Who? Part 34

Valdriguez knelt on the floor with her back to him, and it seemed as if the sudden shock had paralysed her, for she made no effort to move, and her hand, arrested in the act of replacing a book, remained outstretched, as if it had been turned to stone.

"It is I, your master. What are you doing here?" he repeated.

He saw her shudder convulsively, then slowly she raised her head, and as her great, tragic eyes met his, Cyril was conscious of a revulsion of feeling toward her. Never had he seen anything so hopeless yet so undaunted as the look she gave him. It reminded him, curiously enough, of a look he had once seen in the eyes of a lioness, who, with a bullet through her heart, still fought to protect her young.

Staggering a little as she rose, Valdriguez nevertheless managed to draw herself up to her full height.

"I am here, my lord, to get what is mine--mine," she repeated almost fiercely.

Cyril pulled himself together. It was absurd, he reasoned, to allow himself to be impressed by her strange personality.

"A likely story!" he exclaimed; and the very fact that he was more than half-inclined to believe her, made him speak more roughly than he would otherwise have done.

"Think what you like," she cried, shrugging her shoulders contemptuously. "Have me arrested--have me hung--what do I care? Death has no terrors for me."

"So you confess that it was you who murdered his Lordship? Ah, I suspected it! Your sanctimonious airs didn't deceive me," exclaimed Cyril triumphantly.

"No, I did not murder him," she replied calmly, almost indifferently.

"I think you will have some difficulty convincing the police of that.

You have no alibi to prove that you were not in these rooms at the time of the murder, and now when I tell them that I found you trying to steal----"

"I am no thief," she interrupted him with blazing eyes. "I tell you, I came here to get what is mine by right."

"Do you really expect me to believe that? Even if what you say were true, you would not have had to sneak in here in the middle of the night. You know very well that I should have made no objections to your claiming your own."

"So you say. But if I had gone to you and told you that a great lord had robbed me, a poor woman, of something which is dearer to me than life itself, would you have believed me? If I had said to you, 'I must look through his Lordship's papers; I must be free to search everywhere,'

would you have given me permission to do so? No, never. You think I fear you? That it was because I was ashamed of my errand that I came here at this hour? Bah! All I feared was that I should be prevented from discovering the truth. The truth?" Valdriguez's voice suddenly dropped and she seemed to forget Cyril's presence. "It is here, somewhere." She continued speaking as if to herself and her wild eyes swept feverishly around the room. "He told me it was here--and yet how can I be sure of it? He may have lied to me about this as he did about everything else.

How can I tell? Oh, this uncertainty is torture! I cannot bear it any longer, oh, my G.o.d!" she cried, clasping her hands and lifting her streaming eyes to heaven, "Thou knowest that I have striven all my life to do Thy will; I have borne the cross that Thou sawest fit to lay upon me without a murmur, nor have I once begged for mercy at Thy hands; but now, now, oh, my Father, I beseech thee, give me to know the truth before I die----"

Cyril watched the woman narrowly. He felt that he must try and maintain a judicial att.i.tude toward her and not allow himself to be led astray by his sympathies which, as he knew to his cost, were only too easily aroused. After all, he reasoned, was it not more than likely that she was delivering this melodramatic tirade for his benefit? On the other hand, it was against his principles as well as against his inclinations to deal harshly with a woman.

"Calm yourself, Valdriguez," he said at last. "If you can convince me that his Lordship had in his possession something which rightfully belonged to you, I promise that, if it can be found, it shall be restored to you. Tell me, what it is that you are looking for?"

"Tell you--never! Are you not of his blood? You promise--so did he--the smooth-tongued villain! All these years have I lived on promises! Never will I trust one of his race again."

"You have got to trust me whether you want to or not. Your position could not be worse than it is, could it? Don't you see that your only hope lies in being able to persuade me that you are an honest woman?"

For the first time Valdriguez looked at Cyril attentively. He felt as if her great eyes were probing his very soul.

"Indeed, you do not look cruel or deceitful. And, as you say, I am powerless without you, so I must take the risk of your being what you seem. I will tell you the truth. But first, my lord, will you swear not to betray my secret to any living being?"

"You have my word for it. That is--" he hastily added, "if it has nothing to do with the murder."

"Nothing, my lord."

CHAPTER XVI

THE STORY OF A WRONG

Cyril waited for her to continue, but for a long time it seemed doubtful if she would have the courage to do so.

"I am looking," she said at last, speaking slowly and with a visible effort, "for a paper which will tell me whether my--son is alive or dead."

"Your son? So you were his Lordship's mistress----"

"Before G.o.d I was his wife! I am no wanton, my lord!"

"The old story--" began Cyril, but Valdriguez stopped him with a furious gesture.

"Do not dare to say that my child's mother was a loose woman! I will not permit it. Arthur Wilmersley--may his Maker judge him as he deserves--wrecked my life, but at least he never doubted my virtue. He knew that the only way to get me was to marry me."

"So he actually married you?" exclaimed Cyril.

"No--but for a long time I believed that he had. How could a young, innocent girl have suspected that the man she loved was capable of such cold-blooded deception? Even now, I cannot blame myself for having fallen into the trap he baited with such fiendish cunning. Think of it--he induced me to consent to a secret marriage by promising that if I made this sacrifice for his sake, he would become a convert to my religion--my religion! And as we stood together before the altar, I remember that I thanked G.o.d for giving me this opportunity of saving a soul from destruction. I never dreamed that the church he took me to was nothing but an old ruin he had fitted up as a chapel for the occasion.

How could I guess that the man who married us was not a priest but a mountebank, whom he had hired to act the part?"

Valdriguez bowed her head and the tears trickled through her thin fingers.

"I know that not many people would believe you but, well--I do." It seemed to Cyril as if the words sprang to his lips unbidden.

"Then indeed you are a good man," exclaimed Valdriguez, "for it is given only to honest people to have a sure ear for the truth. Now it will be easier to tell you the rest. Some weeks after we had gone through this ceremony, first Lord and then Lady Wilmersley died; on her deathbed I confided to my lady that I was her son's wife and she gave me her blessing. My humble birth she forgave--after all it was less humble than her own--and was content that her son had chosen a girl of her own race and faith. As soon as the funeral was over, I urged my husband to announce our marriage, but he would not. He proposed that we should go for a while to the continent so that on our return it would be taken for granted that we had been married there, and in this way much unpleasant talk avoided. So we went to Paris and there we lived together openly as man and wife, not indeed under his name but under mine. He pretended that he wanted for once to see the world from the standpoint of the people; that he desired for a short time to be free from the restrictions of his rank. I myself dreaded so much entering a cla.s.s so far above me that I was glad of the chance of spending a few more months in obscurity. For some weeks I was happy, then Lord Wilmersley began to show himself to me as he really was. We had taken a large apartment near the Luxembourg, and soon it became the meeting-ground for the most reckless element of the Latin Quarter. Ah, if you but knew what sights I saw, what things I heard in those days! I feared that my very soul was being polluted, so I consulted a priest as to what I should do. He told me it was my duty to remain constantly at my husband's side; with prayer and patience I might some day succeed in reforming him. So I stayed in that h.e.l.l and bore the insults and humiliations he heaped upon me without a murmur. Now, looking back on the past, I think my meekness and resignation only exasperated him, for he grew more and more cruel and seemed to think of nothing but how to torture me into revolt. Whether I should have been given the strength to endure indefinitely, the life he led me I do not know, but one evening, when we were as usual entertaining a disreputable rabble, a young man entered. I recognised him at once. It was the man who had married us! He was dressed in a brown velveteen suit; a red sash encircled his waist; and on his arm he flaunted a painted woman. Imagine my feelings! I stood up and turned to my husband. I could not speak--and he, the man I had loved, only laughed--laughed! Never shall I forget the sound of that laughter....

"That night my child was born. That was twenty-eight years ago, but it seems as if it were but yesterday that I held his small, warm body in my arms.... Then comes a period of which I remember nothing, and when I finally recovered my senses, they told me my child was dead.... As soon as I was able to travel, I returned to my old home in Seville and there I lived, working and praying--praying for my own soul and for that of my poor baby, who had died without receiving the sacrament of baptism....

Years pa.s.sed. I had become resigned to my lot, when one day I received a letter from Lord Wilmersley. Oh! If I had only destroyed it unopened, how much anguish would have been spared me! But at first when I read it, I thought my happiness would have killed me, for Lord Wilmersley wrote that my boy was not dead and that if I would meet him in Paris, he would give me further news of him. I hesitated not a moment. At once did I set out on my journey. On arriving in Paris I went to the hotel he had indicated and was shown into a private _salon_. There for the first time in a quarter of a century I saw again the man I had once regarded as my husband. At first I had difficulty in recognising him, for now his true character was written in every line of his face and figure. But I hardly gave a thought either to him or to my wrongs, so great was my impatience to hear news of my son.... Then that fiend began to play with me as a cat with a mouse. Yes, my boy lived, had made his way in the world--that was all he would tell me. My child had been adopted by some well-to-do people, who had brought him up as their own--no, I needn't expect to hear another word. Yes, he was a fine, strong lad--he would say no more.... Can you imagine the scene? Finally, having wrought me up to the point where I would have done anything to wring the truth from him, he said to me: 'I have recently married a young wife and I am not such a fool as to trust my honour in the keeping of a girl who married an old man like me for his money. Now I have a plan to propose to you. Come and live with her as her maid and help me to guard her from all eyes, and if you fulfil your duties faithfully, at the end of three years I promise that you shall see your son.'

"His revolting proposition made my blood boil. Never, never, I told him, would I accept such a humiliating situation. He merely shrugged his shoulders and said that in that case I need never hope to hear what had become of my son. I raved, threatened, pleaded, but he remained inflexible, and finally I agreed to do his bidding."

"So you, who call yourself a Christian, actually consented to help that wretch to persecute his unfortunate young wife?" demanded Cyril sternly.

Valdriguez flung her head back defiantly.

"His wife? What was she to me? Besides, had she not taken him for better or worse? Why should I have helped her to break the bonds her own vows had imposed on her? He did not ill-treat her, far from it. He deprived her of her liberty, but what of that? A nun has even less freedom than she had. What were her sufferings compared to mine? Think of it, day after day I had to stand aside and watch the man I had once looked upon as my husband, lavish his love, his thought, his very life indeed, on that pretty doll. Although I no longer loved him, my flesh quivered at the sight."

"Nevertheless--" began Cyril.

"My lord, I care not for your judgment nor for that of any man. I came here to find my son. Would you have had me give up that sacred task because a pink and white baby wanted to flaunt her beauty before the world? Ah, no! Lady Wilmersley's fate troubles me not at all; but what breaks my heart is that, as Arthur died just before the three years were up, I fear that now I shall never know what has become of my boy.

Sometimes I have feared that he is dead--but no, I will not believe it!

My boy lives! I feel it!" she cried, striking her breast. "And in this room--perhaps within reach of my hand as I stand here--is the paper which would tell me where he is. Ah, my lord, I beg, I entreat you to help me to find it!"

"I will gladly do so, but what reason have you for supposing that there is such a paper?"

"It is true that I have only Lord Wilmersley's word for it," she replied, and her voice sounded suddenly hopeless. "Yet not once but many times he said to me: 'I have a paper in which is written all you wish to know, but as I do not trust you, I have hidden it, yes, in this very room have I hidden it.' And now he is dead and I cannot find it! Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?"

"Even if we cannot find the paper, there are other means of tracing your son. We will advertise----"