Читать книгу C. N. Williamson & A. N. Williamson: 30+ Murder Mysteries & Adventure Novels (Illustrated) - Charles Norris Williamson - Страница 72

Table of Contents

Annesley sat as Knight had left her for a long time—minutes, perhaps, or hours. But at last she was very tired and very cold, so tired that she threw herself weakly on the bed, in her dressing-gown, because she couldn't sit up. All through the rest of the dark hours she lay shivering, and did not even trouble to roll herself in the warm down coverlet spread lightly over the bed.

It seemed right, somehow, that she should be cold and miserable physically. She did not care or wish to be comfortable.

Over and over again she asked herself: "What shall I do? What is to become of me—of both of us?" She tried to pray, but her heart was too hard toward the man who had trampled on her life and love for his own cruel purposes. It seemed to her that God would not hear a prayer sent up in such a mood; yet she did not want to soften her heart toward the sinner.

Because it had been so full of forgiveness before he poisoned the chalice with the bitter stream of confession, it was the more impossible to forgive now. It even seemed to Annesley that it would be monstrous to forgive, in the ordinary, human sense of the word, a man who was a living lie.

If there were room for thanksgiving in her wretchedness, it lay in the fact that her love had died a swift and sudden death. Had she gone on loving in spite of all, such love, she thought, must have brought death into her soul.

She did not know how to name her husband now. Even in thinking of him she would not call him "Knight."

What a mockery the name had been! How he must have laughed to know that she was fool enough to believe him a knight of chivalry, who had come like St. George to rescue her from the dragon!

She knew at last that the name he had not wished her to see in the parish register was Michael Donaldson. That meant, she supposed, that her name was Donaldson, too; a name he had dragged through the mire.

He pretended to love her. But such a man could not speak the truth. He had tried to excuse himself in every way. To talk of love and its purifying influence was only one of these ways. He would not even have confessed if he had not fallen into the mistake of thinking she understood that he was a thief, or head of a gang of thieves.

He seemed almost to boast of what he was.... Oh, how horrible life had become, and how she wished that it were over! She wondered if it would be wicked to pray that her heart might stop beating to-night.

Yet morning came and her heart beat on. She did not even feel very ill, only weak, with a wiry throbbing of each separate nerve in her head. She had meant to use the quiet hours to decide what must be done next, but always, when she had tried to pin her mind to the question, it had escaped like a fluttering moth, and turned to self-pity, or to calling up pictures of the past which brought tears to her eyes.

Now the time was upon her when realities must be faced. Before seven o'clock it was light, but neither she nor Knight were accustomed to early tea, and there was more than an hour to spare before they would be called by Parker.

The girl sat up shivering, though the room, heated by steam, had not grown bitterly cold when the grate fire died. She looked, heavy-eyed, toward her husband's closed door. They must talk things over, and make some plan.

She hated the very word "plan" since his story of the trick he had played at the Savoy. She hated the necessity to talk with him; but it was a necessity. They ought to arrange something for the future—the blank and hateful future—before Parker came, and daily life began. There would be many things to settle, questions to ask and answer; a sort of hideous campaign would have to be mapped out in details not one of which defined itself clearly in her tired brain.

"It's no use," she said to herself. "I can't think, after all, until I see him again. Perhaps he will make some suggestions, and I can accept or refuse. But I can't go to his door and call him."

As she hesitated, Knight—who was a knight no longer in her eyes—opened the door, very softly, not to disturb her if she slept. In the morning light which paled the uncurtained window their eyes met.

Annesley slipped off the bed and stood up, cloaking her bare white neck with her hair. Suddenly she felt that he was a strange man who had no right to be in her room. He was not the husband she had loved with a beautiful and sacred love.

"I won't come if you'd rather I didn't," he said. "I only looked in to see if you were awake. I thought if you were, and if you could stand it, it would be best to—talk about what's to be done." He spoke quietly, standing at the door. He was dressed for the day, as if nothing had happened; and Annesley felt dimly resentful because he looked bathed and well-groomed, his black hair smooth and carefully brushed; altogether his usual self, except that he was pale and grave.

"You had better come in, I suppose," the girl replied, grudgingly. "I was thinking, too, that we must talk. Let us—get it over."

"You haven't been to bed, I see," he said, his eyes lingering on her sadly. It flashed through Annesley's mind that it was as if he were looking for the last time at the sweetness and happiness of life. But her heart did not soften. It was his fault that there was no longer any happiness or sweetness left in their lives.

"No, I haven't been to bed," she returned. "But it doesn't matter. I am not ill. Please let us not waste time in discussing me. There are other things."

"Yes, there are other things," he agreed. "But we'll not begin to talk of them until you have got into bed and covered yourself up. You're as white as marble."

"I don't want——" she began; but he cut her short.

"What will Parker think if she finds your bed hasn't been slept in?"

"Oh, very well!" Annesley assented, impatiently. "I must get used to tricks!"

"Perhaps not," said Knight. "I've been thinking of ways and means. Have you? Because if there's anything you feel you would like to do, you've only to tell me."

"I haven't been able to think," she confessed.

"Well, then, I'll tell you what I've thought."

Annesley had now crept into bed; and before she could protest Knight had carefully covered her with the down quilt. Having done this, he drew a chair near, yet not too near, and sat down. It was as if he recognized her right to keep him at a distance.

"You said last night," he began, "that you didn't mean to denounce me. If you've changed your mind, I shan't blame you; I deserve it. All I ask is that you grant me time to warn certain persons who would go down if I went down, and give them time to make a bolt. Madalena de Santiago is one. I'm pretty sure that out of spite she put Ruthven Smith on to looking for the diamond, but I don't want to punish her. Evidently she—or whoever it was—didn't have much information to give, or the man wouldn't have backed down and apologized. I should like to find out exactly what he had to go upon. But if you've changed your mind, it's not worth while to bother about that——"

"I have not changed my mind," Annesley said.

"You are very good, a very noble woman. If I were the only one to suffer by being denounced, I don't think I'd care much, as things have turned out. But there are others. And above all, there's you. You could patch up your life, but you'd have to suffer more or less if I were dragged over the coals. And so, taking everything together, I'm thankful to accept your generosity.

"We'll call that settled. I don't think Ruthven Smith has any suspicion. We'll see about that later. Meanwhile, he doesn't count. And Madalena at her worst I can manage. There's nothing to be feared. But the question is, how are we two to go on?"

"You must—whatever else we decide—you must give up——" the girl stammered from her pillows, and could not bring herself to finish.

"That goes without saying, doesn't it? In any case, there was only to be one more coup. I'd warned everybody concerned of my decision as to that."

"One more? How terrible! Not—here?"

"Yes, if you must have that, too; it was to be here. It was to be a big thing. But there's time to stop it."

Annesley buried her head with a stifled moan.

"It wouldn't have hurt any of the people. Only family heirlooms again—everything insured. And as for the insurance companies, if you worry over them, it's part of the game. They're wallowing in money ... But I'll call the thing off. And that's the end for me. I'm not rich—not the millionaire I pose for; still, I've earned something. My 'Napoleon' has paid me well, and I've had a share now and then of some good things. There's enough to make you comfortable——"

"Do you think I'd take a penny of such money?" the girl cried, sick with indignation.

"I've worked for it," Knight said, with a kind of unhappy defiance, "and it was come by as honestly as a lot of fortunes made on the stock market. You must have money——"

"I can earn some, as I did before."

"No, never as you did before! Besides, I thought you'd decided on having no open break between us, no scandal. Or wasn't that what you meant?"

"It was. But—I don't see yet how it can be managed. Do you?"

"The way I had in my mind was, since I've lost your love—oh, I'm not complaining!—the way I had in my mind was to leave you over here with plenty of money, and be suddenly called to America on business. Then, if it would hurt your feelings to have me put myself out of the way, it needn't hurt them for something to seem to happen. Nelson Smith could be wiped off the map; and if you weren't free to marry somebody else, at least you'd be free of me.

"But if you won't take my money that plan will not work. You can hate me as much as you like, but I'm not going to leave you alone in the world without a penny. Neither you nor any one can force me to that.... I've thought of another thing, though, since we began to talk. Only I don't like to propose it, Anita. It isn't a good plan—from your point of view."

"I'd better hear it."

"Well, I might get a cable hurrying me across to the other side, and—you might go along."

"Oh!"

"I warned you you wouldn't think it a good plan. But since I've begun, let me finish. In Canada and the United States I'm known—in my least important character—as Michael Donaldson, and I've tried to keep the name clean because of my father and mother. When there's been anything shady doing I've taken a fancy name and made such changes as I could in myself. The reason I didn't want you to see the name in the register was because of what happened on the Monarchic. I'd given you that ring, you know. I couldn't resist doing that. I wanted you to have it, not because of its value, but because it's beautiful. I thought it was like you, somehow. I had to make up its loss in another way to the man who expected to have it—that 'Napoleon' I mentioned."

"I know, the old man—Paul Van Vreck," Annesley guessed with weary impatience.

"I'll not say yes or no to that. But it will be bad for me, and perhaps for you, too, if you ever mention Paul Van Vreck in such a connection. Not that you'd be believed."

"I sha'n't mention him again."

"Just as well not.... But it was my name and my plan I began to speak about. I was going to say, you needn't be afraid that if you took my name (which is yours now), you'd have to be ashamed of it. We could go to America, and in England Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith would soon be forgotten. I'd hand over the money you hate to charities—not the kind of charities I've been supporting here! They've all been part of what you call my fraud, and have only given me a chance to bring some rather queer-looking fish around me, who might have raised curiosity if I couldn't have accounted for them. But real charities.

"And if you'd stick by me—I don't mean love me; I know you can't do that; but live in the same house and not chuck me altogether, I'd turn over a new leaf. I'd begin again from the beginning.

"In Texas I've got some land—a ranch. It isn't worth much, I'm afraid, but I came by it honestly, for me. I won it at poker from a man named Jack Haslett. He was a devil for cards, but it didn't matter. He was rich; and he had a better ranch that he lived on. He's dead now—was near dead then, of consumption. He liked me. Said he was glad I'd won the ranch. It was only a bother to him.

"I was with Jack when he died, and did what I could to ease him at the end. He was grateful, and what money his bad luck at cards had left him he willed to me. It was only eight thousand dollars.

"If it had come to me any other way, I dare say I'd have chucked it away in a month. It wouldn't have seemed worth saving. But I was sort of sentimental about poor old Haslett and his feeling for me. I didn't care to lump his money in with what I got in my line of life. I made a separate fund of it.

"Some had to go toward improvements on the place before I could let the ranch to any one, but there's about six thousand dollars left, I guess. The fellow I let to wrote me a few weeks ago that he was tired of ranching and wanted to clear out. He hoped I could find someone to buy his cattle and the furniture he's put in the house. The letter was forwarded by a man I keep in touch with my business and whereabouts, so he can look after my interests. I've had no time to answer yet.

"I was going to write that I didn't know any one who cared to settle in Texas; but now what if I wrote that I'd take the place and everything on it off the fellow's hands myself?"

"I don't know what Texas is like," Annesley replied, coldly. "But anything would be better than the life you're leading now."

"I wasn't intending to go alone," Knight reminded her. "I said, if you'd stick by me, not throw me over altogether, I'd try and begin again. In that case, Texas would do as well as anywhere; and the place and the money are clean."

"How could I go with you, and live under the same roof, with everything so changed?" the girl exclaimed. "It would kill me!"

"As bad as that?... Well, then, I must rack my brains for something else. But I'm sorry this won't do. Would you care to live with Archdeacon Smith and his wife?"

"No. No! And they wouldn't want me."

"That seems queer to me: that any one should have the chance of keeping you with them, and not want you ... How would it be for you to go on the same ship with me, and find a little home somewhere on an allowance I could make you out of that fund? You see, you are my wife in the eyes of the law, so I'm bound to support you. And you're bound to let me do it, if I can do it honestly."

Annesley flung up her arms in a gesture of abandonment. "Let it go at that," she sighed, "until I can think of something better."

"Very well. We won't argue that part yet. The thing to make sure of at the moment is this: Do I get a cable, say on the day everyone's leaving Valley House, calling me back to America on urgent business, and do I take you with me?"

Annesley's thoughts raced through her head and would not stop. Knight did not speak. He was waiting with outward patience for her decision.

It seemed that she would never know what to say. She was about to tell him in despair that she must have the rest of the day to make up her mind, but before she could speak Parker knocked at the door.

"I'll go with you," the girl said, hastily. "On the ship. But after that——"

Parker knocked again.

"Come in!" called Annesley.

"Thank you," Knight said, getting up from his chair near her bed.

"Don't thank me. I——"

But Parker had opened the door. All that was conventional and agreeably commonplace in the lives of happy, well-to-do people seemed to enter the room with her.