CHAPTER XIX
WHY THE BARGAIN WAS OFF
Marise started late for the theatre, because she felt unequal to coping with her fellow actors' and actresses' well-meaning good wishes. She went alone with Céline, for Mums had developed a nervous sick headache, and the girl, like a dutiful daughter, had begged her to rest at home.
"You'll be more able to help me out with – any complications that may come afterwards," she said.
The star's wonderfully decorated dressing-room was entered through a still more wonderfully decorated reception or ante-room; and almost running in, Marise stopped short with a gasp of surprise. Not only was the place crammed with flowers – all white, bridal flowers (that in itself was not strange), but in the midst of them sat Garth, still in uniform. As his wife appeared he rose, grave and silent, as if awaiting a cue.
"Take these things into the dressing-room, Céline," ordered Marise, tossing her gold bag and furs to the maid. "I'll be there in a minute."
When Céline had obeyed, the girl looked the man up and down.
"Visitors don't intrude here, except by invitation," she informed him.
"Have you invited Lord Severance to intrude?" Garth asked.
"No-o, I haven't invited him."
"But he's coming, isn't he?"
"Possibly he may come. You know quite well, that's different."
"I do know. Just because it is different, I don't mean him to come unless I'm here too. But I've no wish to interfere with you otherwise. And if you tell me on your honour that you won't receive Severance alone (I don't count your maid as a chaperon), I'll go now. By the way, don't blame anyone for admitting me. The news is in all the late editions of the evening papers, I suppose you know, and naturally the bridegroom was expected to pay a call upon the bride."
Marise gazed at the formidable figure in khaki for a minute, and then without a word went into her dressing-room.
Mums, very likely, would have told the man a fib, getting rid of him by a promise not to see Severance alone. But the girl – though she, too, told fibs sometimes if driven into a corner – couldn't bring herself to utter one now. There was no time for a "scene," even if she were not in danger of coming out second best, so the dignified course was to retire. Tony wouldn't show up till the end of the first act at earliest; and if then she stood talking to someone or other outside her dressing-room as long as she dared, there might be time for a whisper with him while the watch-dog lay vainly in wait on the wrong side of the door!
Helped by Céline she dressed quickly, hearing no sound from the ante-room until the call-boy bounded in to shout her name. Instantly she ran through, half hoping that Garth had gone, though determined not to glance in his direction if he were still on the spot. He was; and somehow, without looking, Marise knew that he was quietly reading a book as if the place belonged to him.
Wild applause greeted the entrance of "Dolores," applause even more ardent than usual, and the play had to stop for the bride reluctantly to bow her acknowledgments. Marise had passed such an "upsetting" day that she came near having an attack of stage-fright, fearful of not taking her cue, or "drying up" in her words. But to her surprise and relief, she felt herself stronger in the part than she had ever been before. "I believe I really am a great actress!" she thought; and choked at the pity of it – the pity that – whatever happened now – she was bound to leave the stage. "Is Tony worth it all?" she wondered. But the Other Man's figure loomed so tall in the foreground, that she could not concentrate on Tony long enough to answer her own question.
Never had "Dolores" been impatient of too many curtain calls until now: but to-night they were irritating. They wasted such a lot of time, and any moment Tony might come!
There was little time to linger outside her dressing-room, but she did linger for a few minutes, talking with the reproachful Belloc. No card or message was brought to her, however, and she knew that Severance would not have been sent into her room without her permission. Garth sat stolid as a Buddha when she passed through, and she went by him as if he were a piece of furniture. She received a telepathic impression that he did not lift his eyes from his book!
The leading man had a scene with the villain of the piece at the beginning of the second act, and this gave the star a chance to rest, or chat with friends. It was the time when Severance generally dropped in, and she "felt in her bones" that his name would now be announced. Nor were her vertebræ deceived. Prompt to the usual moment a knock, answered by Céline, brought news that "the Earl of Severance asked to see Miss Sorel."
"Tell him I'll come outside and talk with him!" she said on an impulse: but in the ante-room Garth stopped her.
"Don't you think," he said, "that you'd better have Severance shown in here? He won't be pleased if I come out with you as if from your dressing-room, en famille, so to speak. And I shall go out if you go, as in the circumstances I don't care for you to speak with him alone."
"Alone, do you call it, with stage hands and creatures of all sorts tearing about?" Marise rebelled.
"You can build up a wall with a whisper," said Garth.
As the girl hovered at the door, undecided, Céline returned. "Milord is waiting outside, Mademoiselle – I mean, Madame," she announced.
"Go back," ordered Marise, "and ask Lord Severance after all to come in."
The fat was in the fire now, indeed! Poor Mums' counsels concerning Tony were vain. He would see for himself how Garth repudiated the bargain. But it couldn't be helped. Better to have a "row" in her own quarters than outside!
Severance walked into the reception room, at his handsomest in evening dress. He came with his hands out to the lovely "Dolores," but let them fall at sight of Garth, and stopped just over the threshold, with a scowl bringing his black brows together.
Céline flitted by, and shut the door of the dressing-room behind her.
"What are you doing here?" Tony flung out the words; yet he had an odd air of keeping his own truculence under control. Marise did not quite understand his manner, in which prudent hesitation fought with anger. But perhaps Garth understood. He knew why Severance's tooth was loose.
"I'm here," he said, "because I don't choose to have my wife talking with you alone."
Severance turned to the girl. "Marise, do you permit this man to be in your room, pretending to control your actions?"
"I have to," retorted Marise. "Since he won't leave us alone, we must just say what we have to say before him, whether he enjoys it or not. He isn't behaving at all according to – to contract. I would have said 'bargain,' only, whenever I mention that, he tells me there isn't a bargain. According to him, I've somehow destroyed it."
Severance looked stricken. "Wha – what does he mean by that?"
"I don't know. Ask him. We've got about fifteen minutes to have this out, before I'm called."
"That's what I'm anxious to do, 'have it out,'" said Garth. "But don't be alarmed, my wife; there'll be no violence started by me. If there is any it will come from the other side, whereupon I shall put the disturber of the peace out of your room. I'm stronger than he is physically, as he knows: and I hope to prove stronger in other ways."
"Don't talk like the villain of a Melville melodrama!" blurted Severance.
"I don't think I'm the villain of the piece," said Garth calmly. "Anyhow, we won't have more words about this than we need. My wife and you both want me to explain why I say she has made the so-called 'bargain,' nil. I believe, Lord Severance – to put the thing as it is – to face the facts – you proposed hiring me for the sum of a million dollars, to marry Miss Sorel, treat her as a stranger when we were alone, and as a kind husband in company, so there should be no ugly gossip about the marriage. Then, when you were free from the invalid wife you're financially compelled to take, I was supposed to step out of your way by letting this lady quietly divorce me."
It was useless to protest against so bald a way of putting the matter, which sounded disgusting to Severance, and could have been thus put, he considered, only by a very temporary gentleman. Therefore he did not protest. He replied with stifled fury that, willingly, even eagerly, Major Garth had consented to play a dummy's part in order to earn an easy million.
"Exactly," said Garth. "Well, I have married Miss Sorel. Where's the million?"
"You know as well as I do I haven't got the money yet, and can't get it till it's given me, as promised, by my uncle Constantine Ionides, after my wedding."
"So you explained the other day. You admit you can't carry out your half of the bargain. Yet I've carried out mine."
"That's on your own head!" barked Severance. "If you were so keen on money down, you shouldn't have married Miss Sorel till you could get it."
"What – you, an officer in the Guards, would advise a brother officer of the Brigade to refuse to marry a lady if she proposed to him?"
"Oh!" cried Marise; and Garth smiled at her with the yellow-grey eyes which were more than ever like the eyes of a lion. "You did propose, didn't you?"
"I – said I wanted to be married – to-day," the girl hedged. "If you call that – "
"I do. Any man would. You were in a hurry. You hoped, you said, that things might be fixed up for the wedding in an hour – or less. I fixed things up. We were married. Now I don't get my money. Consequently I consider myself free of any obligations concerned with the bargain. Though I'm willing to take legal opinion on the point, if you like?"
"A nice figure you'd cut if you did!" exploded Severance.
"I should say, 'the woman – or the earl – tempted me, and I did eat.' I ate by request. And I'm entitled to a core to my apple. There isn't any core. So I have the right either to chuck the peel away and let it fall in the mud, or else to hang on to it, and make up the best way I can for what lacks."
"I should like to kill you, Garth," said Severance.
"Well, when we're both safely out of my wife's dressing-room and this theatre, I'll give you a chance to try."
The lids over the dark, Greek eyes flickered slightly. Between the two men was a memory, a picture: a room at the Belmore Hotel, with a table and some chairs overturned: a few spots of blood on a lavender tie: not the tie of Garth.
"Being out of her theatre wouldn't save Miss Sorel from scandal if we made fools of ourselves," Tony said.
"That's the sensible view," agreed Garth. "I'm at your service for war or peace. But the fact remains that I am Marise Sorel's husband, and as I'm not paid for taking on the job, you, Severance, have no concern with my conduct to her. The rest is between my wife and myself. If she wishes me to leave her I will do so now, at this moment – on my own terms. If she wishes me to stay by her side for appearance' sake, I'll stay – also on my own terms."
"What are your terms?" Tony's dry lips formed the words almost without sound.
"They'll be settled to-night between my wife and me. You have nothing whatever to do with them."
"If – if you fail in respect for her, you never get your million dollars when the time comes!" Severance almost sobbed.
"When the time comes – the time can decide," said Garth.
"Miss Sorel!" bawled the call-boy at the door.
CHAPTER XX
THE BRIDAL SUITE
It was, as Severance told himself, the damnedest scrape! And he could see no present way out of it. Turn as he would, he was merely running round and round in a "vicious circle."
He couldn't murder Garth, or otherwise eliminate him, without setting fire to his dearest hopes, and seeing his fortune go up in a blaze. Garth mustn't be allowed to walk away from Marise, leaving her in the position of a deserted bride, after a sensational wedding. Nor could Severance bear to think of the man's remaining near her, now that he proclaimed the bargain "off," and himself free and independent.
If only the fellow might be knocked over by a taxi and killed, there would be the perfect solution! But even that ought not to happen just yet. It wouldn't do for Marise to be known as a widow before he, Severance, could bring Œnone to America as a bride. The celebrated Miss Sorel might as well never have been married at all, so far as old Constantine Ionides was concerned.
There were two faintly glimmering spots in the general blackness of things. Bright spots they hardly deserved to be called! Such as they were, one was the fact that Garth – despite his bluff – was unlikely to sacrifice all hope of the million by making forbidden love to Marise. The other gleam was: even if Garth did play the fool as well as the cad, Marise had asserted up to the last moment that she could take care of herself.
Severance had reason to believe that she could. If she'd not had a cool little head, and a high opinion of her own value, the favourite actress would not have attained the position she held. "Lots of chaps had been after her," including Tony Severance: men of title, men with money, men of genius, men of charm, and she had held her own with them all, forcing their respect. Well, there wasn't much chance for a bullying brute of Garth's stamp, to get the best of a girl like that!
So Severance consoled himself, after his decision at the theatre that nothing would be gained by attempting to "rescue" Marise from Garth. After leaving her – bidding her good-bye for long and anxious weeks – he could not resist 'phoning Mrs. Sorel at the Plaza, though Marise had told him that Mums was bowled over by a sick headache. He rang the poor lady up – literally up! – and discussed the situation with her, not daring to call for fear of detectives set upon him by cable from London. The poor lady, dragged out of bed, was sympathetic and soothing. Everything was "perfectly all right," she assured him. She would watch over Marise for his sake as well as her own. Marise would watch over herself, too! And she – Mary Sorel – would write or cable Tony to his club twice or three times a week.
"I'd go down to the docks and see you off to-morrow morning, dear boy, no matter at what ghastly hour you sail," Mums said, "only I don't think it would be wise, do you?"
No, Tony didn't. But she might send him a note by messenger to the ship, with all the latest news.
She would do that without fail, Mary promised; and so at last hung up the receiver with a sigh which would have frightened Severance had it reached him on the wire. Mums was not as calm about the future as she had tried to make her "dear boy" think!
Though she had been lying down, she crawled off the bed again, and put on a smart tea-gown before it was time for her daughter to come home. She had little doubt that the Beast would be with Marise; and her own attempt at "frightfulness" having failed against his armour of brutality, she intended to try diplomacy in the next encounter.
Already she had learned that the suite engaged by Major Garth for himself and his bride did not adjoin the one occupied by herself and Marise since their arrival in New York. It appeared that the manager had offered a suite of two rooms and a bath next to the Sorel suite, but Major Garth had refused this as being too small. Nothing "large enough for his requirements" had been available near Mrs. Sorel; but fortunately it was on the same floor.
This, the manager seemed to think, ought to content the lady; and indeed, she was obliged to pretend satisfaction. She would like to see the suite, she had said; but to her dismay the privilege was refused with regret. Major Garth, the manager explained, had given a "rush order" for some special decorations to surprise Mrs. Garth; and he had requested that no one —no one at all except the decorators – should be allowed to enter until the bridal pair arrived.
"But," Mrs. Sorel had argued, "he couldn't have meant me. Besides, if no one goes in, my daughter won't have any of her toilet things ready. There will be a scramble and confusion when she comes home tired from the theatre."
The manager, however, was reluctantly firm. He "mustn't tell tales out of school," but he thought he might just relieve Mrs. Sorel's fears by saying that there would be no trouble at all of that sort. The Major's "surprise" would – he hoped – be as pleasing to her as to the bride. And whatever had to be done in addition could be accomplished in a few minutes by Mrs. Garth's maid.
Naturally, Mrs. Sorel was on tenterhooks after this information, which she had obtained by telephone, lying on her bed, soon after Marise and Céline left for the theatre. It determined her to be prepared for battle, no matter how ill she might feel: for it was impossible that Marise should ever cross the threshold of that mysteriously decorated suite. Therefore the neat coiffure of the aching head, and the dignified tea-gown of satin and jet.
On the few occasions when Mums had been unable to go with Marise to the theatre, the girl had either returned early, or telephoned that she would be late in reaching home. Mrs. Sorel expected her to start for the hotel to-night the instant she was dressed and had her make-up off. She would doubtless be thankful to escape questions, and get back to her mother – which really meant, ridding herself of Garth.
But time crept on. Marise was half an hour late: then three-quarters. What could have happened? Had that monster kidnapped the poor child?
At the thought, Mums experienced the sensation of cold water slowly trickling through her spine. "What shall I do?" she wondered. And her mind turned to the thought – the terrible thought – of applying to the police. If she took this extreme step, what would be the result? Could a man be arrested for abducting his own wife?
As she writhed and sighed helplessly on a sofa in sight of the mantel clock, Céline's familiar tap sounded at the door, and the Frenchwoman came in. Mrs. Sorel's anguished eyes saw that she looked pale and excited. Her own heart seemed to rise and shrug itself in her breast, then collapse sickeningly upon other organs.
"For Heaven's sake, where is Mademoiselle?" she panted.
"Ah, Madame," sighed Céline, "we must speak of Mademoiselle no more."
"Why – why?" broke in the distracted mother.
"But, because she is now indeed 'Madame'! She is with – her husband."
"Where?" gasped Mrs. Sorel.
"In their suite. A suite of great magnificence."
The unhappy Mums staggered to her feet, among falling cushions.
"Good gracious!" she groaned. "He has dragged her there – "
"No, no, Madame, it is not so bad as that," Céline soothed her. "Madame la Jeune Mariée appeared to go with Monsieur of her own will. She showed no fear. She was only a little quiet – a little strange. It must have been arranged at the theatre, what was to happen, for I was with them in a car – but yes, a car, no taxi! – which Monsieur had ordered to wait at the stage door. I sat, not with the chauffeur, but inside on one of the little fold-up seats. The two did not speak at all, Madame, not once, till we had arrived here, at the hotel. Then Mademoiselle – I mean Madame Garth – said, 'I should like Céline to come with me.' 'Very well, let her come,' Monsieur answered. That was all. I went with them. Monsieur asked for his key. It was given him. We were taken up in the ascenseur to this floor. But instead of turning to the right, we turned left. Monsieur unlocked the door, switched on lights, and stood aside for Madame his wife to pass. Even me, he let go in before him. Then he followed and shut the door."
"What then?" breathed Mrs. Sorel.
"Mon Dieu, Madame, the suite was of a magnificence! It must be the best in the house. The suite in which they put royalties who come visiting from Europe. And not only that, the whole place has been made a garden of flowers – wonderful flowers. This Monsieur le Majeur must be, after all, though he does not look it, a millionaire!"
"He is far from being a millionaire," sneered Mums. "He hasn't a sou, so far as I've heard. He'll probably charge all this wild extravagance to us. He's capable of it – capable of anything! But go on."
"Well, Madame, the suite has an entrance hall of its own, not a tiny vestibule like this one. The hall has many pots of gorgeous azaleas, of colours like a sunrise in paradise. Madame la Jeune Mariée walked into the salon. The husband went also. But, me, I stood outside waiting. I could see into the room, however. I chose my place for that purpose, to see! A lovely salon of pearl grey and soft rose. And the flowers there were all roses, different shades of pink. There were many, some growing in pots, very tall; some cut ones in crystal vases and jars: and on a table, a marvellous bowl, illuminated, with flowers floating on the surface of bright water. Also, Madame, there were presents, jewels in cases. If these, as Madame says, are to be charged to her, Mon Dieu, it will be a disaster!"
"What were the presents?" The question asked itself, out of the turmoil that was Mums' mind. But behind the turmoil a voice seemed crying, "Why do you stop here talking of trifles, instead of rushing to save your wretched child?"
But Céline was replying. After all, what use to go, since the door of the suite would be closed, and one could not shriek and beat upon the panels for the whole world to hear!
"There was a large case with a double row of pearls. It must be, I think, not a string, but a rope. There was also a lovely thing for the hair, a wreath of laurel leaves made of green stones, doubtless emeralds. And there was a pendant, a star of diamonds with a great cabochon sapphire – Mademoiselle's beloved jewel! – in the centre. There may have been other things, but those were all I remarked. I saw them from the doorway. Yet, if Madame will believe me, la Jeune Mariée did not regard them. Neither did Monsieur draw her attention to his gifts – no, not by gesture nor word."
"She must have said something!" cried Mary.
"She murmured that the flowers were charming. You would have thought she had not seen the jewels, though she must have seen them, Madame, if I saw from my distance. Monsieur asked if she would like to view the rest of the suite. She answered, 'Oh yes, please!' Then, out into the entrance hall they came. Monsieur threw open the door of a room next the salon, and as he did so put on the lights. But – with that, he stepped back. My young lady called me, 'Céline!' I ran to her, and he stopped there in the hall. Ah, another surprise! Not the beauty of this great bedroom. That one would expect in such a suite – a white room, Madame, and white flowers, roses not too heavily perfumed! But the surprise was on the toilet-table. Brushes, bottles, everything, oh, so delicious a set! – in gold. A queen could have no better. On the bed, Madame, lay a robe de chambre more beautiful than any that Mademoiselle has ever possessed – which Madame knows, is to say much! – and on the floor – like blossoms fallen on the white fur rug – lay a little pair of mules, made of gold embroidery on cloth of silver, and having buckles of old paste fit for the slippers of Cinderella! When she had looked round for a few moments, quite silent, Madame, the bride turned to me. 'Now you have seen what is here, Céline,' she said, 'you can go to my room and bring me just the things you think I shall need.'"
"Did she give you the key of the suite?" Mary asked sharply.
"But no, Madame, she did not give me a key. I shall have to knock."
"Very well, run and put a few things together," Mary directed. "It doesn't much matter what, as Mademois – my daughter – will not, I think, stay long in the suite. When you are ready, come back here to me. I will go down with you. When the door is opened, I shall walk in before it can be shut. But mind, you will speak or hint to no one of what I do, or what I say to you – or what you may see or overhear."
"Madame may depend upon me," Céline assured her. "Ah, that poor Milord Severance! Mais, c'est le Destin!"