For some time the old woman watched him, and then, leaning still farther back in her seat, she spoke with studied lightness:
“You don’t seem very happy, Richard. I do hope your attitude won’t be misconstrued.”
He turned to her impatiently. “You can rely on me when we reach Latcher,” he said briefly.
Mrs de Liane laughed. “I was not thinking of Latcher,” she said. “I was thinking of your brother and me.”
The man stiffened, but although he controlled the angry retort which rose to his lips he could not prevent the colour rising slowly in his face.
Mrs de Liane glanced sharply at her elder son, and the look he returned to her was eloquent. Richard was aware of the little interchange, and a cautious expression flickered for a moment through his eyes.
“That’s the penalty of being … unconventional in one’s business methods, Mother,” he said. “One’s apt to suspect everybody.”
The old lady laughed. “Of course,” she said. “You must forgive me, Richard. We all have nerves, you know.”
Her tone was appealing, but neither of her sons believed for a moment in her confession of weakness.
The conversation had passed completely over Mary’s head. She herself was undergoing one of the most extraordinary experiences of her life. Worry had left her. It was not that she was no longer conscious of the terrible situation in which she found herself so much as that she had ceased to think of it. She was living entirely in the present. She knew that the car in which she sat was comfortable, that she was warm, and she had the curious contentment which comes from wearing new clothes.
The man at her side delighted her. She did not think about him, but she knew that he was there and she knew that she was in love with him. Somewhere at the back of her mind there was a little warning note which sounded only at rare and still rarer intervals, but she paid no attention to it. The active part of her mind was not interested and had not the power to seize upon it, much less to analyze it.
She was very very happy.
Presently the car turned out of the wide stream of traffic and took a smaller road leading down into the City. Mrs de Liane drew a sharp breath, and the little sound was oddly expressive. Edmund Beron leant forward and touched the girl’s hand.
She was aware of his face in the faint, warm light from the roof. It looked very large and anxious, and he moistened his lips with his tongue as though they were dry.
“You are glad to be in England,” he said. “You are Marie-Elizabeth Mason, and you love your husband.”
She laughed at him. It seemed such a silly thing to say. It was true, of course it was true, but his face looked funny and she had to laugh.
Beron sat back. Small beads of sweat had appeared on his forehead, and the hand on his knee trembled. Mrs de Liane glanced at him.
“You’d better stay down here in the car, Edmund,” she said. “There’s no need for us all to go up. It might even look a little suggestive. You wait here.”
“Very well.” The man seemed relieved. All the same he watched the girl nervously, and she smiled at him. She had quite forgotten who he was.
The car pulled up outside a dim entrance which had been elegant in the days before the City had crowded down upon it, forcing it into obscurity. A man in the uniform of the Corps of Commissionaires greeted them in the hall and conducted them down a long corridor to a white-panelled door in the heart of the building.
Mary still clung to Richard’s arm. She was growing more and more lightheartedly irresponsible at every moment. She could not remember what had happened to her in the past and had no idea what was going to happen to her in the future, but meanwhile the present was delightful.
Mrs de Liane walked in front. Her small figure in the grey watered silk gown, the long squirrel cape and the fashionable hat was distinguished and in perfect taste.
Richard’s face was set. There was something completely inscrutable in its lean, handsome lines. His anger had entirely disappeared, however, and his step was light.
The commissionaire opened the door and announced them, and Mary received an impression of a big walnut-panelled room with a thick, bright carpet, a fine old fireplace, a great many books and, in the centre, a big walnut desk.
The man who rose to meet them was slight and dapper. Mary had only a most confused impression of him. She was aware of white hair sleekly brushed, a pair of friendly eyes behind horn-rimmed spectacles, a big white collar, unusually shiny and somehow odd in pattern, and a voice which was thin and precise and sometimes a little squeaky.
Leonard Latcher came forward and with old-fashioned curtesy took both Mrs de Liane’s hands in his own.
“My dear lady,” he said, “how very nice to see you. Younger than ever, if I may say so.”
Mrs de Liane laughed. “You’re disgraceful,” she said. “You flatter a poor old woman. My dear man, where can I sit down? You’re looking disgustingly young yourself.”
Mr Latcher laughed. It was a nervous, depreciatory little sound which had nevertheless a touch of excitement in it. Mrs de Liane had that peculiar gift of flattery which even age does not seem able to destroy.
Proceedings were held up for several minutes while the elderly Mr Latcher saw his client safely established in the largest chair. It was a long business involving many compliments and a great deal of moving about.
Having settled herself in a high-backed Queen Anne fauteuil, in which she looked like a vivacious Queen Victoria, Mrs de Liane waved her hand toward Mary and Richard.
“Well, my dear man,” she said, “there they are, the wretched children! Married and done for. Don’t blame me for the indecent haste. I ran away to get married myself, but that was far too long ago for me to remember any extenuating circumstances.”
Little Mr Latcher, already considerably flustered by the irrepressible personality of the woman who had never ceased to fascinate him, glanced at the young people.
Richard seemed young, handsome and embarrassed, while the girl looked up into his face with an expression so unmistakable that Mr Latcher felt quite uncomfortable and rather old.
“Mary, come here,” said Mrs de Liane. “We call her Mary,” she explained boldly to the bewildered Latcher. “Marie-Elizabeth sounds so foreign.”
The extraordinary thing was that it was the second name which made the girl stir. The three things which Beron had impressed upon her were the only concrete facts in her world.
She went across the room obediently. Mrs de Liane performed the introduction. Mary said nothing. She smiled and looked young and extremely shy. Mr Latcher received the impression that for a girl who was going to have so much money in her control she was a little over-youthful, and it occurred to him then, perhaps for the first time, that the marriage might prove to be a very good idea.
He began to talk to her, but his voice was not particularly interesting and Mary had not the inclination to try to follow his words. She glanced back over her shoulder at Richard, and he came over to her and slipped his hand into hers.
Mrs de Liane caught Latcher’s eye.
“They’re ridiculous, aren’t they?” she murmured. “They’ve been like this ever since they set eyes on one another. I did hope marriage would cure it, but they seem to be worse than ever. Doesn’t it make you feel old, Leonard Latcher?”
“I—er—I’m afraid it does,” he said, laughing. “But we must get down to business, you know. This is a very momentous day for you, young lady. Three hundred thousand pounds is a very great fortune. Of course at the moment it is all very suitably invested, and if you’re wise you won’t make any rash changes. However, I shall come to that later. You and I must go into conference in a week or so. Just at the moment there are one or two—er—formalities.”
“Of course,” said Mrs de Liane hastily. “I really think she would have come without any papers at all. Love is a very terrible thing, Mr Latcher. But I have them all here. I’m afraid they leave all dull things like business to me. Here we are.”
She placed a little black satchel on the desk and motioned him to open it, while the two young people looked on.
In such circumstances, perhaps, it is understandable that Leonard J. Latcher, that astute and sophisticated solicitor, should have been more preoccupied with the admittedly questionable business of the marriage between Mrs de Liane’s son and her very wealthy ward than with the actual identity of the girl herself, which he was inclined to take for granted.
He glanced at the passport, saw the photograph, and looked through the other papers which the real Marie-Elizabeth had given to Mary for the purpose of deceiving Mrs de Liane.
It was while Mary stood there, her hand in Richard’s and her eyes resting casually upon the old man bending over the satchel, that the little warning note at the back of her mind grew suddenly stronger.
Downstairs in the car Edmund Beron glanced at his watch. It was late, much later than he had thought, far too late for safety. He sat forward in the back of the car, his hands clasped and his face becoming strained and anxious as he thought of the scene going on in the office and wondered what its upshot might be.
Mrs de Liane was blissfully unconscious of the possible duration of the effects of the drug. Her mind was entirely absorbed with Latcher himself, and behind her dancing blue eyes there was a new shrewd expression, a watchfulness which the old man never suspected.
Presently he straightened his back.
“Yes, this is perfectly all right,” he said.
“I should hope so,” said Mrs de Liane drily.
The solicitor laughed apologetically.
“These formalities have to be attended to, dear lady,” he said. “They’re important, you know. However, that part of the business is settled. Now, Miss Mason—I’m sorry: Mrs Richard de Liane—I’ll keep this marriage certificate, if you don’t mind, because your headstrong behaviour, young lady, has made me a lot of work. Then within a week or two I shall be able to give you all the documents relating to your affairs—unless, of course, you’d prefer to leave them with me, in which case I should be very glad to continue to act for you …”
He paused questioningly, and Mrs de Liane leant forward.
“Oh, but naturally,” she said hastily. “You don’t want to leave Mr Latcher, do you, Mary, my dear?”
“No, no, of course not.” Mary spoke mechanically. The warning note at the back of her mind was growing into a dreadful sense of foreboding. She was beginning to remember things vaguely—terrible, unbelievable things—while the room in which she stood, the old lawyer and his talk of papers, became foreign and incomprehensible.
Mr Latcher was too relieved to notice anything unusual in his young client. The account was an important one for him, and, although he had not anticiapted any difficulty in retaining it, he was naturally very glad to be certain that it was in no danger.
Mrs de Liane, however, was not so unobservant. She caught the expression of mystification on the girl’s face, and for the first time a gleam of alarm appeared in her eyes.
Mary looked at Richard and took her hand out of his. It was a very simple little gesture, but the man looked down at her, and she, looking up into his face, saw something there which added to her bewilderment and which afterwards she was to remember with mixed emotions.
Taken completely off his guard, Richard de Liane betrayed disappointment. He looked deeply and bitterly hurt.
The solicitor returned to his new client.
“I have opened an account for you at the bank, the same branch as your guardian uses. Here’s a chequebook. You may draw up to five thousand pounds. This is your ordinary spending account. If you want any more—and I hope you’re not going to be too extravagant—you must come to me, and in the interim the income from your estate will be paid into a deposit account. As that grows we will discuss further investments.”
The voice rambled on, and if Mary did not express any delight or satisfaction it was because she did not hear or understand the words. Memory was returning to her and with it all the old terror, all the old sense of danger with which her life had been filled during the past few days.
She took the chequebook he offered her and, having no bag in which to put it, handed it mechanically to the man at her side. Mr Latcher looked appalled, and Mrs de Liane hurried to cover up the lapse.
“My dear, that’s too touching!” she said. “I’m shocked. Put it in the pocket of your coat, child.”
But Mary continued to hold it out to Richard, and in the end he took it and put it into his own pocket, smiling awkwardly.
Mr Latcher took a deep breath. “I see I must leave business until after the honeymoon,” he murmured to Mrs de Liane.
She looked up at him and laughed. “I’m afraid you must, Latcher. I told you so. It’s rather beautiful, you know. I didn’t know modern young people fell in love like that.”
She was speaking quietly, obviously with the intention of not embarrassing them. Mary heard the word “love,” however, and looked up at Richard. The colour rushed into her face, and her anger and resentment against him returned to her mind all the more vividly because she was still aware of the strange passionate affection she had conceived for him during the period when she had forgotten his treatment of her and the many things she knew to his detriment.
She opened her mouth to speak, and the words, had they come, must have provided Mr Latcher with one of the most enlightening experiences of his life. But they were never spoken, for at that moment yet another veil was lifted from the shrouds which had enveloped her and she remembered something else. The De Lianes were her enemies. She must get away.
Looking back upon it afterwards she realized that had she made her appeal then, had she told her full story to Leonard Latcher, that old man would have been shrewd enough to discount even the powerful machinations of Eva de Liane. But at the time she was aware of him only as another man, another person who would be prepared to believe her insane, another person who would lead her back to her lawful husband and trust him gratefully to look after her.
The extraordinary thing was that she was not at all sure where she was or what had happened. As the effects of the drug wore off—and once it began her recovery was very swift—her mind went back to the time when she had sat opposite Beron in the sitting room at the flat, and everything which had taken place between that moment and the present was a complete blank.
She saw that she was in some sort of office and that a small, white-haired man who seemed to be a friend of Mr de Liane’s was very pleased about something, but more she did not know.
She waited cautiously for a chance to get away. The interview was practically at an end. Mrs de Liane was anxious to leave and equally anxious not to show any eagerness. Mr Latcher came over to the girl.
“Well, Mrs Richard,” he said, “hearty congratulations! It was a rash thing to do, but in the circumstances I think I must condone and approve. I hope you’ll always be very happy.”
“Thank you,” said Mary. It seemed the only thing to say. He looked kind, but then so many people had looked kind.
She remembered suddenly that he must be the lawyer, and perhaps, had he not seemed so very friendly with the old lady, she might have made an appeal to him to see her alone, but she knew from experience that any friend of Mrs de Liane’s was liable to prove dangerous.
“After the honeymoon, then,” the old man said. “After the honeymoon I shall come down and see you. There’s a lot of business connected with so much money, you know; a great deal of business.”
He insisted on seeing them off the premises himself, a mark of special courtesy. Out of deference to Richard he walked with Mrs de Liane, and because the passage was narrow Richard and Mary went on a little ahead. The man had taken her arm and was holding her tightly, her forearm resting against his and her hand in his own.
Mary recognized it for what it was, the grip of a captor, and as she walked quietly at his side her mind was busy. It is a feature of returning consciousness that each stage is
thought by the patient to be the final one. Mary did not realize that her memory was still imperfect. She knew that she was in danger, she was aware of some of the details of the whole fantastic business which had brought her to the present terrible situation, but she did not know that her mind still did not grasp the finer points of the matter. She did not realize her own strength. She did not understand that while Latcher was present she could force the De Lianes to take almost any step she chose. All she knew was that she was terrified and that she must get away.
Feeling very cunning and inexpressibly secretive, she made her plans and waited for her opportunity.
Beron was waiting outside the car when they came down into the street. When he saw Latcher he murmured a word to the chauffeur and hurried away into the crowds. It would certainly not look well if the whole De Liane family appeared to escort the heiress away.
Richard, Mary and the old lady stood for a moment on the steps of the building to make their farewells. The chauffeur stood holding the door of the car open some six or eight feet away across the pavement.
The girl did not listen to the brief interchange of civilities. Her heart was racing in her side. A wild scheme had crept into her mind. She was the first to shake hands with Latcher, and, while Richard was doing the same thing, she moved across the pavement and climbed into the car.
Her departure was a little abrupt, but Latcher expected heiresses to be a little temperamental, and Mrs de Liane was too relieved that the initial ordeal had passed off so well to give more than a cursory glance after the girl to make sure that she had entered the car.
As Mary climbed into the limousine the opposite door seemed to rush to meet her. It was an old trick and so simple that the astute mind of the De Liane chauffeur never considered it.
Moving swiftly but with the caution of desperation, the girl turned the handle, slipped out on the farther running board, avoided an oncoming lorry by a miracle, and plunged across the greasy, rain-soaked road like a frightened hare.
The crowd on the opposite pavement received and swallowed her. Bending her head against the rain, stupefied by terror and spurred by the single blind desire to get away from the De Lianes, she ran on down the road, taking the first turning which presented itself, rushing she knew not where save that it was away.
The Shadow In The House Page 11