CHAPTER VI.

MISTRESS AND MAN

More than a fortnight elapsed before Brinsley Otway had sufficiently recovered to get up and sit by the window. Thin and pale, a mere shadow of his former self, he had been very near death, yet, thanks in a great measure to the attention of the nurse who had come from the Middlesex Hospital to attend him, and the constant care of Dr. Tarrant and Sibell, he had slowly struggled back to life.

Sibell’s joy knew no bounds when she heard that her lover was at last out of danger. She visited him daily, brought him all sorts of delicacies, and sat with him for hours while the nurse went out for her daily relaxation.

Each afternoon they were alone, and often sat locked in each other’s arms, he raining kisses upon her full red lips.

“You have been given back to me by God, my darling!” she one day whispered to him, her slim, tender hand smoothing the dark hair from his brow. “I constantly prayed that your life might be spared. And God has answered my appeal.” And she gazed into his countenance with the lovelight in her big blue eyes.

He drew down her head and kissed her upon the lips for the thousandth time, unable to utter the thoughts which arose within him. Hand in hand they sat together for fully five minutes without speaking. The fire burned brightly, and the place was warm and cosy that chilly autumn day, for outside it was dark and rainy, with the eternal honking of the motor traffic below in the Finchley Road.

“I hope the doctors will be able to cure you, entirely,” the girl said, with serious apprehension. “Does Dr. Tarrant think you might have another sudden attack?”

“He thinks it improbable. My heart is quite normal, and it only remains for me to gain weight. He says I’m to have a holiday. But where can one go in England at this time of year?” he asked.

She reflected for a moment.

“Aunt Etta wants to take me to the Riviera in the second week in November. Uncle Edward is going to New York. Why not come out with us?” she suggested.

“A good idea! I’d be delighted, if I could arrange for a ‘locum.’ But your aunt might not approve,” said the young man.

“I’ll suggest it to her to-night. I feel sure she’d love to have you. They have a sweet villa at Cannes--a delightful place on the hill. Do come!” she cried enthusiastically. “The sunshine and flowers and blue sea will soon put you right again, dear. And, besides,” she added with a delightful smile, “I don’t want to be parted from you for four whole months. It would seem an eternity.”

“Don’t you, darling?” he laughed, stroking her fair shingled hair. “Well, ascertain your aunt’s views.”

“I will. And, if she agrees, I’ll book you a berth on the Blue Train we are travelling by. Ashe, and Bevan, my aunt’s maid, are going with us. Ashe is invaluable. Aunt Etta never travels without him. Uncle Edward has some business in New York for a company of which he is a director. He is to join us for a few weeks before we come home at the end of March.”

Old Mrs. Mobbs brought up their tea, which Sibell poured, and, after a cosy meal by the fireside, they both smoked cigarettes until the nurse returned to take up her duties. Then Sibell put on her smart fur coat, and, with a silent kiss in secret, bade him farewell.

At West Halkin Street she found the Countess alone, reading in a corner of the drawing-room, a handsomely-furnished apartment on the first floor, and at once suggested that Brinsley might go to Cannes with them.

Lady Wyndcliffe stirred in her chair, and, looking over her book, replied:

“I’ll ask your uncle, and hear his opinion, dear. Do you mean that he should be our guest--or go to an hotel?”

“Why, be our guest--if he could, auntie. If we are alone, we can go to so few places. If Brinsley is with us, he can take us to dances and all sorts of shows. It was, as you know, horribly dull last year till we met Mr. Lavis.”

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s true I like the air on the Riviera. It always agrees with me. But the people are such a horribly mixed lot. The world and the half-world rub shoulders, and the former imitate the latter, till one can scarcely discern the dividing-line,” her aunt said with an air of utter boredom.

Lady Wyndcliffe had shown herself much better disposed towards her niece since she heard the news of her great inheritance.

“Yes, auntie. But it’s often very amusing on the Riviera--if you have a man to take you about. And Brinsley is such an excellent dancer--which you admit.”

“He is. I like dancing with him,” her aunt declared. “Of course if I can persuade your uncle to let him go with us, I certainly will.”

“Thank you, auntie dear,” cried the delighted girl. “I’ll go up and take off my things.”

And she ran to her room full of eager anticipation of a merry time with Brinsley amid the gaiety of the Azure Coast, with its palms and olives, its blue seas and flower-scented zephyrs.

They dined alone _en famille_ at the polished oval table with shaded candelabra, and an epergne of great chrysanthemums as a centre-piece. In the dim light Ashe, the discreet, obsequious butler, a clean-shaven man whose hair was edged with silver, moved silently in the shadows of the luxuriously-furnished room, and served them with that soft voice and deftness characteristic of the perfect family retainer.

Lady Wyndcliffe, who had been out at a charity matinée that afternoon, gossiped about it during the meal.

Afterwards a friend of hers, a Mrs. Hall-Carew, who lived in Curzon Street, called for Sibell and took her to the theatre, while later on, Lord Wyndcliffe, a bald-headed, heavy-faced man, went out to play bridge with some friends in Mount Street, leaving his wife alone.

The slim, handsome woman sat for a full quarter of an hour pondering, her brows knit, her elbows on her knees, her chin resting upon her hands, gazing at the carpet.

“I wonder if it would be quite safe?” she pondered.

Presently, as though in sudden decision, she rose and pressed the bell.

The door opened a few minutes later and the exemplary Ashe entered, closing the door quietly after him.

“Well?” he asked abruptly. “What’s the matter now?”

His manner was completely different from the polite, well-mannered butler who had served dinner. He was self-possessed and arrogant, more as though he were master of the house and the Countess a menial.

“I was just going out,” he said gruffly. “What do you want?”

“I want to talk to you, Albert,” said the woman in a low-cut sleeveless black gown embroidered with silk flowers around the hem and corsage. “Sit down.”

“What about?” he snapped. “Don’t let us carry on that discussion of this morning. I’m fed up with the whole damned thing!”

“Not more so than myself,” replied the woman, in a tone which one does not use towards servants. “Sit down, please, and hear calmly what I’ve got to say, Albert.”

“I’ll go and get a drink and a cigar first. I can be more attentive then”; and, laughing grimly, he descended the stairs to the dining-room. On his return he was smoking one of her husband’s choicest cigars, while in his hand he carried a glass of whiskey-and-soda.

He turned the key in the door and threw himself carelessly into an arm-chair. He said at last:

“Now, Etta, my dear, I’m all attention.”

The woman looked at him strangely. There was a curious aspect about the dark head with its poise of proud aloofness, its subtle air of distinction, and the unmoving, absorbed way it was turned to the man-servant who sat before her.

What had caused that burning melancholy in her eyes? Was it due to the subtle chiselling of her white, heavily-fringed lids? And the sorrowful lifting of her brows? Could that, too, be merely caused by exquisitely-sculptured contours? Or were they merely mute signals of a soul in distress--a distress so deep that the woman had ceased to struggle and had given herself up to terrible despair? What pitiless fate could have made her look like that?

“I see that something’s a bit wrong,” said the butler. “You were not like this at dinner. What’s the matter?”

“I’ve had bad news,” the pretty Countess said. “I wore my mask at dinner--as I am always compelled to wear it. I’ve had bad news.”

“I guessed as much,” said Ashe, holding his cigar in his fingers. “Well, let’s know the worst.”

“Rupert is coming to London!”

“Rupert!” gasped the man, starting to his feet. “By heaven! He mustn’t come--he mustn’t ever find you!”

“He will probably have a difficulty, now that I’ve changed my name and married Wyndcliffe.”

“It was a damned bad move on your part, Etta, ever to have married the old ass. I told you so at the time.”

“I know--I know!” cried the unhappy woman. “But he has been so very good to me, so what would he say if he knew the truth?”

“He will never know--provided you are discreet,” Ashe assured her, his rather bloated face set hard, and his brows knit in thought. The problem presented by his mistress’s announcement was certainly a very difficult one, a _contretemps_ which would require the greatest tact and ingenuity to avoid successfully. He contemplated the end of the excellent cigar for a few moments.

“How do you know Rupert is coming?” he inquired suddenly.

“I had a letter from Eric Britton, in San Francisco, by this afternoon’s post, giving me warning.”

“I don’t trust that stiff Britton,” the man snapped.

“He knows nothing of my present whereabouts. He sent the letter addressed to Morgan’s Bank in Pall Mall, and they forwarded it on to Burton’s Library, in Kensington--where I am known as Mrs. Higham.”

“If Rupert is in search of you, then mind he doesn’t trace letters sent to Horgan’s Bank,” her companion said.

“I’ve already thought of that. I’ve written to the bank, asking them to send all my letters to the Poste Restante at Melbourne, as I am going on a pleasure trip to Australia. Instead of that, we are going to the Riviera.”

“That’s all right,” said the manservant. “But it would be far better to prevent Rupert from coming over to London at all. If he’s here, then there is constant danger. Think of the big stake we might so easily lose. Think of this present life, Etta--of the terrible uncertainty of it all; of the daily fear you have of Wyndcliffe discovering the truth. Reflect upon it all,” he urged, standing before her. “There must be some way out of this. And the only way out I see is to prevent him from coming over.”

“How can you do that, Albert?” asked the woman in despair. “How is it possible?”

“It wants all thinking over,” he snapped, a hard, determined expression on his countenance. “I must devise some plan. But we won’t trust that fellow Britton, for, if the worst came to the worst, he’d certainly smell a rat. And we surely don’t want that. No, you must just fade out for a bit.”

“To the Riviera, I suppose,” she said. “Sibell wants me to invite Otway. What do you think?”

The man, to whom his mistress was so familiar and confidential, hesitated for a few moments.

“Well, in the circumstances he might perhaps be useful. But I do hope they’re not too deeply in love with each other, otherwise it may cause us a good deal of trouble. You know what I mean?” he added, regarding her very strangely.

She swallowed the lump which arose in her throat, and in a low voice exclaimed:

“I know at what you are hinting. Please do not refer to it, I beg of you.”

“I won’t. I only point out that the less love existing between the pair, the better for everybody concerned,” he said. “On the other hand, I can see no reason why the young fellow should not go with you both as companion, especially as I shall not be there.”

“You’re not coming with us?” asked Lady Wyndcliffe, aghast.

“No. I shall have other matters much more important to attend to,” he replied in a mysterious manner. “I haven’t yet thought out this sudden danger which threatens. When there’s danger, you know, Etta, I’m the first to face it. It isn’t the first little alarm we’ve had by several. So just leave it to me to find a way out. We can’t go on much longer as we’ve been going. Happily for our success, Sibell knows nothing, and suspects nothing. Neither does your ass of a husband. But we are both out for money--big money--is not that so?”

“I agree,” his mistress said. “But I won’t go to Cannes without you.”

“I’ll get a good servant for you, never fear. I’ll see about it to-morrow. There’s a man named Nivern just leaving Lord Cathlake’s. He’s quite reliable, I happen to know.”

“Where shall you go?”

“I don’t know just yet. Rupert must be prevented from coming to London, and it’s no use sitting here awaiting disaster, is it? If he comes, then he must meet you or Sibell sooner or later. Therefore he is best over in America. Let’s see--it’s quite five years or more since that affair in New York.”

“Well, nobody knows about that except you,” said the woman grimly.

“No. You’ve led old Wyndcliffe up the garden very well indeed, Etta,” laughed the man, drinking deeply of his whiskey-and-soda.

“Give me twenty pounds,” he said suddenly. “I’ve had a rough week. Every horse I fancied went down.”

Without protest, the heavy-eyed woman rose, and, going to her room, returned with two ten-pound notes, which she handed to him.

“Thanks,” he said, as he crushed them into his vest pocket. “I’ll want three hundred or so to go on with when I leave. I’m just going out for an hour or two.”

And, carefully throwing his cigar-end out of the window, he turned and left.

Next morning, after breakfast, Lord Wyndcliffe and Sibell were sitting in the morning-room, the girl idling over a picture-paper, when they heard a violent altercation in the dining-room between her ladyship and the butler, Ashe.

“I’ll hear no more!” Sibell heard her aunt shout. “I will not stand your abominable insolence any longer! You are dismissed, and will leave the house this morning. You can have a month’s wages in lieu of notice, but I’ll not have you in my house another hour!”

And Lady Wyndcliffe dashed into the morning-room and burst out crying.

“Ashe has been most abominably insolent to me, dear!” she declared to her husband through her tears. “I’ve sent him away.”

“Insolent to you!” cried the man, starting angrily to his feet.

“No, dear!” she urged, her hand upon his shoulder. “Please don’t excite yourself. He’s gone to pack up. I’ll send his check into the kitchen, and we are well rid of such a fellow.”

“I’ve never liked him,” declared the Earl.

“Neither have I,” Sibell agreed. “He’s always seemed so abominably familiar, auntie.”

“Never mind, dear. He’s going. So we must look out for another man. Mrs. Owen Clark gave me the name of a man the other day. I’ve got his address somewhere.”

And so, an hour later, the faithful Mr. Albert Ashe, who had been nearly two years in the employ of Lady Wyndcliffe, left West Halkin Street with his luggage on a taxi-cab.

But before he went he managed to snatch a few whispered words with his mistress in her boudoir.

“When you go to Cannes, be extremely careful to hide everything from young Otway. Remember the great secret I told you the other day!”

The woman nodded, her face white to the lips.

“Well, if you hear of anything happening, keep your own counsel, and put two and two together. That’s all! Be very careful of Otway. He may be of great use to both of us. You carried out the quarrel admirably. I’ll meet you again soon, Etta! We’re out for a big stake, and we’ll win--never fear!”