An hour after Arthur had left the house on the Monday morning Josina
went slowly up the stairs to her father’s room. She was young and the
stairs were shallow, but the girl’s knees shook under her as she
mounted them, as she mounted them one by one, while her hand trembled
on the banister. Before now the knees of brave men, going on forlorn
hopes, have shaken under them, but, like these men, Josina went on, she
ascended step by step. She was frightened, she was horribly frightened,
but she had made a vow to herself and she would carry it out. How she
would carry it out, how she would find words to blurt out the truth,
how she would have the courage to live through that which would follow,
she did not know, she could not conceive. But her mind was fixed.
She reached the shabby landing on which two or three sheep-skins laid
at the doors of the rooms served for carpet, and there, indeed, she
paused awhile and pressed her hand to her side to still the beating of
her heart. She gazed through the window. On the sweep below, Calamy was
shaking out the cloth, while two or three hens clucked about his feet,
and a cat seated at a distance watched the operation with dignity. In
the field beyond the brook a dog barked joyously as it rounded up some
sheep. Miss Peacock’s voice, scolding a maid, came up from below. All
was going on as usual, going on callous and heedless: while she—she had
that before her which turned her sick and faint, which for her, timid
and subject, was almost worse than death.
And with her on this forlorn hope went no comrades, no tramp of
marching feet, no watching eyes of thousands, no bugle note to cheer
her. Only Clement’s shade—waiting.
She might still draw back. But when she had once spoken there could be
no drawing back. A voice whispered in her ear that she had better think
it over—just once more, better wait a little longer to see if aught
would happen, revolve it once again in her mind. Possibly there might
be some other, some easier, some safer way.
But she knew what that whisper meant, and she turned from the window
and grasped the handle of the door. She went in. Her father was sitting
beside the fire. His back was towards her, he was smoking his
after-breakfast pipe. She might still retreat, or—or she might say what
she liked, ask perhaps if he wanted anything. He would never suspect,
never conceive in his wildest moments the thing that she had come to
confess. It was not too late even now—to draw back.
She went to the other side of the table on which his elbow rested, and
she stood there, steadying herself by a hand which she laid on the
table. She was sick with fear, her tongue clung to her mouth, her very
lips were white. But she forced herself to speak. “Father, I have
something—to tell you,” she said.
“Eh?” He turned sharply. “What’s that?” She had not been able to
control her voice, and he knew in a moment that something was wrong.
“What ha’ you been doing?”
Now! Now, or never! The words she had so often repeated to herself rang
in her ears. “Do you know who it was,” she said, “who saved you that
night, sir? The night you were—hurt?”
He turned himself a little more towards her. “Who? Who it was?” he
repeated. “What art talking about, girl? Why, the lad, to be sure. Who
else?”
“No, sir,” she said, shaking from head to foot, so that the table
rocked audibly under her hand. “It was Mr. Ovington’s son. And—and I
love him. And he wishes to marry me.”
The Squire did not say a word. He sat, his head erect still as a stone.
“And I want—to help him,” she added, her voice dying away with the
words. Her knees were so weak, that but for the support of the table
she must have sunk on the floor.
Still the Squire did not speak. His jaw had fallen. He sat, arrested in
the attitude of listening, his face partly turned from her, his pipe
held stiffly in his hand. At last, “Ovington’s son wants to marry you?”
he repeated, in a tone so even that it might have deceived many.
“He saved your life!” she cried. She clung desperately to that.
“And you love him?”
“Oh, I do! I do!”
He paused as if he still listened, still expected more. Then in a low
voice, “The girl is mad,” he muttered. “My God, the girl is mad! Or I
am mad! Blind and mad, like the old king! Ay, blind and mad!” He let
the pipe fall from his hand to the floor, and he groped for his stick
that he might rap and summon assistance. But in his agitation he could
not find the stick.
Then, as he still felt for it with a flurried hand, nature or despair
prompted her, and the girl who had never caressed him in her life,
never taken a liberty with him, never ventured on the smallest
familiarity, never gone beyond the morning and evening kiss, timidly
given and frigidly received, sank on the floor and clasped his knees,
pressed herself against him. “Oh, father, father! I am not mad,” she
cried, “I am not mad. Hear me! Oh, hear me!” A pause, and then, “I have
deceived you, I am not worthy, but you are my father! I have only, only
you, who can help me! Have mercy on me, for I do love him. I do love
him! I——” Her voice failed her, but she continued to cling to him, to
press her head against his body, mutely to implore him, and plead with
him.
“My God!” he ejaculated. He sat upright, stiff, looking before him with
sightless eyes; as far as he could withholding himself from her, but
not actively repelling her. After an interval, “Tell me,” he muttered.
That, even that, was more than she had expected from him. He had not
struck her, he had not cursed her, and she took some courage. She told
him in broken words, but with sufficient clearness, of her first
meeting with Clement, of the gun-shot by the brook, of her narrow
escape and the meetings that had followed. Once, in a burst of rage, he
silenced her. “The rascal! Oh, the d—d rascal!” he cried, and she
flinched. But she went on, telling him of Clement’s resolve that he
must be told, of that unfortunate meeting with him on the road, and
then of that second encounter the same night, when Clement had come to
his rescue. There he stopped her.
“How do you know?” he asked. “How do you know? How dare you say——” And
now he did make a movement as if to repel her and put her from him.
But she would not be repulsed. She clung to him, telling him of the
coat, of the great stains that she had seen upon it; and at last, “Why
did you hide this?” broke from him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She told him that she had not known, that the part which Clement had
taken on that night was new to her also.
“But you see him?” he snarled, speaking a little more like himself.
“You see him!”
“Twice only—twice only since that night,” she vowed. “Indeed, indeed,
sir, only twice. Once he came to speak to you and tell you, but you
were ill, and I would not let him. And yesterday he came to—to give me
up, to say good-bye. Only twice, sir, as God sees me! He would not. He
showed me that we had been wrong. He said,” sobbing bitterly, “that we
must be open or—or we must be nothing—nothing to one another!”
“Open? Open!” the Squire almost shouted. “D—d open! Shutting the stable
door when the horse is gone. D—n his openness!” And then, “Good Lord!
Good Lord!” with almost as much amazement as anger in his voice. That
all this should have been going on and he know nothing about it! That
his girl, this child as he had deemed her, should have been doing this
under his very eyes! Under his very eyes! “Good Lord!” But then rage
got the upper hand once more, and he cursed Clement with passion, and
again made a movement as if he would rise and throw her off. “To steal
a man’s child! The villain!”
“Oh, don’t call him that!” she cried. “He is good, father. Indeed,
indeed, he is good. And he saved your life.”
He sat back at that, as if her words shifted his thoughts to another
matter. “Tell me again,” he said, sternly, but more calmly. “He told
you this tale yesterday, did he? Well, tell me as he told you, do you
hear? And mind you, if you’re lying, you slut, he or you, ’twill come
up! I am blind, and you may think to deceive me now as you have
deceived me before——”
“Never, never again, sir!” she vowed. Then she told him afresh, from
point to point, what she had learned on the Sunday.
“Then the lad didn’t come up till after?”
“Arthur? No, sir. Not till after Thomas was gone. And it was Clement
who followed Thomas to Birmingham and got the money back.” For Clement
had told her that also.
When she had done, the Squire leant forward and felt again for his
stick, as if he were now equipped and ready for action. “Well, you
begone,” he said, harshly. “You begone, now. I’ll see to this.”
But, “Not till you forgive me,” she entreated, holding him close, and
pressing her face against his unwilling breast. “And there’s more,
there’s more, sir,” in growing agitation, “I must tell you. Be good to
me, oh, be good to me! Forgive me and help him.”
“Help him!” the Squire cried, and this time he was indeed amazed. “I
help him! Help the man who has gone behind my back and stolen my girl!
Help the man who—let me go! Do you hear me, girl! Let me get up, you
shameless hussy!” growing moment by moment more himself, as he
recovered from the shock of her disclosure, and could measure its
extent. “How do I know what you are? Or what he mayn’t have done to
you? Help, indeed? Help the d—d rascal who has robbed me? Who has dared
to raise his eyes to my girl—a Griffin? Who——”
“He saved your life,” she cried, pleading desperately with him, though
he strove to free himself. “Oh, father, he saved your life! And I love
him! I love him! If you part us I shall die.”
He could not struggle against her young strength, and he gave up the
attempt to free himself. He sank back in his chair. “D—n the girl!” he
cried. He sat silent, breathing hard.
And she—she had told him, and she still lived! She had told him and he
had not cursed her, he had not struck her to the ground, he had not
even succeeded in putting her from him! She had told him, and the world
still moved about her, his gold watch, which lay on the table on a
level with her head, still ticked, the dog still barked in the field
below. Miss Peacock’s voice could still be heard, invoking Calamy’s
presence. She had told him, and he was still her father, nay, if she
was not deceived, he was more truly her father, nearer to her, more her
own, than he had ever been before.
Presently, “Ovington’s son! Ovington’s son!” he muttered in a tone of
wonder. “Good God! Couldn’t you find a man?”
“He is a man,” she pleaded, “indeed, indeed, he is!”
“Ay, and you are a woman!” bitterly. “Fire and tow! A few kisses and
you are aflame for him. For shame, girl, for shame! And how am I to be
sure it’s no worse? Ain’t you ashamed of yourself?”
She shivered, but she was silent.
“Deceiving your father when he was blind!”
She clung to him. He felt her trembling convulsively.
After that he sat for a time as if exhausted, suffering her embrace,
and silent save when at rare intervals an oath broke from him, or, in a
gust of passion, he struck his hand on the arm of his chair. Once, “My
father would ha’ spurned you from the house,” he cried, “you jade.” She
did not answer, and a new idea striking him, he sat up sharply. “But
what—what the devil is all this about? What’s all this, if it’s over
and—and done with?” His tone was almost jubilant. “If he’s off with it?
Maybe, girl, I’ll forgive you, bad as you’ve been, if—if that’s so. Do
you say it’s over?”
“No, no!” she cried. “He came——”
“You told me——”
“He came to say good-bye to me, because——” And then in words the most
moving that she could find, words sped from her heart, winged by her
love, she explained Clement’s errand, the position at the bank, the
crisis, the menace of ruin, the need of help.
The Squire listened, his business instincts aroused, until he grasped
her meaning. Then he struck his hand on the table. “And he thought that
I should help them!” he cried, with grim satisfaction. “He thought
that, did he?” And he would not listen to her protests that it was not
Clement, that it was not Clement, it was she who—“He thought that? I
see it now, I see it all! But the fool, the fool, to think that! Why, I
wouldn’t stretch out my little finger to save his father from hell! And
he thought that? He took me for as big a fool as the silly girl he had
flattered and lured, and thought he could use, to save them from
perdition! As if he had not done me harm enough! As if he hadn’t stolen
my daughter from me, he’d steal my purse! Why, he must be the most d—d
impudent, cunning thief that ever trod shoe leather. He must be a cock
of a pretty hackle, indeed. He should go far, by G—d, with the nerve he
has. Far, by G—d! My daughter first and my purse afterwards! This son
of an upstart, whose grandfather would have sat in my servants’ hall,
he’d steal my——”
“No, no!” she protested.
“Yes, yes! Yes, yes! But he’ll find that he’s not got a girl to deal
with now! Help him? Save his bank? Pluck him from the debtors’ prison
he’s due to rot in! Why, I’ll see him—in hell first!”
She had risen and moved from him. She was standing on the other side of
the table now. “He saved your life!” she cried. And she, too, was
changed. She spoke with something of his passion. “He saved your life!”
she repeated, and she stamped her foot on the floor.
“Well, the devil thank him for it!” the Squire cried with zest. “And
you,” with fresh anger, “do you begone, girl! Get out of my room before
you try my patience too far!” He waved his stick at her. “Go, or I’ll
call up Calamy and have you put out! Do you hear? Do you hear? You
ungrateful, shameless slut! Go!”
She had fancied victory, incredible, unhoped-for-victory to be almost
within her grasp; and lo, it was dashed from her hand, it was farther
from her than ever. And she could do no more. Courage, strength, hope
were spent, shaken as she was by the emotions of the past hour. She
could no no more; a little more and he might strike her. She crept out
weeping, and went, blinded by her tears, up the stairs, up, stair by
stair, to hide herself in her room. There had been a moment when she
had fancied that he was melting, but all had been in vain. She had come
close to him, but in the end he had put her from him. He had thrust her
farther from him than before. Her only consolation, if consolation she
had, was that she had spoken, that the truth was known, that she had no
longer any secret to weigh her down. But she had failed.