Mrs. Dorriman Volume Ii Part 27

"I do not believe in disinterested friends.h.i.+ps."

"Nor do I; but I intend having a reward."

"From me, I suppose," and Mr. Drayton laughed again.

"From you--and from some one else. If my ideas are correct--you would not grudge me a good percentage, eh?"

"What do you call a good percentage?"

"Well, I want half; I want fifty per cent."

"Fifty per cent.! nonsense, absolute nonsense."

"You have no right to say 'nonsense'; and I think I am wasting my time,"

(which is also true, it is quite wonderful how I have been able to speak the truth to-day), and Paul Lyons felt a glow of satisfaction at this reflection.

"I don't know what you're driving at;" and Mr. Drayton looked so furiously at him that Paul Lyons thought if he ever favoured Margaret with such a glance it was enough to give her a fit.

"I am driving at nothing," he said, with a very good show of anger. "I don't pretend that I shan't be abominably annoyed if you do not go into this matter, because I see my way to making some money, but it seems to me that you have no papers to show me, and that you do not understand this matter very much; I believe I had better go--time, as far as I am concerned, is too precious to waste."

He rose and made a movement towards the door. Mr. Drayton put his hand to his forehead; he felt confused; he never now could follow a thought for any time, but his cunning made him anxious to conceal this.

"You can stop," he said, speaking a little thickly, and more slowly. "I have some papers upstairs."

"Let your servant fetch them."

"No; certainly not. I will go myself."

He left the room, and Paul threw up the window, flung out a packet, and closed it again.

Margaret saw the packet fall, but she also saw her husband at the upstairs window; therefore, to the young man's disappointment, she continued walking along, holding her little one's hand, and took no notice.

Mr. Drayton returned, holding some papers in his hands.

"What did you open the window for?" he asked, and Paul saw that his suspicions were again aroused.

"Open the window!" he answered, with great presence of mind. "My dear Mr. Drayton, if you said that to any one else you would be accused of having delusions!"

Mr. Drayton glared at him, and said no more. Paul took the papers and glanced them over; they were lists in Mr. Drayton's own handwriting; and lists no sane man would have written. Here and there a number put down, and a long rambling note about some one supposed to have injured him; remarks about a man who took various shapes, and who made fiendish faces at him; and things of that sort.

Paul Lyons was not experienced in cases of the kind; this man, whom he felt to be insane (though evidently having lucid intervals), was a new revelation to him; but his heart beat violently. He had seen poor Margaret's face, and had recognised that she was pining under the influence of confinement, and probably terrors; and he felt sure that in his hand he held proofs that must be listened to--that he had that now in his possession which must ensure her freedom.

He affected to hunt for papers in his own pockets, and said carelessly, as he crammed the papers into the breast-pocket of his coat, "I will look these over and compare them with what I have at home. Shall I find you at home to-morrow, Mr. Drayton?"

There was no answer, and looking up at him he saw that he was looking out of the window with a face full of malignancy--there was something horrible in his expression as he watched poor Margaret, who had seen the packet, and who had not dared to lift it yet. She had pa.s.sed close to it once or twice, and had pushed it under a bush with a careless kick.

Taken aback by this sign of animosity towards Margaret, Paul Lyons did not know what to do.

He was afraid of making things worse for her, and yet he could not bear going without giving and receiving a sign from her.

"Is that not your wife?" he asked suddenly. "Will you not introduce me to her?"

"Quite impossible, sir--quite impossible. My wife is not all there; she is mad, poor thing, very mad."

"Is she indeed? Well, all the same I should like to speak to her, I should like to make sure that this is not another of your...." He stopped short.

"Another of my----! Finish, pray finish, my dear sir;" and Mr. Drayton spoke in a tone of suppressed fury.

"Delusions," said the young man, calmly, trying to remember all the various theories about subduing a madman by the expression of the eye, and staring at him hard, conscious all the time of failure.

With sudden fury Mr. Drayton turned upon him, "I believe you to be an impostor, an impostor, sir, do you hear? and you have come here to do me an injury;" he moved towards him threateningly.

"Sir," answered Paul, understanding directly that it was no moment for trifling, "I shall go and I shall tell all the world that Mr. Sandford is right; you understand nothing of business; you are abusive--and, in short, no one can make anything of you."

As he spoke Mr. Drayton nearly grasped him, but he had youth and activity on his side, and he slipped away from him and stood by the window, having thrown down all the chairs.

"Now, sir," he said, "I intend seeing for myself if Mrs. Drayton is mad." Before Mr. Drayton could get round the obstructions he had opened the window, which was not many feet from the ground, and alighted on the lawn close to where Margaret, with deadly anxiety lest the packet should never come into her possession, paced to and fro--she had her child still with her.

"Your husband is mad," said Paul in a hurried whisper, "I hold proofs, and you will be rescued." He stooped and picked up the child, anxious to try and pacify Mr. Drayton now he had spoken those few words to poor Margaret, and forgetting that the child, unaccustomed to any strangers, might be frightened.

The little one, who had been unusually fretful all the morning, which was the reason Margaret tried to amuse it in the fresh air for a longer time than usual, uttered the most piercing shrieks, and just as Mr.

Drayton came up to them almost foaming at the mouth. She struggled, and kicked, and clutched hold of the wig, which had made Paul Lyons unrecognisable, even to Margaret, and tore it off, revealing his curly hair.

A perfect roar burst from Mr. Drayton.

Margaret, soothing her child in her arms, watched with terror-stricken eyes the terrible struggle that then ensued. The one man, heavier and stronger with rage, and the other, lithe and pliable, keeping him at times at bay, and at others closing with his adversary. As they neared the little side door, Margaret saw it open slowly, and saw the man-servant there.

In a moment she seized the packet and rushed into the house, and upstairs, never taking breath till the doors were locked behind her, and that she was safe in her room with the child, from whence she could see the road.

The struggle went on and Paul was nearly overpowered, when the servant interfered, and, catching hold of Mr. Drayton's uplifted arm, told Paul to go.

"I will go if you will promise to protect Mrs. Drayton from this madman till help come to her," he gasped, bruised and breathless, but feeling that it had not all been a failure since he had given her hope.

"She won't hurt," said the man, "but I'm not going to stop. I would not stay with him," he said, contemptuously, "not for double the money."

"But you will stay till some one comes, will you not?" Paul asked, more afraid than ever.

"He'll have to look sharp then," said the man. "I've told the doctor my mind, and that its a case of asylum, but he did not choose, he does not choose, to believe me, and I am not going to stay here to be murdered, I can tell you. It's two men's work to look after him, and he's that cunning he speaks the doctor fair when he comes, and the doctor's a fool besides."

Paul lost no time--he rushed out of the house and made his way to an hotel, where he tried to remove all signs of the frightful struggle he had just had, and to sally forth before his old spruce self.

What ought to be his first step? He must lose no time--leaving Margaret even for a day in the power of that madman was horrible to him.

Even Grace was not thought of; clutching his papers, he went to the magistrate who presided over the district court and sent in his card and asked for an interview. At first he was received with natural suspicion, his face was swollen and he looked altogether as though he had been mixed up in a fray, though his dress was so carefully arranged--but the merit of reality was there, and he sketched in glowing colours poor Margaret's position and the treatment he had received, and what he feared for her, in simple language free from exaggeration.

The magistrate consulted his clerk and sundry authorities with a deliberation truly maddening.

"I am searching for a precedent," he said, looking up at young Lyons, who was almost stamping with impatience.