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M >> Margaret Pedler >> The Splendid Folly




To-morrow she would go to Max, and tell him that love had taught her
belief and faith--all that he had asked of her and that she had so
failed to give.

She lay long awake, gazing into the dark, dreamily conscious of utter
peace and calm. To-morrow . . . to-morrow . . . Freely her eyes
closed and she slept. Once she stirred and smiled a little in her
sleep while the word "Max" fluttered from between her lips, almost as
though it had been a prayer.




CHAPTER XXV

BREAKING-POINT

When Diana woke the following morning it was to a drowsy sense of utter
peace and content. She wondered vaguely what had given rise to it.
Usually, when she came back to the waking world, it was with a shrinking
almost akin to terror that a new day had begun and must be lived
through--twelve empty, meaningless hours of it.

As full consciousness returned, the remembrance of yesterday's meeting
with Max, and of all that had succeeded it, flashed into her mind like a
sudden ray of sunlight, and she realised that what had tinged her
thoughts with rose-colour was the quiet happiness, bred of her
determination to return to her husband, which had lain stored at the back
of her brain during the hours of unconsciousness.

She sat up in bed, vividly, joyously awake, just as her maid came in with
her breakfast tray.

"Make haste, Milling," she exclaimed, a thrill of eager excitement in her
voice. "It's a lovely morning, and there's so much going to happen
to-day that I can't waste any time over breakfast."

It was the old, impetuous Diana who spoke, impulsively carried away by
the emotion of the moment.

"Is there, madam?" Milling, arranging the breakfast things on a little
table beside the bed, regarded her mistress affectionately. It was long,
very long, since she had seen her with that look of happy anticipation in
her face--never since the good days at Lilac Lodge, before she had
quarrelled so irrevocably with her husband--and the maid wondered whether
it foretokened a reconciliation. "Is there, madam? Then I'm glad it's a
fine day. It's a good omen."

Diana smiled at her.

"Yes," she repeated contentedly. "It's a good omen."

Milling paused on her way out of the room.

"If you please, madam, Signor Baroni would like to know at what time you
will be ready to rehearse your songs for to-night, so that he can
telephone through to Miss Lermontof?"

To rehearse! Diana's face clouded suddenly. She had entirely forgotten
that she had promised to give her services that night at a reception,
organised in aid of some charity by the Duchess of Linfield--the shrewish
old woman who had paid Diana her first tribute of tears--and the
recollection of it sounded the knell to her hopes of seeing Max that day.
The morning must perforce be devoted to practising, the afternoon to the
necessary rest which Baroni insisted upon, and after that there would be
only time to dress and partake of a light meal before she drove to the
Duchess's house.

It would not be possible to see Max! Even had there been time she dared
not risk the probable consequences to her voice which the strain and
emotion of such an interview must necessarily carry in their train.

For a moment she felt tempted to break her engagement, to throw it over
at the last instant and telephone to the Duchess to find a substitute.
And then her sense of duty to her public--to the big, warm-hearted public
who had always welcomed and supported her--pushed itself to the fore,
forbidding her to take this way out of the difficulty.

How could she, who had never yet broken a contract when her appearance
involved a big fee, fail now, on an occasion when she had consented to
give her services, and when it was her name alone on the programme which
had charmed so much money from the pockets of the wealthy, that not a
single seat of all that could be crowded into the Duchess's rooms
remained unsold? Oh, it was impossible!

Had it meant the renouncing of the biggest fee ever offered her, Diana,
would have impetuously sacrificed it and flung her patrons overboard.
But it meant something more than that. It was a debt of honour, her
professional honour.

After all, the fulfilment of her promise to sing would only mean setting
her own affairs aside for twenty-four hours, and somehow she felt that
Max would understand and approve. He would never wish to snatch a few
earlier hours of happiness if they must needs be purchased at the price
of a broken promise. But her heart sank as she faced the only
alternative.

She turned to Milling, the happy exultation that had lit her eyes
suddenly quenched.

"Ask the _Maestro_ kindly to 'phone Miss Lermontof that I shall be ready
at eleven," she said quietly.

In some curious way this unlooked-for upset to her plans seemed to have
cast a shadow across her path. The warm surety of coming happiness which
had lapped her round receded, and a vague, indefinable apprehension
invaded her consciousness. It was as though she sensed something
sinister that lay in wait for her round the next corner, and all her
efforts to recapture the radiant exultation of her mood of yestereve, to
shake off the nervous dread that had laid hold of her, failed miserably.

Her breakfast was standing untouched on the table beside her bed. She
regarded it distastefully. Then, recalling with a wry smile Baroni's
dictum that "good food, and plenty of good food, means voice," she
reluctantly began to eat, idly turning over the while the pages of one of
the newspapers which Milling had placed beside the breakfast tray. It
was an illustrated weekly, and numbered amongst its staff an enterprising
young journalist, possessed of an absolute genius for nosing out such
matters as the principal people concerned in them particularly desired
kept secret. Those the enterprising young journalist's paper served up
piping-hot in their _Tattle of the Town_ column--a column denounced by
the pilloried few and devoured with eager interest by the rest of the
world.

Diana, sipping her coffee, turned to it half-heartedly, hoping to find
some odd bit of news that might serve to distract her thoughts.

There were the usual sly hits at several well-known society women whose
public charities covered a multitude of private sins, followed by a very
inadequately veiled reference to the chief actors in a recent divorce
case, and then--

Diana's eyes glued themselves to the printed page before her. Very
deliberately she set down her cup on the tray beside her, and taking up
the paper again, re-read the paragraph which had so suddenly riveted her
attention. It ran as follows:--


"Is it true that the _nom de plume_ of a dramatist, well-known in London
circles, masks the identity of the son of a certain romantic royal duke
who contracted a morganatic marriage with one of the most beautiful
Englishwomen of the seventies?

"It would be curious if there proved to be a connecting link between this
whisper and the recent disappearance from the stage of the popular
actress who has been so closely associated with the plays emanating from
the gifted pen of that same dramatist.

"Interested readers should carefully watch forthcoming events in the
little state of Ruvania."


Diana stared at the newspaper incredulously, and a half-stifled
exclamation broke from her.

There was--there _could_ be--no possible doubt to whom the paragraph bore
reference. "_A well-known dramatist and the popular actress so closely
associated with his works_"--why, to any one with the most superficial
knowledge of plays and players of the moment, it was as obvious as though
the names had been written in capitals.

Max and Adrienne! Their identities linked together and woven into a
fresh tissue of mystery and innuendo!

Diana smiled a little at the suggestion that Max might be the son of a
royal duke. It was so very far-fetched--fantastic in the extreme.

And then, all at once, she remembered Olga's significant query of long
ago: "_Have you ever asked him who he is?_" and Max's stern refusal to
answer the question when she had put it to him.

At the time it had only given an additional twist to the threads of the
intolerable web of mystery which had enmeshed her married life. But now
it suddenly blazed out like a beacon illumining the dark places.
Supposing it were true--supposing Max _had_ been masquerading under
another name all the time--then this suggestive little paragraph
contained a clue from which she might perhaps unravel the whole hateful
mystery.

Her brows drew together as she puzzled over the matter. This history of
a morganatic marriage--it held a faint ring of familiarity. Vaguely she
recollected having heard the story of some royal duke who had married an
Englishwoman many years ago.

For a few minutes she racked her brain, unable to place the incident.
Then, her eyes falling absently upon the newspaper once more, the last
word of the paragraph suddenly unlocked the rusty door of memory.

_Ruvania_! She remembered the story now! There had once been a younger
brother and heir of a reigning grand-duke of Ruvania who had fallen so
headlong in love with a beautiful Englishwoman that he had renounced his
royal state and his claims to the grand ducal throne, and had married the
lady of his choice, thereafter living the life of a simple country
gentleman.

The affair had taken place a good many years prior to Diana's entry into
life, but at the time it had made such a romantic appeal to the
sentimental heart of the world at large that it had never been quite
forgotten, and had been retold in Diana's hearing on more than one
occasion.

Indeed, she recollected having once seen a newspaper containing an early
portrait of a family group composed of Duke Boris and his morganatic wife
and children. There had been two of the latter, a boy and a girl, and
Diana suddenly realised, with an irrepressible little flutter of tender
excitement, that if the fantastic story hinted at in _Tattle of the
Town_, were true, then the boy whom, years ago, she had seen pictured in
the photograph must have been actually Max himself.

And--again if it were true--how naturally and easily it explained that
little unconscious air of hauteur and authority that she had so often
observed in him--the "lordly" air upon which she had laughingly remarked
to Pobs, when describing the man who had been her companion on that
memorable railway journey, when death had drawn very near them both and
then had passed them by.

Her thoughts raced onward, envisaging the possibilities involved.

There were no dukes of Ruvania now; that she knew. The little State,
close on the borders of Russia, had been--like so many of the smaller
Eastern States--convulsed by a revolution, some ten years ago, and since
then had been governed by a republic.

Was the explanation of all that had so mystified her to be found in the
fact that Max was a political exile?

The _Tattle of the Town_ paragraph practically suggested, that the
affairs of the "well-known dramatist" were in some way bound up with the
destiny of Ruvania. That was indicated plainly enough in the reference
to "forthcoming events."

Diana's head whirled with the throng of confused ideas that poured in
upon her.

And Adrienne de Gervais? What part did she play in this strange medley?
_Tattle of the Town_ assigned her one. Max and Adrienne and Ruvania were
all inextricably tangled up together in the thought-provoking paragraph.

Suddenly, Diana's heart gave a great leap as a possible explanation of
the whole matter sprang into her mind. There had been two children of
the morganatic marriage, a son and a daughter. Was it conceivable that
Adrienne de Gervais was the daughter?

Adrienne, Max's sister! That would account for his inexplicably close
friendship with her, his devotion to her welfare, and--if she, like
himself, were exiled--the secrecy which he had maintained.

Slowly the conviction that this was the true explanation of all that had
caused her such bitter heartburning in the unhappy past grew and deepened
in Diana's mind. A chill feeling of dismay crept about her heart. If it
were true, then how hideously--how _unforgivably_--she had misjudged her
husband!

She drew a sharp, agonised breath, her shaking fingers gripping the
bedclothes like a frightened child's.

"Oh, not that! Don't let it be that!" she whispered piteously.

She looked round the room with scared eyes. Who could help her--tell her
the truth--set at rest this new fear which had assailed her? There must
be some one . . . some one. . . . Yes, there was Olga! _She_ knew--had
known Max's secret all along. But would she speak? Would she reveal the
truth? Something--heaven knew what!--had kept her silent hitherto, save
for the utterance of those maddening taunts and innuendoes which had so
often lodged in Diana's heart and festered there.

Feverishly Diana sprang out of bed and began to dress, flinging on her
clothes in a very frenzy of haste. She would see Olga, and beg, pray,
beseech her, if necessary, to tell her all she knew.

If she failed, if the Russian woman obstinately denied her, she would
know no peace of mind--no rest. She felt she had reached
breaking-point--she could endure no more.

But she would not fail. When Olga came--and she would be here soon, very
soon now--she would play up the knowledge she had gleaned from the
newspaper for all it was worth, and she would force the truth from her,
willing or unwilling.

Whether that truth spelt heaven, or the utter, final wrecking of all her
life, she must know it.




CHAPTER XXVI

THE REAPING

Half an hour later Diana descended to the big music-room, where she
usually rehearsed, to find Olga Lermontof already awaiting her there.

By a sheer effort of will she had fought down the storm of emotion which
had threatened to overwhelm her, and now, as she greeted her accompanist,
she was quite cool and composed, though rather pale and with tired
shadows beneath her eyes.

There was something almost unnatural in her calm, and the shrewd Russian
eyed her with a sudden apprehension. This was not the same woman whom
she had left last night, thrilling and softly tremulous with love.

She began speaking quickly, an undercurrent of suppressed excitement in
her tones.

"There's some mistake, isn't there? You don't want me--this morning?"

Diana regarded her composedly.

"Certainly I want you--to rehearse for to-night."

"To rehearse? Rehearse?" Olga's voice rose in a sharp crescendo of
amazement. "Surely"--bending forward to peer into Diana's face--"surely
you are not going to keep Max waiting while you--_rehearse_?"

"It's impossible for us to meet to-day," replied Diana steadily. "I
had--forgotten--the Duchess's reception."

Olga made a gesture of impatience.

"But you must meet to-day," she said imperiously. "You _must_!
To-morrow it will be too late."

"Too late? How too late?"

Miss Lermontof hesitated a moment. Then she said quietly:--

"I happen to know that Max is leaving England to-night."

Diana shrugged her shoulders.

"Well, he will come back, I suppose."

The other looked at her curiously.

"Diana, what has come to you? You are so--changed--since last night."

"We're told that 'night unto night showeth knowledge,'" retorted Diana
bitterly. "Perhaps _my_ knowledge has increased since--last night." She
watched the puzzled expression deepen on Olga's face. Then she added:
"So I can afford to wait a little longer to see Max."

Again Miss Lermontof hesitated. Then, as though impelled to speak
despite her better judgment, she burst out impetuously:--

"But you can't! You can't wait. He isn't coming back again."

There was a queer tense note in Diana's voice as she played her first big
card.

"Then I suppose I shall have to follow him to--Ruvania," she said very
quietly.

"To Ruvania?" Olga repeated, and by the sudden narrowing of her eyes, as
though she were all at once "on guard," Diana knew that her shot in the
dark had gone home. "What do you mean? Why--Ruvania?"

Diana faced her squarely. Despite her feverish desire to wring the truth
from the other woman, she had herself well in hand, and when she spoke it
was with a certain dignity.

"Don't you think that the time for pretence and hypocrisy has gone by?
_You_ know--all that I ought to know. Now that even the newspapers are
aware of Max's--and Adrienne's--connection with Ruvania, do you still
think it necessary that I, his wife, should be kept in the dark?"

"The newspapers?" Olga spoke with sudden excitement. "How much do they
know? What do they say? . . . After all, though," she added more
quietly, "it doesn't much matter--now. Everything is settled--for good
or ill. But if the papers had got hold of it sooner--"

"Well?" queried Diana coolly, intent on driving her into giving up her
knowledge. "What if they had?"

Olga surveyed her ironically.

"What if they had? Only that, if they had, probably you wouldn't have
possessed a husband a few hours later. A knife in the back is a quick
road out of life, you know."

Diana caught her breath, and her self-command gave way suddenly.

"For God's sake, what do you mean? Tell me--you must tell
me--everything, everything! I can't bear it any longer. I know too
much--" She broke off with a dry, choking sob.

Olga's face softened.

"You poor child!" she muttered to herself. Then, aloud, she said gently:
"Tell me--how much do you know?"

With an effort Diana mastered herself again.

"I know Max's parentage," she began steadily.

"You know that?"--with quick surprise.

"Yes. And that he has a sister."

Olga nodded, smiling rather oddly.

"Yes. He has a sister," she admitted.

"And that he is involved in Ruvanian politics. Something is going to
happen there, in Ruvania--"

"Yes to that also. Something is going to happen there. The republic is
down and out, and the last of the Mazaroffs is going to receive back the
ducal crown." There was a tinge of mockery in Miss Lermontof's curt
tones.

Diana gave a cry of dismay.

"Not--not Max?" she stammered. All at once, he seemed to have receded
very far away from her, to have been snatched into a world whither she
would never be able to follow him.

"Max?" Olga's face darkened. "No--not Max, but Nadine Mazaroff."

"Nadine Mazaroff?" repeated Diana uncomprehendingly. "Who is Nadine
Mazaroff?"

"She is the woman you knew as Adrienne de Gervais."

"Adrienne? Is that her name--Nadine Mazaroff? Then--then"--Diana's
breath came unevenly--"she's not Max's sister?"

"No"--shortly. "She is--or will be within a week--the Grand Duchess of
Ruvania."

"Go on," urged Diana, as the other paused. "Go on. Tell me everything.
I know so much already that it can't be breaking faith with any one for
you to tell me the whole truth now."

Olga looked at her consideringly.

"No. I suppose, since the journalists have ferreted it out, it won't be
a secret much longer," she conceded grimly. "And, in any case, it
doesn't matter now. It's all settled." She sighed. "Besides"--with a
faint smile--"if I tell you, it will save Max a long story when you meet."

"Yes," replied Diana, an odd expression flitting across her face. "It
will save Max a long story--when we meet. Tell me," she continued, with
an effort, "tell me about--Nadine Mazaroff."

"Nadine?" cried Olga, with sudden violence. "Nadine Mazaroff is the
woman I hate more than any other on this earth!" Her eyes gleamed
malevolently. "She stands where Max should stand. If it were not for
her the Ruvanian people would have accepted him as their ruler--and
overlooked his English mother. But Nadine is the legitimate heir, the
child of the late Grand Duke--and Max is thrust out of the succession,
because our father's marriage was a morganatic one."

"_Your_ father?"

"Yes"--with a brief smile--"I am the sister whose existence you
discovered."

For a moment Diana was silent. It had never occurred to her to connect
Max and Olga in any way; the latter had always seemed to her to be more
or less at open enmity with him.

Immediately her heart contracted with the old haunting fear. What, then,
was Adrienne to Max?

"Go on," she whispered at last, under her breath. "Go on."

"I've never forgiven my father"--Olga spoke with increasing passion.
"For his happiness with his English wife, Max and I have paid every day
of our lives! . . . As soon as I was of age, I refused the State
allowance granted me as a daughter of Boris Mazaroff, and left the
Ruvanian Court. Since then I've lived in England as plain Miss
Lermontof, and earned my own living. Not one penny of their tainted
money will I touch!"--fiercely.

"But Max--Max!" broke in Diana. "Tell me about Max!" Olga's personal
quarrel with her country held no interest for a woman on the rack.

"Max?" Olga shrugged her shoulders. "Max is either a saint or a
fool--God knows which! For his loyalty to the House that branded him
with a stigma, and to the woman who robbed him of his heritage, has never
failed."

"You mean--Adrienne?" whispered Diana, as Olga paused an instant, shaken
by emotion.

"Yes, I mean Adrienne--Nadine Mazaroff. Her parents were killed in the
Ruvanian revolution--butchered by the mob on the very steps of the
palace. But she herself was saved by my brother. At the time the revolt
broke out, he was living in Borovnitz, the capital, and he rushed off to
the palace and contrived to rescue Nadine and get her away to England.
Since then, while the Royalist party have been working day and night for
the restoration of the Mazaroffs, Max has watched over her safety." She
paused, resuming with an accent of jealous resentment: "And it has been
no easy task. German money backed the revolution, in the hope that when
Ruvania grew tired of her penny-farthing republic--as she was bound to
do--Germany might step in again and convert Ruvania into a little
dependent State under Prussia. There's always a German princeling handy
for any vacant throne!"--contemptuously--"and in the event of a big
European War, Ruvania in German hands would provide an easy entrance into
Russia. So you see, Nadine, alive and in safety, was a perpetual menace
to the German plans. For some years she was hidden in a convent down in
the West Country, not very far from Crailing, and after a while people
came to believe that she, too, had perished in the revolution. It was
only then that Max allowed her to emerge from the convent, and by that
time she had grown from a young, unformed girl into a woman, so that
there was little danger of her being recognised by any casual
observer--or even by the agents of the anti-royalist party."

"Max seems to have done--a great deal--for her," said Diana, speaking
slowly and rather painfully.

Olga flashed her a brief look of understanding.

"Yes," she said quietly. "He has done everything that patriotism
demanded of him--even"--meaningly--"to the sacrificing of his own
personal happiness. . . . It was entirely his idea that Nadine should
pass as an actress. She always had dramatic talent, and when she came
out of the convent he arranged that she should study for the stage. He
believed that there was no safer way of concealing her identity than by
providing her with an entirely different one--and a very obvious one at
that. And events have proved him right. After all, people only become
suspicious when they see signs of secrecy, and there is no one more
constantly in the public eye than an actress. The last place you would
look for a missing grand duchess is on the English stage! The very
daring and publicity of the thing made it a success. No one guessed who
she was, and only I, I and Carlo Baroni, knew. Oh, yes, I was sworn to
secrecy"--as she read the question in Diana's eye--"and when I saw you
and Max drifting apart, and knew that a word from me could set things
right, I've been tempted again and again to break my oath. Thank
God!"--passionately--"Oh, thank God! I can speak now!"

She twisted her shoulders as though freed from some heavy burden.

"Yon thank God? _You_?" Diana spoke with bitter unbelief. "Why, it was
you who made things a thousand times worse between us--you who goaded me
into fresh suspicions. You never helped me to believe in him--although
you knew the truth! You tried to part us!"

"I know. I did try," acknowledged Olga frankly. "I'd borne it all for
years--watched my brother sheltering Nadine, working for her, using his
genius to write plays for her--spilling all his happiness at her
feet--and I couldn't endure it any longer. I thought--oh! I _prayed_
that when it came to a choice between you and Nadine he would give
way--let Nadine fend for herself. And that was why I tried to anger you
against him--to drive you into forcing his hand." She paused, her breast
heaving tumultuously. "But the plan failed. Max remained staunch, and
only his happiness came crashing down about his ears instead. There
is"--bleakly--"no saving saints and martyrs against their will."

A silence fell between them, and Diana made a few wavering steps towards
a chair and sat down. She felt as though her legs would no longer
support her.

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