CHAPTER XIVMAGIC
For several seconds after Savage had made off Sally delayed there, alone on the empty lawn in the westerly shadow of Gosnold House, doubting what next to do, where next to turn in quest of Mrs. Gosnold; questioning the motive for that furtive meeting which she had surprised, wondering at Savage's insistence on a spot so remote and inconvenient for their appointment, and why it must needs be kept in so underhand a fashion, and whether she had been wise to consent to it and would be wise to keep it. She was at a loss how to fill in the time until the hour nominated, shrinking alike from the lights and gaiety of the hall, the supper-room and the veranda, and the romantic, love-sick peace of moonlit lawns and gardens. Altogether she was in a most complicated, distracted, uncertain and unhappy frame of mind.
Then a latch clicked softly, the hinges of a shutter whined, and the startled young woman found herself staring up into the face of Mrs. Gosnold--a pallid oval against the dark background of an unlighted window not two feet above Sally's head.
She gasped, but respected the admonition of a finger pressed lightly upon the lady's smiling lips.
"S-s-s-sh!" said Mrs. Gosnold mysteriously, with cautious glances right and left.
"There's no one here," Sally assured her in tones appropriately guarded. "You've been listening--" Mrs. Gosnold nodded with a mischievous twinkle: "I have that!"
"You heard--?"
"Something--not much--not enough. If you had only been a few minutes later. . ."
"I'm sorry, but I've been looking for you everywhere. Please, may I come in and tell you something?"
"Not now."
"It's very important--something you ought to know at once."
"Oh, my dear!" the woman sighed with genuine regret: "I know already far more than I care to know!"
"But this--"
"Not now, I say. I've been too frequently and too long away from my guests as it is. I'll have to show myself for a little while. Then, come to my room in half an hour."
"At half past twelve?"
"Yes, and don't be late. Now do run along and have a good time."
The shutter was drawn gently to, and Sally, with an embittered smile for the unconscious irony of that parting injunction, moved slowly on toward the front of the house.
But it was true that she felt a little less disconsolate now than she had two minutes ago; after all, it seemed, she wasn't altogether friendless and forsaken; and as for those doubts and questions which so perplexed her, they would all be resolved and answered once she had opportunity to lay them, together with the story of last night, before the judgment of her benefactress. . . .
Still, if she reckoned confidently upon her hostess, she reckoned not wisely without her host, whose mask to-night was that of a sardonic destiny. And when a tentative venture into the throngs on the veranda had been discouraged by the spirited advances of a forward young Cavalier who chose to consider his honour piqued, first by her demure Quaker garb, then by her unresponsiveness, Sally was glad enough to fall back upon the comparative quiet and solitude of the moon-drenched gardens. Whereupon her destiny grinned a heartless grin and arranged to throw her to the lions that, all unsuspected, raged in the maiden bosom of Mercedes Pride.
The tireless ingenuity with which that rampant spinster devised ways and means of rendering herself a peripatetic pest had long since won the ungrudged admiration of Sally, who elected to be amused more than annoyed by the impertinences, the pretentiousness, the fawning adulation and the corrosive jealousy of Mrs. Gosnold's licensed pick-thank. And when she had first divined the woman beneath the disguise of the witch Sally had wondered what new method of making a sprightly nuisance of herself Miss Pride had invented to go with her impersonation.
It proved, naturally enough, remembering the limitations of a New England maiden's imagination, to be compulsory fortune-telling with the aid of cards, a crystal ball, the palm of the victim's hand, unlimited effrontery, and a "den" rigged up in a corner of a hedge with a Navajo blanket for a canopy and for properties two wooden stools, a small folding table, a papier-mache skull, a jointed wooden snake, an artificial pumpkin-head with a candle in it, and a black cat tethered by a string to a stake in the ground and wishing he had never been born.
Within this noisome lair the sorceress squatted and practised her unholy arts upon all comers without mercy or distinction as to race, caste, sex, age, colour, or previous condition of servitude. And when trade slackened (as inevitably it did when "the young people" for whose "amusement" this mummery ostensibly was staged asserted their ennui by avoiding the neighbourhood) Ecstatica, nothing daunted, would rise up and go forth and stalk her prey among the more mature, dragging them off forcibly by the hand, when needs must, to sit at her table and sympathise with the unfortunate cat and humour her nonsense.
Thus she inveigled Sally when the latter unwarily wandered her way.
Miss Pride knew her victim perfectly, but for the sake of appearances kept up the semblance of mystification.
"Sit you there, my pretty," she grabbed vivaciously, two hands on Sally's shoulders urging her to rest on one of the stools. "Don't be afraid of my simple magic; the black art has nothing to do with the lore of the wise old woman. Just show me your rosy palm, and I will tell you your fortune. No, you needn't cross my palm with silver; I will ply my mystic trade and tell your future all for the sake of your pretty eyes."
She peered, blinking with make-believe myopia, into the hollow of Sally's hand.
"Ah, yes, yes!" she grunted, "you have an amiable and affectionate disposition; you love pretty things to wear and every sort of pleasure. There is your gravest fault and greatest danger, pretty: love of clothes and pleasure and--forgive the wise old woman's plain speaking--false ambitions. Beware of the sin of vain ambition; only wrong and unhappiness can come of that. No, no; don't draw your hand away. I have not finished. Let me look closer. There is much written here that you should know and none but my wise old eyes can read, pretty."
Effrontery battened on indulgence:
"The past has been unfortunate. The present is bright with misleading glamour--beware of the vanities of the flesh! The future--I see a shadow. It is dark. It is difficult to read. I see a journey before you--a long journey; you will cross water and travel by the steam-cars. And there is a lover waiting for you at the journey's end--not here, but far away. I cannot see him clearly, but he waits. Perhaps later, when I consult my magic sphere of crystal. But wait!"
She breathed hard for a moment, perhaps appreciating her temerity; but she was as little capable of reading Sally's character as her palm.
"I see danger in your path," she resumed in accents of awe; "the shadow of something evil--and a window barred with iron. I cannot say what this means, but you should know. Look into your heart, my pretty; think. If perhaps you have done something you should not have done, and if you would not suffer shame for it, you must make all haste to undo that which you have done--"
"Miss Pride!" Sally interrupted hotly, snatching her hand away. "You--"
"No, no. I have no name!" the other protested in the falsetto she had adopted to suit her impersonation; "I am only the wise old woman who tells the future and the past and reads the secrets . . ."
But the white anger that glowed in Sally's countenance abashed her. The shrill tones trailed off into a mumble. She looked uneasily aside.
"You must not be angry with the poor old wise woman," she stammered uncertainly.
"You know very well what you have said," Sally told her in a low voice vibrant with indignation. "You know very well you have deliberately insulted me."
"No, no!"
"You know who I am and what your insinuation means, after what has happened here to-night. Miss Pride! Do you dare accuse me--?"
"Oh, no-please!" Mercedes begged, aghast, quaking in realisation of the enormity of her mistake. "I didn't think--I didn't know you--I didn't mean--"
"That," Sally cut in tensely, "is a deliberate falsehood. You inveigled me into this for the sole purpose of insulting me. Now I mean to have you repeat your accusation before witnesses. I shall inform Mrs. Gosnold--"
"Oh, no, Miss Manwaring! I beg of you, no! I didn't mean what you think, indeed I didn't!"
Sally made to speak, choked upon her indignation, and gulped.
"That's a lie!" she declared huskily; and rising fled the place.
She went a few hasty paces blindly, then remembering she mustn't make an exhibition of herself, however great the provocation, checked her steps and went on at a less conspicuous and precipitate rate.
But still her vision was dark with tears of rage and mortification, and still her bosom heaved convulsively. Now and again she stumbled.
Twice since nightfall the abominable accusation had been flung into her face, the unthinkable thing imputed to her, and this last time out of sheer, gratuitous spleen, the jealous spite of a mean-minded old maid. For Miss Pride had no such excuse as Adele Standish had for thinking Sally capable of infamy--unless indeed, Mrs. Standish had proved false to her pledge and had told people. But no; she'd never do that; not, at least, while the settlement of her insurance claim remained in abeyance.
The brutality of it!
A strong hand closing unceremoniously on her wrist brought Sally to a standstill within two paces of the low stone wall that guarded the brink of the cliff.
"Look where you're going, Miss; Manwaring!" Trego's voice counselled her quietly. Then, seeing that she yielded readily, he released her. "I beg your pardon," he said, "but in another minute if I hadn't taken the liberty of stopping you, you might have hurt yourself."
She managed to mutter an ungracious "Thank you."
"It's none of my business," Trego volunteered with some heat, "but I'd like to know what that vicious old vixen found to say to upset you this way."
"Oh, you were watching."
"No; I just happened to be sticking round when you flew out of that fool sideshow of hers like you were possessed. And then I saw you weren't paying much attention where you were going, and I was afraid. Hope you don't mind my butting in."
"Not at all," she gulped. "I suppose I ought to be grateful."
"That's just as you feel about it," he allowed reasonably.
She made an effort to collect herself. "But I am grateful," she asserted. "Please don't think I mean to be rude. Only," she gulped again, overcome by the stinging memory of that woman's insolence, "I'd almost as lief you hadn't stopped me--and that wall wasn't there!"
"Now, now!" he reminded her. "It can't be as bad as all that, you know."
"Well, but think how you would feel if you'd been twice accused of stealing Mrs. Gosnold's jewels last night!"
"Once would be plenty," he said gravely. "I don't reckon anybody would say that twice to my bare face."
"Yes--but you can resent insults like a man."
"That's right, too. But then it's the only way I know to resent 'em--with my fists. That's where you women put it all over us men; you know a hundred different ways of sinking the poisoned barb subtly. I wouldn't like to be that Pride critter when you get through with her."
There was unquestionably a certain amount of comfort to be gained by viewing the case from this angle. Sally became calmer and brightened perceptibly.
"Perhaps," she murmured in an enigmatic manner becoming in the putative mistress of unutterable arts.
"It's just like that shrivelled old shrew. What you might expect. If I had thought of it in time, I'd've been willing to make a book on her laying it to you."
"But why?" Sally protested perplexedly.
"Sure, I don't have to tell you why," he said diplomatically. "You know as well as I do she's plumb corroded with jealousy of you for winning out with her dear Abigail just when she thought she had things fixed. I don't suppose you know the inside story of how your predecessor got the sack? The Pride person was responsible. Miss Matring was in her way, and a good deal of her own disposition to boot. It was a merry war, all right, while it lasted--scheming and squabbling and backbiting and tattling and corrupting servants to carry tales--all that sort of thing. To be honest about it, I don't just know which was the worse of the two; they didn't either of them stick at much of anything noticeable. But, of course, Miss Matring was handicapped, not being blood-kin, and the upshot was she had to go--and until you showed up the old maid was actually miserable for want of somebody to hate. I noticed the light of battle in those beady little eyes of hers the minute she laid 'em on you. I'd have warned you, only ..."
He stumbled. She encouraged him: "Why didn't you?"
She didn't like Trego--that was understood--but sympathy was very sweet to her just then, whatever its source, and she had no real objection to disparagement of her slanderer, either.
"Well, it wasn't my fight. And I didn't know how you'd take interference. You looked pretty well able to take care of yourself--in fact, you are. And then--I don't reckon it's going to do me any good to say this; but I might as well make a clean breast of it--I was just selfish enough to have a sneaking sort of hope, deep down, that maybe you'd find it so unpleasant you'd quit."
"Mr. Trego!" No more than that; he had taken her breath away.
"I guess that does sound funny," he admitted, evading her indignant eye. "You can't trust me, ever. I always say things the wrong way; that's the best thing I do."
"If it's possible for you to explain . . ."
"It's possible, all right, but it's anything but easy. What I meant was . . . Well, any fool could see that as long as you were so strong for this society racket I didn't stand much show."
"Show?"
"Of making good with you. Oh, look here, what's the use of beating about the bush? I'm a rude, two-fisted animal, and that's all against me. I never could flummux up my meaning successfully with a lot of words like--well, name no names. All the same, it's pretty hard for a fellow who knows the girl he's sweet on isn't crazy about him to come out in plain talk and say he loves her."
She was dumb. She stared incredulously at his heavy, sincere, embarrassed face, as if it were something abnormal, almost supernatural, a hallucination.
"Meaning" he faltered, "I mean to say--of course--I love you, Sar--er--ah--Miss Manwaring--and I think I can make you happy--"
He was making heavy weather of his simple declaration, labouring like an old-fashioned square-rigger in a beam sea.
"If you'll marry me, that is," he concluded in a breath, with obvious relief if with a countenance oddly shadowed in the staring moonlight by the heat of his distress.
She tried, she meant to give him his answer without delay; it were kinder. But she found it impossible; the negative stuck stubbornly in her throat. She knew it would stab him deep. He wasn't the man to take love lightly; his emotions were anything but on the surface; their wounds would be slow to heal.
And in spite of the positive animus she had all along entertained toward him, she didn't want to hurt him now; perhaps not strangely, remembering that this proposal of marriage was a direct, down-right protestation of implicit faith in her, uttered squarely on top of a most damnable indictment--remembering, too, that it was barely two hours since Sally herself had been ready, almost eager, to believe him capable of committing the very crime of implication in which he exonerated her without an instant's hesitation.
True, she had been quick to exonerate him in her thoughts as soon as the suspicion was engendered in them, but she had done so almost reluctantly, ungenerously, not because she wanted to believe him innocent, but because the burden of the evidence, together with the counsel of instinct, had been too strong in his favour to permit more than a moment's doubt. And she had repented; but that, it appeared, was not enough; she must be punished in this unique way, have her own unworthiness demonstrated by this artless manifestation of his worth. And however much she might long to make amends to him, she couldn't.
The pain and the pity of it! He was a far better man than she a woman, and he honoured her with his love--and she couldn't requite him, she couldn't love him; he was still too far from the mirage of her ideal.
"Oh!" she sighed. "Why?"
He misconstrued. "I've told you heaps of times--because you're a woman, not a manikin. Marriage would mean something more to you than clothes, Europe, idleness, and flirting with other women's husbands, just as it would have to mean more to me than hiring a woman to live with me and entertain my friends."
"How do you know? How can you tell? What do you know about me?" she protested almost passionately, and answered herself. "You don't know; you can't tell; you know nothing about me. You assert things--I only wish they were true--"
"Oh, they're true enough," he interrupted unceremoniously. "It's no use trying to run yourself down to me. I couldn't feel the way I do about you if you were not at heart as sound as an apple, no matter what nonsense you may have been guilty of at one time or another, as every human being's got to be."
"Has nobody told you anything about me? Mrs. Gosnold--?"
"Mrs. Gosnold 'tends to her own knitting. And nobody has told me anything--except yourself. More than that, I don't go by other folks' opinions when I make up my mind about a matter as vital to me as marrying a wife."
"Then I must tell you--"
"Not until you give me some legitimate title to your confidence. You've got no right to confide in me unless you mean to marry me--and you haven't said you would yet."
"I can't--I couldn't without telling you--please let me speak!" She drew a long breath of desperation and grasped the nettle firmly. "I stole the clothes I came here in. My name isn't Manwaring--it's Sally Manvers. I was a shop-girl--"
"Half a minute. Mrs. Gosnold knows all this, doesn't she?"
"Yes--"
"You told her everything, and still she stood for you?"
"Yes, but--"
"That's enough for me. I don't want to hear anything more until you're my wife. After that you'll have to tell me--and if there's any trouble remaining to be straightened out then, why, it'll be my natural job as a husband to fix it up for you. Till then I won't listen to any more of your confidences that have nothing whatever to do with the fact that I love you and believe in you and want to make you happy."
"But don't you understand that a girl who would steal and lie in order to get into society--"
"Oh, everybody's got to be foolish about something or other. You'll get over this social craze. The more you see of it the more sure your cure. Now don't mistake me; I'm not for an instant implying that some of the finest people that ever walked God's green earth don't figure in what we call Society; and there are more of them on this little island, perhaps, than anywhere else in America; and I'd be the last to cry them down or pretend I'm not glad and proud of their acquaintance and friendship. The trouble is, they can't in the nature of things keep up their social order without attracting a cloud of parasites, snobs, and toadies--and that's what makes me sick of the whole social game as practised to-day."
"And you can't understand that I am precisely what you've described--a parasite!"
"You couldn't be if you wanted to. Maybe you think you could, but you're wrong; you haven't got it in you."
Against such infatuation candour was powerless. She retreated to the last ditch. "But you told me your father's heart was set on your marrying a society woman!"
"Well, what of that? You don't suppose I think any of them have got anything on you, do you? Besides, dad isn't altogether an old idiot, and if the kind of society woman he wants me to marry wouldn't look at me, and if my happiness is at stake . . . Well, even if he did want to ruin my life by hitching me up in double harness to a clothes-horse, I wouldn't let him!"
"But if I want--"
"There isn't anything you want that I can't get you. If you like this sort of thing, you shall have it. And don't run away with the idea that I'm not strong for society myself--the right sort."
Her gesture was hopeless. "What can I say to you?"
He suggested quietly, not without humour: "If you don't mind, say yes."
"You don't know what you're doing, making me such an offer. Suppose I married you for your money . . ."
"You won't do that. You can't."
"What do you mean?"
"You've got to love me first. And you're too fine and honest to pretend that for the sake of my money."
Of a sudden his tone changed. "Oh, forgive me!" he pleaded. "I was a fool to ask. I might have known--I did know you didn't care for me. Only, I hoped, and I guess a man in love can't help letting his hopes make him foolish, especially when he sees the girl in trouble of some sort, needing what he can give her, love and protection--and when it's moonlight and there's music in the air!"
He checked himself with a lifted hand and stood for a moment, half smiling, as if made suddenly conscious of the pulsing rapture of those remote violins.
"That'swhat's made all the mischief," he complained: "that, and the way you look. It isn't a fair combination to work on a fellow, you know. Please don't say anything; you've said enough. I know very well what you mean, but I'd rather not hear it in one word of two letters--not to-night. I'm just foolish enough to prefer to go on hoping for a while, believing there was a bare chance I had misunderstood you."
He laughed half-heartedly, said "Good night" with an admirable air of accepting his dismissal as a matter of course, and marched off as abruptly as if reminded of an overdue appointment.
No other manoeuvre could have been more shrewdly calculated to advance his cause; nothing makes so compelling an appeal to feminine sympathies as a rejected suitor taking his punishment like a man; the emotional affinity of pity has been established ever since the invention of love.
Sally sank down mechanically upon a little marble seat near the spot where they had stood talking and stared without conscious vision out over the silvered sea.
Her thoughts were vastly unconcerned with the mysterious behaviour of Mrs. Standish and her brother, the inexplicable insolence of Mercedes Pride, the shattered bubble of her affair with Donald Lyttleton, the kindness of Mrs. Gosnold, or the riddle of the vanished jewelry.
Now and again people passed her and gave her curious glances. She paid them no heed. The fact that they went in pairs, male and female after their kind, failed to re-excite envy in her bosom.
There is deep satisfaction to be distilled from consciousness of the love of even an unwelcome lover.
She thought no longer unkindly but rather pitifully of poor, tactless, rough-shod Mr. Trego.
When at length she stirred and rose it was with a regretful sigh that, matters being as they were with her, she was unable to reward his devotion with something warmer than friendship only.
Friendship, of course, she could no more deny the poor man. . . .
CHAPTER XVFALSE WITNESS
Sally failed, however, fully to appreciate how long it was that she had rested there, moveless upon that secluded marble seat, spellbound in the preoccupation of those thoughts, at once long and sweet with the comfort of a solaced self-esteem, for which she had to thank the author of her first proposal of marriage.
She rose and turned back to Gosnold House only on the prompting of instinct, vaguely conscious that the night had now turned its nadir and the time was drawing near when she must present herself first to her employer with the tale of last night's doings, then to Savage to learn his version of the happenings in New York.
But by the time she reminded herself of these two matters she found that they had receded to a status of strangely diminished importance in her understanding. It was her duty, of course, a duty imposed upon her by her dependent position as much as by her affection for the lady, to tell Mrs. Gosnold all she knew without any reservation whatever; and it was equally her duty to herself, as a matter of common self-protection, to hear what Savage professed such anxiety to communicate. And not quite definitely realising that it was Mr. Trego's passion which overshadowed both of these businesses, she wondered mildly at her unconcern with either. Somehow she would gladly have sealed both lips and ears to them and gone on basking uninterruptedly in the warmth of her sudden self-complacence.
By no means the least remarkable property of the common phenomenon of love is the contentment which it never fails to kindle in the bosom of its object, regardless of its source. In a world where love is far more general than aversion, wherein the most hateful and hideous is frequently the most beloved, it remains true that even a king will strut with added arrogance because of the ardent glance of a serving-wench.
And so, failing to realise her tardiness, it was not unnatural that Sally, entering the house by that historic side door and ascending the staircase that led directly to her bedchamber, should think to stop a moment and consult the mirror for confirmation of Mr. Trego's implicit compliments.
As one result of this action, instigated in the first instance less by vanity than by desire to avoid the crowds at the main entrances, Sally uncovered another facet of mystery.
On entering, she left the side door heedlessly ajar, and there was enough air astir to shut it with a bang as she turned up the staircase. Two seconds later that bang was echoed by a door above, and a quick patter of light footfalls followed. But by the time Sally gained the landing there was no one visible in the length of the corridor from end to end of that wing.
Now the door of the room opposite her was wide open on a dark interior. And the room adjoining was untenanted, as she knew. It seemed impossible that the second slam could have been caused by any door other than that of her own bedchamber. Yet why should anyone have trespassed there but one of the housemaids? And if the trespasser had been a housemaid, why that sudden and furtive flight and swift disappearance from the corridor?
Her speculations on this point were both indefinite and short-lived. She thought her hearing must have deceived her; a hasty look round the room discovered nothing superficially out of place, and the little gilt clock on her dressing-table told her that she was already seven minutes behind time. She delayed only for one hasty survey of the flushed face with star-bright eyes that the mirror revealed, and then with an inarticulate reflection that, after all, one could hardly blame Mr. Trego very severely, Sally caught up her long dark cloak and made off down the corridor, past the head of the main staircase, to the door of Mrs. Gosnold's boudoir.
A voice sharp with vexation answered her knock; she entered to find its owner fuming, and not only that, but surprisinglyen déshabillé. The dress of Queen Elizabeth was gone, and Mrs. Gosnold stood on the threshold of her bedchamber clothed simply in undergarments and impatience.
"Why are you so late?" she demanded. "I was beginning to be afraid . . . But thank Heaven you're here! You very nearly spoiled everything, but there's still time. Come in."
She led the way into her bedchamber, and without acknowledging Sally's murmur of startled apology, waved an impetuous hand at her.
"Quick!" she demanded. "Get out of that costume at once!"
Her maid was already at Sally's side, fumbling with pins and hooks, before the girl recovered from her astonishment sufficiently to seek enlightenment.
"But what's the matter? What have I done? What--?"
"Nothing much--merely almost upset the applecart for me!" Mrs. Gosnold laughed in grim humour, her own fingers busily aiding the maid's. "Come, step out of that skirt, please. If you'd been two minutes later . . . I'm simply going to pretend I'm you for ten minutes or so," she explained, lowering the shimmering gray Quaker skirt over her own shoulders. "I'm going to meet Walter Savage in your stead."
"But--"
"But me no buts. I heard enough there at the window, before you came on the scene, to make me very suspicious of that young rascal, even more so than I had every right to be from what you had told me. Now I mean to learn the rest, find out precisely what devilment he's up to."
"He only wants to tell me--"
"There's nothing he can possibly have to say to you that he couldn't have said a hundred times tonight in as many corners of the house and grounds without a soul hearing a word or thinking it odd that two young people should be exchanging confidences--and both of you masked into the bargain."
Sally, now entirely divested of her masquerade, resignedly shrugged herself into the black silk cloak for lack of a better negligee.
"I don't understand what you can suspect," she said dubiously.
"I don't suspect anything; but I'm going to find out everything."
"But aren't you afraid--"
"Of what, pray'?" Mrs. Gosnold demanded with appropriate asperity.
"I mean, don't you think he'll know?"
"Nothing in the shadow of those trees, with my mask and that cape to disguise the fact that I'm a bit more matronly than yourself--worse luck!"
"But your voice--"
"Haven't you ever read about 'guarded accents' in novels? Those will be mine, precisely, when I talk to my graceless nephew. I shan't speak once above a whisper--and I defy any man to tell my whisper from yours or any other woman's for that matter. Don't flatter yourself, my dear! I shall fool him perfectly; there's precious little to choose between any two women in the dark!"
Already she was almost finished dressing, and as yet Sally hadn't had a chance to breathe a word about her own information.
"But there's something I must tell you," she insisted, suddenly reminded.
"About what?"
"Last night--things that happened after everybody had gone to bed. You knew I was restless. I saw several things I haven't told you about. You ought to know. They may clear up the mystery of the theft."
"I already know all about that," Mrs. Gosnold declared calmly.
"About Mr. Lyttleton and the boat and the signals--"
Mrs. Gosnold turned sharply from her mirror. "What's this? Why didn't you tell me before?"
"I didn't know about the robbery, and I thought it was none of my affair--"
"It doesn't matter." Mrs. Gosnold caught up her cloak and threw it to the maid to adjust on her shoulders. "Whatever you saw had nothing to do with the robbery. Don Lyttleton's a bad lot in more ways than one, but he didn't steal my jewels last night--that I know."
"But who did?"
"I hope you may never find out."
"You know, then?"
"Positively." The lady adjusted her mask and caught her cloak about her. "Wait here till I come back. Then you may tell me about Don Lyttleton and the boat and the signals. I'll be as quick as I can."
She darted hurriedly away.
The wonder excited by Mrs. Gosnold's declaration that she knew the identity of the thief--even though, the girl told herself, she had all along suspected as much--kept Sally quiet for the next several minutes. She was sorely tempted to question the maid, but one look at that quiet, impassive countenance assured her that this would be wasted breath.
Insensibly the tempo of a haunting waltz that sang clear in the night beyond the open windows wove itself into the texture of Sally's thoughts and set her blood tingling in response.
She recalled Trego with a recurrent glow of gratification.
Poor fellow!
One foot began to tap the floor in time to the music. She hadn't danced once that night, had purposely avoided every chance of an invitation to dance. And now, of a sudden, she wanted to, without reason or excuse.
It was very curious. She wondered at herself. What had worked this change? Was it really nothing more nor less than a declaration of love on the part of a man she--didn't altogether like?
Though, of course, she hadn't ever been quite fair to him. He had admirable qualities. His honesty. His scorn of pretence and subterfuge. His simple faith in Sally Manvers, however misplaced.
If he were to beg a dance when Mrs. Gosnold had returned and Sally, recostumed, had rejoined the maskers, she hardly knew how she could in decency refuse him now. . . .
The clock on the mantelpiece struck a single stroke.
Sally started and looked up, to meet Marie's questioning glance.
"One o' clock?"
"Yes, Miss Manwaring."
"Then--why, she's been gone over fifteen minutes."
"Yes, miss."
What could Savage have found to say to Sally that her substitute need delay so long to hear it?
Sally frowned.
At the end of another five minutes the maid volunteered uneasily: "It's very odd. Mrs. Gosnold didn't expect to be away more than five or ten minutes, I know. She said as much before you came in."
Sally got up and went to a window which overlooked the driveway and lawn. Parting the curtains, she glanced out. The lawn was fair with moonlight, the driveway silver-blue, the woods behind dark and still. There was a closed car waiting at one side of the porte-cochere. The others--all those belonging to Gosnold House, as well as those of guests for the fete--were hidden among the trees bordering the road or parked in the open spaces around the garage and stables at a considerable remove from the house.
There was no one to be seen on the lawn or drive, no hurrying figure cloaked in Quaker grey.
After some minutes of fruitless watching Sally ventured doubtfully: "What time is it?"
"Ten past one, miss."
"Nearly half an hour--"
"Yes, miss."
"Do you think Mrs. Gosnold would mind if you went to make sure she was all right?"
"I don't know, Miss Manwaring. She doesn't like interference, if I may make so bold as to say so."
A little later, however, the woman added tentatively: "I wouldn't care to take the responsibility, myself, of going to see."
"But if I order you to go--"
"Yes, miss," Marie smiled.
"Then I do order you to go. But don't be long."
"No, miss."
Sally waited in a mood of constantly increasing anxiety. It was absurd to think that anything untoward could have happened to Mrs. Gosnold on her own grounds, meeting her own nephew for a clandestine talk. And of course she might have learned something from Savage which had induced her, for her own ends, to maintain her masquerade for a longer time. She was quite possibly somewhere on the terrace or in the formal garden.
Marie was back within five minutes, wearing an apprehensive countenance.
"There's nobody out back, miss, near the road, where she said she was to meet Mr. Savage, and I asked Thomas and some of the waiters, and they all said they hadn't seen her."
"But in my costume and masked . . ."
"It's past one, miss, already, and everybody has unmasked."
"To be sure. I'm going to my room and get into another dress. Then I'll look round for her myself."
"If you'll be so kind, miss--without letting on--"
"Of course."
"Mrs. Gosnold would be very indignant if any mistake was made."
Sally caught her cloak tightly about her, and because of its unconventionality as a costume, resumed her mask against the chance of meeting anybody in her passage through the corridor to the far wing of the building.
She fairly ran in her impatience, and through this haste was brought to the head of the main staircase at the precise moment when an unmasked Harlequin was about to set foot upon the upper landing.
Mr. Savage was smiling quietly to himself and slapping his calves lightly with his lath-sword; nothing in his manner excused the suspicion that he was not perfectly satisfied with himself and all his circumstances.
Somewhat reassured by the vision of this amiable countenance, Sally paused, and won a glance of quizzical inquiry, with especial application to the mask which she still wore in defiance of the rule.
But when she spoke in her natural voice that look was erased from the features of Mr. Savage as chalk-marks may be erased from a blackboard.
"Oh, Mr. Savage, if you please--"
"Wha-at!" the man ejaculated blankly, stopping short and dropping his make-believe weapon.
"I'm looking for Mrs. Gosnold. Have you seen her anywhere about?"
"Mrs. Gos--! Aunt Abby!" He choked and gasped. "But you--who are you?"
"I thought you must know my voice."
Sally removed her mask, and incontinently Savage fell back against the banister-rail and grasped it for support.
"Miss Manvers! But--what--how the devil did you get back here?"
"I haven't been out."
She pulled up on the verge of frank explanation; it was quite possible that Mrs. Gosnold might furiously resent betrayal of her stratagem. And yet Savage's look of pure fright only augmented Sally's solicitude for her employer.
"You haven't been out! But ten minutes ago--out there--behind the trees--"
She shook her head and tried to smile a superior sort of a smile: "It wasn't I who met you."
The man made a gesture of hopeless confusion, and she could not but remark his surprising loss of colour. Suddenly he stepped to her side and seized her roughly by the arm.
"Then who was it'?" he demanded furiously. "If it wasn't you--who then? Damn it, you'd better tell me--!"
"Let go my arm!" she demanded with a flash of temper that was instantly respected. "If you must know," she went on, reckless at consequences, "it was your aunt who met and talked to you out there. Don't you understand? She borrowed my costume and went to meet you in my place."
"Oh, my God!"
Savage was now chalky pale. He seemed to strive, to say more, but failed for the constriction of his throat. For another instant he stared incredulously, then, without a word of explanation or apology, he turned and flung himself headlong down the steps!
Before reaching the middle landing, however, he checked himself on the reflection that he must avoid attracting attention, and went on more slowly, if still with many a symptom of nervous haste.
At the bottom he turned aside and was quickly lost in, the crowd.
Unable to pursue, dressed as she was, Sally went on to her room in a mood of dark perplexity.
Surely it would seem that Savage must have been engaged in some very damnable business indeed, and have given himself away irremediably to Mrs. Gosnold, thinking her Sally, to exhibit such unmitigated consternation on discovery of his error.
But what could it have been? Sally could imagine nothing in their admittedly singular relations which, being disclosed to the aunt, should so completely confound the nephew.
Mrs. Gosnold had suggested no insufferable resentment of the deception practised upon her, when informed of it by Sally. And why, therefore, Mr. Savage should comport himself as if the heavens had fallen on learning that he had betrayed himself unconsciously to his aunt, was something that passed Sally's comprehension.
And the strange flavour of the affair alarmed her: first, Mrs. Gosnold's unexplained (but, after all, not inexplicable) failure to return to her room on time; then this panic of Savage's.
It was patently the girl's immediate business to find one or the other or both of them and make sure that nothing was radically wrong after all.
By happy chance her very prettiest evening frock didn't hook up the back; she was able to struggle into it not only without assistance, but within a very few minutes.
Then, scurrying back to Mrs. Gosnold's room, she read in the apprehensive eyes of the maid, even before this last could speak, the news that the mistress was still missing, and so, darting down-stairs, began industriously to search the house and grounds.
By this hour few signs were wanting that the festival was on its wane; already cars were arriving and departing, laden with the very youngest and the oldest people; there was perceptibly more room on the dancing-floor of the veranda, which was populated chiefly by the younger set; in the supper-room the more rowdy crowd hung on with numbers undiminished and enthusiasm unabated if liberally dampened; about the grounds there was far less movement, far more lingering in sequestered nooks and shadows. Ecstatica, for one, had folded her tent, liberated her black cat to the life of a convinced misogynist, and vanished into the shades of night.
But nowhere was any sign to be found of anyone of those three whom Sally sought--Mrs. Gosnold or Savage or, failing these, Mrs. Standish.
Now when she had nearly completed one exhaustive round of the grounds and was wondering where next to turn, with neither warning nor expectation she came around one end of a screen of shrubbery and stopped just short of surprising another sentimental tableau, staged in the identical setting used for Mr. Trego's declaration and cast with a change of but one mummer.
And in the instant marked by recognition of that selfsame marble seat commanding that same view of silvered sea and bathed in the light of that same heartless moon, Sally seemed to hear the echo of her destiny's sardonic laughter.
The gentleman was Mr. Trego, the lady Mrs. Artemas; and they were ignorant of Sally's observation for the simple reason that Mr. Trego's back was toward her and the head of Mrs. Artemas was pillowed on his shoulder--her arms white bonds around his neck.
And as if this were not enough, Sally's discovery of them anticipated by the barest moment the appearance of another couple around the farther end of the clump of shrubbery--two people who happened to be husband and wife and known to Sally as recent additions to the house-party.
These, too, stopped sharply and would have considerately withdrawn but for the fact that, standing as he did, Trego could not help seeing them. He spoke a word, presumably, in the ear so near his lips. The woman swung away in a twinkling, breaking from his arms but retaining one of his hands, and faced the two with a little excited laugh that sounded almost hysterical; and Sally noted that her eyes were bright with tears--of happiness, of course.
"Oh!" she cried, laughing and confused, "is it you, Mrs. Warrenden? No, please don't run. It's too late now--isn't it--when you've caught us in the act! You and Mr. Warrenden will be the first to know of our happiness . . ."
Sally heard no more. The scene vanished from her vision as if the moonlight had been extinguished. It was some moments before she realised that she was running madly, as if hoping flight might help her exorcise that ironic vision. But when she did realise what she was doing, she but ran the faster; let people think what they would; she no longer cared; their esteem no more mattered, for she was finished with them one and all--yes, even with Mrs. Gosnold!
Blindly instinct led her back to her room, again via that side door.
She flung tempestuously into its friendly darkness, locked herself in, and dropped, spent and racked, upon the edge of the bed, clenching her hands into two hard, tight fists, gritting her teeth, and fighting with all her strength to keep back the storm that threatened of sobs and tears and nervous laughter.
It wasn't as if she had really cared for the man--it was worse. It was the sum of all the blows her poor, struggling pride had suffered in the course of the last twenty-four hours, beginning with her awakening to the worthlessness of Lyttleton and realisation of the low esteem in which he held her, and culminating in this facer from one whose love she had refused but none the less prized for the comfort it gave her.
Nor was this all. In addition to the writhings of an exacerbated vanity, she was conscious of a sense of personal loss, as if a landmark had been razed in the perspective of her life. In spite of those faults and shortcomings, so unduly emphasised through the man's own deliberate intent and so inexcusable in one who appreciated so well what was expected of a man in his position, Sally had subconsciously from the very first felt Trego to be one whose faith and loyalty were as a rock, whose friendship might be counted upon as an enduring tower of refuge.
And to have him go from her, protesting passionate patience, leaving her exalted with the consciousness that she was wanted--to have him go thus from her and straightway fall into the trap which Mrs. Artemas unaffectedly baited--the trap of which he had not once but many times obliquely alluded to in half-humorous, half-genuine terms of fear--it was, or seemed to be, intolerable.
The waves of burning emotion that swept and scorched her were alternately of rage and chagrin.
Granted the opportunity, she could easily conceive herself as dealing very vigorously with the mantrap.
Some one rattled the knob of her door. Startled, Sally jumped up, and with her wadded handkerchief dabbed hastily and superfluously at her eyes, which were quite dry as yet.
She did not answer, but eyed apprehensively the dark recess in which the door was set at the end of her unlighted room.
A knock followed the noise of the knob. Still she hesitated to reply. Uncertainly she moved toward the nearest wall-sconce and lifted her hand to the switch. She was sadly confused and unstrung, her thoughts awhirl and nerves ajangle. The last thing she wished just then was to meet and talk to anybody.
Still it might be Mrs. Gosnold or her messenger. And that lady was Sally's one remaining friend on earth. She swallowed hard, took herself firmly in hand, and when the knock was repeated was able to answer in a tolerably even voice:
"Well? Who is it?"
"Miss Manwaring, are you there?" Heartfelt relief informed the voice of Mrs. Standish. "Please let me in. I must speak with you immediately."
Sullenly, without replying, Sally turned on the light, moved to the door, unlocked and opened it.
"Come in," she said ungraciously.
Mrs. Standish swept in, gay crimson domino over fluffy skirts and slim, pink legs assorting oddly with the agitation betrayed by her unsmiling eyes, her pallor accentuating the rouge on her cheeks like rose-petals against snow.
"Thank God!" she whispered, "I've found you at last. I've looked everywhere for the last half-hour. This is the second time I've been here. You just got in, of course. Wherehaveyou been?"
"Does it matter?" Sally fenced, maintaining a stony countenance. "I mean, I don't think it does, now you've run me to earth at last. What's the trouble?"
"You haven't seen Walter'? He hasn't told you?"
"No; I tried to speak to him half an hour ago, but he ran from me as if I were a ghost!"
"You know why!" The woman's voice trembled with restrained rage. "You impossible girl! Why, why did you let Aunt Abby go to meet him instead of you? It was fatal, it was criminal. Of course, he gave the whole show away to her, never guessing. Now it's all up with us; we'll never be asked here again; and the chances are she'll cut us out of her will as well. Why did you do it? Oh, I could shake you!"
"I know well you would if you could," Sally admitted calmly. "Only-better not try."
"But why--?"
"Well, if you must know, Mrs. Gosnold overheard you three plotting together out there just before I came on the scene. She was at the window overhead, listening through the shutters. I don't know what you were talking about--she didn't tell me--but it was enough to make her insist on my giving her my costume so that she might go and hear the rest of it."
Mrs. Standish bit her lip. And her eyes shifted uneasily from Sally's face.
"You haven't seen her since--"
"No," Sally answered bluntly. "Have you?"
"No. Walter and I have both been looking for her as well as you. That's why he ran when he knew about this terrible mistake; he wanted to find her and set things straight if he could. But she"--the woman stumbled and her eyes shifted again--"she's gone and hidden herself--plotting our humiliation and punishment, I dare say. I only wish I knew. Walter is still hunting everywhere for her. See here: I presume you understand you've got to go now?"
"Why?"
"For one good reason--if what has happened isn't enough to persuade you--because there will be a man here from New York by the first boat--seven o'clock to-morrow morning--with a warrant for the arrest of Sarah Manvers."
"Are you telling the truth, Mrs. Standish?"
"How dare you! No, I won't let you make me lose my temper with your insolence. The matter is too serious, and I've no wish to see you suffer, even if you have ruined everything for us. You must listen to me, Miss Manvers: be advised and go. I don't know what put them on your trail, what made them suspect you were here, but the burglary-insurance people had the warrant sworn out yesterday afternoon and started a man up by the evening boat. Walter got a telegram to that effect about ten o'clock. That's what he wanted to say to you--that, and to give you some money and directions for getting away."
"But why should I leave?"
"Do you want to go to jail?"
"Not much. But I don't see why I need. You can easily explain that my things in the bath-room were left there with your knowledge at the time when you took pity on me and gave me a change of clothing to travel in."
"It's too late. If we had explained it that way, to begin with, it would have been all right. But neither of us thought. And Walter bungled things frightfully in New York. Now if we come forward with any such story they'll think we're all in a conspiracy to defraud the company."
"Oh!" Sally exclaimed abruptly, with an accent of enlightenment that discountenanced the older woman.
With an effort, recovering, she sought to distract the girl.
"Surely you must see now, you have got to go! There's a boat to the mainland at six thirty. If you catch that, you'll have three hours' start; for the detective won't be able to get off the island before half past nine. And you ought to be able to lose yourself in that time somehow. Hurry; I'll help you pack a satchel. You'd better wear that blue serge; everybody wears blue serge, so it's inconspicuous. And here's some money for travelling expenses."
Sally ignored the little fold of bills held out to her.
"I'm not going," she declared firmly.
"Are you mad?"
"I would be to go with the situation what it is here. Don't you see that, unless those jewels are returned to Mrs. Gosnold to-night--yes, I mean the jewels you were so ready to accuse me of stealing a little while ago; but you seem to have forgotten that now--"
"I wish you would," Mrs. Standish replied, schooling her voice to accents of dulcet entreaty. "I was beside myself with anxiety--"
"Wait. If I go before those jewels are recovered--disappear, as you want me to--it will be equivalent to a confession that I myself stole them. And suppose I did."
"What!"
"I say, suppose I did, for the sake of argument. What right have you to assume that I didn't commit the theft? No more than you had to accuse me as you did. And until the theft is made good, what right have you to let me go and, possibly, get away with my loot? No!" Sally shook her head. "You're not logical, you're not honest with me. There's something behind all this. I'm not going to be made a scapegoat for you. I'm not going to run away now and hide simply to further your plans for swindling the burglary-insurance company. I'll see Mrs. Gosnold and advise with her before I stir a step."
"Oh, you are insufferable!" Mrs. Standish cried.
In a flash she lost control of her temper altogether. Her face grew ghastly with the pallor of her rage. And she trembled visibly.
But what else she might have said to the defiant girl was cut short by the sudden and unceremonious opening of the door to admit three persons.
The first and last of these were Mercedes Pride and Mr. Lyttleton. Between them entered a man unknown to Sally--a hard-featured citizen in very ordinary business clothing, cold of eye, uncompromising of manner.
Jubilation glowed in the witch's glance; anticipative relish of the flavour of triumph lent her voice a shriller note. She struck an attitude, singling out Sally with a denunciatory arm.
"There she is! That's the woman who calls herself Sara Manwaring. Now arrest her--make her confess what she's done with those jewels--pack her off to jail!"