Voices in the Night. Flora Annie Webster Steel
had been right in his choice, years ago. Not that it mattered; since all that had once been between them had been forgotten--by him at any rate. Absolutely forgotten.
'Mr. Raymond!' she began suddenly, leaning closer to him over the table, 'surely it would be foolish in either of us to be ashamed, or to pretend forgetfulness of the close tie that was between us--once.'
'I have not forgotten,' he said involuntarily, then paused disconcerted at his own collapse. Which was true, his denial or affirmation of memory? Both, in a way.
She smiled, as women do, at remembrance, even when they believe they wish forgetfulness.
'I said pretend, Mr. Raymond!' she corrected. 'We are not likely to forget. Why should we?'
'On the other hand, why should we remember?' he asked. 'The past, Lady Arbuthnot, is past.'
The very idea of his thinking it necessary to assert this made her frown.
'Exactly so; therefore I come to you because memory gives me a friend, nothing more. And I need a friend just now.'
'You have plenty of them to choose from,' he began, 'you always had----'
'And I choose you,' she put in, with a charming little nod.
He sat bewildered for a moment, then said stiffly, 'May I ask why?'
'If I may answer by the question, why not? Surely we need not be strangers? And besides----'
'And besides?'--he echoed grimly, 'a woman's second reason is generally better than her first.'
Lady Arbuthnot's face grew grave. 'Mine is, Mr. Raymond, infinitely better. What I want your help for is no mere personal matter; it is something in which you might do a yeoman's service to the Government----'
'You are very kind,' he interrupted brusquely; 'but, as I thought you knew, I found out twelve years ago that the Government could do very well without my services.'
'It might have done better with them----'
'You are very kind,' he repeated; 'and this difficulty of yours?'
She flushed up. 'Excuse me! It was you, not I, who wandered from the point. I knew my reasons for choosing your help. However, let us stick to business. I have lost a jewel-case.'
'So I heard,' he said, 'and I am sorry it should have contained your pearls.'
Pearls! she thought vexedly; did he think she had come to him about the pearls? That was but a step better than Stilton cheese. His following words, however, disarmed her.
'They belonged to your mother, I remember; they were beautiful pearls!'
'Yes!' she assented softly, and paused. 'But it is not the pearls,' she went on. 'I will tell you what it is, and why I am anxious.'
He sat listening to her story with rather a bored look.
'It is most unlikely the letter will turn up,' he said at last. 'An Indian thief would throw it away, even though, as you say, it was in a sealed official envelope; he knows nothing of the value of documents. But it is a pity you kept it; for that matter, had it. That sort of thing is a mistake.'
Something in his tone made her say quickly, 'You blame father--why? You know how he trusted me-how you----' She felt inclined to remind him of his own confidence in her, but she refrained. 'Remember I have always----'
'Been in the swim,' he suggested.
'Could I help that?' she asked, feeling him unfair. 'What I mean is, that every one, even my husband----'
'I have always heard you do a great deal for Sir George,' he said nastily, regretting his unfairness even as he spoke. He need not have done so, save for his own sake, since her defence annihilated him.
'As I would have done for you, Mr. Raymond.'
'I--I beg your pardon,' he said limply, feeling himself a brute. 'This paper or letter, then, as I understand it, would have been a sort of safe-conduct to prevent the authorities rounding on Sir George after the event, as they are apt to do. As--a thought seemed to strike him, and he looked at her sharply--'as they did on me. Your experience has been useful to you, Lady Arbuthnot!'
She flushed up again. 'How could I prevent its being so? I am not a fool. But you know quite well I do not come to you on his account. It is because I am so afraid of the contents of that unfortunate letter leaking out. With this general election going on----'
He shrugged his shoulders and rose. 'I am no politician, as I told you; but as a personal matter----'
She rose also and challenged him with eyes, voice, and manner. 'I do not choose it to be a personal matter. It is more than that; it might concern the prestige, the honour of our Government! Surely you must still care for that? You used----'
He interrupted her with a laugh. 'It would be in a parlous state if it depended on me. I don't trouble my head about patriotism nowadays, I assure you.'
She came a step nearer, as if to bar a hint he gave of leaving. 'Is that possible?' she asked, almost sternly; 'within gunshot, as we stand now, of a place where Englishmen died in hundreds to keep the hand of their race upon the plough of India.'
The lightness had no choice but to pass from his face.
'Mine left it ten years ago, Lady Arbuthnot,' he said, his voice matching hers; 'and yours, excuse me, is not the one to wile it back. But for your husband's sake--not for yours, that past is past--I will----'
She lost her temper absolutely then. 'Who thinks, who wishes it otherwise? Can you not understand my motive in coming to you?'
'Perfectly,' he said coolly. 'You feel responsible--why, God knows!-- for the hash I have made of my life. I speak from your point of view, remember. Of course, nothing I can say will mitigate this feeling; it is a habit you good women have. Now I, as a man, should have thought that the palpable result of my going my own way, instead of yours, would have given you the certainty of having been right in refusing to countenance it.'
She did not speak for a second, and when she did there was a tremor in her voice. 'That doesn't lessen--the--the pity of it,' she said, half to herself; 'it is pitiful. Even if you had any one, wife or child----' She broke off and added apologetically, 'One can scarcely help regrets.'
Once more the man in him felt annihilated by the revelation of the woman in her. 'My--my dear, kind lady,' he said, touched in spite of himself, 'I can assure you I get along splendidly all round. You're all too kind. And as for the kids,' he added half nervously, for she looked as if she would cry, and he wished to cheer her up, 'I'm chums with the lot of them. Jerry, for instance! What a ripping little chap he is--such a lot of go; but he isn't a bit like you.'
She stood looking at him without replying for a moment, and the half-puzzled expression which had been in her face when she had watched him and the child standing hand-in-hand at the racecourse returned to it. 'No!' she said. 'Nor like his father. He has harked back in face to my mother's people--she was a distant cousin of your father's, you remember. And in mind--who knows? But I'm glad you like him; he returns the compliment.'
It seemed so, indeed, for Jerry himself, appearing that instant, had his hand tucked into Jack Raymond's even before he delivered his message, which was to the effect that dad was wanting mum to go home. He gabbled this through, in order to say, with a military formality learned, to his great delight, from Captain Lloyd, 'Ah, sir! I'm glad it's you; 'cos it isn't weally dark, an' Miss Dwummond's weading the Spectator, so it's just the time for you to show me the pwoperest places in the Garden Mound, please, as you pwomised you would. I mean the places where people was blown up--or deaded somehow!'
'You bloodthirsty young ruffian!' laughed Jack Raymond, feeling relieved at the interruption. 'All right! come along! I promised to take him round and tell him about the defence, Lady Arbuthnot,' he explained; 'but perhaps you will allow me to find your carriage for you first.'
'Thanks,' she replied curtly, 'my husband will do that. Good-night, Mr. Raymond.