Terry could talk of nothing on the way home but his marvellous luck.Hangthe money! He'd have paid twice as much, if need be. The next thing was to smarten the place: buy some more "historic" furniture to fill the gaps made by sales, send down a decorator to see what beds, etc., needed renovating, have an expert look at the drains and the central heating (long unused) which had been put in with German money, engage a staff of servants for indoors and out; get hold of two or three young peacocks whose tails hadn't moulted.
"If I don't care how much I spend, don't you think we can make an earthly paradise of the place in a week?" he appealed.
"We?" I echoed. "Why, I thought my part was played!"
His grieved eyes reproached me. What? After going so far, I was going to desert him in the midst of the woods? He begged me to stand by him till all was ready to receive the Princess. If I didn't, something was sure to go wrong.
Well, once a Brightener, always a Brightener, I suppose! And acting on this principle I yielded. I promised to stop for a week at Dawley St. Ann, a village within a mile of Dun Moat (there's a dear old inn there!), and superintend preparations for the beloved tenant. When she was safely installed, I would go home—or elsewhere, and Terry could take my rooms at the inn. Being her neighbour as well as landlord, he'd easily find excuses to see the Princess every day, and thus get his money's worth of Dun Moat.
All this was settled before we reached London; and the first thing Terry thought of on entering the flat (mine, not his!) was to ring up the Savoy. The answer came quickly; and I saw a light of rapture on his face. The Princess herself was at the telephone!
It was amazing what Terry and I accomplished in the next few days, I at Dawley St. Ann, close to Dun Moat, he flashing back and forth between there and London!
My incentive and reward in one consisted of the all but incredible change for the better in him. Terry's, was the hope of meeting the Adored Lady; for he had not met her yet. Her voice thrilled him through the telephone, saying that ofcourseshe "remembered Terry Burns," but it was her companion, Mrs. Dobell, who received him at the Savoy. She it was who carried messages from the still-ailing Princess Avalesco to him, and handed on to the Princess his vague explanations as to how he had acquired Dun Moat. But Terry had seen, in the two ladies' private sitting room at the hotel, an ivory miniature of the Princess, and its beauty had poured oil on the fire of his love. At what period in her career it had been painted he didn't know, not daring or caring to ask Mrs. Dobell; but one thing was sure—it showed her lovelier than of old.
Seeing the boy on the way to such a cure as twenty Sir Humphrey Hales could never have produced, I was happy while wrestling for his sake with the servant problem, placing brand-new "antique" furniture in half-empty rooms, and watching neglected lawns rolled to velvet. But not once during my daily pilgrimage to Dun Moat did I catch sight of Lord or Lady Scarlett or their old German servant. True to the bargain, they had officially ceased to exist; and my one tangible reminder of the family was a glimpse of a little boy who stared through a closed window of the end wing—the "suite of the garden court."
I'd been passing that way to criticize the work of the gardeners, and looked up to admire the twisted chimney, which rose practically at the junction of the oldest part of the house with the newest. Just for an instant, a small hatchet face peered at me, and vanished as if its owner had been snatched away by a strong hand; but I had time to say to myself, "Like father like son!" And I smiled in remembering that Jim Courtenaye had called the Scarlett's heir a "venomous little brute."
At last came the day when the Princess Avalesco, Mrs. Dobell, and a maid were to motor down and take possession of Dun Moat. Terry (much thanked through the telephone for supplying the place with servants, etcetera) was on the spot before them. He had dashed over to see me at Dawley St. Ann (where I was packing for my return to town), looking extremely handsome; and had excitedly offered to run back and tell me "all about her" before I had to take my train.
"I shall go with you to the station," he said. "You've been the most gorgeous brick to me! You've given me happiness and new life. And the one thing which could make to-day better than it is, would be your stopping on."
I merely smiled at this, for I'd pointed out that my continued presence would be misunderstood by the Princess Avalesco, to his disadvantage; and he reluctantly agreed. So when he had gone to meet his Wonder-of the-World I continued to pack.
Very likely he would forget such a trifle as the time for my train, I thought, and if he did turn up it would be at the last minute. I was surprised, therefore, when, after an hour, I saw him whirling up to the inn door in the one and only village taxi.
A moment later I was bidding him enter my sitting room. A question trembled on my lips, but the sight of his face choked it into a gasp.
Terry came in, and flung himself into a chair.
"Good heavens, what's happened?" I ventured.
He did not answer at first. He only stared. Then he found his voice. "I don't know how to tell you what's happened," he groaned. "You'll despise me. You'll want to kick me out of your room."
"I won't!" I spoke sharply, to bring him to himself. "Whatisit? Hasn't she come?"
"She has come.That'sit!"
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, my dear Pal, I—I don't love her any more."
If I hadn't been sitting in a chair I should have collapsed on to one—or the floor.
"You don'tloveher?" I faltered.
"No. And that's not all. It's perhaps not even the worst!"
"If you don't tell me at once, I shall scream."
"I hardly know how. I—oh, good lord!—I—I've fallen in love with someone else."
I must now make a confession as shameful as his. My mind jumped to the conclusion that Terry Burns was referring to me. I expected him to explain that, on seeing his ideal after these many years, he found that after all it was his faithful Pal he loved! I was conceited enough to think this quite natural, though regrettable, and my first impulse was to spare us both the pain of such an avowal.
"Good gracious!" I warded him off. "So hearts can really be caught in the rebound? But what I most want to know is, why have you unloved Princess Avalesco?"
"It's most horribly disloyal and beastly of me. If youmustknow, it's because she's lost her beauty, and has got fat. I wouldn't have believed that a few years could make such a difference. And she can't be thirty-five! But she's a mountain. And her hair looks jolly queer. I think it must have come out with some illness, and she's got on her head one of those things you call a combination."
"We don't! We call it a transformation," I corrected him in haste. "Oh, this is awful! Think of the fortune you've spent to offer Dun Moat to your lady-love for a few weeks, only to discover that sheisn'tyour lady-love! What a waste! I suppose now you'll go up to London——"
"No," said Terry, "I shall stay here. And—I can't feel that the money's wasted in taking Dun Moat. Just seeing such a face as I've seen is worth every sovereign."
"Face?" I echoed.
"Yes. I told you I'd fallen in love. You must have guessed it was with someone at Dun Moat, as I've been nowhere else."
I hadn't guessed that. But I wasn't going to let him know that my guesses had come home to roost! "It can't be Mrs. Dobell," I said, "because you've seen her before, and she's old. Has the Princess got a beautiful Cinderella for a maid, and——"
"No—no!" Terry protested. "I almost wish it were like that. It would be humiliating, but simple. The thing that's happened—this lightning stroke—is far from simple. I may have gone mad. Or, I may have fallen in love with a ghost."
Relieved of my first suspicion, I pressed him to tell the story in as few words as possible.
It seemed that Terry had arrived at Dun Moat before the Princess; and to pass the time he began strolling about the gardens. His walk took him all round the rambling old house, and something made him glance suddenly up at one of the windows. There was no sound; yet it was as if a voice had called. And at the window stood a girl.
She was looking down at him. And though the window was high and overhung with ivy, Terry's eyes met hers. It was, he repeated, "a lightning stroke!"
"She was rather like what Margaret Revell used to be years ago, when I was a boy and fell in love with her," Terry went on. "I mean, she was that type. And though she looked even lovelier than Margaret in those days—lotslovelier, and younger, too—I thought it must be the Princess. You see, there didn't seem to be any one else it could be. And at that distance, behind window glass, and after all these years, how could I be sure? I said to myself, 'So the auto must have come and I've missed hearing it. She's making her tour of the house without me!' I couldn't stand that, so I sprinted for the door. And I was just in time to meet the motor drawing up in front of it. Great Heligoland! The shock I got when—at that moment of all others, my eyes dazzled with a dream—I saw the real Princess! Somehow I blundered through the meeting with her, and didn't utterly disgrace myself. But I made an excuse about taking a friend to a train, and bolted as soon as I could. I didn't come straight here. I went back to the window where I'd seen the face—the vision—the ghost—whatever it was. No one was there. A curtain was pulled across. And I remembered then that I'd always seen it covered. Say, Princess, do you think I'm going mad—just when I hoped I was cured? Was it the spirit of Margaret Revell's lost youth I saw, or—or——"
"At which window was the—er—Being?" I cut in sharply.
"It was close under the twisted chimney."
"Ah! In the wing where the Scarletts are: the suite of the garden court!"
"Yes. I forgot when I thought it must be Margaret, that the window was in the Scarletts' wing. Of course, Margaret couldn't have gone there. Princess, you're afraid to tell me, but youdothink I'm off my head!"
"I don't," I assured him. "Just what I think I hardly know myself. But I shouldn't wonder if you'd stumbled on to the key of the mystery."
"What mystery?"
"The mystery of Dun Moat; the mystery of the Scarletts; why they wouldn't let or sell the place until I happened to think of bribing them with the suggestion that they should stay on. Captain Burns, it wasn't a ghost you saw, never fear! It was a real live person—the incarnate reason why at all costs the Scarletts must stay at Dun Moat."
Terry blushed with excitement. "Oh, if I could believe you, I should be almost happy! If that girl—that heavenly girl!—exists at Dun Moat, and I'm the tenant, I shall meet her. I——"
He went on rhapsodizing until the look in my eyes pulled him up short! "What is it?" he asked. "Don't you approve of my wanting to meet her? Don't you——"
"I approve with all my heart," I said. "But I'm wondering—wondering! Why are the Scarletts hiding a girl? Has she done something that makes it wise to keep her out of sight? Or is ittheywho don't wish her to be seen, for reasons of their own?"
"Madam, the porter is asking if your luggage is ready to go down," announced a maid.
"Luggage!" Terry and I stared at each other. I had forgotten that I was going to London.
"But you can't leave me now!" he implored.
"I've changed my mind," I explained to the maid. "I shall take another train!"
It ended in my deciding to stop on at the inn, while Terry Burns went into lodgings. I felt that he was right. Ihadto stand by!
It wasn't only the romance of Terry falling out of love with his Princess, and in love with a face, which held me. There was more in the affair than that. The impression I had received when the old servant first opened the door of Dun Moat came back to me sharply—and indeed it had never gone—an impression that there was somethingwrongin the house.
I didn't for a moment believe that Terry had "seen a ghost," or had an optical illusion. He'd distinctly beheld a girl at the window—evidently the same window from which the Scarlett boy had looked at me. Though he had seen her for a moment only, by questioning I got quite an accurate description of her appearance: large dark eyes in a delicate oval face; full red lips, the upper one very short; a cleft chin; a slender little aquiline nose, and auburn hair parted Madonna fashion on a broad forehead. She had worn a black dress, Terry thought, cut rather low at the throat. In order to look out, she had held back the gray curtain; and recalling the picture she made, it seemed to him that she had a frightened air. His eyes had met hers, and she had bent forward, as if she wished to speak. He had paused, but as he did so the girl started, and drew hastily back. It was then that Terry ran toward the door, thinking a rejuvenated, rebeautified Margaret Revell was making a tour of exploration without him.
Now that he was out of love with the Princess Avalesco, there was no longer a pressing reason to keep me in the background. For all he cared, she might misunderstand the situation as much as she confoundedly pleased! It was decided, therefore, that I should promptly call. I would be nice to her, and try to get myself invited often to Dun Moat. I would wander in the garden, where I must be seen by the Scarletts; and as their presence in the "suite of the garden court" was no secret from me, it seemed that there would be no indiscretion in my visiting Lady Scarlett. Once in that wing, it would go hard if I didn't get a peep at all its occupants!
I knew that the Scarletts kept up communication with the outer world, so far as obtaining food was concerned, through the old German woman, whose name was Hedwig Kramm. She lived in the main part of the house, and was ostensibly in the service of the tenant, but most of her time was spent in looking after her master and mistress. I thought that she might be handy as a messenger.
I went next day to Dun Moat, Terry having explained me as a friend who'd helped get the house ready for guests, and thus deserved gratitude from them. If I had inwardly reproached him for fickleness when he confessed hisvolte face, I exonerated him at sight of his old love. On principle, regard for a woman shouldn't change with her looks. But a man's affection can't spread to the square inch!
Not that the Princess Avalesco's inchesweresquare. They were, on the contrary, quite, quite round. But there were so terribly many of them, mostly in the wrong place! And what was left of her beauty was concentrated in a small island of features at the centre of a large sea of face; one of those faces that ought to wearstays! Luckily she needed no pity from me. She didn't know she was a tragic figure—if you could call her a figure! And she didn't miss Terry's love, because she loved herself overwhelmingly.
I succeeded in my object. She took a fancy to me as (so to speak) a fellow princess. I sauntered through garden paths, hearing about all the men who wanted to marry her, and was able to get a good look atthewindow. There was, however, nothing to see there. An irritating gray curtain covered it like a shut eyelid.
"Captain Burns has put some sort of old retainers into that wing it seems," said Princess Avalesco, seeing me glance up. "He has a right to do so, of course, as I'm paying a ridiculously low rent for this wonderful house, and I've more rooms anyhow than I know what to do with. He tells me the wing is comparatively modern, and not interesting, so I don't mind."
I rejoiced that she was resigned! I'm afraid, ifI'dbeen the tenant of Dun Moat, I should have felt about that "suite of the garden court" as Fatima felt about Bluebeard's little locked room. In fact, Ididfeel so; and though I was able to say "Yes" and "No" and "Oh, really?" at the right places, I was thinking every moment how to find out what that dropped curtain hid.
At first, I had planned to send Lady Scarlett a message by Kramm; but I reflected that a refusal to receive visitors would raise a barrier difficult to pass except by force. And force, unless we could be sure of an affair for the police, was out of the question.
"L'audace! Toujours l'audace!" was the maxim which rang through my head; and before I had been long with the Princess Avalesco that day I'd resolved to try its effect.
My hostess and her companion had arranged to motor to Dawlish directly after tea. They invited me to go with them, or if I didn't care to do that, they offered to put off the excursion, rather than my visit should be cut short. I begged them to go, however, asking permission to remain in their absence to chat with the housekeeper, and learn whether various things ordered at Captain Burns' request had arrived.
With this excuse I got rid of the ladies, and as the new servants had been engaged by me, I waspersona gratain the house. Five minutes after the big car had spun away, I was hurrying through a long corridor that led to the end wing. As it had been built for bachelors, there was only one means of direct communication with the house. This was on the ground floor, and all I knew of it by sight was a door covered with red baize. I judged that this door would be locked, and that Kramm would have a key. If I could make myself heard on the other side, I hoped that the Scarletts would think Kramm had mislaid her key, and would come to let her in.
I was right. The red door was provided with a modern Yale lock. This looked so new that I fancied it had been lately supplied; and, if so, the Scarletts—not Terry—had provided it! Now, a surface of baize is difficult to pound upon with any hope of being heard at a distance. I resorted to tapping the silver ball handle of my sunshade on the door frame; and this I did again and again without producing the effect I wanted.
The sole result was a horrid noise which I feared might attract the attention of some servant. With each rap I threw a glance over my shoulder. Luckily, however, the long passage with its stone floor, its row of small, deep windows, and its dark figures in armour, was far from any part of the house where servants came and went.
At last I heard a sound behind the baize. It was another door opening, and a child's voice squeaked, "Who's there? Is that you, Krammie?"
For an instant I was taken aback—but only for an instant. "No," I confessed in honeyed tones, "it isn't Krammie; but its someone with something nice for you. Can't you open the door?"
A latch turned, and a cautious crack revealed one foxy eye and half a freckled nose. "Oh, it'syou, is it?" was the greeting. "I saw you in the garden."
"And I saw you at the window," said I. "That's why I've brought you a present. I like boys."
"Whathave you brought?" was the canny question.
Ah, whathadI brought? I must make up my mind quickly, for to cement a friendship with this boy might be important. "A wrist-watch," I said, deciding on a sacrifice. "A ripping watch, with radium figures you can see in the dark. It's on a jolly gray suède strap. I'll give it to you now—that is, if you'd like it.'
"Ye—es, I'd like it," said little Fox-face. "But my mother and father don't want any one except Kramm to come in here. I'd get a whopping if I let you in."
The door was wider open now. I could easily have pushed past the child; but I was developing a plan more promising.
"Are your parents at home?" I primly asked.
"Yes. They're home, all right. They're never anywhere else, these days! But they're in the garden court. I was going up to my room when I heard the row at this door. I thought it must be Krammie."
"Look here," I said, "would your mother mind if you came out with me? I know her, so I don't see why she should object. I'd give you the watch, and a tophole tip, too. I think boys like tips! What do you say?"
"I'll come for a bit," he decided. "Mother'd be in a wax if she knew, and so'd Father! But what I was going upstairs for when I heard you was a punishment. I was sent to my room. Nobody'll look for me till food time, and then 'twill only be Kramm.She'sall right, Krammie is! She won't give me away. She'll let me in again with her key, and they won't know I've been out. But we've got to find her."
"I'll find her," I promised. "Come along!"
He came, sneaking out like the little fox he was. I caught a glimpse of two steps leading down to a stone vestibule, and beyond that a heavy wooden door which the boy had shut behind him before beginning to parley with me. Gently as I could, I closed the baize door, which locked itself automatically; and the child being safely barred out from his own quarters, I broke it to him that we must delay seeing Kramm. She'd be sure to fuss, and want to bundle him back! We'd better have our fun first. There was time.
Fox-face agreed, though with reluctance, which showed his fear of that "whopping." But he brightened when I proposed foraging in the big hall for some cakes left from tea. To my joy they were still on the table, and, seizing a plate of chocolate éclairs, I rejoined the boy on the terrace. We sat on a cushioned stone seat, and Fox-face (who said that his name was "the same as his father's, Bertie") began industriously to stuff. He did not, however, forget the watch or the tip. With his mouth full he demanded both, and got them. In his delight, he warmed to something more than fox, and I snatched this auspicious moment. Delicately, as if walking on eggs (at sixpence each), I questioned him. How did he like being mewed up in one wing of his own home? What did he do to amuse himself? Wasn't it dull with no one to play with?
"Well, of course, there's Cecil," he said, munching. "I liked her at first. She's pretty, about as pretty as you are, or maybe prettier. And she brought me presents, just like you have. But she's in bed most of the time now, so she's no fun any more. I sit with her sometimes, to see she keeps still, and doesn't go to the window. She did go one day, when I went out for a minute, because I thought she was asleep. But Mother came and caught her at it."
"Oh, yes, Cecil!" I echoed. "That pretty girl with dark eyes, and hair the colour of chestnuts. What relation is she to you?"
"I s'pose she's my cousin," said Bertie. "That's what she told me the day she came—when she brought the presents. But Mother says she's noproperrelation. How doyouknow about her hair and eyes? You didn't see her, did you? Mother'll have a fit if you did! She and Father don't want any one to see Cecil. The minute she told them all about herself they made her hide."
I was thinking hard. "Cecil" was the girl's name! That Lord Scarlett who died in Australia had been Cecil. Grandmother had talked of him, and said he was the "only decent one of the lot, though a ne'er-do-weel." Now, the likeness of the name, and the boy's babblings, made me suspect the plot of an old-fashioned melodrama.
"Oh, I guessed about her hair and eyes, because you said she was so pretty; and dark eyes and auburn hair are the prettiest of all," I assured him gaily. "I'm great at guessing things; I can guess like magic! Now, I guess the presents she brought you were from Australia."
"So they were!" laughed Bertie. "That's what she said. And she told me stories about things out there, before she got so weak."
"Poor Cecil! What's the matter with her?" I ventured.
"I don't know," mumbled the boy, interested in an éclair. "She cries a lot. Mother says she's in a decline."
"Oughtn't she to see a doctor?" I wondered.
"Mother thinks a doctor'd be no good. Besides, I don't 'spect she'd let one see Cecil, anyhow. I told you she won't allow any one in."
"Why does your mother give Cecil a room whose window looks over the moat, if it's so important she should hide?" I persisted.
"All the rooms in that wing where we live are like that," Bertie explained. "They've windows on the little court inside, and windows outside, on the moat. But the outside window in Cecil's room is nailed shut now, so she couldn't open it if she tried. And those little old panes set in lead are thick asthick! I don't believe you could smash one unless you had a hammer. Father says you couldn't. I mean, he saysCecilcouldn't. And since the day Mother scolded Cecil for looking out, the curtain's nailed down. It doesn't matter, though. Plenty of light comes from the garden side."
"Where was Cecil before you went to live in the wing?" I asked. "Was she in the house?"
"Oh, she'd been in that wing for weeks before Father and I moved in," said the boy. "Mother slept there at night. And Cecil could look out as much as she liked, because there was no one about except us, and Krammie. Krammie doesn't count! She's the same as the family, because she's so old—she nursed Mother when Mother was a baby. Seems funny shecouldhave been a baby, doesn't it? But Krammie loves her better than any one, except me. She never splits on me to them if I do anything. But now I've eaten all the cakes, so we'd better go and find Krammie. If we don't, she may go into the wing first. There'd be thedevilto pay then!"
It seemed to me that there was the devil to pay already—a devil in woman's form—unless my imagination had made a fool of me. I shivered with disgust at the thought of those two witches—the middle-aged one and the hag. I hope I didn't take their wickedness for granted because they were bothGermans, though we have got into that habit in the last five years, with all we've gone through, and with the villains who used to be Russian in novels now being German!
If I did hand over my prize to the elder witch, the boy was lost to me. I should never get a second chance to catch my fox with cake! And even were I sure that he wouldn't blab, or that Kramm wouldn't, the secret of our meeting was certain to leak out. In that case, the red baize door would never again open to my knock. So what was I to do?
"Come along," urged the boy. Having got all he could get out of me, he began to sulk. "I don't want to stay with you any more."
"Wait a minute," I pleaded. "I'm thinking of something—something to do foryou."
Though I wasn't a German, the most diabolical plot had just jumped into my head!
It was a case of now or never!
"Look here, Bertie," I said, "what I've been thinking of is this: you'd better hide, and let me go alone to find Krammie.Supposeyour mother has looked in your room! She'll know from Kramm that the ladies are motoring, so she may come out to speak with Kramm and ask for you. Squeeze into this clump of lilac bushes at the end of the terrace! Trust me to make everything right, and be back soon."
The picture of his mother on the warpath transformed Bertie to a jelly. He was in the lilac bushes almost before I'd finished; and I hurried off, ostensibly to seek Kramm. I did not, however, seek far, or in any direction where she was likely to be. Presently I came back and in my turn plunged into the bushes. I broke the news that I hadn't seen Kramm. It looked as if the worst had happened. But Bertie must buck up. I'd thought of a splendid plan! "How would you like to stay with me," I wheedled, "until your mother is ready to crawl to get you back, cry and sob, and swear not to punish you?"
The boy looked doubtful. "I've heard my motherswear," he said, "but never cry or sob. Do you think she would?"
"I'm sure," I urged. "And you'll have the time of your life with me! All the money you want for toys and chocolates. And you needn't go to bed till you choose."
"What kind of toys?" he bargained. "Tanks and motor cars that go?"
"Rather! And marching soldiers, and a gramophone."
"Righto, I'll come! And I don't care a darn if I never see Mother or Father again!" decided the cherub.
I would have given as much for a taxi as Richard the Third for a horse; but I'd walked from the village, and must return in the same way. We started at once, hand in hand, stepping out as Bertie Scarlett the second had never, perhaps, stepped before. It was only a mile to Dawley St. Ann, and in twenty minutes I had smuggled my treasure into the inn by a little-used side door. This led straight to my rooms, and I whisked the boy in without being seen. So far, so good. But what to do with him next was the question!
I saw that, in such an emergency, Terry Burns would hinder more than help. He was cured of the listlessness, the melancholia, which had been the aftermath of shell shock; but he was rather like a male Sleeping Beauty just roused from a hundred years' nap—full of reawakened fire and vigour, though not yet knowing what use to make of his brand-new energy. It was my job to advisehim, not his to counsel me! And if I flung at his head my version of the "Cecil" story, his one impulse would be to batter down the sported oak of the garden court suite.
He and I had agreed, in calm moments, that it would be vain and worse than vain to appeal to the police. But calm moments were ended, especially for Terry.Hemight think that the police would act on the story we could now patch together.Ididn't think so, or I wouldn't have stolen the heir of all the Scarletts.
Well, Ihadstolen him. Here he was in my small sitting room, stuffing chocolates bestowed on me by Terry. On top of uncounted cakes they would probably make himsick; and I couldn't send for a doctor without endangering the plot.
No! the child must be disposed of, and there wasn't a minute to waste. Terry's lodgings were as unsuited for a hiding-place as my rooms at the inn. Both of us were likely to be suspected when Bertie was missed. I didn't much care for myself, but I did care for Terry, because my business was to keep him out of trouble, not to get him into it, even for his love's sake.
Suddenly, as I concentrated on little Fox-face, and how to camouflage him for my purpose, Jim Courtenaye's description of the child drifted into my head.
Jim!The thought of Jim just then was like picking up a pearl on the way to the poor-house!
DearJim! I hadn't been sure what my feeling for him was, but at this minute I adored him. I adored him because he was a wild-western devil capable of lassoing enemies as he would cows. I adored him because the fire of his nature blazed out in his red hair and his black eyes. Jim was an anachronism from some barbaric century of Courtenayes. Jim was a precious heirloom. He had called the Scarlett boy a "venomous little brute!" I could hear again his voice through the telephone "I'd do more than that for you."
Idiot that I was, in that I'drung him off! And I hadn't made a sign of life since, though he was sure to have heard that I was at Dawley St. Ann, within forty miles of the Abbey and Courtenaye Coombe.
I could have torn my hair, only it's too pretty to waste. Instead, I ran into the next room, pulled the bell-rope and demanded the village taxi immediately, if not sooner. Then I flew back to Bertie and made him up for a new part.
This was done—to his mingled amusement and disgust—by means of a tight-fitting, veiled motor-hood of my own and a scarlet cape, short for a grown-up girl, but long for a small boy. This produced a fair imitation of what the police would call "a female child," should they catch sight of my companion. But as it happened, they did not; nor did any one else at Dawley St. Ann, so far as I was aware. By my instructions the taxi drew up at the side door, and while Timmins, the chauffeur, was starting the engine (he'd stopped it, as I kept him waiting), I rushed Bertie into the car. Once in, I squashed him down on the floor, seated tailor fashion, with a perfectly good, perfectly new box of burnt almonds on his lap.
"Drive as fast as you dare without being held up," I ordered; and Timmins, lately demobbed from the Tank Corps, obeyed with violence. The distance was forty miles; the hour of starting, six; and at seven-thirty we were spinning up the long avenue at Courtenaye Abbey; good going for Devonshire hills!
I took the chance that Jim might be at the Abbey rather than at Courtenaye Coombe, where he lodged. The way was shorter and—there were as many hiding-places in the Abbey as at Dun Moat. Luck was with me! It had been one of the days when Jim opened the Abbey to tourists, and he was late because he'd gone the rounds with the guardian. His small car, which he drove himself, stood before the door, and from that door he flew like a Jack-in-the-box as we dashed up.
"Elizabeth! I mean Princess!" he exclaimed.
"Call meanything!" I whispered, recklessly, bending out of the car as we shook hands. "Mum's the word! But look what I've brought; something I want you tostorefor me."
A jerk of my head introduced him to a red-cloaked, gray-veiled child asleep on the taxi floor.
Most men would have shown some sign of surprise or other emotion. But Jim Courtenaye'ssang-froidis a tribute to the cinema life he must have led even before he burst into the war. Whether he thought that the object in red was my own offspring, concealed from the world till now, I don't know and probably never shall. All I do know is that, judging from his expression, it might have been a borrowed shoulder of veal.
Deftly he scooped Bertie up without rousing him, and had borne the bundle gently through the open door before it occurred to Timmins to turn his head. "Hurray!" thought I. "Not a soul has seen the little wretch between Dun Moat and here!"
I jumped out of the car and followed Jim into the house, which I'd never entered since it had been let to him. He had not paused in the great hall, but was carrying his burden toward a small room which Grandmother had used for receiving tenants, and such bothersome business. I flashed in after him, and realized that Jim had fitted it up as a private sanctum.
Somehow I didn't like him to go on fancying quaint things about my character, and by the time he'd deposited Bertie on a huge sofa like a young bed, I had plunged into my story.
I told him all from beginning to end; and when I'd reached the latter, to my surprise Jim jumped up and shook my hands. "Are you congratulating me?" I asked.
"No. It's because I'm so pleased I don't need to!"
"You mean?"
"Well, let's put it that I'm glad Burns may have to be congratulated some day on being engaged to the Baroness Scarlett, instead of to—the Princess Miramare."
So, hehadknown of my activities, and had misunderstood my interest in Terry! Brighteners alas! are always being misunderstood.
"I'd forgotten," I said, primly, "that thewomenof the Scarlett family inherit the title if there's no son. That would account for alot!... And so you don't think my theory of what's going on at Dun Moat is too melodramatic?"
"My experience is," said Jim, "that nothing is ever quite so melodramatic as real life. I believe this Cecil girl must be a legitimate daughter of the chap who died in Australia. She must have proofs, and they're probably where the Scarlett family can't lay hands on them, otherwise she'd be under the daisies before this. That Defarge type you talk about doesn't stop at trifles, especially if it's made in Germany. And we both know Scarlett's reputation. I needn't call him 'Lord Scarlett' any more! But what beats me is this: why did the fly walk into the spider-web? If the girl had common sense she must have seen she wouldn't be a welcome visitor, coming to turn her uncle out of home and title for himself and son. Yet you say she brought presents for the kid."
"I wonder," I thought aloud, "if she could have meant to suggest some friendly compromise? Maybe she'd heard a lot from her father about the marvellous old place. Grandmother said, I remember, that Cecil Scarlett was so poor he lived in Australia like a labourer, though his father died here, while he was there, and he inherited the title. Think what the description of Dun Moat would be like to a girl brought up in the bush! And maybe her mother was of the lower classes, as no one knew about the marriage. What if the daughter came into money from sheep or mines, or something, and meant to propose living at Dun Moat with her uncle's family? I canseeher, arrivingen surprise, full of enthusiasm and loving-kindness, which wouldn't 'cut ice' with Madame Defarge!"
"Not much!" agreed Jim, grimly. "She'dcalmly begin knitting the shroud!"
So we talked on, thrashing out one theory after another, but sure in any case that therewasa prisoner at Dun Moat. Jim made me quite proud by applauding my plot, and didn't need to be asked before offering to help carry it out. Indeed, as my "sole living relative" (he put it that way), he would now take the whole responsibility upon himself. The police were not to be called in except as a last resort: and that night or next day, according to the turn of the game, the trump card I'd pulled out of the pack should be played for all it was worth!
Did you ever see a wily gray rat caught in a trap? Or, still more thrilling, apairof wily gray rats?
This is what I saw that same night when I'd motored back from Courtenaye Abbey to Dawley St. Ann.
But let me begin with what happened first.
Jim wished to go with me, to be on hand in case of trouble. But the reason why I'd hoped to find him at the Abbey was because we have a secret room there which everyone knows (including tourists at a shilling a head), and at least one more of which no outsiders have been told. The latter might come in handy, and I begged Jim to "stand by," pending developments.
I'd asked Terry to dine and had forgotten the invitation; consequently he was at the inn in a worried state when I returned. He feared there had been an accident, and had not known where to seek for my remains. But in my private parlour over a hasty meal (I was starving!) I told him the tale as I had told it to Jim.
Of course he behaved just as I'd expected—leaped to his feet and proposed breaking into the wing of the garden court.
"They may kill her to-night!" he raged. "They'll be capable of anything when they find the boy gone."
I'd hardly begun to point out that the girl had never been in less danger, when someone tapped at the door. We both jumped at the sound, but it was only a maid of the inn. She announced that a servant from Dun Moat was asking for me, on business of importance.
Terry and I threw each other a look as I said, "Give Captain Burns time to go; then bring the person here."
Terry went at my command, but not far; he was ordered to the public parlour—to toy with Books of Beauty. Of course it was old Hedwig Kramm who had come.
Her eyes darted hawk glances round the room, seeming to penetrate the chintz valances on chairs and sofa! She announced that the son of Lord Scarlett was lost. Search was being made. She had called to learn if I had seen him.
"Why do you think ofme?" I inquired arrogantly.
The boy had been noticed peeping out of the window when I walked in the garden. He had said that I was "a pretty lady," and that he wished he were down there with me. He would get me to take him in my motor, if I had one.
I shrugged my shoulders. "I can't tell you where he is," I said, "and even if I could, why should I? Let Lord and Lady Scarlett call, if they wish to catechise me."
"They cannot," objected the old woman. "Her ladyship is prostrated with grief. His lordship is with her."
"As they please," I returned. "I have nothing more to say—to you."
The creature was driven to bay. She loved the "venomous little brute!" "Would you have something more to say if they did come?" she faltered. "Something about the child?"
"I might," I drawled, "rack my memory for the time when I saw him last."
"Youdoknow where he is!" she squealed.
"I'm afraid," I said, "that I must ask you to leave my room."
She bounced out as if she'd been shot from an air gun!
It was ten o'clock, but light enough for me to see her scuttling along the road as I peered through the window. When she had scuttled far enough, I called to Terry.
"The Scarletts are coming!" I sang to the tune of "The Campbells." "Whether it's maternal instinct or a guilty conscience orwhat, Madame Defarge has guessed that I've got the child. She'll be doubly sure when Kramm reports my gay quips and quirks. To get here by the shortest and quietest way, the Scarletts must pass your lodgings. The instant you see them, take Jones and race to Dun Moat. When you reach there you'll know what to do. But in case they hide the girl as a Roland for my Oliver, I'm going to play the most beautiful game of bluff you ever saw."
"I wish Icouldsee it!" said Terry.
"But you'd rather see Cecil! You'd better start now. It's on the cards that the Scarletts came part way with Kramm to wait for her news."
Whether they had done this or not, I don't know. But the effect on Terry of the suggestion was good. And certainly the pair did arrive almost before it seemed that Kramm's short legs could have carried her to Dun Moat.
They gloomed into my sitting room like a pair of funeral mutes.
"My servant tells me you have seen my son," the woman I had known as Lady Scarlett began.
"She has imagination!" I smiled.
"You mean to say you havenotseen him?" blustered Fox-face Père.
"I say neither that I have nor that I haven't," I replied. "The little I know about the child inclines me to believe he wasn't too happy at home, so why——"
"Oh, youadmitknowing something!" The woman caught me up like a dropped stitch in her knitting. "I believe you've got the child here. We can have you arrested for kidnapping. The police——"
I laughed. "Have the police everseenthe little lamb? If they have, they might doubt the force of his attraction on a woman of my type. And you have noproof. But I'll let the local police look under my bed and into my wardrobes, if you'll let them search the suite you occupy at Dun Moat on proofIcan produce."
"What are you hinting at?" snapped the late Lord Scarlett. "Do you intimate that we've hidden our own child at home and come to you with some blackmailing scheme——"
"No," I stopped him. "I don't think you're in a position to try a blackmail 'stunt.' My 'hints,' as you call them, concerned therealLady Scarlett; the legitimate daughter of your elder brother Cecil, and his namesake."
As I flung this bomb I sprang up and stood conspicuously close to the old-fashioned bell rope.
The man and woman sprang up also. The former had turned yellowish green, the latter brick-red. They looked like badly lit stage demons.
"Sothat'sit!" spluttered the German wine merchant's daughter, when she could speak.
"That's it," I echoed. "Now, do you still want to call the police and charge me with kidnapping? You can search my rooms yourselves if you like. You'll find nothing.Can you say the same of your own?"
"Yes!" Scarlett jerked the word out. "We can and do say the same. Do you think we're fools enough to leave the place alone with only Kramm on guard, if we had someone concealed there?"
"Ah, the cap fits!" I cried. "I didn't accuse you. As you said, I merely 'hinted.'"
I scored a point, to judge by their looks. But they had scored against me also. I realized that my guess had not been wrong. There was a secret hiding-place to which the garden court suite had access. That was one reason why the Scarletts had chosen the suite. By this time Terry Burns was there, with Kramm laughing in her sleeve while pretending to be outraged at his intrusion. If onlyIwere on the spot instead of Terry, I might have a sporting chance to ferret out the secret, for I—so to speak—had been reared in an atmosphere of "hidie-holes" for priests, cavaliers, and kings, of whom several in times of terror had found asylum at our old Abbey. But Terry Burns was an American. It wasn't in his blood to detect secret springs and locks!
I ceased to depend on what Terry might do, and "fell back upon myself."
"You talk like a madwoman!" sneered Madame Defarge. But her hands trembled. She must have missed her knitting!
"Mine is inspired madness," said I. And then I did feel an inspiration coming—as one feels a sneeze in church. "Of course," I went on, "if you've hidden the poor drugged girl in that cubby-hole under the twisted chimney——"
The woman would have sprung at me if Scarlett had not grabbed her arm. My hand was on the tassel of the bell rope; and joy was in my heart, for at last I'd grabbed their best trump. If Bertie The Second was the Ace, the twisted chimney had supplied its Jack!
"Keep your head, Hilda," Scarlett warned his wife. "There's a vile plot against us. This—er—lady and her American partner have tricked us into letting Dun Moat, with the object of blackmail. We must be careful——"
"No," I corrected him, "you must befrank. So will I. We knew nothing of your secret when we came to Dun Moat. We got on the track by accident. As a matter of fact, Captain Burns saw the real Lady Scarlett at the window, and she would have called to him for help if she could. No doubt by that time she'd realized that you were slowly doing her to death——"
"What a devilish accusation!" Scarlett boomed. "Since you know so much, in self-defence I'll tell you the true history of this girl. Wehavetaken my brother's daughter into the house. We have given her shelter. She isnotlegitimate. My brother was married in England before going to Australia, and his wife—an actress—still lives. Therefore, to make known Cecil's parentage would be to accuse her father of bigamy and soil the name. Hearing the truth about him turned her brain. She fell into a kind of fit and was very ill, raving in delirium for days on end. My wife was nursing her in the garden court rooms when you came with Burns and begged us to let the house. My poverty tempted me to consent. For the honour of my family I wished to hide the girl! And frankly (you ask for frankness!), had she died despite my wife's care, I should have tried to give the body—private burial. Now, you've heard the whole unvarnished tale."
"Doubtless I've heard the tale told to that poor child," I said. "At last I understand how you persuaded her to hide like a criminal while you two thoroughly cooked up your plot against her. But the taleisn'tunvarnished! It's all varnished and nothing else. I'm not my grandmother's grand-daughter for nothing! Whatshedidn't know and remember about the 'noble families of England'—especially in her own country—wasn't worth knowing! I inherit some of her stories and all of her memory. The last Lord Scarlett, your elder brother, went to Australia because that actress he was madly in love with had a husband who popped up and made himself disagreeable. Oh, I can proveeverythingagainst you! And I know where the true Lady Scarlett is at this minute. You can provenothingagainst me. You don't know where your son is, and you won't know till you hand that poor child from Australia over to Captain Burns and me. If you do that, and she recovers from your wife's 'nursing,' I can promise for all concerned that bygones shall be bygones, and your boy shall be returned to you. I dare say that's 'compounding a felony' or something. But I'll go as far as that. What's your answer?"
The two glared into one another's eyes. I thought each said to the other, "This wasyouridea. It's all your fault. Itoldyou how it would end!" But wise pots don't waste time in calling kettles black. They saved their soot-throwing for me.
"You are indeed a true descendant of old Elizabeth Courtenaye," rasped the man. "You're even more dangerous and unscrupulous than your grandmother! My wife and I are innocent. But you and your American are in a position to turn appearances against us. Besides, you have our son in your power; and rather than the police should be called into this affair byeitherside, my brother's daughter—ill as she is—shall be handed over to you when Bertie is returned to us."
"That won't do," I objected. "Bertie is at a distance. I can't communicate with—his guardian—till the post office opens to-morrow. On condition that Lady Scarlett is releasedto-night, however, andonlyon that condition, I will guarantee that the boy shall be with you by ten-thirty A. M. Meanwhile, you can be packing to clear out of Dun Moat, as I hardly think you'll care to claim your niece's hospitality longer, in the circumstances."
"We have no money!" the woman choked.
"You've forgotten what you took from Lady Scarlett. And six weeks' advance of rent paid you by Captain Burns: twelve hundred pounds. He'll forget, too, if you offer the right inducement. You could have had more from him, if you hadn't insisted on the clause leaving you free to turn your tenant out at a fortnight's notice after the first month. I understandnowwhy you wanted it. If the girl had signed her name to a document you'd prepared, leaving her money to you—shares in some Australian mine, perhaps—it would have been convenient to you for her to die. And then——"
"Why waste time in accusations?" quailed Scarlett. "Wewon't waste it defending ourselves! If you're so anxious to get hold of the girl, come home with us and we'll turn over all responsibility to you."
"Very well," I said, and pulled the bell.
The woman started. "What are you doing that for?" she jerked.
"I wish to order the taxi to take us to Dun Moat," I explained. "I confess I'm not so fond of your society that I'd care to walk a mile with you at night along a lonely road. I'm not a coward, I hope. But you'd be two against one. And you might hold me up——"
"As you've held us up!" the man snapped.
"Exactly," I agreed.
Wolves in sheep's clothing have to behave like sheep when they're in danger of having their nice white wool stripped off. No doubt this is the reason that, when we arrived at the outside entrance of the bachelor's wing, my companions were meek as Mary's lamb.
Inside the suite of the garden court we found Terry Burns and his man raging, and Kramm sulking, in a room with a broken window. Terry had smashed the glass in order to get in, but his search had been vain. To do the old servant justice, she had the instinct of loyalty. I believe that no bribe would have induced her to betray her mistress. It remained for the Scarletts to give themselves away, which they did—with the secret of the room under the twisted chimney.
The room was built into the huge thickness of the wall which formed a junction between the old house and the more modern wing. The wonderful chimney was not a true chimney at all, but gave ventilation and light, also a means of escape by way of a rope ladder over the roof. But the rope had fallen to pieces long ago, and the prisoner of these days might never have found means of escape, had it not been for that trump-card named Bertie. The room under the twisted chimney would have been a convenient home substitute for the family vault.
Fate was for us, however—and for her. Even the Lady with the Shears might have felt compunction in cutting short the thread of so fair, so sweet a life as Cecil Scarlett's. Anyhow, that was what Terry said in favour of Destiny, when some days had passed, and it was clear that with good care the girl would live.
We didn't take her to the inn, as I had planned when keeping the taxi, for Terry—caring less than nothing now for the night's rest of Princess Avalesco—ruthlessly routed the ladies from their beauty sleep. What they thought about us, and about the half-conscious invalid, I don't know; for true to my bargain with the Scarletts, no explanations detrimental to them were made. I think it passed with the ladies that the girl had arrived ill, in a late train; and that Terry, emboldened by love of her, begged his tenant's hospitality. So, you see, they were partly right. Besides, the Princess Avalesco had lived in Roumania, whereanythingcan happen.
When Jim brought back Bertie, he brought also a doctor—by request. The doctor was his friend; and Jim's friends are generally ready to—well, to overlook unconventionalities.
I told you Princess Avalesco loved herself so much that she didn't miss Terry's love. She missed it so little that after a few weeks' romance she proposed a bedside wedding at Dun Moat, with herself as hostess; for, of course, nothing would induce her to shorten her tenancy!
Cecil had confessed to falling in love with Terry through the window, at first sight.
Therefore the wedding did take place, with Jim Courtenaye as best man, and myself as "Matron of Honour," as Americans say. Cecil looked so divine as a bride that no woman who saw her could have helped wishing to be married against a background of pillows! I almost envied her. But Jim said that he didn't envy Terry. His ideal of a bride was entirely different, and he was prepared to describe her to me some day when I was in a good humour!
Brightening continued to be fun. As time went on I brightened charming people, queer people, people with their hearts in the right place and their "H's" in the wrong one. I was an expensive luxury, but it paid to have me, as it pays to get a good doctor or the best quality in boots.
After several successful operations and some lurid adventures, I was doing so well on the whole that I felt the need of a secretary. How to hit on the right person was the problem, for I wanted her young, but not too young; pretty, but not too pretty; lively, not giddy; sensible, yet never a bore; a lady, but not a howling swell; accomplished, but not overwhelming; in fact, perfection.
This time I didn't hide my light under a bushel of initials, nor in a box at a newspaper office. I announced that the "Princess di Miramare requires immediately the services of a gentlewoman (aged from twenty-one to thirty) for secretarial work four or five hours six days of the week. Must be intelligent and experienced typist-stenographer. Salary, three guineas a week. Apply personally, between 9:30 and 11:30A. M.No letters considered."
I gave the address of my own flat and awaited developments with high hope; for I conceitedly expected an "ad." under my own name to attract a good class of applicants.
It appeared in several London dailies and succeeded like a July sale. I wouldn't have believed that there were such crowds of pretty typists on earth! Luckily, the lift boy was young, so he enjoyed the rush.
As for me, I felt like a spider that has got religion and pities its flies; there were so many flies—I mean girls—and each in one way or other was more desirable than the rest! I might have been reduced to tossing up a copper or having the applicants draw lots, if something very special hadn't happened.
The twenty-sixth girl brought a letter of introduction from Robert Lorillard.
Robert Lorillard!Why, the very name is a thrill!
Of course I was in love with Robert Lorillard when I was seventeen, just before the war. Everybody was in love with him that year. It was the fashionable thing to be. Whenever Grandmother let me come up to town I went to the theatre to adore dear Robert. Women used to boast that they'd seen him fifty times in some favourite play. But never did he act on the stage so stirring a part as that thrust upon him in August, 1914! Imustlet the girl with the letter wait while I tell you the story, in case you've not heard the true version.
While she hung upon my decision, and I gazed at Lorillard's signature (worth guineas as an autograph), my mind raced back along the years.
Oh, that gorgeous spring before the war!
I wasn't "out"; but somehow I contrived to be "in." That is, in all the things that I'd have died rather than miss.
We were absurdly poor, but Grandmother knew everyone; and that April, while she was looking for a town house and arranging to present me, we stayed with the Duchess of Stane. Her daughter, Lady June, wasthegirl in Society just then. She had been The Girl for several years. She was the prettiest, the most original, and the most daring one in her set. She wasn't twenty-three, but she'd picked up the most extraordinary reputation! I should think there could hardly have been more interest in the doings of "professional beauties" in old days than was taken in hers. No illustrated weekly was complete without her newest portrait done by the photographer of the minute; no picture Daily existed that wouldn't pay well for a snapshot of Lady June Dana, even with a foot out of focus, or a hand as big as her head! And shelovedit all! She lived, lived every minute! It didn't seem as if there could be a world without June.
I was only a flapper, but I worshipped at the shrine, and the goddess didn't mind being worshipped. She used to let me perch on her bed when she took her morning tea, looking a dream in a rosebud-wreathed bit of tulle called a boudoir cap, and a nighty like the first outline sketch for a ballgown. She reeled off yards of stuff for my benefit about the men who loved her (their name was legion!), and among others was Robert Lorillard.
All the clever people who "did" things came to Stane House, provided they were good to look at and interesting in themselves. Lorillard was there nearly every Sunday for luncheon, and at other times, too. I couldn't help staring at him, though I knew it was rude, for he was so handsome, so—almost divine!
One laughs at writers who make their heroes "Greek statues," but really Lorillardwaslike the Apollo Belvedere, in the Vatican: those perfect features, that high yet winning air (someone has said) "of the greatest statue that ever was a gentleman, the greatest gentleman that ever was a statue."
I think June met Lorillard away from home often: and once, when Grandmother and I had gone to live in our own house, and I'd been presented, June took me behind the scenes after a matinée at his theatre. He was charming to me, and I loved him more than ever, with that delicious, hopeless, agonizing love of seventeen.
People talked about June with Lorillard, but no more than with a dozen other men. Nobody dreamed of their marrying, and none less than she herself. As for him, though he was madly in love, he must have known that as an eligible he'd have as much chance with a royal princess as with Lady June Dana.
It was in this way that matters stood when the war broke out. And among the first volunteers of note went Robert Lorillard. No doubt he would have gone sooner or later in any case. But being taken up, thrown down, smiled at, and frowned on by June was getting upon his nerves, as even I could see, so war—fighting, and dying perhaps—must have been a welcome counter-irritant.
The season was over, but Grandmother kept on the house she had taken, as anouvroir, where she mobilized a regiment of women for war work. It was in the same square as Stane House, where the Duchess was mobilizing a rival regiment. June and I worked under our different taskmistresses; but I saw a good deal of her—and all that went on. The moment she heard that Lorillard had offered himself, and was furiously training for a commission, she was a changed girl. She was like a creature burning with fever; but I thought her more beautiful than she'd ever been, with that rose-flame in her cheeks and blue fire in her eyes.
One afternoon she got me off from work, asking me to shop with her. But instead of going to Bond Street, we made straight for Robert Lorillard's flat in St. James's Square. How he could have been there that day I don't know, for he was in some training camp or other I suppose; but she'd sent an urgent wire, no doubt, begging him to get a few hours' leave.
Anyhow, there hewas—waiting for us. I shall never forget his face—though he forgot my existence! June forgot it also. I'd been dragged at her chariot wheels (it was a taxi!) to play propriety; my first appearance as a chaperon. I might as well have been a fly on the wall for both of them!
Robert opened the door of the flat himself when we rang (servants were superfluous for that interview!) and they looked at each other, those two. Eyes drank eyes! Lorillard didn't seem to see me. I drifted vaguely in after June, and effaced myself superficially. The most rarefied sense of honour couldn't be expected, perhaps, in a flapper whose favourite stage hero was about to playthepart of his life—unrehearsed—with the said flapper's most admired heroine.
Instead of shutting myself up in a cupboard or something, or at the least closing my eyes and stuffing my fingers into my ears, I hovered in a handy background. I saw June burst out crying and throw herself into Lorillard's arms. I heard her sob that she realized now she couldn't live without him; that he was the only person on earth who mattered—ever had, or ever would matter. I heard him gasp a few explosive "Darlings!" and "Angels!" And then I heard June coolly—no, hotly!—propose that they should be married at once—at once!
EvenIfloated sympathetically on a rose-coloured wave of love, as I listened and looked; so where must Lorillard have floated—he who had adored, and never hoped?
In one of his own plays the noble hero would have put June from him in super-unselfishness, declaiming "No, beloved. I cannot accept this sacrifice, made on a mad impulse. I love you too much to take you for my own." But, thank God, real men aren't built on those stiff lines! As for this one, he simplyhuggedhis glorious, incredible luck (including the giver) as hard as he could.
It took the two about one hour to come to themselves, and remember that they had heads as well as hearts; while I, for my part, remembered mostly my right foot, which had gone to sleep during efforts of self-obliteration. Ihadto stamp it at last, which drew surprised attention to me; so I was officially offered the rôle of confidante, and agreed with June that the weddingmustbe secret. The Duchess and fourterrificallypowerful uncles would make as much fuss as if June were Queen Elizabeth bent on marrying a commoner, and it would end in the lovers being parted.
Well, they were married by special license three days later, with me and a man friend of Lorillard's as witnesses. When the knot was safely tied, June and Robert went together and broke it to the Duchess—not the knot, but the news. The Duchess of Stane is supposed to know more bad words than any other peeress in England, and judging from June's account of the scene, she hurled them all at Lorillard, with a few spontaneous creations for her daughter. When the lady and her vocabulary were exhausted, however, common sense refilled the vacuum. The Duchess and the Family made the best of a bad bargain, hoping, no doubt, that Lorillard would soon be safely killed; and a delicious dish of romance was served up to the public.
Iwas the only one beyond pardon, it seemed. According to the Duchess I was a wicked little treacherous cat not to have told her what was going on, so that it could have been stopped in time. A complaint was made to Grandmother. But that peppery old darling—after scolding me well—took my part, and quarrelled with the Duchess.
June was too busy beingTheBride of All War Brides to bother much with me, and Lorillard was training hard for France. So a kind of magic glass wall arose between the Affair and me. Months passed (everyone knows the history of those months!) and then the air raids began: Zeppelins over London!
It wassmart, you know, not to be frightened, but to run out and gape, or go up on the roof, when one of those great silver shapes was sighted in the night sky. June went on the roof. Oh poor, beautiful June! A fragment of shrapnel pierced her heart and killed her instantly, before she could have felt a pang.
The news almost "broke Lorillard up," so his pal who witnessed the marriage with me put the case. Robert hadn't even once been back in "Blighty" since he first went out. Ninety-six hours' leave was due just then. He spent it coming to June's funeral, and—returning to the Front.
Since that tragic time long ago he had seen a great deal of fighting, had been wounded twice, had received his Captaincy and a D. S. O. Four years and a half had been eaten by Hun locusts since he'd last appeared on the stage, and more than three since the death of June. Everyone thought that Lorillard would take up his old career where he had laid it down. But he refused several star parts, and announced that he never intended to act again. The reason was, he said, that he did not wish to do so; that he could hardly remember how he had felt at the time when acting made up the great interest of his life.
He bought a quaint old cottage near the river, not many miles from a house the Duchess owned—a happy house, where he had spent week-ends that wonderful summer of 1914. June had loved the place, and her body lay (buried in a glass coffin to preserve its beauty for ever) in the cedar-shaded graveyard of the country church near by. Once she had laughingly told Lorillard she would like to lie there if she died, and he had persuaded the Duchess to fulfil the wish. Instead of a gravestone there was a sundial, with the motto "All her days were happy days and all her hours were hours of sun."
Robert Lorillard's cottage was within walking distance of the churchyard, and I imagine he often went there. Anyhow, he went nowhere else. After some months an anonymous book of poems appeared—poems of such extreme beauty and pure passion that all the critics talked about them. Bye and bye others began to talk, and it leaked out through the publisher that Lorillard was the author.
I loved those poems so much that I couldn't resist scribbling a few lines to Robert in my first flush of enthusiasm. He didn't answer. I'd hardly expected a reply; but now, long after, here was a letter from him introducing a girl who wanted to be my secretary!
He wrote:
Dear Princess di Miramare,I don't ask if you remember me. Iknowyou do, because of one we have both greatly loved. I meant to thank you long ago for the kind things you took the trouble to say about my verses. The thoughts your name called up were very poignant. I put off acknowledging your note. But you will forgive me, because you are a real friend; and for that reason I venture to send you a strong personal recommendation with Miss Joyce Arnold, who will ask for a position as your secretary. I saw your advertisement in theTimes, and showed it to Miss Arnold, offering to introduce her to you. She nursed me in France when she was a V. A. D. (she has a decoration, bye the bye, for her courage in hideous air raids), and she has been my secretary for some months. All I need say about her I can put into a few words.She is absolutely perfect.It will be a great wrench for me to lose her valuable help with the work I give my time to nowadays, but I am going abroad for a while, and shall not need a secretary.You too have lived and suffered since we met! Do take from me remembrances and thoughts of a friendship which will never fade.Yours sincerely always,Robert Lorillard.
Dear Princess di Miramare,
I don't ask if you remember me. Iknowyou do, because of one we have both greatly loved. I meant to thank you long ago for the kind things you took the trouble to say about my verses. The thoughts your name called up were very poignant. I put off acknowledging your note. But you will forgive me, because you are a real friend; and for that reason I venture to send you a strong personal recommendation with Miss Joyce Arnold, who will ask for a position as your secretary. I saw your advertisement in theTimes, and showed it to Miss Arnold, offering to introduce her to you. She nursed me in France when she was a V. A. D. (she has a decoration, bye the bye, for her courage in hideous air raids), and she has been my secretary for some months. All I need say about her I can put into a few words.She is absolutely perfect.It will be a great wrench for me to lose her valuable help with the work I give my time to nowadays, but I am going abroad for a while, and shall not need a secretary.
You too have lived and suffered since we met! Do take from me remembrances and thoughts of a friendship which will never fade.
Yours sincerely always,
Robert Lorillard.
I'd been too much excited when she said, "I have an introduction to you from Captain Lorillard," to do more than glance at the girl, and ask her to sit down. But as I finished the letter I looked up, to meet the gaze of a pair of gray eyes.
Caught staring, Miss Arnold blushed; and what with those eyes and that colour I thought her one of the most delightful girls I'd ever seen.
I don't mean that she was one of the prettiest. She was (and is) pretty. But it wasn't entirely herlooksyou thought of, in seeing her first. It was something that shone out from her eyes, and seemed to make a sweet, happy brightness all around her. Eyes are windows, and somethingmustbe on the other side, but, alas! it seldom shines through. The windows are dim, or the blinds are down to cover dulness. Joyce Arnold had a living spirit behind those big, bright soul-windows that were her eyes!
As for the rest, she was tall and slim, and delicately long-limbed. She had milk-white skin with a soft touch of rose on the cheek bones; a few freckles which were like the dust from tiger-lily petals, and a charming, sensitive mouth, full and red.
"Why, of course I want you!" I said. "I'm lucky to secure you, too! How glad I am that you didn't come after I'd engaged someone else! But even if you had, I'd have managed to get rid of her one way or other."