Kitabı oku: «The Brightener», sayfa 14

Within a few feet of distance, however, the form paused, and swayed as if undecided. "She has seen that there are others in the room besides Robert and the medium," I thought. "Will she be angry? Will she vanish?"

Hardly had I time to finish the thought, however, when the electricity was switched on with a click. The light flooding the room dazzled me for a second, but in the bright blur I saw that Jim Courtenaye had seized the gray figure. All ghostliness was gone from it. A woman was struggling with him in dreadful silence – a tall, slim woman with June Dana's red-bronze hair, June Dana's gray dress and hat and scarf.

She writhed like a snake in Jim's merciless grasp, but she kept her head bent not to show her face, till suddenly in some way her hat was knocked off. With it – caught by a hatpin, perhaps – went the gorgeous, bunched hair.

"A wig!" I heard myself cry. And at the same instant Joyce gasped out "Opal!"

Yes, it was Opal, disguised as June, in the gray dress and hat and scarf, with black pearls and emeralds all copied from the portrait – and the haunting fragrance of roses that had been June's.

The likeness was enough to deceive June's nearest and dearest in that dimmest of dim lights which was like the ghost of a light, veiled with all those chiffon scarves. But with the room bright as day, all resemblance, except in clothes and wig and height, vanished at a glance.

The woman caught in her cruel fraud was a pitiable sight, yet I had no pity for her then. Staring at the whitened face, framed in dishevelled, mouse-brown hair, the long upper lip painted red in a high Cupid's bow to resemble June's lovely mouth, I was sick with disgust. As at last she yielded in despair to Jim's fierce clutch, and dropped sobbing on the sofa, I felt I could have struck her. But she had no thought for me nor for any of us – not even for Jim, who had ruined the game, nor for Miss Reardon, who must have sold her to him at a price; for no one at all except Robert Lorillard.

When she'd given up hope of escape, and lay panting, exhausted, flung feebly across the sofa, she looked up at Robert.

"I loved you," she wept. "That's why I did it; I couldn't let you go to another woman. I thought I saw a way to keep you always near me – almost as if you were mine. You can't hate a woman who loves you like that!"

Robert did not answer. I think he was half dazed. He stood staring at her, frozen still like the statue of a man. I was frightened for him. He had endured too much. Joyce couldn't go to him yet, though he would be hers – all hers, for ever – bye and bye – but I could go, as a friend.

I laid my hand on his arm, and spoke his name softly.

"Robert, I always felt there was fraud," I said. "Now, thank Heaven, we know the truth before it's too late for you to be happy, as June herself would want you to be happy, if she knew. She wasn't cruel – the real June. She wasn't like this false one at heart. Go, now, I beg, and take Joyce home to my flat – she's almost fainting. You must look after her. I will stay here. Jim Courtenaye'll watch over me – and later we'll bring you explanations of everything."

So I got them both away. And when they were gone the whole story was dragged from Opal. Jim forced her to confess; and with Robert out of sight – lost for ever to the wretched woman – the task wasn't difficult. You see, Miss Reardon had sold her beforehand. Jim doesn't care what price he pays when he wants a thing!

First of all, he'd taken a house that was to let furnished, near Opal's. She didn't know him from Adam, but he had her description. He followed her several times, and saw her go to the Savoy; even saw her go to Miss Reardon's rooms. Then, to Miss Reardon he presented himself, en surprise, and pretended to know five times as much as he did know; in fact, as much as he suspected. By this trick he broke down her guard; and before she had time to build it up again, flung a bribe of two thousand pounds – ten thousand dollars – at her head. She couldn't resist, and eventually told him everything.

Opal and she had corresponded for several years, it seemed, as fellow mediums, sending each other clients from one country to another. When Opal learned that the Boston medium was coming to England, she asked if Miss Reardon would do her a great favour. In return for it, the American woman's cabin on shipboard and all expenses at one of London's best hotels would be paid.

This sounded alluring. Miss Reardon asked questions by letter, and by letter those questions were answered. A plan was formed – a plan that was a plot. Opal kept phonographic records of many voices among those of her favourite clients – did this with their knowledge and consent, making presents to them of their own records to give to friends. It was just an "interesting fad" of hers! Such a record of June's voice she had posted to Boston. Miss Reardon, who was a clever mimic (a fine professional asset!) learned to imitate the voice. She had a description from Opal of the celebrated gray costume with the jewels June wore, and knew well how to "work" her knowledge of June's favourite perfume.

As to that first meeting at the Savoy, Opal was aware that Joyce and I met Robert there on most afternoons. A suite was taken for Miss Reardon in the hotel, and the lady was directed to await developments in the foyer at a certain hour – an old stage photograph of Robert Lorillard in her hand-bag. The rest had been almost simple, thanks to Opal's knowledge of June's life and doings; to her deadly cleverness, and the device of a tiny electric light glimmering through a square of emerald green glass on the "spirit's" breast, under scarves slowly unfolded. If it had not been for Jim, Robert would have become her bond-slave, and Joyce would have fled from England.

"Well, are you satisfied?" Jim asked, spinning me home at last in his own car.

"More than satisfied," I said. "Joyce and Robert will marry after all, and be the happiest couple on earth. They'll forget this horror."

"Which is what you'd like to do if I'd let you, I suppose," said Jim.

"Forget! You mean – ?"

"Yes. The promise I dragged out of you, and everything."

"I never forget my promises," I primly answered.

"But if I let you off it? Elizabeth, that's what I'm going to do! I love you too much, my girl, to blackmail you permanently – to get you for my wife in payment of a bargain. I may be pretty bad, but I'm hanged if I'm as bad as that."

I burst out laughing.

"Idiot!" I gurgled. "Haven't you the wits to see I want to marry you? I'm in love with you, you fool. Besides, I'm tired of being matron of honour, and you being best man every time people I 'brighten' marry!"

"It sha'n't happen again!" said Jim.

And then he almost took my breath away. What a strong man he is!

BOOK IV
THE MYSTERY OF MRS. BRANDRETH

CHAPTER I
THE MAN IN THE CUSHIONED CHAIR

"Nice end of a honeymoon I'm having!" Jim grumbled. "With my wife thinking and talking all the time about another fellow."

"My darling, adored man!" I exclaimed. "You know perfectly well that you're the background and undercurrent and foundation of all my thoughts, every minute of the day and night. And this 'other fellow' is dying."

Yes; "darling, adored" were my adjectives for Jim Courtenaye, whom I had once abused.

All the same, if a cat may look at a king, a bride may just glance at a man who isn't her bridegroom.

"Ruling passion strong in – marriage, I suppose," said Jim. "I bet you'd like to try your hand at 'brightening' that chap – though judging from his face, he's almost past even your blandishments. I wouldn't be past 'em – not in my coffin! But it isn't every blighter who can love as I do, you minx."

"And 'tisn't every blighter who has such a perfect woman to love," I capped him with calm conceit.

"But I wish I could 'brighten' that poor fellow. Or else I wish that someone else would!"

And at this instant my wish was granted in the most amazing way!

A girl appeared – but no, I mustn't let her arrive upon the scene just yet. First, I must explain that Jim and I were on shipboard, coming back to England from America, where we had been having the most wonderful honeymoon. Jim had taken me out West, and showed me the places where he had lived in his cowboy days. We had ridden long trails together, in the Grand Canyon of Arizona, and in the Yosemite Valley of California. I had never imagined that life could be so glorious, and our future together – Jim's and mine – stretched before us like a dream of joy. We were going to live in the dear old Abbey which had been the home of the Courtenayes for hundreds and hundreds of years, and travel when we liked. Because we were so much in love and so happy, I yearned to make a few thousand other people happy also – though it did seem impossible that any one on earth could be as joyous as we were.

This was our second day out from New York on the Aquitania, and my spirits had been slightly damped by discovering that two fellow-passengers if not more were extremely miserable. One of these lived in a stateroom next to our suite. In my cabin at night I could hear her crying and moaning to herself in a fitful sleep. I had not seen her, so far as I knew, but I fancied from the sound of those sobs that she was young.

When I told Jim, he wanted to change cabins with me, so that I should not be disturbed. But I refused to budge, saying that I wasn't disturbed. My neighbour didn't cry or talk in her sleep all through the night by any means. Besides, once I had dropped off, the sounds were not loud enough to wake me. This was true enough not to be a fib, but my realest reason for clinging to the room was an odd fascination in that mysterious sorrow on the other side of the wall; sorrow of a woman I hadn't seen, might perhaps never see, yet to whom I could send out warm waves of sympathy. I felt as if those waves had colours, blue and gold, and that they would soothe the sufferer.

Her case obsessed me until, in the sunshine of a second summer day at sea, the one empty chair on our crowded deck was filled. A man was helped into it by a valet or male nurse, and a steward. My first glimpse of his face as he sank down on to carefully placed cushions made my heart jump in my breast with pity and protest against the hardness of fate.

If he'd been old, or even middle-aged, or if he had been one of those colourless characters dully sunk into chronic invalidism, I should have felt only the pity without the protest. But he was young, and though it was clear that he was desperately ill, it was clear, too, in a more subtle, psychic way, that he had not been ill long; that love of life or desire for denied happiness burned in him still.

Of course Jim was not really vexed because I discussed this man and wondered about him, but my thoughts did play round that piteously romantic figure a good deal, and it rather amused Jim to see me forget the mystery of the cabin in favour of the cushioned chair.

"Once a Brightener, always a Brightener, I suppose!" he said. Now that I'd dropped my "Princesshood" to marry James Courtenaye, I need never "brighten" any one for money again. But I didn't see why I should not go sailing along on a sunny career of brightening for love. According to habit, therefore, my first thought was: What could be done for the man in the cushioned chair?

Maybe Jim was right! If he hadn't been young and almost better than good-looking, my interest might not have been so keen. He was the wreck of a gorgeous creature – one of those great, tall, muscular men you feel were born to adorn the Guards.

The reason (the physical reason, not the psychic one) for thinking he hadn't been ill long was the colour of the invalid's face. The pallor of illness hadn't had time to blanch the rich brown that life in the open gives. So thin was the face that the aquiline features stood out sharply; but they seemed to be carved in bronze, not moulded in plaster. As for the psychic reason, I found it in the dark eyes that met mine now and then. They were not black like those of my own Jim, which contrasted so strikingly with auburn hair. Indeed, I couldn't tell whether the eyes were brown or deep gray, for they were set in shadowy hollows, and the brows and thick lashes were even darker than the hair, which was lightly silvered at the temples. Handsome, arresting eyes they must always have been; but what stirred me was the violent wish that seemed actually to speak from them.

Whether it was a wish to live, or a haunting wish for joy never gratified, I could not decide. But I felt that it must have been burnt out by a long illness.

I had only just learned a few things about the man, when there came that surprising answer to my prayer for someone to "brighten" him. My maid had got acquainted with his valet-nurse, and had received a quantity of information which she passed to me.

"Mr. Tillett's" master was a Major Ralston Murray, an Englishman, who had gone to live in California some years ago, and had made a big fortune in oil. He had been in the British Army as a youth, Tillett understood, and when the European war broke out, he went home to offer himself to his country. He didn't return to America till after the Armistice, though he had been badly wounded once or twice, as well as gassed. At home in Bakersfield, the great oil town where he lived, Murray's health had not improved. He had been recommended a long sea journey, to Japan and China, and had taken the prescription. But instead of doing him good, the trip had been his ruin. In China he was attacked with a malady resembling yellow fever, though more obscure to scientists. After weeks of desperate illness, the man had gained strength for the return journey; but, reaching California, he was told by specialists that he must not hope to recover. After that verdict his one desire was to spend the last days of his life in England. Not long before a distant relative had left him a place in Devonshire – an old house which he had loved in his youth. Now he was on his way there, to die.

So this was the wonderful wish, I told myself. Yet I couldn't believe it was all. I felt that there must be something deeper to account for the burning look in those tortured eyes. And of course I was more than ever interested, now that his destination proved to be near Courtenaye Abbey. Ralston Old Manor was not nearly so large nor so important a place historically as ours, but it was ancient enough, and very charming. Though we were not more than fifteen miles away, I had never met the old bachelor, the Mr. Ralston of my day. He was a great recluse, supposed to have had his heart broken by my beautiful grandmother when they were both young. It occurred to me that this Ralston Murray must be the old man's namesake, and the place had been left him on that account.

Now, at last, having explained the man in the cushioned chair, I can come back to the moment when my wish was granted: the wish that, if not I, someone else might "brighten" him.

CHAPTER II
MRS. BRANDRETH

You know, when you're on shipboard, how new people appear from day to day, long after you've seen everyone on the passenger list! It is as if they had been dropped on deck from stealthy aeroplanes in the dark watches of the night.

And that was the way in which this girl appeared – this girl who worked the lightning change in Major Murray. It didn't seem possible that she could have come on board the ship nearly two days ago, and we not have heard of her, for she was the prettiest person I'd ever seen in my life. One would have thought that rumours of her beauty would have spread, since someone must have seen her, even if she had been shut up in her cabin.

Heads were turned in her direction as she came walking slowly toward us, and thanks to this silent sensation – like a breeze rippling a field of wheat – I saw the tall, slight figure in mourning while it was still far off.

The creature was devastatingly pretty, too pretty for any one's peace of mind, including her own: the kind of girl you wouldn't ask to be your bridesmaid for fear the bridegroom should change his mind at the altar!

"Jim," I exclaimed, "the prettiest girl in the world is now coming toward you."

"Really?" said he. "I was under the impression that she sat beside me."

I suppose I must have spoken rather more loudly than I meant, for my excited warning to Jim caught the ear of Major Murray. My deep interest in the invalid had woven an invisible link between him and me, though we had never spoken, nor even smiled at each other: for sympathy inevitably has this effect. Therefore his hearing was attuned to my voice more readily than to others in his neighbourhood. He had apparently been half asleep; but he opened his eyes wide just in time to see the girl as she approached his chair. Never had I beheld such a sudden change on a human face. It was a transfiguration.

The man was very weak, but he sat straight up, and for a moment all look of illness was swept away. "Rosemary!" he cried out, sharply.

The girl stopped. She had been pale, but at sight of him and the sound of his voice she flushed to her forehead. I thought that her first impulse was to escape, but she controlled it.

"Major Murray!" she faltered. "I – I didn't dream of – seeing you here."

"I have dreamed many times of seeing you," he answered. "And I wished for it – very much."

"Ah," thought I, "that is the real wish! That's what the look in his eyes means, not just getting back to England and dying in a certain house. Now I know."

Everyone near his chair had become more or less interested in Murray, romantic and pathetic figure that he was. Now, a middle-aged man whose chair was near to Murray's on the right, scrambled out of a fur rug. "I am off to the smoking room," he said. "Won't you" (to the girl) "take my chair and talk to your friend? I shall be away till after lunch, maybe till tea-time."

I fancied that the girl was divided in her mind between a longing to stay and a longing to flee. But of course she couldn't refuse the offer, and presently she was seated beside Major Murray, their arms touching. I could hear almost all they said. This was not eavesdropping, because if they'd cared to be secretive they could have lowered their voices.

Soon, to my surprise, I learned that the girl was married. She didn't look married, or have the air of being married, somehow, and in the conversation that followed she contradicted herself two or three times. Perhaps it was only because I confused my brain with wild guesses, but from some things she said one would think she was free as air; from others, that she was tied down to a rather monotonous kind of existence. She spoke of America as if she knew it only from a short visit. Then, in answer to a question of Murray's, she said, as if reluctantly, that she had lived there, in New York, and Baltimore, and Washington, for years.

It was quite evident to me – whether or not it was to Murray – that Mrs. Brandreth (as he called her after the first outburst of "Rosemary!") disliked talking of herself and her way of life. She wanted to talk about Major Murray, or, failing that subject, of almost anything that was remote from her own affairs.

I gathered, however, that she and Murray had known each other eight years ago or more, and that they had met somewhere abroad, out of England. There had been an aunt of Rosemary's with whom she had travelled as a young girl. The aunt was dead; but even the loss of a loved relative didn't account to my mind for this girl's sensitiveness about the past.

"They must have been engaged, these two, and something happened to break it off," I thought. "But he can bear to talk of old times, and she can't. Odd, because she must have been ridiculously young for a love affair all those years ago. She doesn't look more than twenty-one now, though she must be more, of course – at least twenty-four. And he is probably thirty-two or three."

I am often what Jim calls "intuitive," and I had a strong impression that there was something the beautiful Mrs. Brandreth was desperately anxious to conceal, desperately afraid of betraying by accident. Could it have to do with her husband? I wondered. She seemed very loth to speak of him, and I couldn't make out from what she said whether the man was still in existence. Her mourning – so becoming to her magnolia skin, great dark eyes, and ash-blonde hair – didn't look like widow's mourning. Still, it might be, with the first heaviness of crêpe thrown off. Or, of course, the girl's peculiar reticence might mean that there had been, or was to be, a divorce.

I didn't move from my deck-chair till luncheon time, but I had to go then with Jim; and we left Mrs. Brandreth ordering her food from the deck steward. She would have it with Major Murray, who, poor fellow, was allowed no other nourishment than milk.

When we came back on deck it was to walk. We had been below for an hour or more, but the girl and the man were still together. As Jim and I passed and repassed those chairs, I could throw a quick glance in their direction without being observed. Mrs. Brandreth's odd nervousness and shy distress seemed to have gone. The two were talking so earnestly that a school of porpoises might have jumped on deck without their knowing that anything out of the way had happened.

Later in the afternoon, the owner of Mrs. Brandreth's chair appeared; but when she would blushingly have given up her place, he refused to take it. "I've only come to say," he explained, "that one seat on deck is the same to me as any other. So why shouldn't I have your chair, wherever it is, and you keep mine? It's very nice for the Major here to have found a friend, and it will do him a lot of good. I'm a doctor, and if I were his physician, such society would be just what I should prescribe for him."

Mrs. Brandreth had a chair, it seemed, though she said she'd come on board so tired that she had stayed in her cabin till this morning. Whether or not she were pleased at heart with the proposal, she accepted it after a little discussion, and Murray's tragic eyes burned with a new light.

I guessed that his wish had been to see this beautiful girl again before he died. The fact that he was doomed to death no doubt spiritualized his love. He no longer dreamed of being happy in ways which strong men of his age call happiness; and so, in these days, he asked little of Fate. Just a farewell sight of the loved one; a new memory of her to take away with him. And if I were right in my judgment, this was the reason why, even if Mrs. Brandreth had a husband in the background, these hours with her would be hours of joy for Murray – without thought of any future.

That evening, as Jim and I were strolling out of our little salon to dinner, the door of the cabin adjoining mine opened, and it was with a shock of surprise that I saw Mrs. Brandreth. So she was my mysterious neighbour who cried and moaned in her sleep!.. I was thrilled at the discovery. But almost at once I told myself that I ought to have Sherlocked the truth the moment this troubled, beautiful being had appeared on deck.

Mrs. Brandreth was in black, of course, but she had changed into semi-evening dress, and her white neck was like swansdown in its folded frame of filmy black gauze. Over the glittering waves of her ash-blonde hair she had thrown a long black veil of embroidered Spanish lace, which fell nearly to her knees, and somehow, before she could close the door, a gust blew it back, shutting in the veil. The girl was struggling to free herself when Jim said, "Let me help you."

Naturally, she had to thank him, and explain how she ought to have fastened her window, as ours was the windy side of the ship to-night. She and I smiled at each other, and so our acquaintance began. I guessed from the veil that she was dining in Murray's company, and pictured them together with the deck to themselves, moonlight flooding the sea.

Next day the smile and nod which Mrs. Brandreth and I exchanged won a pleasant look from Major Murray for me. We began speaking soon after that; and before another day had passed Jim or I often dropped into the empty chair, if Mrs. Brandreth was not on deck. Murray was interested to know that we would be neighbours of his, and that I was the grand-daughter of the famous beauty his old bachelor cousin had loved.

I remember it was the night after my first real talk with him that I met Mrs. Brandreth again as we both opened our doors. Jim was playing bridge or poker with some men, and hadn't noticed the dressing bugle. I was ready, and going to remind him of the hour; yet I was charmed to be delayed by Mrs. Brandreth. Hitherto, though friendly when we were with our two men, or only one of them, she had seemed like a wild bird trying to escape if we happened to be alone. It was as if she were afraid I might ask questions which she would not wish to answer. But now she stopped me of her own accord.

"I – I've been wanting to tell you something," she began, with one of her bright blushes. "It's only this: when I'm tired or nervous I'm afraid I talk in my sleep. I came on board tired out. I had – a great grief a few months ago, and I can't get over the strain of it. Sometimes when I wake up I find myself crying, and have an impression that I've called out. Now I know that you're next door, I'm rather worried lest I have disturbed you."

I hurried to reassure her. She hadn't disturbed me at all. I was, I said, a splendid sleeper.

"You haven't heard anything?" she persisted.

I felt she would know I was fibbing if I did fib, so it wasn't worth while. "I have heard a sound like sobbing now and then," I admitted.

"But no words? I hope not, as people say such silly things in their sleep, don't they? – things not even true."

"I think I've heard you cry out 'Mother!' once or twice."

"Oh! And that is all?"

"Really, that's all – absolutely!" It was true, and I could speak with such sincerity that I forced belief.

Mrs. Brandreth looked relieved. "I'm glad!" she smiled. "I hate to make myself ridiculous. And I'm trying very hard now to control my subconscious self, which gets out of hand at night. It's simply the effect of my – grief – my loss I spoke of just now. I'm fairly normal otherwise."

"I hope you're not entirely normal!" I smiled back. "People one speaks of as 'normal' are so bromidic and dull! You look far too interesting, too individual to be normal."

She laughed. "So do you!"

"Oh, I'm not normal at all, thank goodness!"

"Well, you're certainly interesting – and individual – far more than I am."

"Anyhow, I'm sympathetic," I said. "I'm tremendously interested in other people. Not in their affairs, but in themselves. I never want to know anything they don't want me to know, yet I'm so conceited, I always imagine that I can help when they need help – just by sympathy alone, without a spoken word. But to come back to you! I have a lovely remedy for restlessness at night; not that I need it often myself, but my French-Italian maid carries dried orange leaves and blossoms for me. She thinks tisanes better than doctor's medicines. May she make some orange-flower tea for you to-night at bedtime?"

Mrs. Brandreth had shown signs of stiffening a little as I began, but she melted toward the last, and said that she would love to try the poetic-sounding tea.

It was concocted, proved a success, and she was grateful. Perhaps she remembered my hint that I never wanted to know things which my friends didn't want me to know, because she made some timid advances as the days went on. We had quite intimate talks about books and various views of life as we walked the deck together; and I began to feel that there was something else she longed to say – something which rose constantly to her lips, only to be frightened back again. What could it be? I wondered. And would she in the end speak, or decide to be silent?