. She picked up the will, read it, and pocketed it."
"And how much, pray, did you pay this ruffian for this information?"
"That's my business. You may be quite sure it's worth double what I paid for it."
"How then do you explain it's being in Mrs. Gerald Arkel's work-box?"
"Malice—pure malice on the part of that most malicious of women, Julia Darrow."
"But she could know nothing of there being a false top to the work-box."
"She could know anything—everything. Ask Dicky, and he'll tell you that he showed his mother how the thing worked."
"Well, I'm sick to death of the subject," she retorted impatiently. "The question is, what do you intend to do with the will now you've got it?"
"Why, what do you think I'd do with it? There is only one thing that I or anyone else with a spark of honour," he looked at her very searchingly, "could do with it—take it to Rosary Mansions this evening, and lay it before both of them."
"John!—you are not serious? I implore you don't do that. Consider what it means. Consider me. It is not fair to me. I was not meant to be a poor man's wife."
"You are not fit to be any decent man's wife; but as you are, and I can't descend to your moral level, you must rise to mine, that's all."
"If you do this you shall pay for it," she said. She was losing all self-control and becoming perfectly reckless in the face of what threatened her. "I am your wife now. I married you for this money—the day you lose it, you lose me—understand."
He seized her arm somewhat roughly and looked at her hard.
"And you understand this, young woman, I will be a party to no crime at your bidding. I will be no partner with you in iniquity. To restore this money is the honest course, the only course, and the course that I shall take without any delay. As for you, while you are my wife, poor or rich, you will respect my name!"
"While I am your wife—if you go on the way you are going I warn you that will not be for long."
"What do you mean?"
"That you'll know quick enough once it's done. For the last time I ask you to pause, consider, compromise!—I don't ask you to do anything dishonourable, but make some arrangement, don't give up everything. By your own showing it will ruin Gerald; think of him, think of her—of Miriam. Think of the awful unhappiness it means for her. John! I will try and be different to you if you will only wait."
"Stop it," he thundered, "she-devil that you are, consumed by your disgusting lust for gold. Once for all I refuse to be coerced by you. Do I not know right from wrong? This property is Gerald's, and whatever the consequences, to him it goes."
"Very well; I have warned you. Now I know what to do."
She entered the dressing-room and banged the door behind her. For some minutes he stood staring blankly at it. Then he quietly went downstairs.
He saw no more of her that night. She had her dinner sent up to her room, and refused to see him. He dined, therefore, at the restaurant instead of in their private room. In spite of his self-control he could not eat. He realised full well what this loss meant, not so much to himself—five hundred a year and his pay was all-sufficient for him—but to Miriam, and to Gerald, yes, and to the paltry little woman who, after all, was his wife. Yet the more he pondered over it, the more convinced he became that there was but one course open to him. There need be no scandal about Julia; that must be hushed up somehow; but Gerald must have his own.
He lit a cigar at the table, and turned the thing over in his mind for another quarter of an hour. Then he called a cab, and drove straight to Rosary Mansions.
It was nearly ten o'clock when he arrived, yet strange to say Gerald was at home—thanks to Hilda. But the Major of course did not know to what he might attribute this return to the domestic hearth on the part of Master Gerald, and gave him all credit for it. He was sorely grieved to think that his news more than anything else, was calculated to bring about a speedy return to the old order of things.
As for Miriam, she had been in nowise deceived by her husband's action. She had made a pretty shrewd guess at the sort of thing that had passed between him and his former lady-love. His expression had been quite enough to show her he had been dismissed, and she valued his presence accordingly.
The Major's ring roused them both. It was one of the "cook-general's" three nights out—she having with great resignation remained in the previous evening, "though it was Sunday and all"—so Gerald himself went to the door.
"Hullo, Dundas, is it you?—why, what brings you out here at this time?—nothing wrong I hope?"
"No; I've no doubt you'll think it's very right, so far as you're concerned; but it's important, or I need hardly say I wouldn't be here. The fact is, the will's found."
"The will! What—the—the last will?—and the money's mine?"
"Indisputably."
Miriam was on her feet in an instant. Every vestige of colour had left her face. She looked at the Major and then at her husband, who, half-laughing and half-weeping, was scarce able to articulate. He called for air, and she ran to the window and opened it. Then he turned on Dundas almost savagely.
"Where—where did you find this?"
"I did not find it—Dicky did."
"Where?"
"Here, in your flat." He looked at Miriam as he said it, knowing well she could defend herself.
"Yes," she said, confronting her husband, "here in our flat. It was I who took the will!"