The Knave of Diamonds, Ethel May Dell [fun books to read for adults txt] 📗

leaned his elbow on his writing-table and sat long in thought.
"I wonder," he murmured to himself presently, "I wonder if Lady Carfax knows what she is doing. She really is too young, poor girl, to be so much alone."


CHAPTER VII
A QUESTION OF TRUST

The theatricals were arranged to take place on an evening in the beginning of July, and for that one night Mrs. Errol persuaded Anne to sleep at Baronmead. She would not consent to leave the Manor for longer, for she still superintended much of the management of the estate and overlooked the agent's work. She had begun to wonder if all her days would be spent thus, for the reports which reached her regularly of her husband's state of health were seldom of a hopeful nature. In fact they varied very little, and a brain specialist had given it as his opinion that, though it was impossible to speak with certainty, Sir Giles might remain in his present condition of insanity for years, even possibly for as long as he lived. He was the last of his family, and the title would die with him. And Anne wondered--often she wondered--if it were to be her lot to live out the rest of her life alone.
She did not mind solitude, nor was she altogether unhappy, but she was too young not to feel now and then the deep stirrings of her youth. And she had lived so little in all her twenty-five years of life. Yet with that habit of self-control which had grown up with her, and which made many think her cold, she would not suffer her thoughts to dwell upon past or future. Her world was very small, and, as she had once told Nap, she contented herself with "the work that was nearest". If it did not greatly warm her heart, it kept her from brooding over trouble.
On the morning of the day fixed for the theatricals he came over in the motor to fetch her. It was a glorious day of summer, and Anne was in the garden. He joined her there, and they walked for awhile in the green solitudes, talking of the coming entertainment.
They came in their wanderings to the seat under the lilac trees. She wondered afterwards if he had purposely directed their steps thither. They had not been together there since that night when the lilac had been in bloom, that night of perfect spring, the night when their compact had been made and sealed. Did he think of it, she wondered as they passed. If so, he made no sign, but talked on in casual strain as if she were no more than the most casual of friends. Very faithfully he had kept his part of the compact, so faithfully that when they were past she was conscious of a sense of chill mingling with her relief. He had stifled his passion for her, it seemed, and perhaps it was only by comparison that his friendship felt so cold and measured.
She was glad when they reached Baronmead at length. It was like going into sudden sunshine to enter Lucas's presence and feel the warmth of his welcome about her heart. She stayed long talking with him. Here was a friend indeed, a friend to trust, a friend to confide in, a friend to love. He might be "everybody's own and particular pal," as Nap had said, but she knew intuitively that this friend of hers kept a corner for her that was exclusively her own, a safe refuge in which she had found shelter for the first time on that night that seemed so long ago when he had held her in his arms and comforted her as though he had been a woman, and which she knew had been open to her ever since.
There was a final rehearsal in the afternoon which went remarkably smoothly. Anne's part was not a lengthy one, and as soon as it was over she went back to the house in search of Mrs. Errol. She had left directions for her letters to be sent after her, and she found two or three awaiting her in the hall. She picked them up, and passed into the music-room.
Here she found Lucas reading some correspondence of his own.
He looked up with a smile. "Oh, Lady Carfax! I was just thinking of you. I have a letter here from my friend Capper. You remember Dr. Capper?"
"Very well indeed," she said, stifling a sudden pang at the name.
He lay motionless in his chair, studying her with those shrewd blue eyes that she never desired to avoid. "I believe Capper took you more or less into his confidence," he said. "It's a risky thing for a doctor to do, but he is a student of human nature as well as human anatomy. He generally knows what he is about. Won't you sit down?"
She took the seat near him that he indicated. Somehow the mention of Capper had made her cold. She was conscious of a shrinking that was almost physical from the thought of ever seeing him again.
"Capper wants to have the shaping of my destiny," Lucas went on meditatively. "In other words, he wants to pull me to pieces and make a new man of me. Sometimes I am strongly tempted to let him try. At other times," he was looking at her fully, "I hesitate."
She put her shrinking from her and faced him. "Will you tell me why?"
"Because," he said slowly, "I have a fear that I might be absent when wanted."
"But you are always wanted," she said quickly.
He smiled. "Thank you, Lady Carfax. But that was not my meaning. I think you understand me. I think Capper must have told you. I am speaking with regard to--my brother Nap."
He spoke the last words very deliberately. He was still looking at her kindly but very intently. She felt the blood rush to her heart. For the first time her eyes fell before his.
He went on speaking at once, as if to reassure her, to give her time. "You've been a stanch friend to him, I know, and you've done a big thing for him. You've tamed him, shaped him, made a man of him. I felt your influence upon him before I ever met you. I sensed your courage, your steadfastness, your goodness. But you are only a woman, eh, Lady Carfax? And Rome wasn't built in a day. There may come a time when the savage gets the upper hand of him again. And then, if I were not by to hold him in, he might gallop to his own or someone else's destruction. That is what I have to think of before I decide."
"But--can you always hold him?" Anne said.
"Always, Lady Carfax." Very quietly, with absolute confidence, came the reply. "You may put your last dollar on that, and you won't lose it. We settled that many years ago, once and for all. But I've been asking myself lately if I need be so anxious, if possibly Rome may be nearer completion than I imagine. Is it so? Is it so? I sometimes think you know him better than I do myself."
"I!" Anne said.
"You, Lady Carfax."
With an effort she looked up. His eyes were no longer closely studying her. He seemed to be looking beyond.
"If you can trust him," he said quietly, "I know that I can. The question is--Can you?"
He waited very quietly for her answer, still not looking at her. But it was long in coming.
At last. "I do not feel that I know him as I once did," she said, her voice very low, "nor is my influence over him what it was. But I think, if you trust him, he will not disappoint you."
The kindly eyes rested upon her again for a moment, but he made no comment upon the form in which she had couched her reply.
He merely, after the briefest pause, smiled and thanked her.


CHAPTER VIII
A SUDDEN BLOW

Anne found herself the first to enter the drawing room that night before dinner. It was still early, barely half-past seven. The theatricals were to begin at nine.
She had her unopened letters with her, and she sat down to peruse them by an open window. The evening sun poured full upon her in fiery splendour. She leaned her head against the woodwork, a little wearied.
She opened the first letter mechanically. Her thoughts were wandering. Without much interest she withdrew it from the envelope, saw it to be unimportant, and returned it after the briefest inspection. The next was of the same order, and received a similar treatment. The third and last she held for several seconds in her hand, and finally opened with obvious reluctance. It was from a doctor in the asylum in which her husband had been placed. Slowly her eyes travelled along the page.
When she turned it at length her hands were shaking, shaking so much that the paper rattled and quivered like a living thing. The writing ended on the further page, but before her eyes reached the signature the letter had fallen from her grasp. Anne, the calm, the self-contained, the stately, sat huddled in her chair--a trembling, stricken woman, with her hands pressed tightly over her eyes, as if to shut out some dread vision.
In the silence that followed someone entered the room with a light, cat-like tread, and approached the window against which she sat. But so overwhelmed was she for the moment that she was unaware of any presence till Nap's voice spoke to her, and she started to find him close to her, within reach of her hand.
She lifted her white face then, while mechanically she groped for the letter. It had fallen to the ground. He picked it up.
"What is it?" he said, and she thought his voice sounded harsh. "You have had bad news?"
She held out her hand for the letter. "No, it is good. I--am a little tired, that's all."
"That is not all," he said, and she heard the dogged note in his voice that she had come to know as the signal of indomitable resolution. He sat down on the window seat close to her, still keeping the letter in his hand.
She made a little hopeless gesture and sat silent, striving for composure. She knew that during the seconds that followed, his eyes never stirred from her face. It was his old trick of making her feel the compulsion of his will. Often before she had resisted it. To-night she was taken at a disadvantage. He had caught her unarmed. She was powerless.
She turned her head at last and spoke. "You may read that letter," she said.
The thin lips smiled contemptuously for an instant. "I have read it already," he said.
She started slightly, meeting his eyes. "You have read it?"
"In your face," he told her coolly. "It contains news of the man you call your husband. It is to say he is better--and--coming--home."
He spoke the last words as though he were actually reading them one by one in her tragic eyes.
"It is an experiment," she whispered. "He wishes it himself, it seems, and they think the change might prove beneficial. He is decidedly better--marvellously so. And he has expressed the desire to see me. Of course"--she faltered a little--"I should not be--alone with him. There would be an attendant. But--but you mustn't think I am afraid. It wasn't that. Only--only--I did not expect it. It has come rather suddenly. I am not so easily upset as a rule."
She spoke hurriedly, almost as though she were pleading with him to understand and to pardon her weakness.
But her words quivered into silence. Nap