FACE TO FACE.
At this juncture the sailor, seeing breakers ahead, began to feel
awkward, which he evinced by passing his cap from one hand to the
other, and shuffling his feet about.
‘Well, missy, as ye’re better now,’ he said, breaking in upon their
conference, ‘I think I’ll make bold to leave ye. Good-morning.’
‘No, no!’ cried Iris, with quick alarm, ‘don’t go.’ And then, ashamed
of the inference of her words, she added,--‘Oh, yes! of course, you
have your work to do. I am all right, thank you, and I will stay
with--with--this _gentleman_.’
She spoke with so bitter a sarcasm, that as soon as the sailor had
departed, Godfrey Harland seized her arm.
‘Good heavens!’ he exclaimed, ‘what do you mean by speaking like that?
Do you want the whole ship to guess our history?’
Iris shook off his grasp as though he had been a viper.
‘Don’t dare to touch me,’ she said defiantly, ‘or the whole ship
_shall_ hear our history. _You_ know which of us would suffer most in
that case. And don’t imagine I am friendless here. Heaven has sent
protectors to me in my need. I have but to raise my voice, to be
defended against your violence.’
‘Another lover, I presume. Who is the happy man?’ asked Harland
sarcastically.
Iris’s cheeks glowed scarlet.
‘How _mean_ you are,’ she answered. ‘Your prospective good fortune has
not altered your nature one whit. You still try to find a cover for
your own faults, by the pretence of laying the same blame on others.
You _know_ that I have never encouraged the attentions of any man since
I had the misfortune to receive yours. It would be well if you could
say as much for yourself.’
‘I do not understand you,’ said Harland, with affected unconcern.
‘I can easily make my meaning plain to you,’ replied Iris, as she
looked him steadily in the face.
Now that the supreme moment had actually arrived, her timidity vanished
as if by magic. She appeared to be inches taller, as she stood before
him, with her feet planted on the deck--every muscle in her body
strained, and her lips firmly pressed upon her teeth. She looked like
some mother about to do battle for her child,--like a martyr ready to
die for her religion. The delicate, fragile girl had become majestic
under the influence of her righteous wrath, and as Harland tried to
meet her flashing eyes, he cowered before their gaze.
And Iris felt as dauntless as she looked. All the misery of her married
life came back to her in that moment--her husband’s violence and
cruelty--his cowardly attacks upon her honour--the mean way in which he
had intended to desert her--to give her courage. She had the strength
of twenty women as she stood before him, and had he attempted to lay
a hand upon her, she would have struck him across the face. The tones
of his sarcastic voice, ringing with the old insults, had raised her
blood to boiling pitch, and few would have recognised Iris Harland,
sitting in judgment on her recreant husband, with the Miss Douglas
who had looked like a drooping lily in the second cabin, or even with
the tearful Iris who had sat with her hand in Jack Blythe’s the night
before, and told him of the suffering she had passed through.
Godfrey Harland hardly recognised her himself. He trembled with fear.
All his vaunted courage fled before the woman whom he had wronged, and
left nothing but a sullen brutality behind it. How should he answer the
questions she would put to him? In what possible way excuse himself? He
felt there was nothing to be done, but to try and make peace with her.
‘Peace at any price,’ must be his motto, at all events for the present,
and the future must take care of itself. And so all he answered to her
assertion was,--
‘I really don’t know why you should meet me in this extraordinary
manner, as if I had committed some crime in leaving England. You know
that I was _forced_ to leave it. I told you so plainly. What I want to
know is, why _you_ have left it also?’
‘I left it to follow your fortunes, as I have a right to do,’ replied
Iris. ‘You thought to evade me,--to leave me to starve in London. You
knew that my pride would not have permitted me to appeal to any of my
friends, but, so long as I was off your hands, you did not care what
became of me.’
‘Oh, no, no; come, childie, it was not so bad as that,’ replied
Harland, trying to soothe her. ‘I am going out to New Zealand for your
good, as well as my own, and always intended to send you half of all
that I may be able to earn there.’
‘_It is a lie_,’ replied Iris; ‘and don’t you dare to call me by that
name, for I will not stand it. What you intended by going out to New
Zealand was to marry Grace Vansittart, and ignore me altogether. Don’t
take the trouble to deny it, for I know everything. I sat behind you
last night at the theatricals, and heard every word you said to each
other. And now Godfrey Harland, who holds the trump card--you or I?’
He did not attempt to answer her, but turned his face towards the open
door, and stood gnawing his moustaches, and wondering how he should
extricate himself from the morass of perplexity in which he was sinking.
‘You did not give one thought to _me_--left to struggle with poverty as
best I could. Had I remained behind, I might have become anything--a
lost, abandoned woman--God knows! But I have followed you, as you see,
and I am here to claim you as my husband.’
‘How did you find out I was travelling by the _Pandora_?’ he asked.
‘Who has been playing the spy upon me?’
‘No one but yourself! You are supposed to be a clever man, but cleverer
men than you have been foiled before now by a woman. Did you think I
believed all you told me about your flight to Harfleur, when you bid
me good-bye, and left your Judas kisses on my lips. Why, I had Mr
Vansittart’s letter in my pocket at that very moment, and knew that you
had accepted the offer contained in it.’
‘_Mr Vansittart’s letter_,’ stammered Harland.
‘Yes; the letter which you left behind you when you went to keep the
appointment which sealed your fate and mine. Godfrey, I have followed
you across the Atlantic, not from feelings of affection, but revenge. I
have a right to claim support and recognition at your hands, and if you
refuse to give them me, you must take the consequences.’
‘What will you do?’ gasped Harland.
‘I will expose you before the whole ship’s company. I will let Captain
Robarts, and the Vansittarts, and everybody know _what_ you are, and
_who_ you are--not Mr Godfrey Harland, the gentleman who is not too
proud to work for his living, in order that he may aspire to the hand
of his employer’s daughter; but Godfrey Harland, the married man who
deserted his wife--Godfrey Harland, the gambler and bettor, who had
to fly from his creditors--nay, more than that,’ continued Iris,
waxing louder in her excitement, ‘Godfrey Harland, who is not “Godfrey
Harland” any more than they are, but _Horace Cain, the forger_, who--’
‘Stop, stop, for God’s sake!’ he cried, in a hoarse voice, as he
extended a trembling hand towards her mouth. ‘_Stop_, and let me think
for a moment what is best to be done.’
‘Ah, Godfrey, _you_ are the one to plead for mercy now!’ she exclaimed
triumphantly, as she watched him wipe away the beads of perspiration
that had started to his brow.
The violence of the squall still prevented the sailors that were below
from leaving their retreat, and the passengers from coming on deck.
Had it been fine weather, this conspicuous place of meeting, and the
high words that were passing between Harland and his wife, would
certainly have attracted notice; but the howling of the wind, and the
raging of the turbulent sea, were more than sufficient to drown their
conversation.
‘I suppose that brute Farrell has been talking to you,’ said Godfrey,
when he had somewhat recovered his equanimity; ‘and I have to thank him
for the information you are so ready to believe. But I can tell you,
you have been made a dupe of. The man is a confirmed liar. I met him
before we came on board ship, and gave him a bit of my mind, and he
is trying to revenge himself on me for it now. However, that is _my_
concern. You can safely leave me to deal with Mr Will Farrell, and
his unauthorised libels. But what am I to do with regard to yourself.
You have chosen to follow me out of England against my wishes, and to
put in your claim to be considered my wife. Suppose,’ he continued,
significantly lashing his legs with an end of rope he had picked up
from the deck, whilst he eyed her with his sinister glance, ‘_suppose_
I choose to accept the position, and treat you as a husband has a
right to treat a rebellious wife--what then?’
‘You _dare_ not,’ she panted. ‘If you attempt to raise your hand
against me in the slightest degree, I will carry out my threats at
once, and appeal to the passengers for help.’
‘And what if I wait to punish you for your cursed impudence till we get
on shore.’
‘I will have you placed in arrest,’ she answered, ‘as a suspected
forger. Don’t think I have no proofs against you. Farrell has them all
ready, in case of need. If you begin to bluster and bully in your old
fashion, you will find that I have the upper hand, and I mean to keep
it. Remember that in another week we shall be in harbour, and I shall
only have to summon the police to see you carried back to England in
irons.’
‘That’s a nice thing for a wife to say to her husband,’ commenced
Harland angrily, and then changing his tone, he continued, ‘Come, you
would never go as far as that, I’m sure. Whatever you may think of me
now, you loved me once, and for the sake of the old times, let us try
and talk reasonably together. Tell me what it is you want, and if I can
agree to your terms, I will.’
‘I am your wife,’ replied Iris firmly, ‘and I want my rights--that is,
I want a home kept over my head, and for you to remember that you are
not free to court or marry another woman.’
‘But yet you do not care for me yourself,’ he said.
‘_Care for you!_’ she echoed scornfully. ‘_How_ can I care for a man
who has shown himself to me in so utterly contemptible a light? No,
Godfrey Harland, I hate and despise you. But you shall not ignore what
you are to me for all that. I will not permit you to commit a crime at
my expense.’
‘Oh, nonsense!’ he said, in his old _nonchalant_ manner. ‘A
crime is no crime unless it injures somebody. Now what is the use
of you and me keeping together? You say you hate me, and although I
would not be so rude as to use so harsh a term as that to a lady, I
certainly must confess that I am somewhat tired of you. Now, look
here, Iris,’ he continued, drawing closer to her, ‘why shouldn’t we
play into each other’s hands? You can’t have any real jealousy of
me, and I daresay (if the truth were told) there is some nice young
fellow in the background whom you like much better. Promise to leave
me alone, and I’ll make it worth your while to do so. Let me settle
you at Canterbury, and go on quietly with the Vansittarts to their
destination, and carry out my little plans with regard to Grace, and
I’ll engage to remit you a certain sum quarterly, as long as you leave
us in peace. And then you know, my dear, my misconduct will set you
free--morally, if not legally--to marry again yourself, and we shall
both be much the better for the arrangement; and in a new country, no
one need ever be the wiser. What do you say? Is it a bargain?’
But Iris’s hazel eyes, wide open with horror and indignation, flashed
fire on him.
‘Oh, Godfrey,’ she cried, ‘you must be a devil in the shape of man, to
tempt me to such a crime!--to bargain with me for so much a quarter,
not only to keep silence with regard to yourself, but to follow your
example, and sin too. Do you know what it means? Do you know that
you will be a bigamist,--a criminal within the pale of the law,--and
liable to transportation for your offence. Oh, isn’t the other terrible
misdeed bad enough, without your wishing to add to it like this?’
‘Don’t whine, or preach,’ he said impatiently. ‘You know how I hate
sermonising and cant. Will you do it, or will you not? That is all I
want to hear from you.’
‘No, no, no, a thousand times over. Do you think I am as degraded as
yourself? I will not do it, nor countenance it. I will go straight to
the Vansittarts (as I ought to have done at the beginning) and warn
them against you, as a bad man and a deceiver. You shall not ruin
another woman’s life as you have done mine.’
‘I defy you to do it!’ exclaimed Harland, grasping her tightly by the
arm; ‘I will throw you into the water first!’
‘Leave go of me at once, or I will call for help. Ah! you do not
frighten me with your threats, you coward! You can wage war with
helpless women, but your face would tell a different tale if a man
rushed in to my assistance. And I tell you that I am determined. I
have made up my mind. If you do not abandon at once and for ever your
infamous intentions with respect to Miss Vansittart, I shall inform
her parents who I am, and why I am here. But I will give you one more
chance. I cannot believe but that, when you have time to think more
calmly, you will see the utter folly of the course you are pursuing.
So I will say nothing until to-morrow. Give me your written word by
then, that you will live as you should do for the future, and my tongue
is silent. And now you know my mind, and can make up your own.’
And with that Iris stepped out from the house amidships, and left
Godfrey Harland by himself.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]