“I NEVER KNEW HIM.”
In their pink drawing-room the sisters sat at breakfast, both neat in
black gowns, since goodness knew who might come to see Dolly; both
oddly silent; both looking furtively at the cheerful little boy on the
floor, whose existence might be going to change the whole face of life.
Not one word had Dolly on the way home, or after, about that queer
scene at Krug’s. She had crawled out of the hansom to her own room and
locked the door, but this morning she knew by Magdalen’s face that the
thing had to be thrashed out.
“You may as well say it,” she exclaimed harshly. “I know you’re
thinking that last night’s affair wasn’t an accident. I suppose you
imagine that beast was some one who knew me, and would spoil my luck.
But you’re wrong. I never knew the man,” with a hard-set lip. “He
frightened me because I thought he called me, and everything might
matter now, even a drunken man and the straws in the gutter,” bitterly.
“But if you’re thinking I knew him you’re cherishing a mare’s nest. I
never knew him,” her small face assuming a curiously absent expression
as if she raked in a half-forgotten past.
“I wasn’t thinking that at all.” The answer was unexpected. “I did
think it, if you want to know, but in cold blood I know that if you’d a
pleasant friend like that with a hold on you you’d not dare to play the
game you’re at. You’re not brave, Dolly!”
“How do you mean?” viciously.
“You temporize. Starr-Dalton, for instance! Why didn’t you tell him
long ago, before you borrowed from him, that you hated him? That he
couldn’t come here? You can’t bear him. I’ve seen you quiver with rage
at him.”
“I mayn’t like him, but he’s been kind.”
“Kind!” with a discordant laugh. “Because he lent you money? So would a
Jew. And a Jew would only ask fifty per cent., while Starr-Dalton will
want all you’ve got. But it’s not that,” trenchantly, “for if things
are all right you can pay him--cash, not interest! It’s that it came
over me while we were driving home last night that I saw Starr-Dalton
in Krug’s restaurant--thick lips, blue eyes and all.”
“Magdalen!” It was a whispered shriek, if there is such a thing. “Why
didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you made a fool of yourself and fainted, and then locked your
door on me. I had enough to do with thanking a strange man who may have
got himself into an awful scrape for sheer kindness. You needn’t look
as if I’d seen a tiger!” grimly.
“It might have mattered if you’d known that pasty-looking, shouting
man.”
But Dolly only shook her head.
“Tell me about him. Where was he?” she said.
“I think he was at the end table of all, behind the man when he got
up. But I can’t be sure, for you know I’d my back to the room. It
was only just before I saw our man,” with a half laugh, “intended to
turn off the lights that I seemed to know Starr-Dalton was looking
at us over that hurly-burly of noise. When I got out, as I said, I
had an impression of his face, and it seemed to me that he was behind
everyone, and instead of trying to help us just sat with that thick
smile of his and waited. Luckily it’s no matter. And if he was there,
and says so, we’ll have an excuse for being chilly to him hereafter.”
“After we’ve paid him! You can’t snub a man when you owe him a hundred
pounds,” but it was not the money she thought of. Before her there rose
that hateful restaurant, seen with Starr-Dalton’s eyes.
“I wish we knew what became of the man! Where he went afterward,” she
said, getting up restlessly.
“Why? Since he doesn’t know you it would be all the same if he and
Starr-Dalton walked out arm-in-arm!”
“Don’t,” said Dolly, and her face was livid. “Let me forget it.
Ronald, come to mother. You love her, don’t you?” catching him to her
passionately. “You trust mother?”
“Loves mummy!” he returned gaily. “Put me down.”
But Magdalen’s laugh was undeserved. There had been no affectation in
Dolly’s sudden clutching of the child. In her fierce, frivolous way she
was devoted to him. He was a trust to her, the only trust of her life
that she meant to keep.
The postman’s electric summons made her put her boy down weakly. Her
nerves were like water this morning. For a moment she literally could
not read as she tore open the letter Magdalen brought in. The blue
envelope was ominous. She had not expected any letter. Mr. Barrow had
said--but the sense of the few lines suddenly pierced her terrified
brain:
“DEAR MADAM: The funeral of the late Lord Barnysdale takes place
to-morrow morning from his town house. It is for you to say whether
you will attend it or not. If you will meet Lord Stratharden and
myself at my office at three o’clock on the same day we will, after
the reading of the late peer’s will, give your documents and claims
every consideration. Your obedient servant,
“JAMES BARROW.”
Lord Barnysdale’s widow sank into a chair and laughed; laughed till
her stepsister shook her, till tears ran down her face.
“Let me alone,” she sobbed. “Can’t you see it’s going to be all right.
He says----”
“He doesn’t say anything, as far as I can see.”
Dolly sat up, a different Dolly from the one who had pushed away her
breakfast.
“You little fool!” she cried; “he says I may go to the funeral. Do you
think they’d have me there if they were doubtful? And can’t you see he
says Lord ‘Stratharden’? If he meant to fight he would have said Lord
Barnysdale.”
“What do you mean? Who’s Stratharden?”
“Barnysdale’s brother. I never saw him. But if it were not for Ronald
it’s he who would be Lord Barnysdale now.”
Every worry of last night’s adventure had gone from her. There was,
as Magdalen said, nothing to matter. The Countess of Barnysdale and a
drunken man seen in a doubtful restaurant would be no more likely to
meet again than Barnysdale to get up out of his shroud. Starr-Dalton
she forgot completely.
“Dolly,” Magdalen broke the silence curiously, “what about the funeral?
You won’t go, will you?”
Dolly poured out fresh tea and drank it.
“Yes,” she said, “I’ll go of course! In a carriage. I’d be a fool not
to. It wouldn’t look well to stay away.”
It was a queer reason for attending the funeral of a husband, but it
struck Magdalen that Dolly, for all her talk, had cared for the man.
That was the only thing that explained her acceptance of his insulting
terms, her quiet endurance of his desertion.
Oddly enough the girl was right; Lord Barnysdale’s wife had loved him.
“Will you go to the house and see--him?” she hesitated.
“No!” With a violence her sister did not know was in her Dolly turned.
“I won’t see him! I won’t! I hated him!”
She recoiled from the very thought of the dead man in his coffin; not
for ten earldoms would she look on that face.
“He might be smiling!” she cried hysterically. “I couldn’t bear it if
he were dead and smiling, Magdalen. You don’t think dead people can see
us, do you?”
“Not they,” practically. “Why should they care? Don’t look like that,
Dolly; there’s no need for you to see him. I only asked you.”
“No, I’m sure there’s no need,” eagerly. “I can’t help being silly,
Magdalen. I’m so nervous. But it will soon be over now; things always
come right just when you’re despairing. When I’d spent the money
Barnysdale left behind him and didn’t know which way to turn, that
mine stock that mother left proved useful, although it hasn’t paid any
dividends for the past six years. I sold out the stock and we’ve lived
on it till now. I was in as low water then as we are to-day. And after
to-morrow”--her small, pretty face confident, though she did not lift
her eyes--“we’ll never want money again!”
But Magdalen was not listening. She had never noticed before that Dolly
had cat’s teeth--white, narrow, sharp. It was queer she should think of
that instead of Dolly’s prospects.