Red Shadow (14 page)

All Laura's indifference was gone. She was full of a desire to know and to act. She wanted to know where she was. She wanted to see Mr Rimington again. If she saw him, she could give him the envelope with the torn fragment in it, and he could put it away in his safe or take it to the bank for her.

She began to think of an excuse for asking to see Mr Rimington, and the name of Eliza Huggins came into her mind. She could say that Mr Hallingdon had mentioned his old servant. She could ask what was being done about the servants. They couldn't prevent her seeing her lawyer. Or could they? She would have to see him—at least she thought so—before the will could be proved. No, not unless she was an executor. She remembered that she did not know who Bertram Hallingdon's executors were.

She turned from the window and went back to her chair. As she passed the table, she brushed against the wireless set, swinging it round. A long-drawn note came wailing into the room, and then a girl's voice—singing:

“
Featherbeds are soft
,

And painted rooms are bonny;

But I would leave them all

To go with my love Johnny.
”

Laura touched the chair with her knee. She sat down quickly. The voice went on:

“
I know where I'm going
,

And I know who's going with me
.

I know who I love
,

But the dear knows who I'll marry.
”

It was a slow and mourning voice, and a violin mourned with it.

Laura put up her hand blindly and felt for the switch. With a click the music stopped. She could shut it off with a touch of her hand, but it went echoing, echoing in her mind:

“
I know who I love
——”

She loved Jim, and she had given him back his life because she loved him. She loved Jim, and she had struck him to the heart. Her own heart said, “He would rather have died;” and something cold and far away said, “How do you know?” She stared into the fire, and did not hear a knock upon the door. It was repeated, and Basil Stevens came into the room.

CHAPTER XVII

Laura turned at the second knock and saw Vassili just inside the door. She had known him as Basil Stevens, but she never thought of him now except as Vassili Stefanoff. As she turned, he spoke.

“May I come in? I want to talk to you.”

Since he was already in, there was nothing to be said.

He crossed the foot of the bed and took a chair on the other side of the hearth. As he faced the windows, the grey afternoon light gave Laura every change in his expression, whilst she herself was in shadow. She set an elbow on the padded arm of her chair and leaned her head upon her hand. He was saying that he was glad that she was better. She said, “Thank you,” very gravely, and watched him from under her hand.

He had returned to the formal manner which made him seem like some official. He sat rather stiffly upon an upright chair and spoke without looking at her directly,

“Now that you are better, there are some business matters which ought to be attended to.”

Laura said nothing. This conversation was his affair, and these matters of business his. She waited.

He made a jerky movement with one hand.

“I want you to write a short letter to Mr Rimington. Are you able for that? If not, I will write the letter and you can sign it—but it would be better if you could do it yourself.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to say that you are better, and that you are going away for a change.”

“Where am I going?” said Laura with direct simplicity.

“We are going abroad. I think that you require a complete change. We shall be moving about, so you will give him the address of my agent in Paris.”

Laura remained silent for a full minute. Then she said,

“I do not wish to leave England.”

His brows drew together above the bright hazel eyes.

“We can discuss that presently—it is beside the question. What I want is that he should send you any papers that are in his care for you.”

“What papers?”

His frown deepened.

“He brought you a letter from Mr Hallingdon the other day. Ask him if he has any other instructions for you—any other papers left to you by Mr Hallingdon. If he has anything, ask him to send it at once.”

She waited again before answering. This time she said,

“Why?”

The formal manner vanished. A vehement hand struck his knee.

“Because I say so! Because it is part of your bargain!”

Laura lifted her head.

“I don't remember promising to let you have Mr Hallingdon's private papers.”

“You do not? Then what did you promise?”

“I promised to marry you,” she said steadily. “And I promised to nominate you as a director of Mr Hallingdon's companies. I will do what I promised, but I won't do anything more.”

“Won't?” said Vassili in a low, dangerous voice. He got up out of his chair, and stood over her. “
Won't!
Do you think you can say that to me?”

“I won't write to Mr Rimington,” she said.

Then in a moment he had her by the shoulders and had pulled her to her feet. There was such an iron strength in his hands that she could not move at all.

“You
won't?
” he repeated. “You won't write to Mr Rimington? You won't keep your bargain?”

“It's not in my bargain.”

He lifted her clean off her feet, held her like that for a moment, and then put her down again.

“I am stronger than you thought. You had better take care. You have made a business bargain, and I am keeping my part. But if you break yours, Laura—if you break yours—why, then there is no bargain any more, because you will have broken it. And if there is no bargain—shall I tell you how you will stand? You will be my wife, Laura—just my wife. Do you want to be my wife, Laura?”

Laura turned faint. The pressure of his hands upon either side of her upper arm was bruising and intolerable. He thrust his face close to hers, and it was the face of a brutal peasant. The Tartar looked at her out of furious gloating eyes. She wrenched blindly away, and he let her go with a laugh.

“Think it over! Think it over, Laura! You can have it whichever way you like.”

Laura had gone back unsteadily until she touched the foot of the bed. She leaned against it now and tried to control the tremor in her limbs.

Vassili stood on the hearth and watched her. He did not want her to faint or to have hysterics. He didn't want her at all, and never would. He wanted the torn piece of a five-pound note which he believed Bertram Hallingdon had left her. He wanted the Sanquhar invention, and if he could frighten her into giving it to him, he would have no scruple about doing so.

“Come back to your chair and sit down!” he said. “I won't touch you. I want you to realize your position. You are my wife, and I have certain rights over you. Well, I am prepared to waive them if you will allow me to supervise your business affairs. I will give you full personal liberty in return for business control. Do you understand? I will keep my part of the bargain if you will keep yours.”

Laura came back to her chair, moving slowly and rather stiffly. She was trying desperately to clear her mind, to think. If she wrote this letter to Mr Rimington, could it do any harm? She did not think it could—she had already received and destroyed Bertram Hallingdon's instructions. The torn piece of the five-pound note which was the key to the Sanquhar invention was safely hidden. A moment ago, when she had leaned against the bed, it had been within a couple of feet of the hand which she pressed down upon the coverlet. She didn't see how it could do any harm if she were to write to Mr Rimington. She relaxed suddenly, leaned back, and said,

“Very well.”

“You will write?”

“Yes.”

“Then you had better do it at once.”

He fetched a pen and block, laid a pillow across her knees for her to write on, and with a resumption of his official manner dictated what she was to say.

She wrote: “Dear Mr Rimington,” and he stopped her.

“Your hand is shaking. That will not do.”

Laura laid down the pen. He was looking at her reprovingly; he might have been a schoolmaster.

“Why are you so foolish? This hand shaking—this fainting—this getting ill—it is all most unnecessary. Get it into your head that this is a matter of business, and we shall get along very well. I do not wish to alarm you, I do not even wish to make love to you. As I said before, you do not really attract me. All I wish is to have a free hand in certain matters of business. Has your hand stopped shaking? Tear off that sheet and take another! Now begin!”

Laura looked up at him, oddly reassured.

“I don't know the address,” she said.

He frowned.

“There is no need for you to know the address. You will write the date, and then you will begin, ‘Dear Mr Rimington——'”

This time the letter was written. Laura informed Mr Rimington that she was better, and that they were going abroad as her husband wished her to escape the rest of the winter. She requested him to send all letters to an address in Paris. The last sentence of the letter ran: “If Mr Hallingdon left any papers that he wished me to have, or any written instructions, I am now quite well enough to attend to business and should like to have them sent to me without further delay.” She signed herself, “Yours sincerely, Laura Stevens.”

There was only the very slightest possible check between the Christian name and the unfamiliar surname. The pen wrote on quite steadily and legibly. Yet in that moment Laura's pride was stabbed to the quick. She had sold herself into slavery—she was a bondwoman, and she had just heard the crack of the whip. She wrote her owner's name and blotted it. She wasn't Laura Cameron any more. She looked at her new signature, and saw it dazzle and blur.

CHAPTER XVIII

“That is the end of the second news bulletin, and stations will now give their own announcements.”

Catherine rose to her feet and stretched herself.

“Shall I switch it off?” she said.

Laura was in bed, with the wireless set on the table by her side. The shaded lamp above the bed threw a warm circle of light upon the pillow and upon her left shoulder, which was covered by the embroidered shawl. The fringe gave back the light in a glow of golden amber. Above all this rich colour Laura's skin had a pale transparency which threw the blackness of her lashes and of her cloudy hair into strong relief—amber, and ivory, and that dusky shadowy hair. Her eyes had been closed, but at Catherine's question they opened a little blankly, as if she had been dreaming. She said,

“No.”

Catherine laughed.

“You want to listen to shipping forecasts, and fat stock prices, and the New York stock exchange? Very well, my dear, you shall have them all to yourself whilst I go and write my letters. There is a talk presently—it does not say by whom, but it will be about unemployment, or debt settlement, or trade depression, or something else that is gay like that. So I will write my letters, and you shall tell me afterwards how soon we shall all be bankrupt.”

She went out of the room, and Laura laid her head back against the pillow and heard all over again about the large depression that was approaching our western seaboard, and just how many kinds of unpleasant weather it was likely to bring with it. She was listening with a mechanical and forced attention. It gave her an extraordinary relief to hear the steady voice discoursing of things which had not the remotest connection with the tangle of thought and motive, the actions and interactions, which filled her mind. If she was listening to the probabilities of a gale in the Hebrides, she was not, for that space of time, calling herself a coward for having written at Vassili's dictation to Mr Rimington. She dreaded the moment when Catherine would put out the light and leave her alone in the dark to think.

Even whilst she followed the announcer's voice she was aware of an under-current of other voices. It was like another station coming through; but these voices were from within, from her heart and conscience. Abroad—she had written to Mr Rimington to say they were going abroad. Would he let her go without seeing her? Would Vassili let him see her? Would he be able to prevent him? Were they really going abroad? Why?
Why?
Dreadful to be a stranger in a strange land, with Vassili to say do this, or do that. Dreadful to be Laura Stevens—no, Stefanoff—Stefanova—Laura Stefanova—that was what she was really—Vassili Stefanoff's wife.

“That concludes the announcements, and the topical talk will follow immediately.”

The voices began to come through again. If Vassili took her abroad, what was she going to do with the torn piece of the five-pound note which was the key to the Sanquhar invention? Vassili had one piece, and she had one piece, and Jim Mackenzie had one piece—and the three pieces put together were the key to the Sanquhar invention. And she knew where the three pieces were. And Vassili knew about his own piece, and guessed about hers. Did he guess about Jim's piece too? If he did, Jim ought to be warned—and how could she warn him?

The announcer was speaking again.

“Our talk to-night is on ‘Twenty Years of Invention', and it will be given by Mr James Mackenzie, who is himself one of our rising inventors. Mr James Mackenzie.”

Laura sat up with a strange quivering movement as if she had been struck. Her outstretched hand just failed to reach the loud-speaker. Jim's voice came from it quite quietly and naturally. He said, “Good evening,” and the vibration tingled against the palm of her hand.

“‘Twenty Years of Invention' gives me rather a large field to cover——”

Laura's heart began to beat so violently that she could hear nothing else. The sound of it drowned Jim's voice. Presently she found herself with her hands pressed hard against her breast, listening, listening, whilst that loud beating died down and Jim's voice filled her ears. After the first shock there came a rush of emotion. For a moment her mind swung back. He was speaking to her from Berlin, telling her that he was out of Russia, safe. Well, she had saved him—yes, she had done that—and the price that she had to pay was that he would never speak to her again. A most terrible wave of home-sickness broke against her heart. Just to see him—to tell him why she had let him down. Just to feel his arms round her once, and to hear him say her name. It couldn't be; she knew that. But if it could—if it only could..…