CONCERNS LOVE AND A MYSTERY
The sensation caused by the suicide of Sir George Ravenscourt had
already died down. Events pass quickly nowadays in London.
His executors had discovered that her ladyship and Miss Irene had been
left well provided for, and that pecuniary worry could not have been
held responsible for the fatal act.
Moreover, there was much mystery attaching to a sum of fifty thousand
pounds in notes found in his safe in the wall of the library.
Inquiries revealed that this sum had, a few days before, been placed
to his credit at his bank by a person who could not be traced, but
whose name was Sutherland. The money was in the shape of a draft upon
the Banque de Paris et Pays Bas, of Amsterdam, and two days later Sir
George had withdrawn it personally in notes.
None of his accounts showed whence it had been derived, and his
solicitors, as well as the two executors, both business men, were
greatly mystified.
Lady Ravenscourt and Maidee had removed to the house of the former’s
sister, Mrs. Beresford, in Gloucester Terrace, Hyde Park, while the
house in Carlton House Terrace had been closed, and the faithful
Burgess left in charge.
Maidee and Gordon met daily. London society was interested in their
engagement. He usually called to see her each morning, for after noon
he was compelled to be down at the House, where the sittings were just
then usually late, and it was not until the early hours that, tired
out, he was able to get back to his rooms in Bruton Street.
Mourning had compelled Maidee to cancel all her engagements--and they
were many, for she was much sought after by the younger
hostesses--while it also prevented her going to the theatre or out to
supper. Indeed, the tragic affair had completely cut off the sudden
round of gaiety which had followed her presentation, and time now hung
heavily upon her hands amid gloomy surroundings.
She was, however, a great reader, and, finding herself debarred from
dancing and pleasure-seeking, she turned to books as a solace, and
read the solid works of Schopenhauer, Hebbel, Lessing and Hegel,
volumes at the very sight of which Gordon shuddered.
With great care, and without exhibiting any undue anxiety, young
Cunningham had endeavoured to learn from Scotland Yard what action was
being taken regarding Sir George’s death. As a Member of Parliament,
he had facilities for making inquiry; yet, though in a veiled manner
he threatened to put a question in the House, all the information he
could gather was that, in face of the coroner’s verdict, it was not
any further a police matter.
By this response he became distinctly unnerved. His object had been to
discover in what direction the inquiries of the police, if any, were
being pushed. There was a suspicion abroad--a distinct suspicion he
had heard expressed in the clubs, over dinner-tables, and in the
drawing-rooms of London--that Sir George had not died by his own hand.
And if such suspicions were general, then no doubt Scotland Yard would
hear of it and investigate.
He kept his apprehensions to himself, but his friends, and Maidee more
especially, noted how pale, worn-out, and anxious he had become, and
how each day increased the serious expression upon his usually open,
merry countenance.
One morning when he called at Gloucester Terrace, and they were
standing before the drawing-room fire clasped in each other’s arms,
she suddenly asked anxiously:
“What’s the matter, dear? Is anything troubling you--anything on your
mind?”
“On my mind!” he echoed, with a start. “Why no, darling. What should
there be?”
“Oh! I don’t know, Gordon, but of late you’ve seemed so preoccupied,
so silent, so very thoughtful,” replied the girl. “The whole world
seems to have suddenly become gloomy and overshadowed since poor
uncle’s death.”
“Well, I really didn’t know I looked unusually sad,” laughed the young
man, rousing himself with an effort. “Perhaps it is on account of
working hard over my new book upon Albanian independence. I want to
get it out in the spring, and therefore have to write each morning
after I return from the House.”
“You ought not to work so hard, dear,” she declared, looking up into
his face. “I’m sure you will injure your health. Uncle often said you
were burning the candle at both ends.”
But Gordon only laughed.
“I really don’t feel it,” he declared. “I can never be idle. My only
regret is that my duties at the House prevent me from travelling.”
“And leaving me!” she cried in reproach, gazing into his pale face
with a look of fond affection which was unmistakable.
“No, not that,” he hastened to assure her with tenderness. “My
intention is, after our marriage, that you shall come out with me to
the East. You would be delighted with the quaint life in Albania and
Macedonia.”
“I’d very much love it all, except those horrible massacres for which
your friends the Turks are responsible.”
“Ah! not always,” he exclaimed reprovingly. “You must not misjudge the
Mussulman. Come with me and see for yourself, then your prejudice
against the Turk will be swept away, I feel assured. Once I was just
as prejudiced as you are--until I saw the truth with my own eyes.”
“Well, I do wish you’d take my advice, dear, and have a rest,”
exclaimed the girl earnestly. “Put your book aside. It will do as well
if published in the autumn as in the spring. Your reputation will not
suffer by its delay.”
“Ah! but the very question with which I am dealing will come before
the House next month, and I must have it out as soon as possible,”
answered her lover, gazing upon her in admiration.
“Then, why don’t you pair, and go for a rest--on the Riviera or
somewhere?”
“Oh, I’m sick of Nice and Monte, and the tea-table tabbies of Cannes.
I’ve been there three seasons in succession.”
“Then go to Algeria or Tunis--or else to Assouan,” she suggested.
“Ah! you want to get rid of me,” he declared, laughing. “No; I shall
remain in London. I can’t leave the House just now--quite impossible,”
he said with decision.
But he did not allow her to guess that the reason he would not take a
holiday was because his ambition prompted him to remain with a view to
securing high office. Truth to tell, the constant lionising to which
he had of late been subjected had turned his head a little. Hitherto
he had been modest and unspoiled by success, but he had now suddenly
become seized by an overweening ambition. He held himself in the
highest esteem, and hailed himself as the coming man whom everyone
predicted.
Clever enough not to betray to Maidee the extent of his own ambition,
he knew that if he did so he must fall in her estimation. The
blindness and ignorance of most women make them the victims of fancied
perfections. Love, in the common acceptation of the term, is a folly.
Love, in its purity, its loftiness, its unselfishness, as was Maidee’s
affection, is not only a consequence, but a proof of moral
excellence--the sensibility of moral beauty, the forgetfulness of self
in the admiration engendered by it. Such love proves its claim to a
high moral influence--the triumph of the unselfish over the selfish in
a young girl’s nature.
She was sorely puzzled by her lover’s apparent apprehensiveness. He
seemed pale, nervous, and expectant--quite unlike his usual self. In
conversation he often remained silent, apathetic, thoughtful. What,
she wondered, could be the reason?
No man in the fevered political world of London led a more strenuous
life, she was well aware. He was constant in his attendance at
divisions, he went everywhere, and was highly popular in the smartest
set. As an orator he addressed great meetings in various parts of the
country, and was already one of the best speakers his party possessed.
But many shook their heads. There was an unhealthy look about his
face. Some whispered that he took opiates to soothe his overwrought
brain, while others hinted at speculation and serious financial
trouble in consequence.
As he bent and kissed his well-beloved good-bye, for it was already
past noon, she felt somehow that his caress was not so warm or so
passionate as it used to be. But she made no remark--she only
wondered.
Crossing to a big bowl of sweet-smelling lilies of the valley upon a
side-table, she picked him several, deftly made them into a
buttonhole, tied them with cotton and placed them in the lappel of his
black morning-coat, saying:
“There! Wear them to-day and think sometimes of me!”
“I always think of you, Maidee,” he declared with truth.
“Always--always!” And, again kissing her fondly upon the lips, he
added: “Never an hour passes but my thoughts turn to you, my
well-beloved.”
The girl held in his embrace sighed slightly. She was very happy--and
yet that curious anxiety of Gordon’s puzzled her.
He bade her adieu, holding her a long time close to his breast,
crushing the lilies slightly. Then he kissed her once more, and,
turning, left the warm, flower-scented room.
As, ten minutes later, he was seated in a taxi driving down Park Lane,
staring straight before him, his pale, fevered lips moved, but at
first no sound escaped them.
At last, however, he suddenly held his breath, and exclaimed aloud:
“Maidee--ah! my own Maidee--my darling--my own well-beloved! What
would you think of me if you knew the bitter truth! But you must never
know--never--_never_! I would rather kill myself first!”
Then he sat silent, his face white and haggard, his gloved hand
clenched.
At Boodle’s he called for his letters, and gulped down a glass of neat
brandy.
As he drove along the Mall he caught sight of those drab, drawn blinds
of the house in Carlton House Terrace.
He started with a cry of horror, and placed both his hands before his
eyes to shut out the view.
Yet, when he alighted at the House, he walked with firm step and
smiling face past the saluting constable as though his conscience were
perfectly at ease and he had no trouble in the world.
He obtained his letters at the post-office in the lobby, and then went
along to one of the committee-rooms, where he had an appointment,
nodding to men he knew and exchanging hurried words with one of the
whips, easily and merrily, his manner entirely changed from that of
twenty minutes before.
Alone in Mrs. Beresford’s drawing-room in Gloucester Terrace, Maidee,
sweet, pensive, and neat in her sombre black, sat moodily looking out
of the window, thinking and wondering.
“There is something wrong with Gordon,” she declared to herself. “He
has never been the same since the night of poor uncle’s death. How
strange it was that Uncle John should urge me to tell him nothing!
What does the old fellow know, I wonder? Why has he taken so great and
so secret an interest in me all these years? There is a mystery--a
very great mystery somewhere. Of that I feel convinced.”