Yvonne was more and more bewildered. She realized intuitively now that he meant to discuss her mother's affairs, since Madeleine could not possibly have reached Paris yet, and any tidings he might have obtained with regard to Rupert Fosdyke's schemes hardly warranted such an alarming preamble. So she strove to make him comprehend that he was treading on dangerous ground.
"If you are referring, even indirectly, to Mrs. Carmac," she said frankly, "I must warn you instantly that I cannot listen to anything concerning her. Until she came to Pont Aven I was not even aware that such a relative as an aunt existed. When she leaves this place – though I shall see her often, I hope, in the future – the relations between us will be rather those of good friends than of aunt and niece. You ought to understand, then, Mr. Raymond, that if your confidences deal with her I refuse to hear them."
Raymond sighed heavily. He seemed to be at a loss for words. In reality Yvonne had said exactly what he anticipated, and he counted on a well judged delay as calculated to increase her agitation and weaken her defenses.
"Please don't render an ungracious task harder," he said, as though nerving himself to a supreme effort, when Yvonne, after walking a few paces in silence, was about to tell him that she would go no farther. "I meant to prepare you by some vague comments that would clear the air. But your highly strung and generous temperament will not permit any display of what I have described as my methods of caution. Well, then, if it must be so, let us get to the crux of the matter at once. Mrs. Carmac is not your aunt, Miss Yvonne. She is your mother! She was your father's lawful wife! She deserted him and you, got an American divorce, and was married to Walter Carmac in England. I believe that the second marriage was not a valid one. It is terrible to have to say these things; but they are true, and it rests with you to save her from exposure and ignominy. I beseech you to credit my good faith in this matter. To whom can I appeal if not to you, her daughter? It is manifestly impossible that I should go to your father. He could not help her if he would. Her future happiness, her very means of existence, are in your hands. Can you then reproach me if I ask you to bear with me while I endeavor to show a way out of a situation bristling with difficulties for all of us, alive with real danger for your own mother?"
In the first shock of this disclosure Yvonne was minded to rend the man with a few quiet words of scorn and disdain, and then leave him. Twice she essayed to break in on his measured utterances, and twice she held back. She could not know that Raymond had forged his thunderbolt with no slight skill. He could not hope to achieve the final effect he aimed at by merely revealing a secret that was no secret. Close observation had shown that the girl was well aware of the relationship she bore to Mrs. Carmac, and, although she might be a prey to terror and dismay at finding the knowledge in possession of a comparative stranger, she would hardly do other than resent his interference, resent it too with a good deal of spirit and hot indignation.
He contrived therefore to combine innuendo with fact. He had counted the cost. He was playing a desperate game. During the next five minutes he must have in Yvonne either a determined opponent or a subservient if unwilling ally. There could be no half measures. If his suit was spurned, he must attach himself forthwith to Rupert Fosdyke's fortunes. If Yvonne wavered, or was cowed, he would strike a telling blow through her mother. No matter how the issue tended, he was secure of a thumping reward.
Once again the hazard of the hour seemed to be with him. Yvonne, almost tongue-tied and wholly bewildered, could only falter brokenly, "Having said so much, you cannot stop now. What do you mean when you say that Mrs. Carmac is in danger?"
He almost chuckled. Things were going well, exceedingly well. She was ready to listen. But he managed to throw an emotional vibration into his voice. For the moment the man was a consummate actor; though indeed he had so much at stake that no extraordinary effort was called for.
"Thank you," he said, apparently groping in a fog of doubt, and forcing an unwilling parade of unpalatable and distressing facts. "It is something gained to feel that you have suspended judgment. You may or may not know already that Mrs. Carmac is your mother. I ask you to admit nothing: only to hear and weigh my statements dispassionately. Eighteen years ago your mother deserted you and your father in Paris. For some reason Mrs. Ingersoll married Carmac in her maiden name two years later. None of her associates ever guessed that the beautiful and distinguished Stella Fordyce had been the wife of an unknown artist. Her secret was safe with your father. It would have gone to the grave with her but for the wreck of the yacht on a Breton reef, and the really phenomenal chance that brought her first husband and her child to her rescue. Even then nothing might have been revealed had not Carmac lost his life. Really, if one were superstitious, one would see the action of Providence in – "
"Please spare me any references of that sort," broke in Yvonne. She could endure much; but she was not compelled to suffer this hypocritical scoundrel's blasphemy.
Raymond started. There was a new quality in her voice. She was regaining her self control, and at all costs he must prevent that. If he would win, he must adopt tactics of the whirlwind order.
"Forgive me," he said. "The thought has been so constantly in my mind of late that it came unbidden. But you leave me no choice. I must speak plainly, almost brutally. Let Rupert Fosdyke obtain the faintest shadow of the unquestionable facts, and he will not only drive your mother forth a pauper, but put such a complexion on the facts that she will be disgraced forever among her equals."
"Disgraced! Why? People are not disgraced because they obtain a divorce according to the laws of their own country."
"No; but they are punished severely if they offend against the social code. Mrs. Carmac's offense is against British law. She cannot deny it. The first person who lodges an information can upset her husband's will. Deprived of his money and its influence, what becomes of her?"
Yvonne stood in the road as though she had been turned to stone, and perforce Raymond halted and faced her. There was not a strong light in that place. Some fifty yards away shone a lamp that marked a footbridge across the top of the harbor. Just beneath the Aven took its last plunge as a mountain stream and mingled its sweet waters with the tides. On the rocks, high above the river, a Calvary was silhouetted against the cold, clear blue of a starlit sky, and it needed no highly imaginative mind to picture the stark figure of the Christ gazing down compassionately on one of His creatures who was disobeying His ordinances.
Not far distant was the cheerful café frequented by artists and writers on summer evenings, where Madame Maréchale, Julia Guillou's sister, dispensed cups of black coffee, and tiny glasses of liqueur cider, and epigrams – each excellent in their way. In a flash the notion presented itself to Yvonne's overburdened mind that the pleasant intimacy of those mild revels was being banned by some malign influence which had its living agent in the diminutive creature now confronting her. The empty right sleeve of Raymond's overcoat added to his lop-sided appearance. The black figure, sharply outlined against the white road and the luminous mist rising from the river, was almost ghoul-like in its ungainliness. She could see the Calvary. Raymond had turned his back on it. Instantly she found in him the personification of the impenitent thief.
But she had her wits about her now. Life was becoming too complex in its issues that a girl should handle them alone. No matter what the outcome, her father must take control; but before going to him she must probe this miscreant's full intent.
"Do you imply that you are the person who may lodge an information?" she said, with a calmness of tone that sounded bizarre in her own ears.
"No, no. That is the last thing I would think of," protested Raymond heatedly.
"Or that you feel compelled to acquaint Rupert Fosdyke with his rights as his uncle's heir?"
"He has no rights. His uncle has cast him off deliberately. He is an unscrupulous roué – witness his heartless philandering with your friend Madeleine!"
"In that event, why have you made revelations to me, which, if true, cannot fail to be hurtful?"
"I want to become your loyal ally in shielding your mother from the consequences of her past mistakes."
"I am almost powerless, Mr. Raymond. Mrs. Carmac will go from Pont Aven soon. I remain with my father. What sort of alliance can you and I form that will protect or benefit her?"
Raymond's small eyes blazed with sudden fire. She had actually helped him to surmount the stiffest barrier. "The best and most enduring of all," he said thickly. "Marry me! Why not? You are free. I shall be a devoted husband. Your slightest wish will be my law. You will not be separated from your parents, with either of whom you can dwell for such periods as you think fit. Marry me, and every ill now threatening your mother will dissolve into thin air!"
At that crisis the image of Laurence Tollemache obliterated that of the little man with the grating voice, and Yvonne could have laughed aloud. But she kept her head. The naïve habit of thought induced by close communion with her Breton friends stood her in good stead then, when a false move might precipitate she knew not what ills.
"Is that the price of your silence?" she said, and the clear, precise enunciation recalled her mother in every syllable.
"That is not a fair way to put it," was the hoarse answer; for the strain was beginning to tell, even on Raymond's nerves of steel.
"Let me hear how you put it," she went on mercilessly.
"We would be making a compact to our mutual advantage," he said. "I would gain a beautiful and accomplished wife; you would inherit your mother's millions. We would unite in protecting her and punishing Rupert Fosdyke."
"I see," she said, with an air of careful consideration. "You do not want an answer tonight, I suppose?"
"Time is pressing – horribly pressing."
"In that respect time must stand still until tomorrow. We shall meet then."
She went off without any attempt at bidding him farewell. Raymond glared after her fixedly. He was annoyed, almost discomfited, but not disheartened. He had taken the step that counts. She knew now what lay at the back of his projects, and that was a long stride toward the goal. He was so deeply absorbed in reckoning the pros and cons of every word Yvonne had spoken that he failed to see Tollemache standing outside Julia's until close on him. Even then he could not find his tongue; so he merely grinned. Thus might a fiend gloat over a soul in peril. Was there none to help? Raymond, at any rate, saw a clear road. He was most affable to the porter who was waiting to assist him in undressing. For a man with a broken arm he had struck a shrewd blow in Pont Aven that night.
CHAPTER XIII
SHOWING HOW TOLLEMACHE TOOK CHARGE
Yvonne found her father hunched up in his accustomed chair. He was smoking, and brooding, his gaze centered in the pine logs crackling on the hearth. Thus had she found him each night since his return from Concarneau. He, seldom without a book after daylight failed unless some crony called in for a chat, had not opened a book during many days. He had the aspect of a man crushed by misery. It was borne in on his daughter that he was slowly yielding under an intolerable strain; yet it had become her bitter portion to add materially to a load carried so uncomplainingly.
He looked up as she entered, and essayed a welcoming smile which conveyed a ghostly reminiscence of a joyous past now utterly remote. It cut her to the quick; but she strove to emulate his seeming nonchalance.
"I thought my message would have brought you sooner," he said. "But perhaps you were helping your mother to overhaul her boxes. Mère Pitou gave me the news of the salvage, which has surprised our local experts. This is the first time in the memory of man that Les Verrés have disgorged their prey."
"What message, Dad?"
Yvonne removed her hat and coat, and seated herself on a sheepskin rug by her father's side. She had that to say which would be hard for both, and she did not wish to see the agony in his face.
"Haven't you seen Lorry, then?" he inquired.
"No, Dear."
"But that is strange. Lorry left here quite half an hour ago, meaning to ask you to come home. I didn't think Pont Aven could hide you from Lorry if he was bent on the chase."
"Sorry, Dad. Nothing – no one – would have kept me had I known. But I understand what happened. I quitted Julia's about half an hour since. Mr. Raymond was anxious for a brief talk, and we walked to the top of the quay. Lorry would go to Julia's by the mills. That is how he missed me."
She felt her father's body quiver, as a mettlesome horse might flinch under the touch of a spur, and knew that the mere mention of Raymond's name had affected him. It was her habit, when seated at his knee, to catch his hand and draw it over her shoulder, holding it in both of hers, and using it as a sort of stay. She had done this insensibly, and her downcast eyes dwelt on the thin, nervous fingers – they seemed to have shrunk during that time of suffering. The discovery affected her strangely. She could not, she dared not, unburden her soul then. No matter what the cost to herself and others, he must be spared – at any rate till another day of wretchedness was upon them. She realized just in time that a hot tear stealing down her cheek would drop on that dear hand, and bring about an instant demand for an explanation.
With a jerk she averted her head, and the tear fell scalding on her own wrist. Her father misinterpreted the movement.
"Don't stir, Girly," he said. "I have something to say, a confession to make. Remain where you are. I shall cause you pain, and if I find my own anguish mirrored in your eyes, I may falter in my duty."
So father and daughter were animated by the same thought. Each desired only to lighten the shock for the other. Yvonne nestled closer. More than ever was she resolved to keep her woes to herself for the hour. With an effort that cost a cruel biting of her under lip, she contrived to murmur without a catch in her voice:
"You're tired, Darling. Don't tell me you're not. You ought to be in bed and asleep. Let us wait till the morning, and have a nice long chat after petit déjeuner."
"No," said Ingersoll firmly. "I promised Lorry I would speak tonight. He – expects it of me."
"Lorry!" she gasped, in a sudden fright born of the knowledge that had come to her in the gloom down there by the whispering river, when a cold-blooded trafficker in her mother's difficulties had offered to sell his secret at the price of all she held dear. "Lorry! How is Lorry concerned in our present troubles?"
"Your troubles are his, Sweetheart. Lorry loves you. True knight-errant that he is, he wants to slay the dragon that would devour you."
"But, father dear, how could he know? How could anyone know?"
In her quick alarm the cry slipped out unaware. Happily, as it transpired, – for there is no telling what John Ingersoll might have done in his anger if Raymond's infamous suggestion had reached him in the present state of tension, – he misunderstood a second time.
"Lorry didn't know, he only guessed," he said gently. "He is a good fellow, and I ached for the sympathy of some man to whom I could talk freely. So, to remove the cloud between us, of which each has been sensible since we came ashore on that Thursday night, I told him the truth, and the whole truth. He urged that you should be told too. He is right. Oddly enough, despite my vaunted repute for wisdom, he saw into the muddle more clearly than I. Yvonne, I did not divorce your mother. I – I regret my action now, when regret comes too late. According to English law she never could have been Walter Carmac's wedded wife while I lived. Girly, forgive me! I have wronged both her and you grievously."
Yvonne whirled round and flung her arms about the stricken man's neck. There was no pretense now at hiding her tears; but her eyes shone with another light than that of grief.
"Dad," she cried fiercely, "I sha'n't have you torn and harried in this way! I refuse, do you hear? It is my turn to bear some of the suffering, some of the sacrifice. I am young and strong, and you have trained me well for the battle. My mother's story must not become known. We must save her, you and I. Isn't it by such means that our worth is tested? Do you think I'll shirk the ordeal? No, a thousand times no! We can't talk reasonably tonight. We would rend each other's hearts. But tomorrow, when we are calmer, we must look at things fearlessly, and take the road that leads to honor, no matter what the cost!"
Her father stroked her hair to still her frenzy, just as he had often done in the stress of some childish tantrum; for Yvonne had never been a demure little saint, but owned in full measure the defects of a frank and impulsive temperament.
"Don't let us give way to hysteria," he said, smiling wanly. "Of course it was my fault. I cracked up first; but I sha'n't offend again. Perhaps, as you say, we may take a more level-headed view of our difficulties in cold daylight. But, to prepare you, so to speak, I must warn you that your mother's chief enemy is that churl Raymond."
"Raymond!" Again was Yvonne almost choked with apprehension. How could her father suspect the devilish scheme the secretary had hatched? Had Lorry probed the depths of the man's evil mind? Her brain swam; but she compelled her faculties to remain alert.
"Yes – Raymond," her father was saying. "I have no absolute proof; but I am convinced that he overheard your mother's frantic words of self reproach when the Hirondelle was coming up the river. The very agent he is employing in Paris, ostensibly in aid of your quest for poor Madeleine, is really engaged in a search into the early records of our lives, your mother's and mine. The inquiry is a simple thing. If Raymond has not secured the necessary evidence already, it is only a matter of hours before it is in his hands. Then, unless a miracle happens, he can dictate his own terms. Worst of all, your mother will be in his power as long as she lives, and an unscrupulous scoundrel, such as I believe Raymond to be, could cause untold mischief after her death."
Yvonne rose to her feet, and straightened her lithe, slim body. With a determined gesture she brushed away a mist from before her eyes. "I want to ask a few questions," she said. "You will be quite open and candid with me, I know, because it is necessary that we should meet the trials of the next few days with the clearest knowledge of each other's aims. Do you think it possible to make any arrangement with Raymond that would be binding?"
"The blackmailer's appetite only grows by feeding. Pay him a very large sum today, and he will demand four or five times the amount within a month or a year. There is no finality. The wolf may eat to repletion; but it will continue to slay in mere lust of killing.
"Is there no way of defeating him?"
"Lorry, as I hinted, hit on a notion. I have no means of knowing exactly what legal steps Carmac and Stella took to make their marriage valid. Carmac might have been advised to establish, or secure, American citizenship. Moreover, French law may adapt itself readily to American standards. Those are points for lawyers; but I want you to go into the matter thoroughly with your mother, and ascertain whether or not there exists any sort of legal barrier that may serve to keep this jackal from devouring her. That is one reason why I have opened my heart to you tonight."
Yvonne had Mrs. Carmac's trick of wrinkling her brows when in deep thought. Many a time had her father chaffed her on the habit, and pretended to wait in breathless suspense till the oracle announced its weighty decision. But the creasing of the smooth forehead passed unnoticed now. They were no longer light-hearted playmates, but a man and a woman pondering one of life's most harrowing problems.
"Raymond can get nothing at all unless he acts through Rupert Fosdyke," she said collectedly. "Why shouldn't an arrangement be made with him – Fosdyke, I mean? It's all a question of this wretched money. Why shouldn't Mother give it to him and his sisters? Surely they would leave her sufficient to live on?"
Youth is sanguine. Yvonne had reached the same conclusion as Tollemache; that, if money were really the root of all evil, the noxious growth that had sprung into such vigorous existence in Pont Aven since the feast of Saint Barbara might be torn out bodily.
But Ingersoll thought the discussion had gone far enough for the time. Certainly a settlement on reasonable lines might be effected; but it was impracticable to form anything in the nature of a fixed opinion until Yvonne and her mother had talked matters over in the light of full understanding. Something was gained in the fact that the last obstacle in the way of complete confidence between Yvonne and himself had been thrown down. His manner showed how beneficial this belief on his part might prove. He sprang up with a certain alertness of movement that was eloquent of new-born hope.
"No more talk tonight, Mignonne," he cried cheerfully. "Now that we know the worst, we can fight in the open side by side. Hitherto I have felt that I was treating you unfairly in withholding from your ken the most damaging item in your mother's catalogue of worries. Tell her what I have said. I want you to speak without reservation. Then, if she is equally candid, we shall know just where we stand, and whence the main attack may come."
Unhappily Yvonne was aware, when kissing her father goodnight, that the enemy was attacking already; but she held steadfast to the resolve not to disclose Raymond's brazen scheme at present. The day had produced sufficient wretchedness of spirit already.
So the two parted, and Yvonne, when safe in the solitude of her room, knelt and prayed that some ray of sunshine should pierce the gathering clouds. Then, in more tranquil mood, she forced her thoughts into a new channel by reading some pages of a biography of John Ruskin. By curious chance she came across a passage dealing with Ruskin's ill-fated love for Rosie La Touche, and containing a poignant passage in a letter he wrote to a friend:
"I wanted my Rosie here. In heaven I mean to go and talk with Pythagoras and Socrates and Valerius Publicola. I sha'n't care a bit for Rosie there; she needn't think it. What will grey eyes and red cheeks be good for there?"
Yvonne closed the book with a snap. That shaft from the bow so deftly wielded by a master archer had pierced her very heart. She loved Tollemache. She wanted her Lorry here. If any maleficent influence drove him from her, all the brightness and color would depart out of her life, a pleasant world grow cold and gray for evermore.
Then, being weary yet eminently healthy, she went to bed and slept dreamlessly, and was up betimes in the morning. It was pleasant to see the sun rising into a clear sky above the stunted trees crowning the Toulifot hill. The frosty weather, coming unusually early that year, had lasted far beyond the prescribed brief period of such cold snaps in December. There was little or no wind. It was an ideal day for a walk. Meaning to excuse herself from motoring, and wheedle her father into a long tramp after luncheon, – with Lorry, perchance, to disprove the infallibility of the adage that two is company and three is none, – she warned Mère Pitou that she would return for the midday meal.
"Ah, tcha!" said Madame testily. "What between one thing and another, I'm thinking of taking a holiday. Little Barbe could have done all the cooking needed in this house during the past week. Look at your father! Anyone would say I starved him. As for you, flying about and eating scraps and hashes in strange hotels, I'm surprised at you!"
Yvonne assured her irate landlady that the best ragout in Brittany would not lack appreciation that day, and went to visit her mother in more cheerful mood than she would have deemed possible overnight. It was market day, and the Place au Beurre, beside whose old houses the parish church of Saint Guenolé reared its modest spire, was alive already with country carts, smart coifs, and velvet jackets. In the larger square across the bridge traders from neighboring towns were erecting stalls for the display of their merchandise, mostly wearing apparel and articles of household use.
