CHAPTER XXVera Anerley had never acted better than that night when Joan secretly visited Victor. Some subtle excitement--born, perhaps, of an unusually passionate kiss of her beloved's when she left him alone in the house to interview the man he had spoken of--was perhaps the spur which had produced an access of fervour. Perhaps it was the approaching separation. Victor had announced that he would start on a journey in a few days. She herself was leaving for the North with the travelling company to which she was attached.In any case, her disappointed would-be lover, the young stage-manager, came up to her with a smile at her final exit--a thing he had not done since she was betrayed into pushing him roughly away when he attempted an embrace--and condescendingly said a few words of praise, adding a proposal to introduce "a friend of his," who had been "much pleased.""He is the dramatic critic of theParthenon!" he pompously added, surprised when Vera knitted her brow and shook her head."You are very kind, Mr. Howard, but I must be getting home," she pleaded. What was the critic of the Parthenon to her in comparison with half-an-hour'stête-à-têtewith Victor? she asked herself, as she escaped into her dressing-room, leaving "Mr. Howard" anathematizing her "folly," and vindictively prophesying to himself that, in spite of her beauty and talent, she would "never rise an inch" in her profession. "Mother," as she called Victor's mother, her late father's second wife, was out with the mild student, Mr. Dobbs, at the hospital entertainment. She wanted to be home first!"Put away all my things for me, won't you, Polly?" she said to the daughter of the veteran actress who took old women parts, and who travelled with the company as wardrobe keeper. "Thanks! You are a good sort!" and with a hasty hug of the girl she darted out of the dressing-room, along the passage to the stage-door, and into the cool, quiet alley.Then she ran--into the still glaring, thronged thoroughfare--it was a neighbourhood whose inhabitants kept late hours, and "did their shopping" mostly at night--hailed a loitering hansom, and was driven to Haythorn Street. Eagerly glancing out at the house, she had noticed a tall lady with a swinging gait coming along. She noticed her as hardly the kind of feminine visitor frequenting Haythorn Street, and because she seemed to swerve now and then. When she stopped and seemed to watch her alight and pass into the house, Vera wondered if the gentleman Victor expected--he had hinted that his visitor was one moving in higher circles--had brought her with him, and that she was waiting for him outside."But I suppose a gentleman would hardly bring a lady here at this hour of the night, still less leave her in the street," was her second and more lucid thought, as she opened the hall door with her latch-key, passed in, and closing it, listened.If there was any one with Victor upstairs, she knew she would hear voices. But the stillness was that of an empty house. As she stood, she heard the same loud, sober ticking of the kitchen clock which had seemed so almost terrible to Joan in her awful anxiety. Then came a plaintive "mew" from within the little front parlour--hers and her step-mother's. "Why, Kitty! Who could have shut you in?" she exclaimed, and she opened the door. The tortoise-shell cat--an old one troubled with a perpetually-moulting coat, ran out as she did so and rubbed itself against her old winsey "theatre skirt," purring loudly. "Victor must have shut her in," she mused, as she went slowly upstairs to find him.Where was he? For the door of Mr. Mackenzie's, the absent lodger's, sitting-room stood open--and there was no sound within. Entering, for the first moment she deemed the room empty. Then she noted the two tumblers, one half full of dark liquid, and the glass jug of water, on the table--and her glance travelling further, alighted on the motionless form of her lover on the sofa."Asleep?" she wondered. It seemed strange--the mercurial, ever wide-awake Victor--so early in the evening, as he considered evenings, too! Still, she went towards him on tiptoe. "I will wake him with a kiss," she thought, with an incipient glow of passion as she imagined him rousing from sleep to clasp her close and fasten those adored lips on hers with that warm, possessive kiss of his which she felt was unlike every other kiss which had been given and taken since Adam's fresh lips first touched the ripe, yet innocent mouth of Eve in Paradise.When she reached him she gave a cry of terror. Something was wrong! He never looked livid, sunken, his eyes half-open, like that!She seized his hand and gasped with relief; for it was warm and limp; then she stooped and kissed his brow. It was damp and cold as clay after a frost."He has fainted!" she wildly thought. "I must call some one!"She flew downstairs, intending to ask help next door, in spite of a disagreement with its proprietress after a too intimate acquaintance of the moulting tortoise-shell with some fowls kept for laying purposes in the backyard; but as she opened the hall door, her stepmother and the thin, amiable Mr. Dobbs had just come up."Why, Vera! You are home early," began Mrs. Wright, surprised. "But--why--child! what is it?" She stopped short, for Vera's eyes looked madly at her--the girl was deathly white."Victor is ill, I am going for a doctor," she gasped, distractedly--her efforts to be calm and self-possessed only seemed to aggravate her uncontrollable fear and anguish. "Do go upstairs and see to him, Mr. Dobbs, won't you? I think he has fainted. I will be back directly!""Thank Heaven they came!" was her thought, as she ran swiftly up the street and round the corner to the doctor who always attended them, the kind, shrewd old practitioner, Doctor Thompson, and springing up the steps of the house vigorously rang the bell. She heard it clang within with that ominous toll some bells have, and peered through the coloured glass at the side of the door. Were they all dead? she asked herself impatiently, staring in at the empty entry, with its umbrella-stand and grandfather clock. What miserable mismanagement! Once more, although only a few moments had elapsed since the bell rang, she gave a tug to the bell-pull. A girl in hat and jacket came in sight within, put her fingers in her ears, and hurried to the door, looking disgusted. It was the housemaid, who had been to the hospital entertainment."I am sorry to have rung twice," exclaimed Vera, breathlessly, as she opened the door--she knew the girl. "But--is the doctor in? No? Oh, what shall I do?""It isn't the old lady, miss?--I saw her just now in the Priscilla Ward, a-larfin' fit to split her sides at the comic singing gentleman--what? Your brother? The smart young gent with the black moustache? A fit? My! Why don't you go round to young Doctor Hampton, who 'as just set up the dispensary? He's some sort of relation of master's, and I've heard master a-talkin' of his cleverness--round there, miss, two doors up--red lamp--you can't miss it!""She do seem put about," thought the young woman, as she looked out and watched Vera flit across the road like a black shadow. "Fancy takin' on like that about a brother!"Wildly, telling herself passionately that a moment's delay might mean death--death was in his face--Vera tore into the still open entry of the little house with the red lamp and gave such a violent knock and ring that the door opened before it was over.A young man stared at her, astonished, as she clutched at his coat-sleeve, despairingly adjuring him to come and save her brother's life, he was in a fit. He felt quite shocked and concerned at being suddenly assailed with such a pathetic flow of appealing language from so young and beautiful a creature."Yes--certainly--at once! Only let me get my hat!" he exclaimed; and after he had seized upon the head-gear nearest at hand, which happened to be a cricket-cap, he also set off running at her side, entered by the open door of Number Twelve, Haythorn Street, and sprang up after this agile girl three steps at a time.The room was light. He saw two figures--a woman, kneeling by the couch, a man with his back to him, who turned as they came in. He looked pale and scared."I am afraid there is nothing to be done, Doctor," he said, in those low, hushed tones, which even the most irreverent use in the presence of the dead.The young man passed him, and going to the couch, looked down upon the solemn face of the dead man. He laid his hand almost tenderly upon his brow--he listened to the heart."Take the old lady away, please!" he said, peremptorily, to Vera. Then, after the girl had, with some difficulty, coaxed her step-mother out, he turned to the scared and guiltless John Dobbs. "How did this happen?" he sternly inquired.CHAPTER XXIAfter that spontaneous, passionate prayer to Heaven for mercy, Joan seemed to awaken to a stronger, intenser life. A new instinct burst into a fierce clamouring within her--the primary instinct to live--live--anywhere, anyhow, at any price--but to live!"I ought not to die--I did not mean to kill him!" she wailed. Her first mad notion was to confess everything from first to last. There would be an inquest. If she were to go to the coroner and tell him the whole story, would he not see justice done?"But it would only be my bare word," she thought, as she sat on the edge of the bed, wringing her cold hands, shuddering so that her teeth chattered. "Any one who wanted to kill some one that stood in their way might do it, and say it was an accident!"No; that Quixotic idea was untenable. Dead silence--absolute secrecy--these must be her defensive armour. No one knew she had seen Victor Mercier since his re-appearance in London, and only two persons were aware of the so-called "love-affair." One was the school-girl go-between, Jenny Marchant, who on the only occasion they had happened to meet, at a charity bazaar, had taken her aside and implored her never to betray her complicity in that terrible escapade--she had read of Victor Mercier's defalcations in the papers, but had not the remotest idea the consequence of her folly was that her chum Joan had bound herself to the "dreadful creature" by a marriage at the registrar's. She would never say anything! "And Nana would rather die than betray me!" thought Joan.No--absolute secrecy--to act as if no such person as the dead man who had come by his death through her daring to drug him, existed, as far as she was concerned--that was the best, the only course open to her to save herself."But--but--I must not do anything wild," she told herself. "The plan to marry my beloved and start in his yacht must not be carried out! That would never do! Would not people suspect I had some very good reason for flight--for hiding myself?"Then the truth suddenly flashed upon her; there was now no necessity for concealment! The man who had bound her to him in law was dead."I am a widow!" she murmured, shivering. "How impossible--extraordinary--yet, yet--literally true! I never was his wife--except for a quarter of an hour in the registry office--what a mockery! And all this--horror--my misery--his wretched, sudden death--came out of that--those few words of an ordinary man's--the signing of our names in a book!"Would the registrar who married them come forward?At the idea she sickened. Chill sweat came upon her brow."Why should he? He has enough to do without making himself more worrying work," she told herself. "Besides, he may think I went abroad with Victor and died there, if he thinks at all!"No. She must find some way of accounting for her change of ideas to Lord Vansittart, she mused, as, hearing Julie outside, she returned to bed, and when the girl entered, stretched her arms and yawned."Oh, I am much better," she told her, as Julie made anxious inquiries; and with a violent effort she contrived to act her part pretty successfully--to dress and seem as usual--even to attempt to eat some breakfast. But this latter was a hard task. The morning papers had the "Mysterious Death" among their "sensations," and gave ominous hints as to "Victor a'Court's" career which threatened her with a return of that convulsive shivering.However, when she went downstairs, her aunt and uncle seemed so cheerfully matter-of-fact--her aunt gave her such very pronounced hints on the subject of Vansittart--"they would be quite to themselves, because she was going out, but she hoped Joan would insist upon his dining with them that evening as he disappointed them last night," etc.--that she began to feel as if the tragedy in her young, unfortunate life were unreal--dream-like.The sun shone warmly upon the brilliant bloom of the flowers in her balcony. A canary sang joyously from its cage outside the window of the next house. The lively rattle of carts, the smooth roll of carriages, the shrill voices of passing children--all meant life--life! And she was greedy, thirsty for life--she--who a few hours ago had done a fellow-creature to death."All is not--quite--lost," she mused, as she leant her tired head on her hands--she had seated herself at her writing-table, and was pretending to be busy with her correspondence. "I can do nothing--any more--for poor, cruel Victor--may God be merciful to him! But he has relatives--this actress sister--he never said a word of her to me, I may hope he never said a word of me to her. I may be able to make her life very different--after all this is over and forgotten--hers and any other relatives of his--and I will! I will not spend one single day without doing something to tend to some comfort or advantage for them!"She was still trying to plan her announcement of her changed wishes to Vansittart, so as not to excite the faintest suspicion in his mind that anything had occurred to alter her ideas between her last meeting and this, when she heard voices outside--the groom of the chambers announced "Lord Vansittart"--and he precipitately entered.He advanced, a little pale and anxious-looking, but so handsome, such a tower of strength, such embodied manhood at its noblest, that suddenly she felt utterly overwhelmed, submerged--she tottered gasping into his arms, and clung to him as madly as one drowning cleaves to his rescuer."Oh--it is you--" she deliriously stammered. "Don't--don't leave me--oh--what am I saying? Are we both--alive? Is it real?"In her delirious collapse she would not let him kiss her lips. First she hid her face in his coat, then she kissed it--wildly, almost passionately."My poor, sweet darling; be calm--it is all right--I will take care of you!" he said, tenderly, brokenly. To see her thus almost unnerved him--he was losing command of his voice--two great cold tears stood in his eyes, then ran down and lay glistening on her golden hair. "Come, my dearest love! Something has upset you, but never mind; I promise you it shall not happen again--I will stand between you and trouble."He stopped short, horrified--for she burst into a wild peal of laughter. She struggled to subdue it by hiding her head upon his arm. He gazed down at her pretty golden head, speechless with mingled feelings. Once more the ugly idea crept up unbidden within him--that Joan was "going mad.""No! You are right there!" she cried her laughter subdued, glancing up almost defiantly into his face. "What--ever--does happen again? Did you not talk of the past being irrevocable, irrecoverable? It is! The present is bad enough, is it not? That I should be a hysterical fool like this--all because of a dream! At least I think my headache made me delirious all night. I am not good enough for you, dear. You must give up all idea of marrying me!"She gazed tenderly at him with those dark eyes soft with the tears brought by that hysterical outburst."Oh, yes, of course!" he ironically said. "I am to give up all chance of happiness because you are not one of those Amazons I so cordially detest! Come, darling--I can see that London life is utterly and entirely disagreeing with you!" He seated himself on a sofa and drew her gently down beside him. "That fact reconciles me to taking you away, do you know--so it is the silver lining to the only cloud that is troubling my horizon!""You did not like that plan of mine? I am--thankful!"As she ejaculated this with evident truth, Vansittart stared at her."Not that, darling! I am ready to do anything----" he began, alarmed lest she had seized upon a loop-hole for escape. But she interrupted."I had a dream last night," she began, slowly, striving for self-possession--the very mention of that awful vision unnerved her. "You know--what is on my mind--that I helped to ruin the life of a friend by helping her to marry a bad man. Well! I dreamt--that she came--to awful--grief! And the dream was so vivid that I take it as a warning. I do not wish to carry out our plan, dearest. If you care to marry me, let us be married openly, before the world!""Do you really mean it?" He grasped her hands and kissed them. He gazed at her with a face beaming, transfigured with joy. "Thank God, you do! Oh, my darling, my darling--I would have married you anywhere, anyhow, I would even have kept our marriage secret till the crack of doom if you had wanted to--but I hated doing it. I hated stealing you like a thief, instead of marrying you proudly, honourably, glorying in it, before God and all his creatures! You have lifted such a weight from my heart that I hardly know where I am, or what I am about!"CHAPTER XXIIFor awhile, as Joan sat, her lover's arm around her, all about them so bright--the pretty boudoir, decked with dainty gifts of her uncle's and aunt's, gay with flowers and sunshine--she was infected by his radiant happiness. A faint hope stole timidly up in her crushed heart--a vague idea of "misadventure"--"the visitation of God"--as the real cause of Victor Mercier's death, she only the unhappy instrument. The idea reigned--it was the melody to the accompaniment of his joyous talk.Then her uncle came in, and without ado Vansittart asked his blessing.Sir Thomas had hardly kissed and congratulated his niece, beaming upon her in his huge satisfaction, when Lady Thorne entered, and stopping short, placidly surveyed the trio."No, I am not surprised," she answered, in a superior tone, to her husband's inquiry, after he had announced the engagement. "Or at least, if I am, it is because you two young people have taken so long to make up your minds. I never saw two people so fitted for each other."There was an air of subdued gaiety about the four at the luncheon table. Joan held her thoughts and emotions in check with a tremendous effort of will. In the afternoon the lovers rode out into the country, and she enjoyed an almost wild ride. She had an idea that bodily fatigue might weaken her power of thought. If only she could tire herself into physical exhaustion, she fancied she might forget. Oh! only to ignore, to be able to ignore the past--for a few brief hours!Vansittart was too madly in love to take exception to any desire or even whim of his darling's. He cantered and galloped, raced and tore at her side, although at last his favourite horse was reeking with sweat, and he told himself that he had not felt so "pumped out" for a long while. The fact that Joan did not seem to feel fatigue hardly reassured him. He determined to ask Sir Thomas to influence her to consent to an early marriage, that he might take her on a sea voyage. After they had dined, a pleasantpartie quarrée, and he and his future uncle-in-law were alone, he broached the subject."I hope, Sir Thomas, you will not think me impatient if I suggest that there should not be a prolonged engagement," he began, taking the bull by the horns almost as soon as they had lighted up and their first glass of Mouton was still untasted before them. "But, to tell you the truth, I am not happy about my loved one's health, and I fancy that some yachting--say in or about Norway--might brace her a little.""Great wits jump, they say! My dear boy, you have almost taken the very words out of my mouth!" replied Sir Thomas, confidentially. "Honestly, I have been uneasy about Joan for a long time. I told you months ago about the family tendency to phthisis! Well, I am not exactly anxious about her lungs, the medical men say they are perfectly sound, so far. But tubercular disease has other ways of showing itself, and there is a feverishness, a tendency almost amounting to delirium about the dear girl, which at times makes me uneasy. I intended to suggest a speedy marriage, and a sea voyage, knowing of your delightful yacht. I repeat, you have taken the words out of my mouth!"Joan was winding wool for Lady Thorne's work for her specialprotégés, the "deep sea fishermen"--winding it with an almost fiery energy, as the two conspirators entered the drawing-room. Her eyes met Vansittart's with the old hunted, desperate look--his heart sank as he felt how impotent and futile his efforts to balance the disturbing influence, whatever it was, had been.Sir Thomas had determined to "strike the iron while it was hot." So, as soon as coffee had been served, he broached the subject of an almost immediate marriage."My dear, it is the only thing to be done!" exclaimed his wife emphatically. "It ought to be a function, Joan's marriage! And if it is not as soon as I can arrange matters, it will have to be postponed till next season, when every one will be sick and tired of the subject. You are our only chick and child, Joan, and I will have you married properly, withéclat."Joan made no objection. She gave her lover one tender, confiding glance, then resumed her wool-winding, and allowed her elders to settle her affairs for her. Perhaps, she thought, when she was left alone with the awful facts of her life in her own room--perhaps she might learn to live in something less akin to utter and complete despair than her present humour, when she was alone with Vansittart, skimming the ocean in his yacht.The necessary shopping and dressmaker-interviewing, too, might distract her from the terrible, gnawing anxiety of the coming inquest.Each morning and evening the papers had some little paragraph about the affair. They hinted at the identity of "Victor a'Court" being a disputed one. But until the day fixed for the inquest there had been no definite allusion in print.The night before the inquest was one of feverish anxiety for Joan. "If only I were not so strong--if only some dreadful illness would attack me!" she told herself, as the hours lagged and dragged. She could not face her world while that awful inquiry which might mean a shameful death to her was going forward; yet she dared not shut herself into her room to await the evening papers as she best could.Her aunt was, fortunately for Joan, a "little out of sorts," as she herself termed it. So, her uncle being out--and having, indeed, almost entirely relaxed his barely-veiled supervision of her doings now that in three weeks time she would be Lady Vansittart and freed from his jurisdiction for always, she donned a hat and walking dress and wandered out, unseen--for the hall was empty.Why she was attracted towards the scene of her "accidental crime"--that was her name for her administration of the drugged brandy to Victor Mercier--she could not imagine. But she was.She had intended to stroll about in the leafy seclusion of Kensington Gardens, dodging her kind. But no sooner was she in the Park than she wandered almost unconsciously nearer and nearer to the place where she had done her former lover to death.Oh, for some cool, dark refuge in which to grovel and hide during the awful hours of dreadful suspense! The light of day seemed too garish--every cheerful sound made her shrink and wince--every voice seemed to thrill each overstrung nerve in her aching body.As she was pausing, miserably, under a tree, stopping her ears that she might not hear the glad voices and laughter of some children gaily at play, she happened to glance skyward where the towers of the great cathedral stood, solemn and noble, against the sky."I will go in there and wait!" she told herself. She felt unable to return home and face the evening papers in her uncle's house. She would wait for them there.She almost fled along, across the road, into the cathedral, as a guilty, hunted creature seeking sanctuary. She halted when she had closed the door. There was a calm, a rest, in the sacred fane which was as the presence of the Creator Himself. She slunk into a corner, and crouching down, clung for support to the rail of the bench in front of her and waited.Waited, half-dazed and stupified, hardly knowing where she was, mind and brain confused as if too paralysed to think, to act. Hour after hour passed. Afternoon service proceeded in the choir. Almost grovelling in her corner, she listened. She could not pray--she was past that.Then, as there was a movement of the congregation to the doors, she forced herself to rise and pass out among them. For she knew the evening papers would be out.She hurried from the Abbey into the street, bought one from the first urchin she met shouting "Special Edeetion!" fled across one street and along another, into the Park. There she found an empty bench, and, well hidden from passers-by by a clump of shrubs, opened her paper with trembling fingers. Yes! There it was!"INQUEST THIS DAY. STRANGE REVELATIONS."CHAPTER XXIIIThe paragraphs seemed to dance before her eyes. Joan's mind at first refused to understand. Then, as she read, she feared her brain was playing her false.Victor a'Court was identified by several witnesses--one a detective, who had failed to track him when he was "wanted" four years ago for embezzling monies belonging to his firm--as Victor Mercier.His old mother was called, but was in so pitiable a state that his identity was finally established by the evidence of her step-daughter, Vera "Anerley."She was described as pale, but perfectly self-possessed. She told the coroner's court how Victor Mercier's father died in obscurity some years before her own father, a widower, met Madame Mercier and married her. She and Victor, who was ten years at least her senior, had called each other brother and sister, albeit not related. She knew nothing of the particulars of the charge brought against him some years ago, except that the firm were subsequently bankrupt. She knew he had "got on" abroad, but how, or why, he had not exactly said.Then two medical men--one the aged practitioner who attended the family, Dr. Thompson, the other the young doctor, his nephew--testified to the death, and gave an account of thepost-mortemexamination they had made by the coroner's order. The sudden death, which at first had had the appearance of suicide, especially as some brandy in a tumbler had proved, on analysis, to contain a quantity of morphia--was actually due to failure of the heart.Cross-examination elicited from both medical men that there was not much actual disease. The heart was not in good condition--it could never have acted strongly--and failure might have happened, they considered, at any time, after undue strain, or shock, or even indiscretion.Was the dose found in the stomach sufficient to cause death? asked the foreman of the jury. The reply was--and Joan read it feverishly again and again--not, perhaps, in a healthy person who was addicted to narcotics. Those who were accustomed to other sedatives would possibly escape being poisoned by the amount of morphia Victor Mercier seemed likely to have swallowed. But with a heart like his death might certainly ensue were the person unaccustomed to narcotics and the like.Then the medical student, who had returned from settling his dead mother's affairs to find his "diggings" the scene of a recent tragedy, testified to the amount and kind of morphia he had left in a bottle among the rest of his drugs. Probably two-thirds of the half-bottle had been accounted for by the drugged brandy left in a tumbler, and by the contents of the stomach. He identified the empty bottle.Here a juror asked if the bottle from which the brandy had been taken were in court?It was not. No bottle had been found in the cupboard or anywhere in the sitting-room, although several empty brandy bottles were in a corner of the adjoining bedroom, where Victor Mercier was temporarily sleeping. The student lodger vigorously disowned these, upon which the coroner asked the aged doctor whether a man whose heart was in the condition of Victor Mercier's would be tempted to resort to alcohol, and having received a decided reply in the affirmative, the subject was dropped.Mr. Dobbs, the student who had escorted Victor Mercier's mother to the hospital entertainment, testified to finding Victor Mercier dead, as far as he could judge; then Vera gave an account of how she found him, and asked to be allowed to make a statement.She told the Court that to her knowledge Victor Mercier had secretly married a lady, his senior, wealthy, of good position, who had behaved shamefully when he was under a cloud some years previously: that he had intended and hoped to procure a divorce, and that a person was expected to call upon him that night--the night he died--whose evidence would go far to assist him in his desire. "I expected the person would be still with him," she added--"and--I found him--dead!"The significant utterance of her statement appeared to have brought about a perfect storm of questioning. But, giving an absolute denial to any further knowledge of the affair, she adhered firmly to what she had said, and nothing further could be elicited from her, except the somewhat defiant reply to a suggestion of the foreman of the jury that Victor Mercier might have had some motive in wishing to have a divorce instead of claiming conjugal rights. "Yes. We--he and I--were engaged to be married, as soon as he could get rid of her!"That speech, apparently, brought matters to a speedy conclusion. The Coroner placed the "ambiguous affair" before the jury somewhat diffidently. Their verdict was, perhaps in consequence, hardly a decisive one. They disagreed. While the majority wished to adopt the coroner's hint that "death by misadventure" might be a safe view to take, and that it would be easy for investigations to be proceeded with by other authorities, should those authorities feel inclined to dissatisfaction, there were some dissentients who suspected possible foul play.These were, however, sufficiently in the minority for a verdict of "death by misadventure" to be returned, and when Joan understood that by this she was still unsuspected by man of that which God alone yet knew she had done, the sudden shock of joy was as bad to bear as her agony when she read that Victor Mercier was dead."I am not to be hanged, I am not to be shamed before the world--God is just--He is merciful--He has heard my prayer!" she frantically told herself, as in the folly of ecstasy she clasped and kissed the paper, and held it to her heart. Was the world all sunshine, all joy? What was the matter? she wondered. It was as if she had been groping through some dark, noisome tunnel, holding by the dark walls, expecting every moment that some horror would rush upon and destroy her miserable, hopeless being--and--without even a warning ray of light--she had suddenly emerged into a beautiful world--ancient, yet new--bathed in glorious sunshine, awake and alive with joy.She heard, almost with wonder, that the birds were carolling, that gay voices and laughter, mingled with the ripple of the wavelets a few yards away, where little children were screaming as they fed the quacking ducks. Little children! Some day she might be a mother, and in tending innocent babes she might forget the horror of her life.She had no pity for the cruel man whom she saw now, first, in his true light, as perjurer, liar, thief--who had stolen her young affections out of mere wantonness, so it seemed to her, when he really loved this "Vera Anerley," who was supposedly his sister. He had lied to her all through--he was a mere nobody--he meant to climb to a position by her wealth: he had lied about his legal tie to her, this Vera--this love of his. What had he meant to do? How could he divorce her?The answer to her own question was as a blow, so sharp, so cruel. She closed her eyes faint and sick."He knew aboutus," she thought. "He said--'your lover, Lord Vansittart.' He meant to get a divorce--because of him. He would have sworn to lies, very likely. He would have got 'damages'--a decree--and after he had disgraced me for ever, would have made that girl his wife! Oh--his death has been a mercy to every one--may God grant it has been a mercy to him!"As soon as she was equal to the effort of walking--for she felt unsteady and giddy even then--she left the newspaper on the seat on which she had sat to read her fate, and making her way out of the Park, took a cab home, and entered without, she believed, being unduly observed. She found that her uncle had lunched at his club, and her aunt was in her room, so, joining Lady Thorne in her boudoir, where she was lying comfortably tucked up on a sofa, she excused her absence very casually. She had been detained shopping, had lunched out, had attended service in the Abbey. Lady Thorne smiled indulgently. "Of course, of course, my dear!" she interrupted. "But I am glad you are in. Violette has sent home one of yourtrousseauevening frocks. It is a poet's dream--pink embroidered roses, and a bouquet of pink roses has come from the Duchess with a little note--they decorate with roses to-night in your honour! I want you to wear that frock. It would make such a nice paragraph in the society papers, and encourage Violette to exert her utmost with the rest of the wedding order."Joan went upstairs, wondering what it meant--this sudden flow of sunshine. As she inspected the dress--an exquisiteconfectionof pale pink and white shot tissue, embroidered with clusters of La France roses with so cunning a hand that the blossoms looked almost real--she wondered what she would have felt, arraying herself in that gala attire, yesterday."My dark, darkest of dark nights, seems over, thank Heaven!" she told herself as she went down later on, radiant, to the drawing-room to receive her lover. As she opened the door, she saw him standing as if lost in anxious thought. He sprang towards her with a puzzled, astounded gaze."How lovely you look! But--but--oh, darling, how thankful I am to see you look almost happy for once!" he passionately exclaimed, as he kissed her--hands, brow, lips--with the tender reverence which made her almost worship him in return. "But--oh, something must have happened to please you! Tell me, Joan, do not let us have any secrets from each other!""You shall know to-night--at the dance," she said. The dance was given by the Duchess of Arran.CHAPTER XXIVIf Joan had succeeded in fascinating Lord Vansittart until his passion dominated him to the extinction of all his ordinary interests in life, while she was mysteriously enwrapped in an unaccountable gloom--a gloom which hid her natural charms, her bright, ready wit, her spontaneity, her sympathetic responses to the moods of others, as a thick mist hides a beautiful landscape--in her new gaiety and sudden joyousness she simply intoxicated him.As he sat opposite her at dinner, he gazed fatuously at her in her pink glory, her sweet face shining above the roseate robe as the morning star above the sunrise-tinted clouds--and wondered at the magnificence of the fate dealt out to him by fortune. When they were driving to Arran House--Sir Thomas by his betrothed, and he squeezing in his long figure on the opposite seat--he felt that to sit at her feet and worship her was more happiness than he deserved. What of being her husband? Of possessing this delightful being for his very own--half of himself?His mood, half deprecatory, half triumphant, but wholly joyful, seemed reflected in the brilliant atmosphere of Arran House, as he followed Sir Thomas, who had Joan on his arm, through the hall--where heavy rose-garlands wreathed the pillars, casting their rich, luscious perfume profusely upon the air--up the rose-decorated staircase to the draped entrance to the ballroom, where the duchess stood, a picture in rose moire and old point lace, the kindly little duke at her elbow, receiving her guests, but detaining the newly-betrothed for a few warmly-spoken words of congratulation. The ballroom floor was already sprinkled with couples dancing the second valse of the programme."Now we belong to each other publicly as well as in private, you must dance all, or nearly all, your dances with me," said Vansittart, in tones of suppressed emotion, as he gazed at her white throat, encircled with his first gift--a necklet of topaz and pearls withparure en suite; then, with a longing, searching look into her eyes. Half fearful lest the old enigmatic horror should still be lurking there, his heart gave a throb of delight as those sweet brown orbs gazed innocently, fearlessly, yet with a passionate abandon into his."Let us join the others--shall we?" he said. She nodded slightly--a trick of hers--and encircling her slight waist with his arm, he made one of the slowly gyrating throng.To Joan that dance was like a new, delicious dream. To feel the one she loved as she had never imagined it was in her to love, near her, was in itself an abiding joy. But to have lost the awful burden--her secret link to another--to be relieved of the weight of fear lest she should really be a criminal--that, mingled with the delight of being the betrothed bride of her beloved, was in itself an earthly heaven.The valse over, they betook themselves to a couple of chairs placed invitingly under a big palm. But Vansittart yearned to be alone with her; or, at least, where they could talk unobserved. In spite of his pervading joy, there was just one discordant note sounding in his mind; there was one gleam of anxiety anent the cause of the almost miraculous change in Joan's mood, from darkest night to sunlit noonday."It was a pretty idea of the duchess, was it not, darling, to decorate with roses in our honour?" he said caressingly, as he took her bouquet and inhaled its delicate sweetness. "The flower of love! But--well, of course you know the story of the rose? It seems to me that that also may not be without its meaning in our case. It was through a bad member of my sex, was it not, that you had so much to endure? Why, dearest, forgive me for alluding to it. I thought you would not mind!"Joan had started a little--as a sensitive horse at the unexpected touch of its rider's heel. It was only for a moment; she recovered herself immediately."What story? I don't know of any! Tell me," she replied, annoyed with herself at being so "morbidly impressionable." Still, any allusion to her secret stung her to the quick. It disappointed her. She had wanted to bury her dead at once and for ever."Why, I hardly like alluding to your confidences to me," he began, a little taken aback by her sudden change of humour. "The story is about a girl named Zillah--a Bethlehemite--whose would-be lover rejected, gave out that she was possessed, and had her condemned to be burnt. But the stake blossomed into roses! I take that to mean that no real trouble can come to one who is pure and good by the machinations of any vile man, however base----""Oh, don't talk about it here!" she exclaimed, inwardly writhing. "Besides, I don't want ever to allude to--to--that affair of my poor friend's marriage again. It is not necessary. She has escaped from her troubles. It is that which has made me so happy. Do you understand? I cannot tell you how it has happened. You must trust me so far. But it is all over. I have only one, one boon to crave of you--that you will never, never again remind me of it. Can you do that much for your future wife? If you do keep raking up my past troubles, we shall not be happy. I promise you that!""My dearest, I would sacrifice much rather than ever say one word to annoy you, give you pain," he began, somewhat hurt and mystified."I know," she exclaimed, and once more she beamed upon him. A brilliant smile beautified a face which was too flushed for health; sudden pallor at the tale of the rose was succeeded by a burning glow. "And now, there they are, beginning another dance. I want to dance. I want to live; to enjoy life. Can't you imagine it? For ever so long I have been thinking myself a perfect wretch, not eligible, like other people, for the ordinary joys of life; and now that I find out I am not, that no innocent person has suffered for my absurd and ridiculous folly, I want to be happy. Oh! let me be, if only for to-night.""Joan, that is hardly just, not to know that there is only one thing in this world I really wish for, your happiness," he said, with deep feeling. "However, do not let us have the faintest shadow between us, when we are on the eve of belonging to each other for ever--pray don't! Darling, I will be careful for the future. Do you forgive me?""Don't talk nonsense," she cried, with a little laugh which sounded so gay and careless that he led her to join the dancers somewhat reassured. As they danced onward, round and round the duke's beautiful ballroom, the electric light shining through the softly-tinted Bohemian glass upon the lavish decorations of roses of all shades, from pure white to the deepest crimson, they both almost recovered their equanimity. The deep, yearning love in each young heart was sufficiently sun-like to dispel all mists and shadows.To both the evening speedily became one of unmixed delight. Once or twice they had temporarily parted and taken other partners "for the look of the thing." "Hating your dancing with another fellow as I do, I would rather that, than that the frivols among them should laugh at us," he told her. "You know, dearest, to be in love as we are is terribly out of date."So they reluctantly separated for a while, to enjoy each other's proximity with a more subtle ecstasy afterwards. The last dance before supper Vansittart had retained for himself. "It is more than flesh and blood can do to give up that; besides, it is not expected of me, after the paragraphs in the papers," he said. So, after a delightful quarter of an hour's gyration to the charming melody of the "Erste Geliebte" waltz, he escorted Joan to the supper room.It was crowded. As Vansittart led his beautiful betrothed through the room, her pink train rustling, the jewels on her fair neck gleaming, all eyes turned towards them as they passed. His head held proudly high, he felt rather than saw that they were the object of general notice. Meanwhile, every one of the small round supper tables, laid either for two or four persons, seemed appropriated.Joan had been scanning the crowd about the tables, feeling an unpleasantly reminiscent thrill as she saw the ducal servitors in their picturesque black uniform and powder; and remembering that horrible shock--her encountering Victor Mercier in that garb, in that sudden and cruel way--she was somewhat startled by meeting the malevolent, searching gaze of a small, thin man in evening dress.Surely it was the duke's valet--that man with the steel-blue eyes which seemed to flash white fire as they met hers? Yes, he was approaching them."Pardon, milord, but there is a table in the conservatory, if you would like it," he said. "It is cooler there, and I will tell some one to attend to you.""Thanks, Paul," said Lord Vansittart genially, and he led Joan through the room after their guide, following him into the conservatory, where, among the roses, fuchsias, and orchids brought from the ducal houses, a tiny table was laid for two persons. "You are very kind. But you are not looking well. How is it?""A mere nothing, milord," said Paul, lightly. "And now, I will see to the supper for you and mademoiselle. But Monsieur le Duc wishes a word with you. He sent me to say it. You would find him in the hall, I think, waiting for you.""You will excuse me a minute, darling?" Vansittart, released with a smile by Joan, left her.Left her--with the valet, Paul Naz! Joan wondered to see the man, with a set, stern face she did not like at all, moving the knives, forks and glasses about upon the table in a foolish, aimless fashion. She marvelled still more when he stood up and faced her suddenly, an ominous gleam in his brilliant, pale eyes."A word, mademoiselle," he began solemnly, his hands clenching themselves so they hung pendant at his sides. "I wish to speak to you of my poor murdered friend, Victor Mercier."
CHAPTER XX
Vera Anerley had never acted better than that night when Joan secretly visited Victor. Some subtle excitement--born, perhaps, of an unusually passionate kiss of her beloved's when she left him alone in the house to interview the man he had spoken of--was perhaps the spur which had produced an access of fervour. Perhaps it was the approaching separation. Victor had announced that he would start on a journey in a few days. She herself was leaving for the North with the travelling company to which she was attached.
In any case, her disappointed would-be lover, the young stage-manager, came up to her with a smile at her final exit--a thing he had not done since she was betrayed into pushing him roughly away when he attempted an embrace--and condescendingly said a few words of praise, adding a proposal to introduce "a friend of his," who had been "much pleased."
"He is the dramatic critic of theParthenon!" he pompously added, surprised when Vera knitted her brow and shook her head.
"You are very kind, Mr. Howard, but I must be getting home," she pleaded. What was the critic of the Parthenon to her in comparison with half-an-hour'stête-à-têtewith Victor? she asked herself, as she escaped into her dressing-room, leaving "Mr. Howard" anathematizing her "folly," and vindictively prophesying to himself that, in spite of her beauty and talent, she would "never rise an inch" in her profession. "Mother," as she called Victor's mother, her late father's second wife, was out with the mild student, Mr. Dobbs, at the hospital entertainment. She wanted to be home first!
"Put away all my things for me, won't you, Polly?" she said to the daughter of the veteran actress who took old women parts, and who travelled with the company as wardrobe keeper. "Thanks! You are a good sort!" and with a hasty hug of the girl she darted out of the dressing-room, along the passage to the stage-door, and into the cool, quiet alley.
Then she ran--into the still glaring, thronged thoroughfare--it was a neighbourhood whose inhabitants kept late hours, and "did their shopping" mostly at night--hailed a loitering hansom, and was driven to Haythorn Street. Eagerly glancing out at the house, she had noticed a tall lady with a swinging gait coming along. She noticed her as hardly the kind of feminine visitor frequenting Haythorn Street, and because she seemed to swerve now and then. When she stopped and seemed to watch her alight and pass into the house, Vera wondered if the gentleman Victor expected--he had hinted that his visitor was one moving in higher circles--had brought her with him, and that she was waiting for him outside.
"But I suppose a gentleman would hardly bring a lady here at this hour of the night, still less leave her in the street," was her second and more lucid thought, as she opened the hall door with her latch-key, passed in, and closing it, listened.
If there was any one with Victor upstairs, she knew she would hear voices. But the stillness was that of an empty house. As she stood, she heard the same loud, sober ticking of the kitchen clock which had seemed so almost terrible to Joan in her awful anxiety. Then came a plaintive "mew" from within the little front parlour--hers and her step-mother's. "Why, Kitty! Who could have shut you in?" she exclaimed, and she opened the door. The tortoise-shell cat--an old one troubled with a perpetually-moulting coat, ran out as she did so and rubbed itself against her old winsey "theatre skirt," purring loudly. "Victor must have shut her in," she mused, as she went slowly upstairs to find him.
Where was he? For the door of Mr. Mackenzie's, the absent lodger's, sitting-room stood open--and there was no sound within. Entering, for the first moment she deemed the room empty. Then she noted the two tumblers, one half full of dark liquid, and the glass jug of water, on the table--and her glance travelling further, alighted on the motionless form of her lover on the sofa.
"Asleep?" she wondered. It seemed strange--the mercurial, ever wide-awake Victor--so early in the evening, as he considered evenings, too! Still, she went towards him on tiptoe. "I will wake him with a kiss," she thought, with an incipient glow of passion as she imagined him rousing from sleep to clasp her close and fasten those adored lips on hers with that warm, possessive kiss of his which she felt was unlike every other kiss which had been given and taken since Adam's fresh lips first touched the ripe, yet innocent mouth of Eve in Paradise.
When she reached him she gave a cry of terror. Something was wrong! He never looked livid, sunken, his eyes half-open, like that!
She seized his hand and gasped with relief; for it was warm and limp; then she stooped and kissed his brow. It was damp and cold as clay after a frost.
"He has fainted!" she wildly thought. "I must call some one!"
She flew downstairs, intending to ask help next door, in spite of a disagreement with its proprietress after a too intimate acquaintance of the moulting tortoise-shell with some fowls kept for laying purposes in the backyard; but as she opened the hall door, her stepmother and the thin, amiable Mr. Dobbs had just come up.
"Why, Vera! You are home early," began Mrs. Wright, surprised. "But--why--child! what is it?" She stopped short, for Vera's eyes looked madly at her--the girl was deathly white.
"Victor is ill, I am going for a doctor," she gasped, distractedly--her efforts to be calm and self-possessed only seemed to aggravate her uncontrollable fear and anguish. "Do go upstairs and see to him, Mr. Dobbs, won't you? I think he has fainted. I will be back directly!"
"Thank Heaven they came!" was her thought, as she ran swiftly up the street and round the corner to the doctor who always attended them, the kind, shrewd old practitioner, Doctor Thompson, and springing up the steps of the house vigorously rang the bell. She heard it clang within with that ominous toll some bells have, and peered through the coloured glass at the side of the door. Were they all dead? she asked herself impatiently, staring in at the empty entry, with its umbrella-stand and grandfather clock. What miserable mismanagement! Once more, although only a few moments had elapsed since the bell rang, she gave a tug to the bell-pull. A girl in hat and jacket came in sight within, put her fingers in her ears, and hurried to the door, looking disgusted. It was the housemaid, who had been to the hospital entertainment.
"I am sorry to have rung twice," exclaimed Vera, breathlessly, as she opened the door--she knew the girl. "But--is the doctor in? No? Oh, what shall I do?"
"It isn't the old lady, miss?--I saw her just now in the Priscilla Ward, a-larfin' fit to split her sides at the comic singing gentleman--what? Your brother? The smart young gent with the black moustache? A fit? My! Why don't you go round to young Doctor Hampton, who 'as just set up the dispensary? He's some sort of relation of master's, and I've heard master a-talkin' of his cleverness--round there, miss, two doors up--red lamp--you can't miss it!"
"She do seem put about," thought the young woman, as she looked out and watched Vera flit across the road like a black shadow. "Fancy takin' on like that about a brother!"
Wildly, telling herself passionately that a moment's delay might mean death--death was in his face--Vera tore into the still open entry of the little house with the red lamp and gave such a violent knock and ring that the door opened before it was over.
A young man stared at her, astonished, as she clutched at his coat-sleeve, despairingly adjuring him to come and save her brother's life, he was in a fit. He felt quite shocked and concerned at being suddenly assailed with such a pathetic flow of appealing language from so young and beautiful a creature.
"Yes--certainly--at once! Only let me get my hat!" he exclaimed; and after he had seized upon the head-gear nearest at hand, which happened to be a cricket-cap, he also set off running at her side, entered by the open door of Number Twelve, Haythorn Street, and sprang up after this agile girl three steps at a time.
The room was light. He saw two figures--a woman, kneeling by the couch, a man with his back to him, who turned as they came in. He looked pale and scared.
"I am afraid there is nothing to be done, Doctor," he said, in those low, hushed tones, which even the most irreverent use in the presence of the dead.
The young man passed him, and going to the couch, looked down upon the solemn face of the dead man. He laid his hand almost tenderly upon his brow--he listened to the heart.
"Take the old lady away, please!" he said, peremptorily, to Vera. Then, after the girl had, with some difficulty, coaxed her step-mother out, he turned to the scared and guiltless John Dobbs. "How did this happen?" he sternly inquired.
CHAPTER XXI
After that spontaneous, passionate prayer to Heaven for mercy, Joan seemed to awaken to a stronger, intenser life. A new instinct burst into a fierce clamouring within her--the primary instinct to live--live--anywhere, anyhow, at any price--but to live!
"I ought not to die--I did not mean to kill him!" she wailed. Her first mad notion was to confess everything from first to last. There would be an inquest. If she were to go to the coroner and tell him the whole story, would he not see justice done?
"But it would only be my bare word," she thought, as she sat on the edge of the bed, wringing her cold hands, shuddering so that her teeth chattered. "Any one who wanted to kill some one that stood in their way might do it, and say it was an accident!"
No; that Quixotic idea was untenable. Dead silence--absolute secrecy--these must be her defensive armour. No one knew she had seen Victor Mercier since his re-appearance in London, and only two persons were aware of the so-called "love-affair." One was the school-girl go-between, Jenny Marchant, who on the only occasion they had happened to meet, at a charity bazaar, had taken her aside and implored her never to betray her complicity in that terrible escapade--she had read of Victor Mercier's defalcations in the papers, but had not the remotest idea the consequence of her folly was that her chum Joan had bound herself to the "dreadful creature" by a marriage at the registrar's. She would never say anything! "And Nana would rather die than betray me!" thought Joan.
No--absolute secrecy--to act as if no such person as the dead man who had come by his death through her daring to drug him, existed, as far as she was concerned--that was the best, the only course open to her to save herself.
"But--but--I must not do anything wild," she told herself. "The plan to marry my beloved and start in his yacht must not be carried out! That would never do! Would not people suspect I had some very good reason for flight--for hiding myself?"
Then the truth suddenly flashed upon her; there was now no necessity for concealment! The man who had bound her to him in law was dead.
"I am a widow!" she murmured, shivering. "How impossible--extraordinary--yet, yet--literally true! I never was his wife--except for a quarter of an hour in the registry office--what a mockery! And all this--horror--my misery--his wretched, sudden death--came out of that--those few words of an ordinary man's--the signing of our names in a book!"
Would the registrar who married them come forward?
At the idea she sickened. Chill sweat came upon her brow.
"Why should he? He has enough to do without making himself more worrying work," she told herself. "Besides, he may think I went abroad with Victor and died there, if he thinks at all!"
No. She must find some way of accounting for her change of ideas to Lord Vansittart, she mused, as, hearing Julie outside, she returned to bed, and when the girl entered, stretched her arms and yawned.
"Oh, I am much better," she told her, as Julie made anxious inquiries; and with a violent effort she contrived to act her part pretty successfully--to dress and seem as usual--even to attempt to eat some breakfast. But this latter was a hard task. The morning papers had the "Mysterious Death" among their "sensations," and gave ominous hints as to "Victor a'Court's" career which threatened her with a return of that convulsive shivering.
However, when she went downstairs, her aunt and uncle seemed so cheerfully matter-of-fact--her aunt gave her such very pronounced hints on the subject of Vansittart--"they would be quite to themselves, because she was going out, but she hoped Joan would insist upon his dining with them that evening as he disappointed them last night," etc.--that she began to feel as if the tragedy in her young, unfortunate life were unreal--dream-like.
The sun shone warmly upon the brilliant bloom of the flowers in her balcony. A canary sang joyously from its cage outside the window of the next house. The lively rattle of carts, the smooth roll of carriages, the shrill voices of passing children--all meant life--life! And she was greedy, thirsty for life--she--who a few hours ago had done a fellow-creature to death.
"All is not--quite--lost," she mused, as she leant her tired head on her hands--she had seated herself at her writing-table, and was pretending to be busy with her correspondence. "I can do nothing--any more--for poor, cruel Victor--may God be merciful to him! But he has relatives--this actress sister--he never said a word of her to me, I may hope he never said a word of me to her. I may be able to make her life very different--after all this is over and forgotten--hers and any other relatives of his--and I will! I will not spend one single day without doing something to tend to some comfort or advantage for them!"
She was still trying to plan her announcement of her changed wishes to Vansittart, so as not to excite the faintest suspicion in his mind that anything had occurred to alter her ideas between her last meeting and this, when she heard voices outside--the groom of the chambers announced "Lord Vansittart"--and he precipitately entered.
He advanced, a little pale and anxious-looking, but so handsome, such a tower of strength, such embodied manhood at its noblest, that suddenly she felt utterly overwhelmed, submerged--she tottered gasping into his arms, and clung to him as madly as one drowning cleaves to his rescuer.
"Oh--it is you--" she deliriously stammered. "Don't--don't leave me--oh--what am I saying? Are we both--alive? Is it real?"
In her delirious collapse she would not let him kiss her lips. First she hid her face in his coat, then she kissed it--wildly, almost passionately.
"My poor, sweet darling; be calm--it is all right--I will take care of you!" he said, tenderly, brokenly. To see her thus almost unnerved him--he was losing command of his voice--two great cold tears stood in his eyes, then ran down and lay glistening on her golden hair. "Come, my dearest love! Something has upset you, but never mind; I promise you it shall not happen again--I will stand between you and trouble."
He stopped short, horrified--for she burst into a wild peal of laughter. She struggled to subdue it by hiding her head upon his arm. He gazed down at her pretty golden head, speechless with mingled feelings. Once more the ugly idea crept up unbidden within him--that Joan was "going mad."
"No! You are right there!" she cried her laughter subdued, glancing up almost defiantly into his face. "What--ever--does happen again? Did you not talk of the past being irrevocable, irrecoverable? It is! The present is bad enough, is it not? That I should be a hysterical fool like this--all because of a dream! At least I think my headache made me delirious all night. I am not good enough for you, dear. You must give up all idea of marrying me!"
She gazed tenderly at him with those dark eyes soft with the tears brought by that hysterical outburst.
"Oh, yes, of course!" he ironically said. "I am to give up all chance of happiness because you are not one of those Amazons I so cordially detest! Come, darling--I can see that London life is utterly and entirely disagreeing with you!" He seated himself on a sofa and drew her gently down beside him. "That fact reconciles me to taking you away, do you know--so it is the silver lining to the only cloud that is troubling my horizon!"
"You did not like that plan of mine? I am--thankful!"
As she ejaculated this with evident truth, Vansittart stared at her.
"Not that, darling! I am ready to do anything----" he began, alarmed lest she had seized upon a loop-hole for escape. But she interrupted.
"I had a dream last night," she began, slowly, striving for self-possession--the very mention of that awful vision unnerved her. "You know--what is on my mind--that I helped to ruin the life of a friend by helping her to marry a bad man. Well! I dreamt--that she came--to awful--grief! And the dream was so vivid that I take it as a warning. I do not wish to carry out our plan, dearest. If you care to marry me, let us be married openly, before the world!"
"Do you really mean it?" He grasped her hands and kissed them. He gazed at her with a face beaming, transfigured with joy. "Thank God, you do! Oh, my darling, my darling--I would have married you anywhere, anyhow, I would even have kept our marriage secret till the crack of doom if you had wanted to--but I hated doing it. I hated stealing you like a thief, instead of marrying you proudly, honourably, glorying in it, before God and all his creatures! You have lifted such a weight from my heart that I hardly know where I am, or what I am about!"
CHAPTER XXII
For awhile, as Joan sat, her lover's arm around her, all about them so bright--the pretty boudoir, decked with dainty gifts of her uncle's and aunt's, gay with flowers and sunshine--she was infected by his radiant happiness. A faint hope stole timidly up in her crushed heart--a vague idea of "misadventure"--"the visitation of God"--as the real cause of Victor Mercier's death, she only the unhappy instrument. The idea reigned--it was the melody to the accompaniment of his joyous talk.
Then her uncle came in, and without ado Vansittart asked his blessing.
Sir Thomas had hardly kissed and congratulated his niece, beaming upon her in his huge satisfaction, when Lady Thorne entered, and stopping short, placidly surveyed the trio.
"No, I am not surprised," she answered, in a superior tone, to her husband's inquiry, after he had announced the engagement. "Or at least, if I am, it is because you two young people have taken so long to make up your minds. I never saw two people so fitted for each other."
There was an air of subdued gaiety about the four at the luncheon table. Joan held her thoughts and emotions in check with a tremendous effort of will. In the afternoon the lovers rode out into the country, and she enjoyed an almost wild ride. She had an idea that bodily fatigue might weaken her power of thought. If only she could tire herself into physical exhaustion, she fancied she might forget. Oh! only to ignore, to be able to ignore the past--for a few brief hours!
Vansittart was too madly in love to take exception to any desire or even whim of his darling's. He cantered and galloped, raced and tore at her side, although at last his favourite horse was reeking with sweat, and he told himself that he had not felt so "pumped out" for a long while. The fact that Joan did not seem to feel fatigue hardly reassured him. He determined to ask Sir Thomas to influence her to consent to an early marriage, that he might take her on a sea voyage. After they had dined, a pleasantpartie quarrée, and he and his future uncle-in-law were alone, he broached the subject.
"I hope, Sir Thomas, you will not think me impatient if I suggest that there should not be a prolonged engagement," he began, taking the bull by the horns almost as soon as they had lighted up and their first glass of Mouton was still untasted before them. "But, to tell you the truth, I am not happy about my loved one's health, and I fancy that some yachting--say in or about Norway--might brace her a little."
"Great wits jump, they say! My dear boy, you have almost taken the very words out of my mouth!" replied Sir Thomas, confidentially. "Honestly, I have been uneasy about Joan for a long time. I told you months ago about the family tendency to phthisis! Well, I am not exactly anxious about her lungs, the medical men say they are perfectly sound, so far. But tubercular disease has other ways of showing itself, and there is a feverishness, a tendency almost amounting to delirium about the dear girl, which at times makes me uneasy. I intended to suggest a speedy marriage, and a sea voyage, knowing of your delightful yacht. I repeat, you have taken the words out of my mouth!"
Joan was winding wool for Lady Thorne's work for her specialprotégés, the "deep sea fishermen"--winding it with an almost fiery energy, as the two conspirators entered the drawing-room. Her eyes met Vansittart's with the old hunted, desperate look--his heart sank as he felt how impotent and futile his efforts to balance the disturbing influence, whatever it was, had been.
Sir Thomas had determined to "strike the iron while it was hot." So, as soon as coffee had been served, he broached the subject of an almost immediate marriage.
"My dear, it is the only thing to be done!" exclaimed his wife emphatically. "It ought to be a function, Joan's marriage! And if it is not as soon as I can arrange matters, it will have to be postponed till next season, when every one will be sick and tired of the subject. You are our only chick and child, Joan, and I will have you married properly, withéclat."
Joan made no objection. She gave her lover one tender, confiding glance, then resumed her wool-winding, and allowed her elders to settle her affairs for her. Perhaps, she thought, when she was left alone with the awful facts of her life in her own room--perhaps she might learn to live in something less akin to utter and complete despair than her present humour, when she was alone with Vansittart, skimming the ocean in his yacht.
The necessary shopping and dressmaker-interviewing, too, might distract her from the terrible, gnawing anxiety of the coming inquest.
Each morning and evening the papers had some little paragraph about the affair. They hinted at the identity of "Victor a'Court" being a disputed one. But until the day fixed for the inquest there had been no definite allusion in print.
The night before the inquest was one of feverish anxiety for Joan. "If only I were not so strong--if only some dreadful illness would attack me!" she told herself, as the hours lagged and dragged. She could not face her world while that awful inquiry which might mean a shameful death to her was going forward; yet she dared not shut herself into her room to await the evening papers as she best could.
Her aunt was, fortunately for Joan, a "little out of sorts," as she herself termed it. So, her uncle being out--and having, indeed, almost entirely relaxed his barely-veiled supervision of her doings now that in three weeks time she would be Lady Vansittart and freed from his jurisdiction for always, she donned a hat and walking dress and wandered out, unseen--for the hall was empty.
Why she was attracted towards the scene of her "accidental crime"--that was her name for her administration of the drugged brandy to Victor Mercier--she could not imagine. But she was.
She had intended to stroll about in the leafy seclusion of Kensington Gardens, dodging her kind. But no sooner was she in the Park than she wandered almost unconsciously nearer and nearer to the place where she had done her former lover to death.
Oh, for some cool, dark refuge in which to grovel and hide during the awful hours of dreadful suspense! The light of day seemed too garish--every cheerful sound made her shrink and wince--every voice seemed to thrill each overstrung nerve in her aching body.
As she was pausing, miserably, under a tree, stopping her ears that she might not hear the glad voices and laughter of some children gaily at play, she happened to glance skyward where the towers of the great cathedral stood, solemn and noble, against the sky.
"I will go in there and wait!" she told herself. She felt unable to return home and face the evening papers in her uncle's house. She would wait for them there.
She almost fled along, across the road, into the cathedral, as a guilty, hunted creature seeking sanctuary. She halted when she had closed the door. There was a calm, a rest, in the sacred fane which was as the presence of the Creator Himself. She slunk into a corner, and crouching down, clung for support to the rail of the bench in front of her and waited.
Waited, half-dazed and stupified, hardly knowing where she was, mind and brain confused as if too paralysed to think, to act. Hour after hour passed. Afternoon service proceeded in the choir. Almost grovelling in her corner, she listened. She could not pray--she was past that.
Then, as there was a movement of the congregation to the doors, she forced herself to rise and pass out among them. For she knew the evening papers would be out.
She hurried from the Abbey into the street, bought one from the first urchin she met shouting "Special Edeetion!" fled across one street and along another, into the Park. There she found an empty bench, and, well hidden from passers-by by a clump of shrubs, opened her paper with trembling fingers. Yes! There it was!
"INQUEST THIS DAY. STRANGE REVELATIONS."
CHAPTER XXIII
The paragraphs seemed to dance before her eyes. Joan's mind at first refused to understand. Then, as she read, she feared her brain was playing her false.
Victor a'Court was identified by several witnesses--one a detective, who had failed to track him when he was "wanted" four years ago for embezzling monies belonging to his firm--as Victor Mercier.
His old mother was called, but was in so pitiable a state that his identity was finally established by the evidence of her step-daughter, Vera "Anerley."
She was described as pale, but perfectly self-possessed. She told the coroner's court how Victor Mercier's father died in obscurity some years before her own father, a widower, met Madame Mercier and married her. She and Victor, who was ten years at least her senior, had called each other brother and sister, albeit not related. She knew nothing of the particulars of the charge brought against him some years ago, except that the firm were subsequently bankrupt. She knew he had "got on" abroad, but how, or why, he had not exactly said.
Then two medical men--one the aged practitioner who attended the family, Dr. Thompson, the other the young doctor, his nephew--testified to the death, and gave an account of thepost-mortemexamination they had made by the coroner's order. The sudden death, which at first had had the appearance of suicide, especially as some brandy in a tumbler had proved, on analysis, to contain a quantity of morphia--was actually due to failure of the heart.
Cross-examination elicited from both medical men that there was not much actual disease. The heart was not in good condition--it could never have acted strongly--and failure might have happened, they considered, at any time, after undue strain, or shock, or even indiscretion.
Was the dose found in the stomach sufficient to cause death? asked the foreman of the jury. The reply was--and Joan read it feverishly again and again--not, perhaps, in a healthy person who was addicted to narcotics. Those who were accustomed to other sedatives would possibly escape being poisoned by the amount of morphia Victor Mercier seemed likely to have swallowed. But with a heart like his death might certainly ensue were the person unaccustomed to narcotics and the like.
Then the medical student, who had returned from settling his dead mother's affairs to find his "diggings" the scene of a recent tragedy, testified to the amount and kind of morphia he had left in a bottle among the rest of his drugs. Probably two-thirds of the half-bottle had been accounted for by the drugged brandy left in a tumbler, and by the contents of the stomach. He identified the empty bottle.
Here a juror asked if the bottle from which the brandy had been taken were in court?
It was not. No bottle had been found in the cupboard or anywhere in the sitting-room, although several empty brandy bottles were in a corner of the adjoining bedroom, where Victor Mercier was temporarily sleeping. The student lodger vigorously disowned these, upon which the coroner asked the aged doctor whether a man whose heart was in the condition of Victor Mercier's would be tempted to resort to alcohol, and having received a decided reply in the affirmative, the subject was dropped.
Mr. Dobbs, the student who had escorted Victor Mercier's mother to the hospital entertainment, testified to finding Victor Mercier dead, as far as he could judge; then Vera gave an account of how she found him, and asked to be allowed to make a statement.
She told the Court that to her knowledge Victor Mercier had secretly married a lady, his senior, wealthy, of good position, who had behaved shamefully when he was under a cloud some years previously: that he had intended and hoped to procure a divorce, and that a person was expected to call upon him that night--the night he died--whose evidence would go far to assist him in his desire. "I expected the person would be still with him," she added--"and--I found him--dead!"
The significant utterance of her statement appeared to have brought about a perfect storm of questioning. But, giving an absolute denial to any further knowledge of the affair, she adhered firmly to what she had said, and nothing further could be elicited from her, except the somewhat defiant reply to a suggestion of the foreman of the jury that Victor Mercier might have had some motive in wishing to have a divorce instead of claiming conjugal rights. "Yes. We--he and I--were engaged to be married, as soon as he could get rid of her!"
That speech, apparently, brought matters to a speedy conclusion. The Coroner placed the "ambiguous affair" before the jury somewhat diffidently. Their verdict was, perhaps in consequence, hardly a decisive one. They disagreed. While the majority wished to adopt the coroner's hint that "death by misadventure" might be a safe view to take, and that it would be easy for investigations to be proceeded with by other authorities, should those authorities feel inclined to dissatisfaction, there were some dissentients who suspected possible foul play.
These were, however, sufficiently in the minority for a verdict of "death by misadventure" to be returned, and when Joan understood that by this she was still unsuspected by man of that which God alone yet knew she had done, the sudden shock of joy was as bad to bear as her agony when she read that Victor Mercier was dead.
"I am not to be hanged, I am not to be shamed before the world--God is just--He is merciful--He has heard my prayer!" she frantically told herself, as in the folly of ecstasy she clasped and kissed the paper, and held it to her heart. Was the world all sunshine, all joy? What was the matter? she wondered. It was as if she had been groping through some dark, noisome tunnel, holding by the dark walls, expecting every moment that some horror would rush upon and destroy her miserable, hopeless being--and--without even a warning ray of light--she had suddenly emerged into a beautiful world--ancient, yet new--bathed in glorious sunshine, awake and alive with joy.
She heard, almost with wonder, that the birds were carolling, that gay voices and laughter, mingled with the ripple of the wavelets a few yards away, where little children were screaming as they fed the quacking ducks. Little children! Some day she might be a mother, and in tending innocent babes she might forget the horror of her life.
She had no pity for the cruel man whom she saw now, first, in his true light, as perjurer, liar, thief--who had stolen her young affections out of mere wantonness, so it seemed to her, when he really loved this "Vera Anerley," who was supposedly his sister. He had lied to her all through--he was a mere nobody--he meant to climb to a position by her wealth: he had lied about his legal tie to her, this Vera--this love of his. What had he meant to do? How could he divorce her?
The answer to her own question was as a blow, so sharp, so cruel. She closed her eyes faint and sick.
"He knew aboutus," she thought. "He said--'your lover, Lord Vansittart.' He meant to get a divorce--because of him. He would have sworn to lies, very likely. He would have got 'damages'--a decree--and after he had disgraced me for ever, would have made that girl his wife! Oh--his death has been a mercy to every one--may God grant it has been a mercy to him!"
As soon as she was equal to the effort of walking--for she felt unsteady and giddy even then--she left the newspaper on the seat on which she had sat to read her fate, and making her way out of the Park, took a cab home, and entered without, she believed, being unduly observed. She found that her uncle had lunched at his club, and her aunt was in her room, so, joining Lady Thorne in her boudoir, where she was lying comfortably tucked up on a sofa, she excused her absence very casually. She had been detained shopping, had lunched out, had attended service in the Abbey. Lady Thorne smiled indulgently. "Of course, of course, my dear!" she interrupted. "But I am glad you are in. Violette has sent home one of yourtrousseauevening frocks. It is a poet's dream--pink embroidered roses, and a bouquet of pink roses has come from the Duchess with a little note--they decorate with roses to-night in your honour! I want you to wear that frock. It would make such a nice paragraph in the society papers, and encourage Violette to exert her utmost with the rest of the wedding order."
Joan went upstairs, wondering what it meant--this sudden flow of sunshine. As she inspected the dress--an exquisiteconfectionof pale pink and white shot tissue, embroidered with clusters of La France roses with so cunning a hand that the blossoms looked almost real--she wondered what she would have felt, arraying herself in that gala attire, yesterday.
"My dark, darkest of dark nights, seems over, thank Heaven!" she told herself as she went down later on, radiant, to the drawing-room to receive her lover. As she opened the door, she saw him standing as if lost in anxious thought. He sprang towards her with a puzzled, astounded gaze.
"How lovely you look! But--but--oh, darling, how thankful I am to see you look almost happy for once!" he passionately exclaimed, as he kissed her--hands, brow, lips--with the tender reverence which made her almost worship him in return. "But--oh, something must have happened to please you! Tell me, Joan, do not let us have any secrets from each other!"
"You shall know to-night--at the dance," she said. The dance was given by the Duchess of Arran.
CHAPTER XXIV
If Joan had succeeded in fascinating Lord Vansittart until his passion dominated him to the extinction of all his ordinary interests in life, while she was mysteriously enwrapped in an unaccountable gloom--a gloom which hid her natural charms, her bright, ready wit, her spontaneity, her sympathetic responses to the moods of others, as a thick mist hides a beautiful landscape--in her new gaiety and sudden joyousness she simply intoxicated him.
As he sat opposite her at dinner, he gazed fatuously at her in her pink glory, her sweet face shining above the roseate robe as the morning star above the sunrise-tinted clouds--and wondered at the magnificence of the fate dealt out to him by fortune. When they were driving to Arran House--Sir Thomas by his betrothed, and he squeezing in his long figure on the opposite seat--he felt that to sit at her feet and worship her was more happiness than he deserved. What of being her husband? Of possessing this delightful being for his very own--half of himself?
His mood, half deprecatory, half triumphant, but wholly joyful, seemed reflected in the brilliant atmosphere of Arran House, as he followed Sir Thomas, who had Joan on his arm, through the hall--where heavy rose-garlands wreathed the pillars, casting their rich, luscious perfume profusely upon the air--up the rose-decorated staircase to the draped entrance to the ballroom, where the duchess stood, a picture in rose moire and old point lace, the kindly little duke at her elbow, receiving her guests, but detaining the newly-betrothed for a few warmly-spoken words of congratulation. The ballroom floor was already sprinkled with couples dancing the second valse of the programme.
"Now we belong to each other publicly as well as in private, you must dance all, or nearly all, your dances with me," said Vansittart, in tones of suppressed emotion, as he gazed at her white throat, encircled with his first gift--a necklet of topaz and pearls withparure en suite; then, with a longing, searching look into her eyes. Half fearful lest the old enigmatic horror should still be lurking there, his heart gave a throb of delight as those sweet brown orbs gazed innocently, fearlessly, yet with a passionate abandon into his.
"Let us join the others--shall we?" he said. She nodded slightly--a trick of hers--and encircling her slight waist with his arm, he made one of the slowly gyrating throng.
To Joan that dance was like a new, delicious dream. To feel the one she loved as she had never imagined it was in her to love, near her, was in itself an abiding joy. But to have lost the awful burden--her secret link to another--to be relieved of the weight of fear lest she should really be a criminal--that, mingled with the delight of being the betrothed bride of her beloved, was in itself an earthly heaven.
The valse over, they betook themselves to a couple of chairs placed invitingly under a big palm. But Vansittart yearned to be alone with her; or, at least, where they could talk unobserved. In spite of his pervading joy, there was just one discordant note sounding in his mind; there was one gleam of anxiety anent the cause of the almost miraculous change in Joan's mood, from darkest night to sunlit noonday.
"It was a pretty idea of the duchess, was it not, darling, to decorate with roses in our honour?" he said caressingly, as he took her bouquet and inhaled its delicate sweetness. "The flower of love! But--well, of course you know the story of the rose? It seems to me that that also may not be without its meaning in our case. It was through a bad member of my sex, was it not, that you had so much to endure? Why, dearest, forgive me for alluding to it. I thought you would not mind!"
Joan had started a little--as a sensitive horse at the unexpected touch of its rider's heel. It was only for a moment; she recovered herself immediately.
"What story? I don't know of any! Tell me," she replied, annoyed with herself at being so "morbidly impressionable." Still, any allusion to her secret stung her to the quick. It disappointed her. She had wanted to bury her dead at once and for ever.
"Why, I hardly like alluding to your confidences to me," he began, a little taken aback by her sudden change of humour. "The story is about a girl named Zillah--a Bethlehemite--whose would-be lover rejected, gave out that she was possessed, and had her condemned to be burnt. But the stake blossomed into roses! I take that to mean that no real trouble can come to one who is pure and good by the machinations of any vile man, however base----"
"Oh, don't talk about it here!" she exclaimed, inwardly writhing. "Besides, I don't want ever to allude to--to--that affair of my poor friend's marriage again. It is not necessary. She has escaped from her troubles. It is that which has made me so happy. Do you understand? I cannot tell you how it has happened. You must trust me so far. But it is all over. I have only one, one boon to crave of you--that you will never, never again remind me of it. Can you do that much for your future wife? If you do keep raking up my past troubles, we shall not be happy. I promise you that!"
"My dearest, I would sacrifice much rather than ever say one word to annoy you, give you pain," he began, somewhat hurt and mystified.
"I know," she exclaimed, and once more she beamed upon him. A brilliant smile beautified a face which was too flushed for health; sudden pallor at the tale of the rose was succeeded by a burning glow. "And now, there they are, beginning another dance. I want to dance. I want to live; to enjoy life. Can't you imagine it? For ever so long I have been thinking myself a perfect wretch, not eligible, like other people, for the ordinary joys of life; and now that I find out I am not, that no innocent person has suffered for my absurd and ridiculous folly, I want to be happy. Oh! let me be, if only for to-night."
"Joan, that is hardly just, not to know that there is only one thing in this world I really wish for, your happiness," he said, with deep feeling. "However, do not let us have the faintest shadow between us, when we are on the eve of belonging to each other for ever--pray don't! Darling, I will be careful for the future. Do you forgive me?"
"Don't talk nonsense," she cried, with a little laugh which sounded so gay and careless that he led her to join the dancers somewhat reassured. As they danced onward, round and round the duke's beautiful ballroom, the electric light shining through the softly-tinted Bohemian glass upon the lavish decorations of roses of all shades, from pure white to the deepest crimson, they both almost recovered their equanimity. The deep, yearning love in each young heart was sufficiently sun-like to dispel all mists and shadows.
To both the evening speedily became one of unmixed delight. Once or twice they had temporarily parted and taken other partners "for the look of the thing." "Hating your dancing with another fellow as I do, I would rather that, than that the frivols among them should laugh at us," he told her. "You know, dearest, to be in love as we are is terribly out of date."
So they reluctantly separated for a while, to enjoy each other's proximity with a more subtle ecstasy afterwards. The last dance before supper Vansittart had retained for himself. "It is more than flesh and blood can do to give up that; besides, it is not expected of me, after the paragraphs in the papers," he said. So, after a delightful quarter of an hour's gyration to the charming melody of the "Erste Geliebte" waltz, he escorted Joan to the supper room.
It was crowded. As Vansittart led his beautiful betrothed through the room, her pink train rustling, the jewels on her fair neck gleaming, all eyes turned towards them as they passed. His head held proudly high, he felt rather than saw that they were the object of general notice. Meanwhile, every one of the small round supper tables, laid either for two or four persons, seemed appropriated.
Joan had been scanning the crowd about the tables, feeling an unpleasantly reminiscent thrill as she saw the ducal servitors in their picturesque black uniform and powder; and remembering that horrible shock--her encountering Victor Mercier in that garb, in that sudden and cruel way--she was somewhat startled by meeting the malevolent, searching gaze of a small, thin man in evening dress.
Surely it was the duke's valet--that man with the steel-blue eyes which seemed to flash white fire as they met hers? Yes, he was approaching them.
"Pardon, milord, but there is a table in the conservatory, if you would like it," he said. "It is cooler there, and I will tell some one to attend to you."
"Thanks, Paul," said Lord Vansittart genially, and he led Joan through the room after their guide, following him into the conservatory, where, among the roses, fuchsias, and orchids brought from the ducal houses, a tiny table was laid for two persons. "You are very kind. But you are not looking well. How is it?"
"A mere nothing, milord," said Paul, lightly. "And now, I will see to the supper for you and mademoiselle. But Monsieur le Duc wishes a word with you. He sent me to say it. You would find him in the hall, I think, waiting for you."
"You will excuse me a minute, darling?" Vansittart, released with a smile by Joan, left her.
Left her--with the valet, Paul Naz! Joan wondered to see the man, with a set, stern face she did not like at all, moving the knives, forks and glasses about upon the table in a foolish, aimless fashion. She marvelled still more when he stood up and faced her suddenly, an ominous gleam in his brilliant, pale eyes.
"A word, mademoiselle," he began solemnly, his hands clenching themselves so they hung pendant at his sides. "I wish to speak to you of my poor murdered friend, Victor Mercier."