Oddly enough the first news of Blanche Maitland came to Mrs Carruthers
through Dare.
He mentioned in a letter that he had been to a music-hall entertainment
where to his amazement the sphinx-like young person, who was a paragon
of all the virtues, was playing accompaniments for the members of a
musical troupe, to which she apparently belonged.
"I understood she was fostering the Arnott babies," he wrote. "You
don't keep me fully posted as to events, as you promised. I tried to
get hold of her, but learnt that she had gone on to Pretoria. It is an
odd life for a girl, but more amusing, possibly, than tending the future
generation."
Further on in the letter he said:
"I ran across Arnott in town--another surprise. He was very surly, and
seemed to wish to avoid me, so I reconsidered my hospitable intention to
ask him to lunch with me. How is She? If you don't mention Her in your
next letter I shall run down and pursue my own inquiries."
Mrs Carruthers was highly perplexed. Why, she wondered, if Blanche had
gone away with Arnott should she have joined a troupe of strolling
singers? And if she had not gone away with Arnott, why was he in
Johannesburg at the same time?
Carruthers could not explain this also as a coincidence. He did not
attempt to. He remarked that it looked fishy, and asked his wife if she
intended to inform Pamela. Mrs Carruthers was undecided.
"I don't know what to do," she confessed. "I think I'll write to
George, and tell him to find out what he can about them. It will be
necessary to explain certain things to him; I am sorry to be obliged to
do that."
"Why?" inquired Carruthers.
She looked at him for a moment uncertainly. Dickie was a well-meaning
person, but he was not astute. She possessed a beautiful contempt for
his perspicacity.
"George admires Pamela," she said.
Carruthers received this intelligence unmoved.
"He would be a little unusual if he didn't," he returned. "I don't see
why that fact should make you hesitate to enlist his services; it's much
more likely to make him of use. Dare is cut out for the role of knight
to distressed beauty; it suits his proportions; a stout man looks absurd
in the cast."
Mrs Carruthers showed impatience.
"If you can't help, don't make fatuous remarks," she said. "George
takes it too seriously. We don't want to complicate the present muddle.
If I felt that he might make a fool of himself over this business I
would sooner bite out my tongue than inform him."
"Then we aren't any forrader," Carruthers returned imperturbably,
"except that we have a clue to Arnott's whereabouts, which in my opinion
you have no right to keep from his wife."
"We don't know positively that she isn't fully informed," she replied.
Mrs Carruthers was worried, and felt consequently irritated. Dare's
letter had reopened a subject which had been slipping comfortably into
the background of her thoughts. She was sorry for Pamela, whom she
would willingly have helped had it lain in her power; but Pamela made no
offer to confide in her. She never referred to Arnott's absence,--never
spoke of him now. Mrs Carruthers formed the opinion that she still had
no knowledge of his movements, that she did not know when to expect him
back. An unpleasant sense of mystery hung over the affair, which
imposed a painful constraint on their friendly relations. Pamela
avoided intercourse with her neighbours, and was seldom to be seen
without the children; it was as though she used them as a shield to
guard against awkward encounters. But that she was unhappy was very
obvious. She had become transformed into a thoughtful, care-worn woman,
in whose eyes there lurked always a haunting expression of dread. It
was this expression which, in spite of Pamela's aloofness, kept Mrs
Carruthers' sympathies alight, and moved her, against her very earnest
desire to keep George Dare from mixing himself up in Pamela's affairs,
to write to him, and request him to discover if he could what Arnott was
doing in Johannesburg.
Her letter brought Dare to Wynberg. He descended upon her in his usual
informal manner, announcing his intended visit by telegram, and
following the announcement as speedily as circumstances permitted. This
course was a practice with him of many years' standing, and never before
the present occasion had Mrs Carruthers resented it. The receipt of
the telegram annoyed her. She had asked him to find out certain things
about Arnott, and in response he had come away from the centre where he
could have instigated inquiries which might have elicited useful
information, led by some wild, unaccountable impulse which he ought, she
felt, to have resisted. That he would come down had been the last
thought in her mind.
Dare received a frigid welcome. He was in a way prepared for this. The
letter she had written had been so vague and guarded in its wording that
he had read between the lines her desire to keep him in the dark as far
as possible as to the reason for the inquiries she wished him to make.
Dare had no intention of being kept in the dark in any matter relating
to Pamela. He intended to find out things for himself.
"You don't appear overjoyed to see me," he observed to his unwelcoming
hostess, whose greeting of him lacked the warmth and kindliness he was
accustomed to from her.
"I am not," she answered severely. "Whatever did you come for?"
"To see Pamela," he replied unhesitatingly.
"Why?"
"Because from your mysterious communication I judged she was in some
difficulty. You gave me a few insufficient facts. I want details. If
you won't give them to me, she will."
Mrs Carruthers deliberated.
"I asked you to find out what Arnott was doing in Johannesburg," she
said presently. "I fail to see what there was in that request to bring
you to Wynberg."
"Arnott is not in Johannesburg any longer. He was leaving on the day I
met him," he returned. "Why should you concern yourself about his
movements? Presumably your request was not based on anxiety on his
account; therefore I concluded your concern must be for Mrs Arnott. I
came down to find out."
"I hope you are not going to give me cause to regret having written that
letter," she said seriously.
"I hope not," he responded with equal gravity. "Why should you imagine
anything of the sort? As I told you before, I only wish to be helpful
to her."
She turned the subject, and talked to him on other matters; but Dare,
after a brief interval, brought the conversation back to the topic which
most interested him. He got very little satisfaction from Mrs
Carruthers. Carruthers was more communicative. From him Dare heard the
whole story, embellished with details which Mrs Carruthers had not
heard. Arnott was pretty freely discussed at the club, of which he and
Carruthers were members. Carruthers had come round to believe in his
wife's theory that Arnott had eloped with the governess. The fact that
she was touring with a musical troupe, was in his opinion merely a
blind. When he tired of the girl, doubtless he would chuck it and come
home.
"Well," said Dare, "I'm glad you told me. But I don't believe a word of
it. He wasn't with the girl in Johannesburg, save in the sense of being
in the same town. I'm going to clear up this business for my own
satisfaction. To-morrow I shall call on Mrs Arnott."
"I supposed that was your object," Carruthers answered. "But you won't
get much out of her. It's my belief she is as ignorant as the rest of
us. She's feeling this, Dare. It makes me feel sloppily sentimental
merely to look at her. The chap wants kicking. You be careful what you
are doing, my boy. I am rather of Connie's opinion that you'd be wiser
to keep out of this. It's the devil of a business to attempt comforting
a pretty married woman. Stick to widows and spinsters, I say. What!"
"You're an awful old ass, Dickie," was all Dare said in response.
Dare experienced a curious exasperation in the knowledge that the
Carruthers both doubted the disinterestedness of his purpose in seeking
to be of use to Pamela. A man may befriend the woman he loves without
any base thought in connection with her. In coming to Wynberg to see
Pamela, Dare had no other intention than to be of service to her. The
doubtful possibility of being able to serve a woman whose husband has
presumably deserted her, did not strike him. Once in possession of the
facts he would be in a position at least to advise her; might, if things
were not as Carruthers represented them, assist in putting a stop to the
scandal that was afloat. It was abominable to reflect that Pamela's
name was being bandied about at the clubs.
Pamela was in the garden when Dare called in the morning. The boy was
asleep on a kaross spread under the trees, and she was seated in a chair
near him, sewing, when Dare opened the gate and entered. The sound of
his footsteps on the hard gravel caused her to look up; and an
expression of quick alarm showed in her face as her eyes met his.
He advanced swiftly towards her; and, as he crossed the lawn, she rose
and stood, flushed, embarrassed, painfully self-conscious, looking at
him in a dismayed silence which she seemed unable to break. Dare spoke
first.
"I've sprung a surprise on you," he said, and took her proffered hand
and held it firmly gripped in his. "I'm staying next door."
"I didn't know you were expected," Pamela returned, recovering herself
with an effort, and giving him a welcoming smile. "I haven't seen
Connie for days."
"It was a surprise for her too," he admitted. "I came self-invited.
Are you busy? I should like to stay for a chat, if I may."
"That's my only business at present," she said, and pointed towards the
sleeping child. "I'm on guard."
Dare looked down at the child.
"The little chap grows," he remarked. "He was only a baby when last I
saw him. How's the girlie?"
"Oh! very well. If you stay you will see her later. She is out at
present. Sit down, won't you?"
He drew a chair forward facing hers on the side farthest away from the
child, and sat down. It recalled, save for the boy's unconscious
presence, the afternoon when he had last sat there with her, and had
wrung from her the promise which she had failed to keep.
"It is like old times, this," he observed, and scrutinised her
thoughtfully as he sat back in his seat. Despite the flush in her
cheeks which the sight of him had brought there, he could not fail to
detect traces of the trouble which had wrought such a marked change in
her appearance that, had he needed assurance there was something in what
Carruthers had told him, her face would have supplied the necessary
proof. "I'm awfully glad to see you again. I came with that object,"
he said.
"To see me!" Pamela looked puzzled.
"To see you," he repeated. "Do you remember something I asked you to do
in this garden, the last time we sat here?"
Pamela did not immediately answer. That she followed his question he
realised by the deepening of the flush in her cheeks. She lay back in
her chair, very still and quiet, the long lashes drooping above her
eyes, veiling the trouble in their depths. Dare sat forward now,
regarding her steadily.
"What was that?" she asked presently; and he knew that she put the
question merely to gain time. She understood perfectly to what he
referred.
"You promised me that if ever you were in a position in which a friend
might prove helpful, you would extend to me a friend's privilege," he
said earnestly. "Have you kept that promise?"
"I have not been in that position," Pamela replied without looking at
him.
Dare laid a hand on her dress.
"Pamela," he said quietly, "I think I deserve that you should be honest
with me."
She turned very white. How he had learnt of the trouble which she
believed was known only to herself, she had no means of judging, but
that he was in possession of certain information his manner assured her.
She wondered how he had come by his knowledge,--how much he knew.
Suddenly she experienced again the longing to confide in him, the
intense desire for his sympathy and counsel which had moved her to the
point of writing to him on the day when she had discovered the further
proof of Arnott's treachery. Since that day until now she had not
thought of appealing to him.
"I did write," she confessed in a low voice, "over a month ago; but I
tore the letter up. Then something happened, and I felt I couldn't
write."
He looked at her for a moment or so in silence. The flush had come back
to her cheeks, and the blue of her eyes as they met his darkened almost,
to black. The pathos, and the wistfulness of them wrung his heart.
"I'm glad you thought of writing," he said; "that was something towards
it anyway. I want you to go a little further and confide in me fully."
"I've thought of doing that,--I've wanted to," she said. "But--"
She glanced at her sleeping child, and from him back into the strong,
sympathetic face of this man who sought to serve her, whose help she so
sorely needed.
"If I only knew what to do!" she cried.
"I'm telling you what to do," he answered. "It seems to me perfectly
simple. Whatever the difficulty is it can't make it easier hugging it
to yourself; and if it lies within the scope of human power to help you,
you know I'll do anything for you." He leaned towards her suddenly and
grasped her hand. "Pamela, don't you trust me?"
"Yes," she said, troubled and hesitating... "Yes. But I can't talk to
you here."
"No," he said. "But later..."
"When Maggie comes for the child," she answered in a whisper, "we will
go indoors... I--will trust you..."