profligate usage of it; it allows us to pour forth a flood of words
without having first thought out what we intended to say. The sentences
tumble higgledy-piggledy from our lips like children from an untidy
nursery--some unclothed, one short of a shoe, and another over-hatted.
Do we get the Parliamentary debates as they were conducted? Where are
the 'hems' and 'haws,' the 'I means' and 'you knows'? What has become
in print of the vain repetitions and the unfinished sentences? Is not
all that put into order by the judicious reporter? In like manner the
novelist is armed with the reporter's powers, and exercising the same
discretion passes the words of his creations through the same mill.
Using, therefore, the privilege of a reporter, we will once more enter
the gallery and take down the conversation that ensued at the
breakfast-table between Mrs. Sidebottom and Salome.
'My dear Mrs. P.,' said Mrs. Sidebottom, 'I hope that you were not
obliged to call up the doctor in the night.'
'No,' answered Salome, raising her eyebrows.
'But what is the matter with your mother?'
'She has long suffered from heart complaint, and recently she has had
much to trouble her. She has had a great shock and is really very
unwell, and so is dear baby also; and between both and--and--other
matters, I hardly know what I am about.'
'So I perceive,' said Mrs. Sidebottom; 'you have upset the cream.'
Salome had a worn and scared look. Her face had lost every particle of
colour the day before. It remained as pale now. She looked as if she
had not slept. Her eyes were sunken and red.
'My dear,' said Mrs. Sidebottom, 'never give in. If I had given in to
all the trials that have beset me I should have been worn to
fiddle-strings. My first real trial was the loss of Sidebottom, and the
serious reduction of my income in consequence; for though he called a
house an 'ouse, yet he was in good practice. There is a silver lining to
every cloud. I don't suppose I could have got into good society so long
as Sidebottom lived, with his dissipated habits about his _h_'s. His
aspirate stood during our married life as a wall between us, like
that--like that which separated Pyramus from Thisbe.'
Salome made no answer.
'You can have no idea,' continued Mrs. Sidebottom, 'how startled I was
in the night by the snoring of the doctor.'
'The doctor?' Salome looked up surprised.
'Yes--he slept, you know, in the spare room.'
A rush of crimson mounted to Salome's cheeks, and then faded from them,
leaving them such an ashy gray as succeeds the Alpengluth on the snow
peaks at sundown.
'Do you know?--well, really, I must confess my weakness--I was made
quite nervous by the snoring. I was so anxious, naturally so anxious for
your poor dear mother, and I thought the sounds might proceed from her,
and if so I trembled lest they portended apoplexy. Then again, I could
not make out whence the snoring proceeded. So, being of an inquiring
mind--my dear, if we had not inquiring minds we should not have made
Polar expeditions, and discovered the electric telegraph, and measured
the distances of the planets--I was resolved to satisfy myself as to
those sounds, and I stole out of my room and listened on the landing;
and when I was satisfied that the snoring issued from the spare
apartment, which I had supposed to be empty, I had the boldness to open
the door and peep in.'
'At what o'clock?' asked Salome faintly.
'Oh! gracious goodness, I cannot tell. Somewhere in the small hours.
You must know that as I looked out of my window before going to bed I
saw the doctor coming through the garden. The moon was shining, and I
adore the moon, so I stood at my window in quite a poetic frame. I
suppose you told him to come through the garden so as not to disturb the
household.'
Salome hesitated. She was trying to pour out a second cup of tea for
Mrs. Sidebottom, but her hand shook, and she was obliged to set down the
pot. She breathed painfully, and looked at Mrs. Sidebottom with a daze
of terror in her eyes.
'Thank you,' said the lady, 'I said I would have a little more tea.
Bless me! How your feelings have overcome you. Family affection is
charming, idyllic, but--don't spill the tea as you did the cream.'
'Would you kindly pour out for yourself?' asked Salome. 'It is true
that my hand shakes. I am not very well this morning.'
'Delighted. As I was saying,' pursued Mrs. Sidebottom, drawing the
teapot, sugar-basin, and cream-jug to herself--'as I was saying, in the
small hours of the night I was aroused by the snoring and could not
sleep. So I rose, and opened the spare room door and looked in.'
Salome's frightened eyes were riveted on her.
'I looked in, and saw a man lying on the bed. I could not see his face.
The curtain was in the way, and there was no light save that of the
moon. At first I was frightened, and inclined to cry out for
sal-volatile, I was so faint. But after a moment or two I recovered
myself. This man had on more clothing than--that other one. He wore
boots and so on. After the first spasm of dismay I recovered myself, for
I said, "It is the doctor sleeping in the house because Mrs. Cusworth is
ill." It was the doctor, was it not?'
Salome's scared face, her strange manner, now for the first time
inspired Mrs. Sidebottom with the suspicion that she had not hit on the
true solution of the mystery.
'But, goodness gracious me!' she exclaimed, 'if it was not the doctor,
who could it be? And in the house at night--as on that former
occasion--and when Philip is absent, too!'
Salome started from her seat.
'Excuse me,' she said hastily, 'I am--I am unwell.'
She tottered to the door.
Mrs. Sidebottom, with kindled suspicion, rose also, and deserted an
unfinished egg and some buttered toast to go after her. Salome had
opened the door and passed through. Before she could close it behind
her, Mrs. Sidebottom had grasped it and was at her heels, asking if she
really were ill, and if she needed help.
At the same moment that both entered the hall, they saw a man descending
the stairs, a man in hat and great-coat, with a leather bag in one hand
and a cane in the other. He wore his hair long, and had dark whiskers,
curled, but not in the freshest of curls. His nose was red, and his
face mottled.
'Mr. Beaple Yeo!' shrieked Mrs. Sidebottom. 'My money! I want--I will
have my money!'
The man stood for a moment irresolute on the stairs.
Then a key was turned in the front-door lock, and Philip appeared from
the street--returned by an early train.
'Oh, Philip!' screamed Mrs. Sidebottom. 'Here is the man--Beaple Yeo
himself! Has been hiding in the spare bedroom all night. He has my
money.'
In an instant, the man darted into Mrs. Cusworth's room, and locked the
door behind him.
*CHAPTER XXX.*
*EXEUNT.*
The man descending the stairs had hesitated, and his hesitation had lost
him. Had he made a dash at Mrs. Sidebottom and Salome, swept them aside
and gone down the passage to the garden door, he would have escaped
before Philip entered. But the sight of Mrs. Sidebottom, her vehement
demand for her money, made him turn from her and fly into Mrs.
Cusworth's room. Thence he, no doubt, thought to escape to the garden,
through the window.
For some moments, after Philip appeared and Mrs. Sidebottom had told him
that the swindler was in his house, all three--he, Salome, and Mrs.
Sidebottom, stood in the hall, silent.
Then a servant, alarmed by the cry, appeared from the kitchen, and
Philip at once bade her hasten after a policeman.
Salome laid her hand on his arm and said supplicatingly, 'No, Philip;
no, please!'
But he disregarded her intervention, and renewed the command to the
servant, who at once disappeared to obey it.
Then he strode towards the door leading to Mrs. Cusworth's apartments,
but Salome, quick as thought, threw herself in his way, and stood
against the door, with outstretched arms.
'No, Philip; not--not, if you love me.'
'Why not?'--spoken sternly.
'Because----' She faltered, her face bowed on her bosom; then she
recovered herself, looked him entreatingly in the eyes, and said, 'I
will tell you afterwards--in private. I cannot now. Oh, Philip--I
beseech you!'
'Salome,' said her husband very gravely, 'that man is in there.'
'I know, I know he is,' she answered timorously.
'Oh, Philip, don't mind her. He will get away, and he has my money!'
entreated Mrs. Sidebottom on her part.
'Why do you seek to shelter him?' asked Philip of his wife, ignoring the
words of his aunt.
'I cannot tell you now. Will you not trust me? Do allow him to escape.'
'Salome!' exclaimed Philip, in such a tone as made her shiver, it
expressed so much indignation.
She could say no more in urgence of what she had asked, but looked at
him steadily with her great imploring eyes.
Mrs. Sidebottom was not silent; she poured in a discharge of canister,
and was cut short by Philip, who, turning sternly to her, said:
'I request your silence. The scoundrel cannot escape. The windows of
both rooms are barred, because on the ground floor. He cannot break
forth. I have him as in a trap. It is merely a question with me--which
my wife must help me to decide--whether to burst open the door now, or
wait till the arrival of the constable.'
Then Salome slowly, with heaving breast, and without taking her eyes off
her husband's face, let fall her arms and stood back. But even then, as
he put his foot against the door, she thrust forth her hand against Mrs.
Sidebottom, and said: 'Not she! No, Philip, as you honour me! If you
love me--not she!'
Then he turned and said to Mrs. Sidebottom: 'Aunt, I must ask you to
remain in the hall. When the maid rings the front door bell, open and
let her and the constable in, and bring them at once into Mrs.
Cusworth's apartments. Do not enter before.'
He did not burst open the door till he had knocked thrice, and his knock
had remained unnoticed. Then, with foot and shoulder against it, he
drove it in, and the lock torn off fell on the floor. Instantly, Salome
entered after him and shut the door behind her, and stood against it.
The old suspicion, sullenness, and doggedness which Philip had nurtured
in him through long years of discouragement and distress, evil tempers
that had been laid to sleep for a twelvemonth, rose full of energy to
life again. He was angered at the thought that the wretch whom he was
pursuing should have taken refuge under his own roof, and worst of all,
that his own wife should spread out her arms to protect him.
The hero of a story should be without such blemishes that take from him
all lustre and rob him of sympathy. But the reader must consider these
evil passions in him as bred of his early experience. They grew
necessarily in him, because the seed was sown in him when his heart was
receptive, and rich to receive whatever crop was sown there. And again,
we may ask: Is the reader free from evil tempers, constitutional or
acquired? The history of life is the history of man mastering or being
mastered by these; and such is the history of Philip.
In the sitting-room stood a scared group, looking at one another. Mrs.
Cusworth by the fireplace, pale as chalk, hardly able to stand, unable
to utter a word of explanation or protect, and Beaple Yeo, with his hat
on, wearing a great-coat that Philip knew at once--that of his deceased
uncle, holding a leather bag in his hand, to which a strap was attached
that he was endeavouring to sling over his shoulder, but was incommoded
by his cane, of which he did not let go. His face was mottled and his
nose very purple--but he had not, like Mrs. Cusworth, lost his presence
of mind.
Philip looked hard at him, then his face became hard as marble, and he
said, 'So--we meet--Schofield.'
The man had forgotten to remove his hat when attempting to put the strap
over his head, and so failed; he at once hastily passed the cane into
the hand that held the bag, and said with an air of forced joviality, as
he extended his right palm, 'How d'y' do, my boy? glad to see you.'
'Put down that bag,' ordered Philip, ignoring the offered hand. 'Or,
here, give it me.'
'No, thank y', my son; got my night togs in there--comb and brush and
whisker-curlers.'
'Schofield,' said Philip grimly, 'I have sent for the constable. He
will be here in two or three minutes. Give me up that bag. I shall have
you arrested in this room.'
'No, you won't, my dear boy,' answered the fellow. 'But, by jove, it
isn't kindly--not kindly--hardly what we look for in our children. But,
Lord bless you! bless you, the world is becoming frightfully neglectful
of the commandment with promise--with promise, my son.'
The impudence of the man, his audacity, and his manner, worked Philip
into anger; not the cold bitter anger that had risen before, but hot and
flaming.
'Come, no nonsense. Give me that bag now, or I'll take it from you.
There is a warrant out for your arrest as Beaple Yeo.' He put his hand
forward to snatch the bag from the fellow, but Beaple Yeo--or Schofield
quickly brought his stick round.
'My pippin!' said he, 'take care; I have a needle in this, that will run
you through if you touch me--though you are my son.'
Philip closed with him, wrenched the stick from him and placed it behind
him. But Beaple would not be deprived of his weapon without an effort
to recover it, and he made a rush at Philip to beat him aside, as he
drew back, which would have led to a fresh test of strength, had not
Salome thrown herself between them, and clinging to her husband said.
'Oh, Philip! Philip! He is my father!'
Philip stood back, and he and Schofield faced each other in silence, the
latter with his eye on Philip to note how he received the news. Philip
grew grayer in tint; and every line in his face deepened; his eyes
became more like Cairngorm stones than ever--cold, hard, almost
inanimate.
'It is true,' said Schofield; 'my chuck has told you the fact--the very
fact. Why should it have been kept from you so long?--so long? The
Schofields are a family as good as the Pennycomequicks, and the name is
not so much of a mouthfiller, which, at least, is a consolation--a
consolation. Now, perhaps, son-in-law, you will allow me to step by?
No? Upon my word there would be something un-Christian--something to
shock the moral sense even of an old Roman--a classic Roman--for a
son-in-law to suffer his father to be arrested beneath his own roof.
Besides, dear fellow, there are other considerations. You would hardly
wish to have Pennycomequick's firm mixed up with Beaple Yeo, Esquire.
It might, you know--you know--injure, compromise, and all that sort of
thing--you understand----'
Philip turned to Mrs. Cusworth and asked her, 'Is it true, or--a lie?'
But the old lady was in no condition to answer. She opened her mouth and
shut it, like a gasping fish, but no sound issued from her lips.
Then Salome recovered her composure and said, 'Philip! It is indeed
true. He is my father. I am not, nor is Janet, her daughter. We are
the twin children of her sister, who was married to--and then who was
deserted by--this--this man Schofield. She took us, she and her dear
good husband, and cared for us as their own--we did not know that we
were not her children--that we were her nieces--we were not told.'
'Is this really true?' asked Philip, again looking at Mrs. Cusworth, and
his face clouded with the blood that suffused it, but so far beneath the
skin that it did not colour, it only darkened it. 'Is this true--or is
it a lie told to persuade me to let this scoundrel escape? Either way it
will lose its effect. I am just. I will give him over to suffer the
consequences of his acts.'
Again Mrs. Cusworth tried to speak, but could not. She grasped at the
mantelshelf; she could hardly stay herself from falling.
'Very well,' said Philip, looking fixedly at Schofield. 'Let us suppose
that it is true; that I have been trifled with, deceived, dishonoured.
Very well. We will suppose it is so. Then let it come out. I will be
no party to lying, dissimulation, to the screening of swindlers and
scoundrels of any sort. My house is not a receiving house for stolen
goods. I will return to the robbed that of which they have been
despoiled. Hand me the bag.'
He spoke with a hard, metallic voice; scarce a trace of feeling was in
it, save of the grate of animosity; his strong eye had no yielding in
it, no light, only a sort of phosphorescent glimmer passing over it. He
stooped, picked up the cane, and held it in his right hand, like a
quarter-staff, and in his firm, knotted fist, cane though it was, it had
the appearance of being a weapon capable of being used with deadly
emphasis.
'Now, then,' said Philip, 'put down that bag; there, on the chair near
me. Instantly.'
Schofield looked into his face and did not venture to disobey. The iron
resolution, the forceful, earnest, the remorseless determination there
were not to be trifled with. Schofield put down the bag as desired.
'The key.'
Sulkily, the fellow drew it from his trousers-pocket and flung it on the
ground.
'Pick it up.'
Schofield hesitated. He would not stoop. He dreaded a blow on the
head; on the back of the head, which would fell him if he stooped, such
a blow as he would himself deal the man before him if he had a stick in
his hand, and could induce him to bend at his feet.
As he hesitated, and a spark appeared in the eye of Philip, Salome
stooped, rose, and handed the key to her husband.
He did not thank her. He did not look at her. He kept his eye steadily
on Schofield--scarcely glancing at the bag as he opened it, and then
only rapidly and cursorily at its contents--never for more than a second
allowing it to be off his opponent, never allowing him to move a muscle
unobserved, never to frame a thought unread. But, for all the speed
with which he glanced at the contents of the bag, he saw that it
contained a great deal of money. It was stuffed with bank-notes, and the
figures on these notes were high. Philip leisurely reclosed and
relocked the bag, put the key in his pocket and passed the strap over
his own head.
Then only did a slight, almost cruel smile, stir the corners of his lips
as he saw the blankness of Schofield and the break-up of his assurance.
'Now, I suppose, I may go?' said the rogue.
'No,' answered Philip, 'I do nothing by half. I have my old scores
against Schofield as well as the new scores--which are not my
own--against Beaple Yeo.'
'But,' said the man, in a shaking voice, 'it will be so terribly bad for
you to have the concern here mixed up with me--and you should consider
that--the Bridlington scheme was a famous one, and was honest as the
daylight. It must have rendered twenty-five per cent.--twenty-five as I
am an honest man--and I should have become a millionaire. Then wouldn't
you have been proud of me, eh?--it was a good scheme and must have
answered, only who was to dream that no land could be bought?'
He eyed Philip craftily, then looked at the door, then again at
Philip--as soon expect to find yielding in him as to see honey distil
out of flint. So he turned to Salome. 'Speak a word for your father,
child!' he said in a low tone.
Salome shrank from him and turned to Philip, who put out his steady hand
and thrust her back, not roughly but firmly, towards Schofield.
Then in a sudden frenzy of fear and anger the fellow screamed, 'Will you
let me pass?'
'The constable will be here directly, and then I will; not till then,'
said Philip.
'Bah! the constable!' scoffed Schofield. 'You have sent to have a
constable summoned. But where is he? Looking for a policeman is like
searching for a text. You know he's somewhere, but can't for the life
of you put your thumb on him. Look here, Philip,' he lowered his voice
to a sort of whine, 'I'm awfully penitent for what I have done. Cut to
the heart, gnawing of conscience, and all that sort of thing. It is a
case of the prodigal father returning to the discreet and righteous son,
and instead of running to meet me and help me, and giving me a good
dinner--a good dinner, you know, and all that sort of thing, you
threaten me with constables and conviction. I couldn't do it myself.
'Pon my word I couldn't. I suppose it is in us. I'm too much of a
Christian--a true Christian, not a mere professor. I'm ashamed of you,
Philip; I'm sorry for you. I sincerely am. I'm terribly afraid for you
that you are the Pharisee despising me the humble, penitent Publican.'
The fellow was such a rascal that he could adapt himself to any
complexion of man with whom he was, and he tried on this miserable cant
with Philip in the hope that it would succeed. But as he watched his
face, and saw no sign of alteration of purpose in it, he changed his
tone, and said sullenly, with a savagery in the sullenness: 'Come, let
me go; if I am brought to trial, I can tell you there will be pretty
things come out, which neither you nor your wife will like to hear, and
which will not suffer her to hold up her head very stiffly--eh?'
He saw that he had made Philip wince.
At that moment the house door-bell rang, and he heard that the
police-constable had arrived.
He turned, went to the fireplace, grasped the poker, and swinging it
above his head rushed upon Philip. Salome uttered a cry. Mrs.
Cusworth's hand let go its grasp of the chimney-piece and she fell.
All happened in a moment--a blow of the poker on Philip's arm--and
Schofield was through the door and down the passage to the garden.
'Run after him, policeman, run!' screamed Mrs. Sidebottom, as she
admitted the constable.
But Schofield had gained the start, and when the policeman reached the
door in the wall of the lower garden he found it locked, and had to
retrace his steps to the house. Time had been gained. No sooner was
Schofield outside the garden than he relaxed his steps, and sauntered
easily along the path till he reached the canal. He followed that till
he arrived at a barge laden with coal, over the side of which leaned a
woman, with a brown face, smoking a pipe.
'My lass!' said Schofield, 'I've summat to tell thee--in private;' and
he jumped on board and went down the ladder into the little cabin.
The woman, Ann Dewis, slowly drew her pipe out of her mouth and went
after him to the hatch, looked in, and said, 'What be 't, lad? Eh,
Earle! Tha'rt come. Tak' t' pipe, I've kept it aleet a' these years.
Ah sed ah would, and ah've done it.'
*CHAPTER XXXI.*
*ESTRANGEMENT.*
One! Two! Three!
Hark! on the church bell: then, again--
One! Two! Three!
'It is a woman or a little girl,' said those listening.
Then again--
One! Two! Three!
'A woman. Who can she be? Who is ill? But--how old?' Then, again,
the bell--
One! Two! Three!--------up to forty-six.
'Aged forty-six! Who can it be?'
Many faces appeared at the windows and doors of the street at
Mergatroyd, and when the sexton emerged from the belfry, he was saluted
with inquiries of, 'Who is dead? Forty-six years old--who can she be?'
'Mrs. Cusworth. Dropped dead with heart complaint.'
Now, in Yorkshire, when a man dies, then the bell tolls, Four, four,
four; when a boy, then Four, four, two; when a woman dies, then as
above, Thrice three; and when a girl, Three, three, two; after which, in
each case, the age is tolled.
'Fiddlesticks!--you may say what you will, it is fiddlesticks,' said
Mrs. Sidebottom impatiently. She was in the study with Philip. 'I
never heard of anything so monstrous, so inhuman. I could not have
believed it of you. And yet--after what I have seen, I can believe
anything of you.'
Philip was unmoved. 'The plunder of that wretched fellow,' he said
unconcernedly, 'shall be placed in proper hands. How much there is I
cannot now say, and I do not know how many persons he has defrauded, and
to what an extent. Whether all will get back everything is not certain;
probably they will receive a part, perhaps a large part, but not all.'
'It is preposterous!' burst in Mrs. Sidebottom, 'I have been the means
of catching him. No one would have had a farthing back but for my
promptitude, my energy, and my cleverness. Did not I track him here,
and act as his gaoler, and drive him into a corner whilst you secured
the money? And you say that I am to share losses equally with the rest!
No such a thing. I shall have my money back in full; and the rest may
make the best of what remains, and thank me for getting them that. As
for what you say, Philip, I don't care who hears me, I say it is
fiddlesticks--it is fiddlestick-ends.'