Читать книгу The Counterstroke - Ambrose Pratt - Страница 8

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LUDWIG VON OELTJEN felt much at odds with the world. He had been pitchforked by fate into a false position that exposed his sensitive nature at every step to jars and discords which he was unable properly to resent. In the first instance he was compelled to play the spy upon a man whom he respected and admired. In other circumstances a warm friendship might have grown up between himself and Cressingham. Each was a young man of good birth and breeding, of uncommon intelligence, of upright disposition. And yet they differed sufficiently in temperament to render their natures mutually attractive. The German was nervous, highly strung, ceremonious, and strong willed; the Englishman calm, self centred, and determined, but generous and obliging. The pity of it was they could not meet on common ground. The relationship between them forbade an entente cordiale. Moreover, Oeltjen was still deeply in love with Madame Viyella, and recent events had shown him Cressingham not only as a successful rival, but a rival indifferent to success.

It is hard to watch unmoved another win a treasure ardently but hopelessly desired, but it is infinitely harder not to hate the person who wins that treasure without appreciating it. Oeltjen had listened to Madame Viyella lavishing her love upon Lord Cressingham. That was a misfortune which as a brave man he could bear with composure. But to see his rival disdain the prize which he would have welcomed as a priceless boon in spite of all things moving to the contrary—was a stab to his pride and amour propre which made him writhe in mental anguish.

Von Oeltjen survived this ordeal, and after a long and bitter night spent in struggling with his bad angel, emerged superior to pain and circumstance, his own conqueror. He sought Lord Francis in the early morning before his purpose could have time to cool, and without preliminary put the whole case reservelessly before him.

The Englishman, still in bed, listened to his quaint apologia from the depths of his feather pillows, and without interrupting once by word or sign.

At the end he stretched forth his hand, and said: "I'm glad you've spoken, old fellow. I half saw how it was all along, but was not able to help myself. The fact is we are just two little puppets in a game which is being played by people a lot more powerful than either of us. We are each bound to see the thing through, and we are hatefully situated. But it's no good kicking, neither of us is to blame. For myself, I see no reason why we shouldn't get along without quarrelling. At all events I'll do my best, but most depends on you; you have the worst of the deal by far."

Oeltjen took his hand.

"That is kind of you, my Lord. You will forgive me for disturbing you?"

"Disturbing me? That's good. Why, man, you've acted like a brick." And after the other had departed he repeated the word. "Brick; yes, that's just what he is. I wish he was an Englishman!" which remark showed that Cressingham appreciated Oeltjen's conduct properly, for an Englishman can express for a foreigner no higher form of praise.

The Count appeared to interpret his duties lightly. He accompanied Cressingham at noon to Madame Viyella's doorstep and there left him, although Cressingham would have much preferred a stricter and complete espionage, for secretly he dreaded the approaching interview.

The Countess received him in her boudoir. She wore a loose dressing robe of opal silk open at the neck, and was reclining at full length on a lounge engaged in the role of partial invalid, salts and essences about her. The room was softly illumined with some concealed artificial light, the windows being heavily draped with dark purple curtains to exclude the day. She looked very languid and lovely, and her pose, if studied, was a work of highest art, for all traces of art were absolutely wanting.

"Speak softly, please, Frank," she murmured; "my head aches."

He took a chair near by and watched her silently for so long that at last she raised her low lidded eyes and looked at him.

"I wait," she said.

"For what?"

"Surely—your excuses."

"I cannot apologize yet, Katherin; I am unconvinced."

She thought a moment, thinking deeply.

"Do you know, Frank," she said at last, "no man has ever insulted me but you. I do not like it. I have a mind not to bother trying to convince you—a mind to let you go."

"In that case, Madame——" He arose, hat in hand.

Her eyes opened wide. "You would go; you would dare leave me?" she gasped.

He nodded.

She stared at him, turning pale as death, then cried of a sudden—

"Go then. Never let me see your face again."

He bowed and obeyed, but from the door heard a low, painful moan. He turned. Madame Viyella was sobbing as though her heart would break.

Cressingham found an echo of her emotion in his own heart. Madame Viyella was very beautiful, even though her face was not of classic type. It was no sense of duty which prompted him to take the woman in his arms and press hot kisses on her crimson tear-wet mouth. Nor did a single recollection of his sweetheart come to intervene when, Madame's bosom next his heart, his nerves thrilled and his blood took fire at her siren sweetness.

And a siren at that moment was Madame. Her tears soon dried, she rested in his arms contentedly, and looked at him with burning heavy lidded eyes, her parted lips occasionally giving forth a sob or a deep sigh.

Madame had won. He was hers, hers at last she told herself exultantly. With a swift lithe movement she rose and stood before him, her dark hair falling in a shower below her waist. He rose too, breathing hard.

She took his hand and put it to her heart, which beat within its cage a wild impassioned prisoner. "It is yours!" she whispered; "all, all yours, do you believe me now?"

"Katherin!" The cry was a struggling one; he was fighting for control.

The woman smiled to see. She sat upon the lounge and drew him down beside her—with a gust of words. "Foolish boy, you are still jealous. Really, it was my father, Frank. I know it is hard for you to believe, but it is true. I cannot tell you his name, dear, nor anything about him. He is a great person, and I am only his natural daughter. Do you understand? No one in the world knows aught of this but you, dear one. He sometimes visits me, but always secretly. Were our relationship once suspected—I should see him no more, and, Frank, he is the only near friend that I have. I love him, dear; he has been always good to me. I should not tell you anything of this. Ah, how I trust you!"

"Trust me more. What is his name?"

The woman smiled at him. "You are an honourable man, dear, are you not? You would not break your word, much less an oath?"

"Ah!"

"I am oath-bound, Frank. You would not counsel me to break my vow. But ah, for your sake anything. Am I not yours, soul as well as body? Dear one, order me to break my oath! Are you not my master?"

Cressingham was beaten, and although he dimly recognized the method, the art of her attack was too perfect to allow a thought of insincerity. Honest as steel himself, he answered frankly as another of as pure calibre. "I have no right to ask that of you, Katherin."

"Then let us talk of love!" she cried, "since we are now together here with nought at last but love between us."

Fate saved him for the moment. There came a servant with a message for Madame; a person had called to see her who was of too exalted rank for cavalier dismissal. She got to her feet, a jealous light in her eyes and anger unconcealed; she hated so to let him go, but she whispered in his ear some burning words, and Cressingham left her pledged to return that very night.

The cold calm light of the day without offered a sudden blight to his still tingling senses, chilling the blood that still throbbed insolently in his veins. He remembered Miss Elliott then, and realized the depths into which he had almost fallen, the abyss on whose brink he still stood tottering. He remembered too the task which he had undertaken, and saw himself a double failure: a traitor to his duty, a traitor to his love.

In an almost reckless mood he called upon Colonel Vernon, his commanding officer, a kindly old soldier who had not fathered a crack regiment long enough to forget the follies of his own youth and who bore the reputation of being lenient to all faults save those that tarnished honour. To him Cressingham made full confession of his Russian fiasco, save only that he gave no names.

The Colonel had always been fond of his junior captain, and did not want to lose him, but he saw an opportunity dear to his heart and, as he afterwards told his friend General Poole, he "rated the youngster soundly. These hot bloods want a lesson now and then, Poole, and when they want it, sir, by gad they get it—from me!"

But the "ragging" once over, the Colonel proceeded straightway to discount his words; he invited Cressingham to lunch, and over the second bottle of Heidsieck waxed so reminiscent that Cressingham presently perceived he sat before a man who had spent a wilder and more thoughtless youth than he, and he was astonished and a little amused to find how proud at heart the old man was of the semidisgraceful pranks and mishaps of his past.

The lesson did him good from a worldly point of view. It showed him that pains of the present become pleasant mental tit-bits for the jaded palate of maturer years. It taught him to attach less weight than was his wont to his own backslidings and shortcomings. He left the Colonel feeling half satisfied that an undiscovered sin is at most only half a sin. This moral obliquity of vision furnished him with an excuse to keep his appointment with Miss Elliott, in spite of the morning's treacheries. He had been false to her—granted; but then, she did not know of it! He loved her in spite of his falseness, indeed his fault had made him perhaps appreciate her more.

So he argued, attempting to convince himself, and when he reached her door the argument was still half finished. He had a queer instinctive presentiment that he would find her cold to him, that she would read his heart and divine the wrong that he had done her. That she loved him he never doubted; so strangely penetrating is the mind of love, he had been able to read her heart in that without tangible reason or encouragement. Ah, well, perhaps she would save him from himself. He had been weak before temptation, and would infallibly be weak again before a similar temptation, but like most well-meaning sinners he was remorseful and anxious to find grace immediately the cause of sin had been removed. "Lead us not into temptation!" is the most necessary prayer of all, as Christ the Master knew, for in fashioning that exhortation, which has descended down the centuries to us, a legacy divine, He phrased that simple heart cry last of all in token of its measureless importance. Cressingham wanted to be saved from temptation, and so he rang the bell.

The butler answered the door, a man whom Cressingham knew well and had often liberally tipped; he seemed distrait and disturbed to-day, and his welcome was effusive, for, an old servant, he knew well the reading of social symptoms, and he had long guessed at the gentleman's attachment to his mistress.

"Please come in, my lud—shall I take your coat and hat, my lud? The library, if you please, my lud."

"Miss Elliott at home, Adams?"

The butler followed him into the library. "Ah, my lud, I'm so glad you've come, my lud." The man seemed so upset and anxious that Cressingham involuntarily felt concerned.

"Your mistress is not ill, Adams?"

"No, my lud; leastwise I hope not—we all hope not. But, my lud, I—I——"

Cressingham saw over the man's shoulder the faces of two servants peering anxiously upon them from the passage without.

"What the dickens is the matter?" he demanded somewhat testily.

"The fact is my lud,—last night—I—the mistress, she——"

"Out with it, man!"

Adams gave a desperate glance at the doorway and a frown which scattered the faces in the passage.

"The fact is, my lud, Miss Elliott went out last night to sing at a concert—and—and—she hasn't come home yet."

"But," stammered Cressingham, "she—she—I have an appointment to see her here at four."

The butler's face lighted up immediately. "Ah, then, my lud, she'll be back directly I expect. And oh, my lud, I hope as how you'll not mention to her what I said. You see, we all got anxious about her, 'specially as how she's never stayed away before without lettin' us know aforehand—and she sent the coachman home early with the 'osses and said as how she wouldn't keep 'em waiting in the cold, but she'd come home in a cab."

Cressingham scarcely heard him. He was tormented with a sudden wild, madly fanciful idea, which, however, he presently put from him as past the bounds of possibility.

"I expect she has spent the night with some lady friend, Adams," he said kindly. "Certainly I shall not mention what you have said; your anxiety for her does you credit."

"Thank you, my lud." Adams went slowly out and closed the door.

"Strange," thought Cressingham; "she left me intending to go home. I told the cabman to drive to Bruton Street. Perhaps she changed her mind and went elsewhere, but it's queer she didn't send a message or something to her servants all to-day. She's so methodical in her habits, too, does the housekeeping and all that sort of thing. Perhaps she's ill."

He paced the floor for a quarter hour distractedly, reflecting, listening anxiously to every sound without, often going to the window and attempting to peer into the street below. Then he could stand it no longer, and violently rang the bell.

Adams appeared with disconcerting promptitude. "Ah, er—I'd like a glass of whiskey, Adams, please."

The butler opened a cabinet and produced glasses and decanters, also cigarettes; afterwards he loitered hesitatingly.

"Well, what is it?" said Cressingham.

"It's half-past, sir, and still no sign of her. We've been wondering in the servants' hall if a accident might a happened."

"Have you the papers, Adams?"

"Yes, my lud, and we've gone through 'em all that careful. There's nothin' in 'em, my lud, 'cept about the concert. The Countess o' Hobstein was with her, sir."

"Ah!"

"Besides, if she'd been took to a hospital, my lud, word would a been sent here at once."

"So it would. It can't be that then that has detained her, at least it's not likely."

"No, my lud—as I says to Richards, what is the coachman, my lud—it's no use jumping to look at the black side o' things, though in general it's the black side as turns up."

"Quite so, Adams. By the by, Colonel Elliott is expected home shortly, is he not?"

"To-morrow, my lud, which, if you'll pardon me mentionin' it, my lud, is what has made us feel more anxious like, my lud, for Miss Elliott allowed to her maid yesterday as how she was goin' to do up his rooms herself this morning, the Colonel bein' rather a fidgetty old gentleman as doesn't like his things touched or put out of their places. And his rooms have been locked up ever since he went away, and we not bein' able to air them the whole day, seein' as Miss Elliott has the keys herself."

Every word the butler said had the effect of making Cressingham more deeply disquieted; unwilling, however, to give himself away, he dismissed the man, and spent a solitary hour walking the library floor in a fever of impatience. At the end of that time he doggedly resolved to see the thing out, and lighting the gas took a book and settled himself in a chair. Not that he did much reading; he was too wretchedly disturbed for that, but he killed time in a miserable moping fashion until the clock struck seven, and he remembered his engagement with Captain Lethby.

He said good-bye to Adams, who was by then thoroughly alarmed, and promising hurriedly to call back later in the evening, drove swiftly to his rooms to dress, reflecting with some relief that Lethby was Miss Elliott's cousin and would probably have news of her.

At the club he was greeted as one back from the dead; all his old friends swooped down on him like so many hawks, and in the midst of their careless badinage and raillery he forgot for the time his anxious fears. Dinner passed as such dinners pass, with jokes and quips, with wine-engendered jeux d'esprit, and more or less witty anecdote. It was a gay, good-tempered meal, for a dozen had gathered round the recreant one, refusing to allow Lethby the distinction of entertaining him in solitary state, and Cressingham, who had always been noted as a man's man, was gayest of the gay.

With the liqueurs, however, he remembered, and on the first opportunity drew Lethby aside.

"Have you seen or heard from your cousin to-day, Lethby?" he asked quietly.

"No, dear boy. Why?"

"I called there this afternoon pretty late, and the servants told me she has not returned home since she went to that concert last night. The butler was upset about it, thinking an accident had happened or something."

"Nonsense, man; she went home with some friend, or else to nurse one of her poor girls. You can never bet on Francine; she's a great sick-bed girl, don't you know."

"But she'd have sent her people word, surely. Besides, her father returns to-morrow. Adams tells me she had intended to do out his rooms herself."

Lethby laughed. "Oh, it's Adams is it; he's a regular old woman."

"Well, old chap, I hope you're right, but I promised Adams I'd call back and see if she'd returned. You'd better come with me, Jack. I'm off now."

"Well, good luck to you, Frank. I can't go with you, as I'm booked for a waltz with the Countess at ten—charming woman, the Countess, Frank. Depend on it, you'll find Francine has got home long before this. Hope she gives Adams a good rap over the knuckles, he deserves it. Ta-ta."

"Good-bye."

Cressingham drove at once to Berkeley Square; Miss Elliott had not returned. He waited until midnight, then despatched one of the servants with a sharp note to Captain Lethby. He himself hurried to his own rooms and put the whole matter before the Count von Oeltjen. He had completely forgotten his engagement with Katherin Viyella.