CHAPTER IV.

THE LOVELY ANDRIA.

While Beryl Corselas slept like a dead girl in the flying railway-carriage, a woman sat in a beautiful house in London and wondered why she was remembering the strange goblin child. “I’m not fit to think of her or the convent, either,” she thought grimly. “Who would believe that I was ever Andria Heathcote, or brought up in a convent school?”

She got up and looked at herself in a glass with an insight that does not come to happy women. The world had taught her that a woman with a clear skin and good teeth has it in her own hands to be beautiful, but it was something else that had taught her to build up her beauty as an architect builds a palace for a king.

Her red-brown hair was but a little ruddier than in convent-days. She had been too wise to dye it; her round, young face was chiseled into the firmness of a delicate cameo by the sure hands of Love and vain longing; her brave mouth was more scornful, more self-reliant than of old, and the queer, veiled look was gone from her blue eyes. They were bold, under the lashes and brows she had learned to darken, and the head that had bowed so easily to rebuke was set proudly now. And yet there was little for Andria Erle to glory in. She turned sharply from the glass. “Bah! The child would not know me, nor I her,” she thought. “I wonder why I am thinking of her. Oh, I’m nervous--nervous! And I have no real cause, I can’t have any.”

But the step with which she paced the room was not that of a woman at ease. She was sick with a terror that grew daily, and she knew it. She looked at the magnificence about her, not indifferently, as she had been wont to look, but like a woman who holds luxury by a frail tenure and fears to lose it. Yet the luxury of the place came last to her troubled mind. There was more than that to lose; love and trust, that might go any day. To keep her thoughts away from that she tried to remember the convent, but it only maddened her.

“Oh, Mother Benedicta!” she said to herself. “You knew too little about the world when you sent me to a house like lady Parr’s. You and the good sisters would have thought that house hell on earth from the things that went on there. I might have, too, if I hadn’t been a blind fool. But I wouldn’t go back. I’ve been happy; I’ve had my day--and I’ve no reason to think it’s done yet. I know,” deliberately, “I’ve no reason!” and while she swore it to herself she kept listening for the postman’s knock.

It seemed to thunder through the house before she knew it. But the servant who brought in the one letter that had come found his mistress sitting reading, her exquisite paled satin tea-gown in careful folds about her languid figure.

Her heart knocked at her ribs as she took the letter; as the door closed behind the man she sprang to her feet, crushing the thin note to her breast.

“Oh, thank God!” she breathed, “thank God. I knew it would come. I knew he didn’t mean to throw me over.”

She kissed the senseless letter like a living thing. She knew each line of the address--every letter was dear to her; yet Beryl Corselas would not have known the name on the envelope, which certainly was not Andria Heathcote. To Mother Felicitas it might not have been so strange.

It was not for five minutes that Andria opened the letter, and when she did so she no longer thanked God for it.

It was a white, haggard wretch who crawled to a sofa and lay there staring at the written sheet in her hand like one who cannot understand. Yet it was plain English, and began, “Dear Andria,” as letters do. But her face was convulsed out of all beauty as she felt those few sentences burning into her brain; a dreadful trembling took her.

“I’m going to cry; and I won’t cry!” she said savagely. She was on her feet and across the room to where a stand of spirits and soda waited for a visitor who would never come back to that house. But though she poured out neat whisky and drank it, it could not stop that horrible trembling.

“I’m to go. He’s done with me!” she thought. “I--that thanked God at the sight of his letter;” her lips quivered in spite of her; “who’ve been faithful for five years.”

She tried to read the letter slowly and sanely, but one sentence in it seemed to leap to her eyes. “Of course you know our marriage was nonsense. The clergyman was never even ordained. It would not hold good anywhere, even in Scotland.”

“Then what am I?” thought Andria, and, being a brave woman, kept in the cry. She read on mechanically.

“The fact is I’m ruined. I haven’t got a penny left, and my father is nearly as bad. You have plenty of sense, you will see for yourself that I must give in to him and marry money. He will be beside himself till we are on our feet again and there is an heir to the property. He would never hear of my marrying you, even if our madness had not passed by this time. You will understand this is not a pleasant letter for me to write, so I will close it. I send you what money I can spare, but you need not expect any more, for I haven’t got it. The sheriff will seize the furniture to-morrow, but my father’s agent will take over the house and pay the servants. Let me have your address, like a sensible girl. But I know you will see reason, especially as you are not tied to me in any way, and the end would have had to come some day.”

There was no signature, and there were two pages preceding what was, after all, the gist of the matter. Andria Heathcote, who had never been Andria Erle except in her own mind, crept to her sofa and lay there, her face buried in the silk cushions Raimond Erle had chosen that very spring. But now it was November, and this was “a last year’s nest.”

She bit at her arm fiercely that pain might keep away tears. None of Raimond Erle’s servants should see that the woman who had never been his wife had been crying in her shame and anger. She wondered how much they knew. All London probably knew more than she had done. She remembered how Raimond had had no friends but men, how she had gone among them by the nickname of “The Lovely Andria”; how some of them had openly thought her shameless--the remembrance made her writhe where she lay.

A silver clock chimed, and she counted the sweet strokes.

“Five!” Five already, and she would not sleep another night under this roof. The whisky had steadied her, helped her; she rose and looked in the glass that an hour ago had reflected a woman who had hope left in her and saw that no eye but her own would see any difference. Andria Erle had looked nervous; Andria Heathcote was only a shade paler, a little harder-eyed.

She turned to ring the bell, and saw something on the hearth-rug. It was a check for ten pounds, and at first she would have let it lie. After five years he was turning her out of the house with ten pounds! But it occurred to her suddenly that she had no other money in the world.

“It is bad to have been made a fool of, but it is worse to keep on being a fool,” she said, with queer calmness, and stooped for the check.

Another woman would have sat down and written an answer to that letter, which would have cut even Raimond Erle. But to quarrel openly was not Andria’s way. If an opportunity came to repay she would repay; it was no use to write what he need not read unless he chose. Once more she turned to ring for a servant, and this time did not falter.

“Send my maid to me,” she said. “I have had a letter from Mr. Erle. He is not returning and I am going away. Lord Erceldonne’s agent will pay your wages.”

She spoke gently as she always did, and the servant admired her for it; he knew, as she thought, that things were at an end. But he liked her, as did every one who had ever served her, and he kept his sympathy from his face.

Her maid came as quickly as if she had been waiting outside the door.

“I want you to pack for me at once, Louise, I am going away to-night, and I must leave you here.”

“But, madam, you can never do without me,” said the girl awkwardly. She would like to go with the mistress who had never spoken unkindly even when she was displeased.

“There is no room for you where I am going.” Andria’s voice was gentle still. “You need not pack my evening gowns. But you must hurry, Louise.”

“Madam’s jewels, of course!” said the maid, with tears in her eyes. All the household but the mistress had known the end was coming.

Andria turned to the windows.

“I will see to the jewels,” she answered in a suffocated voice. “I will not take them.”

The maid dared not say more. But it was well that Andria did not see her packing. Every gorgeous gown her mistress owned was in the boxes decorously covered with underlinen and every-day clothes by the time Mrs. Erle came up-stairs.

Her jewels were spread out on the toilet-table; perhaps the faithful maid thought the sight of them would tempt her mistress to take them. But she shivered as the gorgeous, shining things glittered in the candle-light. Every one of them had meant something in the days when love was young; each stone held its separate insult now. She put them back in her jewel-case with averted face and ungentle hands. Diamonds and pearls, opals and beryls, not one would she keep; and her wedding-ring fell with a clink on the mass. Andria Heathcote had nothing to do with the baubles Andria Erle had loved.

She stood up straight and fair as Louise dressed her in a plain black gown. For three months she had been dreading this day, fearing heavily to note the small signs of its approach; but now that it was here she felt curiously calm.

“Tell James to call a cab,” she said, “and this is for you! You are a kind girl, Louise, and I have liked you.” She held out a long gold chain set with pearls. It was her own, not his; she had a right to give it away.

But the maid was crying.

“Don’t cry, child, for me,” she said steadily, “and take care of the jewels till Mr. Travers, the agent, comes to-morrow. He will give you a receipt for them, and you must send it to Mr. Erle at the club.”

“But you’ll come back, madam?” cried Louise, sobbing.

“No. Oh! my poor Louise, cheer up. There are better mistresses than I’ve been.”

“No, no!” said the girl passionately, “none. What haven’t you done for me and my mother?” The French girl would have kissed Andria’s hand, but with a queer feeling of superstition her mistress stooped and kissed her cheek. It was something to have a creature to say farewell to; there would be none to greet her home.

“Get the cab,” she repeated. And when the girl was gone she went to her writing-table. There was a photograph there and she stared at it. Why had she loved him? He was just a long-legged, haggard, gentlemanly-looking man, like scores of others, yet she had sold her soul for him.

Her hand was on the picture to put it in the fire, but a sudden thought flamed in her eyes and stayed her hand. On the back of it was written: “Raimond to Andria; on their wedding-day.” She would keep it! The world was thick, they might never meet; but if they did that writing might confound his dearest plans. She slipped the photograph into her pocket and went down-stairs. The French girl, with a pang at her heart, watched her get into the cab and drive away.