The Hundredth Chance

Maud's heart smote her suddenly. She realized that she had been ungracious. "Thank you very much, Mrs. Wright," she said, with more of cordiality than she had yet shown. "I will try to run in some day."

Mrs. Wright looked enchanted on the instant. "My dear, I'd be delighted! Come any time of day, just when it suits you! Tom and me, we live alone now. He's such a good son. He keeps a hair-dresser's saloon, you know, at the side of the shop. That's how we come to know Mr. Bolton. He comes as regular as possible every third week to have his hair cut. Such a head of hair it is-hair such as a woman would give her eyes for. It's to be hoped he'll get a little daughter some day, as'll take after him. Your eyes and his hair-wouldn't she be a picture!"

Maud's geniality passed like a light extinguished. She became statuesque. "How soon the light goes!" she said, with a glance towards the darkening window.

"Yes; don't it?" said Mrs. Wright.

There fell a silence most unusual with Mrs. Wright. With an effort Maud dispelled it.

"We are very much interested in the horses. You heard of the Mascot's victory at Graydown?"

Mrs. Wright came out of her silence, shook herself together, as it were, and smiled again. "Now, isn't that nice for Jake? He's that wrapped up in the animals, and to have you interested in 'em too! Now I should be jealous of 'em if it was me!"

It was at this point that Jake himself threw open the door and entered, stopping short within the room in surprise to find it occupied.

Mrs. Wright laughed aloud. "There, now! You didn't expect to find me in possession, did you? How de do, Jake? What's happened to your head?"

Jake advanced with extended hand. "Hullo, it's Mother Wright!" he said, and to Maud's amazement stooped and kissed her. "If this isn't a real pleasure! But what are you doing in here? My head made a hole in the road coming home from the races the other night, and it is still too sore a subject for discussion."

"Now-now, Jake!" protested Mrs. Wright.

"Fact!" he assured her, with the candid smile that Maud had seen but little of late. "But now what are you doing in here, I want to know? This place is like a vault. Come along into the parlour and have some tea!"

He had not so much as glanced at Maud; she spoke suddenly, with nervous haste. "Bunny is in the parlour, Jake. He may be dozing."

"We'll soon wake him up," said Jake,

He drew Mrs. Wright's tightly-gloved hand through his arm and turned to the door. But she held him back, laughing.

"Jake! Jake! You've forgotten something."

"What's that?" said Jake.

She told him amid many fat chuckles. "Why, you've kissed me, and you haven't kissed your wife. Come, now, that's not right, and you but just married. I know you're wanting to, so don't be shy! I've been a bride myself, and I know all about it."

She would have withdrawn her hand from Jake's arm, but he would not suffer it.

"No, no!" he said, with a careless laugh. "We don't do our kissing in public. Guess it isn't a genial enough atmosphere either. Come along, Mother! You'll perish in here."

He led her from the room, still without glancing in Maud's direction, and drew her along the narrow passage to the door of the parlour.

Maud followed with a stateliness that veiled a burning embarrassment.

She listened for Bunny's voice at the opening of the door, and instantly heard it raised in cracked remonstrance.

"Here, I say! Don't bring anyone in here! Oh, it's you, Jake! I thought it was Maud. I thought-"

His voice suddenly ended in what she felt to be the silence of disgust, and Jake's accents very measured, very determined, took up the tale.

"This is my young brother-in-law, Mrs. Wright, Sir Bernard Brian, commonly called Bunny. Well, Bunny, my lad, I've brought you a visitor to tea."

Bunny growled an inarticulate response, and Mrs. Wright covered all deficiencies with her cheery chuckle.

"So nice to see you so cosy and comfortable, my dear. I hope as I'm not intruding too much. Do you know, Jake, I don't think I'd better stop to tea? It's getting dark, and Tom'll be wondering."

"Let him wonder!" said Jake. "I'll see you home all in good time. You know you always have tea when you come to see me. It's seldom enough you come too. Maud," for the first time he addressed her directly, and in his voice was a new note of authority such as she had never heard before, "order the tea, will you? We will have it at once."

It was a distinct command. Maud's delicate neck stiffened instinctively. She crossed the room in silence, and rang the bell.

The summons was answered with unusual promptitude by Mrs. Lovelace, who entered with the supper-cloth on her arm and was greeted by the visitor with much joviality.

"How is it I never see you round our way, Sarah? Have you quite forgotten your old friends?"

"Not at all, Mrs. Wright, ma'am," said Mrs. Lovelace, dexterously flinging her cloth over the table. "But I've been a bit busy, you see, what with one thing and another, and me time's been occupied."

"What on earth are you spreading that cloth for?" here broke in Bunny, in irritable astonishment. "We never have that for tea."

Mrs. Lovelace looked at him with dignity and hitched one shoulder. "We always has a good spread when Mrs. Wright comes to see the master," she said, in a tone that conveyed a distinct reproof for ill-timed interference.

Bunny subsided into sullen silence, and Mrs. Wright laughed again. "I remember as it always used to be a heavy tea," she said. "But I don't suppose a young gentleman like you would know what such things mean. Now, I do hope you won't put yourself out on my account, Mrs. Bolton. It's true I'm not accustomed to drawing-room meals, never had tea on my lap in my life. But there, you might say as I haven't got much lap left to have it on. Is that sardines you've got there, Sarah? Ah, you always remember my pet weakness. Well, Jake, my dear, I haven't congratulated you yet on your marriage. I hope it's going to be a very prosperous one. I don't doubt as you've got a wife to be proud of, and I hope you'll pull together well and make each other happy and comfortable; and may you have your heart's desire, Jake, which-if I know you properly-isn't very far to seek!"

"That's real kind of you, Mother," said Jake sombrely.

He had seated himself near Bunny whose brows were drawn in an ominous scowl.

In spite of the fire that roared up the chimney, the atmosphere was very far from being a genial one. Jake's eyes, compellingly bright, were fixed upon Maud, who though burningly conscious of his regard refused persistently to raise her own. She was bitterly resentful of Jake's attitude. It placed her in an intolerable position from which she felt herself powerless to break free. She had no desire to treat this impossible old woman churlishly, but somehow Jake forced her to a more acute realization of the great gulf that stretched between them. She could not even pretend to be cordial in his presence. She sat tongue-tied. Mrs. Wright, however, chatted on with the utmost complacence. She was plainly quite at her ease with Jake and she kept the conversation going without an effort, despite Maud's obvious embarrassment and Bunny's evident impatience.

She made a hearty meal, urged on by Jake who presently bestowed the whole of his attention upon her, seeming to dismiss his wife and brother-in-law from his mind.

"I really must be going," she declared at length, having detailed all the local gossip she could think of for his delectation. "You shouldn't encourage me so, Jake. I'm sure you'll all be tired out."

"I reckon you're just the most welcome visitor that ever darkens my doors," said Jake, rising with her. "Now, you're not to hurry. I'm going to tell them to put the horse in."

"No, no, Jake, my dear, don't you! I'd sooner walk. I would indeed. It does me good, and it's too cold to-night for driving. No, and I'm not going to let you see me home either. I'd know the way blindfold, and I'm not that nervous. Oh, there now! What's this?"

Mrs. Lovelace had just thrown open the door with some pomp. She entered, bearing an enormous bunch of violets which she proceeded to present to Maud with the ceremonious announcement: "Lord Saltash's compliments, ma'am, and will you do him the honour to accept these?"

"Oh my! How lovely!" cried Mrs. Wright.

Maud said nothing. She took the violets and held them up to her face.

Jake glanced at her momentarily, and thence to Mrs. Lovelace who had come forward to help Mrs. Wright into her cloak.

"Is Lord Saltash at the door?" he asked.

Mrs. Lovelace gave a start, as if something in the query surprised her. "No sir, the flowers was brought by a groom," she said.

Jake said no more, but something in his silence sent the ever-ready colour flooding Maud's face and neck. She bent a little lower over the violets, saying no word.

Mrs. Wright came clumsily into the breach. "But aren't they lovely, to be sure? Never did I see such beauties. And the scent of 'em, why, the room is full of it! Isn't that kind of Lord Saltash now?"

"They have a great quantity at the Castle," Maud said in muffled tones.

She held the flowers for Mrs. Wright to smell, and at the same moment Jake reached forth and took them from her outstretched hand.

"You take 'em if you like 'em, Mother. We get more of 'em than we want," he said, in leisurely tones, and thrust the bouquet forthwith into her astonished grasp.

"Oh, my dear!" cried Mrs. Wright, between dismay and delight. "But-but they was a present to Mrs. Bolton. I couldn't really! No, that I couldn't!"

"Take 'em!" Jake said. He was smiling a smile of deadly determination and his leisurely utterance held something of a fateful quality that induced Mrs. Wright to hush her remonstrances and turn appealingly to Maud.

The latter was standing erect and still with eyes of burning blue fixed steadily upon emptiness. She made no response whatever to her visitor's unspoken appeal, it seemed that she did not even see it.

"It's all right, Mother," smiled Jake. "You take 'em home and enjoy 'em. As a matter of fact, Maud and I are getting a bit fed up with 'em ourselves. Yes, I'm going to see you home. I'd rather."

"And I'd rather not, Jake," Mrs. Wright asserted with sudden decision. An odd expression of sternness had come into her jolly countenance. It sat very strangely there. She came close to Maud, and as the girl extended a stiff hand in farewell she took it and pressed the flowers into it. "They're not Jake's to give," she said, "and I'm not going to deprive you of 'em. Thank you kindly for a very good tea, Mrs. Bolton, my dear. And now I'll wish you good-bye. If there's ever anything as I can do for you, you must let me know."

The words, the tone, were full of kindly comprehension, a sympathy too subtle for outward expression. Maud looked into eyes of shining friendliness, and as if a sudden shaft of sunlight had caught her heart, her bitterness melted into something that was near akin to gratitude.

She held up the violets with a smile. "Wait a moment!" she said. "I would like you to have some of them."

She untied them with the words, divided the great bunch, and gave back a generous half into Mrs. Wright's plump hand.

"Now, that's very good of you, dear," said Mrs. Wright. "I shall just treasure them violets. They'll make me think of you whenever I look at 'em. They're just the colour of your eyes. Good-bye, and thank you most kindly."

It was then that Maud did a thing that amazed herself, impelled thereto by that subtle sympathy which she had so little expected to meet. She bent her stately neck and kissed the red, smiling face uplifted in such honest admiration to hers. "Good-bye, Mrs. Wright," she said. "And thank you for coming. I shall try to come and see you one day-when I can make time."

"Any time, dear, any time!" beamed Mrs. Wright. "Drop in just whenever you feel inclined! I'm most always there." She gave her a hearty hug with the words, and then, as if afraid that this demonstration had been too ardent, she turned and trotted to the door.

"Good-bye, Jake! Good-bye! There, now, I've forgotten Sir Brian. You must excuse me for being so stupid."

"Oh, don't trouble!" said Bunny, with ironical courtesy. "Pray don't come back on my account!"

She looked back at him from the threshold, a very motherly compassion on her jolly face.

"Poor little lad!" she murmured pityingly. "How sadly he looks, to be sure! Good-bye, then, Sir Brian! I won't come back. Now, Jake, I'll let you see me to the door-step-no further. The moon's up, and Tom'll be sure to come and meet me." She started down the passage with Jake behind her, her voice dwindling as she went. "I'm so glad as I've seen your princess, Jake. I think she's lovely. Mind you're very good to her! She's high born, you know, Jake, my boy; better-class than you and me. I never see anyone so proud and so dainty. You be kind to her, my lad, and see you treat her like the lady she is!"

Jake's reply, if he made one, was inaudible.

"Common old hag!" growled Bunny from his sofa.

Maud said nothing at all. Her face was hidden in her violets, and she was as one who heard not.

CHAPTER XXIX

HER OTHER SELF

It was on an afternoon in mid-January that Maud found herself for the first time in the precincts of Burchester Castle. She had heard nothing of Lord Saltash since his departure for town, though gifts of flowers arrived at regular intervals from his hot-houses; and it seemed that his absence was to be indefinitely prolonged. She almost hoped that it would be so, for though he was practically her only friend his presence was not an unalloyed pleasure. She felt more at ease when he was away.

On this particular afternoon she had left Bunny wrapped up in his long chair and lying in the summer-house that overlooked the field where Jake was occupied in breaking in a wild young colt. The day was fine and unusually warm. Bunny was in a contented mood and, since Jake was close at hand, she did not see why she should not leave him for a space. He had been needing her less and less of late, and though his behaviour towards herself had undoubtedly undergone a considerable improvement, it was becoming very evident to her that he vastly preferred Jake's masculine companionship to her own. He was in fact so devoted to Jake that he would endure correction from him without a murmur, a state of affairs that Maud vaguely resented, without knowing why. They were such close allies that she often felt herself to be superfluous. Neither by day nor by night was her presence any longer essential.

She knew that she ought not to regret this, for it meant that Bunny's health was very materially improving; but yet at the heart of her there often came a pang. She missed his dependence upon her with a poignancy that was very hard to bear.

And so for the first time that afternoon she decided to avail herself of Lord Saltash's permission to use the piano at the Castle. She had an intense love of music and a natural gift for it which she had never been able to develop very freely.

Charlie was musical too. Some of her happiest hours had been spent at the piano with him in the old days. He was an accomplished musician himself, and he had given her many a lesson and valuable hint. She sometimes thought that it was over the piano that her heart had first gone out to his.

She did not want to recall those happy times they had had together. They lay far behind her with her buried youth. But the longing to make music was strong upon her. It had risen out of her loneliness like a fiery thirst in the desert, and she yearned to gratify it.

And after all why should she not? Charlie was away. There was no one to know or care how she spent her time. It was obviously and unquestionably her own.

Jake had wholly ceased to take any interest in her doings. He treated her as the most casual acquaintance. When he greeted her, he never so much as touched her hand. He was everything to Bunny, he was nothing to her; and every day it seemed to her that he drew a little further away from her. She had tried to make overtures more than once, but he never seemed to understand. He would look at her in his straight, impenetrable way, and pass deliberately on to some other matter, whether with intention or not she could never wholly decide. He had never tried to be kind to her since the day that she had refused to hear his proffered explanation.

A great bitterness was growing up within her. She felt as if he had deprived her of all she cared for, and given her nothing in return. It was in part this bitterness of spirit that drove her to Burchester Castle that day, and, added thereto, an intense and feverish desire to escape if only for an hour from the atmosphere of her daily existence. She felt as if it were crushing out her individuality, and she longed desperately to be herself, her best and happiest self, if only for an hour.

So, with no word to any but Bunny of her intention, she passed up the long fir avenue to the Castle with the winter sun sinking red behind her.

The great stone building frowned upon her as she drew near. She approached it with a certain awe. The dark windows seemed to gaze at her. The massive entrance yawned to receive her.

She stepped into the echoing Gothic porch, and found herself confronted by a massive oak door. The electric bell at the side of this, however, was reassuring, and she rang it without hesitation.

While she waited for the door to open she amused herself by examining the gargoyles that surmounted the pillars of the porch, – jeering, demon faces that made her shiver. There was about the place an ecclesiastical dignity at which those faces seemed to mock. The thought of Saltash went through her. Saltash in a derisive mood was strikingly like one of these.

The door opened with noiseless state, and an ancient man-servant stood before her. He looked at her with grave enquiry, and with a touch of nervousness she explained her presence.

"I am Mrs. Bolton. Lord Saltash is away, I know; but he has given me permission to use his piano. I thought I should like to do so this afternoon."

The old man stood back and bowed before her. "Come in, madam!" he said.

She entered with a curious sensation of unreality, and found herself in an immense stone hall, carpeted with rich Persian rugs, and splendidly warmed by a great fire that roared in an open fireplace. The sense of ecclesiastical austerity completely vanished as soon as the door closed behind her. The whole atmosphere became luxurious, sensuous, Eastern. There were some wonderful pieces of statuary, some in marble and some in bronze, placed here and there, that were of anything but monastical design. One in particular in a niche in the stone wall caught Maud's eyes as she followed her guide-a nude, female figure with wings, one of which was spread like an eagle's pinion as though to soar, while the other trailed back, broken, drooping, powerless. It was a wonderful marble, and she paused before it almost involuntarily. The arms of the figure were outstretched and straining upwards, the head flung back, and in the face such anguish, such longing, such passionate protest as thrilled her through and through.

The old butler paused also. "That," he said in his decorous monotone, "is Spentoli's Fallen Woman. His lordship prefers to call it The Captured Angel. A very valuable piece of sculptury, I believe, madam. Quite one of the features of the place. His lordship sets great store by it, and it is universally admired by all visitors."

"It is wonderful," Maud said. But yet she turned her eyes away almost immediately. There was something about that mute, agonized figure of womanhood that she felt she could not bear to look upon except in solitude.

The butler stumped on down the great hall, and she followed, to a grand oak staircase that divided into two half-way up and led to a panelled gallery that ran along three sides of the hall. Solemnly they mounted. A high oak door confronted them at the top which the old man threw open with much ceremony.

"The grand piano, madam, is over by the west window," he said, and with another deep bow withdrew, closing the door without sound behind her.

Maud went forward into the room. The first impression she received was of great loftiness. It was a huge apartment, oak-panelled, and with a floor of polished oak. The whole of one side of the room was lighted by south windows that looked out over terraced gardens to the pine-woods of the park. At the end was a turret in the western angle of the wall, and here stood the piano, full in the glow of the sinking sun. There were two fireplaces in the room, and in the one nearer to the piano a red still fire was burning. A low couch stood before it, and a great tiger-skin-the only rug in the whole vast place-was spread on the hearth. There were other couches and strangely-shaped divans in the room, but no chairs, and only one small table. The whole effect was spacious and Eastern, curiously attractive to the senses and yet curiously elusive.

Maud went over the uncovered floor, treading lightly, with a feeling of having entered an enchanted land, – a feeling not wholly pleasant of being caught in a fairy web of subtleties from which she might not find it easy to escape.

The whole atmosphere breathed of Saltash. She was sure that he had designed every elusive detail.

The piano was thrown invitingly open. A French song was on the rack. It had the appearance of having been placed there but a moment before. A sudden doubt assailed her, a sensation as of having walked unwittingly into a trap. Some force had drawn her hither, some magnetism had surely been at work.

The impulse came to her then to turn and go, yet she resisted it. Later, it seemed to her that she had lacked the motive power to do aught but move straight to the piano and drop onto the music-stool before the keys. Her hands went out to them, and suddenly she was playing, at first very softly, then with gathering tone as she felt the instrument respond to her touch, till at length all sense of strangeness left her, and she began to sing the little French ditty that once had been one of her favourites! She had never heard her own voice to greater advantage than in that lofty music-room. It was a mezzo, sweet rather than powerful, with a ringing, bell-like quality that Charlie had been wont to compare to the tentative notes of a bullfinch. He had always declared that she was afraid of the sound of it, but this was certainly not the case to-day. The glad notes left her lips, true and free and birdlike. The heart within her had suddenly grown light.

The song came to an end. Her fingers began to wander idly over the keys. She played a dreamy air with an old-world waltz refrain, too lost in her trance of delight to realize what she played, and again half-unconsciously she was singing, as she had sung long ago before the gates of youth.

"There has fall'n a splendid tear,From the passion flower at the gate,She is coming, my dove, my dear;She is coming, my life, my fate.The red rose cries, 'She is near, she is near';And the white rose weeps, 'She is late';The larkspur listens, 'I hear, I hear';And the lily whispers, 'I wait.'"

Softly, sweetly, the notes stole through the room, wandered awhile, and ceased. There fell a pause, and the girl's eyes rested dreaming on the long dark line of pine-trees red-flushed in the glow of sunset.

Then, still following her dream, she sang on.

"She is coming, my own, my sweet,Were it ever so airy a treadMy heart would hear her and beatWere it earth in an earthy bed;My dust would hear her and beat,Had I lain for a century dead;Would start and tremble under her feet,And blossom in purple and red."

And then she was singing the refrain, and while she sang it she awoke.

"Come into the garden, Maud,For the black bat night has flown;Come into the garden, Maud,I am here at the gate alone,I am here at the gate alone."

She stopped suddenly with the conviction that a man's voice had joined hers in the singing of that refrain. Yet, if this had been so, the accompanying voice ceased as abruptly as her own. She found herself sitting in absolute silence, with every pulse racing, every nerve strained to listen.

No sound came to her. The whole great chamber was as still as death. The fire burned red and silent. There was not so much as the ticking of a clock to be heard. And yet it seemed to her that eyes watched her from some vantage point unseen. She had a firm conviction that she was not alone.