TWO WOMEN
Mr. Isidore David Baumgartner was in a state of high good humor. After
wasting many hundreds of cartridges he had actually shot a driven
grouse. True, the method of slaughter amounted almost to a crime.
Traveling fast and low before the wind, the doomed bird flew straight
toward the butts. Baumgartner closed his eyes, fired both barrels--the
first intentionally, the second from sheer nervousness--and a cloud of
feathers, out of which fell all that was left of legs, wings, and body,
showed how a gallant moorcock had met his fate.
"There's a clean hit for you, Sandy," cried the little man delightedly.
"It's all knack. I knew I could do it, once I got the hang of it."
"Man, but ye stoppit him," replied Sandy, who doled out encouragement
with a sour grin. The shattered carcass lay in full view on a tuft of
heather. Two ounces of shot had riddled it at a distance of ten feet.
"I suppose the second barrel was hardly necessary," said Baumgartner,
more critically.
"It's best to mak' sure," said the sardonic gillie, "but now ye've
got yer 'ee in, as the sayin' is, mebbe ye'll be droppin' ithers, Mr.
Baumgartner."
He held forth the spare gun as a hint. Grouse were plentiful at
Lochmerig, and three other men in the line of shelters were busy.
Baumgartner forthwith excelled himself. Just as a novice at Monte Carlo
may achieve several winning coups in succession, so did fortune favor
one whom nature had not designed as a sportsman. He shot with blind
confidence, and brought down half a dozen birds while they came sailing
over the crest of the hill before a strong breeze that brought them to
close range. That he rendered them for the most part uneatable did not
trouble him in the least. Sport was merely slaying to him; his only
trophies previously were some tame pigeons secured for practice.
So Baumgartner was well content. As he trudged down the brae to
Lochmerig Lodge, discoursing learnedly to his companions anent the
"stopping" qualities of his eighty-guinea pair of guns, his eyes roved
over the beauties of loch and glen, and the day-dream that it would be
well to pass the remainder of his days in this quiet haven cast its
spell on his soul. Rich as he was, he owned no home except a garish
mansion in New York. His career had been meteoric, full of lurid
energy. Beginning with the lust of money, he had followed the beaten
track of his order, and became obsessed with the lust of power. Yet
his ambition needed spurring. Already the tremendous issues involved
in the project which procured him the condescending patronage of an
emperor were revealing their dangers. Here, in Scotland, surrounded
by subservient friends and well-trained servants, he longed for rest.
Lairdship was proving a subtle rival to West African adventure.
Moreover, he was married, and Mrs. Baumgartner was endowed with a will
of her own and a tongue to bear witness thereto. She was learning to
appreciate the easy tolerance of English society, which proved itself
far more accessible than the Four Hundred of New York. Men and women
of recognized social rank and pleasant manners were quite willing
to shoot over the Lochmerig moors, play bridge in the Lodge, cruise
on the _Sans Souci_, and generally live and amuse themselves at the
millionaire's expense. Mrs. Baumgartner was shrewd enough to see that
the gain of a big slice of British territory in West Africa would offer
poor compensation for the loss of the new career which was opening up
an alluring vista to her dazzled gaze. For once, therefore, discord
threatened in the household. In her daughter, too, she found a powerful
ally. A month of close companionship with Evelyn Dane had completely
changed the life-theories of a spoiled and affected girl of eighteen.
Too young as yet to be jealous of Evelyn's greater attractions,
Beryl Baumgartner was alert enough to see that vulgar pertness was
ludicrously inadequate as a means of winning male regard. Luckily,
she became enthusiastically attached to Evelyn from the first hour.
The wonderful faculty of hero-worship had survived the precocity of a
too-indulgent rearing. It was stronger now than mere counsel. Beryl
began to copy her new friend, and at once she began to improve.
It was, therefore, a very dark cloud that lowered over the Baumgartner
sky when a family coach which brought visitors from the ten miles
distant railway deposited at the hospitable door of Lochmerig Lodge,
at one and the same moment, Mrs. Laing, Miguel Figuero, and Count von
Rippenbach. As it happened, the three already knew each other slightly.
They had met in Madeira during the previous winter. Figuero then acted
as bear-leader to the count before he started on the hunting trip in
the Tuburi hinterland which had come to the Under Secretary's knowledge.
It was a surprise to both men when they encountered Mrs. Laing at Perth
Junction. They passed several interesting hours in her company, and
von Rippenbach, who spoke English better than Figuero, was a skilled
cross-examiner. Thus, he soon hit upon a plausible explanation of the
lady's appearance in Inverness-shire. She was one of Mrs. Baumgartner's
social links with England. On his part, as a "distinguished foreigner,"
he would be acceptable in a higher circle than that occupied by his
host, but, when it came to Figuero, Mrs. Laing was puzzled--indeed,
somewhat amused.
The man's record was no secret. Tolerant Madeira did not ask how he
had risen to seeming affluence. It helped him to spend his money, and
was graciously blind to the darker pages of his history--nevertheless,
those pages were an open book to local gossips.
Figuero, a shrewd and level-headed scoundrel, was the most taken aback
of the trio at this unlooked-for meeting. He was aware of the love
passages between Warden and Rosamund Laing; he feared Warden; and
here was the woman whom Warden had once loved crossing his path at an
awkward hour.
The situation might have provided harmless interest for a number of
unimportant people at Lochmerig if Figuero had not recognized Evelyn
Dane the instant he set eyes on her. Straightway the tiny rills of
intrigue and suspicion flowing through the adventurer's brain united
into a torrent.
Seizing the first opportunity that presented itself, he drew
Baumgartner into an unoccupied room, and closed and locked the door.
Before the surprised millionaire could utter a word of protest, the
West African fire-brand began to question him in his own tongue, since
Baumgartner, despite his Teutonic label and semblance, had a Portuguese
mother.
"Why did you fail to recognize the girl I described to you in Cowes?"
he demanded fiercely. "Malediction! Are you mad, that you would risk
our enterprise in this fashion?"
"You must neither address me in that manner nor talk in riddles,"
growled Baumgartner. "What girl? How am I to know one among the ten
thousand girls of a regatta week?"
"Riddles! It is you who are the conundrum, senhor. I tell you that
this Englishman, Captain Warden, a Deputy Commissioner in Nigeria,
is the man we have most to fear, yet you permit one who is probably
his fiancée, and surely in league with him, to live in your house and
spy on the actions of yourself and your friends. What will Count von
Rippenbach think when I tell him? What will the Emperor say, after all
the precautions we took that none should know----"
"Silence!" roared Baumgartner, who could hold his own in matters that
demanded clear thinking and careful guidance. "You are too ready with
some names, Senhor Figuero, yet too sparing of others that may explain
your folly. Of whom are you speaking?"
"Of the young Englishwoman I have just met, of course. I am not good at
catching these strange words, but I mean the good-looking one, the tall
slim girl in white muslin, she with brown hair and Madonna eyes----"
"Do you mean Miss Dane?"
"Yes--that is she. I remember now."
"My daughter's companion! Nonsense!"
"It is true, I tell you. Am I likely to forget a face--and such a face!
Did I not describe her dress? She must have left your yacht just before
Warden met her. And they are lovers. How can I be mistaken? They went
away from Cowes in the same train. I told you her destination. What was
it? I have it written here," and he hurriedly turned over the leaves of
a note-book.
Baumgartner was undoubtedly impressed. Figuero's earnestness was not
to be gainsaid, and he had an unpleasant belief, now he came to recall
the incidents of a busy day, that Evelyn Dane was dressed exactly as
Warden's unknown acquaintance was pictured.
Meanwhile, the Portuguese found the memorandum he sought.
"Here it is," he snapped, all a-quiver with the doubts that threatened
the destruction of his pet scheme of vengeance on the British power
which had stopped the supply of slaves to the Sultan of Bogota.
"Langton in Oxfordshire--that is the place. The railway official
spelt it for me. A boatman told me he knew the girl, and gave me some
outlandish name as being hers. Now I see he was fooling me. What was
his motive? Was he also an emissary of Warden's? Let me assure you,
senhor, this thing begins to look ugly."
Baumgartner's heavy jowl lost some of the ruddy hue of the moors.
Count von Rippenbach had been ready enough to apply the screw when his
quondam confederate showed a degree of hesitancy in falling in with
the proposal he came from London to make, and this latest complication
would strengthen von Rippenbach's hands beyond resistance. Already the
lairdship of Lochmerig was becoming visionary, and the far-off hills of
interior Africa grew more substantial in their dim outlines.
But the millionaire, though he might toady to a Scottish gillie for
a crumb of recognition as a marksman, had not attained his present
position by displaying weakness in face of a crisis.
"I believe you are the victim of a delusion," he said, with some show
of dignity, "but, even if you are right, we gain nothing by yielding
to panic. What if Miss Dane is, as you say, Warden's _belle amie_?
Why should that be harmful? Does it not explain his visit to Cowes?
Indeed, once we are convinced that they know each other, we can turn
the circumstance to our own purpose. I am far from crediting an
insignificant official of the Niger Company with the importance you
seem to attach to him, but, granted he is a hostile influence to be
feared, why not stalk him through an unsuspecting agent?"
"You don't rate him high enough," muttered Figuero. "He can sway those
stupid niggers like no other man in Nigeria. He talks Arabic, and
Hausa, and krooboy palaver as well as I do. He broke the Oku ju-ju when
it was worth a thousand lives to touch a stick or a feather. If Warden
gets wind of our project before we are ready, we will fail, and you
realize what that means to all of us."
A dinner gong came to Baumgartner's aid. He wished to avoid any
discussion on the last point raised by the Portuguese. It bristled with
thorns. Von Rippenbach revealed some of its cactus-like properties
earlier in the evening.
"You and I and the Count will go into other matters fully to-morrow,"
he said. "As for Miss Dane, I shall clear up that difficulty without
delay. Act as though you had never seen her before, and keep your ears
open during dinner."
So it came to pass that Evelyn, who was mightily astonished and
perplexed by the arrival of the two men concerning whom Warden had told
her so much, was still more bewildered when Mr. Baumgartner availed
himself of a lull in the conversation at the dinner-table to say
casually:
"By the way, Miss Dane, is Langton, in Oxfordshire, near your people's
place?"
"Yes," she said, wondering what the question signified.
"I suppose, then, you passed through it on your way home after quitting
the _Sans Souci_ at Cowes?"
"Oh, yes. Langton is our station."
"Ah! What a small world it is! A friend of mine, Mr. James G. Hertz, of
Boston, is staying there now. I suppose you did not chance to meet him?"
"No. Our village is three miles away, and that is a long distance in
the country."
And, in truth, Mr. James G. Hertz, of Boston, who was buried in Boston,
could tell of yet more impassable gulfs.
Rosamund Laing was sitting next to Figuero. She noticed the eager
attention with which he followed this trivial bit of talk, though his
limited knowledge of English rendered most of the lively chatter at the
table unintelligible.
"Were you in Cowes during the regatta week, Senhor Figuero?" she asked.
It was a reasonable deduction from his presence at Lochmerig, but she
little guessed the devilish purpose engendered in that alert brain by
her aimless inquiry. The Portuguese felt that he was at a disadvantage
among the gay throng gathered under Baumgartner's roof. His nimble
wits were dulled by the barrier of language. It put him outside the
pale. Things might be occurring which he ought to know, but which were
hidden from him owing to this drawback. In the beautiful woman by his
side he might find an excellent go-between if only he could command her
interest. Was that old flame quite quenched in her heart, he mused?
She had married a rich man, but had she forgotten--did any woman ever
forget--her first love? He thought not. At any rate, here was an
opening provided by the gods.
"I lib for Cowes one-time, senora," he murmured, "an' I see somet'ing
dere dat I tell you if you not vexed."
"Why should I be vexed?" she said, smiling at the odd expressions,
though she was quite conversant with the _lingua franca_ of the coast.
"You 'member dem Captain Warden?"
"Of course I do."
"An' you keep secret dem t'ing I tell you?"
"Where Captain Warden's affairs are concerned, I shall certainly not
discuss him or them."
Figuero paid no heed to the intentional snub.
"You understan' better w'en I tole you dem secret. You promise not
speak 'im any one?"
"Well--yes."
"He fit for marry dem Mees Dane."
"Don't be idiotic."
Mrs. Laing could not help it. She was so startled that she raised
her voice, and more than one of her neighbors wondered what the
sallow-faced stranger had said that evoked the outburst. Figuero looked
annoyed. He was not prepared for such vehement repudiation of his news.
Fortunately, the Honorable Billy Thring was giving a realistic account
of his failure to secure an heiress during a recent wife-hunting tour
in America--he tried lots of 'em, he explained, but they all said he
must kill off at least one brother and two healthy nephews before they
would risk marryin' a prize dude like him--so Rosamund's emphatic cry
passed almost unheeded amidst the laughter evoked by Thring's exploits.
"You fit for chop," muttered the Portuguese sarcastically. "You fit for
fool palaver. You plenty-much silly woman."
"But what you say cannot be true," she half whispered, and the man's
astute senses warned him that it was dread, not contempt, that drew the
protest from her lips.
"I fit for tell you Warden make wife palaver wid dem girl at Cowes. If
you no b'lieve me, make sof' mouf an' ax Mees Dane."
Then the woman remembered Warden's anxiety to return to the Isle of
Wight. He had not written to her or to Lady Hilbury during the past
month, and this fact, trivial as a pin-prick before, now became a
rankling wound.
"You keep dem secret?" went on Figuero, watching her closely.
"Why did you tell me?" she retorted.
"Coss I no want Warden marry dem girl. Savvy?"
"Do you want to marry her yourself?" she asked, with a bitterness that
showed how deeply she was hurt.
He grinned, and wetted his thin lips with his tongue.
"You t'ink I tired goin' by lone?" he said.
"What is your motive? Why do you choose me as a confidant?"
Figuero suddenly became dense.
"I tell you leetle bit news," he said. "Dat is English custom. W'en we
chop one-time palaver set. But you no say Figuero tole you dem t'ing."
Rosamund did not reply. She endeavored to eat, and entered into
conversation with a man near her. The Honorable Billy was ending his
story.
"So I am still eligible," he was saying. "I went to America full of
hot air, and came back with cold feet. But I learned the language--eh,
what?"
That night, in the drawing-room, Mrs. Laing carried out the opening
move in a campaign she had mapped out for herself. If Figuero's
story were true, she would smite and spare not. If it were untrue,
Evelyn would be the first to deny it, and Rosamund trusted to her own
intuition to discover how far such denial might be credited.
A man who was talking to Evelyn was summoned to a bridge table, and
Rosamund took his place unobtrusively.
"Then you really were on board the Sans Souci at Cowes, Miss Dane?" she
began, with a friendly smile.
"Yes," said Evelyn, at a loss to determine why her brief sojourn in the
Solent should attract such widespread attention.
"And you met Captain Warden there?"
The attack was so direct and unexpected that the younger woman blushed
and flinched from it. Still, she was not to be drawn into admissions
like a frightened child.
"I met several people on the island," she said. "Cowes is a crowded
place during regatta week."
"Oh, come now," purred the smiling Rosamund, "one does not forget a man
of Arthur Warden's type so readily--and after a violent flirtation,
too! You see, I know all about it. Little birds whisper these things.
Arthur did not tell me when he came to see me in town. Of course, he
wouldn't, but there are always kind-hearted people willing enough to
gossip if they think they are annoying one."
There was sufficient innuendo in this brief speech to justify Mrs.
Laing's worst estimate of scandal-mongers. Not one barbed shaft missed
its mark. If words could wound, then Evelyn must have succumbed, but
the injuries they inflict are not always visible, and she kept a stiff
upper lip, though her heart raced in wild tumult.
"The inference is that you are far more interested in Captain Warden's
visits to Cowes than I or any other person can pretend to be," she said
slowly.
She meant the cold-drawn phrase to hurt, and in that she succeeded,
though her own voice sounded in her ears as if it had come from afar.
"Well, perhaps you ought to be told that he and I are engaged," said
Rosamund, stung to a sudden fury of lying. "Don't imagine I bear
malice. You are sweetly pretty, and Arthur is so susceptible! But he
is also rather thoughtless. We were pledged to each other years ago,
but were kept apart by--by a mother's folly. Now I am free, and he came
back to me, though I had to insist that at least a year should elapse
between my husband's death and the announcement of our engagement.
All our friends know our sad story, and would forgive some measure of
haste, but one has to consider the larger circle of the public."
Then, indeed, Evelyn's blood seemed to chill in her veins. The room and
its occupants swam before her eyes, and the pain of repression became
almost unbearable, yet she was resolved to carry off the honors in this
duel unless she fainted.
"I gather that you are warning me against Captain Warden's
thoughtlessness, as you term it?" she said, compelling each word at the
bayonet's point, as it were.
"Oh, I was not speaking seriously, but we can let it go at that."
"And you wish me to understand that you are his promised wife?"
"There, at least, I am most emphatic," and Rosamund laughed, a trifle
shrilly, perhaps, for a woman so well equipped with the armor of
self-conceit.
"I suppose, then, that the late Mr. Laing has been dead a year, as I
form one of that larger circle whose favorable opinion you court?"
For an instant Rosamund's black eyes flashed angrily. She had expected
tears and faltering, not resistance.
"I only meant to do you a good turn, yet on the raw," she sneered.
"Pray do not consider me at all. By your own showing, I have no
grievance--no _locus standi_, as the lawyers say--but, since you
have gone out of your way to give a mere stranger this interesting
information, I wish to be quite sure of the facts. For instance, let us
suppose that I have the honor of Captain Warden's acquaintance--am I at
liberty to write and congratulate him?"
"That would place me in a false position."
"Ah. Is there nothing to be said for me? You spoke of a 'violent
flirtation,' I think. If I may guess at the meaning of a somewhat crude
phrase, it seems to imply a possible exchange of lovers' vows, and one
of the parties might be misled--and suffer."
"We women are the sinners most frequently."
"I do not dispute your authority, Mrs. Laing. I only wish to ascertain
exactly what I am free to say to Captain Warden?"
"Tell him you met me, and that I am well posted in everything that
occurred at Cowes. And, for goodness' sake, let me see his reply. It
will be too killing to read Arthur's verbal wrigglings, because he is
really clever, don't you think?"
Somehow, despite the steely tension of every nerve, Evelyn caught an
undertone of anxiety in the jesting words. Her rival was playing a bold
game. It might end in complete disaster, but, once committed to it,
there was no drawing back.
"The proceedings at Cowes were open to all the world," Evelyn could not
help saying. "Even you, with your long experience, might fail to detect
in them any trace of the thoughtlessness you deplore."
"Then you have met him elsewhere?"
Evelyn, conscious of a tactical blunder, colored even more deeply with
annoyance, though again she felt that her tormentor was not so sure of
her ground as she professed to be. Every woman is a born actress, and
Evelyn precipitated a helpful crisis with histrionic skill.
"The whole story is yours, not mine, Mrs. Laing," she said quietly.
"Perhaps, if you apply to your half-caste informant, he may fill in
further details to please you."
At that moment the Honorable Billy Thring intervened. He was one of
those privileged persons who can say anything to anybody without giving
offense, and he broke into the conversation now with his usual frank
inanity.
"I find I've bin lookin' for a faithful spouse in the wrong direction,
Mrs. Laing," he chortled. "Barkin' up the wrong tree, a Chicago girl
called it. What a thorough ass I was to spin that yarn at dinner with
you in the room. Will you be good, an' forget it? Don't say I haven't
got an earthly before the flag falls."
"What in the world are you talking about?" cried Rosamund, turning on
him with the sourest of society smiles.
"It sounds like the beginning of a violent flirtation," said Evelyn,
yielding to the impulse that demanded some redress for the torture she
had endured.
"Right you are, Miss Dane," said Billy. "By gad, that clears the course
quicker than a line of policemen. You see, Mrs. Laing, I really must
marry somebody with sufficient means for both of us. I have expensive
tastes, and my noble dad gave me neither a profession nor an income. So
what is a fellow to do?"
"You flatter me," said Rosamund tartly. "Unfortunately I have just been
telling Miss Dane that I am _hors de concours_, as they put it in the
Paris exhibitions."
"That is the French for 'you never know your luck,' Mr. Thring," cried
Evelyn, with a well-assumed laugh. "Mrs. Laing may change her mind,
too, not for the first time."
Without giving her adversary a chance to retaliate, she darted away to
join Beryl Baumgartner, and soon seized an opportunity to retreat to
her own room. Once safely barricaded behind a locked door, she bowed
before the storm. Flinging herself on her knees by the bedside, she
wept as though her heart would break. It was her first taste of the
bitter cup that is held out to many a girl in her position, and its
gall was not diminished because she still believed that Arthur Warden
loved her. How could she doubt him, when each passing week brought her
a letter couched in the most endearing terms? Only that morning had she
heard from him at Ostend, whither the _Nancy_ had flown after making
a round of the Norfolk Broads. He described his chances of speedy
promotion once the threatened disturbance in West Africa had spent
itself, and, oddly enough, reminded her of his intention to curtail
his furlough so as to permit of a visit to Rabat in a coasting steamer
before going to Madeira on his way to the Protectorate.
Not a word did he say of the Baumgartners, or their queer acquaintances
of the Isle of Wight. It was tacitly agreed between them that Evelyn
should not play the rôle of spy on her employers, and, indeed, until
that very day there was little to report save the utmost kindness at
their hands.
Why, then, it may be urged, did she weep so unrestrainedly? and
only the virgin heart of a woman who loves can answer. She feared
that Rosamund Laing was telling the truth when she spoke of a prior
engagement. She knew that Warden had said nothing at Plymouth of
meeting Rosamund in London, and she was hardly to be blamed for drawing
the most sinister inference from his silence. Did he dread that earlier
entanglement? He was poor, and she was poor; how could he resist the
pleading of one so rich and beautiful as her rival?
In short, poor Evelyn passed a grievous and needlessly tortured hour
before she endeavored to compose herself for sleep, and she was denied
the consolation of knowing that the woman who destroyed her happiness
was pacing another room like a caged tigress, and striving to devise
some means of extricating herself from the morass into which Figuero's
tidings and her own rashness had plunged her.