CHAPTER XLVI.
A LAST DECISION.
Rosalind’s insolent face went red with wrath.
“I don’t know who ‘Thompson’ is or whether it’s a man or a woman,” she said threateningly, “but it will be a bad night’s business for both of you, if either he or she tries anything of that sort. I’ve some friends within call, and if I can’t take care of myself without them, I’ve only to call, to get all the help I need.”
Berry looked the unutterable disgust she felt, and she involuntarily drew back a step from her unwelcome visitor. Fortunately for all concerned, however, Thompson—who was one of the under footmen—was in another part of the house at the time and did not, therefore, put in an appearance in response to her ladyship’s request.
Rosalind waited for a moment in expectation of hostilities of a more formidable character than the mere resentment of an indignant gentlewoman, and, finding that none were likely to come, stuck her cigarette between her lips again and blew out a long writhing plume of smoke.
“I reckon that ‘Thompson’ knows when he’s well off, and has made himself scarce,” she said with a laugh and a wave of one very much bejeweled hand. “And as there’s no way for you to get into the house unless I choose to step aside and let you, I also reckon you’ve got to stand and face the music whether you like it or not. Turn about’s fair play the world over. You tried to shut me out of Crumplesea, and now I’m shutting you in—in your own veranda.”
“What do you want of me, that you have had the impudence to come here and to play me such a trick as you have done?” asked Berry, with cool scorn. “No! don’t come any nearer; keep your distance, please; you are quite too close for comfort as it is.”
“Oh! you want to know what I’ve come for, do you? Well, you shall—and in short order, too! Yes, and you’ll dance to a more expensive tune than I first intended for treating me like this. Ten thousand would have bought me off when first I came, but it’ll cost you fifty thousand now, I promise you.”
“There’s a mistake on your part—it won’t cost me a penny. If you have any idea of blackmailing me because you are—well, what you are, get that idea out of your mind at once. That my stepbrother married a creature who was—and apparently still is—scarcely a fit associate for one of my scullery maids and that I disowned him for it, are matters that are known to every one who knows me, and I should scarcely be likely to pay you money to keep secret a thing that is public property.”
“Oh! that’s the ‘tack’ you’re going on, is it? Well, suppose I start in telling something that everybody doesn’t know—not even you yourself—what then? Look here, my Lady High and Mighty, you snuffed me out as a wife and widow, but you can’t snuff me out as a mother—the mother of your brother’s daughter, a child born in honorable wedlock nearly eighteen years ago.”
Save that it grew perhaps the fraction of a shade paler, Berry’s face changed not one whit.
She flung away her cigarette and fumbled for a moment among the folds of her skirt, then her unsteady hand drew a packet of paper from her pocket, loosened the bit of string that held it together, and flirted off two documents from the top.
“There’s her baptismal certificate, for one, and my marriage lines, for another,” she said, “and here’s one of Adrian’s letters to me acknowledging that he knew there was going to be a child. Solid evidence that, isn’t it?”
“Certainly; indisputable evidence. But again—quite unnecessary! Why all this palaver? I really don’t see what you are driving at. Neither I, nor my husband, nor any one else, ever doubted your announcement, years ago. We simply had no interest in the matter. What is your intention?”
“Now look here: here’s what is going to happen to-morrow night, if you don’t buy me off at my own price, and take that girl off my hands.”
Speaking, she unfolded the last of the papers she held, filling the air as she did so with the faint, sickly smell of fresh printer’s ink, and shook out a still damp half-sheet poster.
Berry did not notice it for a moment; she had taken up the baptismal certificate and the faded letter. But she turned at last and saw the bill that was held up for her inspection. And for the first time her face became really pale.
“Looks nice, doesn’t it?” said Rosalind, with a little babble of splenetic mockery. “Your niece is going to lead the Amazon march, and—in tights! She says she won’t, but she will, you know; she’ll have to give in—people always have to do that where I’m concerned. You’ll do it presently, like all the rest, and I shall leave this place with your check for fifty thousand pounds in my pocket or else these bills go up to-morrow morning, and what’s printed on them will happen to-morrow night. It doesn’t do to run foul of me, does it, now?”
“I don’t know,” said Berry, in a low, level voice; “and I really don’t think that I care, either. If you have set your mind upon doing this thing, you must do it, of course. And now, if you have said all that you have to say, be good enough to relieve me of your presence. You cannot extort one copper out of me, madam, no matter what you propose to do.”