TRAPPED
Rarely did Mrs. Greta Gurden permit herself the luxury of brooding
upon her injuries. She was no philosopher, and it was sheer necessity
which made her disregard the irritations, petty and great, of life,
and concentrate her mind upon pleasant things. But she found herself
helpless with a leg that throbbed and throbbed, and the memory of
Anita Bellini’s insolence rankled as sorely. She was propped up in bed
with a heap of papers on her lap. Though there was no immediate need
for the work she had taken in hand, and, in truth, sought it only as a
relief from boredom, she permitted herself the illusion that she was
the victim of a task mistress who was not satisfied with her normal
and heavy exactions, but must needs add to her offence this torment of
a sick woman.
Old letters, old bills, a receipt or two, a few ancient telegrams
about nothing in particular, dozens of letters dealing earnestly with
forgotten accounts, an interminable correspondence between Anita and a
house agent--she turned the pages one by one, sorting the sheep from
the goats.
Presently she came to an old letter typewritten on plain paper--Anita,
like her dependent, had used a small portable typewriter for years.
The letter was unfinished; halfway through the princess had changed
her mind, or probably substituted another for this and had tossed the
rejected scrap aside to be gathered to the heap which had accumulated
and which was now being sorted.
She read the letter through as far as it went; she was sourly amused.
Anita must have been in a careless mood when she threw this away. The
old instinct of service told her that it ought to be destroyed at
once. She gripped the paper to tear it, thought better of her impulse,
and began to consider certain possibilities. To say that she felt
bitterly against Anita Bellini at that moment would be to grade her
emotion charitably. She was getting old, was she? She had lost her
looks and was unlikely to get a job in the chorus. Anita had taken it
for granted that she would be forever satisfied with the humiliating
position of companion. Capri was to be a kind of bonus.
The princess was a woman of temperament, sometimes feverishly elated,
sometimes savagely depressed. Yet in all her permutations of mood, she
had been consistently contemptuous of her hireling. Greta grew red and
hot and cold at the memory of the insults which this woman had heaped
upon her, and the hand that held the letter shook. And then an idea
began to take shape in her mind; it was half formed when she called
Mrs. Hobbs.
“Get my address book.”
She was a systematic woman, and entered without fail the location even
of chance acquaintances who might be of no value to her. She ran her
thumb down the index till it stopped at “D”; the last entry on the
crowded page was “Peter Dawlish.”
“Give me an envelope, please, and my fountain pen; and take this
letter to the post--no, bring my little typewriter.”
The obedient Mrs. Hobbs carried the tiny machine, which was a replica
of Anita’s, and laid it on the invalid’s lap. Greta inserted the
envelope, typed the address, and while the instrument was being
removed, inserted the torn sheet of paper and licked down the flap of
the envelope.
“Go to the general post office--you’d better take a bus each way--and
post this. If anybody asks you whether you’ve posted a letter for me,
you’re to say no.”
It was not the first time Mrs. Hobbs had received similar
instructions.
The houses in Severall Street are not equipped with letter boxes, and
postmen have learned by experience that inserting letters under doors
which are backed by coarse fibre mats is a difficult and sometimes an
impossible proposition.
Peter heard the heavy rat-tat of the postman and, going downstairs,
opened the door.
“Dawlish?” asked the postman.
“That is my name,” said Peter, in surprise. He took the letter and
closed the door. Had he followed the practice of Severall Street and
its people, which is never to go to the door without making a scrutiny
up and down the street, he could not have failed to see Leslie on her
way home.
His first thought was that it was a letter from her, but when he
brought it to the light of his room, he saw that it was typewritten
and had been posted in the city.
He opened the envelope and took out a sheet of typewriting paper. It
was discoloured, and one corner had been torn off. He looked at the
date and had a mild shock.
“July 7, 1916.”
And yet--as he saw--it had been posted that afternoon. There were just
three or four lines, the last of which stopped abruptly in the middle
of a sentence. Only dimly did he comprehend the significance of the
fragment.
Dear Jane: Druze has found a very good home for your son in a
middle-class family. There are no other children. He will be well
cared for. And----
Scribbled below in pencil, and almost indecipherable, were the words:
“Martha’s servant.”
He must have read the letter a dozen times before he understood.
“Jane’s son--Jane’s little son!” He came to his feet slowly, his limbs
trembling, the paper swimming before his eyes.
Jane’s son--his son! The consciousness of fatherhood momentarily
overwhelmed him. Jane had had a child. He had never dreamed--somewhere
in the world was a little boy, fatherless--his little boy! He grew hot
at the thought. And then, in a frenzy of impatience, he took up his
coat, struggled into it, and, not stopping to extinguish the lamp, ran
down the stairs and out of the house.
The bus that carried him to Piccadilly seemed to crawl. He got down at
a traffic block at Bond Street, half walked, half ran into Berkeley
Street, and came at last to the dark portals of Lady Raytham’s house.
It was past ten. She might be out. But he would wait for her--all
night if necessary. He hated her at that moment and there was jealousy
behind the hate. He hated her for not telling him, for excluding him
from the knowledge and inspiration of their gift. Perhaps he was being
brought up as Raytham’s child, to call him “father.” Peter grew
insanely furious at the thought.
To the new butler who opened the door all callers were as yet strange.
Peter seemed no stranger than others and he was met civilly.
“What name shall I tell her ladyship?” he asked.
“Mr. Peter,” said Peter, after thought.
He was shown into the small drawing room, and paced up and down like a
caged animal until he heard the door open and, turning, met face to
face, for the first time in eight years, the woman of “the adventure.”
She was pale but very calm and sure of herself as she closed the door
behind her. For a while they stood, looking at each other. She had
matured, grown more beautiful; the old, graceful carriage was
unchanged; the enticing lines of her had come to a greater perfection.
He had grown older, she thought, was much more of a man than when she
had known him before. His face had formed; he had resolution and
strength and a balance that had been missing; in his eyes she read
something that chilled her.
“You wish to see me, Peter?” she asked.
He nodded.
He was trembling; feared to speak lest his voice betray him.
“What is it you wish to see me about?”
“I want my child.” His voice was low; the words seemed to choke him,
so that he ended on a cough.
“You want--your child?”
She shook her head so slightly that if he had not been watching her
closely the gesture would have escaped him.
“Will you tell me what you mean?”
She was fencing. She wanted time to take all this in. He had shocked
her very badly.
“Why pretend, Jane? You know what I want, and what I mean. Where is
our child?”
She passed her hand wearily across her eyes.
“I don’t know,” she said. She made no attempt to evade the question,
accepted his knowledge, startling as it was, “I don’t know. Is it
worth while knowing? He is very happy. I did what was best, Peter. I
told nobody. When I went to Reno----”
“You have divorced me?”
She did not answer. A lie trembled on her lips and was instantly
rejected--impatiently.
“No, I have not divorced you,” she said. “They would not grant me a
divorce because you had not been served with the papers--or something
of the sort. I don’t understand the law very well. I was a fool, of
course.”
Another intense silence.
“That puts me in your hands, doesn’t it?” she went on. “Though I don’t
imagine you will----”
He stopped her with an impatient gesture.
“I’m not thinking of you and I’m not thinking of myself,” he said. “I
am thinking of the boy. You don’t know? Jane, you horrify me! You
don’t know where your own child---- Good heavens! I thought he might
not be here, but that you should tell me so quietly and calmly that
you’ve lost track of him--as if he were a----”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know. Honestly, Peter, I don’t know. I was terrified when I
knew he was coming. I just dimly remember seeing the little thing, and
then they took him away--we had arranged it beforehand.”
“Who are ‘we?’”
She hesitated.
“Anita was very good to me, and so was Druze. It was only then I
discovered that Druze was a woman. I had to pay for it
afterward--Druze’s knowledge, I mean. I don’t really remember the
child--only just that vague, queer impression like the elusive memory
of a dream. Peter, be a little pitiful. I was in a terrible condition;
my father was writing, asking me to make up my mind about Raytham. You
knew he wanted to marry me? Raytham had lent Father a lot of money,
and I was afraid, terribly afraid, of what would happen if Father came
to learn--about the marriage and everything.
“He knew I’d been to America, of course; I was supposed to have taken
an engagement to sing--you remember that, don’t you, Peter? But he
didn’t know I’d returned, or what had become of me. I had to send all
my letters to a friend in New York to be posted back to him.”
She stopped.
“Where is the child? That is all I want to know.”
She shook her head.
“Druze knew. She told me something just before she went out; she had
been drinking, Peter. She told me a ghastly thing.” Her voice broke.
“Terrible, terrible!” She covered her eyes again, and he waited, his
heart a heavy stone.
“This ghastly thing; what was it?” he asked at last.
“She said”--this needed courage to think, it was a torture to
say--“that even she didn’t know where the child was; that she had
handed the boy to the first person who, for a consideration, offered
to adopt it; and all the time I had been comforting myself with the
thought that--that he at least was being brought up happily, however
much a blackguard his foster father was.”
“What do you mean?” he demanded.
“I’ve been paying money, big sums of money,” she said at last, “as I
supposed to the man who had adopted him, and who, learning of my
marriage to Raytham, had for years blackmailed me. Too late I
discovered that this blackmailer was mythical, that it was Druze who
was robbing me all the time.”
Peter drew a deep breath.
“How awful! How perfectly awful!” he whispered. “Just disappeared into
the mass--and you allowed him to go. I can’t understand that. I
thought that women----”
She stopped him with a weary gesture.
“I don’t understand women, either. I wish I’d kept him and had faced
all the trouble that would have followed. You know about it for the
first time, Peter, and you have the support of your righteousness. It
has been a bad dream to me--an eight-year long discomfort. And now it
is a nightmare.” She pressed her throbbing temples. “I can’t sleep for
thinking of him. That little mite of a boy--my boy and yours--perhaps
being starved, or dead perhaps, or suffering----”
She screwed her eyes tight as though to shut out a horrible vision.
“Does Bellini know?” He was like ice now.
“Anita?” She looked at him in surprise. “No; why should she? You hate
Anita, of course. I’m not really--fond of her. She’s difficult. But
she was very helpful to me, Peter.”
He looked at her steadily.
“Who was Martha?”
He saw by her frown that she did not understand him.
“Do you know a woman called Martha?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t remember anybody of that name. Why?”
“Martha’s servant had the child. Bellini knows. And what Bellini
knows, I will know.”
He made as though to leave the room, but she barred the way.
“Peter, will you forgive me? I’ve been a fool--a wicked fool, Peter.
I’d gladly change places with my own kitchen maid to undo all the
past. You loathe me, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t loathe you,” he said quietly. “I’m awfully sorry for you
in a way; but I’m disappointed in you, too, Jane. You’ve been a
weakling.”
“Have I? I suppose I have.” She saw him, a blurred figure, through a
mist of tears. “I suppose I have. And one pays dearer for weakness
than for wickedness, I think. Where are you going?”
“I’m going to find the child.”
She threw out her arms in a gesture of despair.
“Find the child! If you only could! Peter, if you could bring him to
me and----”
“You!” He laughed harshly. “The child belongs to me! To me! Do you
hear? You had him and lost him. If I find him I will keep him.”
He brushed past her, threw open the door, and stalked through the hall
into the night.
He had still the greater part of the twenty pounds left that Leslie
had given to him, and at this moment of crisis he must spend; he could
not afford to economize. A taxi driver accepted with some reluctance
his order to drive to Wimbledon Common. It was a long journey, and he
had time to put in order the confusion of his mind.
Anita Bellini knew; he was confident of that. And if she knew, he
should know. Her residence was a mansion, standing in two acres of
ground on the fashionable side of Wimbledon Common; a big, somewhat
old-fashioned house, garnished with the square towers and big Gothic
turrets which were the joy of the Victorian architects. It had
something of a mediæval appearance, seemed to be a veritable castle
of despair when he ordered the cab to wait. The cautious man demanded
something on account, and wisely, as it proved.
He strode up the gravelled drive. No light showed in any window; even
the transom above the massive front door was lifeless. He pulled the
bell and the faint clang of it came back to him. After a long time he
heard the rattle of chains, the shooting back of a bolt, and a faint
light was reflected behind the fanlight. The door was opened a few
inches by a very old man with dirty white hair and wearing the
slovenly uniform of a footman. Peter saw that the longer chain was
still fastened to the door and that the aperture was not big enough to
squeeze through.
“You’re Simms, aren’t you?” He remembered the ancient. “I want to see
the princess.”
The old man made the grimace that Peter remembered.
“You can’t see the princess; she’s not at home,” he said in a loud
cracked voice.
“Tell her Peter Dawlish wishes to see her, and if she will not let me
in she can come to the door,” he said.
He was not prepared to have the door slammed in his face, yet that was
what happened. He waited for five minutes, and then he heard the lock
turn. This time he saw Anita. She wore a long green dress, smothered
as usual with beading which glittered in the dim hall light.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“I want to speak to you privately.”
“This is as private an interview as you’ll get,” she said coolly.
The reflection of the hall light on her monocle produced an eerie
illusion. It was as though she were glaring at him with one malignant
golden eye.
“What do you want?” she repeated. “If it’s money, you can’t have it.
This is not a charitable institution or a home for convicts.”
In the pause that followed he made a mental calculation as to the
strength of the chain that held him from admission. He might at a
pinch break it and force an entrance. He was prepared to go to any mad
lengths to get the information he sought.
“Where is my child?” he asked.
Not a muscle of the big face moved.
“I didn’t know you’d been raising a family. Surely I’m the last person
in the world to be acquainted with your vicarious progeny.”
“Where is Jane’s child? Perhaps you’ll understand that.”
She had been taken aback by the first question, he was sure. The
length of time that elapsed before she answered betrayed her.
“So you know that, do you? The child? I’m afraid I can’t tell you. I
have something better to do than to keep track of the indiscretions of
my friends, and certainly I do not concern myself with the
illegitimate children of convicted forgers----”
“You lie,” said Peter quietly. “You know I was married to Jane.”
Anita Bellini chuckled.
“The marriage was illegal; didn’t you know that? You didn’t comply
with certain formalities----”
“I have seen Jane to-night. She has no doubt about its legality. Where
is my son?”
“Where you will never find him.” All the pent-up malignity of the
woman suddenly took expression. Her face, never attractive, was
contorted by rage to an appearance that was almost ludicrous. “Where
you will never find him! In the slime and the mud where his father
belongs; dead, I hope!”
A sudden insane fury possessed him. He was scarcely human; saw the
hateful face of this woman through a redness, and flung himself
against the door. It jerked back with a crash and suddenly flew open.
The chain had broken.
To him she was no longer a woman, but some devil that had taken human
shape. He wanted to kill her, to grip that big throat and choke the
life out of her. As the chain broke, she stepped back, and he found
himself looking into the black muzzle of a pistol.
“Don’t move,” she said gratingly. “Don’t move, Peter Dawlish. I am
justified in shooting you in the defense of my life.”
She did not see his hand move. The pistol was struck down from her
grip and fell with a clatter on the floor; and, in his mad anger, with
murder in his heart, his hand was outflung. Then somebody called him.
“Peter!”
At the sound of the voice his arm dropped, paralyzed with amazement. A
woman was in the hall; she had come out of a room at the foot of the
broad stairway; a woman in black silk, white-haired, hard-faced; it
was his mother!
“Come in here.”
She pointed to the open door of the room and he walked past her
without another glance at Anita Bellini. She was shrinking back
against the wall, frightened for the first time in her life.
It was a small study furnished in the Oriental fashion; there was a
great silken divan, and a shaded lantern hung from the ceiling.
Something more modern he saw--a telephone on the tiny octagonal table.
The receiver was off--he had interrupted her in the act of
telephoning.
“What is the meaning of this?”
Mrs. Dawlish had assumed the old air that he knew so well and detested
so much.
He was still shaking, but he was calmer.
“I presume you don’t need to be told; you must have heard. I came to
your friend----”
“To the Princess Bellini,” interrupted the woman. “Yes?”
“To discover where was my child.”
“Really?” The gray eyebrows rose. “I was not aware that I was a
grandmother.”
The old devil rose again in him.
“Then your hearing is affected,” he said harshly. “You know--of course
you know! The whole gang of you know! You know about Jane, you know
about my marriage, you know about the child. Perhaps you know where he
is.”
And then, to add to the fire of his fury, he saw her smile.
“You have always been a fool, Peter. I suppose you will be a fool to
the end of your days,” she said. “You had better go back to your
envelope addressing and forget there are such things in the world as
children. I have been trying very hard to do the same for the past
seven years.”
She was a surprising woman, for without warning she came back to the
offer she had made to him.
“You would be well advised to go to Canada or Australia, or any other
place that takes your fancy,” she said, and went on in a
conversational tone to discuss the advantages which might accrue.
He was puzzled. Then it occurred to him that she was talking to gain
time--for what? His back had been to the door and now he edged round
until it was under his view. But if Anita Bellini contemplated any
treachery, there was no visible or audible evidence.
He heard the front-door bell ring, and an exchange of voices in the
hall, and then the door opened and two men entered. It was not
necessary that he should be very experienced in such matters to
realize that they were detectives. His mother’s narrative stopped
automatically. Her white, skinny finger pointed to him.
“This man is Peter Dawlish--an ex-convict!” she said. “I charge him
with threatening to murder my friend Princess Anita Bellini.”
A quarter of an hour after, the taxicab which Peter had employed to
bring him to Wimbledon deposited him at the police station, and he was
sitting, dazed and wrathful, behind the locked door of a police cell.