The Lamp of Fate Part 27

"Don't look--don't read it, Magda!" she entreated hastily.

The other made no response. Instead, she deliberately searched the columns of the paper until she found a paragraph headed: Disappearance of the Honourable Kit Raynham.

No exception could reasonably be taken to the paragraph in question. It gave a brief resume of Kit Raynham's short life up to date, referred to the distinguished career which had been predicted for him, and, in mentioning that he was one of the set of brilliant young folks of whom Magda Wielitzska, the well-known dancer, was the acknowledged leader, it conveyed a very slightly veiled hint that he, in particular, was accounted one of her most devoted satellites. The sting of the paragraph lay in its tail:

"It will be tragic indeed if it should eventually transpire that a young life so full of exceptional promise has foundered in seas that only a seasoned swimmer should essay."

It was easy enough for Magda to read between the lines. If anything had happened to Kit Raynham--if it were ultimately found that he had taken his own life--society at large was prepared to censure her as more or less responsible for the catastrophe!

Side by side with this paragraph was another--a panegyric on the perfection of Wielitzska's dancing as a whole, and dwelling particularly upon her brilliant performance in _The Swan-Maiden_.

To Magda, the juxtaposition of the two paragraphs was almost unendurable. That this supreme success should be marred and overshadowed by a possible tragedy! She flung the newspaper to the ground.

"I think--I think the world's going mad!" she exclaimed in a choked voice.

Gillian looked across at her. Intuitively she apprehended the mental conflict through which her friend was pa.s.sing--the nervous apprehension and resentment of the artiste that any extraneous happening should infringe upon her success contending with the genuine regret she would feel if some untoward accident had really befallen Kit Raynham. And behind both these that strange, aloof detachment which seemed part of the very fibre of her nature, and which Gillian knew would render it almost impossible for her to admit or even realise that she was in any way responsible for Kit Raynham's fate--whatever it might be.

Of what had taken place in the winter-garden at Lady Arabella's Gillian was, of course, in ignorance, and she had therefore no idea that the intrusion of Kit Raynham's affairs at this particular juncture was doubly unwelcome. But she could easily see that Magda was shaken out of her customary sang-froid.

"Don't worry, Magda." The words sprang consolingly to her lips, but before she could give them utterance Melrose opened the door and announced that Lady Raynham was in the library. Would Mademoiselle Wielitzska see her?

The old man's face wore a look of concern. They had heard all about the disappearance of Lady Raynham's son in the servants' hall--the evening papers had had it. Moreover, it always seems as though there exists a species of wireless telepathy by which the domestic staff of any household, great or small, speedily becomes acquainted with everything good, bad, or indifferent--and particularly bad!--which affects the folks "above-stairs."

A brief uncomfortable pause succeeded Melrose's announcement; then Magda walked quietly out of the room into the library.

Lady Raynham rose from a low chair near the fire. She was a little, insignificant woman, rather unfashionably attired, with neat grey hair and an entirely undistinguished face, but as she stood there, motionless, waiting for Magda to come up to her, she was quite unconsciously impressive--transformed by that tragic dignity with which great sorrow invests even the most commonplace of people.

Her thin, middle-aged features looked drawn and puckered by long hours of strain. Her eyes were red-rimmed with sleeplessness. They searched Magda's face accusingly before she spoke.

"What have you done to my son?"

"Where is he?" Magda's answering question came in almost breathless haste.

"You don't know!"

Lady Raynham sat down suddenly. Her legs were trembling beneath her--had been trembling uncontrollably even as she nerved herself to stand and confront the woman at whose door she laid the ruin of her son. But now the spurt of nervous energy was exhausted, and she sank back into her chair, thankful for its support.

"I don't know where he is," she said tonelessly. "I don't even know whether he is alive or dead."

She fumbled in the wrist-bag she carried, and withdrawing a crumpled sheet of notepaper held it out. Magda took it from her mechanically, recognising, with a queer tightening of the muscles of her throat, the boyish handwriting which sprawled across it.

"You want me to read this?" she asked.

"You've _got_ to read it," replied the other harshly. "It is written to you. I found it--after he'd gone."

Her gaze fastened on Magda's face and clung there unwaveringly while she read the letter.

It was a wild, incoherent outpouring--the headlong confession of a boy's half-crazed infatuation for a beautiful woman. A pathetic enough doc.u.ment in its confused medley of pa.s.sionate demand and boyish humbleness. The tragic significance of it was summed up in a few lines at the end--lines which seemed to burn themselves into Magda's brain:

"I suppose it was cheek my hoping you could ever care, but you were so sweet to me you made me think you did. I know now that you don't--that you never really cared a bra.s.s farthing, and I'm going right away. The same world can't hold us both any longer. So I'm going out of it."

Magda looked up from the scrawled page and met the gaze of the sad, merciless eyes that were fixed on her.

"Couldn't you have left him alone?" Lady Raynham spoke in a low, difficult voice. "You have men enough to pay you compliments and run your errands. I'd only Kit. Couldn't you have let me keep him? What did you want with my boy's love. You'd nothing to give him in return?"

"I had!" protested Magda indignantly. "You're wrong. I was very fond of Kit. I gave him my friendship."

Her indignation was perfectly sincere. To her, it seemed that Lady Raynham was taking up a most unwarrantable att.i.tude.

"Friendship?" repeated the latter with bitter scorn. "Friendship? Then G.o.d help the boys to whom you give it! Before Kit ever met you he was the best and dearest son a woman could have had. He was keen on his work--wild to get on. And he was so gifted it looked as if there were nothing in his profession that he might not do. . . . Then you came! You turned his head, filled his thoughts to the exclusion of all else--work, duty, everything that matters to a lad of two-and-twenty. You spoilt his chances--spoilt his whole life. And now I've lost him. I don't know where he is--whether he is dead or alive." She paused. "I think he's dead," she said dully.

"I'm sorry if--"

"Sorry!" Lady Raynham interrupted hysterically. Her composure was giving way under the strain of the interview. "Sorry if my son has taken his own life--"

"He hasn't," a.s.serted Magda desperately. "He was far too sensible and--and ordinary."

"Yes. Till you turned his head!"

Lady Raynham rose and walked towards the door as though she had said all she came to say. Magda sprang to her feet.

"I won't--I won't be blamed like this!" she exclaimed rebelliously.

"It's unfair! Can I help it if your son chose to fall in love with me? You--you might as well hold me responsible because he is tall or short--or good or bad!"

The other stopped suddenly on her way to the door as though arrested by that last defiant phrase.

"I do," she said sternly. "It's women like you who are responsible whether men are good--or bad."

In silence Magda watched the small, una.s.suming figure disappear through the doorway. She felt powerless to frame a reply, nor had Lady Raynham waited for one. If her boy were indeed dead--dead by his own hand--she had at least cleared his memory, laid the burden of the mad, rash act he had committed on the shoulders that deserved to bear it.

Normally a shy, retiring kind of woman, loathing anything in the nature of a scene, the tragedy which had befallen her son had inspired Alicia Raynham with the reckless courage of a tigress defending its young.

And now that the strain was over and she found herself once more in her brougham, driving homeward with the familiar clip-clop of the fat old carriage-horse's hoofs in her ears, she shrank back against the cushions marvelling at the temerity which had swept her into the Wielitzska's presence and endowed her with words that cut like a two-edged sword.

Like a two-edged sword in very truth! Lady Raynham's final thrust, stabbing at her with its stern denunciation, brought back vividly to Magda Michael Quarrington's bitter speech--"I've no place for your kind of woman."

Side by side with the recollection came a sudden dart of fear. How would all this stir about Kit Raynham--the impending gossip and censure which seemed likely to be accorded her--affect him? Would he judge her again--as he had judged her before?

She was conscious of a fresh impulse of anger against Lady Raynham. She wanted to forget the past--blot it all out of her memory--and out of the memory of the man whose contempt had hurt her more than anything in her whole life before. And now it seemed as though everything were combining to emphasise those very things which had earned his scorn.

But, apart from a certain apprehension as to how the whole affair might appear in Michael's eyes, she was characteristically unimpressed by her interview with Lady Raynham.

"I don't see," she told Gillian indignantly, "that I'm to blame because the boy lost his head. His mother was--stupid."

Gillian regarded her consideringly. To her, the whole pitiful tragedy was so clear. She could envisage the point of view of Kit's mother only too well, and sympathise with it. Yet, understanding Magda better than most people did, she realised that the dancer was hardly as culpable as Lady Raynham thought her.