"Who gave you your information?"
"Vimpany--the doctor."
"He ought to know that the train isn"t due at the station for an hour yet."
"Has the blackguard deceived me? One word more, Mr. Mountjoy. Is Miss Henley at the inn?"
"No."
"Are you going with her to London?"
"I must leave Miss Henley to answer that."
"Where is she, sir?"
"There is an end to everything, my lord, in the world we live in. You have reached the end of my readiness to answer questions." The Englishman and the Irishman looked at each other: the Anglo-Saxon was impenetrably cool; the Celt was flushed and angry. They might have been on the brink of a quarrel, but for Lord Harry"s native quickness of perception, and his exercise of it at that moment. When he had called at Mr. Vimpany"s house, and had asked for Iris, the doctor had got rid of him by means of a lie. After this discovery, at what conclusion could he arrive? The doctor was certainly keeping Iris out of his way.
Reasoning in this rapid manner, Lord Harry let one offence pa.s.s, in his headlong eagerness to resent another. He instantly left Mountjoy. Again the carriage rattled back along the street; but it was stopped before it reached Mr. Vimpany"s door.
Lord Harry knew the people whom he had to deal with, and took measures to approach the house silently, on foot. The coachman received orders to look out for a signal, which should tell him when he was wanted again.
Mr. Vimpany"s ears, vigilantly on the watch for suspicious events, detected no sound of carriage wheels and no noisy use of the knocker.
Still on his guard, however, a ring at the house-bell disturbed him in his consulting-room. Peeping into the hall, he saw Iris opening the door, and stole back to his room. "The devil take her!" he said, alluding to Miss Henley, and thinking of the enviable proprietor of the diamond pin.
At the unexpected appearance of Iris, Lord Harry forgot every consideration which ought to have been present to his mind, at that critical moment.
He advanced to her with both hands held out in cordial greeting. She signed to him contemptuously to stand back--and spoke in tones cautiously lowered, after a glance at the door of the consulting-room.
"My only reason for consenting to see you," she said, "is to protect myself from further deception. Your disgraceful conduct is known to me.
Go now," she continued, pointing to the stairs, "and consult with your spy, as soon as you like." The Irish lord listened--guiltily conscious of having deserved what she had said to him--without attempting to utter a word in excuse.
Still posted at the head of the stairs, the doctor"s wife heard Iris speaking; but the tone was not loud enough to make the words intelligible at that distance; neither was any other voice audible in reply. Vaguely suspicions of some act of domestic treachery, Mrs.
Vimpany began to descend the stairs. At the turning which gave her a view of the hall, she stopped; thunderstruck by the discovery of Lord Harry and Miss Henley, together.
The presence of a third person seemed, in some degree, to relieve Lord Harry. He ran upstairs to salute Mrs. Vimpany, and was met again by a cold reception and a hostile look.
Strongly and strangely contrasted, the two confronted each other on the stairs. The faded woman, wan and ghastly under cruel stress of mental suffering, stood face to face with a fine, tall, lithe man, in the prime of his health and strength. Here were the bright blue eyes, the winning smile, and the natural grace of movement, which find their own way to favour in the estimation of the gentler s.e.x. This irreclaimable wanderer among the perilous by-ways of the earth--christened "Irish blackguard," among respectable members of society, when they spoke of him behind his back--attracted attention, even among the men. Looking at his daring, finely-formed face, they noticed (as an exception to a general rule, in these days) the total suppression, by the razor, of whiskers, moustache, and beard. Strangers wondered whether Lord Harry was an actor or a Roman Catholic priest. Among chance acquaintances, those few favourites of Nature who are possessed of active brains, guessed that his life of adventure might well have rendered disguise necessary to his safety, in more than one part of the world. Sometimes they boldly put the question to him. The hot temper of an Irishman, in moments of excitement, is not infrequently a sweet temper in moments of calm. What they called Lord Harry"s good-nature owned readily that he had been indebted, on certain occasions, to the protection of a false beard, And perhaps a colouring of his face and hair to match. The same easy disposition now a.s.serted itself, under the merciless enmity of Mrs. Vimpany"s eyes. "If I have done anything to offend you," he said, with an air of puzzled humility, "I"m sure I am sorry for it. Don"t be angry, Arabella, with an old friend. Why won"t you shake hands?"
"I have kept your secret, and done your dirty work," Mrs. Vimpany replied. "And what is my reward? Miss Henley can tell you how your Irish blundering has ruined me in a lady"s estimation. Shake hands, indeed! You will never shake hands with Me again as long as you live!"
She said those words without looking at him; her eyes were resting on Iris now. From the moment when she had seen the two together, she knew that it was all over; further denial in the face of plain proofs would be useless indeed! Submission was the one alternative left.
"Miss Henley," she said, "if you can feel pity for another woman"s sorrow and shame, let me have a last word with you--out of this man"s hearing."
There was nothing artificial in her tones or her looks; no acting could have imitated the sad sincerity with which she spoke. Touched by that change, Iris accompanied her as she ascended the stairs. After a little hesitation, Lord Harry followed them. Mrs. Vimpany turned on him when they reached the drawing-room landing. "Must I shut the door in your face?" she asked.
He was as pleasantly patient as ever:
"You needn"t take the trouble to do that, my dear; I"ll only ask your leave to sit down and wait on the stairs. When you have done with Miss Henley, just call me in. And, by the way, don"t be alarmed in case of a little noise--say a heavy man tumbling downstairs. If the blackguard it"s your misfortune to be married to happens to show himself, I shall be under the necessity of kicking him. That"s all."
Mrs. Vimpany closed the door. She spoke to Iris respectfully, as she might have addressed a stranger occupying a higher rank in life than herself.
"There is an end, madam, to one short acquaintance; and, as we both know, an end to it for ever. When we first met--let me tell the truth at last!--I felt a malicious pleasure in deceiving you. After that time, I was surprised to find that you grew on my liking, Can you understand the wickedness that tried to resist you? It was useless; your good influence has been too strong for me. Strange, isn"t it? I have lived a life of deceit, among bad people. What could you expect of me, after that? I heaped lies on lies--I would have denied that the sun was in the heavens--rather than find myself degraded in your opinion.
Well! that is all over--useless, quite useless now. Pray don"t mistake me. I am not attempting to excuse myself; a confession was due to you; the confession is made. It is too late to hope that you will forgive me. If you will permit it, I have only one favour to ask. Forget me."
She turned away with a last hopeless look, who said as plainly as if in words: "I am not worth a reply."
Generous Iris insisted on speaking to her.
"I believe you are truly sorry for what you have done," she said; "I can never forget that--I can never forget You." She held out her pitying hand. Mrs. Vimpany was too bitterly conscious of the past to touch it. Even a spy is not beneath the universal reach of the heartache. There were tears in the miserable woman"s eyes when she had looked her last at Iris Henley.
CHAPTER XII
LORD HARRY"s DEFENCE
AFTER a short interval, the drawing-room door was opened again. Waiting on the threshold, the Irish lord asked if he might come in.
Iris replied coldly. "This is not my house," she said; "I must leave you to decide for yourself."
Lord Harry crossed the room to speak to her and stopped. There was no sign of relenting towards him in that dearly-loved face. "I wonder whether it would be a relief to you," he suggested with piteous humility, "if I went away?"
If she had been true to herself, she would have said, Yes. Where is the woman to be found, in her place, with a heart hard enough to have set her that example? She pointed to a chair. He felt her indulgence gratefully. Following the impulse of the moment, he attempted to excuse his conduct.
"There is only one thing I can say for myself," he confessed, "I didn"t begin by deceiving you. While you had your eye on me, Iris, I was an honourable man."
This extraordinary defence reduced her to silence. Was there another man in the world who would have pleaded for pardon in that way? "I"m afraid I have not made myself understood," he said. "May I try again?"
"If you please."
The vagabond n.o.bleman made a resolute effort to explain himself intelligibly, this time:
"See now! We said good-bye, over there, in the poor old island. Well, indeed I meant it, when I owned that I was unworthy of you. _I_ didn"t contradict you, when you said you could never be my wife, after such a life as I have led. And, do remember, I submitted to your returning to England, without presuming to make a complaint. Ah, my sweet girl, it was easy to submit, while I could look at you, and hear the sound of your voice, and beg for that last kiss--and get it. Reverend gentlemen talk about the fall of Adam. What was that to the fall of Harry, when he was back in his own little cottage, without the hope of ever seeing you again? To the best of my recollection, the serpent that tempted Eve was up a tree. I found the serpent that tempted Me, sitting waiting in my own armchair, and bent on nothing worse than borrowing a trifle of money. Need I say who she was? I don"t doubt that you think her a wicked woman."
Never ready in speaking of acts of kindness, on her own part, Iris answered with some little reserve: "I have learnt to think better of Mrs. Vimpany than you suppose."
Lord Harry began to look like a happy man, for the first time since he had entered the room.
"I ought to have known it!" he burst out. "Yours is the well-balanced mind, dear, that tempers justice with mercy. Mother Vimpany has had a hard life of it. Just change places with her for a minute or so--and you"ll understand what she has had to go through. Find yourself, for instance, in Ireland, without the means to take you back to England.
Add to that, a husband who sends you away to make money for him at the theatre, and a manager (not an Irishman, thank G.o.d!) who refuses to engage you--after your acting has filled his dirty pockets in past days--because your beauty has faded with time. Doesn"t your bright imagination see it all now? My old friend Arabella, ready and anxious to serve me--and a sinking at this poor fellow"s heart when he knew, if he once lost the trace of you, he might lose it for ever--there"s the situation, as they call it on the stage. I wish I could say for myself what I may say for Mrs. Vimpany. It"s such a pleasure to a clever woman to engage in a little deceit--we can"t blame her, can we?"
Iris protested gently against a code of morality which included the right of deceit among the privileges of the s.e.x. Lord Harry slipped through her fingers with the admirable Irish readiness; he agreed with Miss Henley that he was entirely wrong.
"And don"t spare me while you"re about it," he suggested. "Lay all the blame of that shameful stratagem on my shoulders. It was a despicable thing to do. When I had you watched, I acted in a manner--I won"t say unworthy of a gentleman; have I been a gentleman since I first ran away from home? Why, it"s even been said my way of speaking is no longer the way of a gentleman; and small wonder, too, after the company I"ve kept.
Ah, well! I"m off again, darling, on a sea voyage. Will you forgive me now? or will you wait till I come back, if I do come back? G.o.d knows!"
He dropped on his knees, and kissed her hand. "Anyway," he said, "whether I live or whether I die, it will be some consolation to remember that I asked your pardon--and perhaps got it."
"Take it, Harry; I can"t help forgiving you!"