Innocent : her fancy and his fact Part 54

Armitage turned on him sharply.

"You--you know?--What?--How?--"

"She--Maude--told me all," said Blythe, gently--"And I think--your wrong to her--was not so blameworthy as her wrong to you! But I have something to tell you of one whose wrong is greater than hers or yours--one who is Innocent!"

He emphasised the name, and Armitage started as though struck with a whip.

"Innocent!" he muttered--"The child--yes!--but I couldn't make enough to send money for it after a while--I paid as long as I could--"

He trembled,--his fine eyes had a strained look of anguish in them.

"Not dead too?" he said--"Surely not--the people at the farm had a good name--they would not be cruel to a child--"

Blythe gripped him by the arm.

"Come," he said--"We cannot talk here--there are too many people about--I must have you to myself. Never mind your appearance--many an R. A. cuts a worse figure than you do for the sake of 'pose'! You are entirely picturesque"--and he relieved his pent-up feelings by a laugh--"And there's nothing strange in your coming to my room to see the particular view I want from my windows."

Thus persuaded, Armitage gathered his drawings and painting materials together, and followed his friend, who quickly led the way into the Hotel. The gorgeously liveried hall-porter nodded familiarly to the artist, whom he had seen for several seasons selling his work on the landing, and made a good-natured comment on his "luck" in having secured the patronage of a rich English "Milor," but otherwise little notice was taken of the incongruous couple as they pa.s.sed up the stairs to "Milor's" private rooms on the first floor, where, as soon as they entered, Blythe shut and locked the door.

"Now, Pierce, I have you!" he said, affectionately taking him by the shoulders and pus.h.i.+ng him towards a chair. "Why, in heaven's name, did you never let me know you were alive? Everyone thought you were dead years and years ago!"

Armitage sat down, and taking off his cap, pa.s.sed his hand through his thick crop of silvery hair.

"I spread that report myself," he said. "I wanted to get out of it all--to give up!--to forget that such a place as London existed. I was sick to death of it!--of its conventions, and vile hypocrisies--its 'bounders' in art as in everything else!--besides, I should have been in the way--Maude was tired of me--"

He broke off, with an abstracted look.

"You know all about it, you say?" he went on after a pause--"She told you--"

"She told me the night she died," answered Blythe quietly--"After a silence of nearly twenty years!"

Armitage gave a short, sharp sigh. "Women are strange creatures!" he said. "I don't think they know when they are loved. I loved her--much more than she knew,--she seemed to me the most beautiful thing on earth!--and when she asked me to run away with her--"

"She asked you?"

"Yes--of course! Do you think I would have taken her against her own wish and will? She suggested and planned the whole thing--and I was mad for her at the time--even now those weeks we pa.s.sed together seem to me the only real living of my life! I thought she loved me as I loved her--and if she had married me, as I begged her to do, I believe I should have done something as a painter,--something great, I mean. But she got tired of my 'art-jargon,' as she called it--and she couldn't bear the idea of having to rough it a bit before I could hope to make any large amount of money. Then I was disappointed--and I told her so--and SHE was disappointed, and she told ME so--and we quarrelled--but when I heard a child was to be born, I urged her again to marry me--"

"And she refused?" interposed Blythe.

"She refused. She said she intended to make a rich marriage and live in luxury. And she declared that if I ever loved her at all, the only way to prove it was to get rid of the child. I don't think she would have cared if I had been brute enough to kill it."

Blythe gave a gesture of horror.

"Don't say that, man! Don't think it!"

Armitage sighed.

"Well, I can't help it, Blythe! Some women go callous when they've had their fling. Maude was like that. She didn't care for me any more,--she saw nothing in front of her but embarra.s.sment and trouble if her affair with me was found out--and as it was all in my hands I did the best I could think of,--took the child away and placed it with kind country folks--and removed myself from England and out of Maude's way altogether. The year after I came abroad I heard she had married you,--rather an unkind turn of fate, you being my oldest friend! and this was what made me resolve to 'die'--that is, to be reported dead, so that she might have no misgivings about me or my turning up unexpectedly to cause you any annoyance. I determined to lose myself and my name too--no one knows me here as Pierce Armitage,--I'm Pietro Corri for all the English amateur art-lovers in Italy!"

He laughed rather bitterly.

"I think I lost a good deal more than myself and my name!" he went on.

"I believe if I had stayed in England I should have won something of a reputation. But--you see, I really loved Maude--in a stupid man's way of love,--I didn't want to worry her or remind her of her phase of youthful madness with me--or cause scandal to her in any way--"

"But did you ever think of the child?" interrupted Blythe, suddenly.

Armitage looked up.

"Think of it? Of course I did! The place where I left it was called Briar Farm,--a wonderful old sixteenth-century house--I made a drawing of it once when the apple-blossom was out--and the owner of it, known as Farmer Jocelyn, had a wonderful reputation in the neighbourhood for integrity and kindness. I left the child with him--one stormy night in autumn--saying I would come back for it--of course I never did--but for twelve years I sent money for it from different places in Europe--and before I left England I told Maude where it was, in case she ever wanted to see it--not that such an idea would ever occur to her! I thought the probabilities were that the farmer, having no children of his own, would be likely to adopt the one left on his hands, and that she would grow up a happy, healthy country la.s.s, without a care, and marry some good, sound, simple rustic fellow. But you know everything, I suppose!--or so your looks imply. Is the child alive?"

Lord Blythe held up his hand.

"Now, Pierce, it is my turn," he said--"Your share in the story I already knew in part--but one thing you have not told me--one wrong you have not confessed."

"Oh, there are a thousand wrongs I have committed," said Armitage, with a slight, weary gesture. "Life and love have both disappointed me--and I suppose when that sort of thing happens a man goes more or less to the dogs--"

"Life and love have disappointed a good many folks," said Blythe--"Women perhaps more than men. And one woman especially, who hardly merited disappointment--one who loved you very truly, Pierce!--have you any idea who it is I mean?"

Armitage moved restlessly,--a slight flush coloured his face.

"You mean Lavinia Leigh?" he said--"Yes--I behaved like a cad. I know it! But--I could not help myself. Maude drew me on with her lovely eyes and smile! And to think she is dead!--all that beauty in the grave!--cold and mouldering!" He covered his eyes with one hand, and a visible tremor shook him. "Somehow I have always fancied her as young as ever and endowed with a sort of earthly immortality! She was so bright, so imperious, so queen-like! You ask me why I did not let you know I was living? Blythe, I would have died in very truth by my own hand rather than trouble her peace in her married life with you!" He paused--then glanced up at his friend, with the wan flicker of a smile--"And--do you know Lavinia Leigh?"

"I do," answered Blythe--"I know and honour her! And--your daughter is with her now!"

Armitage sprang up.

"My daughter! With Lavinia! No!--impossible--incredible!--"

"Sit down again, Pierce," and Lord Blythe himself drew up a chair close to Armitage--"Sit down and be patient! You know the lines--'There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will'? Divinity has worked in strange ways with you, Pierce!--and still more strangely with your child. Will you listen while I tell you all?"

Armitage sank into his chair,--his hands trembled--he was greatly agitated,--and his eyes were fixed on his friend's face in an eager pa.s.sion of appeal.

"I will listen as if you were an angel speaking, d.i.c.k!" he said. "Let me know the worst!--or the best--of everything!"

And Blythe, in a low quiet voice, thrilled in its every accent by the affection and sympathy of his honest spirit, told him the whole story of Innocent--of her sweetness and prettiness--of her grace and genius--of the sudden and brilliant fame she had won as "Ena Armitage"--of the brief and bitter knowledge she had been given of her mother--of her strange chance in going straight to the house of Miss Leigh when she travelled alone and unguided from the country to London--and lastly of his own admiration for her courage and independence, and his desire to adopt her as a daughter in order to leave her his fortune.

"But now you have turned up, Pierce, I resign my hopes in that direction!" he concluded, with a smile. "You are her father!--and you may well be proud of such a daughter! And there is a duty staring you in the face--a duty towards her which, when once performed, will release her from a good deal of pain and perplexity--you know what it is?"

"Rather!" and Armitage rose and began pacing to and fro--"To acknowledge and legalise her as my child! I can do this now--and I will! I can declare she was born in wedlock, now Maude is dead--for no one will ever know. The real ident.i.ty of her mother"--he paused and came up to Blythe, resting his hands on his shoulders--"the real ident.i.ty of her mother is and shall ever be OUR secret!"

There was a pause. Then Armitage's mellow musical voice again broke the silence.

"I can never thank you, Blythe!" he said--"You blessed old man as you are! You seem to me like a G.o.d disguised in a tweed suit! You have changed life for me altogether! I must cease to be a wandering scamp on the face of the earth!--I must try to be worthy of my fair and famous daughter! How strange it seems! Little Innocent!--the poor baby I left to the mercies of a farm-yard training!--for her I must become respectable! I think I'll even try to paint a great picture, so that she isn't ashamed of her Dad! What do you say? Will you help me?"

He laughed,--but there were great tears in his eyes. They clasped hands silently.

Then Lord Blythe spoke in a light tone.