Chapter Forty One.
A wild, despairing cry escaped Kate Wilton’s lips, as the firm grasp of a man’s hand closed upon and prisoned her wrist.
“Hush, you foolish girl,” was whispered, angrily, and she was caught by a strong arm thrown round her, the wrist released, and a hand was clapped upon her lips. “Do you want to alarm the house?”
Her only reply was to struggle violently and try to tear the hand from her mouth, but she was helpless, and the arm round her felt like iron.
“It is of no use to struggle, little bird,” was whispered. “Are you not ashamed to drive me to watch you like this, and prevent you from perpetrating such a folly? What madness! Try to leave the house at midnight, by the help of that wretched idiotic girl, and trust yourself alone in the street. Truly, Kate, you need a watchful guardian. Now, as you prefer the darkness, come and sit down with me; I want a quiet talk with you. Kate, my dear, you force me to all this, and you must listen to reason now. There, it is of no use to struggle. Come with me quietly and sensibly, or I swear that I will carry you.”
Her answer was another frantic struggle, while, wrenching her head round, she freed herself from the pressure of his hand, and uttered another piercing scream.
“Silence!” he cried, fiercely; and he was in the act of raising her from the floor, when she writhed herself nearly free, and in his effort to recover his grasp, he caught his foot on the mat and nearly fell.
It was Kate’s opportunity. With one hand she thrust at him, with the other struck at him madly, ran to the stairs, and bounded up, just reaching her room as a light gleamed from above and showed Garstang a dozen steps below, too late to overtake her before her door was dashed to and fastened.
Then, as she stood there, panting and ready to faint with horror, she heard Garstang’s angry voice and the whining replies of the housekeeper, while, though she could not grasp a word, she could tell by the tones that the woman was being abused for coming down, and was trying to make some excuse.
How that night passed Kate Wilton hardly knew, save that it was one great struggle to master a weak feeling of pitiful helplessness which prompted her to say, “I can do no more.”
At times, from utter mental exhaustion, she sank into a kind of stupor, more than sleep, from which she invariably started with a faint cry of horror and despair, feeling that she was in some great peril, and that the darkness was peopled with something against which she must struggle in spite of her weakness. It was a nightmare-like experience, constantly repeated, and the grey morning found her feverish and weak, but in body only. Despair had driven her to bay, and there was a light in her eyes, a firmness in her words, which impressed the housekeeper when she came at breakfast time.
“Master’s compliments, ma’am, and he is waiting breakfast,” she said; “and I beg your pardon, ma’am, but I thought I ought to tell you he is very angry. I never saw him like it before; and if you would be ruled by me, I’d go down and see him. You have been very hard to him, I know; and you can’t, I’m sure, wish to hurt the feelings of one who is the best of men.”
Kate sat looking away from her in silence, and this encouraged the woman to proceed.
“He was very cross when he found out that you had been persuading poor Becky to post a letter for you. He suspected her, and had her into the lib’ry and made her confess; and then he took the letter away from her. But that was nothing to what he was when he found that instead of going to bed Becky had come down again and was waiting to try and let you out I thought he would have turned her into the street at once. But oh, my dear, he is such a good man, he wouldn’t do that. But he said it was disgracefully treacherous of her. And between ourselves, my dear, it was quite impossible. Master has, I know, taken all kinds of precautions to keep you from going away. He told me that it was only a silly fit of yours, and that you didn’t mean it; and, oh, my dear, do pray, pray be sensible. Think what a good chance it is for you to marry one of the noblest and best of—”
Sarah Plant ceased speaking, and stood with her lips apart, gazing blankly at the prisoner, who had slowly turned her head and fixed her with her indignant eyes.
“Silence, you wretched creature!” she said, in a low, angry whisper. “How dare you address me like this! Go down to your master, and tell him that I will see him when he has done his breakfast.”
“Oh, please come now, ma’am.”
“Tell him to send me word when he is at liberty, and I will come.”
Kate pointed to the door, and the woman hurried out.
She returned in a few minutes, though, with a breakfast tray, which she set down without a word, and once more Kate was alone; but she started at a sound she heard at the door, and darted silently to it to slip the bolt; but before her hand could reach it there was a faint click, and she knew that the key had been taken out and replaced upon the other side. She was for the first time locked in, and a whispering told her that Garstang was there.
The struggle with her weakness had not been without its result. An unnatural calmness—the calmness of despair—had worked a change in her, and she was no longer the frightened, trembling girl, but the woman, ready to fight for all that was dear in life. She knew that she was weak and exhausted in body, and sat down with a strange calmness to the breakfast that had been brought up, eating and drinking mechanically, but thinking deeply the while of the challenge which she felt that she had sent down to Garstang, and collecting her forces for the encounter.
Quite an hour had passed before she heard a sound; and then the key was turned in the lock, and the housekeeper appeared.
“Master is in the library, ma’am,” she said, “and will be glad to see you now.”
This was said with a meaning smile, which said a great deal; but Kate did not even glance at her. She walked calmly out of her room, descended the staircase, and went straight into the library, where Garstang met her with extended hands.
“My dearest child,” he began.
She waved him aside, and walked straight to her usual place, and sat down.
“Ah!” said Garstang, as if to himself; “more beautiful than ever, in her anger. How can she wonder that she has made me half mad?”
“Will you be good enough to sit down, Mr Garstang?” she said, gazing firmly at him.
“May I not rather kneel?” he said, imploringly.
“Will you be good enough to understand, Mr Garstang,” she continued, with cutting contempt in her tones, “that you are speaking to a woman whose faith in you is completely destroyed, and not to a weak, timid girl.”
“I can only think one thing,” he whispered, earnestly, “that I am in the presence of the woman I worship, one who will forgive me everything, and become my wife.”
“Your wife, sir? I have come here this morning, repellent as the task is, to tell you what you refuse to see—that your proposals are impossible, and to demand that you at once restore me to the care of my guardian.”
“To be forced to marry that wretched boy?” he cried, passionately; “never!”
“May I ask you not to waste time by acting, Mr Garstang?” she said, with cutting irony. “You call me ‘My dear child!’ You are a man of sufficient common sense to know that I am not the foolish child you wish me to be, and that your words and manner no longer impose upon me.”
“Ah, so cruel still!” he cried; but she met his eyes with such scathing contempt in her own that his lips tightened, and the anger he felt betrayed itself in the twitching at the corners of his temples.
“You have unmasked yourself completely now, sir, and by this time you must understand your position as fully as I do mine. You have been guilty of a disgraceful outrage.”
“My love—I swear it was my love,” he cried.
“Of gold?” she said, contemptuously. “Is it possible that a man supposed to be a gentleman can stoop to such pitiful language as this? Let us understand each other at once. Your attempts to replace the fallen mask are pitiful. Come, sir, let us treat this as having to do with your scheme. You wish to marry me?”
“Yes; I adore you.”
She rose, with her brow wrinkling, her eyes half closed, and the look of contempt intensifying.
“Perhaps I had better defer what I wished to say till to-morrow, sir?”
He turned from her as if her words had lashed him, but he wrenched himself back and forced himself to meet her gaze.
“In God’s name, no!” he cried, passionately; “say what you have to say at once, and bring this folly to an end.”
She resumed her seat.
“Very well; let us bring this folly to an end. I am ready to treat with you, Mr Garstang.”
“Hah!” he cried, with a mocking laugh. “An unconditional surrender?”
“Yes, sir; an unconditional surrender,” she said calmly. “You have been playing like a gamester for the sake of my fortune.”
“And your beautiful self,” he whispered.
“For my miserable fortune; and you have won.”
“Yes,” he said, “I have won. I am the conqueror; but Kate, dearest—”
She rose slowly from her seat.
“Will you go on speaking without the mask, Mr Garstang?” she said, coldly; and she heard his teeth grit together, as he literally scowled at her now, with a look full of threats for the future.
“I am your slave, I suppose,” he said, bitterly; but she remained standing.
“I wish to continue talking to Mr Garstang, the lawyer,” she said, coldly. “If this is to continue it is a waste of words.”
He threw himself back in his chair, and she resumed hers.
“Now, sir, you are a solicitor, and learned in these matters; can you draw up some paper which will mean the full surrender of my fortune to you? and this I will sign if you set me at liberty.”
“No,” he said, quietly, “I can not draw up such a paper.”
“Why?”
“Because it would be utterly without value.”
“Very well, then, there must be some way by which I can buy my liberty. The money will be mine when I come of age.”
“Yes, there is one way,” he said, gazing at her intently.
“What is that, sir?”
“By signing the marriage register.”
“That I shall never do,” she said, rising slowly. “Once more, Mr Garstang, I tell you that this money is valueless to me, and that I am ready to give it to you for my liberty.”
“And I tell you the simple truth—that you talk like the foolish child you are. You cannot give away that which you do not possess. It is in the keeping of your uncle, and the law would not allow you to give it away like that.”
“Does the law allow you to force me to be your wife, that you may, as my husband, seize upon it?”
“The law will let you consent to be my wife,” he said, wincing slightly at her words.
“I have told you my decision,” she said, coldly.
“Temporary decision,” he said, smiling.
“And,” she continued, “I shall wait until your reason has shown you that we are not living in the days of romance. Your treatment would be horrible in its baseness if it were not ridiculous. I own that I was frightened at first, but a night’s calm thought has taught me how I stand, has given me strength of mind, and I shall wait.”
“And so shall I,” he said, gazing at her angrily as he leaned forward; but she did not shrink from his eyes, meeting them with calm contemptuous indifference; and he sprang up at last with an angry oath.
“Once more, Kate,” he said, “understand this: you must and shall be my wife. You may try and set me at defiance, shut yourself up in your room, and keep on making efforts to escape, but all is in vain. I weighed all this well before I put my plans in execution. You hear me?”
“Every word,” she said, coldly. “Now hear me, Mr Garstang. I shall never consent to be your wife.”
“We shall see that,” he cried.
“I shall not shut myself up in my room, and I shall make no further attempt to leave this house. It would be too ridiculous. Sooner or later my uncle will trace me, and call you to account. I shall keep nothing back, and if he thinks proper to prosecute you for what you have done I shall be his willing witness.”
“Then you would go back to Northwood?” he said, with a laugh.
“Yes; if my uncle were here I should return with him at once. I was an impressionable, weak girl when I listened to you that night I had faith in you then. Events since have made me a woman.”
She rose again, and took a step or two to cross the room, and he sprang up to open the door.
“We shall see,” he said, with an angry laugh.
“Thank you,” she said, calmly. “I was not going upstairs.” And to his utter amazement she passed beyond him to one of the bookshelves, took down the volume she had been studying, and returned to her seat.
He stood gazing at her, utterly confounded; but she calmly opened the book, and, utterly ignoring his presence, sat reading and turning over the leaves.
There was a profound silence in the room for a few minutes, save that the clock on the chimney-piece kept on its monotonous tick; and then Garstang strode angrily to the door, went out, and closed it heavily behind him, while Kate uttered a low, deep sigh, and with her face ghastly and eyes closing, sank back in her chair.
The tension had been agonising, and she felt as if something in her brain was giving way.