Blue Aloes Part 33

Languidly at last she rose. The tulle dress was ruined, but little she recked. Rather she felt a fierce satisfaction in the thought that it was done for, and Diana could never wear it.

That wretched Diana! . . .

But when her flushed face was bathed and her hair brushed out she thought more kindly of Diana, remembering that she, too, was in trouble. Well, tomorrow there would have to be a great clean-up of all these miserable pretences and deceits; tonight, at least, she would try and sleep. Her hand was on the switch to turn out the lights when there came a knocking at the door. It was such a strange, peremptory knocking--such a careless outraging of the small hours, that for a moment she stood rooted with astonishment and apprehension, staring at herself in the mirror that composed the back of the door.

"Who is it?" she stammered at last.

"The Captain," said a stern voice, and in the gla.s.s she saw her cheeks and lips become pale. What on earth could be wrong? Was the s.h.i.+p on fire, or wrecked? Had their last hour come?

"I am sorry to bother you, but will you please open the door for a moment?"

By a great effort she composed herself and did as she was bid. A little group of people with strained faces and staring eyes presented themselves behind the Captain; she recognized several men, the stewardesses, and Mrs. Stanislaw; while in the shadows beyond them was whispering and much shuffling. The whole s.h.i.+p seemed to be afoot.

Captain Carey gave one swift look round the cabin, then his eyes rested on her startled face, and he patted her arm gently and rea.s.suringly.

"Don't be alarmed, my dear Lady Diana," he said, in his tender, Irish voice, from which all sternness had vanished. "It is only that we are looking for Miss Poole, and we thought that possibly she might be in here with you."

"Miss Poole!"

The girl's face stiffened and blanched. She put out a hand to support herself against the dressing-table. The Captain signed to a stewardess, and the little crowd moved away. There was loud knocking on another door.

"Why are they searching? . . ."

The stewardess patted her arm, even as the Captain had done, but being a simple woman, she spoke simply, and without waste of words.

"There is a fear that she is not on the s.h.i.+p."

"Not on the s.h.i.+p!" whispered April. "But where else could she be?

What other place? . . ."

Then she understood. There was no other place. . . . Her knees trembled, and the stewardess supported her to the sofa. She sat down with chattering teeth, smitten by a great and bitter cold. Diana--the sea . . . warm, merry, gay Diana in the cold sea!

"I don't believe it. It can't be true!"

"Mrs. Stanislaw had reason to think that she intended to commit suicide tonight . . . and when she did not come to bed by two o'clock, she thought it her duty to inform the Captain, who is, of course, bound to search the s.h.i.+p."

"It can't be true. . . . I don't believe it," repeated April mechanically; but all the time her heart was in terror, remembering Diana's pale looks and the news she had heard tonight of Bellew's marriage. Had he told Diana, then . . . and was this the result? All at once it became impossible to sit still any longer. She must know the truth. She jumped up, searched feverishly for a cloak to put on, and pulling the stewardess with her, hurried on deck. But after a few steps they came to a standstill, for the crowd following the Captain had suddenly and curiously broken up and separated before the door of one of the deck cabins. Men and women who a moment before had been cl.u.s.tering and whispering agitatedly together were now hurrying past, each apparently intent on reaching their own cabins in the quickest time possible. For one horrible moment April thought it was some tragic discovery that was scattering them, but a moment later she realized that tragedy had gone from the air. The deck was flooded with electric light, and people's faces could plainly be seen. Many expressions were written there, but none of pity or sorrow. The men, for the most part, looked embarra.s.sed; the women's expressions varied from frozen hauteur to scornful rage. They behaved like people who had been bitterly wronged by some lying tale. The one predominating emotion shared by all seemed to be an intense desire to escape from the scene. In less than two minutes not a soul was left on the deck save the dazed and astounded April. She remained, wondering what on earth it was all about; why without visible reason the search had come to such a sudden end, and what could be the meaning of the phrase Mrs.

Stanislaw had flung at her as she pa.s.sed.

"The April fool has surpa.s.sed herself!"

A sickening apprehension crept over the girl. That Diana was not overboard seemed certain; but what new folly had she committed? As if in answer to the gloomy query, the lights were once more switched out, and a strange vapoury greyness took possession of the s.h.i.+p. It was that still small hour when the yellowing East adds pallor to the night without dispersing its darkness.

Then two things happened. The door of that cabin before which the crowd had so mysteriously disintegrated opened very softly, and through the aperture stole forth a woman's figure. . . . For a swift moment the light from within rested on yellow hair and gleaming blue satin; then the door closed and the figure became part of the stealing dimness which was neither night nor morning. But April, who stood in her path, had seen and recognized.

"Diana!" she cried.

The other girl stood stock still. Her face showed ghostly in the greyness. She peered at April, clutching at her arm and whispering:

"For G.o.d's sake take me to your cabin!"

They crept down the deck like a pair of thieves, hardly breathing till they were behind the locked door. Without looking at her, April saw that there was trouble to meet. She remembered the faces of the other women, and the instinct to protect a fellow-creature against the mob rose in her.

"Tell me what it is. I'll help you fight it out."

But Diana had flung herself down with a defiant air on the sofa.

"Don't you know? Weren't you one of the hounds on my track?" she demanded, in a high-pitched whisper. April looked at her steadily.

"The whole thing is an absolute mystery to me. I know nothing except that first you were missing, and then apparently they found you----"

"Yes; in Geoffrey Bellew's cabin!"

The April fool had, indeed, surpa.s.sed herself! April blenched, but she took the blow standing. After all, she had been as great a fool as the girl sitting there, for she, too, had handed over her good name into the careless hands of another; had sold her reputation for a song--a song that had lasted seventeen days, but seemed now in the act of becoming a dirge.

"Do you mind telling me what happened, so that I know exactly where we stand and what there is to be done."

Diana laughed.

"There is nothing to be done."

April forgave her the laugh, because it was not composed of merriment nor any elements of joyousness.

"I went to Geoffrey's cabin because we had things to talk over, and it seemed the only place where we could get away from prying eyes.

Somehow I stayed on and on, not realizing it was so late . . . and then, and then . . ." She began to stammer; defiance left her . . .

"then, that awful knocking . . . those faces staring in! . . . all those brutes of women!" She covered her eyes with her hands and broke down utterly. "My G.o.d! I am done for!"

April thought so, too. It seemed to her they were both done for, but there was not much help in saying so. Diana's confession horrified her, and she saw that her own future at the Cape was knocked as flat as a house of cards that is demolished by the wayward hand of a child.

Yet at that moment her princ.i.p.al feeling was one of compa.s.sion for the girl on the sofa, who alternately laughed and covered her eyes, and now with a pitiful attempt at bravado was attempting to light a cigarette, with hands that shook like aspen leaves.

"I suppose it was that cat Stanislaw who started the search for me?"

"It appears that she got into a panic when you did not return to your cabin, and went and told the Captain she feared you were overboard."

"The she-fiend! Much she cared if I was at the bottom of the sea! She had pried out where I was, and that was her subtle way of advertising it to the whole s.h.i.+p."

"I believe you are right," said April slowly, "though it is hard to understand how any one could do a thing so studiedly cruel."

"Cruel! She is a fiend, I tell you," cried Diana. "One of those women who have nothing left in their natures but hatred for those who are still young and pretty. I realized long ago that she would ruin my reputation if she could, but I did not give her credit for so much cleverness."

"Well, at any rate, she is not so clever as she thinks," said April drily. "For she hasn't ruined your reputation, after all; only mine."

Diana started; terror came into her eyes.

"My G.o.d, April! You don't mean to give me away?"

April knew very well what she meant to do. She had tasted of "the triumph and the roses and the wine," and the bill had been presented.

Even though it left her bankrupt and disgraced, she was going to honour that bill; but she could not resist finding out what point of view was held by Diana as to similar obligations.

"You think, then, it is _my_ name that should be left with the smirch on it?" she asked dispa.s.sionately.