the incident happened so quickly, the appearance and disappearance from gerard’s sight of the disguised rachel had been so sudden, so rapid, so quiet, that it seemed as if the whole affair had been a vision, a dream, anything but solid reality.
was he mistaken about the identity of the girl?
gerard began to think he must be. after all, it was night-time, there was a great crowd of people about him, pushing and struggling, and it was easy enough, in such circumstances, to mistake an accidental likeness for a strong one.
at least, this was what he told himself, desperately anxious not to be forced to come to the conclusion that the girl he had just seen acting in such a strange, and such a suspicious manner, was the beautiful rachel davison who had made so great an impression upon him, whom he could not forget.
although, however, he was unable to accept his own argument that he might have been mistaken as to the identity of the woman, it was still open to him to invent reasons why he might have been mistaken as to what she was doing. he had believed he saw her hand to a man a glittering ornament which[28] looked like diamonds. and the impression had brought vividly and painfully to his mind the remembrance of the first occasion of his meeting rachel, and of her display of nimbleness with her fingers.
there came back to his mind with unpleasant iteration the words she had uttered about her accomplishment being good for nothing; unless she meant to pick pockets.
of course she had uttered them lightly, and of course he had taken them as a jest. of course he knew too that the idea of connecting the brilliant miss davison with the pursuits of a pickpocket was absurd, revolting, horrible.
he did not even, so he told himself, think the matter worth a second thought. but he went on thinking of nothing else, and hurried away to his rooms in buckingham street, oppressed by a sensation of discomfort and depression, such as he could not remember having ever experienced before.
he stopped short suddenly as he was walking quickly along and tried to remember what the man was like to whom he had seen her hand the glittering object.
but the whole episode had passed so swiftly, his own attention had been so completely absorbed in the girl herself and in what she was doing, that he had had no time or attention left for the man. he remembered vaguely that the man’s back was turned[29] to him, that he was tall and broad-shouldered and that he wore a dark overcoat, but he could recall no more details, try as he would.
the man, too, appeared to have been an expert at rapid disappearance, for when gerard had turned to look for him he was gone.
supposing that miss davison, being a designer and therefore an artist, had been in the habit of disguising herself in order to be able to move about freely, and to see more of the world and of life than she could in her own proper person. surely there was a possibility of that! there had been instances before of great artists passing themselves off as people of a lower station, in order to gain information. and, now he thought of it, it seemed to him highly probable, and not merely possible, that this high-spirited and clever woman, always active and on the alert for the means to make money for her family as well as for herself, should make a practice of disguising herself in the dress of a poor working-girl, in order the more readily to pass without attracting comment among the crowds of london, and perhaps even to collect facts which she could dress up into attractive press articles, or into book shape, with the object of earning a larger income.
the more he considered the matter, the more reasonable this idea seemed. her sister had said that she was a designer. was it not more than probable that that was what rachel called herself, and that her[30] real occupation was that of a journalist, one of which her old-fashioned mother would probably have disapproved if she had been told of it.
the little story grew in his mind until it seemed the likeliest thing in the world. rachel, anxious for something to do, aware of her singular cleverness in gliding about without attracting too much attention, had availed herself of the only means at her disposal of earning a good income, by becoming a journalist; and, in order to get the sort of first-hand knowledge of life necessary for her purpose, she habitually went about disguised as a girl of the poorer classes. because she knew her mother would be distressed if she were to know what profession her daughter followed, rachel had given out that she was an artist and designer, and so got the time she wanted to herself, and represented herself as having a studio near regent street, in order to account for the hours when she was occupied collecting information for the editors who employed her.
the longer he lingered upon this hypothesis, the more he liked it; but in spite of his arguments, there lingered at the bottom of his mind a vague fear that his little story was but a fiction after all.
for what of the glittering thing he had seen her pass to the man?
and what of the man?
even if his own fanciful theory were correct gerard did not like the intrusion of a man into the story.[31] he could not deceive himself about that. there had been a man in the case, apparently young, for he appeared to be as active as herself, and—there had been that glittering thing which he knew, after all, to be a diamond.
what had the professional journalist to do with diamonds? what had she to do with a man?
gerard resented his own fears, his own doubts, and, determined to solve the mystery at no matter what cost, on the following afternoon he dared to call at lady jennings’ house, and to ask boldly for miss davison.
“miss davison is not here at present, sir,” said the footman.
“she lives here does she not?” asked gerard.
“oh, yes, sir, she lives here for the most part. but she has to spend some time with mrs. davison at brighton. she’s been down there for the past three weeks, sir.”
gerard felt as if he had had a blow. for it was on the previous night that he had seen, or believed he saw, rachel in the crowd, and now he was told that she was at brighton!
he was about to retire, very dissatisfied, and without knowing what step he should take next to solve the problem which distressed him, when a door opened into the hall and lady jennings, whom he remembered, having seen her at burlington house, came out and asked him to come in.
[32]she was a delightful old lady, with silver-white hair and keen eyes, who dressed perfectly, and who was a little queen in her way.
she was gowned in silver-gray satin with that profusion of rich-toned old lace which every elderly lady who cares for her appearance should never omit from her wardrobe. a knot of lace which yet was not a cap was fastened in her beautiful white hair by two large-headed amber and gold pins, and the rest of the jewelry she wore was old-fashioned, but appropriate and handsome.
she led gerard into a long room with a dining-table at one end, and every accessory of a boudoir at the other. among her flowers and her canaries, her fancy-work and her pet dogs she seated herself in a high arm-chair which seemed specially designed to show off her handsome, erect figure and clever, sympathetic face; and then her dark eyes softened as she turned to her guest and said—
“and so your name is buckland? tell me, are you any relation to sir joseph buckland, of the norfolk branch of the family?”
“i am his grandson,” answered gerard.
“dear me! how singular! and i danced with him at the ball he gave on the coming of age of his eldest son!”
“my uncle,” said gerard. “he’s dead now.”
“dear me! jo buckland dead! then you are the heir to the title, surely!”
[33]“yes, but not very much more, i’m afraid.”
“well, well, they tell me you’re very clever, and that you’ll bring back fortune to the old house.”
“who told you that?” asked gerard, surprised.
“my protégé, rachel davison. she heard it from the people at whose house she met you.”
“the aldingtons?”
“yes, that was the name. she seemed so much interested in you that i’ve been anxious to know you ever since, especially as i thought you might be related to my old friends. but rachel is an odd creature. she wouldn’t let me speak to you, and i thought perhaps she was jealous of my attractions.”
and the old lady laughed delightfully.
“that may well have been,” said gerard, smiling.
lady jennings looked at him with keen, dark eyes.
“rachel’s an odd girl,” she said. “i’ve had her living with me for some months now, but i can’t say i understand her yet, though i pride myself on having some knowledge of human nature. she’s singularly attractive, but eccentric, very eccentric.”
“yes,” said gerard eagerly, “that’s just what i’ve thought. and that makes her more interesting than other girls.”
“yes,” said the old lady rather slowly, “i suppose it does. but it’s puzzling sometimes.”
there was a pause for gerard did not like to ask direct questions, though he was dying to know in what way rachel puzzled her clever old friend.
[34]while he was wondering whether he dared put a discreet interrogation about rachel and her somewhat mysterious accomplishments, lady jennings said abruptly—
“do you believe in the doctrine, belief, theory—whatever you like to call it, that every one of us in this world has his or her double somewhere or other?”
gerard, scenting the approach of a confession bearing upon the supposed discovery he had made of rachel in an odd disguise, hesitated what to reply. the old lady nodded.
“i think you do,” she said solemnly. “well, i never did till lately, when an experience of my own made me begin to think there was something in it.”
“what experience was that?” asked gerard, feeling that he was drawing near to a similar story to his own.
but lady jennings did not immediately answer. she raised the gold-rimmed double-eyeglass which she wore dangling in front of her from a long thin gold chain, and looked at a large portrait of rachel, which stood, framed and draped, on a little table near her.
“a singular face! an unmistakable face!” said she, almost under her breath.
gerard was alert and eager to hear more, but lady[35] jennings suddenly turned the conversation to another matter—
“and have you had your first brief yet?” she asked.
“yes, but not many of them,” answered gerard, rather coolly, disappointed at not having heard more of what he wanted to hear.
“and do you ever go down to the old place?”
“to my uncle’s? oh yes, i go down every autumn to shoot, and always at christmas.”
“ask your uncle whether he remembers dorothy bellingham, and tell him, if he does, that she has white hair now, but that she loves norfolk and the old hall as much as ever.”
“i won’t forget.”
“and won’t you come and see us sometimes?” went on the old lady, with an engaging smile. “i’m always pleased to see my friends, and i should like sir joseph’s grandson to be my friend. i am always at home from four to six, except on sundays and in august and the early months of the year. i love to have young people about me. and the young people are an attraction to other young people, aren’t they?” she said archly. “more often than not you will find rachel davison with me. she’s a splendid secretary and does most of my correspondence.”
“your secretary, is she?” asked gerard eagerly.
[36]“not actually, but practically,” answered lady jennings. “i offered to take her as my secretary when she was bemoaning the fact that she could get no work to do, but the girl was too proud. she caught eagerly at the idea of staying with me, and offered to do all my correspondence, but she refused to accept any salary. then, luckily, she developed this unsuspected talent for design, and before many weeks were over she was able to send money to her mother, to pay for her sister’s being sent to a first-rate school, and to dress as she ought to dress. it’s astonishingly clever of her, isn’t it?”
“most astonishing,” said gerard emphatically.
was it fancy? or did the old lady look at him inquisitively, as if anxious to make out what he really thought?
“and i never see her at work, that is the marvel. it’s true she has a little studio where she draws most of her designs, and that she does the rest down at brighton, when she is staying with her mother. but it’s wonderful to me that she can find time for it, when she is always going about with me or with other friends.”
“she is at brighton now, is she not?”
“yes, she’s been down there for the last three weeks.”
“may i know her address? i’m going down myself in a day or two, and perhaps i might venture to call?” said gerard.
[37]lady jennings caught at the suggestion, and at once seizing a piece of paper from her writing-table, wrote down on it, with her gold-cased pencil, an address on the sea-front, where she said that mrs. davison was now living in rooms.
she seemed quite eager to give him the address, and begged him to call again upon her when he returned to town, and to tell her how rachel was, and her mother, and when the girl proposed to return to her.
“tell rachel,” she said, “that she’s a naughty girl not to answer my letters, and that i am getting into a dreadful muddle with my own correspondence for want of her help.”
gerard rose, much pleased to have received this general invitation to call when he liked, but went away puzzled and vaguely uneasy.
lady jennings, he thought, was quite anxious for him to go to brighton to see rachel.
what new surprise would he find in store for him there?
