Bat Wing, Sax Rohmer [top 20 books to read .txt] 📗

whither she had been summoned by telegram.

She showed us into a quaint, small drawing room which owed its atmosphere quite clearly to Mrs. Camber, for whereas the study was indescribably untidy, this was a model of neatness without being formal or unhomely. Here, in a few moments, Mrs. Camber joined us, an appealing little figure of wistful, almost elfin, beauty. I was surprised and delighted to find that an instant bond of sympathy sprang up between the two girls. I diplomatically left them together for a while, going into Camber’s room to smoke my pipe. And when I returned:

“Oh, Mr. Knox,” said Val Beverley, “Mrs. Camber has something to tell you which she thinks you ought to know.”

“Concerning Colonel Menendez?” I asked, eagerly.

Mrs. Camber nodded her golden head.

“Yes,” she replied, but glancing at Val Beverley as if to gather confidence. “The truth can never hurt Colin. He has nothing to conceal. May I tell you?”

“I am all anxiety to hear,” I assured her.

“Would you rather I went, Mrs. Camber?” asked Val Beverley.

Mrs. Camber reached across and took her hand.

“Please, no,” she replied. “Stay here with me. I am afraid it is rather a long story.”

“Never mind,” I said. “It will be time well spent if it leads us any nearer to the truth.”

“Yes?” she questioned, watching me anxiously, “you think so? I think so, too.”

She became silent, sitting looking straight before her, the pupils of her blue eyes widely dilated. Then, at first in a queer, far-away voice, she began to speak again.

“I must tell you,” she commenced “that before—my marriage, my name was Isabella de Valera.”

I started.

“Ysola was my baby way of saying it, and so I came to be called Ysola. My father was manager of one of Señor Don Juan’s estates, in a small island near the coast of Cuba. My mother”—she raised her little hands eloquently—“was half-caste. Do you know? And she and my father—”

She looked pleadingly at Val Beverley.

“I understand,” whispered the latter with deep sympathy; “but you don’t think it makes any difference, do you?”

“No?” said Mrs. Camber with a quaint little gesture. “To you, perhaps not, but there, where I was born, oh! so much. Well, then, my mother died when I was very little. Ah Tsong was her servant. There are many Chinese in the West Indies, you see, and I can just remember he carried me in to see her. Of course I didn’t understand. My father quarrelled bitterly with the priests because they would not bury her in holy ground. I think he no longer believed afterward. I loved him very much. He was good to me; and I was a queen in that little island. All the negroes loved me, because of my mother, I think, who was partly descended from slaves, as they were. But I had not begun to understand how hard it was all going to be when my father sent me to a convent in Cuba.

“I hated to go, but while I was there I learned all about myself. I knew that I was outcast. It was”—she raised her hand—“not possible to stay. I was only fifteen when I came home, but all the same I was a woman. I was no more a child, and happy no longer. After a while, perhaps, when I forgot what I had suffered at the convent, I became less miserable. My father did all in his power to make me happy, and I was glad the work-people loved me. But I was very lonely. Ah Tsong understood.”

Her eyes filled with tears.

“Can you imagine,” she asked, “that when my father was away in distant parts of the island at night, Ah Tsong slept outside my door? Some of them say, ‘Do not trust the Chinese’ I say, except my husband and my father, I have never known another one to trust but Ah Tsong. Now they have taken him away from me.”

Tears glittered on her lashes, but she brushed them aside angrily, and continued:

“I was still less than twenty, and looked, they told me, only fourteen, when Señor Menendez came to inspect his estate. I had never seen him before. There had been a rising in the island, in the year after I was born, and he had only just escaped with his life. He was hated. People called him Devil Menendez. Especially, no woman was safe from him, and in the old days, when his power had been great, he had used it for wickedness.

“My father was afraid when he heard he was coming. He would have sent me away, but before it could be arranged Señor the Colonel arrived. He had in his company a French lady. I thought her very beautiful and elegant. It was Madame de Stämer. It is only four years ago, a little more, but her hair was dark brown. She was splendidly dressed and such a wonderful horsewoman. The first time I saw her I felt as they had made me feel at the convent. I wanted to hide from her. She was so grand a lady, and I came from slaves.”

She paused hesitatingly and stared down at her own tiny feet.

“Pardon me interrupting you, Mrs. Camber,” I said, “but can you tell me in what way these two are related?”

She looked up with her naïve smile.

“I can tell you, yes. A cousin of Señor Menendez married a sister of Madame de Stämer.”

“Good heavens!” I exclaimed, “a very remote kinship.”

“It was in this way they met, in Paris, I think, and”—she raised her hands expressively—“she came with him to the West Indies, although it was during the great war. I think she loved him more than her soul, and me—me she hated. As Señor Menendez dismounted from his horse in front of the house he saw me.”

She sighed and ceased speaking again. Then:

“That very night,” she continued, “he began. Do you know? I was trying to escape from him when Madame de Stämer found us. She called me a shameful name, and my father, who heard it, ordered her out of the house. Señor Menendez spoke sharply, and my father struck him.”

She paused once more, biting her lip agitatedly, but presently proceeded:

“Do you know what they are like, the Spanish, when their blood is hot? Senor Menendez had a revolver, but my father knocked it from his grasp. Then they fought with their bare hands. I was too frightened even to cry out. It was all a horrible dream. What Madame de Stämer did, I do not know. I could see nothing but two figures twined together on the floor. At last one of them arose. I saw it was my father, and I remember no more.”

She was almost overcome by her tragic recollections, but presently, with a wonderful courage, which, together with her daintiness of form, spoke eloquently of good blood on one side