The shock of the telegram seemed to impart to Carlita the strength she
required for action.
She felt a new vitality, new courage pouring through her like the
false, effervescent strength from wine, but she did not recognize its
falsity. She felt herself capable of anything to bring Leith Pierrepont
to justice, to bring to the gallows the craven coward that had robbed
Olney Winthrop of life.
"The carriage is here; let us go out!" she cried feverishly to Jessica.
"I can be ready in five minutes."
She arose and placed the two telegrams with their translations in her
desk, together with the volume of "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,"
and locked it carefully, while Jessica went away to her own room.
To her surprise she found her mother standing there, her hands pressed
upon her breast, her haggard eyes wild with fear.
"What are you doing here?" cried Jessica, roughly, now that there was
no longer a necessity to oil her treacherous tongue. "You look like a
fright! Ever since that milk-sop, Olney, was reported murdered, you
have gone about like an uneasy ghost. You've even neglected your hair
until there is a black stripe as wide as my fingers down the middle of
your head. For the Lord's sake, pull yourself together, and stop acting
like a frightened school miss who has found a mouse nibbling at her
bread and butter. Go and color your hair!"
"Jessica, have you no heart at all? What is it that you intend to do?
Oh, I wish to God I had never consented to allow the child of another
woman to come into our household. I wish--"
"Oh, let up!" interrupted her respectful daughter, carelessly. "You've
done it, and there is no use in grieving over spilled milk. We've got
her money, and I'll have a darned sight more of it before I get through
with life, or I'll miss my reckoning."
"Jessica! Jessica, for the love of Heaven! what is it that you mean to
do?"
"Oh, rot! Don't stand there wringing your hands and whining like a
whipped cur. If you had any blood in your veins you would help me,
and not make difficulties the greater. What do I mean to do?"--her
face darkening cruelly--"I mean to have the deepest and most complete
revenge upon those two that woman ever planned. I have thought it all
out carefully and well, and the best of it is, that she shall execute
my every wish. I mean to ruin her body and soul. And as for him--well,
his punishment shall remain my secret. And now there is something that
I want you to do."
"Oh, Jessica, I can not! I--"
The girl turned swiftly and caught her mother by the wrist, her fingers
closing upon it like bands of steel. Her eyes, burning in their fierce
wrath, looked into those shrinking ones, and her voice came in a heavy,
hoarse whisper:
"You will obey me, do you hear? You will obey me, or--"
She did not complete the threat. It was not necessary. The haggard eyes
had dropped. A slow shiver had passed over the elder woman. She looked
suddenly bowed and broken, and, for the first time in her life, old.
Jessica dropped her wrist, and turned away, a low exclamation of
disgust dropping from her lips.
"I want to send for Meriaz!" she exclaimed, contemptuously.
"He is--here," stammered Mrs. Chalmers, helplessly.
"Here!" exclaimed Jessica, turning quickly, her interest returning.
"Yes."
"And you never told me?"
"I came to tell you now."
"And you beat about the bush in this whining way? Heavens! I sometimes
wonder how it is that you can be my mother! Where is he?"
"At the Holland."
"Send for him. Let him be here in my room at seven o'clock this
evening."
"He--wants--money," faltered Mrs. Chalmers.
"Money? I thought to have to pay a higher price for his services
than that. Certainly he can have money--Carlita's money," she added,
maliciously. "Give him all he wants, but have him here at seven. I am
going out to drive with your ward. Look here! There'll be a game of
poker here tonight. It'll be a rattler, too, and don't you forget it!
I want you to have your wits about you, and not go wool-gathering.
Carlita will play."
"Carlita!"
"You look as shocked as if I had told you I intended to murder her. She
must win. Win heavily, you understand?"
"She has consented to play?"
"No; but I mean that she shall before the evening is over. Take care
that the supper afterward is exceptionally nice, and make sure that
there is plenty of champagne."
"You mean that she shall drink that?"
"I do. I know her hot Southern temperament. There will be no half
measures with her when she has once learned her lesson. A useless waste
of time might be fatal to my plans, and I do not propose that there
shall be a moment lost. I don't want you to come down there tonight
looking as you do now. Clear up your lugubrious countenance, get that
black stripe out of your hair, and come down as your old smiling self.
If you fail me, you know well enough that there will be another added
in my list for vengeance."
"Is it possible that you are human, Jessica?"
"And your daughter, my lady!" she added, with a mocking bow. "Bah!
One would think that you were an angel! Don't forget that I know your
life. Posing is not becoming to you. You are detaining me from my sweet
friend. Au revoir!"
Ten minutes later she was tucking the robes around Carlita in the
victoria with as much tenderness as a loving sister could have shown,
and as they were driving through the park she carefully broached the
subject upon which she had spoken to her mother.
"Look here, Miss Priscilla," she began, half laughing, in her boyish,
fascinating way, "the time has come for you to get out of this Madonna
life you are leading. I am going to take the reins in my hands. Do you
know what I have done?"
"No! What?"
"I have made arrangements to have a great blowout at the house tonight,
and you are to be the principal attraction."
"I?"
"Yes. Did it ever really come home to you with great force, Carlita,
that you are a wonderfully beautiful girl?"
"Flatterer!"
"Not at all: it's the solemn truth. If you are really serious in
desiring to work out the end you have in view about Olney, you
must bring Leith Pierrepont to terms as quickly as you can. There
is absolutely nothing that will do it like feeling that you need a
protector. In spite of the crime that he has committed, he is really a
great prude himself, or poses as one, which is quite the same thing. He
will not like to have the woman whom he wishes to make his wife playing
poker, and it will bring him around more quickly than anything. Come,
now; will you join us tonight?"
It never occurred to Carlita to look into the logic of the speech. She
was restless, nervous. She wanted to do something that would help
her to forget for even such a short time, and Jessica's victory was
infinitely easier than she had any idea it would be.
"Yes, I will join you," she answered, feverishly, feeling a sudden
elation in knowing that she would be doing something to which he would
object. "But I don't know how to play."
"You know the cards?"
"Oh, yes."
"Then that will be quite sufficient. You'll learn the rules of poker
in five minutes, and that is about all of the game that two-thirds of
the people know who play it, particularly those who consider themselves
experts. I told mamma to have a supper prepared. We'll have a lark, and
don't you forget it. We shall accomplish your object sooner than you
anticipated."
"How shall I thank you for your help?"
"Wait until it is done, and your object is attained, then, perhaps, you
may see a way. What have you got to wear tonight? It must not be black."
"I have a white gown."
"We can make that answer with flowers. Suppose we drive to the
florist's, and then on home, to make sure that everything will be in
readiness?"
"I am willing."
A gleam of color had sprung already to Carlita's pale cheeks, in
anticipation of the evening. She had determined that the old reserve
should be thrown completely aside, and that she would be the gayest
of the gay. She was comforting her shrinking, sickening soul by the
reflection that it was for Olney's sake--to discover Olney's murderer.
And so they returned to prepare for the evening, both of them in a
whirl of excitement, though for far different reasons.