With a sudden cry of fear Ivy Lexton sat up in the Jacobean
four-post bed, where she had spent a broken night.
She was still plunged in sleep, but anyone standing, say, by the large
half-moon window of the delightful old-world country bedroom would
have thought her awake, for her violet-blue eyes were wide open and
dilated, as if with terror.
How lovely she looked; how childlike was the pure, delicate contour of
her face, and the droop of her little red mouth. Her dimpled shoulders
rose from what she called a “nightie” of flesh-coloured crêpe de
Chine. The sleeveless bodice was edged with a deep band of real lace,
and, to the eyes of the old-fashioned maid who waited on her in this,
her friend’s, Lady Flora Desmond’s, country cottage, it looked more
like a ball-dress than a nightgown.
There were tens of thousands of human beings who, had they been
privileged to see Ivy as she was now, this morning, would have felt
their hearts contract with intense pity for the woman they regarded as
having been the innocent victim of an extraordinary set of ironic
circumstances. There were also tens of thousands of other human beings
who, though they had had strong doubts as to the part she had played
in the singular story, would have told themselves that their
suspicions had been cruelly unjust, could they have looked into that
flower-like face, and heard the words now escaping from her
half-opened mouth.
Those words were uttered in an appealing, broken tone, “Don’t hurt
him! Please don’t hurt him!” And then: “Oh, Roger, I am so sorry for
you!”
Ivy’s soul was not here in this delightful country bedroom. It had
travelled a long long way, to a prison situated on the outskirts of
London.
She seemed to be gazing through the door of a small, bare room, which
she knew to be now occupied by one on whom judgment of death was to be
executed that morning.
There stood by the pallet bed the tall, sinewy figure of a man who had
loved her with a passionate and absorbing love, and whom she, in her
own fashion, had also loved. By his wish, at his trial, not a word
concerning what she had called their “friendship,” had been uttered in
extenuation of anything he, Roger Gretorex, had done, or left undone.
There he stood, the man whose arms had so often cradled her, on whom
she had made the limitless demands that a woman only makes on the man
she loves. Never once, in great or in little things, had he failed
her.
This morning he looked strange indeed, for though dressed, he was
collarless, and clad in an old tweed suit--a suit which Ivy remembered
well, and which she had once told him caressingly she liked to see him
wear.
He held himself upright, with his head thrown back in what had been a
characteristic attitude.
In Ivy’s vision two men were pinioning Roger’s arms, and it was to
them that, living through this terrible nightmare, she had just
addressed her piteous plea. And then with slow steps the chaplain,
together with the governor of the prison, walked in.…
It was all happening exactly as Ivy had once seen something happen, in
what had then appeared to her just a thrilling scene in a play, in
London about a year ago.
And now Roger left the cell and began walking, with steady steps, his
head still thrown back, down a narrow way.…
And then the woman in the bed gave a stifled shriek, for suddenly she
saw the gallows through an open door at the end of the passage.
She covered her face with her hands, yet something seemed to force her
to peep through her fingers and--for a fleeting moment--Roger Gretorex
turned and looked at her.…
So had the condemned man turned and looked at the woman in the play.
But Roger’s face was so charged with mute, terrible reproach that,
with an anguished cry of protest, Ivy awoke--awoke to the blessed
reality that she was sixty miles from the place where that awful drama
was to be enacted this morning.
Her shaking hand felt for her diamond-circled watch on the Chippendale
table standing by her bed. Having found it, she held it up close
before her eyes.
It was only eight o’clock. She sighed heavily, for that meant that
there was another hour of misery and suspense to be lived through.
Nay, maybe even as much as an hour and a half--for the morbid-minded
woman pal of hers who intended to stand near the prison gate till the
death notice was put up, and had promised faithfully to telephone to
her from a house near by, had thought it unlikely she could get a
trunk call through before half-past nine.
The tears began rolling down Ivy Lexton’s cheeks; yet it was not for
Roger Gretorex, and his awful fate, that she was weeping. It was for
pity of herself, for all she had gone through, and for what remained
for her to go through, till she knew for certain that Roger Gretorex
had died, as he had lived, silent.
She was well aware, deep down in her heart, that not only his counsel,
Sir Joseph Molloy, who believed him innocent, but also that Roger’s
mother, would hope up to the last moment of his sentient life that he
would clear himself by shifting the burden of guilt on the one who was
guilty.
Ivy had written the condemned man a letter three days ago, and she had
made so many rough copies of that short letter that she knew it, now,
by heart.
She repeated that touching letter over to herself, rocking her slight
body this way and that in the large bed.
_Sunday night._
Dear Roger,
I am ill, so I cannot come to you. Otherwise I would do so. You know
that I believe you innocent, and I want now to tell you how _grateful_
I am for all your kindness to me, and for the love, however _wrong_ it
may have been, that you lavished on me.
Ivy.
She hoped that letter had given poor Roger pleasure and, above all,
that he had read between the lines and seen how really, truly sorry
she was--how dreadfully grieved that everything had fallen out as it
had fallen out. Indeed, she had twice underlined the word “grateful.”
And then she suddenly felt that she could not go on remembering any
more. It was too horrible--too horrible! So she took a bottle off the
little table, where her watch was lying, and measured out a small dose
into a medicine glass. Lady Flora would wake her, she knew, when that
secretly longed-for message came through.
Soon she was once more plunged into uneasy slumber. But alas! again
there came that hideous, hideous nightmare.
Once more she seemed transported to the condemned cell. But this time,
in addition to the warders, the governor of the prison, and the
chaplain, there was the horrid, cruel, fat-faced man, Sir Joseph
Molloy, who had cross-examined her. True, he had dealt with her
gently, kindly, but only because he had been adjured to do so, and, as
well she remembered, with now and again a tigerish glare in his blue
Irish eyes.
She listened with a feeling of indignation and pitiful dread to his
voice uttering the words: “I adjure you, Gretorex, to tell the truth,
now, for the sake of your poor mother who has always believed you
innocent!”
There was a pause. Ivy clasped her hands together in supplication. But
the collarless prisoner had turned his sunken eyes away from her
pleading face. Was he going to obey Sir Joseph Molloy? Yes! For she
heard Roger’s deep voice answer: “It is as you have always thought it
was, Sir Joseph. I die innocent. Ivy Lexton poisoned her husband.”
Outside that quiet bedroom Lady Flora, already on her way down to
breakfast, heard a fearful cry--“No! No! _No!_--that isn’t true!”
She opened the bedroom door and saw that Ivy was asleep. “Poor child,”
she murmured. “No wonder she talks in her sleep. Thank God! that
unhappy man is to be hanged this morning.”
And, being the manner of woman she was, she offered up a silent prayer
for the murderer, that he might make his peace with God.
There came a sharp knock on the bedroom door, and Ivy woke with a
stifled cry. She jumped straight out of bed and stood, her hands
clasped together, waiting.
There came another knock, and then, “Come in!” she cried shrilly, and
Lady Flora’s old parlourmaid entered the room.
Ivy had never liked the woman, and the woman had never liked her. She
did not understand, and she never quite knew how to treat, those of
her own sex whom she regarded as inferior to herself; yet some of the
kindest letters written to her in the last few weeks had been from
domestic servants, warmly sympathising with the heroine of their
favourite Sunday paper.
“Mrs. Doghill is on the telephone, ma’am. Her ladyship is holding the
line till you come.”
Ivy snatched up her periwinkle-blue satin dressing-gown and wrapped it
about her. Then she thrust her little white feet into slippers that
matched the dressing-gown, and ran downstairs, telling herself, not
for the first time, how stupid it was to have the telephone in so
public a place as the hall.
Lady Flora was standing, the telephone receiver to her ear. But when
she saw Ivy she silently handed her the receiver and, turning into the
dining-room, shut the door.
“Is that you, Millicent? Yes--yes! I can hear quite well----”
She waited in an agony of mingled hope and fear till, with startling
distinctness, came the measured words that were being uttered sixty
miles away.
“There’s been a reprieve. The story goes that important new evidence
was laid before the Home Secretary yesterday.”
Ivy remained silent. She felt stunned. New evidence?
At last she managed to get out, in a low, strangled voice, “I--I don’t
quite understand.”
But instantly she heard a cross voice interject, “You’ve had six
minutes--can’t allow you to have any more now.”
“Indeed I haven’t! I’ve only just come to the telephone,” she said
pleadingly.
“I can’t help that. The call was put through six minutes ago----” And
ruthlessly she was cut off.
Ivy turned towards the room where she knew her hostess was waiting,
full of sympathy. She opened the door, and then she cried, “He’s
been--he’s been----” and before she could say the word “reprieved” she
had fallen fainting at the other woman’s feet.
Lady Flora would not have believed an angel, had an angel come and
told her, that her dear little friend Ivy Lexton had fainted, not from
relief, but from sheer, agonising fear.
Ivy spent the rest of the morning in bed, a prey to frightful anxiety
and terror.
New evidence? What could that mean? Had Roger really failed her at
last?
At twelve o’clock the parlourmaid came in with a telegram.
Hope to be with you to-morrow evening.
Miles Rushworth.
The telegram had been sent from Paris the day before, and delayed in
transmission.
“There is no answer,” said Mrs. Lexton in her soft voice. And then she
lay back, feeling much less unhappy.
Whatever the mysterious reprieve might portend, Rushworth would very
soon, in fact to-morrow, be here to help and to protect her.
As she read the telegram over for the third time, Ivy told herself how
noble, how generous, how devoted the sender had proved himself. Also,
what a wonderful life lay before her as his cherished, sheltered wife!
Rushworth was all-powerful. New evidence? There could be no “new
evidence” for the simple reason that nothing, nothing, _nothing_ had
ever happened--that could possibly be found out.