The Art of Disappearing Part 32

"And if I agree to it, what do I get?" turning again to Dillon.

"You can live in peace as La Belle Colette the dancer, practise your profession, and enjoy the embraces of your devoted husband. I let you off lightly. Your private life, your stage name, will be kept from the public, and, by consequence, from the dogs."

She shivered at the phrase. Shame was not in her, but fear could grip her heart vigorously. Her nerve did not exclude cowardice. This man she had always feared, perceiving in him not only a strength beyond the common, but a mysterious power not to be a.n.a.lyzed and named. Her flimsy rage would break hopelessly on this rock. Still before surrendering, her crooked nature forced her to the petty arts in which she excelled. Very clearly in this acting appeared the various strokes of character peculiar to Edith, Claire, and the Brand. She wheedled and whined one moment in the husky tones of Sister Magdalen's late favorite; when dignity was required she became the escaped nun; and in her rage she would burst into the melodramatic frenzy dear to the McMeeter audiences; but Colette, the heedless, irresponsible, half-mad b.u.t.terfly, dominated these various parts, and to this charming personality she returned.

Through his own sad experience this spectacle interested him. He subdued her finally by a precise description of consequences.

"You have done the Catholics of this city harm that will last a long time, Colette," said he. "That vile book of yours ... you ought to be hung for it. It will live to do its miserable work when you are in h.e.l.l howling. I really don't know why I should be merciful to you. Did you ever show mercy to any one? The court would do this for you and for us: the facts, figures, and personages of your career would be dragged into the light of day ... what a background that would be ... not a bad company either ... not a fact would escape ... you would be painted as you are. I'll not tell you what you are, but I know that you would die of your own colors ... you would go to jail, and rot there ... every time you came out I'd have a new charge on which to send you back. Your infamy would be printed by columns in the papers ... and the dogs would be put on your trail ... ah, there's the rub ... if the law let you go free, what a meal you'd make for the people who think you ought to be torn limb from limb, and who would do it with joy. I really do not understand why I offer you an alternative. Perhaps it's for the sake of this man who loves you ... for the great service he did me."

He paused to decide this point, while she gazed like a fascinated bird.

"What I want is this really," he went on. "I want to let the city see just what tools Livingstone, your employer, is willing to do his dirty work with. I want this committee to a.s.semble with pomp and circ.u.mstance ... those are the right words ... and to see you, in your very cleverest way, act the parts through which you fooled the wise. I want them to hear you say in that sweetest of voices, how you lied to them to get their dollars ... how you lied about us, your own people, threw mud on us, as Curran says, to get their dollars ... how your life, and your book, and your lectures, are all lies ... invented and printed because the crowd that devoured them were eager to believe us the horrible creatures you described. When you have done that, you can go free. No one will know your husband, or your name, or your profession. I don't see why you hesitate. I don't know why I should offer you this chance.

When Birmingham hears your story he will not approve of my action. But if you agree to follow my directions to the letter I'll promise that the law will not seize you."

What could she do but accept his terms, protesting that death was preferable? The risk of losing her just as the committee would be ready to meet, for her fickleness verged on insanity, he had to accept. He trusted in his own watchfulness, and in the fidelity of Curran to keep her in humor. Even now she forgot her disasters in the memory of her success as an impersonator, and entertained the men with scenes from her masquerade as Edith, Claire, and the Brand. From such a creature, so illy balanced, one might expect anything.

However, by judicious coddling and terrorizing, her courage and spirit were kept alive to the very moment when she stood before Birmingham and his committee, heard her confession of imposture read, signed it with perfect sang-froid, and ill.u.s.trated for the scandalized members her method of impersonation. So had Arthur worked upon her conceit that she took a real pride in displaying her costumes, and in explaining how skilfully she had led three lives in that city. Grim, bitter, sickened with disappointment, yet masked in smiles, part of the committee watched her performance to the end. They felt the completeness of Arthur's triumph. With the little airs and graces peculiar to a stage artiste, Edith put on the dusty costume of Edith Conyngham, and limped feebly across the floor; then the decorous garments of the Brand, and whispered tenderly in McMeeter's ear; last, the brilliant habit of the escaped nun, the curious eyebrows, the pallid face; curtseying at the close of the performance with her bold eyes on her audience, as if beseeching the merited applause. In the dead silence afterwards, Arthur mercifully led her away.

The journals naturally gave the affair large attention, and the net results were surprisingly fine. The house of cards so lovingly built up by Livingstone and his friends tumbled in a morning never to rise again.

All the little plans failed like kites snipped of their tails. Fritters went home, because the public lost interest in his lectures. The book of the escaped nun fell flat and disappeared from the market. McMeeter gave up his scheme of rescuing the inmates of convents and housing them until married. The hired press ignored the Paddies and their island for a whole year. Best of all, suddenly, on the plea of dying among his friends, Ledwith was set free, mainly through the representations of Lord Constantine in London and Arthur in Washington. These rebuffs told upon the Minister severely. He knew from whose strong hand they came, and that the same hand would not soon tire of striking.

CHAPTER XXIV.

ANNE MAKES HISTORY.

In the months that followed Anne Dillon lived as near to perfect felicity as earthly conditions permit. A countess and a lord breathed under her roof, ate at her table, and talked prose and poetry with her as freely as Judy Haskell. The Countess of Skibbereen and Lord Constantine had accompanied the Ledwiths to America, after Owen's liberation from jail, and fallen victims to the wiles of this clever woman. Arthur might look after the insignificant Ledwiths. Anne would have none of them. She belonged henceforth to the n.o.bility. His lordship was bent on utilizing his popularity with the Irish to further the cause of the Anglo-American Alliance. As the friend who had stood by the Fenian prisoners, not only against embittered England, but against indifferent Livingstone, he was welcomed; and if he wanted an alliance, or an heiress, or the freedom of the city, or anything which the Irish could buy for him, he had only to ask in order to receive. Anne sweetly took the responsibility off his shoulders, after he had outlined his plans.

"Leave it all to me," said she. "You shall win the support of all these people without turning your hand over."

"You may be sure she'll do it much better than you will," was the opinion of the Countess, and the young man was of the same mind.

She relied chiefly on Doyle Grahame for one part of her program, but that effervescent youth had fallen into a state of discouragement which threatened to leave him quite useless. He shook his head to her demand for a column in next morning's _Herald_.

"Same old story ... the Countess and you ... lovely costumes ... visits ... it won't go. The editors are wondering why there's so much of you."

"Hasn't it all been good?"

"Of course, or it would not have been printed. But there must come an end sometime. What's your aim anyway?"

"I want a share in making history," she said slyly.

"Take a share in making mine," he answered morosely, and thereupon she landed him.

"Oh, run away with Mona, if you're thinking of marrying."

"Thinking of it! Talking of it! That's as near as I can get to it," he groaned. "John Everard is going to drive a desperate bargain with me. I wrote a book, I helped to expose Edith Conyngham, I drove Fritters out of the country with my ridicule, I shocked Bradford, and silenced McMeeter; and I have failed to move that wretch. All I got out of my labors was permission to sit beside Mona in her own house with her father present."

"You humor the man too much," Anne said with a laugh. "I can twist John Everard about my finger, only----"

"There it is," cried Grahame. "Behold it in its naked simplicity! Only!

Well, if anything short of the divine can get around, over, under, through, or by his sweet, little 'only,' he's fit to be the next king of Ireland. What have I not done to do away with it? Once I thought, I hoped, that the invitation to read the poem on the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, coming as a climax to mult.i.tudinous services, would surely have fetched him. Now, with the invitation in my pocket, I'm afraid to mention it. What if he should scorn it?"

"He won't if I say the word. Give me the column to-morrow, and any time I want it for a month or two, and I'll guarantee that John Everard will do the right thing by you."

"You can have the column. What do you want it for?"

"The alliance, of course. I'm in the business of making history, as I told you. Don't open your mouth quite so wide, please. There's to be a meeting of the wise in this house, after a dinner, to express favorable opinions about the alliance. Then in a month or two a distinguished peer, member of the British Cabinet, is coming over to sound the great men on the question.... What are you whistling for?"

"You've got a fine thing, Mrs. Dillon," said he. "By Jove, but I'll help you spread this for all it's worth."

"Understand," she said, tapping the table with emphasis, "the alliance must go through as far as we can make it go. Now, do your best. When you go over to see John Everard next, go with a mind to kill him if he doesn't take your offer to marry his daughter. I'll see to it that the poem on the Pilgrims does the trick for you."

"I'd have killed him long ago, if I thought it worth the trouble," he said.

He felt that the crisis had come for him and Mona. That charming girl, in spite of his entreaties, of his threats to go exploring Africa, remained as rigidly faithful to her ideas of duty as her father to his obstinacy. She would not marry without his consent. With all his confidence in Anne's cleverness, how could he expect her to do the impossible? To change the unchangeable? John Everard showed no sign of the influence which had brought Livingstone to his knees, when Grahame and Mona stood before him, and the lover placed in her father's hands the doc.u.ment of honor.

"Really, this is wonderful," said Everard, impressed to the point of violence. "You are to compose and to read the poem on the Pilgrim Fathers?"

"That's the prize," said Grahame severely. He might be squaring off at this man the next moment, and could not carry his honors lightly. "And now that it has come I want my reward. We must be married two weeks before I read that poem, and the whole world must see and admire the source of my inspiration."

He drew his beloved into his arms and kissed her pale cheek.

"Very well. That will be appropriate," the father said placidly, clearing his throat to read the invitation aloud. He read pompously, quite indifferent to the emotion of his children, proud that they were to be prominent figures in a splendid gathering. They, beatified, pale, unstrung by this calm acceptance of what he had opposed bitterly two years, sat down foolishly, and listened to the pompous utterance of pompous phrases in praise of dead heroes and a living poet. Thought and speech failed together. If only some desperado would break in upon him and try to kill him! if the house would take fire, or a riot begin in the street! The old man finished his reading, congratulated the poet, blessed the pair in the old-fashioned style, informed his wife of the date of the wedding, and marched off to bed. After pulling at that door for years it was maddening to have the very frame-work come out as if cemented with b.u.t.ter. What an outrage to come prepared for heroic action, and to find the enemy turned friend! Oh, admirable enchantress was this Anne Dillon!

The enchantress, having brought Grahame into line and finally into good humor, took up the more difficult task of muzzling her stubborn son. To win him to the good cause, she had no hope; sufficient, if he could be won to silence while diplomacy shaped the course of destiny.

"Better let me be on that point," Arthur said when she made her attack.

"I'm hostile only when disturbed. Lord Conny owns us for the present. I won't say a word to shake his t.i.tle. Neither will I lift my eyebrows to help this enterprise."

"If you only will keep quiet," she suggested.

"Well, I'm trying to. I'm set against alliance with England, until we have knocked the devil out of her, begging your pardon for my frankness.

I must speak plainly now so that we may not fall out afterwards. But I'll be quiet. I'll not say a word to influence a soul. I'll do just as Ledwith does."

He laughed at the light which suddenly shone in her face.

"That's a fair promise," she said smoothly, and fled before he could add conditions.

Her aim and her methods alike remained hidden from him. He knew only that she was leading them all by the nose to some brilliant climax of her own devising. He was willing to be led. The climax turned out to be a dinner. Anne had long ago discovered the secret influence of a fine dinner on the politics of the world. The halo of a saint pales before the golden nimbus which well-fed guests see radiating from their hostess after dinner. A good man may possess a few robust virtues, but the dinner-giver has them all. Therefore, the manager of the alliance gathered about her table one memorable evening the leaders whose good opinion and hearty support Lord Constantine valued in his task of winning the Irish to neutrality or favor for his enterprise. Arthur recognized the climax only when Lord Constantine, after the champagne had sparkled in the gla.s.ses, began to explain his dream to Sullivan.

"What do you think of it?" said he.

"It sounds as harmless as a popgun, and looks like a vision. I don't see any details in your scheme," said the blunt leader graciously.

"We can leave the details to the framers of the alliance," said His Lordship, uneasy at Arthur's laugh. "What we want first is a large, generous feeling in its favor, to encourage the leaders."