THE VEILED LADY
Completely mystified, I stood motionless for a few moments. I was
certain that my brother _had_ entered the house. Perhaps, despite the
old man's assertion as to the door having been closed and locked, he
had really left it ajar, and George, perceiving this, had, in a fit of
desperation, seized the occasion to enter and hide, resolving to remain
there till I had taken my departure. He might even now be stealing a
look from one of the windows to see whether the coast were clear.
I looked at the time and found that I had an hour before the departure
of the London train. I determined to watch the house for a short
time, and then, if my brother did not appear, to betake myself to the
station. The portico of the adjoining house was the spot I selected for
my vigil, a place which, while concealing my own presence, gave me a
full view of the strange dwelling.
"I like that old man's face," I muttered, as I shook off the snow from
my cloak, preparatory to folding it closer around me. "It's a noble
one and a truthful one, or I am no judge of faces. I believe he knows
nothing of George's entering; but, for all that, I am certain George
_is_ within. Much good I do by stopping here! George can easily leave
by the rear--perhaps has left already. No matter. If he is going to
London he must travel by the same train as I shall, and therefore I am
sure to see him on the platform. If he is not going to London--well, so
much the better for my hopes. I wonder who the old man is, and why he
is all alone? Perhaps he's butler to a family who are spending their
Christmas from home."
The cold was intense. The wind blew keenly. The drops of perspiration
caused by my violent run seemed slowly turning to icicles on my chilled
skin. I took a deep draught of the brandy and water in my flask.
Taking a cigar from my case, I contrived to light it after some
difficulty, and puffed away vigorously. Then I referred to my watch.
"Only ten minutes elapsed? I thought it was half an hour. Time lags.
Who was it that said 'Time flies?' If the ass were here to-night in my
place I rather fancy he would revoke his saying. Am I really awake,
I wonder? Can this be Daphne's wedding-morn, and am I here, at 3:30
A. M., in the snow at Dover, keeping watch on an absconding
bridegroom? It must be a dream. I shall wake up presently at old
Heidelberg, and hear the chapel-bell tinkling for matins."
Twenty minutes elapsed. "Nothing happening so far." I muttered "I'm
a fool to stop here. This is growing ridiculous. I shall freeze if I
remain much longer. I believe I _am_ freezing--falling off into one of
those sweet Russian slumbers that one reads of in books--or is it the
brandy? Aha! what's that? Something is happening in the strange house,
that's certain."
A light had appeared at an upper window, and was shining faintly out
into the night. My curiosity was raised to a high pitch, and I stole
from my hiding-place to get a nearer view. The old man had not been
burning a light previously to my arrival, and if he had gone to bed,
what did he want with one now? Excitement drove all the cold from my
body, and a tingling warmth succeeded, as with a quickly-beating heart
I waited for some development of this apparent mystery; and no words of
mine can describe my feeling of surprise as I saw the shadow of a woman
glide across the blind of the lighted window. The dark silhouette stood
forth for a moment distinct on the illumined white, and then vanished.
Now there is nothing surprising in the shadow of a woman crossing
a blind in the early hours of the morning; but when you have been
assured a few minutes previously by the tenant of the house that there
is no one within the building but himself, it _does_ become a matter
of surprise, and in the present case everything tended to invest the
event with a mysterious air. The woman, to judge by the outline of her
shadow, was habited as if for a journey, and this, added to the fact
that the light was now extinguished, induced me to extend the duration
of my watch. No one came out, however, and as the London train would be
departing in fifteen minutes, I deliberated as to the wisdom of staying
longer. If I missed the train I should not be in time for the wedding,
using the word wedding in a provisional sense; for, from the strange
proceedings of the last hour, doubts began to seize me as to whether it
would ever come off.
I was loth to depart, but the desire of witnessing the scene that would
take place at my uncle's house in the event of George's non-appearance
decided my course of action. I determined to wait no longer, and,
having applied both eye and ear to the keyhole of the strange house
without learning anything thereby, I set off for the station at a
running pace.
Having completely lost my bearings, and being a stranger to Dover,
I knew not which way to turn, and would have fared ill but for the
guidance of a friendly constable. I arrived two minutes before the
departure of the train. On receiving my luggage from the porter, I said:
"You have not seen the gentleman?"
"No, sir. He's not in this train. Not been here since you left."
Having satisfied my curiosity by walking along the platform and
scrutinising the occupants of every carriage, I returned, and said:
"Find me a first-class compartment, all to myself."
"One here, sir, with the brightest lamp in the whole train."
If mine were the brightest, I pity those who were cursed with the
dullest.
"Put it in specially for you, sir."
The lies some people will tell for a few paltry pence! Taking a corner
seat, and calling for a foot-warmer, I leaned out of the window,
keeping a sharp look-out in case George should turn up on the platform
at the last moment.
"I suppose my bro--the gentleman cannot now get to London before me?"
"Not unless he has gone by the other line."
"What other line?"
"The L. C. and D."
"What's that?"
"The L. C. and D.?" repeated the porter, apparently astounded that any
one should be ignorant of the meaning of those initials. "Why, the
London, Chatham and Dover Railway? Their last train left twenty minutes
ago."
Here was a pretty piece of news! I could have written a long article
on the numerous paved _viæ_ that radiated from ancient Rome, but I
knew next to nothing of the lines of railway that emanate from modern
London, and the idea that there might be an iron road to the great city
other than the one I was travelling by had never occurred to me.
"I have had my long watch for nothing," I muttered savagely. "While I
was shivering in the cold, George, for all that I know to the contrary,
may have left the house by a back door, and may now be bowling on his
way to London. Well, anyhow, I am close on his heels. I shall arrive
before the wedding, and you don't marry Daphne, George, till you have
given an explanation of your strange conduct. Something wrong has been
going on, else why should you avoid me?" And, with the usual sophistry
employed by mortals when their self-interest is concerned, I tried to
convince myself that in requiring an explanation from George I was
actuated by a consideration for Daphne's welfare, and by no other
motive.
The guard's whistle had sounded, and the locomotive in front had given
a warning shriek, when the figure of a lady appearing within an archway
just opposite the compartment I was in darted hurriedly across the
platform.
"Ticket, if you please, miss. Thank you. Charing Cross--first-class.
Jump in, please. Not a moment to lose."
The carriage-door was flung hastily open, and the lady, partly by her
own exertions and partly aided by a gallant porter, entered, and seated
herself at the other end of the compartment on the side opposite to me.
Now, although by no means so handsome a person as I could wish myself
to be, I am nevertheless not quite so ugly as to inspire aversion
in the mind of any dame, be she old or young; and yet the lady had
no sooner set eyes upon me than she stared at me with terror, as if
mine were the most repulsive countenance that had ever disgraced the
Chamber of Horrors--conduct which somewhat nettled me, for, being a not
ungallant youth, I was hoping for a charming _tête-á-tête_ all the way
to London.
She glanced at the door, as if desirous of quitting the compartment
for another, but if such were her purpose it was baffled. The train
was now fairly on the move, and we were steaming out of the station
into the cold snow-dotted air of night. Willing or unwilling, the lady
must submit to be my companion for the next two hours. Her obvious
glances of distrust and alarm put me in a false position, and I at once
determined to open a conversation for the purpose of showing what a
good youth I was, and how little to be dreaded; but ere proceeding to
this course I took, while pretending to read the newspaper, a steady
view of my fair companion.
She was slender, graceful, lady-like, and tall, as a woman should be.
With Byron, "I hate a dumpy woman." Her features seemed regular and
handsome, but I could discern little of them through the thick veil
she was wearing, save a pair of splendid dark eyes--the colour being a
trifling deviation from my ideal of beauty, since Daphne's eyes were of
a dark blue. A close-fitting bonnet covered her dark hair, and a fur
boa was wrapped round her throat. A pair of little red leather shoes
peeped out from beneath the skirts of a long fur-lined cloak. A muff
contained her gloved hands.
"A handsome brunette," was my critique. "I shall be most happy to
introduce myself. How shall I begin, and what shall I talk about? Ha!
tell her I'm going to a wedding. Nothing unlocks a woman's tongue so
easily as a wedding--barring, perhaps a sensational divorce."
Now, while I was casting about in my mind how to begin the
conversation, my attention was suddenly attracted to something that she
had thrust beneath the seat immediately on entering the compartment.
Down from my hands dropped the newspaper at the sight I saw. That sight
was nothing more than a valise partly hidden from view by her dress.
But the portion that did display itself was marked by the letters
"G.W.," thus corresponding exactly with the initials on the bag that my
brother had carried! Was the bag, now peeping out at me from beneath
the carriage-seat, the identical one that had disappeared with George
into the mysterious house? My staring eyes were transferred from the
lady's face to the valise, and from the valise to the lady's face, in
swift alternation.
Then I suddenly recalled the silhouette on the blind, and, as I studied
the lady's head-dress and figure, I thought if she were to pass between
a light and the blind the contour of her shadow would not be very
dissimilar from the one I had seen. Could she have issued from the
strange house as soon as I had left it, and would that account for her
haste and breathless state on entering the train? Her obvious mistrust
of me, then, arose from a cause totally different from that of womanly
timidity at being exposed alone to the company of a stranger. Yet,
since we had never met each other before, how did she know I was a
person to be avoided?
"Who are you," I muttered to myself, "and what relations do you hold
with my brother? for some dealing you have with him, else--why that
bag? Are you his first Daphne, I wonder, travelling to London to tell
the second Daphne that you are an insurmountable obstacle to a certain
wedding that's to come off this morning? A sort of sister-in-law to me,
whose relationship has not been sanctioned by the Church? Has George
been compromising himself? Let me try to find out."
I had a high idea of my own ability to "draw" people out. The sequel
will show what a dexterous cross-examiner the law has lost in me.
"Do you object to smoking, madam?" I asked, by way of beginning a
conversation.
In lieu of a verbal reply, the lady responded by a quick horizontal
motion of her head, which sign presumably implied that she did not
object.
Ours was not a smoking carriage. Perhaps it was this fact that
suggested the idea of a cigar. Youth is defiant, and "Thou shalt not"
is often the parent of "I will." So, with a sovereign contempt for the
company's by-laws, I proceeded to light a cigar, remarking as I did so:
"It is a rough night for travelling."
Assent was given to this proposition by a vertical inclination of her
head. No words as yet had passed her lips. This was certainly not very
encouraging, but then perhaps I ought not to have spoken until after
I had been addressed by her. It occurred to me that while courting
the Muses at Heidelberg I had perhaps neglected the Graces, and had
lost all notions of etiquette; and unlike the damsel in the opera of
_Ruddigore_, I did not carry an etiquette-book about with me to consult
in cases of doubt, or I might have referred to it, in the present
instance, under the head of "Whether it be allowable for a gentleman
travelling in company with an unknown lady to try to draw her into
conversation?" Whether it be allowable or not, it is certainly the duty
of every one to be considerate, so I pushed the foot-warmer to the
feet of my fair companion, remarking:
"Your need is greater than mine."
I thought that this famous quotation from Elizabethan history would
be sure to elicit some words. But no. Her thanks took the shape of
a graceful inclination of her head, and at the same time the dark
eyes sparkled through the veil, seeming to say: "You want to make me
speak, but you shall not succeed." She had evidently recovered from
her terror. Perseverance is an essential feature in my character. I
determined to continue my crusade against her silence. I took from my
portmanteau some English illustrated magazines that I had brought with
me from Heidelberg to beguile the tedious hours of travelling, and,
extending them to the stranger, said:
"May I offer you these?"
Now this proved a bad stroke of policy on my part, for the papers were
accepted with a grave bow, and the lady at once immersed herself in
their contents, and took no further notice of me.
"Well, if this doesn't beat all!" I muttered. "You're a cool one!
Rude, too, for surely an act of courtesy is deserving of a few words
of thanks?" It then occurred to me that perhaps she was aware I was
suspicious of her, and had determined to baffle me by presenting a firm
shield of silence to my conversational shafts, even when those shafts
consisted of casual and trifling remarks.
In ordinary circumstances I should not, after so many rebuffs, have
continued to press my attentions, but I regarded the singular events of
the night as a justification for my persistency. I therefore seized the
occasion when she chanced to look up from her reading to make another
trial to elicit a word:
"Are you travelling far, madam?"
The magazine was laid aside, and, producing a card-case, she seemed to
be making a selection from its contents. Presently she handed a card to
me. It was inscribed with the following words, written evidently with a
view to emergencies such as she was now in:
"Pardon me if I have seemed rude. I thank you for your kind
attentions, but being dumb from birth, I am unable to carry on a
conversation.--DORA VANE."
Dumb from birth! This, then, was the key to her extraordinary silence.
But immediately the thought succeeded, "Perhaps she is only fooling
me." The words on the card might describe the actual state of the case,
or they might be but the resources of a woman determined not to yield
an inch to my curiosity--an adroit device to ward off all further
questions.
"You evidently heard my last remark," I thought, "even above the roar
and rattle of this train, and yet I was always given to understand
that people who are dumb from birth are likewise deaf. You must be an
exception. If you are dumb, as this card states, you must know the dumb
alphabet. I'll try an experiment, and put you through a few paces."
I was quite familiar with the finger alphabet, having been taught it by
my school friend Tracey, who used to hold many a silent conversation
with me when lessons grew tedious. So, after attracting the lady's
attention again, I held up my fingers and proceeded to frame a sentence
expressive of my sympathy for her affliction. But she stared at me with
absolutely no appreciation of my meaning, and the only conclusion I
could draw from my experiment was that my companion was no more dumb
than myself, but that for reasons of her own she did not want to have
any conversation with me, and had hit upon this device for rendering
any impossible.
"Tracey's system of dumb language doesn't seem to work upon the South
Eastern line," I muttered, ruefully relinquishing my efforts. "Perhaps
Tracey's was one of his own invention. Not likely, though; he hadn't
the brains to invent anything."
Thus do we libel the absent!
Manifestly it was out of the question to attempt to gain any knowledge
of the lady by compelling her to lift her veil and to reveal the part
played by her in the mysterious business, though I was more than once
tempted to commit this rash act. Such a proceeding, besides being very
ungallant, might have resulted in my transference from the train to a
police-cell. It was equally out of the question to seize on the valise
and examine its contents. To press her with further questions would be
as little to the purpose; for if, accepting her plea of dumbness, I
committed them to paper, she would doubtless refuse to answer. All I
could do was to sit in silence, resolving in my own mind not to lose
sight of her on reaching London, but to follow her and find out if
possible the place of her abode.
So I whiled away the rest of the journey in reading, or in trying to
read, some Christmas annuals. Dora Vane, to give the lady the name she
had claimed, having glanced through the magazines, was now apparently
asleep in her corner of the compartment. It was only a feigned sleep
however, for whenever I moved, she would give a start, plainly showing
that she was suspicious of me.
The train was delayed considerably by the adverse weather, and it was
not till past seven o'clock that we entered Charing Cross Station. I
opened the carriage-door, and, emerging first, assisted the veiled lady
to alight. Two points were noticeable in her behaviour while stepping
from the train--the care with which she guarded the bag, and the care
she took to avert her face from me. As there was not a soul on the
platform to welcome her, I was on the point of proffering my services
to escort her to her destination, but with a friendly nod to me she
flitted off without a moment's delay to the end of the station, and
then hailing a cab, was driven off. And it seemed to me that, instead
of handing the driver a card with an address on it, as a dumb lady
might naturally be supposed to do, she had conveyed her orders to him
by word of mouth; but I was too far off to be certain of this. However,
the moment the vehicle had disappeared beneath the archway I flung my
portmanteau and person into a hansom, calling out to the driver:
"Follow the cab that has just left. Don't lose sight of it for a
moment. Don't get in front, but keep behind it. I want to see where the
lady gets out. You understand?"
The man nodded with a grin and a mystical remark about being "up to
snuff," then he touched his horse's flank lightly with the whip, and we
bowled out of the station in gallant style, following in the wake of
the cab.
London lay beneath the murky gaslights wrapped in a winding-sheet of
snow, not sufficiently deep, however, to stop vehicular traffic, though
it retarded it to a considerable extent. The snow was an advantage in
one respect, since it deadened the sound of the wheels of my hansom,
and the wintry flakes still falling served as a sort of veil to conceal
the fact that the cab was being followed.
The destination of the veiled lady appeared to be some place in North
London, for the vehicle she was in proceeded along St. Martin's Lane,
and turned up Long Acre into Drury Lane. Thence its progress was across
Oxford Street, and up Southampton Row, till it finally turned into the
Euston Road.
"I have it!" I cried. "She is going to Euston Station!"
All hope of tracing the mysterious lady to her final destination must
now be abandoned. If she were going by train to some distant part of
the country it was out of the question to follow her. I must be at the
wedding. But I was wrong in my hasty surmise. The cab did not proceed
to the station, but turned to the left along the Euston Road, stopping
at last in front of an obscure public-house; and the cabman, flinging
down the reins, descended from the box and entered the building.
"She surely isn't going to get out there," I thought. "Go on slowly,"
I said to my driver, who, peeping through the lid in the roof, asked
whether he should proceed. We drove past the cab, and one glance
sufficed to show that the vehicle was empty. My surprise found vent in
language which the most charitably disposed of my friends could not
have construed into a doxology.
"You've followed the wrong cab!" I cried savagely to my driver.
"Not I, governor. That 'ere is the wehicle you told me to follow: No.
2071. It's my pal's--Bill Whippam's--cab. That's him as is in the pub
now--he's a rare 'un for the booze."
In a moment I was inside the public-house. The "rare 'un for the booze"
was ringing a golden coin on the counter of the bar, as if to test its
genuineness.
"A good 'un!" he cried delightedly, "Blow me tight if I didn't think it
was a duffer for the minute! She's something like a fare, she is! A
glass of the usual, Jim, with a little lemon and----"
"Where is your fare, cabby?" I demanded brusquely.
"What's that got to do with you, governor?" was the immediate retort.
"A good deal, as you'll see," I returned pulling out a notebook, and
feigning to write therein. "Your number, I see, is 2071. I shall want
you at Bow Street, to-morrow. Perhaps you are not aware that I am a
detective, and that the lady you have aided to escape was to have been
arrested this morning?"
The man assumed a more respectful demeanour.
"Axes your pardon, governor, but how was I to know that the lady was
'wanted,' and that a 'tec was arter her? The lady she says to me, she
says----"
"What?" I interrupted. "She spoke to you, then? She wasn't dumb?"
"Dumb? No more than you are, governor. She says to me: 'Coachman,
there's a gentleman a-follerin' o' me----'"
"That's not a verbatim report, I suppose?" I said with a smile.
"Wot's that?"
"Those were not her exact words, I mean?"
"They wos her exact words, governor," replied the cabman, with a
solemnity befitting the witness-box, "so help me! 'There's a gentleman
a-follerin' o' me,' she says, 'an admirer of mine pestering me with
his attentions, and I want to get rid of him. Will you help me?' 'If I
can, miss,' I says. 'Well, then,' she says, 'drive fast, and the moment
you have turned the corner of Long Acre, draw up sharp. I shall get
out there and then you drive on at once to Euston. He'll follow you,
thinking I am still in the cab. Will you do this, and I'll give you a
sovereign?' Of course I says, 'Yes.' She give me the quid, and directly
I turned the corner at Long Acre she was out like a shot, almost afore
I'd time to draw up. She darted down a side-street like winking, and I
drove on according to orders."
I could not refrain from smiling at my own discomfiture. She had
guessed that I would follow her, and in the long interval occupied by
our railway journey she had marked out her plan of action, and had
devised a pretty little stratagem into which I had readily fallen. Why
should she act thus? Could this lady really be George in disguise? This
idea was inspired by the belief that she had come from the same house
in which he had taken refuge.
"What sort of a voice had she?" I asked. "Was it at all masculine?"
"Oh, jest!"
"Just what?"
"Maskyline."
"Do you know what masculine means?"
"Frightened-like, I expex you mean."
"You're a f-- Was it at all like a man's voice?"
Cabby seemed to think this was a question that required a good deal of
consideration before answering.
"Well, it might ha' bin a man's voice," he replied, speaking slowly.
"Similarly it might not. It was a trifle hoarse for a woman, but I put
that down to fright."
"You wouldn't swear in a court of law that it was a man's voice?"
"No, I wouldn't, governor. I'm pretty certain it was a woman."
No more was to be learned from the cabman, so, thanking him for his
information, I quitted the tavern. As I entered the hansom, the driver
exclaimed with a grin:
"Given you the slip, sir? Reckon she's a cough-drop, and no blooming
kid!"
I turned a withering frown on this vulgar familiarity.
"Drive to Belgrave Square," I exclaimed loftily, "and look sharp."
I flung myself back in the cab in a fever-heat. "The affair is growing
exciting," I muttered. "Was it a man or a woman? If a woman--who? If a
man--was it George? if not--who? Did George travel by the other line,
I wonder, and will he come this morning to claim his bride, or will he
not? Will the veiled lady turn up in my uncle's drawing-room or at the
altar-rails, and create some melodramatic scene? Patience--patience! we
shall see. Daphne, you may yet be mine."