The House of the White Shadows

by B. L. Farjeon

"It was your sweetheart from Zermatt, and no other. And the younger of these women, one of the loveliest creatures I ever beheld, was known as Madeline the flower-girl."

The Advocate, with a sudden movement, turned his chair, so that his face was hidden from Vanbrugh.

"They were poor--and I was poor. If what I suspected, when I gazed at Madeline, was correct, I saw not only an opportunity for revenge upon you, but a certainty of being able to obtain money from you. The secret to such a man as you, married to a young and beautiful woman, was worth a fair sum, which I resolved should be divided between Pauline--that was the name adopted by the mother of your child--and myself. You cannot accuse me of a want of frankness. I discovered where they lived--I had secret speech with Pauline. My suspicion was no longer a suspicion--it was a fact. Madeline the flower-girl was your daughter."

He paused, but the Advocate made no movement, and did not speak.

"How," continued Vanbrugh, "to turn that fact to advantage? How, and in what way, to make it worth a sum sufficiently large to satisfy me? That was what now occupied my thoughts. Madeline and her mother were even poorer than I supposed, and from Pauline's lips did I hear how anxious she was to remove her daughter from the temptations by which she was surrounded. In dealing with you, I knew it was necessary to be well prepared. You are a powerful antagonist to cope with, and one must have sure cards in his hand to have even a chance of winning any game he is playing with such a man as yourself. Pauline and I spoke frequently together, and gradually I unfolded to her the plan I had resolved upon. Without disclosing your name I told her sufficiently to convince her that, by my aid, she might obtain a sum of money from the man who had wronged her which would enable her to place herself and her daughter in a safer position--a position in which a girl as beautiful as Madeline would almost certainly meet with a lover of good social position whom she would marry and with whom she would lead a happy life. Thus would she escape the snare into which she herself fell when she met you. This was the mother's dream. Satisfied that I could guide her to this end, Pauline signed an agreement, which is in my possession, by which she bound herself to pay me half the money she obtained from you in compensation for your wrong. Only one thing was to remain untouched by her and me--a sum which I resolved to obtain from you as a marriage portion for your daughter. Probably, under other circumstances, you would not have given me credit for so much consideration, but viewed in the light of the position in which you are placed, you may believe me. If you doubt it, I can show you the clause in black and white. This being settled between Pauline and me, I told her who you were--how rich you were, how famous you had grown, and how that you had lately married a young and beautiful woman. The affairs of a man as eminent as yourself are public property, and the newspapers delight in recording every particular, be it ever so trivial, connected with the lives of men of your rank. It was then necessary to ascertain what proof we held that you were the father of Madeline. Our visit to Zermatt could be proved--her oath and mine, in connection with dates, would suffice. Then there would, in all likelihood, be living in Zermatt men and women whose testimony would be valuable. The great point was the birth of the child and the date, and to my discomfiture I learnt that Pauline had lost the certificate of her daughter's birth. But the record existed elsewhere, and it was to obtain a copy of this record, and to collect other evidence, that Pauline left her daughter. Her mission was a secret one, necessarily, and thus no person, not even Madeline, had any knowledge of its purport. What, now, remains to be told? Nothing that you do not know--except that when Pauline left her daughter for a few weeks, it was arranged that she and I should meet in Geneva on a certain date, to commence our plan of operations, and that I, having business elsewhere, was a couple of hundred miles away when Gautran murdered your hapless child. I arrived in Geneva on the last day of Gautran's trial; and on that evening, as you came out of the court-house, I placed in your hands the letter asking you to give me an interview. I will say nothing of my feelings when I heard that you had successfully defended, and had set free, the murderer of your child. What I had to look after was myself and my own interest. And now you, who at the beginning of this interview rejected a renewal of the old friendship which existed between us, may probably inwardly acknowledge that had you accepted the hand I offered you, it is not I who would have been the gainer."

Again he paused, and again, neither by word or movement, did the Advocate break the silence.

"It will be as well," presently said Vanbrugh, "to recapitulate what I have to sell. First, the fact that you, a man of spotless character--so believed--deliberately betrayed a simple innocent girl, and then deserted her. Inconceivable, the world would say, in such a man, unless the proofs were incontestable. The proofs are incontestable. Next, the birth of your child, and your brutal--pardon me, there is no other word to express it, and it is one which would be freely used--negligence to ascertain whether your conduct had brought open shame and ruin upon the girl you betrayed. Next, the knowledge of the life of poverty and suffering led by the mother and the child, while you were in the possession of great wealth. Next, the murder of your child by a man whose name is uttered with execration. Next, your voluntary espousal of his cause, and your successful defence of a monster whom all men knew to be guilty of the foul crime. Next, your knowledge, at the time you defended him, that he was guilty of the murder of your own child. Next, in corroboration of this knowledge, the dying declaration of Gautran, solemnly sworn to and signed by him. A strong hand. No stronger has ever been held by any man's enemy, and until you come to my terms, I am your enemy. If you refuse to purchase of me what I have to sell--the documents in my possession, and my sacred silence to the last day of my life upon the matters which affect you--and for such a sum as will make my future an easy one, I give you my word I will use my power against you, and will drag you down from the height upon which you stand. I cannot speak in more distinct terms. You can rescue me from poverty, I can rescue you from ignominy."

The Advocate turned his face to Vanbrugh, who saw that, in the few minutes during which it had been hidden from his sight, it had assumed a hue of deadly whiteness. All the sternness had departed from it, and the cold, piercing eyes wavered as they looked first at Vanbrugh, then at the objects in the study. It was as though the Advocate were gazing, for the first time, upon the familiar things by which he was surrounded. Strange to say, this change in him seemed to make him more human--seemed to declare, "Stern and cold-hearted as I have appeared to the world, I am susceptible to tenderness." The mask had fallen from his face, and he stood now revealed--a man with human passions and human weaknesses, to whom a fatal sin in his younger days had brought a retribution as awful as it was ever the lot of a human being to suffer. There was something pitiable in this new presentment of a strong, earnest, self-confident nature, and even Vanbrugh was touched by it.

During the last half-hour the full force of the storm had burst over the House of White Shadows. The rain poured down with terrific power, and the thunder shook the building to its foundations. The Advocate listened with a singular and curious intentness to the terrible sounds, and when Vanbrugh remarked, "A fearful night," he smiled in reply. But it was the smile of a man whose heart was tortured to the extreme limits of human endurance.

Once again he filled a glass with wine, and raised it to his mouth, but as the liquor touched his lips, he shuddered, and holding the glass upright in his hand, he turned it slowly over and poured it on the ground; then, with much gentleness, he replaced the glass upon the table.