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The King's Men; A Tale of To-morrow, a novel by Robert Grant |
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Chapter 19. A Woman's End |
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_ CHAPTER XIX. A WOMAN'S END The great cafe of the Trimountain Hotel is one of those interiors which can only be seen in America. Lit at night by a single electric glow, softened and unified in passing through the ground-glass ceiling, it is brilliant with mirrors and cut-glass and china. At one end of the room is the long bar, glittering with all that can make a bar attractive, served by a score or more of the prettiest of bar-maids; along the sides of the room are rows of little tables in carved oak and cherry, each unlike the other, each a work of art; in the corners and upon the walls is a collection of paintings and statuary hardly rivalled in any of the private mansions of Boston. The centre of the room, save for a fountain playing in a jungle of flowering vines, violets, and rare orchids, is a polished expanse of inlaid floor, where one may walk and smoke. As Geoffrey walked in he passed the news-stand by the door. Here are shown the photographs of the favorites or celebrities of the day, etchings of the latest pictures, play-bills of the theatres and operas, pictures of women and horses. Everywhere about that day he was met by the semblance of the woman he had just seen; photographs in every size and attitude, in every dress, colored, plain; taken in street dress, in house dress, in dinner dress, in _robe de chambre_, full length and half length, high-necked, low-necked, very low-necked; on the handkerchief boxes and the perfumery cases were still gaudier pictures, with the Carey collar, the Carey perfume, the King's favorite cigarette, and whatever else had any use or service for a pretty woman. Geoffrey noticed all these things as he passed on, but was struck a moment later by the appearance of a man he thought he knew. The man wore the dress of a gentleman, but travel-stained and untidy; he was sitting alone at one of the little tables, with head bowed down upon his breast; before him stood glasses and a crystal decanter half filled with brandy. Geoffrey started with surprise, and would have turned back, but the man saw him and recognized him. It was Oswald Carey. The two men looked at each other a minute without speaking. Finally Carey spoke, in a hoarse voice, not his own of older days: "Have you seen my wife?" Geoffrey started, less at the question than at the manner in which it was asked. "Yes," he said. "Where is she? At the palace--at the court?" "Yes." "Damn her," said Carey. Geoffrey was silent. "Where did you see her last?" muttered the other. "Here--in this hotel." "In this hotel?" "This morning." "Is she--is she not with the King?" "I believe--I do not know," answered Geoffrey. He turned to go. As he looked at the other, standing there, white-faced, worn, with the glitter in his reddened eyes, this man whom he had scorned, there was something in him like the ruin of a man after all. Geoffrey, too, was alone, and his heart warmed to him. It was he who had married Eleanor Leigh, not Geoffrey. "Carey," said he, "you can do nothing here. I am going to the West. Come with me." Carey looked at Ripon, puzzled; then, with a broken sob, he grasped his hand and staggered to his seat. Ripon noticed for the first time that the man was crazy with drink. "Thank you," said he. "I must stay. I have something to do here first. You know that she betrayed you? that it was her treason condemned you and Dacre?" Geoffrey nodded. "And you, Ripon"--Carey pulled the other close to his lips and spoke almost in a whisper--"you are the only man that woman ever loved. I know it." Geoffrey could make no answer. Again he rose to go. "Where are you going?" Geoffrey smiled and waved his hand vaguely. "To the West." "Why?--I thought--you came over in Windsor's yacht--" The other stopped, embarrassed. Geoffrey was touched by his interest. "Carey, will you give me a glass of your brandy?" Geoffrey poured it out. "Miss Windsor is married." "Who told you so?" "Your wife." Carey brought his fist down shivering on the table. "And you believe her?" "Miss Windsor told me almost as much herself." "Almost!" Carey burst into a wild laugh. "Here's to her!" he cried, holding up his glass. "Ripon, you are the last gentleman who will ever drink with me. I suspect you are the only one who would now. And here's my last toast: Long life to your wife--and death to mine. Damn her! Can't you see she lied?" Carey rose from the table and staggered out of the room. It was already the afternoon of a garish, shadeless day, and people stopped to look at Carey's terrible pace as he strode along the sidewalk. As Ripon had seen, he was insane with drink, or would have been but for one dominant thought in his mind. As Carey walked along the busy street, hardly a shop window, not a bookstore, not an ignoble news-stand, but had displayed his wife's picture. It was _Mrs. Carey_, _Mrs. Oswald Carey_, _Mrs. Carey and the ex-King_, everywhere. One infamous pictorial publication had a bare-necked portrait of the "notorious Eleanor Carey" side by side with that of "Jim Dingan, the Lynn pugilist." As he entered Washington Street, the newsboys were crying, "Horrible crime in New York! Scandal in high life! Mrs. Carey leaves the court!" and Carey read the caption outlined on the bulletin boards. He felt in his coat pocket, where he carried a small revolver he had purchased, and hurried along more rapidly. His gait was quick and firm as an athlete's on the course. No trace of intoxication now. He reached the St. James and asked a page to be directed to Mrs. Carey's apartment. The boy grinned at first, but was silent at a word from Carey and led him the way. When they reached her door, at the end of a long series of corridors and stairs, the page wished to announce him, but Carey pushed him aside roughly and opened the door. His fingers were clinched upon the pistol in his pocket; his plan was to ask her one question, and then, while she was hesitating about her answer, to kill her. The drawing-room was a large apartment, vulgarly furnished in a style gone by. A marble clock was on the mantel, and a photograph of the King. Carey pressed through into the bedroom. No one was there. Bits of lace and muslin were scattered about the floor, and one or two garments lying on the chairs as if hastily thrown aside. Carey thoroughly examined the rooms and then turned back to the page. "Where is Mrs. Carey? Do you know?" "I do not. I heard that she was about to leave the court." Carey turned away, and, leaving the hotel, took a carriage and drove to the railway station. A train had just left for New York. At the news-stand was the usual collection of her pictures on sale. Carey spoke to the boy in charge, pointing to a photograph. "Have you seen that woman go by here to-day?" "Yes, sir; I see that woman go by here not twenty minutes ago. That's the beauty, Mrs. Carey, that is. There was another woman with her, and a man." Her maid, probably. But who could the man be? Carey found the next train for New York did not leave till evening. He waited in the station for it, and arrived in that city at midnight. It was too late to get any trace of his wife that night. Early in the morning he began the search, but it was all of no avail. His wife had apparently stopped at none of the hotels. A certain lady looking like her had been seen at a small hotel on the Fifth Avenue, but she had been with a gentleman, and their names were registered as Mr. and Mrs. Copley Hutchinson, of Boston. Carey wondered whether she could have left the city. Several European steamers had sailed or were to sail that day, and he spent an hour or two at the docks searching them. All the papers, all the shops, were full of his wife and her movements; he alone knew nothing of them. As he walked back, up Broadway, he looked at the bulletin boards. He had a habit of doing this now. In front of the _Herald_ office they were changing the bulletin, and he waited a moment to see. The first line on the new broadside he read aloud: "_Mrs. Oswald Carey sails for Brazil._" Carey went in and bought a copy of the newspaper. In it he found the sailing-list of the City of Rio, and there the first name was "Mrs. Oswald Carey and maid," and then, just below, "Jarley Jawkins." Carey stood on the sidewalk several minutes, like a statue. Then, slowly crumpling up the newspaper in his hand, he threw it in the gutter. That night he was a passenger in the emigrant train for the North-west. _ |
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