CHAPTER V
Johann Wilfer, Jessica's adopted father, was German by birth, and the son of an innkeeper in one of the tiny villages on the banks of the Rhine. In his youth he had studied as an art-student at Munich; but, finally, by his idle and dissolute behaviour, so angered the authorities that he had been compelled to return home. Tiring of the rural life there, he finally obtained from his parents sufficient money to come to London to try his fortune.
Here he soon obtained some work from the smaller art dealers, which enabled him to live in comparative comfort, and had it not been for his unreliability and his love of drink he might have seen to be a good artist.
Wilfer was a handsome young fellow in those days, and while on one of his wandering tours in Kent he met and won the heart of a simple little country girl, named Lucy Goodwin. Lucy believed her lover to be everything that was good, and, trusted him even to the extent of her betrayal; so that, under some pretence, young Wilfer was able to entice the girl to Canterbury, where, a few weeks later, he deserted her.
She was the only daughter of a widower, a clerk in the employ of a country bank, who, broken-hearted at his daughter's ruin, threw up his situation, changed his name to that of George Harker, and fled to London with his beloved child. Here he found it extremely difficult to obtain work. His savings soon evaporated, and alas! further trouble was in store for him; for one afternoon a smooth-faced gentleman appeared at their quiet lodgings. This was none other than Jasper Vermont, who in a long private interview with the unhappy Harker informed him that he had heard of Lucy's escapade, and threatened to proclaim her shame, if Mr. Harker failed to comply with a proposition he was about to make to him. The business which he suggested was one entirely abhorrent to the ex-bank clerk; but with money running short, and the thought of his daughter's misery should her secret be revealed, what could the father do but submit?
The result of this interview was that, a month or two later, a new moneylending firm sprang up in a narrow street in the city, under the title of Harker's Ltd., and none of the numerous clients who patronised it ever recognised that the manager, Mr. Harker, was speaking the literal truth when he repeatedly asserted his own impotence in the business. Every one believed the story to be a fictitious one, invented to assist him in his extortions.
Time passed on, and Lucy's pretty face and modest ways, perhaps her very sadness, which clung to her in never-ending remorse, caught the heart of a simple-minded man, one John Ashford. He was a flourishing grocer in a village on the banks of the Thames, and was then staying in London on a visit. After a hard struggle with herself the poor girl returned his love, and ventured to become his wife.
Wilfer, from inquiries made by Mr. Harker, was supposed to be dead. None, she thought, knew her secret except her father, for Lucy believed that Vermont had employed Mr. Harker out of friendship and sympathy, and did not know until long after her marriage that she, and therefore her husband, were in his power. So she ventured to grasp the happiness held out to her, thus strengthening the chain which bound her father and herself in slavery to Jasper Vermont's will. For if they feared disclosure before, how much more did they dread it now, when Lucy was married to a man who prided himself upon his good name and untarnished respectability!
Johann Wilfer, however, was not dead, nor had he left London. He had become a member of a gang of ingenious rascals, who lived by imitating the less known gems of the old masters, and palming them off on the credulous public and wealthy collectors as genuine. The impostures were very cleverly manipulated, and quite a little system was instituted to bring them to perfection. Mr. Wilfer's part of the undertaking was "toning"; that is, bringing to the imitations the necessary mistiness and discoloration supposed to be produced by age.
He did very well at this business; so well, indeed, that he took a house in Cracknell Court, Soho, and if he could have restrained himself from the drinking of beer and spirits he would have been in comfortable circumstances.
This perpetual intoxication eventually made its mark upon Mr. Wilfer's countenance, and contorted his face into a caricature--with its mottled skin and bleary eyes--of the good looks which had won Lucy Goodwin's heart in former times. His language had also degenerated as well as his looks. All trace of German accent had been carefully obliterated, in order that no suspicion should be aroused when selling a faked picture. He played the part of a Cockney so frequently and so well that that particular accent seemed, as it were, to be his mother-tongue.
As the years went by even the gang became tired of his habitual intoxication, and only occasionally gave him employment, so that he turned his attention to scenery painting for the stage. In this way, when engaged at the Rockingham Theatre, he met Martha Feltham, Ada Lester's dresser, and by means of boasting of his wealth finally persuaded her to marry him. It was in this manner that Jessica had first come under his sway.
When Ada found that her sister would never recover from the mental shock inflicted by Jasper Vermont when he told her that their marriage was illegal, she had made arrangements to get the child out of the house. Naturally the little girl was an eyesore and an encumbrance to her; especially as Julia--blissfully ignorant that she herself was the mother--was always worrying her sister as to the reason of Jessica's presence. Accordingly, when Ada, by reason of her improved position and higher salary, moved away from the Bloomsbury lodgings into a house of her own, she gave the child over to the care of her dresser, Martha, now Mrs. Wilfer, and had always paid regularly for her board and keep.
Mr. Wilfer did not object to this addition to his income, though he still worked occasionally for the picture gang; and it was on one of their jobs that he came within reach of Jasper Vermont.
One day he had been sent to play the usual proceedings to Mr. George Harker, presuming, naturally enough, that being a moneylender he was rich, and hearing that he had a liking for "old masters."
Johann Wilfer saw Mr. Harker, and notwithstanding the changes which time brings to us all, and the entire transformation of name and surroundings, recognised him as the father of the girl whom he had once so cruelly deceived.
The old man never having heard the name of Lucy's betrayer--for she had purposely kept it from him--knew nothing of his visitor, and eventually purchased the picture, after consulting with Jasper, who discovered the imposition at a glance, but saw in the impostor a possible new tool.
He instructed Harker to obtain a written guarantee of the genuineness of the picture, and Wilfer, being half intoxicated at the time, for once forgot his usual caution, and gave the required pledge. With that in his possession, Jasper Vermont had Wilfer in his power, and only left him undisturbed because he saw no present opportunity of using him.
But when he wanted him he knew that he had only to exert the authority which the warrant gave him, and Johann Wilfer would be his obedient servant, as many better men were already.
The picture he intended--through Mr. Harker--to compel one of the firm's wealthy clients to take as part of a loan, a well-known trick of the worst class of moneylenders.
Quite unconscious of the sword that hung over him, Mr. Wilfer, after a bout of hard drinking, went home, and it was in his drunken frenzy that he had struck Jessica. She, bruised and frightened, fled into the streets, where Adrien Leroy found her.
Left to himself--for his wife was away for a day or two--Mr. Wilfer fell into a deep slumber, in which he remained for the rest of the evening.
Early for him, on the following morning he was roused by a loud knocking at his front door. Now thoroughly sobered, he hurriedly dressed, stumbled down the rickety staircase, and opened the door, to himself confronted by Miss Ada Lester. Her face was flushed, and the angry light Jasper Vermont had called up by his sneers at her vulgarity the previous evening still shone in her dark eyes.
"Where is the gal?" she asked abruptly.
"The gal!" he repeated, staring at her in stolid amazement.
"Yes--Jessica!" retorted Miss Lester, her jewels flashing in a chance ray of sunlight which had found its way through the dingy court. "Where is she?"
"She is not at home," said Mr. Wilfer. "She and Martha 'ave gone out for the day to Greenwich. If you'd wrote a-sayin' you was goin' to call I'd have made 'em stay till you came."
Miss Lester looked at him keenly.
"If you don't believe me," said Wilfer, "go upstairs and look at her room."
Ada ran past him up the stairs, and quickly returned.
"It's locked," she said.
"Of course; she's quite the lady--keeps the keys 'erself," sneered Johann. "Look 'ere, 'ere's her hat and coat; there's one of 'er boots, so she must be comin' back afore long."
Miss Lester appeared convinced. She breathed more freely, as if a weight had been taken off her mind.
"Here," she said, putting some gold coins in his hand, "is something to make up for my troubling you. But I was real anxious to know if everything was right with the gal."
Wilfer--debauched and demoralised by drink--was disposed to look at the worst side of things; and from this point of view thought she meant the reverse of what she said.
"Would you be very much cut up," he said slyly, "if she wasn't able to trouble you any more or answer awkward questions, miss?"
She turned on him with a fierceness that made him recoil.
"If anything happens to that gal," she shouted, "I'll turn the police on you. For, mind my words--I mean them--I shouldn't have cared yesterday very much if I had learnt she was dead, but now I want her. Do you hear? I want her, and you take care she's alive and ready when I come for her."
Then, without vouchsafing any further information, she flounced away, leaving Mr. Wilfer staring blankly after her, and wishing for once that he had stayed his hand, instead of driving the girl into the miseries and dangers of the streets.
Little did Wilfer or Miss Lester imagine that Jessica had found safety and refuge in Adrien Leroy's chambers.
CHAPTER VI
Love is the universal epidemic, effectual in all climes and conditions; there is no inoculation that will secure exemption from its influence; only given a warm human heart, and there is the natural susceptibility.
So it is from high to low. The little blind god takes no count of difference in fortune or rank in life. Dynasties fall, thrones totter to the ground, crowns tumble to dust on kingly heads; but love rules and lives on, immortal, triumphant, unconquerable.
Jessica had never heard of Romeo and Juliet, of Faust and Marguerite, or King Cophetua and the beggar maid. All she knew was that she loved, was conscious only that for a kind word from the lips of the man who had befriended her, for a glance from those dark eyes; she would gladly have given up all the other glories the world could have put before her.
Poor Jessica, how sweet and yet how bitter had been the awakening in that gilded cabinet. How sweet to find herself there in reality, and not only in a dream; how bitter to know that she had no right there and that she must go!
That splendid golden room, with, all the wonderful undreamt-of things, was not for her. She looked down at her wet, dirt-stained dress, at her worn, ragged shoes, at her cold, red hands, and shuddered. She had no right there. Should she take advantage of his goodness to remain and sully the beauty of his palace--for to her it seemed little less--by her unworthy presence? No, woman-child as she was, she shrank from the thought; then caught up her hat and arose, resolute.
"He will think me ungrateful," she murmured with half-closed eyes. "He will think--no matter, he will forget me before half an hour. I will go back to Johann and chance the beating. This is no place for one like me."
With a little graceful gesture she bent over the mantel and pressed her lips to the spot where Adrien had rested his arm; then with noiseless steps she stole from the room.
The sun was breaking through the morning mist, but she shivered as its warm rays touched her, and with a weary sigh turned towards Soho.
It was all over, the little patch of fairy-light in the dreary darkness of her existence, and as she reminded herself of this fact she shuddered again.
Looking back, she remembered but little beyond the days she had passed with Johann and his shrewish wife. This strange adventure had been the first ray of sunshine in her poor existence. No wonder that she was unhappy at parting with it.
Suddenly as she passed into Oxford Street she stopped, struck with an idea that sent her blood flowing into her pale cheek, flushing it into living beauty. Her large eyes grew thoughtful and full of a strange light.
"Why should I go back to Johann?" she murmured. "Can't I follow him--the kind gentleman? Can't I be his servant?"
The answer came quick enough from her inner consciousness. No, she must go back. Of what service could she be to such a man as Adrien? There was nothing for it but to return to Cracknell Court. So, wearily, but still with that grace which Southern blood bestows, even though it runs in the veins of a gipsy, or such a street waif as Jessica, she walked on and reached Johann Wilfer's house.
Jessica knew that the man was not her father, but she knew little more than that. She had never asked him or Martha for any information about her parentage--indeed, had scarcely wished for any; it was enough for her than Johann gave her sufficient bread to keep life within her.
That gentleman was, at the moment of her arrival, absent, engaged on business concerning the sale of the faked picture to Mr. Harker, and Martha was still away; so Jessica, pausing at the door of the living-room to ascertain that it was empty, softly ascended the stairs leading to the garret which served as her special apartment.
It was as small and as squalid as all the other rooms in that crowded court; but it was different from them in one respect--it was clean.
A miserable chair bedstead of the cheapest kind, covered with a threadbare quilt; a chair with the back broken off; a washstand on three legs, and a triangular piece of silvered glass, the remains of a cheap mirror, composed the furniture.
This peculiarly-shaped piece of common glass reflected the girl's beautiful face in all manner of distorted forms. The quilt just kept her from perishing with the cold. But yet the mirror, the bed, and the room itself were precious to her, for they were her own. Beyond its sacred threshold Johann or Martha never passed. She had a key to it; and to enter now she unlocked the door.
After the luxury of Adrien's rooms the mean quality of her own apartment struck the girl more forcibly than usual, and sinking upon the bed, she covered her face with her hands and gave way to a flood of tears. But the weakness did not last long; and after a moment of two, with a sudden gesture, almost Italian in its intensity, she flung back her head and rose from her crouching position.
"I will not think of the beautiful place. I will not think of him, she told herself passionately.
"But oh! will he be sorry that I ran away, or will he laugh, and ask that proud servant to see that I haven't stolen anything?"
She shook her head mournfully at her own distorted reflection in the cracked mirror, then she sighed and went downstairs.
Johann had returned, wonderful to relate, still fairly sober; but this was probably due to the necessity of maintaining at least the appearance of sobriety in his transaction on behalf of the gang concerning the sale of the picture.
He was counting the coins on the table, some of them gold--for Jessica's quick eyes caught the shimmer of it--and he looked up half fiercely, half contemptuously as the girl entered.
"Well, where have been? You're like a cat or a policeman--never to be found when you're wanted. There was a fine lady came to see you this morning--a real swell, my girl." He laughed coarsely. "But of course, you were out of the way. Where had you got to?"
"Anywhere, nowhere," replied Jessica, who did not fear him when he was sober, though she hated him always.
"Ah, that's the style! The swell lady ought to have heard you talk like that. She'd say I was bringing you up well. Come here and let's have a look at you."
Jessica did not move, but stared at him steadily.
"What! You won't come?" he said with a grin. "Well, there's something for your obstinacy, you little mule!"
He flung a half-crown across to her, and Jessica took it up, then looked him questioningly in the face.
"You're thinking I'm mighty generous, eh? So I am, my girl--foolishly generous." He laughed mockingly, "Well, what do you say if all the lot's for you, eh?"
"All for me!" repeated the girl, stopping short in her task of making the mantelshelf neat; "all for me!"
"Yes, when you get it, little cat! All for you, indeed! No! it's for me; and I've a good mind to take the half-crown back. A fool and his money's soon parted; but he's more idiotic to part with other people's. I'm going out. I shall want some grub when I get back--'arf a pound of steak, an' a pot of porter, an' don't forget the gin. Mind you remember now, or I'll break every bone in your body." With which forcible admonition the man shuffled out.
After a few hours he returned, not blindly drunk, but spiteful, ill-tempered, and stupidly brutal.
About the same time on that day Adrien Leroy was making his way in the new car through the crowded thoroughfare of Oxford Street.
"Soho? Yus, sir. Crack'ell Court, fust turnin' on the left. I'll show yer, sir," piped the ragged urchin, whose heartfelt interest Leroy had purchased, along with his query, by means of a shilling.
Cracknell Court was small, evil-smelling, and teeming with children. Bidding the chauffeur wait at the entrance to the court, Adrien, to whom dust, noises, and evil smells were things of absolute pain, entered one of the dens and asked for Mr. Wilfer.
"There he is," said another urchin; and Leroy turned to face that individual, who was leaning against an open door.
"Am I speaking to Mr. Johann Wilfer?" he asked courteously.
"You are," returned Wilfer, taking the begrimed pipe from his mouth, and staring with bloodshot eyes at the handsome, high-bred face before him.
"Can you tell me if a young girl named Jessica returned to you safely this morning?" Leroy enquired.
"My niece, Jess, d'ye mean?" replied Wilfer, eyeing him suspiciously. "Ain't seen 'er fer months; run away last June, after 'elping 'erself to some of my cash, an' ain't been back since. 'Sides, what's it got to do with you, Guv'nor, I'd like to know? You mind yer own bus'ness."
He leered drunkenly at Leroy, who turned away with a look of disgust. He knew how useless it was to expect truth from such a quarter.
As the gentleman stepped out into the dirty court and returned to his car Johann Wilfer blinked his eyes in relief; then with an oath he stumbled up the rickety stairs into the living-room, and confronted Jessica, who was standing near the window.
"So that's yer little game, is it?" he said with a sneer; "you're goin' in for swells right away, are yer, my gal? Got your name as pat as a poll-parrot. Knows all my private business, I dessay; I'll break every bone in yer body!"
He stumbled towards her where she stood--her face still transfigured with joy at the sound of her benefactor's voice--and made a sudden grab at her hair. But, alert and lithe as a leopardess, she bounded over the table, and slipped past him down the staircase, from the top of which he launched forth a long volley of curses.
Quivering and shaking, both with fear of Wilfer's violence and her sense of injury at his denial of her presence to Leroy, Jessica ran, as fast as her frail body would permit her, through the intricate smaller streets and passages which abound in the Soho district. Having gone far enough, in her opinion, to be fairly safe from any danger of Wilfer's pursuit, she stopped to consider whether she should endeavour to find Leroy.
"After all," she thought, "perhaps it is best as it is. He would give me money, or perhaps a few kind words, and only make me long for him more. Let him go, believing Johann's falsehoods."
As she walked wearily along dim remembrances of earlier days thronged her brain; of two women--one whom she knew she had called Auntie--and who had treated her kindly enough, before Johann had got her into his power. Mingled with these thoughts came those of the man who had befriended her and even sought her out this day. When she remembered how he had rescued her from cold, hunger, and the dangers of the streets her eyes filled with tears of gratitude. Yet, though knowing how quickly he would aid her were she but to return to the beautiful room from which she had fled that very morning, she could not bring herself to seek his charity or ask his pity. She realised well enough that one such as she could never hope to win a look of love from him; but like the moth that hovers round the flame which brings it danger she nevertheless determined to see him again.
With this object in view she slowly wended her way to Jermyn Court, wherein was the room in which she had supped and slept so delightfully. Afterwards she thought she would try to gain some work that would at least secure food and lodging, however poor, where she could be safe from the cruelty of Wilfer; surely in all London there was something she could do.
When darkness came, worn out by watching and waiting in vain for Adrien, she again found herself without a home and without shelter; so, crouching on a doorstep, as she had done the previous evening, overcome with fatigue, she fell asleep.
In the course of the night a dark-robed woman, passing on the usual round of duty assigned to her, stopped and looked at her. She was one of the band of Good Samaritan Sisters of Mercy established in some of our London suburbs, who seek out the helpless and downtrodden in the race of life--with healing in their hands and pity in their hearts--striving to raise them up from their hopeless position to something better. She stopped, bent down, and, drawing her veil aside, looked closely at the motionless face. Then she sighed and turned her head away.
"So beautiful! So young! Can it be possible? Sister, sister!"
Jessica awoke at the gentle touch, and sprang to her feet.
"Johann! Don't strike me," she exclaimed, with her eyes half closed. "I----"
"My poor girl, no one shall beat you. Will you come with me?"
"With you?" repeated Jessica, now fully awake, but still eyeing the Sister with some suspicion. "Where? Not far?"
"No, not far. But why do you say that? Is there any one you particularly wish to be near?"
"No," replied Jessica, adding to herself, as the sister of Mercy took her hand, "but she shall not take me far away from him."
"A roof of thatch is better than that of heaven," is an old Spanish proverb, and means, doubtless, that the poorest accommodation is better than none, or that which the streets provide. Jessica, clinging to the Sister of Mercy's succouring hand, was gently led from the silence of the streets to the still greater silence of an attic in a quiet byway.
Here, seated by the remains of a small fire in a narrow grate, she watched with awkward interest, that was much like indifference, the efforts of her rescuer to revive the dying embers. Soup was warmed for her, but for a time she refused to take it.
"I am not hungry," she said. "Only tired--so tired! Why did you wake me, lady?"
"I awoke you because you were unhappy, and it was dangerous for one so young as you to lie asleep in the streets," replied the meek-eyed woman. "But you must not call me 'lady'; I am not a lady. Call me 'Sister.'"
"But you are not my sister," said Jessica petulantly. "I haven't any sister or brother, or father or mother."
"Poor thing!" said the woman, who by this time had made up a bed, plain enough it is true, but luxurious after the cold doorsteps, and she now helped Jessica to undress. "Poor thing, you are quite cold; and what are all these bruises? Ah! why will men be so cruel, when Heaven is so kind?"
"I don't know," said Jessica, who took the question as directed to herself. "I don't know anything. Besides, all men ain't cruel.Hewasn't; he was kind--oh, so kind!"
"He--whom?" said the Sister. Then, as the girl did not reply, she looked hard at her and sighed again.
"Now you will sleep," she said, "Will you kiss me?"
With the impulsiveness of girlhood Jessica threw her arms round the linen-banded neck and kissed the Sister's pale face."
"Good-night," she said.
The Sister smoothed the coarse pillow, covered her up, and went softly from the room.
When Jessica awoke the woman was again beside her with a cup of tea, and some bread-and-butter. But the girl refused to eat.
"I am not hungry. I am not tired now, either, and I will go."
The Sister put her hand on the girl's arm. "Not yet," she said. "Where have you to go?"
"Nowhere," Jessica answered listlessly.
"Then stay with me," said the woman kindly. "See"--she brought a basket to the bedside--"here's some work. I will teach you to do this, and we will live together. Will you not stay?"
Jessica looked at the work, and silently nodded acquiescence. But nevertheless she sighed. To a nature such as hers freedom was life itself, and she was bartering it away for mere food. Besides, how could she now follow the one who had been so kind to her?
But she stayed, and patiently worked all day, striving earnestly to catch the knack of the needle, and emulating the tireless industry of the Sister, who worked thus during daylight that she might pursue her mission of mercy and succour at night. Thus passed some days, and then Jessica's blood grew restless; the narrow room seemed to her stifling and unendurable, and she pined for the open air, as a caged blackbird longs for its native woods.
The longing grew so irresistible that at last she succumbed to it; and one day, finding herself alone, she threw down the piece of work on which she was employed, and rising, snatched up her weather-stained hat.
"I can't stay," she sobbed; "I can't breathe here! I must go, or I shall die. I'll leave before she comes back. Oh! I wish she had not been so kind to me. I feel a worthless, miserable, ungrateful creature!"
Then she stole down the stairs, very much as she had slipped away from Adrien's residence, and gained the streets anew.
CHAPTER VII
It was the night of the great ball at Lady Merivale's town house. A Blue Hungarian Band was playing dreamily the waltz of the season, to the accompaniment of light laughter and gaily tripping feet. The scent of roses filled the air. Masses of their great pink blooms lurked in every small nook and corner; while in the centre of the room, half-hidden by them, a fountain sent its silver spray into the heated air.
If wealth and luxury alone could bring happiness, then surely Eveline Merivale should have been the most envied woman in the world. A renowned beauty, a leader of fashion, with every wish and ambition gratified--save the one which, at present, the chief object of her life--to enslave and retain, as her exclusive property, Adrien Leroy.
Her husband, the Earl of Merivale, she regarded as a necessary encumbrance, inevitable to the possession of the famous Merivale diamonds. His hobby was farming, and he detested Society; though quite content that his wife should be made queen so long as he was left in peace with his shorthorns.
Certainly Eveline Merivale was not in love with her husband; but, on the other hand, neither was she in love with Adrien Leroy. It simply added a zest to her otherwise monotonous round of amusements to imagine that she was; and it pleased her vanity to correspond in cypher, through the medium of theMorning Post, though every member of her set might have read the flippant messages if put in an open letter. There was a spice of intrigue, too, in the way in which she planned meetings at their mutual friends' houses, or beneath the trees of Brierly Park, or at Richmond.
Not for worlds would her ladyship have risked a scandal. She prized her position, and loved her diamonds far better than she was ever likely to love any human being under the sun. Still, it was the fashion to have one special favourite; and it was a great thing to have conquered the handsome and popular Adrien Leroy. It was little wonder, therefore, that, when midnight had struck and still Leroy was absent from her side, Eveline Merivale beneath the calm conventional smile, was secretly anxious and inclined to be angry.
She was looking her best to-night; and although she had already been surfeited with compliments from duke to subaltern, she yet longed to hear one other voice praise her appearance. There was, indeed, every reason why Lady Merivale should be lauded as the greatest beauty of her time, for she carried all before her by the sheer force of her personality. Dazzlingly fair, with hair of a bronze Titian hue, which clustered in great waves about her forehead; her eyes of a deep, lustrous blue, shading almost to violet. To-night she would have borne off the palm of beauty from any Court in the world, for her dress was a creation of Paquin, and enhanced to perfection her delicate colouring, which needed no artificial aids.
Diamonds glistened round her perfect throat, upon her head rested a magnificent tiara of the same stones, her hands flashed as if touched with living fire. She might have stood as a figure of Undine--as beautiful and as soulless.
All around her the little band of courtiers thronged ever-changing, and passing on to the ball-room as others eagerly took their place. Half-past twelve struck, and she grew more impatient; the blue eyes sparkled frostily, the red lips became more tightly set.
"Lady Merivale looks riled," Mortimer Shelton said to his partner as they passed her. "You can see that by the sweetness of the smile with which she has just favoured Hadley. She wishes him anywhere--I know. Funny thing about you ladies! the madder you are with one poor dev--fellow, the sweeter and deadlier you are to the rest of us."
His partner laughed; she was a bright little brunette, flushed with the dance, and thoroughly happy.
"Why should we wear our hearts upon our sleeves for cynics such as you to peck at?" she replied. "The art of dissembling is one of our few privileges. But do you think the Countess is angry? She is so beautiful."
"Marvellous!" exclaimed the cynic, raising his eyebrows. "Dear Lady Chetwold, is it possible that I hear one beautiful woman praise another's looks?"
The little lady flushed.
"It would be a greater marvel still if you men gave us credit for just alittlegenerosity. But, tell me Mr. Shelton, where is Adrien Leroy?"
"My dear lady," said Shelton, with a wicked twinkle in his eyes, "if I knew that Lady Merivale would be down on me like the proverbial load of bricks. He was to have been here; but his movements are as uncertain as her ladyship's smiles. See, she has fairly extinguished poor Hadley--drowned in sweetness!"
"You are a horror," laughed his companion as the waltz came to an end. "I shall be quite afraid of you in the future--I'd no idea you were so cynical."
"I could never be cynical withyou," he said gallantly. "By the way, have you seen Prince Pfowsky to-night?"
"Yes," said Lady Chetwold, "I am engaged to him for the next dance--if he remembers it. He is always so forgetful."
"'Put not your trust in princes,'" quoted Shelton. "But if his Highness should be so ungrateful, perhaps you will allow me the pleasure----"
"Certainly not," she retorted brightly; "Cæsar or nothing!"
"And here he comes," laughed Mortimer; adding softly, as the Prince came up to claim his partner, "and here is some one even more interesting--look."
Lady Chetwold followed the direction of his gaze and saw Adrien Leroy advancing up the rose-decked room. As usual, his appearance created something like a stir, for he was popular with men and women alike, and no smart gathering seemed quite complete without him. But the young man appeared totally unconscious of the interest he was evoking as he bent over his hostess's hand with a murmured greeting, then turned to make his bow to the Prince, who, as firm an admirer as the rest of Society, had paused to exchange a word before the dance commenced.
Adrien sank on to the velvet lounge beside the Countess.
"Don't scold me,belle amie," he said in his soft tones; "lay the blame on Mr. Paxhorn. I dined with him at the club. You know what Paxhorn is--there was simply no getting away. But, now, have you saved me a dance?"
"You do not deserve one," she said, all the irritation melting beneath the magic of his smile and the music of his voice.
"It's a mercy," he retorted lightly, "that one does not get all one's deserts in this world!"
"I saved you the next," she said, giving him her programme. "You see, I am as foolishly forgiving as ever."
"You are gracious and sweet!" he murmured in her ear. "How could you ever be otherwise?"
The soft phrase passed unreproved.
"You have been down to Barminster again?" she inquired.
"Yes," he replied, as he settled himself more comfortably.
"You have been very attentive to your father lately," she said a little suspiciously; "I thought filial affection was not the Leroys' strong point."
"Nor is it," he said with a laugh; "but it is business, my dear Eveline, odious business, into which Jasper inveigles me."
"I thought Mr. Vermont was the new machine that was to save you trouble?"
"Yes, that's what I thought," was the languid reply. "But one has to turn the handle, even of machines. There are signatures, and leases, and Heaven knows what besides."
"How is Lord Barminster?" she inquired.
"Splendid."
"Lady Constance also well?"--with the slightest tinge of restraint in her voice.
"Yes," he answered indifferently; adding, "but you haven't asked after 'King Cole.'"
"Ah, no, but you would have told me at first if anything had been wrong with him."
Leroy smiled. He knew that to be true.
"He will win, you think?" she asked anxiously.
"Oh, yes!" was the careless reply. "Vermont says there is nothing to touch him."
The countess raised her eyebrows.
"You trust this Vermont with a great deal, Adrien. Your horses, your wine, and your legal business. He must be a wonderful man."
"Yes," he answered confidently. "Jasper's a treasure. Nothing comes amiss to him. I should be in my grave if I had to face half the worries he wrestles with daily. Come," he added, as the first bars of the new waltz floated from the gallery; and with a sigh of enjoyment she rose for the promised dance.
"No one's step suits me like yours," she breathed, when they paused for rest. "Adrien, shall I back 'King Cole' for another two hundred?"
The two sentences were, perhaps, rather incongruous, but curiously characteristic of her ladyship; for, in addition to a natural love of intrigue, she had a partiality for betting on the turf and speculation on 'Change--both, of course,sub rosa.
"Oh, yes," he said, as they started again. "Jasper has put two thousand more of mine on to-day. There he is," he broke off, as the sleek, carefully dressed figure of Mr. Vermont entered the ball-room.
"Talk of angels," murmured Lady Merivale, but with a glance implying that she meant a being very far removed from that celestial grade.
Jasper Vermont did not excel at dancing; yet, strange to say, he was invariably invited to every big function of the season. Indeed, the hostesses of Mayfair would almost as soon have omitted the name of Adrien Leroy himself as that of his friend.
It was difficult to explain this other than on account of his engaging amiability. Probably Vermont would have transformed the famous advice of Uriah Heep to "Always be obliging." Certainly, no pleasanter company could be found, whether for man or woman; whatever the hour, however mixed the company, Jasper Vermont had always a smile, a jest, or a new and piquant scandal. In the smoking-room he would rival Mortimer Shelton in apparently good-natured cynicism. In a duchess's boudoir he would enliven the afternoon tea hour with the neatest of epigrams and the spiciest slander of her Grace's dearest friend. Nothing came amiss to him; as Adrien Leroy had once said, he was "a walking encyclopædia."
Yet with all Mr. Vermont's charm of manner, he could resent, smiling still, an impertinence or a snub, and deal back a tongue thrust that would effectually put his opponenthors de combat. Truly of him might be quoted, "I smile, and murder while I smile."
To-night he was apparently enjoying the gay scene before him. His sharp black eyes were like little snakes, darting here, there, and everywhere, while he wagged his smooth head to the time of the music, as if in keen enjoyment.
Mortimer Shelton noticed him; "gloating over his future victims," he commented, almost audibly, as he and his partner passed close to where he was standing. Vermont, however, apparently did not hear him, but continued to smile, amiably as the dancers whirled by.
It was nearly daybreak when the carriages drew up outside the great house to take the guests to their respective homes; and, having successfully steered a young marchioness into her electric brougham, Leroy found himself standing close to Vermont, not far from where his own motor awaited him.
"They call this pleasure, Jasper," he said, almost scornfully, watching the struggling, aristocratic crowd with a half-contemptuous smile on his lips. "Why, it's hard work. They fight and push for the sake of a few hours spent in a crowded, poisoned room; and there's no prophet to rise up and proclaim it madness."
"No," laughed Vermont cynically; "prophets nowadays have no liking for being stoned; and, after all, life would be unendurable, were it not for its pleasures. Let me remind you that it is nearly four o'clock, and you are due at Lord Standon's rooms."
With a sigh Leroy turned and jumped into the motor, followed by his faithful squire; and the powerful car hooted its way through the twilight of the dawn.
They reached Lord Standon's chambers, to find the finish of a theatre party. The room was filled with beautiful women, mostly stars of the musical comedy stage, including Ada Lester, who was evidently on her best behaviour.
Here, amidst light and laughter, the goddess of pleasure was being fêted by her youthful worshippers, and none appeared a more eager votary than Adrien Leroy. Yet, as he stood, champagne glass in hand, propounding the toast of the evening--or rather morning, for the dawn was breaking in the sky--there was none to tell him of the impending cloud of treachery that hung over his head. None who dare warn him to beware of the friendship of--Mr. Jasper Vermont.
CHAPTER VIII
High up in the woods of Buckinghamshire stood Barminster Castle, so old that one-half of its pile dated back to Norman times; while the whole, with the wings and parts added by the successive generations of Leroys, might have passed for a royal palace by reason of its splendour and magnificence.
Needless to say, the Leroys were proud of their ancestral home, for there had been Leroys since William the Conqueror had calmly annexed the land on which it now stood, and had given it to his faithful baron, Philip Le Roi. But they valued still more the love and respect of their people, who in hamlet and village surrounded the castle as naturally as did the woods.
Yet the present Lord Barminster had done little to keep the flame of loyalty alight in the hearts of his tenants. He was an old man, nearing seventy, tall, white-headed and haughty--every feature clear-cut, as if carved from marble. Few people had ever seen the stern lines of that face relax in light-hearted laughter since the death of his young wife, which had occurred a few years after the birth of Adrien. None, outside his immediate family circle, had ever known the curtness of his speech to be softened unless in sarcasm; and his habitual expression was one of haughty tolerance.
His friends feared him, even as they respected him, for if he had the faults of his race, he also possessed its great virtue--justice. No man, prince or peasant, friend or foe, ever appealed to Lord Barminster for that in vain.
Now, in the clear brightness of the spring morning he paced to and fro on the south terrace.
Behind him glittered the long French windows of the morning-room, one of which stood open, revealing the luxury of the room beyond; the table with its silver and delicate china service, and the purple hangings of the walls.
Presently he stopped in his stroll and turned his stern eyes towards the landscape stretching beneath him. Through the confusion of the dark woods there lay a long line of turf, cut here and there by formidable hedges, and divided by a streak of glittering silver, which was in reality a dangerous stream--indeed, higher up it became a torrent--forming the final obstacle of the Barminster steeple-course. All the Leroys had been fond of horses. The Barminster stables had sent many a satin-coated colt to carry off the gold cup; and this race-course had been carefully kept and preserved by the family for many generations.
While he stood gazing on it a light footstep sounded behind him, and a slender hand was laid on his shoulder. He turned slowly, and with a kind of kingly courtesy kissed the long white fingers.
"You are early as usual, Constance," he said approvingly.
Lady Constance Tremaine smiled as she turned with him and walked along the mosaic pavement of the terrace. She was little more than a girl, with a slim, graceful figure, and clad in a simple white morning gown, which served to enhance her youthful beauty. Her face was a pure oval, with clear-cut features and an exquisitely curved, sensitive mouth, while her grey-blue eyes gazed from beneath their thick lashes with a calm serenity that bred faith and confidence in those who looked upon them. Crowned with a wealth of pale golden hair, together with her delicate complexion, she looked as if she had stepped from one of the old Florentine pictures of the saints.
As the two so typical of youth and age stood side by side in the clear morning light, the resemblance between them was marked. Indeed, they were related, for the Tremaines were a distant branch of the Leroy family, and the same proud blood ran in their veins. Lady Constance had been brought up in the Barminster household, and Adrien had grown to regard her in the light of a loved and trusted sister; but, as yet, nothing more.
"Won't you come in to breakfast?" she said, as they reached the end of the terrace. "Aunt Penelope is not coming down; her nerves are bad this morning."
Miss Penelope Leroy, Lord Barminster's only sister, was not strictly speaking Constance's aunt, merely a distant cousin; but as a child Constance had been accustomed to call her so, and the habit had grown up with her.
Lord Barminster smiled grimly.
"I advised her to let the cucumber alone last night," was his only comment as he turned towards the breakfast room.
Constance smiled too, for she knew that when Miss Penelope complained of her nerves, it was in reality nothing but a case of indigestion.
"How bright the course looks this morning!" she said, with a charitable wish to change the subject, for Lord Barminster was apt at times to wax caustic over his sister's small weaknesses.
"Yes," he said grimly; "like all things dangerous, it is pleasant to the eye. I hate that strip of green--it is the grave of many a Leroys' best hope. The turf has always been a fatal snare to our race. But, come," he broke off, "let us go in. Thank goodness, Adrien arrives to-day."
"To-day?" repeated Lady Constance, a delicate flush rising to her sweet face. "I thought he was not going to arrive until the morning of the race."
"The race is to-morrow, but he comes to-day," answered Lord Barminster. "I had a note from him last night saying he would be here by lunch time, and was bringing a few friends down with him."
"And Mr. Vermont, too?" inquired Lady Constance almost timidly.
The old man's face darkened and his thin lips set in a hard line.
"Yes," he said fiercely, "I suppose so. Adrien is as much in love with him as a young fellow with his first sweetheart. I know that he's a scoundrel and a rogue--but there, what would you? Times have changed since my day; we have replaced horses by motors, to spoil our roads and ruin our lands, and gentleman friends by base-born, scheming adventurers."
"Oh, but, uncle," Lady Constance timidly remonstrated, "surely Mr. Vermont is a gentleman?"
"Yes, by Act of Parliament!" snapped the old man, in whose aristocratic eyes a lawyer was but little removed from the criminal whose case he defended.
"Certainly it is strange that Adrien should be so attached to him," the girl said musingly; she, herself, had little liking for the gentleman in question, though her sense of justice had made her speak a good word for him. "But he is a clever steward, at least."
"A rogue's only virtue," said Lord Barminster dryly.
"Amusing, too," she suggested.
"We've no longer need of a court jester," returned her companion, with sarcasm. "But never mind, Adrien will find out his mistake for himself one day. Certainly, I am not going to attempt to strip the mask off his friend's face. Give him rope enough, and he will hang himself. Meanwhile, give me some more coffee, and leave the fellow's name alone; I hate even the thought of him."
Lady Constance refilled his cup and brought it to the end of the table, for she loved to wait on the old man. As she did so, his sharp eyes caught the glitter of a piece of needlework across the back of her chair, and with a curt gesture towards it, he said:
"What is that?"
She blushed, almost deeply, then took it up, and opened it out for him to see. It was a silk riding jacket, in the scarlet and white racing colours of the Leroys, and their coat of arms, worked in silver, upon the breast.
"For the Grand National," said Lady Constance, as she refolded the jacket.
"You worked it yourself?" questioned the old man abruptly.
"Yes," she replied, blushing again. Then, as he was silent for some minutes, she said almost timidly: "You do not mind, uncle, do you?"
He started. "Mind! Good Heavens, child, why should I? You know the wish of my heart only too well. What better favour could he wear than yours? As far as I am concerned, you were plighted in your cradles. Leroy and Tremaine are no unequal match. No--no--my dear, make his jacket, and win his heart--if you can!"