The Shuttle & The Making of a Marchioness. Frances Hodgson Burnett
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nothing definite. Also, when I was announced unexpectedly, I saw her quickly withdraw her hand from her lips. She had been kissing a ring she wore. I could not help seeing that afterwards. My good Mary, it was a ruby, of a size and colour which recalled the Arabian Nights.”
Mrs. Warren began to resign herself.
“No,” she said, “there is no respectable conclusion to be drawn. It is tragic, but prosaic. She has been governess or companion in some great house. She may be a well-born woman. It is ten times more hideous for her than if she were a girl. She has to writhe under knowing that both her friends and her enemies are saying that she had not the excuse of not having been old enough to know better.”
“That might all be true,” he admitted promptly. “It would be true if—but she is not writhing. She is no more unhappy than you or I. She is only anxious, and I could swear that she is only anxious about one thing. The moment in which I swore fealty to her was when she said to me, ‘I want to be quite safe—until after. I do not care for myself. I will bear anything or do anything. Only one thing matters. I shall be such a good patient.’ Then her eyes grew moist, and she closed her lips decorously to keep them from trembling.
“They’re not usually like that,” Mrs. Warren remarked.
“I have not found them so,” he replied.
“Perhaps she believes the man will marry her.”
There was odd unexpectedness in the manner in which Dr. Warren suddenly began to laugh.
“My dear wife, if you could see her! It is the incongruity of what we are saying which makes me laugh. With her ruby and her coronets and her lodging-house street, she is of an impeccableness! She does not even know she could be doubted. Fifteen years of matrimony spent in South Kensington, three girls in the schoolroom and four boys at Eton, could not have crystallised a more unquestionable serenity. And you are saying gravely, ‘Perhaps she believes the man will marry her.’ Whatsoever the situation is, I am absolutely sure that she has never asked herself whether he would or not.”
“Then,” Mrs. Warren answered, “it is the most Extraordinary Case we have had yet.”
“But I have sworn fealty to her,” was Warren’s conclusion. “And she will tell me more later.” He shook his head with an air of certainty. “Yes, she will feel it necessary to tell me later.”
They went upstairs to dress for dinner, and during the remainder of the evening which they spent alone they talked almost entirely of the matter.
Chapter Twenty
Lady Walderhurst’s departure from Palstrey, though unexpected, had been calm and matter-of-fact. All the Osborns knew was that she had been obliged to go up to London for a day or two, and that when there, her physician had advised certain German baths. Her letter of explanation and apology was very nice. She could not return to the country before beginning her journey. It seemed probable that she would return with her husband, who might arrive in England during the next two months.
“Has she heard that he is coming back?” Captain Osborn asked his wife.
“She has written to ask him to come.”
Osborn grinned.
“He will be obliged to her. He is tremendously pleased with his importance at this particular time, and he is just the sort of man—as we both know—to be delighted at being called back to preside over an affair which is usually a matter for old women.”
But the letter he had examined, as it lay with the rest awaiting postal, he had taken charge of himself. He knew that one, at least, would not reach Lord Walderhurst. Having heard in time of the broken bridge-rail, he had been astute enough to guess that the letter written immediately after the incident might convey such impressions as might lead even his lordship to feel that it would be well for him to be at home. The woman had been frightened, and would be sure to lose her head and play the fool. In a few days she would calm down and the affair would assume smaller proportions. At any rate, he had chosen to take charge of this particular letter.
What he did not know, however, was that chance had played into his hands in the matter of temporarily upsetting Lord Walderhurst’s rather unreliable digestion, and in altering his plans, by a smart, though not dangerous, attack of fever which had ended in his being ordered to a part of the hill country not faithfully reached by letters; as a result of which several communications from his wife went astray and were unduly delayed. At the time Captain Osborn was discussing him with Hester, he was taking annoyed care of himself with the aid of a doctor, irritated by the untoward disturbance of his arrangements, and giving, it is true, comparatively little thought to his wife, who, being comfortably installed at Palstrey Manor, was doubtless enjoyably absorbed in little Mrs. Osborn.
“What German baths does she intend going to?” Alec Osborn inquired.
Hester consulted the letter with a manner denoting but languid interest.
“It’s rather like her that she doesn’t go to the length of explaining,” was her reply. “She has a way of telling you a great many things you don’t care to know, and forgetting to mention those you are interested in. She is very detailed about her health, and her affection and mine. She evidently expects us to go back to The Kennel Farm, and deplores her inhospitality, with adjectives.”
She did not look as if she was playing a part; but she was playing one, and doing it well. Her little way was that of a nasty-tempered, self-centred woman, made spiteful by being called upon to leave a place which suited her.
“You are not really any fonder of her than I am,” commented Osborn, after regarding her speculatively a few moments. If he had been as sure of her as he had been of Ameerah—!
“I don’t know of any reason for my being particularly fond of her,” she said. “It’s easy enough for a rich woman to be goodnatured. It doesn’t cost her enough to constitute a claim.”
Osborn helped himself to a stiff whiskey and soda. They went back to The Kennel Farm the next day, and though it was his habit to consume a large number of “pegs” daily, the habit increased until there were not many hours in the day when he was normally sure of what he was doing.
The German baths to which Lady Walderhurst had gone were nearer to Palstrey than any one knew. They were only at a few hours’ distance by rail.
When, after a day spent in a quiet London lodging, Mrs. Cupp returned to her mistress with the information that she had been to the house in Mortimer Street and found that the widow who had bought the lease and furniture was worn out with ill-luck and the uncertainty of lodgers, and only longed for release which was not ruin, Emily cried a little for joy.
“Oh, how I should like to be there!” she said. “It was such a dear house. No one would ever dream of my being in it. And I need have no one but you and Jane. I should be so safe and quiet. Tell her you have a friend who will take it, as it is, for a year, and pay her anything.”
“I won’t tell her quite that, my lady,” Mrs. Cupp made sagacious answer. “I’ll make her an offer in ready money down, and no questions asked by either of us. People in her position sometimes gets a sudden let that pays them better than lodgers. All classes has their troubles, and sometimes a decent house is wanted for a few months, where money can be paid. I’ll make her an offer.”
The outcome of which was that the widowed householder walked out of her domicile the next morning with a heavier purse and a lighter mind than she had known for many months. The same night, ingenuously oblivious of having been called upon to fill the role of a lady in genteel “trouble,” good and decorous Emily Walderhurst arrived under the cover of discreet darkness in a cab, and when she found herself in the “best bedroom,” which had once been so far beyond her means, she cried a little for joy again, because the four dull walls, the mahogany dressing-table,