Yet how deep an impression this unmoral, apparently soulless woman had made on his mind and on his emotional memory! Even now, when he had no desire, and, above all, must not allow himself to have any desire, ever to see her again, Theodore Carden felt, almost as keenly as he had done during the period of their brief intimacy, a morbid curiosity to know where she lived and had her being.
It was late in the afternoon of Easter Monday.
Theodore Carden had just come in from a long walk, and, as he passed through the circular hall around which Watermead was built, he heard the low sound of voices, those of his father and some other man, issuing from the square drawing-room always occupied by the father and son on such idle days as these. He stayed his steps, realised that the visitor was Major Lane, and then made up his mind to go up and change, instead of going straight in to his father, as he would have done had the latter been alone.
As he came down again, and crossed the now lighted hall, he met the parlour-maid, an elderly woman who had been in Thomas Carden's service ever since his wife's death. "I wonder if I can take in the lamps now, Mr. Theodore? It's getting so dark, sir."
There was a troubled sound in her voice, and the young man stopped and looked at her with some surprise.
"Of course you can, Kate," he said quickly, "why not? Why haven't you taken them in before?"
"I did go in with them half an hour ago, sir, but the master told me to take them out again. There's firelight, to be sure, and it's only Major Lane in there, but he's been here since three o'clock, and master's not had his tea yet. I suppose they thought they'd wait till you came in."
"Oh! well, if my father prefers to sit in the dark, and to put off tea till he can have my company, you had better wait till I ring, and then bring in the lamps and the tea together."
He spoke with his usual light good-nature, and passed on into the room which was the only apartment in the large old house clearly associated in his mind with the graceful, visionary figure of his dead mother.
Thomas Carden and the Head Constable were sitting in the twilight, one on each side of the fireplace, and when the young man came in, they both stirred perceptibly, and abruptly stopped speaking.
Theodore came forward and stood on the hearth-rug. "May Kate bring in the lamps, father?"
"Yes, yes, I suppose so."
And the lamps were brought in. Then came the tea-tray, placed by Kate on a large table many paces from the fire; womanless Watermead was lacking in the small elegancies of modern life, but now that would soon be remedied, so the younger Carden told himself with a slight, happy smile.
Very deliberately, and asking no questions as to milk or sugar, for well he knew the tastes of his father and of his father's friend, he poured out two cups of tea, and turning, advanced, a cup balanced in each steady hand.
But halfway up the room he stopped for a moment, arrested by the sound of his father's voice—
"Theo, my boy, I want to ask you something."
The mode of address had become of late years a little unusual, and there was a note in Thomas Carden's accents which struck his son as significant—even as solemn.
"Yes, father?"
"Did you not tell me this morning that you had never met Jarvice?"
The one onlooker, hatchet-faced Major Lane, suddenly leaned a little forward.
He was astonished at his old friend's extraordinary and uncalled-for courage, and it was with an effort, with the feeling that he was bracing himself to see something terrible take place, that he looked straight at the tall, fine-looking man who had now advanced into the circle of light thrown by the massive Argand lamps.
But Theodore Carden appeared quite unmoved, nay more, quite unconcerned, by his father's question.
"Yes," he said, "I did tell you so. I suppose I knew the old fellow by sight, but I certainly was never introduced to him. Are there any new developments?"
He turned to Major Lane with a certain curiosity, and then quite composedly handed him the cup of tea he held in his right hand.
"Well, yes," answered the other coldly, "there are several new developments. We arrested Mrs. Jarvice this morning."
"That seems rather a strong step to have taken, unless new evidence has turned up since Saturday," said Theodore thoughtfully.
"Such new evidence has come to hand since Saturday," observed Major Lane drily.
There was a pause, and again Thomas Carden addressed his son with that strange touch of solemnity, and again Major Lane, with an inward wincing, stared fixedly at the young man now standing on the hearth-rug, a stalwart,debonairfigure, between himself and his old friend.
"Can you assure me—can you assure us both—that you never met Mrs. Jarvice?"
Carden looked down at his father with a puzzled expression.
"Of course I can't assure you of anything of the kind," he said, still speaking quite placidly. "I may have met her somewhere or other, but I can't remember having done so; and I think I should have remembered it, both because the name is an uncommon one, and because"—he turned to Major Lane—"isn't she said to be an extraordinarily pretty woman?"
As the last words were being uttered an odd thing happened. Thomas Carden suddenly dropped the cup he was holding in his hand; it rang against the brass fender and broke in several pieces, while the spoon went clattering into the fireplace.
"Father!" exclaimed Theodore, and then quickly he added, "Don't trouble to do that," for the old man was stooping over the rug, and fumbling with the broken pieces. But Thomas Carden shook his head; it was evident that he was, for the moment, physically incapable of speech.
A great fear came into the son's mind; he turned to Major Lane, and muttered in an urgent, agonised whisper, "Is it—can it be a seizure? Hadn't I better go and try to find Dr. Curle?"
But the other, with a dubious expression on his face, shook his head. "No, no," he said; "it's nothing of the kind. Your father's getting older, Carden, as we all are, and I've had to speak to him to-day about a very disagreeable matter."
He looked fixedly, probingly, at the young man.
"I think it's thoroughly upset him." The speaker hesitated, and then added: "I daresay he'll tell you about it; in any case, I'd better go now and come back later. If you can spare me half an hour this evening, I should like to have a talk with you—about the same matter."
During the last few moments Major Lane had made up his mind to take a certain course, even to run a certain risk, and that not for the first time that day, for he had already set his own intimate knowledge of Thomas Carden, the lifelong friend whose condition now wrung him with pity, against what was, perhaps, his official duty.
Some two hours before, the Head Constable had entered the house where he had been so constantly and so hospitably entertained, with the firm conviction that Theodore Carden had been the catspaw of a clever, unscrupulous woman; in fact that there had come a repetition, but a hundred times more serious, of that now half-forgotten entanglement which had so nearly brought Carden to grief some seven or eight years before. Once more he had come prepared to do his best to save his friend's son, so far as might be possible, from the consequences of his folly.
But now? Ah, now, the experienced, alert official had to admit to himself that the incidents of the last ten minutes had completely altered his view of the matter. He realised that in any case Theodore Carden was no fool; for the first time that day the terrible suspicion came into Major Lane's mind that the man before him might, after all, be more closely connected with the Jarvice mystery than had seemed possible.
Never, during his long connection with crime, had the Head Constable come across as good an actor, as cool a liar, as he now believed this man of business to be.
Well, he would give Theodore Carden one more chance to tell the truth; Theodore was devoted to his father, so much was certainly true, and perhaps his father would be able to make him understand the gravity of the case. Major Lane felt bitterly sorry that he had come first to the old man—but then, he had so completely believed in the "scrape" theory; and now he hardly knew what to believe!
For the moment, at any rate, so the Head Constable told himself, the mask had fallen; Theodore Carden could not conceal his relief at the other's approaching departure.
"Certainly," he said hastily, "come in this evening by all means; I won't ask you to stay to dinner, for I mean to try and make father go to bed, but later I shall be quite free. If, however, you want to ask me anything about the Jarvice affair, I'm afraid I can't help you much; I've not even read the case with any care."
The old man, still sitting by the fire, had caught a few of the muttered words, and before Major Lane could leave the room Thomas Carden had risen from his chair, his face paler, perhaps, than usual, but once more his collected, dignified self.
"Stay," he said firmly; "having gone so far, I think we should now thresh the matter out."
He walked over to where his son and his friend were standing, and he put his hand on the older man's arm.
"Perhaps I cannot expect you, Lane, to be convinced, as I, of course, have been convinced, by my son's denials. It is, as I told you this afternoon, either a plot on the part of someone who bears a grudge against us, or else—what I think more likely—there are two men in this great town each bearing the name of Theodore Carden. But I appreciate, I deeply appreciate, the generous kindness which made you come and warn us of this impending calamity; but you need not fear that we shall fail to meet it with a complete answer."
"Father! Major Lane! What does this mean?"
For the first time a feeling of misgiving, of sudden fear, swept over Theodore Carden's mind. Without waiting for an answer, he led the way back to the fireplace, and, deliberately drawing forward a chair, motioned to Major Lane to sit down likewise.
"Now then," he said, speaking with considerable authority and decision, "I think I have a right to ask what this is all about! In what way are we, my father and myself, concerned in the Jarvice affair? For my part, Major Lane, I can assure you, and that, if you wish it, on oath, that I did not know Mr. Jarvice, and, to the best of my belief, I have never seen, still less spoken to, Mrs. Jarvice——"
"If that be indeed so," said the man whom he addressed, and who, for the first time, was beginning to feel himself shaken in his belief, nay, in his absolute knowledge, that the young man was perjuring himself, "can you, and will you, explain these letters?" and he drew out of his pocket a folded sheet of foolscap.
Carden bent forward eagerly; there was no doubt, so the Head Constable admitted to himself, as to his eagerness to be brought face to face with the accusation—and yet, at that moment, a strong misgiving came over Major Lane.
Even if Theodore Carden could continue to be the consummate actor he had already proved himself, was it right, was it humane, to subject him to this terrible test, and that, too, before his old father? Whatever the young man's past relation to Mrs. Jarvice, nay, whatever his connection might be with the crime which Major Lane now knew to have been committed, Carden was certainly ignorant of the existence of these terrible, these damnatory documents, and they constituted so far the only proof that Carden had been lying when he denied any knowledge of Mrs. Jarvice. But then, alas! they constituted an irrefutable proof.
With a sudden movement Major Lane withdrew his right hand, that which held the piece of paper.
"Stop a moment, Theodore; do you really wish this discussion to take place before your father? I wonder if you remember"—he paused, and then went on firmly, "an interview you and I had many years ago?"
For the first time the younger man's whole manner changed; a look of fear, of guilt, came over his strong, intelligent face.
"Father," he said imploringly, "I beg you not to listen to Major Lane. He is alluding to a matter which he gave me his word—his word of honour—should never be mentioned to anyone, least of all to you;" then, turning with an angry gesture to the Head Constable, "Was that not so?" he asked imperiously.
"Yes, I admit that by asking you this question I have broken my word, but good God! man, this is no passing scrape that we have to consider now; to-morrow morning all Birmingham will be ringing with your name—with your father's name, Theodore—for by some horrible mischance the papers have got hold of the letters in question. I did my best, but I found I was powerless."
He turned and deliberately looked away, as he added in a low, hesitating voice: "And now, once more I ask you whether we had not better delay this painful discussion until you and I are alone?"
"No!" cried Carden, now thoroughly roused, "certainly not! You have chosen to come and tell my father something about me, and I insist that you tell me here, and at once, what it is of which I am accused."
He instinctively looked at his father for support, and received it in full measure, for at once the old man spoke.
"Yes, Lane, I think my son is right; there's no use in making any more mystery about the matter. I'm sure that the letters you have brought to show Theodore will puzzle him as much as they have me, and that he will be able to assure you that he has no clue either to their contents or to their writer."
Very slowly, with a feeling of genuine grief and shame for the man who seemed incapable of either sorrow or shame, Major Lane held out the folded paper; and then in very pity he looked away as his old friend's son eagerly unrolled the piece of foolscap, placing it close under the lamp-shade in order that he might thoroughly master its contents.
As Theodore Carden completed the trifling action, that of unrolling the piece of paper which was to solve the mystery, he noted, with a curious feeling of relief, that the documents (or were they letters?) regarded by the Head Constable as so damnatory, were but two, the first of some length, the second consisting of a very few lines, and both copied in the fair round hand of Major Lane's confidential clerk.
And then, with no premonitory warning, Carden became the victim of a curious physical illusion.
Staring down at the long piece of blue paper, he found that he was only able to master the signature, in both cases the same, with which each letter terminated. Sometimes only one word, one name—that ofPansy—stood out clearly, and then again he seemed only to see the other word, the other name—that ofJarvice. The two names appeared to play hide-and-seek with one another, to leap out alternately and smite his eyes, pressing and printing themselves upon his brain.
At last, while he was still staring silently, obstinately, at the black lines dancing before him, he heard the words, and they seemed to be coming from a long way off, "Theodore! Oh, my boy, what is the matter?" and then Major Lane's voice, full of rather angry concern, "Rouse yourself, Carden, you are frightening your father."
"Am I?" he said dully; "I mustn't do that;" then, handing back the sheet of foolscap to the Head Constable, he said hoarsely, "I can't make them out. Will you read them to me?"
And Major Lane, in passionless accents, read aloud the two letters which he already almost knew by heart.
6, Lightwood Place,January 28th.You told me to write to you if ever I was in real trouble and thought you could help me. Oh! Theo, darling, I am in great trouble, and life, especially since that happy time—you know when I mean—is more wretched than ever. You used to say I was extraordinarily pretty, I wonder if you would say so now, for I am simply ill—worn out with worry. He—you know who—has found out something; such a little insignificant thing; and since then he makes my life unbearable with his stupid jealousy. It isn't as if he knew about you and me, that would be something real to grumble at, wouldn't it, darling? Sometimes I feel tempted to tell him all about it. How he would stare! He is incapable of understanding anything romantic. However, I'm in no mood for laughing now. He's got a woman in to watch me, a governess, but luckily I've quite got her to be on my side, though of course I haven't told her anything about my private affairs.Will you meet me one day this week, to-morrow if you can, at No. 15, Calthorpe Street? Four o'clock is the safest time for me. Between the two small shops you will see a swing door with "Madame Paula, Milliner," on it; push it open and go straight upstairs. On the first landing you will see a door with "Gone out, enquire upstairs," on it. Push up the door knob (don't try to turn it) and walk in. The room will be empty, but you will see a door leading to a back room; pushupthe knob and there—there you will find your poor little Pansy, fainting with joy at seeing her big strong Theo again.Send me a postcard, saying, "Mrs. Jarvice can be fitted on (day you select)." If posted before eleven, it will reach me in time. Of course, I'm running a risk in meeting youhere, so near my home, but Imustsee you, for I have a great favour to ask you, Theo, and I dare not propose going away even for one day.Pansy Jarvice.
6, Lightwood Place,
January 28th.
You told me to write to you if ever I was in real trouble and thought you could help me. Oh! Theo, darling, I am in great trouble, and life, especially since that happy time—you know when I mean—is more wretched than ever. You used to say I was extraordinarily pretty, I wonder if you would say so now, for I am simply ill—worn out with worry. He—you know who—has found out something; such a little insignificant thing; and since then he makes my life unbearable with his stupid jealousy. It isn't as if he knew about you and me, that would be something real to grumble at, wouldn't it, darling? Sometimes I feel tempted to tell him all about it. How he would stare! He is incapable of understanding anything romantic. However, I'm in no mood for laughing now. He's got a woman in to watch me, a governess, but luckily I've quite got her to be on my side, though of course I haven't told her anything about my private affairs.
Will you meet me one day this week, to-morrow if you can, at No. 15, Calthorpe Street? Four o'clock is the safest time for me. Between the two small shops you will see a swing door with "Madame Paula, Milliner," on it; push it open and go straight upstairs. On the first landing you will see a door with "Gone out, enquire upstairs," on it. Push up the door knob (don't try to turn it) and walk in. The room will be empty, but you will see a door leading to a back room; pushupthe knob and there—there you will find your poor little Pansy, fainting with joy at seeing her big strong Theo again.
Send me a postcard, saying, "Mrs. Jarvice can be fitted on (day you select)." If posted before eleven, it will reach me in time. Of course, I'm running a risk in meeting youhere, so near my home, but Imustsee you, for I have a great favour to ask you, Theo, and I dare not propose going away even for one day.
Pansy Jarvice.
Major Lane paused a moment, then went on:
Theo, I wrote to you ten days ago, but I have had no answer. I am dreadfully worried; I know you are in Birmingham, for I saw your name in a paper before I wrote to you. I have gone through such terrible days waiting for the postcard I asked you to send me. Write, if only to say you don't want to hear again of poor miserablePansy Jarvice.
Theo, I wrote to you ten days ago, but I have had no answer. I am dreadfully worried; I know you are in Birmingham, for I saw your name in a paper before I wrote to you. I have gone through such terrible days waiting for the postcard I asked you to send me. Write, if only to say you don't want to hear again of poor miserable
Pansy Jarvice.
"I suppose you will now admit that you know who wrote these letters?" asked Major Lane sternly.
"Yes—at least I suppose they were written by Mrs. Jarvice."
Theodore Carden spoke with a touch of impatience. The question seemed to him to be, on the part of his father's old friend, a piece of useless cruelty.
"And can you suggest to whom they were written, if not to yourself?"
"No, of course not; I do not doubt that they were written to me," and this time his face was ravaged with a horror and despair to which the other two men had, so far, no clue. "And yet," he added, a touch of surprise in his voice, "I never saw these letters—they never reached me."
"But of course you received others?"
Major Lane spoke with a certain eagerness; then, as the young man seemed to hesitate, he added hastily: "Nay, nay—say nothing that might incriminate yourself."
"But indeed—indeed I have never received a letter from her—that perhaps is why I did not know the handwriting."
"Theodore!" cried his father sharply, "think what you are saying! What you've been shown are only copies—surely you understood that? What Lane has just shown you are copies of letters which purport to have been addressed to you, but which were intercepted on their way to the post—is that not so?" and he turned to the Head Constable.
"Yes," said Major Lane; then he added, very deliberately.
"The originals of these two letters, which were bought for a large sum from Mrs. Jarvice's governess, evidently the woman referred to in the first letter, are now in the hands of the news editor of theBirmingham Dispatch. I was shown them as a great favour"—a grim smile distorted, for a moment, the Head Constable's narrow jaw.
"I did my best—for your father's sake, Theodore—to frighten these people into giving them up; I even tried to persuade them to hold them over, but it was no good. I was told that no Birmingham paper had ever had such a—'scoop', I believe, was the word used. You and your father are so well known in this city." And again Theodore Carden marvelled at the cruelty of the man.
Thomas Carden broke in with a touch of impatience:
"But nothing else has been found, my boy! Lane should tell you that the whole theory of your having known Mrs. Jarvice rests on these two letters—which never reached you."
Father and son seemed suddenly to have changed places. The old man spoke in a strong, self-confident tone, but the other, his grey face supported on his hands, was staring fixedly into the fire.
"Yes," said Major Lane, more kindly, "I ought perhaps to tell you that within an hour of my being shown these letters I had Mrs. Jarvice's house once more searched, and nothing was found connecting you with the woman, excepting, I am sorry to say, this;"—and he held out an envelope on which was written in Theodore Carden's clear handwriting the young man's name and business address.
"Now, I should like you to tell me, if you don't mind doing so, where, when, and how this name and address came to be written?"
"Yes, I will certainly tell you."
The young man spoke collectedly; he was beginning to realise the practical outcome of the conversation.
"I wrote that address about the middle of last October, in London, at Mansell's Hotel in Pall Mall East."
"The poor fellow's going to make a clean breast of it at last," so thought Major Lane with a strange feeling of relief, for on the flap of the envelope, which he had kept carefully turned down, was stamped "Mansell's Hotel."
It was in a considerate, almost kindly tone, that the Head Constable next spoke.
"And now, I beg you, for your own sake, to tell me the truth. Perhaps I ought to inform you, before you say anything, that, according to our theory, Mrs. Jarvice was certainly assisted in procuring the drug with which there is no doubt she slowly poisoned her husband. As yet we have no clue as to the person who helped her, but we have ascertained that for the last two months, in fact, from about the date of the first letter addressed to you, a man did purchase minute quantities of this drug at Birmingham, at Wolverhampton, and at Walsall. Now, mind you, I do not suspect, I never have suspected, you of having any hand in that, but I fear you'll have to face the ordeal of being confronted with the various chemists, of whom two declare most positively that they can identify the man who brought them the prescription which obtained him the drug in question."
While Major Lane was speaking, Theodore Carden had to a certain extent regained his self-possession; here, at least, he stood on firm ground.
"Of course, I am prepared to face anything of the kind that may be necessary." He added almost inaudibly: "I have brought it on myself."
Then he turned, his whole voice altering and softening: "Father, perhaps you would not mind my asking Major Lane to go into the library with me? I should prefer to see him alone."
And then the days dragged on, a week of days, each containing full measure of bitter and public humiliation; full measure also of feverish suspense, for Theodore Carden did not find it quite so easy as he had thought it would be to clear himself of this serious, and yet preposterous accusation of complicity in murder.
But Major Lane was surprised at the courage and composure with which the young man faced the ordeal of confrontation with the various men, any one of whom, through a simple mistake or nervous lapse of memory, might compel his presence, if not in the dock, then as a witness at the coming murder trial.
At last the awful ordeal was over, for, as a matter of fact, none of those brought face to face with him in the sordid promiscuity of such scenes, singled out Theodore Carden as resembling the mysterious individual who had almost certainly provided Mrs. Jarvice with the means wherewith to poison her husband.
But it was after the need for active defence had passed away that Theodore Carden's true sufferings began.... The moment twilight fell he was haunted, physically and mentally possessed, by the presence of the woman he had known at once so little and so well—that is, of her he now knew to be Pansy Jarvice.
Especially terrible were the solitary evenings of those days when his father was away, performing the task of breaking so much of the truth as could be told to the girl to whom his son had been engaged.
As each afternoon drew in Theodore found himself compelled to remain more or less concealed in the room which overlooked the garden of Waterhead. For, with the approach of night, the suburban road in front of the fine old house was filled by an ever coming and going crowd of bat-like men and women, eager to gaze with morbid curiosity at the dwelling of the man who had undoubtedly been, if not Mrs. Jarvice's accomplice—that, to the annoyance of the sensation-mongers, seemed decidedly open to question—then, her favoured lover.
But to these shameful and grotesque happenings Theodore Carden gave scarce a thought, for it was when he found himself alone in the drawing-room or library that his solitude would become stealthily invaded by an invisible and impalpable wraith.
So disorganised had become his nerves, so pitiable the state of his body and mind, that constantly he seemed conscious of a faint, sweet odour, that of wood violets, a scent closely associated in his thoughts with Pansy Jarvice, with the woman whom he now knew to be a murderess.
He came at last to long for a tangible delusion, for the sight of a bodily shape which he could tell himself was certainly not there. But no such relief was vouchsafed him; and yet once, when sitting in the drawing-room, trying to read a book, he had felt a rounded cheek laid suddenly to his, a curl of silken, scented hair had touched his neck....
Terrifying as was the peopled solitude of his evenings, Carden dreaded their close, for at night, during the whole of each long night, the woman from whom he now felt so awful a repulsion held him prisoner.
From the fleeting doze of utter exhaustion he would be awakened by feeling the pressure of Pansy's soft, slender arms about his neck; they would wind themselves round his shuddering body, enclosing him slowly, inexorably, till he felt as if he must surely die under their gyves-like pressure.
Again—and this, perhaps, was what he learnt to dread in an especial degree—he would be suddenly roused by Pansy's liquid, laughing voice, whispering things of horror in his ear; it was then, and then only, that he found courage to speak, courage to assure her, and so assure himself, that he was in no sense her accomplice, that he had had naught to do with old Jarvice's death. But then there would come answer, in the eager tones he remembered so well, and the awful words found unwilling echo in his heart: "Yes, yes, indeed you helped!"
And now the last day, or rather the last night, had come, for the next morning Theodore Carden was to leave Birmingham, he hoped for ever, for New Zealand.
The few people he had been compelled to see had been strangely kind; quiet and gentle, as folk, no doubt, feel bound to be when in the presence of one condemned. As for Major Lane, he was stretching—no one knew it better than Carden himself—a great point in allowing the young man to leave England before the Jarvice trial.
During those last days, even during those last hours, Theodore deliberately prevented himself from allowing his mind to dwell on his father. He did not know how much the old man had been told, and he had no wish to know. A wall of silence had arisen between the two who had always been so much, nay, in a sense, everything, to one another. Each feared to give way to any emotion, and yet the son knew only too well, and was ashamed of the knowledge, with what relief he would part from his father.
There had been a moment when Major Lane had intimated his belief that the two would go away and make a new life together, but Theodore Carden had put aside the idea with rough decision. Perhaps when he was far away on the other side of the world, the former relations of close love and sympathy, if not of confidence, might be re-established between his father and himself, but this, he felt sure, would never be while they remained face to face.
And now he was lying wide awake in the darkness, in the pretty peaceful room which had once been his nursery, and where he had spent his happy holidays as a schoolboy.
His brain remained abnormally active, but physically he was oppressed by a great weariness; to-night, for the first time, Carden felt the loathsome wraith that haunted him, if not less near, then less malicious, less watchful than usual, above all less eager to assert her power.... Yet, even so, he lay very still, fearing to move lest he should once more feel about his body the clinging, enveloping touch he dreaded with so great a dread.
And then, quite suddenly, there came a strange lightening of his heart. A space of time seemed to have sped by, and Carden, by some mysterious mental process, knew that he was still near home, and not, as would have been natural, in New Zealand. Nay, more, he realised that the unfamiliar place in which he now found himself was Winson Green Gaol, a place which, as a child, he had been taught to think of with fear, fear mingled with a certain sense of mystery and excitement.
Theodore had not thought of the old local prison for years, but now he knew that he and his father were together there, in a small cell lighted by one candle. The wall of silence, raised on both sides by shame and pain, had broken down, but, alas! too late; for, again in some curious inexplicable way, the young man was aware that he lay under sentence of death, and that he was to be hanged early in the morning of which the dawn was only just now breaking.
Yet, strange to say, this knowledge caused him, personally, but little uneasiness, but on his father's account he felt infinitely distressed, and he found himself bending his whole mind to comfort and sustain the old man.
Thus, he heard a voice, which he knew to be his own, saying in an argumentative tone, "I assure you, father, that an extraordinary amount of nonsense is talked nowadays concerning—well, the death penalty. Is it possible that you do not realise that I am escaping a much worse fate—that of having to live on? I wish, dear dad, that I could persuade you of the truth of this."
"If only," muttered the old man in response, "if only, my boy, I could bear it for you;" and Carden saw that his father's face was seared with an awful look of terror and agony.
"But, indeed, father, you do not understand. Believe me, I am not afraid—it will not be so bad after all. So do not—pray, pray, father, do not be so distressed."
And then, with a great start, Theodore Carden awoke—awoke to see the small, spare figure of that same dear father, clothed in the long, old-fashioned linen nightshirt of another day, standing by his bedside.
The old man held a candle in his hand, and was gazing down at his only child with an expression of unutterable woe and grief.
"I will try—I am trying, my boy, not to be unreasonably distressed," he said.
Theodore Carden sat up in bed.
Since this awful thing had come on him, he had never, even for an instant, forgotten self, but now he saw that his sufferings were small compared with those he had brought on the man into whose face he was gazing with red-rimmed, sunken eyes.
For a moment the wild thought came to him that he might try to explain, to justify himself, to prove to his father that in this matter he had but done as others do, and that the punishment was intolerably heavier than the crime; but then, looking up and meeting Thomas Carden's perplexed, questioning eyes, he felt a great rush of shame and horror, not only of himself, but of all those who look at life as he himself had always looked at it; for the first time, he understood the mysterious necessity, as well as the beauty, of abnegation, of renunciation.
"Father," he said, "listen. I will not go away alone; I was mad to think of such a thing. We will go together, you and I,—Lane has told me that such has been your wish,—and then perhaps some day we will come back together."
After this, for the first time for many nights, Theodore Carden fell into a dreamless sleep.
Oliver Germaine walked with long, even strides from the Marble Arch to Grosvenor Gate. It was Sunday morning, early in July, and the comparatively deserted portion of the Park which he had chosen was, even so, full of walkers. A good many people, men as well as women, looked at him pleasantly as he went by, for the young man was an attractive, even an arresting personality to the type of person who takes part in Church Parade.
Germaine was tall, slim, dark, so blessed by fate in the mere matter of eyes, nose and mouth, that his looks were often commented on when his wife's beauty was mentioned.
So it was that, as he walked quickly by, a rather vexed expression on his handsome face, almost every man who saw him envied him—if not his looks then his clothes, if not his clothes then his air of being young, healthy, and, to use an ugly modern phrase, in perfect condition.
A nursemaid who watched him pass to and fro several times told herself, rather wistfully, that he was waiting for a loved one, and that the lady, as is the way with loved ones, was late.
The nursemaid was right in one sense, wrong in another. Oliver Germaine was waiting for a lady, but the lady was his married sister. Her name was Fanny Burdon, and her home was in Shropshire. Germaine had a loved one, but she was already his wife, his beautiful, clever Bella, with whom he would so much rather have been now, sitting in their pretty house in West Chapel Street than waiting in the Park for his sister Fanny.
It was really too bad of Fanny to be late! The more so that she would certainly feel aggrieved if, when she did come, her brother made her go straight home with him, instead of taking her down into the crowd of people who were now seething round the Achilles statue. But if Fanny didn't come at once, go home they must, for Bella wouldn't like them to be late—quite a number of people were coming to lunch.
Germaine did not quite know whom, among their crowds of friends, Bella had asked to come in to-day. But certain people, four or five perhaps, would assuredly be there—Mrs. Slade, Bella's great "pal," a nice pretty little woman, with big appealing eyes; also Jenny and Paul Arabin, distant relations of his wife, and once the young couple's only link with the exclusive world of which they now formed so intimate a part.
Then there would be Uvedale.
Germaine's mind dwelt on Uvedale. Bob Uvedale was one of his wife's admirers—in fact Uvedale made no secret of his infatuation for the beautiful Mrs. Germaine, but he was a good fellow, and never made either Bella or himself ridiculous.
Oliver Germaine had remained very simple at heart. He felt sure that Bella could take care of herself; she always behaved with extraordinary prudence and sense,—in fact Oliver was now far less jealous of Bella than he had been in the old days, before she had blossomed into a famous beauty. She was then rather fond of flirting—but her husband had proved the truth of the comfortable old adage concerning safety in numbers. Bella now simply had no time for flirtation! There was no necessity for her to exert herself, she had only to sit still and be admired and adored,—adored, that is, in platonic fashion, admired as you admire a work of art.
Another man who would certainly be lunching with them to-day was Peter Joliffe.
Joliffe was a clever, quaint fellow, whose mission in life was to make people laugh by saying funny things in a serious tone. Joliffe was always fluttering round Bella. He had established himself as a tame cat about the house, and he had, as a matter of fact, been very useful to the young couple, piloting Bella when she was only "the new beauty" amid social quicksands and shallows of which she naturally knew nothing.
Nay, more, Peter Joliffe had introduced the Germaines to some of the very nicest people they knew,—old-fashioned, well-established people, delightful old ladies who called Bella "My pretty dear," courtly old gentlemen who paid her charmingly-turned compliments. Yes, it was nice to think Joliffe would be there to-day; he always helped to make a party go off well.
As for Oliver's sister, Fanny, she would have to sit next Henry Buck. For a brief moment Germaine considered Henry Buck,—Buck who was always called "Rabbit" behind his back, and sometimes to his face.
Germaine hardly knew how it was that they had come to know poor old Rabbit so well. They had met him soon after they were married, and ever since he had stuck to them both with almost pathetic insistence. Oddly enough, he, Oliver, did not reciprocate Henry Buck's feelings of admiring friendship. It was not that he disliked the man, but he had a sort of physical antipathy to him.
The only interesting thing about Henry Buck was his wealth. But then to many people that made him very interesting, for he was really immensely rich, and one of those rather uncommon people, who don't know how to spend their money! Poor Rabbit had been educated at home by a foolish, widowed mother, who had been afraid of letting him play rough games. This was perhaps why he was so dull and awkward—not quite like other people.
Germaine felt rather sorry that Henry Buck would certainly be there to-day. Considering how very little he did for them—no, that was a beastly thing to say, even to oneself!—but considering how very unornamental and uninteresting poor old Rabbit was, it was really very nice of Bella to be so kind to him. She never seemed to mind his being there, and she had even managed to force his company on certain people whose one object in life was to avoid a bore, and who didn't care a button whether a man was a pauper or a millionaire.
Of course Germaine guessed what had happened to Fanny. She had almost certainly gone to hear some fashionable preacher—for Fanny was the sort of woman who likes to cram everything into a visit to London. She was disappointed if every waking hour did not bring with it some new sensation, some new amusement, and this was odd—or so her simple-hearted brother told himself—because all the rest of the year Fanny was content to lead the dull, stodgy life of a small Shropshire squire's wife.
Oliver's irritation increased. It was foolish of Fanny to have come to London just now, in the middle of the season! Hitherto, she and her husband had always come up for a fortnight just before Christmas, and then perhaps again just before Easter. Now she had come up alone, and settled herself into dull lodgings in Marylebone; and then—well, the young man was vaguely aware that Fanny's visit to town was really a scouting expedition. She evidently wanted to see for herself how her brother Oliver and his beautiful wife were "getting on."
Strange to say, Fanny was not quite pleased at Bella's sudden social success—not pleased, and yet quite willing to profit by it. How queer that was! How queer, for the matter of that, most women were! But Bella was not queer—in fact, Bella had been most awfully nice about Fanny, and had never allowed her to suspect, even by as much as a look, that her presence was not welcome. Yet Fanny naturally proved "odd man out" at all those little gatherings to which her lovely sister-in-law made her so carelessly welcome. Fanny knew nothing of the delightful world in which Oliver and Bella now moved; she was quite convinced that she belonged to the very best, exclusive set, and so she did—in Shropshire. But here in town? Why, she was even ignorant of the new social shibboleths; all her notions as to what it was the right thing to do, or to avoid doing, belonged to the year before last!
Take to-day. Fanny would certainly feel cross and disappointed that Bella was not there, in the Park, too; and, as a matter of fact, Germaine had tried to make his wife please his sister in the little matter of Church Parade—but Bella had shaken her head smilingly.
"You know I would do anything for Fanny," she had said, "but really, darling, you mustn't ask me to dothat—to go into that big, horrid, staring crowd. Why should I? It makes one look so cheap! It would only bore me, and I don't think Fanny would really enjoy having me there," and Bella had smiled a little smile.
Germaine had smiled too,—he really couldn't help it! It was quite true that Fanny would not enjoy seeing Bella looked at, followed,—in a word, triumphing, in the way she did triumph every time she appeared in a place where she was likely to be recognised.
Of course it was odd, when one came to think of it, that Bella, who had been just as pretty two years ago as she was now, should, for some mysterious reason, have been suddenly discovered, by those whose word is law in such matters, to be astonishingly, marvellously beautiful!
An involuntary smile again quivered across Oliver Germaine's good-looking face. He had but little sense of humour, and yet even he saw something almost comic about it—the way that Bella, his darling, pretty little Bella, had suddenly been exalted—hoisted up, as it were, on to a pinnacle. She was now what the Londoners of a hundred years ago would have called "the reigning toast"—so an amusing old fellow, who was a great authority on history, had told him a few days ago.
Still, he ought to make allowances for his sister Fanny. It was not in human nature—or so Oliver believed—for any woman, even for such a good sort as Fanny undoubtedly was, to be really pleased at another woman's triumph.
Small wonder that, to use his sister's favourite expression, Fanny could not make it out! It was unfortunate that Bella's fame—that fame of which the young husband was half ashamed and half proud—had actually penetrated to the dull village where his only sister held high state as wife of the lord of the manor.
Since Fanny had been in town she had said little things to him about Bella's position as reigning beauty—not altogether kindly or nice little things. Even yesterday she had observed, with a touch of sharp criticism in her voice, "I wonder, dear old boy, why you allow Bella's photograph to appear in all those low papers!" and Oliver had shrugged his shoulders, not knowing what to answer, but comfortably sure, in a brotherly way, that Fanny would have been quite willing to see her own fair features reproduced in similar fashion, had it occurred to any of the editors of these same enterprising papers to ask for the loan of her photograph.
As a matter of fact, he had remembered, even while she was speaking, a monstrously ugly photograph of Fanny,—Fanny surrounded by her dogs and children,—which had appeared in a well-known lady's paper. Why, she had actually sent the paper to him, marked! But Oliver magnanimously refrained from reminding her of this,—the more so, that Fanny had hurried on from the trifling question of Bella's portrait to the more serious and unpleasant one of her brother's moderate income.
But, as Germaine now told himself complacently, he had been very short with her. In fact he had administered a good brotherly snub to inquisitive Fanny. She had no business to ask him a lot of questions concerning the way he and Bella chose to spend their income; it was no business of hers how the money was spent. Unfortunately Fanny did consider it her business, simply owing to the fact that she was Oliver's only sister, and very fond of him,—that went without saying,—and that unluckily her husband was Oliver's trustee. So it was that she had shown extraordinary curiosity as to how her brother and his wife managed to live in the way they did, on the income she knew they had.
"Do you know," she had said gravely, "exactly what your income is?" Oliver had nodded impatiently. Of course he knew, roughly speaking, that he and Bella had a little over two thousand a year——
"Two thousand and sixty-one pounds, eighteen shillings," she had gone on impressively. "At least that was what it was last year, for I asked Dick." Now Dick was Fanny's husband, and a most excellent fellow, but hopelessly under Fanny's thumb.
Oliver Germaine had not always been so well off. In fact, when he first met Bella—something like six years ago—he had been a subaltern, with a very small private income, in a Line regiment. And it was on that small income that the loveliest girl in Southsea—now the most beautiful woman in London—had married him. Then had come an immense, unlooked-for piece of good fortune!
A distant Scotch cousin, a crusty old chap, of whom all the Germaines were afraid, and who had constantly declared it to be his intention to leave his money outside his own family, had chosen to make Oliver his heir, and had appointed Fanny's husband, the steady-going, rather dull Shropshire squire, as trustee.
Of course Oliver, and even more Bella, knew now that the fortune which had seemed then to make them rich beyond their wildest dreams, was not so very much after all. But still, at first, it had been plenty—plenty for everything they could reasonably require.
But when Bella had become a famous beauty, they had of course to spend rather more, and about a year ago they had gone through rather a disagreeable moment. The little house in West Chapel Street which had seemed so cheap had proved more expensive than they had expected. However, Dick, as trustee, had stretched a point in his brother-in-law's favour, and the slight shrinkage which had resulted in the Germaines' income mattered not at all from the practical point of view, for the simple reason that they went on spending as much as, in fact rather more than, they had done before—but it was tiresome having to pay, as they now had to do, an insurance premium.
Still, it was too bad of Fanny to have spoken as she had done, for Bella was wonderfully economical. Take one simple matter; all their friends, or at any rate the majority of them, had motors as a matter of course, but Bella, when she was not driving, as she generally did, in a car lent her by some kind acquaintance, contented herself with jobbing an old-fashioned brougham.
This restraint was the more commendable inasmuch that a friend had lately pointed out to her a way in which one could run a motor brougham in town on almost nothing at all. One bought a second-hand car for about seventy-five pounds; it was kept for one at a garage for fifteen shillings a week, and one looked out for a gentleman chauffeur who loved motoring for its own sake, and who had some little means of his own. With care the whole thing need not cost more than a hundred and fifty pounds the first year, and less the second. They could not afford to do this just yet, though Bella was convinced it would be true economy, but Oliver hoped to start something of the kind the following winter.
Of course Oliver was never exactly easy about money. Everything always cost just a little more than he expected. It sounded absurd, and he would not have said so to anyone but himself, but they had to live up to Bella's reputation—that is, they had to go everywhere, and do everything. Yet neither of them lacked proper pride. They differed from some people they knew—that is, they did not (more than they could help) live on their rich friends. Their only real extravagance last year had been sharing a house during Goodwood week. That had let them in for a great deal more than they had expected—in fact, not to put too fine a point on it, they had been rooked, regularly rooked, and by people whom they had thought their intimate friends!
Germaine sighed impatiently. This little uneasiness about money was the one spot on a very bright sun. But he had no wish to confide this fact to Fanny! Fanny would be certain to blame Bella. He remembered very well, though she had apparently forgotten it, the way Fanny had behaved at the time of his marriage.
The fact that the girl he wished so ardently to make his wife was lovely (no one could have denied that even then), and quite sufficiently well connected, had not counterbalanced, from the prudent sister's point of view, Bella Arabin's lack of fortune and her having been brought up in such a "mixed" place (whatever that might mean) as Southsea.
But Bella had never borne malice; and far from being spoilt or rendered "uppish" by her sudden intoxicating success, Bella was, if anything, nicer than before. She and Oliver were still devoted, still happier together than apart; their quarrels, so far, had been only lovers' quarrels....
Germaine grew restless—restless and tired. He had not had such a thinking bout for a long time. Just as he reached Grosvenor Gate for the fifth or sixth time, it struck a quarter-past one. In a sense there was plenty of time, for they lunched at a quarter to two; he would give Fanny ten more minutes and then go off home without her.
The young man looked round. Every bench was full, but there were plenty of empty chairs. He dragged one of them forward, and placed it with its back to a large tree. From there he could see everyone who came in and out of the gate, and so he and Fanny would not lose a moment looking for one another. But, though many went out, very few came in; the Park was beginning to empty.
Suddenly two middle-aged women, the one very stout, the other very thin, walked slowly through the gate. They struck across Germaine's line of vision, and for a moment his dark eyes rested on them indifferently. Then his gaze changed into something like attention, for he had a vague impression of having seen the elder of these two women before. What was more, he felt certain he had seen her in some vaguely unpleasant connection.
For a moment he believed her to be one of the cook-housekeepers with whom he and Bella had grappled during the earlier days of their married life. But no, this short stout woman with the shrewd, powerful face Germaine seemed to know, did not look like a servant. Even he could see that her black clothes were handsome and costly, if rather too warm for a fine July day. Her thin, nervous-looking companion was also dressed with some pretension and research, but she lacked the other's look of stout prosperity.
They were typical Londoners, of the kind to be seen on the route of every Royal procession, and standing among the crowd outside the church door at every fashionable marriage—women who, if they had lived in the London of the Georges, would have walked a good many miles to see a fellow-creature swing. But to Oliver Germaine they were simply a couple of unattractive-looking women, one of whom he thought he had seen before, and whose proximity was faintly disagreeable.
Germaine's mind had dwelt on them longer than it would otherwise have done because, when just in front of him, they stopped short and hesitated; then, looking round them much as Germaine himself had looked round a few minutes before, and, the elder woman taking the lead, each dragged a chair forward, and sat down a yard or so to the young man's right, the trunk of the tree stretching its gnarled grey girth between.
Seven minutes of the ten Oliver meant to allow Fanny had now gone by, and he felt inclined to cut the other three minutes short, and go straight home. After all, it was too bad of her to be so unpunctual!
And then, striking on his ear, shreds of the conversation which was taking place between the two women sitting near him began to penetrate Oliver Germaine's brain. Names fell on his ear—Christian names, surnames, with which he was familiar, evoking the personalities of men and women with whom he was on terms of acquaintance, in some cases of close friendship.
Unconsciously his clasped hands tightened on the knob of his stick, and he caught himself listening—listening with a queer mixture of morbid interest and growing disgust.
It was the elder woman who spoke the most, and she was a good speaker, with that trick,—self-taught, instinctive,—of making the people of whom she was speaking leap up before the listener. Now and again she was interrupted by little shrieks of astonishment and horror—her companion's way of paying tribute to the interesting nature of the conversation.
How on earth—so Oliver Germaine asked himself with heating cheek—had the woman obtained her peculiarly intimate knowledge of those of whom she was speaking? The people, these men and women, especially women, whose lives, the inner cores of whose existences, were being probed and ruthlessly exposed, almost all belonged to the Germaines' own particular set,—if indeed such a prosperous and popular couple as were Oliver and Bella, could be said to have a particular set in that delightful world into which they had only comparatively lately effected an entrance, and of which the strands all intermingle the one with the other.
Germaine was too young, he had been too happy, he was too instinctively kindly, to concern himself with other people's private affairs, save in a wholly impersonal fashion. He had always avoided the hidden, unspoken side of life; when certain secrets were confided to him they dropped quickly out of his mind; ugly gossip passed him by.
Yet now he found himself listening to very ugly gossip; some feeling outside himself, some instinct which for the moment mastered him, made him stay on there, eavesdropping.
For the moment the stream of venom was directed against Mrs. Slade, the pretty, harmless little woman whom he would see within the next hour sitting at his own table. She was one of Bella's special friends, and Oliver had got quite fond of her, the more so that he was well aware that she was in a difficult position, owing to the fact, not of her seeking, or so the Germaines believed, that her husband spent most of his life away from her, abroad.
In this special case, Germaine knew something of the hidden wounds; it was horrible to hear this—this old devil engaged in plucking the scabs from these same wounds, and exposing to her vulgar companion the shifts to which the unfortunate little woman was put. Nay, more, she said certain things concerning Mrs. Slade which, if they were true, or even only half true, made the poor little soul under discussion no fit friend or companion for Germaine's own spotless wife, Bella....
The burden of the old woman's talk was money, how people got money, how they spent money, how they did without money. That was the idea running through all her conversation, although it was, of course, concerned with many uglier things than money.
Had they been men speaking Germaine would have been sufficiently filled with righteous indignation to have found words with which to rebuke, even to threaten them, but they were women, common women, and he felt tongue-tied, helpless.
And then, suddenly, there leapt into the conversation his own name, or rather that of his wife, the woman of whom he felt so exultantly, so selflessly proud. The allusion came in the form of a question, a question spoken in a shrill and odious Cockney accent.
"I should like to see that Mrs. Germaine. I wonder if she ever comes into the Park——"
"Not she! At any rate not on Sunday. Why she'd be mobbed!" snapped out the other.
"You don't say so! Do people run after her as much as that?"
"There's been nothing like it since Mrs. Jersey. I used to see people get up on chairs to see Mrs. Jersey go by. Not that I ever thought much of her figure—great, ugly, square shoulders. She started those square shoulders, and they've never really died out."
"Mrs. Germaine's quite another sort of beauty, the pocket Venus style, isn't she? I suppose you've had a lot to do with making her the rage," said the friend admiringly.
"I don't know about that—her kind of figure dresses itself. She's the sort that gets there anyhow. She's got that 'jennysayquoy' air, as the French put it, that makes folk turn round and stare. She gets her looks from her mother; I remember the mother—her name was Arabin—when I was with Cerise. They weren't London people—they was military. Mrs. Arabin had such pretty coaxing ways, same as the daughter has. Cerise used to let her have the things ever so much cheaper than she charged her other customers, but it paid her too."
Germaine breathed a little more easily. He knew now who this woman was. She was a certain Mrs. Bliss, Bella's dressmaker, in her way a famous old lady, whom Bella's set greatly preferred to the other dressmakers in vogue. It was Mrs. Bliss, so he remembered having heard, who had introduced some years ago the picturesque style of dressing with which his sister Fanny found such fault, and which remains loftily indifferent to the fashion.
Oliver recollected now where and when he had seen her; there had been some little trouble about an item in his wife's bill, and Bella had made him go with her to face the formidable Mrs. Bliss in the old-fashioned house in Sackville Street where the dressmaker wielded her powerful sceptre. That was before Bella had become a fashionable beauty, and Mrs. Bliss had been rather short with them both, unwilling to admit that she was wrong, although the figures proving her so stared her in the face.
And then Germaine remembered other occasions with which Mrs. Bliss's name, though not her personality, were associated. He had made out cheques to her, larger cheques than Bella could manage out of her allowance. But that was some time ago; his wife must now have given up dealing with her; and he felt glad, very glad, that this was so. A woman with such a tongue was a danger to society,—not that anyone need believe a word she said....
Suddenly the shrill Cockney voice asked yet another question concerning the beautiful Mrs. Germaine. It was couched in what the speaker would probably have described as perfectly ladylike and delicate language, but its purport was unmistakable, and Germaine made a restless movement; then he became almost rigidly still—a man cannot turn and strike a woman on the mouth.
"N-o-o, I don't think so." Mrs. Bliss spoke guardedly. "She's a lot of gentlemen buzzing around her, but that's only to be expected; and as far as I can hear there's not one that buzzes closer than another. To tell you the truth, Sophy, I'm puzzled about those Germaines. It's no business of mine, of course, but she spends three times as much as she did when I first began dressing her and she don't mind now what she does pay,—very different to what she used to do! It's only the best that's good enough for my lady now."
"Germaine's an army chap, isn't he?"
"He was—and a handsome fellow he is, too. He came into a good bit of money just after they got married, but that must be melting pretty quick. Why, she goes everywhere! Last season she really wore her clothes out. They"—she waved her hand comprehensively round a vague area comprising Marylebone and Mayfair—"scratched and fought with each other in order to get her."
"Then I suppose you don't bother about your money."
"Yes, I do," said Mrs. Bliss shortly. "I'm not that kind; I don't work for the King of Prussia, as my French tailor used to say."
There was a pause, and then in a rather different voice Mrs. Bliss went on, "Idoget my money from Mrs. Germaine, but lately,—well, I won't say lately, but for the last eighteen months or so,she's always paid me in notes, two, three, sometimes four hundred pounds at a time, always in five-pound notes."
She spoke in a low voice, and yet, to Oliver Germaine, it seemed as if she shouted the words aloud.
The young man got up, and, careless of the lateness of the hour, walked away without looking around towards the Marble Arch; so alone could he be sure that Mrs. Bliss would not see him, and perchance leap to the recollection of who he was.
The words the woman had said so quietly seemed to be reverberating with loud insistence in his ear: "She's always paid me in notes." "Two, three, sometimes four hundred pounds."
What exactly had Mrs. Bliss meant by this statement? What significance had she intended it to carry? There had been a touch of regret in the hard voice, a hesitation in the way she had conveyed the pregnant confidence, which made Oliver heartsick to remember.
But after a time, as Oliver Germaine walked quickly along, uncaring as to which way he was going, almost running in his desire to outstrip his own thoughts, there came a little lightening of his bewildered misery. It was possible, just possible, that Mrs. Bliss was really thinking of some other customer.
Notes? The idea was really absurd to anyone who knew Bella, as he, Oliver, thank God, knew his wife! Why, there was never any loose money in the house, both he and Bella were always running short of petty cash.
Then the young man remembered, with a sudden tightening of the heart, that this had not been the case lately. During the last few months, since they had moved into their new house, Bella had always had money—plenty of sixpences and shillings, half crowns and half sovereigns—at his disposal. Nay more, looking back, he realised that his wife no longer teased him, as she had once perpetually teased him, for supplements, large or small, to her allowance; he had to face the fact that of late Bella's allowance had borne a surprising resemblance to the widow's cruse; it had actually sufficed for all her wants.
But he had been unsuspecting, utterly unsuspecting, and even now he hardly knew what he did suspect.
The horrible things he had heard Mrs. Bliss say about other people acted and reacted on Germaine's imagination. If these things were true, then the world in which he and Bella lived was corrupt and rotten; and, as even Oliver Germaine knew by personal experience, pitch defiles. If Daphne Slade did the things Mrs. Bliss implied she did, Bella must know it,—know it and condone it. Bella was far too clever to be taken in, as he, Oliver, had been taken in, by Mrs. Slade's pretty pathetic manner, and appealing eyes. If Mrs. Slade took money from men, what an example, what a model——Germaine's mind refused to complete the thought.
Certain of Oliver's and Bella's old acquaintances—people whom they were too kind to drop, but of whom they couldn't see as much now as they had once done, in the days before Bella became a famous beauty—would sometimes hint darkly as to the wickedness of some of the people they knew. Even Fanny had told him bluntly that Bella had got into a very fast set. "Fast" was the word his sister had used, and it had diverted him.
But was it possible that these people, whom he had thought envious and silly—and that Fanny, his rather narrow-minded and old-fashioned sister,—had been right after all? Was it possible that like so many husbands of whom he had heard, for whom he had felt contempt and pity, he had—as regarded his own cherished wife—lived in a fool's paradise?
Germaine now remembered several things that he had known—known and thought forgotten—for they had been completely apart from his own life. He recalled the case of a man in his own regiment who had shot himself three days after his wife's death. It had been publicly given out that the poor fellow had been mad—distraught with grief; but there had been many to mutter that the truth was far other, and that the man had made a shameful discovery among his dead wife's papers....
Concerning any other woman than Bella, Germaine would have admitted, perhaps reluctantly,—but still, if asked the plain question, he would have admitted, that women are damned tricky creatures, and that—well, that you never can tell!
Again, out of the past, there came back to him, with horrid vividness, the memory of a brief episode which at the time had filled him with a kind of pity, even sympathy.
It was at a ball; he was quite a youngster, in fact it was the year after he had joined, and a woman sitting out with him in a conservatory had fallen into intimate talk, as people so often do amid unfamiliar surroundings. There came a moment when she said to him, with burning, unhappy eyes, "People think I'm a good woman, but I'm not." And she had hurried on to make the nature of her sinning quite clear; she had not passion for her excuse—only lack of means and love of luxury. He had been startled, staggered by the unasked-for confidence—and yet he had not thought much the worse of her; now, retrospectively, he judged her with terrible severity.
ButBella? The thought of Bella in such company was inconceivable; and yet, deep in Oliver Germaine's heart, there grew from the seed sown by Mrs. Bliss a upas tree which for the moment overshadowed everything. He was torn with anguished jealousy, which made him forget, excepting as affording a proof of what he feared, the sordid, horrible question of the money.
Germaine had already been jealous of Bella, jealous before their marriage, and jealous since, but that feeling had been nothing,nothingto that which now held him in its grip.
As a girl, Bella had been a flirt, and, as she had since confessed more than once, she had loved to make Oliver miserable. Then, for some time after their marriage he had been angered at the way she had welcomed and courted admiration. But he had never doubted her, never for a moment thought that her love was leaving him, still less that her flirtations held any really sinister intent. He now remembered how a man, a fool of a fellow, had once brought her a beautiful jewel by way of a Christmas gift; but it had annoyed her, and, without saying anything about it to Oliver at the time, she had actually made the man take back his present!
Was it conceivable that in three or four short years Bella could have entirely altered—have become to all intents and purposes, not only another woman, but a woman of a type,—as even he was well aware, a very common type,—he would not have cared to hear mentioned in her presence?
Germaine was now at the Marble Arch. After a moment's bewildered hesitation, he went up Oxford Street, and then took a turning which would ultimately lead him home; home where Bella must be impatiently awaiting him—home where their intimates had already doubtless gathered together for lunch.
And then, during his walk through the now deserted and sun-baked streets and byways of Mayfair, Oliver Germaine passed in slow review the men and the women who composed his own and Bella's intimate circle. They rose in blurred outline against the background of his memory, and gradually the women fell out, and only the men remained,—two men, for Henry Buck did not count.
Which of these two men who came about his house in the guise of close friends, had planned to steal, to buy, the wife on whose absolute purity and honour he would an hour ago have staked his life?
Germaine's fevered mind leapt on Bob Uvedale. What were Uvedale's relations, his real relations, with Bella? Oliver, so he now told himself sorely, was not quite a fool; he had known men who hid the deepest, tenderest—he would not say the most dishonourable—feelings, towards a married woman, under the skilful pretence of frank laughing flirtation.
Uvedale, when all was said and done, was an adventurer, living on his wits. He talked of his poverty, talked of it over-much, but he often made considerable sums of money; in fact twice, in moments of unwonted expansiveness, Uvedale had offered to put Germaine on to a "good thing," to share with him a tip which had been given him by one of his financial friends. Germaine now remembered, with a sick feeling of anger, how seriously annoyed Bella had been to find that her husband had refused to have anything to do with it; nay more, how she had taunted him afterwards when the "good thing" had turned out good after all. But that was long ago, when they had first known Uvedale.
They now knew Uvedale too well—at least Bella did. Oliver was an outdoor man; he hated crowds. He remembered how often Uvedale took his place as Bella's companion at those semi-public gatherings, charity fêtes, and so on, which apparently amused her, and where the presence of the beautiful Mrs. Germaine was always eagerly desired.
Germaine's mind next glanced with jealous anguished suspicion at another man who was constantly with Bella—Peter Joliffe.
There was a great, almost a ludicrous, contrast between Uvedale and Joliffe. Uvedale, so Germaine dimly realised even now, was a man with a wider, more generous, outlook on life than the other, capable of deeper depths, of higher heights.
Joliffe was well off; and, as the Germaines had been told very early in their acquaintance with him, he had the reputation of being "near." But Bella and Oliver had both agreed that this was not true. Only the other day Bella had spoken very warmly of Joliffe; when they had moved into their new house he had given them a Sheraton bureau, a very charming and certainly by no means a cheap piece of old furniture. Oliver had supposed it to be a delicate way of paying back some of their constant hospitality, for Joliffe was perpetually with Bella.
Time after time Germaine had come in and found Joliffe sitting with her; walking through the hall he had heard her peals of laughter at Joliffe's witticisms, the funny things he said with his serious face.
But after all jesters are men of like passions to their melancholy brethren; they can, and do, throw off the grinning mask. Bella had said, only yesterday, "There's more in Peter than you think, Oliver. Believe me, there is!" Bella always called Joliffe Peter,—she was more formal with Bob Uvedale.
Germaine now reminded himself that Joliffe did not like Uvedale, and that Uvedale did not like Joliffe. There seemed a deep, unspoken antagonism between the two men, who were yet so constantly meeting. Joliffe had gone so far as to say something—not exactly disagreeable, but condemnatory—of Uvedale's city connections, to Germaine. Joliffe was annoyed, distinctly annoyed at the way Bella went about with Uvedale, and by the fact that she often introduced him to people whose acquaintance she had herself made through Joliffe.
What had he, Oliver Germaine, been about, to allow his wife to become so intimate with two men, of whom he knew nothing? Yesterday he would have said Uvedale and Joliffe were his closest pals. But what did he really know of either of them—of their secret thoughts—their deep desires and ambitions—their shames and secret sins? Nothing—nothing. Bella's husband knew as little of Uvedale and Joliffe—in fact, till to-day, far less than they knew of him, for one or the other of these men was his enemy, and had betrayed, very basely, his hospitality.