The Honour of the Clintons Part 31

"That's not true," said the Squire. "He knew nothing of it whatever."

"He may have told you so. But six or seven thousand pounds! To repeat your own words: 'That's a likely story, isn't it?'"

"He didn't know. You can go on."

"Thank you. I heard how he came posting down here, to get the hush-money; and how it came by return of post--telegraph, I believe; I think he telegraphed to the woman, 'Blackmail will be paid,' I suppose, 'on condition do not say from father.'"

She laughed at her jest. The Squire kept miserable silence.

"Well, there it is," she said. "To use my words more carefully this time--she gave you away. You never thought you could be given away, did you? You thought you were safe. Your conscience hasn't troubled you much, I should think, to judge by your healthy appearance.

Conscience never does trouble cowards much, when they can once a.s.sure themselves they won't be found out."

In the turbulent confusion of his mind, the Squire still clung to certain fixities. He had acted for the best; he had acted so that the innocent should not suffer; and if he himself had been amongst the innocent who were to escape suffering, his own safety had not been his chief thought. And if his actions, or his refraining from action, had added to the burden justly borne by the guilty, that had been inevitable if the innocent were to be saved; in any case it had added so little that he could not be blamed for ignoring it. Cowardice at least, he had thought, was no crime that could ever be laid to his charge, and he had not shown it when he had braved all consequences in refusing to lift a finger to avert the disaster that was now, in spite of all, threatening him.

But she was dragging from him all his armour, piece by piece. He let it go, and clung to his naked manhood.

"You may say what you like," he said, squaring himself and looking out over the water in front of him. "I simply stood aside. What could you--no, not you, what could anyone--have expected me to do? Publish the truth--overwhelm the innocent with the guilty; and all for what?

For nothing. You were free. You----"

"Free! Yes. They had let me out of prison, that's quite true. Would _you_ consider yourself free with that taint hanging over you? Was I free to come back to my friends? Was I free even to settle down anywhere where my story was known? Susan, the thief, was to be sheltered, because she bore the honoured name of Clinton. _She_ was to go free. Yes. But _I_, who had taken her punishment, was to be left to bear the bitter results of it all my life. What meanness! What base cowardice!"

He hardened himself, but said nothing.

"Susan had stolen this necklace, worth thousands of pounds," she went on. "She had----"

"But not the jewel that you were imprisoned for stealing," he put in again.

"I have already told you that she did; and I can prove it by that woman's evidence."

He wavered, but stuck to his point. "I don't believe it," he said, "and you can leave it out."

"I will, because it doesn't really matter whether you believe it or not. You will believe it when you see her in the witness-box."

"You won't get her into the witness-box, to swear to that."

"Well, we shall see. There's no sense in haggling with you over that.

We will leave it out, as you advised. I was talking about Susan. She and your precious Humphrey had spent the money that they had got from the sale, or p.a.w.ning, or whatever it was, of the pearls she had stolen."

"I have already said," he interposed quietly, "that Humphrey knew nothing of it."

"And I have already said, 'That's a likely story!' However, we need not press the point now. Say she had had all the money if you like, and that he--dear innocent--never noticed that she was spending some thousands of pounds more than he allowed her. If you like to believe that it's your affair; we shall have plenty of opportunities of judging what view other people will take of it, by and by. At any rate, the money was spent--the stolen money--and you, a rich man, can sit down quietly and let somebody else bear the loss of it."

He knew he was giving himself into her hands, but he could not help himself. "That's not true," he said.

She looked at him, her lip curling. "Oh! you sent it back--anonymously perhaps. You did have that much honesty."

"You can make what use of the admission you like," he said. "I told Lord Sedbergh the story, and offered him the money."

This set her a little aback. "_He_ knows the truth, then," she exclaimed. "Another man of honour! _He_ lets me lie under the stigma of having stolen something that he's got the price of in his pocket all the time. Upon my word! You're a pretty pair! I'm not certain that he's not worse than you are."

He struggled with himself, but only for a moment, and then said, "He refused to take the money."

She was quick to take that up. "Oh! I see. Dear me, how I should have enjoyed being present at that interview. You go to him with the delightful proposal that he shall make himself party to your meanness, and he refuses. Yes. I suppose he would. I've no reason to suppose there are two men of supposed honour who could act quite as vilely as you have done. Come now, Mr. Clinton, I've given you a piece of gratuitous information. Supposing you return it by telling me what he said to you. Did he tell you what he really thought of you, or only hint it?"

"Oh, let's have an end of this," he said, with agonised impatience.

"What have you come here for? What do you want?"

Her manner changed. "Yes, we will have an end of it," she said, with quick scorn. "It's useless to tell you what I think of your meanness, and how I despise your cowardice. I should have respected you much more if you had paid your blackmail down like a man, and then kept quiet about it, instead of running snivelling about trying to salve your own conscience. But a man who can believe as you have has no shame. You can't touch him by showing him up to himself. You can, though, by making him pay for it. And I'm going to make _you_ pay--to the last rag of reputation you've got left."

She clenched her fist, and bent towards him fiercely. On his fathomless trouble her change of att.i.tude made no new impression. What mattered it whether she sneered or stormed? The truth would be known; the pit of disgrace was already yawning for him.

"I can't touch Susan," she went on. "If I could, I'd drag her out of her grave and set her up for all the world to mock at."

The intensity with which she said this affected him not merely to horror. He began to see dimly what an adversary he had to cope with, and the burning rage against circ.u.mstance that must consume her. Even if all he had comforted himself with was true--if she was guilty of stealing the diamonds, and had suffered for that alone--still, she had suffered for Susan's crime. For if Susan had been found out, she would, or might, have gone undetected. How that knowledge must smoulder or blaze in her mind, night and day--all the worse if she was partly guilty! He might expect no mercy from her.

"I _will_ make her name a mockery," she cried, "and I'll make yours stink in the nostrils of every decent honest man and woman in the country. I've only to tell my story. You can't deny it; you won't be allowed to. But I'll do more than that. I'll make you stand where I stood; first in the police court, then in the dock--you and Humphrey together, and your other son too and his wife, who paid the money.

Tell your story _then_, and see what's thought of you! Some of them may get off--but _you_ won't. You'll go where I went--to a vile and horrible prison, where you'll be with the sc.u.m of the earth; where you'll have plenty of time to think it all over, and whether it wouldn't have been better for you, after all, to tell the truth and shame the devil,--you dastardly coward!"

Her voice had risen almost to a shriek. He looked round him, in fear that it would bring someone to the scene. But the lake was retired, and seldom visited. They were quite alone.

"Yes, I suppose you would like to move away," she said in a voice more controlled, but still quivering with rage. "You can't run away.

You'll have to face it now; you and your whole family, guilty and innocent. I'll make you suffer through them, as well as in yourself.

You'll never wipe off the blot, never in all your life, not even when you come out of prison and come back here--a man that n.o.body will speak to again, for all your wealth and position. You can think of that when you're in your cell. They give you plenty of time to think. It's not more than _I_ suffered; it's not so much, because I was innocent. But I'd no children and grandchildren to make it worse. You have. It's your _name_ you've blackened. Clinton will mean thief, and conspirator, and everything that's vile long after _you_ are dead."

He had heard enough. He got up, turned his back on her, and began to walk very slowly across the little lawn, his head bent. She watched him with a look of hate, which gradually faded to scorn, then to cunning, then to expectation. But it became dismay when, having crossed the gra.s.s, he did not turn, but kept on between the shrubs, as if he had forgotten her, and were going to leave her there alone.

She had to call to him. "Where are you going?"

He turned at once, and the look on his face might have made her pity him, if she had had any pity in her.

"You must do what you will," he said. "There is nothing more to be said."

Then he turned from her again, and pursued his slow, contemplative walk along the path, his shoulders bent, his steps dragging a little, like those of an old man.

CHAPTER II

PAYMENT

She forced a laugh. "Oh, there's a lot more to be said," she called after him, in a voice almost gay. "Please come back."

He took no notice of her, but went on.

She sprang up, a look of alarm on her face, and took a few quick steps across the gra.s.s.

"Mr. Clinton!" she said. "Mr. Clinton! I have a proposal to make to you."