The White Virgin

“Go down home!” said the girl in a low voice, full of suppressed anger; “home, eh? so as to be out of your way now? No,” she cried, flashing out into a fit of passion; “it’s to get rid of me. I’m in your way now that you are going to be master, and you don’t mean to marry me, as you’ve promised a hundred times. I know: it’s Miss Janet.”

“Lyddy, don’t be a fool,” cried Jessop, in a tone full of suppressed passion. “Now, go, there’s a good girl. It’s all for the best. Hush! you will be heard.”

“Then every one shall hear me,” she cried, tearing up the note he had placed in her hand and flinging it in his face. “No; I won’t be a fool any longer. You’re as good as master now; you’ve promised to marry me, and I will not be packed off in disgrace. You’re master here, Jessop, and I’m mistress; and come what may, I will not stir.”

She flung her arms round him as she spoke, and in his rage he raised his doubled fist to strike her down, but it fell to his side.

“Mr Jessop Reed is not master here,” said a stern voice at the door, “and you are not the mistress.”

Jessop flung the girl from him, so that she staggered, and would have fallen heavily, had not Clive, who had opened the door softly to come and sit with his brother, caught her in his arms.

“Jessop,” he said coldly, “have you not done enough to insult our father without this miserable disgraceful episode, now while he is lying upstairs almost at his last.”

“The woman’s mad,” cried Jessop. “Crazy with grief or drink, I suppose. I don’t know what she means.”

“I’m not, I’m not, Mr Clive,” cried the girl, bursting into a violent fit of weeping.

“Lyddy,” cried Jessop.

“I don’t care; I must, I will speak. He has promised to marry me again and again, and now that master is dying and he is going to be free to do as he likes, he is trying to pack me off – to send me home, and I’d sooner go and jump off the bridges at once.”

“Jessop!” cried Clive, “how can you be such a scoundrel?”

“Scoundrel yourself!” shouted Jessop furiously. “The woman’s an impostor; it’s a hatched-up breach of promise case to get money – a fraud.”

“No, no, no,” cried Lyddy wildly, as she flung herself at Clive’s feet, and caught and clung to his hands. “It’s true – all true. Dear Mr Clive, don’t, don’t you forsake me. Don’t you turn against me now.”

“Doctor! you here!” cried Clive, as he became conscious of the fact that they were not alone; and he made a step to cross the room to where Doctor Praed was standing with his child’s arm locked in his. But, at the first movement, Lyddy uttered a piteous cry, clung to him wildly, and suffered herself to be dragged over, and half lie sobbing hysterically on the carpet.

“Yes, sir, I am here,” said the Doctor gravely.

“But my father?” cried Clive excitedly.

“Is spared this fresh trouble, sir,” said the Doctor coldly.

“Dead!” cried Clive, in a voice fall of agony, and he turned to his brother.

Jessop was drawing Janet’s arm through his as she gazed with flashing eyes at her betrothed.

“Come away,” Jessop whispered. “Janet, dearest, this is no place for you.”

Chapter Twelve.

In Russell Square

“But surely, Doctor, you don’t believe I could be such a scoundrel?”

“My dear Clive, I should be sorry to think ill of any one, but you see I am a student of man’s nature.”

“Then you believe it?”

“That you are a scoundrel, my dear boy? Oh, dear no; I think you one of the best of fellows, or I would not have allowed that engagement to take place; and as I said to Janet, we must be a bit lenient; there was every excuse.”

“What!” roared Clive, leaping from his seat in Doctor Praed’s consulting-room the morning after his father’s death.

“Now, now, be calm, and listen to what I have to say.”

Clive sank back with his face flushed and hands clenched, while the Doctor continued gravely —

“She was hot-headed and angry as could be when I got her home. You see, my dear boy, women are different in their nerve forces to men. There had been a great drain upon her during the interview with your poor father, and then the sad surprise with that woman and the shock of your father’s death combined were sufficient to completely disturb the nerve centres.”

Clive Reed looked at the Doctor, as though he would have liked to shake him, but he only waited.

“I told her, as I have said, that she must not be too severe.”

Clive drew his breath hard.

“That, speaking as her father and a man of the world of a few experiences, a young lady was in error if she expected to find the man to whom she was betrothed quite perfect.”

“Doctor, you’ll drive me mad,” said Clive.

“No, I am going to teach you to be a little philosophical and to be patient, for of course she will come round. I am angry, terribly angry with you; I think it disgraceful – ”

“But – ”

“Hear me out, boy, or, confound you, I’ll have you shown the door,” cried the Doctor angrily. Then calming down: “It is most unfortunate, coming at such a time, too. The old writer may well have said that about our pleasant vices and the rods, or whatever it was, to scourge us. Be silent, sir: you shall speak when I have done. I know there was every excuse, living in the same house with a pretty gentle young girl who looked above her station, but was not in her manners. I have known lots of cases. Bit of vanity – good-looking young master – thinks she’ll be a lady – flings herself literally at young fellow’s head. Yes, a young man needs to be superhuman, I may say, under the circumstances.”

“Have you done, Doctor?”

“No, sir, I have not. You will have to go through a kind of probation with Janet – and with me, of course; and in time the matter may perhaps be patched up. Now we will set that aside, and talk about the business matters connected with your father’s decease. Poor old Grantham! It’s a gap out of my life, Clive. We were chums for thirty years. Thank God he did not know of this, poor fellow, for he thought so highly of you, my boy.”

“Would to God he were here now!” cried Clive passionately.

“Amen!”

“To hear his son defend himself. I swear to you, Doctor Praed, by all that is holy, by my dead father lying there at home, and who from the spirit-world may hear my words, I am perfectly innocent. For years I have not had a thought that Janet might not know – that has not been hers. It was all a mistake – a misconception, and in her hurry and readiness to jump at conclusions she believed it.”

“But, my dear boy, do you mean to deny that the unhappy girl, whose words I heard as she knelt by you, has not had a promise of marriage?”

“No, sir – unfortunately no.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“Oh, Doctor,” cried Clive passionately, “why is it in this, world that one man may go on adding blot after blot to his bespattered scutcheon, and at each revelation people smile and shrug their shoulders; while another who has tried to make his life blameless and keep the shield of his honour bright is doubted at the first blur that is cast upon it; every one seems to rejoice, sets him down as a hypocrite, and cries ‘Ah! found out at last!’”

“Well, my boy, it is human nature. I must confess to feeling something like that yesterday myself.”

“Then shame upon you, sir! – Doctor, you’ve known me from a boy, and ought to be better able to judge me.”