That Mainwaring Affair Part 41

When he at last spoke, his voice was calm, without a trace of anger or bitterness.

"Mrs. LaGrange, I have been informed that in the days before you ruined my father's life you were an actress in a second-cla.s.s London playhouse, and I see you have not yet lost some little tricks of the stage; but we are not now before the footlights, and it will be much better to lay aside everything pertaining to them. Nothing that you have said has awakened my pity or touched my sympathies for you; in fact, what you have told me has only steeled my heart against you because of its utter falsity. It is unnecessary to go over the ground again, but if you could not reciprocate the love and devotion bestowed upon you by my father, you should never have accepted it; but accepting it as you did, you were bound by every consideration to be true and loyal to that love and to him. Instead, from beginning to end, you have been false to him, false to his memory, false to your own wifehood and motherhood, false to yourself! I have not come here to reproach you, however. I will only say that I do not believe the capacity--the capability even--of love exists, or has ever existed, within you. But," he continued, in gentler tones, "the capacity for suffering does exist, and I can see without any simulation on your part that you have suffered."

Before the look of pity which now for the first time softened the stern features, she broke down, and genuine tears coursed down her pallid cheeks as she cried, "Suffered! what have I not suffered!

I am homeless, penniless, degraded, an outcast! There is no hope, no help for me unless you will help me. I know what you must think of me, how even you, my son, must despise me, but as a drowning man catches at a straw, I sent for you, hoping that you would in mercy pity me and help me."

"Do you wish me to help you pecuniarily? I will willingly do that."

"Pecuniarily!" she exclaimed, almost in scorn. "Cannot you understand what I need most? It is pity, sympathy, love! I want the love and support of my first-born son, and I am willing to beg for it," and, rising from her chair, she threw herself upon her knees beside him, "only be my son, forget the past and let me be to you, as I am, your mother! No, let me be!" she exclaimed, as he would have raised her from her kneeling posture. "I have no son but you, for Walter, like his father, has deserted me, with taunts and sneers. I can help you, too," she added, eagerly, but in low tones, "help you in a way of which you little dream. Do you know what Ralph Mainwaring will attempt next? He will try to implicate you in the murder of Hugh Mainwaring!"

"That will be no more than you yourself attempted at the inquest,"

he answered.

"Ah, but his motive is different; in my case it was but the resort of a weak woman to divert suspicion from herself; but he will seek to fasten this crime upon you to defeat you, to crush and ruin you, because he fears you as his opponent, and it is within my power to clear you from any charges he may bring against you."

Her voice sank nearly to a whisper, her eyes were dilated, and she was trembling with excitement.

He watched her intently for a moment, then spoke in a tone of calm command. "Tell me how you could help me. What do you know of that affair?"

"Listen, and I will tell you," and leaning towards him, she whispered a few words in his ears.

Only a few words, but Harold Mainwaring started as from a shock, while his face grew as pale as her own, and it was with difficulty he could control his voice, as he demanded in quick, excited tones,--

"Do you know what you are saying? Are you speaking the truth?"

"Yes, before Heaven, it is the truth, and the horror of it has haunted me day and night; the thought of it has driven me nearly mad, but I dared not breathe it to any living human being."

"You have told no one else what you have just told me?"

"No, I dared not."

He asked a few more questions which she answered, and from her manner he was convinced that she spoke the truth. Then he sat for a moment silent, his head bowed, his eyes covered, lost in thought, while strangely commingled emotions surged within his breast.

At last she broke the silence. "It will help you--what I have told you--will it not?"

"It is of inestimable value to me," he answered, but instead of exultation, there was a strange sadness in his voice.

"You will let me help you, and you will be a son to me, will you not?"

He looked at her with an expression of mingled pity and bitterness, and then, without replying, lifted her gently but firmly and reseated her, while he himself remained standing at a little distance. She watched him anxiously.

"Harold," at last she ventured, "think what I have suffered, and do not refuse my one prayer."

"I can see that you have suffered," he answered, gently; "and, as I have told you, I will help you pecuniarily and will befriend you, only do not ask me that which I cannot give."

"I ask nothing more," she exclaimed, pa.s.sionately, rising to her feet, "than that you be a son to me, and I will accept nothing less."

"I am sorry to hear you say that," he replied, "for you are only unnecessarily depriving yourself of many benefits that might be yours. I would provide a home for you where you would be unknown, and means that you could spend the remainder of your life in comfort."

"What would I care for any home or wealth that you might provide for me," she demanded, angrily, "if you yourself would not acknowledge me as your mother! I will accept nothing from you under such conditions."

"Then we may as well end this conference," he replied, calmly, "for I hold my father in too deep love and reverence ever to permit of my applying to you the sacred name of 'Mother.'"

Her eyes flashed at the mention of his father, and she was about to speak, but he lifted his hand warningly. "Hus.h.!.+" he commanded; "not one word shall you speak against him in my presence! Before I go, I will give you an opportunity to reconsider your declaration of a moment ago."

"I will not reconsider it. You are like every Mainwaring that I have ever known, in that you think money and shelter, such as you might fling at some superannuated servant, will take the place of the true position and honor that are my due."

"Do you then, finally and once for all, refuse any and all offers of a.s.sistance from me?" he asked.

"I do," she replied, proudly; "I will not accept charity from a Mainwaring,--not even from you!"

"Very well; if that is your decision, I bid you adieu," and before she could reply, he was gone.

He pa.s.sed swiftly down the corridor, his head bowed slightly, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, but his step had an elasticity it had not possessed in weeks, and any one pa.s.sing near him would have heard the single exclamation, "Thank G.o.d!"

Upon reaching his carriage, he spoke quickly to the driver, "To the Waldorf at once!" and was borne away by the impatient steeds even more swiftly than he had come.

Meanwhile, within the room which he had just left, the wretched woman, whose falseness and pride had wrought her own undoing, stood listening to the retreating footsteps; she heard them die away in the distance, heard the carriage-wheels roll rapidly down the avenue, then sank upon a low couch with a cry of despair.

"All is over," she moaned, "and I have failed. I could not force him to my terms, and I would never yield to his. I will take charity from no one, least of all from him. I will be first, or nothing!" and she s.h.i.+vered faintly.

After a tune she arose, and ringing for her maid, ordered a light repast brought to her room, as she would not go down to dinner; "And," she concluded, "you can have the evening to yourself: I expect callers, and will not need you."

An hour later, Richard Hobson crept along the corridor and tapped for admittance. There was no answer, and cautiously pus.h.i.+ng open the door, he entered unbidden, but started back in horror at the sight which met his eyes. The electric lights had not been turned on, but a few tall wax tapers, in a pair of candelabra upon the mantel, were burning, and in the dim, weird light, Mrs. LaGrange, still elegantly attired for her interview with Harold Mainwaring, lay upon the low couch near the grate, her features scarcely paler than a few hours before, but now rigid in death. Upon the table beside her, the supper ordered by the maid stood untasted, while on the same table a small vial bearing the label of one of the deadliest of poisons, but empty, told the story. Underneath the vial was a slip of paper, on which was written,--

"I have staked my highest card--and lost! The game is done."

Terror-stricken, Hobson glanced about him, then pausing only long enough to clutch some of the gleaming jewels from the inanimate form, he stealthily withdrew, and, skulking un.o.bserved along the corridors, pa.s.sed out into the darkness and was gone.

CHAPTER XXII

SECESSION IN THE RANKS

When Ralph Mainwaring and Mr. Whitney arrived at the club they found young Mainwaring already awaiting them at their private table, but it was far from a social group which sat down to dinner that evening.

The elder Mainwaring still preserved an ominous silence, and in his dark, glowering face few would have recognized the urbane guest whom Hugh Mainwaring had introduced to his small coterie of friends less than three months before. The younger man, though holding a desultory conversation with the attorney, yet looked decidedly bored, while from time to time he regarded his father with a cynical expression entirely new to his. .h.i.therto ingenuous face. Mr. Whitney, always keenly alert to his surroundings, became quickly conscious of a sudden lack of harmony between father and son, and feeling himself in rather a delicate position, carefully refrained in his remarks from touching upon any but the most neutral ground.

A couple of hours later, as the three with a box of cigars were gathered around an open fire in Ralph Mainwaring's apartments, it was noticeable that young Mainwaring was unusually silent. In a few moments, however, his father's long pent-up wrath burst forth.

Addressing the attorney in no very pleasant tone, he demanded, "Well, sir, what do you now propose to do about this matter?"

"It is to be a fight, then, is it?" Mr. Whitney asked with a smile, knocking the ashes from his cigar.

"Yes, by my soul, and a fight to the finish. Understand, I will have no time lost. This farce has got to be quashed at once, and the sooner the better, so you may enter protest and file an application for hearing, or whatever your mode of procedure is in this country, at the earliest possible moment. Meanwhile, I'll secure the best legal talent that money can get to help you. I've a longer purse than that old Australian sheep-herder thinks, and when the time for contest comes, I'll meet him on his own ground."