CHAPTER XXXIX.—THE OTHER SIDE.
It seemed very curious to Madge that she should become the confidant of those two men, with whose fate that of her mother had been so sadly associated. She was thrust into the ungracious position of arbiter between them; she had to decide whether or not the one was false and treacherous, or the other the victim of his own hasty passion and self-deceived in his accusations. She was satisfied that Mr Beecham had spoken under the conviction of the truth of what he told her; and Mr Hadleigh had just shown her that—if innocent—he could be magnanimous, by his willingness to meet in friendliness one whom he had so long regarded as his implacable foe.
The position involved so much in the result to her and to Philip, that she felt a little bewildered, and almost afraid of what she was about to hear. But she could forgive: that knowledge steadied her.
Mr Hadleigh with his formal courtesy asked her to be seated. He stood at the window, and she could see that the white gloom of the coming snowstorm was reflected on his face.
‘May I inquire where you have met Mr Shield?’
She was obliged to reply as she had done to a question put by Philip, which, although different, was to the same purport: ‘I may not tell you yet.’
‘Philip knows that you have met him?’
‘No.’ It was most uncomfortable to have to give these evasive answers, which seemed to make her the one who had to give explanations. She observed that Mr Hadleigh’s heavy eyebrows involuntarily lifted.
‘I ought not to have asked. Pardon me.’
Something in his tone and manner plainly showed that he had penetrated her secret and Mr Beecham’s.
‘I am sorry not to be able to give you a direct answer.’
‘It does not matter,’ he said with a slight movement of the hand, as if he were putting the whole subject of her acquaintance with Shield aside. ‘I know, from the exclamation you made a little while ago, that he has told you with all his bitterness why he and I have not been friends.’
‘There was no bitterness, Mr Hadleigh, but much sadness.’
‘I am pleased to hear it, and I will try to give you my explanation in the same spirit. First about George Laurence. I never heard his name until after my marriage; and it is therefore unnecessary to say that when I did hear it, and learned the nature of his former relations with my wife, it was not possible for me to receive him in my house, or for him to regard me as a desirable acquaintance. There were unfortunate consequences following upon this peculiar position; but they may pass. They made my life a hard and solitary one.’
He paused, and as he looked out into the dull atmosphere, the vague stare in his eyes, as if he were seeking something which he could not see, became pathetic. Madge began to understand that expression now, and the meaning of the melancholy, which was concealed from others under a mask of cold reserve. She sympathised, but could say nothing.
‘I never spoke to the man, and saw him only a few times. But acquaintances of mine, who thought the news would be agreeable to me, told me of his ways of life and predicted the end, which came quickly. The mistake made by Philip’s mother and Mr Shield was in believing that it was not until after her marriage that Laurence neglected his business and took to dissipation. Men who had known him for several years previous to that date informed me that his habits were little altered after it. Nights spent in billiard-rooms and other places; days wasted on racecourses and his fortune squandered. He attempted to retrieve all by one daring speculation. Success would have enabled him to go on for a longer or shorter time, according to the use he made of the money; failure meant disgrace and a charge of fraud. He failed, and escaped the law by taking poison.’
‘Are you sure of this?’ ejaculated Madge, startled and shocked by this very different version of the sentimental story she had heard.
‘I will show you the newspaper report of the inquest, and a copy of the accountant’s report to the creditors on what estate was left. They will suffice to satisfy you that there is no error in anything I have said.’
‘Why was it that Mr Shield, who was his most intimate friend, knew nothing of this?’
‘He must have known something, but not all. His ways were quiet and studious, and what he did see, he did not regard with the eyes of experience. I do not think that Laurence attempted to deceive him; for men who fall into his course of life soon become blind to its evils and consequences; and so, without premeditation, he did deceive him. Mr Shield, being a man as passionate in his friendships as in his hates, would listen to no ill of his friend. But there is one thing more which I have never repeated, and never until now allowed any one over whom I had influence to repeat. You, however, must learn it from the lips of one who witnessed the scene.’
He rang the bell, and Terry the butler appeared. It was one of Mr Terry’s strict points of discipline in his kingdom below stairs that without his sanction no one but himself should answer the drawing-room bell. Obeying a motion of the master’s hand, he advanced with a portly gravity becoming the dignity of his office.
‘You were an attendant in the Cosmos Club about the date of my marriage?’ said the master.
‘I was, sir, then, and for six months before, and a good while after.’
‘You recollect what was said about the marriage a few evenings after it took place?’
‘Perfectly, sir, because you told me to write it down, as you thought some day it might be useful to you.’
‘The day has come. Tell us what you heard.’
‘There was a small dinner-party in the strangers’ room, and I had charge of it. The gentlemen were particularly merry, and in fact there was a remarkable quantity of wine used. Your marriage, sir, was mentioned; and Mr Laurence, who was the gayest of the company, although he took less wine than any other gentleman, proposed the health of the happy couple. I recollect his very words, sir. He says: “I was in the swim for the girl myself; but this beggar, Hadleigh, cut me out; that was luck for me, so here’s luck to them;” and the toast was drunk with perfect enthusiasm. Mr Laurence made away with himself some time after; and I heard the gentlemen whisper among themselves, when referring to the sad event, that it was a question of doing that or of doing a spell of penal servitude. That’s all, sir.’
The master nodded: Mr Terry bowed and retired with the portly gravity with which he had entered.
Mr Hadleigh turned to Madge. The butler’s story produced the effect desired: she was convinced, for she felt sure that no man who loved could speak so lightly—or speak at all—of the woman he loved in a company of club bacchanalians.
‘But why did you not tell this to Mr Shield?’ was her reproachful exclamation.
‘Because he would not listen to anything I had to say. From the time of the marriage until after the death of Laurence, we never met. Then he came to me, mad with passion, and poured out a volley of abuse. I was patient because he was her brother; and silent because it was as hopeless to expect a man drunk with rage to be reasonable as one drunk with alcohol. In his last words to me he accused me of murder. We have never spoken together since.—Do you think me guilty?’
‘I do not believe it,’ she replied decisively; ‘nor would he have believed it, if what you have told me had been made known to him in time.’
‘I am grateful to you,’ said Mr Hadleigh, bending his head; ‘but I perceive you do not know Mr Shield. Time and solitude alter most men, and they must have had a peculiar effect upon him to have enabled him to make such a deep impression on you. He used to be obstinate to the last degree, and once he had formed an opinion, he held to it in spite of reason.’
‘He must be changed indeed, then, Mr Hadleigh. I am sure that when he had had time to think, he would have understood it all but’——
She paused; and his keen eyes rested searchingly on her troubled face.
‘I know what you would say, and I see that you have doubted me. Ah well, ah well; it is a pity; but that, too, shall be made clear to you, I trust.’
She looked up again hopefully.
‘Oh, if you will do that!’ The tone was like that of an appeal.
‘It can be done, I think.... You have been told that it was I who, in my enmity to Shield, took advantage of his long absence and silence to set abroad the report that he was married. I did not. The story was on the tongue of everybody hereabouts for months, and I, like the rest, believed it. There are only two men who would have said that I spoke the falsehood—the one is the man who invented it; the other is Shield himself.’
‘You knew the man?’
‘I did.’
‘Then why, why did you not denounce him in time?’
‘Because I did not know him until after your mother’s wedding; and then I thought she would learn the truth only too soon for her peace of mind.’
‘How did you discover him, then?’
‘The scoundrel revealed himself. He came to me, and insolently told me that, knowing the state of affairs between Shield and me, he thought he would do me a good service. So he had given him a blow which he would not get over in a hurry. I knew something of the man, and at once suspected his meaning. I inquired how he had struck the blow; and he explained that it was he who had brought about matters so that when Shield came home he found his sweetheart already married to somebody else.’
Poor Madge was weeping bitter tears in her heart, but there were none in her eyes: they were full of eagerness and wonder. She was drawing nearer and nearer to the truth, which would enable her to effect the purpose Philip so much desired.
‘It is the advantage of my nature,’ Mr Hadleigh went on calmly, ‘that I can listen to a scoundrel without losing temper. On this occasion, I asked how he knew that Shield had returned. “I have seen him,” he said; “and he is cut up enough to please even you. Now, having done this job for you, I expect you to give me something for my trouble.”—“How much?”—“A hundred is not too much to ask for the satisfaction of knowing that your bitterest foe has got it hot.”—I asked him to write down that he had been the first to report in the village that Austin Shield was married, although at the time he had no authority for the statement.—“That looks like a confession,” he said.—“Exactly. I mean it to be one.”—After thinking for a moment, the fellow said: “All right; it won’t matter to me, for to-morrow I am off to the diggings.”’
Mr Hadleigh stopped and looked out at the window again, as if the scene he was recalling even now filled him with indignation. He resumed:
‘When he had written the memorandum and signed it, I told him my opinion of his villainous transaction, and threatened to have him horsewhipped through the village. At the same time I rang the bell. Although disappointed, “Bah!” said he; “I always thought you were a sneak, without the pluck to give the fellow who hates you a hiding. Shield has the right stuff in him; he gave me the money for telling him that you employed me to tell the lie. That paper you swindled out of me isn’t worth a rap. You have no witnesses.”—He got out of the room before I could reach him, and escaped pursuit.... He was right; the paper was useless to me.’
‘Who was the man?’
‘Richard Towers. Your aunt will tell you what a scamp he was.’
‘But what motive could he have for such a cruel wrong?’
‘Unknown to Shield, he was his rival; and it was his own satisfaction he sought in spreading the falsehood, as it was his own interests he served by endeavouring to make capital of it out of both Shield and me by playing upon the unfortunate misunderstandings between us.’
Madge was now calm and thoughtful. She, too, saw what a powerless instrument the villain’s memorandum was unless it could be proved that he had written it. Who would not say Mr Hadleigh himself had written it, to escape blame?
‘Have you got the memorandum still?’ she asked suddenly. ‘Will you give it to me?’
‘But it is useless, except to satisfy those who trust me that I had no part in the disgraceful affair.’
‘It is not quite useless, Mr Hadleigh. There are letters bearing that man’s name amongst my grandfather’s papers, and Mr Shield can compare the handwriting. That will be enough to assure him that you are blameless, even if he be so ungenerous as you imagine. Give me the paper.’
A clever thought; and Mr Hadleigh was struck by her quickness in seeing it and the energy with which she took up his cause. He did not know that she was working for Philip.
‘You will make a good advocate,’ he said with that far-off look in his eyes. ‘You shall have the paper. It is in the safe in my room.’
‘Thank you, thank you! I will wait here till you send it to me.’
(To be continued.)