CHAPTER XXI
KEEPING UP APPEARANCES!
"You said at the theatre, if I trusted you enough to come here with you," Marise began as Céline left, "you would tell me a plan you thought I'd approve. Well, I did trust you! I had to, just as I had to this afternoon when you said the same thing in the taxi. Here I am. But so far, I don't see anything that reassures me much. All the flowers and jewel-cases and gold things are beautiful bribes. The only trouble about them is, that I don't take bribes – even if you can afford to offer them!"
"I understand that emphasis," said Garth. "You don't take bribes. I do. And you think, in making this collection I've 'gambled in futures.'"
Marise was silent.
"That's what you do think, isn't it?" he insisted.
"Something of the sort may have flitted through my head."
"Well, if I'm not above bribery and corruption – and the rest of it – that's on my own conscience. In other words, it's my own business. Your business is – to keep up appearances, and at the same time keep up the proprieties."
"That's one way of expressing it!"
"Yes, again my beastly vulgar way! But I won't stop to apologise because I know you're in a hurry to settle this question between us once for all. Because, when it is settled, it will be once for all, so far as I'm concerned."
"I see. Go on, please!"
He looked at her, a long look. "You and I are here alone together," he said. "Husband and wife! For we are married, you know. Does that make you shiver – or shudder?"
"I don't think we feel very married – either of us," Marise answered in a small, ingratiating voice, like a child's.
"You don't know how I feel," said Garth. "But I'm not anxious to punish you by torture for anything you've done, no matter what you may deserve, so I won't keep you in suspense. You admit that if – we did 'feel married,' and if – we cared about each other as ordinary new-married couples do, this 'bridal suite' – as they call it – would be the proper dodge?"
"Oh yes," agreed Marise, wondering what he was working up to. Her heart was beating too fast for her wits to be at their nimblest, but she hadn't missed those words of his which had either slipped out, or been spoken with subtle purpose: "If we cared about each other." Only a few days ago – apparently with his soul in his eyes – he had said that he'd give that soul to get her for his own. Well, the incredible had happened, and she was his own – in a way. Was he so disgusted with her behaviour and motives that he'd suddenly ceased to care? Or was he silly enough to think it would hurt her if he pretended not to care? Certainly she had done nothing worse than he had! Whatever he might think, she had married him largely from pique, to spite Tony Severance; though, of course, that wasn't to say she wouldn't carry out Tony's scheme when the time came. Whereas he, John Garth, had accepted a bribe. She was worth a million dollars to Tony: and the million dollars were worth a basely caddish act to Garth.
"You want your friends and the public in general to believe we are the ordinary loving couple, don't you?" he was asking.
"Of course. I may have earned them, but I don't want horrid things said. Especially – "
"Especially on Severance's account, and because of the arrangements he proposes to make for your future, I suppose you were going to say. Why stop?"
"Because you suppose wrong. I wasn't going to say anything of the kind. 'Especially on account of poor Mums,' were the words on the tip of my tongue. I stopped – well, I thought it sounded sentimental. Besides, you'd probably not believe me."
"I think I would believe you," said Garth. "I don't know you very well yet, but things that have happened have shown me a bit of what you're like, inside yourself. You've got plenty of faults. I should say you're as selfish as they make 'em. You don't really take much interest in anything that doesn't affect you and your affairs. You've been badly spoiled, but not quite ruined: and I think you don't enjoy telling lies."
"Thank you for your charming compliments!" flashed Marise, the blood in her cheeks. Spoiled indeed! Everyone said she was wonderfully unspoiled – simple and sweet-natured as a child. Those were the people who knew her!
"To get back to a more important subject," went on Garth; "I was going to tell you that, honestly, one half the reason I took this suite and made you come to it with me, was for your sake: to have you do the right, conventional, bridal thing everyone expects of you, and would be blue with curiosity if you didn't do. The other half was to find out whether you were capable of rising to an occasion."
"Rising – how?" questioned Marise.
"Rising high enough to trust a man to do – after his lights – the decent thing. Not to carry out a bargain, because there is none. I'd be breaking no promise if I grabbed you in my arms this moment. I mean, the decent thing that any man owes any woman who puts herself in his power. Now I've said enough. You'll understand me better in a minute by going over this suite, than by listening to an hour's explanation in words. I'll wait for you here." (They were in the salon.) "Walk round, and draw your own conclusions. Then come back and tell me what the conclusions are."
Marise was quite sharp enough to guess what he meant, but – stepping out into the azalea-filled entrance hall, she passed the open door of the beautiful white bedroom. Beyond it was another door. She opened this, and touching an electric switch, flooded a room with light.
Here, too, was a bedroom, smaller, less elaborate, more suited to the occupation of a man than the other. Instead of the carved white wood and gilded cane of the room next door, the furniture was mahogany, of the Queen Anne period; and the carpet, instead of pale Aubusson, was the colour of wallflowers. There were some plain ebony brushes and toilet things on the dressing-table, and underneath the table were boot-trees. Evidently Garth had had his belongings brought over from the Belmore!
A glance sufficed Marise. She went slowly back to the salon where Garth stood staring down on the display of jewellery on the table.
"Well?" He looked up with something defiant and oddly sullen about his face. "You understand my 'plan'?"
"Yes," said Marise. "I understand. But – "
"But what? Didn't you try the door between that other room and your own, and satisfy yourself that it's locked with the key on your side?"
"I didn't try it," the girl answered, "because – I was somehow sure it would be like that."
"Why were you sure?"
"I don't know, exactly. I was."
"Your sureness was the result of trust in me, as a decent man in spite of the fact that you think I'm not a gentleman?"
"Ye-es, I suppose it was trust."
"Then why that 'but' just now?"
"Oh – it's rather hard to put into words what was to come after the 'but' – without hurting your feelings. And I don't want to do that. It only makes things a lot worse."
"I don't mind having my feelings hurt. I'm hardened. Besides, if you hurt mine I'm free to hurt yours if I like in return. Shoot!"
"Well – I believe you mean what you've said to me – and shown me. I do trust you – now. But for how long dare I? Can you trust yourself?"
He smiled down at her; and it looked like a scornful smile, but of course it couldn't be that. "Your question is easy to answer," he said. "I trust myself, and shall continue to trust myself, because there's no temptation to resist. I shall keep to my own half of this suite, with the less difficulty because I haven't the slightest wish to intrude on yours. Now you know where you stand. But there's a knock! I suppose that's your maid."
CHAPTER XXII
A SHOCK AND A SNUB OR TWO
It was the maid. It was also Mrs. Sorel, who pushed past Céline and darted into the hall.
"My darling!" she shrilled at sight of Marise. "You look as if you'd had a most horrible shock!"
It was just this that the girl had had: the shock of her life. She, undesired —not a temptation! Alone with a man – a mere brute – who had the strength and the legal right to take her against her will, but remained cold; did not want her.
She might have believed this statement to be a sequel to that hint about "hurting her feelings if he liked," but Garth's face was cold. It might have been carved from rock. It looked like rock – that red-brown kind. There was no fierce, controlled passion in the tawny eyes, such as men on the stage would carefully have betrayed in these situations, or such as men had far from carefully betrayed to her in real life, disgusting or frightening her at the time: though afterwards the scene had pleased, or – well flattered her to dwell on in safe retrospect. It was rather glorious, though sometimes painful, she'd often said to herself, the power she had to make men feel. Yet this Snow-man didn't feel at all. He simply didn't! You could see that by his icicle of a face.
"You mustn't worry, dear Mums," soothed Marise. "I'm doing the best thing for everyone: keeping up appearances! And as Major Garth dislikes me – I am not his style, it seems – I'm perfectly safe. Safe as if I were in our rooms, with you."
Garth gazed gravely at Mrs. Sorel. "She's safer than with you, Madame. I assure you she's as safe as – as if she were in cold storage."
Mary gasped.
Marise laughed.
But she felt as though she'd read in a yellow newspaper that Miss Sorel was the plainest girl and the worst actress in the world.
Mums was persuaded to go, at last, after having upbraided her daughter, with tears, for forcing them all – including Lord Severance – into such a deplorable, such a perilous situation.
As for the peril, after Garth's words, and still more his look, all thrill of danger and the chance of a fight, with a triumphant if exhausting close, had died. Marise felt dull and "anti-climaxy," and homesick for her friends, the dear public who loved and appreciated her. Céline remained to undress her mistress, having (despite Mrs. Sorel's advice) brought various articles from Marise's own room. When at last the bride was ready for bed in a dream of a "nighty" fetched by her maid, Céline thought of the jewels on a table in the salon.
By this time the room was empty, Garth having retired like a bear to his den; and the Frenchwoman took it on herself to transfer the valuables to the bedroom adjoining. "They will be safer here," she said. "Unless Mademoiselle – Madame – would like me to carry the cases to the other suite and put them in the care of Madame his mother."
"No, leave everything here," directed Marise.
She had made up her mind not to keep the gifts. They were beautiful, and she wouldn't have been a woman if she'd not wanted them. But she wanted still more the stern splendour of handing the spoil back to Garth, advising him to return the jewels whence they came, since only millionaires should buy such expensive objects. But she would not of course take a servant, even Céline – who knew everything and a little more than everything – into her confidence.
She gave the Frenchwoman a key (which had been handed her by Garth) to use in the morning, when the time came for early tea, a bath, and being dressed. Then, when the maid had departed with a click of the outer door, an idea sprang into the mind of Marise. At first she thought it would not do. Then she thought it would. And the more she thought in both directions, the more she was enmeshed by the idea itself.
Only half an hour had elapsed since Garth went to his room. The man wouldn't be human, after what they'd passed through, if he had gone to bed. Marise was sure he had done no such thing: and she fancied that she caught a faint whiff of tobacco stealing through the keyhole of that stout locked door between their rooms.
At last she could no longer resist the call of the blood – or whatever it was. She switched on the light again, jumped up, and looked for a dressing-gown. Bother! Céline hadn't brought one – had taken it for granted she would use that wonderful thing which Garth's taste – or the taste of some hidden guide of his – had provided.
Well, what did it matter, anyhow? She would slip it on – and the sparkling gold and silver mules, too. She glanced in the long Psyche mirror. She did look divine! Even a rock-carved statue couldn't deny that! Gathering up the jewels, she unlocked the door which led into the hall, and tapped at the door of Garth's room, adjoining her own.
"If you're not in bed," she called, "come out a minute, will you? I've something important to say."
All that was minx in Marise was revelling in the thought that presently Garth would suffer a disappointment. He would imagine that she wished to plead for grace from him. Then, before he could snub her, she'd give him the snub of his life – just as he had given her, Marise Sorel, the shock of hers!
Garth did not answer at once. The girl was hesitating whether to call him again, when his voice made her start. It sounded sleepy! "I am in bed," he said. "What do you want? Is it too important to wait till morning?"
"It's merely that I wished to put the jewels which were left in the salon into your charge," Marise replied with freezing dignity. "I do not think they are safe there."
"Wouldn't they be safe enough with you?" came grumpily – yes, grumpily! – through the closed door.
"No doubt. But I don't wish to have the responsibility, as I don't care to accept them…"
"Oh, I see! Well, if that's your decision, it doesn't matter whether they're safe or not. Leave the things in the corridor if your room's too sacred for them. If that's all you want, I shall not get out of bed."
What a man!
"One would think you were a multi-millionaire!" Marise couldn't resist that one last, sarcastic dig. "So I may be for all you know. Do what you like with the silly old jewels."
Marise threw the cases on the floor as loudly as she could. She knew that the outer door was locked, and that Céline would be the first person in, when morning came, so the act wasn't as reckless as it seemed. But it was a relief to her nerves at the moment.
The filmy dressing-gown, the sparkling mules, the hair down, the general heartbreaking divineness, were wasted.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE DREAM
Marise slept little, in what was left of that strange wedding night.
She tried to think of Tony Severance, who must be suffering tortures through his love and fears for her. But somehow he had lost importance. He had become a figure in the background. Her thoughts would turn their "spot light" upon the man in the adjoining room.
Was he asleep? Was he awake? Was he thinking about her, and if so, what? Why had he married her? If it was for love, as she had fancied at first, could he have treated her as he had? That was hard to believe! Yet it was harder to believe his motives wholly mercenary.
"Perhaps that's because I'm vain," the girl told herself. And she remembered, her cheeks hot, how Garth had accused her of vanity and selfishness. He'd said that she took no interest in anything which didn't concern Marise Sorel. She had been angry then, and thought him unjust and hard. But in her heart she knew that he had touched the truth. She was vain and selfish. And she was hard, too, just as hard to him as he to her.
"He has made me so!" she excused herself. "I was never hard to anyone else before, in all my life."
But she could not rest on this special pleading. What right had she to be hard to this man? She had asked him to marry her. His crime was that he had granted her wish and consented to play this dummy hand; and now the deed was done he was not grovelling to her or to Tony Severance. How much more British he seemed, by the by, than dark, Greek Tony, of subtle ways!
At luncheon, talking with Pobbles, he had spoken of Yorkshire as his county. Marise wondered what he had meant. But, of course, she would not ask. John Garth's past was no affair of hers. Still, she couldn't stop puzzling about him. She puzzled nearly all night. He was turning out such a different man from the man she had vaguely imagined! In fact, he was different from any man she had ever met, off the stage or on.
Staring into darkness as the hours passed, Marise felt that she could not wait for Céline. She'd get up at dawn, dress, and flit to her own room in Mums' suite. But no! She couldn't do that. She hadn't a key to that suite. She would have to pound on the door, and other people beside Mums and Céline would hear. There would be gossip – which she'd sacrificed much already to avoid.
Dreading the long night of wakefulness, the girl suddenly dropped fast asleep, and began at once to dream of Garth. Zélie Marks was in the dream, too, and – dreams are so ridiculous! – Marise was jealous. What had happened between the two she didn't know; but she would have known in another instant, for Zélie was going to confess, if a rap had not sounded at the door and made her sit up in a fright. Marise was just about to cry, "You can't come in!" when she realised that it was the peculiar double knock of Céline.
The Frenchwoman was prompt, though the night had seemed so long. Her mistress sipped hot, fragrant Orange Pekoe from an eggshell cup, and in a whisper bade Céline move quietly, not to rouse Monsieur Garth in the next room.
"Oh, Mademoiselle – Madame!" said the maid.
"Monsieur has gone out, early as it is. His door is wide open."
Marise must have slept more soundly than she knew. She hadn't heard a sound.
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask Céline about the jewel-cases – if they were lying in the corridor. But she couldn't put such a question! The maid would be too curious – she would fancy there had been some vulgar quarrel instead of – instead of – well, Marise hardly knew how to qualify her own conduct.
"I'm afraid I was vulgar," she thought, like a child repenting last night's misdeeds. "It was horrid of me to throw those lovely things on the floor. Poor fellow, he must have spent a fortune —somebody's fortune (whose, I wonder?) – on those pearls, and diamonds and emeralds, and all the rest. Yet I never said one word of gratitude. I was never such a brute before!.. I'm sure it must be his fault. Still – I don't like myself one bit better than I like him."
As Garth had gone out, there was no great need for haste. Céline had brought all that was needed, and Marise might dress – as well as repent – at leisure. But she was wild with impatience to know whether the jewels were lying where she had thrown them. While Céline was letting the bath-water run, the girl peeped out into the flower-scented corridor. The jewel-cases had gone!
This discovery gave her a slight shock. She had more than half expected to see them on the floor, and had wondered what she would do if they were there – whether she would pick them up and decide to accept the gifts after all, with a stiff, yet decent little speech of gratitude. "I'm sure you meant to do what I would like, and I don't wish to hurt your feelings," or something of that sort.
Now, what should she do? The probability was that Garth himself had retrieved his rejected treasures. But there was just a chance – such horrors happened in hotels! – that a thief had pussy-footed into the suite to search for wedding presents, and had found them easily in an unexpected place. That would be too dreadful! Because, if she – Marise – held her tongue, Garth would always believe that she had annexed the things, and had chosen to be sulkily silent.
"I shall have to bring up the subject somehow, the next time we meet – whenever that may be!" she thought ruefully.
When Mrs. Garth arrived in the maternal suite, it was about the hour when Miss Sorel had been in the habit of slipping, half-dressed, from bedroom to salon. It was the time, also, when Miss Zélie Marks was accustomed to present herself, and begin her morning tasks: sharpening pencils, sorting letters, etc. But to-day the salon was unoccupied. The letters lay in a fat, indiscriminate heap, just as Céline had received them from one of the floor-waiters.
Mrs. Sorel was still in bed, and still suffering from last night's headache, which had increased, rather than diminished. She burst into tears at sight of Marise, but was slowly pacified on hearing the story of the night.
"He was afraid to – " she began; but the girl broke in with the queerest sensation of anger. "He wasn't afraid – of anything! Whatever else he may have been, he wasn't afraid. I don't believe the creature knows how to be afraid."
Mrs. Sorel did not insist. She didn't wish to waste time discussing Garth. She wanted to talk of Tony. There was a letter from him. It had come by hand, early – sent as he was starting. Of course he hadn't dared write to Marise direct, but there was an enclosure for her.
"You had better read it now," advised Mums. "At any moment that man may turn up, asking for you, and trying to make some scene."
Marise took the crested envelope that had come inside her mother's note from Tony; but somehow or other she felt an odd repulsion against it. She didn't care to read what Tony had to say to Mrs. John Garth at parting; and she had an excuse to procrastinate because, just then, the telephone sounded in the salon adjoining.
"Will you go, dearest? Or shall I ring for Céline?" Mums asked.
Marise answered by walking into the salon and picking up the receiver. Her heart was beating a little with the expectation of Garth's voice from – somewhere. Their own suite, perhaps? But a woman was speaking.
"Is it you, Mrs. Sorel?" was the question that came. And the heart-beats were not calmed, for Marise recognised the contralto tones of Miss Marks, the villainess of her dream.
"No, it's I, Miss Sorel," she answered. "What's the matter? Aren't you coming as usual?"
"I am sorry, no, I can't come," replied the voice across the wire. "I thought that now – you're married, Mrs. Garth, and going away before long, I should no longer be required. But in any case I – "
"If we hadn't required your services we should have told you, and given you two weeks' salary in lieu of notice," snapped Marise professionally.
"I hardly supposed you had time to think about me, everything was so confused yesterday," Zélie excused herself. "Anyhow, Mrs. Garth, I must give notice myself, for I've had news which will take me out of New York at once. I've got to start by the next train. It doesn't matter about money. I was paid up only a few days ago. We were just starting fresh – "
"I'm sure my mother will wish to pay, and insist upon doing so," said Marise. "When does your train go?"
"I'm not certain to the minute," hedged Miss Marks. "But I have to pack. I – "
"That won't prevent your receiving an envelope with what we owe you in it," persisted Marise. "I suppose you're 'phoning from your flat?"
"Yes – no. Yes. But I'll be gone before a messenger could get here. Please don't trouble."
"Very well, give me your address at the town where you're going," Marise said. "We can post you on a cheque."
"I can't do that, I'm afraid," objected Miss Marks. "I shall be moving about from place to place for awhile. It's really no use, Mrs. Garth, thank you – though of course it's kind of you to care. Please say good-bye to Mrs. Sorel for me. You've both been very good."
"I wish you'd sent us word last night," said Marise, whose eyes were bright, and whose hand, holding the receiver, had begun to throb as if she had a heart in her wrist.
"I didn't know last night. The news I spoke of came this morning."
"It must have come early!"
"It did. Good-bye, Mrs. Garth."
"Wait just a second. Are you going – West?"
"Ye-es. For awhile."
"You can't tell me where?"
"Oh, several places. Not far from my old home."
"Did you ever mention where that was?"
But no answer came. Either they had been cut off, or Zélie Marks had impudently left the telephone.
The dream came back to Marise – the dream where Garth and the stenographer had been whispering together in a room where Marise could not see them.
"I believe he's with her now," the girl thought. "I believe when he went out this morning he went straight to her. He's told her to do something, and she intends to do it."
To that question, "Are you going West?" Zélie had hesitatingly responded, "Ye-es." What did it mean?