“I am sorry for you—sorrier than I should have thought I could be,” said Perdita; “but there are some things which must be said between us: for my father is dead as well as your son; and since I can no longer learn from him, you must hear and answer me. Come, Sir Francis; I have always had my way with you in the end.”
“No one has any weapons against me now; they’re all here!” said the baronet, laying his finger on Tom’s shoulder with the word.
“I mean to know the truth, however,” returned Perdita, with a resolution that sat strangely on her subtle and changeful beauty. “It was Tom himself who told me the man who called himself Grant was my father: the rest is contained in this enclosure; shall I read it, or will you speak?”
“How came you by that?” inquired the baronet, for the first time fixing his eyes upon the packet in her hand.
“It was found, addressed to me, in the pocket of Charles Grantley’s coat. But first, listen to this letter, which accompanied it.”
“Not here!” said the other, lifting his hand. “Would you dishonor me in my boy’s presence?”
“He knew enough to make him suspect you before he died.”
Sir Francis shrank as if he had been stung. “Don’t tell me that!” he exclaimed. “You may call me a robber and a murderer, if you like, and tell the world of it; I may have failed in everything else, but I kept my boy’s confidence—he never doubted me a moment ... did he?” At the last words his voice fell from passionate assertion to quavering entreaty.
“You are not much of a man,” said Perdita coldly. “You should not be a villain if you fear to face the consequences and to stand alone. Tom was more manly than you; he despised you because you were afraid of Grantley, instead of crushing him, or, at least, defying him. And has no one suffered besides you?” she continued, with rising fire. “See what you have made of me! If my father had been with me, to love me, and for me to love and honor, I should not have been what I am. You parted us—as I now believe by a cowardly and slanderous falsehood. You brought me up to think the thoughts of a woman of the world and a libertine while I was still a child. You gave me nothing to care for but my own success—for money and power; and at last you married me to a worn-out formalist, whose very virtues made sin seem delightful. I have never had help or sympathy from a human soul, and that dead boy is the only creature who ever honestly loved me—and he would not have done it if he had known me! But, thanks to you, I can’t even be sorry for my failings now; I know more than I feel! I know when I’ve been injured, though I can’t feel the injury, and I mean to have what is due me. I have believed all my life that my father was an embezzler and a scoundrel, a man whose name and connection were a disgrace: a millstone round my neck; some one whom I was to remember only to forget and deny—and now, when it is too late to be of any good to me, because I am too old to change, and when he is dead, I am to find out that you and not he have been the villain! I have heard you whimpering over your boy, and I pitied you; but why should I pity you? Whom did you ever pity? If you had a glimmer of nobility left in you, you would be glad that he died before you were exposed and shamed. And you shall be exposed and shamed: I will do it! Here are your good name and prosperity, in this packet. Are you ready to see it published?” She held the packet at arm’s length before his face; there was something almost appalling in the sparkle of her eyes and the bitter movement of her lips.
Sir Francis had listened to this harangue at first with a tremor of the nerves, as one who awaits the fall of a thunderbolt; then even the strength to fear seemed to lapse away, and he sat gazing at Perdita with a dull, unresponsive countenance, while she kindled more and more with the story of her wrongs and resolve to retaliate. When she ended with her fierce question he said heavily, “Do what you like, my dear. You don’t know all. The letters are interesting—I’d have risked hanging to get ’em last night; but I don’t care to raise my hand for ’em now. You don’t know all. I’ve struck myself a deadlier blow than you can strike me, with all the world at your back. Do what you like, and then ... leave me alone with my boy. He and I may laugh over this some day—who knows!”