"Sit down," she commanded abruptly. "I have yet to learn details of your scheme."
"Ourscheme," he reminded her.
"You flatter me, M. Demetrius, since I cannot take credit for your clever inventions."
"We are all in the same boat, madame."
"You, I, and----?" she glanced at him inquiringly.
"Your husband."
"Can you not grasp the fact that I am a widow? When I have a husband," she smiled meaningly, "do you think he will sanction Mr. Berring rowing in the boat you mention?"
Suspicious people are the easiest to gull, and the smile, rather than the words, changed the gloomy doubter into a confiding child. Her enforced diplomacy was gaining her ground already. "My angel! you mean----"
Leah cleverly shortened a possible rhapsody. "Of course I do. Ah!" with a sentimental sigh; "what have I done to be so doubted?"
"Never by me, I swear. Believe me, soul of my soul----"
"Hush!" she raised an admonitory finger to check dithyrambic wooings at an untoward moment. "We are yet in the wood."
"Out of it, while here--yes, here, where you so sweetly promised we should become one;" his voice sank tenderly.
"After certain preliminaries had been observed, M. Demetrius."
"Say, Constantine."
"As you will, Constantine. I can deny you few things, after what you have done."
"Yet what you deny is what I desire."
Lady Jim displayed impatience at this headlong haste. "We are not in Verona, nor will your age permit you to play Romeo to a Juliet of my temperament. When my husband's body is buried"--she laughed consciously--"and my months of mourning are ended, then--well, then--ah, be patient, Constantine."
"Am I not to touch your finger-tips meanwhile?"
"If it is any satisfaction;" and she gave him her hand to mumble, ruminating meanwhile on this shrinking of giant to dwarf. The unendurable lasted half a minute; then, "Be sensible, M. Demetrius."
"Ah!" the child sighed for his lost rattle; "you descend from poetry to prose."
She nodded. "Would you versify explanations?"
"Explanations?"
"Necessary ones. How did you transfer Garth's body to Jamaica?"
The doctor looked piteous. "To think of wasting this golden hour," he murmured.
"Oh!" The ejaculation was careless, but the instinct was to box a dullard's ears. "Business before pleasure, M. Demetrius."
"At least, Constantine."
"M. Demetrius," she repeated inflexibly. "We are to marry, well and good; but beforehand, I must understand my position as a Russian princess."
The pessimism of the Slav asserted itself in renewed doubts. "I am a simple doctor, madame."
"Very simple, if you imagine--but that can be discussed later. Come," cajolingly to a hesitating and sullen being, "an account of your adventures must prove amusing. Cheer me up for the funeral."
This extraordinary conclusion staggered a man not easily moved to amazement. "Mon Dieu!" Then in English: "You were weeping some minutes ago, madame."
"And I may be weeping some minutes later," she retorted, suppressing rising irritation. "I ask explanations rather than give them. Tell me how you managed."
Shrugging away a question relative to female weathercocks, Demetrius reluctantly obeyed. He desired love-talk, and she hard facts; but naturally her subject forced his subject out of sight. Man being romantic, and woman practical, the latter invariably clips the former's wings, lest he should soar beyond the necessities of her hour. Moreover, his pinions rendered useless, Demetrius could not dispute common-sense views. Thus, dexterously managed, did he yield to a puppet, Fate, the strings of which were pulled by obstinacy and selfishness, blended into what Leah called firmness. She was an adept at ticketing her vices virtues.
"That poor Garth"--the doctor mentioned his late patient thus endearingly throughout the narrative--"died of consumption."
"Of consumption?" Leah put the question she had been shirking for so long with nervous emphasis, and with short, indrawn breaths.
"Assuredly, and earlier than I expected. There was no need to----"
"I know--I know! Do not put it into words," she fiddled with her handkerchief, looking up, down, everywhere except at her companion. "Did he suffer much?" was her inquiring whisper.
"Not at all; he died in his sleep. Pray do not alarm yourself, madame; the release was a happy and an easy one."
"I am so glad--so relieved," murmured Lady Jim, seeing the spectre which had long haunted her pillow dissolve into thin air. "You see, I thought--that is, I fancied----" she hesitated, and passed her tongue over dry lips.
"The need did not arise," explained the doctor, answering somewhat contemptuously her unspoken fears; "although I was prepared to---- No, do not shudder; there is no blood on my hands, nor on yours. We can marry in peace."
The doubly false prophecy of the last sentence provoked her into ignoring the entire speech. "Go on--please go on. Garth died a natural death at Funchal. Well?"
"I did not say that, madame."
"Absurd! Why, your explanation----"
"Is yet to come, if you will accord me a hearing;" whereupon, accepting an impatient permission, Demetrius slipped into the undramatic--literally so, for he avoided oratorical snares, the high colouring of superlatives, and the temptation to dilate on obviously sensational moments. He might have been reciting the alphabet, so dry was his deliver of an advisedly barren tale.
One Richard Strange, mariner--so commenced the soberOdyssey--owned and captained a sea-gipsy, prowling on ocean highways and in harbour byways for the picking up of chance cargoes. As an instinctive buccaneer, ostensibly law-abiding, he lent himself and his tramp-steamer to whatever nefarious proposals promised the acquisition of money at slight risks. Thus fitted for the Russian's requirements, secret instructions brought him to anchor in Funchal Bay. With him sailed, for possible restoration to health, a consumptive nephew, Herne by name, also a factor in an admirably conceived scheme.
"The dead was necessary for the living, and the dead for the dead," said Demetrius, paradoxically.
"What do you mean by that?" questioned Lady Jim, very naturally.
"The body of that poor Garth had to be buried in Madeira, madame; yet, being wanted here, to pass as the corpse of your husband, it was necessary to arrange for a substitute."
"I understand. Herne was to pass as Garth, and Garth as Jim."
Demetrius assented and proceeded. With his two patients the doctor lodged at a second-rate hotel, not a stone's-throw from the shore. In due time Herne died, and Demetrius, at once transferring the body to Garth's bedroom, induced the surviving consumptive to board theStormy Petrel,--so the sea-gipsy was named--for the purpose of informing its skipper of his relative's death. Strange, previously advised, detained the young man, and Demetrius proceeded to bury Herne under the prisoner's name.
"An easier task than you would think, madame," he explained; "for the Portuguese landlord confused the names of my patients, owing to his ignorance of their language."
"But scarcely of their appearance, I should think," observed Lady Jim, shrewdly.
Demetrius shrugged away the objection. "I cannot say that the landlord had studied Lavater. To his uninformed eye, two fair young Englishmen were much alike; and consumption, madame, begets a family likeness in those it afflicts. I assure you that this Portuguese was as satisfied that my poor Garth had died, as is Monseigneur convinced that his son lies in the coffin we inspected."
Leah shuddered for the twentieth time at the mental picture evoked. "Ugh! What then?"
The doctor informed her placidly. As Garth, under a tombstone suitably inscribed, the skipper's nephew was buried--the very fact that he had existed thus being blotted out by a chiselled lie. Then did the sea-tramp loaf--the word is appropriate--over-seas to Jamaica at a slow ten knots an hour; with bad luck it would seem to one passenger, at least.
"He died on board," exclaimed the listener.
"That poor Garth--ah yes; as a child did he fall asleep, to waken----" Demetrius spread his hands, at a loss to supply further information. His ideas of a future state were vague.
With an admirably embalmed body on board, the disreputable craft of Captain Strange slipped her anchors in Kingston Harbour; but no half-masted ensign intimated her lugubrious cargo. Lord James Kaimes, forewarned by a cypher letter, rowed out to inspect an eidolon of himself, as he would one day appear. His nerves being shaken by enforced invalidism, he did not appreciate the sight. Also, the medicines of Demetrius, given to induce counterfeit consumption and lean, sallow looks, made him fear lest this rascally comedy should deepen into a real tragedy for himself. Those in Kingston with whom he had made acquaintance were not surprised when Demetrius took him eastward to the famous Blue Mountains, in the hope that the healing air would mend his lungs; nor did any one manifest astonishment when, after a discreet period, news came of his death. Perhaps, if these sympathisers had seen one James Berring sneak on board theStormy Petrel, and had beheld that ship rolling south to Buenos Ayres, they would have expended less pity on his untimely decease. As it was, while Jim foregathered with the skipper--a man after his own buccaneering heart--former acquaintances, Government officials, and local doctors were complimenting Demetrius on the clever way in which he had embalmed the late James Kaimes' body, with such few scientific appliances as could be at hand in the Blue Mountains.
"They had no suspicion--these people?" questioned Leah, abruptly.
"I assure you, no, madame. My mummy, you saw it, yourself."
Leah rose, lest her mind's eye should conceive too vivid a picture. "I shall always see it," she murmured, with loathing. "Ugh! What a fool I am--what a fool!"
"A woman, a woman. And so, madame, we recommence our conversation."
"It has already lasted too long," she rejoined. "Lord Frith----" Here she stopped, too discreet to repeat club gossip, which might strengthen still more the already strong position of Demetrius.
"You were about to observe, madame?"
"Nothing! It is of no moment. You are sure all is safe--sure?"
"As sure as I am that we, you and I, shall be happy."
"Sentiment and business mix about as well as snow and fire," snapped Leah, yet ridden by a nightmare memory of that dead face; "but this sailor whose nephew you borrowed?"
"Captain Strange? He will say what I will."
"At a price, no doubt."
"Of the smallest, madame. One thousand pounds."
"Ridiculous! Extortionate!"
"One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs," said Demetrius, in dry tones; "it would be well not to vex my friend Strange."
"Who wants to vex him? He shall have his money. Anything else?"
"This letter from your late husband;" and Demetrius handed over an envelope directed in Jim's sprawling hand, and sealed with Jim's ancestral coat of arms.
"Fool!" was Leah's comment on this carelessness. "Doesn't he know he is dead, and is about to be buried?" She thrust the letter hastily into her pocket and was about to hurry away, when she caught a glimpse of the Russian's darkening face. She paused wisely, to dismiss him with a compliment. "You have managed splendidly, M. Demetrius."
"Do I not deserve to be called Constantine, now?"
"Yes--no--that is--oh, don't bother;" Lady Jim snatched away the hand he had captured. "You foreigners never learn sense."
"Are you teaching it to me now?" he asked in a metallic voice.
"I am--if you are clever enough to learn the lesson. See as little of me as possible, and don't speak to me at all. When Jim--that is, when Garth--is buried, we shall see."
"But, madame----"
"Quite so. Consider your objections answered."
"They will be answered," said Demetrius, very distinctly, "before the altar of any church you may select."
A remembrance of his capacity for being dangerous, and an anxious survey of his narrowing eyes, made her deceptive. She diplomatically employed feminine strategy, against which no man living can man[oe]uvre. "You doubt me, Constantine," whispered the she-Judas, with trembling tenderness; "will not this----?" She bent forward to drop a butterfly kiss on his forehead, and left him dazed, in the seventh and most exalted Paradise of Fools.
"Faugh!" said Lady Jim, when shut up in her own room. There she read the communication from her legally deceased husband. It narrated a story similar to that detailed by Demetrius, but scarcely so concisely. Mr. Berring showed a disposition to ramble, and his excursions ended on every occasion in a command to send half the insurance money at once--the last two words being aggressively underlined. He was in the best of health, on his way to Buenos Ayres; thence would travel to Rosario--"where that woman lives," commented Leah, tearing off the address and carefully burning Jim's maunderings. "Half the money--eh? Fifteen thousand pounds! I think not, Mr. Berring. That captain, too, with his absurd charge, and after all my trouble! I wonder Demetrius does not claim his share, also."
It would have been cheaper had he done so, since she possessed the money and he intended to possess her. But he would refuse a cheque and claim her hand, as she reflected with impotent rage. What a pity she could not pay him off, and, along with Jim and Strange, dismiss him into Limbo! She did not exactly know what Limbo was, or where it was, save that once there these people could not bother her. But with all the will in the world she could not get out of the apparent cul-de-sac she had walked into.
"Demetrius wantsme, and these other beasts my money," she raged inwardly. "What a mean advantage they all take! Pigs! As though I worked for nothing. What is to be done? What--what?"
This question was difficult to answer. Jim she could bamboozle with a small sum, since he could not well betray her without laying himself open to a charge of conspiracy. But the Russian and the skipper, both adventurers of the most reckless type, would assuredly demand their wages. "I shall have to pay that captain," she decided regretfully; "but Demetrius--insolent little creature!--he shall go to Siberia, even if I have to kiss him again. Faugh!"
Then she descended to tell the Duke how the sight of poor dear Jim's face had broken her up entirely. Yet people said that Leah Kaimes had no sense of humour.
A sociable undertaker, lacking the indispensable humour of his brethren, bitterly complained that he rarely inquired after a friend's health without being suspected of business motives. Ex-lieutenant Harry Askew found himself in a similar predicament, since his desire to marry a widow precluded him from offering sympathy. That he should personally, or by letter, deplore the necessity of crape caps, would suggest waning affection; while a congratulatory address laid him open to the charge--which this especial widow would certainly make--of unseemly dancing on a newly-made grave. With laboured wisdom Askew dropped between the horns of this dilemma. Paying no visit, writing no letter, he compromised by leaving a card. In this dexterous avoidance of impalement Lady Jim read the untold story of his perplexity, and smiled at the diplomatic evasion.
There being an exception to every rule, the absence which should have made the Askew heart grow fonder produced an opposite effect. Debarred from the temple of his goddess, he began to ask himself why he worshipped, and thereby dug the grave of illicit passion. That such was now permissible, and even praiseworthy, considering its consolatory results, only made him a more ardent sexton. The votaries of Eros can begarland themselves with roses, but Hymen's celebrants wear chains of approved legal pattern. Was the cultus of the matrimonial god worth such encumbrances? Thus Askew inquired of his own pampered self, and, not knowing exactly what his selfishness desired, obtained but a doubtful response. What else could he expect? Two-faced Janus is the true god of oracles.
Lady Jim was witty, beautiful, chaste and brilliant--admirable qualities in a woman, but in a wife, unless informed with love, rather unattractive. Askew doubted if a composite mate of this glittering, unwarmed sort would satisfy his somewhat exacting requirements. Accepting too readily the world's definition, what he and it called love was actually selfishness, masquerading. He fancied, and with much reason, that Leah, openly devoted to herself, would not show devotion to him: that is, she being selfish, and he ditto, genuine happiness would not and could not spring from this union of like and like. Moreover, he ignorantly loved--in the world's sense--through his eyes, and with his lower nature; so it was probable that the legal possession of irresponsive beauty would pall. To limit a butterfly to one rose would bore the butterfly, and if the rose were sentient, she also might feel weary. In this way, and from surface feelings, argued Askew; but natural limitations prevented comprehension of the true reason which disinclined him to prosecute his now legal and therefore uninteresting wooing.
He was a better man than he knew, and this he would have known, had he paid heed to the intimations of his higher self, when it occasionally overcame the lower. When the god within overtopped the brute, he had beheld not so clearly the body as the soul of Lola Fajardo, and had, for one swift moment, recognised that conjunction with the spirit would best promote his happiness. A genuine marriage must be spiritual, and it is the souls, whom God hath joined, which man is forbidden to put asunder. Askew's introspective self knew that his allotted wife on this physical plane was Lola, and that to her alone should love be given. But the lust of the eye demanded Leah Kaimes' beauty, and feigned a spurious passion to gain possession. Absence from Lady Jim made him aware that he did not actually love her, and a feeble struggle of the soul bound in chains of selfishness revealed that he would do well to seek Lola once more. Hence came the war between light and darkness, wherein the light so far triumphed that the young man sought Curzon Street with more self-control than was desirable in an admitted lover--one, be it known, of the worldly, material type only. And may all such, for the well-being of the race, be anathema maranatha!
"I took you to be more original," said Leah, when he entered.
"Original?"
"To the extent of defying conventionality by calling before the funeral."
"Your grief----"
"Needed consolation. You declined to console."
"I come now."
"At the eleventh and less necessary hour. Besides----" She looked meaningly towards the window-seat, where a flushed and smiling Katinka adored with timid conversation and eloquent eyes a rather sour Demetrius. "Will you have a cup of tea?"
"Thank you," and they moved towards the bamboo table, whence she had risen to whisper her greeting at the door.
Advisedly it would seem, since she cast a rapid and satisfied glance at the doctor's lowering face. The set mouth, the narrowing eyes, hard as jade, betokened jealous rebuke of Leah's condescending to meet the newcomer as royalty should be met. Reading this index of a mind ill at ease, Lady Jim resumed her seat, tacitly pleased. She had an end to gain, and this over-attention to Askew meant the beginning of plots.
It was over a month since the supposed Jim Kaimes had been packed away in the family vault, and his widow enjoyed the fruits of her labours. Dr. Demetrius, looking upon the thirty thousand pounds as purchase money, wished to possess the woman he had thus bought, and objected to other customers eying his bargain. Hence his jealousy discerned a rival in Askew, and Lady Jim--aware of this clear-sightedness--was content that he should so discern. She could neither cajole nor reason Demetrius into trusting himself in Paris: but the desired result might be brought about by utilising green-eyed jealousy. The unexpected meeting of the rivals afforded her an eagerly seized chance of putting fire to powder. The possible explosion, she hoped, would blow Demetrius into Siberian wilds. Thus, playing with amorous fire, she hastened to heap on lavish fuel.
"I am seeing a few friends now," said Lady Jim, ministering to her visitors' five-o'clock wants. "Mademoiselle Aksakoff and Dr. Demetrius--you know both, I believe. Lady Richardson may look in later; also----" Here she checked her tongue. Aksakoff was due in half an hour; but it would not do to advise Demetrius of that. The chances were that Katinka, aware of the intended visit, would carry off the doctor early. Lady Jim devoutly wished that she would. Her drawing-room was no stage for melodrama.
"Also?" queried the newly arrived.
"Also her son, Sir Billy. Have you met him? Of course! Monte Carlo! I remember. Isn't he charming--a D'Orsay of the cradle, Brummel in embryo? I have a mind to marry him, as a pocket-husband."
"Am I to wish you joy?"
Leah looked at him suddenly and understood. This man had risen from his knees, and the chances were--going by experience--that he would stroll away. She did not intend to permit that, since he was necessary to her schemes. Until Demetrius was safely bestowed in Siberia he would have to be flattered and coerced and ensnared into remaining. Then he could go and welcome. With freedom and money she wanted no encumbrances. And it vexes a woman to have a man more earnest than herself hanging round her skirts. However, this was not the time for plain speaking, and she answered in this Thalian vein.
"Of course you must wish me joy--in a whisper."
The smiles of Leah, the attitude of Askew, the sibilant indistinct voices of both, goaded Demetrius. He all but interrupted the tea-table conference. But since Lady Jim wished to be a princess--she had conveyed that idea clearly--and as Katinka's aid was necessary to the recovering of his birthright, he dared not to offend the girl. Jealous himself, Demetrius knew how easy it would be to arouse the doubts of another--especially of a woman. He therefore remained seated and waited developments, while Katinka chatted earnestly.
"I really wish you would be reconciled with my father," said she.
"M. Aksakoff is less willing for such a consummation than I, mademoiselle."
She disagreed, hurriedly. "You are wrong. My father is willing, but your enemies are not."
"And my enemies are his enemies?" he inquired dryly.
"Assuredly. But one enemy--Paul Petrovitch--is my friend."
"Your cousin."
Katinka nodded and proceeded with explanations. "He has, as you know, much influence with the Czar."
That would be used on your behalf, if----" She paused, coloured, and cast down her eyes.
"If what?"
"If I agreed to marry him."
Thin ice indeed, but Demetrius skated extremely well. "Mademoiselle," said he, gravely, "I cut myself off from my princely family, and surrendered wealth that I might work in the cause of humanity. To assist a brother worker did I risk exile, with the result you behold. Why, then, should I demand a sacrifice on your part, to restore that which I personally do not regret?"
"Believe me, my friend, it would mean no sacrifice. You hinted when last we met that you were prepared to consider the proposition of resuming your rank."
"I did--contingent on certain events happening," replied Demetrius, thinking that if Lady Jim insisted upon being a princess of the drawing-rooms, he would be forced to yield; "but we can talk of this in a--well, in a few months. There is no hurry!" recalling the necessary period of mourning. "No, there is no hurry!" He paused, then questioned suddenly, "You love Paul Petrovitch?"
"No, no! Ah, no!"
"It would, then, certainly be a sacrifice for you to marry him."
"I would never do that."
"How, then, could you persuade him to use his influence?"
"It is a case of diamond cut diamond," explained Katinka, with the indifference of a woman to all other honour, save that of the man she loves. "Paul Petrovitch wishes to marry me. If I agree, he will induce the Czar to reinstate you in your possessions. When you have made your peace at St. Petersburg, I could refuse to---- Oh!" she broke off with a confused laugh, "do not look shocked, M. Demetrius. I but trick him, as he is prepared to trick me."
"I am far from being shocked," denied the liberal-minded doctor; "to prevent being bitten, we must bite. But the possible sacrifice----"
"Lies in lending myself to such a trick. I make it for you--for you; yes, do you not understand?"
Only that stupid animal, a sheep, could have refused comprehension.
"I am not worthy," shuffled Demetrius, hurriedly.