CHAPTER XI
For the first few moments Audrey had no inclination to utter a sound. She was too much taken by surprise, too bewildered, too horror-stricken, even to cry out.
Her tongue, her brain, her limbs seemed paralysed, and she could do nothing but press her face forward between the little branches of the shrubs which concealed her from Gerard’s sight, and keep her hungry eyes fixed on his pale face.
Was it really he? Could it be he? His sentence had been one of years, and scarcely four months had passed since he was taken from her.
Surely he would never have been released without her hearing a word about it! Surely, surely in such a few weeks he could not have been transformed from the merry, bright, vigorous young fellow, full of life and high spirits, overwhelmed with melancholy of the most tempestuous sort, into this shadow, this lifeless, colourless framework of a man!
He lay so still in the lounge-chair, without even moving his lips to answer the nurse as she leaned over him and talked to him, that Audrey had a horrible spasm of fear that he was dead, that the feeble remnant of life had passed away even while she watched him with agonised eyes from her place of concealment not thirty yards away.
And she pressed farther forward, straining her eyes, and in so doing disturbed the bushes just sufficiently for the moving branches to catch the eye of the nurse, who was a tall, muscular, grey-haired woman, with a firm, pleasant face.
Gerard himself, on a much lower level than she, neither heard nor saw the movement. The nurse looked apprehensively at the bushes, and descried the woman behind them. Audrey saw that her face changed, and knew that she was alarmed lest her patient should be disturbed by some sudden and startling intrusion.
But she need not have been afraid. Audrey loved her husband too well not to have the right and safe instinct that caution was necessary when dealing with a man who was evidently so ill. She knew that to burst out upon him abruptly, without a word of warning, would be a rash, perhaps a fatal thing. And she held her own emotions in check, even while her heart yearned towards him, and her arms tingled with the longing to take his poor head in her arms and to hug it to her breast.
The nurse, meanwhile, not knowing all that was passing in the mind of the other woman, and guessing only that there was trouble in store, at once took steps to remove her charge out of harm’s way.
Audrey could not hear what she said, but knew that she was suggesting that he should go indoors. For a few moments he seemed to pay no heed to her words, but presently, with a petulant frown, as if loth to be disturbed, he allowed her to help him to his feet, and went slowly, leaning on her strong arm, in the direction of the angle of the house, round which they both disappeared.
Audrey, still less than half possessed of her faculties, watched them to the last, and then, stepping back upon the gravel of the drive, tried to take stock of her strange position.
As to Gerard’s presence in his uncle’s house, the fact was so amazing that her brain reeled under it. Lord Clanfield had never once come forward, since his nephew’s marriage, with so much as a kind word to him or his young wife. During all the terrible time of waiting for the trial, not a word had reached his nephew either of reproach, advice or sympathy. Both young husband and young wife had taken it for granted that they were looked upon as effaced, degraded, unworthy of any notice from the august head of the family.
And, proud as well as miserable, they had accepted the situation without a protest.
Now, however, it was clear that Lord Clanfield had interested himself on behalf of his unlucky nephew, and the amazing thing was to find that he had apparently obtained the young man’s release so quietly that not a word of it had got into the papers, or to the knowledge of Gerard’s own wife!
And then, with startling force, the truth flashed upon Audrey that, even if it had been desired to let her know of her husband’s release, there would have been no means of doing so. For, anxious to hide her head from all the world, to sink her identity and be forgotten, she had disappeared from sight as Audrey Angmering, to reappear as Madame Rocada.
And then the full meaning of her position became clear to her. She was coming to see Lord Clanfield in the character by which he knew and suspected her, at the very moment when it was above all things necessary that he should have the best possible opinion of her in the character of his nephew’s wife!
What would he say, what would he think when he learned the truth of her double identity? If he had been severe in his judgment before, what would he be now?
Although she could now conclusively prove to him—at least so she believed—that she could not be the White Countess of evil memory, what would he say to her having taken upon herself the invidious name, and still more invidious position, of the apparently too well-known Madame Rocada?
As these thoughts chased each other through her bewildered mind, the unfortunate woman felt a numb despair creeping over her. She dared not meet Lord Clanfield now, she dared not try to see Gerard.
What was there left for her to do?
Go away without making some inquiry, without learning something about her husband and his state of health, and the manner in which he found himself once more under his uncle’s roof, well cared for and carefully nursed, she could not and would not.
But how to learn what she wanted to know without making an unseemly and unwise disturbance? How convey to Gerard the fact of her being near him, without either giving him a dangerous shock or running the risk of rousing Lord Clanfield’s anger and causing a family scandal?
That was the question which filled Audrey’s mind, as she lingered in the drive, looking askance at the house with its old red walls, weather-stained roof and the great green and red masses of ivy and virginia creeper which hung about it picturesquely and made dark fringes over the tall windows.
And while she hesitated, lingered, debated with herself, there came a clattering of hoofs behind her, and stepping out of the road upon the sloping bank, Audrey turned to see Geoffrey Angmering, in a dog-cart, coming at a rapid rate up the drive.
He recognised her at once.
“Madame Rocada! By Jove!” cried he with a grin, as he reined in the horse, jumped down, and told the groom to drive on to the stable. “Well, of all the marvellous meetings—and here! By Jove, it is a surprise!”
Audrey was very pale, very quiet, very dignified. This cub, with the free and easy manners and the impudent stare, could tell her what she wanted to know. But how to get at that knowledge?
To him she was merely Madame Rocada, the woman who kept a house where gambling went on, where he himself and his brother had been “fleeced” at play. Knowing only of her what he did, there was nothing less likely than that he would converse with her about the family secrets or the family scandals. Half-tipsy as he generally was, even the reckless Geoffrey was hardly likely to speak out on such a subject.
She began, therefore, by telling him frankly the object of her visit.
“I am here,” she said, “to see Lord Clanfield. He has written accusing me of allowing you and your brother to come to my house to play cards there. Now you know that I have forbidden you to come, and therefore you have been deceiving him, by saying you were at ‘The Briars’ when you were not there at all.”
Geoffrey stared at her with the same impudent look of incredulity and defiance as he had used on the night when she refused admission to her house to him and his brother.
“I think it would have been wiser of you, Madame, to have taken no notice of his letter,” he said, with unmistakable mockery in his tone. “He won’t believe what you say, if you persist in seeing him, any more than he did before. If I were you, I should go quietly back home again, and if you like I’ll drive you to the station in my dog-cart.”
The frank impertinence of his manner and of his suggestion almost frightened Audrey. It seemed to betray the fact that he looked upon her as unworthy of much trouble, and as wholly incapable of producing any effect upon his father.
He seemed to say in effect: “If you like to see my father you can, but you may just as well save yourself the trouble.”
She hesitated what to reply. To tell the whole truth to him, to say that she was Gerard’s wife, was, of course, out of the question. He would certainly receive such a statement with blank incredulity and probably with insult. Luckily, at that moment, when she was uncertain what to do and Geoffrey was growing more and more impertinent in his manner, the elder son of Lord Clanfield, who, if still less endowed with brains, was not quite such an ill-mannered young rascal as his brother, came in sight. He was sauntering out from the house with half a dozen dogs, of various breeds, running and barking round him.
One of these, a bull terrier, spying a stranger in Audrey, rushed at her, and seizing her skirt, began to worry it tearing the light material to ribbons.
“Down, sir, down!” cried Edgar, hastening his steps a little, as he came up to his brother and the lady. “I’m awfully sorry——” he went on, raising his hat as he spoke. When suddenly he recognised her in his turn, and said, in breathless amazement: “Madame Rocada!”
He took her presence in the park in a different way from his brother’s, and seemed not only surprised, but rather alarmed by it. “Why, I—what—unexpected——” stammered he, as she bowed gravely and said nothing.
There was a moment’s dead silence. Then she, perceiving that this young man was at least much more likely to listen quietly than his brother, said steadily and firmly:—
“My name is not Madame Rocada. It never has been that. I am not a countess, and I have never wished to pretend to be one.”
She paused for a moment, and it was Geoffrey who, growing curious at this change in her manner, suddenly put in, half-insolently, half-inquiringly:—
“Well, if you are not Madame Rocada, who are you then?”
Audrey hesitated one moment more only. Then very quietly, very solemnly, fixing her eyes on the face of the elder brother and drawing herself up to her full height, she answered:—
“My name is the same as your own. I am Audrey Angmering, your cousin Gerard’s wife.”
“The devil you are!” cried Geoffrey, more in amusement than surprise.
But the other saw that there was no pretentiousness, no show of indignation or of self-assertion, in the poor lady’s manner, and he silenced his brother by a frown and a curt word half under his breath.
“Do you mean that?” he asked simply.
“Yes. And listen. I know that Gerard is here: I’ve seen him. And I want to understand all about his coming—about his illness. I—I hadn’t even heard of it.”
The young man hesitated. Geoffrey was pulling furtively at his sleeve, mutely urging him to have nothing to do with the unhappy woman and her story.
Evidently Edgar did not know what to believe.
“You say you’ve seen him?” said he.
“Yes. Out in the garden, with a nurse. Surely, surely there can be no harm in telling me just what I want to know. How is it he is there? Why was I not told he was ill?”
As she persisted in her story, it was clear that both the young men were becoming increasingly alarmed and puzzled, and that they were at a loss how to deal with this intricate question.
At last Edgar said quickly:—
“Hadn’t you better write about it? Write to Lord Clanfield?”
“No,” said Audrey firmly. “I won’t write. I must see him. And at once—now—I won’t go away till I have seen him. Look, there’s no need for you to be afraid. I don’t wish to force myself into Gerard’s presence until I’m sure I can see him without it’s being a shock to him.”
“By Jove, it would be!” put in Geoffrey in a tone that brought the angry blood to the poor wife’s cheeks.
But Edgar gave him a sort of side kick as a gentle recommendation to be quiet, and after a little hesitation and stammering said:—
“Look here, Madame. I don’t think it’s of the least use for you to try and see my father or my cousin. I’m almost sure Lord Clanfield wouldn’t see you, and that my cousin wouldn’t be allowed to see you. You might understand that it wouldn’t be wise. But if you like I’ll go in and tell him what you’ve just told me, and I’ll bring you word what he says.”
Although Audrey was fully resolved that, whether he liked it or not, Lord Clanfield should see her, she thought that compliance with the proposal was the best course to begin with. So she agreed to remain where she was, and not to approach the house for the present, while Edgar returned to it.
Geoffrey, meanwhile, after a muttered exchange of a few words with his brother, retreated into the recesses of the trees of the park, and Audrey guessed that he was, as it were, on guard, set to watch her movements during his brother’s absence, and to prevent, if necessary, any attempt on her part to break faith.
In the meantime Edgar fulfilled his mission reluctantly enough. Returning to the house, he went straight to the study, where his father was spending the afternoon with his magazines and books.
“What is the matter? Is Gerard worse?” were the viscount’s first words, when his son entered, with a perturbed and uneasy air.
“N-n-no, but—he’s likely to be worse if something I’ve got to tell you is true!” was Edgar’s somewhat blundering reply.
“Well!” said Lord Clanfield sharply.
“There’s a—a—woman come—she’s in the park now, who says—who says she’s—his wife.”
Lord Clanfield looked more relieved than alarmed. He rose to his feet.
“And don’t you think it is his wife? I wish to heaven she would come; for the greatest drawback to his getting better is the terrible depression caused by her disappearance.”
Edgar, with whom tact was not a strong point, went on bluntly:—
“Well, he’ll be more depressed when he sees her.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, that this woman who says she’s his wife, the woman who is in the park now, and who says she will see you or see him before she goes away, is the very woman whose house you’ve forbidden us to go to, the keeper of a gambling-room—Madame Rocada!”
The shock was so great that Lord Clanfield fell back, scarcely able to speak, breathless, bewildered, horror-struck.
“Are—are you sure?”
“I’m sure that the woman who calls herself Madame Rocada is outside the house at this moment, that she says she came in answer to a letter from you about us——”
“Yes, I did write to her.”
“—and that she declares she saw Gerard—you see she knows his name—in a chair in the grounds, with a nurse. And she complains that she had not even heard that he was ill, and she seems as genuinely upset as ever I saw a woman in my life! And I believe she is his wife, I do on my honour!”
The viscount made up his mind quickly.
“Get rid of her,” said he. “Drive her away at all costs, I don’t mean roughly, of course. But you must find some means of getting her outside the grounds before Gerard hears of her being here.”
“Not so easy! One can deal with a mad dog more easily than with a determined woman!” retorted Edgar.
“I tell you she must go, must be sent away. Use any argument you like, tell her it would kill him to break the news of her coming too suddenly. That is true, I believe. In the meantime say I undertake to answer her letters if she will write—but it must be to me, not to him. And—and what I shall do is to get my lawyers to see her, to arrange with her—until we know something, find out something.”
Edgar, however, still lingered.
“I can never say all that,” grumbled he. “Besides, she wouldn’t listen. You know she wouldn’t.”
Remembering what he did of Audrey, poor Lord Clanfield thought this very likely, and his agitation grew stronger and stronger until it found a climax when, perceiving that the window nearest to him had become slightly darkened, he turned, and saw Audrey herself, very white, very quiet, peering in.
“Good Heavens, Madame, you have no right——” began the startled gentleman.
But Audrey leaned with her arms upon the window-ledge, and putting her head forward into the room, said in a low-pitched but determined voice:—
“You must see me. I insist. You must let me in.”
And, helpless in these strong if slight fingers, Lord Clanfield gave way. Motioning to his son to open the French window at the other end of the room, he leaned against the old carved white marble mantelpiece and prepared for the worst.