CHAPTER XVIII. FACE TO FACE.
Doggedly, sullenly, with a hard mouth and cold eyes, Bram went about his day’s work in the office. His fellow-clerks knew that something of deep import had happened during that half-hour while he was shut up with Mr. Cornthwaite in the inner room; but so well did they know him by this time that no one made any attempt to learn from him what it was that had passed.
Quietly, unostentatiously, without any apparent effort, Bram had made himself a unique position, with his office companions as well as with his employers. Very taciturn, very stolid of manner, never giving an unasked opinion on any subject, he always seemed to be too much absorbed in the details of work to have time or inclination for the discussions, the idle chatter, with which the rest beguiled the monotonous hours on every opportunity.
But they had long since ceased to “chaff” him on his attitude, not through any distaste on his part for this form of attack, but as a natural result of the respect he inspired, and of the position he held with “the guv’nor” and his son. There was a feeling that he would be “boss” himself some day, and a consequent disposition to leave him alone.
But when the day’s work was done, and Bram started on the walk back to Hessel, the look of dogged attention which his face had worn during office hours relaxed into one of keen anxiety. He had been able, by force of will, to thrust into the background of his mind the one subject which was all-important to him. Now that he was again, for fifteen hours, a free man, his thoughts fastened once more on Claire and on the question—Would Christian, obedient to his father and to self-interest, abandon her, or would he not?
Bram felt a dread of the answer. He would not allow to himself that he believed Christian capable of what he looked upon as an act of inconceivable baseness; but down at the bottom of his heart there was a dumb misgiving, an unacknowledged fear.
And Bram, his thoughts stretching out beyond the limits he imposed upon them, asked himself what he should do for the best for the poor child, if she were left stranded, as Mr. Cornthwaite made no secret of intending. He had unconsciously assumed to himself, now that the image of Claire had been deposed from the high pedestal of his ideal, the attitude of guardian to this most helpless of creatures, taking upon himself in advance the position which her father ought to have held.
If she were abandoned by her lover, it was he who would find her out, and care for her, and settle her in some place of safety. That she would never come back to the neighborhood of her own accord Bram felt sure.
When Bram got back to Hessel, he called at once at the farm, with a lingering hope that something might have been heard of Claire, that she might have sent some message, written some letter to her father or to Joan.
But she had not. He found Mr. Biron in the care of Joan, whose patience he tried severely by his fretfulness and irritability. The doctor had called again, and had expressed a growing fear of erysipelas, which had only increased the patient’s ill-temper, without making him any more careful of himself. He was drinking whisky and water when Bram came in, and Joan reported that he had been doing so all day, and that there was no reasoning with him or stopping him, even by using the authority of the doctor.
Theodore was by this time in a maudlin and tearful condition, bewailing now the flight of his daughter, and now his own wounds, without ceasing.
Bram did what he could to cheer him, and to persuade him to a more reasonable course of conduct, but the effect was hardly more than momentary. And on the following day his condition had undoubtedly become worse. Bram, however, was obliged to leave him to go to the office, where the day passed without incident. Mr. Cornthwaite had gone up to town on the previous night, and had not returned. Bram began to hope that Christian had refused to come back.
Two more days passed, during which Mr. Biron’s symptoms grew worse. The erysipelas had not only declared itself on the wounded part of the face, but was spreading rapidly. No attempt had been made to bring Meg Tyzack to book for the assault, in spite of Mr. Biron’s frenzied adjurations. Bram could not bear to have the name of Claire dragged through the mire, as it must be if the jealous woman were brought into Court; and although Mr. Biron troubled himself less about this than he did about the revenge he wanted for his own injuries, Joan was so bluntly outspoken on the subject that even he had to give up the idea.
“You’d best tak’ it quiet, sir,” said the good woman coolly. “You see you couldn’t coom into Coort wi’ clean hands yourself, wi’ the Joodge and everybody knowin’ the life as Miss Claire led with you. Happen ye’d get told it served you roight!”
And Bram concurring, though less outspokenly, the indignant Theodore found himself obliged to wait for his revenge until he could see about it himself. This period promised to be a long time in coming, as the erysipelas continued to spread, and threatened to attack the membranes of the brain.
In the meantime, on the fourth day after the departure of Mr. Josiah Cornthwaite for London, Bram learned that father and son had returned home together.
Bram’s heart sank. What of Claire? His mind was filled with anxious thoughts of her, as he awaited the expected summons to meet Christian face to face.
But the day passed, and the next. Neither father nor son appeared at the office at the works; and all that Bram could hear was that Mr. Christian was not very well. Bram looked upon this as a ruse, a trick. His sympathies were to be appealed to on behalf of the scoundrel of whose conduct he had spoken so openly.
Another day passed, and another. Still the work of the head of the firm was done by deputy; still the elder Mr. Cornthwaite remained at home, and his son, so Bram understood, with him.
So at last Bram, not to be put off any longer, wrote a short note to Mr. Cornthwaite, senior, reminding him of the latter’s wish that he should see Christian before leaving the firm.
The answer to this note, which Bram posted to Holme Park on his way to the works, reached him by hand the same evening before he left the office. It contained only these words:—
“Dear Elshaw,—You can come up and see my son at any time you like.—Yours faithfully,
“Josiah Cornthwaite.”
Bram started off to Holme Park at once, full of sullen anger against father and son. That this was the end he felt sure, the abrupt termination of a connection which had done so much for him, which had promised so much for his employers. Bram was not ungrateful. It was the feeling that this act had been committed by the man he loved and admired above all others, to whom he was indebted for his rise in life, which made the meeting so hard to him.
It was the knowledge that it was Christian, who had been so good to himself, who had ruined the life of the woman he loved, that made Bram shrink from this interview. He was torn, as he went, between memories of the pleasant walks he and Christian had had together, of the talks in which he had always opposed a rigorous and perhaps narrow code of morals to his companion’s airy philosophy of selfishness, on the one hand; and thoughts of Claire, brave, friendless, little Claire, on the other. And the more he thought, the more he shrank from the meeting.
He knew by heart all Christian’s irresponsible speeches about women and the impossibility of doing them any harm except by their express desire and invitation; knew that Christian always spoke of himself as a weak creature who yielded too readily to temptation, although he avoided it when he could. He knew every turn of the head, every trick of the voice, which could be so winning, so caressing, with which Christian would try to avert his wrath, as he had done many times before. He knew also that Christian had stronger weapons than these, in appeals to his affection, to the bond which Christian’s own generosity and discernment had been the first to forge.
And knowing all this, Bram, determined to make one last appeal for justice and mercy for Claire, and if unsuccessful to pour out such fiery indignation as even Christian should quiver under, steeled himself and set his teeth, and strode up to the big house at dusk with an agitated heart.
In the gloom of the foggy night the lamp in the hall shone with a yellow light through the evergreens, and the whole place had a desolate look, which struck Bram as he went up. To his inquiry for Mr. Cornthwaite the servant who opened the door said, “Yes, sir,” with an odd, half-alarmed look, and showed him into the study, where Mr. Cornthwaite sprang up from a chair at the sight of him.
“Ah, Elshaw,” said he in a troubled voice, without holding out his hand, “you have come to see Christian. Well, you shall see him.”
Without another word, without listening to Bram’s renewed expostulations, he went out of the room, with a gesture of curt invitation to Bram to follow.
Up the stairs they went in silence. The fog seemed to have got into the house, to have shrouded every corner with gloom. On the first floor Mr. Cornthwaite opened a door, and beckoned Bram to come in. As the young man entered the room a shriek of wild laughter, in a voice which was like and yet unlike that of Chris, met his ears. A figure sprang up in a bed which was opposite the door, and a woman, in the dark gown and white cap and apron of a sick nurse, stood up beside the bed, trying to hold the sick man down. Bram stood petrified. There was the man of whom he was in search, unconscious of his presence, though he stared at him with bright eyes.
Christian was raving in the delirium of fever.
In a moment Bram experienced a revulsion of feeling so strong that he felt he could scarcely stand. Christian’s follies, faults, vices, all were forgotten; there lay, dangerously ill, the lovable companion, the staunch friend. In that moment Bram, staring at the man he knew so well, who knew him not, felt that he would have laid down his own life to save that of Christian.
Suddenly he felt a hand laid gently on his arm. Mr. Cornthwaite, who had been watching him narrowly, saw the effect the sight had had upon the young man, and promptly drew him back, and shut the door behind them.
“Typhoid,” said he, in answer to an imploring look from Bram. “He must have been sickening for it when he went away. I brought him back very ill, and the fever declared itself yesterday.”
Bram did not ask anything for some minutes. He knew that Christian’s life was in danger.
“His wife? She has forgiven him? She is with him?” asked Bram.
“Thank goodness no,” replied Mr. Cornthwaite energetically. “I begin to hate the little canting fool. She offered to nurse him, I will say that; but we thought it better to refuse, and she was content.”
“And—Claire?” said Bram.
Mr Cornthwaite grew impatient directly.
“I know nothing about her,” said he coldly.
Bram straightened himself, as if at a challenge.
“You did not see her in London?” he asked.
“No.”
“Nor trouble yourself about her?”
“No. And I sincerely hope, Elshaw, you are going to give up all thoughts of doing so either.”
Bram smiled grimly.
“Not while I have a hand or a foot left, Mr. Cornthwaite.”
“At any rate, you will not think of marrying her?”
There was a silence. Then Bram said, in a very low voice, very sadly—
“No.”
He did not know whether he was not cruel, hard, in this decision. But he could not help himself. The feeling he had for Claire, for his first love, for his ideal, could never die; but it had changed sadly; greatly changed. It was love still, but with a difference.
Mr Cornthwaite, however, was scarcely satisfied.
“You will not think of leaving us, at least yet?” he said presently. Then, as he saw a look he did not like in Bram’s face he hastened to add—“You are bound to wait until my son is better—or worse; until I am free to go to the office. I cannot be making changes now.”
“Very well, Mr. Cornthwaite. But I must have a holiday, perhaps a two or three days’ holiday, to start from to-morrow morning.”
“All right. Good-night.”
They were in the hall, and Bram, who had refused to re-enter the study, had his fingers upon the outer door.
“Good-night,” said he.
And he went out. He was full of a new idea, which had suddenly struck him even while he was talking to Mr. Cornthwaite. He would not go to London; poor little Claire, abandoned by her lover, or rather by his father, would not have stayed there. It had flashed into his mind that there was one spot in the world to which she would direct her wandering steps if left all alone in the world. It was the little Yorkshire town of Chelmsley, where her mother lay buried.
On the following morning, therefore, Bram took train northwards, and, reaching before noon the pretty country town, went straight from the station to the big, square, open market-place, which, with the little irregular old-fashioned dwellings which surrounded it, might be called, not only the heart, but the whole of the town.
It was market-day, and at the primitive stalls which were ranged in neat rows, stood the farmers’ wives and daughters before their tempting wares.
It was a cold but not unpleasant day, and the sight was a pretty one. But Bram had no eyes, no heart for any sight but one. He went to the principal inn, ordered some bread and cheese, and asked if there were any persons living in the town bearing the name of Cornthwaite; this he knew to have been the maiden name of Claire’s mother.
The innkeeper knew of none. There had been a family of that name living at a big house outside the town; but that was years before.
Still Bram did not give up hope. It was something stronger than instinct which told him that to this, the spot where her mother’s childhood had been passed, Claire would make her way. Disappointed in his inquiries, Bram set about what was almost a house-to-house search.
And towards the evening, when the lights began to appear in the houses, he was successful. He was searching the cottages on the outskirts of the town, and in one of them, crouching before the fire in a tiny room, where geraniums in pots formed a screen before the window, he saw Claire.
He stared at her for some seconds, until the tears welled up into his eyes.
Then he tapped at the window-pane, and she started up with a low cry.