Wild Heather Part 31

His face turned white. He pulled his soft hat a little over his eyes and looked fixedly at me.

"Well, Heather, speak. You--you're no coward."

"I don't think I am. It began first in this way," I said. "It was something Lady Mary said; these were her words. She said: 'You are, of course, aware of the fact that Hawtrey must have loved you beyond the ordinary love of an ordinary man when he made up his mind to take as a wife the daughter of Major Grayson?'"

"So he must; that's true enough, Heather."

"Father, oh, father! Do you think I listened to those words tamely? I said: 'My father is the best man in all the world.' Lady Mary looked at me; at first she was angry, then a softened expression came over her face. She said: 'You poor little girl!' and then she said: 'Have you never suspected why he married Lady Helen Dalrymple?' Oh, father, it was after those words I came here, for I was determined to find out, and to-day--oh, my own Daddy, I did find out! I asked Aunt Penelope."

"She told you--my G.o.d! she told you!"

"She did, but I don't believe it--it isn't true."

"Give me your hand, Heather."

I gave it. I had some little difficulty in doing so, for a cold, icy, terrible doubt was flooding my mind, flooding my reason, flooding my powers of thought.

"Keep it up," said my father to me. "Be brave, right on to the end. Tell me what she said. You are my daughter and--once I was a soldier; tell your soldier father what she said."

"Oh, Daddy, Daddy, she said that you, you, my father--had--oh, it's so awful!--that you were arrested in India on a charge of forgery--you had made away with a lot of money--you were cashiered from the army and--you were imprisoned. All the time while I was picturing you a brave soldier, filling your post with distinction and pride, you were only--only--in prison! Oh, Daddy, it isn't true--it could not have been true; she said it was true, she said that your term was over last autumn, and that you came straight here to see me, and that, in some extraordinary way, you had money, and you carried everything off with a high hand, and insisted on taking me away with you, and the next thing she heard was that you had married Lady Helen Dalrymple. She says, Daddy, that you will never outlive your disgrace, and there isn't a soldier in the length and breadth of the land who will speak to you!"

I laid my head down on his coat sleeve. Sobs rent my frame. There was an absolute silence on his part. He did not interrupt my tears for a moment, nor did he say one single word of contradiction. After a minute or so he remarked, very quietly:

"Now, you will stop crying and listen."

I sat upright. I looked at him out of gla.s.sy eyes; he gazed straight back at me; there was not a sc.r.a.p of shame about his face; I wondered very much at that, and then a wild, joyful thought visited me. He could clear himself, he could show me that this disgraceful story was all a lie.

"Now, stop crying," he said again. "Whatever I did or did not do, I was a soldier and fought the Queen's battles when she was alive--G.o.d bless her!--and I was accounted a brave man."

"You were never a forger--you never saw the inside of a prison?"

"Those are your two charges against me, Heather?"

"Not mine, not mine," I said; "I just want you to tell me the truth."

"Well, as a matter of fact, I was accused of forgery."

My eyes fell, I trembled all over.

"I was had up for trial; I stood in the prisoner's dock. I was convicted by jurymen, and a judge of our criminal courts proclaimed my sentence.

The case was a particularly aggravated one, and my sentence was severe--I was sentenced to ten years' penal servitude--I lived all that time in prison. Not a pleasant life. Ah! it's spoiled my hands a good bit--have you never remarked it?"

"Now that you speak, I--do remark it," I said.

"And of course I was cashiered," he continued.

I nodded.

"Well, I have answered you."

"You have," I said.

"Is there anything else you'd like to know?"

"Yes. Why did you marry Lady Helen?"

"Why, that was part of the bond."

"The bond?" I said.

"The fact is, we understood each other. She had been very fond of me, poor woman, and she stuck to me through my disgrace, and when I came out of prison she was willing to do the best possible for me and for you.

Of course, you can understand that without marriage I could not accept her services, so--I married her. I don't go about with her a great deal, you will have observed that?"

"Yes, and I have wondered," I said.

"But she has been good to you. She has taken you about."

"Oh, yes. I hated going about with her."

"She was anxious, and so was I, that you should marry well. She held out to me as the bait--your salvation."

"What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I say. When I entered into that worst prison of all, it was for your sake."

"Father--oh, father!"

"It is true, child. There, it's out. It is the worst prison of all--G.o.d help me! And now, at the end, you desert me!"

"No, I won't," I said, flinging my arms round his neck; "no, I never will! It doesn't matter what you did, I'll stick to you--I will, I will, I will!"

"My little girl, my own little girl! But she won't have you back except on her own terms; she only wants you in order to get you well married, to have the eclat and fuss and glory of a great marriage; that's her object. You have refused Hawtrey; I doubt if she'll forgive that."

I was clinging close to him, I was holding his hand.

"Can't we both leave her?" I whispered. "Can't we go away and be very poor together, and forget the world?"

"Child, there is your lover, Carbury."

I gave a quick, sharp sigh.

"I can't think of him now," I said.

"Oh, child, he proposed for you, knowing everything."

"I won't marry him," I said, "I am going to stay with you in that worst prison."