Volume Two—Chapter Ten.
Husband and Wife.
There was a momentary silence, and then as the door closed, Millicent laid her hands upon her husband’s shoulders, and gazed tenderly in his face.
“Robert, my own!” she whispered.
No more; her eyes bespoke the mother’s joy at this breaking down of the ice between father and daughter. Then a look of surprise and pain came into those loving eyes, for Hallam repulsed her rudely.
“It is your doing, yours, and that cursed parson’s work. The child has been taught to hate me. Curse him! He has been my enemy from the very first.”
“Robert—husband! Oh, take back those words!” cried Millicent, throwing herself upon his breast. “You cannot mean it. You know I love you too well for that. How could you say it!”
She clung to him for a few moments, gazing wildly in his face, and then she seemed to read it plainly.
“No, no, don’t speak,” she cried tenderly. “I can see it all. You are in some great trouble, dear, or you would not have spoken like that. Robert, husband, I am your own wife; I have never pressed you for your confidence in all these money troubles you have borne; but now that something very grave has happened, let me share the load.”
She pressed him back gently to a chair, and, overcome by her earnest love, he yielded and sank back slowly into the seat. The next instant she was at his knees, holding his hands to her throbbing breast.
“No, I don’t mean what I said,” he muttered, with some show of tenderness; and a loving smile dawned upon Millicent’s careworn face.
“Don’t speak of that,” she said. “It was only born of the trouble you are in. Let me help you, dear; let me share your sorrow with you. If only with my sympathy there may be some comfort.”
He did not answer, but sat gazing straight before him.
“Tell me, dear. Is it some money trouble? Some speculation has failed?”
He nodded.
“Then why not set all those ambitious thoughts aside, dear husband?” she said, nestling to him. “Give up everything, and let us begin again. With the love of my husband and my child, what have I to wish for? Robert, we love you so dearly. You, and not the money you can make, are all the world to us.”
He looked at her suspiciously, for there was not room in his narrow mind for full faith in so much devotion. It was more than he could understand, but his manner was softer than it had been of late, as he said:
“You do not understand such things.”
“Then teach me,” she said smiling. “I will be so apt a pupil. I shall be working to free my husband from the toils and troubles in which he is ensnared.”
He shook his head.
“What, still keeping me out of your heart, Rob!” she whispered, with her eyes beaming love and devotion. Then, half-playfully and with a tremor in her voice, “Robert, my own brave lion amongst men, refuse the aid of the weak mouse who would gnaw the net?”
“Pish, you talk like a child,” he cried contemptuously. “Net, indeed!” and in his insensate rage, he piled his hatred upon the man who had stepped in to save him. “But for that cursed fellow, Bayle, this would not have happened.”
“Robert, darling, you mistake him. You do not know his heart. How true he is! If he has gone against you in some business matter, it is because he is conscientious and believes you wrong.”
“And you side with him, and believe too?”
“I?” she cried proudly. “You are my husband, and whatever may be your trouble, I stand with you against the world.”
“Brave girl!” he cried warmly; “now you speak like a true woman. I will trust you, and you shall help me. I did not think you had it in you, Milly. That’s better.”
“Then you will trust me?”
“Yes,” he said, raising one hand to his face, and beginning nervously to bite his nails. “I will trust you; perhaps you can help me out of this cursed trap.”
“Yes, I will,” she cried. “I feel that I can. Oh, Robert, let it be always thus in the future. Treat me as your partner, your inferior in brain and power, but still your helpmate. I will toil so hard to make myself worthy of my husband. Now tell me everything. Stop! I know,” she cried; “it is something connected with the visits of that Mr Crellock, that man you helped in his difficulties years ago.”
“I helped? Who told you that?”
She smiled.
“Ah! these things are so talked of. Mrs Pinet told Miss Heathery, and she came and told me. I felt so proud of you, dear, for your unselfish behaviour towards this man. Do you suppose I forget his coming on our wedding-day, and how troubled you were till you had sent him away by the coach?”
“You said nothing?”
“Said nothing? Was I ever one to pry into my husband’s business matters? I said to myself that I would wait till he thought me old enough in years, clever enough in wisdom, to be trusted. And now, after this long probation, you will trust me, love?”
He nodded.
“And your troubles shall grow less by being shared. Now tell me I am right about it. Your worry is due to this Mr Crellock?”
“Yes,” he said in a low voice.
“I knew it,” she cried. “You have always been troubled when he came down, and when you went up to town. I knew as well as if you had told me that you had seen him when you went up. There was always the same harassed, careworn look in your eyes; and Robert, darling, if you had known how it has made me suffer, you would have come to me for consolation, if not for help.”
“Ah! yes, perhaps.”
“Now go on,” she said firmly, and rising from her place by his knees, she took a chair and drew it near him.
“There,” she said smiling; “you shall see how business-like I will be.”
He sat with his brow knit for a few minutes, and then drew a long breath.
“You are right,” he said. “Stephen Crellock is mixed up with it. You shall know all. And mind this, whatever people may say—”
“Whatever people may say!” she exclaimed contemptuously.
“I am innocent; my hands are clean.”
“As if I needed telling that,” she said with a proud smile. “Now I am waiting, tell me all.”
“Oh, there is little to tell,” he said quickly. “That fellow Crellock, by his plausible baits, has led me into all kinds of speculations.”
“I thought so,” she said to herself.
“I failed in one, and then he tempted me to try another to cover my loss; and so it went on and on, till—”
“Till what?” she said with her eyes dilating; and a chill feeling of horror which startled her began to creep to her heart.
“Till the losses were so great that large sums of money were necessary, and—”
“Robert!”
“Don’t look at me in that way, Milly,” he said, with a half-laugh, “you are not going to begin by distrusting me?”
“No, no,” she panted.
“Well, till large sums were necessary, and the scoundrel literally forced me to raise money from the bank.”
She felt the evil increasing; but she forced it away with the warm glow of her love.
“I’ve been worried to death,” he continued, “to put these things straight, and it is this that has kept me so poor.”
“Yes, I see,” she cried. “Oh, Robert, how you must have suffered!”
“Ah! Yes! I have,” he said; “but never mind that. Well, I was getting things straight as fast as I could; and all would now have been right again had not Bayle and his miserable jackal, Thickens, scented out the trouble, and they have seized me by the throat.”
“But, Robert, why not clear yourself? Why not go to Sir Gordon? He would help you.”
“Sir Gordon does not like me. But there, I have a few days to turn myself round in, and then all will come right; but if—”
He stopped, and looked rather curiously.
“Yes?” she said, laying her hand in his.
“If my enemies should triumph. If Bayle—”
“If Mr Bayle—”
“Silence!” he said. “I have told you that this man is my cruel enemy. He has never forgiven me for robbing him of you.”
“You did not rob him,” she said tenderly. “But are you not mistaken in Mr Bayle?”
“You are, in your sweet womanly innocency and trustfulness. I tell you he is my enemy, and trying to hound me down.”
“Let me speak to him.”
“I forbid it,” he cried fiercely. “Choose your part. Are you with me or the men whom I know to be my enemies? Will you stand by me whatever happens?”
“You know,” she said, with a trustful smile in her eyes.
“That’s my brave wife,” he said. “This is better. If my enemies do get the better of me—if, for Crellock’s faults, charges are brought against me—if I am by necessity forced to yield, and think it better to go right away from here for a time—suddenly—will you come?”
“And leave my mother and father?”
“Are not a husband’s claims stronger? Tell me, will you go with me?”
“To the world’s end, Robert,” she cried, rising and throwing her arms about his neck. “I am glad that this trouble has come.”
“Glad?”
“Yes, for it has taught you at last the strength of your wife’s love.”
He drew her to his heart, and kissed her, and there she clung for a time.
“Now listen,” he said, putting her from him. “We must be business-like.”
“Yes,” she said firmly.
“The old people must not have the least suspicion that we have any idea of leaving.”
“Might I not bid them good-bye?”
“No. That is, if we left. We may not have to go. If we do, it must be suddenly.”
“And in the meantime?”
“You must wait.”
Just then the door opened, and Thisbe appeared.
“There’s a gentleman to see you, sir—that Mr Crellock.”
“Show him in my study, and I’ll come.”
Thisbe disappeared, and Millicent laid her hand upon her husband’s arm.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said quietly. “I know how to deal with him now. Only trust me, and all shall be well.”
“I do trust you,” said Millicent, and she sat there with a face like marble, listening to her husband’s step across the hall, and then sat patiently for hours, during which time the bell had been rung for the spirit stand and hot water, while the fumes of tobacco stole into the room.
At last there were voices and steps in the hall; the front door was opened and closed, and as Millicent Hallam awoke to the fact that she had not been up to see her child since she went to bed, and that it was nearly midnight, Hallam entered the room, looking more cheerful, and crossing to her he took her in his arms.
“Things are looking brighter,” he said. “We have only to wait. Now, mind this—don’t ask questions—it is better that I should not go to the bank for a few days. I am unwell.”
Millicent looked at him hard. Certainly his eyes were sunken, and for answer, as she told herself that he must have suffered much, she bowed her head.