CHAPTER XIX.
THE FIRST CLOUD.
“I declare, we have been six months abroad, and not yet come across a single person we know,” said Lady Gwendolyn to her husband one morning. “I wonder how it is?”
“Well, we haven’t tried to come across people we know, for one thing.”
“But it might easily have happened accidentally.”
“Don’t let us boast,” Colonel Dacre returned, as he passed his hand through her arm. “A thing always happens directly you begin to congratulate yourself upon having escaped it.”
“Then I won’t say another word.”
“Come for a walk instead,” he said. “You have spoiled me so, Gwen, that I can’t enjoy my cigar unless you are hanging about me.”
“Oh! Lawrence, I am sure I never hang about you.”
“What do you do, then?”
“I walk by your side.”
“Like a discreet British maiden. Do you know you have got your part very perfect, considering the short time you have had to learn it?”
“I don’t call six months a short time.”
“It has seemed so to me—perhaps, because I have been so happy. I am afraid you have been dreadfully bored, Gwen, as it has passed so slowly.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Lawrence!”
“But, my dear love, you forced me reluctantly to draw that inference.”
Lady Gwendolyn pouted, and Colonel Dacre, being still his wife’s lover, as men of his constant nature continue to be all their lives, stooped his tall head and kissed the sweet, red mouth.
“Now, put on your hat,” he said, “and we will go for a little stroll. I am quite beginning to like this free-and-easy sort of life, Gwen. Are not you?”
“I don’t seem to mind much where we are so that we are together. I have given up the world and its vanities——”
“All for love?”
“All for love,” she repeated. “I couldn’t have a better reason, surely.”
“I am quite satisfied with it, if that is what you mean. But be quick and dress, or the beauty of the day will be over; and, mind you, wrap up well.”
She came back presently in velvet and furs, with a pretty, frosty bloom on her round cheeks; and as Colonel Dacre offered her his arm, he said proudly to himself that there wasn’t a woman in France who could come up to his darling. And his darling was quite aware that she was looking her best, and thoroughly enjoyed the respectful admiration she excited, not for its own sake, but because she liked Lawrence to feel that she was appreciated.
They walked up the center avenue of the Tuileries, and then made their way down the Rue Royale to the boulevards, which looked very gay this bright morning.
Then, walking briskly back again, they paid a visit to the pastry-cook at the corner of the Rue Castiglione, and lunched off oyster patties and babas, finishing up with the tiniest glass of curaçoa, as a suitable defense against the cold.
Lady Gwendolyn was arranging her veil after this moderate but dainty refection, when a very magnificent dame rustled into the shop, and said, in abominable French, which, however, she seemed delighted to air:
“Donnez moi oon patty, mademoiselle, et dépêche parceque je suis en hâte.”
This pastry-cook being much affected by the English, mademoiselle was accustomed to this sort of thing, and did not even smile as she handed madame her pâté out of the hot safe in the center of the shop, and placed a chair for her beside one of the little marble tables.
Lady Gwendolyn glanced furtively at the face belonging to this voice, and then made her way toward the door, keeping as far as possible from the neighborhood of the newcomer, so as not to attract her attention.
But Colonel Dacre, who had noticed nothing, turned round from examining some bonbons in the window, and, seeing her close to the door, called out:
“Wait a moment, Gwen, I haven’t paid.”
The lady at the marble table looked up then, and by simply catching Colonel Dacre’s eye, explained Lady Gwendolyn’s little ruse.
“What, you, Norah?” he said, with evident pleasure, as he extended his hand. “What brought you to Paris?”
“Well, money; but I forget how much,” she answered, with her old vivacity, although he thought her much thinner and paler than when they met last. “I am getting so tired of England, of everybody, and everything. Is that your wife who has just left the shop so precipitately?” she concluded, with some abruptness.
“She has just gone out, certainly.”
“To avoid me? You need not deny it, Lawrence, it is very natural she should. However, I have something she ought, in justice, to see. Will you tell me where you are staying?”
“At the Hotel d’Albion, close by. If you will tell me where you are, Norah, I will call upon you to-morrow, and take charge of anything you may have for her.”
“Thank you, that will be best,” she answered. “Don’t let me keep you from Lady Gwendolyn. I am at the Grand Hotel, number forty three; but don’t come before noon. I sleep so wretchedly nowadays, that I am glad to rest in the morning. If Lady Gwendolyn minds your coming, write me a line instead, and I shall understand. I think if I had a husband I cared for I should be awfully jealous.”
“Not if he gave you no cause, I hope.”
“Perhaps. But do go. I wouldn’t for the world add to my offenses in your wife’s eyes by exposing her to annoyance. She is much too handsome to be a minute alone in the streets of Paris.”
“True,” he said, and hurried off.
Lady Gwendolyn was standing at a book-shop waiting for him, and put her arm into his without a word. Neither did he make any remark. He thought it best not to speak of Mrs. O’Hara, until he had heard what she had to say on the morrow. Lady Gwendolyn was unusually grave and quiet for the rest of the day, and if he happened to raise his eyes suddenly he caught a very wistful look of the dark eyes; but he bided his time, and still said nothing.
That night when Lady Gwendolyn fancied that her husband was asleep she cried softly to herself, for the string of old, sad memories in her heart had been too much for her, and she wondered fearfully if this woman had come to take her husband from her as she had taken Percy Gray from poor Lady Maria.
“She is tired, poor child!” he said to himself; and, leaving word with her maid that she was not to rise a moment earlier than she felt inclined, on his account, as he was going for a walk, he amused himself with a morning visit to the Palais Royale.
Returning about ten o’clock, he was met at the door of the salon by Phœbe, who said that her mistress begged him to excuse her, as she had a tiresome headache, and would lie down for another hour. This was the first time Colonel Dacre had been called upon to breakfast without the fair fresh face of his spouse near him at table, and an expression of disappointment came into his gray eyes.
Nevertheless, he said with admirable self-abnegation:
“Tell your mistress not to get up on any account, if she feels better in bed. But I suppose I shall be able to see her before I go out?”
“My lady desired particularly that she might not be disturbed, sir. She said she thought she should be well enough to take a drive in the afternoon if she kept quiet for the next few hours.”
“Oh, very well!” answered Colonel Dacre. And he might have been unreasonable; but somehow he felt snubbed. “What has her ladyship taken, Phœbe?”
“A strong cup of tea, sir; that was all she would have.”
And the girl, who was already attached to her young mistress, looked quite distressed. Colonel Dacre was obliged to assume a tranquillity he did not feel to reassure her.
“Rest is sure to do her more good than anything, Phœbe. Be sure and tell her ladyship when she rings for you that I was obliged to go out this morning; but shall hope to see her at luncheon time.”
Phœbe bowed, and left the room. Then Colonel Dacre swallowed a cup of coffee, ate part of a roll, and then, telling the waiter to get him a cab, prepared for his visit to Mrs. O’Hara.
He found his old friend reclining on a sofa in an exquisite peignoir of pale blue cashmere, trimmed with lace, while a coquettish little cap rested on the top of her brown hair. She held out to him her jeweled hand languidly.
“I am so glad to see you, Lawrence. How is your wife?”
“She is rather tired this morning.”
“I hope that is all.”
“I hope so, too. She is not delicate, naturally, neither is she very strong, and we have been walking more than she is accustomed to do since we came to Paris.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Rather more than a week?”
“You are on your way to England, I suppose?”
“I believe so; but we have scarcely decided yet.”
“I presume you would hurry home if anything happened to your uncle, Sir Lawrence?”
“Naturally. But we heard from him just before we left Biarritz, and he then said that he was remarkably well, so that I do not anticipate a sudden recall.”
Mrs. O’Hara had a letter in her hand; but she put it down on the table, and lifted those wonderful Irish eyes of hers to his face.
“Lawrence,” she said quietly, “will you answer me one question?”
“Nay, a dozen, if I can, Norah.”
“One will be enough. Has the accusation I made against Lady Gwendolyn that day at the ‘Langham’ ever troubled you in the slightest degree?”
He reflected before he answered:
“I don’t think it has. I have such full faith in my wife, you see.”
“Still, you know me well enough to understand that I should not make a statement of this sort unless I believed it to be true.”
“No; but we are all liable to error, Norah.”
“And you may as well add that a person of my impulsive temper is doubly liable. I certainly did think that Lady Gwendolyn had been the cause of my poor brother’s death, and had destroyed him by her cruel coquetries; and, as I am not in the habit of bridling my tongue, or disguising my feelings, I told her plainly what I thought. But since then I have discovered my mistake.”
“Go on,” he said eagerly.
She pointed to the letter on the table.
“Read that,” she said, “and it will save my breath. You will see by the signature that it was written by my poor brother himself, and is dated the second of August.”
“The day before his death?”
“Exactly. It is in pencil, as you will perceive, but is quite legible, and has the ‘Dragon, Turoy, Westmoreland,’ printed in colors on the paper.”
“Yes, I see. The landlord of the ‘Dragon,’ who is quite the gentleman in his way, must have lent it to him. I remember that he affected all those little refinements.”
“Very well, now read it through, and tell me what you make of it.”
“Would you mind telling me, first of all, to whom this letter was written?”
“To a Miss Pindar—a relation of my mother’s, who brought us up when our parents died. Poor George, with all his faults, was very much attached to her, and always kept her au courant as to his movements. She was his favorite of us two, and I know she scraped and saved in order to send him money for his pleasures. But he did mean to make it all up to her,” added Mrs. O’Hara. “I saw the letter he wrote to Miss Pindar directly he came into his property.”
It occurred to Colonel Dacre that promises did not cost much, but he refrained from any hint to this effect, seeing how much it comforted Norah to accredit her brother with good intentions.