CONCERNS A RUMOR.
Preston had impatiently awaited the result of La Planta’s
cross-examination, and the verdict disappointed him. For secretly
he felt convinced still that even if the young man had not directly
connived at the money-lender’s death, yet that he could throw light on
the cause of death if he wished to.
“I cannot help thinking,” he said to Yootha while they were discussing
the mystery on the day after La Planta’s acquittal, “that he knows
something too concerning what happened at Henley regatta. I have
felt that all along. And had he been found guilty of conniving at
Schomberg’s death we might have been in a position to escape from what
now threatens us. However, I believe that in the end we shall be able
to snap our fingers at the people who are trying to blackmail us, so
you must try to cheer up, my darling.”
They were sitting out on the heather under the shadow of the Sugarloaf
Mountain in Monmouthshire, where they had been staying for a fortnight
at the Angel Hotel in Abergavenny, and, but for the development which
threatened they would have been completely happy. As it was, when
they succeeded in forgetting what the future might hold for them, the
hours were the happiest they had ever spent. It was now August, but
Monmouthshire is one of the few counties which holiday makers seem
consistently to overlook in spite of its lovely scenery, with the
result that the picturesque moors were almost deserted.
For some minutes they remained silent. The quietude of the countryside,
the almost oppressive heat, the wonderful landscape which unfolded
itself before them, stretching away to the silvery river Usk visible
some miles down the valley, seemed in harmony with their mood. And then
presently, gently placing his arm about her, Preston drew Yootha closer
to him and pressed his lips to hers.
“My darling,” he murmured, “whatever happens, believe me I shall love
you always--always. Doesn’t it seem strange that for all these years
we should not have met, and that then we should have become acquainted
by the merest chance? Supposing I had not happened to wander into Bond
Street that morning, just a year ago--it was the ninth of August, the
date of the opening of our great offensive on the Western front--and
that I had not been with George, who knew La Planta, and that La Planta
had not invited us to lunch with him at the Ritz we should probably be
strangers still! I believe I fell in love with you that day, Yootha;
certainly you attracted me in the most extraordinary way directly we
were introduced--you and your delightful friend, Cora.”
“And yet during the whole lunch you spoke hardly a word, and Jessica
thought you dull and stupid, I remember,” she exclaimed, laughing. “I
know, because I heard her say so to Aloysius Stapleton.”
“I dare say I was dull and stupid. I certainly felt dull, but
several months of hospital life are not calculated to sharpen one’s
intelligence, are they? As for Jessica, from the moment I set eyes on
her something in her personality repelled me, though afterwards, at her
house, when we had that lovely music, I felt for the first time less
antagonistic. But if I knew her twenty years I should never get to like
her, or, indeed, trust her. Doesn’t she affect you in that way?”
“Not in that way, precisely, though I have never liked her, as you
know. I have somehow felt all the time that she and Stapleton and La
Planta were playing some deep game, and I believe they are playing it
still, whatever it may be. How odd she should have invited us to tea on
her house-boat that day at Henley, and been so amiable, and yet that so
soon afterwards----”
She checked herself abruptly, and nestled closer to her lover. The
pressure of his strong arm seemed to give her confidence, restore her
courage. After all, she reflected, so long as they were together, what
could anything matter? And then, carried away suddenly by her emotion,
she flung her arms about his neck and kissed him again and again.
The sun was setting when at last they rose and prepared to go back to
the village, a couple of miles distant, where they had left their car.
“Why,” Preston said, suddenly producing a letter from his pocket,
“I forgot to tell you, dear, I received this from George just before
we came out. He is staying in town during August, as I think I told
you, and he says he has been again to the house with the bronze face.
While there he was informed that Mrs. Timothy Macmahon, to whom Lord
Froissart left his fortune, is now in London and has a strange story
to tell. Stothert told George that Mrs. Macmahon was greatly upset on
hearing that Froissart had bequeathed everything to her, and that she
is anxious to transfer the greater part of the fortune to Froissart’s
rightful heir, his eldest daughter, Mrs. Ferdinand Westrup, who lives
with her husband in Ceylon. Mrs. Macmahon admits, he says, that she was
on terms of intimacy with Froissart, who used to visit her in Cashel,
her home in Tipperary, but she declares that was no reason for him to
leave his entire fortune to her, especially as she has a comfortable
income of her own.”
He unfolded the letter and read parts of it aloud to Yootha as they
strolled along the heather. The paragraph which interested her most,
ran as follows:
“... Stothert also told me Mrs. Macmahon had told him that
Froissart, for some time before he took his life, had been
threatened with exposure of his private life if he refused
to continue to pay increasingly large sums of money to
certain persons who were persecuting him....”
Yootha put her hand impulsively on her lover’s arm.
“Charlie!” she exclaimed, “that is exactly what Cora told me she
thought might have been the reason of Lord Froissart’s suicide. She had
heard rumors of his intimacy with some woman in Ireland, and that there
was possibility of a big scandal, and she also told me Lord Froissart
possessed such a sensitive nature that she could not imagine what would
happen if the scandal ever came to a head. And now I have an idea.
Don’t you think it possible Vera Froissart may have discovered her
father’s secret, and that the shock of the discovery may have driven
her, for very shame, to end her life?”
For some moments Preston did not answer. Then he said:
“My darling, I don’t think that. What I think far more likely is that
Vera may intentionally have been enlightened concerning her father’s
unfortunate infatuation for Mrs. Macmahon, and herself have been
blackmailed by the very people who afterwards blackmailed her father,
in which case the same scoundrels are indirectly responsible for the
death of both father and daughter. More, I now suspect the person or
persons who threatened Froissart and his daughter may be the people now
threatening us if we refuse to intimidate Cora in the way they wish us
to.”
Yootha stopped in her walk, staring speechless at her companion.
“Good heavens!” she exclaimed at last. “How can such wretches be
allowed to live?”
Then her imagination began to work with extraordinary rapidity. She
thought of Cora’s secret love for Sir Stephen Lethbridge, who had shot
himself a year before; of Lord Hope-Cooper, who had drowned himself
in the lake of his beautiful park at Cowrie Hall, in Perthshire; of
Viscount Molesley, Leonora Vandervelt and others, whose mysterious
suicides had so startled London Society, also of the well-known men
and women who had, quite recently, ended their lives apparently for no
reason. Was it possible all these people had been driven to desperation
by the same means and finally in a fit of temporary insanity, destroyed
themselves?”
Suddenly she caught her breath.
Henry Hartsilver, the husband of her friend, Cora--her dearest friend!
No breath of scandal concerning him had ever been whispered, and yet----
A sentence she had read in a novel flashed back into her mind: “The
private lives of most men are sealed books to all but their companion,
or companions, in guilt.”
Had Hartsilver’s private life been a sealed book to Cora, whose habit
it had been, she remembered, to jest about her husband’s extraordinary
respectability?
She clutched her lover’s hand, and stopped again in her walk.
“Charlie!” she exclaimed in an access of emotion, “if ever, after we
are married, you grow tired of me--I want you--I want you to----”
Something seemed to choke her, and Preston caught her in his arms.
“Yootha, Yootha, my own darling!” he exclaimed huskily. “What are you
saying? What are you thinking about? How can you imagine for a single
instant I could grow tired of you, the one woman in the world I have
ever loved! Don’t say what you were trying to, whatever it may have
been. I don’t want to hear it. It pains me when you talk like that, my
precious! You don’t--you can’t suppose I should be such a monster as to
think of any woman but you?”
“Oh, but promise--you will promise--if you feel your love for me
fading, no matter how little, to tell me about it? I couldn’t bear
to think you pretended to love me when all the time you knew in your
heart that in spite of yourself you were growing tired of me. So many
men grow tired of their wives. Oh, yes, I have seen it again and again
among my own friends--they marry, they love each other truly for a
little while, then their love begins to cool, and then--oh, my darling,
the bare thought of that possibility makes me feel faint and ill,” and
she began to sob bitterly as she lay listless in his arms.
It was now nearly dark, and they were still a long way from the
village. Preston tried to comfort her, assuring her again and again of
the impossibility of his ever growing tired of her, or indeed loving
her less, but for a long time she remained in deep depression.
And while this was happening Doctor Johnson and George Blenkiron were
dining together at the former’s house in Wimpole Street.
They had become extremely friendly since their first meeting at the
ball at the Albert Hall, owing partly to the fact of their having
interests in common, and it was but natural that during dinner mention
should be made of their common friend, Preston.
“I still feel anxious about Charlie Preston,” Blenkiron happened to
remark. “He has changed greatly of late, yet won’t say what is the
matter. To-day I heard an odd story to the effect that he has got
himself into some sort of trouble. And yet I can’t think what. He is
not a man who runs after women; rather, he is inclined to shun them. On
the other hand he is not in monetary difficulties, that I know for a
fact.”
“Where did you hear the story?” Johnson asked.
“At the club. Several men seemed to have heard it, yet all were vague
as to the nature of the alleged trouble. I do hope, Johnson, he has not
done anything foolish. He is such a good fellow.”
“The last man to do anything foolish, I should say,” the doctor
replied. “I like to trace to their source the origin of vague stories,
because often they do much mischief though quite devoid of foundation.
Couldn’t we, between us, find whence this rumor emanates?”
“I think it should be possible. I will see what can be done to-morrow.”
Blenkiron was fortunate next morning in coming face to face with the
member of the club who had first told him the story, or the story so
far as it went.
Briefly, the rumor was that Captain Preston had been talking too freely
about a certain lady--this was the new version--that he had been taken
to task by an intimate friend of hers, also a member of the club, and
that an action threatened unless Preston agreed to apologize in writing
for what he had stated, and, in addition, agreed to pay a considerable
sum to the man who brought the charge.
“Who told you all that?” Blenkiron inquired carelessly.
“Told me? I’m sure I don’t remember,” his informant replied quickly.
“It is common talk. You will hear about it everywhere.”
“Still, one ought to know who started it, because, personally, I don’t
believe a word of it. Preston is not a man to talk indiscreetly,
especially about a woman.”
The other shrugged his shoulders.
“I give it, of course, merely for what it is worth,” he said. “I don’t
vouch for the accuracy of everything I hear.”
“Then why repeat it as if it were solemn truth? I’d be more careful if
I were you, Appleton,” Blenkiron went on. “There’s a thing called the
law of slander.”
Appleton stared.
“If Preston is a friend of yours,” he stammered, “I suppose I ought to
apologize.”
“I think so too,” Blenkiron answered.
But in spite of his endeavor during the day to find who had first
started the story, he failed to get any information. Many of his
acquaintances had heard the rumor, but none could remember where.
Yet one person could have enlightened him. Jessica, scheming to destroy
the happiness of those she knew to be striving to discover the secret
of her past life, had now no scruple as to what methods she might
employ to achieve her end. And for some weeks events had been occurring
which, she now realized, threatened to jeopardize her position in
Society, and indeed her own safety and that of her faithful companions.
“Louie,” she said to Stapleton--they were at _déjeuner_ with La
Planta on the terrace of the Royal Hotel at Dieppe, “don’t you think
it time we put a check to the activities of Cora Hartsilver and her
energetic admirers? I am growing tired of being harassed by their
over-persistency. If our plan fails with Preston and Yootha Hagerston
regarding her, I suggest that more repressive measures be resorted to
at once. And I don’t mind admitting now, that I believe Charles Preston
is going to prove too much for us.”