Читать книгу The Lonely Bride - Fred M. White - Страница 7

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With a feeling of thankfulness that she had not met anybody on the way, Grace went up to her own bedroom. Not till she had locked the door behind her did she feel safe. Then she placed the pearl stud on the dressing-table and examined it carefully. She was quite sure that there was no mistake. There was the stud right enough, or, at least, so much of it as was needful for the purposes of identification. The gold part of it was missing, or probably it had remained firmly fixed in Cattley's shirt-front; but here was the jewel right enough. It was a black pearl of peculiar shape, and Grace felt no hesitation in believing it to be the one she had seen Cattley wearing the night before.

But this discovery only added to the mystery. Her father had told her that Cattley had left the premises at least an hour before it would have been possible for Mr. Holder to respond to the letter of his employer and reach the bank. According to what Walters said it was fully eleven o'clock before Mrs. Pearson had heard Holder talking to some visitor in his private sitting-room. The farmer's wife could have made no mistake, because she was sitting up for her husband, and had one eye on the clock all the time. The only explanation possible for the moment that Grace could think of was that her father was deceiving her. According to his account, Mr. Cattley had left the bank house an hour before Holder received that letter. On the face of it this could not be possibly true, or if it was true, then the evidence of the pearl stud went for nothing. That her father had sent a letter to Holder, Grace felt certain. She had overheard Cattley suggest this course; indeed she had seen the messenger produced who was going to take the note. In choosing his messenger, Cattley had displayed considerable cunning. "Poor Billy," being a deaf mute, was not in the least likely to be in the position to tell anybody that he had visited Mr. Holder the night before. More than this, Cattley betrayed a knowledge of the people of the neighborhood, or he would not have picked out "Poor Billy" to act as his tool in the matter.

The more Grace thought over the matter, the more puzzled did she become. It was quite evident to her that Cattley had not left the bank house at the time stated by her father. On the contrary, he must have been placed in the bank proper for some good reason. Indeed, he could not have got into the business premises without Anstey's consent and the use of his keys. Therefore, he must have been concealed there at the time of Holder's arrival.

It was a dreadful problem for a girl to have to work out unaided; and Grace's head ached now to such an extent that she could think no longer. She carefully locked the stud away, for there would be plenty of time to decide upon her course of action, and then she went downstairs once more. By this time the crowd had cleared away, and the business of the bank was proceeding as if nothing unexpected had taken place. To Grace's great relief her father was no longer in the house; evidently he had gone into the bank on business bent. Max had disappeared also, but he had left a message to say that he was coming back as soon as he had been to Pearson's Farm. Grace crossed the meadows in the direction of the river, vaguely hoping that she would meet Max there as usual. She waited some little time before she heard the familiar footstep at length, and Max's familiar figure came in sight. It was very quiet there, with no chance of interruption. Max's face was somewhat grave as he took his seat by Grace's side. Neither of them spoke for a moment; it was evident to Grace that Max had a weight upon his mind almost as great as her's.

"I am going to speak very plainly to you, dearest," he said. "It seems to me that I have made a discovery. I was dining with the Brookses last night—you know Brooke, the London banker, who has taken Lord Fernley's place?"

"I have not yet called upon them," Grace said, abruptly.

"Well, old Brooks is a great friend of my father's, and he let something out last night which rather opened my eyes to the reason why your father has so greatly changed his manner to me of late. My dearest girl, did it ever strike you that possibly your father is short of money? But such things do happen, you know."

Grace looked up at her lover with a startled expression on her face. She let her head fall wearily against his shoulder; it was good to feel the pressure of that strong arm about her waist. Here was the one man she loved best of all in the world, and to him she could confide, feeling that her confidence would not be violated. But not everything, Grace told herself. She could not tell even Max everything. The dreadful secret must remain.

"It is strange that you should mention that," she said. "Max, I am going to tell you all I dare. My father wants me to marry Stephen Rice. A few weeks ago and he would have scorned the suggestion of even asking that man to the house. He cannot defend himself when I mention you; he has nothing to say against you, and how he is going to account for his conduct when he meets the general, I cannot possibly tell."

"I hope it won't be when my father is suffering from one of his attacks of neuralgia," Max said. "But this is too serious a subject for jest, darling. I suppose the long and short of it is that your father has been speculating. Did he not tell you as much when you spoke to him last night?"

"I am afraid there is something more than mere lack of money," Grace said. "My father hinted at dishonor and a scandal which would be talked over for years. I don't know how Stephen Rice got to know of this, but I am perfectly sure that he is fully acquainted which the real position of affairs."

"I know," Max said between his teeth. "I know what that scoundrel means to do. You must not marry him, little girl; much as I love you I would see you in your grave first. It is not for me to say anything of that man's vices. But I know what an abandoned scoundrel he is. A greater ruffian never lived. So he would come in and buy your father's freedom, and your poor white body will be the price of the sacrifice. Before God, this thing must not be, it shall not be. I would kill Stephen Rice with my own hand first. I would shoot him like a dog."

Max had risen to his feet in his passion, his voice rang out loud and clear. A passing keeper paused and looked towards the speaker, and then passed on wondering what young Mr. Graham was quarrelling with his sweetheart about. Grace had risen too and laid her hand timidly on her lover's arm. The touch seemed to soothe him, for he grew quiet again.

"I feel like a slave in the market," Grace said. "Oh, it is horrible to think that a father should sell his child like this. For it is exactly as you say, Max. Twenty thousand pounds stands in the one scale and myself in the other. That man professes to love me—possibly he does love me in his own dogged way—and yet I cannot bear the touch of his fingers."

But Max did not appear to be listening. Evidently he was turning over some deep project in his mind.

"I think I can see a way out of the difficulty," he said. "At any rate, I can show your father that my affection for you is pure and disinterested. As you know, I am entitled to a little more than that amount of money when I reach the age of twenty-five. I will go to London to-morrow and make arrangements with my trustees to advance me the whole of the money. Then I can go to your father and tell him boldly that I have learnt everything and offer to free him from Rice altogether. Badly as your father is behaving to you, I cannot bring myself to believe that he favors Rice from any feelings of friendship."

Grace looked up with a grateful smile; the tremendous sacrifice that Max was prepared to make filled her with an overpowering sense of love and gratitude. It was good to know that a man so noble as this loved her so deeply for her own sake.

"But I could not let you do it," she protested. "I could not allow you to beggar yourself like that for me."

"But I should not suffer," Max said. "I should place the money, implicitly, in your father's hands and should get just as much interest on it as I do now. Let us look upon it as a business transaction, Gracie. And now that your troubles are as good as over, just give me a kiss and let us talk about more pleasant things."

Grace tried to smile, but the effort cost her more than Max imagined. It was true that there was a prospect now of for ever getting rid of the hateful attentions of Stephen Rice, but that was not all. Try as she would, Grace could not get out of her mind the picture of her father as she saw him stealing upstairs last night, or the conversation that she had overheard in the library. She never felt such a gush of love and tenderness as filled her at this moment, and yet at the same time she had a wild, overwhelming desire to be alone. They rose and walked presently to the edge of the wood and there they parted. Max would go to London to-morrow, he declared, and get the business finished without delay. Then he would call at the bank house, free Mark Anstey from his difficulties, and have the pleasure of knowing that Stephen Rice was not likely to intrude his hateful presence upon Grace again. Grace stood there till Max had disappeared in the distance before she turned to pass through the wood again on her way home. She was torn by conflicting emotions. If there could only be some satisfactory explanation of the dreadful events of the night before then her lost happiness was likely to be restored to her. She was still brooding over this painful problem when a shadow crossed her path and looking up she saw Stephen Rice standing there before her.

There was something grim and saturnine about the man; he smiled with an air of possession. There was something almost mocking in the way in which he removed his hat and held out a hand that Grace coldly ignored.

"I would like a few words with you," he said. "The sooner we come to an understanding with each other the better."

Grace felt all her courage returning to her. She took her seat upon the fallen trunk of a tree and motioned Rice to occupy a place by her side.

"I quite agree with you," she said. "There can be no fitter opportunity for an understanding between us. My father has mentioned the matter to me. It will be no news to you, I suppose, that he is embarrassed for the want of a large sum of money."

"Which sum of money I am prepared to advance under certain conditions," Rice said significantly. "To be quite plain with you, your father is on the verge of disgraceful bankruptcy. I discovered that in the course of business, and I made your father what I consider to be a very fair offer. On the day that you publicly proclaim your engagement to me, I shall pay over to your father the sum of twenty thousand pounds. I am not a demonstrative man, but I love you with a power and passion that you little dream of. I would go through heaven and hell for you, to call you my wife for an hour I would live ten years of torment."

The man spoke with a vibrating intensity that made Grace fairly shiver.

"No, no," she cried. "Once for all there must be an end to this. I tell you it can never be. I have only heard during the last hour that my father can obtain the money he needs from quite another source. Therefore there is no occasion that I should be sold like a slave to save the honor of my house."

"Yes, I know all about that," Rice said coolly. "To be perfectly frank with you, I have been listening to all you had to say to Max Graham. Oh, I dare say it is very dishonorable and all that kind of thing, but when I want anything I do not scruple as to the way I get it. In ordinary circumstances young Max Graham's programme would have put me out of court. But I have another card up my sleeve, and one that I shall play if you force me to do so."

"A threat," Grace cried. "Do you mean to threaten me?"

"Well, we won't quite put it in that way," Rice went on in his slow, dogged manner. "When a man needs money—especially a man like your father—he does not usually hesitate as to how he gets it. If you don't believe me ask George Cattley. And if you don't believe George Cattley, ask. 'Poor Billy' where he got the note from last night that he took to Holder's rooms. Now I think you'll agree with me, my haughty Grace, that if it could be proved that your father, for instance, sent the note that brought Holder to the bank, he would have a strong chance of being hanged. Don't you agree with me? Ah, so I touch you there!"

Grace felt as though the whole world were reeling beneath her feet. She rose and swayed unsteadily.

"It would be a dreadful thing," she stammered. "A dreadful thing for my father, or anybody else. We know that there was such a note, but there is no evidence to prove who it came from."

Rice laughed hoarsely. There was a sneering triumph upon his dogged face. He placed his hand in his breast pocket and produced therefrom an envelope. From the envelope he drew a sheet of notepaper and proceeded to flatten it on the palm of his hand.

"What do you think of this?" he asked. "Here we have a note on the bank paper, written late last night, and dispatched by 'Poor Billy' to Mr. Holder's rooms. Perhaps you would like to see the letter for yourself? If so, I will show it to you—I don't think you will have much difficulty in recognising the handwriting."

Quite forgetting herself, Grace snatched for the letter. For a moment the words ran into one another in a kind of watery mist; then gradually the ink resolved itself into bold and resolute character. There was no longer room for doubt.

"It is as you say," Grace said in a frozen whisper. "The letter is in my father's handwriting."