Mr. Gus looked round upon them all with excitement, in which there was a gleam of triumph. “I am not out of my senses. With such a wrong done to me I might have been; but I never knew of it till lately. And, mind you, I don’t blame them as if they knew it. If you are the lawyer, I have brought you all the papers, honest and above-board. There they are, my mother’s certificates and mine. Ask anybody in the island of Barbadoes,” cried Mr. Gus; “bless you, it was not done in a corner; it was never made a secret of. From the Governor to the meanest black, there isn’t one but knows it all as well as I.”
He had thrust a packet of papers into Mr. Scrivener’s hand, and now stood with one arm extended, like a speaker addressing with energetic, yet conciliatory warmth, a hostile assembly. But no one paid any attention to Mr. Gus. The interest had gone from him to the lawyer who was opening up with care and precaution the different papers. Colonel Fleetwood stood behind Mr. Scrivener eagerly reading them over his shoulder, chafing at his coolness. “Get on, can’t you?” he cried, under his breath. They were enough to appal the inexperienced eye. To this astonished spectator looking on, the lines of the marriage certificate seemed to blaze as if written in fire. It was as if a bolt from heaven had fallen among them. The chief sufferers themselves were stunned by the shock of a sudden horror which they did not realise. What did it mean? A kind of pale light came over Lady Markham’s face: she began to remember the Lennys and their eccentric visit. She put out her hand as one who has begun to grasp a possible clue.
At this moment of intense and painful bewilderment, a sudden chuckle burst into the quiet. It was poor old Mr. Markham, whose hopes had been disappointed, who had never forgiven Sir William Markham’s children for being born. “Gad! I always felt sure there was a previous marriage,” he said, mumbling with old toothless jaws. Only the stillness of such a pause would have made this senile voice of malice audible. Even the old man himself was abashed to hear how audible it was.
“A previous marriage!” Colonel Fleetwood went hurriedly to his sister, and took her by the shoulders in fierce excitement, as if she could be to blame. “What does this mean, Isabel?” he cried; “did you know of it? did you consent to it? does it mean, my God! that you have never been this man’s wife at all?”
She turned upon him with a flash of energy and passion. “How dare you speak of my husband so—my husband who was honour itself and truth?” Then the poor lady covered her face with her hands. Her heart sank, her strength forsook her. Who could tell what hidden things might be revealed by the light of this sudden horrible illumination. “I can’t tell you. I do not know! I do not know!”
“This will never do,” said Mr. Scrivener hurriedly. “This is pre-judging the case altogether. No one can imagine that with no more proof than these papers (which may be genuine or not, I can’t say on the spur of the moment) we are going to believe a wild assertion which strikes at the honour of a family——”
“Look here,” said Mr. Gus; his mouth began to get dry with excitement, he could scarcely get out the words. “Look here, there’s nothing about the honour of the family. There’s nothing to torment her about. Do you hear, you, whoever you are! My mother, Gussy Gaveston, died five and thirty years ago, when I was born. Poor little thing,” cried the man who was her son, with a confusion of pathos and satisfaction, “it was the best thing she could do. She wasn’t one to live and put other people to shame, not she. She was a bit of a girl, with no harm in her. The man she married was a young fellow of no account, no older than him there, Paul, my young brother; but all the same she would have been Lady Markham had she lived; and I am her son that cost her her life, the only one of the first family, Sir William’s eldest. That’s easily seen when you look at us both,” he added with a short laugh; “there can’t be much doubt, can there, which is the eldest, I or he?”
Here again there was a strange pause. Colonel Fleetwood, who was the spectator who had his wits about him, turned round upon old Mr. Markham, who ventured to chuckle again in echo of poor Gus’s harsh little laugh, which meant no mirth. “What the devil do you find to laugh at?” he said, his lip curling over his white teeth with rage, to which he could give vent no other way. But he was relieved of his worst fear, and he could not help turning with a certain interest to the intruder. Gus was not a noble figure in his old-fashioned long-tailed black-coat, with his formal air; but there was not the least appearance of imposture about him. The serene air of satisfaction and self-importance which returned to his face when the excitement of his little speech subsided, his evident conviction that he was in his right place, and confidence in his position, contradicted to the eyes of the man of the world all suggestion of fraud. He might be deceived: but he himself believed in the rights he was claiming, and he was not claiming them in any cruel way.
As for Paul, since his first angry explanation he had not said a word. The young man looked like a man in a dream. He was standing leaning against the mantelpiece, every tinge of colour gone out of his face, listening, but hardly seeming to understand what was said. He had watched his mother’s movements, his uncle’s passionate appeal to her, but he had not stirred. As a matter of fact the confusion in his mind was such that nothing was clear to him. He felt as if he had fallen and was still falling, from some great height into infinite space. His feet tingled, his head was light. The sounds around him seemed blurred and uncertain, as well as the faces. While he stood thus bewildered, two arms suddenly surrounded his, embracing it, clinging to him. Paul pressed these clinging hands mechanically to his side, and felt a certain melting, a softness of consolation and support. But whether it was Dolly whispering comfort to him in sight of his father’s grave, or Alice bidding him take courage in the midst of a new confusing imbroglio of pain and excitement, he could scarcely have told. Then, however, voices more distinct came to him, voices quite steady and calm, in their ordinary tones.
“After this interruption it will be better to go no further,” the lawyer said. “I can only say that I will consult with my clients, and meet Mr. ——, this gentleman’s solicitor, on the subject of the extraordinary claim he makes.”