Читать книгу Passers-By - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 10
ОглавлениеCHAPTER VII
Mr. Gilbert Hannaway was on the point of cutting in for a rubber of bridge at his favorite club when a paragraph in the evening paper through which he had been glancing attracted his attention. He read it through carefully.
We regret to state that, owing to sudden indisposition, the Marquis of Ellingham has been ordered by his medical adviser to proceed at once to the south of France. The announcement will be received with very great regret throughout all classes of the community, especially as just at the present time his lordship's work in the cabinet is of great importance. We understand that his duties will be temporarily filled by the Right Honorable Meredith Jones.
Hannaway excused himself from the projected game. He remained a few minutes longer, chatting to his acquaintances, and then left the club. In less than a quarter of an hour a hansom deposited him at the door of Number 11 Cavendish Square.
The butler was at first obdurate. His lordship would see no one. He was leaving for abroad early in the morning, and his instructions were absolute. Hannaway, however, was possessed of an impressive manner, and he succeeded so far as to be shown into a small room to await the coming of the marquis's secretary. The latter, who was in a very bad temper, however, was not in the least inclined to afford opportunities for any more strangers to interview his master.
"I do not know you, Mr. Hannaway," he said, "and my chief has been ordered to take absolute and complete rest. He cannot give personal attention to any matter of business, and social calls just now are out of the question. I am sorry, therefore, that I cannot help you."
"You can help me so far as this," Hannaway answered, "and incidentally you can also help the marquis, of whose indisposition I was very sorry to hear. Tell him that the person who telephoned him last night from the Altona Hotel is anxious to have a few minutes' conversation with him."
The secretary's manner changed. With obvious reluctance, he turned to leave the room. "I will give him your message," he said curtly. "You may wait here."
* * * * *
The marquis had dined tête-à-tête with his wife. She was a very beautiful woman, and very much in demand in the social world, of which she was one of the principal adornments. To-night, however, she had canceled all her engagements. In face of the statement which was appearing in all the evening papers her presence at any social function was scarcely to be expected. Apart from this, she had an immense curiosity as to the cause of her husband's sudden departure from England. They had finished dinner, and were taking their coffee in the smaller library, where the marquis was accustomed to receive private visitors. The marchioness, who had had a fatiguing afternoon, was curled up on the sofa, watching her husband through half-closed eyes.
"You certainly, my dear Francis," she remarked, "do look a little pale and drawn. At the same time, I should scarcely have thought that there was anything in your health which made this sudden departure necessary."
Her husband shrugged his shoulders. "My dear Margaret," he said, "appearances are sometimes deceptive. I have been feeling absolutely run down for some time. To tell you the truth, I am in a very delicate position politically just now. I am absolutely opposed to our chief on several important matters. I have no following, and I am not disposed to give in altogether."
"So it is a political trouble, is it?" she asked.
"I do not wish you to understand that," he answered, taking a cigarette from a cedar-wood box upon the table, and carefully lighting it. "At the same time, if matters in the cabinet were different I might perhaps have made a more energetic struggle against my indisposition. Frankly, I think that I shall do myself no harm whatever if I am away during the next few months. It will obviate my acquiescence in a certain policy which I feel sure, sooner or later, will turn out to be disastrous."
The marchioness was distinctly interested. "Yet," she said, "you leave the conduct of affairs in the hands of a man whose policy is, I believe, very different from yours. Isn't Meredith Jones one of those who go through life shivering through fear of the Germans?"
"Meredith Jones, at any rate," he answered, "represents the popular feeling in the cabinet. I am almost alone in my views, except, as you perhaps know, for some very powerful influence outside the cabinet. Single-handed, I could do nothing. If I remained, I should have to carry out another man's views. No! I am well content to be away for a short time. Apart from which," he added, with a little sigh, "I am really feeling shockingly seedy."
"You won't expect me out until after Christmas, I suppose?" she asked.
"Certainly not," he answered. "You can come just when it is convenient. In fact, although I have wired to have the villa got ready, I shall probably wander about for some time and try to find a quiet spot along the Italian Riviera. I shall have plenty to occupy my thoughts. There are some papers I have been wanting to write for the reviews."
The marchioness looked for a moment or two thoughtfully into the fire. She was not in the least satisfied with her husband's explanation.
"My dear Francis," she said presently, "but for the fact that I interviewed Sir Frederick myself, and know that he dare not tell me a downright lie, I should come to the conclusion that you are keeping something back from me with regard to your health. Frankly, I do not believe this explanation of yours. You are not at all the sort of man to run away from trouble."
The marquis stood still for several moments. His thin, drawn face was in a sense expressionless, yet his wife was perfectly well aware that there was some change there. Something had happened which reminded her of a terrible week of restlessness soon after their marriage.
"There is some trouble," he said, "from which flight alone is possible."
The marchioness raised herself a little on the sofa. "I do not like to hear you say that, Francis," she, remarked. "I hope that you have not been foolish enough to allow yourself to be frightened by any of these bands of blackmailers. They tell me that half the public men in London, at some time or another, have to face trouble of this sort."
"Blackmailers!" he repeated softly. "No, it is not exactly that."
"There is something?" she persisted.
"There is something," he admitted, unconsciously lowering his voice. "There is something, I must admit that."
"Why not tell me about it?" she asked. "I think that on the whole you and I have been much more than fairly good husband and wife to each other. I do not wish to say anything which might sound bourgeois, but if there is any real trouble or danger to be faced I do not need to hear the other side. I believe in you, and I would help you if it were possible."
The marquis threw away his cigarette. He stooped down and raised his wife's fingers to his lips. Then, after a moment's hesitation, he stooped lower still and kissed her lips.
"Dear Margaret," he said, "I thank you very much. If it were possible for me to give it to any one in the world, you should have my whole confidence. Unfortunately, it is not possible. If you were my guardian angel, the materialized conscience of my life, I should still be dumb."
"There were times," she remarked thoughtfully, "when you were a young man, before there was any thought of your coming into the title, when you were unheard of. There were years of your life during which you seem to have had no friends, when no one seemed to know anything about you, where you were, or what you were doing. You came back when your cousin died, a stranger to nearly everybody. I have been curious sometimes, Francis, about those years."
His lips parted slowly into a smile which seemed to make a stranger of him to the woman who was watching his face. Certainly it was some other man who, with fixed eyes, looked back into the shadows of another's past.
"You must remember," he said, "that in those days I was nobody. I was a well-born, penniless young man, with no career, practically no expectations. I was treated very badly by people from whom I had some right to expect countenance. I was a little wild, perhaps, but I was no worse than dozens of others. I mention this because I want you to understand that in those days I felt no shadow of obligation toward either my country or my family. That is all I can tell you, Margaret."
Then the marchioness made what was for her a most astounding suggestion, a suggestion which even a few days afterward she reflected upon with amazement. "I wonder," she said, "whether you would care for me to go with you abroad? I could manage it, of course. The servants could follow us in a few days with the luggage."
He looked at her. He was astonished, and showed it.
"My dear Margaret," he said, "it is most unnecessary. For what you have said I am very grateful, but it is better for me to go alone just now. Now who the mischief can that be?"
There was a low tapping at the door. His secretary entered, with a brief apology.
"I am most sorry, sir," he said, "to interrupt you. There is a man here of whom I cannot get rid. His name is Gilbert Hannaway."
The marquis shook his head. "I never heard of him," he said. "Are you sure that he is not from a newspaper?"
"I am quite sure," the secretary answered. "He is very urgent in his desire to see you, and he will give me no further explanation of his coming than this. He says that he is the man who rang you up last night from the Altona Hotel."
The marquis set down his empty coffee-cup. It was impossible for either of the other two persons in the room to avoid noticing that his hand was trembling. Again there was something in his eyes which, to those two who knew him so well, seemed to suggest another man living in another world.
"I will see this gentleman," the marquis said. "You may show him in here," he added, with a little glance toward his wife.
She rose at once and shook out her gown. "I will go to my room," she said, "and read for a little time. Perhaps if you are not detained too long you will come in and see me."
The secretary held open the door with a low bow. Her husband, as she passed, once more raised her fingers to his lips.
"My dear," he said, "I shall certainly come."
