There was a silence of amazement, of doubt, of consternation; and
the men who thronged the showroom looked at each other, and then at
the daring woman who had brought this accusation, as it seemed,
against the well-known, the irreproachable, the wealthy Mr. Candover.
Perhaps the most shocked of all the listeners to this unexpected
tirade was Sir Harry Archdale, who, himself a victim of the unfair
play carried on at “The Briars,” had been only too willing to look
upon the intrusion of a black sheep there as an unhappy accident, and
upon Audrey as a victim like himself of that intrusion.
But, wishing as he did to take her part, he had been considerably
perturbed by the opposite views of her which were commonly held among
the habitués of “The Briars,” and now that she had the audacity and
the bad taste to fling a direct accusation into the face of one of the
most prominent men of his own set, Sir Harry at once took fire, and
mindful of the fact that the man whom she accused was the father of
the lovely Pamela, he stepped forward boldly, and was the very first
to put a question to the angry lady.
“Madame Rocada,” said he, deferentially as far as manner went, but in
an offended tone, “you will, I’m sure, think it only right, when you
say a thing which affects all, or almost all of us, to be more
explicit. Whom do you accuse of cheating? Who are the members of the
gang of swindlers you refer to?”
Audrey, already trembling from the effects of her own boldness, turned
to him and answered in a broken but determined voice:--
“One of them you know. His name--or the name he goes by--is Durley
Diggs. He was Mr. Candover’s secretary.”
“Was, not is,” retorted Mr. Candover, speaking for the first time, and
as coolly as if the accusation just brought were no concern of his,
though his face was very pale and his eyes wore a strange and almost
glassy look. “When I heard that complaints had been made about his
play I discharged him at once from my employment--as you must
remember, Madame Rocada.”
“Yes, Madame, you told me so yourself,” said Sir Harry.
But Audrey was not to be cowed, not to be forced into retracting a
word, now that she had once strung herself up to the point of open
accusation. Clasping her hands tightly together, and conscious, with a
fierce feeling of resentment and despair, that all these men were as
fools and children in the hands of this clever scoundrel who had made
a tool of herself, she made no reply to this, but, after a moment’s
pause, went on doggedly:--
“Then there is a man who calls himself Johnson. There have been
complaints of him.”
“When?” asked Mr. Candover sharply.
“Only two nights ago.”
“And will you tell us where these accusations were made, and by whom?”
he went on with the same provocative calmness.
“They were made--the disturbance arose--about four o’clock in the
morning, when cards were being played in the billiard-room at ‘The
Briars,’ and they were made by more than one man.”
“Were you present, Madame?”
“Not in the room. But I overheard the disturbance, and I challenge any
of you who were there, you, Sir Barnaby, were one, and one of the
young Angmerings was another--to deny that there was a disturbance,
and that Johnson was accused of cheating.”
There was a moment’s silence. Then Sir Barnaby said, in a tone of
veiled insolence that cut her to the quick:--
“I am greatly distressed at having to speak to a woman--a lady--upon
such a matter. I had admired your tact, Madame Rocada, in keeping out
of all discussions and scenes of this sort. We have all understood and
admired the way in which you conducted the premises and managed the
business, unseen, but making your presence felt, and keeping up a high
standard of decorum. I cannot but think you are very unwise to have
forced us, as you are doing, into speaking out upon a subject which
could very well have been disposed of without the painful necessity of
dragging a lady into it.”
Every word burned into Audrey’s brain. Careful as he was to speak with
outward respect, Sir Barnaby was, as Audrey felt, absolutely convinced
that she was the keeper of a gaming-house of a shady sort, and that
she had known all about the play which was carried on in the
billiard-room until the small hours of the morning. How, indeed, could
she wonder at this being the case? Was not the strangest fact in
connection with this business that she had been in ignorance of so
much for so long? Even as she listened, she felt how impossible it
would have been for her to believe in such a story as her own, in such
a blind confidence as she had shown, in the possibility of a grown
woman, perfectly innocent, allowing herself to be used as a puppet in
such a scandalous affair.
This terrible consciousness began to oppress her, to paralyse her
tongue, to blanch her cheeks, until she felt within her the dreadful
certainty that not one of all the men who watched her, some furtively,
some openly, doubted the truth of what Sir Barnaby was saying.
When he paused there was a sort of murmur, and some of the men moved
towards the door, anxious to escape the rest of a painful scene. But
Mr. Candover, foreseeing their intention, quietly interposed his
person between them and the door, anxious concerning the impression
they might carry away with them.
“I--I have had nothing to do with it. I--I have always disapproved of
the play--I have protested against it. And I--I knew nothing about the
billiard-room until two nights ago.”
These last words were too much for any one’s credulity. There was
again a sort of murmur, and Sir Harry Archdale openly smiled.
Audrey, conscious that the feeling was against her, turned her head
away from them all without another word.
But the movement, her evident distress combined with her youth and
beauty, turned the current of feeling suddenly in her favour again.
Mr. Candover perceived this tendency, and spoke:--
“We are quite ready, Madame Rocada,” said he, in a tone of exaggerated
deference which hurt her more than open insolence would have done, “to
believe what you say, that you disapprove of cards, that you have
protested against play at ‘The Briars,’ and that you knew nothing
whatever about the late hours in the billiard-room, although you knew
all about the disturbance two nights ago.”
Audrey turned fiercely towards him, but a certain consciousness that
these last words had turned the tide of feeling once more against her,
kept her dumb. He went on:--
“But you must understand that when you say you harboured a gang of
swindlers under your roof----”
“I didn’t say that!” cried she aghast.
Mr. Candover turned to the rest of the men with uplifted eyebrows.
“Then I’m afraid we’ve misunderstood you,” he went on suavely.
“Certainly I understood, for my part, that you said we were all either
swindlers or swindled, and that you had no more sympathy for the one
lot than for the other. Did we misunderstand you in thinking you said
that?”
“I did say that,” sobbed out Audrey, who was not crying, but who could
not speak except in spasmodic jerks.
“I thought so. Well, then, is it too much to ask that you should be a
little more explicit, that you should tell us, in short, who are the
swindlers and who the swindled?”
There was another dead silence. Painful, pitiful as it was to see this
young and lovely woman brought thus to bay, the matter was too
exciting for any one to feel inclined to let the affair rest there. It
almost seemed--Mr. Candover took care to let it seem--that they all
rested under some sort of imputation until she could be made to speak
out.
Audrey felt, however, that she would get no sympathy, no belief, if
she were to tell the truth. And in despair she said so.
“What is the use of asking me,” she said bitterly, “to say any more?
Not one of you would believe me, if I did. No. All I say is this: the
play at ‘The Briars’ was not fair play, at least it was not always
fair. I have proved it to you in two instances. Well, that ought to be
enough for you. For me to accuse anybody whose cheating has not been
found out would be useless, even if it were possible. All I do, all I
have done, is to warn you that the men who have done the unfair work
were acting together, and, I believe, acting under orders. And as for
the rest--as for discovering under whose orders they acted, they
cheated, why, surely that is your business, the business of those who
have lost money--not mine!”
“No, but it’s not enough. You ought to tell us who it is. It’s not
fair to bring an accusation and then to draw back,” protested Sir
Harry, who felt all the more strongly because he had been inclined to
look upon this lovely woman as a victim, and who now felt that he had
been befooled.
Mr. Candover’s voice broke in suavely after the young man’s
hot-tempered outburst.
“As far as one could judge,” he said very calmly, but with an air
which suggested a certain amused contempt under his quiet manner,
“Madame Rocada appeared to accuse _me_ of being the ringleader in the
offences of which she spoke. Wasn’t that your impression, Sir
Barnaby?” he went on, turning to the baronet, who appeared
disconcerted by the direct question, and who looked, as indeed he
felt, reluctant to take further part in this unpleasant scene, in
which a young, beautiful and unhappy woman was forced, as it were, to
stand at bay against six or eight men.
“Oh, really I don’t know. I heard nobody in particular accused, except
Johnson and Diggs,” answered Sir Barnaby. “Haven’t we had enough of
it? It’s confoundedly awkward!” he added in a lower voice to Candover,
trying to hook him by the arm and lead him away.
“I think,” said Sir Harry, who felt the implied imputation upon Mr.
Candover the more keenly that he was a great admirer of that
gentleman’s pretty daughter, “that Madame Rocada ought to do one thing
or the other. Either to let us know who are the other members of what
she calls the ‘gang,’ or else--to withdraw the imputations she has
certainly made.”
Sir Barnaby caught at the suggestion.
“Oh, certainly, certainly. I’m sure Madame will be ready to do that.
We all allow--we can’t deny that there were two black sheep, and that
we were very dull not to have found them out before. I feel sure
Madame said a little more than she meant to do, and that she is just
as anxious to put an end to this as any of us. Aren’t you, Madame
Rocada?”
And he turned to Audrey, with real concern in his eyes, genuinely
anxious to make it easy for her to retreat from the daring and
dangerous position she had taken up.
But Audrey would not retract. On the other hand, as it was useless for
her to try to maintain her position by words which, she felt, would
only be looked upon as wild and malignant accusations, she merely
said, looking at Sir Barnaby, and speaking in a low and unsteady
voice:--
“I have nothing more to say--nothing.”
“No, of course not. And you retract all accusations, or supposed
accusations, don’t you?” persisted the baronet, putting his
good-natured red face persuasively near to hers, and smiling into her
eyes in a coaxing manner which met with no response.
“I don’t retract,” she said simply. “There is nothing I can retract.
And some day--sooner or later--you will all find out that what I’ve
said is true.”
Then she sailed away through the room to the door, and the men
instinctively made way for her, while Sir Harry, who was the nearest
to the door, opened it for her to pass out.
But before she could do so, while therefore she was still within
hearing, there sounded suddenly through the room these words, spoken
by Mr. Candover in a voice which was carefully subdued as if to escape
her ears, but which was, in reality, so pitched that, while it was
scarcely more than a whisper, every word reached her ears
distinctly:--
“And that woman--who dares to talk to us all in that strain, to bring
accusations, to talk of gangs of swindlers--is the wife of a convict!”
The words came like a bombshell into the group, and the very men who
had felt compunction for their share in the scene, the very men who
had been all but convinced by her spirit and her proud yet innocent
bearing were on the instant filled with amazement and indignation,
while the suspicions which had begun to melt away became at once as
strong as ever.
For Audrey certainly heard the words uttered by Mr. Candover, since
they caused a shiver to pass through her. Every eye was turned upon
her as she wheeled round in the doorway, and said, in a low voice,
with biting emphasis:--
“Gentlemen, I have done my best to protect you--from yourselves. I
thank you--for your chivalrous return.”
Then she tottered through the doorway, rejecting with a cold gesture
Sir Barnaby’s proffered help, and shutting herself into the little
room at the back where she used to leave her walking dress when she
came to and from the showrooms every day, she locked herself in, sat
down on the nearest chair, and remained like a woman struck with
paralysis, unable to think, unable to do anything but feel that last
terrible wound inflicted by Mr. Candover.
The wife of a convict! The wife of a convict! This was the weapon he
had held in reserve all this time, knowing that he could rely upon it
to quench every feeling of pity or respect which might be felt towards
the poor victim of his craft!
Audrey understood now better than ever how closely the net was drawn
about her feet, how strong were the meshes which bound her.
The wife of a convict! And she had not been able to say one word in
refutation of the taunt. She was the wife of a man who had been
convicted, and that, in the eyes of the world, was enough to place
both her and her husband beyond the pale of sympathy. Yet, why should
it be so? Why should they take it for granted that she was worthless,
just because they took it for granted that her husband, having been
convicted, must be a criminal? Why were they so blind as to suppose
that she, who denounced the cheating that had gone on at “The Briars,”
was in league with the cheats?
She could not understand it. She could not realise how subtilly Mr.
Candover had been at work, representing her as a miracle of artful
prudence, whose airs of innocence hid the most careful and cautious
system of self-preservation.
While she wondered why they could not read guilt in his pale face, in
his burning, angry eyes, the rest of the men were listening to Mr.
Candover’s comments on her behaviour, on her cleverness in being blind
to everything until there was a “row,” and in then running away and
assuming airs of virtuous indignation over an occurrence which to her
must have been an everyday affair.
For a long, long time Audrey remained in the little back-room, feeling
so utterly miserable, so degraded in her own eyes by the ordeal
through which she had passed and the malignant comments to which she
knew she was being subjected, that she could not do anything but hold
her aching head between her hands, and whisper in an agonised voice:
“Oh, Gerard, Gerard!”
It was not until dusk had come, and she had long since heard the
visitors go down the stairs and out by the side-door into the street,
that at last she roused herself, bathed her red eyes, which, however,
had shed but few tears, and summoning her spirit, made up her mind to
go through the fateful interview with Mademoiselle Laure.
Her situation, poor creature, was so desperate, the humiliation to
which she had been subjected was so great, that from very excess of
misery there came a calmness over her spirits; a sort of desperate
courage came to her aid, and told her that, as she had now experienced
the worst, had defied Mr. Candover and made him her enemy, and had cut
herself off, with his assistance, from all these acquaintances for
whom she did not greatly care, she was at least independent, and in a
position to snap her fingers at fate.
There were only two things left to dread: the death of her darling
Gerard, which Lord Clanfield had almost told her to expect, and which
she told herself she would not long survive; or her husband’s
discovery of her desperate situation.
Deeply as he loved her, Audrey felt, with a sort of calm despair, that
even his love would not be proof against the skill with which Mr.
Candover would build up a case against her. And that this diabolically
clever and cunning man, whom she had been simple enough to take for a
friend, would add that last drop to the cup of her misery she felt
convinced.
Gerard would learn enough of the truth about her and her life while he
was away to believe what Lord Clanfield believed, what his cousins
believed. And she remembered with a shudder that one of the Angmerings
had been present on the night of the disturbance in the billiard-room,
had been one of the loudest in denouncing Johnson as a cheat.
Well, there was no help for it. Life--such as it was--had still to be
lived, and it was with a new doggedness, a determination that at any
rate they should not rob her of the business she had bought with her
own money, that Audrey came out of the room, and returned to the
showrooms, where she found Mademoiselle Laure busy with a customer.
The Frenchwoman gave her a glance, enigmatic, unfathomable. And
Audrey, who had not remembered until this moment how deftly Laure had
closed the showroom doors and thus, as it were, kept Audrey and her
visitors and their discussion confined within four walls and out of
earshot of others, wondered how much the woman knew.
While she wondered, and put this question to herself, and glanced at
the hard, dry, leathern face wreathed at the moment in perfunctory
smiles, there came to Audrey suddenly a knowledge of the truth.
For in the Frenchwoman’s cold eyes, straight mouth and well-shaped
nose, and even more in the quick glance she threw, penetrating,
intelligent, malignant, at her nominal chief, Audrey recognised that
hitherto unsuspected likeness to Mr. Candover which confirmed part of
the story told by her mysterious black-robed visitor.
And Audrey knew that in Mademoiselle Marie Laure, the Frenchwoman who
“couldn’t speak English,” she had to deal with the half-sister of Mr.
Candover, the woman of whom she had been told that “she was as wicked
and heartless as he was himself.”