CHAPTER IV.
Captain Bowood had spoken truly. Lady Dimsdale and Mr Boyd were sauntering slowly in the direction of the house, deep in conversation, and quite unaware that they were being watched from a little distance by the woman in black whom Mrs Bowood had taken to be an applicant for the post of French governess.
Oscar Boyd was a tall, well-built man, verging towards his fortieth year. His complexion was deeply imbrowned by years of tropical sunshine. He had a silky chestnut beard and moustache, and hair of the same colour, which, however, was no longer so plentiful as it once had been. He had clear, frank-looking eyes, a firm-set mouth, and a face which gave you the impression of a man who was at once both thoughtful and shrewd. It was one of those kindly yet resolute faces which seem to invite confidence, but would never betray it.
Lady Dimsdale brought quite a heap of flowers into the room. There was a large shallow vase on the centre table, which it was her intention to fill with her floral spoils. ‘You look as cool as if this were December instead of June,’ she said.
‘I have been used to much hotter suns than that of England.’
‘I hardly knew you again at first—not till I heard you speak.’
‘Fifteen years are a long time.’
‘Yet already it seems to me as if I should have known you anywhere. You are different, and yet the same.’
‘When I arrived last evening, I did not know that you were here. I heard your voice before I saw you, and the fifteen years seemed to vanish like a dream.’
‘It seems to me like a dream when I go back in memory to those old days at the vicarage, and call to mind all that happened there.’
‘Do you ever think of that evening when you and I parted?’
‘I have not forgotten it,’ answered Lady Dimsdale in a low voice.
‘How little we thought that we should not meet again for so long a time!’
‘How little we foresaw all that would happen to us in the interval!’
‘If that telegram had arrived ten minutes later, how different our lots in life might have been!’
‘Life seems made up of Ifs and Buts,’ she answered with a little sigh.
‘That evening! The scent of new-mown hay was in the air.’
‘The clock in the old church tower had just struck seven.’
‘Under the hill, a nightingale was singing.’
‘Far off, we heard the murmur of the tide.’
‘Fido lay basking among fallen rose-leaves on the terrace.’
‘Wagging his tail lazily, as if beating time to some tune that was running in his head.’
‘We stood by the wicket, watching the last load of hay winding slowly through the lanes. I seized the moment’——
‘You seized something else.’
‘Your hand. If you had only known how nervous I was! I pressed your fingers to my lips. “Laura, I love you,” I stammered out.’
‘“Darling Laura,” was what he said,’ murmured Lady Dimsdale to herself.
‘Before I had time for another word, Hannah came hurrying down the steps.’
‘Dear old Hannah, with her mob-cap and prim white apron. I seem to see her now.’
‘She had an open paper in her hand. Your aunt had been taken ill, and you were instructed to go to her by the first train. You gave me one look—a look that haunted me for years—and went into the house without a word. An hour later, I saw you at the train; but your father was there, and he kept you by his side till the last moment.’
‘That miserable journey! For the first twenty miles I was alone; then an old lady got in. “Dear me, how damp this carriage feels,” she said. I rather fancy I had been crying.’
‘And we never met after that, till last evening.’
‘Never!’ murmured Lady Dimsdale almost inaudibly.
‘Two days after our parting, I was ordered abroad; but I wrote to you, not once or twice only, but many times.’
‘Not one line from you did I ever receive.’
‘Then my letters must have been intercepted. I addressed them to your aunt’s house in Scotland, where you were staying at the time.’
‘Aunt Judith had set her heart on my marrying Sir Thomas Dimsdale.’
‘And would not let my letters reach you. Week after week and month after month, I waited for an answer, hoping against hope; but none ever came.’
‘Week after week and month after month, I waited for a letter from you; but none ever came.’
‘And your Aunt Judith—she who intercepted my letters—was accounted a good woman.’
‘An excellent woman. Even on wet Sundays, she always went to church twice.’
‘So excellent, that at length she persuaded you to marry Sir Thomas.’
‘It was not her persuasion that induced me to marry. It was to save my father from ruin.’
‘What a sacrifice!’
‘You must not say that. How could anything I might do for my father’s sake be accounted a sacrifice?’
Oscar Boyd did not answer. Lady Dimsdale’s white slender fingers were busy with the arrangement of her flowers, and he seemed absorbed in watching them.
‘And you too married?’ she said at length in a low voice.
‘I did—but not till more than a year after I read the notice of your marriage in the newspapers. Life seemed no longer worth living. I cared not what became of me. I fell into the toils of an adventuress, who after a time inveigled me into marrying her.’
‘Your marriage was an unhappy one?’
‘Most unhappy. After a few months, we separated, and I never saw my wife again. Her fate was a sad one. A year or two later, a steamer she was on board of was lost at sea; and so far as is known, not a soul survived to tell the tale.’
‘A sad fate indeed.’
The subject was a painful one to Oscar Boyd. He crossed to the window, and stood gazing out for a few moments in silence.
Lady Dimsdale’s thoughts were busy. ‘What is there to hinder him from saying again to-day the words he said to me fifteen years ago?’ she asked herself. ‘If he only knew!’
‘How strange it seems, Laura, to be alone with you again after all these years!’ He spoke from the window.
A beautiful flush spread swiftly over Lady Dimsdale’s face. Her heart beat quickly. In a moment she had grown fifteen years younger. ‘He calls me Laura!’ she murmured softly to herself. ‘Surely he will say the words now.’
‘I could fancy this was the dear never-to-be-forgotten room in the old vicarage—that that was the garden outside. In another moment, Fido will come bounding in. Hannah will open the door and tell us tea is waiting. We shall hear your father whistling softly to himself, while he counts the ripening peaches on the wall.’
‘Oscar, don’t!’ cried Lady Dimsdale in a voice that was broken with emotion.
Oscar Boyd came slowly back from the window, and stood for a few moments watching her in silence. Then he laid a hand gently on one of hers, took possession of it, looked at it for a moment, and then pressed it to his lips. Then with a lingering pressure, he let it drop, and walked away again to the window.
Lady Dimsdale’s eyes followed him; she could have laughed or she could have cried; she was on the verge of both. ‘Oh, my dear one, if you only knew what stupid creatures you men are!’ she said to herself. ‘Why isn’t this leap-year?’
Presently Mr Boyd paced back again to the table; he seemed possessed by some demon of restlessness. ‘With your permission, I will relate a little apologue to you,’ he said; and then he drew up a chair near to the table and sat down. ‘I once had a friend who was a poor man, and was in love with a woman who was very rich. He had made up his mind to ask her to be his wife, when one day he chanced to hear himself stigmatised as a fortune-hunter, as an adventurer who sought to marry a rich wife in order that he might live on her money. Then, although he loved this woman very dearly, he went away without saying a word of that which was in his heart.’
‘Must not your friend have been a weak-minded man, to let the idle talk of an empty busybody come between himself and happiness? He deserved to lose his prize. But I too have a little apologue to tell to you. Once on a time there was a woman whom circumstances compelled against her wishes to marry a rich old man. When he died, he left her all his wealth, but on one condition—that she should never marry again. Any one taking her for his wife must take her—for herself alone.’
Oscar rose and pushed back his chair. His face flushed; a great flame of love leaped suddenly into his eyes. Lady Dimsdale was bending over her flowers. Neither of them saw the black-robed figure that was standing motionless by the open window.
‘Laura!’ said Oscar in a voice that was scarcely raised above a whisper.
She turned her head and looked at him. Their eyes met. For a moment each seemed to be gazing into the other’s heart. Then Oscar went a step nearer and held out both his hands. An instant later he had his arms round her and his lips were pressed to hers. ‘My own at last, after all these weary years!’ he murmured.
The figure in black had come a step or two nearer. She flung back her veil with a sudden passionate gesture.
‘Oscar Boyd!’ The words were spoken with a sort of slow, deliberate emphasis.
The lovers fell apart as though a thunderbolt had dropped between them. Oscar’s face changed on the instant to a ghastly pallor. With one hand, he clutched the back of a chair; the other went up to his throat, as though there were something there which stopped his breathing. For the space of a few seconds the ticking of the clock on the chimney-piece was the only sound that broke the silence.
Then came the question: ‘Who are you?’ breathed rather than spoken.
In clear incisive tones came the answer: ‘Your wife!’
The day was three hours older.
The news that Mr Boyd’s wife, who was supposed to have been drowned several years before, had unexpectedly proved that she was still in existence, was not long before it reached the ears of everybody at Rosemount, from Captain Bowood himself to the boy in the stables. As soon as he had recovered in some degree from the first shock of surprise, Oscar had gone in search of Mrs Bowood; and having explained to her in as few words as possible what had happened, had asked her to grant him the use of one of her parlours for a few hours. Mrs Bowood, who was the soul of hospitality, would fain have gone on the instant and welcomed Mrs Boyd, as she welcomed all her guests at Rosemount, and it may be with even more empressement than usual, considering the remarkable circumstances of the case. Mr Boyd, however, vetoed her proposition in a way which caused her to suspect that there must be something more under the surface than she was aware of; so, with ready tact, she forbore to question him further, and at once placed a sitting-room at his disposal.
In this room the husband and his newly found wife were shut up together. Mr Boyd looked five years older than he had looked a few hours previously. He was very pale. A certain hardness in the lines of his mouth, unnoticed before, now made itself plainly observable. His brows were contracted; all the gladness, all the softness had died out of his dark eyes as completely as if they had never had an existence there. He was sitting at a table, poring over some railway maps and time-tables. On a sofa, separated from him by half the length of the room, sat his wife. She was a tall, dark, shapely woman, who had left her thirtieth birthday behind her some years ago. She had a profusion of black hair, and very bright black eyes, with a certain cold, clear directness of gaze in them, which for some men seemed to have a sort of special charm. Certainly, they looked like eyes that could never melt with sympathy or be softened by tears. She had a long Grecian nose, and full red lips; but her chin was too heavy and rounded for the rest of her face. Her clear youthful complexion owed probably as much to art as it did to nature; but it was art so skilfully applied as sometimes to excite the envy of those of her own sex to whom such secrets were secrets no longer. In any case, most men conceded that she was still a very handsome woman, and it was not likely that she was unaware of the fact.
She sat for a little while tapping impatiently with one foot on the carpet, and glancing furtively at the impassive face bent over its books and maps, which seemed for the time to have forgotten that there was any such person as she in existence. At length she could keep silent no longer. ‘You do not seem particularly delighted by the return of your long-lost wife, who was saved from shipwreck by a miracle. Many men would be beside themselves with joy; but you are a philosopher, and know how to hide your feelings. Eh bien! if you are not overjoyed to see me, I am overjoyed to see you; and I love you so very dearly, that I will never leave you again.’ Only a slight foreign accent betrayed the fact that she was not an Englishwoman.
Oscar Boyd took no more notice of her than if she had been addressing herself to the empty air.
She rose and crossed the room to the fireplace, and glanced at herself in the glass. There was a dangerous light in her eyes. ‘If he does not speak to me, I shall strike him!’ she said to herself. Then aloud: ‘I have travelled six thousand miles in search of you, and now that I have found you, you have not even one kiss to greet me with! What a heart of marble yours must be!’
Still the impassive figure at the table made no more sign than if it had been carved in stone.
There was a pretty Venetian glass ornament on the chimney-piece. Mrs Boyd took it up and dashed it savagely on the hearth, where it was shattered to a hundred fragments. Then with white face and passion-charged eyes, she turned and faced her husband. ‘Oscar Boyd, why don’t you speak to your wife?’
‘Because I have nothing to say to her.’ He spoke as coldly and quietly as he might have spoken to the veriest stranger.
She controlled her passion with an effort. ‘Nothing to say to me! You can at least tell me something of your plans. Are we going to remain here, or are we going away, or what are we going to do?’
He began deliberately to fold the map he had been studying. ‘We shall start for London by the five o’clock train,’ he said. ‘At the terminus, we shall separate, to meet again to-morrow at my lawyer’s office. It will not take long to draw up a deed of settlement, by which a certain portion of my income will for the future be paid over to you. After that, we shall say farewell, and I shall never see you again.’
She stared at him with bewildered eyes. ‘Never see me again!’ she gasped out. ‘Me—your wife!’
‘Estelle—you know the reasons which induced me to vow that I would never regard you as my wife again. Those reasons have the same force now that they had a dozen years ago. We meet, only to part again a few hours hence.’
She had regained some portion of her sang-froid by this time. A shrill mocking laugh burst from her lips. It was not a pleasant laugh to hear. ‘During my husband’s absence, I must try to console myself with my husband’s money. You are a rich man, caro mio; you have made a large fortune abroad; and I shall demand to be treated as a rich man’s wife.’
‘You are mistaken,’ he answered, without the least trace of emotion in his manner or voice. ‘I am a very poor man. Nearly the whole of my fortune was lost by a bank failure a little while ago.’
His words seemed to strike her dumb.
‘In three days I start for Chili,’ continued Oscar. ‘My old appointment has not been filled up; I shall apply to be reinstated.’
‘And I have come six thousand miles for this!’ muttered Estelle under her breath. She needed a minute or two to recover her equanimity—to decide what her next move should be.
Her husband was jotting down a few notes with a pencil. She turned and faced him suddenly. ‘Oscar Boyd, I have a proposition to make to you,’ she said. ‘If you are as poor a man as you say you are—and I do not choose to doubt your word—I have no desire to be a drag on you for ever. I have come a long way in search of you, and it will be equally far to go back. Listen, then. Give me two thousand pounds—you can easily raise that amount among your fine friends—and I will solemnly promise to put six thousand miles of ocean between us, and never to seek you out or trouble you in any way again.’
For a moment he looked up and gazed steadily into her face. ‘Impossible!’ he said drily, and with that he resumed his notations.
‘Why do you say that? The sum is not a large one. And think! You will get rid of me for ever. What happiness! There will be nothing then to hinder you from marrying that woman whom I saw in your arms. Oh! I am not in the least jealous, although I love you so dearly, and although’—here she glanced at herself in the chimney-glass—‘that woman is not half so good-looking as I am. No one in this house but she knows that I am your wife. You have only to swear to her that I am an impostor, and she will believe you—we women are such easy fools where we love!—and will marry you. Que dites vous, cher Oscar?’
‘Impossible.’
‘Peste! I have no patience with you. You will never have such an offer again. Mais je comprends. Although your words are so cruel, you love me too well to let me go. As for that woman whom I saw you kissing, I will think no more of her. You did not know I was so near, and I forgive you.’ Here she turned to the glass again, gave the strings of her bonnet a little twist, and smoothed her left eyebrow. ‘Make haste, then, my darling husband, and introduce your wife to your fine friends, as a gentleman ought to do. I will ring the bell.’
Mr Boyd rose and pushed back his chair. ‘Pardon me—you will do nothing of the kind,’ he said, more sternly than he had yet spoken. ‘It is not my intention to introduce you to any one in this house. It would be useless. We start for London in a couple of hours. I have some final preparations to make, and will leave you for a few minutes. Meanwhile, I must request that you will not quit this room.’
She clapped her gloved hands together and laughed a shrill discordant laugh. ‘And do you really think, Oscar Boyd, that I am the kind of woman to submit to all this? You ought to know me better—far better.’ Then with one of those sudden changes of mood which were characteristic of her, she went on: ‘And yet, perhaps—as I have heard some people say—a wife’s first duty is submission. Perhaps her second is, never to leave her husband. Eh bien! You shall have my submission, but—I will never leave you. If you go to Chili, I will follow you there, as I have followed you here. I will follow you to the ends of the earth! Do you hear? I will haunt you wherever you go! I will dog your footsteps day and night! Everywhere I will proclaim myself as your wife!’ She nodded her head at him meaningly three times, when she had finished her tirade.
Standing with one hand resting on the back of his chair, while the other toyed with his watch-guard, he listened to her attentively, but without any visible emotion. ‘You will be good enough not to leave this room till my return,’ he said; and without another word, he went out and shut the door behind him.
Her straight black eyebrows came together, and a volcanic gleam shot from her eyes as she gazed after him. ‘Why did he not lock me in?’ she said to herself with a sneer. She began to pace the room as a man might have paced it, with her hands behind her back and her fingers tightly interlocked. ‘Will nothing move him? Is it for this I have crossed the ocean? Is it for this I have tracked him? His fortune gone! I never dreamt of that—and they told me he was so rich. What an unlucky wretch I am! I should like to stab him—or myself—or some one. If I could but set fire to the house at midnight, and’—— She was interrupted by the opening of the door and the entrance of Sir Frederick Pinkerton. At the sight of a man who was also a gentleman, her face changed in a moment.
(To be concluded next month.)