Breakfast at the Palace was always an uncertain meal. The Bishop's duties necessitated so many erratic journeys that he was wont to describe himself as "a commercial traveler of the Church," and a fixed breakfast-hour was impossible. On the morning after the dinner to celebrate Jack's engagement he was astir earlier than usual, and his son was off before eight, returning to town by train.
Lady Hester breakfasted in her room, pleading indisposition--and, indeed, she looked ill. Her husband was much concerned, and suggested the family doctor, but she protested that she would be better soon, and needed no advice. She begged him to go about his duties for the day--which necessitated a short journey--without troubling about their guests, and come back as soon as possible.
Mr. Bannister never breakfasted in public if he could avoid it, begging indulgence on the plea of insomnia. Voss attended him in his room, and announced that her ladyship was indisposed. He smiled.
Mabel was the only one besides Aunt Caroline who appeared down-stairs at the regulation hour. She had avoided Jack, taking cowardly refuge behind her bedroom door; but she waved to him from her window as her father's "second motor" took him to the station, and the anxious husband was much relieved. The fluttering handkerchief, although waved by a sorrow-stricken, tearful woman, who was uncertain whether it might not be her last farewell, suggested at a distance a touch of gaiety. He hoped that she was feeling better this morning, and that her secret worry, whatever it was, would cure itself. He compelled his brain to a careful consideration of the brewery case, which he ought never to have left for an instant. The brief was in his bag, and he spread it out on his lap, resolved to employ every precious moment in priming himself with dry facts and technicalities.
It was not easy. The recollection of Mabel's pained, drawn face and terrified eyes persistently interfered. He wondered, too, what Lady Hester would do--what attitude she would adopt with regard to their secret, and what the consequences would be if she informed his father.
The brewery case was more important at the moment because, if it went well, it would mean more work and the possibility of independence of his father's purse. He sincerely hoped that Lady Hester would not be so foolish as to precipitate a crisis. The Bishop would be furious, especially after the dinner of last night, which advertised to the world his complete ignorance of anything more serious than an engagement. The hasty marriage was a mistake, and he had been entirely at fault.
Instead of conning his brief, he found himself dictating imaginary letters to his wife demanding an explanation of her mysterious trouble and advising her how to tackle Lady Hester.
* * * * * * * *
The state of mind of Lady Hester was pitiable. She forced herself to remain in bed until the Bishop had made his farewell; then she leapt up and paced her room again--she had been pacing it nearly all the night. The soft, calm years that had slipped by so gently had left her weak and irresolute, unable to grapple with the crisis when it came. Panic and hysteria had swept over her in the first gusts of the hurricane, but she was bracing herself for the battle royal now. The old proud Hester who had forced her unscrupulous husband to his knees and demanded freedom as the price of silence was coming to life again. Her brain had ripened with the experience of maturer womanhood, but the heart, weakened by the new emotions of motherhood, was doubly vulnerable to attack from the archrascal who once more held her in his power.
There were others whom she would drag down now if she went under. The country would ring from end to end with the scandal of her marriage to the Bishop. The sin of deception was the same when she married the hard-working vicar, but its consequences and perils had increased with every step in John Cardew's progress toward the mitre.
If he only knew--if he only knew!
It was the burden of all her thoughts from the moment of the resurrection of Dick Gordon; but the amazing revelation of Mabel's real origin relegated it to a second place. The discovery brought with it a wave of joy and wonderment, brief enough, but real while it lasted. It had saved her reason, and touched tender chords, whereas Dick Gordon's return would only have driven her to tragic expedients--suicide or murder--to save poor John from the blasting breath of public scandal.
Mabel's engagement would have been a calamity; her marriage was a tragedy. There was no loophole, no escape from that. It was one more tangle in the skein; yet it gave Lady Hester an ally and a confidante, which was something to a woman aching with years of lonely brooding.
Her agonizing bewilderment alternated with brief transports of joy when she thought of her child. Mabel was hers, beautiful and delightful, all that she could have wished, untainted by her strange parentage, unspoiled by her motherless training, with her innocence carefully guarded and respected by her extraordinary father. It argued the presence of some good in the man. She sought comfort in the thought that Mabel being married to Jack, was out of Dick Gordon's jurisdiction for ever; and whatever happened, no one could rob her of her motherhood. It was this one brief, fixed star in the whirling constellation of revolving troubles that saved her reason. The necessity of safeguarding herself would not have been sufficient to steady her without the all-absorbing need of shielding the Bishop and her daughter. It was for others she must work. She, personally, was utterly lost, hopelessly discredited and done for. The Bishop was no longer her husband. The shackles of that early wedlock held her to the villain who once imagined that he could mould her to his will, and would certainly make fresh terms. It must be a duel to the death, for her own sake, for her child's sake; and the Bishop's claims were greater than either. Woman-like, she was ready for any sacrifice, any subterfuge, any lie, to keep inviolate his spotless reputation.
To confess anything to him now was out of the question, until she knew what her former husband was going to do. The shock of Jack's secret marriage would be enough for the old man to bear. If the real state of his domestic affairs was known to him his action would be swift and terrible. He would not spare himself or her. She would be put away as an unclean thing; and the world would mock at the reverend man for a fool who had been hoodwinked by a designing woman.
What a triumph for Aunt Caroline! Strange as it may seem, her greatest dread was of what the old lady would say and do if she got so much as an inkling of the truth. The name Dick Gordon upon Aunt Caroline's lips had struck terror to her soul, and at first suggested that she knew everything; but a little reasoning made it clear that this could not be so.
For the sake of appearances Lady Hester sent a polite message to her guests pleading indisposition, and begged that Mr. Bannister and Mabel would follow their own inclinations until lunch time.
Mr. Bannister's reply was that he hoped Lady Hester would on no account trouble about him. He would take the opportunity of motoring over to Dingle Hall, and sincerely hoped that he would find her better at lunch time.
The message, delivered by Voss with due obsequiousness, was tantamount to a truce. He was going to give her a few hours' respite. He was in no hurry. Always leisurely; and always more deadly when he approached things slowly.
* * * * * * * *
Mabel had something of her mother's power of self-control before others. She had gone down to breakfast to find Aunt Caroline already there, presiding in solitary state. The greeting between the two women was frigid in the extreme. The girl, true to her promise to Jack to be tolerant, shut her eyes to the obvious rudeness of the other's greeting. So far as she understood, Aunt Caroline knew nothing to her detriment, and had no suspicion of the shadow in the house. So she applied herself to propitiate Jack's aunt with well-bred tact and gentleness, conscious that the very worst Aunt Caroline could think about her was not nearly so bad as the truth.
The conversation ranged over a limited area, including the weather, the cathedral, the Bishop's latest portrait in the _Graphic_, and the singing in the drawing-room over-night. The old lady's replies were sharp and blunt to the verge of offence. Yet she was not insensible to the girl's gentle voice, her well-bred air, and her persistent deference to one who was her elder. She had more leisure to inspect her personal charms, to note the soft, melting eyes, the small hands, the low, restrained voice, and the very plain, simple, morning gown. In spite of a desire to be antagonistic her curiosity was aroused, and she startled Mabel by one or two questions. After staring ahead out of the window for some time, lost in thought, as though Mabel did not exist, she suddenly rapped out an embarrassing inquiry.
"When did your mother die, child?"
"I--I'm sure I don't know. I was too young to remember. I never had any knowledge of my mother. I think she died when I was born."
"You think. Don't you know?"
"I have never questioned my father closely upon the subject. It is a painful one with him, and he has never discussed it with me."
"Humph! Strange thing for a girl not to know. Who was your mother?"
Mabel looked puzzled and confused. She did not quite understand the other's exact meaning.
"I meant what was her family, her maiden name? You surely have relations who could tell you what your father's sensitive disposition prevented him discussing." This with a sneer was not lost upon Mabel.
"I have no relatives but my father."
"I suppose I seem rude to you," observed the stiff old lady, after another pause, piercing the girl through with her cold, grey eyes.
"Not at all--not at all."
"You see, I'm Jack's aunt. You are being treated as one of the family, and I suppose you think you are going to marry him."
"That rests with Jack, doesn't it?" replied the girl evasively.
"You haven't told me who your mother was. What was her maiden name?"
"That I have never been told; and I fear it had little interest for me because--because, having no relations----"
"An extraordinary position. I've never heard of such a case. Your father has money, I believe, and he inherited it from some one. Are his family London people?"
"I have never heard him speak of his family, except to say that he was an only son, left an orphan while he was at Oxford."
Mabel's face was white as the table-cloth, and she dared not face those relentless eyes. Aunt Caroline smelt a rat. "The girl knows all about her father, and something to his discredit," she thought. "She's only an artful hussy after all."
The impression that Mabel had made up to this point was distinctly favorable; but to all inquiries about her father she replied with such palpable hesitation and embarrassment that her mental suffering showed in her face, which was a mirror of pain.
The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Voss in the breakfast-room--Voss subdued, soft-voiced, and self-effacing. He entered apologetically, and approached Miss Cardew humbly, as if distressed at having to disturb her. He came with a message from his master.
"Mr. Bannister's compliments, and he is going over to Dingle Hall after breakfast in the motor. If Miss Cardew has not made any arrangements for the morning he would esteem it a favor if she would accompany him and give him the benefit of her valuable advice."
The naïve audacity of it took away her breath. Once again she found herself staggered and disconcerted, wondering whether, after all, she had not done this amiable gentleman a serious injustice by listening to Mr. Crick's libellous slanders. She had never ridden in a motor car, and would dearly have loved to accept.
Caution and suspicion got the better of her. "The rascal wants to kill me," she thought, and replied tartly--
"My compliments to Mr. Bannister, but I never motor."
Voss bowed and withdrew; and when he was well behind the old lady's back allowed his face to express some disappointment. He returned to his master, who was lounging in dressing-gown and slippers, and making a poor breakfast, chiefly on the contents of the _Times_.
"Well?" asked Bannister, looking up as Voss entered.
"No go," replied the other. "She don't motor; she ain't taking any."
"What are we to do then, Voss? The old girl must be quieted somehow and got out of the way. I suppose she intends to remain here for some time."
"So her maid says. She almost lives here when there is anything going on, or anybody is visiting the Bishop--just the time they don't want her."
"Have you any suggestions, Voss?"
Voss scratched his right whisker and looked wise. "It would have been better to take her out and smash her up altogether."
"Ah, yes. Something that will keep her to her bed is the only thing that will serve us."
"I could give her a drop of something in her tea. I've got a bottle or two with me."
"No, no, Voss, none of your mixtures. I thought you were cured of that weakness of yours for crude methods belonging to mediaeval ages."
"Oh, they'll do for all ages, and the old girl's not so very old."
Bannister smiled pityingly. "I said mediaeval ages, middle ages."
"Well, I said it was good for any age."
Bannister laughed softly, and gave up attempting to translate his meaning. He loved to use phrases that were beyond Voss's understanding, and the more stupid the man's blunders the more he was pleased.
"Drugs are the implements of reckless fools, Voss, and at best their effect is only temporary. It is always mysterious, and liable to provoke suspicion. No, you must think of something better."
"A telegram," suggested Voss. "A message from a dying friend, or something of that sort."
"A mere temporary expedient, and clumsier than the others."
"How long do you want for your philandering with the Bishop's lady?"
"An unlimited time. It will be impossible to get ten words with her with that old dragon about."
"Take the lady in the motor, and leave the old girl at home."
"Ah, that is better, Voss. My compliments to her ladyship, and does she think that a gentle ride in the motor to Dingle Hall will do her headache good."
Voss departed to find Lady Hester's maid, and presently returned with the answer.
"Her ladyship's compliments, and she is sure it would make her headache worse."
Bannister laughed, and rose and paced the room with unusual energy. He paused before the mirror and admired himself--and laughed again. There was no mirth, but rather irritation.
"Ho, ho, we are haughty, are we? We throw down the gage. Very well, we shall see. Voss, my compliments to her ladyship, and I feel sure that the motor ride will do her good."
Voss, unaware of the nature of his master's power over the mistress of the house, elevated his eyebrows in surprise. But it was not his place to question. Assuming his best wooden-faced expression, he went off again to find Lady Hester's maid.
When he was gone Bannister showed less restraint. His eyes brightened, and those red patches on the pale cheeks glowed over the edge of his beard. He mentally reviewed his chances of success.
"She will come, or she will not. If she does, well and good; if not, I shall know the spirit in which to approach her. I could not expect her to be glad to see me. But the shock over, surely memory will arouse the woman in her. I saw her looking at me very strangely last night. Ah, yes, I think I have improved." This to his small mirror.
He strode into his dressing-room and admired himself before the long mirror. With the comb he arranged his beautiful black front locks, caressed his beard to a nice point, and indulged in a pose of inordinate vanity--that vanity which is the inevitable characteristic of your thorough-going criminal.
Yet he was irritated that Lady Hester's lovely image, although changed by time, should still fire his admiration. He could remember distinctly how she looked last night, everything she wore, even to the combs in her hair. Being the only woman who had ever aroused in him a spark of self-respect, the only one who ever touched his better self, he had loved her as deeply as it was possible for a man so self-absorbed to love any one. A procession of women had filed through his life, amorous, indecorous, useful, romantic, passionate, according to mood and circumstances and the chance encounters of his wandering life. For some he had set snares. Others had come of their own accord and flung themselves hysterically into his arms. All found him utterly merciless. Only for one woman had he ever made a self-sacrifice.
His surrender of his young wife had cost him many a pang. The girl whom he had ruined, but loved, and whom he could never have hoped to break and bend to his dishonorable mode of life, had been voluntarily released at some cost to himself. Perhaps it was the only time in his life that he had ever taken any trouble to undo a wrong. His elaborate fraud to make her think him dead--and at the same time to wipe out the personality of Dick Gordon--was his way of trying to make amends. He relieved her of the incumbrance of the child, and descended gracefully to the grave through the columns of the _Times_, flattering himself that he had done a noble act by severing as far as possible the ties that bound them, and leaving her free to return unsullied, as far as the world knew, to spinsterhood.
The recollection of it had always been one of his most comforting memories. Whenever his self-esteem needed a little tonic he was accustomed to look back upon that episode as a positive orgie of self-abnegation. Out of regard for this woman whom he had loved he reared her child as she would have had it reared, had she known that it lived. Thus did he liquidate his debt to her, and at the same time indulge a mild instinct of paternity which, next to his love for his lost wife, was his only constant human emotion. If Mabel had been a boy he would have preferred to have her drowned; being a girl, and the daughter of her lovely mother, there was a possibility of her growing up to be a joy and an ornament, a comfort and a plaything. During her childhood he saw her at intervals--sometimes very long ones--and each time was more pleased and more satisfied with his venture in paternity. He regarded his child as an investment for his old age, and an amusement for idle hours. She was a pretty pet, and he loved her much as he would have loved a dog.
As the romance of his life receded into the past, dim and shadowy, he looked back upon it as an episode begun and ended. He refused to consider the woman any further as a living personality moving in another world to his own. Whether she had married, or died, or immured herself in a convent, he cared not. She had ceased to exist as a reality--until he took her in his arms the other night, warm and pulsating, a very real thing; the same old Hester, but ripened in the sunshine of peace and prosperity. How the blood had raced through his veins! What an effort to retain his usual sangfroid! It was only later, when his sense of humor was tickled by the amazing irony of the situation, that he managed to recover his equilibrium, and survey the woman and her new husband with cynical amusement.
He was still magnanimous enough to hold his peace and not interfere with Hester in her new sphere if she would show a spark of gratitude for the great self-abnegation of his youth. With his perverted sense of virtue he still considered that he had done a great and chivalrous act under the influence of disappointed youthful passion. He was not equal to such self-denial now-a-days, and he wanted full credit for past virtue.
Mabel's secret marriage with Jack had complicated things in such a way that Hester's future and his own were once more irrevocably linked. He did not for a moment contemplate robbing her of the proud position of wife to the Bishop of Ripley. He expected her to cling to it as to life itself.
Mabel was her child. She knew it now; and he was willing to share his daughter with her mother. In what way better than by Mabel's marriage with the Bishop's son? Jack was no blood relation of the girl, and he was a reasonably good match. A husband had come upon the scene in the nick of time to take care of her, just when her eyes were opening to the things around her, and she was likely to become troublesome to her parent. Her marriage with a Bishop's son was an appreciable testimony to his own respectability, issued at a propitious moment when his reputation was getting distinctly frayed at the edges, and the allotted span of his criminal career was nearing its close.
The caution and deliberation which had stood him in such stead in his raids upon society was also responsible for his lifelong determination to prosper on his ill-gotten wealth and retire from business like any other successful artist. His gambling profits were never large--he was too cute to win always, and, when occasion needed, could lose as effectively as he won. To win always was a fool's game. To lose cleverly and effectively was artistic, and set him on a different plane from the professional swindler. But at intervals during the years after his parting with Hester, opportunities of bringing off big things had come in his way--brought to his notice chiefly by the greedier and less artistic Voss--venture not for hundreds, but for thousands--diamonds, and bonds, filched chiefly from silly women traveling in strange countries. These had filled the exchequer to overflowing. He never attempted anything where the odds were not in his favor ten to one. Voss did the dirty work, and his master took the lion's share. Voss was fairly rich, too, thanks to the almost despotic control exercised over him by the superior mind of his master. Both rascals worked for a common end, strengthened and fortified by a financial backing which is as useful in the sheep-shearing business as in any other.
They wanted one more big coup, one handsome haul to round off the balance; and it had come their way in the inevitable cycle of professional luck, in the shape of Lady Hester's emeralds. Voss intended to have them. The value of the emeralds--quite an unknown quantity--increased as his imagination played round them.
Bannister, for the second time in his life, was standing on dangerous ground. His inordinate vanity had led him to believe that he was impervious to all common emotions, and would never again be swayed by chivalrous impulses, tenderness, pity, or uncontrollable passion. Hester was still beautiful, and being linked--poor thing--to a man old enough to be her father, must necessarily be more vulnerable than ever. He imagined that he had only to smile and to gaze into the depths of those fine eyes, to re-kindle the old fires and resume the old mastery, while still retaining perfect control over himself. At one time he had writhed under her withering contempt; now it was she who must grovel, and tremble, for she was perched upon a pinnacle in the market-place, and her fall would be in the sight of all men and a notorious thing.
The extreme irony of the situation tickled him so much that he laughed softly. The emeralds were his already. They would in due course come down to Mabel, and to transfer them now from the Bishop's palace to the dealers in Amsterdam would only be anticipating the future. They were worth a huge sum of money; they were never worn; and Hester would not miss them; nor would Mabel. Their transfer would swell his reserve fund to such a figure that he could turn respectable at once. What greater excuse could a thief have?
The purchase of Dingle Hall could be carried through in good faith, and he would ever after be a model father to his son and daughter, whose interests he could thus further by the aid of the Bishop's surplus wealth.
Hester would have to swallow her pride, and be friends again. He put behind him the great temptation of love which had come over him last night in a wave of passionate desire. The violence of it had surprised and troubled him. This morning he tried to be amused at it. Hester, with her conscientious scruples and high notions of honor, would scorn to deceive the Bishop. It would be madness. Yet he liked the idea of that kind of madness in a woman, and was vain enough to believe that he could provoke it at will if he chose to exert his irresistible powers of fascination. It offered a pleasant prospect of excitement in the days of social respectability to come; with Hester at the Palace and himself at Dingle Hall--a pretty and diverting situation.
The more he thought of her the harder it was to put the temptation behind him. Why should he have compunction in robbing the Bishop of Hester--it was really the Bishop who had robbed him. A man could not sin with his own wife. In fact, he had a perfect right to be jealous of the prelate.
He scorned the idea of jealousy; yet there had been an ugly gnawing at his heart and a growing hatred of the pompous, benevolent old gentleman. When he saw them together last night, and witnessed the prelate's tender anxiety, and possessive, caressing way with Mrs. Dick Gordon, it made him savage.
Bah! jealousy was a woman's weakness. A man of the world should despise it. Yet he was eager and impatient to draw her to himself, if only to quarrel and begin recriminations. The moments of the Bishop's absence had already become precious. He wanted to see her face to face--as in the old days.
Voss returned with her ladyship's answer.
"She won't go. Says she hopes she'll be well enough this afternoon to take you to the Cathedral and show you the points of interest."
"Ah, that's better," laughed Bannister softly.
Then he wondered if she had chosen the Cathedral as a place for discussion because it offered sanctuary, and would allow her to keep him at arm's length. She was afraid, obviously; afraid to be alone with him. She doubted her own strength.
The idea pleased his vanity. He hummed a little tune, and placed himself in Voss's hands for dressing with an almost eager haste, as though he would hurry on the hours to the time of meeting.
Before his toilet was finished to his complete satisfaction, Lady Hester's maid left a sealed note at the door, which Voss passed to his master wonderingly. Bannister opened it quickly, and his eyes danced as he read.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, with a big sigh of satisfaction, and folded the grey sheet carefully. "There is no answer, Voss."
Voss fidgeted. He expected his partner to confide in him; but he was mistaken. Bannister never imparted to his man any details of _affaires d'amour_. Judging by his high humor and evident satisfaction it was obvious that the missive exceeded his most sanguine expectations.