The Beggar Man Part 12

"It is impossible to regulate romance," said Mr. Shawyer; privately he thought that the Beggar Man had shown taste in his choice of a wife. He considered that Faith had a charming face, and he was shrewd enough to see that with a few alterations in clothes the little moth would have no difficulty in spreading her wings and turning into a b.u.t.terfly.

He was extremely interested in the whole affair. He had always considered Nicholas Forrester unique, and he genuinely admired his pluck in having taken this step.

"I am sure," he went on pleasantly, "that Mr. Forrester would be only too pleased for me to answer any questions you may care to ask. He told me if the occasion arose I was to be perfectly frank--especially in regard to his financial affairs, and...."

Mrs. Ledley interrupted hurriedly.

"It isn't the money I'm thinking of at all. It isn't the money that matters, if he is a good man, and will be kind to my little girl. But I know nothing about him! I only saw him once from the window, when he brought Faith home in his car, and I should not know him again if I saw him. If you could just tell me something about his people--if he has a mother and father living, or what he has been doing all his life...."

Mr. Shawyer cleared his throat and drew his chair closer to the table.

"I shall be only too pleased to answer those questions," he said. "As far as I know, Mr. Forrester is quite without relatives! His mother died when he was a small boy, and for some years he lived in Australia with his father. The father broke his neck in a riding accident, and from that time the son seems to have roughed it all over the world. He must have been born with the gift for making money, as he seems to have made a great deal before he was five and twenty--and spent it!" Mr. Shawyer added with a smile.

"About ten years ago," he went on, "he first came to England on some business deal with which I was concerned, and it proved to be a wonderful success, and I think I am right in saying that from that day he has never looked back. At the present moment I have no doubt that he is one of the richest men in London--he is known everywhere--perhaps I should tell you that he has not always been known under the name of Nicholas Forrester, though it really is his name----"

Faith leaned forward, the colour surging into her face.

"What--what other name, then?" she asked with an effort.

Mr. Shawyer smiled.

"For business purposes," he said gently, as if he were speaking to a child, "he calls himself Ralph Scammel! I know he would not object to your being told, otherwise I should certainly not have mentioned it, I----"

He broke off. Mrs. Ledley had risen to her feet. She was as white as death, and her eyes were like fire as she took a step forward and leaned heavily against the paper-strewn table.

"Scammel!" she said hoa.r.s.ely. "Ralph Scammel! Is that the man my daughter has married?"

"It is merely an a.s.sumed name," Mr. Shawyer said quickly. "For business purposes." Mrs. Ledley was breathing fast. It was with difficulty that she at length found her voice.

"Ralph Scammel is the man who ruined my husband," she said.

Faith had hardly spoken during the whole interview, but now she started up from her chair with a little stifled cry.

Ever since her father's death, though she had never heard the name of the man who had brought about his ruin, she had been encouraged always to think of him with hatred.

Even the twins, in their play, frightened each other with an imaginary bogey of him, whom they called for want of a better name "The Bad Man,"

and sometimes Mrs. Ledley herself, tired and worried to death, would quiet them and force them to settle down to sleep by telling them that unless they did the "bad man" would come and carry them away.

And now Faith had married him!

She was still child enough to feel a nameless fear of the imaginary bogey, as well as suffocating shame and dread of the thing she had unwittingly done.

After a moment she broke out hysterically:

"It's not true! I won't believe it! You're all against me, all of you!

His name is Nicholas Forrester! I tell you his name is Nicholas Forrester!" She broke into violent sobbing.

Mr. Shawyer looked greatly distressed.

"No doubt it is all a misapprehension," he said. "There is some mistake in the name. It is not such a very uncommon name," he suggested. But he knew that it was.

"There is no mistake," Faith's mother insisted flintily. "If my daughter has married that man I will never forgive her to my dying day."

"Mother!" The word came from Faith in a heart-broken cry, and once more Mr. Shawyer rushed gallantly into the breach.

"It is very unjust to my client to take this premature view," he said reprovingly. "Naturally, I know nothing of the circ.u.mstances of which you are now speaking, and we can only wait until Mr. Forrester comes home before they are proved or disproved. I speak of him as I have always found him, and I can truthfully say that your daughter will be perfectly safe and happy with him."

But for all notice Mrs. Ledley took he might have spared himself the trouble of speech. Disappointment and sorrow had hardened her, and she could see nothing beyond the fact that her own child had married the man whom she herself most hated in all the world.

Almost before Mr. Shawyer had finished speaking she rose and took up her shabby little handbag.

"There is nothing more we need stay for," she said harshly. "Faith, dry your eyes and come home."

But Faith could only sob on in the bitterness of her heart: "It isn't true--I know it isn't true! And if it is--how did I know--how could I have known?"

Mrs. Ledley looked at her with hard eyes.

"If you had cared for me at all," she said dully, "you would not have married him without my consent. I've been a good mother to you, and this is the reward I get. It was only of yourself you thought when you married him. You never thought of me at all."

Faith looked up, her face all flushed and quivering.

"It was only of you I thought," she sobbed, "you and the twins. I wanted you to be rich--I wanted them to go to a good school and he promised and I knew he was rich!..."

Mrs. Ledley clenched her hand.

"I would rather die than take a penny of his money," she said pa.s.sionately. "Money made dishonestly--from the ruin of other men's lives."

Mr. Shawyer made another attempt.

"All this may or may not be true," he said smoothly; "but at any rate no fault can be attached to this child here." He laid a kind hand on Faith's arm. "And if you will forgive my saying so, Mrs. Ledley, it is very cruel to her to speak in this way."

Mrs. Ledley turned and faced him proudly across the table.

"I loved my husband," she said, "and if you think--even for my daughter's sake--I shall ever receive Ralph Scammel into my house, you make a very great mistake! Faith has married him, and she can do as she pleases, of course, but it will mean a choice between her husband and me. That is my last word," and she turned and walked out of the room, leaving Faith sobbing in her chair.

Mr. Shawyer rose to his feet and began pacing the room. He hated scenes, and during his lifetime he had been forced into a great many. He was unutterably relieved when Faith stopped crying and put her handkerchief away. Something of the childishness in her face seemed to have deepened to womanhood as, for a moment, she raised her brown eyes to him.

"And what am I to do now?" she asked.

Mr. Shawyer spread his hands.

"My dear young lady, how can I advise you beyond saying that the only thing to do is to wait until Nicholas Forrester comes home. He is your husband and rightful guardian, and if you love him you know what course to adopt. Even if--if what your mother says is a fact, he has not injured you knowingly, at all events. You say he has been all that is kind and good. Well, that is all that concerns you! A man's past is his own."

It was an easy and comfortable doctrine from his point of view, and he went on:

"After all, he is a business man. I never met a keener! And if in the course of business he unfortunately bettered your father in some transaction, well, how can he be blamed?"

Faith had been listening attentively, but now she broke in vehemently: