Chapter 21: Why He Killed Him

Something in the speaker’s face, in his voice, his air, prompted the girl to make a suggestion.

“You are tired. Won’t you act on the advice which you gave me. Won’t you sit down and rest?”

He shook his head.

“I admit I’m tired; I’ve been tired for quite a while, yet, I can manage to keep on, and, like you, I doubt if I’d be rested by trying to sit still. How the storm has come up; we were lucky to get here in time. I’m afraid it’s spoilt the procession of boats; they were forming just as I was starting in search of you. What with the noise the rain makes clattering on the roof--I hope there’s nothing on it to spoil; and the wind among the trees, and the rending thunder-claps, I shall soon have to speak louder if I want you to hear me.”

“You need not. I shall hear every word you say, even though the noise grows greater.”

Throughout they had been standing by the table, which occupied the centre of the cabin, almost within a foot of each other. Her girlish figure erect, and, as he put it, a little stiff; her hands at her sides, her head erect upon her pretty neck, her eyes fixed on his face. He, with his broad shoulders, and a trick of stooping which detracted from his unusual height; his right hand resting on the table, his left used now and then to point his words; his queer face, with its suggestion of whimsical humour blended with what she now saw was a look of pain. The man had appealed to her when, from behind the sheltering draperies, she had seen him first; now he appealed to her still more. Although he was so much the elder, she had an odd feeling that she would like to comfort him. At the moment he appeared to be unconscious of her gaze, but held his head a little on one side, as if he were listening for something, in the hurly-burly of the storm. Then, with a gesture which suggested weariness more than ever, he turned and looked her again in the face, drawing himself, with what seemed to be an effort, a little straighter.

“George Emmett? Oh yes, I was coming to George Emmett.” He did not seem to be in any hurry to go on with him; she waiting in silence with what seemed understanding of his mood. When he went on it was more slowly than before; as if his thoughts were hardly in sympathy with his words; as if, indeed, he were deliberately trying to find words which only gave imperfect expression to his thoughts. “George Emmett was not a person whom one would care to offer as a fair example of humanity. It’s easy to say that we should speak no ill of the dead; but it’s not easy to speak well of George Emmett; and I have to speak of him. His lines ran more or less parallel with mine for a good many years; and I never knew him forget himself sufficiently to do anything of which he had any cause to be proud. Miss Gilbert, he was not a nice man.”

“I know he wasn’t.”

“Then you did know him?”

“Of course I knew him; you know I did.”

“Do I? I’m not sure what I know on that point; later, I may come to you for information. At least, it seems, you knew him well enough to be aware that he was not, in all respects, a nice man.”

“Indeed! He was like a nightmare to me from the first moment I saw him. As I grew to know him better I don’t know if I hated or feared him more.”

“You seem to have reproduced your mother’s feelings towards George Emmett.”

“Did my mother know him?”

“To her sorrow. He chose to think himself in love with her--he did choose, now and then, to think himself in love.” Dorothy recalled the fashion of his wooing her; and shuddered. “Because she preferred your father--who, compared to him, was as Hyperion to a satyr--he chose to consider himself aggrieved; and when George Emmett had a grievance he invested it, and drew the interest, and waited for a time when he could realise at a thumping profit. He was a bad friend; but a worse enemy. When your mother declined his advances he promised her that he would make her smart for it; she herself told me of his promise. He kept his word. He spoilt her life, and your father’s also.”

“But how? You told me just now it was because they quarrelled.”

“He was the provocative influence. When your father was a young man he owed George Emmett money; nearly everyone who came in contact with Emmett did owe him money; even your mother. He used his influence with your father to breed in his mind suspicion of your mother; which would not have been an easy thing to do had not your mother, in her hatred of the man, actually gone out of her way to help him. It was a case of two simpletons and a blackguard--they were like putty in his hands. It’s a long and a tangled tale; but the end was as I’ve told you. Emmett’s grievance against your mother didn’t die with her. It lived on. For years, financially, your father was always more or less in his toils; and Emmett never lost an opportunity of fostering in him the feeling of resentment at what he supposed was your mother’s treachery; it was as if someone had been continually dropping an irritant on an open sore; the result was a festering horror. At last, even your father realised that the thing had become past bearing. He did what, if he had been another man, he might have done years before: he strained every nerve--such nerves as he had left--to rid himself of the incubus. And he succeeded. And though, when all was done, he was practically a beggar, his freedom was cheap even at the price which he had paid. The odd thing was that, scarcely was he beggared, when Fortune, in one of her most fantastic moods, tossed wealth into his hands--so that he was a rich man when he died. I was abroad at the time of his death; but, as soon as I heard the news, I hurried home. I found his will; I found his fortune; I found that he had left the whole conduct of affairs in my hands; and, also, for the first time I learned your address. I had never known it before; he was the only person who had known it. I believe it was the only secret he ever kept; and, for keeping it, I find it hard to forgive him even now. Had I only been acquainted with your whereabouts I should have communicated with you, both at regular and irregular intervals. I should have asked you to regard me as a deputy father.”