Saved from herself or, On the edge of doom
think he went to Rome to die there--at least he meant to do so. That,
you see, explains his making a will.”
Cylmer nodded.
“How did you hear of the will?” he asked.
“I thought I told you,” patiently. “The will, with a letter from
Dubourg, the hotel proprietor, reached me yesterday. In it he mentioned
the Dean of Chelsea as one of the witnesses, and him I saw this
morning. It was all perfectly regular. The dean read both wills at Sir
Gaspard’s bidding. They were exactly alike. He thought him looking very
ill at the time.”
“Poor little Cristiane!” Cylmer said involuntarily. “It is a great
responsibility for her, all that money and land.”
“She is young”--with the unconscious cynicism of years--“the
world--life--will console her! But I could wish I had been left her
guardian.”
“What!” Cylmer’s handsome face was blank. “Who is, then, if you are
not?”
“Madam Trelane,” said the other dryly. “I can tell you that much
without a breach of confidence, for the dean will have told half London
by now.”
“That woman he sent down to stay with Cristiane!”
The words were irrepressible. At the mention of Mrs. Trelane there
sprang into Cylmer’s mind the memory of the only day he had seen her,
and once more he wondered why she made him think of Abbotsford.
“Who is she? Did she mean to marry Le Marchant?” he said quickly.
“My dear sir”--Mr. Bolton coughed dryly--“Mrs. Trelane was Helen le
Marchant, Sir Gaspard’s own cousin, and the nearest relative he had
except Cristiane. And she is said to be a clever woman.”
“Where has she been all this time?” Cylmer said slowly. “I never heard
of her.”
“In London.” There was no need to air all he knew of Helen Trelane.
Yet, in spite of his caution, there was deep distrust of her on his
face.
“A clever woman!” he repeated quietly; “as you will see when the will
is read to-morrow.”
Miles Cylmer got up, a strange look on his handsome face.
“If he has left the money to any one but Cristiane,” he said with a
ring of reckless truth in his voice, “I’ll settle twenty thousand
pounds on her. I would marry her--but she won’t have me. Anyhow, as
long as I live she shall have all the money she wants.”
“You are too hasty, Mr. Cylmer;” but there was a kind of pity in the
old lawyer’s eyes. “The child’s fortune is hers, but the reversion is
Mrs. Trelane’s and her daughter’s.”
“Was Sir Gaspard a lunatic?” Miles cried.
Mr. Bolton shook his head.
“No; only a good man, who knew nothing of the world,” he answered
cynically. “Good morning, Mr. Cylmer. If you go to Marchant’s Hold
before I do be good enough to keep my confidence.”
“I’m traveling down with you,” Cylmer returned with sudden haughtiness.
“I’ll meet you at the train to-night.” Yet as he turned he paused.
“Has Mrs. Trelane a husband?” he asked.
“Dead, years ago! A man who was his own enemy,” briefly. “She and her
daughter were alone and in poverty when Sir Gaspard found them.”
“And paid their debts?” said Cylmer searchingly.
“Very possibly.” Mr. Bolton was still negotiating with those unpaid
tradesmen, but he did not say so. “Mrs. Trelane was a very pretty girl,
Mr. Cylmer.”
“Then she has developed into a very well-painted lady,” Cylmer
responded, and departed without more ceremony.
“Trelane! It’s not a common name,” he thought as he went down-stairs.
“There must be some one in London who knows about her.”
He turned into his club at lunch-time, and looked up irritably as old
Lord De Fort greeted him from the next table.
“Sad news this about Le Marchant,” the neat old dandy said, tapping his
newspaper. “A young man, too. And not a relative to come in for all
that money but his daughter.”
“His cousin, Mrs. Trelane--perhaps!” The last word with late wisdom.
“Trelane? Not Helen Trelane?” Lord De Fort put up a shaky eye-glass and
stared at Cylmer.
“That’s her name, yes! Why?”
“Gad! So she is his cousin. I sincerely hope she’s forgotten it.”
Cylmer got up and seated himself at Lord De Fort’s table.
“Why?” he demanded. “Speak out. I only saw the woman once in my life.”
Lord De Fort obliged him. Under the sharp tongue of the old dandy every
shred of honor and virtue fell away from Helen Trelane. Her life was
set forth in detail, till Cylmer bit his lip as he sat silent. This
was the woman to whom was given the guardianship of a young girl, this
adventuress whom even Lord De Fort despised.
“She has a daughter,” Cylmer said at last, with a faint gleam of hope
that the girl might be different.
“Who grew too clever and so was sent to school. I used to see the
child, a skinny imp of ten, going to the pawn-shop of a morning. Helen
Trelane was in deep waters then.”
Cylmer got up to go, but something made him pause.
“Tell me,” he said suddenly, “was this Mrs. Trelane ever a friend of
Abbotsford’s?”
“What! The man who was murdered? My dear sir, I don’t know. What put it
into your head?”
“It was just idle curiosity,” said Cylmer hastily. “I have no reason
to think so,” for, after all, he had no right to drag any woman’s name
into an affair like that.
“Humph!” Lord De Fort gave a dry grunt. “I don’t think she ever knew
him. Mrs. Trelane is much too clever a woman to have ever known a
murdered man.”
Cylmer’s head was dizzy as he left the club. To think of Cristiane down
in the country, away from every one, with a woman like that, in her
absolute power for years to come, made him burn with useless rage.
A sudden thought came over him as he walked aimlessly down the street,
his features drawn with worry. If he could see the woman now, before
she knew of that iniquitous will, perhaps he could terrify her into
letting him buy her off. His promise to Mr. Bolton would not stand in
his way; that was only that he would not mention his knowledge of Sir
Gaspard’s will--surely the very last piece of information he would wish
to give to Helen Trelane.
Mr. Cylmer took the first train for home.
“I can make the country too hot to hold her, and I’ll tell her so,” he
reflected as he got out at the little way station for Marchant’s Hold.
But he was uncomfortably conscious that if she did not care, and said
so, he was powerless.
Mrs. Trelane, in immaculate black, was seated cozily over the
drawing-room fire, outwardly calm, inwardly a prey to forebodings. She
never looked up as the door opened, and unannounced, unexpected, Miles
Cylmer walked in. She sprang to her feet, utterly astounded. Then she
remembered he had been Sir Gaspard’s most intimate friend.
“It is Mr. Cylmer, is it not?” she said quietly, peering at him in the
firelight. “Have you any news?”
He looked at her, at the tea-table where the silver glittered
sumptuously; at all the luxury of the room. It might all come to be
this woman’s own. Already she looked as though she were mistress. He
seemed not to see the hand she held out to him, and, white and smooth,
she let it fall to her black skirts.
“No, there is no fresh news. It is all quite true, that is all.” His
voice rang harshly in spite of himself.
Mrs. Trelane, looking at him, was somehow afraid. He looked as though
he had come for a purpose.
“Poor Cristiane!” she said gently. “You would like to see her? I hardly
know--I am afraid----”
“I came to see you!” This time he saw her quick start as the fire
blazed up. “I have just come from London. I met a friend of yours
there.”
“A friend of mine?” she stammered. “Did they send you to me?”
She had only one thought, Lord Abbotsford lying dead in the little
rose-colored room. Had anything come out? On a sudden her very throat
was dry.
Cylmer had not sat down; she wished he would not stand over her, as if
he threatened her.
“I have few friends,” her voice was wonderfully steady. “Who was this?”
“Lord De Fort.” He looked at her masterfully. “Mrs. Trelane, you are a
clever woman. I think you will see that Marchant’s Hold will not give
your--abilities--scope!”
Lord De Fort! It was he and his old stories that had made her shake in
her chair! She would have laughed aloud had she dared.
“Lord De Fort hates me!” She shrugged her shoulders. “Have you come
down here to tell me so?”
Her glance moved suddenly to a dark corner of the room. Did something
stir there? Or was it a curtain swaying in a draft? Cylmer was puzzled.
There was relief in her voice when he had implied that he knew what
would have overwhelmed another woman with shame--and at first she had
been terrified. What was she looking at now in the dark, over his
shoulder?
He turned sharply.
A slim girl, all in black, her flaxen head held high, her eyes very
dark in the fitful light, stood behind him, for once the witch-smile
absent from her mouth.
“Mother, please go to Cristiane,” she said almost sternly, and Mrs.
Trelane without a word obeyed her. Ismay came a step nearer to Cylmer
and looked him in the eyes.
“You!” she said, and the sound of her voice was like knives. “It is
you, who would”--she stopped as if something suffocated her.
Cylmer put his hand on her shoulder, quick and hard.
“What are you doing here--with her?” he nodded toward the door.
“She is my mother,” the girl said simply. “I am Ismay Trelane!”
In the silence neither knew how long they stood motionless. The girl
spoke first.
“I heard all you said,” she uttered slowly. “I know--oh! I know--what
you meant. That we are not fit to stay here, my mother and I. Make your
mind easy; we shall be turned out when the will is read! We have no
money, nowhere to go; but that will not concern you.”
Miles Cylmer felt suddenly contemptible. His righteous anger fell from
him like a garment.
“You don’t understand,” he groaned. “You can’t.”
“Oh! but I do. That old man told you to-day that we were poor,
disreputable. I tell you that Sir Gaspard found us starving, and he
gave us a chance; a chance to start fair, to pay our debts, to have
enough to eat and to wear! And then he died, and it was gone from
us--like that!” with a little flick of her exquisite hand. “You need
not threaten my mother; we shall be out of your way soon enough.”
“Ismay!” he cried, involuntarily, “I could not know she was your
mother. What are you going to do?”
She took no heed of his words.
“Shall you tell Cristiane all you know? Or if I ask you”--there
was sudden passion in her even voice, sudden fire in her strange
eyes--“will you let us go from here as we came, just the decent, poor
relations that her innocent soul thinks us? She will know evil soon
enough. Will you tell her it is in her very house?”
“I will tell her--nothing,” he answered slowly. “God forbid that I,
who promised to be your friend, should say the first word against your
mother.”
Months afterward he knew that nothing on earth should have kept him
from speaking out. Yet to what good? The will was hard and fast;
nothing could be done to break it.
He turned away from the pleading eyes as if he dared not look in them.
It was not till he was out in the frosty air that he remembered he had
never even asked after Cristiane le Marchant.
CHAPTER XIII.
HER HOUR OF TRIUMPH.
The solemn memorial service in the parish church for Gaspard le
Marchant was over. Mr. Bolton had come away from it a puzzled man.
Helen Trelane and her daughter had sat facing him while the rector
read, and there was no triumph on either of their faces; only a
strained something that might have been despair.
Could he have been too hasty? Did Helen Trelane know nothing of that
will, whose distasteful pages he must presently read aloud?
Cristiane puzzled him, too. Why had she not had her father’s body
brought home to rest in peace with his kith and kin? Under her black
veil he saw that she sobbed pitifully, and saw, too, that her hand
throughout the service was fast in Ismay Trelane’s. Could he have