Chapter 11
When he got back to his lodging, Welton took care to assume as careless a manner as he could manage, and although he was afraid he was not very successful, for Basil eyed him keenly, and appeared dissatisfied with his vague account of the evening's doings, he escaped that torrent of questions which he was unwilling to meet.
Not for the world would he have worried his brother by telling him the story he had heard that evening from Miss Ferriby's lips, of their father being alive and well and in England.
Whether it was true or not, Welton could not decide. At one moment he told himself it was a mere ruse to keep him in her employ; the next he remembered how often such tricks have been played before by ruined men, and wondered whether there might not be some truth in her account.
However that might be, he was disgusted with the fraudulent and extortionate business carried on at The Lawns, and extremely anxious to break off all connection with Miss Ferriby. But he had more than one reason for not wishing to do so at once.
In the first place, he was on thorns until he could make sure whether her story concerning his father were true or false; and it was to be remembered that she had never heard a word about his father or his own affairs from himself. In the second place, he wanted to be quite sure whether his suspicions about her use of the money she collected were justified; and in the third place, he did not want to lose his excuse for visiting the Ashcots.
So for the present he felt that he was tied, and that he could take his time about breaking off altogether his connection with The Lawns.
In the morning he ventured to write a short letter to Barbara Ashcot, apologizing for not calling in the afternoon as he had proposed to do, and saying that he had been detained by Miss Ferriby, but that he would call that afternoon in the hope of being able to see her for a few minutes and explain.
He was not quite sure yet how much he should tell her. The Ashcots had already been abundantly justified in their warnings, and he thought that perhaps they might know even more than they had professed to do. Candour on his side might perhaps induce them to say more than they had said yet about the visitors to The Lawns, and he wondered whether, by any chance, they might have noticed among the nocturnal guests of Miss Ferriby any person whom they recognized as resembling himself. Perhaps they would prove to have seen his own father go in or out.
At this thought Welton grew so much agitated that his brother, who was sitting at the breakfast table with him, wondered what was the matter. But the elder was reticent, and would make no confession.
To Basil's openly expressed fears that he was not getting on comfortably at The Lawns, Welton replied that he had given Miss Ferriby a month's notice.
Then Basil asked sharply, "How about the footman?"
For a moment Welton could not remember what he meant. The fact was that so many things had happened since the meeting with Box at the door of the millionaire's house, that they had pushed into the background that incident, singular as it was. Then he recalled the episode. "Yes. I'm sure it was the same man, quite sure."
"And what do you think it means?"
"Ah," said Welton, "that's more than I can say."
"Did you tell Miss Ferriby?"
"No."
"Do you think she had anything to do with it?
Welton paused. Then he rose hurriedly and said in a breathless voice, "I think nothing happens within a four-mile radius of Miss Ferriby that she doesn't know all about."
Basil was dismayed. There was a gravity about the usually high-spirited and light-hearted Welton, which warned the younger brother that something was at stake. But Welton would say nothing more before hurrying away to The Lawns for his day's work.
As he passed the little house where the Ashcots lived, he dropped his note into the letter-box, and then hurried down the garden path without waiting to see whether the door would be opened.
He did not want to be caught and detained by Mrs. Ashcot and her daughter just then, having a very strong belief that they would have a long story to tell him, which would delay his arrival at his employer's house.
Miss Ferriby was cold and cross that morning, and Welton was careful to immerse himself at once in the business of the day, in order to avoid conversation upon any subject more exhilarating than the letters with which he was dealing.
He guessed, of course, that by this time she would have had a long consultation with her partners or her subordinates concerning himself, and he could feel sure that there would be agreement on the matter between the men on the one side and Miss Ferriby on the other.
However that might be, when the morning's work was done, Miss Ferriby asked him, as she rose to go, whether he would stay and dine with her again that evening. He thanked her, but pleaded an engagement.
Evidently surprised by this answer, she stopped short as she was about to pass under the portière, and said shortly, "What engagement?"
He hesitated. There would have been no harm in saying he had to make a call in the neighbourhood, but knowing what extensive and accurate knowledge of the doings of her own household Miss Ferriby was sure to have, he thought he would rather not bring it to her notice that he intended to visit the neighbours of whom she had spoken so vindictively.
But his hesitation was enough for her.
"You are going to pay a call, I suppose?"
"A duty call. Yes, I have to."
"Very well. Pay your call, if it is at no great distance, and come back here afterwards."
"I am afraid that's impossible today, Miss Ferriby. I have an engagement for this evening also."
"You said nothing about it last night, when I spoke about this evening?"
He remembered that she had suggested his dining with her a third time, and that as it was during dinner and before his adventure of the veranda, he had appeared quite ready to accept it.
There was an awkward silence. Then she laughed gently, but in a way which sent a cold shiver down his back. Every advance in acquaintance with this woman revealed new powers in her, and he now knew how much more she guessed of his thoughts than he would have had known. Suddenly her tone and manner changed. The note of dictatorship, of arrogance, went out of her voice, and coming down from her footstool and leaning over the desk towards him, she insisted upon his meeting her eyes. They were full of tears.
"I know where you're going," she said almost brokenly. "You're going to the little cottage at the end of the lane to see the Ashcots, the people who are never tired of talking scandal about me -- about me, a poor deformed creature, for whom, if they had hearts at all, they would feel nothing but pity and compassion."
The words, spoken with passion, with acute emotion, filled Welton with shame and vague remorse. He felt at the moment, so strong was this woman's influence and power, as if he had been guilty of a mean and treacherous act in wishing to discuss her doings and her motives with the two ladies whom he knew to be safer and better friends.
He knew that this feeling was illogical, but he could not help it. The strong will and strong intellect of Miss Ferriby were potent enough to cast a spell upon him while he was under the direct influence of her presence, of the passion which thrilled in her deep voice, the fire which burned in her great grey eyes.
Even though he knew that the Ashcots had done nothing but warn him of dangers that existed at The Lawns, and that Miss Ferriby was in the habit of doing things which would bring her, if they were known, within reach of the law, he felt at the moment as if he were the most treacherous and mean of men.
"I am sure, Miss Ferriby," he stammered out, after a few moments' guilty silence, "that Mrs. Ashcot would never say anything about her neighbours in the nature of ill-natured gossip."
Miss Ferriby drew herself up, flashed at him a look of scorn, and laughed contemptuously. "Mrs. Ashcot!" she said mockingly. "Mrs. Ashcot! Well, I'm not much concerned about what Mrs. Ashcot says. What I want to know----" and she suddenly darted forward again, and hanging over the desk, looked straight into
his face with burning eyes, "---- is not what Mrs. Ashcot says about me, but what her daughter says. Yes, Welton, that's what I want to know. You look upon me as a clever, strong-minded woman. But I'm not clever. I'm not even commonly sensible and logical when it's a question of a pretty woman. For I know that I do not have a chance against her, and that if you have to choose between giving a few hours of your society to a poor, misshapen creature with a woman's affections and a woman's longing for sympathy, and the emptiest-headed pretty girl that ever lisped out silly nothings to every man that spoke to her, why, I should have to go to the wall, even if I died for it!"
Her voice shook with the passion which possessed her, and her eyes seemed to swim in unshed tears. Astonished, half disgusted and repelled, yet moved to something like compassion at the same time, Welton did not know what to say.
She saw that she had succeeded in touching him, and she leaned over the desk and said in a low, vibrating voice, "Give up one more evening to me, Welton, won't you? You won't have any guests or mysterious visitors to contend with this time, I promise you."
But he would not give up Barbara for Miss Ferriby, nor was he by any means anxious for another evening in her society. She had delighted him by her conversation, by her singing, by her playing. But the pleasure was all too dearly bought with the anxieties and suspicions to which he had been a prey ever since, and he stood firm.
Gently, playfully, he persisted that he could not break faith in the matter of his engagement for that evening, and when she pleaded for the following day, he said truly that he had a long-standing engagement for that night which was important for him and his brother.
Deeply offended, Miss Ferriby suddenly gave up her persuasions, and with a cold, "Well, as you please, then," she left the room.
Welton wondered whether he would now suffer in any way from her displeasure during the rest of his working day. But by the time she came back at five o'clock to see what he had done, she appeared to have forgotten all about their conversation of the morning, although he knew very well that she had not really done so.
When he left The Lawns, he took the precaution, thinking that he might be watched, of going to the end of the lane and out of sight before he turned back in order to keep his promise of calling at the Ashcots'. To make this action plausible, he posted some of Miss Ferriby's letters in the main street, and then came back to the lane.
Alas for his precaution! As he put his hand upon the latch of the garden gate, he saw Box, the mysterious footman, watching him from outside the green door.
When he got inside the little drawing room, where he found both the ladies eager to receive him, Welton was looking so harassed that Mrs. Ashcot at once began to overwhelm him with questions as to what had happened. It then transpired that they had been outside the house on the preceding evening, and had heard his cry for "Miss Ferriby," and they had ever since been in a state of anxiety on his account.
He did his best to persuade them that nothing serious had taken place there. Although he did not convince them of that, he made Barbara by his looks so sure that this pressure was distasteful to him, that she contrived to persuade her mother to drop the subject of The Lawns, and to converse on other matters.
By dint of perseverance the girl succeeded. When, however, she got an opportunity of saying a few words to Welton in the absence of her mother, she was disappointed to find that he was as reticent with her as he had been with her mother.
However, she had more tact than Mrs. Ashcot, and though she was disappointed, she did not press him to confess what he evidently wished to keep to himself.
He stayed with them a very short time, and hurried home to his rooms where he treated his brother with just as much reserve as before, and even went out to avoid the temptation of talking too much to him.
On the following day he went as usual to Miss Ferriby's. She said not a word about his visit to the Ashcots, and did not press him to stay to dinner, as he had feared she would do.
He had truthfully told her that he had a longstanding appointment for that evening. It was a ball at the house of one of the friends from his father's prosperous days, and the brothers were half glad, half sorry, to be once more among the old set, dancing with their old partners, and sitting in the beautiful suite of rooms they remembered so well.
They met a good many old acquaintances, and were touched by the kindly feeling displayed on all sides, and by the hearty kindness with which more than one of their fellow-guests insisted that they should no longer "bury themselves," and invited them to their houses with even more warmth than in the old days.
In the midst of the pleasure he felt at this discovery that their old friends had not forgotten them, Welton was recalled to his later and less pleasant experiences by seeing among the crowd of dancers a lady whom he did not know, but whom he recognized as one of the crowd of smartly dressed women he had seen waiting Miss Ferriby's leisure in the drawing room at The Lawns.
At once he asked and obtained an introduction to her, and found her to be Lady Mirfield, the wife of a well-known sporting baronet. He found her to be a charming woman of the frivolous and sprightly type, eager for every sort of new amusement, and easily led to talk upon any subject.
So he led the conversation, during the waltz she gave him, on to the subject of the occult, and asked her if she believed in omens.
"Oh, yes, I'm dreadfully superstitious," she answered frankly. "I was at Miss Ferriby's -- you know, Fiammetta -- having my fortune told. Only she doesn't call it that, you know. She's too great a personage. She calls it 'translating the vital language.' But it comes to much the same thing."
"Does she ever make good predictions?"
"Good? Oh, yes, it's quite uncanny! She told me ever so many things I thought nobody knew. She's weirdly clever, or lucky, or something. And everybody says the same thing. She's absolutely the queen of that sort of thing. There's no one to touch her."
"I suppose I mustn't ask what sort of things she foretells?" suggested Welton, more interested than he dared show.
"Well, I couldn't tell you everything, but I may give you a specimen of her powers. I asked her where the person was I loved best in the world. And she said at once 'India.' And she was right."
"That's wonderful," said Welton.
"Yes, and she was right in other things. People go to her for everything nowadays. If I were Mr. Van Velsen, I should go to her to find out who stole his curios."
Welton was so much startled that he could for a moment scarcely speak. "What curios?" he asked after a pause.
"Haven't you heard? It was found yesterday that some very valuable things, snuffboxes and little things like that, priceless, I believe, were missing from one of his cabinets."
Welton felt as if his brain was reeling. Mr. Van Velsen, the millionaire in whose house he had seen Box the footman enter as a guest, disguised in a fair moustache!
That Miss Ferriby would be able to tell something about that robbery -- if she chose -- he could well believe.
As he walked away after leading Lady Mirfield to a seat, he almost felt as guilty as if he were an accomplice of the thief.