"Porter, the man Morgan, whom I have left in Mr. Oldfield's flat, has no right whatever to be there."
"Hasn't he, sir? How's that? He seems to have done something to upset Mr. Clifford."
"When he comes down, if you find that he has anything on him belonging to the flat-papers, letters, anything-they have been stolen. If you allow him to leave the building with them on him, possibly you will be held responsible."
"Shall I? He shan't leave here with anything on him that doesn't belong to him, I promise you; there are two or three people about the place who'll see to that."
Mr. Morgan waited to hear no more. He slunk back into the flat and shut the door.
CHAPTER XXXI
HUSBAND AND WIFE
When Herbert Nash quitted Bloomsbury Mansions he went straight back to Littlehampton, by the last train of the day to reach that primitive place. When he arrived at Ocean Villas it was past ten o'clock. His wife had gone to bed; or, at least, she had retired to her bedroom. As a matter of fact, she felt as if she never wanted to go to bed again; unless going to bed was synonymous with eternal sleep. If only she could go to sleep and never wake! She was of opinion that she was the most miserable woman; many women think themselves that with less cause than she had. She was half-undressed, and, crouching on the floor, rested her head against the bed. In her hands was a telegram, which she had read again, and again, and again, until it seemed to have branded itself upon her throbbing brain so that she could not get it out of her sight even for a second. It had come to her earlier in the day, and, as telegrams are apt to be, was curt.
"Send another five hundred immediately. No excuses will be accepted.
"Morgan."
Only a day or two ago she had given him a hundred pounds; then sent him another four hundred, and here already he was demanding five hundred more. The inference was plain; he would persist in his demands until he had wrung from her all that she had found on Donald Lindsay's table. Though he stripped her of every penny she would still be at his mercy; what would he demand from her then? Whatever it might be, how would she dare refuse him then, if she dare not refuse him now?
In a sense, indeed, she had refused him, as it was. He had bade her send the cash "immediately." That she had not done; she had purposely not sent it by the night's post; and now was racked by fears of the measures he might take to show her his resentment. Suppose he told her husband, as he had threatened to do? If he did! if he did! Had she not better hide in the sea before Herbert came back again?
His opportunities for telling were so numerous; he and Herbert were away together at that moment. That was another of her burdens. What was the meaning of this sudden, ill-omened connection which had sprung up between them? Why, all at once, had her husband become the inseparable companion of the man who had been wont to stand behind her chair? He had resented, so hotly, the fellow's presumption in even venturing to write to him; yet now they might be bosom friends; he even expected her to receive him as an equal. What did it mean?
Nothing kindles the imagination like a coward conscience. All sorts of hideous surmises had tormented her. A dozen explanations had occurred to her; every fresh one more unsavoury than the last. She could see that her husband had changed; in himself, as well as to her. He was not the same man; he was always brooding, irritable, depressed. Of late, not only had he not spoken to her a tender word, he had only addressed her when compelled, and then with scant civility. What did such conduct on his part portend? All kinds of doubts afflicted her; yet among them one was foremost. Was it not possible that Morgan had poisoned her husband's mind against her? He, perhaps, had not told him everything, she did not believe he had; but, with diabolical ingenuity, he might have hinted just enough to make Herbert afraid of hearing more. In that case her husband might be working Morgan's will under the delusion that, by so doing, he was protecting her; and all the while the man was wresting from her all that she had risked so much to gain-for Herbert's sake.
As, on the floor in the bedroom there, she wrestled with wild beasts of her own creation, on a sudden she heard the front door open, and a familiar step come into the house. It was her husband. She sprang to her feet, not with joy, but with terror. Why had he come back? He had told her that he would not return that night; perhaps not on the morrow. Why had he returned-when he had said that he would not return-without notice, at that hour of the night? for it seemed to her that she had been in her bedroom hours.
She heard him go into the sitting-room; finding it in darkness, no one there, he came towards where she was. As she heard him take the half-dozen steps which divided the two rooms, she stood by the bedstead, trembling from head to foot; it might have been her executioner, not her husband, who was coming. A wild, frenzied impulse came to her to turn the key in the lock, and so gain time; but before she could do it he had opened the door, and was standing in the room.
It did not need such a rarefied vision as hers was then to perceive that with him all was not well. She seemed to see him in a blaze of lightning, phantom-haunted, as she was. It was borne in on her that he saw her as the hideous thing she saw herself to be, and that that was why he stood there, white and terrible. If she could she would have dropped to the floor, and crawled to him, and hung about his knees, and cried for mercy; but she could not; she had to stand there, straight and rigid, waiting for him to speak. When he spoke his voice sounded strange in her ears, as indeed, though she was not aware of it, it did in his own.
"I see you guess why I am here!"
"Guess? How-how can I guess?"
"Has Morgan told you nothing?"
"Morgan? What-what could Morgan tell me?"
"Hasn't he told you that I'm a blackguard and a thief?"
The words were so wholly different from any she had expected him to utter that, in the stress of her agitation, they conveyed no meaning to her mind; she stared at him like one bereft of her senses, as, in fact, for the moment she was. He misconstrued her look entirely.
"Elaine," he cried, "don't look at me like that, don't! If you only knew what I have suffered, what I've gone through, you'd pity me, you wouldn't look at me as if I was something wholly outside the pale. I know you've guessed that there was something wrong ever since that-that brute came; you knew I wouldn't breathe the same air with him if I could help it; but it mayn't be, Elaine, it mayn't be so bad as you suppose. I don't ask you to forgive me; I don't even ask you to continue to regard me as your husband; I know I've forfeited all claims I may have had on you. All I ask of you is to believe that, at last, I'm going to try to be a man. I've come to tell you that, and to tell you that chiefly. I'm not going to stay; you need not fear that I'll contaminate the house which shelters you; but before I go I think I ought to tell you just what I've done, and what the temptation was; not to excuse myself, but so that, whatever happens, you, at least, may know the truth. I felt that I could not let the night pass without telling you the truth, if only because I have kept it from you so long, and in the morning it may be too late; I may not have the chance of telling it to you, face to face, again."
The longer he spoke, the more her bewilderment grew.
"I-I-don't understand," she stammered.
He made her understand, telling his tale as straightforwardly, as clearly, as it could be told; as it might have been told even by an impartial witness; the man that was in him was coming to the front at last.
"You see," he said, "I was at Morgan's mercy, or he thought I was; and, for a time, I thought so too; I was such a coward! And before long I should have been wholly at his mercy, had not the sight of that man, Clifford, roused me to a consciousness of what a coward I really was; then I knew that the only way to be free was to tell the truth, and let Morgan do what he likes. I've come to tell you the truth, first of all; and to-morrow I'm going to tell Frank Clifford the truth; and when I've found Miss Lindsay, I'll tell her the truth. If I have to suffer for it, I'll suffer; but at any rate I've escaped from Morgan. What a weight would have been off my mind if I'd escaped from him before!"
As she began to grasp the drift of what it was that he was telling her, she had sunk on to the edge of the bed, and, with distended eyes and gaping mouth, sat staring at him as if at some thing of horror. He mistook the meaning of her attitude.
"I don't wonder you look at me as if I were some repulsive object; I couldn't be more repulsive to you than I am to myself; I understand what you feel, what you think; I know I deserve it. I know you never would have married me if you had known me to be the thing I am; I have wronged you more than any one. I can't undo the bonds which bind us, that is not in my power, and I'm afraid the law will not help you. But this I can do, and I will; I'll take myself out of your life as completely as I can. Your aunt left you enough to live on; I think you had better sink it in an annuity; you'll be safer that way; and when I can I'll contribute what I can. I don't wish to be released from any of my obligations; on the contrary, I wish to fulfil them both in the letter and the spirit, and I will. So soon as I am earning money you shall have your proper share; but in any case it will be a comfort to me to feel that, in any case, you are provided for. And, in time, when I've done something towards regaining my self-respect, and-and you send for me, I'll come to you again, if only for just long enough to show that I am still alive. But you're rid of me till then. Good-bye."
He moved towards the door, as if the whole thing was at an end; as if husband and wife could be sundered quite so easily. She stopped him as he was going.
"Herbert!" She spoke in the queerest whisper, as if something had gone wrong with her vocal chords, the effect of which was to leave her partially strangled. She held out the telegram she had still in her hand. "Look at that."
He took it reluctantly, as if he feared it was a weapon which she aimed at him. Glancing at it, he read it aloud.
"'Send another five hundred immediately. No excuses will be accepted.
'Morgan.'
What-what does this mean?"
"It means that I'm worse than you; much worse than you."
"Elaine!" She tried to speak, but could not; her voice was strangled in her throat; it was not nice to watch her struggles to regain the use of it. He moved towards her, startled. "Elaine! what's the matter?"
"I'm-I'm-I'm going to tell you, only I-I- Give me-something-to drink-there's some water-in the bottle." She pointed to the washstand. He brought her some water; but she could not drink it. She could not hold the glass in her own hand; she could not swallow when he raised it to her lips. He put the glass down on the floor. Her condition frightened him. Although he had just been speaking of leaving her for an indefinite period, now he knelt beside her on the floor, and, putting his arms about her, held her close, soothing her as best he could. It was while he held her that she told him; she confessed in her agony; the words being wrung from her as if they had been gouts of blood. He continued to hold her all the time. When, in his turn, he began to understand her story, he was man enough to realize that it was only his support which gave her the strength she needed; that but for his encircling arms, and the consciousness that they were his arms, she would collapse. As, by degrees, her meaning was borne in on his understanding, the fashion of his countenance was changed, and he kept his face averted, but he never moved. When, in disconnected sentences, the root of the matter had been told, she did what he had not done; she began, in a manner, to excuse herself. "It was-because you said that you wanted money, and-that we couldn't be married without it, that I went back and took the money-which was on the table. And Morgan saw me."
"Morgan saw you!"
It was the first time he had spoken; there was a curious contrast between his voice and hers.
"He was in the room all the time-but in the darkness-I never knew it."
"So Morgan has held us in the hollow of his hand; both of us!"
"I gave him five hundred pounds the other day, and now he's telegraphed for more."
"Poor Elaine! It seems, after all, that we're a well-matched pair, both thieves and cowards."
"Herbert!"
She spoke as if she shrieked.
"My dear, do let us look facts in the face now that we are trying to make ourselves known to each other."
"I-shouldn't have taken the money-if I hadn't thought-Nora was rich-and it would make no difference."
"I'm afraid that the question of Miss Lindsay's wealth or poverty could make no difference to the thing you did."
"I know that-now."
"When it seemed that Miss Lindsay was a pauper did you give her back any of the money you had taken under a misconception?"
"I meant to-but I never did-I meant to give her a thousand pounds."
"It's a pity you didn't; it might have caused the residue to appear a little less dingy. We're a pair of beauties! God help us both; we need His help!"
"I-haven't dared to ask for it."
But she did dare that night; they both of them dared. Already, since they had been married, they had had some strange days and nights; but that was the strangest night of their strange honeymoon.
CHAPTER XXXII
A FORGOTTEN COAT
Lady Jane Carruthers was one of those elderly ladies who are never quite well, yet seldom actually ill. She was a great believer in what she called "air."
"If you breathe the right air you're all right; and if you breathe the wrong air you're all wrong, and there's the whole science of medicine in a nutshell; believe me, my dear, because I know; mine's the teaching of actual experience. So long as I'm well in a place I stay there; I know the air's right; but so soon as I begin to feel a little out of sorts I know the air has ceased to be right, I go away at once; the consequence is that there are very few people who move about as much as I do."
It chanced that, in one of her pursuits after the right air, Lady Jane went to Littlehampton; and, being there, with nothing to do except breathe the right air, by way of doing something she sent for her nephew, the Hon. Robert Spencer. She dispatched to him this telegram-
"Come down to me this afternoon. I wish to speak to you."
When he received the telegram the Honourable Robert pulled a face; he happened to have a good deal to do. His impulse was to wire back-
"Can't come. Speak on."
However, he felt that the result of such a message might be disastrous; so, instead of sending it, he obeyed his aunt's commands, and went down to Littlehampton.
On his arrival, in response to his inquiries, Lady Jane informed him that the local air was still on its trial; she was not yet quite sure if it was, or was not, all right. It was true that she had had a touch of indigestion; but she was not certain if that had anything to do with the lobster salad she had had for luncheon three days running, or with some peculiarity in the neighbouring atmosphere. It was true that too much ozone was a disturbing influence; on the other hand she admitted that yesterday she had eaten rather more of the salad than she had meant to eat. Certainly the local lobsters were delicious; she had determined so much; but, for the present, the question of the quality of the local air was in suspense. The nephew knew his aunt. He was aware that if he asked her if there actually was anything which she wished to speak to him about she would look at him with chilly gaze, and inquire if she had not been speaking to him on matters of the most serious import already. Was he a Christian? Was he void of all human feeling? Did he take no interest in her health? Then what did he mean? As he did not wish to be asked what he meant in a tone of voice he had heard before, he listened to her ladyship doubting, now the lobsters, now the air, with the best grace in the world; for the Honourable Robert Spencer really was an excellent fellow. And, in course of time, his virtue was rewarded.
After dinner-at which there was no fish at all, as if it had been he who had suffered from the lobsters-she assumed a portentous air, and requested him to bring a dispatch-box, which stood on a side table, and place it in front of her; which he did.
"Robert," she began, "I regret to have to tell you that you are one of the most careless persons I have ever encountered." He admitted it; inwardly wondering of what act of carelessness he had been guilty this time, and what the dispatch-box had to do with it anyhow. Her ladyship went on. "When you were staying with me in Cairo, after you left me, you lost a suit-case; or, at least, you said you lost a suit-case."
"My dear aunt, I not only said, I actually did lose a suit-case; and a most important loss it was; for all I can tell it may have transformed the whole course of my life; and-and somebody else's life as well. By some stroke of good fortune you haven't come across it, have you?"
"No, Robert, I have not; nor do I imagine that anybody ever will, in this world." Whether she thought it likely that somebody would in another world was not quite clear. "I do not know if you are aware that, apart from your suit-case, you lost something else when you were staying with me at Cairo. I imagine, from your manner, that you have not discovered your loss even yet."
"It's very possible; I seem to have such a genius for losing things that sometimes I don't know what I do lose."
"I am grieved to hear you say so; it amazes me. It only shows how incapable a man is of looking after his own belongings; as I have always maintained. I never lost anything in my life, except a pair of house-shoes, which I left at Horsham House, and which have never been returned to me to this hour."
"I hope it was nothing very important I left."
"It depends upon what you call important. There are different standards in such matters; though you appear to have none. I should call it important; but then my wardrobe is limited. You left a coat and waistcoat."
"Well, I rather fancy that my wardrobe is more limited than yours; but-I don't recall that coat and waistcoat."
"I am not surprised; after what you have just said, nothing would surprise me. Baker brought them to me after you had gone; an admirable servant, Baker. Were I to repeat to her what you have admitted she would credit it with difficulty; she knows my ways. In the inside pocket of the coat were some papers."
"Papers? Aunt! What papers?"
Lady Jane unlocked the dispatch-box; took from it a small packet; and, placing her glasses on her nose, proceeded to read what was written on half-a-sheet of note-paper.
"This is an inventory of what was contained in the pockets of your two garments. Unlike you, fortunately, or I don't know where I should be, I am a creature of method; I do everything by rule. I drew up this list after Baker had searched the garments in my presence. In the waistcoat were three pockets; which contained, one penknife; two toothpicks-which I threw away; one pencil, or, rather, part of a pencil; three wax matches, loose, which were most dangerous, and which I had destroyed; a cigar-cutter, or, rather, what I presume is a cigar-cutter, Baker didn't know what it was; four visiting-cards, three of them your own, and the fourth somebody else's, and all of them shockingly untidy; and the return half of a ticket from Brighton to London, which was then more than three months old. In the coat were five pockets; it has always been a mystery to me what men want with so many pockets; judging from what was in yours I am inclined to think that they use them merely as receptacles for rubbish. Some of the things which were in yours I had thrown away; the following are what I have kept. One pocket-handkerchief; one pair of gloves; one tobacco-pouch; one pipe, a horrid, smelling thing which I had boiled in soapy water, but which still smells; one matchbox-empty. I suppose it was meant to contain the matches which were loose in your waistcoat; a cigar-case; a golf ball; while in the inside pocket were the papers of which I have told you."
"I don't suppose they're anything very serious, after what you've just been reading."
"Don't you? Then you must have your own ideas of what is serious; if I had thought they were of no interest I shouldn't have troubled you to come to Littlehampton."
"But, my dear aunt, what are they? You-you do keep a man on tenter-hooks."
"I don't know why you say that. I am going to tell you what they are; but, as you are of opinion that they are not serious, I should have imagined that you were in no hurry. There are letters written to you by Miss Lindsay; there are nine of them; some men would have thought them serious."
As he took the packet which she held out to him his countenance changed in a manner which was almost comically sudden.
"Letters written by- Why, they're Nora's! But-I thought-"
"Never mind what you thought, Robert; you see what they are. As this envelope is sealed, and is inscribed that it is not to be opened till after the writer's death, some persons might have thought that that was of interest also."
He regarded the envelope she offered as if he found it difficult to believe that his eyes were not playing him a trick. "Aunt, it's-it's the envelope which Donald Lindsay sent me, and- But I don't understand; it's incredible! Aunt, why didn't you let me know this before?"
"Why should I? It was in a coat of which you thought so little that you didn't even know you'd lost it; the natural inference was that you were hardly likely to leave anything of the least importance in the pocket of a coat which you valued at nothing."
"But-I thought I put it in my suit-case-I've chased the case half round the world. Aunt, what have you done?"
"What have I done? You mean, what have you done? If anything has been done I trust it is something from which you will learn a lesson. I said to myself, if these are of the least consequence, he will ask for them; since he has been guilty of such culpable carelessness I'll wait till he does ask. But I waited, and I waited, and you never asked, you never once alluded to them. What could I conclude? At last they slipped my memory, as sometimes trifles will do; I came upon them, by mere accident, as I was looking through this dispatch-box last night; so I sent for you that I might give them to you in person, though, naturally, I had long ago come to the conclusion that they were not of the slightest importance."
He drew a long breath.
"Well, this is the most extraordinary thing that ever has happened to me!"
"If that is the case I can only hope that it will teach you not to leave papers in the pockets of a coat which you fling down anywhere, anyhow, and instantly forget."
"I-I hope it will teach me something of the kind. As this envelope may contain a communication of much consequence, may I ask you to excuse me while I go to examine it at once?
"Why is it necessary that you should leave me? Why can't you examine it here? You know what an interest I take in all that concerns you. Sit down; open your envelope; see what's inside; you need fear no interruption from me."
"Then-if you don't mind-I will." Inside the envelope were two sheets of large letter paper, closely covered, on all eight sides, with Donald Lindsay's fine handwriting. Robert Spencer had not read far before he broke into exclamation. "What the-I beg your pardon, aunt-I didn't quite-but this is most extraordinary." As he read on, more than once he punctuated his reading with interjectional remarks; evidently what he read occasioned him profound surprise. When he had finished he looked about him as if he was not quite sure where he was. When he perceived Lady Jane he started from his chair in evident perturbation; as good as her word, she had not interrupted him by so much as a movement, and now sat eyeing him grimly. He turned to her with a laugh which did not sound very natural. "Well, aunt, we've done it, you and I, between us!"
"Pray attribute nothing to me; I decline to accept any responsibility for your criminal carelessness."
"I can only say that while Nora Lindsay has been treated like a fraudulent pauper, turned out of house and home, sent out into the world to earn her bread, she may be starving for all I know; I've left no stone unturned, but I've been able to find no trace of her; all the time the letter has been lying in your desk which shows that she is one of the richest women in England, and I verily believe that her father owed no man anything."
"If that is so, Robert, then I don't envy you your feelings when you reflect that Miss Lindsay's sufferings are solely and entirely the result of your own misconduct."
"If you had only let me know you had the letter!"
"Are you attempting to fasten blame on me? For your monstrous and incredible negligence in doing nothing, and less than nothing, to safeguard a document which you now assert is of such importance!"
"Well, what's done's done! And Nora has had her home taken from her, and the things she cared for scattered to the four winds; it's been one of the greatest steals on record! and she's been shamed in the face of all the world, and she may be eating out her heart in some last refuge of the destitute, and all the while- It's a pretty story, on my word!"
"It all comes from your mother and father taking it for granted that the girl was a beggar; I nearly had a serious quarrel with your mother because I told her I shouldn't be surprised if, after all, she was mistaken; but your mother's like her son."
"Thank you, aunt; my mother only took for granted what others took for granted. I've heard you say some severe things about Miss Lindsay."
"I've simply said that you're not in a position to marry a penniless girl; and you're not."
"If I could only have found her I'd have made her marry me, though she hadn't a shoe to her foot, nor a penny in her pocket; I'd not have let her go until she did. Thank God, she knew it, and that's why she's hidden herself. Poor Nora! Will she-will she ever forgive any of us! It's a tragedy I've never heard the like of; and all through some one's blundering. But, as I've said, talk's no healer. I can't go to-night, there's no train; but I shall go up to town in the morning to investigate some of the statements which are contained in this letter; and now, if you don't mind, aunt, I must get out of doors; I must have what you're so fond of-air."
He wanted something more than air; he wanted a vent for the feelings which filled his breast, as it seemed to him, to bursting point. He tore up and down the front; he had it to himself at that hour, so that the unusual pace at which he strode along did not attract inconvenient attention. The promenade at Littlehampton is not a very long one, but he walked ever so many miles before he had done with it. It was easy enough to blame Lady Jane; he felt strongly that that lady had not behaved so well as she might have done; keeping a letter from him while the weeks stretched out into months seemed to him to be a course of action for which there was no excuse; but, all the same, he was perfectly well aware that the fault was originally his. The parable of the grain of mustard-seed came into his mind as he thought of the Upas-tree of disaster which had sprung from a beginning which was apparently so insignificant; he thought he had put the letter in his suit-case and he had left it in one of his pockets instead; because of that slight misadventure ruin had come to Nora; such ruin! His aunt had punished him severely. He could not recall the coat even then; the only explanation of which he could think was that he had supposed he had packed the coat itself in his suitcase. If Lady Jane had but dropped so much as a hint! He did not know how much cause he had to rejoice because the letter was not where he had believed it to be; if Mr. Morgan had only found it when he reclaimed the suit-case it might have provided him with the means of keeping Nora Lindsay out of her own for an indefinite length of time; the tragedy might have become a tragedy indeed.
In the morning, when Mr. Spencer reached the station, on the platform were two familiar figures. He advanced to greet them.
"Why, Mr. Nash, and Miss Harding! this is an unexpected pleasure; I didn't expect to find such pleasant memories of Cloverlea at Littlehampton."
"Miss Harding," exclaimed the gentleman, "is now my wife; she is Mrs. Nash. We" – he hesitated, and then went on-"we are just finishing our honeymoon."
Mr. Spencer's face expressed astonishment which was hardly flattering to either of the parties concerned.
"You-don't say so; then-that's another unexpected pleasure. Mrs. Nash, you must allow me to offer you my congratulations."
He was about to go with some of the banal remarks which are made on such occasions when he was struck by the look which was on the young wife's face, and by the singularity of her attitude. She seemed to be in mortal terror. Shrinking back, cowering, she clung to her husband's arm, as if she was afraid that Spencer would have struck her. Nor did Herbert Nash wear the expression of beatitude which is supposed to be proper to a bridegroom who is returning from his honeymoon. It was apparently with an effort that he said to Robert Spencer-
"If you are going up by this train, Mr. Spencer, will you allow my wife and me to travel with you? If-if we can get a compartment to ourselves we have something to tell you, touching Miss Lindsay's affairs, which-which I think we ought to tell you."
The separate compartment was found; and, as a consequence, between Littlehampton and London, Robert Spencer read human nature, as it were, by flashes of lightning. Both husband and wife laid bare their breasts to him; and what they left unsaid he saw between the lines. It was a journey neither of the trio ever forgot. By the time the train entered the terminus his soul shuddered at the thought of the mountain of wrong which had been laid upon the woman he loved; who, after all, was the merest girl. Yet, acutely though he felt for her, he felt also for the miserable pair who were in front of him; already they had probably suffered even more than Nora; and the worst of their sufferings were still to come.