Philip Winwood Part 25

Mr. Faringfield's face showed a sweep of conjectures, ranging from that of Ned's being in New York in service of his cause, to that of his being there as a deserter from it. Margaret flushed a moment, and then composed herself with an effort, for whatever issue this unexpected arrival might portend. The rest of us waited in a mere wonder touched with the old disquieting dread of painful scenes.

Old Noah, jealous of the single duty that his years had left him, and resentful of its frequent usurpation by Falconer's servant, always stayed up to attend the door till the last of the family had retired.

We now heard him shuffling through the hall, heard the movement of the lock, and then instantly a heavy tread that covered the sound of Noah's. The parlour door from the hall was flung open, and in strode the verification of our thoughts.

Ned's clothes were briar-torn and mud-spattered; his face was haggard, his hair unkempt, his left shoulder humped up and held stiff. He stopped near the door, and stared from face to face, frowning because of the sudden invasion of his eyes by the bright candlelight. When his glance fell upon Margaret, it rested; and thereupon, just as if he were not returned from an absence of three years and more, and heedless of the rest of us, confining his address to her alone, he bellowed, with a most malignant expression of face and voice:

"So you played a fine game with us, my lady--luring us into the dirty scheme, and then turning around and setting your husband on us in the act! I see through it all now, you underhanded, double-dealing s.l.u.t!"

"Are you speaking to me, sir?" asked Margaret, with dignity.

"Of course I am; and don't think I'll hold my tongue because of these people. Let 'em hear it all, I don't care. It's all up now, and I'm a hanged man if ever I go near the American camp again. But I'm safe here in New York, though I was d.a.m.n' near being shot when I first came into the British lines. But I've been before General Knyphausen,[7]

and been identified, and been acknowledged by your Captain Falconer as the man that worked your cursed plot at t'other end; and I've been let go free--though I'm under watch, no doubt. So you see there's naught to hinder me exposing you for what you are--the woman that mothered a British plot, and worked her trusting brother into it, and then betrayed him to her husband."

"That's a lie!" cried Margaret, crimson in the face.

"What does all this mean?" inquired Mr. Faringfield, rising.

Paying no attention to his father, Edward retorted upon Margaret, who also rose, and who stood between him and the rest of us:

"A lie, is it? Perhaps you can make General Knyphausen and Captain Falconer believe that, now I've told 'em whose cursed husband it was that attacked me at the meeting-place, and alarmed the camp. You didn't think I'd live to tell the tale, did you? You thought to hear of my being hanged, and your husband promoted for his services, and so two birds killed with one stone! But providence had a word to say about that. The Lord is never on the side of plotters and traitors, let me tell you, and here I am to outface you. A lie, is it? A lie that your husband spoiled the scheme? Why, you brazen hussy, he came from New York that very night--he told me so himself! He had seen you, and you had told him all, I'll lay a thousand guineas!"

'Twas at the time a puzzle to me that Margaret should condescend to explanations with him as she forthwith did. But I now see how, realising that proofs of Philip's visit might turn up and seem to bear out Ned's accusation, she must have felt the need of putting herself instantly right with Tom and me, lest she might eventually find herself wrong with General Clinton and Captain Falconer.

"I own that Philip saw me that night," she said, with a self-control compelled by her perilous situation. "He came here by stealth, and took me by surprise. He found reason to suspect our plot, but till now I never knew 'twas really he that put the rebels on their guard. I thought he would be too late. 'Twas through no intention of mine that he guessed what was afoot. I never told Tom and Bert" (these words were meant for our ears) "--or Captain Falconer--of his visit, for fear they might think, as you seem to, that I was to blame. That's all the truth, and we shall see whether Captain Falconer will believe you or me."

Here Mr. Faringfield, whose patience at being so far ignored, though 'twas supported by the hope of receiving the desired enlightenment from their mutual speeches, was at length exhausted, put in with some severity.

"Pray, let us into these mysteries, one of you. Margaret, what is it I hear, of a visit from Philip? of a British plot? By heaven, if I thought--but explain the matter, if you please."

"I have no right to," said she, her face more and more suffused with red. "'Tis not my secret alone; others are concerned."

"It appears," rejoined Mr. Faringfield, "it is a secret that abides in my house, and therefore I have a right to its acquaintance. I command you to explain."

"Command?" she echoed lightly, with astonishment. "Is a married woman subject to her father's commands?"

"An inmate of my house is subject to my commands," he replied, betraying his hidden wrath by a dark look.

"I beg your pardon," said she. "That part of the house which Philip has paid, or will pay, for my living in, is my own, for the time being. I shall go there--"

"You shall not leave this room," cried her father, stalking toward the door. "You fall back upon Philip's name. Very well, he has delegated the care of you to me in his absence. 'Tis time I should represent his authority over you, when I hear of your plotting against his country."

"I have a right to be loyal to the king, above the authority of a husband."

"If your loyalty extends to plotting against your husband's cause, you have not the right under my roof--or under Philip Winwood's part of it. I will know what this scheme is, that you have been engaged in."

"Not from me!" said Margaret, with a resolution that gave a new, unfamiliar aspect to so charmingly feminine a creature.

"Oh, let her alone, father," put in Ned, ludicrously ready for the faintest opportunity either to put his father under obligation or to bring down Margaret. "I'll be frank with you. I've no reason to hide what's past and gone. She and Captain Falconer had a plan to make Washington a prisoner, by a night expedition from New York, and some help in our camp--"

"Which you were to give, I see, you treacherous scoundrel!" said his father, with contempt.

"Oh, now, no hard names, sir. You see, several of us--some good patriots, too, with the country's best interests at heart--couldn't swallow this French alliance; we saw that if we ever did win by it, we should only be exchanging tyrants of our own blood for tyrants of frog-eaters. We began to think England would take us back on good terms if the war could be ended; and we considered the state of the country, the interests of trade--indeed, 'twas chiefly the thought of _your_ business, the hope of seeing it what it once was, that drove _me_ into the thing."

"You wretched hypocrite!" interposed Mr. Faringfield.

"Oh, well; misunderstand me, as usual. Call me names, if you like. I'm only telling the truth, and what you wished to know--what _she_ wouldn't tell you. I'm not as bad as some; I can up and confess, when all's over. Well, as I was about to say, we had everything ready, and the night was set; and then, all of a sudden, Phil Winwood swoops down on me; treats me in a most unbrotherly fashion, I must say" (Ned cast an oblique look at his embarra.s.sed shoulder); "and alarmed the camp.

And when the British party rode up, instead of catching Washington they caught h.e.l.l. And I leave it to you, sir, whether your daughter there, after playing the traitor to her husband's cause, for the sake of her lover; didn't turn around and play the traitor to her own game, for the benefit of her husband, and the ruin of her brother. Such d.a.m.nableness!"

"'For the sake of her lover,'" Mr. Faringfield repeated. "What do you mean by that, sir?" The phrase, indeed, had given us all a disagreeable start.

"What I say, sir. How could he be otherwise? I guessed it before; and I became sure of it this evening, from the way he spoke of her at General Knyphausen's quarters."

"What a lie!" cried Margaret. "Captain Falconer is a gentleman; he's not of a kind to talk about women who have given him no reason to do so. 'Tis ridiculous! You maligning villain!"

"Oh, 'twasn't what he said, my dear; 'twas his manner whenever he mentioned you. When a man like him handles a woman's name so delicate-like, as if 'twas gla.s.s and might break--so grave-like, as if she was a sacred subject--it means she's put herself on his generosity."

Margaret affected a derisive laugh, as at her brother's pretensions to wisdom.

"Oh, I know all the stages," he continued, watching her with a malicious calmness of self-confidence. "When gentry of his sort are first struck with a lady, but not very deep, they speak out their admiration bold and gallant; when they find they're hit seriously, but haven't made sure of her, they speak of her with make-believe carelessness or mere respect: they don't like to show how far gone they are. But when she's come to an understanding with 'em, and put 'em under obligations and responsibilities--it's only then they touch her name so tender and considerate, as if it was so fragile. But that stage doesn't last for ever, my young lady--bear that in mind!"

"You insolent wretch!" said Margaret, ready to cry with rage and confusion.

"This is outrageous," ventured Mrs. Faringfield, daring to look her indignation at Ned. "William, how can you tolerate such things said about your daughter?"

But Mr. Faringfield had been studying his daughter's countenance all the while. Alas for Margaret, she had never given pains to the art of dissimulation, or taken the trouble to learn hypocrisy, or even studied self-control: a negligence common to beauties, who rely upon their charms to carry them through all emergencies without resort to shifts. She was equal to a necessary lie that had not to be maintained with labour, or to a pretence requiring little effort and encountering no suspicion, but to the concealment of her feelings when she was openly put to the question, her powers were inadequate. If ever a human face served its owner ill, by apparently confessing guilt, where only folly existed, Margaret's did so now.

"What I may think of the rascal who says these things," replied Mr.

Faringfield, with the unnatural quietness that betrays a tumult of inward feelings, "I will tolerate them till I am sure they are false."

His eyes were still fixed on Margaret.

"What!" said she, a little hysterically. "Do you pay attention to the slanders of such a fellow? To an accusation like that, made on the mere strength of a gentleman's manner of mentioning me?"

"No, but I pay attention to your manner of receiving the accusation: your telltale face, your embarra.s.sment--"

"'Tis my anger--"

"There's an anger of innocence, and an anger of guilt. I would your anger had shown more of contempt than of confusion." Alas! he knew naught of half-guilt and _its_ manifestations.

"How can you talk so?--I won't listen--such insulting innuendoes!--even if you are my father--why, this knave himself says I betrayed Captain Falconer's scheme: how could he think that, if--"

"That proves nothing," said Ned, with a contemptuous grin. "Women do unaccountable things. A streak of repentance, maybe; or a lovers'

quarrel. The point is, a woman like you wouldn't have entered into a scheme like that, with a man like him, if there hadn't already been a pretty close understanding of another kind. Oh, I know your whole d.a.m.n' s.e.x, begad!--no offence to these other ladies."

"William, this is scandalous!" cried Mrs. Faringfield. My mother, too, looked what it was not her place to speak. As for Tom and me, we had to defer to Mr. Faringfield; and so had Cornelius, who was very solemn, with an uneasy frown between his white eyebrows. Poor f.a.n.n.y, most sensitive to disagreeable scenes, sat in self-effacement and mute distress.

Mr. Faringfield, not replying to his wife, took a turn up and down the room, apparently in great mental perplexity and dismay.

Suddenly he was a transformed man. Pale with wrath, his lips moving spasmodically, his arms trembling, he turned upon Margaret, grasped her by the shoulders, and in a choked, half-articulate voice demanded: