The Angel Part 20

"The theatre! You've been to the theatre to-night! Before coming here!

Are you mad, Mary?"

Marjorie's face had grown quite white, her voice was shrill in its horror and incredulity. What could her cousin mean? Did she actually a.s.sert that two days after her brother's funeral she had gone to a theatre with a strange man, and kept the whole household in Berkeley Square in a state of suspense, while she did this dreadful thing?

"I can't explain, dear," Mary answered, in a tired voice. "But you will know all about it to-morrow. It is not as you think. And now I will really go to bed."

She kissed her astonished cousin, and, with a faint smile, left the boudoir under convoy of the French maid.

After her last prayer--for her whole life was one long prayer--she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep, but not before she had sent a certain note....

There was but little sleep for Marjorie that night. The hour was not late for her, it was not yet one o'clock, and night after night in the season she would dance till dawn.

But the girl was stirred and frightened to the depths of her rather shallow nature by the things which she had heard from Mary. The deep solemnity and utter reality of Mary's words were full of a sort of terror to Marjorie. They came into her gay, thoughtless and sheltered life with unwelcome force and power. She wanted to hear no such things.

Life was happy and splendid for her always. It was one continual round of pleasure, and no day of it had palled as yet. There was nothing in the world that she might wish for that she could not have. Her enormous wealth, her beauty, social position, and personal fascination brought all men to her feet.

And incense was sweet in her nostrils! Heart-whole, she loved to be adored. Religion was all very well, of course. All nice people went to church on Sunday morning. It was _comme il faut_, and then one walked in the Park afterwards for church parade, and met all one's friends.

Every Sunday Marjorie and Lady Kirwan attended the fashionable ritualistic church of St. Elwyn's, Mayfair. The vicar, the Honorable and Reverend Mr. Persse, was a great friend of Marjorie's, and she and her mother had given him three hundred pounds only a few weeks ago for the wonderful new altar frontals worked by the Sisters of Bruges.

But Mary's religion! Ah, that was a very different thing. It was harsh, uncomely, unladylike even.

And what did this preposterous business about "Joseph" mean? Marjorie had seen the paper, and could make nothing of it. And then the theatre!

Mary was making fun of her. She could not really have meant--

With these thoughts whirling in her brain and troubling it, the girl fell asleep at last. Although she did not know it nor suspect it, she was never again to wake exactly the same person as she had been. She did not realize that her unconscious antagonism to Mary's words sprang from one cause alone, that a process had begun in her which was to lead her into other paths and new experiences.

She did not know that, at last, for the first time in her bright, careless life, conscience was awake.

It was not till nearly nine o'clock that she awoke. Antoinette had peeped into the bedroom several times. When at length the maid brought the dainty porcelain cup of chocolate, a bright sun was pouring into the room through the apricot-colored silk curtains.

Marjorie did not immediately remember the events and her sensations of the night before. When she did so, they all came back in a sudden flash of memory.

"Antoinette," she said quickly, "find Mrs. Summers"--Lady Kirwan's maid--"and ask if I can come to mamma's room at once."

In a minute the maid returned.

"M'lady is nearly dressed, mademoiselle," she said. "Elle sera bien contente de voir mademoiselle toute de suite."

Slipping on a dressing-gown and fur slippers, Marjorie went to her mother's room immediately. She was bursting with eagerness and anxiety to tell her the news. She was not in the least ill-natured or small-minded. She had not the least wish to "tell tales." But she was genuinely and seriously alarmed about her beloved cousin's future.

She found Lady Kirwan already dressed and sitting in her boudoir. The elder lady wore a face of utter consternation, and her daughter saw at once that there was little she could tell her.

Mrs. Summers, an elderly, confidential maid, was in the room, and there was a pile of morning papers upon the writing-table.

Nothing that went on in Berkeley Square ever escaped the discreet Summers. She was perfectly aware of Mary's late arrival, and that she had come without any luggage. When Mary had been put to bed, she had found out from Antoinette all that the French girl could tell her.

And the morning journals, which Mrs. Summers generally looked over before taking them to her mistress, supplied the rest.

All London was at this moment ringing with the news of what had happened at the Frivolity Theatre the night before. There had been several daily journalists among the audience, and plenty of other people either directly connected with, or, at any rate, in touch with, the Press.

The news eclipsed everything else. There were columns of description, rumor and report.

Those who had actually been present had gone straight to the offices of their papers while still under the influence of the tremendous scene they had witnessed.

Joseph was in nearly every case identified with the hero of the strange episodes on the Welsh Hills as exclusively reported in the _Daily Wire_ special of the day before. But the wildest rumors and conjectures filled the papers.

Some said that the stranger and his disciples had appeared miraculously in a sudden flash of light, and disappeared equally mysteriously. The extraordinary and heart-piercing likeness of the stranger to the generally accepted pictures of Our Lord was spoken of with amazement, incredulity, dismay, or contempt, as the case might be.

And nearly all of the papers spoke of a beautiful woman's face beside the preacher, a face like the face of a Madonna--Raphael's picture in the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican--alive and glowing.

Here was something for an elderly and fashionable woman of the world to digest ere she was but hardly from her bed!

Lady Kirwan pushed the paper towards Marjorie with trembling fingers.

"Read that," she said, in a voice quite unlike her usual tones of smooth and gracious self-possession.

Marjorie hurriedly scanned the columns of the paper.

"Oh, mother!" she said tearfully. "Isn't it too utterly dreadful for words! How can Mary do such things? Lluellyn's death must have turned her brain."

"Indeed, it is the only possible explanation, Marjorie," Lady Kirwan answered. "Poor Lluellyn's death and the strain of that dreadful hospital work. Fortunately, no one seems to have recognized her at the theatre. This preaching person attracted all the attention. But Mary must see a doctor at once. I shall send a little note to Sir William this morning, asking him to come round. Now you saw the poor girl last night, dear. Tell me exactly what occurred. Omit nothing."

Marjorie launched into a full and breathless account of Mary's words and behavior the night before. The girl was quite incapable of anything like a coherent and unprejudiced narrative, and her story only increased Lady Kirwan's wonder and distress.

"I tremble to think of the effect on your poor father's health," she said, when Marjorie had finished. "I have already been to his room this morning. He has seen the papers and is of course very upset. This man Joseph will of course have to be locked up. He is a dangerous lunatic.

We have sent a message to Mary, and she is to meet us both in the library at ten o'clock. We mean to speak very seriously to her indeed.

Perhaps you had better be there too. You have such influence with her, darling, and she is so fond of you."

At ten o'clock Mary went down into the library. She found her aunt, uncle, and cousin already there. Lady Kirwan kissed her with warm affection, and Mary saw that there were tears in her aunt's kind eyes.

Sir Augustus could not rise from his chair, but as she kissed him she saw nothing but the most genuine and almost fatherly feeling was animating him.

A pang shot through the girl's sensitive heart. How kind and good they were to her--how she hated to wound and hurt them! Ah, if only she could make them see with her eyes!

"Now sit down, dear," Lady Kirwan said, "and let us talk over this business quietly and sensibly, _en famille_, in short."

Mary was greatly agitated. She sat down as she was told. All other thoughts but those induced by the ordeal which she was about to face left her mind.

Now, in the early morning, the upper servants of the Berkeley Square mansion were employed on various matters, and only a young footman was on duty in the hall.

It chanced that on this morning a raw lad from the country, who was being trained to London service, was the person who answered the front door.

Sir Augustus had cleared his throat and had just begun, "Now, in regard to this man Joseph, my dear Mary," when the door of the library swung open, and the young footman, in a somewhat puzzled and frightened voice, announced--

"Sir Thomas Ducaine and Mr. Joseph, to see Miss Lys!"

CHAPTER XI