Читать книгу The Temptress - William Le Queux - Страница 16

Surrounded by a thickly-wooded park, where the deer abound in ferny coombes and hollows, stood the home of the Trethowens.

The house, to which a long elm avenue formed the principal approach, was an imposing pile, and dated for the most part from the reign of Queen Anne. Standing out prominently, its grey walls were almost wholly ivy covered, and from its grey slate roofs rose stacks of tall chimneys backed by thick masses of foliage. Striking as was its exterior, within the arrangements were antiquated and behind the times; for comfort had not been sacrificed to modern improvement, and vandalism had never been a distinctive quality of any of its masters.

In the great old entrance-hall, with its wide hearth and firedogs, were paintings by Fuseli and carvings by Gibbon, in which the motto of the Trethowens, Sit sine labe fines, was conspicuous, while the rooms, furnished with that elegant taste in vogue when the house was built, contained many unique specimens of Guercino, Chari, and Kneller.

Indeed, Coombe Hall was one of the finest mansions in North Cornwall.

During Douglas Trethowen’s absence the place had been left with only a gardener and his wife as caretakers. The park had been neglected, grass had grown in the gravelled carriage-drive, and the fine old gardens had been allowed to become choked with weeds. Though the whole place had a potency to set men thinking, perhaps the most quaint, old-world spot was the flower garden, with its spreading cedars and shady elms, its lichen-covered walls overrun with tea-roses, jasmine, and honeysuckle, with black yew hedges forming pleasant shades to the pretty zigzag walks. Here, long ago, dainty high-born dames in patches, powdered wigs, and satin sacques fed the peacocks and gathered the roses, or, clad as Watteau shepherdesses, danced minuets with pink-coated shepherds with crooks in their hands. Here, the scene of many a brilliant fête champêtre, syllabubs were sipped, and gorgeous beaux uttered pretty phrases, and, perchance, words that were the reverse of delicate, and were punished by being lightly tapped by fans.

Amid these unprofaned, old-world surroundings, Hugh Trethowen found himself, having been called thither by urgent business, for a portion of the house was in process of renovation, and the architect required his instructions.

Familiar as was the home of his childhood, yet he had not been there a week before his habitual blasé restlessness returned. Only a few days ago he had bade farewell to the woman he loved, but already he was longing to be again at her side, and had decided to return to her on the morrow.

He had been inspecting the progress of the work of putting the garden in order, and the various other improvements, but time hung heavily upon his hands, and it was merely for the purpose of whiling away an hour or two that he resolved to ascertain the nature of the private papers left by his dead brother.

Thus it was that he was sitting in the fine old library, cigar in mouth, lazily scanning some letters and documents scattered before him. He found little of interest, however; but as his chair was comfortable, and as the golden sunset streaming in through the diamond panes illumined the room with a warm light, he experienced a languid satisfaction in making himself acquainted with his brother’s secrets.

One by one he took the letters and digested their contents. Many were Cupid’s missives, couched in extravagant language, and still emitting an odour of stale perfume. Some were tied together in bundles from various fair correspondents, others were flung indiscriminately among a heterogeneous accumulation of bills, receipts, and other papers similarly uninteresting.

At last, when he had finished the whole of those before him, he sat back, and for a long time smoked in meditative silence.

“By Jove,” he exclaimed at last, aloud, “Douglas must have had a variety of lady friends of whose existence nobody knew. And they all loved him, poor little dears. No doubt his money attracted them more than his precious self, yet he was too wide awake to allow himself to become enmeshed in the matrimonial net.” And he laughed amusedly. “Their pretty sentiments, kisses indicated by crosses, and mouldy scents, were all to no purpose,” he continued, taking up one of the letters, and contemplating the address. “What a disappointment it must have been when he went abroad, and left the whole of the artless damsels to pine—or rather to seek some other fellow likely to prove a prize. And their presents! Good heavens! he might have set up a bazaar with the jewellery, slippers, smoking caps, cigarette cases, match-boxes, and other such trash mentioned in their dainty notes. I suppose I shall find the whole collection bundled into a cupboard somewhere, for they must have been forgotten as soon as received. What strange beings women are, to be sure!”

Having finished his cigar, he stretched himself lazily, yawned, and exclaimed:

“Now I wonder whether there’s anything else worth looking at? Such letters are quite as amusing as the comic papers.”

He glanced at them carelessly, with an uninterested listlessness, for he felt half inclined to burn them, as at best they were only rubbish. It was a pity, he thought, that such a fine old piece of furniture as the Chippendale bureau should be used for no better purpose than to store these forgotten and useless communications. Again, why should he harbour the evidences of his dead brother’s flirtations.

As these and similar thoughts were passing through his mind, he suddenly gave vent to an exclamation of intense surprise. Withdrawing his hand quickly from the bureau, he rushed across to the window in order to examine more closely the object which had evoked his astonishment.

It was a coloured cabinet photograph.

He gazed upon it in dumb amazement, for the light revealed the pictured face of Valérie Dedieu!

Evidently it had been taken several years ago, as the hair was dressed in a style that was now out of date; still there was no doubt as to the identity of the original. With the exact contour of the features he was too well acquainted to regard it as a striking resemblance heightened by imagination. He examined every detail with eager eyes, and was convinced that the photograph was hers. The colouring, so far from altering the expression of the features, added a lifelike look, enhancing the beauty of the picture. The lips were parted, disclosing even rows of small white teeth; the counterfeit presentment seemed to smile mockingly at him.

“Valérie’s photograph!” he ejaculated, running his fingers through his hair, and gazing around in blank bewilderment. “How could it have come into Douglas’s possession? Strange that I should find it here, unless—unless she, too, loved him.”

“No,” he added savagely, a moment afterwards. “Why should I think that? I’ll not believe it until I have proof. And then, after all, they may not have been acquainted; the photograph may have come into his possession in some roundabout way. By the way,” he continued, as a sudden thought occurred to him, “I might possibly discover something further.”

Again he returned to the bureau, still holding the photograph in his hand, and after a few moments’ eager search drew forth a small packet of letters tied with pink tape and sealed with red wax.

They had evidently been carefully preserved, for he discovered the packet concealed at the back of one of the small drawers in the interior.

With hands trembling with feverish excitement he took them to the window. Hastily he broke the seals, drew off the tape, and found there were three letters.

He felt a sudden throb at his heart, a touch of suspense that was painful, as he opened the first anxiously.

“Her handwriting!” he ejaculated excitedly, at the same time taking from his pocket a letter he had received that morning from Valérie, and placing them side by side.

The peculiarities of the fine angular calligraphy were exactly similar.

He read the letter. It was disappointing.

Merely a plain, curt note, commencing: “Dear Douglas,” making an appointment to meet at the Midland Hotel, St. Pancras, from which place it was dated and signed with the initial “V.”

The discovery had wrought a great change in him. He was not the same man. A cloud overspread his countenance, and he remained buried in thought.

When he roused himself to glance at the second letter, he seemed yet more melancholy.

It certainly was an interesting and correspondingly mysterious communication.

Dated from 14 Rue d’Amsterdam, Paris, it commenced without any prefix, endearing or formal, and bore unmistakable signs of having been hastily written. It read as follows:

If you do not call before midday to-morrow I shall know that you refuse to entertain any conciliatory measure. Time does not admit of argument; I must act. At least, I must leave Paris to-morrow night, and even then all may be known. Fail to come, and I shall know you are my enemy. If I am unfortunate, rest assured I shall not suffer alone. Take my advice and seek me the moment you receive this, as it is imperative we should arrange matters before my departure. This course will be the best for you.

V.

“There was some secret between them!” Hugh said to himself in a strange half-whisper, as he finished the curious epistle. “I wonder what it was? It is clear she had a very strong motive in her desire to see him, and the letter, from its general tone, appears to relate to some transaction in which they were both implicated.”

Suddenly the words of Jack Egerton, when he had pointed Valérie out at Eastbourne, recurred to him.

“The less of her sort the better,” he mused, gazing out of the window abstractedly. “I never asked Jack what he meant by that mysterious allusion. Perhaps, however, he didn’t mean it seriously, and only said it in chaff.”

He remained silent for some moments.

“Why,” he suddenly exclaimed, “why should I believe malignant stories, when there is nothing to prove them? These letters are certainly strange, yet, after all, they may relate to some purely matter-of-fact affair.”

Truth to tell, he felt half inclined to believe there had been a deeper meaning in the artist’s words than he imagined, and was stupefied in the agony of mental struggle. He stood rigid and confounded, gazing in turn at the letters and photograph, utterly unable to account for the curious and secret correspondence that had evidently taken place between his late brother and the woman who had promised to become his wife.

At last he opened the remaining letter, and was astonished to find it merely a blank sheet of notepaper, inside which was carefully preserved a scrap of half-burned paper about two inches square. Apparently it was a portion of a letter which, after being torn across, had been thrown into the fire. By some means the edges had been burned, the remainder being severely scorched.

It was written on one side of the paper, and the words, which were in French, and in a disguised hand, revealed a fact which added interest to the discovery. Necessarily few, they were very pointed, and translated they read:

Our agreement … dies I will … meet in London … of that sum on June 13th … Montabello to his rooms on the Boulevard … defy detection by …

He read and re-read these words, but could glean little from them. The small piece of blackened paper had presumably formed part of a note, but it was clear that the writer was illiterate, or intentionally ignorant, for in two instances the orthography was faulty.

Try how he would, Hugh was unable to disguise the fact that it was a promise to pay a certain sum, and the mention of the word “dies” seemed as if it had connection with some dark deed. Perhaps it alluded to the secret referred to by Valérie in the former letter! With tantalising contrariety, any names that had been mentioned had been consumed, and nothing but the few words already given remained as indication of what the communication originally contained.

Nevertheless, thought Hugh, it must have been regarded as of considerable importance by his brother, or it would not have been so carefully preserved and concealed. So crisp was it in its half-consumed condition, that he was compelled to handle it tenderly, otherwise it would have crumbled.

Having satisfied himself that nothing further could be gathered from the almost obliterated words, he replaced it carefully inside the sheet of notepaper, and proceeded to make a thorough search of the bureau.

In vain he took out the remaining letters and scanned them eagerly, hoping to find something which would throw a further light upon the extraordinary missives. None, however, contained any reference to Valérie, or to Paris. When he had finished, he summoned old Jacob, and ordered him to make a fire and burn all except about half a dozen, which appeared of a business character.

Placing the photograph and the three letters in his pocket, he stood thoughtfully watching the old man as he piled the bills and the billets-doux upon the wide-open hearth and ignited them.

The mysterious correspondence sorely puzzled him, and he was determined to find out its meaning. Undoubtedly, Douglas and Valérie were intimately acquainted, and from the tone in which she wrote, it appeared as if from some reason she was afraid of him, and, further, that she was leaving Paris by compulsion.

His thoughts were embittered by a vague feeling of jealousy and hatred towards his brother, yet he felt himself on the verge of a discovery which might possibly lead to strange disclosures.

Curiously enough, our sins find us out very rapidly. We cannot tamper with what is right and for the best in order to secure what is temporarily convenient without invoking Nemesis; and sometimes she comes with a rapid tread that is a little disconcerting.

Though he experienced a strange apprehensive feeling, Hugh Trethowen little dreamed of the significance of the communications which, by a strange vagary of Fate, had been placed under his hand.