Читать книгу: «Jolly Sally Pendleton: or, the Wife Who Was Not a Wife», страница 11

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Seeing that his victim had lost consciousness, the man paused in his work, and turned around to Lamont with a loud laugh.

"A capital night's work," he declared. "You ought to have made good your time by having three or four simpletons like this one, who wears expensive jewels, fall in love with you."

It was fully an hour after Victor Lamont's accomplices – for such they were – had retreated, that Sally opened her eyes to consciousness.

For a moment she was dazed. Where was she? This was certainly not her room at the Ocean House.

In an instant all the terrible scenes she had passed through recurred to her. She was in the cab —alone! With a spasmodic gesture, she caught at her neck. Ah, Heaven! the diamond necklace, all her jewels, were indeed gone!

With a cry that was like nothing human, she sprung to her feet, and at that moment she heard a deep groan outside, and she realized that it must be Victor Lamont. Perhaps they had hurt him; perhaps he was dying.

"Oh, Mr. Lamont," she cried out in agony, "where are you?" and waited breathlessly for his response.

"Here," he groaned; "bound fast hand and foot to the wheel of the cab. Can you come to my aid?"

With feet that trembled under her, and hands shaking like aspen leaves, she made her way to him, crying out that her diamonds were gone.

"How shall I ever forgive myself for this night's work!" he cried. "Oh, Mrs. Gardiner – Sally – why don't you abuse me? Why don't you fling it into my face that it was all my fault, persuading you to take this ride that has ended so fatally? For myself I care not, though I am ruined. They have taken every penny I had with me. But it is for you I grieve."

Sally listened, but made no reply. What could she say?

She tried her utmost to undo the great cords which apparently bound her companion; but it was quite useless. They were too much for her slender fingers.

"Never mind," he said, speaking faintly. "I have borne the torture of these ropes cutting into my flesh so many hours now, that I can stand it until that cabman returns. I bribed him to return within an hour; but his horse is so lame, that will be almost impossible."

"How dark it is!" moaned Sally. "Oh, I am fairly quaking with terror!"

"It is the darkness which precedes the dawn," he remarked; and as he uttered the words, he coughed twice.

A moment later, Sally cried out, joyfully:

"Oh, I hear the sound of carriage wheels! That cabman is returning at last, thank the fates."

Yes, it was the cabman, who seemed almost overwhelmed with terror when he saw the condition of the two passengers, and heard of the robbery which had taken place.

"I'll get you back to Newport by daylight, sir," he cried, turning to Victor Lamont, "and we can drive direct to the police-station, where you can report your great loss."

"No, no, no!" cried Sally, clinging to Lamont's arm, as she imagined herself standing before a police magistrate, and trying to tell him the story.

"I understand your feelings perfectly," whispered Lamont, pressing her arm reassuringly. "The story of our losses must not get out. No, we dare not ask the police to help us recover your diamonds and my money, because of the consequences."

Wretched Sally was obliged to agree with this line of thinking.

Neither spoke much on that homeward ride. Sally was wondering if she would be able to evade suspicion, and gain her rooms unrecognized; and Lamont was wondering if the beautiful married flirt realized how completely she was in his power.

He had concocted a brilliant scheme, and he meant to put it into execution with as little delay as possible.

Jay Gardiner was lavish in giving money to his young wife, and he – Lamont – meant to have some of that cash – ay, the most of it. He had thought of a clever scheme to obtain it.

The driver was as good as his word this time. He landed them as near to the hotel as possible, and that, too, when the early dawn was just breaking through the eastern horizon.

With cloak pulled closely about her, and veil drawn close over her face, Sally accompanied the driver of the coach to the servants' entrance.

It was not without some shame and confusion that she heard the ignorant coachman pass her off as his sweetheart, and ask his brother, the night-watchman, to admit her on the sly, as she was one of the girls employed in the house.

She fairly flew past them and up the broad stairway, and never paused until she reached her own room, threw, open the door, and sprung into it, quaking with terror.

Antoinette, her French maid, lay dozing en a velvet couch. She hoped that she would be able to slip past her without awakening her; but this was destined not to be.

Antoinette heard the door creak, and she was on her feet like a flash.

"Oh, my lady, it is you!" she whispered, marveling much where her mistress got such a queer bonnet and cloak. "Let me help you take off your wrap. You look pale as death. Are you ill?"

"No, no, Antoinette," replied Mrs. Gardiner, flushing hotly, annoyed with herself, the inquisitive maid, and the world in general. But she felt that she must make some kind of an excuse, say something. "Yes, I'm tired out," she replied, quickly. "I was called away to see a sick friend, and had to go just as I was, as there was not a moment to lose."

"You were very prudent, my lady, to remove your magnificent jewels. Shall I not take them from your pocket, and replace them in their caskets, and lock them safely away?"

"I will attend to them myself, Antoinette," she panted, hoarsely. "Help me off with this – this ball-dress, and get me to bed. I am fagged out for want of sleep. I do not want any breakfast; do not awake me."

Looking at her mistress keenly from beneath her long lashes, Antoinette saw that she was terribly agitated.

Long after the inner door had closed on her, Antoinette sat thinking, and muttered, thoughtfully:

"I shall find out where my lady was last night. Trust me to learn her secret, and then she will be in my power!"

CHAPTER XXXIX

Victor Lamont had been quite correct in his surmise. Jay Gardiner had reached Newport several hours later than he had calculated, and had gone directly to his own apartments.

He was so tired with his long trip that he would have thrown himself on his couch just as he was, had not a letter, addressed to himself, staring at him from the mantel, caught his eye, and on the lower left-hand corner he observed the words: "Important. Deliver at once."

Mechanically he took it down and tore the envelope. The superscription seemed familiar – he had seen that handwriting before.

He looked down at the bottom of the last page, to learn who his correspondent was, and saw, with surprise, and not a little annoyance, that it was signed "Anonymous."

He was about to crush it in his hand and toss it into the waste-paper basket, when it occurred to him that he might as well learn its contents.

There were but two pages, and they read as follows:

"To Doctor Jay Gardiner, Esq., Ocean House, Newport.

"Dear Sir– I know the utter contempt in which any warning given by an anonymous writer is held, but, notwithstanding this, I feel compelled to communicate by this means, that which has become the gossip of Newport – though you appear to be strangely deaf and blind to it.

"To be as brief as possible, I refer to the conduct of your wife's flirtations, flagrant and above board, with Victor Lamont, the English lord, or duke, or count, or whatever he is. I warn you to open your eyes and look about, and listen a bit, too.

"When your wife, in defiance of all the proprieties, is seen riding alone with this Lamont at midnight, when you are known to be away, it is time for a stranger to attempt to inform the husband.

"Yours with respect,

"An Anonymous Friend."

For some moments after he had finished reading that letter, Jay Gardiner sat like one stunned; then slowly he read it again, as though to take in more clearly its awful meaning.

"Great God!" he cried out; "can this indeed be true?"

If it was, he wondered that he had not noticed it. Then he recollected, with a start of dismay, that since they had been domiciled at the Ocean House he had not spent one hour of his time with Sally that could be spent elsewhere. He had scarcely noticed her; he had not spoken to her more than half a dozen times. He had not only shut her out from his heart, but from himself.

He had told himself over and over again that he would have to shun his wife or he would hate her.

She had seemed satisfied with this so long as she was supplied with money, horses and carriages, laces and diamonds.

Was there any truth in what this anonymous letter stated – that she had so far forgotten the proprieties as to ride with this stranger.

He springs from his seat and paces furiously up and down the length of the room, the veins standing out on his forehead like whip-cords. He forgets that it is almost morning, forgets that he is tired.

He goes straight to his wife's room. He turns the knob, but he can not enter for the door is locked. He knocks, but receives no answer, and turning away, he enters his own apartment again, to wait another hour. Up and down the floor he walks.

Can what he has read be true? Has the girl whom he has married, against his will, as it were, made a laughing-stock of him in the eyes of every man and woman in Newport? Dared she do it?

He goes out into the hall once more, and is just in time to see his wife's French maid returning from breakfast. He pushes past the girl, and strides into the inner apartment.

Sally is sitting by the window in a pale-blue silk wrapper wonderfully trimmed with billows of rare lace, baby blue ribbons and jeweled buckles, her yellow hair falling down over her shoulders in a rippling mass of tangled curls.

Jay Gardiner does not stop to admire the pretty picture she makes, but steps across the floor to where she sits.

"Mrs. Gardiner," he cries, hoarsely, "if you have the time to listen to me, I should like a few words with you here and now."

Sally's guilty heart leaps up into her throat.

How much has he discovered of what happened last night? Does he know all?

He is standing before her with flushed face and flashing eyes. She cowers from him, and if guilt was ever stamped on a woman's face, it is stamped on hers at that instant. If her life had depended upon it, she could not have uttered a word.

"Read that!" he cried, thrusting the open letter into her hand – "read that, and answer me, are those charges false or true?"

For an instant her face had blanched white as death, but in the next she had recovered something of her usual bravado and daring. That heavy hand upon her shoulder seemed to give her new life.

She took in the contents of the letter at a single glance, and then she sprung from her seat and faced him defiantly. Oh, how terribly white and stern his face had grown since he had entered that room.

"Did you hear the question I put to you, Mrs. Gardiner?" he cried, hoarsely, his temper and his suspicions fairly aroused at Sally's expression.

The truth of the words in the anonymous letter is slowly forcing itself upon him.

If ever a woman looked guilty, she did at that moment. She stands trembling before him, her eyes fixed upon the floor, her figure drooping, her hands tightly clasped.

"Well?" he says, sharply; and she realizes that there is no mercy in that tone; he will be pitiless, hard as marble.

"It ought never to have been," she said, as if speaking to herself. "I wish I could undo it."

"You wish you could undo what?" asked her husband, sternly.

"Our marriage. It was all a mistake – all a mistake," she faltered.

She must say something, and those are the first words that come across her mind. While he is answering them, she will have an instant of time to think what she will say about the contents of the letter.

Deny it she will with her latest breath. Let him prove that she went riding with Victor Lamont —if he can!

Jay Gardiner's face turns livid, and in a voice which he in vain tries to make steady, he says:

"How long have you thought so?"

"Since yesterday," she answered, her eyes still fixed on the floor.

"Since yesterday" – Jay Gardiner is almost choking with anger as he repeats her words – "since you, another man's wife, took that midnight ride which this letter refers to?"

The sarcasm which pervades the last words makes her flush to the roots of her yellow hair.

"But that I am too much amused, I should be tempted to be angry with you for believing a story from such a ridiculous source," she declared, raising her face defiantly to his.

"Then you deny it?" he cried, grasping her white arm. "You say there is no truth in the report?"

"Not one word," she answered. "I left the ball-room early, because it was lonely for me there without you, and came directly to my room. Antoinette could have told you that had you taken the pains to inquire of her."

"It would ill become me to make such an inquiry of a servant in my employ," he replied. "You are the one to answer me."

"If the ridiculous story had been true, you could not have wondered at it much," she declared, with a hard glitter in her eye, and a still harder laugh on her red lips. "When a man neglects his wife, is it any wonder that she turns to some one else for amusement and – and comfort?"

"Call your maid at once to pack up your trunks. We leave the Ocean House within an hour."

With these words, he strode out of the room, banging the door after him.

"God! how I hate that man!" hissed Sally. "I think his death will lay at my door yet."

CHAPTER XL

Leave Newport when the season was at its height! The very thought of such a thing was bitterness itself to Sally Gardiner, this butterfly of fashion, who loved the whirl of society as dearly as the breath of life.

Antoinette entered, bearing a bouquet of fragrant crimson roses in her hand.

Sally sprung from the chair, into which she had sunk a moment before, with a frightened little cry.

What if Jay Gardiner had by chance been in the room when those roses were brought in, with Victor Lamont's card attached? What if he had snatched them from Antoinette's hand, and discovered the note that was hidden in their fragrant depths?

"The handsome English gentleman sends these, with his compliments, to madame," whispered the girl, after casting a furtive glance about the apartment, to make sure Doctor Gardiner had gone.

"Yes, yes," murmured Sally, blushing furiously. "Hand them to me, and then go into the next room. I shall not want you for a few moments. When I do, I will ring."

She could hardly restrain her impatience until the door had closed to learn what Victor Lamont had been so rash, after last night's escapade, as to write to her about.

She had little difficulty in finding the note.

There were but a few lines, and they read as follows:

"My dear Mrs. Gardiner – Sally – I must see you without delay. I am pacing up and down the beach, waiting for you to come to me. You would not dare fail me if you knew all that depends upon my seeing you.

"Yours, in haste and in waiting,

"Victor."

"Great Heaven!" muttered Sally, "how can I go to him after the stormy interview I have just had with my husband? It is utterly impossible, as we go from here within the hour. I ought to say good-bye to the poor fellow. But what if Jay should be out on the beach, or on the piazza, or in the office, and see me slip out of the hotel? He would be sure to follow me, and then there would be a scene, perhaps a fight."

Again and again she read the note, which she was twisting about her white fingers.

We all know what happens to the woman who hesitates – she is lost.

She touched the bell with nervous fingers.

"Antoinette," she said, when her French maid appeared, "I should like to borrow your cloak, hat, and veil for a little while. One does not always like to be known when one goes out on a mission of charity."

"Certainly, madame," replied Antoinette. "Take anything I have in welcome. But, oh, dear me, my smartest jacket will look wofully clumsy on madame's lovely form!"

"Help me on with them quickly, my good girl," cut in Sally, nervously; "and if any one asks for me when I am out – no matter who it is – say that I have lain down with a severe headache, and can not on any account, be disturbed."

In a few moments more, a trim, dainty figure was gliding swiftly along the beach, heavily veiled and all alone.

Yes, he was there waiting for her. There was no mistaking that splendid figure, which was attracting the attention of so many young girls and their chaperons.

With a sweep of her white hand, Sally put back her veil, and stood before him in the garb of her French maid.

For an instant, this unexpected discovery and the remembrance of the remark he had but just uttered recurred to him, and a dull red swept over his face.

"Mrs. Gardiner – Sally!" he cried, rapturously, "I – I was just about to give the woman to whom I intrusted that note to give to your Antoinette a fine setting out."

"Let us walk leisurely along," he suggested. "We will then be less likely to attract attention. I was anxious to know if you reached your apartments in safety," he went on in his most winning tone; but before she had time to reply, he went on quickly: "I was not so fortunate in escaping recognition. I no sooner stepped into the office of the hotel, than a gentleman approached me.

"'Ah, Lamont,' he exclaimed, 'I am very glad to see you, though you have given me a deuce of a long wait.'

"Turning quickly, I beheld, to my utter dismay, the gentleman from New York to whom I owed that large sum of money I told you about.

"'I was here in time to take in the ball last night,' he went on. 'I came on particularly to see you. You were having such a good time dancing, with that pretty little creature in white that I did not disturb you by letting you know of my presence; but after the ball you suddenly disappeared, and I have been waiting in this office for you, expecting you to appear every moment. I could not wait a moment longer than was absolutely necessary, my business with you is so imperative.'

"To make a long story short, Mrs. Gardiner – Sally – he informed me that he should be obliged to draw upon me at once for money I owed him; in fact, that he must have it to-day."

"Oh, what will you do, Mr. Lamont?" cried Sally, sympathetically. "What in the world will you do – what will you say?"

"That is just the trouble – what shall I do – what can I say to him? He is a man of iron will and terrible temper. He knows, he has learned through my bankers in New York, that I drew out every cent I had in their bank to pay him. How am I to face him, and tell him that it is gone? I know full well he will have me arrested, and the coachman will be brought forward who drove me up to the door, and then the whole story will leak out."

"Oh! oh! oh!" cried Sally, standing quite still on the sands, wringing her hands and commencing to cry, "if that story comes out, I am ruined. Jay Gardiner will leave me, and I will be a beggar!"

"Just so," returned Victor Lamont, softly. "We must make every effort to keep the matter quiet, and there is but one way out of the tangle – only one."

"And what is that?" cried Sally.

"You must save me, and in doing so, save yourself. Sally – Mrs. Gardiner," he whispered, rapidly, "you must help me raise money somehow to meet this man's demands."

"But I haven't any money!" moaned Sally. "I have spent the money my husband gave me – spent it long ago!"

"You must get it somehow," he declared, hoarsely. "Borrow it from some of the husbands of your lady friends, and tell them not to let Jay Gardiner know. You are a woman of wealth and influence; you can easily raise the money I want – and you must do it!"

"I shall not have time to even try to get the money," she declared. "We leave Newport within the hour. Antoinette is packing the trunks now. It will be almost time to leave when I reach the hotel."

"You must ask Jay Gardiner for the money, then," he replied, doggedly, "and instruct Antoinette to hand it to me in the reading-room, and that, too, ere you step into your carriage."

"Is that a threat?"

She had hardly time to ask the question, ere she saw Antoinette coming hurriedly toward her.

With a hurried, "You heard what I said; do not fail me," Victor Lamont raised his hat, turned on his heel, and strode away.

She was racking her brains as to how she should raise the money for Victor Lamont in a half hour's time, in order to save herself from the exposure that would be sure to follow if she failed to do so.

She was driven to extremities. Yes, there was no other way but to borrow it from some of the guests she knew, and this could not be accomplished without Antoinette's assistance.

By the time the girl returned, she had made up her mind as to what course she would pursue. To-day's work would put her forever in the French maid's power; but there was no help for it – none whatever.

"Antoinette," she said in an unsteady voice, as soon as she had drained the wine the maid had brought, "I am in trouble, and I want you to help me."

"You can rely upon me, my lady," replied the girl. "I will do anything in the world for you, and tell no one."

"You are very good," murmured her young mistress incoherently. "I – I have lost something valuable belonging to my husband. It will take a great deal of money to replace it, and it must be replaced at once, before he misses it. To do this, I am obliged to borrow money until I get my next allowance from him. There are several persons in the hotel who would willingly loan me the money if they but knew of my predicament. I must see one after another in that little private parlor off the reception-room, until I have secured the amount I need. You will bring them to me."

"I understand, my lady," nodded the maid.

Flushed, and trembling with excitement, Sally stepped down to the private parlor, after giving Antoinette a score of names on a slip of paper.

One by one, the clever French maid conducted the persons she had been sent in search of to her mistress.

Each gentleman listened in surprise to the appeal young Mrs. Gardiner made to them – she the bride of a man worth millions.

In most instances, the gentlemen carried large sums of money with them, and their hands flew to their well-filled pockets at once. They would be only too pleased, they declared. How much would she need?

Sally named as large a sum as she thought each of them could stand, and in less than half an hour she had the full amount which Victor Lamont had said he must have.