The Vision of Desire Part 54

"How you do go on, miss, to be sure!" declared Mrs. Mellow beamingly, as she bustled about spreading the cloth for tea. "As if you didn't know you were always as welcome as the flowers in May, spring cleaning or no spring cleaning I And I suppose, miss"--archly--"it'll be 'Mrs.' the next time you visit us--if all I hear is true?"

Ann laughed. Throwing her arms round the old woman's neck, she kissed her warmly.

"Yes, it really will, Mellow. I believe"--teasingly--"you're just aching to hear all about it?"

"Well, miss," admitted Mellow, holding the kettle, suspended a moment above the teapot, "I don't want to seem inquisitive or disrespectful, you may be sure, but I _would_ like to hear a bit about the gentleman who's going to marry my young lady. I always think of you as my young lady, you know, Miss Ann. You were more like a daughter than anything else to Master Tony's mother, G.o.d rest her! Perhaps you have his photograph, miss, that you could show me?"

Ann nodded smilingly--she knew her Mellow, and had antic.i.p.ated this request!--and forthwith proceeded to descant on Eliot's various virtues and the beauty of Heronsmere until Mrs. Mellow declared that she could, as she phrased it, "picture it all as plain as if she'd seen it herself." Then, when the good woman's kindly interest was satisfied, Ann embarked on the quest which had been uppermost in her mind when she sought the housekeeper's room.

"Mellow, I'm worried about Tony," she announced at last.

The smile died out of Mrs. Mellow's face like the flame of a suddenly snuffed candle.

"You've noticed it, then, miss?" she parried uneasily.

"Of course I've noticed it. He isn't in the least like himself, and he's almost always out."

"Yes, miss." Mrs. Mellow shook her head. "I call it rare bad manners to ask a young lady to the house and then to leave her to entertain herself, as you may say. And I've told Master Tony so more than once."

"You told him so? What did he say?"

"Why, miss, he looked at me in a funny sort of way, and he said: 'Don't you worry yourself, Mellow. Miss Ann will understand all about it one day--and before very long, too.' I couldn't think what he meant, miss. But I didn't like the way he looked."

Ann's brows were knitted.

"How did he look?" she asked.

"Why, miss, sort of reckless. Like he did that time when we were down at Lorne last year and he and Sir Philip quarrelled something dreadful. He came down to me then, Master Tony did, in the housekeeper's room, at Lorne, and he said: 'Well, I'm off, Mellow, and whether you ever see me again or not depends on whether you can beat any sense into the head of that obstinate old man upstairs.' He was mad with anger, was Master Tony, or of course he wouldn't have spoken like that of his uncle. And I'm blest if he didn't go out of the house the very next day! Sir Philip was in a rare taking, I remember."

"He needn't have been," said Ann, smiling. "Tony only came to Oldstone Cottage and stayed with Robin and me."

"So I heard, miss, afterwards. But, really, at the time I was frightened lest he should do himself a mischief--he looked so wild."

Ann's heart skipped a beat.

"Do himself a mischief?" she interposed quickly. "What do you mean? How could he?"

"I don't know _how_, miss. But I tell you, I'm frightened for Master Tony.

I am, truly."

Ann gazed thoughtfully into the fire.

"Where does he spend his time, Mellow? Have you any idea?"

"I have not, miss. But I do know this--that it's sometimes two and three o'clock in a morning before he comes home. My bedroom's on the ground floor, as you know, and I hear him come in and go upstairs almost always after midnight. Last night 'twas near one o'clock, and another night it may be later still. It bodes no good for a young gentleman to be coming home at all hours. Of that I _am_ sure."

"I think you're right, Mellow," replied Ann gravely. "Does Sir Philip know about it, do you think?"

"Indeed, miss, I fancy he guesses. But mostly he's too proud to speak what he thinks. Though he did say to me, one evening about a week or ten days before you came here, 'Mellow,' says he, 'the boy's going the same way as his father.' And then he swore, miss--something awful it was to hear him--that he'd not lift a finger to keep Master Tony out of the gutter.

'He'll end up in jail, Mellow,' he said, 'and bring shame on the old name.

All I hope is that I'll be dead and buried before it happens.' And with that he gets up and goes out and slams the door behind him."

Ann was silent. It seemed to her that things were even more seriously amiss than she had imagined. Mrs. Mellow glanced at her wistfully.

"Do you think, miss, that you could say a word to Master Tony!" she said.

"Talk to him for his own good? He always used to take a lot of notice of what you said to him, I remember."

"I know he did," returned Ann. "But he doesn't give me any opportunity of talking to him now"--ruefully. "All the same," she added with determination, "I shall certainly talk to him before I go home. I'll get hold of him this evening."

But Tony proved obdurately uncommunicative.

"It's too late to _'talk'_!" he told her, with a roughness that was quite foreign to him. "All the talking in the world wouldn't mend matters.

It's"--he looked at her oddly--"it's neck or nothing now, Ann."

His eyes were feverishly brilliant, and Ann could see that even during the last few days his boyish face had grown strangely haggard-looking.

"Tony, you're in trouble of some sort. I wish you'd tell me about it," she entreated.

"There's nothing to tell. Don't fuss so, Ann"--irritably. "I said it was neck or nothing. Well, it's going to be _neck_! I swear it shall be. I'm going to win through all right. And before long, too!"

To Ann's relief he made no suggestion of going out that evening after dinner--presumably in deference to the fact that she was leaving on the morrow, and, as Sir Philip appeared tired and Ann had still a few oddments of packing to finish off, by common consent they all retired early to bed.

Half an hour later, however, as Ann was folding a last remaining frock into the tray of her trunk, she heard some one very quietly descending the stairs, and a minute later the house door opened and closed again softly.

A sudden conviction seized her, and she ran swiftly down to the landing below, where Tony's room was situated, and tapped on his door. No answer being forthcoming, she threw the door open and looked in. She had switched on the landing burner as she pa.s.sed, and the light streamed into the room.

Tony was not there, nor were there any indications that he had contemplated going to bed. His room was untouched, just as the housemaid had left it prepared for the night--a fire burning in the grate, the bed neatly turned down, with his pyjamas laid out on it, a can of hot water, covered with a towel, standing ready in the basin on the washstand.

Very quietly Ann closed the door and returned to her own room. She had little doubt what had happened. In consideration of the fact that it was her last evening Tony had stayed indoors until she and his uncle might be supposed to be safely in bed. Then he had stolen out of the house and departed once more on his own pursuits. Ann could make a pretty good guess that these included gambling in some form or other.

She felt rather sick. It was so unlike Tony to resort to any hole-and-corner business such as this--slipping out of the house, as he believed, unknown to any one. That he must be caught in a terrible tangle of some kind she felt sure, and his mother's last words, as she had lain on her deathbed, came back to her with redoubled significance. _"And if Tony gets into difficulties?"_ Vividly she recalled Virginia's imploring face, the beseeching note in her tired voice. And her own answer: _"If he does, why, then I'll get him out of them if it's in any way possible."_ It looked as though the time had come for the fulfilment of that promise. And ignorant of what danger it could be which threatened Tony, unable to guess the particular kind of difficulties in which he found himself involved at the moment, she was powerless to help.

Slowly she undressed and got into bed. But not to sleep. She lay there with wide-open eyes, every sense alert, listening for the least sound which might herald Tony's return. She could hear the loud ticking of the tall old clock on the staircase--tick-tack, tick-tack, tick-tack. Sometimes the sound of it deceived her into thinking it was a footstep on the stairs, and she would sit up eagerly in bed, listening intently. But always the hoped-for sound resolved itself back into the eternal tick-tack of the clock.

Twelve, one, two o'clock struck, bringing no sign of Tony's return, and finally, wearied out, Ann fell into a brief slumber from which she awakened with sudden violence to the knowledge that, at length, there was the sound of an actual footfall in the house. She heard the stairs creak twice, unmistakably, then the m.u.f.fled closing of a door--and silence.

For a moment she hesitated, uncertain how to proceed. Surely she could sleep in peace now? Tony was safely in the house once more, and to-morrow she would have a heart-to-heart talk with him and induce him to confide in her. But instantaneously her mind rejected the idea. Something bade her act, and act immediately. Urged by that imperative inner impulse, she rose and, throwing on a wrapper, ran swiftly down the stairs, her bare feet soundless on the carpet, and paused irresolutely outside Tony's bedroom door. Her hand was raised to knock softly on the panel, when all at once an odd little noise came to her from the inside of the room--a curious metallic sound, like the dull clink of metal dragged slowly across wood.

Seized by a sudden overwhelming fear, she flung open the door. Tony was standing beside an old mahogany bureau, one drawer of which had been pulled open. His arm was half-raised. In his hand he gripped a revolver. Ann could see the light from the rose-shaded burners run redly along its barrel like a thin stream of blood. In the fraction of a second she had fled across the room and grasped his wrist.

"Tony! What are you doing?" she cried hoa.r.s.ely.

She felt his arm jerk against her hold, resisting it, but she clung determinedly to his wrist with her small strong fingers.

"Give it to me! Give it to me!" she whispered hurryingly, hardly conscious of what she was saying.

His instinctive resistance ceased. She felt his muscles relax, and he allowed her to take the pistol from him. He stared down at her curiously.

"Pity you didn't come two minutes later," he observed laconically.

Without reply, she proceeded to unload the revolver. He watched her with a faint, apathetic amus.e.m.e.nt.