Anna the Adventuress

Chapter XVIII

ANNABEL AND “ALCIDE”

Lady Ferringhall lifted her eyes to the newcomer, and the greeting in them was obviously meant for him alone. She continued to fan herself.

“You are late,” she murmured.

“My chief,” he said, “took it into his head to have an impromptu dinner party. He brought home a few waverers to talk to them where they had no chance of getting away.”

She nodded.

“I am bored,” she said abruptly. “This is a very foolish sort of entertainment. And, as usual,” she continued, a little bitterly, “I seem to have been sent along with the dullest and least edifying of Mrs. Montressor’s guests.”

Ennison glanced at the other people in the box and smiled.

“I got your note just in time,” he remarked. “I knew of course that you were at the Montressor’s, but I had no idea that it was a music hall party afterwards. Are you all here?”

“Five boxes full,” she answered. “Some of them seem to be having an awfully good time too. Did you see Lord Delafield and Miss Anderson? They packed me in with Colonel Anson and Mrs. Hitchings, who seem to be absolutely engrossed in one another, and a boy of about seventeen, who no sooner got here than he discovered that he wanted to see a man in the promenade and disappeared.”

Ennison at once seated himself.

“I feel justified then,” he said, “in annexing his chair. I expect you had been snubbing him terribly.”

“Well, he was presumptuous,” Annabel remarked, “and he wasn’t nice about it. I wonder how it is,” she added, “that boys always make love so impertinently.”

Ennison laughed softly.

“I wonder,” he said, “how you would like to be made love to – boldly or timorously or sentimentally.”

“Are you master of all three methods?” she asked, stopping her fanning for a moment to look at him.

“Indeed, no,” he answered. “Mine is a primitive and unstudied manner. It needs cultivating, I think.”

His fingers touched hers for a moment under the ledge of the box.

“That sounds so uncouth,” she murmured. “I detest amateurs.”

“I will buy books and a lay figure,” he declared, “to practise upon. Or shall I ask Colonel Anson for a few hints?”

“For Heaven’s sake no,” she declared. “I would rather put up with your own efforts, however clumsy. Love-making at first hand is dull enough. At second hand it would be unendurable.”

He leaned towards her.

“Is that a challenge?”

She shrugged her shoulders, all ablaze with jewels.

“Why not? It might amuse me.”

Somewhat irrelevantly he glanced at the next few boxes where the rest of Mrs. Montressor’s guests were.

“Is your husband here to-night?” he asked.

“My husband!” she laughed a little derisively. “No, he wouldn’t come here of all places – just now. He dined, and then pleaded a political engagement. I was supposed to do the same, but I didn’t.”

“You know,” he said with some hesitation, “that your sister is singing.”

She nodded.

“Of course. I want to hear how she does it.”

“She does it magnificently,” he declared. “I think – we all think that she is wonderful.”

She looked at him with curious eyes.

“I remember,” she said, “that the first night I saw you, you spoke of my sister as your friend. Have you seen much of her lately?”

“Nothing at all,” he answered.

The small grey feathers of her exquisitely shaped fan waved gently backwards and forwards. She was watching him intently.

“Do you know,” she said, “that every one is remarking how ill you look. I too can see it. What has been the matter?”

“Toothache,” he answered laconically.

She looked away.

“You might at least,” she murmured, “have invented a more romantic reason.”

“Oh, I might,” he answered, “have gone further still. I might have told you the truth.”

“Has my sister been unkind to you?”

“The family,” he declared, “has not treated me with consideration.”

She looked at him doubtfully.

“You promised faithfully to be there,” he said slowly. “I loathe afternoon concerts, and – ”

She was really like her sister he thought, impressed for a moment by the soft brilliancy of her smile. Her fingers rested upon his.

“You were really at Moulton House,” she exclaimed penitently. “I am so sorry. I had a perfect shoal of callers. People who would not go. I only arrived when everybody was coming away.”

A little murmur of expectation, an audible silence announced the coming of “Alcide.” Then a burst of applause. She was standing there, smiling at the audience as at her friends. From the first there had always been between her and her listeners that electrical sympathy which only a certain order of genius seems able to create. Then she sang.

Ennison listened, and his eyes glowed. Lady Ferringhall listened, and her cheeks grew pale. Her whole face stiffened with suppressed anger. She forgot Anna’s sacrifices, forgot her own callousness, forgot the burden which she had fastened upon her sister’s shoulders. She was fiercely and bitterly jealous. Anna was singing as she used to sing. She was chic, distinguished, unusual. What right had she to call herself “Alcide”? It was abominable, an imposture. Ennison listened, and he forgot where he was. He forgot Annabel’s idle attempts at love-making, all the cul-de-sac gallantry of the moment. The cultivated indifference, which was part of the armour of his little world fell away from him. He leaned forward, and looked into the eyes of the woman he loved, and it seemed to him that she sang back to him with a sudden note of something like passion breaking here and there through the gay mocking words which flowed with such effortless and seductive music from her lips.

Neither of them joined in the applause which followed upon her exit. They were both conscious, however, that something had intervened between them. Their conversation became stilted. A spot of colour, brighter than any rouge, burned on her cheeks.

“She is marvellously clever,” he said.

“She appears to be very popular here,” she remarked.

“You too sing?” he asked.

“I have given it up,” she answered. “One genius in the family is enough.” After a pause, she added, “Do you mind fetching back my recalcitrant cavalier.”

“Anything except that,” he murmured. “I was half hoping that I might be allowed to see you home.”

“If you can tear yourself away from this delightful place in five minutes,” she answered, “I think I can get rid of the others.”

“We will do it,” he declared. “If only Sir John were not Sir John I would ask you to come and have some supper.”

“Don’t imperil my reputation before I am established,” she answered, smiling. “Afterwards it seems to me that there are no limits to what one may not do amongst one’s own set.”

“I am frightened of Sir John,” he said, “but I suggest that we risk it.”

“Don’t tempt me,” she said, laughing, and drawing her opera-cloak together. “You shall drive home with me in a hansom, if you will. That is quite as far as I mean to tempt Providence to-night.”

Again on his way homeward from Cavendish Square he abandoned the direct route to pass by the door of Anna’s flat. Impassive by nature and training, he was conscious to-night of a strange sense of excitement, of exhilaration tempered by a dull background of disappointment. Her sister had told him that it was true. Anna was married. After all, she was a consummate actress. Her recent attitude towards him was undoubtedly a pose. His long struggle with himself, his avoidance of her were quite unnecessary. There was no longer any risk in association with her. His pulses beat fast as he walked, his feet fell lightly upon the pavement. He slackened his pace as he reached the flat. The windows were still darkened – perhaps she was not home yet. He lit a cigarette and loitered about. He laughed once or twice at himself as he paced backwards and forwards. He felt like a boy again, the taste for adventures was keen upon his palate, the whole undiscovered world of rhythmical things, of love and poetry and passion seemed again to him a real and actual place, and he himself an adventurer upon the threshold.

Then a hansom drove up, and his heart gave a great leap. She stepped on to the pavement almost before him, and his blood turned almost to ice as he saw that she was not alone. A young man turned to pay the cabman. Then she saw him.

“Mr. Ennison,” she exclaimed, “is that really you?”

There was no sign of embarrassment in her manner. She held out her hand frankly. She seemed honestly glad to see him.

“How odd that I should almost spring into your arms just on my doorstep!” she remarked gaily. “Are you in a hurry? Will you come in and have some coffee?”

He hesitated, and glanced towards her companion. He saw now that it was merely a boy.

“This is Mr. Sydney Courtlaw – Mr. Ennison,” she said. “You are coming in, aren’t you, Sydney?”

“If I may,” he answered. “Your coffee’s too good to refuse.”

She led the way, talking all the time to Ennison.

“Do you know, I have been wondering what had become of you,” she said. “I had those beautiful roses from you on my first night, and a tiny little note but no address. I did not even know where to write and thank you.”

“I have been abroad,” he said. “The life of a private secretary is positively one of slavery. I had to go at a moment’s notice.”

“I am glad that you have a reasonable excuse for not having been to see me,” she said good-humouredly. “Please make yourselves comfortable while I see to the coffee.”

It was a tiny little room, daintily furnished, individual in its quaint colouring, and the masses of perfumed flowers set in strange and unexpected places. A great bowl of scarlet carnations gleamed from a dark corner, set against the background of a deep brown wall. A jar of pink roses upon a tiny table seemed to gain an extra delicacy of colour from the sombre curtains behind. Anna, who had thrown aside her sealskin coat, wore a tight-fitting walking dress of some dark shade. He leaned back in a low chair, and watched her graceful movements, the play of her white hands as she bent over some wonderful machine. A woman indeed this to love and be loved, beautiful, graceful, gay. A dreamy sense of content crept over him. The ambitions of his life, and they were many, seemed to lie far away, broken up dreams in some outside world where the way was rough and the sky always grey. A little table covered with a damask cloth was dragged out. There were cakes and sandwiches – for Ennison a sort of Elysian feast, long to be remembered. They talked lightly and smoked cigarettes till Anna, with a little laugh, threw open the window and let in the cool night air.

Ennison stood by her side. They looked out over the city, grim and silent now, for it was long past midnight. For a moment her thoughts led her back to the evening when she and Courtlaw had stood together before the window of her studio in Paris, before the coming of Sir John had made so many changes in her life. She was silent, the ghost of a fading smile passed from her lips. She had made her way since then a little further into the heart of life. Yet even now there were so many things untouched, so much to be learned. To-night she had a curious feeling that she stood upon the threshold of some change. The great untrodden world was before her still, into which no one can pass alone. She felt a new warmth in her blood, a strange sense of elation crept over her. Sorrows and danger and disappointment she had known. Perhaps the day of her recompense was at hand. She glanced into her companion’s face, and she saw there strange things. For a moment her heart seemed to stop beating. Then she dropped the curtain and stepped back into the room. Sydney was strumming over a new song which stood upon the piano.

“I am sure,” she said, “that you mean to stay until you are turned out. Do you see the time?”

“I may come and see you?” Ennison asked, as his hand touched hers.

“Yes,” she answered, looking away. “Some afternoon.”

Chapter XIX

“THIS IS NOT THE END”

“I said some afternoon,” she remarked, throwing open her warm coat, and taking off her gloves, “but I certainly did not mean to-day.”

“I met you accidentally,” he reminded her. “Our ways happened to lie together.”

“And our destinations also, it seems,” she added, smiling.

“You asked me in to tea,” he protested.

“In self-defence I had to,” she answered. “It is a delightful day for walking, but a great deal too cold to be standing on the pavement.”

“Of course,” he said, reaching out his hand tentatively for his hat, “I could go away even now. Your reputation for hospitality would remain under a cloud though, for tea was distinctly mentioned.”

“Then you had better ring the bell,” she declared, laughing. “The walk has given me an appetite, and I do not feel like waiting till five o’clock. I wonder why on earth the curtains are drawn. It is quite light yet, and I want to have one more look at that angry red sun. Would you mind drawing them back?”

Ennison sprang up, but he never reached the curtains. They were suddenly thrown aside, and a man stepped out from his hiding-place. A little exclamation of surprise escaped Ennison. Anna sprang to her feet with a startled cry.

“You!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here? How dare you come to my rooms!”

The man stepped into the middle of the room. The last few months had not dealt kindly with Mr. Montague Hill. He was still flashily dressed, with much obvious jewellery and the shiniest of patent boots, but his general bearing and appearance had altered for the worse. His cheeks were puffy, and his eyes blood-shot. He had the appearance of a man who has known no rest for many nights. His voice when he spoke was almost fiercely assertive, but there was an undernote of nervousness.

“Why not?” he exclaimed. “I have the right to be here. I hid because there was no other way of seeing you. I did not reckon upon – him.”

He pointed to Ennison, who in his turn looked across at Anna.

“You wish me to stay?” he asked, in a low tone.

“I would not have you go for anything,” she answered.

“Nevertheless,” Hill said doggedly, “I am here to speak to you alone.”

“If you do not leave the room at once,” Anna answered calmly, “I shall ring the bell for a policeman.”

He raised his hand, and they saw that he was holding a small revolver.

“You need not be alarmed,” he said. “I do not wish to use this. I came here peaceably, and I only ask for a few words with you. But I mean to have them. No, you don’t!”

Ennison had moved stealthily a little nearer to him, and looked suddenly into the dark muzzle of the revolver.

“If you interfere between us,” the man said, “it will go hardly with you. This lady is my wife, and I have a right to be here. I have the right also to throw you out.”

Ennison obeyed Anna’s gesture, and was silent.

“You can say what you have to say before Mr. Ennison, if at all,” Anna declared calmly. “In any case, I decline to see you alone.”

“Very well,” the man answered. “I have come to tell you this. You are my wife, and I am determined to claim you. We were properly married, and the certificate is at my lawyer’s. I am not a madman, or a pauper, or even an unreasonable person. I know that you were disappointed because I did not turn out to be the millionaire. Perhaps I deceived you about it. However, that’s over and done with. I’ll make any reasonable arrangement you like. I don’t want to stop your singing. You can live just about how you like. But you belong to me – and I want you.”

He paused for a moment, and then suddenly continued. His voice had broken. He spoke in quick nervous sentences.

“You did your best to kill me,” he said. “You might have given me a chance, anyway. I’m not such a bad sort. You know – I worship you. I have done from the first moment I saw you. I can’t rest or work or settle down to anything while things are like this between you and me. I want you. I’ve got to have you, and by God I will.”

He took a quick step forward. Anna held out her hand, and he paused. There was something which chilled even him in the cold impassivity of her features.

“Listen,” she said. “I have heard these things from you before, and you have had my answer. Understand once and for all that that answer is final. I do not admit the truth of a word which you have said. I will not be persecuted in this way by you.”

“You do not deny that you are my wife,” he asked hoarsely. “You cannot! Oh, you cannot.”

“I have denied it,” she answered. “Why will you not be sensible? Go back to your old life and your old friends, and forget all about Paris and this absurd delusion of yours.”

“Delusion!” he muttered, glaring at her. “Delusion!”

“You can call it what you like,” she said. “In any case you will never receive any different sort of answer from me. Stay where you are, Mr. Ennison.”

With a swift movement she gained the bell and rang it. The man’s hand flashed out, but immediately afterwards an oath and a cry of pain broke from his lips. The pistol fell to the floor. Ennison kicked it away with his foot.

“I shall send for a policeman,” Anna said, “directly my maid answers the bell – unless you choose to go before.”

The man made no attempt to recover the revolver. He walked unsteadily towards the door.

“Very well,” he said, “I will go. But,” and he faced them both with a still expressionless glance, “this is not the end!”

Anna recovered her spirits with marvellous facility. It was Ennison who for the rest of his visit was quiet and subdued.

“You are absurd,” she declared. “It was unpleasant while it lasted, but it is over – and my toasted scones are delicious. Do have another.”

“It is over for now,” he answered, “but I cannot bear to think that you are subject to this sort of thing.”

She shrugged her shoulders slightly. Some of the delicate colour which the afternoon walk had brought into her cheeks had already returned.

“It is an annoyance, my friend,” she said, “not a tragedy.”

“It might become one,” he answered. “The man is dangerous.”

She looked thoughtfully into the fire.

“I am afraid,” she said, “that he must have a skeleton key to these rooms. If so I shall have to leave.”

“You cannot play at hide-and-seek with this creature all your life,” he answered. “Let your friends act for you. There must be ways of getting rid of him.”

“I am afraid,” she murmured, “that it would be difficult. He really deserves a better fate, does he not? He is so beautifully persistent.”

He drew a little nearer to her. The lamp was not yet lit, and in the dim light he bent forward as though trying to look into her averted face. He touched her hand, soft and cool to his fingers – she turned at once to look at him. Her eyes were perhaps a little brighter than usual, the firelight played about her hair, there seemed to him to be a sudden softening of the straight firm mouth. Nevertheless she withdrew her hand.

“Let me help you,” he begged. “Indeed, you could have no more faithful friend, you could find no one more anxious to serve you.”

Her hand fell back into her lap. He touched it again, and this time it was not withdrawn.

“That is very nice of you,” she said. “But it is so difficult – ”

“Not at all,” he answered eagerly. “I wish you would come and see my lawyers. Of course I know nothing of what really did happen in Paris – if even you ever saw him there. You need not tell me, but a lawyer is different. His client’s story is safe with him. He would advise you how to get rid of the fellow.”

“I will think of it,” she promised.

“You must do more than think of it,” he urged. “It is intolerable that you should be followed about by such a creature. I am sure that he can be got rid of.”

She turned and looked at him. Her face scarcely reflected his enthusiasm.

“It may be more difficult than you think,” she said. “You see you do not know how much of truth there is in his story.”

“If it were all true,” he said doggedly, “it may still be possible.”

“I will think of it,” she repeated. “I cannot say more.”

They talked for a while in somewhat dreamy fashion, Anna especially being more silent than usual. At last she glanced at a little clock in the corner of the room, and sprang to her feet.

“Heavens, look at the time!” she exclaimed. “It is incredible. I shall barely be in time for the theatre. I must go and dress at once.”

He too rose.

“I will wait for you on the pavement, if you like,” he said, “but I am going to the ‘Unusual’ with you. Your maid would not be of the least protection.”

“But your dinner!” she protested. “You will be so late.”

He laughed.

“You cannot seriously believe,” he said, “that at the present moment I care a snap of the fingers whether I have any dinner or not.”

She laughed.

“Well, you certainly did very well at tea,” she remarked. “If you really are going to wait, make yourself as comfortable as you can. There are cigarettes and magazines in the corner there.”

Anna disappeared, but Ennison did not trouble either the cigarettes or the magazines. He sat back in an easy chair with a hand upon each of the elbows, and looked steadfastly into the fire.

People spoke of him everywhere as a young man of great promise, a politician by instinct, a keen and careful judge of character. Yet he was in a state of hopeless bewilderment. He was absolutely unable to focus his ideas. The girl who had just left the room was as great a mystery to him now as on the afternoon when he had met her in Piccadilly and taken her to tea. And behind – there was Paris, memories of amazing things, memories which made his cheeks burn and his heart beat quickly as he sat there waiting for her. For the first time a definite doubt possessed him. A woman cannot change her soul. Then it was the woman herself who was changed. Anna was not “Alcide” of the “Ambassador’s,” whose subtly demure smile and piquant glances had called him to her side from the moment of their first meeting. It was impossible.

She came in while he was still in the throes, conviction battling with common-sense, his own apprehension. He rose at once to his feet and turned a white face upon her.

“I am going to break a covenant,” he cried. “I cannot keep silence any longer.”

“You are going to speak to me of things which happened before we met in London?” she asked quietly.

“Yes! I must! The thing is becoming a torture to me. I must!”

She threw open the door and pointed to it.

“My word holds,” she said. “If you speak – farewell.”

He stood quite silent for a moment, his eyes fixed upon her face. Something he saw there had a curious effect upon him. He was suddenly calm.

“I shall not speak,” he said, “now or at any other time. Come!”