THE KEEPING OF A PROMISE
Her first two or three days at the tall grey house in Audley Square
sufficed to indicate to Ann that all was not going well there, Sir Philip
had welcomed her warmly enough, and when she descended to breakfast on the
morning after her arrival she found an envelope on her plate containing his
cheque for two hundred pounds, together with a brief intimation that it was
intended to "help towards the trousseau." But, apart from the bestowal of
this signal mark of favour, Ann found her godfather's behaviour extremely
difficult to understand.
It was usually his custom to treat her with a species of crusty amiability,
but, on this occasion, after the first warmth of his welcome had
evaporated, she found that the crustiness became much more in evidence and
the amiability conspicuously lacking. The old man was extraordinarily
irritable, both towards her and towards Tony. It was as though he were
labouring under a secret strain--prey to some anxiety which he was
stubbornly bent on keeping to himself. Tony also, Ann observed, seemed to
be living at high pressure of some kind. He was moody and restless, and
unless some theatre or other plan had been proposed by his uncle he usually
disappeared soon after dinner, and she saw him no more until the following
morning.
It was all very unlike any previous visit which she had paid to the house
at Audley Square. Formerly, if Sir Philip had felt disinclined to go out in
an evening, Tony had always been eager with suggestions for their visitor's
amusement, and many had been the occasions on which he and Ann had dined
gaily at some little restaurant and gone on afterwards to a dance or
theatre alone together.
But now the change was noticeable. Tony seemed entirely preoccupied with
his own thoughts, and to judge by his manner, they were anything but
pleasant ones. Sometimes he would sit in moody silence for an hour at a
time, making a pretence at reading a magazine. Or he would get up suddenly
when they were all three sitting together, and, without a word to any one,
put on his hat and go out of the house. He never volunteered any
information as to where he spent his evenings, and although Sir Philip
would peer after him with angry, suspicious eyes when he took his
departure, it seemed as if pride--or was it fear of what the answer might
be?--kept the old man from questioning him. When eleven o'clock came,
bringing no Tony, he would get up abruptly, fold his newspaper, and remark
curtly to Ann: "Time we went to bed. No need to wait up for Tony. He has
his latch-key." It was always the same formula, and the next day at
breakfast uncle and nephew would exchange a brief greeting, and no further
reference would be made to the previous evening. It was as though a kind of
armed neutrality prevailed between them.
Decidedly something was radically awry, Ann reflected unhappily. Her visit,
of course, was spoilt. But this troubled her very little in comparison with
her increasing anxiety concerning Tony. He had never kept her out of his
confidence before. She had always been able to stand by him--as she had
promised his mother that she would. But now it seemed as if he had
deliberately assumed an armour of reserve, not only in his relations with
his uncle, but also in his attitude towards Ann herself, and her
helplessness worried her intensely. She felt convinced that there must be
something seriously amiss to account for Tony's extraordinary behaviour,
and finally, the day before her visit was due to terminate, she decided to
consult Mrs. Mellow, Sir Philip's faithful old housekeeper, whom Ann had
known ever since those childhood days when she and Robin had been invited
over to Lorne to have nursery tea with Tony.
Mrs. Mellow was one of the old-fashioned type of housekeeper--a comfortable
black satin person, with pink cheeks and kind blue eyes and crinkly grey
hair surmounted by a lace cap. Her name suited her admirably. When Ann put
her head round the door of the housekeeper's room with the announcement,
"Mellow, dear, I've come to have tea with you, if I may," she welcomed her
with respectful delight.
"Now, come straight in, Miss Ann. As if you even needed to ask! I was
afraid you meant going away this time without coming to have a cup of tea
with your old Mellow."
Ann shook a reproving forefinger at her.
"Now, Mellow, you arch-hypocrite, you know I'd never dare! If I did, I
expect the next time I wanted to come up and frivol in town you'd tell Sir
Philip that you were spring-cleaning or something of the kind and that you
couldn't put me up."
"How you do go on, miss, to be sure!" declared Mrs. Mellow beamingly, as
she bustled about spreading the cloth for tea. "As if you didn't know you
were always as welcome as the flowers in May, spring cleaning or no spring
cleaning! And I suppose, miss"--archly--"it'll be 'Mrs.' the next time you
visit us--if all I hear is true?"
Ann laughed. Throwing her arms round the old woman's neck, she kissed her
warmly.
"Yes, it really will, Mellow. I believe"--teasingly--"you're just aching to
hear all about it?"
"Well, miss," admitted Mellow, holding the kettle, suspended a moment above
the teapot, "I don't want to seem inquisitive or disrespectful, you may be
sure, but I _would_ like to hear a bit about the gentleman who's going to
marry my young lady. I always think of you as my young lady, you know, Miss
Ann. You were more like a daughter than anything else to Master Tony's
mother, God rest her! Perhaps you have his photograph, miss, that you could
show me?"
Ann nodded smilingly--she knew her Mellow, and had anticipated this
request!--and forthwith proceeded to descant on Eliot's various virtues and
the beauty of Heronsmere until Mrs. Mellow declared that she could, as she
phrased it, "picture it all as plain as if she'd seen it herself." Then,
when the good woman's kindly interest was satisfied, Ann embarked on the
quest which had been uppermost in her mind when she sought the
housekeeper's room.
"Mellow, I'm worried about Tony," she announced at last.
The smile died out of Mrs. Mellow's face like the flame of a suddenly
snuffed candle.
"You've noticed it, then, miss?" she parried uneasily.
"Of course I've noticed it. He isn't in the least like himself, and he's
almost always out."
"Yes, miss." Mrs. Mellow shook her head. "I call it rare bad manners to ask
a young lady to the house and then to leave her to entertain herself, as
you may say. And I've told Master Tony so more than once."
"You told him so? What did he say?"
"Why, miss, he looked at me in a funny sort of way, and he said: 'Don't you
worry yourself, Mellow. Miss Ann will understand all about it one day--and
before very long, too.' I couldn't think what he meant, miss. But I didn't
like the way he looked."
Ann's brows were knitted.
"How did he look?" she asked.
"Why, miss, sort of reckless. Like he did that time when we were down at
Lorne last year and he and Sir Philip quarrelled something dreadful. He
came down to me then, Master Tony did, in the housekeeper's room, at Lorne,
and he said: 'Well, I'm off, Mellow, and whether you ever see me again
or not depends on whether you can beat any sense into the head of that
obstinate old man upstairs.' He was mad with anger, was Master Tony, or of
course he wouldn't have spoken like that of his uncle. And I'm blest if
he didn't go out of the house the very next day! Sir Philip was in a rare
taking, I remember."
"He needn't have been," said Ann, smiling. "Tony only came to Oldstone
Cottage and stayed with Robin and me."
"So I heard, miss, afterwards. But, really, at the time I was frightened
lest he should do himself a mischief--he looked so wild."
Ann's heart skipped a beat.
"Do himself a mischief?" she interposed quickly. "What do you mean? How
could he?"
"I don't know _how_, miss. But I tell you, I'm frightened for Master Tony.
I am, truly."
Ann gazed thoughtfully into the fire.
"Where does he spend his time, Mellow? Have you any idea?"
"I have not, miss. But I do know this--that it's sometimes two and three
o'clock in a morning before he comes home. My bedroom's on the ground
floor, as you know, and I hear him come in and go upstairs almost always
after midnight. Last night 'twas near one o'clock, and another night it may
be later still. It bodes no good for a young gentleman to be coming home at
all hours. Of that I _am_ sure."
"I think you're right, Mellow," replied Ann gravely. "Does Sir Philip know
about it, do you think?"
"Indeed, miss, I fancy he guesses. But mostly he's too proud to speak what
he thinks. Though he did say to me, one evening about a week or ten days
before you came here, 'Mellow,' says he, 'the boy's going the same way
as his father.' And then he swore, miss--something awful it was to hear
him--that he'd not lift a finger to keep Master Tony out of the gutter.
'He'll end up in jail, Mellow,' he said, 'and bring shame on the old name.
All I hope is that I'll be dead and buried before it happens.' And with
that he gets up and goes out and slams the door behind him."
Ann was silent. It seemed to her that things were even more seriously amiss
than she had imagined. Mrs. Mellow glanced at her wistfully.
"Do you think, miss, that you could say a word to Master Tony!" she said.
"Talk to him for his own good? He always used to take a lot of notice of
what you said to him, I remember."
"I know he did," returned Ann. "But he doesn't give me any opportunity
of talking to him now"--ruefully. "All the same," she added with
determination, "I shall certainly talk to him before I go home. I'll get
hold of him this evening."
But Tony proved obdurately uncommunicative.
"It's too late to _'talk'_!" he told her, with a roughness that was quite
foreign to him. "All the talking in the world wouldn't mend matters.
It's"--he looked at her oddly--"it's neck or nothing now, Ann."
His eyes were feverishly brilliant, and Ann could see that even during the
last few days his boyish face had grown strangely haggard-looking.
"Tony, you're in trouble of some sort. I wish you'd tell me about it," she
entreated.
"There's nothing to tell. Don't fuss so, Ann"--irritably. "I said it was
neck or nothing. Well, it's going to be _neck_! I swear it shall be. I'm
going to win through all right. And before long, too!"
To Ann's relief he made no suggestion of going out that evening after
dinner--presumably in deference to the fact that she was leaving on the
morrow, and, as Sir Philip appeared tired and Ann had still a few oddments
of packing to finish off, by common consent they all retired early to bed.
Half an hour later, however, as Ann was folding a last remaining frock
into the tray of her trunk, she heard some one very quietly descending the
stairs, and a minute later the house door opened and closed again softly.
A sudden conviction seized her, and she ran swiftly down to the landing
below, where Tony's room was situated, and tapped on his door. No answer
being forthcoming, she threw the door open and looked in. She had switched
on the landing burner as she passed, and the light streamed into the room.
Tony was not there, nor were there any indications that he had contemplated
going to bed. His room was untouched, just as the housemaid had left it
prepared for the night--a fire burning in the grate, the bed neatly turned
down, with his pyjamas laid out on it, a can of hot water, covered with a
towel, standing ready in the basin on the washstand.
Very quietly Ann closed the door and returned to her own room. She had
little doubt what had happened. In consideration of the fact that it was
her last evening Tony had stayed indoors until she and his uncle might
be supposed to be safely in bed. Then he had stolen out of the house and
departed once more on his own pursuits. Ann could make a pretty good guess
that these included gambling in some form or other.
She felt rather sick. It was so unlike Tony to resort to any
hole-and-corner business such as this--slipping out of the house, as he
believed, unknown to any one. That he must be caught in a terrible tangle
of some kind she felt sure, and his mother's last words, as she had lain
on her deathbed, came back to her with redoubled significance. _"And if
Tony gets into difficulties?"_ Vividly she recalled Virginia's imploring
face, the beseeching note in her tired voice. And her own answer: _"If he
does, why, then I'll get him out of them if it's in any way possible."_ It
looked as though the time had come for the fulfilment of that promise. And
ignorant of what danger it could be which threatened Tony, unable to guess
the particular kind of difficulties in which he found himself involved at
the moment, she was powerless to help.
Slowly she undressed and got into bed. But not to sleep. She lay there with
wide-open eyes, every sense alert, listening for the least sound which
might herald Tony's return. She could hear the loud ticking of the tall old
clock on the staircase--tick-tack, tick-tack, tick-tack. Sometimes the
sound of it deceived her into thinking it was a footstep on the stairs, and
she would sit up eagerly in bed, listening intently. But always the
hoped-for sound resolved itself back into the eternal tick-tack of the
clock.
Twelve, one, two o'clock struck, bringing no sign of Tony's return, and
finally, wearied out, Ann fell into a brief slumber from which she awakened
with sudden violence to the knowledge that, at length, there was the sound
of an actual footfall in the house. She heard the stairs creak twice,
unmistakably, then the muffled closing of a door--and silence.
For a moment she hesitated, uncertain how to proceed. Surely she could
sleep in peace now? Tony was safely in the house once more, and to-morrow
she would have a heart-to-heart talk with him and induce him to confide in
her. But instantaneously her mind rejected the idea. Something bade her
act, and act immediately. Urged by that imperative inner impulse, she rose
and, throwing on a wrapper, ran swiftly down the stairs, her bare feet
soundless on the carpet, and paused irresolutely outside Tony's bedroom
door. Her hand was raised to knock softly on the panel, when all at once
an odd little noise came to her from the inside of the room--a curious
metallic sound, like the dull clink of metal dragged slowly across wood.
Seized by a sudden overwhelming fear, she flung open the door. Tony was
standing beside an old mahogany bureau, one drawer of which had been pulled
open. His arm was half-raised. In his hand he gripped a revolver. Ann could
see the light from the rose-shaded burners run redly along its barrel like
a thin stream of blood. In the fraction of a second she had fled across the
room and grasped his wrist.
"Tony! What are you doing?" she cried hoarsely.
She felt his arm jerk against her hold, resisting it, but she clung
determinedly to his wrist with her small strong fingers.
"Give it to me! Give it to me!" she whispered hurryingly, hardly conscious
of what she was saying.
His instinctive resistance ceased. She felt his muscles relax, and he
allowed her to take the pistol from him. He stared down at her curiously.
"Pity you didn't come two minutes later," he observed laconically.
Without reply, she proceeded to unload the revolver. He watched her with a
faint, apathetic amusement.
"Shouldn't have thought you knew how to do that," he said.
"I learned how to handle a revolver during the war," she returned grimly.
She crossed the room and very softly closed the door. "Now, Tony," she went
on, turning back and forcing herself to speak composedly, "you're going to
tell me all about it. Things must be pretty bad for you to have thought
of--this." She glanced down with shrinking repugnance at the weapon which
she still held. All at once the apathy which seemed to have possessed him
vanished. He turned on her with sudden violence.
"Why did you come? If you hadn't, I should be safely out of it all!... Out
of it all!... Oh, my God!..."
He dropped into a chair, burying his face in his hands, and the utter
despair in his voice tore at Ann's heart. What had happened--what could
have happened that Tony should seek to take his own life? Mechanically
she stooped to replace the revolver in the opened drawer from which he
had evidently taken it. A few loose cartridges still lay there, together
with some torn scraps of paper and a blank cheque. Almost unconsciously
her glance took in the contents of the drawer. Then suddenly it
checked--concentrated. She caught her breath sharply and looked at Tony, a
horrified, incredulous question in her eyes. But he was still sitting with
his head buried in his hands, silent and motionless.
Very slowly, as though she approached her hand to something nauseous and
abhorrent, Ann reached out and withdrew one of the torn sheets of paper and
stared at it. It was covered with repeated copyings of a single
name--sometimes the whole name, sometimes only one or other of the initial
letters to it. And the name which some one was taking such pains to learn
to write was that of her godfather, Philip Brabazon... Philip Brabazon...
the sheet was covered with it, and some of the signatures were a very fair
imitation of the old man's handwriting.
Ann snatched up the blank cheque. It was one that had been torn from Sir
Philip's cheque-book. She could see that at a glance--remembered so clearly
noticing the same heading on the cheque which he had given her towards her
trousseau--the Watchester and Loamshire Bank. She held out to Tony the two
pieces of paper--the sheet of scribbled signatures and the blank cheque.
"Tony," she said, her voice cracking a little. "What--what are these?"
The tense, vibrating horror in her tones roused him. He looked up wearily.
Then, as he saw what she held, a dull red flush mounted slowly to his face.
For a moment he did not speak. When he did, his voice sounded dead--flat
and toneless.
"Those," he said, "are attempts on my part to forge my uncle's signature."
She stared at him speechlessly. Then, a sudden new fear shaking her, she
went quickly to his side, thrusting the blank cheque under his eyes.
"Tony--you haven't done it before?... This--this isn't.... How many cheques
of his have you had?"
"One," he said. "That one"--nodding towards the narrow pink slip she held.
Ann gave, a gasp of relief. "Yes," he went on, "I found I couldn't do it.
The old man's been decent to me, after all. He'd have hated the old name
muddied by--by forgery."
"And do you think he'd like it stained by suicide?" she demanded fiercely.
"Oh, Tony, you coward! You coward!"
It was as if she had struck him across the face. He sprang up, his eyes
blazing.
"How dare you say that?" he cried stormily.
"I say it because it's true," she returned, her voice quivering. "Thank God
you haven't committed forgery! And thank God I was in time to stop your
taking this cowardly--utterly cowardly--way out of things. You've got
into a mess, and you wanted to get out of it--the easiest way. Did you
ever stop to think of us--afterwards? Of your uncle, and me, or of Doreen
Neville--all of us who cared for you? Oh! I wouldn't have believed it of
you, Tony!"
"You don't know how bad things are," he said desperately. "You've _got_ to
be hurt--you, and uncle, and--and Doreen." His voice broke, then steadied
again. "I've got myself in such a mess that a bullet was the best way
out--for everybody."
"I don't believe it," answered Ann, with stubborn courage. "There's some
other way. There always is--only we've got to look for it--find it."
Suddenly her heart overflowed in pity for this white-faced, haggard boy who
must have suffered so bitterly, must have gone down into the veriest depths
of despair, before he had been driven to seek that short and terrible way
out of life. She held out her hands to him. "Tony, let me help! Let's look
for a way out together. I'm your pal. I've always been your pal. Why did
you bear all this alone instead of letting me share?"
At the touch of her strong, kind little hands he broke down for a moment.
Turning aside, he leaned his arms on the chimneypiece and hid his face. A
hard, stifled sob tore its way through his throat and his shoulders shook.
Ann remained silent, giving him time in which to recover his self-command.
Her heart was full almost to breaking-point with that eager, mothering
tenderness which a woman instinctively feels for a man in trouble. She is
the eternal mother, then--he the eternal child.
When at last Tony lifted his head from his arms he was very pale, but his
eyes held a look of resolution.
"I'll tell you," he said jerkily.
Bit by bit the painful story came out--the same familiar story, only
infinitely aggravated, of high play, losses, then still higher play
in a desperate hope of recovery, and finally, the confession of heavy
borrowings, of notes of hand given and accepted--and now falling due.
"That's the devil of it--the time's up and they're due for payment," wound
up Tony hoarsely. "Payment! And I haven't twenty pounds in the world."
As Ann listened to the stumbling recital, her face paled and grew very
grave. This was worse--far worse than she had anticipated.
"How much, do you owe--altogether, Tony?" she asked at last, when he had
finished speaking.
"Twelve hundred."
"Twelve hundred pounds!" The largeness of the amount left her momentarily
aghast, and the vague idea she had been harbouring that Robin and she might
scrape up a hundred or two between them and so put matters straight
crumbled to atoms.
Twelve hundred pounds! In her wildest imaginings she had never dreamed of
Tony's owing such a sum. She shivered a little, partly from nerves, partly
from sheer physical cold. The fire had smouldered to black ash long ere
this, and the chill air which precedes the dawn was creeping into the room.
Even the necessity of conducting the entire conversation in lowered tones,
in order not to disturb the sleeping household, added to the aguish,
strained feeling of which she was conscious.
"There is only one thing to do, Tony," she said at last. "You must tell Sir
Philip."
A sharp ejaculation escaped him, hastily stifled as she raised a warning
finger enjoining silence.
"Sh! Don't make a noise! We mustn't wake any one," she cautioned him. "You
_must_ tell Sir Philip," she resumed. "There's simply nothing else to be
done."
"It would be utterly useless," he replied with quiet conviction. "He
wouldn't pay. He said he wouldn't, last time. And he meant it.... You'd
better have let me blow out my brains while I was about it, Ann"--with, a
mirthless laugh.
"Don't talk rot," she returned succinctly.
"It's not rot. Don't you see I'm done for--gone in? A man who borrows,
as I've done, and _can't pay_, is finished. Outside the pale. You don't
suppose they'll let Doreen marry me after this, do you?"
Ann shook her head voicelessly. She could see--only too clearly--all the
consequences which must inevitably follow if the matter became public.
It signalled the end of things for Tony. It meant a ruined life--love,
happiness, a clean name, all would go down in the general crash.
"The only thing I can do," he resumed hopelessly, "is to emigrate. Bolt,
and start fresh somewhere."
Ann set her teeth.
"You're not going to bolt," she said doggedly. She was silent for a moment,
thinking feverishly. There must he some way out--some way, if she could
only come upon it.
"Whom do you owe this money to?" she demanded at last. "Several different
people, I suppose?"
"No. One man offered to be my banker till--till my luck came round again,"
confessed Tony. "And I let him. But I didn't know I'd borrowed so much. It
seemed to mount up all in a moment."
"'In a moment!'" There was a tiny edge of contempt to Ann's voice. "How
long have you been borrowing from this man?"
"Oh, for a goodish time--on and off. I've paid back some. I'd have paid it
all back if I'd only had a stroke of luck. But I've been losing every night
for the last month."
Luck! The weak man's eternal excuse for failure Ann felt as though she
loathed the very word.
"Who is the man you borrowed from?" she asked.
Tony preserved an embarrassed silence.
"Who is it?" she repeated. "I must know, Tony. We can't plan anything to
help if you're not absolutely frank."
"Well, if you must know--it's Brett Forrester," he said wretchedly. "It's
beastly, I know, his being a friend of yours."
Brett Forrester! Ann remained very silent, with bent head, absorbing the
full significance of this confession. It seemed suddenly to have thrown
an immense burden of responsibility upon her. Brett! As Tony said, he was
a friend of hers. And desired to be much more than a friend, if Tony but
knew! Were it not for this, it would have been simple enough for her to go
and use her influence with Brett--ask him out of sheer friendliness to her
to give Tony a chance--to grant him time in which to pay. It would have
to be a very long time, she reflected. But perhaps, when she was Eliot's
wife... Eliot was generous ... he would not think twice about paying twelve
hundred pounds to give happiness to the woman he loved--to purchase peace
of mind for her. And she would economise in her own personal expenses and
so try to balance matters. Eliot had told her that one of his earliest
presents to her was to be a new and very perfectly equipped car for her own
special use. She would forego the car--ask him to pay Tony's debts instead.
Her thoughts raced along.
But all this presupposed that Brett would be willing to wait a little for
his money. If there had been only friendship between herself and Brett, Ann
felt she could so easily have begged a chance for Tony. But to approach the
man who had desired to marry her so much that he had been willing to go to
almost any length to force her into marriage with him, this man whom she
had defied and scorned at their last meeting--to ask a boon, a favour
from him, seemed of all things the most impossible. To do so would be to
strangle her pride, to walk deliberately through the valley of humiliation.
Oh, she couldn't do it! She couldn't do it!
Virginia's sad, entreating voice seemed to plead in her ear: "_Ann, will
you do what you can for him--for him and for me?_" It was almost as though
she were there in the room, an invisible presence, beseeching, supplicating
mercy for her son--claiming the fulfilment of the promise Ann had made so
many years ago. "'If it's in any way possible,' Ann," the voice seemed to
urge. "_'In any way'_ you said. And it _is_ possible. You could save Tony
if you would."
After what appeared to Tony an interminable time, Ann lifted her bent head.
Her face was white to the lips, but her eyes were strangely bright--like
golden stars, he thought. They looked almost unearthly.
"Don't worry, Tony," she said. Familiar little comforting phrase! "Don't
worry, old boy. Leave it all to me. I'm sure I can put things straight.
I'll talk to Brett--I'm certain he'll do what I ask and give you time to
pay."
"Time?" Tony laughed harshly. "If I had all the time until eternity I
couldn't produce twelve hundred pounds!"
"But I could," asserted Ann confidently. "Won't you trust me, Tony? I'm
sure--_sure_ that I can get you out of this scrape."
He looked at her in blank amazement. But something in her face convinced
him that she was speaking the truth--that he could rely on her.
"If you do," he said, and his voice rang true as steel, "I give you my
word, Ann, that I'll never get into another. I'll chuck gambling from this
day forth."
"Will you, Tony? Will you really?" she cried eagerly.
He took her hands in his.
"I promise," he said simply.
The two strained young faces gleamed palely in the chill dawnlight--on
each of them the impress of a stern resolution. Suddenly, moved by an
irresistible impulse of compassion, Ann lifted her arms and laying her
hands on either side Tony's face, drew it down level with her own. Then she
bent forward and kissed his forehead--tenderly, as his mother might have
kissed him.
"Good night, Tony boy," she said. And a minute later her slender figure
flitted, ghost-like, up the stairs to her own room.