Part 29 (1/2)
”Listen to the strange story of a woman's life!” she said slowly. ”I promised His Excellency, the Viceroy, that you should know why I left the defensive lines of my s.e.x at Geneva! For he has trusted to me, and I wish you to know--to know that--” and the sentence was never finished, for Captain Anstruther bent over her trembling hands.
”I know that you are what I would have you ever be!” he simply said.
And, with softly s.h.i.+ning eyes, she told the soldier of her strange life path.
It was strange that they had neared London before the whole story was concluded, and their voices had sunk into softened whispers. ”You may rely upon me to the death! You may depend upon me whenever you may wish to call upon me!” he said, as the train rolled into Charing Cross station. ”Major Hardwicke, of the Engineers, will be my chosen ally, and I alone am to trace out this mystery of the vanished jewels. You shall conquer! I will aid you! Amor omnia vincit! You are the only heart in the world now throbbing for that sweet girl.”
But when they drove to Morley's Hotel, far away on the sea, Harry Hardwicke's heart was beating fondly in all a lover's expectancy for the same friendless Rose of Delhi, and the debonnair Alan Hawke, in sight of Brindisi, mused in his deck-pacings: ”I will placate Euphrosyne Delande.
Justine, too, shall do my bidding, and my employer shall give me the key to this girl's heart. For I will marry Nadme Johnstone! I am a devil for luck.”
CHAPTER XII. ON THE CLIFFS OF JERSEY.
Captain Anson Anstruther, A. D. C., was the very happiest of men three days later, when he watched Madame Alixe Delavigne gracefully presiding over a pretty tea table, a la fusse, in the quaint old mansion, bowered in a garden sloping down to the Thames, where Miss Mildred Anstruther, a venerable maiden aunt, had her ”local habitation and, a name!” A lonely woman of colossal wealth and blue blood, high in rank, and decidedly of riper years.
”By Jove! Dear old Aunt Mildred is a tower of strength to me, just now,”
reflected the gallant Captain, when, as the soft shadows deepened on lawn and river, he lingered tenderly there in explanation of his official business. It was hardly ”official” that Anson Anstruther had fallen into the habit of furtively addressing the now unveiled Madame Berthe Louison, as ”Alixe”, but it was even so. Acquaintance can ripen as rapidly on the Thames as by the Arno, given a certain impetus. And the Pilgrim of Love, though still Madame Berthe Louison in France, was Alixe Delavigne in the retreat chosen by the Viceroy.
”Pazienza! Pazienza!” smiled the young soldier, as the impa.s.sioned Alixe eagerly demanded to be allowed to approach the orphaned Nadine, at St. Heliers. ”You have been so n.o.ble, so untiring, do not ruin all by precipitancy now! You see I am already secretly watching over her. I now represent the whole interests of Her Majesty's Service! And you--only your own loving heart! I must first meet Major Alan Hawke, and send him away to be busied on some apparently important duty, which will keep him away from old Andrew Fraser. We know the old professor's cunning character. Miser and pedant, he is but a shriveled parchment edition of his heartless, dead brother. We must not alarm him. We have already traced the insured packet to his hands. Now, he properly has the custody of the dead nabob's will. He may soon have to bring the girl on to London, for the legal formalities of proving it. We do not wish him to send the stolen jewels away in a sudden fright, and so hide them from us forever. If he qualifies duly as executor, and then files the will, then the estate is responsible, through him.
”We will soon know who controls your niece for the three years of her long minority. Hawke must be got out of the way. I will hoodwink him, and every British Consul in the continental towns which he visits will secretly watch him for me. Besides, Major Hardwicke and Murray will be here very scon, to aid me, and to watch Hawke. I wish Alan Hawke to blunder around, hunting for Major Hardwicke, and so give me an opportunity to do my duty secretly, and to aid you in your own labor of love. In the mean time--you must be content to rest tranquilly here; cultivate my dear old aunt, and I will come to you daily so that your quiet life in this 'moated grange' will be brightened up a bit. You see,” thoughtfully said Anstruther, ”whoever sent old Johnstone to his grave, he had previously spirited the heiress away--all his plans for the future were perfectly matured with all the craft of a man well versed in intrigue for forty years. His bitter hatred of you did not die with him. You may be a.s.sured that he has laid out a plan, both in his private letters and in the will to fence you forever out of this girl's life. So your work must be done in secret. If I can ever effectively help you, I must work on Andrew Fraser and not needlessly alarm both his greed and fear. As soon as it is safe, you shall take up your post near to her; but Hawke must come and go first. He must find no sign of your presence here.” There was cogency in the sentimental soldier's reasoning.
”He will surely come to my Paris home at No. 9 Rue Berlioz. He knows that address!” murmured Alixe Delavigne, her eyes dropping in a sudden confusion, as a flame of jealousy lit up the young soldier's fiery glances. For Anson Anstruther had posted there on his first voyage from Geneva to find the bird flown.
”Then you may keep Marie, your maid, here,” slowly replied Anstruther, ”and send Jules over to Paris. Alan Hawke will surely seek for you there. Let Jules inform him that you have gone to Jitomir to attend to your Russian interests.”
Alixe Delavigne bowed her head in a mute a.s.sent. Day by day the proud self-reliant woman was yielding to the imperious will of the young soldier. It was a soft, self-deception that rea.s.sured her on the very evening when he left her.
But there was one now weaving his webs at Lausanne whose fertile brain was busied with sly schemes of his own. Alan Hawke always first considered ”his duty to himself” and so the acute Major decided to spy out the land before he precipitately appeared at London, or dared to risk himself at St. Agnes Road, St. Heliers.
”It is just as well to know all that Justine can tell me before I see this young dandy Anstruther, and to find out what Euphrosyne knows before I interrogate her sister,” he murmured; ”I must make no mistake with the Viceroy's kinsman!”
With much prevision he had telegraphed the date of his probable arrival in London to Captain Anstruther from Munich, adding that convenient fairy tale, ”Delayed by illness” and he had also left this telegram behind, so as to be sent on to allow him four days leeway near Geneva.
The signature bore also an injunction to answer to Hotel Binda, Paris.
”This is no little card game,” muttered Hawke. ”It is for rank, wealth, and the hand of Miss Million, the rose of Delhi.”
Alan Hawke was practically received with open arms by the fluttering-hearted Euphrosyne, who n.o.bly resigned herself to Justine's victory over Alan Hawke's heart. For the younger sister's letters had filled the elder's mind with rosy dreams of enhanced family prosperity.
”Only this telegram. That is all!” murmured the preceptress, as she handed the Major a dispatch dated at St. Heliers, stating, ”Arrived, well, news of Mr. Johnstone's a.s.sa.s.sination just received. Will write!”
”This is all I know of this strange homecoming, as yet!” summed up the child of Minerva.
Hawke softly delved into Mademoiselle Euphrosyne's inner consciousness until he knew all the corners of the simple woman's heart.
”I am quite sure that she speaks the simple truth!” he decided, after he had informed the Swiss woman of his address, ”Hotel Binda, Paris.”
”I must go on there by the night train,” he at once resolved. ”Here is a juncture where all our various interests are deeply involved. You and Justine may lose the well-earned reward of years. I must be near Justine, now, to protect you both. I fear this old mummy Fraser! If he controls the fortune, then he and his hopeful son will probably steal half of it. Thats a fair allowance for an ordinary executor! It is all for one, and, one for all, now! Write under seal to Justine that I am near--only do not mention names!” With an affected tenderness, Hawke kissed the pallid lips of the daughter of Minerva, and slipped away to Lausanne, whence he took the midnight train for Paris.
”I might look around and dispose of my jewels in Paris,” he thought as he neared that ”gay and festive city.” But his serious business with the Credit Lyonnais as to the negotiation of the four ”raised” bills of exchange, and his desire to at once come to terms with Madame Berthe Louison, caused him to postpone the vending of the jewels so neatly extorted from Ram Lal.