The secret was undone. This man knew. Fate had brought him to London.
Mechanically she walked on.
"Ah, milady!"—his brown hand gripped hers. "Well met. And—you do not look well."
"Mr Herbert, I've dropped a brooch, just over there; try to find it for me." Esmé sent the boy away, stood staring at the Italian.
"I have not ten minutes," he said. "I have to go, but my uncle would have me come here to see the English monde. And so—I see the child is hurted, but is nearly well again. I came yesterday," he said. "I leave to-morrow, recalled to Italy, or I would have gone to see him and you."
He knew no one there. He was alone and he was leaving London. Yet at any moment he might meet Denise with her husband.
"I am so glad to see you," Esmé faltered. "See, come to supper, and I will try to find Esmé; she is here too."
She hurried him downstairs to the supper-room; saw Denise, and leaving Luigi ran across to her.
Denise was with Lord Ralph Karton.
"Denise!" Esmé bent down to her. "Get away. Luigi is here. He takes me for you. He is at supper with me. Getaway, I say; but I must see the boy to-morrow, if I keep silence again—I must," she said.
Denise Blakeney slipped to the door, stood there panting, hiding; she was not well, she told Lord Ralph; sent him for her husband.
"Esmé—I dare not," she whispered back; "but here—you are hard up—take this for gratitude."
She slipped a great bar of diamonds from her bodice, held it out.
"It cost a thousand," she said. "But you've saved me."
"I'll take it if I see the boy," said Esmé, sullenly.
"Not until Cyril's out of London. Telephone to me. I dare not."
Esmé's fingers closed on the glittering toy she held. It was magnificent; meant ease, peace—for months.
"So again I sell him," she said bitterly. "Go, Denise, quickly, while there is time."
She was pressed against Denise by the crowd, struggled away just as Sir Cyril came down the stairs to his wife.
Esmé slipped the diamond bar inside her dress, fastening the clasp to some lace. She went back to the Italian doctor, sat talking to him, saw him leave, and at the last was almost discovered.
For Luigi, bowing low over his country-woman and hostess, had told joyously of his meeting with Milady Blakeney.
"I will tell the uncle who said she was not fair that he is blind," he laughed.
The Marchese smiled, puzzled. "Fair to us, perhaps," she said. "She has gone home, poor lady."
"But no," said Luigi, puzzled.
Then the crowd separated the two Italians. Luigi went back to his hotel, and on next day to Italy.
A line no broader than that of a spider's weaving had saved Denise from exposure.
She drove home so frightened that she looked really ill; went to her room, clinging to Cyril's arm. The husband she had once treated so lightly seemed now a bulwark between her and all misfortune. To lose him—lose her home, her position—
Denise was pale, exhausted, as she slipped into her big chair, crouched there shivering.
Sutton, stiffly sympathetic, unloosed the clinging satin gown, brought a warm, rose-pink wrapper. Cyril ran for brandy.
"But, milady, the bar of diamonds. It is gone."
Cyril Blakeney paused at the door; he had heard.
"I told you that the clasp was bad, Sutton; I was afraid."
"I do not remember your ladyship having mentioned it," said Sutton, acidly.
"Your big bar, Den? The one I gave you last Christmas?"
"Yes." Denise sipped the fiery spirit. "Telephone, Cyril; send a man round. The fastening was bad; search the car."
"I do not think that we shall find it." Sir Cyril's face was very stern. He remembered seeing Esmé pressed close to his wife. In his heart he had no doubt the woman had stolen again.
Esmé had been Denise's friend in time of trial. He could not give her into the hands of the police. He said nothing to his wife, but went down slowly, heavily, to write a note and send it round.
And as fogs rise, so the whisper grew; Sir Cyril shrugged his shoulders when he spoke of the loss; he openly turned away from Esmé Carteret in the Park.
"Someone, I fancy, took it from my wife when she felt faint; at a huge reception like that there are curious people. Lord Harrington noticed it as she came to supper."
Sharp eyes had seen Esmé press close to Lady Blakeney, whisper to her; someone had noticed that she slipped something inside her dress.
London must draw its skirts aside from this offender and suspect.
Spring again, dancing backwards from summer's hot grasp. Light winds whispering wantonly as they caressed the waking earth. Soft sunlight, and everywhere the scent of narcissi, the blaze of golden daffodils.
The brown drawing-room had known no change during the passing months. It was as stiffly hideous as ever. TheChurch TimesandSunday Heraldlay on the same table; the winter fires had been ordered away, and a vase of daffodils glowed yellow in the grate.
"It would be good in Devonshire to-day." Bertie Carteret looked out at the dull, prim square, where the sooty trees were trying to grow green. "Lord! think of the great clean air there blowing in over the sea, and the flowers in the old spring garden; and here with spring there is dust, and there are always pieces of paper blowing round corners."
Through a weary winter he had drawn the veil of friendship across love. Estelle's gentle face had brightened the world for him, a world which had grown very dark.
"Poor boy," she said softly now; and there was no friendship in her voice. Spring called. She was a woman, weary of watching the game she might not join. The wanton voice of London was in her ears to-day—the sooty, dark square, the prim room stifled her. Your being of transient emotions has frittered so many thrills, so many little mockeries of passion, that one a little deeper matters little; but the hard-held nature frets at barriers, tears at its self-made bit as its longing eyes look at the wide fields it must not go into. To give nature the rein for once, to know the glory of loving. Man and woman, one giving, one possessing, both tasting the joys of the gods.
"And it is always the same?" Estelle's strong, slim hands were pressed together as though she held something in them that she would not let go.
"It is always the same," he said bitterly. "The world—what Esmé calls the world—has dropped us. Somewhere—Heaven knows where—she finds the money to make another for herself. Is always with Cissie de Burgh—a woman glad to know anyone—with her friends the Henley leaders, and Frank Dravelling. Bridge parties, dinners, bitter tempers. I had to go to supper at the Savoy last night to find one table a mass of flowers and fruit, to see Esmé sweeping past her old friends, to hear her laughing too loud, talking for effect, so that they should see she did not care. It was a pretty party, with neither Tommy nor Lord Francis Dravelling quite sober."
As Sir Cyril Blakeney believed Esmé to be a thief, so her husband believed firmly now that some man must pay, and that she was too clever to let him find out.
Their roads lay apart; they were frigidly friendly, and the depth of Esmé's hurt prevented her asking for an explanation.
She did not know why her London turned its head away from her; never guessed that Denise had let her fall under such a vile suspicion—to save herself. Never guessed either why Bertie grew suddenly cold, told her one day that for the future she would still hold his name but no more.
Brooding, sore, Esmé's brilliant beauty faded; she lived, clawing at the spiked door which closes the room called right. It was bitter to see her book empty of engagements, to hear the cold "Not at home" of well-drilled butlers, to be left out of bridge at the club. For a time she went there, sitting alone, then it hurt too much; she went no more. As Cain she was tempted to cry out that her punishment was greater than she could bear.
"Leave London. Come to Cliff End," Bertie pleaded once.
"No! Someone has lied, and I must find out who. No, Bertie, I can find other friends."
They were found. Esmé spent money recklessly. Smiled now on people she would not have bowed to. Went to houses whose reputation had endured one of the many smudgings. Played high, and lost and won. Ate grilled bones at six o'clock in the morning, and tried to make it pleasure. Her tongue could trip lightly over well-known names. She was welcome in the new set, which called folly, smartness, and weak vice, life.
What was it? A cloak may hide a sore, but the very manner of the concealing chafes the thing it covers.
Unpitied, wrongly suspected, Esmé's heart broke as she tore at the locked door. If one could find the backward road—if the Great Powers would give us back the years, seeing as we see now. Lie and scream and bleed, little human, the way is always onward—there are no scissors to cut the false stitches we have made.
If she could go back to that careless springtime and do right. Take motherhood as woman's right and joy and pain; guess how she would love the child which then she had dreaded.
"I was mad—mad," Esmé would groan, and yet blame circumstance and opportunity and Denise, rather than her own selfish weakness.
If Denise had not come to her she must have gone through with it, and gained peace and happiness.
Selfishness and greed and fear had stood for her boy's sponsor, had marred both these women's lives. And Justice, smiling grimly, saw one floating on a flood-tide of prosperity, made happy and successful by her scheming. The other an outcast, broken in health and spirit. Justice sat quiet. To some the whip is administered at once; to all the punishment, the payment of the fine. Interest grows in the black ledger of our sins.
Two women had schemed successfully, and other lives were drawn now into the mesh.
"I am very tired of it all, Estelle." Bertie got up restlessly. "Very tired. My home is no home. My old friends look at me with a pity which is worse than enmity. I went to Denise Blakeney once. I asked if she knew what was amiss, and she turned red and white and stammered, and 'Oh, no, of course not—unless there might be some scandal, something foolish.' I came away, knowing she would not tell me the truth she knew of."
Estelle's head turned away; she knew; she had heard the black suspicion, but she could not tell Bertie Carteret that the world held his wife to be a thief. Better let him suspect the other, which was not true.
"Well, little companion?" He stopped his restless pacing, looked down at the sunny brown hair, and at the girl's sweet, glowing face. "How is it all to end?"
"When I go back to—to Cape Town," she said.
The words were as knives slashing at self-control, cold steel carving finely at an open raw.
"No," he slipped out. "By Heaven! you shall not go."
"But I must." Then Estelle's voice faltered; she knew what it would be to part, with nothing known of love save imagining, save a few hand-clasps—friends must not kiss; save the sweetness of nearness driving home from theatres.
"No," he said again. He caught her hands suddenly, held them closely.
"You would take my only comfort," he muttered. "Estelle—don't go."
Man does not see sometimes his supreme selfishness. That this girl should eat her life out to keep him from his sorrows.
"I ... let us go out," she said.
Outside spring rioted, danced, kissing men and maids to madness and to merriment. His breath passion, his light touch a thrill.
"Come from this sooty sarcophagus," Bertie said.
They drove to the Park, and on to Kensington Gardens, where London plays at being the countryside. There the big trees were really green; one could look through the tracery at the blue sky, and forget the great city roaring at right and left, at back and front. Toy lap-dogs, belled and netted, and larger dogs held on leash, by well-dressed men and women, bereft of liberty, told that this was a mere painted scene, and no true piece of country.
But it was fresh. Spring danced there gleefully. Summer would gather the harvest; spring was the sower of love thoughts.
Estelle strolled across the grass, sat down at length on a wooden bench, where a great beech above her made green fretwork against a sea of tender blue.
They were silent. Everyday words were out of tune to spring's music; and they feared to say the others.
"You cannot go, Estelle. You will not really." Bertie harked back to the fear of parting.
"And if I stayed," she said, suddenly mutinous, alluring.
"If you stayed," he whispered, then grew grave. "Could two people not make a world for themselves, Estelle, and be happy in it alone?"
She held sweet fruit to her aching mind, then broke through to the hard kernel of the truth.
"No, for we are never alone," she said gently. "That is the weariness of it. There are no two who strive to make this world who do not draw others inside the hedge of their secret orchard."
His hand fell on hers softly.
"Then, since there is no future, I'll have to-day," he said sharply. "We'll dine and do a theatre, Estelle, and sup recklessly in some quiet place."
What theatre? Bertie had a paper in his pocket; they bent over it.
"This new thing—Spring," he said.
"It's advanced, isn't it?" she asked.
"It's very much so, they say. Miss Prude! But I am not in the mood for flounced virtue set in Scotch, nor for all the solid worth which the fashion follows. The music's lovely. I hear the piece floats through a pale green wood, and over primroses and daffodils, away to a sapphire sea."
"Let it be Spring then," she said. "This day is yours, my friend."
Friend! whose hand lay hot on hers, when their eyes met half joyously, half despairingly. Joy that fate should have allowed them to meet; despair that since man and woman are created for each other they could not know the fullness of happiness.
A cord long strained will snap at last. The cord of self-restraint which they had tied up the hands of nature with had come to its last strand, and they knew it.
The spring day slipped away to the hour when the curtain rose on the new musical play. Well-named, for it was light and sweet as spring himself, full of tenderly passionate music, of waking love, of budding youth. Tame blood which would not run a little faster as the south and west winds, the sunshine and the showers, came creeping to wake the spring earth maidens. Girls veiled in tender green, their limbs and faces seen through a mist of some transparency. The wild winds blew the draperies aside; a mock gale blowing from the wings; sunshine turned the green to a glow of gold; the showers came, mistily green, with light behind them, but to each the maidens turned, trembled, and gave themselves to the wooing arms.
The whole piece was full of suggestion and of fantasy.
Quiet Estelle, watching, felt the longing in her blood grow stronger; was youth to pass and leave her unwoken by a lover? Was she never to know the madness of hot kisses, the restful heaven of the afterwards?
"I dreamt once that I had found Spring"—Bertie's voice sounded far away to her—"and it was a mocking wraith. Estelle, if we might find it together—you and I."
"If!" She moved her hands to the time of a haunting dance.
The house was full. People who had been the Carterets' friends were here and there. Dollie Gresham, with the Blakeneys; the Holbrooks in a box, often looking sadly at a pair in the stalls—the Marquis and Marchioness of Boredom.
One big box at the left, empty until the middle of the second act, was suddenly filled by a noisy crowd. Three women came to the front, throwing back rich cloaks, showing over-bare necks and arms, flashing with jewels; the background was filled in with the black-and-white uniform of dining mankind.
"Esmé," Bertie whispered, "with those people."
Poor Esmé, glaring defiance at the friends who had cut her, her cheeks scarlet, her lips crimson, dazzlingly handsome still, but haggard, bad style, laughing too gaily, talking too loudly, holding up her careless happiness too openly. And straight opposite, Denise, quietly dressed, placidly happy, avoiding Esmé's challenging looks.
The parts had been played and gone strangely for the players.
"My wife," said Carteret, bitterly, "with a crowd of fourth-rate impossibilities—and looking...." He paused, expressively. "Estelle, do you think a man likes to see his wife look like that? I hope she may not see us."
A vain hope. Esmé's restless eyes looked everywhere. She started, turned laughingly to Lord Francis Dravelling.
"See my immaculate spouse and his flame," she said, "there, in the stalls. I used to like the girl once, but I leave her to Bertie now."
"Hot stuff, eh?" said the boy, his eyes devouring Esmé. Then he whispered to her eagerly.
Esmé's eyes grew hard, her face set bitterly.
Bertie, the man she had once loved dearly, was sitting with another woman, and she was listening, without anger, to a bold suggestion. And all, everything, had come from that one rebellion against nature and custom.
"I am not taking you among the world to-night," Bertie said to Estelle. "I've ordered a quiet supper in a quiet place."
It had turned cold; they drove to a hotel, went to a warm room, its stiffness tempered by huge bowls of flowers, supper laid on the table.
The waiter discreetly presumed that they would ring if he was required; he left them with a faintly un-waiter-like grin.
Estelle was not hungry; she pecked at aspic and foie gras, but drank champagne; glad as the sparkling wine banished care, did its allotted work.
It was peaceful in there; the scent of the flowers filled the room; the fire burnt brightly.
They left the half-eaten meal and came to the glow of the blazing coals.
"Estelle!" The last strand snapped. Bertie's arms closed round the girl, crushed her supple body to his, kissed her with the reverence of great passion. "Estelle!" he said. "You are spring—turn to me."
The lips that answered his, the arms that clung about his neck told him she loved him.
Forgetting the barrier of custom and law, they snatched bliss from the greedy gods. Yet, even as he held her, Bertie knew this was no creature of light intrigues; she might come to him in a glory of sacrifice, to be his for all time; she would not sink to the furtiveness of secret meetings, to the sharing of her man with another home.
He put Estelle in a big chair, knelt before her, told her all the folly which is never old, which the great master Passion can tune anew each time. And what were they to do? Part—and let the world rob them of their joy, or....
"It must be all or nothing now," he said hoarsely. "We could meet so often, little sweetheart—be so happy."
"Living a lie," she said bravely, though with all her nature yearning for him. "No, Bertie, no."
He pleaded on—pleaded with lips which touched her hotly and yet reverently, with soft whispers of what life might mean. "Estelle—then come to me. Let us go away altogether. Take some house in the country, and live for each other. People would forget in time."
"And Esmé?" Estelle asked simply. "How would she live?"
"I would give her money, what I could spare; then she has someone who supports her; there is no doubt of that, Estelle, or I would not be here now. I would have buried my love for you, taken her away to Cliff End if she had been faithful to me."
"You do not know," Estelle faltered.
"I know she can pay bills, do as she chooses. It comes from someone."
Estelle sat silent. People said it came from stolen jewels, and she did not tell him. She knew him so well; she feared his burst of wrath, his going straight to Cyril Blakeney and demanding proof or retraction.
"It is time to go," Estelle said. "Bertie, I'll tell you to-morrow. Come to me about four. I'll be alone. I'll tell you then."
With a sudden thrill of fear and joy she knew that in her own sultry room she might be less strong.
"For if I lose you, I shall go to the Devil without you," Bertie said recklessly.
The heart of woman delights in self-sacrifice. Estelle knew that she would lose the world gladly to make her man happy. She was pure enough to look passion in the face and not hide hers; to joy in the thought of giving herself and to realize what it would mean.
"I will come to-morrow," Bertie said, his hands heavy on her bare shoulders, his eyes more eloquent than words.
The discreet waiter came padding noiselessly, took his bill and tip.
"But not our sort," he muttered, as Estelle went out.
Bertie Carteret walked home alone. Estelle would not let him drive with her. Far up the stars blinked in a violet sky, the cool spring wind blew against his flushed face. Having been, up to the present, a mere ordinary honourable man, he was miserable. Gloss it over as he might he knew what he was asking for.
The tall mass of the mansions towered high above him; he hated the place, its comfortless show.
"Mr and Mrs Rabbit, who live in a warren," he said, as he let himself in.
The little sitting-room was dusty, neglected, but he sat in it smoking until the stars went out and grey dawn came sickly pale to oust the night.
A motor siren bleated below. After a little he heard the swish of silk. Esmé, haggard and flushed, came into the room.
How she had changed. The childish look had gone for ever, replaced by a hard bitterness, by mirthless smiles.
"You!" she said carelessly. "You've made a night of it, my friend."
"I have been home for hours," he said coldly.
"Tiens! Who knows!" She went to a table, poured out brandy and opened a bottle of Perrier. "Who knows, my Bertie. I saw you with Her at the theatre."
He sprang up, white, angry, to find the words wither on his lips. How could he deny, refute, with to-morrow—nay, to-day—before him? He sat down again, wearily, as a man does who is very tired.
"Look here, Bertie." Esmé lighted the gas fire, flung off her cloak; her hair was tossed, her thin arms and neck bared to the bounds of decency, her dress was a sheath outlining each slender limb. "Look here!" she said. "You're sick of me. Let's have done with it. I'll meet you half-way."
"What do you mean?" he stammered.
"Mean?" She lighted a cigarette, then took a little tablet from a box and dropped one into her glass. "This is Nervine—Steadier—what you like," she mocked, "and really morphia. My nerves have gone to pieces. I mean—go away; refuse to come back; amuse yourself with the fair Estelle, and I'll divorce you. Frank Dravelling would marry me," she said eagerly.
Bertie gave no answer.
"And I'm sick of this. He's a bleating, mawkish calf, but he's got fifteen thousand a year for me to spend, and if I don't, a dozen other women will."
Cold disgust gagged him. Had she no sense of decent feeling, to talk like this? Was the girl he had married dead?
"He is at the age when he admires rouge and paint," mocked Esmé. "He'll make me My Lady, and Society will be glad to know me again. I'm sick of being no one, of seeing glum looks and tracking round with fifth-rate women. Come, Bertie! It's easily arranged."
As swift hands rub blurred glass, so that one can see clearly through what was dim, Esmé's words let the man's mental eyes look across the future.
Estelle, his pure little Estelle! This painted, haggard woman would make a cat's-paw of her, drag her shamed name into the maw of the press, and stand aloof herself, an injured wife. And he—he—in his madness had been about to help her. Hidden by glamour of passion, how different it had been to this standing naked, showing its distorted limbs. Let sorrow come or go, he knew that he would not now drag the woman he loved into sinning. These are the world's laws, men say, yet surely God's laws also, since to break them means remorse and punishment. Slight bonds of custom, but holding sane humanity.
"You have a curious mind," he said at last. "My God, have you no sense of right or wrong, Esmé—no shade of decency left?"
"Oh, leave sermons to the Church," she said roughly.
"And supposing"—he got up, stood facing her, man baited, driven to bay—"I were to divorce you, my wife?"
"You can't," she said coolly. "If I stay out all night it's with companions. And look here, Bertie, I am sick of it all. I say, let me divorce you, or I'll take proceedings myself. If you are wise any woman of the streets will serve your purpose; if you are not, your pure Estelle's name will be in every paper. See!"
She tossed a photograph across to him. A glimpse of sea and cliff, and two people asleep, lying close to a bank. Their faces were clear; the girl, lying back, had one hand outstretched; the man, his face against the bank, had his upon it.
"Repose," said Esmé, coarse meaning in her voice, as every shade of colour whickered from her husband's face. "Repose by the sea."
The girl's face was Estelle Reynolds; the man's his own.
"Marie's young man is a photographer; he snapped this at the seaside one day in June, years ago. Marie brought it to me, commenting on the likeness to you. I kept it. Come, Bertie, give me freedom, or I'll take it."
Holding the photograph, he saw what its evidence would mean. Idle to prate of innocence with this before the jury. It might be printed with a dozen suggestive names below it. His uncle would turn against him; Estelle would not get over it.
"Well?" she said, watching him.
"No, but ill," he answered. "Yes, it's true. We dropped asleep sitting looking at the sea. Pah! what use to tell you?... We merely dropped asleep. But if you show this there shall be counter action, Esmé."
"As I said," she flung out defiantly—"if I stay out at night, it's with companions."
He was ready with his counter-thrust; it darted, swift and true.
"From what companion," he asked slowly, "do you get your money? Do you think me a fool, Esmé, not to have noticed all that you spend and pay?"
The colour ebbed from her face now, leaving the reddened mouth, the rouged cheeks, standing out unnaturally.
Evidence was so easy to find and trump up; she wanted her freedom, but with her name untouched—it was her one chance.
"I've known for months or more that there was someone," he went on. "There is such a thing as common intelligence, Esmé."
"You've known for months and years—known that there was someone," Esmé repeated; her red lips drew away from her white teeth as she sat, stunned. So Bertie had believed her a light woman, untrue to him, a creature vending her beauty to some man. That, too, the consequence of her deceiving, of her folly.
She sat still, a stricken thing, her eyes alone alive in her face.
"That, I suppose, was why you changed to me," she whispered, in a curious metallic voice.
"That was why I ceased to love you—to live with you as your husband," he said simply and very sadly.
"That too!" The words rasped from between her white teeth, and suddenly she laughed—a hopeless, mirthless laugh, coming in noisy gusts; laughed, sitting there, white and haggard, until the laughter changed to gulping, sobbing gasps.
"Don't, Esmé, don't," he cried. "Don't laugh like that."
She got up, her rich dress trailing round her thin limbs, the fire of her jewels catching the gleams from the electric light.
"So you won't let me divorce you?" she said. "Well, find my fellow-sinner if you can, and for the present say good-night to Mrs Cain."
Still laughing, she moved slowly across the room, and into her own; shut the door quietly behind her.
"That too!" she said. "Cut by Society; suspected by her husband." Oh, poor Esmé, just because she was a selfish, wicked fool. Poor Esmé—who was once so happy.
"Marie, I ... have you heard me? Marie—come!"
And then, for the first time, Esmé fainted; sank into a merciful blackness, lay cold and still, until Marie found her.
Estelle had decked her room with flowers; had put on a soft gown, when a messenger brought her a letter.
"Estelle, I will not come. You are not a woman for a selfish man to drag down. It is good-bye, and not good-bye for me, for I shall never lose sight of your dear face; but for you, you are a girl—young—forget me. Marry someone you can like; don't leave your life empty. Let home and the kiddies be the cloth to wipe my memory out with. Estelle, I've woken you. I speak from man to woman, plainly. Go to your mother, and marry, for thwarted nature leads to strange miseries. Good-bye, Estelle. Last night Esmé spoke out, and I saw where I was taking you to, and I'll not do it. My place is here, to save my wife, for who am I to prate of morality?"
Estelle read the letter, folded it up; the world was empty, swept clear of love and hope and tenderness.
Very quietly she went to her writing-table, sat down there.
"I have just got your letter," she wrote. "You are right, but one word. People believe that Esmé took, or got, jewels of Lady Blakeney's and sold them at Benhusan's and elsewhere. Her money comes from this source, they say. That is why people have cut her. I could not tell you before, and I was wrong. I do not believe it, but think that they were given to her by Denise Blakeney, and that there is some secret between them.Estelle."
She sent the letter by a cab.
"A thief!" Bertie Carteret turned white to the lips as he read. They called his wife a thief. He sat for an hour before he moved. Should he go to Cyril Blakeney, fling the foul slander in his face? What should he do?
"Move carefully, or I show this."
Esmé had the photograph which could brand Estelle before the world. He feared it, feared his wife. She came in now, dressed to go out.
"Esmé," he said hoarsely, "Esmé, do you know why people dropped you?"
"I have never known," she answered coldly. "Come, Bertie, are you more sensible to-day? Get out of my life and I'll let your girl's reputation be."
She was his wife, bore his name. He told her then, quickly, his brain reeling.
"They say that!" she cried wildly. "Denise let that lie pass. Denise knew, and let them say Istole."
There was no guilt in Esmé's storming, but a madness of rage, of blind, futile fury.
"Did you sell diamonds?" he asked. "Esmé, tell me the truth, and I'll see the slander buried. You are my wife."
"I did. I sold them," she flung out. "They have the evidence. But Denise gave them to me; she gave me money to buy silence. So that, too—that too! all for one thing. A thief to the world—a fallen woman to you. A thief! Oh, God! a thief!" Her hands were at her throat; she gasped a little. "Oh! I have borne enough," she raged wildly. "And now Denise shall suffer. Tell as much truth as will clear me, and give me back my own. You don't believe it, Bertie?" There was wild appeal in her tortured eyes.
"Before heaven, no, Esmé," he rang out.
"And your belief is as false. Before to-morrow you shall know what I am, and what I've done, and judge me then. I am going to find Denise. I'll send for you."
"What is there between you?" he asked. "What?"
"You'll know to-morrow." There were tears now in her eyes; just at the door she turned, held out her hands. "Forgive a sinner, Boy," she faltered, "though not the sinner you dream of." In all her bravery and paint she was very pitiful.
Before Bertie could answer she had slipped away.
She had gone to the Blakeneys; there was something between the two women.
Then Marie, trim, moving deftly, came in.
"Monsieur," she said.
"Well?" He hated the woman who held the photograph and had shown it.
"Monsieur, I would follow Madame. She was distraught, wild! There is some secret, Monsieur, between her and Milady Blakeney. Always notes to the club, and notes by special messenger for Madame, though it is that they do not speak. And, Monsieur, I leave to-day. I go to be married. I will speak. Has Monsieur never suspected anything? Before I left Madame, Madame was enceinte. I know, I could not be mistaken. The two Madames then disappear—alone. Has Monsieur never seen?"
"What?" almost shouted Bertie. He got his hands on the maid's shoulder, unconsciously he shook her.
"How like Milady Blakeney's son is to Madame here," hissed Marie; "that when he was ill Madame sat here as one distraught. Ah! gently, Monsieur."
"You mean?" he gulped out, letting go.
"That Milady Blakeney is not the mother of one of her children," said the Frenchwoman, softly. "And that sorrow for having parted with her child has made Madame so miserable as she is now. Follow her, Monsieur. She is worn out from drugged sleep—from remedies full of the cocaine. Follow her swiftly."
"Woman, I think you're mad."
With a groan stifled in his throat Bertie ran down the stairs and hailed a taxi to drive to Grosvenor Square.
The butler was human; distress and gold broke his reserve.
"Her ladyship was out of town. Master Cecil had not been well, and her ladyship and the children were at Trelawney in Devonshire."
Trelawney was the village close to Cliff End.
"Mrs Carteret was here, sir. She got a time-table and looked out the trains; she has left for Devonshire, I fancy. There is a fast train reaching Trelawney at about four, no other now for some time. Mrs Carteret, sir, said she would get a motor, as it would be much quicker."
"You, Carteret!" Cyril Blakeney had driven up in his big car. "What is the matter? You look ill."
"Slander's the matter. Mischief's the matter," Bertie burst out. "A story too strange for credence is the matter."
"A moment! Come in here. The doorstep's no home for confidence."
"With you—who spread this lying tale!" rasped Bertie.
The two men faced each other. One worn from unhappiness; one big, prosperous, untroubled.
"You've only heard it now then? Now, Carteret? Come in here. You're ill. Keep the car, Jarvis! Come and hear my side."
There was something dominant in Sir Cyril; his will forced Bertie into the dining-room, kept him there to listen to the explanation. There, quietly, without any exaggeration, he told the whole story.
"And you believed this? One side," said Bertie, bitterly. "Sir Cyril, your wife lied; she gave diamonds to my wife."
"Gave them? Why?" The big man's voice rang in cool contempt. "That's your wife's story to you."
"As silence money for some secret. Esmé told me that. It must have been when they were away in Italy. Sir Cyril, my wife was not lying to-day. It was the truth."
"And if mine was?" The big chin stuck out, the heavy brows drew together. Cyril Blakeney could always think quickly. "As silence money," he muttered.
Bertie talked on, told how he had spoken to Esmé, and what she had said. "And she was telling the truth," he said proudly. "She's no thief, Blakeney."
Denise had spent a great deal of money; Cyril knew that; on charity, she said. He had no thought of what it could be. He believed in his wife as much as he believed in any woman.
"Come to Trelawney," he said quietly. "My car is at the door. We cannot catch a train now, and if your wife is hysterical, overwrought, there may be trouble."
As a man in a dream, Bertie went with Sir Cyril, heard the quiet questioning, nothing forgotten.
"The tank's fairly full, isn't it? Put out the jack and the levers. We shall not want you, Anderson. Now, Carteret. Oh, you'll want a coat—take one of mine. We must run fast for it's a long way."
The big Daimler glided off, threading her decorous, restrained way through London, gathering speed in the endless dreariness of the suburbs, shooting past tradesmen's carts, past suburban children herded by nurses in spotless white, for Suburbia on two hundred a year must not be surpassed by Belgravia on four thousand. Then the open country, the hum of warm engines, the glorious rush of the highly-powered car through the sunlit world, spurning the miles, taking the hills contemptuously, rushing along the level. Roads showed white ribbons, and then when that ribbon was gone another was to be ruled off. Policemen sprang out waving angry hands; the red car was past and away, and the quiet man who drove did not mean to stop. They stopped once for petrol and water, drank a whisky and Perrier, and munched some biscuits.
"Not bad." Cyril Blakeney looked at the clock which marked five as they tore into Trelawney. "We left at eleven. Now we shall know."
He drove to a little red-brick house looking on to the bay. Denise had brought her Cecil down to grow strong in the soft mild air; the boy had caught cold and been delicate.
Mrs Stanson was at the door, her face wrapped in a shawl. She came to meet them.
Her ladyship was out, she said, had taken the children to the bay.
"My face ached, Sir Cyril. Her ladyship said she would go alone without Ellen."
"Has Mrs Carteret been here?" Sir Cyril asked. "Quickly, nurse, answer!"
Mrs Stanson blushed, faltered. "Yes, Sir Cyril. She came in a motor, has gone out to her ladyship. Oh! is anything wrong?"
"Yes!" Cyril Blakeney's face was very quiet, but his eyes gleamed thoughtfully. "Where shall we find them, Mrs Stanson?"
There were two bays, one on each side of the town; two stretches of firm sands. Mrs Stanson looked dubious.
It appeared that the children had quarrelled as they started. Master Cyril wanted to go to the bay to the east, where the big rock ran out into the sea. Master Cecil to the west bay.
"Then it is sure to be this way." Sir Cyril turned to the right—to the west. "Come, Carteret—we'll walk fast."
Something was making Bertie Carteret afraid. The two men had scarcely spoken on the way down. Just once Sir Cyril had asked: "You think you're right, Carteret?" and Bertie had answered: "Yes. My wife's no thief. She wasgiventhose jewels."
"Then there is something," Cyril said. "Something!" and did not speak again.
"I'll go the other way." Bertie pointed to the cliffs. "One never knows, and Esmé was dreadfully excited. I'll go along the cliffs, Blakeney; I can see the whole shore, and there are passages leading down, and the cliff path is quicker walking."
"Very well! It's all rather a fuss about nothing, isn't it, Carteret?"
Bertie hurried away towards the cliffs. An opal evening was falling on the world. The sea glimmered and sparkled out to the sinking sun. As he hurried, Bertie could see the woods of Cliff End, and the gables of the old house. So far he had seen no one on the beach. The tide was coming in, creaming back softly over the sands, nosing upwards on the rocks.
He was coming close to where he had sat with Estelle and known for the first time that he loved her. Far below was a stretch of firm sand, with a curious rock running out, deep water always at its landward side—a treacherous, slippery rock, not high above the water, but its sides sheer and steep.
Then he saw Denise Blakeney and his wife. Esmé was gesticulating, speaking loudly. Denise standing with bent head and outstretched, pleading hands. He saw little Cecil playing with his spade, making a castle.
The next downward track was some way on. He watched for a minute.
"Bertie!" He swung round, astonished.
Estelle, with lines in her pale face, was on the cliffs.
"You!" he jerked out. "Here—to-day. Why?"
She flushed. "I ... came to say good-bye to the cliff here," she said gently. "Where I knew for the first time that you were my world, Bertie. I came down this morning. I was walking back to Trelawney now to catch a train."
For a minute he forgot everything except that the girl beside him would understand and sympathize. He stood pouring out his story; there was no hurry.
Estelle listened, saw suddenly that Marie had not dreamed; looked back on little incidents.
"Her child!" she muttered. "Poor Esmé. Oh, Bertie, listen! we can hear what they are saying, and it's as well to know."
The voices rang clearly. Esmé was flinging out passionate words, demanding justice.
"You'll not take him," Denise cried. "Esmé, it would ruin me."
"Did you think when you allowed me to be ruined?" stormed Esmé—"saw me cut, banned by my friends?"
"You wrote a foolish letter," wailed Denise. "Cyril thought you had stolen the diamonds. I never told him so."
"No, but to save yourself you left it at that. You acted a cruel lie. Now give me my boy. I have borne enough."
"You cannot prove it," Denise sobbed piteously. "No, Esmé, no."
"I can and will. Because I was weak, and loved ease and pleasure, all this has come. The world believes me to be a thief—my husband that I am an adulteress. At least I'll have my boy. Oh, Denise, do you know how I've longed for him? How my whole life has been one ache of regret?"
"But the scandal. Oh, God! I cannot face Cyril." Denise flung herself down on the soft sand, gripping it with her hands. "I'll give you more money, anything."
"Nothing but the truth will give me back my honour. Where is the boy?"
"Cecil wanted some red seaweed for his castle. Cyril is on the rock getting it," said Cecil, looking up. "Mumsie not let Cecil go."
"On the rock!" Esmé sprang round.
The two on the cliff could hear the raised voices. With white, strained faces they listened, bewildered, almost afraid.
"The boy is hers. It is true," whispered Bertie. "Look, he's out on the rock, and it's slippery, dangerous. He ought to keep down."
A little figure was toiling along the sharply-cut edge. The tide was washing at the safe side where the rock merged into the sands, so Cyril kept high up.
"It's not safe; he may fall. You want to kill him," Esmé cried, beginning to run towards the rock.
It was safe at low tide, because the sands were bare, but no place for baby feet on the upper side above the deep water.
"You would not have let Cecil go," Esmé stormed as she hurried on. "Oh, Cyril, stop! Keep near the tide."
Perhaps her voice frightened the child as he picked his way. He started, slipped, and fell over. In a second a little white face could be seen on the calm, dark water.
"Cyril, oh, Cyril! Oh, my baby!" rose a shrieking cry.
With mad haste Esmé tore off her skirt and sprang into the sea, clutching at the sinking child. She caught him as he came up for the third time, and swam back holding him. But the black sides towered sheer and straight four feet above her; the seaweed gave as she caught it; the child was a dead weight on one arm, and she had hurt the other jumping in.
"Get help," she cried. "Get help, Denise."
Denise lay on the sands, shrieking, half-unconscious, useless and helpless.
"They'll drown! Go for help, Estelle. I may get down to them in time." Bertie swung over the edge of the cliff, beginning a perilous climb.
Another rescuer went hurrying too.
"It's Cyrrie! My Cyrrie, dwownin'."
Baby Cecil left his castle, began to patter out along the rock, sobbing as he ran. "Wait, Cyrrie, wait! I tumin' to help. Oh, my Cyrrie!"
Half-way down Bertie knew that he ought to have run on to the path. Sometimes he hung and thought he could go no further, then dropped and scrambled, and caught some point which saved him. He was still too high up to jump when he came to a jutting ledge and could see no way on. There, Esmé, clinging, slipping, as she called for help, looked up and saw him.
"Bertie!" she said. "You followed me."
She stopped calling out, clutched a new piece of seaweed and grew strangely quiet.
"Bertie, I'm not worth it," she said. "Don't risk anything."
Voices are strangely clear across the water; hers rang plainly.
"I'll come, Esmé. I must find a way. I'll save you."
"I'm going to drown, Bertie. I'm so tired, it won't hurt much; but I've time to talk a little."
As he raged up and down his ledge he heard her voice telling, as quietly as though they were in some room, safe and sheltered, her story.
"Send for Luigi Frascatelle, he'll identify me as the boy's mother. Bertie, I sold my birthright, but I've been punished for it, so forgive me now, and keep my Cyrrie—he's alive."
The pity of it as she clung there—young, pretty, once so happy. Truly, the punishment had been hard.
"Esmé! I see a way. I'll get down in five minutes. Live on and let the past be."
Twice she had felt the water at her lips, once her boy had almost slipped from her arms.
"I would have swum round but one arm is hurt," she said weakly. "Bertie, I think the boy is dying. If he dies let Denise be. Don't tell if she will clear my name."
A man ran out along the rock, heard the faltering words.
"By the God above us she shall clear it," stormed Bertie, "and give us back our child. No, Esmé, no. Oh, wait! I'm down."
He was in the water now, swimming strongly, too late; the last strand of weed had parted; weak, tired Esmé had slipped to her rest in the cool, clear water. And as she went, little Cecil, sobbing wildly, holding out his spade, fell over into the sea.
A clawing, twisted woman rose from the sands, screaming wildly, looking up as baby Cecil fell over.
Sir Cyril ran past her, kicking off his shoes as he went.
Bertie hesitated for a second, but the struggling, drowning mite had fallen in coming to try to save Cyril; he turned, swam to Cecil, and carried the child to the rock, where his father leant over.
"Quickly, man!—we'll dive," Sir Cyril cried.
"I give you back your child," Bertie said. "Mine is gone for ever." He swam on.
Diving, he brought up Esmé, her boy clasped to her.
Estelle had fetched help. They carried the still figures quickly to the cliff and back to the house.
"You meant?" Cyril Blakeney said as he went with him, carrying his drenched boy.
"Cyril is Esmé's child," Bertie said bitterly. "Your wife bought him from her. I heard it all as they talked on the sands. She told me where to find proof."
"Ah!" said Cyril, slowly. "Ah!"
Denise was tottering behind them, wild with fear, grey-faced, all beauty reft from her.
"God send," said Sir Cyril, reverently, "that both come to, and we live to repay for the blight we cast on your wife's name, Carteret."
"I cast a worse one," said Bertie, fiercely.
Then long-drawn working, as the living strive with death, as the poor quiet body is forced to life. But no working brought a quiver to little Cyril; they left him at last quiet in his cot; the motherless boy was at peace for ever.
Esmé's breath came fluttering. She had closed her eyes on sea and sky, opened them to see watching, kindly faces.
"Hush, do not speak," they told her.
"Cyril?" she whispered, and knew without an answer.
"Then let it rest," she murmured, and so drifted out again, this time for ever, into the land of shadows, glad to go and rest.
*****
Denise, half wild, had stumbled in alone, sobbing, shivering, unnoticed, as the household worked for the two lives.
Cecil had been put to bed; his hip was hurt; he lay still and exhausted; sometimes asking for "Cyrrie—my Cyrrie."
"Not you, mumsie—Cyrrie," he said fretfully. "I couldn't pull Cyrrie out—fetch Cyrrie."
Mrs Stanson, weeping for her eldest charge, came in. Seeing her, hope leapt up suddenly into Denise's heart.
"The boy, milady?" Mrs Stanson sobbed. "No hope. We've laid him to rest."
"And—Mrs Carteret?"
"Came to, and passed away, milady."
The wave of hope swelled high. For as all the punishment had fallen on the woman who lay still in the pretty drawing-room, it might lie on her still. No one else knew.
"She spoke?" Denise faltered.
"Once, milady—to ask for Master Cyril; and again to say, 'Let it rest.'"
"Ah!" The greyness slipped from Denise's cheeks. The dead cannot speak. After all, she was to escape.
Then, his big bulk filling the door, her husband came in, Carteret following.
"Oh! oh!" she cried, and held her hands out, sobbing. "Oh, Cyrrie! the boy and poor Esmé. She died to save him. Oh!"
"You can go, Mrs Stanson." The sick fear crept back to Denise Blakeney's heart. "Yes, Cyrrie is gone; and now, Denise, you will tell the truth."
"The truth," she faltered. "I—and I am so miserable."
"You'll tell how you gave those diamonds to Mrs Carteret. You'll publish it in the big papers. That is one part—and then ... now the rest of the truth," he thundered. "Oh, you two poor fools."
"But, Cyril—what else?"
"All the rest," came quickly. "Of Italy and Esmé Carteret's child."
It was over. Denise tottered to a chair, sat there staring; her punishment had fallen at last.
Then, faltering, stumbling, yet afraid to lie, Denise Blakeney told the story. Of Esmé's fear of poverty; of her own wish for a child. "And then it was arranged," she said; "we changed names. The boy was Esmé's. Luigi Frascatelle, the doctor, can tell you."
"The big, splendid boy was yours, Carteret; the poor, puny mite mine," said Cyril Blakeney, bitterly. "Well done, Denise! When a foolish girl was hysterical, foolish, as women are at these times, you advised her well. Lord! I know what she felt when I've seen her looking, looking at her own boy, with heartbreak in her eyes. I've wondered, but did not understand then. It was a pretty plot, milady, to fool me back to an untrue wife. Carteret, we are no judges to blame these two, but one has known her punishment, and one has not."
"Cyril!" sobbed Denise, "have pity! It was for you."
"For me? Pardon me, for my name and my position, knowing that I meant to rid myself of you," he answered coldly. "Carteret, Miss Reynolds is with your dead wife—go to her."
"Cyril," moaned Denise again. "You'll not expose me, for the boy's sake."
She was on her knees by Cyril's side, sobbing, entreating.
"That is for Carteret to decide," he answered. "Go to your room; you will only excite the child."
In the days to come, Denise, fighting for her delicate boy's life, knew no open disgrace. One poor foolish woman had borne it all and died; but the other left behind knew the misery of daily fear. She was a cipher, given no trust or belief; and with her always was the dread that as Cecil grew older he would be taken from her.
Cyril Blakeney, an embittered man, never forgave her.
Denise came to him the evening of Esmé's death to ask what he would do.
He was writing, making arrangements for the funeral.
"You let a woman be disgraced before the world, you let that boy whom you disliked go into danger where no baby should have gone," he said. "But you are Cecil's mother—so keep the position you schemed for—and no more."
The big man went back to his loneliness; he had loved strong Cyril, had dreamt of a boy who would run and shoot and swim and ride; and now, Cecil, injured by his fall from the cliff, would be lame for life.
Esmé sleeps in a graveyard by the sea; close by her a little grave with "Cyril, drowned the 21st of April," on it. And on her tombstone is the inscription: "She gave her life to save a child's."
Estelle and Bertie, living in the quiet country, happy, yet with a shadow of regret ever with them, guessed, as they came often to the grave, what the weak girl must have suffered.
"Judge no human being until you know the truth," said Bertie once, "for misery rode poor Esmé with a sharp spur across the thorns of recklessness. Poor Butterfly, whose day of fluttering in the sunlight was so short."
Yet, even with the shadow behind them, two of the players are happy, every-day man and woman with troubles and joys.