This House to Let Part 25

Then Norah Burton's hair was fair and wavy, Stella Spencer's was dark.

Still it is easy for a woman to alter the colour or the appearance of her hair. If Stella Keane had arisen, like the phoenix, from Norah Burton, she would alter herself in every detail, so far as Nature permitted her.

Still, it is said that everybody in the world has a double. Often in his own experience he had claimed acquaintance with somebody whom he had mistaken for an old friend, and smilingly apologised for his error.

Norah's good looks had been of a rather uncommon kind, but there must be dozens of women in the world more or less like her.

Then, as Miss Crichton's harmless chatter flowed on, he thought of other things. Norah had an obscure past, on which such guarded confidences as she permitted herself to indulge in threw little or no light. It would appear that Stella Keane's history moved much on the same lines. There were only vague intimations, nothing definite, nothing satisfactory.

There was another point of resemblance. Norah had one male relative who came out into the open for inspection, in her case a brother, afterwards discovered to be a criminal. Stella Keane had one male relative also, in her case a cousin, of whom nothing was known, except that he was an undesirable person who had not visited his relative's house since her marriage, no doubt for reasons well-known to himself and Stella.

_Ergo_ the undesirable cousin was lying low, as George Burton would have lain low, when Jack Pomfret had openly acknowledged Norah as his wife.

And yet--and yet--was there anything in these suspicions? Was he not allowing himself to be misled by a chance resemblance, by random coincidences?

He stole a look at Guy Spencer chatting amiably with his cousin, the cousin whom rumour had persistently designed as the future Countess of Southleigh. He seemed the happy contented young married man; there was no hint of trouble or regret in his a.s.sured, placid demeanour.

Evidently he was suffering from no self-reproach, no suspicion of the beautiful young woman he had made his wife. The calmness of his aspect gave the lie to any such disquieting suggestions.

And the current of Murchison's thoughts ran swiftly along. They had been married some time now. If Stella Keane was the impostor Hugh suspected her to be, from that striking resemblance to Norah Burton the heroine of that tragic Blankfield episode, surely in the close intimacy of wedded life something would have escaped her that would have aroused her husband's suspicions, have set him inquiring more closely into the past.

Granting that she was a clever actress, still the most accomplished performer in the world could not wear the mask all day. There must come one moment, if not several moments, when that mask would be inadvertently dropped.

No, he must be mistaken. The resemblance must be accidental. The brother in the one case, the cousin in the other, were equally accidental coincidences.

He had got to this frame of mind when the men joined the ladies after dinner. In the s.p.a.cious drawing-room, the atmosphere seemed to have cleared, the tension to be relaxed, with the change of scene.

This was readily comprehensible. During dinner, Lord Southleigh, frowning and morose, in close juxtaposition with his guests, had in a very real sense dominated the scene, and communicated a sense of his hostility and displeasure to all round him, not least to the unhappy young woman who had inspired those wrathful feelings.

Upstairs he was less in evidence. He retreated to the far end of the room, flung himself in a deep armchair, and, in a way, removed himself from the proceedings. There was n.o.body to whom he felt himself constrained to be civil. Murchison he had known from a boy; he could afford to be uncivil, to play the role of churlish host. Miss Crichton was more or less a social hanger-on, grateful for invitations to good houses; she did not count. Guy had forfeited all claim to consideration. His wife ought to be made to feel her position every moment of her life.

Murchison gravitated to Miss Crichton. Well-born, she was very poor, and by no means proud. She accepted in a meek spirit the social crumbs that were thrown at her by her wealthy superiors. She was always obliging and amiable. She never grumbled at being asked to join a dinner-party at the eleventh hour, when some other guest had failed.

She never resented being put in a small bedroom at a country house-party, while a rich girl with no ancestry was given a luxurious apartment.

On account of this excessive amiability, this indifference to studied and unstudied slights, she was immensely popular. All her friends declared her not only to be amiable, but "so sensible?"

Hugh had known her for years, and in a way he pitied her, much more really than she pitied herself, for she had long since grown accustomed to her lot. But what he did know was, that she was as shrewd as she was amiable, that under that gay and smiling exterior she concealed a very acute intelligence.

He wanted particularly to know her opinion of Mrs Spencer, if she were frank enough to give it, for she had especially developed the b.u.mp of caution. She heard a great deal, but what she heard she generally kept to herself. It would have been fatal to her somewhat insecure position if it could have been said of her, with regard to any particular scandal, "Of course, you will never give me away, but Laura Crichton was my informant."

He replied in a general way, "I was very interested, to-night, in my old friend Guy Spencer's wife. She is a little bit on the quiet side, but she is very beautiful, and there is certainly a wonderful charm about her. Of course, Lord Southleigh behaved abominably. I rather wonder she did not fling herself out of the room. One can understand his feelings, in a certain way. But why does he not take one att.i.tude or the other? If he elects to receive her, for the sake of avoiding an open breach, he ought to put his hostility in his pocket."

Miss Crichton smiled her worldly and diplomatic smile: "Dear Lord Southleigh is never very successful at hiding his real feelings."

"Do you see much of her?" asked Hugh presently.

"Oh, very little. I have met her a few times here, at these little informal gatherings. Lord Southleigh won't have her at their big parties, as I daresay you know. I have called on her a few times, and she has called back. That is all."

"Well, you have seen enough to form some opinion of her. I should dearly like to know what that is."

Miss Crichton looked at him quizzically. "Oh, the artfulness of you men! Do you think I don't see that you are trying to draw me? Well, I have formed the same conclusion that you have--she is very beautiful, and, from a man's point of view, has a subtle charm. Will that content you?"

Hugh regarded her with a smile as quizzical as her own. "No, I'm afraid it won't. Now, look here, we are very old friends," he said persuasively, "and I am pretty near as discreet as you are, I never repeat what is told me in confidence. I should like to put a plain question to you."

"Put it: I don't promise to answer it, you know."

"Of course not. But I am very much interested in this strange marriage of Guy's. And, please don't think I am laying it on with a trowel, but I have very great faith in your judgment, I would trust it more than I would that of nine-tenths of the women I know."

Of course she knew he was flattering her to obtain his purpose; but then--was the most sensible woman absolutely impervious to flattery?

"Ask me your question," she answered briefly.

Hugh sank his voice to a whisper. "We hear a great deal about her reticence as to the past. Do you think, in a few words, that Stella Spencer is a good and straight woman in the general sense in which we understand the expression?"

For a moment Miss Crichton hesitated, then she looked him straight in the face. He had compelled her to a most unusual frankness.

"You will, of course, never breathe a word of this to anybody. Suppose I say I refuse to reply to your question. Will you take that refusal as the answer you really want?"

"I will--a thousand thanks. The subject is closed between us," was Hugh's grateful reply.

A diversion was caused by the approach of Guy Spencer.

"Hugh, old man, I am aching for a long crack with you. Come and dine quietly with us next week. I suggest Tuesday if that will suit you?"

"Perfectly; I am free on Tuesday, Guy."

"Right, then. But to make sure, if Miss Crichton will excuse us, we will go over to Stella and see if I have forgotten something, if we are free that night. I can't always carry these things in my head."

They crossed over to the beautiful young woman, who was sustaining a somewhat listless conversation with her young hostess.

"Stella," cried her husband, "I have asked Hugh to dine with us on Tuesday. My recollection is that we have nothing on for that night.

But I thought you had better confirm it. You carry these things in your head so much better than I do."

Young Mrs Spencer smiled at Hugh her sweet smile, and as she did so her likeness to Norah Burton was overwhelming, the Norah Burton who had smiled at him in just the same way six years ago, in the tea-shop at Blankfield.

"We are quite free, Major Murchison, and shall be delighted to see you."

For a few moments he sat down beside her; and very shortly another coincidence happened.

Mrs Spencer made use of a certain word which is always p.r.o.nounced in a certain way by educated people, and in another way by people who are only partially educated. Norah Burton had p.r.o.nounced this particular word in the same way as Stella.

Hugh had commented upon the fact to Pomfret, and that easy-going young man had remarked to him that he failed to see it much mattered, that she was at liberty to p.r.o.nounce the word as she thought fit.

When he got home, he pa.s.sed a very restless night. When he had gone up into the drawing-room after dinner, he had been half prepared to dismiss the matter from his mind as a mere fantasy. And then had come his brief interview with Laura Crichton, in which she gave him plainly to understand that, in her opinion, Stella Spencer was not a good or a straight woman.

And then had come that corroborative little piece of evidence of the misp.r.o.nunciation of a certain word, establis.h.i.+ng another link in the chain of evidence that Stella Keane and Norah Burton were one and the same person.

And if it were so, what was his duty? If he could prove her to be Norah Burton, and her undesirable relative, George Burton, now freed from jail, could he permit such an adventuress to pa.s.s another day in the house of this honest gentleman whom she had so skilfully entrapped, as six years ago she had entrapped the guileless and trusting Jack Pomfret?

The morning dawned and found him still in the throes of anxious thought.