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Title: When love dawns
or, Dark Magdalen
Author: Adelaide Stirling
Release date: March 8, 2026 [eBook #78149]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Street & Smith, 1900
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78149
Credits: Demian Katz and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (Images courtesy of the Digital Library@Villanova University.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN LOVE DAWNS ***
EAGLE SERIES NO. 448
WHEN LOVE DAWNS
BY
ADELAIDE STIRLING
[Illustration]
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77--Tina By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
88--Virgie’s Inheritance By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
99--Audrey’s Recompense By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
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144--Dorothy’s Jewels By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
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177--A True Aristocrat By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
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199--Geoffrey’s Victory By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
210--Wild Oats By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
219--Lost, A Pearle By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
222--The Lily of Mordaunt By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
233--Nora By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
244--A Hoiden’s Conquest By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
255--The Little Marplot By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
266--The Welfleet Mystery By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
277--Brownie’s Triumph By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
282--The Forsaken Bride By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
288--Sibyl’s Influence By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
291--A Mysterious Wedding Ring By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
299--Little Miss Whirlwind By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
311--Wedded by Fate By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
339--His Heart’s Queen By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
351--The Churchyard Betrothal By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
362--Stella Rosevelt By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
372--A Girl in a Thousand By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
373--A Thorn Among Roses By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
Sequel to “A Girl in a Thousand”
382--Mona By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
391--Marguerite’s Heritage By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
399--Betsey’s Transformation By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
407--Esther, the Fright By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
415--Trixy By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
419--The Other Woman By Charles Garvice
433--Winifred’s Sacrifice By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
440--Edna’s Secret Marriage By Charles Garvice
451--Helen’s Victory By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
458--When Love Meets Love By Charles Garvice
476--Earle Wayne’s Nobility By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
511--The Golden Key By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
512--A Heritage of Love By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
Sequel to “The Golden Key”
519--The Magic Cameo By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
520--The Heatherford Fortune By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
Sequel to “The Magic Cameo”
531--Better Than Life By Charles Garvice
537--A Life’s Mistake By Charles Garvice
542--Once in a Life By Charles Garvice
548--’Twas Love’s Fault By Charles Garvice
553--Queen Kate By Charles Garvice
554--Step by Step By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
555--Put to the Test By Ida Reade Allen
556--With Love’s Aid By Wenona Gilman
557--In Cupid’s Chains By Charles Garvice
558--A Plunge Into the Unknown By Richard Marsh
559--The Love That Was Cursed By Geraldine Fleming
560--The Thorns of Regret By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
561--The Outcast of the Family By Charles Garvice
562--A Forced Promise By Ida Reade Allen
563--The Old Homestead By Denman Thompson
564--Love’s First Kiss By Emma Garrison Jones
565--Just a Girl By Charles Garvice
566--In Love’s Springtime By Laura Jean Libbey
567--Trixie’s Honor By Geraldine Fleming
568--Hearts and Dollars By Ida Reade Allen
569--By Devious Ways By Charles Garvice
570--Her Heart’s Unbidden Guest By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
571--Two Wild Girls By Mrs. Charlotte May Kingsley
572--Amid Scarlet Roses By Emma Garrison Jones
573--Heart for Heart By Charles Garvice
574--The Fugitive Bride By Mary E. Bryan
575--A Blue Grass Heroine By Ida Reade Allen
576--The Yellow Face By Fred M. White
577--The Story of a Passion By Charles Garvice
579--The Curse of Beauty By Geraldine Fleming
580--The Great Awakening By E. Phillips Oppenheim
581--A Modern Juliet By Charles Garvice
582--Virgie Talcott’s Mission By Lucy M. Russell
583--His Greatest Sacrifice; or, Manch By Mary E. Bryan
584--Mabel’s Fate By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
585--The Ape and the Diamond By Richard Marsh
586--Nell, of Shorne Mills By Charles Garvice
587--Katherine’s Two Suitors By Geraldine Fleming
588--The Crime of Love By Barbara Howard
589--His Father’s Crime By E. Phillips Oppenheim
590--What Was She to Him? By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
591--A Heritage of Hate By Charles Garvice
592--Ida Chaloner’s Heart By Lucy Randall Comfort
593--Love Will Find the Way By Wenona Gilman
594--A Case of Identity By Richard Marsh
595--The Shadow of Her Life By Charles Garvice
596--Slighted Love By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
597--Her Fatal Gift By Geraldine Fleming
598--His Wife’s Friend By Mary E. Bryan
599--At Love’s Cost By Charles Garvice
600--St. Elmo By Augusta J. Evans
601--The Fate of the Plotter By Louis Tracy
602--Married in Error By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
603--Love and Jealousy By Lucy Randall Comfort
604--Only a Working Girl By Geraldine Fleming
605--Love, the Tyrant By Charles Garvice
606--Mabel’s Sacrifice By Charlotte M. Stanley
608--Love is Love Forevermore By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
609--John Elliott’s Flirtation By Lucy May Russell
610--With All Her Heart By Charles Garvice
611--Is Love Worth While? By Geraldine Fleming
612--Her Husband’s Other Wife By Emma Garrison Jones
613--Philip Bennion’s Death By Richard Marsh
614--Little Phillis’ Lover By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
615--Maida By Charles Garvice
617--As a Man Lives By E. Phillips Oppenheim
618--The Tide of Fate By Wenona Gilman
619--The Cardinal Moth By Fred M. White
620--Marcia Drayton By Charles Garvice
621--Lynette’s Wedding By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
622--His Madcap Sweetheart By Emma Garrison Jones
623--Love at the Loom By Geraldine Fleming
624--A Bachelor Girl By Lucy May Russell
625--Kyra’s Fate By Charles Garvice
626--The Joss By Richard Marsh
627--My Little Love By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
628--A Daughter of the Marionis By E. Phillips Oppenheim
629--The Lady of Beaufort Park By Wenona Gilman
630--The Verdict of the Heart By Charles Garvice
631--A Love Concealed By Emma Garrison Jones
633--The Strange Disappearance of Lady Delia By Louis Tracy
634--Love’s Golden Spell By Geraldine Fleming
635--A Coronet of Shame By Charles Garvice
636--Sinned Against By Mary E. Bryan
637--If It Were True! By Wenona Gilman
638--A Golden Barrier By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
639--A Hateful Bondage By Barbara Howard
640--A Girl of Spirit By Charles Garvice
641--Master of Men By E. Phillips Oppenheim
642--A Fair Enchantress By Ida Reade Allen
643--The Power of Love By Geraldine Fleming
644--No Time for Penitence By Wenona Gilman
645--A Jest of Fate By Charles Garvice
646--Her Sister’s Secret By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
647--Bitterly Atoned By Mrs. E. Burke Collins
648--Gertrude Elliott’s Crucible By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
649--The Corner House By Fred M. White
650--Diana’s Destiny By Charles Garvice
651--Love’s Clouded Dawn By Wenona Gilman
652--Little Vixen By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
653--Her Heart’s Challenge By Barbara Howard
654--Vivian’s Love Story By Mrs. E. Burke Collins
655--Linked by Fate By Charles Garvice
656--Hearts of Stone By Geraldine Fleming
657--In the Service of Love By Richard Marsh
658--Love’s Devious Course By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
659--Told in the Twilight By Ida Reade Allen
660--The Mills of the Gods By Wenona Gilman
661--The Man of the Hour By Sir William Magnay
662--A Little Barbarian By Charlotte Kingsley
663--Creatures of Destiny By Charles Garvice
664--A Southern Princess By Emma Garrison Jones
666--A Fateful Promise By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
667--The Goddess--A Demon By Richard Marsh
668--From Tears to Smiles By Ida Reade Allen
670--Better Than Riches By Wenona Gilman
671--When Love Is Young By Charles Garvice
672--Craven Fortune By Fred M. White
673--Her Life’s Burden By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
674--The Heart of Hetta By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
675--The Breath of Slander By Ida Reade Allen
676--My Lady Beth By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
677--The Wooing of Esther Gray By Louis Tracy
678--The Shadow Between Them By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
679--Gold in the Gutter By Charles Garvice
680--Master of Her Fate By Geraldine Fleming
681--In Full Cry By Richard Marsh
682--My Pretty Maid By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
683--An Unhappy Bargain By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
684--Her Enduring Love By Ida Reade Allen
685--India’s Punishment By Laura Jean Libbey
686--The Castle of the Shadows By Mrs. C. N. Williamson
687--My Own Sweetheart By Wenona Gilman
688--Only a Kiss By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
689--Lola Dunbar’s Crime By Barbara Howard
690--Ruth, the Outcast By Mrs. Mary E. Bryan
691--Her Dearest Love By Geraldine Fleming
692--The Man of Millions By Ida Reade Allen
693--For Another’s Fault By Charlotte M. Stanley
694--The Belle of Saratoga By Lucy Randall Comfort
695--The Mystery of the Unicorn By Sir William Magnay
696--The Bride’s Opals By Emma Garrison Jones
697--One of Life’s Roses By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
698--The Battle of Hearts By Geraldine Fleming
700--In Wolf’s Clothing By Charles Garvice
701--A Lost Sweetheart By Ida Reade Allen
702--The Stronger Passion By Mrs. Lillian R. Drayton
703--Mr. Marx’s Secret By E. Phillips Oppenheim
704--Had She Loved Him Less! By Laura Jean Libbey
705--The Adventure of Princess Sylvia By Mrs. C. N. Williamson
706--In Love’s Paradise By Charlotte M. Stanley
707--At Another’s Bidding By Ida Reade Allen
708--Sold for Gold By Geraldine Fleming
710--Ridgeway of Montana By William MacLeod Raine
711--Taken by Storm By Emma Garrison Jones
712--Love and a Lie By Charles Garvice
713--Barriers of Stone By Wenona Gilman
714--Ethel’s Secret By Charlotte M. Stanley
715--Amber, the Adopted By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
716--No Man’s Wife By Ida Reade Allen
717--Wild and Willful By Lucy Randall Comfort
718--When We Two Parted By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
719--Love’s Earnest Prayer By Geraldine Fleming
720--The Price of a Kiss By Laura Jean Libbey
721--A Girl from the South By Charles Garvice
722--A Freak of Fate By Emma Garrison Jones
723--A Golden Sorrow By Charlotte M. Stanley
724--Norna’s Black Fortune By Ida Reade Alien
725--The Thoroughbred By Edith MacVane
726--Diana’s Peril By Dorothy Hall
727--His Willing Slave By Lillian R. Drayton
728--Her Share of Sorrow By Wenona Gilman
729--Loved at Last By Geraldine Fleming
730--John Hungerford’s Redemption By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
731--His Two Loves By Ida Reade Allen
732--Eric Braddon’s Love By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
733--Garrison’s Finish By W. B. M. Ferguson
734--Sylvia, the Forsaken By Charlotte M. Stanley
735--Married for Money By Lucy Randall Comfort
736--Married in Haste By Wenona Gilman
737--At Her Father’s Bidding By Geraldine Fleming
738--The Power of Gold By Ida Reade Allen
739--The Strength of Love By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
740--A Soul Laid Bare By J. K. Egerton
741--The Fatal Ruby By Charles Garvice
742--A Strange Wooing By Richard Marsh
743--A Lost Love By Wenona Gilman
744--A Useless Sacrifice By Emma Garrison Jones
745--A Will of Her Own By Ida Reade Allen
746--That Girl Named Haze By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
747--For a Flirt’s Love By Geraldine Fleming
748--The World’s Great Snare By E. Phillips Oppenheim
749--The Heart of a Maid By Charles Garvice
750--Driven from Home By Wenona Gilman
751--The Gypsy’s Warning By Emma Garrison Jones
752--Without Name or Wealth By Ida Reade Allen
753--Loyal Unto Death By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
754--His Lost Heritage By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
755--Her Priceless Love By Geraldine Fleming
756--Leola’s Heart By Charlotte M. Stanley
757--Dare-devil Betty By Evelyn Malcolm
758--The Woman in It By Charles Garvice
759--They Met by Chance By Ida Reade Allen
760--Love Conquers Pride By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
761--A Reckless Promise By Emma Garrison Jones
762--The Rose of Yesterday By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
763--The Other Girl’s Lover By Lillian R. Drayton
764--His Unbounded Faith By Charlotte M. Stanley
765--When Love Speaks By Evelyn Malcolm
766--The Man She Hated By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
767--No One to Help Her By Ida Reade Allen
768--Claire’s Love-Life By Lucy Randall Comfort
769--Love’s Harvest By Adelaide Fox Robinson
770--A Queen of Song By Geraldine Fleming
771--Nan Haggard’s Confession By Mary E. Bryan
772--A Married Flirt By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
773--The Thorns of Love By Evelyn Malcolm
774--Love in a Snare By Charles Garvice
775--My Love Kitty By Charles Garvice
776--That Strange Girl By Charles Garvice
777--Nellie By Charles Garvice
778--Miss Estcourt; or, Olive By Charles Garvice
779--A Virginia Goddess By Ida Reade Allen
780--The Love He Sought By Lillian R. Drayton
781--Falsely Accused By Geraldine Fleming
782--His First Sweetheart By Lucy Randall Comfort
783--All for Love By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
WHEN LOVE DAWNS
OR,
DARK MAGDALEN
BY
ADELAIDE STIRLING
AUTHOR OF
“Nerine’s Second Choice,” “The Purple Mask,”
“Lover or Husband?” etc.
[Illustration: S AND S NOVELS]
NEW YORK
STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS
79-89 SEVENTH AVENUE
Copyright, 1900
By STREET & SMITH
When Love Dawns
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disease?
Every time a bacteriological examination is made of the public-library
book, germs of every known disease are found among its pages. Probably,
from your own experience, you know that lots of people never think of
taking a book from the public library, until some one in their family
is sick and wants something to read.
As records prove that ninety per cent of the demand for books at the
public libraries is for works of fiction, it strikes us that the
reading public would do better to patronize the S. & S. novel list
which contains hundreds of books to be found in the public libraries,
and many hundreds of others just as good and interesting.
The price of the S. & S. novels is a low one indeed to pay for
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STREET & SMITH, _Publishers_
NEW YORK
WHEN LOVE DAWNS.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. PROFITS OF A PAST.
CHAPTER II. WHEN THE PRESENT’S QUESTIONABLE.
CHAPTER III. EYES THAT LOOKED INTO EYES.
CHAPTER IV. AN OUTCAST.
CHAPTER V. “I NEVER KNEW HIM.”
CHAPTER VI. A GOLDEN FUTURE.
CHAPTER VII. ACROSS CLYDE WATER.
CHAPTER VIII. MAGDALEN DREAMS.
CHAPTER IX. DOLLY’S PREDICAMENT.
CHAPTER X. BETWEEN TWO EVILS.
CHAPTER XI. THE EYES BEHIND THE GLASS.
CHAPTER XII. IN THE CHAPEL.
CHAPTER XIII. STRATHARDEN “SEES THEM OFF.”
CHAPTER XIV. “MURDER!”
CHAPTER XV. DOLLY SEES DAYLIGHT.
CHAPTER XVI. “DARK MAGDALEN.”
CHAPTER XVII. FOR THE HOUSE OF BARNYSDALE.
CHAPTER XVIII. EYES TO THE BLIND.
CHAPTER XIX. “GOOD LORD, DELIVER US!”
CHAPTER XX. DOLLY TAKES FEAR BY THE THROAT.
CHAPTER XXI. IN DISGUISE.
CHAPTER XXII. WHEN LOVE DAWNS.
CHAPTER XXIII. THE NAKED FOOTSTEP.
CHAPTER XXIV. AT AUNT MANETTE’S.
CHAPTER XXV. “BUFF OGILVIE!”
CHAPTER XXVI. A CURTAIN AND A SHADOW.
CHAPTER XXVII. “WHY SHOULD I TRUST YOU?”
CHAPTER XXVIII. ONLY A BIT OF GOLD FILIGREE.
CHAPTER XXIX. THE GREEN BAIZE DOOR.
CHAPTER XXX. LORD STRATHARDEN BEGINS.
CHAPTER XXXI. THE BLIND GUIDE.
CHAPTER XXXII. IN THE HOUSE OF AH LEE.
CHAPTER XXXIII. IN THE HOUSE OF HER DREAM.
CHAPTER XXXIV. ONE THAT WAS LOST.
CHAPTER I.
PROFITS OF A PAST.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” The girl had her back turned on the
extravagant, luxurious room and its one other occupant. Her voice was
full of anger and she stared out of the window as though she had not
patience to meet the other woman’s eyes.
“What good would it have done?” Mrs. Arden lay stretched full length on
the sofa, her untidy dressing-gown disposed gracefully about her.
“I could have done something?”
“What? Gone without meat on Fridays and had bread without butter? You
may as well turn round, Magdalen! I know you’re raging.”
“I’m not.” She wheeled slowly. “It wasn’t my money, it was yours. But
if I’d known I wouldn’t have helped you waste it, I’d have worked, I
wouldn’t have lived on you. Oh, Doll!” hotly, “can’t you see it’s been
madness? What have you ever got for all you’ve thrown away?”
“We’ve had a good time,” calmly. “What’s the use of talking about it?
My money’s s-p-e-n-t, spent--and that’s the end of it. Now we’ve got to
live on our wits.”
Magdalen Clyde looked at her stepsister curiously, as though she saw
her for the first time--her fragile, waxen prettiness; her careless
mouth! her eyes, half tired and half mocking. For all the soft lines of
her face there was something reckless in it this morning.
“Don’t stare at me,” cried Dolly petulantly. “You’ve seen me before and
I’m not looking my best on this delightful occasion. And what you’re
thinking is a waste of time! I’m not going to look for a place as
housekeeper while you go out as a nursery governess. I’m thirty years
old and the world owes me a living. It wasn’t my fault that I came into
it.”
“Why did you take me on your shoulders? I could have worked for myself.”
A curious expression flitted across Dolly’s face. But whatever caused
it she kept to herself. Perhaps for only one second had she meant to
tell why she had taken Magdalen.
“Don’t talk rubbish!” she said shortly. “Mother died--I had the money.
You went to school and I got married; not for long, thank the powers!
And anyhow, here we are without one penny. Your assets, I believe,”
and she laughed, “are two black frocks, three indifferent hats and a
red head. Mine are: Item--one husband, kindly removed by desertion;
item--one small boy of three and _ad infinitum_--do you like my
delicate wit?--debts, debts and duns. My looks I will leave out of
the question; perhaps they are a little frayed around the edges. But
my reputation, thanks to your eternal vigilance, is good! You’ve been
quite worth your keep, my beloved!”
“What does your reputation matter?” hastily; with sense enough not
to say what was on her tongue. Dolly Arden’s reputation! A hundred
lucky slides over cracking ice, a habit of knowing no women who could
talk about her escapades or her parties, a childlike callousness that
thought the world both deep and blind. If these things build up a
good reputation, Dolly Arden had one. The girl dismissed the long
list of men who had adorned her stepsister with various jewelry and
vanished--though their presents stayed--and asked her question over
again scornfully:
“What does your reputation matter?”
“Everything,” returned Mrs. Arden calmly. “It’s my stock in trade. I’m
going to become a British matron; well-dressed, too. I’m going to drive
through the rest of my life in a carriage and have bishops’ wives to
tea.”
“You don’t mean”--there was never much color in Magdalen’s face, but
now it was as white as paper--“he isn’t--you’re not going to dare to
get married again?”
“On the contrary, I’m going to become a widow! You don’t look pretty
with your mouth open like a codfish, my child, and your horror’s
wasted. He,” significantly, “is not going to marry me. It’s my previous
history that will enable me to consort with bishops’ wives when
convenient, not my future.”
“Do you mean the kind who abide in asylums?” trenchantly. “For
goodness’ sake, Doll, speak out! What do you mean? I know something’s
happened. Last night you walked the floor, for I heard you, and this
morning you’re a different creature.”
“Last night I saw no resource for us but to turn costermongers on
half a crown capital! This morning”--a queer look, half excitement,
half determination, came on her face; she stood up with her torn
dressing-gown let hang as it liked--“this morning, Magdalen, Lord
Barnysdale’s dead!”
“Oh, sit down,” wrathfully. “You look like Crazy Ann. I’m too tired for
jokes. I never heard of Lord Barnysdale when he was alive; what does
his being dead matter to us?”
Mrs. Arden laughed; then pirouetted with a childish, careless grace.
“Everything!” she cried. “Barnysdale’s dead, I’m a widow--a widow!” and
she waltzed round the room.
“Dolly, for Heaven’s sake!” said Magdalen furiously, yet her pale face,
with its level black brows and somber eyes, might have been a picture
in black and white for all the life there was in it as she caught the
small dancing figure gently enough. “Are you demented or do you think I
am?”
“Neither,” panting. “I mean Barnysdale’s dead and I’m rich!”
“You don’t mean he was--Arden?” blankly.
For all she knew about her stepsister’s marriage was that it had been
unhappy, that the man had deserted her and that Dolly, in a moment of
unwonted frankness, had once said his name was not Arden; though what
it was she had not disclosed. For all her gaiety and her recklessness
there was never a more secretive woman on earth--about her own
affairs--than Dolly.
“Yes, I do.” Dolly’s lips grew very pale, her eyes defiant. “Let go
of me and sit down while I tell you. But for Heaven’s sake poke the
fire first! I’m frozen,” with a shiver, as if all her dancing had not
quickened her blood.
“This is the last of the coal.” Magdalen’s hand dropped from her
stepsister’s arm, but she did not move to the ugly, dull fire.
“The last? You idiot, I’m a countess! I’ll never worry about coal again
as long as I live.”
“Dolly,” said Magdalen slowly, “I don’t believe you!”
For one second there was on Dolly Arden’s face a look that might have
been terror. The next her small, fair head went back defiantly; if she
found her voice by an effort it was imperceptible.
“You’ll have to,” she returned. “Look here,” pointing to the morning
paper she had calmly taken from the door of the next flat, “Barnysdale
died last night; there’s the notice. And here’s the rest!” she pulled
an envelope from her pocket and threw it to Magdalen.
As the girl took out the three papers that were in it Mrs. Arden
looked, not at her, but at her own stone-cold hands. Her small face
was bloodless; every fine line time--or other things--had marked on it
showed out in the gray November light. If she were thirty and owned to
it she looked forty, with that dreadful tenseness on her face as if she
were trying an experiment she dared not watch.
But Magdalen had no eyes for her.
There, in black and white, staring her in the face, was the marriage
certificate of Dorothy Deane and John Ogilvie, Earl of Barnysdale,
Viscount Stratharden; the baptismal register of Ronald, their only son.
“Doll!” she exclaimed, “why did you never tell me? And why did you
worry like you’ve been doing? Why didn’t you go to him while he was
alive? He would have had to do something for you.”
“I couldn’t,” hoarsely. “Read the last paper and you’ll see why!” but
her mouth had grown suddenly lax as if with relief, and as she looked
up her beautiful, shallow eyes were for the first time steady.
“Was he out of his mind?” said Magdalen, gathering the sense of that
third paper incredulously.
“No,” doubtfully, hesitating, “only tired, I--I think. He----” She gave
herself an angry little shake. Why was she telling her story as though
it were that of some one else?
“Here,” she cried roughly, “give me the papers. I’ll tell you the whole
thing! You know when mother died I went on the stage. Well, I wasn’t a
success--that’s the long and short of it! And I got ill. I went down
to Hastings to a good hotel, with the last money I had. I thought I
would eat and drink that, and then, if nothing turned up, the sea would
be convenient. You were at that convent; you were only a girl I hardly
knew. Anyhow”--as if she were defending herself--“you’ve never known,
as I have, what it was to be afraid of life because you were poor.”
“Poor! But you’d mother’s money.”
“Not then,” impatiently. “Can’t you remember? When she died there was
just a lump sum and some stock in a mine that hadn’t paid for eight
years; but of that lump sum I paid the money down for the rest of
your education; you were only fifteen then and I didn’t want you with
me, and the rest I kept for myself. It was only a hundred pounds and
it went like that”--snapping her fingers--“and I went to Hastings. I
didn’t care a straw for you in those days.”
The girl nodded. She remembered that well enough.
“Well, I met him there!” with a hard breath through pinched nostrils.
“We were married; not a soul knew but the registrar. He had his yacht
there and we went away in her, and I was never called anything but Mrs.
Arden! I didn’t care, because I had good clothes and enough to eat, but
he told me plainly enough he didn’t mean to announce his marriage. He
said he was sick of the people he lived among and--well, I suppose I
wasn’t much like them,” bitterly, yet somehow with the bitterness of
the actress she once had been. “We left the yacht and lived in London.
My God! how dull it was! He was out all day long. I never knew a
creature except my own maid.”
She moistened her lips, stiff and dry; it was harder to tell all this
than she had thought. “Then Ronald was born and he--he was furious!
I can see him now raging up and down. He wouldn’t have the child
christened--wouldn’t look at him. But when I got better”--every word
seemed dragged out of her and, seeing the humiliation of her story,
Magdalen could not wonder--“I had it done; and the next week he left
me. That charming document,” pointing to the largest of the three
papers on her lap, “was what he left behind him. You see that it’s to
the point, genuine; no one,” with a crooked smile, “would ever think of
making up or inventing a letter like that!”
Magdalen read it once more, this time aloud. It was scrupulously signed
and dated, but it began with neither formality nor affection:
“When this is handed to you I shall be gone. To my regret I find the
atmosphere of middle-class domesticity even less bearable than my
former surroundings. I have no fault to find with either your conduct
or your character, which are flawless to the utmost boredom--at least
they have produced that in me. I leave in your hands, chiefly because
I cannot avoid it, irrefragable proofs of your marriage to me; and I
rely on your affection and your honor not to use them.
“My heir I leave to your care, and I also leave you a sufficient
amount of money for present expenses. When that is done, you
understand that there will be no more, nor do I mean to acknowledge
you in any way. You may say that you can force me to do so, which is
perfectly true; but you doubtless know me well enough by this time to
realize what the consequences of that course of action would be.
“If, on the contrary, you obey my instructions--and I think I do not
build too greatly on your wifely and motherly affection--I make you
the following offer: At my death you are free to claim your rights
for yourself and your son. As I am nearly thirty years your senior,
you may not have long to wait. I will leave a letter, written at
the same time as this, with my lawyers, acknowledging the legality
of your marriage and the legitimacy of my son’s birth. If I seemed
annoyed at the latter event it was merely momentary. I married you
for a purpose which I find you cannot fulfil. My son’s existence is,
during my lifetime, of no importance; after my death, very much the
reverse; but during my life I have no desire to be hampered with
either you or him. I leave you--since you are a woman, and must have
reasons--because you can neither please, interest nor amuse me.
Kindly let me know your decision on this matter by a telegram to the
enclosed address. Any letter will only be returned to you.
“I have, madam, the honor to remain,
“Your husband,
“BARNYSDALE.
“P. S.--I should advise you to dismiss your maid, who deserves a
less confined sphere for her delightfully outspoken tongue. As for
your livelihood I have no fears, remembering how many times you have
assured me that it would gratify you to be allowed to return to your
profession.”
“Of all the wicked letters!” began Magdalen Clyde slowly, and sat
looking at the unspeakable document. “What did you do? I would
have”--her beautiful mouth straightened, her eyes grew veiled and
evil--“I would have made him acknowledge me that very day or I’d have
killed him!”
“You didn’t know him,” sharply. “I did. And nothing, not Ronald’s
future nor starvation, would have made me live with him a single day
when I’d once got rid of him! I sent the telegram.”
“You agreed! To be thrown over like that?”
“I did. I wired that in accordance with his wishes I would make no
claim on him during his lifetime. I hated him. I was thankful, thankful
to have him out of my sight.”
“And you never heard from him?”
“I never heard.” All her old lightness had come back to her and a
certain something her stepsister had never seen in her. “He’s dead!”
she cried with dreadful, venomous joy. “He’s cold, and they’ll put him
in the ground. And I’m alive and warm and a countess!”
“Hush! Stop! It’s unlucky,” Magdalen said sharply. “You’re not a
countess yet.”
“It’s all the same. We’re made, Magdalen! I need never worry again
about what my clothes cost. And now you can lend me your black hat and
I’ll hasten to my defunct John’s lawyers. John was his name. Fancy an
earl named John!”
“You’d better not go while you look like you do, wild with joy,”
bluntly.
But Dolly only kissed her hand as she went out.
CHAPTER II.
WHEN THE PRESENT’S QUESTIONABLE.
Dolly--headlong, hard, pretty Dolly--a countess!
“I don’t believe it,” said Magdalen Clyde to herself, even after seeing
Dolly depart in a black gown--got, Heaven knows where--and the borrowed
black hat.
Exactly what she had done to make herself look so pathetic and yet
so dignified her stepsister did not know. She looked precisely as a
deserted wife should look; tremulously brave, meek, yet determined. But
even so, and in the face of those certificates and that letter there
was cold, lurking disbelief in the heart of the girl she left behind.
“I don’t know what ails me,” she thought angrily. “Dolly tells lies,
of course, but not to me. And this couldn’t be a lie, or she wouldn’t
dare. But how on earth she can ever be a countess? Dolly, who hates
everything conventional and never was civil to a woman in her life.
Bah!” with sudden self-contempt, “it isn’t that and I know it. It’s
that I’m frightened. I’d rather go and sing in a music-hall than have
to live with Dolly if they find her story’s true.”
She looked round her with a queer feeling of being in a dream. Here in
this little rose-colored room she and Dolly had lived for two years.
She remembered how dumfounded she had been when Dolly appeared at the
convent and calmly announced that she wanted her sister. Her maid was
dead and she was too young to live alone. With hostile eyes under level
black brows, Magdalen had stared at the pretty, exquisitely dressed
stepsister whom she barely knew. She had gone with her distastefully
enough. And now----
“Now I’m glad I did,” she thought. “Dolly’s right; she’d have been
talked about long ago if it hadn’t been for me. We sailed too close
to the wind as it is. If I’d known what might hang on Dolly’s
‘reputation,’” quoting unconsciously, “I’d have made more fuss than
I did about the men who gave parties for us. But it doesn’t really
matter. She’s never lived alone since that man left her. A few dinners
and suppers,” mendaciously, “can’t matter. She said we had a good time.
Well,” with that sudden dark look, “she may have; we didn’t. I never
enjoyed one of the parties she dragged me to. I hated the men and their
suppers. I wish we’d never seen one of them,” and not even to herself
did she say what she meant; that only one man of all they knew was
loathsome to her.
Too full of suspense to settle to anything, not daring to go out lest
Dolly should come home, she sat down, listlessly wishing that Dolly had
not seen fit to take Ronald with her. The child’s society would have
been better than her own.
The striking of the clock startled her. Five strokes, and two hours
since Dolly went.
“Well, I’ve got to eat!” said she frowning, “even if it’s only bread.
And I feel as if I’d sell my soul for a leg of mutton,” for luncheon,
except for Ronald, had been an empty name.
She strolled into the servantless kitchen, where there was no fire and
nothing to make one, and with a distasteful shrug provided herself with
all there was--dry bread and tea. With these and a black kettle she
returned to the sitting-room fire. The half pint of milk must be kept
for Ronald.
She was an incongruous figure enough in the little rose-hung room
that she hated. Her black gown was only a shade neater than Dolly’s
dressing-gown, but out of it rose a throat and face that in their
strange way had no match in London. For if ever there was a beauty that
was wild and uncanny it was Magdalen Clyde’s as she sat huddled by the
grate trying to make a sooty kettle boil. Her almost white skin--and
not a woman in ten thousand has a white skin--her black eyes that had
bottomless depths in them under narrow, level brows blacker than they,
were lovely enough. But under the crown of thick hair that waved back
from her forehead their black and whiteness was a thing to marvel at.
For her hair was the color of rusted iron--not red nor brown, but
glorious; and she hated it every time she combed it. But her thoughts
were anywhere but on her looks as she made tea to-day.
She had the steaming, comfortless cup at her lips when a knock came at
the door. Not a loud knock, but a peculiar one. Miss Clyde set down her
cup with absolute noiselessness and smiled.
“You can knock,” she thought, “but knocking never opened a door. I hate
you, hate you, and if you could feel it through that door you’d----”
But the queer uneasiness that had been on her ever since Dolly’s
extraordinary tale was told deepened suddenly.
If the man at the door knew how she loathed him he would simply knock
all the harder. And just as if he read her thoughts the would-be
visitor gave the door a vicious shake. The girl sat without breathing
till she heard him go away.
She had forgotten that man when she said she would even sing at
music-halls for a living. If she and Dolly lost all their belongings
and had to live by their wits they would never get rid of him. But if
Dolly could prove her claims he would not dare to trouble them.
“Oh, I can pray she can!” Magdalen thought passionately, all her
distrust and terror lost in something far more tangible. “We mayn’t
know how to be great ladies, but Dolly need never be civil to a man
like that again.”
She took up her tea and drank it thirstily, though it was flat and
lukewarm. If Dolly were really Countess of Barnysdale there would be
cream every day and----
The latch clicked, the door flew open and banged behind some one.
It was Dolly. Dolly, half crying, half laughing, her demure hat on the
back of her head, her gown unspotted by the rain that had set in out of
doors. And the pretty, fragile child beside her had an armful of toys.
“Well?” said Magdalen thickly. Her cup went over as she jumped up and
she let the tea lie in a pool on the rose-velvet table-cloth. “Well?”
“That’s just what it is! I went. I asked for Mr. Barrow, and--oh, it
was awful! I was kept waiting in a musty little room and I could hear
people talking behind a glass door. It made me frantic, for I knew they
were talking about me.”
“They couldn’t have been!”
“They were. When Mr. Barrow came in I saw he knew all about us; he
wasn’t surprised.”
“You don’t mean to say he observed you were very welcome, and could
walk in to-morrow and take possession?” scornfully.
“No, he was non-committal enough. But he was civil and---- Magdalen,
they can’t have any hope that I’m not Barnysdale’s wife, not a ghost of
a hope! For Barrow gave himself away. He let me have ten pounds; I told
the bare, plain fact that I was starving, but I might have starved ten
times if that smug, respectable lawyer had not thought I was going to
win.”
“I wouldn’t have taken it,” doubtfully. “But--oh, Dolly! you’re sure
it’s all right? There isn’t anything they can bring up against you?
Think! Because if we have to fight them we must fight well. There
mustn’t be any surprises.”
“There’s nothing,” slowly. “Every step of my life since Barnysdale left
me is clear and plain. I went from the rooms I was in to others, but
always respectable. In the last of them my maid died when Ronald was a
year old. And the day she was buried I went for you.”
“It’s only three years,” Magdalen said hopefully. “The people in the
house where Barnysdale left you would know you. They could identify
you.”
Mrs. Arden’s face flushed.
“Don’t rely on that,” she sharply returned. “The woman who kept those
lodgings is dead. The place is turned into offices. All the others,
though,” with a vehement confidence, “will know me.”
“Barnysdale may have left a photograph of you in his papers, too.”
“A photograph!” Dolly had turned her back and was locking away the
papers she had been too cautious to trust to Barnysdale’s lawyer. For
a moment she stood with the key half turned, as motionless as a woman
painted on canvas. “No,” she said slowly, breathlessly, “I don’t think
there was any photograph. I--I would remember.” Her face was almost
gray as she turned round, though it was only a very small proof to be
missing.
“Where’s the money he gave you?” said Magdalen, pitifully. “I must get
Ronald something to eat.”
“I bought things. They’re in the hall.”
She shivered as she sat down by the fire. Why could they not put her
out of her misery to-day? If Magdalen kept on harping about the thing
she would never be able to bear it.
“I must think it’s all right,” she muttered feverishly, “or I’ll fail.
After everything it would kill me if I failed,” and watching Ronald at
his tea, Dolly Arden for once was hungry and could not eat.
CHAPTER III.
EYES THAT LOOKED INTO EYES.
“Magdalen!” she said with a sudden sharp appeal as the girl came back
from putting Ronald to bed, “I can’t stand this. It’s only seven and
I won’t sit thinking till twelve. Go and get Mrs. Taylor to sit with
Ronald and we’ll go out to dinner. We’ve money.”
“Oh, don’t--to-night!” quickly. “We daren’t go anywhere with Barnysdale
lying dead. It wouldn’t be decent.”
“Who’ll know?” contemptuously. “I tell you I’ll go alone if you won’t
come. I can’t sit here.”
There was never any arguing with Dolly, and Magdalen knew it. With a
heavy heart she went for the janitor’s wife, who was used to taking
charge of Ronald; with a heart heavier still she put on her hat while
Dolly’s strained voice called to her to hurry.
“I am hurrying,” she said sullenly, “but I think you’re doing a wild
thing. We’re sure to meet some one who knows us. And I forgot to tell
you, Starr-Dalton was here to-day!” significantly.
“What did you tell him?” Mrs. Arden turned sharply from the glass, her
pinched face almost ugly.
“You don’t think I let him in! I let him kick till he was tired. It was
just before you came. Didn’t you meet him?”
“No! I was in a hansom with the glass down. He’d never think of me in a
hansom unless he paid for it.”
“Doll, you’ll pay him, won’t you, with the first money you get?”
Magdalen’s voice was wistful.
“Yes. Don’t talk about it, please. I mayn’t get it, after all,” and
the look she gave her own reflection was that of one hunted from one
desperate extremity to another.
“Come on,” she cried impatiently. “I suppose we’ve got to eat. Let’s go
to some place where we’re not known--somewhere that the band plays.”
Once out in the air she thought her nerves would steady, but in Oxford
Street she caught Magdalen by the arm.
“Here’s Krug’s,” she cried; “it’s as good as any. My knees won’t stop
shaking. I can’t go any further.”
Magdalen looked at the flaring restaurant. “All right,” she said, but
as soon as they were inside the red-carpeted place she wished they had
gone anywhere else. The smoke, the women’s hats, a certain silence that
fell as the newcomers found a table, were all obvious signs enough.
The girl rose deliberately and changed her seat so that she faced the
looking-glassed wall instead of the room.
“It’s beastly!” she muttered trenchantly. “Look at the men and the
women!”
“It’s cheap,” studying the menu. “The people don’t matter. Anyhow, it’s
better than sitting at home and worrying,” her lips quivering--Dolly’s,
who never cried.
“Don’t worry now,” said Magdalen gently. She had no idea what a
striking figure she was in her plain black dress and hat, nor that half
the men in the room were twisting round in the effort to see her face
in the glass. But something made her look to her left and then sharply
back again.
A tall man in evening clothes, with a hard-cut, brown face, was looking
intently at her. There was something sweet in his gaze, though his eyes
were not soft at all, but steely, and the line of his thin cheek and
jaw was grim.
He had the grace to look down at his dinner as for one second he caught
the tragic, fathomless glance fate had put into Magdalen Clyde’s eyes.
But he looked up again at the lovely profile against the blue-walled
room, at the strange rusty-iron hair, the languorous power in the firm,
dull-rose lips. He was not especially sensitive, but to see such a face
in this place angered him. There was blood in it and breeding, but
there was as well a strange, pure beauty that took his breath.
When his dinner was finished he rose. The girl did not concern him,
and might be like all the others, but he had a curious dislike to
seeing her beside the riotous, rouged women at the next table. He never
noticed Dolly Arden at all. As he turned to get his coat there was a
sudden commotion in a distant corner.
A pale man with the hall-mark of death on his face had sprung up on
drunken legs; he was gazing across the heads of his party and their
mock diamonds at the two women in black.
“Doll!” he shouted. “By ----, it’s Doll!” He knocked over his chair,
lurched against the next table and stood pointing, glassy-eyed, at
Dolly Arden.
“Don’t move!” Magdalen whispered. “Don’t look! Oh, Doll, he can’t mean
you! You don’t know him!”
Dolly turned her eyes and not her head; sat ghastly, immovable.
The man began to cross the room toward her; nearly fell over a girl,
who screamed; struck passionately at the man with her; came nearer
every instant to Dolly, whose lips were curled away from her teeth as
if she saw death.
If she meant to or not, Magdalen never knew. She rose, turned and met
the eyes of the dark, hard-faced man who was putting on his coat; met
them with terror in hers, that were inky in the pallor of her face.
To be in a restaurant before Barnysdale was buried was bad enough; to
be involved in the drunken row that was spreading like an epidemic from
table to table, would ruin them. And worse than all was the look on
Dolly’s face. She knew that consumption-wasted, staggering man who was
getting closer every minute, calling more loudly on Dolly’s name.
“We must get out, quick!” Magdalen whispered, but her eyes never left
those hard one’s that met them comprehendingly.
Dolly never answered, never stirred. It was as though she heard nothing
but her own name over the hubbub; for as the author of the disturbance
passed each table he hurled insults at the occupants, and the women who
were concerned demanded loud vengeance.
“Quick, Dolly--come!” Magdalen repeated.
And just as if he had heard her the hawk-faced man opposite made
a quick step, which was instantly retraced. He was too late. That
drunken beast would be at the girl’s side before he was and, if he knew
anything, would be unmanageable. He nodded sharply to the white-faced
girl who had sprung before the other woman; moved carelessly against
the wall and touched something with his elbow.
The room was in black darkness. He had switched off the electric light.
A hand that was light, yet firm as iron, fell on Magdalen Clyde’s
shoulder.
“Come, both of you,” said a voice she would never forget to her dying
day. “Hurry!”
The girl, clutching Dolly’s hand, felt herself pushed out of the room
like a child.
CHAPTER IV.
AN OUTCAST.
The dark man’s knowledge of the restaurant was evidently as accurate
as his acquaintance with the locality of the switch which would plunge
it in darkness. How he piloted them Magdalen could not tell, but in a
breathless instant she found herself in a back street. Behind them she
saw the lights flash up in Krug’s windows.
“Call a hansom,” she said, for to walk might be to come straight on the
man, who by this time was sure to have been put out. “Oh, I haven’t
thanked you! I can’t. What made you do it?”
The man whistled for a cab before he answered her, and then
lied--scrupulously.
“I’ve seen rows here before,” with a shrug. “I fancy you haven’t.” He
could not tell the girl that what he had done was simply for what he
had seen in her great eyes--for the pride and shame and anger in them.
“We never were here before!” she cried sharply. “We were lonely,
we’d”--with truth--“no cook, so we came out to dinner. My sister was
tired, and we thought Krug’s would do. How dare they let in men like
that?” Even in the dim street he could see the dark fire in her glance.
“He was coming straight for us, and I never saw him in my life.”
“He was ‘running amuck,’” he coolly remarked. “Suppose we walk on to
meet a cab!”
He had no desire to be discovered on the back steps by an outraged
proprietor. Half-a-dozen people must have seen who put out the lights.
Dolly, hanging heavily on Magdalen’s arms, had never opened her mouth.
The girl gave her an impatient shake.
“Come,” she said, “and do thank the man, Doll! If it hadn’t been for
him we should have been in the papers; say something civil.”
But Dolly was past speaking. Limp and lifeless, she slipped through
Magdalen’s arm to the pavement. The girl stooped and lifted her like a
child.
“She’s fainted,” she said. “She was frightened to death. Where’s that
hansom?”
“Here,” as one drew up beside the curb. “Please let me take her. You
can’t manage it,” taking her words for gospel.
Dolly had had her back to him in the restaurant; he had no idea it
was her name the man was bawling, though he might have put two and
two together if he had seen her face. But Magdalen turned an abrupt
shoulder as he would have taken Dolly from her.
“I can carry her,” she said with a queer feeling that she had been
carrying Dolly all the time they had been together, and would have to
carry her as long as they lived. The man stepped back quietly as she
lifted the other woman into the hansom. He knew it was all she could
do, yet she managed to look as if it were effortless. He had never
thought a girl could be so strong. But, for all her strength she was
panting as she turned to him and held out a slim bare hand.
“Good-night,” she said; “it’s no use trying to thank you, for I can’t.
But if it hadn’t been for you there would have been--oh, I can’t think
of it! But I want you to believe something. I didn’t know that man.
I don’t see why he should have been coming straight for--me!” with a
hesitation so short he did not see it.
“He imagined he knew you. They often do,” almost roughly. “Don’t thank
me; I saw you didn’t want a row, that was all. But if you’ll forgive
me, I’d keep out of restaurants you know nothing about. Worse things
might happen than a man calling across the room to you.”
The girl gave him a sudden glance. If it was full of uneasiness it was
also somewhat threatening.
“It was not my name he called,” she said slowly, as if she were
thinking between each word. “My name is Magdalen.”
Before he could answer she had slipped into the hansom, said to the
driver something he did not catch and was gone. Her benefactor was left
on the curbstone, with the vanishing cab the only object in view.
“Magdalen!” he thought, remembering the wonderful white and blackness
of the girl, her strange, rusty hair. “Well, it’s no concern of mine,
for I’ll never lay my eyes on her again, but I wish to Heaven she’d
been called something else. For all the faces ever made for tragedy and
passion that’s one of the most striking I have ever seen!”
But the girl was none of his business, of all men’s on earth. For which
reason probably he turned and went back to the restaurant, in spite
of his conviction that all the breakages during the evening would be
put down to the person who had dared to take the law in his own hands
and turn off Harry Krug’s electric light. Of money he had little
enough, or he would never have entered the half-caste place, but it
had suddenly come over him that the black-browed girl who could lift
another woman like a feather and make a man who never acted on impulse
play the fool to get her out of a tight place could also forget her
unpaid-for-dinner. Really forget, or he would never have stirred a peg
for her in spite of Krug’s long arm.
And so it happened that a tall man, with a cool and guiltless
countenance, appeared to the head-waiter in the now calm dining-room
and paid “Magdalen’s” bill; also to his own surprise was caught and
thanked by the proprietor for his evil action.
“In the dark he was removed,” said Krug gaily. “Next minute lights
and--as you see! All compose themselves. You save me, sir, much noise,
also police. Have at least a Benedictine?”
His benefactor was almost too surprised to decline, but he did and got
out; to stand on the pavement outside with a grim hand in his pocket.
He had one penny.
Yesterday his prospects had been gorgeous, even from his point of view;
to-night----
“By George, I’d forgotten!” he said with a blank face enough. “Well,
my dinner’s paid for, and I’ve often despised breakfast. I suppose the
governor”--but his eyes hardened.
After to-day he had no desire to apply to his father for breakfast or
anything else. With a whistle that was not gay this new pauper pursued
his way past his club. That his subscription was unpaid had been quite
unimportant yesterday; to-night he had no desire to go into a place
where next week he would be posted. Besides, for all he knew, the thing
might be common gossip, and a pitying look would make him wish to kick
his best friend.
It was the melodrama of the thing that annoyed him; next week all the
papers would have “Curious Case in High Life. Great Sensation.” And the
papers, thank God! would not begin to know how curious the case might
have been if it were known. In a black humor he made his way to the
uncomfortable rooms he had called home since yesterday, when he had
dashed out of his father’s house for the last time. And there he sat
down and reviewed the situation.
Assets--one penny and a large wardrobe. Occupation--none. Former
employment--waiting for dead men’s shoes. Prospects--_nil_.
His glance fell on a book lying open on the table, as it had fallen
from a hastily unpacked portmanteau. And his excellent eyesight was no
pleasure to him as it marked a sentence in his brain.
“Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of
merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now to
mock your own grinning! Quite chopfallen!”
Where indeed? The man shut the book quietly.
“Chopfallen I won’t be,” he said to himself. “After all, I believe I’m
glad: I never liked my father. What does knowing him a little better
matter? And if things turn out as I think they will, I’m done with the
whole brood. To-morrow I’ll set about making my living!”
The last sentence sounded so ludicrous that he laughed alone in the
chilly, untidy bedroom. He who had never been taught to do anything but
spend an allowance, to talk of earning.
With a real yawn he cast his troubles behind him and went to bed. And
the curious thing was that instead of dreaming of his own probable
starvation he only saw in his sleep a strange face, with black eyes and
rusty-iron hair, a face that cried to him for help.
In his dream he thought he turned away laughing.
“The girl’s name,” he said, “is Magdalen!”
CHAPTER V.
“I NEVER KNEW HIM.”
In their pink drawing-room the sisters sat at breakfast, both neat in
black gowns, since goodness knew who might come to see Dolly; both
oddly silent; both looking furtively at the cheerful little boy on the
floor, whose existence might be going to change the whole face of life.
Not one word had Dolly on the way home, or after, about that queer
scene at Krug’s. She had crawled out of the hansom to her own room and
locked the door, but this morning she knew by Magdalen’s face that the
thing had to be thrashed out.
“You may as well say it,” she exclaimed harshly. “I know you’re
thinking that last night’s affair wasn’t an accident. I suppose you
imagine that beast was some one who knew me, and would spoil my luck.
But you’re wrong. I never knew the man,” with a hard-set lip. “He
frightened me because I thought he called me, and everything might
matter now, even a drunken man and the straws in the gutter,” bitterly.
“But if you’re thinking I knew him you’re cherishing a mare’s nest. I
never knew him,” her small face assuming a curiously absent expression
as if she raked in a half-forgotten past.
“I wasn’t thinking that at all.” The answer was unexpected. “I did
think it, if you want to know, but in cold blood I know that if you’d a
pleasant friend like that with a hold on you you’d not dare to play the
game you’re at. You’re not brave, Dolly!”
“How do you mean?” viciously.
“You temporize. Starr-Dalton, for instance! Why didn’t you tell him
long ago, before you borrowed from him, that you hated him? That he
couldn’t come here? You can’t bear him. I’ve seen you quiver with rage
at him.”
“I mayn’t like him, but he’s been kind.”
“Kind!” with a discordant laugh. “Because he lent you money? So would a
Jew. And a Jew would only ask fifty per cent., while Starr-Dalton will
want all you’ve got. But it’s not that,” trenchantly, “for if things
are all right you can pay him--cash, not interest! It’s that it came
over me while we were driving home last night that I saw Starr-Dalton
in Krug’s restaurant--thick lips, blue eyes and all.”
“Magdalen!” It was a whispered shriek, if there is such a thing. “Why
didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you made a fool of yourself and fainted, and then locked your
door on me. I had enough to do with thanking a strange man who may have
got himself into an awful scrape for sheer kindness. You needn’t look
as if I’d seen a tiger!” grimly.
“It might have mattered if you’d known that pasty-looking, shouting
man.”
But Dolly only shook her head.
“Tell me about him. Where was he?” she said.
“I think he was at the end table of all, behind the man when he got
up. But I can’t be sure, for you know I’d my back to the room. It
was only just before I saw our man,” with a half laugh, “intended to
turn off the lights that I seemed to know Starr-Dalton was looking
at us over that hurly-burly of noise. When I got out, as I said, I
had an impression of his face, and it seemed to me that he was behind
everyone, and instead of trying to help us just sat with that thick
smile of his and waited. Luckily it’s no matter. And if he was there,
and says so, we’ll have an excuse for being chilly to him hereafter.”
“After we’ve paid him! You can’t snub a man when you owe him a hundred
pounds,” but it was not the money she thought of. Before her there rose
that hateful restaurant, seen with Starr-Dalton’s eyes.
“I wish we knew what became of the man! Where he went afterward,” she
said, getting up restlessly.
“Why? Since he doesn’t know you it would be all the same if he and
Starr-Dalton walked out arm-in-arm!”
“Don’t,” said Dolly, and her face was livid. “Let me forget it.
Ronald, come to mother. You love her, don’t you?” catching him to her
passionately. “You trust mother?”
“Loves mummy!” he returned gaily. “Put me down.”
But Magdalen’s laugh was undeserved. There had been no affectation in
Dolly’s sudden clutching of the child. In her fierce, frivolous way she
was devoted to him. He was a trust to her, the only trust of her life
that she meant to keep.
The postman’s electric summons made her put her boy down weakly. Her
nerves were like water this morning. For a moment she literally could
not read as she tore open the letter Magdalen brought in. The blue
envelope was ominous. She had not expected any letter. Mr. Barrow had
said--but the sense of the few lines suddenly pierced her terrified
brain:
“DEAR MADAM: The funeral of the late Lord Barnysdale takes place
to-morrow morning from his town house. It is for you to say whether
you will attend it or not. If you will meet Lord Stratharden and
myself at my office at three o’clock on the same day we will, after
the reading of the late peer’s will, give your documents and claims
every consideration. Your obedient servant,
“JAMES BARROW.”
Lord Barnysdale’s widow sank into a chair and laughed; laughed till
her stepsister shook her, till tears ran down her face.
“Let me alone,” she sobbed. “Can’t you see it’s going to be all right.
He says----”
“He doesn’t say anything, as far as I can see.”
Dolly sat up, a different Dolly from the one who had pushed away her
breakfast.
“You little fool!” she cried; “he says I may go to the funeral. Do you
think they’d have me there if they were doubtful? And can’t you see he
says Lord ‘Stratharden’? If he meant to fight he would have said Lord
Barnysdale.”
“What do you mean? Who’s Stratharden?”
“Barnysdale’s brother. I never saw him. But if it were not for Ronald
it’s he who would be Lord Barnysdale now.”
Every worry of last night’s adventure had gone from her. There was,
as Magdalen said, nothing to matter. The Countess of Barnysdale and a
drunken man seen in a doubtful restaurant would be no more likely to
meet again than Barnysdale to get up out of his shroud. Starr-Dalton
she forgot completely.
“Dolly,” Magdalen broke the silence curiously, “what about the funeral?
You won’t go, will you?”
Dolly poured out fresh tea and drank it.
“Yes,” she said, “I’ll go of course! In a carriage. I’d be a fool not
to. It wouldn’t look well to stay away.”
It was a queer reason for attending the funeral of a husband, but it
struck Magdalen that Dolly, for all her talk, had cared for the man.
That was the only thing that explained her acceptance of his insulting
terms, her quiet endurance of his desertion.
Oddly enough the girl was right; Lord Barnysdale’s wife had loved him.
“Will you go to the house and see--him?” she hesitated.
“No!” With a violence her sister did not know was in her Dolly turned.
“I won’t see him! I won’t! I hated him!”
She recoiled from the very thought of the dead man in his coffin; not
for ten earldoms would she look on that face.
“He might be smiling!” she cried hysterically. “I couldn’t bear it if
he were dead and smiling, Magdalen. You don’t think dead people can see
us, do you?”
“Not they,” practically. “Why should they care? Don’t look like that,
Dolly; there’s no need for you to see him. I only asked you.”
“No, I’m sure there’s no need,” eagerly. “I can’t help being silly,
Magdalen. I’m so nervous. But it will soon be over now; things always
come right just when you’re despairing. When I’d spent the money
Barnysdale left behind him and didn’t know which way to turn, that
mine stock that mother left proved useful, although it hasn’t paid any
dividends for the past six years. I sold out the stock and we’ve lived
on it till now. I was in as low water then as we are to-day. And after
to-morrow”--her small, pretty face confident, though she did not lift
her eyes--“we’ll never want money again!”
But Magdalen was not listening. She had never noticed before that Dolly
had cat’s teeth--white, narrow, sharp. It was queer she should think of
that instead of Dolly’s prospects.
CHAPTER VI.
A GOLDEN FUTURE.
Dolly Arden was right. Mr. Barrow’s letter meant more than it expressed.
There was no shadow of doubt to cast on her claims; the dead man had
kept his word and left a will that made them irrefutable. Without talk
of law or courts, with merely a triumphal proving of his mother’s
identity by the owners of the houses in which she had lodged with her
baby and maid, three-year-old Ronald entered into his inheritance, Earl
of Barnysdale, without let or hindrance.
And Dolly, with her old name, shook away all the haunting fears she had
done her best to keep to herself. She asked for only one thing, that
there should be as little publicity as possible.
“Of course,” she said with a pathetic face, “I know it will have to be
in the papers, but I’ve led a hard life. I was humiliated and--surely,
Mr. Barrow, you can understand! All this has been so abhorrent to me it
was only for Ronald’s sake that I felt I had no right to remain silent.”
She breathed freely as she saw how short and how matter-of-fact the
newspaper comments were. There was no nine days’ wonder about it, no
staring headlines. She, Dolly Arden, was triumphant, was tasting the
sweet after the bitter. It had been worth it after all. She had been a
fool ever to doubt.
Barnysdale had been rather poor, for a peer, but to the new Lady
Barnysdale her son’s revenues, or all she could touch of them, seemed
inexhaustible. But at the thought of the gloomy house in Berkeley
Square, where Barnysdale died, she shivered. She could not live
there--not yet. Besides, for many reasons, it would be better to get
out of London. The men who had been welcome to Mrs. Arden would be
doubtful acquaintances for Lady Barnysdale.
No, she would go to Scotland, to Ardmore Castle. It might be dull, but
it was the right thing to be dull. She would not think any more on the
matter, but pack up and go.
If Lady Barnysdale was triumphant, her sister was busy. It was she
who bought new clothes, paid bills, engaged a nurse for Ronald. And
so it chanced that when Lord Stratharden--who, for excellent reasons,
had made up his mind to welcome the sister-in-law he could not cast
out--came to offer her any information or help she needed, he did not
see Magdalen Clyde. If he pictured Dolly’s sister to himself it was her
double--small, fair, bloodlessly pretty--and not quite a lady.
If he could have seen her at that moment, with her dull hair, her
pale, smooth cheeks, her dark, fathomless eyes lovely under her black
hat, perhaps nothing on earth would have made him believe she was Lady
Barnysdale’s sister.
Dolly walking up Fleet Street in the afternoon would have had eyes for
every man she met. Magdalen never even saw that their heads turned as
she passed, till one man, coming out of a dingy doorway, nearly fell
over her and stopped dead, as she did; for neither had ever expected to
see the other again.
Her first thought as he took off his hat and greeted her was
that he was both thinner and older than she had fancied him, yet
infinitely--oh! infinitely, better-looking. Tanned, strong, tall, his
lean face like no face she had ever seen, he stood in front of her.
And as he smiled his eyes grew suddenly sweet.
Under them she was for one moment speechless. What long lashes he had!
She wished he would not throw back his head and look at her through
them.
“Fancy my meeting you!” was what she said; and if she was confused she
did not show it. “You must let me thank you again now. I hope you heard
no more of it.”
“Oh! I did,” he said, and laughed, for she had to thank him for more
than she knew--all his worldly wealth but one penny. “I went back and
was thanked by the proprietor. You see,” softly, “it saved him a row.”
“The proprietor,” Magdalen started. “Oh!” she said. “My--our dinner. I
never paid him!”
“You forget,” with calm mendacity. “You or your sister left the money
on the table. I hope she’s all right--quite forgotten your friend?”
“Did he tell you so? Krug, I mean?” for it was not like Dolly to leave
money anywhere.
Her nameless acquaintance nodded, and with some haste changed the
subject.
“Do you often honor Fleet Street?” he said. He had a way of drawling
that was not like the speech of Dolly’s friends, any more than his look
of perfect cleanliness resembled their rather tumbled fashion.
“No! I came on an errand for--my sister.” She dared not say Dolly. “Do
you?”
For the first time he saw her smile, and Magdalen Clyde’s smile was
a thing to live to see. The unworn youth of it, the lovely lips and
teeth, the sudden light in her deep eyes, took away the man’s breath.
“I live here, work and have my being!” he returned as if there were
humor in it. “I work at a photographer’s up-stairs,” with a backward
fling of his head.
If he had said he broke stones it could not have amazed her any more.
“You don’t look as though you worked!” she said with involuntary truth.
“I assure you I earn my own bread--and consider myself lucky.”
He had quietly fallen into her step and was walking beside her toward
Charing Cross. For the life of him he could not help wondering who she
was and where she lived.
But she had evidently no idea of enlightening him, for at the end of
the Strand she stopped.
“I’m late,” she said, and her face changed. “I must take a cab. But
first will you tell me something? Why did you do that the other night?
We were nothing to you.” Something in her straight, direct look made
him tell the plain truth.
“Because I never saw any woman like you,” he said, as if he were
remarking on the weather, “and it annoyed me to see you put in such a
position.”
She put her hand to her hair sullenly.
“There isn’t another like me,” she retorted as if he had hurt her.
“Luckily for them! Do you suppose I like being black and white and red
like a poster? I’m tired of being stared at, tired of--but it doesn’t
matter!” bruskly. “I’m leaving London for good to-morrow. And I’m glad.”
“Why?” He left her looks alone with late wisdom.
“I hate it. I’m afraid of it. I haven’t a friend. Oh, yes!” stopping
him coolly. “I know plenty of men, but I hate men. I don’t think I like
anyone in the world but my sister; and I know I don’t trust anyone.”
“You’re trusting me,” said the man quietly. “Now let me tell you
something. It wasn’t because I thought you handsome that I turned out
those lights, but because there was such a curious, lonely look about
you, and, though you mayn’t think it, I’m lonely, too. I did what I
could for some one who was like me, without a soul on earth to turn to.
And if ever I can do anything for you again I will. My name,” with a
little halt, for he was not used to it yet, “is Lovell--Dick Lovell.
Now I shall call a hansom for you.”
The girl stood on the curbstone and looked at him. This was not the
manner of the men Dolly knew. He meant what he was saying. Though his
face was hard, almost indifferent, she had an odd feeling that for the
first time in her life she had made a friend.
“You’ve done enough for me,” she said slowly. “If I ever see you again
it will be my turn. Good-by.”
But as she got into her hansom a strange feeling came over her, as if
in this utter stranger she were leaving behind some one known before,
dear to her; some one, too, who would get nothing but ill for helping
her. She held out her hand with a smile, though there were quick tears
in her eyes.
“Good-by and good luck to you!” she cried, senselessly enough, and as
she drove off remembered he knew no more of her name than Magdalen.
Well, it was no matter--and her strange beauty hardened, darkened; the
less he knew the less he would be likely to hear of Starr-Dalton and
the others; of her reputation, that must be written down with Dolly’s.
Dolly, who was Countess of Barnysdale and had given up cakes and ale!
“You’re a fool,” she said to herself. “The man’s nothing to you,” and
knew she would have sold her soul for him. She, Magdalen Clyde, who had
always boasted to herself that she was like a man who could not get
drunk--she could not care.
With Dick Lovell’s face--and even the set of his collar--before
her eyes she came into Lady Barnysdale’s flat. And there, smug,
thick-lipped, too polite by far, sat Starr-Dalton with a gardenia in
his coat. Magdalen could not be even civil, and Dolly was nervously,
profusely so. When Starr-Dalton said good-by she turned on Magdalen
viciously.
“Why did you look at him like that?”
“Do you mean you hadn’t paid him?”
“Oh, I paid him,” slowly. “Magda, you’re right. He isn’t kind. I wish
we’d never seen him.”
Mr. Starr-Dalton would not have echoed the wish. Divided between fury
and amusement he was fingering the notes in his pocket.
“So,” he thought, “I’ve been useful, useful! And now I’m to discreetly
vanish. It’s not good enough, Dolly,” and he turned toward Krug’s
restaurant that he had never mentioned to her. It was raging passion,
half love, half hatred, that made his thick smile evil as he strolled.
For in his way he loved her, and what Mr. Starr-Dalton wanted he
usually got, cleanly or otherwise.
But Dolly was singing, as she thought she would never see him again.
CHAPTER VII.
ACROSS CLYDE WATER.
“Ardmore Castle!” said the station-master in broad Scotch; “ye’ll be
going there? Well, they’ve no sent for ye. Ye can get a fly to the
ferry.” And he turned away.
“I’m----” Dolly was going to say Lady Barnysdale, but Magdalen caught
her arm.
“It’s none of his business who you are,” she said angrily. “What does
he mean about the ferry?”
“Ardmore’s across the Firth of Clyde. There’s no station; it’s an
island. How dare the servants behave like this? I telegraphed.”
“Perhaps they didn’t get it,” indifferently. For it was cold, nearly
dark, and she was tired of Dolly’s new grandeur, full of senseless,
terrified depression that grew on her with each mile from London. If
she could have done it decently she would have turned on the dirty
little station and taken the first train back. But there was no leaving
Dolly in a strange place to fight her own battles.
“Though there can’t be any to fight,” the girl thought scornfully as
she collected the luggage and pushed Dolly into the moldy fly. It
seemed a week before they stopped at a long pier, and even in the dusk
could see the dark, swirling river between them and the opposite hills.
“And that’s what I’m named after!” exclaimed Dolly.
Magdalen turned from the roaring tide that held death in it to the
black hills, the flying clouds. “I always knew I should hate it. I
always knew it was just like this.”
The ferry was only a rowboat. It seemed there was no regular ferry to
Ardmore. And to the girl’s foreboding spirit every wave and eddy of the
Clyde seemed to snatch at them threateningly, every whine of the wind
from the hills to mock them.
“The tide runs strong the night,” said one of the two boys who rowed.
“They say Clyde has its nights, and this’ll be one of them.”
“What do you mean?” said Magdalen fiercely.
“Night’s that it drowns,” carelessly. “Ye’re here. This is Ardmore.”
The girl looked at the towering shore. It would be pitch-dark among
those rocks and bushes.
“Show us the way,” she said. “I’ll pay you.” And so it was that Lady
Barnysdale came for the first time to her husband’s house--by a back
way, in the dark, and with no more state than one sulky boy could lend
her.
“They’ll no’ be expecting you,” said the boy insolently as they rounded
a turn and saw the castle black against the sky, not a light in all the
height of it.
Lady Barnysdale knocked and rang furiously at her own door without
noticing him.
To her surprise it opened almost instantaneously, and an old man peered
out.
“What’s wanting?” he said, standing with bleared eyes and a hanging,
repulsive lip.
“Open the door!” cried Dolly furiously. “Did you not get my telegram
that I’m left to come here like this? I’m Lady Barnysdale.”
“Mrs. Keith’s away,” the old man returned dully. “There was a telgram.
I did na’ open it. I ask your ladyship’s pardon.”
He took the bag she gave him, but he bestowed neither glance nor word
on the new earl, who, being three years old, was placidly asleep in his
nurse’s arms. Magdalen saw the servant was very old and half palsied,
and a queer shudder came over her.
What a home-coming! A doddering old man, who had not a word of welcome,
a great stone hall, cold as a vault, with no fire in its wide hearth,
one candle to light its lurking shadows.
It was all she could do to lift her foot and cross the threshold. She
would as soon have entered a den of thieves as this house. Something
tangible seemed to warn her out of the chilly, echoing place to go
back; something evil seemed lying in wait for her, just as every wave
of the river had seemed to snatch at her. Was she getting nerves like
Dolly’s?
With a queer effort the girl stepped forward.
“Is there no one here but you?” she asked kindly.
“There’s Grizel and Sophy,” doubtfully. “Mrs. Keith’s away,” he
repeated, as if that explained everything.
“Mrs. Keith’s the housekeeper,” interrupted Dolly. “Please fetch one of
the other servants and bring the telegram. Hurry!” furiously, conscious
of the wondering gaze of Ronald’s grand new nurse, she stamped her foot
at the old man.
It was a long while before a footstep came from the door by which he
had vanished. And then it was only an obsequious country girl, with
Lady Barnysdale’s unopened telegram in her hand.
“I suppose there are beds in the house,” Dolly cried, opening her
own telegram and showing it to the girl. “Here is a letter from Lord
Stratharden to Mrs. Keith. As she’s away perhaps you had better open
it.”
“I wouldn’t dare, my lady!” the girl faltered. “I’ll give it to David.
He’s Mrs. Keith’s husband; but you’ll have seen he’s doddering. Grizel
is lighting the fires in the guest-rooms, if you’ll please to come with
me.”
“Guest-rooms!” cried Dolly. “Didn’t Mrs. Keith get my letter either?
Why are my rooms not ready?”
“I couldn’t say, my lady. I’ll do my best,” nervously; “but you’ll
understand we’d heard nothing but that his lordship was dead, and----”
“Oh, never mind!” sharply. “Take me to a fire, my good girl, and get
us something to eat.” She would not have her antecedents aired before
Ronald’s nurse.
But when she saw the bare, half-warmed rooms got ready for her she
looked at Ronald with terror. The child might get his death here!
About one room only was there any semblance of comfort. It was
small, with chintz-hung walls, less barnlike and drafty than the
others. With her own hands Dolly--whom Magdalen had never known to do
anything--aired sheets, piled wood on the fire, saw Ronald bathed and
fed before she went down to her own dinner, and even then gave sharp
instructions to his nurse not to leave him. As she opened the nursery
door on the cold stone passage old David stood there.
“Dinner is served, your ladyship,” he said dully, as if he were
repeating a lesson.
Dolly, with a queer impulse, drew the old man into the warm room behind
her.
“Won’t you welcome Lord Barnysdale home?” she said almost piteously,
pointing to the pretty child in his cot.
The nurse was for the moment in the next room and could not hear the
tremor in her voice.
The old man glanced at the boy with a momentary flash in his old eyes.
“That’s no him!” he said contemptuously.
Dolly turned on him savagely, her grand manner all forgotten. Not
Barnysdale’s son! This child at whom she looked with terror sometimes,
lest she should see his father’s likeness in him; her trust for whom
she had faced the whole world.
“How dare you say he’s not Barnysdale’s son?” she cried, her muffled
voice furious.
But the old man never even looked at her.
“Barnysdale’s son,” he mumbled toothlessly. “Oh, ay! Ye’re dinner is
served.”
Magdalen looked from Dolly to him as he shuffled out.
“Never mind him,” she said contemptuously. “Can’t you see he’s
childish?”
“He can go and be childish somewhere else then!” Dolly’s fury was more
like that of a lady’s-maid than a countess. “Every servant in this
house shall go packing, except that Sophy girl. She did her best.”
She swept out into the bare stone passage, where a hanging lamp shone
pale and every footstep rang. Down-stairs a fire had been lit on the
wide hearth in the hall, but the crackling logs gave only light as they
roared up the chimney.
Old David shambled forward and pointed to the dining-room door. As
Magdalen followed Dolly in the quaintness of the room pleased her, for
there was no stone here, only high oak wainscoting that shone with age
and blackness. With shaded lights, new, brisk servants, a cook--and
she laughed as she saw the new countess’ home-coming dinner was cold
mutton--this room at least would lose the eery look of the rest of the
house.
She looked behind her and was not so sure.
A long, low window in the wall opened into the great hall itself.
Through it weird shadows from the sputtering fire seemed to nod at her.
It looked a place for spying, for eavesdropping.
“Is there a curtain outside?” Involuntarily she had turned to David.
“Then draw it, please.”
But it was Sophy, who was quicker-witted, that obeyed her. The old man
only gave her a cunning glance as he lifted a decanter with a shaking
hand.
CHAPTER VIII.
MAGDALEN DREAMS.
In the cold dawn Magdalen Clyde got out of the hideous four-poster
where she had tossed all night, and with shaking hands rekindled
the dead fire. When a blaze was roaring up the chimney she bathed
and dressed, as if cold water and clean linen could drive away the
senseless terrors of the night.
“I’ll never sleep in this room again,” she thought crossly. “No wonder
I had bad dreams in a bed walled in with purple rep!” She shuddered,
as if the bare memory of her dream sickened her. “I was tired; I’d
nightmare. What should I ever have to do with a Chinaman?” She scoffed
at herself, and for distraction went to the window, where a cold rain
beat upon the glass.
Outside lay a sodden, wind-swept garden, behind it black-clefted,
threatening hills. In her ears as she leaned out, regardless of the
wet, the muffled sound of the Clyde water that she hated, beyond
reach, except that it seemed like a living jailer to keep her in this
cheerless place. She drew back shivering and shut out the sound of the
river with the raw, cold morning, as some one knocked at her door.
It was Ronald’s nurse with a cup of tea in her hand, and the neat woman
stood staring at Miss Clyde.
“Good morning, miss,” she said. “I heard you stirring, and as I’d
made my tea I brought you some. Oh, you do look ill this morning! Is
anything the matter?”
For in the dull-gray light the girl’s eyes were inky in her dead white
face, uncanny under her queer, dull-red hair.
“The matter? No!” And then she laughed. What was she making a mystery
about? “I had a bad dream, Pearce; but don’t tell your mistress. Thank
you for the tea; it was very thoughtful of you.”
“My lady’s not awake, miss. She was very tired. His lordship seems
well. But if I might advise you I should go back to bed.” This was
vague, if well meaning, advice.
“Bed!” Miss Clyde glanced at the purple catafalque. “Oh, I couldn’t!
But you’re right, I don’t feel well. Do you believe in dreams, Pearce?”
“No, miss,” she cheerfully replied.
“Well, neither do I! But this was so vivid that I’ve felt weak ever
since.” She laughed at the fancy that came over her that if she told
the thing she would forget it, and yet it drove her on, restlessly. “It
was absurd. I thought I was sitting in a small room off a large one;
it had two doors, one leading into a passage, the other into the big
room, exactly opposite a long glass. It was that queer light you see
in dreams, and I noticed everything that was reflected in the glass;
just a bare, empty room. And then--I heard something. Some one moving
with very quiet feet outside in the passage, and I heard the creaking
of the door that led from it into the large room. I couldn’t move--in
my dream; I sat and stared at the door in front of me, and I can’t tell
you the awful terror that was on me. Just the terror of death, and
nothing else.
“I couldn’t see anything, only hear that noise like some one moving,
crawling. And then I knew that if I sat there one second longer it
would have me--I’d be killed! I got up and went out into the passage,
and I meant to run out of the house, but I felt there was some one
between me and the entrance and I couldn’t.
“I looked from the passage into the big room, and over by the fireplace
I saw a woman standing with her back to me. I didn’t know her. But
between her and me, going to her step by step, was a Chinaman. He was
directly in the light that seemed to come from a street lamp outside,
and I could see his side face. He looked like a devil--a stooping,
yellow devil, with a hideous white scar on his neck. I don’t know how I
saw it, but I did.
“He had long, long nails, and he held his hands out crooked and wicked.
I knew he was going to pounce on the woman by the fireplace and
strangle her with those long, wicked fingers. I ran and tried to catch
him, but I was too late.
“He had jumped at the woman. And as she turned--and if you can
understand me, the silence of it all was the dreadful part, for she
never screamed--I saw her face, and it was me. Me! And then I wasn’t
watching any longer, for it was I, not she, who was struggling with
him; I felt his claws of hands on my throat as we rolled over and over
on the floor. I could see his face, all yellow and distorted, but his
eyes were the worst. They looked like dead eyes, fixed and glassy.
“I think I must have fainted then; I was cold and wet when I woke up.
It was only half-past twelve; I couldn’t have been in that bed,” with a
glance of detestation, “more than an hour, and I’ve never slept since.
Ugh! I can feel those nails on my throat yet.”
“It was horrid, miss,” said Pearce, “but it was only nightmare. You
know, miss, you couldn’t have seen yourself.”
“But I did,” she firmly persisted. “I saw my own self looking at me to
save her. Yet at first I was sure it was a stranger, for the figure was
more like Lady Barnysdale’s than mine. I think if I were to see the
mildest-looking Chinaman I should run miles!”
Pearce smiled respectfully.
“You’re not likely to, miss--not here! But I shouldn’t tell her
ladyship; she seemed nervous enough in this strange house last night.
I hope it will be more comfortable soon. The maids tell me the
housekeeper returns to-day.”
“I shan’t mention it, but it did me good to tell you,” smiling at the
woman as if she liked her. “You have plenty of sense, Pearce.”
“You need it, Miss Clyde, when you earn your living,” returned the
nurse soberly.
When she was gone a queer thought overtook Lady Barnysdale’s
stepsister. In spite of the absurdity of that dream she would not
stay, or let Dolly stay, another night in this house, if it held two
rooms like those in her dream--rooms opening into each other, with
right-angled outside doors forming the corner of a corridor.
She ran down the stone stairs and went methodically from room to room
of the large, rambling place. Some doors were open and some locked, but
in no passage up-stairs or down were there two close together in the
way her dream made vivid.
With a laugh at her own folly Magdalen ran down again to breakfast.
* * * * *
“Magdalen!” cried Dolly blankly, flying into the small room they had
elected to sit in instead of the cold and hideous drawing-room. “Did
you ever hear anything like it? I can’t send her away!”
“Who?” lazily questioned Magdalen. She had been out roaming the lonely
hillsides in the wet, and if Ardmore Castle were not a bright abode it
was better to come back to than an unpaid-for flat, with no prospect
of dinner.
“Mrs. Keith,” with wrath. “You know when she came back yesterday I
thought everything would be all right. She was civil enough for a sour
old Scotch woman. You haven’t seen her, have you?” breaking off.
“No!” She had no fancy for bothering about other people’s servants.
Pearce was different since it was she, not Dolly, who had engaged her.
“Why?”
“Because she’s an insolent old hag,” vindictively. “To-day, when you
were out, I thought I’d go over the house and see what rooms I’d take
instead of the barns we have. I want Ronald to have all the sunshine
there is in this dismal country,” with a cross glance at the rain that
had never ceased since their arrival. “I saw the old woman looking
at me over the stairs as I rambled round, and when I got up to that
cross-corridor on the second story there she was, with both maids, and
a perfect storm of sweeping--in the afternoon. I told them to stop, and
Mrs. Keith never took any notice. Said it was the regular day. Then I
ordered her to get the keys of the locked rooms down-stairs; so she
did. And when I opened them I saw her grin, for they were all empty.
Just bare, cobwebbed holes. When we got up to that corridor again I
marched over Sophy and the tea-leaves,” with fresh annoyance, “and
found three locked doors at the very end of it, quite cut off from our
part of the house. I asked for the keys--and what do you think she
said? That they were Stratharden’s rooms, and not to be opened without
his leave. Stratharden’s rooms in my own house!--and the very best
southern aspect in the place, for up-stairs there are no windows on
that side. Mrs. Keith looked at me as if I were just nobody, and didn’t
even pretend to obey me.”
“Perhaps he was always allowed those rooms,” Magdalen pondered. “You
don’t know, Dolly!”
“I know I’m not going to have shut-up rooms in my house, and I said
so. I told her she must get more servants, that I would not have that
doddering old David to wait on table; he drops things so frequently
that I cannot resist screaming.”
“What did she say?”
“Said there were servants enough for people who came from the Lord
knows where. So then I told her to go, bag and baggage.”
“Then we’d better write to London to-night. Did she seem routed?”
“She turned round and said I was wasting breath. That old David
and she could not be sent away by me, Mr. Stratharden, or anyone.
That his lordship’s will--and she didn’t mean Barnysdale’s, but his
father’s--forbade it. And her eyes were just like gimlets in her horrid
old head.”
Magdalen sat up.
“I suppose they can be retired as superannuated,” she observed. “The
old lady doesn’t seem to think of that. We can’t live like this. I’ve
rung for tea four times and not a soul has come.”
“Superannuated! I’ll have her put in jail,” violently. “Do you know
Pearce has gone?”
“Pearce! Who sent her? What for?”
“Mrs. Keith. I went up and found Ronald alone, and rang for Pearce. By
and by Sophy came and said she had gone, that Mrs. Keith had dismissed
her for impertinence and had her ferried over to the station.”
“But why did Pearce take her warning?” Magdalen asked utterly
confounded. “She could have come to you, to me!”
“You were out. I was exploring the garrets. I found a note from
Pearce, who had evidently thought I had deputed Mrs. Keith to get rid
of her. So then I sent for the old woman again. She said, quite coolly,
that she could not bear strange women about the place, and that she’d
paid Pearce and told her I should not require her any longer. Then she
turned her back on me and walked out just as if she were the mistress,
not I.”
“She must be mad. Pearce was a fool to go,” with a cold anger, very
different from Dolly’s.
“What could the poor soul do? Mrs. Keith said I sent her, paid her and
carted her off. And the unlucky part of it was that Pearce was stupid
about Ronald this morning, and I was angry with her. She must have
thought her dismissal was because of that.”
“Don’t worry,” said Magdalen as calmly as if she were not raging.
“We’ll get her back. You go and bring Ronald down here and I’ll make
somebody bring tea. I don’t care who does, but bring it they shall.”
“Good gracious! You do look awful when you scowl,” and Dolly really
started. “You ought to be able to manage people. I shouldn’t like to
quarrel with a girl with eyes like yours and a dead-white face. You’ll
never be pretty, Magdalen, but you could be dangerous.”
For the courage and power in her stepsister’s face had suddenly flashed
on Dolly like a revelation, though she was blind to the wild beauty of
it.
“You couldn’t quarrel with me,” Magdalen laughed, in spite of herself,
remembering the times when Dolly had tried it and failed. “Go on, I’ll
get the tea.”
And when Dolly came back it was there, and Magdalen was laughing.
“Poor Sophy!” she observed. “She was between the devil and the deep
sea. Now, Dolly, what are you going to do? Give in to Mrs. Keith and
take charge of Ronald?”
Dolly’s cat’s teeth showed.
“I’m going to write to Stratharden this minute and ask if what she said
was true, about my not being able to dismiss her. I’ll give the letters
to the postboy when he comes with the papers. My dear Mrs. Keith would
probably claw it out of the bag. Does she think I am to be bullied in
my own house?”
Magdalen laughed.
“If we can’t send her away I’ll wrestle with her,” she said. “I don’t
believe you understand Scotch people. You have to get the upper hand
once and for all.”
“How on earth do you know?”
“I!” The girl gave a queer laugh. “I don’t know exactly, but they’re
just like the Clyde--precisely as I knew they would be. I’ve the
funniest feeling in this house, Dolly, as if I’d seen it all before,”
her wonderful eyes clouding.
“Then I’ve no opinion of your sense. If I’d known what it was like, as
you think you did, wild horses wouldn’t have got me here. I’d rather be
in London, snubbing Starr-Dalton.”
“What made you think of him?”
“I only just remembered that I’d never asked him if he were at Krug’s
that night. Perhaps it was just as well I didn’t. He knows my name’s
Dolly.”
“What does it matter since you weren’t the Dolly the man meant?”
Lady Barnysdale opened her mouth and shut it again with ill-considered
words still in it. In silence she wrote and despatched her outraged
letter to Stratharden, beseeching him to deal with Mrs. Keith and send
a proper staff of servants.
It was two days before she got his answer. Forty-eight hours, when she
fretfully refused to go out or leave Ronald, even to let Magdalen try
to put the fear of God into Mrs. Keith.
“What’s the good when we don’t know whether we can do anything?” she
demanded sensibly enough, and Magdalen agreed with a shrug of her
lovely shoulders. But she could stay in no four walls even for Dolly.
She tramped up the high hill above Ardmore Castle on the second day and
looked down on all Ronald’s property, on the rushing Clyde water that
hemmed Ardmore in. And not till then did the full loneliness of the
place come over her.
Ardmore had been a famous stronghold in its day; even now it was
nothing but a rocky island, some five miles long and half as wide.
There was not a village or a house on it, but some fishermen’s huts
that she could scarcely see in the dazzle of the low sunlight. They
were far below her on the shore, and three miles off if a yard.
As she watched she saw a small steamer touch at a point and go off
again. That must be the ferry Sophy said you must cross by when the
Clyde ran too heavily for a rowboat. The opposite shore was Ronald’s,
too, and a queer possession it looked, all rolling hills black against
the sunset.
Magdalen turned and saw on the other side of the river from which they
had come to Ardmore, more wild hills, higher, more desolate, showing
their teeth of crags and gullies as the sun dropped.
“Well, I’ve got my bearings, and much good may it do me,” she said,
little knowing. But the walk and the air had raised her spirits.
She went into the castle humming a song Dolly assuredly had never
heard, and gazed with astonishment when the door was opened to her by
an immaculate London footman. Lord Stratharden then had not let the
grass grow. The man must have come by that steamer she had seen touch
at the point this afternoon.
“Stratharden must be a marvel,” she said, finding Dolly by her
sitting-room fire. “Catch me getting servants for a lady who’d
supplanted me and my son! And such an immaculate footman, too!”
But there was no jubilation on Dolly’s face.
“He’s done the best he can,” she returned, “but even he says Mrs. Keith
can’t be dismissed, and begs I’ll be patient with her. Where’s his
letter? Oh, here! Listen: ‘I know Keith’s cross-grained ways must be
a sore trial to you, and for her unpardonable conduct in dismissing
your maid I can of course offer no excuse. I can only ask you to be
patient with her, and remember that she was my son’s nurse, and is
broken-hearted that he is no longer heir to Ardmore. I hope you can
find some capable country girl to look after your boy, and in the
meantime, as I am going abroad, it is both a pleasure and a convenience
to me to send you my two men servants, hoping you may keep them till
I return. James is a capable servant and used to managing Keith. My
Chinese butler you will find better than any nurse, and most useful
to----’”
“The what?” cried Magdalen.
“The Chinese butler. He’s dressed like an Englishman and he speaks
perfectly. What about him?”
But Magdalen sat staring, every drop of blood drained from her cheeks
and lips.
CHAPTER IX.
DOLLY’S PREDICAMENT.
It is hard to tell how commonplace things grow slowly into terror,
intangible and unseen, but sure as death. Into the dull life at Ardmore
Castle horror had crept; even Dolly could not be blind to it, and it
haunted Magdalen Clyde by night and day.
The awful loneliness of the place began to hang over them like a pall.
For a month they had been installed, and not a visitor from all the
countryside had been near them.
“Not even a grocer’s boy!” Dolly said to herself uncomfortably, though
there was nothing remarkable in that. Their meat was home-killed, their
other stores came once a year from Edinburgh. And in spite of the
silver-decked table and Stratharden’s invaluable servants, there was
no doubt that Mrs. Keith barely doled them out enough to eat--that was
eatable.
The horses, in spite of reiterated orders, had never come. James made
one respectful and well-grounded excuse after another--“next week,”
“to-morrow”--and neither brought them. As for rowing across the
Clyde it was not to be done. One winter storm after another made it
angry, and not a servant in the house could row. Magdalen, going to
the tumble-down boathouse to see the boats, found none; she screamed
herself hoarse in trying to hail a boat from the opposite shore that
was two miles off; and found herself civilly assisted by James, at
whose appearance she turned about and went home.
After long wet days in the house, when the clouds broke at sundown
she would drag Dolly out to walk in the evergreen shrubberies. But in
a little while Dolly’s eyes would meet hers and they would go indoors
quickly, Ronald angrily protesting from his aunt’s shoulder. But to the
lonely, unhappy women it had been certain that stealthy feet kept pace
with them behind the dripping firs, that eyes were on them hungrily as
they walked.
“It’s nerves,” said Dolly in an angry whisper; “nerves, or Mrs. Keith.”
They had long ago moved into those forbidden rooms of Stratharden’s,
but neither of them felt any better for the change. The southern aspect
was a mockery in a Scotch winter.
Ronald grew paler every day, had a queer little asthmatic cough and
seized every chance of spending his time with Ah Lee, who seemed to
fascinate him. On Mrs. Keith Magdalen had never laid eyes. Sometimes
in the long nights she fancied she could hear the old woman’s skirts
brushing against her door, and would get up silently and creep there
and then on to Dolly’s and Ronald’s apartments, for the three rooms
connected; would feel that the bolts were all shot home, and slip back
to bed again, not even owning to herself that it was not terror of Mrs.
Keith that made her do it.
She turned now to where Dolly sat on her bed taking off her wet boots
after one of those garden outings that had been worse than usual.
“It may be nerves, but it isn’t Keith,” she began, and then decided,
for the fiftieth time, that it would be madness to frighten Dolly about
Ah Lee because of a dream.
“Do you know what I found out just now?” for she had sent Dolly and
Ronald to the house, while she ran back in a towering rage to ransack
the shrubberies. “I ran along by the garden wall till I came out on the
avenue, ever so far from the house; and there was the postboy! He was
giving letters and papers to James.”
“Then the boat can cross again! Hurrah!” cried Dolly quite gay again.
“It never stopped crossing,” Magdalen dryly replied, “except for two
days. I asked the boy.”
“Then where--why--what did James say?” with incoherent energy.
“James explained,” more dryly than ever, “he had been no wiser than
we, etc. Mrs. Keith must have done it to annoy us. He would take great
care in future; could not be too glad that he had been tempted to
investigate--but he did not say it before the boy! Here are some papers
and a letter for you.”
But Dolly looked at neither.
“Who do you think it is? And what do they mean?” she said, with a queer
look in her shallow eyes. “I think James told the truth, and it’s just
old Keith, who, because she hates us, wants to drive us away.”
Magdalen threw open the door into the passage. It was empty, dark and
cold, and she shut it again. For a moment she stood facing Dolly, stood
stretching like a cat, as if she were trying every muscle in her body.
“Oh, don’t do gymnastics; talk!” cried Dolly pettishly. “Don’t you
think the old wretch wants to drive us away?”
“She takes a queer way to do it,” Magdalen gravely answered, seating
herself close to Dolly and speaking in a subdued tone. “Hasn’t it
struck you that being a countess here is extremely like being in jail?
Suppose we say we’re going to London to-morrow? Well! there are no
horses to take us the five miles to the steamer that comes here, and
you and Ronald can’t walk.”
“We can go the way we came!” sharply.
“We can’t, for I’ve tried it! We’ve no boat, and it’s no more use to
try and hail one from the other side than to sit here. There’s a rocky
point between us and the mainland; no one can see us.”
“You’re talking nonsense.” The familiar obstinacy was in Dolly’s voice.
“I’m mistress in my own house, I suppose. It’s rubbish to say I can’t
get away from it. But I don’t mean to be driven out to please Mrs.
Keith. It’s she who’s always crawling after us. She shan’t think she
can frighten me.”
It was not Mrs. Keith who was frightening Magdalen. She looked at Dolly
with veiled black eyes and lay back on the bed, a lovely, careless
figure; against the old embroidered coverlet her rusty hair seemed to
catch all the light left in the room. There was only one thing to be
done--get away from here and tell Dolly afterward. The very inaction
of the quiet face showed the utter strength in it as she thought of
something that had never entered Dolly Barnysdale’s head.
“I wouldn’t fuss over Mrs. Keith’s feelings,” she observed calmly.
“It’s deadly dull here, and some one hates us, it doesn’t matter who.
And I don’t think Ronald’s well.”
Dolly jumped up, scattering her papers and her dirty boots.
“What do you mean?” she angrily cried. “Are you trying to frighten me?
Of course I know he’s pale and has a cough, but he was always pale.”
There was something wild and untamed about her small figure as she
stood over the quiet girl on the bed.
“He wasn’t always--drowsy!” said Miss Clyde slowly. “Look at him now.”
Dolly whirled round, took a quick step and stood still. There on the
hearthrug in the middle of his toys lay Ronald--asleep! He was pale
indeed, and round his open mouth and his closed eyes were faint blue
stains.
Lady Barnysdale shook as she saw them; yet for a moment her face was
that of a woman looking at a child she saw for the first time. The next
instant she had the boy in her arms with the fierce, soft tenderness
Magdalen hated. “Do you mean----” she began in a hushed rage not like
her.
“I don’t mean anything. The boy’s ill and we’re not comfortable, so
don’t let us stay.”
“Don’t be superior,” said Dolly sharply. “You as good as said Keith
was drugging the boy, and now you try to back out of it. But we’ll go
to-morrow.” Her voice rose hysterically. “She hates me because she’s
just devoted to Stratharden, and she’s capable of anything.”
“I don’t think she has anything to do with it,” Magdalen coolly
declared. “She wouldn’t dare. But we’ll go to-morrow. I’ll be only too
glad.” There was no use in telling Dolly things till they were away
from this house.
But Dolly was no fool.
“It couldn’t be!” she said barely over her breath.
“He was kind, he----”
“We’ll see to-morrow,” Magdalen Clyde said to herself. Outwardly she
only shrugged her shoulders and turned away.
Dolly sat clutching Ronald like a woman possessed. She never touched
the dinner sent up to her--for she had no intention of letting the
boy from her sight while Mrs. Keith was in the house--and never even
thought of her unread London letter till Magdalen came back from the
meal she had made as short as possible, under Ah Lee’s hateful eyes.
The girl glanced at Dolly’s set little face, the tension of her figure.
She had been a fool to get her into a state like this, but----
“If I hadn’t waked her up to it Ronald would never have left this
house alive!” she thought, for she had not lived in London for nothing,
nor for nothing haunted the slums near Dolly’s house, while Dolly had
men to tea. “Here’s your letter,” she said in a matter-of-fact way;
“aren’t you going to read it? I’ll put Ronald to bed.”
She was half-way into the next room when a queer sound made her turn
sharply; she had no fear of waking the boy she had taken from Dolly’s
tired clasp.
“What’s the matter?” she cried, for on Lady Barnysdale’s face was the
look Dolly Arden had worn that night in Krug’s restaurant.
“It’s----” The words came stammering, incoherent. “We must get out of
this. It’s Starr-Dalton. He wants to come here.”
It seemed to Magdalen that even Starr-Dalton would be better than no
one. Had Dolly no sense? Did not she see what was plain as print?
“Well, he’s hateful,” she said slowly; “but--what does he say?”
Magdalen put out a hand as if to take the letter, but Dolly ran to the
fire and threw it into the blaze.
“What does it matter what he says?” she cried contemptuously.
“Starr-Dalton! I didn’t half read the thing.”
There was no earthly reason that it should matter, yet as she turned
away Magdalen knew Dolly was lying.
CHAPTER X.
BETWEEN TWO EVILS.
For once the sun shone into those southern rooms next morning when Lady
Barnysdale woke, and for an instant it cheered her. Rain would have
meant another day in this dull, eery house, where some one hated her,
where at any moment Starr-Dalton might arrive with his two days’ worn
collars and his coarse smile.
She got up and dressed with feverish haste, yet when she looked at
Ronald she felt as if the worst fear of all had vanished. He looked a
different child after his night’s rest. Magdalen had frightened her for
nothing; the thing was too monstrous; no one, even in this house, would
harm a little child.
Magdalen read her face like a book; and the relief on it made her shrug
her shoulders. She had not told Dolly even half of the queer things she
had seen yesterday afternoon; in consequence “everything was lovely and
the goose hung high” this morning to that lady. But tell she would not
till the last pinch.
“Well!” she said, “are we going to-day, or not? Because I want to know
what boots to put on.”
Dolly started without seeing.
To go meant a five-mile walk to a doubtful ferry; Ronald was himself
again; there was no need--but suddenly she saw Starr-Dalton’s envelope
that she had forgotten to burn.
“Go! Of course we’re going!” she said sharply; for nothing on earth
would make her stay where that man could find her. “But I’m sure you’re
wrong about Ronald. Look at him.”
“I dare say,” responded Magdalen carelessly enough. Her heart gave a
bound at the thought that Dolly was absolutely moved to do something;
saw that she had no desire to be friendly with Starr-Dalton, though, if
she had not been so full of other things, that might have seemed the
worst sign of all.
“Well, after breakfast then!” she said cheerfully.
After all it only took a little resolution to cut most coils, and this
one was disappearing like an ugly fog. All they had to do was to walk
out of Ardmore Castle, and there would be no more remembrance of queer
dreams, nor terrors of servants.
It was not at breakfast or lunch that Magdalen had any fears for
Ronald; it was his milk at night, his cups of soup during the day. But
after to-day there would be no more of that.
Miss Clyde’s thought turned gaily to that big, safe London she had once
said she hated; to a little house somewhere, with nice women servants;
to--and the blood flashed into her pale face and sank again--the chance
sight of a calm, self-possessed face and clear eyes that were like no
others.
“I’m a fool; he’s forgotten me by this time,” she thought scornfully,
and set herself to the business in hand.
There was to be no mention of their purpose, even to Ronald. They would
just stroll out in the garden as usual, and once out of sight of the
castle windows make for the highroad leading those five long miles to
the fishing village, by a short cut over the hills. Those long prowls
of hers had been useful, for all Dolly’s growls at them.
Magdalen turned where she stood in the garden, waiting for Dolly--and
bit her lip with helpless annoyance at a very small thing.
Lady Barnysdale stood at her elbow with Ronald, and instead of her
short country skirt and her sailor hat, was attired from head to foot
in her best and most becoming widow’s weeds.
“You might as well have given out your intentions,” Magdalen dryly
observed. “For Heaven’s sake, Dolly, what possessed you to dress like
that?”
“I’m not going to London looking like a sweep!” she smartly replied.
“Besides I want my veil; we might meet Starr-Dalton.”
“As if it mattered!” Magdalen contemptuously replied, but Dolly seemed
deaf.
“Come on,” she said, picking up her long skirt. “You needn’t think I’m
going back to change; it’s no use glaring at me.”
It was certainly no use to stand there, with Dolly’s purpose advertised
in her town clothes; but all the girl’s gaiety was gone as she took
Ronald’s hand silently and led the way hastily into a screen of shrubs.
Yet no one could have been spying on them so early in the morning, for
there was assuredly not a soul about the devious paths that led out on
the wide moor they must cross to get to the highroad. It was steep,
but it cut off two miles; and even Dolly never grumbled as she toiled
along, her elegant train cast over her arm. Magdalen with Ronald on her
back panted a little as she led the way. To carry even a light child
piggy-back is harder work than one knows.
“There!” she cried, stopping on the brow of the hill and pointing
down. “There’s the road and now it’s only a mile to the store. We must
keep to this little track that goes through that cluster of firs. It’s
frightfully swampy on each side.”
Success and exertion had painted Magdalen’s cheeks a pale-rose; she was
a sight to make an old man young as she stood with the child on her
back, her gorgeous hair catching the sun and her deep eyes blacker than
ever.
Dolly, exhausted and bedraggled with holding up her finery, was another
story. Her smart widow’s bonnet was over on one side and her whole
appearance worthy of bedlam, between mud and bushes.
“I think we’ve made frightful fools of ourselves,” she said crossly as
they neared the bleak grove of stunted firs. “I wish to goodness I’d
just said I was going and made James get a boat. Of course he would
have done so. It was just your nonsense that he wouldn’t; like you
thinking that stuff about Ronald.”
“Perhaps it was,” returned Magdalen dryly.
She was staring at the path where it entered the firs with a curious
sense of danger. A cloud swept over the sun and made her shiver; from
the time she was a tiny child she had always hated stray clouds to
obscure the sun. She shifted Ronald to her shoulders and let Dolly pass
her.
As she was moving on a shriek of rage made her spring forward wildly.
Dolly had disappeared in the firs and her angry voice came back on the
wind. Who was she talking to?
Magdalen clutched Ronald’s thin, black legs and tore down the hill.
Well inside the cluster of firs stood Dolly with her back to her; in
front of her, completely blocking up the narrow path between the thick
trees, stood a gamekeeper in worn velveteen; a burly, respectable
person with a smooth-shaven face, remarkably pale for a person who
spent his life out of doors. And Dolly was storming at him like a fury.
“Pass? Why shouldn’t I pass?” she cried, and her rakish bonnet was
ludicrous, her held-up skirts filthy. “How dare you stop me on my own
place? I’m Lady Barnysdale.”
“That may be,” returned the gamekeeper, with a grin, and Magdalen saw
he was not Scotch, “but you don’t pass here.”
“What’s all this?” said she from behind, and the man’s face changed a
little as he saw her, but he never budged.
“You can’t go through here, and that’s all about it,” he said, taking
no notice of Dolly’s furious tongue.
“Are you mad?” So taken aback was Magdalen that she was scarcely angry.
The man burst out laughing.
“No, not I,” he coolly returned. “But this is no place for walks and
you’d better go back.”
“Nonsense!” Magdalen’s temper had come to her at that laugh. “Lady
Barnysdale and I are going to the village. Get out of the way at once.”
“Then you’ll not go this way,” with impudent admiration of the tall
girl’s black eyes.
“I suppose you’re Lady Barnysdale’s servant,” said Magdalen icily. “Do
you mean to disobey her orders?”
“Just that,” he said rudely. “Get back now the both of you. My orders
are that no one’s to go to the village--even if it were the queen!”
There was something in his face that made Dolly shrink. She sprang to
Magdalen’s side.
“Oh,” she said in a whisper, “who is he? I don’t believe he’s a
servant. I’m afraid of him. Come away.”
Magdalen looked the man up and down. If he had been respectful she
could have dealt with him; as it was she suddenly remembered that they
were two women on a lonely hillside, and their way was obstructed by a
burly blackguard.
As she thought it he stretched a hand to clap her on the shoulder,
half threatening, all insolent. And for a second her black eyes
staggered even him.
“You’re lying, and you know it,” she said composedly. “There’s no
excuse for your not letting us pass. But if you won’t get out of our
way we can get out of yours. Come, Dolly!” and she had Dolly turned and
safe in front of her before she took her eyes from that evil face.
Magdalen’s knees were shaking as she followed, leaving the man
laughing. She tried to believe he was a poacher and that to pass him
would mean insult, perhaps robbery--and Dolly had fifty pounds in her
pocket. But she knew quite well that, whoever he was, he was all of a
piece with every other thing in Ardmore Castle.
“Come,” she said bravely and not casting a glance behind her. “We’ll
have to go back and take to the highroad, where we came out of the
garden. We won’t be stopped by a tramp.”
Dolly gave her no answer, but a feverish cry to hurry. The one cloud
had stretched all over the sky and rain was spitting in their faces. By
the time they got back to their starting-point all three were drenched,
Dolly’s crape a reeking, flabby mass.
White as death, her breath coming hardly, she turned on Magdalen.
“We must go home. It would kill Ronald to do anything else,” she said,
and if her voice was hoarse it was not cowed. “Anyhow it seems to me
we’d have no better luck on the highroad. That man was no accident; but
one more in my little score against Mrs. Keith.”
“I don’t know,” said Magdalen dully. “Get on, Doll; we can’t stand here
in the rain.”
She looked sharply at James as he met them in the hall, with a face of
commiserating wonder at their plight.
“Oh, my lady!” he said quite naturally, “I had no idea you were out
till you did not come to luncheon. I was just going to look for you
with umbrellas.”
“It would have been quite useless,” said Dolly quietly. “Please send
Sophy up with hot tea at once. It’s too late for lunch.”
At the man’s concerned look as he hurried away Magdalen began to wonder
if the balance of her mind were right, and she was not imagining stuff
because of that coincidence of her own dream about a Chinaman. That
man on the hill might have been a poacher; but if there were any truth
in what she really thought of him it lay deeper than any old woman’s
hatred for Dolly. No housekeeper, sour as she might be, would dare to
play a trick like that. And it was all very well to sneer at herself
for a superstitious fool, but it was after Stratharden’s men came, and
not before, that some one had been always haunting their footsteps; let
alone that thing of yesterday, of which she had not told Dolly.
With a shiver that was only half weariness she busied herself in
getting off Ronald’s wet clothes. When the tea came--with a separate
jug of milk for Ronald--she quickly gave him cream and hot water
instead.
In exhausted silence Dolly lay back and watched her. They were both
thinking the same thing, with a different theory behind it; but before
Ronald, who loved Ah Lee, Magdalen dared not let Dolly speak of it.
At Ronald’s bedtime the two looked at each other. There were no keys to
the nursery door, and during dinner they must leave the child alone. It
was in Magdalen’s room that they left him, sound asleep and locked in.
With the keys in her pocket Dolly talked at dinner with her old,
reckless gaiety. Neither James nor Ah Lee should be able to report to
Mrs. Keith that her ladyship had met with a reverse in her morning walk.
But Ah Lee, after the soup, disappeared; and James was unaccountably
lazy in bringing the pudding.
“That brute Keith!” exclaimed Dolly angrily. “If I wasn’t still hungry
I wouldn’t wait. Oh, Magdalen, can’t you think of something?” bursting
out with what she had had on her mind all dinner-time. “Some plan of
getting away, for after to-day----Oh! I’m frightened! The place is just
our jail.”
“I know,” said Magdalen softly. “I----” She gazed at her own reflection
in the glass above the high mantel-shelf as she tried to think what was
the best thing to do. If she were right, and not Dolly, it looked as if
they must stay here till some one had had his way with Ronald.
As she stared at her own pale reflection a quick astonishment came
into her eyes; why she shaded them with her hand she best knew, and
certainly her answer was a queer one--to the miserable appeal that had
been in Dolly’s eyes.
“I dare say it’s very nice in summer,” and the slow, irrelevant words
were utterly indifferent. “Don’t let’s wait for pudding, Dolly. I’m
tired.”
Magdalen got up and stood waiting, her eyes still on the glass. Dolly
stared at her. Too amazed to speak she pushed back her chair and
followed Magdalen out.
“What’s the matter with you?” she began crossly when they were in her
room. She unlocked the door leading into Magdalen’s, and was turning
back to her own fire when she saw her stepsister’s face.
“Come here in my room,” said the girl very softly, passing her like a
noiseless wind and drawing the bolt across the door.
“What is it?” Dolly whispered. “For Heaven’s sake, what makes you look
like that?”
Magdalen sat down and looked her straight in the face.
“Doll,” she said soberly, “who is the man?”
“Man!” Lady Barnysdale cried. “Do you mean the one we met this morning?
How on earth should I know?”
“No! The man who’s living in this house.”
“Do you mean a servant?” Dolly amazedly asked.
“No!” roughly. “A gentleman.”
“A gentleman! You’re mad,” said Dolly. Surely she had enough to worry
her without being told things like this. “There can’t be anyone in the
house but us.”
A queer thought came over Magdalen.
“Dolly,” she said slowly, “you really have no idea where Lord
Stratharden is?”
“If I had I wouldn’t be here. What in the world are you driving at?”
“Listen!” and there was something in the hushed voice that made Dolly
quiet. “Is your brother-in-law dark-haired, with light eyes sunk in
wrinkles? Has he a way of smiling--that isn’t smiling--when he’s
interested? And eyebrows like”--she signed with her fingers over her
own level ones--“crooked, you know, and very finely marked?”
“You never saw him!” said Dolly, recoiling as from a too life-like
portrait. “You said so.”
“I never did--till to-night.”
“To-night! How could you? He’s away abroad,” with scornful eyes on
the girl who sat between her and the light, uncanny in her black and
whiteness. “What do you mean?”
“I mean he’s here,” said Magdalen grimly. “I saw him to-night in this
house.”
CHAPTER XI.
THE EYES BEHIND THE GLASS.
Lady Barnysdale’s tongue clicked against the roof of her mouth; her dry
lips shaped the words she could not say. She sprang to the bell and a
hand drew hers from the bell-rope.
“Don’t be so mad!” said Magdalen quietly. “Sit down.”
Dolly looked at her.
“But if Stratharden’s here--oh, you don’t understand; he was more than
kind to me--all I have to do is to tell him about Keith. But--he can’t
be here! He wouldn’t arrive and I not know. You couldn’t have seen him.”
“Be quiet,” said her stepsister with a sudden, hushed force.
She stood a second listening; then, as if she heard what she expected,
pushed Dolly back into her chair. She pulled a note-book from her
pocket and wrote furiously, thankful that Dolly had sense enough to sit
silent, and presently pointed imperiously at the page.
The penciled lines swam before Dolly Barnysdale’s eyes.
“Don’t speak,” she read. “I hear some one in the corridor. I saw the
man I told you of to-night when we were at dinner. I was looking in the
glass, and that curtained window leading into the hall was reflected
there. Some one lifted a corner of the curtain outside and I saw a
man’s face--a gentleman’s. He must be living in the house, for I saw
the collar of his smoking-jacket. If it was Stratharden what is he
doing here secretly? Why does he spy at what you do?”
“You mean----” said Dolly huskily.
Magdalen took the book and wrote again.
“I mean we can’t get away, and I found out--never mind how--that
Ronald’s milk was being drugged. Is Stratharden poor because of him and
you?”
“Yes.”
“Very poor? In difficulties?”
“I don’t know.”
“You knew his brother!” wrote the girl cruelly. “You were married to
him.”
“My God!” said Dolly exactly as if she were praying in church. “But
Stratharden could not be like him.”
The words were not over her breath--a queer thing for Dolly; her lips
parted as if she were going to faint.
Magdalen owned no smelling-bottle. She moved sharply into Dolly’s room
to get hers, and something made her glance at the door she had bolted
and then go into Ronald’s empty nursery. When she came back no one
could have suspected the awful terror in her soul.
“Do you bolt your doors at night?” she said softly, for Dolly at that
minute could not have read another line to save her life.
Dolly nodded dumbly, and Magdalen waited patiently till the color came
back to her sister’s lips. Then she wrote something she dared not say,
wondering all the time if she were a fool to let Dolly know it.
“Then lock them,” she scowled; “there’s only one screw in each bolt
socket--and leave the keys crossways in the keyholes.”
Slowly, like an uneducated woman, Lady Barnysdale wrote a sentence that
was barely readable.
“There are no keys. You knew that. There’s nothing to help me.”
Magdalen gave her a queer look.
“There’s me!” she wrote with a half laugh. And if she were Dolly’s
sister there must have been good blood in her somewhere, for a sudden
courage shone in her face; while Dolly sat more dead than alive, her
lower lip drawn away from her teeth. Magdalen could not think looking
at Dolly, and think she must. She moved noiselessly into her sister’s
room and stood there checking off her thoughts on her fingers.
“First, there’s Ronald! He looks just like Mrs. Malone’s boy there was
all the fuss about--and a Chinaman was at the bottom of that! Then
here’s a house miles from anywhere, Scotch servants who believe some
lie--no matter what--about Dolly; a footman and a Chinaman”--once more
that horrid thrill of fear came over her--“who belong to a man who’s
supposed to be abroad and is in this house! I wonder how long he’s been
here! I’ll go bail Mrs. Keith had excellent reasons for not letting
Dolly explore! If I know anything about faces he is clever, but he was
frightened, too, because we so nearly got off to-day. A frightened man
does things in a hurry.”
She drew a long breath. With three men and an old woman against her it
was long odds against Magdalen Clyde; but even so she would be harder
to handle than Dolly.
“One good thing, he can’t know I saw him. I covered my eyes too
quickly,” she ended and turned to go back to Dolly as quietly as if she
did not hear in the corridor outside a step that crept foot by foot
with hers. Half-way in her own room she stopped and looked behind her.
There was a little click, a gleam, as the polished brass handle of
the door leading into the corridor slipped--evidently from the hold
of some one outside--back into its place, then turned again slowly,
noiselessly, evilly.
She stared at the moving convex of shining brass, and stepping quietly
into her own room bolted the door behind her. With herself, Dolly and
Ronald inside and a good door at her back it was not worth while to
worry.
“You’re done up, Dolly,” she said softly. “Get into bed beside Ronald
and I’ll take the sofa. I don’t want to sleep alone to-night.”
Dolly shuddered; nothing would have made her go into her own room.
“If you’re right, and he’s here,” she said, “what shall I say?”
“I don’t imagine for one second that he’ll show up. If he does I’d hold
my tongue, except to inform him that we’re going at once. You mustn’t
tell him about Ronald.”
Dolly was shivering as she lay down by the boy.
“Surely he’ll explain,” she said.
Magdalen gasped. If she had been a man she would have had fists first
and explanations afterward in the police court. As she sat wearily
on the sofa the incongruity of the whole thing came over her. The
homelike room with the candle-light on Ronald’s waxen face; down-stairs
the evil, scarred Chinaman; the man peering through the window. She
dared think no longer, remembering the look in those pale eyes behind
the glass; except that with daylight they must get away from this
evil house, over the swirling firth where the tide raced like death
incarnate, back to the safety of the packed streets of London town.
She had meant to keep awake, but her tired bones were too much for her.
When she started up, at a loud knocking at the door of Dolly’s vacant
room, it was half-past eight and broad daylight.
“What is it?” she cried, half awake.
“Mrs. Keith,” said Dolly, utterly astounded. She jumped up and hurried
into her own room at the woman’s call.
Magdalen tumbled off her sofa and peered through the crack of the door.
A gaunt old woman in a white cap and print gown stood in the middle of
Dolly’s room staring at the unused bed; a terrible old woman, but, as
Magdalen had all along felt certain, an honest one.
“What capers are these?” she cried harshly. “What for did ye no’ sleep
in your own bed? No wonder Sophy could na wake ye. His lordship’s here.
I’m to tell you; and he’d like to see ye at once.”
“Stratharden!” cried Dolly. “Then he----” She pulled herself together
viciously. “When did he come?” she asked.
“I did no’ let him in,” returned Mrs. Keith calmly, and Magdalen saw
she meant to say no more. “But ye’d do well to make haste.”
“That’s for me to say,” said Dolly valiantly.
“You can send Miss Clyde’s breakfast up here. She’s tired,” for Ronald
could neither breakfast with Stratharden and spill egg on his pinafore,
nor be left alone.
“I’ll do no such a thing,” announced the retainer. “There’s breakfast
in the dining-room and she can go there. It seems to me ye’ll have
queer ways when ye’ll eat alone and sleep three in a bed!” and she
marched out.
“What on earth shall I do?” said Dolly.
“Don’t do anything. Just say we’re going away to-day. Brace up, Doll;
you’re clever enough! I never saw you like this.”
“Sometimes I think I used up all my strength in London,” Dolly muttered
with an odd flatness.
“Shall I come?”
“No! I get on better alone with men, even with a brother-in-law,” and
at last there was something of the old Dolly in the way she said it.
“I want my breakfast,” Ronald announced when she was gone and he was
dressed.
“So do I,” said his aunt. But as she glanced at the boy’s pallor and
the unnatural circles round his eyes she had no desire to get that meal
as served by Ah Lee. A quiet idea took her.
“Come,” she cried; “you and I, your lordship, will go and look for
breakfast! Do you know the way to the kitchen?”
“Yes, but Mrs. Keith’s cross, Aunt Magdalen.”
“We’re not afraid of her,” said the aunt cheerfully, and hand-in-hand
with the small person who had been unwise enough to succeed to an
earldom, Miss Clyde made her way through deserted passages to an
enormous kitchen, where one woman sat at her breakfast, her back turned
to the door, neither hearing nor seeing the intruders.
For one moment Magdalen surveyed her in silence. She was alone, and so
much the better.
“Good morning, Mrs. Keith!” she cried maliciously. “I want some
breakfast.”
The housekeeper bounced in her chair, turned round with an ungainly
wrench, then sat gaping open-mouthed, her lean, knotted hands flung out.
“Who are ye?” she said in a kind of shriek. “My woman, who are ye?”
CHAPTER XII.
IN THE CHAPEL.
“Her ladyship’s sister,” said Magdalen smartly.
It was nonsense Mrs. Keith’s pretending not to know when she had been
in the house more than a month, and had been followed wherever she went
for a week.
Was the old housekeeper crazy?
For, like a woman startled out of her senses, she was coming over to
the intruders, peering at them under her bushy brows till her eyes were
like green sparks. Ronald began to cry at the look on the gnarled face
that was pushed so close to Magdalen’s.
“Speak out!” cried Mrs. Keith. “What’s your name?”
“You’re frightening the child,” cried Magdalen indignantly. “You know
perfectly well who I am--Lady Barnysdale’s sister. As for my name, it’s
Clyde--though I can’t see how it matters to you what it is. Get me some
breakfast,” she commanded, for her patience was exhausted.
“Heavens! ’tis the very speech of him!” said the housekeeper to
herself. “Clyde, she says----” She put a knotted work-worn hand on the
girl’s shoulder. “Speak out,” she muttered; “ye can! I’m Mrs. Keith.”
“I have spoken out.” Magdalen stamped her foot, for in this house it
was waste of time to be either polite or considerate, knowing what she
knew. “Now get me some breakfast. You can see for yourself I can’t take
such a little child as this to breakfast with Lord Stratharden.”
Mrs. Keith stood looking at her.
“If I was wrong,” she said, “you’ll pardon me! Ye have a look of one I
knew that’s dead, and for the sake of him ye’ll have all that’s in this
house. Though,” under her breath, and turning away, “if ye were aught
to him ye’d not hold that child by the hand!”
For want of an answer Magdalen sat down on a spotless wooden chair and
took Ronald on her lap.
Mrs. Keith, with that queer surprise still on her face, went to and fro
awkwardly, putting such a meal on the kitchen-table as Lady Barnysdale
had assuredly never seen in that house; and Magdalen’s black eyes
followed her every movement. Through the open door into the dairy she
saw the milk taken fresh from the pan; at her very elbow watched the
boiling of the eggs, the slicing of the bacon. There might be dislike
of the new Lord Barnysdale here, but there were certainly no underhand
tricks with his food. To her surprise the grim old woman laid the table
with fine china, not the thick crockery she had used herself.
“Ye’re served,” she said briefly; and if ever the words were welcome it
was to half-starved Magdalen Clyde.
“Will ye be living here for good?” said the housekeeper suddenly.
“No. I’m going back to London as soon as I can,” something beyond her
control making her tell the truth as better than lies.
But Mrs. Keith made no comment.
In silence Magdalen finished the breakfast that was putting courage
into her with every mouthful, and then lifted Ronald from his chair.
“Say good morning to Mrs. Keith, boy,” she cried lightly, “and thank
her for such a good breakfast!” with her lovely laugh.
“Ye needn’t prompt him. I’ll have none of his thanks, the spawn!”
The sudden, harsh voice made the child clutch Magdalen in silent terror.
“How dare you speak like that?” she cried, turning angrily on the
housekeeper. “He’s a child, not three years old. It isn’t his fault
that he supplanted the boy you nursed.”
The woman looked at her.
“Who may ye be meaning?” she quietly asked.
“Lord Stratharden’s son,” Magdalen replied, seeing no reason for the
question.
“Stratharden’s? Oh, ay!” and her eyes narrowed oddly. “He’s a guid lad
enough, Buff Ogilvie. But if ye come here to teach me my duty ye’d best
be going back to your own affairs.”
“I’m at them!” with a sudden inspiration. Hateful, half daft, as this
old woman seemed, she was yet the one soul in the house who could be
trusted even half-way. “While I think of it,” she continued boldly,
“why are all the screws drawn from the bolt-sockets in her ladyship’s
room?”
“Who told ye so?” but she did not look the least put out.
“My eyes.”
“Ye’ll see the same thing in a madhouse,” said Mrs. Keith, dryly,
and her hearer wondered if she had ever been shut up in one. “Come
ye’re ways with me,” the housekeeper went on hastily. “I’ll show
ye something, and for the sake of him that ye favor I’ll tell ye
something, too. I’d not be so free with your tongue in a place ye know
nothing about!” Having uttered the advice she turned away.
Without answering Magdalen picked up Ronald and followed the gaunt old
figure so strangely set off in a blue cotton gown. Up-stairs, through
long passages, across a wide hall--where it seemed to her that her
guide fairly ran, and had no desire to be seen--and into a closed room
that was curiously high and dark.
The housekeeper whipped a candle from somewhere and lighted it.
Magdalen Clyde drew back with a startled cry.
They stood in a deserted, dismantled chapel. Over the bare, dusty altar
was the despairing agony of Mary Magdalen at the foot of the cross; all
else of religion was gone from the place. The windows were boarded up,
the dust of years was soft on the floor--and in the dim candle-light
that flickered in the close air that other Magdalen turned on the
housekeeper.
“Why do you bring me here?” she demanded. “Take me away. The place
smells of death.”
“It may well; it may well.” Mrs. Keith’s face was drawn and livid, and
Magdalen saw suddenly that she was a very, very old woman. “I brought
ye here for this--and for the look on your face!”
She turned, pointing behind the girl’s shoulder.
Magdalen wheeled. There, over the door by which they had entered, hung
a second picture, facing the Mary Magdalen over the altar. And but for
a something in the cut of the mouth it might have been her own face
that was painted there, though the picture was not that of a woman, but
of a man.
A man of five-and-twenty, with a face of burned-out sorrow; yet the
eyes of it were brave still.
“That was the boy I nursed!” cried the housekeeper under her breath.
“Because ye had a look of him I fed ye. And now, if ye’re wise, ye’ll
get away to your home. His hair--that’s black in the painting--was the
color of yours when he was a child.”
Magdalen stared at the picture.
The boy Mrs. Keith nursed! Did she mean----Oh, it was not Stratharden,
nor never had been. Was it Dolly’s husband?
“Was he----” she began, and did not know why she stopped short. “It’s a
curious chance that I should look like him!” she said with bewilderment.
“There’s no such thing as chance. We’re all born to an ending.” The
words were so low and dreary that Miss Clyde looked sharply at the
withered old speaker.
There were tears in the woman’s hard eyes. She brushed them away as she
motioned the girl to follow her.
To Magdalen’s surprise only two short, dingy passages lay between the
desolate chapel and her own room, at the door of which Mrs. Keith
stopped abruptly.
“I’ll bring your luncheon to ye,” she said harshly, “if you’re meaning
not to go down. And if ye’ve any wit of your own ye’ll say nothing
about what I showed ye. Did ye say ye were going away from here?” she
suddenly inquired.
“As soon,” said Miss Clyde truthfully, “as ever I can.”
“Oh, ay! Well, when ye’re wanting to leave ye’ll tell me!” She turned
and was gone.
“Well!” Magdalen thought, staring after her, “of all the unearthly
houses and people! But my black and whiteness has done me some good at
last. I never thought I should get a good breakfast because I had the
luck to look like a dead man’s picture. It’s a pity Dolly couldn’t get
on the right side of Mrs. Keith!” But even as she thought it she knew
it was impossible; it was no light hatred that had fired Mrs. Keith’s
face when she looked at Ronald. And--that queer answer about the
madhouse flashed suddenly clear to Magdalen. It was Dolly the woman had
meant was mad!
In spite of her substantial breakfast Miss Clyde sat down limply. She
had thought of many things, but never of this. The pale indoor face of
the man who had barred their way yesterday sprang up before her with a
sudden horrid significance, and then the devilish cleverness that was
at the bottom of it all turned her cold.
CHAPTER XIII.
STRATHARDEN “SEES THEM OFF.”
“Well?”
But it was cold rage, not cold fright, that had kept Magdalen from even
hearing a foot on the floor till Dolly’s hand was on her shoulder.
“Well?” Magdalen said, and there was only curiosity in her voice. “How
did you get on? What did he say?”
Dolly sat down on the rug by Ronald and snatched him to her.
“Say?” she cried. “It was I that said! We’re to go to-night--to London.
The horses came this morning anyhow. Magdalen,” with a sudden doubt,
“I don’t know what to think about him. Before I could ask him when he
arrived he said he came late last night and feared to disturb me.”
Late--at dinner-time? But she did not say it.
“Then you didn’t let out that I saw him?”
“No,” she responded not too comfortably. She had been, as she said, a
failure on the stage; she knew her surprise at seeing Stratharden had
been acting of the same class.
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing, except what I said in my letters. I didn’t think it would
do to say we’d tried to get away and couldn’t. He said it was my
letter that brought him; he was anxious to see for himself that I was
comfortable.”
“What did you say?”
“That we weren’t, and I didn’t think Ronald’s food agreed with him
here.”
Magdalen’s face grew perfectly expressionless. Truly, Dolly must have
used up all her wits in London! She had said the very last thing she
should have let out she knew. If she was going to tell everything the
less she knew the better; if it once dawned on her that she was here in
the character of a madwoman she would do her best to behave like one.
“Why aren’t we going till to-night?” Magdalen asked. “It seems to me
the ferry-boat comes here at three in the day.”
“It did, but it’s changed. It comes at eight now.”
“Oh!” said the girl carelessly. If that were true it made Stratharden a
liar when he said he came last night. Nothing could have got him over
five miles and into a smoking-jacket by seven minutes past eight. But
he must be a poor sort of villain to give in so easily and let them go.
She felt strangely uneasy for a person whose trouble would be over in
eight hours; it did not seem possible that a man who had gone to such
pains to keep them here should let them go at the bare asking. She was
so sure that all the queer things in Ardmore Castle were Stratharden’s
work that she would not trust herself to see him; as for going to
luncheon with him she would as soon have dined with the devil.
When Dolly would have taken Ronald to see him she called her a fool to
her face. It might be their last day under Stratharden’s auspices, but,
all the more, she would not let the child out of her own keeping for
five minutes.
“You can go on saying he’s not well, since you’ve already admitted it,”
she remarked obdurately, “and I’m packing.”
But if Stratharden kept his word, and she packed to any purpose, she
knew she would be pleasurably astounded.
To her utter amazement he did.
At seven Dolly flew up-stairs.
“The carriage is here!” she cried. “Stratharden has gone on to the
ferry to see us on board.”
“Is he coming, too?”
“No. He’ll come back in the carriage and stay here a day or two. Then
he’s going to Russia. Come on, and for Heaven’s sake be civil when he
meets us at the boat, no matter what you think.”
“I don’t know what to think,” she replied in perplexity, for the actual
carriage at the door had knocked all her theories to bits. As for
telling Mrs. Keith she was going--with an uneasy remembrance of the
woman’s words--for all she knew, that might stop them. The housekeeper
might be innocent about Ronald, but what she said about a madhouse had
fitted in too well with the face of the man who had turned them back
yesterday.
“My going away might be very different to my taking Dolly!” Magdalen
thought swiftly, and with Ronald in her arms followed Dolly down-stairs.
It was odd how slowly her heart beat. It should have been thumping with
joy that she was turning her back on this hateful house forever, and
need never again think of Ah Lee and her dream of him, need only see
his hateful face this once more as she passed by him to the carriage.
She looked over Dolly’s shoulder and saw she was spared even one more
sight of the man. There was no one in the hall but James, holding the
front door wide. And outside, in the seven-o’clock darkness, was a
closed carriage and a pair of strong young horses pawing the gravel. At
the blessed sight the girl’s black eyes were suddenly alive in her pale
face.
She looked at the horses like friends; at her old acquaintance, the
red-headed boy, who sat alone on the box; followed Dolly into the
carriage with a laugh of pure gaiety, and fell back into her seat as
James shut the carriage door behind her with a bang that made the
horses start nearly out of their skins.
They were off, after all her doubts! Ardmore and its mysteries were
behind them; her dream and the Chinaman off her mind forever.
“I’d like to shout hurrah,” she cried. “Oh! Dolly, wouldn’t you?”
“We’re going awfully fast,” said Dolly irrelevantly. “Is it down-hill?”
Magdalen looked out of the window.
There was nothing to see but bare hills, dark against the watery
night-sky.
“The horses are fresh,” she returned comfortably. “It’s all right.” She
wished she were as sure about the boat; it was queer how quickly her
exultation left her.
In a little while Magdalen put her head out of the window again and
caught her breath with surprise. Surely they had never come five miles.
For before her was the Firth of Clyde; and black against its dark water
there lay a long pier, like a pointing finger. They were at the ferry.
The horses dropped into a walk half-way out on the ramshackle pier,
stopped and stood uneasily. There was no Stratharden, no ferry-boat; no
sign that anyone ever came to the desolate place.
The wind whined from the hills once and again; the tide sucked at the
shaky wharf; overhead it was spitting rain. To a London girl’s eyes the
pier was horribly narrow. If anything frightened the horses there would
be no room to turn.
“Do you see Stratharden?” asked Dolly quickly.
“No. He’s not here, Dolly; there’s no ferry-boat here either!”
Dolly shut her teeth.
“I won’t go back if I wait till daylight,” she said. “Do you think
Stratharden’s done it on purpose and there won’t be any boat? Can’t you
see him?”
“Wait,” said Magdalen, peering into the darkness.
In the deadly quiet she could have heard the lightest footstep on
the pier, as she heard her own heart and the spattering rain on the
carriage. Wherever Lord Stratharden was he was not here.
She got out noiselessly and stood, a darker shadow in the dark. The
carriage door swung under her hand as the horses shifted restlessly in
the chilly wind, the boy on the box----
“Get out!” said Magdalen suddenly, thrusting her head into the dim
carriage. “Get out! Don’t speak!”
CHAPTER XIV.
“MURDER!”
Magdalen had noted that there was something queer about the boy on the
box, something terrifying in the look of him where he sat in a hunched
heap, regardless of the driving rain or the horses pulling the reins
through his listless fingers as they tossed and fretted at their bits.
Suddenly she could no longer distinguish him. A black rain-squall fell
from the sky and shut her in, she could not see Dolly and Ronald at her
elbow, or her own hand on the carriage door. By some instinct she shut
it softly.
“Keep still,” she said, and felt her way round the hind wheels to wake
the red-headed boy. How dared he sleep here? It was not safe, it----”
A narrow flash, strangely red for lightning, blinded her; the carriage
backed and knocked her down.
In an instant she was on her feet, clutching Dolly in the dark.
“Don’t scream!” she fiercely breathed. “Hold on to my skirts and come.”
Stooping, gasping, she felt her way off that pier, its wooden coping
her only guide.
The noise of wheels, of tearing hoofs, of a horse’s scream, tore the
air--the latter a sound to stop the heart.
“What was that?” Dolly stood paralyzed.
“Murder!” said Magdalen to herself as she felt solid ground under her
groping hands, and stood up. “Come on.”
She dragged Dolly and Ronald behind some bushes she could feel more
than see.
“Oh, what was it?” Dolly repeated tremulously.
“The carriage is in the Clyde,” Magdalen briefly replied, “and if we’re
not quiet we’ll be there, too.”
For that red flash had done more than frighten the horses; it had
showed the end of the pier to Magdalen Clyde, with a stout post at each
corner of it, the top of the right-hand one square and blank against
the flare.
On the other post, squatting motionless, like some horrible heathen
god, was the Chinese butler, waiting. For what?
“For just what he saw!” thought Magdalen with a terror that would have
been unreasonable in broad daylight or in another place. “That flash
wasn’t an accident. The carriage was meant to go over with us inside.
The boy was drugged! Oh!”--with a sick shudder--“the poor boy! The poor
horses!”
It was useless for common sense to assure her that she was all wrong;
that Stratharden had for some reason not come himself to see them off,
but sent the butler; and that the obvious thing to do was to call to
the Chinaman, tell him how miraculously they had escaped, and go back
to Ardmore till the morning. For if common sense said all this instinct
clamored louder that if the man had been there to help them, he would
have come over to the carriage; that if he had perched himself on the
post, it was to be safe when the carriage and horses tore past him!
Trembling she cleared the rain from her face and strained eyes to the
pier-end. If all were right human flesh and blood could not have kept
silent when the carriage crashed into the water. Yet the Chinaman had
not made a sound.
Through the dark she could see nothing; could hear only the lap of the
water, the pattering rain; but through it the man might be creeping
on them, step by step, might have guessed the carriage was empty,
might----
“Come away,” she whispered, and her lips were stone-cold. “Don’t let
Ronald cry,” for the shrill child’s voice could be heard above the
storm.
“Come where?” muttered Dolly. “Not back! I won’t go back.”
There was no fear of Ronald’s crying; he was nearly fainting with
terror; the feel of his rigid little body in her arms made her swear to
herself that for nothing on earth would she take him back to the house
where they hated him.
“Back? No! Anywhere out of this.”
Step by step they crept along the hillside, away from the pier; edging
from one clump of grass to another, from one stunted fir to the next;
since, for all they knew, their figures might be plain enough if a man
had a night-glass.
Every now and then Magdalen stopped to listen to the noise of the
river. They must go up-stream, not down. Anyone who wanted to make sure
of wreckage would go down. Suddenly her feet felt the smoothness of a
well-worn path leading downward to the water. It seemed better than
aimless zigzagging on the hillside, and she followed it with Dolly
treading on her heels. It came to an end on the very edge of the frith,
with a sharp turn where a boulder and some low firs made a shelter from
the rain.
“We can’t go on,” she whispered, feeling the turf under the trees;
“it’s dry here. Sit down. Is Ronald wet?”
“No; he’s covered with my cloak.” Under the strain Dolly’s nerve had
come back to her; the vicious fury of a woman who has lived by her wits
was in her voice. “I’ll keep him dry somehow. He shan’t die in my arms
when we kept him safe in that awful house,” she fiercely added.
“They meant to murder us,” said Magdalen in a husky voice. “Did you
think that flash was lightning? It was some kind of devilish firework,
and it did what they meant--but it saved us, too, for I saw him!”
“Stratharden?”
“No; the Chinaman. I don’t believe Stratharden ever left the house.
Can’t you see now that he was at the bottom of everything? Keith was
only his tool, that he lied to. He told her you were mad.”
Dolly caught her by the hand.
“What do I care what he said? If it hadn’t been for you I would have
stayed in the carriage,” she whispered--Dolly, who had never been
grateful in her life before!
“We might just as well have stayed if Ah Lee’s at our heels,” said
Magdalen grimly. “Don’t talk,” and in odd contrast to her hard voice
she stooped gently and covered the huddled pair with her own heavy
traveling-coat that she had stripped off in the dark. If she shivered
as she tucked it round Ronald it was only half from cold.
“For we can’t stay here,” she thought. “I must do something. And I’m
afraid to move or even to breathe! It’s no use to mince things, I
daren’t go back to that house, even if I could find the way in the
dark. Mrs. Keith might help me but she’d hang before she’d help Dolly.
And if I dared go back to the pier--but I daren’t and that’s the end of
it!”
She slipped down beside Dolly and spoke in her ear.
“Dolly,” she said, “do you know where we are? For I don’t. All I know
is that this pier isn’t the one the boat comes to at all, for I saw
that one from the top of the hill one day, and there were cottages all
round the head of it. Do you suppose we could find our way there?”
“I don’t know. You forget I never was out of the garden but that once
when the man turned us back. We can’t do anything but sit here till
daylight. If the Chinaman knows we weren’t in the carriage he’ll be
scouring every path. If he found us he wouldn’t dare to let us go; he’d
know we knew something, and----”
“Hush!” Magdalen breathed. “Hush! I hear some one! Don’t let Ronald
move.”
“He’s asleep,” whispered Dolly.
Magdalen leaned in the supposed direction of the sound and listened.
It was all very well to think that she needed her coat less than the
delicate child in Dolly’s arms, but thinking could not stop her teeth
chattering. She bit fiercely into her own hand.
“It’s a boat--oars----” she muttered. “It’s----Crawl in behind the
rock, between it and the fir trees--quick!” and as Dolly obeyed her she
huddled herself in after, face down, a shapeless heap in the dark.
Motionless, scarcely breathing, terrified lest Ronald should wake and
cry, they heard a boat crunch on the pebbly beach not three yards away.
“If it’s a fisherman,” Magdalen thought, trying to check those horrible
shivers, “we’re saved! If it’s not----”
A man’s quick spring from the boat sounded loud on the stones, and in
the dull grind of the keel as it was pulled up a foot or so over the
pebbles, Magdalen flattened herself under the fir branches.
That quick foot on the shore was not the heavy thud of country-made
boots. It was the Chinaman! They were found, they----
The steps came closer, were so near that----He was stopping!
The girl felt he must hear those thin, crawling shivers that swept her
body. She gathered herself up to spring and face him, when a slither of
falling stones, an oath that was not the swearing of a foreigner, nor
yet a fisherman, drew her very strength out of her.
The voice was a gentleman’s, and Dolly’s hand gripped her fiercely.
“Where the devil’s the path?” went on the voice that, for all its
irritation, was like silk. “Oh, here! The boat can go to the devil.
I’ve had enough of it. I’m dirty enough to have been in ten accidents.
Even Ah Lee----” and he laughed.
At the most evil sound of that laughter rage made one listener start;
but the squish of the wet moss and mud under the man’s groping feet
covered it.
It seemed hours before that slow tread died away; hours when it was not
safe to move or breathe.
When there was no sound but the rain Magdalen sat up.
“Did you hear?” Dolly’s whisper sounded like a shriek to her. “That was
Stratharden--and he laughed!”
“He’s looking for our bodies,” with stern coolness.
“Well, he won’t find them. The fool has saved us. Come quick; he’s left
his boat!”
With a man’s strength Magdalen lifted Dolly to her feet and got her
to the beach. In the quiet the crunch of the pebbles sounded like
pistol-shots as they felt their way to the boat.
“Get in,” Magdalen whispered. “Don’t stumble.” And when Dolly was
seated she lifted the bow of the clumsy tub Stratharden had been good
enough to leave behind him; the keel made no sound as the boat slipped
out and Magdalen swung herself into the bow.
Drenched to the skin she crept to the oars, and knew she dared not row,
for the noise they would make against the thole-pins. Yet if she let
the boat drift the current would sweep them broadside on against the
pier. She crawled into the bow again and paddled desperately with one
oar, knowing she could never get out into midstream, but hoping against
hope.
Her strong strokes were making no difference; broadside on they were
drifting down to the pier--and there was a light there!
“We’re done!” she muttered to herself, and nearly fell flat where she
knelt.
The boat had fairly leaped under her, had swung round, was going out
into midstream, bows on. The outgoing tide had snatched them from the
shore eddy; they were flying on it like a chip or a straw. Every minute
was taking them further from Stratharden, further from the island that
had been their prison. Triumph shook the girl like a leaf.
When the light on the pier was but a distant star she set the oars
boldly into the thole-pins and began to row.
“Where shall we go?” said Dolly feverishly. “Can’t you see any lights
on the banks? We must land at the first village.”
“All right,” said her stepsister, thanking Heaven that she had learned
to row on the lake at her country convent. “We’ll be in London
to-morrow, Dolly,” she added cheerfully, as if in her heart she did
not know she was lost on the wide black frith, and for all she knew
was rowing out to sea in the cold, stinging rain that hid the shore on
either hand.
CHAPTER XV.
DOLLY SEES DAYLIGHT.
“What next?” said the toneless voice from the bed. “What next?”
The girl who sat by the fire started. That ceaseless question of all
last night had been silent for the last four hours; she had thought
that when Dolly had slept she would wake quite sensible.
“There’s no next,” Magdalen patiently answered just as if it were not
for the twentieth time. “I rowed and rowed. Daylight finally dawned
and we were close to a rocky shore. When we got out I pushed the boat
out into the river and we walked. We came to a town and a station, and
that’s all. You had plenty of money.”
“I know all that, you idiot!” The unexpected retort was hoarse, but
unmistakably to the point. “I mean what are we going to do next? I feel
awfully ill. I must have taken a chill.”
“Chill!” said Magdalen. She got up and went over to the bed. “I thought
you’d got your death. You couldn’t hold your head up when we got to
Euston. I had to come here and send for a doctor, and nothing he gave
you would keep you quiet.”
“It was that powder he gave me,” said Dolly crossly. “Those things
don’t quiet me; they only make me silly. I remember all that, and your
lugging me into the Euston Hotel, and the doctor, and the awful pain in
my head. Did I talk?”
“You kept saying ‘What next?’ all the time. I thought you were
beginning it again,” looking at the drawn face. “Have some tea, Dolly;
it’s just after lunch.”
“No. I feel sick. Oh, how sore I am! It was sitting in those wet
clothes. But I kept Ronald dry,” with a laugh that hurt her.
“Dry as a bone! And I was rowing; I didn’t get chilled. I forgot how
easily you took cold, and you would go straight to the train, wet
clothes and all.”
“I’d had enough of Scotland,” she admitted with a shudder. “Magdalen,
you didn’t write our names here--our own names, I mean?” Dolly
questioned to sudden panic.
“I wrote ‘Mrs. Morton, child and maid,’ just as badly as I could. I
don’t know why I did it; for it’s we who have the whip-hand now,”
Magdalen musingly replied.
“Whip-hand?” Dolly sat up rather dizzily.
“Oh! Stratharden, you mean?” she said. Then, as her head ceased to
swim, she continued, “I don’t know but I’m glad you didn’t write down
Lady Barnysdale; it would have made me nervous; the other gives us time
to think. Magdalen, I will have tea, if it’s there. I’m all right now,
except that I ache all over.”
She drank the tea and lay quiet, revolving a thousand things in her
mind. Some were good and some bad, but to her worn-out nerves the bad
predominated. She tossed restlessly in the wide bed. The good thing
was that Ronald was safe and well; her eyes fairly devoured him where
he played on the floor. The bad things, or one of them, was that her
cleverness seemed to have deserted her. She could not think.
“Magdalen,” she said sharply, “talk! Have you heard anything?
Countesses can’t get drowned and have nothing said about it.”
“Oh, there’s been something said about it,” Magdalen observed without
much spirit. “Look here.”
She brought the evening paper to the bedside and pointed to a paragraph
among the telegraphic despatches.
“Terrible accident at Ardmore. Death of Lady Barnysdale and her son.”
“Death!” cried Dolly. “Then he must have been sure!”
“Read this.” Magdalen turned over to “Notes of the News,” and Dolly
Barnysdale looked dull-eyed on her own name.
“The sad death of Lady Barnysdale and her young son in a carriage
accident will be a lesson to those ladies who allow half-trained
stable-boys to drive them at night. The unfortunate countess,
accompanied by her sister and her little boy, was driving from
Ardmore Castle to Ardmore Pier, but on her way must have discovered
that she had mistaken the hour of the daily ferry-boat’s arrival
there, and given orders to the lad who was driving her to go to a
nearer pier long since disused by the ferry, but where, by taking a
rowboat always kept there, she might cross the Firth of Clyde and
still be in time to catch the night-train for London. On the steep
descent to the water the horses bolted, and as they were completely
unmanageable by the poor boy on the box, took the carriage over the
pier-end into the Clyde. So far neither the carriage nor its contents
have been found, as there is a strong current in that part of the
frith. One of the drowned horses was washed ashore at Pirn. Lord
Stratharden, who was staying at Ardmore Castle, is greatly shocked
and distressed at the death of his sister-in-law, of whom it will be
remembered he was a firm friend under difficult circumstances. The
late Lady Barnysdale had been living at Ardmore in great seclusion
and quite unknown in the neighborhood. The tragic event of course
returns the succession to its original channel.”
“Does it?” said Dolly. She dropped the paper furiously. “I’ll show
him whether I’m dead or not! I’ll----” She stopped with the sentence
unfinished.
The rage went from her face as if it had been wiped off. To be dead
would be to be rid of Starr-Dalton. It was curious how an unimportant
thing like getting rid of a distasteful lover could weigh against
decent punishment of or retaliation against a man who had done his best
to murder her; but it did.
More than all the real terrors that had surrounded her at Ardmore
Castle could do, that letter which she had said was unimportant,
that was assuredly affectionate--as Mr. Starr-Dalton understood
affection--had shaken Dolly Barnysdale’s nerve and paralyzed her wits.
Her brain seemed to clear in a flash. In spite of her feverish cold,
her aching bones, it was the old Dolly who suddenly laughed where she
sat huddled in the bedclothes. She could be a match for them both
now--for Stratharden and his murderous plots, and Starr-Dalton and his
hateful love-letters.
“I know now,” she said slowly, “what I’ll do. I suppose you’re all
ready for lawyers and detectives and exposure.”
“What else?” said Magdalen. “It’s all plain enough. James and Mrs.
Keith were told that you were crazy, and that man who turned us back
was just an attendant from an asylum. The screws were out of your
door-locks, so that you could be overlooked at night, and the reason
we never felt alone in the garden was that we never were alone. That
gamekeeper man was always following us.”
“How do you know for certain?”
“Because I’m not a fool. I know. And the only man who was in
Stratharden’s confidence was Ah Lee. It was he who drugged Ronald’s
milk, for I saw him do it! I was in one of those deep windows in the
corridor outside of our sitting-room door, just at tea-time that day--I
found out about the postboy. I was just standing there thinking, and
along came James with a tea-tray and set it down on the hall table. I
thought it was ours, and I was hungry, so I went to see what was on
it, but it was only Ronald’s food.
“I went back to the window again to get my hat, which I’d left there,
and I heard some one walking so softly that I walked softly, too.
I looked out in the hall and there was Ah Lee with his back to me,
putting something out of a bottle into the milk-jug. He heard James
coming with the other tray before I did, and he slipped off before I
could pounce on him--not toward the pantry, but up-stairs. By the time
I got to the table where the milk was James was behind me with our
tray. I should think these things were enough to make some fuss about!
And as for the carriage--I defy them to make it out an accident. I saw
Ah Lee as plainly as I see you, and you know as well as I do that it
was no old pier you meant to drive to, and that Stratharden lied to you
about the boat. Why on earth shouldn’t I be ready to help you show him
up?”
“Because,” said Dolly, and she laughed, “I don’t mean to.”
“Are you going to stay dead?” Magdalen contemptuously asked, “because
you’re afraid of a man?”
Dolly’s face reddened angrily.
“What man?” she cried. “I’m not afraid of any man.
“Do you think, after all I did to be a countess, and have money, and do
Ronald justice, I’m going to sit by and lose it all?”
“You’d be a fool if you did,” observed Miss Clyde, looking at Dolly
with half-closed eyes that were very black, and with uncombed hair and
flushed face. “But you hadn’t to do so much. Only put on a black gown
and pretend a little.”
“Pretend!” Was it fancy that Dolly’s little figure grew suddenly rigid
under the bedclothes?
She spoke out suddenly, just as she had done long ago in the little
pink drawing-room.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said. “If you think it was easy to go
and tell all these things about myself it wasn’t. Do you mean you think
I made them up?”
“No, for I know you couldn’t. Don’t go off at a tangent, Dolly; say
what you mean to do.”
Dolly’s heart knocked against her ribs like a woman who has seen a
danger pass by.
“I’m tired,” she said, and there were tears in her eyes. “If it weren’t
for Ronald I’d stay dead. I----You don’t know how hard it’s all been!”
Magdalen put a hand on the frail ones that had suddenly covered
Dolly’s eyes. For the first time she saw what nervous hands Dolly had,
what nervous, pointed nails. No hands for a woman who must fight her
own battles. The girl looked at her own hand that was so white and
hard, and a sudden compassion swept over her. It was true indeed that
she must deal gently with Dolly. Of late she had been impatient and
scornful enough with her. “Whatever you want I’ll do, Doll,” she said
softly. It was Dolly’s eyes and not hers that were hard as she let her
hands drop from under Magdalen’s.
“Look here,” she said, “if I were not the only soul on earth Ronald has
to trust to I’d----” She pulled herself up sharply. “I suppose you’re
saying to yourself that you’re not afraid of Stratharden?”
“Why should I be? We’ve the whip-hand.”
“That’s just the reason. We know too much. And I don’t think,” Dolly
continued slowly, “that we’d be able to prove anything! I know that
if Barnysdale had done what Stratharden has”--groping in the past she
so seldom spoke of--“he would have done it too well to be found out.
He’s cast one doubt on my sanity; I think he’d only cast a great many
more--and perhaps get appointed as Ronald’s guardian. We’ve got to
be cleverer than that. We want to be alive and publish we’re alive;
I must be able to draw my money and educate Ronald; and yet not let
Stratharden know where we are--or anyone else,” she added musingly.
“I’ve no desire to have any of my dear old friends hanging round me and
cadging for money.”
“How can we do all that?”
Magdalen, sitting on the bed, was curiously graceful, and somehow every
line of her was curiously hard. Dolly’s words were true enough; why did
her stepsister have the old distrustful thought that she was not saying
all she meant?--there was a hidden mainspring to it all.
“Easily,” said Dolly, yet she was trembling. “Only I’ve got to do it
now. Get me my clothes!”
“You can’t get up!”
“I can; and I would if it killed me! We’ve no time to lose. I’ll get
dressed, you pay the bill here, and we’ll go into the station and take
a cab as if we’d just come from the train.”
“A cab! Where to? Don’t be a fool, Doll; you might get pneumonia.”
“I’ll get brain fever if I lie here and think,” Dolly sharply
responded. “I’m going straight to Mr. Barrow. It’s madness to be here
under a made-up name.”
“But you said----”
“I know! I hadn’t got my wits back.”
“You weren’t going to expose Stratharden,” Magdalen finished as if
Dolly had not spoken.
“Neither I am,” said Dolly with a sudden laugh, and if her hands were
frail and nervous as she hurried into her clothes they were also
the insincere, unscrupulous hands of a woman who could outwit most
men. “I’m going to know nothing, think nothing, but that a stupid
stable-boy took us to the wrong pier and we got out of the carriage
just before something startled the horses and they bolted. You and I
were terrified; started of course for Ardmore to get help; lost our
way; found a boat, and could not row back to the castle against the
stream. After which we drifted ashore and lost the train to London,
where we’ve just arrived and seen the papers. Ronald was ailing and
I have been so terrified that I never even remembered till I saw the
account in the _Star_ that Stratharden must be thinking us drowned. Mr.
Barrow will telegraph to my anxious brother-in-law at once, and I--with
my nerves horribly shaken by the whole thing, and especially by seeing
my own death notice--leave to-night for Paris. It will be too late to
go to the bank, so Barrow will cash a good, solid check for me--and
there you are!”
“Paris!” cried Magdalen blankly. “That we don’t know at all, and
Stratharden probably knows like a book. If you want to keep out of his
way----”
Dolly’s laugh stopped her.
“We won’t go there! Exactly. We’re going to stay here in London. It’s
big enough,” recklessly. “I was a fool ever to leave it. Help me,
Magdalen--I feel so dizzy and queer.”
But the girl made no motion toward handing her the cloak she held.
“Doll, don’t do it!” she gravely begged. “I don’t like the look of it.
Better tell the truth a hundred times; there’s no sense in acting a
silly lie about Paris, or in pretending that you saw nothing queer at
Ardmore. Speak out.”
Dolly dragged the cloak from her.
“I won’t!” she said. “Never mind hunting for reasons. I’m ill, for one,
and I want to go to bed and be ill. I don’t want to have anything to
do with lawyers and prosecutions and Stratharden.” She fastened her
cloak and turned, with her rain-spoiled sailor hat in her hand. “All
I want,” she cried with a reckless passion in her face, pointing with
the crooked, warped hat to Ronald, “is to keep him safe till he’s
twenty-one; to have enough to eat and drink and wear; and to rest. I’m
tired; I’ve borne all I can. I’m not fit to fight--openly! You must let
me manage my life in my own way.” Tired and ill Dolly had announced her
intentions. The girl who looked at her saw she was more than either.
An hour ago she had looked driven, hunted, desperate; now there was
a triumph in her eyes as if from a dark prison she saw daylight and
liberty.
There was reason enough for triumph; it is not everyone who escapes
scotfree from being murdered. But it was not that which had lighted
Dolly’s eyes and got her out of her bed, regardless of the bad cold
that at any other time would have made her send for two doctors and
declare she was dying.
“Don’t stand like a stuck pig, my good child,” she cried, “unless
you want Stratharden to get to London before we’ve vanished. I know
what you’re thinking; but Ronald’s my child, and the whole show’s my
business. And I know,” she declared with confidence, “that I’m doing
the best thing I can. Who would listen to a woman like me if I said
that in a Christian country I’d been shut up by my own brother-in-law,
and only escaped with my life through luck--and you?” with a moment’s
softening.
Who, indeed?
“After all,” Magdalen said to herself, “Dolly’s right. It’s her
business.”
Yet it was with a heavy heart that she paid the bill and followed Dolly
into the station and the four-wheeler. It was not by lies and hiding
they would escape from Stratharden, but----
A cold suspicion gripped her and a senseless one that. She looked at
Dolly’s feverish little face and held her tongue.
CHAPTER XVI.
“DARK MAGDALEN.”
Mr. Lovell sat earning his salary.
In a black temper he plodded through his developing, washed his
hands, decided the afternoon was too gray for photographic printing,
and walking out incontinently crossed Fleet Street and turned into a
labyrinth of dingy thoroughfares. If his brown face were a little paler
from spending his days over stuffy chemicals and his eyesight somewhat
strained on retouching ugly people’s portraits, his long, light step
was as usual. Half-a-dozen women glanced at the man as he passed them,
with his look of being clean outside and in, of careless strength, of
immaculate smartness in old blue serge clothes.
But Mr. Lovell had no eye for women, being engaged inwardly in
cursing his nearest relative up in heaps. Not that he had learned
anything new about him, nor heard anything tangibly annoying. But he
had a perfectly involuntary trick of putting two and two together
correctly; and the result to-day sickened him. So much so that as he
walked he deliberately assured himself that he had imagined the whole
thing--items added up and the result; after which he instantly reduced
several fractions to a common denominator and did the whole thing over
again.
“I wish to Heaven he’d marry again and migrate,” he thought in
exasperation, and turned impatiently into a tobacconist’s and bought a
handful of cigarettes. Good tobacco was wicked on a pound a week, and
Mr. Lovell, to be accurate, was hungry. Also it was tea-time, and for
a moment there came into his mind the carnal vision of his late club,
where there were comfortable chairs, hot toast and men of his own class
to speak to. His mouth set hard on his extravagant cigarette.
“I’ll go back when I’ve money to go,” he said to himself grimly,
“unless I find it necessary to return and put the fear of God into a
fool!” and his face was so forbidding that a girl who was coming down
the street almost changed her mind. For it was all very well to clear
out of an unpleasant and dependent situation, but when black suspicions
followed you that you were playing into some one’s hands by so doing it
spelled of cowardice.
“I’m ---- if it’s any business of mine!” thought Mr. Lovell angrily.
“Let him hang himself;” but in his soul he knew it was not that which
haunted him, but something quite Quixotic and outside the sympathy of a
man who had fallen from high estate to retouching photographs.
A woman’s black skirt brushed his boot and he drew back civilly.
The next second he threw a just-lighted cigarette into the street and
looked straight into a girl’s eyes.
“Mr. Lovell!” said Magdalen Clyde, her cheeks a pale flame, her eyes a
dark one.
Lovell made no answer, good or bad, and she turned white as she looked
away.
The lifting of his hat, the quick throwing away of his cigarette, had
been ordinary good manners; his eyes were hard as steel, his face
forbidding, and she had been glad to see him, gladder than of anything
else she had ever known. There was no earthly reason that he should be
pleased at seeing a girl he had only met twice in his life; but all the
same her shamed disappointment made her angry.
“‘A hard man with a soft manner,’” she quoted to herself involuntarily,
her eyes still on a grocer’s window opposite, so that she did not see
the change on Dick Lovell’s face as he looked down at her.
“It was odd, my meeting you,” she said indifferently. “I was startled.
Good-by,” with a little nod that she did not know was languid any more
than that her averted face was beautiful.
“Odd?” said Mr. Lovell, taking a quick step to her side as she would
have walked on. “I don’t know--I suppose so,” without a glimmer of just
how odd it was. “It’s a great pleasure at all events. I had no idea you
were even in town.”
“I came back three weeks ago,” she said, still without looking at him.
In Scotland, in a bad place, it had seemed so sure that this man was
a friend; here and now she knew the thought had been the thought of
a fool. She and Dolly, masquerading, could not dare to have friends
picked up at random. In the waning light she turned, her face
repellant, her eyes cold. She was worrying over unhatched chickens; Mr.
Lovell had made no sign of either friendliness or pleasure at seeing
her.
The sudden, sweet light in the eyes she met sent the blood to her
face. She stood for one breathless instant stock-still, three times
more beautiful than he had even dreamed, and all Dick Lovell’s uneasy
thoughts were gone at the lovely sight.
“I feel as if you’d waked me from a bad dream,” he said slowly. “Do you
know for a moment I could scarcely believe my eyes?”
“I know you terrified me,” observed Miss Clyde, marching on with a
queer feeling that she must get away from his eyes if she were wise. “I
never in my life saw anyone look more bad-tempered than you did when I
spoke to you.”
Lovell laughed, and looked ten years younger for it.
“Was that why you wouldn’t look at me?” he said boyishly. “I’ve been
in a black rage all day; more fool I! Are you going anywhere in
particular?” with a sudden knowledge that she meant to dismiss him, and
as sudden a determination that he would not submit to it.
“I’m going to that French bakery,” pointing across the street.
“So am I,” he calmly remarked. “I was going to have tea there. I
wonder--if you----” he stammered. Lovell, who had been the best-beloved
and worst-spoiled man in town, stammering at asking a girl to have tea!
A hundred thoughts went through Magdalen’s head before she answered.
She was tired out, lonely; why should she never be happy because of
Dolly’s cares? She threw the whole bundle of them aside and answered
the half-finished question demurely:
“I would, if there were little hot cakes.”
In Lovell’s pocket was the change those cigarettes had left from ten
shillings; his eyes smiled into hers with the reckless consciousness of
wealth.
“There shall be,” he averred, and he also cast a black care behind him
as they entered the little shop where the coffee was wonderful and the
tea weird.
Lovell, as he gave an order to the white-capped man behind the counter,
did not notice his companion pause and look back into the dingy
street. She made a little self-contemptuous movement, as no one of the
passers-by so much as glanced at Dufour’s.
It must have been fancy that ever since she stopped to speak to Lovell
some one had never let her get out of sight.
“I’m getting to be an awful fool,” the girl reflected swiftly. “This
hole-and-corner business of Doll’s, and her eternal cautions, are
making me nervous. We’re all right; we’ve sunk in London like stones
till I met him to-day. I don’t know why I’m so stupid; it was all so
much easier and quicker than I thought. It all went swimmingly.”
It certainly had. At three o’clock one day three weeks ago “Mrs.
Morton, child and maid” had departed from the Euston Hotel; at five
Lady Barnysdale--after nearly frightening Mr. Barrow into a fit by her
appearance, when he had just wired diplomatic condolences on her death
to Lord Stratharden--had left the lawyer’s office for Charing Cross and
Paris, with a hundred pounds in her pocket; at seven Mrs. Morton and
party had reappeared again at a modest hotel, the poorer by the price
of unused tickets to Paris, and Dolly had gone to bed and stayed there
for a week, after which she had emerged quite recovered and gayer than
the gay, had boldly gone out, trusting in a thick crepe veil and a
plausible tongue, and taken the upper part of a house in Hare Street.
To the vacating tenant, a milliner, she gave an extra ten pounds for
leaving her plate on the door, which was easily earned money to that
lady, who was retiring in disgust from a phantom business. It was,
therefore, from behind the neglected door-plate and the respectable
blinds of “Madame Aline, Robes and Modes,” that Miss Magdalen Clyde
had come out to-day in search of French bread; come out with an eye at
every corner and a firm determination to take to her heels at the sight
of the most innocuous Chinaman in London, and ended in Dufour’s shop,
with a dismissal of all her nervous tremblings and groundless fears
because a man’s hawk eyes were the eyes of a comrade as he came back to
her side.
“I ordered coffee,” said Lovell, and perhaps he had no idea what a
pleasant voice he had, nor what a tower of strength he looked in his
worn blue serge. “Their tea is horrible, but the little hot cakes!”
and he laughed as he stood back to let her pass into Mr. Dufour’s
respectable family tea-room.
To his surprise “the girl whose name was Magdalen” sat down at the
little marble table with undisguised fatigue. He wondered swiftly who
and what she was. His quick glance took in her smart black gown, her
chinchilla furs, the immaculate dressing of her lovely rust-colored
hair, her long, white hands as she took off her gloves. The left one
was no business of his, but a senseless pleasure made him smile as he
looked at it. Whoever she was she was nobody’s wife; Mr. Lovell had no
leaning toward other people’s property.
That she was a lady he did not even say to himself; it was too evident.
No one who put on make-up every night could have that sort of skin;
she was not an actress. Yet, somehow, she did not look like a girl who
did nothing; he was pretty certain that care and responsibility fell
on those shoulders; for every line of her was tired and lax in Mr.
Dufour’s hard chair; and yet she looked anything but poor.
That a girl he had met in Krug’s half-caste restaurant without benefit
of introduction, had followed it up by making no bones about coming to
tea with him, never entered the man’s head. The very look of her told
him there was never a girl in the world more unconscious of her strange
beauty than she.
“This isn’t a very grand place to bring you to,” he said with a sudden
consciousness that, for all he knew, she might be used to Prince’s
Restaurant. “But it’s quiet.”
Remembering Krug’s, he kept his tongue from “respectable.”
“Yes,” she said simply. She looked straight at him. “I suppose I should
not have come,” she observed calmly; “but I wanted to. I was tired. We
have just found new quarters--my sister and I. And--did you ever move?”
she suddenly and tragically inquired.
“I did. But as I had only myself and some clothes it was not
fatiguing,” rather grimly, remembering the house from which he had
departed in haste. “You look as if your removal had been tiresome. Will
you pour out the coffee, or shall I?”
“You,” with the smile that made her lovely. “I don’t do those things
well.”
“Non-sense!” said Lovell with a drawling sweetness that made the curt
word civil.
In complete happiness, such as neither had ever tasted in their lives,
the two sat at their little table. If for a moment the ghosts of the
many rebukes she had given with some point to Dolly, on the subject of
going to tea with unknown men, arose before Magdalen Clyde, she put
them behind her with determination. Dolly’s men and this man were not
alike; and for once she would let herself go, be young and gay and
happy like other girls, with no silly hiding to worry them. As for
Lovell, he was like a lost dog who has suddenly got home. No one would
ever have said he was grave and unhappy to-day.
The economical soul of Mr. Dufour had not lighted the gas in his
tea-room, which was getting dusky. With his hand on the matches, he
glanced with pleased sympathy at the two who took their coffee so
gaily, and were so appreciative of his hot cakes; glanced back at his
shop window, and drew a curtain noiselessly over the tea-room door.
M. Dufour, where a pretty woman was concerned, was a man of impulse, to
his own mind one of great insight; and----
He was putting cakes on a tray deliberately as a man entered his shop.
If M. Dufour had not liked his looks from outside he liked them still
less from in.
“The fat and furious husband!” said he to himself, with his best shop
smile. He did not move from his place by the tea-room door.
“Monsieur wanted?” he asked blandly. “Bread, cakes?--all of the best.”
The man laughed. If his manner meant to be pleasant it was not. M.
Dufour observed that utter silence reigned in his tea-room.
“Good food for women,” the new visitor returned patronizingly. “No; let
me have a light, will you? By the way, did a lady come in here half an
hour ago?”
“Several, monsieur.” M. Dufour’s box of matches was obsequiously held
out on a tray.
“Oh, damn the several! A pale girl with reddish hair?”
M. Dufour was a judge of beauty and his gorge rose.
“I did not observe,” he said with a shrug, “any red hair. One tall lady
arrived and has just departed through that door,” with a slighting wave
of his hand to his back entrance.
“You’ve a tea-room,” the visitor bluntly remarked in spite of a
thick-lipped smile. “I’ll have tea.”
“I regret it is impossible,” said the Frenchman smoothly. “My tea-room
is to-day closed. My wife is indisposed.”
He was too clever to give the man any idea that he was lying; he began,
apologetically, to recommend his little cakes. But it was to empty air.
The unwelcome customer--who had not paid for his box of matches--had
left the shop by the little-used back door.
To the proprietor’s eyes rose the bland light of the successful
diplomatist. The denied tea was of course a loss to business, but what
M. Dufour had begun to oblige his old customer, M. Lovell, he had
finished for personal dislike of a disagreeable man. He did not grudge
his sixpence thrown away.
“Also, I can charge extra for the coffee!” he thought with a pleasant
consciousness of having done a kind and tactful action.
It was a pity he could not have seen the reason for the sudden silence
in the tea-room. Magdalen, sitting very straight, had held up a warning
hand and sat listening. There was no mistaking Starr-Dalton’s voice; it
was odd that he had been in her thought all day.
As the door closed behind him she rose with a little laugh.
“Did you hear?” she said. “That man was looking for me. He used to come
to see us, and we hated him. We didn’t mean him to know we were in
London.”
There was careless scorn in her face, but there was also the cold,
intuitive hatred many a girl has for a bad man.
Lovell regarded her in silence. Whoever and whatever she was, there was
nothing milk-and-water about her.
“He shan’t know now if you don’t want him to,” he said. “You’re not
going because of him?” for she had risen.
“No,” truthfully enough. “It is quite time I was at home, though.”
Starr-Dalton was neither here nor there to her; it was not he who could
shatter the dream of peace that had come to her; the time was gone by
when she must be civil to him for the sake of borrowed money; she
could afford to be angry at his insolence in dogging her.
“I won’t have it,” she thought. “He shan’t follow me home and find
Dolly. I’ll drive,” but even as she thought her face fell; she had only
sixpence; a hansom was impossible, and to walk might mean running into
Starr-Dalton at the first corner.
She looked up and met Lovell’s eyes.
“Ready?” said he simply. “I’m going to take you home in a hansom if I
may.”
At the modest door where Madame Aline’s door-plate shone meagerly in
the gaslight she turned to him.
“You’ve been very kind,” she said a little uncomfortably, “and you
don’t even know my name”--for “Madame Aline’s sister” had not thought
of one, and did not dare to make one up on the spur of the moment.
“No.” Mr. Lovell perhaps helped her out with some haste. “I know--that
is--Madame Aline is quite enough for me!” with a glance at the
tarnished sign.
But when she had gone in and the hansom had driven off he put the two
shillings that remained to him into his pocket and laughed. Her name
had been settled for him long ago.
“Good-night, Dark Magdalen,” said he to a shut door, and lifted his hat
as he turned away.
CHAPTER XVII.
FOR THE HOUSE OF BARNYSDALE.
Up and down the empty corridors of an empty house Mrs. Keith walked,
gaunt and old. Never in all her seventy years had it come home to her
that Ardmore Castle was an eery house when the rain rained every day
and the wind whined through the long nights, but she knew it now.
“Soft David” sat by the kitchen fire caring for nothing but his meals;
in the maid’s room Sophy and Grizel were cheerful in a Scotch and sour
way, but the housekeeper could take no rest. Something that she had
never spoken of had shaken her nerve, for her old eyes grew fiercer
every day as she went on those needless errands through the silent
house.
Stratharden and his men had gone, after being interrupted in their
useless search of Clyde waters by that telegram from Mr. Barrow, which
for a second time snatched the bread from a needy man’s mouth.
Perhaps he was too busy in keeping a decent pleasure on his own face
to notice other people’s; he did not see the sudden twitch of the
housekeeper’s hard old mouth as she heard in silence that the usurpers
of Ardmore were better employed than in tossing drowned and stark in
the Clyde. It was queer that as the days ran on to weeks a restlessness
grew on the old woman.
It took her day after day to watch for the post-boy, who never came.
Her restlessness led her everywhere in the house but into the locked-up
chapel, where no step but hers had been these twenty years gone.
Perhaps she did not know herself what she expected, nor why she could
not sleep at night for thinking of the dead, but when one day the big
bell of the front door rang in the silence of twilight, the old blood
leaped in her worn-out veins.
“Bide where ye are!” she cried fiercely to Sophy, and ran past her, a
gaunt, ungainly figure in her clean cotton gown.
Her hand shook on the door-handle as she turned the key; but when the
door stood wide it was steady as stone and colder.
It was Stratharden who waited on the step.
“Were you all asleep?” said he with that smile which was not smiling.
“I’ve nearly rung the house down.” He could not see her face as he
stepped into the cold, dark house, nor did he think of looking at it.
“Ye were not expected, Stratharden,” and if the words were apologetic
the tone was not. “Yer bed’ll not be aired.”
“Oh, air it, then, and don’t talk!” said the man with a sudden
irritation not usual to him; but the next instant his voice and manner
were his own again and smooth as silk. “My dear woman I’m tired and
anxious, that’s why I’m here. Get me some dinner like a good soul, and
then I’ll talk to you. I assure you I’m worn out.”
“Ye’re looking well,” she dryly returned in the way he had known since
childhood.
She walked before him and knelt with cracking joints to light the fire
that was already laid in the dining-room. But the air of the deserted
room struck chill to Lord Stratharden’s bones.
“I’ll come to your room till this is habitable,” he said urbanely. “I’m
sure you keep yourself warmer than this.”
“At your pleasure,” was all she said, but he was used to her hard
speech and had not expected better. Armed neutrality had reigned
between the two for twenty years, except for that brief time when they
had combined against a common foe.
“Hard old devil!” said Lord Stratharden to himself, as he sat down in
her comfortable sitting-room. “She’d have let me freeze rather than
offer it. But she is a very faithful, well-meaning woman.” He smiled to
himself and said it over again as if it pleased him.
When she had finished serving his dinner--and if Dolly had been
half-starved, Stratharden was scrupulously well fed--he stopped her
as she put the decanter in front of him before leaving the room. The
old woman was too well used to him to notice that he would have been
a good-looking man, for all his forty-five years, if he could have
learned to keep his crooked eyebrows quiet in an otherwise impassive
face. One was lifted higher than the other now as he turned round in
his chair to her.
“Have you heard from Lady Barnysdale?” he quietly asked.
“Not I.” She never moved a muscle. “Did ye expect me to?”
“No, I didn’t.” He looked at the port in his glass, tasted it, put it
down again. “In fact, I should have been surprised if you had. But Lady
Barnysdale--I may as well tell you--is not in Paris, never has been
there. I am more troubled than I can say.”
Mrs. Keith sat down unbidden.
“I’m to close the house, then?” said she stolidly.
Stratharden looked round the half-warmed dining-room with a shrug.
“How do I know?” he responded. “You take your orders from Lady
Barnysdale, not me.”
“A woman that ye said was crazy,” scornfully.
It never occurred to Stratharden to look for the root of the
contemptuous fling.
“I suppose it isn’t in nature that you should like it,” he said kindly,
“but till Lady Barnysdale does something mad, before all the world, you
can’t call anyone else mistress here. No woman in her senses would have
gone off to London without so much as letting us know she was safe, nor
have seen fit to disappear ever since, by pretending to go to Paris. I
don’t know what to do. For all I know it isn’t safe to leave the little
boy in her care. I ought, in all prudence, to know at least where she
is.”
Mrs. Keith sat in open, unalloyed indifference. Lady Barnysdale, with
her furious rages, her flighty speech, which the old Scotch woman
thought indecent and unintelligible, had borne out Stratharden’s
warnings about her well enough; her attempt to escape from Ardmore in
her best widow’s weeds on a wet day would have clinched them, had it
been needed. Mad or sane, she cared not a jot about Lady Barnysdale,
but for some reason she did not say so.
“Ye can find out,” said she coolly. He could not dream her gnarled
hands were clasped hard under her apron as she waited for him to answer.
“Unfortunately I cannot personally!” and she saw the uncontrolled rage
in his eyes. “I have to go away, out of England, on business.”
“I always said ye were a fool to traffic with the Jews,” she dryly
remarked.
Her apt guess at the cold truth made him laugh, as another man would
have sworn. There was not a man in England that night more embarrassed
than Lord Stratharden.
“Let that be,” said he softly. “Some one has to find Lady Barnysdale,
and I can’t do it.”
“What ails yer heathen?”
“Just that--he’s a heathen--and people look at him when he walks in the
street. Look here, Keith--in common humanity that woman must be found
and looked after. You remember how we had to watch her here.”
“What may be ye’re meaning, Stratharden?” said the old woman quietly.
“Just what I’ve said. Lady Barnysdale, to my knowledge and belief, is
as irresponsible as a child. I have to go away, but I ought to know at
least where Barnysdale’s son is--and I want you to go to London and
find out.”
“There’s detectives.” Her eyes were dull under their thin lashes.
“And policemen on the street corners. I want neither. You’re faithful,
if you do care more for the name than for me; you know London----”
A dull red burned to the woman’s cheek; she had reason to know London,
but it was not Stratharden who should tell her so.
“Would ye have me knock at every door in the place and inquire if my
Lady Barnysdale is within?” she wrathfully cried.
“Don’t, don’t treat me like a fool!” he answered smilingly.
“Oh, I’d put that past ye!” she said politely, but his eyebrows
twitched.
“I want you to take a lodging opposite the bank she must go to for
her money,” he said, with a sudden savage earnestness. “I’m certain
she’s in London, in spite of that fool Barrow. And she’ll have to
have money. If I know her sort, a hundred pounds won’t last her long.
And now you can take it or leave it. I’ll pay your expenses and wages,
besides what you’re getting, and all you’ll do for them will be to sit
at your window in banking hours and wait till she goes in. Then you can
take a cab, follow her home, and telegraph to me where she is. Then you
can take the first train for home. For the honor of the name, that boy
must be taken care of.”
“And supposing she does not go herself? How long will I be in London
then? She’d a sister that I never laid eyes on but once,” she musingly
remarked. “Maybe she’d go in and out before my eyes and I not know
her--but that she’d dark hair.”
“Dark? You’re dreaming! Dull-red, that doesn’t grow on every bush. And
tall--you’d know her.”
“Oh, ay! Tall? And dark-eyed?”
“I never saw her eyes.”
“You peeked through the windows hard enough,” she bluntly asserted.
“She had her back to me. Why the devil do you harp on her? If you won’t
go, say so. I suppose Ah Lee can look through a window as well as you.”
Mrs. Keith took one glance at him.
“I’ll go,” she said. “He’ll perhaps not know London ‘as I do.’”
Ah, he did not know how the words had made an old and savage score
against him leap to life.
Lord Stratharden leaned back in his chair as if he were suddenly tired.
He had, in very truth, no one to send on his philanthropic errand but
this old woman. Without James he could not hope to leave England,
and leave he must; and he had no desire that Ah Lee, suavely and
conspicuously exotic, should do what an elderly Scotch woman could do
unnoticed.
“Thank you, Keith,” he said. “Here is your money.” And truly it was
hard-earned and ill-spared.
“You have never failed the house, have you?” his voice light with
relief.
The housekeeper stood up with a curious pride.
“I’ve never failed the house, my lord,” said she. “But I’ll take no
wages for doing your work. I’m well paid. And where will I let ye know
when I find the lady?”
He wrote on a card and gave it to her.
“And Buff Ogilvie, too?” she said dryly, when she read it.
“No, not Buff! And if you see him, the thing is no concern of his,”
casually. “But you’d better take the money.”
“Ye’ll not be too throng of it there!” she returned, with a cool glance
at the card.
Out in the hall she paused and spat upon the ground.
“I’ll take no blood-money for the work I’ll do for the house of
Barnysdale,” she said, under her breath. “And I’ll do my work well.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
EYES TO THE BLIND.
Aunt Manette sat alone in her neat room at her eternal knitting.
If her blind eyes could not see the comfort of her glowing coal
fire and her shining lamp, perhaps she felt it, for night after
night she sat between them, as women do who can see. There was a
curious, dull depression on her clear-cut old face to-night; even her
knitting-needles moved slowly. There was no sense in the work; when it
was done, she did not need the money; no sense in her life that from
her third-story room in Hare’s Rents was one interminable, helpless
search after the lost things of this world.
“I’m old,” she thought to herself, with a sudden sick tremor. “Old; and
I’ll die alone, with it all undone;” for, in plain words, the man who
had patiently done her work for her had given it up to-day. She did not
know where to turn for another who could be trusted to be eyes to the
blind.
“But I’ll find one,” she thought, with an ugly gentleness that her
fingers copied in their slowing knitting. “If I’ve time,” and she
laughed.
There was time in plenty, if nothing else, for a woman who sat her
days out in blindness. A sound on the stairs made her lift her head,
lean forward to listen, as blind people do. She put down her knitting
with a curiously dainty gesture for a woman who lived in Hare’s Rents,
and pulled the string that opened her door. The steps came closer and
paused in the flood of cheerful light from the narrow doorway.
“What!” cried a voice, and the low, rich note of it struck pleasantly
on the woman’s ears. “Sitting idle, Aunt Manette? Upon my honor, you’re
degenerating. You’ll be getting quite human next.”
Aunt Manette breathed through her nose; from the hall came a scent that
brought back a thousand things. She crossed the room briskly and laid
her small hand on the man’s arm unerringly, without effort.
“I was waiting for you!” she cried--though she had never given him a
thought. “Come in, my friend! I had the spleen. I said to myself, ‘I
will make a little festival for my photographer and me.’”
Dick Lovell looked down at the handsome old face kindly.
“That is just what you would not let me be!” said he smiling. “But am
I really to come in?” Compared to his dreary bedroom up-stairs, this
room, full of firelight, of blossoming flowers, was like another world.
“Oh, yes! Have I not waited?” she composedly asked. “Never mind the
door; you cannot shut it.”
She moved to her chair as lightly as a girl and undid the stout cord
twisted round a knob on the arm.
“So that’s how you do it--and sit still!” said Lovell laughingly. “It’s
clever, Aunt Manette,” and he looked at the cord that ran round the
wall on two pulleys.
“Not clever, but useful,” observed his hostess, rather dryly. “Sit
down, monsieur.”
For a moment he could not rid himself of the idea that she could see
him, for she stood as if thinking, her bright brown eyes full on his
face. But she turned away with that pathetic groping movement of the
blind which she so seldom allowed herself.
“Let me,” he cried, jumping up, as she took a shining white table-cloth
from a chair.
“You would confuse me,” she said laughing. “I have not the eyes to
oversee a clumsy young man.” With that curious seeing glance at him
that was but the remnants of an old habit when the eyes of Manette
Duplessis had never missed their man.
Without a mistake or hesitation she laid her table for two, produced
from a cupboard a bottle, of which the seal made Lovell’s eyes open,
and went to her brick hearth. A pot stood there, and, as she lifted its
cover, the odor of it was more suited to a prince’s kitchen than a room
in Hare’s Rents.
“A dish?” Lovell said, seeing her pause.
“To ruin it! No, no; you help yourself from my pot--so!” and she deftly
twisted a napkin round the earthenware jar. “A French dish,” she said;
“and you are English. But you will not wish it were roast beef.”
A French dish! He saw with wonder as she helped him that it was
something even few French cooks make. Pheasant, boned and filleted,
cooked in Madeira with mushrooms, truffles, numerous things that were
not cheap. As he took up his fork he saw it was silver, with a crest on
it; and because his hostess could not see him do it, did not look at
the device.
“A poor feast, this,” said Aunt Manette, gaily as a girl. “But the main
dish I made myself.”
“You!” He was surprised out of his manners.
“The secret,” she went on gravely, “is to keep the cover tight with a
seal of paste. Oh, I can cook many things, Mr. Lovell. To eat well is
an art. It keeps the blood young.”
And young she looked as she sat opposite him, her face smooth under her
nunlike head-dress, her hands white and fine. He wondered somehow that
anyone so clever as she looked could be so kind, and to an acquaintance
who had begun by unwittingly annoying her.
It never struck him that her invitation had been pure selfishness. Her
thoughts had been heavy, hopeless; though she would not think so. And
he was a gentleman, of a class she seldom came in contact with; was
young; he would distract her with his talk, cheer her with his company,
which was cheap at the price of some pheasant and a bottle of wine.
She was more interested, too, than she had imagined possible. Her keen
sense felt there was a change to-night in the man. His step, that was
always light, had been gay as he ran up the stairs, when she waylaid
him. She held up her glass of red wine with a gesture foreign enough to
Hare’s Rents.
“I drink,” said she, “to the good fortune that has come to you to-day.”
Lovell leaned forward and touched her glass with his, but there was
surprise in his face.
“Are you a witch, Aunt Manette?” he said slowly. “How did you know?”
“You told me,” with a smile. “You come up-stairs three steps at a
time--from work that you dislike! You stop to call me idle, who have
before begged me to rest; and--it was very extravagant tobacco, Mr.
Lovell!” she gravely declared.
He laughed, throwing back his handsome head in a way many women had
loved who were not blind. His whole face lit into sweetness as he
looked at her. Perhaps she felt it, for she wished for the first time
that she could see him.
“The tobacco was before the luck,” he said, “so you’re out in your
sorcery. But it’s been all luck to-day. I was going to dine on a baked
potato when you asked me to dine here. But I’d better go--since I reek
of Turkish tobacco!”
“Egyptian,” she corrected. She got up and brought over a brass
coffee-pot from the brick hob. “On the contrary, you will smoke more of
it--here! And you will prepare a cigarette for an old woman.”
If Mr. Lovell was surprised he did not show it. He saw her go back to
her big chair and draw slowly, daintily, at the cigarette he lighted
for her, and saw that the scent of it made her face soft, as if it
brought back her youth. But he did not see that to smoke a cigarette
like this was to let herself remember that youth was dead--and
fruitless. She broke the silence suddenly.
“Was it the tobacco or the good luck that reduced your pocket to a
naked potato?” she asked.
“It is always the tobacco!” returning the glance he eternally forgot
was blind.
“But tell me of her--your good luck; is she beautiful? But, of course,
since I shall see her only in your thoughts of her,” not without
sarcasm. “Fair and small and blond, since you are brown-skinned and
tall.”
“She is none of the three, but----” he stopped himself.
“How do I know how you look? Oh, you need not beg my pardon! It is not
a secret that I am blind. You have a pleasant voice, you walk easily,
with long legs--not quick, quiet, like the short. That is simple
enough. But now about your good luck--who is not fair?”
The man stared at the fire. Old, lonely and blind, there was no reason
he should not tell her all she cared to know. That an old woman--with
a history--who had come down--for some reason that was not poverty--to
Hare’s Rents--should praise her beauty, could not hurt Dark Magdalen.
“I can hardly tell you what she’s like,” he said slowly. “It sounds
so strange, so ugly, if you have not seen her. She is tall, she has a
graceful neck--long, round, with a curve.”
The old woman nodded. He was not a fool, then, since he began with that
neck.
“Oh,” he said rather desperately. “I can’t tell you very well. She’s
tall and slim, and strong; but you don’t think of that, because she
has an indescribable kind of grace. And she’s black and white and red.”
It is to be hoped he did not see his hearer shudder.
“So exquisite, those English apple cheeks,” she returns, too politely.
“Apple cheeks!” he laughed out. “Good Heavens, Aunt Manette, I didn’t
mean she had red cheeks! She’s white, dead-white, with the blackest
eyes and eyebrows I ever saw. All the red of her is in her hair; and
that’s not red, either, but dull--almost the color of rusty iron.”
Aunt Manette said one word in French. It might have been anything, but
it was so low that Lovell never noticed it. She turned her indifferent
face away a fraction.
“Hair _chatain foncé_?” she said.
“No, not dark-chestnut at all. Duller, richer--you could not know
unless you saw her.”
“I shall see on the judgment day, in the afternoon,” she cried, with
sudden, fierce profanity. “Bah! Go on. Never mind my feelings; you have
not hurt them. The make of her face, her features?” Under her black
gown her foot tapped hard on the floor.
“Curious,” he said, shutting his eyes to bring that face up on a black
swimming background. “Very delicate and very strong, like a profile on
a coin; cut in a little at the sides of the chin; a mouth perfectly
brave, perfectly generous; a little too firm--for a woman.”
Aunt Manette got up, almost feebly. The next minute a cold breath
rushed through the room from the window she had flung up. Her voice
came back a little uncertainly as she leaned out.
“A strong cigarette when one is unaccustomed to the habit,” she said.
“You will forgive me?” She closed the window and came back to her seat;
certainly she was pale.
“I’ve tired you,” Lovell said contritely. “Wouldn’t you like me to go?”
Go! She would have stuck a knife into him sooner than let him go now.
She laughed rather sharply.
“No, no!” she said. “I forget that one should only do foolish things
when one is young. I like to hear you talk. I----”--her face was
strangely pathetic--“would you, M. Lovell, tell a woman who is but a
blind old wreck and cannot leave her own four walls, the name of that
girl who is black and white and red?”
Lovell moved uneasily on his chair.
“The only name she has, to my knowledge,” he said softly, “is
Magdalen--Dark Magdalen.”
The French woman’s face froze over.
“You mean--she is----” There was anger in her voice.
“No,” he abruptly cut in. “She’s a lady; she makes dresses, or hats,
or something. Her name is Magdalen. She has ‘Madame Aline’ on her
door-plate, and that’s all I know about her.”
Aunt Manette nodded with a curious relief.
“The name,” she said, “frightened me. And do you go to see her, this
lady who makes hats in Bond Street?”
There was something so wistfully kind in her blind face that Lovell
said something he had not meant to.
“She doesn’t live in Bond Street; she lives just round the corner, in
this very block of buildings. That’s part of my luck.”
“But,” the old woman was bewildered; “this building, so poor, so--who
would come here for hats?”
“I forgot you couldn’t know,” he gently explained. “It is like this,
Aunt Manette. Our side of the buildings is un-get-at-able, except
through that dirty lane. No one would take the rooms, they tell me, so
they let them to poor people cheaply. We live on the west side; you go
out round the corner to the north side, which is better than this; the
east side, where she lives, has shops underneath and offices and flats
above. It is as if it were twenty miles from our side.”
“And what is between?”
“Oh, a dark court.”
The woman to whom all the world was dark closed her eyes as if they
hurt her.
“She perhaps lives with her mother,” she suggested indifferently.
“I don’t know.” Lovell rose, for his hostess was leaning back wearily.
“Good night, Aunt Manette,” he said, with that graceful manner she
could not see.
Her fine, small hand closed on his for an instant.
“You will come again, of your good heart,” she said gently. “It is a
good deed to the blind.”
When he was gone she sat for a long time without moving, till suddenly
she cried out in a kind of passion.
“A lucky, lucky star, but not yours, my photographer! And yet--why
should I think it? It will go like the rest. Oh!”--and uncertainty
caught her brave old heart and tore it--“Oh, this Dark Magdalen that I
cannot see.”
CHAPTER XIX.
“GOOD LORD, DELIVER US!”
For a woman come to London on Lord Stratharden’s unselfish business,
Mrs. Keith behaved peculiarly, and according to no one’s lights but her
own.
She took a lodging opposite the Court Street branch of the London and
Provincial Bank, certainly, but she was seldom in it, and never once
looked out of the window. There was plenty of time for that, though
if Stratharden had been in England she might not have thought so.
But his lordship was tightly and financially tied up at Ostend, and
likely to be so till kingdom come. Mrs. Keith did not take him into her
calculations at all.
She went her way to Mr. Barrow’s office at a time when he was certain
not to be there--and interviewed his head clerk, a Scotchman and an old
friend. The two--who were reticent enough to the outside world--unbent
in cheerful conversation; Mr. Fleming had not spent so pleasant an hour
for many a day. But when Mrs. Keith left the office, a respectable,
unnoticed old person in decent black, her face changed.
“The devil’s in playhouses,” said she, “but I doubt I’m over old to be
affected,” and she stopped an omnibus. Two addresses had Mr. Fleming
let fall in the joy of conversing in broad Scotch; Mrs. Keith, who
“knew London,” proceeded to both of them by bus. It took some time, but
it was her own money she was spending; and time was more plenty than it
was.
When she got home to her lodgings she was worn out. She sat over her
tea as if she could not rouse herself.
It was queer; but she was only disappointed that it was not queerer.
“I’ve spent ninepence on gadding,” she said to herself, bringing her
hard fist down on the table, “and all I’ve found out is that the daft,
flighty body Barnysdale married never had any sister. The manager man,
with his smirks, was sure about that. ‘Miss Dorothy Deane,’” with a
mincing imitation like anything on earth but her model, “‘was quite
alone in the world. He remembered her perfectly, since she had never
been employed anywhere but at his theater. He had been delighted to
hear she had done so well for herself. Of course, when she married no
one had any idea that she had married an earl. She was a pretty little
thing, with her fair hair, and was very popular at the theater. It had
always been a marvel to him that she did not return to the stage. That
was a lucky escape she had had, by the way, from that terrible carriage
accident.’”
Sentence by sentence Mrs. Keith went over all the information she had
gained, and found it wanting.
“It’s not Dorothy Deane,” and she sniffed contemptuously, “that I’m
wanting. It’s a woman named Duplessis. You can’t climb a tree from
the top. I’ll begin at the weary old root again. Her name was Ninon
Duplessis, and she’s been dead fifteen years. I’ll write it down. I’m
not good at saying it the way he did.”
She finished her tea deliberately, and got out ink and paper. When
she was done, it was a curious document her knotted old fingers had
written. She blotted the last wet lines of it on clean white blotting
paper, and put it in her petticoat pocket.
“That’ll make it clear to him,” said she contentedly, “when it’s
time to go to the prying man. But that’s not yet. First, I’ll put my
finger--and that’s not Stratharden’s--on my Lady Barnysdale!” And at
the look of her Dolly might have shaken in her shoes. There was no
pity for her or Ronald in Mrs. Keith.
During the next day or two she went about in queer places, but she
might as well have stayed at home. She came on nothing, met the same
old stumbling-blocks that had tripped her fifteen years ago. When the
week was out it might have edified Lord Stratharden to see the faithful
Keith seated all day long at her second-floor window, even if he were
not pleased that her spectacles raked the street in vain.
“I’ll take the air,” she thought one fine morning, being cramped to
death from the inactive life. “I’ll be back before the bank opens,” and
it was odd that she had not cared when first she came to London how
many times Lady Barnysdale might have got money without her knowledge,
while now she watched for her as if life and death depended on it. But
at a quarter to nine in the morning the most zealous watch would be
wasted. Mrs. Keith put on her unornamental bonnet and went out.
When, on the stroke of ten, she returned, she stood aghast and
indignant on her threshold. A man sat by the table, perfectly at home,
for his strong cigar made even Keith cough.
“Get out of my room, ye----” she began furiously, when he turned his
face to her. Strong old woman as she was, she leaned against the
door-post.
“Stratharden!” she cried, and would sooner have seen the devil. “How
came ye here?”
“To see how you’re getting on”--to her startled senses his voice was
ominously smooth--“and to help you. Come in, my good soul, and shut the
door! This isn’t Ardmore Castle.”
If she had been staggered she recovered herself finely.
“Ye terrified me,” said she grimly. “Have ye no sense better than to
come where they might jail ye for debt?” and she shut the door before
she said it.
“Might have--not might,” corrected his lordship. “I’m a free man,
Keith; I needn’t trouble you any longer. My debts are paid, at least
enough to whitewash me.”
“Then there’s fools in the world,” was the woman’s calm comment.
“Thank Heaven!”
“It was not them that lent the money I was meaning,” she responded
significantly, but the next minute she wished with late wisdom that
she had held her tongue. There was something she did not like in her
visitor’s manners; she looked at him angrily, and spoke to cover her
foolish fling at him, in a sudden, dreadful uneasiness that he might
know what it meant.
“Think of it, Stratharden!” she cried. “Can ye not see ye’ll be in
bondage to her for that paying of yer debts? And that money--I’d have
seen ye in jail before ye’d borrowed it!”
“You’re a Presbyterian, my faithful Keith,” returned the man lazily.
“And now, having borrowed, and being out of jail, I’ll let you go home,
and I’ll find out my poor little sister-in-law by myself. I’m afraid
you’re a poor detective; but you think it underhand work I dare say.”
Mrs. Keith’s hand was on her pocket; but the folded paper was there.
She executed a nimble flank movement and established herself fair and
square in the window.
“If you mean I’ve been neglecting my orders,” she said sturdily, “I
haven’t. There’s been no Lady Barnysdale at that bank yet. Would ye
have me sit here at five in the morning? I was out, but ye saw me come
back ere they opened their doors.”
He could not see that she was looking up and down the street in an
agony of terror. Fool that she had been to let things take their
course, to trust to time. She should have ransacked all London, have
had her finished business in her hand to meet him with. Blood and bone
she knew Stratharden, and there was that in his soft manner that told
her that he had been too sharp for her. What should she do, if this
day, of all days, Lady Barnysdale should come to the bank? She threw
the window up and leaned out.
“You’re a zealous, faithful creature, Keith!” observed his lordship
kindly. “But I shan’t need you any more. I dare say you’ll be glad to
get back to Davie.”
The paper in the old woman’s pocket crackled as she leaned against the
window-sill, and the sound of it did her good. “He was always like
that,” she reflected, “as if he knew something you did not want known,”
but there was something he could not know while that paper was safe
in her pocket. If only Lady Barnysdale did not come to the bank this
morning! And for a woman who had a contemptuous hatred for another, it
was odd that Mrs. Keith prayed, standing, that she might not so come;
odder, too, that, like a woman in agony, she only knew she prayed, and
not that all her prayer was one sentence over and over, and that from
no Presbyterian petition.
“You’ll strain your eyes out, Keith,” observed the kind Stratharden.
“And my poor little sister-in-law, who was terrified of you, could see
you yards away. Give me your place!”
“Good Lord, deliver us! Good Lord, deliver us!” If a mind can jabber,
hers did it then. But she never moved.
There was a hired brougham coming down the street. She knew, like a
woman possessed, who was in it. And Stratharden sat still behind her.
If she faced him she might keep him there, but never long enough, never.
“Ye’re very anxious for one that’s no fool, Stratharden,” said she
acridly. “I’ll draw back from the window when it’s time I should not be
seen there.”
Was he moving? She dared not look to see, so fast was that brougham
coming down the street.
“Good Lord, deliver us!” she thought faster than ever. Her stiff old
arm was bent from the elbow close against her breast; she dared not
fling it out, dared not call. But her hand Stratharden could not see.
She motioned with it from the wrist, frantically; her body between it
and Stratharden, her arm and shoulder still; caught a look from black
eyes in the brougham window, pointed again with her gnarled fingers,
and saw a hand fall from the unpulled check-string.
They were gone, the street was empty; she had won--for to-day.
Stratharden’s hand fell on her shoulder; she hardly felt it, yet
somehow it had thrust her aside like a reed.
He had leaned past her, and had flung his cigar into the street.
There was fury and triumph in her eyes as she watched his apparently
unconscious, careless gesture, and the next second a startling
suspicion aroused her.
Stratharden had turned and laughed softly in her face.
“So you’ve a friend with black eyes,” he said. “You seem exhausted,
Keith; you don’t look well. Come with me, and we’ll take your ticket
for home. There’s a train at twelve.”
“And your bidding not done,” she remarked, careless which way he took
it.
“There’s no hurry about it. Besides, I don’t think you’ll be able to do
it. Go and pack your clothes.”
A terrible old woman Magdalen Clyde had thought her. She gritted her
teeth in weakness, and turned on him, terrible once more. “I took none
of your money, Stratharden,” she said. “I’ll take none of your orders.
I’ll leave when I’m ready. And now ye can go.”
“Oh, if that’s it, we won’t quarrel over it!” he said easily. “I didn’t
know it was a holiday jaunt. But if you’re wise, you’ll go to Ardmore.
You’re getting old, my good soul, old and perhaps a little foolish. You
can forget all I said about finding Lady Barnysdale, for I don’t know
that I care especially where she is. I won’t forget how you tried to
help me, and that’s the great thing. Good-by and, by the way, Keith,
what you have in your mind is a mare’s nest, and I think you’ll find it
so.” His laugh was so real that the housekeeper turned away her head.
When she looked around he was gone.
She looked round the room wildly; then, lest each flying second should
mean something, she sat herself down to think. He knew! And what she
had written out was in her pocket, unless she had been a fool and made
a mistake.
But it was not that. What she had written was in her hand, and she had
asked no question anywhere that could have come to his ears. He might
have searched the room while she was out, and found nothing.
With a snarl of rage she saw something, and ran to it with shaking
knees. The blotting-book lay humped on the table, as she had not left
it; and the hump, as she flung it open, was made of a tiny mirror such
as some men carry about with them. She saw, and did not know what it
meant; but as she jerked the mirror up against the edge of the book,
the reflection in it caught her eye--the writing, left to right in the
glass, plain.
“And me that did not know,” said Mrs. Keith. “And he’s found me out!”
She dropped her face on her hands. “Good Lord, deliver us!”
For there would be no doing what she meant to do now. The girl herself
was the only key, and Stratharden had seen her and her black eyes,
knew all that Keith thought, prayed, hoped. She lifted her head, and
her face was gray.
“He was oversoft,” she thought painfully, for the horror that was
on her had stunned her. “He saw that, and he saw her, and, for all
I know----” A thrill shook her to her deadened soul. By her very
door-steps had she not seen a Chinaman pass by as she entered, and
had not so much as looked at his face! “I’ll never see her more,” she
moaned. “I’ll never know.” Without speech with the girl, there was no
detective in England who could help her, and she knew it; knew, too,
that Stratharden’s Chinaman had followed Lady Barnysdale and her sister
home, at his bidding, when he threw his cigar into the street.
“He shan’t do it!” she thought. “I’ll warn the police----” She abruptly
stopped.
Warn them of what? A foolish surmise, a tissue of imaginations? End her
days in a madhouse for telling a story without a leg to stand on. Her
gray head dropped on her hands.
“Good Lord, deliver us, indeed!”
CHAPTER XX.
DOLLY TAKES FEAR BY THE THROAT.
In the brougham Magdalen sat petrified with amazement. It had been
Mrs. Keith, and no other, at the window, crooked bonneted, wild-eyed,
motioning frantically to her not to stop. Keith, whom Dolly had thought
the trusted ally of Stratharden. She could not understand it.
Dolly caught her by the arm.
“Did you see them?” she cried. “That old wretch, and Stratharden behind
her? They saw us; perhaps they’ll follow us home. I won’t be found. I
won’t!”
She poked her head out of the carriage window.
“Charing Cross Station!” she ordered. “And be quick.” She thanked
Heaven they had walked to a livery stable and taken the man there. He
knew no address, if he were asked for one.
She sat in feverish silence till they got out in the crowded station,
scarcely spoke till they were lost in the busy throng, had emerged in
a maze of back streets that would take them home. Then she stamped her
foot as she walked, with Ronald running by her side.
“How dare he watch for me? It’s no business of his where I am,” she
said. “And if he’s living opposite the bank, with that wicked old devil
Keith, I can’t get any money; for I won’t have them following me home.”
“You’re walking too fast for Ronald,” said Magdalen; she picked him up
in her strong young arms. “Dolly, I can’t understand you. I don’t think
I ever could. If you don’t want to go to the bank, make a check payable
to Madame Aline, and I’ll go with it.”
“And Providence will identify you, I suppose,” she dryly remarked;
“and old Keith won’t know your black-and-white face and her head! She
could follow you home as well as me, couldn’t she? You know yourself
they tried their hardest to get him out of the way,” her keen fixed
eyes on Ronald. “If they find us they’ll do it again.”
“Look here,” said Magdalen. “I can’t see any sense in all this.
Stratharden knows you’re here. Why don’t you snap your fingers at him
and go about openly? Anyone would think you’d been going to steal from
the bank! It’s your own money. Why don’t you face Stratharden, and
speak out what we know? But hold your tongue if you like, but stop this
idiotic hiding.”
“I’m afraid,” and thick fear was in her voice. “Afraid for Ronald.”
For an instant Magdalen paused. There was one thing that made her think
there was sense in this madness of Dolly’s. Mrs. Keith had been afraid,
too. It was that desperate, earnest terror in the old woman’s face that
had made Magdalen drop the check-string unpulled. With all her soul
the housekeeper had warned them not to stop. But in the safe, busy
London streets common sense spoke loud to her. Here there could be no
hole-and-corner poisoning, no keeping them prisoners here.
“Be reasonable, Dolly!” she cried. “What could they do if they found
us, a hundred times? Or, if you’re really afraid of them, tell the
police. And if you won’t, I will. Why should we hide like criminals?”
“Do you want to kill me with your police? Isn’t it enough that I’m
frightened, that I’ve no money----”
“Oh, Dolly,” her stepsister’s voice cut her short with a kind of
despair in it, “why won’t you trust me? You’ve something behind all
this. Tell me, let me help you.”
“It’s nothing,” said Lady Barnysdale. “Noth----” The words died on her
lips.
Face to face with them, a gardenia in his creased frock coat, an
immaculate tie round a twice-worn collar, was Starr-Dalton.
He stopped, flushed dull-red with incredulous triumph, and stood hat in
hand, barring the way. It was no news to him that Dolly was in London,
but he had thought her harder to find than this. His coarse smile was
odious.
“Dolly, oh, forgive me--Lady Barnysdale!” he cried, his red-rimmed eyes
on hers. “What a charming meeting! But somehow I fancied you wouldn’t
stay long out of London.”
Fancied! Magdalen’s blood boiled. When she knew that he knew. Was she
to be worried with Starr-Dalton, when Dolly was already doing her best
to give Stratharden an excuse for calling her crazy? And Dolly, the
color of ashes, was stopping.
“Come on!” said Magdalen sharply.
Not a word had she said about Lovell, for fear of Dolly’s laughter
and worse; not a word about the dogging of her steps by the man who
stood smiling before her, but it came back to her now with all its
intolerable impertinence.
She took no notice of Mr. Starr-Dalton by word or look; she could have
shaken Dolly in her fury that in the middle of things that mattered she
should care whether a man like this met them or not. For she looked as
if she would faint in the street.
“Come, Dolly!” she cried. “Here’s a hansom”--for it was the only way to
be rid of him; she knew of old how he stuck.
Dolly’s little, nervous hand caught her arm like a claw.
“I’m going to walk,” she said, and something in her voice turned the
girl’s heart cold. “Don’t you know Mr. Starr-Dalton, Magdalen?”
“Quite as well as I want to.”
Even Starr-Dalton, who did not admire her, saw the stare she gave him
was superb.
“Don’t talk nonsense about walking, Dolly. Here’s a cab.”
“How have I offended Miss Magdalen?” Mr. Starr-Dalton gazed fishily at
the sky. “I apologize until I hear. But if she says you are to drive
home she is probably right.”
He held up a hand to summon a second hansom.
Magdalen was livid with fury.
“She’s got one,” she retorted, and for a minute thought Dolly would
back her. For Lady Barnysdale had waved away the second hansom, had
leaned for one breathless instant on Magdalen’s arm.
“There’s hardly room for three of us in one,” Dolly said, and if her
voice was not steady there was a sudden courage in the look she gave
Mr. Starr-Dalton; evil courage, if Magdalen had known it. “I must hurry
home now, but perhaps you’ll come to tea this afternoon.”
Miss Clyde, with Ronald in her arms, hung paralyzed, half in and half
out of her hansom. Dolly, with her old smile, was giving their address,
Madame Aline and all, to the man.
“For Heaven’s sake,” she said when she had tumbled to her seat and
Dolly was beside her, “what ails you? He’s a hateful, disreputable
beast and you know it. How can you worry with a man like that when you
ought to be thinking.” She bit her lip. When Dolly looked at her like
that there was no sense in talking to her.
“Because he’ll be useful,” said Lady Barnysdale. “He loves the ground I
walk on”--in which she was wrong; he was only hugging to himself when
she left him the thought of a very different thing. “I must have some
one to help me and he’ll do it. Leave me in peace for a week to manage
my own affairs and we won’t need your dear police.”
“Help you! Like he helped us in Krug’s restaurant,” she scornfully
retorted.
“Was that why you were so rude to him? You did your best to”--she
hesitated--“to make him detest us.”
“In his conduct at Krug’s? No!” She poured out what she had never meant
Dolly to know about Lovell and the bakery and Starr-Dalton.
“What!” cried Dolly; her laugh cut like a knife. “You! Having tea with
a man you don’t know! For you can’t know him; I never heard of any
Lovell in my life.” The mirth died out of her face. “What’s he like? Is
he a gentleman? Does he know who you are?”
“You ought to know whether he is a gentleman or not!” The laugh had
touched her temper. “He put out the lights in Krug’s restaurant.”
Dolly sat dumb. From every quarter wherever she looked something
threatened her; things, people, the very straws in the street menaced
her, and only her own wits to match against them all.
She turned to the only soul in the world who cared for her, except the
child between them.
“You go out like a chorus girl and meet a man!” she cried, trembling
with rage. “You, that were always fussy as one of your nuns if I spoke
to a man I knew. You’re nothing but a hypocrite!” It was odd that she
looked just like a chorus girl herself in her temper. “How do you know
who the man is? He may have gone straight away and told Stratharden!”
“That’s absurd! For goodness’ sake, Doll, don’t let us fight!”
Something had caught the blood at her heart. It was not that she had
never seen Dolly in such a temper, but that, after all, she might be
right. She got out of the hansom in silence.
There was more there than she knew. Dolly was afraid of Starr-Dalton!
Think as she would she could not see why, but she knew it; and knew,
too, that Dolly’s reasons for hiding were trumped-up lies. Her old
uneasiness about Dolly’s turning into a countess swept back on her.
“If she only would not make so many mysteries!” she thought. But the
biggest mystery of all was that Dolly should turn penniless away from
an almost untouched bank-account rather than face Stratharden.
CHAPTER XXI.
IN DISGUISE.
“My dear Dolly!” said Mr. Starr-Dalton; he looked round him with an
air of lordly disgust. “You’ll forgive my saying that this--this
surrounding--is a very queer freak for a little countess.”
Dolly, a little pale, a little roused, regarded him calmly. Before she
told him things she must find out what he knew. It was well that Miss
Magdalen Clyde, seated in dudgeon in the kitchen, could not see her
stepsister’s face.
“It’s extremely dull being a countess,” said she. “The Scotch house
appalled me, the town one was worse--I’d have seen Barnysdale’s ghost
on the stairs!” For reasons of her own her shudder was real. “Anyhow,
I prefer this to a suburban flat full of crying babies and women
who wonder whether you’re respectable. Now, here you go in past the
tailor’s shop, up one flight that no one uses but us and you’re at our
front door--with a most respectable door-plate--if it were polished!”
“You’ve the whole house, then?”
“The two top stories,” she carelessly responded. “Down here this
sitting-room, my room, Ronald’s; upstairs Magdalen’s, the dining-room
and kitchen. It’s so convenient and comfortable.”
Mr. Starr-Dalton remembered the neglected passage, the cold stairs;
looked at the gray and hideous wallpaper, the half-completed
furnishings, and would have thought if it had not been for his hostess’
toilet that she was in lower water than ever since he had known her.
“Convenient and comfortable!” He gave one of those short, hateful
laughs that always made Magdalen start. “I think it is. Can I have a
whisky-and-soda? You know I don’t take tea.”
“There’s none in the house,” she calmly replied.
“Oh, send the housemaid for it. You’re getting very starched, my lady.”
“If you want it you’ll have to go for it,” returned Dolly unmoved.
“I’ve had no time to look for servants. There’s no housemaid.”
No time? To his certain knowledge that red-haired sister had been in
town for a week.
For a moment the horrid conviction came over him that some one had
spoiled the show--that he was too late to make any bargain. And the
antique-furniture business was worse than ever.
“Do you remember my letters?” he said slowly.
Dolly sat up and looked at him.
“Letters? How many did you write? And how dared you write to me at all?”
“Dare! Oh, come now!” and his laugh was meant to be soothing. “You and
I are too old friends to say ‘dare’ to each other.”
“How many did you write?” she repeated, thinking of the post-bag and
Stratharden’s servants.
“I only wrote one; I didn’t mean to say letters,” Starr-Dalton said
truthfully. “You got it?”
He was surprised at the relief on her face.
“I got it,” she carelessly observed, sinking back in her chair again.
“I didn’t understand it. Why?”
“Look here, Dolly,” said the man not unkindly, “you may as well make a
clean breast of it. You treated me d---- badly and you know it; paid
me my money like a tradesman and gave me the cold slip. But I’m fond
of you and I don’t bear malice, though I know well enough you’d never
have sent for me if I hadn’t met you by chance and you were afraid,” he
added significantly.
“Chance? You’ve been hanging round for days.”
“Say! I tried to catch up with your sister in the street and you’ll
soon learn the truth.” For the first time he spoke unpleasantly. “But
that’s neither here nor there. Are you here because you’ve been found
out?” with a disparaging glance at the uncomfortable room.
“What do you mean?” She never moved, never looked either angry or
startled. They were getting to the point, just as she had meant all
along. “I’m here because it suits me.”
“Oh, rot!” ejaculated Mr. Starr-Dalton politely. “I found you out long
ago; don’t you know that, Dolly?”
She knew it or she would not have been sitting behind Madame Aline’s
door-plate; but she only shook her head.
“You’ll have to explain,” she deliberately returned. “I can’t talk in
the dark.”
“Terms!” The word leaped in Mr. Starr-Dalton’s head exultingly. But
he steadied himself as he remembered that it might be too late for
a bargain with a countess who had retired incognito to a milliner’s
discarded rooms.
“Oh, I’ll explain!” He was carefully picking out each blunt word. “I
saw you at Krug’s that night when Churchill made all the shouting at
you. I found out who he was; I saw him; I know all about you and him,”
oblivious that he had found out from anyone but the man himself.
“Churchill!” Dolly Barnysdale became white. She had nearly said what
could never have been recalled when she realized that Starr-Dalton was
again speaking.
“Yes, just him! And do you mean to tell me that if some of your fine
relations hadn’t found out that you were married to him before you
were to Barnysdale you’d be here?”
“Churchill! Married to him! Barnysdale!” The thoughts rang like bells
in her brain. Was this all he knew--this?
She put out her hand and touched Starr-Dalton; called him for the first
time by his Christian name.
“Jack, you’re all wrong,” she said. “Not a soul of them even dreams of
anything like that. I’ll tell you presently--and you can believe me or
not, as you like--why I’m here. Only first tell me what on earth you’ve
got hold of about Churchill.” Her voice was very earnest, very natural.
“Just what I said. It’s enough, Dolly. Don’t put on frills. I saw your
face when Churchill made all that row and it set me thinking----”
“You didn’t think about stopping him or helping me,” she sharply
remarked.
“That pal of Magdalen’s was too quick for me, anyhow”--truthfully. “I
don’t know that I thought about helping you. I was too--interested.”
“What? Before you knew I was Lady Barnysdale?” But she said it without
malice.
He nodded.
“I thought you cleverer than to let any man have a hold on you,” he
said simply. “I don’t mind saying that it didn’t occur to me to find
out who Churchill was till you paid me my money and told me to go. And
then I was angry. I went straight to Krug’s and a waiter told me all I
wanted to know. It struck me----” Here he paused, neglecting to say,
“there was money in it.”
“About me? I don’t believe it.”
“No! Who the man was and where he lived. I went there.”
“Where?”
“Just behind this very house. In the place off the lane. But he’s not
there now; so you needn’t be frightened. He got hold of a little money
and went away to die on it--he looked like dying.”
“And he told you he was married to me?” There was a queer look on her
pretty face, the look of a woman who finds a live spark in the dead
ashes of her heart.
Mr. Starr-Dalton considered a moment. Truth might be stranger than
fiction, but it was certainly safer.
“He said he didn’t know any Dolly and didn’t want to. But--he wasn’t
alone when he said it!”
Dolly nodded. The growing spark had gone out again.
“Then who told you he married me?”
“Maltby. I asked him--oh, not that!--but just about Churchill in
general. He told me he married a girl named Dolly Deane and deserted
her--told me the year. But it was just casual gossip. He thought I knew
Churchill well.”
Lady Barnysdale looked at him and saw he had told all he knew or
thought. It was all she could do not to sit up like a creature
transfigured, not to laugh or cry out. She had been hiding in holes and
corners for this, that was not worth the snap of her finger--Churchill!
She had never acted well on the stage, but now her quick, blank face
was perfect. Let him think he had her secret or he might end by finding
it out.
“Are you going to tell?” she said with her eyes on his face.
“On a pal?” He was staring at her. “No.”
She drew a long breath, as people do when fear passes them by.
“Then,” she said slowly, “I’ll tell you something. I never was married
to Churchill, but----Oh, yes! he could rake up scandal.” For which she
would not have cared one penny. “It was that that terrified me. I came
here partly because of your letter. I thought if I kept out of the way
you might forget me--and Churchill--and partly----”
“I’d never forget,” he put in hastily. He did not believe one word she
said, just as she had meant he should not. He drew his chair close to
hers.
“Dolly, you mean it can’t be proved?”
“Never!” And because her secret was safe she let her triumph break out;
she looked him in the face with bright, steady eyes, her rouge showing
like spots on her excited face. “Never, never, never!” she cried in
exultation. “But, oh! Jack, I want a friend. I’m frightened to death
and I didn’t dare do anything because I knew from your letter you were
angry with me. I thought you meant to show me up.”
So she had, twenty minutes ago. Now she could have laughed in his face,
for whatever secret she had Starr-Dalton had not touched the garment’s
hem of it.
“You did your best to make me hate you,” he said slowly. “But--no, I
never meant to give you away.”
Nor had he. Churchill was dying at a gallop, might be in his grave now;
and “the Countess of Barnysdale and Mr. Starr-Dalton” would make an
imposing mouthful; to say nothing of the money that would come through
a matrimonial connection of the two names.
Dolly put her hand on his thick one, that Magdalen would have died
rather than have touched.
“You’re a good friend, Jack,” she said simply, “and if you’ll help me
you won’t regret it. If you hadn’t frightened me by your letter I’d
have sent for you the minute I got to London. Now listen to me and have
patience, for it’s a long story.”
Word for word she told him about Ardmore and Ronald--everything. If
she all but left out the Chinaman it was because he seemed the least
important part of the whole thing. She had not gone in terror of him
night and day, like Magdalen.
“So you see I was frightened and I hid. I dared not do anything else
while I thought you might tell all you knew about me,” she finished.
“As for this morning, we gave them the slip. All they know is that I’m
in London.”
Starr-Dalton sat stupefied. She had told her story patchily--it did not
hang together; but even so he could see she meant every incredible word
of it.
“But if it’s true,” he said bluntly, “why don’t you make a row?”
“I can’t,” with a little significant gesture. “Suppose I charged
Stratharden with trying to murder Ronald and me, do you think my whole
history wouldn’t come out? They might convict him, and much good it
would do me when I was stripped of my money and my name. Anyhow,
who’d believe me? The story is too monstrous! Even you think I’m
exaggerating.”
“If it were any other man than Stratharden!” said Starr-Dalton
significantly. “But, on my soul, Dolly, you’re right. To tell would
get you put in a lunatic asylum. I never heard a breath about the man
except that your getting the title has ruined him. He’s extravagant, of
course, but nothing else. He’s a great traveler, a tremendous swell,
who goes everywhere and--oh! you might as well accuse the Prince of
Wales of murder.”
“That’s just what I meant,” she said quietly. “Why I’m here and why I
never mean him to set eyes on me or Ronald again. He’s so clever and so
deep that no one ever suspects his infamy.”
Mr. Starr-Dalton only knew Lord Stratharden as a perfectly dressed and
well-mannered man, who collected curiosities and needed money. The
last and that alone made him put any faith in Dolly’s story. He was
a shrewd man in his way and he took in every line of her face as he
looked at her. There was no doubt she was terrified.
“The money is the least part of it,” he said. “You draw the checks and
I’ll get you all the money you want.”
It was what she meant him to do, and she flushed with relief.
“But you ought not to be living here as Madame Aline. It’s wild!”
“Who said I was Madame Aline? Not I. It’s Magdalen. I’m only staying
with her. There’s no harm in that.”
“Except it is not specially natural that she should work when you’ve
money. However----” He bent over her suddenly. “Dolly, supposing I help
you do all you say, where do I come in?”
“Money?” with the old, reckless smile.
He shook his head. He was not smiling and his fat face was dangerous.
With the hate of hell in her heart, because but for what she thought
he knew she would not have been here, Lady Barnysdale looked at him
with sweet, amiable eyes. Now he was useful; by and by, when she had
done with him and he was sent raging and impotent away, there would be
no need to tell him how she hated him. He would know, as a snake knows
whose back is broken.
“I don’t know what you want, then,” she said.
“You do,” he roughly asserted.
“If I do it’s enough for you to know that I do without talking of it.
Now, can’t you see it would make too much talk and stir? If I’m not
quite quiet I may turn into Dolly Arden again, without a penny. You’ve
got to help me, keep me safe from Stratharden and Churchill. And you
once lent me money; now I’ll lend you all you want”--counting cleverly
enough on the lowness of his funds; for in spite of the gardenia the
man had a shifty, impecunious look.
“Stratharden may drop in on you any day,” he said; not that he believed
it, for what might have been done at Ardmore could not be done in
London.
Dolly’s eyes flashed.
“Not with you to help me!” she cried. “Every time I want money you’ll
forward my check from Paris. I’ll make it payable to you; you’ll
endorse it. Stratharden will find out from the bank and never come
near me. If he gets at you you’ll know what to say, you’re my man of
business. Go out, Jack, and get your whisky and some soda. I can drink
my tea now, for I’m safe--safe!”
“You don’t mean me to stay in Paris?”
“No, no! But now it’s time for you to solace yourself with your whisky.”
“When you tell me in plain English what the end’s going to be,” he said
with the uncomfortable gleam still in his eyes.
“Let things quiet down, let people forget me.” She was certainly doing
what he asked. “Churchill can’t live forever; Maltby doesn’t know Lady
Barnysdale is me,” she ungrammatically declared; “no one does but you
and Churchill. And when he’s gone----” She smiled at him and for the
first time the passion he had had for Dolly Arden awoke under Lady
Barnysdale’s eyes.
Mr. Starr-Dalton departed to buy whisky and soda--for which she omitted
to give him the money--and as the front door closed on him Dolly
Barnysdale stood up and danced in silent glee.
“He doesn’t know--nobody knows!” she thought rapturously. “I’ll get rid
of him by sending him to Paris and get Stratharden off the scent. He
shall go to-morrow, to-morrow.” She waltzed around the room and broke
into wild laughter. “Churchill,” she gasped, “and I married to him! If
we wait till he dies and can’t talk we’ll wait a good while. He’s been
a death’s-head ever since I first saw him; that kind never die. Marry
Starr-Dalton!” The glee died from her face. “Oh, how I hate him!” she
thought passionately. “Except for the dinners I got out of him when I
used to be hungry. All I want is to be left in peace with Ronald.”
She stood thinking, as a scout might stand looking over doubtful
country. As a scout might lie hidden, seeking more secure cover behind
her fear of Stratharden.
Starr-Dalton was no matter; Maltby had never seen her; he was a hearsay
man who lived a life she never touched; Churchill was dying. Those were
all, absolutely all, who could talk. She assured herself they were all
and knew all the time that it was casual people, not her enemies, who
might spring a mine under her.
She would never dare go to a theater nor take up her abode in
Barnysdale’s house; never dare live the life her soul loved.
“I knew that all along,” she said to herself coolly. “It’s a small
price to give for money and Ronald.”
As if the child’s name brought back the terror of Stratharden, she
ran to the window and looked into the dreary street. There was not a
soul to be seen but Starr-Dalton, approaching with his pockets unduly
distended.
When he knocked at the door she let him in with a quiet heart; after
half an hour she let him out again to catch the night train for Paris.
For the first time since that far-away dinner at Krug’s she went to bed
in peace.
But Lord Stratharden sat up far into the night with the information he
had gleaned from Keith’s blotting-book neatly written out before him.
He had not been idle while Dolly talked to her wolf who had turned out
to be a sheep. He had learned enough to ruin his sister-in-law and her
boy to-morrow. But to-morrow he would get no good of it.
Lord Stratharden rang his bell for Ah Lee.
CHAPTER XXII.
WHEN LOVE DAWNS.
“I leant my back against an oak;
I thought it was a trusty tree.”
“By George!” said Dick Lovell to himself, “I can’t go to see her. I
haven’t the nerve.”
He stood in the sunny street at a time when a conscientious
photographer’s assistant should have been hard at work, and was annoyed
at his own discomfiture. Because a girl was a milliner was no reason a
man could present himself at her house without being asked; yet half an
hour ago he had been fool enough to take French leave from photography
for just that purpose.
“Glad I stopped myself before I hung around her door like a cad!” he
thought. He looked up from the curbstone he was considering and saw
Dark Magdalen herself, almost at his elbow. She was walking west with
slow steps and eyes as somber as her black gown.
At the sound of his quick greeting she stopped and saw him standing
with his hat off, a white carnation in his blue serge coat, his brown,
lean face bent down to her with a laugh of pleasure in eyes and mouth.
“How do you do?” she said a little breathlessly as she shook hands with
him and wondered why Dolly’s male friends could not take off and put on
their hats with this man’s manner.
He was looking at her through lowered lashes with that trick he had;
there was a kind of sweet keenness in his gray eyes.
“Very well, now,” he returned; “a minute ago I wasn’t so sure. To tell
the truth, I was wishing I dared go and call on you--and I didn’t
dare.” The words were boyish, the sense of them graver.
“Call?” said Magdalen stupidly. “On me?” She began to laugh. “No one
ever comes to see me,” she observed frankly. “I couldn’t have let you
in.”
She thanked Heaven he had not dared, for Dolly would have worried her
life out with silly cautions, let alone jeering laughters. And--she
glanced once more at his face. If, as Dolly said, she knew nothing
about him, she knew at least that a man with a mouth and eyes like
Lovell’s was not apt to be other than he seemed.
“That’s a lucky escape for me,” he was saying gravely. “I’m glad you
came out. Do you know you’re not looking well?”
It was no earthly business of his and it was not polite; which may have
been what brought a faint flame to her cheeks.
“I’ve been indoors too much,” she returned with some haste and perfect
truth. “I came out now for a walk.”
“So did I,” calmly; but the next minute they were smiling in each
other’s face like two children.
“I may accompany you?” he said with a little deferential manner,
foreign enough to a girl who was accustomed to men like Starr-Dalton.
She nodded half shyly. Dolly would have gasped incredulously at the
look on her stepsister’s face.
“I don’t know where to go,” she said, looking around her. She had
turned Bedford Square, away from Hare’s Buildings, simply because she
would not let herself go toward Fleet Street, on the chance of meeting
Dick Lovell; just as he had strolled in the same direction while his
courage about going to see her was oozing out of him.
“No!” said Lovell reflectively, little knowing they were both gloating
on the instant reward of their individual virtue.
The afternoon was sunny, almost hot; enervating, as such winter days
are. The park would be fit to sit in, but--he had no desire to be seen
westward, either alone or otherwise. Especially otherwise, he decided
hastily; it would not be fair.
“Regent’s Park,” he announced at last, for not a soul who knew him and
could gossip would be there.
“Too far.” There was little spring to her step as she walked and he saw
it.
“Hansom,” he answered as laconically. “We can sit down all the way
there and back. You learn the joy of sitting down when you’re a
photographer.”
He put her into the hansom as he had once in his life helped a princess
into her carriage. As he did it she noticed the spotless cleanliness of
his cuff, the fine white skin inside his wrist; something made her head
swim a little as he got in beside her.
“Do you know,” said Lovell slowly, “I always have a queer feeling
when I’m with you? That I’ve known you for a long time--for always,
really--that everything you do or say is just what I know you will do
or say.”
“You’ve known some one like me,” she answered, and she was not looking
at him.
“I never knew anyone--like you!” he said coolly. He had something to
say to her, but not here in a hansom, where she could not get away from
him. He sat beside her quite silent; so content that it would have been
rapture if a doubt had not been there, too.
And Magdalen, with the sun and the wind in her face, forgot Dolly and
Mrs. Keith, and Stratharden; forgot even to forget that she was driving
openly through the London streets, for all the world to see her red
hair and black eyes. She turned to him with her lovely laugh as they
left the hansom and strolled along a sun-dried path to a sunny bench
backed by evergreens.
“Do you know,” she said, “that whenever I meet you you always want your
own way? First you hustle me out of a restaurant by the shoulders; next
you march me to tea with you and home in a hansom. To-day----”
“To-day I want my own way again,” with a curious quietness. The
laughter was gone from his eyes that were eager, full of sweetness.
“I want--Magdalen, will you marry me?”
The slow, direct words should have startled her, but there was no
surprise in her face. A hot color leaped there and died away.
“You see,” the low note of his voice made her quiver, “I’ve loved you
ever since that night at Krug’s; I don’t know that you care, I can’t
expect you to, but----”
“You don’t know anything about me,” she whispered. “You don’t even know
that I mayn’t be married already.”
“Oh, I do!” said Dick Lovell. “That’s nonsense, you know,” with soft
slowness. “Look at me, Magdalen.”
She could not lift her eyes to his strong, brown face; she looked
instead at his blue serge sleeve. There was a tiny rip in it and she
would have liked to mend it.
“Are you angry? Do you hate me?” the man asked as simply as he had
asked, “Will you marry me?”
Her eyes got as high as his collar and rested on the bit of his throat
between it and his ear. She had a mad desire to answer him with her
lips there, to----She turned to him with a sudden pride, found--Heaven
knew where.
“I’m glad,” she said. “No, don’t answer me. I want to tell you
something. I’m not Madame Aline; my sister and I just live in her house
and we left her door-plate. And----”
“Well?” said Lovell rather stupidly.
“That’s all now,” for the rest was Dolly’s business. “Except that my
name’s Magdalen Clyde and I haven’t a penny on earth.”
“Did you think,” he softly asked, “that I was in love with the
millinery business? As for names”--he had reddened a little--“do you
think they matter much? Could you marry a Lovell--a plain one--as
easily as if he had another name and a handle to it?”
She gave a little quick shiver. She had had enough of people with
titles.
“Better,” she said. “I’m not anybody.”
“You’re Dark Magdalen! Why do you laugh? Didn’t you know that’s what I
call you?”
She was not laughing; she was prouder of the way he said it than if he
could have made her Queen of England. Yet she looked him in the face
with a remembrance of Dolly and what Dolly would say.
“And you care a little?” His voice held a hundred tendernesses in it.
“Enough to marry a man with just enough to keep you?”
“I care,” her voice was not steady. “But I----Oh, you must wait till I
talk to my sister! There are things----I can’t leave her.”
She was stammering and she knew it, but Lovell did not seem to notice.
“There are things about me, too,” he said quickly.
“I don’t mean dark secrets, any more than yours are, but you ought to
know them. I wasn’t born a photographer, Magdalen. But I’m getting on
at it.”
“I didn’t suppose you were,” glancing at his dark, spare face, his
threadbare serge that had never come off a “ready-made” counter. “Mr.
Lovell, let it all go for to-day; don’t let us think who we are or what
our relatives will say.”
The last thing did not cause him any solicitude; and, after all, there
was time enough for explaining. He looked at her slim, gloved hands and
wondered if those rings of his mother’s would fit her.
“Say Dick,” he coolly remarked, “and I’ll do anything you like. I don’t
call you Miss Clyde, do I?”
“You ought to.” She looked at him with a sweet insolence that made him
want to kiss the hem of her gown.
It struck him suddenly that while he was threadbare she was freshly and
perfectly dressed, from her hat to her shoes. His brow darkened as he
looked at her.
“I’ve been a brute,” he said, “a selfish brute! Look here, my darling;
I’m poor. Do you mind? I mean really poor. I couldn’t give you many
shoes like you’re wearing.”
“I have three pairs like them,” said Magdalen. “Perhaps they won’t be
worn out by the time I marry you. Oh, Dick”--her eyes laughed as she
looked at him--“how silly you are! My sister gave me these; she has
money now; but we used often to be so poor that we were hungry. That
night at Krug’s I’d only had dry bread all day.”
“I’ll give you better than that,” with a certain grim doggedness.
“Magdalen, you’ll let me come and see you now, won’t you?”
Dolly’s rage at the hint of such a thing flashed over her. And
Starr-Dalton--for nothing on earth would she run the chance of letting
Lovell see a man like Starr-Dalton in her house.
“I don’t want you to,” she said simply. “You see, Dolly will be so
angry about it she’ll say we’d no right to speak to each other. And
she’s in some trouble just now; she’s worried. I think you’d better
wait.”
That meant trusting to luck to see her. He was not going to have her
make secret appointments with any man, even him.
“You know best,” he said not too willingly. “It--it’s rather rough, you
know.”
“Do you suppose I don’t want you to come?” she asked almost fiercely.
“I can’t invite you, that’s all. It’s not my house--it’s Dolly’s, I----”
She stopped and stared in front of her, the dark fire quenched in her
eyes.
There, going past--and why was it that she knew without seeing her--was
Mrs. Keith, a grim old figure in a dusty gown. And if she had seen her
all she would have to do would be to follow Magdalen Clyde home.
Unconsciously the girl slipped close to Lovell’s side and looked at
him as she had looked at him for the first time in her life, at Krug’s
restaurant.
In front of all London--though it consisted just now of an old woman he
had not noticed and two sparrows--he put his arm round her.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “I won’t worry you any more.
I’ll swear, if you like, never to speak to you again till you send for
me. Magdalen, can’t you see I love you? There is nothing on God’s earth
for me but you.”
The arm she leaned against was iron, the shoulder against hers iron,
too; in the strength and safety of them the color came to her face.
“Dick,” she said. “Oh, Dick!”
The man stooped and kissed her, since even the sparrows were gone; and
the soul of Magdalen Clyde went into his keeping and his to her.
Without a word, since neither could speak, they moved away--in the
paradise God lets some men and women stay in.
Ten minutes later a breathless old woman ran frantically after a
hansom that drove away and, when there was no other to be had, cursed
roundly in broad Scotch.
“I’ve bided my time too long, too long!” thought Mrs. Keith, and the
fear in her stopped her senseless rage. “’Twas her, and--I’d thought
you with her was a better man, a better man!”
She cursed again at the weariness of her feet as she went hurriedly on.
It was a fool’s errand from the beginning; it was a beaten fool’s now,
if that man were against her, with his hard eyes.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE NAKED FOOTSTEP.
“You fool!” Dolly had said. “You selfish, selfish fool!”
It was not much of a congratulation on her sister’s engagement and she
had gone out without another word. The little sitting-room in Hare’s
Buildings seemed very dull and cheerless to Magdalen, left alone there;
but, even so, that was no reason that she should come out of her sullen
thoughts with a jump and find herself leaning forward--listening till
her heart seemed to stop in her.
She had been alone there often enough, since Dolly was always out; she
must be getting nervous. She said a scornful word to herself and tried
to think of Lovell. But it was no use.
The sound--that could be no sound but the moving of her own blood--had
her by the throat. It was not a rustle, more like a certain subtle
jarring; a pad, pad, as of bare feet stepping very softly.
“Some one on the stairs,” she thought determinedly, but her eyes were
very black in her pale face. She marched to the hall door and opened it.
There was the empty landing, the vacant staircase that went down to
the entrance, where the fanlight in the tailor’s side door glowed
cheerfully.
“It was imagination,” she thought, for not a sound came now from
anywhere.
She locked the door and went back to her seat, something making her
move softly; an absurd thing to do in an empty house. More absurd
still, she sat down by the fire, facing the door of the little room,
her back hard against the wall, as if the place were haunted.
She looked round her with a kind of contempt for herself. The room was
not big enough to swing a cat in or to hide one. Opposite her was a
sofa and the open door; at her right hand a window and a writing-table;
at her left a high bookcase in the middle of a blank wall. The whole
place was not more than four yards square. It was a fine thing to be
nervous here, when in all the eery gloom of Ardmore Castle she had been
steady enough.
Her face grew hard and dark. If Dolly would only listen to her! But not
a word she said went through that armor of Dolly’s that was made of
obstinacy and--even to herself she would not say deceit.
All the same, there was absolutely no cause for the uneasiness that was
gripping the girl’s soul.
A week had gone by since that vision of Keith and Stratharden at the
window; a week in which there had been no sign of either; no stranger
at the door; not so much as a glance cast after either Dolly or
Magdalen in the street. Starr-Dalton had never appeared again after
that one day; and whatever had troubled Dolly was over. Except that she
never let Ronald out of her sight or the front door off the latch, she
seemed to have forgotten that she had ever feared Stratharden or anyone
else. But somehow that very thought set the girl’s face in what Dolly
called “Magdalen’s scowl.”
“She’s been at her old tricks,” she reflected angrily. “He must have
lent her that money.” Which was true enough; even Mr. Starr-Dalton
could rake up five pounds to lend to a lady who allowed him fifteen per
cent. on every check he cashed for her.
“She’s out a great deal; she never seems to think it mayn’t be safe to
take Ronald,” she mused. “But they wouldn’t dare kidnap him. I fancy
Lord Stratharden has done his best and shot his bolt. Any more would
make a noise and we know too much for it to be safe to meddle with us.
I wish Dolly would come home. It’s getting dark.”
It was; dark and foggy. The room looked thick with the fog that crept
in through the badly fitting windows. The fire had died down to a
dull-red glow, ugly, cheerless; she was cold. Miss Clyde stretched out
a long, graceful arm to the grate--and sat with a pounding heart.
“Pad, pad!” there it was again. More the feeling of a sound than a
sound itself, yet her young flesh crawled on her bones.
The thing, whatever it was, was in the house, not on the stairs. She
sat rigid on the rug, one hand still stretched out to the forgotten
fire. The soft, slow sound was over her head, upstairs; almost
inaudible in the hush of her listening, through which came the cheerful
passing of cabs in the street. If it was tangible enough to be like
anything human it was like a bare foot on a bare floor. Only nerves
strung up and sharpened could have known there was a sound at all.
“Fool!” exclaimed the girl through shut, vicious teeth. A great tide of
hot blood seemed to flash through her veins that had run so slow.
She got up and went out in the hall and up-stairs. All the fear had
gone out of her; she moved like a man does, confidently. If there were
a thief in the house, or any one else, he might have done well to run
from a girl whose eyes looked like Magdalen Clyde’s.
The dim staircase was empty. The dining-room that was in the back of
the house, over the sitting-room, empty, desolate; for as Dolly would
have no servants they never used it. In the kitchen there was no one,
the slim ranks of dishes on the dresser were as usual; the table, set
for dinner, was untouched.
In Magdalen’s own bedroom there was nothing more ghostly than her gowns
hanging on the wall, very black and straight.
Mr. Lovell’s “good luck” stood in the middle of the room and looked a
fool. It had all been imagination. The windows were three stories above
the street and no one but a cat could have entered them. One of them
was open six inches or so, leaving plenty of room for just that cat.
“I am an idiot, with my footsteps!” thought Miss Clyde wrathfully.
She shut down the window and lighted all the gas, up-stairs and down,
before she sat down again.
She had been listening for Dolly and that began the mischief. No one
can listen long in an empty house and not hear something. Certainly
there was no sound now, nor the dream of one.
“Still, I may as well finish, or I’ll be thinking of it in the night,”
she thought. It was half-past six; the tailor’s shop would be shut, the
hands gone home; the back premises down-stairs open to the explorer.
Candle in hand, latch-key and matches in pocket, she emerged on the
landing and shut her own front door behind her. The tailor’s shop was
dark; the street door ajar at the foot of the staircase. A streak of
light came through it and the cheerful yell of a newsboy. Standing with
her back to the door, she saw the bare, narrow passage, half-way down
it her own stairs; past them, at the end of it, a green baize door. As
she looked at it it swung forward a little, as with some draft, then
swung back. It must have been that soft closing and opening she had
magnified into a quiet foot over her head.
“Still,” she thought sensibly, “they oughtn’t to go away and leave a
ground-floor window open if it is in a dark area. Goodness knows who
may live in those horrid houses behind us.”
She gave the green door a push and went in as it gave to her hand, and
saw nothing but the dark hole where the tailor hands ate their dinner
on a table littered with crumbs and greasy papers. The barred and
grated window was shut, yet the air in the room was oddly fresh.
“A ventilator, of course!” she thought vexedly, having let her nerves
run riot for nothing.
At the foot of her own stairs she turned and saw the baize door move
again stealthily and swing back; if she had not known about that draft,
would have been certain some one stood behind it. But as it was she
went up-stairs with a contemptuous dismissal of the feeling that there
was somebody behind her. It was time to get ready for Dolly--to cook.
“Why on earth couldn’t we have an all-night restaurant below us instead
of a tailor’s shop? It mightn’t be so respectable, but it would be a
hundred times more convenient,” she thought; yet it was not the cooking
that was on her mind, but the loneliness of the place at night, that
she had never cared two pins about till now. And the next second she
forgot it, for Dolly’s key clicked in the latch.
Hand in hand with Ronald she swept in, a different Dolly from the angry
one who had gone out.
“We’re awfully late; I’m starving,” she cried gaily. “Oh, it’s so
horrid out of doors! What a wretched fire, Magdalen.”
“I forgot it,” she replied guiltily. “Where’ve you been?” There was a
quick, incredulous hope in her that Dolly had repented about Lovell.
“Oh, shopping”--putting down heterogeneous parcels.
“Don’t sit on that, Ronald! It’s a chicken. I felt it would be my death
if I didn’t have chicken.”
She pulled something from the front of her dress and rustled it in
Magdalen’s face.
“What about old Stratharden now?” she exclaimed triumphantly. “He can
watch at the bank till he’s black in the face. Look there!” her packet
of clean five-pound notes flourished over her head.
“How did you manage?”
“Starr-Dalton cashed it,” Dolly observed, half careless, half defiant.
“I told you he’d be useful.”
There was a senseless lump in Magdalen’s throat.
“It’s all so unnecessary,” she said heavily. “There’s no sense in
it. Why can’t we behave like ordinary people?” Perhaps the knowledge
that she herself had not been behaving like an ordinary person during
Dolly’s absence sharpened her tongue. “What excuse would Stratharden
have for hunting us? And if he wanted to, putting that out of the
question, there’s no possible hope that he couldn’t lay his finger on
us this very minute.” Somehow that creeping noise that she had but just
now thoroughly explained to herself came back to her unreasonably.
Dolly looked at her, a sudden breeze of good sense blowing through her
shut-up little mind. But Dolly never believed in impulses.
“What’s the matter with you?” she asked reasonably enough. “It’s got
nothing to do with you. I’m sick of it,” and truly she looked it as her
small head went back distastefully.
“Put yourself in my place, Dolly. You don’t really put enough trust
in me to be open with me. I have to live shut up in this hole--oh, I
don’t mind the cooking and cleaning; it isn’t that. It’s because you
know all about Stratharden and yet you won’t protect yourself against
him. I’m tired of it. I want to have some life of my own.”
The devil in the Countess of Barnysdale woke up.
“Which means Mr. Lovell!” she said with a polite gaze at the opposite
wall.
Perhaps it did. Magdalen did not care.
“It’s plain sense,” she retorted. “You’ve money; Stratharden has
nothing against you but that silly invention of madness that wouldn’t
work anywhere but in an out-of-the-world place like Ardmore. Why can’t
we go and live openly somewhere and let Starr-Dalton be ‘useful’ to
other people? Then, if Stratharden did anything, you’d have a good case
and the law at your back. While here----” She shrugged her shoulders.
The law at her back! When, for what she had done to Magdalen alone she
could be put in prison to-morrow, let alone anything else. The rouge on
Dolly’s cheeks stood out like fire.
“Here he can’t send in servants to meddle with Ronald,” she said
irrelevantly. “That’s why I won’t have one. How do I know who she might
be? As for a good case and the police”--for one instant she shut her
eyes--“I’m not going to have all my past life dragged up by the police
because you’re bored--so now you know.”
“Then there’s something----” It was a stupid speech from Magdalen
Clyde, who was not surprised at all, but only contemptuous.
“There’s nothing.” There was nothing in the voice to tell whether Dolly
was ghastly from fright or fury. “How dare you say there is?” With
the old, senseless fierceness she snatched Ronald to her. “I tell you
he’s Barnysdale’s son and I’ll fight for him in my own way. You can
interfere, if you want to kill me.”
For a girl who had all along been sure there was a lie somewhere,
Magdalen felt oddly sick.
“Don’t talk about it, will you?” It was an order, not a question. “I
only told you to--to make you understand. I suppose you haven’t told
your Lovell about me yet.”
“Doll,” said the girl impulsively, “give up being a countess!” If there
was meaning in her words Dolly did not mark it. “This place is paid
for. I’ll work for you.”
“How?” scornfully. “Take in washing? Don’t be a fool.”
“No, make hats,” practically.
“Who’ll buy them? Nonsense! Half of this is for you.” She held out the
roll of notes. “I owe it to you.”
For once in her life Magdalen turned scarlet.
“How could you owe me anything?” she cried and turned away; no power
on earth would have made her touch that money Dolly had been afraid to
go and get. “I’ll begin that hat business to-morrow. I’ve been sending
away Madame Aline’s old customers all the week.”
To work at anything would be better than to sit thinking her nerves
into fiddlestrings as she had to-day. The prospect of it cheered her
as she woke in the middle of the night. The next minute she sat bolt
upright in her bed. That sound had been no fancy this afternoon. She
heard it now through the black dark.
With a curious impulse--and surely her guardian angel must have been at
her elbow--Magdalen Clyde got up and locked her thick wooden shutters
and her window.
Still she heard the sound.
Alone in the night, with her body dull and her spirit quick, she
thrilled superstitiously, so like was that soft, clinging pad to the
feet of death dogging her. What madness was it put into her head that
it was just like that, soft and slow, with long steps, that Lovell
would move on bare feet?
CHAPTER XXIV.
AT AUNT MANETTE’S.
All thought and desire for the hat-making business had deserted
Magdalen’s mind when she came, late and heavy-eyed, to breakfast. Which
was probably the reason that on the sound of the electric bell she ran
down and found, not the baker’s boy, but a customer.
“I don’t know,” said the imitation Madame Aline rather doubtfully. She
looked at the pretty old lady before her and did not open the door.
Inside did not look much like a milliner’s establishment. “I,” with a
brilliant inspiration, “never make bonnets--only hats.”
The strange old lady looked very pale in the gray light of the landing.
To the blind a voice is a very telltale thing; Madame Aline’s had
perhaps sounded as though she had no desire for a new customer.
“I am easily pleased.” The girl saw suddenly that her visitor’s silk
gown and mantle were old-fashioned. “I am not very rich and I am blind.”
“Blind!” The little cry was involuntary.
“Stone blind, madam. Look!” She turned her face instinctively to
the scant light and Magdalen saw that the bright, brown eyes were
sightless. “But perhaps, for those reasons, you will not care----”
“Oh,” with quick compassion, “but I will. I will make you anything you
like. Only--I--that is--I have nothing ready.”
“I did not want anything ready. I have--but I do not like to ask you.
You are busy.”
“No,” with a wasted shake of her head.
“Then, as you are so kind, I have already a dozen--more--of bonnets.
But it is that I am blind and live alone. Sometimes I select one and
the children laugh at me in the street. If you would look at them and
remodel me one from them.”
“Of course I will.” She looked to see a hat-box, but the new customer
was empty-handed. “When will you bring them?” For a blind woman
could not see that the milliner’s shop had neither hats, bonnets nor
looking-glasses.
“I go out seldom,” said the woman slowly. “I thought if madame were not
too occupied she might perhaps come to me. I am called Madame Duplessis
and I live behind you, in Hare’s Rents.”
A half thought, a misgiving, struck her hearer; but the next minute
she saw its absurdity. There was no reason to think Lord Stratharden
was troubling his head about them; and if he were it was not likely he
would send an emissary from Hare’s Rents who did not even ask to come
in or for anyone but Madame Aline.
The blind woman had felt the hesitation in her manner.
“It was M. Lovell who told me of you, madame,” she said, and no one
would ever have known the words were as purely gambling as drawing a
card at poker. “I asked him if there were a milliner near here and he
told me, ‘Madame Aline.’ He will tell you that I pay my debts,” with a
little smiling dignity. “But Hare’s Rents is a poor place, madame, and
perhaps I am a customer who will not show off your wares.” There was
not a hint in her voice of the terrible excitement that was in her old
heart.
Lovell! That warning fling of Dolly’s about not knowing who he was came
back to the girl, but she did not care. It was only nonsense, anyhow.
He loved her; he--the very thought of his hard, keen strength did her
good after the silly terrors of yesterday.
“I hardly know Mr. Lovell,” she answered mechanically, “but it was kind
of him to recommend me. I will do your work with pleasure.”
“I suppose you could not come now?” she unexpectedly asked. “You could
not leave?”
Why not? She was sick of the house, had meant to go out anyhow and had
her hat and coat on.
“I think I can leave,” she cried with a laugh at the non-existent
business that could keep her. “I’m going out,” she called to Dolly,
who, being only half dressed, could not come to investigate if she had
even thought of it.
The blind woman felt her way down-stairs, and a wonder crept over the
girl how she had ever found her way from Hare’s Rents.
“You do not see how I got here,” said Aunt Manette shrewdly, as they
reached the street.
“It is quite simple, when one has been blind for twenty years and
alone. I knew there was no street to cross. I kept my feet on the
curbing and that told me when the corner came. Presently I asked a man
to take me to your door.”
It might be simple, but it was dreadful to the girl who could see the
feathers on a flying sparrow.
“And your own door?” she said.
“Twenty-four steps from turning into this dirty lane. It is here, I
think. An open door--very dirty?”
“Sixteen?” glancing up.
Madame Duplessis, whom her world knew as Aunt Manette, nodded. The girl
behind her marveled as she followed her up the filthy stairs why an old
woman, who wore a brocade mantle, should live in such a place. They did
not meet a soul as they climbed to the third story; perhaps the blind
woman had known they would not at this time of day. Half of Hare’s
Rents got up early and went to work; the other half stayed in bed till
dark.
“We arrive,” she cried gaily, unlocking her own door unerringly from
long practise in the dark.
For a moment Magdalen stood dazzled on the threshold.
The morning sun poured into the place through fresh white curtains
and rows of blossoming flowers. There was a good fire, a clean brick
hearth, a high-backed chintz chair beside it. The whole room was as
scrupulously clean and fresh as a French inn, and the most homelike
place, as well, that the girl had ever seen.
Aunt Manette let the door close behind her.
“You see, I am ready for you,” she said, and Magdalen saw an array of
bonnet-boxes. Every one of them had “Worth” or “Pingat” on the cover;
but as she took out the bonnets one by one she repressed a laugh.
No wonder the children said things in the streets. Every bonnet had
been the acme of extravagant fashion twenty years ago, and now----She
glanced round the spotless room. To have come to this from Worth and
Pingat had taken some time.
“Did you want a black bonnet?” she said with a smile that was very
kindly, looking at the grass-green, staring-blue and magenta monsters
surrounding her.
At the voice Aunt Manette started.
“Yes,” she said hastily. “I wear black. You mean----” Her hands were
clasped hard in front of her; she did not care a straw what the
milliner meant.
“These are colored,” Magdalen gently responded.
The old woman moved to her side.
“I had forgotten.” She felt one. “This?” she asked.
“Pale-fawn, trimmed with--with leather!” Magdalen could not imagine
anyone with such a thing on her head.
“Oh! And this one?”
“Green.”
“With plumes?”
“Yes.”
The old woman’s face changed.
“It was hers--my daughter’s. She was so young that day,” she said as if
to herself. “Would you--would you put it on, Madame Aline?”
Magdalen unpinned her hat. She did not even smile to herself as in the
glass she beheld the green atrocity on her head; for the eyes that
could not see her were full of tears.
“It goes so,” explained the old woman gently. She pushed it back a
little on the dull, thick hair--and Magdalen noticed the delicate
cleanliness of the old white hand. “Madame has beautiful hair.”
“Madame” winced.
“It’s red,” she said. It was lucky no one could see her in the
bright-green hat.
“Minon’s was brown,” the old woman said dully. “You will permit me,
madame? They are my eyes.”
Magdalen stood still as the cool, smooth finger-tips went over her
face. The blind woman’s face she did not look at, which was well. But
the next minute it was the Aunt Manette whom Lovell knew that spoke to
her, and the girl, curiously enough, felt a sudden liking for the very
hardness of the voice.
“What do you mean to get out of life?” she asked. “You were not born a
milliner. Diamonds, marriage, position?”
“Position? No!” Magdalen sharply replied.
“Yet you hate your life. There are two black bonnets in that round box.
You can amuse yourself with them.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Your eyes were hot, your mouth drooped. You have not a contented face.
But you should be handsome.”
“I’m ugly,” the girl hastily remarked. “All white and black and red,
like a poster. But I forgot----”
“Oh, I have heard of them,” the old woman dryly replied. She was aching
to pour out a flood of questions, but she was too old and wise. She
only sat as if she watched the girl make a new bonnet out of two old
ones, deftly enough. She had an artistic touch, picked up goodness
knows where.
“These bonnets are made of beautiful things, Madame Duplessis,” she
said.
“They call me Aunt Manette in this house,” said the old lady. “I do
not know why. I cannot come to you again, madame; but will you come to
me? I am always here--and lonely.” Since she had felt the lines of the
strong, delicate face her own had grown very hard. If she were right
Mr. Lovell should come here no more, hear nothing from her about the
Dark Magdalen he was intoxicated over; this girl was for no penniless
photographer, gentleman or not.
The fresh, homelike room had done Magdalen good; she had a queer liking
for Aunt Manette--a curiosity, too, about her. She put the finished
bonnet in her hand.
“Is it right?” she asked.
“The little boys will tell me that when I wear it,” Aunt Manette
composedly replied. “I pay you with pleasure, though--for it and your
society.”
“Oh, no!” said the amateur milliner hastily. “It wasn’t ten minutes’
work. I couldn’t take any money.”
“And I cannot run in debt.” She went away and came back with something
in her hand. “You shall take this,” she said carelessly, a longing
that was passion shaking her to see this girl’s face as she held out a
little pin. “It is old-fashioned, of no value, but a pleasure to me to
give away.”
It was an old lace-pin, set with discolored turquoises, making an “N”
on a dull-gold filigree heart. It was worth almost nothing at all,
but Magdalen Clyde gave a cry of surprise. The thing was absolutely
familiar to her.
“You will not take it? It is perhaps too broken?” Aunt Manette said
coldly.
“No, no! I would love it. But I’ve seen one--one just like it,” she
wonderingly exclaimed.
“They were the fashion when my daughter was young,” almost callously.
“This one is broken, as you see. They were worn in pairs, linked with a
little chain.”
“I know,” rather dazed. It was very queer, but probably the blind woman
was right and the things had once been common. She stood over Aunt
Manette and smiled, a splendid sight of flesh and blood wasted on blind
eyes.
“I’ll tell you why it surprised me when I come again,” she said. “I
must go now.” She did not thank the old woman, for she knew by instinct
that she was not meant to. It was payment--not a present. “I’ll come
again some afternoon. I’d like to,” she honestly declared.
For a moment their hands touched and the blind woman’s were burning. It
had been cool till she felt the girl’s face.
“Do not come after dark,” she cautioned. “Remember, it is not a fit
staircase for you after dark.”
Magdalen laughed. It was not the perils of Hare’s Rents that could
worry her.
“I won’t,” she returned. “Good-by.”
She hurried through the dirty lane outside and, when she reached her
own street, stepped into a shop close to her own house--a dark little
shop for second-hand jewelry.
Dull hair, black-and-white face, she flashed into the shop like
something glorious.
“That,” she said to the man behind the counter, holding out her
turquoise pin, “worn linked to another with a chain--will you tell me
if they were to be bought in every jeweler’s shop twenty years ago?”
He looked at it with a queer smile. He was rather a famous person in
his way, an authority on his trade, and strictly honest, to the great
gain of his dingy shop.
“They were not to be bought at any shop,” he said, putting down his
magnifying-glass. “They were little badges worn by a certain set
of ladies, among whom was the Empress Eugenie. That ‘N’ stands for
Napoleon. If you cared to part with this,” he professionally suggested,
“I could give you a very high price.”
“No,” said Magdalen, dumfounded; in her own box at home was the mate to
this very pin, with a chain hanging to it, and the thing had been her
mother’s.
How did Madame Duplessis come by the other half?
She flew home to make certain she was right, but in the little
sitting-room she stopped short.
“Dolly!” she shrieked and pointed to a door where no door had been.
“What have----” She could not utter another word.
“Four customers came,” said Dolly gaily; “so I told them to come back
this afternoon and I made my bedroom into a showroom for you. Isn’t it
too beautiful? I just moved the bookcase on this side and my wardrobe
on mine. Now”--complacently--“that big glass is some use,” pointing to
it standing exactly opposite the new door.
Magdalen forgot her mysterious pin, forgot everything. She stood
speechless in the little room she had dreamed of at Ardmore Castle.
CHAPTER XXV.
“BUFF OGILVIE!”
“What’s the matter? Don’t you like it?” said Dolly crossly. “I nearly
broke my back moving the things.”
Somehow Magdalen pulled herself together. Fool that she had been to
have let Dolly take this place without seeing it; more fool still never
to have found out that the bookcase hid a door.
“I can’t make hats, Doll,” she said slowly, untruthfully. “I tried this
morning and I can’t. I’m sorry you bothered.”
“We can put them back. I only thought--we haven’t been getting on too
well lately, Magda”--the little name came softly; there were real tears
in Dolly’s eyes--“and it’s been my fault. I’ve been hateful. I--I
wanted to do something that would please you.”
They were not sisters who kissed each other; Magdalen’s hand only fell
softly on Dolly’s shoulder.
“I’ve been priggish and hateful myself,” she said soberly. “Don’t fuss
about what you’ve been. I want to tell you something--about this room,
I mean. I’ve seen it before, only till you moved the furniture I didn’t
recognize it. I dreamed about it, looking just like this, and the
Chinaman was in it, trying to kill you.”
Even Dolly gave a start.
“You had him on your mind,” she said practically.
“How could I? I dreamed about this place at Ardmore before I ever saw
it or Ah Lee either. It’s--oh, it’s uncanny and horrible! Besides, I
honestly think it’s a warning.”
“It’s horrid enough, but”--there was no superstition in Dolly--“we
can’t really ever believe in dreams. You’re sure you didn’t dream it
after you saw Ah Lee?” privately thinking that people who saw ghosts
and supernatural things often forgot details that did not suit them.
“Certain,” nodding her lovely, strange head. “I saw Ah Lee and this
room as plainly as I see you now, and he was trying to kill you and I
couldn’t save you. I felt his hands on my throat as I fought with him.
Oh, Doll, do let us leave it! I’ll never have a happy minute here.”
“We have to give three months’ notice and we’ve paid our rent in
advance.” But there was indecision in Dolly’s voice.
When a man has once tried to murder you it is not pleasant to have
people dream he has tried to do it again, even though you have no faith
in such things.
“Give notice, then, and let’s go. We’ll only lose that much rent. Don’t
laugh, but ever since that Chinese butler came to Ardmore, bang on top
of my dream, I’ve been frightened. I’ve felt as though I had a sort of
second sight.”
Dolly gave her a queer look.
“You might be Scotch,” she said slowly, “by the way you talk!”
It was not the word, but the look that made Magdalen stare at her.
“How could I be Scotch?” she cried. “Mother wasn’t, and you remember my
father if I don’t. Mother always said there was nothing Scotch about
him but his name.” She half closed her eyes, as if she saw again the
face of the dead woman who had been Dolly’s mother and hers and was so
like Dolly, so unlike herself. For a moment she wished she had seen her
own father, who had left her mother a widow for the second time when
she was a year old. She did not notice how sharply Dolly had turned
away, nor that when she answered her it was with her face to the window.
“Neither there was,” said Dolly with an unsteady giggle. She was
horribly afraid as she stared out of the blessed panes that let her
keep her back turned without seeming to. “Oh, don’t let’s talk about
mother; she’s dead. Of course, I didn’t mean you could really be
Scotch; it was just rubbish, because you talked about second sight. If
you really feel nervous here we won’t stay.” She could turn now and she
did. “I’ll do anything you like,” she finished feverishly; “anything!
What do you want to do?”
“Go to the country. I can get a little house at Marlow by the week for
very little. Let me get something to eat and go there now. I can get
the next train.”
There were reasons why this proposition suited Dolly and that absurd
dream was not the strongest of them. London was far from desirable when
you dared not go anywhere. For once she helped to get lunch ready.
She even saw Magdalen down to the street door; but at the foot of the
stairs she paused and drew back into the hallway by the swinging baize
door.
“Don’t be long,” she said as if for once she did not want to be left
alone. “Send me a wire from Marlow if you can get a place and I’ll make
arrangements about going away from here at once.”
Magdalen nodded, got into a bus at the corner of the street, looked
up at a clock as they rumbled along and saw she must miss the
half-past-two train, or take a hansom.
As she got down from the bus to hail one she did not notice another
cab pass her with the glass down and the side curtains drawn; nor as
she ran to her just-caught train at Paddington did it occur to her to
glance at the first-class carriages.
To get out of Hare’s Buildings was her first thought; to see Lovell and
tell him why, the second. She was certain, somehow, that he could help
her.
But four hours later she stood once more in Paddington Station and
realized that she had nothing to tell him but that she, Dark Magdalen,
was afraid. For all she had got by her journey was a stuffy coming and
going in a third-class carriage and the knowledge that in all Marlow
there was not a house to be got. They were not out of Hare’s Buildings
yet; and all the way up in the train her unreasoning terror of the
place had been growing on her.
“I wish I’d gone to the Marlow Inn and wired for Dolly,” she thought
faintly. “Anything would be better than another night at home. I----”
She put her hand in her pocket for her purse and the purse was gone.
Her plan of going in search of Lovell was useless. From Paddington to
Hare’s Buildings was a walk enough in the dusk without that trudge to
Fleet Street that her pride recoiled from and only that senseless,
gripping terror at her heart made possible. With a cab she could have
done it; she dared not take the time to walk, with Dolly alone in
that hateful house. She almost ran as she left the station. Suppose
her dream had come true while she was out, without her part in it of
fighting for Dolly!
Street after street, square after square, she hurried through; each
hundred yards a mile; a relentless swallowing of the time--and
something told her that she had not a minute to spare in this cold
twilight. When she came to quiet streets she ran; at the corner of her
own street she leaped forward with a little cry of joy.
There was no need to go to Fleet Street--never had been. There,
standing under the sickly, flaring gaslight, not ten yards before her,
was Lovell--Lovell, who had helped her twice and would help her again.
It was not a dream or a Chinaman who could frighten her with Lovell at
her back; her lips parted to call him.
She paused, flinched, nearly fell, and melted like a darker shadow into
the darkness of an open doorway.
A man had come across the street with a slow, languid step--a gentleman
of finer mold than was often seen in that border of the slums. And his
face, under his immaculate silk hat, was the face of Lord Stratharden.
There before her in the flesh were those pale eyes, those crooked,
restless eyebrows, that smile that was not smiling; and as Stratharden
laid his hand on Lovell’s shoulder the man she had meant to trust
neither moved nor started.
For one swimming moment all the blood in Magdalen Clyde’s body was in
her heart. Lovell and Stratharden!
Dolly--oh! Dolly had been right! She was sick and cold with the shock
of it as she leaned against the wall of her sheltering passage; she
could not move to save her soul, though only ten yards away Lovell was
talking to Stratharden.
A voice she knew, a voice that ten minutes ago she would have followed
to Hades and back again, steadied her like an electric shock. They
were moving, coming closer, stopping to talk not a yard from her black
doorway. Magdalen was motionless against the dirt-stained wall.
Yet all that Lovell was saying was:
“Keith? No, I’ve not seen her.” Only there was a devilish coldness in
his voice that she had never heard.
“Well,” Stratharden spoke silkily, “it isn’t of any importance, my dear
boy. At least, I think not. Keith says it is and I’ve no doubt she
thinks so; but the good creature had always a bee in her bonnet.”
There was no answer. Some one knocked his heel impatiently on the
pavement and she knew it was Lovell.
“Did you come down here and keep me waiting half an hour to talk of
Keith?” he coolly inquired.
“Not at all. I came down here because you wouldn’t see me at your
photographer’s,” he answered airily. “Good God, Buff! you don’t tell me
you live anywhere in this vile slum?”
“Buff!” In all her life she had heard of but one man thus nicknamed.
Like a flash she heard Keith’s grim old voice in her ears: “Buff
Ogilvie, Stratharden’s son? Oh, ay! he’s a good lad enough.” She hardly
heard Lovell answering--and lying, though neither of his listeners knew
it.
“I don’t live here. It seemed a retired locality, that’s all. You
requested, if I remember, that it might be retired.”
Stratharden laughed.
“You’re very young,” he said; “younger than I was at your age! I came
to tell you something. The whole thing will be settled inside of a
month, but in the meantime I may as well tell you that at this present
moment you are Stratharden. It is quite time, Buff, to--to throw over
the trade of photographing.”
“What have you done?”
To the girl in the dark there was no knowing that the slow words would
have been fierce but for the dread behind them. Father or no father, if
there were truth in that dread----But the man’s mouth closed firmly. “I
know how you’ve tried and failed,” he said after a long pause.
“I was mistaken,” Stratharden returned smoothly; if he were a trifle
startled he did not show it. “My lady is as sane as you or I,
and--damnably clever to a certain point. Her limitation is that she
never was my lady at all. Did you ever hear of a Mr. Starr-Dalton?”
Lovell shook his head.
“Starr-Dalton!” the mouth of the girl in the doorway was set harder
than the man’s outside it. She listened like a caged fury, for this
tallied too well with her own long thoughts.
“Oh, well, you’ll hear now to the infinite good of your pocket. Mr.
Starr-Dalton is the back-bone of a sham antique furniture business--too
much sham and too little antique. Also, he has been cashing my lady’s
checks for her, which led to his discovery just when he was required on
various charges of fraud. He babbled a good deal and finally--well, he
can put his finger on Lady Barnysdale’s live husband. Live!”
“Lady Barnysdale’s live husband!” As if she were a child learning a
language, Magdalen found herself painfully translating. What he meant
was that Dolly--Dolly had a husband alive! She never heard Lovell’s
answer--would not have cared if she had. Oh, poor Dolly! who had been
starving, had been brave enough to play a game a well-fed woman’s blood
might have failed her in! And Starr-Dalton had betrayed her!
Outside Lovell said something that carried no meaning to the girl, who
was only thinking of Dolly. Afterward it came back to her terribly
enough.
“I’m playing my own game now,” he said coolly. “I dare say it may tally
with yours, if I know you. But it’s not yours any more than I’m Buff
Ogilvie, till I choose.”
CHAPTER XXVI.
A CURTAIN AND A SHADOW.
The whole thing had perhaps taken ten minutes; ten years without it
would have taken less strength from Magdalen Clyde. The world had
fallen down about her ears; Lovell, her lover, the core of her heart,
was no better than Starr-Dalton, whom she had hated. Dolly----
“I must get home quickly to Dolly,” she thought, when voices and steps
had gone, and she could dare the few steps that lay between.
It was a quiet street at night. She met not one soul--and remembered
it afterward in another place. There was not a light in the house, nor
a sound, as she fitted her latch-key in Madame Aline’s door. As it
clicked behind her she called out chokingly:
“Dolly! Dolly! bring down a light. Where are you?” She was sobbing
without tears. It was she who must tell Dolly she was found out, must
help her to get away to-night, anywhere; Dolly, who was between the
devil and the deep sea, and must face prosecution for bigamy, or worse.
“Dolly!” she called again, and the sound of her voice came back to her.
In the dark senseless terror smote her. She felt her way to the stair
foot; ran up half-a-dozen steps, fell; ran again, with her skirt torn
and her breath out of her; called in the dark landing outside the
kitchen door.
“She’s out!” she said to herself. It seemed impossible that anyone with
a secret like Dolly’s should dare to go out. If it were true, there
must be people who knew it; and Dolly--she might meet any one of them
in the street.
Her fingers closed on the kitchen match-box, and the match she lighted
went out, just as the electric light had that night at Krug’s, where
one man at least had known Dolly; and Dolly had been afraid.
She lighted another match, and the gas flashed up. Magdalen stood
staring.
There was an unearthly neatness in the kitchen, a smell of yellow soap
and charwoman; a look of--she flew from room to room, lighting the gas
in each till it flared. Every single thing in the house was packed
up--gone. Even her own clothes had vanished. Dolly was out, indeed;
forever and a day.
For a moment Magdalen shook where she stood among Madame Aline’s
fixtures, with the awful fear that perhaps Dolly had sent her to Marlow
just to be able to do this in peace.
She sat down and put both hands to her head.
“That’s nonsense!” she said to herself feverishly. “Something must have
frightened her. I was a fool to leave her here alone after telling her
about that dream.”
Then something flashed over her.
What had Stratharden been doing in front, almost, of Dolly’s door? What
had Buff Ogilvie been doing as Dick Lovell in Hare’s Rents? For all she
knew there had been enough to frighten Dolly. With her fingers over
her eyes she tried to think collectedly and could not. Thought after
thought broke and raveled in her brain. In despair she spoke aloud in
the desolate kitchen.
“Dolly’s gone! Stratharden’s found her out! Lovell’s Buff Ogilvie,
Stratharden’s son.”
Her voice broke in a high, dreadful whisper. “And he kissed me! Oh, my
God! He kissed me.”
She forgot she was hungry, tired to death. Under the unshaded gas-jet
she sat like a dead woman who grows cold. There were lines on her face
that no girl’s should have--the awful marks it leaves to find out the
man she has loved.
After a long time she began to mutter to herself.
“He kissed me, and he spied on me. For what was that old French woman
but a spy? I hate him. I could----”
With senseless fury she struck at the arm of her chair just as she
could have struck at Lovell’s face or at his heart with a knife, for
that matter.
Black murder was in her blood where she sat alone, for that blood was
wilder than she knew. The horror of her passion passed and left her
cold again.
“Lovell’s my business,” she said to the dirty gray wallpaper, “and
I’ll have time to settle it. It’s Dolly who matters now. I’ve got to
find her, and the best way is to sit here. She’ll find out how to let
me know. If she even went to Marlow after me she’ll wire here when she
finds I didn’t stay there.”
But it was only a sop to Cerberus; she had no real thought that Dolly
had gone to Marlow.
“I could send a ‘collect’ wire if I knew where,” she thought with
an ugly, mirthless laugh. “But I’d be a fool to go out even to the
telegraph office. For all I know Dolly may only be round the corner;
she might come back for me any minute. I daren’t be out.”
A clock Dolly had forgotten struck in the silence. Seven; it was only
seven, and she had thought it the middle of the night. The homely,
comfortable sound brought her awful loneliness home to Magdalen Clyde.
In all London there was not one soul she could turn to; in spite of
common sense, she sat listening breathlessly for Dolly; Dolly, who was
miles away. Once she caught herself longing madly for Lovell to come
that she might tell him what she knew, with the dreadful cleverness a
cold anger that can neither forget nor forgive lends a woman’s tongue.
But there was small danger of his coming. Had she not made him swear to
stay away when she thought he loved her? He would not come now when he
had gone off with Stratharden to help hunt out Dolly’s shame.
Somehow she had no contempt for Dolly now; no one but a brave woman
would have dared to act Dolly’s lie.
In the flaring kitchen her eyes fell on the black oblong of the
uncurtained window; the dark of it held her gaze as a shining ball
hypnotizes. A sound, the ghost of a sound, would have made her get up
and lock it, fasten the shutters close; but there was no sound.
A curious smell, half sweet, half nauseous, like decaying lilac
flowers, reached her by little puffs and eddies. There must be old
flowers in the rubbish-filled coal-box; she could not take the trouble
to look. There was a blank weariness on her, the stupidity that comes
after dreadful anger. Down-stairs, in that room she had dreamed of, she
would have had every sense awake; up here she gave way to the numbness
that was creeping over her; if Dolly rang the bell now she would hardly
care to answer the summons. The smell of those stale flowers was very
strong.
Her head felt heavy; she leaned back in the stiff kitchen chair and
rested it against the wall. The gaslight turned her strange hair into
a glorious burnished halo, but under it the pale face was like a mask,
with half-closed, unwinking eyelids. The queer odor thickened, lost
its nauseousness, was sweet. To her tired brain it seemed to float in
tangible drifts like thin smoke; it soothed her. She must be very tired
to fancy such things about some dead flowers in the coal-box.
Of course, since she had overheard Stratharden, she had no fears for
Dolly’s safety or Ronald’s. That danger was gone when lawful means
would dispose of them; for herself she had never had any fears; no
one had anything against her. Everything seemed a long way off, very
unimportant; there was comfort in the bare little kitchen that smelt so
sweet; it was making her sleepy. The gas ceased to flare in her eyes, a
gray curtain seemed to fall between her and the black square of window.
A--gray--curtain. It was like shutting her eyes; only nicer, much
nicer; but, of course, they were shut since she was so nearly asleep.
If anyone had looked through that bare window--and it might not have
been so hard, for beneath the window was a stone coping a foot wide and
higher than a man’s knee--he might have seen an ugly sight. For the
room was dim, indeed, with a mist that was thick, as it killed the air;
and in the middle of it a girl sat asleep with her eyes open. It was
too late for a sound to rouse her now if that was a sound behind her.
In her empty bedroom the light went out. A black, wavering thing
slipped along the floor and down the stairs noiselessly. In the hall
was the hat and coat Magdalen had thrown down when she came in; when
the shadow had passed them they were gone. The lights were gone, too,
all but a feeble glimmer that did not come from gas.
The little clock struck nine and the shadow moved faster.
It was up-stairs again now, black in the gray kitchen. It held a candle
close to those open, unseeing eyes that never winked. The window opened
softly and presently stood wide.
But hours of air would not wake this pale girl any more than lifting
her, dragging her head away from the rough wooden chair where a
splinter had caught in the thick mass of her hair.
The kitchen light was out now and the sound of feet was audible, if
there had been anyone to hear it. Not even a black shadow can go
down-stairs quite noiselessly if it is real enough to carry a dead
weight in its arms.
The fresh night wind blew in and out of the kitchen, in and out of
Magdalen’s bedroom, and scattered some fine ashes through the dark. The
clock struck ten, tremulously, as if it were afraid in an empty house,
and over it came the shrill whirr of an electric bell.
A woman ran up the entrance stairs with a child in her arms and stamped
her foot as she lighted the gas at her own door and saw a telegraph boy
there.
“What good are telegrams?” she cried. “Here, give it to me! You’ve been
hours.”
She went in as Magdalen had done, but in her face there was no surprise
when she saw the house was empty. She had known it would be this two
hours. She took a telegram from her pocket and stared at it.
“MADAME ALINE, Hare’s Buildings, London: I am not coming back. You
had better come here. Bring my things.”
The date was Marlow. And to Marlow had Dolly gone in haste and come
back frantic. There was no Magdalen who had sent that wire. “A
foreign-looking woman,” the man said at the telegraph office, “pale,
with queer eyes.” And that must have been Magdalen.
With a self-control that came from blank anguish Dolly made a bed for
Ronald and put him in it. Magdalen had thrown her over; she had said
she wanted to live her own life, and now she was doing it.
“Lovell,” said Dolly to herself. “It’s Lovell.”
She had not known it could hurt her so to find Magdalen no better than
herself. For it must be that. She remembered the day Magdalen had come
home transfigured with that in her eyes no woman can either hide or
counterfeit. She was too sick to be angry.
The bell rang violently; rang again as if it would never stop.
“She’s back! she’s no key!” Dolly flew to the door dizzy with joy. And
on the threshold was Mrs. Keith.
CHAPTER XXVII.
“WHY SHOULD I TRUST YOU?”
Mrs. Keith; gaunt, dusty, so shabby--and with such a look on her
face--that but for her voice Dolly would hardly have known her.
“Ye’re here. I’ve found ye!” she cried the instant the door opened.
“Bring her here that I may speak with her. No!” and she pushed away
like a leaf the door Dolly would have shut in her face. “I’ll have none
of that; the time and the need’s over. Call her here, I say, if ye’ve
sense in yer head.”
She had come in and closed the door behind her before she said anything
but that “No!” She never even glanced at the bare disorder of the place
as she sat down on one of the three chairs left.
Dolly stared at her, speechless with fright and anger. This was not the
Mrs. Keith she had fought with, this old woman whose face was working,
who wiped her hard eyes.
“Thanks be to Gude I’m in time!” the housekeeper cried suddenly. “It
was just foreordained I should see ye getting in here.”
Dolly at last found her voice.
“What do you want of me? How dare you come here?--follow me?” she
demanded. Her thoughts flew to Ronald on the sofa; if this strong old
woman had come to take him she would claw her eyes out.
“I want nothing of ye,” said Mrs. Keith; with her old distasteful
grimness she took in Dolly from head to toe. “Ye may die in the gutter
for all I care. I want the girl ye call yer sister. Have ye no wits,
woman, that ye stand staring? Cry on her to come down.”
“That ye call your sister.” Dolly clutched at the smooth wall she stood
by.
“What do you mean?” she cried.
“I mean I know she’s not yer sister and never was. Call her down, ye
daft woman. There’s no time to waste.”
“Who is she if she isn’t my sister?” If the words were defiant the
voice shook. The unexpected attack had caught Dolly Barnysdale
unprepared.
“That’s what I’ve come to see. And to save her life this night, for her
look of one that’s dead, and the chance----Let her down, ye shaking
atom; or will ye never understand!”
Dolly shook indeed. For once she saw things as they were and that this
was no trick to steal Ronald. Mrs. Keith--and God knew why--had come
here for Magdalen.
“Get her?” she almost shrieked it. “I can’t get her. She’s gone! What
do you mean about her? What have you to do with her and her life?”
“Gone? I’ll not believe it.” The thankfulness disappeared from the
gnarled old face. “Gone?”
“Go and look,” said Dolly. She went, from meaningless caution, to
Ronald, and stood by him; but she knew all the while that, for some
reason she could not comprehend, she and Ronald were no more to
Stratharden’s housekeeper than dead leaves on a tree. She had not
thought any old woman could run so frantically from room to room, could
be back at her side with such quickness; nor that human flesh could
wear so livid a fear on its face.
“What have ye done with her?” demanded Mrs. Keith and laid an iron
clutch on her shoulder. “Did ye not know from the day he saw her from
my window that it was she, not you, that was in peril of her life?”
Dolly was shrewd enough. She knew like a flash that the woman was
honest. Mad as she sounded, there might be--a bare might be, from a dim
past--reason in her wild words. From where she sat beside Ronald she
told Mrs. Keith all she knew about this day’s work and never thought of
the irony of it. If this were Stratharden’s work, and the woman on his
side, she would know it in any case; if not--all who were not against
Dolly might be with her.
“And so,” she wound up, “after she said she wouldn’t stay here because
of her dream, I went to Marlow after her, where I got her telegram from
there. And she wasn’t there. But she had been, for it was she who sent
the telegram. They said so in the office. ‘A woman with queer eyes.’”
Mrs. Keith’s eyes flashed green; but when she spoke it was as slow as
dripping water.
“She sent you no telegram,” declared Mrs. Keith and tightened the hand
she had never taken from Dolly’s shoulder. “Why would she, since she
was here not an hour ago? Come yer ways with me.”
Dolly caught up Ronald and followed her, and in the kitchen Mrs. Keith
turned on her.
“Smell!” she said. “Smell! or have ye no nose? And look here! Does a
girl drag the hairs out of her own head?”
Dolly looked at the hard wooden chair, and long, fine strands of
hair hung from its splintered back like a flame, sniffed hard at the
air--and stood like a stone. When she left on that wild-goose chase to
Marlow there had been nothing on that clean-scrubbed chair. Magdalen
had come back and gone again. The queer scent in the room must have
been something she had bought to make herself fair for the man to whom
she had gone. For, in spite of Mrs. Keith, Lovell, and only Lovell, was
to Dolly Barnysdale the meaning of this day’s work.
“I suppose she caught her hair somehow,” she said bitterly. “As for the
smell, it’s nothing but scent you buy in a shop.”
“It’s a scent ye’ll get in no shop,” the woman cut her short.
“It’s----But why am I talking to ye? Answer me this before I go. Are ye
on Stratharden’s side--ye that he told me was crazy?”
“Stratharden’s side?” she stupidly reiterated; then with sudden fury:
“His side, when I was in fear of my life from him, and you know it.”
“I did not--at the time,” she slowly asserted. “Yer life’s safe from
him now; he’s after other game.” Her face contracted with a sharp pang.
“It’s her he wants,” she cried, “her! Speak out as if she were in her
coffin and I may be able to save her yet.”
“Magdalen! From Stratharden?”
“Just from him. Does she know she’s no half-sister of yours?”
“How do you know it?” Dolly asked.
“I found it out. Ye’d no sister; your mother, that was Mrs. Deane, took
in a woman and a child. The woman’s name was Clyde and she’d a little
money. Your mother----”
“What has that to do with Stratharden?” Dolly fiercely demanded.
“Maybe nothing. I know it all, that’s all. Now tell me the woman’s real
name, for the fear of God.”
“I can’t,” replied Dolly. “Mother never knew it. Only Clyde. And
Magdalen never heard of her.”
Mrs. Keith flung out her hands.
“There must be some one who knows,” she said chokingly. “And in the
meantime she’ll die for her black eyes and her red hair. You’ll never
see her again--and I’ll go down to my grave with my work undone.”
“Stop!” said Dolly furiously. “You’re talking riddles. Who would hurt
Magdalen if her name was not Clyde ten times over?”
“Stratharden’s heathen, that she dreamed of. That scent ye smell is his
devil’s incense. Oh, my grief! and I stand talking here and know no way
to turn to look for her!”
“But he’d have no reason. It’s I that am in Stratharden’s way.”
“Ye’ll be out of it to-morrow. Do ye not guess that it’s she
Stratharden fears? Have ye no love for her that ye stand making talk?
Was there nowhere she might have gone? But I’m no better! She could go
nowhere with that scent of hell in the house.”
“Lovell,” said Dolly sharply. Mrs. Keith’s wild talk and her knowledge
of Dolly herself had frightened her till she almost prayed she was
speaking the truth. “I think she’s gone to Mr. Lovell; and I don’t know
where he lives.”
“Who’s Lovell?”
“A man. He----”
“Would I think he was a spirit?” she questioned harshly.
“Why would she go to him?”
Dolly’s misery broke out in bitterness.
“Because he’s a man!” she cried. “Because he had a dark skin and a
hard mouth, and eyes that looked you through and through, and a way of
moving like a tiger-cat, soft and quick.”
“Lovell, ye call him.” Mrs. Keith stood motionless. “A man that would
throw back his head and look at you? That spoke soft and clean?”
Dolly nodded sullenly.
“Then may the Lord have mercy on her,” exclaimed Mrs. Keith. “Woman,
that’s no Lovell, but Buff Ogilvie, Stratharden’s son, for I saw them
together. They’ve trapped her, and ’twas me did it. Me!” Her voice rang
harsh, anguished; she turned to run from the house.
Dolly, slim, soft Dolly, sprang at her like a cat. When Magdalen had
hated that tigerish love of Dolly’s for Ronald, she had not guessed it
would wake like this for her.
“You’ll not go till I know what you’re driving at.” She shook like a
reed the woman she had feared. “Why would they trap her? Why do you
talk nonsense about Ah Lee having been in a locked-up house like this?
What has she to do with Stratharden?”
Mrs. Keith looked at her and was her old stony self.
“I’ll not tell you,” said she, “till I find her. Why would I trust you
any more than him, a light woman and a liar?” She shook Dolly’s hands
off like water, and the heavy sound of her old feet came back as she
ran, with trembling knees, down the stairs.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
ONLY A BIT OF GOLD FILIGREE.
Lord Stratharden sat in his own bedroom in the little maisonette that
opportune whitewashing of his had allowed him to return to as if he had
never fled from it, and pursued a peculiar employment with interest.
On the floor beside him, and even in his preoccupation he was careful
not to let cigarette ashes fall in them, were two open boxes, the
entire wardrobe of a woman who, if she had little, had it dainty.
Nothing was marked and everything was almost new.
Stratharden turned up the last layer in the last box with the patience
of a man who is thorough, even though he expects nothing.
At last he found something that flushed his sallow cheek.
“My God!” he said softly, because in his youth he had believed in one.
“This thing--and me!”
For he knew what he had in his hand as a man knows a trinket with which
he has tried--and failed--to buy a woman. Only a bit of gold filigree
with a turquoise N on it--a cheap offer for a woman’s soul and body if
it had only possessed the value it looked and not a thousand thousand
times more.
“So she kept it. She was a clever devil!” he thought, but the look of
the pin made a devil in him as he held it. His world would have been
loud in incredulous laughter if they had known what was in his mind.
Never in all his variegated life had Stratharden’s soul or mind, or
flesh even, turned with a real emotion to any woman but this one, who
had only cared for another man. He thought of the women who had given
him all she denied him; was sick again as he had been in their arms,
because there was no pleasure in any woman’s kisses but hers; cursed
aloud because for all his pains he had been “faithful to her in his
fashion” in many a gray dawn and midnight madness. Oh, he owed her a
debt--a debt! Never in all his life had any woman quickened his pulses
in him; never, try as he might, had he been able to care. It was a good
debt--and he would pay it. Pay it so that Ninon’s rotting flesh should
feel it in her grave.
“Her daughter!” exclaimed Lord Stratharden, and did not know his mouth
was gray. “And I did it for the chance. I never, as God’s my witness,
believed in it.”
But he believed now. He sat, an old man, racked with accusing thoughts.
And Ninon had died young, out of her torture--and what his reflections
were is not good to write.
A noise, that in another house would have been called brawling, brought
him out of his thoughts in a flash. Quick as he was he had but time to
get those open boxes into a safe place before the winning side in that
loud fight was on him.
Mrs. Keith, her hand tingling from the crack that had blinded James,
stood beside him. And the man who meant to put back the clock one way
or another lifted his eyebrows at her in cool inquiry.
“Is David dead--or Ardmore burned?” he asked.
“Ye’ve done it,” she said, and it was not an answer; nor did she
trouble to close the door. “Ye spied on me till ye found her out, and
now ye’ve spirited her away. Ye and yer heathen, and Buff Ogilvie, that
I thought his mother’s blood had leavened till yer own was out of him.”
Lord Stratharden shut the door and handed to her a glass of neat
whisky; and as he spoke the wonder on his face was real.
“Drink that and sit down. You’re exhausted. And then tell me what
you’re talking about.”
“Ye well know!” She was breathing heavily and she needed the whisky, if
it was her enemy’s. When she put down the glass her hand was steady.
“Oh, ye well know, Stratharden! Ye can cease yer play-acting and yer
eyebrow rounding. That girl that ye wanted--his daughter--brings me
here.”
He stopped her as a man stops a ball.
“Are you at that old story?” he asked slowly. “Poor Keith, it isn’t
true. There’s no hope of it. That girl lives only in your faithful
head. Do you think that I, hopelessly ousted myself, would not be
glad to believe in it and give Barnysdale’s wife and brat the go-by,
as you’d say? I would, indeed. But that red-haired, black-eyed Clyde
girl is nothing but what she seems--Lady Barnysdale’s half-sister. Do
you want me to see her? For I will with pleasure.” And he looked so
guileless and truthful that she feared him as she had never feared him
before.
“Bring her out then, if ye’d see her,” said she. “For a man who sent
Buff Ogilvie to her and then took her by ye’re heathen, ye’re not
overclever.” She had warmed to her work, perhaps aided by the whisky,
and she forgot caution. She raved at him and told all she knew, and
he sat like a stone till she was done. Then he touched her shoulders
forgivingly.
“You’re quite foolish,” he said gravely. “As for the girl, she is only
an impostor, and all you’ve told me is guesswork. What would I do with
her? And as for Ah Lee, he left my service a month ago. I know no more
of him than the dead. If she’s disappeared it’s----What did you mean
about Buff?” he asked with a sudden flash that seemed natural, though
it had required a supreme effort to defer the question. He could not
for his life see how Buff could be mixed up in it, and yet some words
came back to him queerly.
“I’ll tell him!” She fairly spat the words at him. “I believe no single
word ye’ve said. I----”
The room went round, turned dark; if some one fell Mrs. Keith did not
hear the crash of it.
“Very like a fit,” said Stratharden musingly, five minutes after.
“Queer stuff, whisky.”
He rang the bell and gave a kindly order. The old woman was such a
faithful servant and apparently so ill; and he really could not have
Buff told things by anyone but himself.
It was nothing to him that through that long night a girl was calling
for Buff by a name his father had never heard, but it was important
that Buff was the only person to be feared in the whole business.
“And that good Keith has forewarned me of him,” said Lord Stratharden,
and went peacefully to his bed.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE GREEN BAIZE DOOR.
There is a drug in the hellish pharmacopœia of China, to prevent the
further manufacture of which tender-hearted people should go on their
knees and pray the allied powers may some day wipe the Chinese off the
face of the earth.
The taking of it means death, very slow death. The burning of it--for
it is primarily a gum and, made into pastilles with sawdust, has
a smell that is half pleasant--is not a good thing for the person
who sits in the smoke of it. After half an hour of that vapor it is
impossible to move either hand or foot, to wink though a candle singes
the eyelashes. But there is no insensibility in that paralysis, which
is where the wickedness of the stuff comes in. Hearing, seeing, feeling
the tortures of the damned into the bargain, the person stupefied can
neither move nor cry out; even tears are stopped in them. The only
trouble with the stuff, from a Chinese point of view, is that to use it
twice in twenty-four hours spells death to the victim. And it is not
always safe to have a dead body on your hands.
Thus every step of the way down-stairs was clear to Magdalen Clyde as
her head hung down lifeless over Ah Lee’s arm. For she knew it was
Ah Lee, though he was dressed in a woman’s black gown; she felt the
hateful nails of his long fingers as he clutched her. What was the
matter with her that she could not scream? Her heart felt as if it
would burst in the dreadful effort; a cold pain shot, lightning-swift,
through her limbs; and her thoughts--if she could think, how was it she
could do no more?
It was all so simple. Ah Lee was taking her away. They were going
down-stairs, turning not to the street, but to the green baize door.
What for? There was no way out there. The tailor would find her there
in the morning; the man who carried her was a fool. It seemed hardly to
matter that she could not, for some dreadful constriction somewhere,
either move or scream. The cold air of the little dark room struck
fresh on her face.
Ah Lee--she saw his face as he lighted a match, and could have shrieked
with horror at something that surmounted his fishy eyes and smooth
forehead--laid her down on the table like a parcel.
“He’s going to leave me here!” she thought. “What for?”
She felt as if she wrenched her bones out of their sockets as she tried
to see what he was doing behind her; yet all the while she knew she
had not so much as moved her little finger. That cold torture swept
through her again, and she could not even grind her teeth on it. For
a moment that alone, and it was quite enough, took all her attention.
When it passed she knew that whatever Ah Lee was he was not the fool
she thought.
“The ventilator!” She saw the beautiful case of it all like a flash,
just as she saw before her the source of that draft she had been too
stupid to find. In one corner of the room was a square iron patch, cut
out into patterns; a bit of filigree, not a grating. As Ah Lee lighted
a match over it the rush of air from it put out the flickering thing.
“The table was over it when I was here,” she thought with deadly
recollection. “That was why I didn’t find it,” and the sweat of fear
was damp on her hands. The Chinaman was going to put her in the cellar,
and----
“That horrible smell up-stairs!” She could put it together now with
dreadful clearness. “It made me like this. I can’t speak or move; I’ll
be dead in the cellar--no one ever goes there.”
From where he had laid her on her side she saw, with the eyes she
could not shut, Ah Lee rise softly from his knees; business-like and
impassive, as if he had been handling the potatoes at Ardmore Castle.
He picked her up--living, breathing Magdalen Clyde, who could neither
move nor cry--and carried her to the corner of the floor where there
was no fancy iron cover now but only a square opening. In the black
darkness she felt the edges of it as he----
God! God in heaven! Her feet were down that hole to her knees; his
hands were round her waist; were under her arms! She was sliding like
a log down to the unknown horror below. The filth of an unused cellar,
the----She heard the scurrying of the horde of London rats as her head
got below the level of the floor, while her feet still touched on
nothing. Why did he not let her drop and be done?
For his grip was in her armpits still, and as she hung she felt his
feet in their woman’s skirt pass her face. He was leaning down with her
half in and half out of the opening.
Her feet touched something, stone cold, solid.
Ah Lee, still clutching her with one hand--she had not thought a piece
of smug yellow flesh could be so strong--was lowering himself with the
other.
As she thought it the man made the quick drop of a gymnast, and with a
trick of the arm eased her softly to the floor where he stood beside
her.
Exactly as a bird watches a snake she watched him; she even wondered,
through the cold fear that was on her, how he had come to get her
instead of Dolly. It was Dolly he had meant to leave to the rats in
this place--able neither to scream nor move.
There must have been good stuff in Magdalen Clyde; she thanked God that
Ah Lee had not got Dolly, even as she saw him put up his arms and lift
himself half out of the open hole.
She would have shut her eyes if she could, not to see him go in the
light of the match he held in his teeth. But she could only watch him
till the match light died. He reached out for something, and then the
dark hid him.
“He’s going,” she thought slowly. “And the rats will come.” She had
always had a deadly, foolish terror of rats. She prayed God she might
not die that death, but some other.
Something dropped lightly beside her; over her head was a sound of iron
settling into its socket. In the deadly silence of the place a hand
felt for her, very soft and slow.
He had not gone. He had put the grating of the manhole into its place.
“He’s going to kill me!” thought the girl; and was glad, because of
those scurrying rats.
Well, but for Dolly left alone, what was death? Yesterday there had
been Lovell, to-day there was only some burned-out ashes and a lie. It
was not for Buff Ogilvie and his Judas kisses that she would fain stay
in the world, though perhaps the thought of them added another pang to
the going out of it. The awful terror of death that catches the heart
and turns it over came on her. She was brave as women go, but a man
might have winced at the slow touch of those fingers that had murder in
them. They crept like loathsome worms from her wrist to her throat.
For a moment the Chinaman felt the stagnant pulse there. He grunted
to himself, and as Magdalen Clyde waited for the blow that would end
her--and perhaps it may be not written against her as cowardice that
she prayed he might not bungle at the job--he stood erect and turned
away. She heard him stepping across the cellar, and she knew now whose
step that was which had waked her on a night now centuries past.
A little creak of wood sounded loud, but before she could wonder at it
the man was at her side again. He threw her over his shoulder like a
sack of potatoes, and as he did it she saw where the cold draft came
from that aired the tailor’s room. Just a common wooden hatchway, wide
open, the starlit oblong of it bright as day in the black cellar.
Ah Lee grunted again as he shoved his corpselike burden up and through;
climbed out himself with beautiful lightness and with business-like
attention to details, lowered the lid of the cellar hatch to the proper
angle and fitted in the iron bars that no one had looked at for months.
“We’re in the court between our house and Madame Duplessis’,” Magdalen
thought swiftly, for that was where the cellar hatch must open. Flat on
her back, on cold, greasy stones, she could not be sure, since all she
could see was a star in a straight line over her. She could not move
her eyeballs any more than if she and they had been cut out of white
marble. But she could think and touch hell by it. Lovell, the blind
French woman, and Stratharden’s Chinaman made a dreadful sum in her
head. If Ah Lee took her to Lovell, who was Ogilvie, the horror of it
would kill her.
For a long five minutes it seemed as if he could not make up his mind
what to do. He stared about him with lack-luster eyes, and was at last
sure the court was empty. The only way out of it was through the
passages of Hare’s Rents, and at this hour they would be deserted.
Ah Lee chose one of them, haphazard; pulled down a veil from his
lady-like hat, and did not look so unlike the broken-down women with a
pretense of decency who crawl along the pavements of the slums.
He picked up his burden very differently this time and was careful to
stagger under it, as a woman might do who makes shift to carry another
who is drunk or ill. Anywhere else some one would have stared curiously
at the queer sight; Hare’s Rents was callous; also, it was out or in
bed. But even Ah Lee hid against his arm the dreadful face and staring
eyes of the girl he carried as he neared the open doorway that led
through the Rents to the lane. Some child might shriek at the look of
those eyes.
The horrible sweetness of the drug he carried hung about his woman’s
mantle and half stifled Magdalen Clyde. She felt him come to a sudden
pause and did not know that one word--that she could not speak--would
have saved her.
For they were in the passage where an ugly gas-jet burned dim; and
there, between Ah Lee and the street, sprung from Heaven knew where,
stood a woman. She was oddly dressed, almost like a nun; and as she
stood she stared.
The Chinaman opened his lips to speak, and with a quick change in his
face shut them again. Those bright-brown eyes that glared so widely
were blind!
Noiseless as a drift of wind he passed and was gone into the street
beyond. Aunt Manette breathed softly through her nose, moistened her
lips with a delicate, tasting movement.
“What an abominable odor!” said she to herself curiously. “But of
course----”
Magdalen’s head, of its own weight, fell back from the Chinaman’s arm;
her desperate, immovable eyes saw the French woman Lovell had sent to
her turn away smiling.
CHAPTER XXX.
LORD STRATHARDEN BEGINS.
Lord Stratharden rose with unusual alacrity the next morning. He had
thought out all he meant to do and he had best do it. In the gray dawn
he had had a sudden uncomfortable idea that he would have done better
to fall in with Mrs. Keith’s theory that the red-haired girl was what
the turquoise-studded heart--and other things--made likely. The sham
Lady Barnysdale could have been made accountable, then, for her pseudo
half-sister’s disappearance; she would have had good reason to be rid
of her.
“I could not have exposed her, though,” he reflected and was comforted.
His line was right after all. Yesterday had been a hard day; the
hardest thing in it to have those two boxes cleverly abstracted from
the pile Dolly had left in charge of a porter. Lord Stratharden’s nerve
had served him well while he held the man in conversation, and knew
that behind his back those two boxes were going into a cab.
Dolly Barnysdale, in her desperate hurry to get home, never noticed
that her luggage receipt was for three boxes and not five. But Lord
Stratharden knew.
He was an utterly desperate man this morning as he tied his immaculate
necktie. No one knew better than he what the woman whose money he had
borrowed would do if he did not give her the return he had promised for
it. But a desperate man is bad to fight and Stratharden knew it. He
looked in silent consultation at his own face in the glass.
“The girl is--not likely to turn up!” thought he serenely. “My supposed
sister-in-law will suspect no--no under currents--when she learns that
a lady claimed those boxes. She will think of some man I feel assured.
I will go first, then, to my lady; and put any thoughts beyond her own
welfare out of her head. As for Buff----” He paused with a certain
uneasiness. What Buff had had to do with that dark-eyed girl he could
not get at unless it was the--usual thing.
“For Buff, the less he knows of the affair the better,” he concluded.
“Thanks to neat whisky on top of exhaustion, our good Keith has had
something very like a fit. I must send the doctor to see the old woman
and explain to him about her harmless hallucinations. But I don’t know!
She’s canny; she won’t be apt to talk. I’ll merely suggest that he
suggests rest and nursing. So that our old and faithful servant won’t
find it so easy to get out of my house and scour London to confide in
Buff. There’s no one else to tell him. Gad, for all I know, he may be
in love with the girl. Or else he’s more like me than I thought;” but
this smile was less like smiling than ever.
He left the house so quietly on his important day’s work that James was
too late to open the door for him.
That excellent servant was nonplused for a moment when he found his
master gone, but his face cleared as he decided that what he had meant
to tell him was probably of no importance.
“Anyhow, I couldn’t help it,” thought he, and turned back to his
morning paper.
And Lord Stratharden, with a mind at ease, mounted Dolly Barnysdale’s
stairs. He was more annoyed than polite when his fourth ring at the
bell brought no answer. The fifth was more successful, since it nearly
brought the house down.
Dolly, white as death, opened the door.
Stratharden eyed her up and down in silence.
“What do you want?” she demanded, and he realized he had never heard
the real Dolly speak before. “What have you done with Magdalen?”
If Keith’s raging had not forewarned him he could never have let the
second question pass as if unheard.
“I want to say unpleasant things,” said he softly. “My dear, foolish
little woman, I--well, believe me, I feel for you!”
“How?” asked Dolly. She never moved an inch. “You did it. Keith said
so. Tell me what you’ve done with Magdalen or I’ll tell,” and her
tongue was venomous, “the whole town about Ardmore and what you tried
to do to me--and Ronald.”
“I don’t,” said he slowly, “know what you mean. Who is Magdalen? And
what has Keith to do with this matter? My good girl you’re dreaming!
Poor Keith is in bed at my house, suffering from the fits to which she
is subject. She came there last night quite irresponsible. Do you mean
she had been here?”
“You know she was here.” Dolly spoke up bravely, but in spite of
herself she was the least bit shaken. He looked so absolutely, politely
puzzled. “And you know Magdalen is my stepsister and that you took her
away.”
Lord Stratharden had in that one second of her recoil from him came
into the little hall without either haste or pushing. He glanced about
him before he answered perfunctorily.
“I never to my knowledge saw your stepsister in my life, except once
from the window of Keith’s lodgings. If Keith, with an epileptic
fit coming on her, told you any such nonsense as that I should wish
to carry off your sister--though, of course, I don’t doubt she’s
charming”--with a bow--“you must see for yourself that it is untenable.
I should have no reason.”
“Keith said you had.”
“Ah! What was it?”
“She wouldn’t--I won’t tell you.”
“She wouldn’t say? Precisely. Her poor brain could not invent a reason.
What, in common sense, should I want with your sister? I came, my
good girl, on far other business.” The insolence in his voice was
unmistakable.
“How dare you call me that?” Dolly cried. “No, hold your tongue!
I don’t care what you call me. All I care for is that Magdalen’s
gone--and I know she never left me of her own accord. She went to
Marlow, and when I followed she wasn’t there.”
“So you think she’s with me. I confess I hardly see the connection.”
“You, or your son, who lied to her and called himself Lovell,” she
hotly replied. “It’s all one. Keith said you’d both a hand in it.”
Stratharden’s eyebrows came down. He would have a score to settle with
Keith.
“My son,” he said, and it had been a knock-down blow to him to find
Buff in the thing so heavily, “has five names. It’s immaterial to me
which one he uses. I confess I should have liked to have changed my own
name when I found how much mud had been thrown at it. But I don’t think
you’ll find your sister with my son,” and he said it confidently.
“But she’s with some one,” Dolly flashed out. “Her boxes are gone from
the station where I left them.”
Stratharden smiled.
“Did her sister never go off with anyone in haste and without leave?”
he asked calmly. “That sort of thing usually runs in families.”
Dolly looked at him.
“It’s better than murder,” she said with her cat’s teeth showing, “and
that runs in families, too. I don’t believe a word you say to me. Come
here.”
She cast a hasty glance at the locked door of the dining-room as she
passed it and prayed Ronald would not find out he was shut in.
Stratharden followed her with a shrug. He was keen enough to see all
there was.
“Look there,” said Dolly, in the kitchen, where that strand of hair
was darkly red on the rough chair. “And there”--in Magdalen’s bedroom,
where a tiny pile of gray ashes was on the floor. “That was something
your Chinaman brought--Keith said so. I don’t know why you sent him
nor what Magdalen was to you, but she was taken out of this house by
you. And I’ll tell that, and all I know, to the police. Do you think I
didn’t know you tried to kill us at Ardmore?”
Stratharden drew a long breath, held it, and looked her in the eyes. It
is a useful trick if you lower your head at the same time.
“I think,” said he, “that you are playing a very foolish game. It
is nothing to me that you choose to invent lies about your stay at
Ardmore--the whole countryside will know you for a liar in a day or
two. But it is something to me that you should put your sister’s
bolting with some man, on my, or my son’s, shoulders. I know nothing
about the girl; she may be anywhere in London for all I know”--which
was absolutely true--“and as for my Chinaman, as you call him, he left
my service a month ago. For that,” he flicked contemptuously at the
heap of ashes, “it is the remnant of a pastille, neither more nor less.
You buy them at the chemist’s.”
“You needn’t try so hard to scatter it,” said Dolly, watching his stick
moving in the gray ashes. “I’ve more. And I’m going to tell. No one, I
don’t care who they are, shall play tricks with Magdalen.” She shook
with rage, but her eyes were fearless.
“Oh, of course not!” Stratharden assented with evil slowness.
“Personally I should not, in your case, talk of tricks, since----I
confess, if your sister knows all that I do, I can’t wonder she left
you in some haste! Did you never, Lady Barnysdale,” with a stress on
the name, “hear of a man called Churchill?”
“No,” said Dolly. But her face was gray.
“Then I think we will let him recall himself to your memory,” he
quietly remarked, “in court. It was a clever plan, my good girl, but
not workable. If I were you I should say very little indeed about your
sister having left you; and as for your wild accusations--how much
credence do you suppose a jury will put in a woman who never was Lady
Barnysdale at all? Your son----”
Dolly was swaying like a fainting woman, but she leaped toward him at
that word.
“Is Barnysdale’s son!” she cried. “His own son.”
“You and Churchill can prove it,” said Stratharden. And Dolly
Barnysdale winced from the blow. Churchill could prove it, indeed. And
Magdalen--if Magdalen knew, no wonder she left a woman who was found
out.
When Dolly lifted her beaten head Stratharden was smiling at her; just
as if he knew that the one thing that would tell in her favor before a
jury was something that--knowing him--she would have died rather than
use.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE BLIND GUIDE.
“A fit,” Lord Stratharden had said.
There was very little look of such a seizure on Mrs. Keith’s face as
she let herself softly out of his house at five o’clock in the morning.
She stood and shook her fist at the closed windows.
“A common drunken woman,” said she grimly. “That’s what ye made of me
last night and ye’ll pay dear for it. It’s not me that will need a dram
this night!”
She was off down the deserted street with amazing speed for an old
woman who had been drunk overnight and had eaten nothing for eighteen
hours.
She had no money and no idea where to go to find Buff Ogilvie; no hope
either of getting much out of him if she did find him, since he was his
father’s son.
“I’ll go first to that queer woman who’s lost her sister,” she thought
with a hope she knew to be a lie that the missing girl might have got
home again. But it was nearly nine o’clock before her weary old feet
took her to Dolly’s door; she stood looking up and down the street
with hungry eyes for Magdalen Clyde, and saw no one but a man crossing
the end of the square. Her eldritch yell brought the tailor to his
window, but he saw no one either. Keith--and Heaven knows how she got
there--was round the corner and clawing the arm of a tall man in blue
serge clothes.
“Ogilvie,” she panted. “How come ye here? I’ve--but it’s no matter! For
the sake of the mother that bore ye, and ye know what her life was as I
do, what have ye done with my dead master’s child?”
“Keith!” The man stared in bewilderment. Haggard-eyed, trembling with
exhaustion, he hardly knew the stern old woman. It was no wonder that
he thought her distraught. “You in London!”
“I’ve been here weeks; but let that go!” There were tears in her eyes
that he had never seen soften. “It’s a black business, Ogilvie----”
“I don’t go by that name,” he cut her off with a half laugh. “I’m done
with the breed, Keith. My mother’s name was Lovell, and so is mine.”
“I’m not concerned with what they call ye. Ye take a queer way to be
done with yer blood when ye mix in this business. What have ye done
with that girl I saw ye with--her they call Magdalen Clyde? She’s gone,
and Ogilvie, or Lovell, or Stratharden, I’ll get even with ye if I
scream hell down.”
“Gone?” exclaimed Lovell. “What do you mean?” He made a step to go
back to Magdalen’s home, which he had never entered, and the old woman
caught his coat.
“Are ye in it? By the mother that bore ye?” Her eyes seemed to bore
into his.
“In it? In her going? I! By God”--and she had never known him to swear
before a woman--“I don’t know what you mean!”
“I’ll tell ye, then,” she answered chokingly. “No, not here--and not at
her house. Stratharden, if I know him, is there now. Have ye nowhere ye
can take me? for I fear me I’ll drop before my work’s done.”
“Yes,” he briefly replied. He put his arm through hers and guided her.
“But what are you saying about my father? What has he to do with her?”
But she could not answer, and at his door in Hare’s Rents he picked
her up like a child and carried her to his room. If the blind woman’s
door was open as he passed, he did not notice it, nor realize that the
sound of his feet told that he carried a burden.
“Now,” he said, as he sat her down and shut the door, “begin! Where is
Magdalen Clyde gone and what do you know about her? How did you know to
come to me? or that I’m----”
“Then ye know it! Ye false-swearing----”
“That I’m going to marry her?” with an angry laugh. “Go on.”
“That----” The woman looked at him and the hard strength, the loyalty
of him came home to her soul. “Ogilvie, Ogilvie,” she sobbed. “She’s
ye’re cousin; she’s Ian’s, my Ian’s daughter. She’s Countess of
Barnysdale.”
The Ogilvie who had forsworn his name stood dumb.
Out in the hall some one prayed in the breathing silence for hearing,
with blind, fierce eyes.
“Ian’s daughter,” the man said stupidly. “He never had one.”
“Ye were told so,” said Mrs. Keith. “I should know, since I was at her
bearing. And Stratharden, who stole from me what I’d found out about
her, knows, too. Think ye, when I find her gone and the hair of her
head torn from her, that I would not guess at Stratharden? It’s she
that Ardmore belongs to, and once she’s gone, ye’ll see that, by hook
or crook, Stratharden will oust that feckless body, her sister--show
she was, maybe, never Lady Barnysdale at all.”
Lady Barnysdale--that sister of Dark Magdalen’s, to whom he had
scarcely given a thought! And Stratharden--he knew what Keith only
guessed at about that ousting of Dolly. Father of his or not, if
Stratharden had dared to meddle with Dark Magdalen he should pay for it.
“Tell me all you know,” he said, and his face was not good to see.
“About her going away, I mean. I don’t care who she is--till I get her
back again.”
He walked up and down as she poured out her broken-backed, disconnected
story; a thing of shreds and patches picked up here and there.
“You that know her,” she cried, “did ye not see that she was Ian over
again? Did ye not mind the likeness in the chapel? I stood her beneath
it, and I marked her line by line.”
“I never was in the chapel. Was it likely I would hear much of my uncle
Ian?” His look was absent as if this part of the story was nothing to
him. “It’s yesterday I want to know about. What made you think of Ah
Lee?”
“Do ye no mind the heathen scent of him? In his clothes when ye passed
him? It was there in the room where her bonny hair had caught in the
chair he’d taken her from. Did ye ever smell the like of it but with
him?”
She jumped up and caught him by the arm.
“Where are ye going?” She was afraid of the look on his face.
“To my father. Let me go, Keith. If what you’ve told me is true the
sooner I’m with him the better.”
“To have him lie to ye as he lied to me--soft and quick. No, no! Go to
her sister, Lady Barnysdale, and----Oh, man! do ye not see that all
I’ve told ye’s but guesswork? We’ve got to get the girl in our hands
and find out it’s true before ye face Stratharden down. And”--quickly,
for he was not listening to her--“here is one who knows--a woman named
Duplessis, that was----Heavens! who is that?”
He turned at the cry. Aunt Manette stood in the doorway, and there was
nothing human in the look of her face.
“I--that woman!” she cried. “I--oh, yes, I listened, M. Lovell. It is
my business more than yours. This woman here is right. I, who know it
all, can tell you; though, till I heard to-day, I could not put it all
together.”
“You!” Keith cried. “Madame Duplessis, that died----”
“That was blinded,” Aunt Manette corrected her, very softly.
Lovell looked from one to the other. They were speaking of things that
were Greek to him.
“What have you to do with it?” he said to the French woman.
“I am her grandmother,” said Aunt Manette simply. “She is my Ninon’s
child. And your servant here is right; where she is gone she was
carried. I was last night in the passage, and there went past me,
slowly and slowly, a man who carried a burden. And the scent from his
clothes was one of the East, like sweet corruption. I, that am blind,
stood there while he passed me by. Fool that I was never to know it was
the Chinaman!”
The Chinaman! Why did she speak as if she knew the man? To Aunt
Manette, in Hare’s Rents, “a Chinaman” should have come more naturally.
Lovell looked from one old woman to the other, angry at their mysteries
that he did not know.
The French woman ran to him with her unerring instinct.
“You are reasonable,” she cried; “we waste time. But tell me where it
is that you are going.”
“Police.” There was enough of his father in him to make him careless
whether he walked over his own flesh and blood, so that he had his
dark love back again. That any woman should be at a Chinaman’s mercy
sickened him; but that it was Magdalen sent him mad.
“Police,” said the blind woman with her hard daintiness, “will
take time! We have no time. You and I, Mr. Lovell, will do better.
If----You are Stratharden’s son! Swear to me that you love her; swear
quickly--that I may trust you still!”
Lovell, who cared for no man’s will, obeyed her like a child. The man
was sick to the core, and perhaps did it mechanically.
“As she loves me,” he ended very low. But Aunt Manette believed him.
She pointed a white finger at Keith.
“Go to her sister,” said she; “stay with her. The sister who is a
stranger and may not be true. Keep her under your hand--till we come.”
Keith nodded. Nunlike coif, strange name and all, she knew Madame
Duplessis now, the woman that had overturned a throne.
And it was that woman, not humble Aunt Manette, that turned again to
Lovell.
“I hate your father,” she said. “I hated his Chinaman. For years it
has been my affair to know where they were that I might turn my hand
against them; for between them they broke my Ninon’s heart. I that
am blind will take you that are strong to that Chinese den where the
police dare not go.”
“I’ll go alone. You can’t,” he roughly answered.
“And at midnight not have found it! Sainte Vierge! must I tell you that
I, whom you think half bedridden, am a blessed saint to those slums you
never see? Where you could not go I can take you. Night after night
have I smoothed their dying in those dens for nothing? Shall I not go
where I please in broad day?”
It would be fighting for two women instead of one, but he did not say
so. He was mad to be off, and if she could guide him it would save time.
At her door she bade him wait; and came out again with a decent shawl
over her head; an old blue shawl that would bring half-a-dozen ruffians
to her back at the sight of it. She had not lied when she said she was
a blessed angel in those slums.
“Take that,” she said, and put in his hand something that had an ugly
glitter; “but do not use it unless you must. Trust your hands the good
God made strong--for this day.”
He marveled, as Magdalen had done, at the way she threaded the streets
with hardly a question; one hand on his arm, the other against the
filthy houses they passed. And thus he forgot everything but Magdalen,
for he who lived in Hare’s Rents and would have said he knew each inch
of their neighborhood was lost after five hundred yards. Through filthy
yards and unspeakable alleys the blind woman led him; by twists and
turns, in sunlight and darkness--for twice they went in one door of
a house and came out another--she hurried him on. He saw she counted
her steps interminably, felt every greasy wall and doorway they went
through, and when at last she stopped he stared.
They stood in a court, respectable after the reeking alleys they had
threaded, an empty court with whole windows instead of broken ones; and
a silence like death hung over their heads.
“Do not speak,” she muttered as she drew him swiftly into a doorway.
“The place, each window, would be alive!”
She pushed the door, and it swung back on noiseless hinges. With her
fingers on her lips she tapped on the blank wall at her side: five
times--nine times--five times again.
No one answered, there was not a soul to be seen, but a door before
them swung forward heavily. It had reason, for it was clamped with
bronze outside and in.
There was still no sound, but there was something else. A burning,
acrid smell that clutched the throat, a distressing heaviness. Lovell
looked at her and she nodded. He saw that she scarcely breathed for
caution, and she motioned in front of her.
Down a long narrow passage--and that Chinese smell that is like nothing
else in heaven or earth came up it--was spotless matting; ranged down
it were clean straw slippers in orderly rows; opposite them boots that
might have touched his heart at another time. Thick and thin, worn to
holes, the boots of men who starve and freeze half naked, that the
“black smoke” may lift their souls to peace. There were decent shoes,
too, of Chinamen who earned an honest livelihood, but most were the
shoes of men who “move on” eternally.
At the look in the blind eyes he understood, and left his own shoes in
the orderly rank; he shook his head at the slippers; he would shuffle
in them.
Aunt Manette felt the negative. She stooped and hid a pair of slippers
in her dress, lest the keepers of the house should count them. He saw
that she did not mean to take off her own foot covering; it was one
person who came in, not two.
Never in his life had Lovell felt anything so strong as that silent
bidding to silence in the blind woman’s touch. For himself he would
have stormed through the house, wrecked doors, fought--but he knew the
woman in the blue shawl was a better guide than he.
One door they passed, and then another; a third they crept by inch by
inch; for inside it men spoke in a strange tongue.
The passage sloped down, grew dark. The woman who was always in the
dark moved surely; sometimes he felt her stoop and place his feet where
they should go. Down and down they went, by stairs that were ladders,
round corners; till in the black labyrinth he knew, as a brave man
knows, that without Aunt Manette he would have come here in vain.
In the dark she stopped and listened. Very far off some one laughed--a
wicked sound in that place. She drew him on a step or two, and held his
hand while she felt above her on the wall.
“There,” she breathed in his ear. “Press up; in!” and as he did it some
one laughed again.
“Quick!” directed the woman, and caught him that he might not fall
forward, for the wall in front of him had slipped away like a card
slides into a pack.
There was a dull light in front of them, a room horrible with hangings
unspeakable; a man sitting half erect on a heap of mats.
“You!” said Lovell; and knew the laugh that answered him, though it was
close instead of seeming miles away.
“So you’ve come,” said the bleached thing in the gaudy dressing-gown,
without surprise.
“Mr. Churchill,” said Aunt Manette, who had half-closed the door
behind her--and stood by it, a living wedge in the opening. “There is
one--inside?”
He looked at her.
“Ask Ah Lee,” he said listlessly. “As for me, I’m dying. But I couldn’t
die with those moans in my ears. It was part of the bargain that I
should die in peace.”
Lovell cursed him; and some rag of manhood came back to Bertie
Churchill, who had mortgaged his last copper to Ah Lee for a place to
die in.
“Be civil, Ogilvie,” he said; “it won’t hurt you. You were my pal once,
you know. It’s queer how things come back to you.”
“Look within,” said Aunt Manette from the door. “The middle panel,
behind that embroidered devil.” It was a god, but her fingers found it
the other thing.
From instinct Lovell pushed as he had been taught outside, but there
was no light behind that curtain. In the dark he struck a match, and
his heart shook in him. If this was where Magdalen Clyde should be----
“Is there nowhere else?” said he, and his voice was thick.
Manette Duplessis became white.
“Speak,” she said, low and fierce to Churchill.
“Did he bring a girl there last night? Or----”
She could not go on. She knew other places, but not as she knew this.
“I can’t smoke opium, you know,” said Churchill softly, “because of
my lungs. But I let Ah Lee think I do. He thought I was dead with it
last night, I suppose, for he came and stood over me. I hate the sight
of him; so I kept my eyes shut, and he went in there.” It was like a
corpse sitting up and talking. “After a long time some one moaned.
I--you fool, Ogilvie----” and there was in his face some remembrance of
a day long dead that kept the others still. “I was a gentleman once!
I couldn’t stand that moaning. I went in there; a white girl with red
hair moaned at me for Dolly, and I knew a Dolly long ago. I knew, also,
that Ah Lee had no business with a white girl that cried. I gave her
brandy, for I can drink if I can’t smoke, and----”
“You took her out?” Aunt Manette was heedless who heard her. “You took
her out?”
As if it were Lovell’s voice alone that could galvanize him into
coherency he stared at her.
“I took her out,” he repeated vacantly; “but they caught her at the
door.”
CHAPTER XXXII.
IN THE HOUSE OF AH LEE.
“Twenty-four hours it will last,” said Ah Lee to himself. “And he will
drink himself blind when he wakes. It will do.”
He glanced angrily at Churchill, who was too long in dying, and drew a
coverlet over his face. Asleep or not asleep, he need have no chance of
seeing what Ah Lee went out and brought in; what he flung down in the
wine room as if it were lifeless.
He had no orders from Stratharden, and he feared him as he had never
feared God nor devil. He was in his own clothes now, and he stumped
off for orders. When he came back he yawned with a huge indifference.
If she could not help dying, she would die. To make her live, as
Stratharden ordered, was impossible. There was nothing that would make
that drug pass off before its allotted span.
“Twenty-four hours I told him,” said he, “and he will not come before.
I will smoke and sleep.”
But he had forgotten something. The girl Stratharden wanted out of the
way was made of good stuff. Clean blood ran in her; there was no weak
spot, no flaw in her for the drug to catch in. And, above all, she was
brave. In the dark room where he had left her she was lying like a
log. She made no more of those efforts to speak or move that she knew
resulted in unavailing anguish. Torture ran and crawled through every
limb, as it was, but something made her know that it was people who
struggled under Ah Lee’s drug who died. It might be better to die, but
she would not help it on. Instead, she prayed the whole night through,
with Dolly--only Dolly--in her thoughts.
She must live for Dolly, help Dolly; pay Lovell--who was Stratharden’s
son--for each pain that rent her slim body. And at five in the morning
a cry she did not know was her own voice come back to her, and sent the
cold drops out on her forehead.
“Dolly!” she heard again, and knew she could speak. She said the word
over and over, like a nun in a litany, not in despair, but to keep
herself brave. “Dolly! Dolly!” and then sat upright with a pain that
turned her cold. She must die here after all.
For there was a light in her eyes--a dreadful stooping figure in a
gaudy draping, coming toward her; the dazzle of it made her spring up
to face Ah Lee.
But it was not he.
“Don’t moan,” some one drawled, “I hate moaning.”
“You’re English,” she muttered, and found it difficult to make her
tongue obey her.
“Did you come here to smoke?” said the man listlessly. “You’re too
young.”
“Take me out! Take me away!” She caught at him with her hands that she
could not guide. “They brought me here. Dolly!--Oh! get me back to
Dolly!”
He touched her hand, her gown.
“You’re a lady,” said Bertie Churchill. “A lady--here!” He turned away,
and because she thought he was going to leave her she staggered after
him, clutching at him with wild words.
“Hush!” said the man with one of those queer revivings of a dead self.
“I’ll take care of you. Drink this.” To her mouth he held the brandy
that he courted death with, and made her swallow it drop by drop, till
there was heat, not ice, in her stagnant veins.
“Now tell me why you came,” he said watching her. It was a long time
since a lady had drunk from Bertie Churchill’s glass.
She told him in slow whispers; but she was getting supple now; her
fingers could hold the glass that at first they had let fall. But it
seemed to her that he gathered no meaning from what she said.
“Don’t you see,” she cried desperately, “that he means to kill me?
Can’t you help me to get back to Dolly? She will be--they’ll ruin
Dolly! I heard them say so.”
“Ruin Dolly,” he repeated. He started as if he had been stung. “Dolly
Deane,” he said as if to himself. “I saw her before I came here. I
wonder why I--but that’s a long time ago.”
“What do you know about Dolly Deane?” she exclaimed. She looked at him,
and for the first time recognized his face.
“You’re the man!” she said recoiling, “that called her--that made the
noise at Krug’s restaurant! What was Dolly to you?”
“Nothing,” was the old instinct to lie coolly for a woman. “I was
drunk. I don’t remember anything about it.”
A quick thought took her--and if Ah Lee’s drug had any good in it, it
was that it sharpened the wits.
“Are you Churchill?” she cried.
The bow he gave her was grotesque in his red dressing-gown; but she was
only looking at his face.
“I was,” he said. “I’m dying now you know.”
“Did you marry Dolly?” she demanded. “They say you married Dolly.
They’re going to prosecute her for bigamy.”
The man flinched. She had struck him to the bone.
“Who are you?” he said very low and, when she told him, covered his
face.
“She’s young still,” he said; “I saw her at Krug’s and it made me mad,
for I’m old and dying. But bigamy--she knows I never married her! I
spent her money and left her like a cur. I used to wake up in the night
and think of her--little Dolly, who was a fool and pretty, and loved
me, till I left her to die in the gutter. And then I saw her at Krug’s,
well dressed and young. Tell her----”
“Come away. Take me out and come to Dolly!” she broke in. “Say you
never married her!”
“I never married her,” but the flash of life in him was gone. “I can’t
come,” he said courteously. “I belong here, you know. It seemed warm
and no one worries me. But you must go. No white girl should be here.”
He moved to the side of the room and touched it gently. Nothing gave
and an ugly light came in his eyes.
“Locked in,” said he; “which was not in my bargain. But Ah Lee forgets.”
He fumbled in the folds of his wrapping and brought out a thin, strong
wire. With a dexterity that spoke volumes for the life he had led he
did something to the door.
“My patent, that Ah Lee forgets he bought from me,” said he. “Allow
me,” and he took her hand.
At the top of the long labyrinth of stairs and passages he stopped; he
pointed to the rows of boots at a door.
“Past those and two others,” he said. “I will stand between them and
you. When you get to the door in front of you knock on the right wall.
Five taps--nine--then five again. They’ll let you out.”
“Come,” she whispered, white lipped. “Come away from this dreadful
place. Save yourself as well as me. For God’s sake, come!”
He laid his gentleman’s hand on her mouth.
“I belong here,” he said softly. “Will you say good-by to me and go?”
There was something dignified in his ravaged face; something, too, that
agonized her with pity. He, half dead himself, had saved her; would
stay here and bear the brunt of it.
“Mr. Churchill!” she begged, but he hushed her; he held out a hand to
her and drew it back.
“It isn’t fit--I’m not fit,” he muttered.
Magdalen Clyde--and to the day of her death she will be glad she
did it--stooped and kissed that shadowy hand--bade God bless him to
eternity and knocked at the bronze-bound door.
It swung back as he had said it would do. She went through and was in
another passage with another shut door before her. She looked back for
guidance to Churchill, but the door between them was fast. She knocked
again with shaking fingers, lost count and hesitated.
The door before her opened, then began to close with dreadful
swiftness. She leaped to it, shrieked, was caught and tore her gown
away.
Behind her rose a quick sound of opening doors, of flying feet. All
round the court faces, and such faces as nightmare knows, filled the
windows; a man rose as if by magic in her path and she flew by him.
The morning daylight dazzled her and saved her, too, for once out of
that court--and she never knew that she struck savagely at men and
women who sprang out of doorways--the streets were empty.
She caught her skirts to her knee and ran.
Blundered into alleys and out again; ran on and on, she cared not
where, but away from Ah Lee; and dropped at last as a driven dog does
that cowardly people say is mad.
Like a dog she lay and panted, the blood beating in her as though her
veins must break. It was not seven o’clock yet, and the stones she
lay on had the chill of the night. Where she was, she neither knew nor
cared, so that she was out of Ah Lee’s house. No one passed in the
empty street and at last her sickening pulse-beats ceased to shake her.
From somewhere there came a footstep, coming nearer, stepping flatly
without heels. She raised her head, looked one way and the other and
could not get to her feet. A Chinaman turned into the street, looked at
her impassively and took to his heels.
“He’s one of them! He’s gone to tell Ah Lee.” She would be caught in
who knew how little time. “I----” She wrenched herself till she stood
up and stared round her. She did not know where she was; she dared not
run one way or another; could not have run had she dared.
Hatless, her hair loose and matted, her black gown torn, she stood
still. To knock at these decent doors would result in her being turned
away for a drunken outcast; there would be no pity in these snug
houses; Ah Lee might be on her before she roused the inmates from their
beds. Were there no police in London? Was all the world asleep but she
and Chinamen?
She looked down at her bedraggled clothes, and knew a policeman would
arrest her and consider her story a drunken lie. There would be hours
lost before she got back to Dolly.
“Milk--milk!” The cry came like a voice from heaven.
Magdalen turned and saw a milkman coming toward her with his cans in
his hands. He was a big man with a kind face; he whistled as he poured
out and left his milk. With a quick hand she straightened her hair and
caught up her dress to hide the rents. The milkman looked at her.
“Milk?” he said bruskly.
She shook her head. He would think her mad if she asked to drink it
from the can.
“I’ve lost my way,” she said. “I want to get to Featherston Street and
Hare’s Buildings.”
“You’re miles off,” with a bewildered look at her. “Been out all night?”
She nodded.
“I suppose you’re used to it,” half kindly; she must have been a pretty
woman when she was sober. “I’m about finished here. If I show you out
to the Northend Road can you find your way?”
“Northend Road!” she gasped. “How did I get so far?”
“You know best, I s’pose. Ain’t you got no hat?”
“I lost it.”
“Well, step on,” he said with a laugh. “I guess my character’ll stand
it. There ain’t no one up, anyhow.”
She shook as she followed him; and if she had told him why he would not
have believed her. But he was better than his word.
“This isn’t the Northend Road,” she said as they came out on a
thoroughfare and she saw the safe and blessed omnibuses going to and
fro.
“Wasn’t no use in going there if you’re in a hurry to get to
Featherston Street,” he gruffly answered.
“This is nigher. You get into a red bus and you’ll go straight to
Charing Cross. Oh, it’s only a step out of my way--you needn’t thank
me.”
There was nothing but a penny in her pocket and she must keep that. She
asked him his name and he laughed.
“No matter. I don’t want you round my way,” said he. “You take my
advice and stay home of nights. Here’s your bus.”
There are few people to whom the inside of a stuffy bus seems heaven;
but it did to Magdalen Clyde. Her penny would take her only to Hyde
Park corner, but after that she would be safe. No one would dare to lay
hands on her from there to Hare’s Buildings.
How she walked it she never knew. People turned their heads, but no
one stopped her; her feet kept on mechanically, that was all. “Hare’s
Buildings!--Dolly!” she said to herself over and over. It was not
till she stood in front of them at ten o’clock in the day that she
remembered. Dolly was not there.
She turned her head like a hunted beast and knew that lonely house was
her only refuge, felt her latch-key in her pocket and ran up-stairs.
The green baize door swayed under a yellow hand. Ah Lee with his fish
eyes alive at last had followed her. He had his own debt to pay now,
not his master’s; and he had nothing to lose by doing it. Churchill had
been right, after all. Magdalen Clyde would be “caught at the door.”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
IN THE HOUSE OF HER DREAM.
Lord Stratharden took one long, comfortable glance at Dolly Barnysdale
before he turned to go. He had half a mind to tell her that
Starr-Dalton had betrayed her into his hand; but there would be time
enough for that in court.
He sighed with pure content as he left the room and Dolly never lifted
her head to look at him. Ardmore was a bare place, but he need never
live in it, and it would be good to be Barnysdale with money instead
of Stratharden driven to death. He was even careless of the price he
had promised to pay for that loan that was tiding him over. To Ian’s
daughter he gave no thought. Ah Lee would keep her safe till he was
ready to dispose of her.
He went serenely down-stairs and paused for one startled second.
Keith--Keith, that he left in his own house--stood before him.
As he opened the door to go out her hand was on the bell; as he caught
his breath with astonishment she was inside. She swept the door from
his hand, banged it and put her back against it.
“Ye may well glower,” said she. “It’s me and it seems I’m just in time.
No; where ye are ye’ll bide,” for he put out his hand to wave her
aside. “I owe ye no obedience.”
It was really in pure astonishment that he stared at her and then his
wits came to him.
What the housekeeper was thinking of would come to nothing. There was
no earthly chance that that girl’s disappearance could be brought home
to his door, even if they caught Ah Lee. This was as good a place to be
in as any, since it was natural enough that he should come and confront
the woman who had swindled him out of his inheritance.
“I didn’t know this was an international affair,” he said with his
familiar sneer. “Pray don’t excite yourself. I’m perfectly willing to
stay. But disabuse yourself of the thought that I can be bullied by a
servant. I stay because I choose.”
He had reflected hastily that while Keith was here she could not be
hunting the town for Buff. He had no desire for Buff’s comments on a
story that was absurd on the face of it. It was abominable luck that
had mixed Buff up with the girl. It amused him to see that Keith never
took her back from the door.
The sound of a strange voice had roused Dolly from her dazed terror
up-stairs. She ran down, only stopping for Ronald.
“Magdalen!” she cried. “Have you found Magdalen?”
Keith looked at Stratharden.
“No,” she said slowly, and it was all he could do to keep down a
grimace of contempt. “But sit ye down. I’ve a story to bring to the
memory of my Lord Stratharden, and ye that were never the countess had
best hear it, too.”
“So you own that much,” said Stratharden. It was perfectly immaterial
to him what she told, since the only proof of it--and that a trifling
one--was in his house at home. He looked round the bare little entry
with its one chair. “Is it necessary to sit all of us on that? I fear
it will be a long story.”
“Go, can’t you?” said Dolly fiercely. “What are you staying here for?”
“For news of your sister,” and she winced as she was meant to. He
walked coolly into the dismantled sitting-room, with its door open into
the ill-omened showroom Magdalen had never used. He had no desire to
stop Keith; it was as well to make sure how much she suspected, for of
course she could know nothing.
Keith followed him like a cat a mouse, fearful that he would get away.
Dolly, with one look of hatred, turned away from them both. Did they
think that with Magdalen gone and herself found out she would listen
to any old stories politely, as in a drawing-room? She clutched Ronald
to her and walked into the desolate showroom, where no furniture but
the pier-glass remained. What she had done she had done for herself; it
was only to use a dead woman’s confidence, and yet be not so unworthy
of it, either. But she could never right the wrong now; the only thing
left to her was----
“I’m glad I lied,” said Dolly to herself; “glad! If I hadn’t I couldn’t
save Ronald now. If Magdalen would only come back I’d be happy--yes,
happy!” She stamped her foot with sudden rage at herself. Why was she
standing here doing nothing?
“I won’t believe she meant to leave me!” she thought. “She wouldn’t
do it. What do I care for Stratharden--for anything? I’ll go to the
police.”
“Will ye no come here and listen?” Keith’s voice broke in on her. “It’s
worth yer while.”
Dolly turned on her like a fury.
“What do I care for your stories?” she cried. “You said you came here
for Magdalen--that you loved her. Why don’t you do something instead
of standing like a log in my house. I’ve enough of you and your
mysteries. I’m going to the police.”
“Ay, mistress, but have patience,” said Keith softly; and iron-nerved
as he was Stratharden started.
None of the three heard a dragging step on the stair, the soft sound of
a turning key.
On the threshold Magdalen stood speechless, her pale face sodden, her
eyes like dark coals. There, with her back to her, was Dolly! * * *
Dolly! Had it all been a hideous dream that last night she had found
this house deserted? Why was Dolly so still? What made the house so
silent? If there had been anyone behind Magdalen Clyde, creeping to her
foot by foot, they might have thought she stood alone.
“Dolly,” said Magdalen simply, like a child, “Dolly, I’ve come home.”
In the little room Keith stood before Stratharden, her back toward the
door that gave on the entry where Magdalen stood, her ungainly body
between it and him. But under her arm, through the showroom door, he
saw Dolly’s face as she wheeled.
“Sit ye down!” shouted Keith. She sprang on the man who had been her
master. “Ye’ll not move from this place!”
Dolly’s scream rang wild.
“Magdalen, move! move!” She flung Ronald on a chair and ran to that
ghost-eyed girl at the door. But she was too late.
Magdalen had turned, had met Ah Lee’s spring that he meant for her
back, and was on the floor. Tooth and nail, in the house of her dream,
that dream came true. Over and over, up and down, she was fighting
with the Chinaman, his yellow fingers writhing every instant a little
nearer to her throat.
Dolly’s shriek broke off in her ears as if it had stopped in the
middle. There was a darkness in her eyes--then utter silence. The
struggle was over and she lay still.
Stratharden, in the inside room, sat like a stone.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
ONE THAT WAS LOST.
Lovell, and it was the last day he would ever call himself so, stood
speechless in Ah Lee’s opium shop. Beside him was a sergeant and
half-a-dozen policemen; in front of him some rags of humanity with
their smoke still in them. There had been such a raiding as never was
known in their memory, but for all that there was despair on Lovell’s
face.
Whoever they had, it was not Magdalen nor Ah Lee. Churchill had told
the truth; she had been taken elsewhere. What had become of the French
woman he neither knew nor cared, except that neither he nor the police
knew where to go.
Some one touched him on the arm.
“He’s conscious,” said the doctor some one had brought. “He wants to
say something. Is your name Ogilvie?”
It was, to his shame. To his shame, too, he had forgotten the man who
lay down-stairs, dying for Magdalen Clyde. He ran down quickly enough,
with a policeman’s lantern to make the way plain.
Bertie Churchill, in his scarlet dressing-gown, lay on the mats that
were redder still. The salt, acrid smell of blood rose over the reek of
brandy, but the little that stayed in the dying man had been England’s
best.
“I’ll only keep you two minutes,” he whispered. “I was wrong about her;
she got away. That’s why I’m here.”
“Ah Lee?”
Churchill assented with his eyes.
“I thought when you were here they’d got her at the door. She knocked
instead of going straight through; it’s never locked. But they didn’t,
and they couldn’t wake Ah Lee from his opium to tell him she was gone.
After you’d gone he came here--he--in the middle of it,” with a glance
at his side and the blood on the floor. “His son came in. I was pretty
far gone and they spoke their lingo, but they used names of streets.
She must have got as far as the Northend Road; they jabbered of it.
The boy was saying something else. ‘Buildings--Hare’s Buildings.’ Know
about it? I could open my eyes then and I saw Ah Lee’s face. He cut
at me to finish me before he went--there, I suppose! You’d know,” he
concluded very wearily.
“She lives there,” said Lovell sharply. He caught Churchill’s hand with
the dew of death on it. “What is it?” he said. “Is there anything you
want before I go?”
“She said ‘God bless you’--to me!” It was as if he were very far off.
“Don’t go.”
The doctor caught Lovell’s eye and nodded.
“Dolly,” said Churchill very loud, “I’ve paid. You said I’d pay and I’m
paying. I’ve been damned alive ever since that day I said I never meant
to marry you.”
Lovell started. He had never thought of this Churchill and Magdalen’s
sister, who was Lady Barnysdale. He remembered the restaurant and
Churchill’s face as he called.
“Did you marry her?” he asked, and saw the doctor’s face.
Churchill sat up in his bed of mats.
There was a childish disappointment in his eyes.
“Krug’s putting--out--the lights!” said he, and fell back again.
The lights were out indeed for Bertie Churchill; his days for good and
evil were over, and for the evil, as he said, he had paid.
Lovell stumbled as he went up-stairs. For this thing and many others
his father was responsible, and, for all he knew, for a blacker thing
yet. He turned his back on that dreadful house and ran, as he had never
run in his life, for Hare’s Buildings.
He had no hope she would be there. It was perhaps to find nothing had
been true in the things Churchill had said that he was going. But he
went--a splendid sight to see, deep-ribbed and lean-flanked, he ran
like a buck in spring. But his dark, hard face was not so good to see.
He was there, past the tailor shop, half-way up the stairs, when some
one screamed.
Shriek after shriek rang through the open door; but, mad as he was, he
knew the shrieks were not Magdalen’s. He was in the room before he saw
her; saw Dolly on her knees over Ah Lee, clawing for his eyes.
His hand pushed her away like a straw. Silent as death, and as
terrible, it struck Ah Lee once, and twice. The man’s convulsed face
straightened as if the fury had been wiped on it, his rigid hands fell
lax as his body swayed backward. But Stratharden’s son never looked at
his father’s servant.
Without a word he lifted Magdalen like a child; laid her down,
anywhere, but away from that filthy, yellow carrion on the floor, and
put his hand on the swollen throat that had been so fair.
“Water, quick!” he exclaimed. There was a trampling on the stair, but
he paid no heed to it; it was Dolly who banged the door as she ran past.
But it was not Dolly who ran to him with a dripping towel.
“My God, Keith!” he ejaculated. “Why didn’t you help her?” He felt the
quiet pulse, and his stern eyes might have made any woman cower. But
not Keith.
“May be I fought, too,” she said bitterly. “She’s but fainted; he had
not a clean grip of her.”
Faint or no faint, he would have her out of it. There was no tenderness
in his face as he worked over her, only stark, raging determination.
And it was on that look of Dick Lovell’s that Magdalen opened her eyes.
As her senses came to her she recoiled from him and would have sprung
away but for the deadly coldness that kept her still.
“You!” she muttered, and there was horror of him on her face. “Take
away your hand! I know your name!”
Buff Ogilvie looked behind him and saw his father standing in the
doorway.
“You!” he exclaimed. He looked from the girl who had turned from him
to hide her face on Dolly’s breast to the man who had made her do it.
Ronald, forgotten and bewildered, crept to his mother’s side. No one
else stirred.
Stratharden nodded slowly. He was very white about the nose and his
eyes were narrow.
“I did not come in time,” he was breathing very slowly. “I----Is that
Ah Lee?”
Keith got up off her knees.
“Well you know it is,” she said. “Ye need not hush, Mr. Ogilvie. I’ve
served him well these many years, but I serve him no longer. I’ll say
my say now that my mistress there may hear it.”
Her mistress. Did she mean Dolly? Magdalen raised her head and saw Ah
Lee lying as he had fallen.
“Is he--did I kill him?” she cried.
“Let him be,” said Keith. “He’ll no die. ’Twas Ogilvie here that
stunned him,” but at that name Magdalen only turned away her head.
“She’ll not look at ye,” said Keith. “My lamb, ye must hear me! Ye mind
the picture I showed ye? That ye were the spit and image of?”
Magdalen lay dull eyed. What had a picture to do with her and Lovell,
who was Stratharden’s son?
Keith’s bony chest heaved.
“’Twas Ian’s picture,” she said. “Yer uncle, Ian Ogilvie. Oh, ye’ll
not know, as I know, how he that was the son of the house fared at
the hands of Stratharden and his mother! He was the first-born; his
mother died; but ye’re grandfather married again. Stratharden here
was but three years younger than Ian; Barnysdale, that was married to
her”--with a look at Dolly--“but one year. And had it not been for me
little would Ian have had in his father’s house.
“He always laughed it off when I said the things that were on my
tongue, but hell was his boyhood, thanks to the stepmother set over
him--and hell his manhood, by Stratharden. They gave him--his father
and stepmother--neither schooling nor money. A room in the house, a
bite with old Keith in the kitchen, was all he had. And one day he left
those. He was a grand man to see when he was come to his growth; darker
than her, but her living image. I mind I prayed for him by night and
day when he left me and went to sea.
“Your Barnysdale, that was Stratharden then,” she motioned to Dolly,
“went off, too, to college and to worse; we heard no more of him.
Stratharden here bided at home by his mother’s apron-string, and, as
she bade him, he married. And when Ogilvie here was two years old a
letter comes from Ian. And he was married, too.
“We went to him, David and I, and a bonny thing his wife was. Ninon, he
called her. I mind how her mother looked at her child the day it was
born. ‘Black and white and red,’ she said laughing, and black and white
and red she is still. But I had not cast my eyes on Ian before I saw
that he was dying. Poor they were and very poor; for the mother, that
was Madame Duplessis, had lost her money in the French war--they say
she lent it to overset Napoleon--I cannot tell. And while I was trying
to keep the life in Ian, that was worked to the bone keeping his wife,
in walks my lord here. Ay, well ye know it!” she turned and towered
over him.
“Ye sowed distrust between them, or ye tried. Ye gave her a jewel that
was a secret sign of the friends of Louis Napoleon; she wore it, and
her mother’s people, that were Orleanists, would do no more for her.
Ye cut one thing after another away from the feet of Ian’s wife, that
she might turn to ye. But she did not turn. He died in her arms, with
her head on his breast, and oh! I mind that ye gnashed yer teeth to see
it. Even then ye had yer heathen with ye; though I never knew where ye
found him, for it was not till after that ye traveled the wide world
round. And it was fear, black fear of ye and him, that sent my Ian’s
wife away in the night in secret with his child in her arms. Well I
might have guessed what ye had in yer heart, for I knew ye; but she was
too clever for ye at the last end. She ran away from the mother that
bore her for fear ye would damn her, soul and body, and cast disrepute
on Ian’s child.
“What was it blinded the mother of her that night we found she’d gone?
Blinded her in the street as she would have sought the police? Who was
it came to me with soft words and a written secret from a hospital, to
say Madame Duplessis had died there? Ay, ye know! And, dead or alive,
neither mother nor daughter nor grandchild ever came back again. We
were poor, David and I; but we wore our feet to the bone seeking them.
It was not till ye’re father was dead and ye’re brother set in his
shoes that we went back to Ardmore, and then only that we were starving
and hopeless of finding Ian’s child.
“For sixteen years I heard no word of her, till Barnysdale died, too,
and ye told me that his wife was mad and ye would bring her home to
Ardmore. I was to keep a guard on her, and I kept it; for the honor
of the house of Barnysdale, not for ye. Ye little knew that she was
bringing with her the daughter of Ian that I loved”--pointing at the
girl in Dolly’s arms. “Nor did I. But when ye sent ye’re heathen to the
house--and I saw the living flesh and blood of Ian under my eyes--and
ye did yer best to drive her and Barnysdale’s wife into the Clyde--I
knew. Oh, I knew! And ye sent me to London to track them; I tracked
them well. I found from the manager man that Dorothy Deane that danced
and married Barnysdale had no sister. I found elsewhere that another
Dorothy Deane had acted in that same theater--and she had a stepsister,
they said, at a convent. And in the convent they told me what none knew
but them. To Mrs. Deane’s house had come a woman and a child; the woman
died there, Mrs. Deane kept the child, Clyde, and said it was hers. It
was said she was married again, but none ever saw the man named Clyde.
But Clyde was the name Ian’s wife had banked her money in, and a Mrs.
Clyde drew it. And when she was dead Dorothy Deane spent the rest of
it. And that I did not hear in the convent. Is it true?” Dolly drew a
long breath.
“It’s true,” she said. She waited for Magdalen to turn away from her as
she had from Ogilvie; but Magdalen clutched her fast.
“She did her best,” she cried sharply. “She was a good mother to
me--she was kind and I loved her.”
“All this,” said Stratharden quietly, “has nothing to do with the fact
that Lady Barnysdale here is a liar and a swindler, who never was
Barnysdale’s wife. I may tell you--Mrs. Churchill--that your husband is
alive. Your friend, Mr. Starr-Dalton, knows it.”
“Churchill!” cried Dolly, livid. “You threatened me because of
Churchill. He never married me; he----” She stood breathless, and if
ever any woman wrestled with temptation it was she. Magdalen was Lady
Barnysdale, there was still money and comfort for Dolly, and respect if
she held her tongue, unless Churchill----
That “unless” settled it. She spoke out with a wrench that shook her.
“I never was married in my life,” she said. “No, don’t stop me,” as
Lovell would have spoken. “I never was married, either to Barnysdale
or to anyone else. There were two Dolly Deanes; one was a success--I
was the failure. I was only a chorus girl. My name was never in the
bills. I was dismissed; Churchill threw me over. I went to Hastings to
die there--and the other Dolly Deane found me. I was at my last penny,
and when she married Barnysdale--she, not I--she took me with her as
her maid. I was with her when he left her--with her when she died. I
promised her to see Ronald righted--her son, not mine. Those papers
I had were hers, just as he was. I was afraid of Churchill; I was
afraid to go to a theater, for fear some one would know me. But I’m not
afraid now. Send for the man and ask him, for he knows. I can tell now,
because Ronald will not fall into your hands.”
Stratharden shrugged his shoulders.
“Other people shall know, too,” he said. “That, and this mad story of
Keith’s that I will prove a lie.”
He stepped to the door.
But he was too late. A group of men were in the doorway; in front of
them Aunt Manette, with a cold and weary face.
“Who is here?” she said. But no one answered.
The sergeant of police said something in Stratharden’s ear that he
answered aloud:
“It has nothing to do with me,” he said. “As for the girl, she is here.”
The French woman spoke at the sound.
“Nothing to do with you! And they find in your house her boxes that
you took from the station--her pin that I gave her the mate of not a
week ago. And they find also that paper in your handwriting in Ah Lee’s
house. Everything down in white and black, lest he should forget.”
“Aunt Manette,” said Lovell sharply. “Let it be. She’s here; she knows.”
“And Ninon is in her grave,” she answered slowly. “Can I forgive that?
And I sightless, till I must pass her child in the street. I will tell
all! all!”
Stratharden looked at her. He knew her well; knew Keith, knew Dolly;
and not one of them would hold their hand.
“I don’t think,” he said softly, “that you can bring anything so
far-fetched home to me. But you can try.”
He moved to Ah Lee, who had stirred.
As Keith said, he was a heathen, but he was the only soul on earth who
loved Stratharden.
The man knelt by him, dull eyed. He slipped his hand inside the
Chinaman’s coat and felt his heart.
“He would have been wiser to die,” he said, stepping back. He brushed
his hand across his mouth and swallowed.
Buff Ogilvie, who would be Lovell no more, looked round him. Magdalen
did not believe that his father’s work was not his, and she was not his
Dark Magdalen any longer, but Countess of Barnysdale. He could ask no
favors of a girl who shrank from him, who must presently be a witness
against his father in the dock. He turned, and he was dizzy, to go and
hide his head he knew not where. And a dull crash stopped him.
Charles Ogilvie, Viscount Stratharden, had fallen forward on his face.
Ah Lee had served him well, even to carrying that in his pocket that
brought death very quickly. But his own son shrank from the look on
Stratharden’s dead face.
* * * * *
Late that night Buff Ogilvie sat in his bare room in Hare’s Rents.
There was nowhere else to go, and there would be an inquest, a routing
out of old things that he, his father’s son, must hear in silence. He
thought of Churchill, whose eyes he had not stayed to close--of things
that had been heaven yesterday and to-day were a fire that is not
quenched. “The sins of the father” was an old story, read in the Bible;
on living shoulders it was a different thing. An old rhyme of his house
came to his mind, as such things do, and he writhed in his chair. Yet
it was simple enough; it was carved in the wall over the door of that
chapel he had never been let enter; he had wondered over it all his
boyhood, but he cursed himself that it came home to him now.
“I built a chapel in Barnysdale,
That seemly was to see;
It was for Mary Magdalen,
And thereto would I be.”
That was it. He had made his soul a chapel to Magdalen, and Stratharden
had razed it to the ground. His head dropped on his folded arms. For
very shame he could never so much as see her again--after his father’s
sins lay between them.
Some one pushed the door ajar and stood there; saw the desolate poverty
of the room, the broken man in the chair.
“Dick,” said Magdalen Clyde--and Aunt Manette slipped away in the
darkness of the hall--“Dick, they’ve told me!”
The man’s hard face quivered, but he never lifted it. He shivered to
the bone as she put her hand on his shoulder.
“I heard you that day in the street,” she said simply. “I thought you
knew. I thought Ah Lee----Dick, speak to me!”
“I’m his son--Stratharden’s son,” he said slowly. “And you’re----”
She had slipped to her knees beside him, her hands were round his neck,
her lips at his ear.
“Your Dark Magdalen,” she whispered. “Will you send me away?”
* * * * *
Long after a couple, a man and a woman, looked at them as they went
through a room together.
“Wasn’t there some story?” the woman asked. The man she spoke to
answered carelessly:
“Something about a Chinaman. She offended him and he tried to kill her.
He died in prison, I think.”
For Ah Lee, heathen and murderer, had been faithful to the dead.
The boxes, the pin, the whole story, he took on his shoulders; and
Stratharden’s son would have been glad to have believed him.
THE END.
EAGLE SERIES A weekly publication devoted to good literature. NO. 448
Dec. 26, 1905.
S. & S. Novels
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because some chapters from the earlier version have been combined or
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