Chapter Twenty Three.
Dare made inquiries in respect to the movements of the “Exotics,” the musical troupe with which Blanche Maitland had associated herself, and without much trouble traced them to Bloemfontein, and came up with them there.
On the evening of his arrival in the town he attended a performance at which they were advertised to appear. He wondered as he took his seat in the hall whether he should find the girl he sought among the performers, or if she had severed her connection with the troupe in favour of a more private mode of life.
He gazed round the well-filled room with the object of ascertaining whether Arnott was present. He was not. It was not very likely, Dare decided, that he would be; to show up at these performances would suit neither his inclination nor his policy. Still, there was just a chance.
The room was very full. It was a popular entertainment at popular prices. Dare resolved to satisfy his curiosity and then leave; he could gain nothing from sitting through the entertainment, and the night was extraordinarily close. Fortunately the “Exotics” came on early in the performance. They were billed to appear again between the pictures toward the finish. Songs and character dances formed their repertoire.
Dare looked expectantly towards the platform as they came on. There were nine of them, men and women; the ninth being the accompanist. She walked on behind the others, and went straight to the piano, a tall, striking-looking figure, clad in blue and silver which scintillated a cold brilliance where the lights caught the filmy draperies. It was Blanche Maitland. The calm, unsmiling face, set off by the stage finery, and crowned with the dark glossy hair, aglitter with sham diamonds, looked handsomer than he had ever seen it; but there was something repellant, he thought, in its cold, unyielding beauty, something unyouthful in her air of composed aloofness. She moved and acted like some handsome automaton. Not once did he observe her smile, or display interest in what she was doing. She was wonderfully inanimate. And yet her performance at the piano was extraordinarily skilful, far and away above he ordinary run of talent heard at these entertainments. One felt one wanted to hear her in something worthier of her gifts.
Dare kept his seat until the performance came to an end; then he made his way behind, and sent his card in to her. He was not admitted to the dressing-rooms; but she came out and interviewed him in the passage, to the curious interest of one or two people who loitered there. She was manifestly surprised to see him, and pretended to have forgotten his name, and when and where they had met. He recalled the circumstances to her.
“It was so long ago,” she said; “I had forgotten.”
“I don’t call that kind,” he returned. “You see, I didn’t forget I saw you in Johannesburg last month.”
“Yes!” She looked at him with increased interest. “We were there, of course. We have been to several places since. We are working down towards the coast.”
“It is a change for you, this life,” he said. “Do you find it agreeable?”
“Oh! I don’t know. It amused me at first. But I leave them at the coast. I came in as a stop-gap because their regular accompanist was ill.”
Her voice sounded a little weary, her face, too, underneath the rouge, looked tired.
“I’d like to call on you to-morrow, if I may,” he said, and paused expectantly.
She hesitated, regarding him with vague suspicion in her eyes. Then she mentioned the boarding establishment at which they were staying, and gave a reluctant permission. It was not a fashionable hostelry; presumably the “Exotics” were not flourishing in respect to funds.
“We might go for a drive,” he suggested, “if you care about it.”
She acquiesced, but without enthusiasm. It occurred to Dare that her manner was a little distrustful. He smiled encouragingly.
“That’s kind of you,” he observed. “I’m at loose ends in this place. Then I’ll be round about three, if that suits.”
He did not feel quite satisfied when he parted from her that she would keep the engagement; but on the following afternoon when he motored up to the house, she came out dressed for the drive and met him at the gate. He was aware, as he helped her into the car, of several curious faces watching them from the doorway and behind the dingy curtains of the front room windows. The “Exotics” were frankly interested in the proceeding, and watched the car and its occupants with eager, envious eyes until they were out of sight.
“I am glad you are giving up this life,” Dare remarked to his silent companion, as they spun along in the sunshine with the light wind in their faces. “It’s all very well in its way, I don’t doubt; but it’s just a trifle sordid, isn’t it?”
“What is one to do?” she asked. “One must live. There isn’t a wide choice for women, as you know.”
“That’s true,” he acknowledged, and was silent for a moment. “Why did you give up teaching?” he asked abruptly.
She reddened and appeared distinctly annoyed.
“That isn’t a vastly amusing, nor particularly lucrative form of earning a livelihood,” she returned with sarcasm. “How do you know I was teaching?”
“I have recently been staying with the Carruthers,” he replied. “Mrs Carruthers spoke of you. I told her I had seen you in Johannesburg.”
Blanche looked deliberately away.
“Mrs Carruthers! Was she... She was my very kind friend formerly,” she remarked in an embarrassed, hesitating way. “I should be sorry if she thought less kindly of me now.”
“Why should she?” he asked.
She brought her face round again, and her eyes, steady and inquiring, met his fully.
“I don’t think you are being quite sincere with me,” she said.
Dare was unprepared for this direct attack. He felt at a decided disadvantage. She was much more shrewd than he had expected.
“Now, I wonder why you should think that?” he asked.
“Oh!” she exclaimed sharply. “Do you suppose I don’t know that while you were in Wynberg you heard me discussed? I’ve got relations there; they write to me. The things people say!”
So already the gossip that was being circulated had reached her on her journeying. Dare scrutinised her closely, uncertain whether to treat her frankly as she seemed to wish, or to attempt to acquire the information he needed by less straightforward methods. In the end he resolved to be frank. Despite all that he had heard relative to her flight and her previous relations with Arnott, he had a strong persuasion that the stories concerning her were mostly lies. He discredited entirely the tale of her elopement. A girl does not run away with a man and leave him immediately to follow the kind of life she was at present leading. The fact that Arnott had been in Johannesburg at the same time that she was there called for some other explanation, he decided.
“Don’t you think that perhaps you have your own indiscretion to blame for the stories that are being floated?” he asked.
His question seemed to surprise her.
“In what way should you say I have been indiscreet?” she inquired.
“The manner of your leaving is an open secret,” he replied.
“There is no secret about it,” she returned with some impatience. “I just went. In my opinion I was quite justified in acting as I did.”
“Quite possibly you were,” he allowed. “But unfortunately Mr Arnott acted in the same ill-considered manner. When people do these things they must expect gossip.”
She did not reply to this. Dare judged from her silence that she was fully informed as to the manner of Arnott’s leaving home. This seeming knowledge of the man’s movements shook his faith in her somewhat.
“I suppose you think, with others, that circumstance had something to do with me?” she said presently.
“I would only believe that,” he replied quietly, “if you told me so yourself.”
She looked at him quickly, and then turned her face aside, unwilling that he should detect the shame in her eyes, and the gratitude that strove with other emotions at his unexpected answer. She knew so little of this man, who was but a chance acquaintance; and yet already he appeared inexplicably mixed up in her life, acquainted with all the most intimate details concerning her. It puzzled her why he should display this interest in her affairs. She felt that she ought to resent his unwarranted interference; and yet oddly she did not feel resentful. It was after all rather a relief to have some one with whom to discuss these matters, which were too private and difficult to speak of with other people. His knowledge of events seemed to constitute a reason, if not a right, for his discussion of them. But his intimacy with the Arnotts, and with Mrs Carruthers, inclined her to be somewhat on her guard with him.
“I don’t know why you should be less ready than others to believe the reports that are spread,” she remarked. “Your knowledge of me is so slight. We’ve met—three times, is it?”
“I am not judging from my knowledge of you, but from my knowledge of human nature,” he returned.
She laughed cynically.
“Has human nature revealed only its amiable qualities to you?” she asked.
“Oh! no. Not by any means. But humanity is not without a moral sense. The baseness which some natures reveal is a form of degeneracy,—a sign of mental abnormality. In the case of man or woman, deliberate viciousness denotes a kink somewhere.”
She pondered this.
“Yes,” she allowed; “you are probably right. But there are a good many people with kinks. I may have a kink myself... I believe I have.”
“Then straighten it out,” he advised.
“Oh!” she said in a voice of weary irritation. “What’s the use of talking? Words are easy enough. It’s easy enough, perhaps, to act, as well as think, finely when life runs smoothly. But life is terribly difficult for some of us—and dull. The dulness, I think, is the worst.”
She stared out at the sunny landscape with hard, dissatisfied eyes, and the bitterness in her voice increased as she continued:
“I took up this kind of thing—touring and playing—because I thought I might find it brighter. It seemed so at first... the lights, and the people, and the noisy excitement of constant moving, constant change. Now I find that too unutterably dull. The tawdry dresses,—the limelight,—the sea of white faces, staring, always staring,—cold, unsympathetic, scarcely interested even. I hate them. I hate playing those ridiculous airs on timeless, indifferent pianos. I want something... I don’t know... I’m a fool to say all this. I hope you didn’t invite me to drive with you in the belief that you would find me an amusing companion?”
“I invited you to drive with me,” he answered candidly, “because I wanted to talk to you on the subject which you, yourself, started. I am very anxious, for Mrs Arnott’s sake, as well as in your own interest, to put a stop to a scandal which is none the less harmful because I believe it to be a tissue of falsehoods. Since you have heard the scandal, I am spared the unpleasant task of paining you further by repeating it. If you choose, I believe you can help me in stopping the thing. Will you tell me, if you can, where Mr Arnott is to be got at?”
“How should I know?” she asked, flushing.
“I thought you might know,” he answered, unconvinced by her words of her ignorance as to Arnott’s whereabouts. “He was in Johannesburg when you were there. I could have settled this matter then, had I known of it. But I’ve only just heard the talk. I want to see him. He ought to be informed of the report that is going about, which his own indiscretion is mainly responsible for. I think, if he knew, he would see the wisdom of putting an end to it.”
“I don’t,” she replied unexpectedly. “I don’t think it would make the least impression on him.”
“Oh, come!” he said, surprised. “What grounds have you for supposing that?”
She glanced at the chauffeur’s impassive back, and from it into Dare’s curious, perplexed face.
“Do you think this quite the place for discussing these matters?” she asked.
Dare was obliged to admit the reasonableness of her remonstrance. Although they had spoken in lowered voices, they could not be positive that no part of their talk reached the driver’s ears.
“We’ll have tea somewhere,” he said. “Then we will drive out into the country where we can get out and walk.”
He leaned forward and gave the chauffeur his directions. When he turned to the girl again he was conscious of a new reserve which betrayed itself in her manner. She raised no objection to his arrangements; but a marked constraint showed in her speech. She fell back more and more upon silence and left the talking to Dare.