Chapter IX

That night, when Clare Cavan returned at midnight from her reception, she thanked the yawning Susan for sitting up for her, and softly proceeded to the top floor, where were three bedrooms occupied respectively by Mrs. Vandeleur's two servants, and by her niece and her new secretary.

Laline was in bed but not asleep. She lay awake, thinking with interest of her new surroundings. Her work that evening had been writing at the dictation of Mrs. Vandeleur a long treatise concerning second sight. Part of it she had understood, and part had been wholly incomprehensible to her, as she was not yet accustomed to the semi-mystical jargon in which Mrs. Vandeleur clothed her ideas.

Very little more talk of a personal nature had passed between her and her employer. Laline had neither denied nor agreed to the latter's assertion that she was already married, nor had the little lady again alluded to the subject, contenting herself by warning her new secretary against placing any confidence in Clare Cavan, who, she declared, had been born under an opposing star to that of Laline.

It was all very new and fascinating to the imaginative young girl, coming as this experience did after the monotonous drudgery of a suburban day-school, and so much excited had she been by the incidents of the evening that she was fully awake when, at a little after twelve o'clock, a tap at her bedroom door heralded the entrance of Clare Cavan.

Mrs. Vandeleur's niece was shading her eyes with one hand from the light of a candle carried in the other. Her gown of crimson velvet was out very low in the square front, displaying to full advantage the startling whiteness and smooth texture of her skin, and by the candle-light her eyes sparkled like green topazes.

"Do wake up!" she whispered. "I've something most interesting and wonderful to tell you--I'm in love!"

Placing her candle on the dressing-table, she sat in a chair near, and, clasping her hands round her knees, proceeded to purr out her story.

"It was Lady Moreham's reception, as I told you. She goes in for artists and celebrities, and she has an immense belief in Aunt Cissy, and consults her about everything. Artists, you know, always rave about me; they have the bad taste to admire my horrid red hair! But, to explain really what happened last night, I must go back. It's lovely to have at last a girl of my own age to talk to and confide in! You must know that Aunt Cissy gets cards for all private views and that sort of thing; she seldom goes, except to quite the most exclusive; but I use her tickets. I simply adore pictures! Well, about two months ago, I was looking at a lovely fat Paris Bordone lady in an old-master exhibition. I didn't really mean to attract attention to myself, because the lady in the picture had my coloured hair. Do you know Paris Bordone's beauties? They are always fat and white-skinned, in clothes much too tight for them, with red-velvet dresses and pearls in their red hair. Suddenly I heard a voice behind me--a man's voice--say, 'By George, what colouring! The very replica of the picture! She's superb!' Of course, I never thought he could be talking of me; but I turned round and found the man who spoke looking full at me. Such a handsome man! Tall, with a splendid figure, a square jaw, black hair, blue eyes--an Irish combination that I love, though in this case I've learned he gets it from his Highland descent. He stared at me so hard that I could hardly get my eyes away; he was really looking at me so intently that I was quite fascinated. At last I felt I was blushing deeply, and he too flushed. His friend touched his arm, and that seemed to recall him to himself, for he moved away, and I saw him no more that day. It was the strangest thing, for I fell a good deal in love with him on the spot, and somehow felt certain that I should meet him again. So sure I was, that I had my new evening gown, the one I have on now, made just like the Paris Bordone picture simply because I felt convinced that some day he would see me in it. Aunt Cissy would be able to explain the meaning of that sort of feeling. I only know that I felt it."

"And did you never meet him again until to-night?" asked Laline, sitting up in bed, interested, as are all girls, in anything in the nature of a love-story.

"Once only. He was coming out of the South Kensington Museum late on a Saturday afternoon, and I had been shopping in the Brampton Road. He passed quite close to me, and knew me in a moment, as I could see, and I was so disappointed that he did not speak to me."

"How could he," exclaimed Laline, scandalised, "since you are a lady, and, I suppose, he is a gentleman? It would have been an insult which you would have resented."

Clare eyed her curiously under half-lowered white eyelids, and began taking the hairpins out of her hair.

"Of course I should!" she answered, after a slight pause. "But he didn't. Then I went to the South Kensington Museum constantly on nearly all the free days for more than a month, until I knew all the cases near the entrances by heart. But I never met him, and I began really to despair until to-night."

"And were you introduced to him?" asked Laline, much interested. Her notions of what was right and becoming in a young gentlewoman had been considerably startled by Clare's confessions; but she was a sympathetic listener all the same.

"As soon as I walked into the room I saw him," replied Clare, triumphantly. "He was watching me all the while I was shaking hands with Lady Moreham; and only a few moments after I could feel rather than see that he was being brought up to be introduced by Miss Moreham, who was helping her mother to receive. He had asked to be introduced to me, as I knew he would. And fancy! I had supposed all the time that he was only an artist, but I learned that he is in a very good position, and will have heaps of money some day. Isn't that delightful?"

"Why?"

"Why? Because I adore him! His eyes are perfectly lovely--they sparkle like blue stars! And he has a trick of listening very attentively when one is talking, and just drawing his black eyebrows together while he stares hard at one's face, which is irresistible!"

"And is he in love with you?"

"Of course he is! He fell in love with me the first moment he saw me."

"Did he tell you so?"

"Do you think one requires to be told that sort of thing?" inquired Clare, disdainfully. "He looked it--that was enough. Before I left, Miss Moreham contrived to compliment me on my conquest. She told me that he is next of kin to one of the richest men in London."

"And what will your aunt say?"

"Oh, there is nothing that aunt would like better than to see me safely married to somebody with money! That is why she buys me nice clothes, and sends me to 'At homes' and dances and private views. She wants to get me off her hands. In spite of her dreaminess, you'll find later on that there's a lot of the wisdom of the serpent about Aunt Cissy."

"Shall you tell her about this?"

"I shall have to, for he's going to call either to-day or the next day. He has heard a great deal about aunt, he said, and is very anxious to know her, as he is awfully interested in all about palmistry and divination and that sort of thing. It is my belief that he's going to consult her as to our future lives. Oh, I shall never sleep to-night! I feel so terribly excited! I love his voice; it's deep and sweet, with a certain firmness; and, when I gave him my hand in saying 'Good-bye,' he didn't give a conventional handshake, but held it tight a long time. I hadn't the heart to draw it away, as I dare say I should have done. It made me thrill all over. I shall simply count the minutes until I see him again!"

There was no doubt in Laline's mind as to her companion's sincerity. Clare's eyes shone with a tender, reflective light, which marvellously enhanced her beauty; and when at last she left off talking of her conquest and retired to her own room, it was with the avowed intention of dreaming of her new admirer.

Laline for her part lay awake for a long time after Clare's departure. Just the least little pang of regret, which, however, was far removed from envy, shot across the young girl's heart as she reflected that her position in life would always be that of confidant and never of principal in love-affairs. How short a time it had taken that journey in the _fiacre_ in the rain to the house of the English Consul; and yet the effects of that one half-hour were to be stamped upon her entire life! Of her father she often thought, sometimes with anxiety not untouched by self-reproach. She did not wish ever to see him again, nor could she school herself to forgive the callous greed with which he had designed to make a bargain of his motherless child. But he was her father--her mother had once loved him; and Laline often wondered how he had weathered the rain-cloud of debts and difficulties which had gathered over his head.

But of the man whom that same fateful visit had made her lord and master Laline hardly ever thought at all. Her life at Norwood had been too busy to allow her to indulge either in recollections of the past or dreams of the future, and in the three short weeks that she had known Wallace Armstrong she had seen so little of him that it was not surprising if her memory of him had become blurred and indistinct. The fact that he too was bound for life to a lost mate had hardly ever occurred to her; the bond was of his own choosing, and a man who, according to her father's accusations, was a forger and a cheat, might well be expected to ignore any ties which brought no profit to him.

But to-night for the first time the idea of this detested husband, this man who, in order to secure for himself an income, had married an ignorant child, for whom he cared nothing, that a lie might be turned to a truth and a victim provided, haunted Laline's wakeful spirit. She was as yet too young and too entirely fancy-free to lament with any bitterness the lifelong loneliness which Wallace Armstrong's selfish action had entailed upon her. But something in Clare's joyous description of her new love-affair recalled with painful clearness to Laline the fact that she herself was set apart from all other girls, and that never to her ears would a man's lips murmur words of love.

"I can't understand Clare's nature," she said to herself, as she lay with wide-open eyes fixed upon the darkness. "Of course I must never let myself grow fond of any man, but if I were as free as she and really cared, I could not speak of it to a stranger, and especially a stranger I did not like! And I feel sure that Clare doesn't like me, in spite of her friendliness, and that she is very jealous of me with her aunt. Life in Queen Mary Crescent will be much more difficult and complicated than it was at Norwood. But this house is very quiet, at least, and no one will dream of seeking for Laline Garth in Mrs. Vandeleur's new secretary Lina Grahame."

With this soothing reflection, Laline fell to sleep, only to awaken in terror as early morning was breaking under the influence of a disquieting dream. It seemed to her that she was transported to the gates of an earthly paradise, a garden of enchanting beauty, where she wandered at will over mossy sward, breathing moss-laden air and listening to music of a more than earthly sweetness, music that seemed to whisper of love. Suddenly, as she was giving herself up to the full delights of the scene, a loud and brutal laugh sounded close behind her, her arms were seized and loaded with chains which cut into her flesh, and when she awoke and sprang up in bed with a stifled scream, weeping and trembling, she could still hear ringing in her ears the words of her captor--

"You belong to me! I am your husband!"

Too terrified to go to sleep again, Laline lay awake until the morning, and the unpleasant impression remained so strong that when she came down to breakfast her unusual pallor excited Clare's comments.

"You look as though you and not I had been up late last night," Miss Gavan said. "I am always white, so that I don't look any different to-day. You don't seem to have any appetite. What is the matter?"

"Nothing. I've only had a horrid dream!"

"Oh, you must tell Aunt Cissy! She is great on dreams, and knows what everything in them means. People come from tremendous distances to consult her about their dreams. What was yours all about?"

"Only silly fancies. This morning I want you to tell me where I ought to go shopping. You see I don't know London at all, and I have to order four gowns of white nun's veiling, and something white I must get to wear in the house this afternoon. I have only three dresses--a black silk, a blue serge, and a gray tweed; and your aunt says they all set her teeth on edge, they are so dark and stiff and plain."

"So aunt thinks white is your color?" observed Clare, glancing askance at Laline. "She evidently considers you very candid and unsophisticated."

The words suggested a sneer, but not so the tone; and that morning Clare proved herself invaluable in assisting Laline to make her purchases. She was the right guide on such an expedition, having excellent taste and the advantages of an extremely economical training; and when the girls returned home for luncheon they were both laden with parcels and brimful of good-humour and excitement.

Very early in the afternoon Mrs. Vandeleur drove off in a hired brougham on some mysterious errand connected with her divining powers, leaving a message for her secretary to the effect that she would return between three and four o'clock, and hoped to find Miss Grahame awaiting her in the study. Clare Cavan, in a flutter of anticipation over her admirer's visit, betook herself to her room to put the finishing touches to her hair and toilet, after impressing upon Susan the necessity of letting her know at once if a gentleman should call to see her; and Laline, in the waning light of a wintry afternoon, found herself in the room sacred to her employer's occult studies.

It was too early for lamplight, yet the shadows cast by the dancing flames from the logs looked strange and eerie in that room of spells and charms. Altogether in keeping with her surroundings was the slender form, draped in the soft folds of a tea-gown of creamy-white serge and silk, seated on a low chair by the fire gazing into the glowing wood. Laline felt very nervous that day. Whether it was the result of her dream or the influence of the room she could not tell; but gradually a presentiment gathered in her mind that some momentous crisis in her life was coming nearer and nearer to her at every breath she drew.

Oppressed and over-strung, divided between a longing to fly from the room and a quivering desire to know the meaning of the strange foreboding which hung upon her spirit, Laline rose and began restlessly moving about the room, lightly lifting and as quickly putting down various trifles which arrested her attention. The firelight, glancing here and there, centred and sparkled on a crystal ball which stood on Mrs. Vandeleur's desk. In the magic crystal, Laline's employer had gravely assured her, those of pure hearts and minds, when they knew its secret, could see mirrored the future and the past. Laline raised the crystal in her hands and pored into its depths.

Half mesmerised by so intent a gaze, the memory of last night's dream returned in force upon her mind, thrown out of balance by her agitated nerves and strange surroundings. Mistily, as she looked, she seemed to behold a face she once knew mirrored within the glistening depths of the crystal. But before she could do more than recognise the features of the man she had married, the study-door opened, and a voice, not from dreamland but from reality, spoke the name--

"Mr. Wallace Armstrong!"