NEXT moment they had surged as on the top of a wave to the room within. Nothing could be more strange than the scene presented there. The room was curtained all round with red, hung above a man’s height with ruddy thick folds, upon which the firelight threw a still warmer flicker. A shaded lamp filled it with softened light, and from above, from what seemed a large skylight, a white stream of moonlight fell in, making a curious disturbing effect in the warm artificial light. These accessories, however, though they told afterwards, were as nothing to the sight that burst upon the eyes of the new-comers. In the centre of the room stood a tall old man, with a long pallid face, straggling white hair, and a white beard. His face was distorted with excitement, his voice bellowing forth a succession of cries, or rather roars, like the roars of a wild animal. His loose lips gave forth these utterances with flying foam and a sort of mechanical rapidity:
“I know what you’ve come for? I can pay up! I can pay up! I’ve plenty of money, and I can pay up! But I won’t be taken, not if it costs me my life!”
These were the words that finally emancipated themselves from the stammering utterance and became clear.
Vicars stood behind this wild figure holding both his arms, but it was only by glimpses that the smaller man was visible holding the other as in a vise.
“Come, sir, come, sir, no more of this; they’ll take you for a fool,” he said.
And then this King Lear resumed. The foam flew from his lips; his great voice came out in its wild bellowing, the very voice which Janet had heard so often. It had seemed to her to utter but an inarticulate cry, but this, it would seem, was what it had been saying all the time—words in which there was some meaning—though what that meaning was, or whether the speaker himself understood it, who would say?
The policeman and his attendant had edged towards the doorway, and stood there huddled upon one another. The leader of the search had been willing to face a revolver, but the madman was a thing for which he was not prepared. He stood against the doorway ready to retreat still further in case there should be any further advance. Meredith and Gussy had passed into the room, and stood together, she very anxious, he very eager, at the side, where those wild eyes had not caught them. Behind was Dolff very pale, standing half concealed by the group formed by the madman and his attendant, raising his head to look over them to the two in the doorway who had come to look for him, and had received so unexpected a check.
Mrs. Harwood stumbled into the midst of this strange scene with her tottering uncertain stride, driving Janet with her. She put up her hand to hold back the dreadful insane figure. She was at one of the moments in life when one is afraid of nothing, shrinks from nothing.
“Take him back to his seat, Vicars,” she said, “take him back. Adolphus!” The tottering, helpless woman stood up straight, and put her hand upon the madman’s breast. The eyes that had been blind with misery changed and dissolved as if to dew in their orbits, consolidated again, opened blue and strong like a relighted flame. She fixed them upon the staring red eyes of the maniac. “Adolphus, go back, be silent, calm yourself. There is no need for you to say anything. I am here to take care of you. Let Vicars put you back in your chair.”
“I will not be taken,” he said, “I will not be taken! I can pay up. I have got money, plenty of money. I will pay up!”
“Vicars,” cried Mrs. Harwood, imperiously, “put him back in his chair.”
She held her hand on his breast, and fixed her eyes upon his, pushing him softly back. The roarings grew fainter, fell into a kind of whimpering cry.
“I’ll pay it all—I have plenty of money. Don’t let them take me away—I’ll pay everything up!”
“Go back and rest in your chair, Adolphus. Put him in his chair.”
The astonished spectators all stood looking on while the old servant and this woman, whom force of necessity had moved from her own helplessness, subdued the maniac. Vicars had partially lost his head, he had lost control of his patient, but this unlooked-for help restored him to himself. Between them they drew and guided the patient back to the chair, which was fitted with some mechanical appliances, and held him fast. Mrs. Harwood seemed to forget her weakness entirely; she tottered no longer, but moved with a free step. She turned round upon the frightened policeman at the door.
“Now go,” she said, “you have done your worst; whatever you want, go; you can get no further satisfaction here.”
The intruder breathed more freely when he saw the madman sink into quietude. He said, with a voice that quivered slightly.
“I am very willing to go: but that young gentleman has to go along with me!”
“Come on,” cried the other man, whose teeth were chattering in his head. “Come on; we’ve got nothing to do here.”
“I’m going: when that young gentleman makes up his mind to come with me.”
“What young gentleman? Why, bless you, that ain’t the young gentleman!” said the man, who had struggled out into the passage, and was now only kept from running by the other’s strong retaining grasp.
It was not wonderful that the policeman was indignant. He let his friend go with an oath, and with a sudden push which precipitated him into the outer room.
“You d——d fool! to have led me such a dance; and as much as our lives are worth, and come to nothing at the end.”
The man fell backward, but got up again in a moment and took to his heels, with the noise as of a runaway horse in the dark passage. The policeman, reassured to see that the madman was secured, had the courage to linger a moment. He turned to Meredith with a defiant look.
“It has come to nothing, sir, and I ask your pardon that I’ve been led into giving you this trouble by an ass. But I make bold to ask is this house licensed? and what right has anyone got to keep a dangerous madman in it without inspection, or any eye over ’im? I’ll have to report it to my superior.”
“Report it to the—devil, and be off with you,” Meredith said.
The party stood round, staring into each other’s faces, when the strangers thus withdrew. The madman struggled against the fastenings that secured him.
“Julia,” he said, “don’t let them take me!” He tried to get hold of her with his hands, feeling for her as if he did not see, and began to cry feebly, in a childish, broken voice, “Don’t let them take me! I have got enough to pay everybody. I kept it for you and the children. It was for you and the children; but I’ll pay up, I’ll pay everybody; only don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me!” he whimpered, tears—piteous, childish tears—suffusing the venerable face.
“Oh,” cried Gussy, “don’t let him cry; for God’s sake don’t let him cry! I cannot bear it—I cannot bear it—it is too much.”
“I’ll never complain any more,” said the patient; “I’m very comfortable, I don’t want for anything. You shall pay them all up yourself if you don’t believe me. I’ll give you the money—only don’t let them send me away! I’ve got it all safe here,” he said. “Stop a moment, I’ll give it you: and all these ladies and gentlemen can prove it, that I gave it you to pay up.” He struggled to get his arms free, trying to reach his breast-pocket with one hand. “Vicars, get it out, and give it to your mistress. The money—the money, you know, to pay everybody up. Only,” he cried, putting the piteous hands together which were held fast and could do so little, “don’t, Julia—don’t let them take me away!”
“Oh, mamma,” cried Gussy, “I can’t bear it—I can’t bear it.”
She fell on her knees and covered her face.
“Who is he?” said Dolff. They had all of them, and even Dolff himself, forgotten what was the cause of this revelation. The young man came forward, very pale. “I know nothing about this,” he said, looking round; “nothing. I hope everybody will believe me. I want to know who he is!”
No one said a word, they all stood round, struck silent, not knowing what to think. Mrs. Harwood stood with her hand upon the table, supporting herself, asking no other support. She was perfectly pale, but her countenance had recovered its features and expression. She did not even look at her children—one on her knees, one standing up confronting her, demanding to know the truth. To neither of them did she give a word or look. Her eyes were fixed upon the man who was thus utterly in her hands. Vicars extracted an old, large pocket-book from the pocket of the patient, and handed it to her, not without a sort of smile—half-mocking—on his face. She took it, glancing at it with a certain disdain, as if the trick, often employed but no longer necessary, had disgusted her, and flung it on the table.
“There are in this book,” she said, “old scraps of paper of no value. This is what I am to pay his debts with. He has given it to me twenty times before. I get tired in the end of playing the old game over and over.”
“Mother who is he?” cried Dolff. “You have had him in your house, in secret, never seeing the light of day, and I, your son, never knew. Who is he?”
Mrs. Harwood made no reply.
It was a question to which no one there could give any answer, except perhaps Gussy—on her knees, with her hands covering her face—who did not look up or give any attention to what was going on. Meredith alone seemed to have some clear idea in his mind: his face shone with aroused interest and eagerness, like a man on the very trace of knowledge of the utmost importance to him. A rapid process of thought was going on in his mind, his intelligence was leaping from point to point.
“You will perhaps be surprised,” he said, “to hear that I have known this for some time.”
“You!” Mrs. Harwood half turned to him, a gleam as of fire passing over her face. “You!”
“Yes, I, who have several interests involved. I had just received information on the subject when that young fool, thinking heaven knows what other folly, knocked me down, taking me unawares, and nearly killed me. Oh, yes, it is perfectly true it was Dolff who did it. You start as if I were likely to make any fuss on that subject. Is it true that he had the money to pay everybody?—that is what I want to know.”
“Charley, Charley, do you mean to say that Dolff——”
“Oh, I mean nothing about Dolff,” he said, impatiently: “answer me, Mrs. Harwood.”
“I can’t answer for nothing, Mrs. Harwood,” cried Vicars, “if you keep a lot of folks round him. He is working himself up into a fury again.”
The madman was twisting in his chair, fighting against the mechanical bonds that secured him. He was looking towards the pocket-book which lay on the table.
“She has got my money, and she throws it down for anybody to pick up,” he cried. “My money! there’s money there to pay everything! Why don’t you pay those people and let ’em go—pay them, pay them and let them go! or else give me back my money!” he cried, wildly straining forward, with his white hair falling back, his reddened eyes blazing, struggling against his bonds. Mrs. Harwood took up the pocket-book, weighing it, with a sort of forced laugh, in her hand.
“You think there may be a fortune here—enough to pay? And he thinks so. Give it to him, Vicars. We’ve tried to keep it all quiet, but it seems we have failed. You may leave the door open now—you may do as you please. It can’t matter any longer. I have thought of the credit of the family, and of many things that nobody else thinks of. And of his comfort—nobody will say I have not thought of his comfort. Look round you: there is everything, everything we could think of. But it is all of no use now.”
The old man had caught the pocket-book from Vicars’ hands with a pitiful demonstration of joy. He made a pretence of examining its contents, eagerly turning them over as if to make sure that nothing was lost, kissing the covers in enthusiasm of delight. He made an attempt with his confined arms to return it to his pocket, but, failing in that, kept it embraced in both his hands, from time to time kissing it with extravagant satisfaction.
“As long as I have got this they can do nothing to me,” he said.
While this pantomime was going on, and while still Mrs. Harwood was speaking, a little movement and rustle in the group caught everybody’s attention as if it had been a new fact: but it was only Janet stealing away behind the others who had a right there which she did not possess. She had been watching her moment. She herself, who had nothing to do with it, had received her share of discomfiture too. Her heart was sinking with humiliation and shame. What had she to do with the mysteries of the Harwoods, the things they might have to conceal? What was she to them but a stranger of no account, never thought of, dragged into the midst of their troubles when it pleased them, thrown off again when they chose? Nobody would have said that Janet had any share in this crisis, and yet it was she who had received the sharpest arrow of all; or so, at least, she thought. She slipped behind Julia, who was bigger and more prominent than she, and stole through the bewildering stairs and passages. How well she seemed to know the way, as if it had been familiar to her for years! And it was she who had given the information—she who had been the cause of everything, drawn here and drawn there into affairs alike alien to her, with which she had nothing to do. They were all moved by her departure; not morally, indeed, but by the mere stir it caused.
Gussy rose from her knees, showing a countenance as pale as death and still glistening with tears. She said,
“Mamma, shall we go away? Whatever there may be to be said or explained, it ought not to be done here.” She went up to the old man in the chair, who was still embracing his pocket-book, and kissed him on the forehead. “If any wrong has been done to you, I don’t know of it,” she said; “I thought it was nothing but good.”
“No wrong has been done to him—none—none,” cried Mrs. Harwood, suddenly dropping from her self-command and strength. “Children, you may not believe me, since I’ve kept it secret from you. There has been no wrong to him—none—none. If there has been wrong, it has not been to him. Oh, you may believe me, at least, for I have never told you a lie. Everything has been done for him. Look round you—look round you and you will see.”
“Who is he?” said Dolff, obstinate and pale, standing behind the chair.
“You have no thought for me,” said the mother. “You see me standing here, come here to defend you all, in desperation for you, and you never ask how I am to get back, whether it will kill me—— No, no, Janet has gone, who supported me, who was a stranger, and asked no questions, but only helped a poor woman half mad with trouble and distress. Ah!” she said, “he could go mad and get free—he who was the cause of it all: but I have had to keep my sanity and my courage and bear it all, and look as if nothing was the matter, for fifteen years. For whom? Was it for me? It would have been better for me to have died and been done with it all. For you, children, to give you a happy life, to do away with all disgrace, to give you every advantage. Yes, I’ll take your arm, Ju: you have not been a good child, but you know no better. Get me to my chair before I drop down; get me to my chair——” She paused a moment, and looked round with a hard laugh. “For I am very heavy,” she said, “and I would have to be carried, and who would do it I don’t know. Ju, make haste, before my strength is all gone. Get me to my chair.”