Volume Two—Chapter Six.
Stormy! Glass Rising.
Barometers are of such use to maritime and other folk, in indicating the changes of atmospherical phenomena, and the approach of disturbing elements, that it is a wonder in these go-a-head days, no instrument has been constructed by which we could ascertain the fluctuations of the human temperament. One might have a sort of graduated thermometer, par exemple, to indicate the rise and force of the passions, especially that of anger, and call it a “cholerometer.” The idea may be recommended to the attention of scientific philanthropists, as it would be of incalculable use in preventing unruly encounters, if one but just knew the exact choleric and argumentative calibre and equipoise of those with whom one has frequently to come in contact.
If such an instrument did exist, the barometrical measurement applied to the old dowager, Mrs Hartshorne’s temper on the morning that Markworth came to have his interview, and state his case about Susan, would certainly have indicated some such stormy height, or fall, as 29 degrees 31, or thereabouts!
Mr Trump had gone down expressly the previous day, as he said he would; and a nice storm he created. “Not a tempest in a teapot,” but a regular carousal of the elements—a rushing together of hot and cold streams, not of air, as is so eloquently described in the pages of Professor Maury, but of temper and passion.
“Stuff and nonsense,” said the dowager, virulently, “I won’t believe it! Do you mean to say that that man, who was stopping here in the house with us as Thomas’ friend, and accepted our hospitality, took advantage of our kindness, and ran off with that idiot girl; why, it’s absurd! Stuff and nonsense, I tell you. I won’t believe it!”
“But, my dear madam,” interposed Mr Trump, “I assure you it is a fact. We’ve got the proof, and I have just told you all the circumstances. It’s as clear as a counsellor’s wig, madam! He took the girl away from here, married her, and there she is; nothing could be plainer.”
“Gammon!” said the dowager. “It is all rubbish!”
“My dear madam,” said the lawyer, “just be sensible for a moment.”
“I’ve got more sense in my little finger, sir, than you have in your whole body,” snapped out the old lady.
“Granted, my dear madam; but, pardon me, if that is not exactly relevant to the case. The proof is clear enough that Markworth took her away; and I sent my clerk down to the church mentioned in the certificate, and there is no doubt that he married Susan there, and that she’s now at Havre. Besides, his motive is plain enough; he wanted to get her fortune.”
“The artful, designing scoundrel!” broke out the dowager.
“The question is, my dear madam, what is to be done now? That fellow said he was coming down here to-morrow morning. Would it be better to wait until you see him, and fathom his plans, or else send over to Havre at once, and take steps to recover the girl?”
“The cunning, crawling villain!” ejaculated Mrs Hartshorne; “but I’ll be even with him yet, I’ll be even with him!”
“I am quite at your disposal,” promptly replied the lawyer, who was eager to be bounding after Markworth; and just at this moment, before anything had been decided upon, Doctor Jolly was announced.
He apologised for interrupting the conversation; but said, that as he had heard that Mr Trump had just come down, he thought there would be some tidings of Susan, which must be his excuse for walking in so unceremoniously.
Whereupon, both the dowager and the lawyer together fired out upon him with the astonishing news. “Bless my soul!” exclaimed he, horrified at what he heard. “Who would have thought it? But I always said he was a bad fellow! I told you so Mrs Hartshorne, I told you so!”
“And much good there was in your telling! If you hadn’t been always dangling here, taking that governess off from her duties, and had looked after Susan better yourself, this would never have happened.”
“Bless my soul! madam,” exclaimed the doctor, staring helplessly at Mr Trump, aghast at the blame being thus thrown on him of all others; and dabbing his face in perplexity with his yellow bandana pocket handkerchief. “Bless my soul, madam! What have I got to do with it?”
Tom at this moment came hobbling up the front steps, and the doctor, eagerly seizing the opportunity to escape from the dowager’s invective, went out of the room hastily to open the door for him, when he took the opportunity of telling Tom, as we have already heard, that there was “the devil to pay in there,” pointing with his thumb over his shoulder to the room he had just quitted, in the most significant manner.
The tale had, of course, to be told over again to Tom, when he was admitted to the council, now of four; and an animated debate ensued on what was to be done. It was finally resolved that the lawyer should telegraph to London, and send over one of his clerks that night to Havre, to watch the house where Susan was, and see that she was not removed in the interim; that Mr Trump was to remain at The Poplars until after Markworth’s visit on the morrow; and, at his express wish, Tom was to go over as soon afterwards as possible, and fetch Susan back himself.
After a good deal of fluctuation, from 29 degrees 31 down to so low a fall as 28 degrees 64, the barometrical pressure of the dowager’s temper had returned to its abnormal state, during the excited conversation that had gone on all the time; but the next morning, however, when Markworth made his appearance, the dowager’s barometer sank again to a very low depth indeed.
Although he was opposed to three people at once—the old lady, Tom, and Mr Trump, the former of whom piled Pelion on Ossa in her wrath, Markworth kept his temper admirably. He seemed to pride himself on the successful issue of his scheme, and related each step he had taken with an air of ill-concealed triumph. The dowager was furious, but her hot-tempered words appeared to have little or no effect on the man who now proclaimed himself the husband of her daughter, a neglect of which daughter by herself and her cruelty, he stated, led to his success. Rages are all very well in their way, but the dowager’s anger was powerless here, so Markworth bore off the palm of victory against the triple odds against which he had contested it.
The only time that he appeared to be affected by all that was said against him, was when Tom addressed him pointedly and coldly with the stern truth, which he could not dispute. He then turned pale.
“You have done a dishonourable action, sir,” said Tom. “I treated you and trusted you as a gentleman and a friend, and you have abused that trust. I—I never thought you would have acted like it; and, apart from the injury you have done us, I am sorry for it, for you have hurt my faith in a man’s honour.”
Tom really felt it thus.
“I can’t excuse myself,” answered Markworth, “but I have done good to your sister instead of harm. I have brought her back to her reason, instead of letting her remain a hopeless idiot, as she would have done if I had not drawn her out; and I’ll say this, it was not all for the sake of her money I did it. I was really, so help me heaven I interested in her case, and trusted to cure her honestly.”
“You need not swear any more false oaths to me,” answered Tom; “I don’t desire to speak to you again, or see you again as long as I live.”
“Very well,” said Markworth, “so be it. But all I have to say is this, that if you wish to take back your sister you are free to do so; if she likes to go, I will not prevent her. As for you, madam,” he said, turning politely to Mrs Hartshorne, and bowing, “I have placed the matter in the hands of my solicitor, for I am determined to get the fortune to which my wife is entitled.”
“You’ll not get a penny, rogue,” retorted the dowager (barometer 28 degrees 64!) “not if there’s any law in the land.”
“We will see, madam.”
“Hark you, sir,” said Mr Trump, having his say, of which he had been sadly deprived all the time the dowager was going on. “Hark you, sir, we can find the girl was of unsound mind, as I told you before, and have you indicted for a conspiracy.”
“That we will!” echoed the dowager, “and have you on the treadmill, villain!”
Mrs Hartshorne had somewhat vague notions of the power of that large word in capitals—Law, and seemed to think that its obvious bent in any case, especially one like the present, was the treadmill.
“We will see,” answered Markworth, defiantly; “but you will have to prove your case, my dear sir. You see I did it all by myself, and the girl was a willing agent, and of age: she is of perfectly sound mind, as she can prove in the witness-box, and how you are to get over all that evidence remains to be proved.”
“We’ll prove it,” answered Mr Trump; but although he was certainly cross, his countenance did not exhibit any strong hopes of success. “The cunning vagabond is too much for us,” he murmured, sotto voce.
“Good morning,” said Markworth, blandly, to all, and he walked out triumphantly, the dowager screaming after him, “Not a penny will you get, scoundrel.”
In Markworth’s confession he had very naturally, for his own sake, not brought up the governess’s name; consequently she was excluded from all share in the conspiracy. She knew of his being down, however, and had gone out apparently for a walk while the battle was being fought in the dining-room. She wished to meet Markworth alone, and he was equally desirous to see her; so it is not surprising that a few minutes after taking such a stagey farewell of the dowager, the two met beyond the precincts of The Poplars.
“Just the person I wanted to see,” ejaculated Markworth, on coming up with her under the shadow of the wall, which encircled the Hartshorne mansion.
“Indeed! I did not think you would be so glad to see me,” replied Miss Kingscott.
“Indeed I am, Clara; I wished to settle up with you. I have married the girl, and the thing’s regularly en train now. I have only got to get the money.”
“That’s just what I wanted.”
“Well, I’ve got it for you.”
“Really?” exclaimed the governess, surprised; she had never thought that Markworth would have kept to his compact once he had got the girl off. But he was “careful about little things,” as he had told Tom when he first came down to The Poplars, and he was not going to incur Clara Kingscott’s hostility by breaking his agreement, even when there was nothing to force him to keep it.
“Yes, really,” he answered; “here’s the other hundred I promised you, so you and I are quits, Clara.”
“Thank you,” she said, turning over the notes in astonishment in her hand; “I never expected you to pay me.”
“Did you not. I always keep my bargains.”
“Do you,” she replied. “You have not always done so.”
“Let bygones be bygones, Clara; I promised you the money, and I have paid you now, and you cannot complain.”
“It is the first time you ever recollected what you owed me,” said the governess, bitterly.
“Don’t say that, Clara; let us be good friends. Our compact is now finished, and we need not rake up the past. If there is anything more I can do for you, Clara, let me know; and if it’s in my power, I’ll do it,” said Markworth, magnanimously, for he thought the woman had still a lingering regard for him.
“I don’t want anything from you, Allynne Markworth,” she said, angrily stamping her foot; “and I don’t wish to see you again. You’ve been the curse of my life! But all’s not over yet between us!” she muttered, significantly, as she turned on her heel and walked back towards the house.
Markworth looked after her a moment, and then resumed his way down to the railway station, en route for London. He had a good deal to do before starting for Havre, and wanted to get there before Tom or anyone else went over after Susan.
“That’s the way with them all!” he said, to himself, as he walked away rapidly in quick strides. “They get all they can, and then wash their hands of you!”
But he made a great mistake. Miss Kingscott had not by any means washed her hands of Markworth yet. She had gathered a good deal from the conversation between Mr Trump and the dowager on the previous day, to which she had listened attentively through the keyhole of the next room, and she knew that she could not only upset Markworth’s plans for obtaining Susan’s inheritance, but perhaps, also, get him imprisoned, if she exposed her share in the affair.
This she intended to do, but not until the last moment, just when she should think fit; and at present she would remain at The Poplars, and go on as if she knew nothing of the great event. She might captivate Tom in the meantime, she thought; and, at all events, she as yet had the doctor to fall back upon. Aesculapius had been twice as devoted to her since she displayed so much energy in trying to get Susan back. He had muttered to himself, over and over again, as he rode up to The Poplars, in his daily visits to Tom, “She is a dooced fine girl; and a clever girl, too, by Gad!” and, no doubt, would have repeated that declaration of his which the campaigner’s call had nipped in the bud, if the opportunity had only favoured him. But it had not, for the dowager seemed adverse to letting the doctor remain a moment alone with the governess.
When Markworth had gone away, the council between Mrs Hartshorne, and Tom, and the lawyer, was resumed; Tom said that he would go the next day if he was able and fetch back Susan. As for the money matters, the old lady declared she would spare no expense to “cheat that scoundrel” out of his plunder; and Mr Trump was authorised to go to every end to defeat the suit of Markworth versus Hartshorne, which the schemer had stated would be at once commenced, the old lady refusing to surrender her daughter’s fortune unless she were compelled to do so. And she “wouldn’t even do it then,” she declared.
While they were debating over the matter, Miss Kingscott came in quietly and went up to her room—nobody knowing what a strong witness she would prove on the side of the defendants in the case, if she so willed it: she now revolved in her mind whether she would or would not act in the matter. It was as yet unsettled, although she had sworn to revenge herself on Markworth. His last words to her had somewhat disarmed her.
Nemesis or non Nemesis: that was the question. The former triumphed. Mr Trump went back to London; and there he found that the case of Markworth versus Hartshorne, was already “brewing in the storm,” although it remained to be proved whether it was going to be “nipped in the bud,” as the American stump speaker told his audience after he had informed them that he “smelt a rat.” With which metaphor the chapter had better be concluded.
Barometer “Fair” again!