The parlour-maid took Mr. Wonham to the study. He had been in the drawing-room before, but had got bored, and so had strolled out into the garden. Now he was in better spirits, as a man ought to be who has knocked down a man. As he passed through the hall he sparred at the teak monkey, and hung his cap on the bust of Hermes. And he greeted Mrs. Elliot with a pleasant clap of laughter. "Oh, I've come with the most tremendous news!" he cried.
She bowed, but did not shake hands, which rather surprised him.
But he never troubled over "details." He seldom watched people, and never thought that they were watching him. Nor could he guess how much it meant to her that he should enter her presence smok-ing. Had she not said once at Cadover, "Oh, please smoke; I love the smell of a pipe"?
"Would you sit down? Exactly there, please." She placed him at a large table, opposite an inkpot and a pad of blotting-paper.
"Will you tell your 'tremendous news' to me? My brother and my husband are giving the boys their dinner.""Ah!" said Stephen, who had had neither time nor money for breakfast in London.
"I told them not to wait for me."
So he came to the point at once. He trusted this handsome woman.
His strength and his youth called to hers, expecting no prudish response. "It's very odd. It is that I'm Rickie's brother. I've just found out. I've come to tell you all.""Yes?"
He felt in his pocket for the papers. "Half-brother I ought to have said.""Yes?"
"I'm illegitimate. Legally speaking, that is, I've been turned out of Cadover. I haven't a penny. I--""There is no occasion to inflict the details." Her face, which had been an even brown, began to flush slowly in the centre of the cheeks. The colour spread till all that he saw of her was suffused, and she turned away. He thought he had shocked her, and so did she. Neither knew that the body can be insincere and express not the emotions we feel but those that we should like to feel. In reality she was quite calm, and her dislike of him had nothing emotional in it as yet.
"You see--" he began. He was determined to tell the fidgety story, for the sooner it was over the sooner they would have something to eat. Delicacy he lacked, and his sympathies were limited. But such as they were, they rang true: he put no decorous phantom between him and his desires.
"I do see. I have seen for two years." She sat down at the head of the table, where there was another ink-pot. Into this she dipped a pen. "I have seen everything, Mr. Wonham--who you are, how you have behaved at Cadover, how you must have treated Mrs.
Failing yesterday; and now"--her voice became very grave--"I see why you have come here, penniless. Before you speak, we know what you will say."His mouth fell open, and he laughed so merrily that it might have given her a warning. But she was thinking how to follow up her first success. "And I thought I was bringing tremendous news!" he cried. "I only twisted it out of Mrs. Failing last night. And Rickie knows too?""We have known for two years."
"But come, by the bye,--if you've known for two years, how is it you didn't--" The laugh died out of his eyes. "You aren't ashamed?" he asked, half rising from his chair. "You aren't like the man towards Andover?""Please, please sit down," said Agnes, in the even tones she used when speaking to the servants; "let us not discuss side issues. Iam a horribly direct person, Mr. Wonham. I go always straight to the point." She opened a chequebook. "I am afraid I shall shock you. For how much?"He was not attending.
"There is the paper we suggest you shall sign." She pushed towards him a pseudo-legal document, just composed by Herbert.
"In consideration of the sum of..., I agree to perpetual silence--to restrain from libellous...never to molest the said Frederick Elliot by intruding--'"His brain was not quick. He read the document over twice, and he could still say, "But what's that cheque for?""It is my husband's. He signed for you as soon as we heard you were here. We guessed you had come to be silenced. Here is his signature. But he has left the filling in for me. For how much? Iwill cross it, shall I? You will just have started a banking account, if I understand Mrs. Failing rightly. It is not quite accurate to say you are penniless: I heard from her just before you returned from your cricket. She allows you two hundred a-year, I think. But this additional sum--shall I date the cheque Saturday or for tomorrow?"At last he found words. Knocking his pipe out on the table, he said slowly, "Here's a very bad mistake.""It is quite possible," retorted Agnes. She was glad she had taken the offensive, instead of waiting till he began his blackmailing, as had been the advice of Rickie. Aunt Emily had said that very spring, "One's only hope with Stephen is to start bullying first." Here he was, quite bewildered, smearing the pipe-ashes with his thumb. He asked to read the document again.
"A stamp and all!" he remarked.
They had anticipated that his claim would exceed two pounds.
"I see. All right. It takes a fool a minute. Never mind. I've made a bad mistake.""You refuse?" she exclaimed, for he was standing at the door.
"Then do your worst! We defy you!"
"That's all right, Mrs. Elliot," he said roughly. "I don't want a scene with you, nor yet with your husband. We'll say no more about it. It's all right. I mean no harm.""But your signature then! You must sign--you--"He pushed past her, and said as he reached for his cap, "There, that's all right. It's my mistake. I'm sorry." He spoke like a farmer who has failed to sell a sheep. His manner was utterly prosaic, and up to the last she thought he had not understood her. "But it's money we offer you," she informed him, and then darted back to the study, believing for one terrible moment that he had picked up the blank cheque. When she returned to the hall he had gone. He was walking down the road rather quickly. At the corner he cleared his throat, spat into the gutter, and disappeared.
