CHAPTER XXXII.
CHERRIE TELLS THE TRUTH
It was a fortunate thing, perhaps, that that quiet, grass-grown Charlotte Street was almost deserted; else the scream and recoil with which Cherrie – our old and long-lost-sight-of friend, Cherrie – received this salutation, might have attracted unpleasant attention.
Mr. Blake took the matter with constitutional phlegm.
"Oh, come now, Cherrie, no hysterics! How have you been all these everlasting ages?"
"Mis-ter Blake?" Cherrie gasped, her eyes starting in her head with the surprise. "Oh, my goodness! What a turn you gave me!"
"Did I?" said Val. "Then I'll give you another; for I want you to turn back with me, and take me to wherever you live, Mrs. Smith. That's the name you go by here, isn't it?"
"Who told you so?"
"A little bird! I say, Cherrie, you've lost your red cheeks! Doesn't Prince Edward's Island agree with you?"
Cherrie had lost her bright bloom of color; but save that she was much thinner and paler, and far less gaudily dressed, she was the same Cherrie of old.
"Agree with me!" exclaimed Cherrie, in rather a loudly-resentful tone, considering that they were on the street. "I hate the place, and I am nearly moped to death in it. I never was so miserable in all my life as I have been since I came here!"
"Then why didn't you leave it?" inquired Mr. Blake.
"Leave it!" reiterated Cherrie, like an angry echo. "It's very easy to say leave it; but when you have no money or nothing, it's not quite so easy doing it. I've been used shamefully; and if ever I get back to Speckport, I'll let some of the folks there know it, too! Did he send you?"
"Who?"
"You know well enough! Captain Cavendish!"
"He send me!" said Val. "I should think not. There isn't a soul in Speckport knows whether you are alive or dead; and he takes care they shan't, either. I have been trying to find you out ever since you left; and I have asked Captain Cavendish scores of times, but he always vowed he knew nothing about you – that you had run off after Charley Marsh. It was only by chance I saw a letter from you to him the other day, posted here, and I started off in a trice. Why didn't you write to your folks, Cherrie?"
"I daren't. He wouldn't let me. He told me, if I didn't stay here and keep quiet, he never would have anything more to say to me. I have been shamefully used!" – and here Cherrie began to cry on the street – "and I wish I was dead. There!"
"Perhaps you will before long," said Val, significantly.
Cherrie looked at him.
"What?"
"Perhaps you won't be let live long! You'll have to stand your trial when you go back, for helping in the murder of Mrs. Leroy; and maybe they'll hang you! Now, don't go screaming out and making such an infernal row on the street – will you?"
Cherrie did not scream. She suppressed a rising cry, and turned ashen white.
"I had nothing to do with the murder of Mrs. Leroy," she said, with lips that trembled. "You know I hadn't. You know I left Speckport the afternoon it happened. You have no business saying such things to me, Val Blake."
She laid her hand on her heart while she spoke, as if to still its clamor. Val saw by her white and parted lips how that poor, fluttering, frightened heart was throbbing.
"Oh, yes; I know you left Speckport that afternoon, Cherrie; but you and Cavendish had it all made up beforehand. You were to write Charley that note, and appoint a meeting in Redmon grounds, promising to run away with him, and making him wait for you there, while Cavendish got in through the window, and robbed the old woman. You never intended meeting Charley, you know; and you are just as much accessory to the murder as if you had stood by and held the lamp while he was choking Lady Leroy."
They had left the dull streets of the town, and were out in a lovely country road. Swelling meadows of golden grain and scented hay spread away on either hand, until they melted into the azure arch; and the long, dusty road wound its way under pleasant, shadowy trees, without a living creature to be seen. Cherrie, listening to these terrible words, spoken in the same tone Mr. Blake would have used had he been informing her the day was uncommonly fine, sank down on a green hillock by the roadside, and, covering her face with her hands, broke out in a passion of tempestuous tears. He had taken her so by surprise – he had given her no time to prepare – the sight of him had brought back the recollection of the old pleasant days, and the wretched dullness of the present. She was weak, and sick, and neglected, and miserable; and now this last turn was coming to crush her. Poor Cherrie sat there and cried the bitterest tears she had ever shed in her life; her whole frame shaking with her convulsive sobs, her distress touched Val; for pretty Cherrie had always been a favorite of his, despite her glaring faults and folly; and a twinge of remorse smote his conscience at what he had done.
"Oh, now, Cherrie, don't cry! People will be coming along, and what will they think? Come, get up, like a good girl, and we'll talk it over when we get to your house. Perhaps it may not be so bad after all."
Cherrie looked up at him with piteous reproach through her tears.
"Was it for this you wanted to find me out so bad, Mr. Blake? Was it to make me a prisoner you came over here?"
"Well," said Val, with another twinge of conscience, "ye-e-es, it was partly. But you must recollect, Cherrie, you have done worse. You let Charley Marsh – poor Charley! who loved you a thousand times better than that scamp of an Englishman – be sentenced for a deed he never committed, when you could have told the truth and freed him. Worse still, you helped to inveigle him into as horrible a plot as ever was concocted."
"I couldn't help it!" sobbed Cherrie. "I didn't want to do it, but he made me! I wish I had ran away with Charley that night. He never would have left me like this!"
"No; that he wouldn't! Charley was as true as steel, poor fellow! and loved you as no one ever will love you again, in this world! He is a soldier now, fighting down South; and perhaps he's shot before this; and if he is, his death lies at your door, Cherrie."
Cherrie's tears flowed faster than ever.
"As for Cavendish," went on Val, "he's the greatest villain unhung! Not to speak of his other atrocities – his gambling, his robbing, his murdering, his breaking the heart of Nathalie Marsh – he has been the biggest rascal that ever lived, to you, my poor Cherrie."
"Yes, he has!" wept Cherrie, all her wrongs bleeding afresh. "He's a villain, and I hate him. Oh dear me, I wish I was dead!"
"You don't know half the wrong he has done you and means to do," said Val. "Come, Cherrie, get up, and I'll tell you about it as we go along. Do you live far from this?"
"No; it's the first house you meet; the dullest old place on the face of the earth! He wouldn't let me leave it; and I know they despise me, and think I'm no better than I ought to be. There never was a girl in this world so ill-used as I have been! Why did he marry me, if he is ashamed of me? Why can't he stay with me as he ought to stay with his wife?"
"His wife!" repeated Val, staring at her as they walked along. "Why, Cherrie, is that all you know about it? Hasn't he told you that you are not his wife?"
"Not his wife!" shrieked Cherrie. "Val Blake, what do you mean?"
"Bless my soul!" cried Mr. Blake, appealing in dismay to the scarecrows in the fields, "I thought he had told her. Why, you unfortunate Cherrie, don't you know the marriage was a sham one?"
Cherrie gasped for breath. The surprise struck her speechless.
"I thought you knew all about it!" said Val; "I'll take my oath I did! Why, you poor little simpleton, how could you ever be idiot enough to think a fellow like Cavendish would marry the like of you! If you had two grains of sense in your head," said Mr. Blake, politely, "you must have seen through it. He planned the whole thing himself – a sham from beginning to end!"
"It isn't! it can't be! I don't believe it! I won't believe it!" panted Cherrie, recovering her breath. "You helped him, and the minister was there; and I am his wife, his lawful wedded wife. You are only trying to frighten me to death."
"No, I'm not," said Val; "and you're no more his wife than I am. The minister wasn't a minister, but a fellow who played the part. If you hadn't been the greatest goose that ever lived, Cherrie, you couldn't have been so taken in!"
Cherrie's breath went and came, and her tears seemed turned to sparks of fire, as she turned her eyes upon her companion.
"And you helped him to do this, Mr. Blake?"
"Well, Cherrie, what could I do? If I hadn't helped him, some one else would; and, anyhow, you would have run away with him, marriage or no marriage. Now, don't deny it – you know you would!"
"And you mean to say I'm not married to Captain Cavendish?"
"Yes, I do. I only wonder he hasn't let you find it out long ago. He came to me and persuaded me to help him, telling me you were ready to run off with him any time he asked you, which I knew myself. I'm sorry for it now, but it can't be helped."
"Very well, Mr. Blake," said Cherrie, whose cheeks were red, and whose eyes were flashing, "you may both be proud of your work. You are fine gentlemen, both of you, to distress a poor girl like me, as you have done. But I'll go back to Speckport, and I'll tell every soul in it how I have been taken in; and I hope they'll tar and feather the two of you for what you have done."
"Well," said Mr. Blake, in a subdued tone, "we deserve it, I dare say, but Cavendish is the worst after all. Why, Cherrie, my girl, you don't know half the wrong he has done you. He would have been married three mouths ago, if the lady had not changed her mind and married another man."
"Would he?" said Cherrie, vindictively, between her closed teeth. "Oh, if ever I get a chance, won't I pay him off! Who was the lady?"
"The new heiress of Redmon – Miss Henderson she was then, Mrs. Wyndham she is now. He was crazy about her, as all Speckport can tell you; and he asked her to marry him; and she consented first, and backed out afterward. You never saw any one in the state he was in, Cherrie; and he started off to Canada, because he couldn't bear to stay in the place and see her married to another man."
"But he's back, now," said Cherrie. "I had a letter from him two weeks ago, with a couple of pounds in it. He's the meanest, stingiest miser on the face of the earth, and I have to write and write, before I get enough from him to pay my board. I haven't had a decent dress these six months; and I can't leave the place, because I never have enough to pay my way back. I'm the worst-treated and most unfortunate creature in the whole world!"
And here poor Cherrie's tears broke out afresh.
"And that's not the worst, either," pursued Mr. Blake. "Do you know what has brought him back to Speckport, as you say? Of course, you don't – you are the last he would tell; but it is because he is selling out of the army, and going back to England for good. He wants to be rid of you entirely; and once he is there, and married to some one else with a fortune, many a fine laugh he will have at you."
"Never!" cried Cherrie, wrought up to the right pitch of indignation; "never shall he leave Speckport, if I can help it! I'll tell all, if I was to hang for it myself, sooner than let him get off like that, the villain!"
"But you won't hang for it, Cherrie, if you tell; it's only if you refuse to tell, that you are in danger. Whoever turns Queen's evidence gets off scot free, you know; and if you only do what is right, and take my advice, which means the same thing, you may triumph over Captain George Percy Cavendish yet."
"I'll do it!" said Cherrie, her lips compressed and her eyes flashing, and the memory of all her wrongs surging back upon her at once. "I'll do it, and be revenged on the greatest scoundrel that ever called himself a gentleman! But, mind, Val Blake, I must be sure that this is all true – I must be sure that I am not his wife."
"It will be very easy convincing you of that, once you are back in Speckport. You shall hear it from his own lips, without his knowing you are listening. Oh, is this the place?"
For Cherrie had stopped before a little farmhouse, garnished with a potato garden in front, and adorned with numerous pigsties on either hand. She led the way to the front room of the establishment; which was carpetless, and curtainless, and unfurnished, and impoverished-looking enough.
"Well," Val said, "this is rather different, Cherrie, from the days when you used to dress in silks and sport gold chains, and do nothing but flirt, and be petted and made love to from week's-end to week's-end. But never mind – the worst's over, now that I've found you out, and you'll have good times yet in Speckport."
"If it hadn't been for you," sobbed Cherrie, "it never would have happened. I hate you, Mr. Blake! There!"
"Now, Cherrie, you know right well you would have run away with Captain Cavendish that time, married or not married. Oh! you may deny it, and perhaps you think so now; but I know better. But he's the greatest rascal that ever went unhung, to use you as he has; and if you had the spirit of a turnip, you would be revenged."
"I will!" cried Cherrie, clenching her little fist resolutely; "I will! I'll let him see I'm not the dirt under his feet! I've stood it long enough! I'll stand it no longer!"
Mr. Blake's eyes sparkled at the spirited declaration.
"That's my brave Cherrie! I always knew you were spunky! You shall hear from his own lips the avowal of his false marriage, and then you will go before a magistrate and swear to all you know about that night of the robbery and murder. There is a steamer to leave Charlottetown to-morrow, at nine. Will you be ready if I drive up here for you?"
"Yes," said Cherrie; "I haven't so much to pack, goodness knows! and I'm sick and tired of this place. How's all our folks? It's time to ask."
"They are all well, and will be very glad to get pretty Cherrie back again. Speckport's been a dull place since you left it. Cheer up, Cherrie! There's bright days in store for you yet."
Cherrie did not reply, and she did not look very hopeful. She was crying quietly; and Val's heart was touched as he looked at the pale, tear-stained face, and thought how bright and pretty and rosy and smiling it used to be. He bent over her, and – well, I shouldn't like Miss Blair to know it – but Mr. Blake deliberately kissed her!
"Keep up a good heart, little Cherrie; it will be all right yet, and we'll fix the flint of Captain G. P. Cavendish. I'll drive up here for you at eight to-morrow. Be all ready. Good-bye."
Cherrie was all ready and waiting at the gate, next morning, when Mr. Blake drove up through the slanting morning sunlight, dressed in her best. She was in considerably better spirits than on the previous day, and much more like the Cherrie of other days, glad to get home and eager for the journey. The lady passengers, during the day, asked her if "the tall gentleman" was her husband. That gentleman had a great deal to tell her; of poor Nathalie's death, and Charley's flight; of the new heiress, who had turned so many heads, and had given the worst turn of all to Captain Cavendish; of that gentleman's despair when she married Mr. Wyndham; of the changes and gay doings at Redmon; and lastly, of Nathalie's ghost. This last rather scared Cherrie. What if Nathalie should appear to her – to her, who had wronged her so deeply through her brother.
"Oh, no!" said Mr. Blake, to whom she imparted her fears; "I don't think she will, if you tell the truth; or, at all events, she will be a most unreasonable ghost if she does. You tell all, Cherrie, and Charley will come back to Speckport; and by that time you'll have got your red cheeks back again, and who knows what may happen?"
Mr. Blake whistled as he threw out this artful insinuation; but Cherrie caught at it eagerly, and her face lit up. Charley's handsome visage rose before her – blue-eyed, fair-haired Charley – who had always loved her, and never would have treated her as Captain Cavendish had done. Who knew what might happen! Who, indeed!
"I'll tell the whole truth," said Cherrie, aloud. "I'll tell everything, Mr. Blake, when I'm once sure I'm not Captain Cavendish's real wife. I know I did wrong to treat poor Charley as I did; but I will do all I can now to make up for it."
They reached S – at dark, and remained there all night and the following morning. They might have gone down to Speckport in the eight P.M. train; but Val preferred to remain for the two A.M., for reasons of his own.
"If we land in Speckport at noon, Cherrie," he said, "we may be seen and recognized. We will go down in the afternoon and get there about nine, when it will be dark, and you can pass unnoticed. I don't want Captain Cavendish to find out you are there, until I am ready."
So Cherrie, thickly vailed, took her place in the car, after dinner; and was whirled through the pleasant country, with its fields and forests and villages, toward good old Speckport – that dull, foggy town that her heart had grown sick with longing many a time to see.
There were no lamps lit in the streets of Speckport that night. When the waning September moon shone out in such brilliance, surrounded by such a crowd of stars as persuaded one to believe all the constellations were flaming at once, gas became superfluous, and the city fathers spared it. The vailed lady was handed out by Mr. Blake; a proceeding which considerably excited the curiosity of some of Mr. Blake's friends, loafing around the platform.
"Blake can't have got married up the country, can he?" drawled out Lieutenant the Honorable L. H. Blank to young McGregor. "Who's the woman?"
"Blessed if I know," replied Alick.
Val hurried his charge into a cab, sprang in after her, and gave the order, "Wasson's Hotel."
"It's a new place, and not much patronized," he explained to Cherrie. "You won't be recognized there; and I'll tell them to fetch you your meals up to your room. And to-morrow, Cherrie, I want you to come round to my office at about eleven. Come in the back way off Brunswick street, you know; so you won't have to pass through the outer office, and be recognized by Clowrie and Gilcase, and the rest of 'em. I'll be waiting for you; and if Cavendish doesn't drop in, which he does to kill time about that hour every day, I'll send for him, and you'll hear his confession without being seen."
Mr. Blake walked home that night, chuckling inwardly all the way.
"I said I would pay you off, Cavendish," he soliloquized, "for leading Charley Marsh astray, and cutting up those other little cantrips of yours; and I think the time has come at last – I really think, my dear boy, the time has come!"
It was some time after ten when Mr. Blake presented himself at Mr. Blair's, and found the family about retiring for the night. Laura was not at home, she was up at Redmon – Laura's mamma said – stopping with Mrs. Wyndham, who seemed to be very unhappy.
"What was she unhappy about?" Mr. Blake inquired. But Mrs. Blair only sighed, and shook her head, and hinted darkly about hasty marriages.
"Eh?" said Val, "Wyndham doesn't thrash her, does he? She's big and buxom, and he's only a little fellow; and I think, on the whole, she would be a match for him in a free fight!"
Mr. Blair laughed, but Mrs. Blair looked displeased.
"My dear Mr. Blake, how can you say such things? Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham are not a happy couple, that is clear; but whose is the fault I cannot undertake to say. He is greatly changed of late. I suppose he worries about his mother."
"Oh, his mother! Has anybody seen that most mysterious lady yet?"
"Not that I am aware of! He has not even called in medical advice."
"And the ghost," said Val, lighting his bedroom-lamp, "has it been figuranting since?"
"No," said Mr. Blair; "the ghost hasn't showed since you left. I say, Blake, did you settle your country-business satisfactorily?"
"Very!" replied Mr. Blake, with emphasis. "I never settled any business more to my satisfaction in the whole course of my life!"
Mr. Blake was in his office bright and early next morning, hard at work. At about eleven he descended the stairs, and opened the back door, which fronted on a dull little street, through which a closely-vailed female figure was daintily picking her way. Val admitted the lady, and ran before her up-stairs.
"Up to time, Cherrie, there's nothing like it! I sent Bill Blair round to Cavendish's rooms to tell him to look in before twelve, and I expect them back every moment. By Jove! there's his voice outside now. Get in here quick, and sit down! There's a crack in the partition, through which you can see and hear. Not a chirp out of you, now. Come in!"
Mr. Blake raised his voice; and in answer, the door opened, and Captain Cavendish, smoking a cigar, lounged in. Val gave one glance at the buttoned door of the little closet in which he had hidden Cherrie, and nodded familiarly to his visitor.
"Good-morning, captain! find a chair. Oh, pitch the books on the floor – they're of no account. I'm to notice them all favorably in the 'Spouter' – the author sent a five-dollar bill for me to do it!"
"Young Blair said you wanted to see me," remarked the captain, tilting back his chair, and looking inquiringly through his cigar-smoke.
"Why, so I did. I heard before I went up the country a rumor that you were going to leave us – going to leave the army, in fact, and return to England. Is it so?"
"Yes. I'm confoundedly tired of Speckport, and this from-hand-to-mouth life. It is time I retired on my fortune, and I am going to do it."
"How?"
"Well, I mean to return home – run down to Cumberland, and saddle myself on my old uncle. He was always fond of me as a boy, and I know is yet, in spite of his new wife and heir. Perhaps I may drop into a good thing there – heiresses are plenty."
"I should think you had got your heart-scald of that," said Val, grinning. "You bait your hook for heiresses often enough, but the gold-fish don't seem to bite."
Captain Cavendish colored and frowned.
"All heiresses are not Miss Hendersons," he said, with a cold sneer. "I might know what to look for from your Bluenose and Quaker tradesmen's daughters. I shall marry an English lady – one whose father did not make his money selling butter or hawking fish."
"Oh, come now, Cavendish! You have been in love in Speckport. Don't deny it!"
"I do deny it," said the captain, coldly.
"Nonsense! You were in love with Nathalie Marsh."
"Never! Azure-eyed and fair-haired wax dolls never were any more to my taste than boiled chicken! I never cared a jot for Nathalie Marsh."
"Well, you did for Olive Henderson – you can't deny that! She is not of the boiled chicken order, and all Speckport knows you were mad about her."
"Speckport knows more than its prayers. I did admire Miss Henderson – I don't deny it; but she had the temper of the old devil, and I am glad I escaped her!"
"And Cherrie – have you quite forgotten Cherrie? You were spooney enough about her."
"Bah!" said Captain Cavendish, with infinite contempt; "don't sicken me by talking of Cherrie! I had almost forgotten there ever was such a little fool in existence!"
"And you never cared for Cherrie, either?"
Captain Cavendish broke into a laugh.
"You know how I cared for her. The woman a man can marry is another thing altogether!"
"Some far higher up in the world than Captain Cavendish have stooped to fall in love and marry girls as poor as Cherrie. You never could, I suppose?"
"Never! The idea is absurd! I wouldn't marry a girl like Cherrie if she had the beauty of the Venus de Medicis!"
"Did you ever undeceive Cherrie about that marriage affair? Did you let her know she was not your wife?"
"Not I," said Captain Cavendish, coolly. "I never took so much trouble about her! I was heartily sick of her before a week!"
"Well, it seems hard," said Val. "Poor little thing! She was very fond of you, too."
"Stuff! She was as fond of me as she was, or would be, of any other decently good-looking man. She was ready to rum off with any one who asked her, whether it were I, or young Marsh, or any of the rest. I know what Cherrie was made of."
"And so she thinks she is still your wife?"
"I don't know what she thinks!" exclaimed the young officer, impatiently; "and what's more, I don't care! What do you talk to me of Cherrie Nettleby for? I tell you I know nothing about her!"
"And I tell you I don't believe it," said Val. "You have her hid away somewhere, Cavendish; and if you are an honorable man, you will tell her the truth, and provide for her before you leave Speckport."
Captain Cavendish might have flown into a rage with any other man, but he only burst into a loud laugh at Val.
"Tell her the truth and provide for her! Why, you blessed innocent, do you suppose Cherrie, wherever she is, has been constant to me all this time? I tell you I know nothing of her, and care nothing! Make your mind easy, old fellow! the girl is off with somebody else long before this! What's that?"
Captain Cavendish looked toward the buttoned door of the closet. There had been a strange sound, between a gasp and a cry, but Mr. Blake took no notice.
"It's only the rats! So you will leave Speckport, and do nothing for Cherrie? Cavendish, I am sorry I ever had a hand in that night's work!"
"Too late now, my dear boy!" laughed the Englishman. "Make your mind easy about Cherrie! She's just the girl can take care of herself! If ever she comes back to Speckport, give her my regards!"
He pulled out his watch, still laughing, and arose to go.
"Half-past eleven – I have an engagement at twelve, and must be off. By-by, Blake! don't fret about Cherrie!"
Mr. Blake did not reply, and his face was very grave as he shut and locked the door after his visitor.
"You're a greater villain, Captain Cavendish," he said to himself, "than even I took you to be! Come out, Cherrie – have you heard enough?"
Yes, she had heard enough! She was crouching on the door, her hands clenched, her eyes flashing. She leaped up like a little tigress as he opened the door.
"Take me to a magistrate!" she cried. "Let me tell all I know! I'll hang him! I'll hang him, if I can!"
"Sit down, Cherrie," said Val, "and compose yourself. It won't do to go in such a gale as this before the authorities. Tell me first. By that time you will be settled!"
An hour afterward, Mr. Blake left his office by the back-door, accompanied by the vailed lady. Cherrie had told all.