THE PERJURER
Peggy's appointment had not been a secret in the Fricker household,
though its precise object was not known; it had been laughed and joked
over in the presence of the family friend, Beaufort Chance. He had
joined in the mirth, and made a mental note of the time appointed--just
as he had of Trix Trevalla's address in Harriet Street. Hence it was
that he caused himself to be driven to the address a little while after
Peggy had started on her way to Fricker's. The woman who answered his
ring said that Mrs. Trevalla was seeing nobody; her scruples were
banished by his confident assurance that he was an old friend, and by
five shillings which he slipped into her hand. He did not scrutinise his
impulse to see Trix; it was rather blind, but it was overpowering. An
idea had taken hold of him which he hid carefully in his heart, hid from
the Frickers above all--and tried, perhaps, to hide from himself too;
for it was dangerous.
Trix's nerves had not recovered completely; they were not tuned to meet
sudden encounters. She gave a startled cry as the door was opened
hastily and as hastily closed, and he was left alone with her. She was
pale and looked weary about the eyes, but she looked beautiful too,
softened by her troubles and endowed with the attraction of a new
timidity; he marked it in her as useful to his purposes.
'You? What have you come for?' she cried, not rising nor offering him
her hand.
He set down his hat and pulled off his gloves deliberately. He knew they
were alone in the lodgings; she was at his mercy. That was the first
thing he had aimed at, and it was his.
'Your friends naturally want to see how you are getting on,' he said,
with a laugh. 'They've been hearing so much about you.'
Trix tried to compose herself to a quiet contempt, but the nerves were
wrong and she was frightened.
'Well, things have turned out funnily, haven't they? Not quite what they
looked like being when we met last, at Viola Blixworth's! You were
hardly the stuff to fight Fricker, were you? Or me either--though you
thought you could manage me comfortably.'
His words were brutal enough; his look surpassed them. Trix shrank back
in her chair.
'I don't want to talk to you at all,' she protested helplessly.
'Ah, it's always had to be just what you wanted, hasn't it? Never mind
anybody else! But haven't you learnt that that doesn't exactly work? I
should have thought it would have dawned on you. Well, I don't want to
be unpleasant. What's going to happen now? No Mervyn! No marquisate in
the future! No money in the present, I'm afraid! You've made a hash of
it, Trix.'
'I've nothing at all to say to you. If I've--if I've made mistakes,
I----'
'You've suffered for them? Yes, I fancy so. And you made some pretty big
ones. It was rather a mistake to send me to the right-about, wasn't it?
You were warned. You chose to go on. Here you are! Don't you sometimes
think you'd better have stuck to me?'
'No!' Trix threw the one word at him with a disgusted contempt which
roused his anger even while he admired the effort of her courage.
'What, you're not tamed yet?' he sneered. 'Even this palace, and Glowing
Stars, and being the laughing-stock of London haven't tamed you?'
He spoke slowly, never taking his eyes from her; her defiance worked on
the idea in his heart. He had run a fatal risk once before under her
influence; he felt her influence again while he derided her. Enough of
what he had been clung about him to make him feel how different she was
from Connie Fricker. To conquer her and make her acknowledge the
conquest was the desire that came upon him, tempting him to forget at
what peril he would break with Connie.
'You only came here to laugh at me,' said Trix. 'Well, go on.'
'One can't help laughing a bit,' he remarked; 'but I don't want to be
hard on you. If you'd done to some men what you did to me, they mightn't
take it so quietly. But I'm ready to be friends.'
'Whatever I did, you've taken more than your revenge--far more. Yes, if
you wanted to see me helpless and ruined, here I am! Isn't it enough?
Can't you go now?'
'And how's old Mervyn? At any rate I've taken you away from him, the
stuck-up fool!'
'I won't discuss Lord Mervyn.'
'He'd be surprised to see us together here, wouldn't he?' He laughed,
enjoying the thought of Mervyn's discomfiture; he might make it still
more complete if he yielded to his idea. He came round the table and
leant against it, crossing his feet; he was within a yard of her chair,
and looked down at her in insolent disdain and more insolent admiration.
Now again he marked her fear and played on it.
'Yes, we got the whiphand of you, and I think you know it now. And
that's what you want; that's the way to treat you. I should have known
how to deal with you. What could a fool like Mervyn do with a woman like
you? You're full of devil.'
Poor Trix, feeling at that moment by no means full of 'devil,' glanced
at him with a new terror. She had set herself to endure his taunts, but
the flavour that crept into them now was too much.
'I don't forget we were friends. You're pretty well stranded now. Well,
I'll look after you, if you like. But no more tricks! You must behave
yourself.'
'Do you suppose I should ever willingly speak to you again?'
'Yes, I think so. When the last of the money's gone, perhaps? I don't
fancy your friends here can help you much. It'll be worth while
remembering me then.'
'I'd sooner starve,' said Trix decisively.
'Wait a bit, wait a bit,' he jeered.
'I ask you to go,' she said, pointing to the door. A trivial
circumstance interfered with any attempt at more dramatic action; the
wire of the bell was broken, as Trix well knew.
'Yes, but you can't always have what you want, can you?' His tone
changed to one of bantering intimacy. 'Come, Trix, be a sensible girl.
You're beat, and you know it. You'd better drop your airs. By Jove, I
wouldn't offer so much to any other woman!'
'What do you want?' she asked curtly and desperately. 'I've got nothing
to give you--no more money, no more power, no more influence. I've got
nothing.' Her voice shook for a moment as she sketched her worldly
position.
A pause followed. Beaufort Chance longed to make the plunge, and yet he
feared it. If he told her that she still had what he wanted, he believed
that he could bend her to his will; to try at least was the strong
impulse in him. But how much would it mean? He was fast in the Fricker
net. Yet the very passions which had led him into that entanglement
urged him now to break loose, to follow his desire, and to risk
everything for it. The tyrannous instinct that Connie had so cleverly
played upon would find a far finer satisfaction if the woman he had once
wooed when she was exalted, when she gave a favour by listening and
could bestow distinction by her consent, should bend before him and come
to him in humble submission, owning him her refuge, owing him
everything, in abject obedience. That was the picture which wrought upon
his mind and appealed to his nature. He saw nothing unlikely in its
realisation, if once he resolved to aim at that. What other refuge had
she? And had she not liked him once? She would have liked him more, he
told himself, and been true to him, if he had taken a proper tone
towards her and assumed a proper mastery--as he had with Connie Fricker;
in a passing thought he thanked Connie for teaching him the lesson, and
took comfort from the thought. Connie would not be really troublesome;
he could manage her too.
'No, you've got nothing,' he said at last; 'but supposing I say I don't
mind that?'
Trix looked at him again, and suddenly began to laugh hysterically. The
idea he hinted was horrible, but to her it was inexpressibly ludicrous
too. She saw what he wanted, what he had the madness to suggest. She was
terrified, but she laughed; she knew that her mirth would rouse his
fury, but it was not to be resisted. She thought that she would go on
laughing, even if he struck her on the face--an event which, for the
second time in their acquaintance, did not seem to her unlikely.
'Are you--can you actually----?' she gasped.
'Don't be a fool! There's nothing to laugh at. Hold your tongue and
think it over. Remember, I don't bind myself. I'll see how you behave.
I'm not going to be fooled by you twice. You ought to know it doesn't
pay you to do it too, by now.' He became more jocular. 'You'd have
better fun with me than with Mervyn, and I daresay you'll manage to
wheedle me into giving you a good deal of your own way after all.'
He was still more outrageous than Trix had thought him before. She was
prepared for much, but hardly for this. He had degenerated even from
what he had shown himself in their earlier intercourse. Outwardly, among
men, in public life, she supposed that he was still presentable, was
still reckoned a gentleman. Allowing for the fact that many men were
gentlemen in dealing with other men, or appeared such, who failed to
preserve even the appearance with women, she remained amazed at the
coarse vulgarity of his words and tone. It is possible that his
attentions to Connie Fricker had resulted in a deterioration of his
style of treating such matters; or the change may merely have been part
of the general lowering the man had undergone.
'Well, I'll be off now,' he said, lifting himself from the table
leisurely. 'You think about it. I'll come and see you again.' He held
out his hand. 'You're looking deuced pretty to-day,' he told her. 'Pale
and interesting, and all that, you know. I say, if we do it, old
Mervyn'll look pretty blue, eh? The laugh'll be against him then, won't
it?'
Trix had not given him her hand. She was afraid of the parting. Her
fears were not groundless. He laughed as he stepped up to her chair. She
drew back in horror, guessing his purpose. It would seem to him quite
natural to kiss her--she divined that. She had no leisure to judge or to
condemn his standard; she knew only that she loathed the idea
passionately. She covered her face with her hands.
'Guessed it, did you?' he laughed, rather pleased, and, bending over, he
took hold of her wrists and tore her hands from in front of her face.
At this moment, however--and the thing could hardly have been worse
timed from one point of view, or better from another--Peggy Ryle opened
the door. Peggy trod light, the baize door swung quietly, Beaufort's
attention had been much preoccupied. His hands were still on Trix's
wrists when he turned at the opening of the door. So far as the facts of
the situation went, explanation was superfluous; the meaning of the
facts was another matter.
Peggy had come in looking grave, wistful, distressed; the shadow of the
Fricker interview was still over her. When she saw the position she
stood on the threshold, saying nothing, smiling doubtfully. Trix dropped
her hands in her lap with a sigh; pure and great relief was her feeling.
Beaufort essayed unconsciousness; it was an elaborate and clumsy effort.
'Glad to have a glimpse of you before I go, Miss Ryle. I called to see
how Mrs. Trevalla was, but I must run away now.'
'So sorry,' said Peggy. 'Let me show you the way.'
The doubtful smile gave way to a broader and more mirthful one. Trix's
eyes had telegraphed past horror and present thanksgiving. Moreover,
Beaufort looked a fool--and Peggy had just come from the Frickers'. This
last circumstance she seemed to think would interest Beaufort; or did
she merely aim at carrying off the situation by a tactful flow of talk?
'I've just been to call on your friends the Frickers,' she said
brightly. 'What a nice girl Miss Fricker is! She says she's great
friends with you.'
'I go there a lot on business,' he explained stiffly.
'On business?' Peggy laughed. 'I daresay you do, Mr. Chance! She's so
friendly and cordial, isn't she? It must be nice riding with her! And
what a beautiful bracelet you gave her!'
Beaufort shot a morose glance at her, and from her to Trix. Trix was
smiling, though still agitated. Peggy was laughing in an open
good-natured fashion.
'I envied it awfully,' she confessed. 'Diamonds and pearls, Trix--just
beauties!'
Mr. Beaufort Chance said good-bye.
'I hope to see you again,' he added to Trix from the doorway.
'Do tell Miss Fricker how much I like her,' Peggy implored, following
him to the baize door.
He went downstairs, silently, or not quite silently, cursing Peggy, yet
on the whole not ill-pleased with his visit. He seemed to have made some
progress in the task of subduing Trix Trevalla. She had been
frightened--that was something. He walked off buttoning his frock-coat,
looking like a prosperous, orderly, and most respectable gentleman.
Fortunately emotions primitively barbarous are not indicated by external
labels, or walks in the street would be fraught with strange
discoveries.
It did not take long to put Peggy abreast of events; Trix's eyes could
have done it almost without words.
'Men are astonishing,' opined Peggy, embracing Beaufort Chance and
Fricker in a liberal generalisation.
'They say we're astonishing,' Trix reminded her.
'Oh, that's just because they're stupid.' She grew grave. 'Anyhow
they're very annoying,' she concluded.
'He said he'd come again, Peggy. What a worm I am now! I'm horribly
afraid.'
'So he did,' Peggy reflected, and sat silent with a queer little smile
on her lips.
Trix Trevalla fell into a new fit of despair, or a fresh outpouring of
the bitterness that was always in her now.
'I might as well,' she said. 'I might just as well. What else is there
left for me? I've made shipwreck of it all, and Beaufort Chance isn't
far wrong about me. He's just about the sort of fate I deserve. Why do
the things you deserve make you sick to think of them? He wouldn't
actually beat me if I behaved properly and did as I was told, I suppose,
and that's about as much as I can expect. Oh, I've been such a fool!'
'Having been a fool doesn't matter, if you're sensible now,' said Peggy.
'Sensible! Yes, he told me to be sensible too! I suppose the sensible
thing would be to tell him to come again, to lie down before him, and
thank him very much if he didn't stamp too hard on me.'
Peggy remembered how Mr. Fricker had hinted that Trix was very much in
the position in which her own fancy was now depicting her. Could that be
helped? It seemed not--without four thousand pounds anyhow.
Trix came and leant over the back of her chair. 'I laughed at him,
Peggy--I laughed, but I might yield. He might frighten me into it. And
I've nowhere else to turn. Supposing I went to him with my hundred a
year? That's about what I've left myself, I suppose, after everything's
paid.'
'Well, that's a lot of money,' said Peggy.
'You child!' cried Trix, half-laughing, half-crying. 'But you're a
wonderful child. Can't you save me, Peggy?'
'What from?'
'Oh, I suppose, in the end, from myself. I'm reckless. I'm drifting.
Will he come again, Peggy?'
Peggy had no radical remedy, but her immediate prescription was not
lacking in wisdom as a temporary expedient. She sent Trix to bed, and
was obeyed with a docility which would have satisfied any of those who
had set themselves to teach Trix moral lessons. Then Peggy herself sat
down and engaged in the task of thinking. It had not been at all a
prosperous day. Fricker was a source of despair, Chance of a new
apprehension; Trix herself was a perplexity most baffling of all. The
ruin of self-respect, bringing in its train an abandonment of hope for
self, was a strange and bewildering spectacle; she did not see how to
effect its repair. Trix's horror of yielding to the man, combined with
her fear that she might yield, was a state of mind beyond Peggy's power
of diagnosis; she knew only that it clamoured for instant and strong
treatment.
Beaufort Chance would come again! Suddenly Peggy determined that he
should--on a day she would fix! She would charge herself with that. She
smiled again as a hope came into her mind. She had been considerably
impressed with Connie Fricker.
The greater puzzle remained behind, the wider, more forlorn hope on
which everything turned. 'How much do men love women?' asked Peggy Ryle.
Then the thought of her pledged word flashed across her mind. She might
not tell Airey that Trix was ruined; she might not tell Airey that she
herself knew his secret. She had hoped to get something from Airey
without those disclosures; it was hopeless without them to ask for four
thousand pounds--or three thousand five hundred either.
Having been sent to bed, Trix seemed inclined to stay there. She lay
there all next day, very quiet, but open-eyed, not resting but fretting
and fearing, unequal to her evil fortune, prostrated by the vision of
her own folly, bereft of power to resist or will to recover from the
blow. Peggy watched her for hours, and then, late in the afternoon,
slipped out. Her eyes were resolute under the low brow with its
encroaching waves of sunny hair.
Airey Newton let her in. The door of the safe was ajar; he pushed it to
with his foot. The red-leather book lay open on the table, displaying
its neatly ruled, neatly inscribed pages. He saw her glance at it, and
she noticed an odd little shrug of his shoulders as he walked across the
room and put the tea into the pot. She had her small bag with her, and
laid it down by the bread-and-butter plate. Airey knew it by sight; he
had seen her stow away in it the money which he delivered to her from
the custody of the safe.
'I can't fill that again for you,' he said warningly, as he gave her
tea.
'It's not empty. The money's all there.'
'And you want me to take care of it again?' His tone spoke approval.
'I don't know. I may want it, and I mayn't.'
'You're sure to want it,' he declared in smiling despair.
'I mean, I don't know whether I want it now--all in a lump--or not.'
Her bright carelessness of spirit had evidently deserted her to-day; she
was full of something. Airey gulped down a cup of tea, lit his pipe, and
waited. He had been engrossed in calculations when she
arrived--calculations he loved--and had been forced to conceal some
impatience at the interruption. He forgot that now.
'There's something on your mind, Peggy,' he said at last. 'Come, out
with it!'
'She's broken--broken, Airey. She can't bear to think of it all. She
can't bear to think of herself. She seems to have no life left, no
will.'
'You mean Mrs. Trevalla?'
'Yes. They've broken her spirit between them. They've made her feel a
child, a fool.'
'Who have? Do you mean Mervyn? Do you mean----?'
'I mean Mr. Beaufort Chance--and, above all, Mr. Fricker. She hasn't
told you about them?'
'No. I've heard something about Chance. I know nothing about Fricker.'
'She didn't treat them fairly--she knows that. Knows it--I should think
so! Poor Trix! And in return----' Peggy stopped. One of the secrets
trembled on her lips.
'In return, what?' asked Airey Newton. He had stopped smoking, and was
standing opposite to her now.
'They've tricked her and made a fool of her, and----' There was no
turning back now--'and stripped her of nearly all she had.'
An almost imperceptible start ran through Airey; his forehead wrinkled
in deep lines.
'They bought shares for her, and told her they would be valuable.
They've turned out worth nothing, and somehow--you'll understand--she's
liable to pay a lot of money on them.'
'Hum! Not fully paid, I suppose?'
'That's it. And she's in debt besides. But it's the shares that are
killing her. That's where the bitterness is, Airey.'
'Does she know you're telling me this?'
'I gave her my word that I'd never tell.'
Airey moved restlessly about the room. 'Well?' he said from the other
end of it.
'She could get over everything but that. So I went to Mr. Fricker----'
'You went to Fricker?' He came to a stand in amazement.
'Yes, I went to Mr. Fricker to see if he would consent to tell her that
she wasn't liable, that the shares had turned out better, and that she
needn't pay. I wanted him to take the shares from her, and let her
think that he did it as a matter of business.'
Airey Newton pointed to the little bag. Peggy nodded her head in assent.
'But it's not nearly enough. She'd have to pay three thousand anyhow; he
won't do what I wish for less than four. He doesn't want to do it at
all; he wants to have her on her knees, to go on knowing she's
suffering. And she will go on suffering unless we make her believe what
I want her to. He thought I couldn't get anything like the money he
asked, so he consented to take it if I did. He told me to come back when
I had got it, Airey.'
'Has she got the money?'
'Yes--and perhaps enough more to pay her debts, and just to live. But
it's not so much the money; it's the humiliation and the shame. Oh,
don't you understand? Mr. Fricker will spare her that if--if he's bribed
with a thousand pounds.'
He looked at her eager eyes and flushed cheeks; she pushed back her hair
from her brow.
'He asks four thousand pounds,' she said, and added, pointing to the
little bag, 'There's five hundred there.'
As she spoke she turned her eyes away from him towards the window. It
did not seem to her fair to look at him; and her gaze would tell too
much perhaps. She had given him the facts now; what would he make of
them? She had broken her word to Trix Trevalla. Her pledge to Tommy
Trent was still inviolate. Tommy had trusted her implicitly when she had
surprised from him his friend's secret that his carelessness let slip.
He had taken her word as he would have accepted the promise of an
honourable man, a man honourable in business, or a friend of years. Her
knowledge had counted as ignorance for him because she had engaged to be
silent. The engagement was not broken yet. She waited fearfully. Airey
could save her still. What would he do?
The seconds wore on, seeming very long. They told her of his struggle.
She understood it with a rare sympathy, the sympathy we have for the
single scar or stain on the heart of one we love; towards such a thing
she could not be bitter. But she hoped passionately that he himself
would conquer, would spare both himself and her. If he did, it would be
the finest thing in the world, she thought.
She heard him move across to the safe and lock it. She heard him shut
the red-leather book with a bang. Would he never speak? She would not
look till he did, but she could have cried to him for a single word.
'And that was what you wanted your five hundred for?' he asked at last.
'My five hundred's no good alone.'
'It's all you've got in the world--well, except your pittance.'
She did not resent the word; he spoke it in compassion. She turned to
him now and found his eyes on her.
'Oh, it's nothing to me. I never pay any attention to money, you know.'
She managed a smile, trying to plead with him to think any such
sacrifice a small matter, whether in another or in himself.
'Well, I see your plan, and it's very kind. A little Quixotic perhaps,
Peggy----'
'Quixotic! If it saves her pain?' Peggy flashed out in real indignation.
'Anyhow what's the use of talking about it? Five hundred isn't four
thousand, and Fricker won't come down, you know.'
It was pathetic to her to listen to the studied carelessness of his
voice, to hear the easy reasonable words come from the twitching lips,
to see the forced smile under the troubled brow. His agony was revealed
to her; he was asked to throw all his dearest overboard. She stretched
out her hands towards him.
'I might get help from friends, Airey.'
'Three thousand five hundred pounds?'
With sad bitterness she heard him. He was almost lying now; his manner
and tone were a very lie.
'Friends who--who love her, Airey.'
He was silent for long again, moodily looking at her.
'Who would think anything well done, anything well spent, if they could
save her pain!'
With an abrupt movement he turned away from her and threw himself into a
chair. He could no longer bear the appeal of her eyes. At last it seemed
strange as well as moving to him. But he could have no suspicion; he
trusted Tommy Trent and conceived his secret to be all his own. His old
great shame that Peggy should know joined forces with the hidden passion
which was its parent; both fought to keep him silent, both enticed him
to delude her still. Yet when she spoke of friends who loved Trix
Trevalla, whom could she touch, whom could she move, as she touched and
moved him? The appeal went to his heart, trying to storm it against the
enemies entrenched there.
Suddenly Peggy hid her face in her hands, and gave one short sob. He
looked up startled, clutching the arm of his chair with a fierce grip.
He sat like that, his eyes set on her. But when he spoke, it was lamely
and almost coldly.
'Of course we should all like to save her pain; we would all do what we
could. But think of the money wanted! It's out of the question.'
She sprang to her feet and faced him. For the moment she forgot her
tenderness for him; her understanding of his struggle was swept away in
indignation.
'You love her!' she cried in defiant challenge. 'You of all people
should help her. You of all people should throw all you have at her
feet. You love her!'
He made no denial; he rose slowly from his chair and faced her.
'Oh, what is love if it's not that?' she demanded. 'Why, even friendship
ought to be that. And love----!' Again her hands were outstretched to
him in a last appeal. For still there was time--time to save his honour
and her own, time to spare him and her the last shame. 'It would be
riches to you, riches for ever,' she said. 'Yes, just because it's so
hard, Airey!'
'What?' The word shot from his lips full of startled fear. Why did she
call it hard? The word was strange. She should have said 'impossible.'
Had he not put it before her as impossible? But she said 'hard,' and
looked in his eyes as she spoke the word.
'Love can't make money where it isn't,' he went on in a dull, dogged,
obstinate voice.
'No, but it can give it where it is!' She was carried away. 'And it's
here!' she cried in accusing tones.
'Here?' He seemed almost to spring at her with the word.
'Yes, here, in this room--in that safe--everywhere!'
They stood facing one another for a moment.
'You love her--and she's ruined!'
She challenged denial. Airey Newton had no word to say. She raised her
hand in the air and seemed to denounce him.
'You love her, she's ruined, and--you're rich! Oh, the shame of
it--you're rich, you're rich!'
He sank back into his chair and hid his face from her.
She stood for a moment, looking at him, breathing fast and hard. Then
she moved quickly to him, bent on her knee, and kissed his hand
passionately. He made no movement, and she slipped quietly and swiftly
from the room.