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

Anne remembered that his own mother had given her the key to the problem, and she doubted not that it solved the whole. "It isn't personal magnetism," Mrs. Errol had said, "nor anything of that sort. It's just love."
That was the magic to which even Nap, the fierce, the passionate, the treacherous, had been forced to bow. In the midst of his weakness this man wielded an all-potent power--a power before which they all instinctively did homage--before which even devils humbled themselves--because it was Divine.
That was the secret of his strength. That was the weapon by which he conquered. She wondered if it had always been so, or if his physical weakness had tended to develop in him a greatness of heart of which more active men were quite incapable. It might be true, as Mrs. Errol had contended, that all men had their possibilities, but, this was the only man she had ever met who had turned them to account. All unconsciously, perhaps in response to a reaction which had been necessarily violent, Anne yielded herself that day for the first time in her life to a species of hero-worship that could not but beautify her own sad life.
When later she found herself alone with him, they talked for a space upon indifferent things, and then they did not talk at all. The intimacy between them made conversation unnecessary, and Lucas Errol's silence was as easy as his speech.
"You'll take care of yourself," he said once, "or I shan't be easy about you."
And, when she had promised that: "And you'll look us up as often as you find you can. P'r'aps if you can't come very often you'll manage to write."
But he made no direct reference to her husband's return. His sympathy neither sought nor needed expression in words.
Neither did he speak of himself. He only at parting held her hand very closely for several silent seconds. And Anne went away with a hushed feeling at her heart as if he had invoked a benediction.
Back to her home she went, strangely quiet and at peace. She had thought that visit to Baronmead would have been painful to her. She had expected to suffer afresh. But it was instead as if a healing hand had been laid upon her, and as she went she thought no more of Nap, the savage, the sudden, the terrible; but of Lucas, the gentle, the patient, the chivalrous, who had won and would for ever keep her perfect trust.
The light of a golden evening lay upon the Manor as she entered. It was wonderfully quiet. She went in by the French windows that led into the drawing-room, and here, tempted by an impulse that had not moved her for long, she sat down at the piano and began very softly to play.
She had not touched the keys since her last visit to Baronmead. She wondered, as idly she suffered her fingers to wander, how long it would be before she played again.
Yet it was hard to believe, sitting there in the quiet evening light, that the next day would witness her return to bondage, that bondage that had so cruelly galled her, the very thought of which had at one time filled her with repulsion. But her feelings had undergone a change of late. She could not feel that the old burden would ever return upon her. She had been emancipated too long. Her womanhood had developed too much during those months of liberty. No, it could never be the same. Patient and faithful wife she would still be. She was ready to devote herself ungrudgingly, without reservation, to her invalid husband. But his slave she would never be again. She had overcome her repugnance; she was willing to serve. But never again would he compel. The days of his tyranny were for ever gone.
It was no easy path that lay before her, but she had not forgotten how narrowly she had escaped the precipice. Even yet she still trembled when she remembered the all-engulfing pit of destruction that had opened before her, and the anguish of fear that had possessed her until deliverance had come. Lucas Errol had been her deliverer. She remembered that also, and a faint, sad smile touched her lips--Lucas Errol, king and cripple, ruler and weakling.
Softly the sunset faded. Anne's fingers ceased to roam over the keys. She clasped them in her lap and sat still.
All at once a quiet voice spoke. "My lady!"
With a start she turned. "Dimsdale! How you startled me!"
"I beg your ladyship's pardon," the old man said.
He was standing close behind her. There was an air of subdued importance about him. He was grave to severity.
But Anne did not look at him very critically. "I shall not want any tea," she said. "I will dine at eight in my sitting-room as usual. Is everything in readiness, Dimsdale? Is Sir Giles's room just as it should be?"
"Yes, my lady."
Anne rose and quietly closed the piano. She wondered why Dimsdale lingered, and after a moment it struck her that he had something to say. She took up her gloves and turned round to him.
"No one has been, I suppose?"
"No one, my lady."
"Are there any letters?"
"No letters, my lady."
"Then--" Anne paused, and for the first time looked at the old servant attentively. "Is anything the matter, Dimsdale?" she asked.
He hesitated, the fingers of one hand working a little, an unusual sign of agitation with him.
With an effort at last he spoke. "Your ladyship instructed me to open any telegram that might arrive."
Her heart gave a great throb of foreboding. "Certainly," she said. "Has there been a telegram then?"
Dimsdale's hand clenched. He looked at her anxiously, rather piteously.
"My lady--" he said, and stopped.
Anne stood like a statue. She felt as if her vitality were suddenly arrested, as if every pulse had ceased to beat.
"Please go on," she said in a whisper. "There has been a telegram. Either give it to me, or--tell me what was in it."
Dimsdale made a jerky movement, as if pulling himself together. He put an unsteady hand into his breast-pocket. "It came this afternoon, my lady, about an hour ago. I am afraid it's bad news--very bad news. Yes, my lady, I'm telling you, I'm telling you. I regret to say Sir Giles has been took worse, took very sudden like, and--and--"
"He is dead," Anne said very clearly, very steadily, in a tone that was neither of question nor of exclamation.
Dimsdale bent his head. "He died at half-past three, my lady."
He had the telegram in his hand. Anne took it from him and moved very quietly to the window.
Mutely the old man stood and watched her in the silence, thankful for her composure. He was himself severely shaken, and the ordeal of telling her had been no light one.
But as the silence still continued he began to grow uneasy again. He wondered if he ought to go, if she had forgotten to dismiss him. Her stately head was bent over the paper, which never crackled or stirred in her hand. There began to be something terrible, something fateful, in her passivity. Old Dimsdale shivered, and took the liberty of breaking the silence.
"Would your ladyship wish a message to be sent to Baronmead?"
She stirred at that, moved sharply as one suddenly awakened. Her face was quite white, but her eyes were alight, curiously vital, with a glitter that was almost of horror.
"To Baronmead!" she said, a queer note of sharpness in her voice. "No, certainly not, most certainly not!"
And there she stopped, stopped dead as though struck dumb. In the garden behind her, down among the lilac trees, a bird had begun to sing, eagerly, voluptuously, thrillingly, with a rapture as of the full spring-tide of life.
Anne stood for a space of many seconds and listened, her white face upraised, her eyes wide and shining.
And then suddenly her attitude changed. She put her hands over her face and tottered blindly from the open window.
Dimsdale started to support her, but she needed no support. In a moment she was looking at him again, but with eyes from which all light had faded.
"I must write some messages at once," she said. "One of the grooms must take them. No, I shall not send to Mrs. Errol to-night. I wish to be alone--quite alone. Please admit no one. And--yes--tell them to pull down the blinds, and--shut all the windows!"
Her voice quivered and sank. She stood a moment, collecting herself, then walked quietly to the door.
"Come to me in ten minutes for those telegrams," she said. "And after that, remember, Dimsdale, I am not to be disturbed by anyone."
And with that she passed out, erect and calm, and went up to her room.


CHAPTER II
THE WORKER OF MIRACLES

"I want to know!" said Capper.
He had said it several times during a muddy two-mile tramp from Baronford Station, and he said it again as he turned up the hill that was crowned by the old grey church, whose two cracked bells had just burst into as cheerful a marriage peal as they could compass.
"Sounds frisky!" he commented to himself, as he trudged up the steep lane. "My! What an all-fired fuss! Guess these muddy boots aren't exactly wedding-guesty. But that's their lookout for monopolising every vehicle in the place. I wonder if I'll have the audacity to show after all. Or shall I carry this almighty thirst of mine back to the Carfax Arms and quench it in British ale?"
But this latter idea did not apparently greatly lure him, for he continued to plod upwards, even while considering it, to the tune of the clamouring bells.
Arriving finally at the top of the hill and finding there a crowd of vehicles of all descriptions, he paused to breathe and to search for the Baronmead motors.
He found them eventually, but there was no one in attendance. The servants were all herded in the churchyard for a view of the bridal procession, for which a passage across the road to the Rectory grounds was being kept.
Capper stationed himself, with another rueful glance as his boots, as near as he could get to the open lych-gate, and there stood grimly conspicuous, watching the scene with his alert green eyes, that held the glint of a tolerant smile, and cracking his thin, yellow fingers one by one. No one gave him a second glance, or dreamed for an instant that one of the greatest men in the Western Hemisphere was standing on the edge of the crowd.
They came at last--bride and bridegroom--flushed and hastening through a shower of rose petals.
Bertie was laughing all over his brown face. He was holding Dot's hand very fast, and as they descended the red-carpeted steps into the road he leaned to her, whispering. She laughed back at him with shining eyes, her round face radiant beneath the orange blossom. Neither of them glanced to right or left. Swiftly through the fallen rose leaves they crossed to the Rectory gateway and were lost to view.
A bevy of bridesmaids ran laughing after them, and then came a pause.
Capper edged a little nearer to the churchyard steps and waited. The clamour of bells was incessant, wholly drowning the clamour of voices. Everyone was craning forward to see the crowd of guests. The long procession had already begun to issue from the church porch. It moved very slowly, for at the head of it, his hand on his mother's arm, came Lucas Errol.
He walked with extreme difficulty, leaning on a crutch. His head was uncovered, and the glare of the September sunlight smote full upon it. The hair was turning