Dolff hurried out of the room so bewildered and dazed that he neither understood what this new revelation was, nor what he was sent out to do. He felt himself hustled out of the room by his anxious sisters, while Meredith was left to be the defender of the party against the madman. The madman! What was it his mother had said. To fetch Vicars—but that was not all—to get something out of his father’s coat. His father! Dolff stopped a few steps from the door, out of which he had been thrust to run in haste and bring what was wanted out of his father’s coat.{298} “My father,” Dolff said to himself, “has been dead since ever I can remember. Who is my father?” He was completely bewildered. He remembered his mother very well in her widow’s cap. And she was known everywhere to be a widow. “Your father!”—he could not think what it meant. He believed there must be some mistake, some strange illusion which had fallen upon them, or which, perhaps, they had thought of, invented, to prevent remark. “Your father!” could it have been said only to shut his mouth?
It was due to Providence, not to Dolff, that Vicars came in his way, drifting across the hall in pursuit of his patient. Vicars had the famous pocket-book in his hand, and Dolff wondered vaguely what was the meaning of it, and how it was that this pocket-book, like a property on the stage, should be so mixed up with the poor man’s thoughts, if these distracted fancies could be called thoughts. All that he could do was to point towards the drawing-room, whither Vicars hastened. He had no command of his voice to say anything, or of himself to be able to exercise his own wits. He dropped in his dismay upon one of the hard wooden chairs in the hall, and sat there staring vaguely before him, trying to think.
There was a faint jar of the door, and a little figure came out abruptly, as if escaping. It was Janet, whose smooth hair was a little out of order, and her black dress crushed by the half embrace in which the madman had held her. Janet was deeply humiliated by that embrace, by having thus appeared before Meredith and all of them, the object of the old man’s fondling. Her face was obscured by anger and annoyance, and when Dolff sprang up and put himself in her way, the little governess looked for a moment like a little fury, contemplating him with a desire in her eyes to strike him to dust if she had been able—a fiery little Gorgon, with the will without the power.
“What is it—what is it now?” she cried, clenching her hand as if she would have struck him, yet at the same moment holding herself in with difficulty from a fit of angry tears.
“Janet, don’t forsake me,” cried Dolff; “I am half mad, I don’t know what to think. Who is he? Tell me who he is!”
“Mr. Harwood,” cried Janet, fiercely, “you—you are not a wise child.”
He looked at her with a naive wonder.
“I have never set up for being wise. You are far, far more quick than I am. I suppose you understand it, Janet. I know you don’t care for me, as I do for you; but you might{299} feel for me a little. Oh, don’t turn away like that—I know you’ve thrown me off; but help me—only help me. Who is he? Tell me who he is.”
“Mr. Harwood,” said Janet, “how should I know your family history? He is your father; any one can see that.”
“It is impossible,” said Dolff; “my father is dead.”
“Of course, I cannot know anything,” said Janet, with a cruel intention which she did not disguise from herself, with her lip a little raised over her white teeth like a fierce little animal at bay, “but I will tell you what I think. Your father has done something which made it better that he should be thought dead, and your mother has hidden him away and kept him a close prisoner all these years: but now it is all found out.”
“Done something—that made it better he should be thought dead!” Dolff turned so deadly pale that the girl’s heart smote her. The place seemed to turn round and round with him. He fell back against the wall as if he would have fallen. “You don’t mean that!—you don’t mean that!” he cried, piteously, stretching out his hands to her as if she could help it.
“Oh! forgive me, Mr. Dolff. I did not mean to hurt you so.”
“Never mind about hurting me,” he said, hoarsely. “Is it true?”
She made no reply; what did she know about it? Perhaps it was not true—but what else could any one think who was not a fool? If Dolff had not been a fool he would have known that it must be so. She stood confronting him for a minute while he stood there supporting himself against the wall, hiding his face in his hands. And then Janet left him, running upstairs to escape altogether from these family mysteries, with which she had nothing to do. It had been very interesting at first, full of excitement, like a story. But now Janet felt that it was a great consolation to have nothing really to do with it, to retire and leave these people to manage their own affairs. And she had in her veins an entirely new excitement, something of her own enough to occupy all her thoughts.
She ran upstairs, leaving Dolff in his dismay with his head hidden in his hands—what had she to do with that?—and fled to her comfortable room, where she sat down beside the blazing fire, and turned to her own affairs—they were important enough now to demand her full attention. Since she had written that letter, Janet herself had become subject to all the suspenses, the doubts and alarms of independent life. What would be thought of it? Would he still be in the same mind? Would he come to take her away? And oh, biggest and most{300} serious of all her questions, if he did come, if he were still of the same mind, could she endure him—could she accept the fate which she had thus invited for herself? Janet had serious enough questions of her own to discuss with herself as she sat over the glowing fire.
Poor Dolff did not know how long he stood there, with his head against the wall. He was roused at last by the sound of a movement in the drawing-room, and presently the door opened, and a sort of procession came out. First of all, the strange new inmate of the house leaning upon Vicars, looking back and kissing his hand to the others behind him, who came crowding out in a group close to each other.
“I’ll come often now and sit an hour with you in the evening,” he said. “Now that everybody’s paid, I’ll live a new life. My children, don’t be frightened; I’ll take care of you all. For,” he said, stopping short, turning Vicars round by the arm, “I’m to have a wheeled chair and go out for an airing to-morrow. Hey, what do you think—an airing! That means it’s all paid and everything right.”
“I wouldn’t, if I were you, say the same thing over not more than twenty times,” said Vicars, sulkily; “and you won’t have no airing, I can tell you, if you don’t come off to bed.”
“That’s Vicars all over,” said the smiling patient. “Vicars all over! You would think he’s my master—and he’s only my servant! Yes—yes, it’s all paid, and everything right—or how could I go out for an airing to-morrow? There is plenty in the pocket-book for everybody. You know—in the pocket-book. Eh! My! Where’s my pocket-book?” he cried, suddenly changing his tone and searching in his breast-pocket. “Vicars, do you hear? My pocket-book! Where’s my pocket-book? It’s not where I always have it—I keep it here, you know, to keep it safe. My pocket-book!” cried the poor maniac, tossing Vicars from him and waving his arms wildly.
His distracted eyes caught at this moment the figure of Dolff standing against the wall. Dolff had uncovered his pale and miserable countenance: he was standing in the shade, mysterious, half seen, with that very pale face looking out from the semi-dark. The madman rushed towards him with a cry.
“There’s the thief! There’s the thief! Get hold of him before he gets away! He’s got my pocket-book—lay hold of him! I’m not strong enough,” he added, turning round with an explanatory look, “to do it myself. Never getting any air{301} you know, as I couldn’t till things were settled. I’ve got very little strength.”
“I thought,” said Vicars, “as taking that pocket-book from him was a mistake! He’s always a-looking back upon that pocket-book! You’ll have to give it him back.”
“Don’t you remember, sir,” said Meredith, holding up a sealed packet, “that you gave it to me to put it up—look at the seals, you stamped them yourself. You gave it to me to pay off everything. Try to remember. Here it is, safe and sound. You gave it to me yourself.”
“And who the devil are you,” said the invalid, “that I should give you all my money? You’re not one of them: some fellow, Vicars, that Julia has picked up. She’s always picking people up. Give it back, make him give it back, Vicars—my money that’s meant to pay off everybody! Give it back—back! I tell you I’ll pay them all myself! I’ll go out to-morrow in the wheel-chair—you know, Vicars, the wheel-chair for the airing—and pay them all myself!”
“Who is it,” said Dolff, coming forward out of the gloom, “who has to be paid back? and who is this man? For you all seem to know.”
“Come, come, sir,” said Vicars; “it’s your time for bed. You’ll not go nowhere, neither for an airing nor to pay them debts of yours, if you don’t come straight off to bed.”
“Who is he?” cried Dolff, pushing upon the group. “Who are you? For I will know.”
To the surprise of all, the madman, who had been so self-confident, suddenly shrank behind Vicars, and, catching his arm, pulled him towards the door that led to the wing.
“I’m afraid of that man,” he said, in a whispering, hissing tone. “Vicars, get me home; get me out of sight. He’s an officer. Vicars, I’m not safe with that man!”
“Hold your tongue, can’t you, Mr. Dolff, till I get him away,” cried Vicars, pushing past. And in a moment the pair had disappeared within the mysterious door, which swung after them, noiseless, clos............