THE FALL OF PRINCE CHARMING.
Miss Carlaw stood for a long time in the same attitude after her
brother had left her; the whole hideous thing had come upon her so
unexpectedly and with such force that she was like one stunned. She
began presently to pace about the room, moaning once or twice to
herself as she walked, and then again stopping suddenly with a new
light on her face and a smile about her lips. But those latter moments
were rare and fleeting; they came to her only when she felt for an
instant that the story she had heard was a hideous invention, and that
her faith in Comethup might still remain unshaken.
After a long, long time her heart leaped suddenly at the sound of
wheels and the opening of a door; then died down again at the thought
of the interview before her. She heard his footstep in the hall, and
then knew by the opening of the room door that he was coming to her as
he always did. She stood stiff and rigid to receive him.
The sound of the voice she loved so well almost shook her resolution to
be stern with him, almost broke her into an appeal. She knew that in
another moment his arm would be about her shoulders in the old boyish
fashion, and she cried out in an agony, "Stop! Stay where you are.
Don't come near me!"
He stopped dead; so suddenly quiet was he that she almost fancied he
had stopped breathing. Then the tension was over; he gave a quick
little gasp and said hurriedly, "What's the matter?"
"Years ago, Comethup, when I first saw you in the house wherein your
father lay dead, I drove a bargain with you--a bargain which, child
though you were, you were fully capable of understanding. Do you
remember it now?"
"Yes, of course." His heart was beating thickly, and he had a dim and
miserable feeling that he knew what was coming.
"I fear you may have forgotten it. I asked for your love and your
confidence; swore that I would be your friend if you dealt with me
openly and squarely through all things and at all times. Have I kept my
word?"
"God knows you have!" he replied in a low voice.
"Have you kept yours?--Ah! you are silent on that point. I ask you
to-night if you have anything to tell me--anything to say to me?"
He raised his head and looked at her; even made a step toward her with
his arms stretched out. Then the arms fell to his sides again and he
simply answered, "Nothing."
Miss Charlotte Carlaw's face hardened suddenly. "Then the talking must
be done by me," she said. "I reminded you just now of our compact when
you were a child; perhaps it will be well to remind you of the penalty
for breaking that compact. I swore to you then, and I meant it, that if
you ever deceived me, ever proved yourself to be anything but the boy I
believed you to be, I'd cast you out and you might starve. I meant it
then, and, by the Lord, I'll keep my word! It has come to my knowledge
to-night that you have done what, in my eyes, is a shameful and
disgraceful thing; that, trading on the fact that you believed yourself
to be my heir, you have borrowed a large sum of money; have used the
bounty and generosity of a foolish old woman who believed in you, and
so have actually drawn money which you can not possess until after my
death. Will you deny that? Is it true?"
"Yes, it's true," said Comethup.
She gave a long sigh, turned away from him, leaned her arm against the
side of the fireplace, and laid her old face against the arm and began
to cry helplessly. It was the most pitiful sight imaginable, and yet
he could do nothing to comfort her, dared not even go near her. In
a dim, forlorn fashion he seemed to see passing before him all that
had happened in that very room--the riotous feasts, when he had been
a child--the sound of merry laughter; he even seemed to see himself
as he had once stood on the table, singing a foolish song, with the
captain watching him silently; he could hear his own childish treble,
could feel again the old woman's hand grasping his ankle. And now the
room was empty and the generous-hearted old creature, the giver of the
feast, who had craved only for his love in return for all her bounty,
was crying hopelessly over her shattered idol.
Presently she ceased her weeping and turned upon him with a certain sad
fierceness of manner. "Have I ever denied you anything, boy? Was I so
much in your way or had you given me so little of your love that you
must long for the time when you could step into possession? O God! for
the dream I have lost! Why, you're worse than any murderer--for the
things you have killed in me to-night! I honestly believe that that is
the unpardonable sin--to kill some trusting fellow-creature's belief in
you."
"Don't, don't!" he cried; "you'll break my heart!"
"And what of mine; did you think nothing of that? I swear to you that
if you had come to me and had told me that you were in want or in
difficulties I'd have helped you if I'd had to mortgage everything I
possessed. Your income has been a large one; it passes my comprehension
to know what you've done with the money; I'm quite afraid to think.
However, that's all done with; I'll never believe in any human creature
again. I believed in you with all my heart and soul; I saw in you, or
thought I did, something better and truer than in any one else. Now I
find my mistake. Thinking over it now, I see what a fool I've been. I
remember those days on the Continent when we were travelling about, and
when your money went more rapidly than I could put it in your hands.
I didn't mind then; I thought you didn't know the value of it, but
would learn in time. Now your chance to learn is gone. You and I part
to-night!"
He stood there dumb, knowing that he could say nothing to her, knowing
that he dare not plead for himself. Indeed, he did not think of himself
at that time; he found himself dimly wondering what was to become of
'Linda when this last sum of money was exhausted. He had never foreseen
such a crisis as this. The fashion in which he had supplied Brian and
his father with funds, beginning as it had done in his boyhood, had
grown to be such a natural thing that he had ceased to be surprised
at it, or, indeed, to think about it very much at all. He put himself
clearly and quietly outside the question; his heart only ached
desperately for this old woman who was destined to be left alone again
after all these years, despite all her goodness to him. He stood still
for a few moments watching her, and then turned quietly and went toward
the door.
She called after him: "Have you nothing to say to me?"
He came back slowly. "Oh, my dear," he said in a broken voice, "what
shall I say to you? To thank you for all that you've done, all that I
seem so shamefully to have misused, would sound like a mockery. After
all, all that you say is good and fair and just; I have lied to you
and deceived you and broken my bargain; I can't say anything more than
that. Deep as my gratitude is, I wish--O God, how much I wish!--that
you had left me as you found me when I was a little child. I suppose I
wasn't fit or strong enough to take the position you meant for me."
"I suppose not. And you won't tell me what you've done with all this
money?"
"No, I can't tell you that," he replied. Before him again he seemed to
see the face of 'Linda--'Linda, whose fool's paradise he had created,
and who lived in it contentedly, knowing nothing of what it was founded
upon. In his own steadfast, single-hearted way he knew that that secret
must be kept, and kept to the end for her sake.
"Well, if you won't, you won't," said the old woman, with a sudden
return of her hardness of manner. "I suppose it doesn't matter now.
But, since you refuse all explanations, so I refuse to have anything
to do with you further, or with any trouble you have created. You
have borrowed this money under the belief that you were my heir, but
you've reckoned without me. Here, to-night, under the very roof where
I first gave you all your honours, I strip them from you. Those who
lent you the money may get it back as they can; I'll encourage no
such business as that. I'll warrant they'll pull long faces when they
find they've been misled. Yes, I strip everything from you. The boy
I loved, the Prince Charming I worshipped, is dead--never has been
at all. Another--a creature I don't know and don't understand, a
stranger to me--has taken his place. Prince Charming has gone--God help
me!--forever."
He turned then and went quietly out of the room. When at the door he
looked back for a moment she was seated in her chair with her hands
resting on the top of her stick, and her face bowed on the hands; she
was rocking herself to and fro in the fashion he remembered so well.
He stole up to his room, struck a light, and looked round that happy
place of his boyhood for a long time; then presently closed the door,
went down the stairs, put on his hat, and left the house, taking
nothing with him, but going out as quietly and as steadfastly to begin
the world again as though he had been merely starting for a quiet
half-hour's walk. He had not the faintest idea of what to do or where
to go; there was no one to whom he could turn, for even the captain
would not understand, and must never be told. Prince Charming, as the
old woman had said, was dead; it would surely be wiser that he should
be forgotten also.