“I shouldn’t have suspected you of such a thing,” retorted Audrey, “until I had proof of it.”
Mr. Candover protested, growing more and more earnest, reproachful, tender, until they were interrupted by an altercation going on in the hall, and a moment later they saw the two young sons of Lord Clanfield emerging victorious from a sort of polite tussle with the footman, who had informed them clearly and distinctly that Madame Rocada was not at home.
“All right, old chap,” said the younger, Geoffrey, a little fellow five feet two inches high, who cultivated the appearance and manners of a stableman so well that even in evening clothes he looked more like his ideal than the son of a man of rank.
The elder brother laughed loudly, but did not join in the discussion. He was very tall and sloping of shoulder, good-looking in a vacuous and brainless fashion, and good-natured to excess.
The two young men evidently looked upon the professed attempt to keep them out as the merest pretence, and when Audrey hurried out of the conservatory and stood in their way, they both bowed to her with the most impudent of half-concealed smiles on their faces.
“I am exceedingly sorry that this should have happened,” said she in a low voice, as soon as she had dismissed the footman by a look. “I gave orders that you were to be told, Mr. Angmering, that I was not at home, and gentlemen usually understand what that means.”
The elder of the two had the sense to perceive that the lady was in earnest, but the younger, who was as usual in rather an elated condition, laughed as he said:—
“Well, we didn’t take it seriously, you know. We looked upon it as a good joke, for we know how hospitable you are, Madame Rocada, and we enjoyed ourselves so awfully the other night——”
“Lord Clanfield,” interrupted Audrey icily, “desires that you should not come here, and I desire it also.”
Both the young men began to smile.
“Oh, that’s it, is it?” said the younger. “I give you my word you needn’t worry your head about Lord Clanfield. We certainly shan’t tell him we’ve been here, you know.”
The elder of the two young men had by this time seen that they had made some mistake, and he was exceedingly anxious to silence his more obtuse brother. In the meantime he made apologies, sincere and not ungraceful, for their behaviour.
“There’s some mistake. We certainly never wished to intrude, Madame,” said he. “Of course, if you wish, we’ll go away at once.”
The younger, however, was indignant at what he considered his brother’s stupidity.
“I should have thought, Madame,” he said stiffly and aggressively, “that Lord Clanfield’s sons were good enough for the rest of your company. I suppose the fact is you’ve found out that there’s a convict in the family, and——”
Audrey, caught unawares, uttered a low but piercing cry. To hear her darling husband thus spoken of, in this brutal and callous manner, was too much for her overwrought nerves. To the consternation of the two young men, who beat a hasty retreat from the house, perplexed and abashed, she staggered and fell back against the door of the conservatory.
She would have fallen backwards, as the door gave way, but for the supporting arm of Mr. Candover, who had been an unseen witness of this scene from his post of observation among the palms and the flowers.
“Audrey, my darling, my darling,” whispered he in tones that froze her blood. He was holding her tightly in his arms, his fiery eyes glowing close to her face.
With all her suspicions justified, her doubts, her fears, the unhappy woman struggled, at first weakly, then with sudden vigour, to release herself from the grasp of the man whom she now feared and almost loathed, recognising in him, as she did, in one sudden flash of illumination, her evil genius if not that of her husband also.
“Let me go, Mr. Candover, let me go.”
They were within the conservatory doors, which he had contrived to close without releasing her. Still holding her fast, he looked with passionate eyes into her face and whispered:—
“Let you go? Let you go? No, Audrey, no. I’ve loved you, waited for a kind word from you, patiently, humbly. But one can’t be humble and patient for ever. Audrey, you’ve never been loved before, you don’t know what it is to hold a man’s heart in your hand, as you hold mine!”
Audrey listened in dumb terror. Loathing the very touch of this man in his new aspect, panting to get free from him, she yet felt the horrible power he possessed, and dreaded its effect upon her.
Waiting for her opportunity, she suddenly tore herself away, and facing him with fierce eyes, cried:—
“You can speak so to me,you. The friend of my husband, the man who professed so much for my poor Gerard!”
But Mr. Candover had either forgotten his prudence, or felt that he needed it no longer. Coming closer to her, and trying once more to clasp her in his arms, he cried in a tone of the utmost scorn:—
“Gerard! Gerard! Why do you pretend to care about him? Why keep up the farce of believing him to be what you know he is not? Why not snap your fingers at the memory of the wretch, when you know, and I know, and everybody knows, that his punishment was a just one, that he was a forger and a thief!”
Ifthe skies had fallen, poor Audrey could not have been more utterly bewildered, dismayed and shocked than she was by this frank and deliberate statement of Mr. Candover’s that he believed Gerard to be guilty of the crime for which he was suffering.
That this chivalrous and kind-hearted gentleman, this devoted friend and helper, should thus suddenly transform himself before her eyes, not only into a traitor to his friend, but into an accuser, a traducer, was so unexpected, so appalling to the young and simple-minded woman and devoted wife that for a few moments she was paralysed, she could neither reproach him nor reply to him.
Mr. Candover, meanwhile, was not at a loss. With his eyes still glowing, his face still flushed, he presently went on, coming nearer to her, and speaking with the same passion as before:—
“Why do you hesitate to admit the truth, that you also know your wretched husband to be unworthy a thought? He didn’t even care for you. Lovely as you are, you were never in his eyes the one treasure, the one priceless pearl, that such a woman as you deserved to be. Hateful as the task is, I could prove to you that he never cared for you as he ought to have done, that the money of which he robbed his employers was not spent on you.”
By the time he had said these words Audrey had had time to recover from her first stupefaction, and to review her forces mentally.
And to this bewilderment, this horror, there succeeded a mighty fear. Who was this man whom she had believed so good, so kind, such a true friend? What were his motives in uttering these vile words? No passion, however unlawful, however wild, could have prompted an outbreak so violent, so wicked, against the friend he had professed to love and pity.
Did he believe what he said? Was he one of the great army of the outside world, who looked upon Gerard as a criminal well punished? She was frightened, amazed, perplexed rather than passionate or indignant. It was as if the rock on which she had relied had crumbled away, and it was this thought which she expressed when at last she spoke.
Standing by one of the lounge-chairs, and clutching the back tightly, as much for support as to put a barrier between her and the man who had so instantly become in her eyes a sort of demon, she said in a low-pitched, dull voice:—
“And I thought you our friend! I trusted you! And so did he!”
The words were so simple, so free from any trace of affectation or indignation in their unshaken loyalty to her own husband and bewilderment at his friend’s change of face, that even Mr. Candover, practised man of the world as he was, was rather thrown off his balance by them, and at a loss what to say.
Since it was evident that his accusations of Gerard had only recoiled on himself, it was useless to go on in the same strain. While to make love again to a woman who stared blankly and apprehensively at him as if at an enraged animal was equally out of the question.
This being the case, Mr. Candover speedily recognised the fact that his attack had been premature, and took refuge in the usual protestations of humility, and of despair at her displeasure.
“And you were right to trust me,” he said, after a pause, during which she had continued to look at him with the same steady and scarcely veiled abhorrence. “I think, Madame, you will own I have shown myself worthy of your trust, since it was not until I was driven out of myself by contemplation of your unhappy position that I allowed you even to guess at the feelings which possess me, the passionate longing to protect you with which your lonely position fills me.”
“I thank you very much for your kind feelings, but I hope you will not again express them in the same manner,” answered Audrey, not indeed with the quiet dignity she would have liked to show, but in an unsteady voice and with little gasps for breath between her words. “And please, first of all, to remember not to call me Madame. I won’t be called by that hateful name any longer, whether Lord Clanfield has made a mistake or not about the woman he calls the ‘White Countess’. And if you don’t tell these people that it’s not my name, and that I am not a countess, and have no wish to pretend to be one, why, I shall tell them so myself.”
Mr. Candover’s eyes were covered at that moment by his downcast eyelids, so that she could not see the look of dismay and rage that shone in them. But she was thankful to see that he had entirely regained his self-command when he looked up and quietly said:—
“And what name do you mean to take? Do you mean to use your own?”
The question was a stab to her. And the shame of her position, the bitterness she felt on account of poor Gerard, cut her so keenly that she could not answer, but stood with her teeth pressed upon her lower lip, and her hands tightly clenched.
She felt that the position in which she found herself was intolerable, and a spirit of fierce resentment took the place of the anguish and fear caused by Mr. Candover’s previous behaviour. Disdaining to answer him, and too well aware, indeed, that she would have found a satisfactory reply difficult to make, Audrey, with a gesture which implied that her patience was worn out, swept out of the conservatory without another word.
She saw no more of Mr. Candover that evening, but when she returned to the drawing-room, where her absence had caused Mrs. Webster some uneasiness and surprise, she found two of the gentlemen waiting to take leave of her.
One of these was Durley Diggs, the active little American secretary; the other was a young man in whom Audrey took something of an uneasy interest.
This was a baronet of about two and twenty, a tall, good-looking and good-natured young man who had not long come into the money which he had inherited with his father’s estates, and who showed, she thought, most unwise tendencies in the matter of his companions and of his amusements.
Audrey was just in the mood to be reckless of consequences, for she had quite made up her mind not to be the figure-head of this establishment any longer. The scenes which she had gone through with the young Angmerings and with Mr. Candover had left their traces upon her outward demeanour. She was flushed, excited, her mouth was set in a fashion which caused the clever and observant Durley Diggs to note her every movement, her every look, from where he stood behind Sir Harry Archdale.
“I’ve been most awfully unlucky, Madame Rocada,” said the young baronet with the utmost good humour, as he shook hands with her.
“Why do you play then, if you always lose?” she asked, with surprising frankness.
“Well, really, Madame, your house is such a pleasant one, and one enjoys oneself so much here,” he answered, after a moment’s pause, “that, when one sees other people playing, one must play too.”
“I should not, if I found that I always lost,” said Audrey, with more and more point, as she noticed that Durley Diggs was moving about uneasily behind Sir Harry. “At least, I should not play in the same house or with the same people, when I found myself always losing.”
“By Jove, I believe your plan would be the wisest,” answered Sir Harry, after another bewildered pause, during which he had been struck by the fact that the lady was not speaking in jest, as he had at first supposed, but in deadly earnest, with firm lips and grave eyes.
“Who did you play with?” she again asked abruptly.
But at that point Durley Diggs came forward and held out his hand, with the conventional murmurs about “a pleasant evening”.
“Have you lost too?” asked Audrey sharply, speaking with more abruptness than she was aware of.
The secretary suddenly changed colour, hesitated a moment, and then answered in so reserved and strange a manner that Audrey, who had put her question in all good faith, had her suspicions roused at once.
“I—I—I lost at first, but—but on the whole evening, I think I came out fairly well,” he said, with a curious half-look, veiled and cautious, at the young man by his side.
Sir Harry laughed.
“Well,” said he, “if you did as well all round——”
Then he checked himself, as Diggs looked up with an angry eye. “Fortune of war, fortune of war!” laughed Sir Harry, as he again turned to his hostess. “Madame Rocada——”
But Audrey interrupted him sharply.
“Don’t call me by that name,” said she with decision. “It is not mine; somebody suggested it as a name to use in business, but I hate it and do not mean to be called by it any longer.”
“What am I to call you then? Just Madame?” said the young man, rather taken aback by the anger and petulance she showed.
For one moment she hesitated, regretting already that she had said so much. Then recovering herself a little, she answered:—
“Well, there will be no need to call me anything but just ‘Madame’ during the few days I shall remain here.”
“Few days! Oh, I hope you are not going away?”
“I only took this house for two months and the time is nearly over,” said Audrey.
“Then I shall come and see you in London, and buy bonnets,” laughed Sir Harry. “I’ll set up my whole family in headgear, and you shall teach me to have a nice taste in hats.”
“I shall not be there either,” she answered shortly. “Really, I am nothing but a figure-head there. It is a clever Frenchwoman named Laure who does all the work.”
To all this Durley Diggs, who remained near them, listened with attentive ears. The young baronet was not to be put off.
“You won’t shake me off so easily as that, Madame,” said he, with the daring of youth and good spirits. “Wherever you go I shall find you out, and as long as you will allow me to continue your acquaintance, I shall show myself grateful for the privilege.”
She could not help relaxing into a smile at these words, which were uttered in too boyish and withal courteous a manner to be displeasing.
But she did not hold out any hopes, or give him any invitation, and the last glance he gave at her face revealed to him plainly the fact that she was ill at ease.
It was, as usual, very late before all the guests left the house, and Mrs. Webster was too sleepy to talk much that night.
But when she and Audrey met at breakfast on the following morning, she combated most strenuously the decision of the younger lady to give up both her new acquaintances and the business which they supported so royally. On the contrary, everything she had seen and heard on the previous evening convinced Mrs. Webster that there was nothing serious in Audrey’s objections to her new mode of life, except that natural disinclination of a woman with a heavy heart to be in a circle where so much gaiety went on.
“Perfectly harmless gaiety, as far as I could see,” went on the good lady, who had enjoyed her little talks with barons and baronets, men of note in the great world, and women who, if somehow they were a little less satisfactory than the men whose names they bore, were beautifully dressed and all attractive in one way or another.
Audrey leaned back in her chair.
“I have something else to tell you about,” said she in a dull voice, “something which will, I think, make even you change your mind. Mr. Candover presumed last night to—to——”
Mrs. Webster looked at her with apprehension.
“Make love to you?” she suggested with her lips rather than said.
Audrey’s reply was a burst of tears.
“Of course I ought to have been prepared,” she sobbed, “at least I suppose I ought! Men of that type look upon women who have no one to protect them as fair game. But oh, I had thought he was different! For he has been really kind, and I’ve been really grateful!”
“There, there, don’t fret, dear. It’s one of the misfortunes of your good looks to be exposed to that sort of thing. But I didn’t think it of Mr. Candover. The way he speaks of you is always quite charming! You must give him the cold shoulder, for a time at least, and I don’t suppose you will have anything to complain of again.”
Audrey sat up and dried her eyes.
“No, I don’t suppose I shall. He seemed very sorry and ashamed of himself,” admitted she. “But still it breaks one’s heart to have to be always on the defensive with everybody. And he said things—other things, that I can’t forgive. So that, while I mean to let him know that I won’t have anything to say to him for the future, I can’t get over what he did say.”
Mrs. Webster looked curious.
“It was something about—about my poor Gerard,” said Audrey, so quickly, with such evident reluctance, that her friend guessed at once something of the nature of the offending speech.
“Well, my dear, you have always other friends to come to,” the kind-hearted lady said gently. “Remember that. If you have really had to quarrel with Mr. Candover permanently—which I should be sorry for—at least you can always depend upon such help as I can give, and upon my standing by you through thick and thin.”
“I know I can,” said Audrey, with a grateful but tearful look.
Mrs. Webster did not go back to town till the afternoon, and when Audrey had driven her to the station in the little pony-carriage, and driven back again, she was told that Sir Harry Archdale had called, and that he was in the drawing-room.
Audrey went straight into the long, sunny apartment, where the soft afternoon light came in filtered through tinted curtains and mellowed by the outstretched roof of the wide veranda.
The young man came to meet her with a rather shy and hesitating manner.
“I do hope you won’t be very much offended, Madame, by my coming,” said he. “I know you don’t usually receive except in the evenings. But the fact is——” He paused, and evidently found a difficulty in choosing suitable words. Audrey, however, would not help him. She stood waiting for him to go on, with fear in her great eyes. “Well, you said something to me last night, something very kind, that set me thinking, and that—Really, I’m awfully afraid of what you’ll say, but——”
At last she felt bound to help him out. For the poor fellow hesitated, and floundered, and blushed, and stammered, so that it was quite impossible to make any sense of the words he uttered. Audrey, feeling sure that this was a visitor of whom she had no need to be afraid, smiled and sat down, saying:—
“Can I help you? I wanted you not to play cards if you always lost.”
“That’s it! That’s the very thing I meant,” cried he in relief. “I wanted to tell you—I’ve thought over it a great deal, and of course I would never have hinted at such a thing if you had not started the subject yourself. But—there’s a man one meets here who is always lucky, extraordinarily lucky, and——”
“Who is it?” asked Audrey sharply.
But Sir Harry hesitated to reply bluntly with the man’s name.
“Mind you,” he said, “I don’t mean for a moment to insinuate that it’s anything but a coincidence, but still, I’ve watched him and it’s always the same.”
“Who is it?” asked Audrey again.
“One moment, Madame. You might well ask, if I were to say anything not altogether pleasant about one of your guests, why I came to you about it, instead of speaking to some of the men. But one or two fellows to whom I mentioned it laughed at me, and said that if I were to speak to you, I should only get snubbed. I resented that, on your account, knowing how kind and straightforward you were with me last night. And—and I made up my mind to do, what is not really a very nice thing to have to do, to come to you and rely upon your tact to deal with the matter.”
“You did just what was right and wise and kind, and I’m very much obliged to you,” said Audrey earnestly. “I need not tell you that my position is a very difficult one—I’m not used to entertaining on a large scale, and my position as a business woman puts me at a disadvantage.”
“That was exactly what I thought, and why I felt it was a shame you should not know,” said the young man eagerly. “Well, the man I mean is Mr. Diggs.”
“I thought so,” said Audrey. “I won’t have him here again. Tell me—I’ll keep your confidence—how much he has won from you?”
“Oh, I don’t mean to insinuate——”
“Nor I. He is lucky, that’s all. But what amount has his luck been worth to him?”
He hesitated, but at last said simply:—
“About four thousand pounds from me, and nearly five thousand from the young Angmerings.”
Audrey was overwhelmed.
In stony silence she sat while Sir Harry described the faint suspicions he had from time to time entertained concerning the methods of Mr. Candover’s clever secretary, and added simply that he should never have thought of challenging him but for Audrey’s own words to him on the previous night.
“Then,” went on the young man, “I thought things over, and I remembered his curious manner to you as he said good-night, and I went out of my way to find the young Angmerings this morning, and to put questions to them. The result was that I found this Diggs had used just the same little devices with them as he had done with me, and that they had lost even more than I had to him. Now, you must understand that I don’t wish to have any fuss made; I think the Angmerings and I have only paid a proper price for our folly in playing so high. But I made up my mind that, out of gratitude to you for the way you spoke to me last night, I could not do less than come straight here and tell you what I have done.”
“I can’t thank you enough,” said Audrey. “He shall never play in my house again.”
Then the young baronet spoke out.
“I knew you would get rid of the fellow when you knew,” he said promptly. “The truth is I don’t think there’s any doubt that he is a sharper, and it must be a paying game!”
The moment Sir Harry had left the house, Audrey sat down to write the following letter:—
“Dear Mr. Candover,“Will you please convey to your secretary, Mr. Durley Diggs, my refusal to allow him to come here again? It is of no use for him to ask my reasons; he must be satisfied with my decision.“Yours faithfully,“Audrey Angmering.”
“Dear Mr. Candover,
“Will you please convey to your secretary, Mr. Durley Diggs, my refusal to allow him to come here again? It is of no use for him to ask my reasons; he must be satisfied with my decision.
“Yours faithfully,
“Audrey Angmering.”
She signed her own name out of bravado, to show Mr. Candover how strong was her determination to drop the title he had chosen for her without delay.
On the following afternoon, when she had suffered considerable trepidation at her own daring, and had watched the post, expecting a letter full of indignation, she was informed that Mr. Candover and Mr. Diggs were in the drawing-room.
Audrey went down to meet them with a bold front but in a state of nervous excitement and apprehension impossible to describe.
Both gentlemen were standing when she entered the room. Mr. Candover was looking grave and dignified; Durley Diggs, though he put his hands in his pockets and tried to assume an air of easy indifference, looked paler than ever.
“I got your letter,” said Mr. Candover, “and I thought it only fair to read it to Diggs, who is, as you know, a friend and confidential employee of some years’ standing. I think you will acknowledge it to be only right to let him know in what way he has merited such a curt dismissal on your part.”
Audrey, with her heart beating very fast, stood firm. She did not ask them to be seated, but remained leaning against a high-backed carved chair, and kept very still.
“What you ask is quite reasonable,” she said, looking steadily at Mr. Candover only, “but still I am afraid Mr. Diggs must be satisfied with what I have said. I don’t wish him to come here again.”
“You will at least tell me who it was that influenced you to come to this rather abrupt decision?”
“No, I refuse to do that.”
“And if he should treat this as an injury necessitating the interference of the law?” went on Mr. Candover.
But Audrey, frightened as she was, miserable as she was, knew better than to think Mr. Diggs would take such a step as that. She threw at the secretary a look of disdain and answered steadily:—
“He can do whatever he likes.”
Then for the first time Diggs spoke. Darting across the room, and planting himself before her, he thrust his hands deeper into the pockets of his lounge coat and said impudently:—
“Come now, what have I done?”
And Audrey, summoning her spirit, replied at once:—
“You have cheated at cards.”
This accusation, evidently unexpected by one at least of her hearers, for a moment struck them both dumb.
It was Mr. Candover who recovered himself the first.
“Cheated at cards!” he repeated incredulously. “Madame, do you know the importance of such an accusation?”
But poor Audrey, now strung up to the sort of reckless defiance which despair and misery sometimes produce even in the feeble, replied boldly:—
“Of course I do. And I would not say such things if I didn’t know they were true. Mr. Diggs has won nearly nine thousand pounds from young men in this very house, by methods which were similar in each case, and which I will relate if you like.”
“What is more to the point,” replied Mr. Candover sternly, “is to know who made these accusations in the first place.”
“That I shall not say. It must be enough that I am satisfied that he used unfair means, and that I won’t have him in my house again. If it’s any question of law or of actions I’m ready to take it upon myself to answer them.” And she repeated stubbornly: “I won’t have him here again.”
For a moment there was dead silence, and Audrey, looking down on the carpet with her heart full of terrors, and clinging tightly to the chair by which she stood, expected an outburst of indignation, or perhaps of something worse.
To her intense surprise, however, when Mr. Candover broke the silence it was to speak to Diggs, and to say, in a solemn voice:—
“Diggs, I hope this is not true. I hope with all my heart that you, who have been my trusted confidant so long, have not done this awful thing of which Madame Rocada accuses you.” There was a silence, and glancing at Diggs, Audrey saw that, while he shook his head, he said nothing. Mr. Candover went on: “In any case, I must uphold Madame’s decision not to allow you to come here again, for, as she says, the slightest taint of a suspicion of such a kind would be a fatal thing, as you must see for yourself.” Diggs nodded, still without speaking or looking up. “And I’m sorry to say I don’t care to keep you in my employment unless you can clear yourself of the charge.” Still Diggs said nothing. “So, if you please, you will understand that your engagement with me terminates a week from now.”
Audrey was listening and watching attentively, and now the thing that struck her the most strongly was that Diggs did not seem surprised at this curt and amazing dismissal. He did not plead that there was no proof against him, he did not show resentment or regret. He simply took his dismissal in all humility, and bowing to them both with a muttered, “Very sorry—Not true—You might know me better,” he shuffled nearer and nearer to the door, and then popped out rapidly, quietly and ingloriously.
It was rather a bewildering victory, Audrey thought.
“To tell you the truth, I’ve had my doubts of the rascal before,” said Mr. Candover, when the door had closed on Diggs.
Audrey glanced up and then down, but she said nothing.
“I must go now,” said Mr. Candover.
And she made no attempt to detain him.
Nowthis affair, unpleasant as it was, had been very promptly and satisfactorily settled, and Audrey felt that she ought to feel more contented than she did about it. Mr. Candover had behaved with quite admirable consideration for her, and his dismissal of the secretary whom he had employed and trusted for so long might have been supposed to set Audrey’s mind completely at ease.
But suspicions and doubts, once roused, are hard to set at rest, and she had carefully refrained from showing him any effusive gratitude for his action.
After all, how could he have done less without showing himself on the side of the wrongdoer?
For though he might indeed have insisted upon tracing the accusation to its source, there must have followed such an unpleasant exposure, such a scandal, such gossip, that the result might have been to draw disagreeable remarks down upon his own head.
But Audrey was not to be allowed any rest from her troubles. On the following day another difficulty cropped up; for, on returning from her afternoon drive, she heard, with dismay, that one of the Miss Candovers had come and Sir Harry Archdale.
Audrey was bewildered.
“When did they come? How long have they been here?” she asked.
“Miss Candover came soon after you started, Madame, and Sir Harry about ten minutes later. They both said they’d wait till you came back, and they’re in the drawing-room.”
What would Mr. Candover say to this? Audrey hurried towards the drawing-room, and before she reached it she heard peals of merry laughter, which proved conclusively that the visitors had broken the ice.
On entering the room she found the two young people at the window, playing with her little dogs. Pamela ran towards her, her face beaming, her step as light and her movements as graceful as those of a gazelle.
“Oh, Madame Rocada, don’t scold. I see you want to scold. But, indeed, Ihadto come!”
“What will Mr. Candover say?”
The girl’s face grew troubled.
“I—I don’t know,” she said. “But when you know why I’ve come, you will understand.”
Audrey now held out her hand to Sir Harry, who was looking as happy as a schoolboy home for the holidays, and who could scarcely take his eyes off pretty Pamela. He, however, had to explain this second visit.
“I’ve come,” said he in a low voice, “to tell you not to worry yourself about what I said to you the other day. I met Candover last night, and he told me he had dismissed his secretary. Is that your doing?”
“I daresay it is,” said Audrey. “But I took care not to mention any names when I spoke to Mr. Candover. I took it upon my own shoulders to say what I thought of Mr. Diggs and his doings.”
“That was very good of you, and very effectual,” said Sir Harry. “But it’s only what one would have expected. No decent man would care to employ a fellow so very shady, if he knew of it.”
“Of course not.”
“Least of all a man like Mr. Candover.”
And Sir Harry cast at Pamela a glance which showed how bright a halo he threw round everything and every one belonging to her.
Pamela, meanwhile, had grown serious and anxious to be able to speak to her hostess. Sir Harry noted this, and said: “Miss Candover wants to speak to you, Madame. Now I hope you won’t send me away; I’ve been manœuvring to get asked to tea. Shall I go out into the garden and feed the rabbits—if there are any rabbits—while she pours out her heart to you?”
Pamela turned to him gratefully. “Would you—would you really?” she said, with pretty gratitude. “I do want to speak to Madame, but I don’t want to drive you away.”
Audrey, whose spirits rose in the presence of these two bright, good-looking, sympathetic young people, nodded a smiling dismissal to Sir Harry, who promptly took himself off into the garden, and made elaborate pretences of plucking handfuls of grass to feed imaginary animals while the ladies talked.
Pamela seized Audrey by the arm, and made her sit beside her on a couch while she poured into her ear a rather disquieting tale.
“There’s been a woman,” she said, “a wild-looking, uncanny woman, not quite in her right mind, I think, calling at Miss Willett’s, and asking to see us. She says she’s our mother, but we know that our mother is dead. We don’t quite like to write to my father about it, because he doesn’t like to be told annoying things. So I thought I’d run over and see you, and ask you what we’d better do.”
Audrey was troubled. There were these vague clouds of distress and mystery in every direction, she thought. How was it? “What does Miss Willett think?” she asked.
“Oh, she’s an old maid, and she is simply horror-struck, and can do nothing but hold up her hands and say ‘Dear, dear, how dreadful!’ and refuse admittance to the woman. But we girls can’t be satisfied like that, and so I thought of you. What would you suggest?”
Audrey considered a moment.
“Supposing I were to see her?” she said.
“Oh, would you? That would be sweet of you! We don’t dare to see her ourselves, and yet we don’t like to take it for granted that—that——”
“Next time she comes—if she does come—give her—let her be given, my address, and refer her to me. Hush, here comes the tea. And we must call our rabbit-lover in.”
They went to the window, and made signs to the ostentatiously distant Sir Harry that he might come in, and they had such a merry hour together that it was with difficulty they could make up their minds to break up the party. At last, however, Audrey put Pamela into the pony-carriage and drove her over to Staines, where she could take the train direct to within a short distance of her school, and Sir Harry, very reluctantly, bade them good-bye, with many hints that he should like to come again.
Audrey was quite cheered by the merry young people, who were, after all, of her own generation, though circumstances had combined to make her feel many years older.
But her pleasure was short-lived. There was a card-playing evening in store for her, at which Diggs was, of course, not present. But two days later she received another indignant letter from Lord Clanfield, complaining of her lack of good faith, in that his two sons had been playing cards at her house the whole of the night through.
Audrey was intensely indignant at this letter, and was convinced, since the young Angmerings had certainly not been among the guests on the night he mentioned, that they had themselves deceived their father, and given her address to hide their real whereabouts.
She began a letter to him, at least as indignant as his own, but could not satisfy herself with the wording of it. She tried again and again, and finally made up her mind to give up the attempt and to descend upon the angry father in person, and force him to retract his accusation and to apologise for it.
She was extremely angry about this annoyance, after the strong measures she had taken to insure the exclusion of the young men.
Now Lord Clanfield’s place was in Hampshire, and although the actual distance as the crow flies was not so very great between “The Briars” and Angmering Court, the journey was a tedious one, with many changes of train and awkward waits at country stations.
It was not, therefore, until somewhat late in the afternoon that Audrey got out at the nearest station to the viscount’s place, and having ascertained that it was only a couple of miles away, went on foot across the fields, according to the direction given her, and reached the gates of the park at about five o’clock.
There was no lodge at the gate, which she opened and passed through, admiring the prospect of hillock and tree, winding road and grassy glade, with an occasional peep at the house, which was a low-built Georgian structure, homely and cosy-looking rather than stately or imposing.
The day had been a glorious one and the sun was still warm and bright. Audrey, who had had little inclination to dwell on the beauty of the place or the delights of the balmy air, was seized with nervousness on finding herself so near the great man of her husband’s family, and wondered at her own daring in coming at all.
Along the winding road she went, coming rather suddenly upon a charming flower-garden, divided from the park-land only by a wire fence, and offering to the eye a view of dahlias and gladioli, rich-tinted begonias, feathery pampas grass, and late roses that strewed their sweet petals on the grass.
On the lawn among the flowers there was an umbrella-tent, and under it a wicker lounge-chair. Beside the chair stood a nurse in uniform, and lying full length upon it was a young man, so white, so thin, so haggard of cheek and sunken of eye that he looked more like a dead man than a live one.
Audrey, who was not in the direct line of sight of the nurse and her patient, by reason of a clump of shrubs behind which she had instinctively stopped, clenched her hands, held her breath, and stared with incredulous eyes at the invalid.
Surely, surely she must be dreaming! Surely, surely her misery and her troubles must have turned her brain! And yet she knew, even while she hung forward, gazing in agony at the hollow cheeks and the glassy eye, that she was awake, that she was sane—and that the invalid with the pallid, waxen face, who seemed to have not more than an hour’s life left in his wasted, shrunken frame, was Gerard, her husband.
Forthe first few moments Audrey had no inclination to utter a sound. She was too much taken by surprise, too bewildered, too horror-stricken, even to cry out.
Her tongue, her brain, her limbs seemed paralysed, and she could do nothing but press her face forward between the little branches of the shrubs which concealed her from Gerard’s sight, and keep her hungry eyes fixed on his pale face.
Was it really he? Could it be he? His sentence had been one of years, and scarcely four months had passed since he was taken from her.
Surely he would never have been released without her hearing a word about it! Surely, surely in such a few weeks he could not have been transformed from the merry, bright, vigorous young fellow, full of life and high spirits, overwhelmed with melancholy of the most tempestuous sort, into this shadow, this lifeless, colourless framework of a man!
He lay so still in the lounge-chair, without even moving his lips to answer the nurse as she leaned over him and talked to him, that Audrey had a horrible spasm of fear that he was dead, that the feeble remnant of life had passed away even while she watched him with agonised eyes from her place of concealment not thirty yards away.
And she pressed farther forward, straining her eyes, and in so doing disturbed the bushes just sufficiently for the moving branches to catch the eye of the nurse, who was a tall, muscular, grey-haired woman, with a firm, pleasant face.
Gerard himself, on a much lower level than she, neither heard nor saw the movement. The nurse looked apprehensively at the bushes, and descried the woman behind them. Audrey saw that her face changed, and knew that she was alarmed lest her patient should be disturbed by some sudden and startling intrusion.
But she need not have been afraid. Audrey loved her husband too well not to have the right and safe instinct that caution was necessary when dealing with a man who was evidently so ill. She knew that to burst out upon him abruptly, without a word of warning, would be a rash, perhaps a fatal thing. And she held her own emotions in check, even while her heart yearned towards him, and her arms tingled with the longing to take his poor head in her arms and to hug it to her breast.
The nurse, meanwhile, not knowing all that was passing in the mind of the other woman, and guessing only that there was trouble in store, at once took steps to remove her charge out of harm’s way.
Audrey could not hear what she said, but knew that she was suggesting that he should go indoors. For a few moments he seemed to pay no heed to her words, but presently, with a petulant frown, as if loth to be disturbed, he allowed her to help him to his feet, and went slowly, leaning on her strong arm, in the direction of the angle of the house, round which they both disappeared.
Audrey, still less than half possessed of her faculties, watched them to the last, and then, stepping back upon the gravel of the drive, tried to take stock of her strange position.
As to Gerard’s presence in his uncle’s house, the fact was so amazing that her brain reeled under it. Lord Clanfield had never once come forward, since his nephew’s marriage, with so much as a kind word to him or his young wife. During all the terrible time of waiting for the trial, not a word had reached his nephew either of reproach, advice or sympathy. Both young husband and young wife had taken it for granted that they were looked upon as effaced, degraded, unworthy of any notice from the august head of the family.
And, proud as well as miserable, they had accepted the situation without a protest.
Now, however, it was clear that Lord Clanfield had interested himself on behalf of his unlucky nephew, and the amazing thing was to find that he had apparently obtained the young man’s release so quietly that not a word of it had got into the papers, or to the knowledge of Gerard’s own wife!
And then, with startling force, the truth flashed upon Audrey that, even if it had been desired to let her know of her husband’s release, there would have been no means of doing so. For, anxious to hide her head from all the world, to sink her identity and be forgotten, she had disappeared from sight as Audrey Angmering, to reappear as Madame Rocada.
And then the full meaning of her position became clear to her. She was coming to see Lord Clanfield in the character by which he knew and suspected her, at the very moment when it was above all things necessary that he should have the best possible opinion of her in the character of his nephew’s wife!
What would he say, what would he think when he learned the truth of her double identity? If he had been severe in his judgment before, what would he be now?
Although she could now conclusively prove to him—at least so she believed—that she could not be the White Countess of evil memory, what would he say to her having taken upon herself the invidious name, and still more invidious position, of the apparently too well-known Madame Rocada?
As these thoughts chased each other through her bewildered mind, the unfortunate woman felt a numb despair creeping over her. She dared not meet Lord Clanfield now, she dared not try to see Gerard.
What was there left for her to do?
Go away without making some inquiry, without learning something about her husband and his state of health, and the manner in which he found himself once more under his uncle’s roof, well cared for and carefully nursed, she could not and would not.
But how to learn what she wanted to know without making an unseemly and unwise disturbance? How convey to Gerard the fact of her being near him, without either giving him a dangerous shock or running the risk of rousing Lord Clanfield’s anger and causing a family scandal?
That was the question which filled Audrey’s mind, as she lingered in the drive, looking askance at the house with its old red walls, weather-stained roof and the great green and red masses of ivy and virginia creeper which hung about it picturesquely and made dark fringes over the tall windows.
And while she hesitated, lingered, debated with herself, there came a clattering of hoofs behind her, and stepping out of the road upon the sloping bank, Audrey turned to see Geoffrey Angmering, in a dog-cart, coming at a rapid rate up the drive.
He recognised her at once.
“Madame Rocada! By Jove!” cried he with a grin, as he reined in the horse, jumped down, and told the groom to drive on to the stable. “Well, of all the marvellous meetings—and here! By Jove, it is a surprise!”
Audrey was very pale, very quiet, very dignified. This cub, with the free and easy manners and the impudent stare, could tell her what she wanted to know. But how to get at that knowledge?
To him she was merely Madame Rocada, the woman who kept a house where gambling went on, where he himself and his brother had been “fleeced” at play. Knowing only of her what he did, there was nothing less likely than that he would converse with her about the family secrets or the family scandals. Half-tipsy as he generally was, even the reckless Geoffrey was hardly likely to speak out on such a subject.
She began, therefore, by telling him frankly the object of her visit.
“I am here,” she said, “to see Lord Clanfield. He has written accusing me of allowing you and your brother to come to my house to play cards there. Now you know that I have forbidden you to come, and therefore you have been deceiving him, by saying you were at ‘The Briars’ when you were not there at all.”
Geoffrey stared at her with the same impudent look of incredulity and defiance as he had used on the night when she refused admission to her house to him and his brother.
“I think it would have been wiser of you, Madame, to have taken no notice of his letter,” he said, with unmistakable mockery in his tone. “He won’t believe what you say, if you persist in seeing him, any more than he did before. If I were you, I should go quietly back home again, and if you like I’ll drive you to the station in my dog-cart.”
The frank impertinence of his manner and of his suggestion almost frightened Audrey. It seemed to betray the fact that he looked upon her as unworthy of much trouble, and as wholly incapable of producing any effect upon his father.
He seemed to say in effect: “If you like to see my father you can, but you may just as well save yourself the trouble.”
She hesitated what to reply. To tell the whole truth to him, to say that she was Gerard’s wife, was, of course, out of the question. He would certainly receive such a statement with blank incredulity and probably with insult. Luckily, at that moment, when she was uncertain what to do and Geoffrey was growing more and more impertinent in his manner, the elder son of Lord Clanfield, who, if still less endowed with brains, was not quite such an ill-mannered young rascal as his brother, came in sight. He was sauntering out from the house with half a dozen dogs, of various breeds, running and barking round him.
One of these, a bull terrier, spying a stranger in Audrey, rushed at her, and seizing her skirt, began to worry it tearing the light material to ribbons.
“Down, sir, down!” cried Edgar, hastening his steps a little, as he came up to his brother and the lady. “I’m awfully sorry——” he went on, raising his hat as he spoke. When suddenly he recognised her in his turn, and said, in breathless amazement: “Madame Rocada!”
He took her presence in the park in a different way from his brother’s, and seemed not only surprised, but rather alarmed by it. “Why, I—what—unexpected——” stammered he, as she bowed gravely and said nothing.
There was a moment’s dead silence. Then she, perceiving that this young man was at least much more likely to listen quietly than his brother, said steadily and firmly:—
“My name is not Madame Rocada. It never has been that. I am not a countess, and I have never wished to pretend to be one.”
She paused for a moment, and it was Geoffrey who, growing curious at this change in her manner, suddenly put in, half-insolently, half-inquiringly:—
“Well, if you are not Madame Rocada, who are you then?”
Audrey hesitated one moment more only. Then very quietly, very solemnly, fixing her eyes on the face of the elder brother and drawing herself up to her full height, she answered:—
“My name is the same as your own. I am Audrey Angmering, your cousin Gerard’s wife.”
“The devil you are!” cried Geoffrey, more in amusement than surprise.
But the other saw that there was no pretentiousness, no show of indignation or of self-assertion, in the poor lady’s manner, and he silenced his brother by a frown and a curt word half under his breath.
“Do you mean that?” he asked simply.
“Yes. And listen. I know that Gerard is here: I’ve seen him. And I want to understand all about his coming—about his illness. I—I hadn’t even heard of it.”
The young man hesitated. Geoffrey was pulling furtively at his sleeve, mutely urging him to have nothing to do with the unhappy woman and her story.
Evidently Edgar did not know what to believe.
“You say you’ve seen him?” said he.
“Yes. Out in the garden, with a nurse. Surely, surely there can be no harm in telling me just what I want to know. How is it he is there? Why was I not told he was ill?”
As she persisted in her story, it was clear that both the young men were becoming increasingly alarmed and puzzled, and that they were at a loss how to deal with this intricate question.
At last Edgar said quickly:—
“Hadn’t you better write about it? Write to Lord Clanfield?”
“No,” said Audrey firmly. “I won’t write. I must see him. And at once—now—I won’t go away till I have seen him. Look, there’s no need for you to be afraid. I don’t wish to force myself into Gerard’s presence until I’m sure I can see him without it’s being a shock to him.”
“By Jove, it would be!” put in Geoffrey in a tone that brought the angry blood to the poor wife’s cheeks.
But Edgar gave him a sort of side kick as a gentle recommendation to be quiet, and after a little hesitation and stammering said:—
“Look here, Madame. I don’t think it’s of the least use for you to try and see my father or my cousin. I’m almost sure Lord Clanfield wouldn’t see you, and that my cousin wouldn’t be allowed to see you. You might understand that it wouldn’t be wise. But if you like I’ll go in and tell him what you’ve just told me, and I’ll bring you word what he says.”
Although Audrey was fully resolved that, whether he liked it or not, Lord Clanfield should see her, she thought that compliance with the proposal was the best course to begin with. So she agreed to remain where she was, and not to approach the house for the present, while Edgar returned to it.
Geoffrey, meanwhile, after a muttered exchange of a few words with his brother, retreated into the recesses of the trees of the park, and Audrey guessed that he was, as it were, on guard, set to watch her movements during his brother’s absence, and to prevent, if necessary, any attempt on her part to break faith.
In the meantime Edgar fulfilled his mission reluctantly enough. Returning to the house, he went straight to the study, where his father was spending the afternoon with his magazines and books.
“What is the matter? Is Gerard worse?” were the viscount’s first words, when his son entered, with a perturbed and uneasy air.
“N-n-no, but—he’s likely to be worse if something I’ve got to tell you is true!” was Edgar’s somewhat blundering reply.
“Well!” said Lord Clanfield sharply.
“There’s a—a—woman come—she’s in the park now, who says—who says she’s—his wife.”
Lord Clanfield looked more relieved than alarmed. He rose to his feet.
“And don’t you think it is his wife? I wish to heaven she would come; for the greatest drawback to his getting better is the terrible depression caused by her disappearance.”
Edgar, with whom tact was not a strong point, went on bluntly:—
“Well, he’ll be more depressed when he sees her.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, that this woman who says she’s his wife, the woman who is in the park now, and who says she will see you or see him before she goes away, is the very woman whose house you’ve forbidden us to go to, the keeper of a gambling-room—Madame Rocada!”
The shock was so great that Lord Clanfield fell back, scarcely able to speak, breathless, bewildered, horror-struck.
“Are—are you sure?”
“I’m sure that the woman who calls herself Madame Rocada is outside the house at this moment, that she says she came in answer to a letter from you about us——”
“Yes, I did write to her.”
“—and that she declares she saw Gerard—you see she knows his name—in a chair in the grounds, with a nurse. And she complains that she had not even heard that he was ill, and she seems as genuinely upset as ever I saw a woman in my life! And I believe sheishis wife, I do on my honour!”
The viscount made up his mind quickly.
“Get rid of her,” said he. “Drive her away at all costs, I don’t mean roughly, of course. But you must find some means of getting her outside the grounds before Gerard hears of her being here.”
“Not so easy! One can deal with a mad dog more easily than with a determined woman!” retorted Edgar.
“I tell you she must go, must be sent away. Use any argument you like, tell her it would kill him to break the news of her coming too suddenly. That is true, I believe. In the meantime say I undertake to answer her letters if she will write—but it must be to me, not to him. And—and what I shall do is to get my lawyers to see her, to arrange with her—until we know something, find out something.”
Edgar, however, still lingered.
“I can never say all that,” grumbled he. “Besides, she wouldn’t listen. You know she wouldn’t.”
Remembering what he did of Audrey, poor Lord Clanfield thought this very likely, and his agitation grew stronger and stronger until it found a climax when, perceiving that the window nearest to him had become slightly darkened, he turned, and saw Audrey herself, very white, very quiet, peering in.
“Good Heavens, Madame, you have no right——” began the startled gentleman.
But Audrey leaned with her arms upon the window-ledge, and putting her head forward into the room, said in a low-pitched but determined voice:—
“You must see me. I insist. You must let me in.”
And, helpless in these strong if slight fingers, Lord Clanfield gave way. Motioning to his son to open the French window at the other end of the room, he leaned against the old carved white marble mantelpiece and prepared for the worst.
Audreycame in trembling, and stood facing Lord Clanfield without a word. She had contrived to give the slip to the not over-vigilant Geoffrey, and had flown like the wind across the flower-garden, peering into the rooms on the ground-floor, in the hope of discovering either Gerard or his uncle.
Now that she had succeeded, her courage failed her, and she was mute and frightened, presenting as great a contrast as possible to any idea the viscount might have formed of a violent and loud-voiced woman forcing her way in with intent to make a disturbance.
“Madame Rocada,” he began.
But she stopped him with a rapid gesture.
“Do not call me that. I have already told you that it is not my name, it never was my name. I am your nephew’s wife.”
Anxious to be out of the way of a scene which promised to be a trying one, Edgar had sidled out of the room as he let the lady in, and the two, distressed woman and scandalised man, were left alone together.
“Am I to believe that?” he stammered after a short pause.
“Bring him face to face with me, and you will be no longer in doubt.”
He shook his head.
“I cannot do that. He has been given his liberty on account of the state of his health, which is considered hopeless. In fact, he has been let out to die.”
Although she did not utter a word, Lord Clanfield could not help seeing that the grief his words caused her was profound.
“His condition is such that the slightest shock might, I should think, be fatal, and I cannot venture to try experiments.”
“Is there no hope, no hope?” asked Audrey in a stifled voice.
“Well, I feared not when I first saw him a couple of days ago. But the fact that he is still alive gives me hopes. If I can get him away to a warmer climate before the winter comes, and rouse him out of his depression, I think we may pull him through.”
“What is the matter with him? Is it consumption?”
“That’s what we are afraid of. At present we don’t know that it is that. He suffers from extreme weakness after pneumonia and the general breakdown which preceded that,” went on Lord Clanfield, who could not help answering her questions, they were put so modestly and with such evident warmth of feeling. But he replied with his eyes turned away, reluctantly, as if by an effort. If she was really his nephew’s wife, she was certainly not a person to be received otherwise than in the most distant manner, and even then she must understand that such reception was accorded under protest.
“Poor boy, my poor boy! What he must have suffered! And don’t you think it would do him good, not harm, to see me, to know I am safe? Oh, I know very well it is on my account, because he doesn’t know what has become of me, that he is so miserable. And it’s his misery that prevents his getting well! Oh, Lord Clanfield, can’t you see that it is?”
The viscount moved nervously.
“I’ve no doubt,” said he stiffly, “that if, when the prison authorities thought of releasing him, they had been able to find his wife, and to give him back to her care, it would have been better for him, much better. But you had disappeared; you had hidden yourself under a fresh name. And—really I’m sorry to have to say it, as I see you are truly sorry for the situation you have brought about, I cannot but think that, if he were to learn the truth about you and about the life you’ve been leading while he was in prison, it would be the last straw. He would never hold up his head again.”
Audrey heard these words with the wildest despair. Well though she knew that Lord Clanfield exaggerated the case, that he looked upon her as a woman who had deliberately chosen to give up her name and her enforced widowhood for a life of pleasure and for companions of the most undesirable type, she knew too that even the truth was bad enough to shock poor Gerard and to wake all sorts of terrible suspicions in his breast.
She was sure that, if she could broach the matter at her own time and in her own way, when the joy of reunion should have soothed his anguish and softened the remembrance of his trials, the sudden and unsympathetic recital of the circumstances of her life, even without exaggeration, would be more than he could bear.
So that these cruel words of the viscount’s could not be resented with indignation, his assertions could not even be denied.
She could, however, make an effort to put him right about herself, and, as much for Gerard’s sake as her own, she set about doing so with the utmost earnestness.
“Lord Clanfield,” she said, in a low, pleading voice, “you do me the most terrible injustice. I’ve never done anything unworthy of Gerard’s wife, indeed. I’ve done something that neither he nor you would perhaps approve, in starting a millinery business under a high-sounding name, and in allowing myself to be persuaded into receiving all sorts of people in a house I have rented, in the hope of attracting customers for what I sell, and clients for the business. I was advised to do these things, and though it was distasteful, the advice sounded good from the monetary point of view. That’s the worst I have done, indeed, indeed it is. Oh, if you don’t believe me, I’m sure that Gerard would!”
Lord Clanfield was walking up and down his end of the room, much perturbed and distressed. At last he stopped short and turned to her.
“My dear lady,” he said, and the very words indicated a welcome change of temper towards her, she thought, “supposing what you say is true—and I am bound to say I can’t quite believe you—what then? Do you really think it is nothing to have brought upon yourself, so lightly as you have done, the suspicions which any reasonable person would naturally entertain of you? Do you think your conduct is such as to be a credit to my family—mine?”
“I’ve—I’ve done nothing really wrong,” pleaded Audrey humbly.
“Indeed! You are at the head of what is, whatever you may choose to call it, a gaming-house.” She uttered an exclamation of dismay, but he went on in spite of her. “You are at the head of another establishment for selling—h’m—bonnets. Now it is perfectly legitimate to sell—h’m—bonnets. But it is not an employment which I can approve of in my nephew’s wife.”
And the viscount drew himself up with dignity.
“Why didn’t you find me out and see what I was doing?” burst out Audrey with sudden spirit. “If you had given it a thought, you would have known that I must do something to live, and it’s your fault, after all, that I had to take the advice of such friends as I had, whether it was bad or good.”
Lord Clanfield was much displeased by this attack, which was, he considered, unjust and uncalled for. His irritation against her increased.
“Permit me to be the best judge of my own actions,” he said icily; “I repeat that I cannot countenance your proceedings, either in regard to my sons or my nephew.”
“I was coming to tell you about your sons. If they’ve told you they come to my house still, they have said what is not true. They do not come. I have forbidden my servants to let them in.”
To her annoyance, these words of hers incensed him more than anything else that she had said. She saw plainly that he did not believe her.
“I really think,” he said drily, “that there is no need for us to prolong this interview. As for my sons, if they do not desist from courses of which I disapprove, I may—I should regret it, but I may—have to call in the assistance of the police.” Audrey uttered a cry, but he went on without taking any notice of her. “As for my nephew, if you force your way into his presence, I cannot answer for the consequences, and I regret that I should in that case feel it my duty to let him know some things which, in his present state, he had better not hear.”
“He would not believe you,” cried Audrey passionately.
“Possibly not. But in that case, and if he insisted upon taking your part, which would be perfectly natural, I should have to give him up to you entirely, as I decline to receive you here.”
Audrey was shaking like a leaf.
“You don’t mean that! You couldn’t be so cruel! If it were best for him to see me?” pleaded she.
“I deny that it would be best. In any case, I cannot go back from that position. If you leave him here, and suffer him to think, as he now thinks, that you are dead, lost to him, he may get over that shock, in the comfort and relief of finding himself free and tenderly cared for once more. In the meantime, as I cannot but think I have been unjust to him in taking it for granted he was guilty, I will strain every nerve to probe the mystery attending his conviction. But if you insist on taking him away with you—and I daresay he would go, for you are a beautiful and attractive woman and he loves you—then I cast him off, I can do no less, and you must sink or swim together.”
“Oh, no, no, I can’t think you would be so hard, so cruel, so wicked!” cried poor Audrey, alarmed to see the look of stubborn determination in the viscount’s eyes.
But she was wrong. Used all his life to having his own way, except in the matter of the behaviour of his headstrong and not very worthy sons, Lord Clanfield could make up his mind inflexibly, and carry out his plans with the dogged steadfastness of a not unjust or unkindly, but narrow mind.
He believed that he might have been unjust to Gerard, that there was a possibility that the young man’s reiterated asseverations of his innocence might have something in them, after all.
But the more inclined he was to believe this, the less likely was he to believe in the complete innocence and guilelessness of Gerard’s wife. It even occurred to him as possible that this beautiful woman, who had shown herself so frivolous if not worse, might have connived in some diabolical plot to get her husband out of the way.
“I hope I am not wicked,” he said coldly. “And, indeed, I did not expect to hear that word applied to me. I have done my best, I am still doing my best, for my nephew, and I shall continue to do it if I am suffered to do it in the way I think right. However, the matter is in your hands, madam, and it is for you to decide what course we are both to pursue.”
Audrey, who had refused all Lord Clanfield’s perfunctory invitations to be seated, was standing, just as she had been ever since her entrance, forlorn and desolate, in the middle of the floor. Her hands were tightly clenched, her eyes showed the terrible conflict which was going on within her.