EXPLAINS WHAT VERA LEARNED
Just, however, as Vera was starting to her feet to read the telegram
for which she had dared so much, the door of the study was opened with
great swiftness but stealth.
The handle, it appeared, had been turned quite noiselessly, but,
instantly on the alert, the girl rose and pushed the envelope into the
bodice of her dress, and turned to face the intruder who proved to be
no other than a footman named Judson to whom she had only that morning
given notice because he was under suspicion of theft, although nothing
could be proved against him.
For a moment--but only for a moment--her heart seemed to stand quite
still in horror. All that this man had disguised in his years of
service with Russell Langford--his cunning, his cupidity, his
unscrupulousness--now, under the stress of this success of his, stood
out with painful clearness and distinctness. Inevitably their eyes
met--and they understood. Then habit asserted itself, and the servant
looked down, feigning a respect he would never feel for her again.
“I thought I heard you call, miss,” said the man, recognising the
necessity of explaining his presence although he had listened to all
the proceedings from the far side of the door. “Has the telegraph-boy
fainted? He looked to me when he came to the door as though he had
been running much too fast,” and he bent over the lad’s prostrate form
and affected to feel his pulse.
“Yes, that is it; he fainted quite suddenly,” returned Vera, clutching
wildly at this feeble excuse. “Do you mind running up to my
sitting-room and fetching my smelling salts? Don’t trouble about a
doctor or other servants. I don’t think his attack really serious.
These post-office people pay their servants so badly. Perhaps he has
had to run about all day on a little bread and milk.”
“No doubt,” assented Judson who was busy laying the boy out quite
flat. “Smelling salts, I always find, are the best cure for cases like
this.” And he rose and stepped nimbly out of the room; but never once
did he dare to look Vera in the face for fear she should take alarm
too soon.
This time, however, the girl took care that she was not observed. With
a quick movement she turned and pretended to follow him. But, as she
saw him disappear up the staircase, she hastened back to the study,
thrust the now empty chloroform-bottle into a drawer, and then, with
fingers trembling with excitement she attacked the envelope which
contained the telegram.
As it happened, it was sealed just as carelessly as are most of these
important messages, and, almost in an instant, the flap parted in her
fingers and permitted her to withdraw the pink form on which she saw
written the very message she had dreaded: from the actress Flora
Kaufmann:--
“TO JULES PRENDERGAST, BELSIZE THEATRE, ST. MARTIN’S LANE, W.C.
“Supper Scott’s postponed till to-morrow night. Blake will come
alright. Give him a hint about your prospective marriage--Langford
girl. Think he will stand 1,000. Much love. FLORA.”
As these horrible and insulting words formed themselves before her
eyes, Vera stood torn by the most insane passion. Rage, jealousy,
hatred, swept over her in one wild desolating gust so that one second
murder flamed to her hands, then came a terrible sense of loneliness,
helplessness and nausea, followed the next instant by deadly
deliberation and calm.
“Oh! She shall not. She shall not. She shall not,” she caught herself
muttering as she pressed the telegram back into the envelope which she
rapidly sealed and replaced in the boy’s sachet. “Never, never shall
she take Jules Prendergast from me. I would sooner kill him,” and she
drew herself up to her full height, pressing the palms of her hands
together as, in imagination, she raced over the events of the past few
hours, and sought where she could foil the actress who was now
actually carrying the war amongst her own friends, to the very man she
had resolved to bleed on Prendergast’s behalf--Ventris Blake.
“I will not wait. The first thing to-morrow I will go and see him,”
she decided almost in a flash. “I will stop this supper party even if
I have to go down on my knees to him. Never will I let this creature
triumph.”
Yet, inwardly, she knew that the price she would have to pay for her
victory over the actress would be dearer than an open act of abject
humility, degrading in itself, no doubt, but, what was best, but a
temporary expedient and quickly forgotten. Blake, she was aware, had
no feeling for her except that of a master for a possibly useful
servant. It was the pure, cold beauty of Winifred Pontifex that had
led him captive; and only inasmuch as she assisted his schemes to win
this girl for himself, could she hope to make the large sum of money
which she required to finance Prendergast and the Belsize Theatre.
Just then, however, a low moan from the telegraph boy and a quick step
on the stairs, warned her of the dangers of her present situation, and
with a long deep sigh she thrust all these painful bewildering
thoughts out of her mind, and threw open the door to meet Judson. Once
again she was a cold, calm, collected woman. Without a word, she took
the smelling salts from the man’s hand, and throwing herself on her
knees beside the lad, she laboured for some minutes to restore him to
consciousness.
Finally he sat up, his eyes wild and defiant. “I cannot let you have
the telegram,” he exclaimed incoherently throwing his arms about as
though he would protect himself from some unseen assailant.
“What telegram?” she asked innocently but soothingly. “Mr.
Prendergast’s? Of course you cannot. See! Here it is in your pouch! It
has never left your possession!
“Come,” she went on slowly but sweetly. “You have over-excited
yourself and fainted. Look! You gave me such a start you made me smash
my neuralgia mixture! There, don’t dream any more nonsense. Just look
after him, Judson, will you? Put him in a hansom and drive him back to
the post-office. Explain to the chiefs there his mind must be a little
touched and beg them to soothe him, not to blame him.”
And with a gentle pat on the boy’s cheeks she rose and swept out of
the room, leaving even the magnificent Judson for a time dumb with
astonishment and admiration for her audacity.
“Well,” he muttered at length as he raised the boy in his powerful
arms. “I have seen some clever ones in my time, but, hang it, she can
beat the lot of them! Lucky for me though I saw all that she did to
this poor little chap! It was a prison job that was, and at the right
moment I will tell her so. It will be odd to me then if I ever have to
do another stroke of work in my ‘natural.’ But then I never did like
work!” And as he passed into the street and beckoned a hansom he
caught himself chuckling like a man who had done a good, honest
night’s work, and was to be congratulated on the result.
Meanwhile, however, Vera had gone to her room, the door of which she
carefully locked and bolted after curtly dismissing her maid. For once
she did not attempt to disrobe, but, drawing a chair up to the fire
she sat crouched over the grate, turning over in her mind the day’s
bitter disillusions and trials, and deciding she must go through with
the course she had decided on in such dread and haste.
Finally, worn out, she stretched herself on the bed, and snatched a
few hours’ troubled sleep--only to wake again when the hour of eight
struck, and to perform a hurried toilet, after which she set out
boldly for Park Lane, where she knew she would find Ventris Blake
alone.
None the less, in spite of her naturally strong nerve the contents and
bills of the morning papers gave her an ugly shock. Whereas one would
discreetly announce “Tragedy at Scarborough,” another would throw all
reserve to the winds, and in letters several inches deep would
narrate: “A Millionaire’s Wife Murdered. Gay Seaside Resort in Panic.
Park Lane in Mourning. A Railway Hue and Cry.”
It was easy enough, of course, for her to tell herself that this was
no affair of hers. Somehow her conscience was not quite dead, and that
morning it seemed to stir uneasily; and to warn her that the money she
was after was in one sense blood money, and to ask who was she to
sacrifice a good strong love like Arthur Hudson’s to Winifred Pontifex
so that she might win the man of her choice, and defeat a creature of
the stamp of Flora Kaufmann.
“It will do you no good,” the voice seemed to whisper to her, and the
passing cabs and carts appeared to take up the refrain, and every jolt
of the wheels ground out the words “no good! no good! no good!” until,
with a great gulp of relief, she hastened up the steps of the
millionaire’s residence and gave a long sonorous peal on the bell.
Every blind in the windows of Ventris Blake’s house was tightly drawn.
In some miraculous fashion an air of almost sepulchral gloom had been
imparted to its exterior, and this was rather heightened than lessened
by the fact that two or three police constables were apparently
hanging about, somehow lending a suggestion of a pictured scene of a
crime.
Early as it was, Ventris Blake consented to see her and received her
in his study, the shutters of which were bolted, hiding the flood of
electric light that poured over the interior, and also the fact that
he was busily engaged with his Hebrew secretary, Israel Sawdry,
transacting his ordinary business.
Thus, seated face to face alone with the man on whose word so much of
her happiness depended, even Vera’s courage failed, and she found
herself taking refuge in the most obvious commonplaces. There was
indeed something almost snakelike in the way he fixed his eyes on
hers, waiting for her to begin a story that, rich man that he was, he
must have known by heart. Eventually, she plucked up her courage, and
began slowly and timidly.
“Do you remember your goodness to me, Mr. Blake, when you enabled me
to make over £3,000 on the Stock Exchange? Well,” now more hurried,
“I am in instant need of money again. I--I can’t even wait to make it.
I must have £5,000,” and then she stopped and bit her lips. After
all, what power was it in this sphinx-like creature who said nothing
but only looked, and yet made her talk like an anxious, over-driven
school girl?
“I remember perfectly,” he said, but his tones were cold and even. It
was impossible to tell what he felt.
Again she reddened as she realised Ventris Blake was bent on
compelling her to ask him bolt outright for what she sought.
“I thought,” she went on lamely, “that you might be disposed to
advance that sum to me!”
“On what security?” he queried softly, knowing there was none.
“On--on my request,” struck in Vera plucking up courage. “I want to
finance Mr. Prendergast further. I have not the means.”
“And do you propose to make me any return for my assistance?”
proceeded Blake.
“Yes--anything I can,” said Vera eagerly.
“Well let us see where we stand--whether our minds run in unison.
There is your cousin, for instance, Winifred Pontifex,” he suggested.
“Don’t you agree with me it is absurd for her to think of marrying
Arthur Hudson?”
“Yes,” replied Vera lamely, feeling she was now caught in a trap, and
would be taken wherever the millionaire wished.
“That being so you will, of course, now do all you can to break the
match off.”
“Of course!” But the tone was weak and Blake’s eyes flashed.
“There must be no hesitation, no half lights about this,” he snapped.
“Arthur Hudson must be broken. Your cousin Winifred must be mine. On
those conditions I am willing to spend any amount of money--but on
those conditions alone.”
Vera bowed, not trusting herself to speak, and he went on: “I am, as a
matter of fact, glad that you came. I have given a good deal of
thought to this same subject this morning, and I have come to the
conclusion that there is only one way in which you and I can bring
this most desirable result about. First of all you must quarrel with
your cousin. You must make your home at Emperor’s Gate impossible to
her. You must drive her to earn a livelihood for herself!”
“That is impossible,” interjected Vera. “She will marry Hudson.”
“Not at all,” said the millionaire calmly. “Leave Arthur Hudson to me.
I can ruin him. It’s Miss Pontifex I can’t manage, and I look to you
when I have advanced you this £5,000, to make her feel it is
essential for her to stay in Emperor’s Gate no longer, but that she
must seek some situation where she can be free. That situation I have
already secured for her. You do your part, and drive her to it, and,
in the end, we shall win easily enough.”
“But what kind of situation is it?” stammered Vera feeling herself
cornered hopelessly. “Really I don’t think I ought to do this.”
None the less she was over-persuaded, and departed £5,000 the richer
it is true, but pledged to carry out Ventris Blake’s scheme.