The Coward Behind the Curtain

CHAPTER I

DOROTHY SETS OFF WITH HER GUARDIAN

The girls were in the convent garden, when word came that Dorothy Gilbert was wanted. Dorothy was walking with Frances Vernon. Ever since she could remember her world had been that garden, with its shaded walks and its high walls; never before had a visitor come to her. The moment she was told that someone desired her presence she turned to Frances, exclaiming:

"It is he!"

With characteristic impetuosity Frances threw her arms about her, remarking as she did so:

"Just as we were speaking of him!"

As if there were anything strange in that. The strangeness would have been if he had come when they had not been speaking of him; for, of late, they had spoken of little else. Elsie Farquhar, who had brought the message, pressed it home.

"You had better be quick, Dorothy. Sister Celestine said you were to hurry."

So Dorothy hurried, her tall slender figure held very straight, her pretty head a little in the air, in her eyes a gleaming light. She believed herself to be passing from a world she knew into one of which she had dreamed. But she was mistaken; she was going into a world of which she had not dreamed. Sister Celestine met her at the door.

"It is Mr Emmett?" she inquired.

"Yes," replied the Sister, "it is Mr Emmett."

Something in her tone; on her face; in her glance; struck quick-witted Dorothy.

"What is the matter? Why do you look at me like that? What is he like?"

"Who am I that I should be able to tell you what he is like, when I have seen him for scarcely five minutes?"

The Sister smiled, it seemed to Dorothy, not with that brightness which she knew so well. The young lady's mental processes were rapid. She divined, on the instant, that Sister Celestine was disappointed with Mr Emmett. As she went with the Sister from the garden to the guest-room she wondered why. Would she be disappointed also? – after all her talks with Frances? – her communings with herself? She had fashioned the unknown Mr Emmett in so many shapes that she could not have told which of them she expected to see; certainly it was not the person she actually saw. Her knowledge of men had practically been restricted to the personages in the storybooks which found their way into the convent precincts. These had to undergo a severe examination before being admitted, as one bad character was enough to damn them; and, as the conventual standard of masculine morals was peculiar, even if the individuals who figured in the tales were not drawn from imagination they certainly were not taken from life. One requirement all the men in the books had to satisfy: they all had to be gentlemen, or what the convent censor took to be gentlemen. Dorothy Gilbert might have had more or less vague doubts, but it never had been brought clearly home to her that a man could be anything but a gentleman till she entered that guest-room and was introduced to Mr Emmett. When she saw him, any illusions she may have had upon that point were shattered at once and for ever.

A big, burly man was sitting on the edge of the table. One foot rested on the floor, the other dangled in the air. He did not move when she entered; he merely looked round at her and stared. His great bald head had a narrow fringe of sandy hair which was just turning grey. He wore a huge sandy moustache, whose hue was more than matched by his head and face. A large, angry-looking spot was on the left of his big nose, a smaller one was on his right cheek near the ear. His eyes were so bloodshot that it was not easy to tell what colour they really were; they reminded her of the eyes of a wicked giant who had played a prominent, and disreputable, part in a fairy tale she had once read. Indeed, the whole man recalled that giant; she had an uncomfortable feeling that he might, at any moment, set about the-to him-agreeable business of devouring her. Sister Celestine performed the ceremony of introduction.

"This, Mr Emmett, is Dorothy Gilbert."

Still he kept his seat on the edge of the table, and his hands in the pockets of the huge overcoat which he wore, although the weather was so warm. Only he stared at Dorothy a little harder.

"No! You don't say! Well I'm damned!"

There was that in his voice, his words, and his manner which affected Dorothy almost as if he had struck her. Sister Celestine was shocked nearly into speechlessness.

"Sir!" was all she could say.

"Beg pardon, I'm sure, forgetting where I was; I suppose you ladies don't do much of that sort of thing in here." He addressed himself to Dorothy, with what apparently was meant to be jocosity. "So you're Bully Gilbert's girl? I shouldn't have thought it; it only shows that you never can tell. I don't know where you get your looks from-not from him. Why, you really are- Do you know who I am?"

"Sister Celestine says you are Mr Emmett."

"Georgie Emmett, your father's best friend-in fact, his only friend, because he was not the kind of person who gathers them round. When, some nine months ago, he departed this life, he left it owing me a hatful of money; and I'm damned-beg pardon, I'm blessed if he hadn't the cheek and impudence, by way of wiping off his owings, to appoint me your one and only guardian; as if you were a little bit of something which could be turned into cash. I'd have come and looked at you before if I'd known you were so well worth looking at; but who would have guessed that your father would have had a girl with a face like yours. However, here I am at last; and I daresay you won't be sorry to say good-bye to this queer old shanty, and to come with me to have a peep at what the world looks like outside. I rather think there aren't many men who can show you more of it than I can. Anyhow, I've come to take you along; so run upstairs and put your hat and jacket on, and your things in your box. My car's outside, a 60 F.I.A.T. – if there's anything on earth can move it's her: but that's no reason why she should be kept waiting, so if you can manage to do your packing inside ten minutes I'll be obliged."

Sister Celestine and Dorothy looked at each other, as if both were at a loss for words; as, indeed, they were. It seemed incredible that Dorothy should be expected to quit, at a moment's notice, the place which had sheltered her her whole life long; to go, with this uncouth stranger, she knew not where. The Sister asked where he proposed so take her; his reply could scarcely have been vaguer. "Oh, for a bit of a run round; just now I'm rather at a loose end; my future movements depend upon circs."

To the Sister's orderly mind the prospect seemed uncomfortably nebulous; yet there seemed nothing to do but to let the girl go. The man was her lawful guardian. In his method of paying the convent dues the late Mr Gilbert had been erratic. Quite a considerable sum had been owing when he died. During the intervening months that sum had become still larger. Taking out a fat pocket-book, Mr Emmett paid all demands with bank-notes: in that respect nothing could have been more satisfactory. The convent, which could ill afford to lose the money, had become anxious; the sight of those bank-notes removed a burden from the Sister's mind and Dorothy was sent upstairs, to put her hat and jacket on, and her things into her box. The process was not a lengthy one. She still had the small wooden box which she had brought to the convent as a tiny child. But her stock of clothes had not grown much larger; those which would not go into the box were wrapped in a sheet of brown paper. As, theoretically, Frances Vernon assisted in the business of packing, she plied Dorothy with questions. The answers she received were very short; gradually Frances became conscious that some subtle change had taken place in her friend during the last few minutes.

"What is he like?" she demanded; as Dorothy had done of Sister Celestine. In her answer Dorothy paraphrased the Sister.

"How can I tell you, when I have been acquainted with him only ten minutes?"

Frances leaped to conclusions as she herself had done.

"I know what that means-it means that he's horrid. Is he very horrid?"

"I didn't say he was horrid."

"No, but you didn't say he wasn't. You might at least tell me what he looks like. Dolly, do!"

And Dolly did. She painted Mr Emmett exactly as he had appeared to her. She had a pretty knack of description; by the time the portrait was finished Miss Vernon was gazing with wide-open eyes.

"Why," she cried, "he must be perfectly hideous!"

"He is not," admitted Dorothy, "what some people would call good-looking."

"Fancy going you don't know where with such a man as that! – you who have always said that in a man you must have beauty of mind, and soul, and form!"

Dorothy bent over the frock she was folding.

"We have been taught that a plain casket may contain a priceless jewel."

She might have been taught it; yet she doubted if Mr Emmett was a casket of that kind. Before long she was sure that he was not. Her box, whose appearance produced uncomplimentary remarks from her guardian, was fastened on the top of the car; presently she had quitted the convent, with all her worldly possessions. Mr Emmett was his own driver. She sat beside him, on the front seat, while the chauffeur sat behind. She would have preferred to have had it the other way round, but it was settled for her without her having a voice in the matter. A big coat was slipped over her shoulders; she was on the seat; a rug was wrapped round her knees; they were off; before she clearly realised what had happened; certainly before she had said all the adieux she would have liked to say. It was all like some strange dream; whose strangeness was accentuated by the subsequent flight of the throbbing monster through the air.

What was the name of the town at which they stayed that first night she never knew. She had not curiosity enough to ask; no one volunteered the information. After dinner, which was to her a wholly unaccustomed feast, at which she ate scarcely anything, in spite of Mr Emmett's well-meant gibes and jeers, she stole up to bed as soon as she could; to a big bed; in a big room, in the old inn, there she lay, a lonely, forlorn maiden; thinking, puzzling, doubting, wishing, with all her heart, that she was back again in the safe shelter of the convent. She wished it often during the days and weeks which followed. She was a young girl, and, like a young girl, all agog to stand on tiptoe, if needs be, and open the windows which would enable her to look into the house of life. Under normal circumstances, that motor cruise might have been to her one long delight; but the circumstances were abnormal; so that for long afterwards a motor car stood for her as a sort of synonym for a nightmare.

Everything was spoilt by Mr Emmett's presence. From the first moment he had impressed her disagreeably; that impression grew with each hour that she spent in his near neighbourhood. The trouble was that it was so hard to get away from him. He would have her sit beside him on that front seat; ignoring utterly her reiterated requests to be allowed to sit behind. During the first days they motored continually; stopping in the daytime only to eat and drink-principally, so it seemed to Dorothy, where Mr Emmett was concerned, for the latter. The quantity he drank amazed and frightened her; always, when night fell, he had drunk too much. During the day the liquor he consumed had an unhappy effect upon his driving. He was quick enough to perceive that he had not inspired the girl with sentiments of affection; and this he resented. But, instead of setting himself to get the better of any distaste she might have for him, he seemed to take a malicious pleasure in paying her out for entertaining a feeling of the kind. Discovering that she felt a not unnatural girlish timidity in her new position as passenger on a motor car, he went out of his way to increase instead of lessen it, so that, before long, her timidity became actual terror. Nearly always he took the car along at what appeared to her to be a dangerous speed; as the day advanced, and the drinks multiplied, the speed grew more. At first she remonstrated, feebly enough; but he only laughed, and pressed the car still faster. Afterwards she sat silent; but she could not prevent her cheeks from turning white, or her mouth from shutting tighter. When he saw these signs he delighted in taking risks which made her heart stand still. One afternoon he knocked down a child in a village street on the other side of Blois. At first, in her agony, she thought it was killed; but it appeared that only its arm was broken. When the people came flocking round he gave the parents two thousand francs in bank-notes; one could not but feel that they would have been willing to have their own arms broken on those terms. He was lavish enough with his money. They spent that night in Tours. The next day he offered her a wad of notes, and suggested that she should go into the town and provide herself with a sufficient wardrobe. She had not realised till lately how scanty it really was; continual travelling made drains on her resources which she found it hard to meet. But he offered her cash in a way which jarred on her every nerve; she would not buy herself clothes with money which came from him. When she made this clear to him he called her an adjectived fool; and broke into a torrent of language from which she fled in terror.

At Lyons he tried to kiss her; whereat she burst into a frenzy of rage which surprised herself, and startled him. It was in the hall of the hotel after dinner, just as she was going up to bed; always, so soon as dinner was over, she went straight to her room. Billson, the chauffeur, happened to enter at the moment, to get orders for the morrow. Emmett, turning, saw him grinning at his discomfiture.

"By-!" he cried, eager to vent his fury on someone. "If you don't take care I'll kill you!"

But Billson never flinched; and he continued to grin. He was a shortish, youngish man, with a white, clean-shaven face, and black hair, which he wore parted in the middle. He seemed to have a gift for silence; Dorothy had hardly heard him speak a dozen times. She had a feeling that, for some cause, his master stood in awe of him. Although he went on grinning, Mr Emmett made no attempt to carry out his threat-at least, while she was flying up the stairs.

They spent some days at Aix-les-Bains. There he made to her his first proposal of marriage; he was in his cups at the time. To say that she refused him is to say little. When she gained the sanctum of her own apartment she was in an agony of shame and distress. Her dilemma was not a pleasant one. It seemed to her that it was just as impossible to remain in this man's company as it was to escape from it. She was penniless, friendless. How was she to get away from him? To whom was she to turn? Her ignorance was pitiable. For all she knew, his position as her guardian gave him powers over her against which it was vain to struggle. If she ran away from him, she thought it very probable that he could compel her to return; in which case her last plight would be worse than her first. Besides, with no money in her pocket, where could she run? Despite her horror of the man, to her, in her childlike ignorance, it seemed as if he had gripped her to him with bonds of steel.

CHAPTER II

THE CURTAIN

When they landed in England it was to her as if she had been for years with Mr Emmett, and Billson, and the car; though, in reality, they had only been associated for a very few weeks. She felt as if, during those interminable weeks, the best of her life had gone from her, and already she had grown old, before she was eighteen. She had forgotten how to smile; at night she could not sleep; her head was always aching; her nerves were in such a state of tension that she was beginning to be afraid of the sound of her own voice; the world had become to her a prison from which there was no way out. She had not been to England since she was a small child; returning to it was like coming a strange country. She would have forgotten her own tongue had not so many of the girls in the convent been English. They went up to town on the inevitable motor; on the way she kept looking about her with eyes which, in spite of herself, would grow dim. She had often dreamed of the journey she would make, one day, to London; she had never dreamed that it would be like this. They put up that night in a huge railway station hotel. On the morrow, for once, they parted company with the motor; Mr Emmett took her with him to a midland town by rail. Some race meeting was on; Dorothy had a hazy notion that her guardian had something to do with horses and with racing: it was a subject of which she had heard him speaking more than once. Some horsey acquaintances travelled with him in the same compartment; they played bridge all the way, to Dorothy's relief; she was glad that they should do anything which would keep them from speaking to her.

Mr Emmett took apartments at the principal hotel. There, in the private sitting-room, after a tête-à-tête dinner, he proposed to her again. He was more sober than he sometimes was at that hour; perhaps, on that account, he expressed himself with a clearness which she found appalling. In various fashions he had asked her again and again to marry him since that first time at Aix-les-Bains. She had begun to understand that not only was he a man who would not take No for an answer, but also that he was not likely to stick at anything which would enable him to gain an end he had in view. If she had had any doubts upon that latter point they were dissipated then. He did not so much ask her to be his wife, as tell her that she would have to be his wife; informing her, with complete candour, that if she was not an utter fool she would grasp that fact without any further fuss and nonsense. He added that, when she was his wife, he would give her a good time-an A1 time. There wasn't a better-natured fellow going, if you rubbed him the right way, nor a more generous one-he would give his wife all she wanted, and more, if she was only nice to him-that was all he wanted her to be-nice to him. He had sacks full of money-ask anyone who knew George Emmett if he was a poor man. Why, he thought nothing of lending anyone twenty or thirty thousand pounds, if the security was decent-that was all he asked, decent security; and, he went on with a grin, a chance of making cent. per cent. He might tell her, in confidence, that he had his fingers round the throats of more people than anyone had an idea of-all sorts of people, some of them the highest in the land. He never talked; even when he was drunk he kept his tongue off delicate subjects; but if he were to talk he could mention names, male and female, which would make her sit up straight. There was scarcely a man or woman who had anything to do with horses who did not sometimes find himself, or herself, in a tight corner about settling day. Those were the times they came to him. The number of services he had rendered of that kind-well, they'd fill a book. Everybody knew Georgie Emmett was a friend in need when a bad settlement had to be faced. He winked, and Dorothy shuddered.

Knocking off the ash from his cigar he filled himself another glass of champagne. If she had only had the courage she would have sprung from her chair and rushed from the room; but just then all her courage seemed to have deserted her. This man seemed to have for her the fascination which a snake is said to have for the victim it proposes to swallow. The worst of it was that, despite herself, his influence over her seemed to be momentarily increasing, as if he were weaving a spell which, as it proceeded, placed her more and more at his mercy.

It was not, he went on, as if her father was anything, or anyone. He was not one to say a word to a child against her father, but she had only to think of how he had treated her to know what sort he was. What kind of a parent had he been to her? How often had he written to her? How many times had he been to see her? What had he ever given her? What had he ever done for her? He dare bet that the bills he had paid for her keep in the convent had been paid with other people's money. There was no disguising the fact that Bully Gilbert was a regular rip-and there it was. Not only had she not got a penny of her own, but she had no right to the clothes she stood up in-and pretty things they were to call clothes. Let her say the word, and she should have the run of the Rue de la Paix; then she'd know what clothes were. Why, as things stood, there wasn't a chambermaid in that hotel who wasn't in a better position than she was ever likely to be, if she was left to herself. And yet here he was, ready and willing to marry her. He'd get a special licence tomorrow; or, if she liked, he'd have the banns put up in church-any church she chose to name; though, for his part, he never could see what was the pull in going to church to be married. She might take a long day's walk without meeting one woman who wouldn't snatch at the chance of getting him; women of birth, and with money in their pockets too. What he saw in her, hanged if he knew himself; but he did see something. The first moment he set eyes on her he'd made up his mind he'd marry her-that's why he took her away from that adjectived convent-and marry her he would. So what was the use of talking? Men and women were curious creatures. The sooner she said Yes the more comfortable it would be for everyone. So she wasn't to be silly, but was to come and kiss him, and sit on his knee, and he'd put a prettier ring on her finger than she had ever dreamed of seeing there. Here it was-what did she think of it?

From a small leather case he took a ring which was set with diamonds; holding it out, moving it so that as the lights fell on it from different angles the stones sparkled and gleamed; luring her with it as an angler tries to lure a fish with the bait which hides the hooks. She sat, her slender body pressed against the back of her chair, gripping the sides of it with both hands, looking at him with staring, hopeless eyes. All the strength seemed to have gone from her, as if this man had drawn it all out of her, as out of a well, and left her dry. His vitality was crushing hers; in the fight to hold her own she was beaten; she knew it, and the knowledge was agony. She felt that presently he would only have to hold up his finger, and what he bade her do, that she would have to do. He continued to twiddle the diamond ring between his great fingers; dilating on its various beauties; dwelling on all that it would mean when it was in its place upon her hand; and each moment she expected that he would order her to go to him, and let him brand her with it as with a stigma which might never be effaced. What would happen if such an order were given she could not, dared not, think. While she still awaited it there came a tapping at the door; a waiter entered.

"A gentleman, sir, to see you."

Mr Emmett turned towards him angrily.

"A gentleman? What gentleman? I'm not going to see anyone to-night-whoever it is, tell him to go to the devil."

The waiter held out to him an envelope which was on a silver tray.

"Gentleman told me to give you that, sir."

Tearing the envelope open Mr Emmett read what was on a half-sheet of paper which was within; then he crumpled it up, and swore.

"Confound him! What's the hurry? Why won't the morning do? Tell him I'm coming down to him."

The waiter went. Mr Emmett looked again at Dorothy, still sitting as if she were glued to the back of her chair; replacing the ring in its leather case, he made as if to return it to his waistcoat pocket; then, suddenly changing his mind, he called out: "Come here!" She did not move; but clung tighter to her seat. He laughed, as if amused by her obvious fear of him. "You little idiot! Of what are you afraid? There'll come a time when you'll not need any calling; and you'll come uninvited, and perhaps when I don't want you. I know you women; you're like badly trained dogs. When you're whistled to heel you'll not come; but when you're not whistled you keep messing about a man till he feels like giving you a dose of prussic acid. Very well, don't come; I'll come to you." He went to her, at the other end of the table. "Give me your hand!" He took it, her left; she offering no resistance, but looking up at him with a great terror in her eyes. On the third finger he slipped the ring. "There! – that's in token that you're mine; you're as much my property now as if we'd been together to church; and don't you forget it. There's a fool downstairs who wants to see me; and, as he is a fool, he shall; but I'm not going to let him keep me; I shall probably be back inside ten minutes, and mind I find you here when I do come back. None of your games-going to bed, or any of that rot; if you do I'll fetch you down again. There are all sorts of things I want to talk to you about, before you think of bed; I want you to show that you can be nice to me; and that you can treat me as a girl ought to treat the man who's going to be her husband-especially a husband who's going to give her the best time a girl ever did have. So you understand? – I'm to find you here when I return." He moved a step or two away; then halted. "I ought to have a kiss-a man ought to have a kiss from his girl, when he gives her the ring; but that sort of thing won't spoil with keeping-there'll be interest to collect-I'll take a couple when I come back."