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"You can return in an hour, Mrs. Perks."
"Ho, indeed, and when am I to 'ave my natural rest, Mr. Bartons, I should like to know, seein' as 'ow in an hour it'll be 'alf-past two? But I'll go, sir, though I must say as I can't 'old with such goin's on in my 'ouse."
"Your house – !"
"Well, if it ain't mine it ought to be, seein' as I work that 'ard that I'm just skin and bone!"
"Now understand me, Mrs. Perks, if you don't take yourself off without another word, you will not be even an inmate of this house to-morrow!"
The woman turned as pale as her sallow complexion would admit. She opened her lips to speak, but with a great effort refrained. She seemed to be within measurable distance of fainting. The man's expression as he fixed his eyes upon her had been horrible. She felt deadly sick. In the passage she paused, recovering herself somewhat, and shook her fist at the closed door. Then she got herself a glass of brandy – a thing she rarely did.
"That woman was born on my estate in Hampshire," explained Barton, drawing a chair to the table for Miriam. "You'd hardly think it perhaps, but she began as scullery-maid to my mother, and ended as housekeeper to me. I brought her to London, and placed her here in this house, which I may tell you is my own property. You understand now how I was able to bring you here. An old gentleman and an unknown woman! What decent hotel would have taken in the pair of us! He, he! I know my own knowing."
But Miriam made no protest. She ate and drank ravenously. Mr. Barton sipped his wine and watched her. Occasionally he gave utterance to the peculiar chuckle which had wakened her before. The same uncanny feeling came again upon her. She could not shake it off.
"I wish now I had left you to Jabez," she said suddenly.
"Indeed, why? – that is the sort of speech which I should not make if I were you, more especially whilst you are consuming meat and drink of mine. Why do you wish such a thing?"
"Because I think you are very wicked."
"Wicked – how? Surely I have fed you. I have ordered for you a comfortable bed, and, what's more, if you answer satisfactorily the questions I am going to put to you, I intend to procure for you a situation – how then am I wicked?"
"I don't know – but I feel that you are. You remind me of a rat, and I loathe rats! I can see that woman who has gone feels as I do."
"Perhaps. Still she obeys me."
Miriam rose and took up her shawl.
"I am going," she said curtly.
"Indeed. I think you will also obey me, Miriam. Sit down I say."
He pointed to a chair. She strove not to meet his eye, but his gaze compelled her. Their eyes met, and, for a moment, were in desperate conflict. Then the woman sat down. She was in a cold perspiration, and was trembling too.
"That's right – I thought you would. Go back to Jabez would you? – well, we shall see."
"I thank you for what you have given me, Mr. Barton; but I feel under no obligation to you, since I saved your life. The obligation, if any, is yours. But we will cry quits, if you please."
"Not at all – as you say, it is my turn now. Let the benefits come from me, and the – well, the gratitude from you."
"Mr. Barton, understand I wish nothing from you. Allow me to go."
"Where, back to Jabez – the man who murders strangers because you starve? No, my good young lady. It is for me to save your Jabez from the gallows by retaining you – that is if – By the way, what is your full name?" he asked abruptly.
His eyes were full upon her again. She felt herself unable to shake off their horrid fascination; all power of resistance seemed to leave her.
"My name is Miriam Crane," she said faintly.
"And what are you?"
"The daughter of a sea captain."
"H'm – respectable enough on the face of it. And how do you come to be in this plight?"
"When my mother died, my father left me in a seaport town in charge of a friend of his, having paid my board for a year. He was lost at sea, and I was turned out of doors by his friend. I came to London thinking to get some engagement as a governess."
"Oh, you are well educated then?"
"Sufficiently so to teach children. But without influence or references I could get nothing. My small stock of money soon went. I pawned everything I had, even my clothes. I even tried to make a living by selling flowers, but I could not. Everywhere I went, in everything I did, I was unlucky. I sank and sank until – "
"Until right down at the bottom I suppose you met this Jabez of yours. He is your lover?"
"He does love me," blazed forth Miriam, "but I am an honest woman."
"Naturally," Barton chuckled, "otherwise with your beauty you certainly would not be starving. Why are you so honest?"
"I believe in God," her eyes sought his searchingly. "You don't," she said.
"Perhaps not – nevertheless, I am honest too."
"That depends what you call honest," retorted Miriam. "You have plenty of money, no doubt, so you can't very well help behaving so as to keep your freedom. But for that – "
She hesitated, but gave him quite clearly to understand her meaning.
"'Perhaps' again," said Barton. "You mean to say that I have not sufficiently strong incentive to be anything else – that if I had, that if I were a poor man for instance, I should probably land in prison."
"I am quite sure you would."
"Dear me, you seem to have made up your mind about me very definitely – it hasn't taken you long either."
"I judge by your face. As I read it, it is a page of devil-print!"
Barton rubbed his hands. He seemed more tickled than anything else. Certainly he was in no wise offended.
"I believe I have found a real pearl in the gutter," he chuckled. Then he turned to her,
"Tell me now, why did you save me from your Jabez?"
"I did not know you then – perhaps if I had, your body would now be lying in the river."
"And my soul – what about that?"
"You should know – if you are a man and not an animal."
"You are mistaken, young lady – you think me a libertine, no doubt – "
"Oh, nothing of the kind – you are too hard even for that. If I had any doubt about it, I should not be here with you now."
"Well, well, let us hope that after a little longer acquaintance your opinion of me will improve. For the present I wish to befriend you all I can – that at least should be a point in my favour."
"But why – why, I ask, should you wish to befriend me? What is your object?"
"That you shall know when the times comes. Let us resume your very interesting story."
"You have heard it. I told you I met Jabez, and that he loves me. I suspected when he went out to-night that he was desperate – that he might steal, murder even, if by so doing he could obtain food for me – that is why I followed him, to save him, and, as it happened, I did save him, and you too."
"And the boy who acted a jackal to your lion – who is he?"
"Shorty – oh, he is a wicked little creature, who ought by rights to be in a reformatory."
"Indeed. Now please attend to me, Miss Crane. I am no philanthropist, nor am I a fool, and you yourself seem willing to acquit me of any amatory intentions. You will easily believe then that it is from no feeling of sentiment that I have brought you here to-night. One strong dose of that kind of thing has lasted me through life. I suffered badly at the hands of your sex once, but once only. I am never likely to suffer again. Nevertheless, I confess that if it had not been for your beauty, I should have left you there on the bridge."
"I am not beautiful," contradicted Miriam.
"No? – well, you must allow me to be judge of that. I repeat, my intentions are perfectly prosaic. I am no Don Juan of gutter-girls. I see in you exactly such a person as I need for the carrying through of a scheme I have in hand."
Miriam rose.
"I refuse to have anything to do with it," she said emphatically.
"Had you not better learn what it is first?"
"No. I am sure it is vile."
She made towards the door.
But his eyes caught hers, and she had to yield. What power had this man over her? It was horrible. She could make no effort of body or will against him. And he stood there grinning, as she thought the devil himself might grin at the capture of a spotless soul. She sank back weakly in a chair.
"You seem exhausted," said he. "I'll ring for Mrs. Perks. You must go to bed at once. We'll finish our little talk to-morrow. For the moment I will ask you only one more question. Who is Jabez?"
"I refuse to tell you."
"Tell me, who is Jabez, I say," he repeated, keeping his eyes upon her steadily.
And she told him. But when Mrs. Perks came in, she was lying in a dead faint.
PART I
CHAPTER I.
MRS. DACRE DARROW
Mrs. Dacre Darrow was a much misunderstood woman – at least she said so frequently. Her husband, dead now some five years, had never been able to comprehend her sentimental nature; her uncle, Richard Barton, hard old cynic that he was, did not appreciate her tender heart; and the world at large could not, or would not, understand her. And so Mrs. Darrow posed as a martyr in her day and generation. The late Mr. Dacre Darrow had been a barrister and a failure. He had left her with no income and one child to rear. In this dilemma she had sought the Manor House at Lesser Thorpe, and had proposed to keep house for her Uncle Barton in return for her maintenance. Uncle Barton considered her proposition, and ended by installing both mother and son with three hundred a year in a small and quaint cottage on the outskirts of the park. This was too much altogether for Mrs. Darrow. Could a woman bear such brutal treatment silently? She thought not; nor, in fact, did she. On the contrary she abused Uncle Barton daily and hourly. When not thus occupied, she was as a rule busy in endeavouring to get money out of him, though this latter was, as she expressed it, heartbreaking work. It was rarely possible to extract from him anything beyond her stated income. Small wonder, then, that Mrs. Darrow regarded Uncle Barton as a brute and herself as a martyr.
"Just think, dear," she wailed to her friend, Hilda Marsh, "he has five thousand a year and that large empty house, yet he lets me live in this pokey cottage. Three hundred a year! It is hardly enough to buy one's clothes."
Hilda, occupying her favourite position before a mirror, made no reply. As the daughter of a poor doctor, and one of a large family, she considered Mrs. Darrow very well off. She could not sympathise with her in her constant grumbling. But she was wise in her generation, was Hilda, and did not argue with the widow, firstly because Mrs. Darrow never argued fairly, but dogmatised and invariably lost her temper; and secondly, because Hilda had more to lose than to gain from quarrelling with her. She was a pretty, vain, selfish girl, and calculating to boot. Mrs. Darrow's social influence in the parish was useful to her, so she trimmed her sails accordingly. At the present moment she was in the little drawing-room for afternoon tea. She patted a rebellious little curl into shape as in some sort of excuse for not replying to Mrs. Darrow's latest complaint against Uncle Barton. The widow continued to protest against the way in which she was being treated; and Hilda continued, so far as was possible, to avoid contention, to admire her own pretty face in the glass, until tea was brought in. Then, and then only, did Mrs. Darrow, ever fond of her comforts and blest with the best of good appetites, brisk up. But true to her indolent disposition, she asked Hilda to make the tea.
"You do it so well, dear," she said coaxingly; "I taught you, didn't I?"
"Yes, Julia, of course you taught me, that is why I can make it to your satisfaction," said Hilda, sitting down to the bamboo table.
She called Mrs. Darrow Julia at the widow's express request, for – in Mrs. Darrow's opinion – such familiarity tended to diminish the difference in their ages. How she arrived at this conclusion was known only to Mrs. Darrow, who never condescended to explain her reasons for either speech or action. It was so, because it was so, and there was an end of it. And invariably the adoption of so uncompromising an attitude was successful. By its means she managed to emerge triumphant from her fiercest altercations. By alternately shifting her ground and refusing to give any reasons, she always reduced her opponent to a moral pulp. In effect, her tactics were undeniable.
Hilda's attractions were of that order which suited her present occupation. She looked well at a tea-table. She wore white, touched here and there with the palest of blue, and her hands moved ever so deftly among the egg-shell china cups and saucers, with their sprawling dragons of green and red. She was essentially the Dresden china type herself. A dainty figure, a transparent complexion, dark blue eyes, and hair the colour of ripe corn: such were the outward and visible attributes of Hilda Marsh. She looked like an angel, and was frequently taken for one – more especially by men. Her beauty was that of a peach, and, like a peach, she possessed a very hard kernel. Not even Mr. Barton had a more obdurate heart. However, she succeeded in hiding this from all save her own family, and they, being anxious for Hilda to make a good match, were so kind as to remain silent on the subject. Moreover, Hilda – her angelic qualities being reserved wholly for the public, and not at all discernible by the domestic hearth – was, in the eyes of her family, a personage to be got rid of. That seemed clear, since she was a great grief at home. Hers was a case in which the face is most certainly not a correct index to the mind.
"Ah!" sighed Mrs. Darrow, soothed somewhat now with a strong cup of tea and a particularly indigestible muffin, "if I wasn't the best-tempered woman in the world how I should complain of my hard lot!"
"What is the matter now, Julia?"
"Matter! oh, nothing worse than usual. Only that Uncle Barton has engaged a governess for Dicky, and I have had no choice in the matter. Oh, it's nothing." Mrs. Darrow stirred her tea violently. "Of course, I'm a mere cipher in my own house."
"Mr. Barton pays for the governess," suggested Hilda.
"And why shouldn't he? It's his duty to educate Dicky, and give the poor boy a chance in the world. My life is over, Hilda, and I live only for my boy."
This was one of Mrs. Darrow's stock pieces of sentiment, and she produced it with surprisingly dramatic effect on every occasion. It sounded well, and cost nothing, for she never troubled about Dicky, save when he was necessary to a tableau on public days, and her reputation of being a devoted mother was to be enhanced thereby. Although her husband had been dead five years, she still mourned him in black silk, amply trimmed with crape, and was careful to use nothing but the most aggressively black-edged paper. Even her handkerchiefs mourned in a deep border, and her cap of delicate white cambric called loudly on the world to witness what a model widow she was. In addition to these mute evidences of eternal sorrow, Mrs. Darrow gave tongue to her woes vigorously. She really did not know, she said, how she bore it. Indeed, if it were not for her dear child she would wish to die. No woman had ever suffered what she had suffered – and much more to the same effect, all of which was very genteel and laudable, and meant to be correctly indicative of her noble state of mind.
"Uncle Barton is coming to tell me about the new governess, Hilda; I expect him every minute."
Hilda rose quickly.
"In that case, dear, I had better go. Mr. Barton has no love for me."
"He has no love for anyone. I never knew so selfish and stingy a creature. Don't go. I want you to stay and talk to me. Perhaps Gerald may come too."
"Mr. Arkel's coming is nothing to me," replied Hilda, tossing her pretty head.
"Really! I thought you liked him!"
"So I do; but then you see I like many people – Major Dundas for instance."
"John!" Mrs. Darrow became reflective. "Oh, yes; John is very nice, but not nearly so good looking as Gerald. Besides, Gerald is Uncle Barton's heir!"
"That may or may not be; we don't know. But this I do know," said Hilda pettishly, "that should either of Uncle Barton's nephews become engaged to me, that one will not be the heir."
"I don't see why not?"
"Mr. Barton doesn't like me, that's why. Perhaps he'll even go the length of marrying the new governess to Major Dundas or Mr. Arkel to spite me." Then, after a pause, "What kind of woman is she?"
Mrs. Darrow threw out her hands with a wail.
"My dear, how should I know? I am quite in the dark. I have been told absolutely nothing about the woman. But if she is not a thoroughly satisfactory person, I'll have her out of this very soon, I can tell you. I'm not going to be imposed upon in my own house by any spy."
"What is her name?"
"Miriam Crane. It sounds Jewish. I hate Jews."
