Volume Two—Chapter Eighteen.
A Painful Meeting.
Whether Gemp would have it or no, Millicent Hallam was on her way to Sir Gordon’s quiet, old-fashioned house on the North Road—a house that was a bit of a mystery to the Castor children, whose young brains were full of conjecture as to what could be inside a place whose windows were blanks, and with nothing but a door to the road, and a high wall right and left to complete the blankness of the frontage.
It ought to have been called the backage; for Sir Gordon Bourne’s house was very pleasant on the other side, with a compact garden and flowers blooming to brighten it—a garden in which he never walked.
Millicent Hallam pulled at the swinging handle of the bell at Sir Gordon’s door with the determination of one who has called to demand a right.
The door was opened by a quiet-looking, middle-aged man in drab livery, whose brown hair and cocoa-nut fibry whiskers, joined to a swinging, easy gait, suggested that he would not have been out of place on the deck of a vessel, an idea strengthened by an appearance, on one side of his face, as if he were putting his tongue in his cheek.
He drew back respectfully before Millicent could say, “Is Sir Gordon at home?” allowed her to pass, and then, as Thisbe followed her mistress, he gave her a very solemn wink, but without the vestige of a smile.
Thisbe gave her shawl a violent snatch, as if it were armour that she was drawing over a weak spot; but Tom Porter, Sir Gordon’s factotum, did not see it, for he was closing the door and thinking about how to hide the fact that his hands were marked with rouge with which he had been polishing the plate when the bell rang.
He led the way across the hall, which was so full of curiosities from all parts of the globe that it resembled a museum, and, opening a door at the end, ushered Millicent into Sir Gordon’s library, a neatly kept little room with a good deal of the air of a captain’s cabin in its furnishing; telescopes, compasses, and charts hung here and there, in company with books of a maritime character, while one side of the place was taken up by a large glass case containing a model of “The Sea Dream schooner yacht, the property of Gordon Bourne.” So read an inscription at the foot, engraved upon a brass plate.
Millicent remained standing with her veil down, while Tom Porter retired, closed the door, and, after giving notice of the arrival, went back into the hall, where Thisbe was standing in a very stern, uncompromising fashion.
Sir Gordon’s man wanted to arrange his white cravat, but his fingers were red, and for the same reason he was debarred from pushing the Brutus on his head a little higher, so that, unable to rearrange his plumage, he had to let it go.
He walked straight up to Thisbe, stared very hard at her, breathing to match, and then there was a low deep growl heard which bore some resemblance to “How are you?”
Thisbe was “Nicely, thank you,” but she did not say it nicely; it was snappish and short.
Mr Tom Porter did not seem to object to snappish shortness, for he growled forth:
“Come below?” and added, “my pantry?”
“No, thank you,” was Thisbe’s reply, full of asperity.
“Won’t you take anything—biscuit?”
“No, I—thank—you,” replied Thisbe, dividing her words very carefully; and Tom Porter stood with his legs wide apart and stared.
“I would ha’ been at sea, if it hadn’t ha’ been for the trouble yonder,” he said, after a pause.
“Ho!”
Tom Porter raised his hand to scratch his head, but remembered in time, and turned it under his drab coat tail.
“Very sorry,” he said at last, without moving a muscle.
“Thank you,” said Thisbe sharply and then. “You needn’t wait.”
“Needn’t wait it is,” said Tom Porter in a gruff growl, and giving one hand a sort of throw up towards his forehead, and one leg a kick out behind, he went off through a door, perfectly unconscious of the fact that Thisbe’s countenance had unconsciously softened, as she stood admiring the breadth of Tom Porter’s shoulders and the general solidity of his build.
Meanwhile Millicent stood waiting until a well-known cough announced the coming of Sir Gordon, who entered the room and with grave courtesy placed a chair for his visitor.
“I expected you, Mrs Hallam,” he said with a voice full of sympathy; and, as he spoke, he remained standing.
Millicent raised her veil, looked at him with her handsome face contracted by mental pain and with an angry, almost fierce glow in her eyes.
“You expected me?” she said, repeating his words with no particular emphasis or intonation.
“Yes; I thought you would come to an old friend for help and counsel at a time like this.”
A passionate outburst was ready to rush forth, but Millicent restrained it, and said coldly:
“My old friend—my father’s old friend.”
“Yes,” he replied; “I hope a very sincere old friend.”
“Then why is my poor injured husband in prison?” There was a fierce emphasis in the words that made Sir Gordon raise his brows. He looked at her wonderingly, as if he had not expected his visitor to take this line of argument.
Then he pointed again to a chair.
“Will you not take a seat, Mrs Hallam?” he said gently. “You have come to me then for help?”
“No,” she cried, ignoring his request. “I have come for justice to my poor husband, who for the faults of others, by the scheming of his enemies, is now lying in prison awaiting his trial.”
Sir Gordon leaned his elbow on the chimney-piece, and with his finger nails tapped the top of the black marble clock that ticked so steadily there.
“You went over to Lindum yesterday to see Hallam?”
“I did.”
“He requested you to come and see me?”
“Yes; it was his wish, or—”
“You would not have come,” he said with a sad smile upon his lips.
“No. I would have stood in the place where the injustice of men had placed me, and trusted to my own integrity and innocence for my acquittal.”
Sir Gordon drew a long breath like a sigh of relief. He had been watching Millicent closely, as if he were suspicious either that she was playing a part, or had been biassed by her husband. But the true loving trust and belief of the woman shone out in her countenance and rang in her words. True woman—true wife! Let the world say what it would, her place was by her husband, and in his defence she was ready to lay down her life.
Sir Gordon sighed then with relief, for even now his old love for Millicent burned brightly. She had been his idol of womanly perfection, and he had felt, as it were, a contraction about his heart as the suspicion crept in for a moment that she was altered for the worse—changed by becoming the wife of Robert Hallam.
“Mrs Hallam—Millicent, my child, what am I to say to you?” he cried at length. “How am I to speak without wounding you? I would not give you pain to add to that which you already suffer.”
She looked at him angrily. His words seemed to her, in her overstrained anxiety, hypocritical and evasive.
“I asked you why my husband is cast into prison for the crimes of others?”
Sir Gordon gazed at her pityingly.
“You do not answer,” she said. “Then tell me this: Are you satisfied with the degradation he has already suffered? Is he not to be set free?”
“Can you not spare me, Mrs Hallam? Will you not spare yourself?”
“No. I cannot spare you. I cannot spare myself. My husband is helpless: the fight against his enemies must be carried on by me.”
“His enemies, Mrs Hallam? Who are they? Himself and his companions.”
“You, and that despicable creature who has professed to be our friend, the companion of my child. I saw you planning it together with your wretched menial, Thickens.”
Sir Gordon shook his head sadly.
“My dear Mrs Hallam,” he said, “you do us all an injustice. Let us change this conversation. Believe me, I want to help you, your child, and your ruined parents.”
Millicent started at the last words—ruined parents. There her ideas were obscured and wanting in the clearness with which she believed she saw the truth. But even the explanation of this seemed come at last, and there was a scornful look in her eyes as she exclaimed:
“I want no help. I want justice.”
“Then what do you ask of me?” he said coldly, as he felt the impossibility of argument at such a time.
“My husband’s freedom, your apology, and declaration to the whole world that he has been falsely charged. You can do no more. It is impossible to wipe out this disgrace.”
He made a couple of steps towards her, and took her cold hands in his, raised them to his lips with tender reverence, and kissed them.
“Millicent, my child,” he said, with his voice sounding very deep and soft, “do not blame me. My position was forced upon me, and you do not know the sacrifice it has cost me as I thought of you—the sacrifice it will be to Mr Dixon and myself to repair the losses we have sustained.”
She snatched her hands from his, and her eyes flashed with anger.
Her rage was but of a few moments’ duration. Then she had flung herself upon her knees at his feet, and, with clasped hands and streaming eyes, sobbed forth:
“I am mad! I am mad! I don’t know what I say. Sir Gordon—dear Sir Gordon, help us. It is not true. He is innocent. My noble husband could not have descended to such baseness. Sir Gordon, save him! save him!—my poor child’s father—my husband, whom I love so well. You do not answer. You do not heed my words. Is man so cruel, then, to the unfortunate? Can you so treat the girl who reverenced you as a child—the woman you said you loved? Man—man!” she cried passionately, “can you not see that my heart is breaking? and yet you, who by a word could save him, now look on and coldly turn a deaf ear to my prayers. Oh, fool! fool! fool! that I was to think that help could come from man. God, help me now, or else in Thy mercy let me die!”
As she spoke these last words, she threw her head back and raised her clasped hands in passionate appeal, while Sir Gordon’s lips moved as he repeated the first portion of her prayer, and then stayed and stood gazing down upon the agonised face.
“Millicent,” he said at last, as he raised her from where she knelt, and almost placed her in an easy-chair, where she subsided, weak and helpless almost as a child, “listen to me.”
He paused to clear his voice, which sounded very husky. Then continuing:
“For your sake—for the sake of your innocent child, I promise that on the part of Mr Dixon and myself there shall be no harsh treatment, no persecution. Your husband shall have justice.”
“That is all I ask,” cried Millicent, starting forward. “Justice, only justice; for he is innocent.”
“My poor girl!” said Sir Gordon warmly; “there,” he cried, with a pitying smile, “you see I speak to you as if the past six or seven years had not glided away.”
“Yes, yes,” she said, clinging to his hand, “forget them, and speak as my dear old friend.”
“I will,” he said firmly. “And believe me, Millicent, if it were a question merely of the money—my money that I have lost—I would forgive your husband.”
“Forgive—”
“I would ignore his defalcation for your sake; but I am not a free agent in a case like this. You do not understand.”
“No, no,” she said piteously, “everything is contained in one thought to me. They have taken my poor husband and treated him as if a thief.”
“Listen, my child,” continued Sir Gordon, “I found that the valuable documents of scores of the customers of an old bank had been taken away. They were in your husband’s charge.”
“Yes, but he says it can all be explained.”
Sir Gordon paused, tightening his lips, and a few indignant words trembled on the balance, but he spared the suffering woman’s bleeding heart, and continued gravely:
“I was bound in honour to consult with my partner at once, and the result you know.”
“Yes; he was arrested. You, you, Sir Gordon, gave the order.”
“Yes,” he said gravely; “had I not, he would have been beaten and trampled to death by the maddened crowd. Millicent Hallam, be just in your anger. I saved his life.”
“Better death than dishonour,” she cried passionately.
“Amen!” he responded; and in imagination he saw before him the convict’s cell, and went on picturing a horror from which he turned shuddering away.
“Come,” he said, “be sure of justice, my child. And now what can I do to help you? Money you must want.”
“No,” she said drearily.
“Well; means to procure good counsel for your husband’s defence.”
“He said that you must have procured the counsel he already has.”
“I? No, my child; no, I did not even think of such a thing. How could I?”
“Who then has paid fees to this man who has been to my husband?”
“I do not know. I cannot say.”
Millicent rose heavily, her eyes wandering, her face deadly white.
“I can do no more here,” she said, wringing her hands and passing one over the other in a weak, helpless way; and as Sir Gordon watched her, he saw a faint smile come over her pinched features. She was gazing down at her wedding ring, which seemed during the past few weeks to have begun to hang loosely on her finger. She raised it reverently to her lips, and kissed it in a rapt, absent way, gazing round at last as if wondering why she was there.
“Justice! You have promised justice,” she cried suddenly, with a mental light irradiating her face. “I know I may trust you.”
“You may,” he said reverently, for this woman’s love seemed to inspire him with awe.
“And you will forgive me—all I have said?” she whispered.
“Forgive you?” he said, taking her hand and speaking gravely. “Millicent Hallam has no truer servant and friend than Gordon Bourne.”
“No truer servant and friend than Gordon Bourne,” he repeated, as he returned to his room, after seeing the suffering wife to the door. “Ah! how Heaven’s gifts are cast away here and there! What would my life have been if blessed by the love of this man’s wife?”