Читать книгу A Royal Wrong - Fred M. White - Страница 5

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Lady Letty passed through the house into the garden again. She stopped for a moment to glance at herself in a long gilt mirror. She was wondering if the racking agony of her mind found expression in her face. But the features were cold and set; no hint of pain lay in the clear eyes. She had been brought up in too hard a school for that. She could still smile when her heart was breaking. Yet there were those who envied her and regarded her as one of the most fortunate of mortals! If they only knew; if they could only realise how things were!

Then why did she do it? Why did she lend herself to this scheme? She was keenly alive to the fact that her father was not worth the sacrifice. The name of Stanborough was tainted beyond recall. She might break away from her moorings and start life on her own account. She had enough for a cottage in the country, and had only to say the word and Hugh Childers would come to her side. It had needed no words of Kate Mayfield's to tell her that much. His earnings were not great, but they would have sufficed. But Hugh, with all his cleverness, clung to the same futile traditions, growing old before his time in the insane attempt to swim with the tide. What sickening folly it was! How happy they might have been together!

Lady Letty had half a mind to throw down the glove of open revolt. She wanted to tell Stephen Du Cros how she hated and despised him; she wanted to inform her father that she could not go on with this hideous sacrifice. Hugh would come to her eagerly. They might be married quietly and the others could look to themselves. But even as these thoughts came uppermost in Lady Letty's mind, she knew that they could not be. She would have to go on to the bitter end; the chains of fashion were too strong for her. In any case, she had a duty to perform. Kate Mayfield's startling and dramatic story could not be ignored. There was truth stamped all over it; there was absolutely no chance of outside assistance, and Lady Letty would have to act for herself. Come what may, she must go as far as Stanford, and nobody must be any the wiser. The trouble and risk must be entirely hers. Least of all dared she mention the matter to Stephen Du Cros. If she told him that she could not go to Liverpool, his suspicions would be aroused at once. If she feigned illness he would have her watched. She had just been told that he had bribed the servants. To get away from London for a whole day and back again without anybody at Dorchester Gardens being any the wiser seemed out of the question. Yet it had to be done. Lady Letty had to achieve the impossible. The only man who could help her was Hugh Childers.

Fortunately, Du Cros had no jealousy of him. It was absurd he should have anything to fear from a penniless scribbler. In this way he ignored the one individual in the world who had touched Lady Letty's heart. She must find Hugh at once. He came to her by a kind of instinct. He knew she had had bad news.

"You are in trouble," he said. "Tell me and see if I can help you."

Lady Letty looked up with a startled expression on her face.

"Do I show it so plainly?" she asked.

"No; I don't suppose anybody else would notice. They would probably say that you looked just as usual. But, you see, I know you so well, dear."

"Utterly cold, utterly heartless," Lady Letty laughed bitterly. "That is my reputation. I suppose that I have tried to live up to it. It just shows how wrong it is to judge by appearances. I am in terrible trouble, Hugh. It came to me unexpectedly, as worry of this kind always does. Let me tell you the details of a strange interview I have just had with Kate Mayfield. You remember her at Stanford?"

"Really! Where does little Kate come in? But tell me, and if I can help——"

Lady Letty went rapidly over the points of the story.

"Now you know exactly how I am situated," she said. "Hugh, I must go. It is imperative to save Amsted. Stanford is empty except for an aged caretaker who is devoted to us all. I mean Beaton. There is hardly any furniture. My father's creditors took everything. You know what a desolate, dreary old place it is!"

"A capital spot to hide in," Childers reminded her. "I knew the house quite well as a boy. Do you recollect the day when I nearly got drowned in the moat? And so poor old Amsted is hiding there, or going to be hidden there when you reach Stanford."

Lady Letty glanced round her before she replied. Nobody was apparently within earshot; the giddy throng of well-dressed men and women passed across the lawns and filled the refreshment tents or sat idly listening to the Red Geneva band. How hollow the whole thing was, Lady Letty thought. And how dishonest! It was all so unnecessary in their position; it was never in the least likely to be paid for. They were not far removed from fraudulent bankrupts.

"Amsted's danger is great," she whispered. "You already know how he got mixed up in a turf scandal. It was a disgraceful business, and I believe it is in the hands of the police. Stephen Du Cros knows all about it. Kate Mayfield has told me that he laid a trap for my headstrong brother. Amsted is a perfect fool where sport is concerned. There is no folly he will not commit where a horse is in question."

Childers nodded. He knew all this. Lord Amsted, Lord Stanborough's eldest son, was one of the most famous cross-country riders of the day. He had been brought up in the atmosphere of the stable, and his friends were all of the racecourse. Even in the days of his neglected youth at Eton he was implicated in some racing trouble.

"But he is not really bad," Lady Letty went on, as if reading her companion's thoughts. "He is good-natured and generous, and will take any risk to help a friend. But he is so easily led. Now there is something that cannot be hushed up. I don't know what it is, but Stephen Du Cros does. I had to go down to his office some days ago for my father on business, and he was talking to a man about Amsted. I did not like the look of the fellow at all, but many of Stephen's friends repel me. I tremble sometimes when I think of the future. Oh, was ever a girl so tried as I am?"

Hugh murmured his sympathy. It was very hard to listen and retain his self-possession.

"I am ready to do anything for you," he said.

"Oh, I know, I know. You are the one man I can trust. Well, Amsted is at Stanford in hiding; he has met with an accident. I must go and see him."

"There is no reason why you should not," Childers said. "It is not very difficult for you to——"

"My dear boy, it is the most difficult thing in the world. I must be there to-morrow and return the same day. I have promised to accompany those people to Liverpool to Madame Regnier's concert. I can't get out of it. We start at midnight. At one point the train passes within ten miles of Stanford. If I could only leave the train for an hour and rejoin it before it reaches Liverpool! But what nonsense I am talking."

"Can't you plead illness and remain in London? If you could trust your maid!"

"My maid is in the pay of Stephen Du Cros. The situation is perfectly hopeless. All I have thought of is that mad notion of leaving the special for an hour and rejoining it later. Then I should be absolutely safe. Please don't laugh at me, Hugh. Kate Mayfield suggested that I should ask you. She said a novelist should have a certain sympathy with the situation. I have read of unlikely schemes in books."

"Not more wonderful than that," Childers said. "We leave at twelve o'clock and shall take four hours getting to Liverpool. It is a very rambling route, and it would be possible to set you down in a certain spot in such circumstances that you could spend some time at Stanford and cut across the country to join the train again at Stoneleigh Cross. A motor at sixty miles an hour would do the trick. If we can hit upon an excuse for stopping the train twice, the thing will be easy."

"Oh, it would be easy enough if Stephen Du Cros were not of the company," Lady Letty said. "He would suspect at once what I was going to do, for he is aware my brother is at Stanford. I was not dreaming of any conventional or commonplace plan. It wants some wild, ingenious, out-of-the-way scheme, whereby I may get away and all shall suppose that I am still in the train. If you can think that out for me!"

Childers sat pondering deeply. The suggestion appealed to him for more reasons than one. In the course of his stories he liked to handle complicated situations. Here was one calculated to tax his power of invention to the uttermost.

"Well?" Lady Letty asked after a long pause. "Are you laughing at me?"

"Nothing was farther from my thoughts," Childers said gravely. "On the contrary, the suggestion fascinates me. But it is impossible to think it out in the midst of this noise and frivolity. But I have the germ of an idea. Have you some friend you can trust? I mean some woman friend of good position. All she has to do is to express a desire at the last moment to join the party at Stoneleigh Cross. She might send a telegram late to-morrow evening. But she must be a person of consequence. She can be coached for her part by telephone. If she lives or is staying in the North so much the better."

Lady Letty ruminated quietly for a little time.

"Yes," she said by and bye, "Violet Ringwood could help me, I fancy. Lord Ringwood is away. She does not live far from Stoneleigh Cross. What am I to do?"

"Nothing to-night," Childers said as he rose. "I'll call to see you after breakfast. It maybe a desperate chance, but I believe you can cheat them yet."