Alma Buckley gave further proof of the sincerity of her friendship by announcing her readiness to efface herself to any necessary extent.
“I don’t think it will do for me to appear upon the scene, I, Alma Buckley, a third-rate music-hall artist. I should give the show away at once. Besides, I couldn’t play the lady for five minutes. We can meet ‘under the rose,’ or you can come to me, and I’ll give orders that none of my lot are to be admitted while you’re there.”
This scheme was put into execution, and worked out splendidly. In five years’ time Miss Larchester had troops of acquaintances; she had received half a dozen offers of marriage from fairly eligible men. But she was in no hurry to choose till she met the man who absolutely came up to her standard.
She was about thirty when chance threw her in the way of Rupert Morrice. They were both staying at the same hotel in Venice. He had confided to her that he had experienced a bitter disappointment in his youth, she was very kind and sympathetic. Something in her strongly attracted him, she was not in love with him, but she admired and respected him. He was not really in love with her, but they were on equal terms in that respect.
There was a very brief courtship, in which Morrice learned as much of her life story as she chose to tell him: it was embroidered here and there with some unveracious details, for reasons which appeared good to her at the time. And Lettice Larchester, otherwise Lettice Darcy, the widow of the felon who had died in prison, became the wife of Rupert Morrice the wealthy financier.
CHAPTER XXVII
IN VINO VERITAS
At the time of her second marriage, the friendship between the two women was still unimpaired. They had not, of course, seen so much of each other since Lettice had entered that new world into which Alma Buckley refused to intrude, as much from disinclination as from motives of policy. But there had never been a week in which they had not met, at out-of-the way restaurants or in Alma’s flat when they were quite certain of privacy.
The son was now a pretty little fellow of about eight, still living with the same people with whom he had been placed soon after his birth. His mother paid him visits from time to time under an assumed name. The kindly couple who looked after him were childless themselves, and were as fond of him as if they had been his real parents. Naturally they did not fail to realize the situation, but they were not curious people, and they never sought to penetrate the identity of the mother who paid these periodical visits.
Had conditions been normal it is only reasonable to suppose that Mrs. Morrice would have proved a fond and affectionate mother, and her maternal feelings were often called into being by the gay prattle and pretty ways of the charming little fellow who had been born in such tragic circumstances. But she always came away sad from the visits, for they brought the past so vividly before her. What would this innocent child turn out when he grew to manhood? Would he inherit the criminal instincts of his father? Well, although she could never acknowledge him, she would do her duty by him—have him decently educated and when the time came give him a fair start in life.
There could be no doubt that Miss Buckley was very devoted to her friend, and always thinking of how she could best advance her interests; it was one of those strong friendships that are rare amongst men, still rarer amongst women. She had changed her, with advice and stimulating counsel, from a despairing girl ready to sink under the burden of her tragic misfortunes, into a resolute woman who faced the future with some measure of hopefulness.