THE SIN OF SYLVIA ANNESLEY.
“My ring--it was my ring he wore all the time, with the stone turned
inside his hand!”
Alone in her dressing-room, Ravenel’s head whirled.
“But how did he get it, and why did he wear it after the way he treated
me? I can’t make the two things match.”
All dressed for dinner, she stood looking at herself in the glass as
being a ladylike and thoughtful occupation to be discovered in by
Tommy or Levallion; and the silver-strewn luxury of her toilet-table
suddenly reminded her of another table, in the one sumptuous room of a
poverty-stricken house.
“Sylvia!” she gasped. “It must have been Sylvia.”
A light flashed into her eyes that had not been there for many a day.
Adrian was in the house, must get better, and the very first day he was
fit she would have the whole story--his story--out of him. And then----
Lady Levallion, with a sudden numbness, a curdling of her young blood,
dropped heavily into a chair. Not even God’s own truth could matter to
her now. The work, whether her ladyship’s or Adrian’s, was done--and
done thoroughly. And Levallion--she straightened herself as at a sudden
wound--Levallion had been a friend of Sylvia’s! But the thought passed
as it had come, and left her ashamed. Levallion could have had nothing
to do with Adrian’s passing himself off for an unmarried man.
“Adrian lied to me and threw me overboard,” she said to herself, “and
Levallion picked me up out of the sea. That’s all I dare remember now
out of the whole jumble. But I’ll find out about the ring, anyhow. Even
Levallion,” clinging obstinately to that senseless trust in him that
had grown up in her, “would not mind my knowing the truth--if Adrian
can tell it.” And, with that queer numbness in her that she did not
know was despair, she went down-stairs to face the new world she had
made for herself, which the sight of a battered ring had shattered in
her very hands.
But to get at the root of the matter was not so easy. There was
Levallion, who had nearly annihilated Sister Elizabeth and forbidden
her on pain of instant dismissal ever to allow Lady Levallion to behold
horrors. And there was Tommy. Tommy, dogged, cheerful, and ubiquitous;
his sister’s aching impatience almost turned to hatred of Tommy, who
drove and rode and talked with her--on indifferent subjects--till he
nearly sent her frantic. And Adrian was mending every hour; any day
might take it into his head to get up and go away with a bare good-by.
Pale and big-eyed, Ravenel stood by the library window and stared out,
so that her back was turned to the policing gaze of Sir Thomas. It
was a fine day, but she never noticed. She twisted her ringless hands
hard together that she might not turn round on Tommy and tell him, for
Heaven’s sake, to let her be for one-half hour.
Levallion, coming in, spoke to her twice before she heard him.
“Yes!” she turned guiltily, for of all the things that hurt her the
most was the look on Levallion’s face, where happiness and content
seemed to have ironed out the sardonic lines. There was no guilty
conscience at work in Levallion--and once she had thought Gordon a
better man than he!
“Yes! I was looking at some one. Who’s that?” She had that very minute
caught sight of a figure in the garden.
“Gad!” Levallion’s hawk eyes looked over her shoulders. “The fellow’s
cool. That, madam, is your cook, and, if I am not mistaken, he is
picking your flowers and smoking a cigarette on your lawn. Delightfully
at home is Carrousel! But,” his quizzical gaze darkened suddenly. The
chef, arrayed in tweeds remarkably like Levallion’s own, and bearing a
large bunch of the best of the late autumn flowers, had let himself out
of the garden by a gate sacred to the use of master and mistress and
departed, leaving behind him, under their very noses, a half-smoked
cigarette and a copy of an old, pink newspaper.
The window was open, and to his lordship’s nostrils came the dying
aroma of his own tobacco, the while the pink and atrocious newspaper
fluttered softly in the breeze.
“That gentleman requires occupation.” In withdrawing his head Levallion
bumped it, which did not allay his irritation. “I don’t require my cook
as an ornament in my private garden, nor his garbage papers on my lawn,
and so I shall inform him. I wonder where the devil he’s going! I’m
certain he’s got on my clothes.”
Sir Thomas forgot he was Sherlock Holmes.
“Gorgeous, ain’t he?” he observed rapturously.
“He can be as gorgeous as he likes--in the kitchen,” Levallion drawled
acidly. “Which reminds me, Ravenel; Houghton says there is no need to
put off having people here any longer; Adrian won’t mind a noisy house;
he’ll be quite recovered in a day or two. So I suppose we’d better ask
some people for the pheasants--a house-party will be an excellent tonic
for Monsieur Carrousel, and cheer up Adrian.”
A house full of people! Ravenel’s heart contracted. Farewell to all
chance of speaking to Adrian then!
“Cowardy, cowardy custard!” remarked Sir Thomas, with more tact than
elegance. “Ravenel is afraid of being a hostess, ain’t you, my dear?”
“I am. I’m terrified,” snatching at anything that was true. “I don’t
want them much, Levallion!”
“I don’t want ’em at all,” returned his lordship dryly. “But, being
over head and ears in debt for invitations to every soul I know, I
don’t see how we can avoid asking them. And Tommy and I can shoot all
the pheasants ourselves.”
“Tommy has to go back to his crammer’s!” ungratefully.
“Fortunately, he hasn’t,” with a glance of real liking, which the boy
returned. “I forgot to tell you. Two of the men there have scarlet
fever; and the house is quarantined. Therefore, Sir Thomas and the
inestimable Mr. Jacobs--who had killed two rats and broken three
priceless vases in the business!--will have to stay with us. Sad, isn’t
it?”
“You bet!” said Tommy cheerfully. “I’ll help you through, Ravenel. I
like women; it’s funny most women don’t!” thoughtfully.
“Have I got to write the invitations?” her voice was curiously sullen,
unguarded; for surely it was the very irony of fate that should make
her summon a lot of people, under whose eyes she and Adrian would have
to meet day in and day out, with everything unexplained between them.
Levallion chuckled, but his eyes were very sweet.
“You are not a beast of burden,” he observed, in that slow, soft way of
his. “I’ll summon the heathen for next week, in your name. And I trust
their requirements will occupy our cook--at least, what’s left of him
after I see him,” looking with unabated annoyance at the scurrilous
sheet the breeze had fluttered to the very window.
Sir Thomas, seeing Levallion in possession, had retired on business of
his own; and Levallion laid his fine hand, that, if it were not young,
was still beautiful, on his wife’s bronze head.
“You’re not really afraid of your party, are you?” he said with a
tenderness that sat oddly on him. “For you know it is I who should be
that! If I were wise I’d shut you up alone with me, and save trouble.
You’re too good-looking, little mouse, for women not to hate you, and
men”--he shrugged his shoulders--“and you’ve only my battered old bones
between you and a somewhat overrated civilization.” There was something
wistful in his voice, despite its cynicism, and it hurt her.
“Don’t speak like that!” she cried sharply, passionately. “It wasn’t
that I meant. Only that I’m eighteen and an ignorant fool. How do I
know how to entertain people? Suppose I disgrace you!”
He laughed, still stroking her hair; and the laugh had the ring of
Adrian’s, and hurt her.
“I will frown at you when I see you eating with your knife. Dearest,
I wish you would do a little now in the hostessing way, if you don’t
mind! Go and see Adrian; he’s up, and it doesn’t seem kind not to
take any notice of him. Would you go? I know you hate illness, but
he really does not look very dreadful. And would you give him this?”
drawing something from his pocket. “I dare say he would rather you knew
of his love-tokens than I,” smiling.
Ravenel’s heart banged against her ribs. He was holding out to her that
ring that was her own.
“If--if you want me to,” she said. Almost she could have let
Adrian go with that ring unexplained rather than have had
Levallion--Levallion!--put her opportunity in her hand.
“He will think it odd if you never go near him, I fancy. But just as
you like!” and his hand with the ring in it moved toward his pocket.
“I’ll go,” she said quickly, involuntarily; for after all she was not
brave enough to let the knowledge she longed for go by forever. She
dared not look at Levallion’s face, lest she should forget herself and
pour out the whole reason of her reluctance to be sent--by him--to
Adrian. An appropriate and delightful confidence it would be, too, for
her husband’s ears. But if she did tell he would not hear her; he had
no opinion of confessions. Had he not said once that “he wanted to know
nothing about her that he did not know already--nothing!”
She held out her hand for the emerald ring.
* * * * *
At the quick faint knock on the door a man looked up from a paper he
was pretending to read.
“Come in,” he said impatiently, wishing Sister Elizabeth and her messes
elsewhere.
But it was not Sister Elizabeth.
Gordon jumped up and sat down again, furious at finding how weak he
was, and how his heart jumped at the sight of her face.
For Ravenel stood in the doorway; and yet not Ravenel, but Lady
Levallion. His eyes went over her, losing not a point of the dainty,
artificial look she had in her fine clothes.
Her bronze hair she had been used to twist carelessly was dressed
exquisitely, in the rippling smooth yet fluffed outlines that were the
fashion; her gown, that had been cotton, was finest white serge now,
and the frou-frou of its silk lining reached him as she closed the door
behind her; her little feet--but he could not look at those little
feet. Truly, she had done well to leave him for Levallion; he could
never have given her shoes with silver buckles like those!
“This is extremely kind of you,” he said awkwardly. “Will you excuse my
not getting up?” and even as he forced out the words he was thankful he
had let Levallion’s man shave him clean of his scrubby, week-old beard,
and bring him decent clothes instead of a dressing-gown. But Lady
Levallion’s eyes were on his haggard, weary face and not on his toilet.
“Are you better?” she asked, standing yards away from him, and he
remembered how she had come closer indeed last May. “Is the nurse here?”
“No!” wonderingly. “At her tea. Won’t you--sit down?”
She shook her head, and he saw with a queer listlessness that she was
shaking from head to foot.
“I didn’t want to come,” she cried, as if his indifference had thrown
her back on herself. “Levallion sent me. I was to ask how you were,
and--give you this!” Flushing, trembling, she held out his ring.
Gordon held his tongue. No wonder she had not wanted to come. And then
his temper nearly betrayed him.
“He could not have found a messenger more charming,” he said, with icy
politeness.
Ravenel caught her breath.
“Oh, I know you hate me!” she cried. “I know how you changed your mind
at the last minute--though that was the only decent thing you ever
did--and never came for me; left me like an old shoe for any one to
pick up after you had made my name a by-word. But I mean you to tell me
one thing in spite of my--self-respect.” Her voice shook like her body.
“Where did you get my ring?”
He gazed at her in blind stupefaction.
“You sent it back to me,” he said bluntly, “in your anger. I can’t see
why you ask.”
“I!” said Lady Levallion. “I sent it back to you!” The ring fell from
her hand and rolled where it would on the floor. Her gray eyes seemed
suddenly to come alive, to blaze in her pale face.
“Where’s the letter?” she cried scornfully. “Show me the letter.”
“I can’t; it’s in town with my things. God knows why I was fool enough
to keep it, but I was. And more fool still, for I know it by heart. But
you can’t need to hear it.”
“Say it!” She stamped her foot.
“Thank you very much for your present.” In spite of his puzzled anger,
he obliged her, in a voice utterly flat and lifeless. “But I don’t
want to keep your ring. I send it back in this. You had better wear it
yourself.
“RAVENEL.”
“And, as you see, I did, being, as I said, a fool.”
“Lady Annesley! It was Lady Annesley’s ring,” she said, standing as
if her wits had gone from her, wild, shamelessly truthful. “Listen! I
never wrote to you; I didn’t know your address, since you never gave it
to me. And if I had written I couldn’t have sent you back your ring,
for I lost it the day before the duchess’ garden-party. Yes, two days,”
marking them off on her fingers, “before that afternoon I waited for
you and didn’t know you’d thrown me over to sink or swim!”
“You waited--you!” Sister Elizabeth would have screamed with wonder to
see the invalid get up like another man, cross the floor between him
and his hostess in three strides, and catch her by the shoulder with
his sound hand. “For God’s sake, Nel, speak out, since you’ve begun!”
The old name, the old voice with the passion in it broke down her
courage, made her forget for one short while that more than lost
rings lay between him and her. With a lump in her throat that made
her hoarse, she told him all the sorry little story in quick, husky
whispers, lest some one might overhear.
“So when you said in your note that you’d be at the duchess’ I went.
Lady Annesley gave me a gown. You were not there, and I came home. You
said you would come the next day and you never did. And Levallion
told me you had sailed--without a word to me. And I’d lost that ring,”
passionately.
“Levallion! How did he come across you?” with a ghastly wonder if
Levallion were quite clean of the business, and heedless that he had
never said why he was not at the duchess’. But Ravenel noted.
“He was at the party and was kind to me.” With a sudden aside she
remembered, and faced him stonily. “But there’s no earthly sense in all
this! Of course, when I heard you had a wife already I knew you had
excellent reason to leave me. It was the first honorable thing you ever
did.”
“A wife--me!” His hand on her shoulder relaxed suddenly. “Who told you
a lie like that? And how in the name of God did you dare to believe it?”
“Mrs. Murray--Hester Murray--told me. As for believing it, it seemed
all of a piece.”
“Hester Murray told you--Hester!” His face had been pale enough, but
it was blanched now. He remembered suddenly that he was in Levallion’s
house, talking to Levallion’s wife--that at any cost no one must come
in and find her like this.
“Sit down,” he said. “And I can’t stoop; would you mind picking up that
ring?” for it looked like a glove cast down for battle. “Now, tell me
about Mrs. Murray. What did she say?”
“That you found Mrs. Gordon very expensive and a drain on you, and that
it had been a boyish folly of yours,” she said from her chair at a
decent distance from his. “Who did she mean, if not your wife?”
Adrian Gordon was dumb. In Levallion’s house Levallion’s wife asked him
this!