BREAKING IT.
AS Margaret and her uncle sat at breakfast the next morning—later than
usual, as was their wont on Sundays—scarce a word was interchanged
between them. Her pale face and haggard eyes evoked no remark from him,
who, indeed, himself looked pale and worn enough. If he had spoken upon
the subject of the play it might have been made easier to her to tell
him her dreadful tidings. But as it was, she felt herself unequal to
the task; she could not break in upon his gloomy thoughts with such
black news. She almost hoped, from his set lips and knitted brow, that
he suspected something of the truth; otherwise surely, surely, she
thought, he would express some anxiety concerning the continued absence
of William Henry.
She was, however, mistaken. Where affection is not concerned, even the
catastrophes that happen to others (and much less the apprehensions of
them) do not concern us so much as our own material interests.
After a mere pretence of a meal, the antiquary produced pen and ink,
and proceeded to make some calculations.
In the middle of them arrived Mr. Albany Wallis. His face was even
graver than usual, which his host, however, thought natural enough.
He took it for granted that he had come upon business connected with
the play, the failure of which was sufficient to account for his
depression; or his melancholy, perhaps, might have been put on with
a view of cheapening the terms that had been agreed upon with his
employers. But Margaret felt, the first instant she caught sight of the
visitor’s face, that he knew all, and did not need that dumb assurance
of human sympathy, the close, lingering pressure of his hand, to
convince her of it.
‘This is a bad job,’ said Mr. Erin, with a pretence of briskness. ‘I
suppose Sheridan will not give the play another chance?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Mr. Wallis decisively. ‘Almeyda is on the bill
for to-morrow.’
‘Then there is nothing for it but to settle, and have done with it. It
is quite as great a disappointment to me as to the management, I do
assure you, and eventually will be as great a loss. I have ordered the
paper for the publication of the play, and must needs go on with it. I
cannot break faith with the public.’
‘You are a man of honour, I know,’ said Mr. Wallis gently; ‘but for
that very reason you must not print this play.’
‘And why not, sir?’
‘Because it is spurious.’
‘That was not your opinion yesterday, Mr. Wallis, nor is it mine
to-day. What, because a few scoundrels have bespattered it, and done
their best to make it a failure, and succeeded, you call it spurious!’
‘Mr. Erin, I entreat you to be calm. I am as sorry for what has
happened as you can be, though not, perhaps’ (here he stole a tender
look at Margaret), ‘for the same reason.’
‘It needs no ghost from the grave to assure me of that much,’ replied
the antiquary derisively. ‘You have your own interests, and those
of your employers, to look to, and I have mine. You are here, as I
conclude, to pay me the three hundred pounds agreed upon for the play
and half the profits of the first night. The house was full enough, at
all events.’
‘Yes, it was a good house. Your share of the adventure is a hundred and
five pounds exactly. I have therefore to pay you four hundred and five
pounds.’
‘Very good; I cannot permit any deductions. If it was worth while to
discuss the matter, I might on my part reasonably make complaint of the
manner in which the play was acted. Kemble never gave it a fair chance.
At Covent Garden it would have had more justice done to it, and might
have met with a better fate.’
‘Then it would have met with a fate that it did not deserve, Mr. Erin.’
‘I do not wish to discuss the subject,’ said the antiquary curtly.
His reply would probably have been much less courteous but for the
production of the bills—Mr. Sheridan paid everything in bills—for the
amount in question. Bills and banknotes are the best ‘soft answers’ for
the turning away of wrath.
‘You misunderstand me altogether, Mr. Erin,’ continued the other with
dignity. ‘I had no intention, as you seem to have apprehended, of
disturbing your business arrangements with Mr. Sheridan, which may be
taken as concluded. I am sorry to say I am come here upon a much more
unpleasant errand. I am here at the request of your son, William Henry.’
‘Ah! I see,’ broke in the antiquary with bitterness; ‘his professional
adviser. He shall not have one penny more than the share—one-third of
the profits—that has been agreed upon.’
Then he turned to Margaret.
‘So you have told him my determination of last night, have you, and
he meets it by a declaration of war? Let him do as he pleases; but I
warn you, hussey, that if once you throw in your lot with his, I have
done with you. The money that is his by rights is not much, as you will
find, to keep house upon.’
Margaret strove to speak, but her tongue clove to the roof of her
mouth. It was shocking to see the old man’s rage, and none the less
so because it was so misdirected. If his passion was so aroused by
the mere opposition (as he supposed it to be) to his will, how would
he take the destruction of his hopes, and the knowledge that he had
been made a public laughing-stock? Whatever he had been to others,
he had been kind to her; and, abhorrent to her as was the crime of
ingratitude, she would have been willing to rest under its imputation
if by so doing she could have spared him the revelation of the truth.
‘Dear uncle,’ she presently murmured, with faltering voice, and laying
her little hand upon the old man’s arm, ‘you wrong me in your thoughts;
but that is nothing as compared with the wrong which has been done to
_you_. All between William Henry and me is over; for the rest of my
life I will endeavour to supply his place with you, and to remedy, as
far as in me lies, the evil that he has committed against you.’
‘What is it? What is she saying? I do not understand,’ inquired the
antiquary in trembling tones.
‘She is telling you the truth, sir,’ said Mr. Wallis impressively.
‘Heaven send you the strength to bear it!’
‘Dear uncle, you have been deceived,’ said Margaret with tender
gravity. ‘From first to last you have been deceived, as we all have
been. The Shakespeare manuscripts, of which you thought so much, are
forgeries—every one of them. William Henry has confessed it.’
‘You lie, you baggage, you lie!’ he cried with fury.
‘I wish I did,’ sighed Margaret bitterly.
He did not hear her; there was a singing in his ears that shut out all
other sounds.
‘So this is the last card you have to play, you two, is it? I am
to be frightened into compliance with your wishes; frightened into
annihilating common sense, and making two beggars happy! And you,
_you_, sir!’ he added, turning to Mr. Wallis; ‘you are not ashamed
to be a confederate in such a scheme as this? These two young fools
think it is for their sake, but I know better. You are one of Malone’s
creatures. Having already failed by fair means to disprove the
genuineness of these manuscripts, you have bought over this ungrateful
lad to your side. “If you will perjure yourself,“ you have said to him,
“and admit yourself to be a forger, we will see that you do not lose by
it; we will give you money—since the old man will not—upon which you
and yours can subsist together.“ Oh, liars and villains!’
It was pitiful to see and hear him. King Lear himself, deserted by his
own flesh and blood and invoking heaven’s vengeance on them, could
hardly have been a more dreadful spectacle.
‘Mr. Erin,’ said Mr. Wallis gravely, ‘if you see me in no way moved by
the infamous accusation you have made against me, and even restraining
a still more natural indignation at the dishonour your words have
cast upon that innocent girl, it is not because I do not feel it; it
is because I pity you from the bottom of my heart. That you have been
duped and fooled by the falsehood of this unhappy young man is only
what has happened to others, myself amongst them; but in your own case
the reflection must be infinitely more bitter, since he who wrought the
wrong was your own flesh and blood—one who has taken your bread, and
bitten the hand that fed him. If you do not believe us, Miss Margaret
has his own words for it in black and white.’
Here Margaret drew the confession from her bosom, and laid it on the
table beside her uncle; his fingers were grasping the arms of his
chair, and his face was fixed full upon his visitor in hate and rage.
‘If you will read it at your leisure,’ continued the lawyer gently,
‘you will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that, with one
exception, no one has had any hand in this shameful fraud save the
miserable lad himself; that your niece was as innocent of any knowledge
in it, from first to last, as you were; so much even those who have
been inclined to suspect you of any connivance in it must needs
acknowledge when they read that paper——’
Mr. Erin leaped from his chair, with an inarticulate cry of fury, and
seizing the confession before him, tore it from left to right, and from
right to left, into a hundred pieces.
‘Begone,’ he cried, ‘begone, both of you! Take her with you, I say,
lest I do her a mischief; take her to the Perjurer, send her to the
devil for all I care; but never let me see her false face again!’
With that he threw himself out of the room like one demented, and after
the door had clanged behind him they heard his heavy step at first at a
speed beyond his years, but presently with the tread of exhaustion and
old age, creep up to his own room.
‘Is it safe to leave him, think you?’ inquired Mr. Wallis in a hushed
voice. ‘Once convinced of the truth, his reflections must be terrible.
To be deceived by one’s own flesh and blood!’
‘William Henry is not his son,’ said Margaret quietly; in a time
of anguish and distress it is easy to speak of matters which under
ordinary circumstances we should shrink from mentioning.
‘Thank heaven for that!’ ejaculated the lawyer; ‘there is no fear,
then, that he will not get over it. What I took for paternal resentment
is partly, no doubt, exasperation at the exposure of his own credulity.
The only reason for your remaining here after his express commandment
to the contrary no longer therefore exists. Your doing so for the
present at least will only remind him of his misfortune and aggravate
its bitterness. I have a sister who keeps my house for me, and who will
welcome you as a mother; I entreat you to accept of her hospitality,
not only for your own sake, but for that of your uncle. Indeed, after
the threat he has made use of, I must insist upon your accompanying
me.’
‘I am not afraid for myself; I am sure he will never harm me. Indeed,
Mr. Wallis, I cannot leave him in his solitude and wretchedness.’
‘He will not be solitary, Miss Margaret. I will drop a hint to Mr.
Dennis, whose intention I know it is to call upon him this afternoon,
to take up his quarters with him for a while.’
At the mention of Frank Dennis’s name Margaret changed colour; the idea
of meeting him had suddenly become intolerable.
‘If your sister will give me an asylum for a few days,’ she hurriedly
replied, ‘I think I will take advantage of your most kind offer.’
In a few minutes she had made her preparations for departure; she
trembled lest there should come a knock at the front door while she
was yet in the house. She glanced apprehensively up the little street,
as she sallied forth on Mr. Wallis’s arm, lest some one with eyes that
spoke reproof, without intending it, should come across her before she
had gained the shelter of another roof. Some one whom she had never
estimated at his true worth, or treated as he deserved; some one she
had blamed for his coldness and incredulity, but who had suspected all
along—she was as convinced of it as of the fraud itself—the deception
which had been practised upon her, but whom the nobleness of a nature
that shrank from the exposure of a rival had kept silent.