Lord John in New York Part 15

It's deep with snow now. It wouldn't hurt to fall on it--and there's a tree stump he could catch hold of to save himself if he kept his senses. But my poor dogs with the heavy sledge behind 'em wouldn't have the devil's chance. A man wouldn't either, unless he jumped as the sleigh went. Well, we shall see, when I've got the rope."

"What rope?" Teano managed to move his stiff lips.

"A rope we keep for the summer trippers," Garth explained. "More than once some silly gabe has got too close and lost his head, lookin' over the Lovers' Leap. It's a suicide place too--though we don't tell folks that. If anyone's caught on the Giant's nose, we can fish him up. The rope's in a hut near by, that's never locked."

Teano is a smaller man than Garth, and it was Teano who, with the rope in a sailor knot under his arms, was let down by the big fellow, to look for me. I had kept consciousness at first, and had saved myself in the way suggested by the mountaineer: but by the time Teano came prospecting, I had dropped into a pleasant sleep. An hour or two more in my bed of snow, I should have been hidden for ever by a smooth white winding-sheet, and so have kept my tryst with Death.

As it was, Death and I failed to meet. I lived not only to help avenge Anne Garth, but to go on with my work for the girl I loved, and--living or dead--shall love for ever. For a time after my adventure on Crescent Mountain (where it's needless to say Maida had neither arrived nor been expected) that vengeance and that work moved slowly. But so also move the mills of the G.o.ds.

EPISODE V

THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT

I was bringing my journal up to date one day at my Long Island hotel, when a page-boy brought me a card engraved with the very last name I should ever have guessed: "Lady Allendale."

"Is the lady downstairs?" I asked, dazed.

"The lady is here!" answered a once familiar voice at the half-open door of my sitting-room; and I jumped up to face a tall, slim figure in widow's weeds. "I hope you don't mind my surprising you?" went on the charming voice. "I wanted to see how you looked, when you saw my name."

"How do you do?" I greeted her, as we shook hands, and the page melted away and was forgotten. I tried to sound sincerely welcoming, for here she was, and I didn't want to hurt her feelings. But I wasn't as glad as some men would have been to see a celebrated beauty and charmer.

She explained that she had found herself in need of rest after her war work (the last time I had seen her was the day when I fled from the private hospital in London of my sister-in-law, Lady Haslemere), and she had thought a sea voyage might be beneficial. She added, with an air of beautiful boldness, that perhaps she'd come partly to meet me again. "I read that you were at the Belmont in New York; so I went there. But they said you were staying on Long Island. Country air will be as good for a tired nurse of wounded officers as it is for the wounded officers themselves, _n'est ce pas_? And it will be nice hearing your news, for we were rather pals!"

"Don was my best friend," I reminded her. "Here's his picture." And I took from the flat top of the desk where I had been writing, one of several framed photographs. A flush sprang to her cheeks as the husband's eyes looked into hers, and s.n.a.t.c.hing the frame she dashed it down so violently that the gla.s.s smashed on the parquet floor.

"How cruel of you!" she cried. "He was a thief! He threw away my love and made me hate him. I thank Heaven he died!"

An impulse of anger shook me. If she had been a man I should have struck her. I'm not sure I didn't want to, as it was, in spite of her beauty--or even because of it, so did it flaunt itself like an enemy flag.

"It's you who are cruel," I said. "Not to me, but to Don's memory. I could never believe he did what you thought. There may have been some horrible mistake. And his death has never been proved----"

"He's dead to me; and the proof's incontestable, or I shouldn't wear these things," she almost sobbed, indicating with a gesture her black dress and veil.

In my secret heart I had thought in London, and continued to think, that the motive for draping herself in black might be more complex than she admitted. Sir Donald Allendale had sailed for America on strange circ.u.mstances months ago; had disappeared, and a body found floating in the East River had been (superficially, I thought) identified as his.

If widow's weeds hadn't been an effective frame for Irene Allendale's dazzling beauty, I wondered if she would have mourned in so many yards of c.r.a.pe for a husband she professed to hate?

"Oh, well," I said, controlling myself, and realising that she had some excuse to execrate Donald's memory, "let's not discuss Don now. There were faults on both sides. He was jealous, and you made him miserable.

You were the greatest flirt as well as the greatest beauty in India that year, and--but come to think of it, we needn't discuss that either. The present's enough. You've arrived on this side, and----"

"You're not glad to see me. No use pretending. I _know_, and--here's the reason!" She darted forward and seized from the desk, close to my open journal, the greatest treasure I had in the world--Maida Odell's picture.

Roger had given it to me, knowing how I felt towards Maida. It was a miniature painted on ivory, and almost--though of course not quite--did Maida justice, as no photograph could do. I kept it in a gold, jewelled frame with doors like the doors of a shrine which could shut the angel face out of sight. Usually the doors of the frame were not only shut but locked. When I sat at the desk, however, and expected no visitors, I opened and put it where each time I glanced up from my writing I could look straight into Maida's eyes. Lady Allendale, however, had come as a bolt from the blue, and for once I neglected to shut the shrine.

If I had been angry before, I was doubly angry now; but I said not a word. Gently I took the frame, closed, and placed it in a drawer of the desk.

"Did you say you thought of spending a few days on Long Island?" I asked, when I could control my voice.

"I've engaged a suite at this hotel," Lady Allendale answered sharply.

"My maid's putting my things in order now. I do think, Jack, you're being _horrid_ to me, and if it weren't too late to change without making gossip I should give up the rooms and go somewhere else."

I didn't want a scene, so I reminded myself how sweet she had been when Don had brought her as a bride to India, and I had always been welcome at their bungalow. I soothed her as well as I could; refused to talk personalities, and when she decided that her visit to my sitting-room had better end, I took her to the door. At that moment a face almost as familiar as hers appeared at a door opposite--the face of Irene Allendale's French maid who had come with her to India four years ago.

This woman (Pauline, I remembered hearing her called) was receiving big trunks with White Star labels on them; and I realised not only that the lady's new quarters were close to mine, but that she was provided for a long stay in them!

When she had gone, and the door of her sitting-room had been shut by Pauline (whose personality I disliked) I picked up Don's photograph, and sat down to look at it, reviewing old times.

Poor Don! Whatever his failings might have been, fate had been hard on him!

He was among the smartest officers my regiment ever had, one of the most popular--despite his hot temper--and the best looking. Everyone said when Irene Grey came to India to be married, chaperoned on the voyage by a dragon of a maid, that she and Donald were the handsomest couple ever seen. The trouble was--for trouble began at once--that Irene was _too_ pretty. She was a flirt too; and her success as _the_ beauty went to her head. She ought to have understood Don well enough to know that he was stupidly jealous. Perhaps she did know, and thought it "fun." But the fun soon turned to fighting. They quarrelled openly. She would do nothing that Don wanted her to do. In black rage, he told her to live her own life, and he would live his.

Both were miserable, for she had loved him and he--had adored her. She flirted more than ever, and Don tried to forget his wretchedness by drinking too much and playing too high. So pa.s.sed several years. I left the regiment and India, and took up flying. Then came the outbreak of war. Don was ordered to England. Irene sailed on the same s.h.i.+p, though by that time they were scarcely civil to each other. Don used influence and got ordered to America to buy horses for the army, he being a polo man and a judge of horseflesh.

I was in France then, but running over to England on leave, Irene sent for me to tell the astounding news that Don had taken with him all her jewellery. She had money of her own--not a great fortune; but her jewels, left her by a rich aunt, were magnificent and even famous.

This scene between Irene and me, when she accused Don and I defended him, lingered in my memory as one of the most disagreeable of my life: and the maid Pauline was a.s.sociated with it in my mind, as Irene had called her, to describe certain suspicious circ.u.mstances. Later I couldn't help admitting to myself, if not to Irene, that Don's disappearance on reaching New York, before he had begun to carry out his mission, did look queer. Search was made by the police of New York in vain, until a body past recognition, but wearing a watch and identification papers belonging to Captain Sir Donald Allendale, was found in the East River. I induced Irene to give Don the benefit of the doubt, not to blacken his memory by connecting him with the loss of her jewels; and she seemed to think that yielding to my persuasions was a proof of friends.h.i.+p for me.

"Well," I said to myself, extracting bits of broken gla.s.s from the frame of Don's portrait, "better let sleeping dogs lie. Irene'll get tired of this quiet place before long, and be off to New York--or home."

I felt that it would be a relief to have her go; but I had no idea that it was in her power, even if she wished it, to do me harm.

But while I was thinking of her presence in the hotel as a harmless bore, the lady had instructed Pauline to make inquiries concerning me.

This I learned later: but had I guessed, I should have supposed there would be nothing to find out. I had no idea that gossip about me and my affairs was a dining-room amus.e.m.e.nt among the maids and valets of the hotel guests: that all Lady Allendale's _femme de chambre_ need do was to ask "What's the name of the girl Lord John Hasle's in love with?" in order to have my heart bared to her eyes. That first day she heard all about Maida--with embellishments: the beautiful Miss Odell, adopted sister of a well-known millionaire who had lately married and gone abroad with his bride: girl not fond of society: pledged to the Grey Sisterhood for a year: the Sisterhood House being near Pine Cliff, Lord John's reason for living in the one hotel of the neighbourhood.

That was enough for Irene. Her anger having brought "to the scratch"

all the cat in her nature, she made herself acquainted with the visiting days and hours of the Grey Sisterhood. Though men were not received, ladies interested in the alleged charitable work of the Sisterhood were welcomed twice a week, between three and five in the afternoon. Maida was a valuable a.s.set to the Head Sister, as a young hostess on these reception days, for she believed in the genuineness of the mission, and was enthusiastic on the subject of "saving" women and children. In her innocence she could not have been aware that most of those "saved" were hardened thieves protected in the old house at Pine Cliff till their "services" should be needed in New York. It was a splendid advertis.e.m.e.nt for the Sisterhood that so important a girl as Miss Odell should be a member, and she was always bidden to show visitors about, even if the veiled Head Sister were able to receive them.

So it fell out, while I was a.s.suring myself of Irene's harmlessness, that she was making acquaintance with the original of the portrait in the gold frame. She wore, it seems, an open-faced locket containing a photograph of me, painted to look like an ivory miniature: and seeing Maida glance at it she asked if Miss Odell had ever met Lord John Hasle.

The girl admitted that she had; whereupon Lady Allendale said, "We are _very_ good friends," and purposely said it in such a way as to convey a false impression. I had told Maida that I loved her, but she had given me no answer except that, if I cared, I must care enough to wait.

Many weeks had pa.s.sed since then, and it was long since we had set eyes upon each other. Lady Allendale was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen; and the miniature in the locket, the meaning of the smile which went with the words, were too much for the girl's faith in my constancy. She thought, "Why should he go on loving me when I've given him no real hope? No wonder he forgets me for such a dream of beauty!"

Perhaps no girl as lovely as Maida ever thought less of her own charm.

She believed that the one interest which had held her to the world and given her strength to resist the Head Sister's persuasions was a false star. It came into her mind that the best way to forget would be to promise, as her friend the grey lady had begged her to do, that she would become a life member of the Sisterhood.

Maida made no irrevocable decision that day: but when the Head Sister said next time (there were many of these times), "Dear child, how happy I should be if I could count upon you in the future!" she answered, "Perhaps you may. I don't feel the same wish to go out into the world that I have had."

She was praised for this concession: and it seems to me probable that the grey lady set her intelligence to work at discovering the motive for the change. She had seen Irene, and had without doubt noticed the locket. She was aware that the visitor and the youngest, sweetest member of the Sisterhood had talked in the garden. She must have put "two and two together": and the thing that happened later proves that she reported all she knew and all she guessed to that "great philanthropist" Doctor Rameses. It was certain that, soon after Lady Allendale arrived, he was informed of her presence at my hotel. There were ways in which he could ascertain that my friends.h.i.+p had been for Donald Allendale and not his wife: therefore the theatrical effect of the locket would have been lost upon him.

Irene and I were on friendly terms, but I manoeuvred to keep her out of the way. This was comparatively simple, as I had a lot of work to do; but I invented extra engagements, and was never free to go anywhere with her. I even tried to take such meals as I ate in my hotel, at hours when she wasn't likely to be in the restaurant: but one evening, as I stepped out of my sitting-room dressed for dinner, she appeared at her door. It was almost as if she had been on the watch!

It was early, and I intended motoring to New York, for Carr Price and his bride were there for a day or two. I had my overcoat on my arm, and a hat in my hand, which advertised the fact that I was not dining in the hotel. Lady Allendale also was dressed for the evening, and Pauline was giving her a sable cloak.

"How do you do, stranger?" Irene exclaimed, with a kind of spurious gaiety, more bitter than merry. "I've been here a week, and this is the fourth time we've met."

As she spoke, and I composed a suitable answer, two messengers came along the corridor. One was a seedy-looking individual who might, I thought, be a messenger from Teano, and the other was a boy employed by the Grey Sisterhood to run errands. My heart leaped at sight of an envelope in his hand. It was of the peculiar dove grey used by the Sisters: and I know now that it was recognised by Lady Allendale.

She'd sent money for the Sisterhood's charities, and had received their thanks written on this paper.

"No answer, sir," said the boy, giving me the letter, pocketing a "tip," and pa.s.sing out of the way to let the shabby man advance, directed by a page. He, too, put a letter in my hand, with a mumble of "This is pressing."