"HOW LONG, HOW LONG!"
"If it isn't a rude question," he said, "who are you? What do you mean
by interfering in this way?"
"It does not matter in the least who I am," Ralph replied. "To put it
bluntly, Lady Dashwood has asked me to get rid of you. Until you have
disposed of this portion of the property, the house belongs to her
ladyship. Your dissolute companions have already gone. I don't blame
them, however. I have no doubt that they expected a congenial welcome
here. They probably drew a wrong picture altogether of Lady Dashwood.
They had the grace to be ashamed of themselves."
"Once more," Dashwood said with drunken gravity, "who are you?"
"As I said before, it does not in the least matter," Ralph replied.
"At the present moment I am acting on behalf of Lady Dashwood. I know
that it is not the slightest good to appeal to your better feelings,
for the simple reason that they don't exist. Will you be so good as to
go, or am I to resort to force?"
Dashwood laughed. The hot blood mounted to Ralph's face and the full
force of his passion tingled to his finger-tips. He threw open the
long window that led to the lawn; then he advanced to the figure
lounging in the chair. He wasted no time in argument, but bent over
the chair and dragged Dashwood out by the throat. A moment later the
latter was flung violently on to the grass, where he lay dazed and
confused for a moment. Presently he picked himself up, and loafed
after his companions, who were noisily walking down the avenue. It was
a relief to Ralph to know that the fellow was not seriously hurt.
As if nothing had happened, he made his way to the dining-room. Lady
Dashwood was pacing up and down the room, her face white and set, her
eyes full of flaming anger. All the fiery blood of the race was raging
in her veins now.
"So they have gone," she cried. "A pretty outrage indeed! I shall have
the villagers here next dropping in on their way from the inn of a
Saturday night. Have men of that class no manners, no respect for the
feelings of others?"
"You can't altogether blame them," Ralph said soothingly. "Probably
they took you to be what that drunken ruffian yonder would call 'a
good sort.' They judged you by him, and I am quite sure that Mr.
George Dashwood did all he could----"
"He didn't," Lady Dashwood flashed out. "He is a coward and a
poltroon. He is not worthy to be the father of a girl like Mary. Fancy
him cringing and fawning on a man like that for the sake of a good
home and the dainty food that he loves better than his independence!
But I don't blame him and the man who calls himself Sir Vincent
Dashwood so much as I blame _you_."
"_Me!_" Ralph asked in some surprise, "what have I done?"
"Everything. You have brought all this about. If it had not been for
you, this disgraceful scene could not have happened. For purposes of
your own, you have placed a puppet on the throne at Dashwood--a
disgraceful, drunken image, that is not worthy to be called a man. Why
do you do it?"
"I think you know perfectly well," Ralph, said gently. "I am very,
very sorry; I could not have foreseen anything like this. Won't you
forgive me?"
All the hot, rebellious anger died out of Lady Dashwood's heart.
"I must, when you speak to me like that," she said. "When you look at
me with your father's eyes, and speak to me with his voice, I could
find it in me to forgive you anything. But you must own that it is
very hard to bear, Ralph. When you came back here like a figure from
the grave, I began to hope that God was going to be good to me in my
declining years. I have sinned heavily, but I have paid the penalty.
When I saw you that day at the fire I recognised you at once, as
Slight had done. My prayers had been answered, and one of my flesh and
blood had come back to claim the old inheritance. And you had come to
free me from the hateful attentions of the impostor who so grievously
insulted me tonight. But you did nothing of the sort; you tried to
hide yourself from me as if you were guilty of something shameful."
"But, my dear grandmother, I told you why," Ralph protested. "I had to
work out my life's romance in a way that seemed best to me. And Fate
played into my hands--the little affair of the silver matchbox forced
the so-called Dashwood to speak. Still, it will not be for long. I saw
the family solicitors yesterday--are by no means disposed to let
matters remain as they are. Have you any idea as to the real identity
of the man who calls himself Sir Vincent Dashwood?"
"I _had_," Lady Dashwood said. "But I was certain yesterday. I saw his
mother. Oh, but yesterday was a day of surprises."
"His mother," Ralph cried. "Is she still alive? She was Agnes
Edgerton, sister of my father's first wife. Is not that so?"
"Absolutely correct, but I did not know it till yesterday; I thought
that she was dead long since. I have never heard a word of her since
she left the village seventeen years ago. And because she knew of my
crime, because she knew of the great sin that hangs over the house,
she wrote to me and asked me to help her. It appears that she had been
residing in London at a place called Keppel Terrace, where she has
tried to live by letting lodgings."
"That much I know," Ralph said. "She wrote to my father from time to
time. What I did not know is that she had a son. Please go on."
"It was a most pitiful letter she wrote me. She was going to lose her
home if she did not receive a certain sum by a certain time. The
letter came too late for me to help. It was followed by a telegram
asking me to send the money to another address. Had you not come into
my life, had things been different, I should have sent the money and
thought no more about it. But things came into my mind and a vague
suspicion that I felt bound to verify. I went to London yesterday and
I saw Mrs. Speed. She told me that it was her son who had brought her
to this pass. Of course, up to that time I had no idea she had a son.
I asked her to show me his photograph, and she did so. You can guess
whose likeness it was?"
"I can guess now," Ralph said. "Of course, it was the man who is at
present master of Dashwood Hall. Did the woman know that?"
"Oh, dear, no. She has not the least idea. But you can see now where
the impostor got all his knowledge, and how he came into possession of
so many documents."
"Not quite," Ralph said, "I want a little light on this particular
spot."
"Well, that is easy. When your father fell in love with his first
wife, Maria Edgerton, they took the sister Agnes, now Mrs. Speed, into
their confidence. She received and kept all the letters, at least, she
seems to have kept the letters after Maria Edgerton died. Of course,
when the affair came to the ears of your grandfather and myself we
were terribly annoyed. Mind you, I had nothing whatever to say against
Maria Edgerton. She was very good and beautiful, but very simple
indeed, and ignorant of the ways of the world. We thought that we had
put an end to the affair, but we failed, and your father and Maria
Edgerton were secretly married. Even then we had hopes of hushing up
the scandal. Your father had to go away with his regiment, and we
persuaded his wife that he was dead. I did that, and old Patience
helped me. And so did Slight--we were all in the disgraceful business.
Don't ask me why I did it; call it the curse of the family pride if
you like. We thought the woman would go away and forget. Instead of
that she pined and died. When the news came to me I felt like a
murderess. I have never been the same woman again, I never shall be.
And your father found it all out, he came home, and there was a
dreadful scene. He went away declaring that he would never come home
again, and he kept his word. I dared not write to him directly, but
sent my letters through Mrs. Speed. Now you can understand how her son
has come to be so well posted in the secret history of our house. He
must have read and re-read those letters till he had them by heart.
But his mother did not know, she does not guess. How much longer is
this state of affairs to continue, Ralph?"
Ralph shook his head. These revelations came as a surprise to him. And
it was a very sad and very dreadful confession that Lady Dashwood had
made to him.
"All that I have heard confirms me in my opinion that I have acted for
the best," he said. "I cannot absolve you from blame, grandmother,
indeed I cannot. For the sake of the family pride, you have suffered
this remorse for nearly forty years. And yet, in the face of it all,
knowing that Mary was coming into the property some day, you fostered
the same spirit in her. I love Mary, and the one great object in my
life is to make her my wife. But I wanted to be loved for my own sake,
and not for the sake of the family fetish. My plan----"
"Is succeeding," Lady Dashwood cried. "Nay, it has succeeded already.
Go and see Mary, call on her and ascertain for yourself whether I am
speaking the truth or not. She has only been gone a few days, but
already the change has worked wonders. Put your future to the touch,
and you will not be disappointed. Only end this dreadful state of
affairs, turn that man out of the Hall, let me see the place sweet and
wholesome again before I die."
Ralph hesitated. It was a tempting picture that Lady Dashwood had
drawn for him. But he could not quite entertain the idea that already
Mary had changed her nature entirely, as a grub turns to a butterfly.
At the same time Lady Dashwood's plea was not one to be turned from
lightly.
"I will see Mary," he said, "I will go to her tomorrow. I must see
Mrs. Speed also, for I have a message to deliver to her from my
father. You see, I had no idea where to look for her. Patience my
dear, dear lady, patience. After the lapse of forty years you will not
mind waiting for a few days longer."