The news of George Caresfoot’s tragic death was soon common property,
and following as it did so hard upon his marriage, which now was
becoming known, and within a few hours of the destruction of his house
by fire, it caused no little excitement. It cannot be said that the
general feeling was one of very great regret; it was not. George
Caresfoot had commanded deference as a rich man, but he certainly had
not won affection. Still his fate excited general interest and
sympathy, though some people were louder in their regrets over the
death of such a plucky dog as Aleck, than over that of the man he
killed, but then these had a personal dislike of George. When, however,
it came to be rumoured that the dog had attacked George because George
had struck the dog’s mistress, general sympathy veered decidedly
towards the dog. By-and-by, as some of the true facts of the case came
out, namely, that Angela Caresfoot had gone mad, that her lover, who
was supposed to be dead, had been seen in Rewtham on the evening of the
wedding, that the news of Mr. Heigham’s death had been concocted to
bring about the marriage, and last, but not least, that the Isleworth
estates had passed into the possession of Philip Caresfoot, public
opinion grew very excited, and the dog Aleck was well spoken of.
When Sir John Bellamy stepped out on the platform at Roxham on his
return from London that day, his practised eye saw at once that
something unusual had occurred. A group of county magistrates returning
from quarter sessions were talking excitedly together whilst waiting
for their train. He knew them all well, but at first they seemed
inclined to let him pass without speaking to him. Presently, however,
one of them turned, and spoke to him.
“Have you heard about this, Bellamy?”
“No; what?”
“George Caresfoot is dead; killed by a bulldog, or something. They say
he was thrashing the girl he married yesterday, his cousin’s daughter,
with a whip, and the dog made for him, and they both fell into the
water together and were drowned. The girl has gone mad.”
“Good heavens, you don’t say so!”
“Yes, I do, though; and I’ll tell you what it is, Bellamy, they say
that you and your wife went to Madeira and trumped up a story about her
lover’s death in order to take the girl in. I tell you this as an old
friend.”
“What? I certainly went to Madeira, and I saw young Heigham there, but
I never trumped up any story about his death. I never mentioned him to
Angela Caresfoot for two reasons, first, because I have not come across
her, and secondly, because I understood that Philip Caresfoot did not
wish it.”
“Well, I am glad to hear it, for your sake; but I have just seen
Fraser, and he tells me that Lady Bellamy told the girl of this young
Heigham’s death in his own presence, and, what is more, he showed me a
letter they found in her dress purporting to have been written by him
on his death-bed which your wife gave her.”
“Of what Lady Bellamy has or has not said or done, I know nothing. I
have no control over her actions.”
“Well, I should advise you to look into the business, because it will
all come out at the inquest,” and they separated.
Sir John drove homewards, thoughtful, but by no means unhappy. The news
of George’s agonizing death was balm to him, he only regretted that he
had not been there—somewhere well out of the way of the dog, up a tree,
for instance—to see it.
As soon as he got home, he sent a message to Lady Bellamy to say he
wished to speak to her. Then he seated himself at his writing-desk, and
waited. Presently he heard his wife’s firm step upon the stairs. He
rubbed his dry hands, and smiled a half frightened, wicked little
smile.
“At last,” he said. “And now for revenge.”
She entered the room, looking rather pale, but calm and commanding as
ever.
“So you have come back,” she said.
“Yes. Have you heard the news? _Your flame_, George Caresfoot, is
dead.”
“I knew that he was dead. How did he die?”
“Who told you he was dead?”
“No one, I knew it; I told him he would die last night, and I felt him
die this morning. Did she kill him or did Arthur Heigham?”
“Neither, that bulldog flew at him and he fell into the lake.”
“Oh, I suppose Angela set it on. I told him that she would win. You
remember the picture falling in the study at Isleworth. It has been a
true omen, you see.”
“Angela is mad. The story is all over the country and travelling like
wild-fire. The letter you forged has been found. Heigham was down here
this morning and has gone again, and you, Lady Bellamy, are a disgraced
and ruined woman.”
She did not flinch a muscle.
“I know it, it is the result of pitting myself against that girl; but
pray, Sir John, what are you? Was it not you who devised the scheme?”
“You are right, I did, to trap two fools. Anne, I have waited twenty
years, but you have met your master at last.”
Lady Bellamy made a slight exclamation and relapsed into silence.
“My plot has worked well. Already one of you is dead, and for you a
fate is reserved that is worse than death. You are henceforth a
penniless outcast, left at forty-two to the tender mercies of the wide
world.”
“Explain yourself a little.”
“With pleasure. For years I have submitted to your contumely, longing
to be revenged, waiting to be revenged. You thought me a fool, I know,
and compared with you I am; but you do not understand what an amount of
hatred even a fool is capable of. For twenty years, Lady Bellamy, I
have hated you, you will never know how much, though perhaps what I am
going to say may give you some idea. I very well knew what terms you
were on with George Caresfoot, you never took any pains to hide them
from me, you only hid the proofs. I soon discovered indeed that your
marriage to me was nothing but a blind, that I was being used as a
screen forsooth. But your past I could never fathom. I don’t look like
a revengeful man, but for all that I have for years sought many ways to
ruin you both, yet from one thing and another they all failed, till a
blessed chance made that brute’s blind passion the instrument of his
own destruction, and put you into my hands. You little thought when you
told me all that story, and begged my advice, how I was revelling in
the sense that, proud woman as you are, it must have been an agony of
humiliation for you to have to tell it. It was an instructive scene
that, it assured me of what I suspected before that George Caresfoot
must have you bound to him by some stronger ties than those of
affection, that he must hold you in a grip of iron. It made me think,
too, that if by any means I could acquire the same power, I too should
be able to torture you.”
For the first time Lady Bellamy looked up.
“Am I tiring you,” he said, politely, “or shall I go on?”
“Go on.”
“With your permission, I will ring for a glass of sherry—no, claret,
the day is too hot for sherry,” and he rang.
The claret was brought and he drank a glass, remarking with an
affectation of coolness that it was a sound wine for a pound a dozen;
then he proceeded.
“The first thing I have to call your attention to is this Arthur
Heigham plot. At first it may appear that I am involved with you; I am
not. There is not, now that George Caresfoot is dead, one tittle of
evidence against me except your own, and who will believe _you?_ You
are inculpated up to the eyes; you delivered the forged letter, I can
prove that you cozened the ring out of Heigham, and you told Philip:
there is no escape for you, and I have already taken an opportunity to
renounce any responsibility for your acts. At the inquest I shall
appear to give evidence against you, and then I shall abandon you to
your fate.”
“Is that all?”
“No, woman. _I have your letters!_”
She sprang up with a little scream and stood over him with dilated
eyes. Sir John leaned back in his chair, rubbed his hands, and watched
her tortured face with evident satisfaction.
“Yes, you may well scream,” he said, “for I not only possess them, but
I have read and re-read them. I know all your story, the name of the
husband you deserted and of the child who died of your neglect. I have
even sent an agent to identify the localities. Yes, you may well
scream, for I have read them all, and really they are most instructive
documents, and romantic enough for a novel; such fire, such passionate
invective, such wild despair. But, since I learnt how and why you
married me, I will tell you what I have made up my mind to do. I am
going after the inquest to turn you out of this house, and give you a
pittance to live on so long as you remain here. I wish you to become a
visible moral, a walking monument of disgrace in the neighbourhood you
ruled. Should you attempt to escape me, the payment will be stopped;
should you obtain employment, your character shall be exposed. At every
turn you shall be struck down till you learn to kiss the hand that
strikes you and beg for pity on your knees. My revenge, Anne, shall be
to break your spirit.”
“And are you not perhaps afraid that I may turn upon you? You know me
to be a woman of strong will and many resources, some of which you do
not even understand.”
“No, I am not afraid, because I still have a reserve force; I still
hold the letters that I stole two days ago; and, even should you murder
me, I have left directions that will ensure your exposure.”
A pause ensued.
“Have you nothing more to say?” he said, at last.
“Nothing.”
“Supposing, Anne, that I were to tell you that I have been trying to
frighten you, and that if you were to go down on your knees before me
now, and beg my forgiveness, I would forgive you—no, not forgive you,
but let you off with easier terms—would you do it?”
“No, John, I would not. Once I went on my knees to a man, and I have
not forgotten the lesson he taught me. Do your worst.”
“Then you understand my terms, and accept them?”
“Understand them! yes. I understand that you are a little-minded man,
and, like all little-minded men, cruel, and desirous of exacting the
uttermost farthing in the way of revenge, forgetting that you owe
everything to me. I do not wish to exculpate myself, mind you. Looking
at the case from your point of view, and in your own petty way, I can
almost sympathize with you. But as for accepting your terms—do you know
me so little as to think that I could do so? Have you not learnt that I
may break, but shall never bend? And, if I chose now to face the matter
out, I should beat you, even now when you hold all the cards in your
hand; but I am weary of it all, especially weary of you and your little
ways, and I do not choose. You will injure me enough to make the great
success I planned for us both impossible, and I am tired of everything
except the success which crowns a struggle. Well, I have ways of escape
you know nothing of. Do your worst; I am not afraid of you;” and she
leaned back easily in her chair, and looked at him with wearied and
indifferent eyes.
Little Sir John ground his teeth, and twisted his pippen-like face into
a scowl that looked absurdly out of place on anything so jovial.
“Curse you,” he said, “even now you dare to defy me. Do you know, you
woman fiend, that at this moment I almost think I love you?”
“Of course I know it. If you did not love me, you would not take all
this trouble to try to crush me. But this conversation is very long;
shall we put an end to it?”
Sir John sat still a moment, thinking, and gazing at the splendid
Sphinx-browed creature before him with a mixture of hatred and respect.
Then he rose, and spoke.
“Anne, you are a wonderful woman! I cannot do it, I cannot utterly ruin
you. You must be exposed—I could not help that, if I would—and we must
separate, but I will be generous to you; I will allow you five hundred
a year, and you shall live where you like. You shall not starve.”
She laughed a little as she answered.
“I am starving now: it is long past luncheon time. As for your five
hundred a year that you will give me out of the three or four thousand
I have given you, I care nothing for it. I tell you I am tired of it
all, and I never felt more superior to you than I do now in the moment
of your triumph. It wants a stronger hand than yours to humble me. I
may be a bad woman, I daresay I am, but you will find, too late, that
there are few in the world like me. For years you have shone with a
reflected light; when the light goes out, you will go out too. Get back
into your native mud, the mental slime out of which I picked you,
contemptible creature that you are! and, when you have lost me, learn
to measure the loss by the depths to which you will sink. I reject your
offers. I mock at your threats, for they will recoil on your own head.
I despise you, and I have done with you. John Bellamy, good- bye;” and,
with a proud curtsey, she swept from the room.
That evening it was rumoured that Sir John Bellamy had separated from
his wife, owing to circumstances which had come to his knowledge in
connection with George Caresfoot’s death.