Kitabı oku: «The White Lie», sayfa 10

CHAPTER XIX.
THE GARDEN OF LOVE

Six years later.

The years had gone by – happy, blissful years, during which the Countess of Bracondale had become a popular society and political hostess.

At Bracondale, and in Scotland, the Earl and his wife had on three occasions entertained the Sovereign at shooting-parties, and no social function was complete without the handsome, half-French Lady Bracondale.

After her marriage, though she had no ambition to enter that wild world of unrest which we call modern society, she realised that, in order to assist her husband in his political and diplomatic work, she was compelled to take her place in London life. So she had entered upon it cheerfully; the town house had been redecorated, and many brilliant functions – dinners, balls, diplomatic receptions, and the like – had been given, while at the Foreign Office receptions her ladyship always acted as hostess to the corps diplomatique.

The society newspapers gave her portrait constantly, and declared her to be among the most beautiful women in England.

Wealth, position, popularity, all were hers, and, in addition, she had the great love of her devoted husband, and the comfort of her sweet little daughter, Lady Enid Heathcote – a child with pretty, golden hair – whom she adored. The happiest of wives and mothers, she also bore her part as one of the great ladies of the land, and her husband was ever proud of her, ever filled with admiration.

It was eight o’clock on a warm, August morning at Bracondale, where Jean and her little daughter, with Miss Oliver, the governess, were spending the summer.

Jean came down to breakfast in a pretty gown of Japanese silk embroidered with large, crimson roses, and passed through the dining-room out upon the terrace overlooking the park, where, on warm mornings, it was their habit to take their coffee in Continental style.

As she went along to where the table was set, little Enid, with her hair tied at the side with blue ribbon, and wearing a pretty, cotton frock, came dancing along the terrace, where she was walking with her governess, crying in her childish voice:

“Good morning, mother, dear. I wish you many happy returns of your birthday.”

“Thank you, darling,” replied Jean, catching the child up in her arms and kissing her, while Miss Oliver, a tall, discreet, and rather prim person, at that moment came up with a great bunch of fresh roses which she had just cut for the table.

Bracondale had been absent on official duties at Downing Street for a week, but had returned by special train from Paddington, arriving at Torquay at half-past three in the morning. He had indeed placed aside some most pressing affairs of State in order to spend his wife’s birthday in her company.

And hardly had she kissed her child before he stepped forth from the dining-room, exclaiming:

“Ah! good-morning, Jean. A very happy birthday, dearest,” and bending, he kissed her fondly, while she returned his caress.

“Gunter told me that you did not get home until nearly four o’clock. You must be tired,” she said.

“No, not very,” he laughed. “I had a few hours’ sleep in the train. I’ve just come down to spend the day with you, dearest. I must get back at midnight.”

“It is really very good of you, dear,” she replied. “You know how pleased we both are to have you at our side, aren’t we, Enid?”

“Yes, mother, of course we are,” declared the child, as her father bent to kiss her.

“And now, Jean, I’ve brought you down a little present, which I hope you will like. Men are all fools when they buy a present for a woman. But I’ve got this little trifle for you as a souvenir.”

And placing his hand in the pocket of his dark, flannel jacket, he drew out a magnificent string of pearls – a gift worth, at the least, fifteen thousand pounds. Indeed, that was the price he had paid for them to a dealer in Hatton Garden.

And he had carried them loose in his pocket, leaving the dark green leather case lying upon the library table.

“Oh, how lovely!” Jean cried, in delight, as she saw them. Her eyes sparkled, for she had often wished for such a beautiful row. Pretty things delighted her, just as they delight a child. “It is good of you, dearest,” she said, looking fondly into his face. “I never dreamed that I should have such a handsome present as that!”

“Let me put them on,” he suggested.

Therefore she stood beside the little tea-table, and with Enid clinging to her gown, Lord Bracondale clasped the pearls around his wife’s neck, and then bent to kiss her, a caress which she at once reciprocated, repeating her warm thanks for the magnificent gift.

They suited her well, and Miss Oliver at once went and obtained a small mirror so that her ladyship should see the effect for herself. Jean was not vain. She only liked to wear jewels because it pleased her husband. In the great safe in her dressing-room was stored an array of beautiful jewels – the Bracondale heirlooms. Some of the diamonds had been reset, and she wore them at various official functions. But she prized only those which her husband had given to her. In the Bracondale family jewels she took but little interest.

After all she was essentially modern and up-to-date. Her birth, her youthful experience, the bitterness of her first marriage, and her curious adventures had all combined to render her shrewd and far-seeing. She had kept abreast of the times, and that being so, she could, by her knowledge, often further her husband’s interests.

It being her birthday, she invited Miss Oliver to take her coffee with them, and they were a merry quartette when they sat down to chat in the bright morning sunshine.

The scene was typically English – the long sweep of the park, the great elms dotted here and there, and behind the dark belt of firs the blue Channel sparkling in the morning sun.

“I think in the second week of September I may be able to get away from Downing Street,” Bracondale said, as he sipped his cup of black coffee, for he seldom took anything else until his lunch, served at noon. Morning was the best time for brain work, he always declared, and mental work upon an empty stomach was always best.

“Shall we go to Saint Addresse?” suggested Jean. “The sea-bathing is always beneficial to Enid, and, as you know, the villa, though small, is awfully comfortable.”

“We will go just where you like, dearest. I leave it for you to arrange,” was his reply.

“I love the villa,” she replied, “and Enid does, too.”

“Very well, let us go,” he said. “I’ll make arrangements for us to leave in the second week in September.”

Enid was delighted, and clapped her tiny hands with glee when Miss Oliver told her of her mother’s decision, and then the governess took the child for a stroll around the rosery while husband and wife sat together chatting.

Bracondale sat with his wife’s hand in his, looking into her eyes, and repeating his good wishes for many a happy return of that anniversary.

“I hope you are happy, Jean,” he said at last. “I am trying to make you so.”

“I am very happy – happier now than I have ever been before in all my life,” she answered, looking affectionately into his face. “But do you know that sometimes,” she added, slowly, in an altered voice, “sometimes I fear that this peace is too great, too sweet to last always. I am dreading lest something might occur to wreck this great happiness of mine.”

He looked at her in surprise.

“Why do you dread that?” he asked.

“Because happiness is, alas! never lasting.”

“Only ours.”

“Ah!” she sighed, “let us hope so, dearest. Yet this strange presage of coming evil, this shadow which I so often seem to see, appears so real, so grim, and so threatening.”

“I don’t understand why you should entertain any fear,” he exclaimed. “I love you, Jean; I shall always love you.”

She was silent, and he saw that something troubled her. Truth to tell, the shadow of her past had once again arisen.

“Ah! But will you always love me as fondly as you now do?” she asked, rather dubiously.

“I shall, Jean. I swear it. I love no other woman but yourself, my dear, devoted wife.”

“Many men have uttered those same words before. But they have lived to recall and regret them.”

“That is true,” he said. “Yet it is also true that I love you with all my heart and all my soul, and, further, that my love is so deep-rooted that it cannot be shaken.”

“We can only hope,” she said in a low voice, sighing again. “Though my happiness is so complete, I somehow cannot put this constant dread from me. It is a strange, mysterious feeling that something will one day happen to sweep away all my hopes and aspirations – that you and I might be parted.”

“Impossible, darling!” he cried, starting to his feet; and standing behind her, he placed his arm tenderly around her neck. “What could ever happen that would part us?”

Then the thought flashed across his mind. Her past was enveloped in complete mystery, which, true to his word, he had never sought to probe.

“We never know what trials may be in store for us,” she remarked. “We never know what misfortunes may befall us, or what misunderstandings may arise to destroy our mutual affection and part us.”

“But surely you don’t anticipate such a calamity?” he asked, looking into her handsome countenance, his eyes fixed upon hers.

“Well, I – I hardly anticipate it, yet I cannot get rid of this ever-increasing dread of the future which seems so constantly to obsess me.”

“Ah, I think it may be your nerves, darling,” he remarked. “You had a great strain placed upon you by the London season. All those entertainments of yours must have run you down. You must go to Monplaisir. The bracing air there will benefit you, no doubt. Here, in Devon, it is highly relaxing.”

“No, it is not my nerves,” she protested. “It is my natural intuition. Most women can scent impending danger.”

He was inclined to laugh at her fears, and bent again to kiss her upon the cheek.

“Take no heed of such unpleasant forebodings,” he exclaimed cheerily. “I, too, sometimes look upon the darker side of things, yet of late I’ve come to the conclusion that it is utterly useless to meet trouble half-way. Sufficient the day when misfortune falls.”

“But surely we ought always to try and evade it?”

“If you are foredoomed to misfortune, it cannot be evaded,” he declared.

“That is exactly my argument,” she replied. “I feel that one day ere long a dark shadow, perhaps of suspicion, I know not what, will fall between us.”

“And that we shall be parted!” he cried, starting. “You are certainly cheerful to-day.” And he smiled.

“I ought to be, after your lovely present,” she said, touching the pearls upon her neck with her white hand. “But I confess to you, dearest, I am not. I am too supremely happy, and for that reason alone I dread lest it may pass as all things in our life pass, and leave only bitter regrets and sad disappointments behind.”

“You speak in enigmas, Jean,” he said, bending earnestly to her again. “Tell me what really distresses you. Do you fear something real and tangible, or is it only some vague foreboding?”

“The latter,” she responded. “I seem always to see a grim, dark shadow stretched before my path.”

Bracondale remained silent in wonder for some time.

Then with words of comfort and reassurance, he again pressed his lips to hers, and urged her to enjoy her happiness to its full extent, and to let the future take care of itself.

“Have no care to-day, darling,” he added. “It is your birthday, and I am with you.”

“Ah, yes, you are here – you, my own dear husband!”

And raising her lips, she smiled happily, and kissed him of her own accord.

CHAPTER XX.
CROOKED CONFIDENCES

About noon on the same day which Jean and her husband spent so happily together by the Devon sea, two men of about thirty-five met in the cosy little American bar of a well-known London hotel.

Both were wealthy Americans, smartly dressed in summer tweeds, and wore soft felt hats of American shape.

One, a tall, thin, hard-faced man, who had been drinking a cocktail and chatting with the barmaid while awaiting his friend, turned as the other entered, and in his pronounced American accent exclaimed:

“Halloa, boy! Thought you weren’t coming. Say, you’re late.”

The other – dark, clean-shaven, with a broad brow, and rather good-looking – grasped his friend’s hand and ordered a drink. Then, tossing it off at one gulp, he walked with his friend into the adjoining smoking-room, where they could be alone.

“What’s up?” asked the newcomer, in a low, eager voice.

“Look here, Hoggan, my boy,” exclaimed the taller of the two to the newcomer, “I’m glad you’ve come along. I ’phoned you to your hotel at half-past ten, but you were out. It seems there’s trouble over that game of poker you played with those two boys in Knightsbridge last night. They’ve been to the police, so you’d better clear out at once.”

“The police!” echoed the other, his dark brows knit. “Awkward, isn’t it?”

“Very. You go, old chap. Get across the Channel as quick as ever you can, or I guess you’ll have some unwelcome visitors. Don’t go back to the hotel. Abandon your traps, and clear out right away.”

Silas P. Hoggan, the man with the broad brow, had no desire to make further acquaintance with the police. As a cosmopolitan adventurer he had lived for the past six years a life of remarkable experiences in Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, and Rome. He posed as a financier, and had matured many schemes for public companies in all the capitals – companies formed to exploit all sorts of enterprises, all of which, however, had placed money in his pocket.

Two years before he had been worth thirty thousand pounds, the proceeds of various crooked businesses. At that moment he had been in San Francisco, when, by an unlucky mischance, a scheme of his had failed, ingenious as it was, and now he found himself living in an expensive hotel in London, with scarcely sufficient to settle his hotel bill.

Since the day when he had stolen those notes from the coat pocket of his accomplice, and locked him in the trap so that the police should arrest him, and thus give him time to escape – for Silas P. Hoggan and Ralph Ansell were one and the same person – things had prospered with him, and he had cultivated an air of prosperous refinement, in order to move in the circle of high finance.

After his escape across the Seine, he had sought refuge in the house of a friend in the Montmartre, where he had dried the soddened bank-notes and turned them into cash. Then, after a week, he had taken the night rapide to Switzerland, and thence to Germany, where in Berlin he had entered upon financial undertakings in partnership with a “crook” from Chicago. Their first venture was the exploiting of a new motor tyre, out of which they made a huge profit, although the patent was afterwards found to be worthless. Then they moved to Russia, and successively to Austria, to Denmark, and then across to the States.

Losses, followed by gains, had compelled him of late to adopt a more certain mode of living, until now he found himself in London, staying at one of its best hotels – for like all his class he always patronised the best hotel and ate the best that money could buy – and earning a precarious living by finding “pigeons to pluck,” namely, scraping up acquaintanceship with young men about town and playing with them games of chance.

As a card-sharper, Silas P. Hoggan was an expert. Among the fraternity “The American” was known as a clever crook, a man who was a past-master in the art of bluff.

Yet his friend’s warning had thoroughly alarmed him.

The circumstance which had been recalled was certainly an ugly one.

He had found his victims there, in a swell bar, as he had often found them. About many of the London hotels and luxuriously appointed restaurants and fashionable meeting places are always to be seen young men of wealth and leisure who are easy prey to the swindler, the blackmailer, or the sharper – the vultures of society.

A chance acquaintanceship, the suggestion of an evening at cards, a visit to a theatre, with a bit of supper afterwards at an hotel, was, as might be expected, followed by a friendly game at the rooms of the elder of the two lads at Knightsbridge.

Hoggan left at three o’clock that morning with one hundred and two pounds in his pocket in cash and notes, and four acceptances of one hundred pounds each, drawn by the elder of the two victims.

Five hundred pounds for one evening’s play was not a bad profit, yet Hoggan never dreamed that the London police were already upon his track.

What his friend had suggested was the best way out of the difficulty. As he had so often done before he must once again burn his boats and clear.

The outlook was far too risky. Yet he was filled with chagrin. In the circumstances, the acceptances were useless.

“I shall want money,” he remarked.

“Well, boy, I guess I haven’t any cash-money to spare just at the moment, as you know,” replied his accomplice. “We’ve been hard hit lately. I’m sorry we came across on this side.”

“Our luck’s out,” Hoggan declared despondently, as he selected a cigarette from his case and lit it. “What about little Lady Michelcoombe? She ought to be good for a bit more.”

“I’ll try, if you like, boy. But for Heaven’s sake clear out of this infernal city, or you’ll go to jail sure,” urged Edward Patten, his friend.

“Where shall I go, Ted? What’s your advice?”

“Get over to Calais or Ostend, or by the Hook into Holland. Then slip along to some quiet spot, and let me know where you are. Lie low until I send you some oof. You can go on for a week or so, can’t you?”

“For a fortnight.”

“Good. Meanwhile, I’ll touch her ladyship for a bit more.”

“Yes. She’s a perfect little gold-mine, isn’t she?”

“Quite. We’ve had about four thousand from her already, and we hope to get a bit more.”

“You worked the game splendidly, Ted,” Hoggan declared. “What fools some women are.”

“And you acted the part of lover perfectly, too. That night when I caught you two together on the terrace at Monte Carlo – you remember? She was leaning over the balustrade, looking out upon the moonlit sea, and you were kissing her. Then I caught you at supper later, and found that you were staying at the hotel where she was staying. All very compromising for her, eh? When I called on her a week afterwards, and suggested that she could shut my mouth for a consideration, I saw in a moment that she was in deadly fear lest her husband should know. But I was unaware that her husband had no idea that she had been to Monte, but believed her to be staying with her sister near Edinburgh.”

“She’s paid pretty dearly for flirting with me,” remarked Silas P. Hoggan with a grin.

“Just as one or two others have, boy. Say, do you recollect that ugly old widow in Venice? Je-hu! what a face! And didn’t we make her cough up, too – six thousand!”

“I’m rather sorry for the Michelcoombe woman,” remarked Hoggan. “She’s a decent little sort.”

“Still believes in you, boy, and looks upon me as a skunk. She has no idea that you and I are in partnership,” he laughed. “We’ll get a thousand or two more out of her yet. Fortunately, she doesn’t know the exact extent of my knowledge of her skittish indiscretions. Say, we struck lucky when we fell in with her, eh?”

Hoggan reflected. It was certainly a cruel trick to have played upon a woman. They had met casually in the Rooms at Monte Carlo, then he had contrived to chat with her, invited her to tea at a famous café, strolled with her, dined with her, and within a week had so fascinated her with his charming manner that she had fallen in love with him, the result being that Patten, who had watched the pair, suddenly came upon them, and afterwards demanded hush-money, which he divided with his friend.

Such instances of blackmail are much more frequent than are supposed. There is a class of low-down adventurer who haunts the gayer resorts of Europe, ever on the look-out for young married women who have been ordered abroad for the benefit of their health, and whose husbands, on account of their social, Parliamentary, or business duties, cannot accompany them.

Hunting in couples, they mark down a victim, and while one, giving himself the airs of wealth, and assuming a title, proceeds to flirt with the lady, the other carefully watches. Too often a woman at the gay watering-places of Europe finds the gaiety infectious and behaves indiscreetly; too often she flirts with the good-looking young stranger until, suddenly surprised in compromising circumstances, she realises that her husband must never know, and is filled with fear lest he may discover how she has allowed herself to be misled.

Then comes the blackmailer’s chance. A hint that it would be better to pay than court exposure generally has the desired effect, with the result that the woman usually pawns what jewellery she possesses, and pays up.

Many an unfortunate woman, though perfectly innocent of having committed any wrong, has paid up, and even been driven to suicide rather than allow the seeds of suspicion to be sown in her husband’s heart.

It was so in Lady Michelcoombe’s case. She was a sweet little woman, daughter of a well-known earl, and married to Viscount Michelcoombe, a man of great wealth, with a house in Grosvenor Square and four country seats. Already the pair of adventurers had compelled her to pawn some of her jewels and hand them the proceeds. She was quite innocent of having committed any wrong, yet she dreaded lest her husband’s suspicions might be excited, and had no desire that he should learn that she had deceived him by going to Monte Carlo instead of to her sister’s. The real reason was that she liked the gaiety and sunshine of the place, while her husband strongly disapproved of it.

Certainly her clandestine visit had cost her dear.

“Well,” exclaimed Hoggan, the perfect lover, “you’d better see her ladyship as soon as possible. Guess she’s still in London, eh?”

“I’ll ring up later on and ask the fat old butler. But you clear out right away, boy. There’s no time to lose. Write to me at the Poste Restante in the Strand. Don’t write here, the police may get hold of my mail.”

“If her ladyship turns on you, I guess you’ll have to look slick.”

“Bah! No fear of that, sonny. We’ve got her right there.”

“You can’t ever be sure where a woman is concerned. She might suddenly throw discretion to the winds, and tell her husband all about it. Then you, too, would have to clear right away.”

“Guess I should,” replied Patten. “But I don’t fear her. I mean to get another thousand out of her. Women who make fools of themselves have to pay for it.”

“Well, I must say you engineered it wonderfully,” declared Hoggan.

“And I’ll do so again with a little luck,” his friend declared. “Come and have another cocktail, and then shake the dust of this infernal city off your feet. Every time you have a drink things look different.”

The two men passed into the inner room, where the bar was situated, and after a final Martini each, went out together into the handsome hall of the hotel.

“Wal, so long, old pal! Clear out right away,” whispered Patten, as he shook his friend’s hand.

And next moment Silas P. Hoggan passed across the courtyard and into the busy Strand, once more a fugitive from justice.