BEHIND THE CYPRESS BOUGHS.
“Andria!” a soft tap came at her locked door. “Let me in. Why haven’t
you been down all day?”
“I was busy,” Andria answered, shutting the door behind Beryl. She had
been busy, indeed, and if Egerton had seen her now he would have had
no fears that her beauty might be a snare to any man’s feet. The pale
mauve gown had vanished with all the others that littered her bedroom;
in the plainest black gown she owned, Andria stood, tall and pale, her
eyes sunken, her mouth drawn; it was as if she had aged ten years.
Beryl sat down on the table, a bright rose spot burning in each cheek.
“I wish you’d come down. I don’t like it without you,” she said
restlessly. “Isn’t your throat well enough?”
“I don’t know. I’d forgotten it. Why do you want me? Don’t you
like--him?” for her life she could not say the name.
“Who? Mr. Egerton. I’ve always loathed him,” Beryl said angrily, “and I
always shall. If it were not for being with you, I’d rather he’d left
me in the workhouse!”
“No”--hesitating--“the other?”
“I don’t know. No, I don’t think I do! I liked him when I was with
him, but I hate him when I remember his eyes. He looked at me as if I
were something to eat,” she said pettishly. “No, I don’t like him. He
frightens me.”
“How?” incredulously. Any other than Beryl she would have turned from
contemptuously if they had dared to criticize Raimond Erle. “What do
you mean?”
“I don’t know exactly. But he wanted me to go out in the yacht with
him this afternoon, and I said I wouldn’t without you. I wouldn’t go
anywhere alone with him.”
“Without me! You said--Beryl, quick, what did you call me? Not Andria?”
white as death she stood over the girl.
“No. I did slip and say Miss Heathcote, but I corrected myself and said
Miss Holbeach. Why do you look like that? He didn’t notice. You don’t
mean he knows you?”
“Not now,” said Andria, holding herself hard. “He did, once. What did
he say when you slipped on my name?”
“Nothing. Half-shut his eyes like some people do when they smell a
nasty smell.”
“You’re more truthful than polite.”
“Well, you asked me, and that was exactly how he did look. Mr. Egerton
swam into the conversation with something about ‘Miss Holbeach being
my governess and an excellent woman,’ and Mr. Erle looked comfortable
again.”
Andria did not wonder. “An excellent woman!” No words could have been
found that would have better set Raimond at rest.
“Did he say any more?” she asked wretchedly.
Beryl turned crimson.
“No, he--he’s a beast, and I hate him!” she said passionately. “He said
he was glad I did not produce you at meals; learned ladies took away
his appetite.”
“I won’t interfere with it; he needn’t agitate himself! Beryl, dear,
don’t speak of me to him; don’t tell him my Christian name, and don’t
let Heathcote slip again. I knew him once. I don’t want him to know I’m
here. At least,” hastily, “not now.”
Every pulse of her longed to meet him, but not before Egerton and
Beryl. If she was to go to England in the same ship she must see him
first, but it should be no chance meeting before strangers.
“I won’t say a word about you,” and, with a rare caress, she flung her
arms round Andria’s neck--“if you say not. Are you afraid of him, too?”
“No!” said Andria sharply. “I can’t meet any one I ever knew till I’m
better--that’s all. See how ugly and swollen my throat is.”
“I hate you being hurt for me. I wish it had been me that was bitten!”
Beryl said, with more force than grammar.
“Did you tell him about that?”
“No, I didn’t! I don’t believe he would have listened if I had. He only
talked nonsense.”
“Do you mean he made love to you? Bah! Don’t answer me,” she cried, “I
was a fool to ask. He would make love to a girl who kept pigs, if she
were pretty.”
“I don’t want him to think I’m pretty!” said Beryl, ruffled as a cat
stroked the wrong way, utterly ignorant of the way she was betraying
her own thoughts. “What have you done about Mr. Heriot? Have you told?”
“No; I--waited!” answered Andria, with a ghastly smile, knowing she had
waited for what would never be. “Beryl, come here, look! There go Mr.
Egerton and--his friend--down to the shore. What for, do you suppose?”
“Didn’t you know? They’re not going to stay here. They’re going to dine
and sleep on board the yacht and come back in the morning. And Mr. Erle
isn’t his friend--he’s his nephew. That’s why I came; I thought we
might go”--flushing--“and speak to Mr. Heriot. Didn’t you get anything
out of Mr. Egerton about our going away? And did he say anything about
that dreadful man, and the jaguars?”
“Yes,” said Andria, as if she talked in her sleep. “I’ll tell you
by and by.” She leaned from the window looking after the man whose
shoulders and walk she would know among a thousand. He knew nothing
of her being here. Beryl’s slip of “Heathcote” had been to him only a
disagreeable coincidence, reminding him of things he wished to forget.
Then, what had brought him?
“Beryl!” It was as if another person had spoken aloud in her ear.
“Egerton means to marry him to Beryl!”
She could think of no reason why, and yet she was sure. And why not?
For all she knew, Beryl Corselas might be any one’s daughter, and
whatever her secret history was, Egerton must know it.
“He’ll never do it, never! Whether I’m Raimond’s wife or not, I’ll
stop it,” she thought, wild passion at her heart. “I’ll tell anything,
everything. Mr. Heriot will back me up----”
Beryl pinched her.
“What are you dreaming about, with your face all screwed up?” she said.
“Let’s go and see Mr. Heriot. How those two men do loiter! If they’re
going, why don’t they go?”
Andria stared at her. Beryl--Raimond--Heriot--what a tangle it was! And
would Heriot back her up? He knew nothing of her but that she had been
called “the Lovely Andria,” and had been thought to have fastened like
a leech on Raimond Erle, dragging him to that financial ruin which had
certainly overtaken him--though not through her, Heaven knew! And when
Heriot saw Raimond here, he would never believe Andria was not in the
whole scheme, let it be what it might.
“I don’t care what he thinks!” she reflected swiftly. “Nothing matters
to me but Raimond. And I may be wronging him. Egerton may be trying to
keep me out of his way.”
She turned impulsively to Beryl.
“Stay here,” she said impetuously, “wait for me. I don’t know what to
do. I must go and think.”
But it was not to think that she ran out into the gardens, brushing
by Salome, who tried to stop her in the hall to say something--what,
Andria neither knew nor cared. Only one thing was in her mind--to find
out why Raimond Erle was here, if not for her. Why should she believe
Egerton; who had lied to her before?
The front door was in full view of the two men, who stood talking
still just where she had first seen them. Andria ran to a disused side
veranda and dropped down on a flower-bed. She wanted no one to see
her, least of all Beryl from her window. She vanished into a tangle of
overgrown bushes that Beryl called “the cat’s walk.” It cut the long
road to the shore--that instinct told her the two men would take--at
a right angle, and then ran parallel with it almost to the bay. There
would be only a yard of impervious thicket between her and Raimond, if
she got there in time to keep pace with him as he walked down the wide
road.
She did not care as she ran that it was nearly sunset, and that those
teeth that had marked her neck might not be shaken off twice; she was
not even breathless with her breakneck pace as she reached the angle
of the path. She need only reach it, and whatever Raimond spoke of she
would hear.
“It’s low--contemptible!” she thought grimly, “but I don’t care. I must
find out what I can, and----” the thought broke off unfinished. They
were coming!
White-faced over her black dress, the governess, “that excellent
woman,” crouched behind the thicket of black cypress that was all that
stood between her and the man who had been her husband.
And, sharpened as her senses were, she never dreamed that two yards
in front of her stood some one else, equally quiet, but from widely
different motives.
Raimond’s voice--how the woman’s heart burned in her at the rich note
of it!--came on her ears.
“You do hurry so unmercifully,” he was saying, “even down to that
confounded ship of yours. Why wouldn’t you stay up there and sleep in a
decent bed? Would you mind waiting one instant? My cigar’s gone out.”
“Light it and be good enough to come on!” returned Egerton sharply.
“It’s nearly sunset, and I have no desire to get fever. You can talk on
the yacht.”
“Oh, damn the yacht! That cook has the same menu every night. I wanted
to see what your niggers would give us for dinner.”
Andria heard a match struck, then another.
“Take my box,” said Egerton irritably, “and if you must dawdle here,
tell me what you mean to do. Isn’t the girl handsome enough for you,
or--you’re not still thinking of that wretched woman in London!” said
Egerton suspiciously.
“Her? Oh, Lord, no! To be candid with you, I’d had enough of that;
I wasn’t sorry to be well out of it. She was a good-looking woman,
though! But I was tired of that house in Pont Street.”
“You told me the truth when you said you weren’t fool enough to marry
her?”
In the dead silence the woman they spoke of heard the man she loved
puffing at a cigar that would not draw; more interested in that than in
the question on which her life seemed to hang. The screen of trees was
thick, but if either man had seen the face behind it he would not have
known the white mask of agony. Would Raimond never answer? When he did,
it was with a laugh, and the governess, poor fool! winced.
“I was mad enough for anything--at first! When I took her away from
Lady Parr’s,” he said coolly. “But I drew the line at that, more by
good luck than good management. At first I thought the marriage legal
enough, but then I found the man who did it was only a student--no
more ordained than you or I, though he’s since become a priest. Oh,
I’m perfectly eligible, my dear sir,” with another slight laugh. “But
though I see excellent reasons for my marrying this particular girl,
I’m not in much haste. She looks too much of a tiger-cat, for one
thing! Now, the late Mrs. Erle had faults, but she was never more
gentle than when she was in a furious rage.”
“What became of her?” asked Egerton shortly.
“Don’t know, and don’t care. I don’t see why you should, either,
when you were always at me to get rid of her. But that’s beside the
question. What you don’t seem to see is that you can’t hurry this girl.
She shies off if I look at her. You’re always too nippy. You shoved
her off here to get rid of her, and then tore your hair because you’d
done it. Let me remind you, it was I put you on her track in the first
place; without me, you’d never have put a finger on her. You chose to
treat me as a fool, and sneaked her off here. Then when you see that
a certain Spanish grandee is dead and--oh, don’t interrupt me; there
is not a soul about--has left all his money to a certain lady or her
heirs, and that those heirs are being advertised for, you fall on my
neck and beseech me to save your credit and your acres. Well, it suits
me well enough! I fancy the girl. But I’m going to do it in my own way.
So far, I beg to tell you, you’ve made a mess of it, in yours.”
“Raimond!” the man’s voice was furious. “Don’t play the fool, don’t
dare. You don’t know all that hangs on it. It’s not the money only,
nor even the succession, it’s----” his voice dropped so low that even
Andria, whose very soul was listening, could not hear.
“What!” cried Erle, startled for once. “But she dare not tell, there!”
“No; we’ve got her in our hands in a way--but only in a way.
She--Mother Felicitas, they call her now,” with that uncontrollable,
jarring laugh of his, “has long claws! She will want the money, too, to
go to the convent--and the Lord knows she’ll have to pay well for her
seat in heaven!”
“But why,” said Raimond, stupefied, “if you knew about her all along,
didn’t you have her out of the convent long ago?”
“With publicity--back debts to pay up--to take you or leave you as
seemed good to the half-fledged brat! No! And I couldn’t have got her.
If you will have it, I’d been taken in. That woman held her over my
head till I found her--and I didn’t know about the money till I got
back from here. Before that, if I’d claimed her, I’d have brought out
old stories, ruined myself, ousted you or saddled you with a penniless
wife.”
“Whereas, now, I’m made or marred by what a pale little devil with
cat’s eyes chooses to answer me,” replied Raimond coarsely. “Well,
there’s no choice! I’ll marry her if she says yes to my somewhat mature
charms. If she says no, I fail to see what’s to be done next!”
“Then,” said Egerton angrily, “you’ve less sense than I imagined. Why
do you suppose I hired a yacht with money I haven’t got, and brought
her and you to this God-forsaken hole? If she says no, she can live and
die here. She’ll never get back to England, and she doesn’t know who
she is in any case. I should fancy it was simple as A B C. We’ll lose
the money, but we’ll save the rest.”
Raimond Erle for a long minute said nothing. The wretched listener who
shrank appalled behind the screen of cypress could not see that he was
looking the other man up and down.
“Well,” he remarked at last, “you must have been a daredevil when you
were young! But I quite agree with you. There’s only one character
in which your protégée can be taken to England, but you must give me
a little time to play the game. Come on out of this,” with sudden
distaste. “I don’t know why, but I feel as if there were devils behind
every bush in your secluded retreat.”
“There’s one; oh, there’s one!” said Andria Heathcote, who knew now
that she had never been Andria Erle, though she had hoped against hope
even when she was turned out on the world with ten pounds. “I’ll ruin
you--ruin you! If there’s a God in heaven, you shall never have Beryl
to torture as you tortured me!”
A thousand slights, a thousand dreadful positions he had put her in
where she must hold up her head till women called her brazen--aye, and
men, too!--came back to her. One kindly word, one pitying regret for
the woman he had once been mad for, and she might have played into his
hands for no other reason than that he had spoken of her softly for old
sake’s sake. But now--she could hate him now!
Blindly, not seeing or caring where she was going, she stumbled
forward on the rough path, and round the very next bush nearly fell
against--Heriot!
Pale, quivering from head to foot, she stood quite still. For a moment
she could not speak for the ungovernable fury of rage in her that he
should have heard her shamed.
“You listened!” she cried at last. “You heard.” In the last low rays of
the sinking sun he stood before her bareheaded.
“I slipped out for some air,” he said, very low. “I stood here because
I did not want them to see me till I knew what you had done. Yes, I
heard.”
If he had dared to pity her she would have stood like a stone, but
now something in his voice reached the heart that felt frozen in her
breast. She broke into such a dreadful sobbing as he had never heard.
“I knew it before,” she cried; “though I wouldn’t believe it. Even when
he turned me away, I wouldn’t believe it. I thought I was his wife. He
shall never have Beryl--never, unless he kills me to get her!”
“Come back to the house. It is too late to be out,” was all Heriot
could find to say. He turned away that he might not see the shame and
agony in her distorted face.
“He whispered,” she cried, distracted. “I couldn’t hear. Why, besides
the money, does his uncle want him to marry her?”
“His uncle!” Heriot exclaimed. He was glad as he had not often been
that he had heard all that had been said, or not for a hundred oaths
from her would he have believed this woman knew nothing of the dirty
work Erle had on hand. And he had wronged her enough by judging her.
If it had not been for his self-righteousness she would have told him
everything long ago. “That wasn’t his uncle. That was his father, Lord
Erceldonne! He is not Egerton at all.”