Pateley, who had been caught up in some measure into the excitement of
Rachel's emotion, was brought back to earth again with a run, as he
passed with her through the brightly coloured hangings which drooped
over the portals of the bazaar and found themselves in the gay crowd
within. His misgivings grew as he felt more and more the incongruity of
the errand they were bent upon to the preoccupations of the people who
surrounded them. There was no doubt that, whatever the ultimate result
as far as Mrs. Birkett and the needs she represented were concerned, the
bazaar, that subsidiary consideration apart, was being very successful
indeed. The sound of voices and laughter filled the air, and the gloomy
previsions Lady Chaloner had felt as to the lack of buyers were
apparently not realised, since the whole of the available space
surrounded by the stalls was filled with people engaged in some sort of
very active and voluble commercial transactions with one another which,
financial result or not, were of a most enjoyable kind, to judge by the
bursts of laughter they necessitated. Rachel, pale, strung up, with the
look of determination in her face called up in the usually timid by an
unwonted resolve, was making her way, or rather trying to do so, in
Pateley's wake, bewildered by the sights and sounds around her. Pateley
at each step was beset by some laughing vendor from whom he had much ado
to escape, and indeed in most cases did not succeed in doing so without
having paid toll. By the time he had gone half along the room he was the
possessor of three tickets for raffles, for each of which he had paid a
sum he would have grudged for the unneeded article that was being
raffled. He had bought several single flowers, each one on terms which
should have commanded an armful of roses, and he had had three dips into
a bag from which fortunately he had emerged with nothing more permanent
than sawdust. Rachel also had been accosted by a vendor as soon as she
came in, a moment of poignant embarrassment for all parties
concerned--herself, her escort, and the fascinating seller who had
offered her wares, for Rachel, looking at her with startled eyes, felt
in her pocket as though at last seeing what was wanted of her, and then
stammered, "I'm so sorry, I have no money with me." Pateley knew the
vendor; it was no other than Mrs. Samuels, who had emerged from behind
her stall, and was making the round of the bazaar with a basket of most
attractive-looking cakes. His eye met hers in hurried and involuntary
misgiving, mutely telling her that Rachel was not a suitable customer,
and that she had better carry her wares elsewhere. She at once responded
to the unconscious confidence and returned to himself.
"Now, Mr. Pateley," she said ingratiatingly, "you, I know, never refuse
a cake. Look, these are what you had when you came to tea with me the
other day. Now, I'll choose you the very best."
"Of course, if you will choose one for me," said Pateley gallantly.
"Oh, but one is not enough," she said, "you must have two--you really
must. Five marks. Thank you so much!" and she tripped off.
Pateley, who had already, as we have seen, spent a good deal of time and
of the money which is supposed to be its equivalent in the bazaar before
going to see Rachel, began to be conscious that before he got round it
again he would have spent a sum large enough to have kept him another
week in Schleppenheim. "However," he said to himself with a sigh, "it is
all part of the story, I suppose." In his inmost soul he felt the
conviction that he was altogether, in his strange progress through the
joyous crowd with that pale, anxious companion, going through a
sufficient penance to make amends for the misfortune of which he was the
primary cause.
"Where is Lord Stamfordham?" whispered Rachel anxiously. "Do you see
him?"
"Not at this moment," said Pateley, looking vainly in every direction.
The difficulties of his quest, and the still worse difficulties that
would certainly face him when the object of that quest should be
attained, loomed with increased terror before him.
The names of the stallholders, of the performers, waved above their
respective quarters. In the corner of the great tent was a
mysterious-looking enclosure, of which the entrance was closed by a
curtain, and above which hung the legend, "Oriental Fortune-telling.
Lady Adela Prestige." Lady Adela Prestige! That was probably the most
likely place to try for. "I think he may be over there," he said, and
without a word, hardly conscious of the people who were passing through,
Rachel followed him.
"Hallo, Pateley, is that you?" said a cheery voice. He turned round and
saw Wentworth, a packet of tickets in his hand. "Would you like to have
a ticket for the performing dog?" said Wentworth, not seeing who
Pateley's companion was.
"No," said Pateley, almost savagely, thankful to be accosted by some one
whom he need not answer by a smile and a compliment. "I don't want any
fooling of that sort now."
"My dear fellow," said Wentworth, amazed, "what have you come here for,
then?" and as he spoke he saw Rachel behind Pateley, and realised that
something was happening that had no connection with the business of the
bazaar.
"Look here," Pateley said aside to him, "do you know where Stamfordham
is?"
"Over there," said Wentworth, with some inward wonder, pointing towards
Lady Adela's corner. "I saw him there just now."
"Ah!" said Pateley, "all right," hardly knowing if he was relieved or
not, but desperately threading his way in the direction indicated, still
followed by Rachel.
Wentworth looked after them in surprise.
"What is that you are saying, Mr. Wentworth?" said a voice in his ear,
and he turned quickly and found himself face to face with Mrs. Samuels.
"A performing dog? Where? I am quite sure it must be performing better
than Princess Hohenschreien."
Wentworth replied by eagerly offering a ticket.
"Let me offer you a ticket, Mrs. Samuels, and then you shall see for
yourself."
"Well, I will take a ticket," she said, "on condition that you will tell
me honestly what the performance is."
"Certainly," said Wentworth, with a bow, offering the ticket and
receiving a gold piece in exchange. "It is Lady Chaloner's Aberdeen
terrier. He sits up and begs with a piece of biscuit on his nose while
somebody says 'Trust!' and 'Paid for!'"
"That is a most extraordinary and novel trick," said Mrs. Samuels
gravely.
"It is unique," said Wentworth; "and sometimes he tosses the biscuit in
the air when they say 'Trust,' sometimes when they say 'Paid for,' but
generally he drops on all fours and eats it before they have begun."
"Thank you," said Mrs. Samuels. "I am afraid Princess Hohenschreien's
performance will be best after all." Then Wentworth suddenly saw from
her face that some other attraction was approaching from behind him, and
turned quickly round as Mrs. Samuels, with her most beguiling air,
advanced and offered her basket of cakes to Lord Stamfordham.
"Now, milord," she said. "I am sure you must be hungry."
"And what makes you think that?" said Stamfordham, whose air of willing
response and admiration made it quite evident that Mrs. Samuels's
blandishments were not usually exercised in vain. "Do I look pale, or
haggard, or weary?"
"None of these," said Mrs. Samuels; "but I am sure it is a long time
since I had the privilege of offering you a cup of tea at my stall.
Quite half an hour, I should think."
"Quite possible," said Stamfordham. "All I can say is that it seems to
me an eternity since I last had the pleasure of receiving anything at
your hands. Pray give me a bag of those cakes. You baked them yourself,
of course?"
"Of course," Mrs. Samuels said, with a little rippling laugh. And then
in answer to Stamfordham's smile of incredulity, "All is fair in ...
bazaars and war, you know."
In the meantime, Wentworth, enlisted, he himself did not understand how
or why, in the anxious quest in which he saw Pateley and Rachel engaged,
had hurried after Pateley, whose broad back he saw disappearing, to tell
him of Lord Stamfordham's whereabouts. Pateley turned quickly round.
Lord Stamfordham was coming towards them, with Mrs. Samuels, wreathed in
smiles, at his side.
"I think," she was saying, "when you have eaten those cakes you can
drink some more tea, don't you think so?"
"It is not improbable," Stamfordham replied. "But was our bargain that I
was to eat them all myself?"
"Certainly," Mrs. Samuels replied.
"My dear lady," Stamfordham said, "I will engage to eat every one of
them that you have baked, I can't say more. And in the meantime I am
bound on a very foolish errand. I have sworn to go and have my fortune
told," and as Mrs. Samuels's eye, with a careless and ingenuous air,
rested upon Lady Adela's name above the tent, she smiled inwardly at the
thought that what that astute lady might possibly prophesy would also
perhaps come true if, as well as prophesying, she eventually brought her
intelligence to bear upon its accomplishment.
"Wait one moment," Pateley said, almost nervously, to Rachel. "There is
Stamfordham, he is coming this way," and as Stamfordham drew near the
door of the tent Pateley accosted him.
Lady Adela, it may be presumed, had some occult means of discovering
from inside who was drawing near her fateful quarters, or else she had
the simpler methods more usually employed by mortals, of looking to
see. At all events, as Stamfordham came towards her enclosure, she
appeared on the threshold and winningly lifted the mysterious curtain,
burlesquing a low curtsey in reply to Stamfordham's bow.
"Lord Stamfordham!" Pateley said hurriedly. Stamfordham, in some
surprise, looked round. He had been seeing Pateley on and off during the
day. Why did he accost him in this way? But the urgent note in his voice
arrested his attention. Then, as he looked up, he saw an anxious
pale-faced, girlish figure standing by Pateley, looking at him with
large brown eyes filled with indescribable anxiety. It was a face that
he knew, that he had seen somewhere. Who was it? For one puzzled moment
he tried to remember. Pateley took the bull by the horns.
"Lord Stamfordham," he said, "Mrs. Rendel wants to speak to you."
Mrs. Rendel! Of course it was Mrs. Rendel. He had last seen her that day
at Cosmo Place. Again a wave of indignation rushed over him. Rachel
advanced desperately, looking as though she were going to speak.
Stamfordham, involuntarily looking round him at the crowd of observers
and listeners, said quickly in a low voice, "I am very sorry, it is no
good. It is impossible." And then to Pateley, "It is no good, I can't do
anything. You must tell her so," and he passed through the curtain which
Lady Adela let drop behind him. Rachel looked at Pateley, then to his
amazement and also to his involuntary admiration she lifted the curtain
and passed in too.
The two people inside stood aghast at her appearance. She had followed
so quickly upon Stamfordham's steps that he was still standing looking
round him at his strange surroundings, Lady Adela facing him with a
smile of welcome. The apparatus of the fortune-teller apparently
consisted in certain cabalistic properties--wands, dials with signs upon
them, and the like--arranged round a table. Stamfordham spoke first. He
was absolutely convinced that Rachel had come to appeal to him for
mercy, and was as absolutely clear that it was an appeal to which he
could not listen.
"Mrs. Rendel," he said, "I am afraid I am obliged to tell you that I
cannot listen to anything you may have to say. I can guess, of course,
why you have come here, and I am sorry for _you_," he said, leaning on
the pronoun. "But I can do nothing," and he spoke slowly and inexorably,
"I can do nothing for either you or your husband." But Rachel had now
lost all fear, all misgiving.
"I don't think," she said, unconsciously drawing herself up and looking
straight at him, "you know what I have come to say, and I must ask you
to listen for a moment."
"I think I do know," Stamfordham said sternly, and she saw he meant to
go out.
"I have come to tell you," she said, quickly standing between him and
the door, "that my husband was wrongfully accused of the thing that you
believed he did." Stamfordham shook his head: this was what he expected
to hear. "I know who did it, I have found out to-day," and she grew more
and more assured as she went on. Stamfordham started, then looked
incredulous again. "I have come to tell you who did it, that you may
know my husband is innocent." Then she became aware of Lady Adela, who,
having at first been much annoyed at her brusque intrusion, was now
suddenly roused to interest, even to sympathy. Rachel turned to her. "I
must say this," she said. "Don't you see, don't you understand, what it
is to me?"
"Yes, yes, you must," the other woman said, with a sudden impulse of
help and sympathy. "Go on," and she went outside. Stamfordham felt a
slight accession of annoyance as Lady Adela passed out; he felt it was
going to be very difficult for him to deal as cruelly as he was bound to
do with the anxious, quivering wife before him. He stood silent and
absolutely impenetrable. Rachel went on quickly in broken sentences.
"I didn't know about this at the time. I have been ill since. I could
not remember. You brought some papers for my husband to copy, and he
locked them up so that no one should see them, and while he went down to
speak to you they were pulled out of his writing-table from outside, by
somebody else who was there, and who showed them to Mr. Pateley. Mr.
Pateley came in and went out again. Frank didn't know he had been
there." Stamfordham stopped her.
"They were taken out by 'somebody,' you say; do you mean--in fact I must
gather from your words--that it was--do you mean by yourself?"
"Oh no, no," Rachel cried, as it dawned upon her what interpretation
might be put upon her words. "Oh no, not myself! I wish it had been, I
wish it had!"
"You wish it had?" Stamfordham said, surprised. "Who was it, then? Who
was it?" he said again, in the tone of one who must have an answer. "Who
got the paper out and showed it to Pateley?"
Rachel forced herself to speak.
"It was--my father," she said, "Sir William Gore." And with an immense
effort she prevented herself from bursting into tears.
"Sir William Gore!" said Stamfordham, "did _he_ do it?"
"Yes," said Rachel; "I only knew it to-day, and I am telling you to
prove to you that it wasn't my husband."
Stamfordham stood for a moment trying to recall Rendel's attitude at the
time, and then, as he did so, he made up his mind that Rendel must have
known.
"But," he said, after a moment, still somewhat perplexed, "you say you
didn't know about this?"
"No," said Rachel, "I didn't. My father," and again her lips quivered
and told Stamfordham what that father and his good name probably were to
her, "was taken very ill, and I had an accident at the time and did not
know anything that had happened. Frank told me nothing. Then my father
died, and I was ill, and we came here and I did not know it at all till
my husband came in and told me"--and her eyes blazed at the
thought--"told me what had happened to-day..." She stopped. Stamfordham
felt a stab as he thought of it.
"But," he said, "did he know? Did he tell you then? Did he know that it
was Sir William Gore?"
"Oh no, no," Rachel said; "it was Mr. Pateley, and he brought me here to
tell you that you might know." Then Stamfordham began to understand.
"Mrs. Rendel," he said, with a change of voice and manner that made her
heart leap within her. "Where is your husband?"
"He is at our house, the little pavilion behind the Casino garden."
"Will you take me to him?" Stamfordham said.
Rachel looked at him, unable to speak, her face illuminated with
hope--then she covered her face in her hands, saying through the tears
she could no longer restrain, "Oh, thank you, thank you!"
"Come," said Stamfordham gently, but with decision. "You must dry your
tears," he added with a smile, "or people will think I have been
ill-treating you." And to the speechless amazement of Lady Adela, who
was standing outside the curtain waiting until, as she expressed it to
herself, she too should have her "innings," Stamfordham passed out
before her eyes with Rachel, saying to Lady Adela as he passed, "Will
you forgive me? I am going to take Mrs. Rendel back." Then looking round
him at the jostling crowd he said to Rachel, offering her his arm, "Will
you think me very old-fashioned if I ask you to take my arm to get
through the crowd?" And, leaning on his arm, hardly daring to believe
what had happened or might be going to happen, Rachel passed back along
the room through which she had just come with Pateley, the crowd this
time opening before them with some indescribable tacit understanding
that something had happened concerned with the incident which, as Rendel
had foreseen, nearly everybody at the bazaar had heard of. They did not
speak again until they reached the pavilion.
Latchkeys were unknown at Schleppenheim, and the inhabitants of the
little summer abodes walked in by the simple process of turning the
handle of the front door. Rachel and Stamfordham went straight in out of
the sunlight into the cool little room into which, in long low rays, the
setting sun was sending its beams. Rendel had been trying to read: the
book that lay beside him on the floor showed that the attempt had been
in vain. He looked up, still with that strange, hunted expression that
had come into his face since the morning--the expression of the man to
whom every door opening, every figure that comes in may mean some fresh
cause of apprehension. Rachel came into the room without speaking,
something that he could not read in the least in her face, then his
heart stood still within him as he saw Stamfordham behind her. What,
again? What new ordeal awaited him? He made no sign of recognition, but
stood up and looked Stamfordham straight in the face. Stamfordham came
forward and spoke.
"I have come," he said, "to apologise to you for what took place to-day,
to beg you to forgive me." Rendel was so utterly astounded that he
simply looked from one to the other of the people standing before him
without uttering a sound.
"I have just learnt," Stamfordham went on, "the name of the person who
did the thing of which I wrongfully accused you." Rendel made a hurried
movement forward as if to stop him.
"Wait, wait one moment!" he cried, "don't say it before my wife--she
doesn't know." In that moment Rachel realised what he had done for her.
"Do you know?" asked Stamfordham.
"Yes," Rendel answered.
With the old friendliness, and something deeper, in his face and voice,
Stamfordham said--
"Mrs. Rendel knows also. It was she told me."
"Rachel!" cried Rendel, turning to her. "Do you know?"
"Yes," said Rachel, trying to command her voice. "I know--now--that it
was--my father," and the eyes of the two met.
Stamfordham advanced to Rendel.
"Will you forgive me," he said again, "and shake hands?" Rendel held out
his hand and pressed Stamfordham's in a close and tremulous grasp, which
the other returned. "I must see you," he said. "Will you come to my
rooms some time? I shall be here for a week longer." He held out his
hand to Rachel. "Thank you," he said, "for what you have done." And he
went out.
Rendel turned towards Rachel, his arms outstretched, his face
transformed by the knowledge of the great love she had shown him. His
heart was too full for speech: in the closer union of silence that new
precious compact was made. The veil that had hung between them so long
was lifted for ever.
THE END.
* * * * *
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
The author's name on the original title page was "Mrs. Hugh Bell".
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other
inconsistencies. Typographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotes
and the like) have been fixed. Text that has been changed to correct an
obvious error by the publisher is noted below:
page 125: "Rendal" corrected to "Rendel"
"Of course," he said, after listening to what Rendal[Rendel] had to say
page 303: "toward's" corrected to "towards"
Wentworth, with some inward wonder, pointing toward's[towards] Lady
Adela's corner.