Gussy was the last to leave of that strange procession, of whom no one
spoke to the other. She closed the door after her, and the curtains, and
followed the erect figure of Dolff, drawn up as it never had been in his
life before, and walking stiffly, as if carrying a new weight and
occupying a position unknown. They all came into the hall, defiling
solemnly one after the other, to find Mrs. Harwood deposited in her
chair and awaiting them, almost as if the whole events of the evening
had been a dream and she had never left that spot. It was with a strange
embarrassment, however, that they looked at each other in the pale,
clear light as they emerged from the doorway, almost like making new
acquaintance, as if they had never seen each other before. Nobody
certainly had seen Dolff in that new manifestation; nor was Gussy, she
whose very existence had been wrapped up in that of Meredith, who had
only lived to watch him for weeks past, recognizable. It was she who
came out the last, but who made herself the first of the group.
“There may be a great many things to say,” said Gussy; “but not
to-night. We have all had a great many agitations to-night. My brother
has been hunted for his life. My mother has done a thing which, so far
as we know, she hasn’t been able to do for years. Mr. Meredith has had a
bad illness, for which it appears this unfortunate family is responsible
too. I only and my little sister”--she paused here with an effort--“no;
I will not pretend; I have had my share of the shock, too. We’d better
all separate for the night.”
“Gussy!” cried Mrs. Harwood, with a sharp tone of appeal.
“Gussy!” cried Meredith, astonished, trying to take her hand to draw her
towards him.
“Gussy!” said Dolff, with a certain indignation.
“It is of no use,” she said, quickly, “to appeal to me. I think I am the
one who has been deceived all round. I thought I knew everything, and
I’ve known nothing. Whatever may be the meaning of it, I for one am not
able for any more to-night, and none of the rest ought to be able for
it. I don’t know whether I may have been deceived there, too, about how
much invalids could bear. Good-night, mamma. I advise you to get to
bed.”
Gussy waved her hand to the others without a word, and walked upstairs
without turning her head. The sudden failure of a perfect faith in all
the world, such as she had entertained without entering into
complications for which her mind was not adapted, is no small matter. It
is alarming even for others to see. They all stood for a moment huddled
together as if a rock or a tower had fallen before their eyes. They
could scarcely see each other for the dust and darkness it made. All the
other events of this startling night seemed to fall into the background.
Gussy! who had been the central prop of the house, who had kept
everybody together, done everything! When she thus threw up her arms
they were all left in dismay, and fell into an assemblage of atoms, of
units--no longer a united party ready to meet all comers.
Meredith, perhaps, he who had been the most eager, was the most
discomfited of all. He had claimed Gussy’s interest as his right for
years. When she thus withdrew, not even asking if he were fatigued,
speaking almost as if she thought that fatigue a pretence, he was so
bewildered that he could do nothing. An anxious believer like this is
accepted perhaps with too much faith and considered too inalienable a
possession; and when she fails the shock is proportionately great.
Without Gussy to stand by him, to make him believe himself a universal
conqueror, always interesting, always important, Meredith for the moment
was like an idol thrown from his pedestal. He was more astonished than
words could say. He exclaimed, hurriedly,
“I think Gussy is right, as she always is. Mrs. Harwood, I will say
good-night.”
Mrs. Harwood was altogether in a different mind. The period of reaction
had not come with her as yet. She had got herself deposited in her chair
in time enough to save her from any breaking down. And her spirit was
full of excitement.
“I am ready,” she said, with a panting hot breath of mental commotion,
“to explain--whatever it is necessary to explain. Take me back to my
room, Dolff. It is cold here.”
“Good-night,” said Meredith. “I will not encroach upon you longer
to-night.”
“As you like,” she said. “I warn you, however, that to-morrow---- Dolff,
take me back to my fire.”
Dolff was unsubdued, like his mother. The reaction from a long period of
suspense, and the sense of safety after a great alarm, no doubt acted
upon his mind: though, so far as he was aware, he was moved by nothing
save the overwhelming discovery he had made, and his indignant sense of
wrong in finding such a secret retreat unsuspected, in his mother’s--in
his own--house.
“We’ll be better alone,” he said, in the stern tone which was so new to
him, putting his hand upon her chair; “but perhaps you could walk if you
tried,” he added, with rude sarcasm.
He drove rather than wheeled her before him into the deserted room,
where all was so brilliant and warm, the light blinking in the bright
brass and steel, the lamps serenely burning, everything telling of the
tranquil life, unbroken by any but cheerful incidents, which had gone
on there for so many years.
“Now, mother,” said Dolff, “we have got to have it out. Who is that man
upstairs?”
Julia had followed them unremarked, and remained behind her mother’s
chair. Dolff stood before them, in the full firelight, very erect,
inspired with indignation and that sense of superiority which injury
gives. It had elevated him altogether in the scale of being. His own
shortcomings had fallen from his consciousness. He was aware of nothing
but that he, Dolff, in reality the head of the family, had been deceived
and compromised.
Mrs. Harwood took but little notice of her son. She took up her work
which had been thrown upon the table and turned it over in her fingers.
“Gussy was right,” she said, “though she was a little brusque in her way
of saying it. I am certainly unable to bear anything more to-night.”
“I suppose, however, you can answer my question,” said Dolff.
“Go to bed, boy,” said his mother, “and don’t worry me. We have two or
three things to talk over, you and I, which are too much for to-night.”
“I am not a boy any longer,” cried Dolff; “you have made me a man. Who
is it you have been hiding for years upstairs?”
She gave vent to a little fierce laugh.
“For my pleasure,” she said; “for my amusement, as anybody may see.”
“Whether it is for your amusement or not,” said Dolff, “I am of age, and
I have a right to know who is living in my house.”
“In _your_ house!” Her exasperation was growing. “Don’t force me, Dolff,
to go into other questions to-night.”
“Whose house is it?” he said. “There’s been no question, because you
have kept everything in your hands; but if I am to be driven to it, and
claim my rights----”
“Your rights!” she cried, again repeating his words. “Was it one of your
rights to knock down a man like a coward from behind? It appears this is
what you think you may be permitted to do with impunity--to have your
home searched in every corner and to destroy all that I have been doing
for years, and to bring shame and disgrace to a house that I have kept
free of shame, almost at the risk of my life!”
“I did not,” cried Dolff, interrupting her eagerly. “I did not knock
him down from behind. I had not time to think. I let fly at him as I
passed. It’s a lie to say I knocked him down from behind.”
“You did the same thing; you took him unawares. And you dare to question
me! You killed a man at my door--or meant to do it--and never breathed a
word to warn us, to keep us from the disgrace----”
Dolff was not clever enough to know what to say. His snort of rage was
not attended by any force of bitter words. He only could repeat, with
rage and incompetence,
“At _your_ door?”
“Perhaps,” said Mrs. Harwood, half carried away by passion, half
influenced by the dismay which she knew she had it in her power to call
forth, “it would be better, since you are exact, to say at your father’s
door.”
Dolff responded with a strange cry. He did not understand it, but he
felt all the same that a blow which stunned him had been directed at
him, and that the ground was cut from beneath his feet.
“He has neither been tried, nor sentenced, nor anything proved against
him,” cried Mrs. Harwood, carried away now by the heat of her own
excitement. “All that has to be gone through before he can be put aside.
And at this moment everything’s his--the roof that covers you, the money
you have been spending. It is no more your house--_your_ house!--than it
is Julia’s. It is your father’s house.”
“My father is dead,” said Dolff, who had again grown very pale, the
flush of passion dying out of his face.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Harwood, “and might have remained so, had it not been
for your cowardly folly and Vicars’s infatuation for you. How was it the
man had not the sense to see that a fool like you would spoil all?”
“You are dreaming, you are mad,” said Dolff; “you are telling me another
lie.”
But, though he said this with almost undiminished passion, the young
fellow’s superiority, his erect pose, his sense of being able to cow and
overwhelm her, had come to an end. He fell into his usual attitude, his
shoulders dropped and curved, his head hung down. He could fling a last
insult at his mother, but no more. And his own mind began to be filled
with unfathomable dismay.
Julia had been very uncertain what side to take. Her mind went naturally
with her brother, who was most near herself. But a mother is a mother
after all. You may feel her to be in some way your natural enemy when
the matter is between yourself and her; but when another hand plucks at
her it is different. A girl is not going to let her mother be insulted,
who after all means her own side, without interposing. Julia suddenly
flew forth from behind her mother’s chair and flung herself upon Dolff’s
arm, seizing it and shaking him violently.
“How dare you speak to her like that?” cried Ju, “you that can’t do
anything you try--not even kill Charley Meredith when you have the
chance! I should be ashamed to look any one in the face. Go away, go
away, and leave us quiet, you that have done it all: that brought the
police into the house, and yet did not hurt him to speak of, you great,
useless, disappointing boy!”
Dolff did not know how to sustain this sudden assault. He looked round
stupidly at the active assailant at his shoulder with a little pang,
even in his agitated and helpless state, to find that Julia was no
longer on his side. His head was going round and round: already in his
soul he had entirely collapsed, although he still kept his feet in
outward appearance. And it would have been difficult to end this scene
without an entire breakdown on one side or the other, had not the
pensive little voice of the parlor-maid become audible at this moment
over their heads, making them all start and draw back into themselves.
“If you please, ma’am,” said Priscilla, “for I can’t find Miss
Gussy--shall I take Mr. Meredith’s tray to his room, or shall I bring it
in here?”
“I think Mr. Meredith is going to bed,” said Mrs. Harwood; “he is a
little tired. Take it into his room, Priscilla. And Miss Gussy has gone
to bed; you may come now and help me to get into my room, and then shut
up everything. It is later than I thought.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Priscilla, in those quiet tones of commonplace which
calm down every excitement.
Priscilla indeed was herself bursting with curiosity and eagerness to
find out what had happened. The long-shut-up door stood ajar, and every
maid in the house had already come to peep into the dark passage and
wonder what it led to: and the keenest excitement filled the house. But
a parlor-maid has as high a standard of duty as any one, were it an
archbishop. It was against the unwritten household law to show any such
commotion. She took hold of the handle of her mistress’s chair as she
did on the mildest of domestic evenings, and drew her very steadily and
gently away. The only revelation she made of knowing anything was in the
suggestion that a little gruel with a glass of wine in it would be a
proper thing for Mrs. Harwood to take.
“You may bring me the glass of wine without the gruel,” Mrs. Harwood was
heard saying as the sound of her wheels moved slowly across the hall, an
hour ago the scene of such passionate agitation. “I don’t think I have
caught cold. A glass of wine--and a few biscuits,” she said as by an
afterthought.
Was this part of the elaborate make-believe intended to deceive the
servants and persuade them that nothing particular had happened? or was
she indeed capable of munching those biscuits after such a night of
fate?
“Ju, don’t you turn against me,” said Dolff, feebly, throwing himself
into a chair when they were thus left alone.
“Oh!” cried Julia, still panting with her outburst, “to think you had
hold of him and didn’t really hurt him, not to matter! I can never,
never forgive you, Dolff.”
“Oh, hold your tongue, you little fool; the only thing I’m glad of is
that I didn’t hurt him--to matter! You don’t know what it is to live for
a long week, all the time he was insensible, thinking you have killed a
man!”
“When it was only Charley Meredith!” Julia said.