Pink Gods and Blue Demons Part 11

"It was my fault," she muttered. "His blood is on my head!"

"That is a morbid thought," p.r.o.nounced Valeria firmly, "and one you must not allow to stay in your mind. The fate of every man is bound about his neck. Frederick Huffe was fated to die by his own hand, and no action of yours could have prevented it."

But Loree shook her head, and tears streamed down her face.

"How little I dreamed that it had anything to do with me when I read it in the papers next day!--and how heartlessly I pa.s.sed it over. All that moved me was thankfulness that no journalist had mentioned anything about my diamonds. I thought at the time that it was accident, but now I suppose that too can be traced back to Heseltine Quelch's power?"

"Yes. He has power in this place. I think there can be no doubt that he used it to prevent the journalists from saying anything about the chain you were wearing."

"And what about Mrs Solano? How did he account to her for giving me the jewels? Oh! what can _she_ think of me?"

"You need not worry about that. Mrs Solano is under many obligations to Heseltine Quelch, I believe, but he did not follow that line. He told her the whole story and threw himself on her mercy. She is a strange woman and in some ways a very fine one. She understood both Quelch's pa.s.sion for you, and your pa.s.sion for the gems, and she consented to sell the chain to him and to keep her lips sealed forever.

He at once wrote her out a cheque for 50,000 pounds--double what she had asked. They can do big things these Jews, as well as small ones."

"But she makes another who knows!"

"I tell you Rachel Solano is a great woman, for all her sins. You need never fear her."

"I fear him," cried the desolate, s.h.i.+vering girl. "I shall never be able to escape him. Every one in this hotel is his tool."

"They must be deceived as well as he. Listen: start packing in the morning, saying to the servants that you are leaving for England. The news will soon reach him."

"But he expects me to go with him to-morrow night."

"You must delay that. Write him a note saying that you are ill and can't be ready until the night after."

"And then."

"In reality, you will slip away to-morrow night by the mail-train for Rhodesia."

"Rhodesia?" said Loree faintly.

"Yes--to your husband. And never leave him again. Women like you are not safe away from their rightful owners. Beauty is not such a boon as plain women suppose."

There was pity as well as a certain amount of scorn in Valeria Cork's voice, but Loree was in no mood to resent either.

"How can I ever explain to him--turning up suddenly like that?" she murmured.

"That is your affair," said Valeria. "Mine is to get you away. So to bed now, and rest as much as you can. You will need all your wits and nerves. Good-night."

She rose, and they stood looking at each other for an instant.

"I don't suppose you would care to shake hands with a woman like me,"

said Mrs Cork slowly. Her mournful eyes had something shamed and beaten in their depths, something of the longing of a punished child for a kind word. Loree suddenly flung her arms about her and held her close, and then, at last, the other woman's agonised heart found relief in the tears that had been denied her since she received the news of her loss. Amidst her bitter weeping, broken incoherent phrases came gasping from her lips.

"He was so beautiful, so gay! I wanted only to be good for his dear sake. It was enough--just to be his mother. But when I suddenly lost all my little fortune in a mining smash, there seemed no way to get money to keep him among the right people. He was so brilliant--I dreamed of his being one of the great men of England, some day. I thought, 'What does _my_ poor soul matter so long as _he_ rises from the ruins of it?' I would have lied, stolen, murdered, done _anything_, so that all might have been well with him--and see how the G.o.d of Equity intervenes! _He_ knew that no man could ever be great who had a shameful mother--and He had pity on my son. Oh, Loree, Loree--if ever you have a son, starve with him in a garret, scratch with him in the gutter, but never imperil for him your immortal soul. 'What you give of gold and silver stands nothing; only as much as you have of soul avails.' Some great man said that, and it is true. Only what you give of the soul avails."

In the morning, to a wretched Loree, weary-eyed from haunted dreams, came a letter from Quelch. It was restrained and tender, almost gentle, but it sounded the note of one who held the winning cards. Below the bold signature was appended the hour of the mail-train's departure, and an added word like a cry:

"I have received a blow that only you can comfort me for, my beautiful Loraine Loree."

She s.h.i.+vered, then burned. The thought that she must carry the memory of his illicit caresses all her life made her sick. Frantically she began to pack, then, remembering Valeria's instructions, went to bed again. It was a dreadful day of pretence and subterfuge and lying. It seemed to her that she could never again erase from her soul the black marks of all the lies she told that day, that they would tarnish for ever all her future life with Pat. But then, had she not tarnished it already by her own wicked folly?

Under the counsels of Valeria Cork, a subtly evasive answer was written to Quelch's letter. It told that she was too ill to leave her room that day, and gave no bond to be at the station on the next; it sent no word of love, and was a doc.u.ment that all the world might have read, yet a premise, elusive and fragile as the scent of spring, haunted the simple lines. Valeria's lips were grim as she invented each delicate phrase.

"Skilled weapons against an unscrupulous fighter," she contended. "When you are safely gone, he shall know who composed the letter. It is one of his punishments for what he has done to you--and me."

She moved sombrely about the room, like one walking behind the bier of her dead. Nothing seemed alive in her except her smouldering eyes. At lunch-time, she went down stairs and sat before food she could not eat for the sake of spying out the land of the enemy. But he did not appear. There was nothing to report to Loree except that it was known in the hotel that his going to the Cape had been postponed until the following evening. Afterwards, she wrote a note to him and left it at the office. The office-girl mentioned to her that Mr Quelch was looking terribly ill, and she wondered what the bad news could be he had mentioned to Loree; but she was not a woman to waste time on idle curiosity. Having gone through Loree Temple's trunks that morning, she had selected therefrom a pair of tan-cloth riding-breeches, a long habit-coat, and top-boots. All the rest of the lovely Viola clothes were stored away in the trunks labelled loudly for Cape Town--except one simple frock and such feminine necessities as would fill a small suitcase. Now she sallied forth to do some shopping, taking the suitcase with her.

"To get it mended," she told the hall porter, and placed it herself in the taxi. But its true destination was the station cloakroom.

Returning at tea-time, she brought with her a first-cla.s.s ticket to Mafeking, and another from Mafeking to Buluwayo, a strong rope, a second-hand tweed ulster suitable for a slender youth of medium height, and a slouch hat. These last, with the breeches and top-boots, were to const.i.tute Loree's travelling-kit.

They "dressed the part" and gravely rehea.r.s.ed it. Mrs Temple's mirror, that had once given back lovely visions in diaphanous draperies and sparkling jewels, now reflected something uncommonly like a seedy youth of the type that relations get rid of to South Africa and hope they'll never see again. What could be seen of the face beneath the slouch hat was not prepossessing when Valeria had finished with it. The complexion was sallow and distinctly spotty, the eyes slightly inflamed. A darkness on the upper lip might have been the promise of a moustache or merely dirt. What the hand of Mrs Cork found to do, she did well.

Loree gazed with disgust at the odious person in the gla.s.s. It seemed impossible she could ever be herself again. But Valeria coached her in the art of getting rid of facial disguise in ten minutes. That was the secret contained in the two railway tickets. The lightning change had to occur in a lavatory dressing-room sometime in the early morning before the train reached Mafeking. During the short wait at the famous little Bechua.n.a.land town, no one was likely to note the disappearance of a bleary-eyed youth or connect it with the advent of a veiled lady who would continue the journey to Buluwayo as Mrs Temple.

Getting away from the hotel without being seen and reported to Quelch was a more difficult matter, but Valeria had laid careful plans. It would be dusk--the hour when people were dressing for dinner. No one would be likely to be near the corner of the balcony opposite Valeria's room or in the obscure fernery on the stoop below. The corner had a strong post to the ground, against which Loree could support herself when being let down. That was what the rope was for.

"And if you meet any one who wants to know your business, give them this note for me, and then make tracks," said Valeria. "You will easily get a cab to the station."

She had thought of everything. Her only regret was that she could not be at the station, too. But it had seemed wiser to make an appointment with Quelch for that hour. To that end, she had written the note at midday, underlining the words: "particularly personal matter." She desired that he would realise the matter to be connected with Loree Temple, and, even as she antic.i.p.ated, a prompt reply came, and hoped she would "honour him by an interview in his private sitting-room" at the hour she mentioned, if such an arrangement suited her. She grimaced at the courteous words which seemed to her unnecessary irony, but the plan indeed suited her--perfectly.

At the hour in which she knocked upon Heseltine Quelch's door the work was done. She had kissed Loraine Loree upon her darkened lips and bade her G.o.dspeed, had launched her from the balcony, and seen the boyish silhouette disappear through the garden. Even as she listened for an answer from the room within, she heard the harsh scream and "chug-chug"

of a departing train, and knew that, if all was well, Mrs Temple was pa.s.sing out of Kimberley and out of _her_ life for ever.

Quelch was sitting at a table, holding his hands before him as though clutching something. But the moment she entered, he rose abruptly and came towards her with a sort of violence. She saw that his hands were empty, and thought, by his strange face, that he meant to kill her.

Brave as she was, she recoiled from him. That pulled him up sharp. He stood stammering, almost gibbering incoherent words at her. She was certain now that he knew. There was something horribly moving in the desolation of his eyes. It was the expression of a fierce creature of the wilds wounded to the death. She noticed suddenly that he was no longer young. His shoulders stooped; there was silver in his hair.

"Did he care so much?" she thought amazed, and almost her heart felt pity for him. She knew what it was to love and be robbed. In a moment, he succeeded in getting control of himself and spoke clearly. Then she realised that though he was no longer incoherent, she did not understand him. What he said was:

"It is no wonder you recoil from me--hate me. I can only say to you that I grieve for you with all that is left of my heart--and--I thank you."

She stared at him. They stood looking at each other--two people scarred and marred by the pa.s.sionate lawlessness of their own natures--in her eyes amazement, in his that devastating mournfulness. What was he speaking of? He seemed to know of her sorrow, to share it.

"A son," he said softly, "to lose one's son! The being one wound one's dreams about--who was to be so infinitely greater than oneself--to compensate with the s.h.i.+ning splendour of his soul for all the darkness of one's own." Valeria gloomed at him with bitter eyes. How did he know so well wherewith to mock her, this strange Eastern man with his gentle, un-English voice? "You should not hate me. It is unworthy of the mother of a son who gave his life for a friend."

While she stood considering him--how un-English he was to have tears running down his cheeks like that; that he _must_ be a Jew (as she had often supposed) to be so emotional, so unreserved, so piercingly sapient--the truth came to her like an arrow. It was _his_ son that hers had died to save and died for in vain! They were both sonless!

Nothing but the bare news of her loss had come to her, no names but that of her son. Quelch with his wealth had commanded every detail of the tragedy, and been receiving news down to that very hour. The table was littered with cablegrams.

She stood _very_ still and white and weary until he had finished telling her all, thanking her for the n.o.bleness of her son's effort, a.s.suring her that if in all the wide world there was anything that could represent his grat.i.tude, any act of his that would help to ease her wound, she had only to speak. Then from her pocket she produced a little parcel of sparkling stones wrapped in a silken handkerchief and laid it on the table.

"A little foolish girl returns you these," she said, and her voice, too, had grown very gentle. "She left to-night to join her husband. This you can do for me: Forget her, and let her forget you."

The End.