BY RICHARD DOWLING.
DERELICT.
When Lord Francis found himself in the train on his way up to London
from Felixstowe his mind was in a condition bordering on frenzy. The
wife of his youth, the wife of his choice, the only woman to whom his
heart had ever gone forth with unalloyed joy and limitless bounty, lay
at death’s door, from which one hope existed of beckoning her back--the
touch of their child’s tiny hand. And now, at this moment of supreme
crisis, cursed Fate stepped in and took the child from his sight,
snatched the possible deliverer from his arms!
Cursed Fate, or Nemesis, or _lex talionis_, call it what one might,
there was the maddening fact, the overwhelming act of that foreign
woman whom once, in his malignant perversity, he thought he loved, who
over and over again swore she loved him and only him! Granted he had
treated her badly, had he attempted her life? Why, then, should she
attempt his? Why should she seek to kill him through the hearts he
held most dear? Because he had made love to her and ridden away? Great
Heavens! Was his sin against her a mustard seed to the whole world, in
comparison to this attempt on Fenella’s life?
From the beginning of their acquaintance, Lucille knew he was
married--at no time of their acquaintance did he know much of her. She
had her dark eyes, and her mystery, and her history--these were parts
of her fascination. She had enslaved him, as a drug or wine might
enslave him, for a time; but she had never touched the essence of his
being--that was for Fenella, for Fenella only.
When he reached London he drove straight to Scotland Yard. If he had
been in a normal state he would no doubt have paid a visit to his
solicitors first, but he was in no normal state. He could not have told
when he ate last, or where he had slept; what day of the week or month
it was. All that was usual was worthless, and only the quest he was on
worthy of heed.
At Scotland Yard he was at once shown into the presence of Inspector
Brown. His father’s position made his name illustrious; the murder
trial had made himself notorious.
“My child--my boy of six--has been stolen. His mother, Lady Francis, is
in danger of death from illness, and the instant recovery of the boy is
a matter of life and death. She is in brain fever, and the doctor says
if her boy is at her bedside when she recovers her senses it may save
her life. Whatever sum of money may be necessary to recover the boy
I’ll double it, treble it, quadruple it, if you only find him for me,
and at once,” he cried out to the inspector, all in a breath.
“The recovery of the child does not, unfortunately, depend on mere
money, my lord.”
“On what, then?”
“On possibility. If it is possible to be done it will be done; and
whether we succeed or fail, you may rely on no time being lost. Will
your lordship kindly give me all the particulars?”
The father told the history of the boy’s abduction, as Mrs. Grandison
had given it to him.
“And this foreign, handsome lady who took the child away, do you happen
to know her name?”
Did he happen to know Lucille’s name! Good Heavens, how strange such a
question seemed! But it was one thing to know her name, and vow hatred
of her, and another thing to give to the police the name of a woman he
once made love to. He hesitated.
The inspector looked up from the sheet of paper on which he had been
taking down the particulars.
The inspector, believing the other had not heard, repeated the
question.
“Bah!” thought Lord Francis, “why should I hesitate? She has not
hesitated to lie and to steal Ronny; and Fenella’s life is in the
scales.” He said aloud: “The lady is French;” the inspector recommenced
writing; “her name is Mme. de Vigny.”
The inspector looked up again, this time with a start, laid down his
pen, and cleared his throat as though to clear his mind. “May I ask
your lordship to repeat the name?”
“Mme. de Vigny--Lucille de Vigny. Do you know anything of her?”
“Perhaps,” said the inspector, touching an electric bell.
A policeman in uniform entered. The inspector handed the man a slip of
paper. The constable withdrew. In a few moments he returned, handed
some documents to his superior officer, and retired.
“Does your lordship happen to know anything of this Mme. Lucille de
Vigny before she came to England a few years ago?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
“I suppose we are talking of the same lady”--the inspector looked
down at his papers--“a tall, strikingly handsome, dark woman of about
thirty-five or forty now. She was in the Prospect Hotel, Harrogate,
at the time of the late tragic occurrence there, though she was not
herself brought into the case.”
“Yes, that is the lady.”
“Well, we do know something of her here. We have been keeping an eye
on her for a little time at the request of the French police. A French
detective has been over here about her. It was not until the day before
yesterday, when instructions came from Paris to act, that we knew she
had left the country.”
“Left the country!” cried Lord Francis, falling back on his chair in
consternation.
“Sailed for New York from Liverpool four days ago. She is wanted in
France for connection with some wholesale swindling of a bank in Lille
four or five years ago. We lost sight of her for a little while lately,
but that we have just explained by the fact that she recently went
through a form of marriage at a registry with a rich American Senator,
Colonel Clutterbuck. I say went through a form of marriage, for her
husband, one of the clerks in the Lille bank, is now in the hands of
the French police. My lord, you may make your mind easy about your boy.
No doubt he is the child who sailed with Colonel and Mrs. Clutterbuck
four days ago as Mrs. Clutterbuck’s nephew, Roland Tyrrell, aged six.”
“What is to be done now?” cried Lord Francis, relieved at getting a
clew to his boy, and in despair at finding the child must already be
half-way across the Atlantic.
“She will be arrested on landing, and brought back.”
“But the boy, my son?”
“If you wish it, we can cable, and have him looked after for you. There
will be a few days lost in legal formalities in New York.”
“I’ll follow the boy. I’ll go by the next boat!” and, with this
resolution, and no thought of anything else, he rushed away from
Scotland Yard for his chambers.
At his chambers he found everything as he had left it weeks ago. Into
a couple of portmanteaus he bundled some clothes--any, no matter what,
he could put his hands on. Then he sat down to think. His brain was in
a whirl. Only one thought had any value, any place in his mind--the
recovery of Ronny. On that depended all. On that depended the life of
Fenella, and his own power of making reparation to her for all she had
gone through.
He had forgotten one thing at Scotland Yard. The inspector had said
they could cable to have the boy taken care of for him. He had not
asked the inspector to do so. He sat down, and, with a hand that shook
so that he could hardly hold the pen, he wrote to the inspector,
begging that a message might be sent by cable, bidding them look after
Ronny on his behalf in New York. He marked the envelope “private,” for
there was plenty of time for the cable, and he wished the whole affair
to be kept as quiet as possible.
Then he had nothing else to do but to get forward. He did not think of
looking to see, or of inquiring when the next boat left. Queenstown was
the point nearest to America, and, by the Irish mail that night, he
started for Cork.
It was not until he had been six hours plunging through the Atlantic
toward the New World, in the huge ocean steamer, that he remembered he
had sent no word to Guernsey. But he dismissed the omission from his
mind as a matter of no moment; “for,” thought he, “all the messages in
the world would not serve my poor girl as she now is, and I am going to
fetch the elixir of life for her--our Ronny’s voice.”
At the moment that Lord Francis was soothing his mind, and cheering
his way with this encouraging reflection, Inspector Brown, of Scotland
Yard, was writing to him, as follows:
MY LORD:
I hasten to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the day before
yesterday, which came after I left. It was marked “private,” and,
consequently, was not opened in the ordinary course. I was absent on
duty yesterday, and only got it just now. Hence I could not answer it
sooner. The French authorities have decided that, having secured the
so-called Mme. Lucille de Vigny’s husband, and she having got off to
America, they will not follow her further for the present. She will,
therefore, walk ashore free out of the steamer, and, in the absence
of formal instructions, we shall be powerless to stop her. Hoping
this may reach you in time, I am, my lord, your humble servant,
CHRISTOPHER BROWN, Inspector.
Meanwhile the struggle for life in that cottage room in Guernsey had
turned in favor of Fenella. The doctor had given a guarded opinion when
Lord Francis made his frantic appeal to him. Before her husband fronted
the Western Ocean, the wasted sufferer opened her eyes, and once more
looked out, through the glance of reason, on the world where she had
endured so much.
For a day or two she hung between life and death. She looked too frail
for this world. But she had store of the best of medicines in her own
blood--youth--and she began to mend rapidly.
Happily, when she came to herself, she did not clearly remember the
dreadful past. All was dim and shadowy. The doctor was careful to say
nothing that could renew her sorrow. He was aware that her husband had
set off to recover the boy, but since Lord Francis dashed out of the
place no word had come from him, and as the patient made no inquiries
the doctor held his peace. The nurse knew nothing, and Fenella herself
had a vague feeling that the past, whatever was in it, had better be
let alone. She was too weak for conflict, for even consecutive thought.
Hour after hour she lay, weak and silent and gentle, the ghost of her
former self, all the old audacious sprightliness vanished. She took
what they gave her, and spoke when she was spoken to, and resisted
nothing the attentive people around ordained for her. She did not ask
questions. She had no memory of her husband’s penitential visit; no
means of knowing that he had gone to fetch their child.
The doctor seeing that she was in no distress left her in the hands of
beneficent Nature. Peace was the finest cordial his patient could taste
now, and if she showed no sign of joyousness, she was easy and at rest.
Fenella’s brain being free of the fever, her splendid constitution
and her youth asserted their prerogative to lead her to health,
and the kindly doctor stood amazed at the progress she made toward
convalescence. “You have nothing to do now but get well,” said he, “and
you are getting well as if getting well were a fever in full power. You
are building up as fast--ay, faster--than you lost.”
She answered only with a smile. She took no particular interest in
getting well, or in anything else, for that matter. Although the
brain may have been relieved from the ravages of active disease, it
was inert, lifeless. The fountains of memory were still frozen, or
dried up. She knew she lay at her cottage in Guernsey, but she did not
actively realize why she was there. She felt that if she made a great
effort, she could tell herself the story of her presence upon the
island; but she was languid, and took no interest in anything, not even
in herself.
“You may sit up for an hour to-morrow,” said the doctor, one day.
She said: “Thank you, doctor.” He was careful not to call her by any
name, and he told the nurse and maids not to address her as “Mrs.
Orme.” “Let us get the body strong first,” thought he. “Until word
comes from Lord Francis, we have nothing pleasant to say to her, and
she may forget that she was ever ‘Mrs. Orme.’”
So day slid into morrow, and brought no news--no word of any kind--and
Lord Francis was a whole week gone, and the sufferer was allowed to
move about a little. The good doctor concluded that Lord Francis had
changed his intention again, and for some reason or other reverted to
the condition of mind he had been in when he borrowed Lord Castleton’s
yacht, and took himself away into southern seas beyond the voice of
England.
On the eighth day a letter came from London. It was addressed in a
clerkly hand. It was the first letter that had come for Fenella since
she had fallen ill. She was sitting in an armchair by the fire when
she took it from the doctor, for he had given strict orders she was
to get no letter except from his hand. The superscription was in such
commonplace clerkly writing that the good doctor made sure that it was
some ordinary business communication, one from her lawyer or trustee,
or some other person connected with the routine of her affairs. She
was now strong enough to stroll a short distance out-of-doors, and had
taken a turn in the garden the day before, and was to walk a mile along
the road later to-day when the sun grew stronger.
“A letter from some of your business people,” said the man of science.
“I hope it brings you good news.” A little rousing would not come amiss
to the lovely invalid.
It was addressed to “Mrs. Orme.” She broke the cover. It contained a
brief note from her lawyer and a letter inclosed, the writing of which,
a woman’s, was unfamiliar to her. The lawyer’s letter ran:
DEAR MADAM:
I inclose a letter which reaches me from an unknown source, with an
anonymous request that it may be forwarded to you. I am, dear madam,
yours faithfully,
JOHN THORNHILL.
The letter inclosed was addressed to “Lady Francis Onslow.” She broke
the cover of that. It, too, was short. It ran:
Your husband has left you forever, and I have taken care you shall
never see your child again.
LUCILLE DE VIGNY.
That was all.