That was exactly my own idea. I did not tell her so, however.
"She is very rich," I remarked. "She can free his estates and put him in his right position again."
"That is only a trifle," she declared. "Besides, he is not so poor as some people think. He could live differently now, only he is afraid that he would have to entertain and be entertained. He makes his poverty an excuse for a great many things, but as a matter of fact he is not nearly so embarra.s.sed as people believe. The truth is he detests society."
"I do not blame him," I answered. "Society is detestable."
"At any rate, I cannot bring myself to believe that he is thinking seriously about that girl," she continued, anxiously. "I should hate to think so!"
"Men are enigmas," I remarked. "It is precisely the unexpected which one has always to expect from them."
"That is what they say about us," she said.
I nodded.
"Don"t you think that most of the things that men say of women are more true about themselves? It seems so to me, at any rate."
She rose up suddenly, and came and stood over me. She held out her hands, and I gave her mine. My eyes were dim. It was strange to me to find any one who understood.
"Would you like to go away with me to-morrow--right away from here?"
she asked, softly.
"Where to?" I asked, with sudden joy.
"To London. Everything is ready for us there; we only need to send a telegram. I think--perhaps--it would be good for you."
"I am sure of it," I answered, quickly. "I have a sort of fancy that if I stay here I shall go mad. The place is hateful."
"Poor child!" she said, soothingly. "You must make up your mind and come."
"I would not hesitate," I answered, "if only I could feel certain that--he would not come back here before Olive Berdenstein leaves."
"We can make sure of it," she said. "Write and tell him that it would not be safe; he ought not to come."
Our eyes met, and I felt impelled to ask her a sudden question.
"Do you believe that he killed her brother?"
She looked at me with blanched cheeks and glanced half-fearfully around. From where I sat I could see the black bending branches from that little fir plantation where he had been found.
"What else is there to believe?" she asked. "I heard him myself one awful day--it was long ago, but it seems only like yesterday--I heard him threaten to kill him if ever he found him near again. It was outside the gate there that they met, and then--in the church you remember----"
I held out my hand and stopped her. The moaning of the wind outside seemed like the last cry of that dying man. It was too horrible.
"I cannot stay here," I cried. "I will go with you whenever you are ready."
A light flashed across her face. She drew me to her and kissed my forehead.
"I am sure it would be best," she said. "I too loathe this place! I shall never live here any more. To-morrow----"
"To-morrow," I interrupted, "we will go away."
CHAPTER XXVII
A GHOST IN WHITECHAPEL
Despite a certain amount of relief at leaving a neighborhood so full of horrible a.s.sociations, those first few weeks in London were certainly not halcyon ones. My post was by no means a sinecure. Every morning I had thirty or forty letters to answer, besides which there was an immense amount of copying to be done. The subject matter of all this correspondence was by no means interesting to me, and the work itself, although I forced myself to accomplish it with at any rate apparent cheerfulness was tedious and irksome. Apart from all this, I found it unaccountably hard to concentrate my thoughts upon my secretarial labors. The sight of the closely written pages, given me to copy, continually faded away, and I saw in their stead Warren slopes with the faint outlines of the Court--in the distance Bruce Deville walking side by side with Olive Berdenstein, as I had seen them on the day before I had come away. She had now at any rate what she had so much desired--the man whom she loved with so absorbing a pa.s.sion--all to herself, free to devote himself to her, if he had indeed the inclination, and with no other companionship at hand to distract his thoughts from her. I found myself wondering more than once whether she would ever succeed in making her bargain with him. The little news which we had was altogether indefinite. Alice did not mention either of them in her scanty letters. She was on the point of moving to Eastminster--in fact, she was already spending most of her time there. From Bruce Deville himself we had heard nothing, although my mother had written to him on the first day of our arrival in London. Once or twice she had remarked upon his silence, and I had listened to her surmises without remark.
I am afraid that as a secretary I was not a brilliant success in those first few unhappy weeks. But my mother made no complaint. I could see that it made her happy to have me with her. My silence she doubtless attributed to my anxiety concerning my father. I did my best to hide my unhappiness from her.
News of some sort came from Alice at last. She wrote from Eastminster saying that she had nearly finished the necessary preparations there, and was looking forward to my father"s return. She had heard from him that morning, she said. He was at Ventnor, and much improved in health. She was expecting him home in a week.
But in the afternoon of that same day a strange thing happened. My mother was compelled to go to the East End of London, and at the last moment insisted upon my going with her. She was on the committee in connection with the proposed erection of some improved dwelling houses somewhere in Whitechapel, and the meeting was to be held in a school room in the Commercial Road. I was looking pale, she said, and the drive there would do me good, so I went with her, lacking energy to refuse, and sat in the carriage whilst she went in to the meeting--a proceeding which I very soon began to regret.
The surroundings and environment of the place were in every way depressing. The carriage had been drawn up at the corner of two great thoroughfares--avenues through which flows the dark tide of all that is worst and most wretched of London poverty. For a few minutes I watched the people. It was horrible, yet in a sense fascinating. But when the first novelty had worn off the whole thing suddenly sickened me. I removed my eyes from the pavement with a shudder. I would watch the people no longer. Nothing, I told myself, should induce me to look again upon that stream of brutal and uns.e.xed men and women. I kept my eyes steadfastly fixed upon the rug at my feet. And then a strange thing happened to me. Against my will a moment came when I was forced to raise my eyes. A man hurrying past the carriage had half halted upon the pavement only a foot or two away from me. As I looked up our eyes met. He was dressed in a suit of rusty black, and he had a handkerchief tied closely around his neck in lieu of collar. He was wearing a flannel shirt and no tie. His whole appearance, so far as dress was concerned, was miserably in accord with the shabbiness of his surroundings. Yet from underneath his battered hat a pair of piercing eyes met mine, and a delicate mouth quivered for a moment with a curious and familiar emotion. I sprang from my seat and struggled frantically with the fastening of the carriage door. Disguise was all in vain, so far as I was concerned. It was my father who stood there looking at me. I pushed the carriage door open at last and sprang out upon the pavement. I was a minute too late--already he was a vanishing figure. At the corner of a squalid little court he turned round and held out one hand threateningly towards me. I paused involuntarily. The gesture was one which it was hard to disobey. Yet I think that I most surely should have disobeyed it, but for the fact that during my momentary hesitation he had disappeared. I hurried forward a few steps. There was no sign of him anywhere. He had pa.s.sed down some steps and vanished in a wilderness of small courts; to pursue him was hopeless. Already a little crowd of people were gazing at me boldly and curiously. I turned round and stepped back into the carriage.
I waited in an agony of impatience until my mother came out. Then I told her with trembling voice what had happened.
Her face grew paler as she listened, but I could see that she was inclined to doubt my story.
"It could not have been your father," she exclaimed, her voice shaking with agitation. "You must have been mistaken."
I shook my head sadly. There was no possibility of any mistake so far as I was concerned.
"It was my father. That girl has broken her word," I cried bitterly. "She has seen him and--she knows. He is hiding from her!"
We drove straight to the telegraph office. My mother wrote out a message to Mr. Deville. I, too, sent one to Olive. Then we drove back to our rooms. There was nothing to be done but wait.
It was six o"clock before the first answer came back. It was from Mr. Bruce Deville. I tore it open and read it.
"You must be mistaken. Can answer for it she has taken no steps. She is still here. Mr. Ffolliot has not returned. Impossible for them to have met."
The pink paper fluttered to the ground at our feet. I tore open the second one; it was from Olive Berdenstein----
"Do not understand you. I have no intention of breaking our compact."
We read them both over again carefully. Then we looked at one another.
"He must have taken fright needlessly," I said, in a low tone.
"You are still certain, then, that it was he?" she asked.
"Absolutely!" I answered. "If only we could find him! In a week it will be too late."