5
I wanted to ask so many questions that I hardly knew where to begin, but Guy—with the best possible intentions—was not in a position to tell me anything worth hearing. Mrs. O'Rane, at the end of an hour-long altercation behind closed doors, had come into the hall with a pearly-white face, collected a fur-coat and umbrella and walked into the Square.
"She stopped for a moment on the top step and unfastened her latch-key—she used to carry it tied to her bag with a bit of ribbon;—I found it in my hand the next moment, and she was saying good-bye and telling me quite casually that she wasn't coming back. Grayle—he didn't even trouble to come out of the smoking-room. What it was about I can't say, but they must have had an unholy row." Guy looked at me dubiously, weighing my discretion. "I suppose, now that it's all over, there's no harm in saying that rows were the rule rather than the exception.... Right from the earliest days, when she used to come and dine here or he took her out. I don't know how either thought they could possibly live in the same house. Of course, she fascinated him," he conceded with the gusto of a Promenade habitué, "but she never cared for him. I'm as certain of that as I am of my own existence. She's a curious woman; it used to make me go hot and cold sometimes to see and hear Grayle with her—he was cruel,—but, the more he bullied her, the more she respected him. If he shewed her the sort of deference a man does shew a woman, he seemed to lose his grip. I don't know how much you saw of them before she came here, but she was playing cat and mouse with Grayle. Or trying to. He soon put a stop to that. He's had a good many ordinary affaires, but he was really fond of this woman, and, when he found that O'Rane was openly living with someone else——"
"That's well-established, is it?" I interrupted.
"I believe so. Well, he naturally wanted to protect Mrs. O'Rane. She treated it as a joke, until he swore he'd never see her again. (He was always saying it, but this time he meant it.) Then she got frightened. First she rang up,—and he ignored her; she wrote,—and he didn't answer her letters; called,—and he refused to see her. The next thing was complete surrender." Guy Bannerman spread out his hands and shrugged his shoulders. "You can't compound a common life of that sort of storm and sunshine. Grayle found that, if he wanted to get his way,—well, he didn't actually take a stick to her, but it was the next best thing."
Guy paused to sigh in perplexity, trying vainly to reconcile his idol's behaviour with his own romantic canons of chivalry.
"Go on," I said.
"Well, he was gradually breaking her spirit, killing all her charm; and then I really think that he began to get tired of her. They were wearing each other out, and you couldn't expect her to be mewed up inside the house, and people were beginning to talk.... I've told you pretty well all I know."
I digested Guy's story in silence until I heard the jingle of a hansom cab outside, followed by a word or two in Grayle's voice. A moment later he was standing in the door-way, scowling in surprise at seeing me there.
"Hast thou found me, oh mine enemy?" he sneered. "I seem to remember your giving it as your considered opinion that you never wanted to see me or speak to me again. I'm honoured by your visit, of course, but you can—just—clear—out!"
He pushed the door open to its widest extent and stood aside as though nothing would give him greater pleasure than to assist my departure with a kick. In his present mood he would have done it without much further provocation, but I am no more of a physical coward than my neighbour and I was not going to let him threaten me.
"I came to see Mrs. O'Rane," I told him without getting up.
"Well, no doubt Bannerman's informed you that she's not here."
"I want to know where she is. I may mention that I've seen her father to-night. He'd heard nothing till lunch-time to-day, and, though it's no affair of his, I thought he was rather upset. He's gone down to Hampshire to break the news to his wife, and I promised to see if I could arrange a meeting with his daughter."
Grayle walked to the sofa, picked up my coat and tossed it to me.
"I don't know where she is," he said shortly. "And I don't care."
My hat followed the coat through the air and dropped on to my knees.
"Dainton wants to stop the divorce," I said. "That must have a certain academic interest for you, Grayle. He's seeing O'Rane to-morrow morning."
I looked in vain for any sign of pleasure, relief or concern.
"I tell you, I don't know where she is," he repeated. "She left this place to-day—and—she's—not coming—back."
"You mean you turned her out," I suggested.
"Oh, I'm sick of this!" He limped to my chair and caught my wrist in one hand, bending it back until I had to get up to prevent his breaking my arm off at the elbow. "As a matter of courtesy I told you she'd gone, and the best thing you can do is to follow her. You've found time to meddle with my affairs for a good many months, but I'm tired of it now; it's got to end. I give you fair warning, Stornaway, that I am instructing my servants not to admit you, if you come here again; and, by God! if you try to force your way in, I'll thrash you out with a crop. Now—march!"
My exit was painless, though I will not pretend that it was dignified. I walked a few yards along the Brompton Road, wondering what to do next. It was futile to speculate where Mrs. O'Rane was gone; she could not return to "The Sanctuary," she could not go home to her parents; after abandoning her husband and being abandoned by her lover within six months, she could hardly—with her pride and temper—ask a friend to take her in. Any grandeur with which she had tried to invest her recklessness and infidelity at our last meeting was sorely draggled. And she was about thirty—a year or two more, a year or two less—in the full bloom and beauty of her life, with some hundreds from her father to pay her hotel bills, debarred by the war even from hiding herself for a few months abroad. I stood still to wonder where she was at that moment, how she was facing the future.
Then I turned down Sloane Street and made for the Underground station. I had meant to go home and, perhaps, to telephone to Dainton, but it could do no good, and I wanted to hold a council of war with the Oakleighs. In Sloane Square I met Beresford hobbling along on a stick and made him turn round and keep me company. In some way I felt that he deserved to be present. Bertrand was in bed when we reached "The Sanctuary," but I found George reading a book with his feet up on a sofa, and, when I told him that my business was urgent, we adjourned upstairs to the scene of more than one early morning session. I told them as shortly as I could of my interviews with Dainton, Bannerman and Grayle and left the facts to sink in. The ensuing silence was broken by Beresford, speaking more to himself than to the room.
"The cad!" he muttered. "Oh, my God! the cad! And you don't know where she is now?"
"No. I've given you all the facts."
After the one outburst Beresford remained quiet, and the other three of us started a rambling debate to decide what we wanted done and what was practicable. Bertrand acted as chairman and put the questions. We agreed that for the sake of O'Rane and the Daintons the proceedings should be stopped, if possible; it was established that Mrs. O'Rane and Grayle were unlikely to meet again, and, if we could get back to the terms discussed a few weeks earlier, it was still conceivable that the scandal might be suppressed.
"But O'Rane doesn't know they've parted," I reminded Bertrand. "Someone must tell him. I'll go down, if necessary, as I had the news at first-hand. Of course, if he refuses and says they had their chance and missed it——"
"He won't refuse," said Bertrand. "You'll go? I believe we can stop it even now. He's not particularly vindictive—he shewed that the other night—and he'd sooner spare his wife than punish Grayle." He grimaced with disfavour. "Stornaway, I've never liked that man, but I didn't think he was capable of this."
"Nor did she, poor soul!"
We had reached our decision, and, if I had to leave for the country by an early train, I wanted to get home to bed. George and his uncle were chewing the cud of my story, and I saw no end to that. I was putting on my coat, when Beresford begged me to stay a moment longer.
"You're not leaving it at this, are you?" he asked, with a white face.
"Have you anything to suggest?" I asked.
"You're going to let Grayle ride off? Merciful Christ! And I thought some of you were Sonia's friends!"
He struggled to his feet and in another moment, bumping past me, was half-way to the door. George sprang from his chair and had one foot planted solidly in the way before Beresford could reach the handle.
"Here, where are you off to?" he demanded.
"Something's got to be done about Grayle," was the reply.
"What do you mean?" I asked, for Beresford had the voice, the eyes and the bearing of homicidal mania.
"I'm going to have a word with him," he answered between clenched teeth. "Let me go!"
There was something pitifully incongruous between the purposeful language and the emaciated, consumptive speaker. Grayle, for all his unsound leg, could pluck him up by the ankles and crush in his head against the wall like the shell of an egg.
"Let's hear some more about it first," I said, taking his arm despite a quiver and jerk of protest. "I know Grayle fairly well, and, if you're going to match yourself against him in physical strength, you might just as well try to knock holes in the side of a battleship with your naked fists."
Beresford wriggled against my grip.
"I can have a go at spoiling him first," he cried. "After that, I don't mind what happens."
Their motives were different, but I was vividly reminded of the Cockney Huish preparing to advance, vitriol jar in hand, against the unerring rifle of Attwater. I looked over Beresford's head and lifted my eyebrows at Bertrand, who raised himself in bed and called him twice by name.
"You mustn't do anything hasty," he urged, wagging his forefinger with great parade of reasonableness. "Any kind of attack on Grayle is bound to recoil on Sonia, and that's the last thing you want. I assure you that twenty-four hours after you'd gone for him——"
Beresford shook free of my arm and limped menacingly up to the bed.
"You don't care a curse for her," he cried, "but you pretend to care for O'Rane. You're going to let Grayle break up O'Rane's life, take away Sonia from him, throw her out of doors——"
Bertrand spread out his hands with a gesture of bland expostulation.
"My dear boy, we can't prevent it. It's done, and any act of private vengeance will hit David and Sonia hardest of all. Haven't we been scheming and contriving to prevent the divorce for that very reason? We all know that it would dish Grayle's political career to be cited as a co-respondent at the present time; it would keep him out of the Cabinet or compel him to resign. But I can tell you that it would dish the O'Ranes very much more completely. Dear boy, when we're hoping to close down one scandal, for Heaven's sake don't open up another."
If not impressed, Beresford was at least interested and temporarily checked. He stood reflecting with a scowl on his face and his underlip thrust forward.
"Is that—brute going to be taken into the Government?" he asked.
"According to the papers there's every possibility," Bertrand answered. "No one will ever know, but I choose to believe that he tired of Sonia from the moment when his plans were threatened by the possibility of a scandal."
Beresford looked at him wonderingly and then turned to me.
"Do you bear that out?" he asked. "I don't know enough of public life to say if it's true. Do you mean that, if Grayle went into the Divorce Court, he'd be broken?"
The eagerness of his tone frightened us a little, for we thought that we had talked him out of danger. Bertrand assumed great determination of manner.
"Grayle's not going into the Divorce Court, if we can help it," he said.
"Grayle's going to be broken, if I can work it," was the retort.
"But you can't. No one would support you more readily, if it were possible."
Beresford dropped into his former chair without answering and propped his chin on his fists. Bertrand watched him uneasily; George came back from the door and led me away to the window. Tentatively he asked me how far I thought the threat of proceedings could be used to block Grayle's path of office.
"I don't know how far you can blackmail a man," George admitted. "Particularly a man like Grayle. It's only an idea, I've just thought of it. If we could make him sign an undertaking—something that we could use against him and that he couldn't turn and use against us. It all wants the devil of a lot of thinking out.... If Raney doesn't divorce Sonia now, when the offence is still fresh, I suppose he weakens his position; he may not be able to get a divorce later, and then our barrier's kicked to matchwood. I'm not a lawyer; perhaps Bertrand...."
We walked to the bed, where Bertrand was sitting with his eyes on us. I cannot say whether my friends have been more unfortunate than the generality, but one has bound himself by a similar undertaking not to play cards, two more not to enter certain cities, and four or five to resign certain positions and to live abroad. As a rule, however, a felony was being compounded, or the offence was one against honour wherein there was no statute of limitations.
"It's mere bluff, and he'll beat you at that game," Bertrand said without hesitation. "What Grayle's done is to outrage public opinion, and the public has a short memory. You could break him now, but in two, three years' time people would say, 'This is very ancient history, we've heard her story, but not his; probably he wasn't so much to blame as she makes out; she couldn't live with one man, so it's conceivable that she couldn't live with another. But, anyway, it's ancient history.' In three years' time your man of the world would think none the worse of him;—and you can't tell how far she may have travelled in three years. Time's on his side."
"But this is the opportunity of his political life," George persisted. "In three years' time it may have gone beyond hope of returning."
"But he knows that David wouldn't sacrifice his wife to punish him. Haven't we talked ourselves hoarse to find a way of stopping the proceedings? Grayle's a level-headed fellow——"
"Hardly at this moment," I interrupted.
Bertrand looked at me in some surprise.
"Well, discuss it with David," he said unenthusiastically. "If he agrees, go to Grayle and try your luck. I never like brandishing weapons that I'm not prepared to use. I tell you it's an empty threat and that Grayle will see through it. You know, you're all carried away by some idea of poetic justice, you think you've got a pocket retribution packed up and ready for him; you imagine that people are punished for their crimes in this world. I've outgrown that phase."
The superfluous touch of cynicism flicked us all and Beresford most of all.
"Somebody's going to punish that man," he cried. "I don't know who and I don't know how, but it's going to be done. I'll drop everything else and sacrifice all I've got to it."
Bertrand sighed and lay back on his pillows.
"Grayle's not worth it," he said.
"But Sonia is!" Beresford cried passionately.