Margaret Pedler - The Splendid Folly

M >> Margaret Pedler >> The Splendid Folly

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19

"Unless what? Please . . . let me help . . . if I can." Diana spoke
rather nervously. She was suddenly struck by the fact that the last few
months had been responsible for a great change in her husband's
appearance. He looked much thinner and older than formerly, she thought.
There were harassed lines in his face, and its worn contours and shadowed
eyes called aloud to the compassionate womanhood within her, to the
mother-instinct that involuntarily longs to heal and soothe.

"Tell me what I can do, Max?"

A smile curved his lips, half whimsical, half sad.

"You can do for me what you do for all the rest of the world--I won't ask
more of you," he replied. "Sing to me."

Diana coloured warmly. The first part of his speech stung her unbearably.

"Sing to you?" she repeated.

"Yes. I'm very tired, and nothing is more restful than music." Then, as
she hesitated, he added, "Unless, of course, I'm asking too much."

"You know you are not," she answered swiftly.

She resumed her place at the piano, and, while he lay back in his chair
with closed eyes, she sang to him--the music of the old masters who loved
melody, and into whose songs the bitterness and unrest of the twentieth
century had not crept.

Presently, she thought, he slept, and very softly her hands strayed into
the simple, sorrowful music of "The Haven of Memory," and a note of
wistful appeal, not all of art, added a new depth to the exquisite voice.

How once your love
But crowned and blessed me only,
Long and long ago.

The refrain died into silence, and Diana, looking up, found Max's
piercing blue eyes fixed upon her. He was not asleep, then, after all.

He smiled slightly as their glances met.

"Do you remember I once told you I thought 'The Hell of Memory' would be
a more appropriate title? . . . I was quite right."

"Max--" Diana's voice quavered and broke.

A sudden eager light sprang into his face. Swiftly he same to her side
and stood looking down at her.

"Diana," he said tensely, "must it always remain--the hell of memory?"

They were very near to each other in that moment; the great wall
fashioned of jealousy and distrust was tottering to its foundations.

And then, from the street below came the high-pitched, raucous sound of
the newsboy's voice:--

"_Attempted Murder of Miss Adrian Jervis! Premier Theatre Besieged._"

The words, with their deadly import, cut between husband and wife like a
sword.

"Good God!" The exclamation burst from Max with a cry of horror. In an
instant he was out of the room, down the stairs, and running bareheaded
along the street in pursuit of the newsboy, and a few seconds later he
was back with a newspaper, damp from the press, in his hands.

Diana had remained sitting just as he had left her. She felt numbed.
The look of dread and consternation that had leaped into her husband's
face, as the news came shrilling up from the street below, had told her,
more eloquently than any words could do, how absolutely his life was
bound up in that of Adrienne de Gervais. A man whose heart's desire has
been suddenly snatched from him might look so; no other.

Max, oblivious of everything else, was reading the brief newspaper
account at lightning speed. At last--

"I must go!" he said. "I must go round to Somervell Street at once."

When he had gone, Diana picked up the newspaper from the floor where he
had tossed it, and smoothing out its crumpled sheet, proceeded to read
the short paragraph, surmounted by staring head-lines, which had sent her
husband hurrying hot-foot to Adrienne's house.

"MURDEROUS ATTACK ON MISS ADRIENNE DE GERVAIS.

"As Miss Adrienne de Gervais, the popular actress, was leaving the
Premier Theatre after the matinee performance to-day, a man rushed out
from a side street and fired three shots at her, wounding her severely.
Miss de Gervais was carried into the theatre, where a doctor who chanced
to be passing rendered first aid. Within a very few minutes the news of
the outrage became known and the theatre was besieged by inquirers. The
would-be assassin, who made good his escape, was a man of unmistakably
foreign appearance."

Diana laid the paper down very quietly. This, then, was the news which
had power to bring that look of fear and dread to her husband's
face--which could instantly wipe out from his mind all thoughts of his
wife and of everything that concerned her.

Perhaps, she reflected scornfully, it was as well that the revelation had
come when it did! Otherwise--otherwise, she had been almost on the verge
of forgetting her just cause for jealousy, forgetting all the past months
of misery, and believing in her husband once again.

The trill of the telephone from below checked her bitter thoughts, and
hurrying downstairs into the hall, she lifted the receiver and held it to
her ear.

"Yes. Who is it?"

Possibly something was wrong with the wire, or perhaps it was only that
Diana's voice, particularly deep and low-pitched for a woman, misled the
speaker at the other end. Whatever it may have been, Adrienne's voice,
rather tremulous and shaky, came through the 'phone, and she was
obviously under the impression that she was speaking to Diana's husband.

"Oh, is that you, Max? Don't be frightened. I'm not badly hurt. I hear
it's already in the papers, and as I knew you'd be nearly mad with
anxiety, I've made the doctor let me 'phone you myself. Of course you
can guess who did it. It was not the man you caught waiting about
outside the theatre. It was the taller one of the two we saw at Charing
Cross that day. Please come round as soon as you can."

Diana's lips set in a straight line. Very deliberately she replaced the
receiver and rang off without reply. A small, fine smile curved her lips
as she reflected that, within a few minutes, Max's arrival at Somervell
Street would enlighten Miss de Gervais as to the fact that she had bean
pouring out her reassuring remarks to the wrong person.

Half an hour later Diana came slowly downstairs, dressed for dinner.
Jerry was waiting for her in the hall.

"There's a 'phone message just come through from Max," he said, a trifle
awkwardly. (Jerry had not lived through the past few months at Lilac
Lodge without realising the terms on which the Erringtons stood with each
other.) "He won't be back till late."

Diana bestowed her sweetest smile upon him.

"Then we shall be dining _tete-a-tete_. How nice! Come along."

She took his arm and they went in together.

"This is a very serious thing about Miss de Gervais, isn't it?" she said
conversationally, as they sat down.

"A dastardly business," assented Jerry, with indignation.

"I suppose--did Max give you any further particulars?"

"The bullet's broken her arm just above the elbow. Of course she won't
be able to play for some time to come."

"How her understudy must be rejoicing," murmured Diana reflectively.

"It seems," pursued Jerry, "that the shot was fired by some shady actor
fellow. Down on his luck, you know, and jealous of Miss de Gervais'
success. At least, that's what they suspect, and Max has 'phoned me to
send a paragraph to all the morning papers to that effect."

"That's very curious," commented Diana.

"Why? I should think it's a jolly good guess."

Diana smiled enigmatically.

"Anyhow, it sounds a very natural supposition," she agreed lightly, and
then switched the conversation on to other subjects. Jerry, however,
seemed rather absent and distrait, and presently, when at last the
servants had handed the coffee and withdrawn, he blurted out:--

"It sounds beastly selfish of me, but this affair has upset my own little
plans rather badly."

"Yours, Jerry?" said Diana kindly. "How's that? Give me a cigarette and
tell me what's gone wrong."

"What would Baroni say to your smoking?" queried Jerry, as he tendered
his case and held a match for her to light her cigarette.

"I'm not singing anywhere for a week," laughed Diana. "So this orgy is
quite legitimate." And she inhaled luxuriously. "Now, go on, Jerry,
what plans of yours have been upset?"

"Well"--Jerry reddened--"I wrote to my governor the other day. It--it
was to please Joan, you know."

Diana nodded, her grey eyes dancing.

"Of course," she said gravely, "I quite understand."

"And--and here's his answer!"

He opened his pocket-book, and extracting a letter from the bundle it
contained, handed it to Diana.

"You mean you want me to read this?"

"Please."

Diana unfolded it, and read the following terse communication:--

"Come home and bring the lady. Am fattening the calf.--Your affectionate
Father."

"Jerry, I should adore your father," said Diana, as she gave him back the
letter. "He must he a perfect gem amongst parents."

"He's not a bad old chap," acknowledged Jerry, as he replaced the
paternal invitation in his pocket-book. "But you see the difficulty? I
was going to ask Errington to give me a few days' leave, and I don't like
to bother him now that he has all this worry about Miss de Gervais on his
hands."

Diana flushed hotly at Jerry's tacit acceptance of the fact that
Adrienne's affairs were naturally of so much moment to her husband. It
was another pin-prick in the wound that had been festering for so long.
She ignored it, however, and answered quietly:--

"Yes, I see. Perhaps you had better leave it for a few days. What about
Pobs? He'll have to be consulted in the matter, won't he?"

"I told him, long ago, that I wanted Joan. Before"--with a grin--"I ever
summoned up pluck to tell Joan herself! He was a brick about it, but he
thought I ought to make it up with the governor before Joan and I were
formally engaged. So I did--and I'm jolly glad of it. And now I want to
go down to Crailing, and fetch Joan, and take her with me to Abbotsleigh.
So I should want at least a week off."

"Well, wait till Max comes back," advised Diana, "We shall know more
about the matter then. And--and--Jerry!" She stretched out her hand,
which immediately disappeared within Jerry's big, boyish fist. "Good
luck, old boy!"

* * * * * *

Max returned at about ten o'clock, and Diana proceeded to offer polite
inquiries about Miss de Gervais' welfare. She wondered if he would
remember how near they had been to each other just for an instant before
the news of the attempt upon Adrienne's life had reached them.

But apparently he had forgotten all about it. His thoughts were entirely
concerned with Adrienne, and he was unusually grave and preoccupied.

He ordered a servant to bring him some sandwiches and a glass of wine,
and when he and Diana were once more alone, be announced abruptly:--

"I shall have to leave home for a few days."

"Leave home?" echoed Diana.

"Yes. Adrienne must go out of town, and I'm going to run down to some
little country place and find rooms for her and Mrs. Adams."

"Find rooms?" Diana stared at him amazedly. "But surely--won't they go
to Red Gables?"

Max shook his head.

"No. It wouldn't be safe after this--this affair. The same brute might
try to get her again. You see, it's quite well known that she has a
house at Crailing."

"Who is it that is such an enemy of hers?"

Max hesitated a moment.

"It might very well be some former actor, some poor devil of a fellow
down on his luck, who has brooded over his fancied wrongs till he was
half-mad," he said, at length.

Diana's eyes flashed. So that item of news intended for the morning
papers was also to be handed out for home consumption!

"What steps are you taking to trace the man?"

Again Max paused before replying. To Diana, his hesitation strengthened
her conviction that he was, as usual, withholding something from her.

"Well?" she repeated. "What steps are you taking?"

"None," he answered at last reluctantly. "Adrienne doesn't wish any fuss
made over the matter."

And yet, Diana reflected, both her husband and Miss de Gervais knew quite
well who the assailant was! "The taller of the two," Adrienne had said
through the telephone. Why, then, with that clue in her hands, did she
refuse to prosecute?

Suddenly, into Diana's mind flashed an answer to the question--to the
multitude of questions which had perplexed, her for so long. She felt as
a traveller may who has been journeying along an unknown way in the dark,
hurt and bruised by stones and pitfalls he could not see, when suddenly a
light shines out, revealing all the dangers of the path.

The explanation of all those perplexities and suspicions of the past was
so simple, so obvious, that she marvelled why it had never occurred to
her before. Adrienne de Gervais was neither more or less than an
adventuress--one of the vampire type of woman who preys upon mankind,
drawing them into her net by her beauty and charm, even as she had drawn
Max himself! This, this supplied the key to the whole matter--all that
had gone before, and all that was now making such a mockery of her
married life.

And the "poor devil of a fellow" who had attempted Adrienne's life had
probably figured largely in her past, one of her dupes, and now,
understanding at last what kind of woman it was for whom he had very
likely sacrificed all that made existence worth while, he was obsessed
with a crazy desire for vengeance--vengeance at any price. And Adrienne,
of course, in her extremity, had turned to her latest captive, Max
himself, for protection!

Oh! it was all quite clear now! The scattered pieces of the puzzle were
fitting together and making a definite picture.

Stray remarks of Olga Lermontof's came back to her--those little pointed
arrows wherewith the Russian had skilfully found out the joints in her
armour--"Miss de Gervais is not quite what she seems." And again, "I'm
perfectly sure Adrienne de Gervais' past is a closed book to you." Proof
positive that Olga had known all along what Diana had only just this
moment perceived to be the truth.

Diana's small hands clenched themselves until the nails dug into the soft
palms, as she remembered how those same hands had been held out in
friendship to this very adventuress--to the woman who had wrecked her
happiness, and for whom Max was ready at any time to set her and her
wishes upon one side! What a blind, trusting fool she had been! Well,
that was all ended now; she knew where she stood. Never again would Max
or Adrienne be able to deceive her. The scales had at last fallen from
her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Diana"--Max's cool, quiet tones broke in on the torment of
her thoughts. "I'm sorry, but I shall probably have to be away several
days."

"Have you forgotten we're giving a big reception here next Wednesday?"

"Wednesday, is it? And to-day is Saturday. I shall find rooms somewhere
to-morrow, and take Adrienne and Mrs. Adams down to them the next
day. . . No, I can't possibly be back for Wednesday."

"But you must!"--impetuously.

"It's impossible. I shall stay with Adrienne and Mrs. Adams until I'm
quite sure that the place is safe for them--that that fellow hasn't
traced them and isn't lurking about in the neighbourhood. You mustn't
expect me back before Saturday at the earliest. You and Jerry can manage
the reception. I hate those big crowds, as you know."

For a moment Diana sat in stony silence. So he intended to leave her to
entertain half London--that half of London that mattered and would talk
about it--while he spent a pleasant week philandering down in the country
with Adrienne de Gervais, under the aegis of Mrs. Adams' chaperonage!

Very slowly Diana rose to her feet. Her small face was white and set,
her little pointed chin thrust out, and her grey eyes were almost black
with the intense anger that gripped her.

"Do you mean this?" she asked collectedly.

"Why, of course. Don't you see that I must, Diana? I can't let Adrienne
run a risk like that."

"But you can subject your wife to an insult like that without thinking
twice about it!"--contemptuously. "It hasn't occurred to you, I suppose,
what people will say when they find that I have been left entirely alone
to entertain our friends, while my husband passes a pleasant week in the
country with Miss de Gervais, and her--chaperon? It's an insult to our
guests as well as to me. But I quite understand. I, and my friends,
simply _don't count_ when Adrienne de Gervais wants you."

"I can't help it," he answered stubbornly, her scorn moving him less than
the waves that break in a shower of foam at the foot of a cliff. "You
knew you would have to trust me."

"_Trust you_?" cried Diana, shaken out of her composure. "Yes! But I
never promised to stand trustingly by while you put another woman in my
place. This is the end, Max. I've had enough."

A sudden look of apprehension dawned in his eyes.

"What do you mean?" he asked sharply.

"What do I mean?"--bleakly. "Oh, nothing. I never do mean anything, do
I? . . . Well, good-bye. I expect you'll have left the house before I
come down to-morrow morning. I hope . . . you'll enjoy your visit to the
country."

She waited a moment, as though expecting some reply; then, as he neither
stirred nor spoke, she went quickly out of the room, closing the door
behind her.

CHAPTER XXII

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

"Jerry"--Diana came into her husband's study, where his secretary, who
had nothing further to do until his employer's return, was pottering
about putting the bookshelves to rights, "Jerry, I'm going to give you a
holiday. You can go down to Crailing to-day."

Jerry turned round in surprise.

"But, I say, Diana, I can't, you know--not while Max is away. I'm
supposed to make myself useful to you."

"Well, I think you did make yourself--very useful--last night, didn't
you?"

"Oh, that!" Jerry shrugged his shoulders. Then, surveying her
critically, he added: "You look awfully tired this morning, Di!"

She did. There were purple shadows beneath her eyes, and her face looked
white and drawn. The previous evening had been the occasion of her
reception, and she had carried it pluckily through single-handed. Quiet
and composed, she had moved about amongst her guests, covering Max's
absence with a light touch and pretty apology, her demeanour so natural
and unembarrassed that the tongues, which would otherwise have wagged
swiftly enough, were inevitably stilled.

But the strain had told upon her. This morning she looked haggard and
ill, more fit to be in bed than anything else.

"Oh, I shall be all right after a night's rest," she answered cheerfully.
"And as to making yourself useful there's really nothing I want you to do
for me. But I _do_ want you to go and make your peace with your father,
and take Joan to him. I'm sure he'll love her! So I'm writing to Max
telling him that I've given you leave of absence. He won't be returning
till Saturday at the earliest, and probably not then. If he wants you
back on Monday, we'll wire."

Jerry hesitated.

"Are you sure it will be quite all right? I don't really like leaving
you."

"Quite all right," she assured him. "I _did_ want you for the party last
night, and you were the greatest possible help to me. But now, I don't
want you a bit for anything. If you're quick, you can catch the two
o'clock down express and"--twinkling--"see Joan this evening."

"Diana, you're a brick!" And Jerry dashed upstairs to pack his suit-case.

Diana heaved a sigh of relief when, a few hours later, a triumphant and
joyous Jerry departed in search of a bride. She wanted him out of the
house, for that which she had decided to do would be more easily
accomplished without the boy's honest, affectionate eyes beseeching her.

All her arrangements were completed, and to-morrow--to-morrow she was
going to leave Lilac Lodge for ever. Never again would she share the
life of the man who had shown her clearly that, although she was his
wife, she counted with him so infinitely less than that other--than
Adrienne de Gervais. Her pride might break in the leaving, but it would
bend to living under the same roof with him no longer.

Only one thing still remained--to write a letter to her husband and leave
it in his study for him to find upon his return. It savoured a little of
the theatrical, she reflected, but there seemed no other way possible.
She didn't want Max to come in search of her, so she must make it clear
to him that she was leaving him deliberately and with no intention of
ever returning.

She had told the servants that she was going away on a few days' visit,
and after Jerry's departure she gave her maid instructions concerning her
packing. She intended to leave the house quite openly the following
morning. That was much the easiest method of running away.

"Shall you require me with you, madam?" asked her maid respectfully.

Diana regarded her thoughtfully. She was an excellent servant and
thoroughly understood maiding a professional singer; moreover, she was
much attached to her mistress. Probably she would be glad of her
services later on.

"Oh, if I should make a long stay, I'll send for you, Milling, and you
can bring on the rest of my things. I shall want some of my concert
gowns the week after next," she told her, in casual tones.

As soon as she had dismissed the girl to her work, Diana made her way
into her husband's study, and, seating herself at his desk, drew a sheet
of notepaper towards her.

She began to write impulsively, as she did everything else:--

"This is just to say good-bye,"--her pen flew over the paper--"I can't
bear our life together any longer, so I'm going away. Perhaps you will
blame me because my faith wasn't equal to the task you set it. But I
don't think any woman's would be--not if she cared at all. And I did
care, Max. It hurts to care as I did--and I'm so tired of being hurt
that I'm running away from it. It will be of no use your asking me to
return, because I have made up my mind never to come back to you again.
I told you that you must choose between Adrienne and me, and you've
chosen--Adrienne. I am going to live with Baroni and his sister, Signora
Evanci. It is all arranged. They are glad to have me, and it will be
much easier for me as regards my singing. So you needn't worry about
me.--But perhaps, you wouldn't have done!

"DIANA.

"P.S.--Please don't be vexed with Jerry for going away. I gave him leave
of absence myself, and I told him I would make it all right with you.--D."

She folded the letter with a curious kind of precision, slipped it into
an envelope, sealed and addressed it, and propped it up against the
inkpot on her husband's desk, so that he could not fail to find it.

Then, when it was time to dress for dinner, she went upstairs and let her
maid put her into an evening frock, exactly as though nothing out of the
ordinary were going on, just as though to-day--the last day she would
ever spend in her husband's home--were no different from any other day.

She made a pretence of eating dinner, and afterwards sat in her own
little sitting-room, with a book in front of her, of which she read not a
single line.

Presently, when she was quite sure that all the servants had gone to bed,
she made a pilgrimage through the house, moving reluctantly from room to
room, taking a silent farewell of the place where she had known such
happiness--and afterwards, such pain.

At last she went to bed, but she felt too restless and keyed up to sleep,
so she slipped into a soft, silken wrapper and established herself in a
big easy-chair by the fire.

The latter had died down into a dull, red glow, but she prodded the
embers into a flame, adding fresh coal, and as the pleasant warmth of it
lapped her round, a feeling of gentle languor gradually stole over her,
and at length she slept. . . .

She woke with a start. Some one was trying the handle of the door--very
quietly, but yet not at all as though making any attempt to conceal the
fact.

Something must be amiss, and one of the maids had come to warn her. The
possibility that the house was on fire, or that burglars had broken in,
flashed through her mind.

She sprang to her feet, and switching on the light, called out sharply:--

"Who is it?"

She had not fastened the lock overnight, and her heart beat in great
suffocating throbs as she watched the handle turn.

The next moment some one came quickly into the room and closed the door.

It was Max!

Diana fell back a step, staring incredulously.

"_You_!" she exclaimed, breathlessly. "_You_!"

He advanced a few paces into the room. He was very pale, and his face
wore a curiously excited expression. His eyes were brilliant--fiercely
exultant, yet with an odd gleam of the old, familiar mockery in their
depths, as though something in the situation amused him.

"Yes," he said. "Are you surprised to see me?"

"You--you said you were not returning till Saturday," she stammered.

"I found I could get away sooner than I expected, so I caught the last
up-train--and here I am."

There was a rakish, devil-may-care note in his voice that filled her with
a vague apprehension. Summoning up her courage, she faced him, striving
to keep her voice steady.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19