Mary has spoken of you, and wondered how you were so many, many times."
"I"m sure," I said, "the pleasure is mutual."
d.i.c.k, after I had introduced him to Mrs. Blain, had seated himself at Mary"s side and was chatting to her, while I, leaning back in my chair, looked at this woman before me and remembered the object of my visit.
There was certainly nothing in her face to arouse suspicion. She was perhaps fifty, with just a sign of grey hairs, dark-eyed, with a nose of that type one a.s.sociates with employers of labour. A trifle inclined to _embonpoint_, she was a typical, well-preserved Englishwoman of motherly disposition, even though by birth she was of one of the first Shropshire families, and in the days of Shenley she had been quite a prominent figure in the May flutter of London. I had liked her exceedingly, for she had shown me many kindnesses. Indeed, she had distinctly favoured the match between Mary and myself, although her husband, a bustling, busy man, had scouted the idea. This Mary herself had told me long ago in those dreamy days of sweet confidences. The thought that she was in any way implicated in the mysterious affair under investigation seemed absolutely absurd, and I laughed within myself.
She was dressed, as she always had dressed after luncheon, in black satin d.u.c.h.esse, a quiet elegance which I think rather created an illusion that she was stout, and as she arranged her needlework aside in order to chat to me, she sighed as matronly ladies are wont to sigh during the drowsy after-luncheon hours.
From time to time I turned and laughed with Mary as she gaily sought my opinion on this and on that. She was dressed in dark blue serge trimmed with narrow white braid, her sailor hat cast aside lying on the gra.s.s, a smart river costume of a _chic_ familiar to me in the fashion-plates of the ladies" papers. As she lay back, her head pillowed on the cushion, there was in her eyes that coquettish smile, and she laughed that ringing musical laugh as of old.
A boatful of merrymakers went by, looking across, and no doubt envying us our ease, for sculling out there in the blazing sun could scarcely be a pleasure. Judging from their appearance they were shop-a.s.sistants making the best of the Thursday early-closing movement--a movement which happily gives the slaves of suburban counters opportunity for healthful recreation. The boat was laden to overflowing, and prominent in the bows was the inevitable basket of provisions and the tin kettle for making tea.
"It"s too hot, as yet, to go out," Mary said, watching them. "We"ll go later."
"Very well," d.i.c.k answered. "I shall be delighted. I love the river, but since my Cambridge days I"ve unfortunately had but little opportunity for sculling."
"You newspaper men," observed Mrs. Blain, addressing me, "must have very little leisure, I think. The newspapers are always full. Isn"t it very difficult to fill the pages?"
"No," I answered. "That"s a common error. To every newspaper in the kingdom there comes daily sufficient news of one sort or another to fill three sheets the same size. The duty of the journalist, if, of course, he is not a reporter or leader-writer, is to make a judicious selection as to what he shall publish and what he shall omit. It is this that wears out one"s brains."
"But the reporters," she continued--"I mean those men who go and hunt up details of horrors, crimes and such things--are they well paid?"
That struck me as a strange question, and I think I must have glanced at her rather inquiringly.
"They are paid as well as most professions are paid nowadays," I answered. "Better, perhaps, than some."
"And their duty is to make inquiries and sc.r.a.pe up all kinds of details, just like detectives, I"ve heard it said. Is that so?"
"Exactly," I replied. "One of the cleverest men in that branch of journalism is our friend here, Mr. Cleugh."
She looked at the man I indicated, and I thought her face went slightly paler. It may, however, only have been in my imagination.
"Is he really one of those?" she inquired in a low undertone.
"Yes," I responded. "In all Fleet Street, he"s the shrewdest man in hunting out the truth. He is the _Comet_ man, and may claim to have originated the reporter-investigation branch of journalism."
She was silent for a few moments. Lines appeared between her eyes.
Then she took up her needlework, as if to divert her thoughts.
"And Mr. Blain?" I asked at last, in want of some better topic. "How is he?"
"Oh, busy as usual. He"s in Paris. He went a fortnight ago upon business connected with some company he is bringing out, and has not been able to get back yet. We shall join him for a week or two, only I so much dislike the Channel crossing. Besides, it is really very pleasant here just now."
"Delightful," I answered, looking round upon the peaceful scene. At the steps, opposite where we sat, was moored a motor-boat, together with Mary"s punt, a light wood one with crimson cushions, while behind us was a well-kept tennis-court.
Tea was brought after we had gossiped nearly an hour, and while we were taking it a boat suddenly drew up at the landing-stage, being hailed by Mary, who jumped up enthusiastically to welcome its occupants. These were two young men of rather dandified air and a young girl of twenty, smartly dressed, but not at all good-looking, whom I afterwards learnt was sister to the elder of her companions. When the boat was at last moored, and the trio landed amid much shouting and merriment, I was introduced to them. The name of sister and brother was Moberly, a family who lived somewhere up beyond Bell Weir, and their companion was a guest at their house.
"We thought we"d just catch you at tea, Mrs. Blain," cried Doris Moberly as she sprang ash.o.r.e. "And we are so frightfully thirsty."
"Come along, then," said the elder lady. "Sit down, my dear. We have it all ready."
And so the three joined us, and the circle quickly became a very merry one.
"They kept us so long in the lock that I feared tea would be all over before we arrived," young Moberly said, with a rather affected drawl.
He appeared to be one of those young sprigs of the city who travel first-cla.s.s, read the _Times_, and ape the aristocrat.
"Yes," Doris went on, "there was a slight collision between a barge and a launch, resulting in lots of strong language, and that delayed us, otherwise we should have been here half an hour ago."
"Did you call on the Binsteads?" Mary asked. "You know their house-boat, the _Flame_? It"s moored just at the bend, half-way between the Lock and Staines Bridge."
"We pa.s.sed it, but the blinds were down. They were evidently taking a nap. So we didn"t hail them," Doris responded.
Then the conversation drifted upon river topics, as it always drifts with those who spend the summer days idling about the upper reaches of the Thames--of punts, motor-launches, and sailing; of the prospects of regattas and the dresses at Sunbury Lock on the previous Sunday. They were all river enthusiasts, and river enthusiasm is a malady extremely contagious with those doomed to spend the dog-days gasping in a dusty office in stifled London.
After tea followed tennis as a natural sequence, and while Moberly and his sister played with d.i.c.k and the youth who had accompanied the Moberlys, Mary and I wandered away into the wood which skirted the grounds of Riverdene. She was bright and merry, quite her old self of Shenley days, save perhaps for a graver look which now and then came to her eyes. She showed me the extent of their grounds and led me down a narrow path in the dark shadow to the bank to show me a nest of kingfishers. The spot was so peaceful and rural that one could scarcely believe one"s self but twenty miles from London. The kingfisher, startled by our presence, flashed by us like a living emerald in the sunlight; black-headed buntings flitted alongside among the reeds, and the shy sedge warbler poured out his chattering imitations, while here and there we caught sight of moor-hens down in the sedge.
She had, I found, developed a love for fishing, for she took me further down where the willows trailed into the stream, and pointed out the swirl over the gravel where trout were known to lie, showed me a bush-shaped depth where she had caught many a big perch, and a long swim where, she said, were excellent roach.
"And you are happier here than you were at Shenley?" I inquired, as we were strolling back together, both bareheaded, she with her hat swinging in her hand.
"Happy? Oh, yes," and she sighed, with her eyes cast upon the ground.
"That sigh of yours does not denote happiness," I remarked, glancing at her. "What troubles you?"
"Nothing," she declared, looking up at me with a forced smile.
"It is puzzling to me, Mary," I said seriously, "that in all this time you"ve not married. You were engaged, yet it was broken off. Why?"
At my demand she answered, with a firmness that surprised me, "I will never marry a man I don"t love--never."
"Then it was at your father"s suggestion--that proposed marriage of yours?"
"Of course, I hated him."
"Surely it was unwise to allow the announcement to get into the papers, wasn"t it?"
"It was my father"s doing, not mine," she responded. "When it was broken off I hastened to publish the contradiction."
"On reading the first announcement," I said, "I imagined that you had at length found a man whom you loved, and that you would marry and be happy. I am sure I regret that it is not so."
"Why?" she asked, regarding me with some surprise. "Do you wish to see me married, then?"
"Not to a man you cannot love," I hastened to a.s.sure her. I was trying to learn from her the reason of her sudden renewed friendship and confidence, yet she was careful not to refer to it. Her extreme care in this particular was, in itself, suspicious.
Her effort at coquetry when at my chambers two days before made it apparent that she was prepared to accept my love, if I so desired. Yet the remembrance of Eva Glaslyn was ever in my mind. This woman at my side had once played me false, and had caused a rent in my heart which was difficult to heal. She was pretty and charming, without doubt, yet she had never been frank, even in those long-past days at Shenley. Once again I told myself that the only woman I had looked upon with thoughts of real genuine affection was the mysterious Eva, whom once, with my own eyes, I had seen cold and dead. When I reflected upon the latter fact I became puzzled almost to the verge of madness.
Yet upon me, situated as I was, devolved the duty of solving the enigma.
Life, looked at philosophically, is a long succession of chances. It is a game of hazard played by the individual against the multiform forces to which we give the name of "circ.u.mstance," with cards whose real strength is always either more or less than their face value, and which are "packed" and "forced" with an astuteness which would baffle the wiliest sharper. There are times in the game when the cards held by the mortal player have no value at all, when what seem to us kings, queens, and aces change to mere blanks; there are other moments when ign.o.ble twos and threes flush into trumps and enable us to triumphantly sweep the board. Briefly, life is a game of roulette wherein we always play _en plein_.