Part 17 (2/2)
”It is about those checks I am going to speak. When you have heard me, condemn me if you like, but don't ruin us utterly. That is all I ask.
Don't ruin us.”
”Be more explicit. You are talking in riddles. Everybody seems to be conspiring to hide something from me. What is it? What has happened? What did d.i.c.k do before he went away? Did he do anything at all? Have you hidden something from me?”
”John, the checks I got from father, with which we paid our debts to stave off disgrace, were--forgeries.”
”Lord help us, Mary! Do you mean that we have been handling stolen money?”
”Don't put it like that, John, don't! I can't bear it.”
”And is it true what they're saying about d.i.c.k? Oh! it's horrible. I'll not believe it of our boy.”
”There is no need to believe it, John. He is innocent, though they condemn him. Yet, the checks were forgeries.”
”Then, who? You got the checks, didn't you? I thought--Ah!”
”I am the culprit, John. I altered them.”
”You?”
”Yes, John. Don't look at me like that. Father was outrageous. There was no money to be got from him, and I had no other course. Your bankruptcy would have meant your downfall. That dressmaker woman was inexorable. You would have been sued by your stock-broker, and--who knows what wretchedness was awaiting us?--perhaps absolute beggary in obscure lodgings, and our daily bread purchased with money begged from our friends. You know what father is: you know how he hates both you and me, how he would rub salt into our wounds, and gloat over our humiliation.
If--if d.i.c.k hadn't gone to the front--”
”Mary, Mary, what are you saying! You have robbed your father of money instead of facing the result of our follies bravely? You have sent our boy to the war--with money filched by a felony! Don't touch me! Stand away! No; I thought you were a good woman!”
”I didn't know. I didn't realize.”
”You are not a child, without knowledge of the ways of the world. You must have known what you were doing.”
”I thought that father would never know,” she faltered, chokingly. ”He h.o.a.rds his money, and a few thousands more or less would make no difference to him. There was every chance that he would never discover the loss. It was as much mine as his. He has thousands that belonged to my mother, which he cheated me out of. I added words and figures to the checks, like the fool that I was, not using the same ink that father used for the signatures, and--and the bank found out.”
”Horrible! horrible! But what has this to do with poor d.i.c.k? Why do people turn away from me and stammer at the mention of his name, as though they were ashamed? He, poor boy, knew nothing of all this.”
”John, John, you don't understand yet!” she whispered, creeping nearer to him, with extended hands, ready to entwine her arms about his neck. He retreated, white-faced and terrified, thinking of the serpent in Eden and the woman who tempted. She was tempting him now, coming nearer to wind her soft arms about him and hold him close, so that he would be powerless, as he always was when her breath was on his cheek, and her eyes pleading for a bending of his stern principles before her more-worldly needs.
She held him tight-clasped to her until he could feel the beating of her heart and the heaving of her bosom against his breast. It was thus that she had often cajoled him to buy things that he could not afford, to entertain people that he would rather not see, to indulge his children in vanities and follies against his better judgment, to desert his plain duty to his Church in favor of some social inanity. She was always tempting, caressing, and charming him with playful banter when he would be serious, weakening him when he would be strong, coaxing him to play when he would have worked. He had been as wax in her hands; but hitherto her sins had been little ones, and chiefly sins of omission.
”John! John!” she whispered huskily, with her lips close to his ear. ”You must promise not to hate me, not to curse me when you have heard. You'll despise me, you'll be horrified. But promise--promise that you won't be cruel.”
”I am never cruel, Mary. Tell me--how is d.i.c.k implicated?”
”John, I have done a more dreadful thing than stealing money.”
”Mary!”
”I have denied my sin--not for my own sake; no, John, it was for all our sakes--for yours, for Netty's, for her future husband's, for the good of the church where you have worked so hard and have become so indispensable.”
”Don't torture me! Speak plainly--speak out!” he gasped, with labored breath, as though he were choking.
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