The Bond of Black

Though evening after evening I sought Muriel, and also wrote to her relatives at Stamford in an endeavour to discover her whereabouts, yet all was in vain. She had disappeared entirely.

The thought struck me that on leaving Madame Gabrielle’s she had perhaps immediately found another situation; but as the frock-coated manager had received no letter of inquiry about her that theory seemed scarcely feasible. More and more the circumstances puzzled me. When I reflected upon our conversation that Sunday afternoon in Bushey Park I was inclined to doubt her declaration that she knew nothing of the mysterious Aline. Again, her apparent fear and anxiety when I chanced to mention the death of poor Roddy was more than passing strange. That she had a minute knowledge of Aline’s visits to me was quite plain, therefore what more natural than that she should be aware of the extraordinary acquaintance between Roddy and that woman whose touch consumed. Sometimes I was inclined to believe that she was in possession of the true circumstances of my friend’s death; and at such moments the thought occurred to me that she, Muriel Moore, had been Roddy’s female visitor, who had called in his valet’s absence.

The thought was truly a startling one. Had she thus cast me aside because she feared me – because there was a terrible guilt upon her?

There was some inexplicable association between the fair-faced worker of evil, whom I knew as Aline Cloud, and this pure and honest woman whom I was ready to make my wife. Its nature was an enigma which drove me to despair in my constant efforts to solve it.

One morning, when in the depths of despair, I was sitting after breakfast idling over the newspaper, and wondering whether I could find Muriel by means of advertisement, Simes brought in a telegram, which summoned me at once to Tixover.

An hour later I left, and that afternoon arrived home to find that my father had been thrown from his horse, while riding towards Deene by a bridlepath, and was lying in a dangerous condition, with my old friend Dr Lewis, of Cliffe, and Dr Richardson, of Stamford, in attendance upon him. As may be imagined, my mother was in a state of terrible anxiety, and I at once telegraphed to my sister, who had left Beaulieu long before, and was now at Bournemouth. Next morning she arrived, but by that time my father had taken a turn for the better, and Dr Lewis, who was untiring in his attention, declared that the turning point was past and that he would recover. A good fellow was Lewis; a hardworking, careful, good-natured bachelor, who was known and respected throughout the whole countryside, because of his merry demeanour, the great pains he took with even the poorest, and the skill with which he treated one and all of his patients, from Countess to farm-labourer. Besides which, he was a remarkable whist player.

On the day of my arrival I feared the worst, but when I had been at Tixover for a day or two it was apparent that my father would recover, therefore all our spirits rose again, and one evening after dinner I went up to Mrs Walker’s to have a smoke with Yelverton.

He greeted me with the cordiality of the old days at Wadham as I was ushered in, produced the inevitable whiskey from the cupboard, and we settled down to chat.

He related to me the principal local events of the past month, but with the air of one who was already tired of rusticating.

I remarked upon his apparent apathy, and in reply he said —

“I regret that I left London. All my interests were centred there. It was only my health which compelled me to give it up. But I suppose I shall go back some day,” and he sighed and resumed the briar pipe he had been smoking when I entered.

On the table was a blotting-pad and some manuscript. He had tried that day to write his sermon, but was unable. He had been smoking and meditating instead.

“And as soon as you have got strong again you mean to leave us and go back to a London parish!” I exclaimed. “That’s too bad. I hear you are getting on famously here.”

“Getting on!” he repeated wearily. “Yes, and that’s about all. My work lies in London. I’m not fitted for a country parson, because I can’t be idle. I feel as if I must be always energetic; and too much energy on the part of a country curate generally causes his vicar annoyance. Many vicars think energy undignified.”

“But, my dear fellow,” I exclaimed, “if you’re not well – and I see you’re not well by your face and manner – why don’t you take things easily? You need not kill yourself, surely! London seems to have a remarkable attraction for you. Surely life is much healthier here.”

“Yes, you’re right,” he answered in a clear voice. “There is an attraction for me in London,” and he looked into my face with a curious expression.

“An attraction outside your work?” I suggested. He hesitated. Then, suddenly, he answered —

“Yes. Why need I conceal it from you, Clifton? It is a woman.”

“And you are in love?” I exclaimed.

“Yes,” he responded, in a low tone. “But, hush! Not so loud. No one must know it here.”

“Of course not. If you wish, it shall remain a secret with me,” I said. “Are you engaged?”

“Oh no!” he exclaimed. “I love her, but have not yet spoken. I will tell you the truth; then you can advise me,” and he paused. At last, continuing, he said: “When I joined the Church I made a solemn vow to God of celibacy; not because I hated women, but because I considered that my work, if done conscientiously, as I intended to do it, should be my sole thought. Mine is perhaps a rather extreme view, but I cannot think that a man can work for his Master with that thoroughness if he has a woman to love and cherish as when he is a bachelor and alone. Some may say that woman’s influence upon man is softening and humanising; but I hold that the man who is single can apply himself more devoutly to his fellow-creatures than he who has home ties and family affairs. Well, I took Holy Orders and set myself to work. I know I am not a brilliant preacher, nor have I that gift of self-advertisement which some men cultivate by lecturing with limelight views; but I do know that I strove to act as servant to the Master I had elected to serve, and the thanks of the grateful poor and the knowledge that more than one person had been brought to repentance by my words, were more than sufficient repayment for my efforts. Time went on, and I became deeply absorbed in my work in those foetid slums, until one day I chanced to meet a woman who in an instant entranced me by her beauty. She gave me but a passing glance, but her eyes kindled in my soul the fire of love. We men are, indeed, frail creatures, for in a moment all my good resolutions fell to the ground, and I felt myself devoted to her. We met again, and again. I admired her. I saw how beautiful she was, and then found myself thinking more of her than of the Master whom I was serving. True it is, as it is written, ‘No man can serve two masters,’” and he sighed heavily, and sat dejected, his chin upon his breast.

“And then?” I inquired.

“Some months went by,” he said. “She was aware how deeply I had the welfare of the poor in my parish at heart, and in order, I suppose, to please me, she enrolled herself as a helper. Instead of pleasing me, however, this action of hers caused me loathing. I saw that she had only done this in order to be nearer me; that her pretence of religious fervour was feigned, in order that her actions might not appear irregular to the outside world. Ours was a mutual love, yet no word of affection had ever passed our lips. But I could not bear to be a party to this masquerade. A woman who took up arduous duties like she did, merely because ‘slumming,’ as it was called, happened to be the fashionable craze of the moment, was in no way fitted to become the wife of one whose duty lay ever in the homes of the suffering and needy. I tried to shake off her acquaintance, to discourage her, to frighten her by exaggerated stories of infectious disease, but she would not listen. She was determined, she declared, ‘to work for the Church,’ and encouraged by the vicar, continued to do so. I strove to live down my increasing admiration for her, but could not. Time after time I treated her with unpardonable rudeness, but she merely smiled, and was more tenacious than ever, until at last, in sheer desperation, I resigned, and came here. Now you know all the truth, Clifton,” he added, in a lower tone. “I came down here to escape her!”

“And yet you are ready to again return to London – you want to get back again,” I observed.

“Ah! yes!” he sighed, the dark look still upon his face. “It is my test. I have to choose between love and duty.”

“And you choose the latter?”

“I am trying to do so. With God’s help I hope to succeed,” he answered, in a hoarse voice. “If love proves too strong, then I fall back to the level from which I have striven to rise – the level of the ordinary man.”

“But are you certain you were not mistaken in the object of the lady in joining the work in which you were engaged? May not she have been determined to become self-sacrificing in the holy cause, just as you were?”

“No,” he answered very decisively, “I cannot believe it. There were facts which were suspicious.”

“What kind of facts?”

“In various ways she betrayed her insincerity of purpose,” he answered. “Her friends were wealthy, and the vicar was acute enough to see that if she were encouraged she would bring additional funds to the church. But the poor themselves, always quick to recognise true sincerity, very soon discerned that she visited them without having their welfare at heart, and consequently imposed upon her.”

There was nothing sanctimonious or puritanical about Jack Yelverton. The words he uttered came direct from his faithful, honest heart.

“And yet you love her!” I remarked, amazed. “That’s just it. My admiration of her grace and beauty ripened into love before I was aware of it. I struggled against it, but became overwhelmed. Had she not feigned sincerity and taken up the work that I was doing, I should, I believe, have proposed marriage to her. But her action in trying to appear solicitous after the welfare of the sick, when I knew that her thoughts were all of the world, caused me a revulsion of feeling which ended in my resignation and escape.”

“Escape!” I echoed. “One would think that you had fled from some feared catastrophe.”

“I did fear a catastrophe,” he declared. “I feared that I should marry and become devoted to my wife, instead of to my Master. Ah! Clifton, mine is a strange, a very strange position. You may think my words extremely foolish, but you cannot understand the circumstances aright. If you did, you would see why I acted as I have done.”

“You acted quite wisely, I think,” said I. “None could blame you for seeking a country curacy in such circumstances. To be thus run after by a woman is positively sickening.”

“Ah, there you are mistaken!” he exclaimed quickly. “She didn’t run after me. It was I who, attracted by her beauty, showed her by my actions that I loved her. From the first it was my own fault entirely. I have only myself to reproach.”

“But you cannot actually reproach yourself, if you are still fond of her.”

“Fond of her? I adore her!” he cried. “I only wish I did not. Have I not told you how I’ve fought against this feeling? Yet what’s the use of striving against the deepest and most overwhelming passion in the world?”

“Could you not be happy with her, and yet live as upright, honest, and holy a life as you now do?” I suggested. “Does not the holy proverb say that a man who takes a wife obtains favour with the Lord?”

“Yes,” he answered. “But as I have explained, it is easier for the man to devote himself to religious work when he is single than when he has a wife to occupy his thoughts. He must neglect the one or the other. Of that I am convinced. Besides, I have vowed to God to serve Him alone, and with His assistance I will do so. I will!” and his hands clenched themselves in the fierceness of his words.

Next day I drove my sister into Stamford, and having put up at that well-known old hostelry, the George, she went to do some shopping while I sauntered forth determined to make what inquiries I could of Muriel’s whereabouts. All her relatives were in ignorance. One of them, an aunt, had received a brief note saying that she had left Madame Gabrielle’s, and would send her new address. But she had not done so. From place to place I went, ever with the same question upon my lips, but ever receiving a similar reply. Muriel was utterly lost to all, as to me.

About six o’clock we set out to drive home, but the dull day had culminated in wet, and our journey was in the teeth of a tempestuous wind which drove the rain full into our faces, and made us both very uncomfortable. We had passed Worthorpe, and were halfway towards Colly Weston, on the high road to Duddington, when we approached a female figure in a black mackintosh cape, with difficulty holding her umbrella in the boisterous wind. She was walking towards Stamford, and my sister catching sight of her as we rapidly approached, said —

“I hope that woman is enjoying it.”

It was already half dark, and the road was ankle-deep in mud, yet she strode on determinedly, heedless of the rough weather, and bent upon reaching the town before night fell entirely. At that part of the road it is flat and open – straight across a highway cut years ago through the Rockingham forest, which covered that part of the country, but the land is now divested of trees and cultivated.

Her face was set straight in the direction of Stamford, and with her umbrella held down firmly she did not notice our approach until just as we passed and our high wheels spattered her with mud. She drew her umbrella aside in surprise and looked up.

In an instant we had left her behind, but in that brief space of time I recognised her.

There could be no mistaking that face. It was a countenance which, once seen, rivetted itself upon the memory for ever because of its wondrous loveliness.

It was Aline Cloud.

Quickly I glanced back, but it was evident that with my hat drawn down over my eyes, and my collar turned up I was sufficiently disguised to escape recognition. She did not turn, but trudged on through the mud towards the town far across the valley, where the distant lights were already beginning to glimmer.

I was utterly mystified; and the more so when, a quarter of an hour later, just as we turned the sharp corner to descend the hill into Duddington, we overtook and wished good evening to Jack Yelverton, who was striding along in our direction.

He started suddenly, laughed nervously when I hailed him, and then kept on his way.

Had he walked from Stamford, I wondered.

But next second the suspicion grew upon me that he had kept a secret appointment somewhere on that bleak open road, and that the person he had met was Aline, the Woman of Evil.

Chapter Fifteen

A Strange Assertion

The look of combined alarm and surprise which Jack’s face betrayed was sufficient to convince me of the truth. Aline was the woman from whom he had fled; and she had visited him secretly. She had, it was apparent, discovered his whereabouts, and rather than excite gossip by coming to call upon him in the village, had met him clandestinely at some point on the high road halfway between Stamford and Duddington.

Then I reflected upon all that he had told me on the previous night; of how fondly he loved her, and of the curious dread in which he held her. Were not my own experiences more extraordinary than those of mortal man? Were not the changes wrought in my rooms by her influence little short of miraculous?

Aline Cloud, although the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, possessed a potency for the working of evil that was appalling. When I thought of it I shuddered.

Perhaps Jack Yelverton had discovered this. Perhaps he, a clergyman, a worker in the holy cause, had found out what evil influences emanated from her, and on that account had held aloof. He had told me plainly that he had come there to escape her. Did not that prove that he had discovered, what I, too, had found out, that her influence was alluring, that in her hand she held the golden apple?

He had been entranced by her beauty, but fortunately her witchery had not been sufficient to allure him to his ruin. I remembered when, in a moment of madness, I had declared my love to her, how she had told me she could not reciprocate it. What more likely then, that she loved Jack Yelverton?

That night I sat alone thinking it all over in the small, old-fashioned sitting-room which had been my own den before I had left to live in London. What, perhaps, puzzled me most of all was the fact that Muriel possessed such intimate knowledge of Aline’s actions and of my brief period of madness; and somehow I could not get rid of a vague feeling that she was aware of the truth concerning poor Roddy’s sad end.

Oppressed by the knowledge of a terrible truth which he had sworn not to divulge, and hiding from a woman whom he feared, Jack Yelverton was in as strange a position as myself; therefore next day I called upon him to give him an opportunity of telling me how this woman had at last discovered him.

He, however, said nothing; and when I incidentally expressed my intention of returning to London, and a hope that his whereabouts would still remain a secret from the person whom he did not wish to meet, he merely smiled sadly, saying —

“Yes. I hope she won’t discover me. If she does – well, I must move again. Should I disappear suddenly you will know the cause, old fellow.”

These words caused me to doubt the truth of my surmise. His manner was as though he had not kept the appointment, as I had suspected, and indeed I had no absolute knowledge that Aline and this woman whom he held in fear were one and the same person. Thus I left him with my mind in a state of indecision and bewilderment.

I knew not what to think.

Through the close, stifling days of July and August I remained in London with but one object, namely, that of finding Muriel. She had disappeared completely, and with some object; for she had not only hidden herself from me, but also from her nearest relatives.

Through those hot, dusty days, which, in former years, I had spent at Tixover, I pursued my inquiries in the various drapery establishments at Holloway, Peckham, Brixton, Kensington, and other shopping centres, but with no result. She had not written to any of the “young ladies” at Madame Gabrielle’s, and none knew her whereabouts.

Yet the unexpected always happens. Just as I was about to give up my search and return to Tixover to get fresh air, for August and September are pleasant months in the Midlands, I chanced one afternoon to be crossing Ludgate Circus, from Ludgate Hill to Fleet Street, when I suddenly overtook a figure that seemed familiar.

I started, drew back in hesitation for a moment, and then approached and raised my hat.

It was Aline Cloud.

“You!” she gasped, paling slightly as she recognised me.

“Yes,” I replied. “But I’m not so very formidable, am I?”

“No,” she laughed, in an instant recovering her self-possession as she took my hand. “Only you startled me.”

I remarked upon the lapse of time since we had met, and in response she answered —

“Yes. I’ve been away.”

I recollected her visit to Stamford, but said nothing, resolving to mention it later. It was about four o’clock, and in order to chat to her I invited her to take tea. At first she was unwilling, making a couple of vague excuses and contradicting herself in her confusion; but as I hailed a cab and it drew up to the kerb she saw that all further effort to avoid me was unavailing, and accompanied me.

During the first few moments of our meeting she had apparently been inclined to treat me with some disdain, but by the time we arrived at my chambers she was laughing lightly, as though the encounter gave her gratification.

She was dressed with more style and taste than before. Her costume, of some thin, bluish-grey stuff, was made in a style which few London dressmakers could achieve, and its ornamentation, although daring, was nevertheless extremely tasteful, and suited her great beauty admirably.

As she stood in my sitting-room pulling off her gloves I thought that she seemed even more strikingly beautiful than on the first night we had met, for her perfectly-fitting dress showed off her well-rounded figure, and her cream gauzy veil, drawn tight beneath her pointed chin, added a softness to her face which rendered it bewitching.

As her bright eyes fell upon me and her full red lips parted in a smile, I could scarcely bring myself to believe that this was actually the woman whose evil influence was nothing short of supernatural, the woman whose mission in the world was to supplant evil for good, and whose every action was enveloped in mystery impenetrable.

She lifted her veil and placed her delicate nose to the large bowl of red roses on the table. In summer our gardener sent me a box twice weekly, and as she sniffed their odour, I remarked —

“They are from Tixover – my father’s place. It’s near Duddington, on the Northamptonshire border. Do you know that country?”

“No,” she responded quickly. “But the flowers are delicious.”

I saw that she had no intention of admitting her visit to Stamford. There was a strange, indescribable fascination about her. She raised her veil, and turning to the mirror re-arranged her hair coquettishly with both her hands. Then, as her deep blue eyes again fell upon me calmly I felt that they penetrated to my very soul. The sunlight struggling through the smoke-dimmed windows fell upon her, enveloping her head in a halo of golden light, while the flashing of gems caught my eyes, and I saw upon her fingers two magnificent rings, one of rubies and the other of diamonds.

On the first occasion we had met she had been dressed shabbily, without any display of artistic taste, while to-day she presented a graceful, lady-like appearance, her richness of costume being devoid of that loudness which too often detracts from a woman’s natural chic.

Simes brought in the tea, and seated in my armchair she took her cup and laughed gaily to me as she sipped it, declaring that at the moment we had met she had been contemplating entering a tea-shop, for she could not exist without a cup at four o’clock. The majority of men in London can usually go from luncheon to dinner on a whiskey and soda, but I must confess myself fond of tea. Therefore we took it in company, laughing and chatting the while. She appeared perfectly at ease, and our conversation was that of old acquaintance, until, when Simes had gone, I looked straight into her face, and boldly said —

“Aline, tell me truthfully. Why did you deceive me so?”

She met my gaze with a strange, determined look, answering —

“Deceived you! I am not aware that I have done so!”

“You told me that you lived with Mrs Popejoy in Hampstead,” I said.

“And it was the truth. When I told you that, I did live there.”

That was so. She had spoken the truth, and my accusation was so unjust that I was compelled to mutter an apology.

“But many things have occurred since we last met,” I went on. “One event especially has happened which has oppressed and utterly bewildered me.”

“What was that?”

“My friend, Roddy Morgan, is dead.”

“I am aware of that,” she responded, her face in an instant deathly pale. Although she possessed powers which no other human being possessed, she nevertheless was now and then unable to control herself sufficiently to preserve a perfect calm. In this alone did she betray that she was, like myself, of the flesh. Yet when I reflected how things withered at her touch, and how objects dissolved as beneath a magician’s wand, I had often been inclined to believe that she was the incarnation of the Evil One in the form of a beautiful woman.

It was this feeling which again crept upon me as I sat there in her presence, noting her extreme loveliness. I did not love her now. No; I held her rather in fear and hatred. Yet she was still the most strikingly beautiful woman in all the world.

“Then you know how my friend died?” I said, in a rather meaning voice.

“It was in the newspapers,” she responded. “I saw by them that you gave evidence.”

I nodded in the affirmative, then said —

“You were here on that fatal morning, and you then told me a fact which has puzzled me ever since, namely, that my poor friend committed suicide at Monte Carlo months before. Do you not think you were mistaken, when you recollect that he died only half an hour after you left me?”