It seemed now to have been prophetic!
She never spoke to Roger of these her dark hours, nor he to her of his own; but they both knew. There was no need of words.
Rather, in those precious minutes when they were together, they recalled that brief interlude at St. Margaret’s, those “immortal hours” when little Miss Culpepper had hovered around them like a quaint, tutelary goddess.
“I’ve had another letter from Miss Culpepper,” Grace told him one day. “Full of flourishes as usual, dear old thing. She’s so upset at the idea that I haven’t even one maid that if I said half a word I believe she would come up herself and take charge of me!”
“I wish you would say the half word, darling,” Roger urged, not for the first time.
“I know; but I really can’t. Think of her here in London; it would be like pulling up a little old silver birch from a forest glade and sticking it in Shaftesbury Avenue!”
“I hate to think of your being alone,” he said wistfully.
“You mustn’t think of it! I’m a great deal better by myself than I should be with anyone else in the world just now. And I have lots of visitors: daddy pretty often, of course, and Winnie when she is at home, though she’s been away so much lately—more engagements than ever this winter, and most of them in the country, worse luck!”
“So Austin’s left at a loose end, eh?”
“I suppose so. I haven’t seen him for some days. Winnie will be back for Christmas.”
“You’re going to her then?” he asked quickly.
“I’m going about with her. As usual, we shall have quite a big day—a midday dinner in Bermondsey, high tea and a Christmas tree at Battersea, and a beano for the padre’s poorest, and possibly blackest, sheep in the evening. Winnie will be a bright particular star, of course—they’d keep her singing for hours if they could! While I shall be just an all-round helper, in my old canteen get-up.”
“Good! I shall be thinking of you all the time. But don’t wear yourself out, darling,” he said tenderly.
It was no new thing for her to devote herself through most of the season of conventional “festivity” to the poorest of her fellow-creatures, bringing a few hours of mirth and warmth and good fare to the starving and the squalid, giving to many of them fresh hope and strength that perhaps might help them to struggle out of the abyss of misery and destitution into which they had fallen.
Last year he had been with her, and a wonderful experience it was—an utter revelation to him of the grim underworld of humanity here in the greatest city of the world, the very heart of “Christian” civilization! Very many of the guests they had then helped to entertain had passed most of their lives in prison: now the prison walls had closed around himself. He indeed was innocent; he had not sunk into the grim underworld—had not as yet endured the lot of a common convict; but already he could sympathize, as never before, with the prisoners and captives, with all who suffered, whether for their own sins or for the sins of others.
“Oh, I shan’t wear myself out,” Grace assured him. “I shall be happier on duty. Mother is going down to Hove, as usual, and insists on father going too. He doesn’t want to, but it’s less trouble to give way than to argue the point; and the change may do him good. He’s not very fit, poor daddy!”
In fact that poor professor was having a very trying time at home, for Mrs. Armitage furiously resented the fact that he had contributed the utmost amount he could raise to the fund for Roger’s defence, and on the rare occasions when she saw her daughter made Grace writhe under the sense of obligation, that was far more distressing than any consideration of her mother’s utter lack of sympathy; she had been accustomed to that from her early childhood, and it had long ceased to hurt her.
It did seem hard that she should feel more humiliation in accepting this loan from her own people than in accepting those from friends—Austin Starr and the Winstons and the dear jolly padre, Mr. Iverson, who had all been as good as their word. But she never let Roger have a hint of this; kept from him, so far as she could, everything disquieting, even the fact that there was still a lot of money needed, and had begged Mr. Spedding, the lawyer, not to reveal this to him.
“We shall have quite sufficient in good time, by the New Year,” she assured Spedding, on such occasions as the point was raised in the course of their many conferences.
She had already made arrangements to raise the utmost possible on their wedding presents, and everything else of value that they possessed; also, if necessary, to sell up the furniture they had bought so gaily and lovingly in the months before their marriage, and so break up the home which, to “get ready for Roger” had been her great solace in this awful interval; and where she was now living frugally as any nun, denying herself everything beyond the barest necessaries of life, in order that she might save.
And with all this there would not be enough. Where the balance was to come from she did not know, racked her poor brains to discover, sought to buoy her mind with the faith that her prayers would be answered, that help and guidance would come in time.
She brooded anxiously over it again to-day as she made her way back to Westminster. As usual, after parting with Roger reaction followed the joy of the meeting, and a sense of utter desolation was upon her. If Winnie had been at home she would have gone along to Chelsea before returning to the loneliness of the little flat at the very top of a big block. As it was, she lingered aimlessly outside the station, staring with sad, unseeing eyes into the nearest shop window, then made her way through to St. James’s Park, and sat down on the seat inside the gates by the bridge.
It was a chilly, wistful winter afternoon, the westering sun showing like a dim red ball through the haze. Very few people were about; near at hand there were but two strolling towards her—a young couple in earnest conversation.
She looked at them dully, then with quickened interest, as she recognized the man as Austin Starr, bending from his great height to listen attentively to his companion—a very attractive-looking girl, even in the distance, who was talking with animation. Any casual observer would have imagined them a pair of young lovers, and Grace felt an instant and curious sense of dismay.
It flashed to her mind that she had not seen Austin once at the Winstons’ flat during the few days’ interval when Winnie had been at home, though for months before their engagement, which had come about so suddenly in the midst of her own trouble, there was seldom a day that he did not turn up early or late, for a few minutes at least. Also that Winnie had been strangely reticent about him, though, absorbed in her own anxieties, she had not given a second thought to that.
As they drew near she half rose from her seat, but resumed it. They passed, evidently too intent on each other to spare a glance for anyone else, and as they did so she heard the girl say, in a rich, vibrant voice, peculiarly distinct in the quietude:
“It may be as you say, but what does Sir Robert want with him?”
Sir Robert! Of whom were they speaking? Could it be Sir Robert Rawson?
She could not hear Austin’s reply, and though she started up impulsively she did not follow them—merely watched them cross the bridge and disappear from view.
She guessed that the girl was Cacciola’s niece, whom Austin certainly had mentioned when he told her of his visit, and of the disappointing result of his inquiries up to the present, but only in a casual manner. He must have developed the acquaintance swiftly in these few weeks!
She walked slowly back, turning the matter over in her mind perplexedly.
“There’s a lady waiting to see you, ma’am,” said the lift-man, a cheery, grizzled old veteran, and one of her staunch admirers.
“Waiting—where?”
“Why on the landing outside your door, ma’am. Sitting on a box she came with. I wanted her to come down to my missus, knowing you were out, but she wouldn’t.”
He swung open the lift-gates and Grace stepped out.
There, outside her door, as he had said, sitting on a small tin box, with an open basket beside her and something that looked like a little black fur muff cuddled in her arms—cold, tired, travel-stained but quite cheerful—was little Miss Culpepper!
“Oh, my dear Mrs. Carling, don’t be vexed with me!” cried Miss Culpepper, rising and fluttering towards Grace. “I’ve been fretting so about you being here all alone, and now I’ve had the good fortune to let the cottage for three months, and all the money paid in advance, I felt I must come straight up, without asking your permission. And—and I’ve brought Dear Brutus too. He’s been so good through the journey.”
“You darling!” cried Grace, and just hugged her, kitten and all. “Come in. How cold and tired you must be! And, oh, how glad I am to see you!”
Indeed, there was no one in the world, save Roger himself, whom she would have welcomed more gladly at this moment than the quaint little woman. It was extraordinary how her very presence dispelled that tragic, unutterable loneliness which had always hitherto assailed her when she returned to this her solitary nest, so lovingly prepared for the mate who might never come home to it.
As she flitted about, preparing tea for her unexpected guest, despite Miss Culpepper’s protests that she “hadn’t come to be waited on,” caressing Dear Brutus and laughing at his antics, listening to the old lady’s vivacious account of her journey, of the new tenants, and of the arrangements made for Cleopatra, whom Miss Culpepper had left as a “paying guest” with her friend at St. Margaret’s, she felt more cheerful than she had done since the day when the black shadow fell on her and Roger, eclipsing their honeymoon, severing them perhaps for ever.
If Miss Culpepper had had her own way she would immediately have taken possession of the diminutive kitchen, and remained there, but that Grace would not hear of for a moment.
“Indeed, I want you to treat me just as an ordinary servant, except that I don’t want any pay or to be a burden on you in any way,” the old lady declared. “You see, I was in service all my life, with very good families, too, till I saved enough money to buy the cottage and set up for myself. So I do know my place, dear Mrs. Carling, and I shouldn’t have assumed to come to you, uninvited, under any other circumstances.”
“You’re going to stay as my dear and honoured and most welcome guest,” Grace assured her. “And I promise you that in every other respect you shall have all your own way, and cherish me as much as ever you like, when you are rested.”
Miss Culpepper’s anxious, loving old eyes had already noted the changes which these weeks of sorrow and anxiety had wrought in the girl since those few days of radiant happiness at the cottage. She looked, indeed, more beautiful than ever, but with a pathetic, etherealized beauty, fragile to a degree.
“It’s high time somebody came to take care of her; she’s on the very verge of a breakdown,” Miss Culpepper inwardly decided, and unobtrusively entered on her self-imposed labour of love. Within twenty-four hours she and Dear Brutus were as much at home in the little flat as if they had lived there all their lives—and the cheerful confidence with which she regarded the future, as it concerned Roger and Grace, was an unspeakable comfort to her young hostess, while her amazing phraseology was entertaining as ever, and provided Grace with a new occupation—that of committing to memory the quaintest of the old lady’s expressions in order to retail them to Roger when next she visited him.
“Never fear that everything will be made clear in the long run, and your dear husband triumphantly vitiated,” she declared. “It’s terribly hard for you both now, but keep your courage up, mettez votre suspirance in Dieu: that means ‘put your hope in God,’ as I dare say you know. You’ll wonder where I picked up such a lot of French,” she continued complacently. “It was when I was a girl living in Paris with one of my ladies, and I’ve never forgotten it in all these years.”
She sighed, and lapsed into silence, gazing meditatively into the fire. Grace, lying on the sofa, with Dear Brutus curled up in her arms, watched the wistful, gentle old face, and wondered what the little woman was pondering over.
“How long were you in Paris?” she asked presently.
Miss Culpepper started, and resumed her knitting with a slightly flurried action.
“I’m afraid I was relevée in the past,” she confessed. “I was only there for about two years—the very happiest in all my life: at least the last year was. Then my lady’s husband died suddenly—he was Sir Henry Robinson, who had a post at the Embassy, a very nice gentleman though a little pomptious sometimes—and the establishment had to be broken up. I came back to England, and soon got another place, a very good one—again with a lady of title, where I stayed for many years. And—and that’s all!”
Again she was silent, apparently absorbed in her knitting, but Grace saw two tears roll down her withered cheeks, and wondered more than ever what train of remembrance had roused the old lady’s emotion, though she did not like to question her further.
They both started as the front door bell sounded.
“I’ll go,” said Grace, rising, “I expect it is my father.”
It was not the professor, but a small, spare, very neatly dressed old man, whom at first she did not recognize.
“Mrs. Carling?” he asked. “I must introduce myself, madam. My name is Thomson.”
She knew him then, though she had only seen him once previously, when he had given evidence at the police court on the return of the stolen papers to his master, Sir Robert Rawson.
“Mr. Thomson!” she exclaimed. “You—you have come from Sir Robert Rawson?”
“Not precisely, madam; though I am in Sir Robert’s service. I came on my own account to beg the favour of a few minutes’ conversation.”
“Certainly. Do come in,” she said, her pulses fluttered with the wild hope that this old servant, whom Roger so liked and trusted, might have something of importance to communicate.
As he followed her through the little hall he glanced with an expression of surprise at a hat and coat hanging there, which he recognized as Roger’s; at several walking-sticks in a rack, at a sling of golf clubs in the corner, and, as he entered the dining-room, looked across at once at the writing-table by the window, and the little table with pipe-rack, tobacco jar, and match stand beside it.
“Excuse me, madam,” he said quickly, “but is Mr. Carling at home—has he been released?”
Grace turned in surprise.
“No. What makes you ask that, Mr. Thomson?”
“I’m sure I beg your pardon, madam; but I saw Mr. Carling’s things in the hall and his table there, just as he liked to have it when he was with Sir Robert, and I thought—I hoped——”
“They are ready for his home-coming,” said Grace. “Won’t you sit down, Mr. Thomson? This is my friend, Miss Culpepper. Why, do you know each other?”
For Miss Culpepper, who had risen hastily at their entrance, was staring at Thomson in a most curious and agitated manner. “It can’t be—yes, it is!” she gasped. “James—James Thomson—don’t you know me?”
He looked at her inquiringly and shook his head.
“I’m sorry, madam, you have the advantage of me. What name did you say?”
“Maria Culpepper, that was maid to Lady Robinson when you were Sir Henry’s valet. I was thinking of you, and of those old days not five minutes ago. You’ve forgotten me years ago, I can see that, but I’ve never forgotten you, James, though you never wrote as you said you would!”
He put up his gloved hand and rubbed his chin meditatively, then removed the glove and extended the hand with conventional politeness.
“To be sure, Miss Maria. I remember you now, though it’s a good many years ago. I’ve been with Sir Robert near forty years. Strange to meet you again like this—very strange; and with Mrs. Carling’s permission I might call some night and have a chat over old times, but I’m a bit pressed for time just now, and have something urgent and private to say to Mrs. Carling.”
“Yes, yes, of course, I’ll go at once,” murmured poor little Miss Culpepper, hastily gathering up her knitting which had fallen to the floor, and making a courageous attempt to recover her wonted dignity. “Good night, James. I—I shall be very glad to see you again, as you say, one of these days.”
Grace accompanied her to the door, dismissed her with a kiss, and whispered a word of sympathy, then returned to Thomson, feeling more bewildered than ever.
“How very extraordinary that you and Miss Culpepper should be old friends,” she said, motioning him to a chair.
“Thank you, madam. Quite so,” he responded, seating himself bolt upright on the extreme edge of the chair, and holding his bowler hat on his knees. “I am sorry I did not remember the old lady at first. She was quite young then, as I was—a very nice young woman, now I come to think of it. Indeed, if I remember rightly, I had the intention at one time of asking her to be Mrs. Thomson, but fate intervened and we drifted apart.”
His manner, formal, precise, irreproachably respectful, yet seemed somehow curiously callous, and exasperated Grace, on behalf of her poor little friend.
“Evidently she has never forgotten you, Mr. Thomson,” she said, with some warmth. “And she is the kindest and most loyal little creature in the world. She would have made a good and most loving wife.”
“Quite so, madam. But even at the time I doubted if I was cut out for matrimony, and I have never seriously contemplated it since.”
“Why did you come to see me?” she asked point blank, as he paused, and sat gazing, not at her, but at the crown of his hat.
“It’s a little difficult to explain, madam,” he said, raising his eyes for a moment, but without meeting her direct gaze. “And first I beg of you not to consider it an impertinence. Then—may I ask if Mr. Carling has ever spoken of me to you?”
“Often—and always in the very highest terms.”
“That was like him,” said Thomson, with more feeling in his dry voice than he had yet exhibited. “Except my master, Sir Robert, there’s no gentleman in the world I respect so much, or who I’d sooner serve than Mr. Carling. He was always the same, always treated me like a human being and not a servant, or a stock or stone. Madam, I’d do anything in the world that I could to serve him!”
“I believe you, Mr. Thomson. Thank you,” said Grace softly, telling herself that she had misjudged the man.
“This terrible charge that has been brought against Mr. Carling has upset me more than anything has done for years, madam,” he resumed: “that and the fact that my master believes him to be guilty and has turned against him altogether. I can’t understand it. Sir Robert ought to have known him better. I have presumed several times to try to remonstrate with my master, but he won’t hear a word even from me. It’s—well, really, madam, it’s been a great grief to me, for it’s the only serious difference Sir Robert and I have ever had in all the years that I have served him.”
“It’s a great comfort to me—and it will be to my husband—to know that you are so loyal to him, Mr. Thomson,” Grace said earnestly, greatly touched, but wondering more and more what had prompted the old man to come to her now.
“Thank you, madam. Though that is not actually what I took the liberty of coming here to say,” he responded, as if in some uncanny manner he had read her unuttered thought. “It was to ask if you have arranged for Mr. Carling’s defence?”
A wild hope flashed to her mind.
“Mr. Thomson! Is it possible that you know of anything—that you have any information that would help to clear him?”
He shook his head.
“Unfortunately, I know nothing whatever of Mr. Carling’s movements on that fatal day, madam, beyond what I have heard and read as stated in evidence. That was not what I meant. He must have the best defence that money can obtain.”
“Yes. And I hope—I think—we have arranged that Mr. Cummings-Browne, the famous K.C., will undertake the defence.”
“Very good, madam. But I understand that these big legal gentlemen come very costly; and—I’m sure you will pardon me, and take the question as it is meant, as confidential and most respectful I do assure you, but—have you got the money in hand?”
“The greater part of it; and I shall get the rest by the time it is needed.”
“Might I make bold to ask how much is still wanted?”
“About five hundred pounds,” she replied, watching him perplexedly, while he continued to gaze down at his hat.
There was a little pause. Then:
“That’s what I was afraid of, madam, knowing that Mr. Carling couldn’t be by any means wealthy,” he said slowly, and putting his hat on the table, unbuttoned his overcoat and from an inner pocket fetched out a worn and bulky leather case. “That’s just why I came here to-night, madam. I’ve thought about it constant for weeks past, but it was a bit difficult to know how to do it without giving offence—though, in a matter of life and death, which is what this is, a lady like you and a gentleman like Mr. Carling wouldn’t take offence where none was meant. I’ve got five hundred and fifty pounds in Bank of England notes; they’re all my own, they’re not a quarter of my savings—for I’ve had good wages these many years and never any expenses to speak of, and I’ve invested well and regular. And now I beg you and Mr. Carling to do me the honour of accepting this as a loan—and as much again and more if it should be wanted—to be repaid any time, it doesn’t matter how many years hence.”
As he spoke he opened the case, extracted a sheaf of crisp white bank-notes, opened, smoothed them, laid them on the table, and rose, adding, “I think you’ll find there are twenty-eight—twenty-seven twenties and one ten.”
Grace had listened, too utterly amazed for speech; and now she, too, rose, in tearful, trembling agitation.
“Oh! Mr. Thomson, what can I say? It is too noble, too generous! But—I—we—can’t really——” she cried incoherently.
“Please, madam, please!” he said, more hurriedly than he had yet spoken, and edging his way towards the door. “I’m not going to take them up nor touch them any more. The—the honour and the privilege is mine, and I’d take it kindly if you wouldn’t mention the matter to Mr. Carling or to anyone; it’s just between you and me, if you don’t mind, madam. My respectful duty to Mr. Carling when you’re able to see him, madam.”
He was now in full retreat across the little hall, his hand actually on the latch of the door.
“Wait one minute,” she pleaded distractedly. “At least let me try to thank you—try to say what I feel and think; or do come back to see your old friend, Miss Culpepper——”
But he had the door open and was already outside.
“Thank you kindly, madam. I would be very glad to call one evening and have a chat with Maria over old times. And please don’t be so distressed, madam.”
With that he was gone, passing like a grey shadow down the staircase, leaving Grace staring after him through her tears.
“And he didn’t even let me shake hands with him!” she thought, as she went in and shut the door.
When he reached the street Thomson discovered that he had left his right-hand glove in Mrs. Carling’s flat. Not worth returning for it, he decided, thrusting his hand into his overcoat pocket. He would go round as he had suggested some evening and renew his acquaintance with Maria Culpepper—little Maria, whose very existence he had forgotten for so many years. The glove would provide an excuse.
Strange, indeed, to meet her again in their old age, like a ghost of the past. As he walked slowly along Buckingham Gate he deliberately and more or less successfully tried to recall recollections of those youthful days in Paris, and found it quite an interesting experiment—as interesting as turning out some old cupboard full of forgotten relics and rubbish.
“Yes, she was a pretty little creature,” he concluded. “Cheerful as a bird, and a nice hand at cribbage she could play too—very nice. P’r’aps she can still. I wonder where we’d have been now if we hadn’t drifted apart? It was her fault though; for, now I come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I did write, and she never answered. Well, well.”
Still musing, he made his way back to Grosvenor Gardens. It was nominally his “evening out,” an institution Sir Robert had recently insisted on reviving. Thomson himself wanted no evening out—wanted nothing but to continue to tend the stricken master whom he served with such silent, dogged, and dog-like devotion. It was still early, only just after eight o’clock, and he meant to spend the remainder of this his leisure evening in his own room, within call if he should be needed.
As he neared the great house, so silent and dark in these days, with the shadow of tragedy still heavy upon it, he saw a motor car before the door, and quickened his pace, fearing that Sir Robert might have had a relapse and that this was the doctor’s car. He was reassured as he recognized the car as Lord Warrington’s Rolls-Royce, but at the same instant experienced a minor shock; for a tall, slender man, wearing a furred overcoat, approaching from the opposite direction, paused, looked up at the house, and then knocked and rang. That man was Boris Melikoff.
Earl Warrington and Melikoff both visiting Sir Robert together! What was in the wind now, he asked himself perplexedly, as, unobserved, he went down the area steps and let himself in at the basement door. Much-privileged servant that he was, he had for years possessed his own latchkey, and came and went as he chose, accountable to none but his master.
By the back staircase he made his way to the first floor and entered his own room—a fair sized, comfortable apartment at the end of the suite occupied by his master, and with a door that led direct into Sir Robert’s bedroom.
Before the fire, in the one easy chair, reading an evening paper, was a nice-looking fresh-complexioned young man, Perkins, the male nurse, who, with Thomson himself, took charge of the invalid.
“I didn’t expect you back so soon, Mr. Thomson,” he said, rising deferentially. “Sir Robert’s had his dinner all right, and there’s a gentleman with him now.”
“Yes—Lord Warrington,” said Thomson, removing his overcoat and hanging it in a cupboard.
“Really, sir? I didn’t know, of course. I gather that he came unexpected. But Sir Robert’s expecting another gentleman directly. I was going to have my supper sent up here as you were out, but now——”
“That’s all right, Perkins, you go and have it downstairs, it’s livelier for you,” said Thomson, kindly enough. “And don’t hurry yourself. I shall be at hand now if anything’s wanted. Tell them to send mine up as usual about half-past nine.”
Seating himself, he picked up the paper, and Perkins promptly retreated. The servants’ quarters were indeed by far the most cheerful in that grim house!
Thomson waited for two or three minutes, then rose, and with his usual noiseless tread passed through into Sir Robert’s bedroom, illuminated only by a cheerful fire, and stood, listening intently.
No sound could be heard from the further room—the “Chinese Drawing-room,” which did not communicate directly with this—where Sir Robert and his visitor were; and Thomson moved to the door, opened it very slightly and stood, again listening.
Soon he heard far off the tinkle of an electric bell, and rightly guessed it a summons to Jenkins, the butler, whose soft footsteps and pursy breathing thereupon sounded ascending the staircase. Then a murmur of voices from the Chinese Room: Lord Warrington’s cheery tones, “Well, good-bye, old man! I’m glad indeed to see you so well on the way to recovery. I’ll look in again soon if I may”; and retreating footsteps on the thick carpet.
Swiftly, Thomson emerged from his retreat, crossed the spacious landing, and entered a door to the left, closing it silently behind him. This room was in darkness, except for the faint greenish, ghostly light from a street lamp that penetrated the jade-green silk curtains, and the air was oppressive with the fragrance of flowers, roses, violets, narcissi.
It was Lady Rawson’s boudoir, kept, by Sir Robert’s orders, exactly as it had been in her lifetime, the flowers frequently renewed, books and magazines placed there daily, as if ready for their mistress. A strange, uncanny atmosphere pervaded the luxurious room. The servants dreaded it, the housemaids whose duty it was to tend it worked in pairs, and scurried away the moment their task was finished. The only exception was Thomson himself, who usually arranged the flowers and periodicals before wheeling his master in for his daily visit, remaining beside him in imperturbable, unobtrusive attendance.
Unerringly, stepping as lightly as a cat on the soft carpet, he made his way across to the opposite wall, where a dark patch showed against the whiteness, portières of jade-green velvet that masked folding doors leading into the Chinese Room. On the other side the doorway was concealed by magnificent curtains of black and gold embroidery in a dragon design, that had a very curious feature—one that Thomson had discovered by pure accident. The eyes of the dragons were pierced with large eyelet holes, invisible from even a short distance, but through which a perfect bird’s-eye view could be obtained of the room beyond.
The doors were closed but not latched, and it was the work of an instant cautiously to swing them open sufficiently to clear the two nearest peep-holes, just at a convenient level to Thomson’s eyes.
Sir Robert was lying on his wheeled couch before the fire, with his back towards the screened portal and the hidden watcher, who, however, could see his master’s face reflected in a great lacquered mirror on the opposite wall. A remarkable face, aged, drawn, but also refined by these long weeks of suffering and sorrow. Under the short, carefully trimmed white beard which had been allowed to grow during his illness his square jaw was firm and relentless, as his steel-grey eyes were keen as ever beneath their grey penthouse brows.
He turned his head slightly as the door opened and Jenkins announced
“Mr. Boris Melikoff.”
“It is very good of you to come, Mr. Melikoff,” Sir Robert said, with grave courtesy, extending his hand, over which the young man bowed respectfully. “I cannot rise to receive you. I am quite helpless as you see. Will you sit in that chair?”
Boris complied. The chair, as Thomson had already noted, was placed so that the lamplight would fall full on the face of the visitor, leaving that of his host in shadow, an invariable device of the old diplomatist at important interviews.
For a few seconds the old man and the young one looked at each other warily, like a couple of fencers preparing for a bout, then Rawson’s stern gaze softened.
“You are very like my dear wife,” he said quietly, “so like her that you might almost have been brother and sister rather than cousins.”
The Russian’s handsome, sensitive face relaxed responsively.
“Many people have said so, sir, who knew us both,” he replied.
“You wonder why I sent for you?”
“Yes, sir—naturally.”
“Naturally. And yet I myself scarcely know why I did so, except——”
He paused, and Boris waited. Not for long.
“Why didn’t you two trust me?”
Sir Robert’s deep voice quivered with poignant emotion, and, though he controlled his features, his eyes betrayed an agony of regret and reproach.
“I—I don’t know, sir,” stammered Boris. “I think—we—believed—feared that you were the enemy of our unhappy country; that—in your position——”
“I the enemy of Russia—of the real Russia? Paula could never have thought that.”
“She did indeed, sir,” said Boris earnestly. “Or perhaps it would be more truthful to say that she believed you set your duty to your Government above all personal sympathy.”
“She was right there,” Sir Robert rejoined sternly. “To a man in the position I once held duty must always come first, if he is to be worthy of that position. But if she had trusted me—as I never doubted she did till it was too late—if she had told me what was in her heart, in her mind, and that she was meeting—wishing to aid—her compatriots, her kinsfolk, how gladly, how greatly I could have helped her and them! But she told me nothing—not even of your existence. Yet surely she did not, she could not, have feared me?”
“Not personally, sir,” Boris answered slowly. “Paula was absolutely fearless; also she honoured and—yes, and loved you, though more as a daughter than——”
“Than as a wife. I know that. You are very honest, Mr. Melikoff! Well?”
“But I think—or rather I know—that she wanted to—to play her own hand herself in a way. To take all risks, and not to involve you——”
“Not involve me! Do you realize that by her action—her fatal action in taking those papers—she might have involved the whole of Europe in catastrophe?”
“I knew nothing of that, sir,” said Boris dejectedly.
“Quite so. I have satisfied myself on that point, through sources quite unknown to you; otherwise you would not be here now but in all probability would have been deported weeks ago, to meet whatever fate might be in store for you in your own country,” said Sir Robert grimly. “However, let that pass. Tell me this, Mr. Melikoff—I have a right to know: you loved each other, you two foolish and headstrong children?”
Boris met his searching gaze sadly but steadily.
“I loved her, Sir Robert; and I have loved her ever since we were little children together. But she never loved me. I do not think Paula ever loved any man—not in the sense most of us mean by the word.”
“Again I believe you, and not without evidence.” He drew towards him a carved sandalwood casket that stood on a small table beside him, opened it, and took out a thin packet of letters which Boris recognized as his own. “I have here a number of your letters to her. I have read them all. They are not ‘love letters,’ but I know from them that you loved her, without hope and without reward. Would you like to have them again? In some ways they are dangerous documents to be in any custody but your own.”
He passed the packet to Boris, who took it with a trembling hand.
“Sir Robert, you are too good—too generous! What can I say?”
“Say nothing. And if you will take my advice put them in the fire. It is the safest place for them.”
Simply as a child Boris obeyed on the instant, and in silence they watched the packet consumed to a little mass of black ashes.
“I have but one letter of hers, sir,” said Boris presently. “The last she ever wrote me, and therefore most precious. It is very brief. Would you—care to read it?”
He unfolded the letter—it was but a half-sheet—with a lingering, reverent touch, and held it towards Sir Robert.
“No, no, keep it, lad. It is yours and sacred,” the old man said after a moment’s hesitation. “As I have said, I believe you and trust you. That was the only one she wrote?”
“Oh, no, sir! There were several others. Mere formal notes like this, in Russian or sometimes in French. I ought to have destroyed them at once—she told me to; and they are lost, or they have been stolen from me.”
“Stolen!”
“I fear so, sir, though when or how I cannot say. I was ill, very ill, for a time after Paula’s—death. They were in an escritoire in my bedroom, and after I recovered I found they were gone.”
“Do you suspect anyone?”
Boris shook his head.
“Impossible to suspect the good friend with whom I live, or any of my visitors. I have wondered sometimes whether, in my delirium, I might not myself have destroyed them, on some subconscious impulse, remembering that she had told me to burn them. They could not possibly be of any value, or of any danger, to anyone. Except to myself, they were quite meaningless, and with nothing but the hand-writing itself to show by whom they were written.”
“Strange,” mused Sir Robert. “You are sure they were as harmless, as meaningless, as you say?”
“Quite sure. And may I say this, Sir Robert? I am certain that when Paula took those papers from your safe—as I fear there is no doubt she did—that it was the very first time she had done or attempted to do such a thing: that she yielded to a sudden and overwhelming temptation.”
“I wish I could believe that,” said Sir Robert with stern sadness.
“You may believe it, sir, for it is the truth. She would have told me of any such attempt, and I give you my word—believe it or not as you choose—that I should have attempted to dissuade her. I am a fighter—or I was one, when I could fight and could see my enemy—but I am no intriguer, nor was she really. She bewildered me often by her romantic schemes—they were so wild, so vague—but I humoured her in them, because I loved her, because it brought her nearer to me. It—oh, how can I put it?—it was like child’s play, though she herself was so much in earnest.”
“Child’s play!” echoed Sir Robert bitterly. “Child’s play that cost her life, and that will cost the life of the one whom, next to her, I cared for most in this world! I tell you, Melikoff——”
He broke off, and Boris looked at him in surprise and apprehension. But Sir Robert was not looking at him; he was staring into the big, lacquered mirror, and his face had become absolutely expressionless.
“One moment,” he said quietly, and touched a button of an electric bell-stand on the table beside him, without removing his gaze from the mirror.
“Can I do anything?” Boris began, and paused as Sir Robert lifted his hand warningly. He appeared to be listening intently.
In about a couple of minutes Thomson entered the room.
“Oh, it’s you, Thomson,” said Sir Robert quietly. “I thought you were out?”
“I returned some time ago, sir.”
“Where is Perkins?”
“Downstairs at supper, Sir Robert.”
“Oh! Will you put on the lights in Lady Rawson’s boudoir? Go through this way, please,” Sir Robert added as Thomson moved towards the door by which he had entered.
“Very good, sir,” he answered, and imperturbably drew back the dragon curtains, pushed back the partly opened doors, switched on the lights in the inner room, and returned for further orders.
“I should like you to see that room, Mr. Melikoff,” said Sir Robert. “It is my dear wife’s boudoir. Will you come with me? Wheel me in, Thomson.”
As Thomson obeyed, his master’s keen glance swept over the beautiful room.
“The outer door is open. Close and lock it and give me the key,” he commanded, and, when Thomson had complied, added, “thank you. That will do for the present. I will ring when I need you again.”
Thomson retreated through the Chinese Room, went to the bedroom and mechanically tended the fire, then to his own room, where he sat down and waited.
It was half an hour or more before he was again summoned, and then he found Sir Robert alone. The dragon curtains were still pulled apart, but the folding doors of the boudoir were closed and locked.
Master and man looked steadily at each other for a good half-minute, then Sir Robert said:
“For how long have you been in the habit of spying on me, Thomson?”
“I have never done such a thing before, sir.”
“Humph! I wonder if that is true? It is something at least that you do not attempt to deny that you were spying on me to-night. Why did you do it?”
“Need you ask that, Sir Robert? It was by chance that I discovered that Russian gentleman was coming to see you. I thought it a very dangerous thing for you to see him alone.”
“When I pay you to ‘think’ I’ll tell you so,” Sir Robert replied icily. “I am still able to think for myself, Thomson.”
A quiver of emotion passed over Thomson’s usually passive face.
“I’m sorry, Sir Robert; it was an error of judgment on my part. It shall not occur again. I—I have served you faithfully these many years.”
“I never said you hadn’t. But remember in future, please, that excess of zeal is sometimes more dangerous than a deficiency of that otherwise excellent commodity. And now you had better call Perkins to help you put me to bed.”
“Very good, sir,” said Thomson.
On Christmas morning Grace Carling knelt before the altar in Westminster Abbey, where, as usual at this early service, there were but a few worshippers.
Through the vast, dim spaces above, beyond the radiance of the lighted chancel, the soft coo of the pigeons outside was distinctly audible above the low tones of the ministrant priest. Of other sounds there were none; the very spirit of peace seemed to brood over the glorious old place, the spiritual heart of England to-day as through so many long, long centuries.
There was peace in Grace Carling’s heart for the moment, renewed strength and courage for the long ordeal through which she and her beloved were painfully passing. She knew that at this hour, yonder in the prison chapel, such a little distance away in reality, Roger himself would likewise be kneeling; and, as always at these times, they were very near to each other, in that spiritual communion which, to those who have experienced it, is a sublime and eternal fact, albeit a fact that even they can neither explain nor understand.
When she went out presently with the words of the benediction still lingering in her ears, her pale face was serene and beautiful as that of an angel.
There were very few people about at this early hour—a mild, grey morning, with the great towers of Westminster looming through the haze like those of some dim, rich city of dreams. She walked swiftly, absorbed in thought, and as she reached Buckingham Gate came face to face with Austin Starr.
“Why, what an early bird!” she said, smiling up at him.
“I’ve been around to your place with some flowers—spring flowers, that mean hope! I guessed you would be at church, and wanted you to find them to greet you,” he explained.
“That was dear of you, Austin; just like you. Have you breakfasted? No? Then come back to breakfast with me, do. You haven’t met my dear little Miss Culpepper yet.”
“Thanks, I’d like to. Is that the old lady I saw right now? She looks a real peach.”
“She’s priceless, and such a comfort to me. What a long time since I’ve seen you, Austin. I began to think you were forgetting me.”
“I couldn’t do that,” he assured her earnestly. “But I’ve been very busy and very worried. I’ll tell you all about it directly, if I may.”
He did look worried—she had noticed it at once—but there was no opportunity to say more at the moment, as they had reached the lift.
Miss Culpepper came running out at the sound of Grace’s key in the lock.
“Oh, my dear, a gentleman has been with a mass of such beautiful flowers and a great basket of fruit!”
“I know. Here he is, come back to breakfast. Miss Culpepper—Mr. Austin Starr. Now go in to the fire, Austin, and make yourself at home—you’ll find Dear Brutus on the hearthrug, I expect—while I take my hat off.”
“Pleased to meet you, Miss Culpepper,” said Austin. “Mrs. Carling has just been telling me what a great comfort you are to her, and I can well believe it. We all hated her to be living here all alone. Why, did you expect me or is someone else coming?”
His quick eyes had noted that the table was laid for three persons, and already adorned with his own gifts.
Miss Culpepper paused in the act of laying another place, and put her finger to her lip mysteriously, with a significant glance towards the door.
“That’s Mr. Carling’s place,” she whispered. “It’s always laid ready for him at every meal. It pleases her, and I think it’s a beautiful idea really.”
Austin nodded sympathetically, but felt troubled nevertheless. The thought occurred to him that “if things went wrong with Roger”—the only way in which at present, even to himself, he would acknowledge the probability of Carling being convicted of the crime with which he was charged—Grace would surely die, or lose her reason.
He felt somewhat reassured, as to her mental state anyhow, when she re-entered, looking so cheerful, so self-possessed, yet, alas! physically so fragile.
She seemed perfectly normal, and yet he noticed how often she glanced at that vacant place with the chair drawn up before it, with such a curious expression in her eyes, as if she indeed saw Roger sitting there in the flesh. It was absolutely uncanny.
“Now what’s the trouble, Austin?” she asked, when the simple meal was at an end, and Miss Culpepper retreated with the breakfast things, leaving them together. She had drawn up a chair for him in front of the fire, and he knew that the vacant easy one was reserved for Roger, that “shadowy third.”
“First it’s about Roger. I’ve been following up every trail I could think of, Grace, and every one of them has led just nowhere. I seem to get up against a blank wall every time. I’ve even been to Snell again, but he can’t or won’t help; and sometimes I feel just about in despair!”
She met his troubled gaze serenely.
“I know you are leaving no stone unturned, Austin, and that the reason why you have not been to see me was because you had discovered nothing at present. But don’t let it trouble you. We must just go on keeping our hearts up, trusting and waiting. That’s sometimes the hardest thing in life, but it’s got to be done. And Roger will be cleared, how or when I do not know—yet: only that he will be saved, freed, his innocence established before the whole world!”
“You’re wonderful, Grace! I wish to heaven I had such faith.”
“I couldn’t live without it,” she said simply. “We all seem to be moving in a terrible fog, or, rather, to be so enveloped in it that we can’t move, we don’t know which way to turn! But the fog’s going to lift, the sun’s going to shine—in time! Have you seen much of the Cacciolas lately?”
“Not for the last few days. I’ve been in and out a good deal, have got to know them pretty well, and the more I know them the better I like them—even young Melikoff—and the more I’m convinced that none of them had any more to do with that unhappy woman’s death than you or I had, and know no more about it. They seldom speak of it now—never when Boris is there. Lady Rawson seems to have had a sort of malign influence over him, which Maddelena resented bitterly; so did the maestro, for all he’s so gentle and tolerant, dear old man!”
“Was that Miss Maddelena I saw you with last week?” asked Grace quietly.
“Saw me with her—where?”
“In St. James’s Park. I was sitting down. You passed quite close to me.”
“Oh, yes! I did meet her one day, by pure chance. I never saw you. Curious too, she was very upset because Boris had had a letter from Sir Robert Rawson asking him to go and see him, and she didn’t want him to do so.”
“Did he go?” asked Grace quickly.
“I don’t know—I haven’t seen or heard from any of them since. But if he did, and anything transpired that would give us any light, Maddelena would have got it out of him and sent word to me—sure.”
“I wonder why Sir Robert wanted to see him,” mused Grace, “and why Miss Maddelena didn’t want him to go?”
He smiled.
“She was afraid it would upset him. She’s very fond of Boris, and that’s why she was so jealous of Lady Rawson’s influence over him. As a matter of fact, she’s made up her mind to marry him, and I guess she’ll have her way! She’ll be a charming and a jolly good wife too, though it will be a case of ‘one who loves and one who graciously permits himself to be loved.’ They’re going to the States in the spring; Cacciola’s just fixed up a season in New York, where Boris will make his début, and then they’ll go on tour. I bet Maddelena comes back as Mrs. Melikoff. She’s just about the most masterful young woman I’ve ever met, though a real good sort too.”
He smiled again, indulgently and reminiscently, then sighed.
“Cacciola wanted Winnie to go with them,” he continued slowly, staring fixedly at the fire; “but I gather she’s refused. It would have been a big chance for her; and besides, I’ll have to go over myself in the early spring. We could all have gone together, and she’d have met my mother and sisters, and—— But now of course——”
He turned to Grace with startling suddenness. “Grace, do you know that Winnie’s giving me the frozen mitten?”
“Giving you the—what?” she echoed in sheer surprise.
“That she’s turned me down. I haven’t even seen her since the day after she came back from Bristol.”
“Nor have I, or only for a few minutes between whiles. She’s been away most of the time, with all these provincial engagements—only got back late last night; she rang me up.”
“Did she say anything about me?”
“No, only that she hadn’t seen you. I’m going to help down at Bermondsey. Aren’t you coming too?”
“No—I don’t know. She hasn’t asked me. Fact is, she hasn’t answered my letters—she’s simply ignored me. I went around yesterday, and her maid said she wasn’t at home, though I’m plumb certain she was all the time. Then I rang up, and again the maid answered and said Winnie had gone to bed, and again I didn’t believe her. Why is she treating me like this? I can’t understand it. It’s worrying me no end. I’d have tried to find out from George, but he’s in Paris, as you know.”
Grace nodded.
“When did you see her last?”
“I told you—the day after she returned from Bristol. It was at Cacciola’s, as it happened, and she came on here to you afterwards. I came with her as far as the lift, but she’d scarcely speak to me, though why I don’t know to this moment.”
He looked so utterly forlorn and lugubrious that Grace had to smile, while she rapidly reviewed the situation and recalled her own vague suspicions.
“You say you last saw her at Cacciola’s,” she mused. “What happened there?”
“Nothing that I know of,” he asserted earnestly. “They were singing—or Boris was—when I got there, and I didn’t see Winnie at first; she was sitting in a dark corner.”
“H’m! And Miss Maddelena was there?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t she be?”
“Does Winnie know what you’ve just told me—about Mr. Melikoff and Maddelena?”
“I don’t know—how should I? I’ve told you I haven’t seen her since. What’s that got to do with it, anyhow?”
“Quite a lot, perhaps. Look here, Austin, I’ll be quite frank with you. When I saw you and Miss Maddelena—if it was she—last week, until I recognized you I really thought you were—well, just a pair of sweethearts. You really appeared to be on such very confidential terms!”
“Great Scott! Why I—she—it’s only her way! She’s impulsive, affectionate with people she likes, even when they’re only casual acquaintances like myself. The old man’s the same. See here, Grace, you don’t mean that you think Winnie’s jealous—jealous of Maddelena?”
She laughed outright. She couldn’t help it. His consternation and his air of injured innocence were so comical.
“I think it highly probable, my dear Austin.”
“But it’s absurd!” he protested. “And it’s not a bit like Winnie.”
“Isn’t it? I’m afraid you don’t know much about women, Austin, even though you are a novelist, and psychologist, and all the rest of it.”
He laughed too, then, somewhat ruefully:
“I guess you’re about right. You generally are. Question is—what’s to be done?”
“What did you send her for Christmas?”
“Only some flowers and candies. I took them around myself last night and left them. But I’ve got this.” From his waistcoat pocket he extracted a dainty little morocco case, opened it and passed it to Grace, adding sheepishly, “You see, I wanted to give her this myself, if she’ll only see me.”
“Oh, how beautiful!” Grace cried, as she examined the ring—a superb sapphire surrounded by small diamonds.
“Sapphire’s her favourite stone, and just the colour of her eyes, that wonderful deep blue,” he said. “I bought it weeks back, and have been carrying it around ever since, waiting the opportunity to give it her.”
“You are a dear, Austin, and you won’t have to wait much longer. Take my advice and go straight along to Chelsea now; you’ll catch her before she starts out for church, and you can go with her. I’m coming along later. She’ll see you right enough this time.”
He obeyed with alacrity, and when she had started him off she rang up Winnie. Martha answered, and asked her to “hold the line” while she fetched her mistress. A minute later came Winnie’s fresh young voice.
“That you, Grace, darling? How are you? You’re coming along directly?”
“Yes, in an hour or so, I’ve just had an early visitor—Austin. The poor boy’s awfully upset.”
“Really? Why?” Winnie’s tone had become frigid.
“I think you know well enough, old thing. He’s confided to me that you seem to have given him the frozen mitten!”
A pause. Then, icily:
“I don’t understand the expression; it sounds exceedingly vulgar!”
“Win, darling, don’t fence, or pretend not to understand. It’s serious. I saw something was wrong; I’ve suspected it for some time, and had no end of trouble to get it out of him. But he says you’ve cut him systematically ever since you got back from Bristol, that you won’t see him or answer his letters, and he’s frightfully unhappy about it.”
“Is he?” Another pause, and what sounded like an angry sob. “It’s all very well for him to talk, but if you’d seen him as I did, with that Maddelena Cacciola, when he didn’t know I was there—why I thought he was going to kiss her in front of everybody! And—and—oh, I can’t explain, but I—I saw and heard quite enough that day to—to realize that—I’d made a mistake—or he had.”
“Winnie, you’re quite wrong! I know all about that, and there’s nothing in it. Surely you know the Cacciolas well enough by this time to know how unconventional and—well—effusive they are. Austin admires the girl in a way, but he says she’s ‘the most masterful young woman he’s ever met,’ and—he loves you, Win; you know that in your heart. It—it’s not worthy of you, dear, to mistrust him so—not to give him a chance to explain. Darling, are you going to let the rift widen—perhaps to spoil both your lives for nothing—when there’s so much real sorrow in the world?”
“I know. I’ve been pretty miserable too, and—I don’t know when I shall see him again,” said Winnie tremulously, and Grace smiled.
“You’ll see him in about ten minutes, if he’s been able to find a taxi. He’s on his way to you now. Bye-bye till lunch time.”
She put up the receiver.