"ahe seems to have made a habit of secret marriages," remarked matron dryly and skeptically.
"No. No, it wasn't a habit. It was just that it suited her so well. The—the first marriage was probably just a silly, early
Take Me With You J 83
impulse, quite out of keeping with the sort of career she built up later. Everything you say about my father shows that. She may—she may even have paid him to keep out of the way when he no longer fitted into the picture. *'
"Quite a characteristic role for him, I should say,*' matron interjected firmly.
"Then years afterward she met Lucas—**
"Lucas?** Matron's eyebrows shot up.
"Yes—yes. That's the—the second husband. It was in Paris—he was lots younger than she, but terribly rich and I... I think in her dreadful way she ... she wanted him.'*
"Dear me,** matron said, and studied Leoni with great attention.
"Anyway, in the end she agreed to marry him, so long as the marriage took place in France and remained a secret when they returned to England. **
"Habit, as I said,**commented matron with tart humor.
"No. A wholesome respect for possible blackmail,** retorted Leoni, with wholly unexpected cynicism.
"Oh, I see.'* Matron studied the possibilities in silence. Then she looked up quickly and asked the inevitable question. "How do you come to know so much about it, Leoni?**
It wasn*t any good trying to conceal the truth from anyone so shrewd as matron. Leoni never even thought of domg so.
"I know Lucas very well,** she said quite steadily. "I—we love each other. He and Sophie have drifted apart for years, but she*s got him in a tight corner now and—and is making her own terms.**
"You realize,** matron said, staring rather severely into the fire, "that it may be his lawful wife you*re speaking of. **
"Yes. But I also realize now,** retorted Leoni firmly, "that she may not be his lawful wife. If that is so—** She paused, perhaps surprised herself at the note that had crept into her voice.
Surprised, matron transferred her gaze from the fire to Leoni.
"And when you were here,** she said reflectively, "I used to think you a gentle little thing, without much fight in you.**
"When I was here, matron—** Leoni smiled "—I was not in love. At least, I didn*t know I was.**
"Hm.*' That was rather uncompromising. '*Well, what do you propose to do about it?"
"I don't—quite know." She buried her face in her hands. '* I must think about it."
There was silence in the room, while the coal shifted slightly in the grate, and matron watched Leoni with a kindly anxiety that was not without its touch of grimness.
"Matron, will you please find out the name of my father for me, after all? I think I do need it. And—and might I use your telephone? I want to ring up Julia and find out if she's at home. I think, perhaps,! might go along and see her tomorrow."
*'Julia? What has Julia to do with this business?" Matron inquired.
"Oh, I forgot. Of course you don't know. Lucas is Julia's cousin. I don't imagine she can add anything to what I—we—know, but I want to ask her some questions."
It seemed a reversal of the natural order of things that Leoni should make suggestions and matron carry them out but, without hesitation, matron stood up.
"I'll go and look up the records," she said. "And meanwhile— She just indicated the telephone on her desk to Leoni, and went out of the room.
Almost before she had gone, Leoni had caught up the telephone and gave Julia's number to a dilatory an unmter-ested operator. She had to wait a good while, but when the reply did come it was, to her immense relief, in Julia's voice.
"Julia! Is that you? This is Leoni. No, no, not from London. I'm speaking from the orphanage. I'm down here for the weekend. What? Yes, I know, but it was all arranged so quickly I couldn't let you know. But can I come and see you tomorrow afternoon? I can? Oh, good! Listen, I want to ask you one or two things about—about Lucas."
"About Lucas?" Julia's voice sounded surprised. Then she said, "Oh, do you know about this business too?"
"What business?"
"About his really being married to Sophie Rayter, the actress."
"I did know," Leoni said rather carefully. "How—how did you find out?"
"Why, they're down here—staying the weekend."
"They? Who?"
*'Lucas and Sophie Rayter, of course. It's rather a thrill having a famous person in the place, naturally, but between ourselves, Leoni—and since the door's shut and no one can hear me—I think she's a bit of a bitch.''
"So do 1.1 mean—I think she's all of one."
Julia laughed.
"Well, you needn't worry. They'll be gone by the time you come tomorrow. They're driving back just after lunch."
"They'll be—listen Julia! I don't know that I want them to be gone. There's something I want—" Leoni stopped, and was silent so long that Julia asked anxiously:
"Are you still there?"
"Yes. I'm thinking."
"Do I hold on while you think?" Julia inquired.
"If you don't mind." There was a short silence while, by a superhuman effort, Julia controlled her curiosity. "Listen, Julia-"
"You bet I'm doing that!"
"I'm coming over now—right away. There's something i want to say to Sophie Rayter, and the time to say it is now. But please don't tell them I'm coming. Don't tell your mother or father either."
"Look here, what is this?" demanded Julia, tremendously intrigued. "A thriller?"
"No, no. Of course not. But please do this for me."
"Well, of course."
"Will you leave the side door open for me, and keep a lookout so that you can let me in without the servants announcing me?"
"Oh, rather!" agreed Julia. "You will explain afterward, won't you?"
"Yes," Leoni said, "if there's anything to explain."
"There's a whole lot."
"No—I meant if it isn't all a—an empty effort over nothing. I'll be along inside half an hour."
"I'llbe on the lookout," Julia promised fervently.
As Leoni rather slowly replaced the receiver, matron came back into the room.
"Did you—did you find the name?" Leoni was trembling a little.
"I did better than that," matron said rather grimly, and she put down a sheet of paper in front of Leoni.
It was old and it had been folded a good deal.
"What is it?" Leoni smoothed it out in bewilderment.
"It's a copy of the marriage certificate between your father and this actress. You see, there's the name—Robert Saleedon. I think that's what he must have used to prove to your mother that they were not reall>[ married. It was among her few things. He must have sent it to her or given it to her."
Leoni stared with fascination at the document. The one name so familiar to her now, the other unknown until this moment, although it was her father's name. The date was a couple of years before her own birth.
"Thank you." Leoni stood up at last, folding the paper in her hand. "Thank you. I'11 take it with me now."
"Take it with you where? Where are you going?" matron asked sharply.
"Over to the Vandeems' house. They're there now— Lucas and Sophie Rayter. I want to speak to her. I 'm going to find out the truth—now."
"But, Leoni—" Matron was troubled and, for once in her life, undecided. "I don't think you can go alone, child. There ought to be someone older with you. I don't think you can handle this thing alone. And, anyway, I'm not satisfied thatyou—well—"
"What aren't you satisfied about?" Leoni asked.
"Well, the whole thing is so terribly unsuitable," explained matron with exasperation, because it was obvious that her sympathies and her sense of the conventions were pulling in opposite directions. "You can't go confronting a married woman with—with this because you happen to be most unsuitably in love with her husband. That's all wrong, Leoni. I can't imagine how you go
t yourself involved m such a situation. You and a married man! It's—it's fantastic."
"If he is married, matron, I promise to come back and never to try to see either of them again. But, if he's not—I have some right there, you know."
"But you can't have known him any time," matron protested.
"I'veknown him more than halfmy life,"Leonisaid.
And matron was so astounded that she let Leoni go out of the room without further protest.
Leoni could not remember afterwards the details of finding her hat and coat and dressing to go out. The first point at which she seemed to realize what she was doing was when she had walked through the town, and was out on the road leading to the Vandeems' house.
There was a moon, and she walked rapidly by the light of it. As she walked she tried to settle in her own mind just what she was going to say. But so much depended on what the first replies to her questions might be. It was hard to draw up a hard and fast plan. And Leoni was still in a state of some indecision when Julia—faithfully on guard—admitted her by the side door.
"Come on into the library,*' she begged. "There's no one there, and I must know something about this."
Leoni followed her into the library, taking off her hat and gloves and tossing them onto a bie leather settee.
"I can't tell you much yet. I don't even know if there's much to tell. But I want a word with Sophie. Get her for me, Julia, please. Don't say who it is. Just say someone in the library wants to speak to her."
"But, Leoni-'*
"I promise I'll tell you the whole thing afterward."
"Well—" Julia hesitated. Then she turned away to go and fetch Sophie Rayter. "Never doubt my friendship after this. Talk about torture! I'm simply expiring with curiosity."
But she saw that Leoni didn't even smile at this, and she went out of the room without more ado. As the door closed, Leoni went over to the big wood fire, and held out her hands to it, in an absent effort to stop the trembling that she could not control. But it was nervousness, rather than cold, which seemed to make her very heart shake, and the heat of the fire had little effect on her.
It seemed only a moment—so short a time that Julia could surely not have carried out her errand—before the door behind her opened. With an effort that cost her almost a physical wrench, Leoni turned from the fire.
As she did so, it was Lucas who said, "Leoni! Leoni, what on earth are you doing here?"
"I didn't come to see you. I—I came to see Sophie. Julia's just gone to fetch her. She'll be here any minute.Please go."
"Certainly not." He spoke almost angrily as he caught both of her hands which she put out beseechingly toward
him. "You can't possibly tackle Sophie alone. Anyway, what is this? You must explain. **
"I can't explain."
"Then I'm staying here. I'm not going to have Sophie—"
He broke off. Then he added roughly, "Good God, you can't imagine the things she'll say to you."
And, at that, Leoni was suddenly calm.
"Perhaps she can't imagine the things I'm going to say to her," she said quietly, as the door opened again and Sophie came into the room.
Characteristically, she showed no immediate surprise but, closing the door behind her, came slowly forward into the room.
She was in a wine-colored velvet dress which suited her admirably and she moved, as always, with extraordinary grace and confidence.
"Well," she said, looking from one to the other, "which of you is it who wants to speak to me? Or is this a concerted business?" ,
"It was I who sent JuHa to you." Leoni spoke with more firmness than she expected. "Lucas only came in a moment ago. He has nothing to do with this."
Sophie looked amused.
"Are you going, then, Lucas?"
"No, he said curtly. "I'm staying."
"Well, then—" Sophie sat down by the fire and gestured to the others to take chairs, too. But both of them remained standing—Leoni because she felt more confidence that way.
There was a very slight pause. Then Leoni spoke, and nothing of the careful preliminaries which she had worked out on the way there remained in her mind.
"How lone were you married to Robert Saleedon?" was what she said.
The frank brutality of it could hardly have been improved upon. It was probably the only thing that could have shocked Sophie to the point of being off her guard. She had been lounging gracefully in her chair, but she sat up stiffly then, gripping the arms of the chair with her extraordinarily strong white hands.
"What on earth are you talking about? I was never married to—I don't even know the name. I don't know what you mean."
And Lucas, too, said softly, "What are you talking about, Leoni?*'
Leoni took her clenched hand out of her pocket and slowly smoothed out the paper matron had given her.
'*! don't know why you should want to lie about it," she said slowly. **Unless there's someting you want to conceal, of course. But, anyway, here's a copy the marriage certificate. It's dated well over twenty years ago."
She held it out to Lucas first, and after one astonished glance at her, he took it and read it.
Leoni saw the line of his jaw tighten. Then, without a word he handed the paper to Sophie.
But she brushed it aside with a furious hand. "All right. I don't want to look at it. I can't imagine how you got that— or how it can concern you—" She turned a rather frightening glance on Leoni. "But it's true, of course, that I was married befoere I met Lucas. It only lasted a few years. I never talked about it. I thought—wrongly it seems—that it was my own business."
"And when—did you divorce him?" Leoni asked rather faintly.
There was a very short pause.
"I didn't divorce him. He died—abroad—about five years afterward." /
"So that you mean there's no death certificate easily obtainable?' Leoni said quietly, though her voice was stronger now. "Just as there would be no evidence of a divorce that you could produce. It's much simpler to have him—die abroad—in time."
"What do you mean—in time?" It was difficult to say whether Sophie's pallor was from anger or something else. "Lucas, did you put this ridiculous child up to this scene?"
"No," he said coldly. "But I must confess I'm extraordinarily interested."
"There's not much in it to interest you. It's all such old history. An early marriage that never meant anything much. And he died abroad, something like fifteen years ago."
"You're lying," Leoni said, with a sort of cool triumph, and she found to her surprise that she was no longer trembling. "Robert Saleedon was alive at least two years after you married Lucas—"
"Leoni!" The interruption came from Lucas, but she brushed it aside.
*'Iknowhewas—**
"It*s impossible that you should," Sophie said in a choked and furious voice.
*'He was paying for my maintenance at the orphange for at least two years after you married Lucas,'* Leoni said slowly. "Robert Saleedon was my father."
"Leoni!" said Lucas again, and caught hold of her. "What are you saying?"
"Just that—just the truth. Sophie isn't married to you. She never was. She had a husband in the background all the time, though I expect she tried desperately to get rid of him. He doesn't seem to have been much of an asset. If you'd only known—" she turned to the woman who was sitting, rigid and colorless, in the chair by the fire "—you could have divorced him nearly twenty years ago. He deceived my poor little mother into thinking she was married to him and-"
"My God," Sophie said very softly. "I would have used any means, short of murder, and yet I didn't know—that."
Leoni drew slightly against Lucas, and he held her fast.
It's poetic justice, thought Leoni, as the other woman got slowly to her feet.
"Sophie, is it true—what the child says?"
There was a moment's hesitation while perhaps, even then, she struggled for a fresh means of changing the situation to suit her own ends. T
hen she said, without turning, "Yes. Of course it's true. I suppose she's about the only person in the world who could have proved it—and you had to fall in love with her."
There was absolute silence from the other two as she went slowly from the room. Then Lucas sank down into a chair and drew Leoni down onto his knee.
"God, darhng!" He leaned his head against her. "It's like being let out of prison and not being able to bear the sunlight.^'
She kissed him with rather trembling lips, and stroked his hair.
"It's over, Lucas. It's over. You're—free is the word, I suppose."
"Yes," he said, returning her kisses. "Free is the word."
They were silent for several minutes, both of them trying to realize what the last ten minutes had accomplishea. Occasionally they exchanged a kiss, and once he put his hand against her cheek and turned her face so that he could look at her.
At last she said,"I '11 have to go now. It's late.''
"Go? Where are you going?" He held her more tightly.
"Back to the orphanage. I'm staying there for the weekend."
"Can I come over and see you tomorrow?"
"Yes, of course. You can drive me back to London in the afternoon, if you like."
His kiss told her how much he would "like." Then he said, "When are you going to marry me?"
"Whenever you say. When—when everything's cleared up, I suppose."
' * There's not m uch to clear up.''
"No," Leoni said. "No, there isn't really. A lot's been cleared up tonight. Oh ... I promised I'd explain it all to Julia."
"Julia?" He looked as though he didn't think it was much of Julia's business.
"Yes, yes. She helped me over this. Lucas, I can't stay and explain to her tonight. For one thing, it's a bit—indecent until Sophie has gone from this house. But will you tell her I'll come over and explain everything tomorrow? Tell her, too, that it's all right, and that we're going to be married."
"I'll tell her,' he promised, a little softer toward his young cousin now that he knew she had some small part in his extraordinary new happiness.
The second collection of 3 great novels by Mary Burchell Page 20