gerard arrived at lady jennings’ house at an awkward hour, and felt rather diffident as to the sort of message he should give, as he knew it would be dinner-time, so that he could not very well ask to see rachel, and yet did not like to ask if she were at home and then give the cloak.
when he got to the house, however, he saw that there was no light in the dining-room, the window of which was wide open, but that a lady was sitting in the room above, which he knew must be the drawing-room. there was a light in the room, but the lady was standing between the curtains, looking out.
puzzled and disturbed, he resolved to ask boldly whether miss davison was at home, and did so, on the opening of the door.
“yes, sir,” said the footman in answer to his inquiry, and he at once proceeded to show gerard upstairs into the drawing-room, where the young man found himself face to face not with rachel, but her younger sister, lilian.
the girl was looking charming, her fair hair, which she still wore tied with a large bow of ribbon at the back of the neck and hanging down her back, shone in the glare of the electric light like gold; while the[94] simple frock of pale pink cotton and the schoolgirl black sailor hat with a pale pink ribbon, suited her girlish face and figure to perfection.
she greeted the visitor with frank pleasure.
“i’m so glad to see you again,” said she. “i know how much rachel likes you, and how kind you were at the academy. and you like rachel, don’t you? that is quite reason enough for me to be glad to see you.”
there was something in this speech which made gerard’s heart leap up. “rachel likes you.” he was sure that there was no deceit, no pretense, about this charming schoolgirl, that what she said came naturally to her lips from her own knowledge, and he was touched and surprised to hear the confidence with which she spoke. it was almost as if she looked upon gerard as a sort of possession of the family, to be greeted and treated as such.
“i’ve been waiting here ever so long,” said she, with a sigh; “and i am so glad you’ve come to talk to me! lady jennings is out, and so is rachel, and i’ve been amusing myself as well as i could with the papers the man brought me, and with looking out of the window. but it’s so dull, and such a shame to have to waste one’s time like that when i so seldom come to town!”
“didn’t they expect you?” asked gerard, in surprise.
a sort of hesitancy appeared in the girl’s manner.
[95]“why no,” she said. “something happened this morning that seemed odd to miss graham—that’s the schoolmistress. a gentleman called to see me, and asked questions about rachel, and didn’t give his name; and as one of the junior mistresses was coming up, miss graham said i had better come too, and see rachel and lady jennings about it.”
a horrible fear, of a kind to which he was now getting used in matters that concerned rachel davison, assailed his heart at these words. who could the mysterious gentleman be who had come on such a strange errand, not to rachel herself, but to her younger sister, a mere schoolgirl?
“you did quite right in coming,” he said, after a short pause. “it does seem an odd sort of thing to happen.”
“yes,” replied she innocently. “although he did not give his name, miss graham took it for granted, from the way he spoke, that he was some relation or old friend of ours, until he saw me; and then, when i didn’t recognize him, and he said merely that he was an old friend of our father’s, she began to think it rather strange. however, i’m bound to say he was very nice, and that i was quite glad to see him; and if miss graham hadn’t thought it odd, i don’t know that i should have done so. why shouldn’t an old friend of my father’s come and see me?”
“why, the strange part of it was his not giving his name, of course,” said gerard.
[96]“yes, i suppose so. he looked like a military man, with his white mustache and way of holding himself; and most of our old friends are or were in the army. so i asked him and he said ‘yes,’ and that he had been in the army some years ago. that was all. but very likely rachel will know more about him.”
gerard sincerely hoped that rachel would not have reason to regret the appearance of the military-looking man who had been in the army, and would not give his name. but the strange episode suggested to his mind that the police were making inquires about the davisons, and that the white-mustached gentleman would prove to be one of their emissaries.
“it’s very strange that neither she nor lady jennings should be back to dinner, isn’t it?” she went on. “it’s past eight, and they usually dine at half-past seven, i know; and i’m so dreadfully hungry!”
“are you going back to richmond to-night?”
“i hope not,” replied she merrily; “because i should like lady jennings to invite me to stay the night, and to take me to a theatre. but it’s getting too late for anything that begins before nine!” she added with a sudden change to a dismal look, as she glanced at the ormolu clock which stood on a bracket on the wall.
“i should have thought you’d be having holidays now,” said he, “at the end of july.”
[97]“yes, we have broken up, and i’m only staying on there until rachel has made up her mind what i’m to do during the holidays. perhaps she and i and mamma shall all go away together somewhere, but it depends on rachel’s work,” she added, with a sort of earnest pride that seemed to gerard infinitely touching.
“it’s very irregular, this work of hers,” he said, in a voice which shook in spite of himself.
he wanted to learn what he could, but it seemed dreadful to have to talk about it to this child, who rejoiced so openly in her sister’s cleverness, and had no thought of harm or of wrong.
“oh yes, very,” replied lilian quickly. “that’s the worst part of it, that she never knows what she will have to do next, and has to be at the beck and call of the people who employ her. it’s dreadful to me,” she said, with sudden earnestness, “to have to know that poor rachel is making herself a martyr to me and mamma, and working too hard, much too hard, just to earn money for us. i do so wish i could do something to help her; but i have no talent at all for anything, and can never hope to be anything but a burden to anybody.”
“i don’t think,” answered gerard, smiling, “that you will really have to look upon yourself in that light very long! i think i can answer for it that you’ll find quite a number of people not merely willing, but anxious, to take the burden, as you call it,[98] off your sister’s shoulders very quickly indeed, when once you’re ‘out.’”
“you mean that somebody will want to marry me?” asked lilian, with a sort of blushing archness and shyness combined, which he thought charming.
“yes. the moment you are ‘out’ i prophesy that you will be snapped up,” said gerard.
but lilian’s fair face clouded again.
“ah,” she said, “that coming out will be another great expense for poor rachel. she’s determined that i shall be presented at court, and the expense of that will be horrible.”
gerard was aghast. timidly, hesitatingly aware that he was on delicate ground, he ventured to suggest obstacles.
“but don’t you think,” he said, “that if you were to assure her that you would much rather not be presented, that it would be a useless sacrifice of money, if i may say so, she would be persuaded?”
“i think it would be waste of money, too,” said lilian, with a long face; “but she is very determined. she says all the women of our family have always been presented, and i must be. but what i say is, that in that case she ought to be presented first.”
“quite right. and what did she say to that?”
“she said she was afraid she would not be eligible, because of having to work for firms in trade. and that in any case she hadn’t the time.”
“but if she isn’t eligible,” said gerard, more[99] earnestly than ever, “perhaps it would affect your position too; and think what a dreadful thing it would be if the presentation were to be cancelled! that happens sometimes, when any circumstances come to the knowledge of the lord chamberlain that—that—”
he grew confused, and stopped. he knew very little about court presentations, but was conscious that in the circumstances it would be madness to think of this one.
“but she’s an artist, and not engaged in trade herself, unless you call selling her designs trade,” said the girl rather distantly.
“oh yes, yes, of course i know that. but—but the chamberlain’s distinctions are not at all logical. the wives of small professional men and stockbrokers are eligible; and a lot of americans get in who would never get presented if they were in a similar position in england to that which they hold in their own country; while no actress is eligible, however great her genius or however noble her character, and even women of rank lose their rights if they engage in trade. altogether, there’s nothing to be gained by presentation now that the middle classes go to court en masse, and if i were you i would very strongly urge your sister not to persist in her plan for you.”
they were talking so earnestly, the girl impressed by his tones, and he excited by his fears for the result of the rash act suggested, that neither heard[100] footsteps outside the door, and both were surprised when it opened, and lady jennings came in.
she was in her outdoor dress, having just come in, and was looking cross and worried. she greeted the girl kindly, but without losing her look of annoyance, and turned abruptly to gerard.
“ah, mr. buckland, how do you do?” she said, holding out her hand to him. “i hope you’ve come to tell me what has become of rachel. she made an appointment with me at my club at seven, and has never turned up. she is getting frightfully unpunctual and tiresome.”
lilian uttered a little cry of dismay, and gerard glanced quickly towards her to remind his hostess of the young girl’s presence.
lady jennings uttered an impatient sigh.
“can you tell me anything about her?” she asked imperiously. “i’m told you brought back her cloak.”
“yes, i met her and took her to have some tea. she had done a long afternoon’s shopping and was tired.”
“afternoon’s shopping! why, she had nothing to buy but a few veils and gloves, that i could have bought in half an hour,” cried lady jennings impatiently, thus confirming his own doubts as to rachel’s account of her occupation that afternoon. “and where did she go to when you left her?”
gerard was nonplussed for a moment. he could[101] not say that he had thought she was coming straight home, as that would certainly put rachel herself into an awkward position when she did make her appearance. so he said—
“i understood that she was coming here, but i think she may have missed her cloak and gone back for it to the shops she had been to.”
this was a good suggestion, and for the time lady jennings was partly appeased. she turned to lilian, heard almost without listening the girl’s account of the reason of her visit, and then suggested that they should all go down to dinner together.
but gerard excused himself, and took his leave.
he knew that there was trouble ahead; that this mysterious visit to the schoolgirl sister on the part of the white-haired gentleman who would not give his name, could only mean disaster for rachel.
he was torn with anxiety on her account, and, forgetting his disgust, his doubts, his fears, he set about contriving some way of helping her to escape from the difficulties which threatened her.
he excused his eagerness in this perhaps questionable work, by telling himself that he did not, after all, know anything against her, that all his suspicions were mere surmise. but the very fact that he feared arrest for her betrayed his real belief, and he himself felt ashamed that he was so eager on her behalf.
more and more startling, as he knew her better, had grown the difference between her character as[102] unfolded in her confidential talk, and the avocations of which he more than suspected her. she spoke and looked like a woman of the highest honor, the strongest sense of right and duty; and yet on every side he met with circumstances which seemed to point to her being engaged in crime!
one hope, and only one, remained to him; this was that she could be proved to be acting under an impulse so irresistible that what she did was no longer to be called crime at all, but irresponsibility. but though he had frequently heard the plea put forward on behalf of this or that woman afflicted in a similar manner, it was not surprising that, in spite of himself, he shrank from accepting, fully and straightforwardly, this explanation of the conduct of the woman whom, in the face of every doubt, he felt that he still loved.
wistfully, despairingly, he still clung to the hope that some other way out of the difficulty would be found; that the mystery about her would be cleared up satisfactorily, and that he would be able once more to look upon her with the adoring eyes of his first day’s acquaintance.
in the meantime, uneasy and perturbed, he conceived the idea of going in the direction of the police-station which was nearest to the stores, with the vague notion that he might learn something in that neighborhood of what had happened that afternoon.
so he went part of the distance by train, and[103] part on foot, and approached the police-station at a slow pace, looking about him observantly.
the sight that met his eyes as he drew near seemed to turn him to stone. rachel davison, closely veiled and with bent head, was being led into the building, with a policeman on one side of her and a man on the other, whom he recognized by his dress as the one he had seen going out of the tea-shop that evening, after giving her a sign that she was to come out.
she had been arrested then, after all!
