Читать книгу So Evil My Love: Based on a True Crime Story - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 15

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Susan was aroused from the mental discomforts of her drifting days by reading in the Morning Post of the death of Lady Curle. Mrs. Sacret had to exert her full authority to curb her friend’s outburst. Casting off her sometimes heavy, sometimes frivolous apathy, the desperate young woman declared she must and would have a divorce and marry “the only man I ever loved.” Mrs. Sacret only soothed this dangerous fury by promising all possible help in the future—“If only you will be a little reasonable now, Susan.”

“But he may marry again. He doesn’t know that I still care. Oh, why was I so hasty! I should have waited. The doctors told me that Elizabeth Curle might live for years! And we were being talked of. The only way to silence people seemed to get married again.”

“I don’t understand thinking so much of respectability if one—is in love,” said Mrs. Sacret unguardedly.

“I was a fool!” cried Susan, with unusual and unexpected vehemence. “Now I don’t care—I’d run away with him tomorrow—and end all this pretense and dreadful fear. Yes, and then I shouldn’t care about the letters.”

Mrs. Sacret felt her world dwindle about her, everything to which she had become used in the last six months fade and vanish and she standing in her old drab and shabby mourning in the mean little house in Minton Street, searching the newspaper for SITUATIONS VACANT. Her brilliant hazel eyes sparkled with excitement. She took Susan by the shoulders and shook her until her pretty gold trinkets rattled.

“Do be sensible. Why have a horrid scandal and be cut by everyone? Besides it would be wicked. And Sir John wouldn’t like it. Men don’t. Mr. Rue might never divorce you—out of spite.”

Under the force of these rapid arguments and her friend’s vivid glance, Susan controlled herself—and looked with a wild hope at the elder woman.

“Are you going to suggest something, Olivia?”

“Yes.” Mrs. Sacret relaxed her hold on Susan, who dropped into the shining satin chair by the bed. “Of course. A number of things. But be prudent. Give me time. That nasty old woman will also see this death announced—and you must be so careful—”

“I’m weary of being careful,” protested Susan. “I shall speak frankly to Martin. He was fond of me once. He might let me divorce him. It can be done, I think, arranged—”

“Yes, I’m sure it can. But you must not suggest it to Mr. Rue—not yet. Why, he would be furious! He would see at once that it was because of Lady Curle’s death—”

“That is what I want to tell him.”

“It would be lunatic—do, pray, be advised by me.”

Susan’s lovely eyes gazed anxiously into her friend’s intent face. “I wish I could be sure of you, Olivia. You are so different from what you were. Like a changeling,” she murmured earnestly. “And those letters—”

“Oh, don’t mention those again! I thought you had forgotten them!”

“Have you destroyed them?”

“Yes. I think so. I don’t really remember. They are of no importance. And why are you afraid of a few harmless letters, Susan, when you say you are ready to leave your husband and run away with a man whose wife is just dead?”

Susan wavered, then began to weep. Mrs. Sacret pressed her advantage.

“Do leave it to me. I’ll see Sir John for you, if you wish, and sound his mind. That would he much wiser than writing any more letters. I could communicate with him from Minton Street. My tenant is very obliging.”

As this rapid plan was unfolded, Susan calmed herself and submitted to the superior wisdom and resource of her friend, and soon her simple mind, sanguine despite her misfortunes, foresaw a quiet severance of her tie to Martin Rue and a departure for some vaguely distant land with the man who had been an obsession with her for so long.

Mrs. Sacret, with an emphasis that was almost fierce, impressed on her the complete need for decorum and prudence and hastened away to seek the advice of Mark Bellis. Their relationship was still formal, but their unspoken intimacy was perfect. They had understood one another, Olivia Sacret believed, since they had first met, and this though he knew all her story and she knew little of his, and that little secretly disbelieved. She did not see him very frequently, as he was engaged on mural paintings in Lyndbridge House, and stayed in Kent for several days at a time, but she had kept a key to her house, and frequently went there in his absence to look at the crayon sketch of herself, always left for her to see. In this charming portrait she could read his opinion of her, the flattery and caresses implicit in his manner toward her, whenever he spoke to her or listened to her whispered account of her affairs. She had not had much to tell him since they had first met a month ago. He conveyed to her, more by bright and searching looks and overtones to his speech than by direct words, his advice that she should do nothing save wait on events and ingratiate herself as much as possible with Susan Rue—for her own sake, of course. Old Mrs. Rue was also holding her hand; she remained at Blackheath where her son visited her frequently, and Susan, relieved to be rid of her, was satisfied. But Mrs. Sacret never forgot her wary enemy.

In her pearl-colored costume of half mourning, elegantly flounced, Olivia Sacret was leaving the Old Priory, when the maid hastened after her, and said that Mr. Rue requested her presence in the library. She was vexed, as a delay would make a visit to Minton Street impossible. She could not call on the painter at a late hour, the neighbors gaped as it was; not that Mrs. Sacret was vexed by this unmannerly curiosity, but Mr. Bellis had gently advised her to maintain a complete discretion.

A recollection of this advice sent her to the back of the house where the master of the Old Priory sat gloomily before the heavy cases of books in fine sets of standard authors that no member of his family had ever read.

In this dull, precise room, furnished with the cold taste of an upholsterer, was a door that led to bright beauty, the glasshouse that was Martin’s chief pleasure.

Olivia Sacret, sniffing the tobacco fumes in the close air, looked at once at the vista of leaves and flowers, all filled with light and color that showed through the glass doors. Though she had become used to the rich plants that adorned the sumptuous, ugly rooms of the Old Priory, never before had she been in the library, usually locked, and never visited the conservatories, nor seen the rarest of the flowers that bloomed there.

Now these showed—an intricate design of blended bud, blossom and foliage—behind the fair head of Martin Rue, who sat in a leather armchair beside the empty black-leaded grate and cumbersome, glaring white marble mantelpiece that supported two bronze Arab horsemen and a brass clock above a figure of old “Father Time” pointing to the dial.

Mr. Rue rose, stubbed out his cigar and stiffly placed a chair for Mrs. Sacret.

“I have an appointment,” she murmured, spreading out the frills of the expensive gown Susan had paid for.

“I’m sorry. I won’t detain you long, Mrs. Sacret.”

She looked up sharply at his tone. It was conciliatory, almost pleading.

“Why, what can you have to say to me, Mr. Rue?” Her mischievous sense of power prompted her to add, “Do you wish to show me your flowers?”

“No—but—are you interested?” He became animated and the sullen expression she so disliked vanished from his heavy face.

“Oh, yes; you have been honored with several medals, I believe?”

“I have. The last from the Ghent Salon d’Hiver. I should like to go to the next display given by the horticultural society of that city—a delightful place. My mother and I used to go there every year. The citizens are so fond of flowers they commonly wear a bloom to church. Many of these plants are but mechanic’s flowers now. But I prize them for their beauty.” He nervously indicated the glowing pageant through the glass doors. “You see only orchids there, Chinese and eastern varieties—some with medicinal properties, beyond in a more moderate heat I grow native flowers—only in lustrous perfection—sweet rocket, or dame’s violet, for example, and the old red rose pink that a severe winter some years ago nearly rendered extinct.” Then recalling the purpose of this interview, he said hurriedly, “Mrs. Sacret, if I ever said anything to offend you, I regret it and ask your pardon.”

“Why, you never did, I’m sure, Mr. Rue. Only I knew you rather dislike having me here—in the Old Priory.”

“That is what I wanted to talk to you about,” he answered hurriedly. “I want to say that I understand your kind intentions toward Susan. No doubt I’ve given her some cause for complaint. I’m a plain fellow, with wretched health—we quarrel a good deal, as you’ve seen for yourself. But underneath, I’m very fond of Susan.”

“Yes?” She would not give him any encouragement, she enjoyed his discomfiture and wished to prolong it.

“And if we could be left alone—we’d be happy yet, Mrs. Sacret.”

His sincerity gave some gloss of dignity to his commonplace words, the flush in his cheeks softened his usual slightly livid color, he did not look disagreeable as he pleaded with Olivia Sacret. She compared him, curiously, with the painter of Minton Street. And greatly to his disadvantage.

“Your mother, Mr. Rue,” she remarked, “interferes far too much between you and Susan—speak to her—not to me.”

“My mother is not very often here, Mrs. Sacret; if I request it, she will remain away altogether. My wish is to take Susan abroad with me.”

He had accepted so much impertinence from her that she ventured on further insolence.

“Susan will have to look after an invalid?” she questioned ironically.

“If I were a little happier, I should be better in health,” he replied. Mrs. Sacret thought mechanically, It is my duty to help in the reconciliation of husband and wife. But is it fair to Susan to force her back on to this man?

“I entreat you,” he added, peering at her downcast face. “Leave us. I respect your motives in remaining here, your friendship for Susan—but you are ruining our chances of happiness.”

“They had gone before I came, Mr. Rue.”

“No,” he replied vehemently, “that is not so.” He rose and began to walk up and down the thickly carpeted floor. “You have shut Susan away from me. Sometimes it seems as if you had some hold over her—”

The word his mother had used—but this was not even a random shot. Martin Rue was completely unsuspicious, jealous as he might be, of the existence of the letters at the bottom of Mrs. Sacret’s locked drawer. She knew that, at once.

“I am aware,” he continued with an effort, “that Susan had an attachment to a married man whose wife has lately died. This has disturbed her very much. I don’t want to lose her. Won’t you help me, by persuading her to come abroad with me?”

Again Mrs. Sacret saw all her usurped splendors stripped from her, the world she had come, so easily and so rapidly, to look upon as her own, sailing away, leaving her poor, unwanted, obscure. She recalled the painter of Minton Street and his talk of luxury, the need he felt for what money alone could procure. And here was her one chance of money—Susan—to be snatched from her suddenly.

Martin Rue guessed some of her thoughts; he said, with a clumsy hesitation, “I should like to compensate you for any inconvenience—”

“You could not compensate me,” she replied truthfully, “for the loss of Susan’s friendship.”

“Why do you want to remain here?” he asked directly, staring at her, his greenish yellow eyes narrowed under the sandy lashes. “You must have had some sort of a life before you came here, by chance, as it seemed. Have you no existence of your own? No other interests, nor friends?”

Mrs. Sacret ignored these questions. She rose. Her head was beginning to ache. The air of the room was close as if some of the heated air from the greenhouse seeped through the glass doors.

“It rests with Susan to keep me or to send me away.”

“You know that is not true. You have some power over her, if it is only the power of a strong nature over a weak one.” He paused, then added with deep feeling, “I have a foreboding that some dreadful evil will come of it if you stay here—some evil for all of us.”

“How could it possibly!” Olivia Sacret laughed pleasantly. “Sick fancies, Mr. Rue.”

“I still ask you to leave the Old Priory.”

She lowered her graceful head.

“I must do as my conscience bids me,” she murmured and turned to leave the room. The young man seemed to take these words as, at least, a concession. He quickly opened the door of the conservatory and brought out a small plant in a clean pot. “The cardinal flower, Mrs. Sacret—observe the elegant shape and the brilliant puce and scarlet. It is the splendid or shining lobelia. Most distinctive of blooms. It reminds me of you though you are in mourning. Please accept it for your room.”

Mrs. Sacret was startled by this flash of—perception? imagination? She might have expected that Mark Bellis would compare her to the vivid bloom—never Martin Rue. He took her raised color and faltering thanks for his gift as a sign of kindness and pressing the hand into which he had placed the pot, he added, in a tone of nervous eagerness, “And, pray, Mrs. Sacret, don’t give Susan, poor, dear Susan, chemical champagne, or grocer’s sherry, in your room; indeed, it is bad for her—and useless to control her wine at table if she gets it secretly.”

Olivia Sacret was profoundly shocked, not only by hearing something she considered disgusting put into words, but by the realization that her trick—she saw it herself as that, a mean servant’s trick—had been discovered. The lobelia trembled in her hand.

“I don’t know what you mean.” She blushed more deeply as she gave the routine lie, and wondered bitterly which of the housemaids had spied on and betrayed her. Martin Rue resolved this doubt by saying:

“Susan told me herself. Susan tells me everything in time, Mrs. Sacret.”

Not about the letters, she thought, regaining her self-possession and saying aloud, “Oh, how oddly you talk! I have just a little medicinal wine in my room! I suffer from the megrims and facial neuralgia, as you do, Mr. Rue. Why shouldn’t I dose myself, as you do?”

The pale young man did not take offense.

“It is my nerves,” he said, as if in self-excuse.

Mrs. Sacret escaped, hearing behind her his low, slightly harsh, insistent voice, bidding her “consider his request.”