CHAPTER XV
Joan staggered against the wall with sudden horror as Victor walked away and adjusted the chain which shut out possible intruders. Alone in the house-with him-and he was legally her husband! Could she face it? "I must, I will!" she said to herself, clenching her teeth and summoning all the fortitude she possessed to her aid.
As he turned, he noticed her pallor, the wild glitter in her great eyes. "At bay," he thought. "Mad with passion for another man-hates me-what a delicious situation!"
"Come upstairs, dearest," he said, in the new, abhorrently caressing tone which seemed to curdle her blood. "What? The staircase is too narrow for us both? Then I will go first." He tripped lightly up the steps, which were covered with oilcloth, and after turning up the gas on the landing, stood smiling upon her as she slowly, reluctantly, ascended. As she reached the top, he opened a door, and she saw a well-lighted room with a book-case, good, solid chairs, and a new Kidderminster carpet. But a curious odour floated out to meet her.
"What an odd smell of drugs!" she exclaimed, standing on the threshold. It seemed to take her back years, that pungent odour, to the schoolroom-when she went into the schoolmistress' little medicine-room to be physicked.
"I am very sorry, but I happen to be on sufferance in these rooms-their real tenant is a medical student, who has got leave because of a series of catastrophes in his family. Look here! This looks like business, doesn't it?"
He opened a cupboard door, and she saw a skeleton hanging on a peg. "Oh!" she cried, shrinking back.
He laughed. "I thought you were strong minded," he said. "But somehow I am rather glad you are not. But you are not going to stand there all the evening, are you, because there are a few harmless bones in the cupboard? There are worse things in creation than skeletons!" He spoke meaningly.
She watched him as he seated himself in a revolving chair by a writing table. There was a certain insolence in his manner and tone, as well as in his depreciatory stare, as he gazed slightingly at her and twisted his small black moustache. A diamond twinkled on his little finger.
Somehow she took courage from his shallow, careless attitude-and she was strongly stirred by a wild idea that flashed upon her. She would make use of her own scheme with Vansittart to cajole him into waiting until the mine was sprung, and he had lost her for ever!
"I am not strong-minded, more's the pity, or I should not be here to-night," she said, firmly, and she entered and seated herself opposite him, once more mistress of herself and her emotions. "Why not? Because I should have been with you long ago, if I'd had the spirit some women have!"
"You would-have followed me?" he asked, a little taken back, puzzled.
"I would! Because I believed in you!" she said, honestly. "I thought you more sinned against than sinning!"
"That is right! A woman's first duty is to believe in her husband," he exclaimed, leering at her.
"Her husband!" For a moment she was off guard, she spoke with scathing contempt. "A husband, who leaves his wife month after month, year after year, without a word!"
"A real woman would have searched for me the world through, when she had money to command as you have had!" he said, leaning back, folding his arms, and contemplating her with a savage, vindictive expression.
"Money? I have only an allowance!" she exclaimed, bitterly, and with a real bitterness. It had sometimes maddened her since his return, when she thought of what she might do if only her uncle had given her the control of a small fortune, instead of doling out an income. "And that is where our difficulty lies, Victor. I have taken a week to think hard about it. Suppose we hire a yacht under another name, and wander about for a time, and then I appeal to my uncle? I think he would be inclined to forgive-everything."
"If you remember, my dear, that was my idea, not yours," he said, leaning back in his chair, puzzled. Was it possible that Paul Naz, and the people who coupled Joan with that "milord" Paul had spoken of, were mistaken, and that she cared for him still-only her pride and vanity had kept her from showing it? "Not a yacht-bah, I detest the sea-and to be shut up in a boat! Not even with you, my beautiful wife, could I stand such gêne! No, no, I have a better idea than that. Let us lose ourselves in Paris! You know nothing, you are still a baby, if you have not seen and enjoyed life there! But you are a baby-hein? I must teach my child-wife what life really is."
Slightly exhilarated by his new view of Joan, as possibly as potentially great a victim of his fascinations as poor deluded Vera, he sprang up, and going to her, took her in his arms. The instinct to fling, thrust him violently from her, was cruelly strong. But she-in an agony of woe and love-remembered Vansittart, and mentally thought "for his sake, for his sake," as she willed passively to endure, while Victor kept his lips long and firmly on hers. At last she could bear it no longer, and freed herself with a sudden frantic effort.
"You will suffocate-choke me!" she gasped, and her eyes seemed as if starting from her head-her voice came thickly from her quivering lips.
"Well, I will be gentler, my tender dove!" he said a little satirically. He doubted her again. If she had had "any mind of him," would not that kiss of his have effectually broken down all barriers of pique, and launched her on a sea of passion? But there was charm to such a gourmet in love, as he considered himself, in appropriating what she disliked to give. He took her hand. "Come and sit with me on our friend the medico's sofa under the window there!" he coaxingly said. "I want to look at my wife, to kiss her, embrace her after these years of longing, of waiting!"
She gave him an involuntary glance of horror and terror. "Presently," she stammered. "First let me give you the money I have brought you-let us settle about our journey, when it is to be."
He stood still for a few moments, gazing steadily at her. That look had told him much-the mention of money when he asked for love told him still more.
"Very well," he said, after a pause, during which she wondered whether it would end in his killing her-in that lonely house she was at the mercy of any sudden outburst of anger of his. Just then she felt that death would be preferable to another kiss of the kind which still stung her icy lips.
"I suppose the money is in that bag?" he went on, going to the writing-table and lifting it. "You want me to take care of it for you, as your contribution to our honeymoon?" He spoke sneeringly.
"Yes," she said, watching him as he seated himself before the table. Then she went to him, took up the bag, and shook out six common leather purses she had bought at the bazaar in a great emporium that morning, and filled during the afternoon. Purses and gold alike were untraceable. "There are a hundred and twenty-five sovereigns. Count them, won't you?"
"No! I will trust you," he said, with a sinister smile. "I may be a fool for my pains, but I trust you."
She sat as if spellbound, watching him take a small bunch of keys from his pocket and open a worn old travelling desk on the table. It was his own, that desk, she mechanically thought, as she noted the half obliterated letters "V.M." on the flap, and wondered what was passing within his mind to cause that dark frown, that cruel look in his black eyes, as he slowly packed in the purses one by one.
"It is a beggarly sum that you have brought me, do you know?" he said, turning to her with sudden fierceness-and his lips were drawn back, his teeth gleamed white under his moustache. "I am too good to you! I have that here in this desk with which I could coin thousands to-morrow if I pleased. I have only to show your letters, the certificate of marriage, to your damnably miserly old uncle, and he would at once make terms. And you-you would precious soon find me as much money as I wanted if I threatened you to take the lot to your lover, Lord Vansittart!"
If a bomb had suddenly fallen upon the table before her, Joan could hardly have had a greater shock. She staggered back and fell limply into a chair, staring at him. Her lips opened to speak, but no sound came. She was livid as a corpse.
He was frightened. If she should choose to have a prolonged faint-such as he had known some women to have-and Vera returned before he could get her away!
"Don't make a scene here, d'ye hear?" he savagely cried-and he went to the cupboard, and after a clinking of glass, he brought out a bottle half full of brandy, and two tumblers, and poured some into each.
"Take some of that, it'll pull you together," he said, not unkindly, as he held the glass to her lips. But she kept them firmly closed, and faintly shook her head.
"No! Water!" she whispered, hoarsely. "Water!"
"Don't be so silly! It's not poison! It wouldn't suit my book to get rid of you, my love!" he scornfully exclaimed, reassured by her being conscious, and speaking. Then he set down her glass on the table, and taking up his, drank off its contents at a gulp. "There! You see it is not! However, I'll get you some water, if you like."
He crossed to the door, opened it, and went downstairs. She sat up, listening to his footsteps. A new idea had flashed upon her. She glanced first at the desk, hungrily, wildly, then at the cupboard. Then she rose, stepped cautiously, supporting herself, for she was giddy, by the chairs, and peered eagerly in at the half-open cupboard door, where the skeleton hung. She had seen shelves of bottles. Scanning these, she selected one marked "Morphia-Poison" – shook it-it was half-full-and returned to the table. Taking out the stopper, she poured the contents into the bottle of brandy, swift as a flash returned the morphia-bottle to its place on the shelf, then, going back to her chair, leant against the wall in the exhausted attitude she had been in when he left her.
"He drinks," she gloomily told herself. "He will take more. I must make him fall asleep. Then I will secure those letters."
CHAPTER XVI
She closed her eyes and listened to the patter of his footsteps, running up the oilcloth-covered stairs. He came in evidently breathless.
"Don't say I didn't make haste," he said, pantingly, as he poured some water from the glass jug he was carrying into his own tumbler, which was empty. "You won't mind your husband's glass, of course." He handed it to her.
"No," said Joan, who felt sternly apathetic-with but one dominant feeling-to circumvent this fiendish being, and possess the letters and certificate with which he threatened her. And she drank the water off at a draught, even as he had drunk the brandy. The glass must be empty to hold the drugged spirit.
"Great Scott!" he laughed, contemptuously, as he took the empty tumbler and looked curiously at it. "To see any one gulp down water like that gives me the shivers! Pah, I must positively warm my nerves after seeing you do it!"
She watched him, fascinated, as he poured out another half-tumbler of the now drugged brandy, and dashed a few teaspoonfuls of water into it.
"That is how I take my liquor-like a man!" he said, after a long drink, setting the nearly emptied glass down on the table. "Ah! I feel better of my temper already. You must not pay attention to what I said just now, old girl! I didn't mean it, really I didn't! Some one said something to me about a Lord Vansittart or somebody having boasted he would have you, or die. You doubtless know of the fellow! But you must be accustomed to that sort of thing by this time, eh? Your uncle has a big fortune to leave." He smiled sardonically.
She thrilled-a curious, cold thrill, at the insult. But she controlled herself. "Victor-I have always remembered that I was your wife," she solemnly said. "My uncle has teased me to marry. I have never-encouraged-any one."
"Then you have a sneaking liking for your 'darling,' as you used to call me, eh!" he said, a little thickly. The brandy was already making him feel less critical and sceptical in his mental attitude towards Joan and mankind in general. "Come and sit on the sofa under the window. There is hardly a breath of air in this blessed little room. How I hate tiny rooms! I hope this is the last I shall ever be in!"
He held out his hand. What was she to do? After a swift query to herself, she determined to dare all-to woo him to that drugged sleep during which she would abstract his keys, open that desk, and steal those incriminating documents.
She allowed him to lead her to the sofa and, seating himself in the corner, encircle her with his arm. The evening air came in through the window which opened upon the little balcony where, coming along the street, she had seen him, a dark figure in the twilight, awaiting her.
"It is pleasant here, is it not?" he said, with a sigh, telling himself that he must have taken a bigger "dose" of that brandy than was prudent at this juncture, for it seemed to have affected his speech. His tongue was not so ready in its compliance as usual, and his eyes felt stiff, his eyelids heavy. "Perhaps it was running upstairs so fast, not knowing what she might not be up to," he thought, remembering a caution given him by a doctor that his heart was weak-a timely warning he had derided at the time, but which often crossed his mind when he "felt queer."
"Yes, it is very nice," said Joan, nerving herself to act-to conceal her violent loathing of him. "But as you like plenty of air about you, why not do as I suggest? Let us start in a steamer-a sailing vessel if you please-so that all trace of us is lost for a time, and uncle and aunt will not be able to imagine what has become of me."
She talked away, pitching her voice in a slumberous, monotonous tone, as she had learnt to do from a nurse, when Lady Thorne had a serious and tedious illness after her first year with them as their adopted daughter. The terror of the crisis, the tremendous issues depending upon whether the brandy she had drugged would send Victor to sleep and allow of her stealing her letters from that desk, lent her eloquence. She painted her uncle and aunt's state of mind when they would find her flown, in vivid colours-she held out the prospect of unlimited wealth they two would eventually enjoy-all to gain time until the morphia should hold him powerless. It was a big dose he had taken, she hopefully thought, even were he one of those unhappy mortals addicted to the use or abuse of narcotics. And as she talked on and on, she stealthily watched his face, his eyes.
"That is all-very fine-and large, as they say," he vulgarly returned-and wondered in a vague, stupefied way why his voice sounded so far off-an echo of itself. "But-but-well, I-like-Paris-Paris-d'ye understand-Paris-you fool-what 'yer starin'-at-? Can't ye get-me-some-no, no-water-water-"
Something heavy was gathering in his chest. He felt breathless. He tried to push her away, but he could not move.
She jumped up, startled by his pallor, his sunken look-the gathering purple round his eyes. His nose stood out sharply from his face. She poured the drugged brandy into her untouched glass of the spirit, and filling the empty glass with water, brought it to him. He seemed to squint curiously at it, but allowed her to hold it to his lips. He swallowed a little, but it trickled from his mouth. What was this horrid feeling-this weight-powerlessness? – he asked himself-stupidly-then he thought suddenly of Vera, and the dread of Joan's being found with him by her brought a temporary rally from the strange, helpless drowsiness which had him in its grip.
"Go-go! Now! You-mustn't be found here-d'ye hear me? Go!" he spluttered.
"Let me stay till you are better," pleaded Joan. But he gave such a choking oath that, remembering she could feign leaving him and return, she pretended to obey.
"You will write and tell me when to come again, won't you?" she said; then, as he staggered into a sitting position and stammered out another terrifying oath, she fled, with a backward glance of terror and misery over her shoulder.
Down the narrow stairs, along the hall she went. Unchaining the door, she opened it for an instant or two, then closed it with a slight bang, as one might do from the outside. Then she leant up against the door silently and listened.
There was not a sound in the house into which she was shut, alone, with the man she had drugged. She could hear her quickened pulses as they ebbed back into a more normal beat. From below came a steady ticking-a kitchen clock, she thought, sounding loud in the empty, sparsely-carpeted dwelling. Then it struck; listening, fascinated, she counted eleven strokes.
CHAPTER XVII
"Merciful Heaven-it can't be that!" mentally exclaimed the unhappy girl. "Why-people will surely be coming in-I shall be found-and he-like that-with the drugged brandy in the bottle-and I shall not even have got my letters out of that desk!"
She silently wrung her hands; then, determined to dare or lose all, she crept slowly, cautiously back, along the hall, up the stairs, and peeped in at the half-opened door.
He was lying almost prone on the sofa-his head thrown back-slowly, slowly snoring.
She stole in and gazed fearfully at him. He looked corpse-like, but she thought he would naturally do that after that dose of morphia. Insensible! Peering into his face, she saw his eyes, filmy, fishy, between the half-closed lids. She touched his breast pocket, cautiously-her heart beating fast and strong. Nothing there but the white handkerchief, arranged in dandified fashion. As she stooped the scent of the flower in his buttonhole turned her deadly sick. All seemed to surge around.
"This won't do!" she told herself, wildly. Then, with a violent effort, she lifted the hand that lay limply upon his knee across his trouser pocket. It moved easily. She laid it down with a light, almost tender touch, as she remembered she had seen him return his keys to the very pocket where she now saw them bulging, and putting her fingers gingerly into the pocket, she drew them out.
"Thank God!" she murmured, almost hysterically, and, telling herself that if only she could hold witnesses in her hands to that absurd, so-called marriage of him with her, and could dictate terms, every farthing she might inherit from her uncle should be his, and more-she went to the table, found the tiny key in the bunch, and opened the desk.
Just as she was beginning to remove the leather purses of gold she had brought him from the well of the desk, so as to search beneath, a prolonged, curious, hissing snore seemed to arrest her very breath.
She stopped and went to him. The hissing sound was barely over-how curious it was, that half-snore, half breath! He lay still still-still as-
"Oh, no, no! It cannot be that! He looks asleep, and as happy as if he were an innocent little child!" she assured herself, returning to the table and to her task. Out she quickly took them, one by one, those silly purses-how puerile money and all those things seemed, she told herself, at such a moment-and then peered anxiously at the packets of papers.
Eureka! Her girlish handwriting! There was a package-she drew it out, and in the middle projected a paper-she could not undo the knots-there was no time-but she turned down a corner and saw printed letters-a margin-
Seizing her little bag, she thrust them in, and rapidly restoring the purses to their place, locked the desk.
"Shall I put the keys back in his pocket?" she asked herself. "No! I can leave them on the table. It is of no use trying to hide my having taken the letters. He will discover it."
She glanced round the room. What else must she do? She frowned and bit her lip as the brandy bottle caught her eye. There was still remaining a certain quantity of the drugged liquid.
"Any more would certainly make him very ill, if it did not kill him-and he will very likely start drinking again when he wakes up," she mused. "Can I pour it away?" She looked uncertainly at the door. No, it was too hazardous. Then she remembered she had seen some brown paper in that cupboard where the skeleton hung.
Once more she went to the cupboard and took out a crumpled sheet of brown paper, smiling almost derisively at the grinning skull of the hanging skeleton.
"How true you were when you said there were worse things than skeletons," she thought, inwardly apostrophizing the sleeper, as she quickly wrapped the bottle in the paper. Then, mentally wishing him a better and more generous spirit in her regard when he awoke, she ran rapidly downstairs with bag and bottle, and in another moment was in the street.
Her success, her escape, filled her with a joy which made her feel almost delirious. Still, she noticed a hansom with a lady in it drive past, and with an almost contemptuous mental comment-"she cannot be living at Number 12," she looked back over her shoulder, then stopped short, and leaning against the rails, watched.
The hansom did stop at the house she had left. More, the lady alighted-briskly, as if she were as young as she was slim and alert-looked up and down the street, as if, indeed, Joan thought, she, too, had noticed herself, and wondered what she was doing in Haythorn Street at that hour, and then, after paying the driver, ran up the steps and let herself in with her latchkey.
"A lodger," thought Joan. "I wonder if she knows him!" Then she turned and almost fled along the street, for the cabman had turned and waved his whip. To take that cab would be madness! Besides, she meant to lay that bottle quietly in a corner at the very first opportunity.
It came a few moments before she reached Westminster Bridge. She saw a doorway in the shadow, and quick as lightning she had deposited her bottle there and had gone onward. Almost a slight unconsciousness possessed her after that. She hailed a cab, drove to the spot where she had left Julie, and alighted.
"I have been here since eleven, mademoiselle!" exclaimed Julie, coming forward after she saw the cab drive off. She had been confiding in her lover-or rather, Paul Naz, as his friend Victor Mercier's honorary detective, had been worming matters deftly from her-and his advice had been to her to be very, ah, most exceedingly discreet, and the young lady would for her own sake prove their best friend in the future. "It is nearly half-past now-shall I call a cab?"
A crawling hansom was hailed, and before midnight a sleepy man-servant of Sir Thomas admitted them. He was just going to bed, he said, in a drowsy and somewhat injured tone. "I told Sir Thomas and my lady you was in and gone to bed, m'm," he said, almost reproachfully. "They come in half an hour back! I am sure I thought you was, or I shouldn't have said it!"
"It doesn't matter in the least, Robert," Joan cheerfully assured him, and she went to her room with Julie, feeling more elated than she had done since the awful morning four years ago when she had to accept the fact that she was the grass-widow of a blackguard. Julie speedily dismissed, she spent a couple of hours over her letters.
The printed paper was her marriage certificate. The letters were six in number, nearly worn into shreds, and black with dirt. She read them through, she made a note of the dates on the certificate, then she burnt them under her empty grate.
"Once more I am free!" was her last exultant thought before she slept. "If I keep Victor at bay for a few days, I shall be off and away with him; and without those documents Victor is practically powerless! If he gets another certificate, Joan Thorne might have been any one-some one married under an assumed name. He has nothing to support his assertions!"