Tante Part 52

Then, without speaking, she got up, tossed the letter to Mrs. Talcott, and began to pace the room, setting the furniture that she encountered out of her way with vindictive violence.

"My Darling, Darling Mercedes," Miss Scrotton wrote, "This is too terrible. Shall I come to you at once? I thought this morning after I had seen Mrs. Forrester and read your heartbreaking letter that I would start to-day; but let me hear from you, you may be coming up to town. If you stay in Cornwall, Mercedes, you must not be alone; you must not; and I am, as you know, devoted heart and soul. If all the world turned against you, Mercedes, I should keep my faith in you. I need hardly tell you what is being said. Claude Drew is in London and though, naturally, he does not dare face your friends with his story, rumours are abroad. Betty Jardine does not know him, but already she has heard; I met her only a few hours ago and the miserable little creature was full of malicious satisfaction.

The story that she has heard--and believes--and that London will believe--is the crude, gross one that facts, so disastrously, have lent colour to; you, in a fit of furious jealousy, driving Karen away. My poor, great, suffering friend, I need not tell you that I understand. Your letter rings true to me in every line, and is but too magnanimous.--Oh Mercedes!--had you but listened to my warnings about that wretched man. Do you remember that I told you that you were scattering your pearls before swine? And your exculpation of Karen did not convince me as it seemed to do Mrs. Forrester. A really guileless woman is not found--late at night--in a man's arms. I cannot forget Karen's origins. There must be in her the element of reckless pa.s.sion. Mr. Drew is spreading a highly idealised account of her and says that to see you together was to see Antigone in the clutches of Clytemnestra. There is some satisfaction in knowing that the miserable man is quite distracted and is haunted by the idea that Karen may have committed suicide.

Betty Jardine says that in that case you and he would have to appear at the inquest.--Oh, my poor Mercedes!--But I feel sure that this is impossible. Temper, not tragedy, drove Karen from you and it was on her part a dastardly action. I am seeing everybody that I can; they shall have my version. The d.u.c.h.ess is in the country; I have wired to her that I will go to her at once if you do not send for me; it is important that she should have the facts as I see them before these abominable rumours reach her. Dear Mrs. Forrester means, I am sure, to do loyally; you may count upon her to listen to no scandal; but its breath alarms and chills her: she does not interpret your letter as I do.

"Good-bye, my dear one. Wire to me please, at once. Ever and always _ton Eleanor devouee_."

"Well," Mrs. Talcott commented warily, folding the letter and glancing at Madame von Marwitz; "she don't let any gra.s.s grow under her feet, does she? Do you want her down?"

"Want her! Why should I want her! The insufferable fool!" cried Madame von Marwitz still striding to and fro with tigerish regularity. "Does she think me, too, a fool, to be taken in by her grimaces of loyalty when it is as apparent as the day that delight is her chief emotion.

Here is her opportunity--_parbleu!_--At last! I am in the dust--and if also in the dock so much the better. She will stand by me when others fall away. She will defend the prostrate t.i.taness from the vultures that prey upon her and gain at last the significance she has, for so long, so eagerly and so fruitlessly pursued. Ah!--_par exemple!_ Let her come to me expecting grat.i.tude. I will spurn her from me like a dog!" Madame von Marwitz, varying her course, struck a chair aside as she spoke.

"Well, I shouldn't fly out at her if I was you," said Mrs. Talcott.

"She's as silly as they make 'em, I allow, but it's all to the good if her silliness keeps her sticking to you through thick and thin. It's just as well to have someone around to drive off the vultures, even if it's only a scarecrow--and Miss Scrotton is better than that. She's a pretty brainy woman, for all her silliness, and she's pretty fond of you, too, only you haven't treated her as well as she thinks you ought to have, and it makes her feel kind of spry and cheerful to see that her time's come to show you what a fine fellow she is. Most folks are like that, I guess," Mrs. Talcott mused, returning to her stocking, "they don't suffer so powerful over their friends' misfortunes if it gives them a chance of showing what fine fellows they are."

"Friends!" Madame von Marwitz repeated with scorching emphasis.

"Friends! Truly I have proved them, these friends of mine. Cowards and traitors all, or crouching hounds. I am to be left, I perceive, with the Scrotton as my sole companion." But now she paused in her course, struck by a belated memory. "You had a letter. You have heard from the husband."

"Yes, I have," said Mrs. Talcott, "and you may as well see it." She drew forth Gregory's letter from under the heap of darning appliances on her lap.

Madame von Marwitz s.n.a.t.c.hed it from her and read it, once rapidly, once slowly; and then, absorbed again in dark meditations, she stood holding it, her eyes fixed on the ground.

"He ain't as violent as might be expected, is he?" Mrs. Talcott suggested. Distrust was abroad in the air between her and Mercedes; she offered the fact of Gregory's temperateness as one that might mitigate some antic.i.p.ations.

"He is as insolent as might be expected," said Madame von Marwitz. She flung the letter back to Mrs. Talcott, resuming her pacing, with a bitter laugh. "And to think," she said presently, "that I hoped--but truly hoped--with all my heart--to reconcile them! To think that I offered myself to Karen as an intermediary. It was true--yes, literally true--what I told Mrs. Forrester--that I spoke to Karen of it--with all love and gentleness and that she turned upon me like a tigress."

"And you'll recollect," said Mrs. Talcott, "that I told you to keep your hands off them and that you'd made enough mischief as it was. Why I guess you did hope she'd go back. You wanted to get rid of Karen and to have that young man to yourself; that's the truth, but you didn't tell that to Mrs. Forrester."

"I deny it," said Madame von Marwitz; but mechanically; her thoughts were elsewhere. She still paced.

"Well," said Mrs. Talcott, "you'd better send that telegram to Miss Scrotton, telling her not to come, or you'll have her down here as soon as she's seen the d.u.c.h.ess."

"Send it; send it at once," said Madame von Marwitz. "Tell her that I do not need her. Tell her that I will write." The force of her fury had pa.s.sed; counsels of discretion were making themselves felt. "Go at once and send it."

She paused again as Mrs. Talcott rose. "If Karen is not found within three days, Tallie, I go to London. I believe that she is in London."

Mrs. Talcott faced her. "If she's in London she'll be found as soon by Mr. Jardine as by you."

"Yes; that may be," said Mercedes, and discretion, now, had evidently the mastery; "but Karen will not refuse to see me. I must see her. I must implore her forgiveness. You would not oppose that, would you, Tallie?"

"No, I'd not oppose your asking her to forgive you," Mrs. Talcott conceded, "when she's got back to her husband. Only I advise you to stay where you are till you hear she's found."

"I will do as you say, Tallie," said Madame von Marwitz meekly. She went to the piano, and seating herself began to play the _Wohltemperirtes Clavier_.

CHAPTER XL

Six days had pa.s.sed since Karen's disappearance. The country had been searched; London, still, was being examined, and the papers were beginning to break into portraits of the missing girl. Karen became remote, non-existent, more than dead, it seemed, when her face, like that of some heroine of a newspaper novelette, gazed at one from the breakfast-table. The first time that this happened, Madame von Marwitz, flinging the sheet from her, had burst into a violent storm of weeping.

She sat, on the afternoon of the sixth day, in a sunny corner of the lower terrace and turned the leaves of a book with a listless hand. She was to be alone till dinner-time; Tallie had gone in to Helston by bus, and she had the air of one who feels solitude at once an oppression and a relief. She read little, raising her eyes to gaze unseeingly over the blue expanses stretched beneath her or to look down as vaguely into the eyes of Victor, who lay at her feet. The restless spirit of the house had reached Victor. He lay with his head on his extended paws in an att.i.tude of quiescence; but his ears were p.r.i.c.ked to watchfulness, his eyes, as he turned them now and again up to his mistress, were troubled.

Aware of his glance, on one occasion, Madame von Marwitz stooped and caressed his head, murmuring: "_Nous sommes des infortunes, hein, mon chien._" Her voice was profoundly sad. Victor understood her. Slightly thudding his tail he gave a soft responsive groan; and it was then, while she still leaned to him and still caressed his head, that shrill, emphatic voices struck on Madame von Marwitz's ear.

The gravelled nook where she sat, her garden chair, with its adjusted cus.h.i.+ons, set against a wall, was linked by ascending paths and terraces to the cliff-path, and this again, though only through a way overgrown with gorse and bramble, to the public coast-guards' path along the cliff-top. The white stones that marked the way for the coast-guards made a wide _detour_ behind Madame von Marwitz's property and this nearer egress to the cliff was guarded by a large placard warning off trespa.s.sers. Yet, looking in the direction of the voices, Madame von Marwitz, to her astonishment, saw that three ladies, braving the interdict, were actually marching down in single file upon her.

One was elderly and two were young; they wore travelling dress, and, as she gazed at them in chill displeasure, the features of the first became dimly familiar to her. Where, she could not have said, yet she had seen that neat, grey head before, that box-like hat with its depending veil, that firmly corseted, matronly form, with its silver-set pouch, suggesting, typical of the travelling American lady as it was, a marsupial species. She did not know where she had seen this lady; but she was a travelling American; she accosted one in determined tones, and, at some time in the past, she had waylaid and inconvenienced her.

Madame von Marwitz, as the three trooped down upon her, did not rise.

She pointed to the lower terrace. "This is private property," she said, and her aspect might well have turned the unwary visitors, Acteon-like, into stags, "I must ask you to leave it at once. You see the small door in the garden wall below; it is unlocked and it leads to the village.

Good-day to you."

But, with a singularly bright and puckered look, the look of a surf-bather, who measures with swift eye the height of the rolling breaker and plunges therein, the elderly lady addressed her with extraordinary volubility.

"Baroness, you don't remember us--but we've met before, we have a mutual friend:--Mrs. General Tollman of St. Paul's, Minnesota.--Allow me to introduce myself again:--Mrs. Slifer--Mrs. Hamilton K. Slifer:--my girls, Maude and Beatrice. We had the privilege of making your acquaintance over a year ago, Baroness, at the station in London, just before you sailed, and we had some talks on the steamer to that perfectly charming woman, Miss Scrotton. I hope she's well. We're over again this year, you see; we pine for dear old England and come just as often as we can. We feel we belong here more than over there sometimes, I'm afraid,"--Mrs. Slifer laughed swiftly and deprecatingly.--"My girls are so often taken for English girls, the Burne-Jones type you know.

We've got friends staying at Mullion, so we thought we'd just drop down on Cornwall for a little tour after we landed at Southampton, and we drove over this afternoon and came down by the cliff--we are just crazy about your scenery, Baroness--it's just the right setting for you--we've been saying so all day--to have a peek at the house we've heard so much about; and we don't want to disturb you, but it's the greatest possible pleasure, Baroness, to have this beautiful glimpse of you--with your splendid dog--how d' ye do, Victor--why I do believe he remembers me; we petted him so much at the station when your niece was holding him. We saw Mrs. Jardine the other day, Baroness--such a pleasant surprise that was, too--only we're sorry to see she's so delicate. The New Forest will be just the place for her. We stayed there three days after landing, because my Beatrice here was very sea-sick and I wanted her to have a little rest. We were simply crazy over it. I do hope Mrs. Jardine's getting better."

All this had been delivered with such speed, such an air of decision and purpose, that Madame von Marwitz, who had risen in her bewildered indignation and stood, her book beneath her arm, her white cloak caught about her, had found no opportunity to check the torrent of speech, and as these last words came as swiftly and as casually as the rest she could hardly, for a moment, collect her faculties.

"My niece? Mrs. Jardine?" she repeated, with a wild, wan utterance.

"What do you say of her?"

It was at this moment that Miss Beatrice began, in the background, to adjust her camera. She told her mother and sister afterwards that she seemed to feel it in her bones that something was doing.

Mrs. Slifer, emerging from her breaker in triumph, struck out, blinking and smiling affably. "We heard all about the wedding in America," she said, "and we thought we might call upon her in London and see that splendid temple you'd given her--we heard all about that, too. I never saw a picture of him, but I knew her in a minute, naturally, though she did look so pulled down. Why, Baroness--what's the matter!"

Madame von Marwitz had suddenly clutched Mrs. Slifer's arm with an almost appalling violence of mien and gesture.

"What is the matter?" Madame von Marwitz repeated, shaking Mrs. Slifer's arm. "Do you know what you are saying? My niece has been lost for a week! The whole country is searching for her! Where have you seen her?

When was it? Answer me at once!"

"Why Baroness, by all means, but you needn't shake my head off," said Mrs. Slifer, not without dignity, raising her free hand to straighten her hat. "We've never heard a word about it. Why this is perfectly providential.--Baroness--I must ask you not to go on shaking me like that. I've got a very delicate stomach and the least thing upsets my digestion."

"_Justes cieux!_" Madame von Marwitz cried, dropping Mrs. Slifer's arm and raising her hands to her head, while, in the background, Miss Beatrice's kodak gave a click--"Will the woman drive me mad! Karen! My child! Where is she!"

"Why, we saw her at the station at Brockenhurst--in the New Forest--didn't we Maude," said Mrs. Slifer, "and it must have been--now let me see--" poor Mrs. Slifer collected her wits, a bent forefinger at her lips. "To-day's Thursday and we got to Mullion yesterday--and we stopped at Winchester for a day and night on our way to the New Forest, it was on Sat.u.r.day last of course. We'd been having a drive about that part of the forest and we were taking the train and they had just come and we saw them on the opposite platform. He was just helping her out of the train and we didn't have any time to go round and speak to them--"

"They!" Madame von Marwitz nearly shouted. "She was with a man! Last Sat.u.r.day! Who was it? Describe him to me! Was he slender--with fair hair--dark eyes--the air of a poet?" She panted. And her aspect was so singular that Miss Beatrice, startled out of her professional readiness, failed to snap it.

"Why no," said Mrs. Slifer, keeping her clue. "I shouldn't say a poetical looking man, should you, Maude? A fleshy man--very big and fleshy, and he was taking such good care of her and looked so kind of tender and worried that I concluded he was her husband. She looked like a very sick woman, Baroness."

"Fleshy?" Madame von Marwitz repeated, and the word, in her moan, was almost graceful. "Fleshy, you say? An old man? A stout old man?" she held her hands distractedly pressed to her head. "What stout old man does Karen know? Is it a stranger she has met?"

"No, he wasn't old. This was a young man, Baroness. He had--now let me see--his hair was sort of red--I remember noticing his hair; and he wore knee-pants and a soft hat with a feather in it and was very high coloured."

"_Bon Dieu!_" Madame von Marwitz gasped. She had again, while Mrs.

Slifer spoke, seized her by the arm as though afraid that she might escape her and she now gazed with a fixed gaze above Mrs. Slifer's head and through the absorbed Maude and Beatrice. "Red hair?--A large young man?--Was he clean shaven? Did he wear eyegla.s.ses? Had he the face of a musician? Did he look like an Englishman--an English gentleman?"

Mrs. Slifer, nodding earnest a.s.sent to the first questions, shook her head at the latter. "No, he didn't. What I said to Maude and Beatrice was that Mr. Jardine looked more German than English. He looked just like a German student, Baroness."