A RUNAWAY
Bayre felt very nervous over his errand, and when Miss Merriman
cried “Come in,” in answer to his knock, he was almost as awkward as
Southerley himself would have been, and she gave him a searching look
as he crossed the room like a sly schoolboy.
She was sitting near the fire, and the baby, in a state of great glee,
was turning out the contents of her work-basket on the rug at her
feet. Bayre felt that he was called upon to explain his appearance
with promptitude.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” he said, “but I’ve been sent here
by--by somebody else--by Southerley, in fact, with a message which I
hardly dare to give.”
Before he was half-way through the speech the lady had looked away;
and from the expression of her face he could guess that she had an
uneasy suspicion as to the nature of his errand.
“Then why give it,” said she, quickly, in a slightly tremulous voice,
“if it’s of no use, and if it’s painful to you?”
“Because I must; because I’ve promised. Forgive me if I’m clumsy over
it. The fact is the fellow’s lost his head; I think perhaps he knows
there’s not much hope for him; I myself have told him there’s not. But
he persists in hoping, hoping, or rather he’s got into such a state
that he can’t rest till he’s got a definite answer, even if it’s the
wrong one. He’s in love with you, head over ears in love, and he wants
to know if you could ever care for him.”
Although he knew that she must have guessed what was coming, Miss
Merriman pretended to feel surprised. But it was a poor, worried sort
of pretence, without either nature or sincerity.
“Why, it’s absurd,” she said quickly. “What does he know of me? I
never heard anything so ridiculous.”
And then there was a short pause, during which she sat very still.
“You’re not offended?” said Bayre, gently.
“Offended!” She just got out the word and then broke down into a flood
of tears.
Bayre was appalled. To see a woman cry was a dreadful thing at any
time; but to feel that he had opened the floodgates himself, and when
he ought to have known better, was a thought of unspeakable horror.
“Forgive me,” he said hoarsely. “And don’t, oh, _don’t_! You make me
feel a brute, and yet I couldn’t help myself. I’ll tell him--I’ll go
and tell him--” He was flying to the door, impelled thereto not only
by the woman’s tears but by the yells of the small child, who was on
his feet by Miss Merriman’s knee, screaming in sympathy after the
manner of his kind.
Miss Merriman recovered herself sufficiently to speak.
“No,” she cried imperiously. “Don’t tell him anything. You’re not to
tell him anything. Let him think what he likes until--”
“Until what?”
“Never mind.”
She waved her hand in farewell without looking at him, and Bayre made
his way reluctantly enough upstairs, where he found Southerley in
waiting on the half-landing.
“No good, of course?” said the big man, trembling like a leaf.
Bayre shook his head.
“Any reason?”
“No. Sorry. I did my best.”
Southerley took it very quietly; he just nodded and went upstairs
softly whistling, with his hands in his pockets. Then he went out at
once, without seeing either of the others again, and he did not come
back until long after they were both in bed.
And he alone of the three made no remark whatever when Susan informed
them on the following evening that Miss Merriman had gone away and had
taken the child with her.
Repton gave a long whistle.
“Well, I’m blest!” he exclaimed tersely.
Bayre was indignant. Surely he had a right to know where she was
taking the child, he who claimed not only to be the infant’s cousin
but to have more than a fanciful claim to be its guardian! Miss
Merriman was surely carrying a woman’s privileges too far.
“Cousin or no cousin, it’s abominable,” said Repton, indignantly.
“We’ve had all the trouble of the journey from Guernsey, all the
expense of milk and biscuits, sausage rolls and bananas for the brat,
and flowers and sweets for her. And now we’re left in the lurch like
this! It’s infamous. I’m hurt in my very tenderest feelings. I shall
advertise.”
“What! For the price of the flowers and the bon-bons?” laughed Bayre.
“Of course not. But I have a third share in the proprietorship of that
infant. And it may be worth money some day. Besides, I ought to have
been consulted.”
All this time Southerley never moved a muscle. But that he was hard
hit it was impossible not to see. His eyes looked glassy and his ruddy
skin livid.
“Cheer up, old man!” cried Repton, giving him a ferocious thump on the
back. “She wasn’t worth troubling about, a woman who could go without
a word after that last box from Fuller’s--the one with the gold ribbon
and the picture of the two cupids in a basket. Thank goodness, she’ll
never be able to look at those two pink cupids without a
self-reproachful thought of you and me!”
But even this thought did not appear to have a consoling effect upon
Southerley, who shook him off impatiently and went out again without a
word.
“Fool!” cried Repton, contemptuously, “to care so much for a woman who
didn’t care two pins about him.”
But Bayre, who remembered Miss Merriman’s tears, was less harsh in his
judgment.
“I have an idea,” said he, slowly, “that she didn’t _dare_ to care!”
But he would not proffer any solution of this enigmatic remark.
And before the day was out he had something to divert his attention in
the shape of a letter from Miss Eden.
A surprising letter it was, and tantalising, too, for it was evidently
written in a sort of breathless way, while the writer was at a white
heat of emotion, and it told him just enough to make him want to know
more.
It was as follows:--
“Dear Mr Bayre,--I got your letter. I have said nothing about it. I
think you had better keep the papers yourself for a little
while--those, I mean, that you found in the iron box. I will write to
you again in a day or two, perhaps. I am afraid this letter is
disjointed, but I have had a sort of shock, and I have not got over it
yet. Do not be alarmed: we are all well here, or as well as you could
expect, remembering the state in which you left us all. The Vazons
have not come back and we have heard nothing more of them. We think
they must be still in the islands, but they are not at Creux. Nini has
come to stay here; she is a trustworthy girl, and I am very glad to
have her, for I should not like to be here quite alone.
“Now I am going to tell you something which will surprise you. I have
found out who the woman is shut up here. I cannot tell you more now,
except this--that she is not here against her will.--Yours sincerely,
“Olwen Eden.”
Bayre was on thorns to know more, and he could not understand why,
having told him so much, she could not have trusted him with the whole
of the secret. Was it something she did not like to trust to paper?
Was it his young wife whom old Mr Bayre was keeping concealed at the
_château_? And if so, was she in her right mind?
He wrote at once, begging Olwen to let him know more, but yet
expressing himself guardedly, for fear the letter should fall into
other hands than hers.
He could not rest for thinking about this, wondering whether his uncle
knew of the discovery made by Olwen, and whether, in that case, he
would make any difference in his treatment of her.
His anxiety grew as day after day passed and no answer came to his
second letter. He could not get another holiday or he would have gone
back to Creux without delay. In his distress he thought of writing to
Madame Nicolas, his landlady at St Luke’s, to ask whether she had
heard anything of old Mr Bayre and his household.
The good woman answered almost by return of post, but the information
she had to give was exceedingly vague, and was rather in the nature of
gossip than of anything definite.
She had not seen old Monsieur Bayre lately, neither had anyone she
knew. But she had heard that he was ill, that there had been changes
in his household, and that the young lady had gone away to London and
was singing somewhere under the name of Señora Pia, or some such
title. As Madame Nicolas did not even mention the Vazons by name, it
seemed probable that they had kept quiet and had not made any attempt
to turn the tables upon their late master.
This letter, vague as it was, filled Bayre with anxiety and distress.
He knew there must be some foundation for this story about Olwen, and
it tallied too well with her silence for him to neglect the clue.
“Singing in London under the name of Señora Pia!” This was vague
indeed. He seized the newspapers and studied their columns with eager
scrutiny. But it was not until the third day after the receipt of this
letter that, after having read on the first page of the _Daily
Telegraph_ all the names of all the ladies and gentlemen who were
advertised in the music publishers’ announcements as singing songs in
different parts of England, the name “Signora Beata” attracted his
attention and made him decide to set off that very evening on what
might be a wild-goose chase after all.
“Signora Beata” was to sing “Those Sweet, Sweet Eyes of Thine” and
another ballad with an equally vapid title at the Bromley Institute.
And as it was not very far away, Bayre thought it worth while to take
the journey on this very slender clue.
The hall was crowded. Bayre got a programme and found that Signora
Beata did not appear before the fourth number in the programme. He had
to sit through a new loyal song, rendered lustily by the baritone but
conspicuous for its loving adhesion to one note. He had to hear a
glee, and he had to endure a recitation.
Then came the turn of number four, and it was as much as he could do
not to start out of his seat with surprise when Signora Beata appeared
and proved to be, not indeed Olwen Eden, but another old friend in the
person of Miss Merriman.
She looked magnificent in a dress of cream satin, which showed off her
beautiful neck and the exquisite poise of her head to great advantage.
She wore no jewels, but half-a-dozen roses of different colours were
arranged on the front of her dress, and another was placed upright on
one side of her head and worn as an aigrette. Long white suède gloves
completed the costume, and Bayre thought that he had never seen so
beautiful a woman, and was glad Southerley was not there to have his
chains further riveted.
He became quite anxious to hear her sing, and was not in the least
surprised at the burst of applause which greeted her as soon as she
came to the front of the platform. It seemed to him that if her voice
proved to be as superb as her appearance she was wasting herself at
Bromley.
But with the first bars of the song came not exactly disenchantment,
but a decidedly modified appreciation of the beauty’s art. She had a
good voice, not in the first rank, but pleasant to listen to; the
weakness of her performance lay in the fact that her voice had not
been sufficiently cultivated, and that she was possessed by an
overpowering nervousness which, while it rather added to her charm as
a woman, decidedly marred her efforts as a singer.
In brief she had, though singing as a “professional,” scarcely got
beyond the stage of “gifted amateur.”
But her beauty, her modesty, her statuesque grace, carried all before
them, and the audience applauded her as if she had been Patti herself.
Bayre began now to understand that Madame Nicolas had mixed up in her
mind what she had heard about one woman with what she had heard about
another, and he resolved, now that he was in for it, to run Signora
Beata to earth.
He found the rest of the concert tedious, except when the beauty was
on the platform, and as soon as her last appearance on the programme
was made he slipped out of his seat and went outside to wait for her.
She fled out of the building so quickly and so quietly, however, that
he was not able to speak to her, and he got into the same train, but
not into the same carriage, and then when he had seen her enter an
omnibus he got on the top of the vehicle, determined to track her
down.
She alighted finally at that part of London which used to be known as
Brompton, but which has since, by the profuse use of the name
“Egerton” instead of the older and homelier ones, purged away the
Brompton taint and become something far higher in the social scale.
Here Bayre followed the lady into a side street where little cards
over the door announced “Apartments,” and at one of these she stopped
and proceeded to open it with a latch-key.
Bayre stopped too at the foot of the steps and looked up.
She heard the footsteps stop and looked round quickly. An exclamation
broke from her lips.
“You’ve followed me!” she cried.
“Yes--Signora.”
She started, hesitated, then shut the door again and came down the
steps.
“Why have you done this?” she said passionately.
“Why have you run away, without a word, with _my_ cousin, my ward,
Miss Merriman?”
“Your ward!” She laughed derisively. “Don’t talk nonsense. You know
that that is a mere farce. You know well enough that I’m his mother.”
“Yes, and you’re something else,” replied Bayre, coolly. “You’re _my
aunt_, Mrs Bartlett Bayre.”
She met his eyes, and then looked down; but she made no attempt to
contradict him.
“Come inside,” she said suddenly, “and we can talk better. You must
know everything now.”