Chapter XIV: Book IV: XIX (1)

Tatham was returning alone from a run with the West Cumbrian hounds. The December day was nearly done, and he saw the pageant of its going from a point on the outskirts of his own park. The park, a great space of wild land extending some miles to the north through a sparsely peopled county, was bounded and intersected throughout its northerly section by various high moorland roads. At a cross-road, leading to Duddon on the left, and to a remote valley running up the eastern side of Blencathra on the right, he reined up his horse to look for a moment at the sombre glow which held the western heaven; amid which the fells of Thirlmere and Derwentwater stood superbly ranged in threatening blacks and purples. To the east and over the waste of Flitterdale, that great flat "moss" in which the mountains die away, there was the prophecy of moonrise; a pearly radiance in the air, a peculiar whiteness in the mists that had gathered along the river, a silver message in the sky. But the wind was rising, and the westerly clouds rushing up. The top of Blencathra was already hidden; it might be a wild night.

Only one luminous point was to be seen, at first, in all the wide and splendid landscape. It shone from Threlfall Tower, a dark and indistinguishable mass amid its hanging woods.

"Old Melrose--counting out his money!"

But as the scornful fancy crossed his mind, a few other dim and scattered lights began to prick the gloom of the fast-darkening valley. That twinkle far away, in the direction of St. John's Vale, might it not be the light of Green Cottage--of Lydia's lamp?

He sat his horse, motionless, consumed with longing and grief. Yet, hard exercise in the open air, always seemed to bring him a kind of physical comfort. "It _was_ a jolly _run_!" he thought, yet half ashamed. His young blood was in love with life, through all heartache.

Suddenly, a whirring sound from the road on his right, and the flash of moving lamps. He saw that a small motor was approaching, and his mare began to fidget.

"Gently, old girl!"

The motor approached and slowed at the corner.

"Hallo Undershaw! is that you?"

The motor stopped and Undershaw jumped out, and turned off his engine. Tatham's horse was pirouetting.

"All right," said Undershaw; "I'll walk by you a bit. Turn her up your road."

The beautiful mare quieted down, and presently the two were in close talk, while the motor left to itself blazed on the lonely moorland road.

Undershaw was describing a visit he had paid that morning to old Brand, the bailiff, who was now quietly and uncomplainingly losing hold on life.

"He may go any time--perhaps to-night. The elder son's departure has finished him. I told the lad that if he cared to stay till his father's death, you would see that he got work meanwhile on the estate; but he was wild to go--not a scrap of filial affection that I could make out!--and the poor old fellow has scarcely spoken since he left the house. So there he is, left with the feeble old wife, and the half-witted son, who grows queerer and madder than ever. I needn't say the woman was very grateful--"

"Don't!" said Tatham; "it's a beastly world."

They moved on in silence, till Undershaw resumed:

"Dixon came to the surgery this afternoon, and I understood from him that he thinks Melrose is breaking up fast. He tries to live as usual; and his temper is appalling. But Dixon sees a great change."

"Well, it'll scarcely be possible to say that his decease 'cast a gloom over the countryside.' Will it?" laughed Tatham.

"What'll Faversham do? That's what I keep asking myself."

"Do? Why, go off with the shekels, and be damned to us! I understand that just at present he's paying rather high for them, which is some satisfaction. That creature Nash told one of our men the other day that Melrose now treats him like dirt, and finds his chief amusement in stopping anything he wants to do."

"Then he'd better look sharp after the will," said Undershaw, with a smile. "Melrose is game for any number of tricks yet. But I don't judge Faversham quite as you do. I believe he has all sorts of grand ideas in his head about what he'll do when he comes in."

"I daresay! You need 'em when you begin with taking soiled money. Mrs. Melrose got the quarterly payment of her allowance yesterday, from an Italian bank--twenty-five pounds minus ten pounds, which seems to be mortgaged in some way. Melrose's solicitors gracefully let her know that the allowance was raised by twenty pounds! On fifteen pounds therefore she and the girl are expected to exist for the quarter--_and_ support the old father. And yesterday just after my mother had shown me the check, I saw Faversham in Pengarth, driving a Rolls-Royce car, brand-new, with a dark fellow beside him whom I know quite well as a Bond Street dealer. I conclude Faversham was taking him to see the collections--_his_ collections!"

"It looks ugly I grant. But I believe he'll provide for the girl as soon as he can."

"And I hope she'll refuse it!" cried Tatham. "And I believe she will. She's a girl of spirit. She talks of going on the stage. My mother has found out that she's got a voice, and she dances divinely. My mother's actually got a teacher for her from London, whom we put up in the village."

"A lovely little girl!" said Undershaw. "And she's getting over her hardships. But the mother--" He shook his head.

"You think she's in a bad way?"

"Send her back to Italy as soon as you can. She's pining for her own people. Life's been a bit too hard for her, and she never was but a poor thing. Well, I must go."

Tatham stayed his horse. Undershaw, added as though by an afterthought:

"I was at Green Cottage this morning. Mrs. Penfold's rather knocked up with nursing her sister. She chattered to me about Faversham. He used to be a good deal there but they've broken with him too; apparently, because of Mainstairs. Miss Lydia couldn't stand it. She was _so_ devoted to the people."

The man on horseback made some inaudible reply, and they began to talk of a couple of sworn inquiries about to be held on the Threlfall estate by the officials of the Local Government Board, into the housing and sanitation of three of the chief villages on Melrose's property. The department had been induced to move by a committee of local gentlemen, in which Tatham had taken a leading part. The whole affair had reduced itself indeed so far to a correspondence duel between Tatham, as representing a scandalized neighbourhood, and Faversham, as representing Melrose.

Tatham's letters, in which a man, with no natural gift for the pen, had developed a surprising amount of effective sarcasm, had all appeared in the local press; with Faversham's ingenious and sophistical replies. Tatham discussed them now with Undershaw in a tone of passionate bitterness. The doctor said little. He had his own shrewd ideas on the situation.

* * * * *

When Undershaw left him, Tatham rode on, up the forest lane, till again the trees fell away, the wide valley with its boundary fells opened before him, and again his eye sought through the windy dusk for the far-gleaming light that spoke to him of Lydia. His mind was full of fresh agitation, stirred by Undershaw's remark about her. The idea of a breach between Lydia and Faversham was indeed most welcome, since it seemed to restore Lydia to that pedestal from which it had been so hard and strange to see her descend. It gave him back the right to worship her! And yet, the notion did nothing--now--to revive any hope for himself. He kept the distant light in view for long, his heart full of a tenderness which, though he did not know it, had already parted with much of the bitterness of unsatisfied passion. Unconsciously, the healing process was on its way; the healing of the normal man, on whom a wound is no sooner inflicted than all the reparative powers of life rush together for its cure.

* * * *

But while Tatham, wrapped in thoughts of Lydia, was thus drawing homeward, across the higher ground of the estate, down through the Duddon woods, as they fell gently to the river, a little figure was hurrying, with the step of a fugitive, and half-nervous, half-exultant looks from side to side. The moon had risen. It was not dark in the woods, and Felicia, amid the _boschi_ of the Apuan Alps, had never been frightened of the night or of any ill befalling her. In Lucca itself she might be insulted; on the hills, never. She had the independence, and--generally speaking--the strength of the working girl. So that the enterprise on which she was launched--the quest of her father--presented itself to her as nothing particularly difficult. She had indeed to keep it from her mother and Lady Tatham, and to find means of escaping them. That she calmly took steps to do, not bothering her head much about it.

As to the rest of the business, there was a station on the Keswick line close to the gate of the park, and she had looked out a train which would take her conveniently to Whitebeck, which was only half a mile from Threlfall. From Duddon to Whitebeck took eight minutes in the train. She would be at Whitebeck a little after five; allowing an hour for her adventure at the Tower, and some little margin, she would catch a train back between six and seven, which would allow of her slipping into Duddon a little after seven, unnoticed, and in good time to dress for dinner. Her Italian blood betrayed itself throughout, alike in the keen pleasure she took in the various devices of her small plot; in the entire absence of any hampering scruples as to the disobedience and deceit which it involved; and in the practical intelligence with which she was ready to carry it out. She had brooded over it for days; and this afternoon a convenient opportunity had arisen. Her mother was in her room with a headache; Lady Tatham had had to go to Carlisle on business.

As she hastened, almost running, through the park, she was planning, by fits and starts, what she would say to her father. But still more was the thinking of Tatham--asking herself questions about him, with little thrills of excitement, and little throbbings of delicious fear.

Here she was, at the gate of the park. Just ten minutes to her train! She hurried on. A few labourers were in the road coming home tired from their work; a few cottage doors were ajar, showing the bright fire, and the sprawling children within. Some of the men as they passed looked with curiosity at the slim stranger; but she was well muffled up in her new furs--Victoria's gift--and her large felt hat; they saw little more than the tips of her small nose and chin.

The train came in just as she reached the station. She took her ticket for Whitebeck, and as the train jogged along, she looked out of the window at the valley in the dim moonrise, her mind working tumultuously. Lady Tatham had told her much; Hesketh, Lady Tatham's maid, and the old coachman who had been teaching her to ride, had told her more. She knew that before she reached Whitebeck she would have passed the boundary between the Duddon and Threlfall estates. She was now indeed on her father's land, the land which in justice ought to be hers some day; which in Italy would be hers by law, or part of it anyway, whatever pranks her father might play. But here in England a man might rob his child of every penny if he pleased. That was strange when England was such a great country--such a splendid country. "I _love_ England!" she thought passionately, as she leant back with folded arms and closed eyes.

And straightway on the dusk rose the image of Tatham--Tatham on horseback, as she had seen him set out for the hunt that morning; and she felt her eyes grow a little wet. Why? Oh! because he was so tall and splendid--and he sat his horse like a king--and everybody loved him--and she was living in his house--and so, whether he would or no, he must take notice of her sometimes. One evening had he not let her mend his glove? And another evening, when she was practising her dancing for Lady Tatham, had he not come in to look? Ah, well, wait till she could sing and dance properly, till--perhaps--he saw her on the stage! Her newly discovered singing voice, which was the excitement of the moment for Lady Tatham and Netta, was to Felicia like some fairy force within her, struggling to be at large, which would some day carve out her fortunes, and bring her to Tatham--on equal terms.

For her pride had flourished and fed upon her love. She no longer talked of Tatham to her mother or any one else. But deep in her heart lay the tenacious, pursuing instinct.

And besides--suppose--she made an impression on her father--on his cruel old heart? Such things do happen. It's silly to say they don't. "I _am_ pretty--and now my clothes are all right--and my hands have come nearly white. He'll see I'm not a girl to be ashamed of. And if my father did give me a _dot_--why then I'd send my mother to _his_ mother! That's how we'd do it in Italy. I'm as well-born as he--nearly--and if I had a _dot_--"

The yellow-haired girl at any rate was quite out of the way. No one spoke of her; no one mentioned her. That was all right.

And as to Threlfall and her father, if she was able to soften him at all it would not be in the least necessary to drive that bad young man, Mr. Faversham, to despair. Compromise--bargaining--settle most things. She fell to imagining--with a Latin clearness and realism--how it might be handled. Only it would have to be done before her father died. For if Mr. Faversham once took all the money and all the land, there would be no _dot_ for her, even if he were willing to give it her. For Lord Tatham would never take a farthing from Mr. Faversham, not even through his wife. "And so it would be no use to me," thought Felicia, quietly, but regretfully.

Whitebeck station. Out she tripped, asked her way to Threlfall, and hurried off into the dark, followed by the curious looks of the station-master.

She was soon at the park gate, and passed through it with a beating heart. She had heard of the bloodhounds; and the sound of a bark in the distance--though it was only the collie at the farm--gave her a start of terror.

The Whitebeck gate was but a short distance from the house, and as she turned a corner, the Tower rose suddenly before her. She held her breath; it looked so big, so darkly magnificent. She thought of all the tales that had been told her, the rooms full of silver and gold--the _arazzi_--the _stucchi_--the cabinets and sculpture. She had grown up in an atmosphere of perpetual bric-a-brac; she had seen the big Florentine shops; she could imagine what it was like.

There were lights in two of the windows; and the smoke from several chimneys rose wind-beaten against the woods behind. The moon stood immediately over the roof, and the shadow of the house stretched beyond the forecourt almost to her feet.

She lingered a few minutes, fascinated, gazing at this huge place where her father lived--her father whom she had never seen since she was a baby. The moon lit up her tiny figure, and her small white face, as she stood in the open, alone in the wintry silence.

Then, swiftly, and instead of going up to the front door, she turned to the right along a narrow flagged path that skirted the forecourt and led to the back of the house.

She knew exactly what to do. She had planned it all with Hesketh, Hesketh, who was the daughter of a farmer on the Duddon estate, fifty years old, a born gossip, and acquainted with every man, woman and child in the neighbourhood. Did not Hesketh go to the same chapel with Thomas Dixon and his wife? And had she not a romantic soul, far above furbelows--a soul which had flung itself into the cause of the "heiress," to the point of keeping the child's secret, even from her ladyship? Hesketh indeed had suffered sharply from qualms of conscience in this respect. But Felicia had spared her as much as possible, by keeping the precise moment of her escapade to herself.

She groped her way round, till she came to a side path leading to an entrance. The path indeed was that by which Faversham had been originally carried into the Tower, across the foot-bridge. Peering over a low wall that bounded the path, she looked startled into an abyss of leafless trees, with a bright gleam of moonlit water far below. In front of her was a door and steps, and some rays of light penetrating through the shuttered windows beside the door, showed that there was life within.

Felicia mounted the steps and knocked. No one came. At last she found a bell and rang it--cautiously. Steps approached. The door was opened, and a gray-haired woman stood on the threshold.

"Well, what's your business?" she said sharply. It was evident that she was short-sighted, and did not clearly see the person outside.

"Please, I want to speak to Mr. Melrose."

The clear, low voice arrested the old woman.

"Eh?" she said testily. "And who may you be? You cawn't see Mr. Melrose, anyways."

"I want to see him particularly. Are you Mrs. Dixon?"

"Aye--a'am Mrs. Dixon. But aa've no time to goa chatterin' at doors wi' yoong women; soa if yo'll juist gie me yor business, I'll tell Muster Faversham, when he's got time to see to 't."

"It's not Mr. Faversham I want to see--it's Mr. Melrose. Mrs. Dixon, don't you remember me?"

Mrs. Dixon stepped back in puzzled annoyance, so as to let a light from the passage shine upon the stranger's face. She stood motionless.

Felicia stepped within.

"I am Miss Melrose," she said, with composure, "Felicia Melrose. You knew me when I was a child. And I wish to see my father."

Mrs. Dixon's face seemed to have fallen into chaos under the shock. She stood staring at the visitor, her mouth working.

"Muster Melrose's däater!" she said, at last. "T' baby--as was! Aye--yo' feature him! An' yo're stayin' ower ta Duddon--wi' her ladyship. I know. Dixon towd me. Bit yo' shouldna' coom here, Missie! Yo' canno' see your feyther."

"Why not?" said Felicia imperiously. "I mean to see him. Here I am in the house. Take me to him at once!"

And suddenly closing the entrance door behind her, she moved on toward an inner passage dimly lit, of which she had caught sight.

Mrs. Dixon clung to her arm.

"Noa, noa! Coom in here, Missie--coom in _here_! Dixon!--where are yo'? Dixon!"

She raised her voice. A chair was pushed back in the kitchen, on the other side of the passage. An old man who, to judge from his aspect, had been roused by his wife's call from a nap after his tea, appeared in a doorway.

Mrs. Dixon drew Felicia toward him, and into the kitchen, as he retreated thither. Then she shut and bolted the door.

"This is t' yoong lady!" she said in a breathless whisper to her husband. "Muster-Melrose's däater! She's coom fra Duddon. An' she's fer seein' her feyther."

Old Dixon had grown very pale. But otherwise he showed no surprise. He looked frowning at Felicia.

"Yo' canno' do that, Miss Melrose. Yo'r feyther wunna see yo'. He's an owd man noo, and we darena disturb him."

Felicia argued with the pair, first quietly, then with a heaving breast, and some angry tears. Dixon soon dropped the struggle, so far as words went. He left that to his wife. But he stood firmly against the door, looking on.

"You shan't keep me here!" said Felicia at last with a stamp. "I'll call some one! I'll make a noise!"

A queer, humorous look twinkled over Dixon's face. Then--suddenly--he moved from the door. His expression had grown hesitating--soft.

"Varra well, then. Yo' shall goa--if you mun goa."

His wife protested. He turned upon her.

"She shall goa!" he repeated, striking the dresser beside him. "Her feyther's an old man--an' sick. Mebbe he'll be meetin' his Mäaker face to face, before the year's oot; yo' canno' tell. He's weakenin' fasst. An' he's ben a hard mon to his awn flesh and blood. There'll be a reckonin'! An' the Lord's sent him this yan chance o' repentance. I'll not stan' i' the Lord's way--whativer. Coom along, Missie!"

And entirely regardless of his wife's entreaties, the old Methodist resolutely opened the kitchen door, and beckoned to Felicia. He was lame now and walked with a stick, his shoulders bent. But he neither paused, nor spoke to her again. Murmuring to himself, he led her along the inner passage, and opened the door into the great gallery.

A blaze of light and colour, a rush of heated air. Felicia was dazzled by the splendour of the great show within--the tapestries, the pictures, the gleaming reflections on lacquer and intarsia, on ebony or Sèvres. But the atmosphere was stifling. Melrose now could only live in the temperature of a hothouse.

Dixon threw open a door, and without a word beckoned to Felicia to enter. He hesitated a moment, evidently as to whether he should announce her; and then, stepping forward, he cleared his throat.

"Muster Melrose, theer's soom one as wants to speak to you!"

"What do you mean, you old fool!" said a deep, angry voice on the other side of a great lacquer screen; "didn't I tell you I wasn't to be disturbed?"

Felicia walked round the screen. Dixon, with an excited look at her, retired through the door which he closed behind him.

"Father!" said Felicia, in a low, trembling voice.

An old man who was writing at a large inlaid table, in the midst of a confusion of objects which the girl's eyes had no time to take in, turned sharply at the sound.

The two stared at each other. Melrose slowly revolved on his chair, pen in hand. Felicia stood, with eyes downcast, her cheeks burning, her hands lightly clasped.

Melrose spoke first.

"H'm--so they've sent _you_ here?"

She looked up.

"No one sent me. I--I wished to see you--before we went away; because you are my father--and I mightn't ever see you--if I didn't now. And I wanted to ask you"--her voice quivered--"not to be angry any more with mother and me. We never meant to vex you--by coming. But we were so poor--and mother is ill. Yes, she _is_ ill!--she is--it's no shamming. Won't you forgive us?--won't you give mother a little more money?--and won't you"--she clasped her hands entreatingly--"won't you give me a _dot_? I may want to be married--and you are so rich? And I wouldn't ever trouble you again--I--"

She broke off, intimidated, paralyzed by the strange fixed look of the old wizard before her--his flowing hair, his skullcap, his white and sunken features. And yet mysteriously she recognized herself in him. She realized through every fibre that he was indeed her father.

"You would have done better not to trouble me again!" said Melrose, with slow emphasis. "Your mother seems to pay no attention whatever to what I say. We shall see. So you want a _dot_? And, pray, what do you want a _dot_ for? Who's going to marry you? Tatham?"

The tone was more mocking than fierce; but Felicia shrank under it.

"Oh, no, _no_! But I _might_ want to marry," she added piteously. "And in Italy--one can't marry--without a _dot_!"

"Your mother should have thought of these things when she ran away."

Felicia was silent a moment. Then, without invitation, she seated herself on the edge of a chair that stood near him.

"That was so long ago," she said timidly--yet confidingly. "And I was a baby. Couldn't you--couldn't you forget it now?"

Melrose surveyed her.

"I suppose you like being at Duddon?" he asked her abruptly, without answering her question.

She clasped her hands fervently.

"It's like heaven! They're so good to us."

"No doubt!"--the tone was sarcastic. "Well, let them provide for you. Who gave you those clothes? Lady Tatham?"

She nodded. Her lip trembled. Her startled eyes looked at him piteously.

"You've been living at Lucca?"

"Near Lucca--on the mountains."

"H'm. Is that all true--about your grandfather?"

"That he's ill? Of course, it's true!" she said indignantly. "We don't tell lies. He's had a stroke--he's dying. And we could hardly give him any food he could eat. You see--"

She edged a little closer, and began a voluble, confidential account of their life in the mountains. Her voice was thin and childish, but sweet; and every now and then she gave a half-frightened, half-excited laugh. Melrose watched her frowning; but he did not stop her. Her bright eyes and brows, with their touches of velvet black, the quick movement of her pink lips, the rose-leaf delicacy of her colour, seemed to hold him. Among the pretty things with which the room was crowded she was the prettiest; and he probably was conscious of it. Propped up against the French bureau stood a Watteau drawing in red chalk--a _sanguine_--he had bought in Paris on a recent visit. The eyes of the old connoisseur went from the living face to the drawing, comparing them.

At last Felicia paused. Her smiles died away. She looked at him wistfully.

"Mother's awfully sorry she--she offended you so. Won't you forgive her now--and poor Babbo--about the little statue?"

She hardly dared breathe the last words, as she timidly dropped her eyes.

There were tears in her voice, and yet she was not very far from hysterical laughter. The whole scene was so fantastic--ridiculous! The room with its lumber; its confusion of glittering things; this old man frowning at her--for no reason! For after all--what had she done? Even the _contadini_--they were rough often--they couldn't read or write--but they loved their grandchildren.

As he caught her reference to the bronze Hermes, Melrose's face changed. He rose, stretching out a hand toward a bell on the table.

"You must go!" he said, sharply. "You ought never to have come. You'll get nothing by it. Tell your mother so. This is the second attack she has made on me--through her tools. If she attempts another, she may take the consequences!"

Felicia too stood up. A rush of anger and despair choked her.

"And you won't--you won't even say a kind word to me!" she said, panting. "You won't kiss me?"

For answer, he seized her by the hands, and drew her toward the light. There, for a few intolerable seconds he looked closely, with a kind of savage curiosity, into her face, studying her features, her hair, her light form. Then pushing her from him, he opened that same drawer in the French cabinet that Undershaw had once seen him open, fumbled a little, and took out something that glittered.

"Take that. But if you come here again it will be the worse for you, and for your mother. When I say a thing I mean it. Now, go! Dixon shall take you to the train."

Felicia glanced at the Renaissance jewel in her hand--delicate Venus in gold and pearl, set in a hoop of diamonds. "I won't have it!" she said, dashing it from her with a sob of passion. "And we won't take your money either--not a farthing! We've got friends who'll help us. And I'll keep my mother myself. You shan't give her anything--nor my grandfather. So you needn't threaten us! You can't do us any harm!"

She looked him scornfully over from head to foot, a little fury, with blazing eyes.

Melrose laughed.

"I thought you came to get a _dot_ out of me," he said, with lifted brows, admiring her in spite of himself. "You seem to have a good spice of the Melrose temper in you. I'm sorry I can't treat you as you seem to wish. Your mother settled that. Well--that'll do--that'll do! We can't bandy words any more. Dixon!"

He touched the hand-bell beside him.

Felicia hurried to the door, sobbing with excitement. As she reached it Dixon entered. Melrose spoke a few peremptory words to him, and she found herself walking through the gallery, Dixon's hand on her arm, while he muttered and lamented beside her.

"'And the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart.' Aye, it's the Lord--it's the Lord. Oh! Missie, Missie--I was a fool to let yo' in. Yo've been nowt but a new stone o' stumblin'; an' the Lord knows there's offences enoof already!"

Meanwhile, in the room from which his daughter had been driven, Melrose had risen from his seat, and was moving hither and thither, every now and then taking up some object in the crowded tables, pretending to look at it, and putting it down again. He was pursued, tormented all the while by swarming thoughts--visualizations. That child would outlive him--her father--perhaps by a half century. The flesh and blood sprung from his own life, would go on enjoying and adventuring, for fifty years, perhaps, after he had been laid in his resented grave. And the mind which would have had no existence had he not lived, would hold till death the remembrance of what he had just said and done--a child's only remembrance of her father.

He stood, looking back upon his life, and quite conscious of some fatal element in the moment which had just gone by. It struck him as a kind of moral tale. Some men would say that God had once more, and finally, offered him "a place of repentance"--through this strange and tardy apparition of his daughter. A ghostly smile flickered. The man of the world knew best. "Let no man break with his own character." That was the real text which applied. And he had followed it. Circumstance and his own will had determined, twenty years earlier, that he had had enough of women-kind. His dealings with them had been many and various! But at a given moment he had put an end to them forever. And no false sentimentalism should be allowed to tamper with the thing done.

At this point he found himself sinking into his chair; and must needs confess himself somewhat shaken by what had happened. He was angry with his physical weakness, and haunted in spite of himself by the hue and fragrance of that youth he had just been watching--there--at the corner of the table--beside the Watteau sketch. He sat staring at the drawing....

Till the threatened vitality within again asserted itself; beat off the besieging thoughts; and clutched fiercely at some new proof of its own strength. The old man raised himself, and laid his hand on the telephone which connected his room with that of Faversham.

How, in Dixon's custody, Felicia reached the station, and stumbled into the train, and how, at the other end, she groped her way into the gates of Duddon and began the long woodland ascent to the castle, Felicia never afterward knew. But when she had gone a few steps along the winding drive Where the intermittent and stormy moonlight was barely enough to guide her, she felt her strength suddenly fail her. She could never climb the long hill to the house--she could never fight the wind that was rising in her face. She must sit down, till some one came--to help.

She sank down upon a couch of moss, at the foot of a great oak-tree which was still thick with withered leaf. The mental agitation, and the sheer physical fatigue of her mad attempt had utterly worn out her barely recovered strength. "I shall faint," she thought, "and no one will know where I am!" She tried to concentrate her will on the resolution not to faint. Straightening her back and head against the tree, she clasped her hands rigidly on her knee. From time to time a wave of passionate recollection would rush through her; and her heart would beat so fast, that again the terror of sinking into some unknown infinite would string up her will to resistance. In this alternate yielding and recoil, this physical and mental struggle, she passed minutes which seemed to her interminable. At last resistance was all but overwhelmed.

"Come to me!--oh, do come to me!"

She seemed to be pouring her very life into the cry. But, probably, the words were only spoken in the mind.

* * * * *

A little later she woke up in bewilderment. She was no longer on the moss. She was being carried--carried firmly and speedily--in some one's arms. She tried to open her eyes.

"Where am I?"

A voice said:

"That's better! Don't be afraid. You'd fainted I think. I can carry you quite safely."

Infinite bliss rushed in upon the girl's fluttering sense. She was too feeble, too weak, to struggle. Instead she let her head sink on Tatham's shoulder. Her right hand clung to his coat.

The young man mounted the hill, marvelling at the lightness of the burden he held; touched, embarrassed, yet sometimes inclined to laugh or scold. What had she been about? He had come in from hunting to find her absence just discovered, and the house roused. Victoria and Cyril Boden were exploring other roads through the garden and park; he had run down the long hill to the station lodge in case the theory started at once by Victoria that she had escaped, unknown to any one, in order to force an interview with her father should turn out to be the right one.

Presently a trembling voice said in the darkness, while some soft curls of hair tickled his cheek:

"I've been to Threlfall. Will Lady Tatham be very angry?"

"Well, she was a bit worried," said Tatham, wondering if the occasion ought not to be improved. "She guessed--you might have gone there. There's bad weather coming--and she was anxious what might happen to you. Ah! there's the rain!"

Two or three large drops descended on Felicia's cheek as it lay upturned on his shoulder; a pattering began on the oak-leaves overhead; the moonlight was blotted out, and when Felicia opened her eyes, it was on a heavy darkness.

"Stupid!" cried Tatham. "Why didn't I think of bringing a mackintosh cape?"

"Mayn't I walk?" asked Felicia, meekly. "I think I could."

"I expect you'd better not. You were pretty bad when I found you. It's no trouble to me to carry you, and I know every inch of these roads."

And indeed by now he would have been very loath to quit his task. There was something tormentingly attractive in this warm softness of the girl's tiny form upon his breast. The thought darted across him--"If I had ever held Lydia so!" It was a pang; but it passed; and what remained was a tenderness of soul, evoked by Lydia, but passing out now beyond Lydia.

Poor little foolish thing! He supposed she had been trampled on, as his mother had been. But his mother could defend herself. What chance had this child against the old tyrant! An eager, protective sympathy--a warm pity--arose in him; greatly quickened by this hand and arm that clung to him.

The rain began to drive against them.

"Do you mind getting wet?" he said laughing, almost in her ear.

"Not a bit! I--I didn't mean to give any trouble."

The tone was penitent. Tatham, forgetting all thoughts of admonition, reassured her.

"You didn't give any. Except--Your mother of course was very anxious about you."

"But I couldn't tell her!" sighed the voice on his shoulder. "She'd have stopped it."

Tatham smiled unseen.

"I'm afraid your father wasn't kind to you," he said, after a pause.

"It was horrible--horrible!" The little body he held shuddered closer to him. "Why does he hate us so? and I lost my temper too--I stamped at him. But he looks so old--so old! I think he'll die soon."

"That would be happiest," said Tatham, gravely.

"I told him we would never take any money from him again. I must earn it--I will! Your mother will lend me a little--for my training. I'll pay it back."

"You poor child!" he murmured.

At that moment they emerged upon the last section of the broad avenue leading to the house. And the electric light in the pillared porch threw long rays toward them.

"Please put me down," said Felicia, with decision. "I can walk quite well."

He obeyed her. But her weakness was still such, that she could only walk with help. Guiding, supporting her, he half led, half carried her along.

As they reached the lighted porch, she looked up, her face sparkling with rain, a touch of mischief in her hollow-ringed eyes.

"How much will they scold?"

"Can't say, I am sure! I think you'll have to bear it."

"Never mind!" Her white cheeks dimpled. "It's Duddon! I'd rather be scolded at Duddon, than petted anywhere else."

Tatham flushed suddenly. So did she. And as the door opened Felicia walked with composure past the stately butler.

"Is Lady Tatham in the library?"

Netta Melrose, full of fears, wept that evening over her daughter's rash disobedience. Victoria administered what reproof she could; and Felicia was reduced to a heated defence of herself, sitting up in bed, with a pair of hot cheeks and tearful eyes. But when all the lights were out, and she was alone, she thought no more of any such nips and pricks. The night was joy around her, and as she sank to sleep; Tatham, in dream, still held her, still carried her through the darkness and the rain.

XX

While Felicia was making her vain attempt upon her father's pity, Faversham was sitting immersed in correspondence in his own room at the farther end of the gallery. He heard nothing of the girl's arrival or departure. Sound travelled but little through the thick walls of the Tower, and the gallery, muffled with rich carpets, with hangings and furniture, deadened both step and voice.

The agent was busy with some typewritten evidence that Melrose was preparing wherewith to fight the Government officials now being sent down from London to inquire into the state of some portion of the property. The evidence had been collected by Nash, and Faversham read it with disgust. He knew well that the great mass of it was perjured stuff, bought at a high price. Yet both in public and private he would have to back up all the lies and evasions that his master, and the pack of obscure hangers-on who lived upon his pay, chose to put forward.

He set his teeth as he read. The iron of his servitude was cutting its way into life, deeper and deeper. Could he go on bearing it? For weeks he had lived with Melrose on terms of sheer humiliation--rated, or mocked at, his advice spurned, the wretched Nash and his crew ostentatiously preferred to him, even put over him. "No one shall ever say I haven't earned my money," he would say to himself fiercely, as the intolerable days went by. His only abiding hope and compensation lay in his intense belief that Melrose was a dying man. All those feelings of natural gratitude, with which six months before he had entered on his task, were long since rooted up. He hated his tyrant, and he wished him dead. But the more he dwelt for consolation on the prospect of Melrose's disappearance, the more attractive became to him the vision of his own coming reign. Some day he would be his own master, and the master of these hoards. Some day he would emerge from the cloud of hatred and suspicion in which he habitually walked; some day he would be able once more to follow the instincts of an honest man; some day he would be able again--perhaps--to look Lydia Penfold in the face! Endurance for a few more months, on the best terms he could secure, lest the old madman should even yet revoke his gifts; and then--a transformation scene--on the details of which his thoughts dwelt perpetually, by way of relief from the present. Tatham and the rest of his enemies, who were now hunting and reviling him, would be made to understand that if he had stooped, he had stooped with a purpose; and that the end _did_ in this case justify the means.

A countryside cleansed, comforted, remade; a great estate ideally managed; a great power to be greatly used; scope for experiment, for public service, for self-realization--he greedily, passionately, foresaw them all. Let him be patient. Nothing could interfere with his dream, but some foolish refusal of the conditions on which alone it could come true.

Often, when this mood of self-assertion was on him, he would go back in thought to his boyish holidays in Oxford, and to his uncle. He saw the kind old fellow in his shepherd plaid suit, black tie, and wide-awake, taking his constitutional along the Woodstock road, or playing a mild game of croquet in the professorial garden; or he recalled him among his gems--those rare and beautiful things, bought with the savings of a lifetime, loved, each of them, for its own sake, and bequeathed at death, with the tender expression of a wish--no tyrannical condition!--to the orphan boy whom he had fathered.

The thought of what would--what must be--Uncle Mackworth's judgment on his present position, was perhaps the most tormenting element in Faversham's consciousness. He faced it, however, with frankness. His uncle would have condemned him--wholly. The notion of serving a bad man, for money, would have been simply inconceivable to that straight and innocent soul. Are there not still herbs to be eaten under hedgerows, with the sauce of liberty and self-respect?

No doubt. But man is entitled to self-fulfilment; and men pursue vastly different ways of obtaining it. The perplexities of practical ethics are infinite; and mixed motives fit a mixed world.

At least he had not bartered away his uncle's treasure. The gems still stood to him as the symbol of something he had lost, and might some day recover. It was really time he got them out of Melrose's clutches...

...The room was oppressively hot! It was a raw December night, but the heating system of the Tower was now so perfect, and to Faversham's mind so excessive, that every corner of the large house was bathed in a temperature which seemed to keep Melrose alive, while it half suffocated every other inmate.

Suddenly the telephone bell on his writing-desk rang. His room was now connected with Melrose's room, at the other end of the house, as well as with Pengarth. He put his ear to the receiver.

"Yes?"

"I want to speak to you."

He rose unwillingly. But at least he could air the room, which he would not have ventured to do, if Melrose were coming to him as usual for the ten minutes' hectoring, which now served as conversation between them, before bedtime. Going to the window which gave access to the terrace outside, he unclosed the shutters, and threw open the glass doors. He perceived that it had begun to rain, and that the night was darkening. He stood drinking in the moist coolness of the air for a few seconds, and then leaving the window open, and forgetting to extinguish the electric light on his table he went out of the room.

He found Melrose in his chair, his aspect thunderous and excited.

"Was it by your plotting, sir, that that girl got in?" said the old man, as he entered.

Faversham stood amazed.

"What girl?"

Melrose angrily described Felicia's visit, adding that if Faversham knew nothing about it, it was his duty to know. Dixon deserved dismissal for his abominable conduct; "and you, sir, are paid a large salary, not only to manage--or mismanage--my affairs, but also to protect your employer from annoyance. I expect you to do it!"

Faversham took the charge quietly. His whole relation to Melrose had altered so rapidly for the worse during the preceding weeks that no injustice or unreason surprised him. And yet there was something strange--something monstrous--in the old man's venomous temper. After all his bribes, after all his tyranny, did he still feel something in Faversham escape him?--some deep-driven defiance, or hope, intangible? He seemed indeed to be always on the watch now for fresh occasions of attack that should test his own power, and Faversham's submission.

Presently, he abruptly left the subject of his daughter, and Faversham did not pursue it. What was the good of inquiring into the details of the girl's adventure? He guessed pretty accurately at what had happened; the scorn which had been poured on the suppliant; the careless indifference with which she had been dismissed--through the rain and the night. Yet another scandal for a greedy neighbourhood!--another story to reach the ears of the dwellers in a certain cottage, with the embellishments, no doubt, which the popular hatred of both himself and Melrose was certain to supply. He felt himself buried a little deeper under the stoning of his fellows. But at the same time he was conscious--as of a danger point--of a new and passionate exasperation in himself. His will must control it.

Melrose, however, proceeded to give it fresh cause. He took up a letter from Nash containing various complaints of Faversham, which had reached him that evening.

"You have been browbeating our witnesses, sir! Nash reports them as discouraged, and possibly no longer willing to come forward. What business had you to jeopardize my interests by posing as the superior person? The evidence had been good enough for Nash--and myself. It might have been good enough for you."

Faversham smiled, as he lit his cigarette.

"The two men you refer to--whom you asked me to see yesterday--were a couple of the feeblest liars I ever had to do with. Tatham's counsel would have turned them inside out in five minutes. You seem to forget the other side are employing counsel."

"I forgot nothing!" said Melrose hotly. "But I expect you to follow your instructions."

"The point is--am I advising you in this matter, or am I merely your agent? You seem to expect me to act in both capacities. And I confess I find it difficult."

Melrose fretted and fumed. He raised one point after another, criticising Faversham's action and advice in regard to the housing inquiries, as though he were determined to pick a quarrel. Faversham met him on the whole with wonderful composure, often yielding in appearance, but in reality getting the best of it throughout. Under the mask of the discussion, however, the temper of both men was rising fast. It was as though two deep-sea currents, converging far down, were struggling unseen toward the still calm surface, there to meet in storm and convulsion.

Again, Melrose changed the conversation. He was by now extraordinarily pale. All the flushed excitement in which Faversham had found him had disappeared. He was more spectral, more ghostly--and ghastly--than Faversham had ever seen him. His pincerlike fingers played with the jewel which Felicia had thrown down upon the table. He took it up, put on his eyeglass, peered at it, put it down again. Then he turned an intent and evil eye on Faversham.

"I have now something of a quite different nature to say to you. You have, I imagine, expected it. You will, perhaps, guess at it. And I cannot imagine for one moment that you will make any difficulty about it."

Faversham's pulse began to race.

He suspended his cigarette.

"What is it?"

"I am asked to send a selection of antique gems to the Loan Exhibition which is being got up by the 'Amis du Louvre' in Paris, after Christmas. I desire to send both the Arconati Bacchus and the Medusa--in fact all those now in the case committed to my keeping."

"I have no objection," said Faversham. But he had suddenly lost colour.

"I can only send them in my own name," said Melrose slowly.

"That difficulty is not insurmountable. I can lend them to you."

Melrose's composure gave way. He brought his hand heavily down on the table.

"I shall send them in--as my own property--in my own name!"

Faversham eyed him.

"But they are not--they will not be--your property."

"I offer you three thousand pounds for them!--four thousand--five thousand--if you want more you can have it. Drive the best bargain you can!" sneered Melrose, trying to smile.

"I refuse your offer--your very generous offer--with great regret--but I refuse!" Faversham had risen to his feet.

"And your reason?--for a behaviour so--so vilely ungrateful!"

"Simply, that the gems were left to me--by an uncle I loved--who was a second father to me--who asked me not to sell them. I have warned you not once, or twice, that I should never sell them."

"No! You expected both to get hold of my property--and to keep your own!"

"Insult me as you like," said Faversham, quietly. "I probably deserve it. But you will not alter my determination."

He stood leaning on the back of a chair, looking down on Melrose. Some bondage had broken in his soul! A tide of some beneficent force seemed to be flooding its dry wastes.

Melrose paused. In the silence each measured the other. Then Melrose said in a voice which had grown husky:

"So--the first return you are asked to make, for all that has been lavished upon you, you meet with--this refusal. That throws a new light upon your character. I never proposed to leave my fortune to an adventurer! I proposed to leave it to a gentleman, capable of understanding an obligation. We have mistaken each other--and our arrangement--drops. Unless you consent to the very small request--the very advantageous proposal rather--which I have just made you--you will leave this room--as penniless--except for any savings you may have made out of your preposterous salary--as penniless--as you came into it!"

Faversham raised himself. He drew a long breath, as of a man delivered.

"Do what you like, Mr. Melrose. There was a time when it seemed as if our cooperation might have been of service to both. But some devil in you--and a greedy mind in me--the temptation of your money--oh, I confess it, frankly--have ruined our partnership--and indeed--much else! I resume my freedom--I leave your house to-morrow. And now, please--return me my gems!"

He peremptorily held out his hand. Melrose glared upon him. Then slowly the old man reopened the little drawer at his elbow, took thence the shagreen case, and pushed it toward Faversham.

Faversham replaced it in his breast pocket.

"Thank you. Now, Mr. Melrose, I should advise you to go to bed. Your health is not strong enough to stand these disputes. Shall I call Dixon? As soon as possible my accounts shall be in your hands."

"Leave the room, sir!" cried Melrose, choking with rage, and motioning toward the door.

On the threshold Faversham turned, and gave one last look at the dark figure of Melrose, and the medley of objects surrounding it; at Madame Elisabeth's Sèvres vases, on the upper shelf of the Riesener table; at the Louis Seize clock, on the panelled wall, which was at that moment striking eight.

As he closed the door behind him, he was aware of Dixon who had just entered the gallery from the servants' quarters. The old butler hurried toward him to ask if he should announce dinner. "Not for me," said Faversham; "you had better ask Mr. Melrose. To-morrow, Dixon, I shall be leaving this house--for good."

Dixon stared, his face working:

"I thowt--I heard yo'--" he said, and paused.

"You heard us disputing. Mr. Melrose and I have had a quarrel. Bring me something to my room, when you have looked after him. I will come and speak to you later."

Faversham walked down the gallery to his own door. He had to pass on the way a splendid Nattier portrait of Marie Leczinska which had arrived only that morning from Paris, and was standing on the floor, leaning sideways against a chair, as Melrose had placed it himself, so as to get a good light on it. The picture was large. Faversham picked his way round it. If his thoughts had not been so entirely preoccupied, he would probably have noticed a slight movement of something behind the portrait as he passed. But exultation held him; he walked on air.