WILLIAM LE QUEUX: 15 Dystopian Novels & Espionage Thrillers (Illustrated Edition). William Le Queux
however, of the eternal small talk about new books, new plays, new pictures, and the newest fads, I was glad when, after smoking, we were free to rejoin the ladies in the quaint, oak-panelled drawing-room.
The moon had risen, and ere long I strolled with Ella through the French windows, and out upon the lawn, eager to talk alone with her.
“Well,” she said at length, when we were seated in the shadow beneath one of the high rustling elms, “so you want an explanation. What can I give?”
“Your letter conveys the suspicion that there exists some secret between Beck and yourself,” I said, as calmly as I could.
“My letter!” she exclaimed, in a voice that seemed a little harsh and strained. “What did I say? I really forget.”
“It’s useless to prevaricate, Ella,” I said, rather impatiently. “You say that if I knew all I would never utter words of love to you. What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I wrote,” she answered huskily, in a low voice.
“You mean to imply that you are unworthy of the love of an honest man?” I observed in astonishment.
“Yes,” she gasped hoarsely. “I do not — I — cannot deceive you, Geoffrey, because I love you.” The last sentence she uttered passionately, with a fierce fire burning in her eyes. “You are jealous of Andrew Beck, a man old enough to be my father. Well, I confess I was foolish to allow him to walk with me here with his arm around my waist; yet at that moment the indiscretion did not occur to me.”
“But he was speaking to you — whispering into your ready ears words of love and tenderness. He spoke in persuasive tones, as if begging you to become his wife,” I said angrily, the very thought of the scene I had witnessed filling me with indignation and bitter hatred.
“No, you are entirely mistaken, Geoffrey. No word of love passed between us,” she said quietly, looking into my eyes with unwavering glance.
I smiled incredulously.
“You will perhaps deny that here, within six yards of this very spot, you stopped and burst forth into tears?” I exclaimed, with cold cynicism.
“I admit that. The words he uttered were of sufficient significance to bring tears to my eyes,” she replied vaguely.
“He must have spoken words of love to you,” I argued. “I watched you both.”
“I deny that he did, Geoffrey,” she cried fiercely, starting up. “To satisfy you, I am even ready to take an oath before my Creator that the subject of our conversation was not love.”
“What was Beck persuading you to do?” I demanded.
“No, no,” she cried, as if the very thought was repulsive to her. “No, do not ask me. I can never tell you, never!”
“Then there is a secret between you that you decline to reveal,” I said reproachfully.
She laughed a harsh metallic laugh, answering in a tone of feigned flippancy, —
“Really, Geoffrey, you are absurdly and unreasonably suspicious. I tell you I love no other man but yourself, yet merely because it pleases you to misconstrue what you have witnessed you brand me as base and faithless. It is unjust.”
“But your letter!” I cried.
“I had no intention of conveying the idea that any secret existed between Mr Beck and myself. He was, as you well know, an old friend of my father’s, and has known me since a child. Towards me he is always friendly and good-natured, but I swear he has never spoken to me of love.”
“But you cannot deny, Ella, that a secret — some fact that you are determined to keep from me — exists, and that if not of love, it was of that secret Beck spoke to you so earnestly in the garden here!”
Her dry lips moved, but no sound escaped them. She shivered. I saw my question had entirely nonplussed her, and I felt instinctively that I had uttered the truth.
At that instant, however, a servant crossed the lawn in the moonlight, and approaching, handed me a telegram, stating that Juckes, my man, had brought it over from Shepperton, fearing that it might be of importance.
Hastily I thrust it into my pocket unopened, and when the servant was out of hearing I repeated the plain question I had put to my well-beloved.
In the bright moonlight I watched how pale and agitated was her face, while involuntarily she shuddered, as if the thought that I might ascertain the truth terrified her.
“Geoffrey,” she said at last, in a low, plaintive voice as, sitting beside me, her slim fingers suddenly closed convulsively upon mine, “why cannot you trust me, when you know I love you so dearly?”
“Why cannot you tell me the truth instead of evading it? You say you are unworthy of my love. Why?”
“I — I cannot tell you,” she cried wildly, breaking into hysterical sobs. “Ah! You do not know how I have suffered, Geoffrey, or you would not speak thus to me. If you can no longer trust me, then we must, alas! part. But if we do, I shall think ever of you as one who misjudged me and cast me off, merely because of my inability to give you an explanation of one simple incident.”
“But I love you, Ella,” I cried. “Why should we part — why should — ”
“Hulloa, Deedes!” interrupted Beck’s high-pitched, genial voice. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. We’re all going for a moonlight row. Come along.”
Further conversation was, I saw, out of the question, and a few minutes later we had all embarked, with the exception of Mrs Laing, and were gliding slowly down the stream, now glittering in the brilliant moonbeams. Dudley had brought Ella’s mandoline from the house, and as our prow cut the rippling waters he played a soft, charming gondolier’s song. My love sat beside me in the stern, and her eyes mutely asked forgiveness as ever and anon she turned to me. I saw how beautiful she was, how full of delicate grace, and how varying were her moods; yet she seemed nervous, highly-strung, with a strange harshness in her voice that I had never before noticed. She spoke no word to Beck, and I remarked within myself that she avoided him, while once, when he leant over to grasp her hand, she shrank shudderingly from its contact.
An hour later, when, after rowing down to Laleham, we had returned to the “Nook” and, at the instigation of the ladies, were enjoying cigars, I accidentally placed my hand in the breast-pocket of my dress-coat and there felt the telegram which I had until that moment entirely forgotten. Opening it, I was amazed to find it in cipher. The cipher signature was that of the Earl of Warnham, and I saw it had been transmitted over the private wire from Warnham, his seat in Sussex.
Taking a pencil from my pocket I at once proceeded to transcribe the mysterious array of letters, and when I at last discovered the purport of the message, I sat back in my chair, breathless and rigid, while the flimsy paper nearly fell from my nerveless fingers.
“Why, Geoffrey!” cried Ella, starting up in alarm and rushing towards me, “what’s the matter? You are as pale as death. Have you had bad news?”
“Bad news!” I answered, trying to laugh and slowly rousing myself. “No bad news at all, except that I must leave for town at once.”
“Well, you certainly look as if you’ve been hard hit over a race,” Beck exclaimed, laughing.
“You can’t possibly get a train now till 11:30. It’s hardly ten yet,” said my well-beloved, exchanging a strange, mysterious glance with Dudley.
“Then I must go by that,” I answered, again re-reading the pink paper, replacing it in my pocket, and endeavouring to preserve an outward calm.
Presently, when Ella was again alone with me, her first question was, —
“What bad news have you received, Geoffrey?”
“None,” I answered, smiling. “It is a private matter, of really no importance at all.”