CHAPTER XVII
CROSSING THE CHANNEL
Booth, restless with a vague uneasiness that had come over himduring the night, keeping him awake until nearly dawn, was hard putduring the early hours of the forenoon to find occupation for hisinterest until a seasonable time arrived for appearing at Southlook. Hewas unable to account for this feeling of uncertainty and irritation.
At nine he set out to walk over to Southlook, realising that he shouldhave to spend an hour in profitless gossip with the lodge-keeperbefore presenting himself at the villa, but somehow relishing thethought that even so he would be nearer to Hetty than if he remainedin his own door-yard.
Half-way there he was overtaken by Sara's big French machine returningfrom the village. The car came to a standstill as he stepped asideto let it pass, and Sara herself leaned over and cordially invitedhim to get in and ride home with her.
"What an early bird you are," he exclaimed as he took his seatbeside her.
She was not in a mood for airy persiflage, as he soon discovered.
"Miss Castleton has gone up to town, Mr. Booth," she said ratherlifelessly. "I have just taken her to the station. She caught theeight-thirty."
He was at once solicitous. "No bad news, I hope?" There was nothought in his mind that her absence was other than temporary.
"She is not coming back, Brandon." She had not addressed him asBrandon before.
He stared. "You--you mean--" The words died on his lips.
"She is not coming back," she repeated.
An accusing gleam leaped into his eyes.
"What has happened, Mrs. Wrandall?" he asked.
She was quick to perceive the change in his voice and manner.
"She prefers to live apart from me. That is all."
"When was this decision reached?"
"But yesterday. Soon after she came in from her walk with you."
"Do--do you mean to imply that THAT had anything to do with herleaving your home?" he demanded, with a flush on his cheek.
She met his look without flinching. "It was the beginning."
"You--you criticised her? You took her to task--"
"I notified her that she was to marry Leslie Wrandall, if shemarries any one at all," she said in a perfectly level tone.
"Good Lord, Mrs. Wrandall!"
"But she is not going to marry Leslie."
"I know it--I knew it yesterday," he cried triumphantly. "She lovesme, Sara. Didn't she say as much to you?"
"Yes, Brandon, she loves you. But she will not be your wife."
"What is all this mystery? Why can't she be my wife? What is thereto prevent?"
She regarded him with dark, inscrutable eyes. Many seconds passedbefore she spoke.
"Would you want her for your wife if you knew she had belonged toanother man?"
He turned very cold. The palms of his hands were wet, as withice-water. Something dark seemed to flit before his eyes.
"I will not believe that of her," he said, shaking his head withan air of finality.
"That is not an answer to my question."
"Yes, I would still want her," he declared steadily.
"I merely meant to put you to the harshest test," she said, andthere was relief in her voice. "She is a good girl, she is pure.I asked my question because until yesterday I had reason to doubther."
"Good heavens, how could you doubt those honest, guiltless eyesof--"
She shook her head sadly. "To answer you I would have to revealthe secret that makes it impossible for her to become your wife,and that I cannot, will not do."
"Is it fair to me?"
"Perhaps not, but it is fair to her, and that is why I must remainsilent."
"Before God, I shall know the truth,--from her, if not fromyou,--and--"
"If you love her, if you will be kind to her, you will let her goher way in peace."
He was struck by the somewhat sinister earnestness of her words.
"Tell me where I may find her," he said, setting his jaw.
"It will not be difficult for you to find her," she said, frowning,"if you insist on pursuing her."
"You drive her away from your house, Sara Wrandall, and yet expectme to believe that your motives are friendly. Why should I acceptyour word as final?"
"I did not drive her away, nor did I ask her to stay."
He stared hard at her.
"Good Lord, what is the meaning of all this?" he cried in perplexity."What am I to understand?"
The car had come to a stop under the porte cochere. She laid herhand on his arm.
"If you will come in with me, Brandon, I will try to make somethings clear to you."
He left in half-an-hour, walking rapidly down the drive, his coatbuttoned closely, although the morning was hot and breathless. Heheld in his hand a small scrap of paper on which was written: "IfI loved you less, I would come to you now and lie to you. If youlove me, Brandon, you will let me go my way. It is the only course.Sara is my friend, and she is yours. Be guided by her, and believein my love for you. Hetty."
And now, as things go in fairy stories, we should prepare ourselvesto see Hetty pass through a season in drudgery and hardship, withthe ultimate quintessence of joy as the reward for her trials andtribulations. Happily, this is not a fairy tale. There are somethings more fantastic than fairy tales, if they are not spoiled inthe telling. Hetty did not go forth to encounter drudgery, disdainand obloquy. By no manner of means! She went with a well-filledpurse, a definite purpose ahead and a determined factor behind.
In a manner befitting her station as the intimate friend of Mrs.Challis Wrandall, as the cousin of the Murgatroyds, as the daughterof Colonel Castleton of the Indian Corps, as a person supposed tobe possessed of independent means withal, she went, with none toquestion, none to cavil.
Sara had insisted on this, as much for her own sake as for Hetty's;she argued, and she had prevailed in the end. What would the worldthink, what would their acquaintances think, and above all whatwould the high and mighty Wrandalls think if she went with meekand lowly mien?
Why should they make it possible for any one to look askance?
And so it was that she departed in state, with a dozen trunks andboxes; an obsequiously attended seat in the parlour-car was hers;a telegram in her bag assured her that rooms were being reservedfor herself and maid at the Ritz-Carlton; alongside it reposed aletter to Mr. Carroll, instructing him to provide her with sufficientfunds to carry out the plan agreed upon; and in the seat behindsat the lady's maid who had served her for a twelve-month and more.
The timely demise of the venerable Lord Murgatroyd afforded themost natural excuse for her trip to England. The old nobleman gaveup the ghost, allowing for difference in time, at the very momentwhen Mrs. Redmond Wrandall was undoing a certain package fromLondon, which turned out to be a complete history of what hisforebears had done in the way of propagation since the fourteenthcentury.
Hetty did not find it easy to accommodate her pride to the planwhich was to give her a fresh and rather imposing start in theworld. She was to have a full year in which to determine whether sheshould accept toil and poverty as her lot, or emulate the symbolicexample of Dicky the canary bird. At the end of the year, unless shedid as Dicky had done, her source of supplies would be automaticallycut off and she would be entirely dependent upon her own wits andresources. In the interim, she was a probationary person of leisure.It had required hours of persuasion on the part of Sara Wrandallto bring her into line with these arrangements.
"But I am able and willing to work for my living," had been Hetty'sstubborn retort to all the arguments brought to bear upon her.
"Then let me put it in another light. It is vital to me, of course,that you should keep up the show of affluence for a while at least.I think I have made that clear to you. But here is another side tothe matter; the question of recompense."
"Recompense?" cried Hetty sharply.
"Without your knowing it, I have virtually held you a prisoner allthese months, c
ondemned in my own judgment if not in the sight ofthe law. I have taken the law unto myself. You were not convictedof murder in this Unitarian court of mine, but of another sin. Forfifteen months you have been living under the shadow of a crime youdid not commit. I was reserving complete punishment for you in theshape of an ignoble marriage, which was to have served two bitterends. Well, I have had the truth from you. I believe you tobe absolutely innocent of the charge I held over you, for which Icondemned you without a hearing. Then, why should I not employ myown means of making restitution?"
"You have condescended to believe in me. That is all I ask."
"True, that is all you ask. But is it altogether the fair way out ofit? To illustrate: our criminal laws are less kind to the innocentthan to the guilty. Our law courts find a man guilty and he issent to prison. Later on, he is found to be innocent--absolutelyinnocent. What does the State do in the premises? It issuesa formal pardon,--a mockery, pure and simple,--and the man is setfree. It all comes to a curt, belated apology for an error on thepart of justice. No substantial recompense is offered. He is merelypardoned for something he didn't do. The State, which has wrongedhim, condescends to pardon him! Think of it! It is the same as ifa man knocked another down and then said, before he removed hisfoot from the victim's neck: 'I pardon you freely.' My father wasopposed to the system we have--that all countries have--of pardoningmen who have been unjustly condemned. The innocent victim is pardonedin the same manner as the guilty one who comes in for clemency. Iaccept my father's contention that an innocent man should not beshamed and humiliated by a PARDON. The court which tried him shouldre-open the case and honourably ACQUIT him of the crime. Thenthe State should pay to this innocent man, dollar for dollar, allthat he might have earned during his term of imprisonment, with anadditional amount for the suffering he has endured. Not long ago inan adjoining State a man, who had served seventeen years of a lifesentence for murder, was found to be wholly innocent. What happened?A PARDON was handed to him and he walked out of prison, brokenin spirit, health and purse. His small fortune had been wiped outin the futile effort to prove his innocence. He gave up seventeenyears of his life and then WAS PARDONED for the sacrifice. Heshould have been paid for every day spent in prison. That was thevery least they could have done."
"I see now what you mean," mused Hetty. "I have never thought ofit in that way before."
"Well, it comes to this in our case, Hetty: I have tried you allover again in my own little court and I have acquitted you of thecharge I had against you. I do not offer you a silly pardon. Youmust allow me to have my way in this matter, to choose my own meansof compensating you for--"
"You saved my life," protested Hetty, shaking her head obstinately.
"My dear, I appreciate the fact that you are English," said Sara,with a weary smile, "but won't you PLEASE see the point?"
Then Hetty smiled too, and the way was easier after that for Sara.She gained her quixotic point, and Hetty went away from Southlookfeeling that no woman in all the world was so bewildering as SaraWrandall.
When she sailed for England, two days later, the newspapers announcedthat the beautiful and attractive Miss Castleton was returning toher native land on account of the death of Lord Murgatroyd, andwould spend the year on the Continent, where probably she wouldbe joined later on by Mrs. Wrandall, whose period of mourning anddistress had been softened by the constant and loyal friendship of"this exquisite Englishwoman."
Four hundred miles out at sea, she was overtaken by wireless messagesfrom three persons.
Brandon Booth's message said: "I am sailing to-morrow on a fastership than yours. You will find me waiting for you on the landingstage." Her heart gave a leap to dizzy heights, and, try as shewould, she could not crush it back to the depths in which it haddwelt for days.
The second bit of pale green paper contained a cry from a mostunexpected source: "Cable your London address. S. refuses to give itto me. I think I understand the situation. We want to make amendsfor what you have had to put up with during the year. She has shownher true nature at last." It was signed "Leslie."
From Sara came these cryptic words: "For each year of famine therewill come seven years of plenty."
All the way across the Atlantic she lived in a state of subduedexcitement. Conflicting emotions absorbed her waking hours buther dreams were all of one complexion: rosy and warm and full ofa joyousness that distressed her vastly when she recalled them tomind in the early morning hours. During the day she intermittentlyhoped and feared that he would be on the landing stage. In any event,she was bound to find unhappiness. If he were there her joy wouldbe short-lived and blighting; if he were not there, her disappointmentwould be equally hard to bear.
He was there. She saw him from the deck of the tender as theyedged up to the landing. His tall figure loomed in the front rankagainst the rail that held back the crowd; his sun-bronzed facewore a look of eager expectancy; from her obscured position in theshadow of the deck building, purposely chosen for reasons only tooobvious, she could even detect the alert, swift-moving scrutinythat he fastened upon the crowd.
Later on, he stood looking down into her serious blue eyes; her handswere lying limp in his. His own eyes were dark with earnestness,with the restraint that had fastened itself upon him. Behind herstood the respectful but immeasurably awed maid, who could not,for the life of her, understand how a man could be on both sidesof the Atlantic at one and the same time.
"Thank the Lord, Hetty, say I, for the five day boats," he wassaying.
"You should not have come, Brandon," she cried softly, and thelook of misery in her eyes was tinged with a glow she could notsuppress. "It only makes everything harder for me. I--I--Oh, Iwish you had not come!"
"But isn't it wonderful?" he cried, "that I should be here andwaiting for you! It is almost inconceivable. And you were in theact of running away from me, too. Oh, I have that much of the talefrom Sara, so don't look so hurt about it."
"I am so sorry you came," she repeated, her lip trembling.
Noting her emotion, he gave her hands a fierce, encouraging pressureand immediately released them.
"Come," he said gently; "I have booked for London. Everything isarranged. I shall see to your luggage. Let me put you in the carriagefirst."
As she sat in the railway carriage, waiting for him to return,she tried in a hundred ways to devise a means of escape, and yetshe had never loved him so much as now. Her heart was sore, herdesolation never so complete as now.
He came back at last and took his seat beside her in the compartment,fanning himself with his hat. The maid very discreetly stared outof the window at the hurrying throng of travellers on the platform.One other person occupied the compartment with them, a crabbedEnglishman who seemed to resent the fact that his seat was not nextthe window, and that maids should be encouraged to travel firstclass.
"Isn't it really wonderful?" whispered Booth once more, quite asif he couldn't believe it himself. She smiled rather doubtfully.He was sitting quite close to her and leaning forward.
The Englishman got up and went into the corridor to consult theconductor. One might have heard him say he'd very much prefer goinginto another compartment where it wouldn't be necessary for himto annoy a beastly American bride and groom--her maid and perhapslater on his man--all the way up to London.
"How I love you--Hetty--how I adore you!" Booth whispered passionately.
"Oh, Brandon!"
"And I don't mean to give you up," he added, his lean jaw settinghard.
"You must--oh, you must," she cried miserably. "I mean it, Brandon--"
The Englishman came back and took his seat. He glared at Booththrough his eye-glass, and that young gentleman sat up in suddenembarrassment.
"What are your plans?" asked he, turning his back on theirfellow-passenger.
"Please don't ask me," she pleaded. "You must give it up, Brandon.Let me go my own way."
"Not until I have the whole story from you. You see, I am noteasily thwarted, once I set m
y heart on a thing. I gathered thismuch from Sara: the obstacle is NOT insurmountable."
"She--said--that?"
"In effect, yes," he qualified.
"What did she tell you?" demanded Hetty, laying her hand on hisarm.
"I will confess she didn't reveal the secret that you consider abarrier, but she went so far as to say that it was very dark anddreadful," he said lightly. They were speaking in very low tones."When I pinned her down to it, she added that it did not in anysense bear upon your honour. But there is time enough to talk aboutthis later on. For the present, let's not discuss the past. I knowenough of your history from your own lips as well as what little Icould get out of Sara, to feel sure that you are, in a way, drifting.I intend to look after you, at least until you find yourself. Yoursudden break with Sara has been explained to me. Leslie Wrandallis at the back of it. Sara told me that she tried to force you tomarry him. I think you did quite right in going away as you did,but, on the other hand, was it quite fair to me?"
"Yes, it was most fair," she said, compressing her lips.
He frowned.
"We can't possibly be of the same opinion," he said seriously.
"You wouldn't say that if you knew everything."
"How long do you intend to stay in London?"
"I don't know. When does this train arrive there?"
"At four o'clock, I think. Will you go to an hotel or to friends?"He put the question very delicately.
She smiled faintly. "You mean the Murgatroyds?"
"Your father is here, I am informed. And you must have other friendsor relatives who--"
"I shall go to a small hotel I know near Trafalgar Square," sheinterrupted quietly. "You must not come there to see me, Brandon."
"I shall expect you to dine with me at--say Prince's this evening,"was his response to this.
She shook her head and then turned to look out of the window. Hesat back in his seat and for many miles, with deep perplexity in hiseyes, studied her half-averted face. The old uneasiness returned.Was this obstacle, after all, so great that it could not be overcome?
They lunched together, but were singularly reserved all through themeal. A plan was growing in her brain, a cruel but effective planthat made her despise herself and yet contained the only means ofescape from an even more cruel situation.
He drove with her from the station to the small hotel off TrafalgarSquare. There were no rooms to be had. It was the week of Ascot andthe city was still crowded with people who awaited only the royalsign to break the fetters that bound them to London. Somewhatperturbed, she allowed him to escort her to several hotels of alike character. Failing in each case, she was in despair. At lastshe plucked up the courage to say to him, not without constraintand embarrassment:
"I think, Brandon, if you were to allow me to apply ALONE to oneof these places I could get in without much trouble."
"Good Lord!" he gasped, going very red with dismay. "What a foolI--"
"I'll try the Savoy," she said quickly, and then laughed at him.His face was the picture of distress.
"I shall come for you at eight," he said, stopping the taxi atonce. "Good-bye till then."
He got out and gave directions to the chauffeur. Then he did a verystrange thing. He hailed another taxi and, climbing in, startedoff in the wake of the two women. From a point of vantage nearthe corridor leading to the "American bar," he saw Hetty sign herslips and move off toward the lift. Whereupon, seeing that she wasquite out of the way, he approached the manager's office and askedfor accommodations.
"Nothing left, sir."
"Not a thing?"
"Everything has been taken for weeks, sir. I'm sorry."
"Sorry, too. I had hoped you might have something left for a friendwho expects to stop here--a Miss Castleton."
"Miss Castleton has just applied. We could not give her anything."
"Eh?"
"Fortunately we could let her have rooms until eight this evening.We were more than pleased to offer them to her for a few hours,although they are reserved for parties coming down from Liverpooltonight."
Booth tried the Cecil and got a most undesirable room. Calling upthe Savoy on the telephone, he got her room. The maid answered.She informed him that Miss Castleton had just that instant goneout and would not return before seven o'clock.
"I suppose she will not remove her trunks from the station untilshe finds a permanent place to lodge," he inquired. "Can I be ofany service?"
"I think not, sir. She left no word, sir."
He hung up the receiver and straightway dashed over to the Savoy,hoping to catch her before she left the hotel. Just inside the doorhe came to an abrupt stop. She was at the news and ticket booth inthe lobby, closely engaged in conversation with the clerk. Presentlythe latter took up the telephone, and after a brief conversationwith some one at the other end, turned to Hetty and nodded hishead. Whereupon she nodded her own adorable head and began thesearch for her purse. Booth edged around to an obscure spot andsaw her pay for and receive something in return.
"By Jove!" he said to himself, amazed.
She passed near him, without seeing him, and went out into thecourt. He watched her turn into the Strand.
When the night boat from Dover to Calais slipped away from hermoorings that evening, Hetty Castleton and her maid were on board,with all their bags and trunks, and Brandon Booth was supposed tobe completely at sea in the heart of that glittering London-town.
The night was fog-laden and dripping, and the crossing promisedto be unpleasant. Wrapped in a thick sea-ulster Hetty sat huddledup in the lea of the deck-house, sick at heart and miserable. Shereproached herself for the scurvy trick she was playing on him,reviled herself and yet pitied herself. After all, she was doinghim a good turn in forcing him to despise her for the shamelessway in which she treated his devotion, his fairness, his loyalty.He would be happier in the end for the brief spasm of pain and disgusthe was to experience in this second revelation of her unworthiness.
Crouching there in the shadow, with the foghorn chortling hoarselyover the shabby trick,--so it seemed to her,--she stared back atthe misty glow of the pier and tried to pierce the distance thatlay between her and the lights of London, so many leagues away.HE was there, in the glitter and glamour of it all, but black withdisappointment and wonder. Oh, it was a detestable thing she haddone! Her poor heart ached for him. She could almost see the despair,the bewilderment in his honest eyes as he sat in his room, hoursafter the discovery of her flight, defeated, betrayed, disillusioned.
There were but few people crossing. Sailors stood by the rail,peering into the fog, but it seemed to her that no one else wasafoot on board the steamer. Already the boat was beginning to showsigns of the uneasy trip ahead. Many foghorns, far and near, werebarking their lugubrious warnings; the choppy waves were slashingagainst the vessel with a steady beat; the bobbling of the shipincreased as it plunged deeper into the cross-seas. But she hadno thought of the ship, the channel or the perils that surroundedher. Her mind was back in London with her heart, and there wasnothing ahead of her save the dread of tomorrow's sunlight.
She was a good sailor. A dozen times, perhaps, she had crossed theEnglish Channel, in fair weather and foul, and never with discomfort.Her maid, she knew, was in for a wretched brawl with the waves,but Hetty was too wise a sailor to think of trying to comfort theunhappy creature. Misery does not always love company.
A tall man came shambling down the narrow space along the railand stopped directly in front of her. She started in alarm as hereached out his hand to support himself against the deck house. Ashe leaned forward, he laughed.
"You were thinking of me, Hetty," said the man.
For a long time she stared at him, transfixed, and then, with alow moan, covered her eyes with her hands.
"Is it true--is it a dream?" she sobbed.
He dropped down beside her and gathered her in his strong, eagerarms.
"You WERE thinking of me, weren't you? And reproaching yourself,and hati
ng yourself for running away like this? I thought so. Well,you might just as well try to dodge the smartest detective in theworld as to give me the slip now, darling."
"You--you spied on me?" she cried, in muffled tones. She lay verylimp in his arms.
"I did," he confessed, without shame. "'Gad, when I think of whatI might be doing at this moment if I hadn't found you out in time!Think of me back there in London, racing about like a madman,searching for you in every--"
"Please, please!" she implored.
"But luck was with me. You can't get away, Hetty. I shan't let youout of my sight again. I'll camp in front of your door and you'llsee me wither and die of sleeplessness, for one or the other of myeyes will always be open."
"Oh, I am so tired, so miserable," she murmured.
"Poor little sweetheart!"
"I wish you would hate me."
"Lie where you are, dearest, and--forget!"
"If I only could--forget!"
"Rest. I will hold you tight and keep you warm. We're in for a nastycrossing, but it is paradise for me. I am mad with the delight ofhaving you here, holding you close to me, feeling you in my arms.The wilder the night the better, for I am wild with the joy of itall. I love you! I love you!" He strained her closer to him in asort of paroxysm.
She was quiet for a long time. Then she breathed into his ear:
"You will never know how much I was longing for you, just as youare now, Brandon, and in the midst of it all you came. It is likea fairy story, and oh, I shall always believe in fairies."
All about them were the sinister sounds of the fog--the hoots,the growls and groans of lost things in the swirl of the North Seacurrent, creeping blindly through the guideless mist. To both ofthem, the night had a strangely symbolic significance: whither werethey drifting and where lay the unseen port?
A huge liner from one of the German ports slipped across their bowswith hoarse blasts of warning. They saw the misty glow of her lightsfor an instant, and even as they drew the sharp breath of fear,the night resumed its mantle and their own little vessel seemed tocome to life again after the shock of alarm and its engines throbbedthe faster, just as the heartbeats quicken when reaction sets in.
A long time afterward the throbbing ceased, bell-buoys whistled andclanged about them; the sea suddenly grew calm and lifeless; theyslid over it as if it were a quavering sheet of ice; and lightssneaked out of the fog and approached with stealthy swiftness.Bells rang below and above them, sailors sprang up from everywhereand calls were heard below; the rattling of chains and the thumpingof heavy luggage took the place of that steady, monotonous beat ofthe engines. People began to infest the deck, limp and groaning,harassed but voiceless. A mighty sigh seemed to envelop the wholeship--a sigh of relief.
Then it was that these two arose stiffly from their sheltered benchand gave heed to the things that were about them.
The Channel was behind them.