The Scarlet Feather Part 38

"I'll do as you advise. I'll see Mr. Ormsby to-day. You are quite sure, Mr. Jevons, that you've made no mistake about my mother's money. Oh, it's too wonderful--too amazing!"

"I am quite sure. I went thoroughly into the matter at the time, and it will give me the greatest pleasure to act for you against Mr. Herresford.

If it should come to a suit, there can only be one issue."

"I will see father myself," observed Mrs. Swinton, with her teeth set and an ugly light in her eyes. "Mr. Jevons, you will come down to-morrow to see us, or next day?"

"To-morrow, at your pleasure. I'll bring a copy of the will, and prepare an exact calculation of the amount of your claim. Good-morning, Mrs.

Swinton. I am pleased to have brought the color back to your cheeks. You looked very pale when you came in."

"It's the forgery--the dreadful business at the bank that frightens me."

"Do your best alone. I am sure your power of persuasion cannot fail to melt the hardest heart," the lawyer protested, with his most courtly air.

"The circ.u.mstances are peculiar. But I will try."

Mrs. Swinton reentered her cab with a strange mixture of emotions. As she drove through the crowded thoroughfares, her feelings were divided between indignant rage against her father and joy at the thought of John Swinton's troubles ended, the luxury and independence of the future, Netty no longer a dowerless bride, d.i.c.k a man of wealth without dependence upon his grandfather.

It is astonis.h.i.+ng how soon one gets accustomed to a sudden change of fortune. The novelty of the situation had worn off by the time the home journey was finished. She was again in the grip of overwhelming fear. The horrible dread of a prosecution stood like a spectre in her path.

On her arrival at the bank, she found the doors closed; but she rang the bell so insistently that, at last, a porter appeared. And she even persuaded that grim person to violate all rules, and take her card to Vivian Ormsby, who was conferring with Mr. Barnby. In the end, she triumphed, and was admitted to the banker's private room.

CHAPTER XXVII

ORMSBY REFUSES

Ormsby greeted d.i.c.k's mother with marked coldness. He extended to her the politeness accorded to an enemy before a duel. He motioned her to a seat near his desk, and took up a position on the hearthrug. His pale face was hard set, and his dark eyes gleamed. His hands were clenched behind his back, and his whole att.i.tude was that of a man holding himself in check.

The very mention of the name of Swinton was enough to fill his brain with madness.

"I have come to pay you some money," said Mrs. Swinton quietly, as she unfastened the catch of her m.u.f.f bag. "Here is a check for seven thousand dollars. It is the sum required by you to make good the discrepancy in my father's account with your bank. He is an old man in his dotage; and, as he repudiates his checks, you must not be the loser." She spoke in a dull voice--a monotone--as though repeating a lesson learnt by heart.

Ormsby was rather staggered. How Mrs. Swinton could raise seven thousand dollars without getting it from Herresford was a mystery, and he had never expected the miser to disgorge.

"May I ask you why you bring this money?" he demanded, at last.

"I have explained."

"I hope you don't think, Mrs. Swinton, that we are going to compound a felony, just because the criminal's family pursues the proper course, and reimburses our bank."

"Of course I do. When the money is paid, my family affairs are no business of yours."

"A warrant is out for your son's arrest, Mrs. Swinton, and we shall have him to-night. It pains me exceedingly to have to take this course, but--"

"You hypocrite!" she cried, starting up. "You are taking an unfair advantage of your position. You are playing a mean, contemptible trick.

You are jealous of my son. Your action is not that of a man, but of a coward. Are you not satisfied with having robbed him of his wife that you must hound him down?"

"On the contrary, your son has robbed me of the woman I love," said Ormsby, with cutting emphasis, "and he shall not have her. She may not marry me, but she shall not mate with a felon."

"If it is money you want, you shall have more."

"You insult me, Mrs. Swinton. It is not the money I care about. It is the principle. Your son insulted me publicly--struck me like a drunken brawler--and worked upon the feelings of a pure and innocent woman, who will break her father's heart if she persists in the mad course she has adopted. But she'll change her mind, when she sees your son in handcuffs."

"It must not be! It must not be!" cried the guilty woman. "If you were a man and a gentleman, you would not let personal spite and jealousy come into a matter like this. You would not ruin my son for life, and break my heart, because you cannot have the girl, who pledged herself to d.i.c.k before you had any chance with her. You'll be cut by every decent person.

Every door will be shut against you. If you do what you threaten, everyone shall know the truth--"

"The whole world may shut its doors--there is only one door that must open to me, the door of Colonel Dundas's house, where, until to-day, I was sure of a welcome, and almost sure of a wife. I am sorry for you, because it is obviously painful for a mother to contemplate the downfall of her son. You naturally strive to screen him by every means in your power. It is the common instinct of humanity. But I tell you"--and here he raised his fist with unwonted emphasis--"I'll kill him, hound him down, make his life unbearable. The country will be too hot to hold him.

First a felon, then a convict, then an outcast, a marked man, a wastrel--"

"I beg of you--I beseech you! You don't understand--everything. If I could tell you, you would at least have a different point of view of d.i.c.k's honor. It's I who--who--"

"Honor! Don't talk to me about honor! How is it he's alive? Why isn't he beside his comrade, Jack Lorrimer, who died rather than betray his country? It is easy to see how he escaped the bullets of the firing party. He told his secret, and heaven alone knows how many dead men lie at his door as the result of that treachery."

"It is false!"

"If I err, Mrs. Swinton, it is because I believe that a forger is always a sneak and a thief. I judge men as I find them. I speculate upon their unseen acts by what has gone before. A brave man is always a brave man, a coward always a coward, a thief always a thief, because it is his natural bent. It is useless to prolong this interview. You lose your son; I gain a wife. The world will be well rid of a dangerous citizen. Allow me to open the side door for you. It is the quickest way."

Of what avail was her sudden avalanche of wealth? It could not move the determination of this remorseless man. If she confessed the truth--it was on her lips a dozen times to cry aloud her sin--he would only transfer his animosity to her, because it would hurt d.i.c.k the more. Next to humiliating his rival, to humble the wife of the rector of St. Botolph's would be a triumph for Ormsby. She took refuge in a last frantic lie.

"My father signed the checks for those amounts. The alterations were made in his presence--by me. I saw him sign them. He knew very well what he was doing then. But, since, he has forgotten. His denial is folly. d.i.c.k is innocent. I can swear to it."

Ormsby smiled sardonically as he opened the door. "It does great credit to your imagination, Mrs. Swinton. Your statement, on the face of it, is false. Unless Mr. Herresford made that avowal with his own lips, no one would take the slightest notice of it. It would only be adding folly to crime. I wish you good-day."

He held the door wide open, still smiling with an evil light in his eyes.

As she pa.s.sed out, she was almost tempted to strike him, so great was her mortification.

"You are as bad as my father," she cried. "Nothing pleases you men of money more than to wound and lacerate women's hearts. Dora is well saved from such a cur."

She reached the rectory in a state bordering on despair. Money could do nothing. She was powerless to evade the consequences of her folly. It was the more maddening because she had only robbed her father of a little, whereas he had defrauded her of much--oh, so much!

One sentence let fall by Ormsby remained vividly in her memory. "Unless Mr. Herresford made that avowal with his own lips, no one would take the slightest notice of it."

He should make the avowal; she would force it from him. The irony of the situation was fantastic in its horror.

She found her husband at home, looking whiter and more bloodless than ever.

"What news, Mary?" he asked awkwardly, avoiding her glance.

"The strangest, John--the strangest of all! My father is the biggest thief in America."

"Mary, Mary, this perpetual abuse of your father, whom we have wronged, will not help us in the least."

He led her into the study.

"John, John, you don't understand what I mean. I've been to Mr. Jevons, and he says that my mother left me more than half-a-million dollars, which my father has stolen--stolen! He has kept us beggars ever since our marriage, by a trick. My mother left me twenty thousand a year; and--you know what we've had from him."