“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.”