“Granted! But will you not hear what it is, that is to be proved?” Wetherell retorted. “If so, sit down, sir, sit down, and hear what we have to tell you like a man. Will you do that,” in a tone of extreme exasperation, which did but reflect the slowly hardening expression of Sir Robert’s face, “or are you quite a fool?”
Vaughan hesitated, looking with angry eyes on Wetherell. Then he sat down. “Am I to understand,” he said coldly, “that this is news to Sir Robert?”
“It was news to him yesterday.”
Vaughan bowed and was silent; aware that a more generous demeanour would better become him, but unable to compass it on the spur of the moment. He was ignorant—unfortunately—of the spirit in which he had been summoned: consequently he could not guess that every word he uttered rang churlishly in the ears of more than one of his listeners. He was no churl; but he was taken unfairly—as it seemed to him. And to be called upon in the first moment of chagrin to congratulate Sir Robert on an event which ruined his own prospects and changed his life—was too much. Too much! But again Wetherell was speaking.
“You shall know what we know from the beginning,” he said, in his heavy melancholy way. “You are aware, I suppose, that Sir Robert married—in the year ’10, was it not?—Yes, in the year ’10, and that Lady Vermuyden bore him one child, a daughter, who died in Italy in the year ’15. It appears now—we are in a position to prove, I think—that that child did not die in that year, nor in any year; but is now alive, is in this country and can be perfectly identified.”
Vaughan coughed. “This is strange news,” he said, “after all these years; and somewhat sudden, is it not?”
Sir Robert’s face grew harder, but Wetherell only shrugged his shoulders. “If you will listen,” he replied, “you will know all that we know. It is no secret, at any rate in this room it is no secret, that in the year ’14 Sir Robert fancied that he had grave reason to be displeased with Lady Vermuyden. It was thought by her friends that a better agreement might be produced by a temporary separation, and the child’s health afforded a pretext. Accordingly, Sir Robert suffered Lady Vermuyden to take it abroad, her suite consisting of a courier, a maid, and a nurse. The nurse she sent back to England not long afterwards on the plea that an Italian woman from whom the child might learn the language would be better. For my part, I believe that she acted bonâ-fide in this. But in other respects,” puffing out his cheeks, “her conduct was such as to alarm her husband; and, in terms perhaps too peremptory, Sir Robert bade her return at once—or cease to consider his house as her home. Her answer was the announcement of the child’s death.”
“And that it did not die,” Vaughan murmured, “as Lady Vermuyden said?”
“We have this evidence. But first let me say, that Sir Robert on the receipt of the news set out for Italy overland. The Hundred Days, however, stopped him; he could not cross France, and he returned without certifying the child’s death. He had indeed no suspicion, no reason for suspicion. Well, then, for evidence that it did not die. The courier is dead, and there remains only the maid. She is alive, she is here, she is in this house. And it is from her that we have learned the truth—that the child did not die.”
He paused a moment, brooding in his fat, melancholy way on the pattern of the carpet between his feet. Sir Robert, with a face hard and proud, sat upright, listening to the tale of his misfortunes—and doubtless suffered torments as he listened.