King of the Castle Part 19

"And shall you tell him you love Chris?"

"No," said Claude sternly.

"If you please, ma'am, Mrs Woodham is here," said one of the servants; and Claude's face grew more troubled as she asked herself what her father would say to the step she had taken, in bidding the unhappy woman come and resume her old position in the house.

She had not long to wait.

As she rose to cross the room she caught sight of Glyddyr looking back at the windows on leaving the house, and heard the study bell ring furiously.

"Quick, Mary!" she cried, as she rushed through the door, being under the impression that her father had had another seizure.

The relief was so great as she entered the study and found him standing in the middle of the room, that she threw herself in his arms.

"I thought you were taken ill again," she gasped, as she clung, to him, trembling.

He was evidently in a fury, but his child's words were like oil upon the tempestuous waves.

"You--you thought that?" he said, holding her to his breast and patting her cheek tenderly. "You thought that, eh? And they say in Danmouth that everybody hates me. That there isn't a soul here who wouldn't like to dance upon my grave."

"Papa, dear, don't talk like that."

"Why not? the ungrateful wretches! I've made Danmouth a prosperous place. I spend thousands a year in wages, and the dogs all turn upon me and are ready to rend the hand that feeds them. If they are not satisfied with their wages, they wait till I have some important contract on the way, and then they strike. I haven't patience with them."

"Father!" cried Claude firmly, "Doctor Asher said you were not to excite yourself in any way, or you would be ill."

"And a good thing, too. Better be ill, and die, and get out of the way.

Hated--cursed by every living soul."

Claude clung more tightly to him, laid her head upon his breast, and placed her hand across his lips as if to keep him from speaking.

A smile came across the grim face, but there was no smile in his words as he went on fiercely, after removing the hand and seeming about to kiss it, but keeping it in his hand without.

"Everything seems to go against me," he cried. "Mr Glyddyr--just going--I was seeing him to the door, when, like a black ghost, up starts that woman Sarah Woodham. What does she want?"

"I'll tell you, dear, if you will sit down and be calm."

"How the devil can I be calm," he raved, "when I am regularly persecuted by folk like this?"

But he let Claude press him back into an easy chair, while, feeling that she was better away, Mary Dillon crept softly out of the room.

"Well, then," he said, as if his child's touch was talismanic, and he lay back and closed his eyes, "I'll be calm. But you don't know, Claude, you can't tell how I'm persecuted. I'm robbed right and left."

"Papa, my dear father, you are as rich as ever you can be, so what does it matter?"

"Who says I'm rich? Nonsense! Absurd! And then look at the worries I have. All the trouble and inquest over that man's death, and through his sheer cra.s.s obstinacy."

"Why bring that up again, father, dear?"

"Don't say father. Call me papa. Whenever you begin fathering me, it means that you are going to preach at me and bully me, and have your own way."

"Then, papa, dear, why bring that up again?"

"I didn't. It's brought up and thrust under my very nose. Why is that woman here?"

"Papa--"

"Now, it's of no use. Claude: that man regularly committed suicide out of opposition to me. He destroyed a stone worth at least a hundred pounds by using that tearing dynamite, which smashes everything to pieces; and then, forsooth, he charges me in his dying moments with murdering him, and the wretched pack under him take up the cry and bark as he did. Could anything be more unreasonable?"

"No, dear, of course not. But the poor fellow was mad with agony and despair. It was so horrible for him, a hale, strong man, to be cut down in a moment."

"He cut himself down. It would not have happened if he had done as I ordered."

"You must forgive all that now. He knew no better; and as for the workmen, you know how easily they are influenced one way or the other."

"Oh, yes, I know them. And now this woman's here begging."

"No, papa, dear."

"I say she is. I could see it in her servile, s.h.i.+vering way, as soon as she caught my eye; now, look here, Claude, I shan't give her a s.h.i.+lling."

Claude held his hand to her cheek in silence.

"I won't pay for the man's funeral. I'm obliged to pay the doctor, because I contracted for him to attend the ungrateful hounds; but I will not help her in the least, and I'll have no more of your wretched tricks. I'm always finding out that you are helping the people and letting them think it is my doing. Now, then, I've done, and I want to be at peace, so go and send that woman away, or I shall be ill."

Claude clung a little more closely to her father, nestling, as it were, in his breast.

"Well," he said testily, "why don't you go?"

"My father is the leading man in this neighbourhood," said Claude, in a soft, soothing tone, "and the people don't know the goodness of his heart as I do."

"Now, Claudie, I won't have it. You are beginning to preach at me, and give me a dose of morals. My heart has grown as hard as granite."

"No, it has not," said Claude, kissing his veined hand. "It is as soft and good as ever, only you try to make it hard, and you say things you do not mean."

"Ah, now!" he shouted, "you are going to talk about that Lisle, and I will not have his cursed name mentioned in the--"

"I was not going to talk about Christopher Lisle," said Claude, in the same gentle, murmuring voice, whose tones seemed to soothe and quiet him down; "I was going on to say that I want the people--the weak, ignorant, easily-led people--about here to love and venerate my dear father's name."

"And they will not, do what you will. The more you do for them, the less self-helpful they are, and the more they revile and curse. Why, if I was ruined to-morrow, after they've eaten my bread for years, I believe they'd light a bonfire and have a dance."

"No, no; no, no," murmured Claude. "You have done too much good for them."

"I haven't. You did it all, you hussy, and pretended it was I," he said grimly, as he played with her glossy hair.

"I did it with your money, dear, and I am your child. I acted as I felt you would act if you thoroughly knew the circ.u.mstances, but you had no time. What is the use of having so much money if no good is done?"

"For ungrateful people."