Jolly Sally Pendleton: or, the Wife Who Was Not a Wife

Victor Lamont's fickle fancy for his companion had been a short-lived one. Like all male flirts, he soon tired of his conquests, and longed for new fields and new faces. He was considering this matter, when he received a letter that set him thinking. It was from his boon companion, Egremont, who was doing Long Branch.

There were four pages, written in cipher, which only Lamont could understand. The last one read as follows:

"Report has it that you are head and ears in love with a married beauty, and are carrying on a very open flirtation. Egad! my boy, that will never do. You have no time to waste in sentiment over other men's wives. You went to Newport with the avowed intention of capturing an heiress – some widow's daughter.

"You know how we stand as regards money. Money we must get somehow, some way —any way. We must realize five thousand dollars to save Hal, between now and this day week. It remains for you to think of some way to obtain it. If Hal peached on us, we would go up along with him, so, you see, the money must be raised somehow.

"My fall on the day I landed here, laying me up with a sprained ankle, was an unfortunate affair, for it prevented me from making the harvest we counted on. So everything falls on your shoulders.

"You must have learned by this time who is who, and where they keep their jewels and pocket-books. If I am able to get about, I will run over to see you on Saturday next. Two or three of our friends will accompany me.

"Yours in haste,"Egremont."

The day appointed saw three men alight from the early morning train. They had occupied different cars, and swung off onto the platform from different places. But the old policeman, who had done duty at the station of the famous watering-place for nearly two decades, noted them at once with his keen, experienced eye.

"A trio of crooks," he muttered, looking after them. "I can tell it from their shifting glances and hitching gait, as though they never could break from the habit of the lock-step; I will keep my eye on them."

Although the three men went to different hotels, they had been scarcely an hour in Newport before they all assembled in the room of the man who had written to Lamont, signing himself Egremont.

"It is deuced strange Victor doesn't come," he said, impatiently. "He must have received both my letter and telegram."

At that moment there was a step outside, the door opened, and Victor Lamont, the subject of their conversation, strode into the apartment.

"It was a mighty risky step, pals, for you to come to Newport, and, above all, to expect me to keep this appointment with you to-day!" he exclaimed, excitedly. "Didn't you know that?"

And with that he pulled the door to after him with a bang.

It was nearly two hours ere Victor Lamont, with his hat pulled down over his eyes, quitted the hostelry and his companions, and then he went by a side entrance, first glancing quickly up and down the street to note if there was any one about who would be apt to recognize him.

The coast being apparently clear, he stepped out into the street, walked rapidly away, and turned the nearest corner.

"If it could be done!" he muttered, under his breath. "The chance is a desperate one, but, as Egremont says, we must raise money somehow. Well, it's a pretty daring scheme; but I am in for it, if the pretty little beauty can be induced to stroll on the beach to-night."

Night had come, and to Victor Lamont's great delight, he received a pretty, cream-tinted, sweet-scented, monogrammed note from Sally Gardiner, saying that she would be pleased to accept his escort that evening, and would meet him in the reception-room an hour later.

Lamont's eyes sparkled with joy as he saw her, for she was resplendent in a dream of white lace, and wore all her magnificent diamonds.

He was obliged to promenade and dance with her for an hour or so, although he knew his companions would be waiting with the utmost impatience on the shore.

When he proposed the stroll, he looked at her keenly, his lips apart, intense eagerness in his voice.

To his great relief, she acquiesced at once.

"Though," she added, laughingly, "I do not suppose it would be as safe to wear all my diamonds on the beach as it would be if we just promenaded the piazza."

"It would be a thousand times more romantic," he whispered, his glance thrilling her through and through, his hand tightening over the little one resting on his arm.

And so, as the moth follows the flickering, dancing flame, foolish Sally Gardiner, without a thought of danger, took the arm of the handsome stranger whom she had known but a few short weeks, and sauntered out upon the beach with him.

There were hundreds of promenaders, and no one noticed them particularly.

On and on they walked, Lamont whispering soft, sweet nothings into her foolish ears, until they had left most of the throng far behind them.

"Hack, sir! – hack to ride up and down the beach!" exclaimed a man, stopping a pair of mettlesome horses almost directly in front of them.

Victor Lamont appeared to hesitate an instant; but in that instant he and the driver had exchanged meaning glances.

"Shall we not ride up and down, instead of walking?" suggested Lamont, eagerly. "I – I have something to tell you, and I may never have such an opportunity again. We can ride down as far as the light-house on the point, and back. Do not refuse me so slight a favor, I beg of you."

If she had stopped to consider, even for one instant, she would have declined the invitation; but, almost before she had decided whether she should say yes or no, Victor Lamont had lifted her in his strong arms, placed her in the cab, and sprung in after her.

Pretty, jolly Sally Gardiner looked a trifle embarrassed.

"Oh, how imprudent, Mr. Lamont!" she cried, clinging to his arm, as the full consciousness of the situation seemed to occur to her. "We had better get out, and walk back to the Ocean House."

But it was too late for objections. The driver had already whipped up his horses, and instead of creeping wearily along, after the fashion of tired hack horses, they flew down the beach like the wind.

"Oh, Mrs. Gardiner – Sally!" cried Victor Lamont, in a voice apparently husky with emotion, "the memory of this ride will be with me while life lasts!"

Victor Lamont's voice died away in a hoarse whisper; the hand which caught and held her own closed tighter over it, and the hoarse murmur of the sea seemed further and further away.

Sally Gardiner seemed only conscious of one thing – that Victor Lamont loved her.

CHAPTER XXXVII

For a moment the words falling so passionately from the lips of the handsome man sitting beside her, the spell of the moonlight, and the murmur of the waves, seemed to lock her senses in a delicious dream. But the dream lasted only a moment. In the next, she had recovered herself.

"Oh, Mr. Lamont, we must – we must get right out and walk back to the hotel! What if any one should see us riding together? Jay would be sure to hear of it, and there would be trouble in store for both of us."

"It is all in a life-time," he murmured. "Can you not be happy here with me – "

But she broke away from his detaining hand in alarm. She had been guilty of an imprudent flirtation; but she had meant nothing more. She had drifted into this delusive friendship and companionship without so much as bothering her pretty golden head about how it would end. Now she was just beginning to see how foolish she had been – when this handsome stranger could be nothing to her – nothing.

"We must not ride any further," she declared. "Give orders for the coach to stop right here, Mr. Lamont."

"It is too late, dear lady," he gasped. "The horses are running away! For God's sake, don't attempt to scream or to jump, or you will be killed!"

With a wild sob of terror, Sally flung herself down on her knees, and the lips that had never yet said, "God be praised," cried "God be merciful!"

"Don't make such a confounded noise!" exclaimed Lamont, attempting to lift her again to the seat beside him. "We won't get hurt if you only keep quiet. The driver is doing his best to get control of the horses. They can't keep up this mad pace much longer, and will be obliged to stop from sheer exhaustion."

After what appeared to be an age to the terrified young woman crouching there in such utter fright, the vehicle stopped short with a sharp thud and a lurch forward that would have thrown Sally upon her face, had not her companion reached forward and caught her.

"Well, driver," called out Lamont, as he thrust open the door and looked out, "here's a pretty go, isn't it? Turn right around, and go back as quickly as your horses can take us!"

"I am awfully sorry to say that I won't be able to obey your order, sir," replied the man on the box, with a slight cough. "We've had an accident. The horses are dead lame, and we've had a serious break-down, and that, too, when we are over thirty miles from Newport. Confound the luck!"

Sally had been listening to this conversation, and as the driver's words fell on her ears, she was filled with consternation and alarm. Her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth, and her eyes nearly jumped from their sockets.

Miles away from the Ocean House, and she in those white kid slippers! How in the name of Heaven was she to get back? Jay Gardiner would return on the midnight train, and when he found she was not there, he would institute a search for her, and some one of the scouting party would find her in that broken-down coach by the road-side, with Victor Lamont as her companion.

She dared not think what would happen then. Perhaps there would be a duel; perhaps, in his anger, Jay Gardiner might turn his weapon upon herself. And she sobbed out in still wilder affright as she pictured the scene in her mind.

"There is but one thing to be done. You will have to ride one of your horses back to Newport, and bring out a team to fetch us back," declared Victor Lamont, with well-simulated impatience and anger.

"That I could do, sir," replied the man, "and you and the lady could make yourselves as comfortable as possible in the coach."

"Bring back some vehicle to get us into Newport before midnight, and I'll give you the price of your horse," cried Victor Lamont in an apparently eager voice.

"All right, sir," replied the driver. "I'll do my best."

And in a trice he was off, as Sally supposed, on his mission. She had listened, with chattering teeth, to all that had been said.

"Oh, goodness gracious! Mr. Lamont," she asked, "why are you peering out of the coach window? Do you see – or hear – anybody?"

He did not attempt to take her hand or talk sentimental nonsense to her now. That was not part of the business he had before him.

"Do not be unnecessarily frightened," he murmured; "but I fancied – mind, I only say fancied – that I heard cautious footsteps creeping over the fallen leaves. Perhaps it was a rabbit, you know – a stray dog, or mischievous squirrel."

Sally was clutching at his arm in wild affright.

"I – I heard the same noise, too!" she cried, with bated breath, "and, oh! Mr. Lamont, it did sound like a footstep creeping cautiously toward us! I was just about to speak to you of it."

Five, ten minutes passed in utter silence. Victor Lamont made no effort to talk to her. This was one of the times when talking sentiment would not have been diplomatic.

"Oh, Mr. Lamont!" cried Sally, clinging to him in the greatest terror, "I am sure we both could not have been mistaken. There is some one skulking about under the shadow of those trees – one – two – three – persons; I see them distinctly."

"You are right," he whispered, catching her trembling, death-cold hands in his, and adding, with a groan of despair: "Heaven help us! what can we do? Without a weapon of any kind, I am no match for a trio of desperadoes!"

Young Mrs. Gardiner was too terrified to reply. She could not have uttered a word if her life had depended upon it.

At that instant the vehicle was surrounded by three masked figures. The light from a bull's-eye lantern was flashed in Sally's face as the door was thrown violently back, and a harsh voice cried out, as a rough hand grasped her:

"Just hand over those jewels, lady, and be nimble, too, or we'll tear 'em off you! Egg, you relieve the gent of his money and valuables."

"Help! help! help!" cried Sally, struggling frantically; but the man who had hold of her arm only laughed, declaring she had a good pair of lungs.

Victor Lamont made a pretense of making a valiant struggle to come to her rescue. But what could he do, with two revolvers held close to his head, but stand and deliver.

Then the magnificent Gardiner diamonds, with their slender golden fastenings, were torn from her, and were soon pocketed by the desperado, who had turned a revolver upon her.

"Thanks, and good-bye, fair lady," laughed the trio, retreating.

But Sally had not heard. She had fallen back on the seat of the coach in a dead faint.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Seeing that his victim had lost consciousness, the man paused in his work, and turned around to Lamont with a loud laugh.

"A capital night's work," he declared. "You ought to have made good your time by having three or four simpletons like this one, who wears expensive jewels, fall in love with you."

It was fully an hour after Victor Lamont's accomplices – for such they were – had retreated, that Sally opened her eyes to consciousness.

For a moment she was dazed. Where was she? This was certainly not her room at the Ocean House.

In an instant all the terrible scenes she had passed through recurred to her. She was in the cab —alone! With a spasmodic gesture, she caught at her neck. Ah, Heaven! the diamond necklace, all her jewels, were indeed gone!

With a cry that was like nothing human, she sprung to her feet, and at that moment she heard a deep groan outside, and she realized that it must be Victor Lamont. Perhaps they had hurt him; perhaps he was dying.

"Oh, Mr. Lamont," she cried out in agony, "where are you?" and waited breathlessly for his response.

"Here," he groaned; "bound fast hand and foot to the wheel of the cab. Can you come to my aid?"

With feet that trembled under her, and hands shaking like aspen leaves, she made her way to him, crying out that her diamonds were gone.

"How shall I ever forgive myself for this night's work!" he cried. "Oh, Mrs. Gardiner – Sally – why don't you abuse me? Why don't you fling it into my face that it was all my fault, persuading you to take this ride that has ended so fatally? For myself I care not, though I am ruined. They have taken every penny I had with me. But it is for you I grieve."

Sally listened, but made no reply. What could she say?

She tried her utmost to undo the great cords which apparently bound her companion; but it was quite useless. They were too much for her slender fingers.

"Never mind," he said, speaking faintly. "I have borne the torture of these ropes cutting into my flesh so many hours now, that I can stand it until that cabman returns. I bribed him to return within an hour; but his horse is so lame, that will be almost impossible."

"How dark it is!" moaned Sally. "Oh, I am fairly quaking with terror!"

"It is the darkness which precedes the dawn," he remarked; and as he uttered the words, he coughed twice.

A moment later, Sally cried out, joyfully:

"Oh, I hear the sound of carriage wheels! That cabman is returning at last, thank the fates."

Yes, it was the cabman, who seemed almost overwhelmed with terror when he saw the condition of the two passengers, and heard of the robbery which had taken place.

"I'll get you back to Newport by daylight, sir," he cried, turning to Victor Lamont, "and we can drive direct to the police-station, where you can report your great loss."

"No, no, no!" cried Sally, clinging to Lamont's arm, as she imagined herself standing before a police magistrate, and trying to tell him the story.

"I understand your feelings perfectly," whispered Lamont, pressing her arm reassuringly. "The story of our losses must not get out. No, we dare not ask the police to help us recover your diamonds and my money, because of the consequences."

Wretched Sally was obliged to agree with this line of thinking.

Neither spoke much on that homeward ride. Sally was wondering if she would be able to evade suspicion, and gain her rooms unrecognized; and Lamont was wondering if the beautiful married flirt realized how completely she was in his power.

He had concocted a brilliant scheme, and he meant to put it into execution with as little delay as possible.

Jay Gardiner was lavish in giving money to his young wife, and he – Lamont – meant to have some of that cash – ay, the most of it. He had thought of a clever scheme to obtain it.

The driver was as good as his word this time. He landed them as near to the hotel as possible, and that, too, when the early dawn was just breaking through the eastern horizon.

With cloak pulled closely about her, and veil drawn close over her face, Sally accompanied the driver of the coach to the servants' entrance.

It was not without some shame and confusion that she heard the ignorant coachman pass her off as his sweetheart, and ask his brother, the night-watchman, to admit her on the sly, as she was one of the girls employed in the house.

She fairly flew past them and up the broad stairway, and never paused until she reached her own room, threw, open the door, and sprung into it, quaking with terror.

Antoinette, her French maid, lay dozing en a velvet couch. She hoped that she would be able to slip past her without awakening her; but this was destined not to be.

Antoinette heard the door creak, and she was on her feet like a flash.

"Oh, my lady, it is you!" she whispered, marveling much where her mistress got such a queer bonnet and cloak. "Let me help you take off your wrap. You look pale as death. Are you ill?"

"No, no, Antoinette," replied Mrs. Gardiner, flushing hotly, annoyed with herself, the inquisitive maid, and the world in general. But she felt that she must make some kind of an excuse, say something. "Yes, I'm tired out," she replied, quickly. "I was called away to see a sick friend, and had to go just as I was, as there was not a moment to lose."

"You were very prudent, my lady, to remove your magnificent jewels. Shall I not take them from your pocket, and replace them in their caskets, and lock them safely away?"

"I will attend to them myself, Antoinette," she panted, hoarsely. "Help me off with this – this ball-dress, and get me to bed. I am fagged out for want of sleep. I do not want any breakfast; do not awake me."

Looking at her mistress keenly from beneath her long lashes, Antoinette saw that she was terribly agitated.

Long after the inner door had closed on her, Antoinette sat thinking, and muttered, thoughtfully:

"I shall find out where my lady was last night. Trust me to learn her secret, and then she will be in my power!"

CHAPTER XXXIX

Victor Lamont had been quite correct in his surmise. Jay Gardiner had reached Newport several hours later than he had calculated, and had gone directly to his own apartments.

He was so tired with his long trip that he would have thrown himself on his couch just as he was, had not a letter, addressed to himself, staring at him from the mantel, caught his eye, and on the lower left-hand corner he observed the words: "Important. Deliver at once."

Mechanically he took it down and tore the envelope. The superscription seemed familiar – he had seen that handwriting before.

He looked down at the bottom of the last page, to learn who his correspondent was, and saw, with surprise, and not a little annoyance, that it was signed "Anonymous."

He was about to crush it in his hand and toss it into the waste-paper basket, when it occurred to him that he might as well learn its contents.

There were but two pages, and they read as follows:

"To Doctor Jay Gardiner, Esq., Ocean House, Newport.

"Dear Sir– I know the utter contempt in which any warning given by an anonymous writer is held, but, notwithstanding this, I feel compelled to communicate by this means, that which has become the gossip of Newport – though you appear to be strangely deaf and blind to it.

"To be as brief as possible, I refer to the conduct of your wife's flirtations, flagrant and above board, with Victor Lamont, the English lord, or duke, or count, or whatever he is. I warn you to open your eyes and look about, and listen a bit, too.

"When your wife, in defiance of all the proprieties, is seen riding alone with this Lamont at midnight, when you are known to be away, it is time for a stranger to attempt to inform the husband.

"Yours with respect,"An Anonymous Friend."

For some moments after he had finished reading that letter, Jay Gardiner sat like one stunned; then slowly he read it again, as though to take in more clearly its awful meaning.

"Great God!" he cried out; "can this indeed be true?"

If it was, he wondered that he had not noticed it. Then he recollected, with a start of dismay, that since they had been domiciled at the Ocean House he had not spent one hour of his time with Sally that could be spent elsewhere. He had scarcely noticed her; he had not spoken to her more than half a dozen times. He had not only shut her out from his heart, but from himself.

He had told himself over and over again that he would have to shun his wife or he would hate her.

She had seemed satisfied with this so long as she was supplied with money, horses and carriages, laces and diamonds.

Was there any truth in what this anonymous letter stated – that she had so far forgotten the proprieties as to ride with this stranger.

He springs from his seat and paces furiously up and down the length of the room, the veins standing out on his forehead like whip-cords. He forgets that it is almost morning, forgets that he is tired.

He goes straight to his wife's room. He turns the knob, but he can not enter for the door is locked. He knocks, but receives no answer, and turning away, he enters his own apartment again, to wait another hour. Up and down the floor he walks.

Can what he has read be true? Has the girl whom he has married, against his will, as it were, made a laughing-stock of him in the eyes of every man and woman in Newport? Dared she do it?

He goes out into the hall once more, and is just in time to see his wife's French maid returning from breakfast. He pushes past the girl, and strides into the inner apartment.

Sally is sitting by the window in a pale-blue silk wrapper wonderfully trimmed with billows of rare lace, baby blue ribbons and jeweled buckles, her yellow hair falling down over her shoulders in a rippling mass of tangled curls.

Jay Gardiner does not stop to admire the pretty picture she makes, but steps across the floor to where she sits.

"Mrs. Gardiner," he cries, hoarsely, "if you have the time to listen to me, I should like a few words with you here and now."

Sally's guilty heart leaps up into her throat.

How much has he discovered of what happened last night? Does he know all?

He is standing before her with flushed face and flashing eyes. She cowers from him, and if guilt was ever stamped on a woman's face, it is stamped on hers at that instant. If her life had depended upon it, she could not have uttered a word.

"Read that!" he cried, thrusting the open letter into her hand – "read that, and answer me, are those charges false or true?"

For an instant her face had blanched white as death, but in the next she had recovered something of her usual bravado and daring. That heavy hand upon her shoulder seemed to give her new life.

She took in the contents of the letter at a single glance, and then she sprung from her seat and faced him defiantly. Oh, how terribly white and stern his face had grown since he had entered that room.

"Did you hear the question I put to you, Mrs. Gardiner?" he cried, hoarsely, his temper and his suspicions fairly aroused at Sally's expression.

The truth of the words in the anonymous letter is slowly forcing itself upon him.