Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  ‘No.’

  ‘There’s only one other thing,’ he said in a low voice.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Margaret answered, in an even lower tone than his. ‘I’m not quite sure to-day.’

  Logotheti had known her long, and he now resisted the strong impulse to reach out and take the hand she would surely have let him hold in his for a moment. She was not disappointed because he neither spoke nor moved, nor took any sudden advantage of her rather timid admission, for his silence made her trust him more than any passionate speech or impulsive action could have done.

  ‘I daresay I am wrong to tell you even that much,’ she went on presently, ‘but I do so want to play fair. I’ve always despised women who cannot make up their minds whether they care for a man or not. But you have found out my secret; I am two people in one, and there are days when each makes the other dreadfully uncomfortable! You understand.’

  ‘And it’s the Cordova that neither likes me nor hates me just at this moment,’ suggested Logotheti. ‘Margaret Donne sometimes hates me and sometimes likes me, and on some days she can be quite indifferent too! Is that it?’

  ‘Yes. That’s it.’

  ‘The only question is, which of you is to be mistress of the house,’ said Logotheti, smiling, ‘and whether it is to be always the same one, or if there is to be a perpetual hide-and-seek between them!’

  ‘Box and Cox,’ suggested Margaret, glad of the chance to say something frivolous just then.

  ‘I should say Hera and Aphrodite,’ answered the Greek, ‘if it did not look like comparing myself to Adonis!’

  ‘It sounds better than Box and Cox, but I have forgotten my mythology.’

  ‘Hera and Aphrodite agreed that each should keep Adonis one-third of the year, and that he should have the odd four months to himself. Now that you are the Cordova, if you could come to some such understanding about me with Miss Donne, it would be very satisfactory. But I am afraid Margaret does not want even a third of me!’

  Logotheti felt that it was rather ponderous fun, but he was in such an anxious state that his usually ready wit did not serve him very well. For the first time since he had known her, Margaret had confessed that she might possibly fall in love with him; and after what had passed between them in former days, he knew that the smallest mistake on his part would now be fatal to the realisation of such a possibility. He was not afraid of being dull, or of boring her, but he was afraid of wakening against him the wary watchfulness of that side of her nature which he called Margaret Donne, as distinguished from Cordova, of the ‘English-girl’ side, of the potential old maid that is dormant in every young northern woman until the day she marries, and wakes to torment her like a biblical devil if she does not. There is no miser like a reformed spendthrift, and no ascetic will go to such extremes of self-mortification as a converted libertine; in the same way, there are no such portentously virginal old maids as those who might have been the most womanly wives; the opposite is certainly true also, for the variety ‘Hemiparthenos,’ studied after nature by Marcel Prévost, generally makes an utter failure of matrimony, and becomes, in fact, little better than a half-wife.

  Logotheti took it as a good sign that Margaret laughed at what he said. He was in the rather absurd position of wishing to leave her while she was in her present humour, lest anything should disturb it and destroy his advantage; yet, after what had just passed, it was next to impossible not to talk of her, or of himself. He had exceptionally good nerves, he was generally cool to a fault, and he had the daring that makes great financiers. But what looked like the most important crisis of his life had presented itself unexpectedly within a few minutes; a success which he reckoned far beyond all other successes was almost within his grasp, and he felt that he was unprepared. For the first time he did not know what to say to a woman.

  Happily for him, Margaret helped him unexpectedly.

  ‘I shall have to see Lady Maud,’ she said, ‘and you must either go when she comes or leave with her. I’m sorry, but you understand, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll go a moment after she comes. When am I to see you again? To-morrow? You are not to sing again this week, are you?’

  ‘No,’ the Primadonna answered vaguely, ‘I believe not.’

  She was thinking of something else. She was wondering whether Logotheti would wish her to give up the stage, if by any possibility she ever married him, and her thoughts led her on quickly to the consideration of what that would mean, and to asking herself what sort of sacrifice it would really mean to her. For the recollection of the Elisir d’Amore awoke and began to rankle again just then.

  Logotheti did not press her for an answer, but watched her cautiously while her eyes were turned away from him. At that moment he felt like a tamer who had just succeeded in making a tiger give its paw for the first time, and has not the smallest idea whether the creature will do it again or bite off his head.

  She, on her side, being at the moment altogether the artist, was thinking that it would be pleasant to enjoy a few more triumphs, to make the tour of Europe with a company of her own — which is always the primadonna’s dream as it is the actress’s — and to leave the stage at twenty-five in a blaze of glory, rather than to risk one more performance of the opera she now hated. She knew quite well that it was not at all an impossibility. To please her, and with the expectation of marrying her in six months, Logotheti would cheerfully pay the large forfeit that would be due to Schreiermeyer if she broke her London engagement at the height of the season, and the Greek financier would produce all the ready money necessary for getting together an opera company. The rest would be child’s play, she was sure, and she would make a triumphant progress through the capitals of Europe which should be remembered for half a century. After that, said the Primadonna to herself, she would repay her friend all the money he had lent her, and would then decide at her leisure whether she would marry him or not. For one moment her cynicism would have surprised even Schreiermeyer; the next, the Primadonna herself was ashamed of it, quite independently of what her better self might have thought.

  Besides, it was certainly not for his money that her old inclination for Logotheti had begun to grow again. She could say so, truly enough, and when she felt sure of it she turned her eyes to see his face.

  She did not admire him for his looks, either. So far as appearance was concerned, she preferred Lushington, with his smooth hair and fair complexion. Logotheti was a handsome and showy Oriental, that was all, and she knew instinctively that the type must be common in the East. What attracted her was probably his daring masculineness, which contrasted so strongly with Lushington’s quiet and rather bashful manliness. The Englishman would die for a cause and make no noise about it, which would be heroic; but the Greek would run away with a woman he loved, at the risk of breaking his neck, which was romantic in the extreme. It is not easy to be a romantic character in the eyes of a lady who lives on the stage, and by it, and constantly gives utterance to the most dramatic sentiments at a pitch an octave higher than any one else; but Logotheti had succeeded. There never was a woman yet to whom that sort of thing has not appealed once; for one moment she has felt everything whirling with her as if the centre of gravity had gone mad, and the Ten Commandments might drop out of the solid family Bible and get lost. That recollection is probably the only secret of a virtuously colourless existence, but she hides it, like a treasure or a crime, until she is an old and widowed woman; and one day, at last, she tells her grown-up granddaughter, with a far-away smile, that there was once a man whose eyes and voice stirred her strongly, and for whom she might have quite lost her head. But she never saw him again, and that is the end of the little story; and the tall girl in her first season thinks it rather dull.

  But it was not likely that the chronicle of Cordova’s youth should come to such an abrupt conclusion. The man who moved her now had been near her too often, the sound of his voice was too easily recalled, and, since his rival’s defection, he was too necessary to he
r; and, besides, he was as obstinate as Christopher Columbus.

  ‘Let me see,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘There’s a rehearsal to-morrow morning. That means a late luncheon. Come at two o’clock, and if it’s fine we can go for a little walk. Will you?’

  ‘Of course. Thank you.’

  He had hardly spoken the words when a servant opened the door and Lady Maud came in. She had not dropped the opera cloak she wore over her black velvet gown; she was rather pale, and the look in her eyes told that something was wrong, but her serenity did not seem otherwise affected. She kissed Margaret and gave her hand to Logotheti.

  ‘We dined early to go to the play,’ she said, ‘and as there’s a curtain-raiser, I thought I might as well take a hansom and join them later.’

  She seated herself beside Margaret on one of those little sofas that are measured to hold two women when the fashions are moderate, and are wide enough for a woman and one man, whatever happens. Indeed they must be, since otherwise no one would tolerate them in a drawing-room. When two women instal themselves in one, and a man is present, it means that he is to go away, because they are either going to make confidences or are going to fight.

  Logotheti thought it would be simpler and more tactful to go at once, since Lady Maud was in a hurry, having stopped on her way to the play, presumably in the hope of seeing Margaret alone. To his surprise she asked him to stay; but as he thought she might be doing this out of mere civility he said he had an engagement.

  ‘Will it keep for ten minutes?’ asked Lady Maud gravely.

  ‘Engagements of that sort are very convenient. They will keep any length of time.’

  Logotheti sat down again, smiling, but he wondered what Lady Maud was going to say, and why she wished him to remain.

  ‘It will save a note,’ she said, by way of explanation. ‘My father and I want you to come to Craythew for the week-end after this,’ she continued, turning to Margaret. ‘We are asking several people, so it won’t be too awfully dull, I hope. Will you come?’

  ‘With pleasure,’ answered the singer.

  ‘And you too?’ Lady Maud looked at Logotheti.

  ‘Delighted — most kind of you,’ he replied, somewhat surprised by the invitation, for he had never met Lord and Lady Creedmore. ‘May I take you down in my motor?’ he spoke to Margaret. ‘I think I can do it under four hours. I’m my own chauffeur, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Margaret answered with a rather malicious smile. ‘No, thank you!’

  ‘Does he often kill?’ inquired Lady Maud coolly.

  ‘I should be more afraid of a runaway,’ Margaret said.

  ‘Get that new German brake,’ suggested Lady Maud, not understanding at all. ‘It’s quite the best I’ve seen. Come on Friday, if you can. You don’t mind meeting Mr. Van Torp, do you? He is our neighbour, you remember.’

  The question was addressed to Margaret, who made a slight movement and unconsciously glanced at Logotheti before she answered.

  ‘Not at all,’ she said.

  ‘There’s a reason for asking him when there are other people. I’m not divorced after all — you had not heard? It will be in the Times to-morrow morning. The Patriarch of Constantinople turns out to be a very sensible sort of person.’

  ‘He’s my uncle,’ observed Logotheti.

  ‘Is he? But that wouldn’t account for it, would it? He refused to believe what my husband called the evidence, and dismissed the suit. As the trouble was all about Mr. Van Torp my father wants people to see him at Craythew. That’s the story in a nutshell, and if any of you like me you’ll be nice to him.’

  She leaned back in her corner of the little sofa and looked first at one and then at the other in an inquiring way, but as if she were fairly sure of the answer.

  ‘Every one likes you,’ said Logotheti quietly, ‘and every one will be nice to him.’

  ‘Of course,’ chimed in Margaret.

  She could say nothing else, though her intense dislike of the American millionaire almost destroyed the anticipated pleasure of her visit to Derbyshire.

  ‘I thought it just as well to explain,’ said Lady Maud.

  She was still pale, and in spite of her perfect outward coolness and self-reliance her eyes would have betrayed her anxiety if she had not managed them with the unconscious skill of a woman of the world who has something very important to hide. Logotheti broke the short silence that followed her last speech.

  ‘I think you ought to know something I have been telling Miss Donne,’ he said simply. ‘I’ve found the man who wrote all those articles, and I’ve locked him up.’

  Lady Maud leaned forward so suddenly that her loosened opera-cloak slipped down behind her, leaving her neck and shoulders bare. Her eyes were wide open in her surprise, the pupils very dark.

  ‘Where?’ she asked breathlessly. ‘Where is he? In prison?’

  ‘In a more convenient and accessible place,’ answered the Greek.

  He had known Lady Maud some time, but he had never seen her in the least disturbed, or surprised, or otherwise moved by anything. It was true that he had only met her in society.

  He told the story of Mr. Feist, as Margaret had heard it during dinner, and Lady Maud did not move, even to lean back in her seat again, till he had finished. She scarcely seemed to breathe, and Logotheti felt her steady gaze on him, and would have sworn that through all those minutes she did not even wink. When he ceased speaking she drew a long breath and sank back to her former attitude; but he saw that her white neck heaved suddenly again and again, and her delicate nostrils quivered once or twice. For a little while there was silence in the room. Then Lady Maud rose to go.

  ‘I must be going too,’ said Logotheti.

  Margaret was a little sorry that she had given him such precise instructions, but did not contradict herself by asking him to stay longer. She promised Lady Maud again to be at Craythew on Friday of the next week if possible, and certainly on Saturday, and Lady Maud and Logotheti went out together.

  ‘Get in with me,’ she said quietly, as he helped her into her hansom.

  He obeyed, and as he sat down she told the cabman to take her to the Haymarket Theatre. Logotheti expected her to speak, for he was quite sure that she had not taken him with her without a purpose; the more so, as she had not even asked him where he was going.

  Three or four minutes passed before he heard her voice asking him a question, very low, as if she feared to be overheard.

  ‘Is there any way of making that man tell the truth against his will? You have lived in the East, and you must know about such things.’

  Logotheti turned his almond-shaped eyes slowly towards her, but he could not see her face well, for it was not very light in the broad West End street. She was white; that was all he could make out. But he understood what she meant.

  ‘There is a way,’ he answered slowly and almost sternly. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Mr. Van Torp is going to be accused of murder. That man knows who did it. Will you help me?’

  It seemed an age before the answer to her whispered question came.

  ‘Yes.’

  CHAPTER XIV

  WHEN LOGOTHETI AND his doctor had taken Mr. Feist away from the hotel, to the no small satisfaction of the management, they had left precise instructions for forwarding the young man’s letters and for informing his friends, if any appeared, as to his whereabouts. But Logotheti had not given his own name.

  Sir Jasper Threlfall had chosen for their patient a private establishment in Ealing, owned and managed by a friend of his, a place for the treatment of morphia mania, opium-eating, and alcoholism.

  To all intents and purposes, as Logotheti had told Margaret, Charles Feist might as well have been in gaol. Every one knows how indispensable it is that persons who consent to be cured of drinking or taking opium, or whom it is attempted to cure, should be absolutely isolated, if only to prevent weak and pitying friends from yielding to their heart-rending entreaties for the favourite drug and bringing
them ‘just a little’; for their eloquence is often extraordinary, and their ingenuity in obtaining what they want is amazing.

  So Mr. Feist was shut up in a pleasant room provided with double doors and two strongly barred windows that overlooked a pretty garden, beyond which there was a high brick wall half covered by a bright creeper, then just beginning to flower. The walls, the doors, the ceiling, and the floor were sound-proof, and the garden could not in any way be reached without passing through the house.

  As only male patients were received, the nurses and attendants were all men; for the treatment needed more firmness and sometimes strength than gentleness. It was uncompromising, as English methods often are. Except where life was actually in danger, there was no drink and no opium for anybody; when absolutely necessary the resident doctor gave the patient hypodermics or something which he called by an unpronounceable name, lest the sufferer should afterwards try to buy it; he smilingly described it as a new vegetable poison, and in fact it was nothing but dionine, a preparation of opium that differs but little from ordinary morphia.

  Now Sir Jasper Threlfall was a very great doctor indeed, and his name commanded respect in London at large and inspired awe in the hospitals. Even the profession admitted reluctantly that he did not kill more patients than he cured, which is something for one fashionable doctor to say of another; for the regular answer to any inquiry about a rival practitioner is a smile— ‘a smile more dreadful than his own dreadful frown’ — an indescribable smile, a meaning smile, a smile that is a libel in itself.

  It had been an act of humanity to take the young man into medical custody, as it were, and it had been more or less necessary for the safety of the public, for Logotheti and the doctor had found him in a really dangerous state, as was amply proved by his attempting to cut his own throat and then to shoot Logotheti himself. Sir Jasper said he had nothing especial the matter with him except drink, that when his nerves had recovered their normal tone his real character would appear, so that it would then be possible to judge more or less whether he had will enough to control himself in future. Logotheti agreed, but it occurred to him that one need not be knighted, and write a dozen or more mysterious capital letters after one’s name, and live in Harley Street, in order to reach such a simple conclusion; and as Logotheti was a millionaire, and liked his doctor for his own sake rather than for his skill, he told him this, and they both laughed heartily. Almost all doctors, except those in French plays, have some sense of humour.