A LADY IN DISTRESS
After lunch the Secretary returned to the Legation and made out his
report to his Minister, concerning the treaty. He had looked up the word
"parlous" in the dictionary, and found that it meant, "whimsical,
tricky,"--a sinister interpretation he felt, when connected with
anything diplomatic; moreover the Foreign Office was distressingly
uninformed on the subject, another reason for suspicion. Yet, as far as
he knew--only the mere formalities of settlement remained, the
ratification by vote of his home Government--the exchange of
protocols--and behold it was accomplished--much to the credit of his
Minister and the satisfaction of all concerned. Doubtless the visit was
nothing more than a bit of routine work, and his private affairs seeming
for the time more important, he dismissed it from his mind as not worthy
of serious consideration and compiled an elaborate report of three
pages, not forgetting to mention the arrival of the Chief Clerk's lunch,
as matter which might legitimately be used to fill up space. This done,
he was about to leave the office in order to meet his appointment with
Kent-Lauriston, when John, the genial functionary of the Legation,
beamed upon him from the door, presenting him a visiting card, and
informing him that a lady was waiting in the ante-room.
"An' she's that 'ansome, sir, it would do your eyes good to see 'er."
The Secretary answered somewhat testily that his eyes were in excellent
condition as it was, and that the lady did not deserve to be seen at all
for coming so much after office-hours, and delaying him just as he was
about to keep an appointment--then his eyes happened to fall on the card
and his tone changed at once.
"Madame Darcy!" he exclaimed. "Why, what can have brought her to see
me!--John, show the lady in at once, and--say my time is quite at her
service."
A glance at his fair chaperon of the night before, as she entered the
room, told him that she was in great trouble, and he sprang forward to
take both her hands in his, with a warmth of greeting which he would
have found it hard to justify, except on an occasion of such evident
sorrow.
"Inez--Madame Darcy," he said, leading her to his most comfortable
arm-chair--"this is indeed a pleasure--but do not tell me that you are
in distress."
"I am in very great trouble."
"Anything that I can do to serve you--I need hardly say," he murmured,
and paused, fascinated by this picture of lovely grief.
"I was prompted to come to you," she replied, "by your kindness of last
evening, for I knew you had seen and understood, and were still my
friend, and also my national representative in a foreign land, to ask
your aid for a poor country-woman who is in danger of being deprived of
her freedom, if not of her reason."
"But surely you are not speaking of yourself!"
"Yes, of myself."
The young diplomat said nothing for a moment or two, he was arranging
his ideas--adjusting them to this new and interesting phase of his
experience with Madame Darcy.
As a Secretary of Legation is generally the father confessor of his
compatriots--he had ceased to be surprised at anything. People may
deceive their physician, their lawyer, or the partner of their joys and
sorrows; but to their country's representative in a strange land they
unburden their hearts.
"Tell me," he said finally, breaking the silence, "just what your
trouble is."
"I need sympathy and help."
"The first you have already," he replied with a special reserve in his
manner, for he felt somehow that it was hardly fair that she should
bring herself to his notice again, when he had almost made up his mind
to marry a lady of whom all his friends disapproved. Indeed, in the last
few minutes the force of Kingsland's remarks had made themselves felt
very strongly, and he especially exerted himself to be brusque, feeling
in an odd kind of way that he owed it to Miss Fitzgerald. So putting on
his most official tone he added, "to help you, Madame Darcy, I must
understand your case clearly."
"Don't call me by that name--give me my own--as you once did. My
husband's a brute."
"Quite so, undoubtedly; but unfortunately that does not change your
name."
"Would you mind shutting the door?" she replied somewhat irrelevantly.
They were, as has been said, in the Secretary's private office, a dreary
room, its furniture, three chairs, a desk and a bookcase full of
forbidding legal volumes, its walls littered with maps, and its one
window looking out on the unloveliness of a London business street.
As he returned to his seat, after executing her request, she began
abruptly:--
"You're not a South American."
"No, my father was a Northerner, but, as you know, he owned large sugar
plantations in your country, and if training and sympathy can make me a
South American, I am one."
"You're a Protestant."
"Yes, so are you."
"It is my mother's faith, and though I was brought up in a convent at
New Orleans, I've not forsaken it. I feel easier in speaking to you on
that account."
"You may rest assured, my dear, that what you say to me will go no
farther. 'Tis my business to keep secrets."
"Two years ago," she began abruptly, plunging into her story, "after
our--after you left home, an Englishman, a soldier returning from the
East incapacitated by a fever, and travelling for his health, craved a
night's rest at my father's house. As you know, in a country like ours,
where decent inns are few and far between, travellers are always
welcome. It was the hot season, we pressed him to stay for a day or two,
he accepted, and a return of the fever made him our guest for months. He
needed constant nursing--I--I was the only white woman on the
plantation."
"I see," said Stanley. "You nursed him, he recovered, was grateful, paid
you homage."
"Remember I was brought up in a convent. I was so alone and so unhappy.
He told me you had married. I believed him--trusted him.
"Quite so. His name was Darcy. He is a liar."
"He is--my husband."
"A gentleman--I suppose?"
"The world accords him that title," she replied coldly.
"I understand-- He's a man of means?"
"He has nothing but his pay."
"And you--but that question is unnecessary. Senor De Costa's name and
estates are well known--and you are his only child."
"Yes, you're right," she burst out. "It's my money, my cursed money! Why
do men call it a blessing! Oh, if I could trust him, I'd give him every
penny of it. But I cannot, it's the one hold I have on him, and because
I will not beggar myself to supply means for his extravagances he
dares----"
"Not personal violence, surely?"
"To put me away somewhere--in a retreat, he calls it. That means a
madhouse."
"My dear Madame Darcy!"
"Call me Inez De Costa, I will _not_ have that name of Darcy, I hate
it."
"My dear Inez, then; your fears are groundless; they can't put sane
people in madhouses any longer in England, except in cheap fiction--it's
against the law."
"It's very easy for you to sit there and talk of law. You, who are
protected by your office, but for me, for a poor woman whose liberty is
threatened!"
"I assure you that you're in no such danger as you apprehend."
"But if I were put away, you would help me?"
"You shall suffer no injustice that we can prevent. You may return home
and rest easy on that score."
"I shall never return to that man."
"Why not return to your father?"
"Would that I could!" she exclaimed, her eyes brimming with tears. "But
how can I, with no money and no friends?"
"I thought you said----" began the Secretary, but his interruption was
lost in the flow of her eloquence.
"I've not a penny. I can cash no cheque that's not made to his order,
and to come to you I must degrade myself by borrowing a sovereign from
my maid. I've travelled third-class!"
The Secretary smiled at the ante-climax, saying:
"Many people of large means travel third-class habitually."
"But not a De Costa," she broke in, and then continued her narration
with renewed ardour.
"I've no roof to shelter me to-night. No where to go. No clothes except
what I wear. No money but those few shillings; but I would rather starve
and die in the streets than go back to him. I'm rich. I've powerful
friends. You can't have the heart to turn away from me. Have you
forgotten the old friendship? You must do something--something to save
me----" and in the passion, of her southern nature she threw herself at
his feet, and burst into an agony of tears.
Stanley assisted her to rise, got her a glass of water, and had cause,
for the second time in that interview, to thank his stars that love had
already shot another shaft, because if it were not for Belle, his
official position, and the fact that the Senora had one husband
already--well--it was a relief to be forced to tell her that legations
were not charitable institutions, and that much as he might desire to
aid her, neither he nor his colleagues could interfere in her private
affairs.
"Then you refuse to assist me--you leave me to my fate!" she cried,
starting up, a red flush of anger mantling her cheek.
"Not at all," he hastened to say. "On the contrary, I'm going to help
you all I know how. I can't interfere myself, but I can refer you to a
friend of mine, whom you can thoroughly trust, and who's in a position
to aid you in the matter."
"And his name?"
"His name is Peter Sanks, the lawyer of the Legation, a gentleman, truly
as well as technically. A countryman of yours who has practised both
here and at home, and who always feels a keen interest in the affairs of
his compatriots. He has chambers in the Middle Temple. I'll give you his
address on my card."
"You're most kind-- I'll throw myself without delay on the clemency of
this Senor----"
"Sanks."
"_Madre de Dios!_ What a name!"
"I dare say he was Don Pedro Sanchez at home, but that would hardly go
here. I've written him a line on my visiting card, requesting him to do
everything he can for you, and, of course, I need hardly say to you, as
a friend, not as an official, that my time and service are entirely
devoted to your interests. There is nothing that I possess which you may
not command."
"And for me, you do this?" she asked, looking up wistfully in his face.
He took her two little hands in his, and bending over, kissed the tips
of their fingers.
"I cannot express the gratitude," she began.
"Don't," he said, cutting short her profuse thanks. "It's nothing, I
assure you. Here is my card to Sanks. Better go to him at once, or you
may miss him. It's nearly three o'clock." And feeling that it was unsafe
to trust himself longer in her presence, he touched the bell, saying to
the confidential clerk who answered it:--
"The door, John."
A moment later she was gone, leaving only the subtle perfume of her
presence in the room. Stanley threw himself moodily into the nearest
chair. It was too bad that this bewitching woman should be married to a
brute. It was too bad that he couldn't do more to help her, and it
was--yes, it really was too bad, that she should have come again into
his life just at the present moment. She was so exactly like what he had
fancied the ideal woman he was to marry ought to be. But she wasn't a
bit like Belle, and the reflection was decidedly disturbing. And now, he
supposed, she would get a divorce, and--oh, pshaw! it wasn't his affair
anyway, and he was late for his appointment with Kent-Lauriston.
He rang his office bell sharply, picking up his hat and gloves as he did
so, and saying to the messenger who answered his summons:--
"Give this report to his Excellency, John, and let me have some visiting
cards, will you---- No, no, not any official ones. Some with my private
address on."
"Very sorry Sir, but they're all out. I ordered some more day before
yesterday, Sir. They should have come by now."
"Just my luck, why didn't you attend to them earlier?"
"Isn't there one on your desk, Sir. I'm sure I saw one lying there this
morning."
"Why, yes, so there was." And he turned hastily back, only to exclaim
after a moment's hopeless rummaging:--
"Confound it! I must have given it to Senora De Costa!"