Hugo: A Fantasia on Modern Themes. Arnold Bennett
he asked me to marry him—quite suddenly—it was a year ago. I refused because I didn't care for him. I then saw nothing of him for some time. But after I entered your service here, he came across me again by accident. I did not know until lately that he had one of your flats. He was very careful, very polite, timid, cautious—but very obstinate, too. He invited me to call on him at his rooms, and to bring any friends I liked. Of course, it was a stupidity on his part, but, then, what else could he do? A man who wants to cultivate relations with a homeless shopgirl is rather awkwardly fixed.'
'I wish to Heaven you would not talk like that, Miss Payne!' said Hugo, interrupting her impatiently.
'I am merely telling you these things so that you may understand my position,' Camilla coldly replied. 'Do you imagine that I am amusing myself?'
'Go on, go on, I beg,' he urged, with a gesture of apology.
'Naturally, I declined the invitation. Then next I received a letter from him, in which he said that unless I called on him, or agreed to meet him in some place where we could talk privately and at length, he should kill himself within a week. And he added that death was perhaps less to him than I imagined. I believed that letter. There was something about it that touched me.'
'And so you decided to yield?'
'I did yield. I felt that if I was to trust him at all, I might as well trust him fully, and I called at his flat this afternoon alone. He was evidently astonished to see me at that hour, so I explained to him that you had closed early for some reason or other.'
'Exactly,' said Hugo.
He insisted on giving me tea. I was treated, in fact, like a princess; but during tea he said nothing to me that might not have been said before a roomful of people. After tea he left me for a few moments, in order, as he said, to give some orders to his servants. Up till then he had been extremely agitated, and when he returned he was even more agitated. He walked to and fro in that lovely drawing-room of his—just as you were doing here not long since. I was a little afraid.'
'Afraid of what?' demanded Hugo.
'I don't know—of him, lest he might do something fatal, irretrievable; something—I don't know. And then, being alone with him in that palace of a place! Well, he burst out suddenly into a series of statements about himself, and about his future, and his intentions, and his feelings towards me. And these statements were so extraordinary and so startling that I could not think he had invented them. I believed them, as I had believed in the sincerity of his threat to kill himself if I would not listen to him.'
'And what were they—these statements?' Hugo inquired.
Camilla waved aside the interruptions, and continued: '"Now," he said, "will you marry me? Will you marry me now?"'
She paused and glanced at Hugo, who observed that her eyes were filling with tears.
'And then?' murmured Hugo soothingly.
'Then I agreed to marry him.'
And with these words she cried openly.
'If anyone had told me beforehand,' she resumed, 'that I should be so influenced by a man's—a man's acting, I would have laughed. But I was—I was. He succeeded completely.'
'You have not said what these extraordinary statements were,' Hugo insisted.
'Don't ask me,' she entreated, drying her eyes. 'It is enough that I was hoodwinked. If you have had no hand in this plot, don't ask me. I am too ashamed, too scornful of my credulity, to repeat them. You would laugh.'
'Should I?' said Hugo, smiling gravely. 'What occurred next?'
'The next step was that Mr. Tudor asked me to accompany his housekeeper to the housekeeper's room, and on the other side of the passage from the drawing-room I was to dine with him. The housekeeper is a Mrs. Dant, a kind, fat, lame old woman, and she produced this cloak and this hat, and so on, and said that they were for me! I was surprised, but I praised them and tried them on for a moment. You must remember that I was his affianced wife. I talked with Mrs. Dant, and prepared myself for dinner, and then I went back to the drawing-room, and found Mr. Tudor ready for dinner. I asked him why he had got the clothes, and he said he had got them this very morning merely on the chance of my accepting his proposal out of pity for him. And I believed that, too.'
There was a silence.
'But that is not the end?' Hugo encouraged her.
'Oh,' she exclaimed, 'it is useless, all this story! And the episode is finished! When I came in here I was angry; I suspect you of some complicity. But I suspect you no longer, and I see now that the wisest course for a woman such as I after such an adventure is to be mute about it, and to forget it.'
'No,' he said; 'you are wrong. Trust me. I entreat.'
Camilla bit her lip.
'We went into the dining-room, and dinner was served,' she recommenced, 'and there I had my first shock, my first doubt, for one of the two waiters was your spy.'
'Shawn! My detective!'
Hugo was surprised to find that Albert, almost a novice in his vocation, had contrived to be so insinuating.
'And he made a very bad waiter indeed,' Camilla added.
'I regret it,' said Hugo. 'He meant well.' 'When the waiters had gone I asked Mr. Tudor if they were his own servants. He hesitated, and then admitted frankly that they were not. He told me that his servants were out on leave for the evening. "You don't mean to say that I am now alone with you in the flat!" I protested. "No," he said quickly. "Mrs. Dant is always in her room across the passage. Don't be alarmed, dearest." His tone reassured me. After coffee, he took my photograph by flashlight. He printed one copy at once, and then, after we had both been in the dark-room together, he returned there to get some more printing-paper. While he was absent I went into the housekeeper's room for a handkerchief which I had left there. Mrs. Dant was not in the room. But in a mirror I saw the reflection of a man hiding behind the door. I was awfully frightened. However, I pretended to see nothing, and tried to hum a song. I same into the passage. The passage window was open, and I looked out. Another man was watching on the balcony. Of course, I saw instantly it was a plot. I—I—'
'Did you recognise the men, then?' Hugo asked.
'The one in the room I was not quite sure of. The other, on the balcony, was your detective, I think. I saw him disappear in this direction.'
'But whatever the plot was, Shawn had no hand in it.'
'No, no, of course not! I see now. But the other, in the room! Ah, if you knew all my history, you would understand better! I felt that some vengeance was out against me. I saw everything clearly. I tried to keep my head, and to decide calmly what I ought to do. It was from a little table in the passage that I picked up the revolver. Then I heard hurried footsteps coming through the drawing-room towards the passage. It was Mr. Tudor. He seemed very startled. I tried to appear unconcerned. "What is the matter?" he asked; he had gone quite pale. "Nothing," I said. "I only went to fetch a handkerchief." He laughed uneasily. "I was afraid you had thought better of it and run away from me," he said. And he kissed me; I was obliged to submit. All this time I was thinking hard what to do. I suggested we should go on to the roof garden for awhile. He objected, but finally he gave way, and he brought me the cloak and hat, and we went to the garden and sat down. I felt safer there. At last I ventured to tell him that I must go home. Of course, he objected to that too, but he gave way a second time. "I will just speak to Mrs. Dant," I said. "You stay here for three minutes. By that time I shall be ready." And I went off towards the flat, but as soon as I was out of his sight I turned and ran here. And that's all.'
'You are a wonderful creature,' Hugo murmured, looking at her meditatively.
'Why?' The question was put with a sort of artless and melancholy surprise.
'How can I tell?' said Hugo. 'How can I tell why Heaven made you so?'
She laughed, and the laugh enchanted him. He had studied her during her recital;