After the tragic death of her husband, Lady Beltham--whose previous life
had inclined to the austere--withdrew into almost complete retirement.
The world of gaiety and fashion knew her no more. But in the world where
poverty and suffering reign, in hospital wards and squalid streets, a
tall and beautiful woman might often be seen, robed all in black, with
distinguished bearing and eyes serene and grave, distributing alms and
consolation as she moved. It was Lady Beltham, kind, good and very
pitiful, bent on the work of charity to which she had vowed her days.
Yet she had not allowed herself to be crushed by sorrow; after the
tragedy which left her a widow, she had assumed the effective control of
her husband's property, and, helped by faithful friends, had carried on
his interests and administered his estates, spreading a halo of kindness
all around her.
To help her in the heavy correspondence entailed by all these affairs,
she found three secretaries none too many. On M. Etienne Rambert's
recommendation, Thérèse Auvernois was now one of these, and the young
girl was perfectly happy in her new surroundings; time was helping her
to forget the tragedy which had taken her grandmother from her at
Beaulieu, and she enjoyed the company of the well-born, well-bred
English gentlewomen.
Lady Beltham was reclining on a sofa in the great hall of her house at
Neuilly. It was a spacious room, furnished half as a lounge and half as
an office, and Lady Beltham liked to receive people there. A large
glass-enclosed balcony commanded a view over the garden and the
boulevard Richard Wallace beyond, with the Bois de Boulogne beyond that
again. A few minutes before, a footman had brought in a table and set
out tea-things, and Lady Beltham was reading while Thérèse and the two
young English girls were chattering among themselves.
The telephone bell rang and Thérèse answered it.
"Hullo? Yes ... yes: you want to know if you may call this evening? The
Reverend--oh, yes: you have just come from Scotland? Hold on a minute."
She turned to Lady Beltham. "It is Mr. William Hope, and he wants to
know if you will see him to-night. He has just come from your place in
Scotland."
"The dear man!" exclaimed Lady Beltham; "of course he may come," and as
Thérèse turned lightly to convey her permission to the clergyman waiting
at the other end of the line, she caught a smile on the face of one of
the other girls. "What is the joke, Lisbeth?" she enquired.
The girl laughed brightly.
"I think the worthy parson must have smelt the tea and toast, and wants
to make up for the wretched dinner he got in the train."
"You are incorrigible," Lady Beltham replied. "Mr. Hope is above such
material matters."
"Indeed he isn't, Lady Beltham," the girl persisted. "Why, only the
other day he told Thérèse that all food deserved respect and esteem
directly a blessing had been asked upon it, and that a badly cooked
steak was a kind of sacrilege."
"A badly cooked pheasant," Thérèse corrected her.
"You are both wicked little slanderers," Lady Beltham protested gently,
"and don't know the blessing a good appetite is. You do, Susannah, don't
you?"
Susannah, a pretty Irish girl, looked up from a letter she was reading,
and blushed.
"Oh, Lady Beltham, I've been ever so much less hungry since Harry's ship
sailed."
"I don't quite see the connection," Lady Beltham answered. "Love is good
nourishment for the soul, but not for the body. However, a good appetite
is nothing to be ashamed of, and you ought to keep your roses for your
future husband, and qualify in every way to be an excellent mother of a
family."
"With lots and lots of children," Lisbeth went on wickedly: "seven or
eight daughters at the very least, all of whom will marry nice young
clergymen when their time comes and----"
She stopped speaking and the light chatter died away as a footman
entered and announced the Reverend William Hope, who followed him
immediately into the room, an elderly man with a full, clean-shaven face
and a comfortable portliness of figure.
Lady Beltham offered him a cordial hand.
"I am delighted you are back," she said. "Will you have a cup of tea
with us?"
The parson made a general bow to the girls gathered about the table.
"I got a wretched dinner in the train," he began, but Lisbeth
interrupted him.
"Don't you think this tea smells delicious?" she asked.
The parson put out his hand to take the cup she offered to him, and
bowed and smiled.
"Precisely what I was going to observe, Miss Lisbeth."
Thérèse and Susannah turned away to hide their amusement, and Lady
Beltham adroitly changed the subject. She moved towards her
writing-table.
"Mr. Hope must have much to tell me, girls, and it is getting late. I
must get to business. Did you have a good journey?"
"Quite as good as usual, Lady Beltham. The people at Scotwell Hill are
very plucky and good, but it will be a hard winter; there is snow on the
hills already."
"Have the women and children had all their woollen things?"
"Oh, yes: twelve hundred garments have been distributed according to a
list drawn up by the under-steward; here it is," and he handed a paper
to Lady Beltham, who passed it on to Susannah.
"I will ask you to check the list," she said to the girl, and turned
again to the clergyman. "The under-steward is a good fellow, but he is a
rabid politician; he may have omitted some families that are openly
radical; but I think charity should be given equally to all, for poverty
makes no political distinctions."
"That is the right Christian view," the clergyman said approvingly.
"And what about the sanatorium at Glasgow?" Lady Beltham went on.
"It is very nearly finished," the good man answered. "I have got your
lawyers to cut down the contractor's accounts by something like fifteen
per cent, which means a saving of nearly three hundred pounds."
"Excellent," said Lady Beltham, and she turned to Thérèse. "You must add
that three hundred pounds to the funds of the Scotwell Hill coal
charity," she said. "They will want all of it if the winter is going to
be a hard one," and Thérèse made a note of the instruction, full of
admiration for Lady Beltham's simple generosity.
But Mr. Hope was fidgeting on his chair. He seized an opportunity when
Lady Beltham, busy making notes, had turned her deep and steady eyes
away from him, to say in a low tone:
"Have I your permission just to mention--poor Lord Beltham?"
Lady Beltham started, and her face betrayed an emotion which she bravely
controlled. Hearing the name pronounced, the three girls withdrew to the
far end of the room, where they began to talk among themselves. Lady
Beltham signified her assent, and Mr. Hope began.
"You know, dear friend, this has been my first visit to Scotland since
Lord Beltham's death. I found your tenants still grievously upset by the
tragedy that occurred nearly a year ago. They have got by heart all the
newspaper accounts of the mysterious circumstances attending Lord
Beltham's death, but those are not enough to satisfy the sympathetic
curiosity of these excellent people, and I was obliged to tell them over
and over again in full detail--all we knew."
"I hope no scandal has gathered round his name," said Lady Beltham
quickly.
"You need have no fear of that," the clergyman replied in the same low
tone. "The rumour that got about when the crime was first discovered,
that Lord Beltham had been surprised in an intrigue and killed in
revenge, has not won acceptance. Local opinion agrees that he was
decoyed into a trap and killed by the man Gurn, who meant to rob him,
but who was either surprised or thought he was going to be, and fled
before he had time to take the money or the jewels from the body of his
victim. They know that the murderer has never been caught, but they also
know that there is a price on his head, and they all hope the police----
Oh, forgive me for recalling all these painful memories!"
While he had been speaking, Lady Beltham's face had expressed almost
every shade of emotion and distress; it seemed to be drawn with pain at
his concluding words. But she made an effort to control herself, and
spoke resignedly.
"It cannot be helped, dear Mr. Hope. Go on."
But the clergyman changed the topic.
"Oh, I was quite forgetting," he said more brightly. "The under-steward
has turned out the two Tillys, quite on his own authority: you must
remember them, two brothers, blacksmiths, who drank a great deal and
paid very little, and created so much scandal in the place."
"I object to the under-steward doing any such thing without referring to
me first," Lady Beltham exclaimed warmly. "Man's duty is to persuade and
forgive, not to judge and punish. Kindness breeds kindness, and it is
pity that wins amendment. Why should a subordinate, my under-steward,
presume to do what I would not permit myself to do?"
She had sprung to her feet and was pacing excitedly about the room; she
had wholly dropped the impassive mask she habitually wore, concealing
her real personality.
The three girls watched her in silence.
The door opened anew, and Silbertown came in, the major-domo of Lady
Beltham's establishment at Neuilly. He brought the evening letters, and
the girls speedily took all the envelopes and newspapers from the tray
and began to sort and open them, while the major-domo entered into
conversation with his mistress, and the Rev. William Hope seized the
opportunity to say good night, and take his leave.
Many of the letters were merely appeals to help in money or in kind,
but one long letter Lisbeth handed to Lady Beltham. She glanced at the
signature.
"Ah, here is news of M. Etienne Rambert," she exclaimed, and as Thérèse
instinctively drew near, knowing that she, too, might hear something of
what her old friend had written, Lady Beltham put the letter into her
hand. "You read it, my dear, and then you can tell me presently what he
has to say."
Thérèse read the letter eagerly. M. Etienne Rambert had left Paris a
week before, upon a long and important journey. The energetic old fellow
was to make a trip in Germany first, and then go from Hamburg to
England, where he had some business to attend to on behalf of Lady
Beltham, with whom he was on more confidential terms than ever. Then he
meant to sail from Southampton and spend the winter in Colombia, where
he had important interests of his own to look after.
While Thérèse was reading, Lady Beltham continued her conversation with
her major-domo.
"I am glad you had the park gate seen to this afternoon," she said. "You
know how nervous I am. My childhood in Scotland was very lonely, and
ever since then I have had a vague terror of solitude and darkness."
The major-domo reassured her: he had no lack of self-confidence.
"There is nothing for your ladyship to be afraid of; the house is
perfectly safe, and carefully guarded. Walter, the porter, is a
first-rate watch-dog and always sleeps with one eye open. And I,
too----"
"Yes, I know, Silbertown," the young widow replied; "and when I give
myself time to think I am not nervous. Thank you; you can leave me now."
She turned to the three girls.
"I am tired, dears; we won't stay up any later."
Lisbeth and Susannah kissed her affectionately and went away. Thérèse
lingered a moment, to bring a book, a Bible, and place it on a table
close to Lady Beltham's chair. Lady Beltham laid a hand upon her head as
if in blessing, and said gently:
"Good night; God bless you, dear child!"