April Lady

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‘Cardross, pray – ! You are very angry – shocked –’

‘Both! Too much to discuss it with you now! I will see you in the morning. I may be able to speak to you then with more moderation than is yet at my command!’

‘Oh, say what you wish to me, but don’t look at me so!’ she begged. ‘Indeed, indeed I didn’t lose it through any carelessness! It has been stolen, Cardross!’

‘I didn’t suppose that you had mislaid it. Are you suggesting that some thief contrived to enter the house without anyone’s being aware of it, or do you mean to accuse one of the servants?’

‘I don’t know, but I am dreadfully afraid it must have been one of the servants!’ she said worriedly. ‘They could have searched for it, but a stranger would not have known where to look, or – surely? – have thought it necessary to make it seem as though no one had been to my rooms, or stolen anything. I – I had no suspicion, you see! It might have been months before I discovered the loss, for it was hidden amongst the clothes Sutton put away in camphor.’

‘And how does it come about that you have discovered it?’ he asked. ‘That is puzzling me a trifle, you know.’

‘I didn’t – it wasn’t I who discovered it! Sutton found the case empty when she went to look over my winter clothes.’

‘I see. How very disconcerting, to be sure!’

There was a derisive note in his voice, which made her stare at him in bewilderment. ‘Disconcerting?’ she repeated. ‘Good God, it was far, far more than that, Cardross!’

‘I am sure you were excessively shocked. I collect that Sutton did not make this unwelcome discovery until today?’

She did not answer him immediately. She had known that full confession would be difficult, but not that he would make it as difficult as this. She had to overcome an impulse to acquiesce, for it now seemed beyond her power to tell the whole of her tangled tale to this stranger who watched her with such merciless eyes, and spoke to her in so biting a tone. But the inward struggle lasted only for a minute. She drew a shuddering breath, and said faintly: ‘No. I – I have known – since Tuesday. I must explain to you – try to explain to you – why I haven’t told you – until today.’

‘For God’s sake, no! At least let me be spared that!’

She was startled, for the words had burst from him with savage violence. Her eyes leaped to his, and she recoiled instinctively from the blaze of anger she saw there. ‘Cardross – !’

‘Be silent!’ He flung round towards his desk, and wrenched open one of its drawers. ‘You need explain nothing to me – as you perceive!’

She stood staring in utter amazement, almost unable to believe her eyes, for what he had taken from the drawer and tossed contemptuously on to the desk was the Cardross necklace.

From a whirl of conjecture nothing coherent emerged; she was so much at a loss that she could only gasp: ‘You have it!’

‘Yes, Madam Wife, I have it!’ he replied.

Relief swept over her. ‘Oh, how thankful I am!’ she cried. ‘But how – why – I don’t understand!’

‘Don’t you? Then I will tell you!’ he said harshly. ‘It was brought to me not an hour ago by an astute little jeweller whose son – neither as astute, nor, I fancy, as honest as himself! – had bought it, yesterday, for the sum of two thousand pounds! I imagine he must have blessed himself for his good fortune: it cannot be every day that such easy clients present themselves! He would be obliged to cut the necklace up, of course, but even so it is worth a trifle more than two thousand, you know. No, you don’t know, do you?’

She hardly heard the bitter, jeering note in his voice, or grasped the implication of his words. She was staring at him with knit brows, rather pale, and with her breath coming short and light. ‘Yesterday,’ she repeated. ‘Yesterday? Who – Did he tell you – who?’

His lips curled disdainfully. ‘No, he didn’t tell me that. His fair client – understandably, one feels! – was heavily veiled.’ He caught the tiny sigh of relief that escaped her. ‘Nor am I quite such a flat as to have wished for further information on that head!’ he said, the savagery again rampant in his voice. ‘A lady – unquestionably a lady! A young lady, dressed in the first stare of fashion, who would not disclose her name – how should she, indeed? – or accept a banker’s draft in payment! Do you suppose, when I had been told that, that I catechised Catworth?’

‘Catworth?’ she said quickly. ‘The man who came to see you – came twice to see you – has just been with you?’

‘Exactly so! If only you had known! – Is that what you are thinking, my sweet love? How should you have known? It was not he who bought the Cardross necklace for a song! You met the son – quite a knowing one, in his way, I should suppose, but by no means as downy as the father! If my new-found acquaintance is to be believed, he had never seen or heard of the Cardross necklace. Well; it may be so! I am much in debt to the father, and should be reluctant to disbelieve him. After all, I have never dealt with a Cranbourn Alley jeweller. Perhaps young Catworth is not fly, but green! It is otherwise with the elder Catworth. He recognized the necklace the instant it was shown him, and saw his duty clear before him! I must always regret that I was not just in the humour to enjoy the scene as it deserved to be enjoyed! So discreet, he was! so virtuous! Not an ungentlemanly word spoken throughout! He did not even permit himself to hope for my future patronage, and he accepted without a blink every whisker that I uttered! An admirable man – I must certainly place a little business in his way! How very shabby it would be if I did not!’

He paused, but she did not speak, or move. There was a queer, blank look in her eyes: had he but known it, she was less concerned with the injustice of what he had said than with the realization of what must be the true story.

He picked up the necklace, and put it back in the drawer. Turning the key in the lock, and removing it, he said sardonically: ‘You will forgive me, I trust, if henceforward I keep it in my own charge! I am persuaded you must, for you have never admired it, or wished to wear it, have you? You should have discovered its worth, however, before you set out to dispose of it. I cannot have my wife so easily gulled, Lady Cardross!’

At that, she blinked, and half lifted one hand in a beseeching gesture. ‘Ah, no! Giles, Giles!’

It did not move him. ‘Oh, don’t waste your cajolery on me, my pretty one! You will catch cold at that now! I was a bigger flat than you, but, believe me, the game is up! You hoaxed me wonderfully: bowled me out with that sweet face, and those innocent ways! I thought I was up to every move on the board, but when I saw you – when you put your hand in mine, and looked up at me, and smiled –’ He broke off, and seemed to make an effort to master the rage that was consuming him. ‘You must pardon me! I had not meant to open my lips on this subject until I had had time to recover, in some sort, from the chagrin of having every suspicion, forced on me during the few months of our marriage, confirmed! Well! I have come by my deserts! I should have known better than to have been taken in by that lovely face of yours, or to have believed that under your charming manners you had a heart to be won! To be sure, you never gave me reason to think it, did you? How unjust of me to blame you for that! I will engage not to do so again, but must try to fulfil better my side of the bargain. It has been brought home to me how lamentably short of expectation I have fallen, but that can be mended, and shall be. Tell me, my sweet life, at what figure do you set your beauty, your dutiful submission, your admirable discretion, and your unfailing politeness?’

She had stood quite still, neither flinching from the ugly shafts aimed at her, nor making any further attempt to speak. She was very white, but although she heard what was being said to her she hardly attended to it. He was saying such terrible things, but he did not know the truth: he was saying those things to some creature who did not exist, not to her. It hurt her that he could so misjudge her, but she never thought of blaming him. Just so had she misjudged Dysart, and with far less cause.

‘Well? Why do you hesitate? Or don’t you know what I’m worth?’