GAZING UPON A NEW WORLD
The room was very quiet. A wintry sunbeam glanced in through the leaded
casement and fell slanting across the floor, lighting up the occupied
four-post bed. A uniformed nurse was occupied at a bureau which stood
in the window-place, framed in the floral chintz hangings which seemed
to suit so well the oaken panelling of the room, and the beams with
which the ceiling was so powerfully groined.
The doctor, a benevolent, grey-whiskered, cherub-eyed old man, who had
cared for every patient at Dorby Towers since the Farlows came into
occupation, was at the bedside talking gently but firmly to his patient.
"It is useless, my dear young lady," he said, with, for him, an almost
peevish complaint. "I have done all that a man can do. I have pulled
you clear of that wretched brain-fever which threatened you. Your poor,
poor arm will soon be out of its plaster, and covered with nothing more
disfiguring than a sling, which can at all times be made to match your
costume, and yet you will do nothing to help _me_. It is really
distressing. You should have been on that couch two weeks ago. A week
ago you should have been moving about getting your bodily strength
back. I really can't understand such obstinacy. Eight weeks in this
bed, and you will not, simply will not, pull yourself up sufficiently
to allow your being moved. You know it's a case of that woman, Mrs.
Somebody, in one of Charles Dickens's books. I don't remember the name.
All I know is she died, or did something equally silly, because she
wouldn't make an effort."
Vita gazed back languidly into the fresh, wholesome face of the smiling
old man. She was so tired. She was weary with thought. She knew that
the doctor was making a just complaint. But she knew something more.
She knew, half by instinct, the real cause of the trouble of which he
was complaining.
She smiled up at him in a wan fashion.
"I am not as much to blame as you think, doctor dear. You have done,
oh, so much for me that I feel I can never be grateful enough. May I
sit up?"
The doctor summoned the nurse, and Vita was tenderly propped up against
a perfect nest of pillows.
"That's better. Thank you ever so much. Now I can talk, and--I want to
talk."
Vita remained silent for some moments in spite of her expressed desire.
The medical man watched her closely. She was a mere shadow of what she
ought to be. There was a troubled look in her eyes. He felt, somehow he
knew, what was coming. It was a request such as he had been forced to
deny her so many times before.
His smile died out. But Vita's eyes, when she finally turned them on
him, were bright with an emotion which seemed at first unwarranted.
"Do you know why I can't get well?" she enquired wistfully. "It is not
obstinacy. It is not lack of effort. It is because _you_ won't let me.
Doctor dear, the time has surely gone by when I may not talk of--that
night. You see, you don't understand it--all. My father is dead. I know
that. The thought is always with me. But that--that is not all.
Everybody here is kindness, kindness itself. Mr. Farlow--Ruxton, all of
them. They come here. But they are never allowed to stay. They send me
everything which--kindness can dictate. But, under your orders, no one
will tell me those things I must know, and I am not permitted to say a
word of that which I must tell. Doctor dear, it is _you_ who are to
blame. Oh, the worry of it all. It seems to take the very life out of
me. I must talk," she went on, with growing excitement. "I must tell
him all which he can never learn so long as you keep me silent. Send
Ruxton to me, doctor dear, and give us leave to talk as much as we want
to, and I promise you you shall not regret it. I--I simply must talk
or--or----"
But the growing excitement proved too much for her. In her weak state
Vita suddenly fell to weeping hysterically. The nurse and doctor leant
their energies to calming her, and, by degrees, their efforts were
rewarded.
But the little man's face was troubled. This was what he feared,
dreaded.
The moment Vita had calmed again he chided her as he might chide some
helpless child, but he registered a mental resolve. Somehow Vita must
obtain strength or---- Well, he had done all he knew. He must leave
medicine and look to the psychological side. Experiment--he hated
experiment at his time of life. But there seemed to be nothing else for
it. So he reassured her and gave her the promise she asked.
The result was magical. The sick woman's face lit radiantly. Her
beautiful grey eyes were filled with such a light as the little man had
never seen in them before. He wondered. He was puzzled. It was
something which he could not understand.
He left the room, taking the nurse with him, and as he went he shook
his head and warned himself that the nervous troubles of modern times
were amazing. He felt that he was professionally old--very old.
Nor was it without serious misgivings that he sought Ruxton Farlow.
For an hour Vita endured the efforts of the nurse. She endured them
uncomplainingly. She felt like some small child being prepared for a
party. There was the pleasant excitement of it, but, unlike the small
child, there was also a dread which all the delight could not banish.
Her troubles were very real, and in the long days and nights of illness
which had seriously threatened her mental balance, and the dull bodily
suffering from her crushed arm, they had become exaggerated, as only
acute suffering can distort such things.
With the first return to reason she had hugged to herself the one
outstanding fact that the responsibility of her father's death lay at
her door. It stood out startlingly from every other thought in the
tangle of her poor brain. She had urged him to his death, unwittingly
it is true, but due solely to the childish credulity she had displayed.
Even now the unforgettable picture of that grey, lean figure falling
forward in response to Von Berger's merciless gun-shot haunted her
every waking moment. The horror of it, the dreadful cruelty. And all
her--her doing.
At the bottom of it all lay her cowardice, her miserable cowardice. Her
life--her wretched life had been threatened, and to escape death she
had dragged him forth and left him at the mercy of their enemies. To
her dying day the memory of it would haunt her. She knew it could never
be otherwise.
But later, as slowly some strength had begun to return, an added
trouble came to her. It was the natural result of convalescence. The
legitimate selfish interest in life inspired it. It came at the moment
when Ruxton had been permitted to pay his first brief visit. It was the
sight of him which had filled her with dismay. She had suddenly
remembered that to save her own life she had not only dragged her
father to his death, but she had sacrificed this man's love and
promised to become the wife of the detestable Von Salzinger. From that
moment the little troubled doctor had noted the check against which he
had been fighting ever since.
All these things were in Vita's mind now as she submitted to the
attentions of her nurse. The blending of excitement and dread had been
with her at first, but quickly all excitement had given way to the
single emotion which grew almost to a panic, when, finally, the nurse
withdrew, leaving her ready to receive the man she loved.
Vita leant against her cushions waiting breathlessly. Her courage was
drawn up to an almost breaking point. She longed to re-summon the
nurse, and once even her uninjured arm was outstretched towards the
electric bell. But she did not ring. She had asked, nay begged for
Ruxton's visit. She resolutely determined to face him and tell him all
the miserable truth. He would despise her. He would turn from her. She
closed her eyes to escape the picture she had conjured up of the cold
look she knew his handsome dark eyes were so capable of. But he must
know--he must know. She told herself this, and she told herself that
she must accept her fate at his hands without murmur. It was a just
punishment for her----
The sound of the door-catch moving startled her. Her eager, frightened
eyes turned swiftly in the direction. In a moment Ruxton was standing
in the room, his deep eyes smiling down at her from his great height.
"Vita! My Vita!"
Just for one moment the woman's head swam. Her eyes closed and it
seemed that she was about to faint. But the sensation passed, and when
the beautiful grey depths gazed out once more the man was seated on the
edge of the bed, holding her hand clasped under the tender pressure of
both his.
"My poor little Vita! My poor darling!"
The tones of his voice were tenderly caressing. They were full of a
deep, passionate sympathy and love. Vita thrilled under their echo in
her own soul. But there was no return of pressure in her hand. Her eyes
gazed back into his full of yearning, but they seemed to have lost
their power of smiling.
"Ruxton, dear----" she began. Then she broke off as though powerless to
bring herself to tell him all that lay ready marshalled for him to hear.
"Don't distress yourself, dear. Don't bother to talk. It's enough for
me to be here, with you, and know you are getting well."
It was his final words which spurred her courage. She began to speak
rapidly, and almost it was as if complaint were in her tone.
"But I am not getting well--yet. That is what Doctor Mellish says, and
that is why I must talk. Oh, Ruxton, can't you understand? I can never
get well until I have told you--told you all that is on my mind.
Dearest, dearest, I have wronged you, oh, how I have wronged you, and
all because I am a coward, a miserable wretched coward who dared not
face the death which they had marked out for me. It is that--that which
brought about poor father's death. It is that which made me throw aside
the love which was all the world to me, and promise to marry the man
who pretended that he was about to save my wretched life."
"Von Salzinger?"
The question came with unerring instinct, but the coldness for herself
Vita had dreaded was lacking.
"Yes," she said, in a childlike, frightened way.
"Tell it me. Tell it me all. I have been waiting all these weeks to
learn the truth of all that happened to you--of all you have been made
to suffer by those devils. Tell me everything, from the moment I left
you to come up here to await your father's arrival."
His manner was so gentle, yet so firm. His eyes still held the warm
smile with which he had greeted her. Vita's courage stole back into her
veins, and her poor, hammering heart slackened its beatings, and her
thoughts became less chaotic.
Ruxton waited with infinite patience. Time was for them alone just now.
He had no desire to lose one moment of it.
Presently in a low hurried voice Vita began her story. She made no
attempt to convey to him the terror through which she had passed. Yet
it was all there. It lay under every word she uttered. It found
expression in the brilliancy of her eyes, and the heated color which
leapt to her thin cheeks. Ruxton read it all as if he were witnessing
the whole action of the scenes she was describing. He not only read it,
but something of a sympathetic dread swept through him, and his heart
set him wondering how his poor troubled love had managed to survive the
horror of all she must have endured.
Vita told him of Von Berger's coming, silently, secretly to Redwithy,
and the way in which he had forced her to embark on that journey over
the wild moorlands into the heart of Somersetshire. Then she told him
of the imprisonment in the dreadful valley. She hurried on to the scene
when Von Berger had warned her of her condemnation to death. After that
she paused, gathering her courage for what was next to come. Her eyes
gazed yearningly into her lover's now serious face. Her courage was
ebbing fast. Then came the heartening tones of his voice.
"Tell it all, dearest. You have nothing to fear. Perhaps I can guess
it."
Instantly her courage rose, and she poured out the story of her
renunciation of his love, that she might be permitted to live. And in
her renunciation she warned him that she had been resolved to carry it
out to the hideous completion of marriage with Von Salzinger.
And while she leant back on her cushions pouring out her passionate
story, Ruxton's thoughts were less on her words than on the wonder at
the loyalty and honesty which made it necessary for her to lay bare her
very soul to him now, revealing every weakness which she believed to be
hers. Its effect upon him was deep and lasting. Blame? Where could
there be blame? The thought became the maddest thing in the world to
him. His whole soul went out to her in her suffering. All he felt he
longed to do was to place his strong arms about her and defend her from
all the world; to drive off even the vaguest shadow of memory which
might disturb her.
But he did nothing. Her hand lay passive in his, and he waited while
she recounted the details of the night journey from Somersetshire to
the North. Then, when she came to the final scene of her father's
death, passion surged through his veins, and he rose from his seat on
the bed and paced the limits of the room.
"The treacherous devils!" he muttered. "The hounds! Gad! they could not
beat him, so they played upon a woman, a defenseless woman. It was
German. But they have paid--both of them. But the old man! The
pity--the pity of it. If I could only have saved him."
Ruxton was not addressing her, but Vita was following his every word.
Now she caught at his final sentence.
"No one could," she said, with a deep sigh. "I led him to that place of
death, as surely as----"
"No, no, Vita! You must not say that. You are no more responsible for
his death than I am. Those devils would have got him. If not in one
way, then in another. He knew it. He was prepared for it. He told me
himself. No, no, you did right. If there were shortcomings they were
mine. I did not see far enough. Thank God, at least I contrived to save
you from the fate they had prepared for you."
Vita's eyes had followed his restless movement. Now they rested upon
his flushed face and hot eyes as he returned to his seat on the bed and
took possession of her hand again.
"Thank God for your life and safety, dearest," he cried, raising her
hand to his lips and pressing it to them passionately. "It was the
nearest thing. It turns me cold now when I think how near. Listen and
I'll tell you my side of it all. It's not a very brainy side, dear.
There's not much in it that's particularly creditable to any thinking
man. Most of it was luck, a sort of miraculous good fortune added to an
inspiration for which I mustn't take any credit. I'll just take up the
tale where you left it, but from the other side--the side whence you
might well have expected succor, and from which, very nearly, there was
none forthcoming."
He paused. He leant over on the bed, supporting himself on one arm. His
dark eyes were shining as they dwelt upon the well-loved beauty of the
woman who was, perhaps, at that moment, more than ever the centre of
his life.
"I can't tell how I arrived at the certainty that you were in the power
of these devils, and were being forced unwittingly to further their
schemes. It was instinct, it was--well, whatever you like to call it.
There's no need to worry you with the manner in which I persuaded your
father to let me watch over him in his going from these shores. Nor
does it matter the small things I prepared for that watch. I'll just
tell you what happened.
"I owe a good deal to a small section of the Navy, including Sir Joseph
Caistor and Sir Reginald Steele, who were both spending the week-end
here. Also Commander Sparling, and some of his men, who are in charge
of the new constructions at the yards. Captain Ludovic I owe something
to for his shrewdness and loyalty and tolerance. These are the elements
which contributed so largely in your salvation.
"Well, all day long on that Sunday a light cruiser was standing off the
coast. It had definite instructions. Yes, Sir Joseph had ordered it
there to help me. It was scouting for a submarine. You see, I had made
up my mind that there would be a German submarine in the matter. That
is to say, if my fears were to prove well founded. Sure enough one
turned up late in the afternoon, and the cruiser picked her up while
she was running awash. We got the signal that she'd found her. Then was
played a wonderful game of cat and mouse. The cruiser never for a
moment let it out of her sight. When darkness closed she just ran up
closer and played about with a searchlight. There was no question of
interfering with or even 'speaking' her. She was outside the three
miles. Then about six o'clock there came the development. The submarine
launched a boat for shore. It was well manned, and she drove away in
the direction of the cove. Then the cruiser settled to her work. She
turned her searchlight right on to the vessel lying awash, and never
left it. The men on the submarine could do nothing which could not be
seen from the cruiser, and, to make matters more exasperating, the
cruiser closed right in upon her."
Ruxton paused as though reviewing and criticizing the scene, to observe
the completeness of the operation.
"You must understand, dear, what was in my mind to make this
necessary," he went on, seeing the need for explanation. "You see, I
knew what your father's submersible meant to Germany. They had lost the
plans of the U-rays lamp. Nor had they any models. The only
installation of the U-rays was on the submersible. I had made up my
mind that if there was to be any interference with your father they
meant capturing his vessel too. Besides, it would be simple from their
view-point. Your father's vessel was wholly unarmed.
"Very well. What were the intentions with a submarine probably full of
German naval men? It seemed to me natural that while their boat went
ashore, in pitch darkness, to take off your father, the men on the
submarine would set about securing possession of the submersible the
moment it hove in sight. How right I was you will see. However, the
submarine never had a chance. She could not escape that light. She
dived again and again to avoid it, but each time she came up the light
picked her up and held her. Had they attempted to launch a boat the
cruiser would have done the same, and then followed it up whithersoever
it went; and, had there been an attempt to board the submersible, our
boat would have been there first. The skipper of that submarine was
out-man[oe]uvred, beaten--peaceably, but--beaten. Nor had he means of
communicating his trouble to those in the boat which had gone ashore."
Now Ruxton's manner become less exultant as he went on after a brief
pause.
"What went on at the cove you know better than I. That was the chief
weakness of my plans. I stationed a number of the confidential
Government agents ready to lend help if it were needed. But I had been
driven to concentrating on the ultimate 'get away.' That, to me, stood
out as imperative. I had to chance the other. Therein lay my blame for
the sacrifice of your father. The sound of shots fired told its tale,
but I still hoped."
He drew a deep sigh of regret. His eyes were troubled. Now he went on,
without a sign of elation.
"The crucial moment came when it was seen that the pinnace, loaded well
down, was racing towards the submersible from the shore. It was more
than ticklish. However, things were carefully planned. They hailed the
submersible, which was lying awash. They found only two men on the
deck--your father's men, and Captain Ludovic in the conning-tower
doorway. Von Berger led the way aboard, and Von Salzinger followed. The
former glanced at the men, and spoke to Ludovic. In his words he
justified my whole supposition. He asked for a Lieutenant Rutter, and
Ludovic, in assumed sullen submission, told him he was below in the
saloon. Von Berger was satisfied. He only waited till the crew was
aboard, and you, lying unconscious in the arms of one of his men, and
your father's body supported by two others, had been conveyed down
below. Then he gave Ludovic orders to head at full speed for Cuxhaven,
and, if followed, to submerge. He said that the man Rutter would be
sent up to see he played no tricks. Then he and Von Salzinger went
below, and the steel door of the conning-tower was made fast.
"The rest--do you need it? It was a bloody affair. You and your dead
father were taken into the saloon. Von Berger and Von Salzinger
followed. Then Von Berger dismissed the men, who went out while he
looked round for Rutter. But in a moment he understood what was
happening. As the men left the saloon they were set upon. They fought
like demons, but were either overpowered or shot down. Von Berger
slammed the saloon door closed, and strove to hold it. But as well try
to hold a rabbit-hutch against a tornado. They were caught. Caught, as
I heard Von Salzinger say, like rats in a trap."
"You--you were there--in the submersible?"
Vita's eyes were shining with a world of emotion. The story had caught
her and swept her along with it. A great pride was in her heart. This
man had risked all, everything for her father and herself.
"Oh, yes. But I wasn't by any means alone. Young Sparling and twenty of
his bluejackets from the yards had been secreted aboard. But--it was
deadly work. How I escaped without a scratch I don't know. Five of our
men got wounded. Von Berger fought like a fury. The other, Von
Salzinger, went out suddenly at the outset. I'm not sure who brought
him down. Sparling and I fired simultaneously. I hope it was my shot
that sent him--home. But Von Berger was wonderful. It was not until we
had crushed his wrist and hand in the fighting that he was overpowered.
He was a veritable Hercules."
Vita had listened almost breathlessly. Now her enquiry came in a low,
eager tone.
"And Von Berger--what happened after he was overpowered?"
Ruxton hesitated.
"It was he who killed my father," Vita reminded him.
"Yes."
"Tell me."
Ruxton had no alternative.
"We had a talk--he and I. The result? He was given an alternative. The
hangman's rope here ashore, or half an hour's freedom of the
submersible's deck."
Vita nodded. She understood.
"And he chose?"
"The deck. You see he was a royal prince."
"Yes."
Neither seemed inclined to break the silence that followed. Each was
thinking of the scenes which must have been enacted. Ruxton, as he had
witnessed them. Vita, as her imagination portrayed them.
Finally it was Vita who spoke in a whisper that became almost startling.
"The others--the crew of the boat?"
"They have been all sent back to Germany--via Holland. They were all
held here till the wounded had recovered. Then they went away together."
But Vita's eyes were wide with apprehension.
"But the secret. The secret of it all will reach Berlin. It will reach
even to----"
Ruxton smiled.
"Precisely what was intended and--hoped. It has done so. We know that.
We have had the most curious and subtle enquiries from the Berlin
authorities. They dared not openly accuse. We have replied. Our Foreign
Office formulated the reply. They have been told that a murder was
committed upon the Yorkshire coast--the murder of a German named Von
Hertzwohl. It was committed by a rascally crew of Germans, headed by
one, Von Berger, and assisted by another, Von Salzinger. These seem to
have been the names they were known by, though the police think they
were probably aliases. Unfortunately the gang got away in boats.
However, the leaders came to an untimely end in the pursuit by the
police. One shot himself--the one called Von Salzinger. The other, Von
Berger, who seems to have been injured, tried to escape by going
overboard from the boat in which he was endeavoring to get away. The
Foreign Office has regretted that it can obtain no further information
which might be of use to Berlin."
"But it is a challenge," cried Vita in an awed voice.
Ruxton's smile broadened.
"So it was intended." He shook his head. "But it is a challenge they
dare not take up. Furthermore, it should leave us in peace to complete
the work your poor father has so well begun."
Ruxton rose from his seat on the bed. He moved away, across to the
leaded window, from which the sunbeam had long since passed. He gazed
out across the leafless trees of the park towards the drab of the
moorland beyond. He was not unaffected by his own story. He knew how
much more it must mean to Vita. He waited. He was waiting for a summons
which he felt would come in Vita's own good time.
A few minutes passed and then it came. He turned about and smiled over
at the sweet grey eyes which were so frankly appealing. There was a
change, a great change in them. All the trouble seemed to have passed
out of them. And the weary brain behind them seemed at last to have
found that rest it so seriously needed.
"Ruxton," she murmured. "Can you--can you ever forgive me for--what----"
The man was at the bedside again. This time he was not sitting. He was
leaning across it, and his arms were outstretched and thrust about her
soft, warm body, where she leant against the cushions. His face was
drawn up within a few inches of hers. His eyes were on a level with
hers. They were smiling into the deeps of grey beauty before them. Nay,
the tragedy of it, he was laughing into them.
"Promising to marry Von Salzinger? If I had been in your place I
shouldn't have promised. I'd have married him right off if it were to
save me from being murdered." Then his laugh died out abruptly. "Don't
think of it, my beautiful Vita. Don't ever let the thought of it enter
your dear, dear head again. If ever a poor defenceless woman went
through an earthly hell, you did. Sweetheart, it's my sole purpose in
life now to endeavor to place you in an earthly heaven."
He drew her to him in a passionate embrace. And so their lips met and
lingered.