December Love

  CHAPTER XI

  Early on the following morning, soon after ten o'clock Miss Van Tuyn wasstartled by a knock on her bedroom door. Everything at all unexpectedstartled her just now. Her nerves, as even old Fanny could not helpnoticing, had gone "all to pieces." She lived in perpetual fear. Nearlyall the previous night she had been lying awake turning over and over inher mind the horrible possibilities of the future. It was in vain thatshe tried to call her normal common sense to the rescue, in vain thatshe tried to look at facts calmly, to sum them up dispassionately, andto draw from them reasonable conclusions. She could not be reasonable.Her brain said to her: "You have no reason for fear. You are perfectlysafe. Your folly and wilfulness, your carelessness of opinion, yourreckless spirit of defiant independence, your ugly and abominabledesires"--her brain did not spare her--"might easily have brought youto irretrievable ruin. They might have destroyed you. But Fate hasintervened to protect you. You have been saved from the consequences ofyour own imprudence--to call it by no other name. Give thanks to the Godof luck, and to the woman who sacrificed her pride for your sake, andlive differently in the future." Her brain, in fact, told her she wassaved. But something else that she could not classify, something stilland remote and persistent, told her that she was in great danger. Shesaid to herself, thinking of Arabian: "What can he do? I am my ownmistress. If I choose to cut him dead he must accept my decision to havenothing more to do with him and go out of my life. He simply can't doanything else. I have the whole thing in my hands. He hasn't a scrap ofmy writing. He can't blackmail me. He can't compromise me more than Ihave already compromised myself by going about with him and being seenin his flat. He is helpless, and I have absolutely nothing to be afraidof." She said all this to herself, and yet she was full of fear. Thatfear had driven her to Lady Sellingworth on the previous evening, and ithad grown in the night. The thought of Arabian tormented her. She saidto herself that he could do nothing and, even while she said it, theinexorable something within her whispered: "What might not that man do?"Her imagination put no limit now to his possibilities for evil. All thehorrors of the underworld were, for her, congregated together in him.She trembled at the memory of having been in his arms, shut up alonewith him in the flat by the river. She attributed to him namelesspowers. Something mysterious in him, something occult, had reduced herapparently to the level of an imaginative child, who peoples the nightwith spectres and conceives of terrors she cannot describe.

  She felt that Arabian was not as other men, that he really was whatGarstin had called him, a king in the underworld, and that that was whyhe had had power over her. She felt that he had within him somethingwhich ruled, which would have its way. She felt that he was morepersistent than other men, more crafty, more self-possessed, morecapable, more subtle. She felt that he had greatness as a ruffian, asanother man might have greatness as a saint. And she felt above all thathe was an expert with women.

  If he had wanted Adela Sellingworth as well as her jewels, how wouldit have been then? What would have happened ten years ago? He had notwanted Adela Sellingworth. But he wanted her. She was positive of that.That he had known she was well off and was going to be rich she didnot doubt for a moment. She could never forget as long as she lived thefleeting expression which had changed his face when she had told himof the death of her father. At that moment he had certainly felt thata fortune was probably almost within his grasp. Nevertheless she waspositive, she was absolutely certain as a girl can be about such athing, that he wanted and had long wanted her. He had waited becausemingled with his man's desire for her there had been the other desire.He might have rushed at an intrigue. Such a man could have no realdelicacies. He was too wise to rush at a marriage. And he must have hadmarriage in his mind almost ever since he had met her. He must have madeinquiries, have found out all about her, and then laid his plans. Herlooks had probably brought him for the first time to Garstin's studio.But it was not only his admiration for her appearance which had broughthim there again and again, which had taught him detached self-control,almost distant respect, puzzling reserve, secrecy in intimacy, which hadtaught him to wait--till he knew.

  And when he had not waited, when he had chosen to give way because theright moment had come, when he had made her go with him to his flat,when he had shown her what he wanted! His warmth then had not been apretending. And yet, just before he had taken her in his arms, he haddeliberately managed so that Mrs. Birchington should see her go into hisflat. What a horrible mingling of elements there was in this man! Evenhis natural passions were intertwined with his hideous professionalinstincts The stretched-out hand of the lover was also the stretched-outhand of the thief.

  When she heard the knock on her bedroom door she trembled.

  "Yes?" she said, after a moment of hesitation.

  She was up and was sitting in an arm-chair near the window havingbreakfast, and looking at her post.

  "Yes?"

  Another knock.

  "Come in!" she cried.

  The door was gingerly opened and a page-boy showed himself. Miss VanTuyn looked at him with dread.

  "What is it? Something for me?"

  "There's a gentleman wants to see you, ma'am."

  "I can't see anyone. I told them so at the bureau. Where is he?"

  "Down below, ma'am."

  "Send him away. Say I'm still asleep. Say--"

  She noticed for the first time that the boy had a card. He had beenhiding it pressed to a salver against his trouser-leg. Now he lifted thesalver. But Miss Van Tuyn did not take the card. She was certain the manbelow was Arabian.

  "I can't see anyone. It's much too early."

  "The gentleman said it was very important, ma'am, and I was to say so,"said the page, with a certain chubby dignity that was almost official.

  Miss Van Tuyn was now terrified. It was Arabian, and he would not gotill he had seen her. She was certain of that. He would wait downstairs.She would be a prisoner in her rooms. All her fear of him seemed to rushupon her intensified, a fear such as she had never felt before. Shegot up tingling all over, and with a feeling as if all the blood hadsuddenly sunk away from her temples.

  "You must tell him--"

  The page-boy was now holding out the salver with the card on it, almostas if in self-protection. Her eyes fell on it against her will, and shesaw there were four printed words on it. On Arabian's card there wereonly two: Nicolas Arabian. Instantly she stretched out her hand and tookthe card up--

  "General Sir Seymour Portman."

  Her relief was so great that she could not conceal it.

  "Oh!" she exclaimed.

  "Ma'am?" said the boy, looking more official.

  "Please run down--"

  "Run ma'am?"

  "Yes--down at once and bring the gentleman up to my sitting-room. Be asquick as you can."

  The page retired with a stiff back and rather slow-moving legs.

  So Adela had wasted no time! She had been as good as her word. What asplendid woman she was!

  Miss Van Tuyn did something to her gown, to her hair. Not that shewanted to make an impression on Sir Seymour. Circumstances werecombining at present to drive her away from her vanity. Really she actedmechanically. Then she prepared to go to the sitting-room. And then, atthe bedroom door she hesitated, suddenly realizing what lay before her.Finally she opened the door and listened. She heard almost immediatelyanother door opened and a boy's chirpy voice say:

  "This way, sir, please!"

  Then she went out and came upon Sir Seymour Portman in the lobby.

  "How very kind of you to come!" she said, with an attempt at eagercordiality but feeling now strangely shy and guilty. "And so early!"

  "Good morning! May I put my hat here?"

  "Yes, do. And leave your coat. Is it cold out?"

  "Rather cold."

  "This is my little room."

  She went before him into the sitting-room which had a dreadfully earlymorning air, with its only just beginning fire, and its wintry dimnessof the poor
and struggling day.

  "If only we could have met in the evening!" she thought.

  It was awful to discuss such a situation as hers when the milkman hadscarcely finished his rounds, and when her vitality had not been warmedup.

  "Do sit down, Sir Seymour!" she said.

  "Thank you!"

  And he sat down in a businesslike sort of way, and at once began.

  "Rather late last night I saw Lady Sellingworth."

  "Oh? Yes?"

  "She sent for me. You know why, I understand."

  "Yes. I had been with her."

  "She told me the whole matter."

  "Oh! Did she? I--I've been awfully foolish. I deserve to--I deserveeverything. I know that. Adela has been so good to me. I can never sayhow good. She might so easily have--I mean considering the way I have--"

  She stopped. Adela could not have told Sir Seymour about the unkindnessof the girl she had sent him to help. Miss Van Tuyn remembered that justin time.

  "Lady Sellingworth did what you wished," said Sir Seymour, still ina quiet and businesslike way, "and consulted me. She told me what youwanted; that this man, Arabian, should be made to understand that hemust finally give up any plans he had formed with regard to you."

  Miss Van Tuyn felt the red beginning to creep in her cheeks.

  "Yes," she said, looking down.

  "Perhaps this can be done," continued Sir Seymour, in a practical way,rather like a competent man at a board meeting. "We must see."

  He did not suggest that she could do it herself. She was thankful to himfor that.

  "Have you a photograph of this man?" he continued.

  "Oh--no!"

  "That is a pity."

  "But why do you want--"

  "I should like to have his photograph to show at Scotland Yard."

  "Oh!" she exclaimed.

  Her face was scarlet now. Her forehead was burning. An acute andhorrible sense of shame possessed her, seemed to be wrapped round herlike a stinging garment.

  "I've--I've never had a photograph of him," she said.

  After a short pause Sir Seymour said:

  "You've got his address."

  The words seemed a statement as he said them.

  "Yes," she said.

  "Will you kindly write it down for me?"

  "Yes."

  She got up, still wrapped up in shame, and went to the writing-table.She took up a pen to write Arabian's address. But she could not rememberthe number of the flat. Her memory refused to give it to her.

  "I can't remember the number," she said, standing by the writing-table.

  "If you can give me the address of the flats I can easily find out thenumber."

  "It is Rose Tree Gardens"--she began writing it down--"Rose TreeGardens, Chelsea. It is close to the river."

  She came away from the writing-table, and gave him the paper with theaddress on it.

  "Thank you!"

  He took the paper, folded it up, drew out a leather case from an innerpocket of his braided black jacket, and consigned the paper to it. MissVan Tuyn sat down again.

  "I understand you met this man at the studio of Mr. Garstin, thepainter?" said Sir Seymour.

  "Yes. But he wasn't a friend of Mr. Garstin's. Mr. Garstin saw him atthe Cafe Royal and wished to paint him, so he asked him to come to thestudio."

  "And he has painted a portrait of him?"

  "Yes."

  "Is it a good one?"

  "Yes, wonderful!" she said, with a shudder.

  "I mean really is it a good likeness?"

  "Oh! Yes, it is very like in a way, horribly like."

  "In a way?"

  "I mean that it gives the worst side. But it is like."

  "I suppose the portrait is still in Mr. Garstin's studio?"

  "I suppose it is. I haven't seen Mr. Garstin for two or three days. ButI suppose it's there."

  "Please give me Mr. Garstin's address--the studio address," said SirSeymour.

  "Yes."

  She got up again and went to the writing-table. There seemed to her tobe something deadly in this interview. She could not feel humanity init. Sir Seymour was terribly impersonal. There was something almostmachine like about him. She did not know him well, but how differenthe had been to her in Berkeley Square! There he had been a charmingold courtier. He had shown a sort of gallant admiration of her. He hadbeamed kindly upon her youth and her daring. Now he showed nothing.

  But--Adela had told him!

  She wrote down Dick Garstin's address in Glebe Place, and was about tocome away from the writing-table when Sir Seymour said:

  "Could you also kindly give me your card with a line of introduction toMr. Garstin? I don't know him."

  "Oh, I will of course!"

  She found one of her cards and hesitated.

  "What shall I put?" she asked.

  "You might put 'To introduce,' and then my name."

  "Yes."

  She wrote the words on the card.

  "Perhaps it might be as well to add '_Please see him_,' and underlineit. I understand Mr. Garstin is a brusque sort of fellow."

  "Yes, he is."

  She added the words he had suggested.

  "It's very--it's more than kind of you to take all this trouble," shesaid, again coming to him. "I am ashamed."

  She gave him the card. She could not look into his face.

  "I am ashamed," she repeated, in a low voice.

  "Well now," he said, "try to get the matter off your mind. Don'tgive way to useless fears. Most of us fear far more than there is anyoccasion for."

  He stood up.

  "Yes?"

  "If you wish for me, call me up. I am at St. James's Palace. But I don'tsuppose you will have need of me. By the way, there's one thing more Iperhaps ought to ask you. Forgive me! Has there ever been anything inthe nature of a threat from this fellow?"

  "Oh, no!" she said. "No, no, no!"

  She was swallowing sobs that suddenly began rising in her throat, sobsof utter shame and of stricken vanity.

  "It's all too horrible!" she thought.

  For a moment she hated the straight-backed, soldierly old man who wasstanding before her. For he saw her in the dust, where no one ought everto see her.

  "He's in love with me!" she said.

  It was as if the words were forced out of her against her will. Directlyshe had said them she bitterly regretted them. They were the cry of herundying vanity that must try to put itself right, to stand up for itselfat whatever cost. Directly she had spoken them she saw a slight twitchpull the left side of his face upward. It had upon her a moral effect.She felt it as his irresistible comment--a comment of the body, butcoming from elsewhere--on her and her nature, and her recent associationwith Arabian. And suddenly her hatred died, and she longed to dosomething to establish herself in his regard, to gain his respect.

  Already he was holding out his hand to her. She took his hand and heldit tightly.

  "Don't think too badly of me," she said imploringly. "I want you notto. Because I think you see clearly--you see people as they are. Yousaw Adela as she is. And perhaps no one else did. But you don't know howfine she is--even you don't. I had treated her badly. I had been unkindto her, very unkind. I had--I had been spiteful to her, and tried toharm her happiness. And yet she told me! I am sure no other woman wouldever have done what she has done."

  "She had to do it," he said gravely.

  But his hand now slightly pressed hers.

  "_Had_ to? But why?"

  "Because she happens to be a thoroughbred."

  "Ah!" she breathed.

  She was looking into his dark old eyes, and now they were kind, almostsoft.

  "We must take care," he added, "that what she had done shall not be donein vain. We owe her that. Good-bye."

  "And you don't think too badly about me?"

  "Once I called you the daffodil girl to her."

  "Did you?"

  "Youth is pretty cruel sometimes. When you've forgotten all this, don
'tforget to be kind."

  "To her! But how could I?"

  "But I don't mean only to her!"

  And then he left her.

  When he had gone she sat still for a long while, thinking. And thestrange thing was that for once she was not thinking about herself.