Kitabı oku: «The Bond of Black», sayfa 8

Chapter Twelve
“You! Of All Men!”

“No,” I admitted, “I was not aware who Aline Cloud was, nor did I know that you were acquainted with her.”

She started. She had unwittingly betrayed herself.

“I – acquainted with her!” she cried in a voice of indignation. “You are mistaken.”

“But you know her by repute,” I said. “Tell me the truth about her.”

She laughed, a light, nervous laugh, her eyes still fixed upon the water.

“You love her!” she exclaimed. “It is useless for me to say anything.”

“No, no, Muriel,” I cried. “I do not love her. How could I love her when I know nothing whatsoever of her? Why, I only saw her twice.”

“But you were with her a sufficient length of time to declare your love.”

How could she know? I wondered. Aline herself must have told her. She uttered a falsehood when she declared that she did not know the mysterious fair-faced woman whose power was so mysterious and unnatural.

I was puzzled.

“Well,” I said at length, “I admit it. I admit that in a moment of mad ecstasy I made a foolish declaration of affection – an avowal which I have ever since regretted.”

She gave me a pitying, scornful look, a glance which proved to me how fierce was her hatred of Aline.

“If you had told me of your fascination I might have been able to have explained the truth concerning her. But as you have thought fit to preserve your secret, no end can now be gained by the exposure of anything I know,” she said, quite calmly.

“What do you know about her, Muriel?” I inquired, laying my hand upon her arm in all seriousness. “Tell me.”

But she shook her head, rather sadly perhaps. The bright expression of happiness which had illuminated her countenance until that moment had died away and been replaced by a look of dull despair. The sun shone down upon her brightly, the birds were singing in the trees and all around was gladness, but she seemed troubled and oppressed as one heartbroken.

“No!” she answered in a low tone, her breast slowly heaving and falling. “If you have really escaped the enthralment it is enough. You may congratulate yourself.”

“Why?”

“Merely because you have avoided the pitfall set in your path,” she answered. “She was beautiful. It was because of her loveliness that you became entranced, was it not?”

“There is no necessity to conceal anything,” I said.

“You speak the truth.”

“And you had some illustrations of the evil influence which lay within her?” Muriel asked.

I recollected how my crucifix had been mysteriously reduced to ashes, and nodded in the affirmative, wondering whether I should ever succeed in obtaining knowledge of the truth which she evidently possessed.

“Yet you had the audacity to love her!” she laughed. “You thought that she – this woman whom all the world would hound down if they knew the true facts – could love you in return! It is amazing how a pretty face can lead the strongest-willed man to ruin.”

I rather resented her attitude in thus interfering in my private affairs. That I admired her was true; yet I was not her lover, and she had no right to object to any of my actions.

“I cannot see that I have been so near ruin as you would make out,” I exclaimed, philosophically. “An unrequited love is an incident in most men’s lives.”

“Ah! she spared you!” she cried. “If she had smitten you, you would have perished as swiftly as objects dissolve into ashes when she is present. At least she pitied you. And you were doubly fortunate.”

“Yes,” I said, reflecting upon her words, at the same time recollecting her mysterious connection with poor Roddy Morgan. “She was without doubt endowed with a power that was inexplicable.”

“Inexplicable!” she echoed. “It was supernatural. Things withered at her touch.”

“If I, your friend, am fortunate in my escape, would it not be but an act of friendship to explain to me all you know concerning her?”

Her dark, luminous eyes met mine in a long, earnest glance.

“No!” she answered, after a moment’s reflection. “I have already explained. You have escaped; the incident is ended.” And she added with a laugh, “Your neglect of me was, of course, fully justified in such circumstances.”

“Now, that’s unfair, Muriel,” I exclaimed. “I had no intention of neglecting you, neither had I the slightest suspicion that you desired me to say farewell to you. Have you not told me that you have an admirer whom you could love? Surely that is sufficient. Love him, and we may always remain friends, as we now are.”

“No!” she responded, with a dark look of foreboding. “We cannot remain friends longer. Our mutual confidence is shattered. We may be acquaintances, but nothing more.”

I had not mentioned poor Roddy’s death, for it was a subject so painful that I discussed it as little as possible. Was it not, however, likely that if I explained all the circumstances and told her my suspicions, her hatred might lead her to disclose some clue whereby I might trace Aline Cloud?

Her words had caused me considerable misgiving, for it was now entirely plain that, contrary to what I had confidently believed, namely, that she loved me, she in reality held me in contempt as weak and fickle, influenced by every pretty face or wayward glance.

I looked at her again. Yes, my eyes were not love-blinded now. She was absolutely bewitching in her beauty. For the first time I became aware that there was but one woman I really loved, and that it was Muriel.

“I regret that you should not consider me to be still worthy your confidence,” I said, bending towards her seriously. “I have admitted everything, and have expressed regret. What more can I do?”

“Forget her!” she answered, with a quick petulance. “It is best to forget.”

“Ah!” I sighed. “That is unfortunately impossible.”

“Then you love her still!” she cried, turning upon me. “You love her!”

“No,” I answered. “I do not love her, because – ”

“Because she treated you shabbily, and left without giving you her address, eh? You see, I know all the circumstances.”

“You are mistaken,” I protested. “I do not love her because I entertain a well-founded if perhaps absurd suspicion.”

“Suspicion! What do you suspect?” she asked quickly.

Then, linking my arm in hers, I walked on, and commencing at the beginning told her of that fateful day when I discovered the tragic death of poor Roddy, and the circumstances which, combined with Aline’s own confession, seemed to point to her being his visitor, immediately prior to his death.

As she listened her face grew ashen, and she perceptibly trembled. A violent emotion shook her slight frame, and as I continued to relate my dismal story and piece together the evidence which I felt certain must some day connect Aline with the tragedy, I was dumbfounded to discern that which, in a single instant, changed the whole aspect of the situation.

Muriel was speechless. She was trembling with fear.

“And you really suspect that your friend was murdered?” she exclaimed at last in the voice of one preoccupied. “If that had been really so, wouldn’t the doctors have known?”

“Medical evidence is not always reliable,” I answered. “From what I have already explained it is proved conclusively that some one visited him in his valet’s absence.”

“Who called there, do you think?”

“Ah! I don’t know,” I answered. “That is what I am endeavouring to discover.”

She gave a slight, almost imperceptible sigh. It was a sigh of relief!

Could it be true that my little friend held locked within her breast the secret of Roddy’s tragic end? I glanced again at her face as she strolled by my side. Yes, her countenance was now pale and agitated, its aspect entirely changed from what it had been half an hour before.

“Why cannot you tell me something of Aline?” I asked quietly, after a long silence.

“Because I am as entirely ignorant of her as you are,” she answered without hesitation. “All I know is that she is a strange person – a woman possessed of powers so marvellous as to appear almost supernatural. Indeed, she seems the very incarnation of the Evil One himself. It was because of that I was angry when I knew that her beauty had entranced you.”

“But you are acquainted with her,” I declared. “Your words prove that.”

“No, I have had no dealings with her,” she answered. “I should fear to have, lest I should fall beneath her evil influence.”

“Then how did you know of my acquaintance with her?” I asked, noting how charming she was, and wondering within myself why during all the years that I had known her I had not discovered the true estimate of her beauty until that afternoon.

“The information was conveyed to me,” she responded vaguely.

“And you believed that I had forgotten you, Muriel?” I said tenderly, in a voice of reproach.

“It is certain that you were held powerless under that spell which she can cast over men at will. You reposed in contentment beneath her fascination, and called it love.”

“But it was not love,” I hastened to assure her. “I admired her, it is true, but surely you do not think that I could love a woman who is thus under suspicion?”

“Had your friend ever spoken of her?” she inquired after a brief silence.

“No,” I said. “Aline, however, admitted that she knew him, but strangely enough declared that he had committed suicide at Monte Carlo months before.”

“Then what she said could not be correct,” Muriel observed thoughtfully.

“I really don’t know what to believe,” I answered, bewildered. “Her words were so strange and her influence so subtle and extraordinary that sometimes I feel inclined to think that she was some supernatural and eminently beautiful being who, having wrought in the world the evil which was allotted as her work, has vanished, leaving no more trace than a ray of light in space.”

“Others who have known her have held similar opinions,” my pretty companion said. “Yet she was apparently of flesh and blood like all of us. At any rate, she ate and drank and slept and spoke like every other human being, and certainly her loves and her hatreds were just as intense as those of any one of us.”

“But her touch was deadly,” I said. “As a magician is able to change things, so at her will certain objects dissolved in air, leaving only a handful of ashes behind. In her soft, white hand was a power for the working of evil which was irresistible, an influence which was nothing short of demoniacal.”

Muriel held her breath, her eyes cast upon the ground. There was a mysteriousness in her manner, such as I had never before noticed.

“You are right – quite right,” she answered. “She was a woman of mystery.”

“Cannot you, now that I have made explanation and told you the reason of my apparent neglect, tell me what you know of her?” I asked earnestly.

“I have no further knowledge,” she assured me. “I know nothing of her personally.”

But her words did not convince me when I remembered how, on explaining my suspicions regarding Aline’s complicity in the crime, she had betrayed an abject fear.

“No,” I said dubiously. “You are concealing something from me, Muriel.”

“Concealing something!” she echoed, with a strange, hollow laugh. “I’m certain I’m not.”

“Well,” I exclaimed, rather impatiently, “to-day you have treated me, your oldest friend, very unfairly. You tell me that I merely consider you a convenient companion to be patronised when I have no other more congenial acquaintance at hand. That I deny. I may have neglected you,” I went on in deep earnestness, as we halted for a moment beneath the great old trees, “but this neglect of late has been owing to the tragedy which has so filled my mind. I have set myself to trace out its author, and nothing shall deter me in my investigations.”

She was blanched to the lips. I noticed how the returning colour died from her face again at my words, but continuing, said —

“We have been friends. Those who know of our friendship would refuse to believe the truth if it were told to them, so eager is the world to ridicule the idea of a purely platonic friendship between man and woman. Yet ours has, until now, been a firm friendship, without a thought of love, without a single affectionate word.”

“That is the reason why I regret that it must now end,” she answered, faltering, her voice half-choked with emotion.

“End! What do you mean?” I cried, dismayed.

“Ah, no!” she exclaimed, putting up both her hands, as if to shut me out from her gaze. “Don’t let us discuss it further. It is sufficient that we can exchange no further confidences. It is best now that this friendship of ours should cease.”

“You are annoyed that I should have preferred the society of that strange, mysterious woman to yours,” I said. “Well, I regret – I shall always regret that we met – for she has only brought me grief, anxiety, and despair. Cannot you forgive me?”

“I have nothing to forgive,” she answered blankly. “To have admired this woman was surely no offence against me?”

“But it was,” I declared, grasping her hand against her will.

“Why?”

I held my breath and looked straight into her dark, luminous eyes. Then, in as firm a voice as I could summon, I said —

“Because – because, Muriel, I love you?”

“Love me!” she gasped, with a look of bewilderment. “No! No!”

“Yes,” I went on, in mad impetuousness, “for years I have loved you, but feared to tell you, because you might regard my declaration as a mere foolish fancy on account of our positions, and impossible of realisation because of the probable opposition of my family. But I have now told you the truth, Muriel. I love you!”

And with my hands holding hers, I bent for the first time to kiss her lips. But in an instant she avoided me, and twisted her gloved fingers from my grasp.

“You must be mad!” she cried, with a glint of indignation in her eyes. “You must be mad to think that I could love you – of all men!”

Chapter Thirteen
The Old Love and the New

I drew back crushed and humiliated.

Her tone of withering scorn showed that she no longer looked upon me with favour.

“For years I have loved you, Muriel,” I said in as calm a tone as I could, “but I have feared to speak until to-day. Now that I have declared the truth cannot you trust me?”

“No,” she replied, shaking her head determinedly. “It is useless. I cannot love you.”

“Then you have tried and failed?” I gasped in dismay, looking into her white, agitated face.

“Yes, I have tried,” she answered after a pause.

“And do you doubt me?” I demanded quickly.

“Without mutual confidence there can be no love between us,” she responded in a dismal tone.

“But why can you not trust me? Surely I have given you no great offence?” I said, bewildered at her strange attitude.

“I regret that you should have declared love to me, that’s all,” she answered, quite philosophically.

“Why? Is it such a very extraordinary proceeding?”

“Yes,” she replied petulantly. “You know well that marriage is entirely out of the question. What would your friends say if you hinted at such a thing?”

“The opinion of my friends is nothing to me,” I replied. “I am fortunately not dependent upon them. No. I feel sure that is not the reason of your answer. You have some secret reason. What is it, Muriel?”

“Have I not already told you that I am loved?”

“And you reciprocate this man’s love?” I said harshly.

She made no response, but I saw in this silence an affirmative.

“Who is he?” I inquired quickly.

“A stranger.”

“And you have confidence in him?”

Her eyes filled with tears, and her breast heaved and fell quickly.

“No, no,” she cried at last. “Say no more. This subject is painful to both of us. Do not let us discuss it.”

“But I love you,” I again repeated. “I love you, Muriel!”

“Then forget me,” she answered, in a low, hoarse voice. “Forget me; for we can in future be only acquaintances – not even friends.”

“Then you have promised your lover to end your friendship with me. He is jealous of me!” I cried. “Come, speak the truth,” I added harshly.

“I have spoken the truth,” she responded, in a voice rather calmer than before.

“And you discard my love?” I said, in tones of bitter reproach.

“Yes,” she said, “it is true. I discard your love. You have spoken, and I give you my answer straightforwardly, much as it pains me.”

“But will you not reconsider?” I urged. “When you reflect that I love you, Muriel, better than all the world besides, that I will do all in my power to secure your happiness, that you shall be my sole thought night and day, will your heart not soften towards me? Will you never reflect that you treated me, your oldest friend, a little unfairly?”

“If in the future I reproach myself, I alone shall bear the pricks of conscience,” she answered, with surprising calmness.

“And this, then, is your decision?”

“Yes,” she replied, in a blank, monotonous voice. “I am honoured by your offer, but am compelled to decline it.”

Her words fell as a blow upon me. I had been confident, from the many little services she had rendered me, the interest she had taken in the arrangement of my bachelor’s quarters, and her eagerness always to please me, that she loved me. Yet her sudden, inexplicable desire to end our friendship shattered all my hopes. She loved another. It was my own fault, I told myself. I had neglected her too long, and it was but what I might have expected.

In silence we walked on, emerging at length into the high road, and turning into that well-known hostelry the Greyhound, where we had tea in that great room so well patronised by excursionists on Sundays. We talked but little, both our hearts being too full for words. Our utterances were mere trivialities, spoken in order that those around us should not remark upon our silence. It was a dismal meal, and I was glad when we emerged again and entered the well-kept gardens of Hampton Court, bright with their beds of old-world flowers.

I was never tired of wandering through that historic, time-mellowed, old pile, where the sparrows twitter in the quiet court-yards, the peacocks strut across the ancient gardens, and the crumbling sundials mark the time, as they have done daily through three centuries.

In my gloomy mood, however, I fear I answered her chatter abruptly in monosyllables. It struck me as strange that she could so quickly forget and become suddenly light-hearted. Indeed, it seemed as though she were glad that the ordeal she had feared had passed, and was delighted with her freedom.

The bright air of the riverside was fresh and exhilarating, but the sun soon went down, and when it grew chill we took train back to Waterloo, and drove to Frascati’s, where we dined.

“And is this actually to be our last dinner together?” I asked, as the soup was brought, for I recollected the many snug little meals we had eaten together in times gone by, and how she had enjoyed them as a change after the eternal joints of beef or mutton as supplied to the assistants at Madame Gabrielle’s.

“It must be,” she sighed.

“And you do not regret?”

Her lips quivered, and she glanced at me without replying.

“There is some mystery in all this, Muriel,” I said, bending across to her earnestly. “Why do you refuse to explain to me?”

“Because I cannot. If I could, I would.”

“Then if after to-night we are to part,” I went on bitterly, “mine will be a dismal future.”

“You have your own world,” she said. “You will quickly forget me among your gay friends, as you have already forgotten me times without number.”

I could not bear her reproaches; her words cut me to the quick.

“No. I have never forgotten you,” I protested quickly. “I shall never forget.”

“Did you not utter those same words to that woman who fascinated you a few months ago?” she suggested with a slight curl of the lip.

“If I did, it was because I was beneath the spell of her beauty – a beauty so mysterious as to be almost supernatural,” I answered. “I love you nevertheless,” I added in a low tone, so that none should overhear. “I swear I do.”

“It is useless,” she exclaimed, with a frown of displeasure. “Further discussion of the subject will lead to no alteration of my decision. You know me well enough to be aware that if I am determined no argument will turn me from my purpose.”

“But my future depends upon you, Muriel,” I cried in despair. “Through years – ever since the old days in Stamford – I have admired you, and as time has progressed, and you have become more beautiful and more refined, my admiration has developed into a true and honest love. Will you never believe me?”

“No,” she answered. “I can never believe you. Besides, we could never be happy, for our paths in life will lie in very different directions.”

“That’s all foolish sentiment,” I exclaimed. “I have to ask permission of no one as to whom I may marry. Why will you not reconsider this decision of yours? You know well – you must have seen long, long ago – that I love you.”

“I have already told you my intention,” she responded with a frigidity of manner that again crushed all hope from my heart. “To-night must be our last night together. Afterwards we must remember one another only as acquaintances.”

“No, no!” I protested. “Don’t say that.”

“It must be,” she responded decisively. All argument appeared useless, so I remained silent.

It was nine o’clock before we left the restaurant, too early for her to return to Madame Gabrielle’s, therefore at my invitation she accompanied me to my chambers, and sat with me in my sitting-room for a long time. So long had we been platonic friends that I could not bring myself to believe that that was really her farewell visit. She sat in the same chair in which Aline had sat on the first night when she had so strangely come into my life, and now again she chatted on merrily, as in the old days, inquiring after mutual friends in Stamford, and what changes had been effected in sleepy, lethargic Duddington. I had told her all the latest gossip of the place, when suddenly I observed —

“Just now everybody in the village is taken up with the new curate.”

“No curate gets on well for very long with old Layton,” she remarked. “Mr Farrar was a splendid preacher, and they said it was because the rector was jealous of his talents that he got rid of him.”

“Yes, Farrar was a clever fellow, but Yelverton, the new man, is an awfully good chap. He was at college with me, and you may judge my astonishment when I met him, after years of separation, in my mother’s drawing-room.”

“What did you say his name was?” she inquired, with knit brows.

“Yelverton – Jack Yelverton,” I answered.

“Yelverton!” She uttered the name in a strange voice, and seemed to shrink at its pronouncement.

“Yes. He’s a thoroughly good fellow. He was in London – believes in social reform among the poor, and all that sort of thing. Do you know him?”

“I – well, yes. If it is the same man, I’ve heard of him. He did a lot of good down in the East End somewhere,” she answered evasively.

“I suppose all the girls will be running after him,” I laughed. “It’s really extraordinary what effect a clerical collar has upon some girls; and mothers, too, for the matter of that.”

“They think the Church a respectable profession, perhaps,” she said, joining in my laughter.

“Well, if you’re a clergyman you are not compelled to swindle people; a proceeding which nowadays is the essence of good business,” I said. “The successful commercial man is the fellow who is able to screw the largest amount of profits out of his customers; the rich stockbroker is merely a lucky gambler; and the company promoter is but a liar whose ingenuity is such that by exaggeration he obtains money out of the public’s pockets to float his bubble concerns. It is difficult indeed nowadays to find an honest man in trade, and the professions are not much better off. Medicine is but too often quackery; the law has long been synonymous with swindling; parliamentary Honours are too often the satisfying of unbounded egotism; and the profession of the Church is more often than not followed by men to whom a genteel profession is a necessity, whose capabilities are not sufficient to enable them to enter journalism or literature, and who profess in the pulpit what they don’t practise in private life.”

She laughed again.

“That’s a sweeping condemnation,” she declared. “But there’s a great deal of truth in it. Trade is mostly dishonest, and the more clever the rogue the larger the fortune he amasses.”

“Yes,” I argued; “the man who has for years gained huge profits from the public – succeeded in hoodwinking them with some patent medicine, scented soap, or other commodity out of which he has made eighty per cent, profit – is put forward as the type of the successful business man. There is really no morality in trade in these days.”

“And this Mr Yelverton is actually curate of Duddington,” she said pensively. “Strange that he should go and bury himself down there, isn’t it?”

“He hasn’t been well,” I said. “Work in the slums has upset his health. He’s a good fellow. Not one of those who go in for the Church as an easy means of obtaining five or six hundred a year and a snug parsonage, but an earnest, devout man whose sole object is to do good among his fellow-creatures. Would that there were more of his sort about.”

Thus we chatted on. It seemed as though she knew more of Yelverton than she would admit, and that she had learned with surprise of his whereabouts.

Only once again, when she rose to go, I spoke to her of the great sorrow at my heart, and then alone with her in the silence of my room I implored her to reciprocate my love.

She stood motionless, allowing her hand to rest in mine, while I reiterated my declaration of affection. But when I had finished she withdrew her hand firmly, and with a negative gesture burst into tears.

I saw how agitated she was, how she trembled when her white hands came into contact with mine.

She tried to escape me, but I would not release her. Loving her as I did, I was determined that she should not slip away from me. Surely, I urged, I, her oldest friend, had a right to her rather than a stranger whom she had only known a few brief weeks. She was unjust to me.

Suddenly, while I was imploring earnestly that she would hesitate before thus casting my love aside, the clock of St. Martin’s struck the half-hour.

She glanced at the clock upon the mantelpiece, exclaiming —

“See! It is half-past eleven! I must go at once. I shall be locked out now, as it is. I’ve been late so often recently. You know how strict our rules are.”

“But tell me that I may hope, Muriel. Only tell me that I may hope.”

“It is useless,” she answered hastily, twisting free her hand, and re-arranging her veil at the mirror. “I have told you. Let me go.”

“No, no! You shall not, unless you promise me. I love you, Muriel. You shall not pass out of my life like this.”

“It will be midnight before I get back,” she cried distressed. “I had no idea it was so late as this!”

“Your business matters not. To me your love is all – everything.”

She stood erect before me, statuesque, queenly, looking upon me with her dark-brown eyes, in which I thought I detected a glance of pity. But it was only for an instant. Her face suddenly grew hard and set. There was a look of firm determination, which told me that my hope could never be realised; that she had spoken the truth; that she loved another.

“Good-bye,” she said, in a voice half-choked with emotion, and as she put forth her hand I grasped it and pressed it to my lips.

“Good-bye, Muriel,” I murmured, with a bitterness felt in the depths of my soul. “But may I not go with you to your door?”

“No,” she responded, “I shall take a cab. Good-bye.”

And as the tears again rose in her eyes she turned and went out.

I heard Simes saluting her a moment later, then the outer door closed, and I sat motionless, staring before me fixedly. I had, during that afternoon, awakened to the fact that I loved her; but it was, alas! too late. Another had supplanted me in her affections.

She had left me hopeless, crushed, grief-stricken, and desolate.

Next day passed drearily, but on the next I sent Simes along to Madame Gabrielle’s with a note in which I asked Muriel to see me again, making an appointment to meet her at Frascati’s that evening. “Let me see you once more,” I wrote, “if for the last time. Do not refuse me, for I think always of you.”

In half an hour my man returned, and by his face I knew that something unusual had occurred.

He had my note still in his hand.

“Well,” I said inquiringly, “have you brought an answer?”

“Miss Moore is no longer there, sir,” he answered, handing me back the note.

“Not there?” I exclaimed, surprised.

“No, sir. I saw the head saleswoman, and she told me that the young lady was not now in their employ.”

“Not in their employ?” I echoed, starting up. “Has she left?”

“It appears, sir, that on Sunday night she broke one of the rules, which says that no assistant may be out after eleven o’clock. She arrived at midnight, and was yesterday morning instantly dismissed. They told me that she took her belongings and went away without scarcely uttering a word except to complain of the extremely harsh treatment she had received. The manager of the firm was, however, inexorable, for it appears that other assistants had constantly been breaking the rule, and only a week ago a serious warning was posted up in the dining-room. Miss Moore was therefore dismissed as an example to the others.”

“It’s infamous!” I cried. “Then no one knows where she now is?”

“No, sir. I made inquiries, but no one could tell me where I might probably find her. She was, they say, heartbroken at this treatment.”

I said nothing, but taking the note, slowly tore it into tiny fragments.

The woman I loved so well was now cast upon the pitiless world of London, without employment, without friends, and probably without money. Yet where to look for her I knew not.

By her manner when we had parted, I felt confident that her natural pride would not allow her to seek my assistance. She would, I knew, suffer in silence alone rather than allow me to help her.

When I thought of the harshness of this firm she had served so diligently and well, I grew furious. It was unjust to discharge a girl instantly and cast her on the world in that manner. It was infamous.