The Rocks of Valpre by Ethel May Dell (best contemporary novels .txt) 📕

her brother, but that doesn't entitle you to insult her. Plainly, I won't have it from you or anyone."
"I didn't insult her," declared Noel. "I only said I knew she was telling a cram. She knew it too."
"I know what you said," Mordaunt returned with brevity. "And you are not to say it again. Also, I must ask you to bear in mind that when I say a thing I mean it--invariably. I've had more than enough disobedience from you lately."
"Oh, I say," said Noel, winking gaily, "you don't want much, do you?"
Mordaunt relaxed a little. He put his hand on the boy's shoulder for a moment. "You can be quite a good chap if you try," he said.
Noel responded like a dog to a caress. "The mischief is to keep it up," he said. "But we won't quarrel anyhow. I'll make every allowance for you, old boy, for you're in a beastly unhealthy position; and you'll have to do the same--savvy? But for all that, that letter was no more written by Mrs. Pouncefort than by the man in the moon."
"That letter," Mordaunt said very deliberately, "is neither your affair nor mine."
Could he have seen Chris at that moment he might have changed his mind upon that point, but her young brother's careless chatter kept him from seeking her; nor would he very readily have found her had he done so.
For Chris was securely locked in a little room at the top of the house that had been her childhood's bedroom, and here with blanched face and hands that shook she was reading and reading again the letter that had given rise to so much discussion.
The handwriting was cramped and erratic, wholly unfamiliar, barely decipherable; but she had mastered the contents with tragic dexterity. Her understanding had leaped to the words.
* * * * *


"MY DEAR MRS. MORDAUNT," so went the letter, "You have probably forgotten my existence by this time, and it is with the utmost humility that I venture to recall it to your memory. For myself, it will always be a lasting pleasure to have met you again, and the fact that I share with you a secret of other days cannot but prove a bond between us. That secret I am prepared to guard faithfully, since--apparently--it is of value, if you on your part are ready to purchase my discretion with that of which all have need, but of which I temporarily am unhappily deficient. Briefly, madame, for the sum of five hundred pounds I will undertake that the episode of Valpre shall be consigned to oblivion so far as I am concerned. Otherwise, the strict husband may hear more than you have considered it convenient to tell him.
"Yours, with many compliments, GUILLAUME RODOLPHE."


CHAPTER X
A WARNING VOICE

Five hundred pounds! Five hundred pounds! It represented her year's income to Chris.
All night long she lay wide-eyed and still, facing her problem with a quaking heart. It was like a suffocating weight upon her, crushing her down. Five hundred pounds! And the need thereof so urgent that it must be dealt with at once! But how to obtain it? How? How?
All through the dark hours she lay revolving the matter, questioning this way and that, bound hand and foot, yet not daring to contemplate the only sane means at her disposal of obtaining freedom. To tell her husband the simple truth, to throw herself unreservedly upon his generosity, to beg his forgiveness and his help--these were the things she could not do. As a matter of fact the truth had been so magnified by her fevered fancy that it had begun to appear monstrous even in her own eyes. Those far-off happenings at Valpre had become a dream with a nightmare ending. Not even Aunt Philippa could have distorted them to a more exaggerated semblance of evil. And to go to her husband now with such a story was utterly beyond Chris's powers of accomplishment. She lacked the courage to speak with simplicity and candour, and she was painfully aware that to give a halting account of the matter would be infinitely more dangerous than to keep silence. Already her husband's faith in her veracity had been shaken. Was it likely that he would accept unquestioning her assurance that this matter, which she had rigorously suppressed for so long and which she only imparted to him now under compulsion, was in reality one of trivial importance? Would he believe her? Had she ever fostered his belief in her? Could he in reason do so even if he desired?
Moreover, there was another obstacle. There was Bertrand. Though he had offered to speak for her, though he had desired to explain all, and though she knew that Trevor's faith in him was absolute, yet the presence of Bertrand in itself made candour impossible. Why this should be she did not know. It was a problem which she had not attempted to solve. But the fact remained. She dreaded unspeakably the possibility of having to describe the intimacy that had existed between herself and Bertrand in the old, free, Valpre days. She dreaded the keen searching of the grey eyes that, if they sought long enough, were bound to find her soul, and not only to find, but to enter it, to penetrate to its most hidden corner, and to draw out into the full light of day one of her most sacred possessions. She felt that she could not bear this probing. The very thought of it was horrible to her, and in connection with it the steady scrutiny of her husband's eyes became almost a thing abhorrent. Vaguely she knew, without realizing, that she cherished deep in that inmost shrine something which he must never see, something that it would be agony to show him, something that even now gnawed secretly at her quivering heart. She always shrank from his direct look, though she would not have him know it. The calm, level gaze frightened her, she knew not why. Perhaps the secret of all her fear of him lay hidden in this problem that she dared not face.
No, she could not endure a full revelation of the truth. Bertrand had declared that Mordaunt could not discover what was non-existent, but it was not this that Chris feared. It was something infinitely more terrible, a floating suspicion that might harden into actual fact at any moment.
And so her whole being was concentrated upon avoiding the catastrophe that instinct warned her to be impending. Everything hung upon the keeping of that secret which once had seemed to her so small a thing. It had grown to mighty proportions of late. She did not ask herself wherefore; but once in the night she smiled a piteous little smile at the recollection of Manon, the maid-of-all-work, and her story of the spell that bound all who entered the Magic Cave. She remembered how she had laughed over it; but Bertrand had not laughed. He had been quite grave; she remembered that also. He had even spoken as if he believed in it. For a little her thoughts dwelt upon that night, on the quick confidences he had poured out, on her own consternation over the nature of his enterprise, on the words he had uttered then to comfort her. She had never given them much thought before. To-night, lying by her husband's side, they returned to her, and for the first time she pondered them seriously. He had dismissed ambition and success, even the strife of nations, at a breath. He had been able to do so even then, when he was nearing the summit of his aspirations. "What are they?" he had said. "Only a procession that marches under the windows, only a dream in the midst of a great Reality."
What had he meant by that? she asked herself, and searched her memory for more. It came with a curious vividness, a winged message, straight and sure as an arrow. "We look out above them," he had said, "you and I"--suddenly she heard the very thrill of his voice, and it pierced her through and through--"to the great heaven and the sun; and we know that that is life--the Spark Eternal that nothing can ever quench." Chris did not ask herself the meaning of that. She hid it away in her heart, quickly, quickly, lest seeing she should also understand.
It was very early in the morning when she slipped out of bed, and crept to the open window to watch the stars fade into the dawning. She would have liked to pray, but no prayer occurred to her. And so she knelt quite passive, gazing forth over the dim garden, too tired to think any longer, yet too miserable to sleep. She did not know that her husband's eyes gravely watched her throughout her vigil, and when presently she lay down again she still believed him to be sleeping.
In the morning inspiration came to Chris. She believed Rupert to be out of debt, thanks to Trevor's generosity. She would get him to raise the money for her. She knew he must have ways and means of so doing which were quite beyond her reach. At least, it seemed her only resource, and she would try it.
"Are you quite well, Chris?" her husband asked her when he rose at an early hour, as was his custom.
"Quite," said Chris. "Why?"
She looked at him nervously with heavy-lidded eyes.
He bent to kiss her before leaving the room. "Don't get up yet," he said kindly. "Stay in bed and have a sleep."
"But I--I have slept," she stammered.
He put the hair gently back from her forehead. "I know all about it," he said.
She started away from him in sheer panic. "About what?" she gasped, in a whisper; then, seeing his brows go up, "Oh, Trevor, I--I'm sorry. No, I haven't slept very well. But--"
"I thought not," he interposed quietly. "Well, sleep now, dear."
He turned to go, but impulsively she caught his hand, held it a moment, then suddenly put it to her lips. But she would not look at him, would not even raise her eyes again; and he, after the briefest pause, withdrew his hand, touched her cheek with it lightly, and so left her.
When they met again at the breakfast-table she was discussing with Aunt Philippa the best means of spending the day. Bertrand was not present. He usually took chocolate at that hour in Mordaunt's room, where he could continue his secretarial work uninterrupted. Noel was not yet down.
Chris turned at once to address her husband. "I have had a line from Max. He is coming down for a few days I think he hasn't been well--overworking, he says."
"I can scarcely believe," said Aunt Philippa, with her acid smile, "that a Wyndham could ever suffer from that complaint."
"They don't over-rest, anyhow," said Mordaunt, with a glance at his wife's tired face. "I shall be very pleased to see him, Chris. Write and tell him so."
"I don't think I need write," she said. "He will be here this afternoon. Shall I ask Rupert to come over and dine, so that we can all be together--that is, if Aunt Philippa doesn't mind?"
"Pray do not consider me," said Aunt Philippa.
"Do exactly as you like," said Mordaunt quietly. "Rupert is always welcome so far as I am concerned."
Chris rose from the table as he sat down. "I will send him a note at once if I may, or I shall miss the post."
"Have you had any breakfast?" he asked, detaining her