The Tragedy of the Chain Pier, Charlotte Mary Brame [free e books to read txt] 📗

at her straight in the face, so that no expression of hers could escape me--no shadow pass over her eyes unknown to me.

"Do you know Brighton at all?" I asked her. I could see to the very depths of those limpid eyes. No shadow came; the beautiful, attentive face did not change in the least. She smiled as she replied:

"I do not. I know Bournemouth and Eastbourne very well; I like Bournemouth best."

We had hardly touched upon the subject, and she had glided from it, yet with such seeming unconsciousness. I laughed, yet, I felt that my lips were stiff and the sound of my voice strange.

"Every one knows Brighton," I said. "It is not often one meets an English lady who does not know it."

She looked at me with the most charming and frank directness.

"I spent a few hours there once," she said. "From the little I saw of it I took it for a city of palaces."

"It is a beautiful place," I said.

She rose with languid grace and went to the table.

"I think I will ring for some tea," she said. "I am chill and cold in spite of the fire. Mr. Ford, will you join me?"


CHAPTER VII.


My feelings when I reached my room that night were not to be envied. I was as firmly convinced of the identity of the woman as I was of the shining of the sun. There could not be any mistake; I had seen her face quite plainly in the moonlight, and it had been too deeply impressed on my mind for me to forget it, or to mistake it for another. Indeed, the horror of the discovery was still upon me; my nerves were trembling; my blood was cold. How could it be that my old friend Lance had made so terrible a mistake? How could I bear to know that the wife whom he worshiped was a murderess? What else she had been, I did not care even to think; whose child it was, or why she had drowned it, I could not, dare not think.

I could not sleep or rest; my mind and brain were at variance with themselves. Frances Fleming seemed to me a fair, kind-hearted, loving, woman, graceful as fair; the woman I had seen on the Chain Pier was a wild, desperate creature, capable of anything. I could not rest; the soft bed of eiderdown, the sheets of pure linen perfumed with lavender, the pillows, soft as though filled with down from the wings of a bird, could bring no rest to me.

If this woman were anything but what she seemed to be, if she were indeed a murderess, how dare she deceive Lance Fleming? Was it right, just or fair that he should give the love of his honest heart, the devotion of his life, to a woman who ought to have been branded? I wished a thousand times over that I had never seen the Chain Pier, or that I had never come to Dutton Manor House; yet it might be that I was the humble instrument intended by Providence to bring to light a great crime. It seemed strange that of all nights in the year I should have chosen that one; it seemed strange that after keeping the woman's face living in my memory for so long I should so suddenly meet it in life. There was something more than mere coincidence in this; yet it seemed a horrible thing to do, to come under the roof of my dearest friend and ruin his happiness forever.

Then the question came--was it not better for him to know the truth than to live in a fool's paradise--to take to his heart a murderess--to live befooled and die deceived? My heart rose in hot indignation against the woman who had blighted his life, who would bring home to him such shame and anguish as must tear his heart and drive him mad.

I could not suppose, for one moment, that I was the only one in the world who knew her secret--there must be others, and, meeting her suddenly, one of these might betray her secret, might do her greater harm and more mischief than I could do. After hours of weary thought, I came to this conclusion, that I must find out first of all whether my suspicions were correct or not. That was evidently my first duty. I must know whether there was any truth in my suspicions or not. I hated myself for the task that lay before me, to watch a woman, to seek to entrap her, to play the detective, to seek to discover the secret of one who had so frankly and cordially offered me friendship.

Yet it was equally hateful to know that a bad and wicked woman, branded with sin, stained with murder, had deceived an honest, loyal man like Lance Fleming. Look which way I would, it was a most cruel dilemma--pity, indignation, wonder, fear, reluctance, all tore at my heart. Was Frances Fleming the good, pure, tender-hearted woman she seemed to be, or was she the woman branded with a secret brand? I must find out for Lance's sake. There were times when intense pity softened my heart, almost moved me to tears; then the recollection of the tiny white baby lying all night in the sea, swaying to and fro with the waves, steeled me. I could see again the pure little waxen face, as the kindly woman kissed it on the pier. I could see the little green grave with the shining cross--"Marah, found drowned," and here beside me, talking to me, tending me with gentle solicitude, was the very woman, I feared, who had drowned the child. There were times--I remember one particularly--when she held out a bunch of fine hothouse grapes to me, that I could have cried out--"It is the hand of a murderess; take it away," but I restrained myself.

I declare that, during a whole fortnight, I watched her incessantly; I scrutinized every look, every gesture; I criticised every word, and in neither one nor the other did I find the least shadow of blame. She seemed to me pure in heart, thought and word. At times, when she read or sang to us, there was a light such as one fancies the angels wear. Then I found also what Lance said of her charity to the poor was perfectly true--they worshipped her. No saint was a greater saint to them than the woman whom I believed I had seen drown a little child.

It seemed as though she could hardly do enough for them; the minute she heard that any one was sick or sorry she went to their aid. I have known this beautiful woman, whose husband adored her, give up a ball or a party to sit with some poor woman whose child was ill, or was ill herself. And I must speak, too, of her devotion--to see the earnest, tender piety on her beautiful face was marvelous.

"Look, John," Lance would whisper to me; "my wife looks like an angel."

I was obliged to own that she did. But what was the soul like that animated the beautiful body?

When we were talking--and we spent many hours together in the garden--I was struck with the beauty and nobility of her ideas. She took the right side of everything; her wisdom was full of tenderness; she never once gave utterance to a thought or sentence but that I was both pleased and struck with it. But for this haunting suspicion I should have pronounced her a perfect woman, for I could see no fault in her. I had been a fortnight at Dutton Manor, and but for this it would have been a very happy fortnight. Lance and I had fallen into old loving terms of intimacy, and Frances made a most lovable and harmonious third. A whole fortnight I had studied her, criticised her, and was more bewildered than ever--more sure of two things: The first was that it was next to impossible that she had ever been anything different to what she was now; the second, that she must be the woman I had seen on the pier. What, under those circumstances, was any man to do?

No single incident had happened to interrupt the tranquil course of life, but from day to day I grew more wretched with the weight of my miserable secret.

One afternoon, I remember that the lilacs were all in bloom, and Lance sat with his beautiful wife where a great group of trees stood. When I reached them they were speaking of the sea.

"I always long for the sea in summertime," said Lance; "when the sun is hot and the air full of dust, and no trees give shade, and the grass seems burned, I long for the sea. Love of water seems almost mania with me, from the deep blue ocean, with its foaming billows, to the smallest pool hidden in a wood. It is strange, Frances, with your beauty-loving soul, that you dislike the sea."

She had gathered a spray of the beautiful lilac and held it to her lips. Was it the shade of the flower, or did the color leave her face? If so, it was the first time I had seen it change.

"Do you really dislike the sea, Mrs. Fleming?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied, laconically.

"Why?" I asked again.

"I cannot tell," she answered. "It must be on the old principle--


"'I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why--I cannot tell!
But only this I know full well,
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell!'"


"Those lines hardly apply to the sea," I said. "I thought love for the sea was inborn with every man and woman in England."

"It is not with me," she said.

She spoke quite gently. There was not the least hurry or confusion, but I was quite sure the color had faded from her face. Was it possible that I had found a hole the strong armor at last?

Lance turned a laughing face to me.

"My wife is as strong in her dislikes as in her likes," he said. "She never will go to the sea. Last year I spent a whole month in trying to persuade her; this year I have begun in good time, and I intend to give it three months' good trial, but I am afraid it will be quite in vain."

"Why do you dislike the sea?" I repeated. "You must have a reason."

"I think," she replied, "it makes me melancholy and low spirited."

"Well it might!" I thought, for the rush and fall of the waves must be like a vast requiem to her.

"That is not the effect the sea has upon most people," I said.

"No, I suppose not; it has upon me," she answered. Then smiling at me as she went on: "You seem to think it is my fault, Mr. Ford, that I do not love the sea."

"It is your misfortune," I replied, and our eyes met.

I meant nothing by the words, but a shifting, curious look came into her face, and for the first time since I had been there her eyes fell before mine.

"I suppose it is," she said, quietly; but from the moment we were never quite the same again. She watched me curiously, and I knew it.

"Like or dislike, Frances, give way this time," said Lance, "and John will go with us."