CHAPTER XIII.
Half an hour later, as Lady Renshaw was sitting alone in her room, musing in bitterness of spirit on the mutability of human affairs, a message was brought her. Sir William Ridsdale’s compliments to Lady Renshaw, and would her ladyship favour him with her company for a few minutes in his apartments?
She rose with a sigh. Her anticipated triumph was shorn of half its glory. Archie Ridsdale might be a free man to-morrow, and it would matter nothing now, as far as she was concerned. Bella had made a fool of herself, and doubtless Archie had all along been a party to the deception. This thought coming suddenly, revived her like a stimulant. What would her disappointment be in comparison with his humiliation when he should learn that which his father had to tell him! Then there was that haughty Madame De Vigne. For her, too, the hour of humiliation was at hand. As she thought of these things, while on her way to Sir William’s room, Lady Renshaw’s spirits rose again. She felt that life had still some compensations for her.
A staid-looking man-servant ushered her into the room. She gazed round; but there was no one to be seen save Colonel Woodruffe, who was a stranger to her, and Mr Etheridge. The latter rose and advanced with his thin, faint smile.
‘I was given to understand that I should find Sir William Ridsdale here,’ said her ladyship in a somewhat aggrieved tone.
‘I am Sir William Ridsdale, very much at your service,’ was the quiet reply of the smiling, white-haired gentleman before her.
Probably in the whole course of her life Lady Renshaw had never been so much taken aback as she was at that moment. She literally gasped for words, but none came.
‘Will you not be seated?’ said the baronet; and with that he led her to a chair, and then he drew up another for himself a little distance away.
‘I will give your ladyship credit for at once appreciating the motives by which I was influenced in acting as I have acted. I came here incognito in order that I might be able to see and judge for myself respecting certain matters which might possibly very materially affect both my son’s future and my own. Archie was got out of the way for a day or two; and the only person who knew me not to be Mr Etheridge was my old friend here, Colonel Woodruffe, to whom, by-the-bye, I must introduce your ladyship.’
‘It was really too bad of you, Sir William, to hoax us all in the way you have done,’ simpered her ladyship when the process of introduction to the colonel was over. She did not forget that elderly baronets have occasionally fallen victims to the wiles of good-looking widows. ‘But for my part, I must confess that from the first I had my suspicions that you were not the person you gave yourself out to be. There was about you a sort of je ne sais quoi, an impalpable something, which caused me more than once to say to myself: “Any one can see that that dear Mr Etheridge is a gentleman born and bred—one who has been in the habit of moving in superior circles. He must have known reverses. Evidently, at one period of his life, he has occupied a position very different from that of an amanuensis.”’
‘Madam, you flatter me,’ replied the baronet with a grave inclination of the head. ‘As I have had occasion to remark before, your ladyship’s acumen is something phenomenal.’
The widow was rather doubtful as to the meaning of ‘acumen;’ but she accepted it as a compliment. ‘And now, dear Sir William, that you have come and seen and judged for yourself, you will have no difficulty in making up your mind how to act.’
‘My mind is already made up, Lady Renshaw.’
‘Ah—just so. Under the painful circumstances of the case, you could have no hesitation as to the conclusion at which you ought to arrive. What a fortunate thing that I happened to find that scrap of paper in the way I did!’
‘Very fortunate indeed, because, as I remarked this morning, it might have fallen into the hands of some one much less discreet than your ladyship. As it happened, however, although I did not say so to you at the time, it told me nothing that I did not know already.’
‘Nothing that you did not know already!’ gasped her ladyship.
‘Nothing. Madame De Vigne, of her own free will, had already commissioned her friend, Colonel Woodruffe, to tell me without reservation the whole history of her most unhappy married life.’
‘What an idiot the woman must be!’ was her ladyship’s unspoken comment; but she only stared into the baronet’s face in blank amazement. Recovering herself with an effort, she said with a cunning smile: ‘People sometimes make a merit of confessing that which they can no longer conceal. You will know how to appraise such a statement at its proper worth. You say that your mind is already made up, Sir William. I think that from the first there could be no doubt as to what the result would be.’
‘Very little doubt, indeed,’ he answered drily. ‘For instance, here is a proof of it.’
He rose as he spoke, and crossed to the opposite side of the room, where was a window set in an alcove, which just at present was partially shrouded by a heavy curtain. With a quick movement of the hand, Sir William drew back the curtain, and revealed, to Lady Renshaw’s astonished gaze, Mr Archie Ridsdale sitting with a skein of silk on his uplifted hands in close proximity to Miss Loraine, who was in the act of winding the silk into a ball. The young people started to their feet in dismay as the curtain was drawn back. It was a pretty picture. ‘There’s no need to disturb yourselves,’ said Sir William smilingly; ‘I only wanted to give her ladyship a pleasant surprise.’ With that he let fall the curtain and went back to his chair.
‘A pleasant surprise, indeed! You don’t mean to say, Sir William’—— Her ladyship choked and stopped.
‘I mean to say, Lady Renshaw, that in Miss Loraine you behold my son’s future wife. He has chosen wisely and well; and that his married life will be a happy one, I do not doubt. In the assumed character of Mr Etheridge, I made the acquaintance of Miss Loraine, so that I am no stranger to her sweet temper and fine disposition. If anything, she is just a leetle too good for Master Archie.’
Lady Renshaw felt as if the ground were heaving under her feet. In fact, at that moment an earthquake would hardly have astonished her. Most truly had Sir William been termed an eccentric man: he was more than eccentric—he was mad! She had only one shaft more left in her quiver, but that was tipped with venom.
‘Then poor Archie, when he marries, will be brother-in-law to a person whose husband was or is a convict,’ she murmured presently, more as if communing sorrowfully with herself, than addressing Sir William. Her eyes were fixed on the cornice pole of one of the windows; and when she shook her head, which she did with an air of profound melancholy, she seemed to be shaking it at that useful piece of furniture. Sir William and Colonel Woodruffe exchanged glances. Then the baronet said: ‘Will you oblige me, Lady Renshaw?’
He led the way to the opposite end of the room, where anything they might say would be less likely to be overheard by the young people behind the curtain. ‘Yes, as your ladyship very justly observes,’ said the baronet, ‘when my son marries Miss Loraine, he will be brother-in-law to an ex-convict—for the fellow is alive—to a man whom I verily believe to be one of the biggest scoundrels on the face of the earth. It will be a great misfortune, I grant you, but one which, under the circumstances, can in nowise be helped.’
‘It will be one that the world will never tire of talking about.’
‘Poor Madame De Vigne! I pity her from the bottom of my heart; and you yourself, as a woman, Lady Renshaw, can hardly fail to do the same.’
Lady Renshaw shrugged her shoulders, but was silent.
‘What a misfortune for her, to be entrapped through a father’s selfishness, when a girl just fresh from school, into marriage with such a villain!’ resumed the baronet. ‘But in what way could she possibly have helped herself? Alas! in such a case there is no help for a woman. When—years after he had robbed and deserted her, and had fallen into the clutches of the law—she received the news of his death, it was impossible that she should feel anything but thankfulness for her release. Time went on, and she had no reason to doubt the fact of her widowhood, when suddenly, only three days ago, her husband turned up—here! I have told you all this, Lady Renshaw, in order that you may know the truth of the case as it now stands, and not be led away by any distorted version of it. Ah, poor Madame De Vigne! How was she to help herself?’
‘That is not a question I am called upon to answer—it is not one that the world will even condescend to ask. The fact still remains that she is a convict’s wife, and as such the world will judge her.’
‘Yes, yes; I know that what we term the world deals very hardly in such matters—that the innocent are too often confounded with the guilty. But in this case at least, the world need never be any wiser than it is now. The secret of Madame De Vigne’s life is known to three people only—to you, whom a singular accident put in possession of part of it; to Colonel Woodruffe; and to myself. Not even her sister is acquainted with the story of her married life. Such being the case, we three have only to keep our own counsel; we have only to determine that not one word of what we know respecting this most unhappy history shall ever pass our lips, and loyally and faithfully carry out that determination, and the world need never know more of the past life of Madame De Vigne than it knows at the present moment. As for the fellow himself, I shall know how to keep his tongue quiet. I am sure that you agree with me, dear Lady Renshaw.’
A vindictive gleam came into her ladyship’s eyes. The time had come for her to show her claws. Such a moment compensated for much that had preceded it.
She laughed a little discordant laugh. ‘Really, Sir William, who would have thought there was so much latent romance in your composition? Who would have dreamt of your setting up as the champion of Beauty in distress? To be sure, if you persevere in your present arrangements, this Madame De Vigne will become a connection of your own, and regarded from that point of view, I can quite understand your anxiety to hush up the particulars of her very ugly story. Family scandals are things always to be avoided, are they not, Sir William?’
‘Always, Lady Renshaw—when practicable.’
‘Just so. But as Madame De Vigne, thank heaven! will be no connection of mine either near or distant, you will pardon me if I hardly see the necessity for such extreme reticence on my part. The world will get to know that I have been mixed up to a certain extent in this affair—somehow, it always does get to know such things—and I shall be questioned on every side. What am I to say? What reply am I to make to such questions? Am I to tell an untruth, and say that I know nothing—that I am in absolute ignorance? Or am I to prevaricate, and insinuate, for instance, that Madame De Vigne is a lady of the highest respectability and of unblemished antecedents—a person, in short, whom any family might be proud to count as one of themselves? You will admit, Sir William, that the position in which I shall be placed will be a most embarrassing one?’
‘Most embarrassing indeed, Lady Renshaw—almost as much so, in fact, as if some one were to say to you: “I was past your grandfather’s shop in Drury Lane the other day. The place looks precisely as it did forty years ago. Nothing is changed except the name over the door.” That might be rather embarrassing to you, might it not?’
All at once Lady Renshaw looked as if she were about to faint. The rouge on her cheeks showed up in ghastly mockery of the death-like pallor which had overspread the rest of her face. Her lips twitched convulsively. She sat staring at Sir William, unable to utter a word.
‘In most families, Lady Renshaw, nay, in most individual lives, there are certain secrets, certain private matters, which concern ourselves alone, and about which we would infinitely prefer that the world, and perhaps even our most intimate friends, should remain in happy ignorance. It could be no gratification to your ladyship, for instance, if the circle of your acquaintance were made aware that your grandfather started in life as a rag and bone merchant in the fashionable locality just named—“Solomon Izzard” was the name painted over his door—and that your ladyship first saw the light under the roof of that unsavoury emporium. No; certainly that could be no gratification to you. Your father at that time was just beginning to lay the foundation of the fortune which he subsequently accumulated as a speculative builder. My father owned certain house property in the neighbourhood, and he employed your father to look after the repairs. Hence it was that, on two occasions when little more than a youth, I was sent with business messages to the Lane, and it was on one of those occasions that I first had the distinguished pleasure of meeting your ladyship. You were a mere child at the time, and your father used to call you “Peggy,” if I mistake not. He was holding you in his arms, and you struggled to get down; but he would not let you go. “She wants to be off with the other children,” he said to me; “and then she gets playing in the gutter, and makes a nice mess of herself.” Those were his exact words. Your ladyship will pardon me for saying that you struck me at the time as being a remarkably pretty child, although it is possible that your face might with advantage have been a little cleaner than it was.’
Never before in the whole course of her life had Lady Renshaw had the tables turned on her in such fashion. Scalding tears of rage and mortification sprang to her eyes, but she bit her lip hard and kept them back. At the moment, she felt as if she could willingly have stabbed Sir William to the heart.
She sat without uttering a word. What, indeed, could she find to say?
‘Come, come, Lady Renshaw,’ resumed Sir William smilingly; ‘there is no occasion for you to be downhearted. The best thing that you and I can do will be to draw up and sign—metaphorically—a treaty of peace, to which Woodruffe here shall act as witness. The terms of the treaty shall be these: you on your part shall promise to keep locked up in your bosom as a sacred secret, not even to be hinted at to your dearest friend, that knowledge respecting the married life of Madame De Vigne which has come so strangely into your possession; while I on my part will promise faithfully to keep undivulged those particulars concerning your ladyship’s early career of which I have just made mention—which, and others too that I could mention, although you could in nowise help them, I feel sure that you would not care to have published on the housetops. Come, what say you, shall it be a compact between us?’
‘As you please,’ she answered sullenly as she rose from her chair, adding with a contemptuous shrug, ‘I have no wish to injure Madame De Vigne.’
‘Nor I the slightest desire to humiliate Lady Renshaw.’
Was it possible that this man, whose tongue knew how to stab so keenly, could really be the same individual as mild-mannered, soft-spoken Mr Etheridge, who had seemed as if he could hardly say Bo to a goose!
Her ladyship seemed to hesitate for a moment or two; then she said: ‘I will see you again to-morrow—when you are alone,’ with a little vindictive glance at the impassive Colonel Woodruffe.
‘I shall be at your ladyship’s command whenever and wherever may suit you best.’
He crossed to the door, opened it, and made her one of his most stately bows as she walked slowly out, with head erect and eyes that stared straight before her, but with rage and bitter mortification gnawing at her heartstrings.
‘We have still that scoundrel of a Laroche to reckon with,’ said Sir William quietly to the colonel as he shut the door upon her ladyship.