Anna the Adventuress Part 22

"It is very good of you to come and see me, my dear sister," Annabel remarked, throwing herself into a low chair, and clasping her hands over her head. "To tell you the truth, I am a little dull."

"Where is your husband?" Anna asked.

"He is addressing a meeting of his const.i.tuents somewhere," Annabel answered. "I do not suppose he will be home till late. Tell me how are you amusing yourself?"

Anna laughed.

"I have been amusing myself up to now by trying to earn my living,"

she replied.

"I hope," Annabel answered lazily, "that you have succeeded.

By-the-bye, do you want any money? Sir John's ideas of pin money are not exactly princely, but I can manage what you want, I dare say."

"Thank you," Anna answered coldly. "I am not in need of any. I might add that in any case I should not touch Sir John's."

"That's rather a pity," Annabel said. "He wants to settle something on you, I believe. It is really amusing. He lives in constant dread of a reappearance of '_La Belle Alcide_,' and hearing it said that she is his wife's sister. Bit priggish, isn't it? And if he only knew it--so absurd. Tell me how you are earning your living here, Anna--typewriting, or painting, or lady's companion?"

"I think," Anna said, "that the less you know about me the better. Is all your house on the same scale of magnificence as this, Annabel?"

she asked, looking round.

Annabel shook her head.

"Most of it is ugly and frowsy," she declared, "but it isn't worth talking about. I have made up my mind to insist upon moving from here into Park Lane, or one of the Squares. It is absolutely a frightful neighbourhood, this. If only you could see the people who have been to call on me! Sir John has the most absurd ideas, too. He won't have menservants inside the house, and his collection of carriages is only fit for a museum--where most of his friends ought to be, by-the-bye. I can a.s.sure you, Anna, it will take me years to get decently established. The man's as obstinate as a mule."

Anna looked at her steadily.

"He will find it difficult no doubt to alter his style of living,"

she said. "I do not blame him. I hope you will always remember----"

Annabel held out her hands with a little cry of protest.

"No lecturing, Anna!" she exclaimed. "I hope you have not come for that."

"I came," Anna answered, looking her sister steadily in the face, "to hear all that you can tell me about a man named Hill."

Annabel had been lying curled up on the lounge, the personification of graceful animal ease. At Anna's words she seemed suddenly to stiffen.

Her softly intertwined fingers became rigid. The little spot of rouge was vivid enough now by reason of this new pallor, which seemed to draw the colour even from her lips. But she did not speak. She made no attempt to answer her sister's question. Anna looked at her curiously, and with sinking heart.

"You must answer me, Annabel," she continued. "You must tell me the truth, please. It is necessary."

Annabel rose slowly to her feet, walked to the door as though to see that it was shut, and came back with slow lagging footsteps.

"There was a man called Montague Hill," she said hoa.r.s.ely, "but he is dead."

"Then there is also," Anna remarked, "a Montague Hill who is very much alive. Not only that, but he is here in London. I have just come from him."

Annabel no longer attempted to conceal her emotion. She battled with a deadly faintness, and she tottered rather than walked back to her seat. Anna, quitting her chair, dropped on her knees by her sister's side and took her hand.

"Do not be frightened, dear," she said. "You must tell me the truth, and I will see that no harm comes to you."

"The only Montague Hill I ever knew," Annabel said slowly, "is dead. I know he is dead. I saw him lying on the footway. I felt his heart. It had ceased to beat. It was a motor accident--a fatal motor accident the evening papers called it. They could not have called it a fatal motor accident if he had not been dead."

Anna nodded.

"Yes, I remember," she said. "It was the night you left Paris. They thought that he was dead at first, and they took him to the hospital.

I believe that his recovery was considered almost miraculous."

"Alive," Annabel moaned, her eyes large with terror. "You say that he is alive."

"He is certainly alive," Anna declared. "More than that, he arrived to-day at the boarding-house where I am staying, greeted me with a theatrical start, and claimed me--as his wife. That is why I am here.

You must tell me what it all means."

"And you?" Annabel exclaimed. "What did you say?"

"Well, I considered myself justified in denying it," Anna answered drily. "He produced what he called a marriage certificate, and I believe that nearly every one in the boarding-house, including Mrs.

White, my landlady, believes his story. I am fairly well hardened in iniquity--your iniquity, Annabel--but I decline to have a husband thrust upon me. I really cannot have anything to do with Mr. Montague Hill."

"A--marriage certificate!" Annabel gasped.

Anna glanced into her sister's face, and rose to her feet.

"Let me get you some water, Annabel. Don't be frightened, dear.

Remember----"

Annabel clutched her sister's arm. She would not let her move. She seemed smitten with a paroxysm of fear.

"A thick-set, coa.r.s.e-looking young man, Anna!" she exclaimed in a hoa.r.s.e excited whisper. "He has a stubbly yellow moustache, weak eyes, and great horrid hands."

Anna nodded.

"It is the same man, Annabel," she said. "There is no doubt whatever about that. There was the motor accident, too. It is the same man, for he raved in the hospital, and they fetched me. It was you, of course, whom he wanted."

"Alive! In London!" Annabel moaned.

"Yes. Pull yourself together, Annabel! I must have the truth."

The girl on the lounge drew a long sobbing breath.

"You shall," she said. "Listen! There was a Meysey Hill in Paris, an American railway millionaire. This man and he were alike, and about the same age. Montague Hill was taken for the millionaire once or twice, and I suppose it flattered his vanity. At any rate, he began to deliberately personate him. He sent me flowers. Celeste introduced him to me--oh, how Celeste hated me! She must have known. He--wanted to marry me. Just then--I was nervous. I had gone further than I meant to--with some Englishmen. I was afraid of being talked about. You don't know, Anna, but when one is in danger one realizes that the--the other side of the line is h.e.l.l. The man was mad to marry me. I heard everywhere of his enormous riches and his generosity. I consented. We went to the Emba.s.sy. There was--a service. Then he took me out to Monteaux, on a motor. We were to have breakfast there and return in the evening. On the way he confessed. He was a London man of business, spending a small legacy in Paris. He had heard me sing--the fool thought himself in love with me. Celeste he knew. She was chaffing him about being taken for Meysey Hill, and suggested that he should be presented to me as the millionaire. He told me with a coa.r.s.e nervous laugh. I was his wife. We were to live in some wretched London suburb.

His salary was a few paltry hundreds a year. Anna, I listened to all that he had to say, and I called to him to let me get out. He laughed.

I tried to jump, but he increased the speed. We were going at a mad pace. I struck him across the mouth, and across the eyes. He lost control of the machine. I jumped then--I was not even shaken. I saw the motor dashed to pieces against the wall, and I saw him pitched on his head into the road. I leaned over and looked at him--he was quite still. I could not hear his heart beat. I thought that he was dead. I stole away and walked to the railway station. That night in Paris I saw on the bills 'Fatal Motor Accidents.' _Le Pet.i.t Journal_ said that the man was dead. I was afraid that I might be called upon as a witness. That is why I was so anxious to leave Paris. The man who came to our rooms, you know, that night was his friend."

"The good G.o.d!" Anna murmured, herself shaken with fear. "You were married to him!"

"It could not be legal," Annabel moaned. "It couldn't be. I thought that I was marrying Meysey Hill, not that creature. We stepped from the Emba.s.sy into the motor--and oh! I thought that he was dead. Why didn't he die?"

Anna sprang to her feet and walked restlessly up and down the room.

Annabel watched her with wide-open, terrified eyes.