Must she give him up? Could she? Ought she? Would it really be best for him, as Lord Clanfield said?
On the one hand were the care, the luxury, the atmosphere of a beautiful English home, the protection, the very powerful protection of an eminent name, the energetic endeavours of his relations to have the taint removed from his name.
On the other hand, there was nothing but her own love, and such efforts as she, poor, weak, helpless woman that she was, could make on his behalf.
And, while it was true that she felt certain he must be suffering deeply from her disappearance, and the suspense he must be in as to what had become of her, yet she did not disguise from herself the fact that the knowledge of the position in which she had so strangely got placed might give him even more pain and more anxiety than the suspense from which he was now suffering on her account.
In the silence which followed the viscount’s words, a dead silence in which the slightest sound was audible to them both, there came a halting step outside the door of the room, and then a knock.
Recognising the step, or guessing whose it was, Audrey raised her head, and uttered, in a hoarse whisper, the one word: “Gerard!”
Lord Clanfield looked angrily, uneasily at the door, the window and at Audrey. Then, crossing the floor quickly towards the French window, he pushed it wide open, inviting her by a gesture to go out.
She threw at him one imploring look, saw that he was unyielding, and summoning all her self-control, made one tottering step towards the open window.
But her docility came too late. Before she had reached the window the door opened, and Gerard, leaning on a stick, appeared in the doorway.
“Uncle, may I come in?”
But the words had scarcely passed his lips when he saw who it was that was cowering between him and the viscount, and throwing down his stick, he crossed the intervening space at one bound, and flinging himself into his wife’s arms, clung to her, his face, his voice full of a passionate joy.
“Audrey! Audrey! And I thought you were dead! Oh, thank God, thank God!”
For a few moments there was not a word more spoken. Audrey did indeed try to articulate, but the words stuck in her throat; she could utter nothing more coherent than low moans indicative of emotions which indeed were deeper and more painful than she could well express.
In the meantime Lord Clanfield stood motionless beside the open French window, and the first thing that Audrey said was to him.
“Lord Clanfield,” she cried, when she had suddenly caught a glimpse of his face, and read that there was no softening there, “I—I want to speak to you. I want you to hear what I have to tell Gerard. You know that it’s true, and he wouldn’t believe me if you were not here to support what I’m going to say.”
Gerard, whose flushed face looked human once more, the death-like pallor and dull eyes having become transformed, looked at his wife with amazement mingled with his joy.
“What is this wonderful thing that I’m to hear and not to believe?” he asked, looking with a joyous smile from his wife to his uncle, and now dimly conscious that something was not quite right between these two.
Audrey had withdrawn herself from his embrace, and was supporting him on her strong young arm, facing the viscount the while.
“I have to tell you, Gerard, something you won’t like to hear. While you were away, I made up my mind to try to make some money, and I’ve gone—into well, business, trade. I’ve had, of course, to sink my own name, and that is why you could not find me. Now Lord Clanfield very naturally disapproves of any connection of his family being engaged in this way, and I am conscious that he is within his rights in objecting. I think you might perhaps object too.”
“Well, it is rather astonishing!” gasped Gerard, to whom the constrained tone in which the information was conveyed was rather disturbing. “But, of course, you can give it up, can’t you?”
She threw one imploring look at Lord Clanfield, to ascertain whether he would accept that as sufficient propitiation. But one glance was enough to show her that he would not.
“Unfortunately,” she answered, with a trembling voice, “I can’t—and I won’t—at present. Unless Lord Clanfield wishes it.”
“My wishes have nothing to do with it,” said Lord Clanfield coldly.
Then she understood that the decision lay with her still.
“I won’t give it up,” she said quietly, “and I won’t let you, Gerard, have anything to do with it. You are ill; you need care, more care than I could give you. And I am strong and eager to make money. Will you, Lord Clanfield, take care of him, so that I can go quietly on with my work without any one’s knowing who I am, or what my name is?”
Lord Clanfield, although this was the very decision at which he had wished her to arrive, was taken aback when it was reached.
“Do—do you mean it? Will you consent to leave him with me?” he said incredulously.
“And am I to have nothing to say in the matter?” asked Gerard, with not unnatural irritation.
Audrey, having made up her mind what she ought to do, turned to him with a laugh which indeed was forced, but which she carried through cleverly and well.
“Nothing whatever,” she said. “At present, at any rate. Stay here where you are well cared for, and rest assured I am well off too, working hard, and making money. Oh, lots of money! And don’t look so worried. You ought to be as happy in knowing that I am well, as I am in knowing that you are free and—and in good hands. Good-bye, my dear, dear boy. Thank God for letting me see you, know that——”
A catch in her voice stopped her, and she threw her arms round him and pressed her lips to his, while Lord Clanfield, stiff, upright, and unbending, stood at the window with his back towards them.
Gerard stared into her face with haggard, disappointed eyes.
“Do you mean you’re going? That I’m to lose you already? What does it mean, Audrey, what does it mean?”
“It means,” answered she readily, “that we’re doing the best for us both. For us both.”
“When will you come again?”
“I’ll—I’ll let you know.”
She tore herself away from him and fled through the window with one swift glance at Lord Clanfield, and the whispered words:—
“I’ve done my part. Do yours!”
Moredead than alive, Audrey, when she had left Lord Clanfield’s house, hurried through the flower-garden, where she passed Geoffrey, indignant at her having given him the slip but not ready with a coherent protest, and came to a sudden standstill under the spreading branches of an old beech-tree, against the trunk of which she leaned for support.
Panting and breathless, too deeply agitated for connected thought, she cast longing eyes back at the old red-brick house, and felt the first pang of the parting with her husband.
She had left him so abruptly, not daring to stay, not daring to speak clearly to him, that she asked herself, in dismay, whether the bewilderment in which he must be would not more than counterbalance the joy he had felt in seeing her again.
Perhaps, after all, Lord Clanfield was right, and the meeting, unavoidable as it had been, might have done the invalid more harm than good.
In a state of fresh suspense, she asked herself whether she would not do better to go back again, to make inquiries about him, to make one more attempt to soften the viscount’s heart towards her.
But she knew, even while she thus debated with herself, that she would find no melting in the obstinate and autocratic old gentleman, whose prejudices as well as principles she had offended, and whose pride she had wounded by her counter-attacks.
No. She must refrain at all hazards from irritating him further, and she could trust him to fulfil his promise to be kind to Gerard if he were allowed to work in his own way.
In the meantime, how would he satisfy his nephew’s demands to know more about her? Would Lord Clanfield tell him all he knew, and worse, all he suspected about her? Would he tell of the splendid house where she was surrounded by luxury, visited by troops of acquaintances, all belonging to a set more noted for its enjoyment of life than for its austerity?
Surely, surely he would never do such a cruel thing as to try to oust her from his nephew’s heart by means which would inevitably do more harm to Gerard than to her!
And then in the midst of her trouble and distress there came into Audrey’s heart a comforting thought: Gerard would never believe her other than true to him in word and deed without such overwhelming proof to the contrary as even malignity could not bring!
Struggling to regain her self-command, and drying the tears which would flow, she recovered enough composure to resume her walk towards the park gates.
But as she went, she cast many a look behind, perhaps with the secret hope that she might be called back, that she might even see Gerard himself in pursuit of her.
And on one of these occasions she caught sight, not indeed of any member of the viscount’s household, but of a figure which seemed familiar. This was her first impression when she perceived, a long way behind her, a man going in the same direction as herself. The second impression was less pleasant: the man stopped short when she turned, and Audrey suddenly wondered whether he was following her.
On this assumption she waited, looking at him. He seemed disconcerted by her action, and, after turning away so that she could not see his face, he walked until he reached the shelter of an intervening clump of ornamental firs, after which she saw no more of him for the time.
At first she thought she would go back and try to find out who the man was. But on second thoughts she decided that, if he was really dogging her footsteps, her best plan would be to go on to the station without looking back, trusting to chance for some convenient season for identifying him.
This was a sensible decision, and, as she had supposed, she found the desired opportunity before reaching the little country railway station.
Coming to a knoll of rising ground, she passed it and waited on the other side. In a few minutes the man she had descried in the park came into full view.
And she recognised one of the footmen in the service of the Duchess de Vicenza, a man with a clever face and watchful, cunning eyes, whose duty it was to open the door for arriving guests.
“Barnard!” ejaculated she, under her breath.
It was evident to her that the man had been following her, and she guessed that he must have been in pursuit from the time she left “The Briars” in the morning. He pretended not to see her, but from the slight change of countenance which she noticed, she was convinced, not only that he was fulfilling an allotted duty, but that he was infinitely vexed at being seen, and that he guessed that he was found out.
She let him go past, and he was much too astute, now that he had once been caught, to betray himself further by looking round. He disappeared from sight before she moved from the spot where she had taken up her stand, and she saw no more of him till she reached “The Briars”; but she had shrewd suspicions that, though unseen, he was not far away.
This incident filled her with fresh misgivings to add to the vexations and griefs from which she was already suffering.
She was sure that the man would never have set out to follow her on his own responsibility; he must be fulfilling orders which had been given him.
By whom, then, were those orders given?
Surely not by the old duchess, whose only care was understood to be that her house and grounds should be kept in proper order.
Who, then, was it that had set him to play the spy upon her?
And once more, as had happened to her so often previously, a sudden uncomfortable sensation, as of being a puppet in unseen hands, a tool in the employ of some powerful organisation, seized her and made her shudder.
If only she could break away from the strange, invisible but strong ties that seemed to bind her to a position she loathed, to hold her in a course which was, she felt, suicidal to her self-respect, and to her hopes of restored happiness with her husband!
And then the poor creature realised, as she had never done before, that to break these ties abruptly would bring her no nearer to Gerard, no nearer to his uncle’s regard, while it would bring upon her the blame of her one woman friend, Mrs. Webster, and certainly the disapproval and resentment of the one man who had done the most to help her—Mr. Candover.
It seemed to her fortunate that, when she reached “The Briars,” only just in time for a late and hurried dinner, she found Mr. Candover himself there to see her.
He had come, he said, to submit to her certain notions of Mademoiselle Laure’s concerning the winter campaign. The Frenchwoman was still in Paris, but she had made extensive purchases of models, and wanted the approval of her nominal chief for certain others.
Audrey, however, was tired, impatient, petulant.
“Why does she send you to me?” she asked. “Surely she knows more about these things than I do, and I gave hercarte blancheto buy what she thought proper. Besides——”
“Well,” interrupted Mr. Candover quickly, “I think you ought to be consulted. You have excellent taste, and——”
“Oh, no, I know nothing and care nothing about these things! I wear the dresses she tells me to wear, I recommend those she advises me to recommend. I am a mere puppet, without a will of my own or a word to say on my own account!”
Mr. Candover took her petulance sublimely. He was as patient as a lamb.
“Oh, don’t say that. You won’t when you have rested a little, and had something to eat. Don’t let me detain you. I can wait here, if I may, while you dine.”
Audrey bit her lip.
“You have dined, yourself?” she asked perfunctorily.
For some reason, perhaps it was on account of Lord Clanfield’s disapproval of her friends, she did not feel kindly disposed to Mr. Candover at that moment. She had, even while he consulted her on this question of fashions, an uneasy, dim, vague sense that he was connected with her misfortunes; connected wilfully, and not by unhappy chance. At another time she might have been ashamed of this vague feeling, but at this moment of irritation, disappointment and despair, she could not be just, she was at the mercy of—instincts.
And her instincts, at this moment of depression, were all in arms against him.
“Yes, thanks. I dined early, before leaving town. You will see me to settle this matter, won’t you?”
He was winning, persuasive, gentle. Wounded, irritable, full of misgivings as she was, she could not help finding his deference, his almost humble courtesy, both welcome and soothing.
She left him, and dining hurriedly, dressed herself with care, as a woman does when she is conscious that there is an ordeal of some sort in prospect.
And when she came down to the drawing-room she was at least outwardly calm, radiant and beautiful, even if her mind was torn with perplexing questions.
She had intentionally said no word as yet to Mr. Candover of the momentous news of Gerard’s release. Not a word, either, of her visit to Lord Clanfield’s. These pieces of information would, she knew, open up such a wide field for discussion that they could not be approached except with full leisure. That leisure, had, however now come, and she knew, as she swept into the drawing-room, in her dress of cream silk muslin with huge rosettes of palest turquoise velvet, that there was a struggle in store.
She wanted to withdraw from the wretched position in which she found herself, cut off from husband and relations. He would want her to snap her fingers at prejudices and principles alike, and to continue at her post.
Thus much she knew, but what she did not know, until she began to approach the subject, was that Mr. Candover was already in possession of the greater part of her news.
“I have something to tell you,” she began, not taking the chair she generally used, low and easy, but a higher, more stiff-backed one in which she could assume more dignity; “something that will, I think, surprise you very much.”
“Well!”
“Gerard is released—is at his uncle’s, Lord Clanfield’s.”
“So I heard—yesterday. And you are going to join him there?”
Did he, could he, know, the cruelty of this question? It broke down all poor Audrey’s defences, her pride, her self-command; and turning her head away to hide the tears that sprang to her eyes, she bit her trembling lip and tried in vain to recover her coolness.
Meanwhile, however, Mr. Candover quickly perceived his mistake.
“Oh, what have I done? Believe me, I had no intention of—of—Tell me. I don’t understand yet; what is the position?”
After a brief struggle, Audrey regained enough composure to answer, not in a firm, even tone, but in short, broken sentences:—
“They disapprove—Lord Clanfield disapproves strongly, utterly, of what I have done, what I am doing. He dislikes the notion of my being in business, on the one hand, of my receiving guests who gamble on the other. I feel he is justified.”
“Well, but surely Gerard doesn’t disapprove! Knowing you were left insufficiently provided for, surely he applauds your spirit in striking out a line for yourself! He wouldn’t be a man if he didn’t!”
“He can say nothing. He is ill, very ill. So ill that his best chance is to stay where he is so well cared for, even if—it means——”
“Means what?”
“Even if it involves a temporary separation.”
Mr. Candover leapt to his feet.
“Surely,” he cried with passionate excitement, “no man worthy of the name would submit to such a state of things for a moment! He would say: ‘My wife, my poor wife whom I was forced to leave alone and unprotected, is my first care. I will not stay at my ease with the relatives who have snubbed and neglected her, and left her to the kindness and care of people who are not connected with her or with me by any ties but those of friendship!’ Surely, surely, Madame——Audrey, you would never cling so tenderly to a husband who could let you go and keep safe and snug himself in the house of a man who had no respect and regard for his true wife!”
Audrey was trembling and again on the verge of tears. She saw that this was a possible view to take of the situation of affairs, even though it was not the right one. She interposed earnestly:—
“You don’t understand. It was I who took upon myself to arrange matters with Lord Clanfield. Knowing that even to Gerard, my engaging in business—not to speak of other things—would be a great shock, I hurried everything through so quickly that we had scarcely met and rejoiced in meeting, when I ran away again. I left him no time to speak, no chance to object. I took advantage of the fact that he couldn’t run after me, to run away!”
Mr. Candover was standing near her, bending his eyes upon her with such a look of passionate devotion as she could not and would not meet. He appeared, indeed, to have almost lost his self-possession in anger at this treatment of her.
“As long as he had a leg to stand on,” he persisted emphatically, “he should have run. Why, I would have crawled on my hands and knees sooner than let you go away from me in such a case! Audrey, it is hard, terrible, to see you used like this, to know that you are not appreciated as you ought to be by the man who has the blessing and honour of being your husband. No, I won’t stop, I won’t be shut up! I tell you it makes my blood boil to think of your being exposed to the insolence of those men, who think, because they are well-born, they have a right to trample under foot all decency, all duty, in dealing with the rest of mankind. Oh, Audrey Audrey,” and as he spoke he came nearer to her, his eyes ablaze with passion, “forgive me if I say too much, but it’s because I feel, I feel as if my own heart would burst to think of it!”
Although he spoke with intense passion, with torrential excitement, he took care not to wound her susceptibilities by so much as a too near approach. Keeping near her, indeed, but clenching his fists as if to keep away from her the hands that longed to touch hers, hovering over her rather than assuming any airs of authority or insolence, Mr. Candover succeeded in rousing in her a spark of the gratitude he was so anxious to excite. Seeing his opportunity in a certain softening of her features, a relaxing of her attitude, he was drawing stealthily nearer when, suddenly realising her danger, her weakness, she raised her head, and went on with her exculpation of Gerard.
“He cannot choose, he is in the hands of others,” she said. “For not only is he so ill that there’s a doubt whether we can save him, but his uncle has undertaken to sift the evidence against him, the false evidence that got his conviction. So that on Lord Clanfield may be said to depend not only his life, but his honour.”
Mr. Candover seemed struck by this fact. So strongly impressed was he by it indeed that he at once changed his attitude, and from the passionate, enthusiastic friend became the cool-headed, cautious, sceptical man of the world.
“They had better leave things alone,” said he drily, after a pause. “To prove him innocent would be—excuse my saying so—extremely difficult. Indeed, it’s not at all likely that, with all his social influence, Lord Clanfield will be able to get the case reopened. It is all done, ended, and well-nigh forgotten by this time. Gerard had better let sleeping dogs lie.”
There was a deep note of warning, almost of menace in his tone, which could not fail to impress Audrey, even while it roused her indignation.
“I know you believe him guilty. You have said so,” she said, with fire. “But Iknowthat he is innocent. And if Lord Clanfield were to heap up insults upon me, and were to refuse ever to speak to me again, I would forgive him everything if—if only—he would save my darling Gerard’s life, and prove his innocence to the world!”
“Yourinnocence does you credit, Madame,” sneered Mr. Candover as Audrey rose and walked away.
Itwas one of the terrible evenings which Audrey had begun to hate, pleasant though every one tried to make them to her. The guests were lively and bright, always complimentary and sympathetic to herself, and observant of the rules of decorum in her presence, however high the play might be in the next room. They even broke up earlier now than they had done at first, and before one o’clock they were all gone.
Audrey, however, was restless, ill at ease, full of vain longings for another sight of her husband’s face, and unable to sleep for the dreams in which she saw again, as she had seen that afternoon, the pitiful, white, drawn features, the sad, sunken eyes, or else the transformed, flushed countenance and brilliant, almost feverish eyes which had looked into hers and told her more plainly than he could with his lips that he had loved her and longed for her as she had for him.
She walked up and down her room, in soft-soled slippers that made no noise, wrapping her dressing-gown tightly round her—for she felt chilly and the night air was cold—hoping to tire herself out, to be able to forget her misery and her anxiety for a time in sound sleep.
And as she walked, she fancied that she heard, very faintly and as if muffled by distance, the sound of an altercation of some sort. She stopped, went closer to her locked door, and listened. She was sure, quite sure that she heard men’s voices, angry, excited, violently vociferous.
She gently turned the key, then the handle, and peeped out.
She was shocked to see that one of the men-servants, the very Barnard whom she had caught following her that day, was quietly sitting on the wide ledge, which made a fairly good seat, of the window at the extreme north end of the corridor.
This corridor ran the whole length of the main building of the house, with bedrooms on one side, and a row of tall, deep-set windows on the other. These windows overlooked the courtyard, and the billiard-room, an annexe to the main building and at right angles with it, which was kept shut up by the Duchess de Vicenza’s order.
In consequence of the ugliness of the outlook the lower part of all these windows was filled in with painted glass, and any eyes less sharp than those of Audrey might have failed to descry the servant in the corner, leaning back as he was against the darkened panes.
Perhaps even Audrey might have failed to see him if she had not had her attention attracted by a deep-drawn breath, almost a snore, which announced that the watcher was asleep.
Waking suddenly to the fact that this man, who had been a spy by day, was a spy by night also, Audrey left her door ajar, in order to make as little noise as possible, and gliding along the corridor in the direction of the front staircase, ran quickly down into the hall, and listened again.
She heard the sound of angry voices intermittently as she went; and divining that they proceeded from the side of the house nearest to the road, which was shut out by a high wall, she drew back the bolts of the front-door, and slipped out into the covered passage which led thence to the outer door in the wall.
In this outer door there was a little grating with a sliding panel, and hearing voices and footsteps, some of which she recognised in the road outside, Audrey slid back the panel and looked out.
She could see but little, for it was only four o’clock, and the morning was dark. She, however, could distinguish the figure of Johnson, the duchess’s secretary, and that of one of the young Angmerings.
By what she heard in the confused talk of half a dozen men, all of whose voices she had heard before and who were, therefore, as she knew, habitués of the house, she gathered that there had been a quarrel, a dispute something indeed very much of the nature of a “row,” that Johnson was the person who had been accused of unfair practices, and that his accuser was Edgar Angmering.
Where did they all come from?
They passed from right to left, quickly, not talking loudly, though they were all much excited, alike in accusation and in denial.
In a very few moments they had all passed out of hearing, and Audrey, cold, shivering more with horror than from the chill morning air, crept softly upstairs, saw that the man Barnard had disappeared, and, locking herself in her own room, understood fully for the first time for what sort of organisation she had been entrapped into playing hostess.
Durley Diggs accused, and now Johnson. Whether or not this latest disturbance were only the result of some gambler’s quarrel in which Johnson himself was not more to blame than the rest, Audrey could not help being struck by the coincidence that the accusation should be brought against the representative of the duchess.
Who was this duchess? Was she a lady of rank? Or was she only the bearer of a fancy title, such as that which had been forced upon Audrey herself?
Was she, in short, the proprietor of a gaming-house, of which the management had ostensibly passed out of her hands and into those of Audrey herself?
The poor young wife was overwhelmed by these suspicions, which involved so many others that she scarcely dared to face any one of them.
After a short and uneasy sleep towards morning, she rose to find herself called upon to take some decisive action, and began by making an exhaustive tour of the premises, which ended in her feeling sure that the room which was used by the gamblers, probably night after night, and certainly till the early hours of the morning, must be that which was called the billiard-room.
This was a long and wide apartment, built out between the house itself and the outer wall, and having, as she now noted for the first time, a door leading straight into the road.
Audrey tried the inner door, found it locked, as usual, and demanded the key of the housekeeper.
She was, of course, met by a point-blank refusal. At this Audrey’s tone changed. The housekeeper, a thin, dry-eyed woman, was not insolent; she only stated that she had been forbidden to open this room for anybody, by the duchess’s express desire. Audrey looked her straight in the eyes.
“Well,” she said, “I can’t force you to give me the key. But, as I have reason to know that some persons got into that room during the night, I shall, if you persist in refusing, call in the police and have the lock forced.”
The woman’s face grew grey with alarm.
“You would not do that, Madame, without consulting—Mr.—Mr.—Mr. Johnson, surely?” she stammered.
“Without consulting anybody,” replied Audrey calmly.
Only for a moment did the woman hesitate; then she handed the key with a shrug of desperation to Audrey, who at once opened the door, and found herself, as she had expected, face to face with abundant evidences of the fact that it was there that the card-playing had been going on. Stray coins, soiled and torn cards, overturned chairs, a broken candlestick which looked as if it had been used as a missile, proved conclusively the uses to which the room had been put, while the billiard-table, which gave the name to it, was only a small one, six feet in length, which stood across one end of the apartment, and looked as if it had been but little used.
Audrey was quite sure, to begin with, that it had not been used during her tenancy of the house, as the click of the balls is unmistakable, and could not have failed to reach her ears through the skylights with which the room was furnished instead of windows.
Now she understood why Lord Clanfield had not believed her assertion that his sons had been refused the house. She could not doubt—nay, she had the evidence of her own ears to prove—that they had only gone out by the front-door, to come in again by that which led direct into this room. And with a heightened colour and a fast-beating heart she returned to the morning-room, after having returned the keys to the housekeeper in significant silence, and wrote this letter:—
“My Lord,“I regret very much to have to admit that, in telling you as I did that your sons were not allowed to enter this house, I unintentionally said what was not true. I had prevented their entering by the front-door of the house; but I have discovered, during the past few hours, that advantage has been taken of my ignorance of the full extent of these premises, and that a room, which I had never been allowed to see, and which I was assured was unused, has been devoted—probably night after night—to the purpose of gambling. I recognised the voice of one of your sons among several persons who came out of that room at about four o’clock this morning, and I insisted upon being allowed to enter and examine it.“As I have some reason to suspect that my movements are watched here—by whose order I have yet to discover—I shall put this letter into the town post-box with my own hands.“I am going to venture to enclose a few lines for Gerard in this letter to you, and I shall be deeply grateful if you will allow him to have this enclosure. I am going to put it into an unsealed envelope, so that you may be convinced that I am keeping faith, and that I will not hold any communication with him but such as you may allow. I venture to think you will agree with me in thinking that a few words of vague encouragement, such as I am sending him, can do no harm whatever, and may help to make him resigned to a separation which, whatever you may think, I am sure he feels no less keenly than I do.“Yours with gratitude for your kindness to my husband,“Audrey Angmering.”
“My Lord,
“I regret very much to have to admit that, in telling you as I did that your sons were not allowed to enter this house, I unintentionally said what was not true. I had prevented their entering by the front-door of the house; but I have discovered, during the past few hours, that advantage has been taken of my ignorance of the full extent of these premises, and that a room, which I had never been allowed to see, and which I was assured was unused, has been devoted—probably night after night—to the purpose of gambling. I recognised the voice of one of your sons among several persons who came out of that room at about four o’clock this morning, and I insisted upon being allowed to enter and examine it.
“As I have some reason to suspect that my movements are watched here—by whose order I have yet to discover—I shall put this letter into the town post-box with my own hands.
“I am going to venture to enclose a few lines for Gerard in this letter to you, and I shall be deeply grateful if you will allow him to have this enclosure. I am going to put it into an unsealed envelope, so that you may be convinced that I am keeping faith, and that I will not hold any communication with him but such as you may allow. I venture to think you will agree with me in thinking that a few words of vague encouragement, such as I am sending him, can do no harm whatever, and may help to make him resigned to a separation which, whatever you may think, I am sure he feels no less keenly than I do.
“Yours with gratitude for your kindness to my husband,
“Audrey Angmering.”
She posted this letter herself with the enclosure, but she could not be sure that she was not followed and observed, and although she knew the letter would be delivered intact, she guessed that the billiard-room would not be used that night.
Her surmise was a shrewd one. Not only was Barnard, the spy, absent from the corridor, where she did not doubt he had always been posted to give the alarm in case of need, but certain dimly seen figures whom she descried in the shrubbery on the opposite side of the road, and guessed to be watchers sent by Lord Clanfield, neither saw nor heard anything to intimate that “The Briars” was other than what it pretended to be, a quiet and most decorous country house the inhabitants of which passed their long nights in innocent sleep, as decent folk should.
Poor Audrey was disappointed not to have received any acknowledgment of her letter. She had hoped that such a clear proof that she had been misled would have extorted some sort of reply from the viscount. He might at least have objected to her writing to Gerard, or have said that he had handed him her little, loving, harmless letter.
When the next morning came, and the post still brought no news from Lord Clanfield, her spirits, which had risen with a little flicker of hope, fell again.
Would he come that day? If only he would condescend to pay her another visit, she felt that what she would be able to show him might perhaps move even him to see that she was, in her way, scarcely less an object of pity than her husband, scarcely less in need of help and advice than he.
And the tears blinded her so much, when she saw that there was only one letter for her, and that one in Pamela’s big, sprawling, would-be-masculine but very girlish handwriting, that for some minutes she could not see to open the letter.
When she did so, however, the interest if not the consternation she felt dried her tears.
“Dear Mrs. A——” the letter began; for it was thus that Pamela compromised between the real name her father had forbidden her to use, and the sham title which Audrey had refused to allow:—“I am now going to beg you to do what you so sweetly promised you would, and to see the woman who persists that she is our mother. I have not been allowed to see her myself, nor, of course, has Babs. But Miss Willett has spoken to her, and says she is sure she is quite mad, and that if she even understands what she says, it isn’t true. Do, do see her, and tell us what you think. I managed to send out this message to her by one of the servants, that you were a great friend of ours, and that you would see her and tell her anything she wanted to know. I thought I might say all that, and I do hope you won’t be angry. I don’t think you will. I sent her your address too, and as this was to-day, I daresay you will see something of her soon after you get this. That is, if there is anything that is worth hearing in what she says. Although of course I can’t believe that what she says is true, yet, never having known our mother, you may guess how sad and how strange it has made both us girls feel. Do, do let me hear at once, if you see her, what you think.“Ever yours,“Pamela.”
“Dear Mrs. A——” the letter began; for it was thus that Pamela compromised between the real name her father had forbidden her to use, and the sham title which Audrey had refused to allow:—
“I am now going to beg you to do what you so sweetly promised you would, and to see the woman who persists that she is our mother. I have not been allowed to see her myself, nor, of course, has Babs. But Miss Willett has spoken to her, and says she is sure she is quite mad, and that if she even understands what she says, it isn’t true. Do, do see her, and tell us what you think. I managed to send out this message to her by one of the servants, that you were a great friend of ours, and that you would see her and tell her anything she wanted to know. I thought I might say all that, and I do hope you won’t be angry. I don’t think you will. I sent her your address too, and as this was to-day, I daresay you will see something of her soon after you get this. That is, if there is anything that is worth hearing in what she says. Although of course I can’t believe that what she says is true, yet, never having known our mother, you may guess how sad and how strange it has made both us girls feel. Do, do let me hear at once, if you see her, what you think.
“Ever yours,
“Pamela.”
Audrey, miserable and lonely herself, was touched by the misery and loneliness of these two bright, sweet young girls, as expressed so ingenuously in this letter. Though she felt rather nervous as to the possible visit of the woman, she was interested, too, and anxious if she could to clear up the mystery for the young creatures.
On many accounts, however, she dreaded as much as she wished for the visit which she felt sure would soon follow.
And before the morning was over her expectation was realised. A servant announced that “some one” wished to see “Madame Rocada”.
Audrey, with an impatient frown, such as now always crossed her face at the mention of the name, told the man to show the visitor into the morning-room.
Audrey, who was only waiting to get this visit over, before going up to town to see Mrs. Webster, and to ask to be put up for the night at her flat, went at once to the room in question, where she found, standing in the middle of the floor, a woman whom she at once set down, in her own mind, as mad.
Very tall, very thin, with good if somewhat large features, and white cheeks so sunken as to be filled with black shadow, the nameless visitor stared at her intently out of two large, deep-set black eyes that seemed to pierce like a knife. Her black hair, which was streaked with grey, was arranged in an old-fashioned way in a long curtain on each side of her haggard face, and her dress, which was almost as old-fashioned as the coiffure, was rusty black also.
A small black bonnet, almost as plain as that of a nurse, tied with black ribbons under the chin, added to her gaunt and funereal appearance.
She spoke at once, and her voice sounded hollow and unnatural, corresponding in all respects to her appearance. Staring intently at Audrey, she said solemnly, almost as if it had been an accusation:—
“Madame Rocada, I believe.”
In spite of the oddity of her appearance and dress, there was something in the woman’s deportment which convinced Audrey that she was a lady by birth and breeding, wreck though she had become. She could not have defined her reasons for believing this, nevertheless the consciousness of the fact was strong upon her, and helped to give her a sympathetic interest in her strange visitor.
To the first words, however, Audrey replied sharply:—
“No. That is not my name. It is Angmering, Mrs. Angmering.”
The visitor frowned.
“But you are the lady the girls—my daughters—sent me to see?”
“Yes, oh, yes. I had a letter from one of them, and I’ve been expecting you.”
As she spoke, she held out the letter, without, however, intending to give it up.
Rather to her dismay, the woman snatched it out of her hand.
“From my girl, my own girl! One of my own daughters, whom I’m not allowed to see! Who don’t believe in my existence! Oh, it’s more than I can bear!”
She broke down suddenly into a sort of hysterical sobbing without tears, and Audrey watched her with mingled sympathy and dismay.
Suddenly as she had broken out, she recovered, and, still with the same wild, intent look in her eyes, stared round the room until her gaze had taken in every object within her view. Then she turned abruptly to Audrey, who was getting alarmed by her behaviour.
Taking a great stride towards her, the woman in black put her face close to that of the younger woman, and said in a dictatorial tone:—
“You are very beautiful, too beautiful to be good! Who are you?”
Amazed at this address, Audrey could only stammer out an incoherent reply which her visitor did not heed. Staring once more round the room, and then bringing her eyes quickly to bear once again upon her victim, she asked as suddenly as before:—
“Now answer me truly. Ishehere?”
“He! Who?” stammered Audrey.
The woman shook her head, as if dismissing the question as childish.
“Because,” she went on, “if he were to know I have come, if he were to know I’ve tried to see my girls, he would murder me, yes, murder me, with as little compunction as if I were the cat!”
“Who do you mean? Who would do this?” cried Audrey, with sudden shrillness.
The woman fixed the great black eyes in another lugubrious stare upon her face:—
“Who? Why, my husband—Eugène.”
Eugène! It was the name by which the White Countess had called out to her assailant on the terrible evening at the showrooms!
Audrey held her breath; she knew that the key to more than one mystery would, in another moment, be in her hands.
“Eugène!” repeated Audrey, with faltering lips.
The strange woman looked at her intently.
“Ah! You don’t know him by that name perhaps!”
Audrey, trembling, returned the woman’s keen look with one as penetrating.
“What makes you think he is here?” she asked sharply.
The visitor, thus recalled to the object of her visit, hesitated for the first time.
“Since you know the girls,” she said, “I presume you know their father too.”
“Yes.”
“And as I find you are a very beautiful woman, my suspicion is confirmed. You are one of his victims, or his tools, as all the pretty women whom he meets become.”
Audrey, with fears which she could not express tightening round her heart, signed to the weird woman to sit down. Drawing a chair close to that which her visitor took, she sat down by her, and lowering her voice, said:—
“Tell me everything, everything. I am in a maze; I am in a position in which I can’t move hand or foot without coming to some corner from which I can’t escape. If you can tell me anything to help me, I shall be grateful, more grateful than I can express. Now who is the man you mean? What is his other name? If you are his wife and those girls are your children and his, you can trust me. I am a wife myself——”
“Whose?” said the woman shortly.
“My husband’s name is Gerard Angmering, and he is the nephew of Lord Clanfield,” she answered simply.
“Why isn’t he here with you? Why are you alone? Where is he?”
She poured out the questions one after the other, so quickly that it was impossible to answer any of them until she stopped speaking.
Audrey bit her lip.
“Never mind that,” she said. “Let it be enough for you that he is all the world to me, and that, if you find me here alone, it is neither by his wish nor by mine.”
The strange woman was peering into her face with a penetration which was uncanny. When she had finished her inspection and Audrey, irritated and perplexed, paused, the visitor laughed harshly.
“I see, I see. Youareone of the victims! Now tell me, what are you doing here? What goes on here? Is it gambling, or——”
With the blood rushing to her cheeks Audrey rose up with a cry.
“Oh, how did you know?” she cried breathlessly.
The visitor said nothing for a moment, but stared at her in the same piercing way. Then she got up, went softly across the room to the door, opened it quickly, and looked out.
“What are you doing?” said Audrey.
“Eugène uses spies,” replied the visitor briefly, as she walked slowly round the room, apparently examining the furniture, the very walls, to see whether there was any possibility of their being overheard by unseen ears. Having satisfied herself, she came back to her seat. “And so,” she said bluntly, “this is a gambling-house, and you are the decoy?”
“How dare you call me that?” panted Audrey, more angry than she could express.
But the woman went steadily on: “You, with your pretty face and figure, your well-bred air and your handsome dresses, are the nominal head of this house, I suppose?”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, don’t be offended. Why should you be, when what I say is true? Listen. I was his wife, you know. He was a rich man when I married him, and I brought him money myself. All went well while the money lasted, and we could live well and ostentatiously, keep horses and carriages—there were no motor-cars in those days—and a yacht and every luxury. Then the money ran short—the times changed, difficulties grew. Things grew worse and worse and presently they began to mend again, mend mysteriously. It was some time before I knew that there was anything wrong about the new prosperity, but when the knowledge did come, when I understood that I was expected to share in the vile work—to help in ugly schemes—cheating at cards—forgery—fraud—he was clever at them all—I stood firm, I refused.”
She paused, and the remembrance of the far-away time she referred to seemed to increase the intense melancholy of her worn face, to render her deep voice more hollow. When she went on speaking, there came again over her face that wild look which had made the servants at Miss Willett’s, and Audrey herself, take her for a madwoman.
“When he found he could do nothing with me, he changed his plans. Since I would not help him, I must go. By every cruel device, every wicked stratagem he tried to drive me out of my mind; he sent my two children away from me, he worked upon my nerves until I became hysterical, used threats which nobody would believe, threats of abandoning my little children, of murdering me.”
“Why didn’t you tell some one?” said Audrey.
“Because nobody would have believed me. He was gentle, handsome, with a caressing voice and charming manner. I was hysterical, irritable, proud, perhaps overbearing and too unhappy to be liked. Everybody took his part, and said how hard it was for genial, charming Eugène Reynolds to be tied to such an unamiable wife.”
“Why didn’t you run away from him?”
“I tried, but he was too clever for me. He knew that I would have moved heaven and earth to find my children, that I would have exposed, denounced him, once safely away from his diabolical influence, once free to breathe and to act for myself. For, though I hated him, I feared him too, and dared scarcely move without his permission. I don’t know how I managed to keep firm in refusing to help him. I think now it was his fear that I should break down and blunder that saved me. For I used to feel that, if he had gone on insisting, I should have yielded at last. As it was, I was of no use to him, so he hated me, and again and again I thought he would kill me. And I told his friends so, and that was my undoing. He, with his sweet voice and caressing ways, to attempt to kill me, a tall, strong, powerful woman! The thing was absurd. And then the way was smooth for what he did. He got two doctors to certify that I was insane—one of them believed it, I’m sure, and the other was the sort of flabby man who can be led to believe anything—and I was shut up in a lunatic asylum.”
There was a pause, and then she said in a hollow whisper:—
“I’ve been there fourteen years!”
“What!” cried Audrey, aghast, incredulous, horror-struck.
“Fourteen years,” repeated the woman, “ever since my elder child, Pamela, was four years old. I knew they were told—both of them—that I was dead, and that was all I was allowed to know. Can you wonder that there was no difficulty in believing me insane? But I never was insane, no, not for an hour. Always, always I had the idea in my mind that I must get out, I must find them, I must save them from such a father. But the years went by, and I could never get away. It was in the west country, close to the Welsh border, that I was shut up, and I was out of the world, out of touch with everything. I never got a chance of escape till six months ago, when they thought I had worn out my old longings to be free, and then I came straight to London, and hunted, and hunted, till I found out where Eugène had hidden himself, and the new name by which he was known.”
“And what is that?” asked Audrey.
“Reginald Candover,” replied the woman quickly.
Although she had been prepared for this, Audrey could not hear it without a fresh shudder.
“How can I believe all this?” she asked suddenly, turning pale as certain possibilities connected with this terrible discovery occurred to her. “I can’t, I won’t believe it!”
The visitor shrugged her shoulders.
“Why should you believe it? It is no affair of mine whether you do or not,” she said simply. “All I came here for was to learn something of my children. Pamela sent me your name and address as a friend of theirs, and all I ask of you is to tell me all you can about them. What are they going to do? They are nearly grown up, and want a mother’s care. Who is going to give it them?”
Audrey listened with blanching cheeks. This insistence on the one point, the girls, always the two girls, was to her mind more convincing than anything else of the truth of the woman’s story.
“I don’t know anything about that,” said Audrey. “They are getting impatient at being left at school, and are always importuning to be taken away. Pamela wants to come to me. But I don’t want her here, and to do him justice, their father seems just as unwilling to bring them away from school as they are anxious to come.”
A look of relief came over the poor woman’s face.
“You really believe that?” she said eagerly.
“I do indeed. I’ve had proof of it. Remember, even bad men are generally good to their own children!”
The stranger sighed.
“Some are, I know. But if you have received as much ill treatment from a man as I have from my husband, you find it difficult to believe any good of him. Besides——” A new thought seemed to fill her with new horror, and again she looked cautiously round, and lowered her voice still further. “There’s his sister. Even if he were to wish to keep his daughters from harm, his sister is such a wicked woman that, if he were to put them into her care, they would be worse off than ever.”
“His sister! Has he a sister?”
“A half-sister. A woman without heart or conscience, and with no passion but for money, and no affection for any one but her half-brother. She hated me because I was English, and so were all my ways and all my tastes.”
“Wasn’t she English then?”
“No, nor he either. They are both of mixed nationality, and speak three or four languages equally well. And each is as clever and as wicked as the other. Do you mean to say you have never met her?”
And again both her look and tone grew incredulous.
“Never to my knowledge,” said Audrey. “Perhaps she is dead.”
The stranger heaved a sigh which Audrey could not but think was one of hope. She gazed long and earnestly at the younger woman.
“I’m sorry I said what I did—about your being too beautiful to be good,” she said suddenly. “I think you are good; I think I could trust you! Will you keep an eye on my girls?”
Audrey’s face puckered with distress.
“There’s nothing I would do more willingly,” said she, “but how am I to do it? He is their father; I can’t interfere with his wishes; it would even do more harm than good for me to tell them the truth about you. The advice I strongly give you is to refrain from trying to see them, since their knowing the whole truth, or even a part of it, could only lead to dissensions, and might perhaps change their father’s feelings towards them, which seem at present to be right and natural ones, to anger and bitterness.”
The poor woman’s face grew dark with distress.
“I know quite well you’re right,” said she. “But it’s so hard, so very hard.” She paused and appeared to reflect deeply for some moments. Then she went on abruptly: “If I do as you suggest, if I go back, away, without trying to see them again, will you write to me and let me know what they are doing, and how they are?”
Her tone was so humble, so imploring, that, absorbed as she was in her own anxieties, suggested by her visitor’s revelations, Audrey felt the tears rising to her eyes.
“I will do what I can,” she said earnestly. “But it is so little! For now that I know so much, I shall at once break off acquaintance with him.”
The other laughed mockingly.
“You may think you will, but you will not,” she said, with confidence. “Once in his net, no one gets away so easily. You will try and you will think you have succeeded; but you will feel the meshes about your feet, and you will be brought back, brought safely back into the net—every time!”
The words filled Audrey with unspeakable horror. For even while she would have contradicted, have protested, have scouted the idea presented to her, there rose up in her mind the terrible fear that it was a true one! Had she not tried already more than once to escape from the net, and had she not always been brought back, surely yet so gently that she was hardly aware of the compelling force at all?
She burst out into violence, clenching her teeth.
“I will escape,” she said. “I will not continue my acquaintance with a man whom I know to be wicked!”
The stranger laughed again.
“You have only my word for it, you know, the word of a woman who has been declared mad! Better forget what I have said, or disregard it, and go on as if nothing had happened to open your eyes even the least bit. You can do no good by protesting, and may do yourself harm. You little guess how strong the forces are which you would have to fight against.”
But there she was wrong. Gradually Audrey’s instincts had been telling her what her visitor now openly confirmed, and the knowledge of the strength of the organisation she would have to contend against was growing every moment more profound.
“Where shall you go,” she asked abruptly, “when you leave here? You want me to write to you. Where shall I write to? And how shall I address you?”
The visitor replied after a moment’s hesitation; perhaps some lingering doubts of Audrey still had to be overcome or some suspicion as to whether Eugène’s influence might not be strong enough to extract from this beautiful, gentle-mannered woman the information he might want about his hated wife.
At last, however, she made up her mind suddenly, and answered:—
“I am living in Hertfordshire with a maiden sister, and openly under the name in which Eugène married me—Mrs. Reynolds. I’ve lived there nearly six months now, ever since I got away from the asylum. Probably the asylum people haven’t told him of my escape, and are still taking the money for my maintenance. At any rate I’ve been so cautious in my inquiries to find out him and my daughters, that I don’t think he knows where I am. Now he will find out of course. I’ve no doubt there are spies in this house who will inform him of my visit. But,” she added with confidence, “as I’ve been living in freedom for so long, it would take some formalities to get me back again, and—well, I can afford to risk it. I’ve learnt something about my girls, and I have, I hope, found that they’ve got a friend.”
Quite suddenly she turned upon Audrey such an imploring, piteous look that the younger woman was deeply moved.
“I have need of friends myself,” said she, in a broken voice, “and I have no power, no influence with anybody. But if I could do anything for them, believe me I would, oh, I would!”
The stranger rose, held out her long, slim hand, and grasped that of Audrey.
“I thank you, and I trust you,” she said simply under her breath. Then she turned to the door, but paused to say: “No. I won’t go out like that. Better not. These people will let him know who has been here. For both our sakes we must play them a trick. Ring the bell, and let them find you cowering in a corner of the room, as if you were frightened. Tell the servants I’m a madwoman who has been raving incoherently, and that you can’t make out who I am.”
“But,” said Audrey, “might that not help him to get you back to the asylum again?”
The visitor laughed shrewdly.
“He won’t trouble about putting me in if he thinks I really am mad,” she replied quietly.
There was strong sense in this view, and Audrey carried out her suggestion to the letter, rang the bell, then withdrew into a corner of the room, behind an armchair, while the visitor stood, gaunt and forbidding, in the middle of the floor.
When Barnard appeared in answer to her summons, Audrey told him, with an appearance of alarm, to show the lady out, and made gestures to him to intimate that she was mad. The gaunt visitor went with a wild laugh, muttering to herself, and carried out her part of the stratagem so well that Barnard himself closed the door very quickly behind her, under the impression that he was indeed shutting out a dangerous lunatic.
Then Audrey, suffering from the reaction after the intense excitement caused by the interview with her visitor, went shuddering and shivering up the stairs, locked herself into her room, and at once began to pack up for immediate departure.
Whether she were brought back into the net or not, she would at any rate make a valiant attempt to get clear of it!
Asshe went on with her packing, Audrey reviewed the situation, and came to a decision upon certain vital points.
In the first place, she would not be browbeaten by Mr. Candover into silence about the gambling that was carried on, or the cheating which accompanied it.
In the second place, she would no longer allow herself to be used as a decoy by this man, who, if half what her late visitor had said should prove to be true, was no better than a swindler.
She would therefore at once give up, not only the dubious title chosen for her by him or by Mademoiselle Laure, but the business run under that name. She thought, since she had put her own money into the venture, and had therefore a right to get some at least of it back, that she would see Mademoiselle Laure, and find out whether that astute Frenchwoman were willing to buy her out, giving Audrey a small sum for her interest.
Unfortunately, Mr. Candover had conducted the negotiations with the help of his own solicitor, and the contracts and papers connected with the sale were in his hands.
And Audrey suddenly asked herself, as she sat back on the floor in the midst of her work, whether she might not find, on investigation, that there had been trickery on his part in this matter, as there appeared to be in everything with which he had to do.
And she rose to her feet with a low cry, as the thought flashed into her mind that perhaps this rich, disinterested Mr. Candover, whom she and Gerard had both liked and trusted so much, was connected with her husband’s misfortunes as well as with her own.
But this thought she would not have dared to put into words. Once in her mind, however, it stayed there with terrible persistency, till Audrey’s brain reeled, and she asked herself whether her best course would not be to go to the solicitor, the very solicitor who had offended her so much by believing Gerard guilty.
And then, as she came to what she was sure was a sensible decision, that she would go to him, and put up with his dry manner and his penetrating questions, it flashed upon her that, instead of taking her part against Mr. Candover and expressing a readiness to investigate his conduct, the solicitor might perhaps be more inclined to investigate hers!
For she, poor child, in her friendless and lonely condition after Gerard’s going away, had let herself drift entirely into the ways suggested by Mr. Candover, had gone with him to his solicitor instead of consulting her husband’s, to arrange the lease of the showrooms, had, indeed, put herself as completely into his hands, in her ignorance and desolation, as if she had been a child and he her natural guardian.
And would the stern lawyer whom she had dreaded and disliked for his curt interrogation of Gerard be more likely to look upon her with a kind eye than he had been before? He had plainly shown his belief that the young couple had got into debt through the extravagance of the beautiful wife; and this being so, he would naturally put the worst construction upon her motives in taking to the business on the one hand and in renting “The Briars” on the other.
What should she do? To whom should she turn? It was with a feeling of despair at her heart that she went downstairs, after nearly three hours’ hard work in packing and preparing for her departure.
Her luncheon had been waiting more than an hour when she came down ready dressed for her journey; and she uttered a cry of surprise and dismay when she came face to face, in the hall outside the dining-room, with Mr. Candover.
“Hallo!” said he, “I see I’m only just in time to catch you. Going out?”
“Going away,” replied Audrey curtly, as he opened the door for her.
“May I come in and speak to you? It’s important. And tell the man not to wait. I want to say something for your ears alone.”
This was said in a whisper, and Audrey complied with his request, and, at the urgent instance of Mr. Candover, sat down at the table, where, however, she tried in vain to eat.
To find herself so suddenly in the presence of this man, whom she now dreaded as much as she had once trusted him, was an ordeal she had not expected to have to undergo so soon. She could not, she would not pretend that nothing had happened to disturb her; on the contrary, every word, every look was constrained and cold. Mr. Candover, gentle and patient as ever, broke the ice himself as soon as they were alone.
“What’s this I hear,” he began, “about your having been frightened by a madwoman this morning? Barnard tells me he found you cowering behind a chair, and the woman muttering at you in a threatening manner.”
He looked at her fixedly, and she blushed deeply as she answered:—
“I was rather frightened, but I don’t think she really meant to do any harm. She muttered and talked wildly, and told an extraordinary story in a rambling manner. I got to the bell, when she had been talking for some time, and rang, and Barnard showed her out.”
He looked at her keenly, and seemed undecided whether to ask her more questions, but finally refrained, and said:—
“There’s another thing I want to talk about, and it is what brought me down here. The housekeeper says you insisted yesterday upon having the keys of the billiard-room given to you, and she is afraid of what Madame de Vicenza will say if it comes to her ears.”
Audrey, who was looking down at her plate, answered quietly:—
“Something else will have to come to Madame de Vicenza’s ears, Mr. Candover. For the second time since I have been staying in this house a man has been caught—or suspected of—cheating at cards.”
“Impossible!” Mr. Candover was evidently surprised at this intelligence, or, as Audrey shrewdly suspected, surprised at her being in possession of it. “What reason have you for thinking so?”
“I have the evidence of my ears and my eyes,” said she in a tremulous voice, but with a certain doggedness, “that gambling has been carried on here, long after the guests were supposed to be gone. They went to the room which is absurdly—or artfully—called the billiard-room, and there they went on playing till four o’clock in the morning. And there have been quarrels, and another man has been—found out.”
“Who?” asked Mr. Candover sternly.
“Madame de Vicenza’s steward or secretary, I believe, the man called Johnson.”
Audrey glanced up and down again quickly, and saw that Mr. Candover was really disturbed. She went on:—
“I needn’t say that I don’t intend to stay here another night. I only waited till this morning in the hope that Lord Clanfield would come and see me, as I wrote to him at once.”
“Why?” asked Mr. Candover sharply.
“Because his sons are among the men who have been robbed here.”
“Robbed!”
His tone was threatening, alarming. But Audrey, strung up to a high pitch of excitement, persisted steadily:—
“Yes. Robbed. So I informed him of what went on here.”
“It was a mad thing to do,” said Mr. Candover impatiently.
“It was the right thing.”
“You have done yourself no good by it,” retorted he angrily. “You see Lord Clanfield did not even answer your letter.”
Audrey bit her lip.
“Well, I did my duty at any rate. Now I’m going away from this hateful place, and the men who come here will know, once for all, that I have nothing to do with keeping it up.”
“You have kept it up for two months,” said he drily.
The hot blood rushed into Audrey’s face.
“I certainly did not keep up the billiard-room, or allow the play that went on there,” she said sharply. “That can be proved. I had the keys yesterday for the first time.”
“Well, it’s easy tosaythat. Indeed, I should advise you to say it,” said Mr. Candover, with a sudden change to provoking coolness. “But will you get people to believe it? I think the odds are against you.”
A cold chill crept along Audrey’s limbs. Was this true? It was, she felt, only too likely to prove so. If she were to assert that she knew nothing of the existence of the room where the late card-playing went on, the servants, who, as she guessed, were all engaged in the nefarious business carried on there, would be ready to swear that she did know.
She kept silence.
“Of course, in the circumstances, I applaud your resolution to leave the place,” went on Mr. Candover; “though, as you have only ten days longer of your tenancy, to go now looks rather as though you were disgusted at being found out.”
“Found out! I! Mr. Candover!”
“Of course, I’m putting the matter from the point of view of what people will say. Still, you’re right to go. And now, may I ask where do you think of going to? I scarcely like to put the question, although once I flattered myself that I could have asked you any such thing freely. But lately—I don’t know exactly how it is, for when I have offended you, I’ve always been very contrite and humble in asking forgiveness—but certainly there has been a change in your manner towards me, so that I scarcely like to say things now which I could have said freely when you were kinder.”
Audrey felt the subtle influence of this man’s insinuating manners, soft voice and deprecating attitude. But she steeled herself against him, and answered steadily:—
“I have not meant to be unkind. It is impossible that I should feel quite the same to you now that I know you do not think with me about—Gerard.” She would not let him protest, but hurried on: “But, of course, I’ll tell you where I’m going. It is to Mrs. Webster, who will put me up, I know, while I look about me.”
“And may I ask what you have in your mind to do?”
“First, to sell the business, which I refuse to carry on any longer with all the unpleasant associations which seem to be attached to the name under which it is carried on.”