MR. BIRON’S REPENTANCE.
Then Bram went upstairs also, and knocked at Mr. Biron’s door.
“I’m going for the doctor now, Mr. Biron,” he called out without
entering. “I’ve come up to ask if there’s anything I can get for you
before I go.”
“Come in, Elshaw, come in!” cried Theodore, in a voice full of
tremulous eagerness. “I want to speak to you.”
Bram obeyed the summons, and found himself for the first time in Mr.
Biron’s bedroom, which was the most luxurious room in the house. A
bright fire burned in the grate, this being a luxury Theodore always
indulged in during the winter; the bed and the windows were hung with
handsome tapestry, and there were book-shelves, tables, arm-chairs,
everything that a profound study of the art of making oneself
comfortable could suggest to the fastidious Theodore.
He himself was sitting, wrapped in a cozy dressing-gown, with his feet
on a hassock by the fire. But he looked even more wretched than he had
done in his drenched clothes downstairs. There was an unhealthy flush
in his face, a feverish glitter in his eyes.
Bram saw something in his face which he had never seen there before,
something which suggested that the man had discovered a conscience, and
that it was giving him uneasiness.
“Sit down,” said he, pointing to a seat on the other side of the
fireplace. Bram wanted to go for the doctor, but the little man was so
peremptory that he thought it best to obey. “Elshaw, I think I’m going
to die.”
He uttered the words, as was natural in such a man, as if the whole
world must be struck into awe by the news. Bram inclined his head in
respectful attention, clasping his hands and looking at the fire.
He could not make light of this presentiment, which, indeed, he saw
reason to think was a well-founded one. Mr. Biron’s never robust frame
had been shaken sorely by his own excesses in the first place, by
erysipelas and consequent complications, and it was evident that the
experiences of this night had tried him very severely. He was still
shivering in a sort of ague: his eyes were glassy, his skin was dry. He
stood as much in need of a doctor’s aid as did his daughter.
But still Bram waited, struck by the man’s manner, and feeling that at
such a moment there was something portentous in his wish to speak. Mr.
Biron had something on his mind, on his conscience, of which he wanted
to unburden himself.
“Elshaw,” he went on after a long pause, “I’ve been to blame over
this--this matter of Claire and--and her cousin Chris.” He stared into
Bram’s face as if the young man had been his confessor, and rubbed his
little white hands quickly the one over the other while he spoke. “I
did it for the best, as I’m sure you will believe; I thought he was
an honorable man, who would marry her and make her happy. You believe
that, don’t you?”
Up to this moment Bram had believed this of Theodore; now for the first
time it flashed through his mind that it was not true. However, he made
a vague motion of the head which Theodore took for assent, and the
latter went on. He seemed to have become suddenly possessed by a spirit
of self-abasement, to feel the need of opening his heart.
“There was no harm in my sending her to meet him--until--last night,”
pursued the conscience-stricken man. “I know I did wrong in letting her
go then!”
Bram sat up in his chair with horror in his eyes.
“You sent her? Begging, of course, as usual?”
The words were harsh enough, brutal, perhaps, in the circumstances.
But Bram’s feeling was too strong for him to be able to choose
the expression of it. That this father, knowing what he did know,
suspecting what he did suspect, should have sent his daughter to
ask Christian for money was so shocking to his feelings that he was
perforce frank to the utmost.
“What could I do? How could I help it? One has got to live, Claire
as well as I!” muttered Theodore, avoiding Bram’s eyes, and looking
at the fire. “Besides, we don’t know anything. We may be doing her
wrong in suspecting--what--what we did suspect,” said he earnestly,
persuasively. “She never told me that she went away with him, never! I
believe it’s a libel to say she did, the mere malicious invention of
evilly-disposed persons to harm my child.”
Bram was silent. These words chimed in so well with the hopes he would
fain have cherished that, even from the lips of Mr. Biron, they pleased
him in spite of his own judgment. Encouraged by the attitude which he
was acute enough to perceive in his companion, Theodore went on--
“No, you may blame me as much as you like. You have more to blame me
for than you know. I’m going to tell you all about it--yes, all about
it.” And he began to play nervously with his handkerchief, and to dart
at Bram a succession of quick, restless glances. “But I will hear
nothing against my child. It’s not her fault that she’s the daughter of
her father, is it? But she’s not a chip of the old block, as you know,
Elshaw.”
Bram, who was getting anxious about leaving Claire so long without
medical attention, got up from his chair. He did not feel inclined to
encourage the evident desire of Mr. Biron for the luxury of confession,
of self-abasement. Like most vain persons, Theodore was almost as
willing to excite attention by the record of his misdeeds as by any
other way. And in the same way, when he felt inclined to write himself
down a sinner, nothing would content him but to be the greatest sinner
of them all. So he put up an imploring hand to detain Bram.
“Wait,” he said petulantly. “Didn’t I say I had something to tell you?
It’s something that concerns Claire, too.”
At the mention of this name Bram, who had moved towards the door,
stopped, although he was inclined to think that all this was a mere
excuse on the part of Theodore to detain him, and put off the moment
when he should be left by himself.
“You remember that a box was sent to you--a chest, by the man at East
Grindley who left you his money?”
Bram nodded. His attention was altogether arrested now. Even before Mr.
Biron uttered his next words it was clear that he had a real confession
to make this time, that he was not merely filling up the time with idle
self-accusations.
“I went to your lodging the day it came, just to see that it was safe.
Your landlady had sent to ask me if I could take care of it for you, as
it was something of value. But I preferred to leave the responsibility
with her. In--in fact, Claire thought it best too.”
Bram read between the lines here, knowing what strong reasons poor
Claire would have for taking this view. Mr. Biron went on--
“There was a key sent with it.”
Bram looked up. He had found no key, and had been obliged to force the
padlock.
“The key was in a piece of paper. I found it on the mantelpiece.
I--I--well, of course, I had no right to do it; but I thought it would
be better for me to look over the contents of the chest to make sure
they were not tampered with in your absence.”
Bram was attentive enough now.
“So I unlocked the box, and I just glanced through the things it
contained. You know what I found; with the exception of this, that
there was some loose cash----”
Bram’s face grew red with sudden perception. But he made no remark.
“I forget exactly what it was, something between two and three hundred
pounds. Now, I know that in strict propriety,” went on Mr. Biron,
in whom the instinct of confession became suddenly tempered with a
desire to prove himself to have acted well in the matter, “I ought to
have left the money alone. But it was strongly borne in upon me at
the moment that my dear daughter was worried because of unpaid bills;
and--and that, in short, it would be just what you would wish me to do
if you had been here, for me to borrow the loose sovereigns, and apply
them to our pressing necessities. I argued with myself that you would
even prefer, in your delicacy, that I should not have to ask for them.
And--in short, I may have been wrong, but I--borrowed them.”
A strange light had broken on Bram’s face.
“Did Miss Claire know?” he asked suddenly in a ringing voice.
“Well--er--yes, in point of fact she did. She came to look for me, and
she, well, she saw me take them. She--in fact--wished me to put them
back; and I could not convince her that I was doing what you would have
wished.”
Bram’s brain was bursting. His heart was beating fast. He came quickly
towards Mr. Biron, and seized him by the wrist. There was no anger in
his eyes, nothing but a fierce, hungry hope. For he could not despise
Theodore more than he had done before, while the fact of Claire’s shame
on meeting himself might now bear a less awful significance then it had
seemed to do.
“She knew you had taken it? And you forced her to say nothing?” cried
he in passionate eagerness.
Mr. Biron was disconcerted.
“Well, er--I thought that--that perhaps, until I could see my way to
paying it back, it would be better----”
But Bram did not wait for more explanations. Indeed, he needed no
more. He saw in a flash what the shame was which he had seen in
Claire’s eyes when she met him after his return. It was the knowledge
that her father was a thief, that he had robbed Bram himself, and that
she could neither make restitution nor confession for him.
And with this knowledge there flashed upon him the question--Was this
the only shame she had to conceal? He was ready, passionately anxious,
to believe that it was.
Mr. Biron was quick to take advantage of this disposition in Bram. His
mood of self-abasement seemed to have passed away as rapidly as it had
come. Not attempting to draw his hand away from Bram’s grasp, he said
buoyantly--
“But I could not let the matter rest. I felt that you might suspect
her, my child, of what her father, from mistaken motives perhaps, had
done----”
Bram cut him short.
“Oh, no, I shouldn’t have done that, Mr. Biron,” he said rather dryly.
“But you were very welcome to the money. And I am glad to think you
enjoyed yourself while it lasted.”
This thrust, caused by a sudden remembrance of the hunter and the new
clothes in which Theodore had been so smart at his expense, was all the
vengeance Bram took. He tore himself away as speedily as possible, and
ran off for the doctor with a lighter heart than he had borne for many
a day. Might not miracles happen? Might they not? Bram asked himself
something like this as he ran through the rain over the sodden ground.
When he returned to the farmhouse with the doctor, Bram received a
great shock. For, on entering the kitchen, he found Mr. Cornthwaite
himself pacing up and down the room, while Joan watched him with
anxious eyes from the scullery doorway.
Josiah stopped short in his walk when the two men entered. He nodded to
Bram, and wished the doctor good-evening as the latter passed through,
and went upstairs, followed by Joan.
“Will you come through, sir?” said Bram. “There’s a fire in the
drawing-room.”
Mr. Cornthwaite, over whom there had passed some great change, followed
him with only a curt assent. Bram supposed that even he had been
touched to learn that the woman of whom he had come in search was
so ill as to be past understanding that her persecution had already
begun. He stood in front of the fire, with his hat in one hand and his
umbrella in the other, with his back to Bram, in dead silence for some
minutes.
Then he turned abruptly, and asked in a stern, cold voice, without
looking up from the floor, on which he was following the pattern of the
carpet with the point of his umbrella--
“Did that scoundrel Biron get back home all right?”
“He’s got home, sir, but he’s very ill. He’s caught cold, I think.”
“He was not molested, attacked again, by the woman, the woman Tyzack,
who threw the vitriol over him before?”
“No, sir. She followed him, but he lost sight of her before he got
here.”
Mr. Cornthwaite nodded, and was again silent for some time. Bram was
much puzzled. Instead of the fierce resentment, the savage anger which
had possessed the bereaved father immediately after the loss of his
son there now hung over him a gloomy sadness tempered by an uneasiness
and irresolution, which were new attributes in the business-like,
strong-natured man.
The silence had lasted some minutes again, when he spoke as sharply as
before.
“I came to see the daughter, Claire Biron. But I’m told--the woman
tells me--that she is ill, and can’t see any one. Is that true?”
“Yes, sir. She is delirious.”
Mr. Cornthwaite turned away impatiently, and again there was a pause.
At last he said in the same sharp tone--
“You brought her back home, I suppose?”
“Yes. At least I followed her, and when she grew too tired to walk
alone I caught her up, and helped her along.”
Mr. Cornthwaite looked at him curiously. The little room was
ill-lighted, by two candles only and the red glow of the fire. He could
see Bram’s face pretty well, but the young man could not see his.
“Still infatuated, I see?” said Josiah in a hard, ironical voice.
Bram made no answer.
“You intend to marry her, I suppose?” went on Mr. Cornthwaite in a
harder tone than ever.
Bram stared. But he could see nothing of Mr. Cornthwaite’s features,
only the black outline of his figure against the dim candle-light.
“No, sir,” said he steadily. “I only hope to be able to save her life.”
“And how do you propose to do that?”
“Sir, you know best.”
His voice shook, and he stopped. There was silence between them till
they heard the footsteps of the doctor and Joan coming down the stairs.
Mr. Cornthwaite opened the door.
“Well, Doctor,” said he, “what of the patients?”
There was more impatience than solicitude in his tone.
“They’re both very ill,” answered the doctor. “They ought each to have
a nurse, really.”
“Very well. Can you engage them, Doctor? I’ll undertake to pay all the
expenses of their illness.”
The doctor was impressed by this generosity; so was Bram, but in a
different way. What was the reason of this sudden consideration, this
unexpected liberality to the poor relations whom he detested, and to
whom he imputed the death of his son?
“What’s the matter with them?” went on Mr. Cornthwaite in the same
hard, perfunctory, if not slightly suspicious tone.
“Pneumonia in Mr. Biron’s case, brought on by exposure to wet and cold,
no doubt. He has just had a severe shivering fit, and his pulse is
up to a hundred and four. We must do the best we can, but he’s a bad
subject for pneumonia, very.”
“And the daughter?”
“Acute congestion of the brain. She’s delirious.”
“Ah!”
Mr. Cornthwaite seemed satisfied now that he had the doctor’s assurance
that the illness was genuine. He made no more inquiries, but he
followed the medical man into the hall and to the front door. The
doctor perceived that it was locked and bolted at the top and bottom.
“All right,” said he, “I’ll go through the other way.”
And he made his way to the kitchen, followed by Mr. Cornthwaite and
Bram.
As he opened the door which led into the kitchen, the wind blew
strongly in his face from the outer door, which was wide open. The rain
was sweeping in, and the tablecloth was blown off into his face as he
entered. At the same moment Joan, who had gone into the back kitchen to
prepare something the doctor had ordered, made her appearance at the
door between the two rooms.
“I shouldn’t leave this door open,” said the doctor as he crossed the
room to shut it. “The wind blows through the whole house.”
Joan stared.
“Ah didn’t leave it open, sir,” said she. “Ah’ve only just coom through
here, and it were shut then. Some one’s been and opened it.”
Bram gave a glance round the room, and then opened the door through
which he and the others had just come to examine the hall.
“What’s the matter?” asked Mr. Cornthwaite sharply. He had bidden the
doctor a hasty good-bye, afraid of the condolences which he saw were on
the tip of his tongue.
Bram, with a candle in his hand, was peering into the dark corners.
“I was just thinking, sir, that perhaps Meg Tyzack had got in while we
were talking in the drawing-room,” said he. “Mr. Biron made me bolt the
doors to keep her from getting in. He seemed to be afraid she would
follow him into the house.”
The words were hardly uttered, when from the floor above there came a
piercing scream, a woman’s scream.
“Claire!” shouted Bram, springing on the stairs.
But before he could mount half a dozen steps a wild figure came out of
Claire’s room, and rushed to the head of the staircase in answer to his
call. But it was not Claire. It was, as Bram had feared, Meg Tyzack,
recognizable only by her deep voice, by her loud, hoarse laugh, for the
figure itself looked scarcely human.
Standing at the top of the stairs, with her arms outstretched as if to
prevent any one’s passing her on the way up, the gaunt creature seemed
to be of gigantic height, and looked, with her loose, disordered hair
and the rags which hung down from her arms instead of sleeves, like a
witch in the throes of prophecy.
“Stand back! Stand back! Leave her alone!” she cried furiously, as Bram
rushed up the stairs, and struggled to get past her. She flung her arms
round him, laughing discordantly, and clinging so tightly that without
hurting her he would have found it impossible to disengage himself.
“What has she done? What has she done?” asked Mr. Cornthwaite in a
loud, hard, angry voice as he came to Bram’s assistance.
At the first sound of Mr. Cornthwaite’s voice, Meg’s rage seemed
suddenly to disappear, to give place to a fit of strange gloom, quite
as wild, and still more terrible to see. Releasing Bram, who ran past
her, she leaned over the banisters, and looked straight into Mr.
Cornthwaite’s haggard face.
“What has she done? What have I done?” said she in a horrible whisper.
“Why, I’ve done the best night’s work that’s ever been done on this
earth, that’s what I’ve done. I’ve sent the man and the woman I hated
both to----. Ha! ha! ha!”
With a shrieking laugh she leapt past him to the bottom of the stairs.