by Grant Allen
Then a hideous truth flashed over him like lightning. Murdered! And by him! For his money, his money!
With a start and a cry, Sir Austen awoke. He sat up in his horror and gazed wildly around. Thank heaven — thank heaven, it was all a dream! He wasn’t a criminal! He wasn’t a murderer! There stood Charles Linnell, gazing at him reproachfully, not dead, but alive, one finger on his lip, and one on the watch he held out before him. Sir Austen, remembering where he was and how, took it all in at a rapid glance. It was the stroke of three — and his terror-stricken cry had almost roused the slumbering Arabs. In a second he was awake and all himself again.
Noiselessly and silently they crept from the tent, and stole unperceived into the open desert. Sir Austen’s heart beat hard even yet with the horror and awe of that strange awakening; but he stilled it with an effort and stole on by his cousin. They cleared the tents, and reached the camels’ tether. Thank heaven, thank heaven! it was all a vision.
Yet what awful suggestion of Satan was this that had come to him all unconscious in his dreaming moments? If Charles Linnell were even now to die —— He shuddered to think he could even dream it.
CHAPTER XXXV.
UNEXPECTED.
A week or two later, Cyrus Vanrenen sat one brilliant Algerian morning under the shade of the drooping pepper-tree at the Orangers, discussing with his sister Corona the pros and cons of a serious move he contemplated in the game of life. To the Western American mind, indeed, few things on earth are really serious; but this was one of them. Not, to be sure, that the question of getting married, or of who you chose for your accessory in the fact, could be regarded as in itself a particularly grave one; but when the person contemplated was so very high-toned as Psyche Dumaresq — well, Cyrus felt that to propose outright demanded some unwonted previous deliberation. So he discussed it long and he discussed it earnestly.
‘I guess, Corona,’ he said decisively at last, ‘I’ll plunge on it to-day. You must plunge once. After all, at the worst she can only say no to me. Come to think of it, that’s one of the shortest words in the English language.’
‘The question is, though,’ Corona answered, very demure, ‘if you waited a little longer mightn’t she feel a bit more like making a yes of it?’
‘Well, I don’t know for that,’ Cyrus answered after a moment’s reflection, with philosophic calm. ‘A man never knows what he can do till he tries. I’ve bossed a pork-ring, so I don’t see why I need shrink into my shoes before a woman, anyhow. I may be presumptuous — she’s so particularly high-toned — but I somehow feel as if she kind of liked me.’
‘That sort of girl don’t marry a man because she kind of likes him,’ Corona answered with prompt decision. ‘She marries only when she loves him like — like anything, Cyrus. But there ain’t much harm in trying, any way. It would be a pretty good thing for the family, say, if we could feel you were marrying Haviland Dumaresq’s daughter.’
‘It would,’ her brother repeated with emphasis. ‘Folks would admire at it in Cincinnati.’
So Cyrus made up his mind for the plunge, and only waited for the fitting opportunity.
Now, opportunity, as is well known, comes in time to him who seeks it. It came to Cyrus soon after lunch, when Psyche, groping her way into the garden, sat down by herself on the stone seat in a far corner. She sat and gazed at the deep blue sky she could not see, and listened to the hum of the invisible bees murmuring among the fruit-trees. The low buzz of insects was dear to her now. Sound had come to replace sight. A certain quiet calm possessed her soul. It was the resignation of despair stealing graciously over her.
Presently Cyrus strolled up as if by accident, and sat down quietly on the bench beside her. Psyche made room for him gladly. The good young American was so kind and nice, so thoughtful and attentive, she really liked him. He began to talk to her, as he seated himself by her side in an unconcerned way, as if he meant nothing — merely everyday talk of a gossipy sort about the people in the pension.
‘You like Sirena,’ he said at last, in a very pleased voice, in answer to something Psyche had remarked. ‘And Corona too. I’m sure you like them. It’s a very great pleasure to me to find you like Sirena.’
‘I love them both dearly,’ Psyche answered with warmth. ‘Except Geraldine Maitland, I think, Mr. Vanrenen, I never met anybody I liked so much. In a pension like this, one gets to know and understand people’s characters so thoroughly, you see. Everywhere else you choose your intimates; here you have companionship thrust upon you, willy-nilly. And it seems to me, the more you know the nice people, the nicer they become; and the more you know the unpleasant ones, the more do their disagreeable traits grow upon you.’
‘That’s so,’ Cyrus assented with a pleased smile. ‘And our girls outlive the test pretty well, you think, Miss Dumaresq?’
‘They need no test,’ Psyche answered warmly. ‘They’re just charming. Sirena’s a dear, and I loved her almost from the very first moment I ever saw her. I think that’s generally the way with me. I suppose my instincts are quick, or something of that sort; but whoever I like, I like instinctively; and whoever I don’t like, I don’t like from the very beginning.’
Cyrus leaned forward with an eager bend.
‘And which did you do with me, Miss Dumaresq?’ he asked anxiously.
Psyche started.
‘Why, Mr. Vanrenen,’ she said with transparent frankness, ‘how on earth could anybody do anything but like you? I don’t think it’s possible to talk to you once without liking you ever so much. You’re so good and true. I should think everybody always liked you.’
Cyrus’s heart was in the seventh heaven.
‘Thank you, Miss Dumaresq,’ he said in a rather low and gentle voice. ‘That means a great deal to me, I can tell you: a great deal more than you imagine, I’m certain. Indeed, there’s something I want to say to you about that. Ever since you came here — —’
He broke off short, for Psyche, anticipating what he was going to say, had risen from her seat with a little startled cry, and was groping her way back toward the pension in dismay. Cyrus’s tone had told her all. It was dreadful, dreadful. This was something for which she was wholly unprepared. In her deep, deep sorrow, to have this thrust upon her! And by anyone so kind and good as Cyrus! It grieved her to the quick that he should have blundered into so sad and hopeless a mistake. The Vanrenens’ friendship had been very pleasant to her — the one bright spot in her desert of trouble: and now this painful and unexpected contretemps would spoil all; she could never feel again as she had hitherto felt towards them. She groped her way on, and made blindly for the door. Cyrus, all abashed, but watchful and kindly still, walked by her side, and guided her movements almost imperceptibly.
As she reached the door, she turned round to him, crimson, but very gently. ‘Thank you, Mr. Vanrenen,’ she said in her soft sweet voice. ‘I’m so much obliged to you for your silence and your help. You saw how I felt. That was more than kind of you.’
‘And I mayn’t say more?’ Cyrus asked, half trembling.
‘Not at present,’ Psyche answered, hardly knowing what she said. ‘You — you took me so much by surprise, you know. I wasn’t expecting it. Some day, perhaps, I’ll tell — Sirena or Corona everything I feel. But not now. I can’t bear it yet. Please go, Mr. Vanrenen. There’s Geraldine come to have her set at tennis with you.’
Cyrus, obedient as always, raised his hat, though he sorely wondered what Psyche meant. But these high-toned women are always so hard to understand. They don’t say what they mean right out: they talk round and round things. Their feelings are more than a fellow can fathom. But you’ve got to accept them. You must take them on their own terms or give the pursuit up altogether. They won’t be anything except themselves. So he turned on his heel, and, descending to the tennis-court, took his seat quietly beside Geraldine Maitland.
As for poor Psyche, much moved and disturbed by this untoward event, she took refuge for awhile, of set purpose, in the lit
tle salon; for if she had gone to her own room, she must have burst into tears and cried her eyes out. Her father was there, reading a book on the sofa; and Corona, too; she could just make out a vague blur for Corona. So she glided in, and sank into a seat. Haviland Dumaresq glanced up from his book as she entered and smiled approbation. She had made her way to her seat without much difficulty, and now she was gazing, by no means vacantly, around the room. He was sure by the intelligent look in her eyes that Psyche was really taking in and observing the various objects.
And so, in the excitement of the moment, she really was. To conceal her agitation, to hide her misery, she was looking about her with all her eyes at the things in the room. And what was more, she saw them — she saw them.
A newspaper lay on the centre table of the salon. Psyche could make it out quite distinctly as a dim white patch from the place where she sat on the low divan between the two arcaded Moorish windows. Partly to please Haviland Dumaresq, partly to hide her pain and distress, she made up her mind to try and read it. Her father was always urging her to read, and so was the doctor, and Sirena too, and Corona, and everybody. If only she would rouse herself, they said — one effort of will — all might yet begin to re-establish itself. Well, then, she would: she would do it to please them. With that firmness of purpose which ran in the very blood with her, an inheritance of character from Haviland Dumaresq, Psyche determined that, swim and dance as it might, she would make it out — she would read it. She would show them all she could at least try hard: she would not be beaten by mere dead circumstance without at any rate one more stern struggle.
After a moment’s pause, she rose from her seat again and groped her way across the room firmly. Corona saw her, and, rising in concert, glided across to take her arm and lead her to the table. But Psyche waved the friendly aid aside with an imperious gesture. She wanted to do it all by herself. She stumbled across the vacant space to the table with doubtful feet, and took up the dim white patch in her trembling fingers. Her father watched her furtively above the top of his book. Looking hard at the title, and concentrating her gaze, she saw to her surprise that she could still make out the big print letters. It was the Dépêches Algériennes, and it was dated Jeudi, 26 Février. Pleased at her success, she turned back to the window, and seated herself once more on the low divan, where she tried to spell out the matter of the telegrams.
As she gazed at them vacantly, a word in the second column caught her eye on a sudden — a word that no longer swam or danced, but stared at her straight and hard in fast black letters — a word that she could have seen, she felt, if she were stone-blind — a word that burned itself then and there into her very brain.
A single English name!
The name Linnell, as clear as daylight.
She almost cried aloud with horror and surprise — horror, and a certain vague, indefinite fascination.
She knew he was dead: it was the certainty of his death the paper announced. Some straggler from the Soudan must have brought to Algiers the terrible tidings. Better the certainty than suspense any longer.
For to Psyche there was but one Linnell in the whole wide world. What to her were baronets or parsons or British officers? The name must needs be his, and nobody else’s.
With a terrible effort, she restrained herself from calling out, she restrained herself from fainting. Cold as death, she concentrated her glance once more upon the paper.
Science was right. It needed but a strong exercise of will. As she focussed her eyes upon the dim white sheet, letter after letter came out distinctly, in blood-red tints, till she could make out the key-words of the sentence easily: they glared at her from the page like liquid fire. They were: ‘Biskra’— ‘Linnell’— ‘Khartoum’— ‘Gordon.’
She bit her lip till the blood came almost, and dug the nails of her clenched left hand deep into the palm to increase the stimulus. She was striving hard enough now in all conscience. Her father and the doctors could find no fault with her.
Slowly, slowly, those critical words blazed out more distinctly and plainer still. Line after line gradually arranged itself. The colours only seemed all gone wrong. They glowed so fiercely, like molten gold, she could hardly look at them. But she looked for all that — she looked and shuddered. And this was what she read, in telegraphic French, written as it seemed to her in crimson letters on a burning ground of fiery orange:
‘Biskra, Feb. 24. — Arabs from the oases announce to-day that a caravan now crossing the desert convoys a survivor of Gordon’s army at Khartoum, cut off by the Mahdi in the course of last winter. From the description given, it would appear that the fugitive is probably an Englishman, whose name the Arabs assert to be Sir Linnell. In effect, an officer of that name is known to have been missing after the fall of Khartoum. The caravan is expected to reach Biskra some time about the 6th proximo.’
Psyche’s strength held out till she had finished the telegram. Then she fell back on her seat and swooned away suddenly.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
ONE HOPE IS TOO LIKE DESPAIR.
When Psyche opened her eyes again, she was lying on her own bed in the little blue-and-green Moorish room, and she knew by the sound of whispered voices that her father and Sirena were leaning tenderly over her. But all around was dark as pitch now: not a ray of light, not a tremor of sense, reached at last those great dim eyes of hers. ‘I know, my darling,’ Haviland Dumaresq said, with a stifled groan, as she looked up appealingly in the direction of the place whence she heard his voice come towards her. ‘I took it up and read it. I understand all. But, my darling, my darling, your sight’s come back: you saw it! you read it!’
‘It’s the last thing I shall ever see on earth,’ Psyche answered solemnly— ‘if it isn’t He. My eyes are gone now. I can make out nothing. Not a sparkle of light. I’m in black darkness.’
It was the first time father or daughter had ever openly alluded to Linnell’s existence since the day of that terrible awakening at Petherton. Haviland Dumaresq made no overt answer, but he leant over her with hot tears dropping from his eyes unchecked upon her face, and held her cold white hand intertwined in his with a fatherly pressure.
‘Is it He or the other one?’ Psyche cried again, unable to hold her suspense and anxiety locked up any longer in her own bosom. ‘How can we find out? Oh, how can we find out? Father, do you think it’s He or the other one?’
At that piteous cry, Haviland Dumaresq felt his own heart sink horribly within him. ‘My darling,’ he said, with a fearful shrinking reluctance, ‘I can’t bear to buoy you up with a false hope: if the paper says anything, it says Sir Austen: “an officer of that name is known to have been missing from Gordon’s force after the fall of Khartoum.”’
‘Yes, yes,’ Psyche cried, sitting up on the bed, and groping with her hand for Sirena to support her. ‘But that’s conjecture — that’s pure conjecture.’ Love had taught her logic of its own accord. ‘The newspaper knows no more than we do. They can’t tell whether it’s he or not. The one thing they know is that his name is — that: the French put Sir so often for Mr.’
‘Perhaps,’ her father answered slowly and sadly, unwilling to quench the smoking flax of Psyche’s despondency: ‘but we can’t tell. We can never guess it. We must wait and see. He’ll soon be at Biskra. Only, darling, don’t let yourself hope too easily, I implore you.’
Psyche rose, and stood up on the floor. Her face was very white and resolute. No staggering or indecision now. She groped her way like a blind woman to the wardrobe in the corner, and took out her jacket and hat by feeling for them.
‘Where are you going, my child?’ her father asked in blank surprise.
‘To Biskra,’ Psyche answered, gazing back at him intently from her sightless orbs. ‘To Biskra — to look for him.’
‘My darling, my darling, it’s quite impossible!’
‘Papa,’ Psyche said, groping blindly towards the door, ‘I must go. I feel I’ve got to. I can’t wait here for all those days in this
terror and uncertainty.’
Sirena seized her two hands in hers. ‘Psyche,’ she cried, with tears falling fast, ‘you can’t go. You’re not half strong enough. It’d kill you to travel all the way to the desert as weak as you are now. But you shan’t wait one minute longer than necessary, if we can help it, in this state of suspense. Cyrus and I will go to Biskra right away, and wire news to you, who it is, at the earliest opportunity.’
Psyche shook her head with infinite sadness. ‘That won’t do,’ she murmured. ‘I can’t stop still. I must do something. I want to be moving. I want to be in action, or else I shall die. And besides, if it’s really and truly He, I want to be there on the spot to welcome him.’
Her eyes as she spoke were dry and tearless. The contrast between her words and her impassive face was terrible to behold. Sirena forced her gently back into an easy-chair. ‘Cry! darling,’ she exclaimed imploringly. ‘Cry, cry, and that’ll relieve you! I wanted to have you for my very own sister; but now I’d most give my very life up, if only I could make it be that other man come to take you away from Cyrus. He and I’ll go to Biskra right away to find him, and never rest till we’ve news to tell you.’
As she spoke, with a sudden burst of emotion, the relief of tears came to Psyche. Sirena’s sympathy had broken the spell. Her hand had opened the sealed fountain. The poor child flung herself back in the easy-chair and sobbed and moaned like one whose heart is broken. Hoping against hope, she could hardly believe it was really Linnell. She couldn’t wait: she couldn’t wait. The long delay would almost kill her. And disappointment at its end would kill her inevitably.
They reasoned with her long, but she wouldn’t listen. It was impossible in such a state as hers to go: the journey was long: her nerves were shattered. But Psyche, a Dumaresq born that she was, remained like adamant. To one thing alone she returned at each assault. She must and would go to Biskra.
