Sir Jaffray's Wife

Front matter

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Prologue

...... 1 I. MAD FOR THE LOVE OF HER - - - lo II. LADY WALCOTE INTERVENES - - - 23 in. lola's victory - - - - - 41 IV. AN EXPLANATION - - - - 52 V. ' MY NAME IS TURRIAN — PIERRE TURRIAN ' - - 62 VI. PIERRE TURRIAN'S STORY - - - - 73 VII. HOW LOLA HEARD THE NEWS - - 84 VIII. FACE TO FACE ONCE MORE - - - - 95 IX. PIERRE TURRIAN'S SCHEME - - - - 106 X. THE BEGINNING OF THE END - - - 117 XI. BERYL SPEAKS ----- 130 XII. AN EVIL PLAN ----- 139 XIII. IN DEADLY PERIL ..... 151 XIV. THE ATTEMPT ON BERYL'S LIFE - - - 161 XV. ' IF SIR JAFFRAY WERE TO DIE SUDDENLY ' - - 170 XVI. HORSEWHIPPED- ----- 180 XVII. FLIGHT ------ 190 XVIII. A CLUE - - ... CONTENTS VI CHAPTER PAGE XIX. ' HEAVEN HELP ME, I BELIEVE SHE'S MAD !' - 211 XX. PIERRE TURRIAN'S MURDER - 220 XXI. BERYL'S RUSE ----- 230 XXII. THE MYSTERY OF WALCOTE MANOR - - - 241 XXIII. 'HER LADYSHIP, SIR JAFFRAY '- - - • 250 xxiv. lola's story .... - 260 XXV.

WAITING FOR THE ARREST - - - - 270 XXVI. THE STORY OF THE CRIME - - - - 280 XXVII. AFTER THE STORM ----- 289 XXVIII. 'BETTER SO' - - - - - 298 XXVII. AFTER THREE YEARS ... -

PROLOGUE.

. I. ON THE DEVIL'S ROCK. ' So you're in earnest, are you, and really mean it this time ?' ' Every syllable of every word.' The reply was uttered with the crisp, clear ring of determination, and Lola Turrian, as she spoke, looked straight at her husband with set decision in every line of her young beautiful face. The husband, a slim, fair, good-looking man, sneered provokingly as he returned her gaze. He shrugged his shoulders, as he answered readily and rapidly, though with a slight foreign accent. ' Upon my word, you really are very beautiful, Lola. I'm not a bit surprised that other men fall in love with you. On my soul, I should— if you weren't my wife already, of course !' He ended with a laugh that might have marked any phase of feeling ; but there was a threat veiled in the light tone of the question which followed : 'And what then?' ' I care not what then !' was the answer, spoken with angry emphasis. ' I know what you mean, and I care nothing.

You mean that you will add informer to your other characters, and try to send my father to the galleys. The same chivalry which lets you live on me urges you to whip me with a fear for my father's safety. Would to heaven I had dared you at the first, and never put this cursed fetter on my life !' She was playing nervously with her wedding-ring as she spoke. Her husband eyed her curiously, without letting any sign of annoyance at her words appear, and replied with the air of one who is merely balancing the pros and cons of a given course. ' I wonder if I did make a mistake with you, when I stopped you going on the boards. A speech like that to the gods ought to draw many pounds a week to any house. You want a trifle more gesture. If you're going to say it again, either hold up the " fetter " and flaunt it in my face, or dash it on the ground.

The gallery likes gesture. Don't forget. But you'd better not rehearse here, because the rock is not very wide, and if you chuck much of your jewellery about, some of it's pretty sure to roll down into the gorge ; and what goes over there won't come up again. But there, what's the need for me to doubt your powers of acting? Haven't I seen you lead a dozen men on — ay, and to the very verge, only for us to use 'em up in the end. You're a born actress, Lola, with limitations, and in a certain line.' ' I'll act no longer, then,' returned the girl, for she was little more. ' You go your way ; I'll go mine.' ' And your father can go his, eh ? Poor old chap !

PROLOGUE.

9 You're very hard on him, Lola— very hard indeed. To send him to the galleys in that way, and at his age, too !' His cold, sneering indifference goaded her almost beyond the point of endurance ; but she fought down her rage. ' I have come out here to tell you that this kind of life must end. I ' ' And a devilish uncomfortable place you've chosen !' he said, interrupting her, and laughing. 'Here we are on a lonely crag, with these villainous fir-trees on one side, and a sheer dip right down to the bottom of the ravine on the other, and a sky that looks as though nothing short of a miracle could stop it sending down buckets of rain inside five minutes. I wish you'd be a bit thoughtful. If you want to do an uncomfortable thing, you might at least choose a comfortable place to do it in. Look here, let us go to some hotel, and have it all out there quietly over a bottle of wine.' ' I know what you mean by all this.

You think to sneer me out of my present mood. I mean to speak here and now. I came here on purpose.' ' What, here on to this infernally bleak Devil's Rock, stuck right in the middle of the Schmerzwald ! What rubbish, Lola ! Do be consistent. Why, when the train started this morning we hadn't an inkling that we should be brought to a standstill at this roadside station, with three hours to wait for the next train ; so you couldn't have come on purpose, as any fool can see.' ' When I knew we had to stop so long, I resolved to bring you here to say what I had to say.' ' All right,' was the answer, and the husband glanced round, as if resigning himself to an uncomfortable experience. ' Devilish dramatic surroundings, and devilish dangerous, too,' he muttered, glancing over the side of the rock into the abyss that yawned below, some two or three hundred feet down. ' Might be devilish convenient, too, if you wanted to get rid of an uncomfortable friend.

Well, wife, wife, go on,' he said, sitting down on a point of the rock, and looking round to shrug his shoulders again and smile. ' You've brought me to the dismal depth of a Swiss wood in order to thrill me with a terrible tale of defiance. Very well ; thrill away.' He seemed determined to make light of the inter view and to mock his companion's indignation and emotion. But he watched her all the time, despite his assumed indifference, with lynx-eyed vigilance. ' I repeat, this life shall end !' she cried, after a moment's pause, bursting into quick, vehement, emotional utterance. ' Shall end — do you hear ? I will be your decoy no more — your slave — your tool. I will no longer lure men into the meshes of the net your cruel hands spread for their ruin. You and I shall part— do you hear ? — part, now and for always.

I will be no wife of yours for the future ; and if I can avoid it, so help me Heaven ! I'll never look on your hateful face again.' Tbe man listened in silence, and when she ceased, waited before answering, looking at her with his head a little on one side, and his eyes half closed. ' All right. Good-bye,' he said at length, turning away to whistle. ' What, not gone yet ?' he added, after a pause, in a tone of surprise. ' Pray don't

PROLOGUE.

11 stop on my account. Any show of politeness between us would be such a superfluity of foolish pretence ;' and he resumed his whistling. Presently he stopped, and getting up, went close to her and spoke in a different tone, seriously and sharply. ' Look here, Lola, don't make a fool of yourself. You can't leave me ; you know that well enough. My silence is as necessary to you as your beauty is to me. There was never any other bond between us, and never will be, probably ; but you can't break it. And you must own that I've done well for you. You live on the best of the land ; you've never stayed at any but the best hotels ; you spend what you like on dress ; you've any amount of lovers. What husband could do more than that ?' The wife made no reply in words, but her eyes lighted with anger. ' So long as you don't go too far with any of them, I never say a word ; and the fact that while they are making love to you I am making money out of them ought to give a zest to the business which you should appreciate.

Don't be a fool ! Of course you want your hysterics in some form or another — all women do ; but don't let 'em lead you over the Rubicon. This German pig that we're stalking now may be the last we need trouble about. He's rich enough to yield any amount of gold, and if I know love in a fat fool's face when I see it, he's mad on you, and he'll give half his wealth if only you give me the chance to handle ' ' Stop !' cried the woman hotly. ' May I rot if ever I move a finger to help you again ! If you want to rob men, go and do it like other thieves. Be at least a man, and don't skulk behind my petticoats. I'll never speak to that German again, I swear !' The man turned a shade pale now and bit his lip. Then he swore under his fair moustache, and his voice was no longer steady when he spoke.

He began to fear that she was in earnest, and this made him angry. ' I will make you do what I wish,' he said, and he laid his hand on her wrist. She shook it off with a toss of contempt. ' Bah ! do you think I am afraid of you ?' she cried. ' Do you think I have ever done what you wished because I feared anything you could do to me ? You poor, conceited fool ! I'm no more afraid of you than of a rat ;' and she laughed derisively. At this all the colour left his face with rage. He gripped her wrist firmly and held it, while, with a threatening brow, he said in a voice harsh with anger : ' Unsay that at once, or your father shall rot in gaol !' 'You coward!' she cried, and, stung by the words and the gesture into a paroxysm of rage, she raised the light umbrella she was carrying, and struck him with all her force across the face, while wrenching her wrist from his grasp.

He was standing close to the edge of the steep rock, with his back to it, and in his surprise and dismay at the blow, he stumbled hastily back, and, losing his footing, slipped over the edge. As he fell, he managed to clutch at a ledge of the rock, and remained hanging by one hand over the dark, deadly abyss.

PROLOGUE.

13 For an instant he hung thus, looking up at her, his face salt white and wet with fear and rage, while he made frantic efforts to get a hold with his other hand. Before he could do this, however, the girl, mad with the rage he had stirred in her, raised her foot, and stamped her heel with all her force upon the man's white, strained fingers. He uttered a loud, sharp cry of pain, and, unable to retain his hold, disappeared over the face of the rock. It happened so suddenly that the young wife stood gazing at the place where he had fallen like one dazed with horror. But it was only for an instant. Then she drew herself up, and raised her head as if with an instinct of defiance. She waited some time and listened. Then she bent forward and called to him, ' Pierre ! Pierre !' and she was pleased when no answer came.

Lying down at full length, she tried to look down into the gorge ; but a slightly projecting breast of the cliff prevented her from seeing to the bottom. Finding that, she moved away, and went to another spot, and tried to get a glimpse of the place into which he had fallen. She thought she could see him lying far down below, but the light was thickening with the growing storm, and she was not certain. But she made no effort to get help, and when she had waited until the time came for her to leave, in order to catch the train at the station, she walked away quickly. She waa glad, and her heart was beating with an infinite pleasure that the man who had gloomed and ruled and deadened her young life was dead. He had been too hard a taskmaster for her not to be thrilled with a sense of pleasure at the thought of freedom.

II. FREE AT LAST. A fortnight after the incident on the Devil's Rock, Lola Turrian and her father sat in close consultation in the latter's bedroom in a hotel in Neuchatel. The old man was sitting up in bed, propped by pillows, and his wrinkled, parchment-coloured skin looked yellow and dingy against the snow-white bed clothes. His voice was quavering and thin, but his black, beady eyes shone with a light that seemed all the stronger and stranger by contrast with the weakness of his withered body. ' It's good news, Lola — real good news. I hope the brute is really dead !' The hate with which he spoke of the dead man lent unwonted energy to his voice, while his lean, crooked fingers gripped the bedclothes with a gesture suggestive of his feeling. ' I wish I'd been with you, girl, to have made sure.

Imps like him can tumble over cliffs, and yet the devil finds a soft place somewhere for them to fall. If I'd been there,' he added grimly, ' I'd have had him found by those who'd have made sure he was dead.' ' He is dead, father, never fear. I tell you I went back and stayed at the hotel close to the place for ten days, making cautious inquiries everywhere. If he had escaped, I must have heard of it.'

PROLOGUE.

15 The old man was silent a moment, muttering, and mumbling, and shaking his head. ' But you don't know it, Lola. You haven't found his carcase.' ' Well, he is dead to me, at any rate. Our paths shall never lie side by side again. He never held me at all, as you know, save for my fear for you. I am not afraid of such a thing as that.' She tossed her head with a gesture of contempt. ' Mark my words, we shall never hear of him again,' she added. ' I shall not, child,' said the old man. ' That's why I sent for you.' The girl rose impulsively at this, and taking her father's hand, kissed it, and then kissed his face, and smoothed some of the white locks which had strayed down from under his skull-cap over his forehead. He suffered rather than enjoyed the caress, and shook his head with a half-petulant movement of impatience. ' You ought to be glad I'm going to die at last, Lola,' he continued. ' I've been an unconscionable time over it ; but that fool of a Dr. Lubin says I can't last more than a week or a fortnight now; and if I do, I can't get out of bed.

What the deuce is the good of living, I should like to know, caged up in a hole like this, and in bed, and not able to have a scrap of decent food nor a drop of wine ; nothing but a cup of nasty stuff, that might be pig-swill for all I know. If that's the case, the sooner I go after Pierre the better. I only wish I could let you know that he's there safe bound. We shan't be far apart over there, I expect,' he added, with a smile that made his wrinkled features inexpressibly ugly. Lola said nothing. ' I hope you don't think I'm going to make a fool of myself about dying,' he said querulously, noticing her manner. ' You wouldn't have me turn white livered, and send for a pack of priests, and pretend to wipe out all the record of a full life, well lived and well enjoyed, with the cant of half an hour?

Psh ! But there, that'll do about myself. I'm thinking more about you. What will you do ?' ' I have made no plans yet, father. I have only thought, so far, that you and I would be much happier together now.' ' Then it's time you did think, that's all. Your face and form are good enough to win you half a kingdom, if you only use them properly ; and your pluck — well, it's as stanch as mine. You'll go far, if you choose ; only mind, don't try to go too fast.' ' I don't want to talk of myself.' 'I don't care what you want,' was the testy reply. ' I do ; and I mean to. Listen. Drop the name of that infernal scoundrel, and act as though that part of your life had never been lived. Play the beautiful ingdnue. Be my daughter, Lola Crawshay, once more, and as soon as I'm dead, do what those cursed relatives of mine would never let me do : go back to England.

They'd have stopped my allowance if I'd gone back ; but when they see you in the garb of the mourning orphan — properly dressed for the part, mind — they'll take you in as surely as you will them. I've written a letter for you to the only one among 'em who ever showed she had a heart, old Mrs. Villyers ; and if you play your cards as my child ought to, you'll make her home yours, and her introductions will be the

PROLOGUE.

17 means of starting your campaign. She's so deadly dull and religious that the world will cash her introductions at sight to any amount, just as banks will Rothschilds' cheques. I've thought all this out, expecting that you'd probably run away from that brute as soon as I was in my coffin, and I've written down here a list of all your eligible relatives, with such hints as occurred to me of the best means of getting round them. I've no money to give you, except a few banknotes ; but I can give you a family, child, as good as any in England, and if you don't make your way with them you're not my child.' ' I'd rather you'd not speak ' began Lola, when the old man cut her short. ' Do hear me to the end, girl — I've all but done ; and you know how it tires me to talk. You'll find everything in that black box addressed to you, to save trouble.

Don't waste your little money on any funeral fal-lals for me. I shouldn't do it on you ; and I don't want 'em. Get away as quickly as you can, but post the letter two days before you start — only two days, so as not to give anyone a chance of reply ing. It's just to say I've told you to go straight to our people in England ; and as they don't love me over much, they may want to put off my child. Don't give 'em the chance, but just go ; and when you're there, I'll trust you to do the rest. That's the best I can do for you, Lola. You've had a rough time between an old scapegrace like me and a young villain like Pierre ; and you've been a stanch, brave girl. Now let me lie down to sleep.' Lola kissed him again ; and this time, softened by his own words, he kissed her hand in return. 'You're a good girl when you like, Lola,' he said. ' I believe you'd do anything on earth for the man you loved — and anything to the man you didn't,' he added dryly.

The girl watched him till he dropped asleep, and then she sat thinking over all he had said. She was really sad at the thought of his death, for he was the only thing she had ever loved in her life. But he was right when he said he was dying. In less than a fortnight he was in his grave, and she had started for the new life in England ; and despite her regret for the old man's death, she was filled with an intense gladness that the old disgraceful thraldom was over, as well as with eager anticipations of what the future held for her.

Chapter I. Mad For The Love Of Her

' It's no use. I've come back, you see. I guessed you'd be alone now ;' and Sir Jaffray Walcote laughed as he passed out through the window of the hotel, on to the veranda, and sat down on a low basket chair which creaked under the weight of his tall, powerful frame. Lola Crawshay, who was sitting alone at the end of the veranda, looked up from her book, and first greeted him with a glance and a smile, which made his pulses beat faster, and then changed, and said in a tone which implied rebuke : ' You said you would go with the others.' ' I know, and I meant it right enough. I always do when — when you pack me off. I got nearly as far as the town ; and, upon my word, I meant to go right on and find the little woman and my cousin, and stop with them just as I said. But — well, I thought of this cosy veranda, and that — that you ' — he glanced at her, checked himself, and changed the finish of the sentence, adding : ' that on such an evening one gets such fine views of the scenery, you know, and all that ; and so here I am.

That's all,' and he turned his smiling, handsome face to her. ' You had no right to come back,' said Lola gravely and almost coldly ; and she closed her book, and gathered up the fancy work which she had been doing. Then she rose from her chair, and stood just where the sun shone upon her, bathing her in golden light, and making her magnificent beauty seem almost supernatural in its dazzling radiance. Her companion gazed almost like one bewitched by the glorious picture she made. ' Will you let me pass, Sir Jaffray ?' she asked, purposely avoiding his eyes. He jumped to his feet and reddened ' Do you mean you are going in ? Have I offended you ? Don't go !' The last was a whispered appeal, and he looked down at her and seemed to search for her eyes with his. After a long pause she lifted her face, and turned upon him a gaze which thrilled him till he almost trembled with the passion which raged within him.

Then she made as if to speak, but said nothing, and her eyes fell again, as though beaten down by the ardent look he bent on her, and instead of speaking she sighed deeply and tremulously. She moved on as if to pass him without speaking, but he barred her path, and as though unwittingly, she brushed against him, then stopped, drew back, and started and sank down again into her chair, leaning her arm on the veranda and her face on her hand, and sitting quite still, like the statue of em barrassed and emotional loveliness. Sh Jaffray leant against the rail of the veranda, and made no effort to speak for awhile, content to feast his eyes upon her lustrous beauty, and to yield himself up to the full enjoyment of the emotions she had roused. He was mad for the love of her ; and she knew it well enough and meant to be his wife.

But she knew also that there were difficulties to be surmounted first, and that she must act warily and cautiously, if she was to succeed. It was more than eighteen months since that scene on the Devil's Rock, and she had already made ex cellent use of her time in England. She had found Mrs. Villyers, the widow to whom her father had sent her, ready at first to give her only a very cold and formal welcome ; willing to do for a relative what the demands of duty, sympathetically interpreted, might require, but unwilling, on account of the ill odour of Lola's father with his family, to take her into the house on the footing of an intimate and loving friend. But Lola had amply justified her shrewd old father's judgment, and the whining tact, the clever usefulness, the supple adaptability, and the patient temper which the girl never failed to show, won the old lady's heart, until she was almost loath to let her out of her sight.

As the old man had predicted, moreover, Mrs. Villyers' introduction opened the doors of every desirable house in the county ; and Lola's beauty ancl shrewdness did the rest. She was the beautiful Miss Crawshay, and nobody ever tried to remember that her father had enjoyed and deserved a reputation for such ill conduct as had made his friends pension him off on condition that he never set foot in his native country. Lola was not long idle, moreover, in making her plans. She meant to marry. She had heard nothing of the man who had forced her to marry him, and she believed him dead ; if he was still living, it was almost impossible for him to find her, she thought. Any way, she would take the risk. The homage which the men all round the neigh bourhood were eager to pay her wherever she went, soon convinced her that she could marry almost whom she pleased, and as she had long convinced herself that she had no love to give and no reason to fear any yielding to a weakness of the kind, she carried a very cool head indeed behind her very glowing and fire raising beauty.