The Passenger from Calais by Arthur Griffiths (i want to read a book .txt) 📗

Philpotts, "Mrs. Blair's" maid, and she was trying to attract my attention. Lord Blackadder had not seen her, and now his eye, for the first time, fell upon me. He turned on me furiously.

"You! You! Still at my heels? This is perfectly monstrous. It amounts to persecution. You still dare to intrude yourself. Can I have no privacy? Take yourself off, or I will not answer for the consequences."

I confess I only laughed and still held my ground, although my lord's outcry had attracted much attention. Several people ran [154] up, and they might have sided against me, when I heard a voice whisper into my ear:

"Come, sir, come. Slip away. My lady is dying to see you. She is terribly upset."

[155]

CHAPTER XVI.

I was received with great warmth and cordiality by my friend, and it was made clear to me that my opportune appearance brought her great comfort and support.

"I never hoped for such good fortune as this," she began heartily. "I had no idea you were within miles, and was repining bitterly that I had let you get so far out of the way. Now you appear in the very nick of time, just when I was almost in despair. But wait. Can I still count upon your help?"

"Why, most certainly, Lady Blackadder."

"Lady Black—" She was looking at me very keenly, and, as I thought, was much startled and surprised. Then with a conscious blush she went on. "Of course, I might have guessed you would penetrate my disguise, but you must not call me Lady Blackadder. I can lay no claim to the title."

"May I be forgiven if I trench on such a delicate subject, and assure you of my most [156] sincere sympathy? Everybody felt for you deeply. I hope you will believe that I am, and ever shall be, at your orders and devoted to your service."

"Yes, yes, I am sure of it; I know I can depend upon you fully, and I mean to do so now at once. You know, you have heard, that Lord Blackadder is here, and actually in this hotel?"

"I came with him. I was watching that fellow, the detective Falfani, when his lordship came upon the scene. We had words, a quarrel, almost a fight."

"Pfu! He would not fight! I only wish you had thrashed him as he deserves. But that won't help matters now. How am I to escape him?"

"With the child?"

"To be sure. Of course, I do not fear him in the least for myself."

"You want to keep the child?"

"Naturally, as I carried it off."

"And still more because you had the best right to it, whatever the Court might direct. You are its mother."

Again she blushed and smiled, rather comically. "I certainly shall not surrender it to [157] Lord Blackadder, not without a struggle. Yet he is very near getting it now."

"In there?" I nodded towards the next room. "It is a close thing. How are you to manage it?"

"There would not have been the slightest difficulty; it was all but done, and then some one, something, failed me. I expected too much perhaps, but I have been bitterly disappointed, and the danger has revived."

"Come, come, Lady Blackadder, keep up your courage. Let us take counsel together. We can surely devise some fresh plan. Don't give way now; you have been so plucky all through. Be brave still."

"Thank you, Colonel Annesley, I will." She put out her hand with enchanting frankness, her fine eyes shining gratefully. A man would have dared much, endured much, to win such gracious approval.

"It is getting late, but you must hear all I have to tell before we can decide upon the next step. Will you listen to me? I shall not bore you. It is a long story. First let me clear the ground a little. I must disabuse your mind on one point. I am not Lady Blackadder—no, no, do not misunderstand me—not on account [158] of the divorce, but I never was Lady Blackadder. She was Henriette Standish. I am Claire, her sister Claire."

"What a fool I've been!" I cried. "I might have guessed."

"How should you? But let me go on. I shall never forget that detestable trial, those awful days in the Divorce Court, when the lawyers fought and wrangled over my darling sister, like dogs over a bone, tearing and snarling at each other, while the judge sat above like a solemn old owl, never moving or making a sign.

"Henriette positively refused to appear in the case, although she was pressed and entreated by her legal advisers. She could have thrown so much light on the worst and darkest part. She could have repudiated the cowardly charges made, and cast back the lies drawn round her to ruin her. If the jury had but seen her pretty, pathetic face, and heard from her own sweet lips all she had endured, they would have come to a very different verdict.

"But she would not come forward on her own behalf. She would not defend the action; she did not want to win it, but waited till it was all over, hiding herself away in a far-off corner [159] of the Apennines, where I was to join her with the child, little Ralph.

"There had been no question of that; the possibility of her losing it had never been raised, or she would have nerved herself to fight sooner than give up what she valued more than her very life.

"It fell upon me with crushing effect, although towards the end of the trial I had had my forebodings. Lord Blackadder was to have the custody of his heir, and my dear sweet Henriette was to be robbed for ever of her chiefest joy and treasure. The infant child was to be abandoned to strangers, paid by its unnatural and unfeeling father.

"I had braced myself to listen to all that came out in court, a whole tissue of lies told by perjured wretches whose evidence was accepted as gospel—one of them was the same Falfani whom you know, and who had acted the loathsome part of spy on several occasions.

"Directly the judge had issued his cruel fiat, I slipped out, hurried down-stairs into the Strand, jumped into a hansom, and was driven at top speed to Hamilton Terrace, bent upon [160] giving instant effect to a scheme I had long since devised.

"I found my faithful Philpotts awaiting me with everything prepared as I had arranged. The dear baby was dressed quickly—he was as good as gold—the baggage, enough for my hurried journey to Fuentellato, had been packed for days past, and we took the road.

"I knew that pursuit would not tarry, but I was satisfied that I had made a good start, and I hoped to make my way through to Italy without interference. When I first saw you at Calais I was seized with a terrible fear, which was soon allayed; you did not look much like a detective, and you were already my good friend when the real ruffian, Falfani, came on board the train at Amiens."

[Lady Claire Standish passed on next to describe her journey from Basle to Lausanne, and the clever way in which she eluded the second detective—matters on which the reader has been already informed.]

"On reaching Geneva I at once opened communications with Henriette. I felt satisfied, now that I had come so far, it would be well that she should join me, and that we should concert together as to our next proceedings. [161] Our first and principal aim was to retain the child at all costs and against all comers. I had no precise knowledge as to where we should be beyond the jurisdiction of the English law, but I could not believe that the Divorce Court and its emissaries could interfere with us in a remote Italian village. My real fear was of Lord Blackadder. He was so bold and unscrupulous that, if the law would not help him, he would try stratagem, or even force. We should be really safe nowhere if we once came within his reach, and, the best plan to keep out of his clutches was to hide our whereabouts from him.

"Fuentellato would not do, for although I do not believe he knew the exact spot in which Henriette had taken refuge, he must have guessed something from the direction of my journey, and that I was on my way to join her. If he failed to intercept me en route, he would make his way straight there. I had resolved he should not find us, but where else should we go? Farther afield, if necessary to the very end of the world. Lord Blackadder, we might be sure, would hunt high and low to recover his lost heir, sparing no expense, neglecting no means.

"It was, however, essential to elude his [162] agents, who were so near at hand and likely to press me close. That was another reason for drawing my sister to me. I had hit upon a cunning device, as I thought it, to confuse and deceive my pursuers, to throw them on to a false scent, lead them to follow a red herring, while the fox, free of the hunt, took another line."

[163]

CHAPTER XVII.

"There should be two Richmonds in the field! That was my grand idea. Two sets, two parties, each of them consisting of one lady, one maid, and one baby, exactly similar and indistinguishable. When the time was ripe we should separate, and each would travel in opposite directions, and I hoped to show sufficient guile to induce my persecutors to give chase to the wrong quarry. Run it to the death, while the party got clear away.

"I had made a nice calculation. Fuentellato was at no great distance from Parma, on the main line of railway. If she started at once, via Piacenza to Turin, she could catch the Mont Cenis express through to Modane and Culoz, where she could change for Geneva, so as to reach me some time on Tuesday.

"This was exactly what happened. My sister carried out my instructions to the letter, and I met her here on arrival. I had taken up my quarters in this hotel because it was so near [164] the station, but I thought it prudent that Henriette should lodge somewhere else, the farther the better, and she went to a small place, the Hôtel Pierre Fatio, at the other end of the town.

"It is a long story, Colonel Annesley, but there is not much more, and yet the most interesting part is to come.

"We now devoted ourselves to the practical carrying out of the scheme, just we four women; our maids, both clever dressmakers, were of immense help. It was soon done. You can buy anything in Geneva. There are plenty of good shops and skilful workers, and we soon provided ourselves with the clothes, all the disguises really that we required—the long gray dust cloaks and soft hats and all the rest, so much alike that we might have been soldiers in the same regiment. Philpotts and Victorine, my sister's maid, were also made up on a similar pattern, and a second baby was built up as a dummy that would have deceived any one.

"Everything was completed by this morning, and I had settled that my sister, with her dear little Ralph, should get away, but by quite a new route, while I held my ground against [165] the detectives. I felt sure they would soon hear of me and run me down. I hoped they would attach themselves to me, and meant to lead them a fine dance as a blind for Henriette, who, meanwhile, would have crossed to Lyons and gone south to Marseilles. The Riviera is a longer and more roundabout road to Turin, but it was open, and I hoped unimpeded. What do you think of my diplomacy?"

"Admirable!" I cried, with enthusiasm. "Your cleverness, Lady Claire, is colossal. Go on, I beg of you. Surely you have succeeded?"

"Alas! no. Everything was cut and dried and this evening we scored the first point in the game. Henriette went on this evening to Amberieu, the junction for Lyons. She went straight from her hotel, alone, for of course I was obliged to keep close, or the trick would have been discovered, and it was in part.

"For I must tell you that to-day one of the detectives appeared in Geneva, not the first man, but a second, who attached himself to me at Basle. I met him plump on