CHAPTER XVIII.

_THE CRASH._

"Where has he gone, Odeyne? Where has he gone? He could not have left you without a word, as Algernon has left me. They have gone together--and surely you know where they are!"

It was Beatrice who spoke these words; but such a white, wild-eyed Beatrice, that Odeyne hardly knew her.

She broke in upon her at dusk, on that strange day of confusion and bewilderment, and her haggard face bespoke the mental suffering through which she had passed during the past four-and-twenty hours.

Odeyne turned upon her quickly, and took her by the hands.

"Of whom are you speaking, Beatrice? Has Algernon gone too? What does it mean? Oh, what does it mean?"

"It means that we are ruined, ruined, ruined!" cried Beatrice, sinking into a chair and covering her face with her hands. "But, Odeyne, speak, tell me--where is Desmond? You must at least know that!"

"I do not know," answered Odeyne in a very low voice. "He went away--I think he has gone abroad--on business. He will no doubt write soon. Is Algernon gone too?"

"They went together. So much we know, but nothing else. It is terrible, terrible, terrible! Odeyne, I went back home to Rotherham Park to-day to see if there was any trace of Algy there. Do you know what I found there? Bailiffs in possession--the place and all its contents up for sale...." She paused and uttered a strange hysterical laugh. "Will that be the fate of the Chase next? Has Desmond, too, absconded, leaving a mountain of debt behind? Are we both to be left to the mercy of our own relations, whilst our husbands have to flee the country for safety?"

"Beatrice, what do you mean?" asked Odeyne almost sharply, conscious of a pang at her heart that she could not understand or subdue. "Why do you speak such terrible words? Tell me what has happened. I do not understand."

With a great effort Beatrice commanded herself, and made Odeyne sit down beside her.

"How much do you know of this wretched business?" she asked.

"I do not understand anything. Desmond never spoke to me of his affairs. I know that something is terribly wrong; but I think he has gone away to try and set it right."

"He has gone away because it can never be set right," said Beatrice, "and because he is involved in a fraudulent scheme, which has involved a number of persons in ruin. I can't tell how far he and Algernon have been dupes, or how far they have duped others. I believe that man Garth has been at the bottom of a great deal of the villainy of this last bubble. They got to trust him more and more. Sometimes I told Algy they left too much to him. It began by merely dabbling in stocks and shares--speculating on the Stock Exchange people call it; and Desmond was very quick, and made great sums, and Algy too, by his advice. But men never know where to stop, and one thing led to another. I don't understand details, but it is some great mining scheme that has ruined us all. It has broken now like a bubble--and what will be the end no one knows. Meantime Desmond and Algy and Garth have all disappeared. That gives it a very ugly look. Oh, if I were a man I would stay and face things out! I would never run away like a coward, and let all the misery and shame fall upon the defenceless women at home!" And Beatrice's eyes flashed as she wrung her hands together half in angry scorn, half in despair.

"And your house, Beatrice, what did you say about that?"

"Algy's creditors have taken possession of it, my dear. I am a homeless outcast. My mother will give me an asylum for the present; and I believe there is a small pittance settled upon me which will just keep me and the boy from starvation! You may thank your stars, Odeyne, that the Chase is entailed, and that Desmond made a handsome settlement upon you. His creditors will not be able to fleece you and the boy. You will live in clover, whoever else loses."

Odeyne drew her brows together in perplexity.

"But if Desmond has debts--I don't think he has--but if he has, of course I shall pay them. I would not touch the money till every claim was satisfied."

Beatrice uttered a mirthless little laugh.

"My dear, I fancy that before Desmond's claims were all satisfied--claims upon him, I should say, from those whom he has involved in his ruin, there would be nothing left at all! It is generally the way when men lose their heads over some scheme of fabulous wealth and it topples about their ears. Be thankful that you are placed above want, and stick to everything you can. That is my advice; and if you can't help me to any news of our husbands I will go back to mother again. One mercy is that she gauged the characters of both Desmond and Algy pretty correctly. She is not crushed with horror at this catastrophe as Maud is. She has been preparing herself for it all along."

Beatrice was too restless and excited and unnerved to remain long anywhere, and Odeyne did not seek to detain her. The day had been one long series of shocks, and she wanted time for thought. She had sent Guy and Cissy back to their home an hour ago, wishing to be quiet that evening; and they had left her, hoping she would not fully realise all that had come upon her. Perhaps she had not done so till the arrival of Beatrice; but now she felt that her eyes had been opened, and that she could not close them any more. She must think out the thing that had befallen, and decide upon her own line of action.

She went up to the nursery, to find the child sleeping the sound, dreamless sleep of healthy childhood. He had responded at once to removal into the pure air of his home. All the feverish fretfulness had left him since his midday nap; he now looked as well as even his mother could desire.

Thankful that one threatened source of anxiety was removed, Odeyne dismissed the nurse to her supper, and sat down beside the open window, in a position where she could command a view of the sleeping child, to review the situation, and put together the different items of news dropped by one and another, so as to get a clear idea of the exact position of affairs.

But she had hardly composed herself to the task before the door opened softly, and a wan, white face peered in, and Odeyne, after looking at it a moment as if hardly recognising it, suddenly held out her hand, exclaiming--

"My poor Alice, come here to me. We are both suffering the same trouble. I fear, my poor child, it was a bad day for you when you elected to follow me out into the world."

Alice's face quivered, but her tears had all been shed. She was calm now, though she looked like a ghost. She came forward and stood before Odeyne, her eyes upon the ground.

"I wanted to see you, ma'am; I wanted to tell you everything. The fault is mine. I was deceived. I let myself be made a tool of. It was vanity that did it--I wanted to be finer than my right station. I see it all now; but that will not bring back the jewels--and it is my husband who robbed you!"

She covered her face with her hands and trembled. Odeyne had begun to suspect this before, so Alice's statement did not take her by surprise. Beatrice had plainly spoken her opinion of Garth; and the disappearance of the confidential clerk at such a moment looked ugly. Yet all that Odeyne said was--

"My poor Alice, I feel for you from the bottom of my heart. We are both in great trouble and perplexity. Sit down, my poor child, and let us talk together. There is so much I want to know. We are both ignorant and inexperienced; but perhaps, if we compare notes, we shall come to a clearer understanding of what has happened. Tell me, Alice, do you know the nature of the work in which my husband and yours have been engaged of late? It has nothing to do with the business house where Mr. St. Claire has been connected. It is something altogether independent of that."

Alice did not know much, nor was she very clear; but bit by bit Odeyne seemed to see the thing piecing itself together before her eyes. Desmond had begun by small speculations, and had been very fortunate. He had employed Garth a good deal in these transactions, and the quickness of the subordinate had been very useful. Their ventures had turned out well time after time. Algernon Vanborough, to whom gambling in some form or another was as the salt of life, had been drawn in--good nature prompting Desmond to try and share any good thing with his luckless brother-in-law. Algernon had been terribly unlucky of late upon the turf; but for a considerable time he was very fortunate in this new sort of speculation.

Then came a repetition of a state of affairs between the two men with which Odeyne had never been conversant, but which was well known to the rest of the family.

Desmond had once before posed as Algernon's reformer, and the experiment had led to his being drawn into the losses of that extravagant young man, which might have led both of them to ruin, had it not been for Desmond's sudden successes on the Stock Exchange. He believed himself stronger than Vanborough and his associates. In reality he was far weaker, as those who understood his real disposition were well aware.

So it had proved in this case. Vanborough had been bitten by a hundred dreams of wealth, and had plunged into speculations of the wildest nature. Desmond was only too easily induced to follow; and their trusted tool, Garth, was plainly nothing better than an unscrupulous sharper. How far any one of the three had become criminally involved could not at this moment be decided. The fact that all three had fled in one night looked ugly, and aroused Odeyne's keenest anxiety. But not even to Alice would she speak of her most terrible fear. That must be locked away in the recesses of her own heart.

"But, ma'am, you are safe, and the Chase is safe," Alice said eagerly at the end. "Walter always told me that nothing could hurt you, because of the settlements and the entail. The master's creditors can't touch that. He always said that it was such a pity Mrs. Vanborough's money had not been tied up fast too."

Odeyne looked round her, and then out of the window, at the expanse of dewy park and gardens. She had come to love her beautiful home very dearly; yet she spoke with great composure.

"That may be the law, Alice; but there are moral obligations to think of as well as mere legal ones. If I find that others are suffering loss through any action of my husband's I shall make every restitution in my power. Master Guy is too young as yet to understand or feel any change in position. The Chase will some day be his, but it will not hurt him to leave it for a time. Unless things turn out very differently from what I fear, I shall try to find a tenant for it, and let it furnished, and live somewhere myself on as little as possible, till all the claims that are just and right have been settled."

Alice looked at her in mute admiration and amaze. It was some while before she ventured upon the next question.

"But where could you go, ma'am? Back home again?"

"I think not," answered Odeyne quietly; "I do not think that would quite answer. And I should like to be in some place where the master could easily find me if he wanted me. I have been thinking about it a good deal. I think I shall remove, with baby and nurse, to those rooms in your lodge, Alice, which were built on before you married. Hannah would come with me, and you would not leave me, Alice. There we could hide ourselves in obscurity, and wait till our husbands return to us!"

Alice sank down upon her knees beside Odeyne, bursting once more into bitter weeping.

"Yours will come back to you some day, ma'am; for he loves you, he loves you. But I shall never see Walter again. He has gone for ever. I do not think he ever cared for me. I was useful to him; but that was all. He left me without a word or a sign. He will never come back!"

"Oh, Alice, do not say that! I thought he was always an affectionate husband, and that you were so happy together."

"At first I was happy, because he promised me all sorts of fine things, and dressed me up and made a fool of me. But I never got any hold upon him, ma'am. I was always afraid to say a word. If I thought him wrong, I dared not say so. I wasn't true to my better self, nor to the things I'd been brought up to. I let him coax me to do what I knew was wrong; and though he praised me for obeying him, I see now that he despised me in his heart. I lost his respect, and I think when that goes, love soon follows. If I'd been a truer woman, maybe I'd have been a happier one, and have held him back from that great last wrong."

Odeyne was silent, casting her mind back over the past years, and wondering whether she, perhaps, had erred in like manner. Had she been always true to her better judgment? Could she have done more than she had attempted to withhold her husband from his perilous courses? Humbly she admitted her shortcomings and failings, humbly she took upon herself freely and fully her share in the punishment; but one ray of comfort gilded the retrospect. She had never lost her husband's love, her husband's confidence and respect. He had always called her his "good angel," his "guiding star." Often she had told him that he must not thus speak and regard her--that she was no angel, no safe guide; but his answer had always been one so full of love that she could not chide him over-much.

Yes, he had loved her all through; nothing had changed that; and he had always been looking forward to a time when this feverish race after wealth should be over, and they could enjoy a quiet life together as of old.

Ah, how happy they could have been in some humble little home, with each other and the child, if he had only been able to see it! But the thirst for gold was upon him, and he could heed nothing else whilst it lasted; and when once the tide of fortune seemed to have turned against him he lost his head, as too many men of his calibre do in like case; then things had gone desperately wrong, and he had become involved in all manner of ways before he realised his own position, or the peril looming over him.

Bit by bit Guy and Edmund made all this out. Things were in a terrible tangle. There were angry creditors to meet, and, what was harder still, broken-hearted dupes, who had been tempted to follow Desmond's lead, believing him to be some great financial light, and then had awoke to find themselves cheated by the veriest will-o'-the-wisp, and landed in a quagmire of poverty and loss.

The legitimate claims upon Desmond's estate were sufficiently heavy in all conscience; but these could gradually be met and discharged by incomings from the business house, the partners in which showed themselves very well disposed and kindly at this juncture of affairs. Although of late Desmond's attendance at the office had been irregular and meagre, he had done some good service by his quickness and energy, when he had really given his mind to the matter before him, and they were ready to stand his friend now. They thought he had made a great mistake in disappearing like a criminal, as though his affairs could not bear the light of day. True enough, there were some shady transactions among them, but nothing which could actually bring him under the ban of the law. Nor were his affairs in such desperate condition as those of his brother-in-law. There seemed reason enough why that gentleman had given his country a wide berth at this juncture; but Desmond would have done better to stay, and face the thing out to the bitter end.

This was the opinion of those who strove to look into the ugly business and unravel the many tangled skeins; but Odeyne, hearing bit by bit how matters stood, understood better than her brothers how terrible a thing it would be to Desmond to face the situation he had brought upon himself.

She remembered the strained, anxious face of Mrs. Neil at that hateful ball. It had haunted her almost ever since. The Neils were persons who had been tempted to their ruin by Desmond's name as director of this luckless mining venture. He might have encouraged them to place their money in it; and there were many others in like case with them. Oh yes, Odeyne could understand his disappearance and his silence. Desmond had a tender heart and a sensitive nature. He could not bear to see sorrow and suffering about him. She had often reproved him gently for his almost reckless liberality, when any case of distress came personally beneath his notice. How could he bear to meet the people whom he had (consciously or unconsciously) helped to ruin? It was not wonderful to her that he should have fled. There had always been a vein of moral cowardice in Desmond's nature. She had not realised it as fully before as she did now; but this knowledge helped her to understand Desmond's desperate flight at this juncture better than many persons understood it. They thought he believed himself more deeply incriminated than he was. Odeyne did not. She believed he was kept away by the dread of seeing and hearing of suffering which his blind confidence had occasioned.

"Edmund," said Odeyne, as her brothers laid before her the state of affairs some three weeks after the first shock, "you say that I have an income of twelve hundred a year--apart from the business, which is going to pay off the legal debts in instalments--and this house to live in. What rental should I get for the Chase if I were to let it furnished for two or three years?"

"Odeyne! what do you mean?" he asked quickly.

"I mean what I say. I am not going to live here without Desmond. You say he may come back any day when he sees by the papers (if he does see them) that there is no danger to himself in doing so; but I know him better. I do not think he will come. He is gone because he cannot bear to see and hear of the misery of the people who have been ruined through following his lead in those wretched mines. Guy, you have seen some of those people. Tell me, if I were to sell off some of the expensive things here that Desmond bought for me--the house has been perfectly crowded with them--and let the house furnished for three years, and live at the lodge with little Guy and two servants, on a couple of hundreds a year, how soon would there be something to give back to these people--enough to save them from ruin? Desmond has spent hundreds, if not thousands, upon ornaments and curios and beautiful things that the house does not really want. If I were to send a lot of them up to Christie's--they are all presents to me that I am speaking of--and sell them off, would not that go some way towards starting some of these poor things in life again? And then, as money came in, it would go towards refunding a part of their lost capital. Edmund, don't stare at me as though I were out of my senses. Guy understands. I am not going to do anything very wild and rash; but I cannot--I cannot live on here alone in every luxury, whilst people like the Neils, and others, are ruined, and all by trusting Desmond's advice. With the rest I have nothing to do, only those who trusted him with their money, and lost it through him."

Edmund whistled softly to himself. Guy laid his hand upon Odeyne's hand, and said gently--

"I will help you, _Schwesterling_--I think I know them all; there are not so very many; but some few have lost their all. It has been very sad to see them; but it will be new life for them to know that something will be done. There is no legal obligation upon you, but I think you will be happier, and there is room in our little house for you and the boy, till you can return to the Chase again."

There were tears of gratitude in her eyes as she answered--

"Thank you, dear Guy. It will be sweet to have you so near, but I would rather go to the lodge, and have my own little home there, and a place for Desmond always ready. I think he will come and seek me there some day. Till then I shall be happier there than I could be here. Edmund, dear, you are not vexed with me. Indeed I am trying to do what is really the most right thing, and to clear my husband's name and good fame from any shadow that may have fallen across it."

Edmund bent over her and kissed her again and again.

"I think you are the best wife and the best woman in the world. People may say you are doing a Quixotic thing, but I truly believe you will be the happier for doing it, and I know that Maud will bless you for clearing Desmond's name. She is taking it very hard, poor darling. It has come upon her, and you, as a greater blow than upon many."

"Thank you, dear Edmund; and you will help me to sell such things as I can part with at once, and to find a tenant for the house as quickly as possible?"

"There will be no trouble about that," said Edmund quickly. "General Mannering was asking me only the other day if there would be any chance of getting such a house in this neighbourhood. I believe he would jump at the Chase, and give a good rental as a yearly tenant. He would not care for any sort of lease, as his movements are rather uncertain."

Odeyne's face brightened as it had not done for many days.

"Ah, how nice that would be! Dear Edmund, do see about it as quickly as possible. I cannot be happy here, missing Desmond so terribly, and feeling that all this display and expense are such a mockery. I want to get away into a smaller place as soon as possible, and to feel that I am doing something towards paying off what I can only call Desmond's 'debts of honour.'"

If Odeyne met no opposition from her brothers, she was not destined to come off scatheless in other quarters.

Upon the next day, as she stood surrounded by a collection of articles she was selecting to send up to be sold at the first possible date, Beatrice suddenly burst in upon her in a state of the greatest excitement.

"Odeyne! what is this I hear? You must be mad! You must not dream of such a thing! Let the Chase, indeed! Sell all your valuables! It is sheer madness! What people like you and I have to do is just to stick to everything--everything! Defy the world, and throw sentiment of every kind to the winds! Why, if I had your opportunities I would add to my establishment, and flaunt about in grand style, just to show I had nothing to be ashamed of! To go and hide your head in a hole and give up everything to pay imaginary debts! Odeyne, you must not do it! It is absurd! it is wicked!"

Odeyne turned round with a sweet smile in her sad eyes.

"I am so sorry you are vexed, Beatrice; but I think you would do the same if you were in my position."

Beatrice gave a hard laugh. She had changed very much during the past weeks. She looked older, thinner, less brilliant; as if something had gone out of her life which could never come back to it.

"I ever give up anything for a sentimental scruple! That shows how much you know!"

"Not for a sentimental scruple, but for my dear husband's honour," answered Odeyne quietly. "If you loved Algernon as I love Desmond you would do the same for him--I know you would, Beatrice, whatever you say."

Beatrice was silent, biting her lips, and looking from place to place in the familiar room with strange, restless glances. Then suddenly flinging her arms about Odeyne's neck, she cried--

"Oh, we are two miserable, unhappy creatures, Odeyne; but if only I could be like you!--if only I could be like you! Teach me how, if you can."