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CHAPTER XV
MABEL JOYCE

When Rodney Elmore got back to his rooms it was somewhat late. Some letters were on the table in his sitting-room, and a telegram from Stella Austin. One of those voluminous telegrams which women send when they are in no mood to consider that each unnecessary word means another halfpenny. It was, indeed, a little letter, in which she expressed both sympathy and disappointment. She was so sorry to hear the bad news about his uncle, and assured him-with apparent disregard of the fact that the message might possibly pass through several persons' hands-that he had much better come to her if he was able, since she would console him as nobody else could.

"I shall be terribly disappointed if you do not come," it went on, "so please do come. There are heaps of things I wish to say to you-simply heaps. So mind, Rodney, dear, you are to come some time this evening, and you are to let nothing keep you away from your own Stella."

It was a love-letter which this young lady had flashed across the wires at a halfpenny a word, evidently caring nothing if strangers learned what was in her heart so long as he did. He was still considering it when Miss Joyce came into the room with a decanter and a glass upon a tray.

"Miss Austin's been to see you," she observed. "I suppose that telegram's from her."

"Did she tell you it was from her?"

"She came in and looked about her at pretty nearly everything, and saw it lying on the table, and said she'd sent you a telegram, and supposed that was it. I thought she was going to walk off with it, but she didn't. I expected she'd want to stop till you came in, as Miss Patterson did last night, but I told her I knew you'd an important engagement in the City, and knew you wouldn't be in till very late; so she went."

"Thank you; I'm glad she didn't stay."

"I thought you would be. She asked me if I was the servant. I don't think she liked the look of me."

There was something in his attitude which suggested that he was expecting her to leave the room, and would have liked her to. When she showed no sign of going he commented on her last remark.

"That was rather bad taste on her part."

"Wasn't it?"

Having done with the telegram, he began to examine the letters. She watched him with an expression in her pale blue eyes which, if he had been conscious of it, might have startled him. It was plain from his manner that he intended to offer her no encouragement either to continue the conversation or to remain in the room. After a perceptible interval, she said, with an abruptness which was a little significant:

"I was at the inquest."

He glanced up.

"You were where? At the inquest? Oh! What was the attraction? And how did you get in?"

"I believe the public are admitted to inquests. They're supposed to be public inquiries, aren't they? Also, I had a friend at court; and, anyhow, I wasn't the only person there. I suppose Miss Patterson is a rich woman now."

"She'll have money."

"Are you going to marry her?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Or are you going to marry Miss Austin?"

"Pray why do you ask that?"

"When Miss Patterson was here last night I thought there was an air about her as if she considered you her property; when Miss Austin was here this evening I thought the same thing of her. Odd, wasn't it?"

"The only thing odd about it, my dear Mabel, is that you should have such a vivid imagination. Both these ladies are old friends of mine."

"Old friends, are they? In what sense? In the sense that I'm an old friend?"

"No one could be nicer than you have been."

"I see. Have they been nice to you like that?"

"My dear Mabel, in what quarter sits the wind? Where's Mrs. Joyce?"

"Mother's out; she's going to stay at aunt's till to-morrow. You and I are alone together."

"Good business! Come and give me a kiss."

"No, don't touch me; I won't have it."

"There is something queer about the wind! What's wrong? Is there anything wrong?"

"I'm trying to tell you. It's not easy, but I'm going to tell you if you'll give me a chance."

"You've some bee in your bonnet. Let me get it out."

"You give me a chance, I say! I tried to tell you last night, but I couldn't. But I'm going to tell you now; I've got to!"

"Have you? Couldn't you tell me a little closer, instead of standing all that distance off?"

"I wouldn't come nearer for-for anything."

"Mabel! After all these years!"

"Yes, after all these years! How long have you been here?"

"I never had a memory for dates."

"More than four years you have been here."

"So long as that? And it hasn't seemed a day too long."

"I was a kid in short skirts when you first came."

"And a very pretty kid you were. Almost as pretty even then as you are now."

"Rodney, have you ever cared for me a little bit?"

"Have I ever cared? Haven't I shown it?"

"Shown it? You call that showing it? My word!"

"What is the matter with the girl? I've never seen you like this before."

"Suppose-something was going to happen?"

"Well, isn't something always going to happen? What especially awful thing are you afraid is going to happen?"

"Suppose-something was going to happen-to me-because of you? Suppose-I was going-"

Her voice died away, her eyes fell.

"You don't mean that-"

"I do."

"Good God! It's-it's impossible!"

"Why is it impossible? It's true."

"But, my-my dear girl, it can't be."

"Why can't it be? It is."

"But-you're not sure. How can you be sure? You know, my dear Mabel, how you do fancy things. I'll bet ten to one that you're mistaken."

"Do you suppose that I haven't tried to make myself think that I'm mistaken? I wouldn't believe it. But it's no use pretending any longer; it's sure. What are you going to do?"

"What am I going to do? That's-that's a nice brick to aim at a fellow without the slightest warning."

"I'm sorry; I can't help it; I must know. What are you going to do?"

"My dear girl, you know that you've no more actual knowledge on such a subject than I have. I hope-and I think it's very possible-that you are wrong. Let's, first of all, make sure."

"Very well-we'll make sure. And when we've made sure what are you going to do-if it is sure?"

"We'll discuss that when we've made sure. Give me a chance to think; you've had one. It seems that you've guessed, goodness knows how long. Give me a chance to get my thoughts into order."

"I can't wait; I must know now. What are you going to do-if it is sure?"

"I'll do everything that a man can do-you know that perfectly well. You've knocked the sense all out of me! Do give me a chance to think! Don't look at me with that stand-and-deliver air! Come here, old lady, and let me kiss those pretty eyes of yours; I can't bear to have them look like that."

"Don't touch me-don't dare! You say you'll do everything a man can do. Does that mean you'll marry me?"

"Marry you! Mabel!"

"Don't you mean that you will marry me?"

"My dear girl, it's-it's impossible!"

"Why is it impossible? Are you married already?"

"Good Lord, no!"

"Then why can't you marry me?"

"As if you didn't know!"

"What do I know?"

"As if there weren't a thousand reasons! As if you weren't almost as well posted in my financial position as I am myself! As if you didn't know how hard I've found it to pay my way-that, in fact, I haven't paid it! If I were to marry you, financially there'd be an end of me; and in every other way! Not only should I be worse than penniless, but there'd be absolutely no prospect of my ever being anything else."

"I shouldn't be worse off as your wife than I am now."

"Oh, wouldn't you? You would; don't you make any error! I've never said a word to you about marriage."

"That's true, nor should I have said it to you if it hadn't been for this."

"There you are-that's frank. There's been no deception on either side. After all that there's been between us don't let's have any unpleasantness, for both our sakes. I'm as sorry for the position to which we've managed to bring things as you can be; you must know I am. At present I'm stony, but shortly I hope to have the command of plenty of money."

"Are you going to get it from Miss Patterson or Miss Austin?"

"What does it matter where it comes from?"

"So far as I'm concerned it matters a good deal."

"It'll be my own money."

class="normal""If you'll have so much money of your own why can't you marry me?"

"If I do marry you I'll have no money?"

"Are you going to get it with your wife? Which wife?"

"I can understand how you're feeling, so I'll try not to mind your being bitter, though it isn't like you one scrap. I can only implore you to trust me, to leave it all to me; I'll arrange everything. If you're right in what you fear you'll find a place ready for you when the time comes, in which you'll be comfortable, in which you'll have everything you want, and when it's over, if you like you can come home again, and no one will be one whit the wiser, and you won't be an atom the worse. It's done every day."

"Is it? And the child-what about the child?"

"The child? If it is my child-"

"If? if? if? What do you mean by 'if'? You'd better be careful, Rodney, what you are saying. What do you mean by 'if'?"

"My dear girl, it was only a way of speaking."

"Then don't you speak that way. 'If' it is your child! When you knew me I was innocent, and I'm innocent now except for you. Don't you dare to say if! You know it is your child!"

"My dear girl, of course I know it's my child. You won't let a fellow finish what he is going to say. I was only going to say that the child shall want for nothing; it shall have everything a child can have. So shall you; you'll be much better off than if you were my wife."

"If the child is born, and I am not your wife, I'll kill myself-and it. Or, rather, if I'm not going to be your wife, I'll kill myself before it's born, as sure as you are alive."

"Mabel, don't talk like that-don't! I can't bear it. If you only knew how it hurts!"

"Hurts! As if anything hurts you! Nothing could hurt you, nothing; you're not built that way. Do you suppose that I don't know what kind of man you are-that you're an all-round bad lot?"

"To say a thing like that, after pretending to care for me!"

"Pretending! There wasn't much pretence about my caring; I proved it. You wouldn't let me rest until I did. Not only did I care for you, but I do care for you; and I shall continue to care for you as long as I live. No other man can ever be to me what you have been."

"That's more like the Mabel I know."

"But don't imagine that I'm under any delusion about you; you'll know better by the time I've done. You're the kind of man who's not to be trusted with a girl. You make love to every woman you meet-what you call love! You're entangled with no end of women. I know! I don't know how many think you're going to marry them, but I shouldn't be surprised if Miss Patterson and Miss Austin both think you are. If I were to go and tell them, do you think they'd marry you? Not they; they're not that sort."

"But you won't tell them. You're not that sort either. I, perhaps, know you better than you know yourself."

"It's this way. Even you mayn't know who you're going to marry, but I do. You're going to marry me."

"I wish I were. I'll admit so much. But-we can't always do what we wish, my dear."

"You can, and do; that's what makes you dangerous-at first to others, in the end to yourself. Rodney, I don't want to say something which will change the whole face of the world for both of us, but I'll have to if you make me. Don't you make me! Say you'll marry me."

"My dear child-"

"Don't talk like that to me; don't you do it! You're duller than I thought, or long before this you'd have seen what I was driving at. Now, you listen to me; I'll tell you. To-day I was at the inquest."

"That fact, I assure you, in spite of my dullness, I have appreciated already. What I still fail to understand is what the attraction was."

"Attraction! You call it an attraction! You wait. I've always thought that an inquest was to find out the truth, not to hide it up. The idea of that one seemed to be to conceal, not to reveal. The coroner was an old idiot, as blind as a bat. He'd got a notion into his head, and as there wasn't room for more than one at a time-why, there it was! I went there knowing nothing, guessing nothing, suspecting nothing. The inquest hadn't hardly begun before I saw everything, knew everything, understood everything. But the coroner, the jury, and the witnesses-they knew less at the end than the beginning."

"Your words suggest that nature erred in making you a pretty girl, and therefore incompetent to be a coroner."

"According to the guard of the train, your uncle was found sitting up in a corner of the carriage, with a box in his hand, in which were some of the things with which he is supposed to have poisoned himself. The box was handed round for the coroner and jury to look at. Directly I saw it I knew it."

If Elmore changed countenance it was only very slightly, and the change went as quickly as it came; yet one felt that for an instant it had been there.

"Is that so? What sort of box was it? It must have been something rather out of the common run of boxes for you to have recognised it at what, I take it, was some little distance."

"I was close enough, close enough to take it in my hand if I had wanted; and it was all that I could do to keep my hand from off it. And it was very much what you call out of the common run of boxes. It was a silver box, Chinese, with Chinese engraving on it, about an inch and a half long, round, and a little thicker than a fountain pen."

"You seem to have observed it pretty closely."

"It was not the first time I'd seen it. The first time I saw it it was on your dressing-table."

Again, if Elmore's expression altered, it was only as if a flickering something had come and gone in his eyes.

"You may have seen a box like it on my dressing-table. You certainly never saw the one you saw this morning."

"The box was on your dressing-table. I picked it up and asked you what it was. You said you believed it was a Chinese sweetmeat box. I said that if it was it did not hold many sweets. You laughed and said it was very old, and that you believed it came from Pekin, and that some of the carvings on it were Chinese characters, but you didn't know what they meant. I opened it. Inside it were some of the white things which were in it when they handed it round this morning. I asked you if they were sweets. You said that those who wanted a long, long sleep would find them sweet enough; and you took the box from me as you said it. I thought there was something queer about you and the box, and when you put it down for a moment I picked it up again, and, with some scissors which were on the table, scratched some marks on the bottom-I myself hardly know why. But when I saw that box this morning it was all I could do to keep from asking the coroner if they were on the bottom. I could describe them perfectly; I should know them again. I can see them now."

"What a vivid imagination you have, and what powers of observation! Even granting that, by some odd coincidence, that box was my box, what's the inference you draw from it, when the simple explanation is that it was a present to my uncle from his affectionate nephew?"

"I daresay it was a present, but not in the sense you mean. You went to Brighton yesterday by the Pullman, but you didn't come back by it."

"Pray, who is your informant, and what's the relevancy to your previous remarks?"

"George Dale, who has the bed-sitting-room upstairs, and who cares for me in a different way to what you do, because he wants me to be his wife."

"Then why the-something don't you oblige him? Isn't he respectable?"

"Oh, he's respectable."

"Then could there be a sounder proposition? A man who loves you, who would be all that a husband ought to be! I tell you what, on the day you marry him an unknown benefactor will settle on you a thousand pounds-something like a fortune."

"You can talk to me like that, knowing what you know! After what you've done to me you want to pass me on to someone else. That finishes it! Now you listen. George Dale's a booking clerk at Victoria Station. He recognised you, though you didn't him."

"Quite possibly, if he was on the other side of the peep-hole, and seeing that I've only seen him two or three times in my life."

"He gave you your ticket for the Pullman. All the seats are numbered; he made a note of your number. Your ticket wasn't among those which were given up by the passengers who came back by the Pullman, but it was among those which were collected from the train which reached Victoria at 11.30. The guard saw you get into the train at Redhill Station. You got into a first-class compartment with a little man. You two were the only first-class passengers who got in at Redhill, so he took particular notice. You were in the London Bridge part of the train. At East Croydon someone else got into your compartment. You got out and went back to the Victoria part. The guard, shutting your carriage door, took particular notice of you again."

"Your friend the guard appears to be as quick to observe as he is to impart the fruits of his observation."

"He wasn't my friend, only Mr. Dale introduced me to him, and he was kind enough to answer a question or two. Mr. Dale also introduced me to the guard of the train in which your uncle was. I asked him if it stopped anywhere. He thought a bit, and then said that it did once, for about a minute, in Redhill tunnel, because the signal was against it. I haven't made inquiries yet, but I shouldn't be surprised if someone saw you get into your uncle's train at Brighton. As that train stopped in Redhill tunnel, it's not hard to understand how, or why, you got into another train a little later at Redhill Station."

"You surprise me, Mabel. I hadn't a ghost of an idea that you had such a genius for ferreting."

"It's easy enough. If that coroner hadn't had a notion in his head when he started, he might have got at the facts as easily as I have."

"And, from what you call the facts, what is the inference you draw? What dreadful charge against me have you been formulating in your mind?"

"Rodney, a wife can't give evidence against her husband in a charge of murder."

"I believe I have heard as much. And then?"

"I'm the only creature in the world who has any suspicion. If you marry me you're safe."

"You, pretending to love me, can marry the sort of man you believe I am?"

"It is because I do love you that I am willing to marry you, knowing you to be the kind of man you are.

"Your standard of morality is not a high one."

"It's what you've made it."

"Mabel, while you have got parts of your story right, the inferences you draw from it are all wrong; but I'm not going to attempt any denials."

"I shouldn't; lies won't help you-not with me."

"So you also think that I'm a liar?"

"I'm sure of it; you're a born liar. Sometimes I don't believe you know yourself if you are speaking the truth."

"One thing I've learnt this evening-that you're a born actress. I am speaking the absolute truth when I assure you that I never for one second dreamt that you had the opinion of me you seem to have."

"I never really began to understand you myself till last night. Just before you came in Mr. Dale had gone to bed. He told me, as he went upstairs, that your uncle had been found dead in the Brighton train, and that you had gone to Brighton in the Pullman; and he wondered, laughing, if it was you who had killed him. Then Miss Patterson came with her air of owning you, and you came and went out with her again as with one whom you were going to make your wife, and something happened inside my head and I began to understand. All night I scarcely slept for thinking, and in the morning, somehow, I knew; and all day I have been learning much more, until now I know you-for the man you are."

"My dear Mabel, one thing I do see plainly, that you're not very well, that your nerves are out of order, and play you tricks. Let's both turn in. I, for one, am tired, and I'm sure that a good night's rest will do you good; and to-morrow we'll continue our talk where it left off."

"Rodney, you'll give me at once a written promise of marriage, or I'll communicate with Inspector Harlow, and in the morning you'll be charged with murder."

"Do you wish me to suppose that you are speaking seriously?"

"We'll be married at a registrar's-it doesn't matter where, so long as we are married, and at a registrar's it's quickest. You can get a licence for £2 3s. 6d.; I'll get it, I've enough money for that, and then the day after you can be married. If I get the licence to-morrow we can be married on Thursday-and we will."

"We can be married on Thursday, can we, you and I? This sounds like comic opera, and, as the song says, 'When we are married, what shall we do?'"

"You can do as you please. I shall have my marriage lines, and that's all I care about."

"So you propose to haul me to the registrar, and chain me to you, and souse me in the gutter, and ruin my career, and render life not worth living, not because you've any special ambition for yourself, nor even because you crave for the sweets of my society, but in order that you may have somewhere locked up in a drawer what you call your marriage lines. This seems to me like using a steam hammer to crack a nut."

"I've got a sheet of paper; you sit down and write what I tell you."

She laid on the table a sheet of paper which she had taken out of her blouse. As he looked at it he laughed.

"Stamped-a sixpenny stamp, as I'm a sinner! Do you know, my dear, that this is a bill form which you've got here, good for any amount up to fifty pounds. Wherever did you get the thing? And what use do you suppose it is to you? What a practical-minded child it is! And I never guessed it till now! Tis a wonderful world that we live in!"

"You get a pen and write."

He took a fountain pen and a blotting pad from a table at the side, and spread out on the latter the crumpled bill stamp.

"Here we are. Now for the writing. 'Three months after date I promise to pay.' Is that the sort of thing I'm to write?"

"You write what I tell you."

"Tell on; I'm waiting."

"Write: 'I, Rodney Elmore, promise to marry on Thursday next Mabel Joyce, who is about to bear a child of which I am the father.' Have you got that? Why aren't you writing?"

"Before I start I want to see the finish; that is, I want to know all that I am to write."

"Except your signature and the date, that is all."

"Rather a considerable all, eh? What use do you suppose this will be to you when you've got it?"

"That's my business."

"What do you propose to do with it?"

"Nothing. If you marry me I'll give it you before we leave the registrar's."

"And if I don't?"

"You'll be in gaol."

"I see; that's it. If I don't write I'm in the cart, and if I do write and don't marry I'm also in the cart."

"I'm fighting for my life."

"And I lose mine either way."

"How do you make that out? Who's there to be afraid of except me?"

"If I do marry you I might as well be dead, and if I don't you'll do your best to bring my death about."

She was silent. They eyed each other, she standing at one side of the table, he sitting at the other. In the white-faced woman, with the rigid features and close-set lips, who looked at him with such unfaltering gaze, he scarcely recognised the pretty, dainty, blue-eyed girl whom it seemed only yesterday he had wooed and won. He was sufficiently a physiognomist and student of character to be aware that this woman meant every word she said. As this knowledge was borne more clearly in on him a curious something came into his own eyes-the something which had been there last night in the train. He spoke very softly.

"Mabel?"

Her voice fell as his had done.

"Well?"

"We are alone together in the house, you and I."

"We are; as you were alone with your uncle in the railway carriage."

"Why shouldn't I serve you as you persist in hinting that I served him? What reason is there?"

"None."

"Then-why shouldn't I?"

"You can."

"I can-what?"

"Kill me."

"Knowing me, as you pretended to know me, you're not afraid?"

"I shall never be afraid of you."

"You seem to flatter me all at once."

"I don't care what you do to me. I'd rather you killed me than not marry me-much."

"You wouldn't be so easy to explain. You'd want a lot of explaining if they found you dead."

When he stopped she was still looking at him with eyes which never flinched. He went on:

"You wouldn't be difficult to manage."

"I shouldn't resist. If you broke my head to pieces with the poker I wouldn't make a sound."

"The poker? Not such a fool! He would be sanguine who hoped to explain a poker."

He had been sitting back in his chair; now, leaning forward, he rested his arms on the table.

"Suppose I had another of those things which were in the silver box. If I gave it to you would you take it?"

"No."

Her face had become all at once so pale that her very lips seemed white.

"I should have to go through the form of making you."

"You would have to do to me what you did to your uncle."

"And if I did, what then? – what then?"

If he expected an answer it did not come. She stood confronting him, so immobile that she scarcely seemed to breathe. The smile was on his face which had seemed the night before to give it such unpleasant significance, as if unholy thoughts were chasing each other through his mind.

"I'll be frank with you."

If he expected her to speak he was again disappointed.

"If I could explain you-I'd do it, but I don't see how I could. How can I? Suggest an explanation."

"You won't kill me; you dare not. You only killed your uncle because you thought you wouldn't be found out."

"You think that was the only reason? You don't think that I had a choice of evils, and that I merely chose what seemed to be the lesser?"

"I wonder why you killed him?"

"In your case you wouldn't wonder?"

"Was it because of Miss Patterson?"

"As how?"

"Because you've treated her as you've treated me, and her father found out. If I thought-if I thought- Take that paper and write on it what I told you-now! now! now!"

"And if I don't?"

"If you don't kill me-and you won't, you're afraid-I'll have you hanged!"

"So with you also it is a choice of evils."

"Write what I told you-write it-"

She had raised her voice nearly to a scream. All at once she was still, leaving her sentence unfinished. There were sounds without of a key being put in a lock, of a door being opened, of steps in the passage. She spoke in a whisper, hurriedly, eagerly, and the fashion of her countenance was changed:

"That's Mr. Dale come back from the station. If you don't write what I told you now, I'll call him in-I will!"

He also spoke in a whisper, and in some subtle fashion his countenance was also changed:

"Mabel, don't-don't be hard on me."

"Then write, write what I told you; write it now. If I do call him in it'll be too late. Write!"

He drew the bill stamp towards him and picked up the fountain pen. His air was more than a trifle sullen.

"What am I to write?"

"You know perfectly well. Write: 'I, Rodney Elmore, promise to marry on Thursday next Mabel Joyce, who is about to bear a child of which I am the father.' Write that. Now sign it, put your name at the bottom, and the date. I'll blot it."

Drawing the pad to her she blotted what Elmore had written; then, after a glance at what was on it, began to return it to her blouse, while the young gentleman sat and watched.

"I'm going to put this into an envelope with a note I'm going to write, and give it to Mr. Dale, and tell him to keep it for me till I ask for it; and if I don't ask for it he'll know why."

"So, in writing that, I have not only put myself in your power, but also in Mr. Dale's."

"I tell you that if you do marry me on Thursday I'll give it you again before we leave the registrar's; but if for any cause you don't, even if you put me out of the way, Mr. Dale will see that you are made to smart."

A voice was heard calling to her without:

"Miss Joyce."

She replied to it.

"All right, Mr. Dale. You'll find your supper all ready for you in the parlour; I'm coming now."

She went, the bill form inside her blouse. Mr. Elmore was left to his own reflections. He remained just as she had left him, leaning forward, his arms upon the table, looking with unblinking eyes straight in front of him, as if he hoped to find in space an answer to a problem which was difficult to solve.