'It shows one's ignorance of such matters,' said Harvey Rolfe, with
something of causticity in his humour, when Alma came home after
midnight. 'I should have thought that, by way of preparing for
tomorrow, you would have quietly rested today.'
He looked round at her. Alma had entered the study as usual, and was
taking off her gloves; but the effort of supporting herself seemed too
great, she trembled towards the nearest chair, and affected to laugh at
her feebleness as she sank down.
'Rest will come _after_,' she said, in such a voice as sounds from a
parched and quivering throat.
'I'll take good care of that,' Harvey remarked. 'To look at you is
almost enough to make me play the brutal husband, and say that I'll be
hanged if you go out tomorrow at all.'
She laughed--a ghostly merriment.
'Where have you been?'
'Oh, at several places. I met Mr. Carnaby at lunch,' she added quickly.
'He told me he was going somewhere--I forget--oh, to Weymouth, to see
Mrs. Larkfield.'
Harvey was watching her, and paid little attention to the news.
'Do you know, it wouldn't much surprise me if you couldn't get up
tomorrow morning, let alone play at a concert. Well, I won't keep you
talking. Go to bed.'
'Yes.'
She rose, but instead of turning to the door, moved towards where
Harvey was sitting.
'Don't be angry with me,' she murmured in a shamefaced way. 'It wasn't
very wise--I've over-excited myself but I shall be all right tomorrow;
and afterwards I'll behave more sensibly--I promise----'
He nodded; but Alma bent over him, and touched his forehead with her
lips.
'You're in a fever, I suppose you know?'
'I shall be all right tomorrow. Goodnight, dear.'
In town, this morning, she had called at a chemist's, and purchased a
little bottle of something in repute for fashionable disorder of the
nerves. Before lying down she took the prescribed dose, though with
small hope that it would help her to a blessed unconsciousness. Another
thing she did which had not occurred to her for many a night: she knelt
by the bedside, and half thought, half whispered through tearless sobs,
a petition not learnt from any book, a strange half-heathen blending of
prayer for moral strength, and entreaty for success in a worldly
desire. Her mind shook perilously in its balance. It was well for Alma
that the fashionable prescription did not fail her. In the moment of
despair, when she had turned and turned again upon her pillow, haunted
by a vision in the darkness, tortured by the never-ending echo of a
dreadful voice, there fell upon her a sudden quiet; her brain was
soothed by a lulling air from dreamland; her limbs relaxed, and forgot
their aching weariness; she sighed and slept.
'I am much better this morning,' she said at breakfast. 'Not a trace of
fever--no headache.'
'And a face the colour of the table-cloth,' added Harvey.
There was a letter from Mrs. Frothingham, conveying good wishes not
very fervently expressed. She had decided not to come up for the
concert, feeling that the excitement would be too much for her; but
Alma suspected another reason.
She had not asked her husband whether he meant to have a seat in
Prince's Hall this afternoon; she still waited for him to speak about
it. After breakfast he asked her when she would start for town. At
noon, she replied. Every arrangement had been completed; it would be
enough if she reached the Hall half an hour before the time of the
recital, and after a light luncheon at a neighbouring restaurant.
'Then we may as well go together,' said her husband.
'You mean to come, then?' she asked dreamily.
'I shall go in at the last moment--a seat at the back.'
Anything but inclined for conversation, Alma acquiesced. For the next
hour or two she kept in solitude, occasionally touching her violin, but
always recurring to an absent mood, a troubled reverie. She could not
fix her thoughts upon the trial that was before her. In a vague way she
feared it; but another fear, at times amounting to dread, dimmed the
day's event into insignificance. The morning's newspapers were before
her, sent, no doubt, by Dymes's direction, and she mused over the
eye-attracting announcements of her debut. 'Mrs. Harvey Rolfe's First
Violin Recital, Prince's Hall, this afternoon, at 3.' It gave her no
more gratification than if the name had been that of a stranger.
The world had grown as unreal as a nightmare. People came before her
mind, people the most intimately known, and she seemed but faintly to
recognise them. They were all so much changed since yesterday. Their
relations to each other and to her were altered, confused. Scarce one
of them she could regard without apprehension or perplexity.
What faces would show before her when she advanced upon the platform?
Would she behold Sibyl, or Hugh Carnaby, or Cyrus Redgrave? Their
presence would all but convince her that she had passed some hours of
yesterday in delirium. They might be present; for was not she--she
herself--about to step forward and play in public? Their absence--what
would it mean? Where were they at this moment? What had happened in the
life of each since last she saw them?
When it was time to begin to dress, she undertook the task with effort,
with repugnance. She would have chosen to sit here, in a drowsy
idleness, and let the hours go by. On her table stood the little vial
with its draught of oblivion. Oh to drink of it again, and to lay her
head upon the pillow and outsleep the day!
Nevertheless, when she had exerted herself, and was clad in the fresh
garments of spring, the mirror came to her help. She was pale yet; but
pallor lends distinction to features that are not commonplace, and no
remark of man or woman had ever caused her to suspect that her face was
ordinary. She posed before the glass, holding her violin, and the
picture seemed so effective that she began to regain courage. A
dreadful thing had happened--perhaps more dreadful than she durst
imagine--but her own part in it was nothing worse than folly and
misfortune. She had no irreparable sin to hide. Her moment of supreme
peril was past, and would not return. If now she could but brace her
nerves, and pass successfully through the ordeal of the next few hours,
the victory for which she had striven so hard, and had risked so much,
would at length be won. Everything dark and doubtful she must try to
forget. Success would give her new strength; to fail, under any
circumstances ignominious, would at this crisis of her life be a
disaster fraught with manifold and intolerable shame.
She played a few notes. Her hand was steady once more; she felt her
confidence revive. Whenever she had performed before an audience, it
had always seemed to her that she must inevitably break down; yet at
the last minute came power and self-control. So it would be today. The
greater the demand upon her, so much the surer her responsive energy.
She would not see faces. When all was over, let the news be disclosed,
the worst that might be waiting; between now and then lay an infinity
of time.
So, when she went downstairs to meet Harvey, the change in her
appearance surprised him. He had expected a bloodless countenance, a
tremulous step; but Alma came towards him with the confident carriage
of an earlier day, with her smile of superiority, her look that invited
or demanded admiration.
'Well? You won't be ashamed of me?'
'To tell the truth,' said Harvey, 'I was going because I feared someone
would have to look after you in the middle of the affair. If there's no
danger of that, I think I shall not go into the place at all.'
'Why?'
'I don't care for it. I prefer to hear you play in private.'
'You needn't have the least fear for me,' said Alma loftily.
'Very well. We'll lunch together, as we arranged, and I'll be at the
door with a cab for you after the people have gone.'
'Why should you trouble?'
'I had rather, if you don't mind.'
They drove from Baker Street to the Hall, where Alma alighted for a
minute to leave her instrument, and thence to a restaurant not far
away. Alma felt no appetite, but the necessity of supporting her
strength obliged her to choose some suitable refreshment. When their
order had been given, Harvey laid his hand upon an evening newspaper,
just arrived, which the waiter had thrown on to the next table. He
opened it, not with any intention of reading, but because he had no
mind to talk; Alma's name, exhibited in staring letters at the entrance
of the public building, had oppressed him with a sense of degradation;
he felt ignoble, much as a man might feel who had consented to his own
dishonour. As his eyes wandered over the freshly-printed sheet, they
were arrested by a couple of bold headlines: 'Sensational Affair at
Wimbledon--Mysterious Death of a Gentleman'. He read the paragraph, and
turned to Alma with a face of amazement.
'Look there--read that----'
Alma took the paper. She had an instantaneous foreboding of what she
was to see; her heart stood still, and her eyes dazzled, but at length
she read. On the previous evening (said the report), a gentleman
residing at Wimbledon, and well known in fashionable circles, Mr. Cyrus
Redgrave, had met his death under very strange and startling
circumstances. Only a few particulars could as yet be made public; but
it appeared that, about nine o'clock in the evening, a medical man had
been hastily summoned to Mr. Redgrave's house, and found that gentleman
lying dead in a room that opened upon the garden. There was present
another person, a friend of the deceased (name not mentioned), who made
a statement to the effect that, in consequence of a sudden quarrel, he
had struck Mr. Redgrave with his fist, knocking him down, and, as it
proved, killing him on the spot. Up to the present moment no further
details were obtainable, but it was believed that the self-accused
assailant had put himself in communication with the police. There was a
rumour, too, which might or might not have any significance, that Mr.
Redgrave's housekeeper had suddenly left the house and could not be
traced.
'Dead?'
The word fell from her lips involuntarily.
'And who killed him?' said Harvey, just above his breath.
'It isn't known--there's no name----'
'No. But I had a sudden thought. Absurd--impossible----'
As Harvey whispered the words, a waiter drew near with the luncheon. It
was arranged upon the table, but lay there disregarded. Alma took up
the newspaper again. In a moment she leaned towards her husband.
'What did you think?'
'Nothing--don't talk about it.'
Two glasses of wine had been poured out; Harvey took his and drank it
off.
'It's a pity I saw this,' he said; 'it has shaken your nerves. I ought
to have kept it to myself.'
Alma dipped a spoon in the soup before her, and tried to swallow. Her
hand did not tremble; the worst had come and gone in a few seconds; but
her palate refused food. She drank wine, and presently became so
collected, so quiet, that she wondered at herself. Cyrus Redgrave was
dead--dead!--the word kept echoing in her mind. As soon as she
understood and believed the fact of Redgrave's death, it became the
realisation of a hope which she had entertained without knowing it.
Only by a great effort could she assume the look of natural concern;
had she been in solitude, her face would have relaxed like that of one
who is suddenly relieved from physical torment. She gave no thought to
wider consequences: she saw the event only as it affected herself in
her relations with the dead man. She had feared him; she had feared
herself; now all danger was at an end. Now--now she could find courage
to front the crowd of people and play to them. Her conscience ceased
from troubling; the hope of triumph no longer linked itself with dread
of a fatal indebtedness. No touch of sorrow entered into her mood; no
anxiety on behalf of the man whose act had freed her. He, her husband's
friend, would keep the only secret which could now injure her. Cyrus
Redgrave was dead, and to her it meant a renewal of life.
Harvey was speaking; he reminded her of the necessity of taking food.
'Yes, I am going to eat something.'
'Look here, Alma,'--he regarded her sternly,--'if you have any fear, if
you are unequal to this, let me go and make an excuse for you.'
'I have not the _least_ fear. Don't try to make me nervous.'
She ate and drank. Harvey, the while, kept his eyes fixed on the
newspaper.
'Now I must go,' she said in a few minutes, after looking at her watch.
'Don't come out with me. Do just as you like about going into the Hall
and about meeting me afterwards. You needn't be the least bit anxious,
I assure you; I'm not going to make myself ridiculous.'
They stood up.
'I shall be at the door with a cab,' said Harvey.
'Very well; I won't keep you waiting.'
She left him, and walked from the restaurant with a quick step. Harvey
drank a little more wine, and made a pretence of tasting the dish
before him, then paid his bill and departed. He had now no intention
whatever of going to hear Alma play; but he wished to know whether
certain persons were among her audience, and, as he could not stand to
watch the people entering, he took the only other means of setting his
mind at rest--this was to drive forthwith to Oxford and Cambridge
Mansions.
On his knocking at the Carnabys' door, a servant informed him that
neither her master nor her mistress was at home. Something unusual in
the girl's manner at once arrested his attention; she was evidently
disinclined to say anything beyond the formula of refusal, but with
this Harvey would not be satisfied. He mentioned his name, and urged
several inquiries, on the plea that he had urgent business with his
friends. All he could gather was that Carnaby had left home early this
morning, and that Mrs. Carnaby was out of town; it grew more evident
that the girl shrank from questions.
'Has anyone been here before me, anxious to see them?'
'I don't know, sir; I can't tell you anything else.'
'And you have no idea when either of them will be back?'
'I don't know at all; I don't know anything about it.'
He turned away, as if to descend the stairs; but, as there was no sound
of a closing door, he glanced back, and caught a glimpse of the
servant, who stood looking after him. No sooner did their eyes meet
than the girl drew hastily in and the door was shut.
Beset by a grave uneasiness, he walked into Edgware Road, and followed
the thoroughfare to its end at the Marble Arch. One thing seemed
certain: neither Carnaby nor his wife could be at Prince's Hall. It was
equally certain that only a serious cause could have prevented their
attendance. The servant manifestly had something to conceal; under
ordinary circumstances she would never have spoken and behaved in that
strange way.
At the Marble Arch boys were crying newspapers. He bought two, and in
each of them found the sensational headlines; but the reports added
nothing to that he had already seen; all, it was clear, came from the
same source.
He turned into the Park, and walked aimlessly by crosspaths hither and
thither. Time had to be killed; he tried to read his papers, but every
item of news or comment disgusted him, and he threw the sheets away.
When he came out at Knightsbridge, there was still half an hour to be
passed, so he turned eastward, and walked the length of Piccadilly. Now
at length Alma's fate was decided; the concert drew to its close. In
anxiety to learn how things had gone with her, he all but forgot Hugh
Carnaby, until, just as he was about to hail a cab for the purpose of
bringing Alma from the Hall, his eye fell on a fresh newspaper placard,
which gave its largest type to the Wimbledon affair, and promised a
'Startling Revelation'. He bought the paper, and read. It had become
known, said the reporter, that the gentleman who, on his own avowal,
had caused Mr. Redgrave's death, was Mr. H. Carnaby, resident at Oxford
and Cambridge Mansions. The rumour that Mr. Carnaby had presented
himself to the authorities was unfounded; as a matter of fact, the
police had heard nothing from him, and could not discover his
whereabouts. As to the mysterious disappearance of Mr. Redgrave's
housekeeper--Mrs. Lant by name--nothing new could be learnt. Mrs. Lant
had left all her personal belongings, and no one seemed able to
conjecture a reason for her conduct.
Harvey folded up the paper, and crushed it into his pocket. He felt no
surprise; his brooding on possibilities had prepared him for this
disclosure, and, from the moment that his fears were confirmed, he
interpreted everything with a gloomy certainty. Hugh's fatal violence
could have but one explanation, and that did not come upon Harvey with
the shock of the incredible. Neither was he at any loss to understand
why Hugh had failed to surrender himself. Ere-long the newspapers would
rejoice in another 'startling revelation', which would make the tragedy
complete.
In this state of mind he waited for Alma's coming forth. She was
punctual as she had promised. At the first sight of her he knew that
nothing disagreeable had befallen, and this was enough. As soon as the
cab drove off with them he looked an inquiry.
'All well,' she answered, with subdued exultation. 'Wait till you see
the notices.'
Her flushed face and dancing eyes told that she was fresh from
congratulation and flattery. Harvey could not spoil her moment of
triumph by telling what he had just learnt. She wished to talk of
herself, and he gave her the opportunity.
'Many people?'
'A very good hall. They say such an audience at a first recital has
hardly ever been known.'
'You weren't nervous?'
'I've often been far more when I played in a drawing-room; and I never
played so well--not half so well!'
She entered upon a vivid description of her feelings. On first stepping
forward, she could see nothing but a misty expanse of faces; she could
not feel the boards she trod upon; yet no sooner had she raised her
violin than a glorious sense of power made her forget everything but
the music she was to play. She all but laughed with delight. Never had
she felt so perfect a mastery of her instrument. She played without
effort, and could have played for hours without weariness. Her
fellow-musicians declared that she was 'wonderful'; and Harvey, as he
listened to this flow of excited talk, asked himself whether he had
not, after all, judged Alma amiss. Perhaps he had been the mere dull
Philistine, unable to recognise the born artist, and doing his paltry
best to obstruct her path. Perhaps so; but he would look for the
opinion of serious critics--if any such had been present.
At Baker Street they had to wait for a train, and here it happened that
Alma saw the evening placards. At once she changed; her countenance was
darkened with anxiety.
'Hadn't you better get a paper?' she asked in a quick undertone.
'I have one. Do you wish to see it now?'
'Is there anything more?'
'Yes, there is. You don't know, I suppose, whether Carnaby and his wife
were at the Hall?'
'I could hardly distinguish faces,' she replied, with tremor. 'What is
it? Tell me.'
He took out his newspaper and pointed to the paragraph which mentioned
Carnaby's name. Alma seemed overcome with painful emotion; she moved
towards the nearest seat, and Harvey, alarmed by her sudden pallor,
placed himself by her side.
'What does it mean?' she whispered.
'Who can say?'
'They must have quarrelled about business matters.'
'Perhaps so.'
'Do you think he--Mr. Carnaby--means to hide away--to escape?'
'He won't hide away,' Harvey answered. 'Yet he may escape.'
'What do you mean? Go by ship?--get out of the country?'
'I don't think so. He is far more likely to be found somewhere--in a
way that would save trouble.'
Alma flashed a look of intelligence.
'You think so,' she panted. 'You really think he has done that?'
'I feel afraid of it.'
Alma recovered breath; and, but that her face was bent low over the
newspaper, Harvey must have observed that the possibility of his
friend's suicide seemed rather to calm her agitation than to afflict
her with fresh dismay.
But she could speak no more of her musical triumph. With the colour of
her cheeks she had lost all animation, all energy; she needed the
support of Harvey's arm in stepping to the railway carriage; and on her
arrival at home, yielding, as it seemed, to physical exhaustion, she
lay pallid, mute, and nerveless.