The Sign of the Stranger

Chapter Twenty One

The Saints’ Garden

After breakfast on the following morning I contrived to make an appointment with the Countess to meet her at a short distance from the house in what was known as the Saints’ Garden.

Her ladyship’s habit was to walk in the garden for half an hour after breakfast, and I deemed that the Saints’ Garden, being at a secluded spot down near the lake, and little frequented either by the gardeners or visitors, was a good place of meeting. The gardens at Sibberton were noted for their beauty. There was an old lavender garden; one for bulbs; another for roses, and – most charming of all, Lolita’s pride – the Saints’ Garden, the flowers of which were supposed to blossom on the days set apart for certain saints. In it were veronicas, lilies, Christmas roses, and a wild tangle of old-world flowers.

I waited in patience in this little “garden of the good,” encompassed by its dark thick box hedges. The morning was bright, the dew glistened everywhere in the sunlight, and the flowers filled the air with their fragrance. It was a peaceful spot where Lolita loved to linger, and where we had often walked and talked in secret.

She came at last – the reckless, handsome woman who held my love’s life in her hands.

Her fair face was smiling as she came along in her neat short skirt and fresh morning blouse, and greeted me saying —

“Really, Mr Woodhouse, I hardly think it was wise of you to meet me here. One of the gardeners or some one may see us and gossip,” and she turned her eyes upon me with that look which had made many a man’s head reel.

“We are safer from observation here, Lady Stanchester, than in my room,” I answered in a rather hard tone, I fear. She glanced at me quickly, apparently in wonder that I was in no mood for trifling. She was, of course, unaware that I had overheard all that had passed between her and the man Richard Keene. Nevertheless she said —

“As I anticipated, he claimed acquaintanceship with me last night – stopped me in the Panelled Corridor and addressed me by my Christian name.”

“Well.”

“I flatly denied ever having met him before. It took him back completely. He wasn’t prepared for it,” she laughed.

“And you were able, I hope, to sustain the fiction until the end?” I asked, looking straight at her.

“Well,” she answered, rather uneasily, “I managed to so confound him that I don’t think he’ll carry out what was his intention. As a matter of fact, I fancy he’ll curtail his visit. George has taken him to shoot over at Islip.” She made no explanation of his urgent appeal to her to save Lolita, of his threats or of her own declaration that if they were to be enemies then she would bring upon him an overwhelming disaster. She was keeping the truth to herself, suspecting my love for Lolita.

“He threatened you, of course?” I said, leaning upon the grey old weather-worn sundial and looking at her as though I were waiting for her explanation.

“Threats?” she laughed. “Oh! yes. He was full of them. But you were quite right; my denial utterly upset all his bluster. He can’t make out my intentions, and therefore will hesitate to do me harm, for he doesn’t know the extent of my knowledge. Really, Mr Woodhouse, you very cleverly foresaw the whole affair. I admit that I was very hard pressed for a few moments. But now – ” and she paused.

“And now?” I asked.

“Well, I’ve met him with his own weapons. He won’t dare to speak, because at heart he’s afraid of me.”

“Then you think he’ll leave very soon?”

“Ah! I don’t know. He’s playing a very clever game, as he always does. Think how he has come here as George’s friend, and at the same time as my bitterest enemy! His audacity is surely unequalled!”

“But is he really your enemy?” I queried, fixing her with my gaze. “Are you not his?”

She looked at me somewhat puzzled. I had put a meaning note into my voice, yet I did not intend that she should be aware that I knew the truth of her secret hatred of my love, or that I had ascertained that the name of the young man who had fallen the victim of an assassin’s hand was Hugh Wingfield.

“Perhaps I am his enemy,” she laughed lightly. “I have surely need to be.”

“Why?”

“With a man of his stamp one must act with firmness and disregard all scruples. He will ruin me if he can. But I don’t intend that he shall. Before he does that I’ll give information against him myself – information that will be a revelation to certain persons in this house.”

I thought of the peril of my love.

“Information I take it, that would mean ruin to a certain person – a woman!” and I held her steadily with my eyes.

Her mouth opened slightly, and I saw that she suspected that I had gained some knowledge which she believed was his alone.

“A woman,” she repeated. “Whom do you mean?”

“Lolita,” I replied in a low hard voice.

“Lolita?” she gasped. “Who told you that – I mean, what makes you suggest such a thing?”

“My conclusions are formed upon certain facts already known to me, Lady Stanchester,” I answered coldly. “You deceived me when you sought my aid by declaring your desire to show your affection for your husband. You had a deeper and more desperate game to play – and poor Lolita is to be the victim.”

“You love her, I suppose?” she snapped. “You needn’t deny it. I’ve seen it long ago – you, her brother’s secretary!” she sneered. “Why, the thing’s absurd?”

“There is a wide gulf in our social positions, I admit, Lady Stanchester,” was my quick angry response. “But surely it is not so strange nor so absurd that I should love a woman who is friendless, and who has so strangely incurred your hatred!”

“Incurred my hatred? What foolishness are you talking now?” she asked with that cold hauteur which she could assume to inferiors when she willed.

“I repeat what I have said. You intend that the ruin that threatens you shall fall upon Lolita. In plain words, you will sacrifice her, in order to save yourself!”

“And who’s been telling you this interesting untruth, pray?” she asked. “I thought you knew Lolita sufficiently well to be aware that I have, ever since my marriage to George, been her friend.”

“To her face yes, but in secret no.”

“You are insulting me, Mr Woodhouse,” she exclaimed, her eyes flashing. “I have always been Lolita’s friend.”

“Then prove your friendship by telling the truth concerning her,” I said, “the truth known equally to Marie Lejeune with yourself – the truth that can save her from this unfounded charge against her.”

I made a blind shot, and stood watching its effect upon the brilliant woman.

A slight hardness showed at the corners of her mouth, and a strange light shone in her eyes as she realised that I knew the truth, how she had cleverly sought to deceive me by her false declaration of that love for her husband which she had assuredly never entertained.

“I didn’t know there was any charge against her. What is it?” she inquired calmly.

“Prevarication is useless. Lady Stanchester,” I said determinedly. “Richard Keene has come here to get you to tell the truth concerning Lady Lolita. You have refused, and he has threatened you with exposure. You, on your part, have retaliated by threatening him, hence the position at this moment is that he fears to speak lest he should incur your revenge, while you refuse to speak the truth and remove suspicion from Lolita. You intend, therefore, that she shall fall the innocent victim. But recollect that I am her friend, and I will save her, even if compelled to go to George and tell him everything.”

She bit her lip. I could see that it had never crossed her mind, that, being her husband’s friend, I might lay bare the truth to him and expose the fact that Richard Keene and Mr Smeeton were one and the same.

“Ah! So you intend to give me away?” she remarked, with a quick shrug of the shoulders.

“I have no wish to do anything that will tend to cause a breach between you and your husband,” I answered. “I merely say that I intend to stand as Lolita’s friend, and to-night I shall go north, see her, and explain all I know. She will be interested, no doubt, to hear that a friend of your pre-matrimonial days is here as your husband’s guest.”

“Then you’re going to tell her?” she asked with a quick start, and I saw by the way her eyebrows had contracted that she was devising some plan to counteract my intentions.

“I shall act just as I think proper, Lady Stanchester,” I responded. “In this affair I have the good name of only one person to consider – the person whom you declare it is absurd for me to regard with affection.”

“And so you mean to place me in a very invidious position by telling tales to everybody?” she exclaimed with a supercilious smile. “Well,” she added, “go up to Scotland and see her, if you like. Tell her whatever you think proper; it will be all the same to me.”

“Why?”

“Because I shall still retain the knowledge which I hold, and she cannot – she will not dare to – do anything to injure me. If she does, Mr Woodhouse – if she does – then I’ll speak the truth – a truth that will astound you, and cause you to regret that you ever interfered in my affairs, or ever sought to befriend a woman guilty of a crime.”

“Guilty of a crime!” I echoed. “What crime do you allege against Lady Lolita?”

She merely laughed triumphantly in my face.

“I demand a reply to my question,” I cried angrily.

“Ask her yourself. It is not for me to denounce her before she has sought my downfall.”

“But you make a distinct allegation!”

“And one that I can substantiate when the time is ripe,” was the woman’s firm fearless answer.

“But you can clear her character if it suits you!” I exclaimed quickly. “You have admitted that.”

“You think fit to take the part of my enemies against me, therefore you will find me merciless,” was her vague ominous reply. “Go to Scotland and see Lolita. Tell her that I have sent you – and,” she added, “tell her from me to keep her mouth closed, or else the story of Hugh Wingfield shall be known, You will recollect the name, won’t you? – Hugh Wingfield.”

I stood silent, unable to respond, for that was the name of the young man who was so foully done to death in that hollow behind the beech avenue.

“Moreover,” she went on, noticing the effect of her words upon me, “moreover, you are at liberty to tell George what you like concerning me. He loves me – and when a man’s in love he believes no evil of the woman. So go!” she laughed. “And afterwards tell me what he says. I shall be so very interested to know.”

Chapter Twenty Two

The Sign to the Unknown

Love knows not want – he has no such intimate as poverty; if he smiles, he has but one dread foe; if he frowns, he has but one true friend; and those both concentrate in the oblivion of death.

I loved – yes, I loved Lolita. While she lived, the soul-invigorating fire of her eyes kept alive my passion-torn frame. And yet who was I that I dared thus ally myself with heavenly beauty and terrestrial greatness? She was the daughter of an Earl and I a mere secretary, dependent upon her brother’s favours. No title, no transcendent qualities were mine. And yet, was I not ennobled? Did I not wear within my heart the never-fading insignia of love, the qualifications of which were fervency and immutable truth?

The proud Countess had sneered at me. She sneered because the passion of true love had never known a place in her fickle heart. As next day I sat alone in the express travelling up to Scotland, memory of the hour came back to me when I had first gazed upon those charms I since had learned to reverence with all the fervour of matchless truth. I recollected how long, long ago, whenever I saw Lolita, my pulse beat with an unwonted motion, and the throbbing of my heart spoke to my soul in a language it had never known before – my brain became on fire, and ere I knew the term, I knew what constituted love. Yes, love – love that had not yet taught me what presumption was, but I rather stood the awe-struck victim of his all-puissant will.

And now I was tearing with all speed to seek her, to hear the truth from her own sweet lips. Never once had she told me that my love was reciprocated, yet in her clear bright eyes I had long ago seen that mixture of tender pity, noble generosity, candour and pure refined womanly feeling open as the face of day, that told me that she was not averse to my attentions even though I was neither wealthy nor of noble birth.

Day had succeeded day since her departure for the north, and every coming dawn had proved what gave bitter anguish to my soul. A strange suspicion that seemed to envelop her like a cloud – a suspicion which somehow I could not determine – had caused the struggle of conflicting thoughts. And now I was rushing towards her, hoping fervently that her words to me might reveal the truth, and infuse into my chaotic soul one bright spark of heavenly comfort whence might blaze the inextinguishable flame of requited love.

Alone, gazing aimlessly at the fleeting panorama of hill and dale as the express rushed on from Crewe to Carlisle, my busy fancy seemed to reconcile impossibilities, and as the mariner who feebly grasps the plank surrounded by a sea of deadly horrors, so I, amid the gloom of black despair, illumined the fallacious touch of hope and wandered into the maze of gilded fallacy.

Ah! Hope, thou flitting phantom, thou gaudy illusion, thou fond misleader of the wrecked senses, that framest a paradise of airy nothingness, how strange that thou canst in pleasing dreams bring to the tortured mind a brief respite.

And yet when I recollected the dark suspicions that rested upon my love, I held my breath. When I calmly reviewed all the circumstances, life seemed all a blank to me; my reason bade me cease to hope. Yet better be warmed by madness than chilled by coward fear; better burn with jealousy than die the silent fool of black despair.

In such a mood I sat thinking and pondering until we glided into the great echoing station of Carlisle. Then I descended, bought a paper, and tried to read as the portion of the train in which I sat continued its way eastward towards Edinburgh. To concentrate my mind upon a printed page was, however, impossible. I recollected those strange, ominous words of the Countess when we had parted in the Saints’ Garden, and somehow felt convinced that her position was impregnable.

Keene had distinctly declared that if Marigold failed to tell the truth, then my love must fall a victim. Why – and how? All was so mysterious, so utterly inscrutable, so bewildering that the enigma admitted of no solution.

I could not disguise the fact from myself that Lolita had gone north purposely to avoid the unwelcome stranger who had so mysteriously returned, and I now intended at all hazards to obtain from her some fact concerning the conspiracy into which he seemed to have entered.

The strange incident in that lonely farmhouse and the attack upon Marie Lejeune were again facts which combined to show what a wide-spread plot was in progress – a plot the motive of which was still enshrouded in mystery, but of which the victim was undoubtedly to be none other than my well-beloved.

Lolita, who was staying with her aunt, the Dowager Lady Casterton, at the Royal Hotel, in Princes Street, sprang quickly to her feet when, shortly before dinner, the waiter ushered me into their private sitting-room. Fortunately her aunt was still in her room, and we were therefore alone.

“Willoughby!” she gasped springing forward to me breathlessly. “You! Whatever brings you here – what has happened at Sibberton?”

“Nothing,” I replied in order to set her at ease. “Or rather nothing in particular. Every one is very well, and the house-party has assumed its usual gaiety.”

“Marigold is still at home?” she inquired, as though her first thought was of her brother’s wife. I answered in the affirmative, and then slowly and with reverence raised her slim white hand to my lips. She allowed me to kiss her fingers in homage, smiling sweetly upon me the while.

She was in a magnificent dinner-dress of black net shimmering with sequins – a gown the very simplicity of which rendered it graceful, charming, and the essence of good taste. At her throat was a single row of large pearls, but she wore no other ornament. She always dressed artistically and in the latest mode, and surely her gown was exactly suited to the hotel table d’hôte.