Part 30 (1/2)

”But don't you care?” cried Lydia, all of a heat of wonder--terror also at melodramatic thieving here in simple Addington.

”I can care about things without screaming and sobbing,” said Madame Beattie briefly. ”Though I sobbed a little at the time. I was a good deal unstrung from other causes. But of course I laid it before Jeff, as her husband--”

”He must have been heartbroken.”

”Well, he was her husband. He was responsible for her, wasn't he? I told him I wouldn't expose the creature. Only he'd have to pay me for the necklace.”

The yellow-white face wavered before Lydia. She was trying to make her brain accept the raw material Madame Beattie was pouring into it and evolve some product she could use.

”But he couldn't pay you. He'd just got into difficulties. You said so.”

”Bless you, he hadn't got into any difficulty until Esther pushed him in by helping herself to my necklace. He turned crazy over it. He hadn't enough to pay for it. So he went into the market and tried a big _coup_ with all his own money and the money he was holding--people subscribed for his mines, you know, or whatever they were--and that minute there was a panic. And the courts, or whatever it was, got hold of him for using the mails for fraudulent purposes or whatever, and he lost his head. And that's all there was about it.”

Lydia's thoughts were racing so fast it seemed to her that she--some inner determined frightened self in her--was flying to overtake them.

”Then you did it,” she said. ”You! you forced him, you pushed him--”

”To pay me for my necklace,” Madame Beattie supplied. ”Of course I did.

It was a very bad move, as it proved. I was a fool; but then I might have known. Old Lepidus told me the conjunction was bad for me.”

”Who was Lepidus?”

”The astrologer. He died last month, the fool, and never knew he was going to. But he'd encouraged me to come on my concert tour, and when that went wrong I lost confidence. It was a bad year, a bad year.”

A troop of conclusions were rus.h.i.+ng at Lydia, all demanding to be fitted in.

”But you've come back here,” she said, incredulous that things as they actually were could supplement the foolish tale Madame Beattie might have stolen out of a silly book. ”You think Esther did such a thing as that, and yet you're here with her in this house.”

”That's why I'm here,” said Madame Beattie patiently. ”Jeff's back again, and the necklace hasn't been fully paid for. I've kept my word to him. I haven't exposed his wife, and yet he hasn't recognised my not doing it.”

The vision of Jeffrey fleeing before the lash of this implacable taskmaster was appalling to Lydia.

”But he can't pay you,” said she. ”He's no money. Not even to settle with his creditors.”

”That's it,” said Madame Beattie. ”He's got to make it. And I'm his first creditor. I must be paid first.”

”You haven't told him so?” said Lydia, in a manner of fending her off.

”It isn't time. He hasn't recovered his nerve. But he will, digging in that absurd garden.”

”And when you think he has, you'll tell him?”

”Why, of course.” Madame Beattie reached for her book and smoothed the pages open with a beautiful hand. ”It'll do him good, too. Bring him out of thinking he's a man of destiny, or whatever it is he thinks. You tell him. I daresay you've got some influence with him. That's why I've gone into it with you.”

”But you said you promised him not to tell all this about Esther. And you've told me.”

”That's why. Get him to work. Spur him up. Talk about his creditors. Now run away. I want to read.”