The Brightener Part 36

Gaby Lorraine was a well-known musical comedy actress; at least _had_ been. Before the war and even during the first year of the war she had been seen and heard a good deal in England. Because of her pretty singing voice and smart recitations, she had been taken up by people more or less in Society. Then she had disappeared, about the time that Grandmother took me to Rome, and letters from friends mentioning her had said there was some "hushed-up scandal." Exactly what it was n.o.body seemed to know. One thought it had to do with cocaine. Another fancied it was a question of kleptomania or "something really weird." The world had forgotten her since, but here she was, a Mrs. Jennings, married to a Devons.h.i.+re village doctor, greeting her husband like a good wife at the railway station.

Nothing could have been more perfect than her conception of this new part she'd chosen to play. Neat, smooth brown hair; plain tailor-made coat and skirt; little white waistcoat; close-fitting toque; low-heeled russet shoes; gloves to match: admirable! Only the "liquid powder" which gives the strange pallor loved in Paris suggested that this _chic_ figure had ever shown itself on the stage.

"I wish I knew _what_ the scandal had been!" I murmured half to myself and half to Jim, as we parted in the station after introductions.

"That sounds unlike you, darling," Jim reproached me. "Why should you want to know?"

"Because," I explained, "whatever it was, is the reason why she married this country doctor. If there'd been no scandal, Mademoiselle Gaby Lorraine wouldn't be Mrs. Paul Jennings."

CHAPTER VI

THE PICTURES

Our interview with Sir Beverley Drake was most satisfactory. Because he had known old Mr. Ralston and Grandmother, the great specialist granted my earnest request.

"I had almost vowed not to receive one solitary patient," he laughed, "yet here I am promising to motor thirty miles for the pleasure of calling on one."

"You won't regret it," I prophesied. "You will find Major Murray an interesting man, and as enthralling a case as you ever met. As for the bride, you'll fall in love with her. Every man must."

It was finally arranged that he should visit Ralston Murray early in the following week. He could not go before, as he was expecting visitors; but it was already Wednesday, so there were not many days to wait.

Jim and I had decided not to run over to see the Murrays at once, but to give them time to "settle in." We would go on Sunday afternoon, we thought; but on Sat.u.r.day I had a telegram from Rosemary. "Would Sir Beverley be offended if we asked him not to come, after all? Ralston thinks it not worth while."

I was utterly amazed, for in London she had seemed as keen on consulting the specialist as I was, and had thanked us warmly for the offer of breaking our journey at Exeter.

"We can't force Sir Beverley on Murray," Jim said. "It wouldn't be fair to either of them." But I insisted.

"There's something odd about this," I told him. "Let's spin over to-day instead of to-morrow, and tell the Murrays that Sir Beverley _would_ be offended. I shall say to Rosemary that as we asked him to call, it would be humiliating to us to have him treated in such a way."

I think Jim has laid down for himself a certain line of action with me.

He yields to me on all matters as to which he's comparatively indifferent, so that I won't notice much when he turns into the Rock of Gibraltar over big issues.

This was one of the occasions when he yielded, and we flashed to Ralston Old Manor directly after luncheon. There wasn't time for a telegram to be delivered there before our arrival, and the Manor had no 'phone, so we appeared _en surprise_. And the "surprise" was a double one, for I was amazed to come upon Mrs. Jennings walking with Rosemary down the elm avenue. Evidently the visitor was going home, and her hostess was accompanying her as far as the gate. Our car running along the drive startled them from what seemed to be the most intimate talk. At sight of us they both looked up, and their manner changed. Rosemary smiled a welcome. Gaby smiled, in politeness. But before the smile there was the fraction of a second when each face revealed something it didn't mean to reveal--or I imagined it. Rosemary's had lost the look of exalted happiness which had thrilled me on her wedding day. For that instant it had a haunted look. As for Gaby, the fleeting expression of her face was not so hard to understand. For some reason she was annoyed that we had come, and felt an impulse of dislike toward us.

"Can those two have met before?" I asked myself. It seemed improbable: yet it was odd that strangers who had known each other only a couple of days should be on such terms.

They parted on the spot, when we had slowed down, Mrs. Jennings walking on alone the short distance to the gate, and Rosemary getting into the car with us, to drive to the house. I couldn't resist asking the question, "Had you ever seen Mrs. Jennings before she was married?" For, after all, there was no reason why I should not ask it. But Rosemary looked me full in the face as she answered:

"No, I never met her until she and her husband called the day before yesterday. She had been very kind about getting the house beautifully ready for us, and finding servants. I feel I know her quite well, because she has come in every day to explain about repairs that have had to be made, and that sort of thing."

"Do you like her?" I asked.

"I think she's tremendously clever," Rosemary said.

I was inclined to think so, too. "It's _she_ who has been trying to persuade the Murrays not to have Sir Beverley Drake," I told myself.

"She wants the job for her husband."

Happiness had had a wonderful effect upon Murray, even in this short time. It seemed to have electrified him with a new vitality. He had walked a few steps without any help, and for the first time in many weeks felt an appet.i.te for food.

"If I didn't _know_ there was no hope for me, I should almost think there was some!" he said, laughing. "Of course there isn't any! This is only a flash in the pan, but I may as well enjoy it while it lasts, and it makes things a little less tragic for my angel of mercy. I feel that it might be best to 'let well alone,' as they say, and not disturb myself with a new treatment. All the American specialists agreed that nothing on earth could change the course of events, so why fuss, as I'm more comfortable than I hoped to be? If you don't think it would be rude to Sir Beverley----"

But there I broke in upon him, and Jim helped me out. We _did_ think it would be rude. Sir Beverley would be wounded. For our sakes, if for nothing else, we asked that Sir Beverley should be allowed to make his call and examination as arranged.

Murray did not protest much when he saw how we took his suggestion; and Rosemary protested not at all. She simply sat still with a queer, _fatal_ look on her beautiful face; and suspicions of her began to stir within me again. Did she not _want_ to give her husband a chance of life?

The answer to that question, so far as Sir Beverley came into it, was that she could easily have influenced Murray not to heed us if she had been determined to do so. But that was just the effect she gave; lack of determination. It was as if, in the end, she wanted Murray to decide for himself, without being bia.s.sed by her.

"That Gaby Lorraine _is_ in it somehow, all the same," I decided. "She was able to make Rosemary send us the telegram, and if we hadn't come over, and argued, she would have got her away."

It seemed rather sinister.

Ralston Murray was charmed with his heritage, and wanted Rosemary to show us all over the house, which she did. It was beautiful in its simple way: low-ceilinged rooms, many with great beams, and exquisite oak panelling of linen-fold and other patterns. But the fame of the Manor, such as it was, lay in its portraits and pictures by famous artists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Rosemary frankly confessed that she knew very little about Old Masters of any age; and Jim had been, as he said, in the same boat until the idea had struck him of renewing the past glories of the family place, Courtenaye Abbey.

After renting the Abbey from me, and beginning to restore its dilapidations, he had studied our heirlooms of every sort; had bought books, and had consulted experts. Consequently, he had become as good a judge of a Lely, a Gainsborough, a Romney, a Reynolds, and so on, as I had become, through being my grandmother's grand-daughter.

I wondered what was in his mind as we went through the hall and the picture gallery, and began to be so excited over my own thoughts that I could hardly wait to find out his.

"Well, what is your impression of the famous collection?" I asked, the instant our car whirled us away from the door of Ralston Old Manor.

"What do you think of everything?"

"_Think_, my child?" echoed Jim. "I'm bursting with what I think; and so, I expect, are you!"

"I wonder how long it is since the pictures were valued?" I muttered.

"I suppose they must have been done," said Jim, "at the time of old Ralston's death, so that the amount of his estate could be judged."

"Yes," I agreed; "I suppose the income-tax people, or whoever the fiends are that a.s.sess heirs for death duties, would not have accepted any old estimates. But that would mean that the pictures were all right ten months ago."

We looked at each other. "There's been some queer hocus-pocus going on,"

mumbled Jim.

"It sounds like black magic!" I breathed.

"Black fraud," he amended. "Ought we to speak to Murray--just drop him a hint, and suggest his getting an expert to have a look round?"

"It would worry him, and he oughtn't to be worried now," I said.

"Still, he wants everything to be all right for his wife when he goes west."

"I know," said I; "but I don't feel that these happy days of his--his last days, perhaps--ought to be disturbed. If--if Rosemary loves him as much as we believe she does, she'd rather have a fuss after he's gone than before. We might be breaking open a wasp's nest if we spoke. And it isn't our _business_, is it?"

"Unless we could find out something on the quiet," thoughtfully suggested Jim. "For instance, is there anybody in this neighbourhood who's a pretty good artist and a smart copyist--anybody, I mean, who could have had the run of the Manor while the house was unoccupied except by a caretaker?"

"Yes, we might set ourselves to find out that," I a.s.sented. "And, by the way--apropos of nothing, of course!--I think we might call on the Jenningses, don't you?--as the doctor intimated that they didn't 'feel grand enough' to call on us."