Volume Ii Part 15 (1/2)
The child and the one kitten undoomed to a watery grave were carried off by the _bonne_.
”That chap's a devil of a temper, Georgie,” said the husband with a laugh. ”Case in point, my dear,” he continued; ”we keep one kitten and drown the rest, and there doesn't seem anything very horrible about it after all; and that's what we of the upper cla.s.ses, Georgie, have morally to do with our own offspring. It's on exactly that same principle that little Lucius will have to get our money and our land, while _that_ poor little chap and his brothers and sisters, if he should have the misfortune to have any, will have to rub along as best they can. You and I, Georgie, will have morally to perform the functions of the stony-hearted gardener.”
Haggard kissed his wife, then he ran his hand meditatively over the infant's soft scalp; he began to whistle a tune, and left the room.
It may be very unnatural, it may be very inartistic, but this being merely a veracious chronicle, it has to be told that Georgie loved the little Lucius quite as much and with exactly the same affection that she felt for the infant she fondled on her lap. Totally inexplicable, you will say; but so it was.
Georgie had never grudged to the little Lucius his share of her own and her husband's affection. She and her husband were young people; they might have a large family growing up round them, but they were wealthy, and they had large expectations, so that a child more or less to people in their position in life did not very much matter. But to give a little stranger a full share in the domestic pie is one thing, and to rob one's own children for the sake of the same little stranger is another. The more Georgie thought the matter over the more monstrous and impossible seemed her position. She would make an appeal to her cousin's mercy, to her cousin's sense of justice. But she felt morally certain that Lucy would never consent to an _eclairciss.e.m.e.nt_, or to the making a clean breast of the whole long-buried scandal to her cousin's husband.
Gradually the infant on her lap, her husband's legitimate heir, dozed gently off; Mrs. Haggard placed him in his cot and proceeded to darken the room; as she did so the door opened and her cousin's smiling face appeared.
”I want to talk to you, Lucy; I want to talk to you about baby,” said Georgie with gravity.
”Nothing the matter with him, dear, I hope, is there?”
”Oh, he's well enough as to his bodily health. It's his future I'm alarmed about. What do you suppose my husband told me to-day, Lucy? He told me, as a matter of course, that my baby was to be sacrificed to Lucius, because, forsooth, Lucius is the elder. I nearly told him then, Lucy. I _must_ tell him, I shall have to tell him sooner or later.”
”And when you do so, Georgie, you will have the satisfaction of seeing the last of your cousin. When I told you that I would fling myself into the lake if you betrayed me, it was not the mere idle vapouring of a foolish girl. I said it, and I meant it. Do you think for one single instant that your husband would keep my secret? The scandal has blown over, Georgie; you and I are its sole depositories. My secret and my sin are both dead, buried for ever in the silent past. You swore you would never betray me, Georgie, and having sworn it you must keep your oath.
Don't think for an instant that any ambition on my part, Georgie, makes me wish to see Lucius supplant your children. Oh that he were only dead, then at all events I should be safe.”
Gradually, however, the girl became calmer, her manner to Georgie got softer and more caressing. ”Keep my secret, Georgie dear,” she said; ”it'll be another twenty years before your children are men and women. I may be dead before that, please G.o.d I shall. Anyhow there'll be quite time enough to take your husband into our confidence, if it must be so.
But I couldn't face him yet, and I couldn't face uncle. I must hold you to your promise, Georgie. You swore never to betray me, and you never shall.”
Reginald Haggard's wife pleaded with the girl; she argued, she entreated, but she never threatened.
”It may come out after all, Lucy,” she said, ”and then think of the shame, the disgrace and the scandal.”
”The only way in which it could come out, dear, would be if Capt knew something about it. He evidently has no suspicion, or he would have come to us for hush-money long ago. Besides, Georgie, there's hope left to me yet,” and here the girl's face grew almost diabolical as she hissed across the table in a low whisper, ”_Lucius is but a little child, dear; he may die!_”
”I can't believe, Lucy, that the worst of mothers could deliberately wish for her own child's death. You took a base advantage of my affection in entrapping me into a promise of secrecy.”
”An oath, my dear.”
”An oath or a promise, whichever you like, Lucy. I'll keep your secret, you may rely on that, whatever it may cost me. But I love the child (and you know you can trust me, Lucy Warrender), so be you sure of this.
You dared to wish for the child's death. Should any danger menace him from you--you his own mother, worthless woman that you are--that instant your secret shall be a secret no longer. I will sacrifice my own happiness, the future of my own children, to you; for your sake I have deceived my husband, and I will go on deceiving him, but I will protect the child's life from you, Lucy Warrender, at whatever cost. Your very presence is a danger to him. After what you've told me, it is impossible that you and he can live under the same roof. You hate him, your own unhappy friendless child. I banish you from his presence, Lucy, from this day forth.”
Lucy Warrender gazed at her cousin in astonishment; their _roles_ were changed; no longer young Mrs. Haggard looked at her cousin with patient pleading eyes; her foot beat the floor with suppressed excitement, and though she never raised her voice, she continued in an angry but determined tone:
”Yes, Lucy, you must go, and quickly; you shall no longer poison my home with your presence. You have brought sufficient misery to me and mine.”
There was a something in the way young Mrs. Haggard had spoken that convinced Lucy Warrender of her sincerity.
Her cousin turned and left the room without a word.
That same evening Miss Warrender announced her intention of making a long-postponed visit to some friends in town. In vain her uncle remonstrated, and pointed out that her presence was expected with the rest of the family at Walls End Castle.
”I couldn't stand it, uncle,” she said; ”we are quiet enough and dull enough here, heaven knows; but a month at the Castle would be too dreadful. Besides it is Georgie who is the old lord's favourite. I don't think I'm in his good books at all. I've put off and put off this visit so long, that if I don't make it now, I never shall. And even London out of the season is to my mind preferable to the oppressive magnificence of the Castle. Lord Pit Town is Reginald's relative, not mine; I should only be in the way, Uncle.”
And so it was arranged.
Lucy went to her friends in town, and from their house she commenced a round of visits. She corresponded regularly enough with her cousin, and there was nothing very remarkable about the letters that were interchanged. Not one word was dropped by either cousin on the subject of the family secret. Perhaps a letter written about this time from Lord Spunyarn to his friend Haggard may throw a little light upon the way in which Miss Warrender amused herself.