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

/> "Yes, it made a difference. He has been having neuralgia down his spine nearly all day. I believe he's worrying too. I'm going back after dinner to see if I can do anything. I manage to read him to sleep sometimes, you know."
"Shall I come too?" said Dot.
"No." Bertie spoke with decision. "You had better go to bed yourself."
She made a face at him. "I shall do nothing of the sort. I shall sit up and do the Clothing Club accounts."
Bertie frowned abruptly. "Not to-night, Dot."
"Yes, to-night. They have got to be done, and I can think better at night."
"You are not to do them to-night," Bertie said, with determination. "I will do them myself if they must be done."
"My dear boy, you! You would never understand my book-keeping. Just imagine the muddle you would make! No, I must get through them myself, and since I must spend the time somehow till you come home, why shouldn't I do them to-night?"
"Because I forbid it," said Bertie unexpectedly.
He was standing on the rug, cup in hand. He looked straight down at her with the words, meeting her surprised eyes with most unwonted sternness.
Dot raised her eyebrows as high as they would go, kept them so for several seconds, then very deliberately lowered them and began to stir her tea.
"You understand me, don't you?" he said.
She shook her head. "Not in the least. I don't think I have ever met you before, have I?"
He set his cup upon the mantelpiece and went suddenly down on his knees by her side. "I haven't been taking proper care of you," he said. "But I'm going to begin right now. Do you know when you came in just now you gave me an absolute shock?"
She laughed faintly, her eyes fixed upon her cup "I didn't know I was looking such a fright."
"You can never look anything but sweet to me," he said. "But it's a fact you're not looking well. I'm sure you are doing too much."
"I'm not doing any more than usual," said Dot, still intent upon the drain of tea in her cup.
"Well, it's too much for you anyway, and I'm going to put a stop to it."
"Do you know how to read your fortune in tea leaves?" said Dot.
"No," said Bertie. With a very gentle hand he deprived her of this engrossing pastime. "I want you to attend to me for a minute," he said.
Dot snuggled against him with a very winning gesture. "I don't want to, Bertie, unless you can find something more interesting to talk about. Really, there is nothing wrong with me. Tell me about Luke. Why is he worrying?"
Bertie frowned. "He doesn't say so, but I believe he's bothered about Nap. Heaven knows why he should be. He was supposed to go to Arizona, but he didn't turn up there. As a matter of fact, if he never turned up again anywhere it would be about the best thing that could possibly happen."
"Oh, don't, Bertie!" Dot spoke sharply, almost involuntarily. There was a quick note of pain in her voice. "I don't like you to talk like that. It isn't nice of you to be glad he's gone, and--it's downright horrid to want him to stay away for ever."
"Good heavens!" said Bertie.
He was plainly amazed, and she resented his amazement, feeling that in some fashion it placed her in a false position from which she was powerless to extricate herself. The last thing she desired was to take up the cudgels on Nap's behalf, nevertheless she prepared herself to do so as in duty bound. For Nap was a friend, and Dot's loyalty to her friends was very stanch.
"I mean it," she said, sitting up and facing him. "I don't think it's right of you, and it certainly isn't kind. He doesn't deserve to be treated as an outcast. He isn't such a bad sort after all. There is a whole lot of good in him, whatever people may say. You at least ought to know him better. Anyhow, he is a friend of mine, and I won't hear him abused."
Bertie's face changed while she was speaking, grew stern, grew almost implacable.
"Look here," he said plainly, "if you want to know what Nap is, he's a damned blackguard, not fit for you to speak to. So, if you've no objection, we'll shunt him for good and all!"
It was Dot's turn to look amazed. She opened her eyes to their widest extent. "What has he done?"
"Never mind!" said Bertie.
"But I do mind!" Swiftly indignation swamped her surprise. "Why should I shunt him, as you call it, for no reason at all? I tell you frankly, Bertie, I simply won't!"
Her eyes were very bright as she ended. She sat bolt upright obviously girded for battle.
Bertie also looked on the verge of an explosion, but with a grim effort he restrained himself. "I have told you he is unworthy of your friendship," he said. "Let that be enough."
"That's not enough," said Dot. "I think otherwise."
He bit his lip. "Well, if you must have it--so did Lady Carfax till she found out her mistake."
"Lady Carfax!" Dot's face changed. "What about Lady Carfax?"
"She gave him her friendship," Bertie told her grimly, "and he rewarded her with about as foul a trick as any man could conceive. You heard the story of the motor breaking down that day in the summer when he took her for a ride? It was nothing but an infernal trick. He wanted to get her for himself, and it wasn't his fault that he failed. It was in consequence of that that Lucas sent him away."
"Oh!" said Dot. "He was in love with her then!"
"If you call it love," said Bertie. "He is always in love with someone."
Dot's eyes expressed enlightenment. She seemed to have forgotten their difference of opinion. "So that was why he was so cut up," she said. "Of course--of course! I was a donkey not to think of it. What a mercy Sir Giles is dead! Has anyone written to tell him?"
"No," said Bertie shortly.
"But why not? Surely he has a right to know? Lady Carfax herself might wish it."
"Lady Carfax would be thankful to forget his very existence," said Bertie, with conviction.
"My dear boy, how can you possibly tell? Are you one of those misguided male creatures who profess to understand women?"
"I know that Lady Carfax loathes the very thought of him," Bertie maintained. "She is not a woman to forgive and forget very easily. Moreover, as I told you before, no one knows where he is."
"I see," said Dot thoughtfully. "But surely he has a club somewhere?"
"Yes, he belongs to the Phoenix Club, New York, if they haven't kicked him out. But what of that? I'm not going to write to him. I don't want him back, Heaven knows." There was a fighting note in Bertie's voice. He spoke as if prepared to resist to the uttermost any sudden attack upon his resolution.
But Dot attempted none; she abandoned the argument quite suddenly, and nestled against his breast. "Darling, don't let's talk about it any more! It's a subject upon which we can't agree. And I'm sorry I've been so horrid to you. I know it isn't my fault that we haven't quarrelled. Forgive me, dear, and keep on loving me. You do love me, don't you, Bertie?"
"Sweetheart!" he whispered, holding her closely.
She uttered a little muffled laugh. "That's my own boy! And I'm going to be so good, you'll hardly know me. I won't go out in the rain, and I won't do the Clothing Club accounts, and I won't overwork. And--and--I won't be cross, even if I do look and feel hideous. I'm going to be a perfect saint, Bertie."
"Sweetheart!" he said again.
She turned her face up against his neck. "Shall I tell you why?" she said, clinging to him with hands that trembled. "It's because if I let myself get cross-grained and ugly now, p'r'aps someone else--some day--will be cross-grained and ugly too. And I should never forgive myself for that. I should always feel it was my fault. Fancy if it turned out a shrew like me, Bertie! Wouldn't--wouldn't it be dreadful?"
She was half-laughing, half-crying, as she whispered the words. Bertie's arms held her so closely that she almost gasped for breath.
"My precious girl!" he said. "My own precious wife! Is it so? You know, I wondered."
She turned her lips quickly to his. There were tears on her cheeks though she was laughing.
"How bright of you, Bertie! You--you always get there sooner or later, don't you? And you're not cross with me any more? You don't think me very unreasonable about Nap?"
"Oh, damn Nap!" said Bertie, for the second time, with fervour.
"Poor Nap!" said Dot gently.
That evening, when Bertie was at Baronmead, she scribbled a single sentence on a sheet of paper, thrust it into an envelope and directed it to the Phoenix Club, New York.
This done, she despatched a servant to the postoffice with it and sat down before the fire.
"I expect it was wrong of me," she said. "But somehow I can't help feeling he ought to know. Anyway"--Dot's English was becoming lightly powdered with Americanisms, which possessed a very decided charm on her lips--"anyway, it's done, and I won't think any more about it. It's the very last wrong thing I'll do for--ever so long." Her eyes grew soft as she uttered this praiseworthy resolution. She gazed down into the fire with a little smile, and gave herself up to dreams.


CHAPTER V
THE SLOUGH OF DESPOND

"O God, give me rest!"
Painfully the words came through quivering lips, the first they had uttered for hours. Lucas Errol lay, as he had lain for nearly three months, with his face to the ceiling, his body stretched straight and rigid, ever in the same position, utterly helpless and weary unto death.
Day after day he lay there, never stirring save when they made him bend his knees, an exercise upon which the doctor daily insisted, but which was agony to him. Night after night, sleepless, he waited the coming of the day. His general health varied but little, but his weakness was telling upon him. His endurance still held, but it was wearing thin. His old cheeriness was gone, though he summoned it back now and again with piteous, spasmodic effort. Hope and despair were fighting together in his soul, and at that time despair was uppermost. He had set out with a brave heart, but the goal was still far off, and he was beginning to falter. He had ceased to make any progress, and the sheer monotony of existence was wearing him out. The keen, shrewd eyes were dull and listless. At the opening of the door he did not even turn his head.
And yet it was Anne who entered, Anne with the flush of exercise on her sweet face, her hands full of Russian violets.
"See how busy I have been!" she said. "I am not disturbing you? You weren't asleep?"
"I never sleep," he answered, and he did not look at her or the violets; he kept his eyes upon the ceiling.
She came and sat beside him. "I gathered them all myself," she said. "Don't you want to smell them?"
He moved his lips without replying, and she leaned down, her eyes full of the utmost compassionate tenderness and held the violets to him. He raised a hand with evident effort and fumblingly took her wrist. He pressed the wet flowers against his face.
"It's a shame to bring them here, Lady Carfax," he said, letting her go. "Take