“Mr. Craike,” said Mr. Bradbury, leaning forward in his chair, and looking intently at my grandfather, “knowing you—your sense of justice—I dare to tell you, as the lad has told you, that you lie. Your son was wedded nineteen years back to Mary Howe—you will recall her.”
“Surely—serving-woman to Mrs. Charles.”
“He was wedded to her in London, after Charles and his wife, understanding Richard’s passion for her, had driven her from this house. Their enmity pursued her—from house to house, employment to employment. She was in London—destitute, nigh starving—when Richard, returning from the Continent, sought and found her. He married her in London—nineteen years since, Mr. Craike, nineteen years since. He lived for several years with her in London under her name of Howe, earning his living honestly, not communicating with you and taking nothing from you. He disappeared ten years or so back. Mr. Craike, the agency that robbed you of your son; that took him from his wife and child, that shipped him out of England or hid his body in the ground—for whether he be alive or dead I cannot tell, even as you—I do believe to be the active enmity of your son Charles—his jealousy of Richard Craike, his elder brother and your heir.”
And now at last I saw the cruel lips part; and now I heard the old man gasp and mutter to himself; I saw the red flash upon his shaking hands; I saw his eyes burn up, and flame from Bradbury to me.
“Mr. Craike,” Mr. Bradbury proceeded, “the proofs of this marriage—of the boy’s legitimacy—are in my hands.”
“You have these proofs with you?”
“Mr. Craike, would I be such a fool as to bring them here? Would Mrs. Richard Craike entrust them to me, coming to this house? We have them and we hold them.”
“Fearing me?”
“No! Fearing your son Charles. With cause, sir, with bitter cause! And hear this, sir, we should have been here days since—would have been—but for your son. His agents waylay our coach; his agents carry off the boy and gaol him in the Stone House you may know of. Ay, and would have shipped him overseas with Blunt—smuggler, freebooter—what is he? All this, all this,—to keep the lad from you, sir, while you sit by your fire alone—alone!”
“You’ve proof of this? I have no knowledge of any plot?”