A Woman's Burden: A Novel

"Of course you do not understand – how should you? Later on perhaps you will understand many things that seem unintelligible to you now."

"I shall never understand that the innocent should suffer for the guilty."

"Oh, you know well that I pretend to be no saint. I tell you this son of hers, to me, represents her. I was not able to take vengeance upon her while she was alive – he must bear it now. Let that suffice – I need tell you no more; you now know my motive."

Miriam was perplexed. She looked searchingly at Barton. Was he mad? She thought he must surely be. She did not like the light in his eye.

"But," she said, "even so, I cannot see how his marriage with me is to act as the punishment you would have it. I cannot marry him against his will, even if I would; and if it were his wish to marry me, I – I – I think he would be happy."

"Exactly so; exactly so. His future lies in your hands. You can avert his punishment – that is to say he can avert it through you. Listen to me. You may love Gerald Arkel, but you do not know him. He is the weakest, blindest, most easily led of men. It is through his weakness that I intend he shall suffer. It shall be my strength – unless he be wise in time and grasp the chance fate offers him. I intend he shall be my heir. I need not name the sum he will inherit; but it will not be small. And it shall be his damnation, his ruin. By means of it he will sink to the depths of infamy – of degradation, to perdition utterly. So shall he expiate the bitter wrong that has ruined my life – so shall he suffer for the sin of his cursed mother. Still I am not merciless. He has two women now from whom to choose. If he choose the right one, well and good. Such an influence as yours over him is the only thing that can save him, for you are a good woman. That is why I brought you here. But if he choose the other – the brainless, shallow minx with whom he thinks he is in love, then will his downfall be more rapid a hundred times. Now you know his chance and yours."

"But – but." Miriam was more and more bewildered. "But why choose me – you know nothing about me really, and what you do know is not on the face of it very reputable. How can you be sure that I am what you seem to think me?"

"I am sure of it. I knew it the first moment I saw your face; but still, I did not trust to that. I made inquiries; nothing was overlooked. I was very careful – you forget I had ample time and opportunity whilst you were recovering your health at the hotel."

Miriam turned pale.

"But how could you do that? I told you nothing of myself. You had nothing to go upon."

"I had sufficient for my purpose. I had Jabez, you told me about him. I learned what you had been to him – how in the midst of all corruption you had kept yourself pure, how your strength of purpose and never-flinching spirit had been exercised for him, how you had encouraged him and helped him and stuck to him through all tribulation, even to starvation – for you were starving on that night, Miriam. All this I learned, and more, and so I determined that you were the woman who should stand for the salvation of this man, and I brought you here that you might marry him if you would, and save him from himself. You see, I am not altogether so bad as you think me."

"Indeed, I don't know what to say, Mr. Barton. It is all so very strange to me. Surely it would be better to leave your money where it would do good, not evil – to Major Dundas, for instance."

"As a matter of fact, the money is at this moment left to Major Dundas; but I intend to alter my will in Gerald's favour. At first I thought to punish him by leaving him nothing. But I soon found out my mistake. As a poor man, obliged to work for his living, Gerald Arkel would stand a fair chance of happiness. As a rich one and his own master, he stands none. And so I have determined to offer him at one and the same time his ruin and his salvation. Now do you begin to understand?"

Still Miriam knew not what to say. The whole scheme was to her so fantastic and so abominable, and at the same time so extraordinary, that its genesis seemed hardly human. It was impossible to believe the man was sane. She decided she could have nothing to do with it.

"I am afraid," she said coldly, "that so far as I am concerned your scheme is quite impossible. Indeed, I can understand your wishing to salve your conscience in the face of so abominable a design as you contemplate for the ruin of this young man's life; and God knows I would willingly save him if I could. But much as I am interested in him, much as I – I feel, that is I think – oh, I don't know what to say," she broke off in despair. "I must return to Jabez, Mr. Barton. Let me pass out of this life of yours. I will go out of it – I refuse to do your dirty work!"

"And so you call it dirty work to save a human soul?"

"I must go back to Jabez, I say."

"That is to poverty, to disgrace, and – to crime!"

"To poverty, yes. But not to crime, no, nor to disgrace. I will leave to-morrow, Mr. Barton."

"You shall not."

"I must – I will. I do not fear you now. No, I defy you!"

"Take care, young lady; you had better not defy me."

"And why not?" She winced, though she spoke haughtily enough.

With a sudden pounce the man seized her wrist and bent so close to her that his lips almost touched her ear. So low, too, did he speak, that she could with difficulty hear what he said. But enough she heard to make her colour come and go; and when he had finished, the beads of perspiration stood out upon her forehead.

"Who told you?" she gasped. "Who told you?"

"The man who left me just now. He tells me all I wish to know."

"What is his name?"

"He has no name – for you. Call him 'The Shadow,' if you will. It will serve as well as any other name. Now, do you go or stay?"

She leaned against the writing-table, breathing heavily. For more than a minute she stood thus, battling with herself. Then slowly she turned and looked at him.

"I will stay," she said. Then she fell helplessly into a chair and sobbed bitterly.

Barton looked at her with a sneer. He went to the side-board for a decanter and a glass. As in a dream she was conscious of his holding wine to her lips, and as in a dream she drank it, and heard him speak to her.

"Remember," he said, "on your implicit obedience depends the future. Thwart me, and – "

"Hush, hush!" she cried, looking round in fear lest already someone should have overheard. "I will do all I can."

"Very good. Now, if you feel better, we will return to the drawing-room."

At the door she laid her hand upon his shoulder.

"One moment, Mr. Barton; you will keep this man – this shadow, as you call him – from doing harm?"

"I will. He is as much my slave as you are."

And Miriam, although she shuddered, did not dare to contradict him. She was indeed his slave. His whispered communication had given her no choice. Again, from that moment, poor Miriam had taken up her burden.

For long after that, the impression left by this extraordinary interview was deep upon her. Circumstances altogether beyond her control compelled her to obey Barton; but she could by no means understand him. He puzzled her completely. She could not reconcile the man's wish to ruin Gerald with his apparently co-existent desire to give him a chance of escape from the trap prepared for him. It was so utterly inconsistent to her mind. She could only surmise that the man had a conscience, and that in this way he strove to quieten it. The desire for vicarious punishment which seemed to have taken possession of him was, to her thinking, as childish as it was reprehensible. She could not reconcile it with either a normal sense of morality or with sanity.

It was no doubt a species of mania. Besides, in many other ways Barton's actions were such as to cast the gravest doubts as to his mental state. His behaviour became more and more perplexing, and his actions almost invariably baseless and inconsequent. And it was not until long after, when the skeins of the various lives with which her own had become entangled, began to unravel themselves, that she understood what was now perfectly inexplicable to her. Then, knowing what she knew, she was no longer surprised.

"Wherever have you been, Miss Crane?" demanded Mrs. Darrow with some asperity, as she and the Squire entered.

"Oh, she has been talking to me on a little matter of business," interrupted Barton before Miriam could reply. "It's all right, Julia, there is nothing for you to disturb yourself about."

"Oh, really, I don't mind in the least," said Mrs. Darrow, seeing she had made a faux pas; "but now that Miss Crane has returned to us, perhaps she will be so good as to sing something?"

Miriam's first impulse was to decline, for her interview with Barton had shaken her nerve a good deal. But she saw the sinister look of curiosity on Mrs. Darrow's face, and she determined she would give that lady no further ground for suspicion.

"I will sing with pleasure," she said, moving towards the piano. "But I am afraid I have brought no music."

"Oh, I saw to that," said Mrs. Darrow producing a roll. "I was quite sure Uncle Barton would like to hear your voice, so I brought a few of your songs for you."

"A few of my songs?" repeated Miriam; "and where, pray, did you get them?"

"Oh, it was Dicky who found them, in your room, dear. The child brought them down to show me a picture on the title page of one of them which seemed to have attracted him."

"Indeed! Perhaps you will give me the music?"

Mrs. Darrow rose to fetch the parcel. Then she proceeded to open it and read out the titles of the songs. On Hilda's face there was the blandest of smiles, masking, if the truth had but been known, the keenest of interest. She knew that Mrs. Darrow's bombshell was now about to explode. To her, as to the wily widow, this was the incident of the evening – in fact, the whole raison d'etre of it.