He advanced, holding out his hand; but his restless eyes wandered unsteadily, looking away from me towards the screen.
"So you have come at last, have you? Just let's step into the drawing-room: the fact is—I thought I wrote to you about it—?"
He stopped suddenly, and his outstretched arm fell to his side. I had not said a word. Something in my look and manner must have told him already on what errand I had come.
"Why don't you speak?" he said, after a moment's pause. "What are you looking at me like that for? Stop! Let's say our say in the other room." He walked past me towards the door, and half opened it.
Why was he so anxious to get me away? Who, or what, was he hiding behind the screen? The servant had said his daughter was upstairs; remembering this, and suspecting every action or word that came from him, I determined to remain in the room, and discover his secret. It was evidently connected with me.
"Now then," he continued, opening the door a little wider, "it's only across the hall, you know; and I always receive visitors in the best room."
"I have been admitted here," I replied, "and have neither time nor inclination to follow you from room to room, just as you like. What I have to say is not much; and, unless you give me fit reasons to the contrary, I shall say it here."
"You will, will you? Let me tell you that's damned like what we plain mercantile men call downright incivility. I say it again—incivility; and rudeness too, if you like it better." He saw I was determined, and closed the door as he spoke, his face twitching and working violently, and his quick, evil eyes turned again in the direction of the screen.
"Well," he continued, with a sulky defiance of manner and look, "do as you like; stop here—you'll wish you hadn't before long, I'll be bound! You don't seem to hurry yourself much about speaking, so I shall sit down. You can do as you please. Now then! just let's cut it short—do you come here in a friendly way, to ask me to send for my girl downstairs, and to show yourself the gentleman, or do you not?"
"You have written me two letters, Mr. Sherwin—"
"Yes: and took devilish good care you should get them—I left them myself."
"In writing those letters, you were either grossly deceived; and, in that case, are only to be pitied, or—"
"Pitied! what the devil do you mean by that? Nobody wants your pity here."
"Or you have been trying to deceive me; and in that case, I have to tell you that deceit is henceforth useless. I know all—more than you suspect: more, I believe, than you would wish me to have known."
"Oh, that's your tack, is it? By God, I expected as much the moment you came in! What! you don't believe my girl—don't you? You're going to fight shy, and behave like a scamp—are you? Damn your infernal coolness and your aristocratic airs and graces! You shall see I'll be even with you—you shall. Ha! ha! look here!—here's the marriage certificate safe in my pocket. You won't do the honourable by my poor child—won't you? Come out! Come away! You'd better—I'm off to your father to blow the whole business; I am, as sure as my name's Sherwin!"
He struck his fist on the table, and started up, livid with passion. The screen trembled a little, and a slight rustling noise was audible behind it, just as he advanced towards me. He stopped instantly, with an oath, and looked back.
"I warn you to remain here," I said. "This morning, my father has heard all from my lips. He has renounced me as his son, and I have left his house for ever."
He turned round quickly, staring at me with a face of mingled fury and dismay.
"Then you come to me a beggar!" he burst out; "a beggar who has taken me in about his fine family, and his fine prospects; a beggar who can't support my child—Yes! I say it again, a beggar who looks me in the face, and talks as you do. I don't care a damn about you or your father! I know my rights; I'm an Englishman, thank God! I know my rights, and my Margaret's rights; and I'll have them in spite of you both. Yes! you may stare as angry as you like; staring don't hurt. I'm an honest man, and my girl's an honest girl!"
I was looking at him, at that moment, with the contempt that I really felt; his rage produced no other sensation in me. All higher and quicker emotions seemed to have been dried at their sources by the events of the morning.
"I say my girl's an honest girl," he repeated, sitting down again; "and I dare you, or anybody—I don't care who—to prove the contrary. You told me you knew all, just now. What all? Come! we'll have this out before we do anything else. She says she's innocent, and I say she's innocent: and if I could find out that damnation scoundrel Mannion, and get him here, I'd make him say it too. Now, after all that, what have you got against her?—against your lawful wife; and I'll make you own her as such, and keep her as such, I can promise you!"
"I am not here to ask questions, or to answer them," I replied—"my errand in this house is simply to tell you, that the miserable falsehoods contained in your letter, will avail you as little as the foul insolence of language by which you are now endeavouring to support them. I told you before, and I now tell you again, I know all. I had been inside that house, before I saw your daughter at the door; and had heard, from her voice and his voice, what such shame and misery as you cannot comprehend forbid me to repeat. To your past duplicity, and to your present violence, I have but one answer to give:—I will never see your daughter again."
"But you shall see her again—yes! and keep her too! Do you think I can't see through you and your precious story? Your father's cut you off with a shilling; and now you want to curry favour with him again by trumping up a case against my girl, and trying to get her off your hands that way. But it won't do! You've married her, my fine gentleman, and you shall stick to her! Do you think I wouldn't sooner believe her, than believe you? Do you think I'll stand this? Here she is up-stairs, half heart-broken, on my hands; here's my wife"—(his voice sank suddenly as he said this)—"with her mind in such a state that I'm kept away from business, day after day, to look after her; here's all this crying and misery and mad goings-on in my house, because you choose to behave like a scamp—and do you think I'll put up with it quietly? I'll make you do your duty to my girl, if she goes to the parish to appeal against you! Your story indeed! Who'll believe that a young female, like Margaret, could have taken to a fellow like Mannion? and kept it all a secret from you? Who believes that, I should like to know?"
"I believe it!"
The third voice which pronounced those words was Mrs. Sherwin's.
But was the figure that now came out from behind the screen, the same frail, shrinking figure which had so often moved my pity in the past time? the same wan figure of sickness and sorrow, ever watching in the background of the fatal love-scenes at North Villa; ever looking like the same spectre-shadow, when the evenings darkened in as I sat by Margaret's side?
Had the grave given up its dead? I stood awe-struck, neither speaking nor moving while she walked towards me. She was clothed in the white garments of the sick-room—they looked on her like the raiment of the tomb. Her figure, which I only remembered as drooping with premature infirmity, was now straightened convulsively to its proper height; her arms hung close at her side, like the arms of a corpse; the natural paleness of her face had turned to an earthy hue; its natural expression, so meek, so patient, so melancholy in uncomplaining sadness, was gone; and, in its stead, was left a pining stillness that never changed; a weary repose of lifeless waking—the awful seal of Death stamped ghastly on the living face; the awful look of Death staring out from the chill, shining eyes.