Vision House Part 27

"Will you go, dearest? Or shall I ring for Celine?" Mums asked.

Marise answered by walking into the salon and picking up the receiver.

Her heart was beating a little with the expectation of Garth's voice from--somewhere. Their own suite, perhaps? But a woman was speaking.

"Is it you, Mrs. Sorel?" was the question that came. And the heart-beats were not calmed, for Marise recognised the contralto tones of Miss Marks, the villainess of her dream.

"No, it's I, _Miss_ Sorel," she answered. "What's the matter? Aren't you coming as usual?"

"I am sorry, no, I can't come," replied the voice across the wire. "I thought that now--you're married, _Mrs. Garth_, and going away before long, I should no longer be required. But in any case I----"

"If we hadn't required your services we should have told you, and given you two weeks' salary in lieu of notice," snapped Marise professionally.

"I hardly supposed you had time to think about me, everything was so confused yesterday," Zelie excused herself. "Anyhow, Mrs. Garth, I must give notice myself, for I've had news which will take me out of New York at once. I've got to start by the next train. It doesn't matter about money. I was paid up only a few days ago. We were just starting fresh----"

"I'm sure my mother will wish to pay, and insist upon doing so," said Marise. "When does your train go?"

"I'm not certain to the minute," hedged Miss Marks. "But I have to pack.

I----"

"That won't prevent your receiving an envelope with what we owe you in it," persisted Marise. "I suppose you're 'phoning from your flat?"

"Yes--no. Yes. But I'll be gone before a messenger could get here.

_Please_ don't trouble."

"Very well, give me your address at the town where you're going," Marise said. "We can post you on a cheque."

"I can't do that, I'm afraid," objected Miss Marks. "I shall be moving about from place to place for awhile. It's really no _use_, Mrs. Garth, thank you--though of course it's kind of you to care. Please say good-bye to Mrs. Sorel for me. You've both been very good."

"I wish you'd sent us word last night," said Marise, whose eyes were bright, and whose hand, holding the receiver, had begun to throb as if she had a heart in her wrist.

"I didn't know last night. The news I spoke of came this morning."

"It must have come early!"

"It did. Good-bye, Mrs. Garth."

"Wait just a second. Are you going--West?"

"Ye-es. For awhile."

"You can't tell me where?"

"Oh, several places. Not far from my old home."

"Did you ever mention where that was?"

But no answer came. Either they had been cut off, or Zelie Marks had impudently left the telephone.

The dream came back to Marise--the dream where Garth and the stenographer had been whispering together in a room where Marise could not see them.

"I believe he's with her now," the girl thought. "I believe when he went out this morning he went straight to _her_. He's told her to do something, and she intends to do it."

To that question, "Are you going West?" Zelie had hesitatingly responded, "Ye-es." What did it mean?

CHAPTER XXIV

ACCORDING TO MUMS

That same afternoon, Mary Sorel began a letter to Severance, a letter embroidered with points of admiration, dashes, underlinings, and parentheses.

"Dear Tony," she wrote, for she felt the warm affection of an Egeria, mingled with that of a mother-in-law elect, for him: and it pleased all that was sn.o.bbish in her soul to have this intimate feeling for an earl.

"Dear Tony, I shall be cabling you about the time you land, according to promise. But I promised as well to write a sort of _diary_ letter, giving you all the developments day by day, and posting the doc.u.ment at the end of the week. Well, this is the first instalment, written--as you'll see by the date--on the day of your sailing.

"How I wish I had better news to give you! But don't be alarmed. Things are _not_ going as we hoped, yet they might be worse. And now you are prepared by that preface, I'll try to tell you exactly the state of affairs!

"At least, I shall be able to explain a mystery that puzzled and worried us both yesterday, after the--I suppose in lieu of a better word I'm bound to call it 'marriage'! Neither you nor I could understand precisely how _That Man_ had got my poor child so under his thumb, when by rights _he_ should have been under _her foot_!

"What he does is this: he simply threatens at every turn to go away and tell everyone, _including newspaper men_, the whole story from beginning to end. You might think with an ordinary person that this was all _bluff_. Because, if the story hurt you and Marise, and even _me_, it would hurt him as much. But whatever he may be (and he might be almost _anything_!) he is _not_ an ordinary person. He appears perfectly reckless of his own reputation. Apparently he cares not enough to lift his finger, or let it fall, for the opinion of others, no matter _who_.

If he said he would do some dreadful thing it wouldn't be safe to hope he was merely making an idle threat. He would _do_ it, I'm sure he would!

"That's the secret of his power over our poor little Marise, and I must admit, to a certain extent over _me_.

"I have been having a long talk with him about the future--the _immediate_ future, I mean, of course, for the more distant future I hope and believe will be controlled by _you_!

"When I reproached the man for browbeating my daughter, he actually retorted that we had no right to try and pin him to a certain line of conduct, and not _pay_ him for it! _Shameless!_ But that sample will show you what we are going _through_. I shall indeed rejoice for every reason when you are restored to us. You have told me that your cousin OEnone has what amounts to a million of American dollars, all her own, and that her father intends giving you another million on your marriage to her; so you will be in a position to complete your bargain with this Fiend. In order to obtain the money, he will _have_ to keep his part of the agreement.

"Yes, 'Fiend' is the word. Indeed, I used it aloud this afternoon in addressing him, so utterly did he enrage me. He will not allow Marise to go with me to Los Angeles and accept the loan of Bell Towers, which you so kindly placed at our disposal till your return with your poor little invalid, OEnone. He has a house of his own, out West, it seems--Arizona or somewhere _wild_-sounding. I believe it's near the Grand Canyon--wherever _that_ is! And heaven alone knows what it's like--the _house_, I mean, not the Canyon, which I am told is an immense abyss miles deep, full of _blood_-red rocks or something terrific.

"Garth insists that the unhappy child shall accompany him to this desolate spot, which is more or less on the way to California. The alternative he puts before her is of course the eternal (I nearly said, 'infernal'!) one, of deserting his bride with a blast of trumpets.

Neither you, nor Marise, nor I, can afford to let _this_ happen! Almost anything would be preferable at a crisis so delicate for you with your uncle. Especially as Marise _vows_ that, alone with her, the monster is not so formidable. In fact, she says she can account for his conduct at these times only by supposing that he does not like her, or is _in love with someone else_.

"I wonder, by the way, do you know at all if he has _any_ money? My impression, when he so easily accepted your somewhat original offer, was that he had none. But he made Marise several handsome presents of jewellery, which must have cost a great deal, _if_ he paid cash! Perhaps he used his V.C. to get them on _tick_--if such a thing is possible!

Marise refused, quite definitely, she tells me, to take these gifts from him. To-day, she chanced to ask Garth how he had disposed of them after her refusal. Though she put the question _most_ tactfully, even remarking that she was _sorry_ for some little abruptness when returning the jewel-cases (I don't know details!), the man _denied_ her right to ask what he had done. Marise persisted, however, in that sweet little _determined_ way she has, and Garth _at length_ flung out in reply that he had _given the things to another person_. Imagine it! Marise's _wedding_ presents!

"Nothing more was to be got out of him, however. Instinct whispers to me that the child suspects a certain young woman of having received the jewels. (Why, such a thing is almost like being a _receiver of stolen goods_, since surely they're the property of Marise. Not that she _wants_ or would look at them again!) She did not _tell_ me this. It is my own heart--the heart of a _mother_--which speaks. All she said was, that Garth wouldn't mention the name of the receiver, and resented her 'catechising' him. He put the matter like this: If _she'd_ given _him_ wedding presents, and he practically trampled them under foot, with scorn, wouldn't she consider herself free to do what she liked with the objects? Wouldn't she wish to get rid of them and never see them again?

Wouldn't her first thought be to give them away? And how would she feel if _he_ wanted to know what she'd done with the things?

"To the three first questions, Marise found herself obliged to answer '_Yes_.' (She has an almost _abnormal_ sense of justice for a woman, you know!) To the fourth, she replied in an equally self-sacrificing way, so in the end the man triumphed. But it was this business of the wedding presents which (as I've explained to you now) he deliberately _took back_ (we Americans call this being an 'Indian giver'!) that has made Marise think he's in love with someone.

"I may have guessed the person in her mind; but, as you will feel no interest in _that_ side of the subject, I'll not bore you by dwelling on it at present. The interest for _you_ in Garth's being in love with a woman who is _not_ our Marise (no matter who!) is _obvious_. If the child is right in her conjectures, she is also right, no doubt, in a.s.serting that she need have no fear the man will lose his head.

"In reading over what I have just written, I see that I may have given you a wrong impression. It sounds as if I had resigned myself to see Marise go off to live alone with Garth in his house by the abyss. Which is not the case, of course. I shall be with her. That is, I shall be most of the time--the best bargain I can drive! Except that, naturally, Celine will _always_ be with her. And if Garth is a Demon, Celine can be a dragon. She has learned this art from _Me_. She is absolutely faithful, and devoted to _your_ interests. In order to make sure of her services when needed in any possible emergency, I have more or less confided in her, which I think was wise.

"Now, before I write further, I will set your mind at rest as far as _possible_.