In Direst Peril Part 13

"Your suit is accepted; and if you will do us the honor to dine with us this evening, I am charged by Lady Rollinson to say that she will be charmed to meet you at her table. There, my dear fellow," he concluded, hastily withdrawing his hand, "you are stronger than you fancy yourself to be."

He stood, half laughing, as he straightened the fingers of his right hand with his left, and then shook them in memory of my grip.

I had not a word to say for myself, and I felt as foolish and awkward as a school-boy.

"And now," said the count, laying a hand on each of my shoulders and pressing me gently towards an arm-chair, "I will tell you what has happened between Mr. Brunow and myself."

"Never mind about Brunow just at present, sir," I cried, recovering my wits a little; "I have other things to think of which are of greater moment."

"Well, yes," he answered, with a very sweet yet mournful smile, "I can believe so. Brunow will keep."

"I am to understand, sir," I asked, "that Miss Rossano accepts the offer of my hand?"

"Precisely," said the count, nodding with his affectionate and melancholy smile.

"She knows my circ.u.mstances?"

"I will not say she knows them absolutely," he replied, "but I think she has a fairly accurate knowledge of them."

"I have an income of three hundred pounds a year."

"So much as that?" he asked, with a dry, quaint look. It was so wise, so friendly, so childlike, so gay, so unlike the dull and dreadful aspect his face had worn when I had first known it that it affected me strongly, "My dear Fyffe," he said, reaching his friendly hand out towards me once more, "why should we talk about money? If you can put Brunow out of your mind I can put money out of mine. My daughter loves me, and the man who saved me loves my daughter; and Violet--well, she shall speak for herself."

I was so entirely happy that I could afford to take pity on my unsuccessful rival. When I thought how I should have felt if our cases had been reversed--if he had won and I had been rejected--I was willing to forgive him anything. I hoped that in course of time he would come to see how baseless his suspicions were, but in my joy I could nurse no anger against him. But I was eager to meet my promised wife, and he did not fill my thoughts for more than a pa.s.sing moment.

The count volunteered to accompany me to Lady Rollinson's house.

"You are bidden to dinner," he said, "but I dare say they will excuse an afternoon visit as well. The circ.u.mstances are unusual."

His face was full of a quiet and happy humor, which even in the midst of my own whirling emotions struck me as being remarkable. What a native courage must have existed within this man that all the miseries he had undergone had left so much of his manhood to him! What a tranquil and heroic soul he must have borne to have survived that hideous time at all. I know of myself that I should have beaten my brains out against the wall of that loathsome jail many years ago had his lot fallen to me, or I should have sunk to the stupor of an idiot.

We walked together arm in arm, as our manner was, and we talked of scores of things as we went along, though there was always one thought uppermost in the minds of both of us. The count seemed almost as happy as I was, and the knowledge that he welcomed me so warmly was like honey to my heart. For all this I was in an absurd flutter all the way; and when we reached the house I had come to such a condition of mind that whether I were in a delirium of joy or a delirium of misery I was in no wise sure. The delirium was certain; but I found that afternoon how true a thing it is that extremes meet. Great joy and great sorrow are not very wide apart in the havoc they work on the nerves.

I have been trying to recall everything that happened that day; but I find that I have no memory of anything at all between our talking very brightly and affectionately in the street, and my finding myself alone in Lady Rollinson's drawing-room. There was a bright fire burning there, for the spring days were chilly. There was a clock ticking delicately on the mantel-piece, and my mind fastened on to the sound as if there were possibility of checking and steadying my whirling thoughts by thinking of it--pretty much as a man would clutch a straw in a whirlpool. The rustle of a dress sounded in the corridor outside, and a step paused at the door. My heart beat furiously, and then as the door opened it seemed as if it stopped for a second. Miss Rossano entered (it is the last time I shall call her by that name), and for a moment we stood face to face in silence, like a pair of foolish statues. She was more self-possessed than I, for she advanced and offered me her hand, and I took it clumsily, as if I had no idea what to do with it.

I had loved her from the very first moment I had seen her sweet and n.o.ble face, and every hour had seemed to make me love her more. And yet I had never breathed a word to her, and here we were plighted to each other in this strange and sudden fas.h.i.+on, with no preliminaries of courts.h.i.+p, with no question asked by me or answered by her, and hardly at the moment an understanding of how a thing so curious had come to pa.s.s.

I have not forgotten anything that was said or done that happy hour, but it is still all too sacred to be written down for any eye but hers or mine to read. It is enough to say that I learned she loved me. Her love has ceased to be to me the puzzle it once was, for one grows used to everything, and I have been both her husband and her lover now for so many years that it would be strange indeed if any sense of strangeness were left in it. But when I first found out that she had fallen in love with me just as quickly as I with her, I could not get over the wonder of it, or the feeling of added unworthiness with which the knowledge burdened me. But, in truth, the very things which make a man feel so clumsy and coa.r.s.e in the presence of the woman he loves are the things that take a woman's fancy, just as her sweetness and delicacy are the things that take his. I never was a bit of a handsome fellow, but I was a big man, flowing over with health and vigor, with a big voice and a broad chest and shoulders, and, until I fell in love, I never set a great deal of value on good looks in a man. But there was I, a great hulking fellow who had pa.s.sed all the best part of his life in the giving and receiving of hard knocks, a fellow who could not for the life of him help feeling that he carried the flavor of the camp about with him. What was there, in the name of Heaven, I used to ask myself in those first days of courts.h.i.+p, for a delicate and high-minded girl of refined breeding to fall in love with? But that, my lads and la.s.ses all, is the provision of great nature which makes delicacy love strength and strength love gentleness, which makes fear look pretty to a soldier's eyes, and makes courage look n.o.ble and admirable to a charming creature who is afraid of a mouse. So now that I am older and more experienced, I have no wonder that my wife did not choose to fall in love with some namby-pamby fellow of the drawing-rooms rather than with me, though I have now, as I have had always, the sense to know that she is worth ten thousand of me.

I came back to something like sanity in the first ten minutes, and we sat there with no lack of things to talk about, a trouble from which I believe lovers do occasionally suffer. I am not going to pretend that the count and Italy occupied all our minds, but they had their full share of our thoughts, and we both knew that there was no question of marriage just at present. With the history of her broken-hearted mother before me I was in no mood to ask her to be my widow, and there was a growing certainty that there was fighting in front of us, and that it was likely to begin pretty soon.

If Lady Rollinson, Violet, the count, and myself had been dining alone that evening, I should probably have been allowed, under the circ.u.mstances, to dispense with evening-dress, and so there would have been no necessity for my going home again before dinner. The count, however, had already advised me of expected guests, and however fascinating the society in which I found myself, I had to break away from it for an hour.

The spring dusk was already thick as I pa.s.sed along Bond Street, and there was a slight fog abroad; but at the time of which I am writing the West End shops kept open hours later than they do now, and there was no sign of cessation of business. There were a good many foot-pa.s.sengers abroad, and in front of a brilliantly lighted jeweller's-shop I found myself brought to a stand-still by a little block in the traffic. A carriage stood immediately in front of the shop, and I was about to step round it into the horse road when I saw that a lady was bowing to me from it, and discovered that the lady was no other than the Baroness Bonnar. I raised my hat in answer to her salutation, and as I did so Brunow emerged from the crowd and handed a small packet to her. She took it from him with a smile, and gave the word to the coachman. I had seen that she had a companion with her, a lady whose back was turned to me; but I had taken no notice of the fact, and, indeed, had not given it a thought. But as the coachman wheeled round his horses the lady's face came for a moment into the full light of the brilliantly illuminated window, and I, standing wedged there in the momentary block of pedestrians, met her glance point-blank. She gave not the faintest sign of recognition, though she must have seen that I stared and stared as though I had beheld a ghost; but leaning back in the luxurious cus.h.i.+ons of the carriage, drew down her veil and arranged a fur rug about her knees. I stood stock-still, and was rather roughly hustled before I so much as remembered where I was. When I looked round Brunow had disappeared. He had probably seen me, and having found time to cool, had wisely decided against a renewal in the public street of our quarrel of that afternoon. I walked on like a man in a dream, for Constance Pleyel was the last woman in the world I had thought to see, and the very last woman to be found in the society of Brunow and the Baroness Bonnar. So far as I knew, Brunow had certainly little enough to do with her, and their meeting might have been one of the purest chance; but that she was a.s.sociated in some way with the baroness was evident enough from her presence in that lady's carriage. It is a bitter thing to have to go back on the past in this way, but I cannot tell my story without it.

If there are worthless women in the world, there are some who are very nearly angels, and I feel as if I were almost dishonoring the s.e.x in telling the truth about poor Constance, for I had been very honestly in love with her when I was a lad, and it seems even now, after the lapse of all these years, as if I were defiling the place which had once been a sanctuary. But when I had recovered from the shock of my surprise and began to understand what I had seen, it crossed me in a very vivid fas.h.i.+on that the mistrusting dislike with which I had always regarded the baroness had received strong confirmation in an unexpected way; for Constance Pleyel was not and had not been for years one with whom any self-respecting woman would wish to be intimate. The thought of the Baroness Bonnar, fresh from contact with her, coming into Violet's presence was anything but agreeable. I am not much of a prude, and was never disposed to hound a woman down for an error in love; but the plain English of the matter was that no woman who would care to know Constance Pleyel had a right to exchange a word with Violet. My mind was a good deal exercised about this matter as I walked swiftly homeward. I thought about it while I was dressing, and as I drove back to Lady Rollinson's that strange _rencontre_ filled my thoughts to the exclusion of everything else. You may judge of my surprise when the baroness appeared as the very last of the invited guests. Considering the elaborate toilet she had made she had shown wonderful despatch, and though I have no pretensions to be versed in these mysteries, I should have been inclined to think that such a display as she made could only have been achieved with an hour or two's labor. In spite of haste, if she had been really pressed for time, her make-up was as perfect as ever, and what with her flas.h.i.+ng white shoulders and flas.h.i.+ng white teeth, her sparkling diamonds and sparkling eyes, and the artistic flush of artificial color on lier cheeks, she looked quite dazzling.

Dinner was announced at the very instant of her arrival, and the count himself took her in to dinner. That, in the light of my latest knowledge of the lady, was the cruellest thing to remember, but the little traitress was all smiles and pompousness, and smiled and chatted as if no thought of mischief had ever entered her heart. Lady Rollinson had confided Violet to my care, and I sat at table between her and the baroness. She talked across me to my companion until my nerves grew rigid with the strain of the repression I was compelled to lay upon myself, and the dinner, which ought to have been a little foretaste of heaven to a newly-accepted lover, was a long-drawn discomfort. There were two gentlemen at the table besides the count and myself, but they were both Italians, and had no notion of the English custom of sitting over their wine after dinner. The count was a total abstainer, for his long-enforced abstention had taught him a curious delicacy of palate, so that all wines were actually distasteful to him. When the ladies had retired we smoked a cigarette, drank a cup of black coffee, and made our way to the drawing-room, where Lady Rollinson had promised us something unusual in the way of music. It was my right to have monopolized Violet's society, or if not actually to have monopolized it, to have taken a full share of it. I found opportunity to whisper to her that I had an especial reason for speaking to the baroness, and while the music was going on I planted myself at that lady's side. She received me with more than her usual foreign affability, and chattered so rapidly that one or two of the guests, who I suppose really cared for the performance then going on, cast glances of open disapproval in her direction. The little woman was quite at home, however, and continued to talk with great animation. I made two or three attempts to interject what I had to say, but she stopped me each time, and started off on a new theme before I could get more than a word in edgewise. I know that she must have seen from my looks that I was not in the least degree disposed to the flippant mood to which she herself pretended, and at last she either was, or feigned to be, tired of my failure to respond to her.

"You are _bete_ to-night, _mon beau capitaine_," she said at last, and with a humorously disdainful gesture of her fan she made a motion to rise.

"Not yet, baroness," I said, taking the fan in my hand. "I have something serious to say to you."

"I am not in the mind for anything serious tonight," she answered, "and this is not the place for anything serious."

"I am in the mood," I said, "and the place will do well enough."

She flashed her eyes at me with a sudden anger.

"Is that an impertinence or a gaucherie?" she asked. A second later her charming girlish smile lit up her face again, and rising from her seat she dropped a little mock rustic courtesy. "If M. le Capitaine Fyffe will honor me at my own humble residence, I am never abroad till one."

With that she shot me a curiously veiled glance and turned away, holding up her hand as if to ask me to listen to the last strains of the music which her own vehement chatter had already spoiled for everybody who cared to listen to it. She had evidently a purpose in holding me off, and I of course could form a reasonable guess as to what the nature of that purpose was. I devoted myself to Violet for the rest of the evening, and contrived so well to forget the baroness that by the time at which I was compelled to take my leave I was restored to the state of mind natural to an ardent lover who had only that day been lifted from something very like despair to the fulfilment of his hope.

When the baroness took leave I helped her to adjust her costly fur mantle. Violet was standing by, and the baroness was talking to her with a pretence of animation which I know was intended to prevent me from giving her a reminder of what had already pa.s.sed between us. As she turned to go she gave me a moment's chance. I had been waiting for it, and I seized it instantly.

"To-morrow, then, at twelve," I said.

She turned, with her eyes wide open and angered, as if I had presumed in speaking to her and had offered her an insult. But she changed her mind in the merest fraction of time, and answered, smilingly:

"To-morrow, then, at twelve."

Then she looked at me with the odd veiled glance I had seen before--a glance which expressed both dislike and fear, and held at the same time a keener and more piercing observation than anybody at first sight would have been likely to charge the b.u.t.terfly-like woman with.

I have spoken quite openly, and as if what I have had to say had been the most commonplace matter in the world. Violet had heard me, but when we went back to the drawing-room together she asked no questions. She has told me since that she wondered a little what appointment I could have with the Baroness Bonnar, but she gave me here the first of a hundred thousand proofs of that n.o.ble freedom from the pinch of small curiosity which helps to make her different from and superior to her s.e.x.

I kept my appointment next day, and found the baroness at home. She had a dainty little house of her own, and I suppose that at this time she kept better style, was furnished with completer credentials, was admitted to know better people, and was more liberally supplied with funds than at any other period of her curiously vagabond existence. She was to me at this time the Baroness Bonnar pure and simple, a foreign lady of wealth and position who moved in good society, had agreeable and influential friends, and obvious command of money. She was to me, in short, what she was to the rest of the world, and I had no earthly reason to doubt any of her pretences. But I had come with a definite object, and I approached it at once. She was not at all disposed to banter to-day, but met me with perfect candor.

"My time is a little limited, Captain Fyffe," she began. "Will you do me the honor to let me know at once to what I owe your visit?"

"I pa.s.sed you last night in Bond Street," I returned. She nodded briefly, with her lips tight set and her eyes glittering a little dangerously, I thought. "Would you oblige me by telling me the name of your companion?"

"Would you oblige me," she retorted, "by telling me the reasons for which you ask it?"

She was so very quick and resolute that I saw at once she had been prepared for the occasion.

"I had rather not give my reason just at present, baroness," I said. "I have, as a matter of fact, no reason for asking the lady's name for my own satisfaction, because I know it with much more certainty than you do."

"Oh!" she said, very quietly. "Then why do you ask?"

"Let me change my question," I responded. "Let me ask you if you have known Miss Constance Pleyel long?"

"Do you know, my good Captain Fyffe," said the little woman, toying idly with the _vinaigrette_ and sniffing at its contents now and then, "you have a manner which is abominably resolute. You are speaking to me as if you were a rustic _juge d'instruction_, and I a prisoner in the dock."

"I beg your pardon, baroness; I was conscious of no such manner. Will you oblige me by telling me if you have known this lady long?"

"I do not recognize your right to question me," said the baroness; "but since you are audacious enough to come here and to question me about that lady after what I heard last night--" she paused there of set purpose, and repeating the words "after what I heard last night" with emphasis, paused again.

"After what you heard last night," I repeated, unable to attach any meaning whatever to her words.

"You decline to understand me?" she said, with a threatening nod of her pretty little head. "Very well. But if," still with marked emphasis, "after what I heard last night you are sufficiently audacious to come here and ask me questions about Constance Pleyel, I can tell you that I have known that lady long enough to know the history of her life and how far you are responsible for the sorrows she has known."