John did not speak. Hislook was more black and lowering each moment, as the sharp pin-pricks of his eyes pressed in upon each face.
Then he said explosively: “Nonsense! You talk like fools. Why do you hide and skulk, when you know exactly what you want? You want me to put authority in your hands, don’t you? You want authority instead of a gilt pen which duplicates what I first write? Well, why can’t you speak up like men?”
It was Patrick who spoke now, with a lumbering heaviness which duplicated honesty very adequately: “Well, then, it’s out. You need to rest, sir. We’ve agreed on that. We know what we can do, if you will allow us to do it. Rufe is Vice-President; I am Treasurer. You wouldn’t have given us these positions if you doubted our native wit. Or, at least, I flatter myself that you wouldn’t. Now, we must go further than that. We can’t act as your office boys while you are away.” He flung aside his napkin and pushed back his chair, as if angrily impatient and disgusted. He turned his handsome flushed face, which in its thick lines and sullenness resembled John’s quite remarkably, slowly from one face to another. Rufus, watching intently, was faintly annoyed. He admitted to himself that there was much more to acting than the deft touch, the subtle gesture.
“No,” continued Patrick, “I’ll be an errand boy no longer. The position is onerous. It wasn’t so bad when you were there, sir. We had you to look to. But, if you go away, I want some manly authority, if I’m to do my best and keep things in hand. If I have no authority, I’ll not have the ridicule that I’ll have if I am given no freedom of my own. What is the matter? Do you distrust us? And, if so, why? That seems the first thing to be settled before we go any further. If you distrust me, I’m done. I’ve wanted to be done for a long while.”
“Oh!” mourned Louisa, bursting into tears, “how can you talk to Papa like that, Patrick? How can you say such cruel things to him when he is so ill?”
But John had listened with profound attention to Patrick’s rough and angry words, which had mounted in a stentorious volume towards the last. He held his lower lip with his teeth, with that vulnerable and savage look he had when confused and disconcerted.
Patrick pressed his wife’s hand strongly and fondly, but looked at John.
“Let’s be frank,” he said. “Do you distrust us? We’ve got to settle that now.”
John’s eyes met Patrick’s, and he saw the fiery blue in the young man’s eyes, the boldness of his look, the resolute irritation. His brows drew together.
“Have I said I distrust you?” he asked. “If I distrusted you, you’d never have gotten in, you jackanapes.”
Patrick’s expression spoke of robust impatience hardly restrained. He gave the table a sharp blow with his clenched fist.
“This is as good a time as ever to weigh anchor. I’ve wanted to, for a long time. You’ll give us authority, sir, to act in your absence, or I’m getting out. Tonight.”
Rufus turned his narrow green eye upon Lavinia. But she would not look at him. She was twisting her handkerchief over her fingers with John’s own savagery. Her full and beautiful face was dark crimson, with a curiously swollen look. For a sickening instant, her husband felt for her a blasting hatred. What was wrong with the wench? Why did she not add her lamentations and pleas to Louisa’s?
None, of course, heeded Adelaide in the least. She sat in her chair, her white face ablaze, her glittering eyes fixed on her father. Once or twice her parched lips moved, as if she was about to speak, to cry out.
Patrick had neatly infused a loud and discordant atmosphere into the discussion, an anger and fury which must needs impress the naïve John with their honesty. He felt acute embarrassment. His confusion was growing. He could not even question anything in his own mind. He only felt the necessity of placating his daughters’ husbands for the insult he had implied.
He tried to bluster, sheepishly. “Come now, what’s all the row about? I’ve not said I would go. On second thought, I probably won’t.”
“Well, then,” said Patrick, heavily. He slapped down his hand with a sound of finality. “That’s settled. Forget we spoke, sir. We’ll do the best we can under the circumstances. You can’t go away and leave things as they are. And, we aren’t equipped to take on the burden, with our hands tied behind us. We hope you’ll recover your health without a rest. That’s all we can hope.”
The damned Irish gambler! thought Rufus, with evil fury. He’s ruined everything. He cast, and he lost. I could have managed this.
Patrick rose, and held out his hand to his wife. Her wet blue eyes were sharp and shining, full of malignance. But an instant later, as she studied his face, the malignance died, and her eyes were like hyacinths again, sweet and moist. She accepted his hand, and rose meekly. Patrick’s air was all grave and affronted finality, aloof and unconcerned. He gave John to understand that it would be a long time before he would be appeased.
“Wait,” said John. Patrick, standing near him, took on a look of suspicious surprise.
John cleared his throat. He moved his head as if choking, and a livid tint replaced the last of his congested colour. He spoke with difficulty. “I haven’t said it was over—this discussion. You’re right, I suppose. Have I distrusted you? It is just that I’ve never acquired the habit of trusting any one. I can see I’ve got to do that. Trust. It’s hard for me. You’ve to give me a little time.”
Patrick shook his head slowly and sombrely. “No. Don’t. I’ve changed my mind. I can’t go on. You have my resignation, sir, in the event you go away and give us no authority. I may even tender my resignation without any more discussion. That’s what I’ve got to think about, tonight.”
Rufus listened with penetrating and sudden attention. He ran the tip of his tongue over his lips, and his narrow face narrowed still more.
John began to shout, all at once, as if his last control was gone. His face was contorted. He struggled to his feet. “Damn you! I’ll give you what you want! I’m sick of it all. And of all of you! D’ye know that? I’ll go away. You’ll get what you want, curse you! Tonight!”
He flung back his chair so violently that it crashed behind him. But Patrick was not intimidated. The servants, however, who had been listening avidly, retreated to the doorway. Patrick stood before the sick man and shouted back as furiously: “I don’t want it! I’m through! You can do as you wish for all of me! After this, I wouldn’t touch any damn part of it!”
They shouted at each other incoherently, while the women, frightened now, whimpered in their throats. The two men stood almost chest to chest, bellowing at each other with threatening gestures, so that the sound of their voices mingled together thunderously. But Rufus smiled faintly, covered his lips with his thin buff fingers.
Then, very suddenly, John paused, then laughed boisterously. His mood changed. He put his hand on Patrick’s shoulder, and the young man restrained a movement as if to throw off that hand. John’s grip tightened. He regarded Patrick with surprised affection, and his sheepish look increased.
“Come upstairs with me, both of you, and I’ll talk it over,” he said. “I’ll send for that skulking sheep of a lawyer of mine. Tonight. We’ll do it all, within the hour. Is that enough for you, you fool, you Irish navvy?”
There was a sharp silence in the room. Patrick’s face was still congested, and his eye flashed fire. His mouth settled into sullen and resistive lines. Then he shrugged, turned away. Rufus rose swiftly, and stood at John’s side.
But before he could speak, there was a loud cry shattering the sinking violence of the air. Adelaide was on her feet. She leaned towards her father, and her white face was terrible and wild.
“No!” she cried. “No! You mustn’t do that, Papa! Not now; not ever. Don’t you see?” And she made a desperate motion with her hands. “Don’t you see it all? They want to ruin you, to take everything away from you. They’ve been plotting it all the time!”
CHAPTER 49
Adelaide’s light voice, with its lack of resonance and depth, was very seldom hear
d loquaciously in family conferences or gatherings. Even when she did speak, and that was rare, the absence of strength and power in her tones made what she said inconsequential in a household where determined and loud enunciation was conspicuous. Therefore, her silences had become longer through the years, and her family was apt to be unconscious of her presence.
Now her voice, as she cried out, was so strong, so passionate, so ringing and wild in its intensity that all, including her father, stared at her in motionless stupefaction. Too, her blazing white face and glittering eyes were so extraordinary that these alone, if she had not spoken, would have grasped their amazed attention. She was transfigured. Her orderly brown hair was suddenly dishevelled, as if unfelt winds were blowing it violently.
They looked at her, and none could move. Lilybelle’s fat and florid face became the shade and contour of wet putty. Louisa had paled excessively, but her blue eyes shone with that stonelike and malefic radiance that very few ever saw. Lavinia’s face changed strangely, her black eyes dilated, her nostrils widening. Quickly, she moistened her slack lips, and they composed themselves in a peculiar pent expression of intense concentration. Patrick had been frozen in the very midst of a movement, and stood there, rigid and astounded, his hand half lifted, his head turned over his shoulder as he stared at the girl. But Rufus seemed to tighten down the whole length of his fox-like body, and his supple back bent forward a little, in the curve of a spring. His lean and pointed face narrowed to a wedge, and his green eyes sparkled with malignance and cold fury.
John looked at his daughter as if she was some appalling and hateful thing suddenly sprung up in his path, some monster, some creature of whose existence he had never been aware.
He shook off the entrancement that had seized him at Adelaide’s look and words, and his hands doubled murderously into fists. Now his big body leaned forward, and it was implicit with mad hatred and fulminating rage. He took a single step towards his daughter, and they faced each other across a small space that seemed to crackle with monstrous passion. Somewhere in the background there was a gasp and whimper from Lilybelle, who had covered her open lips with her hand, and who was staring at her husband and child with terror and agony.
Adelaide was not intimidated at her father’s look and gesture, however frightful they were. Her slight body appeared to expand with the vehemence of her thoughts and her despair. She flung out her hands towards him.
“Papa! Think. Think for just a moment, in the name of God! Think what they want to do to you! I’ve talked with her,” and she turned her hand in Louisa’s direction without looking at her sister. “She was shameless. She as much as admitted it all. That was only this morning. Papa, they will ruin you, take everything from you! I know it. I know all about it!”
The tragic and disordered appeal in her voice, her face and her eyes, would have moved a less violent and more reasonable man. But John was both violent and without reason. Moreover, in these moments, Adelaide expressed so much that was familiar to him in another, in her every look, tone and gesture, that he was suddenly beside himself, suddenly seized with frenzy and disorder.
Yet, he spoke very quietly, and with appalling slow virulence:
“You baggage. You—dirty thing. You liar. How dare you open your mouth? Get out of my sight, you hussy!”
All through him he felt the pounding of giant pulses, gathering, rushing to an unbearable and excruciating crescendo of thunder and insanity. And now all this seemed not only in himself, but all about him, a universe of agonized pain. Everything darkened before his eyes, and he saw nothing but the swimming and spectral whiteness of Adelaide’s face, disembodied, imploring, and soundless.
Having been the victim all his life of sensation and emotion, and rarely of reason, he did not understand what he was experiencing, nor the cause of the fixed pang which stood in his chest like a sword. He felt only madness and rage and frenzy.
His words had brought a profound silence into the room. Adelaide gazed at him, starkly. Her lips moved, but she could not speak. Then she put her hands over her face and broke into desperate weeping.
Lilybelle then was stirred into action. She lumbered to her daughter’s side, and put her great fat arm about the girl’s trembling shoulders. Tears ran over her shaking cheeks, rolled into the corners of her twisted mouth.
“You sha’n’t talk to my lassie like that, Mr. T.,” she said, hoarsely. “My lassie. My little love. It’s best you hear her out—”
Louisa smiled, relaxed. The blue glow of her eyes softened; she glanced at Rufus, who returned her look with a faint and evil smile. But Patrick’s face had thickened, become congested and furtive. He dropped his eyes. As for Lavinia, the strangeness of her expression increased. She took one step towards Adelaide, then paused. She began to tremble with the oddest of emotions.
But John’s eyes were fixed upon Adelaide, and he saw no one else. He did not hear what Lilybelle had said. His concentration had something inhuman and ghastly in it.
Then Adelaide dropped her hands. She looked at her father again. The wildness had disappeared from her sick face, and it was full of stern resolution. And so, for a long moment she gazed at him.
“I’ve loved you so, all my life,” she said, in a low voice. “I’ve been the only one who’s loved you. I’ve always hoped you’d know, and understand. But it’s useless. You can’t help yourself. You won’t let me help you.”
Now she turned swiftly to Louisa, who smiled at her gently and maliciously, and with triumph. Adelaide’s expression quickened with a kind of noble hatred and fortitude.
“You haven’t got what you want. Not yet. You won’t have it. I’m still here to see you don’t.”
The blazing scorn in her face, its strength in her voice, made the smile disappear from Louisa’s lips. Now it was replaced by a wary and calculating look, watchful and conjecturing.
Very gently, then, Adelaide disengaged herself from her mother’s arm and walked swiftly from the room. And John looked after her as if she were drawing his eyes with her. The others, too, looked after the girl, with fascination, and so they did not see John’s expression, how blank and changed it had become, how confused and still, how his fists slackened, and his hands dropped helplessly to his sides.
It was a long moment before any one moved, and then there was an audible intake of breath. Louisa began to laugh lightly and sweetly.
“Whatever has gotten into Adelaide?” she asked. “Did you ever hear anything like it? I know she’s always hated us, and been jealous of us, but I thought she had more sense than this.”
John came to himself. All colour had gone from his face. He turned to Rufus and Patrick.
“Come with me,” he said, and turned and walked away with a step that had a slight stagger in it.
The young men followed him quickly, after a brief flashing glance at each other. The women were left alone. Louisa was laughing again, idly. Lavinia did not speak, but she bent the most fixed and furious eyes upon her sister. Her hands were clenched against her breast.
Lilybelle broke into hoarse sobbing. “My lassie!” she said. “I must go to my lassie.”
With a step remarkably swift and agile for one of her ponderous weight, she hurried from the room and followed her daughter.
CHAPTER 50
A cold resolution and intense clarity had come to Adelaide. They were so profound that she completely overcame her increasing illness, and forgot it. She rushed up the stairs to her room, seized a bonnet and tied it under her chin with hands as icy as death, but firm and untrembling. She caught up a thick dark shawl and flung it over her shoulders.
She must go for help. She must go to Anthony, now, before this terrible thing was irretrievably done to her father. Anthony would know what to do. He would return with her. A curious light elation rushed over her at the very thought. Her step was without weakness as she turned towards the door.
Then the door opened, and Lilybelle, sobbing, disordered and dishevelled, appeared on the threshold,
her arms outspread. Incoherent words gushed to her lips, then halted at the sight of her daughter, prepared to go out into the cool windiness of the night. Her round blue eyes, so faded and tear-filled, widened blankly. She had lifted her hands, and they remained in the air, stupefied.
Adelaide came to her mother, and said clearly: “Mama, I must go out for a little. Just an hour. I’ve got to get help for Papa, you see.”
Lilybelle stared at her in terrified and uncomprehending silence. Now her maternal instinct rushed warningly all through her senses. She had not perceived it before, but now she saw everything. She saw that the girl was frightfully ill, and she forgot everything else. She saw the sunken and stricken face under the brown bonnet, the feverish eyes, the parched lips, and she knew it was no emotion that had caused these, but some ominous sickness.
The poor foolish woman had never been very courageous in all her life. Others had always done what they would with her. She had experienced very little emotion throughout her years but love and sorrow. But these had always been powerful and invincible. Through them, she had interpreted all things.
She stood, massive and unmoving, on the threshold, like a mountain of love and courage.
“No, my pet, my little love,” she said, in a breaking voice. “You’re not to go out. It’s some sickness, that’s wot it is. I can see it with my own eyes.”
Adelaide regarded her mother intently in a momentary silence. Then, all at once, she was shaken with a sense of desperate and terrible hurry, such as one feels below a breaking dam. Something was looming behind her, gigantic and awful, something which would overwhelm her. She had not a minute to lose. She felt the crumbling of the dam of her resistance, the surging and arching flood of death behind it. Hurry! Hurry! warned her body, her senses, her stern and iron mind. She had the sensation of looking behind her, and up, at a tilting and enormous wall.
“Mama,” she said, “I must go. Only for a few minutes. I’ll come back directly. Please step aside.” Her hands reached out as if to seize her mother and thrust her away by sheer strength of will. She cried out: “Can’t you see I can’t wait any longer? Can’t you see what I’ve got to do?”