‘Mrs.—— what?’ said Lady Car.
‘Mrs. Francis Lindores. I never thought but what he meant honourable, and my own mother was at the wedding and everything right. He wants to say now that it’s no marriage; but it is—it is. It’s in the register all right where we signed in the vestry. Oh Frank, I know you’re only talking to frighten me, but your mother will make it all right.’
Lady Car and her son exchanged but one glance—on her part, a look of anguished inquiry searching his face for confirmation of this tremendous statement—on his, the look of a fierce but whipped hound, ready to tear anyone asunder that came near him, yet abject in conscious guilt. The mother put her hand to her breast as if to hide where the bullet had gone in. She said in a voice interrupted by her quickened breathing,
‘Excuse me a little, I am not very well: but tell me everything—tell me the truth. Did you say that you were——married to this young gentleman?’
‘She’ll say anything,’ cried Tom hoarsely. ‘She’ll swear anything. She’s not fit to come near you. Go away, I tell you, curse you—you shall have everything you want if you go away.’
‘Be silent, Tom; at present she has me, not you, to answer. Tell me—— ’
‘You call him Tom,’ said the young woman with surprise; ‘it’s perhaps a pet name—for his real name is Frank Lindores: and that’s on my cards that I got printed—and that’s who I am: and I can bring witnesses. My marriage lines, I’ve got ’em in the hotel where I’m staying. If you’re his mother, I’m his wife, and he can’t deny it. Oh, Frank! the lady looks kind. Don’t deny it, don’t deny it! She’ll forgive you. Don’t deny the truth.’
‘The truth,’ cried Tom, forgetting himself in his heat. ‘You can see how much truth is in it by the name she tells you—and I wasn’t of age till last week,’ cried the precocious ruffian, with a laugh which again was like the fierce bark of the whipped hound.
All Lady Car’s senses had come back to her in the shock of this horror. ‘You married her—in the name of Francis Lindores—thinking that, and that you were under age would make it void. If you’ve anything to say that I should not believe this, say it quick, Tom—lest I should die first and think my boy a——’
She leant back her pale head against the rocks, and one of those spasms passed over her which had already scared the household at the Towers: but the superior poignancy of the mental anguish kept Lady Car from complete unconsciousness. She heard their voices vaguely contending through the half-trance: then slowly the light came back to her eyes. The young woman was kneeling beside her with a vinaigrette in her hot hand. ‘Oh, smell at this, do! it’s the best thing in the world for a faint. Oh, poor lady! I wish I had never said a word rather than make her so bad!’