Tante Part 53

"Franz Lippheim!" cried Madame von Marwitz. She sank back upon the seat from which she had risen, putting a hand before her eyes.

Victor, at her knees, laid a paw upon her lap and whined an interrogative sympathy. The three American ladies gathered near and gazed in silence upon the great woman, and Beatrice, carefully adjusting her camera, again took a snap. The picture of Madame von Marwitz, with her hand before her eyes, her anxious dog at her knees, found its way into the American press and ill.u.s.trated touchingly the story of the lost adopted child. Madame von Marwitz was not sorry when, among a batch of press-cuttings, she came across the photograph and saw that her most genuine emotion had been thus made public.

She looked up at last, and the dizziness of untried and perilous freedom was in her eyes; but curious, now, of other objects, they took in, weighed and measured the little group before her; power grew in them, an upwelling of force and strategy.

She smiled upon the Slifers and she rose.

"You have done me an immeasurable service," she said, and as she spoke she took Mrs. Slifer's hand with a n.o.ble dignity. "You have lifted me from despair. It is blessed news that you bring. My child is safe with a good, a talented man; one for whom I have the deepest affection. And in the New Forest--at Brockenhurst--on Sat.u.r.day. Ah, I shall soon have her in my arms."

Still holding Mrs. Slifer's hand she led them up the terraces and towards the house. "The poor child is ill, distraught. She had parted from her husband--fled from him. Ah, it has been a miserable affair, that marriage. But now, all will be well. _Bon Dieu!_ what joy! What peace of heart you have brought me! I shall be with her to-morrow. I start at once. And you, my good friends, let me hear your plans. Let me be of service to you. Come with me for the last stage of your journey. I will not part with you willingly."

"It's all simply too wonderful, Baroness," Mrs. Slifer gasped, as she skipped along on her short legs beside the G.o.ddess-like stride of the great woman, who held her--who held her very tightly. "We were just going to drift along up to Tintagel and then work up to London, taking in all the cathedrals we could on our way."

"And you will change your route in order to give me the pleasure of your company. You will forfeit Tintagel: is it not so?" Madame von Marwitz smiled divinely. "You will come with me in my car to Truro where we take the train and I will drop you to-night at the feet of a cathedral. So.

Your luggage is at Mullion? That is simple. We wire to your friends to pack and send it on at once. Leave it to me. You are in my hands. It is a kindness that you will do me. I need you, Mrs. Slifer," she pressed the lady's arm. "My old friend, who lives with me, has left me for the day, and, moreover, she is too old to travel. I must not be alone. I need you. It is a kindness that you will do me. Now you will wait for me here and tea will be brought to you. I shall keep you waiting but for a few moments."

It was to be lifted on the back of a genie. She had wafted them up, along the garden paths, across the verandah, into the serenity and s.p.a.ciousness and dim whites and greens and silvers of the great music-room, with a backward gaze that had, in all its sweetness, something of hypnotic force and fixity.

She left them with the Sargent portrait looking down at them and the room in its strangeness and beauty seemed part of the spell she laid upon them. The Slifers, herded together in the middle of it, gazed about them half awe-struck and spoke almost in whispers.

"Why, girls," said Mrs. Slifer, who was the first to find words, "this is the most thrilling thing I ever came across."

"You've pulled it off this time, mother, and no mistake," said Maude, glancing somewhat furtively up at the Sargent. "Do look at that perfectly lovely dress she has on in that picture. Did you ever see such pearls; and the eyes seem to follow you, don't they?"

"The poor, distracted thing just clings to us," said Mrs. Slifer. "I shouldn't wonder if she was as lonely as could be."

"All the same," Beatrice, the doubting Thomas of the group, now commented, "I don't think however excited she was she ought to have shaken you like that, mother." Beatrice had examined the appurtenances of the great room with a touch of nonchalance. It was she whom Gregory had seen at the station, seated on the pile of luggage.

"That's petty of you, Bee," said Mrs. Slifer gravely. "Real small and petty. It's a great soul at white heat we've been looking at."

Handc.o.c.k at this point brought in tea, and after she had placed the tray and disposed the plates of cake and bread-and-b.u.t.ter and left the Slifers alone again, Mrs. Slifer went on under her breath, seating herself to pour out the tea. "And do look at this tea-pot, girls; isn't it too cute for words. My! What will the Jones say when they hear about this! They'd give their eye-teeth to be with us now."

The Slifers, indeed, were never to forget their adventure. It was to be impressed upon their minds not only by its supreme enviableness but by its supreme discomfort. It was almost five when, like three Ganymedes uplifted by the talons of a fierce, bright bird, they soared with Madame von Marwitz towards Truro, and at Truro, in spite of a reckless speed which desperately dishevelled their hair and hats, they arrived too late to catch the 6.40 train for Exeter.

Madame von Marwitz strode majestically along the platform, her white cloak trailing in the dust, called for station-masters, demanded special trains, fixed haughty, uncomprehending eyes upon the officials who informed her that she could not possibly get a train until ten, resigned herself, with sundry exclamations of indignation and stamps of the foot, to the tedious wait, sailed into the refreshment room only to sail out again, mounted the car not yet dismissed, bore the Slifers to a hotel where they had a dinner over which she murmured at intervals "_Bon Dieu, est-ce-donc possible!_" and then, in the chill, dark evening, toured about in the adjacent country until ten, when Burton was sent back to Les Solitudes and when they all got into the train for Exeter.

She had never in all her life travelled alone before. She hardly knew how to procure her ticket, and her helplessness in regard to box and dressing-case was so apparent that Mrs. Slifer saw to the one and Maude carried the other, together with the fur-lined coat when this was thrown aside.

The hours that they pa.s.sed with her in the train were the strangest that the Slifers had ever pa.s.sed. They were chilled, they were sleepy, they were utterly exhausted; but they kept their eyes fixed on the perplexing, resplendent object that upbore them.

Beatrice, it is true, showed by degrees, a slight sulkiness. She had not liked it when, at Truro, Madame von Marwitz had supervised their wires to the Jones, and she liked it less when Madame von Marwitz explained to them in the train that she relied upon them not to let the Jones--or anybody for the present--know anything about Mrs. Jardine. Something in Madame von Marwitz's low-toned and richly murmured confidences as she told Maude and Mrs. Slifer that it was important for Mrs. Jardine's peace of mind, and for her very sanity, that her dreaded husband should not hear of her whereabouts, made Beatrice, as she expressed it to herself, "tired."

She looked out of the window while her mother and sister murmured, "Why certainly, Baroness; why yes; we perfectly understand," leaning forward in the illuminated carriage like docile conspirators.

After this Madame von Marwitz said that she would try to sleep; but, propped in her corner, she complained so piteously of discomfort that Mrs. Slifer and Maude finally divested themselves of their jackets and contrived a pillow for her out of them. They a.s.sured her that they were not cold and Madame von Marwitz, reclining now at full length, murmured "_Mille remerciements_." Soon she fell asleep and Mrs. Slifer and Maude, very cold and very unresentful, sat and watched her slumbers. From time to time she softly snored. She was very comfortable in her fur-lined cloak.

It was one o'clock when they reached Exeter and drove, dazed and numbed, to a hotel. Here Madame von Marwitz further availed herself of the services of Maude and Mrs. Slifer, for she was incapable of unpacking her box and dressing-case. Mrs. Slifer maided her while Maude, with difficulty at the late hour, procured her hot water, bouillon and toast.

Beatrice meanwhile, callously avowing her unworthiness, said that she was "dead tired" and went to bed.

Madame von Marwitz bade Mrs. Slifer and Maude the kindest good-night, smiling dimly at them over her bedroom candlestick as she ushered them to the door. "So," she said; "I leave you to your cathedral."

When the Slifers arose next day, late, for they were very weary, they found that Madame von Marwitz had departed by an early train.

Meanwhile, at Les Solitudes, old Mrs. Talcott turned from side to side all night, sleepless. Her heart was heavy with anxiety.

Karen was found and to-morrow Mercedes would be with her; she had sent for Mercedes, so the note pinned to Mrs. Talcott's dressing-table had informed her, and Mercedes would write.

What had happened? Who were the unknown ladies who had appeared from no one knew where during her absence at Helston and departed with Mercedes for Truro?

"Something's wrong. Something's wrong," Mrs. Talcott muttered to herself during the long hours. "I don't believe she's sent for Mercedes--not unless she's gone crazy."

At dawn she fell at last into an uneasy sleep. She dreamed that she and Mercedes were walking in the streets of Cracow, and Mercedes was a little child. She jumped beside Mrs. Talcott, holding her by the hand.

The scene was innocent, yet the presage of disaster filled it with a strange horror. Mrs. Talcott woke bathed in sweat.

"I'll get an answer to my telegram this morning," she said to herself.

She had telegraphed to Gregory last night, at once: "Karen is found.

Mercedes has gone to her. That's all I know yet."

She clung to the thought of Gregory's answer. Perhaps he, too, had news.

But she had no answer to her telegram. The post, instead, brought her a letter from Gregory that had been written the morning before.

"Dear Mrs. Talcott," it ran. "Karen is found. The detectives discovered that Mr. Franz Lippheim had not gone to Germany with his family. They traced him to an inn in the New Forest. Karen is with him and has taken his name. May I ask you, if possible, to keep this fact from her guardian for the present.--Yours sincerely,

"Gregory Jardine."

When Mrs. Talcott had read this she felt herself overcome by a sudden sickness and trembling. She had not yet well recovered from her illness of the Spring. She crept upstairs to her room and went to bed.

CHAPTER XLI

It seemed to Karen, after hours had pa.s.sed, that she had ceased to be tired and that her body, wafted by an involuntary rhythm, was as light as thistle-down on the wind.

She had crossed the Goonhilly Downs where the moonlight, spreading far and wide with vast unearthly brightness, filled all the vision with immensities of s.p.a.ce and brought memories of strains from Schubert's symphonies, silver monotonies of never-ending sound.

She had plunged down winding roads, blackly shadowed by their hedgerow trees, pa.s.sing sometimes a cottage that slept between its clumps of fuchsia and veronica. She had climbed bare hill-sides where abandoned mines or quarries had left desolate mementoes that looked in the moonlight like ancient tombs and catacombs.

Horror lay behind her at Les Solitudes, a long, low cloud on the horizon to which she had turned her back. The misery that had overpowered and made her one with its dread realities lay beneath her feet. She was lifted above it in a strange, disembodied enfranchis.e.m.e.nt all the night, and the steady blowing of the wind, the leagues of silver, the mighty sky with its far, high priestess, were part of an ecstasy of sadness, impersonal, serene, hallucinated, like that of the music that accompanied the rhythm of her feet.

The night was almost over and dawn was coming, when, on a long uphill road, she felt her heart flag and her footsteps stagger.

The moon still rode sharp and high, but its light seemed concentrated in its own glittering disk and the world was visible in an uncanny darkness that was not dark. The magic of the night had vanished and the beat of vast, winding melodies melted from Karen's mind leaving her dry and brittle and empty, like a sh.e.l.l from which the tides have drawn away.

She knew what she had still to do. At the top of the road she was to turn and cut across fields to a headland above Falmouth--from which a path she knew led to the town. She had not gone to Helston, but had taken this cross-country way to Falmouth because she knew that at any hour of the night she might be missed and followed and captured. They would not think of Falmouth; they would not dream that she could walk so far. In the town she would p.a.w.n Onkel Ernst's watch and take the early train to London and by evening she would be with Frau Lippheim. So she had seen it all, in flashes, last night.