The Bond of Black

“But,” he added quite resignedly, “it is, I suppose, a burden placed upon me as a test. Now I know the truth I feel as an accessory to the crime; but to divulge would be to break faith with both God and man.”

His words admitted of no argument. I sat silent, oppressed, smoking and thinking. Then at length I rose to go.

“We are friends still, Clifton,” he said, as he gripped my hand warmly. “But you understand my position, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I answered. “That you cannot speak is plain. Good night,” and I went forth into the quiet village street where the only light came from the cottage windows here and there. The good people of Duddington go to bed early and rise with the dawn, therefore there was little light to guide my steps down the hill and up the road to the Hall. Nothing stirred, and the only sound was the dismal howl of a distant sheep-dog.

During the fortnight that followed I saw plenty of the new curate. His manner had, however, changed, and he had grown the same merry, buoyant companion as he had been in our college days.

Into Duddington Jack Yelverton had come as a perfect revelation of the ways and manners of the Church. For the past twenty years the estimable rector had preached regularly once each Sunday, and been usually assisted by a puny, consumptive-looking youth, fresh from college; but the smart, clever, witty sermon from this ecclesiastical giant was electrifying. People talked of it for days afterwards, discussed the arguments he had put forward so boldly, and were compelled to admit that he was an earnest, righteous, and upright man.

He dined with us once or twice, afterwards taking a hand at whist; we cycled together over to Oundle by way of Newton and Fotheringhay; on another occasion we rode to Uppingham to visit a man who had been with us at Wadham and was now one of the masters at Uppingham School; and several times I drove him to Peterborough and to Stamford. Thus we were together a good deal, and the more I saw of him the more convinced I became that he was thoroughly earnest in his purpose, and that he had not adopted the Church from motives of gain, like so many men whose relatives are ecclesiastical dignitaries.

A letter I received one morning from Muriel caused me to decide upon a visit to town, and I left the same evening, returning once more to my chambers in Charing Cross Mansions. Next day being Sunday, I sent Simes, on my arrival, round to Madame Gabrielle’s with a note inviting Muriel to call at eleven and go with me to spend the day at Hampton Court. I knew that she always liked a ramble in Bushey Park, for town-stifled as she was, it reminded her of Burleigh, the great demesne of the Cecils outside Stamford.

She accepted, and at eleven next morning Simes ushered her in. She was quietly dressed in black, the dash of bright cerise in her hat well suiting her complexion.

“Well,” she said, putting forth her hand as she entered. “I really thought you had quite forgotten me. Your note last night gave me a great surprise.”

“I suppose if the truth were known you were engaged for to-day, eh?” I asked mischievously, for I took a keen delight in chaffing her about her admirers.

“Well, you’ve pretty well guessed the truth,” she laughed, blushing slightly as she took the chair I offered her.

“What is he this time – dark or fair?” I asked.

“Dark. A rather nice fellow-cashier in a bank in the City.”

“And he takes you out often, I suppose?”

“Two or three times a week,” she answered, quite frankly. “We go to a music-hall sometimes, or, if not, down to the Monico.”

“The Monico!” I laughed, remembering how popular that restaurant was with shop-assistants and clerks. “Why always the Monico?”

“Ah!” she smiled. “We can’t afford Frascati’s, the Café Royal, or Yerrey’s. We get a little life at the Monico at small cost, and it doesn’t matter to us whether our neighbours wear tweeds or not. A man not in evening dress in the Café Royal, Verrey’s, or Jimmy’s is looked upon as an outsider; so we avoid those places.”

“And you like him, eh?” I inquired, amused.

“As much as I like all the others,” she responded with a light, irresponsible air, toying with the handle of her umbrella. “Life in London is frightfully dull if a girl has nobody to take her out. She can’t go about alone as she can in the country, and girls in business are not very friendly towards each other. You’ve no idea how many jealousies exist among girls in shops.”

“I suppose if a man goes to Madame Gabrielle’s to buy a bonnet for a present, or something, you all think he ought to take notice of you?” I laughed.

“Of course,” she replied. “But it’s the travellers from the wholesale houses who are most sought after by the girls; first, because they are generally pretty well to do, and secondly, they often know of good ‘cribs’ of which they tell the girls who are their favourites, and give them a recommendation into the bargain.”

“I always used to think that the shop-walker in the drapery places had a pretty lively time of it. Is that so?”

“They’re always jealous of the travellers,” she said. “The shop-walker fancies himself a lady-killer because he’s trained to do the amiable to the customers, and he can get the girls in his department into awful hot water if he likes; therefore he doesn’t care much for the good-looking town traveller, who comes in his brougham and has such a very gay and easy life of it. Girls in drapers’ shops are compelled to keep in with the shop-walker, but they hate him because he’s usually such a tyrant.”

“Then you may thank your stars that you haven’t a shop-walker,” I laughed.

“But we’ve got old Mrs Rayne and the manager, who are both quite as nasty to us as any shop-walker could be,” she protested quickly. “Rayne is constantly nagging at one or other of us if we don’t effect a sale. And that’s too bad, for, as you know, many ladies come in merely to look round and price the hats. They have no intention whatever of buying, and make lame excuses that the shape doesn’t suit them, or that the colour is too gaudy. It isn’t fair to us.”

“Of course not,” I said. “But forget all your business worries for to-day, and let’s have a pleasant hour or two out in the country. There’s a train from Waterloo at twelve; so we’ll go to Teddington and walk across Bushey Park. Do you care for that?”

“Of course,” she cried, delighted. “Why, it’s fully ten or even eleven months since we were there last time. Do you remember, we went down last Chestnut Sunday? Weren’t the trees in the avenue beautiful then?”

“Yes,” I said, remembering the pleasant afternoon we had afterwards spent on the river. But it was now too early in the season for boating in comfort, therefore to wander about would, I knew, be far more enjoyable.

Therefore, we took a cab over to Waterloo, and travelling down to Teddington, lunched at the Clarence, and afterwards, in the bright spring sunshine, strolled up the avenue, where already the trees were bursting into leaf. There were but few people, for as yet the season was considered too early. On summer Sundays, when London is dusty and the streets of closed shops palpitate with heat, then crowds of workers come there by all sorts of conveyances to get fresh air and obtain sight of the cooling scenery. But in early spring it is too far afield. Yet there is no more beautiful spot within easy reach of London, and in the quietness of a bright spring day, when the grass is green, when everything is bursting into bud, and the birds are singing merrily as if thankful that winter has passed, I had always found it far more pleasant than in the hot days, when omnibuses tear wildly along the avenue, raising clouds of dust, when carts full of coarse-voiced gentlemen from the East shout loudly, and chaff those who are seated on the tops of the four-horsed ’buses, and when the public-houses are filled to overflowing by crowds of ever-thirsty bona-fide travellers.

In the warm sunshine, which reminded me of those perfect March days we had had on the Riviera, we wandered together across the Park, chatting merrily, she relating to me all the principal events of her toilsome life during the past six months, which comprised that period when the metropolis is at its worst, and when wet Sundays render the life of London’s workers additionally dismal. In winter the life of the shop-assistant is truly a dreary, monotonous existence, working nearly half the day by artificial light in an atmosphere unhealthily warmed by one of those suffocating abominations called gas-stoves; and if Sunday happens to be inclement there is absolutely nothing to do save to wait for the opening of the big restaurants at six o’clock in the evening. To sit idle in a café and be choked with tobacco-smoke is all the recreation which shop-assistants in London can obtain if the Day of Rest be wet.

Truly the shop-assistant’s life is an intensely dismal one. Knowing all this, I felt sorry for Muriel.

“Then the winter has been very dull,” I observed, after she had been telling me of the miserable weather and her consequent inability to get out on Sundays.

“Yes,” she answered. “I used to be envious when you wrote telling me of the sunshine and flowers you had on the Riviera. It must be a perfect Paradise. I should so like to go there and spend a winter.”

“As far as natural beauties are concerned, the coast is almost as near Paradise as you can get on this earth,” I said, laughing. “But Monte Carlo, although delightful, is far nearer an approach to the other place – the place which isn’t often mentioned in polite society – in fact, somebody once said, and with a good deal of truth, that the door of the Casino was the entrance-gate to hell.”

“I’d like to see the gambling-rooms just once,” she said.

“You are best away from them,” I answered. “The moral influence of the tables cannot fail to prove baneful.”

“I was disappointed,” she said, “when I heard you had left London without wishing me good-bye. You had never done so before. I called at your chambers, and Simes told me you had gone abroad. Surely you could have spared ten minutes to wish me farewell,” she added reproachfully.

I glanced at her and saw a look of regret and disappointment upon her face. Yes, she was undeniably beautiful.

I told myself that I had always loved Muriel, that I loved her still.

Her eyes met mine, and I saw in their dark depths a deep and trusting love. Yet I was socially her superior, and had foolishly imagined that we could always remain friends without becoming lovers. When I reflected how years ago I used to chat with her in her father’s shop, in the days when she was a hoydenish schoolgirl, and compared her then with what she was now, I saw her as a graceful, modest, and extremely beautiful woman, who possessed the refinement of speech and grace of carriage which many women in higher standings in life would have envied, and whom I knew was honest and upright, although practically alone and unprotected in that great world of London.

“You must forgive me,” I said. “I ought to have seen you before I went away, but I left hurriedly with my sister and her husband. You know what a restless pair they are.”

“Of course,” she answered. “But you’ve been back in England several weeks. Mary Daffern wrote to me and said she had seen you driving in Stamford nearly three weeks ago.”

“Yes,” I replied. “I was sick of the eternal rounds of Nice and Monte Carlo, so travelled straight to Tixover without breaking my journey in town. But surely,” I added, “it doesn’t matter much if I don’t see you for a month or two. It never has mattered.”

Her eyes were fixed upon the ground, and I thought her lips trembled.

“Of course it does,” she responded. “I like to know how and where you are. We are friends – indeed, you are the oldest friend I have in London.”

“But you have your other admirers,” I said. “Men who take you about, entertain you, flatter you, and all that sort of thing.”

“Yes, yes,” she answered hurriedly. “But you know I hate them all. I merely accept their invitations because it takes me out of the dreary groove in which my work lies. It’s impossible for a woman to go about alone, and the attentions of men amuse me rather than gratify my natural woman’s vanity.”

She spoke sensibly, as few of her age would speak. Her parents had been honest, upright, God-fearing folk, and she had been taught to view life philosophically.

“But you have loved,” I suggested. “You can’t really tell me with truth that of all these men who have escorted you about of an evening and on Sundays there is not one for whom you have developed some feeling of affection.”

She blushed and glanced up at me shyly.

“It really isn’t fair to ask me that,” she protested, flicking at the last year’s leaves with the point of her umbrella. “A woman must have a heart like stone if she never experiences any feeling of love. If I replied in the negative I should only lie to you. That you know quite well.”

“Then you have a lover, eh?” I exclaimed quickly, perhaps in a tone of ill-concealed regret.

“No,” she responded, in a low, firm voice, “I have no lover.” Then after a few moments’ pause she inquired, “Why do you ask me that?”

“Because, Muriel,” I said seriously, taking her hand, “because I desire to know the truth.”

“Why?” she asked, looking at me in mingled amazement and alarm. “We are friends, it is true; but your friendship gives you no right to endeavour to learn the secret of my heart,” and she gently withdrew her hand from my grasp.

I was silent, unable to reply to such an argument.

“And you love this man?” I said, in a rather hard voice.

But she merely shrugged her shoulders, and with a forced laugh answered —

“Oh, let’s talk of something else. We are out to enjoy ourselves to-day, not to discuss each other’s love affairs.”

We had approached the Diana fountain, and she stood pensively beside it for a moment watching the shoal of lazy carp, some of which have lived in that pond for over a century.

“I do not wish to discuss my own affairs of the heart, Muriel,” I burst forth passionately, as I stood beside her. “Yet, as one who holds you in esteem, who has ever striven for your welfare, I feel somehow that I ought to be still your confidant.”

“You only wish to wring my secret from me because it amuses you,” she protested, her eyes flashing resentfully. “You know that’s the truth. When you have nothing better to do you bring me out, just because I’m company. If you had held me in esteem, as you declare you do, you would have at least wished me farewell before you went abroad for the winter.”

This neglect had annoyed her, and in sudden pique she was reproaching me in a manner quite unusual to her. I had never before seen her assume so resentful an air.

“No,” I responded, pained that she should thus charge me with amusing myself at leisure with her society, although when I reflected I was compelled to admit within myself that her words were the absolute truth. For several years I had merely treated her as a friend to be sought when I had no other person to dine with or accompany me out. Yes, of late, I had neglected Muriel sadly.

“I don’t think you are quite fair,” I said. “That I hold you in esteem you must have seen long, long ago, and the reason why I did not wish you farewell was because – well, because I was just then very much upset.”

“You had met a woman whom you believed you loved,” she said harshly. “It is useless to try and conceal the truth from me.”

“I have not attempted to conceal anything,” I responded, nevertheless starting at her mention of that woman who had been enveloped in such mystery, and who, after a few days’ madness, had now so completely gone out of my life. How could she have known?

In answer she looked me straight in the face with her dark, fathomless eyes.

“You have told me nothing of your love,” she exclaimed in a hoarse tone. “If you cannot trust me with your confidences as once you used to do, then we can no longer remain the fast friends we have been. We must drift apart. You have already shown that you fear to tell me of your fascination – a fascination that was so near to becoming fatal. You know nothing of Aline Cloud – of who or what she is – yet you love her blindly!” Her well-arched brows knit themselves, her face became at that instant pale and hard set, and she held her breath, as if a sudden determination had swept upon her.

She knew my secret, and I stood confused, unable to reply to those quick, impetuous words which had involuntarily escaped her.

Did she love me? I wondered. Had jealousy alone prompted that speech? Or was she really aware of the truth concerning the blue-eyed woman whom I had adored for those few fleeting days, and whom I was now seeking to hunt down as a criminal?

Chapter Twelve

“You! Of All Men!”

“No,” I admitted, “I was not aware who Aline Cloud was, nor did I know that you were acquainted with her.”

She started. She had unwittingly betrayed herself.

“I – acquainted with her!” she cried in a voice of indignation. “You are mistaken.”

“But you know her by repute,” I said. “Tell me the truth about her.”

She laughed, a light, nervous laugh, her eyes still fixed upon the water.

“You love her!” she exclaimed. “It is useless for me to say anything.”

“No, no, Muriel,” I cried. “I do not love her. How could I love her when I know nothing whatsoever of her? Why, I only saw her twice.”

“But you were with her a sufficient length of time to declare your love.”

How could she know? I wondered. Aline herself must have told her. She uttered a falsehood when she declared that she did not know the mysterious fair-faced woman whose power was so mysterious and unnatural.

I was puzzled.

“Well,” I said at length, “I admit it. I admit that in a moment of mad ecstasy I made a foolish declaration of affection – an avowal which I have ever since regretted.”

She gave me a pitying, scornful look, a glance which proved to me how fierce was her hatred of Aline.

“If you had told me of your fascination I might have been able to have explained the truth concerning her. But as you have thought fit to preserve your secret, no end can now be gained by the exposure of anything I know,” she said, quite calmly.

“What do you know about her, Muriel?” I inquired, laying my hand upon her arm in all seriousness. “Tell me.”

But she shook her head, rather sadly perhaps. The bright expression of happiness which had illuminated her countenance until that moment had died away and been replaced by a look of dull despair. The sun shone down upon her brightly, the birds were singing in the trees and all around was gladness, but she seemed troubled and oppressed as one heartbroken.

“No!” she answered in a low tone, her breast slowly heaving and falling. “If you have really escaped the enthralment it is enough. You may congratulate yourself.”

“Why?”

“Merely because you have avoided the pitfall set in your path,” she answered. “She was beautiful. It was because of her loveliness that you became entranced, was it not?”

“There is no necessity to conceal anything,” I said.

“You speak the truth.”

“And you had some illustrations of the evil influence which lay within her?” Muriel asked.

I recollected how my crucifix had been mysteriously reduced to ashes, and nodded in the affirmative, wondering whether I should ever succeed in obtaining knowledge of the truth which she evidently possessed.

“Yet you had the audacity to love her!” she laughed. “You thought that she – this woman whom all the world would hound down if they knew the true facts – could love you in return! It is amazing how a pretty face can lead the strongest-willed man to ruin.”

I rather resented her attitude in thus interfering in my private affairs. That I admired her was true; yet I was not her lover, and she had no right to object to any of my actions.

“I cannot see that I have been so near ruin as you would make out,” I exclaimed, philosophically. “An unrequited love is an incident in most men’s lives.”

“Ah! she spared you!” she cried. “If she had smitten you, you would have perished as swiftly as objects dissolve into ashes when she is present. At least she pitied you. And you were doubly fortunate.”

“Yes,” I said, reflecting upon her words, at the same time recollecting her mysterious connection with poor Roddy Morgan. “She was without doubt endowed with a power that was inexplicable.”

“Inexplicable!” she echoed. “It was supernatural. Things withered at her touch.”

“If I, your friend, am fortunate in my escape, would it not be but an act of friendship to explain to me all you know concerning her?”

Her dark, luminous eyes met mine in a long, earnest glance.

“No!” she answered, after a moment’s reflection. “I have already explained. You have escaped; the incident is ended.” And she added with a laugh, “Your neglect of me was, of course, fully justified in such circumstances.”

“Now, that’s unfair, Muriel,” I exclaimed. “I had no intention of neglecting you, neither had I the slightest suspicion that you desired me to say farewell to you. Have you not told me that you have an admirer whom you could love? Surely that is sufficient. Love him, and we may always remain friends, as we now are.”

“No!” she responded, with a dark look of foreboding. “We cannot remain friends longer. Our mutual confidence is shattered. We may be acquaintances, but nothing more.”

I had not mentioned poor Roddy’s death, for it was a subject so painful that I discussed it as little as possible. Was it not, however, likely that if I explained all the circumstances and told her my suspicions, her hatred might lead her to disclose some clue whereby I might trace Aline Cloud?

Her words had caused me considerable misgiving, for it was now entirely plain that, contrary to what I had confidently believed, namely, that she loved me, she in reality held me in contempt as weak and fickle, influenced by every pretty face or wayward glance.

I looked at her again. Yes, my eyes were not love-blinded now. She was absolutely bewitching in her beauty. For the first time I became aware that there was but one woman I really loved, and that it was Muriel.

“I regret that you should not consider me to be still worthy your confidence,” I said, bending towards her seriously. “I have admitted everything, and have expressed regret. What more can I do?”

“Forget her!” she answered, with a quick petulance. “It is best to forget.”

“Ah!” I sighed. “That is unfortunately impossible.”

“Then you love her still!” she cried, turning upon me. “You love her!”

“No,” I answered. “I do not love her, because – ”

“Because she treated you shabbily, and left without giving you her address, eh? You see, I know all the circumstances.”

“You are mistaken,” I protested. “I do not love her because I entertain a well-founded if perhaps absurd suspicion.”

“Suspicion! What do you suspect?” she asked quickly.

Then, linking my arm in hers, I walked on, and commencing at the beginning told her of that fateful day when I discovered the tragic death of poor Roddy, and the circumstances which, combined with Aline’s own confession, seemed to point to her being his visitor, immediately prior to his death.

As she listened her face grew ashen, and she perceptibly trembled. A violent emotion shook her slight frame, and as I continued to relate my dismal story and piece together the evidence which I felt certain must some day connect Aline with the tragedy, I was dumbfounded to discern that which, in a single instant, changed the whole aspect of the situation.

Muriel was speechless. She was trembling with fear.

“And you really suspect that your friend was murdered?” she exclaimed at last in the voice of one preoccupied. “If that had been really so, wouldn’t the doctors have known?”

“Medical evidence is not always reliable,” I answered. “From what I have already explained it is proved conclusively that some one visited him in his valet’s absence.”

“Who called there, do you think?”

“Ah! I don’t know,” I answered. “That is what I am endeavouring to discover.”

She gave a slight, almost imperceptible sigh. It was a sigh of relief!

Could it be true that my little friend held locked within her breast the secret of Roddy’s tragic end? I glanced again at her face as she strolled by my side. Yes, her countenance was now pale and agitated, its aspect entirely changed from what it had been half an hour before.