Among Garthorne's letters the next morning there chanced to be one from
his solicitor in Worcester, and so this made an excellent excuse for him
to get away for the day. Enid was going to drive Sir Arthur and Sir
Reginald over to the Retreat, so he ordered the dogcart to take him to
Kidderminster, whence he took train for Worcester.
He knew enough of Dora's circumstances with regard to her parents to
recognise the imprudence of calling upon her without notice, and so he
lunched at the Mitre Hotel, and sent a messenger with a note asking her
to meet him at three o'clock on the River Walk. The messenger was
instructed to wait for an answer if Miss Murray was in.
Miss Murray was in, and when she read the note her first notion was that
Garthorne had by some means got an inkling of the truth, or, at the
least, had discovered that she was in communication with Sir Arthur
Maxwell and wished to know the reason. She made up her mind at once to
hold her tongue on both subjects, but at the same time, she felt that it
would hardly be wise to refuse to meet him. It must also be admitted
that she also was possessed by a pardonable, because feminine, curiosity
as to what he wanted with her. She felt, however, that in such a place
as Worcester it would be most imprudent for her to meet a man so well
known in the County as Reginald Garthorne on one of the public
thoroughfares, and so she wrote her answer as follows:--
"DEAR MR. GARTHORNE,
"I have no idea why you should wish to see me, and I do not think
that it would be prudent to meet you as you suggest. You know how I
am situated here, and so I think it would be best, if you really
must speak to me, as you say, for you to come and see me here, not
under your own name, of course, as that is much too well known. I
would therefore suggest that you should call yourself Mr. Johnson,
and I will say that you are a representative of one of the big
millinery houses in London, and that you have come to see me on
business. I shall wait in for you till three.
"Yours sincerely,
"DORA MURRAY."
Garthorne saw the wisdom of this suggestion, and "Mr. Johnson" announced
himself at half past two. Dora received him alone in a little back
sitting-room, but his reception was not altogether encouraging, for when
he held out his hand and said "Good afternoon, Dora!" she flushed a
little, and affecting not to see his hand, she said:
"Miss Murray, if you please, Mr. Garthorne, now and for the future. You
seem to have forgotten that, for me, at least, Worcester is not London."
He was so completely taken aback by this utterly unexpected speech, as
well as by the unwonted tone in which it was spoken, that his
outstretched hand dropped to his side somewhat limply, and he felt
himself straightening up and staring at her in blank astonishment.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Murray," he said, in a tone which sounded a
great deal more awkward than he meant it to do. "Of course, I was quite
wrong; I ought not to have forgotten."
"There is no necessity for an apology," she said, more distantly than
before. "Will you sit down? You want to see me about something, I
suppose?"
"Yes," he said, sitting down and fingering the brim of his hat somewhat
nervously. "Yes, that is what I have come over to Worcester for. In
fact, I have been wanting to see you for some time. In the first place,
I had a rather extraordinary letter from Carol some time ago, sending
back some money which I, of course, can't accept, so I've brought it
with me to ask you to take it and use it in any way that you think fit."
"You mean, of course, in charity?" said Dora, looking him straight in
the eyes. "You wouldn't insult me by meaning it in any other way."
"Oh, no, certainly not," he said, more awkwardly than before, and
wondering what on earth had produced this extraordinary change in her
manner. "I hope you know me well enough to believe me quite incapable of
such a thing."
"If you only knew how well I know you!" thought Dora, "I wonder what
you'd think?"
But she said aloud, and rather more kindly than before:
"You must forgive me, Mr. Garthorne, I spoke rather hastily then. I
quite see what you mean. It's very good of you, and I'm sure that if
Carol were here she would tell me to take the money and use it that
way--so I will."
"Thank you very much, Miss Murray," he replied, taking an envelope out
of his pocket-book. "There are the notes and postal orders exactly as
she sent them to me. And now, may I ask where she is?"
"I can't answer that, Mr. Garthorne, because I don't know. The night
that she sent you that money back she made the acquaintance of a very
nice fellow who is something more than a millionaire, and since then
they've been taking a sort of irregular honeymoon round the world. The
last letter I had from her was from Sydney. She seems very jolly and
enjoying herself immensely."
"Glad to hear it," said Garthorne, speaking the thing which was not
altogether true. "She's a jolly girl, and deserves the best of
luck--which she seems to have got. And the millionaire----?"
Dora shook her head, and said quietly but decisively.
"No, Mr. Garthorne, I'm afraid I can't tell you anything about him. It
would be a breach of confidence if I did, and so I'm sure you won't ask
for it. Do you want to ask me about anything else?"
"Yes," he said, hesitatingly, "I do." There was a little pause, during
which they looked at each other, he enquiringly and she absolutely
impassive. Then he went on: "Of course, you saw us in the Cathedral
yesterday, and I think you know Sir Arthur Maxwell personally. You met
him once or twice when he went to call on Carol at Melville Gardens."
"Yes."
Then there was another pause, and, as Garthorne didn't seem able to find
anything to say, Dora went on speaking very quietly, but with a curious
note of restraint in her voice which puzzled him considerably.
"I do know Sir Arthur, and I tried hard to persuade Carol to do what he
wanted her to do, although, all the same, I think I should have done as
she did if I had been her. I don't know whether you saw Sir Arthur speak
to me in the Cathedral as we were coming out, but he did. I have had a
letter from him this morning, and he is coming to see me."
"Of course, you are not going to say anything----"
"No, sir, I am not," said Dora, rising from her chair white to the lips
and with an ominous glitter in her eyes. She took up the envelope which
Garthorne had laid on the table, and tossed it at him. "You know me for
what I am in London, and it seems that you only look upon me as an
animal to be hired for the amusement of people like you, not as a woman
who still has her notions of honour. That is an insult which I cannot
pardon. You behaved well, as things go, to Carol, but you have now shown
me that, whatever you are in name and family, you are in yourself an
unspeakable cad. You came here thinking that I was going to blackmail
you because I happened to know something about you which you would not
like your wife to know. If you only knew what I could tell you----"
And then she checked herself, and after a little pause, she pointed to
the door and said:
"You have got your money, Mr. Garthorne, and there is the door. You will
oblige me by leaving the house as soon as possible."
"But really, Miss Murray----" he began, as he rose, not a little
bewildered, from his chair.
"Stop!" she said. "In mercy to yourself and your wife, stop! There is
the door; go, and remember that from now we are strangers, and if ever
you meet Carol again--no, I won't say that. God grant that you never
may see her again, for if you do----"
"Well, and suppose I do, Miss Murray, what then?" he interrupted, with
his hand on the handle of the door. He had never heard such words from
the lips of either man or woman before, and that personal vanity which
is a characteristic even of the worst of men was grievously outraged.
"Never mind what I mean," she said, cutting him short again. "I have
said all that I am going to say except this--if ever you meet Carol
again, for her sake and yours, for your wife's and your children's when
they come, _don't see her_. Now go!"
There was a something in her voice and in her manner which said even
more than her lips had done. Something which not only struck him dumb
for the time being, but which also drove home into his soul a conviction
that this girl, outcast and social pariah as she was, not only held his
fate in her hands, but that she possessed some unknown power over his
destiny, that she knew something which, if spoken, might blast the
bright promise of his life and overwhelm him in irretrievable ruin.
She had called him a cad, and as his thoughts flew back to that morning
in Vane Maxwell's rooms at Oxford, a pang of self-conviction told him
that she had spoken justly. He felt, too, that he was hopelessly in the
wrong, that by his suggestion he had sorely insulted her, and that in
exchange for his insult she had given him mercy. He would have given
anything to know the real meaning of her words, and yet he dare not even
ask her.
He looked round at her once and saw her, standing rigid and impassive
waiting to be relieved of his presence. His thoughts went back a few
months to the times when those little dinners of four had been so
pleasant, and when this girl, who was now looking at him like an
accusing angel, had matched even Carol herself in the gaiety of her
conversation and the careless use she made of her mother-wit, and he
tried hard to say something which should in some way cover his retreat,
but the words wouldn't come, and so he just opened the door and walked
out.
Dora heard the street door bang behind him, and then her tensely-strung
nerves relaxed. She dropped into an easy chair, clasped her hands over
her temples, and whispered:
"Oh dear, oh dear, how is all this going to end, and what would happen
if they only knew! And now I've got to see Sir Arthur. Shall I tell him
everything or not? No, I daren't, I daren't. It's too awful. Was there
ever anything like it in the world before?"
And then her body swayed forward, her elbows dropped on to her knees,
her hands clasped her temples tighter, and the next moment she had burst
into a passion of tears.
Tears are a torture to men and a relief to women, so in a few minutes
she lifted her head again, the storm was over and she began to look the
situation over calmly. The more she thought of it the more certain it
seemed that she could do nothing but irretrievable mischief by even
hinting to Sir Arthur anything of what she knew. At any rate she decided
that until Carol came back she would keep her knowledge absolutely to
herself.
Then the train of her thoughts was suddenly broken by the postman's
knock at the door. There was a London letter addressed to herself in the
familiar handwriting of Mr. Bernard Falcon. As she opened it she
experienced a singular mixture of relief and vexation, tinged by a
suggestion of shame.
The letter began with an inquiry as to when she was coming back to
Town, and ended with an invitation to spend a week end in the round trip
from London to Dover, Calais, Boulogne and Folkestone.
She had been nearly a fortnight in Worcester, and, truth to tell, she
was getting a little tired of it. Falcon's letter offered her a double
relief. It would save her from the ordeal of meeting Sir Arthur, and,
combined with the visit of "Mr. Johnson," it would give her a good
excuse to her parents for going back to Town at once; so she sat down
and wrote two letters, one to Falcon telling him that he could meet her
at Paddington the next evening, and the other to Sir Arthur telling him
all she knew about Carol, saving only the name of her companion, and
regretting that she would not be able to meet him, as she was starting
for the Continent that day. For obvious reasons she, of course, said
nothing of Garthorne's visit to her.
Sir Arthur was as much disappointed with his letter as Mr. Falcon was
pleased by his. Dora left Worcester the day that he received it, and
while she was dining with Mr. Falcon at the Globe Restaurant, Sir Arthur
was telling Vane and Mark Ernshaw, who had come over to dine and sleep
at the Abbey, all that he knew of Miss Carol's latest escapade.
"I'm very, very sorry," said Ernshaw when he had finished. "We've never
told you before, Sir Arthur, but I may as well tell you now that, if
Miss Vane had not disappeared as mysteriously as she did, Vane was to
have introduced me to her, and I was going to marry her if she would
have me."
Sir Arthur looked at him in silence for a few moments, and then he took
his hand and said:
"I know that is true, Ernshaw, because you have said it; though I would
not have believed it from anyone else except Vane. I would willingly
give everything that I possess and go back to work to make such a thing
possible, but I'm afraid it isn't, and now, of course, it is more
impossible than ever. Frankly, I don't believe she'd have you. It sounds
a very curious thing to say, but from what I have seen of her, granted
even that she fell in love with you, the more she loved you the more
absolutely she would refuse to marry you. You know we offered her
everything we could. Vane and I both agreed to acknowledge her and have
her to live with us, but it was no use. She refused in such a way that
she made me long all the more to take her for my own daughter before the
world; but there was no mistaking the refusal, and the day after our
last interview she clinched it by vanishing, I suppose with this young
millionaire who is with her now. It's very terrible, of course, but
there it is. It's done, and I'm afraid there's no mending it. Perhaps,
after all, it is better for you that it should be so."
"Yes, Ernshaw," said Vane. "It's not a nice thing to say under the
circumstances, but I think the governor's right."
"Possibly, but I don't agree with you," he replied. "You know I am what
a good many people would call an enthusiast on the subject of this
so-called social evil, for which, as I believe, Society itself is almost
entirely to blame, and I am quite prepared to put my views into
practice."
"Then," said Sir Arthur, smiling gravely, "I think when we get back to
Town I'd better introduce you to Miss Murray, who was living with Carol
in Melville Gardens, where I first saw her. She was in the Cathedral on
Sunday. Her parents live in Worcester, and they believe, poor people,
that she has a little millinery business in London. She says she's
going on the Continent, I suppose with this friend of hers. But she has
given me an address in London where she can be found.
"Now there, Ernshaw," he went on, "there I believe you would find a far
better subject for your social experiment, if you are determined to make
it, than poor Carol could ever be. I don't know her history, but she is
evidently a lady born and educated. She is quite as good-looking as
Carol, only an entirely different type, taller, darker, and with deep,
mysterious brown eyes which evidently have a soul behind them. At any
rate, I'm quite convinced that she would make a much better social
missionary's wife than poor Carol would.
"She, I sadly fear, is 'a daughter of delight,' as the French call them,
pure and simple. She told me point blank that she preferred her present
mode of life to respectability, and that she considered that taking even
my money or Vane's, when she had no real claim upon us, was more
degrading and would hurt her self-respect a great deal more than doing
what she is doing. In other respects she's as good a girl as ever
walked, and as honest as the daylight, but I'm afraid there is no hope
of social regeneration for her."
"Hope was once found for one a thousand times worse than she!" said
Ernshaw quietly. "But as I have seen neither of them yet, no harm can be
done by my making the acquaintance of Miss Murray to begin with."
"Very well," said Sir Arthur, not at all sorry to change the subject.
"And now, talking about social missionaries, Vane, have you quite made
up your mind to carry out this scheme of yours, this crusade against
money-making and the pomps and vanities of Society? Do you really mean
to show that your own father has been living in sin all these years;
that he is not, in fact, a Christian at all, because it is impossible
for anyone to be decently well off and a Christian at the same time? A
nice sort of thing that, Ernshaw, isn't it?"
"If Vane honestly believes, as he does, that his is the only true
definition of a Christian, it is not only his right but his duty to
preach it," was the young priest's reply.
"It is my belief," said Vane quietly, "and, God helping me, I will do
what I believe to be my duty."
The party at the Abbey broke up a few days after this, and in another
week or so Enid and her husband were in the full swing of the great
merry-go-round which is called the London season. She was unquestionably
the most beautiful of the brides of the year, and she was the undisputed
belle of the Drawing Room at which she was presented.
Garthorne was, of course, very proud of her, and received plenty of that
second-hand sort of admiration which is accorded alike to the owner of a
distinguished race-horse, a prize bull-dog, or a pretty wife.
Under the circumstances, therefore, it was perfectly natural that they
should enjoy themselves very thoroughly, and though towards the end
Garthorne began to get a little bored, and to think rather longingly of
his yacht on the Solent and his grouse moor in Scotland, Enid, with her
youth and beauty and perfect constitution, enjoyed every hour and every
minute of her waking life. Society had no very distinguished lion to
fall down and worship that season, and so, towards the end, things were
getting a little slow, and people were thinking seriously of escaping
from the heat and dust of London, when the world of wealth and fashion
was suddenly thrilled into fresh life by an absolutely new sensation.