Sir Joseph, having risen from his post-prandial snooze and found Mrs.
Delarayne, had led that lady to the drawing-room, and was now engaged in
trying to convince her of the general wisdom of all that she had been
hearing from her sister.
"I tell you, my dear Edith," he said, "that I have considerable
difficulty in believing that your Lord Henry is the great man you say he
is."
"Of course you have," she cried. "It is always difficult to believe that
a really great man could ever deign to cross our threshold, much less
shake hands with us! We feel we are too mediocre for that!"
"I don't mean that!" he said, shaking his head helplessly, although he
had not understood her real meaning.
"Joseph,"--Mrs. Delarayne began seriously,--"shall I tell you what it
is? You are jealous."
He laughed uproariously. "Oh, Edith, it takes you to say a thing like
that! Absurd! Absurd!" Then he added seriously. "But really, I have
heard things about Lord Henry that have compelled me to lose my respect
for him."
"Who told you?"
"Denis, for one."
"Denis is jealous too!" cried the widow.
"Now, my dear, do be reasonable! Are we all jealous of Lord Henry then?"
"I should think it most highly probable--yes."
"Well, anyway," Sir Joseph continued, frowning darkly, "Denis assured me
on his oath,--on his oath, understand, that Lord Henry, this son of a
noble marquis, this wonderful nerve specialist, this reformer of the
world, this----"
"Yes, all right, Joseph. You don't shine at that sort of oratory. What
has Lord Henry done?"
"He has not only constantly engaged Leonetta in unsuitable conversation,
but to-day, he actually kissed her!"
Mrs. Delarayne laughed. "I told you Denis was jealous," she exclaimed.
"Knights errant always are. I've always suspected that St. George was
jealous of the dragon."
Nevertheless, while Sir Joseph's slow brain was working this out, she
snatched a moment to ponder how her noble young friend could possibly
have found it necessary to go to such unexpected extremes.
"Don't be unfair, Edith," Sir Joseph objected. "Denis was quite right to
tell us. Lord Henry is much too old to kiss a child like Leonetta."
"You mean he is just old enough."
The baronet waved his hands in a mystified manner before him. "I cannot
understand you," he replied.
It was at this point that Denis burst in upon them.
"I beg your pardon," he said, "you wanted to discuss something with me,
I believe," he added, addressing Sir Joseph.
"Yes, we did,--that is to say, Mrs. Delarayne," stammered the baronet.
He was always a little uncomfortable when he felt constrained to be
amiable to one of his staff.
"We both wished to speak to you, Denis," said Mrs. Delarayne. "Sit down,
will you."
Denis sat down and folded his arms,--a position Mrs. Delarayne had never
seen him assume before.
"It is about Leonetta," she added.
"Oh, yes," said Denis. He was completely dazed. He had just felt that
"one touch of nature" which nowadays sets the whole world's teeth on
edge,--Eve completely and cheerfully unscrupulous, Eve wild and untamed,
cruel and heartless while her deepest passions are still unengaged,--and
he felt like one bewitched.
"We wish to ask you," began Sir Joseph pompously.
"Please let me speak," interrupted the widow. "We have noticed,--nobody
could have helped noticing,--that since you have been down here you have
been paying my daughter Leo unusually marked attention."
"But surely you have also noticed--" Denis objected.
"One moment!" cried Mrs. Delarayne. "I do not say that Leo isn't
attractive. I know she's exceedingly attractive,--so attractive that, I
understand, even Lord Henry appears to have fallen a victim to her
charm."
"Yes, and perhaps you have also heard--" the young man muttered with
some agitation.
"I have heard everything," said the widow. "All I suggest is, that since
Leo is still a child, and has not perhaps the strength to bear a heavy
heart strain as easily as a girl of Cleopatra's age, we should like any
attitude you choose to adopt towards her to be made perfectly plain from
the start. Do you understand, Denis? I don't wish to be unfriendly."
"I can assure you," protested Denis, who had been rendered none too
comfortable by the sting in Mrs. Delarayne's last remarks, "that all
along I have always been in deadly earnest, I have always----"
"Hush!" cried the masterful matron. "I don't want to hear now what your
sentiments are. All I want you to do is to be quite plain to my little
daughter. Do you want to become engaged to her, or not?"
"I do most earnestly," said the young man, "but----"
"But what?" growled Sir Joseph sternly.
"She now says she has no feeling whatever for me," Denis explained.
The baronet turned upon his secretary, scowled, and then regarded Mrs.
Delarayne in astonishment. "No feeling whatever?" he repeated.
"Has she actually told you this?" Mrs. Delarayne demanded with tell-tale
eagerness.
"Yes, this minute," Denis replied. "I can hardly believe it," he added
with the usual ingenuousness of all vain people. "I can only think that
a momentary infatuation for Lord Henry, who has spared no pains to----"
"Do you mean that you have asked her to marry you and she's refused?"
Sir Joseph enquired, observing the young man's painful discomfiture.
"Yes, this very minute."
"Quite positively?" Mrs. Delarayne demanded.
"As far as I can make out--yes," Denis replied. He was so completely
bewildered by the rebuff, that the incredulity of his two seniors made
it seem all the more impossible to him.
"'Pon my soul!" Sir Joseph exclaimed, utterly abashed.
He could get no further. The prospects of getting Mrs. Delarayne's
daughters married appeared to grow gloomier and gloomier.
"Then that's settled, you see, Sir Joseph," Mrs. Delarayne remarked. She
had been induced to have this interview with Denis against her will. Her
sister and the baronet had prevailed over her better judgment, and now
that she saw the issue of it was to be more satisfactory than she could
possibly have hoped, she had difficulty in concealing her pleasure.
At this point the report of a fire-arm made them all turn in the
direction of Sandlewood.
"They seem to have got a rabbit before reaching the woods," Sir Joseph
observed. "That sounded extraordinarily near."
Mrs. Delarayne was silent. She was obviously making an effort not to
appear too highly gratified by the news she had heard, and was regarding
Denis thoughtfully,--her eyebrows slightly raised, and her fingers
drumming lightly on the arms of her chair.
"Well, then," she repeated, "I'm afraid that's settled,--isn't it, Sir
Joseph?"
Another report was heard, and Sir Joseph rose.
"I wonder what the deuce they're doing!" he exclaimed going to the
window.
"Probably got a stray rabbit, or a hare, on their way," suggested Denis.
Sir Joseph turned from the window to face his secretary.
"That's very odd. So she refused you?" he said.
"Absolutely."
"But you shouldn't despair over one refusal," he exclaimed, casting a
glance full of meaning at Mrs. Delarayne. "A man doesn't lie down under
one reverse of that sort."
He chuckled, and glanced backwards and forwards, first at his secretary
and then at Mrs. Delarayne, hoping she would understand his profound
implication.
"You must 'ave more perseverance," he added.
Denis remembered the word "vulgar." He remembered the concentrated fury
and contempt that the flapper had put into the expression, and he
instinctively felt that it was hopeless.
"I think what I should like to do," he said, "is to leave here, if you
will allow me to; finish my holiday elsewhere, and see whether,
meanwhile, a change may not come over Leonetta. If it doesn't, then
there's an end of it."
"You mean to leave here at once?" enquired the baronet.
"Yes," interposed Mrs. Delarayne; and then she proceeded to explain to
Sir Joseph what Denis meant, and declared his scheme to be eminently
dignified and proper. It met with her entire approval.
A discussion followed as to the best way of explaining to the others the
reason of Denis's sudden departure, and various suggestions were made.
Sir Joseph volunteered to be able to account for the young man's absence
on the score of business. Denis himself inclined to the view that some
family trouble would provide the best excuse. His mother might be ill.
But Mrs. Delarayne, anxious above all to avoid the sort of explanation
that might provoke dangerous sympathies for Denis in any female heart,
agreed that a business excuse would be best.
It was therefore decided that Sir Joseph would receive a sudden summons
from London, that Denis would be dispatched to attend to the business,
and that what happened after that the rest of the party would not need
to be told.
All at once a commotion on the terrace, in which the clamour of a score
of different voices, all making different suggestions at the same time,
mingled with the sound of heavy footfalls, caused the party in the
drawing-room to repair to the scene of the disturbance.
"What on earth's the matter?" cried Mrs. Delarayne aghast, as she beheld
the group advancing slowly from the top of the steps. "Anybody hurt?"
"Yes," said Agatha coming towards her, and looking very much agitated.
"Stephen has been shot in the shoulder."
"Nothing serious!" shouted the injured youth, as he came forward on the
arms of Guy and the Incandescent Gerald.
"Has a doctor been sent for?" Sir Joseph demanded.
"Yes, one of the under-keepers went to the garage, and a car left a
moment ago," said Agatha.
"But how did it happen?" cried Mrs. Delarayne shrilly.
"Lord Henry did it," said Miss Mallowcoid, nodding her head resentfully,
as if to imply to her sister that now there could no longer be any
question as to who had been right all this time in regard to their
estimate of the young nobleman.
"Lord Henry?" Mrs. Delarayne repeated, utterly confused.
"Yes, he did it by accident," Mrs. Tribe explained.
"Lord Henry!" the baronet ejaculated under his breath. "Damn Lord
Henry!" And Mrs. Delarayne, Miss Mallowcoid, and Denis regarded him each
in their own peculiar way.
Stephen was laid on Mrs. Delarayne's _chaise-longue_ on the terrace.
Brandy was fetched and Mrs. Delarayne knelt down beside him. His
shoulder was already neatly bandaged, but his torn shirt, his waistcoat,
and his sleeve, were saturated with blood.
"Is it painful, dear lad?" Mrs. Delarayne enquired.
"No, not so very," he replied.
"He only says that, of course!" Miss Mallowcoid averred in a whisper to
Sir Joseph. "But you can see he's in agony." The spinster was evidently
desirous of making the case look as black as possible.
"Who bandaged him up like that?" Sir Joseph asked of Guy.
"Lord Henry."
Sir Joseph tossed his head. It seemed as if he must never hear the last
of that name. "But where is he?" he enquired.
"I can't think," said Mrs. Tribe. "As soon as he had sent someone after
a doctor and bandaged Stephen up, he ran away from us."
Sir Joseph repeated "ran away from you," with an air of complete
mystification, and Miss Mallowcoid raised her brows more than ever, as
if to imply that she, at least, expected nothing else.
"Yes," added Leonetta, "he left us and went in the direction of 'The
Fastness'."
"I wonder where that jackass has gone for a doctor?" exclaimed the
baronet after a while. "Did you see the car go?"
"Yes," whispered Leonetta, "the car left long before we had brought
Stephen here. We wanted it to drop him first, but he insisted on
walking."
Then in the distance the sound of a familiar motor-horn was heard, and
through the trees could be seen the glittering brass-work of a car. The
baronet's head chauffeur in smart mufti was driving,--he had been caught
just as he was setting out for an evening in Folkestone,--and the car
darted along the drive, and gracefully took all the corners in a manner
that gladdened the hearts of the anxious spectators on the terrace.
A grating of wheels on the ground, a spasmodic lunge forward, and the
vehicle stopped dead at the foot of the steps.
An elderly gentleman descended from the car.
"Thank goodness!" cried Mrs. Delarayne, "it's Dr. Thackeray!"
* * * * *
It is now necessary to turn the clock back about three quarters of an
hour, in order to follow the movements of Lord Henry from the moment
when he left the terrace of Brineweald Park.
It was a sure instinct that made him lose no time in trying to discover
Cleopatra's whereabouts; for, from the very first, the coincidence of
her sudden indisposition, following upon his behaviour with Leonetta in
the wood that morning, had struck him as a little too strange to be
accepted without suspicion. She had looked so well the whole morning,
and had appeared to be enjoying the walk quite as much as any of the
others. Knowing, moreover, the passionate girl she was, he could only
fear the worst if she had been told anything; and, since any disaster
that might follow would be due to a miscalculation on his part, he felt
it incumbent upon him to do everything in his power to repair the
mistake he had made.
In that brief moment in the woods with Leonetta, he had wished to
achieve but one object,--to show Denis plainly and finally that Leonetta
could not be his. He wished so unmistakably to register this fact upon
Denis's mind, that he felt it would simplify matters enormously if that
young man could, with his own eyes, see something which, while it would
abate his ardour, would also show him how easy and how devoid of dignity
had been the game he had been playing for the last fortnight at
Brineweald.
The sudden return of Denis to help to find the bangle had been the
opportunity. Unfortunately, Lord Henry felt that he had not reckoned
sufficiently with two possibilities, each of which, in itself, was
serious enough: on the one hand, Denis's return to Brineweald long
before himself, and on the other, the confirmation that Vanessa and
Tribe might offer to Denis's report, if Denis chose to tell. First of
all, in the few seconds he had had to consider the matter, it had struck
him as extremely improbable that Denis would either have the time or the
inclination to tell Cleopatra direct, before he himself had had a chance
of speaking to her; and, secondly, he had doubted whether Vanessa and
Tribe could actually have seen him embracing Leonetta.
In these circumstances he had taken the risk which he felt he was
entitled to take in war; but apparently,--at least so he feared,--he had
miscalculated. He had failed to take into account Denis's mad fury, and
the extremes to which this might possibly drive him.
He had not once been mistaken in his estimate of the kind of human life
with which he was experimenting; for he had correctly anticipated the
probable effects that the knowledge of his action would have upon
Cleopatra. He had, however, certainly staked upon luck, and, this time,
it appeared to have turned against him.
Thus he was tormented by the gravest qualms as he made his way to "The
Fastness," and when Wilmott informed him that Miss Cleopatra had not
been seen since she had gone with the rest of Mrs. Delarayne's party in
Sir Joseph's car, early that morning, his worst fears were confirmed.
"Would you mind looking all over the house?" he said. "It is just
possible she may have come in without your noticing."
The girl obeyed and even invited him to join in the search. Their
efforts, however, revealed no trace of Cleopatra.
Lord Henry was at his wits' end. He began to be filled by a secret
feeling of guilt, a feeling that he had gone too far. He had been
foolhardy; he had exceeded his duty. Nothing remained to fortify him, in
his present tragic dilemma, but the conviction that he had acted all
along as if the affair, far from being a matter simply for Cleopatra's
family, had been his personal business, his intimate concern.
He thought of the beach. It did not strike him as probable that the girl
would have gone thither in her solitary despair. However, he wished to
allow for every possible chance. He therefore went to the grocer's at
Brineweald and telephoned to Stonechurch, to the establishment that
provided hot sea-baths on the front. Had they heard of any disaster
among the bathers on the beach during the last two hours? Had any
disaster been reported from the lonely portions of the shore? Would
someone please go out to enquire? In a few minutes he received a
reassuring reply, and he left the shop. In his present state of mind,
however, even if he had been told that she had attempted suicide in the
waves and been rescued, at least this intelligence would have provided
something definite to which to cling, and he would have felt almost
grateful.
He enquired of one or two cottagers whether they had seen the elder Miss
Delarayne at all that day; but again his efforts were entirely
fruitless.
Her rescue might be a matter of minutes, perhaps of seconds, and yet it
seemed as if he could do nothing. Never had he gazed upon a peaceful
village street with feelings of such tumultuous woe. Helplessness and
impotence are intolerable at any time, but they are the cruellest
torture when a dear human life seems to be at stake.
It occurred to him that she might have gone to Sandlewood, which was the
nearest station, and where the stationmaster would be sure to have seen
her. She might already have taken the train in the London direction, or
to Shorncliffe or Folkestone. In any case he was so deeply convinced
that her disappearance portended tragedy, that he began to wonder
whether he ought not at once to inform the police.
Had he been less involved in the affair, himself, he would have done so
immediately; but his hopes of finding some trace of her at Sandlewood
station induced him to wait. If he failed again, he would inform the
authorities.
Thus resolved, he returned as quickly as possible to Brineweald Park, in
order to take advantage of the shortest cut to Sandlewood, and it was
just as he was on the point of crossing the fringe of the wood, that he
saw about a hundred and fifty yards to his left, the whole of the
shooting party pick up the under-keepers, and proceed in the same
direction as himself.
There was not a sound among the trees. The air was still. The ground was
moist with the recent rain, and as he strode silently along one of the
narrow footpaths, he could not help from time to time glancing
half-shamefully at the sublimely careless party in the distance, on whom
he feared, through his high-handed action of the morning, some grief or
disgrace was almost bound to descend before nightfall.
He noticed that Leonetta, with her customary eagerness and high spirits,
kept a few paces ahead of the rest, and that she constantly looked about
in all directions, as if in search of something or somebody. He half
feared that she would catch sight of him, and he therefore repeatedly
stooped, or halted behind any opportune screen of brambles, until she
turned her head in another direction. These manoeuvres unfortunately
materially delayed his progress; while, owing to the fact that he was
compelled to keep his eye constantly on the other party, he could not
pick his way as nicely as he would have liked.
Then, all at once, just as he saw Stephen, who was apparently trying to
catch Leonetta up, dart ahead, there was a loud report, and the youth
fell forward as if killed.
Horrified, Lord Henry halted like one suddenly frozen to the ground. He
saw Leonetta rush forward and lean over the fallen youth. He then
observed her rise again just as the others came up.
Then another shot was fired, and this time, although apparently the
shooter had missed his aim, Lord Henry quickly seized the whole tragic
meaning of what had occurred.
He was nothing if not a quick thinker. It was clear to him now,
particularly in view of all he knew, that whoever had fired that first
shot had meant to hit Leonetta. It was also abundantly clear that the
second shot was a second attempt because the first had failed, and
concluding from the sound that the assailant would be somewhere between
him and the shooting party, he swerved without any further hesitation,
sharply to the left, and ran as hard as he could in the direction of the
group that had now gathered round Stephen. He dodged the trees and
undergrowth as well as he could, and tried as he proceeded to scan all
the intervening ground.
He knew Cleopatra was reported to be a good shot; he had little doubt,
therefore, as to who the assailant was; but as he tore through the
undergrowth he was too much appalled by the thought of the tragic
development he had just witnessed, to think with anything but
consternation on behalf of the creature who, during the past week, had
become so dear to him.
He was not a bow-shot from the shooting party, however, when all of a
sudden, at a distance of a couple of yards from him, crouching behind a
tangle of bushes, her face deathly white, and her hands struggling to
adjust the fire-arm she held in such a position as to do herself some
mortal injury, he espied Cleopatra,--Cleopatra now a dangerous
murderess.
He dashed madly towards her, stooped to snatch her weapon, a rook-rifle,
from her, and swinging it high in the air, flung it back among the
bushes and bracken he had just crossed.
"Are you mad!" he cried.
But there was no response. The girl had fallen back in a swoon, and a
twitching of her fingers showed that even now her half-conscious mind
was busy trying to find the trigger of the deadly rook-rifle.
A rapid examination revealed the fact that she was quite uninjured, and
concluding that she could be safely left where she was for a few
minutes, he ran off again in the direction of the wounded or murdered
man.
* * * * *
As to what happened after that, the reader has already been informed.
Lord Henry, feeling too deeply relieved by the sight of Stephen's slight
wound, to be able altogether to conceal his triumphant joy, declared
that the whole thing had been an accident caused by his unpardonable
ignorance of a rook-rifle; and fortunately, owing to the excitement
occasioned by Stephen's wound and the dressing of it, the other members
of the party were not too critical in their acceptance of his story.
He dressed the wound with frantic speed, glancing constantly into the
woods to his left as he did so; muttered a few comforting words and
prayers for forgiveness to the boy on whose friendship he thought he
could count, and after having been assured that one of the keepers had
gone to the garage to order a car to be sent for the doctor, to the
complete astonishment of all present, he apologised and ran back into
the woods again.