In Direst Peril Part 23

I breakfasted at the usual time, for Hinge in household matters was a perfect martinet, and all my home affairs were as punctual as a clock.

Then, at as early an hour as I dared to venture on, I walked to Lady Rollinson's house. The servant who answered my summons at the door had been in the habit of skipping on one side at once, and throwing the door open in something of an excess of hospitality. I had sometimes even felt a touch of humorous anger at the man; for his fashion of receiving me had seemed to indicate that he was in possession of the secret of the position, and it was as if his flourish of welcome showed an approval of my suit. But to-day he held the door half open, and, before I could get out a word of inquiry, said, "Not at hom?"

"Neither Lady Rollinson nor Miss Rossano?" I asked him.

"Not at home, sir," the man repeated. He looked conscious beneath my eye, and his manner was distinctly embarra.s.sed.

"Are you quite sure of that?" I asked him. "Kindly go and see." The man looked more discomposed than ever, but he said for the third time: "Not at home, sir." And in the face of this repeated declaration it seemed useless to inquire again. I walked away, a little puzzled by the man's manner. I had heard of no intended visit, and so far as I could guess I knew of every plan which Violet and Lady Rollinson had formed. It is not usual for an accepted suitor to be met at the door of his _fiancee's_ house with that curt formula, and I went away dissatisfied and wondering, turning my steps homeward. I had made up my mind to dismiss the whole circ.u.mstance and to write to Violet, and I was walking up the stairs which led to my chambers, in haste to put that little project into execution, when I ran full against a stranger on the landing. He raised his hat with an apology, and I was in the act of doing the same when his foreign accent induced me to look more closely at him. He was a tall, dark man, very gentlemanly to look at and irreproachably dressed.

In a dark, saturnine way he was handsome, and recalling Hinge's statement that he would have known the ugly mug of our fellow-lodger among a million, I settled within my own mind that this could not be the man; but I still observed him with a little interest in the certainty that if not the man himself, he was at least a visitor. Hinge was at the door when I reached it.

"Did you spot him, sir?" he asked, eagerly. "That's him as you ran into on the stairs--Sacovitch."

I answered that I should know the man again, and with that should have forgotten to think about him, but that for days afterwards Hinge was full of excited intelligence about him, relating how he had received such a visitor at such a time, and had gone out in a cab at such an hour, returning after such and such a length of absence. In a very little time the mention of him became a bore, and I forbade Hinge to speak of him unless he had something of importance to tell me.

In the meantime I wrote my note and sent it to the post. I waited all day, and received no answer. When the next morning's post came in I turned my letters over hastily, and was a little surprised, as well as disappointed, to find that I had no line from Violet. Again that morning I made my way to Lady Rollinson's house, and again the accustomed servant met me, and this time fairly staggered me with a repet.i.tion of his "Not at home."

"Am I to understand," I asked, "that Lady Rollinson and Miss Rossano have left town?"

"Can't say, sir," said the man, staring straight above my head with unmoving eyes, but fidgeting nervously with his hands and feet. "My orders is: 'Not at home to Captain Fyffe.'"

"That will do," I returned, and walked away, more puzzled than I had ever been in my life before. I went back to my rooms, and there I wrote this note:

"Dear Lady Rollinson,--When I called at your house yesterday I was told that you and Violet were not at home. When I called again this morning, I was told that you were 'not at home to Captain Fyffe.' This troubles and worries me so much that I hope you will not think me impertinent if I ask the reason for it."

I despatched that letter by Hinge, with instructions to await an answer.

In half an hour the answer came, and for the time being left me more puzzled and troubled than ever:

"Lady Rollinson acknowledges the receipt of Captain Fyffe's letter, and begs to say that on the two occasions referred to by Captain Fyffe her instructions were accurately obeyed by her servant."

That was all. There was not one word in explanation of this astonishing announcement. Violet and I were engaged to be married, with her father's warmest approval, and Lady Rollinson had, until that moment, shown nothing but the most enthusiastic favor for the match. And here, on a sudden, I was forbidden the house, without rhyme or reason.

For an hour I was like a man on whom a thunderbolt had fallen.

CHAPTER XVII

Of course I had a right to an explanation, and equally, of course, I was determined to have it. But the question was how to get it, and I confess that for a long time I did not see my way. If one had been dealing with a man it would have been very different. But when a lady with whom you have been on terms of intimacy and friendship turns round upon you without any cause you can a.s.sign, and tells you she desires to have no more to do with you, it is not easy to see by what means you can force her to a recognition of your side of the business. What made the thing the more astonishing and bewildering was that Lady Rollinson had always been so warm in her friendship for me. Over and over again she had alluded to my services to her son, and she had introduced me to scores of people as the savior of his life, magnifying a very simple incident to such heroic proportions that she often put me to the blush about it, and almost tempted me to wish that I had let poor Jack take his chance without any interference of mine. To have seen a lady the day before yesterday, to have been hailed by her for the hundredth time as her son's preserver, to get a solemn "Not at home" thrown at you when next you called--it was an experience entirely new, and anything but agreeable.

If I may say so without bragging, I have been judged a fairly good officer in my time. I can give an order, I can obey an order, I can see that an order is obeyed; but outside the realms of discipline, and in the common complications of life, I have never felt myself to be very much at ease! The whole of this present business was so bewildering that if only Lady Rollinson herself had been concerned I should have retired from the consideration of the problem instantly. But then she stopped my access to. Violet, and that, for a young fellow who was ardently in love, put altogether another complexion on the affair. When I had got over my first amazement, I sat down and wrote a note, which, in the fervor of my feeling, bade fair to develop into a doc.u.ment which would have filled, say, a column of the _Times_. But when I had written, perhaps, a hundredth part of what I felt it in me to say, I tore up the paper and threw its fragments into the fire. Then I started afresh, determined to be extremely brief and business-like. Once more my feelings got the upper hand of me, and again I covered half a dozen closely-written pages before I discovered my mistake anew. Finally I sat down to a pipe and thought the matter over, until I decided on a definite line of action. The upshot of it all was that I wrote this note, and with my own hands bore it to her ladyship's house:

"Dear Lady Rollinson,--I am utterly at a loss to understand the occurrences of yesterday and to-day. A moment's reflection will show you that an explanation is absolutely due to me. It is my right to demand it, and it is at once your duty and your right to give it."

Armed with this doc.u.ment I set out. The same perturbed domestic greeted me with the formula to which I was by this time growing accustomed, and when I instructed him to carry the note within doors and deliver it to his mistress, he closed the door in my face and left me to await an answer on the steps. The position was anything but comfortable. It was a bright day, and a good many people were abroad, considering how quiet the street generally was. I felt as if everybody who pa.s.sed was completely aware of my discomfiture. Not a nurse-maid went by with her charge who did not, to my distempered fancy, know my business, and look meaningly at me in appreciation of my position. By-and-by the door opened, and the servant asked me to step inside. I had been cooling my heels on the steps for full five minutes, and was by this time as little self-possessed as I have ever been in my life. I followed the man blindly into the familiar morning-room, and was there left alone for another ten minutes. Anger was taking the place of bewilderment, and I was striding rapidly up and down the room when Lady Rollinson entered.

The weather was still cold, but she carried a fan in her hand, and moved it rapidly as she walked into the room and sank into a chair. I bowed with a stiff inclination of the head, but she made no return to my salute.

"I hope, Captain Fyffe," she said, "that you will make this interview as brief as possible. It is likely to be painful to both of us, but you have insisted on it. I do not see what purpose it can serve, but it is just as well that you should understand that I am finally determined."

It was plainly to be seen that she was painfully agitated; and though she had done her best to abolish the traces of the fact, I could see that she had been crying.

"You are finally determined!" I echoed, and I dare say my manner was foolish enough. "But what are you finally determined about?"

"I am finally determined," she responded, "that everything is over between us; and until the count returns and learns the dreadful truth, everything, so far as my influence can go, is over between you and Violet."

"What is the dreadful truth?" I asked. "I give you my word that I am utterly in the dark."

Now Lady Rollinson was a dear old woman, and I had had a warm affection for her. On her side she had treated me from the beginning of our acquaintance almost as if I had been her son; and hitherto there had been nothing but the most friendly and affectionate sentiment between us. But I began to get angry, and I dare say I spoke in a tone to which she had been little accustomed. She cast an indignant glance at me, and fanned herself at a great rate for a full minute before she answered.

"Come," I repeated more than once; "what is this dreadful truth? Surely I have a right to know it."

"You _shall_ know it, Captain Fyffe," she answered, in a voice of weeping menace such as women use when they are both wounded and angry; "you shall have it in a word." She dropped her fan upon her knees, and asked me, with a lugubrious air of triumph and reproach, "Did you ever hear of Constance Pleyel?"

I was standing before her, and as she leaned forward suddenly to offer this surprising question I stepped back a little. A chair caught me at the back of the knees, and I dropped into it as if I had been shot. I have laughed in memory many a time over that ludicrous accident, but it was no laughing matter at the moment, for it sent a conviction to the old lady's mind which I do not think was altogether banished from it to her dying day. Of course the question in such a connection came upon me as a surprise. In all my searchings for the cause of her ladyship's distemper I had not lighted on the thought of Constance Pleyel. I was not so much amazed at it that the name alone could have bowled me over in that way; but Lady Rollinson's idea was that it had gone home instantly to a guilty conscience.

"That is enough," she said, "and more than enough." With these words she arose and walked towards the door, but I intercepted her.

"I beg your pardon, it is not enough, or nearly enough."

"You know the name," she answered. "You have shown me enough to tell me that."

"I know the name, certainly," I replied. "I have known the name and the person that owns the name for many years. But that fact affords a very partial explanation of your conduct. I must trouble you to sit down, Lady Rollinson, and listen to what I have to say."

The stupid, good old woman had taken her side already, and if anything had been needed to confirm her own mistaken judgment of the case that ludicrous accident would have supplied it. She fanned herself in an emotion made up of wrath and grief and dignity, glancing at me from time to time, and looking away again with an expression of disdain, which was hard for an innocent man to bear.

"I suppose," I said, as coolly as I could, "that whatever information you have upon this matter comes from the Baroness Bonnar?" I waited for an answer, but she gave no sign. "I must trouble you to tell me if that is so."

"You know that well enough," she answered. "The Baroness Bonnar is the only friend the poor creature has in London."

"Do you know much of the Baroness Bonnar?" I asked. "Would it ever have occurred to you to guess that the Baroness Bonnar is neither more nor less than a paid Austrian spy, and that Miss Constance Pleyel is, in all probability, her confederate?"

She looked at me with an incredulity so open that I felt it to be an insult, and she preserved the same disdainful silence.

"I came here yesterday," I continued, "to consult Violet--"

She interrupted me almost with a shriek.

"Don't mention that poor girl's name!" she cried. "I won't have it mentioned! I won't listen to it in this connection!"

"Pardon me," I said, "it has to be mentioned, and unless you are in the humor to permit yourself to be made the dupe and tool of as wicked a little adventuress as ever lived, you must listen to what I have to tell you. I came here yesterday to consult Violet as to what I should do with respect to a plot in which I have found the baroness to be engaged. You have often heard the count and myself speak of poor old Ruffiano. You know him as one of Violet's pensioners, and, indeed, I remember that twice or thrice I have met him in your house. He has been betrayed to the Austrians, and is at this minute in their hands. The prime mover in that matter is the Baroness Bonnar, and her tool was the Honorable George Brunow."

Now surely one would have thought that a charge so plain and dreadful was at least worth investigation, and it had not entered my mind to conceive that even an angry woman could fail to take some sort of account of it. Lady Rollinson took it merely as a tissue of absurdities.

"It only shows," she said, "how desperate your own case must be when you need to bolster it by a story like that--a story which could be proved to be false in half a minute."

"Why should you suppose me," I retorted, "to be so foolish as to bring you such a story if it could not be proved to be true? I ask nothing more or less than that you should inquire into the matter."

"I shall do nothing of the sort," she answered. "I know too much already."

"I am sorry," I answered, "to be so seriously at issue with you on such a theme, but I am compelled to insist upon my right."