We do not, nowadays, strike attitudes, or ejaculate and swear when we
are startled or shocked; Stafford stood perfectly still, still as a
piece of Stonehenge, and gazed with an expressionless countenance at
Mr. Falconer. That the man was indeed and in truth mad, occurred to him
for a moment; then he thought there must be some mistake, that Mr.
Falconer had made a blunder in the name, and that it was a case of
mistaking his man.
But as the moments fled, and the two elder men gazed at him, as if
expecting him to speak, he remembered Howard's warning. The colour
rushed to his face and his eyes dropped. Merciful Heaven! was the man
speaking the truth when he said that he, Stafford, was in love with
Maude Falconer? His face was hot and scarlet for a moment, then it grew
pale under the shame of the thought that he should have to correct the
impression; decline, so to speak, the implied honour.
Sir Stephen was the first to speak. He had sunk back in his chair, but
was now leaning forward again, his hands gripping the table.
"Stafford!" he said, still thickly, but with the beginning of a note of
relief in his voice. "I did not know this--you did not tell me!"
Stafford turned to him helplessly. What could he say--before Falconer,
the girl's father?
"You did not tell me. But I don't complain, my boy," said Sir Stephen."
You were right to choose your own time--young people like to keep their
secret to themselves as long as possible."
Falconer looked from one to the other with an impassive countenance.
"I feel that I am rather _de trop_," he said; "that I have spoken
rather prematurely; but my hand was forced, Orme. I wanted to set your
mind at rest, to show you that even if I hankered after revenge, it was
impossible under the circumstances." He glanced at Stafford. "It's not
the first time in history that the young people have played the part of
peace-makers. This is a kind of Romeo and Juliet business, isn't it?
I'll leave you and Mr. Stafford to talk it over!"
He moved to the door, but, with his hand upon it, paused and looked
round at them again.
"I ought to aid that, like most modern fathers, I am entirely in the
hands of my daughter. I can't go so far as to say, Orme, that if I had
been permitted to choose, I should have chosen a son of yours for my
son-in-law, but, you see, Maude doesn't give me the option. The young
people have taken the bit between their teeth and bolted, and it seems
to me that the only thing we have to do is to sit tight and look as
cheerful as possible. Oh, one word more," he added, in a business-like
tone. "Of course I make over this concession to you, Orme; just taking
the share I should have received if you had won the game and I had only
stood in as proposed. That is to say, you will be in exactly the same
position as if you had won all along the line--as you thought you had."
And with a nod, which included father and son, he went out.
Stafford unconsciously drew back a little, so that he was almost behind
Sir Stephen, who had covered his eyes with his hands and sat perfectly
motionless, like a half-stunned man looking back at some terrible
danger from which he had only escaped by the skin of his teeth. Then he
dropped his hands from his face and drew a long breath, the kind of
breath a man draws who has been battling with the waves and finds
himself on the shore, exhausted but still alive.
Stafford laid a hand on his shoulder, and Sir Stephen started and
looked up at him as if he had forgotten his presence. A flush, as if of
shame, came upon the great financier's face, and he frowned at the
papers lying before him, where they had dropped from his hand.
"What an escape, Stafford!" he said, his voice still rather thick and
with a tremour of excitement and even exhaustion in its usually clear
and steady tone. "I am ashamed, my boy, that you should have been a
witness to my defeat: it humiliates, mortifies me!"
"Don't let that worry you, father," said Stafford, scarcely knowing
what he said, for the tumult in his brain, the dread at his heart.
"It is not the first defeat I have suffered in my life; like other
successful men, I have known what it is to fall; and I have laughed and
got up and shaken the dust off myself, so to speak, and gone at the
fight again, all the harder and more determined because of the reverse.
But this--this would have crushed me utterly and forever."
"Do you mean that it would have ruined you completely, father?" said
Stafford.
"Completely!" replied Sir Stephen in a low voice, his head drooping. "I
had staked everything on this venture, had staked even more than I
possessed. I cannot explain all the details, the ramifications, of the
scheme which I have been working. You could not understand them if I
were to talk to you for a week. Suffice it, that if I had failed to get
this concession, I should have been an utterly ruined man, should have
had to go through the bankruptcy court, should have been left without a
penny. And not only that: I should have dragged a great many of the
men, of the friends who had trusted to my ability, who have believed in
me, into the same pit; not only such men as Griffenberg and Wirsch and
the Beltons, but the Plaistows, the Clansdales, and the Fitzharfords.
They would have suffered with me, would have, considered themselves
betrayed."
Stafford drew a long breath. There seemed to him still a chance of
saving himself, the girl he loved, above all--his honour.
"But even if it were so, father," he said; "other men have failed,
other men have been defeated, ruined, and left penniless, and yet have
risen and shaken the dust from them and fought their way again to the
heights. You're not an old man, you are strong and clever, and you are
not alone." he said, in a lower voice. "I'm not much use, I know. But
I'll try and help you all I can. I've often felt ashamed of myself for
living such an idle, useless life; often felt that I ought to do
something to justify my existence. There's a chance now; at any rate,
there's an occasion, a necessity for my waking up and stepping into the
ring to do a little fighting on my own account. We may be beaten by Mr.
Falconer; but don't say we're utterly crushed. That doesn't sound like
you, sir; and I don't understand why you should chuck up the sponge so
quickly."
Sir Stephen raised his head and looked at Stafford with a curious
expression of mingled surprise and apprehension.
"What is it you are saying, Stafford?" he asked. "What is it you mean?
I don't understand. We're not beaten; Ralph Falconer has offered to
make the concession over to me; and no one need know that I have
failed, that he had stolen the march on me. You heard what he said:
that you were in love with his daughter Maude, and that of course he
could not injure his future son-in-law. Stafford!" He sprang to his
feet and began to pace up and down the room. "I know that this has
touched your pride--I can give a pretty good guess as to how proud you
are--but, for God's sake! don't let your pride stand in the way of this
arrangement."
"But--" Stafford began; for he felt that he could not longer keep back
the truth, that his father must be told not only that there was nothing
between Maude and himself, but that he loved Ida Heron.
But before he could utter another word Sir Stephen stopped before him,
and with hands thrown out appealingly, and with a look of terror and
agony in his face, cried in broken accents:
"If you going to raise any obstacle, Stafford, prompted by your pride,
for God's sake, don't say the word! You don't know, you don't
understand! You speak of ruin as if it meant only the loss of money,
the loss of every penny." He laughed almost hysterically, and his lips
twitched. "Do you think I should care for that, except for your sake?
No, a thousand times, no! I'm young still, I could begin the world
again! Yes, and conquer it as I have done before; but"--his voice sank,
and he look round the room with a stealthy glance which shocked and
startled Stafford--"the ruin Ralph Falconer threatens me with means
more than the loss of money. It means the loss of everything! Of
friends, of good name--of hope!"
Stafford started, and his face grew a trifle hard; and Sir Stephen saw
it and made a despairing, appealing gesture with his hand.
"For God's sake don't turn away from me, my boy; don't judge me
harshly. You can't judge me fairly from your standpoint; your life has
been a totally different one from mine, has been lived under different
circumstances. You have never known the temptations to which I have
been subjected. Your life has been an easy one surrounded by honour,
while mine has been spent half the time grubbing in the dust and the
mire for gold, and the rest fighting--sometimes with one hand tied
behind me!--against the men who would have robbed me of it. I have had
to fight them with their own weapons--sometimes they haven't been
clean--sometimes it has been necessary to do--to do things!--God!
Stafford, don't turn away from me! I would have kept this from you if I
could, but I am obliged to tell you now. Ralph Falconer knows all the
details of my past, he knows of things which--which, if they were known
to the world, would stain the name I have raised to honour, would make
it necessary for me to hide my head in a suicide's grave."
A low cry burst from Stafford's lips, and he sank into a chair, and
bowed his head upon his hands.
Sir Stephen stood a little way off and looked at him for a minute, then
he advanced slowly, half timidly and ashamedly, and laid a trembling
hand on Stafford's shoulder.
"Forgive me, Stafford!" he said, in a low, broken voice. "I was obliged
to tell you. I'd have kept it from you--you would never have known--but
Falconer has forced my hand; I was bound to show you how necessary it
was that we should have him as friend instead of foe. You are
not--ashamed of me, my boy; you won't go back on me?"
In the stress and strain of his emotion the old digger's slang came
readily to his lips.
Stafford took one hand from his face and held it out, and his father
grasped it, clinging to it as a drowning man clings to a rock.
"God bless you, my boy!" he said. "I might have known you wouldn't turn
your back upon me; I might have known that you'd remember that I wasn't
fighting for myself only, but for the son I'm so proud of."
"I know, I know, sir," said Stafford, almost inaudibly.
Sir Stephen hung his hand, released it, and paced up and down the room
again, fighting for composure, and facing the situation after the
manner of his kind. Like all successful adventurers, he was always
ready to look on the bright side. He came back to Stafford and patted
him gently on the shoulder.
"Try and forget what I said, about--about the past, Stafford," he said.
"Let us look at the future--your future. After all, we're not beaten!
It's a compromise, it's an alliance!" His voice grew more cheerful, his
eyes began to brighten with something of their wonted fire. "And it's a
bright future, Staff! You've chosen a beautiful girl, a singularly
beautiful and distinguished-looking girl--it's true she's only Ralph
Falconer's daughter, and that I'd loftier ideas for you, but let that
pass! Maude is a young lady who can hold her own against the best and
the highest. Falconer must be rich, or he would not have been able to
have managed this thing, would not have been able to beat me. With your
money and hers, you can go as far as you please!"
He took a turn up and down the room again, a flush on the face that had
been pallid only a minute or two ago, his finely shaped head thrown
back.
"Yes, Stafford, I should like you to have married into the nobility. In
my eyes, there is no one too high in rank for you. But no matter! The
title will come. They cannot do less than offer me a peerage. This
railway will be of too much service to the government for them to pass
me over. The peerage must come; there is no chance of my losing it.
Why, yes! The future is as bright as the sunlight on a June morning!
You will have the girl you love, I shall have the peerage to leave to
you. I shall have not lived and struggled and fought in vain. I shall
have left a name unstained, unsullied, to the son I love!"
There was a catch in his voice, and it broke as he turned suddenly with
outstretched hand.
"Why, God forgive me, Stafford, my boy! I'm talking of what I've done
for you and what I'm meaning to do as if I were forgetting what you are
doing for me! Stafford, a father often finds that he has worked for his
children only to meet with ingratitude and to be repaid by
indifference; but you have returned my affection--Oh, I've seen it,
felt it, my boy! And now, as fate would have it, you are actually
saving my honour, shielding my good name, coming between me and utter
ruin! God bless you, Stafford! God bless you and send you all the
happiness you deserve and I wish you!"
A silence fell. Into the room there floated the soft, languorous
strains of a waltz, the murmur of voices, the laughter of some of the
people in the conservatory. Stafford sat, his head still upon his
hands, as if her were half stupefied. And indeed he was. He felt like a
man who has been seized by the tentacles of an octopus, unable to
struggle, unable to move, dumb-stricken, and incapable even of protest.
Sir Stephen had spoken of fate: Fate held Stafford under its iron heel,
and the mockery of Fate's laughter mingled with the strains of the
waltz, the murmur of voices. Unconsciously he rose and looked round as
if half dazed, and Sir Stephen came to him and laid both hands on his
shoulders.
"I must not keep you any longer, my dear boy!" he said, with a fond,
proud look. "I must not forget I am keeping you from--her! She will be
missing you--wanting you. You have kept your secret well,
Stafford--though once or twice I have fancied, when I have seen you
together--but it was only a fancy!--Are you going to announce the
engagement tonight? It is rather a good opportunity, isn't it? It will
make the night memorable."
The music danced madly through Stafford's brain as his father waited,
looking at him smilingly. What should he say?
"Not to-night, sir!" he answered. "I should like to speak to Miss
Falconer first."
Sir Stephen nodded and smiled.
"I understand, my boy," he said. "This kind of thing is not done now as
it was in my time. We used to take the girl of our choice by the hand
and throw back our heads, and announce the fact that we have secured
the prize, with all the pride imaginable. But that's all altered now. I
suppose the new way is more delicate--more refined. At any rate, you
belong to the new age and have a right to follow its manners and
customs; so you shall say nothing to-night, unless you like. And, if I
am asked why I look so happy, so free from care, I must say that it is
because the great Railway Scheme is settled and that I have won all
along the line."
As he said the last words there came a knock at the door, and Murray
entered with an injured look.
"Mr. Griffenberg and Baron Wirsch, would like to see you, Sir Stephen,"
he said, significantly.
Sir Stephen sprang to the table almost with the alertness of a boy, and
caught up the papers lying on his desk.
"All right, Murray!" he cried. "Sorry I'm late! Been having a talk with
Mr. Stafford. Come on!"
With a nod, a smile, a tender look of love and gratitude to Stafford,
the brilliant adventurer, once more thrown by the buoyant wave upon the
shore of safety and success, went out to communicate that success to
his coadjutors.
Stafford sank into his father's chair, and with his hands thrust deep
in his pockets, and his chin upon his chest, tried to clear his brain,
to free his mind from all side issues, and to face the fact that he had
tacitly agreed, that by his silence he had consented to marry Maude
Falconer.
But, oh, how hard it was to think clearly, with the vision of that
girlish face floating before him! the exquisitely beautiful face with
its violet eyes now arched and merry, now soft and pleading, now tender
with the tenderness of a girl's first, true, divinely trusting love. He
was looking at the book-case before him, but a mist rose between it and
his eyes, and he saw the mountain-side and the darling of his heart
riding down it, the sunlight on her face, the soft tendrils of hair
blown rough by the wind, the red lips apart with a smile--the little
grave smile which he had kissed away into deeper, still sweeter
seriousness.
And he had lost her! Oh, God, how he loved her! And he had lost her
forever! There was no hope for him. He must save his father--not his
father's money. That counted for nothing--but his father's honour--his
father's good name.
And even if he were not bound to make this sacrifice, to marry Maude
Falconer, how could he go to Heron Hall and ask Godfrey Heron, the man
of ancient lineage, of unsullied name, to give his daughter to the son
of a man whose past was so black that his character was at the mercy of
Ralph Falconer? Stafford rose and stretched out his arms as if to
thrust from him a weight too grievous to be borne, a cup too bitter to
be drained; then his arms fell to his sides and, with a hardening of
the face, a tightening of the lips which made him look strangely like
his father, he left the library, and crossing the hall, made his way to
the ball-room.