The Crown of Life Part 31

The house was at Campden Hill; a house of the kind known to agents as "desirable," larger than the two ladies needed for their comfort, and, as one saw on entering the hall, furnished with tasteful care. The work had been supervised by Dr. Derwent, who thought that his sister and his niece might thus be tempted to live the orderly life so desirable in their unfortunate circ.u.mstances. When Piers entered, Mrs. Hannaford sat alone in the drawing room; she still had the look of an invalid, but wore a gown which showed to advantage the lines of her figure. Otway had been told not to dress, and it caused him some surprise to see his hostess adorned as if for an occasion of ceremony. Her hair was done in a new way, which changed the wonted character of her face, so that she looked younger. A bunch of pale flowers rested against her bosom, and breathed delicate perfume about her.

"It was discussed," she said, in a low, intimate voice, "whether we should settle in London or abroad. But we didn't like to go away. Our only real friends are in England, and we must hope to make more. Olga is so good, now that she sees that I really need her. She has been so kind and sweet during my illness."

Whilst they were talking, Miss Hannaford silently made her entrance.

Piers turned his head, and felt a shock of surprise. Not till now had he seen Olga at her best; he had never imagined her so handsome; it was a wonderful ill.u.s.tration of the effect of apparel. She, too, had reformed the fashion of her hair, and its tawny abundance was much more effective than in the old careless style. She looked taller; she stepped with a more graceful a.s.surance, and in offering her hand, betrayed consciousness of Otway's admiration in a little flush that well became her.

She had subdued her voice, chastened her expressions. The touch of masculinity on which she had prided herself in her later "Bohemian"

days, was quite gone. Wondering as they conversed, Piers had a difficulty in meeting her look; his eyes dropped to the little silk shoe which peeped from beneath her skirt. His senses were gratified; he forgot for the moment his sorrow and unrest.

The talk at dinner was rather formal. Piers, with his indifferent appet.i.te, could do but scanty justice to the dainties offered him, and the sense of luxury added a strangeness to his new relations with Mrs.

Hannaford and her daughter. Olga spoke of a Russian novel she had been reading in a French translation, and was anxious to know whether it represented life as Otway knew it in Russia. She evinced a wider interest in several directions, emphasised--perhaps a little too much--her inclination for earnest thought: was altogether a more serious person than hitherto.

Afterwards, when they grouped themselves in the drawing-room, this constraint fell away. Mrs. Hannaford dropped a remark which awakened memories of their life together at Geneva, and Piers turned to her with a bright look.

"You used to play in those days," he said, "and I've never heard you touch a piano since."

There was one in the room. Olga glanced at it, and then smilingly at her mother.

"My playing was so very primitive," said Mrs. Hannaford, with a laugh.

"I liked it."

"Because you were a boy then."

"Let me try to be a boy again. Play something you used to. One of those bits from 'Tell,' which take me back to the lakes and the mountains whenever I hear them."

Mrs. Hannaford rose, laughing as if ashamed; Olga lit the candles on the piano.

"I shall have to play from memory--and a nice mess I shall make of it."

But memory served her for the pa.s.sages of melody which Piers wished to hear. He listened with deep pleasure, living again in the years when everything he desired seemed a certainty of the future, depending only on the flight of time, on his becoming "a man." He remembered his vivid joy in the pleasures of the moment, the natural happiness now, and for years, unknown to him. So long ago, it seemed; yet Mrs. Hannaford, sitting at the piano, looked younger to him than in those days. And Olga, whom as a girl of fourteen he had not much liked, thinking her both conceited and dull, now was a very different person to him, a woman who seemed to have only just revealed herself, a.s.serting a power of attraction he had never suspected in her. He found himself trying to catch glimpses of her face at different angles, as she sat listening abstractedly to the music.

When it was time to go, he took leave with reluctance. The talk had grown very pleasantly familiar. Mrs. Hannaford said she hoped they would often see him, and the hope had an echo in his own thoughts. This house might offer him the refuge he sought when loneliness weighed too heavily. It was true, he could not accept the idea with a whole heart; some vague warning troubled his imagination; but on the way home he thought persistently of the pleasure he had experienced, and promised himself that it should be soon repeated.

A melody was singing in his mind; becoming conscious of it, he remembered that it was the air to which his friend Moncharmont had set the little song of Alfred de Musset. At Odessa he had been wont to sing it--in a voice which Moncharmont declared to have the quality of a very fair tenor, and only to need training.

"Quand on perd, par triste occurrence, Son esperance Et sa gaite, Le remede au melancolique C'est la musique Et la beaute.

Plus oblige et peut davantage Un beau visage Qu'un homme arme, Et rien n'est meilleur que d'entendre Air doux et tendre Jadis aime!"

It haunted him after he had gone to rest, and for once he did not mind wakefulness.

A week pa.s.sed. On Friday, Piers said to himself that to-morrow he would go in the afternoon to Campden Hill, on the chance of finding his friends at home. On Sat.u.r.day morning the post brought him a letter which he saw to be from Mrs. Hannaford, and he opened it with pleasant antic.i.p.ation; but instead of the friendly lines he expected he found a note of agitated appeal. The writer entreated him to come and see her exactly at three o'clock; she was in very grave trouble, had the most urgent need of him. Three o'clock; neither sooner or later; if he could possibly find time. If he could not come, would he telegraph an appointment for her at his office?

With perfect punctuality, he arrived at the house, and in the drawing-room found Mrs. Hannaford awaiting him. She came forward with both her hands held out; in her eyes a look almost of terror. Her voice, at first, was in choking whispers, and the words so confusedly hurried as to be barely intelligible.

"I have sent Olga away--I daren't let her know--she will be away for several hours, so we can talk--oh, you will help me--you will do your best----"

Perplexed and alarmed, Piers held her hand as he tried to calm her. She seemed incapable of telling him what had happened, but kept her eyes fixed upon him in a wild entreaty, and uttered broken phrases which conveyed nothing to him; he gathered at length that she was in fear of some person.

"Sit down and let me hear all about it," he urged.

"Yes, yes--but I'm so ashamed to speak to you about such things. I don't know whether you'll believe me. Oh, the shame--the dreadful shame! It's only because there seems just this hope. How shall I bring myself to tell you?"

"Dear Mrs. Hannaford, we have been friends so long. Trust me to understand you. Of course, of course I shall believe what you say!"

"A dreadful, a shameful thing has happened. How shall I tell you?" Her haggard face flushed scarlet. "My husband has given me notice that he is going to sue for a divorce. He brings a charge against me--a false, cruel charge! It came yesterday. I went to the solicitor whose name was given, and learnt all I could. I have had to hide it from Olga, and oh!

what it cost me! At once I thought of you; then it seemed impossible to speak to you; then I felt I must, I must. If only you can believe me!

It is--your brother."

Piers was overcome with amazement. He sat looking into the eyes which stared at him with their agony of shame.

"You mean Daniel?" he faltered.

"Yes--Daniel Otway. It is false--it is false! I am not guilty of this!

It seems to me like a hateful plot--if one could believe anyone so wicked. I saw him last night. Oh, I must tell you all, else you'll never believe me--I saw him last night. How can anyone behave so to a helpless woman? I never did him anything but kindness. He has me in his power, and he is merciless."

A pa.s.sion of disgust and hatred took hold on Piers as he remembered the meeting in Piccadilly.

"You mean to say you have put yourself into that fellow's power?" he exclaimed.

"Not willingly! Oh, not willingly! I meant only kindness to him. Yes, I have been weak, I know, and so foolish! It has gone on so long.--You remember when I first saw him, at Ewell? I liked him, just as a friend.

Of course I behaved foolishly. It was my miserable life--you know what my life was. But nothing happened--I mean, I never thought of him for a moment as anything but an ordinary friend--until I had my legacy."

The look on the listener's face checked her.

"I begin to understand," said Piers, with bitterness.

"No, no! Don't say that--don't speak like that!"

"It's not you I am thinking of, Mrs. Hannaford. As soon as money comes in--. But tell me plainly. I have perfect confidence in what you say, indeed I have."

"It does me good to hear you say that! I can tell you all, now that I have begun. It is true, he _did_ ask me to go away with him, again and again. But he had no right to do that--I was foolish in showing that I liked him. Again and again I forbade him ever to see me; I tried so hard to break off! It was no use. He always wrote, wherever I was, sending his letters to Dr. Derwent to be forwarded. He made me meet him at all sorts of places--using threats at last. Oh, what I have gone through!"

"No doubt," said Piers gently, "you have lent him money?"

She reddened again; her head sank.

"Yes--I have lent him money, when he was in need. Just before the death of your father."

"Once only?"

"Once--or twice----"

"To be sure. Lately, too, I daresay?"

"Yes----"