The White Lie

The girl looked up into the kind, rather sad features framed by the white linen head-dress, and tried to speak. She endeavoured to reply, but so weak was she after a whole day and night without food, that she suddenly fainted.

It was some time before she recovered consciousness, but as soon as she was sufficiently calm she gave them a brief account of what had happened. She said nothing about her husband’s latest exploit, but merely told them how she had left him because of his neglect and brutality, combined with the fact that she had made the astounding discovery that he was a thief.

They sat beside her, listening attentively to her story, and expressing the deepest sympathy.

Then, after a quarter of an hour’s conversation, the two sisters agreed that they could not leave her there alone, and suggested that she should accompany them to the convent, situated a few kilometres out of Paris, close to Enghien.

So, after taking her to a small restaurant near and giving her some food, they took a taxi to the Gare du Nord, and half an hour later entered the big convent of the Order, a grey, inartistic, but spacious place, with large shady gardens at the rear, sloping down to the Lake of Enghien.

In the heavy door was a small grille, and when one of the sisters rang the clanging bell a woman’s face peered forth at them with curiosity before admitting them.

Jean, in her weak, nervous state, had visions of long, stone corridors, of ghostly figures in black habits and white caps moving noiselessly, and of a peace and silence entirely strange to her. Inside, no one spoke. Save those conducting her to the rooms of the Mother Superior, all were mute.

On every wall was a crucifix, and at each corner in a small niche stood a statue of the Holy Virgin.

They passed by the fine chapel, and Jean saw the long, stained-glass windows, the rows of empty chairs, and the Roman Catholic altar, the burning candles reflecting upon the burnished gilt, and the arum lilies in the big brass vases on either side.

At last, shown into a large bare room, the walls of which were panelled half-way up – a room bare, austere, and comfortless, with an utter lack of any attempt at decoration – Jean sank into a big leather-covered arm-chair, and one of the sisters took the old black shawl from her shoulders.

A few minutes later there entered an elderly, stately woman, with hard mouth and aquiline nose, yet in whose eyes was a pleasant, sympathetic expression – a woman very calm, very possessed, even austere. She was the Mother Superior.

With her was another sister, also a probationer in the white dress, big apron, and cap with strings, proclaiming her to be a nurse.

The two sisters who had found the poor girl introduced her to the Mother Superior, who at first looked askance at her and whose manner was by no means cordial.

She heard all in silence, gazing coldly at the girl seated in the chair.

Then she questioned her in a hard, unmusical voice.

“You have been brought up in London – eh?”

“Yes, madame. I was a modiste, and my father was a restaurant keeper.”

“You speak English?”

“Quite well, madame. I have lived there ten years.”

“We have a branch of the sisterhood in England – near Richmond. Perhaps you know it?”

“Yes, madame. I remember my father pointing the convent out to me.”

“Ah, you know it!” exclaimed the elder woman. “I was there last year.”

Then she reverted to Jean’s husband, asking where they were married, and many details concerning their life since that event.

To all the questions Jean replied frankly and openly. All she concealed was the fact that Ralph and Adolphe had committed a burglary on the night when she had taken her departure.

“I could not stand it any longer, madame,” she assured the Mother Superior, with hot tears in her big eyes. “He tried to strike me, but his friend prevented him.”

“His friend sympathised with you – eh?” remarked the woman, who had had much experience of the wrongs of other women.

“Yes, madame.”

“In love with you? Answer me that truthfully!” she asked sternly.

“I – I – I really don’t know,” was the reply, and a hot flush came to her pale cheeks.

The questioner’s lips grew harder.

“But it is plain,” she said. “That man was in love with you! Did he ever suggest that you should leave your husband?”

“No – never – never!” she declared very emphatically. “He never made such a suggestion.”

“He did not know your intention of leaving your home?”

“No. He knew nothing.”

The Mother Superior was silent for a few moments, surveying the pale, despairing little figure in the huge carved chair; then, with a woman’s sympathy, she advanced towards her and, placing her hand upon her shoulder, said:

“My child, I believe your story. I feel that it is true. The man who was a criminal deceived you, and you were right to leave him to his own devices, if he refused to listen to your appeal to him to walk in the path of honesty. To such as you our Order extends its protection. Remain here with us, child, and your home in future shall be a home of peace, and your life shall be spent in doing good to others, according to the Divine command.”

At her words the three sisters bent to her enthusiastically, calling her by her Christian name; while Jean, on her part, raised the thin, bony hand of the Mother Superior and kissed it in deep gratitude.

From that moment she became a probationer, and joined the peaceful, happy circle who kept their religious observations so rigidly, and who, during the hours of recreation, chattered and made merry together as women will.

In her white dress, linen apron, and flat cap with strings, her first duties were in the linen-room, where she employed her time in sewing, with three other probationers as companions, while each day she attended a class for instruction in first aid in nursing.

Thus the weeks went on until, in the month of November, the Mother Superior came to her one afternoon with the news – not altogether welcome – that as she spoke English so well, it had been arranged that she should be transferred to the branch in London, and that she was to leave in two days’ time.

So attached had she become to them all that she burst into tears and appealed to be allowed to remain. The matter, however, had been decided by the Council of the Order, therefore to stay was impossible. The only hope that the Mother Superior held out was that she might come back to Paris at frequent intervals as a visitor.

Long and many were the leave-takings, but at last came the hour of her departure.

Then, with a final farewell to the Mother Superior, she entered the taxi with her small belongings and drove to the Gare du Nord, where, in the black habit of the Order, she took train for London.

The journey by way of Calais and Dover had no novelty for her. She had done it several times before. But on the arrival platform at Charing Cross she saw two sisters of her Order awaiting her, and was quickly welcomed by them.

Then, hailing a taxi, the three drove at once away through Kensington, across Hammersmith Bridge, along Castlenau, across Barnes Common, and at last into Roehampton Lane, that long, narrow thoroughfare which, even to-day, retains a semi-rural aspect, its big, old-fashioned houses surrounded by spacious grounds, and its several institutions which have been built on sites of mansions demolished during the past five years or so.

The Convent of Saint Agnes was a big building, constructed specially by the Order some twenty years ago. Shut off from the dusty, narrow roads by a high, grey wall with a small, arched door as the only entrance, it stood about half-way between the border of Barnes Common and Richmond Park, a place with many little arched windows and a niche with a statue of the Virgin over the door.

Here the Mother Superior – a woman slightly older than the directress in Paris, but with a face rather more pleasant – welcomed her warmly, and before the next day had passed Jean had settled down to her duties – the same as those in Paris, the mending of linen, at which she had become an adept.

In the dull November days, as she sat at the window of the linen-room overlooking the frost-bitten garden with its leafless trees and dead flowers, she fell to wondering how Ralph fared. She wondered how all her friends were at the Maison Collette, and who was now proprietor of her dead father’s little restaurant in Oxford Street.

Through the open windows of her little cubicle, in the silence of night, she could see the red glare over London, and could hear the distant roar of the great Metropolis. Oft-times she lay thinking for hours, thinking and wondering what had become of the man she so unwisely loved – the man who had destroyed all her fondest hopes and illusions.

December went on, a new year dawned – a year of new hopes and new resolutions.

She had settled down in her new home, and, among the English sisters, found herself just as happy as she had been at Enghien. No one in the whole sisterhood was more attentive to her instruction, both religious and in nursing, for she was looking forward with hope that by March she would pass from the grade of probationer to that of nurse, and that she would soon go forth upon her errands of mercy among the poor and afflicted.

And so, after the storm and stress of life in the underworld of Paris, Jean Ansell lived in an atmosphere of devotion, of perfect happiness, and blissful peace.

CHAPTER XIV.

JEAN LEARNS THE TRUTH

Months – months of a quiet, peaceful, uneventful life – went by, and Jean had become even more popular among the English sisters than she had been in Paris.

Though her life had so entirely changed, and she had naught to worry her, not a thought nor a care beyond her religious duties and her nursing, in which she was now growing proficient, she would sometimes sit and think over her brief married life, and become filled by wonder.

Where was her husband? Where, too, was the low-born thief who had taken her part and prevented the blow upon that never-to-be-forgotten night?

Sometimes when she reflected upon it all she sat horrified. And when she recollected how shamefully she had been deceived by the man she so implicitly trusted and so dearly loved, tears would well in her great, big eyes. Sister Gertrude, one of the nurses, a tall, fair woman, who was her most intimate friend, often noticed the redness of her eyes, and guessed the truth.

Seldom, if ever, Jean went out farther than across Barnes Common or into Richmond Park for exercise, and always accompanied by Sister Gertrude, the latter wearing the black habit of the Sisterhood, while Jean herself was in a distinctive garb as a nurse of the Order of Saint Agnes.

Never once in all those months had she been in London. All she saw of it was the red glare upon the night sky. But she was happy enough. London, and especially the neighbourhood of Regent Street, would remind her too vividly of Ralph and of her dear father.

One spring afternoon, while seated at the open window finishing some needlework destined for a poor family living in a back street off the Hammersmith Broadway, she was chatting merrily with Sister Gertrude. Over their needlework the rules allowed them to chatter, and in that barely-furnished little room she and Sister Gertrude enjoyed many a pleasant gossip.

Outside, the garden was gay with daffodils and hyacinths, and the trees were just bursting into bud, the fresh green rendered the brighter by the warm sunshine.

Jean concluded her work at last, placed her needle in the cushion, and removed her thimble.

“At last!” she sighed. “I’ve been over this a whole week,” she added.

“Yes; you’ve been most patient,” declared her friend. “Soon you will abandon needlework and be sent out nursing. I heard the Mother Superior talking about it with Sister Lilian after vespers last night. Now that Sister Hannah has gone back to Paris we are one nurse short, and you are to take her place.”

“Am I?” cried Jean, with delight, for she had studied long and diligently in the hope that soon outside work would be given her. She was devoted to nursing, and had made herself proficient in most of the subjects.

“Yes. I believe you will hear something in the course of a few days. But,” added Sister Gertrude, “I know another secret. Your friend, the Mother Superior in Paris, is coming here, and ours has been transferred to Antwerp. The change will be announced, I expect, to-morrow.”

At this news Jean expressed the greatest satisfaction, for the grave, yet rather hard-faced, directress of the convent at Enghien had been so good and generous that she had become devotedly attached to her. Indeed, to her she owed her life, for in her despondent state on that morning when found in the Tuileries Gardens she had seriously contemplated throwing herself into the Seine.

Jean was therefore loud in praise of the directress from Enghien, and highly delighted at the thought of her coming to take over the direction of the English branch of the Order.

“Here is some paper and string to wrap up your work,” Sister Gertrude said at last, handing her an old copy of the Daily Telegraph. “I am taking it with me to Hammersmith this evening.”

And then she left the room, promising to return in a few minutes.

Alone, Jean, standing at the window, gazed idly at the newspaper, the date of which was a Monday in the previous October.

It was strictly against the rules of the Order to read any newspaper, but as she turned it over, a column headed “Paris Day by Day” caught her eye. The temptation proved too much, and she scanned it down as she had been in the habit of scanning the paper each evening in the days when she had lived at home.

Suddenly a paragraph caught her eye. Her mouth stood open, her eyes started from their sockets as she read. Then she held her breath, placing her left hand to her breast as though to stay the beating of her heart.

Her countenance was blanched to the lips. The words she read were as follows:

“The daring exploits of the notorious criminal, Ansell, alias ‘The American,’ and Carlier, alias ‘The Eel,’ are at an end. Yesterday, in Paris, Carlier was sentenced to seven years’ hard labour, and Ansell, it will be remembered, was shot by the police while swimming the Seine, but his body was never recovered.”

“Dead!” she gasped, white as death. “Shot down by the police —my husband!”

She staggered, clutching at the small deal work-table for support, or she would have fallen.

“And Adolphe has been sent to prison for seven years!” she went on, speaking to herself in a low mechanical tone. “Was it for the crime committed on that night, I wonder? Were my fears well-grounded, and did my prediction of discovery come true? Ah, if Ralph had but listened to my appeal!” she cried in agony. “But he is dead – dead! Shot by the police – shot down like an animal. Ah, what an ignominious end!”

The newspaper fell from her fingers. The blow had stunned her.

She stood swaying slightly, her white face turned towards the open window, her eyes staring straight before her – silent, motionless, aghast.

Sister Gertrude entered, but so preoccupied was she that she was utterly unconscious of her presence.

“You are unwell, Jean,” she said, in her soft, refined voice, for before entering the convent five years ago she had moved in society, being the daughter of a well-known Paris banker. “Tell me, dear, what ails you?”

Jean started, and stared at her in amazement.

“I – I – oh, there is nothing,” she faltered. “I don’t feel very well – that’s all.”

The newspaper lay on the floor, where it had fallen from her white, nerveless fingers.

In Jean’s face was a hard, haggard look, and Sister Gertrude, a woman of the world, noted it, and wondered what could have affected her in those few moments of her absence.

“Tell me, dear, how you feel? Can I get you anything?” she asked her friend, to whom she was so much attached.

“Nothing, thanks,” was her reply, with a great effort. “I shall be quite well soon, I hope.”

Sister Gertrude advanced towards her, and, placing her hand upon the girl’s shoulder tenderly, said:

“You will soon be all right again, dear, I hope. But why keep your secret? Why not confide in me?”

“Secret!” she echoed. “It is no secret!”

“Then why not tell me the truth right out? What has upset you?”

Jean clenched her teeth. How could she confess that she was the wife of a notorious thief – a man who had been shot like a dog by the police?

No. Her secret was hers, and it should remain so. Her past from that moment was buried. None, save the Mother Superior at Enghien and the two sisters who had found her in the Tuileries Gardens, knew the truth. And none should now know.

“Really, you are a little too solicitous of my welfare,” she laughed, well feigning amusement at the situation. “I am quite well now. Quite well, I assure you.”

And picking up the old copy of the newspaper, she resumed the wrapping up of the parcel of underclothing which she had made with her own hands for charitable purposes.

And the big bell having clanged out for tea in the refectory, Jean and Sister Gertrude passed arm-in-arm through the long stone corridor to the big, vaulted hall, where all the inmates of the convent had assembled and the Mother Superior was presiding over the four shining tea-urns at the top table.

But Jean sat silent and thoughtfully sipping her tea, heedless of all about her.

Her mind was full of that terse announcement which she had read, the obituary notice of the notorious thief known in Paris as “The American” – the man whom she loved and who was her husband.

She was thinking, too, of Fil-en-Quatre, the shock-headed, rather uncouth Parisian loafer – the man who had been sentenced to seven years’ hard labour. That meant Cayenne, without a doubt – drudgery at Devil’s Island, that ill-governed penal settlement established by the Republic of France.

She remembered him. Ah, how often he had sympathised with her! How frequently he had uttered cheering words to her in secret, although he had never once betrayed his friend’s real profession, nor had he ever once spoken of the great and fervent affection which he had borne her.

Though he was a thief, a scoundrel of the underworld of Paris, ingenious, unscrupulous, and even dangerous if cornered, he was nevertheless loyal and honest towards his friend, and behaved as a gentleman towards his friend’s wife.

Yes, Adolphe Carlier, though a thief, was still a gentleman in the true sense of the word.

The weeks went by, and poor Jean, a widow in secret – for she told no one of what had occurred – was sent forth daily in the poorer districts of London on her mission to the sick, to whom she carried food and delicacies prepared by the kind hands of the sisters.

The slums she visited in Clerkenwell and other places often reminded her of those last few days of her married life, those days before she parted for ever from “Le Costaud.” Where men feared to venture, and where no police-constable cared to go alone, she went without fear, down into the deepest depths of the unknown underworld of London, and through months she worked hard each day amid the most sordid and poverty-stricken surroundings, returning each night to the convent fagged and hungry. But now that she knew the bitter truth, her whole life was devoted to her work of mercy and to her religious duties. Her sweetness of disposition, her calm patience, her soft voice, and her cheerful manner all endeared her to those whom she tended with such unremitting care.

Thus she passed the long summer days in the stifling slums of London.

So devoted was she, and so hard did she work, that at last a serious illness was threatened, in consequence of which she was sent by the Mother Superior to the West of England branch of the Order, who had a small convent at Babbacombe, near Torquay, and in the latter town, in better air, she continued her labours.

Not far from the convent, on the road leading to Newton Abbot, was the ivy-covered lodge and great, handsome gates of ornamental iron leading to Bracondale Park, the seat of the Right Honourable the Earl of Bracondale, K.G.

The park, a spacious domain with great oaks and elms, was situated high up, overlooking the English Channel, and away in the distance the long, rather low-built mansion with a square, castellated turret at the western end. The fine domain of the Bracondales, one of the most ancient families in England, extended over many thousands of fertile acres in Devon, besides which the Earl possessed a deer forest near Grantown, in the Highlands; a pretty winter villa at Beaulieu, close to Nice; the old-fashioned town house in Belgrave Square, and a pretty seaside villa in the new and fashionable little resort, Saint-Addresse, near Havre.

But, as His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the Earl of Bracondale had but little time in which to enjoy his beautiful residences. True, he spent a few weeks on the Riviera in winter, shot once or twice over the Bracondale coverts in the season, and spent an annual fortnight up at the shooting lodge in Scotland; but he was usually to be found either at Downing Street or down at Bracondale immersed and absorbed by the affairs of State.

His one hobby was motoring, and he frequently drove his own car – a big six-cylinder open one. Years ago, on the introduction of the motor-car, he had been a young man, and had quickly become an enthusiast. He had motored ever since the early days, and was still an expert driver. Once he had held a world’s distance record, and nowadays, even with the heavy responsibilities upon him, he was never so happy as in overcoat and cap at the steering-wheel. And in this recreation he found a very beneficial change after so many hours of studying complicated reports and worrying despatches from the Embassies abroad.

One summer’s night he had been addressing a big political meeting at Plymouth, and at ten o’clock he turned out of the garage of the Royal Hotel, and alone drove through the brilliant, starlit night back to Babbacombe. Usually when he went out at night he took Budron, the head chauffeur, with him. But on this occasion he had left the man in London, superintending some repairs to one of the other cars. Hence he put on a cigar, and, alone, drove leisurely along the rather narrow, winding high road which leads from Plymouth through Plympton and Ivybridge.

The distance was twenty-five miles or so, and he travelled swiftly during the last portion of it.

It was nearly half-past eleven when he passed through Torquay, then silent and deserted, and ascending the hill, was quickly on the Babbacombe road.

Suddenly, however, when within half a mile of his own lodge gates, at a sharp bend in the narrow road along the cliffs, he found himself facing a heavy wagon, the driver of which was asleep.

There was the crash of a heavy impact, a shattering of glass, a rearing of horses, and next second his lordship, shot out of his seat, was lying on the other side of a low hedge, doubled up and quite still, while the car itself was overturned and completely wrecked.

CHAPTER XV.

HIS LORDSHIP’S VISITOR

The two doctors, summoned by telephone from Torquay, stood beside Lord Bracondale’s bed, and after careful examination and long consultation, grew very grave.

His lordship had been carried unconscious to the park and upstairs into his own tastefully-furnished room, where he still remained motionless and senseless, though two hours had now passed.

In addition to severe contusions, his shoulder was badly dislocated, and it was also feared that he had suffered severe internal injury through being thrown against the steering-pillar of the car. The examination had occupied a long time, and the greatest consternation had been caused in the big household, the servants going about pale and scared.

Dr. Wright-Gilson, the elder of the two medical practitioners, a rather bent, grey-bearded man, addressing his colleague, said, after a long discussion:

“I really think that Morrison should see him. If I telephoned to him at Cavendish Square he could be down here by ten o’clock to-morrow. We could then have a consultation, and decide whether to operate or not.”

To this the younger man agreed; therefore Wright-Gilson went into the library with Jenner, the stout, white-headed old butler, and, using the private telephone to Downing Street, which stood upon the big, littered writing-table, he was quickly put on to the house of Sir Evered Morrison, the great surgeon.