by Annie Haynes
“I must see you again and to-day—where?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said with difficulty. “I have told you you shall not come into his house.”
Sir Anthony was on the top step now, only a few paces away. A tall woman in an outré costume of vieux rose had stopped him; the two were laughing and talking like old friends.
The echo of his light laugh, the sound of a careless word made Judith, waiting in her misery, catch her breath sharply.
“Go!” she cried. “Go! He must not hear. I forbid you to tell him now.”
The sullen fire in the pale eyes of the man watching her leapt to sudden life, then died down swiftly.
“If I go now, you must see me—later. Look.” He drew out his pocket-book and scribbled an address upon the first page: “42 Abbey Court, Leinster Avenue, 9.30 to-night. There!” He tore out the leaf and thrust it into her hands. “If you fail me, Judy, you know the consequences.”
She pushed the scrap of paper mechanically into her glove; he turned and disappeared in the crowd.
Sir Anthony caught a momentary glimpse of him as he came up, and looked after him curiously.
“Who was that, Judith? He looks rather an odd customer, as if he had seen life in some queer places. But what is it, child?”—his tone turning to one of apprehension—“You are ill—faint?”
Lady Carew forced a smile to her stiff lips. “It is nothing. It was so hot in the church,” hesitatingly, “and the scent of the flowers is overpowering,” she added as a passing waft of sweetness from the great sheaves of Madonna lilies that stood in the nave reached them. “I shall be all right directly. What was wrong with the car?”
“Nothing much,” Sir Anthony said carelessly. “Jenkins soon put it right, but you can’t wait here. Monktowers said he would send his brougham back for us. Ah, here it is!”
He helped her in carefully, and to her surprise gave their own address.
“I can’t have you knocked up, and the reception is sure to be a crush,” he said in answer to her look. “I am going to take you home, and make you rest, or certainly you will not be fit for the Denboroughs’ to-night.”
The Denboroughs’! Judith shivered in her corner; she was deadly cold beneath her furs. Lady Denborough’s dinner parties were among the most select in London; her invitations were eagerly sought after; it had been a tribute to the furore that Lady Carew’s beauty had excited that she, who but two years ago had been only Peggy Carew’s governess, should have been included.
How far away it all seemed to her now, as she laid her head back on the cushions and tried to think, to realize this awful catastrophe that had befallen her. The dead had come to life! All that past, that she had believed buried beyond resurrection, had risen, was here at her very doors.
Through the shadow of the carriage, she glanced at Anthony, at the dark rugged profile, at the crisp dark hair with its faint powdering of grey near the temples, at all that only an hour ago had been so intimately dear, that was now, as it were, set on the other side of a great gulf. Her heart sank, she felt sick as she thought of the other face with its bold good looks. It was impossible, she tried to tell herself despairingly, that this thing should really have befallen her, that there should be no way of escape. Sir Anthony watched her anxiously.
As the carriage neared their house in Grosvenor Square, she sat up, and drew her furs around her with a pitiful attempt to pull herself together.
Sir Anthony helped her out solicitously. As she paused for a moment on the step, a man passed, gazing up at the front of the house.
Lady Carew caught a momentary glimpse of the big familiar figure, a mist rose before her eyes, her fingers closed more tightly over that piece of paper in her glove as she swayed and reached out a trembling hand to her husband’s arm.
With a quick exclamation of alarm, Sir Anthony caught her, carried her over the threshold of their home.
“Judith, Judith, what is it, my darling?” he said, bending over her.
CHAPTER II
“You must go to the Denboroughs’ alone, Anthony.” Judith was looking frail and wan as she came into the study in her white tea-gown, her hair gathered together loosely in a great knot behind.
Sir Anthony was sitting at his writing-table, a pile of unopened letters lay beside him; he was apparently oblivious of them as he studied the card in his hand. He sprang up now.
“Judith, is this wise? I hoped you were asleep.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Judith said truthfully, as she steadied herself by the table, “and I went up to the boy. Anthony, you must not give up the Denboroughs. I shall go to bed at once. Célestine is going to give me a sleeping draught, so you see you will be no use here”—with a pitiful attempt at a smile.—“And we shall put the Denboroughs’ table out altogether if neither of us goes. It won’t matter so much about me, people can always get another woman, but you, you must not disappoint them.”
Sir Anthony hesitated, some quality in her insistence impressed him disagreeably. Why was she so anxious to get rid of him? The next moment he was chiding himself for his folly. Judith was evidently unwell, she was overwrought, feverish.
“Yes, yes,” he answered soothingly. “Of course I will go. That will be all right, Judith.”
She drew a little soft breath as she laid her head against his arm.
“And now that is settled I am going to take you back to your room,” he went on. “You ought not to have come down, you ought to have sent for me.”
But Judith’s hands clung to his arm. “No, no. There is an hour yet before you need dress. I want to sit here like this. Don’t send me away, Anthony!”
Sir Anthony felt a quick throb of anxiety as he looked down at her ruffled golden head; this attack of nerves was something outside his experience of Judith; he began to ask himself whether it was not possibly the forerunner of some serious illness?
“My darling, do I ever want to send you away?” he questioned, a reproachful reflection in his pleasant voice. “It is because I know that you ought to be in bed. For myself could I ask anything better than that you should be here with me?”
Judith sank down in one of the big saddleback chairs near the fire-place, and drew Sir Anthony on to the arm with weak, insistent fingers. As his arm closed round her she nestled up to him with a deep sigh of content, but she did not speak.
To herself she was saying that this might be the last time that she would see the love-light in Anthony’s eyes, feel the warmth of his tenderness.
For this one hour she would forget everything outside. She remember only that she was with the man she loved, the man who loved her. Then everything would be over, she would be no longer Anthony Carew’s honoured wife. Her life at Heron’s Carew would be as if it had never been. There would be nothing for Anthony to do but forget her. But first there was this one hour—this golden hour that she would have to remember afterwards!
Sir Anthony held her closely for a time in silence, once or twice his lips touched a loosened strand of golden hair that lay across his shoulder. But at last he laid her back very gently in her chair, and straightening himself turned to his writing-table.
Judith clung to his arm. They were running out so fast, the minutes that were the souls of her one golden hour.
“You—you are not going to leave me?” she gasped.
“Leave you, my sweetheart, no!” Sir Anthony said drawing his blotting-book towards him. “But I must just finish this letter that I was writing when you came in, I shall not be a minute. It is to poor Sybil Palmer. Her husband met with a bad accident yesterday. He always will act his own chauffeur, and he is reckless at hills. It seems there was a terrible smash-up, and there isn’t much hope for Palmer, I fancy.”
Judith stirred quickly, she drew a little away.
“Do you mean that he is not going to get better—that he will die?”
Sir Anthony nodded gravely. “I am afraid so.”
With all her power Judith thrust away from her that hideous thought
that would obtrude itself. Lord Palmer was going to die and Sybil—Lady Palmer—the beautiful cousin who had been engaged to Anthony in his youth, and whose loss had embittered all his young manhood, would be free.
But then—then Judith’s golden hour would be over—nothing would matter to her, she told herself, nothing would hurt her then.
She looked at Sir Anthony as he sat at the table; she could catch a glimpse of his profile; she could hear his pen moving quickly over his paper; evidently it was a long letter he was writing. At last, however, it was finished, and he came back to her.
“Now I am at your service, sweetheart.”
Judith’s lips trembled.
“When next month comes, we shall have been married two years, Anthony.”
“Shall we?” Sir Anthony’s deep-set eyes smiled down at her. “You have become so absolutely a part of my life, that I don’t like to think of the time when you didn’t belong to me, Judith.”
Judith lay back among her cool, chintz cushions, and looked at him.
“Don’t you,” she said, and then, “It—it has been a happy time since we were married?” she questioned wistfully.
“A happy—a blessed time,” he said with sudden passion, as he knelt down beside her and gathered her into his arms. “It was my good angel that brought you to Heron’s Carew, Judith.”
“Thank God for two perfect years,” she whispered. “Two happy years together; whatever happens we have had that. You wouldn’t quite forget those two years—if—if I died to-night; if you married some one else, Anthony?”
“Don’t!” the word broke from the man almost like a sob of pain. “Don’t talk of it even in jest. One can’t forget what is graven on one’s heart. Dead or alive, you are the one woman in the world for me.” His arms tightened round her, held her close to his heart. With a little sobbing sigh Judith crept closer to him.
Carew’s eyes were passionately tender as he glanced at the waves of golden hair resting on his coat. The pale curved lips were touching his sleeve again now; they were murmuring one word over and over again. “Good-bye, good-bye!” At last the golden hour was over.
She got up unsteadily. “You will go to the Denboroughs’, Anthony?”
“And you will go to sleep?” He drew her arm through his. “Come, I am going to give Célestine her directions myself. No more going to the boy to-night, mind!”
She let him help her upstairs, it was so sweet, so very sweet to have him wait upon her.
But upstairs she refused utterly to go to bed; she would sleep better on the large roomy couch, she protested. Célestine would bring her some black coffee, and leave the sedative within reach, and then no one must disturb her; she would have a long rest. Sir Anthony bent down and kissed her tenderly.
“I shall not be late. Sleep well, my dearest.”
Somewhat to his surprise, as he lifted his head, Judith drew it down again, and kissed him on the lips with sudden passion. “Good-bye, good-bye,” she whispered. Then, as her arms fell back from his neck, she closed her eyes and turned her face into the side of the couch.
Sir Anthony stole softly away.
As he closed the door, she looked round again with wide eyes.
“Célestine!”
“Yes, miladi.” The French maid came forward, a demure, provocative little figure.
“You can go now. If I want anything I will ring.”
“Yes, miladi! But Sir Anthony, he said—” Evidently Célestine was unwilling to depart.
“That will do.” Lady Carew interrupted her with a touch of hauteur. “I cannot sleep unless I am alone. And do not come until I ring, Célestine.”
“But, certainly, miladi.” The maid shrugged her shoulders as she withdrew.
Left alone, Lady Carew raised herself on her elbow, and looked all round the room. On the other side of the room was the door leading into Sir Anthony’s apartments. Judith bit her lips despairingly as she looked at it; presently he would be coming up to dress, she would hear him moving about. A long shivering sigh shook her from head to foot as she buried her face in the cushions again.
Meanwhile Sir Anthony went back to his study. There was plenty of time to dress, he had another letter to write that required some thinking over. As he walked over to the writing-table his eye was caught by a piece of paper on the chair where Judith had been sitting. Naturally, a tidy man, he glanced at it as he picked it up, wondering idly whether his wife had dropped it.
“42 Abbey Court, Leinster Avenue, 9.30 to-night,” he read, written in a bold unmistakably masculine hand.
“What does it mean?” he asked himself as he twisted it about. There seemed to him something sinister in the curtly worded command. It was not meant for Judith of course, the very notion of that was absurd. But, as he sat down and opened his blotting-book, the look of that piece of paper haunted him; another thought—one he had believed laid for ever—the thought of the long years that lay behind his knowledge of his wife, rose and mocked him.
He would not have been Carew of Heron’s Carew if his nature had not held infinite capabilities of self-torture, of fierce burning jealousy that ran like fire through his blood, and maddened him.
It was so little that he knew, that Judith had told him of her past.
It had been the usual uneventful past of an ordinary English girl, she had given him to understand. But the great hazel eyes had held hints of tragedy at times that gave the lie to that placid story.
Sir Anthony groaned aloud as he thrust the letter from him. He sat silent, his eyes fixed on that mysterious paper: “9.30 to-night.” For whom had that appointment been meant?
CHAPTER III
Nine o’clock! Judith Carew stood up. The time had come! Once more she looked round the familiar room, her eyes lingering on the big photograph of Anthony, in its oxydized silver frame on the mantelpiece.
She crossed to the pretty inlaid escritoire, and unlocked one of the top drawers. A piece of paper lay inside; she started as she looked at it with a frown. This was not what she wanted—this was merely a pencilled note that Peggy had sent her in the church that afternoon. A note, moreover, that she had thought she had burnt when she came in.
A moment’s reflection and her face cleared; she must have tossed the address the man gave her, at the church door, into the fire, while she locked this little innocent note of Peggy’s carefully away. It was strange that she should have made such a curious mistake, but it did not matter, the address was written on her brain in letters of fire. She could not forget it if she would.
She went to her wardrobe, and took out a long dark cloak, that would cover her altogether, pinned a toque on her hair, and tied a thick motor veil over it.
Then she opened the door and listened. At this hour the servants should be at their supper; it would be possible for her to get out unobserved. She calculated that she might be back—if she came back—soon after eleven. Célestine would hardly expect her to ring before then, and her absence would pass unnoticed.
No one was about apparently. Her lips moved silently as she came out into the corridor, as she looked wistfully up the short flight of stairs that led to the nursery. Her husband’s door stood open; in passing a sudden thought struck her. She went in and opened one of the drawers, inside was a leather case. She looked at it for a moment, then slowly touched the spring, and disclosed a couple of revolvers.
Anthony had been giving her lessons in shooting of late; with that small murderous looking instrument she would at least be able to protect herself. She saw that it was loaded, and held it firmly clutched in her hand under her cloak, as she made her way down the stairs. She had calculated her time well, there was no one in the hall when she let herself out and closed the door behind her softly.
It was a damp night, typical April weather. To Judith, after fevered tossing to and fro on the couch, its very moisture seemed refreshing.
Leinster Avenue was fairly familiar ground to her; in her governess days she had often brought her pupil to see s
ome friends who lived near. Insensibly her feet turned towards the Tube; she had reverted to the mode of conveyance most familiar to her in early days. From Bond Street to Holland Park was but an affair of a few minutes, and from there she knew her way to Leinster Avenue. Abbey Court must be, she felt sure, one of the great blocks of flats standing at the near end of the Avenue. She found that she was right. Abbey Court, Nos. 1—50, faced her as she turned the well-known corner.
Looking up at the big new building she shivered. She thought of the coming interview. Just then some neighbouring clock chimed the half-hour.
She started nervously, she must not keep the man waiting, and she walked up the steps. In the hall the porter touched his cap.
“Lift, ma’am?”
She stepped in and gave the number mechanically.
They stopped at the fifth floor, the man got out and rang the bell for her.
Judith gave him half a crown, and was conscious that he stood and looked at her doubtfully.
The door opened immediately. Instinctively her hand closed more firmly over the revolver.
“Is that you, Judy? Come in!”
She was drawn through the door quickly. She recognized that there was an indefinable change in the voice since the afternoon.
Inside on the other side of a narrow passage was a door opening into a small room, evidently used as a dining-room, velvet curtains hung over the archway beyond; parted they disclosed a room fairly large for a flat. It looked like a man’s den—papers and pipes were littered about. In the outer room beneath the electric light she paused and threw back her veil.
“What do you want with me?” she said curtly.
“Want with you?” The man laughed harshly. “I want you—you yourself, Judy, don’t you understand? I meant to find you, I was going to put the search for you in the hands of the best detectives in London, when, just by chance, I saw you this afternoon, saw you another man’s wife!”
Judith drew her breath in sharply. “I thought you were dead. I saw it in the papers, I never dreamed that there was any mistake.”