This House to Let Part 27

Hugh had to admit that it was so.

"Well, I am going to tell you something that, up to the present, I have not told to anybody else, and, to tell you the truth, I was not in the least interested in Guy Spencer's marriage. If he chose to marry a girl without a past, that was his affair. But I see you are keen."

"Yes, I am very keen."

"Good! Well, I will give you a little information, from which you can draw your own inferences. They are as open to you as to me, and I shall just state the bare facts. As you know, Esmond had to bolt to the Continent. On a certain morning I came up from the country by an early train, landing at Charing Cross. I went to the bookstall to buy a few papers. I must tell you that I am one of those persons who have eyes at the back of their head, and see everything going on around them."

Yes, Hugh knew that Fairfax had a wonderful gift of observation, in addition to his many other gifts.

"As I turned away, I saw Esmond slink into the station, glancing furtively from right to left, as fearful of being seen. Of course, I had not heard the news, and I was not present at the _debacle_, but I guessed something was up from his furtive appearance. As he slunk along, a young woman heavily-veiled walked swiftly forward, and laid her hand upon his arm. They were only together for a few seconds, Esmond was evidently urging her to leave him for fear of recognition. When they parted, she kissed him affectionately. In spite of the heavy veiling, I recognised her."

"Stella Keane, of course," cried Hugh.

"Stella Keane. Fortunately, neither of them saw me, I expect they were both too agitated. Well, there is the fact; as I said just now, you can draw your own inferences, and perhaps answer the question whether she was a good woman before she married your friend."

"It is answered," said Hugh sternly. "A good woman would not trouble to go to the station to say good-bye to a derelict card-sharper, and kiss him affectionately, unless there had been some close and dishonourable relationship between them."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Murchison arrived at Eaton Place about twenty minutes before the dinner hour. His expectation was that he would find Mrs Spencer alone in the drawing-room, and in this hope he was not disappointed.

Stella, beautifully gowned, was seated in a luxurious easy-chair, reading. As he was announced, she rose and threw her novel down. She advanced to him with outstretched hand and that ever-charming smile.

"Oh, how sweet of you to come in good time, not rush in just a moment before dinner is served. We can have a comfortable chat before Guy comes. He takes an awful time to dress, you know. His ties bother him really; he discards about half a dozen before he gets the proper bow.

Isn't it silly?"

She was very girlish to-night, quite different from what she had been at the Southleigh party, staid, demure, a little resentful, and averse from conversation.

Murchison's thoughts flew back to that day at Blankfield when he had met a certain girl by chance at the tea-shop. Norah Burton had been just as girlish then as Mrs Spencer was now, allowing for the six years'

interval.

She crossed over to a Chesterfield, and motioned him to a seat beside her. Hugh obeyed her invitation, but he felt sure that she had done this with a motive. She was about to exercise her subtle fascination on her husband's friend.

"Now, please tell me all about yourself," she said. "You are Guy's friend, and I have a right to know. His friends are mine. I know what you have done in the War: you have suffered very terribly. But before that; please enlighten me."

It was a challenge. Did she desire to know as much of his past as he desired to know of hers? He looked at her very steadily.

"You know, Mrs Spencer, it is a little difficult to go back to anything before those awful years of war. But I remember, as in a sort of dream, that, quite as a young man, I was gazetted to the Twenty-fifth Lancers."

"A crack regiment, was it not?" queried Mrs Spencer. "My dear father was in the Twenty-fourth."

She was keeping it up bravely, he thought. He remembered Fairfax's story. The woman who had said good-bye to a fugitive card-sharper at Charing Cross Station, and kissed him affectionately, was hardly likely to be the daughter of an officer in the Twenty-fourth Lancers. He was not sure of very much, but of this one incident he was absolutely positive: Fairfax was a man who was always certain of his facts.

"I can't remember much about the early years; I expect I went through the usual trials and troubles of a young subaltern, was subjected to a good deal of ragging. Well, somehow, promotion came: I was Captain at quite a youthful age. The one thing that sticks in my mind, in those pre-war days, is the fact that we were quartered at Blankfield."

Mrs Spencer lifted calm, inquiring eyes. "At Blankfield! And where is that?"

"You don't mean to say you haven't heard of Blankfield?"

Mrs Spencer shook her dark head. "No; I dare say it shows great ignorance, but I was never good at geography. I was brought up so quietly; I have never travelled. I know next to nothing of my own country, and nothing of any other."

She uttered these remarks with a disarming and appealing smile, as if asking pardon from a man of the world for having led such an uneventful and sequestered life--she, as he thought sardonically, the mysterious cousin of Mrs L'Estrange, the affectionate friend of the card-sharper Tommie Esmond.

"Blankfield is rather a well-known town in Yorkshire; it is also a garrison town. As I said, it was my lot to be quartered there."

"Was it a nice place?" queried Mrs Spencer with an air of polite interest.

"In a way, yes; we had a good time. But my recollections of it are distinctly unpleasant. For I had the misfortune to a.s.sist at a tragedy--nay, more, to play a part in it--which has left an ineffaceable record upon my memory." Stella Spencer leaned forward. There was no momentary change of expression upon the clear-cut, charming face; her eyes met his own with a calm, steady gaze. But he thought--and after all that might be fancy--he detected a restless movement of her hands.

"I shall like to hear about that tragedy, if it is not too painful for you to recall it," she said softly. If she were really what he believed her to be, she was playing the role of sympathetic listener to perfection.

"I had a young chum of the name of Pomfret, a mere boy, impulsive, high-spirited, generous, unsuspicious, little versed in the ways of the world, absolutely unversed in the ways of women. I had promised his family to look after him. Looking back at this distance of years, I realise how badly I fulfilled my trust; how, in a sense, I was unwittingly the cause of the tragedy that befell him. I wonder if you ever came across my friend, Jack Pomfret."

"Never; but, of course, I have met so few people. And you know the truth, as well as everybody else, I was not brought up in my husband's world, in your world and that of the Southleighs. I could never claim to be more than respectable middle-cla.s.s. I take it, your friend was a member of some old family."

The voice was steady, but he thought he noticed an increased restlessness in the movements of the hands. And the admission that she was a member of the respectable middle-cla.s.s struck him as conveying a false note intentionally. If what she alleged was true, that her father had been an officer in the Twenty-fourth Lancers, she was a grade higher than the respectable middle-cla.s.s. Clever as she was, she had made a false step there.

"You want to hear the history of that tragedy, of the terrible circ.u.mstances which cut short the life of my poor young friend. Well, it is hardly necessary to say that a woman was the cause. Women, I suppose, have been at the bottom of most of the tragedies that have happened to men ever since the days of Eve."

"I know that is the general opinion, but I have always been very doubtful as to whether it is a true one."

She spoke lightly, but it seemed to him her tone was not quite so a.s.sured as it had been a moment ago. Anyway, she was evidently intensely interested in the forthcoming narrative.

"At Blankfield I happened to make the acquaintance of a very charming young woman, who was not received in the Society of the place, for the reason that nothing was known about her. The acquaintance was made in the most unconventional fashion. She asked me to call upon her and her brother. I told all this to Pomfret, who knew the girl by sight, and he asked me to take him along with me. He had met her very often in the High Street, and was immensely attracted by her appearance."

"And were you attracted, too, by this formidable young lady, Major Murchison?" interrupted Stella.

"In a way. But, honestly, more curious than attracted. Well, to cut my story as short as I can, Pomfret soon arrived at an understanding with the young woman, to a great extent without my knowledge. They were married secretly; there were family reasons why he could not marry her openly."

"But this--but this,"--was she speaking a little nervously, or was it only his fancy?--"was quite romantic and charming. No doubt they were deeply in love with each other. Surely there was no tragedy to follow such a delightful wooing?"

"But there was. This innocent-faced, charming girl was an adventuress of the first water. She was the accomplice of her criminal brother, if brother he was. A day or two after the wedding, Pomfret and I went to dine with this wretched pair. Before we sat down to dinner, two detectives entered the room and arrested the so-called brother on a charge of forgery." Mrs Spencer shuddered. "How horrible, how appalling! And what happened to the girl? Was she arrested, too?"

"No; she fainted, and I dragged my friend away. At the time I did not know he had married her. When I got him back to the barracks, he told me his miserable story. That same night, or some time in the next morning, he shot himself. It was perhaps a cowardly way in which to avoid the consequences of his folly, but then he was always rash and impulsive."

Mrs Spencer spoke, and there was a far-away look in her eyes. "Your poor friend! No wonder that memory haunts you. And yet, he was not very wise. This poor adventuress might have been easy to deal with; she might not have troubled him any further if he had made her some small allowance; would, so to speak, have slunk out of his life. And she might have been innocent herself, unable to break away from this wretched criminal of a brother."

"You are very charitable, Mrs Spencer," said Hugh coldly. "But I fear I cannot agree with you. If the girl had been naturally and innately honest, she would rather have swept a crossing than have lived upon the gains of that creature--brother, or lover, or whatever he was."

Stella spoke with dignity. "You are, I see, very much moved, Major Murchison, and you can judge better than I. I cannot pretend to understand the mentality of adventuresses and their criminal a.s.sociates," she added with a light laugh, "but I should say that sweeping a crossing is a most uncongenial occupation, especially in the cold weather."

"In other words, if you had been in her place, you would have preferred to live on the earnings of a rogue?" queried Hugh, perhaps a little too warmly. As soon as he spoke, he regretted his words. He had given her an advantage, of which she was not slow to avail herself.

She drew herself up proudly. "Major Murchison, are you not saying a little too much in presuming to place me on the level of the adventuress you have spoken of? I think it will be more consistent with my self-respect to leave your question unanswered."

And then suddenly her proud mood vanished, and a softer one took its place. Her voice trembled as she spoke; there was a suspicious moisture in her eyes.

"I see that I was very wrong when I suffered Guy to persuade me to marry him. I have alienated him from his friends and family, and, alas! I have none of my own to bring him in exchange. His uncle loathes me; Lady Nina is polite and tolerates me. And you--you, his old friend, who have known him from boyhood--you dislike me also. But,"--and here her voice swelled into a proud note--"my husband loves and trusts me. While he does that, Major Murchison, I can snap my fingers at the rest of the world."