Once more we must peep into the library at Lant Hall.
Mr Vallance sat in his accustomed chair, thinking. His gaze would
wander from the window to the blazing fire and back again, and the frown
of anxiety deepened on his features. Without, the wind howled shrilly
through the bare boughs, and a few scattered flakes of snow whirled in
the air.
"Why did we ever let him go?" he exclaimed aloud. "Why did we ever let
him go?"
Even as when last we saw him, Mr Vallance was terribly anxious on
behalf of his son. His former misgivings had been allayed by the
subsequent receipt of a letter from Geoffry; which missive, however, had
given him to understand that it was the last the writer would have an
opportunity of sending for some time--in fact, until he should be on his
way home again. Characteristically, too, this letter contained only
vague and general information that the writer had fallen in with and
joined Winthrop's outfit; and of his meeting with Yseulte Santorex, not
a word. It was of no use worrying about the matter, decided the Rev.
Dudley. Any post might now bring intelligence that the boy was on his
way home. It was poor comfort, and again he found himself repeating:
"Why did we ever allow him to go?"
Of the other affair which had so sorely troubled him--his cousin's
unexpected and preposterous claim--he had heard no more. His
apprehensions first were lulled, then subsided altogether. The whole
business was palpably a "try on."
A sound of subdued voices outside, then a knock.
"A gentleman wishes to see you, sir."
In his then frame of mind, Mr Vallance could not but feel startled by
the interruption.
"Who is he, James?" he asked, quickly.
"He wouldn't give his name, sir. He said as how you'd be sure to see
him, sir."
"Quite right, quite right," said a deep voice, whose owner entered
behind the astonished flunkey. "Er--How do, Dudley!"
If Mr Vallance had been startled before, the expression of his features
now betokened a state of mind little short of scare. His face had
turned as white as a sheet, and his jaw fell as he stood helplessly
staring at his visitor.
"Why--bless my soul--Ralph," he stammered. Then advancing with
outstretched hand, "Why--Ralph--I'm--I'm glad to see you. I hope you
have come to stay with us for a time."
The visitor's reception of this friendly--this hospitable overture, was
singular. Standing bolt upright, he deliberately put his hand behind
his back.
"Glad to see me!" he echoed, with a sneer. "No, you are not. Why tell
a--tarra-diddle. Such a tarra-diddle, too--and you a preacher--er--I
beg your pardon--a _priest_, it used to be, if I remember right. You
would sooner see the devil himself at this moment than me."
Under the sting of this reply, the parson recovered a certain amount of
dignity.
"Really," he said, stiffly, "your behaviour is strange, to put it
mildly. May I ask, then, the object of your intru--your visit."
"Certainly, if it affords you any satisfaction." Then glancing around
the room, and finishing up with a look out of the window, he went on.
"Say, cousin Dudley, this is a pretty shebang enough. The object of my
visit is this: You've bossed up this show about long enough. Suppose
you abdicate now and let me have a turn?"
"Have you taken leave of your senses?"
"Not much. Have you?"
There was a sternness about the speaker's laconic reply which caused Mr
Vallance to quail involuntarily. He made a step towards the bell-pull.
The other laughed.
"No, no. Don't exert yourself. I'm not going yet--and if you bring in
all the pap-fed flunkeys and swipe-guzzling stable-hands on your
establishment, the poor devils'll only get badly hurt without furthering
your object. I mean what I say--you've got to quit sooner or later. If
you're wise it'll be sooner."
"Indeed! And why?" was the answer, given with cutting politeness.
"Well, it's this way. If you agree to clear at once, I'll give you five
hundred a year--no, I'll make it six--out of the property for your life.
That and the parsonic pickings will keep you in clover. If you mean
fighting, I'm your man. But I warn you I'm prepared to plank down ever
so many thousands of pounds to get you out--and when I've got you out
I'll come down on you for every shilling of arrears, by George, I will!"
"Oh, you will?"
"You may bet your life on it."
For some moments the two men looked full in each other's faces without
speaking. The sneer of conscious power on that of the one was matched
by the expression of defiance, hatred, mingled with fear, on that of the
other.
"Well, well," said Mr Vallance at length. "Take your own course.
Only, let me remind you that you are in England now, and that in this
country we don't settle important matters in any such rough and ready
fashion."
"Oh don't make any mistake; I'm not going to _hurt_ you, if that's what
you're thinking about. You see, I've been knocking around a goodish few
years, and now I've a fancy for settling down--settling down _in my own
place_, you understand."
There was a smug smile of triumph on the parson's face now. His cousin
was merely "bouncing" to extort terms. It would come to that in a few
minutes. But the look aroused a very demon in the other. His eyes
burned like live coals, though when he spoke his voice was under perfect
control.
"Again, I say, you needn't be afraid," he said. "Everything shall be
done in due course of law."
"But--but, my good fellow, surely you are aware you haven't a leg to
stand on?"
"I reckon I'm the best judge of that. See here, most reverend Dudley.
Do you remember our last interview, here, in this very room? Safe in
the triumph of your successful fraud--fraud, I say, if you prefer it,
forgery--you jeered at me, jeered at the man you had robbed. Remember?"
"`Fraud!' `Robbed!'" sputtered the parson, trying to lash himself into
anger to drown the sinking sense that had come over him. "Do you know,
sir, that you are using actionable words?"
"Ah, ah! History repeats itself. That is precisely as you spoke on the
former occasion, friend Dudley. I will say it again, call in witnesses
if you like. Having defrauded and robbed me of my patrimony by lies and
intriguing, _and_ worse--you, a preacher of the Gospel, a teacher of
Christian morality--you threatened me with the law. You made your
lawyers write to threaten me with an action for libel if I dared so much
as venture an opinion on your behaviour. Do you remember my words to
you as I left this room?"
Well, indeed, did he remember. And now at the sight of the deadly wrath
on this man's features, all the more terrible because so completely held
in hand--of the towering form with its back just half a yard from the
door, precluding alike entrance or exit--again Mr Vallance could not
restrain a shiver of physical fear.
"I told you my time would surely come, didn't I? How many years ago was
it? Nearer twenty than ten--yes. You slandered my name and stole my
possessions--you, a sacred dispenser of sacraments--and I went forth a
beggar, followed by your jeers of triumph. If you go where I have been
during those years, and take the trouble to enquire, you will learn that
few persons have played me a scrofulous trick without bitterly rueing
it. You have played me the most scrofulous trick of all, and you are
going to rue it."
"Well, I must trouble you to let me pass, please. I shall ask you to
excuse me wasting my time any longer," said Mr Vallance, making a move
as if to leave the room. But the other only smiled.
"Not yet. Not quite yet," he said. "By the way, Dudley. Heard
anything of Geoffry lately?"
The tone was easy--smiling--but it struck a chill to the parson's heart.
He glanced up quickly at his interlocutor's face, his own white with
deadly fear. His lips parted, but he was powerless to articulate. The
other stood immovable--smilingly enjoying his apprehension, but the
smile was that of a fiend.
"Not heard anything of him?" he said, slowly, while like the hellish
hiss of red-hot irons in quivering flesh there passed through his mind
the recollection of his cousin's defiant sneers over the successful
intrigue that had robbed him of his patrimony, there in that same room,
whose very walls seemed to echo their refrain even now. "Not heard
anything of him? Well I'm not surprised, for--he's dead."
"Dead?" echoed Mr Vallance blankly, as though in a dream.
"As the proverbial door-nail."
"Murderer!" gasped the wretched man, spasmodically clutching the air
with his fingers, and gazing at his tormentor as through a far-off mist.
"Oh, no. You are under a delusion," was the cool reply. "It's odd that
it should devolve on me--on me above all people--to give you the latest
news of him. He died at an Indian stake."
Even the pitiless, revengeful heart of the man who stood there smilingly
unfolding his horrible news was hardly prepared for the awful
metamorphosis that came over the smug, smooth-tongued, purring parson at
those words. With a scream that rang through the house from top to
bottom, and froze the blood of all who heard it, the miserable man
leaped at his tormentor's throat like a wild cat at bay. But he might
as well have leaped at a rock. The powerful arm was raised, and the
mere shock of the recoil sent the poor wretch sprawling. He lay--his
livid features working in mania--the foam flying from his lips in
flakes.
The other glanced at him a moment, then opened the door.
"You, James?" he said, coolly, to the trembling flunkey, who had not
been many yards from the door during the interview. "You, James? Your
boss is taken bad, I guess. Better see after him. Tell him, when he
comes round, I'll call again by-and-bye, and give him further
particulars."
With the same easy smile upon his lips he passed through the crowd of
frightened women-folk who met him on the stairs, and who shrunk back
before his glittering eyes and towering form, and gained the front door.
Then he smiled in fearful glee.
"The last time I passed out this way," he said to himself, half-aloud.
"The last time I passed out this way, I was saying my time would surely
come--and it has. Aha! my exemplary and most reverend cousin I think
I'm nearly even with you now--very nearly!"