Mr Vernon found Mrs Vernon in the morning-room, engaged with what seemed to be household accounts. As is apt to be the case when people have been married to each other for more years than they sometimes care to remember, morning greetings were with them a minus quantity. He began without any preface:
"Everything all right for this afternoon?"
She looked up from a bill.
"Yes, I think so; as far as I know." She looked back at the bill. "I am confident Barnes has made a mistake, he is always doing it." She looked up again, turning half round in her chair. "But, Harold, have you seen her?"
"You mean Miss Gilbert? I have; and--I'm rather prepossessed with her. I confess that Frances' ecstasies made me a trifle nervous; but so far as appearance and manner go she strikes me as being distinctly good style, as girls run nowadays. But she--or someone--might have let us know that she was coming, considering, so far as we're concerned, that she's a perfect stranger. She seems to have dropped from the clouds; she doesn't seem as if she were the kind of girl who'd do it. Who's the Mr Frazer she speaks of?"
"Mr Frazer?"
"She says she came with Mr Frazer--Eric Frazer?"
"Eric Frazer? She must mean Strathmoira."
"Strathmoira?"
"Of course, his name is Frazer--Eric Frazer."
"But, why should she speak of the Earl of Strathmoira as Mr Frazer?"
"My dear Harold, it's no use putting questions to me, because I keep putting questions to myself, and I get no answers. Directly I begin to think I feel I am getting out of my depth, so I try not to think. I console myself with the reflection that I always have known that Strathmoira's stark, staring mad."
"But, do you mean to say that Strathmoira brought Miss Gilbert to this house without letting us have the least hint that he was coming, at goodness knows what hour of the night?"
"You may well say goodness only knows. You had been gone what seemed to me hours, and I was just getting into bed, when I heard a vehicle coming up the drive. I called to Parkes not to open the door till he had asked who it was through the window; but I suppose I must have spoken louder than I meant, and of course the windows in my room were wide open; and, as you know, it's right over the hall door, which for the moment I'd forgotten; anyhow, a voice answered from without: 'It's all right, Adela, don't you let me be the cause of Parkes straining his vocal chords; it isn't burglars, it's yours to command.' When I realised that the voice was Strathmoira's you might have knocked me down with a feather."
"I daresay. Why, how long is it since we've seen or heard anything of the fellow?"
"As you put it, goodness only knows. I replied to him through the window: 'I'm alone in the house, I don't know if you're aware what time it is; I'm just going to bed--couldn't you come round in the morning?'"
"He answered: 'No, I couldn't; I've got Miss Gilbert here, Frances' friend, so perhaps you won't mind hurrying down to let us in!'"
"Pretty cool, upon my word."
"Cool! When Parkes had opened the door, and I went down, looking I don't know how, he was as much at his ease as if he'd dropped in to pay an afternoon call; and there was a tall slip of a girl, with black hair, big grey eyes, and a white face, whom I took to at once."
"So did I, when I saw her just now."
"He introduced her; and said she had come to make a long stay; and asked if I'd mind her going to bed at once, as she'd had a very tiring day, and was tired out. She looked it, to me she seemed unnaturally pale. As she stood there, without speaking a word, I felt quite sorry for the child. So I took her upstairs and lent her Frances' things to go to bed with--she hadn't even so much as an extra pocket-handkerchief of her own."
"I thought you said she'd come to stay."
"So he said--but she hadn't so much as a handbag in the way of luggage."
"I suppose it's coming--or has it come?"
"It is not coming; nor has it come. If you'll allow me I'll try to make you understand as much as I understand--which is very little. The whole thing seems to me to be mysterious; however, by this time I ought to know Strathmoira. When I came downstairs again he told me a story of which I did not find it easy to make head or tail. It seems that Miss Gilbert has a guardian, in whose charge she appears to have been."
"You remember Frances said she'd left the convent with her guardian; and that was why she didn't want to stop."
"I do remember. It seems that the guardian is not in a state of health to take proper care of his ward, though what ails him I couldn't make out; so Strathmoira brought her to me."
"Of course we are very glad to see her; but--what has Strathmoira got to do with Miss Gilbert? And why as a matter of course has he brought her to you?--without giving you any notice, in that unceremonious fashion? Hasn't she any friends of her own?"
"My dear Harold, you are sufficiently acquainted with Strathmoira to be aware that you can rain questions at him, and that, without refusing to answer one, he can evade them all, and do it in such a way that you are not sure if he knows that you ever put them. I asked him everything I could think of in the short time he stayed; but all that he told me amounted to this--that he hopes I'll treat Miss Gilbert as a daughter."
"Upon my word!--and she a stranger!"
"He also hoped that I'll see her properly fitted up with clothes from top to toe!"
"With whose money?"
"With his--or hers--I don't know whose; I only know that he gave me a hundred pounds in notes, and here they are. When he wondered if that would be enough to start with, I said it depended on the circumstances of the girl, and I asked if she had any means; and he replied: 'Ample! ample!' twice over; and he added that no expense was to be spared in fitting her up with all that a girl of her age ought to have. Now you know how Frances told us she was neglected by her people, and continually left without a penny of pocket-money; and how that man who took her away informed her that her father had died and left her penniless; and how sorry I was for her; and, because I was so sorry, I gave Frances permission to ask her to spend the summer with us--and Frances couldn't, because she didn't know her address. I believe I am not a person to judge hastily and harshly; but I cannot reconcile those facts with Strathmoira's statement that her means are ample."
"You've got the money; you needn't spend all of it; what's it matter?"
"Harold, it does matter. I should like to know whose money it is; and if more is coming when it's spent."
"Strathmoira will give you all the explanations you want before very long; you're sure to hear from him--what's his address?"
"Harold, I haven't a notion--I asked, but he didn't say. When he'd gone I found that he'd left me with a general impression that I might hear from him--I didn't know when."
"Well, that's something. Anyhow, here's the girl; we know of nothing against her even if she did make an informal entry; she's Frances' friend; the child will be delighted to have her; you felt drawn to her."
"I did, and I do; what I've seen of her I like, there's something about the girl which appeals to me."
"Very well, then--as I'm prepossessed we sha'n't do much harm if we give her house-room for her own sake. As for Strathmoira--although he is stark mad, he's an excellent fellow, and long-headed, in his way. Whatever the connection may be between this girl and him I'm quite sure that there's nothing discreditable about it to either side."
"Harold, I never for an instant thought there was. I quite agree with you in thinking that Strathmoira's one fault is that he's stark mad."
"Then all we have to do, for the present, is to make the girl comfortable and happy. Did I understand you to say that she has nothing with her but the clothes she is wearing?"
"She hasn't another rag--not so much as a toothbrush.
"In which case you'll have to expend a part of that hundred in buying her a toothbrush--and other odds and ends."
"That's exactly what I'm going to do. I've drawn up a list of some of the things she must have; I've ordered the landau, and I'm going to drive the two girls over to Ringtown as soon as I have my hat on. Here are the girls." As she spoke, the two girls appeared at the open French window. She spoke to her daughter. "Good morning, Frances; you see your fairy godmother has sent you a present--the visitor you so much wanted."
"Isn't it lovely? I've just been telling her that I'd sooner see her than that father should buy a motor car--and you know what that means. But I don't understand--she says she's brought no luggage."
"That's all right; I'm going to drive the pair of you over to Ringtown, and there I'm going to buy Dorothy what she wants. The other day I saw some pretty model gowns at Wingham's; if only one of them fits her it might do for this afternoon. What do you say, Dorothy?"
The girl, who had been standing by the window, came a little farther into the room; she spoke with painful hesitation.
"Mrs Vernon, I--I have no money."
"My dear child, I have some money of yours."
"Of mine?--money of mine?" The girl looked as if she did not understand, then flushed--as if with sudden comprehension. "Did he--give it you?"
"By 'he' do you mean the Earl of Strathmoira?"
Mrs Vernon smiled; but the girl looked as if she understood less than ever.
"The Earl of Strathmoira?--no; I mean Mr Frazer."
Miss Vernon broke in:
"Mother, what Mr Frazer does she mean? She says she came with Mr Eric Frazer. Who is Eric Frazer?"
"Mr Frazer is Dorothy's quaint way of speaking of the Earl of Strathmoira."
Miss Vernon stared at her mother, then at her friend; a look of puzzlement was on her pretty face.
"Dorothy, do you know Strathmoira?"
Dorothy's look of bewilderment more than matched her own.
"Strathmoira?--no; is it a place or a thing?"
"Dorothy, are you joking?"
"Joking?--Frances!--what makes you think I'm joking?--I haven't the faintest notion what you mean."
Miss Vernon turned to her mother.
"Mother, what is this mystery?--because it seems to me that there is a mystery somewhere. I hope that you and Dorothy understand each other better than I do either of you."
"My dear Frances, I'm bound to say that I don't understand; especially if, as she says, she isn't joking. Dorothy, do you seriously wish to tell us that you don't know that the gentleman who brought you to this house last night was the Earl of Strathmoira?"
The girl's eyes opened wider and wider; no one who saw the look almost of fear which came on her face could think that she was jesting.
"He--he told me that his name was Frazer--Eric Frazer."
"And so his family name is Frazer, and his Christian name Eric; but his style and title is the Earl of Strathmoira; by that style and title he is generally known; indeed I, who have known him all his life, and am his cousin once removed, was not aware that he was ever known as anything else. How long have you known him, my dear?--and who introduced him to you as Mr Frazer?"
The girl shrank back. Inchoate thoughts were pressing on her harassed mind. She remembered what he had said about her endorsing his story; but what story had he told? Was it true that he was who these people said he was? If so, then--perhaps she had betrayed him already; with a word she might betray him further. She recalled his words about playing him false. If she did, what would he think--after all he had done for her? How they all three were looking at her! She wished she could think what to say without--without committing any one. But--she could not think.
While she was still struggling within herself for the words which would not come, Frances went flitting towards her across the room; drawn to her by the anguish which was in her eyes, and on her face.
"Dorothy! my darling! what is the matter? Don't look like that! Mother didn't mean to hurt you! You poor thing, how you're trembling! Mother, tell her that you didn't mean anything!"
In her turn the elder woman, crossing the room, came and stood by the still speechless girl, into whose eyes, for some cause which she could not fathom, there had come a pain which was too great for tears. Her voice was very soft and gentle.
"I assure you, my dear Dorothy, that nothing was further from my wish than a desire to pry into what, after all, is no business of mine. If my cousin is Mr Frazer to you then he is Mr Frazer. He's one of the most eccentric creatures breathing; but he is also one of the best. I'm sure, from the way in which he spoke to me of you last night, that he regards you with the utmost respect and reverence. He commended you to me as a very precious charge. He told me that you had never known your own mother; and he asked me to try to be a mother to you." The speaker paused to smile, whimsically. "You know, Dorothy, I don't think that one can be quite like one's mother if one isn't one's mother, but, if you'll let me, I'd like to play the part, as well as a substitute can."
Mr Vernon's interposition prevented a reply from Dorothy, if she was capable of one. Perhaps he saw that she was not; and his words were dictated by a masculine desire to cut short what was very like a scene.
"Now, Adela, if you're going to put your hat on, you'd better put it on--I heard the carriage come ten minutes ago. And, you girls, if you're not ready, perhaps you will be ready inside a brace of shakes. Frances, do you hear?"
The young lady took the hint.
"All right, dad; we'll both of us be ready in ever so much less than a brace of shakes!"
Slipping her arm through Dorothy's she led her from the room. When the two girls had gone husband and wife looked at each other. The man was the first to speak.
"It's odd that she shouldn't know him as the Earl of Strathmoira--it strikes me that my gentleman's a queerer fish even than I thought."
His wife eyed him for a moment, as if quizzically; then she turned aside, ostensibly to collect the papers on which she had been engaged.
"Harold, have you ever heard of blindfold chess?"
Under the circumstances it seemed a curious question--so it seemed to strike him.
"Adela, what on earth do you mean?"
"It occurs to me that we are about to act as pawns in a game of chess without even knowing who are the players."
Her husband stared at her, as if with a total lack of comprehension. When he spoke his tone was irascible.
"Adela, there seem to be puzzles enough in the air without your making them worse. Perhaps you'll be so good as to tell me what you may happen to mean."
"I am not so sure that I know myself; only, as I looked at that girl's face, I had the queerest feeling."
"Of what kind?"
"I'm not fanciful--am I?"
"I can't say you are--as a rule."
"Which makes it all the queerer."
"I wish you'd be more explicit. To hear you take on this tone of mystery--you know how I hate mysteries--makes me conscious of a feeling which it would be mild to describe as queer. It didn't strike me that there was anything remarkable about the girl's looks, except that she looked pale and worried. You don't know what she may have had to go through lately."
"No, I don't; and--I don't think I'd care to."
"Adela! Now you're at it again! Will you go and put your hat on? I don't know if you're aware that the time's going; I suppose you don't want to keep that carriage waiting all day." Mrs Vernon went out of the room without another word. At the door she turned and favoured him with a look which he instinctively resented. He gave vent to his feelings as soon as she had gone. "Now what did she mean by looking at me like that? There's something about the best of women which is--trying. She's got some notion into her head about that girl; and--I wonder what it is? When I do get within reach of Strathmoira I'll speak a few plain words to him. The idea of his treating me, in my own house, as if I were a pawn--Adela's too absurd!--I should like to see him try it!"
On Mr Vernon's face there was a smile which, if the Earl of Strathmoira had been there, he might have been excused if he regarded as a challenge.
Mrs Vernon was standing looking out on to the lawn, pinning some flowers in her blouse. Her daughter, coming on her from behind, laid her hands upon her shoulders, and then her cheek against her mother's. The mother, continuing to arrange her flowers, suffered the soft cheek to remain against her own, for some seconds, in silence.
"Well, are we ready? The people will be coming directly--we told them four. Some of Jim's friends appear to have come early, judging from the group of what seem to be boys he has with him at the end of the lawn."
"So I see. Jim's friends have hours of their own--they don't care what time people put on cards. Mother, I'm worried about Dorothy."
"Doesn't the dress fit?"
"Perfectly!--and the hat; and the hairdressing is a complete success. She looks lovely, as I told her she would do--she's certain to cut me out."
"I don't think you're afraid of that."
Frances sighed.
"I'm not--if only for the simple reason that she won't even try."
"Doesn't she want to come down?"
"It's so provoking; she's not a bit like my Dorothy--at least, in a way she isn't. I can't think what's the matter with her. She seems to be a bundle of nerves. I hardly dare open my mouth for fear of saying something which will make her jump."
"She does seem to be more sensitive than, from your description of her, I expected; I've noticed it myself."
"My darling mumkins, she's not the same girl. Something's wrong with her--I can't think what--and I daren't ask."
"She doesn't seem to be an easy person to ask questions of."
"She used to be; we used to tell each other every single thing; we used to delight in answering each other's questions; but now---- I believe she's bewitched, I really do!"
"What do you mean by she's bewitched?"
"Why, she's--she's so strange; she gives me the feeling that only her body's here, while she is somewhere else; it--it really is uncanny. She never speaks unless you speak to her, and when you speak to her she doesn't listen. You can see she tries to listen; then, when you're in the middle of a sentence, you find that she's paying not the slightest attention to you, and that she's staring at something in such a way that you turn, with a start, to see whatever it can be; and you have quite an uncomfortable feeling when you discover that, whatever it is she's looking at, it's something which you can't see."
"Did you say she doesn't want to come down?"
"I didn't say so; but she doesn't. She makes me really cross; it is so annoying! There she is, looking a perfect picture: she has only to show herself to take the people by storm. I had no idea she was so pretty! And she says she would rather stay indoors, after all the trouble I have taken with her, because she doesn't feel like seeing anyone."
"My dear Frances, she is your guest; it is her feelings you must consult, not yours."
"Of course! All the same, if we were at the convent I should pick her up and plank her down right in the very middle of the lawn; I shouldn't care for her tantrums; she'd get the fresh air if she got nothing else. As it is, I don't mean to let her have all her own way, if I can help it."
"I don't doubt that, or it wouldn't be you."
"Well, mother, I believe that, at the bottom, it's just shyness; she's ridiculously afraid of meeting strangers; after the first plunge she'd be cured. So, after a while, I'm going up to see how she is, and to ask if she wouldn't like to come down; and I'm going to keep on asking if she wouldn't like to come down till she comes; then you'll see if she'll be any the worse for coming."
On this programme Miss Vernon acted. But the people, when they did begin to appear, arrived so fast, by land and water, and occupied her so completely, that it was some time before she was able to pay a first visit to her friend; and then, so far as inducing her to put in an appearance on the lawn was concerned, it was paid in vain. A second and a third time she tried; and it was only on the fourth occasion she prevailed; then the girl yielded less to her importunity than to her assurance that many of the people had already gone, and the rest were presently going. The consciousness of the false position she was in weighed on Dorothy so heavily that again and again that afternoon she had wished, with all her heart, that she had never allowed the individual she had known as Eric Frazer to inflict her on these good people. If she had held out against him, as she ought to have done, he never could have brought her there. But she had not understood; it seemed to her that he had taken advantage of her ignorance.
The worst of it was she did not understand yet; exactly how false her position was still she did not know. For instance, was he really the Earl of Strathmoira? Her simplicity, on such points, was pristine. To her, an earl was a person so far above her that he was, practically, a being of a superior world. If he was such an effulgent creature why had he passed himself off to her as a common man?--a plain mister? Why had he condescended to notice her at all?--to give her shelter?--to feign interest in her sordid story?--it could only have been feigned. Why had he lied and played the trickster to save such an one as she from the fate which he, so superior a being, must have known that she deserved? His whole attitude in the matter was incomprehensible to her; it added to that confusion of her mental faculties which had been great enough before.
It would have been something if she had been able to ask questions; to glean information from those who knew him so much better than she did--if she could have gained some insight into the kind of man he actually was. But she dare not ask a question. One thing she did see clearly--too clearly--and that was the impression she had made upon the Vernons by what had struck them as her amazing statement that she had only known him as Mr Eric Frazer. Another word or two and, for all she could tell, she would have done what he had warned her not to do--she would have played him false. That he had played her false, in a sense, seemed true; but then, what he had done he had done for her; it behoved her to be careful that what she did was done for him.
So it came about that, for his sake, she was tongue-tied. Wholly in the dark as to his actual identity, as to the real part which he was playing; not knowing, even, what was the story he had told on her account, she had to walk warily lest, by some chance expression, she should do him a disservice. This was one of those girls who, when forced by circumstances into situations of the most extreme discomfort, are indifferent for themselves, and anxious only for others. She had taken that diamond ring off her engagement finger; but there was a tingling feeling where it had been, as if it still were there; and that tingling caused her, now and then, as it were, against her will, to glance at it; and, as she glanced, all that the ring stood for to her came back to her--she saw it all. She saw the room in 'The Bolton Arms,' in the light, and in the dark; and, in the dark, what was on the table. She saw herself, the coward behind the curtain, with quivering flesh, as that grisly something glowered at her through the silence of the darkened room. She heard--the awful sound--in the pitch blackness; and she fled headlong through the window, like a thing possessed, and dropped through the unknown depths below--she had only to shut her eyes to feel herself dropping. She saw people looking for her--everywhere she saw them looking; and when she saw what was in their eyes--that was the worst of it all--she was as one frozen with fear. Yet, could she have had her way, she would have gone straight off and given herself up to those who sought her, to let them do with her as they would--because she was afraid of what would come, of her not doing so, to others--to him whom she had known as Eric Frazer; to the good people of this house. That would be the worst drop of bitterness, in her bitter cup, if hurt came to others because of her. She had a feeling that, at that moment, the owner of the caravan, whatever his name might be, was plunging deeper and deeper into the mire, in a frantic, hopeless effort to get her clear of it. If he were to get in so deep that there would be no getting out of it again, for him, so that they were both of them engulfed in it, for ever? And these Vernons--what right had she to bring her sordid story into their pleasant lives? Would they not suffer when it became known that they had harboured, though unwittingly, one on whose head was set the price of blood? What would be their judgment on her when they knew?
These were the thoughts which racked her as, in the pink room, she sat, burning with shame, in the pretty frock, and hat, which Mrs Vernon had bought her with money which she had supposed to be Dorothy's, but which Dorothy herself knew was Mr Frazer's. Yesterday he himself had bought her clothes across the counter; to-day he had done it by deputy--yet she had not dared to tell his deputy the truth, lest she should play him false. Looked at from any point of view, could anything be more hideously false than her position? And without, in the sunshine, on the grass, amid the flowers, were crowds of happy people, with light hearts, clear consciences, who could look the whole world in the face, knowing they had done no wrong; and Frances--the friend whom she was using so ill--wanted to take her--a leper--into that unsuspecting throng. And in the end she yielded, and went--because that seemed to her to be the lesser evil. Frances made it so clear that if she did not go she should think that Dorothy no longer looked upon her as a friend. Rather than she should think that; since many of the people had gone, and the rest were about to go; with a sigh, whose meaning Frances wholly misunderstood, against her better judgment, she suffered herself to be persuaded to show herself outside.
"All I want you to do," Frances had reiterated, over and over again, "is just to show yourself--if you love me, dear. No harm can possibly come of that."
Which was all she knew. Dorothy was to learn that, in suffering herself to be persuaded--because she loved, she had played the coward again--more harm was to come of her just showing herself than she might ever be able to undo.
Before quitting the pink room, Frances looked her over, as if she had been a picture, and, as an artist might have done, gave her here and there a finishing touch; expressing herself as only half satisfied with the ultimate result.
"I've half-a-mind, do you know, young woman, to put a touch of colour on your cheeks--a dab on each of them; because, though I won't deny that pallor suits you, and even makes you fascinatingly interesting, I don't want folks to think that you've met with a tragic fate beneath this roof; or I shall have them nudging each other in the side; and wondering to what cruel treatment you've been subjected; and eyeing me askance, as if I must be the wretch. Don't you think you might manage to wear, when you notice that people are looking at you, what I have seen described, in print, as the ghost of a smile? It will anyhow let them know that you've as much as the ghost of a smile left in you."
It was with curious sensations that Dorothy found herself, in what she felt were borrowed plumes, moving, on Frances' arm, amid a gaily attired crowd of persons, not one of whom seemed to have a care in the world. If, as Frances had said, many had already gone, then the lawns must have been inconveniently thronged, for certainly enough people for comfort still remained; and if, as Frances had also said, those who stayed, proposed, immediately, to depart, then they managed to mask their intentions with considerable skill. It seemed to Dorothy that not only had many of them no present intention of leaving, but that they intended to stop where they were as long as they possibly could.
As the two girls passed together, arm-in-arm, across the lawns, they were the subjects of general attention. As Frances had prophesied, Dorothy made a sensation. People asked each other who she was, giving to their inquiries different forms: one wondering who the "curious-looking," and another who the "striking-looking," girl might be. A lady who was standing by Mrs Vernon gave her question a shape which was still more flattering to its object.
"My dear!" she exclaimed, "who is that lovely girl with Frances?"
"What lovely girl?" Up to that moment Mrs Vernon had been unaware that her pertinacious daughter had, at last, succeeded in her avowed design; and when, on turning, she beheld proof of the fact, she smiled. She replied to the question with another. "Do you think she's lovely?"
"Don't you? My dear! she's such good style!"
"Yes, she is good style; and, now, she does look lovely."
"Why do you say 'now'--in that tone?" Mrs Vernon was thinking what a difference the frock made, and the artist's hand in the treatment of the hair, and suffered the words to go unheeded. The speaker pressed her former query: "Who is she?"
"She's a school friend of my daughter's." The girls came towards them. Mrs Vernon spoke to Dorothy. "I am glad to see that this insistent child of mine has managed to persuade you to come among us. In such weather as this it seems almost wicked to stay indoors, even if one's head is bad. I think that here, also, is someone who is glad to see you."
She referred, smilingly, to the lady who was standing by her--who said:
"One always does like to see decent-looking people; but I especially like to see pretty girls at such times as these, if only because they fit in with the sunshine, and the flowers, and the decorations. I was asking Mrs Vernon who you were, but she hasn't told me."
The hostess went through the ceremony of introduction--with mock formality.
"Mrs Purchas, permit me to have the honour to present to you--Miss Gilbert."
Falling into Mrs Vernon's vein Mrs Purchas favoured Dorothy with an exaggerated curtsey.
"Delighted to have the pleasure, Miss Gilbert. No connection, I presume, of Miss Dorothy Gilbert, of Newcaster--are you?"
Dorothy had flushed a little at the compliment which Mrs Purchas had paid her; she even showed some faint sign of being amused at her laughing pretence of treating her as if she were a person of importance; but when she asked her that last question all signs of amusement faded. Was she connected with Dorothy Gilbert of Newcaster? No doubt the question was asked in jest; though, as a jest, it was scarcely in the very best taste. It struck Dorothy dumb. It was such a bolt out of the blue, so unexpected, that, for the first moment, she did not clearly realise what was meant; but, when she did, any humour which the thing might have had was lost on her. In that first moment of shock she could not have spoken to save her life. And, when the first force of the blow--for it was as if she had been struck a blow--had begun to pass, and the significance of the lightly uttered words commenced to dawn on her, she would have liked to be able to sink into the ground, if only to escape the woman's eyes.
That the singularity of her bearing had impressed those about her was plain. Mrs Vernon and her daughter had already grown accustomed, in a measure, to the strange effect chance words were apt to have upon their guest; so that they were not so altogether taken by surprise as was the unintentional cause of the girl's visible emotion. Her amazement was not mirrored in Mrs Purchas' face; it was in her bungling attempt to offer an apology for having done she knew not what.
"I--I'm sure, my dear, I--I beg your pardon." The girl looked so very queer that the lady burst out in sudden alarm: "My dear!--what have I done?"
Frances came to the rescue.
"It's all right, Mrs Purchas--Miss Gilbert is not very well; it's my fault for making her come out."
She drew the girl away, intending to lead her back to the house, which she inwardly realised that she had been foolish to induce her to leave. Dorothy certainly was exasperatingly trying. But there was worse to follow--they were waylaid on the road; this time by Mr Jim Vernon, who escorted a masculine acquaintance, the tale of whose years was eloquently suggested by a question which he had addressed to Jim:
"I say, Jim, who's that ripping-looking girl who's with your sister?"
And Jim had responded:
"She's a topper, my boy--a fair topper. But, as I'm in a generous mood, if you'll come along with me I'll do the needful." So they went along together, and they came to Miss Vernon and her friend; and Jim immediately observed, in that free-and-easy way which is popular with latter-day youth: "Awfully glad to see you, Miss Gilbert--frightful blow when I was told you weren't showing. Mr Denman--Miss Gilbert."
Mr Denman acknowledged the introduction with the remark:
"Gilbert!--that name's rather in the air just now. Ever been to Newcaster, Miss Gilbert?"
Jim asked:
"Why Newcaster?"
"Why, old chap, haven't you seen the papers? I expect Miss Gilbert has--there's a lot in them about the doings of Dorothy Gilbert at Newcaster--is there a Dorothy in your family, Miss Gilbert?"
It seemed that Mr Denman was a humorist of Mrs Purchas' type--only more so; with the bump of obtuseness unduly developed. Had he fired a revolver at the girl he could hardly have produced a greater effect; coming after the question which she had just had aimed at her every word he uttered seemed to hit her on a tender spot. Frances could feel her trembling. She flared up in the astonished young gentleman's face.
"Boys, nowadays, are the stupidest and rudest creatures--or else Jim has some most unfortunate specimens of them among his acquaintance."
Before either Mr Denman or her brother could get out a word in excuse or self-defence she was bearing Dorothy Gilbert off as fast as she could induce her to move. In her heart she was fearful lest Dorothy should collapse, or do something undesirable in the way of making a scene upon the lawn; she was only too painfully conscious of how incapable the girl seemed to be to keep herself from shivering; but Dorothy still had sufficient control over herself to be able to reach the house without making of herself a public exhibition. Frances accompanied her up to her room; but at the door the girl said, speaking with an effort which it was painful to witness:
"Leave me--please do--do leave me!"
Frances left her; going downstairs with a fixed determination in her mind.
"Now where's to-day's paper? I don't care--it isn't often that I do look at a newspaper; there's so seldom anything in a newspaper to interest me that it's not generally necessary for dad to forbid me to look at one; but I am going to see what there is in to-day's paper about Dorothy Gilbert of Newcaster."
There are still young women who do not read newspapers; and of these Frances Vernon was one. Her father and mother belonged to that lessening section of society to whom the crudities of the modern press do not appeal. Mr Vernon held that even to the pure some things are impure; and that it was not necessary that everyone should become acquainted with all the vice and sin that is in the world. He admitted that this point of view was perhaps old-fashioned; but he was an old-fashioned man and--it was his. He did not like to read the records of the police and the divorce courts; he hoped those who were near and dear to him would not like them either. So not only did he not encourage his children, and especially his daughter, to read the daily papers; but, also, he took care that such journals as he admitted to his house were not those which made a feature of topics of the kind. So it came about that the only journal of that day's issue which Miss Vernon could discover wasThe Times.
The Timesis an excellent paper; it does not make a feature of "dreadful tragedies"; but, unless one is acquainted with its methods, it is not a paper in which one can put one's finger on any particular item of news after an instant's search--even with the aid of the index. So far as Miss Vernon was concerned, it never occurred to her to glance at the "Contents of this Day's Paper"; and, possibly, she would have been little benefited if she had. She turned over page after page, advertisements and all, and went up and down column after column, without seeing anything about Dorothy Gilbert of Newcaster; as a result, she jumped at some very hasty, and very unfair, conclusions on the subject of the value ofThe Times.
"Silly old paper! I've heard lots of people say there never is anything in it--and there isn't!"
However, so anxious was she to find what she sought, that she travelled up and down the columns a second time; and, before she had got to the end, was forced to admit that there did seem to be something inThe Times; even though there might be nothing which would throw light on the subject she had at heart.
"I wonder what paper he saw it in?" The reference was to the youth, Denman. "He said 'papers'; and as Mrs Purchas saw it too, whatever it was, I suppose it was in more than one; but there doesn't seem to be anything about it here. Silly old paper! I wonder what Mrs Purchas meant by talking about Dorothy Gilbert of Newcaster--and why Dorothy looked as if she were going to have a fit when she did." Thus wondering, holding the paper in front of her, her eye was caught by something which she had not observed before--"Racing at Newcaster." "Why, of course, that's where the races are. I thought I'd heard the name before;--how stupid I am! But what can Dorothy have had to do----"
She stopped, her eye caught by something else--a name in a sentence.
"Few men were better known on Newcaster Heath than George Emmett. His tragic fate, on the eve of the meeting at which he had been such a prominent figure for so many years, was the theme of general conversation." Then the writer proceeded to give some facts about George Emmett. Miss Vernon took them in with her eye without at all appreciating their meaning. One fact she did grasp--that the man seemed dead.
"George Emmett?--I am sure her guardian's name was Emmett; but Strathmoira told mother that he'd brought her here because her guardian wasn't very well; but this Emmett's dead, according to the paper--it talks about his 'tragic fate'--I wonder in what way his fate was tragic. It can't be the same man; why did Mrs Purchas associate Dorothy with Newcaster?"
Miss Vernon's glance passed down the racing columns, to be arrested by a paragraph at the foot.
"The historic inn, 'The Bolton Arms,' at Newcaster," it began, "was on Monday night the scene of an occurrence which will probably hold a prominent place in the future annals of the house." Then it proceeded to give, in brief outline, and in the baldest possible language, the story with which we already are familiar. It said that suspicion pointed at the lady by whom Mr Emmett had been accompanied; that her mysterious disappearance was certainly difficult to reconcile with entire innocence; concluding with the pregnant sentence--"The police are offering a reward for Dorothy Gilbert's apprehension." It was on those words that Frances Vernon's eyes fastened. She read the paragraph again and again, reading into it a deeper meaning with each perusal; each time, the part of it which held her, whether she would or would not, was the sentence at the end.
When at last she lowered the paper, such understanding as had come to her had brought bewilderment; although she had the printed words nearly by heart, they were beyond her comprehension. Mr Emmett had been murdered, and Dorothy--her Dorothy!--was suspected of having killed him; was that what it meant? It was impossible--out of the question--absurd. Yet--there were those last words--"The police are offering a reward for Dorothy Gilbert's apprehension." Was that what Mrs Purchas had meant by her reference to Dorothy Gilbert of Newcaster? Was it why Dorothy had behaved so strangely?
As she put to herself these questions, which she dared not answer, it seemed to Frances Vernon that the world had changed all at once; as if, as a child would have put it, something had gone wrong with the works, so that it had suddenly got jarred, and was no longer just as it was a few moments ago. For the first time in her short life she was brought into contact with the tragedy of crime; so that, as it seemed, she had to inhale its atmosphere into her lungs. It is a result of such a training as she had received that, when crime did come to have a personal application, the revelation of the existence of the thing, from the knowledge of which she had been carefully screened, stunned as it never would have done had she been brought up with her eyes wide open. Murder? All she knew of murder she had learnt from the commandments. Her guardian? Dorothy? She could have screamed aloud because of the agony which came to her with the thought that there could be any association between Dorothy's guardian, and Dorothy, and murder.
She stayed there, in a sort of stupor, longer than she knew; and was only roused from it by her mother's coming into the room through the open French window.
"Frances! Where have you been? Do you know that all the people have gone? If Dorothy has been keeping you, you ought not to have let her; you ought to have been there to say good-bye." She perceived that there was something unusual in her daughter's attitude. "Frances! What is the matter with you? Why are you staring at me like that? What is that you have in your hand?The Times!Do you mean to say that you have been reading the newspaper and forgetting what you owe to your friends? What will your father say? Frances, speak to me! What is the matter with the girl?"
Frances did speak; or, rather, she tried to speak; seeming to find as much difficulty in producing articulate sounds as Dorothy Gilbert had done a little time before.
"Mother, look--look at the paper!"
She held it out stiffly, as some lay figure might have done. Not unnaturally her mother observed her with surprise.
"Frances, I insist upon your telling me what is the matter with you; why should I look at the paper? You know very well that your father doesn't like you to read newspapers."
Frances said her four words over again:
"Look at the paper!"
"Why do you wish me to do so? What am I to look at?" She took the paper from her daughter's outstretched hand. Frances pointed to a part of it. Mrs Vernon began to read aloud: "'The historic inn, "The Bolton Arms," at Newcaster, was on Monday night----' What stuff is this?"
"Go on!"
Mrs Vernon did read on; but to herself. Presently there broke from her what seemed to be an involuntary exclamation; then another; then she lowered the paper, with a face which was almost as white as her daughter's.
"Frances! It's--it's not true!" The girl said nothing; she went on: "Emmett? Wasn't that the name of Dorothy's guardian? Frances! You--you don't think that--that this--means Dorothy?"
"How can I tell? You heard what Mrs Purchas said about Dorothy Gilbert of Newcaster?"
"Did she--do you think--she referred to this? If she did, then--others may have known."
"I believe they did--I believe Mr Denman knew--Jim's friend."
"That boy! Do--do you think--Strathmoira knew?" The girl said nothing. Mother and daughter were still staring at each other, in silence, when Mr Vernon entered by the same route as his wife had come. Mrs Vernon turned towards him. "Harold, read this inThe Times; tell me what it means."
Mr Vernon put on his glasses with an air of deliberation for which his wife, in her new state of nervous tension, could almost have shaken him. By the time he had got the glasses to his liking he had lost the place.
"What is it I'm to read? Is it anything remarkable? Show me where it is." She showed him again. "Races? What have I to do with races? Oh, there!--I see!" He read the paragraph conscientiously through; then looked over the top of the paper at his womenfolk. "Well? It's a commonplace and disagreeable story; what special interest is it supposed to have for me? You know I don't care to read about such things. What is there about this that you should thrust it on my attention?"
His mental processes never were of the quickest. On occasions his family had a feeling that his wits needed oiling; they seemed to be moving slower than ever just then. His wife exclaimed:
"Don't you see the names?"
"Names? Emmett?--Emmett? I seem to have heard the name before; now in what connection have I heard it?"
"It's the name of Dorothy's guardian. Harold, read that paragraph again, and then say if nothing about it strikes you as being of interest to you."
Mr Vernon did as he was told. On a second reading it dawned on him what his wife alluded to--dawned on him with a sense of shock.
"God bless my soul! You--you don't mean to say that you for one moment imagine that anything about this painful story refers to Miss Gilbert?--to our Miss Gilbert?--to Frances' Miss Gilbert?"
Before his wife could answer, there came rushing into the room, with that unceremonious haste with which some young men will rush into rooms, his son--excitement writ large all over him; and a paper--which was notThe Times--in his hand.
"I say, mater!--and dad!--this is a jolly pretty state of things! Have you heard about it?--everybody else has!--it seems we're the only people who haven't! I don't know what Strathmoira's thinking about! I call it pretty thick!"
Agitation made his meaning less clear than he appeared to think.
"James," observed his father, "if you will cease bounding about the room as if you were possessed; and will not bawl; and will be a little less idiomatic, it is possible that your mother and I will get some idea of what it is you are talking about."
"But, dad, Dorothy Gilbert--Miss Gilbert's wanted for murder!"
His meaning was clear enough then.
"Jim!"
His name came from his mother and sister in practically the same instant.
"It's no good you two looking at me like that! there's no getting away from the truth!--look at this!" He pointed to a staring headline which ran across two columns of the paper which he held in front of them: "Where Is Dorothy Gilbert?" "That's a nice thing for me to find glaring at me when I buy an evening paper to look at the cricket! I never felt anything like what I felt when I saw that! Yes, where is she? I can tell you this, there's scarcely a person who was here this afternoon who doesn't know! I expect it's all over the place by now!--at any moment you may have half-a-dozen policemen coming up the drive!"
"Jim, if--if you don't take care what you are saying I'll never speak to you again."
"Now, Frances, it's no use your putting on frills!--you simply don't know what you're talking about. Here's her description--read it for yourself; no one can read it and possibly mistake her. You told me yourself her guardian's name was Emmett; well, he was murdered the night before last--murdered, mind!--read about it yourself! the story's a curdler!--and they say she did it!--I don't say she did it----"
"You'd better not!"
"But they do; and they'll lock her up for it as sure as we are standing here! Anyway you look at it. We've nothing to thank Strathmoira for for getting us mixed up with a thing like this. My hat! I'd like to talk to him!"
"You talk to him! You don't know what you are talking about now! You've not the slightest right to take it for granted that--that my Dorothy has anything to do with the person in the papers."
"Don't talk stuff and nonsense!--it's you who're talking through your hat!--the whole thing's as plain as a pikestaff; do you suppose I don't wish it wasn't?--that I want us to be dragged into a mess of this sort? Oh yes, it's just the sort of thing I would like! Why, it tells you here how Strathmoira came across her; and how it is that she only knew him as Eric Frazer. He's been cruising about in that van of his--you know, mater, that rotten old caravan of his?"
"It's a rotten old caravan, is it, now? You were anxious enough to 'cruise about' with him in it!"
"I daresay!--never again!--no thank you! When she--or someone--had done for that poor beggar, Emmett, she bolted; she came on him in his van on Newcaster Heath; he gave her shelter for the night."
"Why shouldn't he? He's the most chivalrous of men!"
"All right; who said he wasn't? He seems to have been more chivalrous still next day, when he seems to have nearly killed a chap on his own account."
"My son, you let your tongue run away with you!"
"My dear mater, here it is in black and white! The chap, who seems to be something in the gipsy line, and rejoices in the name of Benjamin Hitchings, overheard her--that's Miss Gilbert--telling him the whole jolly tale--giving herself completely away in fact. Strathmoira--whom the paper calls Frazer--caught him listening, and seems to have as nearly as possible broken his neck for him--you know what a dab he is at those ju-jitsu tricks; I expect he played one of those pretty little capers off on Mr Hitchings. Anyhow, the police are after him as well as her; warrants are out for both of them. No wonder he preferred the middle of the night to dump her at our front door; goodness knows I don't set up to be a prophet, but I should like to know what the betting is that it's a good long time before we see or hear anything more of the Earl of Strathmoira."
"James, are you forgetting that the Earl of Strathmoira is a relative of mine and of your own?"
"That's what makes it too utterly too-too!--and Miss Gilbert is Frances' particular friend! Oh, we're quite in the thick of it!"
"Will you let me see the paper which you say contains that dreadful story?"
"Here it is, mater; you'll find it cheerful reading; there's a lot more to it than I've told you. There's one thing I haven't told you, and that is that unless we're uncommonly careful before very long there'll be warrants out for us."
"James, are you insane?"
"For aiding and abetting, which is what harbouring amounts to! People have been sent to penal servitude for covering a murderer."
A modest tapping was heard; the room door was opened; Parkes, the butler, entering, closed it softly behind him; there was perturbation on his face and in his bearing.
"Excuse me, sir; excuse me, madam; but there's a dreadful kettle of fish in the servants' hall. I felt I had to come to you. Taylor brought in an evening paper to look at the cricket; and in it there's all about the Newcaster murder; and the servants will have it that, from the description in the paper, Miss Gilbert upstairs is the young woman who did it; and I must say myself that the description is surprisingly like. I am very sorry, sir, and madam, and Miss Frances, but they are going on so, and there's even some talk of some of them not staying in the house. According to the paper there's a reward of a hundred pounds offered for her capture; and West, who's talking of getting married, says that if she had the hundred pounds she might get married at once, and that she doesn't see, if anyone is to have it, why it shouldn't be her; and, sir, and madam, and Miss Frances, I don't know what will happen if something isn't done to stop her."