Her head bowed still lower over the keys, and she nodded.
"I know," she said. "I will do my best. But you know Percy!"
He sighed again. "Yes, I know," he a.s.sented. "There are certain weaknesses in most families which crop up, now and again, like ill-weeds, in some member; I fear that Percy--Don"t cry, Miriam, we will hope for the best; and, as I say, I rely on you, I rely on you very much. You look tired, my child; it is time for your beauty sleep. I will go and find Percy."
She stretched out her hand with a sudden apprehension.
"No, don"t!" she exclaimed, with a catch of her breath. "I mean, that I think he has gone to bed. He was very tired."
The Marquess nodded, as if he understood.
"Very well, my dear. Now go. But don"t forget," he said, as he held her hand and kissed her on the forehead, "the diamonds are yours, whenever you would like to have them."
When she reached her room, Miriam sank into a chair and covered her eyes with her hands. She was weak and foolish, but she was not so weak and foolish as not to be touched by the kindness of the Marquess. She was glad that Percy had changed his mind about getting the diamonds, though she could not guess why he had done so. When the Marquess next offered them to her, she would refuse again to accept them until Percy had found some other way out of his difficulty. She knew that the diamonds were almost sacred in the eyes of the Marquess, not only because they were family heirlooms, but because his wife had worn them; and she shuddered at the idea of their falling into Percy"s hands, the deceit and treachery which he contemplated.
She dismissed her maid when she heard Percy enter his dressing-room; she listened to his movements with a sense of uneasiness; he had already become indifferent to her, and a feeling of actual dislike of him was growing up within her. Presently the door between the two rooms opened and he looked in.
"Hallo! not in bed?" His voice was thick, as it always was at that hour of the night; but he spoke with affected lightness and smiled. "You and the old man been having a palaver, haven"t you? Did he say anything about--the diamonds?" he added, casually.
"Yes," she said, without turning her head from the gla.s.s. "He offered them to me; but I refused them, as you told me to do."
He had been fumbling at his collar, but as she spoke, his hand fell to his side and he looked straight before him, with a curious expression on his face.
"That"s right," he said, after awhile. "It wouldn"t have done to have seemed too anxious for them, greedy. He"ll think all the better of you.
Let "em lie at the bank a little longer, till we come back from the Continent."
"They"re not at the bank; they"re in the safe in Lord Sutcombe"s dressing-room," she said, unthinkingly. Her eyes were still averted from him, and she did not see the sudden change in his face; it had grown absolutely white.
"Oh!" he said indifferently, too indifferently. "In the safe upstairs, are they? Then he meant giving them to you? Well, they"re all right there. Don"t you take them: I mean, put him off. Look here, I"ve thought of another way out of the mess I"m in, Miriam. After all, it would have been playing it rather low down to pop the things, to play tricks with them; they"re the family diamonds, you know."
"Yes; your mother wore them," said Miriam in a low voice. "I"m glad you don"t--want them, Percy."
"That"s all right," he said, with a forced laugh. "Don"t you worry yourself."
He closed the door and sank into a chair in his dressing-room. He was shaking, as if with ague; for the little plan he had formed in the smoking-room was now rendered of no avail.
The little plan can be stated in a few words. There is a certain fascination in forgery; it is so beautifully easy; you have but to write another"s man"s name, copying that man"s handwriting, and the trick is done. Percy had tried his hand at the game already, and they say that a horse that once stumbles is certain to fall again. He had intended forging an order on the bank for the delivery of the jewels: and now they were not in the bank but here in the house. Within a few yards of him were diamonds and other precious stones, the possession of which would save him from ruin. The sweat broke out on his face, his lips grew parched, and he tried to moisten them with a tongue that was almost as dry. He knew the safe well enough, knew that even a skilled burglar would find it difficult, if not impossible, to break into it. The diamonds were within his reach, with only the door of that safe between him and them. It would have been far better for his purpose, if they had been at the bank!
Cursing his luck, the miserable man went on with his undressing.
CHAPTER XXIV
When Derrick left the wood--and how loath he was to leave it, for Celia"s presence seemed still to haunt it!--and returned to the inn, he found Reggie still with his writing-pad on his knee. He glanced up, as Derrick sank into the seat beside him, and said drily,
"You look almost offensively happy, Green. I need not ask you if I am to congratulate you."
"Congratulate away," said Derrick, with so obvious an expression of satisfaction that Reggie nodded and smiled. "Have you been working all the time?"
"No," replied Reggie. "There has been an interlude. I have been for a walk. Green, did you ever meet an angel?"
"I have just left one," said Derrick, almost involuntarily.
"I beg your pardon. I forgot that there were two in this wicked old world of ours. Well, I"ve just parted from the other one. She was walking, with her wings folded, and a basket in her hand. It was heavy; and, after a time, I plucked up sufficient courage to ask her to let me take it. She would have refused, but the child she was carrying on her other arm was not very comfortable."
"There is a child?" said Derrick, with a smile. "I thought you had embarked on a love-story."
"There is a child," a.s.sented Reggie, gravely. "And it _is_ a love-story," he added, still more gravely. "But the love is all on my side--at present."
"Oh, I see; a widow," said Derrick, not by any means lightly; for, to your lover, love is a sacred subject, and he is full of subtle sympathy for his kind.
"Very much a widow," said Reggie, with a touch of bitterness, and looking straight before him. "She not only permitted me, after much pressure, to carry the basket, but she allowed me to speak to her. She said very little to me--angels are not obliged to talk, you know; it is quite sufficient for them to exist. I carried the basket to the cottage," he went on in a low voice and dreamily, "and she said, "Thank you." When an angel says "thank you"--But no doubt you have heard one repeat the simple, magic word and know its effect on you. To-morrow I shall be on the road at the same time, and, if Heaven is very kind to me, I shall meet her, and again she will be carrying a basket. You think I am very confiding, Green. Well, I feel that I"ve got to tell someone; just as you feel that you want to tell me about your angel."
Derrick smiled, and coloured.
"There"s something weird about you, Rex," he said. "You"ll be a great success as a novelist; you know human nature. Yes--it"s strange!--I"m longing to tell someone of the great happiness that has fallen to me."
"Tell away," said Rex. "Of course, I saw, the moment you came in sight, that it was all right. You walked as if you were treading on asphodel, and you carried your head as if you"d bought the whole world. I"m very glad." He sighed and shook his head. "Yes, I"m glad, though I love her myself--in a way. But I"m going to be a brother to her, and therefore--if you"ll permit me--to you, too. I hope you have made her very happy."
"I hope so," responded Derrick; "and I hope to make her happy all her life."
"You"ll be married soon, I suppose?"
"Yes, if Celia will consent," replied Derrick, looking before him as if he saw a vista of ecstatic years stretching into infinity. "I will marry her as soon as she will have me, and I will take her to South America, where I have work--and friends," he added, as he remembered Donna Elvira.
"Of course, she"ll go with you anywhere," said Reggie. "You"re a lucky man, Green! But I"m sorry you"re going so far away. I shall lose you both. You see, I include your honoured self, because, as I have said, I have already a sneaking fondness for you. May one, without being too intrusive, ask if it is necessary for you to leave your native land?"
"It is," said Derrick, quietly. "I"ve no place, no foothold here--and there are other reasons with which I needn"t bother you."
"Oh, you wouldn"t bother me; but I"m not curious. Or, rather, I am, but friendship sets a limit to my curiosity. Well, I must be going. I am to make an after-dinner call, by invitation, on a lady. Literally a lady--Lady Gridborough." Derrick turned his head sharply, and Reggie, noticing the movement, asked blandly, "Know her?"
"I"ve heard of her," answered Derrick, shortly.
"Delightful old lady," observed Reggie. "As she is a great friend of Miss Grant"s, you"ll come to know her, of course. She is very kind to me and asks me up to the Grange, that"s her place, to smoke a cigarette when I"ve done my work; indeed, whenever I care to go. Sometimes we talk, sometimes I wander about the garden. She regards me as something between an orphan child and a freak of nature; to her, an author is a kind of imbecile which is to be humoured and cossetted. Well, so long!
Shall I tell you what you"ll do for the rest of the evening? Yes, I will tell you, whether you want me to do so or not. You will sit here and moon----"
Derrick reached for Reggie"s empty tumbler and made a feint of throwing it at him, and Reggie went off, laughing.
If he did not sit in the same place all the evening, certainly Derrick "mooned," as Reggie had prophesied. The mention of Lady Gridborough had recalled the past, when he had been a favoured friend of the old lady"s.
He knew that she thought him guilty of wronging Susie Morton; it was just possible that she had heard of the forged cheque. He bit his lip with mortification and a dull anger, as the desire rose in him to go up to the Grange and clear himself. But he could only do so by breaking the promise he had given to Heyton, by ruining Miriam"s happiness.
He had suffered so much already for the sacrifice he had made, that it seemed to him an absolute waste of it to divulge the truth. Once again, there was Miriam, whose life would be wrecked if her husband were exposed. He must still remain silent, still bear the burden which he had taken upon his shoulders. Fortunately, there was a chance that he might persuade Celia to marry him very soon; they would leave England and the past behind them. She trusted him, would still continue to trust him; and some day, not to-morrow, as he had decided to do, he would tell her everything.
Long before ten o"clock the next morning, he was in the wood; and, as the clock struck, Celia came towards him. As he held her in his arms, indeed, at the very first sight of her, all his doubts and difficulties fled. At first they spoke but little; for there is no need for speech where perfect love exists. But presently, perhaps unconsciously, Celia led him to talk of his adventures; she had heard many of them yesterday, but she wanted to hear all again; she was insatiable. Every person he had met interested her.
"I seem to know them all," she said; "you describe them so beautifully to me. I should like to meet that funny old Mr. Bloxford and the circus people; but, much more than any of the others, the lady, Donna Elvira, who was so kind to you. I love her already!"