CHAPTER XXXIV.—JUDGE ME.
Mr Beecham had spoken the words, ‘You must know it all,’ as if they contained a threat, but impulse directed tone and words. He became instantly conscious of his excitement, when he saw the startled expression with which Madge regarded him. His emotion was checked. Mechanically, he gripped the bridle of his passion, and held it down as a strong man restrains a restive horse.
‘Shall I go on?’ he said with almost perfect self-control, although his voice had not yet quite regained its usual softness. ‘I know that you will be pained. I do not like that, and so you see me hesitating, and weakly trying to shift the responsibility from my own shoulders. Shall I go on?’
‘I am not afraid of pain,’ she answered quietly, but with a distant tremor in her voice; ‘and if you think that I should hear what you have to say, say it.’
‘Then I will speak as gently as it is in my power to do; but this subject always stirs the most evil passions that are in me. I want to win your confidence, and that impels me to tell you why I doubt Philip—it is because I know his father to be false.’
‘Oh, you are mistaken!’ she exclaimed, rising at once to the defence of a friend; ‘you do not know how much good he has done!’
‘No; but I do know some of the harm he has done.’ There was a sort of grim humour in voice and look, as if he were trying to subdue his bitterness of heart by smiling at the girl’s innocent trustfulness.
‘Harm!—Mr Hadleigh harm anybody! You judge him wrongly: he may look hard and—and unpleasant; but he has a kind nature, and suffers a great deal.’
‘He should suffer’ (this more gently now—more like himself, and as if he spoke in sorrow rather than in anger). ‘But, all the same he has done harm—cruel, wicked harm.’
‘To whom—to whom?’
‘To me and to your mother.’ A long pause, as if he were drawing breath for the words which at length he uttered in a faltering whisper: ‘His lies separated us.’
Madge stood mute and pale. She remembered what Aunt Hessy had told her: how there had come the rumour first, and then the confident assertion of the treachery of the absent lover—no one able to tell who brought the news which the loss of his letter in the wreck, and consequently apparent silence, seemed to confirm. Then all the sad days of hoping—of faith in the absent, whilst the heart was sickening and growing faint, as the weeks, the months passed, and the unbroken silence of the loved one slowly forced the horrible conviction upon her that the news must be true. He—Austin, whom she had prayed not to go away—had gone without answering that pathetic cry, and had broken his troth.
Poor mother, poor mother! Oh, the agony of it all! Madge could see it—feel it. She could see the woman in her great sorrow dumbly looking across the sea, hoping, still hoping that he would come back, until despair became her master. And now to know that all this misery had been brought about by a Lie! ... and the speaker of the lie had been Philip’s father! Two lives wrecked, two hearts broken by a lie. Was it not the cruelest kind of murder?—the two lives lingering along their weary way, each believing the other faithless.
She sprang into the present again—it was too horrible. She would not believe that any man could be so wicked, and least of all Philip’s father.
‘I will not believe it!’ she exclaimed with a sudden movement of the hands, as if sweeping the sad visions away from her.
Beecham’s brows lowered, but not frowningly, as he looked long at her flushed face, and saw that the bright eyes had become brighter still in the excitement of her indignant repudiation of the charge he made.
‘Do you like the man?’ he asked in a low tone.
The question had never occurred to her before, and in the quick self-survey which it provoked, she was not prepared to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ In the moment, too, she remembered Uncle Dick’s unexplained quarrel with Mr Hadleigh on the market-day, and also that Uncle Dick, who wore his heart upon his sleeve, never much favoured the Master of Ringsford.
‘He is Philip’s father,’ she answered simply; and in giving the answer, she felt that it was enough for her. She must like everybody who belonged to Philip.
‘Is that all?’
‘It is enough,’ she said impatiently.
‘Do not be angry with me; but try to see a little with my eyes. You will do so when you learn how guilty he is.’
‘I will not hear it!’ and she moved.
‘For Philip’s sake,’ he said softly but firmly, ‘if not for that of another, who would tell you it was right that you should hear me.’
Madge stood still, her face towards the wall, so that he could not see her agitation. The bright fire cast the shadow of his profile on the same wall, and the silhouette, grotesquely exaggerated as the outlines were, still suggested suffering rather than anger.
‘Do you know that Hadleigh has good reason for enmity towards me?’
‘No; I never knew or thought that he could have reason for enmity towards any one.’
‘He had towards me.’
‘I believe you are wrong. I am sure of it;’ and she thought that here might be her opportunity to further Philip’s desire to reconcile them.
‘Should you desire to test what I am about to tell you, say to Hadleigh that you have been told George Laurence was a friend of Philip’s mother. He was my friend too. My poor sister was passionate and, like all passionate people, weak. Hadleigh took her from my friend for her money—a pitiful few hundred pounds. I never liked the man; but I hated him then, and hated him still more when Laurence, becoming reckless alike of fortune and life, ruined himself and ... killed himself. But the crime was Hadleigh’s, and it lies heavy on his soul.’
‘Oh, why should you speak so bitterly of what he could neither foresee nor prevent.’
‘I charged him with the murder,’ Beecham continued, without heeding the interruption, ‘and he could not answer me like a man. He spoke soft words, as if I were a boy in a passion; he even attempted to condole with me for the loss of my friend, until I fled from him, lest my hands should obey my wish and not my will. But he had his revenge. He made my sister’s life a torture. She tried to hide it in her letters to me; but I could read her misery in every line. And then, when he discovered that I had gone into the wilds of Africa, without any likelihood of being able to send a message home for many months, he told the lie which destroyed our hopes.’
‘How do you know that it was he who told it?’ she asked, without moving and with some fear of the answer.
‘The man he employed to spread the false report confessed to me what had been done and by whom.’
Madge’s head drooped; there seemed to be no refutation of this proof of Mr Hadleigh’s guilt possible.
Beecham partly understood that slight movement of the head, and his voice had become soft again when he resumed:
‘I did not seek to retaliate. She was lost to me, and it did not much matter what evil influence came between us. I am not seeking to retaliate now. I would have forgotten the man and the evil he had wrought, if it had not been for the cry my sister sent to me from her deathbed. She asked me for some sign that in the future I would try to help and guide her favourite child, Philip. I gave the pledge, and she was only able to answer that I had made her happy. I am here to fulfil that pledge, and it might have been easily done, but for you.’
‘For me!’—Startled, but not looking at him yet.
‘Ay, for you, because I wish to be sure that you will be safe in his keeping; and to be sure of that, I wish him to prove that he has none of his father’s nature in him.’
‘Do you still hate his father so much?’ she said distressfully.
‘I have long ceased to feel hatred; but I still distrust him and all that belongs to him. Now that you know why I stand aside to watch how Philip bears himself, do you still ask me to release you from your promise?’
‘I will not betray your confidence,’ she answered mechanically; ‘but what I ought to do I will do.’
‘I would not desire you to do anything else, my child,’ and all his gentleness of manner had returned. ‘I will not ask you to say at this moment whether or not you think I am acting rightly. I ask only that you will remember whose child you are, and what she was to me, as you have learned what I was to her. Then you will understand and judge me.’
‘I cannot judge, but I will try to understand.’
Then she turned towards him, and he saw that although she had been speaking so quietly, her pain had been great.
‘Forgive me, my poor child, for bringing this sorrow to you; but it may be the means of saving you from a life of misery, or of leading you to one of happiness.’
There was a subdued element of solemnity in this—it was so calm, so earnest, that she remained silent. He imagined that he understood; but he was mistaken. She did not herself yet understand the complicated emotions which had been stirred within her. She had tried to put away those sad visions, but could not: the sorrowful face of the mother was always looking wistfully at her out of the mists. She ought to have been filled with bitterness by the account of the crime—for crime it surely was—which had wrought so much mischief, and the proof of which appeared to be so strong. Instead of that, she felt sorry for Mr Hadleigh. Here was the reason for the gloom in which he lived—remorse lay heavily upon him. Here, too, was the reason for all his kindliness to her, when he was so cold to others. She was sorry for him.
Hope came to her relief, dim at first, but growing brighter as she reflected. Might there not be some error in the counts against him? She saw that in thinking of the misfortunes of his friend Laurence, passion had caused Austin Shield to exaggerate the share Mr Hadleigh had in bringing them about. Might it not be that in a similar way he had exaggerated and misapprehended what he had been told by the man who denounced Mr Hadleigh as the person who had employed him to spread the fatal lie? Whether or not this should prove to be the case, it was clear that until Mr Shield’s mind was disabused of the belief that Philip’s father had been the cause of his sorrow and her mother’s, there was no possibility of effecting a reconciliation between the two men. But if all his charges were well founded—what then?... She was afraid to think of what might be to come after.
Still holding her hand, he made a movement towards the door. Then she spoke:
‘I want you to say again that whilst I keep your secret, you leave me free to speak to Mr Hadleigh about ... about the things you have told me.’
‘Yes, if you still doubt me.’
‘I will speak,’ she said deliberately, ‘not because I doubt you, but because I believe you are mistaken.’
Again that long look of reverent admiration of her trustfulness, and then:
‘Act as your own heart tells you will be wisest and kindest.’
As he passed down the frozen gravel-path, he met Philip. He was in no mood for conversation, and saying only ‘Good-evening,’ passed on. Philip was surprised; although, being wearied himself, he was not sorry to escape a conversation with one who was a comparative stranger.
‘What is the matter with Mr Beecham?’ he inquired carelessly, when he entered the oak parlour and, to his delight, found Madge alone.
‘He is distressed about some family affairs,’ she answered after a little hesitation.
Philip observed the hesitation and, slight as it was, the confusion of her manner.
‘Oh, something more about that affair in which you are his confidant, I suppose, and came to you for comfort. Well, I come upon the same errand—fagged and worried to death. Will you give me a glass of wine?—Stay, I should prefer a little brandy-and-water.—Thank you.’
He had dropped into an armchair, as if physically tired out. She seated herself beside him and rested a hand on his shoulder.
‘You have been disturbed again at the works,’ she said soothingly.
‘Disturbed!—driven to my wits’ end would be more like my present state. Everything is going wrong. The capital has nearly all disappeared, without any sign of a return for it, so that it looks as if I should speedily have to ask Uncle Shield for more.—What has frightened you?’
‘Nothing—it was only a chill—don’t mind it. Have you seen—him?’
‘Came straight from him here. He was rather out of humour, I thought; and as usual, referred me to his lawyers on almost every point. As to more capital, he said there would be no difficulty about that, if he was satisfied that the first money had been prudently invested.’
‘I understood that he was pleased with what you were attempting.’
‘So did I; but it seems to me now as if he was anything but satisfied. However, he would give me no definite answer or advice. He would think about it—he would make inquiries, and then see what was to be done. He is right, of course; and queer as his ways are, he has been kind and generous. But if he pulls up now, the whole thing will go to smash, and—to fail, Madge, to fail, when it only requires another strong effort to make a success!’
‘But you are not to fail, Philip.’
‘At present, things look rather like it. Oh, it will be rare fun for them all!’ he added bitterly.
‘All?’
‘Yes, everybody who predicted that my scheme was a piece of madness and must come to grief. That does not matter so much, though, as finding myself to be a fool. I wish uncle would talk over the matter quietly with me. I am sure he could help me.... Why, you are shivering. Come nearer to the fire.’
She moved her chair as he suggested.
‘But how is it that the money is all gone?’
‘It is not exactly gone, but sunk in the buildings and the machinery; and the disputes with the men have caused a lot of waste. The men are the real trouble; they can’t get the idea into their heads, somehow; and even Caleb is turning rusty now. But that is because he is bothered about Pansy.... Ah, Madge’ (his whole manner changing suddenly as he grasped her hand and gazed fondly into her eyes); ‘although it will be a bitter pill to swallow if this scheme falls through—I was so proud of it, so hopeful of it at the start, and saw such a bright future for it, and believed it would be such a mighty social lever—although that would be bitter, I should get over it. I could never get over any trouble about you, such as that poor chap is in about Pansy.... But that can never be,’ he concluded impulsively.
For the next few minutes he forgot all about the works, the men, and the peril in which his Utopia stood, threatening every day to tumble all to pieces. Madge was glad that his thoughts should be withdrawn for a space from his worry, and was glad to be able to breathe more freely herself in thinking only of their love, for those references to his Uncle Shield troubled her.
‘You are not losing courage altogether, then?’ she said smiling.
‘I shall never lose it altogether so long as you are beside me, although I may halt at times,’ he answered. ‘There; I am better now. Don’t let us talk any more to-night about disagreeable things—they don’t seem half so disagreeable to me as they did when I came in.’
So, as they were not to talk about disagreeable things, they talked about themselves. They did remember Caleb and Pansy, however; and Madge promised to see the latter soon, and endeavour to persuade her to be kind to her swain.