The White Lie

The specialist, who was asleep, answered the telephone at his bedside, and, hearing of the accident, promised he would catch the next train from Paddington. Then he rose, dressed hurriedly, and left by the newspaper-train.

At eleven o’clock the next morning – by which hour the world knew of his lordship’s accident – the great specialist had made his examination and was seated in the library with the two Torquay doctors.

“No,” said Sir Evered, a tall, thin, clean-shaven man, who was a personal friend of Lord Bracondale’s. “In my opinion an operation is not advisable. The case is a serious one, and full of grave danger. But I do not think we need despair. I’ll remain here, and by this evening I shall hope to see consciousness restored.” Then he added: “By the way, are there any good nurses in Torquay?”

“The Convent of Saint Agnes is quite close. They are a Nursing Order, as you know,” replied Dr. Wright-Gilson.

“Yes, and usually most excellent. We had better send for the Mother Superior and get her to give us two trustworthy nurses. Having myself had experience of them, I have always found them most painstaking, and in every way excellent.”

“That is also my own experience, Sir Evered. Several of my patients have employed them with great success.”

“Very well; we will have them.” And Jenner was at once called and sent with a note from the great surgeon to the Mother Superior.

Twenty minutes later the grave-faced directress, who wore her black habit and wide, white collar, and spoke with a very pronounced French accent, arrived, accompanied by Jean and Sister Gertrude, whom she introduced to the three medical men standing in the library.

And very soon afterwards Jean found herself installed in the big, handsome bedroom beside the unconscious Cabinet Minister.

The white, inanimate face lay upon the pillow with the pallor of death upon it, the sheet edged with broad lace having been turned down and carefully arranged by the head housemaid.

Many and precise were the instructions which Sister Gertrude and Jean received from the great surgeon, who first explained to them the injuries from which his distinguished patient was suffering, and the nature of the treatment he intended to adopt.

The Honourable John Charlton, his lordship’s private secretary, arrived post-haste from London at midday, and took over many of the confidential papers and other documents which were lying about upon the library table.

He was anxious for the Earl to recover consciousness in order to obtain instructions concerning the attitude to be adopted towards Austria, regarding whom a ticklish point of policy had on the previous evening arisen. The political horizon of Europe changes from hour to hour.

Our Ambassador in Vienna had wired in cipher urgently requesting a response, and this only the Foreign Minister himself could give.

But the doctors would not allow him to be disturbed.

A warm, anxious day went by, and Jean found herself amid surroundings so luxurious and artistic that she gazed about her open-mouthed in wonder.

As a nurse she soon showed her proficiency and her business-like methods – a manner which at once impressed Sir Evered.

But, alas! The Earl of Bracondale still remained unconscious. His pulse was feeble, his heart was just beating; the spark of life was still aglow.

From all quarters of the world, from every one of the Chancelleries of Europe, telegrams of regret arrived. Kings, statesmen, politicians of all grades, and all parties, lawyers, diplomats; in fact, all classes, sent messages, and all day long boys kept continually cycling up the long drive through the park bearing sheaves of orange-coloured envelopes, which were opened one after the other by the Honourable John Charlton.

Not before the following afternoon did consciousness return to the injured man, and then Jean’s real work commenced.

His eyes, when they first opened, met her calm, anxious gaze.

He looked at her in astonishment, and then glanced at the other faces of the doctors around.

Sir Evered spoke as he bent over him.

“You know me – eh? Come, you’re a lot better now, my dear fellow. Just drink this,” and he took a glass from Jean’s hand.

The prostrate man swallowed the liquid with an effort. Then, staring about him with an air of astonishment, he said:

“Why – it’s you, Evered. You!”

“Yes; I’m here looking after you, and with good nursing you’ll soon be quite right again.”

His lordship drew a long breath, and for a few moments remained silent. Then he asked, in a low, weak whisper:

“What’s happened?”

“Oh, nothing very much. Don’t bother about it,” was the great specialist’s reply. “You were thrown out of your car, that’s all. No bones broken.”

“Ah! yes,” he replied, slowly raising a hand to his brow. “Ah! yes – now I remember. That wagon – right across the road – and no light upon it! Yes – I – I remember!”

“Don’t bother. That’s enough now. Just go to sleep again, my dear fellow,” said Sir Evered, soothingly, placing his hand upon his patient’s brow. “Don’t try and think. Just rest for the present.”

And thus advised, his lordship closed his eyes wearily, and was soon asleep.

“Excellent,” declared Sir Evered, much gratified when outside the room with the others, leaving Jean alone with the sleeper. “He’ll recover – no doubt he will.”

And five minutes later he was in the library, speaking over the telephone to the Prime Minister at Downing Street, while that same evening the papers gave the welcome news to the world that there was every hope of the Foreign Minister’s restoration to health.

The three medical men had strapped up the injured shoulder and applied various remedies, therefore the patient that night was in no pain, though Sister Gertrude took Jean’s place at ten o’clock and sat by his bedside all night, receiving hourly visits from the doctors.

Bracondale Park was a house of breathless anxiety through the days which followed. Sir Evered, though his presence was required hourly in London – as is the presence of such a great surgeon – remained at the bedside of his friend. They had been at Cambridge together, and ever since their undergraduate days had been intimate chums.

His lordship’s illness proved of longer duration than was at first anticipated. Sir Evered remained at Bracondale a whole week, and then, finding that his patient was progressing favourably, returned to London, leaving the case in the hands of Dr. Wright-Gilson and Dr. Noel Tanner, while Sister Gertrude and Jean did the nursing.

Life at Bracondale Jean found extremely pleasant. The great house, with its luxuriously-furnished rooms, its fine picture-gallery, where, often, in her hours of recreation, she wandered; the big winter-garden with palms and exotic flowers, the conservatories, the huge ballroom – wherein long ago the minuet had been danced by high-born dames in wigs and patches – the fine suites of rooms with gilded cornices – all were, to her, full of interest.

The great house was built by the second Earl of Bracondale, who was the famous Chancellor of the Exchequer in the reign of Charles I., and ever since the Bracondales had borne their part in the government of England.

The room allotted to Jean was a visitor’s room – a large, old-fashioned sitting-room, with a bed in one corner screened off; a room the long, leaded windows of which afforded beautiful views across the extensive, well-wooded park to the blue sea beyond. It was a place with a quiet, old-world atmosphere – a room that had never been changed for a century past. The old chintzes were of the days of our grandmothers, while the Chippendale chairs and tables would have fetched hundreds of pounds if put up at Christie’s.

The elderly housekeeper, in her black silk cap, did all she could to make her comfortable, and treated her with the greatest consideration and respect – more so, perhaps, than she did Sister Gertrude, who, of course, wore the habit of the Order, while Jean still wore her French nurse’s uniform.

Old Jenner, on the other hand, looked upon “them dressed-up Sisters o’ Mercy,” as he termed them in the servants’ hall, as interlopers, and was often sarcastic at their expense. As an old servant of the family, he felt jealous that they should wait upon his master while his presence was not permitted in the sick-room.

All his life he had been used to wait upon “his young lordship,” and he was annoyed that he was not allowed to do so at that critical hour.

As soon as the injured man was sufficiently well to talk and to recognise that he was being tended by sisters from the neighbouring convent, he treated both with the greatest consideration. A car was placed at their disposal every afternoon so that they might take an airing, while the whole house was thrown open to them to wander where they liked.

The library, however, was Jean’s favourite room. It was a big, sombre, restful place, with high windows of stained glass, a great carved overmantel, and electric lights set in the ancient oaken ceiling. Lined from ceiling to floor with books, and with several tables set about the rich Turkey carpet, it was a cosy, restful place, where one could lounge in a big arm-chair and dream.

Jean’s duties in the sick-room were never irksome. The pair took it in turns to sit with the patient every other night, and it was only then that the hours in the green-shaded night-light seemed never ending. By day she found Bracondale always interesting and frequently amusing.

After he had been in bed a fortnight the doctors allowed him to see visitors, and several distinguished men called and were admitted by Jean. These included the Prime Minister, politicians, and magnates of commerce. And there were some mysterious visitors also, including a Mr. Darnborough, who called one afternoon, being shown up by Jenner.

Jean, in surprise, found the butler and the visitor outside the door, whereupon Jenner explained:

“This is Mr. Darnborough, nurse, a very great friend of his lordship. He must see him alone, as they have confidential business to transact.”

“Thank you, Jenner,” replied Jean, rather stiffly. “If his lordship wishes to see Mr. Darnborough alone he will probably tell me so.”

And, surveying the visitor with some suspicion, she ushered him to the sick man’s side.

“Ah! my dear Darnborough!” cried his lordship, gaily, as soon as he recognised him. “I’m very glad to see you. I heard that you were in Cairo a week ago. Well, how are things in Egypt?”

“Just as full of trouble as ever,” was the reply; “but – ” and he glanced inquiringly at Jean.

“Oh, yes, I forgot,” exclaimed the Earl. “Nurse Jean, might I ask the favour that you leave Mr. Darnborough to talk with me alone for half an hour? I shall be all right – and my medicine is not due until five o’clock.”

Jean smiled at the pair.

“Certainly; I will come back when it is time for your lordship to have the next dose,” she answered.

And with that she passed noiselessly out of the room, the Earl’s dark eyes following her.

The door having closed, the pair were left alone. Then the Earl lay listening attentively to the all-important secret report which Darnborough had travelled down there to make.

CHAPTER XVI.

JEAN HAS A SURPRISE

Jean, thus dismissed, descended to the library, where, across the dark crimson carpet, the last rays of the gorgeous sunset slanted in through the high windows in which were set the armorial bearings of the dead-and-gone Bracondales in stained-glass escutcheons.

She crossed the great sombre apartment and stood gazing through the diamond panes away over the level green of the broad park to where the sea lay bathed in the golden light of the dying day.

Her eyes were fixed vacantly into space. She was thinking – thinking again of that fateful paragraph in the paper – the unexpected news which had rendered her a widow. And poor Adolphe? Alas! though he had been her only friend and full of sympathy for her, yet he was now wearing out his days in penal servitude at the dreaded Devil’s Island.

She thought of him often with feelings of pity. Though a criminal of a criminal stock, ill-bred, and with scarcely any education, yet he had behaved to her as few men had behaved. He had always held her in high esteem and respect. Even as she stood there she could hear his high-pitched voice addressing her as “Madame.”

Upstairs, by the bedside of the sick Cabinet Minister, the thin, grey-faced man, “the eyes and ears of the Cabinet,” was making a secret report to his lordship.

Though the Earl of Bracondale, K.G., was His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, yet Darnborough, the ever-astute, sleepless man of secrets, was the keeper of Great Britain’s prestige abroad. Though his name never appeared on the roll of Government servants, and did not draw any salary as an official, yet he was the only man in England who could demand audience of the Sovereign at any hour by day or by night, or who had the free entrée to the Royal residences and could attend any function uninvited.

As a statesman, as a secret agent, as an ingenious plotter in the interests of his country, he was a genius. He was a discovery of the late Lord Salisbury in the last days of the Victorian Era. At that time he had been a Foreign Office clerk, a keen-eyed young man with a lock of black hair hanging loosely across his brow. Lord Salisbury recognised in him a man of genius as a diplomat, and with his usual bluntness called him one day to Hatfield and gave him a very delicate mission abroad.

Darnborough went. He had audience with the Shah of Persia, juggled with that bediamonded potentate, and came back with his draft of a secret treaty directed against Russia’s influence safely in his pocket. He had achieved what British Ministers to Teheran for the previous fifteen years had failed to effect. And from that moment Darnborough had been allowed a free hand in international politics.

Lord Rosebery, Lord Lansdowne, and Sir Edward Grey had adopted the same attitude towards him as the great Lord Salisbury. He was the one man who knew the secret policy of Britain’s enemies, the man who had so often attended meetings of the Cabinet and warned it of the pitfalls open for the destruction of British prestige.

At that moment the renowned chief of the Secret Service was explaining the latest conspiracy afoot against England, a serious conspiracy hatched in both Berlin and Vienna to embroil our nation in complications in the Far East. Darnborough’s agents in both capitals had that morning arrived at Downing Street post-haste and reported upon what was in progress, with the result that their chief had come to place before the Foreign Minister the latest iniquity of diplomatic juggling.

His lordship lay in bed and listened to the man of secrets without uttering a word.

At length he turned his head restlessly on the pillow and, with a weary sigh, remarked:

“Ah! Darnborough, I fear that each day brings us nearer the peril, nearer the day of Germany’s attack. The exposure of those confidential reports upon our naval manœuvres was serious enough to our diplomacy. The policy of the Government is, alas! one of false assurance in our defences. The country has been lulled to sleep far too long. False assurances of our national security have been given over and over again, and upon them the Cabinet have pursued a policy of bluff. But, alas! the days of Palmerston and Salisbury are past. Europe can gauge the extent and strength of our national defence, and, with the navigation of the air, we live no longer upon ‘the tight little island’ of our revered ancestors.”

“Yes,” replied the man seated in the chair by the bedside, as he stretched his legs forward and folded his arms. “In all the capitals it is to-day the fashion to laugh at England’s greatness, and to speak of us as a declining Power. I hear it everywhere. The Great Powers are in daily expectation of seeing the tail of the British lion badly twisted, and I quite agree that the most unfortunate leakage of a national secret was that report upon the last naval manœuvres. The bubble of our defensive and offensive power has burst.”

“And poor Richard Harborne lost his life,” remarked the Earl.

“Yes,” replied the other, thoughtfully.

“He was a fine fellow, Darnborough – a very fine young fellow. He came to see me once or twice upon confidential matters. You sent him to Mexico, you’ll remember, and he came to report to me personally. I was much struck by his keen foresight and cleverness. Have you gained any further information concerning his mysterious end?”

“I have made a good many inquiries, both at home and abroad, but Harborne seems to have been something of a mystery himself. He was strangely reserved, and something of a recluse in private life – lived in chambers in the Temple when not travelling abroad, and kept himself very much to himself.”

“For any reason?”

“None, as far as I can tell. He was a merry, easy-going young fellow, a member of the St. James’s, and highly popular among the younger set at the club, but he held aloof from them all he could. As I told you some time ago, there was a lady in the case.”

His lordship sighed.

“Ah! Darnborough, the best of men go under for the sake of a woman!”

“In this case I am not sure that Harborne was really a victim,” replied his visitor. “Only the other day, when in Borkum, I ascertained that Harborne had been in Germany and met by appointment a young foreign woman named Fräulein Montague. She was French, I was told, and very pretty. It was she who carried on the negotiations for the purchase of the secret of the new Krupp aerial gun.”

“You ought to find her. She might tell you something.”

“That’s just what I am striving my utmost to do. I have learnt that she was the daughter of a French restaurant-keeper, living somewhere in London, and that after Harborne’s death she married a Frenchman, whose name I am unable, as yet, to ascertain.”

“You will soon know it, Darnborough,” remarked the Earl with a faint smile. “You always know everything.”

“Is it not my profession?” the other asked. “Yes, I shall try to discover this lady, for I have a theory that she knows something which we ought to know. In addition, she knows who killed Richard Harborne.”

“I sincerely hope that you will be successful,” declared the Foreign Minister. “By Harborne’s death Britain has lost a fearless patriot, a man who served his country as truly and as well as any bedecorated general, and who had faced death a dozen times unflinchingly in the performance of his duties to his country and his sovereign.”

“Yes,” declared Darnborough, “if any man deserved a C.M.G. or a knighthood, Dick Harborne most certainly did. I am the only person who is in the position of knowing how devotedly he served his country.”

“I know, I know!” exclaimed the Earl. “And if he had lived it was my intention of including his name in the next Birthday Honours list.”

“Poor fellow,” remarked his chief. “I wonder who that woman Montague was, and whether she really had any hand in the crime? That he was fond of her I have learned on good authority, yet Dick was, after all, not much of a ladies’ man. Therefore I am somewhat surprised at the nature of the information I have gathered. Nevertheless, I mean to find the woman – and to know the truth.”

“Have you any clue whatever to her identity?” inquired the Earl, looking at him strangely.

“None, save what I have told you,” was the slow, deliberate reply. “But I think I shall eventually find her.”

“You will, Darnborough. I know well what you mean when you reply in those terms. I have experienced your vague responses before,” laughed his lordship.

But the great secret agent only grinned, and his grey face broadened into a smile, while the Earl lay wondering whether, after all, his visitor knew more concerning the mysterious female friend of Harborne than he had admitted.

Darnborough went on with his secret report, placing before the Secretary of State the exact nature of the war-cloud which once again threatened to arise over Europe, and of which our Embassies in Berlin and Vienna, with all the pomp of their officialdom, were as yet in ignorance.

And while the chief of the Secret Service was closeted with the Foreign Minister, and the latter was scribbling some pencil notes of his visitor’s report, Jean waited downstairs in the library for the Earl’s permission to return to his room.

As the soft after-glow of early autumn spread over the western sea before her, she turned at last from the long window and crossed the big room, wherein deep shadows were now falling.

The Earl’s mysterious visitor had been shown in there by Jenner before being conducted to his lordship’s room, and upon the Earl’s pedestal writing-table, set in an alcove overlooking the terrace, stood a small, well-worn despatch-box of green enamelled steel, covered with dark green canvas.

It had been brought by Darnborough, and stood unlocked and open, just as he had taken from it the written reports of the agents of the Secret Service who had arrived at Charing Cross early that morning from the Continent.

Curiosity prompted Jean to pause and peer into it. She wondered what business that rather sour-faced man had with the Earl, and what that portable little steel box could contain.

A photograph – the photograph of a young and handsome woman – which was lying face upwards, first attracted her attention. Curious, she thought, that the man towards whom old Jenner had been so deferential should carry about the picture of a pretty woman.

She took it in her fingers and held it in the light in order to examine it more closely. Then, in replacing it, she glanced at the file of papers uppermost, a thick bundle of various documents, stamped with the arms of England and the words, “Foreign Office,” and upon the outside of which was written in a bold, clerkish hand, “Re Richard Harborne, deceased.”

Richard Harborne! Sight of that name caused her to hold her breath.

She took out the file of papers with trembling hand and bent to examine them in the light.

She saw there were newspaper cuttings, and long reports both in writing and typed – reports signed by persons of whom she had no knowledge.

In one paper at which she glanced Dick was referred to as “The Honourable Richard Davies Harborne, late of His Britannic Majesty’s Secret Service.”

She read eagerly, hoping to discover something to throw light upon the poor fellow’s sad end, but the writing was small, cramped, and difficult for her to decipher.

Yet, so deeply interested did she become that she did not hear the door open.

Suddenly she heard a footstep behind her, and, starting quickly, turned to find his lordship’s mysterious visitor standing facing her with a look of severe inquiry upon his grey, furrowed countenance.

“Oh! I – I – I’m so very sorry!” was all she could say, as she quickly replaced the file of papers in the despatch-box. “I – I – ”

But further words failed her, and she stood abashed, confused, and ashamed.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE DARKENING HORIZON

“Well, nurse, I hardly expected that,” he said, reprovingly, his serious eyes fixed upon hers.

Jean turned scarlet, and then admitted, as she stood with her back to the writing table:

“I saw the photograph in your despatch-box, and it attracted me. Then I saw those papers.”

“And they seem to have greatly interested you, nurse – eh?” Darnborough remarked.

“A woman is always interested in what does not concern her,” she replied with a forced smile.

“Well, forgive me for saying so, but I consider it gross impertinence on your part to have pried into my papers, young lady,” exclaimed the chief of the Secret Service, with some asperity.

“I trust you will forgive me, Mr. Darnborough, but, truth to tell, I could not resist the temptation.”

“Just as many other people could not resist – if they knew what secrets this despatch-box of mine sometimes contains,” he laughed. “Well, nurse, I forgive you,” he added cheerfully, his manner changing. “Go back to Lord Bracondale, and make haste and get him well again. England is sorely in need of him to-day – I can assure you.”

“Does he wish for me?”

“Yes, he gave me a message asking you to return to him at once.”

“I’ll go, then,” she replied. “I’m so glad you’ve forgiven me. My action was, I know, horribly mean and quite unpardonable. Good evening.”