The Second Latchkey Part 13

"It is a diamond," said Knight. "A blue diamond, and considered remarkable. It's what your friend Ruthven Smith would call a 'museum piece,' if you showed it to him. But you mustn't. He'd move heaven and earth to get it! n.o.body must see it but you and me. It wouldn't be safe.

It's too valuable. And if you were known to have it, you'd be in danger from all the jewel thieves in Europe and America. You wouldn't like that."

"No, it would be horrible!" Annesley shuddered. "But what a pity it must be hidden. Is it yours?"

"It's yours at present," said Knight, "if you'll keep it to yourself, and look at it only when you and I are alone together. I can't give it to you, precisely, to have and to hold (as I shall give you myself in a few hours), because this ring is more a trust than a possession.

Something may happen which will force me to ask you for it. But again, it may _not_. And, anyhow, I want you to have the ring until that time comes. I've bought a thin gold chain, and you can hang it round your neck, unless--I almost think you're inclined to refuse?"

Another mystery! But the blue diamond in its scintillating frame was so alluring that Annesley could not refuse. She knew that she would have more pleasure in peeping surrept.i.tiously at the secret blue diamond than in seeing the "obvious" white one on her finger.

"I can't give it up!" she said, laughing. "But I hope it isn't one of those dreadful historic stones which have had murders committed for it, like famous jewels one reads of. I should hate anything that came from _you_ to bring bad luck."

"So should I hate it. If there's any bad luck coming, I want it myself,"

Knight said, gravely.

"I wish I hadn't spoken of bad luck to-day!" the girl remorsefully exclaimed. "But I am not afraid. Give me the ring."

He gave it, and pulled from his pocket the slight gold chain on which he meant it to hang. He was leisurely threading the ring upon this when two men looked in at the door of the reading room.

One of the pair was of more than middle age. He was tall, thin, and slightly stooping. His respectable clothes seemed too loose for him. His hair and straggling beard were gray, contrasting with the sallow darkness of his skin. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles, and peered through them as if they were not strong enough for his failing sight.

The other man was younger. He, too, was dark and sallow, but his close-cut hair was black. He was clean shaven and well dressed. He wore a high, almost painfully high, collar, which caused him to keep his chin in air. He might be a Spaniard or an Italian.

Annesley had certainly not seen him before. She told herself this twice over. Yet--she was frightened. There was something familiar about him.

It must be her foolish imagination which took alarm at everything!

But, with fingers grown cold, she covered up the blue diamond.

CHAPTER IX

THE THING KNIGHT WANTED

When Dr. Torrance, who was to give her away, and the Marchese di Morello, who was to be Knight's "best man," had been introduced to Annesley, she laughed at the stupid "scare" which had chilled her heart for a moment.

If Knight had remained with her after his friends finished their call, she might have confessed to him how she had fancied in the tall, dark young man a likeness to one of the dreaded _watchers_. Until Knight spoke their names she had feared that the pair looking in at the door were there to spy; that one, at all events, was disguised--cleverly, yet not cleverly enough quite to hide his ident.i.ty. But Knight said good-bye, and went away with his friends, giving the girl no chance for further talk with him.

They did not meet again until--with the Countess de Santiago--Annesley arrived at the obscure church chosen for the marriage ceremony. There Dr.

Torrance awaited them outside the door, and took charge of the bride, while the Countess found her way in alone; and Annesley saw through the mist of confused emotion her Knight of love and mystery waiting at the altar.

During the ceremony that followed he made his responses firmly, his eyes calling so clearly to hers that she answered with an almost hypnotized gaze. His look seemed to seal the promise of his words. In spite of all that was strange and secret and unsatisfying about him, she had no regrets. Love was worth everything, and she could but believe that he loved her. This strong conviction went with the girl to the vestry, and made it easier to turn away when his name--his real name, which she, though his wife, was not to know--was recorded by him in the book.

They parted from Torrance, Morello, and the Countess at the church door, an arrangement which delighted Annesley. In the haste of making plans, she and Knight had forgotten to discuss what they were to do after the wedding and before their departure; but Knight had found time to decide the matter.

"These people were the best material I could get hold of at a moment's notice," he remarked, coolly, when he and Annesley were in the motor-car he had hired for the journey to Devons.h.i.+re. "We've used them because we needed them. Now we don't need them any longer. It seems to me that a newly married couple ought to keep only dear friends around them or no one. Later we can repay these three for the favour they've done us, if you call it a favour. Meanwhile, we'll forget them."

Knight had neglected no detail which could make for Annesley's comfort, or save her from any embarra.s.sment arising from the hurried wedding. Her luggage had been packed by a maid in the hotel, and--all but the dressing-bag and a small box made for an automobile--sent ahead by rail to Devons.h.i.+re. She and Knight were to travel in the comfortable limousine which would protect them against weather. It did not matter, Knight said, how long they were on the way.

At Exeter they would visit some good agency in search of a lady's maid.

Annesley said that she did not need a woman to wait on her, since she had been accustomed not only to taking care of herself but Mrs. Ellsworth.

Knight, however, insisted that his wife must be looked after by a competent woman. It was "the right thing"; but his idea was that, in the circ.u.mstances, it would be pleasanter to have a country girl than a sharp, London-bred woman or a Parisienne.

In Exeter an ideal person was obtainable: a Devons.h.i.+re girl who had been trained to a maid's duties (as the agent boasted) by a "lady of t.i.tle."

She had accompanied "the Marchioness" to France, and had had lessons in Cannes from a hair dresser, ma.s.seuse, and manicurist. Now her mistress was dead, and Parker was in search of another place.

She was a gentle, sweet-looking girl, and though she asked for wages higher than Mrs. Ellsworth had paid her companion, Knight p.r.o.nounced them reasonable. She was directed to go by train to the Knowle Hotel at Sidmouth (where a suite had been engaged by telegram for Mr. and Mrs.

Nelson Smith and maid) and to have all the luggage unpacked before their arrival.

Flung thus into intimate a.s.sociation with a man, almost a stranger, Annesley had been afraid in the midst of her happiness. She felt as a young Christian maiden, a prisoner of Nero's day, might have felt if told she was to be flung to a lion miraculously subdued by the influence of Christianity. Such a maiden could not have been quite sure whether the story were true or a fable; whether the lion would destroy her with a blow or crouch at her feet.

But Annesley's lion neither struck nor crouched. He stood by her side as a protector. "Knight" seemed more and more appropriate as a name for him. Though there were roughnesses and crudenesses in his manner and choice of words, all he did and said made Annesley sure that she had been right in her first impression. Not a cultured gentleman like Archdeacon Smith, or Annesley's dead father, and the few men who had come near her in early childhood before her home fell to pieces, he was a gentleman at heart, she told herself, and in all essentials.

It struck her as beautiful and even pathetic, rather than contemptible, that he should humbly wish to learn of her the small refinements he had missed in the past--that mysterious past which mattered less and less to Annesley as the present became dear and vital.

"I've knocked about a lot, all over the world," he explained in a casual way during a talk they had had on the night of their marriage, at the first stopping-place to which their motor brought them. "My mother died when I was a small boy, died in a terrible way I don't want to talk about, and losing her broke up my father and me for a while. He never got over it as long as he lived, and I never will as long as I live.

"The way my father died was almost as tragic as my mother's death," he went on after a tense moment of remembering. "I was only a boy even then; and ever since the 'knocking-about' process has been going on. I haven't seen much of the best side of life, but I've wanted it. That was why, for one reason, you made such an appeal to me at first sight. You were as plucky and generous as any Bohemian, though I could see you were a delicate, inexperienced girl, brought up under gla.s.s like the orchid you look--and are. I'm used to making up my mind in a hurry--I've had to--so it didn't take me many minutes to realize that if I could get you to link up with me, I should have the thing I'd been looking for.

"Well, by the biggest stroke of luck I've got you, sooner than I could have dared to hope; and now I don't want to make you afraid of me. I know my faults and failings, but I don't know how to put them right and be the sort of man a girl like you can be proud of. It's up to you to show me the way. Whenever you see me going wrong, you're to tell me. That's what I want--turn me into a gentleman."

When Annesley tenderly rea.s.sured him with loving flatteries, he only laughed and caught her in his arms.

"Like a prince, am I?" he echoed. "Well, I've got princely blood in my veins through my mother; but there are pauper princes, and in the pauper business the gilding gets rubbed off. I trust you to gild my battered corners. No good trying to tell me I'm gold all through, because I know better; but when you've made me s.h.i.+ne on the outside, I'll keep the surface bright."

Annesley did not like the persistent way in which he spoke of himself as a black sheep who, at best, could be whitened, and trained not to disgrace the fold; yet it piqued her interest. Books said that women had a weakness for men who were not good and she supposed that she was like the rest. He was so dear and chivalrous that certain defiant hints as to his lack of virtue vaguely added to the spice of mystery which decorated the background of the picture--the vivid picture of the "stranger knight."

When they had been for three days in the best suite at the Knowle Hotel, and had made several short excursions with the motor, he asked the girl if she "felt like getting acquainted with her cousins."

She did not protest as she had at first. Already she knew her Knight well enough to be a.s.sured that when he resolved to do a thing it was practically done. She had had chances to realize his force of character in little ways as well as big ones; and she understood that he was bent on sc.r.a.ping acquaintance with Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton. Had he not decided upon Sidmouth the instant she mentioned their owners.h.i.+p of a place in the neighbourhood? She had been certain that he would not neglect the opportunity created.

"How are we to set about it?" was all she said.

"Oh, Valley House is a show place, I suppose you know," replied Knight.

"I've looked it up in the local guide-book. It's open to the public three days a week. Any one with a s.h.i.+lling to spare can see the ancestral portraits and treasures, and the equally ancestral rooms of your distinguished family. Does that interest you?"

"Ye-es. But I'm a distant relation--as well as a poor one," Annesley reminded him with her old humility.

"You're not poor now. And blood is thicker than water--when it's in a golden cup. It's Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton's turn to play the poor relations. It seems they're stony. Even the s.h.i.+llings the public pay to see the place are an object to them."

"Oh, I'm sorry!" exclaimed Annesley.

"That's generous, seeing they never bothered themselves about you when they had plenty of s.h.i.+llings and you had none."

"I don't suppose they knew there _was_ a me."

"Lord Annesley-Seton must have known, if his wife didn't know. But we'll let that pa.s.s. I was thinking we might go to the house on one of the public days, with the man who wrote the local guide-book. I've made his acquaintance through writing him a note, complimenting him on his work and his knowledge of history. He answered like a shot, with thanks for the appreciation, and said if he could help me he'd be delighted. He's the editor of a newspaper in Torquay.