Chapter XVII

The book-keeper tapped at the door and without waiting for an answer entered Mr. Bracknel’s private office. “There’s a woman here, sir, wishes to speak to you.”

Mr. Bracknel looked up. His face assumed an expression of irritation, and he waited for a moment before he spoke.

“What does she want? Begging, I suppose? Surely you can interview such people yourself without bringing them to me!”

“I did speak to her, sir, but she wouldn’t tell me what her business was. She said she must see you yourself.”

“Well, I can’t see her. God bless my soul, you’d think I was made of money and had nothing to do but throw it about. Tell her I’m busy, and can’t talk to her now--tell her I’m always busy.”

“Yes, sir.”

The man turned to leave the room, but on the threshold a woman pushed firmly by him. Mr. Bracknel looked up angrily, recognised her and stood still, though he gave no sign of recognition. “Well?” he said, as the book-keeper discreetly withdrew.

Mary Brooke, however, took the precaution of shutting the door behind her before speaking or sitting down in the chair he had motioned her to. He himself stood up, leaning his back against the chimney-piece. His face had relaxed into a partial smile, which, as he almost at once scented an unpleasantness in the air, gradually died away.

“I came to tell you something I found out just half-an-hour ago,” the woman said. “I had it from Rhoda herself. She was married to Mr. Alfred on Monday morning.”

Mr. Bracknel stared hard--so hard that his eyes seemed to glaze and bulge in their sockets. Then he took a turn across the room, his hands behind his back. “Married to Alfred!” he repeated aloud, as if trying to realise it. All at once he broke into a disagreeable laugh. He saw it in all its amazing actuality. It was the crowning point. Nothing quite so complete as this had ever happened before. “Well, I wish her joy of him.”

Mrs. Brooke coloured faintly. “He’s been honourable with her as far as that goes.”

Mr. Bracknel gave her a strange look. He thought he detected a comparison, a reproof, in her words. A sort of sardonic humour, that had at the bottom of it a smouldering fury, took possession of him. “Yes, as far as that goes. Unfortunately it _doesn’t_ go far.” He laughed again. “Well, as I say, I hope she’ll be happy with him; and I’m glad to see you approve of the match.”

A spark showed itself in Mrs. Brooke’s eyes. “I only want to know what you’re going to do?” she said, quietly.

“Do! Don’t you think enough has been done? What do you expect me to do? It’s rather late in the day now to interfere. Perhaps you expected me to be overwhelmed with joy; did you?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You’re quite sure there’s no mistake about it?”

“Quite sure. They were married, and in church.”

“Ah, that’s a comfort anyway!” He repeated the words with a kind of vicious sarcasm. “Married, and in church!”

Mrs. Brooke’s mouth grew hard; the thin lips were tightly drawn together. “Well, I daresay we can leave that for the present.”

“Married, and in church!” This perfectly harmless phrase appeared to annoy him curiously.

“In the meantime what are you going to do?” The woman’s face had darkened with a slowly gathering wrath. He met it with an answering anger of his own.

“I’m going to do nothing,” he snapped. “Do you want me to make Alfred a partner in the business, and to present your niece with a carriage and--and--a teeara?”

Again Mrs. Brooke coloured. “My niece is as good as your son is, and perhaps better.”

“I don’t doubt it; I don’t doubt it. God help her if she isn’t. My son’s not good enough for me, however, and I don’t think any more of him because he happens to have made a fool of himself in this particular way as well as in every other.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Mrs. Brooke, rising slowly to her feet. “You speak in a very queer way. Do you think I had anything to do with it? Perhaps you do; perhaps you think he was trapped into it?”

Mr. Bracknel looked at her unpleasantly with half-closed eyes. “I haven’t got as far as that yet. Give me time.”

“I’m not any better pleased than you are, maybe.... And I’ve heard enough of this sort of talk. You didn’t want your son to marry Rhoda. I can understand that----”

“Oh, you can understand that, can you?”

“Yes: and without a fuss being made about it either.” Her voice rose with her increasing indignation. “I want to know what it is you’re going to do now he has married her: and if you don’t mind you’ll please to give me a plain answer.”

Mr. Bracknel had been walking up and down at intervals, but he now came to a definite standstill. “My good woman be reasonable and don’t lose your temper.” He spoke himself with studied calm as if to set her an example. “Believe me you’ll gain nothing by doing so. To begin with, she’s no real relation of yours; and secondly, what _can_ I do?”

“There’s plenty of things you can do.”

Mr. Bracknel smiled dreamily at a yellow map on the wall. A kind of freakish humour again flickered in his dark eyes. “Are there?” he answered slowly and almost benevolently. “I’m not going to raise Alfred’s salary, if that is one of them. And I’m not going to take your niece to live in my house, if that is another. Upon my word I don’t see any further way I could come in, even if I wanted to--which I don’t, you know; I confess I don’t. Really when I come to think of it, so far as I am concerned there seems nothing even to be said. They are not children. They are both of age. Their marriage is their own affair. If Alfred neglects his wife--as I’ve no doubt he will--she can take an action against him. But there will be plenty of time to settle all that later.”

Mrs. Brooke took a step toward the door. Her eyes were fixed on the carpet and she spoke in a dry constrained voice, which nevertheless trembled slightly. “Well, I won’t keep you any longer. I may have to speak to you again after I’ve seen Mr. Alfred: I don’t know. I’m going to look after Rhoda; I may tell you that. And in the meantime she can’t come back here.”

“That’s just as you like. Naturally it’s a matter for yourselves to decide. I’m sorry she made this mistake.”

There might have been a covert insult in these last words, but Mrs. Brooke took no notice of them. She opened the door and Mr. Bracknel watched her go. He was on the point of sending for Alfred when he remembered that Alfred was not in the place. “Fool--stupid fool!” he muttered as he went back to his desk. In his eyes it was the ultimate folly of all, and he saw his son’s career, never very promising, sunk at last to the depth of abject futility. Above all, the remark about Alfred’s honourableness rankled in his mind. They could live on Alfred’s honour and see where it would land them. He strode over to the door and called out sharply to his shorthand clerk.