FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
Bram was struck by the entire change which had taken place in Theodore
Biron, a change which had, indeed, been creeping over him ever since
Meg’s attack, and his consequent disfigurement, but which seemed to
have culminated to-night in what was almost a transformation.
As he crouched on the floor, and looked anxiously up at the window,
there was no trace in the cowering, shrivelled figure, in the scarred,
inflamed face, out of which the bloodshot eyes peered in terror, of the
gay, easy-mannered country gentleman _en amateur_, who had impressed
Bram so strongly with his airy lightness of heart only sixteen months
before.
“Lock the door, Bram,” said he, presently, in a hoarse voice when he
suddenly became conscious of the young man’s presence. “Lock the door!”
Bram hastened to do so. He wanted to open it first to look out and see
who it was that had inspired Mr. Biron with so much alarm. But Theodore
restrained him by a violent gesture.
“Lock it, lock it!” repeated he, as, evidently relieved to find a
man in the house, he got up from the floor, and went with shivering
limbs and chattering teeth towards the fire. “And now bolt the
shutters--quick--and then on the other side!”
He indicated with a nod the front of the house, but when Bram walked
towards the door he shuffled after him, as if afraid of being left
alone. Bram turned to cast a glance at the sofa and its occupant before
leaving the room. Theodore, in a state of nervous alarm which made him
watch every look, glanced back also. On seeing his daughter lying back
with closed eyes on the cushions, he uttered a cry.
“Claire, oh, oh, what will become of her? What will become of me?”
And, utterly broken down, he covered his face with his shivering hands,
and sobbed loudly.
Bram wondered if he had heard all.
“Come, come, be a man, Mr. Biron,” said he. “What is it you’re afraid
of?”
“That sh--she--devil who--who half-blinded me, who threw that stuff
over me!” sobbed Theodore. “She’s followed me--from Holme Park--I
managed to dodge her among the trees of the park; but she knows where I
live. She’ll come here, I know she will.” Suddenly he drew himself up,
in another spasm of fear. “See that the door is locked in the front,
and the windows--see to them!” cried he, with a burst of energy.
“All right,” said Bram. “I’ll see to that. You stay here with her,” and
he indicated Claire with a movement of the head.
But Mr. Biron shrank into himself, and tried to follow Bram out.
“I’m afraid of her! She’s gone mad; I know she has,” whispered he.
“Haven’t you heard what she did to-night--down at the works?”
And Theodore, whose face had in a moment gone ashy white, all but the
inflamed patch on the left side, which had become a livid blue, crept
closer still to Bram. But the young man’s face as he again looked
towards the unconscious girl wore nothing but infinite pity, infinite
tenderness.
“You’re right, Mr. Biron. The poor child is mad, I believe,” he said
gravely. “And, thank God, she hasn’t come to herself yet. One could
almost wish,” he added, more to himself than to his companion, “that
she never may.”
Mr. Biron shuddered.
“Do you mean that she is ill?” he asked querulously.
“Yes, she’s very ill--delirious.”
Mr. Biron shot right out of the room into the hall with all his old
agility. He was evidently as much afraid of his unhappy daughter as he
was of Meg herself.
“Oh, these women, these women! They never can keep their heads!” moaned
he. “And just when I’m as ill as I can be myself! I’ve been shivering
all the way home, I have, indeed, Elshaw.”
Bram, who had left the door of the kitchen open so that he might be
within hearing of a possible call or cry from Claire, was locking the
front door and barring the shutters of the windows in deference to Mr.
Biron’s wish.
He was too much used to Theodore’s utter selfishness to feel more than
a momentary pang of disgust at this most recent manifestation of it. He
was sorry for the poor wretch, whose prospects were certainly now as
gloomy as he deserved. He recommended him to go upstairs and change his
wet things, promising to come up and see him as soon as Joan arrived.
And Mr. Biron, though at first exceedingly reluctant to move a step by
himself, ended by preferring this alternative to returning to the room
where his unconscious daughter lay.
He detained Bram for a few moments, however, to tell him of his
adventures at Holme Park.
“When I got there, Bram, I was told that my brother-in-law was out. But
as I had very particular business with him, I said I would wait. Well,
you may hardly believe it, but they didn’t want even to let me do that.
But I insisted; a desperate man will do much, and I made such a noise
that Hester came out, and told the wretched creature who was refusing
me admittance that I was to be let in. Well, I was wet through then,
and they left me in a room with hardly any fire. And, would you believe
it, the wretched man had the impudence to lock up my brother-in-law’s
desk before my eyes! It was an intentional insult, Elshaw, inflicted
upon me just because I am not able to keep up a big establishment
of useless, insolent creatures like himself! But these people never
will understand that there is anything in the world to be respected
except money! And, after all, can one blame them when their masters
and mistresses are no better? It’s all money, money, with Josiah
Cornthwaite!”
Bram, who was anxious to get back to the kitchen that he might keep
watch over Claire, cut him short.
“Well, and Mr. Cornthwaite? He arrived at last?”
Theodore’s face fell at the remembrance.
“Ye-es, and I shall never forget what he did, what he said. He came
into the room with glaring eyes--’pon my soul, I thought he had been
bitten by a mad dog, Elshaw! He flew at me, showing his teeth. He shook
me till my teeth chattered; he called me all the names he could think
of that had anything brutal and opprobrious in the sound. He told me my
daughter had killed his son, murdered him; and he said that he would
get her penal servitude if they didn’t bring it in what it was--murder!
What do you think of that? What do you think of that? And I, in my weak
state, to hear it! I give you my word, Elshaw, I never thought I should
get home alive!”
There was a pause. Mr. Biron wiped his face. His hands were shaking;
his voice was tremulous and hoarse. He looked as pitiful a wretch as it
was possible to imagine.
“Did he tell you--how it happened?” asked Bram in a low voice.
He was hoping, always hoping against hope, that some new fact would
come to light which would shift the blame of the awful catastrophe from
Claire’s poor little shoulders. But Mr. Biron had no comfort for him.
“Yes,” sobbed he. “He told me she had gone down to the works to see her
cousin----”
“Ah, if she had only not done that! Not been forced to do that,” broke
from Bram’s lips.
Theodore grew suddenly quiet, and stared at him apprehensively.
“How was she forced to do it?” he asked querulously.
But Bram did not answer.
“Well, yes. What else did Mr. Cornthwaite say?” asked he.
“And that they quarrelled close to the railway line. And that
she--she--’pon my soul, I can’t see how it’s possible--a little bit of
a girl like that! He says she dragged Christian down, and flung him in
front of a train that was coming along! Of course, we know that woman
is an incomprehensible creature; but how one of only five feet high
could throw down a young man of stoutish build like Christian is more
than even I, with all my experience of the sex, can understand!”
Bram was frowning, deep in thought. Again he did not make any answer.
“That’s all I heard. Have you learnt any more particulars yourself,
Elshaw?”
“I was there,” replied Bram simply.
This gave Mr. Biron a great shock. He began to shiver again, and
subsided from the buoyant manner he had begun to assume into the
terror-stricken attitude of a few minutes before. He turned to clutch
the banisters to help him upstairs.
“Well,” said he in a complaining voice, as he began to drag himself up,
“if she did it, that’s no reason why everybody should be down upon me!
Meg Tyzack, too! A fury like that! What right has she to follow me, to
persecute me?”
“The poor creature’s had her brain turned, I think, by--by the
treatment she’s received,” said Bram.
“But I had no hand in the treatment! She has no right to visit
Christian’s follies and vices upon me! _Me!_ And yet, when I came out
of the house at Holme Park, and I came upon her on her way up to it,
she turned out of her way to go shrieking after me! There’s no reason
in such behavior, even if she is off her head!”
“Well, there’s just this, Mr. Biron, that she knows you used to
encourage Christian to come to your house, and to urge Claire to go and
meet him,” said Bram sturdily, disgusted with the airs of martyrdom
which the worst of fathers was assuming. “And there’s enough of a
thread of reason in that, especially for one whose mind is not at its
best.”
To Bram’s great surprise, these words had such an effect upon Theodore
that he said nothing in reply, but with an unintelligible murmur
shuffled upstairs at once.
Bram felt rather remorseful when he saw how the little man took his
words to heart, and wondered whether he was less easy in his mind than
he affected to be. He returned to the kitchen, where Claire was sitting
up on the sofa listening intently.
“Who’s that?” she said in a husky voice of alarm.
Bram, who had heard nothing, listened too. And then he found that her
ears were keener than his own, for in another moment there came Joan’s
heavy rap-tap-tap on the door.
He let her in, and saw at once that she had heard something of the
occurrences of the evening. Her good-natured face was pale and alarmed;
she looked at Claire with eloquent eyes.
“Oh, sir, do you think it’s true?” she asked in an agitated whisper.
“That she did it, that our poor, little Miss Claire killed him, killed
Mr. Chris?”
“Don’t let us think about it,” said he quickly. “It was nothing but a
shocking accident, if she did; of that you may be sure.”
“But will they be able to prove that?” asked the good woman anxiously.
“We’ll hope they may,” said he gravely. “In the meantime she’s so ill
that she can tell us nothing; she’s forgotten all about it. You must
get her upstairs.”
Joan set about this task with only the delay caused by the necessity
of lighting a fire in the invalid’s bedroom. Claire meanwhile remained
silent, keeping her eyes fixed upon Bram with an intent gaze which
touched him by its pathetic lack of meaning.
Not until Joan came back and put strong arms round the little creature
to carry her upstairs did some ray of intelligence flash out from the
black eyes.
“No, don’t take me away,” she said. “I want to stay here to talk to
Bram.”
And she stretched out feebly over Joan’s shoulder two little hands
towards him.
He took them in his, and pressed upon each of them a long, passionate
kiss.
“No, dear. It will be better for you,” he said simply.
And then, with a sudden return to the extreme docility she had shown to
him all the evening, she smiled, and let her hands and her head fall as
Joan started with her burden on the way upstairs.