Chapter XXI An Affair of Family
There was a momentary pause of embarrassment. Lord Beachcombe’s last visit to Lady Drumloch’s house had been under circumstances that made the present one quite unforeseen. Also he had not met Sir Geoffrey since their hostile encounter in Hyde Park, therefore a meeting in the presence of the woman who had been so disturbing an element in both their lives, was mutually disconcerting.
Sir Geoffrey was the first to recover himself, greeting the new arrival with exaggerated politeness and inquiring after his health with a solicitude that Lord Beachcombe did not attempt to reciprocate. The wound he had received from Sir Geoffrey’s sword was slight enough to be patched up with a few strips of court-plaster; the wound to his vanity still gaped. He looked on with a sardonic smile while Sir Geoffrey, pressing several impassioned kisses upon Prue’s reluctant hand, bade her “a brief adieu,” and slowly backed himself to the door.
“I trust I am not driving Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert away,” said Beachcombe stiffly.
“By no means,” cried Prue with alacrity. “Sir Geoffrey was taking his leave when you entered. Sir Geoffrey, farewell. No doubt we shall meet at Lady Rialton’s, or elsewhere, later in the day; our world is so small, we can not get away from one another even for an hour; don’t you find it sometimes grows monotonous, Lord Beachcombe?”
As the door closed upon the parting guest, Beachcombe approached her with an air of distant respect, bowing profoundly, with his hand upon his breast.
“Pardon this intrusion, Lady Prudence, and permit me to lay my homage at your feet,” he said.
Prue curtsied again. “Pray, my Lord, do not wound me by apologizing for a friendly visit,” she returned, with a sweet smile. “Be seated, and let me offer you a cup of chocolate.”
The little torment had jumped quickly to the conclusion that some motive of strong personal interest had brought her old lover to the house he had never entered since, scarcely a year ago, their troth had been broken with bitter words and thinly veiled insults on both sides. Her quick intuition warned her that his visit might, very possibly, add another snarl to the tangle in which she felt herself becoming hopelessly enmeshed. So she exerted all her tact and skill to keep him on tenter-hooks, and give herself time to gather her forces, while she discussed frothy scandals and airy nothings, pretending not to notice his lack of response and ill-repressed impatience, until suddenly she turned full upon him her clear and dazzling glance and changed her tactics without a moment’s warning.
“But I had forgotten,” she said, “how little you care about scandal and poetry, and I can scarcely flatter myself that my frivolous conversation can be very entertaining to you. My tongue runs away with me sadly, doesn’t it? I dare say you remember of old what a chatterbox I am. Well,” with a sudden change of tone, “now tell me what really brought you to see me?”
Her abrupt question had the intended effect of confusing her visitor and throwing him off his guard, while her ingenuous smile disarmed him.
“Your conversation is delightful at all times, Lady Prudence,” he began hurriedly; “so much information—such—ah—intimate knowledge of society—and literature is as rare as it is agreeable. Nothing should I enjoy so much, if I did not have my head so full of a subject which—a—private family affair—which—which—”
He trailed off helplessly, and she let him flounder until his embarrassment ceased to amuse her. Then she said quietly:
“How can I be of any assistance to you, Lord Beachcombe, in a private family affair? That seems quite out of my province.”
“Alas! I am but too well aware that I have forfeited all right to ask favors of you, Viscountess,” he pleaded, “but I know your generous nature so well that I am emboldened to cast myself upon your mercy.”
“You flatter me!” she cried, with her dazzling smile. “What can my generosity and mercy do for Lord Beachcombe?”
“I scarcely know. ’Tis but an idea; a mere catching at a straw. Still, I have been credibly informed that you were decoyed last night to the den of Robin Freemantle, the highway-robber, whence, with unparalleled courage, you rescued the queen’s necklace—”
“Surely,” she interrupted, with some impatience, “Her Majesty’s necklace can not be your private family affair?”
He laughed explosively. “Is nothing sacred to you, Lady Prudence? I only wished to felicitate you upon your most remarkable adventure, and its brilliant result, and to implore you to tell me if you found any papers or documents in the—the place where the necklace was hidden.”
“Was the necklace hidden anywhere?” she inquired, in a tone of surprise. “I did not find it; it was given to me—”
“By Robin Freemantle—is it not so?” he eagerly interrupted.
“Robin Freemantle! What could make you imagine that he gave it to me?” she cried, in an accent of intense astonishment.
“My dear Viscountess, surely you are aware that this rascal, disguised in my mask and domino, followed you the whole evening of the masquerade-ball—”
“Is it possible?” cried Prue, with the prettiest imaginable air of incredulity. “La! what strange things happen at a masquerade!”
“Possible? ’Tis a fact,” replied Beachcombe; “and ’tis easy to understand that having fallen madly in love with you—”
“The outrageous monster!” shrieked Prue.
“Even monsters are human, dear Viscountess, and who can wonder that the beauty that has wrought such havoc in my—in our—-in all beholders, should have smitten this fellow, who is reported to have shadowed your footsteps all Monday night, disguised in a red domino and mask. That mask and domino were mine, and he robbed me of them in the same house by the river-side where you were taken last night. A den of thieves, Viscountess, from which your escape unharmed was hardly less than a miracle.”
“My escape? Nobody attempted to detain me. In fact I saw no one, and the only danger I escaped was of being taken prisoner by the soldiers who came to search for—rebels, I understood them to say.”
“Rebels! Ha! ha! ’tis true, this jailbird has the audacity to mix himself up with Jacobite plots and claim that he only steals purses on the chance of their containing papers of value to the Pretender’s cause! Speaking of papers brings me back to my own affairs. When this villain stole my domino, he also robbed me of a packet of papers. He returned the domino—after putting it to the use you wot of—but the papers, of great value, he refused to give up. Is it possible, dear Lady Prudence, that while you were in this robber’s den, you saw such a packet?”
Prue shook her head. “The soldiers took everything they could find in the place,” she said reflectively. “If I were you, I would make inquiries of them.”
“I have done so,” he said; “but they brought away no such packet.”
“Perhaps it was opened and they have the contents.”
“I have reason to think that unlikely,” replied Beachcombe, biting his lips and scowling.
“Or destroyed?” she suggested.
“No, indeed; if I could hope for that—!”
“What, hope for the destruction of valuable private papers? It is not to you, then, that they are valuable?” she cried shrewdly.
He started and eyed her suspiciously for a moment. “To no one else,” he replied emphatically; “but you can surely understand, Lady Prudence, that some family documents would be better destroyed than in the hands of—an enemy.”
“Was Rob—Captain Freemantle—your enemy?” she asked ingenuously. “It seems to me that some one—who can it have been?—said he was your relative. He calls himself De Cliffe, doesn’t he?”
Lord Beachcombe looked at her again with growing mistrust. “Did he have the impudence to call himself De Cliffe, when he addressed you at the ball, Viscountess?” he demanded.
“La! no; and if he had—people can say anything behind a mask, without fear of being believed,” she retorted, laughing. “I recollect now that ’twas Barbara Sweeting, when she told us of the loss of the queen’s necklace. She told us how you had obtained his pardon when condemned to be hanged, and afterward set the soldiers upon him—”
Beachcombe bent his sullen glance upon the carpet, tracing out its faded pattern with his Malacca cane. “Every family has its painful secrets, Lady Prudence,” he began, “and this packet contains one of the De Cliffe family secrets—a painful one, but not important—oh—not at all important. Had the soldiers found it, it would have been an easy matter to recover it—a few guineas at most—but if it is still in his possession—”
“What like was it?” Prue inquired listlessly, for she was growing weary of a subject that had so little of personal interest for her.
“The packet? Oh! a small thing, about the size and appearance of a letter—a billet-doux”—he forced a laugh—“sealed and addressed to Mistress—Mistress—the name has escaped me for the moment, but ’twas in care of the Hostess of the Fox and Grapes.”
A sudden glow of color swept across Prue’s face. In her joy at finding that the source of many a jealous pang was not Robin’s after all, it is to be feared that she quite overlooked the gravity of Lord Beachcombe’s accusation. What did it matter to her, whose letter it was—if it were not Robin’s—written to another woman? She had an impulse to return it, and her hand involuntarily rose to the laces about her neck, where she had kept it concealed except when she thrust it under her pillow, where it lay all night pervading her dreams.
She checked herself quickly, though not quite unobserved. Beachcombe, of course, did not suspect anything so preposterous as that Prue could be interested in the highwayman, beyond the fact that he had made her the heroine of a successful escapade, but her change of countenance, slight as it was, and her gesture, though instantly diverted to a readjustment of the rose at her breast, did not escape his keen eye.
“You recognize the superscription?” he suggested insinuatingly. “You saw the packet in his hands, perhaps? If—so—”
“If so,” she interrupted quickly, “you have little chance of recovering it, since ’tis said he was drowned last night.”
“If I could only believe that true!” he exclaimed fiercely. “But no! he escaped; there can be no doubt of that; in fact I have reason to know—”
“To know that he is safe!” she cried, in a thrilling accent of unmistakable joy. “Oh! Heaven—” then suddenly she remembered that this man was his enemy and desired his death. She stopped short and then went on hurriedly, conscious that she had betrayed herself—“Is it possible that this—this miscreant is still alive and at liberty?”
He looked at her dubiously, but although a growing suspicion that she was acting a part disturbed him, it did not yet enlighten him with any ray of the truth.
“I am as sure of it, as I am that he pursued you at the ball, under cover of my domino—and, for his punishment, fell in love with you,” he said boldly.
“Fell in love with me!” cried Prue disdainfully. “Again, sir? How dare you suggest such presumption!”
“The fellow certainly does not lack presumption,” replied Beachcombe, “and as to his having fallen in love with you, did he not prove his infatuation by surrendering his priceless booty for the sake of seeing you once more, even at the peril of his life? Believe me, dear Viscountess, the man who will risk so much, will risk still more; you have not seen the last of Captain Freemantle.”
“You think not?” cried Prue. “What do you suppose he will do next?”
“Probably he will repeat the tactics that he has already pursued with such enviable success,” said the earl, with a scarcely perceptible sneer, “and send one of his followers to your ladyship to beseech another interview; or perhaps he will come to you himself.”
“Heaven forbid!” cried Prue. “I trust he will not attempt anything so—so audacious.”
“On the contrary, my dear lady,” replied Beachcombe blandly, “if you will be guided by me, I think we can turn this fellow’s impudence to our mutual advantage. I most sincerely trust that he will come or send to you, because now he has been routed out of his house by the river-side, we no longer know where he is in hiding. He is not like to return there, but gentlemen of his profession have many haunts, and having induced your ladyship to visit one of them, he will, no doubt, try another.”
“You seem to forget that there is only one queen’s necklace,” she cried incautiously. Then, conscious of her indiscretion, she added with too eager precipitation, “Besides, Robin Freemantle had nothing to do with my visit to that house; I was guided there—”
“By a messenger sent by him, as I understand,” interrupted Beachcombe. “’Tis no secret that your ladyship was induced by means of a letter—”
“Secret! I should think not!” she cried petulantly, tossing the letter upon the table beside him. “All the town seems talking about it, and all the world may read it, for aught I care! I defy the most ingenious scandal-monger to make anything out of it.”
Lord Beachcombe took it up, and slowly unfolding it, read it carefully, and then looked up with a smile of triumph, that struck a sudden chill to Prue’s heart. From his breast he drew a letter addressed to “The Right Honorable Lord Beachcombe. At Rodney House, Saint James’ Park, London,” and placing the two papers side by side, contemplated them with vindictive satisfaction.
“There can be no further doubt,” he said. “See for yourself, Viscountess, the writing is identical.”
She looked, and had some difficulty in maintaining her indifference. Furious at herself for having given Beachcombe an opportunity to confirm his suspicions, she had just enough self-command left to see that it was a case of qui s’excuse s’accuse, and that any attempt at explanation would only plunge her into an inextricable tangle of falsehood. So she merely remarked, in as casual a tone as she could assume, “La me! how curious!” and stretched out her hand for her own document.
Beachcombe withheld it. “Pray permit me to retain this, Lady Prudence,” he entreated. “It is an important piece of evidence.”
“More important to me than to your lordship!” she retorted sharply. “Be good enough to return it to me!” and as he still hesitated, she snatched it from his grasp, exclaiming with an angry laugh, “Evidently the liking for other people’s ‘private papers’ runs in the blood of the De Cliffes.”
With a savage scowl, Lord Beachcombe half-rose from his seat. But Prue had already recovered from her spurt of passion, and with the prettiest deprecating gesture and the most alluring smile she could call up at a moment’s notice, she stemmed the tide of his wrath.
“Oh! forgive me, Lord Beachcombe,” she said sweetly. “I am not used to be so cross-questioned and my temper, as you know well, is none of the most patient. Do not let us quarrel over such a trifle as a fancied resemblance between two scraps of writing.”
“’Tis no fancied resemblance, Lady Prudence, said Beachcombe doggedly.
“Then if it is a real one, would it not be better for us to see how we can turn it to our mutual advantage, than to wrangle over it?” she suggested. Beachcombe’s brow cleared at her conciliatory tone, and his half-awakened suspicions melted under the influence of a sweet and beaming smile.
“There is nothing easier than to turn it to our advantage and his destruction, dear Viscountess, if you will be guided by me,” he said eagerly. “If Captain Freemantle should make another attempt to see you—as I feel convinced he will—surely woman’s wit can manage to bring us face to face, or at least to let me know where he is to be found. I am convinced that I could show him excellent reasons for giving up those papers, which would prove dangerously compromising—to him—if discovered in his possession. You could secure yourself from further molestation and promote the ends of justice in this way, and place me under a lifelong obligation.”
“And how about Captain Freemantle?” suggested Prue. “Would his obligation to me also be lifelong?”
“Why—no doubt,” he replied, with a sinister smile.
“Well, Lord Beachcombe,” said Prue, with a charming smile, “I will give your message to this Knight of the Road—when I see him—and I doubt not he will wait upon your lordship to receive the benefits you are so anxious to bestow upon him. Oh! you need not thank me” (he had no intention of doing so); “I am always glad to oblige an old friend. And pray do not hurry away; I hear the voice of my gossip, Barbara Sweeting, and presently the rest of London will flock round me to repeat what every one is saying about me, and find out something new to tell in their turn. You, who have given me so much information, can help me to entertain them.”