In Direst Peril Part 24

"I shall have nothing to say on the matter," she answered, "until the count returns. He will be the final judge of what is to be done; but until he comes I shall do my duty, and it is no part of my duty to allow my niece to listen to the persuasions of a man who has only too clearly proved his powers in that way already."

"Only a few weeks ago," I said, desperately, "I had an interview with the Baroness Bonnar, in which I warned her not to intrude upon your society again."

"I know all about it!" cried Lady Rollinson, with an indignant movement of her fan. "You tried to bully the poor thing into silence. You may save yourself any further trouble, Captain Fyffe. My mind is made up, and I shall do what I have decided to do. In my days," she added, beginning to cry, which made the situation more intolerable than ever--"in my days, when a gentleman was told by a lady that his presence was unwelcome in her house he would never have intruded."

"My dear Lady Rollinson," I responded, controlling myself with a very considerable effort, "you must listen to reason. You have been made the dupe of a thoroughly heartless and unprincipled woman."

"That appears to be your method!" She flashed back at me. "You can say what you please about my character, now that I know yours. Thank G.o.d I am too well known to fear your rancorous tongue!"

The position was actually maddening, and I had never dreamed until then that even a woman who was bent on revenging what she conceived to be a gross injury to one of her own s.e.x could be so utterly unreasonable and deaf to argument.

"I repeat, madame," I declared, "that the Count Ruffiano has been betrayed to the enemy by this woman whose lies you accept as if they were gospel. Brunow confessed to me barely six-and-thirty hours ago that he acted as her agent in that villainous transaction. Is that a woman whose bare word is to be taken against the overwhelming proof an honest man can bring?"

I know I was excited, and it is very likely that I was speaking in a louder voice than I was altogether aware of, but her answer gave me a new surprise.

"I am not in the least afraid of you, Captain Fyffe; my servants are in the house, and I can ring for them at any minute."

This cooled me, even in the middle of my exasperation and the galling sense of impotence I felt.

"I beg your pardon, Lady Rollinson. I am bewildered by your manner. I am laboring under an accusation of a very dreadful sort, and you refuse to listen to me, though I can prove my innocence quite easily."

"Why," she exclaimed, "I haven't even told the man what the accusation is! But in spite of his innocence he knows all about it."

"I know all about it," I retorted, "because it has been brought against me before, and withdrawn by the very woman who brings it now. Will you listen to me, Lady Rollinson?"

"I will not willingly listen to another word."

"Where is Violet?" I asked.

"That I shall not tell you," she answered. "I have made up my mind I shall do nothing until the arrival of the count. When he comes back, if ever he does, poor man, the responsibility will be off my shoulders.

Until then, I shall take very good care that you have nothing to do with Violet."

This seemed to me to be carrying things with far too high a hand, and there, at least, I thought I had a right to speak with some show of authority.

"Violet," I said, "is my promised wife, and I am not going to allow any folly of this kind to come between her and me. I shall insist upon my right to see her, and to clear myself of any accusation which may have been brought against me in my absence."

"You may insist as much as you please, Captain Fyffe," Lady Rollinson answered. "I have made up my mind as to what is my duty, and I shall do it, even at the risk of your most serious displeasure."

"You tell me," I said, "that she is not here?"

"I have told you already," she replied, "that she is not here. I have made arrangements for her until the count returns."

"And am I to understand," I asked, "that you refuse to allow me to know her address?"

"You may understand that definitely," said her ladys.h.i.+p.

It was all very disagreeable, but at least there was one ray of comfort in the middle of it.

"Violet knows my address," I said, "and she is certain to write to me."

"I might have something to thank you for there, Captain Fyffe," said the old lady, with an almost comical increase of dignity, "if I had not already taken my precautions. I may tell you, however, that Violet is accompanied by a discreet person, who has my instructions as to the disposal of any letters she may write."

This amounted to an open declaration of war, and I felt myself on the point of answering so hotly that I was wise in binding myself, for the moment at least, to silence.

"Pray let us thoroughly understand each other," I said at length. "You, on your side, have resolved to place complete reliance on the statement of an exposed adventuress, without one word of corroboration, and to refuse the clear proof of my innocence, which I undertake to give you." I waited for a moment, but she maintained an altogether obstinate silence. "Very well," I resumed, "that is understood so far. You conceive it your duty to separate Violet and myself, and to attempt to widen any possible separation between us by suppressing my letters to her and hers to me. You must permit me to point out to you that you are adopting a very dangerous course, and I must warn you that I shall do my best to frustrate a design which seems to me so ureasonable and so cruel that I should never have thought you capable of forming it."

"You will do your best, of course," she answered, "and I shall do mine.

I wish you good-morning, Captain Fyffe."

What with perplexity, and what with grief and anger, I scarce knew what to do, but I turned to her with a final appeal.

"I am sure," I said, "that you have your niece's interests at heart. It is not so very long since you professed to be my friend. Ever since I have known you I have had to tell you that you very much overestimated a chance service I have rendered to your son."

"I have been waiting for that," she answered. "That is just the sort of appeal I was expecting you to make. It is of no use for us to discuss this question any longer, for let me tell you I have seen your letters."

"The letters!" I cried.

"The letters," she repeated--"the letters to Miss Constance Pleyel."

"Great Heaven, madam!" I cried, exasperated beyond patience, "I have never denied that I wrote to Miss Constance Pleyel, but the letters were written when I was a boy, and they are as absolutely harmless and blameless as any love-sick nonsense ever written in the world!"

"I have seen the letters," she repeated, "and I have seen Miss Pleyel, and, once more, Captain Fyffe, and for the last time, I have made up my mind."

With that she laid her hand upon the bell-pull, and sounded a peal at the bell which was so rapidly answered that I more than half suspected, and, indeed, do now more than half suspect, that the man who responded to it had been listening.

"Show Captain Fyffe out," said her ladys.h.i.+p. And so, a definite end being put to the interview, I left the house as wrathful and as humiliated a man as any to be found that hour in London. So long as I live I shall not forget the smug alacrity with which the servant obeyed the behest of his mistress. I was in a state to wreak my own ill-humor upon anybody, and it was in my mind, and more than half in my heart, to kick that smug man in livery down the steps. I have suffered all my life from a certain Scotch vivacity of temperament which it has cost me many and many a hard struggle to control. It has not often been more unreasonable or more vigorous in its internal demonstrations than it was then, but I managed to reach the street and to walk away without exposing myself. As to where I went for the next few hours I never had the remotest idea. I must have walked a good many miles, for at last, when I pulled up, I found myself, at five o'clock in the evening, in a part of the town to which I was a complete stranger, and I had a confused remembrance of Oxford Street and the parks, and then of Highgate Archway. I made out, after a while, that I was at the East End, and, turning westward, I tramped back to my own lodgings with a return to self-possession which was partly due to the fact that bodily fatigue had dulled the sting of resentment.

Hinge had dinner ready when I reached home, but I had no appet.i.te for it, and, to the good fellow's dismay, I sent it away untasted. I turned over a thousand schemes that evening, and rejected each in turn. But I decided, finally, to prepare an advertis.e.m.e.nt for the newspapers, Which might perhaps prevent further mischief. I concocted so many subterfuges, each of which in turn proved to reveal too much or to be too enigmatical, that at ten o'clock I found myself with a dozen sheets of closely-written paper before me. But at last I hit on this:

"Dear Violet,--Distrust altogether anything you may hear to my disadvantage until I have found an opportunity to explain. Do not wonder at not hearing from me. Both your letters and mine are intercepted. When you next write, post letter with your own hand."

After much consideration, I hit upon "John of Itzia" as a signature, and having made three clear copies, I drove round to the offices of the three great daily newspapers of that date, and at each secured the insertion of this advertis.e.m.e.nt for a week. A little comforted by that achievement, I went to bed, and, being dog tired, got to sleep.

The days that followed were among the dreariest I can remember. I spent them for the most part at home, sitting at the open window which looked upon the street, and waiting for the advent of the postman.

I was there in the morning an hour before his arrival could reasonably be expected, and I was there all day, and there still an hour after his last round had been made. Every time he came in sight my heart beat furiously; and as the short official note on the knocker came nearer and nearer, I strove in vain to resist the temptation to run down-stairs and await him at the front door. Every man on that beat got to know me, and I grew to be utterly ashamed of myself at last, for day after day went by, and there came no answer to my advertis.e.m.e.nt and no note from anywhere of Violet's existence. At last the week for which I had prepaid the advertis.e.m.e.nt expired. I had determined to renew my warning and entreaty if no answer came, and I waited the last part of that day with a throbbing heart. The minutes of the dull, rainy night--it was mid-April by this time--crawled slowly on, and at last I heard the belated knocker at the far end of the street, and hurried on my overcoat and hat in case I should be disappointed once again. Then I slipped down to the door, and waited in the portico. The postman knocked next door, and I was ashamed to show myself; but only a second or two later he appeared with a single letter in his hand.

"Captain Fyffe?" he asked, inquiringly, and I responding "Captain Fyffe," he handed me the letter.

The superscription was in Violet's hand. I tore it open and read, in embossed letters at the top of the first page, "Scarfell House, Richmond." Then came this:

"My Dearest,--Is the strange advertis.e.m.e.nt addressed to Violet and signed 'John of Itzia' yours? I almost think it must be, and yet I am half afraid and half ashamed to say so. But since I left town, nine days ago, I have written to you every day, and have not received a line in answer. If you will look in either the Times or the Advertiser, if the advertis.e.m.e.nt should not have been put there by yourself, you will see what I mean. I shall obey its instructions, and shall post this letter with my own hands. So far I have given my letters to my maid, and I cannot think of any reason which could induce her to be wicked enough to destroy or suppress them. This, at least, will be sure to reach you, and if my fancy is absurd, I know you well enough to trust to your forgiveness. If you are not 'John of Itzia,' I can only fear that something dreadful has happened, for I do not believe that you could be so unkind as to leave eight consecutive letters of mine unanswered by a single word. I have only just seen the advertis.e.m.e.nt by chance, and if you are at home when this arrives it ought to reach you at about nine o'clock. It is very little over an hour's drive to Richmond, and I beg you to come down at once. If the whole thing is a mistake, you have still something to explain, and must have, I am sure a great deal to tell me.

"Yours always,

"Violet."

I had no sooner read this than, with the letter crumpled in my hand, I dashed into the street and made at full-speed for the nearest cab-stand.