An Unpardonable Liar by Gilbert Parker
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Gilbert Parker >> An Unpardonable Liar
"Oh!" she said with a shudder. That--that is like him. How could you
know?"
"If that is the man," he said, "I saw him this morning. Is his name Mark
Telford?"
"Yes," she said, and sank into a chair. Presently she sprang to her feet,
caught up a brush and put it into his hand. "Paint in his face. Quick!
Paint in his face. Put all his wickedness there."
Hagar came close to her. "You hate him?" he said, and took the brush.
She did not answer by word, but shook her head wearily, as to some one far
off, expressing neither yes nor no.
"Why?" he said quietly--all their words had been in low tones, that they
might not be heard--"why, do you wear that ring, then?"
She looked at her hand with a bitter, pitiful smile. "I wear it in memory
of that girl who died very young"--she pointed to the picture--"and to
remind me not to care for anything too much lest it should prove to be a
lie." She nodded softly to the picture. "He and she are both dead; other
people wear their faces now."
"Poor woman!" he said in a whisper. Then he turned to the canvas and,
after a moment, filled in from memory the face of Mark Telford, she
watching him breathlessly, yet sitting very still.
After some minutes he drew back and looked at it.
She rose and said: "Yes, he was like that; only you have added what I saw
at another time. Will you hear the sequel now?"
He turned and motioned her to a seat, then sat down opposite to her.
She spoke sadly. "Why should I tell you? I do not know, except that it
seemed to me you would understand. Yet I hope men like you forget what is
best forgotten; and I feel--oh, do you really care to hear it?"
"I love to listen to you."
"That girl was fatherless, brotherless. There was no man with any right to
stand her friend at the time--to avenge her--though, God knows, she wished
for no revenge--except a distant cousin who had come from England to see
her mother and herself; to marry her if he could. She did not know his
motives; she believed that he really cared for her; she was young, and
she was sorry for his disappointment. When that thing happened"--her eyes
were on the picture, dry and hard--"he came forward, determined--so he
said--to make the deceiver pay for his deceit with his life. It seemed
brave, and what a man would do, what a southerner would do. He was an
Englishman, and so it looked still more brave in him. He went to the man's
rooms and offered him a chance for his life by a duel. He had brought
revolvers. He turned the key in the door and then laid the pistols he had
brought on the table. Without warning the other snatched up a small sword
and stabbed him with it. He managed to get one of the revolvers, fired,
and brought the man down. The man was not killed, but it was a long time
before he--Mark Telford there--was well again. When he got up, the girl"--
"Poor girl!"
"When he got up the girl was married to the cousin who had periled his
life for her. It was madness, but it was so."
Here she paused. The silence seemed oppressive. Hagar, divining her
thought, got up, went to the archway between the rooms and asked the young
girl to play something. It helped him, he said, when he was thinking how
to paint. He went back.
Mrs. Detlor continued. "But it was a terrible mistake. There was a
valuable property in England which the cousin knew she could get by
proving certain things. The marriage was to him a speculation. When she
waked to that--it was a dreadful awakening--she refused to move in the
matter. Is there anything more shameful than speculation in flesh and
blood--the heart and life of a child?--he was so much older than she! Life
to her was an hourly pain--you see she was wild with indignation and
shame, and alive with a kind of gratitude and reaction when she married
him. And her life? Maternity was to her an agony such as comes to few
women who suffer and live. If her child--her beautiful, noble child--had
lived, she would, perhaps, one day have claimed the property for its
sake. This child was her second love and it died--it died."
She drew from her breast a miniature. He reached out and, first
hesitating, she presently gave it into his hand. It was warm--it had lain
on her bosom. His hand, generally so steady, trembled. He raised the
miniature to his own lips. She reached out her hand, flushing greatly.
"Oh, please, you must not!" she said.
"Go on, tell me all," he urged, but still held the miniature in his hand
for a moment.
"There is little more to tell. He played a part. She came to know how
coarse and brutal he was, how utterly depraved.
"At last he went away to Africa--that was three years ago. Word came that
he was drowned off the coast of Madagascar, but there is nothing sure, and
the woman would not believe that he was dead unless she saw him so or some
one she could trust had seen him buried. Yet people call her a widow--who
wears no mourning" (she smiled bitterly) "nor can until"--
Hagar came to his feet. "You have trusted me," he said, "and I will honor
your confidence. To the world the story I tell on this canvas shall be my
own."
"I like to try and believe," she said, "that there are good men in the
world. But I have not done so these many years. Who would think that of
me?--I who sing merry songs, and have danced and am gay--how well we wear
the mask, some of us!"
"I am sure," he said, "that there are better days coming for you. On my
soul I think it."
"But he is here," she said. "What for? I cannot think there will be
anything but misery when he crosses my path."
"That duel," he rejoined, the instinct of fairness natural to an honorable
man roused in him; "did you ever hear more than one side of it?"
"No; yet sometimes I have thought there might be more than one side.
Fairfax Detlor was a coward; and whatever that other was,"--she nodded to
the picture--"he feared no man."
"A minute!" he said "Let me make a sketch of it."
He got to work immediately. After the first strong outlines she rose, came
to him and said, "You know as much of it as I do--I will not stay any
longer."
He caught her fingers in his and held them for an instant. "It is brutal
of me. I did not stop to think what all this might cost you."
"If you paint a notable picture and gain honor by it, that is enough," she
said. "It may make you famous." She smiled a little wistfully. "You are
very ambitious. You needed, you said to me once, a simple but powerful
subject which you could paint in with some one's life' blood--that sounds
more dreadful than it is * * * well? * * * You said you had been
successful, but had never had an inspiration"--
"I have one!"
She shook her head. "Never an inspiration which had possessed you as you
ought to be to move the public * * * well? * * * do you think I have
helped you at all? I wanted so much to do something for you."
To Hagar's mind there came the remembrance of the pure woman who, to help
an artist, as poverty stricken as he was talented, engaged on the "Capture
of Cassandra," came into his presence as Lady Godiva passed through the
streets of Coventry, as hushed and as solemn. A sob shook in his
throat--he was of few but strong emotions; he reached out, took her
wrists in his hands, and held them hard. "I have my inspiration now," he
said; "I know that I can paint my one great picture. I shall owe all to
you. And for my gratitude, it seems little to say that I love you--I love
you, Marion."
She drew her hands away, turned her head aside, her face both white and
red. "Oh, hush, you must not say it!" she said. "You forget; do not make
me fear you and hate myself. * * * I wanted to be your friend--from the
first, to help you, as I said; be, then, a friend to me, that I may
forgive myself."
"Forgive yourself--for what? I wish to God I had the right to proclaim my
love--if you would have it, dear--to all the world. * * * And I will know
the truth, for I will find your husband, or his grave."
She looked up at him gravely, a great confidence in her eyes. "I wish you
knew how much in earnest I am--in wishing to help you. Believe me, that is
the first thought. For the rest I am--shall I say it?--the derelict of a
life; and I can only drift. You are young, as young almost as I in years,
much younger every other way, for I began with tragedy too soon."
At that moment there came a loud knock at the outer door, then a ring,
followed by a cheerful voice calling through the window--"I say, Hagar,
are you there? Shall I come in or wait on the mat till the slavey arrives.
* * * Oh, here she is--Salaam! Talofa! Aloha!--which is heathen for How
do you do, God bless you, and All hail!"
These remarks were made in the passage from the door through the hallway
into the room. As Baron entered, Hagar and Mrs. Detlor were just coming
from the studio. Both had ruled their features into stillness.
Baron stopped short, open mouthed, confused, when he saw Mrs. Detlor.
Hagar, for an instant, attributed this to a reason not in Baron's mind,
and was immediately angry. For the man to show embarrassment was an ill
compliment to Mrs. Detlor. However, he carried off the situation, and
welcomed the Afrikander genially, determining to have the matter out with
him in some sarcastic moment later. Baron's hesitation, however,
continued. He stammered, and was evidently trying to account for his call
by giving some other reason than the real one, which was undoubtedly held
back because of Mrs. Detlor's presence. Presently he brightened up and
said, with an attempt to be convincing, "You know that excursion this
afternoon, Hagar? Well, don't you think we might ask the chap we met this
morning--first rate fellow--no pleb--picturesque for the box seat--go down
with the ladies--all like him--eh?"
"I don't see how we can," replied Hagar coolly. Mrs. Detlor turned to the
mantelpiece. "We are full up; every seat is occupied--unless I give up my
seat to him."
Mrs. Detlor half turned toward them again, listening acutely. She caught
Hagar's eyes in the mirror and saw, to her relief, that he had no
intention of giving up his seat to Mark Telford. She knew that she must
meet this man whom she had not seen for twelve years. She felt that he
would seek her, though why she could not tell; but this day she wanted to
forget her past, all things but one, though she might have to put it away
from her ever after. Women have been known to live a lifetime on the joy
of one day. Her eyes fell again on the mantelpiece, on Hagar's unopened
letters. At first her eyes wandered over the writing on the uppermost
envelope mechanically, then a painful recognition came into them. She had
seen that writing before, that slow sliding scrawl unlike any other,
never to be mistaken. It turned her sick. Her fingers ran up to the
envelope, then drew back. She felt for an instant that she must take it
and open it as she stood there. What had the writer of that letter to do
with George Hagar? She glanced at the postmark. It was South Hampstead.
She knew that he lived in South Hampstead. The voices behind her grew
indistinct; she forgot where she was. She did not know how long she stood
there so, nor that Baron, feeling, without reason, the necessity for
making conversation, had suddenly turned the talk upon a collision, just
reported, between two vessels in the Channel. He had forgotten their names
and where they hailed from--he had only heard of it, hadn't read it; but
there was great loss of life. She raised her eyes from the letter to the
mirror and caught sight of her own face. It was deadly pale. It suddenly
began to waver before her and to grow black. She felt herself swaying, and
reached out to save herself. One hand caught the side of the mirror. It
was lightly hung. It loosened from the wall, and came away upon her as she
wavered. Hagar had seen the action. He sprang forward, caught her, and
pushed the mirror back. Her head dropped on his arm.
The young girl ran forward with some water as Hagar placed Mrs. Detlor on
the sofa. It was only a sudden faintness. The water revived her. Baron
stood dumbfounded, a picture of helpless anxiety.
"I oughtn't to have driveled about that accident," he said. "I always was
a fool."
Mrs. Detlor sat up, pale, but smiling in a wan fashion. "I am all right
now," she said. "It was silly of me--let us go, dear," she added to the
young girl; "I shall be better for the open air--I have had a headache all
morning. * * * No, please, don't accuse yourself, Mr. Baron, you are not
at all to blame."
"I wish that was all the bad news I have," said Baron to himself as Hagar
showed Mrs. Detlor to a landau. Mrs. Detlor asked to be driven to her
hotel.
"I shall see you this afternoon at the excursion if you are well enough
to go," Hagar said to her.
"Perhaps," she said with a strange smile. Then, as she drove away, "You
have not read your letters this morning." He looked after her for a
moment, puzzled by what she said and by the expression on her face.
He went back to the house abstractedly. Baron was sitting in a chair,
smoking hard. Neither men spoke at first. Hagar went over to the mantel
and adjusted the mirror, thinking the while of Mrs. Detlor's last words.
"You haven't read your letters this morning," he repeated to himself. He
glanced down and saw the letter which had so startled Mrs. Detlor.
"From Mrs. Gladney!" he said to himself. He glanced at the other letters.
They were obviously business letters. He was certain Mrs. Detlor had not
touched them and had, therefore, only seen this one which lay on top.
"Could she have meant anything to do with this?" He tapped it upward with
his thumb. "But why, in the name of heaven, should this affect her? What
had she to do with Mrs. Gladney, or Mrs. Gladney with her?"
With this inquiry showing in his eyes he turned round and looked at Baron
meditatively but unconsciously. Baron, understanding the look, said, "Oh,
don't mind me. Read your letters. My business'll keep."
Hagar nodded, was about to open the letter, but paused, went over to the
archway and drew the curtains. Then he opened the letter. The body of it
ran:
DEAR MR. HAGAR--I have just learned on my return from the Continent
with the Branscombes that you are at Herridon. My daughter Mildred,
whom you have never seen--and that is strange, we having known each
other so long--is staying at the View House there with the Margraves,
whom, also, I think, you do not know. I am going down to-morrow, and
will introduce you all to each other. May I ask you to call on me
there? Once or twice you have done me a great service, and I may prove
my gratitude by asking you to do another. Will this frighten you out
of Herridon before I come? I hope not, indeed. Always gratefully
yours,
IDA GLADNEY.
He thoughtfully folded the letter up, and put it in his pocket. Then he
said to Baron, "What did you say was the name of the pretty girl at the
View House?"
"Mildred, Mildred Margrave--lovely, 'cometh up as a flower,' and all that.
You'll see her to-night."
Hagar looked at him debatingly, then said, "You are in love with her,
Baron. Isn't it--forgive me--isn't it a pretty mad handicap?"
Baron ran his hand over his face in an embarrassed fashion, then got up,
laughed nervously, but with a brave effort, and replied: "Handicap, my
son, handicap? Of course, it's all handicap. But what difference does that
make when it strikes you? You can't help it, can you? It's like loading
yourself with gold, crossing an ugly river, but you do it. Yes, you do it
just the same."
He spoke with an affected cheerfulness, and dropped a hand on Hagar's
shoulder. It was now Hagar's turn. He drew down the hand and wrung it as
Baron had wrung his in the morning. "You're a brick, Baron," he said.
"I tell you what, Hagar. I'd like to talk the thing over once with Mrs.
Detlor. She's a wise woman, I believe, if ever there was one; sound as the
angels, or I'm a Zulu. I fancy she'd give a fellow good advice, eh?--a
woman like her, eh?"
To hear Mrs. Detlor praised was as wine and milk to Hagar. He was about to
speak, but Baron, whose foible was hurriedly changing from one subject to
another, pulled a letter out of his pocket and said: "But maybe this is of
more importance to Mrs. Detlor than my foolishness. I won't ask you to
read it. I'll tell you what's in it. But, first, it's supposed, isn't it,
that her husband was drowned?"
"Yes, off the coast of Madagascar. But it was never known beyond doubt.
The vessel was wrecked and it was said all hands but two sailors were
lost."
"Exactly. But my old friend Meneely writes me from Zanzibar telling me of
a man who got into trouble with Arabs in the interior--there was a woman
in it--and was shot but not killed. Meneely brought him to the coast, and
put him into a hospital, and said he was going to ship him to England
right away, though he thinks he can't live. Meneely further remarks that
the man is a bounder. And his name is Fairfax Detlor. Was that her
husband's name?"
Hagar had had a blow. Everything seemed to come at once--happiness and
defeat all in a moment. There was grim irony in it. "Yes, that was the
name," he said. "Will you leave the telling to me?"
"That's what I came for. You'll do it as it ought to be done; I couldn't."
"All right, Baron."
Hagar leaned against the mantel, outwardly unmoved, save for a numb kind
of expression. Baron came awkwardly to him and spoke with a stumbling kind
of friendliness. "Hagar, I wish the Arabs had got him, so help me!"
"For God's sake think of what you are saying."
"Of course it doesn't sound right to you, and it wouldn't sound right
from you; but I'm a rowdy colonial and I'm damned if I take it back!--and
I like you, Hagar!" and, turning, he hurried out of the house.
Mrs. Detlor had not staid at the hotel long; but, as soon as she had
recovered, went out for a walk. She made her way to the moor. She wandered
about for a half hour or so and at last came to a quiet place where she
had been accustomed to sit. As she neared it she saw pieces of an envelope
lying on the ground. Something in the writing caught her eye. She stopped,
picked up the pieces and put them together. "Oh," she said with misery in
her voice, "What does it all mean? Letters everywhere, like the writing on
the wall!"
She recognized the writing as that of Mark Telford. His initials were in
the corner. The envelope was addressed to John Earl Gladney at Trinity
hospital, New York. She saw a strange tangle of events. John Earl Gladney
was the name of the man who had married an actress called Ida Folger, and
Ida Folger was the mother of Mark Telford's child! She had seen the mother
in London; she had also seen the child with the Margraves, who did not
know her origin, but who had taken her once when her mother was ill and
had afterward educated her with their own daughter. What had Ida Folger to
do with George Hagar, the man who (it was a joy and yet an agony to her)
was more to her than she dared to think? Was this woman for the second
time to play a part--and what kind of part--in her life? What was Mark
Telford to John Gladney? The thing was not pleasant to consider. The lines
were crossing and recrossing. Trouble must occur somewhere. She sat down
quiet and cold. No one could have guessed her mind. She was disciplining
herself for shocks. She fought back everything but her courage. She had
always had that, but it was easier to exercise it when she lived her life
alone--with an empty heart. Now something had come into her life--but she
dared not think of it!
And the people of the hotel at her table, a half hour later, remarked how
cheerful and amiable Mrs. Detlor was. But George Hagar saw that through
the pretty masquerade there played a curious restlessness.
That afternoon they went on the excursion to Rivers abbey--Mrs. Detlor,
Hagar, Baron, Richmond and many others. They were to return by moonlight.
Baron did not tell them that a coach from the View hotel had also gone
there earlier, and that Mark Telford and Mildred Margrave with her friends
were with it. There was no particular reason why he should.
Mark Telford had gone because he hoped to see Mrs. Detlor without (if he
should think it best) being seen by her. Mildred Margrave sat in the seat
behind him--he was on the box seat--and so far gained the confidence of
the driver as to induce him to resign the reins into his hands. There was
nothing in the way of horses unfamiliar to Telford. As a child he had
ridden like a circus rider and with the fearlessness of an Arab; and his
skill had increased with years. This six in hand was, as he said, "nuts to
Jacko." Mildred was delighted. From the first moment she had seen this man
she had been attracted to him, but in a fashion as to gray headed Mr.
Margrave, who sang her praises to everybody--not infrequently to the wide
open ears of Baron. At last she hinted very faintly to the military
officer who sat on the box seat that she envied him, and he gave her his
place. Mark Telford would hardly have driven so coolly that afternoon if
he had known that his own child was beside him. He told her, however,
amusing stories as they went along. Once or twice he turned to look at
her. Something familiar in her laugh caught his attention. He could not
trace it. He could not tell that it was like a faint echo of his own.
When they reached the park where the old abbey was, Telford detached
himself from the rest of the party and wandered alone through the paths
with their many beautiful surprises of water and wood, pretty grottoes,
rustic bridges and incomparable turf. He followed the windings of a
stream, till, suddenly, he came out into a straight open valley, at the
end of which were the massive ruins of the old abbey, with its stern
Norman tower. He came on slowly thinking how strange it was that he, who
had spent years in the remotest corners of the world, having for his
companions men adventurous as himself, and barbarous tribes, should be
here. His life, since the day he left his home in the south, had been
sometimes as useless as creditable. However, he was not of such stuff as
to spend an hour in useless remorse. He had made his bed, and he had lain
on it without grumbling, but he was a man who counted his life
backward--he had no hope for the future. The thought of what he might have
been came on him here in spite of himself, associated with the woman--to
him always the girl--whose happiness he had wrecked. For the other woman,
the mother of his child, was nothing to him at the time of the discovery.
She had accepted the position and was going away forever, even as she did
go after all was over.
He expected to see the girl he had loved and wronged this day. He had
anticipated it with a kind of fierceness, for, if he had wronged her, he
felt that he too had been wronged, though he could never, and would never,
justify himself. He came down from the pathway and wandered through the
long silent cloisters.
There were no visitors about; it was past the usual hour. He came into the
old refectory, and the kitchen with its immense chimney, passed in and out
of the little chapels, exploring almost mechanically, yet remembering what
he saw, and everything was mingled almost grotesquely with three scenes
in his life--two of which we know; the other, when his aged father turned
from him dying and would not speak to him. The ancient peace of this place
mocked these other scenes and places. He came into the long, unroofed
aisle, with its battered sides and floor of soft turf, broken only by some
memorial brasses over graves. He looked up and saw upon the walls the
carved figures of little grinning demons between complacent angels. The
association of these with his own thoughts stirred him to laughter--a low,
cold laugh, which shone on his white teeth.
Outside a few people were coming toward the abbey from both parties of
excursionists. Hagar and Mrs. Detlor were walking by themselves. Mrs.
Detlor was speaking almost breathlessly. "Yes, I recognized the writing.
She is nothing, then, to you, nor has ever been?"
"Nothing, on my honor. I did her a service once. She asks me to do
another, of which I am as yet ignorant. That is all. Here is her letter."
CHAPTER III.
NO OTHER WAY.
George Hagar was the first to move. He turned and looked at Mrs. Detlor.
His mind was full of the strangeness of the situation--this man and woman
meeting under such circumstances after twelve years, in which no lines of
their lives had ever crossed. But he saw, almost unconsciously, that she
had dropped his rose. He stooped, picked it up and gave it to her. With a
singular coolness--for, though pale, she showed no excitement--she quietly
arranged the flower at her throat, still looking at the figure on the
platform. A close observer would occasionally have found something
cynical--even sinister--in Mark Telford's clear cut, smoothly chiseled
face, but at the moment when he wheeled slowly and faced these two there
was in it nothing but what was strong, refined and even noble. His eyes,
dark and full, were set deep under well hung brows, and a duskiness in the
flesh round them gave them softness as well as power. Withal there was a
melancholy as striking as it was unusual in him.