The Betrayal Part 24

"My father will never listen to me," he said, "but I feel sure that he makes a mistake in becoming a director of all these companies. Politics should be quite sufficient to engross his time, and the money cannot be so much of an object to him. I don't suppose his holdings are large, but I am quite sure that one or two of those Australian gold mines are d.i.c.ky, and you know he was an enormous holder of Chartereds, and wouldn't sell, worse luck! Of course I'm not afraid of his losing in the long run, but it isn't exactly a dignified thing to be a.s.sociated with these concerns that aren't exactly A1. His name might lead people into speculations who couldn't altogether afford it."

"I know nothing whatever of these matters," I answered, "but from what I have seen of your father I should imagine that he is remarkably able to guard his own interests."

Blenavon nodded.

"I suppose that is true," he admitted. "But when he is already a rich man, with very simple tastes, I am rather surprised that he should care to meddle with such things."

"Playing at commerce," I remarked, "has become rather a hobby with men of leisure lately."

"And women, too," Blenavon a.s.sented. "Rather an ugly hobby, I call it."

A servant entered and addressed Blenavon. "The carriage is at the door, your Lordship," he announced.

Blenavon glanced at his watch and rose.

"I shall have to ask you to excuse me, Ducaine," he said. "I was to have dined out to-night, and I must go and make my peace. Another gla.s.s of wine?"

I rose at once.

"Nothing more, thank you," I said. "I will just say good-night to your sister."

"She's probably in the drawing-room," he remarked. "If not, I will make your excuses when I see her."

Blenavon hurried out. A few moments later I heard the wheels of his carriage pa.s.s the long front of the house and turn down the avenue. I lingered for a moment where I was. The small oak table at which we had dined seemed like an oasis of colour in the midst of an atmosphere of gloom. The room was large and lofty, and the lighting was altogether inadequate. From the walls there frowned through the shadows the warlike faces of generations of Rowchesters. At the farther end of the apartment four armed giants stood grim and ghostlike in the twilight, which seemed to supply their empty frames with the presentment of actual warriors. I looked down upon the table, all agleam with flowers, and fruit, and silver, over which shone the red glow of the shaded lamps.

Exactly opposite to me, in that chair now pushed carelessly back, she had sat, so close that my hand could have touched hers at any moment, so close that I had been able to wonder more than ever before at the marvellous whiteness of her skin, the perfection of her small, finely-shaped features, the strange sphinxlike expression of her face, always suggestive of some great self-restraint, mysterious, and subtly stimulating. And as I stood there she seemed again to be occupying the chair, at first a faint shadowy presence, but gaining with every second shape and outline, until I could scarcely persuade myself that it was not she who sat there, she whose eyes more than once during dinner-time had looked into mine with that curious and instinctive demand for sympathy, even as regards the things of the moment, the pa.s.sing jest, the most transitory of emotions. A few minutes ago I had felt that I knew her better than ever before in my life, and now the chair was empty. My heart was beating at the imaginary presence of the vainest of shadows. She was going to marry Colonel Mostyn Ray.

And then I stood as though suddenly turned to stone. Before me were the great front windows of the castle. Beyond, eastwards, stretched the salt marshes, the salt marshes riven with creeks. Once more my unwilling hands touched that huddled-up heap of extinct humanity. I saw the dead white face, which the sun could never warm again, and I felt the hands, cold, clammy, horrible. Ray was a soldier, and life and death had become phrases to him; but I--it was the first dead man I had ever seen, and the horror of it was cold in my blood. Ray had murdered him, fought with him, perhaps, but killed him. What would she say if she knew? Would his hands be clean to her, or would the horror rise up like a red wall between them?

"Will you take coffee, sir?"

I set my teeth and turned slowly round. I even took the cup from the tray without spilling it.

"What liqueur may I bring you, sir?" the man asked.

"Brandy," I answered.

In a few minutes I was laughing at myself, not quite naturally, perhaps, but only I could know that. I was getting to be a morbid, nervous person. It was the solitude! I must get away from it all before long.

Fate had been playing strange tricks with me. Life, which a few months ago had been a cold and barren thing, was suddenly pressed to my lips, a fantastic, intoxicating mixture. I had drawn enough poison into my veins. I would have no more. I swore it.

I tried to leave the castle unnoticed, but the place was alive with servants. One of them hurried up to me as I tried to reach my hat and coat.

"Her ladyship desired me to say that she was in the billiard-room, sir,"

he announced.

"Will you tell Lady Angela--" and then I stopped. The door of the billiard-room was open, and Lady Angela stood there, the outline of her figure sharply defined against a flood of light. She had a cue in her hand, and she looked across at me.

"You are a long time, Mr. Ducaine. I am waiting for you to give me a lesson at billiards."

I crossed the hall to her side.

"I thought that as Lord Blenavon had gone out--"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"That you would evade your duty, which is clearly to stay and entertain your hostess."

She closed the door and glanced at me curiously.

"What has happened to you?" she asked. "You look as though you had been with ghosts."

"Is it so impossible?" I asked, moving a little nearer to the huge log fire. "What company is more terrifying than the company of our dead thoughts and dead hopes and dead memories?"

"Really, I am afraid that Blenavon must have been a very depressing companion!" she said, leaning her elbow upon the broad mantelpiece.

It was absurd! I tried to shake myself free from the miseries of the last hour.

"I am afraid it must have been the other way," I said, "for your brother has gone out."

"Yes," she said quietly, "he has gone to that woman at Braster Grange.

I wish I knew what brought her into this part of the country."

I looked round at the billiard-table.

"Did you mean that you would like a game?" I asked. "I am rather out of practice, but I used to fancy myself a little."

"I have no doubt," she answered, sinking into a low chair, "that you are an excellent player, but I am willing to take it for granted. I do not wish to play billiards. Draw that chair up to the fire and talk to me."

It was of all things what I wished to avoid that night. But there was no escape. I obeyed her.

"What your brother has told me is, I presume, no secret," I said. "I am to wish you happiness, am I not?"

She looked up at me in quick surprise.

"Did Blenavon tell you--"

"That you had promised to marry Colonel Mostyn Ray. Yes."

"That is very strange," she said thoughtfully. "Blenavon is not as a rule needlessly communicative, and at present it is almost a secret."

"Nevertheless," I said, turning slowly towards her, "I presume that it is true."

"It is perfectly true," she answered.

There was silence between us for several minutes. One of the footmen came softly in to see whether we required a marker, and finding us talking, withdrew. I was determined that the onus of further speech should remain with her.

"You are surprised?" she asked at last.