The Passing of Mr Quinn

by G. Roy McRae

  A silence that was constrained fell between them.

  ‘Do you hate me then?’ he asked desperately at last, in a strained voice. ‘Eleanor, I love you. I’ve tried so hard to help.’ He edged a little nearer. ‘Little girl, it hurts me—that broken look!’

  A tiny gasp and a sob escaped her, but he succeeded in gaining her hand.

  ‘Eleanor—why fret about the past? It’s all over now, and what is the world to you and me? We’ll go away—forget it all. Sweetheart; won’t you let me come to you—to woo you as a man would his only love?’

  ‘I’m going away,’ she said in a very small and distant voice. Actually she was struggling desperately for control.

  ‘I know,’ he said a little wildly. ‘You are going away. Where? Where are you going? Oh, my love; something seems to tell me that if you go it will be a very, very long time before I see you again.’

  After a pause he added more gently: ‘Forgive me. You are overwrought. I recognise that. In decency I should leave you to yourself until you have got over this. Time may heal. And in the meantime,’ he added bitterly. ‘I am a cad. An insufferable cad to press you. But, oh, my dear—Eleanor!—something impels me to speak …’

  Eleanor did not turn her head, but the passionate, pleading voice caused her heart to leap madly in her bosom. She loved him. Heaven help her! All her thoughts were of this new ardent lover, whilst in the gray sprawling city around her fair name and reputation was being spiced and mixed till it became a veritable concoction of scandal.

  She tried to shake it off—that haunting terror of publicity and scandal that to the sensitive and refined is far more to be shunned than the yawning pit.

  And for a moment, as she looked at him, she forgot it all. She saw and remembered only him. Despite herself, in spite of all her resolutions, words flooded up to her lips and made her answer him.

  ‘Alec, don’t—speak like that,’ she said, low and huskily. ‘You don’t know—oh, you don’t know how I care!’

  He turned to stare at her, his face dark and fierce, almost hawk-like. But then it seemed that the question he silently asked her was answered, for he bowed his head and there was joy and humility in his face.

  ‘Sweetheart, forgive me,’ he whispered. ‘I wait and hope, darling heart. One day you will send for me, and I shall come, and I shall know from your dear eyes, and I shall say “Let’s get married,” and you will say, “Yes.”’ He laughed huskily and joyously. ‘You will send for me, Eleanor?’

  She shivered, and with almost a maternal gesture she stretched out her ungloved hand and touched his fair hair. She was knowing now for the first time, and to the full, the beauty and mystery, the mingled pain and glory of love and all that love means to a woman.

  ‘My lover,’ she murmured with infinite compassion. ‘Alec, heart of mine, I feel it too—that nothing but sorrow can come from this love of ours. Yet—oh, I don’t know! If I can forget the other thing, I feel I must send for you one day. I—I’m going abroad, Alec.’

  He did not ask her where. He remained silent, respecting her unspoken wishes.

  ‘Alec, you are a true lover,’ she murmured. ‘You have come a-wooing as a woman would have it.’ She paused breathlessly a moment. ‘You could have been so cruel to me. For I love you, and if you had persisted at this moment—I am too weak to resist. But you are of finer clay than that, Alec. You will give me time …?’

  He had not time to say anything, for the big lighted car was swooping down into Paddington Station. But he knew misery as it came to a standstill, and Inspector Brent, jumping down from his seat beside the chauffcur, opened the door for her.

  A maid was waiting for Mrs Appleby. Apparently her luggage had been put on the boat train for Dieppe, and now she was being led to a saloon carriage.

  Alec Portal trailed after the little procession. A station official was fussing round Eleanor, and it was evident that whatever notoriety had preceded her she had acquired a new importance in the station official’s eyes as an elegant and beautiful woman. She did, indeed, seem to symbolise life itself as she stepped into the waiting carriage—life and joyous youth. One forgot the marble white face and saw only the lissom form, the ravishing profile, the slim, silken-clad ankles. ’Midst all this bustle of Continental travel she seemed to stand out as the one girl for whom it had all been invented—the one breathless girl!

  Alec Portal pressed forward with a stabbing pain at his heart. How different from his dreams! Then they had been going away together! And he could not now press near enough to say one last word to her.

  Time was getting short, and it was the taciturn, uncompromising Inspector Brent who had the last words with her. With a flush creeping into his grizzled face, he held out a hand to where she sat ensconced amongst flowers, chocolates and magazines.

  ‘Good-bye, madam’—gruffly. ‘I hope you have a pleasant recuperation. ’Gainst my usual practice, coming like this. I felt I must apologise—for—everything!’

  Eleanor understood, and she put her hand into his with mute sympathy. He went on gruffly enough:

  ‘I did what I thought was my duty, madam. I committed a heinous blunder that I shall remember to my dying day. I know I was wrong, and I want to say that there is no more staunch believer in you than I am now.

  ‘But,’ he added, with a weary shake of his head. ‘I should like to get to the bottom of the mystery. I’d take fresh lines of investigation, only—’ He paused. ‘I’ve got a feeling that one day I shall learn the truth.’

  But now the train was on the move.

  Alec Portal watched it with an aching heart, though he waved his hat and tried to smile. Inspector Brent stood back as it went out, with a commiserating shake of his head. He little guessed then of the startling manner in which his half prophecy of ‘learning the truth one day’ was to be fulfilled.

  CHAPTER VII

  LEFT alone in the private saloon carriage of the boat train, Eleanor knew the misery of loneliness and began to feel an intolerable heartache. She put up her hand, with the back of her wrist to her burning eyes. The thought that she would not see him again, that she loved him and they were being wider separated every moment by the thundering wheels of the train, overcame her and she burst into tears.

  It is probable that the frailer sex have done this since the time of Eve. To a woman there must at some time come the sweet sorrow of parting, and tears are Nature’s balm to soften the heartache. Tears! A myriad have been shed for every glittering light on Broadway or Piccadilly, and mayhap they shall form the cascade of cleansing as each of us pass into that other world.

  But Eleanor’s fit of crying was so violent and prolonged that in the end it frightened even herself. She tried frantically to calm herself, to check the choking sobs that came from her lips. These tears were no solace; they were the frightened cries of a creature lost in the wilderness.

  At length, with her handkerchief at her lips, she forcibly checked her sobbing. She looked at her pretty face in the mirror of her bag, and told herself it was a ruin. There came those little adjustments with powder puff that even the best and most discreet of women indulge in nowadays. She was trying to put up a brave fight.

  She made up her mind to take tea in the dining-car of the train, tea being the panacea for a good many ills. And to see the people around her would prove some distraction.

  She rose, gathering up feminine trifles. But suddenly a sob shook her slender frame. She realised with something akin to panic that they were almost uncontrollable. Her heart was crying out to Alec—beseeching him to come to her.

  It was then that Fate, or Fortune—call it what you will—played one of its most devastating tricks upon one whom, until now, it had treated none too kindly. For Eleanor, seeking distraction, desperately gathered up chocolates and a magazine and hastened into the dining-car.

  She might have taken tea in the privacy of her own saloon carriage, for no expense had been spared on this trip. As it was she sat down at a table, only to incur curious re
cognition from the eyes of a fair-haired girl who sat at a table opposite.

  This girl was Violet Delamere, an actress. And she flitted into Eleanor Appleby’s life and out again all in a moment. Yet she played a most amazing part in it.

  Violet Delamere was possessed of a personal reputation as dubious as the authenticity of her name. The first blush of her youth was gone, though she was still a pretty woman. Hotel proprietors, tradesmen and the like, withdrew swiftly into their shells of reserve when she was mentioned, for the ‘high sign’ had been given about this pretty confidence trickster. Not to be too flippant, she was ‘that kind of a woman,’ and she was known in every gay capital, except Vienna, where she proposed to journey now for the sake of her health.

  She studied Eleanor covertly under lowered lashes. A newspaper lay by Violet Delamere’s side even now, containing ‘glare lines’ announcing ‘Mrs Appleby’s Acquittal,’ together with a large photograph under which the caption writer had lavished phrases concerning ‘this tragic and beautiful woman.’

  The fair adventuress knew all about her, and she swiftly decided that Eleanor was in no fit condition to look after herself. Her slender frame trembled visibly, and at moments her beautiful face was expressive of the horror she had recently undergone. She endeavoured to maintain a steadfast gaze out of the window at the moving scenery, but it was evident that her mind was a whirl of chaotic thoughts and memories.

  Violet Delamere swiftly decided a more important point for herself; that Eleanor was not capable of looking after her own property. Her bag lay on the seat by her side, and there was not waiter, or anybody else, near at hand. So Violet Delamere leisurely finished her tea, and having paid her bill, rose to leave the dining-saloon.

  She lurched as if with a movement of the train as she passed Eleanor’s table, and murmured a low-voiced apology, which was hardly noticed. Much less did Eleanor notice the absence of her bag immediately after. The adventuress had obtained possession of it very skilfully, and she retired to an empty carriage to investigate, the spoil.

  She found in the bag currency notes and banknotes, which she desired. And she also found a sheaf of letters, one or two of which Eleanor had received quite recently in reply to her own. Three of these were from the Mother Superior of St Augustine’s Convent near Caldilly, in France, where Eleanor as a girl had received her education. They told the adventuress of Eleanor’s intentions, for they were sweet, kindly letters, welcoming the much-tried girl back to the convent.

  Violet Delamere read the letters, and had one of her ‘marvellous inspirations.’ This other woman, who had attained the blaze of notoriety through a public trial for murder, was retiring from the world into a convent, whereas she, Violet Delamere, had her way to make in the world.

  She could dance and she could sing. And she knew the value of a notorious name in the Vienna cabarets. They would welcome with open arms the beautiful Eleanor Appleby who had suffered so much, and yet who could be so gay.

  Violet Delamere smiled as she tore the letters and threw them with the bag out of the carriage window. She had determined to become the beautiful Mrs Appleby in Vienna, and play the game for all it was worth.

  To Eleanor it seemed that Fate had surely set its frowning face against her when eventually she discovered the loss of her bag. It contained a great deal of money, but she was too heartbroken to inform the authorities. She had just enough money to see her through, and so on landing she took the train to Caldilly, and set out distractedly to walk the remainder of her journey to the convent.

  She had almost made up her mind as to her future life. In twelve months, after her novitiate stage was passed, she would take the veil and become a nun.

  It was a delightful evening for a walk, and the country lane seemed inviting. The breeze was stirring in the orchard on either side, relieving the apple trees of some of their burden. The russet and gold windfalls were dropping softly in the dewy grass, there to lie like jewels.

  But Eleanor, walking with weary, dogged steps, did not seem to appreciate the beauty of the evening. She looked up at the stars and sighed. Everything seemed to be out with her mood.

  ‘Alec!’ she cried miserably at length. ‘Oh, Alec!’

  As the cry left her lips she stopped, and then quickened her pace again, trying to banish him from her thoughts. But despite herself, thoughts of him, his little tricks of speech and manner, would—simply would—insistently hammer at her brain.

  She looked ill and worn. Her small oval face had an unnatural pallor, and her eyes were hard and strained. At moments, as some particular recollection was brought back to her, her lips would twitch painfully.

  Hardly did she know where she was walking, until at length, looking around her drearily enough, she found herself in the little village of Caldilly itself, with the convent of St Augustine’s not far distant.

  Then all at once fear caught at her throat as she thought again of what she contemplated. The convent walls; the chaste life of a nun! There would be none to know of her passing from the world except those within the gates of St Augustine’s. But out here in the world were love and laughter and gaiety. The bubbling effervescence that is life. And she was so young and made to enjoy it all.

  Then she told herself drearily that life had little to give to her … Except, perhaps—Alec!

  The thought of him was like a pang. Looking around her, she saw the twinkling lights of the village post office, which she recognised, and a sudden resolution came to her to write to him. She would not have the letter posted at once. She needed time, rest—time to adjust her ideas of life. But once within the convent walls, and started upon her novitiate stage, she knew that the strict rules would not permit her to write many letters to those in the outside world. Her letters would be read by the Mother Superior.

  With a jerk she started towards the little village post office.

  The kindly old postmaster, who had known her when St Augustine’s was a girls’ convent school, not as it was now, a shelter for the Sisters of Mercy only, received her with glad surprise and welcome. He readily acceded to her request that she might write a letter there, and also that it should be posted after a lapse of months.

  It was a pitiful little letter she wrote of a few hasty lines that came from her heart.

  ‘Alec … Oh, my dear, I am so lonely and heartbroken! Perhaps you will not want me now, but if you do, come to St Augustine’s Convent at Caldilly. If I should never see you again, God keep and cherish you. Lovingly.—Eleanor.’

  After it was written and sealed she felt a little lighter in spirit, and she bade her adieux to the kindly old postmaster with a smile curving her lips for the first time for weeks.

  She envisioned Alec again as she walked on through the country lanes … smiling at her, holding forth his arms to take her. Then all at once she came in sight of St Augustine’s Convent, wrapped in darkness and in slumber.

  Only one light showed from the stately pile that was now ages old, and it came from the room of the Reverend Mother.

  The candles were still burning in that apartment. They sent a fitful gleam through the stained glass window out into the darkness. And inside the sombre room, her sweet face rather sad, sat the Reverend Mother Superior.

  Her shapely white hands were clasped over the rosary which hung round her neck, and as she fingered it, she sang softly to herself:

  ‘The hours that I spent with thee, dear heart,

  Are as a string of pearls to me.’

  She had a wonderful voice, and as she softly sang, her beautiful face looked almost saintly in the candlelight.

  She broke off.

  ‘Strange that I should sing that tonight,’ she murmured. ‘It is a song of the world, not of the convent. I remember that Eleanor used to sing it. It is five years since she left the convent. And now …’

  Her thoughts lingered round the girl who had once been a pupil at the convent school. Eleanor had been a slender, fair-haired girl with large, expressive eyes and great promise of
beauty then. And now she was married, and tragedy had engulfed her.

  The Reverend Mother Superior did not read newspapers, yet she had experienced a fairly full knowledge of life, and in the piteous and almost incoherent letters that Eleanor had sent her she had been able to read between the lines.

  She read the story of a sensitive girl subjected to subtle mental cruelty by her husband … and then the crash—the tragedy of violent death. In its causes the Reverend Mother Teresa was scarcely as interested as in its effects upon the girl whom she had loved in those old days when she had been a convent pupil.

  How had it left Eleanor? Had it made her receptive to the quiet and seclusion of these convent walls, or had it merely made her rebellious and frightened of the world for the time being? The Reverend Mother would dearly have loved to welcome Eleanor as a sister, yet she was large and whole-minded, and she knew of the gradual irk that the convent life can invoke upon a youthful spirit.

  That, however, was all in the future. The Reverend Mother was fain to confess to a vague stirring of uneasiness tonight. She had received a letter and later a telegram from Eleanor, saying she was arriving today. And up till now she had not come.

  It was late, and the Mother Superior scarcely expected her now until morning. Yet, knowing the uneasy spirit that must possess Eleanor Appleby, she felt afraid.

  Just then there came an interruption to her train of thought—a queer sound on the stained glass window.

  ‘Tap, tap!’

  The Reverend Mother looked up suddenly. What was it? It sounded as though someone were rapping at her window. But no; it must have been the branch of a tree that knocked against it.

  Again it was heard—a quiet but insistent rap. It was not a chance noise, but evidently the summons of someone who wished to attract her attention.

  The Reverend Mother rose, and going to the window she opened it and looked out into the darkness.

  ‘Who is there?’ she asked in a low voice.