The Broken Thread

The song was finished. No ragtime melody followed – nothing. The exquisite completeness of the situation and the incident left Raife very doubtful as to whether he really was a woman-hater.

Chapter Eighteen

A Shadow on Raife’s Courtship

Under the pleasant conditions of Raife’s life at Shepheard’s Hotel, his dagger wound rapidly healed, and he was again able to resume an active life. Hilda Muirhead was trained to that freedom of action which belongs to the American bred. The excessive chaperonage which is customary in Europe does not belong to the United States. Mr Muirhead was an indulgent father, and he, feeling safe as to Raife’s credentials, was not in the mood to spoil the sport of young people. He remembered the days of his own courting on the beautiful countryside outside the high cliffs which overshadow the city of Cincinnati. Raife did not even now realise that he was courting. He was perfectly satisfied that he was merely having a good time and amusing himself. He and Hilda made excursions together. They visited bazaars and purchased all sorts of trifles, some of which were cheap and some were not, for an American girl has expensive tastes.

Heluan is about half an hour’s train ride from Cairo, and here, sitting in the shade outside the hotel, Raife and Hilda for the first time disclosed to themselves that their attraction for one another was not entirely platonic. The pretty little town pitched in the desert was singularly quiet. They had talked of many things and their conversation was rarely flippant, and they both possessed the faculty of enjoying silence when there was nothing of importance to say. In this remote little town, the silent spirit of the vast desert encouraged this mood.

After some minutes of such contemplation Hilda remarked to him “Raife, tell me what is a woman-hater?” She had accepted his invitation to call him “just Raife” right from the time when that invitation was extended.

Raife started, and his bronzed cheeks suffused with a scarlet tinge. Had she heard him talking to himself that night on the balcony? Was she the woman with the white shawl whom he caught a glimpse of on the balcony beneath? These thoughts crowded on him as he stammered an evasive reply. “I don’t know. Why do you ask?”

Hilda, with characteristic candour, said: “I overheard some man talking one night and he said, ‘I am a woman-hater.’”

Their conversations on many subjects had been singularly open and free, and Raife now felt that he must disclose some of his career, so with a responsive candour he said: “Hilda, it was I whom you must have heard that night. I felt that I hated a woman, and I had every reason to do so. I had fancied that I loved her, and she, with an abominable old uncle, was conspiring to ruin me. Yes. I was a woman-hater, and I came out here and started on my big-game expedition to get away from women.”

Hilda’s face wore a puzzled and pained expression, and for some time she made no reply. Then she spoke tremulously. “Raife, I am so sorry. To think I have been in your way all this time, and I thought that we had been such good friends.”

He stopped her abruptly. “Hilda! Hilda! don’t talk like that. The woman I hated is a wicked, harmful woman. You are the embodiment of all that is pure and beautiful in womanhood. Your sweet influence has softened my bitterness and restored my mind to its normal state!”

Then, archly, Hilda said: “Then I need not run away?”

Impetuously he exclaimed, striking the table with the palm of his hand: “Run away! If you do I shall follow you. Follow you? Yes, to the end of the world, for Hilda you have made me love you.”

“Hush! don’t talk like that, Raife. In America boys and girls, men and women, can be friends – just friends.”

In spite of these brave words, her breast was heaving and her pulses throbbed. “Let us go back now,” she added. “This has troubled me and I must think.”

Mr Muirhead was waiting for them when they arrived at Shepherd’s Hotel, and greeted them with his customary cordiality. As they ascended the stairway together he said: “Remington, I want you to dine with us to-night. Don’t refuse. I have arranged for a special American dish, which I am going to prepare myself.”

“Oh! What is that? If it’s as good as the cocktails you make, I can’t refuse,” said Raife, laughingly.

“It’s better, much better, my boy. It’s ‘lobster newburgh,’ and, if you don’t like it I shall count you an enemy of my country.”

“My dear Mr Muirhead, I could not be an enemy of the country that produced your genial self and your gracious daughter,” was Raife’s flattering retort.

The dinner that night was served with rather more ceremony than usual, and Mr Muirhead’s dish was a great success. Hilda did not participate so much as usual in the conversation, and her father rallied her on her quietude. At the close of dinner an attendant brought a telegram for Mr Muirhead. He opened it and having read it exclaimed, “Pshaw! that’s a nuisance. Remington, will you excuse me? This calls for attention. I must cable to the bank. I don’t suppose I shall be more than half an hour. Hilda will entertain you.”

When her father had gone, and they were alone, they sat, as was their wont, for some time in silence. Hilda poured out some coffee and handed it to Raife. In doing so she touched his hand. The momentary contact thrilled him and he broke the silence. “Hilda, perhaps I was wrong in speaking as I did this afternoon. Yet it is true. Let me tell you more of the buried incident, and of another tragedy in my life.”

Raife told of his father’s murder and those fateful dying words which warned his son to beware. He told some portion of his association with the mysterious Gilda Tempest. Then he added: “There must be a kink in my own character somewhere, which I have inherited from some of my filibustering ancestors. Or perhaps there is gipsy blood in me. Things seem to happen differently to me – than to other men. But everything appears to be in my favour. I am rich, and I am the head of a distinguished family. Yet I have a wandering spirit, and an uncontrollable desire for the unconventional. I am rudderless and cannot steer a straight course.”

He had looked straight at the carpet during his narration, and his tones had been agitated. He paused and, raising his head, met her eyes gazing at him with a pained, sympathetic look. When their eyes met neither flinched, nor did they speak for some seconds.

At length Hilda placed her hand on his arm saying, “Raife, I’m so sorry. How I wish I could help you.”

Raife sprang to his feet and, holding her hands apart, each in one of his, exclaimed passionately, “Hilda, dear, sweet Hilda! You can help me. I love you madly! Let me love you! Will you be my wife? Will you steer me to a better, a more useful life?”

She dropped her head and fell forward into his arms. He seized her and showered kisses, she yielding. When at length they spoke again she said, “Raife, I loved you from the moment you told us the story of your wound. I had not met such modesty and courage combined before. Raife, dear, I will strive to help you to a happy – yes, and, as you ask me, to a useful life.”

When Mr Muirhead returned, Hilda was at the piano, singing Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s tender song, “Love me sweet with all thou art.”

Raife did not wait for a chance meeting. On the following morning he wrote a note and sent it to Mr Muirhead:

“Dear Mr Muirhead, – I have a matter of vital importance that I would like to discuss with you. Can I see you at once? – Yours very truly, —

“Raife Remington.”

When the two men met and Raife had made a statement of his affairs and position, and had asked for Hilda’s hand, the old gentleman was visibly affected, and, taking Raife’s hand, said “Remington, I like you very much. I love my daughter with all the love of a father for his only daughter. She is more precious to me than my own life. I only had one other love. It was for her mother. She is dead. The man who breaks Hilda’s heart kills me and commits a double murder. Remington, I trust you – take her.”

Raife’s happiness was now complete, and, if his complex temperament would allow him, a great future was before him. In addition to title and wealth, he had inherited marked ability, allied to a wayward disposition. The future was fraught with possibilities for good or evil. In the battle of his life would the good or evil genius win?

On the night following his betrothal to Hilda, he was strolling among the bazaars seeking to purchase something worthy of his beloved. As is the custom among those picturesque, swarthy traders, who ensconce themselves in dark corners awaiting custom as a spider awaits a fly, Raife was haggling over the price of a trinket, when he became conscious of the presence of a figure watching him. Hastily dropping the trinket, he wheeled round. He was just in time to see a familiar figure slide rather than dart around a corner a few yards away. He was determined at all hazards to capture this uncanny person and demand of him his intentions. Raife chased him around the corner and searched every nook and cranny where he could possibly have hidden. He was too late, his quarry had escaped.

Raife muttered to himself: “Curse that infernal Apache fellow! He dogged me at Nice. He was ‘killed’ in a motor smash at Cuneo. He was ‘drowned’ in the Thames at Hammersmith, and now the brute haunts me in the Bazaar at Cairo. What does he want? Why does he shadow me?”

As he sauntered back to renew his haggling for the trinket, the white-bearded and turbaned old Arab was saying to himself, “He must be Ingleesi. All the Ingleesi are mad.” It had served a useful financial purpose for Raife, however; for, fearing he might dart off again, this time not to return, he sold the trinket to Raife at his own price, which was just one-tenth of what the old man had asked. That is the way of the Oriental trader. On his way back to the hotel with his purchases, his father’s dying words recurred to him, and he was more than ever puzzled by their mystic warning. These were the halcyon days of Raife’s short life, and they had been disturbed by this hateful phantom Apache. Raife Remington might be wayward and impressionable, but he was brave and fearless, so he chased the incident from his mind, as he had chased the elusive phantom in the Bazaar.

The sight of Hilda, and the warmth of her affectionate greeting, entirely dispelled this ill-omened cloud. He had quite recovered from the dagger wound now, and the weeks passed by with joyous rapidity. He and Hilda had made excursions together of many varieties. Into the desert, mounted on big white donkeys. To Memphis, the Pyramids of Sakkárah and the Serapeum, the tomb of Beni Hassan. By the luxuriously-appointed steamer, with its double decks and cool verandas, to Luxor, with its palatial modern hotels, contrasting strangely with the ancient ruins, temples, and monuments of a long-forgotten civilisation. Here was ideal ground for love-making among the whispering palm groves, with a turquoise sky above. Each scene so different from the Western ideal, yet so picturesque. The long lines or files of pelicans fishing on the sandy shore, with the flights of pink flamingoes hovering overhead. The line of native women gracefully swaying to and from the water’s edge with their pitchers balanced on their heads. These and a thousand strange sights and scenes, and, over all, the wondrous sky of the East, with its gorgeous sunrises and sunsets, and its weird depths of night. In such an Elysium did Hilda and Raife run the first course of their love, and it ran smoothly. Could such happiness last?

Hilda’s life until she met Raife had been happy, a life of sunshine untouched by shadow, save the loss of her mother. She had given her heart to this handsome young Englishman. She had no knowledge of Englishmen, except that gained by brief and flitting visits to London. The wise and practical side of her character prompted her to reflect often in the seclusion of her chamber. Were English husbands like American husbands? Would an ideal lover make an ideal husband? Raife had told her that he had loved another woman. Would that woman enter into his life again and destroy their happiness? Yes, there was misgiving in her mind at times. When Raife appeared and paid her gallant court, all doubts were dispelled, and she abandoned herself to his caresses.

In his spare moments Raife haunted the bazaars hunting for “that Apache fellow.” He was determined, if possible, to probe the mystery to its depths, no matter how foul the consequences. Once, on a trip up the Nile, among a group of lascars, he had fancied he saw a man who was not of them, and his mind at the time being slightly distrait, he conceived the idea it might be his enemy. He made straightway for the group, but by the time he got there the fellow was gone.

It had become a frequent practice for Raife to dine with Mr Muirhead lately, and at the dinner-table he announced one night: “Oh, say! Remington, I’ve had news from the bank and I’m afraid I must cut short my vacation. I mustn’t grumble; I think I’ve done rather well. But I’ve worked hard for it.”

“No doubt,” replied Raife reflectively, and with a deprecatory smile. “You’ve worked hard for your holiday. My life’s been all holiday and my work’s to come. You are going to help me, aren’t you, Hilda?”

Hilda laughed and retorted: “Surely, Raife, I’ll help, but you must promise to obey.”

Mr Muirhead joined in. “Ha! ha! I thought that was your part of the marriage contract, Hilda? Never mind, as long as you both obey perhaps it will be better all round. That brings me to what I was going to say. For the second time I have to apologise for being unfamiliar with English etiquette. I don’t know quite what is the method of procedure in the matter of English marriages, especially when the bridegroom is an exalted person.”

Raife said laughingly, “Pardon me, Mr Muirhead, but you mean I’m an ‘exulting’ person. I’ve captured the prize of the world, and I mean to preserve it. If you will accompany me to England, I will take you to Aldborough Park, and introduce you to my mother.”

Hilda intervened: “That’s just what I’m dreading. She’ll hate me, and I feel, I know it. Then I shan’t cry, I shall just stamp, and, for the first time in my life I’ll shake my fist and say ‘I told you so.’”

This assumed outburst produced the merriment that was intended. Raife proceeded. “You’ll like my mother, Hilda, and she’ll like you. If Hilda consents,” he added, looking first at one and then the other, “we’ll be married from our town house in Mayfair. We will have a ‘real’ proper marriage, ceremony, and it shall take place at St. George’s, Hanover Square.”

“Well! We’ll leave all that until we get to Aldborough Park,” intimated the prospective father-in-law. “I’m very anxious to meet your mother, and I trust we shall be friends. I believe you, my dear Raife, when you describe your mother’s amiable disposition and charms, but I expect, with that modesty of yours, you have under-estimated the grandeur of that Tudor mansion which is also yours. Ah well, then! It’s agreed we start for England as soon as we can.”

Chapter Nineteen

Gilda Receives a Staggering Blow

Gilda Tempest sat in her room in her uncle’s well-appointed flat in Bloomsbury. Her face showed traces of great mental strain. There were no lines in her face, but a drawn expression, which her enemies would have called haggard. She held a copy of the Morning Post, and was reading it leisurely until her attention was attracted by a paragraph as follows:

“The engagement has been announced of Sir Raife Remington, Bart., of Aldborough Park, Tunbridge Wells, to Miss Hilda Muirhead, daughter of Reginald Pomeroy Muirhead, Esq., President of the Fifth National Bank of Illinois, U.S.A. We understand that the marriage will take place shortly at St. George’s, Hanover Square.”

Gilda read this announcement three times. The third time she threw the paper on the floor and stamped upon it. Then, clutching her head with her hands, she sank on to a lounge and sobbed violently, exclaiming:

“What have I done to deserve this? Raife! Raife! You were the only one who could have saved me from this hideous nightmare, called life. I have lost you!” Her sobs choked further utterance, and she collapsed, huddled into a tangled mass of broken-hearted, crumpled womanhood.

Good, bad, or indifferent, Gilda Tempest had one affection which had penetrated her heart. Her love for Raife was sincere and with all the temptestuous fury of a jealous woman she now hated Hilda Muirhead.

She hissed the words between her sobs, “Daughter of Reginald Pomeroy Muirhead, President of the Fifth National Bank of Illinois! Why must she rob me of the only hope I had in life?” With a desperate effort she rose from the lounge and, straightening herself to her full height, staggered across the room to a full-length mirror, where she stood rigidly glaring at her own presentment. The face that had been drawn before she had read the announcement in the Morning Post, was now distorted, and her beautiful hair was dishevelled. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Passion was written on the face that now showed lines, lines of rage and rebellion. “I will not obey any more! My life has been a torture. I mutiny! I will win, or I will die!”

The door opened softly. Doctor Malsano stood there with folded arms, and in a still, soothing tone, he said, “Gilda, child. Come, tell me what is the meaning of this?”

Gilda turned on him with an expression fierce and defiant. For many seconds neither spoke. Then, urbanely, the doctor murmured soothingly: “Come, Gilda! Let me help you in your trouble. What is the reason of your distress?”

The girl stood erect, throbbing with intense emotion. Again there was a long silence. Then, bursting into sobs again, she pointed to the newspaper and said, “Read that. See! See what you have done. You have made me a robber, and now you have robbed me of the only desire I have on earth. I will rob you now, for I will kill myself.”

The doctor smiled and, crossing the room, picked up the paper. Then he approached the girl and said suavely: “Show me, Gilda. What shall I read?”

The girl seized the paper and pointed to the paragraph. He read it, and his face momentarily lost its ingratiating expression, and he muttered, “Bah! that fool Lesigne.” He recovered himself and led the girl to the lounge. Smoothing her hands and gazing earnestly into her eyes he talked. “Gilda! this is unfortunate, and that fool Lesigne is to blame. He is not worth his money. I shall dispose of him if he is not cleverer. He has bungled more than once. I sent him to Cairo. His report to me was incomplete. I did not know it was as bad as this. Gilda, I am your uncle, your guardian. We will alter this somehow. Child, go to sleep now. I will make my plans.”

The mysterious power of this man had its influence. He left the room. Gilda, still sobbing but pacified, did the doctor’s bidding and slept.

He went to his room and turned the key in the door. He flung himself into a chair and snatched a phial from a table at his side, drinking the full contents. Every indication of benevolence had left his face, and now it showed signs of torture. He cursed violently, murmuring: “That fool Lesigne! How shall I dispose of him? He bungled at Nice – at Cuneo – at Hammersmith – now at Cairo. I must kill him somehow, for he knows too much.” The drug now began to take effect and his features relaxed. Just before sleep overtook him he muttered:

“She must avenge her father’s death. The feud must be carried on. I will see to it to-morrow.” The doctor slept peacefully in the deep recess of the big arm-chair. The soft light of the solitary lamp reflected from a distance on his face. There was a smile on his face. A close observer would have noticed that it was cruel – sardonic, and that the breathing was stertorous.

When Raife, Mr Muirhead and Hilda arrived at Tunbridge Wells, they decided that they should stroll through the town before driving to Aldborough Park. It was morning-time. There was no hurry, and Hilda had never seen an old-world English town. They entered the motor-car which awaited them at the station and Raife ordered the chauffeur to drive to the “Blue Boar.” On the way he said: “If you were English, I would not dare to do anything so unconventional as this, but I feel I know you will like it, and I want you to see one of our old-world posting-houses. It is a fine type of an English inn.”

When they pulled into the stable-yard and had dismounted, Hilda was charmed with the quaintness of everything. Mr Twisegood had heard their arrival, and greeted them with all the pomp and ceremony at his command. With the inevitable “Lud a mussy!” which was a prelude to most of his speech, he said, “Why, Sir Raife, we’ve missed you this many a long day; I’m sure, sir, as ’ow we welcomes you ’ome, sir.”

Hilda, after the manner of American girls, walked “right in,” and Mr Twisegood had soon invited her to look over the house. Raife took Mr Muirhead into the parlour, saying: “Now, sir, you have mixed some delightful cocktails for me in Cairo; will you allow me to introduce to you an old English coaching drink in an old English coaching and posting-house? Mary!”

In response to his call a rosy-cheeked, buxom maid appeared.

“Bring two glasses of sloe gin and put them in two of those old ‘rummers.’ Bring me the bottle and I will pour them out,” were Raife’s instructions.

There was no time to contrast the merits of sloe gin with cocktails, for Hilda’s voice was heard from the top of the staircase. “Father, oh, do come! Here’s the sweetest old room I ever saw. It’s all white, and smells of lavender.”

They climbed the staircase and entered the room. Whilst they were admiring the whiteness and the quaintness of it, Raife’s mind was charged with the memory of the last occasion when he had been there, and of other curious occasions. He remembered his meeting there with Gilda Tempest, dressed as a hospital nurse; his mother outside the door and Gilda escaping by the secret staircase to the loose box in the stable below. Altogether he was sorry he had brought them to the “Blue Boar.” He crossed the room and looked through the latticed window into the stable-yard. Another car had arrived, and the chauffeur was just starting under the archway. The sight of that chauffeur was strangely reminiscent. His coat was open and betrayed a loose, flowing black necktie. Was it possible – could it be that infernal Apache fellow? What was he doing there? Was there no rest from this vigilant spectre who traced him everywhere?

Raife was maddened with the combination of incidents which had spoilt his return to Aldborough Park with his fiancée. Making an excuse to leave the room, he ran downstairs, and, hastily swallowing a full glass of the abandoned sloe gin, he went into the yard and asked the chauffeur: “Did you see the number of that car that was here just now?”

“No, sir,” came from the man.

He found the solitary ostler and asked him whether he knew the car or anything about it. The man had been feeding the horse in the loose box and had not seen the car.

Raife was a good-tempered man, but he was morose for a while. After the disconcerting incident of the stable-yard, and the somewhat mixed recollections caused by the visit to the white room, Raife decided that it was best to drive straight to Aldborough Park, and postpone the stroll through the town. As they drove, the apparition of Gilda Tempest in the garb of a hospital nurse, yielding to his caresses in the white room, haunted his mind. He had waived aside the Apache spectre. He could fight him, but he could not fight this apparition.

Hilda Muirhead sat opposite to him. Presently she said: “You look troubled, Raife. Has anything real serious happened?”

Raife forced a smile, and answered cheerily: “No, my dear! I’ve got a bit of a headache. One isn’t used to trains after the quietude of the desert.”

Then anent nothing, which was not her wont, Hilda added. “Oh, say! Raife. After you had left the queer white room I discovered a little door behind a curtain. It wasn’t a cupboard. I’m sure it led somewhere. It looked so cunning and mysterious. Do tell me where it leads to.”

This was the door of the narrow staircase leading to the loose box in the stable, through which Gilda Tempest had escaped when Lady Remington was about to enter the room. Raife winced at the question. The sweet young face of his fiancée opposite contrasted strangely with the face of Gilda, whom he had taught himself to hate. He replied: “Yes. There is a staircase there. I’ll show it to you some day, perhaps.” The last word qualified the promise, for he had no intention of showing it to her.