This Man's Wife Part 49

"Father!" cried Millicent, "am I your child?"

"My child! my darling!" he groaned, coming quickly back, "how can you speak to me in such a tone?"

"How can you turn from me at such a time, when the honour of my dear husband is at stake? What are a few paltry hundred pounds to that? You cannot, you shall not refuse. There, I know enough of business for that. The lawyers will lend you money on the security of this house.

Go at once, and get what is necessary. Why do you hesitate?"

"My poor darling!" cried Mrs Luttrell piteously, "don't, pray don't speak to your father like that."

"I must help my husband," said Millicent hoa.r.s.ely. "Yes, yes, and you shall, my dear; but be calm, be calm. There, there, there."

"Mother, I must hear my father speak," said Millicent sternly. "I come to him in sore distress and poverty. My home has been wrecked by last night's mob, my poor husband half killed, and torn from me to be cast into prison. I come to my father for help--a few pitiful pounds, and he seems to side with my husband's enemies."

"Milly, my darling, I'll do everything I can," cried the doctor; "but you ask impossibilities. The house is not mine."

"Not yours, father?"

"Hus.h.!.+ hush, my dear!" sobbed Mrs Luttrell. "I can't explain to you now, but poor papa was obliged to sell it a little while ago."

"Where is the money?" said Millicent fiercely.

"It was all gone before--the mortgages," said Mrs Luttrell.

"And who bought it?" cried Millicent.

"Mr Bayle."

There was a pause of a few moments' duration, and then the suffering woman seemed to flash out into a fit of pa.s.sion.

"Mr Bayle again!" she cried.

"Yes, Mr Bayle, our friend."

At that moment there came a burst of merry laughter from the garden, the sounds floating in through the open window with the sweet scents of the flowers, and directly after Julia, looking flushed and happy, appeared, holding Christie Bayle's hand.

Bayle paused as he saw the group within, and then slowly entered.

"Mamma, I knew Mr Bayle would come!" cried Julia excitedly. "But, oh, look at him, he has hurt himself so! He is so--so--oh, I can't bear it, I can't bear it!"

The memories of the past night came back in a flash--the hurried awaking from sleep, the dressing, the sounds of the mob, the breaking windows, the fire, and the wild struggle; and the poor child sobbed hysterically and trembled, as Bayle sank upon his knees and took her to his breast.

There she clung, while he caressed her and whispered comforting words, Millicent the while standing back, erect and stern, and Mrs Luttrell and the doctor with troubled countenances looking on.

In a few minutes the child grew calm again, and then, without a word, Millicent crossed to the fireplace and rang the bell. It was answered directly by the doctor's maid.

"Send Thisbe here," said Millicent sternly.

In another minute Thisbe, who looked very white and troubled, appeared at the door, gazing sharply from one to the other.

"Julie, go to Thisbe," said Millicent in a cold, harsh voice.

The child looked up quickly, and clung to Bayle, as she gazed at her mother with the same shrinking, half-scared look she had so often directed at her father.

"Julie!"

The child ran across to Thisbe, and Bayle bit his lip, and his brow contracted, for he caught the sound of a low wail as the door was closed.

Then, advancing to her, with his face full of the pity he felt, Bayle held out his hand to Millicent, and then let it fall, as she stood motionless, gazing fiercely in his face, till he lowered his eyes, and his head sank slowly, while he heaved a sigh.

"You have come, then," she said, "come to look upon your work. You have come to enjoy your triumph. False friend! Coward! Treacherous villain! You have cast my husband into prison, and now you dare to meet me face to face!"

"Mrs Hallam! Millicent!" he cried, looking up, his face flus.h.i.+ng as he met her eyes, "what are you saying?"

"The truth!" she cried fiercely. "He knew you better than I. He warned me against you. His dislike had cause. I, poor, weak, trusting woman, believed you to be our friend, and let you crawl and enlace yourself about our innocent child's heart, while all the time you were forming your plans, and waiting for your chance to strike!"

"Mrs Hallam," said Bayle calmly, and with a voice full of pity, "you do not know what you are saying."

"Not know! when my poor husband told me all!--how you waited until he was in difficulties, and then plotted with that wretched menial Thickens to overthrow him! I know you now: cowardly, cruel man! Unworthy of a thought! But let me tell you that you win no triumph. You thought to separate us--to make the whole world turn from him whom you have cast into prison. You have succeeded in tightening the bonds between us.

The trouble will pa.s.s as soon as my husband's innocency is shown, while your conduct will cling to you, and show itself like some stain!"

A look as angry as her own came over his countenance, but it pa.s.sed in a moment, and he said gravely: "I came to offer you my sympathy and help in this time of need."

"Your help, your sympathy!" cried Millicent scornfully. "You, who planned, here, in my presence, with Sir Gordon, my husband's ruin!

Leave this house, sir! Stay! I forgot. By your machinations you are master here. Mother, father, let us go. The world is wide, and heaven will not let such villainy triumph in the end."

"Oh, hus.h.!.+ hus.h.!.+" exclaimed Bayle sternly. "Mrs Hallam, you know not what you say. Doctor, come on to me, I wish to see you. Dear Mrs Luttrell, let me a.s.sist you all I can. Good-bye! G.o.d help you in your trouble. Good-bye!"

He bent down and kissed the old lady; and as he pressed her hand she clung to his, and kissed it in return.

"Good-bye, Mrs Hallam," he said, holding out his hand once more.

She turned from him with a look of disgust and loathing, and he went slowly out, as he had come, with his head bent, along the road, and on to the market-place.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

A CRITICAL TIME.

There was only one bit of business going on in King's Castor that morning among the mechanics, and that was where two carpenters were busy nailing boards across the gaping windows and broken door of Hallam's house.

The ivy about the hall window was all scorched, and the frames of that and two windows above were charred, but only the hall, staircase, and one room had been burned before the fire was extinguished. The greater part of the place, though, was a wreck, the mob having wreaked their vengeance upon the furniture when Hallam was s.n.a.t.c.hed from their hands by the law; and for about an hour the self-const.i.tuted avengers of the customers at Dixons' Bank had behaved like Goths.

It was impossible for work to go on with such a night to canva.s.s. One group, as Bayle approached, was watching the little fire-engine, and the drying of its hose which was hauled up by one end over the branch of an oak-tree at Poppin's Corner.

There was nothing to see but the little, contemptible, old-fas.h.i.+oned pump on wheels; still fifty people, who had seen it in the belfry every Sunday as they went to church, stopped to stare at it now.

But the great group was round about the manager's house, many of them being the idlers and scamps of the place, who had been foremost in the destruction.

The public-houses had their contingents; and then there were the farmers from all round, who had driven in, red-hot with excitement; and, as soon as they had left their gigs or carts in the inn-yard, were making their way up to the bank.

Some did not stop to go to the inn, but were there in their conveyances, waiting for the bank to open, long before the time, and quite a murmur of menace arose, when, to the very moment, James Thickens, calm and cool and drab as usual, threw open the door, to be driven back by a party of those gathered together.