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Chapter Fourteen
Cruel Destiny
James Harding Miller was seated alone in a long cane deck-chair on the terrace that ran the whole length of the beautiful old house. He had drawn it out through the French windows of the smoking-room, and was idly drawing out a cigar in the semi-darkness.
“Father!” cried Lucie, rushing forward as we approached, “do you recognise our visitor?”
Instantly he jumped up, exclaiming: —
“Why Ella – Ella after all this time! Minton told me that you had called and had gone in search of Lucie. And how is your father?”
“He’s very well, thanks,” was my love’s reply. “I left him at Swanage, and drove out to see if Lucie was at home.”
“And Mr Leaf,” exclaimed Lucie. “I think you have met him before, father?”
“Certainly,” Miller said pleasantly, extending his hand to me. “You are staying here, in Studland?”
“For a couple of days or so,” I answered.
“You mentioned that you had met my daughter,” he remarked, and then after welcoming Ella and pressing her to remain there the night, he ordered Minton to bring us chairs, and pushed the cigars across to me.
To Miller, Ella gave the same account of herself as she had given to us. The identity of the person who had spread the false report concerning her death – a report which had passed from mouth to mouth among all her friends – was a mystery, and Miller was just as surprised and just as pleased as ourselves at her reappearance.
As we sat there in the starlight I listened to Ella’s account of her free, open-air life in County Galway, for Wichenford was still let to the wealthy American; and her father, she said, preferred Ireland as a place of residence when he could not live on his own estate.
“But you never wrote to us,” Miller remarked. “Often we have spoken of you, and regretted that you were no longer with us. Indeed, your portrait is still yonder in the drawing-room. Only the day before yesterday Mr Leaf noticed it, and inquired whether I knew you.”
My love’s eyes met mine in a long wistful look.
“I believed that you were always abroad,” she answered him. “And – well, to tell the truth, I had an idea that you had altogether forgotten me.”
“Forgotten you, dear?” cried Lucie. “We have never forgotten you. How could I ever forget my dearest friend – and more especially when I knew what a terrible self-sacrifice you had made?”
“What’s that?” inquired Miller, quickly interested.
“Shall I tell him?” asked Lucie, turning to me.
“If you wish. It is only right, I think, that Mr Miller should know the truth.”
Therefore, receiving Ella’s consent as well, Lucie explained to her father how I had been her friend’s secret lover, and how she had broken off our affection by force of circumstance, sacrificing herself in order to save her father from ruin.
He listened to his daughter in surprise, then sighing heavily, turned to Ella, saying sympathetically: —
“How noble of you! Ah! what you both must have suffered! You need not tell me, either of you, for I know myself what it is to lose the woman one loves. I recollect my poor dear wife and still adore her memory.” And this from a man who was suspected of being leader of a gang of international criminals!
“The bitterness of the past,” I said, “will perhaps render the joy of the present all the sweeter.”
“It certainly ought to. Surely your delight at finding Ella alive and well when you, like all of us, believed her dead, must be beyond bounds?”
“It is! It is!” I cried. “I, who believed that she preferred wealth to my honest love; I, who have these long years been filled with a thousand regrets and reproaches, now know the truth. I have misjudged her!”
The soft hand of my well-beloved sought my wrist and gripped it. That action conveyed more to me than any words of hers could have done.
Presently it grew chilly, and we went into the long old-fashioned drawing-room, where we found Miss Miller, a pleasant grey-faced old lady, in a cap with cherry-coloured ribbons, idling over a book.
Upon the table still stood the portrait of my dear heart, the picture which only two days before had awakened within me such bitter remembrances. The silk-shaded lamps shed a soft light over everything, illuminating for the first time my Ella’s beautiful face. In the twilight by the river I had seen that she had become even more beautiful, yet the light that now fell upon her revealed a calmness and sweetness of expression that I had not hitherto been able to distinguish. She was far more lovely than I had believed – more beautiful even than in those days of our secret love.
Those great blue eyes looked out upon me with that same love-flame as of old – eyes that were clear and bright as a child’s, the glance of which would have made any man’s head reel – cheeks that were more delicately moulded than the marbles of Michael Angelo, and a grace that was perfect, complete, adorable.
And she was mine – still my own!
Strange that this sudden happiness was actually the sequel of a tragedy!
“It is really delightful to be back here again,” she remarked to Lucie, glancing round the room. “How well I remember the old days when, in the holidays, I came and stayed with you. Nothing has changed. The dear old place is just the same.”
“Yes,” replied Lucie. “I only wish we lived here more. But father and I are always abroad – always moving from place to place through France, Germany, Spain, Italy, just as the fit takes us. Nowadays, dear old dad is really like the Jew-errant. He can’t remain more than a few days in one place – can you, dad?” she asked, laughing across at him.
“No, my dear,” was his response in a strange voice. “I must travel – travel – always travel. To keep moving is part of my nature, I believe.”
“Only fancy! he’s here in England!” she remarked to Ella. “It’s really wonderful!”
While this conversation was in progress I was afraid that old Miss Miller might refer to my call upon her; but fortunately she either did not catch my name when introduced, or did not connect me with her mysterious visitor.
The owner of Studland Manor was, I saw, somewhat uneasy when his daughter began to explain how constantly they travelled. He seemed a little annoyed that Lucie should tell us that they were constantly moving, instead of living quietly by the Mediterranean outside Leghorn, as he would have me believe.
The old-fashioned Empire clock beneath its glass shade, standing on the chimney-piece, struck eleven, and I rose resolutely to take my leave. I had expressed pleasure at my new-found happiness, shook hands all round, and asked leave to call on the morrow.
“Certainly – most certainly,” answered Miller, in that breezy manner that he had sometimes assumed towards me on our last meeting. He was essentially a man of moods, sometimes brooding and strange, at others full of buoyant good-humour, “You are always welcome here, remember. Perhaps you’ll dine with us – just pot-luck – at seven to-morrow night? I don’t expect you get much that’s worth eating down at the ‘Lion’. We’ll induce Ella to stay over to-morrow, eh?”
My love protested that she would be compelled to return to Swanage in the morning, but we would not hear of it.
Then Miller, with a delicacy which further showed that he had taken a fancy to me, suggested that Ella might, perhaps, like to accompany me as far as the lodge-gates, and a few moments later I went forth with my love into the darkness.
For the first hundred paces, until we entered the black shadows of the old beech hedge, we walked hand-in-hand, uttering no single word.
After that long interval of mourning and black despair, I was again at her side – alone. I was beside myself for very joy.
We halted. It seemed an almost involuntary action. Then taking her tenderly in my arms I pressed my lips to hers in a first long passionate caress.
“My love!” I murmured, with heart overflowing, “my dearest love – you for whom I have mourned, and whose dear memory I have ever revered – God has given you back to me. We have met again – you have been given to me from the grave, never to part – never —never!”
To my blank amazement she turned her pale white face from mine, without reciprocating my passionate kisses. She sighed, and a shiver ran through her slight frame. Her lips were cold, and with her hands she pushed me from her with averted face.
“Ella!” I gasped, holding her, and looking into her fine eyes, though I could see no expression there, so dark was it. “Ella! Darling, may I not at least kiss you welcome on your return to me? Are you not mine – my own?”
She made no response, only pushing me farther from her very firmly, although I felt that her tiny hands trembled. She was overcome with emotion, which she was in vain striving to suppress.
I held my breath – startled at her sudden and unaccountable change of manner. My heart was bursting. What did it mean?
“Speak, dearest!” I implored. “Tell me the reason of this? Are you not still my love? Are you not mine – as you were in the old days?”
Slowly she shook her head, and in a faltering voice, hoarse and low, responded: —
“No, Godfrey! After to-night we must never again meet. Forgive me, but I thought you had long ago forgotten me as utterly worthless.”
“I have never forgotten, darling. You are my own dear Ella, as always. Therefore we are now inseparable – we shall meet again.”
“Impossible!” she declared decisively in that same hard tone, her voice so entirely changed. “I am no longer your love, Godfrey. I may as well confess to you the bitter truth at once —I am another’s!”
Chapter Fifteen
Betrays some Hidden Intrigue
I fell back at Ella’s words, as though I had received a blow full in the chest.
“You – you are married!” I gasped.
“No – not yet,” was her low answer, in the same blank, mechanical voice.
“Then you love another man!” I cried fiercely.
“In a month’s time I am to be married.”
“But you shall not, Ella!” I exclaimed quickly and determinedly. “You are mine. Surely I have a prior claim to you! You loved me in the old days – you surely cannot deny that!”
“I do not deny it, Godfrey,” she said, in that same sweet, soft voice that had so long rung in my ears. “Unfortunately I did not know that you still retained any affection for me. I made inquiries, but no one knew where you were, except that you were always abroad. For aught I knew you might already be married. Therefore, I am not altogether to blame.”
“Who is the man?” I asked, with a fierce jealousy rising within me. Was this fellow, whoever he might be, to rob me, after all, of my love, whom I had so fortunately rediscovered?
“I regret it, but I cannot tell you his name.”
“Not tell me his name!” I cried. “Why not? What mystery need there be if you are to be married?”
“I have promised to say nothing until we are man and wife,” she answered. “You alone, Godfrey, have I told because – well, because I dare not again deceive you.”
“Then you still love me!” I exclaimed quickly. “Confess the truth.”
“What is the use of discussing affection?” she asked. “The die is cast. At the very moment when we meet again after this long separation, we find ourselves debarred from happiness. We can never become man and wife.”
“Why not?”
“Because I must marry this man.”
“Must?”
“Yes,” she whispered hoarsely.
“But you were in that position regarding Blumenthal,” I remarked, much puzzled. In the darkness I could not distinguish the expression of her countenance, but from her voice I knew that she was in desperation, and that she was actually telling me a hideous truth.
“Misfortune seems to follow upon me,” was her somewhat enigmatical answer.
“Then be frank with me, Ella. This man whom you will not name is forcing you to marry him.”
She was, however, silent. Either she feared to commit herself, or she was reflecting upon how much she dare tell me.
I heard her breath going and coming in quick gasps, and I could distinguish that her pointed chin had sunk upon her chest in an attitude of deep dejection.
“Why not tell me everything, darling?” I went on, hoping to persuade her to confess. “Remember what I am to you; remember that our lives have for so long been linked together, that ever in these years of our separation you have been mine always, in heart and soul. I have smiled upon no other woman but your own sweet self, and never once has my heart been stirred by the zephyr of love since that dark wet night when we parted in London, and I went forth into the wide grey ocean of despair. Ella, you – ”
“Enough! Enough!” she cried, suddenly interrupting me. “Do not recall the past. All is too bitter, too melancholy. Every single detail of our last interview I have lived over and over again – I, who lied to you, even though my heart was breaking. Blumenthal gave me my freedom – and yet – ”
“And yet,” I said very slowly, in a low, intense voice – “and yet you have again fallen the victim of a man’s ingenious wiles. Tell me the truth, dearest. You have been entrapped – and you see no way of escape.”
But she only shook her head sadly, saying: —
“No, I can say nothing – not even to you, Godfrey.”
“Why?” I cried, dismayed. “Why all this secrecy and mystery? Surely I may, at least, know the man’s name?”
“That I cannot tell you.”
“Then he has forbidden you to reveal his real identity?”
She nodded in the affirmative.
“Which plainly shows that the fellow is in fear of something. He’s afraid of exposure in some way or other. I will not allow you, my own dear love, to become the victim of this fellow!” I said fiercely. “He may be an adventurer, for all you know – a man with an evil past. He has, without doubt, ascertained that on your father’s death Wichenford will be yours. No, Ella, I will not allow you to marry this man who forbids you to reveal his name.”
“But what will you do?” she cried in alarm.
“What will I do? I will tell him to his face that you are mine – that he has no right to you. And you will refuse to become his wife.”
“Ah! – yes – but you must not do that,” she declared. “Why not?”
“No. I beg of you to do nothing rash,” she urged in breathless anxiety, laying her hand upon my arm.
“But I will not allow you – my own well-beloved – to become the wife of another!”
“Godfrey,” she said, in so low a voice that it was scarcely above a whisper, “you must. There is no way of escape for me.”
“Then you are a victim of this nameless man!”
She nodded in the affirmative.
“Who is he? Tell me,” I demanded. “I have a right to know.”
“Yes, you have, indeed, a right, but I have given my word of honour to say nothing. I cannot tell his name – even to you.”
The mystery of it all somehow aroused my suspicions. Was she deceiving me? Had she invented this nameless lover with some ulterior object? No man can ever fathom the ingenuity of a woman who intends to deceive.
“Permit me to say so, Ella, but you are not frank with me,” I exclaimed reproachfully. “Why do you not tell me the whole truth, and allow me to take what steps I think proper? Cannot you realise all I feel at the thought of losing you again – for the second time? The past has been black enough, but the future for me will be even darker if I go away in the knowledge that you are the victim of a man unworthy of you. Tell me, dearest, do you doubt my love?”
“No,” she sighed. “I have never doubted it, Godfrey. I know how passionate is your affection; that you love me truly and well. Yet it is all to no purpose. We have met again, it is true, and under the strangest circumstances. It would almost seem as though Fate has brought us together, merely in order to tear us apart. For us, Godfrey, there, alas! can be no happiness,” she added sadly, with a deep-drawn sigh.
“Why not?”
For a few moments she did not reply. I repeated my question, again kissing the cold lips.
“Because – because,” she faltered, “I am compelled to marry this man.”
“He is compelling you, eh?” I asked, between my teeth.
“Yes.”
“And may I not stand as your champion? May I, who love you so dearly, extricate you from this trap?”
She shook her head slowly.
“It is not a trap, Godfrey,” she answered. “Rather call it force of circumstances. Those who told you I was dead lied to you, while I, hearing nothing from you, naturally concluded that you had forgotten. Therefore it is best for us to part again at once – to-night – for the memories of the past are to us both too painful.”
“Part from you, Ella!” I cried. “Never – never. You must be mad. While you breathe and live I shall remain near you as your friend, your protector, nay, your lover – the man who loves you better than his own life!” I declared, taking her small hand and raising it reverently to my lips. “It is cruel of you, darling, to suggest us parting.”
“No, it is the more merciful to both of us. We must part – so the sooner the better.”
“You told me this on that never-to-be-forgotten night in London,” I said reproachfully. “Therefore I cannot think that you are now in earnest.”
“I am, Godfrey,” she declared quickly. “I do not deny to you that I love you, but love between us is debarred. I am unhappy – ah! God alone knows what trials I have borne – what horrors have been mine to witness – and now to fill the cup of my grief I have met you only to find that you still love me,” she cried hoarsely, in a voice broken by emotion.
I held her trembling hand, and again kissed her cold, hard lips.
But she drew herself from me firmly, saying in a low, broken voice, full of pathos: —
“No, Godfrey. Let us say good-night here. Let both of us go our own way, as we have done before; both of us, however, now confident in each other’s love, even though our lives lie far apart. Remember me only as an unhappy woman who, through no fault of her own, is prevented from becoming your wife. Think of me still as your Ella of the old sweet days, and I will remember you, my Godfrey – the – the man I love. I – ”
But she could utter no further word, for she burst into a flood of bitter tears.
Chapter Sixteen
Introduces Mr Gordon-Wright
Next morning, after a night of dark reflections, spent at the dormer window of the village inn, I called at the Manor House as early as the convenances would permit.
Lucie, cool in a white blouse and piqué skirt, met me in the hall, and, to my surprise, told me that Ella had already departed. At seven o’clock she asked that she might be driven back to Swanage to rejoin her father, as they were leaving early on the motor-car.
She was as surprised as I myself was at this sudden decision to leave, for she expected that she would remain there for another day at least, now that we had again met.
“Didn’t she tell you that she was leaving early?” Lucie asked, looking me straight in the face.
“No. I certainly expected to find her here,” I said, as she led me into the old-fashioned morning-room sweet with the odour of pot-pourri in the big Oriental punch-bowls.
I was utterly taken aback by her announcement.
When I had parted from my love she had declared that to meet again was useless, but I had assured her that in the morning I would call – that now we had met I would not again leave her. Had she not confessed her love for me? Did we not love each other with a fond, mad passion? And yet my darling had, it appeared, fallen beneath the influence of some nameless fellow, who was, no doubt, a scoundrel and an adventurer! Should I calmly stand by and allow her to ruin her life and mine? No. A thousand times, no. And as I stood there in silence in the low-ceilinged old room with Lucie Miller at my side, I made a firm and furious resolve that my Ella should not again escape me. Our love, however, seemed ill-fated. The remembrance of that night in Bayswater ever arose within my memory. Again how curious it was, that through the dead I had found the living. By the death of Nardini I had rediscovered my lost love.
I wondered whether I should confide in Lucie and explain what my love had told me, or whether it was best to allow her, at least for the present, to remain in ignorance? I decided, after due reflection, upon the latter course.
“I, of course, thought that she had wished you good-bye, and made an appointment for another meeting,” Lucie said. “In fact, both my father and myself were greatly surprised when she came and asked that the horse might be put to. And yet – ” and without finishing her sentence, she looked mysteriously into my face.
“And yet what?” I asked.
For a few moments she was silent, hesitating to explain. I saw by her face that something had puzzled her. We had so quickly become friends, and our friendship had been cemented by our mutual acquaintanceship with Ella Murray, that we had found ourselves speaking perfectly frankly as though we had known each other for years.
“Well – will you pardon me for asking you a rather impertinent question, Mr Leaf?” she said.
“Why, certainly.”
“You’ll perhaps think me curiously inquisitive, but how long were you with Ella in the avenue after you left last night?”
“About half an hour.”
“Not more?”
“No. I can fix it, because I noted the time by that long grandfather clock in the hall as we went out, and I looked at my watch when I got back to the inn. I was three-quarters of an hour in getting back to Studland.”
“That’s rather strange,” she remarked, with a distinct note of suspicion in her voice.
“Why?”
“Well – because Ella was gone nearly two hours and a half. My father went to bed, and I remained up for her. Wasn’t she with you?”
“Certainly not,” was my prompt answer, much surprised at her statement.
“Then something must have occurred after she left you,” my companion said.
“After she left me! What do you mean?”
“A very long time elapsed before her return,” Lucie remarked. “She may have been alone – but I think not.”
“Who was with her?”
“How can we tell?”
“But what causes you to think that Ella was not alone?”
“By her strange manner when she returned. She was pale and breathless, as though she had been hurrying, and although she had pinned it up I noticed that the sleeve of her blouse was torn, and that her wrist bore dark marks as though she had had a desperate struggle with some one.”
“Was she attacked by some tramp or other, I wonder?” I cried, amazed.
“She refused to tell me anything save that she was rather upset. She seemed in great fear that my father should have knowledge of the affair, and made me faithfully promise not to tell him. Her hair was awry, and some of the lace at the throat was torn as though some person had seized her and tried to strangle her. Indeed, while speaking to me she placed her hand at her throat, as if it pained her. Alarmed at her appearance, I inquired what was the matter, but she would only tell me vaguely that she was not very well. I at once jumped to the conclusion that you had quarrelled.”
“We certainly had no quarrel, Miss Miller,” I quickly reassured her.
“Then it is evident that she was attacked by some one! Yet it is curious that, intimate friends that we are, she would tell me nothing of the incident.”
“She wished to shield her assailant, perhaps,” I remarked, much puzzled.
“It certainly seems so. Seeing her so pale, and believing her about to faint, I took her to the dining-room and gave her some brandy. She sipped it, and a moment afterwards burst into tears. I sat with her for nearly half an hour trying to learn the mystery of her unhappiness. I asked her quite frankly if she had quarrelled with you, but she replied in the negative. Under the light, as she sat in the dining-room, I remarked the great change in her. Her countenance was pale as death, her lips white, and her eyes bore a look of terror in them. She was undoubtedly in great fear. But of what, I am unable to tell.”
“Your surmise is, no doubt, correct. She met some one unexpectedly – some one who attacked her. I wonder who it is?”
“She was evidently followed here this evening, and was, perhaps, seen walking with you. Your conversation, as you walked down to the lodge, might have been overheard.”
“Probably. But surely, Miss Miller, the incidents of last night were very remarkable ones. I followed you and I met my love. And then, just at the moment of my re-found happiness, she has gone again without a word. Indeed, when I reflect, the incidents of last night hardly seem real. I find myself doubting whether it was not all a dream, and would really hesitate to believe in its reality if you, too, had not been present – if you, too, had not seen and spoken with her.”
“Yes, it is curious – very curious. I was quite as startled by her sudden appearance as you were. It is inexplicable. I, too, believed she was dead. I heard so from half a dozen people, and I can’t help thinking, Mr Leaf, that there was some deep ulterior motive in spreading such a report concerning her.”
“She’s a mystery,” I declared; “a complete mystery.”
“She is – and yet do you not find her far more beautiful than in the old days? I do.”
“Perhaps her beauty is fatal – like that of so many women,” I sighed. “The source of many a woman’s unhappiness is to be found in her face.”
“Last night tragedy was written deeply upon hers,” my companion said, in a low, sympathetic voice. “I wonder what has occurred?”
I, too, wondered. Her firm refusal to allow me to kiss her upon the lips showed her either to be in deadly fear of the jealousy of another; or that she was true to the vow she had given, even though she still loved me. Yet who could be this person whom she had undoubtedly met after we had parted? Why had he attacked her? Why had she fled again so quickly? Was she in fear of some one who was still lurking in the vicinity? A sense of deadly chilliness stole over me.
The whole affair was, indeed, a mystery, yet not so utterly bewildering as were certain of the events which followed – events which were so strange and startling that they formed a problem that was for so long beyond solution.
Being so passionately devoted to Ella I determined to follow her, demand an explanation of the attack upon her and seek to discover the identity of her unknown lover – the man whom she had admitted to me she was to marry under compulsion.
I had risen from my chair, expressing my intention of driving into Swanage in the hope that she had not already left, when the door opened, and a dark, well-dressed man about forty, clean-shaven, having the appearance of a naval officer and dressed in a dark grey flannel suit, came forward with extended hand to my companion, wishing her good-morning.
From his easy manner I saw that he was a guest in the house, although on the previous night I had not seen him.
“Will you allow me to introduce you?” Lucie said, and next instant presented the newcomer to me as “My father’s friend, Mr Gordon-Wright.”
The visitor turned to take the hand I extended to him, and raised his eyes to mine.
The conventional greeting and assurance of pleasure at the meeting froze upon my lips.
We had met before – under circumstances that were, to say the least, both startling and strange.
In that instant I recognised how that the mystery had deepened a thousandfold.
