UNTIL LIFE’S END
Earlier in the evening, barely an hour before, indeed, the discovery
that the house was deserted would have alarmed me profoundly,
for Miralda’s disappearance might then have had a very sinister
significance. But she was no longer in any danger. Barosa was dead and
I had the assurance of the pardon for her association with his plot.
Instead of being alarmed therefore, I burst out laughing as the reason
for her disappearance flashed upon me.
She had obviously run away from me.
When first Marco, then Barosa and lastly Maral had left the house not
to return, Miralda and Inez would have been both desperately perplexed
and thoroughly scared. Waiting to fly in accordance with the plan which
Marco had explained to me, they would immediately conclude either that
the men had been arrested or had had to run from the police.
In this condition of fear they would naturally keep a sharp look-out,
and thus would have seen me. In my disguise their inevitable inference
would be that I was a police spy who had discovered their hiding-place,
and my movements had been just such as would tend to confirm that
belief.
When I broke into the house, therefore, they would realize that their
only chance was to fly from it, especially when they found that I was
alone and that no police were in the street to stop them.
A moment’s consideration prompted the conclusion that they would make
for the railway station in the hope that Barosa or one of the other men
would elude arrest and be there to meet them.
I hurried out of the house, therefore. The carriage was waiting, and
having questioned the driver and found that he had not seen any one
come out of the side street, I told him to drive to the station as fast
as he could.
It was fairly certain that neither Maral nor Marco would run the
risk of going to the railway. Barosa probably had the tickets in his
possession; and as I was resolved that Inez should leave the city, my
first act was to purchase a ticket and put it in an envelope together
with some banknotes, in case she should be without money.
Then I made a round of the building in search of them. They would
almost certainly be disguised, but I was confident that my instinct
would enable me to detect Miralda, however well disguised, while the
fact that the viscontesse was to be of the party would help me.
Neither the viscontesse nor any one even remotely suggesting Miralda
was in the station, however. A train was due out in a quarter of an
hour after my arrival, and I loitered near the barrier, keeping a sharp
but futile look-out, until it occurred to me that I myself might be
defeating my object. If the two had seen me as a spy getting into the
house, they would instantly conclude that I was watching for them now.
So I looked for a place where I could hide and still watch.
Five more minutes passed and I scrutinized every passenger and every
individual within sight. A rather lanky youth in the company of a
squat, stout, broad-shouldered market woman, apparently his mother,
appeared to be waiting to meet some one, but there was not another soul
loitering anywhere in the station.
As the time was now getting very short, I left my hiding-place to go
and look outside; and as I neared this couple, the boy put his arm
through his mother’s, drew her attention to something at the other side
of the station, and walked away with her. The woman was lame and rolled
in her walk with a most grotesque waddle.
After a dozen yards or so they paused and the young fellow looked
round. He appeared disconcerted to see that I was watching them, and
drew his mother forward again.
Then I nearly laughed aloud. The woman took two or three steps without
either the waddle or the limp; suddenly recollected herself and went
lame with the wrong foot.
I hastened after them and as they quickened their pace, I called out in
English: “You’ve forgotten which is your lame foot, Miralda.”
They stopped and turned, but even when I was close to them and saw
their faces clearly, I should not have recognized the market woman as
Miralda, nor the lanky youth as Inez, had it not been for Miralda’s
eyes. I had looked too often into them not to know them.
“It is I, Ralph; you’ve been running away from me the last hour or
more,” I added, laughing.
“Ralph!” cried Miralda. “What does it all mean?”
“You shall know all directly, but I must speak to your son there first.
He has not a moment to lose if he means to catch this train.”
“Mr. Donnington?” exclaimed Inez. “Where----”
“You must let me talk, please,” I interrupted. “When Dr. Barosa left
that house he ran into a party of police, but I managed to get a word
or two with him before he fled, and I have to give you this ticket
and the money with it. You are to leave by this train. If you remain
another hour in Lisbon, you will be arrested.”
“Where is he?”
“You haven’t a second to spare,” I cried, giving her the ticket and
pressing the envelope into her hand. “You will learn everything later.
Miralda is pardoned. And now go, or it will be too late;” and I urged
her away in the direction of the barrier, without giving her time to
question me.
She hesitated, walked away a few steps, paused in doubt, and was
turning back, when the call to the passengers to enter the train came.
She choked back a hundred unspoken questions, hurried through the
barrier and got into the train.
With a sigh of satisfaction I watched it move along the platform and
disappear in the darkness, and then turned to Miralda. Her disguise
was really wonderful. The complexion was darkened almost to the tan of
a mulatto, and the skin of the forehead, nose and upper half of the
cheeks was lined very cunningly and had the wrinkled look of age: on
the left side of the face was what looked like the cicatrice of a bad
wound or burn, and on the right a large disfiguring claret-coloured
birth-mark. Both mark and scar extended to the lips, and along the
edges of both and across the lower lip was fastened a cleverly moulded
skin-covered plastic pad which gave the appearance of the flabby cheeks
and fat double chin of a woman of middle age, the lower part being lost
in the folds of a neckerchief.
The effect was grotesque, and as I stared at her in amazement, the
upper part of her face crinkled, while the lower remained stolidly
impassive. “Are you trying to smile?” I asked.
“You look comical enough to make any one smile,” she replied, her lips
scarcely moving, as she spoke through her nearly-closed teeth.
“I suppose I do. But have you seen yourself in a glass? Whoever did
that, knew his business; but you--you are not exactly pretty, you know.
I can scarcely believe it is really you.”
“You are not even clean,” she retorted, tossing her head.
“I haven’t a hideous birth-mark and a double chin, at any rate.”
“But you’re a Jew with a hook nose and your grey beard is as dirty as
it is long.”
We must have made an odd-looking couple in all truth--a fat, waddling,
disfigured, old market woman and a dirty down-at-heels Jew pedlar, and
I saw the station people were beginning to eye us suspiciously.
“I think it’s time the market woman went home,” I said.
“She is waiting for her mother, Jew.”
“I think she’ll be found at home. Barosa didn’t mean her to leave
to-night or she would have been here. Nothing matters now except to get
you home.”
“Where is Dr. Barosa?”
“I don’t know.” This was true in the letter; I had never been down
where he deserved to be. “When I saw him last he was in the hands of
the police,” I added.
“But I may be arrested also at any minute.”
“Not by the police. You are pardoned, but the other arrest is imminent.”
“What other arrest?”
“This, by the old Jew,” I replied, linking my arm in hers to leave the
station. “Let’s see how fast the market woman can waddle.”
She was a willing prisoner and pressed close to me with a happy
unrestrained laugh, and then clapped her hand to her face with an
exclamation of dismay and let her head droop as we went out into the
street.
“Why did you cry out?” I asked.
“It’s coming off. What shall I do?” she cried. “You shouldn’t have made
me laugh. I didn’t expect to have to laugh when this was put on.”
“Thank Heaven, we can laugh as much as we like now--even at one
another. Can’t you get it all off? The Jew’s going,” I said, and I
took off my grey beard, eyebrows, nose and wig, with a sigh of relief.
“I’ve got all but the last bit off,” said Miralda, as she held up her
face under the light of a lamp and laughed merrily.
Cicatrice, birth-mark and double chin were in one piece and adhering
now by the mark. I peeled this back carefully, and then held her
upturned face close to mine.
“I thought the Jew who arrested me was gone,” she said.
“It was the market woman he arrested. Miralda is free--if she wishes.”
“It doesn’t seem much like it;” and she moved in my arms.
“Does she wish it?”
“She doesn’t wish to go to prison.”
“Does she wish to be free?”
“Do you think it would be safe for her to be free in the streets alone?”
“Is she willing to pay for an escort?”
“It depends on the terms.”
“There are several. The first is that you smile.”
“I can do that although my face is still very sticky;” and she smiled
and grimaced.
“The next is to say one word and promise to answer a simple question.”
“What question?”
“You must promise first. But the answer must be the truth.”
“Oh, what an insult! That’s the Jew back again. Anything more?”
“Yes, the proper corollary to the answer.”
“Don’t you think the escort is rather a coward to make all these terms
now?”
“Yes, but he insists all the same.”
“Well, what is the word?”
“Ralph,” I said.
“That’s easy--Ralph,” she said with purposeful unconcern. “I’ve done
two of the things--the escort ought to take me half-way home for that.”
“Now for the question.” I paused and her light assumption of
indifference changed under my earnest gaze. She made an effort to
release herself. But I held her fast. “Do you love----”
“Ralph!” A very different tone this as she hid her face against my
shoulder and then let me lift it that our lips might meet in the
rapturous ecstasy of the lingering betrothal kiss.
Roused by the sound of approaching wheels, we drew apart and walked on
hand in hand.
It proved to be the carriage which had taken me to the station and the
driver asked if I needed him.
Oblivious to all else save our happiness, I should have let him pass,
but the question brought me to earth, and I stopped him. He stared in
some astonishment at us both as I put Miralda into the carriage and
told him to drive first to my rooms.
I remembered that Pia was waiting there, and when I told Miralda about
her, she declared she would take her home.
When we reached my rooms, Simmons was there, Bryant having sent him
back when he did not see me, and I told him to go in search of Bryant.
Then I took Pia out to Miralda and drove home with her.
We found that the viscontesse had not heard anything of the projected
flight from the city. The letter which Miralda had written to tell her
about it had not been delivered, Barosa having substituted for it one
written by himself to say Miralda would be home that evening.
“You see I didn’t answer that question after all,” said Miralda as we
were alone and I was bidding her good-night.
“Which question?” I asked, as if I did not understand.
“You know I didn’t.”
“Didn’t you? I had an impression----”
“Not in words,” she broke in with a flash of happy laughter.
“That’s a challenge. You shall answer it now,” I cried, putting my arm
as far round her much-swathed waist as it would reach.
“You are developing a very masterful manner, Mr. Jew.”
“It is necessary with a rebellious market woman. Answer it now.”
“Which question?” she mocked, mimicking my indifferent tone.
“Do--you--love----”
She put her hand to my lips, and silenced me, and then lifting her eyes
to mine she threw her arms round my neck and whispered: “With all my
heart, Ralph, and for all my life.”
And again we sealed the compact with the all appropriate formalities.
The next morning M. Volheno sent for me and I was glad to find
him anxious to hush up the whole matter of the Abduction Plot. In
pursuance of this policy, two conditions were attached to Miralda’s
pardon--absolute silence about everything and a year’s expatriation
for her, her mother and the visconte. Vasco was to be transferred to a
regiment in Portuguese Africa.
I told him of Barosa’s death, and that he was really Luis Beriardos,
Dom Miguel’s trusted agent, and he was genuinely relieved. Barosa’s
fate was never publicly known and he was buried under a different name
as the result of a concocted identification.
The fate of his associates on the _Rampallo_ I never learned. The yacht
and the prisoners on her were handed over to the men whom Volheno sent
out in the _Stella_ with secret instructions; and when they returned
neither the skipper nor Burroughs knew anything.
By the time of the _Stella’s_ arrival, the viscontesse had completed
all arrangements for the year’s enforced absence; and a few hours after
the yacht’s anchor was dropped it was weighed again and I was taking a
farewell look at the city.
Miralda and her mother were below and Pia was with them. She was to
sail for America from Southampton.
I was heartily glad to go. It had been a strenuous love quest, but
all the trouble and the dangers were forgotten in that joyous hour of
success, in the glowing consciousness that I had won the woman I loved,
and the thrilling realization of my hopes.
As I stood dreaming of the happiness to come, there was the soft rustle
of a skirt and a hand was slipped into my arm.
“You are glad to go, Ralph?” asked Miralda. “You were smiling.”
“I was thinking of my fellow passenger,” I whispered. “And she is
smiling, too.”
But her eyes were very thoughtful behind the smile. It was natural. All
her young life had been passed in the city she was leaving.
She turned her eyes from me, let them roam over the glorious panorama
of the city and the hills beyond, and then turned to me again. “I was
trying to think if I have any regrets. I have not. I have not in all my
heart a thought that is not wholly happy at being with you. But it has
been my home.”
“I know,” I said, understanding; and I took her hand and pressed my
lips to it. “You will grow to love the new home, and it shall be one of
peace and content and, so far as I can ensure it, of happiness.”
“Is that all?” she asked, with half mischievous, half wistful glance.
“What more would you have, dearest?”
“That which draws me to it and makes me happy to go,” she said in a
whisper.
“Ah, our love. To last, please God, until life’s end.”
She caught her breath, pressed closer to me, sighed and then smiled as
she repeated in a whisper of prayerful earnestness: “Until life’s end.”
And then we stood together in silence too happy for words, until the
yacht had turned out of the river mouth and the city was hidden from
view.
THE END
Butler & Tenner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized or underlined text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original.