He could not blame himself for the past, for he had done nothing of which he was ashamed. He had been put by circumstances in a false position, but he had freed himself frankly and boldly; and every candid man must acknowledge that he could not have done otherwise than he had. Yet he was aware that his conduct was open to misconstruction. Some, even on his own side, would say that he had gone to Chippinge prepared to support his kinsman; and that then, tempted by the opportunity of gaining the seat for himself, he had faced about. Few would believe the truth-that twenty-four hours before the election he had declined to stand. Still fewer would believe that in withdrawing his "No," he had been wholly moved by the offer which Sir Robert had made to him and the unworthy manner in which he had treated him.
Yet that was the truth; and so entirely the truth, that but for that offer he would have resigned the seat even now. For he had no mind to enter the House under a cloud. He knew that to do so was to endanger the boat in which his fortunes were embarked. But in face of that offer he could not withdraw. Sir Robert, Wetherell, White, all would believe that he had resigned, not on the point of honour, but for a bribe, and because the bribe, refused at first, grew larger the longer he eyed it.
So, for good or evil, his mind was made up. And for a few minutes, while the roar of the mob applauding him rose to his windows, he was happy. He was a member of the Commons' House. He stood on that threshold on which Harley and St. John, Walpole the wise, and the inspired Cornet, Pitt and Fox, spoiled children of fortune, Castlereagh the illogical, and Canning
Born with an ancient name of little worth,And disinherited before hit birth,and many another had stood; knowing no more than he knew what fortune had in womb for them, what of hushed silence would one day mark their rising, what homage of loyal hearts and thundering feet would hang upon their words. As their fortunes his might be; to sway to tears or laughter, to a nation's weal or woe, the men who ruled; to know his words were fateful, and yet to speak with no uncertain voice; to give the thing he did not deign to wear, and make the man whom he must follow after, ay,
To fall as Walpole and to fail at Pitt!this, all this might be his, if he were worthy! If the dust of that arena knew no better man!
His heart rose on the wave of thought and he felt himself fit for all, equipped for all. He owned no task too hard, no enterprise too high. Nor did he fall from the clouds until he remembered the change in his fortunes, and bethought him that henceforth he must depend upon himself. The story would be sifted, of course, and its truth or falsehood be made clear. But whatever use Sir Robert might have deigned to make of it, Vaughan did not believe that he would have stooped to invent it. And if it were true, then all the importance which had attached to himself as the heir to a great property, all the privileges, all the sanctity of coming wealth, were gone.
But with them the responsibilities of that position were gone also. The change might well depress his head and cloud his heart. He had lost much which he could hardly hope to win for himself. Yet-yet there were compensations.
He had passed through much in the last twenty-four hours; and, perhaps for that reason, he was peculiarly open to emotion. In the thought that henceforth he might seek a companion where he pleased, in the remembrance that he had no longer any tastes to consult but his own, any prejudices to respect save those which he chose to adopt, he found a comfort at which he clutched eagerly and thankfully. The world which shook him off-he would no longer be guided by its dictates! The race, strenuous and to the swift, ay, to the draining of heart and brain, he would not run it alone, uncheered, unsolaced-merely because while things were different he had walked by a certain standard of conduct! If he was now a poor man he was at least free! Free to take the one he loved into the boat in which his fortunes floated, nor ask too closely who were her forbears. Free to pursue his ambition hand in hand with one who would sweeten failure and share success, and who in that life of scant enjoyment and high emprise to which he must give himself, would be a guardian angel, saving him from the spells of folly and pleasure!
He might please himself now, and he would. Flixton might laugh, the men of the 14th might laugh. And in Bury Street he might have winced. But in Mecklenburgh Square, where he and she would set up their modest tent, he would not care.
He could not go to Bristol until the morrow, for he had to see Pybus, but he would write and tell her of his fortunes and ask her to share them. The step was no sooner conceived than attempted. He sat down and took pen and paper, and with a glow at his heart, in a state of generous agitation, he prepared to write.
But he had never written to her, he had never called her by her name. And the difficulty of addressing her overwhelmed him. In the end, after sitting appalled by the bold and shameless look of "Dear Mary," "Dearest Mary," and of addresses warmer than these, he solved the difficulty, after a tame and proper fashion by writing to Miss Sibson. And this is what he wrote:
"Dear Madame,"At the interview which I had with you on Saturday last, you were good enough to intimate that if I were prepared to give an affirmative answer to a question which you did not put into words, you would permit me to see Miss Smith. I am now in a position to give the assurance as to my intentions which you desired, and trust that I may see Miss Smith on my arrival in Bristol to-morrow.
"Believe me to remain, Madame,"Truly yours,"Arthur V. Vaughan."And all his life, he told himself, he would remember the use to which he had put his first frank!
That night the toasting and singing, drunkenness and revelry of which the borough was the scene, kept him long waking. But eleven o'clock on the following morning saw him alighting from a chaise at Bristol, and before noon he was in Queen's Square.
For the time at least he had put the world behind him. And it was in pure exultation and the joyous anticipation of what was to come that he approached the house. He came, a victor from the fight; nor, he reflected, was it every suitor who had it in his power to lay such offerings at the feet of his mistress. In the eye of the world, indeed, he was no longer what he had been; for the matchmaking mother he had lost his value. But he had still so much to give which Mary had not, he could still so alter the tenor of her life, he could still so lift her in the social scale, those hopes which she was to share still flew on pinions so ambitious-ay, to the very scattering of garters and red-ribbons-that his heart was full of the joy of giving. He must not be blamed if he felt as King Cophetua when he stooped to the beggar-maiden, or as the Lord of Burleigh when he woo'd the farmer's daughter. After all, he did but rejoice that she had so little and he had so much; that he could give and she could grace.
When he came to the house he paused a moment in wonder that when all things were altered, his prospects, views, plans, its face rose unchanged. Then he knocked boldly; the time for hesitation was past. He asked for Miss Smith-thinking it likely that he would have to wait until the school rose at noon. The maid, however, received him as if she expected him, and ushered him at once into a room on the left of the entrance. He stood, holding his hat, waiting, listening; but not for long. The door had scarcely closed on the girl before it opened again, and Mary Smith came in. She met his eyes, and started, blushed a divine rosy-red and stood wide-eyed and uncertain, with her hand on the door.
"Did you not expect me?" he said, taken aback on his side. For this was not the Mary Smith with whom he travelled on the coach; nor the Mary Smith with whom he had talked in the Square. This was a Mary Smith, no less beautiful, but gay and fresh as the morning, in dainty white with a broad blue sash, with something new, something of a franker bearing in her air. "Did you not expect me?" he repeated gently, advancing a step towards her.
"No," she murmured, and she stood blushing before him, blushing more deeply with every second. For his eyes were beginning to talk, and to tell the old tale.
"Did not Miss Sibson get my letter?" he asked gently.
"I think not," she murmured.
"Then I have all-to do," he said nervously. It was-it was certainly a harder thing to do than he had expected. "Will you not sit down, please," he pleaded. "I want you to listen to me."
For a moment she looked as if she would flee instead. Then she let him lead her to a seat.
He sat down within reach of her. "And you did not know that it was I?" he said, feeling the difficulty increase with every second.
"No."
"I hope," he said, hesitating, "that you are glad that it is?"
"I am glad to see you again-to thank you," she murmured. But while her blushes and her downcast eyes seemed propitious to his suit, there was something-was it, could it be a covert smile hiding at the corners of her little mouth? – some change in her which oppressed him, and which he did not understand. One thing he did understand, however: that she was more beautiful, more desirable, more intoxicating than he had pictured her. And his apprehensions grew upon him, as he paused tongue-tied, worshipping her with his eyes. If, after all, she would not? What if she said, "No"? For what, now he came to measure them beside her, were those things he brought her, those things he came to offer, that career which he was going to ask her to share? What were they beside her adorable beauty and her modesty, the candour of her maiden eyes, the perfection of her form? He saw their worthlessness; and the bold phrase with which he had meant to open his suit, the confident, "Mary, I am come for you," which he had repeated so often to the rhythm of the chaise-wheels, that he was sure he would never forget it, died on his lips.
At last, "You speak of thanks-it is to gain your thanks I am come," he said nervously. "But I don't ask for words. I want you to think as-as highly as you can of what I did for you-if you please! I want you to believe that I saved your life on the coach. I want you to think that I did it at great risk to myself. I want you," he continued hurriedly, "to exaggerate a hundredfold-everything I did for you. And then I want you to think that you owe all to a miser, who will be content with nothing short of-of immense interest, of an extortionate return."
"I don't think that I understand," she answered in a low tone, her cheeks glowing. But beyond that, he could not tell aught of her feelings; she kept her eyes lowered so that he could not read them, and there were, even in the midst of her shyness, an ease and an aloofness in her bearing, which were new to him and which frightened him. He remembered how quickly she had on other occasions put him in his place; how coldly she had asserted herself. Perhaps, she had no feeling for him. Perhaps, apart from the incident in the coach, she even disliked him!
"You do not understand," he said unsteadily, "what is the return I want?"
"No-o," she faltered.
He stood up abruptly, and took a pace or two from her. "And I hardly dare tell you," he said. "I hardly dare tell you. I came to you, I came here as brave as a lion. And now, I don't know why, I am frightened."
She-astonishing thing! – leapt the gulf for him. Possibly the greater distance at which he stood gave her courage. "Are you afraid," she murmured, moving her fingers restlessly, and watching them, "that you may change your mind again?"
"Change my mind?" he ejaculated, not for the moment understanding her. So much had happened since his collision with Flixton in the Square.
"As that gentleman-said you were in the habit of doing."
"Ah!"
"It was not true?"
"True?" he exclaimed hotly. "True that I-that I-"
"Changed your mind?" she said with her face averted. "And not-not only that, sir?"
"What else?" he asked bitterly.
"Talked of me-among your friends?"
"A lie! A miserable lie!" he cried on impulse, finding his tongue again. "But I will tell you all. He saw you-that first morning, you remember, and never having seen anyone so lovely, he intended to make you the object of-of attentions that were unworthy of you. And to protect you I told him that I was going-to make you my wife."
"Is that what you mean to-day?" she asked faintly.
"Yes."
"But you did not mean it then?" she answered-though very gently. "It was to shield me you said it?"
He looked at her, astonished at her insight and her boldness. How different, how very different was this from that to which he had looked forward! At last, "I think I meant it," he said gloomily. "God knows I mean it now! But that evening," he continued, seeing that she still waited with averted face for the rest of his explanation, "he challenged me at dinner before them all, and I," he added jerkily, "I was not quite sure what I meant-I had no mind that you should be made the talk of the-of my friends-"
"And so-you denied it?" she said gently.
He hung his head. "Yes," he said.
"I think I-I understand," she answered unsteadily. "What I do not understand is why you are here to-day. Why you have changed your mind again. Why you are now willing that I should be-the talk of your friends, sir."
He stood, the picture of abasement. Must he acknowledge his doubts and his hesitation, allow that he had been ashamed of her, admit that he had deemed the marriage he now sought, a mésalliance? Must he open to her eyes those hours of cowardly vacillation during which he had walked the Clifton Woods weighing I would against I dare not? And do it in face of that new dignity, that new aloofness which he recognised in her and which made him doubt if he had an ally in her heart.
More, if he told her, would she understand? How should she, bred so differently, understand how heavily the old name with its burden of responsibilities, how heavily the past with its obligations to duty and sacrifice, had weighed upon him! And if he told her and she did not understand, what mercy had he to expect from her?
Still, for a moment he was on the point of telling her: and of telling her also why he was now free to please himself, why, rid of the burden with the inheritance, he could follow his heart. But the tale was long and roundabout, she knew nothing of the Vermuydens, of their importance, or his expectations, or what he had lost or what he had gained. And it seemed simpler to throw himself on her mercy. "Because I love you!" he said humbly. "I have nothing else to say."
"And you are sure that you will not change your mind again?"
There was that in her voice, though he could not see her face, which brought him across two squares of the carpet as if she had jerked him with a string. In a second he was on his knees beside her, and had laid a feverish hand on hers. "Mary," he cried, "Mary!" seeking to look up into her face, "you will! You will! You will let me take you? You will let me take you from here! I cannot offer you what I once thought I could, but I have enough, and, you will?" There was a desperate supplication in his voice; for close to her, so close that his breath was on her cheek, she seemed, with her half-averted face and her slender figure, so dainty a thing, so delicate and rare, that he could hardly believe that she could ever be his, that he could be so lucky as to possess her, that he could ever take her in his arms. "You will? You will?" he repeated, empty of all other words.
She did not speak, she could not speak. But she bowed her head.
"You will?"
She turned her eyes on him then; eyes so tender and passionate that they seemed to draw his heart, his being, his strength out of him. "Yes," she whispered shyly. "If I am allowed."
"Allowed? Allowed?" he cried. How in a moment was all changed for him! "I would like to see-" And then breaking off-perhaps it was her fault for leaning a little towards him-he did that which he had thought a moment before that he would never dare to do. He put his arm round her and drew her gently and reverently to him until-for she did not resist-her head lay on his shoulder. "Mine!" he murmured, "Mine! Mine! Mary, I can hardly believe it. I can hardly think I am so blest."
"And you will not change?" she whispered.
"Never! Never!"
They were silent. Was she thinking of the dark night, when she had walked lonely and despondent to her new and unknown home? Or of many another hour of solitary depression, spent in dull and dreary schoolrooms, while others made holiday? Was he thinking of his doubts and fears, his cowardly hesitation? Or only of his present monstrous happiness? No matter. At any rate, they had forgotten the existence of anything outside the room, they had forgotten the world and Miss Sibson, they were in a Paradise of their own, such as is given to no man and to no woman more than once, they were a million miles from Bristol City, when the sound made by the opening door surprised them in that posture. Vaughan turned fiercely to see who it was, to see who dared to trespass on their Eden. He looked, only looked, and he sprang to his feet, amazed. He thought for a moment that he was dreaming, or that he was mad.
For on the threshold, gazing at them with a face of indescribable astonishment, rage and incredulity, was Sir Robert Vermuyden. Sir Robert Vermuyden, the one last man in the world whom Arthur Vaughan would have expected to see there!
XX
A PLOT UNMASKED
For a few moments the old man and the young man gazed at one another, alike in this only that neither found words equal to his feelings. While Mary, covered with confusion, blushing for the situation in which she had been found, could not hold up her head. It was Sir Robert who at last broke the silence in a voice which trembled with passion.
"You viper!" he said. "You viper! You would sting me-here also."
Vaughan stared at him, aghast. The intrusion was outrageous, but astonishment rather than anger was the young man's first feeling. "Here also?" he repeated, as if he thought that he must have heard amiss. "I sting you? What do you mean? Why have you followed me?" And then more warmly, "How dare you, sir, spy on me?" And he threw back his head in wrath.
The old man, every nerve and vein in his lean, high forehead swollen and leaping, raised his cane and shook it at him. "Dare? Dare?" he cried, and then for very rage his voice failed him.
Vaughan closed his eyes and opened them again. "I am dreaming," he said. "I must be dreaming. Are you Sir Robert Vermuyden? Is this house Miss Sibson's school? Are we in Bristol? Or is it all-but first, sir," recalling abruptly and with indignation the situation in which he had been surprised, and raising his tone, "how come you here? I have a right to know that!"
"How come I here?"
"Yes! How come you here, sir?"
"You ask me! You ask me!" Sir Robert repeated, as if he could not believe his ears. "How I come here! You scoundrel! You scoundrel!"
Vaughan started under the lash of the word. The insult was gratuitous, intolerable! No relationship, no family tie could excuse it. No wonder that the astonishment and irritation which had been his first feelings, gave way to pure anger. Sir Robert might be this or that. He might have, or rather, he might have had certain rights. But now all that was over, the relationship was a thing of the past. And to suppose that he was still to suffer the old gentleman's interference, to put up with his insults, to permit him in the presence of a young girl, his promised wife, to use such language as he was using, was out of the question. Vaughan's face grew dark.
"Sir Robert," he said, "you are too old to be called to account. You may say, therefore, what you please. But not-not if you are a gentleman-until this young lady has left the room."
"This-young-lady!" Sir Robert gasped in an indescribable tone: and with the cane quivering in his grasp he looked from Vaughan to the girl.
"Yes," Vaughan answered sternly. "That young lady! And do not let me hear you call her anything else, sir, for she has promised to be my wife."
"You lie!" the baronet cried, the words leaping from his lips.
"Sir Robert!"
"My daughter-promised to be your wife! My-my-"
"Your daughter!"
"Hypocrite!" Sir Robert retorted, flinging the word at him. "You knew it! You knew it!"
"Your daughter?"
"Ay, that she was my daughter!"
"Your daughter!"
This time the words fell from Arthur Vaughan in a whisper. And he stood, turned to stone. His daughter? Sir Robert's daughter? The girl-he tried desperately to clear his mind-of whom Wetherell had told the story, the girl whom her mother had hidden away, while in Italy, the girl whose reappearance in life had ousted him or was to oust him from his inheritance? Mary Smith-was that girl! His daughter!
But no! The blood leapt back to his heart. It was impossible, it was incredible! The coincidence was too great, too amazing. His reason revolted against it. And "Impossible!" he cried in a louder, a bolder tone-though fear underlay its confidence. "You are playing with me! You must be jesting!" he repeated angrily.
But the elder man, though his hand still trembled on his cane and his face was sallow with rage, had regained some control of himself. Instead of retorting on Vaughan-except by a single glance of withering contempt-he turned to Mary. "You had better go to your room," he said, coldly but not ungently. For how could he blame her, bred amid such surroundings, for conduct that in other circumstances had irritated him indeed? For conduct that had been unseemly, unmaidenly, improper. "You had better go to your room," he repeated. "This is no fit place for you and no fit discussion for your ears. I am not-the fault is not with you, but it will be better if you leave us."
She was rising, too completely overwhelmed to dream of refusing, when Vaughan interposed. "No," he said with a gleam of defiance in his eyes. "By your leave, sir, no! This young lady is my affianced wife. If it be her own wish to retire, be it so. But if not, there is no one who has the right to bid her go or stay. You" – checking Sir Robert's wrathful rejoinder by a gesture-"you may be her father, but before you can exercise a father's rights you must make good your case."
"Make good my case!" Sir Robert ejaculated.
"And when you have made it good, it will still be for her to choose between us," Vaughan continued with determination. "You, who have never played a father's part, who have never guided or guarded, fostered or cherished her-do not think, sir, that you can in a moment arrogate to yourself a father's authority."
Sir Robert gasped. But the next moment he took up the glove so boldly flung down. He pointed to the door, and with less courtesy than the occasion demanded-but he was sore pressed by his anger, "Leave the room, girl," he said.
"Do as you please, Mary," Vaughan said.
"Go!" cried the baronet, stung by the use of her name. "Stay!" said Vaughan.
Infinitely distressed, infinitely distracted by this appeal from the one, from the other, from this side, from that, she turned her swimming eyes on her lover. "Oh, what," she cried, "what am I to do?"
He did not speak, but he looked at her, not doubting what she would do, nor conceiving it possible that she could prefer to him, her lover, whose sweet professions were still honey in her ears, whose arm was still warm from the pressure of her form-that she could prefer to him, a father who was no more than the shadow of a name.
But he did not know Mary yet, either in her strength or her weakness. Nor did he consider that her father was already more than a name to her. She hung a moment undecided and wretched, drooping as the white rose that hangs its head in the first shower. Then she turned to the elder man, and throwing her arms about his neck hung in tears on his breast. "You will be good to him, sir," she whispered passionately. "Oh, forgive him! Forgive him, sir!"
"My dear-"
"Oh, forgive him, sir!"
Sir Robert smoothed her hair with a caressing hand, and with pinched lips and bright eyes looked at his adversary over her head. "I would forgive him," he said, "I could forgive him-all but this! All but this, my dear! I could forgive him had he not tricked you and deceived you, cozened you and flattered you-into this! Into the belief that he loves you, while he loves only your inheritance! Or that part," he added bitterly, "of which he has not already robbed you!"
