Then he met the fixed, breathless gaze of those wonderful eyes from the other side of the table, and he, too, broke off in the middle of his sentence. He breathed heavily, as though he had been running. His large, coarse lips drew wider apart. Slowly a mirthless and very unpleasant smile dawned upon his face.
“Great Scott!” he exclaimed huskily. “Why – it’s – it’s you!”
Amazement seemed to dry up the torrents of his speech. The girl regarded him with the face of a Sphinx. Only in her eyes there seemed to be some apprehension of the fact that the young man’s clothes and manners were alike undesirable things.
“Are you speaking to me?” she asked calmly. “I am afraid that you are making a mistake. I am quite sure that I do not know you.”
A dull flush burned upon his cheeks. He took his seat at the table, but leaned forward to address her. A note of belligerency had crept into his tone.
“Don’t know me, eh? I like that. You are – or rather you were – ” he corrected himself with an unpleasant little laugh, “Miss Pellissier, eh?”
A little sensation followed upon his words. Miss Ellicot pursed her lips and sat a little more upright. The lady whose husband had been Mayor of Hartlepool looked at Anna and sniffed. Mrs. White became conscious of a distinct sense of uneasiness, and showed it in her face. She was obliged, as she explained continually to every one who cared to listen, to be so very particular. On the other hand the two young men who sat on either side of Anna were already throwing murderous glances at the newcomer.
“My name,” Anna replied calmly, “is certainly Pellissier, but I repeat that I do not know you. I never have known you.”
He unfolded his serviette with fingers which shook all the time. His eyes never left her face. An ugly flush stained his cheeks.
“I’ve plenty of pals,” he said, “who, when they’ve been doing Paris on the Q.T., like to forget all about it – even their names. But you – ”
Something seemed to catch his breath. He never finished his sentence. There was a moment’s breathless and disappointed silence. If only he had known it, sympathy was almost entirely with him. Anna was no favourite at No. 13 Montague Street.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“You appear,” she said, without any sign of anger in her tone, and with unruffled composure, “to be a very impertinent person. Do you mind talking to some one else.”
Mrs. White leaned forward in her chair with an anxious smile designed to throw oil upon the troubled waters.
“Come,” she said. “We mustn’t have any unpleasantness, and Mr. Hill’s first night back amongst us, too. No doubt there’s some little mistake. We all get deceived sometimes. Mr. Hill, I hope you won’t find everything cold. You’re a little late, you must remember, and we are punctual people here.”
“I shall do very well, thank you, ma’am,” he answered shortly.
Sydney and Brendon vied with one another in their efforts to engage Anna in conversation, and Miss Ellicot, during the momentary lull, deemed it a favourable opportunity to recommence siege operations. The young man was mollified by her sympathy, and flattered by the obvious attempts of several of the other guests to draw him into conversation. Yet every now and then, during the progress of the meal, his attention apparently wandered, and leaning forward he glanced covertly at Anna with a curious mixture of expressions on his face.
Anna rose a few minutes before the general company. At the same time Sydney and Brendon also vacated their places. To reach the door they had to pass the end of the table, and behind the chair where Mr. Hill was seated. He rose deliberately to his feet and confronted them.
“I should like to speak to you for a few minutes,” he said to Anna, dropping his voice a little. “It is no good playing a game. We had better have it over.”
She eyed him scornfully. In any place her beauty would have been an uncommon thing. Here, where every element of her surroundings was tawdry and commonplace, and before this young man of vulgar origin and appearance, it was striking.
“I do not know you,” she said coldly. “I have nothing to say to you.”
He stood before the door. Brendon made a quick movement forward. She laid her hand upon his arm.
“Please don’t,” she said. “It really is not necessary. Be so good as to let me pass, sir,” she added, looking her obstructor steadily in the face.
He hesitated.
“This is all rot!” he declared angrily. “You can’t think that I’m fool enough to be put off like this.”
She glanced at Brendon, who stood by her side, tall and threatening. Her eyebrows were lifted in expostulation. A faint, delightfully humorous smile parted her lips.
“After all,” she said, “if this person will not be reasonable, I am afraid – ”
It was enough. A hand of iron fell upon the scowling young man’s shoulder.
“Be so good as to stand away from that door at once, sir,” Brendon ordered.
Hill lost a little of his truculency. He knew very well that his muscles were flabby, and his nerve by no means what it should be. He was no match for Brendon. He yielded his place and struck instead with his tongue. He turned to Mrs. White.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, to seem the cause of any disturbance, but this,” he pointed to Anna, “is my wife.”
The sensation produced was gratifying enough. The man’s statement was explicit, and spoken with confidence. Every one looked at Anna. For a moment she too had started and faltered in her exit from the room. Her fingers clutched the side of the door as though to steady herself. She caught her breath, and her eyes were lit with a sudden terror. She recovered herself, however, with amazing facility. Scarcely any one noticed the full measure of her consternation. From the threshold she looked her accuser steadily and coldly in the face.
“What you have said is a ridiculous falsehood,” she declared scornfully. “I do not even know who you are.”
She swept out of the room. Hill would have followed her, but Mrs. White and Miss Ellicot laid each a hand upon his arm, one on either side. The echoes of his hard, unpleasant laugh reached Anna on her way upstairs.
It was a queer little bed-sitting-room almost in the roof, with a partition right across it. As usual Brendon lit the candles, and Sydney dragged out the spirit-lamp and set it going. Anna opened a cupboard and produced cups and saucers and a tin of coffee.
“Only four spoonsful left,” she declared briskly, “and your turn to buy the next pound, Sydney.”
“Right!” he answered. “I’ll bring it to-morrow. Fresh ground, no chicory, and all the rest of it. But – Miss Pellissier!”
“Well?”
“Are you quite sure that you want us this evening? Wouldn’t you rather be alone? Just say the word, and we’ll clear out like a shot.”
She laughed softly.
“You are afraid,” she said, “that the young man who thinks that he is my husband has upset me.”
“Madman!”
“Blithering ass!”
The girl looked into the two indignant faces and held out both her hands.
“You’re very nice, both of you,” she said gently. “But I’m afraid you are going to be in a hopeless minority here as regards me.”
They eyed her incredulously.
“You can’t imagine,” Sydney exclaimed, “that the people downstairs will be such drivelling asses as to believe piffle like that.”
Anna measured out the coffee. Her eyes were lit with a gleam of humour. After all, it was really rather funny.
“Well, I don’t know,” she said thoughtfully. “I always notice that people find it very easy to believe what they want to believe, and you see I’m not in the least popular. Miss Ellicot, for instance, considers me a most improper person.”
“Miss Ellicot! That old cat!” Sydney exclaimed indignantly.
“Miss Ellicot!” Brendon echoed. “As if it could possibly matter what such a person thinks of you.”
Anna laughed outright.
“You are positively eloquent to-night – both of you,” she declared. “But, you see, appearances are very much against me. He knew my name, and also that I had been living in Paris, and a man doesn’t risk claiming a girl for his wife, as a rule, for nothing. He was painfully in earnest, too. I think you will find that his story will be believed, whatever I say; and in any case, if he is going to stay on here, I shall have to go away.”
“Don’t say that,” Sydney begged. “We will see that he never annoys you.”
Anna shook her head.
“He is evidently a friend of Mrs. White’s,” she said, “and if he is going to persist in this delusion, we cannot both remain here. I’d rather not go,” she added. “This is much the cheapest place I know of where things are moderately clean, and I should hate rooms all by myself. Dear me, what a nuisance it is to have a pseudo husband shot down upon one from the skies.”
“And such a beast of a one,” Sydney remarked vigorously.
Brendon looked across the room at her thoughtfully.
“I wonder,” he said, “is there anything we could do to help you to get rid of him?”
“Can you think of anything?” Anna answered. “I can’t! He appears to be a most immovable person.”
Brendon hesitated for a moment. He was a little embarrassed.
“There ought to be some means of getting at him,” he said. “The fellow seems to know your name, Miss Pellissier, and that you have lived in Paris. Might we ask you if you have ever seen him, if you knew him at all before this evening?”
She stood up suddenly, and turning her back to them, looked steadily out of the window. Below was an uninspiring street, a thoroughfare of boarding-houses and apartments. The steps, even the pavements, were invaded by little knots of loungers driven outside by the unusual heat of the evening, most of them in evening dress, or what passed for evening dress in Montague Street. The sound of their strident voices floated upwards, the high nasal note of the predominant Americans, the shrill laughter of girls quick to appreciate the wit of such of their male companions as thought it worth while to be amusing. A young man was playing the banjo. In the distance a barrel-organ was grinding out a pot pourri of popular airs. Anna raised her eyes. Above the housetops it was different. She drew a long breath. After all, why need one look down. Always the other things remained.
“I think,” she said, “that I would rather not have anything to say about that man.”
“It isn’t necessary,” they both declared breathlessly.
Brendon dismissed the subject with a wave of the hand. He glanced at his watch.
“Let us walk round to Covent Garden,” he suggested. “I daresay the gallery will be full, but there is always the chance, and I know you two are keen on Melba.”
The girl shook her head.
“Not to-night,” she said. “I have to go out.”
They hesitated. As a rule their comings and goings were discussed with perfect confidence, but on this occasion they both felt that there was intent in her silence as to her destination. Nevertheless Sydney, clumsily, but earnestly, had something to say about it.
“I am afraid – I really think that one of us ought to go with you,” he said. “That beast of a fellow is certain to be hanging about.”
She shook her head.
“It is a secret mission,” she declared. “There are policemen – and buses.”
“You shall not need either,” Brendon said grimly. “We will see that he doesn’t follow you.”
She thanked him with a look and rose to her feet.
“Go down and rescue the rags of my reputation,” she said, smiling. “I expect it is pretty well in shreds by now. To-morrow morning I shall have made up my mind what to do.”
Chapter XV
A MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE
Anna looked about her admiringly. It was just such a bedroom as she would have chosen for herself. The colouring was green and white, with softly shaded electric lights, an alcove bedstead, which was a miracle of daintiness, white furniture, and a long low dressing-table littered all over with a multitude of daintily fashioned toilet appliances. Through an open door was a glimpse of the bathroom – a vision of luxury, out of which Annabel herself, in a wonderful dressing-gown and followed by a maid presently appeared.
“Too bad to keep you waiting,” Annabel exclaimed. “I’m really very sorry. Collins, you can go now. I will ring if I want you.”
The maid discreetly withdrew, and Anna stood transfixed, gazing with puzzled frown at her sister.
“Annabel! Why, what on earth have you been doing to yourself, child?” she exclaimed.
Annabel laughed a little uneasily.
“The very question, my dear sister,” she said, “tells me that I have succeeded. Dear me, what a difference it has made! No one would ever think that we were sisters. Don’t you think that the shade of my hair is lovely?”
“There is nothing particular the matter with the shade,” Anna answered, “but it is not nearly so becoming as before you touched it. And what on earth do you want to darken your eyebrows and use so much make-up for at your age? You’re exactly twenty-three, and you’re got up as much as a woman of forty-five.”
Annabel shrugged her shoulders.
“I only use the weeniest little dab of rouge,” she declared, “and it is really necessary, because I want to get rid of the ‘pallor effect.’”
Anna made no remark. Her disapproval was obvious enough. Annabel saw it, and suddenly changed her tone.
“You are very stupid, Anna,” she said. “Can you not understand? It is of no use your taking my identity and all the burden of my iniquities upon your dear shoulders if I am to be recognized the moment I show my face in London. That is why I have dyed my hair, that is why I have abandoned my rôle of ingenuèe and altered my whole style of dress. Upon my word, Anna,” she declared, with a strange little laugh, “you are a thousand times more like me as I was two months ago than I am myself.”
A sudden sense of the gravity of this thing came home to Anna. Her sister’s words were true. They had changed identities absolutely. It was not for a week or a month. It was for ever. A cold shiver came over her. That last year in Paris, when Annabel and she had lived in different worlds, had often been a nightmare to her. Annabel had taken her life into her hands with gay insouciance, had made her own friends, gone her own way. Anna never knew whither it had led her – sometimes she had fears. It was her past now, not Annabel’s.
“It is very good of you to come and see me, my dear sister,” Annabel remarked, throwing herself into a low chair, and clasping her hands over her head. “To tell you the truth, I am a little dull.”
“Where is your husband?” Anna asked.
“He is addressing a meeting of his constituents somewhere,” Annabel answered. “I do not suppose he will be home till late. Tell me how are you amusing yourself?”
Anna laughed.
“I have been amusing myself up to now by trying to earn my living,” she replied.
“I hope,” Annabel answered lazily, “that you have succeeded. By-the-bye, do you want any money? Sir John’s ideas of pin money are not exactly princely, but I can manage what you want, I dare say.”
“Thank you,” Anna answered coldly. “I am not in need of any. I might add that in any case I should not touch Sir John’s.”
“That’s rather a pity,” Annabel said. “He wants to settle something on you, I believe. It is really amusing. He lives in constant dread of a reappearance of ‘La Belle Alcide,’ and hearing it said that she is his wife’s sister. Bit priggish, isn’t it? And if he only knew it – so absurd. Tell me how you are earning your living here, Anna – typewriting, or painting, or lady’s companion?”
“I think,” Anna said, “that the less you know about me the better. Is all your house on the same scale of magnificence as this, Annabel?” she asked, looking round.
Annabel shook her head.
“Most of it is ugly and frowsy,” she declared, “but it isn’t worth talking about. I have made up my mind to insist upon moving from here into Park Lane, or one of the Squares. It is absolutely a frightful neighbourhood, this. If only you could see the people who have been to call on me! Sir John has the most absurd ideas, too. He won’t have menservants inside the house, and his collection of carriages is only fit for a museum – where most of his friends ought to be, by-the-bye. I can assure you, Anna, it will take me years to get decently established. The man’s as obstinate as a mule.”
Anna looked at her steadily.
“He will find it difficult no doubt to alter his style of living,” she said. “I do not blame him. I hope you will always remember – ”
Annabel held out her hands with a little cry of protest.
“No lecturing, Anna!” she exclaimed. “I hope you have not come for that.”
“I came,” Anna answered, looking her sister steadily in the face, “to hear all that you can tell me about a man named Hill.”
Annabel had been lying curled up on the lounge, the personification of graceful animal ease. At Anna’s words she seemed suddenly to stiffen. Her softly intertwined fingers became rigid. The little spot of rouge was vivid enough now by reason of this new pallor, which seemed to draw the colour even from her lips. But she did not speak. She made no attempt to answer her sister’s question. Anna looked at her curiously, and with sinking heart.
“You must answer me, Annabel,” she continued. “You must tell me the truth, please. It is necessary.”
Annabel rose slowly to her feet, walked to the door as though to see that it was shut, and came back with slow lagging footsteps.
“There was a man called Montague Hill,” she said hoarsely, “but he is dead.”
“Then there is also,” Anna remarked, “a Montague Hill who is very much alive. Not only that, but he is here in London. I have just come from him.”
Annabel no longer attempted to conceal her emotion. She battled with a deadly faintness, and she tottered rather than walked back to her seat. Anna, quitting her chair, dropped on her knees by her sister’s side and took her hand.
“Do not be frightened, dear,” she said. “You must tell me the truth, and I will see that no harm comes to you.”
“The only Montague Hill I ever knew,” Annabel said slowly, “is dead. I know he is dead. I saw him lying on the footway. I felt his heart. It had ceased to beat. It was a motor accident – a fatal motor accident the evening papers called it. They could not have called it a fatal motor accident if he had not been dead.”
Anna nodded.
“Yes, I remember,” she said. “It was the night you left Paris. They thought that he was dead at first, and they took him to the hospital. I believe that his recovery was considered almost miraculous.”
“Alive,” Annabel moaned, her eyes large with terror. “You say that he is alive.”
“He is certainly alive,” Anna declared. “More than that, he arrived to-day at the boarding-house where I am staying, greeted me with a theatrical start, and claimed me – as his wife. That is why I am here. You must tell me what it all means.”
“And you?” Annabel exclaimed. “What did you say?”
“Well, I considered myself justified in denying it,” Anna answered drily. “He produced what he called a marriage certificate, and I believe that nearly every one in the boarding-house, including Mrs. White, my landlady, believes his story. I am fairly well hardened in iniquity – your iniquity, Annabel – but I decline to have a husband thrust upon me. I really cannot have anything to do with Mr. Montague Hill.”
“A – marriage certificate!” Annabel gasped.
Anna glanced into her sister’s face, and rose to her feet.
“Let me get you some water, Annabel. Don’t be frightened, dear. Remember – ”
Annabel clutched her sister’s arm. She would not let her move. She seemed smitten with a paroxysm of fear.
“A thick-set, coarse-looking young man, Anna!” she exclaimed in a hoarse excited whisper. “He has a stubbly yellow moustache, weak eyes, and great horrid hands.”
Anna nodded.
“It is the same man, Annabel,” she said. “There is no doubt whatever about that. There was the motor accident, too. It is the same man, for he raved in the hospital, and they fetched me. It was you, of course, whom he wanted.”
“Alive! In London!” Annabel moaned.
“Yes. Pull yourself together, Annabel! I must have the truth.”
The girl on the lounge drew a long sobbing breath.
“You shall,” she said. “Listen! There was a Meysey Hill in Paris, an American railway millionaire. This man and he were alike, and about the same age. Montague Hill was taken for the millionaire once or twice, and I suppose it flattered his vanity. At any rate, he began to deliberately personate him. He sent me flowers. Celeste introduced him to me – oh, how Celeste hated me! She must have known. He – wanted to marry me. Just then – I was nervous. I had gone further than I meant to – with some Englishmen. I was afraid of being talked about. You don’t know, Anna, but when one is in danger one realizes that the – the other side of the line is Hell. The man was mad to marry me. I heard everywhere of his enormous riches and his generosity. I consented. We went to the Embassy. There was – a service. Then he took me out to Monteaux, on a motor. We were to have breakfast there and return in the evening. On the way he confessed. He was a London man of business, spending a small legacy in Paris. He had heard me sing – the fool thought himself in love with me. Celeste he knew. She was chaffing him about being taken for Meysey Hill, and suggested that he should be presented to me as the millionaire. He told me with a coarse nervous laugh. I was his wife. We were to live in some wretched London suburb. His salary was a few paltry hundreds a year. Anna, I listened to all that he had to say, and I called to him to let me get out. He laughed. I tried to jump, but he increased the speed. We were going at a mad pace. I struck him across the mouth, and across the eyes. He lost control of the machine. I jumped then – I was not even shaken. I saw the motor dashed to pieces against the wall, and I saw him pitched on his head into the road. I leaned over and looked at him – he was quite still. I could not hear his heart beat. I thought that he was dead. I stole away and walked to the railway station. That night in Paris I saw on the bills ‘Fatal Motor Accidents.’ Le Petit Journal said that the man was dead. I was afraid that I might be called upon as a witness. That is why I was so anxious to leave Paris. The man who came to our rooms, you know, that night was his friend.”
“The good God!” Anna murmured, herself shaken with fear. “You were married to him!”
“It could not be legal,” Annabel moaned. “It couldn’t be. I thought that I was marrying Meysey Hill, not that creature. We stepped from the Embassy into the motor – and oh! I thought that he was dead. Why didn’t he die?”
Anna sprang to her feet and walked restlessly up and down the room. Annabel watched her with wide-open, terrified eyes.
“You won’t give me away, Anna. He would never recognize me now. You are much more like what I was then.”
Anna stopped in front of her.
“You don’t propose, do you,” she said quietly, “that I should take this man for my husband?”
“You can drive him away,” Annabel cried. “Tell him that he is mad. Go and live somewhere else.”
“In his present mood,” Anna remarked, “he would follow me.”
“Oh, you are strong and brave,” Annabel murmured. “You can keep him at arm’s length. Besides, it was under false pretences. He told me that he was a millionaire. It could not be a legal marriage.”
“I am very much afraid,” Anna answered, “that it was. It might be upset. I am wondering whether it would not be better to tell your husband everything. You will never be happy with this hanging over you.”
Annabel moistened her dry lips with a handkerchief steeped in eau de Cologne.
“You don’t know him, Anna,” she said with a little shudder, “or you would not talk like that. He is steeped in the conventions. Every slight action is influenced by what he imagines would be the opinion of other people. Anything in the least irregular is like poison to him. He has no imagination, no real generosity. You might tell the truth to some men, but never to him.”
Anna was thoughtful. A conviction that her sister’s words were true had from the first possessed her.
“Annabel,” she said slowly, “if I fight this thing out myself, can I trust you that it will not be a vain sacrifice? After what you have said it is useless for us to play with words. You do not love your husband, you have married him for a position – to escape from – things which you feared. Will you be a faithful and honest wife? Will you do your duty by him, and forget all your past follies? Unless, Annabel, you can – ”
