Part 45 (2/2)
”What are you doing here?” said he. ”I know--you and that lot had me tucked away in a lunatic asylum; now you have taken possession of the house.”
Venetia was quite calm.
”Since the house is not yours,” said she, ”I fail to see how my presence here affects you. We know the truth. Dr. Simms has arrived at the conclusion that your confession was at least based on truth. That you are what you proclaimed yourself to be, a man named Jones. We thought you were mad, we see now that you are an impostor. Kindly leave this house or I will call for a policeman.”
Jones' mind lost all its fire. Hatred can cool as well as inflame and he hated Venetia and all her belongings, including her dowager mother and her uncle the duke, with a hatred well based on reason and fact. All his fear of mind disturbance should he go on playing the part of Rochester had vanished, the fires of tribulation had purged them away.
”I don't know what you are talking about,” said he. ”Do you mean that joke I played on you all? I am the Earl of Rochester, this is my house, and I request you to leave it. Don't speak. I know what you are going to say. You and your family will do this and you will do that. You will do nothing. Even if I were an impostor you would dare to do nothing. Your family was.h.i.+ng is far, far too much soiled to expose it in public.
”If I were an impostor, who can say I have not played an honourable game? I have recovered valuable property--did I touch it and take it away? Did I expose to the public an affair that would have caused a scandal? You will do nothing and you know it. You did not even dare to tell the servants here what has happened, for the servant who let me in was not a bit surprised. Now, if you have finished your breakfast, will you kindly leave my house?”
Venetia rose and took up her book.
”_Your_ house,” said she.
”Yes, my house. From this day forth, my house. But that is not all.
To-morrow I will get lawyers to work and I'll get apologies as big as houses from the whole lot of you--else I'll prosecute.” He was getting angry, ”prosecute you for doping me.” Recollections of the Barometer man's advice came to him, ”doping me in order to lay your hands on that million of money.”
He went to the bell and rang it.
”We want no scene before the servants,” said Venetia hurriedly.
”Then kindly go,” said Jones, ”or you will have a perfect panorama before the servants.”
A servant entered.
”Send Church here,” said Jones. He was trembling like a furious dog.
He had got the whole situation in hand. He had told his tale and acted like an honourable man, the fools had disbelieved him and doped him.
They had scented the truth but they dared do nothing. Mulhausen and the recovered mine, the Plinlimon letters, Rochester's past, all these were his bastions, to say nothing of Rochester's suicide.
The fear of publicity held them in a vice. Even were they to go to America and prove that a man called Jones exactly like the Earl of Rochester had lived in Philadelphia, go to the Savoy and prove that a man exactly like the Earl of Rochester had lived there, produce the clothes he had come home in that night--all of that would lead them, where--to an action at law.
They could not arrest him as an impostor till they had proved him an impostor. To prove that, they would have to turn the family history inside out before a gaping public.
Mr. Church came in.
”Church,” said Jones, ”I played a practical joke on--on my people. I met a man called Jones at the Savoy--well, we needn't go into details, he was very like me, and I told my people for a joke that I was Jones. The fools thought I was mad. They called in two doctors and drugged me and hauled me off to a place. I got out, and here I am back. What do you think of that?”
”Well, my Lord,” said Church, ”if I may say it to you, those practical jokes are dangerous things to play--Lord Langwathby--”
”Was he here?”
”He came last night, my Lord, to have a personal explanation about a telegram he said you sent him as a practical joke, some time ago, taking him up to c.u.mberland.”
<script>