Scotland, over to Paris and back, and then north again to Loch Lomond.
She was, however, a cosmopolitan, and had travelled very extensively
ever since she had been left a widow ten years earlier. Her husband had
been a solicitor, whose practice was in Bedford Row, but after his death
she had embarked upon an adventurous career which had culminated in her
association with Bernard Boyne and his wife.
That association had brought her considerable wealth--sufficient,
indeed, to allow her, through payments from Boyne and his wife, to live
in an expensive flat and indulge in jewellery, furs, smart frocks, and
all that appealed to her natural vanity.
That evening, however, she felt worn out. The strain of ingratiating
herself with Mrs. Morrison of Carsphairn, whom she found to be an
exceedingly shrewd woman, had been considerable, and this, combined with
the fact that she had taken a long walk that afternoon, had utterly
fagged her.
From a tiny silver tube with a cap upon it, which she took from her
dressing-case, she extracted a single little white tabloid, and
swallowed it.
"I wonder--I wonder if we shall really be successful?" she murmured to
herself. "There must be no slip this time--no recurrence of that
unfortunate contretemps in the Martin affair. Phew! That was a narrow
shave. I was in Melun only just in time. A few days later, and all
chance of dispelling suspicion would have gone!"
She reflected how on more than one occasion they had sailed very near
the wind--far too near to be pleasant--and how they had narrowly escaped
a closer inquiry. Lilla, however, was always fearless, even when her
husband expressed doubts. It was she, indeed, who was the moving spirit
of the whole affair, for she went about in her circle of society with
her eyes and ears ever open until she saw an opportunity to put into
motion that deadly machinery which, worked with such subtle cunning,
never failed to increase their bank balance.
She stood at her window as the full moon rose over the loch,
transforming the scene into a veritable fairyland, and here she remained
in deep reflection. She was contemplating the course she should pursue
when she met Mrs. Morrison on the morrow. Already they had become
friends, the widow from Kirkcudbrightshire being, of course, in entire
ignorance that the pleasant woman from London had come to Ardlui for the
sole purpose of making her acquaintance. Ena Pollen was possessed of a
cunning that few women possess unless they are adventuresses. She saw
that she must allow this Mrs. Morrison to seek her society. Already she
realised that the Scotch widow had been greatly attracted by her
conversation; hence she decided that on the morrow she must not be too
eager to meet and chat with her.
She was in no mood for sleep, therefore she pulled down the blind, and
seating herself at a little table in the room, penned a letter which she
addressed to "B. Braybourne, Esquire, 93, Pont Street, London," and in
the course of which she wrote:
"_Things are going even better than I expected. Mrs. M., who made the
first advance, is extremely affable to me. I hope that within a week or
ten days I can be back in London. Mrs. M., on leaving here, is going to
Brighton to visit a niece, so I may see something of her. Do not write
here, as I may be leaving any day. I have had a letter from Emery. It
was sent to Upper Brook Street, and fortunately enclosed to me in an
envelope. It would have been unfortunate if it had come here addressed
to Mrs. M.! Would it not? But do not be alarmed! I have given
instructions that no letters are to be forwarded in future._"
Next day after breakfast she went out to the post-box and there dropped
in the letter, so that it would leave by the afternoon steamer for the
south. And after she took a long walk alone along the loch-side, under
Ben Voirlich, as far as the little village of Inveruglas, and thence up
the Inveruglas water, a pretty stream which comes rushing down through
the woods from Loch Sloy. And there in the cool shade she at last sat
down upon a moss-grown boulder and took out a book and read.
She was playing a waiting game, and one that succeeded, for as she rose
from her table after lunch, Mrs. Morrison came up to her, saying:
"Why, wherever have you been, Mrs. Pollen? I've been seeking everywhere
for you."
"Have you?" she asked quite innocently. "I've been for a walk to the
Inveruglas water."
"Oh! Isn't it delightful there in the woods?" said the widow. "I've
been there often. We used to go and picnic there sometimes--right on up
Loch Sloy. It is very grand and lonely up there, and the view in all
directions is superb."
"I've only been in the woods at the bottom of the mountain," the Red
Widow replied.
"Well, I was going to ask you whether, if you haven't anything better to
do, you would drive with me up Glen Falloch to Crianlarich," said Mrs.
Morrison.
"I shall be most delighted," replied Ena. "I'm sure it is awfully good
of you."
"Well, as we are both alone, it will be a pleasure for me to have your
company," Mrs. Morrison assured her.
Therefore at three o'clock they left in a carriage which took them away
into the picturesque glen for six miles or so, past the little village
of Inverarnan, until they reached that pleasant little spot Crianlarich,
sheltering beneath the high Ben More at the head of the narrow Glen
Dochart, with Loch Fay beyond.
They wandered about the heather gossiping on all sorts of subjects, the
Red Widow telling her a number of purely fictitious stories about
herself and her travels, while Mrs. Morrison told her much about the
happiness of her own married life.
"I have never cared to enter society because, while my husband lived, it
never attracted me," she said, as they sat together upon a rock among
the heather whence they had a magnificent view up Glen Dochart. "My
husband hated it. He was a self-made man. A baronetcy was offered him,
but he refused it. He did not agree with the system whereby donations
to party funds makes an honest man a pinchbeck gentleman."
Ena laughed.
"True!" she declared. "I admire Mr. Morrison for his outspokenness."
"Well, that is why I never entered society," Mrs. Morrison said, with a
sigh.
"But why don't you see a little more of life?" Ena suggested. "You
appear, from what you say, to be buried alive at Carsphairn!"
"I see but very few people, but I take a great interest in the estate,
and I have a few shooting parties--mostly friends of my late husband."
"Why not come to London for a month or so? Go to the theatres and
restaurants, and have an enjoyable time? I do, and I find that I'm
amused and meet many interesting people. You are going to Brighton.
Why not remain in London for a bit after your visit there?" the Red
Widow suggested. "I know a good many people, and I think you would have
a nice time. Besides, you would do shopping also. Paris and London are
the only places where one can buy anything decent to wear nowadays."
"You are really very good, Mrs. Pollen, to offer to entertain me in
London," she declared. "Of course, I have other engagements, but----"
"Oh, but those can be broken. If you are going to Brighton, make a stay
in London on your return. I live in Upper Brook Street. Do you know
it?"
"Oh yes. I once, long ago, had a friend who lived there. I know it
quite well."
"I have only a small flat, otherwise I would offer you hospitality."
"Oh--no," said the widow. "I can easily stay at the Carlton, the Ritz,
or somewhere."
"Then think it over," said the pleasant woman from London.
"Yes, I will," replied the other. "We have many things in common, I
believe, and I am sure that we shall be good friends."
"I'm delighted to hear that your thoughts coincide with my own. I make
very few new acquaintances; I have so many old friends."
"And I make none. Not that I'm at all exclusive, I hope. But the
majority of women I meet I find too shallow and frivolous, and they
don't attract me."
"Then I consider myself highly honoured!" laughed Ena, as the pair rose
to walk back to the Crianlarich Hotel to tea.
And while Mrs. Morrison of Carsphairn, ignorant of what was in progress,
believed that she really had found a delightful friend--a woman after
her own heart--the Red Widow smiled within herself, highly gratified at
her success.
*CHAPTER IX*
*A GENTLEMAN NAMED GREIG*
The days passed pleasantly enough at Ardlui. Mrs. Morrison and her
newly-found friend usually went walking or driving together over the
heather-clad mountains, or along the loch-side, so remotely picturesque
and silent.
One day she received an offer--through a firm of estate-agents in
Edinburgh--from a well-known cotton-spinner in Oldham to rent Carsphairn
furnished for a year. It was a most tempting offer, and Mrs. Morrison
showed the letter to her friend.
"If I were you, I would accept it," Mrs. Pollen urged. "It would do you
good to travel, to see London life a little, and go over to Paris and to
Nice in winter. I could not vegetate always on a Scottish estate, much
as I love the country."
"I confess I feel half inclined to accept. Lately I have felt very
lonely and dull at Carsphairn, and now with winter in front of us I
should, I agree, be far more happy with a little amusement."
"Of course," said Ena, as they were walking together near the hotel.
"You are going to Edinburgh next week, so I would write to the agents
and say that you will call upon them."
"Very well, I will," said Mrs. Morrison. "You are coming to Edinburgh,
too, aren't you?"
"Just for a couple of days before I return to London."
"Then we will travel together, and stay at the Caledonian," said Augusta
Morrison.
And so it was agreed.
That Ena had successfully ingratiated herself with Mrs. Morrison was
proved by a letter she wrote that day to her niece at Brighton, in which
she said:
"_I have met an exceedingly nice woman here--a Mrs. Pollen, who lives in
Upper Brook Street, London. I will ask her down to Brighton while I am
with you. She has persuaded me to spend a little time in London after I
leave you, and I think the change will do me good. I am contemplating
letting Carsphairn furnished for a year, and spending the winter first
on the Riviera, and later in Egypt. I make few friends, as you know, but
I am sure you will like Mrs. Pollen. She is very often at the
Metropole, at Brighton. Next week we go to Edinburgh together, and
after I have done my business there I shall come straight to you._"
Ena, with her innate cunning, had been quick to realise the open
friendship which her companion had extended towards her. This somewhat
surprised her, for a woman is the enemy of every other woman. Few women
ever see beauty or good qualities in another.
Only a few days before Ena went north, she was discussing the point with
Lilla Braybourne over tea in the latter's drawing-room.
"Women see in every other female thing a potential rival, my dear
Lilla," she had said. "That is what makes my task so hard. Every woman
defends herself against every other woman, fully confident that the hand
of the female world is raised against her."
"I think I agree," was Lilla's reply. "I've hardly ever known a woman
to admire the good looks of another of her sex. Curious, isn't it? But
it's quite true what you say. Pussies lap tea and scandal everywhere,
and even a female saint too often uses her crown of thorns to scratch."
"Yes," laughed the handsome adventuress. "I heard it said the other day
that to the woman of thirty the girl of eighteen is a crime, and that
to-day's fashion is to look sixteen if you're sixty, and to collar your
daughter's lovers if they are not wide awake enough to prevent you.
That's what makes it so hard for me."
"Few women can attract women, Ena. You are one of them. You deserve
the O.B.E. for it."
"But it is a most difficult and often dangerous undertaking," she
declared; "and, after all, the O.B.E. has been given for less."
By the least lapse of the tongue or a too eager appearance to scrape up
an acquaintanceship would, Ena knew, alienate Mrs. Morrison for ever.
The widow's reverence for her departed husband was the saving clause.
She had professed deep sympathy, and in the delightful fiction she had
told about her own life and "dear Peter," her late husband, she had
attracted Augusta as one of the few women who were womanly.
Who was it said that modern love starts in Heaven and ends in the Sunday
newspaper? Ena's philosophy was always amusing. She scoffed at love,
at life, at beauty, at everything. Indeed, on that very day as she
walked with Mrs. Morrison she had caused her to laugh heartily by
referring to some woman friend of hers who lived at Surbiton as "one of
those women who shine with virtue and the cheapest sort of complexion
soap."
Ena Pollen had a caustic tongue as far as her own sex was concerned, yet
she could assume such a suave, sweet manner towards women as entirely to
disarm them.
It was so in Mrs. Morrison's case. As the warm, delightful days went
on, they were inseparable, exchanging intimate details of their own
careers, and fast becoming firm friends.
The arrival of the steamer from Balloch each afternoon was the chief
excitement, and by it visitors to the hotel came and left.
One afternoon the steamer brought a short, round-faced little man, very
well-dressed, whose speech showed that he came from Glasgow. He had a
suit-case with him, and took the one room which happened to be
disengaged, giving the name of John Greig. He was an alert-looking
business man, probably a Glasgow merchant out for a few days' relaxation
from the eternal bustle of Sauchiehall Street.
He sat alone at dinner, and once or twice glanced in the direction of
the two ladies who sat together in the window, for Mrs. Morrison had now
joined Mrs. Pollen. Both were better dressed than the other visitors,
especially Ena, who wore a semi-evening frock and a jade-coloured velvet
band in her red hair.
After dinner the visitor strolled alone in the garden until he found a
man to chat with, the pair sitting smoking in the moonlight until it
became time to retire.
When John Greig reached his room he flung himself into a chair, and
beneath his breath, remarked:
"By Jove! She's a handsome woman, too! But she's not Joan Eastlake.
That's my belief. Nevertheless, now I'm here, I may as well make quite
certain."
And he took out a final cigarette from his case and smoked it
reflectively before he turned in.
Next day he was about early at the loch-side, and though he contrived to
arouse no suspicion in the minds of either those connected with the
hotel or any of his fellow-visitors, he kept casual observation upon the
pair. Now and then he would accidentally be so close in their vicinity
as to be able to overhear scraps of their conversation. Yet so cleverly
did he do this, and so utterly uninterested did he appear to be, that
even Ena, who was ever suspicious of eavesdroppers and persons watching,
failed to realise the intense interest which she had evoked in the
little round-faced man.
The following day Ena accompanied her friend on a trip across to Loch
Katrine, but the stranger idled about the hotel and wrote letters.
After lunch, however, at the hour when the small establishment was
quietest, the curiosity of anyone watching him would certainly have been
aroused. His actions were truly a little peculiar.
At about three o'clock that afternoon, having ascertained that none of
the servants were about, he slipped silently to Mrs. Pollen's bedroom,
the door of which was unlocked, and, entering quickly, closed the door
after him. Then, walking straight to a big dressing-case which lay upon
a chair near the window, he took out a bunch of keys and tried one after
the other in an effort to open it.
He failed, none of the keys would fit.
"If I force it she'll suspect," he murmured. "No, I must give it up for
the present--curse it!"
Then he made a tour of the room, opened the wardrobe, and examined the
contents of several drawers, but though some expensive jewellery was
there, he cast it aside in contempt.
Mr. Greig did not want jewels. It was evident that he was in search of
something else far more interesting. But that lock upon the
dressing-case was an unusually good one, and had defied all his many
keys.
There was but one course to pursue, and that was to retreat to his own
room, which he did in great disappointment and chagrin.
That evening he watched the two women on their return. His movements
were those of a practised watcher. He was unobtrusive, disinterested in
everything save the picturesque surroundings, and behaved as though he
had no interest whatever in any person in the hotel.
That evening, while in the garden after dinner, he found himself sitting
on a seat beside Mrs. Morrison, and ventured to address a remark to her
regarding the glorious sunset.
What more natural than in a few moments Ena and her friend were chatting
affably with the new-comer.
"This is my first visit to Scotland," Ena declared, though it was a
falsehood, "and I'm delighted with it. My views--those of a
Londoner--have entirely altered concerning Scotland and the Scottish
people. I don't agree now with the ridicule cast upon them."
"I'm very glad of that," declared Mr. Greig. "In the south you don't
really understand us, I think. And perhaps we here don't quite
understand you. National prejudices are very hard to break down."
"They are. But you see the majority of the English never come north.
They view the Scottish people by the ridicule cast upon them by
performers on our music-halls. It is unfortunate, but it is a fact."
"Never mind," laughed the pleasant-faced man from Glasgow. "Our
national pride is never hurt by those amblers on the stage who wax fat
upon the profits of their mimicry. We only laugh at it up here, I
assure you," he declared to Mrs. Pollen.
The conversation drifted naturally to the fact that Mrs. Morrison told
him her name, which was Scottish, and the identity of her late husband,
so well known in Glasgow.
"Oh! I knew your husband quite well, Mrs. Morrison," declared John
Greig, for no shrewder or more well-informed person was there between
the Lowlands and Cromarty. "I knew him twenty years ago. Do you
recollect Mr. Buchanan, who had an office in St. Vincent Street,
Glasgow, and with whom he went into partnership? Mr. Buchanan died
about four years ago. I went to visit him once at that beautiful house
of his on Loch Rannoch."
"Then you knew Mr. Buchanan!" cried Mrs. Morrison. "He was a dear
fellow. My husband was devoted to him. Together they built up the
works."
"I know. Everyone in commercial circles in Glasgow knows how closely
they worked together, and, Mrs. Morrison, I may tell you that not a
worker on the Clyde has any but good words for your husband and his
partner. The conditions of work in your husband's place at Govan were
always ideal. We hear much of labour trouble in these post-bellum days,
but if all works were like your husband's there would be little to
grumble at."
"It is awfully good of you to pay such a tribute to my husband's regard
for his employees," said Mrs. Morrison, much gratified. "He and I often
discussed their welfare, and I always agreed with him that labour should
be duly paid and there should be no sweating. We have Socialist
propaganda on the Clyde to-day, but is it at all astonishing in view of
the high prices, of Government muddle and waste, and the advancement
into society by the King's favour in the shape of 'honours' of
bare-faced swindlers and those who escape under the more euphonious name
of profiteers?"
"Ah! I'm glad that you have realised the deadly peril of Britain, Mrs.
Morrison," Greig said. "As a business man in Glasgow--I am an exporter
to the East--I know much of what is transpiring among the Socialists,
and I know the deadly peril of Britain to-day."
The fact that Greig had known not only her husband but his partner,
Buchanan, appealed to Mrs. Morrison, with the result that he had
frequent chats with her, and incidentally with her friend, Ena Pollen,
whose belongings he had so carefully scrutinised in her absence.
The man from Glasgow, with his round, merry, well-shaven face, a
countenance of prosperity, was a typical man of business, and he
appealed to old Morrison's widow as a very nice man.
With her estimate Ena, any suspicion utterly disarmed, entirely agreed.
Pleasant, humorous, and careless in his relaxation from money-making in
grim and grimy Glasgow, John Greig was an excellent fellow on holiday.
His estimate of women--for he was a bachelor--coincided entirely with
that of Ena Pollen.
To be frank, he had, in the course of conversation, gauged her views
regarding her own sex, and he at once sought to cultivate her
acquaintance upon her line of thought.
"Of course," she said next morning, as he found himself gossiping with
her after breakfast, "woman ought not to work at all. No man really
likes a woman who works for him. Work isn't woman's natural element,
though trouble is. Work is an odious word to women."
"Really, Mrs. Pollen, your philosophy is quite upon that of my own
thinking," laughed Greig. "Once a man I know declared to me that to
girls business life would be a dull existence if it were not for its sly
opening for an illicit romance."
"One woman writer has said, and with much truth, that petticoats, like
time, were made for slaves, and that there is more virtue in a single
pair of trousers than there is in a multitude of skirts," laughed Ena.
"True. Was it not the same lady author who told us that the wrong part
of wrong-doing is being found out?"
"Ah! yes. And the same feminine philosopher went farther," Ena said.
"She declared that the woman who thinks it wicked to buy silk petticoats
and luxurious 'undies'--'because no one sees them'--is a fool; but the
hedonist who frankly revels in the feel and _frou-frou_ of silk and
_crepe de chine_ and mysterious lace things is as wise as Eve, who wore
leaves rather than nothing, and made a tantalising mystery of herself
out of the poor resources at her command."
The man from Glasgow laughed immoderately. "Really," he remarked, "you
have no great admiration of your own sex, Mrs. Pollen."
"No, I have not," declared the Red Widow frankly, as they both halted
and leaned over a gate which gave entrance to a great green meadow
beyond which was the edge of the loch, the water of which lay like a
mirror in the morning sunlight.
Up there, far removed from the life and bustle of the outer world, with
all its political bickerings and its labour troubles, life was very
enjoyable, and the two women who had become so friendly had quickly
discovered in John Greig a man whose ideas corresponded exactly with
their own--a man who had formed distinct views upon life, and who was
not afraid to admit them.
At last came the afternoon of their departure for Edinburgh. They bade
Mr. Greig farewell on the Pier just before the steamer started for
Balloch.
Then, going on board, they waved him a farewell as the paddles began to
revolve, sending out long ripples over the glassy surface of the loch.
He raised his hat with a merry laugh, but as he did so, he remarked
beneath his breath:
"After all--I'm not sure, _even now_!"
*CHAPTER X*
*MORE MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES*
"Let's pull up here; it's so delightfully shady."
Marigold Ramsay, who spoke, lay back among the crimson cushions of the
punt, with her eyes fixed upon the sky.
She loved the river. That Sunday afternoon was perfect, and she was
enjoying the day on the river after a week's hard work in the bank.
Gerald, who was an expert with the punt-pole, was taking her up that
pretty reach of the Thames which winds between Shepperton and Walton,
with the long rows of poplars fringing the river bank.
They had lunched at the little riverside inn at Halliford, and were now
making their way slowly up-stream. Gerald, in flannels, with coat off
and sleeves upturned, placing his pole and withdrawing it without any
apparent effort.
Since that adventurous night at Bridge Place they had become even closer
friends. No day passed but they met. The previous two Sundays Durrant
had spent with her, the first at Dorking, where they had wandered over
Leith Hill and along the Surrey lanes, and the next Sunday at Brighton.
This, the third Sunday, they had decided to spend together on the
Thames.
As they were passing beneath a long row of trees which overhung the
water, the girl, who was in white, raised herself from her couch of
cushions and suggested that they should tie up the punt there.
"Certainly," he replied, and a few moments later he had secured the punt
to a tree root, and, sitting down to rest, he lit his pipe.
"Do you know, Gerald, I've been thinking again about Mr. Boyne," she
said. "I can't get the man out of my mind."