Читать книгу: «The Quest: A Romance», страница 21

"And then tried to shoot him – but he didn't succeed in that. I wonder where he is – Captain Stewart?"

"I have him out in the car," Hartley said. "Oh, he shall pay, you may be sure! If he doesn't die and cheat us, that is. I nearly ran the car over him a few minutes ago. If it hadn't been for the moonlight I would have done for him. He was lying on his face in that lane that leads to the Issy road. I don't know what is the matter with him. He's only half conscious and he's quite helpless. He looks as if he'd had a stroke of apoplexy or something. I must hurry him back to Paris, I suppose, and get him under a doctor's care. I wonder what's wrong with him?" The girl shook her head, for she did not know of Stewart's epileptic seizures. She thought it quite possible that he had suffered a stroke of apoplexy as Hartley suggested, for she remembered the half-mad state he had been in.

Richard Hartley stood for a time in thought.

"I must get Stewart back to Paris at once," he said finally. "I must get him under care, and in a safe place from which he can't escape. It will want some managing. If I can get away, I'll come out here again in the morning; but if not, I'll send the car out with orders to wait here until Ste. Marie is ready to return to the city. Are you sure he's all right – that he isn't badly hurt?"

"I think he will be all right," she said, "save for the pain. He was only stunned." And Hartley nodded.

"He seems to be breathing quite naturally," said he. "That's arranged then. The car will be here in waiting, and I shall come with it if I can. Tell him when he wakes." He put out his hand to her, and the girl gave him hers very listlessly but smiling. She wished he would go, and leave her alone.

Then in a moment more he did go, and she heard his quick steps down through the trees, and heard, a little later, the engine of the motor car start up with a sudden loud volley of explosions. And so she was left to her solitary watch. She noticed as she turned to go indoors that the blackness of the night was just beginning to grey towards dawn.

CHAPTER XXIX
THE SCALES OF INJUSTICE

Ste. Marie slept soundly until mid-morning – that is to say, about ten o'clock – and then awoke with a dull pain in his head and a sensation of extreme giddiness, which became something like vertigo when he attempted to rise. However, with the aid of the old Michel he got somehow upstairs to his room, and made a rather sketchy toilet.

Coira came to him there and, while he lay still across the bed, told him about the happenings of the night after he had received his injury. She told him also that the motor was waiting for him, outside the wall, and that Richard Hartley had sent a message by the chauffeur, to say that he was very busy in Paris making arrangements about Stewart, who had come out of his strange state of half insensibility only to rave in a delirium.

"So," she said, "you can go now whenever you are ready. Arthur is with his family, Captain Stewart is under guard, and your work is done. You ought to be glad – even though you are suffering pain."

Ste. Marie looked up at her.

"Do I seem glad, Coira?" said he. And she said —

"You will be glad to-morrow – and always, I hope and pray. Always, always!"

The man held one hand over his aching eyes.

"I have," he said, "queer half-memories. I wish I could remember distinctly."

He looked up at her again.

"I dropped down by the gate in the wall. When I awoke I was in a room in the house. How did that happen?"

"Oh," she said, turning her face away, "we got you up to the house almost at once." But Ste. Marie frowned thoughtfully.

"'We'? Who do you mean by 'we'?"

"Well then, I," the girl said. "It was not difficult."

"Coira!" cried the man, "do you mean that you carried me bodily all that long distance? You?"

"Carried or dragged," she said. "As much one as the other. It was not very difficult. I'm strong, for a woman."

"Oh, child, child!" he cried. And he said —

"I remember more. It was you who held Stewart, and kept him from shooting me. I heard the shot and I heard you scream. The last thought I had was that you had been killed in saving me. That's what I went out into the blank, thinking."

He covered his eyes again as if the memory were intolerable. But after a while he said —

"You saved my life, you know." And the girl answered him —

"I had nearly taken it once before. It was I who called Michel that day you came over the wall, the day you were shot. I nearly murdered you once. I owed you something. Perhaps we're even now." She saw that he did not at all remember that hour in the little room – her hour of bitterness, and she was glad. She had felt sure that it would be so. For the present she did not greatly suffer; she had come to a state beyond active suffering – a chill state of dulled sensibilities.

The old Justine knocked at the door to ask if monsieur was going into the city soon, or if she should give the chauffeur his déjeuner and tell him to wait.

"Are you fit to go?" Coira asked. And he said —

"I suppose as fit as I shall be." He got to his feet, and the things about him swam dangerously, but he could walk by using great care. The girl stood white and still, and she avoided his eyes.

"It is not good-bye," said he. "I shall see you soon again – and I hope, often – often, Coira." The words had a flat and foolish sound, but he could find no others. It was not easy to speak.

"I suppose I must not ask to see your father?" said he, and she told him that her father had locked himself in his own room and would see no one, would not even open his door to take in food.

Ste. Marie went to the stairs, leaning upon the shoulder of the stout old Justine, but, before he had gone, Coira checked him for an instant. She said —

"Tell Arthur, if he speaks to you about me, that what I said in the note I gave him last night, I meant quite seriously. I gave him a note to read after he reached home. Tell him for me that it was final. Will you do that?"

"Yes, of course," said Ste. Marie. He looked at her with some wonder because her words had been very emphatic.

"Yes," he said, "I will tell him. Is that all?"

"All but good-bye," said she. "Good-bye, Bayard!"

She stood at the head of the stairs while he went down them. And she came after him to the landing halfway where the stairs turned in the opposite direction for their lower flight. When he went out of the front door he looked back, and she was standing there above him – a straight, still figure, dark against the light of the windows behind her.

He went straight to the Rue d'Assas. He found that while he sat still in the comfortable tonneau of the motor his head was fairly normal, and the world did not swing and whirl about in that sickening fashion. But when the car lurched or bumped over an obstruction it made him giddy, and he would have fallen had he been standing.

The familiar streets of the Montparnasse and Luxembourg quarters had for his eyes all the charm and delight of home things to the returned traveller. He felt as if he had been away for months, and he caught himself looking for changes, and it made him laugh. He was much relieved when he found that his concierge was not on watch, and that he could slip unobserved up the stairs and into his rooms. The rooms were fresh and clean, for they had been aired and tended daily.

Arrived there he wrote a little note to a friend of his who was a doctor and lived in the Rue Notre Dame des Champs, asking this man to call as soon as it might be convenient. He sent the note by the chauffeur, and then lay down, dressed as he was, to wait, for he could not stand or move about without a painful dizziness. The doctor came within a half-hour, examined Ste. Marie's bruised head and bound it up. He gave him a dose of something with a vile taste, which he said would take away the worst of the pain in a few hours, and he also gave him a sleeping potion, and made him go to bed.

"You'll be fairly fit by evening," he said. "But don't stir until then. I'll leave word below that you're not to be disturbed."

So it happened that when Richard Hartley came dashing up an hour or two later he was not allowed to see his friend, and Ste. Marie slept a dreamless sleep until dark.

He awoke then, refreshed but ravenous with hunger, and found that there was only a dull ache in his battered head. The dizziness and the vertigo were almost completely gone. He made lights and dressed with care. He felt like a little girl making ready for a party; it was so long – or seemed so long – since he had put on evening clothes. Then he went out, leaving at the loge of the concierge a note for Hartley to say where he might be found. He went to Lavenue's and dined in solitary pomp, for it was after nine o'clock. Again it seemed to him that it was months since he had done the like – sat down to a real table for a real dinner. At ten he got into a fiacre and drove to the Rue de l'Université.

The man who admitted him said that mademoiselle was alone in the drawing-room, and he went there at once. He was dully conscious that something was very wrong, but he had suffered too much within the past few hours to be analytical, and he did not know what it was that was wrong. He should have entered that room with a swift and eager step, with shining eyes, with a high-beating heart. He went into it slowly, wrapped in a mantle of strange apathy.

Helen Benham came forward to meet him and took both his hands in hers. Ste. Marie was amazed to see that she seemed not to have altered at all – in spite of this enormous lapse of time, in spite of all that had happened in it. And yet, unaltered, she seemed to him a stranger, a charming and gracious stranger with an icily beautiful face, He wondered at her and at himself, and he was a little alarmed, because he thought that he must be ill. That blow upon the head must, after all, have done something terrible to him.

"Ah, Ste. Marie!" she said in her well-remembered voice – and again he wondered that the voice should be so high-pitched, and so without colour or feeling. "How glad I am," she said, "that you are safely out of it all! How you have suffered for us, Ste. Marie! You look white and ill. Sit down, please! Don't stand!" She drew him to a comfortable chair, and he sat down in it obediently. He could not think of anything to say, though he was not, as a rule, tongue-tied, but the girl did not seem to expect any answer, for she went on at once with a rather odd air of haste —

"Arthur is here with us, safe and sound. Richard Hartley brought him back from that dreadful place, and he has talked everything over with my grandfather, and it's all right. They both understand now, and there'll be no more trouble. We have had to be careful, very careful, and we have had to – well, to rearrange the facts a little so as to leave – my uncle – to leave Captain Stewart's name out of it. It would not do to shock my grandfather by telling him the truth. Perhaps, later; I don't know. That will have to be thought of. For the present we have left my uncle out of it – and put the blame entirely upon this other man. I forget his name."

"The blame cannot rest there," said Ste. Marie sharply. "It is not deserved, and I shall not allow it to be left so. Captain Stewart lied to O'Hara throughout. You cannot leave the blame with an innocent man."

"Still – " she said, "such a man!"

Ste. Marie looked at her, frowning, and the girl turned her eyes away. She may have had the grace to be a little ashamed.

"Think of the difficulty we were in!" she urged. "Captain Stewart is my grandfather's own son. We cannot tell him now, in his weak state, that his own son is – what he is."

There was reason if not justice in that, and Ste. Marie was forced to admit it. He said —

"Ah well! for the present, then. That can be arranged later. The main point is that I've found your brother for you. I've brought him back."

Miss Benham looked up at him and away again, and she drew a quick breath. He saw her hands move restlessly in her lap, and he was aware that for some odd reason she was very ill at ease. At last she said —

"Ah, but – but have you, dear Ste. Marie? Have you?"

After a brief silence she stole another swift glance at the man, and he was staring in open and frank bewilderment. She rushed into rapid speech.

"Ah," she cried, "don't misunderstand me! Don't think that I'm brutal or ungrateful for all you've – you've suffered in trying to help us. Don't think that! I can – we can never be grateful enough, never! But stop and think! Yes, I know this all sounds hideous, but it's so terribly important. I shouldn't dream of saying a word of it if it weren't so important, if so much didn't depend upon it. But stop and think! Was it, dear Ste. Marie, was it, after all, you? Was it you who brought Arthur to us?"

The man fairly blinked at her, owl-like. He was beyond speech.

"Wasn't it Richard?" she hurried on. "Wasn't it Richard Hartley? Ah, if I could only say it without seeming so contemptibly heartless! If only I needn't say it at all! But it must be said because of what depends upon it.

"Think! Go back to the beginning! Wasn't it Richard who first began to suspect my uncle? Didn't he tell you or write to you what he had discovered, and so set you upon the right track? And after you had – well, just fallen into their hands, with no hope of ever escaping, yourself – to say nothing of bringing Arthur back – wasn't it Richard who came to your rescue and brought it all to victory? Oh, Ste. Marie, I must be just to him as well as to you! Don't you see that? However grateful I may be to you for what you have done – suffered – I cannot, in justice, give you what I was to have given you, since it is, after all, Richard who has saved my brother. I cannot, can I? Surely you must see it. And you must see how it hurts me to have to say it. I had hoped that – you would understand – without my speaking."

Still the man sat in his trance of astonishment, speechless. For the first time in his life he was brought face to face with the amazing, the appalling injustice of which a woman is capable when her heart is concerned. This girl wished to believe that to Richard Hartley belonged the credit for rescuing her brother, and, lo! she believed it. A score of juries might have decided against her, a hundred proofs controverted her decision, but she would have been deaf and blind. It is only women who accomplish miracles of reasoning like that.

Ste. Marie took a long breath and he started to speak, but in the end shook his head and remained silent. Through the whirl and din of falling skies he was yet able to see the utter futility of words. He could have adduced a hundred arguments to prove her absurdity. He could have shown her that before he ever read Hartley's note he had decided upon Stewart's guilt – and for much better reasons than Hartley had. He could have pointed out to her that it was he, not Hartley, who discovered young Benham's whereabouts; that it was he who summoned Hartley there; and that, as a matter of fact, Hartley need not have come at all, since the boy had been persuaded to go home in any case.

He thought of all these things and more, and, in a moment of sheer anger at her injustice, he was on the point of stating them, but he shook his head and remained silent. After all, of what use was speech? He knew that it could make no impression upon her, and he knew why. For some reason, in some way, she had turned, during his absence, to Richard Hartley, and there was nothing more to be said. There was no treachery on Hartley's part. He knew that, and it never even occurred to him to blame his friend. Hartley was as faithful as any one who ever lived. It seemed to be nobody's fault. It had just happened.

He looked at the girl before him with a new expression, an expression of sheer curiosity. It seemed to him wellnigh incredible that any human being could be so unjust and so blind. Yet he knew her to be, in other matters, one of the fairest of all women, just and tender and thoughtful and true. He knew that she prided herself upon her cool impartiality of judgment. He shook his head with a little sigh, and ceased to wonder any more. It was beyond him.

He became aware that he ought to say something, and he said —

"Yes. Yes, I – see. I see what you mean. Yes, Hartley did all you say. I hadn't meant to rob Hartley of the credit he deserves. I suppose you're right." He was possessed of a sudden longing to get away out of that room, and he rose to his feet.

"If you don't mind," he said, "I think I'd better go. This is – well, it's a bit of a facer, you see. I want to think it over. Perhaps to-morrow – you don't mind?" He saw a swift relief flash into Miss Benham's eyes, but she murmured a few words of protest that had a rather perfunctory sound. Ste. Marie shook his head.

"Thanks! I won't stay," said he. "Not just now. I – think I'd better go." He had a confused realisation of platitudinous adieux, of a silly formality of speech, and he found himself in the hall. Once he glanced back, and Miss Benham was standing where he had left her, looking after him with a calm and unimpassioned face. He thought that she looked rather like a very beautiful statue.

The butler came to him to say that Mr. Stewart would be glad if he would look in before leaving the house, and so he went upstairs and knocked at old David's door. He moved like a man in a dream, and the things about him seemed to be curiously unreal and rather far away, as they seem sometimes in a fever.

He was admitted at once, and he found the old man sitting up in bed, clad in one of his incredibly gorgeous mandarin's jackets – plum-coloured satin, this time, with peonies – overflowing with spirits and good-humour. His grandson sat in a chair near at hand. The old man gave a shout of welcome —

"Ah, here's Jason, at last, back from Colchis. Welcome home to – whatever the name of the place was. Welcome home!" He shook Ste. Marie's hand with hospitable violence, and Ste. Marie was astonished to see upon what a new lease of life and strength the old man seemed to have entered. There was no ingratitude or misconception here, certainly. Old David quite overwhelmed his visitor with thanks and with expressions of affection.

"You've saved my life among other things!" he said in his gruff roar. "I was ready to go, but, by the Lord, I'm going to stay a while longer now! This world's a better place than I thought – a much better place." He shook a heavily-waggish head.

"If I didn't know," said he, "what your reward is to be for what you've done, I should be in despair over it all, because there is nothing else in the world that would be anything like adequate. You've been making sure of the reward downstairs, I dare say? Eh, what? Yes?"

"You mean – ?" asked the younger man.

And old David said —

"I mean Helen, of course. What else?"

Ste. Marie was not quite himself. At another time he might have got out of the room with an evasive answer, but he spoke without thinking. He said —

"Oh – yes! I suppose – I suppose I ought to tell you that Miss Benham – well, she has changed her mind. That is to say – "

"What!" shouted old David Stewart, in his great voice. "What is that?"

"Why, it seems," said Ste. Marie, "it seems that I only blundered. It seems that Hartley rescued your grandson, not I. And I suppose he did, you know. When you come to think of it, I suppose he did."

David Stewart's great white beard seemed to bristle like the ruff of an angry dog, and his eyes flashed fiercely under their shaggy brows.

"Do you mean to tell me that after all you've done and – and gone through, Helen has thrown you over? Do you mean to tell me that?"

"Well," argued Ste. Marie uncomfortably, "well, you see, she seems to be right. I did bungle it, didn't I? It was Hartley who came and pulled us out of the hole."

"Hartley be damned!" cried the old man in a towering rage. And he began to pour out the most extraordinary flood of furious invective upon his granddaughter and upon Richard Hartley, whom he quite unjustly termed a snake-in-the-grass, and finally upon all women, past, contemporary or still to be born.

Ste. Marie, in fear of old David's health, tried to calm him, and the faithful valet came running from the room beyond with prayers and protestations, but nothing would check that astonishing flow of fury until it had run its full course. Then the man fell back upon his pillows, crimson, panting and exhausted; but the fierce eyes glittered still, and they boded no good for Miss Helen Benham.

"You're well rid of her!" said the old gentleman, when at last he was once more able to speak. "You're well rid of her. I congratulate you! I am ashamed and humiliated, and a great burden of obligation is shifted to me – though I assume it with pleasure – but I congratulate you. You might have found out too late what sort of a woman she is."

Ste. Marie began to protest and to explain, and say that Miss Benham had been quite right in what she said, but the old gentleman only waved an impatient arm to him; and presently, when he saw the valet making signs across the bed, and saw that his host was really in a state of complete exhaustion after the outburst, he made his adieux and got away.

Young Arthur Benham, who had been sitting almost silent during the interview, followed him out of the room, and closed the door behind them. For the first time Ste. Marie noted that the boy's face was white and strained. Young Arthur pulled a crumpled square of folded paper from his pocket and shook it at the other man.

"Do you know what this is?" he cried. "Do you know what's in this?" Ste. Marie shook his head, but a sudden recollection came to him.

"Ah!" said he, "that must be the note Mlle. O'Hara spoke of. She asked me to tell you that she meant it – whatever it may be – quite seriously; that it was final. She didn't explain. She just said that; that you were to take it as final."

The lad gave a sudden, very bitter sob.

"She has thrown me over!" he said. "She says I'm not to come back to her."

Ste. Marie gave a wordless cry, and he began to tremble.

"You can read it if you want to," the boy said. "Perhaps you can explain it. I can't. Do you want to read it?" The elder man stood staring at him whitely, and the boy repeated his words. He said —

"You can read it if you want to," and at last Ste. Marie took the paper between stiff hands and held it to the light. Coira O'Hara said briefly that too much was against their marriage. She mentioned his age, the certain hostility of his family, their different tastes, a number of other things. But in the end she said she had begun to realise that she did not love him as she ought to do if they were to marry. And so, the note said finally, she gave him up to his family, she released him altogether, and she begged him not to come back to her or to urge her to change her mind. Also she made the trite but very sensible observation that he would be glad of his freedom before the year was out.

Ste. Marie's unsteady fingers opened, and the crumpled paper slipped through them to the floor. Over it the man and the boy looked at each other in silence. Young Arthur Benham's face was white, and it was strained and contorted with its first grief. But first griefs do not last very long. Coira O'Hara had told the truth; before the year was out the lad would be glad of his freedom. But the man's face was white also, white and still, and his eyes held a strange expression which the boy could not understand, and at which he wondered. The man was trembling a little from head to foot. The boy wondered about that too, but abruptly he cried out —

"What's up? Where are you going?" for Ste. Marie had turned all at once and was running down the stairs as fast as he could run.