Ричард Марш
The Coward Behind the Curtain

"So have you-and you must have changed more than I have, because I didn't know you, and you did know me."

"That's true. Now, Dorothy, no flummery, and no fibs-in what respect do you consider I have altered?"

"Well-for one thing you seem to be so much more of a woman."

"Do I? Isn't that natural?"

"I don't know; it isn't so very long since I saw you last."

"A great many things may happen in a very short time."

"That's true."

Dorothy sighed; but Miss Vernon was smiling. Then she said, with an air which would be grave, but was not:

"There are women and women. I have heard people say that when one becomes a woman one should show a consciousness of the responsibilities of womanhood. I hope I don't show too much of that kind of thing."

"I don't think you ever will do that."

"Sha'n't I? You never can tell. A man I danced with last week-he was quite old, over thirty-said that it bursts upon you all at once, what it means to be a woman. I don't know what he knows about it, as he's only a man; but I've noticed that some men, when they're old, do seem to know a good deal about women-or they pretend to. What do you think of this dress?"

"It's a perfect dream!"

"Really?"

"I never saw anything so lovely."

"I fancy it is rather-too-too; and I believe that's what Jim thinks; that's why he keeps calling me a perfect fright. Oh, those brothers! they have such ways of paying a compliment. What do you think of the hat?"

Again Dorothy sighed; but this time it was a sigh of admiration.

"Frances, it's simply sweet!"

"Notice the hair?"

"Rather; and I believe it's the hair which is more responsible for the change which I see in you than anything else. Of course the clothes have something to do with it-you didn't wear frocks and hats like that in the convent."

"My dear! what are you talking about? Fancy the sensation I'd have made! Can't you see the Mother's face?"

"No; and I'd rather not, thank you. But it's the hair which has changed you more than the clothes. I can't think how it's done. I wonder-"

Dorothy stopped; the other finished the sentence for her.

"If I will do yours for you? Come into the house, and then I'll show you. I've discovered I've quite a genius for dressing hair. I'll make a perfect picture of you-you won't know yourself when I've finished. Which room have you got? You don't know? You think that's the window? That's the pink room-we call it the pink room because once upon a time its decorations were pink; and we still call it the pink room, though now they're what I call a symphony in chaste French-grey. Talk about this frock! You wait till you see me this afternoon! I say, you were lucky to drop on us on our day of days! There'll be tons of people here; and, among them, one or two nice ones. Honestly, did you know what day it was?"

"Of course I didn't; and, if you don't mind, I'd-I'd just as soon stay in the house while all those people are here. I-I don't feel in a mood for that kind of thing."

"What kind of thing? Stuff! You don't know what you're talking about; shyness is what's the matter with you; and that's a complaint of which little convent-bred girls have got to be cured. Wait till I've tried my hand upon your hair! Come along, I'll start on it at once. Why," she had taken Dorothy's hand in her own, "I say! – whatever's this? – a ring! – on her engagement finger! – diamonds! – and such a beauty! Dorothy, what is the matter with the child? She's staring at her own finger as if she were staring at a ghost!"

Dorothy was staring at Mr Emmett's ring, which gleamed at her on the third finger of her left hand. Until that moment she had been unconscious of its presence-a fact which was a sufficient commentary on her mental state during the last several hours. She could not think how it had got there; to her it was something worse than a ghost; it brought back to her, on the instant, all that she would have been so willing to forget.

CHAPTER XIV
STRATHMOIRA

Mr Vernon found Mrs Vernon in the morning-room, engaged with what seemed to be household accounts. As is apt to be the case when people have been married to each other for more years than they sometimes care to remember, morning greetings were with them a minus quantity. He began without any preface:

"Everything all right for this afternoon?"

She looked up from a bill.

"Yes, I think so; as far as I know." She looked back at the bill. "I am confident Barnes has made a mistake, he is always doing it." She looked up again, turning half round in her chair. "But, Harold, have you seen her?"

"You mean Miss Gilbert? I have; and-I'm rather prepossessed with her. I confess that Frances' ecstasies made me a trifle nervous; but so far as appearance and manner go she strikes me as being distinctly good style, as girls run nowadays. But she-or someone-might have let us know that she was coming, considering, so far as we're concerned, that she's a perfect stranger. She seems to have dropped from the clouds; she doesn't seem as if she were the kind of girl who'd do it. Who's the Mr Frazer she speaks of?"

"Mr Frazer?"

"She says she came with Mr Frazer-Eric Frazer?"

"Eric Frazer? She must mean Strathmoira."

"Strathmoira?"

"Of course, his name is Frazer-Eric Frazer."

"But, why should she speak of the Earl of Strathmoira as Mr Frazer?"

"My dear Harold, it's no use putting questions to me, because I keep putting questions to myself, and I get no answers. Directly I begin to think I feel I am getting out of my depth, so I try not to think. I console myself with the reflection that I always have known that Strathmoira's stark, staring mad."

"But, do you mean to say that Strathmoira brought Miss Gilbert to this house without letting us have the least hint that he was coming, at goodness knows what hour of the night?"

"You may well say goodness only knows. You had been gone what seemed to me hours, and I was just getting into bed, when I heard a vehicle coming up the drive. I called to Parkes not to open the door till he had asked who it was through the window; but I suppose I must have spoken louder than I meant, and of course the windows in my room were wide open; and, as you know, it's right over the hall door, which for the moment I'd forgotten; anyhow, a voice answered from without: 'It's all right, Adela, don't you let me be the cause of Parkes straining his vocal chords; it isn't burglars, it's yours to command.' When I realised that the voice was Strathmoira's you might have knocked me down with a feather."

"I daresay. Why, how long is it since we've seen or heard anything of the fellow?"

"As you put it, goodness only knows. I replied to him through the window: 'I'm alone in the house, I don't know if you're aware what time it is; I'm just going to bed-couldn't you come round in the morning?'"

"He answered: 'No, I couldn't; I've got Miss Gilbert here, Frances' friend, so perhaps you won't mind hurrying down to let us in!'"

"Pretty cool, upon my word."

"Cool! When Parkes had opened the door, and I went down, looking I don't know how, he was as much at his ease as if he'd dropped in to pay an afternoon call; and there was a tall slip of a girl, with black hair, big grey eyes, and a white face, whom I took to at once."

"So did I, when I saw her just now."

"He introduced her; and said she had come to make a long stay; and asked if I'd mind her going to bed at once, as she'd had a very tiring day, and was tired out. She looked it, to me she seemed unnaturally pale. As she stood there, without speaking a word, I felt quite sorry for the child. So I took her upstairs and lent her Frances' things to go to bed with-she hadn't even so much as an extra pocket-handkerchief of her own."

"I thought you said she'd come to stay."

"So he said-but she hadn't so much as a handbag in the way of luggage."

"I suppose it's coming-or has it come?"

"It is not coming; nor has it come. If you'll allow me I'll try to make you understand as much as I understand-which is very little. The whole thing seems to me to be mysterious; however, by this time I ought to know Strathmoira. When I came downstairs again he told me a story of which I did not find it easy to make head or tail. It seems that Miss Gilbert has a guardian, in whose charge she appears to have been."

"You remember Frances said she'd left the convent with her guardian; and that was why she didn't want to stop."

"I do remember. It seems that the guardian is not in a state of health to take proper care of his ward, though what ails him I couldn't make out; so Strathmoira brought her to me."

"Of course we are very glad to see her; but-what has Strathmoira got to do with Miss Gilbert? And why as a matter of course has he brought her to you? – without giving you any notice, in that unceremonious fashion? Hasn't she any friends of her own?"

"My dear Harold, you are sufficiently acquainted with Strathmoira to be aware that you can rain questions at him, and that, without refusing to answer one, he can evade them all, and do it in such a way that you are not sure if he knows that you ever put them. I asked him everything I could think of in the short time he stayed; but all that he told me amounted to this-that he hopes I'll treat Miss Gilbert as a daughter."

"Upon my word! – and she a stranger!"

"He also hoped that I'll see her properly fitted up with clothes from top to toe!"

"With whose money?"

"With his-or hers-I don't know whose; I only know that he gave me a hundred pounds in notes, and here they are. When he wondered if that would be enough to start with, I said it depended on the circumstances of the girl, and I asked if she had any means; and he replied: 'Ample! ample!' twice over; and he added that no expense was to be spared in fitting her up with all that a girl of her age ought to have. Now you know how Frances told us she was neglected by her people, and continually left without a penny of pocket-money; and how that man who took her away informed her that her father had died and left her penniless; and how sorry I was for her; and, because I was so sorry, I gave Frances permission to ask her to spend the summer with us-and Frances couldn't, because she didn't know her address. I believe I am not a person to judge hastily and harshly; but I cannot reconcile those facts with Strathmoira's statement that her means are ample."

"You've got the money; you needn't spend all of it; what's it matter?"

"Harold, it does matter. I should like to know whose money it is; and if more is coming when it's spent."

"Strathmoira will give you all the explanations you want before very long; you're sure to hear from him-what's his address?"

"Harold, I haven't a notion-I asked, but he didn't say. When he'd gone I found that he'd left me with a general impression that I might hear from him-I didn't know when."

"Well, that's something. Anyhow, here's the girl; we know of nothing against her even if she did make an informal entry; she's Frances' friend; the child will be delighted to have her; you felt drawn to her."

"I did, and I do; what I've seen of her I like, there's something about the girl which appeals to me."

"Very well, then-as I'm prepossessed we sha'n't do much harm if we give her house-room for her own sake. As for Strathmoira-although he is stark mad, he's an excellent fellow, and long-headed, in his way. Whatever the connection may be between this girl and him I'm quite sure that there's nothing discreditable about it to either side."

"Harold, I never for an instant thought there was. I quite agree with you in thinking that Strathmoira's one fault is that he's stark mad."

"Then all we have to do, for the present, is to make the girl comfortable and happy. Did I understand you to say that she has nothing with her but the clothes she is wearing?"

"She hasn't another rag-not so much as a toothbrush.

"In which case you'll have to expend a part of that hundred in buying her a toothbrush-and other odds and ends."

"That's exactly what I'm going to do. I've drawn up a list of some of the things she must have; I've ordered the landau, and I'm going to drive the two girls over to Ringtown as soon as I have my hat on. Here are the girls." As she spoke, the two girls appeared at the open French window. She spoke to her daughter. "Good morning, Frances; you see your fairy godmother has sent you a present-the visitor you so much wanted."

"Isn't it lovely? I've just been telling her that I'd sooner see her than that father should buy a motor car-and you know what that means. But I don't understand-she says she's brought no luggage."

"That's all right; I'm going to drive the pair of you over to Ringtown, and there I'm going to buy Dorothy what she wants. The other day I saw some pretty model gowns at Wingham's; if only one of them fits her it might do for this afternoon. What do you say, Dorothy?"

The girl, who had been standing by the window, came a little farther into the room; she spoke with painful hesitation.

"Mrs Vernon, I-I have no money."

"My dear child, I have some money of yours."

"Of mine? – money of mine?" The girl looked as if she did not understand, then flushed-as if with sudden comprehension. "Did he-give it you?"

"By 'he' do you mean the Earl of Strathmoira?"

Mrs Vernon smiled; but the girl looked as if she understood less than ever.

"The Earl of Strathmoira? – no; I mean Mr Frazer."

Miss Vernon broke in:

"Mother, what Mr Frazer does she mean? She says she came with Mr Eric Frazer. Who is Eric Frazer?"

"Mr Frazer is Dorothy's quaint way of speaking of the Earl of Strathmoira."

Miss Vernon stared at her mother, then at her friend; a look of puzzlement was on her pretty face.

"Dorothy, do you know Strathmoira?"

Dorothy's look of bewilderment more than matched her own.

"Strathmoira? – no; is it a place or a thing?"

"Dorothy, are you joking?"

"Joking? – Frances! – what makes you think I'm joking? – I haven't the faintest notion what you mean."

Miss Vernon turned to her mother.

"Mother, what is this mystery? – because it seems to me that there is a mystery somewhere. I hope that you and Dorothy understand each other better than I do either of you."

"My dear Frances, I'm bound to say that I don't understand; especially if, as she says, she isn't joking. Dorothy, do you seriously wish to tell us that you don't know that the gentleman who brought you to this house last night was the Earl of Strathmoira?"

The girl's eyes opened wider and wider; no one who saw the look almost of fear which came on her face could think that she was jesting.

"He-he told me that his name was Frazer-Eric Frazer."

"And so his family name is Frazer, and his Christian name Eric; but his style and title is the Earl of Strathmoira; by that style and title he is generally known; indeed I, who have known him all his life, and am his cousin once removed, was not aware that he was ever known as anything else. How long have you known him, my dear? – and who introduced him to you as Mr Frazer?"

The girl shrank back. Inchoate thoughts were pressing on her harassed mind. She remembered what he had said about her endorsing his story; but what story had he told? Was it true that he was who these people said he was? If so, then-perhaps she had betrayed him already; with a word she might betray him further. She recalled his words about playing him false. If she did, what would he think-after all he had done for her? How they all three were looking at her! She wished she could think what to say without-without committing any one. But-she could not think.

While she was still struggling within herself for the words which would not come, Frances went flitting towards her across the room; drawn to her by the anguish which was in her eyes, and on her face.

"Dorothy! my darling! what is the matter? Don't look like that! Mother didn't mean to hurt you! You poor thing, how you're trembling! Mother, tell her that you didn't mean anything!"

In her turn the elder woman, crossing the room, came and stood by the still speechless girl, into whose eyes, for some cause which she could not fathom, there had come a pain which was too great for tears. Her voice was very soft and gentle.

"I assure you, my dear Dorothy, that nothing was further from my wish than a desire to pry into what, after all, is no business of mine. If my cousin is Mr Frazer to you then he is Mr Frazer. He's one of the most eccentric creatures breathing; but he is also one of the best. I'm sure, from the way in which he spoke to me of you last night, that he regards you with the utmost respect and reverence. He commended you to me as a very precious charge. He told me that you had never known your own mother; and he asked me to try to be a mother to you." The speaker paused to smile, whimsically. "You know, Dorothy, I don't think that one can be quite like one's mother if one isn't one's mother, but, if you'll let me, I'd like to play the part, as well as a substitute can."

Mr Vernon's interposition prevented a reply from Dorothy, if she was capable of one. Perhaps he saw that she was not; and his words were dictated by a masculine desire to cut short what was very like a scene.

"Now, Adela, if you're going to put your hat on, you'd better put it on-I heard the carriage come ten minutes ago. And, you girls, if you're not ready, perhaps you will be ready inside a brace of shakes. Frances, do you hear?"

The young lady took the hint.

"All right, dad; we'll both of us be ready in ever so much less than a brace of shakes!"

Slipping her arm through Dorothy's she led her from the room. When the two girls had gone husband and wife looked at each other. The man was the first to speak.

"It's odd that she shouldn't know him as the Earl of Strathmoira-it strikes me that my gentleman's a queerer fish even than I thought."

His wife eyed him for a moment, as if quizzically; then she turned aside, ostensibly to collect the papers on which she had been engaged.

"Harold, have you ever heard of blindfold chess?"

Under the circumstances it seemed a curious question-so it seemed to strike him.

"Adela, what on earth do you mean?"

"It occurs to me that we are about to act as pawns in a game of chess without even knowing who are the players."

Her husband stared at her, as if with a total lack of comprehension. When he spoke his tone was irascible.

"Adela, there seem to be puzzles enough in the air without your making them worse. Perhaps you'll be so good as to tell me what you may happen to mean."

"I am not so sure that I know myself; only, as I looked at that girl's face, I had the queerest feeling."

"Of what kind?"

"I'm not fanciful-am I?"

"I can't say you are-as a rule."

"Which makes it all the queerer."

"I wish you'd be more explicit. To hear you take on this tone of mystery-you know how I hate mysteries-makes me conscious of a feeling which it would be mild to describe as queer. It didn't strike me that there was anything remarkable about the girl's looks, except that she looked pale and worried. You don't know what she may have had to go through lately."

"No, I don't; and-I don't think I'd care to."

"Adela! Now you're at it again! Will you go and put your hat on? I don't know if you're aware that the time's going; I suppose you don't want to keep that carriage waiting all day." Mrs Vernon went out of the room without another word. At the door she turned and favoured him with a look which he instinctively resented. He gave vent to his feelings as soon as she had gone. "Now what did she mean by looking at me like that? There's something about the best of women which is-trying. She's got some notion into her head about that girl; and-I wonder what it is? When I do get within reach of Strathmoira I'll speak a few plain words to him. The idea of his treating me, in my own house, as if I were a pawn-Adela's too absurd! – I should like to see him try it!"

On Mr Vernon's face there was a smile which, if the Earl of Strathmoira had been there, he might have been excused if he regarded as a challenge.

CHAPTER XV
DOROTHY GILBERT OF NEWCASTER

Mrs Vernon was standing looking out on to the lawn, pinning some flowers in her blouse. Her daughter, coming on her from behind, laid her hands upon her shoulders, and then her cheek against her mother's. The mother, continuing to arrange her flowers, suffered the soft cheek to remain against her own, for some seconds, in silence.

"Well, are we ready? The people will be coming directly-we told them four. Some of Jim's friends appear to have come early, judging from the group of what seem to be boys he has with him at the end of the lawn."

"So I see. Jim's friends have hours of their own-they don't care what time people put on cards. Mother, I'm worried about Dorothy."

"Doesn't the dress fit?"

"Perfectly! – and the hat; and the hairdressing is a complete success. She looks lovely, as I told her she would do-she's certain to cut me out."

"I don't think you're afraid of that."

Frances sighed.

"I'm not-if only for the simple reason that she won't even try."

"Doesn't she want to come down?"

"It's so provoking; she's not a bit like my Dorothy-at least, in a way she isn't. I can't think what's the matter with her. She seems to be a bundle of nerves. I hardly dare open my mouth for fear of saying something which will make her jump."

"She does seem to be more sensitive than, from your description of her, I expected; I've noticed it myself."

"My darling mumkins, she's not the same girl. Something's wrong with her-I can't think what-and I daren't ask."

"She doesn't seem to be an easy person to ask questions of."

"She used to be; we used to tell each other every single thing; we used to delight in answering each other's questions; but now- I believe she's bewitched, I really do!"

"What do you mean by she's bewitched?"

"Why, she's-she's so strange; she gives me the feeling that only her body's here, while she is somewhere else; it-it really is uncanny. She never speaks unless you speak to her, and when you speak to her she doesn't listen. You can see she tries to listen; then, when you're in the middle of a sentence, you find that she's paying not the slightest attention to you, and that she's staring at something in such a way that you turn, with a start, to see whatever it can be; and you have quite an uncomfortable feeling when you discover that, whatever it is she's looking at, it's something which you can't see."

"Did you say she doesn't want to come down?"

"I didn't say so; but she doesn't. She makes me really cross; it is so annoying! There she is, looking a perfect picture: she has only to show herself to take the people by storm. I had no idea she was so pretty! And she says she would rather stay indoors, after all the trouble I have taken with her, because she doesn't feel like seeing anyone."

"My dear Frances, she is your guest; it is her feelings you must consult, not yours."

"Of course! All the same, if we were at the convent I should pick her up and plank her down right in the very middle of the lawn; I shouldn't care for her tantrums; she'd get the fresh air if she got nothing else. As it is, I don't mean to let her have all her own way, if I can help it."

"I don't doubt that, or it wouldn't be you."

"Well, mother, I believe that, at the bottom, it's just shyness; she's ridiculously afraid of meeting strangers; after the first plunge she'd be cured. So, after a while, I'm going up to see how she is, and to ask if she wouldn't like to come down; and I'm going to keep on asking if she wouldn't like to come down till she comes; then you'll see if she'll be any the worse for coming."

On this programme Miss Vernon acted. But the people, when they did begin to appear, arrived so fast, by land and water, and occupied her so completely, that it was some time before she was able to pay a first visit to her friend; and then, so far as inducing her to put in an appearance on the lawn was concerned, it was paid in vain. A second and a third time she tried; and it was only on the fourth occasion she prevailed; then the girl yielded less to her importunity than to her assurance that many of the people had already gone, and the rest were presently going. The consciousness of the false position she was in weighed on Dorothy so heavily that again and again that afternoon she had wished, with all her heart, that she had never allowed the individual she had known as Eric Frazer to inflict her on these good people. If she had held out against him, as she ought to have done, he never could have brought her there. But she had not understood; it seemed to her that he had taken advantage of her ignorance.

The worst of it was she did not understand yet; exactly how false her position was still she did not know. For instance, was he really the Earl of Strathmoira? Her simplicity, on such points, was pristine. To her, an earl was a person so far above her that he was, practically, a being of a superior world. If he was such an effulgent creature why had he passed himself off to her as a common man? – a plain mister? Why had he condescended to notice her at all? – to give her shelter? – to feign interest in her sordid story? – it could only have been feigned. Why had he lied and played the trickster to save such an one as she from the fate which he, so superior a being, must have known that she deserved? His whole attitude in the matter was incomprehensible to her; it added to that confusion of her mental faculties which had been great enough before.

It would have been something if she had been able to ask questions; to glean information from those who knew him so much better than she did-if she could have gained some insight into the kind of man he actually was. But she dare not ask a question. One thing she did see clearly-too clearly-and that was the impression she had made upon the Vernons by what had struck them as her amazing statement that she had only known him as Mr Eric Frazer. Another word or two and, for all she could tell, she would have done what he had warned her not to do-she would have played him false. That he had played her false, in a sense, seemed true; but then, what he had done he had done for her; it behoved her to be careful that what she did was done for him.

So it came about that, for his sake, she was tongue-tied. Wholly in the dark as to his actual identity, as to the real part which he was playing; not knowing, even, what was the story he had told on her account, she had to walk warily lest, by some chance expression, she should do him a disservice. This was one of those girls who, when forced by circumstances into situations of the most extreme discomfort, are indifferent for themselves, and anxious only for others. She had taken that diamond ring off her engagement finger; but there was a tingling feeling where it had been, as if it still were there; and that tingling caused her, now and then, as it were, against her will, to glance at it; and, as she glanced, all that the ring stood for to her came back to her-she saw it all. She saw the room in 'The Bolton Arms,' in the light, and in the dark; and, in the dark, what was on the table. She saw herself, the coward behind the curtain, with quivering flesh, as that grisly something glowered at her through the silence of the darkened room. She heard-the awful sound-in the pitch blackness; and she fled headlong through the window, like a thing possessed, and dropped through the unknown depths below-she had only to shut her eyes to feel herself dropping. She saw people looking for her-everywhere she saw them looking; and when she saw what was in their eyes-that was the worst of it all-she was as one frozen with fear. Yet, could she have had her way, she would have gone straight off and given herself up to those who sought her, to let them do with her as they would-because she was afraid of what would come, of her not doing so, to others-to him whom she had known as Eric Frazer; to the good people of this house. That would be the worst drop of bitterness, in her bitter cup, if hurt came to others because of her. She had a feeling that, at that moment, the owner of the caravan, whatever his name might be, was plunging deeper and deeper into the mire, in a frantic, hopeless effort to get her clear of it. If he were to get in so deep that there would be no getting out of it again, for him, so that they were both of them engulfed in it, for ever? And these Vernons-what right had she to bring her sordid story into their pleasant lives? Would they not suffer when it became known that they had harboured, though unwittingly, one on whose head was set the price of blood? What would be their judgment on her when they knew?

These were the thoughts which racked her as, in the pink room, she sat, burning with shame, in the pretty frock, and hat, which Mrs Vernon had bought her with money which she had supposed to be Dorothy's, but which Dorothy herself knew was Mr Frazer's. Yesterday he himself had bought her clothes across the counter; to-day he had done it by deputy-yet she had not dared to tell his deputy the truth, lest she should play him false. Looked at from any point of view, could anything be more hideously false than her position? And without, in the sunshine, on the grass, amid the flowers, were crowds of happy people, with light hearts, clear consciences, who could look the whole world in the face, knowing they had done no wrong; and Frances-the friend whom she was using so ill-wanted to take her-a leper-into that unsuspecting throng. And in the end she yielded, and went-because that seemed to her to be the lesser evil. Frances made it so clear that if she did not go she should think that Dorothy no longer looked upon her as a friend. Rather than she should think that; since many of the people had gone, and the rest were about to go; with a sigh, whose meaning Frances wholly misunderstood, against her better judgment, she suffered herself to be persuaded to show herself outside.

"All I want you to do," Frances had reiterated, over and over again, "is just to show yourself-if you love me, dear. No harm can possibly come of that."