Leah's face fell considerably. She would have to pay that fine, and did not relish parting with more money. "How interesting!" she murmured vaguely, and waited for further information.
"Blackmail, however," pursued the lawyer, emphatically, "is a very grave offence, and can be punished with five years' imprisonment, involving penal servitude."
"That would be better," agreed Lady Jim, thinking that Strange at hard labour would earn one thousand a year and have an extra thousand over when his term was ended. A profitable imprisonment for him, truly, she reflected, and extremely costly for her.
"Then again, Lady James, if the offence s committed by letter, sentence for life can be passed."
"Oh, he didn't write," she said hastily, and congratulated herself that Strange had not done so, since, even for so many thousands, he would not be inclined to remain a prisoner for ever; "but perhaps Mr. Kaimes may receive a letter. The man hinted that he would try in that quarter, seeing that I would not yield to his extortion."
"You should have had him arrested."
"I had not my wits about me. He would have shot me had I summoned the servants."
"Bless me, Lady James, had he a weapon?"
"A revolver," she replied, unscrupulously; "so you can see how I--a poor weak woman--was intimidated."
"That will add to his sentence," said Mr. Hall, upon which she wished she had checked her imagination. It would be foolish to push Strange into a corner, for as yet she could not reckon the exact power of his greed. However, she could not unsay what she had said, and nothing remained but to pray to the fetish and hope for the best.
"The Duke must be warned," went on Mr. Hall.
"Who?" asked Leah, just as sharply as she had asked Colley.
"The new Duke--I beg your pardon, for, of course, if this story is true, Lord James is the Duke of Pentland."
"You doubt the story, then?"
Hall raised his eyebrows and shook his head. "I cannot give an opinion until I have seen this man and sifted his statements." He paused and looked at her inquiringly. "I presume, Lady James, that this man closely resembles your husband?"
"What man? Oh, Garth--yes. You may guess how closely, when the late Duke, Lord Frith, and myself were all deceived. Certainly the likeness was well known in Firmingham. There were reasons," she added with hesitation--"family reasons."
"Oh--er--quite so." Mr. Hall, who knew something of the Adamite side of his late Grace, coughed away a laugh. "I can see how the mistake arose, Lady James. Natural enough--oh, dear me--natural enough."
"Why do you not give me my proper title?" she asked haughtily.
"Pardon me, but the truth of this man's wild story has yet to be proved. May I ask a few needful questions?"
A wave of her hand signified that he might, and she submitted to a tolerably stiff examination. Being prepared with artless answers to every question, she emerged triumphantly from the ordeal, and when in possession ofherfacts, Mr. Hall subscribed to the wickedness of Demetrius and Strange. "A pair of villains, my dear lady. The one sinned for love and the other from avarice; astonishing whither those passions lead us--astonishing. Well, well, we must hope. I trust, for your ladyship's sake, that the story is true."
"So do I," wept Leah, producing her handkerchief. "Not for the sake of the title or the money, dear Mr. Hall, but because my poor husband---- Oh----" here she skilfully broke down, for want of something to say.
"Pray calm yourself, Lady James. Let us hope that in a few days I shall be able to address you as the Duchess of Pentland."
"Give me back my husband--I ask no more," was her magnanimous reply.
And while driving to Curzon Street she reflected how very magnanimous it really was, seeing that she had no wish for Jim's company. To be tied to that log again was scarcely worth the income. Besides, Jim, who had no sense of decency, would assuredly laugh his loudest at the thought of her unnecessary trouble. He would not even thank her for giving him his rights, although he must know that it was sorely against the grain for her to put up with his boring society. But in spite of Jim's probable ingratitude, she would behave as his wife--as the lenient woman she felt herself to be. Certainly her common sense recognised that he was returning from his sham grave with gifts in his hands, but of those she was the giver. And, seeing that she could betray his share in the conspiracy without inculpating herself, Leah foresaw the possession of limitless power to enforce obedience. That power she resolved to utilise for the purpose of getting her own unfettered way, and all the money she required for contemplated extravagances. Also, she intended to stop Jim's illicit flirtations. Now that he was a peer of the realm he would have "to purge and live cleanly," after the fashion of one Sir John Falstaff, Knight.
"We owe that much to society," thought Leah, virtuously, and considered the rumoured doings of black sheep who would be cast out of the Mayfair fold were their housetops removed. That the shifting of the Curzon Street mansion tiles might also be attended with danger she did not pause to consider.
On the ensuing afternoon Askew arrived to say farewell; but, as circumstances were too embarrassing to permit of her taking any interest in other people's affairs, she declined to see him. Nevertheless, he urged a personal interview, on the plea that he would be absent for months. She yielded very unwillingly, as her nerves clamoured for some outward sign of emotion, which by the rules of society she would be obliged to suppress.
"I know I shall be horribly rude," murmured Lady Jim, when the footman left the room to introduce the visitor; "but he has brought it on himself"--which excuse she considered ample for ensuing impoliteness.
Askew, with mistaken consideration, entered the drawing-room almost on tiptoe, and proceeded forthwith to condole with her in stage whispers. She soon put a stop to this artificial sympathy. Further reference to life beyond the grave she could not and would not stand, as she told him crisply.
"Don't talk funeral, unless you wish to see me wreck the room. I have had months of crying and crape and condoling."
"But the sad circumstances----"
"Are such that I did not wish to see you," she retorted, finishing his sentences for him as usual, after her old fashion. "I feel so scratchy that I declined your visit out of sheer pity. But you would insist, so don't blame me if I am disagreeable."
"You can never be disagreeable," said Askew, soothingly.
"Can't I? You wait ten minutes and see."
"I think I had better go, Lady Jim."
"For your own sake, I think you had. Good-bye."
Askew still kept his seat. "I only wish to say that I am very--very sorry for your terrible loss."
"Lady Frith's terrible loss, you mean. Go and see her, if you want to play the hired mourner."
"Ah, poor Lady Frith----"
"Now don't begin about her," snapped Leah, viciously.
"But you must be sorry----"
"I am--for myself. I have been dosed with the post-mortem virtues of those three Kaimes men until I feel that only wicked people are truly agreeable. I regret the Duke, who was a nice old sinner turned saint, and I lament Lord Frith for his goodness and sweetness of disposition--there."
"I never heard that Lord Frith had a sweet disposition."
"He hadn't; but I'm only saying the kind of things you expect me to say."
"Oh!" Askew looked shocked. "Have the--er--bodies been found?"
"I don't think so; but you can ask the executors who look after these things. Any more questions?"
"No; only I am sorry----"
"You said that before. You are sorry, I am sorry, we are sorry. I think that conjugation exhausts the subject. Let us talk of your yacht, Mr. Askew."
"She's all right," he murmured, confused. It was difficult to comprehend this woman, who so lightly dropped a family sorrow to take on a subject which he knew interested her but little.
"And when do you sail?"
"To-morrow or next day. I came to say good-bye."
"Oh!" said Leah, carelessly. "I fancied you came to sympathise. Well"--she rose and extended her hand--"good-bye."
Askew clasped her hand coldly, wondering how he ever came to love so heartless a woman. As Jim was returning in glory and had not seen Señorita Fajardo since his reported death, Leah felt that she could safely dismiss this boy, to go where he would. Besides, she was beginning to find him a bore. He took things much too seriously, and was by no means so good-looking as she had imagined. All the same, after the manner of woman, who wants to have her pie and eat it, she by no means approved of his readiness to depart.
"You don't seem to care much," she said reproachfully, and felt quite ill-used.
Askew coloured boyishly. "I am not broken-hearted, certainly."
"I do not believe that you have a heart."
"You are right--it is at Rosario."
"Then I advise you to go after it, lest it should get mixed up with other men's hearts."
"Lola is no flirt," cried Askew, loyally.
"Then she must be altogether too good for this world. Good-bye! Bring Mrs. Askew to see me when you return."
"I fear you would be bored with her," said he, sore and sarcastic.
"Probably. Married women are not interesting, except to people like you and Jim, who persistently break the tenth commandment."
"I know one married woman who----"
"Who has just said good-bye to you, and repeats it," snapped Lady Jim, seeing he was about to be rude.
"Oh, very well, then, good-bye," said Askew, going out in a rage with her and with himself. And so they parted.
Leah returned smiling to her seat, delighted that she made him lose his temper, as by doing so she had recovered her own. It was so satisfactory to a deserted woman to think that a man whose love had cooled should go away uncomfortable. "And what a mercy he is gone," said Lady Jim, settling to read fashions. "I hope he'll stop in America with that Lola creature for the rest of his silly life. I suppose he won't turn over this page of his book of life, but tear it out." And in this she was perfectly right. He did.
Towards five o'clock Lionel arrived. Although she had no intimation of his coming, she quite expected to see him, and was prepared to make any necessary scene. The young clergyman looked white and excited, entering the room so rapidly that the footman had hardly time to announce the title that he was losing.
Lady Jim, recognising a crisis, came forward rapidly with studied emotion. "You know all--all," she said in a choking voice, and caught his hands.
He was taken aback. "Yes, if you mean that your husband lives."
"It is true, then--it is true;" she tottered to the sofa, and cast herself down with passionate emotion. "Say that it is true!"
"I think so. But how do you know?"
Leah sat up with a puzzled look. "Did you not get my letter saying that I had had a shock, and intended to consult Mr. Hall?"
"Yes; but you did not explain."
"I could not, seeing the position it places you in."
"Never mind me. If Jim is alive, he takes the title. So this man came to you."
"He did, and tried to extort money. Because I refused he hinted that he would buy your silence. I never thought that he would dare to go to Firmingham; but when you entered, a look told me all. But can you believe this story--it seems incredible?"
"The police do not think so," said Lionel, grimly.
Lady Jim dropped on to the sofa again. "The police!"
"Of course. This scoundrel came to Firmingham, and said that if I gave him three thousand pounds he would keep Jim away from England so that I could enjoy the title. I learned the truth about this conspiracy of Dr. Demetrius, and then had Captain Strange arrested. To-day a policeman brought him to London. He is in prison."
"Serve him right, the brute. Did he not tell you how he threatened me?"
"No; I never guessed that he had come to you."
"But he did, and said that if I gave him two thousand pounds he would bring Jim back. Failing me, he tried you at a higher price. I should have had him arrested, Mr. Hall says, but I could not. I was bewildered--quite bewildered. It seems incredible. Oh, Lionel,"--she laid her hand imploringly on his sleeve--"surely Demetrius did not behave so vilely!"
"I fear that he did. The man, as every one in London knows, was madly in love with you."
"I never encouraged him--really I didn't."
"No," said Lionel, bluntly. "I do not think he was rich enough for you to encourage."
"How can you think so badly of me?"
"Because you are all self--you admitted that long ago. To do you justice, I think you were a good wife to Jim."
"Iama good wife. Don't make me out to be the widow I am not. Of course, this story must be false," she ended, helplessly.
"I think not--it is too circumstantial. And moreover, this man, who appears to be illiterate, could not invent such a tale. Plainly the Russian, who seemed to be clever, conspired to get rid of Jim, so that you might be induced to marry him."
"As though I would ever do such a thing! I told you at Firmingham that I had no intention of marrying. I daresay Jim and I will come together again, and be very happy."
"I hope so--I trust so," said Lionel, with solemn emphasis. "Remember, God is giving you another chance."
"I made very good use of the last one," she retorted sullenly. "Jim was always to blame, and not I. I suppose this insurance money will have to be given back."
"Certainly. You can hardly complain of that, seeing the income you will now receive."
"Jim will, you mean. I expect he'll turn out a screw now that he is rich. Your spendthrifts are always old misers. And I don't see why you should be nasty. I'm sure I have had a miserable time."
"You will have a happy one now," he said, relenting.
"With Jim?" she cried derisively. "How optimistic you are!"
"Surely I have a right to be, when God is so good to you."
"God," she echoed, vaguely, and thinking of the obliging fetish. "Oh yes, of course. I'm awfully thankful. The insurance money would not have lasted for ever, and I might not have found so manageable a husband as Jim. Things will be jolly now."
Lionel groaned. "Is that as high as you can rise?" he asked, rebukingly.
"Oh, Lord, what do you want me to say?" cried Leah, with the causeless anger of the overwrought. "I can't think of pious proverbs when I am like this. What with supposed deaths and real deaths, and nothing but funerals to amuse one, I don't know if I am on my head or my heels. There, that's vulgar, and you needn't look disgusted if it is. I feel vulgar. I could run out and howl up and down Curzon Street like a Whitechapel woman in a tantrum. And if you preach,--if you--you---- Oh, what fools men are!"
She choked, rolled in her chair, ripped a handkerchief, and kicked away a foot-stool.
The curate--as he was once more--saw how she tried to fight down the hysteria, and wisely refrained from speech. A single word might cause the primitive emotions to burst with volcanic force through the imposed customs of civilisation. Considering the joyful news of Jim Kaimes' resurrection and the trouble of the attempted blackmail, it was natural that she should suddenly betray feminine weakness. She was but a woman when all was said and done. Leah would have repudiated this conclusion with scorn, as she had small regard for her sex; but a woman she was at the moment, unstrung, foolish, wild with dread that the unforeseen might happen. Lionel moved silently to the door. In a moment she was at his side, reaching him with the bound of a pantheress.
"Don't be angry," she panted, laying her hand on his arm; "but you do worry me so, and if you knew--if you really knew----" She gasped and bit her lip, to prevent an unguarded tongue blurting out the whole.
"There, there!" He patted her hand, and she could have slapped him for the caress, which revealed his knowledge of her weakness. "It's all right--all right. Be calm! There, there!"
"Oh, Lord, what tact!" and so disgusted was she with the stupidity of the man that her nerves relaxed "I say, Lionel," with an artificial laugh, "aren't you sorry for yourself?"
"Not in the least," he replied promptly. "I am no Jacob to usurp the heritage of Esau. High or low, we can all serve God in our degrees. Ask Jim to make me vicar of Firmingham."
"I will, if you promise not to preach."
"How would you have me earn my salary, then?" he asked humorously, and glad that she appeared more composed. "Now I advise you to lie down."
"Yes," she assented submissively; "I will lie down. And you?"
"I go at once to see Mr. Hall, about getting Jim set free. Good-bye, Duchess;" and in a moment he was gone, anxious to escape further irresponsible speech.
"Duchess!" echoed Leah, staring at the closed door. "Duchess!"
It was all right then, so far as Lionel was concerned, seeing that he gave her the title which Mr. Hall withheld. He at least believed in the wonderful story of Strange. With Lionel on her side things would be bound to come out all right. Still, although the trees were thinning, she was not yet out of the wood. The green light of safety had not yet been substituted for the red danger signal.
"I am aching all over," said Leah, addressing her reflection in the mirror; "there's a twist of nerves between my eyes, and I could scream the house down. But I shan't!" She flung away from the glass, gripping her courage with both hands. "I'll be calm, and easy in my mind, till Jim comes back. When the worst is over, I shall collapse--I know I shall. Till then--till then--Oh, God"--the weakness she declined to recognise broke forth in prayer--"give me grit and pluck to fight through to the end."
So she prayed, but not to the fetish. In this uplifted moment Leah felt that Lionel's Deity was not a myth, but a terrible reality.
Then did "Rumour, painted full of tongues," enter into Lady Jim's strictly private life and depart with half-truths for the bewildering of gossips. In some marvellous way the news leaked out, as news will, despite careful caulking of the human vessels containing it. Lord James Kaimes, ran the babble, had been kidnapped by his medical attendant, who, substituting an illegal corpse for that of the husband he wished to supplant, had plotted to secure the wife. This was the tune, correct enough; then came its variations. The hurdy-gurdy of society ground out wonderful twiddles and twists of false notes, distorting the original theme into a melody Leah herself would not have recognised. Not that she heard any of thefiortura. Prudence counselled a retreat to Firmingham pending the home-coming of Jim, and thither, very wisely, she went. At this crisis of her fortunes Lady Jim felt that she required the countenance of all truly respectable people, however dull, and therefore sheltered like a maltreated chick under Hilda Frith's wing. To console the widowed and orphaned was her obvious excuse,--so obvious, indeed, that she declined to make it. Thus did she escape questions about the one engrossing topic of drawing-room, club, and public-house bar.
Every one, from the lowest to the highest, talked exhaustively, and the newspapers, cheap and costly, printed scandal with alluring recklessness. Out of London E.C. issued halfpenny journals with lurid headings over incomplete histories of the plot, invented on unsound premises. These transparent fictions began with the Russian's snake-in-the-grass intrusion into the happy home of an attached couple, and ended with a political cry for the exclusion of such immoral aliens from the Island of the Blest, which is England. The more expensive small-beer chronicles refused to believe that so fantastic an occurrence could have happened in these enlightened days of police-courts and publicity; but, nevertheless, supplied middle-class breakfast-tables with equally doubtful data, out of which to weave romances of the minor peerage. "The triangle of Dumas the younger," cried one scribe, with a fine disregard for meaning and metaphor, "must never be sounded in our dear Motherland!" A sufficient sample this of the stuff supplied. But, since the silly season prevailed when reporters, one and all, were credited with March-hare madness, such incongruities were pardoned, and the public gaped to swallow full-sized camels.
The clubs buzzed like hives at swarming time, for their members wondered at Jim's adventure; wondered, also, how "so knowing a Johnny"--so they put it--"could allow himself to be diddled by a measly little foreign beast." All were agog for the hero's appearance, and curious friends thirsted for a first-hand account of the enforced Odyssey. Many speculated as to the probability of Jim being sobered by untoward experience into becoming a truly respectable Duke, and a few made original observations anent a much-quoted leopard and his unchangeable spots. In this way was the statement that men are not born gossips contradicted, for the Eveless Edens of St. James's Street, Pall Mall, and Piccadilly resembled a village sewing-class in mid-career.
The drawing-rooms, as was natural, interested themselves chiefly in Leah, and chafed that she should become an unexpected Duchess. Hitherto Lady Jim's skilful man[oe]uvring had saved her reputation, but, as animals fall upon the wounded of their kind, so did the pack of hounds she had never hunted with fling itself forward, full-voiced and open-mouthed. Rejoicing women cried her sins on the housetop with surprising details. She must have encouraged Dr. Demetrius shamefully, else he never would have gone to such lengths, though why he should do so for such a woman it was impossible to understand. They had never admired her, said the pure-minded, and had always suspected her of being no better than she should be. Poor Mr. Askew, too: had she not put an end to a family matrimonial arrangement by her arts; had she not inveigled him to Paris in the hope that he would marry her in haste to repent at leisure? Certainly, aware of her character before it was too late, he had sailed to the South Pole or the North Pole, or to somewhere she could not follow, as she was certainly dying to do. Her vanity was insatiable. She had flirted quite indecently with Sir Billy Richardson, though he was but an infant lately breeched. Julia Hengist had only snatched her lord from the claws of this harpy by the merest, the very merest, chance. And the money she wasted! Oh! Why, the bailiffs had twice and thrice been in the Curzon Street house. Also, she was so lucky at bridge that she assuredly must cheat, and it showed what a blackleg she was, that no one had ever caught her cheating. Then her dresses were ridiculous for a woman with her poor husband's income. She had ruined him completely--that was why he ran away, in a dying condition. And the money had not gone to discharge lawful debts; she never paid anything, therefore she must have spent the cash on some secret vice, which she certainly must have, since she always posed as being so very correct. She ought to be cut; she ought to be in gaol; whipping was too good for her; put her in a pillory and throw stones at her. And let such a creature be anathema maranatha for ever and ever and ever, Amen.
But for all this throwing of stones by ladies who were without sin, Leah had her supporters in some, who must have been wicked, since they declined to condemn her wholesale on hearsay evidence. These pointed out that she had behaved admirably, when Jim's supposed death had been reported. The late Marquis of Frith was himself deceived by the likeness of the corpse to his brother, though of course there were family reasons for such a likeness. Also, the old Duke had paid the Curzon Street debts, which so good a man would not have done had they been of a questionable character. And the very respectable Hengists, kind things, spoke highly of Lady Jim's patience under trying domestic difficulties caused by an unfaithful husband. Besides, Leah--poor, dear, persecuted woman--was now the Duchess of Pentland, and could do no wrong. She was a misunderstood angel. Hilda Frith doted on her, and every one knew how very, very particular Hilda Frith was. To decry a woman who had suffered so much, and who had so nobly borne suffering, was a crime--worse, was a blunder, seeing that the latest Duchess would assuredly sway society, to bless or damn at her good pleasure. The peerage--the immaculate peerage of Great Britain and Ireland--would stand or fall by Leah Pentland, as a perfect example of what a titled woman should be.
In this way raged the war of tongues, while Lionel, in Mr. Hall's company, and with the assistance of Scotland Yard officials, sought for the missing prodigal. Strange, playing the game with characteristic stubbornness, refused to indicate the whereabouts of his victim's floating prison, and, as theStormy Petrelunder a new coat of paint, with readjusted rigging and bearing a prettier but unknown name, could not be found in any shipping list, there appeared little prospect of finding the kidnapped. The telegraph wires sizzled in the air and under the sea, with messages to home and foreign ports; bills with Jim's portrait and a most flattering description were scattered broadcast; a reward large enough to tempt Mammon himself was offered in every journal, and in many languages; and the journals themselves denounced the police authorities--who were merely mortal, poor scapegoats--for not producing a mislaid nobleman in five minutes. It was an enjoyable time for armchair critics, who, on insufficient evidence, knew exactly what should be done, and blamed the police, confronted with hard facts, for not doing it.
As to the culprit, he might have been Nero, Judas Iscariot, and Captain Dreyfus rolled into one, from the obliquity which was heaped upon him. Since he refused to produce his prisoner, inquisitive people were frantic with annoyance. One enthusiast even suggested that torture should be used to make him speak; another considered that so recalcitrant a brute should be starved into submission; a third that he should be offered a free pardon on condition that he sent back a regretted Duke to his lonely wife. But Strange, chuckling over the storm he had raised, hugged his secret close. Hall, the ducal lawyer, knew what his terms were, and if Hall did not choose to accede he would have to remain without an aristocratic client.
Hall, however, had no notion of losing the money with which the accession of Lord James Kaimes to a wealthy title would probably fill his pockets. Still, Strange's terms were too preposterous to consider for one moment. He had to consider them for a fortnight, all the same, and finding that they did not vary, he came down to consult Lady Jim, after a lengthy interview with the Rev. Lionel Kaimes at Lambeth.
Even though Jim had risen from the dead, Leah had not laid aside her mourning. Indeed, she added fresh crape to show her grief for the recent deaths, and greeted the lawyer with the air of one to whom life is a burden. And so it was to her, at the moment. The funereal atmosphere of the great house, the delicacy of her position until Jim returned to tell her that all was safe, and the constant boredom of listening to Hilda's wordy lamentations--these things wore her out, and Mr. Hall noted that she looked fatigued.