Back in her office, she worked without interruption for some time. So deeply absorbed was she that she was almost startled when the door into the drawing-room opened. For a staggered moment she wondered if her employer had somehow found his way in from the garden alone, and then she saw, with surprise and no special pleasure, that Mrs. St. Leger stood framed in the doorway.
"Mr. Freemont is in the garden, Mrs. St. Leger," Antoinette said. "It's the first time he—"
"Yes, I know. I saw him as I passed." The voice was grave, and suddenly Antoinette realized that there was a regretful, almost reproachful air about her visitor which was singularly becoming to her type of beauty. "I didn't disturb him, because it was you I wanted to speak to personally."
Suppressing a secret irritation at the impression of gentle melancholy, Antoinette pushed aside her typewriter and said, with a sort of brisk courtesy, "What can I do for you? Is it something to do with Mr. Freemont?"
"Yes, it is." The air of a minor saint contemplating the unbelievable wickedness of the world deepened slightly. "Miss Burney, this isn't going to be at all easy for me to say. But I think you will realize something of what is coming if I tell you that yesterday, when I was in town, I called to see an old acquaintance of mine—Sir Horace Keen."
Such a frightful chill gripped Antoinette's heart at these words that she experienced an almost physical pain. She literally could not utter a word, even if it would have been advisable to do so, and after a moment Mrs. St. Leger went on,
"Naturally my friendship with Mr. Freemont brought me in contact with many people in the musical world, and I have known Sir Horace for some years, and it occurred to me that perhaps it would help if I went to him and asked if there were anything further we could do to trace that girl who had injured Lewis so terribly."
She paused again, but still Antoinette said nothing, and, with a slight sigh for the disagreeable necessity of inflicting the blow, Mrs. St. Leger said,
"Inevitably we came to a discussion of the list of names he had supplied. He spoke of eight names, though I knew there had been only seven on the one you showed me, and at my request he produced the carbon copy of the original letter and list. There were eight names on it, Miss Burney, and I don't need to tell you whose the missing name was."
"No, you don't need to tell me." Antoinette's voice was slightly husky, perhaps from having remained silent so long. "The eighth name was mine, of course."
"Miss Burney, how could you? How could you deceive a blind man so ruthlessly? I'm not a censorious woman, and heaven knows, I'm not perfect—" she obviously offered this statement as polite fiction rather than hard fact—"But it's beyond my comprehension that a nice-seeming girl like you could do all this. What is this—this sort of vendetta that you have against poor Lewis?"
"There is no vendetta, or anything so ridiculous." Antoinette's tone was curt to the point of rudeness in her instinctive reaction to the sugary reproaches that were being poured over her, "The whole thing has been misunderstood and misrepresented. I didn't like being failed in my exam, of course, but at no time did I have the slightest intention of doing Mr. Freemont any harm. The idea is preposterous. It's true that I was crossing the road near his house on that unfortunate day. I recognized his car and, in a moment of idiotic self-consciousness, I stopped dead."
She closed her eyes for a moment, hearing yet again the screech of his brakes and seeing with ghastly clarity the unforgettable scene of the crash.
"It's something I shall regret all my life." She steadied her voice determinedly. "But it was a moment of supreme stupidity, not anything with the remotest degree of ill-intention in it."
"Why did you run away afterwards, then?"
"I summoned help and then I—I panicked," Antoinette admitted with grim candour.
"But, my dear, how wrong of you! One should always bravely face the consequences of one's actions."
"I'm aware of that." Antoinette, who resented the "my dear" even more than the rebuke, spoke coldly. "But, as you said of yourself just now, none of us is perfect."
The older woman looked surprised, having evidently forgotten that hollow stricture on herself and resenting the idea that anyone else should presume to echo it. Her tone was also cold, therefore, as she said,
"But, having done so much harm, how could you possibly come and work for him. Surely you didn't want to watch him in his tragic helplessness?"
With difficulty Antoinette stifled her fury at the implication that she might almost have gloated over the situation.
"I wanted to make some amends," she said simply. "I realized I had certain gifts that could be of use to him. I wanted, very badly, to put them at his disposal."
"But wouldn't one have to be very insensitive to be able to bear to see the results of one's tragic work?" Mrs. St. Leger looked all sensitive bewilderment herself.
"It wasn't easy at first," Antoinette admitted shortly. "It became easier when I found I was really of use to him. That was why I felt justified in suppressing my name on that list, even though it meant deceiving a blind man. I'm sorry you had to find all this out in circumstances that put me in a very bad light. But what I want to know now is—what do you propose to do about your discovery, bearing in mind that I've become a real support to Mr. Freemont? I say this quite impersonally, because all I want is his good. If you feel the same—"
"Of course I want nothing but his good!" Mrs. St. Leger looked deeply hurt that anyone should question the purity of her motives. "I've had only one thing in mind over this miserable and disgraceful affair, and that is—what is best for Lewis?"
"Then may I venture to suggest, Mrs. St. Leger, that your natural good heart and good sense will tell you that much the best thing for Mr. Freemont is that I should remain here until he has been helped back to his place in public life. He needs a sort of personal security during this difficult period. For some reason or other, I seem to give that to him. It would be an immeasurable shock for him to learn the truth now. And to what purpose? Once he has regained his natural position in the musical world, no doubt I—I can gradually withdraw from the scene, infinitely grateful (if you will believe me) that I've been able to compensate in some way for what I inadvertently did. Don't you agree this is best?"
It had not been Charmian St. Leger's idea that anyone else should ask the questions. But the reference to her natural good heart and good sense was something she had to live up to. In addition, she probably saw in that moment just how she could turn the situation to her advantage.
"It isn't for me to judge," she began, "and to anyone sensitive like me it's peculiarly painful to have to inflict unhappiness on anyone. I'd much rather say nothing—"
Incredulously, Antoinette drew a slight breath of relief.
"—But there's one thing I feel in duty bound to add, Miss Burney. I can't help noticing—oh, how shall I put this without sounding unkind?—that you overstress the personal side of your relationship with Mr. Freemont. That really would have to stop, you know. Even though it is probably best that you should remain as his invaluable secretary, I simply couldn't stand by and watch anyone who had injured him so cruelly worm her way into his friendship or—or affections. It wouldn't be right of me to do so. You do see what I mean, don't you?"
There was a long pause, while Antoinette digested the full implications of this gentle piece of blackmail. Then she looked straight at Mrs. St. Leger, whose beautiful violet-blue eyes gazed stonily back at her.
"Yes", said Antoinette slowly, "I see exactly what you mean."
"Then it's agreed that your relations with Mr. Freemont remain strictly business ones? And that I say nothing about your real identity?"
"It is agreed," said Antoinette with an effort.
"Good. I think I'll go and see Mr. Freemont in the garden now." And, smiling gently, Charmian St. Leger drifted away while Antoinette looked helplessly after her.
CHAPTER FIVE
WELL, that was it! Determinedly A
ntoinette tried to brace herself with the thought that at least she had bought Mrs. St. Leger's silence. But she knew that, with even the gentlest of blackmailers, the first trial of strength is very seldom the last.
"I'll have to risk that." She even whispered aloud to herself in her agitation. "I've lived on the edge of risk for the last many weeks. I have to go on doing just that. And so long as I follow out her demands exactly—"
She paused, knowing that if she were to examine in detail the real meaning of those demands she would also have to examine in detail the real state of her own feelings. She winced away from the thought. But necessity—and a sort of fascinated sense of dread—drew her back to that confrontation of herself.
As the price of Chairman St. Leger's silence she had promised to remain on strictly business terms with her employer. That was all. Was there anything so dismaying in that? On what other terms did she want to be? Wasn't she thankful enough to be just the invaluable secretary—the girl who helped him back to professional life as some slight compensation for the injury she had done him? What more could she ask?
Antoinette leant her elbows on the desk and her head on her hands. She was no longer listening to the sound of her own inner voice. What she heard was that slightly mocking, half tender voice saying, "To me you're one of the nicest, most worthwhile people I know—" She heard him say, "Where are you?" and felt him put his arms round her and lean his head against her in mute gratitude and emotion. She felt him kiss her, as no one else had ever kissed her before. In rapid, overwhelming succession she recalled every word and incident that had drawn them inevitably nearer to each other. And in a final moment of irresistible self-knowledge she realized that she loved him.
Antoinette was so terrified and yet elated by the discovery that she could no longer sit still at her desk. Getting to her feet, she walked up and down her small office, clasping and unclasping her hands in a mixture of rapture and dismay impossible to describe. It was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to her—and the most appalling. It comprised all her happiness—and equally it threatened its very foundations. He meant everything to her and, by the bargain she had just struck, he must mean nothing.
"I won't do what she wants! Why should I?"
But a more childish question no one had ever asked herself. If she did not fulfil Charmian St. Leger's demands to the full then, with gentle ruthlessness, Lewis Freemont would be told the exact truth—that the secretary on whom he was depending more and more was the girl who had ruined his life for him.
It was not as though one could appeal to the other woman's sense of mercy or fairness. She had none. All she had was a limitless capacity for believing that what she wanted was the best course to pursue—a quality far more dangerous than frank brutality. Not for the first time, Antoinette's heartfelt sympathy went out to the erring husband who had fled from Charmian St. Leger to South America in the refreshing company of "an absolute nobody".
Irresistibly drawn there, Antoinette crossed to the window, from which she could see a large section of the garden, including the sheltered corner where she had left her employer sitting in the autumn sunshine. It did not surprise her that Charmian St. Leger was now sitting there beside him on the stone bench, her hand lightly on his arm. He, Antoinette noted with melancholy satisfaction, was not smiling and, even as she watched, he moved his arm impatiently from under the clinging fingers of his beautiful companion.
"He doesn't really care about her," she thought. "He admired her beauty and style and charm in the days when he could see those things. But he needs something more real, more—more tangible now. Being blind has changed him. Perhaps other things have changed him too. Perhaps—"
She moved away from the window and, by a supreme effort of will, went on with her morning's work. When she looked out of the window half an hour later Mrs. St. Leger had gone, and Lewis Freemont was sitting alone, with a singularly thoughtful expression on his worn face.
Antoinette went out to him and at the sound of her footstep he turned his head at once and smiled.
"Is that you, Toni?"
"Yes. Do you want to come in now? It's not far off lunchtime."
"No. Come and sit beside me. I want to talk to you."
With an illogical conviction that Mrs. St. Leger would know and disapprove Antoinette sat down beside him and absently, though with a gesture that was natural and instinctive, he felt for her hand and took it lightly in his.
She trembled a little, mostly because of the wave of tenderness which immediately swept over her and the instantaneous effort with which she now felt bound to suppress it. For a moment or two he was silent, while she listened to the lazy hum of a nearby bee and what seemed to her the loud beating of her own heart. Then it was she who spoke.
"Did Mrs. St. Leger stay long?"
"Too long." He made a slight face. "Could you tactfully convey to her that daily visits are not called for?"
"No," said Antoinette quite simply, at which he laughed.
"Why not? Aren't you supposed to be in charge here?"
"I wasn't aware of it." She smiled slightly in spite of herself. "In any case, if you don't want Mrs. St. Leger around, it's for you to drop a firm hint, not me."
"She doesn't take hints."
"Then she certainly wouldn't take anything from me! She doesn't like me, for one thing," said Antoinette before she could stop herself.
"No, she doesn't, does she?" he agreed with sudden amusement. "Do you know why?"
"No!" said Antoinette quickly.
"I do." He spoke almost casually. "It's because she knows I do like you."
"O—oh. You mean she's a little—jealous? But that's absurd."
"I don't know that it is." He spoke with deliberation and, on sudden instinct, Antoinette tried gently to pull her hand away, but he kept a firm hold on it. "Charmian is both competitive and singularly possessive. I realize it more every time I listen to her voice. I wasn't so much aware of it when I could see her. There are advantages to being blind, you see." He laughed, though she could not. "You'd be surprised how differently one observes and assesses people when one can't see them."
"Does one?" Antoinette's lips were rather dry.
"Yes. I think that if Charmian came to see me once, or at the most twice, a month that would be quite sufficient."
"Then you must tell her so."
"But as for you," he went on calmly—"it's a poor day when I don't have you somewhere around me. That's why I don't like the weekends much."
It was all she could do not to say that she would willingly come to Pallin on Saturdays and Sundays too. But she immediately recalled Mrs. St. Leger's hard, beautiful eyes and the way she had said, "You do see what I mean, don't you?"
So Antoinette swallowed slightly and murmured, "It would be difficult to come every weekend."
He laughed, obviously touched by what she knew to be the feeblest of compromises.
"Does that mean that you would be willing to give up an occasional weekend to me?"
"If—if you wanted some work done, of course."
"I shouldn't want any work done," he told her coolly. "I should just want you. I tell you, it's a poor day for me when you're not around."
"I'll—I'll see what I can do." Her voice was husky with the effort of keeping herself from saying that she would come any time he liked and for as long as he liked. And then, terrified that the conversation might get out of hand, she rose to her feet.
But he said, "No—" and firmly drew her down again on to the bench beside him. "I haven't finished what I have to say. Charmian insisted on advising me about my future while we were sitting here."
"Your future?" Antoinette stirred uneasily. "What had she to say about your future?"
"Mostly that, without very careful planning, I should find life—particularly professional life—quite impossible."
"How dared she make such suggestions!" Antoinette was furiously indignant that anyone should undermine t
he self-confidence she was so carefully building up in him.
"It was for my own good, she said." He sounded bored and also faintly amused, and Antoinette guessed instinctively that he was exactly reproducing the maddening air with which he had received Mrs. St. Leger's advice.
"But she did put forward one good suggestion," he went on reflectively. "She assured me that, as time went on, I should need someone at my side who loved me, understood me (her words, not mine), and was willing to put my interests first."
There was a slight silence. Then Antoinette said, "She meant herself, of course?"
"Of course." Again that almost cruel note of boredom crept into his tone.
"You said just now that you thought it a good suggestion. You don't sound as though you think that now."
"There was nothing wrong with the suggestion, Toni. She cast the role wrongly, that's all."
"Oh!" Panic and rapture engulfed her, but she tried to force things on to a lighter level with a scared little laugh. "Then you must find the right person. If that's another job for your secretary—"
"Don't be so damned coy!" he exclaimed roughly and pulled her suddenly close against him. "That's not for you. Don't you understand? I love you—" he kissed her hard on the mouth—"I need you. And not only because I'm blind. Stop struggling. Don't you want me to kiss you?"
"No!" she gasped.
"Liar," he said coolly, and kissed her again, so that she forgot all about Charmian St. Leger and the danger that hung just over her head, and she clung to the man she loved and kissed him over and over again.
He released her at last, with an incredulous, breathless little laugh, and said with teasing tenderness, "So that's what my cool, self-contained little secretary is really like!"
"No, it isn't! I didn't realize—I'm not like that at all—I'm not that kind of girl—"
"What kind of girl, for God's sake?" He sounded both angry and amused. "What sort of advances do you suppose I'm making to you? I'm asking you to marry me."
"I can't!" The image of Charmian St. Leger and the enormity of her own guilt rose like a cloud before her.
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