Footsteps of Fate Part 19

"Yes," she said, "I am yours. Do what you will with me."

"Till we meet again," then said he; and he quitted the house.

Eva, left alone, looked about her with a shudder, as if seeking the evil she dreaded. She was afraid--afraid for herself and for Frank, but chiefly for Frank. In an instant her fears had risen to intolerable horror. She heard her father's step in the pa.s.sage: she recognised his shuffling tread. It was impossible to her to meet him just then; she s.n.a.t.c.hed up a cloak and wrapped it about her, pulling the hood over her head, as she rushed out of doors.

It was raining heavily.

VI.

Frank found Van Maeren at home. And Bertie saw at once that It had come.

He read it in Frank's drawn face, heard it in the thick utterance of his voice. And at the same time he felt that the lax springs of his determination were trying to brace themselves in despair, in self-defence, and--that they failed.

"Bertie," said Westhove. "I want to speak to you, to ask you something."

Bertie made no reply. His legs quaked. He was sitting in a large cane-chair, and he did not move.

"I have just met Eva," Frank went on, "and I went with her to see her father. Sir Archibald tells me that they have been here some weeks--"

Still Bertie spoke not; he gazed up at Frank with his deep, black eyes, and their brilliancy was overcast by distress and fear. Frank stood in front of him, and he now pa.s.sed his hand over his brow in some confusion. He had at first purposed to tell his story, and then, quite calmly, to ask a question; but something, he knew not what, in Bertie's cat-like indolence, roused his anger, made him furious with him for the first time in all the years he had known him. He was angry that Bertie could stay there, half lying down languidly at ease, his graceful hand hanging over the arm of the lounge; and he did not detect that his att.i.tude at this moment was a.s.sumed merely to conceal an all too overwhelming agitation. And Frank's intention of telling a logical tale and asking a plain question suddenly collapsed in rage, giving way to a mad desire to know at once--at once--

"Listen to me, Bertie. You remember the three letters that I wrote before we left London. Eva tells me that they were kept back by their servant William. Do you know anything about it?"

Bertie was silent, but his eyes were fixed on Frank with dull, anxious entreaty.

"No one knew of the existence of those letters but you. Have you any suspicion why it should be to William's interest to suppress them, then?"

"No. How should I?" said Bertie, scarcely above his breath.

"Come, come--speak out!" cried Westhove, quivering in every muscle. "You must know something about it, that is quite clear. You must. Speak out."

All thought of self-defence melted away under the vehemence of Frank's tone. Bertie hardly had any curiosity even to know what had occurred to betray William's complicity; and he felt that it would be easiest now to give himself up completely, without reserve, since that which he had been dreading for weeks had come upon him, inevitably and fatally; since whatever was to happen would happen inevitably and fatally; and in his weakness he was conscious of the horrible pathos, the hopeless pity of his being what he was--of things being as they were.

"Well, then," he muttered, dejectedly, "I do know."

"What do you know?"

"It was I who--"

"Who did what?"

"Who bribed William not to deliver the letters."

Westhove looked at him in dumb astonishment; darkness clouded his sight; everything was in a whirl; he did not hear, did not understand, forgetting that the truth had already flashed across his brain.

"You! You!" he gasped. "My G.o.d! but why?"

Van Maeren got up; he burst into tears.

"Because--because--I don't know. I cannot tell you. It is too vile."

Westhove had seized him by the shoulders: he shook him, and said in a hoa.r.s.e roar:

"You d.a.m.ned villain, you will not tell me why? You will not tell me? Or must I shake it out of your body? Why? Tell me this instant!"

"Because, because," sobbed Van Maeren, wringing his white hands.

"Tell me--out with it."

"Because I wanted to stay with you, and because if you married I should have had to go. I was so fond of you, and--and--"

"Speak out. You were so fond of me--and then--"

"And you were so kind to me. You gave me everything. I foresaw that I should have to work for my living again, and I was so well off where I was. Frank, Frank, listen to me; hear what I have to tell you before you say anything, before you are angry. Let me explain; do not condemn me till you know. Oh, yes, it was base of me to do what I did, but let me say a word; and do not be angry, Frank, till you know everything. Frank, try to see me as I am. I am as G.o.d made me, and I cannot help it; I would have been different if I could--and I only did what I could not help doing. Indeed, I could not help it; I was driven to it by a power outside me. I was so weak, so tired; I could rest with you; and though you may not believe me, I loved you, I worshipped you. And you wanted to turn me out, and make me work. Then it was--then I did it. Hear me, Frank, let me tell you all. I must tell you all. I made Eva believe that you did not really love her; I made her doubt you, so that everything was broken off between you. And the letters, I stopped them.... It was all my doing Frank, all, all; and I hated myself while I did it, because I was not different from what I am. But I could not help it. I was made so.... And you do not understand me. I am such a strange mixture that you cannot understand. But try to understand me and you will, Frank; and then you will forgive me--perhaps you will even forgive me. Oh, believe me, I beseech you, I am not wholly selfish. I love you with all my soul, so truly as one man hardly ever loves another, because you were so good to me. I can prove it to you; did I not stick by you when you had lost all your money in America? If I had been selfish, should I not have left you then? But I stayed with you, I worked with you, and we shared everything, and were happy. Oh, why did not things remain as they were? Now you have met her, and now--"

"Have you done with words!" roared Frank. "So you did this, you wrecked all that life held for me! G.o.d in heaven! is it possible?--No, you are right; I do not understand you!" he ended with a venomous laugh, his face crimson and his eyes starting with rage. Bertie had dropped crouching in a heap on the ground, and sobbed aloud.

"Oh, but try to understand," he entreated, "Try to see a fellow-creature as he is, in all his comfortless nakedness, with no conventional wrappings. My G.o.d! I swear to you that I wish I was different. But how can I help being what I am? I was born without any option of my own; I was endowed with a brain and I must think; and I think otherwise than I gladly would think, and I have been tossed through life like a ball--like a ball. What could I do, thus tossed, but try to keep my head up?--Strength of will, strength of mind? I do not know whether you have any; but I have never, never, never felt such a thing. When I do a thing it is because I must, because I can do no otherwise; for though I may have the wish to act differently the strength and energy are not there!

Believe me, I despise myself; believe that, Frank; and try to understand and to forgive."

"Words, words! You are raving," growled Frank. "I do not know what all your talk means. I can understand nothing at this moment; and, even if I could, at this moment I would not. All I understand is that you have ruined me, that you have destroyed my whole life's joy, and that you are a low scoundrel, who bribed a servant to stop my letters, out of gross, vile, unfathomable selfishness,--Bribed him? Tell me, rascal, wretch, coward--bribed him!--With what, in Heaven's name? Tell me with what you bribed him."

"With, with--" but Van Maeren hesitated in abject fear, for Westhove had collared him by the waistcoat as he grovelled on the floor, and shook him again and again.

"By thunder, you villain, you bribed him with my money--with my own money! Tell me--speak, or I'll kick it out of you!"

"Yes."

"With my money?"

"Yes, yes, yes." Frank flung him down with a yell of contempt, of loathing of such a thing as he.

But Van Maeren was experiencing a reaction from his self-abas.e.m.e.nt. The world was so stupid, men were stupid, Frank was stupid. He did not understand that a man should be such as he, Bertie, was; he could not understand; he bellowed out in his brutal rage, like some wild beast without brains or sense. He, himself, had brains; happier was he who had none; he envied Frank his lack of them!

He sprang up with one leap.

"Yes, if you will have it, Yes, yes, yes," he hissed it hard. "If you don't understand, if you are too idiotic to take it in--Yes, I say. Yes, yes, yes. I bribed him with your money, that you were so kind as to give me the very last day when we were leaving London. You gave me a hundred pounds, to pay William--do you remember? To pay William!--You do not understand?--Well--You don't understand! You are a stupid brute without brains. Ay, and I envy you for having none. There was a time when I had none; and do you know how I came by them? Why, through you. There was a time when I toiled and worked, and never thought and never cared. I ate all I earned and when I earned nothing I went hungry. And I was happy!

It was you--you who fed me on dainties, and gave me wine to drink; and it was you who clothed me, so that I had not to work, but had nothing to do but to think, think, in my contemptible idleness all day long. And now I only wish I could crack my skull open and throw my brains in your face for having made me what I am, so finikin and full of ideas! You don't understand? Then perhaps you will not understand that at this moment I feel no grat.i.tude for all you have done for me--that I hate you for it all, that I despise you, and that you have made my life infinitely more wretched than I have made yours! Do you understand that much, at any rate, eh? That I despise you and hate you, hate you?"

He had entrenched himself behind a table, sputtering out this volley of words in a paroxysm of nervous excitement; he felt as though every fibre of his frame was ready to crack like an over-strained cord. He had got behind the table, because Westhove was standing before him, at the other side now, his eyes staringly white and bloodshot in his purple face; his nostrils dilated, his shoulders up, his fists clenched, ready, as it seemed, to spring upon him. Westhove was waiting, as it appeared, till Van Maeren had spit out in his face all the foul words he could find.

"Yes, I hate you!" Bertie repeated, "I hate you!" He could find nothing else to say.

Then Frank let himself go. With a bellow like a wild beast, a sound that had nothing human in it, he sprang over the table, which tilted on its side, and came down with all the weight of his impetus on Bertie, who fell under him like a reed, He seized his foe by the throat, dragged him over the legs of the table, into the middle of the room, dropped him with a crack on the floor, and fell upon him, with his bony, square knee on Bertie's chest, and his left hand holding his neck like a vice. And a hard, dry feeling, like a thirst for sheer brutality, rose to Westhove's throat; with a dreadful smile on his lips he swallowed two or three times, fiendishly glad that he had him in his power, in the clutch of his left hand, under his knee. And he doubled his right fist and raised it like a hammer, with a tigerish roar.