Rogues & Company/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII
He was a rogue and he consorted with rogues. At the tender age of five he had "pinched" apples from some harmless body rejoicing in the name of Mother Grumbage. He had posed as a prince and decamped with the diamonds of a duchess. He had stolen—inadvertently it is true—the silver of a man destined to befriend him in the hour of need and now, so it appeared, he had bribed Luck herself into becoming an active partner in his nefarious business. At any rate the fickle lady had thrust him into his present position without the slightest assistance from himself. In one evening he, Slippery Bill, had become Count de Beaulieu, a young and wealthy nobleman, engaged to be married to a charming lady of equally exalted station, and nobody had so far disputed his position, not even the person most entitled to do so. The whole thing was miraculous and scarcely credible—more than that—it was altogether splendid. As he stood hesitating on Dr. Frohlocken's doorstep he looked back on the last few days as on a mad if not unpleasant dream. He realised that for a man in his position he had done extremely well by himself that he had, in fact, surpassed all previous records in high-class swindling. Apple-pinching, fraudulent impersonations and unwarranted removals of other people's property were nothing compared to his present undertaking—always supposing that he had the nerve to carry it through. But of that he was now almost certain. His previous career warranted it, and as the door opened and he passed the now obsequious James he felt his self-confidence rise. The man who can bear the scrutiny of a butler can brazen out anything. Nor did the sudden appearance of Dr. Frohlocken, more than ever wild- haired and bad-tempered, cause him more than a slight start of natural apprehension. He saw that something unusual had happened, but unusual things were becoming—paradoxically—common-place and he was prepared for everything.
"What is the latest news?" he asked a trifle wearily, for even surprises can become tedious. "Who has turned up now?"
"For Heaven's sake go to her at once," Dr. Frohlocken pleaded violently. "I've done it—I've put my foot in it—when it comes to women— a woman like that—I lose my head. Thank God you are marrying her! It was a telegram—from her parents—and I sent it up—without warning—absolutely idiotic—and she's crying—fainting—I don't know what—"
De Beaulieu controlled the desire to finish the flight of stairs in a couple of strides. Haste is plebeian and, besides, there was no real need for haste. If his heart thumped against his ribs it was no doubt at the thought of the endless possibilities which the telegram might contain and he entered Mademoiselle de Melville's sitting-room with as much nonchalance as he could muster. He found her seated by the table, but as she heard the door close she sprang up and faced him with flushed and tear-stained cheeks which put all his artificial sangfroid to flight. He came impulsively to her side.
"The Doctor told me that you had had bad news," he said. "Is it anything very serious? I am so awfully sorry."
"Bad news?" she sobbed and stared at him blankly. "Who told you? How do you know?"
"The doctor told me that you had received a telegram from your people," he explained somewhat taken aback.
"Of course." She passed her handkerchief nervously over her burning cheeks. "I had forgotten, yes, of course, he it is. I suppose you ought to see it." She picked up the crumpled bit of pink paper and handed it to him. "There—you can read it for yourself."
But that was just what he could not do. The pithy French phrases were Hebrew to him and he stared at them with a mounting panic. Undoubtedly the moment had come to prove himself worthy of his reputation, and yet he felt his courage oozing slowly but perceptibly out of his finger tips.
"I'm afraid I do not quite understand," he hedged at last, feeling that, as the Count de Beaulieu, he could neither ask to have the telegram translated nor continue to stare at it indefinitely. "Your parents—er—"
"—have done just what I expected them to do," she finished mercifully. "They have disowned me."
"Good heavens!" His exclamation was not quite sincere. He took up the telegram and stared at it again as though he could not believe his eyes and, as he did so, he was overtaken by an impulse which, in him, was altogether insane. "Theo—" he began recklessly. "Theo—supposing you went back to them—without me—supposing you felt that it was after all your duty to obey them—would they take you back?"
"No," she said bitterly, "they would not. You ought to know them better."
He felt that he certainly ought. He felt also that the treacherous demon, honesty, had nearly led him into committing an irremediable blunder and that he was in danger of blundering even more effectually. Mademoiselle Theodora looked at him and he flinched.
"Perhaps you mean that you have come to the conclusion that our marriage is a mistake?" she suggested slowly and sarcastically.
"Of course not!" he protested. "What an idea! My dear girl—"
"It is not at all necessary to call me 'your dear girl' in private," she interrupted, with angry eyes.
"Not necessary perhaps, but pleasant." He felt that he was getting impertinent—he was certainly angry. She had flicked him on the raw though he could not have explained how, and he had some difficulty in hiding the fact.
"I merely meant to observe that it would grieve me to come between you and those to whom you belong," he said.
"I belong to no one," she retorted. "I have no one in the world except—"
"Me?" he suggested with miraculously recovered cheerfulness.
"Certainly not. Did I say so?"
"You did not say so, but circumstances—"
"You are both stupid and ungenerous!" she blazed. "You are constantly referring to my helpless position and—"
"Oh, I know I'm an utter scoundrel!" he interrupted in a tone of profound injury which, on closer inspection, might have seemed somewhat unjustifiable, "but, after all, as we are to be married this afternoon I think you might at least pretend to have some feeling in the matter."
She looked at him with scornful, unhappy eyes.
"You do not expect me to love a man who has completely forgotten my existence and who is only marrying me out of a sense of duty, and whom I am only marrying because I have to—"
"Now you are getting nasty again!" he protested.
"I can't help it. I am nasty by nature. Besides you insist on looking at things from the wrong point of view. We arranged from the beginning that it was to be a matter of convenience—"
"—until further notice," he interposed.
"No notice has been given or shall be given." Her face grew hard and determined but there was a strange, intent look in her eyes which would have startled him had he seen it. "If you would rather get out of your bargain there is still time," she added slowly.
"Theodora!" He was now thoroughly aroused. Her indifference piqued him. He had completely forgotten that he was not the Count de Beaulieu and had therefore no claim on her affection. He had also completely forgotten that Mademoiselle de Melville was a mere pawn in his vile conspiracy. He felt increasingly injured and ill-used. "I shall marry you if I have to hang for it!" he said between his teeth.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"In that case there is nothing more to be said."
There was a moment's angry silence. Then, suddenly, he realised how pale and miserable she looked in spite of her assumption of indifference and his heart—steeped though it doubtless was in untold and untellable crimes—softened unexpectedly. He came to her side and took her hand in his.
"I've been a brute," he said. "I know there's not the least reason why you should care for me I'm not worth it. If the truth were told—" he choked and went on hurriedly—"I don't ask for much, Theo—only if you could possibly trust me—"
"I do trust you!" she broke in passionately. "I trust you so much that I am sorry for you. You don't know what sort of a person you are marrying."
"Nor do you," he said with truth and bitterness.
"But I trust you all the same. Besides, of course I know."
"Yes—of course," he agreed hastily. "I meant—would you trust me anyhow—whatever I did, whatever I had done?"
"Yes," she said. She held out her hand. The Rogue hesitated. He was threatened by another attack from his pet demon and he set his teeth hard to hold back a headlong confession. None of his previous villainies equalled this one—of that he was sure—and yet she looked so helpless, so lonely, so bewilderingly attractive in her frank surrender. Besides—he was a rogue and why in the name of all the saints in the criminal calendar should he not act as one? He took the out- stretched hand and kissed it. But in the end the Demon got the better of him.
"Heaven make me more worthy of you!" he said solemnly.
And if it was the first prayer that he had ever uttered it had, at least, the advantage of being sincere.
That afternoon a quiet ceremony was performed in an unfashionable church in the West of London. The bride, as the ladies' papers would have said had they had the chance, looked charming in a blue cloth costume, and was given away by Dr. Frohlocken, the well-known scientist. What the bridegroom did or looked like is unimportant. There was only one uninvited guest at the ceremony—a person who sat at the end of the church and played with his lavender-kid gloves—and the witnesses consisted of the charwoman and her husband.
Thus, "no just cause or impediment" intervening, William Brown, alias Slippery Bill, became not only a bogus Count but a most fraudulently married man.