talk to me of repentance—how can I repent when Providence has treated me so cruelly, robbing me at a single blow of my wife and my fortune? I know that I did wrong in concealing my marriage, but I was driven to it by fear of my father. Ah! if you had seen him as I saw him, you would have known that they were right to call him ‘Devil Caresfoot.’” He checked himself, and then went on—”He forced me into the engagement with Miss Lee, and announced it without my consent. Now I am ruined—everything is taken from me.”
"You have your little daughter, and all the entailed estate—at least, so I am told.”
"My little daughter!—I never want to see her face; she killed her mother. If it had been a boy, it would have been different, for then, at any rate, that accursed George would not have got my birthright. My little daughter, indeed! don’t enumerate her among my earthly blessings.”
"It is rather sad to hear you talk like that of your child; but, at any rate, you are not left in want. You have one of the finest old places in the county, and a thousand a year, which to most men would be riches.”
"And which to me,” answered Philip, "is beggary. I should have had six, and I have got one. But look you here, Fraser, I swear before God—”
"Hush! I cannot listen to such talk.”
"Well, then, before anything you like, that, while I live, I will never rest one single moment until I get my own back again. It may seem impossible, but I will find a way. For instance,” he added, as a thought struck him, "strangely enough, the will does not forbid me to buy the lands back. If I can get them no other way, I will buy them—do you hear?—I will buy them. I must have them again before I die.”
"How will you get the money?”
"The money—I will save it, make it, steal it, get it somehow. Oh! do not be afraid; I will get the money. It will take a few years, but I will get it somehow. It is not the want of a few thousands that will stop a determined man.”
"And suppose your cousin won’t sell?”
"I will find a way to make him sell—some bribe, something. There, there,” and his enthusiasm and eagerness vanished in a moment, and the broken look came back upon his face. "It’s all nonsense; I am talking impossibilities—a little weak in my mind, I suppose. Forget it, there’s a good fellow; say nothing about it. And so you buried them? Ah, me! ah, me! And George did chief mourner. I suppose he blubbered freely; he always could blubber freely when he liked. I remember how he used to take folks in as a lad, and then laugh at them; that’s why they called him ‘Crocodile’ at school. Well, he’s my master now, and I’m his very humble servant; perhaps one day it will be the other way up again. What, must you go? If you knew how fearfully lonely I am, you would not go. My nerves have quite gone, and I fancy all sorts of things. I can think of nothing but those two graves out there in the dark. Have they sodded them over? Tell them to sod them over. It was kind of you to come and see me. You mustn’t pay any attention to my talk; I am not quite myself. Good night.”
Mr. Fraser was an extremely unsuspicious man, but somehow, as he picked his way to the vicarage to eat his solitary chop, he felt a doubt rising in his mind as to whether, his disclaimer notwithstanding, Philip had not sincerely meant all he said.
"He is shockingly changed,” he mused, "and I am not sure that it is a change for the better. Poor fellow, he has a great deal to bear, and should be kindly judged. It is all so painful that I must try to divert my mind. Mrs. Brown, will you bring me a little chocolate- coloured book, that you will see on the table in my study, when you come back with the potatoes? It has Plato —P-l-a-t-o—printed on the back.”
Chapter XIV
The jubilation of George at the turn events had taken may perhaps be more easily imagined than described. There is generally one weak point about all artful schemes to keep other people out of their rights; they break down over some unforeseen detail, or through the neglect of some trivial and obvious precaution. But this was one of the glorious instances to the contrary that prove the rule. Nothing had broken down, everything had prospered as a holy cause always should, and does—in theory. The stars in their courses had fought for Sisera, everything had succeeded beyond expectation, nothing had failed. In the gratitude of his heart, George would willingly have given a thousand pounds towards the establishment of a training-school for anonymous letter-writers, or the erection of a statue to Hilda Caresfoot, whose outraged pride and womanly jealousy had done him such yeoman service.
Speaking seriously, he had great cause for rejoicing. Instead of a comparatively slender younger son’s portion, he had stepped into a fine and unencumbered property of over five thousand a year, and that in the heyday of his youth, when in the full possession of all his capacities for enjoyment, which were large indeed. Henceforth everything that money could buy would be his, including the respect and flattery of his poorer neighbours. An added flavour too was given to the overflowing cup of his good fortune by the fact that it had been wrenched from the hands of the cousin whom he hated, and on whom he had from a boy sworn to be avenged. Poor Philip! bankrupt in honour and broken in fortune, he could afford to pity him now, to pity him ostentatiously and in public. He was open-handed with his pity was George. Nor did he lack a sympathizer in these delicious moments of unexpected triumph.
"Did I not tell you,” said Mrs. Bellamy, in her full, rich tones, on the afternoon of the reading of the will—”did I not tell you that, if you would consent to be guided by me, I would pull you through, and have I not pulled you through? Never misdoubt my judgment again, my dear George; it is infinitely sounder than your own.”
"You did, Anne, you certainly did; you are a charming woman, and as clever as you are charming.”
"Compliments are all very well, and I am sure I appreciate yours” —and she gave a little curtsey—”at their proper value; but I must remind you, George, that I have done my part of the bargain, and that now you must do yours.”
"Oh! that’s all right; Bellamy shall have the agency and two hundred a year with it, and, to show you that I have not forgotten you, perhaps you will accept this in memorial of our joint achievement;” and he drew from his pocket and opened a case containing a superb set of sapphires.
Mrs. Bellamy had all a beautiful woman’s love for jewels, and especially adored sapphires.
"Oh!” she said, clasping her hands, "thank you, George; they are perfectly lovely!”
"Perhaps,” he replied, politely; "but not half so lovely as their wearer. I wonder,” he added, with a little laugh, "what the old boy would say, if he could know that a thousand pounds of his personalty had gone by anticipation to buy a necklace for Anne Bellamy.”
To this remark she made no reply, being apparently absorbed in her own thoughts. At last she spoke.
"I don’t want to seem ungracious, George, but these”—and she touched the jewels—”were not the reward I expected: I want the letters you promised me back.”
"My dear Anne, you are under a mistake, I never promised you the letters; I said that, under the circumstances, I might possibly restore them—a very different thing from promising.”
Mrs. Bellamy flushed a little, and the great pupils of her sleepy eyes contracted till she looked quite dangerous.
"Then I must have strangely misunderstood you,” she said.
"What do you want the letters for? Can’t you trust me with them?”
"Don’t you think, George, that if you had passed through something very terrible, you would like to have all the mementoes of that dark time destroyed? Those letters are the record of my terrible time; nothing remains of it but those written lines. I want to burn them, to stamp them into powder, to obliterate them as I have obliterated all the past. Whilst they exist I can never feel safe. Supposing you were to turn traitor to me and let those letters fall into the hands of others, supposing that you lost them, I should be a ruined woman. I speak frankly, you see; I fully appreciate my danger, principally because I know that, the more intimate a man and woman have been, the more chance there is of their becoming bitter enemies. George, give me those letters; do not overcloud my future