It might be very dangerous to send that letter.
But if she did not send it, what was she going to do? She could not leave things as they were, could not just hold her peace. To do that would be infamous. And she could not be infamous. She felt the obligation of age. Beryl had been cruel to her, but she could not leave the girl in ignorance of the character of Arabian. If she did something horrible might happen, would almost certainly happen. Beryl was very rich now, and no doubt that man knew it. The death of her father had been put in all the papers. There had been public chatter about the fortune he had left. Men like Arabian knew what they were about. They worked with deliberation, worked according to plan. And Beryl was beautiful as well as rich.
Things could not be left as they were.
If she did not send that letter Lady Sellingworth told herself that she would have to see Beryl and speak to her. She would have to say what she had written. But that would be intolerable. The girl would ask questions, would insist on explanations, would demand to be enlightened.
And then--As she sat by the writing-table, plunged in thought, Lady Sellingworth lost all count of time. But at last she took the sealing-wax, put it to the candle flame, and sealed up the letter. She had resolved that she would take the risk of sending it. Anything was better than seeing Beryl, than speaking about this horror. And Beryl would surely not be dishonourable.
Having sealed the letter Lady Sellingworth took it with her upstairs.
She had decided to leave it herself at Claridge"s Hotel on the morrow.
But after a wretched night she was again seized by hesitation. A devil came and tempted her, asking her what business this was of hers, why she should interfere in this matter. Beryl was audacious, self-possessed, accustomed to take her own way, to live as she chose, to know all sorts and conditions of men. She was not an ignorant girl, inexperienced in the ways of the world. She knew how to take care of herself. Why not destroy the letter and just keep silence? She had really no responsibility in this matter. Beryl was only an acquaintance who had tried to harm her happiness. And then the tempter suggested to her that by taking any action she must inevitably injure her own life. He brought to her mind thoughts of Craven. If she let Beryl alone the fascination of Arabian might work upon the girl so effectually that Craven would mean nothing to her any more; but if she sent the letter, or spoke, and Beryl heeded the warning, eventually, perhaps very soon, Beryl would turn again to Craven.
By warning Beryl Lady Sellingworth would very probably turn a weapon upon herself. And she realized that fully. For she had no expectation of real grat.i.tude from the girl expressing itself in instinctive unselfishness.
"I should merely make an enemy by doing it," she thought. "Or rather two enemies."
And she locked the letter up. She thought she would do nothing. But as the day wore on she was haunted by a feeling of self-hatred. She had done many wrong things in her life, but certain types of wrong things she had never yet done. Her sins had been the sins of what is called pa.s.sion. There had been strong feeling behind them, prompting desire, a flame, though not always the purest sort of flame. She had not been a cold sinner. Nor had she been a contemptible coward. Now she was beset by an ugly sensation of cowardice which made her ill at ease with herself. She thought of Seymour Portman. He was able to love her, to go on loving her. Therefore, in spite of all her caprices, in spite of all she had done, he believed in that part of her which men have agreed to call character. She could not love him as he wished, but she had an immeasurable respect for him. And she knew that above all the other virtues he placed courage, moral and physical. n.o.blesse oblige. He would never fail. He considered it an obligation on those who were born in what he still thought of as the ruling cla.s.s to hold their heads high in fearlessness. And in her blood, too, ran something of the same feeling of obligation.
If she put her case before Seymour what would he tell her to do? To ask that question was to answer it. He would not even tell. He would not think it necessary to do that. She could almost hear his voice saying: "There"s only one thing to be done."
She was loved by Seymour; she simply could not be a coward.
And she unlocked the box in which the letter was lying, and ordered her car to come round.
"Please drive to Claridge"s!" she said as she got into it.
On the way to the hotel she kept saying to herself: "Seymour! Seymour!
It"s the only thing to do. It"s the only thing to do."
When the car stopped in front of the hotel she got out and went herself to the bureau.
"Please give this to Miss Van Tuyn at once. It is very important."
"Yes, my lady."
"Is she in?"
"I"m not sure, my lady, but I can soon--"
"No, no, it doesn"t matter. But it is really important."
"It shall go up at once my lady."
"Thank you."
As Lady Sellingworth got into her car she felt a sense of relief.
"I"ve done the right thing. Nothing else matters."
CHAPTER VI
Miss Van Tuyn was not in the hotel when Lady Sellingworth called. She did not come back till late, and when she entered the hall she was unusually pale, and looked both tired and excited. She had been to d.i.c.k Garstin on an unpleasant errand, and she had failed in achieving what she had attempted to bring about. Garstin had flatly refused not to exhibit Arabian"s portrait. And she had been obliged to tell Arabian of his refusal.
The man at the bureau gave her Lady Sellingworth"s note, and she took it up with her to her sitting-room. As she sat down to read it she noticed the words on the envelope, "Strictly private," and wondered what it contained. She did not recognize the handwriting as Adela"s. She took the letter out of the envelope and saw again the warning words.
"What can it be about?"
Before she read further she felt some unpleasant information was in store for her, and for a moment she hesitated. Then she looked at the address on the paper: "18A Berkeley Square."
It was from Adela! She frowned. She felt hostile, already on the defensive, though she had, of course, no idea what the letter was about.
But when she had read it her cheeks were scarlet, and she crushed the paper up in her hand.
"How dare she write to me like that! I don"t believe it. I don"t believe a word of it! She only wants to take him away from me as she is trying to take Alick Craven."
Instantly she had come to a conclusion about Adela"s reason for writing that letter. She remembered the strange episode in the _Bella Napoli_ on the previous evening--Adela"s extraordinary departure when Craven had come to speak to her and Arabian. She had not seen Craven again. There had been no explanation of that flight. In this letter, between the lines, she read the explanation. Adela must know Arabian, must have had something to do with him in the past. They had, perhaps, even been lovers. She did not know the age of Arabian, but she guessed that he was about thirty-five, perhaps even thirty-eight. Adela was sixty now. They might have been lovers when Arabian was quite young, perhaps almost a boy. At that time Adela had been a brilliant and conquering beauty, middle-aged certainly, over forty, but still beautiful, still full of charm, still bent on conquest. Miss Van Tuyn remembered the photograph of Adela which she had seen at Mrs. Ackroyde"s. Yes, that was it. Adela knew Arabian. They had been lovers. And now, out of jealousy, she had written this abominable letter.
But the girl read it again, and began to wonder. It was strangely explicit, even for a letter of a jealous and spiteful woman. It told her that Arabian was beyond the pale, that he ought to be in prison. In prison! That was going very far in attack. To write that, unless it were true, was to write an atrocious libel. But a jealous woman would do anything, risk anything to "get her own back."
Nevertheless Miss Van Tuyn felt afraid. This strange and terrible letter dovetailed with d.i.c.k Garstin"s warning, and both fitted in as it were with the underthings in her own mind, with those things which Garstin had summed up in one word "intuition."
Arabian had taken her news about Garstin quite coolly.
"I will see about that myself," he had said. "But now--"
And then he had made pa.s.sionate love to her. There had been--she had noticed it all through her visit--a new pressure in his manner, a new and, as she now began to think, almost desperate authority in his whole demeanour. His long reticence, the reserve which had puzzled and alarmed her, had given place to a frankness, a heat, which had almost swept her away. She still tingled at the memory of what she had been through. But now she began to think of it with a certain anxiety. In spite of her anger against Adela her brain was beginning to work with some of its normal calmness.
Arabian had been very slow in advances. But now was not he like a man in great haste, like a man who wished to bring something to a conclusion rapidly, if possible immediately? Pa.s.sion for her, perhaps, drove him on now that at last he had spoken, had held her in his arms. But suppose he had another reason for haste? He had seen Lady Sellingworth. He knew that she was a friend of the girl he wanted to marry. Miss Van Tuyn remembered that he had not welcomed her suggestion that the two couples, he and she, Lady Sellingworth and Craven, should have coffee together.
He had spoken of the smallness of the tables in the _Bella Napoli_. But that might have been because he was jealous of Craven.
She read the letter a third time, very slowly and carefully. Then she put it back into its envelope and rang the bell.
A waiter came.
"It"s about seven, isn"t it?" she said.
"Half past seven, madam."
"Please bring me up some dinner at once--anything. Bring me a sole and an omelette. That will do. But I want it as soon as possible."
"Yes, madame."
The waiter went out. Then Miss Van Tuyn went to see old f.a.n.n.y, and explained that she must dine alone that evening as she was in a hurry.
"I have to go to Berkeley Square directly after dinner to visit a friend, Lady Sellingworth."
"Then I am to dine by myself, dear?" said Miss Cronin plaintively.