“For God’s sake, Judith, let us go in! I will tell you everything, but not before this woman!”
She looked down at the deaf woman, who was still holding the door, and nodding and smiling at her, and then stepped over the threshold into a narrow passage with some stairs at the end of it. Bernard Taverner threw open a door and disclosed a low-pitched but roomy apartment with windows at each end, which was evidently the parlour. Judith went in without hesitation, and waited for him to close the door again. “Peregrine is not here?” she said.
He shook his head. “No. I could think of no other way to bring you. Do not judge me too harshly! To deceive you with such seeming heartlessness has been the most painful thing of all! But you would never have come with me. You would have gone to town with Audley, and been tricked into marrying him. You must—you shall forgive me!”
“Where is Peregrine?” she interrupted.
“I believe him to be dead. I do not know. Do you think if I did I would not have led you to him? Worth made away with him—”
“Worth!” she said. “No, not Worth! I am asking you! What have you done to Perry? Answer me!”
“Judith, I swear to you I know no more than you do what has become of him! I had no hand in that. What do I care for Peregrine, or his fortune? Have I proved myself so false that you can believe that of me? It is you I want, have wanted from the day I first saw you! I never meant it to be like this, but what could I do, what other course was open to me? Nothing I could have said would have prevented you from going to London with Audley, and once you were in his and Worth’s hands, what hope had I of saving you from that iniquitous marriage? Again and again I have warned you not to trust Worth, but you have not heeded me! Then came Peregrine’s disappearance, and once more you would not listen to me. Even so, I should have shrunk from taking this step had I not seen the marriage-licence in Audley’s possession. But I knew then that if I was to save you from being the victim of Worth’s fiendish schemes I must act drastically—treacherously, if you will!—but yet because I love you!”
She sank down on a chair beside the table, and buried her face in her hands. “What does that matter?” she asked. “I do not know whether you are speaking the truth or not; I do not care. Perry is all that signifies.” Her hands fell; she stretched them out to him. “Cousin, whatever you have done I can forgive, if you will only tell me Perry is not dead!”
He went down on his knees by her chair, grasping her hands. “I cannot tell you. I do not know. It was not I who made away with him. Perhaps he is not dead; if you will marry me we will—”
“Marry you!” she cried. “I shall never marry you!”
He rose and walked away from her to the window. With his back to her he said: “You must marry me.”
She stared at him. “Are you mad?”
He shook his head. “Not mad. Desperate.”
She said nothing. She was looking about her as though she had just realized the significance of this cottage, lost in the Weald. After a moment he said in a quieter tone: “I must try to make you understand.”
“I do understand,” she said. The fingers of her right hand clenched and unclenched. “I understand why I was not to leave a message for Mrs. Scattergood, why you would not change horses on the road. The woman who lives in this place—is she in your pay?”
“Yes,” he replied curtly.
“I hope you pay her handsomely,” she said.
“Judith, you hate me for this, but you have nothing to fear from me, I promise you!”
“You are mistaken; I do not fear you.”
“You have no need. I want you to be my wife—”
“Would you want me to be your wife if I were not possessed of a fortune?” she said scathingly.
“Yes! Oh, I shan’t deny I need your fortune, but my love for you is real! Too real to allow of my doing anything now that could set you more against me! I am aware how much I have injured my own cause by this step I have taken. It is for me to show you in what respect I hold you. I shall not presume even to touch you without your leave, even though I must keep you here until I have your promise to marry me!”
“You will not get it, I assure you.”
“Ah, you do not understand. You have not considered! That I should be obliged to point out to you—But it must be done! Judith, do you know that a fortnight—a week—spent in my company, hidden away from your friends, must make it impossible for you to refuse? Your reputation would be so damaged that even Worth himself must counsel you to marry me! In plain words, cousin—”
A voice from the other end of the room interposed coolly: “You need not speak any more plain words, Mr. Taverner. You have said quite enough to compromise yourself.”
Judith gave a cry and turned. The Earl of Worth was seated astride the window-sill at the back of the room. He was wearing riding-dress, and he carried his gloves and his whip in his hand. As Judith started up from her chair he swung his other leg over the sill and stepped quickly into the room, tossing his gloves and whip on to the table.
“You!” The word burst from Bernard Taverner’s pale lips. He had spun round at the sound of the Earl’s voice, and stood swaying on the balls of his feet, glaring across the room, for one moment before he sprang.
Miss Taverner uttered a shriek of terror, but before it had died on her lips it was all over. At one moment the Earl seemed in danger of being murdered by her cousin, at the next Bernard Taverner had gone down before a crashing blow to the jaw, and was lying on the floor with an overturned chair beside him, and the Earl standing over him with his fists clenched, and a look on his face that made Miss Taverner run forward and clasp her hands about his arm. “Oh no!” she gasped. “You must not! Lord Worth, I beg of you—!”
He looked down at her, and the expression that had frightened her died out of his eyes. “I beg your pardon, Clorinda,” he said. “I was rather forgetting your presence. You may get up, Mr. Taverner. We will finish this when Miss Taverner is not by.”
Bernard Taverner had struggled on to one elbow. He dragged himself to his feet, and stood leaning heavily against the wall, trying to regain full possession of his senses. The Earl picked up the fallen chair and handed Miss Taverner to it. “I owe you an apology,” he said. “You have had an uncomfortable sort of a morning, and I am afraid that was my doing.”
She said: “Peregrine—he said it was you who kidnapped Peregrine!”
“That,” said the Earl, “is probably the only correct information he has given you.”
She turned very white. “Correct!”
“Perfectly correct,” he said, his gaze resting mockingly on Taverner’s face.
“I don’t understand! Oh, you could not have done so!”
“Thank you, Clorinda,” he said, with a faint smile. “But the fact remains that I did.”
She glanced towards her cousin, and saw that he was staring at Worth with a mixture of horror and incredulity in his eyes. She got up. “Oh, what are you saying? Where is Perry? For God’s sake, tell me, one of you!”
“By this time,” said the Earl, “Peregrine is probably in Marine Parade. Don’t look so surprised, Mr. Taverner: you cannot seriously have imagined that I should permit you to ship my ward off to the West Indies.”
“In Marine Parade!” Judith repeated. “The West Indies! Bernard! Oh no, no!”
Bernard Taverner passed a hand across his eyes. “It’s a lie! I did not have Peregrine put away!”
“No,” agreed the Earl. “You did your best, but you reckoned without me. However, you may console yourself with the reflection that your careful arrangements were not wasted. The master of that highly suspicious vessel off Lancing was quite satisfied to receive Tyler in Peregrine’s stead. In fact, I am inclined to doubt whether he even appreciated that an exchange had been made. I was quite sure, you see, that you would not expect to see Tyler back again in Brighton. That would have been too dangerous, I feel. So it was really very safe for me to dispose of him precisely as he meant to dispose of Peregrine.”