Chapter 1

The Crack of Doom

There is no difficulty whatever in deciding upon the exact moment at
which to open this history. Into some lives the fateful and
significant creep by degrees, unnoticed till by the development of
their consequences the mind is aroused and memory is set, like a
sleuth-hound, to retrace the course of events and track the present to
its origin in the past. Not so has it been with mine. Serene,
eventless, its quiet years had slipped away unnumbered, from childhood
to youth, from youth to womanhood, when, at the appointed moment, the
voice of Destiny rang out, trumpet-tongued; and behold! in the
twinkling of an eye all was changed.

“Happy,” it has been said, “is the nation which has no history!” And
surely the same may be said with equal truth of individuals. So, at
any rate, experience teaches me; for the very moment wherein I may be
said to have begun to have a history saw a life-long peace shattered
into a chaos of misery and disaster.

How well I remember the day--yea, and the very moment--when the blow
fell, like a thunderbolt crashing down out of a cloudless sky. I had
been sitting in my little room upstairs, reading very studiously and
pausing now and again to think over what I had read. The book was
Lecky’s “History of England in the Eighteenth Century,” and the period
on which I was engaged was that of Queen Anne. And here, coming
presently upon a footnote containing a short quotation from “The
Spectator,” it occurred to me that I should like to look over the
original letter. Accordingly, laying aside my book, I began to descend
the stairs--very softly, because I knew that my father had a
visitor--possibly a client--with him in his study. And when I came to
the turn of the stair and saw that the study door was ajar, I stepped
more lightly still, though I stole down quickly lest I should overhear
what was being said.

The library, or book-room as we called it, was next to the study, and
to reach it I had to pass the half-opened door, which I did swiftly on
tip-toe, without hearing more than the vague murmur of conversation
from within. “The Spectators” stood on a shelf close to the door; a
goodly row clothed in rusty calf to which the worn gilt tooling
imparted a certain sumptuousness that had always seemed very pleasant
to my eye. My hand was on the third volume when I heard my father say:

“So that’s how the matter stands.”

I plucked the volume from the shelf, and, tucking it under my arm,
stole out of the book-room, intending to dart up the stairs before
there should be time for anything more to be said; but I had hardly
crossed the threshold, and was, in fact, exactly opposite the study
door, when a voice said very distinctly, though not at all loudly:

“Do you realise, Vardon, that this renders you liable to seven years’
penal servitude?”

At those terrible words I stopped as though I had been, in a moment,
turned into stone: stopped with my lips parted, my very breathing
arrested, clutching at the book under my arm, with no sign of life or
movement save the tumultuous thumping of my heart. There was what
seemed an interminable pause, and then my father replied:

“Hardly, I think, Otway. Technically, perhaps, it amounts to a
misdemeanour----”

“Technically!” repeated Mr. Otway.

“Yes, technically. The absence of any intent to defraud modifies the
position considerably. Still, for the purpose of argument, we may
admit that it amounts to a misdemeanour.”

“And,” said Mr. Otway, “the maximum punishment of that misdemeanour is
seven years’ penal servitude. As to your plea of absence of fraudulent
intent, you, as a lawyer of experience, must know well that judges are
not apt to be very sympathetic with trustees who misappropriate
property placed in their custody.”

“Misappropriate!” my father exclaimed.

“Yes,” replied Mr. Otway, “I say misappropriate. What other word could
you apply? Here is a sum of money which has been placed in your
custody. I come to you with authority to receive that money from you
on behalf of the trustees, and you tell me that you haven’t got it.
You are not only unable to produce it, but you are unable to give any
date on which you could produce it. And meanwhile it seems that you
have applied it to your own uses.”

“I haven’t spent it,” my father objected. “The money is locked up for
the present, but it isn’t lost.”

“What is the use of saying that?” demanded Mr. Otway. “You haven’t got
the money, and you can’t give any satisfactory account of it. The
plain English of it is that you have used this trust money for your
own private purposes, and that when the trustors ask to have it
restored to them, you are unable to produce it.”

To this my father made no immediate reply; and in the silence that
ensued I could hear my heart throbbing and the blood humming in the
veins of my neck. At length my father asked:

“Well, Otway, what are you going to do?”

“Do!” repeated Mr. Otway. “What can I do? As a trustee, it is my duty
to get this money from you. I have to protect the interests of those
whom I represent. And if you have misapplied these funds--well, you
must see for yourself that I have no choice.”

“You mean that you’ll prosecute?”

“What else can I do? I can’t introduce personal considerations into
the business of a trust; and even if I should decline to move in the
matter, the trustors themselves would undoubtedly take action.”

Here there followed a silence which seemed to me of endless duration;
then Mr. Otway said, in a somewhat different tone:

“There is just one way for you out of this mess, Vardon.”

“Indeed!” said my father.

“Yes. I am going to make you a proposal, and I may as well put it
quite bluntly. It is this. I am prepared to take over your
liabilities, for the time being, on condition that I marry your
daughter. If you agree, then on the day on which the marriage takes
place, I pay into your bank the sum of five thousand pounds, you
giving me an undertaking to repay the loan if and when you can.”

“Have you any reason to suppose that my daughter wishes to marry you?”
my father asked.

“Not the slightest,” replied Mr. Otway; “but I think it probable that,
if the case were put to her----”

“It is not going to be,” my father interrupted. “I would rather go to
gaol than connive at the sacrifice of my daughter’s happiness.”

“You might have thought of her happiness a little sooner, Vardon,” Mr.
Otway remarked. “We are not quite of an age, but she might easily find
it more agreeable to be the wife of an elderly man than the daughter
of a convict. At any rate, it would be only fair to give her the
choice.”

“It would be entirely unfair,” my father retorted. “In effect, it
would be asking her to make the sacrifice, and she might be fool
enough to consent. And please bear in mind, Otway, that I am not a
convict yet, and possibly may never be one. There are certain
conceivable alternatives, you know.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Otway, “if you have resources that you have not
mentioned, that is quite another matter. I understood that you had
none. And as to sacrifice, there is no need to harp on that string so
persistently. Your daughter might be happy enough as my wife.”

“What infernal nonsense you are talking!” my father exclaimed,
impatiently. “Do you suppose that Helen is a fool?”

“No, I certainly do not,” Mr. Otway replied.

“Very well, then: what do you mean by her being happy as your wife?
Here am I, standing over a mine----”

“Of your own laying,” interrupted Mr. Otway.

“Quite so; of my own laying. And here you come with a lighted match
and say to my daughter, in effect: ‘My dear young lady, I am your
devoted lover. Be my wife--consent this very instant or I fire this
mine and blow you and your father to smithereens.’ And then, you
think, she would settle down with you and live happy ever after. By
the Lord, Otway, you must be a devilish poor judge of character.”

“I am quite willing to take the risk,” said Mr. Otway.

“So you may be,” my father retorted angrily, “but I’m not. I would
rather see the poor girl in her grave than know that she was chained
for life to a cold-blooded, blackmailing scoundrel----”

“Softly, Vardon!” Mr. Otway interrupted. “There is no need for that
sort of language. And perhaps we had better shut the door.”

Here, as I drew back hastily into the book-room, quick footsteps
crossed the study floor and I heard the door close. The interruption
brought me back to some sense of my position; though, to be sure, what
I had overheard concerned me as much as it concerned anyone. Quickly
slipping the book back on the shelf, I ran on tip-toe past the study
door and up the stairs; and even then I was none too soon; for, as I
halted on the threshold of my room, the study door opened again and
the two men strode across the hall.

“You are taking a ridiculously wrong-headed view of the whole affair,”
I heard Mr. Otway declare.

“Possibly,” my father replied, stiffly. “And if I do, I am prepared to
take the consequences.”

“Only the consequences won’t fall on you alone,” said Mr. Otway.

“Good afternoon,” was the dry and final response. Then the hall door
slammed, and I heard my father walk slowly back to the study.