Mrs George de Horne Vaizey (continued 4)

It was two hours later when Lessing let himself into his rooms, but he entered with the smiling face of the man who wins; and in good truth he had reason to be proud. He had dodged, he had evaded, he had doubled back on his own tracks with an almost incredible celerity. He had left crowded Tube carriages, lost himself in the crowd on the platform, and jumped back into the same carriage, the last passenger to enter before the door was closed. He had changed from taxi to train, from train to taxi, and once, finding himself in a stationary block, had deposited half a crown on the seat of his own car, stepped deftly on to an adjacent “island,” and opening the door of an empty growler, hunched himself up on the floor, and remained concealed until it suited his convenience to descend. Oh! he had been swift, he had been cunning; always he had acted on the assumption that the pursuer was at hand; never for one moment had he relaxed guard, or allowed himself to slow down. Now he was tired, dog tired, but with a glorious fatigue. Not for the world would he have foregone one incident of that most thrilling dash!

Lessing slept, and woke to a fine spring morning. He rang for his newspaper, and turned rapidly over the pages. Nothing had happened. The warning had been delivered in time; the grey old city was undisturbed.

But that night when Lessing returned to his chambers he found a letter awaiting him, addressed in an unknown handwriting. He tore it open, and read the few words which it contained:

“Traitor,—The doom which you have delayed, will now fall on your own head. Do not think to escape. The world itself would not be wide enough to hide you. At the moment when you least expect it, your call will come—”

Lessing stood, staring at the written words, and the little room seemed suddenly cold as a cave. He had wished, and his wish had been granted to him. Henceforth, till he died, danger must be his bride!

A man may be brave to the superlative of bravery, yet almost inevitably he will weaken at the consciousness of hidden danger, pursuing him stealthily day after day, week after week, playing with him with ruthless deliberation, as a cat plays with a mouse, setting him free, only to realise that his torture has been in vain, and the day of reckoning is still to come.

For the first few days after his receipt of the fateful letter, Lessing went about his work with a grim, but not altogether unpleasant, excitement. He realised once for all that it was hopeless to try to hide himself from the Brethren, but he determined to sell his life dearly. He carried a policeman’s whistle, and a walking-stick with a large and roughly-cut head, which on occasion could be a formidable weapon. The question of a revolver had been dismissed after the shortest hesitation, seeing that Lessing’s inexperience with firearms made such a possession rather an extra danger than a protection. He put his affairs in order, and, like every other man under sentence of death, woke to a smarting consciousness of the sweetness of life. Life and—Delia! Delia of the rose bloom and the misty eyes. Delia, who on occasion could be so maddeningly, tantalisingly alive! Lessing did not realise his own changed looks, and it seemed to him the cruellest contrariety of fate that Delia should show herself at her sweetest and most womanly at this moment when he knew himself separated from her by the most impenetrable of barriers.

A fortnight of incessant, imminent anxiety passed slowly by; then came a night when, taking his way to the corner house after dinner, Lessing experienced his first tangible alarm. The square was empty of pedestrians; he was walking on the farther side, close to the tall shuttered houses, when through the shrubs behind the railing of the centre enclosure, the lamplight showed a glimpse of a white face peering towards him. The next second it had disappeared, but even as he walked he had a conviction that a crouching figure kept pace behind that leafy screen. He hurried his steps, the figure kept pace; he could hear the rustle of the boughs as it passed, leaping across the intervening spaces with swift, ape-like bounds. Presently, when it reached that thick clump of trees, it would leap ahead, crouch, and take aim. Lessing acted on the impulse of the moment. A doctor’s plate shone bright on a doorway—he pealed the electric bell, and a moment later stood safe within the entrance hall.

The doctor found his patient wanting in nervous force, prescribed a tonic, and rose to intimate that the interview was over; then, as the patient failed to take the hint, explained that he himself was obliged to go out at once. His opinion of the gravity of the case was increased when the patient first expressed a wish to accompany him on his walk, and then bade him good night at the first corner!

And that night Delia was kinder than ever and the savour of life more alluringly sweet!

During the days that followed Lessing developed a horror of solitude. The old evenings with a pipe and a book became abhorrent, and on the nights when he did not go to the corner house, he either dined in town or invited a friend to share his home repast. It was therefore with real relief that one Saturday morning he received a telegraphic invitation from a leisured friend who diversified a roving existence by flying visits to his country home. The telegram showed the expansiveness of the man of means, and ran as follows:

“Returning to Moat this afternoon. Try to join me for a week-end. Car will meet four-thirty on chance.—

“Blakeney.”

It was impossible to reply, since Blakeney had dispatched his wire from Crewe, and was presumably already travelling southwards. The form of the message showed that no answer was expected, but Lessing had not the shadow of a doubt as to his own acceptance. He was thankful for the chance of leaving London behind, and spending the next two days in Blakeney’s cheerful society. He sent a boy home to get his bag, and carry it to the station, and when the hour for departure approached, followed by a long and devious route, coming on the platform just in time to jump into a moving carriage. By this time he retained little hope of avoiding the espionage of the Brethren, but as his life grew more precious so did his precautions increase, and his determination to fight to the last. The smoking carriage contained the usual contingent of comfortable middle-aged citizens, and the hour’s journey passed without incident. It was a stopping train, and the passengers descended in great numbers at the nearer suburbs, and in scattered units once the hour’s limit had passed. Lessing counted six men besides himself who descended at Evershaw, one old, three middle-aged, a young man in seedy brown overcoat, and a workman carrying a bag of tools. They looked one and all reassuringly English and commonplace, and Lessing heaved a sigh of relief. For once he had really escaped the scent! He hurried through the booking office, to find himself confronted by the collection of somewhat broken-down looking gigs and pony carts to be seen at most country stations. There was no sign of Lessing’s luxurious car, only a powerful-looking mud-bespattered taxi, beside which stood a man in leather gaiters and a driving-coat. He touched his cap as Lessing approached, saying in an interrogative tone:

“Beg pardon, sir—Mr Lessing?”

“Yes.”

“I have instructions to meet you, sir. From the Moat.”

“Right,” said Lessing, and handed over his bag. He realised at once that Blakeney had probably wired for his own car to meet him some distance down the line; and he seated himself in the capacious tonneau of the taxi with an agreeable rising of spirits. The little station was gay with spring flowers, and the scent of wallflowers floated refreshingly on the cool clean breeze. Lessing stretched his tired limbs, and drew a deep, grateful breath. He was just in the mood for a spin through country lanes, and for once was tempted to wish that the Moat was situated at a greater distance from the station. Then in a moment his mood changed, and a cloud of anxiety descended. Already the car had made its first movement forward, when the man with the brown coat sprang to the front, and leaped to the seat beside the chauffeur. Scrambling, clutching, he righted himself, steadied his hat on his head, and pressed a tentative touch on a side pocket, and all the time the driver vouchsafed not one glance, but devoted himself to his wheel, as quietly as if it were an everyday occurrence to be boarded at the last moment by an uninvited “fare.” There was something in that stolidity which chilled the blood in Lessing’s veins, for it seemed to infer that the incident was expected; that the man in the brown coat had travelled down from town for no other purpose than to occupy that special seat.

For the next few minutes Lessing alternated between fear and composure. In the latter condition he told himself that it was a usual occurrence for a country driver to give a “lift” to a friend, and that such an action was tacitly sanctioned by his patrons. Probably the man in the brown coat was so accustomed to avail himself of his friend’s hospitality, that to both the action had become automatic. The more Lessing dwelt on this explanation, the more satisfactory did it appear; it supported him to the end of the straggling village, and only lost its power when the car failed to turn up the lane leading to the Moat. He leaned forward, tapped at the dividing glass, and called through the tube, but neither man moved the fraction of an inch. He called again, more loudly than before, and as if answering a signal, the car leaped forward, leaped again, and with ever-mounting speed dashed down the empty lane.

Then the truth could no longer be disguised. These men were in league against him; they had laid a trap, and he had walked into it with credulous ease. The telegram had been a fraud, sent with no other purpose than to lure him from town, into the solitude of these lonely lanes. The Brethren’s knowledge of Blakeney and his ways seemed at first an incredible feat, but a moment’s consideration went far to remove the mystery. Blakeney had passed through town only a week before, and had dined with Lessing at his club. Nothing more easy than to discover his name from the porter, and to follow up the scent.

At that moment Lessing would have given much for the feel of a revolver in his coat pocket. Given such a weapon he might have “held up” the two men on the front seat, and forced them to obey his orders; as it was, he was powerless as a child. For another ten minutes the car pursued its headlong rush; the two men sitting silent, immovable, looking neither to right nor left; the man inside crouched forward in an attitude of defence. And once again Lessing was conscious of that tingling in his veins which was rather exhilaration than dread. Pace to face with danger he had no lack of courage, rather did every faculty of his being rouse itself to an added fullness of life. The tangible had no terror, it was the passive waiting which played havoc with his nerves.

The car was still racing forward, plunging deeper and deeper into the heart of the country. Lessing studied the road on either side, searching for landmarks which might be registered for future use. He had by now concluded that he was being conveyed to some stronghold of the Brethren where he would meet the fate allotted to him for his betrayal, and he reflected that it would be days if not weeks before his disappearance would attract serious attention. By way of precaution he had burnt Blakeney’s telegram as soon as read; while the boy who carried his bag to the station had departed immediately after his own arrival and could give no clue as to his destination. To-night might see the close of his own life, but his friends would pursue the even tenor of their way without a fear for his welfare. Even Delia... With the thought of Delia came a knife-like pang; a determination to strain every nerve and faculty to outwit his enemies.

Another five minutes, and he became aware that the car was slacking speed, that the men on the front seat were looking ahead, as though on the watch for an expected signal. Presumably it came, for with skilful turns of the wheel the chauffeur steered the car down a narrow lane, and, with a second lurching curve, into a gateway which stood half-way down its length.

So far the manipulation of the car had borne testimony to the skill of the chauffeur, but two sharp turnings so quickly succeeding each other were a severe test, and terminated in a momentary skid over a grassy bank, during which the car tilted violently to the side.

The swing was severe enough to throw Lessing sideways on the seat, and before he had time to right himself, the two men had leaped off the box, the one to the right and the other to the left, and had appeared simultaneously at either door. There was nothing precisely threatening in their demeanour, but they had the air of men who knew their duty, and were prepared to do it. The chauffeur had an appearance of bull-dog strength, but little sign of intelligence. The man in the brown coat had a narrow, hatchet-like face, with keen, alert eyes. The hand which lay on the door of the car was white and well shaped. One glance at him showed that he was the real master of the situation. Lessing looked from one to the other with an air of haughty displeasure.

“May I inquire the explanation of this extraordinary behaviour! I gave instructions to be driven to the Moat.”

“Our instructions were to bring you here. You are expected. I must ask you to get out, and come up to the house.”

It was the man in the brown coat who spoke. He came a step nearer as he spoke, blocking the doorway; the chauffeur held open the farther door, his great bulk outlined against the green of the trees. It seemed to Lessing that for the moment his best policy was to obey, since, if it came to a fight, he preferred the open to his present cramped position. He alighted then without demur, and, stood on the path stretching himself, and looking around with an air of assurement which he was far from feeling. He saw a garden which even in its spring freshness looked desolate and neglected, and, some forty yards from the gate, a low house of grey stone, thickly covered with creepers, the branches of which had been allowed to drape the windows so heavily that in many cases the glass was almost entirely concealed. Lessing looked at it and felt a creeping of the blood. There was only one word which could fitly describe the appearance of that house, and it was a word of which he did not care to think. It was a dead house.

Lessing had been under the impression that while he had been studying his surroundings he had been standing still, but it now appeared that unconsciously to himself, and impelled by the movements of the men on either side, he had been slowly approaching nearer and nearer the open door of the windowless house. Instantly he halted and put a sharp inquiry:

“What is this house? Who is it that is ‘expecting’ me, as you say?”

“You will recognise him when you meet,” said the man in brown, and pursing his lips gave a soft, prolonged whistle, repeated three times over, with a perceptible pause between each. He looked towards the house meantime, and in imagination Lessing filled the blank space of the doorway with a dreaded figure, the figure of a man with black hair turning to grey, a shaggy beard, and large prominent teeth. He had need of all his courage at that moment, but he made no resistance as the men by his side steadily guided him forward; for just as a short time before he had preferred to fight in the open, now he was possessed with a desire to find himself in a room where he might take his stand against the wall, and so force his enemies to a frontal attack.

The three men entered a narrow, absolutely bare hallway, from which an uncarpeted staircase rose sharply to the left. From the first glance around, and even more from the dank and mouldy atmosphere, Lessing divined that the house had long been unoccupied, and that a deed of violence committed therein might remain undiscovered for an indefinite period. The conclusion did not help to raise his spirits as he entered a long narrow room facing the back of the house, his companions meantime pressing hard on his wake.

The room was as empty as the hall; the man in the brown coat walked quickly to the nearer of the two windows, gave a searching glance around, then turned to the chauffeur with a significant shake of the head. There followed a moment’s pause, as though both men were puzzled by the absence of someone confidently expected. Then the man with the brown coat turned once more to Lessing.

“I must ask you to wait for us here for a few minutes,” he said courteously. “We will not keep you longer than is necessary. I am sorry that I cannot offer you a chair. This house is, as you see, unfurnished.”

Lessing did not condescend to reply. He hailed the departure of the two men as giving him an opportunity to examine his surroundings and find a possible way of escape. The room was on the ground floor, the windows were unbarred, surely then it would be easy.

The next moment the blood rushed to his face, as his ears caught the turn of a rusty key, followed by the drawing of a bolt, and hurrying across the floor he found that the door leading into the passage had been doubly secured. The two men were determined to keep him a prisoner while they waited for the appearance of one who was evidently their chief; he could hear their footsteps ascending the stairs, tramping over the bare floors above; once and again the sound of the long thrice-repeated whistle came to his ears, but to his relief there came no answer to the signal.

Lessing stood with his ears to the chink of the door listening intently. Presently he heard the two men descend to the hall, linger for a minute as if undecided, then pass out of the front door. Another minute and a new sound broke the stillness; he listened acutely, and had little difficulty in divining its meaning; the men were endeavouring to move the car out of the rut, so that at any moment it might be ready to bear them away.

Instantly Lessing darted to the nearer of the two windows, and looking out experienced an unwelcome surprise. The house was evidently built on shelving ground, for though the room in which he stood was level with the entrance, it was yet raised by a good twenty feet from the ground at the back. Now twenty feet is not a great depth, but it is too far for a man to drop without risk of at least spraining an ankle, and thereby leaving himself helpless in the hands of his enemies, especially when, as was the case in this instance, the ground is paved with rough, uneven flags. Lessing drew back in disgust, and darted to the window on the farther end of the room. Here, if anything, the drop was greater, but the position was improved, inasmuch as a tangle of grass took the place of the jagged flags. The window was of the old-fashioned casement description, and to prise open the rusty latch was no light task even for strong fingers, but it was done at last, and Lessing hung forward, listening breathlessly to the sounds from the front of the house. The car was evidently still refusing to budge; he could hear the voice of the chauffeur instructing the man in the brown coat as to his share in the work, and the thud of the engine as once and again it strained to the task.

Now was his time, while the two men were engaged; while as yet the third man had not appeared! Lessing hung out of the window, his eyes sweeping the wall to right and left. He had a strong head, and given so much as a drain pipe would have no hesitation in essaying the descent, but the mass of ivy hid everything from view. Lessing hoisted himself on the window-sill, and creeping first to one side and then the other, groped among the leaves. He found no pipe, but a moment’s searching discovered what was quite as useful for his purpose, a central branch of the ivy itself, thick as a man’s fist, strong enough to support a dozen climbers. Lessing gave himself no time to think, but lowered himself from the sill, grasped the branch in both hands, and began his descent. It was not as easy as he had expected, for the branch scalloped along the walls, in a somewhat disconcerting manner, but given a steady head, and a body in reasonable training, there were no serious difficulties to encounter, and a point was soon reached when he could relax his hold, and drop softly to the ground.

So far all had gone with almost incredible ease, but Lessing was aware that he was not yet out of the wood. At any moment his escape might be discovered, and his pursuers would have a double advantage in their possession of the car and their knowledge of the country itself. It was the work of a few minutes to dart down the overgrown path, scale the wall at the end of the garden, and drop upon the grass below, but the next step was more difficult to decide. Looking around him he perceived a white roadway curling like a ribbon round a sweep of meadow land, and realised how easily his escape might be cut off. It flashed into his mind that his best chance was to lie low until his pursuers had started on their chase, and even as the thought passed through his brain, his eye fell on a straggling growth of barberry against the outer side of the wall he had just scaled. The bushes were small and by no means thick, so that at first sight they offered no promise of shelter, but on further examination Lessing discovered that the ground between them and the wall was hollowed to the depth of a foot or more, and covered with a mass of tall grasses. Here, then, was an ideal hiding-place, where he could lie low and know all that was happening around.

Without a moment’s hesitation Lessing laid himself down in the hollow, pressing back the grasses that he might creep close to the shelter of the wall, then allowing them to spring back to their original position. His tweed suit was of a nondescript tint, the shade least likely to catch the eye, but for greater safety he picked handfuls of leaves and grass, and scattered them over his clothes, then lying flat with face hidden on his folded arms, he awaited the discovery of his escape.

He had time to grow cramped and chill before the sound of loud raised voices and the heavy tramp of feet over wooden floors warned him that the search had begun. Almost immediately afterwards someone came racing down the garden path, circled round once and again, and finally clambered to the top of the wall, to obtain a view over the outlying country. Lessing knew by the distinctness of the sound that the ascent had been made at but a short distance from where he lay, and the knowledge sent a chill through his blood. It had not occurred to him that his hiding-place could be viewed from above, and he waited in the keenest suspense, prepared to take to his feet and make a dash for it, at the first hint of discovery. But the man on the wall made no such sign. He breathed in short, gasping breaths, as a man would breathe under stress of agitation, and between his breaths once and again he sent out the old whistling summons, then scrambling, clutching, he fell back into the garden, and again raced to and fro among the curving paths.

For the next ten minutes the sounds of the search continued to reach Lessing’s ears, then came the welcome thudding of the engine, as the car swept out of the gate, showing that the men had abandoned the search of the premises. Another ten minutes, and the thudding sounded again, but from another direction, and peering cautiously between the branches, Lessing could watch the car approach down the long curve of the road encircling the meadows. It was running slowly now, its occupants no doubt engaged in searching the flat stretch of land, making sure of one direction after another in which their prisoner could not have escaped. Presently it turned and slowly traversed the same space, before it finally returned to the high road and disappeared from sight.

The dusk had fallen before Lessing crept out of his hiding-place, and dragged his stiffened limbs across the meadows. He had determined to avoid the highways, and so wandered on without any idea of the direction in which he was going, but after half an hour’s walking, to his joy and relief he struck a railway line, and following it soon arrived at a country station.

At ten o’clock that night Lessing let himself into his rooms, dusty, dirty, incredibly fatigued, the poorer by the loss of a bag containing two quite admirable suits of clothes, but full of thankfulness and relief.

For once at least he had beaten the Brethren on their own ground!

“It’s no good pretending. It’s no good trying to deceive me. You are changed!” Delia declared, nodding her pretty head with solemn emphasis. “You are changing more and more every single day. And it doesn’t suit you. Hollows in the cheeks! What business has a man of thirty with hollows in his cheeks? And a different expression in your eyes. Worried, absent, scared. Valentine Lessing,—what have you been and gone and done?”

Lessing was seated once more in the delightfully homely room at the corner house, enjoying the rare treat of a tête-à-tête with Delia. The men of the family were out, and two minutes before the maid had announced “Mrs Wright from the District,” and “Could the mistress possibly see her?” whereupon Mrs Gordon had sighed, and said: “He is out of work again, and she is such a talker! Delia, dear, will you go? Give her half-a-crown, and say I’m tired.” But Delia, as a rule the most helpful of daughters, resolutely refused.

“No, mother; it’s your duty. The vicar says you give far too much. It’s pandering, and makes it hard for the other visitors. Besides, I’d never get rid of her! Be a good, brave lady, and do your duty.”

So Mrs Gordon had departed, when Delia immediately turned to Lessing, and announced triumphantly:

“She won’t be back for a good half-hour! I’ve been longing for a chance of talking to you alone,” and proceeded to cross-question as before stated. “Yes, you are scared.” Delia repeated. “When anyone enters the room suddenly you jump and look round as if you expected to see a policeman and a pair of handcuffs. It makes me quite nervous even to watch you. And,” her voice sank to a deeper note, “you look ill, Val! What is it?”

Lessing bent forward in his chair, his hands clasped loosely together between his knees; there was a look in his eyes which brought the colour surging into Delia’s cheeks.

“I can tell you honestly, Delia, that I have done nothing to make me fear a policeman or handcuffs, but—I am worried!” For a passing moment he struggled with the temptation to confess the truth, but this point had been mentally argued time and again, always with the same conclusion. To confide his story would be to include his confidante in his own danger, since it was hardly possible that he would not feel called upon to take active steps against the Brethren. “I can’t tell you the why and wherefore, I wish I could, but I can assure you that I have no cause to be ashamed.”

“Oh, bother ashamed!” cried Delia hotly. “Why are you scared? Has anyone been—er—nasty to you, Val? A man in the office—jealous of you because you have got on so well. Forged a cheque and pretended it was you, or put money in your drawer like they do in books, you know, when they have a grudge? Is it something like that, and you are afraid in case they suspect you and send you away?”

The words were so deliciously naïve and girlish that Lessing was obliged to laugh; they were also so transparently eloquent of the speaker’s interest and concern for himself that a great pang rent his heart at the vision of life as it might be. Life with Delia—with Delia’s children, a happy, breezy, family life, repeating the atmosphere of the corner house in some flowery suburban cottage. Oh, how good it seemed, how full and satisfying! What a joy to a tired man to have that haven to which to return at the close of his day’s work. Time had been when he had scoffed at the smug security of suburban life; had pitied the lot of the man who spent his evenings playing with his children and mowing a miniature lawn, but in the light of the last month’s experience, he asked nothing better of fate than to find himself in a precisely similar position.

“No, Delia, no!” he cried ardently, “there is no business trouble. It’s—er—something outside. Don’t speak of it, please. I want to tell you, and I ought not. It’s dear and sweet of you to care. I can’t tell you how much it has meant to me the last few weeks, just to be able—”

Delia interrupted hurriedly, after the manner of young women who ardently long to hear a declaration of love, yet take fright at the first symptom of its approach.

“Anyway,” she said decisively, “you have got to come to the cottage over Whitsuntide. I insist upon it, so it’s no use trying to escape. Three whole days in the country will steady your nerves. It’s not at all comme il faut for a director to have jumpy nerves. If I were a shareholder I’d sell out at once. You will travel down with us on Friday afternoon, and stay as long as you can the next week. Understand?”

Lessing thankfully accepted the invitation, which was duly confirmed by Mrs Gordon upon her return to the sitting-room, and a week later he arrived at the week-end cottage, after a safe and comfortable journey in the company of his cheerful friends.

During that week only one disquieting incident had happened, but that was ominous enough. A typed envelope lying among other letters on the breakfast-table was left carelessly until the others had been read and digested, and then torn open with the scant courtesy shown to notes of the circular type; but the folded slip bore no printed words, and as Lessing jerked it apart there floated downward on to the carpet a thin powdery stream, at sight of which the blood mounted in his face. Moistening one finger, he bent and applied the tip to the scattered grains, then lifted it to his lips. Salt! There was no mistaking the sharp clean savour, and on a corner of the paper he beheld the rough amateur drawing of a knife.

The Brethren had sent him a reminder that they were still waiting for their revenge!

That year Whitsuntide fell in a spell of warm and settled weather, and a more charming retreat than the Gordons’ week-end cottage it would be difficult to find. The house was a type of simple comfort, the garden a delicious riot of colour and fragrance. None of the Gordons knew anything about the science of gardening, but they considered it “fun” to attend to their own garden, sent wholesale orders to advertising seedsmen, and begged shamelessly from gardening friends. The friends responded with sacks of mysterious-looking roots which the Gordons proceeded to plump indiscriminately into the first vacant space which came handy. Everything flourished, for the soil was new and rich, and the sun blazed upon it from morning till night; and the result was as delightful as it was unorthodox.

After a day spent in the cottage, Lessing began to feel that the happenings of the last weeks must surely be the creation of his own brain. The mental atmosphere by which he was surrounded was so kindly and wholesome, so pre-eminently sane, that, in contrast, the wild deeds of the Brethren seemed more the vagaries of a dream than cold actual fact. Most thankfully he accepted the peaceful breathing space, and for the first time since the incident of the spilling of the salt went about his way free from apprehension. It seemed to him in the last degree unlikely that the Brethren would choose a time when he was in close contact with friends for the execution of their revenge.

Lessing had made a compact with himself that under no circumstances would he speak of love to Delia Gordon. He knew now that he had loved her for years, he realised that under his present circumstances it would be a despicable act to seek to bind her in any way, but, with the extraordinary logic practised by men in affairs of the heart, he believed that so long as he refrained from an actual declaration he was acting as an honourable man. It did not occur to him that in the event of his own sudden death a woman who loved him would find her best comfort in the knowledge that her love had been returned!

But the days passed pleasantly. Mr and Mrs Gordon were the kindest of hosts, Terence showed himself at his best, and Delia, in her light dresses and flower-wreathed hats, was the most tantalisingly pretty creature in the world. Lessing found it very difficult to keep his resolve as he sat by her side in a summer-house situated at a discreet distance from the house, and screened by the thick belt of trees which formed the end of the shrubbery; and, if the truth is to be told, Delia intended him to find it difficult, and made special play with her eyelashes to that effect. Val was looking infinitely better, but when he returned to town that tiresome “worry” would begin again, and she wanted, as any nice, right-minded girl would have wanted, to have the right to comfort and support.

“So sorry you can’t stay over to-morrow! It’s so stupid to rush back to town just when you are beginning to get good. Why can’t you make a week of it while you are here? Only three more days.”

“I’m afraid I can’t. It’s been awfully jolly. I’ve enjoyed every minute of the time, but—er—I don’t think I ought. Business, you know!”

Delia was annoyed, and showed it.

“Awfully boring it must be, to be a City man,” said she with her nose in the air. “Always having to keep your nose to the grind. That’s why I like army men. You can depend upon them. I shall telegraph to Captain Rawle, and ask him to take your place. He’ll jump at it.”

“Conceited ass!” muttered Lessing under his breath. He looked at Delia and saw beneath her pretence of indifference a mistiness of eye, a tremor at the corner of the lips, the meaning of which was plain even to his obtuse masculine senses, and at the sight his prudence fled to the winds.

“Delia!” he cried rapturously. “Delia! Oh, my darling, do you mean to say that you care? Delia, does it matter to you whether I go or stay? Do you really, really mean to say—”

“I—I didn’t say anything—I—I—of course, I care! Oh, Val, you are stupid!” cried Delia, putting up two white hands to hide an exceedingly red face. Val knew a rapturous moment as he bent to take those hands in his, but, even as he moved, a warning rustle sounded from the bushes ahead, and he straightened himself in expectation of the advent of an intruder. And then, at that moment, with a spasm of fear freezing his hot blood, he saw once more the face of his enemy. While one might have counted six, it glared at him from between the branches—the swarthy, bearded face, with the tufted eyebrows, and the strong, protuberant teeth. For six long seconds the eyes gazed mockingly into his own.

Poor palpitating Delia, peeping between her fingers, beheld her lover of a moment transformed into a stricken, grey-faced man, who sat huddled up on his seat, staring before him with a gaze of helpless despair. There was no more blushing and trembling after that—Delia simply wrapped her arms round his neck, and crooned over him with tender, loving words.

“Val, my own Val. What is it? I’m here. Delia’s here. Nobody shall hurt you, dearest; no one shall harm you. Delia’s here. Look at me, Val—my own, own Val!”

The words pierced. Through all the horror and the fear, their sweetness reached to the brain, and turned the current of his thoughts. One look he gave her, a look of passionate gratitude and love, then to her utter bewilderment he lifted her to her feet and drew her to the entrance of the summer-house.

“Go, darling—go! Go quickly! You can help me best that way. Go quickly!”

Delia stared at him, and a sudden explanation leaped into her brain. Heart disease! Val had discovered that his heart was affected, that was the reason of his changed looks. At the moment he was threatened with a spasm of pain, and man-like preferred to be alone. Obediently Delia walked away, her heart torn with sympathy. But when they were married she would take such good care of him, such incessant, all-encompassing care, that he must, he should get well!

Lessing watched her go, and then deliberately moved a chair to the centre of the entrance to the summer-house, seated himself astride, and bent his head on the rail.

He had no longer the wish to fight for his life. Better a thousand times that the end should come now, rather than later on. He was ready. He was waiting. He prayed that there would not be long to wait. At the hour when he least expected it his call had come!

“Now then, old fellow, now then! Sit up, will you? What’s the matter with you? That’s right—that’s right. Keep your hair on, old man. You’re not half as bad as you think you are!”

Terence Gordon’s breezy voice boomed in Lessing’s ear. Terence’s big hands laid hold of him, turned him round on his chair, and pressed him back against its rails. His good-humoured face puckered with concern as he met the blank stare in the man’s eyes, and he continued to pour forth a stream of slangy reassurements, the while Lessing slowly regained his composure. He could not have told whether it was ten seconds or ten hours during which he had sat waiting for death, but so utterly had he lost touch with the things of earth that it was only by degrees that he could realise that he was still alive and unharmed, and that this singularly earthly young man was seated by his side, ragging him for his mysterious exhibition of funk.

“Got ’em again—eh, what?” said Terence severely. “Tell you what, you gave me a touch myself, when you leaped upon me like that. Steady, old man. Steady! What’s it all about?”

“Terence,” said Lessing thickly, “go back to the house. Look after your sister. I—I am going away. I can’t stay. I’m bringing danger upon her, upon you all—I can’t explain. I—I’ve been warned—”

“Strikes me,” said Terence slowly. “Strikes me, if there’s any taking care of Delia to be done, it’s your business to do it. Hardly playing the game is it, to run away just at this point?”

“For Heaven’s sake, don’t torture me,” cried Lessing wildly. “How can you judge? You don’t understand. You don’t understand—”

“Strikes me very forcibly, my dear fella,” said Terence once more, “that it’s you that don’t understand!” He thrust his arm round the corner of the summer-house, and produced the small black bag, which he was wont to carry on his expeditions to hospital. He placed the bag on the table, and seated himself before it with an air of intense enjoyment. “Just keep your eye on your uncle, my lad, and we’ll see if he can help you to understand!”

And then, calmly, complacently, in the full light of day, that medical student produced from that bag—first, a wig of black hair powdered with grey; secondly, a beard; thirdly, a pair of tufted eyebrows; fourthly a curious arrangement of wire clips connecting four large teeth; and fifthly, a bottle containing a brown fluid or dye.

Calmly, composedly, in the full light of day, did that medical student don one after the other: the wig, beard, eyebrows, and teeth, and dab an illustrative patch of brown on either cheek. Then folding his arms after the manner of the villain in British melodrama, he hissed forth the words which had rung ceaselessly in Lessing’s ears for the last six weeks:

“Tr-r-r-aitor! The doom which you have postponed shall fall upon your own head. At the hour when you least—”

Lessing seized his arm in a grip of steel.

“Silence! Terence, what does this mean? Do you dare to tell me that it was you who has made my life a torture all these—”

But Terence was not to be daunted. He twitched his arm away, and defended himself with his usual energy.

“What’s that—torture? What do you mean by talking of torture? Weren’t you forever grousing about the dullness of life, and bemoaning yourself because you couldn’t have a taste of excitement? Weren’t you forever gassing about the thrill of danger, and boasting of your adventurer’s blood? Ought to be jolly thankful to me for giving you a taste of the real gen-u-ine article! I dare you to say I didn’t do it uncommonly well, too. Very friendly action, I call it. You needed someone to bring you to your senses. Mooning along, spoiling your own life, and er—er—Hang it all—she is my sister!” concluded Terence with a touch of righteous indignation.

Lessing sat staring, a picture of stupefaction. The words were understandable enough; he heard them with his ears, but his brain refused to take in the meaning.

“You! It was you? You came into that restaurant, sat at my table—spilled that salt?”

“I did. I’d had one or two shots before that, but they didn’t come off, but the salt was a fair catch. You’d spun us that yarn more than once—forgot that, didn’t you? So I tried it, and you caught on like an eel. The rest was as easy as falling off a log. Where else should you go but Scotland Yard? I went on in advance, watched you out, and trotted along in the rear, waiting for a suitable moment to give you another thrill. Then I went home to bed! Got home a little quicker than you did that night, sonny, I fancy! What?”

The rush of anger and humiliation which came at the remembrance of that two hours of laborious dodging and turning did more to revive Lessing than any amount of reassurement. He set his teeth, and continued the cross-examination.

“And that night in the Square.”

“Hang it, yes! That was me, all right. I’d wasted four evenings hanging about, so I felt pretty murderous that night. Pretty good sport, though, to see you bolt into that doctor’s place. How I did laugh! By the way, did you take the physic he ordered?”

Lessing gave him a steely glance.

“And the message, the telegram from Blakeney? You sent that, of course, and arranged with that car.”

“Just so. Ye-es. That was, as you might say, my tour de force!” said Terence, smirking. “Cost me a lot of fag, that did, to say nothing about coin of the realm. Thought you were fairly caught that time, didn’t you? What about ‘The Thrill’ when you heard the sound of the key in the lock? Eh, what?”

Lessing gave him a murderous glance.

“How would you have felt if I had injured myself for life, climbing down from that window?”

“Oh, shucks!” Terence shrugged with easy assurance. “Any juggins could have got down over that ivy, easy as walking downstairs. And you have done a bit of climbing in your day. Did you get very much stung by the nettles lying down by that wall?”

Lessing’s jaw fell; the blood buzzed in his ears. An intolerable humiliation encompassed him. Had he been seen?

Terence burst into a great roar of laughter.

“Oh, bless you, yes! He saw you right enough. It was Jeffries, you know. G.P. Jeffries, sharpest fellow we have at hospital. He said he had the time of his life, sitting upon that wall, watching you quaking among those nettles. By the way, the bag’s all right. I’ve got it locked away in my cupboard. I suppose you wouldn’t be willing, as a slight acknowledgment of my trouble, and in gratitude for an uncommonly useful lesson, to regard the outlay on that day’s expedition as a—er, fee?”

Lessing stared, glared, opened his lips to pour out heated words, stopped short, and expanded his chest in a long, deep breath. Suddenly, overpoweringly, the consciousness of safety rushed through his being, and swept before it all petty considerations for his own dignity and self-esteem. He was free, he was safe; his life was unthreatened, he was free to plan ahead, to take upon himself new claims, new responsibilities. He felt again the touch of Delia’s arms, and knew an irresistible impatience to continue the interrupted scene.

He rose from his seat, and addressed a few dignified words to the lad by his side.

“Another time, Terence, we’ll thrash this matter out. You meant well, no doubt, but—”

“Just so. I was sorry to interrupt, but it was all done for the best. She’s in the rose garden. She’s crying!” volunteered Terence, grinning.

“Is it your heart? Is it your heart?” cried Delia clinging to his arm. “Oh, Val, is your heart really affected?”

Lessing clasped her to him, laughing a big, glad laugh, full of the joy and wonder of life.

“It is, darling!” he cried. “It is! You have affected it. Oh, Delia, Delia, let’s be married, let’s be married at once, and—keep a chicken farm!”

Chapter Nine.

The Man who Wished for Success.

Success was the passion of John Malham’s life, mediocrity was his bane. The ordinary commonplace life which brings happiness and content to millions of his fellow men filled him with a passion of disgust. As he left the Tube station morning and night, and filed out into the street among the crowd of black-coated, middle-class workers, an insignificant unit in an insignificant whole, a feeling of physical nausea overcame him. There were grey-haired men by the hundred among the throng, men not only elderly, but old, working ceaselessly day by day at the same dull grind, returning at night to small houses in the suburbs. From youth to age they had toiled and expended their strength, and this was their reward! In a few years’ time they would die, and be buried, and the great machine would grind on, oblivious of their loss. Slaves, puppets, automata who were content to masquerade in the guise of men! John Malham squared his great shoulders and drew a deep breath of contempt. Not for him this dull path of monotony. By one means or another, he had vowed to his own heart to rise to the top of the tree, and make for himself a place among men.

Malham was a barrister by profession; a barrister, without influence, and with a private income of a hundred a year. His impressive personality, and unmistakable gift of argument had brought him a moderate success, but while others congratulated him, his own feeling was an ever-mounting discontent. He was waiting for the grand opportunity, and the grand opportunity did not come. Like an actor who finds no scope for his talent in the puny parts committed to his charge, but feels ever burning within him the capacity to shine as a star, so did Malham fret and chafe; intolerantly waiting for his chance.

As an outlet for his energies Malham had plunged into politics, and here success had been more rapid. As an apt and powerful speaker he was much in request, and his circle of influential acquaintances grew apace. He was asked to dinner, on visits to country houses where he was entertained with cordiality, as a quid pro quo for a speech at the County Hall. Politicians began to say to him with a smile: “We must have you in the House, Malham.” “I shall be speaking for you another day, Malham!” “A man like you, Malham, ought to be in the Cabinet.” Steadily, slowly, the conviction had generated that in politics lay his best hope of success.

But he must have money. Even in the days of paid members a man without private means was handicapped in the race. Once again he could not be content to be a unit in a crowd. He wished to be known; to make himself felt. To do this it would be necessary to entertain, to have a home of which he could be proud. A home, and—a wife.

At this point Malham’s hard face would soften into the tender, humorous smile which was reserved for but one person on earth—for Celia Bevan, a high school mistress to whom he had been engaged for five long years. Pew of his friends, and none of his acquaintances, had heard of his engagement, for Malham was a secretive man, and Celia was not in his own set. He had met her on a fishing holiday when they happened to be staying in the same small inn, and for the first and only time in his life had been carried away on a wave of impulse.

Five years ago, and—this was the extraordinary thing!—his heart had never regretted the madness. Celia was poor, unknown, getting perilously near thirty, but there was an ageless charm about Celia, an ever-new, ever-changing, ever-lovable charm, which held him captive, despite the cold remonstrances of his brain. Nowadays he met dozens of wealthy and distinguished women, but no duchess in her purple had for him the charm of Celia in her shabby blouses, seated in her shabby lodging, wrestling with the everlasting pile of exercise books.

She loved him—heavens! how she loved him. There was nothing tepid about Celia. Even eight years’ teaching at a high school had been powerless to beat down her individuality, or damp the ardour of her spirit. She loved him with a passion which was her very being, and he loved her in return as devotedly as it was in his nature to love. She was his mate, the one woman in the world who could understand, and sympathise, and console.

But—there was Lady Anne! Lady Anne was the unmarried daughter of his most influential political patron, and of late it had been impossible for Malham to disguise from himself the fact that Lady Anne had fallen a victim to his powerful personality and clever, versatile tongue. She was a pitiful creature, this scion of a noble house, a thin, wizened woman of thirty-seven, plain with a dull, sexless plainness which had in it no redeeming point, so diffident as to be almost uncouth in manner, overwhelmed with the consciousness of her own social failure. Wealthy and influential as was her family, no one had ever wished to marry “poor Anne,” yet hidden within the unattractive exterior lived a loving, sensitive heart, which had gone hungry from the hour of her birth.

Now as it happened Lady Anne’s brother was nursing a certain constituency in the neighbourhood of his father’s place, and being neither clever nor fluent he was thankful to avail himself of the services of an eloquent young barrister, who was ever ready to run down from town for a few days’ visit, and deliver a rousing address in furtherance of his cause. So it came about that during the summer and autumn John Malham was a frequent visitor at Home Castle, and at each visit the secret of Lady Anne became more and more apparent to the eyes of onlookers.

Lady Anne wished to marry Malham. Her father recognised as much, and decided resignedly that for “poor Anne” no better match could be expected. Malham was a gentleman, came of a good stock, and—given a start—was the type of man who was bound to come to the front. “We could find him a seat,” the Earl said to his son, “and Anne’s jointure would keep them going till he found his feet. If he proposes for her, there’ll be no trouble from me. At this time of day we must be thankful for what we can get.”

Cautiously, guardedly, in after-dinner confidences the young man was allowed to infer that the coast was clear. At first he had thrust aside the suggestion with a laugh, as something preposterous and impossible, but the poison worked. He began to dally with the thought, to project himself into an imaginary future when the circumstances of life should make in his favour, instead of acting as a handicap. Slowly and surely the poison worked.

One evening he took his way to Grosvenor Square in a frame of mind bordering on desperation. For months past he had been building on the possibility of securing a brief in a case which promised to afford one of the sensations of the year. He had a chance, a promising chance it had appeared, but that afternoon he had received the news that the brief had gone past him in favour of another man, no whit more capable than himself. There were reasons for the choice of which he was ignorant, but in his morbid depression, the only explanation lay in his own insignificance, in the higher social standing of his rival. He had known many such disappointments, and had smarted beneath them, but this was the final straw which broke down his remaining strength, and as it chanced he was left alone with Lady Anne after dinner, and she ventured a timid question as to the cause of his depression.

Of what happened next he had no clear recollection; he answered, and she sympathised, faltered out a wish that she might help; he thanked her, and—what did he say next? He could not remember, but he knew that he had accepted the offered help, and with it the hand of the donor.

There were tears in Lady Anne’s eyes as she plighted her troth. It was the one desire of her heart to share his life. He was the most wonderful, the most gifted of men. To be able to smooth his way would be the proudest privilege which the world could afford. She held out her thin hand as she spoke, and Malham pressed it in his own, and bent over it in elaborate acknowledgment. The chill of those fingers struck to his heart; he left the house and, walking along the streets, the question clamoured insistently at his heart:

Would she expect him to kiss her?

He had made an early retreat, and now went straight to Celia’s lodgings. It was part of the strength of his character that he never deferred a difficult duty, and to-night he knew himself faced with the most painful ordeal of his life.

Celia was sitting as usual before a pile of exercise books in her shabby little parlour. Her white blouse was mended in several places, but it was daintily fresh, and her auburn hair flamed into gold beneath the hanging lamp. She did not rise as he entered, but tilted herself back on her chair, and stretched her tired arms with a sigh of welcome.

“Oh, dearest and best, is that you? Oh, how lovely it is when you don’t expect, and the good things come! I was never more happy to see you... Kiss me several times!”

But he stood stiff and straight on the shabby hearth-rug, and delivered himself of his message:

“I am going to many Lady Anne Mulliner.”

Celia rose from the chair, and seated herself on the side of the table. She had grey eyes fringed with dark lashes, and a large, well-shaped mouth with lips which tilted agreeably at the corners what time she was amused. They tilted now, and the grey eyes danced. Malham was jesting in the good old way in which he used to jest before he grew so silent and preoccupied. It had pleased them then to make believe, and act little plays for the other’s benefit. How good it was to jest again!

Celia hunched her shoulders to her ears, and pointed at him with a dramatic finger. Her voice rang in loud, stagey accents:

“False caitiff, wouldst thou indeed betray my innocent trust? Pull many a year have I waited in love and fealty, and wouldst thou spurn the poor maiden’s heart?” She pulled her handkerchief out of her belt, flourished it to her eyes, then suddenly subsided into laughter, and an easy: “The poor old scarecrow! Jack! it’s not kind... What about that kiss?”

“I am going to marry Lady Anne Mulliner,” repeated Malham once more. Celia put her head on one side, and looked at him with her winsome look, the look he most loved to see.

“All right, ducky doo! Why shouldn’t you? She’ll be most pleased. But for to-night, you see, you belong to me, and—er—I haven’t seen you for three whole days!”

“Celia, you must believe me. I mean it. I proposed to Lady Anne an hour ago, and she accepted me. We are engaged. I came straight here to tell you.”

The smile faded from Celia’s face. She looked startled and grave, but there was no serious alarm on her face.

“Jack—why?”

He threw out his arms with a gesture of despair.

“Because I can’t endure this life. I’ve missed that case; it has gone past me as usual, to a fellow with influence. There is no hope for a man who has no position, no one behind. It would drive me mad to go on year after year with this hopeless struggle. It is driving me mad now. To-night I felt desperate. I would have given anything in the world to buy my chance, and the opportunity came. I took it. I had not the power to refuse.”

“Poor Jack!” she said softly. “Poor Jack!”

He had expected reproaches, tears, wild protestations. Celia was impetuous by nature, and the peace between them had not been unbroken by storms. He was prepared for violence, but this gentleness played havoc with his composure. His face twitched, he turned towards her with passionate entreaty.

“Celia, I’m a brute, a coward. Nothing that you can say of me is bad enough. You’ve been an angel, and I know, I knew all the time that I hurt you by delaying our marriage. You would have been satisfied with a small beginning; it was I who was not content. I’ve kept you waiting year after year, and now at the end I have sold myself to another woman.”

“You can’t sell what is not your own. You can’t give what is not your own. You belong to me. I’m not going to give you up!”

She rose, and going up to him clasped both hands round his arm. Her face was white, but she smiled still; on her pale cheek a dimple dipped and waned.

“You were tired and depressed. You saw the chance, and for a moment it seemed the easiest way, but you can’t do it, Jack; you can’t do it! There’s something else that you had forgotten. There’s me! You love me, Jack.”

She raised her face to his with a wooing smile, and a groan burst from his lips. This was torture. His heart was torn, but his resolution remained unchanged.

“Heaven knows I do. You are the only woman I can ever love. I love you more dearly than anything on earth. Except one!”

“And that?”

“Myself. Success. The career that Lady Anne can give—”

“Poor Jack!” sighed Celia again. She leaned her head on his shoulder with her old movement of confiding love. For five long years those broad shoulders had been her resting-place, a bulwark between herself and the outer world. She drew him with her to the sofa, and rested there now. It was impossible to thrust her away.

“If you loved another woman, darling, if you had grown tired of me, I’d let you go without a word. I’d want you to go, but I’m not going to let you spoil your life. I haven’t loved you all these years without knowing your faults as well as your virtues. The outside world sees your cleverness and charm, but the best in you, the very best Jack—that belongs to me! If you lost me, it would die. There’d be nothing left but the husk of John Malham. The cold, hard husk with nothing inside.”

“You may be right, Celia. I expect you are right, but I have made my choice. You can’t understand, no woman could understand how men can put ambition before love, but they do it. It is done every day. I don’t say I shall not suffer—you know I shall suffer!” His voice broke suddenly. “Celia, darling!”

She was silent for a moment, lying motionless against his heart, then she spoke in a soft murmur of reminiscent tenderness.

“D’you remember, Jack, the evening we were engaged? You walked about all night because you were afraid you might go to sleep and think it was a dream, and you scribbled a letter in pencil beneath a lamp-post, and put it into the letter-box so that I might have it at breakfast. I’ve got it yet—in tissue paper, to keep the pencil fresh.”

“Celia—don’t! You torture me. Of course I remember.”

“D’you remember that day up the river when we quarrelled, and I cried all over the tea? When I got home at night my face was all smudged. I’d been handling the kettle, and then dried my eyes, and you had never said a word about it, but had been so lovely to me all the way home. I did love you for that, Jack!”

“I had made you cry to start with. I’ve made you cry too often. Don’t cry for me now, Celia! I’m not worth it. You will be better without me.”

Then for the first time there came a flash of anger. She sat up suddenly and faced him with flashing eyes.

“How dare you say it? How dare you say such a lie? Without you? What would be left to me if you went? You are my life. There has been no room for anyone else; you have demanded everything for yourself,—all my care, all my thought, all interest, all my love,—and I have given them to you, till there is nothing left, and I am powerless to live alone. You know it is true!”

“You think so now, Celia, but you will find life easier without me. This hopeless waiting is hard on a woman, and I’ve drawn on you all these years, always asking, always needing. It’s a wrench, but it will be better for us both. Celia, I haven’t given you up without a struggle. I make no defence. I know I am treating you abominably, but this thing is stronger than myself. I cannot go on. I must go my own way.”

“I will never give you up!” said Celia firmly. She held out her left hand the third finger of which was encircled by the engagement ring, an inexpensive trifle in turquoise and pearls. “You put that ring there, and made me swear that it should never come off until the wedding-ring was put in its place. It never shall! It’s no use giving me back my promise. You don’t realise what you are asking. It is an impossibility. I can never believe that you seriously intend to marry another woman until I see her walking out of church on your arm. And then—”

“Then—”

“It would kill me, Jack. I could not live.”

Malham rose hastily, and strode across the room. His endurance was at an end. Of what use to prolong the agony? His mind was made up, it was useless to go on torturing Celia and himself.

“It is too late, the thing is done. There is no drawing back. We are engaged.”

“Will you walk about all night, Jack, in case you fall asleep and find it is a dream? Will you write a letter in pencil and slip it into her letterbox so that she may have it at breakfast?”

“Celia, don’t! For God’s sake, don’t... I can’t stand this!”

“Will you quarrel with her, Jack, and kiss, and make it up? Will she stroke your head when you are tired, to take away the pain, and will you lie and look up in her face, and make up little verses about her eyes? I’ve got all your verses, Jack, dozens of them, locked away in my desk.”

“You know I won’t. That sort of thing is over for ever. It is the price I shall have to pay. One can’t have the one big thing, and everything else into the bargain. I have made my choice, and the rest must go.”

“But we must make quite sure what is the big thing. I am your big thing, Jack. You are tired and discouraged, and when people are discouraged things look out of proportion. To-day you put success first, and Celia second, but you will find out your mistake. You can’t live without me, Jack, any more than I can live without you. It’s gone deeper than you think.”

Malham’s hand was on the door, but he turned at that last word and looked at her across the room. She sat as he had so often seen her, leaning forward from the waist, her chin cupped in her hand, her grey eyes bent on him with an intensity of love. Among the drab furnishings of the room, the glowing mass of her hair shone with a burnished splendour. The sight of her represented all that was gracious and beautiful—his thought leaped to that other woman from whom he had parted but an hour before, he saw the two faces side by side, and for a moment he wavered. Only a moment, then he hardened himself, and turned once more.

“It is too late. I have made my choice. Goodbye, Celia.”

“Au revoir, Jack. My Jack! You will come back to me!”

Her voice rang strong and valiant. In just that voice she had put courage into him time and again when he had come nigh to despair. In just that voice had she breathed her undying confidence in the future. But this time when he was lost to sight, and the thud of the closing door sounded through the little house, Celia laid her bright head on the table, and her tears fell fast on the scattered papers.

In aristocratic circles engagements are of short duration. Malham was thankful of the fact, and acceded eagerly to a proposed date less than six weeks ahead. A furnished flat was secured in which he and Lady Anne could set up housekeeping, leaving the choice of a permanent residence to be made at leisure. He welcomed that decision as a relief from a painful ordeal. It had been a favourite amusement of Celia’s to go house-hunting on holiday afternoons, and under her guidance it had proved a beguiling occupation. When luck was in the ascendant she would put on her best hat, obtain orders to view mansions in West End squares, and give herself airs to the caretaker on the subject of ball-room accommodation. When luck waned she would escort him to garden suburbs, and gush over a sitting-room four yards by five. And the furniture for mansion and villa alike had been chosen a hundred times over from a point of vantage outside shop windows. It would have been molten torture to go house-hunting and furnishing with Lady Anne!

In a quiet unobtrusive fashion Lady Anne was exacting. She expected daily visits, which were periods of acute misery to her fiancé. Her uncouth efforts to worm herself into his confidence shamed and exasperated; he was disagreeably conscious of disappointing her expectations, yet more and more did it become impossible to act the lover’s part. Conversation would lag between them and finally come to an end, then Anne’s small eyes would redden as from unshed tears, she would lay her chill hands on his, and ask wistfully:

“Is anything the matter, John? Have I offended you in any way?”

“How could you offend me, Anne? You are everything that is good and generous. I am most grateful for all you have done.”

“But you must love me, too. I want you to love me. You do love me, John?”

Once or twice at such questioning, a flood of anger and loathing, almost maniacal in its fury, rushed through Malham’s veins, urging him on until it was all he could do to refrain from bursting into cruel laughter, into bitter, gibing words. Love her! That pitiful, sexless thing—he who had known Celia, and held her in his arms. Was Anne blind that she could not see what manner of woman she was? Had she no sense that she could not realise the nature of the bargain between them?

And every week of that endless six a letter came to him from Celia bearing the same message:

“I have seen it in the paper, Jack, but I know it is not true. You will never do it. You can’t do it, Jack. You belong to me. Dear, it will be harder with every day that passes. Be brave and end it now! I know you better than you know yourself. Nothing that she can give you will make you happy apart from me. It’s been hard for you—I know it too well, and you shall never hear a word of reproach, but—come soon, Jack! It’s weary waiting. I have given you so much that I’ve no power to live alone. Your Celia.”

Each letter said the same thing in different words, and each time that one arrived the struggle between love and ambition was fought afresh in Malham’s mind. Never before had he realised all that Celia had counted for in his life; never had he yearned so passionately for her presence. A dozen times over he started with rapid footsteps to answer her appeal in person, but never once did he arrive at his destination. The very sight of the mean streets through which he was obliged to pass, served to chill his enthusiasm and awake the remembrance of all that a reconciliation must entail. To break off his engagement with Lady Anne Mulliner at the eleventh hour would be to alienate his political patrons and ring the death knell of his hopes. He would be obliged to drag on year after year waiting for a chance of distinguishing himself at the Bar, living meantime in one of these mean little houses, in one of these mean little streets, turning out morning after morning to make his way to the Tube, among the crowd of black-coated, middle-class workers.

The struggle ended each time in the victory of ambition. He turned and retraced his steps towards his own chambers.

The last letter arrived on the morning of the marriage. Its message was the same, but the valiant confidence had waned, and a note of wildness took its place. Yet even now Celia would not, could not, believe that his decision was irrevocable. Even now she adjured him to reflect, to remember, to be warned! The handwriting was rough and untidy, hardly recognisable as Celia’s dainty calligraphy; in every line, in every word there were signs of agitation and despair, but as Malham recognised with a pang, there was still no word of reproach.

He kissed the letter and held it passionately to his lips, before he dropped it into the fire. The husband of the Lady Anne Mulliner must not treasure love letters from another woman. The paper flamed orange and blue, then shrivelled into blackened ashes. Malham, looking on, read into the sight a simile with his own life. The beauty, the splendour of it were burnt out; nothing but ashes remained.

It was a curious reflection for a man who would that day plant his foot firmly on the ladder of success!

The fashionable church was filled to overflowing; reporters seated in points of vantage jotted down the names of the aristocratic guests with other details of public interest. “Marriage of an Earl’s Daughter.”

“Romantic Marriage.”

“Marriage in High Life.” The titles were already drawn out awaiting the following description. “The Duchess of A. looked charming in amber velvet with a sable cloak. The Marchioness of B. looked charming in green, with a hat with white plumes. The bridesmaids, eleven in number, were a charming group in grey satin and silver veils. They carried charming bouquets of azaleas, which with charming gold and pearl bangles were the gift of the bridegroom. Their names were —. The bride wore a gown of white satin covered with old English point lace, the court train was draped with the same valuable lace, and lined with silver tissue. She carried a bouquet of orchids.” There were a dozen reporters in the church, and they used the word “charming” many, dozens of times collectively, but not one of them ventured to apply it to the bride!

Lady Anne cried in a softly persistent fashion throughout the ceremony, and the sight of her tears awoke a smouldering fury in Malham’s heart. Why need she cry? She had gained her desire. It was he who should cry! In the vestry a young married relative came forward, and with deft hands straightened the twisted wreath and arranged the folds of the veil. “Really, Anne!” she cried impatiently, “you positively must think of your appearance. My dear, if you could see yourself! For goodness’ sake pull yourself together.” As she turned away, she shot a glance at Malham, standing tall and impassive beside the table, and there came into her eyes a cold comprehending gleam. “There,” said her eyes, “stands a man who has sold his soul!” There were eyes all round him, studying him where he stood, and in them all he read the same condemnation, the same scorn.

The organ blared; the bridesmaids ranged themselves behind the bridal couple, the procession left the vestry, and proceeded down the aisle. Now there were more eyes, hundreds of eyes, staring with merciless gaze. The bride was trembling with nervousness, her chin shaking like that of a frightened child. All her life she had been snubbed and kept in the background; terror of her conspicuous position for the time being swamped her joy in her handsome spouse. The sound of her panting breath came to Malham’s ears; he hurried his pace in fear of another breakdown, and the laces of the bridal train caught in the carved woodwork of a pew.

There was a momentary pause while a bridesmaid came to the rescue, and Malham, turning to discover the nature of the hindrance, felt an icy chill spread down his spine. In the pew by his side, within touch of his hand, stood Celia, tall and slim, gazing straight into his face. Her hair glowed like flames round her colourless face, her lips were parted, showing a gleam of teeth, her head was thrown back on the white column of her throat,—each cherished detail of her beauty smote on Malham with a separate pang, but it was the expression in her eyes which chilled his blood. What was the expression in her eyes?

Malham’s heart beat in sickening thuds. Was it a moment, or an hour, during which he stood and stared back into those terrible eyes? To the onlookers the pause was barely perceptible; to him it seemed endless as eternity.

It was only when he was seated beside his bride in the carriage, and Anne was sobbing against his shoulder, that Malham realised the meaning of Celia’s eyes.

They were dead eyes. They had no expression!

The reception was a nightmare, but it came to an end at last, and Malham and his bride bade good-bye to their friends, and started on the first stage of their honeymoon. It had been arranged that they should remain in town until the next morning, when they were to make an early start for the Continent. They drove to a fashionable hotel, where a suite of rooms had been secured for their use, and after a couple of hours’ rest, went through the ordeal of their first tête-à-tête meal.

Malham felt like a man in a dream. He moved, he spoke, he ate, and drank as might a machine wound up to perform certain actions, but he was conscious of nothing but a pair of dead eyes gazing at him out of a living face. There was only one feeling of which he was capable—a feeling of fear—of deadly, overmastering fear.

Dinner over, Malham excused himself, and repaired to the great lounge of the hotel. Anne had recovered her composure, and had embarked upon a series of sentimental reminiscences which bade fair to drive him demented. At all costs he must escape from her presence.

He seated himself at one of the small tables and automatically lifted an evening paper. The first thing that met his eye was his own name at the head of a column. “Marriage of Mr John Malham and Lady Anne Mulliner.” He crushed the sheet with a savage hand, and thrust it back on the table, and as he did so another paragraph separated itself from the context and smote upon his brain.

“Suicide of a High School Teacher. A well-dressed young woman was drowned in the Serpentine at five o’clock this afternoon. The life-saving apparatus was put in operation with all possible speed, but when the body was recovered, life was found to be extinct. The deceased had letters in her possession addressed to Miss Celia Bevan, 19 Wrothesley Street, Maida Vale. It is believed to be a case of premeditated suicide.”

Across the hall two young men were whispering to each other behind their papers.

“That fellow over there, by the big palm,—that’s Malham! Reading an account of his own wedding. Clever fellow, but poor as a rat. Been dragging along for years at the Bar, but that’s all over now! With a father-in-law like Lord Fluteson to give him a push, he’ll soon romp ahead. Jolly good day’s work this has been for him!”

His companion looked across the lounge.

“Some fellows,” he said grudgingly, “have all the luck!”

Chapter Ten.

The Girl who Wished for Work.

Norah Boyce was one of numerous young women who have seen better days. During the seven years which had elapsed since she had bidden farewell to a Parisian boarding-school, she had enjoyed all the sweets of existence which fall to the lot of a girl whom nature has endowed with beauty and a deceased parent with an income of five hundred pounds a year. And then, of a sudden, catastrophe overtook her. Societies collapsed, banks failed, labourers went on strike and brought down dividends on railway investments. The five hundred pounds was reduced to something considerably under one, and Norah spent her nights in tears, and her days in studying the newspapers in search of “something to do.”

Being still young in experience, she started by spending a small fortune on advertisements in which she expressed her willingness to undertake secretarial duties, to act as companion to an invalid lady—as governess to young children, or as instructress in the arts of poker-work, marquetry, and painting on china; then as time went on and the public continued to treat her overtures with contempt, she abandoned this mode of procedure, and contented herself with reading the notices for which other people had paid, and in wasting postage-stamps in reply.

It was when this occupation had been continued for several months and her spirits had fallen to the lowest possible ebb that her eye was attracted by a paragraph which awakened new hopes. A lady wished to meet with a young person of good principles and cheerful disposition, who would accompany her to church on Sundays, spend some hours of every morning in reading aloud, playing upon the harmonium, and making herself useful and agreeable; and applicants were directed to apply in person at Number 8 Berrington Square, between three and five o’clock in the afternoon.

“I shall try for it!” cried Norah instantly. “It will be horribly humiliating. I shall be shown into the dining-room, and expected to take a seat between the sideboard and the door, as servants do when they are applying for a situation, but anything is better than sitting here, doing nothing! I don’t feel remarkably cheerful at present, but it is in the old lady’s power to put me in the wildest spirits, if she is so inclined. She must be old—no human creature under sixty could have written that advertisement. She can’t have any children, or she would not be advertising for a companion; she must be well off, or she could not afford to pay for ‘extras’ in this rash fashion; she would have to put up with being dull as I have done the last month. Heigho! It would be very pleasing if she took a fancy to me, and adopted me as her heir! I don’t in the least see why she shouldn’t! I can be very charming when I choose. I shall put on my sealskin coat, and my best hat!”

A few hours later, Miss Boyce knocked at the door of Number 8 Berrington Square, was informed that Mrs Baker was at home, and shown into a room on the right of the entrance hall. It was the dining-room. “Of course! I knew it!” said Norah to herself, and straightway proceeded to take stock of her surroundings. A red flock wall-paper, a heavy mahogany sideboard, on which were flanked an imposing array of biscuit-boxes and cruets; mahogany chairs upholstered in black haircloth; an india-rubber plant in the centre of the table, and an American organ in the corner! The visitor rolled her eyes to the ceiling, and went through an expressive pantomime of despair, for she was an artistic, beauty-loving creature, whose spirits were sensibly affected by the colour of a wallpaper, and to whom it was a real trial to live in ugly surroundings.

She had barely time to compose herself before the door opened, and the mistress of the house made her appearance.

Mrs Baker was an old lady of the white rabbit type, weak-eyed, anaemic, and kindly, and evidently unaccustomed to the engagement of “young persons,” for she shook hands with Norah, seated herself in an easy chair by the fire, and waited developments with a blandly inquiring smile.

It was evident that Norah was expected to advertise her capabilities without the aid of the usual cross-questionings, so, taking her courage in both hands, she launched forth into explanations, prefaced, it must sorrowfully be admitted, by a reference to better days; confessed to a passion for reading aloud and playing on the harmonium, and dwelt at length on the advantages of her scholastic training. When at last she paused for breath, after having talked for a good five minutes on end, the old lady blinked her eyes, and said:

“What, love?—I didn’t quite catch what you were saying. I am a little hard of hearing!”

“I might have known it!” Norah told herself reproachfully. “Deaf, of course! It just completes the character,” and in a heightened voice she proceeded to repeat every word of her former statement. Signs of impatience became visible on the listener’s face as she proceeded, and she hurried on in order to announce the name of her musical professor before she should be interrupted by the question which was evidently hovering on the old lady’s lips.

“Did you ever happen to meet a family named Henstock, who lived in Finsbury Park? A corner house it was—white, with green posts at the gate?” queried Mrs Baker, bending forward with an expression of breathless curiosity.

Norah gasped, and shook her head. The connection between the family of Henstock in the corner house in Finsbury Park, and her own application for the post of companion, was so exceedingly remote as to reduce her to a condition of petrified silence.

“How very extraordinary! You are so like Mary Ellen, the very image of Mary Ellen! She was a great favourite of mine, was Mary Ellen, and she married a very worthy young man, an assistant in a bank at Bradford. Yes! She had two lovely little boys. It was very good of you to come and see me, my dear, and I should like very much to have you with me. I am reading a most interesting biography at present, and I take in several periodicals. Yes! Perhaps you could come on Monday morning. At eleven o’clock.”

Three months’ experience of answering advertisements had left Norah so little prepared for this speedy acceptance of her services, that she was surprised into protest.

“But I do not wish to hurry your decision! Perhaps you would like to have references, or to consult your—”

“No, love! I have no one to consider but myself, and you have such a strong resemblance to Mary Ellen! It is in this way: My nephew has been in the habit of going to church with me. I cannot hear very much; but I like to go all the same, and John was in the habit of repeating the sermon to me in the afternoon. Yes! He is a very estimable-minded young man, and very good to his old aunt! It was he who suggested that I should advertise for a companion. He said it would be so lonely for me if he ever went out of town, but he will be very pleased when I tell him that I have found someone so like Mary Ellen. He has such a dislike for these new-fashioned, strong-minded girls who are always calling out for their rights. I am sure, my dear, that you have too much sense for such notions. You look far too pretty and amiable. Now about the little matter of remuneration! ... Would half a crown a day be agreeable?”

Norah gasped again, with a sensation as if a pail of water had been suddenly douched over her head. Half a crown a day! It was what people paid to charwomen. Good Gracious! She tried to calculate what sum was represented by seven half-crowns, and the delay which took place before she succeeded in settling the point convinced her that, after all, she would be wise to accept Mrs Baker’s offer, since in another situation she might possibly be required to teach arithmetic and mathematics! She perjured herself, therefore, by declaring that half a crown would be very agreeable indeed, and returned home undecided between hilarity and depression.

For the next three weeks Norah earned her half-crown a day with equal satisfaction to herself and her employer. The biographies were a trifle dull, it is true, and the harmonium decidedly creaky and out of tune, but the old lady was kindly and affectionate, and her companion had the pleasure of feeling that her services were appreciated. By this time, however, she had fully grasped the fact that seven half-crowns equal seventeen-and-six, and in the conviction that further effort was required to secure herself from anxiety, had recommenced the daily searchings of the newspaper columns. Then it was that she discovered an advertisement which filled her with a sense of delighted amusement, because of its strange likeness and yet contrast to the one of a month before. Another lady, it appeared, was desirous of finding a companion, but this time the advertiser was a champion of women’s rights, who wished to meet with someone of like opinions, who would walk with her in the afternoons and discuss the problems and difficulties of the sex.

“‘Curiouser and curiouser!’” quoted Norah to herself. “What a droll coincidence. Now, if I had not—but of course as I have, I could not possibly... And yet, why not? I am sure after being shut up in that stuffy room all morning reading those dull, old-fashioned books, I am in a most daring and revolutionary mood in the afternoons. I should not be pretending to take an interest in the suffrage question; I should really and truly feel it... It would be instructive to hear what this lady has to say for herself, and then, after marching about the country listening to her tirades, I should probably be quite thankful to get back to medievalism and my dear old lady in the morning.—I’ll do it! I will! I’ll go and see her without an hour’s delay...”

The advertisement had not asked for a personal application, but Norah had gained experience by this time, and was perfectly aware of the advantage possessed by Miss Boyce in her sealskin coat and best hat, over the “young persons” who, as a rule, applied for situations. She intended to be not only heard but seen.

The advanced lady lived in a flat which was as artistic as the house in Berrington Square was commonplace. She was a spinster of uncertain age, tall and angular, and so formidable in appearance that at the sight of her Norah was overcome with a panic of nervousness.

“Good afternoon,” she stammered. “I—I saw your advertisement in the Daily News, and thought that I would—that is to say, that I would apply—that I would try to—to.—I hope I have not inconvenienced you by calling in person!”

“Not at all, not at all. I have already received several replies, but it is far more satisfactory to have a personal interview,” returned the spinster, staring very hard at Norah’s hat, and craning her neck to see how the bows were arranged at the back. “I am ordered to take a certain amount of outdoor exercise daily, and as my friends are not able to accompany me, I wish to meet with a lady who is interested in the same subjects as myself, and with whom I can enjoy exchange of ideas as we walk. You look rather young, but I gather from the fact of your having replied to my advertisement, that you are—”

“I am very much interested. I should enjoy hearing your views, and, though I am young, I have seen a great deal of life. I have travelled more than most people, and am now alone in the world, and obliged to earn my own living.”

Norah had been in haste to reply, in order to avoid a more compromising statement, but now she stopped short, surprised by a flash of delight which illumined the listener’s face.

“Ah-h!” cried Miss Mellor, in the rapturous tone of one who has suddenly been granted a long-craved-for opportunity. “Then you have had experience! You know! You fed! You agree with me that the history of the human race, the throng of events, the multifarious forms of human life are only the accidental form of the Idea; they do not belong to the Idea itself, in which alone lies the adequate objectivity of the Will, but only to that phenomenon which appears to the knowledge of the individual, and which is just as foreign and unessential to the Idea itself as the figures which they assume are to the clouds, or the foam flakes to the brooks! So true! So deeply true! You agree with me, I feel sure!”

“Certainly. Quite so. I mean to say—naturally! Oh, yes. By all means!” gasped Norah weakly, and her head fell back against the chair. She was not to know that the speaker had discovered her little speech in a book only one short half-hour before, and had learned it off by heart in the fond hope of being able to introduce it incidentally into conversation, and she felt faint and dizzy with the effort of trying to understand.

Miss Mellor saw that she had made an impression, and beamed with complacent delight.

“Ah, yes; I see that we are at one!” she cried. “And is it not a comfort to feel that, having once grasped this idea, we shall now be able to distinguish between the Will and the Idea, and between the Idea and its manifestation? The events of the world will now have significance for us, inasfar only as they are the letters out of which we may read the Idea of man. We can never again believe with the vulgar—”

“Oh, my goodness!” cried Norah to herself. “To think that it should have come to this! I’m vulgar! I must be; and I never knew it! I don’t understand one word she is saying. If I ever get out of this room alive—”

She sank still farther back in her chair and stared at Miss Mellor with fascinated, unblinking eyes, like a poor little rabbit beneath the spell of the boa-constrictor. In a dim, far-off way, she heard the stream of unmeaning eloquence, but her one supreme longing was to bring the interview to an end, to crawl home and lie down upon the sofa, and put wet cloths on her head, and go to sleep and forget all about her sufferings... Suddenly the dock chimed, and she awoke to the fact that it was over half an hour since she had entered the room. She rose to her feet, and was about to falter forth apologies for her ignorance, when, to her astonishment, the advanced lady bore down upon her, and grasping her hand in fervent fashion, declared that she was enchanted to have discovered a kindred spirit, and that, suffering as she did from constant coldness and misunderstanding, it was soul-refreshing to meet with one whose mind was as her own, and that she would henceforth live in anticipation of their afternoon communions!