A WHITED SEPULCHRE
BEFORE continuing this history, it is necessary to say a few words
respecting Lola Waldershare. As Lola Hargreaves, ever lovely,
seductive, and smiling, by strangers and mere acquaintances, she was
looked upon as one of the most bewitching girls in the county. Her
beauty, youthful graces, and charm, threw a dazzling glamour over her
personality that her immediate surroundings were not blinded to her
faults; her brothers recognised her selfishness; her mother was aware
that her heart was hard as a nether millstone. Those who had little
dealings with Miss Hargreaves learnt that she was not particularly
truthful or scrupulous. The increasing straitness of the family
fortunes, the struggle to make a brave display abroad, the shifts,
shabbiness, and pinching, at home, the manœuvres to evade creditors,
and keep up appearances, had left their mark on Lola. Poverty was
hideous; humiliation was unendurable; and Lola was resolved to be rich.
A short season in London had shown her the value of her beauty; her
face was, and should be, her fortune; and long before Philip Gascoigne
had any idea of his fate, he had been mentally discarded by his
_fiancée_. Letters are deceptive, it is so much easier to deceive by
pen and ink than by word of mouth. What Mrs. Danvers had declared was
perfectly true; Lola had sacrificed herself—for herself. In marrying
Reuben Waldershare she attained her wishes—though she would have
been glad to eliminate two well-grown step-sons—and Mr. Waldershare,
for his part, was well satisfied with his bargain. Unfortunately, in
an evil moment he took his beautiful young wife to Monte Carlo, and
there the Hargreaves' demon, the gambling demon, awoke, and seized upon
her. The taint was in her blood; Lola was her father's own daughter.
At first she was contented to win small sums at roulette, which she
gleefully invested in hats and lace and trifling ornaments. After
a week, as the poison began to work, she increased her stakes, and
talked fluently of "douzaines" and "transversals" and "runs." She
relinquished expeditions to Nice, or into Italy. She grudged every
hour spent elsewhere than at the rooms. She had her own lucky table,
her lucky charm, and, above all, her system. Like most beginners, she
won largely, and Reuben Waldershare, who was obtrusively proud of his
clever, elegantly dressed, smart wife, liked to see people crane over
in order to watch her pretty eager face, as she sat with rolls of gold
rouleaux before her, her pencil busy, her eyes ablaze.
Little did he know that he had fired a mine the day he placed three
hundred pounds to his wife's account at the Credit Lyonnaise, and told
her half in joke, that was "a little sum to play with."
Mrs. Waldershare now played incessantly—and played high.
"I like to put a 'mile' note on one number," she declared with a gay
laugh; "I agree with an old man who sat next me, 'Ca vous donne des
emotions.'"
Mrs. Waldershare returned each winter to the Riviera as punctually as
a swallow, ostensibly in search of health, but in reality to gamble
continuously, extravagantly, and recklessly. She lost enormous sums;
her husband's pride now changed to alarm. The husband of the lovely
Mrs. Waldershare, who was winning to the envy and admiration of her
neighbours, was a different being to the man who had to disburse
staggering sums almost daily. Lola promised to give up gambling, and
never to touch a card or back a number. Her promises were invariably
broken—nothing would or could keep her away from the scene of her
gains and losses. She owed huge bills in London and Paris; the money
to pay these she had flung into the great gulf—she, whose luck was
astonishing, was now secretly selling her jewels—and wearing paste.
Mrs. Waldershare was again at Monte Carlo the year her husband died;
her fascinations were irresistible. A beautiful woman, thirty years his
junior, sweet, seductive, persuasive, her stolid elderly partner could
not withstand her. He was suddenly called away to Paris, on urgent
business, leaving Lola and her maid and many acquaintances at the Hotel
de Paris, but before he departed he extracted a solemn promise from
his wife that during his absence she would not enter the rooms, and
this promise she vowed to keep. The first day she went over to Nice,
the second day was wet, and seemingly endless, the third day something
drew her into the Casino in spite of herself. The talk of her friends,
of runs of colour, of great "coups," was too much for her miserable
little will; something, she afterwards declared, dragged her forcibly
into the Salle de Jeux. She went with a party, merely in order to
look on, but in twenty minutes' time, she was seated at the "trente et
quarante" with a card a pin, and a pile of gold in front of her. She
won—she won again the following day, and then she lost—lost—lost all
the money—lost her self-control—lost her head. She borrowed until she
could borrow no longer; in the frenzy of gambling, she drew a cheque
for a thousand pounds and signed it "Reuben Waldershare." All moral
sense expired, as she blotted the clever imitation of her husband's
signature. This money followed her other losses in one short day, and
then Lola was indeed desperate. She went at sundown and walked round
Monaco, and gazed thoughtfully over the wall at a spot which other
despairing eyes have measured, where there is a sheer precipice, lapped
by the blue-green Mediterranean.
No, no—looking down always made her sick and giddy, she could _not_ do
it. Life was sweet. Reuben would certainly forgive her—after all, what
was his, was hers.
When Mrs. Waldershare returned to the hotel, she found a telegram
awaiting her; it announced that her husband was ill with a sharp attack
of gout. She was requested to leave for Paris at once, and accompany
him home. After a few days, during which time Lola made herself
indispensable to the invalid, hourly hoping to seize a favourable
moment, and make her little confession; unfortunately the cheque
presented itself too promptly, and Reuben Waldershare, to whom such
an act as forgery appeared as great a crime as murder, was deaf to
all excuses and appeals. He raged with the deadly slow anger of a
phlegmatic nature; in this condition, he added a codicil to his will,
and having done so, died rather suddenly of gout in the stomach. And
now, Lola found herself a widow, with a small jointure and immense
debts. She endeavoured to patch up the wreck of her affairs, she tried
to beguile creditors, propitiate people she had snubbed, to make
friends with her cast-off relations, but she was alike in the black
books of her acquaintances and her tradespeople. She therefore resolved
to shift her sky, and come out to India, ostensibly to visit her
dearest brother Edgar (who had no desire for her company), and to see
something of the East. She brought with her a maid, a quantity of smart
gowns, a large stock of courage and enterprise, and a very small amount
of ready money.
In short, she had come out to seek her fortune, precisely like the
young adventurer one reads of in books of fairy and other tales. Marwar
was a capital centre, she had gathered this information _en route_;
Indian people were approachable, hospitable, and not too inquisitive;
appearances go far, when one sails away from a—reputation.
Then by a wonderful stroke of luck she encountered Philip Gascoigne;
as good-looking as ever; no longer the impetuous boy, the impassioned
subaltern, but a cool, self-reliant, distinguished Philip, with a fine
position, a heavy purse, and a dear, simple, appreciative wife. They
would be extremely useful, introduce her to the best society, save her
expense, and officiate as her sponsors.
These were a few of Mrs. Waldershare's reflections, as she drove into
the Gascoignes' compound the afternoon succeeding the dinner-party.