Anna the Adventuress
- -
- 100%
- +
“Accident! She shot me,” he muttered. “I had found her at last, and she shot me. Listen, you. Am I going to die?”
“I am afraid that you are in a dangerous state,” Courtlaw answered gravely. “The nurse will fetch the doctor directly. I wanted to speak to you first.”
“Who are you?”
“I am a friend of Miss Pellissier’s,” Courtlaw answered.
“Which one?”
“The Miss Pellissier in whose rooms you were, and who sings at the ‘Unusual,’” Courtlaw answered. “The Miss Pellissier who was at White’s with us.”
The man nodded.
“I remember you now,” he said. “So it seems that I was wrong. Annabel was in hiding all the time.”
“Annabel Pellissier is married,” Courtlaw said quietly.
“She’s my wife,” the man muttered.
“It is possible,” Courtlaw said, “that you too were deceived. Where were you married?”
“At the English Embassy in Paris. You will find the certificate in my pocket.”
“And who made the arrangements for you, and sent you there?” Courtlaw asked.
“Hainault, Celeste’s friend. He did everything.”
“I thought so,” Courtlaw said. “You too were deceived. The place to which you went was not the English Embassy, and the whole performance was a fraud. I heard rumours of it in Paris, and the place since then has been closed.”
“But Hainault – assured – me – that the marriage was binding.”
“So it would have been at the English Embassy,” Courtlaw answered, “but the place to which you went was not the English Embassy. It was rigged up for the occasion as it has been many a time before.”
“But Hainault – was – a pal. I – I don’t understand,” the man faltered wearily.
“Hainault was Celeste’s friend, and Celeste was Annabel’s enemy,” Courtlaw said. “It was a plot amongst them all to humiliate her.”
“Then she has never been my wife.”
“Never for a second. She is the wife now of another man.”
Hill closed his eyes. For fully five minutes he lay quite motionless. Then he opened them again suddenly, to find Courtlaw still by his side.
“It was a bad day for me,” he said, speaking slowly and painfully. “A bad thing for me when that legacy came. I thought I’d see Paris, do the thing – like a toff. And I heard ‘Alcide’ sing, and that little dance she did. I was in the front row, and I fancied she smiled at me. Lord, what a state I was in! Night after night I sat there, I watched her come in, I watched her go. She dropped a flower – it’s in my pocket-book now. I couldn’t rest or eat or sleep. I made Hainault’s acquaintance, stood him drinks, lent him money. He shook his head all the time. Annabel Pellissier was not like the others, he said. She had a few acquaintances, English gentlemen, but she lived with her sister – was a lady. But one day he came to me. It was Celeste’s idea. I could be presented as Meysey Hill. We were alike. He was – a millionaire. And I passed myself off as Meysey Hill, and since – then – I haven’t had a minute’s peace. God help me.”
Courtlaw was alarmed at the man’s pallor.
“You mustn’t talk any more,” he said, “but I want you to listen to me just for a moment. The doctor will be here to see you in five minutes. The nurse sent for him as soon as she saw that you were conscious. It is very possible that he will ask you to tell him before witnesses how you received your wound.”
The man smiled at him.
“You are their friend, then?”
“I am,” Courtlaw answered.
“Which one?”
“The one whose life you have been making a burden, who has been all the time shielding her sister. I would have married her long ago, but she will not have me.”
“Bring her – here,” Hill muttered. “I – ”
The door opened, and the doctor entered softly. Hill closed his eyes. Courtlaw stood up.
“He has asked to see some one,” he whispered to the doctor. “Is there any urgency?”
The doctor bent over his patient, who seemed to have fallen asleep. Presently he turned to Courtlaw.
“I think,” he said, “that I would fetch any one whom he has asked to see. His condition is not unfavourable, but there may be a relapse at any moment.”
So only a few minutes after Ennison’s departure, while Anna stood indeed with her sister’s open letter still in her hand, Courtlaw drove up in hot haste. She opened the door to him herself.
“Will you come round to the hospital?” he asked. “Hill has asked for you, and they will take his depositions to-night.”
She slipped on her cloak and stepped into the hansom with him. They drove rapidly through the emptying streets.
“Will he die?” she asked.
“Impossible to say,” he answered. “We have a private room at St. Felix. Everything is being done that can be.”
“You are sure that he asked for me – not for Annabel?”
“Certain,” Courtlaw answered.
“Has he accused any one yet?”
“Not yet,” he answered. “I have scarcely left his side.”
He was still conscious when they reached the hospital and his state was much more favourable. The doctor and another man were by his bedside when they entered the room, and there were writing materials which had evidently been used close at hand. He recognised Anna, and at once addressed her.
“Thank you – for coming,” he said. “The doctor has asked me to give them my reasons – for shooting myself. I’ve told them all that was necessary, but I – wanted to ask your pardon – for having made myself a nuisance to you, and for breaking into your rooms – and to thank you – the doctor says you bound up my wound – or I should have bled to death.”
“I forgive you willingly,” Anna said, bending over him. “It has all been a mistake, hasn’t it?”
“No more talking,” the doctor interposed.
“I want two words – with Miss Pellissier alone,” Hill pleaded.
The doctor frowned.
“Remember,” he said, “you are not by any means a dying man now, but you’ll never pull through if you don’t husband your strength.”
“Two words only,” Hill repeated.
They all left the room. Anna leaned over so that he needed only to whisper.
“Tell your sister she was right to shoot, quite right. I meant mischief. But tell her this, too. I believed that our marriage was genuine. I believed that she was my wife, or she would have been safe from me.”
“I will tell her,” Anna promised.
“She has nothing to be afraid of,” he continued. “I have signed a statement that I shot myself; bad trade and drink, both true – both true.”
His eyes were closed. Anna left the room on tiptoe. She and Courtlaw drove homewards together.
Chapter XXX
SIR JOHN’S NECKTIE
Sir John, in a quiet dark travelling suit, was sitting in a pokey little room writing letters. The room was worse than pokey, it was shabby; and the view from the window, of chimney pots and slate roofs, wholly uninspiring. Nevertheless, Sir John had the look of a man who was enjoying himself. He seemed years younger, and the arrangement of his tie and hair were almost rakish. He stamped his last letter as Annabel entered.
She was dressed for the street very much as her own maid was accustomed to dress, and there was a thick veil attached to her hat.
“John,” she declared, “I must eat or die. Do get your hat, and we will go to that corner café.”
“Right,” he answered. “I know the place you mean – very good cooking for such an out-of-the-way show. I’ll be ready in a moment.”
Sir John stamped his letters, brushed his hat, and carefully gave his moustache an upward curl before the looking-glass.
“I really do not believe,” he announced with satisfaction, “that any one would recognize me. What do you think, Annabel?”
“I don’t think they would,” she admitted. “You seem to have cultivated quite a jaunty appearance, and you certainly look years younger. One would think that you enjoyed crawling away out of your world into hiding, with a very foolish wicked wife.”
“Upon my word,” he declared, “you are right. I really am enjoying it. It is like a second honeymoon. If it wasn’t for the fear that after all – but we won’t think of that. I don’t believe any one could have traced us here. You see, we travelled second class, and we are in the least known quarter of Paris. To-night we leave for Marseilles. On Thursday we embark for South America.”
“You are a marvellous courier,” she declared, as they passed into the street. “You see, I will take your arm. It looks so French to be affectionate.”
“There are some French customs,” he declared, “which are admirable. I presume that I may not kiss you in the street?”
“Certainly not, sir,” she replied, laughing. “If you attempted such a thing it would be in order that I should smack you hard with the palm of my hand upon the cheek.”
“That is another French custom,” he remarked, “which is not so agreeable. Here we are. Shall we sit outside and drink a petit verre of something to give us an appetite while dinner is being prepared?”
“Certainly not,” she answered. “I am already so hungry that I shall begin on the petit pains. I have an appetite which I dare not increase.”
They entered the place, a pleasant little café of the sort to be met with in the outlying parts of Paris. Most of the tables were for those who smoked only and drank wine, but there were a few spread with tablecloths and laid for dinner. Sir John and Annabel seated themselves at one of them, and the proprietor himself, a small dark-visaged man, radiant with smiles, came hurrying up, followed by a waiter.
“Monsieur would dine! It was very good! And Madame, of course?” with a low bow. The carte de jour was before Monsieur. He had but to give his orders. Monsieur could rely upon his special attention, and for the cooking – well, he had his customers, who came from their homes to him year after year. And always they were well satisfied. He waited the pleasure of Monsieur.
Sir John gave his order, deliberately stumbling now and then over a word, and anglicizing others. When he had finished he took up the wine list and ordered a bottle of dry champagne.
“I am afraid,” he said to Anna afterwards, “that it was a mistake to order the champagne sec. They will guess that I am English.”
Annabel leaned back in her chair and laughed till the tears stood in her eyes.
“Did you – did you really think that they would take you for a Frenchman?” she exclaimed.
“I don’t see why not,” he answered. “These clothes are French, and I’m sure this floppy bow would make a Frenchman of me anyhow. Perhaps I ought to have let you order the dinner, but I think I got through it pretty well.”
“You did,” Anna exclaimed. “Thank Heaven, they are bringing the hors d’oeuvres. John, I shall eat that whole tin of sardines. Do take them away from me after I have had four.”
“After all,” Sir John remarked complacently, “it is astonishing how easy it is for people with brains and a little knowledge of the world to completely hide themselves. I am absolutely certain that up to the present we have escaped all notice, and I do not believe that any casual observer would take us for English people.”
A man who had been sitting with his hat tilted over his eyes at an adjacent table had risen to his feet and stood suddenly before them.
“Permit me to offer you the English paper which has just arrived, Sir John,” he said, holding out a Daily Telegraph. “You may find in it a paragraph of some interest to you.”
Sir John was speechless. It was Annabel who caught at the paper.
“You – appear to know my name, sir,” Sir John said.
“Oh, yes,” the stranger remarked good-humouredly. “I know you very well by sight, Sir John. It is my business to know most people. We were fellow passengers from Charing Cross, and we have been fellow lodgers in the Rue d’Entrepot. I trust you will not accuse me of discourtesy if I express my pleasure that henceforth our ways will lie apart.”
A little sobbing cry from Annabel arrested Sir John’s attention. The stranger with a bow returned to his table.
“Read this, John.”
“The Bucknall Mansions Mystery".
“Montague Hill, the man who was found lying wounded in Bucknall Mansions late on Wednesday night in the rooms of a well-known artiste, has recovered sufficiently to make a statement to the police. It appears that he was an unsuccessful admirer of the lady in question, and he admits that, under the influence of drink, he broke into her rooms, and there made a determined attempt at suicide. He further gave the name and address of the firm from whom he purchased the revolver and cartridges, a member of which firm has since corroborated his statement.
“Hill’s confession will finally refute a number of absurd stories which have been in circulation during the last few days. We understand that, notwithstanding the serious nature of the man’s injuries, there is every possibility of his recovery.”
Annabel pulled down her veil to hide the tears. Sir John filled his glass with trembling hand.
“Thank God,” he exclaimed. “The fellow is not such a blackguard, after all.”
Annabel’s hand stole into his.
“And I have dragged you all over here for nothing,” she murmured.
“For nothing, do you call it?” he declared. “I wouldn’t have been without this trip for worlds. It has been a real honeymoon trip, Annabel, for I feel that it has given me a wife.”
Annabel pulled up her veil.
“You are a dear,” she exclaimed affectionately. “I do hope that I shall be able to make it up to you.”
Sir John’s reply was incoherent. He called a waiter.
“Garçon,” he said, “will you ask the gentleman at the next table if he will do me the honour of taking a glass of wine with me.”
The stranger came over to them smiling. He had been on the point of leaving the restaurant. He accepted the glass of wine, and bowed.
“I drink your very good health, Sir John and Lady Ferringhall,” he said, “and I wish you a pleasant journey back to England. If I might take the liberty, Sir John,” he added, with a humorous gleam in his eyes, “I should like to congratulate you upon your tie.”
“Oh, damn the thing!” Sir John exclaimed, tucking the loose ends inside his coat.
“I propose,” Sir John said, “that we pay for our dinner – which we haven’t had – tip the garçon a sovereign, and take a cab to the Ritz.”
Annabel shook her head.
“Look at our clothes,” she exclaimed, “and besides, the funny little proprietor has gone down himself to help it along. He would be so disappointed. I am sure it will be good, John, and I could eat anything. No, let us dine here, and then go and have our coffee on the boulevards. We can take our things up with us and stay at the Continental or the Ritz.”
“Excellent,” Sir John declared. “We will do Paris like the tourists, and thank God here comes dinner.”
Everything was good. The garçon was tipped as he had never been tipped before in his life. They drove up into Paris in an open fiacre with a soft cool wind blowing in their faces, hand in hand beneath the rug. They went first to a hotel, and then out again on to the boulevards. The natural gaiety of the place seemed to have affected them both. They laughed and talked and stared about them. She took his hand in hers.
“Dear John,” she whispered. “We are to begin our married life to-night – here where I first met you. I shall only pray that I may reward you for all your goodness to me.”
Sir John, frankly oblivious of the possibility of passers-by, took her into his arms and kissed her. Then he stood up and hailed a fiacre.
“Hotel Ritz!”
Chapter XXXI
ANNA’S TEA PARTY
“I suppose you haven’t the least idea who I am,” Lady Lescelles said, as she settled herself in Anna’s most comfortable chair.
“I have heard of you, of course,” Anna answered hesitatingly, “but – ”
“You cannot imagine what I have come to see you about. Well, I am Nigel Ennison’s sister!”
“Oh!” Anna said.
“Nigel is like all men,” Lady Lescelles continued. “He is a sad blunderer. He has helped me out of scrapes though, no end of times. He is an awfully good sort – and now he has come to me to help him if I can. Do you know that he is very much in love with you?”
Anna smiled.
“Well,” she admitted. “He has said something of the sort.”
“And you have sent him about his business. He tells me that you will not even see him. I don’t want to bother you, of course. A woman has a perfect right to choose her own husband, but Nigel seemed to think that there was something a little mysterious about your treatment of him. You seemed, he thought, to have some grievance which you would not explain and which he thought must arise from a misunderstanding. There, that sounds frightfully involved, doesn’t it, but perhaps you can make out what I mean. Don’t you care for Nigel at all?”
Anna was silent for a moment or two.
Lady Lescelles, graceful, very fashionably but quietly dressed, leaned back and watched her with shrewd kindly eyes.
“I like your brother better than any other man I know,” Anna said at last.
“Well, I don’t think you told him as much as that, did you?” Lady Lescelles asked.
“I did not,” Anna answered. “To be frank with you, Lady Lescelles, when your brother asked me the other day to be his wife I was under a false impression as regards his relations – with some other person. I know now that I was mistaken.”
“That sounds more promising,” Lady Lescelles declared. “May I tell Nigel to come and see you again? I am not here to do his love-making for him, you know. I came to see you on my own account.”
“Thank you very much,” Anna said. “It is very nice of you to come, but I do not think for the present, at any rate, I could give him any other answer. I do not intend to be married, or to become engaged just at present.”
“Well, why not?” Lady Lescelles asked, smiling. “I can only be a few years older than you, and I have been married four years. I can assure you, I wouldn’t be single again for worlds. One gets a lot more fun married.”
“Our cases are scarcely similar,” Anna remarked.
“Why not?” Lady Lescelles answered. “You are one of the Hampshire Pellissiers, I know, and your family are quite as good as ours. As for money, Nigel has tons of it.”
“It isn’t exactly that,” Anna answered, “but to tell you the truth, I cannot bear to look upon myself as a rank failure. We girls, my sister and I, were left quite alone when our father died, and I made up my mind to make some little place in the world for myself. I tried painting and couldn’t get on. Then I came to London and tried almost everything – all failures. I had two offers of marriage from men I liked very much indeed, but it never occurred to me to listen to either of them. You see I am rather obstinate. At last I tried a dramatic agent, and got on the music hall stage.”
“Well, you can’t say you’re a failure there,” Lady Lescelles remarked, smiling. “I’ve been to hear you lots of times.”
“I have been more fortunate than I deserved,” Anna answered, “but I only meant to stay upon the music hall stage until I could get something better. I am rehearsing now for a new play at the ‘Garrick’ and I have quite made up my mind to try and make some sort of position for myself as an actress.”
“Do you think it is really worth while?” Lady Lescelles asked gently. “I am sure you will marry Nigel sooner or later, and then all your work will be thrown away.”
Anna shook her head.
“If I were to marry now,” she said, “it would be with a sense of humiliation. I should feel that I had been obliged to find some one else to fight my battles for me.”
“What else,” Lady Lescelles murmured, “are men for?”
Anna laughed.
“Afterwards,” she said, “I should be perfectly content to have everything done for me. But I do think that if a girl is to feel comfortable about it they should start fairly equal. Take your case, for instance. You brought your husband a large fortune, your people were well known in society, your family interest I have heard was useful to him in his parliamentary career. So far as I am concerned, I am just now a hopeless nonentity. Your brother has everything – I have not shown myself capable even of earning my own living except in a way which could not possibly bring any credit upon anybody. And beyond this, Lady Lescelles, as you must know, recent events have set a good many people’s tongues wagging, and I am quite determined to live down all this scandal before I think of marrying any one.”
“I am sure,” Lady Lescelles said, gently, “that the last consideration need not weigh with you in the least. No one in the world is beyond the shaft of scandal – we all catch it terribly sometimes. It simply doesn’t count.”
“You are very kind,” Anna said. “I do hope I have been able to make you understand how I feel, that you don’t consider me a hopeless prig. It does sound a little horrid to talk so much about oneself and to have views.”
“I think,” Lady Lescelles said, putting down her teacup, “that I must send Nigel to plead his own cause. I may tell him, at any rate, that you will see him?”
“I shall like to see him,” Anna answered. “I really owe him something of an apology.”
“I will tell him,” Lady Lescelles said. “And now let us leave the men alone and talk about ourselves.”
“I am delighted to see you all here,” Anna said smiling upon them from behind the tea-tray, “but I shall have to ask you to excuse me for a few minutes. My agent is here, and he has brought his contract for me to sign. I will give you all some tea, and then I must leave you for a few minutes.”
The three men, who had arrived within a minute or two of one another, received her little speech in dead silence. Ennison, who had been standing with his back to the window, came suddenly a little further into the room.
“Miss Pellissier,” he said, “I came here this afternoon hoping particularly to see you for a few moments before you signed that contract.”
She shook her head.
“We may just as well have our talk afterwards,” she said, “and I need not keep poor Mr. Earles waiting.”
Courtlaw suddenly interposed.
“May I be allowed to say,” he declared, “that I came here with the same intention.”
“And I also,” Brendon echoed.
Anna was suddenly very quiet.
She was perhaps as near tears as ever before in her life.
“If I had three hands,” she said, with a faint smile, “I would give one to each of you. I know that you are all my friends, and I know that you all have very good advice to give me. But I am afraid I am a shockingly obstinate and a very ungrateful person. No, don’t let me call myself that. I am grateful, indeed I am. But on this matter my mind is quite made up.”
Ennison hesitated for a moment.
“Miss Pellissier,” he said, “these gentlemen are your friends, and therefore they are my friends. If I am to have no other opportunity I will speak before them. I came here to beg you not to sign that contract. I came to beg you instead to do me the honour of becoming my wife.”
“And I,” Courtlaw said, “although I have asked before in vain, have come to ask you once more the same thing.”
“And I,” Brendon said, humbly, “although I am afraid there is no chance for me, my errand was the same.”
Anna looked at them for a moment with a pitiful attempt at a smile. Then her head disappeared suddenly in her hands, and her shoulders shook violently.
“Please forgive me – for one moment,” she sobbed. “I – I shall be all right directly.”
Brendon rushed to the piano and strummed out a tune.
The others hurried to the window. And Anna was conscious of a few moments of exquisite emotion. After all, life had still its pulsations. The joy of being loved thrilled her as nothing before had ever done, a curious abstract joy which had nothing in it at that moment of regret or even pity.
She called them back very soon.
The signs of tears had all gone, but some subtle change seemed to have stolen into her face. She spoke readily enough, but there was a new timidity in her manner.
“My friends,” she said, “my dear friends, I am going to make the same answer to all of you – and that is perhaps you will say no answer at all. At present I cannot marry, I will not become bound even to any one. It would be very hard perhaps to make you understand just how I feel about it. I won’t try. Only I feel that you all want to make life too easy for me, and I am determined to fight my own battles a little longer. If any of you – or all of you feel the same in six months’ time from to-day, will you come, if you care to, and see me then?”