ARCHIE had not remarked at all the incident which had startled Johnson, and which Eddy Saumarez, alone at present among the relics of the supper, and making a final meal with considerable appetite, was going over and over in his eager and fertile mind, trying to make out its meaning, and in what way it could affect himself, and on the course he ought to pursue. The man in the overcoat, closely buttoned up, coming suddenly out of the cold outside to the lighted and dazzling ball-room, with his pale face and startled air, was as a picture to the mind of Eddy, full of innumerable suggestions and possible fate: but it would have conveyed no idea at all to the intelligence of Archie even had he perceived it. Somebody about business; if not, as was most likely, some invited guest who had not caught the boat, or had been otherwise detained on the way, was all the son of the house would have thought of. Somebody about business did not mean much to Archie. It could have, he would have been quite sure, nothing whatever to do with him.
The hall in which the dancing took place was separated from the great door by a vestibule and inner door, chiefly made of glass, and half-covered by heavy curtains. The stranger, when he jumped from the dog-cart which had brought him round the loch, a long detour, had pushed into the vestibule, finding it open and no servants visible. There had been a general withdrawal both of the servants of the house and the many strange footmen, who had attended the guests, to the servants’ hall, where a supper was going on, quite as merry, and not much less luxurious, than the other supper in the dining-room: and at this moment there was nobody about to direct the visitor. He had accordingly, his business being urgent, opened the glass door, to find himself in the ball-room, as has been already described. He stood there much surprised, looking round him for some one who could direct him to the master of the house. And, as luck would have it, the master of the house himself was the first to perceive this curious apparition in the midst of his guests. At that end of the hall none of the usual loiterers were standing about. They were all at the other end and along the upper sides of the ball-room, which were free from those draughts which, as the elder people confided to each other, can never be quite shut out from a room so close to the open air. Mr. Rowland made his way through the dancers, dodging here and there a quickly gyrating pair, with a smile upon his face, towards the man in the greatcoat, who stood helplessly at the door not knowing what to do. He held out his cordial hand to him as if he had been the most welcome of visitors. “I don’t remember your face,” he said, “excuse me; and you’re very late: but the fun, as you see, is still going on.”
The newcomer stared at him, with his lips apart.
“You are Mr. Rowland,” he said.
“Well, yes, naturally,” said the good-humoured host, with a laugh; “it appears you don’t know me any more than I know you.”
“I’m from the Bank of Scotland—the Glasgow branch,” said the stranger. “I have come, if you please, with a private communication from the manager, very important. If I could speak a word to you by yourself——”
“The Bank of Scotland! Then you have not come to the ball?” said Rowland.
The newcomer looked round with a glance of admiration and awe. He was a young man, and he thought it a scene of enchantment, though his Scotch pride was too great to permit any desire to intrude himself into that dazzling assembly. He drew himself up a little and replied, “I have nothing to do with the ball. I knew nothing about it. I have driven round the head of the loch, a very long road; and I’ve no prospect but to spend the whole night that way, getting back. Ten minutes, sir, if you can give it me, will be enough for what I have to say.”
“Come this way,” said Rowland, drawing back the curtain that covered the library door. He had preferred to keep his sanctuary uninvaded by the visitors, to whom the rest of the house had been thrown open. He stirred the fire in the grate, which was burning low, and turned up higher the subdued light of the lamp.
“Sit down there,” he said, “and get warm; and tell me what this business is that has brought you so far on a cold night. I suppose you missed the boat?”
“I just missed it by two minutes, so there was nothing to do but to drive; if I had known that there was a ball, I think I should have stayed on the other side till the morning, whatever the manager said.”
“Oh, never mind that,” said Rowland, with a genial laugh. “Dancing’s not much in my line—a little business will be a diversion. What is it? The Bank of Scotland has not broke, I hope, nor the Bank of England either. Banks have no great reputation, I’m afraid, in these parts.”
“The Bank of Scotland, sir, is not like your Glasgow Banks,” said the visitor, with some severity, for he was an east country man. He paused a little, and then he took from the breast pocket of his overcoat a case, and from that a piece of paper. “Will you tell me if this is your signature?” he said.
It was a cheque for a thousand pounds—a cheque crumpled and refolded in diverse ways, as if it had already passed through several hands. Rowland took it with great surprise, and held it to the light.
“My signature?” he said.
It was mere bewilderment, not intuition, which kept him silent as he examined the writing; and then there sprang a sudden flutter and dart of anguish through his heart, which he neither understood nor could account for.
“It looks like my signature—why do you ask such a question?”
He said this, scarcely knowing why, to gain time: though he could not have told why he wanted to gain time.
“God be thanked!” said the stranger. “You lift a load from my mind. It was paid yesterday by one of our young clerks; but our attention was not called to it till to-day. On comparing it with your usual signature, we felt a doubt; and the cheque itself was unlike you. It was not crossed—it was drawn to nobody’s order; and it’s a considerable sum, Mr. Rowland—nothing to you—but to most people a considerable sum. If you say it’s all right, you will lift a load from my mind. It was young Farquhar that paid it—a fine young fellow. And his career would be spoiled——”
These words came in a sort of strange mist to Rowland’s mind. He was standing all the time with the cheque in his hands, holding it to the light. Everything external was in a mist to him, both what he saw and what he heard. The very cheque, with that signature “James Rowland” sprawling on it as his own signature sprawled, seemed to float in the air. But within his mind, everything was acute and clear—a great anguish rending him as with a serpent’s fangs—a dart through all his veins, dull in his heart like a stone, violent in his head, as if all the blood had gone there to throb and knell in his ears, and beat like a hammer in his temples. All the time he was standing with his back to the ill-omened messenger, holding the cheque as if he were examining it, in his hands.
His voice, when he spoke, had a dull and thick sound, and he did not turn round, but remained as if fixed in that position, with the cheque stretched out in both his hands, and his head bent to get the light upon it.
“I needn’t trouble you any more,” he said; “the cheque’s—all right. It was drawn for a special purpose; it is nothing to me, as you say.”
Here he broke into a hoarse laugh. “Nothing to me! What’s a thousand pounds in comparison with——. You can relieve your friend, young Farquhar’s mind. Young Farquhar, is that his name? But he ought to be more careful. That’s a large sum to pay to bearer over the counter without any guarantee. But he did quite right—quite right—my name’s enough for many a thousand pounds.” He moved from where he was standing to ring the bell, but did not turn round. Then he went back to the lamp and pushed the shade lower down.
“I’ll keep the cheque,” he said, “to remind me not to do such a thing again. Saunders, will you take this gentleman into the dining-room, and see that he has some supper before he goes. I don’t know your name,” he added, turning upon the stranger and putting out his hand, “but I highly approve your energy in coming, and I’ll take care to say so to the directors.”
“My name is Fergusson—and I’m very glad of your approval, Mr. Rowland: and the night journey will be nothing, for I am going back with a light heart.”
“Yes, yes,” said Rowland, “on account of young Farquhar: but you should tell him to be careful. Take a good supper, and then you’re less likely to catch cold. You’ll excuse me entrusting you to my butler, for you see for yourself that to-night——”
“I am only grieved I troubled you,” said the bank clerk.
“No, no, nothing of the sort—and mind, Saunders, that Mr. Fergusson has a good glass of wine.”
He waited until they were gone, and then he dropped heavily into a chair. He had no doubt, none whatever—not for a moment. Who could have done it but one? He took out that fatal scrap of paper again, and laid it out before him on the table in the intense light. It was very like his signature. He would have himself been taken in, had that been possible. Some of the lines were laboured, while his were merely a dash; but it was very like—so like, he thought, that no new hand could have done it, no one uninstructed. He might himself have been taken in, had he not known, as the bank people did, that he never drew a cheque like that—a cheque with no protection—drawn to bearer, not crossed, nothing to ensure its safety. He smiled a little at the ridiculous thought that he could have been capable of doing that—then suddenly flung himself down upon the table, covering his face with his hands.
Oh, pain intolerable! oh anguish not to be shaken off! His boy—Mary’s son, who had her eyes—his heir, his successor, the only one to continue his name. Oh burning, gnawing, living pang, that went through and through him like a spear made not of steel, but of fire! He writhed upon it, as we all do in our time, feeling each sharp edge, as well as the fiery point that pins us helpless to the earth. What was Prometheus upon his rock, of whom the ancients raved—a trifler, a nothing, in comparison with the father, who had just been persuaded of the guilt of his only son.
And all the time the music was sounding outside the door, the sound of the light feet going and coming in rhythmic waves, the confused hum of voices and laughter. The boy who had put this spear into his father’s heart was there, enjoying it all. Rowland had been pleased to see that Archie was enjoying it. He had said to himself that the boy was no such cub after all; that perhaps that failure of his about his comrade might be explained; that he might have been dazzled by the possession of money, and too completely unused to it to understand the spending of it. He might have been afraid to give what was wanted, fearing that he would be blamed. There must be some reason. He had persuaded himself that this must be the case in the sensation of a certain pride in his children, which the sight of them among the others had produced.
And now, and now!—James Rowland had gone through the usual experiences of man—he had known sorrow, and he had known the pangs of repentance. He had not always been satisfied with himself, and he had been disappointed in others from time to time. But what were all these miseries to this?
As he lay there with his face hidden, a hand was suddenly laid upon his shoulder. “James—what is the matter, what is the matter?” his wife said.
He turned at first from her, with a thought that she was the last person who should hear—she who was not the mother, who had nothing to do with the boy; and then he turned towards her: for was not she bound to be his own comforter, to help him in everything? He raised himself up slowly, and lifted his face from his hands, which had left the mark of their pressure upon his ashy cheeks.
“The matter!” he said; “the worst is the matter!—the worst that can happen. I am afraid of nothing more in this world!”
“James!” she cried,—then with an attempt to smile—“You are trying to frighten me. What is it? A man has been here.—Dear James, it is not the loss of—your money?—for what is that! We will bear it together, and be just as happy.”
Evelyn’s mind, in spite of herself, was moved by accounts in story-books of catastrophes which were announced in this way. I am not sure that he even heard her suggestion, much less was capable of comprehending the devotion to himself that was in it. He moved his hand to the pink paper which lay stretched upon the table in the full light of the lamp. “Look at that,” he said.
She took it up perplexed. A cheque for a thousand pounds, which to Evelyn, unaccustomed to the possession of money, looked, as the bank clerk had said, like a large sum. She looked at it again, turning it over, as if any enlightenment was to be had in that way. Then it occurred to her in the midst of her alarm, that after all her husband’s great fortune could not be represented by a cheque for a thousand pounds. “What does it mean?” she said, still holding it vaguely in her hands.
“Can’t you see?” He was almost harsh in his impatience, snatching it out of her hand and holding it up to the light “They were fools to pay it at the bank; and, as for that young Farquhar, I’ll—— Can’t you see? Look there, and there——”
“I don’t know what you mean me to see, James. It is a little laboured, not quite like your hand. You must have been tired when you—— Ah!” said Evelyn breaking suddenly off, and beginning to examine, fascinated, the terrible document that looked so simple. She looked up in his face, quite pale, her lips dropping apart. “You don’t mean me to think——”
“Think? See! look at it; it is forged—that is what it is.”
She looked at him, every tint of colour gone from her face, her eyes wide open, her lips trembling. It might have been supposed that she had done it. “Oh James, James!” she cried in a low voice of terror and dismay. Then there flashed before her eyes a whole panorama of moving scenes: the pale and lowering face of Archie; the lively one of Eddy Saumarez; the disreputable Johnson—all came and went like distracting shadows. In a second she went over a whole picture-gallery of visionary portraits. Her husband looked at her intently, as if to read the name of the culprit in her eyes; but she only repeated, “Oh James, James!” as if this appeal was all that she could say.
“You see it,” he said with a sort of exasperated calm. “Though that young Farquhar—confound him, oh, confound him!—--” Here he stopped again, as if the thought were too much. “He’s got a father and mother now, no doubt, who can trust him with everything they’ve got; who look forward to his becoming a director of the bank; whom he goes home to every night self-conceited—Oh, confound them every one!”
“James,” she said, laying her hand doubtfully again upon his shoulder, “is it Mr. Farquhar who has got your money? Is it—? Whom do you—suspect?”
He broke out into a loud, harsh laugh. “I haven’t much choice, have I?” he said, “there are not many that could have done it. There is only one, so far as I can judge. He’s been set on horseback and he’s ridden to the devil; and to make it up—though God knows how it’s gone, for he has nothing to show for it—he puts his father under a forced contribution—that’s about what it is.”
“You mean Archie!—no, no, no,” cried Evelyn; “it is not Archie—it is not Archie! James, you are angry; you are letting prejudice lead you astray.”
“Prejudice—against my only son! If it had been prejudice in his favour, prejudice to look over his faults, to think him better than he is——”
“No, no, no,” said Evelyn, “that is not your way. You want perfection, and you can’t bear not to have it, James. There is nothing—nothing vicious about Archie. He must have been vicious to want that money? No, no, no. I am as sure that you are mistaken as that I’m alive.”
He shook his head, but he was a little comforted for the moment. “You can send for him if you are so confident,” he said; and then there came to them in a sudden gust the sound of the music, the movement of the dancers, which made the floor thrill even where they were apart in that room full of trouble: and the horror of the combination brought from Evelyn a cry of pain, as she put up her hands to her face.
“Oh, don’t send for him now! in the middle of all that, where he is doing his best, poor boy—where he has forgotten everything that’s been troubling him;—don’t, James, don’t, for your wife’s sake send for the poor boy now——”
“For my wife’s sake!—It is you who are my wife, Evelyn.”
“If I am, it is not to sweep her influence away, but to help it. Have mercy on her boy! Oh, James, you have been hard upon him: you are a good man, but you have been hard upon him. Why did you expose him the other day about that money? There might be a hundred reasons that you never stopped to hear. James, I am in Mary’s place; and what she would have done I am doubly bound to do. Don’t ruin her boy. Don’t, for God’s sake, James, even if your anger is just, destroy her boy!”
He rose up and walked about the room in his way, laughing at intervals that hard, dry, little laugh, which was his signal of distress.
“It shows what you think of me,” he said, “that you bid me not to ruin him. What’s the meaning of that accursed bit of paper lying there? It means that I have adopted the lie and the guilt to save him. I have said it was all right—not for his sake—but to save an open shame.”
“Ah, James! for his sake too.”
He put his arm round her, and bent his head down upon her shoulder for a moment. She felt his heart beating like a loud, hard piece of machinery, thumping and labouring in his breast; and she thought she divined the pain that was in him, forcing all his organs into such fierce movement. And so she did, in fact; but who can altogether understand the bitterness in another’s heart?
He sat down again after a while, and said—
“Send for him—he must answer for himself.”
“I will have to go and see to the people who are leaving, James; you ought to come too.”
“I can’t, it is impossible.”
“Then Archie must stay to take your place. He has done very well, as well as any boy could have done. He must back me up, and help me to see all the people away.”
Rowland made a gesture of disgust at the people, the music, the gaiety, the whole brilliant, delightful entertainment which he had devised so splendidly, and only an hour or two ago enjoyed so intensely. He could not bear the thought, much less the sight of it now. He remained alone while Evelyn went back to go through the final proceedings—to shake hands with the guests, and receive their acknowledgments. He sat and listened to the music and the sound of the feet keeping time, and the driving up of the carriages outside, and the commotions of the departure. Twice in his impatience, as the reader has seen, he rang for the butler, who was dispensing hospitality on a scale little inferior to that of his master, and who was much annoyed to be disturbed. Saunders took one message after another to Archie, as has been seen, without very much effect. The butler’s feelings were all with the young man. He too was of opinion, from his master’s aspect and a something in the air which the inferior members of a household are quick to perceive, that there was “a wigging” in store for Archie; and everybody in the servants’ hall instinctively took Archie’s side, and agreed with Saunders that to keep out of the governor’s way as long as he could, was very natural on the part of the young man. Several of them wondered whether the man in the topcoat, who had supper punctually served to him in the dining-room, was the man who had made the row, an opinion to which Mr. Saunders himself privately inclined. But the opinion of these functionaries did not reach to Mr. Rowland in his library. He sat and listened to all the voices and counted the carriages as they rolled away. There could be but few remaining when he sent the last message to Archie. But when Saunders went out of the library with his errand, he met Mrs. Rowland coming in. She had stolen away from Miss Eliza and her vigorous group of dancers. Evelyn’s heart was sick too, in dismal expectation of the interview to come. She knew beforehand how it would be. Rowland would dash the accusation in his son’s face, taking everything for granted, while Archie would either retire in sullen offence, or deny violently with as little reason or moderation as his father. They would meet like the clash of angry waves, neither making the smallest impression on the other; and then they would drift afloat with what she felt to be an irremediable wrong between them, something far more grave than had ever appeared on the stormy horizon before. And what could Evelyn do, she who would so fain have taken all the trouble upon her shoulders, and saved them both? Oh no, there was no such luck in store for her! She could not save her husband from committing himself to a great accusation, or Archie from violent rebellion and denial. If he took it too calmly, Evelyn felt that even her own faith in him would fail, and if he were violent, it would make the breach with his father all the greater. She went and stood by her husband’s side, putting her hand upon his arm as he sat at the table with the shade of the lamp raised, and the light full upon his angry face, waiting till his son should come.
And Archie came in so unconscious, almost self-satisfied, expecting a little approbation, and to find that his exertions had been appreciated! There was a half smile on his mouth which changed the expression of a face so often lowering and heavy with anticipation of evil. He feared no evil this night. His eyes were limpid and blue, without a cloud, though with a faint mist of boyish drowsiness in them just coming over the brightness of excitement. He was excited still, but a little sleepy, the call upon him being almost over: and it was nearly four o’clock in the morning, a sufficient reason for fatigue. “Did you want me, father?” he said, in his fresh, boyish voice. Evelyn stood by her husband’s side, holding his arm with a firm significant pressure. She gave one look at the lad who stood there, with his half smile, fearing no one, and then, with a sick heart, turned her face away.
“Yes, sir, I wanted you. I have been waiting for you here for hours,” Rowland said.
Archie was startled by this unexpected tone. The smile went away from his mouth. His eyes woke up from that mist of coming slumber and looked a little anxious, a little wondering, ready to be defiant, in his father’s face.
Rowland took up the piece of paper that lay on the table in the fierce white light of the lamp. Archie had clearly perceived it was a cheque, but what it could be for he did not imagine. His father took it up, and once more flung it at him as he had done so often. “Look at that,” in a voice of thunder, “and tell me what it means!” he cried.