MUST THIS THING BE?
Mr. George Dashwood staggered into the hall at the dower house with an
exaggeration of grief that filled Mary with contempt. The dethroned
head of the house seemed to have no thought for anything but himself.
His eyes were filled with tears, his voice was weak and tremulous with
selfish emotion.
"This is dreadful," he moaned. "Really, I had expected something
better at your hands, Darnley. Still, I suppose you are merely here to
fulfil a promise to Ralph Dashwood. Most selfish of a man to keep in
the background all these years and then spring a mine on one like
this. And here am I, at my time of life, with nothing to fall back on,
not even a pension, for I commuted mine when I left the Service.
Still, that young fellow did not behave at all badly. Don't forget, my
dear that he offered us the free use of the Hall for the present, at
any rate. And he said that he was not a marrying man. Well, if you
play your cards properly, Mary----"
Mary turned her face away and hid her hot cheeks in a great bowl of
dewy roses standing on the hall table. It was no use, she could not
keep the tears back any longer. This was the crowning humiliation of
an unspeakable day. For her father to deal her this blow in the
presence of the one man whose respect she valued so highly was the
refinement of cruelty. She rushed from the hall with choking words to
the effect that she must go and tell Lady Dashwood everything.
"What's the matter with the girl now?" Dashwood asked peevishly. "Not
one word of sympathy has she uttered. Children have no feelings
nowadays, Darnley. I suppose she was angry about the new head of the
house. What better arrangement could be made? It would settle all the
difficulties at once, especially now Mayfield is out of the way. I
thought that our young friend put it very nicely."
"Did you?" Ralph responded coldly. "I may not be a judge of these
matters, but I fail to see how you could accept that invitation. Of
course, a few days' residence at Dashwood to get your personal
belongings together would be another matter."
"But what am I to do?" Dashwood asked feebly. "I am an old man, I have
been accustomed to the best of everything all my lifetime, and here I
am cut off from all my pleasures and not a penny to call my own. I
can't starve, my good fellow, and I couldn't stay here with Lady
Dashwood; she gets on my nerves terribly. What am I to do? Really, I
feel in absolute need of a cigar and glass of champagne. It is not my
habit to drink at this time of the day, but my condition calls for
it."
Dashwood crept away with many a sigh and groan, and Ralph was left to
his own by no means pleasant thoughts. He had deliberately struck the
blow, and now that it had fallen, he was inclined to be dismayed at
the result. It was very hard upon this feeble old man, it was very
hard upon Mary, but Ralph steeled himself for the fray. Things were
going to be worse yet, the lily was going to pine upon the stem.
Still, it would never do now to become infirm of purpose, let the
consequences be ever so bad. Yet, if the worst came to the worst, it
would be easy to sweep away the whole network of intrigue and fraud by
the raising of a finger. It was necessary that Mary should learn her
lesson to the last letter. That the girl would fight hard against her
misfortunes Ralph did not need to be told. That she would refuse to
eat the bread of charity at another person's expense he was perfectly
sure. He was still debating the problem when Mary entered the hall
again. Her face was very white; there were dark rings under her blue
eyes, which were now swollen with tears. The girl flushed as she saw
the sympathy in Ralph's face.
"Do not think me weak," she pleaded. "I am finding out that I am only
human after all. I have always despised tears, but the pain at my
heart was so great that tears brought the only cure for it. But I did
not come here to talk about myself. I have been telling Lady Dashwood
everything, and she has expressed a desire to see you. What have you
done with my father?"
"He has gone to the dining-room. He declared that exhausted nature
required a stimulant in the form of champagne. I am afraid that you
will not find your father much use to you in the dark hours to come,
Mary."
"I'm afraid not," Mary sighed, "but won't you go and see Lady
Dashwood? She is upstairs in her sitting-room. Of course, she is
upset; in fact, she has been saying all sorts of strange things which
are beyond my comprehension. Why has she taken such a strange fancy to
you, I wonder?"
But Ralph did not appear to be listening. There was every prospect of
a painful interview before him. He passed up the stairs to the
pleasant room looking over the gardens which Lady Dashwood had made
her own. She signed for the door to be shut; as Ralph came towards
her, she advanced with both hands outstretched.
"You will guess why I sent for you," she said. "Mary has been telling
me everything. So the man who calls himself Vincent Dashwood has made
a bold move at last."
"He really didn't," Ralph smiled. "But had we not better sit down? My
dear grandmother, you are going to become a party to the conspiracy.
Let us no longer keep up the pretence of not knowing the relationship
in which we stand to each other."
Lady Dashwood extended a shaking hand, and Ralph touched it with his
lips.
"Perhaps I had better make a full confession," he said. "I am your
grandson. I knew that you would recognise me by the likeness to my
father. Old Slight did so at once and very nearly betrayed me. I had
forgotten Slight. I pledged him to secrecy, I had nobody to fear but
you, and it seemed to me that it was quite easy to keep out of your
way. But circumstances were too strong for me. Then I saw that you
were going to respect my wishes and I was safe. Forty years have gone
by since my father left the Hall, so that nobody was likely to guess
my identity."
"Yes, but who is this Vincent Dashwood?" Lady Dashwood asked. "Oh, I
am not quite so foolish over that man as you may think. He came here
and declared himself to me. He had the most absolute documentary
evidence. He had many of the letters which I had written to your
father--letters to which I never received any reply. Old Slight
was more mistrustful, and submitted the claimant to a rigid
cross-examination. The man was not to be shaken in a single detail. We
were bound to accept his statements. But one proof was lacking, the
certificate of his parents' marriage. He desired to have his claim
kept quiet till that proof was forthcoming. This was after Mary and
her father came into possession. You can imagine my distress and
grief, seeing that I loved Mary so, and I hated the intruder in
proportion. He preyed upon my weakness, he seemed to read me like an
open book. If you had not appeared, he would have gone on blackmailing
me till the end. But when that man came face to face with you, I knew
that he was an impostor, that he had never seen my son Ralph. And now
he has decided to play the bold game, seeing that nothing more is to
be expected from me."
"Not quite that," Ralph explained. "Fate played into my hands. The man
was more or less forced to disclose his identity. Let me tell you all
about the matchbox. . . . Now you see exactly how it is."
"But this is monstrous," Lady Dashwood cried, "you have only to speak
and the wicked scheme collapses. You will not let this go on, Ralph?"
"For the present, grandmother. For the present we are going to say
nothing. A little time before my father died he told me who I was. We
had lost our money, but that did not matter as my father was provided
for here. When I came to find out how the land lay, to my surprise I
discovered that the only woman I could ever care for was installed at
the Hall as mistress. I had no idea that this was going to happen when
I met Mary two years ago in Paris. Her father had not assumed the
family name then. And when I came face to face with Mary and held her
in my arms, I knew that the old love was stronger than ever. And here
was a solution. Those people were occupying my place, the place that
belonged by birth to me, Sir Ralph Dashwood. If I had proclaimed and
asked Mary to marry me, she would have consented. She would have
regarded it as her duty to do so. But that is not the marriage of my
dreams. Perhaps I am romantic: I want Mary to marry me, me, plain
Ralph Darnley, for love of me, and deem the family pride well lost for
a good man's affection. It is the living, breathing woman I want, not
the lovely mistress of that family who puts the pride of the Dashwoods
in front of everything else. Suffering and trouble and poverty shall
be her portion. She shall go out into the world and see what noble
souls are there who rise superior to fierce temptation though they
have no family pride to boast of. Then, when the scales have fallen
from Mary's eyes, and she sees as I do, then will I ask her to share
my life with me. My dream is to come back here with a bride who deems
love and pity and sympathy to be far above the steady sentiment that
says, 'I am a Dashwood, and the rest are as dirt under my feet.' You
see what I mean, don't you? And that is why I am asking you to help me
in the matter. Let this little imposter strut his passing hours on the
stage; let him be our puppet. I shall know how to punish him when the
time comes."