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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:50:36 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:50:36 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/17226-8.txt b/17226-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bb055af --- /dev/null +++ b/17226-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9822 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Emily Fox-Seton, by Frances Hodgson Burnett + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Emily Fox-Seton + Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst + +Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett + +Illustrator: C.D. Williams + +Release Date: December 5, 2005 [EBook #17226] +[Last updated: December 9, 2011] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EMILY FOX-SETON *** + + + + +Produced by Hilary Caws-Elwitt + + + + + +[Illustration: Emily Fox-Seton] + + + EMILY FOX-SETON + + +BEING "THE MAKING OF A + MARCHIONESS" AND "THE + METHODS OF LADY + WALDERHURST" + + + By +Frances Hodgson Burnett + + + ILLUSTRATED BY + C.D. WILLIAMS + + + NEW YORK + GROSSET & DUNLAP + PUBLISHERS + + + +Copyright, 1901, by The Century Company + +Copyright, 1901, by Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett + +Copyright, 1901, by Frederick A. Stokes Company + +September, 1909 + + +[** Transcriber's note: I have corrected a few obvious printers' errors. +Details are AFTER the text so as not to interrupt the flow of what was +intended to be an enjoyable read and not a scholarly work. **] + + + + +PART ONE + + + + +Chapter One + + +When Miss Fox-Seton descended from the twopenny bus as it drew up, she +gathered her trim tailor-made skirt about her with neatness and decorum, +being well used to getting in and out of twopenny buses and to making +her way across muddy London streets. A woman whose tailor-made suit must +last two or three years soon learns how to protect it from splashes, and +how to aid it to retain the freshness of its folds. During her trudging +about this morning in the wet, Emily Fox-Seton had been very careful, +and, in fact, was returning to Mortimer Street as unspotted as she had +left it. She had been thinking a good deal about her dress--this +particular faithful one which she had already worn through a +twelvemonth. Skirts had made one of their appalling changes, and as she +walked down Regent Street and Bond Street she had stopped at the windows +of more than one shop bearing the sign "Ladies' Tailor and Habit-Maker," +and had looked at the tautly attired, preternaturally slim models, her +large, honest hazel eyes wearing an anxious expression. She was trying +to discover _where_ seams were to be placed and how gathers were to be +hung; or if there were to be gathers at all; or if one had to be bereft +of every seam in a style so unrelenting as to forbid the possibility of +the honest and semi-penniless struggling with the problem of remodelling +last season's skirt at all. "As it is only quite an ordinary brown," she +had murmured to herself, "I might be able to buy a yard or so to match +it, and I _might_ be able to join the gore near the pleats at the back +so that it would not be seen." + +She quite beamed as she reached the happy conclusion. She was such a +simple, normal-minded creature that it took but little to brighten the +aspect of life for her and to cause her to break into her good-natured, +childlike smile. A little kindness from any one, a little pleasure or a +little comfort, made her glow with nice-tempered enjoyment. As she got +out of the bus, and picked up her rough brown skirt, prepared to tramp +bravely through the mud of Mortimer Street to her lodgings, she was +positively radiant. It was not only her smile which was childlike, her +face itself was childlike for a woman of her age and size. She was +thirty-four and a well-set-up creature, with fine square shoulders and a +long small waist and good hips. She was a big woman, but carried herself +well, and having solved the problem of obtaining, through marvels of +energy and management, one good dress a year, wore it so well, and +changed her old ones so dexterously, that she always looked rather +smartly dressed. She had nice, round, fresh cheeks and nice, big, honest +eyes, plenty of mouse-brown hair and a short, straight nose. She was +striking and well-bred-looking, and her plenitude of good-natured +interest in everybody, and her pleasure in everything out of which +pleasure could be wrested, gave her big eyes a fresh look which made her +seem rather like a nice overgrown girl than a mature woman whose life +was a continuous struggle with the narrowest of mean fortunes. + +She was a woman of good blood and of good education, as the education of +such women goes. She had few relatives, and none of them had any +intention of burdening themselves with her pennilessness. They were +people of excellent family, but had quite enough to do to keep their +sons in the army or navy and find husbands for their daughters. When +Emily's mother had died and her small annuity had died with her, none of +them had wanted the care of a big raw-boned girl, and Emily had had the +situation frankly explained to her. At eighteen she had begun to work as +assistant teacher in a small school; the year following she had taken a +place as nursery-governess; then she had been reading-companion to an +unpleasant old woman in Northumberland. The old woman had lived in the +country, and her relatives had hovered over her like vultures awaiting +her decease. The household had been gloomy and gruesome enough to have +driven into melancholy madness any girl not of the sanest and most +matter-of-fact temperament. Emily Fox-Seton had endured it with an +unfailing good nature, which at last had actually awakened in the breast +of her mistress a ray of human feeling. When the old woman at length +died, and Emily was to be turned out into the world, it was revealed +that she had been left a legacy of a few hundred pounds, and a letter +containing some rather practical, if harshly expressed, advice. + +Go back to London [Mrs. Maytham had written in her feeble, crabbed +hand]. You are not clever enough to do anything remarkable in the way of +earning your living, but you are so good-natured that you can make +yourself useful to a lot of helpless creatures who will pay you a trifle +for looking after them and the affairs they are too lazy or too foolish +to manage for themselves. You might get on to one of the second-class +fashion-papers to answer ridiculous questions about house-keeping or +wall-papers or freckles. You know the kind of thing I mean. You might +write notes or do accounts and shopping for some lazy woman. You are a +practical, honest creature, and you have good manners. I have often +thought that you had just the kind of commonplace gifts that a host of +commonplace people want to find at their service. An old servant of mine +who lives in Mortimer Street would probably give you cheap, decent +lodgings, and behave well to you for my sake. She has reason to be fond +of me. Tell her I sent you to her, and that she must take you in for ten +shillings a week. + +Emily wept for gratitude, and ever afterward enthroned old Mrs. Maytham +on an altar as a princely and sainted benefactor, though after she had +invested her legacy she got only twenty pounds a year from it. + +"It was so _kind_ of her," she used to say with heartfelt humbleness of +spirit. "I never _dreamed_ of her doing such a generous thing. I hadn't +a _shadow_ of a claim upon her--not a _shadow_." It was her way to +express her honest emotions with emphasis which italicised, as it were, +her outpourings of pleasure or appreciation. + +She returned to London and presented herself to the ex-serving-woman. +Mrs. Cupp had indeed reason to remember her mistress gratefully. At a +time when youth and indiscreet affection had betrayed her disastrously, +she had been saved from open disgrace and taken care of by Mrs. Maytham. + +The old lady, who had then been a vigorous, sharp-tongued, middle-aged +woman, had made the soldier lover marry his despairing sweetheart, and +when he had promptly drunk himself to death, she had set her up in a +lodging-house which had thriven and enabled her to support herself and +her daughter decently. + +In the second story of her respectable, dingy house there was a small +room which she went to some trouble to furnish up for her dead +mistress's friend. It was made into a bed-sitting-room with the aid of a +cot which Emily herself bought and disguised decently as a couch during +the daytime, by means of a red and blue Como blanket. The one window of +the room looked out upon a black little back-yard and a sooty wall on +which thin cats crept stealthily or sat and mournfully gazed at fate. +The Como rug played a large part in the decoration of the apartment. One +of them, with a piece of tape run through a hem, hung over the door in +the character of a _portière_; another covered a corner which was Miss +Fox-Seton's sole wardrobe. As she began to get work, the cheerful, +aspiring creature bought herself a Kensington carpet-square, as red as +Kensington art would permit it to be. She covered her chairs with +Turkey-red cotton, frilling them round the seats. Over her cheap white +muslin curtains (eight and eleven a pair at Robson's) she hung +Turkey-red draperies. She bought a cheap cushion at one of Liberty's +sales, and some bits of twopenny-halfpenny art china for her narrow +mantelpiece. A lacquered tea-tray and a tea-set of a single cup and +saucer, a plate and a teapot, made her feel herself almost sumptuous. +After a day spent in trudging about in the wet or cold of the streets, +doing other people's shopping, or searching for dressmakers or servants' +characters for her patrons, she used to think of her bed-sitting-room +with joyful anticipation. Mrs. Cupp always had a bright fire glowing in +her tiny grate when she came in, and when her lamp was lighted under its +home-made shade of crimson Japanese paper, its cheerful air, combining +itself with the singing of her little, fat, black kettle on the hob, +seemed absolute luxury to a tired, damp woman. + +Mrs. Cupp and Jane Cupp were very kind and attentive to her. No one who +lived in the same house with her could have helped liking her. She gave +so little trouble, and was so expansively pleased by any attention, that +the Cupps,--who were sometimes rather bullied and snubbed by the +"professionals" who generally occupied their other rooms,--quite loved +her. Sometimes the "professionals," extremely smart ladies and gentlemen +who did turns at the balls or played small parts at theatres, were +irregular in their payments or went away leaving bills behind them; but +Miss Fox-Seton's payments were as regular as Saturday night, and, in +fact, there had been times when, luck being against her, Emily had gone +extremely hungry during a whole week rather than buy her lunches at the +ladies' tea-shops with the money that would pay her rent. In the honest +minds of the Cupps, she had become a sort of possession of which they +were proud. She seemed to bring into their dingy lodging-house a touch +of the great world,--that world whose people lived in Mayfair and had +country-houses where they entertained parties for the shooting and the +hunting, and in which also existed the maids and matrons who on cold +spring mornings sat, amid billows of satin and tulle and lace, +surrounded with nodding plumes, waiting, shivering, for hours in their +carriages that they might at last enter Buckingham Palace and be +admitted to the Drawing-room. Mrs. Cupp knew that Miss Fox-Seton was +"well connected;" she knew that she possessed an aunt with a title, +though her ladyship never took the slightest notice of her niece. Jane +Cupp took "Modern Society," and now and then had the pleasure of reading +aloud to her young man little incidents concerning some castle or manor +in which Miss Fox-Seton's aunt, Lady Malfry, was staying with earls and +special favorites of the Prince's. Jane also knew that Miss Fox-Seton +occasionally sent letters addressed "To the Right Honourable the +Countess of So-and-so," and received replies stamped with coronets. Once +even a letter had arrived adorned with strawberry-leaves, an incident +which Mrs. Cupp and Jane had discussed with deep interest over their hot +buttered-toast and tea. + +Emily Fox-Seton, however, was far from making any professions of +grandeur. As time went on she had become fond enough of the Cupps to be +quite frank with them about her connections with these grand people. The +countess had heard from a friend that Miss Fox-Seton had once found her +an excellent governess, and she had commissioned her to find for her a +reliable young ladies' serving-maid. She had done some secretarial work +for a charity of which the duchess was patroness. In fact, these people +knew her only as a well-bred woman who for a modest remuneration would +make herself extremely useful in numberless practical ways. She knew +much more of them than they knew of her, and, in her affectionate +admiration for those who treated her with human kindness, sometimes +spoke to Mrs. Cupp or Jane of their beauty or charity with a very nice, +ingenuous feeling. Naturally some of her patrons grew fond of her, and +as she was a fine, handsome young woman with a perfectly correct +bearing, they gave her little pleasures, inviting her to tea or +luncheon, or taking her to the theatre. + +Her enjoyment of these things was so frank and grateful that the Cupps +counted them among their own joys. Jane Cupp--who knew something of +dressmaking--felt it a brilliant thing to be called upon to renovate an +old dress or help in the making of a new one for some festivity. The +Cupps thought their tall, well-built lodger something of a beauty, and +when they had helped her to dress for the evening, baring her fine, big +white neck and arms, and adorning her thick braids of hair with some +sparkling, trembling ornaments, after putting her in her four-wheeled +cab, they used to go back to their kitchen and talk about her, and +wonder that some gentleman who wanted a handsome, stylish woman at the +head of his table, did not lay himself and his fortune at her feet. + +"In the photograph-shops in Regent Street you see many a lady in a +coronet that hasn't half the good looks she has," Mrs. Cupp remarked +frequently. "She's got a nice complexion and a fine head of hair, +and--if you ask _me_--she's got as nice a pair of clear eyes as a lady +could have. Then look at her figure--her neck and her waist! That kind +of big long throat of hers would set off rows of pearls or diamonds +beautiful! She's a lady born, too, for all her simple, every-day way; +and she's a sweet creature, if ever there was one. For kind-heartedness +and good-nature I never saw her equal." + +Miss Fox-Seton had middle-class patrons as well as noble ones,--in fact, +those of the middle class were far more numerous than the duchesses,--so +it had been possible for her to do more than one good turn for the Cupp +household. She had got sewing in Maida Vale and Bloomsbury for Jane Cupp +many a time, and Mrs. Cupp's dining-room floor had been occupied for +years by a young man Emily had been able to recommend. Her own +appreciation of good turns made her eager to do them for others. She +never let slip a chance to help any one in any way. + +It was a good-natured thing done by one of her patrons who liked her, +which made her so radiant as she walked through the mud this morning. +She was inordinately fond of the country, and having had what she called +"a bad winter," she had not seen the remotest chance of getting out of +town at all during the summer months. The weather was beginning to be +unusually hot, and her small red room, which seemed so cosy in winter, +was shut in by a high wall from all chance of breezes. Occasionally she +lay and panted a little in her cot, and felt that when all the private +omnibuses, loaded with trunks and servants, had rattled away and +deposited their burdens at the various stations, life in town would be +rather lonely. Every one she knew would have gone somewhere, and +Mortimer Street in August was a melancholy thing. + +And Lady Maria had actually invited her to Mallowe. What a piece of good +fortune--what an extraordinary piece of kindness! + +She did not know what a source of entertainment she was to Lady Maria, +and how the shrewd, worldly old thing liked her. Lady Maria Bayne was +the cleverest, sharpest-tongued, smartest old woman in London. She knew +everybody and had done everything in her youth, a good many things not +considered highly proper. A certain royal duke had been much pleased +with her and people had said some very nasty things about it. But this +had not hurt Lady Maria. She knew how to say nasty things herself, and +as she said them wittily they were usually listened to and repeated. + +Emily Fox-Seton had gone to her first to write notes for an hour every +evening. She had sent, declined, and accepted invitations, and put off +charities and dull people. She wrote a fine, dashing hand, and had a +matter-of-fact intelligence and knowledge of things. Lady Maria began to +depend on her and to find that she could be sent on errands and depended +on to do a number of things. Consequently, she was often at South Audley +Street, and once, when Lady Maria was suddenly taken ill and was +horribly frightened about herself, Emily was such a comfort to her that +she kept her for three weeks. + +"The creature is so cheerful and perfectly free from vice that she's a +relief," her ladyship said to her nephew afterward. "So many women are +affected cats. She'll go out and buy you a box of pills or a porous +plaster, but at the same time she has a kind of simplicity and freedom +from spites and envies which might be the natural thing for a princess." + +So it happened that occasionally Emily put on her best dress and most +carefully built hat and went to South Audley Street to tea. (Sometimes +she had previously gone in buses to some remote place in the City to buy +a special tea of which there had been rumours.) She met some very smart +people and rarely any stupid ones, Lady Maria being incased in a +perfect, frank armour of good-humoured selfishness, which would have +been capable of burning dulness at the stake. + +"I won't have dull people," she used to say. "I'm dull myself." + +When Emily Fox-Seton went to her on the morning in which this story +opens, she found her consulting her visiting-book and making lists. + +"I'm arranging my parties for Mallowe," she said rather crossly. "How +tiresome it is! The people one wants at the same time are always nailed +to the opposite ends of the earth. And then things are found out about +people, and one can't have them till it's blown over. Those ridiculous +Dexters! They were the nicest possible pair--both of them good-looking +and both of them ready to flirt with anybody. But there was too much +flirting, I suppose. Good heavens! if I couldn't have a scandal and keep +it quiet, I wouldn't have a scandal at all. Come and help me, Emily." + +Emily sat down beside her. + +"You see, it is my early August party," said her ladyship, rubbing her +delicate little old nose with her pencil, "and Walderhurst is coming to +me. It always amuses me to have Walderhurst. The moment a man like that +comes into a room the women begin to frisk about and swim and languish, +except those who try to get up interesting conversations they think +likely to attract his attention. They all think it is possible that he +may marry them. If he were a Mormon he might have marchionesses of +Walderhurst of all shapes and sizes." + +"I suppose," said Emily, "that he was very much in love with his first +wife and will never marry again." + +"He wasn't in love with her any more than he was in love with his +housemaid. He knew he must marry, and thought it very annoying. As the +child died, I believe he thinks it his duty to marry again. But he hates +it. He's rather dull, and he can't bear women fussing about and wanting +to be made love to." + +They went over the visiting-book and discussed people and dates +seriously. The list was made and the notes written before Emily left the +house. It was not until she had got up and was buttoning her coat that +Lady Maria bestowed her boon. + +"Emily," she said, "I am going to ask you to Mallowe on the 2d. I want +you to help me to take care of people and keep them from boring me and +one another, though I don't mind their boring one another half so much +as I mind their boring me. I want to be able to go off and take my nap +at any hour I choose. I will _not_ entertain people. What you can do is +to lead them off to gather things or look at church towers. I hope +you'll come." + +Emily Fox-Seton's face flushed rosily, and her eyes opened and sparkled. + +"O Lady Maria, you _are_ kind!" she said. "You know how I should enjoy +it. I have heard so much of Mallowe. Every one says it is so beautiful +and that there are no such gardens in England." + +"They are good gardens. My husband was rather mad about roses. The best +train for you to take is the 2:30 from Paddington. That will bring you +to the Court just in time for tea on the lawn." + +Emily could have kissed Lady Maria if they had been on the terms which +lead people to make demonstrations of affection. But she would have been +quite as likely to kiss the butler when he bent over her at dinner and +murmured in dignified confidence, "Port or sherry, miss?" Bibsworth +would have been no more astonished than Lady Maria would, and Bibsworth +certainly would have expired of disgust and horror. + +She was so happy when she hailed the twopenny bus that when she got into +it her face was beaming with the delight which adds freshness and good +looks to any woman. To think that such good luck had come to her! To +think of leaving her hot little room behind her and going as a guest to +one of the most beautiful old houses in England! How delightful it would +be to live for a while quite naturally the life the fortunate people +lived year after year--to be a part of the beautiful order and +picturesqueness and dignity of it! To sleep in a lovely bedroom, to be +called in the morning by a perfect housemaid, to have one's early tea +served in a delicate cup, and to listen as one drank it to the birds +singing in the trees in the park! She had an ingenuous appreciation of +the simplest material joys, and the fact that she would wear her nicest +clothes every day, and dress for dinner every evening, was a delightful +thing to reflect upon. She got so much more out of life than most +people, though she was not aware of it. + +She opened the front door of the house in Mortimer Street with her +latch-key, and went upstairs, almost unconscious that the damp heat was +dreadful. She met Jane Cupp coming down, and smiled at her happily. + +"Jane," she said, "if you are not busy, I should like to have a little +talk with you. Will you come into my room?" + +"Yes, miss," Jane replied, with her usual respectful lady's maid's air. +It was in truth Jane's highest ambition to become some day maid to a +great lady, and she privately felt that her association with Miss +Fox-Seton was the best possible training. She used to ask to be allowed +to dress her when she went out, and had felt it a privilege to be +permitted to "do" her hair. + +She helped Emily to remove her walking dress, and neatly folded away her +gloves and veil. She knelt down before her as soon as she saw her seat +herself to take off her muddy boots. + +"Oh, _thank_ you, Jane," Emily exclaimed, with her kind italicised +manner. "That _is_ good of you. I _am_ tired, really. But such a nice +thing has happened. I have had such a delightful invitation for the +first week in August." + +"I'm sure you'll enjoy it, miss," said Jane. "It's so hot in August." + +"Lady Maria Bayne has been kind enough to invite me to Mallowe Court," +explained Emily, smiling down at the cheap slipper Jane was putting on +her large, well-shaped foot. She was built on a large scale, and her +foot was of no Cinderella-like proportions. + +"O miss!" exclaimed Jane. "How beautiful! I was reading about Mallowe in +'Modern Society' the other day, and it said it was lovely and her +ladyship's parties were wonderful for smartness. The paragraph was about +the Marquis of Walderhurst." + +"He is Lady Maria's cousin," said Emily, "and he will be there when I +am." + +She was a friendly creature, and lived a life so really isolated from +any ordinary companionship that her simple little talks with Jane and +Mrs. Cupp were a pleasure to her. The Cupps were neither gossiping nor +intrusive, and she felt as if they were her friends. Once when she had +been ill for a week she remembered suddenly realising that she had no +intimates at all, and that if she died Mrs. Cupp's and Jane's would +certainly be the last faces--and the only ones--she would see. She had +cried a little the night she thought of it, but then, as she told +herself, she was feverish and weak, and it made her morbid. + +"It was because of this invitation that I wanted to talk to you, Jane," +she went on. "You see, we shall have to begin to contrive about +dresses." + +"Yes, indeed, miss. It's fortunate that the summer sales are on, isn't +it? I saw some beautiful colored linens yesterday. They were so cheap, +and they do make up so smart for the country. Then you've got your new +Tussore with the blue collar and waistband. It does become you." + +"I must say I think that a Tussore always looks fresh," said Emily, "and +I saw a really nice little tan toque--one of those soft straw ones--for +three and eleven. And just a twist of blue chiffon and a wing would make +it look quite _good_." + +She was very clever with her fingers, and often did excellent things +with a bit of chiffon and a wing, or a few yards of linen or muslin and +a remnant of lace picked up at a sale. She and Jane spent quite a happy +afternoon in careful united contemplation of the resources of her +limited wardrobe. They found that the brown skirt _could_ be altered, +and, with the addition of new _revers_ and collar and a _jabot_ of +string-coloured lace at the neck, would look quite fresh. A black net +evening dress, which a patron had good-naturedly given her the year +before, could be remodelled and touched up delightfully. Her fresh face +and her square white shoulders were particularly adorned by black. There +was a white dress which could be sent to the cleaner's, and an old pink +one whose superfluous breadths could be combined with lace and achieve +wonders. + +"Indeed, I think I shall be very well off for dinner-dresses," said +Emily. "Nobody expects me to change often. Every one knows--if they +notice at all." She did not know she was humble-minded and of an angelic +contentedness of spirit. In fact, she did not find herself interested in +contemplation of her own qualities, but in contemplation and admiration +of those of other people. It was necessary to provide Emily Fox-Seton +with food and lodging and such a wardrobe as would be just sufficient +credit to her more fortunate acquaintances. She worked hard to attain +this modest end and was quite satisfied. She found at the shops where +the summer sales were being held a couple of cotton frocks to which her +height and her small, long waist gave an air of actual elegance. A +sailor hat, with a smart ribbon and well-set quill, a few new trifles +for her neck, a bow, a silk handkerchief daringly knotted, and some +fresh gloves, made her feel that she was sufficiently equipped. + +During her last expedition to the sales she came upon a nice white duck +coat and skirt which she contrived to buy as a present for Jane. It was +necessary to count over the contents of her purse very carefully and to +give up the purchase of a slim umbrella she wanted, but she did it +cheerfully. If she had been a rich woman she would have given presents +to every one she knew, and it was actually a luxury to her to be able to +do something for the Cupps, who, she always felt, were continually +giving her more than she paid for. The care they took of her small room, +the fresh hot tea they managed to have ready when she came in, the penny +bunch of daffodils they sometimes put on her table, were kindnesses, and +she was grateful for them. "I am very much obliged to you, Jane," she +said to the girl, when she got into the four-wheeled cab on the eventful +day of her journey to Mallowe. "I don't know what I should have done +without you, I'm sure. I feel so smart in my dress now that you have +altered it. If Lady Maria's maid ever thinks of leaving her, I am sure I +could recommend you for her place." + + + + +Chapter Two + + +There were other visitors to Mallowe Court travelling by the 2:30 from +Paddington, but they were much smarter people than Miss Fox-Seton, and +they were put into a first-class carriage by a footman with a cockade +and a long drab coat. Emily, who traveled third with some workmen with +bundles, looked out of her window as they passed, and might possibly +have breathed a faint sigh if she had not felt in such buoyant spirits. +She had put on her revived brown skirt and a white linen blouse with a +brown dot on it. A soft brown silk tie was knotted smartly under her +fresh collar, and she wore her new sailor hat. Her gloves were brown, +and so was her parasol. She looked nice and taut and fresh, but notably +inexpensive. The people who went to sales and bought things at three and +eleven or "four-three" a yard would have been able add her up and work +out her total. But there would be no people capable of the calculation +at Mallowe. Even the servants' hall was likely to know less of prices +than this one guest did. The people the drab-coated footman escorted to +the first-class carriage were a mother and daughter. The mother had +regular little features, and would have been pretty if she had not been +much too plump. She wore an extremely smart travelling-dress and a +wonderful dust-cloak of cool, pale, thin silk. She was not an elegant +person, but her appointments were luxurious and self-indulgent. Her +daughter was pretty, and had a slim, swaying waist, soft pink cheeks, +and a pouting mouth. Her large picture-hat of pale-blue straw, with its +big gauze bow and crushed roses, had a slightly exaggerated Parisian +air. + +"It is a little too picturesque," Emily thought; "but how lovely she +looks in it! I suppose it was so becoming she could not help buying it. +I'm sure it's Virot." + +As she was looking at the girl admiringly, a man passed her window. He +was a tall man with a square face. As he passed close to Emily, he +stared through her head as if she had been transparent or invisible. He +got into the smoking-carriage next to her. + +When the train arrived at Mallowe station, he was one of the first +persons who got out. Two of Lady Maria's men were waiting on the +platform. Emily recognised their liveries. One met the tall man, +touching his hat, and followed him to a high cart, in the shafts of +which a splendid iron-gray mare was fretting and dancing. In a few +moments the arrival was on the high seat, the footman behind, and the +mare speeding up the road. Miss Fox-Seton found herself following the +second footman and the mother and daughter, who were being taken to the +landau waiting outside the station. The footman piloted them, merely +touching his hat quickly to Emily, being fully aware that she could take +care of herself. + +This she did promptly, looking after her box, and seeing it safe in the +Mallowe omnibus. When she reached the landau, the two other visitors +were in it. She got in, and in entire contentment sat down with her back +to the horses. + +The mother and daughter wore for a few minutes a somewhat uneasy air. +They were evidently sociable persons, but were not quite sure how to +begin a conversation with an as yet unintroduced lady who was going to +stay at the country house to which they were themselves invited. + +Emily herself solved the problem, producing her commonplace with a +friendly tentative smile. + +"Isn't it a lovely country?" she said. + +"It's perfect," answered the mother. "I've never visited Europe before, +and the English country seems to me just exquisite. We have a summer +place in America, but the country is quite different." + +She was good-natured and disposed to talk, and, with Emily Fox-Seton's +genial assistance, conversation flowed. Before they were half-way to +Mallowe, it had revealed itself that they were from Cincinnati, and +after a winter spent in Paris, largely devoted to visits to Paquin, +Doucet, and Virot, they had taken a house in Mayfair for the season. +Their name was Brooke. Emily thought she remembered hearing of them as +people who spent a great deal of money and went incessantly to parties, +always in new and lovely clothes. The girl had been presented by the +American minister, and had had a sort of success because she dressed and +danced exquisitely. She was the kind of American girl who ended by +marrying a title. She had sparkling eyes and a delicate tip-tilted nose. +But even Emily guessed that she was an astute little person. + +"Have you ever been to Mallowe Court before?" she inquired. + +"No; and I am _so_ looking forward to it. It is so beautiful." + +"Do you know Lady Maria very well?" + +"I've known her about three years. She has been very kind to me." + +"Well, I shouldn't have taken her for a particularly kind person. She's +too sharp." + +Emily amiably smiled. "She's so clever," she replied. + +"Do you know the Marquis of Walderhurst?" asked Mrs. Brooke. + +"No," answered Miss Fox-Seton. She had no part in that portion of Lady +Maria's life which was illumined by cousins who were marquises. Lord +Walderhurst did not drop in to afternoon tea. He kept himself for +special dinner-parties. + +"Did you see the man who drove away in the high cart?" Mrs. Brooke +continued, with a touch of fevered interest. "Cora thought it must be +the marquis. The servant who met him wore the same livery as the man up +there"--with a nod toward the box. + +"It was one of Lady Maria's servants," said Emily; "I have seen him in +South Audley Street. And Lord Walderhurst was to be at Mallowe. Lady +Maria mentioned it." + +"There, mother!" exclaimed Cora. + +"Well, of course if he is to be there, it will make it interesting," +returned her mother, in a tone in which lurked an admission of relief. +Emily wondered if she had wanted to go somewhere else and had been +firmly directed toward Mallowe by her daughter. + +"We heard a great deal of him in London this season," Mrs. Brooks went +on. + +Miss Cora Brooke laughed. + +"We heard that at least half a dozen people were determined to marry +him," she remarked with pretty scorn. "I should think that to meet a +girl who was indifferent might be good for him." + +"Don't be too indifferent, Cora," said her mother, with ingenuous +ineptness. + +It was a very stupid bit of revelation, and Miss Brooke's eyes flashed. +If Emily Fox-Seton had been a sharp woman, she would have observed that, +if the _rôle_ of indifferent and piquant young person could be made +dangerous to Lord Walderhurst, it would be made so during this visit. +The man was in peril from this beauty from Cincinnati and her rather +indiscreet mother, though upon the whole, the indiscreet maternal parent +might unconsciously form his protection. + +But Emily only laughed amiably, as at a humorous remark. She was ready +to accept almost anything as humour. + +"Well, he _would_ be a great match for any girl," she said. "He is so +rich, you know. He is very rich." + +When they reached Mallowe, and were led out upon the lawn, where the tea +was being served under embowering trees, they found a group of guests +eating little hot cakes and holding teacups in their hands. There were +several young women, and one of them--a very tall, very fair girl, with +large eyes as blue as forget-me-nots, and with a lovely, limp, and long +blue frock of the same shade--had been one of the beauties of the past +season. She was a Lady Agatha Slade, and Emily began to admire her at +once. She felt her to be a sort of added boon bestowed by kind Fate upon +herself. It was so delightful that she should be of this particular +house-party--this lovely creature, whom she had only known previously +through pictures in ladies' illustrated papers. If it should occur to +her to wish to become the Marchioness of Walderhurst, what could +possibly prevent the consummation of her desire? Surely not Lord +Walderhurst himself, if he was human. She was standing, leaning lightly +against the trunk of an ilex-tree, and a snow-white Borzoi was standing +close to her, resting his long, delicate head against her gown, +encouraging the caresses of her fair, stroking hand. She was in this +attractive pose when Lady Maria turned in her seat and said: + +"There's Walderhurst." + +The man who had driven himself over from the station in the cart was +coming towards them across the grass. He was past middle life and plain, +but was of good height and had an air. It was perhaps, on the whole, +rather an air of knowing what he wanted. + +Emily Fox-Seton, who by that time was comfortably seated in a cushioned +basket-chair, sipping her own cup of tea, gave him the benefit of the +doubt when she wondered if he was not really distinguished and +aristocratic-looking. He was really neither, but was well-built and +well-dressed, and had good grayish-brown eyes, about the colour of his +grayish-brown hair. Among these amiably worldly people, who were not in +the least moved by an altruistic prompting, Emily's greatest capital +consisted in the fact that she did not expect to be taken the least +notice of. She was not aware that it was her capital, because the fact +was so wholly a part of the simple contentedness of her nature that she +had not thought about it at all. The truth was that she found all her +entertainment and occupation in being an audience or a spectator. It did +not occur to her to notice that, when the guests were presented to him, +Lord Walderhurst barely glanced at her surface as he bowed, and could +scarcely be said to forget her existence the next second, because he had +hardly gone to the length of recognising it. As she enjoyed her +extremely nice cup of tea and little buttered scone, she also enjoyed +looking at his Lordship discreetly, and trying to make an innocent +summing up of his mental attitudes. + +Lady Maria seemed to like him and to be pleased to see him. He himself +seemed, in an undemonstrative way, to like Lady Maria. He also was +evidently glad to get his tea, and enjoyed it as he sat at his cousin's +side. He did not pay very much attention to any one else. Emily was +slightly disappointed to see that he did not glance at the beauty and +the Borzoi more than twice, and then that his examination seemed as much +for the Borzoi as for the beauty. She could not help also observing that +since he had joined the circle it had become more animated, so far at +least as the female members were concerned. She could not help +remembering Lady Maria's remark about the effect he produced on women +when he entered a room. Several interesting or sparkling speeches had +already been made. There was a little more laughter and chattiness, +which somehow it seemed to be quite open to Lord Walderhurst to enjoy, +though it was not exactly addressed to him. Miss Cora Brooke, however, +devoted herself to a young man in white flannels with an air of tennis +about him. She sat a little apart and talked to him in a voice soft +enough to even exclude Lord Walderhurst. Presently she and her companion +got up and sauntered away. They went down the broad flight of ancient +stone steps which led to the tennis-court, lying in full view below the +lawn. There they began to play tennis. Miss Brooke skimmed and darted +about like a swallow. The swirl of her lace petticoats was most +attractive. + +"That girl ought not to play tennis in shoes with ridiculous heels," +remarked Lord Walderhurst. "She will spoil the court." + +Lady Maria broke into a little chuckle. + +"She wanted to play at this particular moment," she said. "And as she +has only just arrived, it did not occur to her to come out to tea in +tennis-shoes." + +"She'll spoil the court all the same," said the marquis. "What clothes! +It's amazing how girls dress now." + +"I wish I had such clothes," answered Lady Maria, and she chuckled +again. "She's got beautiful feet." + +"She's got Louis Quinze heels," returned his Lordship. + +At all events, Emily Fox-Seton thought Miss Brooke seemed to intend to +rather keep out of his way and to practise no delicate allurements. When +her tennis-playing was at an end, she sauntered about the lawn and +terraces with her companion, tilting her parasol prettily over her +shoulder, so that it formed an entrancing background to her face and +head. She seemed to be entertaining the young man. His big laugh and the +silver music of her own lighter merriment rang out a little +tantalisingly. + +"I wonder what Cora is saying," said Mrs. Brooke to the group at large. +"She always makes men laugh so." + +Emily Fox-Seton felt an interest herself, the merriment sounded so +attractive. She wondered if perhaps to a man who had been so much run +after a girl who took no notice of his presence and amused other men so +much might not assume an agreeable aspect. + +But he took more notice of Lady Agatha Slade than of any one else that +evening. She was placed next to him at dinner, and she really was +radiant to look upon in palest green chiffon. She had an exquisite +little head, with soft hair piled with wondrous lightness upon it, and +her long little neck swayed like the stem of a flower. She was lovely +enough to arouse in the beholder's mind the anticipation of her being +silly, but she was not silly at all. + +Lady Maria commented upon that fact to Miss Fox-Seton when they met in +her bedroom late that night. Lady Maria liked to talk and be talked to +for half an hour after the day was over, and Emily Fox-Seton's admiring +interest in all she said she found at once stimulating and soothing. Her +Ladyship was an old woman who indulged and inspired herself with an +Epicurean wisdom. Though she would not have stupid people about her, she +did not always want very clever ones. + +"They give me too much exercise," she said. "The epigrammatic ones keep +me always jumping over fences. Besides, I like to make all the epigrams +myself." + +Emily Fox-Seton struck a happy mean, and she was a genuine admirer. She +was intelligent enough not to spoil the point of an epigram when she +repeated it, and she might be relied upon to repeat it and give all the +glory to its originator. Lady Maria knew there were people who, hearing +your good things, appropriated them without a scruple. To-night she said +a number of good things to Emily in summing up her guests and their +characteristics. + +"Walderhurst has been to me three times when I made sure that he would +not escape without a new marchioness attached to him. I should think he +would take one to put an end to the annoyance of dangling unplucked upon +the bough. A man in his position, if he has character enough to choose, +can prevent even his wife's being a nuisance. He can give her a good +house, hang the family diamonds on her, supply a decent elderly woman as +a sort of lady-in-waiting and turn her into the paddock to kick up her +heels within the limits of decorum. His own rooms can be sacred to him. +He has his clubs and his personal interests. Husbands and wives annoy +each other very little in these days. Married life has become +comparatively decent." + +"I should think his wife might be very happy," commented Emily. "He +looks very kind." + +"I don't know whether he is kind or not. It has never been necessary for +me to borrow money from him." + +Lady Maria was capable of saying odd things in her refined little +drawling voice. + +"He's more respectable than most men of his age. The diamonds are +magnificent, and he not only has three superb places, but has money +enough to keep them up. Now, there are three aspirants at Mallowe in the +present party. Of course you can guess who they are, Emily?" + +Emily Fox-Seton almost blushed. She felt a little indelicate. + +"Lady Agatha would be very suitable," she said. "And Mrs. Ralph is very +clever, of course. And Miss Brooke is really pretty." + +Lady Maria gave vent to her small chuckle. + +"Mrs. Ralph is the kind of woman who means business. She'll corner +Walderhurst and talk literature and roll her eyes at him until he hates +her. These writing women, who are intensely pleased with themselves, if +they have some good looks into the bargain, believe themselves capable +of marrying any one. Mrs. Ralph has fine eyes and rolls them. +Walderhurst won't be ogled. The Brooke girl is sharper than Ralph. She +was very sharp this afternoon. She began at once." + +"I--I didn't see her"--wondering. + +"Yes, you did; but you didn't understand. The tennis, and the laughing +with young Heriot on the terrace! She is going to be the piquant young +woman who aggravates by indifference, and disdains rank and splendour; +the kind of girl who has her innings in novelettes--but not out of them. +The successful women are those who know how to toady in the right way +and not obviously. Walderhurst has far too good an opinion of himself to +be attracted by a girl who is making up to another man: he's not +five-and-twenty." + +Emily Fox-Seton was reminded, in spite of herself, of Mrs. Brooke's +plaint: "Don't be too indifferent, Cora." She did not want to recall it +exactly, because she thought the Brookes agreeable and would have +preferred to think them disinterested. But, after all, she reflected, +how natural that a girl who was so pretty should feel that the Marquis +of Walderhurst represented prospects. Chiefly, however, she was filled +with admiration at Lady Maria's cleverness. + +"How wonderfully you observe everything, Lady Maria!" she exclaimed. +"How wonderfully!" + +"I have had forty-seven seasons in London. That's a good many, you know. +Forty-seven seasons of débutantes and mothers tend toward enlightenment. +Now there is Agatha Slade, poor girl! She's of a kind I know by heart. +With birth and beauty, she is perfectly helpless. Her people are poor +enough to be entitled to aid from the Charity Organisation, and they +have had the indecency to present themselves with six daughters--six! +All with delicate skins and delicate little noses and heavenly eyes. +Most men can't afford them, and they can't afford most men. As soon as +Agatha begins to go off a little, she will have to step aside, if she +has not married. The others must be allowed their chance. Agatha has had +the advertising of the illustrated papers this season, and she has gone +well. In these days a new beauty is advertised like a new soap. They +haven't given them sandwich-men in the streets, but that is about all +that has been denied them. But Agatha has not had any special offer, and +I know both she and her mother are a little frightened. Alix must come +out next season, and they can't afford frocks for two. Agatha will have +to be sent to their place in Ireland, and to be sent to Castle Clare is +almost like being sent to the Bastille. She'll never get out alive. +She'll have to stay there and see herself grow thin instead of slim, and +colourless instead of fair. Her little nose will grow sharp, and she +will lose her hair by degrees." + +"Oh!" Emily Fox-Seton gave forth sympathetically. "What a pity that +would be! I thought--I really thought--Lord Walderhurst seemed to admire +her." + +"Oh, every one admires her, for that matter; but if they go no further +that will not save her from the Bastille, poor thing. There, Emily; we +must go to bed. We have talked enough." + + + + +Chapter Three + + +To awaken in a still, delicious room, with the summer morning sunshine +breaking softly into it through leafy greenness, was a delightful thing +to Miss Fox-Seton, who was accustomed to opening her eyes upon four +walls covered with cheap paper, to the sound of outside hammerings, and +the rattle and heavy roll of wheels. In a building at the back of her +bed-sitting-room there lived a man whose occupation, beginning early in +the morning, involved banging of a persistent nature. + +She awakened to her first day at Mallowe, stretching herself +luxuriously, with the smile of a child. She was so thankful for the +softness of her lavender-fragrant bed, and so delighted with the lovely +freshness of her chintz-hung room. As she lay upon her pillow, she could +see the boughs of the trees, and hear the chatter of darting starlings. +When her morning tea was brought, it seemed like nectar to her. She was +a perfectly healthy woman, with a palate as unspoiled as that of a +six-year-old child in the nursery. Her enjoyment of all things was so +normal as to be in her day and time an absolute abnormality. + +She rose and dressed at once, eager for the open air and sunshine. She +was out upon the lawn before any one else but the Borzoi, which rose +from beneath a tree and came with stately walk toward her. The air was +exquisite, the broad, beautiful stretch of view lay warm in the sun, the +masses of flowers on the herbaceous borders showed leaves and +flower-cups adorned with glittering drops of dew. She walked across the +spacious sweep of short-cropped sod, and gazed enraptured at the country +spread out below. She could have kissed the soft white sheep dotting the +fields and lying in gentle, huddled groups under the trees. + +"The darlings!" she said, in a little, effusive outburst. + +She talked to the dog and fondled him. He seemed to understand her mood, +and pressed close against her gown when she stopped. They walked +together about the gardens, and presently picked up an exuberant +retriever, which bounded and wriggled and at once settled into a steady +trot beside them. Emily adored the flowers as she walked by their beds, +and at intervals stopped to bury her face in bunches of spicy things. +She was so happy that the joy in her hazel eyes was pathetic. + +She was startled, as she turned into a rather narrow rose-walk, to see +Lord Walderhurst coming toward her. He looked exceedingly clean in his +fresh light knickerbocker suit, which was rather becoming to him. A +gardener was walking behind, evidently gathering roses for him, which he +put into a shallow basket. Emily Fox-Seton cast about for a suitable +remark to make, if he should chance to stop to speak to her. She +consoled herself with the thought that there were things she really +_wanted_ to say about the beauty of the gardens, and certain clumps of +heavenly-blue campanulas, which seemed made a feature of in the +herbaceous borders. It was so much nicer not to be obliged to invent +observations. But his lordship did not stop to speak to her. He was +interested in his roses (which, she heard afterward, were to be sent to +town to an invalid friend), and as she drew near, he turned aside to +speak to the gardener. As Emily was just passing him when he turned +again, and as the passage was narrow, he found himself unexpectedly +gazing into her face. + +Being nearly the same height, they were so near each other that it was a +little awkward. + +"I beg pardon," he said, stepping back a pace and lifting his straw hat. + +But he did not say, "I beg pardon, Miss Fox-Seton," and Emily knew that +he had not recognised her again, and had not the remotest idea who she +was or where she came from. + +She passed him with her agreeable, friendly smile, and there returned to +her mind Lady Maria's remarks of the night before. + +"To think that if he married poor pretty Lady Agatha she will be +mistress of three places quite as beautiful as Mallowe, three lovely old +houses, three sets of gardens, with thousands of flowers to bloom every +year! How nice it would be for her! She is so lovely that it seems as if +he _must_ fall in love with her. Then, if she was Marchioness of +Walderhurst, she could do so much for her sisters." + +After breakfast she spent her morning in doing a hundred things for Lady +Maria. She wrote notes for her, and helped her to arrange plans for the +entertainment of her visitors. She was very busy and happy. In the +afternoon she drove across the moor to Maundell, a village on the other +side of it. She really went on an errand for her hostess, but as she was +fond of driving and the brown cob was a beauty, she felt that she was +being given a treat on a level with the rest of her ladyship's generous +hospitalities. She drove well, and her straight, strong figure showed to +much advantage on the high seat of the cart. Lord Walderhurst himself +commented on her as he saw her drive away. + +"She has a nice, flat, straight back, that woman," he remarked to Lady +Maria. "What is her name? One never hears people's names when one is +introduced." + +"Her name is Emily Fox-Seton," her ladyship answered, "and she's a nice +creature." + +"That would be an inhuman thing to say to most men, but if one is a +thoroughly selfish being, and has some knowledge of one's own character, +one sees that a nice creature might be a nice companion." + +"You are quite right," was Lady Maria's reply, as she held up her +lorgnette and watched the cart spin down the avenue. "I am selfish +myself, and I realise that is the reason why Emily Fox-Seton is becoming +the lodestar of my existence. There is such comfort in being pandered to +by a person who is not even aware that she is pandering. She doesn't +suspect that she is entitled to thanks for it." + +That evening Mrs. Ralph came shining to dinner in amber satin, which +seemed to possess some quality of stimulating her to brilliance. She was +witty enough to collect an audience, and Lord Walderhurst was drawn +within it. This was Mrs. Ralph's evening. When the men returned to the +drawing-room, she secured his lordship at once and managed to keep him. +She was a woman who could talk pretty well, and perhaps Lord Walderhurst +was amused. Emily Fox-Seton was not quite sure that he was, but at least +he listened. Lady Agatha Slade looked a little listless and pale. Lovely +as she was, she did not always collect an audience, and this evening she +said she had a headache. She actually crossed the room, and taking a +seat by Miss Emily Fox-Seton, began to talk to her about Lady Maria's +charity-knitting which she had taken up. Emily was so gratified that she +found conversation easy. She did not realise that at that particular +moment she was a most agreeable and comforting companion for Agatha +Slade. She had heard so much of her beauty during the season, and +remembered so many little things that a girl who was a thought depressed +might like to hear referred to again. Sometimes to Agatha the balls +where people had collected in groups to watch her dancing, the +flattering speeches she had heard, the dazzling hopes which had been +raised, seemed a little unreal, as if, after all, they could have been +only dreams. This was particularly so, of course, when life had dulled +for a while and the atmosphere of unpaid bills became heavy at home. It +was so to-day, because the girl had received a long, anxious letter from +her mother, in which much was said of the importance of an early +preparation for the presentation of Alix, who had really been kept back +a year, and was in fact nearer twenty than nineteen. + +"If we were not in Debrett and Burke, one might be reserved about such +matters," poor Lady Claraway wrote; "but what is one to do when all the +world can buy one's daughters' ages at the book-sellers'?" + +Miss Fox-Seton had seen Lady Agatha's portrait at the Academy and the +way in which people had crowded about it. She had chanced to hear +comments also, and she agreed with a number of persons who had not +thought the picture did the original justice. + +"Sir Bruce Norman was standing by me with an elderly lady the first time +I saw it," she said, as she turned a new row of the big white-wool scarf +her hostess was knitting for a Deep-Sea Fisherman's Charity. "He really +looked quite annoyed. I heard him say: 'It is not good at all. She is +far, far lovelier. Her eyes are like blue flowers.' The moment I saw +you, I found myself looking at your eyes. I hope I didn't seem rude." + +Lady Agatha smiled. She had flushed delicately, and took up in her slim +hand a skein of the white wool. + +"There are some people who are never rude," she sweetly said, "and you +are one of them, I am sure. That knitting looks nice. I wonder if I +could make a comforter for a deep-sea fisherman." + +"If it would amuse you to try," Emily answered, "I will begin one for +you. Lady Maria has several pairs of wooden needles. Shall I?" + +"Do, please. How kind of you!" + +In a pause of her conversation, Mrs. Ralph, a little later, looked +across the room at Emily Fox-Seton bending over Lady Agatha and the +knitting, as she gave her instructions. + +"What a good-natured creature that is!" she said. + +Lord Walderhurst lifted his monocle and inserted it in his unillumined +eye. He also looked across the room. Emily wore the black evening dress +which gave such opportunities to her square white shoulders and firm +column of throat; the country air and sun had deepened the colour on her +cheek, and the light of the nearest lamp fell kindly on the big twist of +her nut-brown hair, and burnished it. She looked soft and warm, and so +generously interested in her pupil's progress that she was rather sweet. + +Lord Walderhurst simply looked at her. He was a man of but few words. +Women who were sprightly found him somewhat unresponsive. In fact, he +was aware that a man in his position need not exert himself. The women +themselves would talk. They wanted to talk because they wanted him to +hear them. + +Mrs. Ralph talked. + +"She is the most primeval person I know. She accepts her fate without a +trace of resentment; she simply accepts it." + +"What is her fate?" asked Lord Walderhurst, still gazing in his +unbiassed manner through his monocle, and not turning his head as he +spoke. + +"It is her fate to be a woman who is perfectly well born, and who is as +penniless as a charwoman, and works like one. She is at the beck and +call of any one who will give her an odd job to earn a meal with. That +is one of the new ways women have found of making a living." + +"Good skin," remarked Lord Walderhurst, irrelevantly. "Good hair--quite +a lot." + +"She has some of the nicest blood in England in her veins, and she +engaged my last cook for me," said Mrs. Ralph. + +"Hope she was a good cook." + +"Very. Emily Fox-Seton has a faculty of finding decent people. I believe +it is because she is so decent herself"--with a little laugh. + +"Looks quite decent," commented Walderhurst. The knitting was getting on +famously. + +"It was odd you should see Sir Bruce Norman that day," Agatha Slade was +saying. "It must have been just before he was called away to India." + +"It was. He sailed the next day. I happen to know, because some friends +of mine met me only a few yards from your picture and began to talk +about him. I had not known before that he was so rich. I had not heard +about his collieries in Lancashire. Oh!"--opening her big eyes in +heart-felt yearning,--"how I wish I owned a colliery! It must be so +_nice_ to be rich!" + +"I never was rich," answered Lady Agatha, with a bitter little sigh. "I +know it is hideous to be poor." + +"_I_ never was rich," said Emily, "and I never shall be. You"--a little +shyly--"are so different." + +Lady Agatha flushed delicately again. + +Emily Fox-Seton made a gentle joke. "You have eyes like blue flowers," +she said. Lady Agatha lifted the eyes like blue flowers, and they were +pathetic. + +"Oh!" she gave forth almost impetuously, "sometimes it seems as if it +does not matter whether one has eyes or not." + +It was a pleasure to Emily Fox-Seton to realise that after this the +beauty seemed to be rather drawn toward her. Their acquaintance became +almost a sort of intimacy over the wool scarf for the deep-sea +fisherman, which was taken up and laid down, and even carried out on the +lawn and left under the trees for the footmen to restore when they +brought in the rugs and cushions. Lady Maria was amusing herself with +the making of knitted scarfs and helmets just now, and bits of white or +gray knitting were the fashion at Mallowe. Once Agatha brought hers to +Emily's room in the afternoon to ask that a dropped stitch might be +taken up, and this established a sort of precedent. Afterward they began +to exchange visits. + +The strenuousness of things was becoming, in fact, almost too much for +Lady Agatha. Most unpleasant things were happening at home, and +occasionally Castle Clare loomed up grayly in the distance like a +spectre. Certain tradespeople who ought, in Lady Claraway's opinion, to +have kept quiet and waited in patience until things became better, were +becoming hideously persistent. In view of the fact that Alix's next +season must be provided for, it was most awkward. A girl could not be +presented and properly launched in the world, in a way which would give +her a proper chance, without expenditure. To the Claraways expenditure +meant credit, and there were blots as of tears on the letters in which +Lady Claraway reiterated that the tradespeople were behaving horribly. +Sometimes, she said once in desperation, things looked as if they would +all be obliged to shut themselves up in Castle Clare to retrench; and +then what was to become of Alix and her season? And there were Millicent +and Hilda and Eve. + +More than once there was the mist of tears in the flower-blue eyes when +Lady Agatha came to talk. Confidence between two women establishes +itself through processes at once subtle and simple. Emily Fox-Seton +could not have told when she first began to know that the beauty was +troubled and distressed; Lady Agatha did not know when she first slipped +into making little frank speeches about herself; but these things came +about. Agatha found something like comfort in her acquaintance with the +big, normal, artless creature--something which actually raised her +spirits when she was depressed. Emily Fox-Seton paid constant kindly +tribute to her charms, and helped her to believe in them. When she was +with her, Agatha always felt that she really was lovely, after all, and +that loveliness was a great capital. Emily admired and revered it so, +and evidently never dreamed of doubting its omnipotence. She used to +talk as if any girl who was a beauty was a potential duchess. In fact, +this was a thing she quite ingenuously believed. She had not lived in a +world where marriage was a thing of romance, and, for that matter, +neither had Agatha. It was nice if a girl liked the man who married her, +but if he was a well-behaved, agreeable person, of good means, it was +natural that she would end by liking him sufficiently; and to be +provided for comfortably or luxuriously for life, and not left upon +one's own hands or one's parents', was a thing to be thankful for in any +case. It was such a relief to everybody to know that a girl was +"settled," and especially it was such a relief to the girl herself. Even +novels and plays were no longer fairy-stories of entrancing young men +and captivating young women who fell in love with each other in the +first chapter, and after increasingly picturesque incidents were married +in the last one in the absolute surety of being blissfully happy +forevermore. Neither Lady Agatha nor Emily had been brought up on this +order of literature, nor in an atmosphere in which it was accepted +without reservation. + +They had both had hard lives, and knew what lay before them. Agatha knew +she must make a marriage or fade out of existence in prosaic and +narrowed dulness. Emily knew that there was no prospect for her of +desirable marriage at all. She was too poor, too entirely unsupported by +social surroundings, and not sufficiently radiant to catch the roving +eye. To be able to maintain herself decently, to be given an occasional +treat by her more fortunate friends, and to be allowed by fortune to +present to the face of the world the appearance of a woman who was not a +pauper, was all she could expect. But she felt that Lady Agatha had the +right to more. She did not reason the matter out and ask herself why she +had the right to more, but she accepted the proposition as a fact. She +was ingenuously interested in her fate, and affectionately sympathetic. +She used to look at Lord Walderhurst quite anxiously at times when he +was talking to the girl. An anxious mother could scarcely have regarded +him with a greater desire to analyse his sentiments. The match would be +such a fitting one. He would make such an excellent husband--and there +were three places, and the diamonds were magnificent. Lady Maria had +described to her a certain tiara which she frequently pictured to +herself as glittering above Agatha's exquisite low brow. It would be +infinitely more becoming to her than to Miss Brooke or Mrs. Ralph, +though either of them would have worn it with spirit. She could not help +feeling that both Mrs. Ralph's brilliancy and Miss Brooke's insouciant +prettiness were not unworthy of being counted in the running, but Lady +Agatha seemed somehow so much more completely the thing wanted. She was +anxious that she should always look her best, and when she knew that +disturbing letters were fretting her, and saw that they made her look +pale and less luminous, she tried to raise her spirits. + +"Suppose we take a brisk walk," she would say, "and then you might try a +little nap. You look a little tired." + +"Oh," said Agatha one day, "how kind you are to me! I believe you +actually care about my complexion--about my looking well." + +"Lord Walderhurst said to me the other day," was Emily's angelically +tactful answer, "that you were the only woman he had ever seen who +_always_ looked lovely." + +"Did he?" exclaimed Lady Agatha, and flushed sweetly. "Once Sir Bruce +Norman actually said that to me. I told him it was the nicest thing that +could be said to a woman. It is all the nicer"--with a sigh--"because it +isn't _really_ true." + +"I am sure Lord Walderhurst believed it true," Emily said. "He is not a +man who talks, you know. He is very serious and dignified." She had +herself a reverence and admiration for Lord Walderhurst bordering on +tender awe. He was indeed a well-mannered person, of whom painful things +were not said. He also conducted himself well toward his tenantry, and +was patron of several notable charities. To the unexacting and +innocently respectful mind of Emily Fox-Seton this was at once +impressive and attractive. She knew, though not intimately, many noble +personages quite unlike him. She was rather early Victorian and +touchingly respectable. + +"I have been crying," confessed Lady Agatha. + +"I was afraid so, Lady Agatha," said Emily. + +"Things are getting hopeless in Curzon Street. I had a letter from +Millicent this morning. She is next in age to Alix, and she says--oh, a +number of things. When girls see everything passing by them, it makes +them irritable. Millicent is seventeen, and she is too lovely. Her hair +is like a red-gold cloak, and her eyelashes are twice as long as mine." +She sighed again, and her lips, which were like curved rose-petals, +unconcealedly quivered. "They were _all_ so cross about Sir Bruce Norman +going to India," she added. + +"He will come back," said Emily, benignly; "but he may be too late. Has +he"--ingenuously--"seen Alix?" + +Agatha flushed oddly this time. Her delicate skin registered every +emotion exquisitely. "He has seen her, but she was in the school-room, +and--I don't think--" + +She did not finish, but stopped uneasily, and sat and gazed out of the +open window into the park. She did not look happy. + +The episode of Sir Bruce Norman was brief and even vague. It had begun +well. Sir Bruce had met the beauty at a ball, and they had danced +together more than once. Sir Bruce had attractions other than his old +baronetcy and his coal-mines. He was a good-looking person, with a +laughing brown eye and a nice wit. He had danced charmingly and paid gay +compliments. He would have done immensely well. Agatha had liked him. +Emily sometimes thought she had liked him very much. Her mother had +liked him and had thought he was attracted. But after a number of +occasions of agreeable meetings, they had encountered each other on the +lawn at Goodwood, and he had announced that he was going to India. +Forthwith he had gone, and Emily had gathered that somehow Lady Agatha +had been considered somewhat to blame. Her people were not vulgar enough +to express this frankly, but she had felt it. Her younger sisters had, +upon the whole, made her feel it most. It had been borne in upon her +that if Alix, or Millicent with the red-gold cloak, or even Eve, who was +a gipsy, had been given such a season and such Doucet frocks, they would +have combined them with their wonderful complexions and lovely little +chins and noses in such a manner as would at least have prevented +desirable acquaintances from feeling free to take P. and O. steamers to +Bombay. + +In her letter of this morning, Millicent's temper had indeed got +somewhat the better of her taste and breeding, and lovely Agatha had +cried large tears. So it was comforting to be told that Lord Walderhurst +had said such an extremely amiable thing. If he was not young, he was +really _very_ nice, and there were exalted persons who absolutely had +rather a fad for him. It would be exceptionally brilliant. + +The brisk walk was taken, and Lady Agatha returned from it blooming. She +was adorable at dinner, and in the evening gathered an actual court +about her. She was all in pink, and a wreath of little pink wild roses +lay close about her head, making her, with her tall young slimness, look +like a Botticelli nymph. Emily saw that Lord Walderhurst looked at her a +great deal. He sat on an extraordinarily comfortable corner seat, and +stared through his monocle. + +Lady Maria always gave her Emily plenty to do. She had a nice taste in +floral arrangement, and early in her visit it had fallen into her hands +as a duty to "do" the flowers. + +The next morning she was in the gardens early, gathering roses with the +dew on them, and was in the act of cutting some adorable "Mrs. Sharman +Crawfords," when she found it behoved her to let down her carefully +tucked up petticoats, as the Marquis of Walderhurst was walking straight +toward her. An instinct told her that he wanted to talk to her about +Lady Agatha Slade. + +"You get up earlier than Lady Agatha," he remarked, after he had wished +her "Good-morning." + +"She is oftener invited to the country than I am," she answered. "When I +have a country holiday, I want to spend every moment of it out of doors. +And the mornings are so lovely. They are not like this in Mortimer +Street." + +"Do you live in Mortimer Street?" + +"Yes." + +"Do you like it?" + +"I am very comfortable. I am fortunate in having a nice landlady. She +and her daughter are very kind to me." + +The morning was indeed heavenly. The masses of flowers were drenched +with dew, and the already hot sun was drawing fragrance from them and +filling the warm air with it. The marquis, with his monocle fixed, +looked up into the cobalt-blue sky and among the trees, where a +wood-dove or two cooed with musical softness. + +"Yes," he observed, with a glance which swept the scene, "it is +different from Mortimer Street, I suppose. Are you fond of the country?" + +"Oh, yes," sighed Emily; "oh, yes!" + +She was not a specially articulate person. She could not have conveyed +in words all that her "Oh, yes!" really meant of simple love for and joy +in rural sights and sounds and scents. But when she lifted her big kind +hazel eyes to him, the earnestness of her emotion made them pathetic, as +the unspeakableness of her pleasures often did. + +Lord Walderhurst gazed at her through the monocle with an air he +sometimes had of taking her measure without either unkindliness or +particular interest. + +"Is Lady Agatha fond of the country?" he inquired. + +"She is fond of everything that is beautiful," she replied. "Her nature +is as lovely as her face, I think." + +"Is it?" + +Emily walked a step or two away to a rose climbing up the gray-red wall, +and began to clip off blossoms, which tumbled sweetly into her basket. + +"She seems lovely in everything," she said, "in disposition and manner +and--everything. She never seems to disappoint one or make mistakes." + +"You are fond of her?" + +"She has been so kind to me." + +"You often say people are kind to you." + +Emily paused and felt a trifle confused. Realising that she was not a +clever person, and being a modest one, she began to wonder if she was +given to a parrot-phrase which made her tiresome. She blushed up to her +ears. + +"People are kind," she said hesitatingly. "I--you see, I have nothing to +give, and I always seem to be receiving." + +"What luck!" remarked his lordship, calmly gazing at her. + +He made her feel rather awkward, and she was at once relieved and sorry +when he walked away to join another early riser who had come out upon +the lawn. For some mysterious reason Emily Fox-Seton liked him. Perhaps +his magnificence and the constant talk she had heard of him had warmed +her imagination. He had never said anything particularly intelligent to +her, but she felt as if he had. He was a rather silent man, but never +looked stupid. He had made some good speeches in the House of Lords, not +brilliant, but sound and of a dignified respectability. He had also +written two pamphlets. Emily had an enormous respect for intellect, and +frequently, it must be admitted, for the thing which passed for it. She +was not exacting. + +During her stay at Mallowe in the summer, Lady Maria always gave a +village treat. She had given it for forty years, and it was a lively +function. Several hundred wildly joyous village children were fed to +repletion with exhilarating buns and cake, and tea in mugs, after which +they ran races for prizes, and were entertained in various ways, with +the aid of such of the house-party as were benevolently inclined to make +themselves useful. + +Everybody was not so inclined, though people always thought the thing +amusing. Nobody objected to looking on, and some were agreeably +stimulated by the general sense of festivity. But Emily Fox-Seton was +found by Lady Maria to be invaluable on this occasion. It was so easy, +without the least sense of ill-feeling, to give her all the drudgery to +do. There was plenty of drudgery, though it did not present itself to +Emily Fox-Seton in that light. She no more realised that she was giving +Lady Maria a good deal for her money, so to speak, than she realised +that her ladyship, though an amusing and delightful, was an absolutely +selfish and inconsiderate old woman. So long as Emily Fox-Seton did not +seem obviously tired, it would not have occurred to Lady Maria that she +could be so; that, after all, her legs and arms were mere human flesh +and blood, that her substantial feet were subject to the fatigue +unending trudging to and fro induces. Her ladyship was simply delighted +that the preparations went so well, that she could turn to Emily for +service and always find her ready. Emily made lists and calculations, +she worked out plans and made purchases. She interviewed the village +matrons who made the cake and buns, and boiled the tea in bags in a +copper; she found the women who could be engaged to assist in cutting +cake and bread-and-butter and helping to serve it; she ordered the +putting up of tents and forms and tables; the innumerable things to be +remembered she called to mind. + +"Really, Emily," said Lady Maria, "I don't know how I have done this +thing for forty years without you. I must always have you at Mallowe for +the treat." + +Emily was of the genial nature which rejoices upon even small occasions, +and is invariably stimulated to pleasure by the festivities of others. +The festal atmosphere was a delight to her. In her numberless errands to +the village, the sight of the excitement in the faces of the children +she passed on her way to this cottage and that filled her eyes with +friendly glee and wreathed her face with smiles. When she went into the +cottage where the cake was being baked, children hovered about in groups +and nudged each other, giggling. They hung about, partly through +thrilled interest, and partly because their joy made them eager to +courtesy to her as she came out, the obeisance seeming to identify them +even more closely with the coming treat. They grinned and beamed rosily, +and Emily smiled at them and nodded, uplifted by a pleasure almost as +infantile as their own. She was really enjoying herself so honestly that +she did not realise how hard she worked during the days before the +festivity. She was really ingenious, and invented a number of new +methods of entertainment. It was she who, with the aid of a couple of +gardeners, transformed the tents into bowers of green boughs and +arranged the decorations of the tables and the park gates. + +"What a lot of walking you do!" Lord Walderhurst said to her once, as +she passed the group on the lawn. "Do you know how many hours you have +been on your feet to-day?" + +"I like it," she answered, and, as she hurried by, she saw that he was +sitting a shade nearer to Lady Agatha than she had ever seen him sit +before, and that Agatha, under a large hat of white gauze frills, was +looking like a seraph, so sweet and shining were her eyes, so +flower-fair her face. She looked actually happy. + +"Perhaps he has been saying things," Emily thought. "How happy she will +be! He has such a nice pair of eyes. He would make a woman very happy." +A faint sigh fluttered from her lips. She was beginning to be physically +tired, and was not yet quite aware of it. If she had not been physically +tired, she would not even vaguely have had, at this moment, recalled to +her mind the fact that she was not of the women to whom "things" are +said and to whom things happen. + +"Emily Fox-Seton," remarked Lady Maria, fanning herself, as it was +frightfully hot, "has the most admirable effect on me. She makes me feel +generous. I should like to present her with the smartest things from the +wardrobes of all my relations." + +"Do you give her clothes?" asked Walderhurst. + +"I haven't any to spare. But I know they would be useful to her. The +things she wears are touching; they are so well contrived, and produce +such a decent effect with so little." + +Lord Walderhurst inserted his monocle and gazed after the straight, +well-set-up back of the disappearing Miss Fox-Seton. + +"I think," said Lady Agatha, gently, "that she is really handsome." + +"So she is," admitted Walderhurst--"quite a good-looking woman." + +That night Lady Agatha repeated the amiability to Emily, whose grateful +amazement really made her blush. + +"Lord Walderhurst knows Sir Bruce Norman," said Agatha. "Isn't it +strange? He spoke of him to me to-day. He says he is clever." + +"You had a nice talk this afternoon, hadn't you?" said Emily. "You both +looked so--so--as if you were enjoying yourselves when I passed." + +"Did he look as if he were enjoying himself? He was very agreeable. I +did not know he could be so agreeable." + +"I have never seen him look as much pleased," answered Emily Fox-Seton. +"Though he always looks as if he liked talking to you, Lady Agatha. That +large white gauze garden-hat"--reflectively--"is so _very_ becoming." + +"It was very expensive," sighed lovely Agatha. "And they last such a +short time. Mamma said it really seemed almost criminal to buy it." + +"How delightful it will be," remarked cheering Emily, "when--when you +need not think of things like that!" + +"Oh!"--with another sigh, this time a catch of the breath,--"it would be +like Heaven! People don't know; they think girls are frivolous when they +care, and that it isn't serious. But when one knows one _must_ have +things,--that they are like bread,--it is awful!" + +"The things you wear really matter." Emily was bringing all her powers +to bear upon the subject, and with an anxious kindness which was quite +angelic. "Each dress makes you look like another sort of picture. Have +you,"--contemplatively--"anything _quite_ different to wear to-night and +to-morrow?" + +"I have two evening dresses I have not worn here yet"--a little +hesitatingly. "I--well I saved them. One is a very thin black one with +silver on it. It has a trembling silver butterfly for the shoulder, and +one for the hair." + +"Oh, put that on to-night!" said Emily, eagerly. "When you come down to +dinner you will look so--so new! I always think that to see a fair +person suddenly for the first time all in black gives one a kind of +delighted start--though start isn't the word, quite. Do put it on." + +Lady Agatha put it on. Emily Fox-Seton came into her room to help to add +the last touches to her beauty before she went down to dinner. She +suggested that the fair hair should be dressed even higher and more +lightly than usual, so that the silver butterfly should poise the more +airily over the knot, with its quivering, outstretched wings. She +herself poised the butterfly high upon the shoulder. + +"Oh, it is lovely!" she exclaimed, drawing back to gaze at the girl. "Do +let me go down a moment or so before you do, so that I can see you come +into the room." + +She was sitting in a chair quite near Lord Walderhurst when her charge +entered. She saw him really give something quite like a start when +Agatha appeared. His monocle, which had been in his eye, fell out of it, +and he picked it up by its thin cord and replaced it. + +"Psyche!" she heard him say in his odd voice, which seemed merely to +make a statement without committing him to an opinion--"Psyche!" + +He did not say it to her or to any one else. It was simply a kind of +exclamation,--appreciative and perceptive without being +enthusiastic,--and it was curious. He talked to Agatha nearly all the +evening. + +Emily came to Lady Agatha before she retired, looking even a little +flushed. + +"What are you going to wear at the treat to-morrow?" she asked. + +"A white muslin, with _entre-deux_ of lace, and the gauze garden-hat, +and a white parasol and shoes." + +Lady Agatha looked a little nervous; her pink fluttered in her cheek. + +"And to-morrow night?" said Emily. + +"I have a very pale blue. Won't you sit down, dear Miss Fox-Seton?" + +"We must both go to bed and sleep. You must not get tired." + +But she sat down for a few minutes, because she saw the girl's eyes +asking her to do it. + +The afternoon post had brought a more than usually depressing letter +from Curzon Street. Lady Claraway was at her motherly wits' ends, and +was really quite touching in her distraction. A dressmaker was entering +a suit. The thing would get into the papers, of course. + +"Unless something happens, something to save us by staving off things, +we shall have to go to Castle Clare at once. It will be all over. No +girl could be presented with such a thing in the air. They don't like +it." + +"They," of course, meant persons whose opinions made London's society's +law. + +"To go to Castle Clare," faltered Agatha, "will be like being sentenced +to starve to death. Alix and Hilda and Millicent and Eve and I will be +starved, quite slowly, for the want of the things that make girls' lives +bearable when they have been born in a certain class. And even if the +most splendid thing happened in three or four years, it would be too +late for us four--almost too late for Eve. If you are out of London, of +course you are forgotten. People can't help forgetting. Why shouldn't +they, when there are such crowds of new girls every year?" + +Emily Fox-Seton was sweet. She was quite sure that they would not be +obliged to go to Castle Clare. Without being indelicate, she was really +able to bring hope to the fore. She said a good deal of the black gauze +dress and the lovely effect of the silver butterflies. + +"I suppose it was the butterflies which made Lord Walderhurst say +'Psyche! Psyche!' when he first saw you," she added, _en passant_. + +"Did he say that?" And immediately Lady Agatha looked as if she had not +intended to say the words. + +"Yes," answered Emily, hurrying on with a casual air which had a good +deal of tact in it. "And black makes you so wonderfully fair and aërial. +You scarcely look quite real in it; you might float away. But you must +go to sleep now." + +Lady Agatha went with her to the door of the room to bid her good-night. +Her eyes looked like those of a child who might presently cry a little. +"Oh, Miss Fox-Seton," she said, in a very young voice, "you are so +kind!" + + + + +Chapter Four + + +The parts of the park nearest to the house already presented a busy +aspect when Miss Fox-Seton passed through the gardens the following +morning. Tables were being put up, and baskets of bread and cake and +groceries were being carried into the tent where the tea was to be +prepared. The workers looked interested and good-humoured; the men +touched their hats as Emily appeared, and the women courtesied +smilingly. They had all discovered that she was amiable and to be relied +on in her capacity of her ladyship's representative. + +"She's a worker, that Miss Fox-Seton," one said to the other. "I never +seen one that was a lady fall to as she does. Ladies, even when they +means well, has a way of standing about and telling you to do things +without seeming to know quite how they ought to be done. She's coming to +help with the bread-and-butter-cutting herself this morning, and she put +up all them packages of sweets yesterday with her own hands. She did 'em +up in different-coloured papers, and tied 'em with bits of ribbon, +because she said she knowed children was prouder of coloured things than +plain--they was like that. And so they are: a bit of red or blue goes a +long way with a child." + +Emily cut bread-and-butter and cake, and placed seats and arranged toys +on tables all the morning. The day was hot, though beautiful, and she +was so busy that she had scarcely time for her breakfast. The household +party was in the gayest spirits. Lady Maria was in her most amusing +mood. She had planned a drive to some interesting ruins for the +afternoon of the next day, and a dinner-party for the evening. Her +favourite neighbours had just returned to their country-seat five miles +away, and they were coming to the dinner, to her great satisfaction. +Most of her neighbours bored her, and she took them in doses at her +dinners, as she would have taken medicine. But the Lockyers were young +and good-looking and clever, and she was always glad when they came to +Loche during her stay at Mallowe. + +"There is not a frump or a bore among them," she said. "In the country +people are usually frumps when they are not bores, and bores when they +are not frumps, and I am in danger of becoming both myself. Six weeks of +unalloyed dinner-parties, composed of certain people I know, would make +me begin to wear moreen petticoats and talk about the deplorable +condition of London society." + +She led all her flock out on to the lawn under the ilex-trees after +breakfast. + +"Let us go and encourage industry," she said. "We will watch Emily +Fox-Seton working. She is an example." + +Curiously enough, this was Miss Cora Brooke's day. She found herself +actually walking across the lawn with Lord Walderhurst by her side. She +did not know how it happened, but it seemed to occur accidentally. + +"We never talk to each other," he said. + +"Well," answered Cora, "we have talked to other people a great deal--at +least I have." + +"Yes, you have talked a good deal," said the marquis. + +"Does that mean I have talked too much?" + +He surveyed her prettiness through his glass. Perhaps the holiday stir +in the air gave him a festive moment. + +"It means that you haven't talked enough to me. You have devoted +yourself too much to the laying low of young Heriot." + +She laughed a trifle saucily. + +"You are a very independent young lady," remarked Walderhurst, with a +lighter manner than usual. "You ought to say something deprecatory or--a +little coy, perhaps." + +"I shan't," said Cora, composedly. + +"Shan't or won't?" he inquired. "They are both bad words for little +girls--or young ladies--to use to their elders." + +"Both," said Miss Cora Brooke, with a slightly pleased flush. "Let us go +over to the tents and see what poor Emily Fox-Seton is doing." + +"Poor Emily Fox-Seton," said the marquis, non-committally. + +They went, but they did not stay long. The treat was taking form. Emily +Fox-Seton was hot and deeply engaged. People were coming to her for +orders. She had a thousand things to do and to superintend the doing of. +The prizes for the races and the presents for the children must be +arranged in order: things for boys and things for girls, presents for +little children and presents for big ones. Nobody must be missed, and no +one must be given the wrong thing. + +"It would be dreadful, you know," Emily said to the two when they came +into her tent and began to ask questions, "if a big boy should get a +small wooden horse, or a little baby should be given a cricket bat and +ball. Then it would be so disappointing if a tiny girl got a work-box +and a big one got a doll. One has to get things in order. They look +forward to this so, and it's heart-breaking to a child to be +disappointed, isn't it?" + +Walderhurst gazed uninspiringly. + +"Who did this for Lady Maria when you were not here?" he inquired. + +"Oh, other people. But she says it was tiresome." Then with an illumined +smile; "She has asked me to Mallowe for the next twenty years for the +treats. She is so kind." + +"Maria is a kind woman"--with what seemed to Emily delightful +amiability. "She is kind to her treats and she is kind to Maria Bayne." + +"She is kind to _me_," said Emily. "You don't know how I am enjoying +this." + +"That woman enjoys everything," Lord Walderhurst said when he walked +away with Cora. "What a temperament to have! I would give ten thousand a +year for it." + +"She has so little," said Cora, "that everything seems beautiful to her. +One doesn't wonder, either. She's very nice. Mother and I quite admire +her. We are thinking of inviting her to New York and giving her a real +good time." + +"She would enjoy New York." + +"Have you ever been there, Lord Walderhurst?" + +"No." + +"You ought to come, really. So many Englishmen come now, and they all +seem to like it." + +"Perhaps I will come," said Walderhurst. "I have been thinking of it. +One is tired of the Continent and one knows India. One doesn't know +Fifth Avenue, and Central Park, and the Rocky Mountains." + +"One might try them," suggested pretty Miss Cora. + +This certainly was her day. Lord Walderhurst took her and her mother out +in his own particular high phaeton before lunch. He was fond of driving, +and his own phaeton and horses had come to Mallowe with him. He took +only his favourites out, and though he bore himself on this occasion +with a calm air, the event caused a little smiling flurry on the lawn. +At least, when the phaeton spun down the avenue with Miss Brooke and her +mother looking slightly flushed and thrilled in their high seats of +honour, several people exchanged glances and raised eye-brows. + +Lady Agatha went to her room and wrote a long letter to Curzon Street. +Mrs. Ralph talked about the problem-play to young Heriot and a group of +others. + +The afternoon, brilliant and blazing, brought new visitors to assist by +their presence at the treat. Lady Maria always had a large house-party, +and added guests from the neighbourhood to make for gaiety. At two +o'clock a procession of village children and their friends and parents, +headed by the village band, marched up the avenue and passed before the +house on their way to their special part of the park. Lady Maria and her +guests stood upon the broad steps and welcomed the jocund crowd, as it +moved by, with hospitable bows and nods and becks and wreathed smiles. +Everybody was in a delighted good-humour. + +As the villagers gathered in the park, the house-party joined them by +way of the gardens. A conjurer from London gave an entertainment under a +huge tree, and children found white rabbits taken from their pockets and +oranges from their caps, with squeals of joy and shouts of laughter. +Lady Maria's guests walked about and looked on, laughing with the +children. + +The great affair of tea followed the performance. No treat is fairly +under way until the children are filled to the brim with tea and buns +and cake, principally cake in plummy wedges. + +Lady Agatha and Mrs. Ralph handed cake along rows of children seated on +the grass. Miss Brooke was talking to Lord Walderhurst when the work +began. She had poppies in her hat and carried a poppy-coloured parasol, +and sat under a tree, looking very alluring. + +"I ought to go and help to hand cake," she said. + +"My cousin Maria ought to do it," remarked Lord Walderhurst, "but she +will not--neither shall I. Tell me something about the elevated railroad +and Five-Hundred-and-Fifty-Thousandth Street." He had a slightly rude, +gracefully languid air, which Cora Brooke found somewhat impressive, +after all. + +Emily Fox-Seton handed cake and regulated supplies with cheerful tact +and good spirits. When the older people were given their tea, she moved +about their tables, attending to every one. She was too heart-whole in +her interest in her hospitalities to find time to join Lady Maria and +her party at the table under the ilex-trees. She ate some +bread-and-butter and drank a cup of tea while she talked to some old +women she had made friends with. She was really enjoying herself +immensely, though occasionally she was obliged to sit down for a few +moments just to rest her tired feet. The children came to her as to an +omnipotent and benign being. She knew where the toys were kept and what +prizes were to be given for the races. She represented law and order and +bestowal. The other ladies walked about in wonderful dresses, smiling +and exalted, the gentlemen aided the sports in an amateurish way and +made patrician jokes among themselves, but this one lady seemed to be +part of the treat itself. She was not so grandly dressed as the +others,--her dress was only blue linen with white bands on it,--and she +had only a sailor hat with a buckle and bow, but she was of her +ladyship's world of London people, nevertheless, and they liked her more +than they had ever liked a lady before. It was a fine treat, and she +seemed to have made it so. There had never been quite such a varied and +jovial treat at Mallowe before. + +The afternoon waxed and waned. The children played games and raced and +rejoiced until their young limbs began to fail them. The older people +sauntered about or sat in groups to talk and listen to the village band. +Lady Maria's visitors, having had enough of rural festivities, went back +to the gardens in excellent spirits, to talk and to watch a game of +tennis which had taken form on the court. + +Emily Fox-Seton's pleasure had not abated, but her colour had done so. +Her limbs ached and her still-smiling face was pale, as she stood under +the beech-tree regarding the final ceremonies of the festal day, to +preside over which Lady Maria and her party returned from their seats +under the ilex-trees. The National Anthem was sung loudly, and there +were three tremendous cheers given for her ladyship. They were such +joyous and hearty cheers that Emily was stirred almost to emotional +tears. At all events, her hazel eyes looked nice and moistly bright. She +was an easily moved creature. + +Lord Walderhurst stood near Lady Maria and looked pleased also. Emily +saw him speak to her ladyship and saw Lady Maria smile. Then he stepped +forward, with his non-committal air and his monocle glaring calmly in +his eye. + +"Boys and girls," he said in a clear, far-reaching voice, "I want you to +give three of the biggest cheers you are capable of for the lady who has +worked to make your treat the success it has been. Her ladyship tells me +she has never had such a treat before. Three cheers for Miss Fox-Seton." + +Emily gave a gasp and felt a lump rise in her throat. She felt as if she +had been without warning suddenly changed into a royal personage, and +she scarcely knew what to do. + +The whole treat, juvenile and adult, male and female, burst into three +cheers which were roars and bellows. Hats and caps were waved and tossed +into the air, and every creature turned toward her as she blushed and +bowed in tremulous gratitude and delight. + +"Oh, Lady Maria! oh, Lord Walderhurst!" she said, when she managed to +get to them, "how _kind_ you are to me!" + + + + +Chapter Five + + +After she had taken her early tea in the morning, Emily Fox-Seton lay +upon her pillows and gazed out upon the tree-branches near her window, +in a state of bliss. She was tired, but happy. How well everything had +"gone off"! How pleased Lady Maria had been, and how kind of Lord +Walderhurst to ask the villagers to give three cheers for herself! She +had never dreamed of such a thing. It was the kind of attention not +usually offered to her. She smiled her childlike smile and blushed at +the memory of it. Her impression of the world was that people were +really very amiable, as a rule. They were always good to her, at least, +she thought, and it did not occur to her that if she had not paid her +way so remarkably well by being useful they might have been less +agreeable. Never once had she doubted that Lady Maria was the most +admirable and generous of human beings. She was not aware in the least +that her ladyship got a good deal out of her. In justice to her +ladyship, it may be said that she was not wholly aware of it herself, +and that Emily absolutely enjoyed being made use of. + +This morning, however, when she got up, she found herself more tired +than she ever remembered being before, and it may be easily argued that +a woman who runs about London on other people's errands often knows what +it is to be aware of aching limbs. She laughed a little when she +discovered that her feet were actually rather swollen, and that she must +wear a pair of her easiest slippers. "I must sit down as much as I can +to-day," she thought. "And yet, with the dinner-party and the excursion +this morning, there may be a number of little things Lady Maria would +like me to do." + +There were, indeed, numbers of things Lady Maria was extremely glad to +ask her to do. The drive to the ruins was to be made before lunch, +because some of the guests felt that an afternoon jaunt would leave them +rather fagged for the dinner-party in the evening. Lady Maria was not +going, and, as presently became apparent, the carriages would be rather +crowded if Miss Fox-Seton joined the party. On the whole, Emily was not +sorry to have an excuse for remaining at home, and so the carriages +drove away comfortably filled, and Lady Maria and Miss Fox-Seton watched +their departure. + +"I have no intention of having my venerable bones rattled over hill and +dale the day I give a dinner-party," said her ladyship. "Please ring the +bell, Emily. I want to make sure of the fish. Fish is one of the +problems of country life. Fishmongers are demons, and when they live +five miles from one they can arouse the most powerful human emotions." + +Mallowe Court was at a distance from the country town delightful in its +effects upon the rusticity of the neighbourhood, but appalling when +considered in connection with fish. One could not dine without fish; the +town was small and barren of resources, and the one fishmonger of weak +mind and unreliable nature. + +The footman who obeyed the summons of the bell informed her ladyship +that the cook was rather anxious about the fish, as usual. The +fishmonger had been a little doubtful as to whether he could supply her +needs, and his cart never arrived until half-past twelve. + +"Great goodness!" exclaimed her ladyship when the man retired. "What a +situation if we found ourselves without fish! Old General Barnes is the +most ferocious old gourmand in England, and he loathes people who give +him bad dinners. We are all rather afraid of him, the fact is, and I +will own that I am vain about my dinners. That is the last charm nature +leaves a woman, the power to give decent dinners. I shall be fearfully +annoyed if any ridiculous thing happens." + +They sat in the morning-room together writing notes and talking, and as +half-past twelve drew near, watching for the fishmonger's cart. Once or +twice Lady Maria spoke of Lord Walderhurst. + +"He is an interesting creature, to my mind," she said. "I have always +rather liked him. He has original ideas, though he is not in the least +brilliant. I believe he talks more freely to me, on the whole, than to +most people, though I can't say he has a particularly good opinion of +me. He stuck his glass in his eye and stared at me last night, in that +weird way of his, and said to me, 'Maria, in an ingenuous fashion of +your own, you are the most abominably selfish woman I ever beheld.' +Still, I know he rather likes me. I said to him: 'That isn't quite true, +James. I am selfish, but I'm not _abominably_ selfish. Abominably +selfish people always have nasty tempers, and no one can accuse me of +having a nasty temper. I have the disposition of a bowl of bread and +milk." + +"Emily,"--as wheels rattled up the avenue,--"_is_ that the fishmonger's +cart?" + +"No," answered Emily at the window; "it is the butcher." + +"His attitude toward the women here has made my joy," Lady Maria +proceeded, smiling over the deep-sea fishermen's knitted helmet she had +taken up. "He behaves beautifully to them all, but not one of them has +really a leg to stand on as far as he is responsible for it. But I will +tell you something, Emily." She paused. + +Miss Fox-Seton waited with interested eyes. + +"He is thinking of bringing the thing to an end and marrying _some_ +woman. I feel it in my bones." + +"Do you think so?" exclaimed Emily. "Oh, I can't help hoping--" But she +paused also. + +"You hope it will be Agatha Slade," Lady Maria ended for her. "Well, +perhaps it will be. I sometimes think it is Agatha, if it's any one. And +yet I'm not sure. One never could be sure with Walderhurst. He has +always had a trick of keeping more than his mouth shut. I wonder if he +could have any other woman up his sleeve?" + +"Why do you think--" began Emily. + +Lady Maria laughed. + +"For an odd reason. The Walderhursts have a ridiculously splendid ring +in the family, which they have a way of giving to the women they become +engaged to. It's ridiculous because--well, because a ruby as big as a +trouser's button _is_ ridiculous. You can't get over that. There is a +story connected with this one--centuries and things, and something about +the woman the first Walderhurst had it made for. She was a Dame +Something or Other who had snubbed the King for being forward, and the +snubbing was so good for him that he thought she was a saint and gave +the ruby for her betrothal. Well, by the merest accident I found +Walderhurst had sent his man to town for it. It came two days ago." + +"Oh, how interesting!" said Emily, thrilled. "It _must_ mean something." + +"It is rather a joke. Wheels again, Emily. Is _that_ the fishmonger?" + +Emily went to the window once more. "Yes," she answered, "if his name is +Buggle." + +"His name _is_ Buggle," said Lady Maria, "and we are saved." + +But five minutes later the cook herself appeared at the morning-room +door. She was a stout person, who panted, and respectfully removed beads +of perspiration from her brow with a clean handkerchief. + +She was as nearly pale as a heated person of her weight may be. + +"And what has happened now, cook?" asked Lady Maria. + +"That Buggle, your ladyship," said cook, "says your ladyship can't be no +sorrier than he is, but when fish goes bad in a night it can't be made +fresh in the morning. He brought it that I might see it for myself, and +it is in a state as could not be used by any one. I was that upset, your +ladyship, that I felt like I must come and explain myself." + +"What _can_ be done?" exclaimed Lady Maria. "Emily, _do_ suggest +something." + +"We can't even be sure," said the cook, "that Batch has what would suit +us. Batch sometimes has it, but he is the fishmonger at Maundell, and +that is four miles away, and we are short-'anded, your ladyship, now the +'ouse is so full, and not a servant that could be spared." + +"Dear me!" said Lady Maria. "Emily, this is really enough to drive one +quite mad. If everything was not out of the stables, I know you would +drive over to Maundell. You are such a good walker,"--catching a gleam +of hope,--"do you think you could walk?" + +Emily tried to look cheerful. Lady Maria's situation was really an awful +one for a hostess. It would not have mattered in the least if her +strong, healthy body had not been so tired. She was an excellent walker, +and ordinarily eight miles would have meant nothing in the way of +fatigue. She was kept in good training by her walking in town, Springy +moorland swept by fresh breezes was not like London streets. + +"I think I can manage it," she said nice-temperedly. "If I had not run +about so much yesterday it would be a mere nothing. You must have the +fish, of course. I will walk over the moor to Maundell and tell Batch it +must be sent at once. Then I will come back slowly. I can rest on the +heather by the way. The moor is lovely in the afternoon." + +"You dear soul!" Lady Maria broke forth. "What a boon you are to a +woman!" + +She felt quite grateful. There arose in her mind an impulse to invite +Emily Fox-Seton to remain the rest of her life with her, but she was too +experienced an elderly lady to give way to impulses. She privately +resolved, however, that she would have her a good deal in South Audley +Street, and would make her some decent presents. + +When Emily Fox-Seton, attired for her walk in her shortest brown linen +frock and shadiest hat, passed through the hall, the post-boy was just +delivering the midday letters to a footman. The servant presented his +salver to her with a letter for herself lying upon the top of one +addressed in Lady Claraway's handwriting "To the Lady Agatha Slade." +Emily recognised it as one of the epistles of many sheets which so often +made poor Agatha shed slow and depressed tears. Her own letter was +directed in the well-known hand of Mrs. Cupp, and she wondered what it +could contain. + +"I hope the poor things are not in any trouble," she thought. "They were +afraid the young man in the sitting-room was engaged. If he got married +and left them, I don't know what they would do; he has been so regular." + +Though the day was hot, the weather was perfect, and Emily, having +exchanged her easy slippers for an almost equally easy pair of tan +shoes, found her tired feet might still be used. Her disposition to make +the very best of things inspired her to regard even an eight-mile walk +with courage. The moorland air was so sweet, the sound of the bees +droning as they stumbled about in the heather was such a comfortable, +peaceful thing, that she convinced herself that she should find the four +miles to Maundell quite agreeable. + +She had so many nice things to think of that she temporarily forgot that +she had put Mrs. Cupp's letter in her pocket, and was half-way across +the moor before she remembered it. + +"Dear me!" she exclaimed when she recalled it. "I must see what has +happened." + +She opened the envelope and began to read as she walked; but she had not +taken many steps before she uttered an exclamation and stopped. + +"How very nice for them!" she said, but she turned rather pale. + +From a worldly point of view the news the letter contained was indeed +very nice for the Cupps, but it put a painful aspect upon the simple +affairs of poor Miss Fox-Seton. + +"It is a great piece of news, in one way," wrote Mrs. Cupp, "and yet me +and Jane can't help feeling a bit low at the thought of the changes it +will make, and us living where you won't be with us, if I may take the +liberty, miss. My brother William made a good bit of money in Australia, +but he has always been homesick for the old country, as he always calls +England. His wife was a Colonial, and when she died a year ago he made +up his mind to come home to settle in Chichester, where he was born. He +says there's nothing like the feeling of a Cathedral town. He's bought +such a nice house a bit out, with a big garden, and he wants me and Jane +to come and make a home with him. He says he has worked hard all his +life, and now he means to be comfortable, and he can't be bothered with +housekeeping. He promises to provide well for us both, and he wants us +to sell up Mortimer Street, and come as quick as possible. But we +_shall_ miss you, miss, and though her Uncle William keeps a trap and +everything according, and Jane is grateful for his kindness, she broke +down and cried hard last night, and says to me: 'Oh, mother, if Miss +Fox-Seton could just manage to take me as a maid, I would rather be it +than anything. Traps don't feed the heart, mother, and I've a feeling +for Miss Fox-Seton as is perhaps unbecoming to my station.' But we've +got the men in the house ticketing things, miss, and we want to know +what we shall do with the articles in your bed-sitting-room." + +The friendliness of the two faithful Cupps and the humble Turkey-red +comforts of the bed-sitting-room had meant home to Emily Fox-Seton. When +she had turned her face and her tired feet away from discouraging +errands and small humiliations and discomforts, she had turned them +toward the bed-sitting-room, the hot little fire, the small, fat black +kettle singing on the hob, and the two-and-eleven-penny tea-set. Not +being given to crossing bridges before she reached them, she had never +contemplated the dreary possibility that her refuge might be taken away +from her. She had not dwelt upon the fact that she had no other real +refuge on earth. + +As she walked among the sun-heated heather and the luxuriously droning +bees, she dwelt upon it now with a suddenly realising sense. As it came +home to her soul, her eyes filled with big tears, which brimmed over and +rolled down her cheeks. They dropped upon the breast of her linen blouse +and left marks. + +"I shall have to find a new bed-sitting-room somewhere," she said, the +breast of the linen blouse lifting itself sharply. "It will be so +different to be in a house with strangers. Mrs. Cupp and Jane--" She was +obliged to take out her handkerchief at that moment. "I am afraid I +can't get anything respectable for ten shillings a week. It was very +cheap--and they were so nice!" + +All her fatigue of the early morning had returned. Her feet began to +burn and ache, and the sun felt almost unbearably hot. The mist in her +eyes prevented her seeing the path before her. Once or twice she +stumbled over something. + +"It seems as if it must be farther than four miles," she said. "And then +there is the walk back. I _am_ tired. But I must get on, really." + + + + +Chapter Six + + +The drive to the ruins had been a great success. It was a drive of just +sufficient length to put people in spirits without fatiguing them. The +party came back to lunch with delightful appetities. Lady Agatha and +Miss Cora Brooke had pink cheeks. The Marquis of Walderhurst had behaved +charmingly to both of them. He had helped each of them to climb about +among the ruins, and had taken them both up the steep, dark stairway of +one of the towers, and stood with them looking over the turrets into the +courtyard and the moat. He knew the history of the castle and could +point out the banquet-hall and the chapel and the serving-places, and +knew legends about the dungeons. + +"He gives us all a turn, mother," said Miss Cora Brooke. "He even gave a +turn yesterday to poor Emily Fox-Seton. He's rather nice." + +There was a great deal of laughter at lunch after their return. Miss +Cora Brooke was quite brilliant in her gay little sallies. But though +she was more talkative than Lady Agatha, she did not look more +brilliant. + +The letter from Curzon Street had not made the beauty shed tears. Her +face had fallen when it had been handed to her on her return, and she +had taken it upstairs to her room with rather a flagging step. But when +she came down to lunch she walked with the movement of a nymph. Her +lovely little face wore a sort of tremulous radiance. She laughed like a +child at every amusing thing that was said. She might have been ten +years old instead of twenty-two, her colour, her eyes, her spirits +seemed of a freshness so infantine. + +She was leaning back in her chair laughing enchantingly at one of Miss +Brooke's sparkling remarks when Lord Walderhurst, who sat next to her, +said suddenly, glancing round the table: + +"But where is Miss Fox-Seton?" + +It was perhaps a significant fact that up to this moment nobody had +observed her absence. It was Lady Maria who replied. + +"I am almost ashamed to answer," she said. "As I have said before, Emily +Fox-Seton has become the lodestar of my existence. I cannot live without +her. She has walked over to Maundell to make sure that we do not have a +dinner-party without fish to-night." + +"She has _walked_ over to Maundell," said Lord Walderhurst--"after +yesterday?" + +"There was not a pair of wheels left in the stable," answered Lady +Maria. "It is disgraceful, of course, but she is a splendid walker, and +she said she was not too tired to do it. It is the kind of thing she +ought to be given the Victoria Cross for--saving one from a dinner-party +without fish." + +The Marquis of Walderhurst took up the cord of his monocle and fixed the +glass rigidly in his eye. + +"It is not only four miles to Maundell," he remarked, staring at the +table-cloth, not at Lady Maria, "but it is four miles back." + +"By a singular coincidence," said Lady Maria. + +The talk and laughter went on, and the lunch also, but Lord Walderhurst, +for some reason best known to himself, did not finish his. For a few +seconds he stared at the table-cloth, then he pushed aside his nearly +disposed-of cutlet, then he got up from his chair quietly. + +"Excuse me, Maria," he said, and without further ado went out of the +room, and walked toward the stables. + + * * * * * + +There was excellent fish at Maundell; Batch produced it at once, fresh, +sound, and desirable. Had she been in her normal spirits, Emily would +have rejoiced at the sight of it, and have retraced her four miles to +Mallowe in absolute jubilation. She would have shortened and beguiled +her return journey by depicting to herself Lady Maria's pleasure and +relief. + +But the letter from Mrs. Cupp lay like a weight of lead in her pocket. +It had given her such things to think of as she walked that she had been +oblivious to heather and bees and fleece-bedecked summer-blue sky, and +had felt more tired than in any tramp through London streets that she +could call to mind. Each step she took seemed to be carrying her farther +away from the few square yards of home the bed-sitting-room had +represented under the dominion of the Cupps. Every moment she recalled +more strongly that it had been home--home. Of course it had not been the +third-floor back room so much as it had been the Cupps who made it so, +who had regarded her as a sort of possession, who had liked to serve +her, and had done it with actual affection. + +"I shall have to find a new place," she kept saying. "I shall have to go +among quite strange people." + +She had suddenly a new sense of being without resource. That was one of +the proofs of the curious heaviness of the blow the simple occurrence +was to her. She felt temporarily almost as if there were no other +lodging-houses in London, though she knew that really there were tens of +thousands. The fact was that though there might be other Cupps, or their +counterparts, she could not make herself believe such a good thing +possible. She had been physically worn out before she had read the +letter, and its effect had been proportionate to her fatigue and lack of +power to rebound. She was vaguely surprised to feel that the tears kept +filling her eyes and falling on her cheeks in big heavy drops. She was +obliged to use her handkerchief frequently, as if she was suddenly +developing a cold in her head. + +"I must take care," she said once, quite prosaically, but with more +pathos in her voice than she was aware of, "or I shall make my nose +quite red." + +[Illustration: The Marquis of Walderhurst] + +Though Batch was able to supply fish, he was unfortunately not able to +send it to Mallowe. His cart had gone out on a round just before Miss +Fox-Seton's arrival, and there was no knowing when it would return. + +"Then I must carry the fish myself," said Emily. "You can put it in a +neat basket." + +"I'm very sorry, miss; I am, indeed, miss," said Batch, looking hot and +pained. + +"It will not be heavy," returned Emily; "and her ladyship must be sure +of it for the dinner-party." + +So she turned back to recross the moor with a basket of fish on her arm. +And she was so pathetically unhappy that she felt that so long as she +lived the odour of fresh fish would make her feel sorrowful. She had +heard of people who were made sorrowful by the odour of a flower or the +sound of a melody but in her case it would be the smell of fresh fish +that would make her sad. If she had been a person with a sense of +humour, she might have seen that this was a thing to laugh at a little. +But she was not a humorous woman, and just now---- + +"Oh, I shall have to find a new place," she was thinking, "and I have +lived in that little room for years." + +The sun got hotter and hotter, and her feet became so tired that she +could scarcely drag one of them after another. She had forgotten that +she had left Mallowe before lunch, and that she ought to have got a cup +of tea, at least, at Maundell. Before she had walked a mile on her way +back, she realised that she was frightfully hungry and rather faint. + +"There is not even a cottage where I could get a glass of water," she +thought. + +The basket, which was really comparatively light, began to feel heavy on +her arm, and at length she felt sure that a certain burning spot on her +left heel must be a blister which was being rubbed by her shoe. How it +hurt her, and how tired she was--how tired! And when she left +Mallowe--lovely, luxurious Mallowe--she would not go back to her little +room all fresh from the Cupps' autumn house-cleaning, which included the +washing and ironing of her Turkey-red hangings and chair-covers; she +would be obliged to huddle into any poor place she could find. And Mrs. +Cupp and Jane would be in Chichester. + +"But what good fortune it is for them!" she murmured. "They need never +be anxious about the future again. How--how wonderful it must be to know +that one need not be afraid of the future! I--indeed, I think I really +must sit down." + +She sat down upon the sun-warmed heather and actually let her tear-wet +face drop upon her hands. + +"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" she said helplessly. "I must not let +myself do this. I mustn't, Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" + +She was so overpowered by her sense of her own weakness that she was +conscious of nothing but the fact that she must control it. Upon the +elastic moorland road wheels stole upon one without sound. So the wheels +of a rapidly driven high cart approached her and were almost at her side +before she lifted her head, startled by a sudden consciousness that a +vehicle was near her. + +It was Lord Walderhurst's cart, and even as she gazed at him with +alarmed wet eyes, his lordship descended from it and made a sign to his +groom, who at once impassively drove on. + +Emily's lips tried to tremble into a smile; she put out her hand +fumblingly toward the fish-basket, and having secured it, began to rise. + +"I--sat down to rest," she faltered, even apologetically. "I walked to +Maundell, and it was so hot." + +Just at that moment a little breeze sprang up and swept across her +cheek. She was so grateful that her smile became less difficult. + +"I got what Lady Maria wanted," she added, and the childlike dimple in +her cheek endeavoured to defy her eyes. + +The Marquis of Walderhurst looked rather odd. Emily had never seen him +look like this before. He took a silver flask out of his pocket in a +matter-of-fact way, and filled its cup with something. + +"That is sherry," he said. "Please drink it. You are absolutely faint." + +She held out her hand eagerly. She could not help it. + +"Oh, thank you--thank you!" she said. "I am _so_ thirsty!" And she drank +it as if it were the nectar of the gods. + +"Now, Miss Fox-Seton," he said, "please sit down again. I came here to +drive you back to Mallowe, and the cart will not come back for a quarter +of an hour." + +"You came on purpose!" she exclaimed, feeling, in truth, somewhat +awe-struck. "But how kind of you, Lord Walderhurst--how good!" + +It was the most unforeseen and amazing experience of her life, and at +once she sought for some reason which could connect with his coming some +more interesting person than mere Emily Fox-Seton. Oh,--the thought +flashed upon her,--he had come for some reason connected with Lady +Agatha. He made her sit down on the heather again, and he took a seat +beside her. He looked straight into her eyes. + +"You have been crying," he remarked. + +There was no use denying it. And what was there in the good gray-brown +eye, gazing through the monocle, which so moved her by its suggestion of +kindness and--and some new feeling? + +"Yes, I have," she admitted. "I don't often--but--well, yes, I have." + +"What was it?" + +It was the most extraordinary thump her heart gave at this moment. She +had never felt such an absolute thump. It was perhaps because she was +tired. His voice had lowered itself. No man had ever spoken to her +before like that. It made one feel as if he was not an exalted person at +all; only a kind, kind one. She must not presume upon his kindness and +make much of her prosaic troubles. She tried to smile in a proper casual +way. + +"Oh, it was a small thing, really," was her effort at treating the +matter lightly; "but it seems more important to me than it would to any +one with--with a family. The people I live with--who have been so kind +to me--are going away." + +"The Cupps?" he asked. + +She turned quite round to look at him. + +"How," she faltered, "did you know about them?" + +"Maria told me," he answered, "I asked her." + +It seemed such a human sort of interest to have taken in her. She could +not understand. And she had thought he scarcely realised her existence. +She said to herself that was so often the case--people were so much +kinder than one knew. + +She felt the moisture welling in her eyes, and stared steadily at the +heather, trying to wink it away. + +"I am really glad," she explained hastily. "It is such good fortune for +them. Mrs. Cupp's brother has offered them such a nice home. They need +never be anxious again." + +"But they will leave Mortimer Street--and you will have to give up your +room." + +"Yes. I must find another." A big drop got the better of her, and +flashed on its way down her cheek. "I can find a room, perhaps, but--I +can't find----" She was obliged to clear her throat. + +"That was why you cried?" + +"Yes." After which she sat still. + +"You don't know where you will live?" + +"No." + +She was looking so straight before her and trying so hard to behave +discreetly that she did not see that he had drawn nearer to her. But a +moment later she realised it, because he took hold of her hand. His own +closed over it firmly. + +"Will you," he said--"I came here, in fact, to ask you if you will come +and live with me?" + +Her heart stood still, quite still. London was so full of ugly stories +about things done by men of his rank--stories of transgressions, of +follies, of cruelties. So many were open secrets. There were men, who, +even while keeping up an outward aspect of respectability, were held +accountable for painful things. The lives of well-born struggling women +were so hard. Sometimes such nice ones went under because temptation was +so great. But she had not thought, she could not have dreamed---- + +She got on her feet and stood upright before him. He rose with her, and +because she was a tall woman their eyes were on a level. Her own big and +honest ones were wide and full of crystal tears. + +"Oh!" she said in helpless woe. "Oh!" + +It was perhaps the most effective thing a woman ever did. It was so +simple that it was heartbreaking. She could not have uttered a word, he +was such a powerful and great person, and she was so without help or +stay. + +Since the occurring of this incident, she has often been spoken of as a +beauty, and she has, without doubt, had her fine hours; but Walderhurst +has never told her that the most beautiful moment of her life was +undoubtedly that in which she stood upon the heather, tall and straight +and simple, her hands hanging by her sides, her large, tear-filled hazel +eyes gazing straight into his. In the femininity of her frank +defencelessness there was an appeal to nature's self in man which was +not quite of earth. And for several seconds they stood so and gazed into +each other's souls--the usually unilluminated nobleman and the prosaic +young woman who lodged on a third floor back in Mortimer Street. + +Then, quite quickly, something was lighted in his eyes, and he took a +step toward her. + +"Good heavens!" he demanded. "What do you suppose I am asking of you?" + +"I don't--know," she answered; "I don't--know." + +"My good girl," he said, even with some irritation, "I am asking you to +be my wife. I am asking you to come and live with me in an entirely +respectable manner, as the Marchioness of Walderhurst." + +Emily touched the breast of her brown linen blouse with the tips of her +fingers. + +"You--are--asking--_me_?" she said. + +"Yes," he answered. His glass had dropped out of his eye, and he picked +it up and replaced it. "There is Black with the cart," he said. "I will +explain myself with greater clearness as we drive back to Mallowe." + +The basket of fish was put in the cart, and Emily Fox-Seton was put in. +Then the marquis got in himself, and took the reins from his groom. + +"You will walk back, Black," he said, "by that path," with a wave of the +hand in a diverging direction. + +As they drove across the heather, Emily was trembling softly from head +to foot. She could have told no human being what she felt. Only a woman +who had lived as she had lived and who had been trained as she had been +trained could have felt it. The brilliance of the thing which had +happened to her was so unheard of and so undeserved, she told herself. +It was so incredible that, even with the splendid gray mare's high-held +head before her and Lord Walderhurst by her side, she felt that she was +only part of a dream. Men had never said "things" to her, and a man was +saying them--the Marquis of Walderhurst was saying them. They were not +the kind of things every man says or said in every man's way, but they +so moved her soul that she quaked with joy. + +"I am not a marrying man," said his lordship, "but I must marry, and I +like you better than any woman I have ever known. I do not generally +like women. I am a selfish man, and I want an unselfish woman. Most +women are as selfish as I am myself. I used to like you when I heard +Maria speak of you. I have watched you and thought of you ever since I +came here. You are necessary to every one, and you are so modest that +you know nothing about it. You are a handsome woman, and you are always +thinking of other women's good looks." + +Emily gave a soft little gasp. + +"But Lady Agatha," she said. "I was sure it was Lady Agatha." + +"I don't want a girl," returned his lordship. "A girl would bore me to +death. I am not going to dry-nurse a girl at the age of fifty-four. I +want a companion." + +"But I am so _far_ from clever," faltered Emily. + +The marquis turned in his driving-seat to look at her. It was really a +very nice look he gave her. It made Emily's cheeks grow pink and her +simple heart beat. + +"You are the woman I want," he said. "You make me feel quite +sentimental." + +When they reached Mallowe, Emily had upon her finger the ruby which Lady +Maria had graphically described as being "as big as a trouser button." +It was, indeed, so big that she could scarcely wear her glove over it. +She was still incredible, but she was blooming like a large rose. Lord +Walderhurst had said so many "things" to her that she seemed to behold a +new heaven and a new earth. She had been so swept off her feet that she +had not really been allowed time to think, after that first gasp, of +Lady Agatha. + +When she reached her bedroom she almost returned to earth as she +remembered it. Neither of them had dreamed of this--neither of them. +What could she say to Lady Agatha? What would Lady Agatha say to her, +though it had not been her fault? She had not dreamed that such a thing +could be possible. How could she, oh, how could she? + +She was standing in the middle of her room with clasped hands. There was +a knock upon the door, and Lady Agatha herself came to her. + +What had occurred? Something. It was to be seen in the girl's eyes, and +in a certain delicate shyness in her manner. + +"Something very nice has happened," she said. + +"Something nice?" repeated Emily. + +Lady Agatha sat down. The letter from Curzon Street was in her hand half +unfolded. + +"I have had a letter from mamma. It seems almost bad taste to speak of +it so soon, but we have talked to each other so much, and you are so +kind, that I want to tell you myself. Sir Bruce Norman has been to talk +to papa about--about me." + +Emily felt that her cup filled to the brim at the moment. + +"He is in England again?" + +Agatha nodded gently. + +"He only went away to--well, to test his own feelings before he spoke. +Mamma is delighted with him. I am going home to-morrow." + +Emily made a little swoop forward. + +"You always liked him?" she said. + +Lady Agatha's delicate mounting colour was adorable. + +"I was quite _unhappy_," she owned, and hid her lovely face in her +hands. + +In the morning-room Lord Walderhurst was talking to Lady Maria. + +"You need not give Emily Fox-Seton any more clothes, Maria," he said. "I +am going to supply her in future. I have asked her to marry me." + +Lady Maria lightly gasped, and then began to laugh. + +"Well, James," she said, "you have certainly much more sense than most +men of your rank and age." + + + + +PART TWO + + + + +Chapter Seven + + +When Miss Emily Fox-Seton was preparing for the extraordinary change in +her life which transformed her from a very poor, hardworking woman into +one of the richest marchionesses in England, Lord Walderhurst's cousin, +Lady Maria Bayne, was extremely good to her. She gave her advice, and +though advice is a cheap present as far as the giver is concerned, there +are occasions when it may be a very valuable one to the recipient. Lady +Maria's was valuable to Emily Fox-Seton, who had but one difficulty, +which was to adjust herself to the marvellous fortune which had befallen +her. + +There was a certain thing Emily found herself continually saying. It +used to break from her lips when she was alone in her room, when she was +on her way to her dressmaker's, and in spite of herself, sometimes when +she was with her whilom patroness. + +"I can't believe it is true! I can't believe it!" + +"I don't wonder, my dear girl," Lady Maria answered the second time she +heard it. "But what circumstances demand of you is that you should learn +to." + +"Yes," said Emily, "I know I must. But it seems like a dream. +Sometimes," passing her hand over her forehead with a little laugh, "I +feel as if I should suddenly find myself wakened in the room in Mortimer +Street by Jane Cupp bringing in my morning tea. And I can see the +wallpaper and the Turkey-red cotton curtains. One of them was an inch or +so too short. I never could afford to buy the new bit, though I always +intended to." + +"How much was the stuff a yard?" Lady Maria inquired. + +"Sevenpence." + +"How many yards did you need?" + +"Two. It would have cost one and twopence, you see. And I really could +get on without it." + +Lady Maria put up her lorgnette and looked at her protégée with an +interest which bordered on affection, it was so enjoyable to her +epicurean old mind. + +"I didn't suspect it was as bad as that, Emily," she said. "I should +never have dreamed it. You managed to do yourself with such astonishing +decency. You were actually nice--always." + +"I was very much poorer than anyone knew," said Emily. "People don't +like one's troubles. And when one is earning one's living as I was, one +must be agreeable, you know. It would never do to seem tiresome." + +"There's cleverness in realising that fact," said Lady Maria. "You were +always the most cheerful creature. That was one of the reasons +Walderhurst admired you." + +The future marchioness blushed all over. Lady Maria saw even her neck +itself blush, and it amused her ladyship greatly. She was intensely +edified by the fact that Emily could be made to blush by the mere +mention of her mature fiancé's name. + +"She's in such a state of mind about the man that she's delightful," was +the old woman's internal reflection; "I believe she's in love with him, +as if she was a nurse-maid and he was a butcher's boy." + +"You see," Emily went on in her nice, confiding way (one of the most +surprising privileges of her new position was that it made it possible +for her to confide in old Lady Maria), "it was not only the living from +day to day that made one anxious, it was the Future!" (Lady Maria knew +that the word began in this case with a capital letter.) "No one knows +what the Future is to poor women. One knows that one must get older, and +one may not keep well, and if one could not be active and in good +spirits, if one could not run about on errands, and things fell off, +_what_ could one do? It takes hard work, Lady Maria, to keep up even the +tiniest nice little room and the plainest presentable wardrobe, if one +isn't clever. If I had been clever it would have been quite different, I +dare say. I have been so frightened sometimes in the middle of the +night, when I wakened and thought about living to be sixty-five, that I +have lain and shaken all over. You see," her blush had so far +disappeared that she looked for the moment pale at the memory, "I had +nobody--nobody." + +"And now you are going to be the Marchioness of Walderhurst," remarked +Lady Maria. + +Emily's hands, which rested on her knee, wrung themselves together. + +"That is what it seems impossible to believe," she said, "or to be +grateful enough for to--to--" and she blushed all over again. + +"Say 'James'," put in Lady Maria, with a sinful if amiable sense of +comedy; "you will have to get accustomed to thinking of him as 'James' +sometimes, at all events." + +But Emily did not say "James." There was something interesting in the +innocent fineness of her feeling for Lord Walderhurst. In the midst of +her bewildered awe and pleasure at the material splendours looming up in +her horizon, her soul was filled with a tenderness as exquisite as the +religion of a child. It was a combination of intense gratitude and the +guileless passion of a hitherto wholly unawakened woman--a woman who had +not hoped for love or allowed her thoughts to dwell upon it, and who +therefore had no clear understanding of its full meaning. She could not +have explained her feeling if she had tried, and she did not dream of +trying. If a person less inarticulate than herself had translated it to +her she would have been amazed and abashed. So would Lord Walderhurst +have been amazed, so would Lady Maria; but her ladyship's amazement +would have expressed itself after its first opening of the eyes, with a +faint elderly chuckle. + +When Miss Fox-Seton had returned to town she had returned with Lady +Maria to South Audley Street. The Mortimer Street episode was closed, as +was the Cupps' house. Mrs. Cupp and Jane had gone to Chichester, Jane +leaving behind her a letter the really meritorious neatness of which was +blotted by two or three distinct tears. Jane respectfully expressed her +affectionate rapture at the wondrous news which "Modern Society" had +revealed to her before Miss Fox-Seton herself had time to do so. + +"I am afraid, miss," she ended her epistle, "that I am not experienced +enough to serve a lady in a grand position, but hoping it is not a +liberty to ask it, if at any time your own maid should be wanting a +young woman to work under her, I should be grateful to be remembered. +Perhaps having learned your ways, and being a good needlewoman and fond +of it, might be a little recommendation for me." + +"I _should_ like to take Jane for my maid," Emily had said to Lady +Maria. "Do you think I might make her do?" + +"She would probably be worth half a dozen French minxes who would amuse +themselves by getting up intrigues with your footmen," was Lady Maria's +astute observation. "I would pay an extra ten pounds a year myself for +slavish affection, if it was to be obtained at agency offices. Send her +to a French hairdresser to take a course of lessons, and she will be +worth anything. To turn you out perfectly will be her life's ambition." + +To Jane Cupp's rapture the next post brought her the following letter:-- + +DEAR JANE,--It is just like you to write such a nice letter to me, and I +can assure you I appreciated all your good wishes very much. I feel that +I have been most fortunate, and am, of course, very happy. I have spoken +to Lady Maria Bayne about you, and she thinks that you might make me a +useful maid if I gave you the advantage of a course of lessons in +hairdressing. I myself know that you would be faithful and interested +and that I could not have a more trustworthy young woman. If your mother +is willing to spare you, I will engage you. The wages would be +thirty-five pounds a year (and beer, of course) to begin with, and an +increase later as you became more accustomed to your duties. I am glad +to hear that your mother is so well and comfortable. Remember me to her +kindly. + +Yours truly, + +EMILY FOX-SETON + +Jane Cupp trembled and turned pale with joy as she read her letter. + +"Oh, mother!" she said, breathless with happiness. "And to think she is +almost a marchioness this very minute. I wonder if I shall go with her +to Oswyth Castle first, or to Mowbray, or to Hurst?" + +"My word!" said Mrs. Cupp, "you are in luck, Jane, being as you'd rather +be a lady's maid than live private in Chichester. You needn't go out to +service, you know. Your uncle's always ready to provide for you." + +"I know he is," answered Jane, a little nervous lest obstacles might be +put in the way of her achieving her long-cherished ambition. "And it's +kind of him, and I'm sure I'm grateful. But--though I wouldn't hurt his +feelings by mentioning it--it is more independent to be earning your own +living, and there's more _life_, you see, in waiting on a titled lady +and dressing her for drawing-rooms and parties and races and things, and +travelling about with her to the grand places she lives in and visits. +Why, mother, I've heard tell that the society in the servants' halls is +almost like high life. Butlers and footmen and maids to high people has +seen so much of the world and get such manners. Do you remember how +quiet and elegant Susan Hill was that was maid to Lady Cosbourne? And +she'd been to Greece and to India. If Miss Fox-Seton likes travel and +his lordship likes it, I may be taken to all sorts of wonderful places. +Just think!" + +She gave Mrs. Cupp a little clutch in her excitement. She had always +lived in the basement kitchen of a house in Mortimer Street and had +never had reason to hope she might leave it. And now! + +"You're right, Jane!" her mother said, shaking her head. "There's a +great deal in it, particular when you're young. There's a great deal in +it." + +When the engagement of the Marquis of Walderhurst had been announced, to +the consternation of many, Lady Maria had been in her element. She was +really fine at times in her attitude towards the indiscreetly or +tactlessly inquiring. Her management of Lady Malfry in particular had +been a delightful thing. On hearing of her niece's engagement, Lady +Malfry had naturally awakened to a proper and well-behaved if belated +interest in her. She did not fling herself upon her breast after the +manner of worldly aunts in ancient comedies in which Cinderella attains +fortune. She wrote a letter of congratulation, after which she called at +South Audley Street, and with not too great obviousness placed herself +and her house at the disposal of such female relatives as required +protection during the period of their preparation for becoming +marchionesses. She herself could not have explained exactly how it was +that, without being put through any particular process, she understood, +before her call was half over, that Emily's intention was to remain with +Lady Maria Bayne and that Lady Maria's intention was to keep her. The +scene between the three was far too subtle to be of the least use upon +the stage, but it was a good scene, nevertheless. Its expression was +chiefly, perhaps, a matter of inclusion and exclusion, and may also have +been largely telepathic; but after it was over, Lady Maria chuckled +several times softly to herself, like an elderly bird of much humour, +and Lady Malfry went home feeling exceedingly cross. + +She was in so perturbed a humour that she dropped her eyelids and looked +rather coldly down the bridge of her nose when her stupidly cheery +little elderly husband said to her,-- + +"Well, Geraldine?" + +"I beg pardon," she replied. "I don't quite understand." + +"Of course you do. How about Emily Fox-Seton?" + +"She seems very well, and of course she is well satisfied. It would not +be possible for her to be otherwise. Lady Maria Bayne has taken her up." + +"She is Walderhurst's cousin. Well, well! It will be an immense position +for the girl." + +"Immense," granted Lady Malfry, with a little flush. A certain tone in +her voice conveyed that discussion was terminated. Sir George knew that +her niece was not coming to them and that the immense position would +include themselves but slightly. + +Emily was established temporarily at South Audley Street with Jane Cupp +as her maid. She was to be married from Lady Maria's lean old arms, so +to speak. Her ladyship derived her usual epicurean enjoyment from the +whole thing,--from too obviously thwarted mothers and daughters; from +Walderhurst, who received congratulations with a civilly inexpressive +countenance which usually baffled the observer; from Emily, who was +overwhelmed by her emotions, and who was of a candour in action such as +might have appealed to any heart not adapted by the flintiness of its +nature to the macadamising of roads. + +If she had not been of the most unpretentious nice breeding and +unaffected taste, Emily might have been ingenuously funny in her process +of transformation. + +"I keep forgetting that I can afford things," she said to Lady Maria. +"Yesterday I walked such a long way to match a piece of silk, and when I +was tired I got into a penny bus. I did not remember until it was too +late that I ought to have called a hansom. Do you think," a shade +anxiously, "that Lord Walderhurst would mind?" + +"Just for the present, perhaps, it would be as well that I should see +that you shop in the carriage," her ladyship answered with a small grin. +"When you are a marchioness you may make penny buses a feature of the +distinguished _insouciance_ of your character if you like. I shouldn't +myself, because they jolt and stop to pick up people, but you can, with +originality and distinction, if it amuses you." + +"It doesn't," said Emily. "I hate them. I have longed to be able to take +hansoms. Oh! how I have _longed_--when I was tired." + +The legacy left her by old Mrs. Maytham had been realised and deposited +as a solid sum in a bank. Since she need no longer hoard the income of +twenty pounds a year, it was safe to draw upon her capital for her +present needs. The fact made her feel comfortable. She could make her +preparations for the change in her life with a decent independence. She +would have been definitely unhappy if she had been obliged to accept +favours at this juncture. She felt as if she could scarcely have borne +it. It seemed as if everything conspired to make her comfortable as well +as blissfully happy in these days. + +Lord Walderhurst found an interest in watching her and her methods. He +was a man who, in certain respects, knew himself very well and had few +illusions respecting his own character. He had always been rather given +to matter-of-fact analysis of his own emotions; and at Mallowe he had +once or twice asked himself if it was not disagreeably possible that the +first moderate glow of his St. Martin's summer might die away and leave +him feeling slightly fatigued and embarrassed by the new aspect of his +previously regular and entirely self-absorbed existence. You might think +that you would like to marry a woman and then you might realise that +there were objections--that even the woman herself, with all her +desirable qualities, might be an objection in the end, that any woman +might be an objection; in fact, that it required an effort to reconcile +oneself to the fact of a woman's being continually about. Of course the +arriving at such a conclusion, after one had committed oneself, would be +annoying. Walderhurst had, in fact, only reflected upon this possible +aspect of affairs _before_ he had driven over the heath to pick Emily +up. Afterwards he had, in some remote portion of his mentality, vaguely +awaited developments. + +When he saw Emily day by day at South Audley Street, he found he +continued to like her. He was not clever enough to analyse her; he could +only watch her, and he always looked on at her with curiosity and a +novel sensation rather like pleasure. She wakened up at sight of him, +when he called, in a way that was attractive even to an unimaginative +man. Her eyes seemed to warm, and she often looked flushed and softly +appealing. He began to note vaguely that her dresses were better, and +oftener changed, than they had been at Mallowe. A more observant man +might have been touched by the suggestion that she was unfolding petal +by petal like a flower, and that each carefully chosen costume was a new +petal. He did not in the least suspect the reverent eagerness of her +care of herself as an object hoping to render itself worthy of his +qualities and tastes. + +His qualities and tastes were of no exalted importance in themselves, +but they seemed so to Emily. It is that which by one chance or another +so commends itself to a creature as to incite it to the emotion called +love, which is really of importance, and which, not speaking in figures, +holds the power of life and death. Personality sometimes achieves this, +circumstances always aid it; but in all cases the result is the same and +sways the world it exists in--during its existence. Emily Fox-Seton had +fallen deeply and touchingly in love with this particular prosaic, +well-behaved nobleman, and her whole feminine being was absorbed in her +adoration of him. Her tender fancy described him by adjectives such as +no other human being would have assented to. She felt that he had +condescended to her with a generosity which justified worship. This was +not true, but it was true for her. As a consequence of this she thought +out and purchased her wardrobe with a solemnity of purpose such as might +well have been part of a religious ceremonial. When she consulted +fashion plates and Lady Maria, or when she ordered a gown at her +ladyship's dressmaker's, she had always before her mind, not herself, +but the Marchioness of Walderhurst--a Marchioness of Walderhurst whom +the Marquis would approve of and be pleased with. She did not expect +from him what Sir Bruce Norman gave to Lady Agatha. + +Agatha and her lover were of a different world. She saw them +occasionally, not often, because the simple selfishness of young love so +absorbed them that they could scarcely realise the existence of other +persons than themselves. They were to be married, and to depart for +fairyland as soon as possible. Both were fond of travel, and when they +took ship together their intention was to girdle the world at leisure, +if they felt so inclined. They could do anything they chose, and were so +blissfully sufficient for each other that there was no reason why they +should not follow their every errant fancy. + +The lines which had been increasing in Lady Claraway's face had +disappeared, and left her blooming with the beauty her daughters had +reproduced. This delightful marriage had smoothed away every difficulty. +Sir Bruce was the "most charming fellow in England." That fact acted as +a charm in itself, it seemed. It was not necessary to go into details as +to the mollifying of tradespeople and rearranging of the entire aspect +of life at Curzon Street. When Agatha and Emily Fox-Seton met in town +for the first time--it was in the drawing room at South Audley +Street--they clasped each other's hands with an exchange of entirely new +looks. + +"You look so--so _well_, Miss Fox-Seton," said Agatha, with actual +tenderness. + +If she had not been afraid of seeming a little rudely effusive she would +have said "handsome" instead of "well," for Emily was sweetly blooming. + +"Happiness is becoming to you," she added. "May I say how _glad_ I am?" + +"Thank you, thank you!" Emily answered. "Everything in the world seems +changed, doesn't it?" + +"Yes, everything." + +They stood and gazed into each other's eyes a few seconds, and then +loosed hands with a little laugh and sat down to talk. + +It was, in fact, Lady Agatha who talked most, because Emily Fox-Seton +led her on and aided her to delicate expansion by her delight in all +that in these days made up her existence of pure bliss. It was as if an +old-time fairy story were being enacted before Emily's eyes. Agatha +without doubt had grown lovelier, she thought; she seemed even fairer, +more willowy, the forget-me-not eyes were of a happier blue, as +forget-me-nots growing by clear water-sides are bluer than those grown +in a mere garden. She appeared, perhaps, even a little taller, and her +small head had, if such a thing were possible, a prettier flower-like +poise. This, at least, Emily thought, and found her own happiness added +to by her belief in her fancy. She felt that nothing was to be wondered +at when she heard Agatha speak of Sir Bruce. She could not utter his +name or refer to any act of his without a sound in her voice which had +its parallel in the light floating haze of blush on her cheeks. In her +intercourse with the world in general she would have been able to +preserve her customary sweet composure, but Emily Fox-Seton was not the +world. She represented a something which was so primitively of the +emotions that one's heart spoke and listened to her. Agatha was +conscious that Miss Fox-Seton had seen at Mallowe--she could never quite +understand how it had seemed so naturally to happen--a phase of her +feelings which no one else had seen before. Bruce had seen it since, but +only Bruce. There had actually been a sort of confidence between them--a +confidence which had been like intimacy, though neither of them had been +effusive. + +"Mamma is so happy," the girl said. "It is quite wonderful. And Alix and +Hilda and Millicent and Eve--oh! it makes such a difference to them. I +shall be able," with a blush which expressed a world of relieved +affection, "to give them so much pleasure. Any girl who marries happily +and--and well--can alter everything for her sisters, if she _remembers_. +You see, I shall have reason to remember. I know things from experience. +And Bruce is so kind, and gay, and proud of their prettiness. Just +imagine their excitement at all being bridesmaids! Bruce says we shall +be like a garden of spring flowers. I am so glad," her eyes suddenly +quite heavenly in their joyful relief, "that he is _young_!" + +The next second the heavenly relieved look died away. The exclamation +had been involuntary. It had sprung from her memory of the days when she +had dutifully accepted, as her portion, the possibility of being smiled +upon by Walderhurst, who was two years older than her father, and her +swift realisation of this fact troubled her. It was indelicate to have +referred to the mental image even ever so vaguely. + +But Emily Fox-Seton was glad too that Sir Bruce was young, that they +were all young, and that happiness had come before they had had time to +tire of waiting for it. She was so happy herself that she questioned +nothing. + +"Yes. It is nice," she answered, and glowed with honest sympathy. "You +will want to do the same things. It is so agreeable when people who are +married like to do the same things. Perhaps you will want to go out a +great deal and to travel, and you could not enjoy it if Sir Bruce did +not." + +She was not reflecting in the least upon domestic circles whose male +heads are capable of making themselves extremely nasty under stress of +invitations it bores them to accept, and the inclination of wives and +daughters to desire acceptance. She was not contemplating with any +premonitory regrets a future in which, when Walderhurst did not wish to +go out to dinner or disdained a ball, she should stay at home. Far from +it. She simply rejoiced with Lady Agatha, who was twenty-two marrying +twenty-eight. + +"You are not like me," she explained further. "I have had to work so +hard and contrive so closely that _everything_ will be a pleasure to me. +Just to know that I _never_ need starve to death or go into the +workhouse is such a relief that--" + +"Oh!" exclaimed Lady Agatha, quickly and involuntarily laying a hand on +hers, startled by the fact that she spoke as if referring to a wholly +matter-of-fact possibility. + +Emily smiled, realising her feeling. + +"Perhaps I ought not to have said that. I forgot. But such things are +possible when one is too old to work and has nothing to depend on. You +could scarcely understand. When one is very poor one is frightened, +because occasionally one cannot help thinking of it." + +"But now--now! Oh! how different!" exclaimed Agatha, with heartfelt +earnestness. + +"Yes. Now I need never be afraid. It makes me so grateful to--Lord +Walderhurst." + +Her neck grew pink as she said it, just as Lady Maria had seen it grow +pink on previous occasions. Moderate as the words were, they expressed +ardour. + +Lord Walderhurst came in half an hour later and found her standing +smiling by the window. + +"You look particularly well, Emily. It's that white frock, I suppose. +You ought to wear a good deal of white," he said. + +"I will," Emily answered. He observed that she wore the nice flush and +the soft appealing look, as well as the white frock. "I wish--" + +Here she stopped, feeling a little foolish. + +"What do you wish?" + +"I wish I could do more to please you than wear white--or black--when +you like." + +He gazed at her, always through the single eyeglass. Even the vaguest +approach to emotion or sentiment invariably made him feel stiff and shy. +Realising this, he did not quite understand why he rather liked it in +the case of Emily Fox-Seton, though he only liked it remotely and felt +his own inaptness a shade absurd. + +"Wear yellow or pink occasionally," he said with a brief, awkward laugh. + +What large, honest eyes the creature had, like a fine retriever's or +those of some nice animal one saw in the Zoo! + +"I will wear anything you like," she said, the nice eyes meeting his, +not the least stupidly, he reflected, though women who were affectionate +often looked stupid. "I will do anything you like; you don't know what +you have done for me, Lord Walderhurst." + +They moved a trifle nearer to each other, this inarticulate pair. He +dropped his eyeglass and patted her shoulder. + +"Say 'Walderhurst' or 'James'--or--or 'my dear,'" he said. "We are going +to be married, you know." And he found himself going to the length of +kissing her cheek with some warmth. + +"I sometimes wish," she said feelingly, "that it was the fashion to say +'my lord' as Lady Castlewood used to do in 'Esmond.' I always thought it +nice." + +"Women are not so respectful to their husbands in these days," he +answered, with his short laugh. "And men are not so dignified." + +"Lord Castlewood was not very dignified, was he?" + +He chuckled a little. + +"No. But his rank was, in the reign of Queen Anne. These are democratic +days. I'll call you 'my lady' if you like." + +"Oh! No--no!" with fervour, "I wasn't thinking of anything like that." + +"I know you were not," he reassured her. "You are not that kind of +woman." + +"Oh! how _could_ I be?" + +"_You_ couldn't," good-naturedly. "That's why I like you." + +Then he began to tell her his reason for calling at this particular +hour. He came to prepare her for a visit from the Osborns, who had +actually just returned from India. Captain Osborn had chosen, or chance +had chosen for him, this particular time for a long leave. As soon as +she heard the name of Osborn, Emily's heart beat a little quickly. She +had naturally learned a good deal of detail from Lady Maria since her +engagement. Alec Osborn was the man who, since Lord Walderhurst's +becoming a widower, had lived in the gradually strengthening belief that +the chances were that it would be his enormous luck to inherit the title +and estates of the present Marquis of Walderhurst. He was not a very +near relation, but he was the next of kin. He was a young man and a +strong one, and Walderhurst was fifty-four and could not be called +robust. His medical man did not consider him a particularly good life, +though he was not often ill. + +"He's not the kind of chap who lives to be a hundred and fifty. I'll say +that for him," Alec Osborn had said at mess after dinner had made him +careless of speech, and he had grinned not too pleasantly when he +uttered the words. "The only thing that would completely wipe my eye +isn't as likely to happen to him as to most men. He's unsentimental and +level headed, and doesn't like marriage. You can imagine how he's +chivied by women. A fellow in his position couldn't be let alone. But he +doesn't like marriage, and he's a man who knows jolly well what he likes +and what he doesn't. The only child died, and if he doesn't marry again, +I'm in a safe place. Good Lord! the difference it would make!" and his +grin extended itself. + +It was three months after this that the Marquis of Walderhurst followed +Emily Fox-Seton out upon the heath, and finding her sitting footsore and +depressed in spirit beside the basket of Lady Maria's fish, asked her to +marry him. + +When the news reached him, Alec Osborn went and shut himself up in his +quarters and blasphemed until his face was purple and big drops of sweat +ran down it. It was black bad luck--it was black bad luck, and it called +for black curses. What the articles of furniture in the room in the +bungalow heard was rather awful, but Captain Osborn did not feel that it +did justice to the occasion. + +When her husband strode by her to his apartment, Mrs. Osborn did not +attempt to follow him. She had only been married two years, but she knew +his face too well; and she also knew too well all the meaning of the +fury contained in the words he flung at her as he hurled himself past +her. + +"Walderhurst is going to be married!" Mrs. Osborn ran into her own room +and sat down clutching at her hair as she dropped her face in her little +dark hands. She was an Anglo-Indian girl who had never been home, and +had not had much luck in life at any time, and her worst luck had been +in being handed over by her people to this particular man, chiefly +because he was the next of kin to Lord Walderhurst. She was a curious, +passionate creature, and had been in love with him in her way. Her +family had been poor and barely decently disreputable. She had lived on +the outskirts of things, full of intense girlish vanity and yearnings +for social recognition, poorly dressed, passed over and snubbed by +people she aspired to know socially, seeing other girls with less beauty +and temperament enjoying flirtations with smart young officers, biting +her tongue out with envy and bitterness of thwarted spirit. So when +Captain Osborn cast an eye on her and actually began a sentimental +episode, her relief and excitement at finding herself counting as other +girls did wrought itself up into a passion. Her people were prompt and +sharp enough to manage the rest, and Osborn was married before he knew +exactly whither he was tending. He was not pleased with himself when he +wakened to face facts. He could only console himself for having been +cleverly led and driven into doing the thing he did not want to do, by +the facts that the girl was interesting and clever and had a good deal +of odd un-English beauty. + +It was a beauty so un-English that it would perhaps appear to its +greatest advantage in the contrasts afforded by life in England. She was +so dark, of heavy hair and drooping-lidded eyes and fine grained skin, +and so sinuous of lithe, slim body, that among native beauties she +seemed not to be sufficiently separated by marks of race. She had +tumbled up from childhood among native servants, who were almost her +sole companions, and who had taught her curious things. She knew their +stories and songs, and believed in more of their occult beliefs than any +but herself knew. + +She knew things which made her interesting to Alec Osborn, who had a +bullet head and a cruel lower jaw, despite a degree of the ordinary good +looks. The fact that his chances were good for becoming Marquis of +Walderhurst and taking her home to a life of English luxury and +splendour was a thing she never forgot. It haunted her in her sleep. She +had often dreamed of Oswyth Castle and of standing amidst great people +on the broad lawns her husband had described feelingly during tropical +days when they had sat together panting for breath. When there had been +mention made of the remote, awful possibility that Walderhurst might +surrender to the siege laid to him, she had turned sick at the thought. +It made her clench her hands until the nails almost pressed into the +skin of her palms. She could not bear it. She had made Osborn burst into +a big, harsh laugh one day when she had hinted to him that there were +occult things to be done which might prevent ill luck. He had laughed +first and scowled afterwards, cynically saying that she might as well be +working them up. + +He had not come out to India followed by regrets and affection. He had +been a black sheep at home, and had rather been hustled away than +otherwise. If he had been a more admirable kind of fellow, Walderhurst +would certainly have made him an allowance; but his manner of life had +been such as the Marquis had no patience with in men of any class, and +especially abhorred in men whom the accident of birth connected with +good names. He had not been lavish in his demonstrations of interest in +the bullet-headed young man. Osborn's personableness was not of a kind +attractive to the unbiassed male observer. Men saw his cruel young jowl +and low forehead, and noticed that his eyes were small. He had a good, +swaggering military figure to which uniform was becoming, and a kind of +animal good looks which would deteriorate early. His colour would fix +and deepen with the aid of steady daily drinking, and his features would +coarsen and blur, until by the time he was forty the young jowl would +have grown heavy and would end by being his most prominent feature. + +While he had remained in England, Walderhurst had seen him occasionally, +and had only remarked and heard unpleasant things of him,--a tendency to +selfish bad manners, reckless living, and low flirtation. He once saw +him on the top of a bus with his arm round the waist of an awful, +giggling shop-girl kind of person, who was adorned with tremendous +feathers and a thick fringe coming unfrizzled with the heat and sticking +out here and there in straight locks on her moist forehead. Osborn +thought that the arm business had been cleverly managed with such +furtiveness that no one could see it, but Walderhurst was driving +solemnly by in his respectable barouche, and he found himself gazing +through his monocle directly at his relative, and seeing, from the +street below, the point at which the young man's arm lost itself under +the profusely beaded short cape. A dull flush rose to his countenance, +and he turned away without showing any sign of recognition; but he was +annoyed and disgusted, because this particular kind of blatantly vulgar +bad taste was the sort of thing he loathed. It was the sort of thing +which made duchesses of women who did alluring "turns" at music halls or +sang suggestive songs in comic opera, and transformed into the +chatelaines of ancient castles young persons who had presided at the +ribbon counter. He saw as little as possible of his heir presumptive +after this, and if the truth were told, Captain Alec Osborn was +something of a factor in the affair of Miss Emily Fox-Seton. If +Walderhurst's infant son had lived, or if Osborn had been a refined, +even if dull, fellow, there are ten chances to one his lordship would +have chosen no second marchioness. + +Captain Osborn's life in India had not ended in his making no further +debts. He was not a man to put the brake on in the matter of +self-indulgence. He got into debt so long as a shred of credit remained +to him, and afterwards he tried to add to his resources by cards and +betting at races. He made and lost by turn, and was in a desperate state +when he got his leave. He applied for it because he had conceived the +idea that his going home as a married man might be a good thing for him. +Hester, it seemed not at all improbable, might accomplish something with +Walderhurst. If she talked to him in her interesting semi-Oriental way, +and was fervid and picturesque in her storytelling, he might be +attracted by her. She had her charm, and when she lifted the heavy lids +of her long black eyes and fixed her gaze upon her hearer as she talked +about the inner side of native life, of which she knew such curious, +intimate things, people always listened, even in India, where the thing +was not so much of a novelty, and in England she might be a sort of +sensation. + +Osborn managed to convey to her gradually, by a process of his own, a +great deal of what he wanted her to do. During the months before the +matter of the leave was quite decided, he dropped a word here and there +which carried a good deal of suggestion to a mind used to seizing on +passing intimations. The woman who had been Hester's Ayah when she was a +child had become her maid. She was a woman with a wide, silent +acquaintance with her own people. She was seldom seen talking to anyone +and seldom seemed to leave the house, but she always knew everything. +Her mistress was aware that if at any time she chose to ask her a +question about the secret side of things concerning black or white +peoples, she would receive information to be relied upon. She felt that +she could have heard from her many things concerning her husband's past, +present, and future, and that the matter of the probable succession was +fully comprehended by her. + +When she called her into the room after recovering outwardly from her +hour of desperation, she saw that the woman was already aware of the +blow that had fallen upon the household. What they said to each other +need not be recorded here, but there was more in the conversation than +the mere words uttered, and it was one of several talks held before Mrs. +Osborn sailed for England with her husband. + +"He may be led into taking into consideration the fact that he has cut +the ground from under a fellow's feet and left him dangling in the air," +said Osborn to his wife. "Best thing will be to make friends with the +woman, hang her!" + +"Yes, Alec, yes," Hester Osborn answered, just a little feverishly. "We +must make friends with her. They say she is a good sort and was +frightfully poor herself." + +"She won't be poor now, hang her!" remarked Captain Osborn with added +fervour. "I should like to break her neck! I wonder if she rides?" + +"I'm sure she has not been well enough off to do anything like that." + +"Good idea to begin to teach her." And he laughed as he turned on his +heel and began to walk the deck with a fellow passenger. + +It was these people Lord Walderhurst had come to prepare her for. + +"Maria has told you about them, I know," he said. "I dare say she has +been definite enough to explain that I consider Osborn altogether +undesirable. Under the veneer of his knowledge of decent customs he is a +cad. I am obliged to behave civilly to the man, but I dislike him. If he +had been born in a low class of life, he would have been a criminal." + +"Oh!" Emily exclaimed. + +"Any number of people would be criminals if circumstances did not +interfere. It depends a good deal on the shape of one's skull." + +"Oh!" exclaimed Emily again, "do you think so?" + +She believed that people who were bad were bad from preference, though +she did not at all understand the preference. She had accepted from her +childhood everything she had ever heard said in a pulpit. That +Walderhurst should propound ideas such as ministers of the Church of +England might regard as heretical startled her, but he could have said +nothing startling enough to shake her affectionate allegiance. + +"Yes, I do," he answered. "Osborn's skull is quite the wrong shape." + +But when, a short time after, Captain Osborn brought the skull in +question into the room, covered in the usual manner with neatly brushed, +close-cropped hair, Emily thought it a very nice shape indeed. Perhaps a +trifle hard and round-looking and low of forehead, but not shelving or +bulging as the heads of murderers in illustrated papers generally did. +She owned to herself that she did not see what Lord Walderhurst +evidently saw, but then she did not expect of herself an intelligence +profound enough to follow his superior mental flights. + +Captain Osborn was well groomed and well mannered, and his demeanour +towards herself was all that the most conventional could have demanded. +When she reflected that she herself represented in a way the possible +destruction of his hopes of magnificent fortune, she felt almost +tenderly towards him, and thought his easy politeness wonderful. Mrs. +Osborn, too! How interesting and how beautiful in an odd way Mrs. Osborn +was! Every movement of her exceeding slimness was curiously graceful. +Emily remembered having read novels whose heroines were described as +"undulating." Mrs. Osborn was undulating. Her long, drooping, and dense +black eyes were quite unlike other girls' eyes. Emily had never seen +anything like them. And she had such a lonely, slow, shy way of lifting +them to look at people. She was obliged to look up at tall Emily. She +seemed a schoolgirl as she stood near her. Emily was the kind of +mistaken creature whose conscience, awakening to unnecessary remorses, +causes its owner at once to assume all the burdens which Fate has laid +upon the shoulders of others. She began to feel like a criminal herself, +irrespective of the shape of her skull. Her own inordinate happiness and +fortune had robbed this unoffending young couple. She wished that it had +not been so, and vaguely reproached herself without reasoning the matter +out to a conclusion. At all events, she was remorsefully sympathetic in +her mental attitude towards Mrs. Osborn, and being sure that she was +frightened of her husband's august relative, felt nervous herself +because Lord Walderhurst bore himself with unrelated courtesy and kept his +monocle fixed in his eye throughout the interview. If he had let it drop +and allowed it to dangle in an unbiassed manner from its cord, Emily +would have felt more comfortable, because she was sure his demeanour +would have appeared a degree more encouraging to the Osborns. + +"Are you glad to be in England again?" she asked Mrs. Osborn. + +"I never was here before," answered the young woman. "I have never been +anywhere but in India." + +In the course of the conversation she explained that she had not been a +delicate child, and also conveyed that even if she had been one, her +people could not have afforded to send her home. Instinct revealed to +Emily that she had not had many of the good things of life, and that she +was not a creature of buoyant spirits. The fact that she had spent a +good many hours of most of her young days in reflecting on her ill-luck +had left its traces on her face, particularly in the depths of her +slow-moving, black eyes. + +They had come, it appeared, in the course of duty, to pay their respects +to the woman who was to be their destruction. To have neglected to do so +would have made them seem to assume an indiscreet attitude towards the +marriage. + +"They can't like it, of course," Lady Maria summed them up afterwards, +"but they have made up their minds to lump it as respectably as +possible." + +"I am _so_ sorry for them," said Emily. + +"Of course you are. And you will probably show them all sorts of +indiscreet kindnesses, but don't be too altruistic, my good Emily. The +man is odious, and the girl looks like a native beauty. She rather +frightens me." + +"I don't think Captain Osborn is odious," Emily answered. "And she _is_ +pretty, you know. She is frightened of us, really." + +Remembering days when she herself had been at a disadvantage with people +who were fortunate enough to be of importance, and recalling what her +secret tremor before them had been, Emily was very nice indeed to little +Mrs. Osborn. She knew from experience things which would be of use to +her--things about lodgings and things about shops. Osborn had taken +lodgings in Duke Street, and Emily knew the quarter thoroughly. +Walderhurst watched her being nice, through his fixed eyeglass, and he +decided that she had really a very good manner. Its goodness consisted +largely in its directness. While she never brought forth unnecessarily +recollections of the days when she had done other people's shopping and +had purchased for herself articles at sales marked 11-3/4_d_, she was +interestingly free from any embarrassment in connection with the facts. +Walderhurst, who had been much bored by himself and other people in time +past, actually found that it gave a fillip to existence to look on at a +woman who, having been one of the hardest worked of the genteel +labouring classes, was adapting herself to the role of marchioness by +the simplest of processes, and making a very nice figure at it too, in +her entirely unbrilliant way. If she had been an immensely clever woman, +there would have been nothing special in it. She was not clever at all, +yet Walderhurst had seen her produce effects such as a clever woman +might have laboured for and only attained by a stroke of genius. As, for +instance, when she had met for the first time after her engagement, a +certain particularly detestable woman of rank, to whom her relation to +Walderhurst was peculiarly bitter. The Duchess of Merwold had counted +the Marquis as her own, considering him fitted by nature to be the +spouse of her eldest girl, a fine young woman with projecting teeth, who +had hung fire. She felt Emily Fox-Seton's incomprehensible success to be +a piece of impudent presumption, and she had no reason to restrain the +expression of her sentiments so long as she conveyed them by methods of +inference and inclusion. + +"You must let me congratulate you very warmly, Miss Fox-Seton," she +said, pressing her hand with maternal patronage. "Your life has changed +greatly since we last saw each other." + +"Very greatly indeed," Emily flushed frankly in innocent gratitude as +she answered. "You are very kind. Thank you, thank you." + +"Yes, a great change." Walderhurst saw that her smile was feline and +asked himself what the woman was going to say next. "The last time we +met you called to ask me about the shopping you were to do for me. Do +you remember? Stockings and gloves, I think." + +Walderhurst observed that she expected Emily to turn red and show +herself at a loss before the difficulties of the situation. He was on +the point of cutting into the conversation and disposing of the matter +himself when he realised that Emily was neither gaining colour nor +losing it, but was looking honestly into her Grace's eyes with just a +touch of ingenuous regret. + +"It was stockings," she said. "There were some marked down to one and +elevenpence halfpenny at Barratt's. They were really _quite_ good for +the price. And you wanted four pairs. And when I got there they were all +gone, and those at two and three were not the least bit better. I was so +disappointed. It was too bad!" + +Walderhurst fixed his monocle firmly to conceal the fact that he was +verging upon a cynical grin. The woman was known to be the stingiest of +small great persons in London, her economies were noted, and this +incident was even better than many others society had already rejoiced +over. The picture raised in the minds of the hearers of her Grace foiled +in the purchase of stockings marked down to 1_s_. 11-1/2_d_. would be a +source of rapture for some time to come. And Emily's face! The regretful +kindness of it, the retrospective sympathy and candid feeling! It was +incredibly good! + +"And she did it quite by accident!" he repeated to himself in his inward +glee. "She did it quite by accident! She's not clever enough to have +done it on purpose. What a brilliantly witty creature she would be if +she had invented it!" + +As she had been able unreluctantly to recall her past upon this +occasion, so she was able to draw for Mrs. Osborn's benefit from the +experience it had afforded her. She wanted to make up to her, in such +ways as she could, for the ill turn she had inadvertently done her. As +she had at once ranged herself as an aid on the side of Lady Agatha, so +she ranged herself entirely without obtrusiveness on the side of the +Osborns. + +"It's true that she's a good sort," Hester said when they went away. +"Her days of being hard up are not far enough away to be forgotten. She +hasn't any affectation, at any rate. It makes it easier to stand her." + +"She looks like a strong woman," said Osborn. "Walderhurst got a good +deal for his money. She'll make a strapping British matron." + +Hester winced and a dusky red shot up in her cheek. "So she will," she +sighed. + +It was quite true, and the truer it was the worse for people who +despairingly hung on and were foolish enough to hope against hope. + + + + +Chapter Eight + + +The marriage of Lady Agatha came first, and was a sort of pageant. The +female writers for fashion papers lived upon it for weeks before it +occurred and for some time after. There were numberless things to be +written about it. Each flower of the garden of girls was to be +described, with her bridesmaid's dress, and the exquisite skin and eyes +and hair which would stamp her as the beauty of her season when she came +out. There yet remained five beauties in Lady Claraway's possession, and +the fifth was a baby thing of six, who ravished all beholders as she +toddled into church carrying her sister's train, aided by a little boy +page in white velvet and point lace. + +The wedding was the most radiant of the year. It was indeed a fairy +pageant, of youth and beauty, and happiness and hope. + +One of the most interesting features of the occasion was the presence of +the future Marchioness of Walderhurst, "the beautiful Miss Fox-Seton." +The fashion papers were very strenuous on the subject of Emily's beauty. +One of them mentioned that the height and pose of her majestic figure +and the cut of her profile suggested the Venus of Milo. Jane Cupp cut +out every paragraph she could find and, after reading them aloud to her +young man, sent them in a large envelope to Chichester. Emily, +faithfully endeavouring to adjust herself to the demands of her +approaching magnificence, was several times alarmed by descriptions of +her charms and accomplishments which she came upon accidentally in the +course of her reading of various periodicals. + +The Walderhurst wedding was dignified and distinguished, but not +radiant. The emotions Emily passed through during the day--from her +awakening almost at dawn to the silence of her bedroom at South Audley +Street, until evening closed in upon her sitting in the private parlour +of an hotel in the company of the Marquis of Walderhurst--it would +require too many pages to describe. + +Her first realisation of the day brought with it the physical +consciousness that her heart was thumping--steadily thumping, which is +quite a different matter from the ordinary beating--at the realisation +of what had come at last. An event which a year ago the wildest dream +could not have depicted for her was to-day an actual fact; a fortune +such as she would have thought of with awe if it had befallen another +woman, had befallen her unpretending self. She passed her hand over her +forehead and gasped as she thought of it. + +"I hope I shall be able to get accustomed to it and not be a--a +disappointment," she said. "Oh!" with a great rising wave of a blush, +"how good of him! How can I _ever_--" + +She lived through the events of the day in a sort of dream within a +dream. When Jane Cupp brought her tea, she found herself involuntarily +making a mental effort to try to look as if she was really awake. Jane, +who was an emotional creature, was inwardly so shaken by her feelings +that she herself had stood outside the door a few moments biting her +lips to keep them from trembling, before she dared entirely trust +herself to come in. Her hand was far from steady as she set down the +tray. + +"Good morning, Jane," Emily said, by way of trying the sound of her +voice. + +"Good morning, miss," Jane answered. "It's a beautiful morning, miss. I +hope--you are very well?" + +And then the day had begun. + +Afterwards it marched on with solemn thrill and stately movement through +hours of wondrous preparation for an imposing function, through the +splendid gravity of the function itself, accompanied by brilliant crowds +collected and looking on in a fashionable church, and motley crowds +collected to look on outside the edifice, the latter pushing and +jostling each other and commenting in more or less respectful if excited +undertones, but throughout devouring with awe-struck or envious eyes. +Great people whom Emily had only known through the frequent mention of +their names in newspapers or through their relationship or intimacy with +her patrons, came to congratulate her in her rôle of bride. She seemed +to be for hours the centre of a surging, changing crowd, and her one +thought was to bear herself with an outward semblance of composure. No +one but herself could know that she was saying internally over and over +again, to steady herself, making it all seem real, "I am being married. +This is my wedding. I am Emily Fox-Seton being married to the Marquis of +Walderhurst. For his sake I must not look stupid or excited. I am not in +a dream." + +How often she said this after the ceremony was over and they returned to +South Audley Street, for the wedding breakfast could scarcely be +computed. When Lord Walderhurst helped her from the carriage and she +stepped on to the strip of red carpet and saw the crowd on each side of +it and the coachman and footmen with their big white wedding favours and +the line of other equipages coming up, her head whirled. + +"That's the Marchioness," a young woman with a bandbox exclaimed, +nudging her companion. "That's 'er! Looks a bit pale, doesn't she?" + +"But, oh Gawd! look at them di-monds an' pearls--jess look at 'em!" +cried the other. "Wish it was me." + +The breakfast seemed splendid and glittering and long; people seemed +splendid and glittering and far off; and by the time Emily went to +change her bridal magnificence for her travelling costume she had borne +as much strain as she was equal to. She was devoutly grateful for the +relief of finding herself alone in her bedroom with Jane Cupp. + +"Jane," she said, "you know exactly how many minutes I can dress in and +just when I must get into the carriage. Can you give me five minutes to +lie down quite flat and dab my forehead with eau de cologne? Five +minutes, Jane. But be quite sure." + +"Yes, miss--I do beg pardon--my lady. You can have five--safe." + +She took no more,--Jane went into the dressing-room and stood near its +door, holding the watch in her hand,--but even five minutes did her +good. + +She felt less delirious when she descended the stairs and passed through +the crowds again on Lord Walderhurst's arm. She seemed to walk through a +garden in resplendent bloom. Then there were the red carpet once more, +and the street people, and the crowd of carriages and liveries, and big, +white favours. + +Inside the carriage, and moving away to the echo of the street people's +cheer, she tried to turn and look at Lord Walderhurst with an unalarmed, +if faint, smile. + +"Well," he said, with the originality which marked him, "it is really +over!" + +"Yes," Emily agreed with him. "And I never can forget Lady Maria's +goodness." + +Walderhurst gazed at her with a dawning inquiry in his mind. He himself +did not know what the inquiry was. But it was something a trifle +stimulating. It had something to do with the way in which she had +carried herself throughout the whole thing. Really few women could have +done it as well. The pale violet of her travelling costume which was +touched with sable was becoming to her fine, straight figure. And at the +moment her eyes rested on his with the suggestion of trustful appeal. +Despite the inelasticity of his mind, he vaguely realised his bridegroom +honours. + +"I can begin now," he said with stiff lightness, if such a paradox can +be, "to address you as the man in Esmond addressed his wife. I can call +you 'my lady.'" + +"Oh!" she said, still trying to smile, but quivering. + +"You look very nice," he said. "Upon my word you do." + +And kissed her trembling honest mouth almost as if he had been a +man--not quite--but almost. + + + + +Chapter Nine + + +They began the new life at Palstrey Manor, which was ancient and most +beautiful. Nothing Walderhurst owned was as perfect an example of olden +time beauty, and as wonderful for that reason. Emily almost wept before +the loveliness of it, though it would not have been possible for her to +explain or particularise the grounds for her emotion. She knew nothing +whatever of the venerable wonders of the architecture. To her the place +looked like an immense, low-built, rambling fairy palace--the palace of +some sleeping beauty during whose hundred years of slumber rich +dark-green creepers had climbed and overgrown its walls and towers, +enfolding and festooning them with leaves and tendrils and actual +branches. The huge park held an enchanted forest of trees; the long +avenue of giant limes, their writhen limbs arching and interlocking, +their writhen roots deep in velvet moss, was an approach suited to a +fairy story. + + * * * * * + +During her first month at Palstrey Emily went about still in her dream. +It became more a dream every day. The old house was part of it, the +endless rooms, the wonderful corridors, the gardens with their +revelations of winding walks, labyrinths of evergreens, and grass paths +leading into beautiful unexpected places, where one suddenly came upon +deep, clear pools where water plants grew and slow carp had dreamed +centuries away. The gardens caused Emily to disbelieve in the existence +of Mortimer Street, but the house at times caused her to disbelieve in +herself. The picture gallery especially had this effect upon her. The +men and women, once as alive as her everyday self, now gazing down at +her from their picture frames sometimes made her heart beat as if she +stood in the presence of things eerie. Their strange, rich, ugly, or +beautiful garments, their stolid or fervid, ugly or beautiful, faces, +seemed to demand something of her; at least she had just enough +imagination to feel somewhat as if they did. Walderhurst was very kind +to her, but she was afraid she might bore him by the exceeding ignorance +of her questions about people whom he had known from his childhood as +his own kith and kin. It was not unlikely that one might have become so +familiar with a man in armour or a woman in a farthingale that questions +connected with them might seem silly. Persons whose ancestors had always +gazed intimately at them from walls might not unnaturally forget that +there were other people to whom they might wear only the far-away aspect +of numbers in catalogues of the Academy, or exhibitions of that order. + +There was a very interesting catalogue of the Palstrey pictures, and +Emily found and studied it with deep interest. She cherished a touching +secret desire to know what might be discoverable concerning the women +who had been Marchionesses of Walderhurst before. None of them but +herself, she gathered, had come to their husbands from bed-sitting rooms +in obscure streets. There had been noble Hyrsts in the reign of Henry +I., and the period since then elapsed had afforded time for numerous +bridals. Lady Walderhurst was overcome at moments by her reflections +upon what lay behind and before her, but not being a complex person or +of fervid imagination, she was spared by nature the fevers of complex +emotions. + +In fact, after a few weeks had passed she came out of her dream and +found her happiness enduring and endurable. Each day's awakening was a +delight to her, and would probably be so to the end of her existence, +absolutely because she was so sane and uncomplex a creature. To be +deftly assisted in her dressing by Jane Cupp, and to know that each +morning she might be fittingly and becomingly attired without anxiety as +to where her next gown was to come from, was a lovely thing. To enjoy +the silent, perfect workings of the great household, to drive herself or +be driven, to walk and read, to loiter through walled gardens and +hothouses at will,--such things to a healthy woman with an unobscured +power of enjoyment were luxuries which could not pall. + +Walderhurst found her an actual addition to his comfort. She was never in +the way. She seemed to have discovered the trick of coming and going +undisturbingly. She was docile and affectionate, but not in the least +sentimental. He had known men whose first years of marriage, not to +speak of the first months, had been rendered unbearable by the fact that +their wives were constantly demanding or expecting the expression of +sentiments which unsentimental males had not at their fingers' ends. So +the men had been annoyed or bored, and the women had been dissatisfied. +Emily demanded nothing of the sort, and was certainly not dissatisfied. +She looked very handsome and happy. Her looks positively improved, and +when people began to call and she to pay visits, she was very much +liked. He had certainly been quite right in deciding to ask her to marry +him. If she had a son, he should congratulate himself greatly. The more +he saw of Osborn the more he disliked him. It appeared that there was a +prospect of a child there. + +This last was indeed true, and Emily had been much touched and awakened +to sympathy. It had gradually become revealed to her that the Osborns +were poorer than they could decently admit. Emily had discovered that +they could not even remain in the lodgings in Duke Street, though she +did not know the reason, which was that Captain Osborn had been obliged +to pay certain moneys to stave off a scandal not entirely unconnected +with the young woman his arm had encircled the day Walderhurst had seen +him on the top of the bus. He was very well aware that if he was to +obtain anything from Lord Walderhurst, there were several things which +must be kept entirely dark. Even a scandal belonging to the past could +be made as unpleasant as an error of to-day. Also the young woman of the +bead cape knew how to manage him. But they must remove to cheaper +lodgings, and the rooms in Duke Street had been far from desirable. + +Lady Walderhurst came in one morning from a walk, with a fresh colour +and bright eyes, and before taking off her hat went to her husband's +study. + +"May I come in?" + +Walderhurst had been writing some uninteresting letters and looked up +with a smile. + +"Certainly," he answered. "What a colour you have! Exercise agrees with +you. You ought to ride." + +"That was what Captain Osborn said. If you don't mind, I should like to +ask you something." + +"I don't mind. You are a reasonable woman, Emily. One's safe with you." + +"It is something connected with the Osborns." + +"Indeed!" chilling slightly. "I don't care about them, you know." + +"You don't dislike her, do you?" + +"No-o, not exactly." + +"She's--the truth is, she is not at all well," with a trifle of +hesitance; "she ought to be better taken care of than she is in +lodgings, and they are obliged to take very cheap ones." + +"If he had been a more respectable fellow his circumstances would have +been different," rather stiffly. + +Emily felt alarmed. She had not dreamed of the temerity of any remark +suggestive of criticism. + +"Yes," hastily, "of course. I am sure you know best; but--I thought +perhaps--" + +Walderhurst liked her timidity. To see a fine, tall, upstanding creature +colour in that way was not disagreeable when one realised that she +coloured because she feared she might offend one. + +"What did you think 'perhaps'?" was his lenient response. + +Her colour grew warmer, but this time from a sense of relief, because he +was evidently not as displeased as he might have been. + +"I took a long walk this morning," she said. "I went through the High +Wood and came out by the place called The Kennel Farm. I was thinking a +good deal of poor Mrs. Osborn because I had heard from her this morning, +and she seemed so unhappy. I was looking at her letter again when I +turned into the lane leading to the house. Then I saw that no one was +living there, and I could not help going in to look--it is such a +delightful old building, with its queer windows and chimneys, and the +ivy which seems never to have been clipped. The house is so roomy and +comfortable--I peeped in at windows and saw big fireplaces with benches +inside them. It seems a pity that such a place should not be lived in +and--well, I thought how _kind_ it would be of you to lend it to the +Osborns while they are in England." + +"It would indeed be kind," remarked his lordship, without fervour. + +Her momentary excitement led Emily to take the liberty of putting out +her hand to touch his. She always felt as if connubial familiarities +were rather a liberty; at least she had not, so far, been able to +overcome a feeling rather of that order. And this was another thing +Walderhurst by no means disliked. He himself was not aware that he was a +man with a good deal of internal vanity which enjoyed soothing food. In +fact, he had not a sufficiently large brain to know very much about +himself or to be able to analyse his reasons for liking or disliking +people or things. He thought he knew his reasons for his likes and +dislikes, but he was frequently very far away from the clear, impersonal +truth about them. Only the brilliant logic and sensitiveness of genius +really approaches knowledge of itself, and as a result it is usually +extremely unhappy. Walderhurst was never unhappy. He was sometimes +dissatisfied or annoyed, but that was as far as his emotions went. + +Being pleased by the warm touch of Emily's hand, he patted her wrist and +looked agreeably marital. + +"The place was built originally for a family huntsman, and the pack was +kept there. That is why it is called The Kennel Farm. When the last +lease fell out it remained unlet because I don't care for an ordinary +tenant. It's the kind of house that is becoming rare, and the bumpkin +farmer and his family don't value antiquities." + +"If it were furnished as it _could_ be furnished," said Emily, "it would +be _beautiful_. One _can_ get old things in London if one can afford +them. I've seen them when I've been shopping. They are not cheap, but +you can get them if you really search." + +"Would you like to furnish it?" Walderhurst inquired. The consciousness +that he could, if he chose, do the utmost thing of its kind in this way, +at the moment assumed a certain proportion of interest to him under the +stimulation of the wonder and delight which leaped into Emily's eyes as +the possibility confronted her. Having been born without imagination, +his wealth had not done for him anything out of the ordinary every-day +order. + +"Would I _like_ to do it? Oh, _dear_!" she exclaimed. "Why, in all my +life I have never _dreamed_ of being able to do such things." + +That, of course, was true, he reflected, and the fact added to his +appreciation of the moment. There were, of course, many people to whom +it would be impossible to contemplate the spending of a sum of money of +any importance in the indulgence of a wish founded on mere taste. He had +not thought of the thing particularly in detail before, and now that he +realised the significance of the fact as a fact, Emily had afforded him +a new sensation. + +"You may do it now, if you wish," he said. "I once went over the place +with an architect, and he said the whole thing could be made comfortable +and the atmosphere of the period wholly retained for about a thousand +pounds. It is not really dilapidated and it is worth saving. The gables +and chimneys are very fine. I will attend to that, and you can do the +rest in your own way." + +"It may take a good deal of money to buy the old things," gasped Emily. +"They are not cheap in these days. People have found out that they are +wanted." + +"It won't cost twenty thousand pounds," Walderhurst answered. "It is a +farm-house after all, and you are a practical woman. Restore it. You +have my permission." + +Emily put her hands over her eyes. This was being the Marchioness of +Walderhurst, and made Mortimer Street a thing still more incredible. +When she dropped her hands, she laughed even a trifle hysterically. + +"I _couldn't_ thank you," she said. "It is as I said. I never quite +believed there were people who were able to think of doing such things." + +"There are such people," he said. "You are one of them." + +"And--and--" She put it to him with a sudden recollection of the thing +her emotions had momentarily swept away. "Oh! I must not forget, because +I am so pleased. When it is furnished--" + +"Oh! the Osborns? Well, we will let them have it for a few months, at +any rate." + +"They will be so _thankful_," emotionally. "You will be doing them +_such_ a favour." + +"I am doing it for you, not for them. I like to see you pleased." + +She went to take off her hat with moisture in her eyes, being +overpowered by his munificence. When she reached her room she walked +about a little, because she was excited, and then sat down to think of +the relief her next letter would carry to Mrs. Osborn. Suddenly she got +up, and, going to her bedside, knelt down. She respectfully poured forth +devout thanks to the Deity she appealed to when she aided in the +intoning of the Litany on Sundays. Her conception of this Power was of +the simplest conventional nature. She would have been astonished and +frightened if she had been told that she regarded the Omnipotent Being +as possessing many of the attributes of the Marquis of Walderhurst. This +was, in fact, true without detracting from her reverence in either case. + + + + +Chapter Ten + +The Osborns were breakfasting in their unpleasant sitting-room in Duke +Street when Lady Walderhurst's letter arrived. The toast was tough and +smoked, and the eggs were of the variety labelled "18 a shilling" in the +shops; the apartment was also redolent of kippered herring, and Captain +Osborn was scowling over the landlady's weekly bill when Hester opened +the envelope stamped with a coronet. (Each time Emily wrote a note and +found herself confronting the coronet on the paper, she blushed a little +and felt that she must presently awake from her dream.) Mrs. Osborn +herself was looking far from amiable. She was ill and nervous and +irritable, and had, in fact, just been crying and wishing that she was +dead, which had given rise to unpleasantness between herself and her +husband, who was not in the mood to feel patient with nerves. + +"Here's one from the Marchioness," she remarked slightingly. + +"I have had none from the Marquis," sneered Osborn. "He might have +condescended a reply--the cold-blooded beggar!" + +Hester was reading her letter. As she turned the first page her +expression changed. As has previously been suggested, the epistolary +methods of Lady Walderhurst were neither brilliant nor literary, and yet +Mrs. Osborn seemed to be pleased by what she read. During the reading of +a line or so she wore an expression of slowly questioning wonder, which, +a little later on, settled into relief. + +"I can only say I think it's very decent of them," she ejaculated at +last; "really decent!" + +Alec Osborn looked up, still scowlingly. + +"I don't see any cheque," he observed. "That would be the most decent +thing. It's the thing we want most, with this damned woman sending in +bills like this for the fourth-rate things we live on, and for her +confounded tenth-rate rooms." + +"This is better than cheques. It means our having something we couldn't +hope for cheques enough to pay for. They are offering to lend us a +beautiful old place to live in for the rest of our stay." + +"What!" Osborn exclaimed. "Where?" + +"Near Palstrey Manor, where they are staying now." + +"Near Palstrey! How near?" He had been slouching in his chair and now +sat up and leaned forward on the table. He was eager. + +Hester referred to the letter again. + +"She doesn't say. It is a sort of antiquity, I gather. It's called The +Kennel Farm. Have you ever been to Palstrey?" + +"Not as a guest." He was generally somewhat sardonic when he spoke of +anything connected with Walderhurst. "But once I was in the nearest +county town by chance and rode over. By Jove!" starting a little, "I +wonder if it can be a rum old place I passed and reined in to have a +look at. I hope it is." + +"Why?" + +"It's near enough to the Manor to be convenient." + +"Do you think," hesitating, "that we shall see much of them?" + +"We shall if we manage things decently. She likes you, and she's the +kind of woman to be sympathising and make a fuss over another +woman--particularly one who is under the weather and can be +sentimentalised over." + +Hester was pushing crumbs about on the tablecloth with her knife, and a +dull red showed itself on her cheek. + +"I am not going to make capital of--circumstances," she said sullenly. +"I won't." + +She was not a woman easily managed, and Osborn had had reason on more +than one occasion to realise a certain wicked stubbornness in her. There +was a look in her eye now which frightened him. It was desperately +necessary that she should be kept in a tractable mood. As she was a girl +with affections, and he was a man without any, he knew what to do. + +He got up and went to her side, putting his arm round her shoulders as +he sat in a chair near her. "Now, little woman," he said. "Now! For +God's sake don't take it that way. Don't think I don't understand how +you feel." + +"I don't believe you know anything about the way I feel," she said, +setting her narrow white teeth and looking more like a native woman than +he had ever seen her. A thing which did not aid his affection for her, +such as it was, happened to be that in certain moods she suggested a +Hindoo beauty to him in a way which brought back to him memories of the +past he did not care to have awakened. + +"Yes I do, yes I do," he protested, getting hold of her hand and trying +to make her look at him. "There are things such a woman as you can't +help feeling. It's because you feel them that you must be on your +mettle--Lord knows you've got pluck enough--and stand by a fellow now. +What shall I do, my God, if you don't?" + +He was, in fact, in such straits that the ring of emotion in his voice +was not by any means assumed. + +"My God!" he repeated, "what shall we all do if you won't?" + +She lifted her eyes then to look at him. She was in a sufficiently +nervous condition to be conscious that tears were always near. + +"Are there worse things than you have told me?" she faltered. + +"Yes, worse things than it would be fair to bother you with. I don't +want you to be tormented. I was a deuced fool before I met you and began +to run straight. Things pile in now that would have lain quiet enough if +Walderhurst had not married. Hang it all! he ought to do the decent +thing by me. He owes something to the man who may stand in his shoes, +after all." + +Hester lifted her slow eyes again. + +"You've not much of a chance now," she said. "She's a fine healthy +woman." + +Osborn sprang up and paced the floor, set upon by a sudden spasm of +impotent rage. He snapped his teeth rather like a dog. + +"Oh! curse her!" he gave forth. "The great, fresh-coloured lumping +brute! What did she come into it for? Of all the devilish things that +can happen to a man, the worst is to be born to the thing I was born to. +To know through your whole life that you're just a stone's-throw from +rank and wealth and splendour, and to have to live and look on as an +outsider. Upon my word, I've felt more of an outsider just because of +it. There's a dream I've had every month or so for years. It's a dream +of opening a letter that tells me he's dead, or of a man coming into the +room or meeting me in the street and saying suddenly, 'Walderhurst died +last night, Walderhurst died last night!' They're always the same words, +'Walderhurst died last night!' And I wake up shaking and in a cold sweat +for joy at the gorgeous luck that's come at last." + +Hester gave a low cry like a little howl, and dropped her head on her +arms on the table among the cups and saucers. + +"She'll have a son! She'll have a son!" she cried. "And then it won't +matter whether _he_ dies or not." + +"Ough!" was the sound wrenched from Osborn's fury. "And our son might +have been in it. Ours might have had it all! Damn--damn!" + +"He won't,--he won't now, even if he lives to be born," she sobbed, and +clutched at the dingy tablecloth with her lean little hands. + +It was hard on her. She had had a thousand feverish dreams he had never +heard of. She had lain awake hours at night and stared with wide-open +eyes at the darkness, picturing to her inner soul the dream of splendour +that she would be part of, the solace for past miseries, the high +revenges for past slights that would be hers after the hour in which she +heard the words Osborn had just quoted, "Walderhurst died last night!" +Oh! if luck had only helped them! if the spells her Ayah had taught her +in secret had only worked as they would have worked if she had been a +native woman and had really used them properly! There was a spell she +had wrought once which Ameerah had sworn to her was to be relied on. It +took ten weeks to accomplish its end. In secret she had known of a man +on whom it had been worked. She had found out about it partly from the +remote hints which had aided her half knowledge of strange things and by +keeping a close watch. The man had died--he had died. She herself, and +with her own eyes had seen him begin to ail, had heard of his fevers and +pains and final death. He had died. She knew that. And she had tried the +thing herself in dead secrecy. And at the fifth week, just as with the +native who had died, she heard that Walderhurst was ill. During the next +four weeks she was sick with the tension of combined horror and delight. +But he did not die in the tenth week. They heard that he had gone to +Tangiers with a party of notable people, and that his "slight" +indisposition had passed, leaving him in admirable health and spirits. + +Her husband had known nothing of her frenzy. She would not have dared to +tell him. There were many things she did not tell him. He used to laugh +at her native stories of occult powers, though she knew that he had seen +some strange things done, as most foreigners had. He always explained +such things contemptuously on grounds which presupposed in the +performers of the mysteries powers of agility, dexterity, and universal +knowledge quite as marvellous as anything occult could have been. He did +not like her to show belief in the "tricks of the natives," as he called +them. It made a woman look a fool, he said, to be so credulous. + +During the last few months a new fever had tormented her. Feelings had +awakened in her which were new. She thought things she had never thought +before. She had never cared for children or suspected herself of being +the maternal woman. But Nature worked in her after her weird fashion. +She began to care less for some things and more for others. She cared +less for Osborn's moods and was better able to defy them. He began to be +afraid of her temper, and she began to like at times to defy his. There +had been some fierce scenes between them in which he had found her meet +with a flare of fury words she would once have been cowed by. He had +spoken one day with the coarse slightingness of a selfish, irritable +brute, of the domestic event which was before them. He did not speak +twice. + +She sprang up before him and shook her clenched fist in his face, so +near that he started back. + +"Don't say a word!" she cried. "Don't dare--don't dare. I tell you--look +out, if you don't want to be killed." + +During the outpouring of her frenzy he saw her in an entirely new light +and made discoveries. She would fight for her young, as a tigress fights +for hers. She was nursing a passion of secret feeling of which he had +known nothing. He had not for a moment suspected her of it. She had not +seemed that kind of girl. She had been of the kind that cares for finery +and social importance and the world's favour, not for sentiments. + +On this morning of the letter's arrival he watched her sobbing and +clutching the tablecloth, and reflected. He walked up and down and +pondered. There were a lot of things to be thought over. + +"We may as well accept the invitation at once," he said. "Grovel as much +as you choose. The more the better. They'll like it." + + + + +Chapter Eleven + + +The Osborns arrived at The Kennel Farm on a lovely rainy morning. The +green of the fields and trees and hedges was sweetly drenched, and the +flowers held drops which sparkled when the fitful sun broke forth and +searched for the hidden light in them. A Palstrey carriage comfortably +met them and took them to their destination. + +As they turned into the lane, Osborn looked out at the red gables and +chimneys showing themselves among the trees. + +"It's the old place I looked at," he said, "and a jolly old place it +is." + +Hester was drinking in the pure sweetness of the fresh air and filling +her soul with the beauty of such things as she had never seen before. In +London she had grown hopeless and sick of spirit. The lodgings in Duke +Street, the perpetual morning haddock and questionable eggs and unpaid +bills, had been evil things for her. She had reached a point at which +she had felt she could bear them no longer. Here, at all events, there +would be green trees and clear air, and no landlady. With no rent to +pay, there would be freedom from one torment at least. + +She had not expected much more than this freedom, however. It had seemed +highly probable that there might be discomforts in an ancient farmhouse +of the kind likely to be lent to impecunious relatives. + +But before they crossed the threshold it was plain to her that, for some +reason, they had been given more. The old garden had been put in +order--a picturesque and sweet disorderly order, which had allowed +creepers to luxuriate and toss, and flowers to spring out of crannies, +and clumps of things to mass themselves without restraint. + +The girl's wretched heart lifted itself as they drove up to the +venerable brick porch which had somewhat the air of a little church +vestibule. Through the opened door she saw a quaint comfort she had not +dreamed of. She had not the knowledge of things which would have told +her what wonders Emily had done with the place, but she could see that +its quaint furnishings were oddly beautiful in their harmony. The heavy +chairs and benches and settles seemed to have been part of centuries of +farm-house life, and to belong to the place as much as the massive beams +and doors. + +Hester stood in the middle of the hall and looked about her. Part of it +was oak panelled and part was whitewashed. There were deep, low windows +cut in the thick walls. + +"I never saw anything the least like it," she said. + +"You wouldn't expect to see anything like it in India," her husband +answered. "And you won't find many places like it in England. I should +like a look at the stables." + +He went out almost immediately and took the look in question, finding +the result unexpectedly satisfactory. Walderhurst had lent him a decent +horse to ride, and there was a respectable little cart for Hester. +Palstrey Manor had "done them" very well. This was a good deal more than +he had expected. He knew such hospitality would not have been shown him +if he had come to England unmarried. Consequently his good luck was +partly a result of Hester's existence in his life. At the same time +there awakened in him a consciousness that Hester would not have been +likely to produce such results unless in combination with another +element in the situation,--the element of another woman who was +sympathetic and had some power,--the new Lady Walderhurst, in fact. + +"And yet, confound her--confound her!" he thought, as he walked into the +loose box to look the mare over and pat her sleekness. + +The relations which established themselves between Palstrey and The +Kennel Farm were marked by two characteristic features. One of these was +that Lord Walderhurst did not develop any warmer interest in the +Osborns, and that Lady Walderhurst did. Having acceded to Emily's +wishes, and really behaved generously in the matter of providing for his +heir presumptive and his wife, Lord Walderhurst felt impelled to no +further demonstration of feeling. + +"I don't like him any better than I did," he remarked to Emily. "And I +cannot say that Mrs. Osborn attracts me. Of course there is a reason why +a kind-hearted woman like yourself should be specially good to her just +now. Do anything you wish for them while they are in the neighbourhood. +But as for me, the fact that a man is one's heir presumptive is not +enough in itself alone to endear him to one, rather the contrary." + +Between these two it is to be confessed there existed that rancour which +is not weakened by the fact that it remains unexpressed and lurks in the +deeps of the inward being. Walderhurst would not have been capable of +explaining to himself that the thing he chiefly disliked in this robust, +warm-blooded young man was that when he met him striding about with his +gun over his shoulder and a keeper behind him, the almost unconscious +realisation of the unpleasant truth that he was striding over what might +prove to be his own acres, and shooting birds which in the future he +would himself possess the right to preserve, to invite other people to +shoot, to keep less favoured persons from shooting, as lord of the +Manor. This was a truth sufficiently irritating to accentuate all his +faults of character and breeding. + +Emily, whose understanding of his nature developed with every day of her +life, grew into a comprehension of this by degrees. Perhaps her greatest +leap forward was taken on the day when, as he was driving her in the +cart which had picked her up on the moor, they saw Osborn tramping +through a cover with his gun. He did not see them, and a shade of +irritation swept Walderhurst's face. + +"He seems to feel very much at home," he commented. + +Then he was silent for a space during which he did not look pleased. + +"If he were my son," he said, "it would be a different matter. If +Audrey's child had lived--" + +He stopped and gave the tall mare a light cut with his whip. He was +evidently annoyed with himself for having spoken. + +A hot wave of colour submerged Emily. She felt it rush over her whole +body. She turned her face away, hoping Walderhurst would not observe +her. This was the first time she had heard him utter his dead wife's +name. She had never heard anyone speak it. Audrey had evidently not been +a much-beloved or regretted person. But she had had a son. + +Her primitive soul had scarcely dared to approach, even with awe, the +thought of such a possibility for herself. As in the past she had not +had the temerity to dream of herself as a woman who possessed +attractions likely to lead to marriage, so she was mentally restrained +in these days. There was something spinster-like in the tenor of her +thoughts. But she would have laid down her life for this dull man's +happiness. And of late she had more than once blamed herself for +accepting so much, unthinkingly. + +"I did not realise things properly," she had said to herself in humble +pain. "I ought to have been a girl, young and strong and beautiful. His +sacrifice was too great, it was immense." + +It had been nothing of the sort. He had pleased himself and done what +was likely to tend, and had tended, altogether to his own ease and +comfort. In any case Emily Fox-Seton was a fine creature, and only +thirty-four, and with Alec Osborn at the other side of the globe the +question of leaving an heir had been less present and consequently had +dwindled in importance. + +The nearness of the Osborns fretted him just now. If their child was a +son, he would be more fretted still. He was rather glad of a +possibility, just looming, of his being called away from England through +affairs of importance. + +He had spoken to Emily of this possibility, and she had understood that, +as his movements and the length of his stay would be uncertain, she +would not accompany him. + +"There is one drawback to our marriage," he said. + +"Is it--is it anything I can remove?" Emily asked. + +"No, though you are responsible for it. People seldom can remove the +drawbacks they are responsible for. You have taught me to miss you." + +"Have I--have I?" cried Emily. "Oh! I _am_ happy!" + +She was so happy that she felt that she must pass on some of her good +fortune to those who had less. She was beautifully kind to Hester +Osborn. Few days passed without the stopping of a Walderhurst carriage +before the door of The Kennel Farm. Sometimes Emily came herself to take +Mrs. Osborn to drive, sometimes she sent for her to come to lunch and +spend the day or night at Palstrey. She felt an interest in the young +woman which became an affection. She would have felt interested in her +if there had not existed a special reason to call forth sympathy. Hester +had many curious and new subjects for conversation. Emily liked her +descriptions of Indian life and her weird little stories of the natives. +She was charmed with Ameerah, whose nose rings and native dress, +combining themselves with her dark mystic face, rare speech, and +gliding, silent movements, awakened awe in the rustics and mingled +distrust and respect in the servants' hall at Palstrey. + +"She's most respectably behaved, my lady, though foreign and strange in +her manners," was Jane Cupp's comment. "But she has a way of looking at +a person--almost stealthy--that's upset me many a time when I've noticed +it suddenly. They say that she knows things, like fortune-telling and +spells and love potions. But she will only speak of them quite secret." + +Emily gathered that Jane Cupp was afraid of the woman, and kept a +cautious eye upon her. + +"She is a very faithful servant, Jane," she answered. "She is devoted to +Mrs. Osborn." + +"I am sure she is, my lady. I've read in books about the faithfulness of +black people. They say they're more faithful than white ones." + +"Not more faithful than _some_ white ones," said Lady Walderhurst with +her good smile. "Ameerah is not more faithful than you, I'm very sure." + +"Oh, my lady!" ejaculated Jane, turning red with pleasure. "I do hope +not. I shouldn't like to think she could be." + +In fact the tropic suggestion of the Ayah's personality had warmed the +imagination of the servants' hall, and there had been much talk of many +things, of the Osborns as well as of their servants, and thrilling +stories of East Indian life had been related by Walderhurst's man, who +was a travelled person. Captain Osborn had good sport on these days, and +sport was the thing he best loved. He was of the breed of man who can +fish, hunt, or shoot all day, eat robust meals and sleep heavily all +night; who can do this every day of a year, and in so doing reach his +highest point of desire in existence. He knew no other aspirations in +life than such as the fortunes of a man like Walderhurst could put him +in possession of. Nature herself had built him after the model of the +primeval type of English country land-owner. India with her blasting and +stifling hot seasons and her steaming rains gave him nothing that he +desired, and filled him with revolt against Fate every hour of his life. +His sanguine body loathed and grew restive under heat. At The Kennel +Farm, when he sprang out of his bed in the fresh sweetness of the +morning and plunged into his tub, he drew every breath with a physical +rapture. The air which swept in through the diamond-paned, ivy-hung +casements was a joy. + +"Good Lord!" he would cry out to Hester through her half-opened door, +"what mornings! how a man _lives_ and feels the blood rushing through +his veins! Rain or shine, it's all the same to me. I can't stay indoors. +Just to tramp through wet or dry heather, or under dripping or shining +trees, is enough. How can one believe one has ever lain sweating with +one's tongue lolling out, and listened to the whining creak of the +punkah through nights too deadly hot to sleep in! It's like remembering +hell while one lives in Paradise." + +"We shan't live in Paradise long," Hester said once with some +bitterness. "Hell is waiting for us." + +"Damn it! don't remind a man. There are times when I don't believe it." +He almost snarled the answer. It was true that his habit was to enhance +the pleasure of his days by thrusting into the background all +recollections of the reality of any other existence than that of the +hour. As he tramped through fern and heather he would remember nothing +but that there was a chance--there was chance, good Lord! After a man +not over strong reached fifty-four or five, there were more chances than +there had been earlier. + +After hours spent in such moods, it was not pleasant to come by accident +upon Walderhurst riding his fine chestnut, erect and staid, and be +saluted by the grave raising of his whip to his hat. Or to return to the +Farm just as the Palstrey barouche turned in at the gate with Lady +Walderhurst sitting in it glowing with health and that enjoyable +interest in all things which gave her a kind of radiance of eye and +colour. + +She came at length in a time when she did not look quite so radiant. +This, it appeared, was from a reason which might be regarded as natural +under the circumstances. A more ardent man than Lord Walderhurst might +have felt that he could not undertake a journey to foreign lands which +would separate him from a wife comparatively new. But Lord Walderhurst +was not ardent, and he had married a woman who felt that he did all +things well--that, in fact, a thing must be well because it was his +choice to do it. His journey to India might, it was true, be a matter of +a few months, and involved diplomatic business for which a certain +unimpeachable respectability was required. A more brilliant man, who had +been less respectable in the most decorous British sense, would not have +served the purpose of the government. + +Emily's skin had lost a shade of its healthful freshness, it struck +Hester, when she saw her. There was a suggestion of fulness under her +eyes. Yet with the bright patience of her smile she defied the remote +suspicion that she had shed a tear or so before leaving home. She +explained the situation with an affectionally reverent dwelling upon the +dignity of the mission which would temporarily bereave her of her mate. +Her belief in Walderhurst's intellectual importance to the welfare of +the government was a complete and touching thing. + +"It will not be for very long," she said, "and you and I must see a +great deal of each other. I am so glad you are here. You know how one +misses--" breaking off with an admirable air of determined cheer--"I +must not think of that." + +Walderhurst congratulated himself seriously during the days before his +departure. She was so exactly what he liked a woman to be. She might +have made difficulties, or have been sentimental. If she had been a +girl, it would have been necessary to set up a sort of nursery for her, +but this fine amenable, sensible creature could take perfect care of +herself. It was only necessary to express a wish, and she not only knew +how to carry it out, but was ready to do so without question. As far as +he was concerned, he was willing to leave all to her own taste. It was +such decent taste. She had no modern ideas which might lead during his +absence to any action likely to disturb or annoy him. What she would +like best to do would be to stay at Palstrey and enjoy the beauty of it. +She would spend her days in strolling through the gardens, talking to +the gardeners, who had all grown fond of her, or paying little visits to +old people or young ones in the village. She would help the vicar's wife +in her charities, she would appear in the Manor pew at church regularly, +make the necessary dull calls, and go to the unavoidable dull dinners +with a faultless amiability and decorum. + +"As I remarked when you told me you had asked her to marry you," said +Lady Maria on the occasion of his lunching with her on running up to +town for a day's business, "you showed a great deal more sense than most +men of your age and rank. If people _will_ marry, they should choose the +persons least likely to interfere with them. Emily will never interfere +with you. She cares a great deal more about your pleasure than her own. +And as to that, she's so much like a big, healthy, good child that she +would find pleasure wheresoever you dropped her." + +This was true, yet the healthy, childish creature had, in deep privacy, +cried a little, and was pathetically glad to feel that the Osborns were +to be near her, and that she would have Hester to think of and take care +of during the summer. + +It was pathetic that she should cherish an affection so ingenuous for +the Osborns, for one of them at least had no patience with her. To +Captain Osborn her existence and presence in the near neighbourhood were +offences. He told himself that she was of the particular type of woman +he most disliked. She was a big, blundering fool, he said, and her size +and very good nature itself got on his nerves and irritated him. + +"She looks so deucedly prosperous with her first-rate clothes and her +bouncing health," he said. + +"The tread of her big feet makes me mad when I hear it." + +Hester answered with a shrill little laugh. + +"Her big feet are a better shape than mine," she said. "I ought to hate +her, and I would if I could, but I can't." + +"I can," muttered Osborn between his teeth as he turned to the mantel +and scratched a match to light his pipe. + + + + +Chapter Twelve + + +When Lord Walderhurst took his departure for India, his wife began to +order her daily existence as he had imagined she would. Before he had +left her she had appeared at the first Drawing-room, and had spent a few +weeks at the town house, where they had given several imposing and +serious dinner parties, more remarkable for dignity and good taste than +liveliness. The duties of social existence in town would have been +unbearable for Emily without her husband. Dressed by Jane Cupp with a +passion of fervour, fine folds sweeping from her small, long waist, +diamonds strung round her neck, and a tiara or a big star in her full +brown hair, Emily was rather superb when supported by the consciousness +that Walderhurst's well-carried maturity and long accustomedness were +near her. With him she could enjoy even the unlively splendour of a +function, but without him she would have been very unhappy. At Palstrey +she was ceasing to feel new, and had begun to realise that she belonged +to the world she lived in. She was becoming accustomed to her +surroundings, and enjoyed them to the utmost. Her easily roused +affections were warmed by the patriarchal atmosphere of village life. +Most of the Palstrey villagers had touched their forelocks or curtsied +to Walderhursts for generations. Emily liked to remember this, and had +at once conceived a fondness for the simple folk, who seemed somehow +related so closely to the man she worshipped. + +Walderhurst had not the faintest conception of what this worship +represented. He did not even reach the length of realising its +existence. He saw her ingenuous reverence for and belief in him, and was +naturally rather pleased by them. He was also vaguely aware that if she +had been a more brilliant woman she would have been a more exacting one, +and less easily impressed. If she had been a stupid woman or a clumsy +one, he would have detested her and bitterly regretted his marriage. But +she was only innocent and gratefully admiring, which qualities, +combining themselves with good looks, good health, and good manners, +made of a woman something he liked immensely. Really she had looked very +nice and attractive when she had bidden him good-by, with her emotional +flush and softness of expression and the dewy brightness of her eyes. +There was something actually moving in the way her strong hand had wrung +his at the last moment. + +"I only _wish_," she had said, "I only do so _wish_ that there was +something I could _do_ for you while you are away--something you could +leave me to _do_." + +"Keep well and enjoy yourself," he had answered. "That will really +please me." + +Nature had not so built him that he could suspect that she went home and +spent the rest of the morning in his rooms, putting away his belongings +with her own hands, just for the mere passion of comfort she felt in +touching the things he had worn, the books he had handled, the cushions +his head had rested against. She had indeed mentioned to the housekeeper +at Berkeley Square that she wished his lordship's apartments to remain +untouched until she herself had looked over them. The obsession which is +called Love is an emotion past all explanation. The persons susceptible +to its power are as things beneath a spell. They see, hear, and feel +that of which the rest of their world is unaware, and will remain +unaware for ever. To the endearing and passion-inspiring qualities Emily +Walderhurst saw in this more than middle-aged gentleman an unstirred +world would remain blind, deaf, and imperceptive until its end +transpired. This, however, made not the slightest difference in the +reality of these things as she saw and felt and was moved to her soul's +centre by them. Bright youth in Agatha Norman, at present joyously +girdling the globe with her bridegroom, was moved much less deeply, +despite its laughter and love. + +A large lump swelled in Emily's throat as she walked about the +comfortable, deserted apartments of her James. Large tears dropped on +the breast of her dress as they had dropped upon her linen blouse when +she walked across the moor to Maundell. But she bravely smiled as she +tenderly brushed away with her hand two drops which fell upon a tweed +waistcoat she had picked up. Having done this, she suddenly stooped and +kissed the rough cloth fervently, burying her face in it with a sob. + +"I do _love_ him so!" she whispered, hysterically. "I do so _love_ him, +and I shall so _miss_ him!" with the italicised feelingness of old. + +The outburst was in fact so strongly italicised that she felt the next +moment almost as if she had been a little indecent. She had never been +called upon by the strenuousness of any occasion to mention baldly to +Lord Walderhurst that she "loved" him. It had not been necessary, and +she was too little used to it not to be abashed by finding herself +proclaiming the fact to his very waistcoat itself. She sat down holding +the garment in her hands and let her tears fall. + +She looked about her at the room and across the corridor through the +open door at his study which adjoined it. They were fine rooms, and +every book and bust and chair looked singularly suggestive of his +personality. The whole house was beautiful and imposing in Emily's eyes. +"He has made all my life beautiful and full of comfort and happiness," +she said, trembling. "He has saved me from everything I was afraid of, +and there is nothing I can _do_. Oh!" suddenly dropping a hot face on +her hands, "if I were only Hester Osborn. I should be glad to suffer +anything, or die in any way. I should have paid him back--just a +little--if I might." + +For there was one thing she had learned through her yearning fervour, +not through any speech of his. All the desire and pride in him would be +fed full and satisfied if he could pass his name on to a creature of his +own flesh and blood. All the heat his cold nature held had concentrated +itself in a secret passion centred on this thing. She had begun to +awaken to a suspicion of this early in their marriage, and afterwards by +processes of inclusion and exclusion she had realised the proud +intensity of his feeling despite his reserve and silence. As for her, +she would have gone to the stake, or have allowed her flesh to be cut +into pieces to form that which would have given him reason for +exultation and pride. Such was the helpless, tragic, kindly love and +yearning of her. + + * * * * * + +The thing filled her with a passion of tenderness for Hester Osborn. She +yearned over her, too. Her spinster life had never brought her near to +the mystery of birth. She was very ignorant and deeply awed by the mere +thought of it. At the outset Hester had been coldly shy and reticent, +but as they saw each other more she began to melt before the unselfish +warmth of the other woman's overtures of friendship. She was very lonely +and totally inexperienced. As Agatha Slade had gradually fallen into +intimacy of speech, so did she. She longed so desperately for +companionship that the very intensity of her feelings impelled her to +greater openness than she had at first intended. + +"I suppose men don't know," she said to herself sullenly, in thinking of +Osborn, who spent his days out of doors. "At any rate, they don't care." + +Emily cared greatly, and was so full of interest and sympathy that there +was something like physical relief in talking to her. + +"You two have become great pals," Alec said, on an afternoon when he +stood at a window watching Lady Walderhurst's carriage drive away. "You +spend hours together talking. What is it all about?" + +"She talks a good deal about her husband. It is a comfort to her to find +someone to listen. She thinks he is a god. But we principally talk +about--me." + +"Don't discourage her," laughed Osborn. "Perhaps she will get so fond of +you that she will not be willing to part with us, as she will be obliged +to take both to keep one." + +"I wish she would, I wish she would!" sighed Hester, tossing up her +hands in a languid, yet fretted gesture. + +The contrast between herself and this woman was very often too great to +be equably borne. Even her kindness could not palliate it. The simple +perfection of her country clothes, the shining skins of her horses, the +smooth roll of her carriage, the automatic servants who attended her, +were suggestive of that ease and completeness in all things, only to be +compassed by long-possessed wealth. To see every day the evidences of it +while one lived on charitable sufferance on the crumbs which fell from +the master's table was a galling enough thing, after all. It would +always have been galling. But it mattered so much more now--so much more +to Hester than she had known it could matter even in those days when as +a girl she had thirstily longed for it. In those days she had not lived +near enough to it all to know the full meaning and value of it--the +beauty and luxury, the stateliness and good taste. To have known it in +this way, to have been almost part of it and then to leave it, to go +back to a hugger-mugger existence in a wretched bungalow hounded by +debt, pinched and bound hard and fast by poverty, which offered no +future prospect of bettering itself into decent good luck! Who could +bear it? + +Both were thinking the same thing as their eyes met. + +"How are we to stand it, after this?" she cried out sharply. + +"We can't stand it," he answered. "Confound it all, something _must_ +happen." + +"Nothing will," she said; "nothing but that we shall go back worse off +than before." + + * * * * * + +At this period Lady Walderhurst went to London again to shop, and spent +two entire happy days in buying beautiful things of various kinds, which +were all to be sent to Mrs. Osborn at The Kennel Farm, Palstrey. She had +never enjoyed herself so much in her life as she did during those two +days when she sat for hours at one counter after another looking at +exquisite linen and flannel and lace. The days she had spent with Lady +Maria in purchasing her trousseau had not compared with these two. She +looked actually lovely as she almost fondled the fine fabrics, smiling +with warm softness at the pretty things shown her. She spent, in fact, +good deal of money, and luxuriated in so doing as she could never have +luxuriated in spending it in finery for herself. Nothing indeed seemed +too fairy-like in its fineness, no quantity of lace seemed in excess. +Her heart positively trembled in her breast sometimes, and she found +strange tears rising in her eyes. + +"They are so sweet," she said plaintively to the silence of her own +bedroom as she looked some of her purchases over. "I don't know why they +give me such a feeling. They look so little and--helpless, and as if +they were made to hold in one's arms. It's absurd of me, I daresay." + +The morning the boxes arrived at The Kennel Farm, Emily came too. She +was in the big carriage, and carried with her some special final +purchases she wanted to bring herself. She came because she could not +have kept away. She wanted to see the things again, to be with Hester +when she unpacked them, to help her, to look them all over, to touch +them and hold them in her hands. + +She found Hester in the large, low-ceilinged room in which she slept. +The big four-post bed was already snowed over with a heaped-up drift of +whiteness, and open boxes were scattered about. There was an odd +expression in the girl's eyes, and she had a red spot on either cheek. + +"I did not expect anything like this," she said. "I thought I should +have to make some plain, little things myself, suited to its station," +with a wry smile. "They would have been very ugly. I don't know how to +sew in the least. You forget that you were not buying things for a +prince or a princess, but for a little beggar." + +"Oh, don't!" cried Emily, taking both her hands. "Let us be _happy_! It +was so _nice_ to buy them. I never liked anything so much in my life." + +She went and stood by the bedside, taking up the things one by one, +touching up frills of lace and smoothing out tucks. + +"Doesn't it make you happy to look at them?" she said. + +"_You_ look at them," said Hester, staring at her, "as if the sight of +them made you hungry, or as if you had bought them for yourself." + +Emily turned slightly away. She said nothing. For a few moments there +was a dead silence. + +Hester spoke again. What in the world was it in the mere look of the +tall, straight body of the woman to make her feel hot and angered? + +"If you had bought them for yourself," she persisted, "they would be +worn by a Marquis of Walderhurst." + +Emily laid down the robe she had been holding. She put it on the bed, +and turned round to look at Hester Osborn with serious eyes. + +"They _may_ be worn by a Marquis of Walderhurst, you know," she +answered. "They may." + +She was remotely hurt and startled, because she felt in the young woman +something she had felt once or twice before, something resentful in her +thoughts of herself, as if for the moment she represented to her an +enemy. + +The next moment, however, Hester Osborn fell upon her with embraces. + +"You are an angel to me," she cried. "You are an angel, and I can't +thank you. I don't know how." + +Emily Walderhurst patted her shoulder as she kindly enfolded her in warm +arms. + +"Don't thank me," she half whispered emotionally. "Don't. Just let us +_enjoy_ ourselves." + + + + +Chapter Thirteen + + +Alec Osborn rode a good deal in these days. He also walked a good deal, +sometimes with a gun over his shoulder and followed by a keeper, +sometimes alone. There was scarcely a square yard of the Palstrey Manor +lands he had not tramped over. He had learned the whole estate by heart, +its woods, its farms, its moorlands. A morbid secret interest in its +beauties and resources possessed him. He could not resist the temptation +to ask apparently casual questions of keepers and farmers when he found +himself with them. He managed to give his inquiries as much the air of +accident as possible, but he himself knew that they were made as a +result of a certain fevered curiosity. He found that he had fallen into +the habit of continually making plans connected with the place. He said +to himself, "If it were mine I would do this, or that. If I owned it, I +would make this change or that one. I would discharge this keeper or put +another man on such a farm." He tramped among the heather thinking these +things over, and realising to the full what the pleasure of such powers +would mean to a man such as himself, a man whose vanity had never been +fed, who had a desire to control and a longing for active out-of-door +life. + +"If it were mine, if it were mine!" he would say to himself. "Oh! damn +it all, if it were only mine!" + +And there were other places as fine, and finer places he had never +seen,--Oswyth, Hurst, and Towers,--all Walderhurst's all belonging to +this one respectable, elderly muff. Thus he summed up the character of +his relative. As for himself he was young, strong, and with veins +swelling with the insistent longing for joyful, exultant life. The +sweating, panting drudgery of existence in India was a thought of hell +to him. But there it was, looming up nearer and nearer with every +heavenly English day that passed. There was nothing for it but to go +back--go back, thrust one's neck into the collar again, and sweat and be +galled to the end. He had no ambitions connected with his profession. He +realised loathingly in these days that he had always been waiting, +waiting. + +The big, bright-faced woman who was always hanging about Hester, doing +her favours, he actually began to watch feverishly. She was such a fool; +she always looked so healthy, and she was specially such a fool over +Walderhurst. When she had news of him, it was to be seen shining in her +face. + +She had a sentimental school-girl fancy that during his absence she +would apply herself to the task of learning to ride. She had been +intending to do so before he went away; they had indeed spoken of it +together, and Walderhurst had given her a handsome, gentle young mare. +The creature was as kind as she was beautiful. Osborn, who was +celebrated for his horsemanship, had promised to undertake to give the +lessons. + +A few days after her return from London with her purchases, she asked +the husband and wife to lunch with her at Palstrey, and during the meal +broached the subject. + +"I should like to begin soon, if you can spare the time for me," she +said. "I want to be able to go out with him when he comes back. Do you +think I shall be slow in learning? Perhaps I ought to be lighter to ride +well." + +"I think you will be pretty sure to have a first-class seat," Osborn +answered. "You will be likely to look particularly well." + +"Do you think I shall? How good you are to encourage me. How soon could +I begin?" + +She was quite agreeably excited. In fact, she was delighted by innocent +visions of herself as Walderhurst's equestrian companion. Perhaps if she +sat well, and learned fine control of her horse, he might be pleased, +and turn to look at her, as they rode side by side, with that look of +approval and dawning warmth which brought such secret joy to her soul. + +"When may I take my first lesson?" she said quite eagerly to Captain +Osborn, for whom a footman was pouring out a glass of wine. + +"As soon," he answered, "as I have taken out the mare two or three times +myself. I want to know her thoroughly. I would not let you mount her +until I had learned her by heart." + +They went out to the stables after lunch and visited the mare in her +loose box. She was a fine beast, and seemed as gentle as a child. + +Captain Osborn asked questions of the head groom concerning her. She had +a perfect reputation, but nevertheless she was to be taken over to the +Kennel stables a few days before Lady Walderhurst mounted her. + +"It is necessary to be more than careful," Osborn said to Hester that +night. "There would be the devil and all to pay if anything went wrong." + +The mare was brought over the next morning. She was a shining bay, and +her name was Faustine. + +In the afternoon Captain Osborn took her out. He rode her far and +learned her thoroughly before he brought her back. She was as lively as +a kitten, but as kind as a dove. Nothing could have been better tempered +and safer. She would pass anything, even the unexpected appearance of a +road-mending engine turning a corner did not perceptibly disturb her. + +"Is she well behaved?" Hester asked at dinner time. + +"Yes, apparently," was his answer; "but I shall take her out once or +twice again." + +He did take her out again, and had only praise for her on each occasion. +But the riding lessons did not begin at once. In fact he was, for a +number of reasons, in a sullen and unsociable humour which did not +incline him towards the task he had undertaken. He made various excuses +for not beginning the lessons, and took Faustine out almost every day. + +But Hester had an idea that he did not enjoy his rides. He used to +return from them with a resentful, sombre look, as if his reflections +had not been pleasant company for him. In truth they were not pleasant +company. He was beset by thoughts he did not exactly care to be beset +by--thoughts which led him farther than he really cared to go, which did +not incline him to the close companionship of Lady Walderhurst. It was +these thoughts which led him on his long rides; it was one of them which +impelled him, one morning, as he was passing a heap of broken stone, +piled for the mending of the ways by the roadside, to touch Faustine +with heel and whip. The astonished young animal sprang aside curvetting. +She did not understand, and to horse-nature the uncomprehended is +alarming. She was more bewildered and also more fretted when, in passing +the next stone heap, she felt the same stinging touches. What did it +mean? Was she to avoid this thing, to leap at sight of it, to do what? +She tossed her delicate head and snorted in her trouble. The country +road was at some distance from Palstrey, and was little frequented. No +one was in sight. Osborn glanced about him to make sure of this fact. A +long stretch of road lay before him, with stone heaps piled at regular +intervals. He had taken a big whiskey and soda at the last wayside inn +he had passed, and drink did not make him drunk so much as mad. He +pushed the mare ahead, feeling in just the humour to try experiments +with her. + + * * * * * + +"Alec is very determined that you shall be safe on Faustine," Hester +said to Emily. "He takes her out every day." + +"It is very good of him," answered Emily. + +Hester thought she looked a trifle nervous, and wondered why. She did +not say anything about the riding lessons, and in fact had seemed of +late less eager and interested. In the first place, it had been Alec who +had postponed, now it was she. First one trifling thing and then another +seemed to interpose. + +"The mare is as safe as a feather-bed," Osborn said to her one afternoon +when they were taking tea on the lawn at Palstrey. "You had better begin +now if you wish to accomplish anything before Lord Walderhurst comes +back. What do you hear from him as to his return?" + +Emily had heard that he was likely to be detained longer than he had +expected. It seemed always to be the case that people were detained by +such business. He was annoyed, but it could not be helped. There was a +rather tired look in her eyes and she was paler than usual. + +"I am going up to town to-morrow," she said. "The riding lessons might +begin after I come back." + +"Are you anxious about anything?" Hester asked her as she was preparing +for the drive back to The Kennel Farm. + +"No, no," Emily answered. "Only--" + +"Only what?" + +"I should be so glad if--if he were not away." + +Hester gazed reflectively at her suddenly quivering face. + +"I don't think I ever saw a woman so fond of a man," she said. + +Emily stood still. She was quite silent. Her eyes slowly filled. She had +never been able to say much about what she felt for Walderhurst. Hers +was a large, dumb, primitive affection. + +She sat at her open bedroom window a long time that evening. She rested +her chin upon her hand and looked up at the deeps of blue powdered with +the diamond dust of stars. It seemed to her that she had never looked up +and seen such myriads of stars before. She felt far away from earthly +things and tremulously uplifted. During the last two weeks she had lived +in a tumult of mind, of amazement, of awe, of hope and fear. No wonder +that she looked pale and that her face was full of anxious yearning. +There were such wonders in the world, and she, Emily Fox-Seton, no, +Emily Walderhurst, seemed to have become part of them. + +She clasped her hands tight together and leaned forward into the night +with her face turned upwards. Very large drops began to roll fast down +her cheeks, one after the other. The argument of scientific observation +might have said she was hysterical, and whether with or without reason +is immaterial. She did not try to check her tears or wipe them away, +because she did not know that she was crying. She began to pray, and +heard herself saying the Lord's Prayer like a child. + +"Our Father who art in Heaven--Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be +Thy name," she murmured imploringly. + +She said the prayer to the end, and then began it over again. She said +it three or four times, and her appeal for daily bread and the +forgiveness of trespasses expressed what her inarticulate nature could +not have put into words. Beneath the entire vault of heaven's dark blue +that night there was nowhere lifted to the Unknown a prayer more humbly +passion-full and gratefully imploring than her final whisper. + +"For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. +Amen, amen." + +When she left her seat at the window and turned towards the room again, +Jane Cupp, who was preparing for the morrow's journey and was just +entering with a dress over her arm, found herself restraining a start at +sight of her. + +"I hope you are quite well, my lady," she faltered. + +"Yes," Lady Walderhurst answered. "I think I am very well--very well, +Jane. You will be quite ready for the early train to-morrow morning." + +"Yes, my lady, quite." + +"I have been thinking," said Emily gently, almost in a tone of reverie, +"that if your uncle had not wanted your mother so much it would have +been nice to have her here with us. She is such an experienced person, +and so kind. I never forget how kind she was to me when I had the little +room in Mortimer Street." + +"Oh! my lady, you was kind to _us_," cried Jane. + +She recalled afterwards, with tears, how her ladyship moved nearer to +her and took her hand with what Jane called "her wonderful _good_ look," +which always brought a lump to her throat. + +"But I always count on you, Jane," she said. "I count on you so much." + +"Oh! my lady," Jane cried again, "it's my comfort to believe it. I'd lay +down my life for your ladyship, I would indeed." + +Emily sat down, and on her face there was a soft, uplifted smile. + +"Yes," she said, and Jane Cupp saw that she was reflective again, and +the words were not addressed exactly, to herself, "one would be quite +ready to lay down one's life for the person one loved. It seems even a +little thing, doesn't it?" + + + + +Chapter Fourteen + + +Lady Walderhurst remained in town a week, and Jane Cupp remained with +her, in the house in Berkeley Square, which threw open its doors to +receive them on their arrival quite as if they had never left it. The +servants' hall brightened temporarily in its hope that livelier doings +might begin to stir the establishment, but Jane Cupp was able to inform +inquirers that the visit was only to be a brief one. + +"We are going back to Palstrey next Monday," she explained. "My lady +prefers the country, and she is very fond of Palstrey; and no wonder. It +doesn't seem at all likely she'll come to stay in London until his +lordship gets back." + +"We hear," said the head housemaid, "that her ladyship is very kind to +Captain Osborn and his wife, and that Mrs. Osborn's in a delicate state +of health." + +"It would be a fine thing for us if it was in our family," remarked an +under housemaid who was pert. + +Jane Cupp looked extremely reserved. + +"Is it true," the pert housemaid persisted, "that the Osborns can't +abide her?" + +"It's true," said Jane, severely, "that she's goodness itself to them, +and they ought to adore her." + +"We hear they don't," put in the tallest footman. "And who wonders. If +she was an angel, there's just a chance that she may give Captain Osborn +a wipe in the eye, though she is in her thirties." + +"It's not for _us_," said Jane, stiffly, "to discuss thirties or forties +or fifties either, which are no business of ours. There's one gentleman, +and him a marquis, as chose her over the heads of two beauties in their +teens, at least." + +"Well, for the matter of that," admitted the tall footman, "I'd have +chose her myself, for she's a fine woman." + +Lady Maria was just on the point of leaving South Audley Street to make +some visits in the North, but she came and lunched with Emily, and was +in great form. + +She had her own opinion of a number of matters, some of which she +discussed, some of which she kept to herself. She lifted her gold +lorgnette and looked Emily well over. + +"Upon my word, Emily," she said, "I am proud of you. You are one of my +successes. Your looks are actually improving. There's something rather +etherealised about your face to-day. I quite agree with Walderhurst in +all the sentimental things he says about you." + +She said this last partly because she liked Emily and knew it would +please her to hear that her husband went to the length of dwelling on +her charms in his conversation with other people, partly because it +entertained her to see the large creature's eyelids flutter and a big +blush sweep her cheek. + +"He really was in great luck when he discovered you," her ladyship went +on briskly. "As for that, I was in luck myself. Suppose you had been a +girl who could not have been left. As Walderhurst is short of female +relatives, it would have fallen to me to decently dry-nurse you. And +there would have been the complications arising from a girl being baby +enough to want to dance about to places, and married enough to feel +herself entitled to defy her chaperone; she couldn't have been trusted +to chaperone herself. As it is, Walderhurst, can go where duty calls, +etc., and I can make my visits and run about, and you, dear thing, are +quite happy at Palstrey playing Lady Bountiful and helping the little +half-breed woman to expect her baby. I daresay you sit and make dolly +shirts and christening robes hand in hand." + +"We enjoy it all very much," Emily answered, adding imploringly, "please +don't call her a little half-breed woman. She's such a dear little +thing, Lady Maria." + +Lady Maria indulged in the familiar chuckle and put up her lorgnette to +examine her again. + +"There's a certain kind of early Victorian saintliness about you, Emily +Walderhurst, which makes my joy," she said. "You remind me of Lady +Castlewood, Helen Pendennis, and Amelia Sedley, with the spitefulness +and priggishness and catty ways left out. You are as nice as Thackeray +_thought_ they were, poor mistaken man. I am not going to suffuse you +with blushes by explaining to you that there is what my nephew would +call a jolly good reason why, if you were not an early Victorian and +improved Thackerayian saint, you would not be best pleased at finding +yourself called upon to assist at this interesting occasion. Another +kind of woman would probably feel like a cat towards the little Osborn. +But even the mere reason itself, as a reason, has not once risen in your +benign and pellucid mind. You have a pellucid mind, Emily; I should be +rather proud of the word if I had invented it myself to describe you. +But I didn't. It was Walderhurst. You have actually wakened up the man's +intellects, such as they are." + +She evidently had a number of opinions of the Osborns. She liked neither +of them, but it was Captain Osborn she especially _dis_liked. + +"He is really an underbred person," she explained, "and he hasn't the +sharpness to know that is the reason Walderhurst detests him. He had +vulgar, cheap sort of affairs, and nearly got into the kind of trouble +people don't forgive. What a fool a creature in his position is to +offend the taste of the man he may inherit from, and who, if he were not +antagonistic to him, would regard him as a sort of duty. It wasn't his +immorality particularly. Nobody is either moral or immoral in these +days, but penniless persons must be decent. It's all a matter of taste +and manners. I haven't any morals myself, my dear, but I have beautiful +manners. A woman can have the kind of manners which keep her from +breaking the Commandments. As to the Commandments, they are awfully easy +things _not_ to break. Who wants to break them, good Lord! Thou shall do +no murder. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not commit, etc. Thou shalt +not bear false witness. That's simply gossip and lying, and they are bad +manners. If you have good manners, you _don't_." + +She chatted on in her pungent little worldly, good-humoured way through +the making of a very excellent lunch. After which she settled her smart +bonnet with clever touches, kissed Emily on both cheeks, and getting +into her brougham rolled off smiling and nodding. + +Emily stood at the drawing-room window and watched her equipage roll +round the square and into Charles Street, and then turned away into the +big, stately empty room, sighing without intending to do so while she +smiled herself. + +"She's so witty and so amusing," she said; "but one would no more think +of _telling_ her anything than one would think of catching a butterfly +and holding it while one made it listen. She would be so _bored_ if she +was confided in." + +Which was most true. Never in her life had her ladyship allowed herself +the indiscretion of appearing a person in whom confidences might be +reposed. She had always had confidences enough of her own to take care +of, without sharing those of other people. + +"Good heavens!" she had exclaimed once, "I should as soon think of +assuming another woman's wrinkles." + +On the first visit Lady Walderhurst made to The Kennel Farm the morning +after her return to Palstrey, when Alec Osborn helped her from her +carriage, he was not elated by the fact that he had never seen her look +so beautifully alive and blooming during his knowledge of her. There was +a fine rose on her cheek, and her eyes were large and happily illumined. + +"How well you look!" broke from him with an involuntariness he was +alarmed to realise as almost spiteful. The words were an actual +exclamation which he had not meant to utter, and Emily Walderhurst even +started a trifle and looked at him with a moment's question. + +"But you look well, too," she answered. "Palstrey agrees with both of +us. You have such a colour." + +"I have been riding," he replied. "I told you I meant to know Faustine +thoroughly before I let you mount her. She is ready for you now. Can you +take your first lesson to-morrow?" + +"I--I don't quite know," she hesitated. "I will tell you a little later. +Where is Hester?" + +Hester was in the drawing-room. She was lying on a sofa before an open +window and looking rather haggard and miserable. She had, in fact, just +had a curious talk with Alec which had ended in something like a scene. +As Hester's health grew more frail, her temper became more fierce, and +of late there had been times when a certain savagery, concealed with +difficulty in her husband's moods, affected her horribly. + +This morning she felt a new character in Emily's manner. She was timid +and shy, and a little awkward. Her child-like openness of speech and +humour seemed obscured. She had less to say than usual, and at the same +time there was a suggestion of restless unease about her. Hester Osborn, +after a few minutes, began to have an odd feeling that the woman's eyes +held a question or a desire in them. + +She had brought some superb roses from the Manor gardens, and she moved +about arranging them for Hester in vases. + +"It is beautiful to come back to the country," she said. "When I get +into the carriage at the station and drive through the sweet air, I +always feel as if I were beginning to live again, and as if in London I +had not been quite alive. It seemed so _heavenly_ in the rose garden at +Palstrey to-day, to walk about among those thousands of blooming lovely +things breathing scent and nodding their heavy, darling heads." + +"The roads are in a beautiful condition for riding," Hester said, "and +Alec says that Faustine is perfect. You ought to begin to-morrow +morning. Shall you?" + +She spoke the words somewhat slowly, and her face did not look happy. +But, then, it never was a really happy face. The days of her youth had +been too full of the ironies of disappointment. + +There was a second's silence, and then she said again: + +"Shall you, if it continues fine?" + +Emily's hands were full of roses, both hands, and Hester saw both hands +and roses tremble. She turned round slowly and came towards her. She +looked nervous, awkward, abashed, and as if for that moment she was a +big girl of sixteen appealing to her and overwhelmed with queer +feelings, and yet the depths of her eyes held a kind of trembling, +ecstatic light. She came and stood before her, holding the trembling +roses as if she had been called up for confession. + +"I--I mustn't," she half whispered. The corners of her lips drooped and +quivered, and her voice was so low that Hester could scarcely hear it. +But she started and half sat up. + +"You _mustn't_?" she gasped; yes, really it was gasped. + +Emily's hand trembled so that the roses began to fall one by one, +scattering a rain of petals as they dropped. + +"I mustn't," she repeated, low and shakily. "I had--reason.--I went to +town to see--somebody. I saw Sir Samuel Brent, and he told me I must +not. He is quite sure." + +She tried to calm herself and smile. But the smile quivered and ended in +a pathetic contortion of her face. In the hope of gaining decent +self-control, she bent down to pick up the dropped roses. Before she had +picked up two, she let all the rest fall, and sank kneeling among them, +her face in her hands. + +"Oh, Hester, Hester!" she panted, with sweet, stupid unconciousness of +the other woman's heaving chest and glaring eyes. "It has come to me +too, actually, after all." + + + + +Chapter Fifteen + + +The Palstrey Manor carriage had just rolled away carrying Lady +Walderhurst home. The big, low-ceilinged, oak-beamed farm-house parlour +was full of the deep golden sunlight of the late afternoon, the air was +heavy with the scent of roses and sweet-peas and mignonette, the +adorable fragrance of English country-house rooms. Captain Osborn +inhaled it at each breath as he stood and looked out of the +diamond-paned window, watching the landau out of sight. He felt the +scent and the golden glow of the sunset light as intensely as he felt +the dead silence which reigned between himself and Hester almost with +the effect of a physical presence. Hester was lying upon the sofa again, +and he knew she was staring at his back with that sardonic widening of +her long eyes, a thing he hated, and which always foreboded things not +pleasant to face. + +He did not turn to face them until the footman's cockade had disappeared +finally behind the tall hedge, and the tramp of the horses' feet was +deadening itself in the lane. When he ceased watching and listening, he +wheeled round suddenly. + +"What does it all mean?" he demanded. "Hang her foolish airs and +graces._ Why_ won't she ride, for she evidently does not intend to." + +Hester laughed, a hard, short, savage little un-mirthful sound it was. + +"No, she doesn't intend to," she answered, "for many a long day, at +least, for many a month. She has Sir Samuel Brent's orders to take the +greatest care of herself." + +"Brent's? Brent's?" + +Hester struck her lean little hands together and laughed this time with +a hint at hysteric shrillness. + +"I told you so, I told you so!" she cried. "I knew it would be so, I +knew it! By the time she reaches her thirty-sixth birthday there will be +a new Marquis of Walderhurst, and he won't be either you or yours." And +as she finished, she rolled over on the sofa, and bit the cushions with +her teeth as she lay face downwards on them. "He won't be you, or belong +to you," she reiterated, and then she struck the cushions with her +clenched fist. + +He rushed over to her, and seizing her by the shoulders shook her to and +fro. + +"You don't know what you are talking about," he said; "you don't know +what you are saying." + +"I do! I do! I do!" she screamed under her breath, and beat the cushions +at every word. "It's true, it's true. She's drivelling about it, +drivelling!" + +Alec Osborn threw back his head, drawing in a hard breath which was +almost a snort of fury. + +"By God!" he cried, "if she went out on Faustine now, she would not come +back!" + +His rage had made him so far beside himself that he had said more than +he intended, far more than he would have felt safe. But the girl was as +far beside herself as he was, and she took him up. + +"Serve her right," she cried. "I shouldn't care. I hate her! I hate her! +I told you once I couldn't, but I do. She's the biggest fool that ever +lived. She knew _nothing_ of what I felt. I believe she thought I would +rejoice with her. I didn't know whether I should shriek in her face or +scream out laughing. Her eyes were as big as saucers, and she looked at +me as if she felt like the Virgin Mary after the Annunciation. Oh! the +stupid, _inhuman_ fool!" + +Her words rushed forth faster and faster, she caught her breath with +gasps, and her voice grew more shrill at every sentence. Osborn shook +her again. + +"Keep quiet," he ordered her. "You are going into hysterics, and it +won't do. Get hold of yourself." + +"Go for Ameerah," she gasped, "or I'm afraid I can't. She knows what to +do." + +He went for Ameerah, and the silently gliding creature came bringing her +remedies with her. She looked at her mistress with stealthily +questioning but affectionate eyes, and sat down on the floor rubbing her +hands and feet in a sort of soothing massage. Osborn went out of the +room, and the two women were left together. Ameerah knew many ways of +calming her mistress's nerves, and perhaps one of the chief ones was to +lead her by subtle powers to talk out her rages and anxieties. Hester +never knew that she was revealing herself and her moods until after her +interviews with the Ayah were over. Sometimes an hour or so had passed +before she began to realise that she had let out things which she had +meant to keep secret. It was never Ameerah who talked, and Hester was +never conscious that she talked very much herself. But afterwards she +saw that the few sentences she had uttered were such as would satisfy +curiosity if the Ayah felt it. Also she was not, on the whole, at all +sure that the woman felt it. She showed no outward sign of any interest +other than the interest of a deep affection. She loved her young +mistress to-day as passionately as she had loved her as a child when she +had held her in her bosom as if she had been her own. By the time Emily +Walderhurst had reached Palstrey, Ameerah knew many things. She +understood that her mistress was as one who, standing upon the brink of +a precipice, was being slowly but surely pushed over its edge--pushed, +pushed by Fate. This was the thing imaged in her mind when she shut +herself up in her room and stood alone in the midst of the chamber +clenching her dark hands high above her white veiled head, and uttering +curses which were spells, and spells which were curses. + +Emily was glad that she had elected to be alone as much as possible, and +had not invited people to come and stay with her. She had not invited +people, in honest truth, because she felt shy of the responsibility of +entertainment while Walderhurst was not with her. It would have been +proper to invite his friends, and his friends were all people she was +too much in awe of, and too desirous to please to be able to enjoy +frankly as society. She had told herself that when she had been married +a few years she would be braver. + +And now her gladness was so devout that it was pure rejoicing. How could +she have been calm, how could she have been conversational, while +through her whole being there surged but one thought. She was sure that +while she talked to people she would have been guilty of looking as if +she was thinking of something not in the least connected with +themselves. + +If she had been less romantically sentimental in her desire to avoid all +semblance of burdening her husband she would have ordered him home at +once, and demanded as a right the protection of his dignity and +presence. If she had been less humble she would have felt the importance +of her position and the gravity of the claims it gave her to his +consideration, instead of being lost in prayerful gratitude to heaven. + +She had been rather stupidly mistaken in not making a confidante of Lady +Maria Bayne, but she had been, in her big girl shyness, entirely like +herself. In some remote part of her nature she had shrunk from a certain +look of delighted amusement which she had known would have betrayed +itself, despite her ladyship's good intentions, in the eyes assisted by +the smart gold lorgnette. She knew she was inclined to be +hyper-emotional on this subject, and she felt that if she had seen the +humour trying to conceal itself behind the eye-glasses, she might have +been hysterical enough to cry even while she tried to laugh, and pass +her feeling off lightly. Oh, no! Oh, no! Somehow she _knew_ that at such +a moment, for some fantastic, if subtle, reason, Lady Maria would only +see her as Emily Fox-Seton, that she would have actually figured before +her for an instant as poor Emily Fox-Seton making an odd confession. She +could not have endured it without doing something foolish, she felt that +she would not, indeed. + +So Lady Maria went gaily away to make her round of visits and be the +amusing old life and soul of house-party after house-party, suspecting +nothing of a possibility which would actually have sobered her for a +moment. + +Emily passed her days at Palstrey in a state of happy exaltation. For a +week or so they were spent in wondering whether or not she should write +a letter to Lord Walderhurst which should convey the information to him +which even Lady Maria would have regarded as important, but the more she +argued the question with herself, the less she wavered from her first +intention. Lady Maria's frank congratulation of herself and Lord +Walderhurst in his wife's entire unexactingness had indeed been the +outcome of a half-formed intention to dissipate amiably even the vaguest +inclination to verge on expecting things from people. While she thought +Emily unlikely to allow herself to deteriorate into an encumbrance, her +ladyship had seen women in her position before, whose marriages had made +perfect fools of them through causing them to lose their heads +completely and require concessions and attentions from their newly +acquired relations which bored everybody. So she had lightly patted and +praised Emily for the course of action she preferred to "keep her up +to." + +"She's the kind of woman ideas sink into if they are well put," she had +remarked in times gone by. "She's not sharp enough to see that things +are being suggested to her, but a suggestion acts upon her +delightfully." + +Her suggestions acted upon Emily as she walked about the gardens at +Palstrey, pondering in the sunshine and soothed by the flower scents of +the warmed borders. Such a letter written to Walderhurst might change +his cherished plans, concerning which she knew he held certain +ambitions. He had been so far absorbed in them that he had gone to India +at a time of the year which was not usually chosen for the journey. He +had become further interested and absorbed after he had reached the +country, and he was evidently likely to prolong his stay as he had not +thought of prolonging it. He wrote regularly though not frequently, and +Emily had gathered from the tone of his letters that he was more +interested than he had ever been in his life before. + +"I would not interfere with his work for anything in the world," she +said. "He cares more for it than he usually cares for things. I care for +everything--I have that kind of mind; an intellectual person is +different. I am perfectly well and happy here. And it will be so nice to +look forward." + +She was not aware how Lady Maria's suggestions had "sunk in." She would +probably have reached the same conclusion without their having been +made, but since they had been made, they had assisted her. There was one +thing of all others she felt she could not possibly bear, which was to +realise that she herself could bring to her James's face an expression +she had once or twice seen others bring there (Captain Osborn +notably),--an expression of silent boredom on the verge of irritation. +Even radiant domestic joy might not be able to overrule this, if just at +this particular juncture he found himself placed in the position of a +man whom decency compelled to take the next steamer to England. + +If she had felt tenderly towards Hester Osborn before, the feeling was +now increased tenfold. She went to see her oftener, she began to try to +persuade her to come and stay at Palstrey. She was all the more kind +because Hester seemed less well, and was in desperate ill spirits. Her +small face had grown thin and yellow, she had dark rings under her eyes, +and her little hands were hot and looked like bird's claws. She did not +sleep and had lost her appetite. + +"You must come and stay at Palstrey for a few days," Emily said to her. +"The mere change from one house to another may make you sleep better." + +But Hester was not inclined to avail herself of the invitation. She made +obstacles and delayed acceptance for one reason and another. She was, in +fact, all the more reluctant because her husband wished her to make the +visit. Their opposed opinions had resulted in one of their scenes. + +"I won't go," she had said at first. "I tell you I won't." + +"You will," he answered. "It will be better for you." + +"Will it be worse for me if I don't?" she laughed feverishly. "And how +will it be better for you if I do? I know you are in it." + +He lost his temper and was indiscreet, as his temper continually +betrayed him into being. + +"Yes, I am in it," he said through his teeth, "as you might have the +sense to see. Everything is the better for us that throws us with them, +and makes them familiar with the thought of us and our rights." + +"Our rights," the words were a shrill taunt. + +"What rights have you, likely to be recognised, unless you kill her. Are +you going to kill her?" + +He had a moment of insanity. + +"I'd kill her and you too if it was safe to do it. You both deserve it!" + +He flung across the room, having lost his wits as well as his temper. +But a second later both came back to him as in a revulsion of feeling. + +"I talk like a melodramatic fool," he cried. "Oh, Hester, forgive me!" +He knelt on the floor by her side, caressing her imploringly. "We both +take fire in the same way. We are both driven crazy by this damned blow. +We're beaten; we may as well own it and take what we can get. She's a +fool, but she's better than that pompous, stiff brute Walderhurst, and +she has a lot of pull over him he knows nothing about. The smug animal +is falling in love with her in his way. She can make him do the decent +thing. Let us keep friends with her." + +"The decent thing would be a thousand a year," wailed Hester, giving in +to his contrition in spite of herself, because she had once been in love +with him, and because she was utterly helpless. "Five hundred a year +wouldn't be indecent." + +"Let us keep on her good side," he said, fondling her, with a relieved +countenance. "Tell her you will come and that she is an angel, and that +you are sure a visit to the Manor will save your life." + +They went to Palstrey a few days later. Ameerah accompanied them in +attendance upon her mistress, and the three settled down into a life so +regular that it scarcely seemed to wear the aspect of a visit. The +Osborns were given some of the most beautiful and convenient rooms in +the house. No other visitors were impending and the whole big place was +at their disposal. Hester's boudoir overlooked the most perfect nooks of +garden, and its sweet chintz draperies and cushions and books and +flowers made it a luxurious abode of peace. + +"What shall I do," she said on the first evening in it as she sat in a +soft chair by the window, looking out at the twilight and talking to +Emily. "What shall I do when I must go away?" + +"I don't mean only from here,--I mean away from England, to loathly +India." + +"Do you dislike it so?" Emily asked, roused to a new conception of her +feeling by her tone. + +"I could never describe to you how much," fiercely. "It is like going to +the place which is the opposite of Heaven." + +"I did not know that," pityingly. "Perhaps--I wonder if something might +not be done: I must talk to my husband." + +Ameerah seemed to develop an odd fancy for the society of Jane Cupp, +which Jane was obliged to confess to her mistress had a tendency to +produce in her system "the creeps." + +"You must try to overcome it, Jane," Lady Walderhurst said. "I'm afraid +it's because of her colour. I've felt a little silly and shy about her +myself, but it isn't nice of us. You ought to read 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' +and all about that poor religious Uncle Tom, and Legree, and Eliza +crossing the river on the blocks of ice." + +"I have read it twice, your ladyship," was Jane's earnestly regretful +response, "and most awful it is, and made me and mother cry beyond +words. And I suppose it is the poor creature's colour that's against +her, and I'm trying to be kind to her, but I must own that she makes me +nervous. She asks me such a lot of questions in her queer way, and +stares at me so quiet. She actually asked me quite sudden the other day +if I loved the big Mem Sahib. I didn't know what she _could_ mean at +first, but after a while I found out it was her Indian way of meaning +your ladyship, and she didn't intend disrespect, because she spoke of +you most humble afterwards, and called his lordship the Heaven born." + +"Be as kind as you can to her, Jane," instructed her mistress. "And take +her a nice walk occasionally. I daresay she feels very homesick here." + +What Ameerah said to her mistress was that these English servant women +were pigs and devils, and could conceal nothing from those who chose to +find out things from them. If Jane had known that the Ayah could have +told her of every movement she made during the day or night, of her +up-gettings and down-lyings, of the hour and moment of every service +done for the big Mem Sahib, of why and how and when and where each thing +was done, she would have been frightened indeed. + +One day, it is true, she came into Lady Walderhurst's sleeping apartment +to find Ameerah standing in the middle of it looking round its contents +with restless, timid, bewildered eyes. She wore, indeed, the manner of +an alarmed creature who did not know how she had got there. + +"What are you doing here?" demanded Jane. "You have no right in this +part of the house. You're taking a great liberty, and your mistress will +be angry." + +"My Mem Sahib asked for a book," the Ayah quite shivered in her alarmed +confusion. "Your Mem Sahib said it was here. They did not order me, but +I thought I would come to you. I did not know it was forbidden." + +"What was the book?" inquired Jane severely. "I will take it to her +ladyship." + +But Ameerah was so frightened that she had forgotten the name, and when +Jane knocked at the door of Mrs. Osborn's boudoir, it was empty, both +the ladies having gone into the garden. + +But Ameerah's story was quite true, Lady Walderhurst said in the evening +when Jane spoke of the matter as she dressed her for dinner. They had +been speaking of a book containing records of certain historical +Walderhursts. It was one Emily had taken from the library to read in her +bedroom. + +"We did not ask her to go for it. In fact I did not know the woman was +within hearing. She moves about so noiselessly one frequently does not +know when she is near. Of course she meant very well, but she does not +know our English ways." + +"No, my lady, she does not," said Jane, respectfully but firmly. "I took +the liberty of telling her she must keep to her own part of the house +unless required by your ladyship." + +"You mustn't frighten the poor creature," laughed her mistress. She was +rather touched indeed by the slavish desire to please and do service +swiftly which the Ayah's blunder seemed to indicate. She had wished to +save her mistress even the trouble of giving the order. That was her +Oriental way, Emily thought, and it was very affectionate and +child-like. + +Being reminded of the book again, she carried it down herself into the +drawing-room. It was a volume she was fond of because it recorded +romantic stories of certain noble dames of Walderhurst lineage. + +Her special predilection was a Dame Ellena, who, being left with but few +servitors in attendance during her lord's absence from his castle on a +foraging journey into an enemy's country, had defended the stronghold +boldly against the attack of a second enemy who had adroitly seized the +opportunity to forage for himself. In the cellars had been hidden +treasure recently acquired by the usual means, and knowing this, Dame +Ellena had done splendid deeds, marshalling her small forces in such way +as deceived the attacking party and showing herself in scorn upon the +battlements, a fierce, beauteous woman about to give her lord an heir, +yet fearing naught, and only made more fierce and full of courage by +this fact. The son, born but three weeks later, had been the most +splendid and savage fighter of his name, and a giant in build and +strength. + +"I suppose," Emily said when they discussed the legend after dinner, "I +suppose she felt that she could do _anything_," with her italics. "I +daresay _nothing_ could make her afraid, but the thought that something +might go wrong while her husband was away. And strength was given her." + +She was so thrilled that she got up and walked across the room with +quite a fine sweep of heroic movement in her momentary excitement. She +held her head up and smiled with widening eyes. + +But she saw Captain Osborn drag at his black moustache to hide an +unattractive grin, and she was at once abashed into feeling silly and +shy. She sat down again with awkward self-consciousness. + +"I'm afraid I'm making you laugh at me," she apologised, "but that story +always gives me such a romantic feeling. I like her so." + +"Oh! not at all, not all," said Osborn. "I was not laughing really; oh +no!" + +But he had been, and had been secretly calling her a sentimental, +ramping idiot. + +It was a great day for Jane Cupp when her mother arrived at Palstrey +Manor. It was a great day for Mrs. Cupp also. When she descended from +the train at the little country station, warm and somewhat flushed by +her emotions and the bugled splendours of her best bonnet and black silk +mantle, the sight of Jane standing neatly upon the platform almost +overcame her. Being led to his lordship's own private bus, and seeing +her trunk surrounded by the attentions of an obsequious station-master +and a liveried young man, she was conscious of concealing a flutter with +dignified reserve. + +"My word, Jane!" she exclaimed after they had taken their seats in the +vehicle. "My word, you look as accustomed to it as if you had been born +in the family." + +But it was when, after she had been introduced to the society in the +servants' hall, she was settled in her comfortable room next to Jane's +own that she realised to the full that there were features of her +position which marked it with importance almost startling. As Jane +talked to her, the heat of the genteel bonnet and beaded mantle had +nothing whatever to do with the warmth which moistened her brow. + +"I thought I'd keep it till I saw you, mother," said the girl +decorously. "I know what her ladyship feels about being talked over. If +I was a lady myself, I shouldn't like it. And I know how deep you'll +feel it, that when the doctor advised her to get an experienced married +person to be at hand, she said in that dear way of hers, 'Jane, if your +uncle could spare your mother, how I should like to have her. I've never +forgot her kindness in Mortimer Street.'" + +Mrs. Cupp fanned her face with a handkerchief of notable freshness. + +"If she was Her Majesty," she said, "she couldn't be more sacred to me, +nor me more happy to be allowed the privilege." + +Jane had begun to put her mother's belongings away. She was folding and +patting a skirt on the bed. She fussed about a little nervously and then +lifted a rather embarrassed face. + +"I'm glad you _are_ here, mother," she said. "I'm thankful to _have_ +you!" + +Mrs. Cupp ceased fanning and stared at her with a change of expression. +She found herself involuntarily asking her next question in a half +whisper. + +"Why, Jane, what is it?" + +Jane came nearer. + +"I don't know," she answered, and her voice also was low. "Perhaps I'm +silly and overanxious, because I _am_ so fond of her. But that Ameerah, +I actually dream about her." + +"What! The black woman?" + +"If I was to say a word, or if you did, and we was wrong, how should we +feel? I've kept my nerves to myself till I've nearly screamed sometimes. +And my lady would be so hurt if she knew. But--well," in a hurried +outburst, "I do wish his lordship was here, and I do wish the Osborns +wasn't. I do wish it, I tell you that." + +"Good Lord!" cried Mrs. Cupp, and after staring with alarmed eyes a +second or so, she wiped a slight dampness from her upper lip. + +She was of the order of female likely to take a somewhat melodramatic +view of any case offering her an opening in that direction. + +"Jane!" she gasped faintly, "do you think they'd try to take her life?" + +"Goodness, no!" ejaculated Jane, with even a trifle of impatience. +"People like them daren't. But suppose they was to try to, well, to +upset her in some way, what a thing for them it would be." + +After which the two women talked together for some time in whispers, +Jane bringing a chair to place opposite her mother's. They sat knee to +knee, and now and then Jane shed a tear from pure nervousness. She was +so appalled by the fear of making a mistake which, being revealed by +some chance, would bring confusion upon and pain of mind to her lady. + +"At all events," was Mrs. Cupp's weighty observation when their +conference was at an end, "here we both are, and two pairs of eyes and +ears and hands and legs is a fat lot better than one, where there's +things to be looked out for." + +Her training in the matter of subtlety had not been such as Ameerah's, +and it may not be regarded as altogether improbable that her observation +of the Ayah was at times not too adroitly concealed, but if the native +woman knew that she was being remarked, she gave no sign of her +knowledge. She performed her duties faithfully and silently, she gave no +trouble, and showed a gentle subservience and humbleness towards the +white servants which won immense approbation. Her manner towards Mrs. +Cupp's self was marked indeed by something like a tinge of awed +deference, which, it must be confessed, mollified the good woman, and +awakened in her a desire to be just and lenient even to the dark of skin +and alien of birth. + +"She knows her betters when she sees them, and has pretty enough manners +for a black," the object of her respectful obeisances remarked. "I +wonder if she's ever heard of her Maker, and if a little brown Testament +with good print wouldn't be a good thing to give her?" + +This boon was, in fact, bestowed upon her as a gift. Mrs. Cupp bought it +for a shilling at a small shop in the village. Ameerah, in whose dusky +being was incorporated the occult faith of lost centuries, and whose +gods had been gods through mystic ages, received the fat, little brown +book with down-dropped lids and grateful obeisance. These were her words +to her mistress: + +"The fat old woman with protruding eyes bestowed it upon me. She says it +is the book of her god. She has but one. She wishes me to worship him. +Am I a babe to worship such a god as would please her. She is old, and +has lost her mind." + +Lady Walderhurst's health continued all that could be desired. She arose +smiling in the morning, and bore her smile about with her all day. She +walked much in the gardens, and spent long, happy hours sewing in her +favourite sitting-room. Work which she might have paid other women to +do, she did with her own hands for the mere sentimental bliss of it. +Sometimes she sat with Hester and sewed, and Hester lay on a sofa and +stared at her moving hands. + +"You know how to do it, don't you?" she once said. + +"I was obliged to sew for myself when I was so poor, and this is +delightful," was Emily's answer. + +"But you could buy it all and save yourself the trouble." + +Emily stroked her bit of cambric and looked awkward. + +"I'd rather not," she said. + +Well as she was, she began to think she did not sleep quite so soundly +as had been habitual with her. She started up in bed now and again as if +she had been disturbed by some noise, but when she waited and listened +she heard nothing. At least this happened on two or three occasions. And +then one night, having been lying folded in profound, sweet sleep, she +sprang up in the black darkness, wakened by an actual, physical reality +of sensation, the soft laying of a hand upon her naked side,--that, and +nothing else. + +"What is that? Who is there?" she cried. "Someone is in the room!" + +Yes, someone was there. A few feet from her bed she heard a sobbing +sigh, then a rustle, then followed silence. She struck a match and, +getting up, lighted candles. Her hand shook, but she remembered that she +must be firm with herself. + +"I must not be nervous," she said, and looked the room over from end to +end. + +But it contained no living creature, nor any sign that living creature +had entered it since she had lain down to rest. Gradually the fast +beating of her heart had slackened, and she passed her hand over her +face in bewilderment. + +"It wasn't like a dream at all," she murmured; "it really wasn't. I +_felt_ it." + +Still as absolutely nothing was to be found, the sense of reality +diminished somewhat, and being so healthy a creature, she regained her +composure, and on going back to bed slept well until Jane brought her +early tea. + +Under the influence of fresh morning air and sunlight, of ordinary +breakfast and breakfast talk with the Osborns, her first convictions +receded so far that she laughed a little as she related the incident. + +"I never had such a real dream in my life," she said; "but it must have +been a dream." + +"One's dreams are very real sometimes," said Hester. + +"Perhaps it was the Palstrey ghost," Osborn laughed. "It came to you +because you ignore it." He broke off with a slight sudden start and +stared at her a second questioningly. "Did you say it put its hand on +your side?" he asked. + +"Don't tell her silly things that will frighten her. How ridiculous of +you," exclaimed Hester sharply. "It's not proper." + +Emily looked at both of them wonderingly. + +"What do you mean?" she said. "I don't believe in ghosts. It won't +frighten me, Hester. I never even heard of a Palstrey ghost." + +"Then I am not going to tell you of one," said Captain Osborn a little +brusquely, and he left his chair and went to the sideboard to cut cold +beef. + +He kept his back towards them, and his shoulders looked uncommunicative +and slightly obstinate. Hester's face was sullen. Emily thought it sweet +of her to care so much, and turned upon her with grateful eyes. + +"I was only frightened for a few minutes, Hester," she said. "My dreams +are not vivid at all, usually." + +But howsoever bravely she ignored the shock she had received, it was not +without its effect, which was that occasionally there drifted into her +mind a recollection of the suggestion that Palstrey had a ghost. She had +never heard of it, and was in fact of an orthodoxy so ingenuously entire +as to make her feel that belief in the existence of such things was a +sort of defiance of ecclesiastical laws. Still, such stories were often +told in connection with old places, and it was natural to wonder what +features marked this particular legend. Did it lay hands on people's +sides when they were asleep? Captain Osborn had asked his question as if +with a sudden sense of recognition. But she would not let herself think +of the matter, and she would not make inquiries. + +The result was that she did not sleep well for several nights. She was +annoyed at herself, because she found that she kept lying awake as if +listening or waiting. And it was not a good thing to lose one's sleep +when one wanted particularly to keep strong. + +Jane Cupp during this week was, to use her own words, "given quite a +turn" by an incident which, though a small matter, might have proved +untoward in its results. + +The house at Palstrey, despite its age, was in a wonderful state of +preservation, the carved oak balustrades of the stairways being +considered particularly fine. + +"What but Providence," said Jane piously, in speaking to her mother the +next morning, "made me look down the staircase as I passed through the +upper landing just before my lady was going down to dinner. What but +Providence I couldn't say. It certainly wasn't because I've done it +before that I remember. But just that one evening I was obliged to cross +the landing for something, and my eye just lowered itself by accident, +and there it was!" + +"Just where it would have tripped her up. Good Lord! it makes my heart +turn over to hear you tell it. How big a bit of carving was it?" Mrs. +Cupp's opulent chest trimmings heaved. + +"Only a small piece that had broken off from old age and worm-eatenness, +I suppose, but it had dropped just where she wouldn't have caught sight +of it, and ten to one would have stepped on it and turned her ankle and +been thrown from the top to the bottom of the whole flight. Suppose I +_hadn't_ seen it in time to pick it up before she went down. Oh, dear! +Oh, dear! Mother!" + +"I should say so!" Mrs. Cupp's manner approached the devout. This +incident it was which probably added to Jane's nervous sense of +responsibility. She began to watch her mistress's movements with +hyper-sensitive anxiety. She fell into the habit of going over her +bedroom two or three times a day, giving a sort of examination to its +contents. + +"Perhaps I'm so fond of her that it's making me downright silly," she +said to her mother; "but it seems as if I can't help it. I feel as if +I'd like to know everything she does, and go over the ground to make +sure of it before she goes anywhere. I'm so proud of her, mother; I'm +just as proud as if I was some connection of the family, instead of just +her maid. It'll be such a splendid thing if she keeps well and +everything goes as it should. Even people like us can see what it means +to a gentleman that can go back nine hundred years. If I was Lady Maria +Bayne, I'd be here and never leave her. I tell you nothing could drive +me from her." + +"You are well taken care of," Hester had said. "That girl is devoted to +you. In her lady's maid's way she'd fight for your life." + +"I think she is as faithful to me as Ameerah is to you," Emily answered. +"I feel sure Ameerah would fight for you." + +Ameerah's devotion in these days took the form of a deep-seated hatred +of the woman whom she regarded as her mistress's enemy. + +"It is an evil thing that she should take this place," she said. "She is +an old woman. What right hath she to think she may bear a son. Ill luck +will come of it. She deserves any ill fortune which may befall her." + +"Sometimes," Lady Walderhurst once said to Osborn, "I feel as if Ameerah +disliked me. She looks at me in such a curious, stealthy way." + +"She is admiring you," was his answer. "She thinks you are something a +little supernatural, because you are so tall and have such a fresh +colour." + +There was in the park at Palstrey Manor a large ornamental pool of +water, deep and dark and beautiful because of the age and hugeness of +the trees which closed around it, and the water plants which encircled +and floated upon it. White and yellow flags and brown velvet rushes grew +thick about its edge, and water-lilies opened and shut upon its surface. +An avenue of wonderful limes led down to a flight of mossy steps, by +which in times gone by people had descended to the boat which rocked +idly in the soft green gloom. There was an island on it, on which roses +had been planted and left to run wild; early in the year daffodils and +other spring flowers burst up through the grass and waved scented heads. +Lady Walderhurst had discovered the place during her honeymoon, and had +loved it fondly ever since. The avenue leading to it was her favourite +walk; a certain seat under a tree on the island her favourite +resting-place. + +"It is so still there," she had said to the Osborns. "No one ever goes +there but myself. When I have crossed the little old bridge and sit down +among the greenness with my book or work, I feel as if there was no +world at all. There is no sound but the rustle of the leaves and the +splash of the moor-hens who come to swim about. They don't seem to be +afraid of me, neither do the thrushes and robins. They know I shall only +sit still and watch them. Sometimes they come quite near." + +She used, in fact, to take her letter-writing and sewing to the sweet, +secluded place and spend hours of pure, restful bliss. It seemed to her +that her life became more lovely day by day. + +[Illustration: Hester Osborn] + +Hester did not like the pool. She thought it too lonely and silent. She +preferred her beflowered boudoir or the sunny garden. Sometimes in these +days she feared to follow her own thoughts. She was being pushed--pushed +towards the edge of her precipice, and it was only the working of Nature +that she should lose her breath and snatch at strange things to stay +herself. Between herself and her husband a sort of silence had grown. +There were subjects of which they never spoke, and yet each knew that +the other's mind was given up to thought of them day and night. There +were black midnight hours when Hester, lying awake in her bed, knew that +Alec lay awake in his also. She had heard him many a time turn over with +a caught breath and a smothered curse. She did not ask herself what he +was thinking of. She knew. She knew because she was thinking of the same +things herself. Of big, fresh, kind Emily Walderhurst lost in her dreams +of exultant happiness which never ceased to be amazed and grateful to +prayerfulness; of the broad lands and great, comfortable houses; of all +it implied to be the Marquis of Walderhurst or his son; of the long, +sickening voyage back to India; of the hopeless muddle of life in an +ill-kept bungalow; of wretched native servants, at once servile and +stubborn and given to lies and thefts. More than once she was forced to +turn on her face that she might smother her frenzied sobs in her pillow. + +It was on such a night--she had awakened from her sleep to notice such +stillness in Osborn's adjoining room, that she thought him profoundly +asleep--that she arose from her bed to go and sit at her open window. + +She had not been seated there many minutes before she became singularly +conscious, she did not know how, of some presence near her among the +bushes in the garden below. It had indeed scarcely seemed to be sound or +movement which had attracted her attention, and yet it must have been +one or both, for she involuntarily turned to a particular spot. + +Yes, something, someone, was standing in a corner, hidden by shrubbery. +It was the middle of the night, and people were meeting. She sat still +and almost breathless. She could hear nothing and saw nothing but, +between the leafage, a dim gleam of white. Only Ameerah wore white. +After a few seconds' waiting she began to think a strange thing, though +she presently realised that, taking all things into consideration, it +was not strange at all. She got up very noiselessly and stole into her +husband's room. He was not there; the bed was empty, though he had slept +there earlier in the night. + +She went back to her own bed and got into it again. In ten minutes' time +Captain Osborn crept upstairs and returned to bed also. Hester made no +sign and did not ask any questions. She knew he would have told her +nothing, and also she did not wish to hear. She had seen him speaking to +Ameerah in the lane a few days before, and now that he was meeting her +in the night she knew that she need not ask herself what the subject of +their consultation might be. But she looked haggard in the morning. + +Lady Walderhurst herself did not look well, For the last two or three +nights she had been starting from her sleep again with that eerie +feeling of being wakened by someone at her bedside, though she had found +no one when she had examined the room on getting up. + +"I am sorry to say I am afraid I am getting a little nervous," she had +said to Jane Cupp. "I will begin to take valerian, though it is really +very nasty." + +Jane herself had a somewhat harried expression of countenance. She did +not mention to her mistress that for some days she had been faithfully +following a line of conduct she had begun to mark out for herself. She +had obtained a pair of list slippers and had been learning to go about +softly. She had sat up late and risen from her bed early, though she had +not been rewarded by any particularly marked discoveries. She had +thought, however, that she observed that Ameerah did not look at her as +much as had been her habit, and she imagined she rather avoided her. All +she said to Lady Walderhurst was: + +"Yes, my lady, mother thinks a great deal of valerian to quiet the +nerves. Will you have a light left in your room to-night, my lady?" + +"I am afraid I could not sleep with a light," her mistress answered. "I +am not used to one." + +She continued to sleep, disturbedly some nights, in the dark. She was +not aware that on some of the nights Jane Cupp either slept or laid +awake in the room nearest to her. Jane's own bedroom was in another part +of the house, but in her quiet goings about in the list shoes she now +and then saw things which made her nervously determined to be within +immediate call. + +"I don't say it isn't nerves, mother," she said, "and that I ain't silly +to feel so suspicious of all sorts of little things, but there's nights +when I couldn't stand it not to be quite near her." + + + + +Chapter Sixteen + + +The Lime Avenue was a dim, if lovely, place at twilight. When the sun +was setting, broad lances of gold slanted through the branches and +glorified the green spaces with mellow depths of light. But later, when +the night was drawing in, the lines of grey tree-trunks, shadowed and +canopied by boughs, suggested to the mind the pillars of some ruined +cathedral, desolate and ghostly. + +Jane Cupp, facing the gloom of it during her lady's dinner-hour, and +glancing furtively from side to side as she went, would have been awed +by the grey stillness, even if she had not been in a timorous mood to +begin with. In the first place, the Lime Avenue, which was her +ladyship's own special and favourite walk, was not the usual promenade +of serving-maids. Even the gardeners seldom set foot in it unless to +sweep away dead leaves and fallen wood. Jane herself had never been here +before. This evening she had gone absolutely because she was following +Ameerah. + +She was following Ameerah because, during the afternoon tea-hour in the +servants' hall, she had caught a sentence or so in the midst of a +gossiping story, which had made her feel that she should be unhappy if +she did not go down the walk and to the water-side,--see the water, the +boat, the steps, everything. + +"My word, mother!" she had said, "it's a queer business for a +respectable girl that's maid in a great place to be feeling as if she +had to watch black people, same as if she was in the police, and not +daring to say a word; for if I did say a word, Captain Osborn's clever +enough to have me sent away from here in a jiffy. And the worst of it +is," twisting her hands together, "there _mayn't_ be _anything_ going on +really. If they were as innocent as lambs they couldn't act any +different; and just the same, things _might_ have happened by accident." + +"That's the worst of it," was Mrs. Cupp's fretted rejoinder. "Any old +piece of carving might have dropped out of a balustrade, and any lady +that wasn't well might have nightmare and be disturbed in her sleep." + +"Yes," admitted Jane, anxiously, "that is the worst of it. Sometimes I +feel so foolish I'm all upset with myself." + +The gossip in servants' halls embraces many topics. In country houses +there is naturally much to be said of village incidents, of the scandals +of cottages and the tragedies of farms. This afternoon, at one end of +the table the talk had been of a cottage scandal which had verged on +tragedy. A handsome, bouncing, flaunting village girl had got into that +"trouble" which had been anticipated for her by both friends and enemies +for some time. Being the girl she was, much venomous village social stir +had resulted. It had been predicted that she would "go up to London," or +that she would drown herself, having an impudent high spirit which +brought upon her much scornful and derisive flouting on her evil day. +The manor servants knew a good deal of her, because she had been for a +while a servant at The Kennel Farm, and had had a great fancy for +Ameerah, whom it had pleased her to make friends with. When she fell +suddenly ill, and for days lay at the point of death, there was a +stealthy general opinion that Ameerah, with her love spells and potions, +could have said much which might have been enlightening, if she had +chosen. The girl had been in appalling danger. The village doctor, who +had been hastily called in, had at one moment declared that life had +left her body. It was, in fact, only Ameerah who had insisted that she +was not dead. After a period of prostration, during which she seemed a +corpse, she had slowly come back to earthly existence. The graphic +descriptions of the scenes by her bedside, of her apparent death, her +cold and bloodless body, her lagging and ghastly revival to +consciousness, aroused in the servants' hall a fevered interest. Ameerah +was asked questions, and gave such answers as satisfied herself if not +her interlocutors. She was perfectly aware of the opinions of her fellow +servitors. She knew all about them while they knew nothing whatsoever +about her. Her limited English could be used as a means of baffling +them. She smiled, and fell into Hindustani when she was pressed. + +Jane Cupp heard both questions and answers. Ameerah professed to know +nothing but such things as the whole village knew. Towards the end of +the discussion, however, in a mixture of broken English and Hindustani, +she conveyed that she had believed that the girl would drown herself. +Asked why, she shook her head, then said that she had seen her by the +Mem Sahib's lake at the end of the trees. She had asked if the water was +deep enough, near the bridge, to drown. Ameerah had answered that she +did not know. + +There was a general exclamation. They all knew it was deep there. The +women shuddered as they remembered how deep they had been told it was at +that particular spot. It was said that there was no bottom to it. +Everybody rather revelled in the gruesomeness of the idea of a +bottomless piece of water. Someone remembered that there was a story +about it. As much as ninety years ago two young labourers on the place +had quarrelled about a young woman. One day, in the heat of jealous rage +one had seized the other and literally thrown him into the pond. He had +never been found. No drags could reach his body. He had sunk into the +blackness for ever. + +Ameerah sat at the table with downcast eyes. She had a habit of sitting +silent with dropped eyes, which Jane could not bear. As she drank her +tea she watched her in spite of herself. + +After a few minutes had passed, her appetite for bread and butter +deserted her. She got up and left the hall, looking pale. + +The mental phases through which she went during the afternoon ended in +her determination to go down the avenue and to the water's side this +evening. It could be done while her ladyship and her guests were at +dinner. This evening the Vicar and his wife and daughter were dining at +the Manor. + +Jane took in emotionally all the mysterious silence and dimness of the +long tree-pillared aisle, and felt a tremor as she walked down it, +trying to hold herself in hand by practical reflections half whispered. + +"I'm just going to have a look, to make sure," she said, "silly or not. +I've got upset through not being able to help watching that woman, and +the way to steady my nerves is to make sure I'm just giving in to +foolishness." + +She walked as fast as she could towards the water. She could see its +gleam in the dim light, but she must pass a certain tree before she +could see the little bridge itself. + +"My goodness! What's that?" she said suddenly. It was something white, +which rose up as if from the ground, as if from the rushes growing at +the water's edge. + +Just a second Jane stood, and choked, and then suddenly darted forward, +running as fast as she could. The white figure merely moved slowly away +among the trees. It did not run or seem startled, and as Jane ran she +caught it by its white drapery, and found herself, as she had known she +would, dragging at the garments of Ameerah. But Ameerah only turned +round and greeted her with a welcoming smile, mild enough to damp any +excitement. + +"What are you doing here?" Jane demanded. "Why do you come to this +place?" + +Ameerah answered her with simple fluency in Hindustani, with her manner +of not realising that she was speaking to a foreigner who could not +understand her. What she explained was that, having heard that Jane's +Mem Sahib came here to meditate on account of the stillness, she herself +had formed the habit of coming to indulge in prayer and meditation when +the place was deserted for the day. She commended the place to Jane, and +to Jane's mother, whom she believed to be holy persons given to +devotional exercises. Jane shook her. + +"I don't understand a word you say," she cried. "You know I don't. Speak +in English." + +Ameerah shook her head slowly, and smiled again with patience. She +endeavoured to explain in English which Jane was sure was worse than she +had ever heard her use before. Was it forbidden that a servant should +come to the water? + +She was far too much for Jane, who was so unnerved that she burst into +tears. + +"You are up to some wickedness," she sobbed; "I know you are. You're +past bearing. I'm going to write to people that's got the right to do +what I daren't. I'm going back to that bridge." + +Ameerah looked at her with a puzzled amiability for a few seconds. She +entered into further apologies and explanations in Hindustani. In the +midst of them her narrow eyes faintly gleamed, and she raised a hand. + +"They come to us. It is your Mem Sahib and her people. Hear them." + +She spoke truly. Jane had miscalculated as to her hour, or the time +spent at the dinner-table had been shorter than usual. In fact, Lady +Walderhurst had brought her guests to see the young moon peer through +the lime-trees, as she sometimes did when the evening was warm. + +Jane Cupp fled precipitately. Ameerah disappeared also, but without +precipitation or any sign of embarrassment. + + * * * * * + +"You look as if you had not slept well, Jane," Lady Walderhurst remarked +in the morning as her hair was being brushed. She had glanced into the +glass and saw that it reflected a pale face above her own, and that the +pale face had red rims to its eyes. + +"I have been a bit troubled by a headache, my lady," Jane answered. + +"I have something like a headache myself." Lady Walderhurst's voice had +not its usual cheerful ring. Her own eyes looked heavy. "I did not rest +well. I have not rested well for a week. That habit of starting from my +sleep feeling that some sound has disturbed me is growing on me. Last +night I dreamed again that someone touched my side. I think I shall be +obliged to send for Sir Samuel Brent." + +"My lady," exclaimed Jane feverishly, "if you would--if you would." + +Lady Walderhurst's look at her was nervous and disturbed. + +"Do you--does your mother think I am not as well as I should be, Jane?" +she said. + +Jane's hands were actually trembling. + +"Oh no, my lady. Oh no! But if Sir Samuel could be sent for, or Lady +Maria Bayne, or--or his lordship--" + +The disturbed expression of Lady Walderhurst's face changed to something +verging on alarm. It was true that she began to be horribly frightened. +She turned upon Jane, pallor creeping over her skin. + +"Oh!" she cried, a sound of almost child-like fear and entreaty in her +voice. "I am sure you think I am ill, I am sure you do. What--what is +it?" + +She leaned forward suddenly and rested her forehead on her hands, her +elbows supported by the dressing-table. She was overcome by a shock of +dread. + +"Oh! if anything should go wrong!" in a faint half wail; "if anything +_could_ happen!" She could not bear the mere thought. It would break her +heart. She had been so happy. God had been so good. + +Jane was inwardly convulsed with contrition commingled with anger at her +own blundering folly. Now it was she herself who had "upset" her +ladyship, given her a fright that made her pale and trembling. What did +she not deserve for being such a thoughtless fool. She might have known. +She poured forth respectfully affectionate protestations. + +"Indeed, I beg your pardon, my lady. Indeed, it's only my silliness! +Mother was saying yesterday that she had never seen a lady so well and +in as good spirits. I have no right to be here if I make such mistakes. +Please, my lady--oh! might mother be allowed to step in a minute to +speak to you?" + +Emily's colour came, back gradually. When Jane went to her mother, Mrs. +Cupp almost boxed her ears. + +"That's just the way with girls," she said. "No more sense than a pack +of cats. If you can't keep quiet you'd better just give up. Of course +she'd think you meant they was to be sent for because we was certain she +was a dying woman. Oh my! Jane Cupp, get away!" + +She enjoyed her little interview with Lady Walderhurst greatly. A woman +whose opinion was of value at such a time had the soundest reasons for +enjoying herself. When she returned to her room, she sat and fanned +herself with a pocket handkerchief and dealt judicially with Jane. + +"What we've got to do," she said, "is to think, and think we will. Tell +her things outright we must not, until we've got something sure and +proved. Then we can call on them that's got the power in their hands. We +can't call on them till we can show them a thing no one can't deny. As +to that bridge, it's old enough to be easy managed, and look accidental +if it broke. You say she ain't going there to-day. Well, this very +night, as soon as it's dark enough, you and me will go down and have a +look at it. And what's more, we'll take a man with us. Judd could be +trusted. Worst comes to worst, we're only taking the liberty of making +sure it's safe, because we know it _is_ old and we're over careful." + +As Jane had gathered from her, by careful and apparently incidental +inquiry, Emily had had no intention of visiting her retreat. In the +morning she had, in fact, not felt quite well enough. Her nightmare had +shaken her far more on its second occurring. The stealthy hand had +seemed not merely to touch, but to grip at her side, and she had been +physically unable to rise for some minutes after her awakening. This +experience had its physical and mental effects on her. + +She did not see Hester until luncheon, and after luncheon she found her +to be in one of her strange humours. She was often in these strange +humours at this time. She wore a nervous and strained look, and +frequently seemed to have been crying. She had new lines on her forehead +between the eyebrows. Emily had tried in vain to rouse and cheer her +with sympathetic feminine talk. There were days when she felt that for +some reason Hester did not care to see her. + +She felt it this afternoon, and not being herself at the high-water mark +of cheerfulness, she was conscious of a certain degree of +discouragement. She had liked her so much, she had wanted to be friends +with her and to make her life an easier thing, and yet she appeared +somehow to have failed. It was because she was so far from being a +clever woman. Perhaps she might fail in other things because she was not +clever. Perhaps she was never able to give to people what they wanted, +what they needed. A brilliant woman had such power to gain and hold +love. + +After an hour or so spent in trying to raise the mental temperature of +Mrs. Osborn's beflowered boudoir, she rose and picked up her little +work-basket. + +"Perhaps you would take a nap if I left you," she said. "I think I will +stroll down to the lake." + +She quietly stole away, leaving Hester on her cushions. + + + + +Chapter Seventeen + +A few minutes later a knock at the door being replied to by Hester's +curt "Come in!" produced the modest entry of Jane Cupp, who had come to +make a necessary inquiry of her mistress. "Her ladyship is not here; she +has gone out." Jane made an altogether involuntary step forward. Her +face became the colour of her clean white apron. + +"Out!" she gasped. + +Hester turned sharply round. + +"To the lake," she said. "What do you mean by staring in that way?" + +Jane did not tell her what she meant. She incontinently ran from the +room without any shadow of a pretence at a lady's maid's decorum. + +She fled through the rooms, to make a short cut to the door opening on +to the gardens. Through that she darted, and flew across paths and +flowerbeds towards the avenue of limes. + +"She shan't get to the bridge before me," she panted. "She shan't, she +shan't. I won't let her. Oh, if my breath will only hold out!" + +She did not reflect that gardeners would naturally think she had gone +mad. She thought of nothing whatever but the look in Ameerah's downcast +eyes when the servants had talked of the bottomless water,--the eerie, +satisfied, sly look. Of that, and of the rising of the white figure from +the ground last night she thought, and she clutched her neat side as she +ran. + +The Lime Avenue seemed a mile long, and yet when she was running down it +she saw Lady Walderhurst walking slowly under the trees carrying her +touching little basket of sewing in her hand. She was close to the +bridge. + +"My lady! my lady!" she gasped out as soon as she dared. She could not +run screaming all the way. "Oh, my lady! if you please!" + +Emily heard her and turned round. Never had she been much more amazed in +her life. Her maid, her well-bred Jane Cupp, who had not drawn an +indecorous breath since assuming her duties, was running after her +calling out to her, waving her hands, her face distorted, her voice +hysteric. + +Emily had been just on the point of stepping on to the bridge, her hand +had been outstretched towards the rail. She drew back a step in alarm +and stood staring. How strange everything seemed to-day. She began to +feel choked and trembling. + +A few seconds and Jane was upon her, clutching at her dress. She had so +lost her breath that she was almost speechless. + +"My lady," she panted. "Don't set foot on it; don't--don't, till we're +sure." + +"On--on what?" + +Then Jane realised how mad she looked, how insane the whole scene was, +and she gave way to her emotions. Partly through physical exhaustion and +breathlessness, and partly through helpless terror, she fell on her +knees. + +"The bridge!" she said. "I don't care what happens to me so that no harm +comes to you. There's things being plotted and planned that looks like +accidents. The bridge would look like an accident if part of it broke. +There's no bottom to the water. They were saying so yesterday, and _she_ +sat listening. I found her here last night." + +"She! Her!" Emily felt as if she was passing through another nightmare. + +"Ameerah," wailed poor Jane. "White ones have no chance against black. +Oh, my lady!" her sense of the possibility that she might be making a +fool of herself after all was nearly killing her. "I believe she would +drive you to your death if she could do it, think what you will of me." + +The little basket of needlework shook in Lady Walderhurst's hand. She +swallowed hard, and without warning sat down on the roots of a fallen +tree, her cheeks blanching slowly. + +"Oh Jane!" she said in simple woe and bewilderment. "I don't understand +any of it. How could--how _could_ they want to hurt me!" Her innocence +was so fatuous that she thought that because she had been kind to them +they could not hate or wish to injure her. + +But something for the first time made her begin to quail. She sat, and +tried to recover herself. She put out a shaking hand to the basket of +sewing. She could scarcely see it, because suddenly tears had filled her +eyes. + +"Bring one of the men here," she said, after a few moments. "Tell him +that I am a little uncertain about the safety of the bridge." + +She sat quite still while Jane was absent in search of the man. She held +her basket on her knee, her hand resting on it. Her kindly, slow-working +mind was wakening to strange thoughts. To her they seemed inhuman and +uncanny. Was it because good, faithful, ignorant Jane had been rather +nervous about Ameerah that she herself had of late got into a habit of +feeling as if the Ayah was watching and following her. She had been +startled more than once by finding her near when she had not been aware +of her presence. She had, of course, heard Hester say that native +servants often startled one by their silent, stealthy-seeming ways. But +the woman's eyes had frightened her. And she had heard the story about +the village girl. + +She sat, and thought, and thought. Her eyes were fixed upon the +moss-covered ground, and her breath came quickly and irregularly several +times. + +"I don't know what to do," she said. "I am sure--if it is true--I don't +know what to do." + +The under-gardener's heavy step and Jane's lighter one roused her. She +lifted her eyes to watch the pair as they came. He was a big, young man +with a simple rustic face and big shoulders and hands. + +"The bridge is so slight and old," she said to him, "that it has just +occurred to me that it might not be quite safe. Examine it carefully to +make sure." + +The young man touched his forehead and began to look the supports over. +Jane watched him with bated breath when he rose to his feet. + +"They're all right on this side, my lady," he said. "I shall have to get +in the boat to make sure of them that rest on the island." + +He stamped upon the end nearest and it remained firm. + +"Look at the railing well," said Lady Walderhurst. "I often stand and +lean on it and--and watch the sunset." + +She faltered at this point, because she had suddenly remembered that +this was a habit of hers, and that she had often spoken of it to the +Osborns. There was a point on the bridge at which, through a gap in the +trees, a beautiful sunset was always particularly beautiful. It was the +right-hand rail facing these special trees she rested on when she +watched the evening sky. + +The big, young gardener looked at the left-hand rail and shook it with +his strong hands. + +"That's safe enough," he said to Jane. + +"Try the other," said Jane. + +He tried the other. Something had happened to it. It broke in his big +grasp. His sunburnt skin changed colour by at least three shades. + +"Lord A'mighty!" Jane heard him gasp under his breath. He touched his +cap and looked blankly at Lady Walderhurst. Jane's heart seemed to +herself to roll over. She scarcely dared look at her mistress, but when +she took courage to do so, she found her so white that she hurried to +her side. + +"Thank you, Jane," she said rather faintly. "The sky is so lovely this +afternoon that I meant to stop and look at it. I should have fallen into +the water, which they say has no bottom. No one would have seen or heard +me if you had not come." + +She caught Jane's hand and held it hard. Her eyes wandered over the +avenue of big trees, which no one but herself came near at this hour. It +would have been so lonely, so lonely! + +The gardener went away, still looking less ruddy than he had looked when +he arrived on the spot. Lady Walderhurst rose from her seat on the mossy +tree-trunk. She rose quite slowly. + +"Don't speak to me yet, Jane," she said. And with Jane following her at +a respectful distance, she returned to the house and went to her room to +lie down. + +There was nothing to prove that the whole thing was not mere chance, +mere chance. It was this which turned her cold. It was all impossible. +The little bridge had been entirely unused for so long a time, it had +been so slight a structure from the first; it was old, and she +remembered now that Walderhurst had once said that it must be examined +and strengthened if it was to be used. She had leaned upon the rail +often lately; one evening she had wondered if it seemed quite as steady +as usual. What could she say, whom could she accuse, because a piece of +rotten wood had given away. + +She started on her pillow. It was a piece of rotten wood which had +fallen from the balustrade upon the stairs, to be seen and picked up by +Jane just before she would have passed down on her way to dinner. And +yet, what would she appear to her husband, to Lady Maria, to anyone in +the decorous world, if she told them that she believed that in a +dignified English household, an English gentleman, even a deposed heir +presumptive, was working out a subtle plot against her such as might +adorn a melodrama? She held her head in her hands as her mind depicted +to her Lord Walderhurst's countenance, Lady Maria's dubious, amused +smile. + +"She would think I was hysterical," she cried, under her breath. "He +would think I was vulgar and stupid, that I was a fussy woman with +foolish ideas, which made him ridiculous. Captain Osborn is of his +family. I should be accusing him of being a criminal. And yet I might +have been in the bottomless pond, in the bottomless pond, and no one +would have known." + +If it all had not seemed so incredible to her, if she could have felt +certain herself, she would not have been overwhelmed with this sense of +being baffled, bewildered, lost. + +The Ayah who so loved Hester might hate her rival. A jealous native +woman might be capable of playing stealthy tricks, which, to her strange +mind, might seem to serve a proper end. Captain Osborn might not know. +She breathed again as this thought came to her. He could not know; it +would be too insane, too dangerous, too wicked. + +And yet, if she had been flung headlong down the staircase, if the fall +had killed her, where would have been the danger for the man who would +only have deplored a fatal accident. If she had leaned upon the rail and +fallen into the black depths of water below, what could have been blamed +but a piece of rotten wood. She touched her forehead with her +handkerchief because it felt cold and damp. There was no way out. Her +teeth chattered. + +"They may be as innocent as I am. And they may be murderers in their +hearts. I can prove nothing, I can prevent nothing. Oh! _do_ come home." + +There was but one thought which remained clear in her mind. She must +keep herself safe--she must keep herself safe. In the anguish of her +trouble she confessed, by putting it into words, a thing which she had +not confessed before, and even as she spoke she did not realise that her +words contained confession. + +"If I were to die now," she said with a touching gravity, "he would care +very much." + +A few moments later she said, "It does not matter what happens to me, +how ridiculous or vulgar or foolish I seem, if I can keep myself +safe--until after. I will write to him now and ask him to try to come +back." + +It was the letter she wrote after this decision which Osborn saw among +others awaiting postal, and which he stopped to examine. + + + + +Chapter Eighteen + + +Hester sat at the open window of her boudoir in the dark. She had +herself put out the wax candles, because she wanted to feel herself +surrounded by the soft blackness. She had sat through the dinner and +heard her husband's anxious inquiries about the rotten handrail, and had +watched his disturbed face and Emily's pale one. She herself had said +but little, and had been glad when the time came that she could decently +excuse herself and come away. + +As she sat in the darkness and felt the night breath of the flowers in +the garden, she was thinking of all the murderers she had ever heard of. +She was reflecting that some of them had been quite respectable people, +and that all of them must have lived through a period in which they +gradually changed from respectable people to persons in whose brains a +thought had worked which once they would have believed impossible to +them, which they might have scouted the idea of their giving room to. +She was sure the change must come about slowly. At first it would seem +too mad and ridiculous, a sort of angry joke. Then the angry joke would +return again and again, until at last they let it stay and did not laugh +at it, but thought it over. Such things always happened because some one +wanted, or did not want, something very much, something it drove them +mad to think of being forced to live without, or with. Men who hated a +woman and could not rid themselves of her, who hated the sight of her +face, her eyes, her hair, the sound of her voice and step, and were +rendered insane by her nearness and the thought that they never could be +free from any of these things, had before now, commonplace or +comparatively agreeable men, by degrees reached the point where a knife +or a shot or a heavy blow seemed not only possible but inevitable. +People who had been ill-treated, people who had faced horrors through +want and desire, had reached the moment in which they took by force what +Fate would not grant them. Her brain so whirled that she wondered if she +was not a little delirious as she sat in the stillness thinking such +strange things. + +For weeks she had been living under a strain so intense that her +feelings had seemed to cease to have any connection with what was +normal. + +She had known too much; and yet she had been certain of nothing at all. + +But she and Alec were like the people who began with a bad joke, and +then were driven and driven. It was impossible not to think of what +might come, and of what might be lost for ever. If the rail had not been +tried this afternoon, if big, foolish Emily Walderhurst had been lying +peacefully among the weeds to-night! + +"The end comes to everyone," she said. "It would have been all over in a +few minutes. They say it isn't really painful." + +Her lips quivered, and she pressed her hands tightly between her knees. + +"That's a murderer's thought," she muttered querulously. "And yet I +wasn't a bad girl to begin with." + +She began to see things. The chief thing was a sort of vision of how +Emily would have looked lying in the depths of the water among the +weeds. Her brown hair would have broken loose, and perhaps tangled +itself over her white face. Would her eyes be open and glazed, or half +shut? And her childish smile, the smile that looked so odd on the face +of a full-grown woman, would it have been fixed and seemed to confront +the world of life with a meek question as to what she had done to +people--why she had been drowned? Hester felt sure that was what her +helpless stillness would have expressed. + +How happy the woman had been! To see her go about with her unconsciously +joyous eyes had sometimes been maddening. And yet, poor thing! why had +she not the right to be happy? She was always trying to please people +and help them. She was so good that she was almost silly. The day she +had brought the little things from London to The Kennel Farm, Hester +remembered that, despite her own morbid resentment, she had ended by +kissing her with repentant tears. She heard again, in the midst of her +delirious thoughts, the nice, prosaic emotion of her voice as she said: + +"_Don't_ thank me--don't. Just let us _enjoy_ ourselves." + +And she might have been lying among the long, thick weeds of the pond. +And it would not have been the accident it would have appeared to be. Of +that she felt sure. Brought face to face with this definiteness of +situation, she began to shudder. + +She went out into the night feeling that she wanted air. She was not +strong enough to stand the realisation that she had become part of a web +into which she had not meant to be knitted. No; she had had her +passionate and desperate moments, but she had not meant things like +this. She had almost hoped that disaster might befall, she had almost +thought it possible that she would do nothing to prevent it--almost. But +some things were too bad. + +She felt small and young and hopelessly evil as she walked in the dark +along a grass path to a seat under a tree. The very stillness of the +night was a horror to her, especially when once an owl called, and again +a dreaming bird cried in its nest. + +She sat under the tree in the dark for at least an hour. The thick +shadow of the drooping branches hid her in actual blackness and +seclusion. + +She said to herself later that some one of the occult powers she +believed in had made her go out and sit in this particular spot, because +there was a thing which was not to be, and she herself must come +between. + +When she at last rose it was with panting breath. She stole back to her +room, and lighted with an unsteady hand a bedroom candle, whose flame +flickered upon a distorted, little dark face. For as she had sat under +the tree she had, after a while, heard whispering begin quite near her; +had caught, even in the darkness, a gleam of white, and had therefore +deliberately sat and listened. + + * * * * * + +There could be, to the purely normal geniality of Emily Walderhurst's +nature, no greater relief than the recognition that a cloud had passed +from the mood of another. + +When Hester appeared the next morning at the breakfast-table, she had +emerged from her humour of the day before and was almost affectionate in +her amiability. The meal at an end, she walked with Emily in the garden. + +She had never shown such interest in what pertained to her as she +revealed this morning. Something she had always before lacked Emily +recognised in her for the first time,--a desire to ask friendly +questions, to verge on the confidential. They talked long and without +reserve. And how pretty it was of the girl, Emily thought, to care so +much about her health and her spirits, to be so interested in the +details of her every-day life, even in the simple matter of the +preparation and serving of her food, as if the merest trifle was of +consequence. It had been unfair, too, to fancy that she felt no interest +in Walderhurst's absence and return. She had noticed everything closely, +and actually thought he ought to come back at once. + +"Send for him," she said quite suddenly; "send for him now." + +There was an eagerness expressed in the dark thinness of her face which +moved Emily. + +"It is dear of you to care so much, Hester," she said. "I didn't know +you thought it mattered." + +"He must come," said Hester. "That's all. Send for him." + +"I wrote a letter yesterday," was Lady Walderhurst's meek rejoinder. "I +got nervous." + +"So did I get nervous," said Hester; "so did I." + +That she was disturbed Emily could see. The little laugh she ended her +words with had an excited ring in it. + +During the Osborns' stay at Palstrey the two women had naturally seen a +good deal of each other, but for the next two days they were scarcely +separated at all. Emily, feeling merely cheered and supported by the +fact that Hester made herself so excellent a companion, was not aware of +two or three things. One was that Mrs. Osborn did not lose sight of her +unless at such times as she was in the hands of Jane Cupp. + +"I may as well make a clean breast of it," the young woman said. "I have +a sense of responsibility about you that I haven't liked to speak of +before. It's half hysterical, I suppose, but it has got the better of +me." + +"You feel responsible for _me_!" exclaimed Emily, with wondering eyes. + +"Yes, I do," she almost snapped. "You represent so much. Walderhurst +ought to be here. I'm not fit to take care of you." + +"I ought to be taking care of you," said Emily, with gentle gravity. "I +am the older and stronger. You are not nearly so well as I am." + +Hester startled her by bursting into tears. + +"Then do as I tell you," she said. "Don't go anywhere alone. Take Jane +Cupp with you. You have nearly had two accidents. Make Jane sleep in +your dressing-room." + +Emily felt a dreary chill creep over her. That which she had felt in the +air when she had slowly turned an amazed face upon Jane in the Lime +Avenue, that sense of the strangeness of things again closed her in. + +"I will do as you wish," she answered. + +But before the next day closed all was made plain to her, all the +awfulness, all the cruel, inhuman truth of things which seemed to lose +their possibility in the exaggeration of proportion which made their +incongruousness almost grotesque. + +The very prettiness of the flowered boudoir, the very softness of the +peace in the velvet spread of garden before the windows, made it even +more unreal. + +That day, the second one, Emily had begun to note the new thing. Hester +was watching her, Hester was keeping guard. And as she realised this, +the sense of the abnormalness of things grew, and fear grew with it. She +began to feel as if a wall were rising around her, built by unseen +hands. + +The afternoon, an afternoon of deeply golden sun, they had spent +together. They had read and talked. Hester had said most. She had told +stories of India,--curious, vivid, interesting stories, which seemed to +excite her. + +At the time when the sunlight took its deepest gold the tea-tray was +brought in. Hester had left the room a short time before the footman +appeared with it, carrying it with the air of disproportionate solemnity +with which certain male domestics are able to surround the smallest +service. The tea had been frequently served in Hester's boudoir of late. +During the last week, however, Lady Walderhurst's share of the meal had +been a glass of milk. She had chosen to take it because Mrs. Cupp had +suggested that tea was "nervous." Emily sat down at the table and filled +a cup for Hester. She knew she would return in a few moments, so set the +cup before Mrs. Osborn's place and waited. She heard the young woman's +footsteps outside, and as the door opened she lifted the glass of milk +to her lips. + +She was afterwards absolutely unable to describe to herself clearly what +happened the next moment. In fact, it was the next moment that she saw +Hester spring towards her, and the glass of milk had been knocked from +her hand and rolled, emptying itself, upon the floor. Mrs. Osborn stood +before her, clenching and unclenching her hands. + +"Have you drunk any of it?" she demanded. + +"No," Emily answered. "I have not." + +Hester Osborn dropped into a chair and leaned forward, covering her face +with her hands. She looked like a woman on the verge of an outbreak of +hysteria, only to be held in check by a frenzied effort. + +Lady Walderhurst, quite slowly, turned the colour of the milk itself. +But she did nothing but sit still and gaze at Hester. + +"Wait a minute." The girl was trying to recover her breath. "Wait till I +can hold myself still. I am going to tell you now. I am going to tell +you." + +"Yes," Emily answered faintly. + +It seemed to her that she waited twenty minutes before another word was +spoken, that she sat quite that long looking at the thin hands which +seemed to clutch the hidden face. This was a mistake arising from the +intensity of the strain upon her nerves. It was scarcely five minutes +before Mrs. Osborn lowered her hands and laid them, pressed tightly palm +to palm, between her knees. + +She spoke in a low voice, such a voice as a listener outside could not +have heard. + +"Do you know," she demanded, "what you represent to us--to me and to my +husband--as you sit there?" + +Emily shook her head. The movement of disclaimer was easier than speech. +She felt a sort of exhaustion. + +"I don't believe you do," said Hester. "You don't seem to realise +anything. Perhaps it's because you are so innocent, perhaps it's because +you are so foolish. You represent the thing that we have the right to +_hate_ most on earth." + +"Do _you_ hate me?" asked Emily, trying to adjust herself mentally to +the mad extraordinariness of the situation, and at the same time +scarcely understanding why she asked her question. + +"Sometimes I do. When I do not I wonder at myself." The girl paused a +second, looked down, as if questioningly, at the carpet, and then, +lifting her eyes again, went on in a dragging, half bewildered voice: +"When I do _not_, I actually believe it is because we are both--women +together. Before, it was different." + +The look which Walderhurst had compared to "that of some nice animal in +the Zoo" came into Emily's eyes as two honest drops fell from them. + +"Would _you_ hurt me?" she faltered. "Could _you_ let other people hurt +me?" + +Hester leaned further forward in her chair, widening upon her such +hysterically insistent, terrible young eyes as made her shudder. + +"Don't you _see_?" she cried. "_Can't_ you see? But for _you_ my son +would be what Walderhurst is--my son, not yours." + +"I understand," said Emily. "I understand." + +"Listen!" Mrs. Osborn went on through her teeth. "Even for that, there +are things I haven't the nerve to stand. I have thought I could stand +them. But I can't. It does not matter why. I am going to tell you the +truth. You represent too much. You have been too great a temptation. +Nobody meant anything or planned anything at first. It all came by +degrees. To see you smiling and enjoying everything and adoring that +stilted prig of a Walderhurst put ideas into people's heads, and they +grew because every chance fed them. If Walderhurst would come home--" + +Lady Walderhurst put out her hand to a letter which lay on the table. + +"I heard from him this morning," she said. "And he has been sent to the +Hills because he has a little fever. He must be quiet. So you see he +_cannot_ come yet." + +She was shivering, though she was determined to keep still. + +"What was in the milk?" she asked. + +"In the milk there was the Indian root Ameerah gave the village girl. +Last night as I sat under a tree in the dark I heard it talked over. +Only a few native women know it." + +There was a singular gravity in the words poor Lady Walderhurst spoke in +reply. + +"That," she said, "would have been the cruelest thing of all." + +Mrs. Osborn got up and came close to her. + +"If you had gone out on Faustine," she said, "you would have met with +_an accident_. It might or might not have killed you. But it would have +been an accident. If you had gone downstairs before Jane Cupp saw the +bit of broken balustrade you might have been killed--by accident again. +If you had leaned upon the rail of the bridge you would have been +drowned, and no human being could have been accused or blamed." + +Emily gasped for breath, and lifted her head as if to raise it above the +wall which was being slowly built round her. + +"Nothing will be done which can be proved," said Hester Osborn. "I have +lived among native people, and know. If Ameerah hated me and I could not +get rid of her I should die, and it would all seem quite natural." + +She bent down and picked up the empty glass from the carpet. + +"It is a good thing it did not break," she said, as she put it on the +tray. "Ameerah will think you drank the milk and that nothing will hurt +you. You escape them always. She will be frightened." + +As she said it she began to cry a little, like a child. + +"Nothing will save _me_," she said. "I shall have to go back, I shall +have to go back!" + +"No, no!" cried Emily. + +The girl swept away her tears with the back of a clenched hand. + +"At first, when I hated you," she was even petulant and plaintively +resentful, "I thought I could let it go on. I watched, and watched, and +bore it. But the strain was too great. I broke down. I think I broke +down one night, when something began to beat like a pulse against my +side." + +Emily got up and stood before her. She looked perhaps rather as she had +looked when she rose and stood before the Marquis of Walderhurst on a +memorable occasion, the afternoon on the moor. She felt almost quiet, +and safe. + +"What must I do?" she asked, as if she was speaking to a friend. "I am +afraid. Tell me." + +Little Mrs. Osborn stood still and stared at her. The most incongruous +thought came to her mind. She found herself, at this weird moment, +observing how well the woman held her stupid head, how finely it was set +on her shoulders, and that in a modern Royal Academy way she was rather +like the Venus of Milo. It is quite out of place to think such things at +such a time. But she found herself confronted with them. + +"Go away," she answered. "It is all like a thing in a play, but I know +what I am talking about. Say you are ordered abroad. Be cool and +matter-of-fact. Simply go and hide yourself somewhere, and call your +husband home as soon as he can travel." + +Emily Walderhurst passed her hand over her forehead. + +"It _is_ like something in a play," she said, with a baffled, wondering +face. "It isn't even respectable." + +Hester began to laugh. + +"No, it isn't even respectable," she cried. And her laughter was just in +time. The door opened and Alec Osborn came in. + +"What isn't respectable?" he asked. + +"Something I have been telling Emily," she answered, laughing even a +trifle wildly. "You are too young to hear such things. You must be kept +respectable at any cost." + +He grinned, but faintly scowled at the same time. + +"You've upset something," he remarked, looking at the carpet. + +"I have, indeed," said Hester. "A cup of tea which was half milk. It +will leave a grease spot on the carpet. That won't be respectable." + +When she had tumbled about among native servants as a child, she had +learned to lie quickly, and she was very ready of resource. + + + + +Chapter Nineteen + + +As she heard the brougham draw up in the wet street before the door, +Mrs. Warren allowed her book to fall closed upon her lap, and her +attractive face awakened to an expression of agreeable expectation, in +itself denoting the existence of interesting and desirable qualities in +the husband at the moment inserting his latch-key in the front door +preparatory to mounting the stairs and joining her. The man who, after +twenty-five years of marriage, can call, by his return to her side, this +expression to the countenance of an intelligent woman is, without +question or argument, an individual whose life and occupations are as +interesting as his character and points of view. + +Dr. Warren was of the mental build of the man whose life would be +interesting and full of outlook if it were spent on a desert island or +in the Bastille. He possessed the temperament which annexes incident and +adventure, and the perceptiveness of imagination which turns a light +upon the merest fragment of event. As a man whose days were filled with +the work attendant upon the exercise of a profession from which can be +withheld few secrets, and to which most mysteries explain themselves, +his brain was the recording machine of impressions which might have +stimulated to vividness of imagination a man duller than himself, and +roused to feeling one of far less warm emotions. + +He came into the room smiling. He was a man of fifty, of strong build, +and masculine. He had good shoulders and good colour, and the eyes, +nose, and chin of a man it would be a stupid thing to attempt to deal +with in a blackguardly manner. He sat down in his chair by the fire and +began to chat, as was his habit before he and his wife parted to dress +for dinner. When he was out during the day he often looked forward to +these chats, and made notes of things he would like to tell his Mary. +During her day, which was given to feminine duties and pleasures, she +frequently did the same thing. Between seven and eight in the evening +they had delightful conversational opportunities. He picked up her book +and glanced it over, he asked her a few questions and answered a few; +but she saw it was with a somewhat preoccupied manner. She knew a +certain remote look in his eye, and she waited to see him get up from +his chair and begin to walk to and fro, with his hands in his pockets +and his head thrown back. When, after having done this, he began in +addition to whistle softly and draw his eyebrows together, she broke in +upon him in the manner of merely following an established custom. + +"I am perfectly sure," was her remark, "that you have come upon one of +the Extraordinary Cases." + +The last two words were spoken as with inverted commas. Of many deep +interests he added to her existence, the Extraordinary Cases were among +the most absorbing. He had begun to discuss them with her during the +first year of their married life. Accident had thrown one of them into +her immediate personal experience, and her clear-headed comprehension +and sympathy in summing up singular evidence had been of such value to +him that he had turned to her in the occurrence of others for the aid +straightforward, mutual logic could give. She had learned to await the +Extraordinary Case with something like eagerness. Sometimes, it was +true, its incidents were painful; but invariably they were absorbing in +their interest, and occasionally illuminating beyond description. Of +names and persons it was not necessary she should hear anything--the +drama, the ethics, were enough. With an absolute respect for his +professional reserves, she asked no questions he could not reply to +freely, and avoided even the innocent following of clues. The +Extraordinary Case was always quite enough as it stood. When she saw the +remotely speculative look in his eye, she suspected one, when he left +his chair and paced the floor with that little air of restlessness, and +ended with unconscious whistling which was scarcely louder than a +breath, she felt that evidence enough had accumulated for her. + +He stopped and turned round. + +"My good Mary," he owned at once, "its extraordinariness consists in its +baffling me by being so perfectly ordinary." + +"Well, at least that is not frequent. What is its nature? Is it awful? +Is it sad? Is it eccentric? Is it mad or sane, criminal or domestic?" + +"It is nothing but suggestive, and that it suggests mystery to me makes +me feel as if I myself, instead of a serious practitioner, am a +professional detective." + +"Is it a case in which you might need help?" + +"It is a case in which I am impelled to give help, if it proves that it +is necessary. She is such an exceedingly nice woman." + +"Good, bad, or indifferent?" + +"Of a goodness, I should say--of a goodness which might prevent the +brain acting in the manner in which a brutal world requires at present +that the human brain should act in self-defence. Of a goodness which may +possibly have betrayed her into the most pathetic trouble." + +"Of the kind--?" was Mrs. Warren's suggestion. + +"Of that kind," with a troubled look; "but she is a married woman." + +"She _says_ she is a married woman." + +"No. She does not say so, but she looks it. That's the chief feature of +the case. Any woman bearing more obviously the stamp of respectable +British matrimony than this one does, it has not fallen to me to look +upon." + +Mrs. Warren's expression was _intriguée_ in the extreme. There was a +freshness in this, at least. + +"But if she bears the stamp as well as the name--! Do tell me all it is +possible to tell. Come and sit down, Harold." + +He sat down and entered into details. + +"I was called to a lady who, though not ill, seemed fatigued from a +hurried journey and, as it seemed to me, the effects of anxiety and +repressed excitement. I found her in a third-class lodging-house in a +third-class street. It was a house which had the air of a place hastily +made inhabitable for some special reason. There were evidences that +money had been spent, but that there had been no time to arrange things. +I have seen something of the kind before, and when I was handed into my +patient's sitting-room, thought I knew the type I should find. It is +always more or less the same,--a girl or a very young woman, pretty and +refined and frightened, or pretty and vulgar and 'carrying it off' with +transparent pretences and airs and graces. Anything more remote from +what I expected you absolutely cannot conceive." + +"Not young and pretty?" + +"About thirty-five or six. A fresh, finely built woman with eyes as +candid as a six-year-old girl's. Quite unexplanatory and with the best +possible manner, only sweetly anxious about her health. Her confidence +in my advice and the earnestness of her desire to obey my least +instructions were moving. Ten minutes' conversation with her revealed to +me depths of long-secreted romance in my nature. I mentally began to +swear fealty to her." + +"Did she tell you that her husband was away?" + +"What specially struck me was that it did not occur to her that her +husband required stating, which was ingenuously impressive. She did not +explain her mother or her uncles, why her husband? Her mental attitude +had a translucent clearness. She wanted a medical man to take charge of +her, and if she had been an amiable, un-brilliant lady who was a member +of the royal house, she would have conversed with me exactly as she +did." + +"She was so respectable?" + +"She was even a little Mid-Victorian, dear Mary; a sort of clean, +healthy, Mid-Victorian angel." + +"There's an incongruousness in the figure in connection with being +obviously in hiding in a lodging-house street." And Mrs. Warren gave +herself to reflection. + +"I cannot make it as incongruous as she was. I have not told you all. I +have saved to the last the feature which marked her most definitely as +an Extraordinary Case. I suppose one does that sort of thing from a +sense of drama." + +"What else?" inquired Mrs. Warren, roused from her speculation. + +"What respectable conclusion _could_ one deduce from the fact that a +letter lay on the table near her, sealed with an imposing coat of arms. +One's eye having accidentally fallen on it, one could, of course, only +avoid glancing at it again, so I recognised 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 good-natured. 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, and +ugly frilled pincushions looked so unmelodramatically normal and safe. + +"It seems so home-like," she said; adding courageously, "it is a very +comfortable place, really." + +"We can make it much more cheerful, my lady," Jane said, with grateful +appreciation. "And the relief makes it like Paradise." She was leaving +the room and stopped at the door. "There's not a person, black or white, +can get across the door-mat, past mother and me, until his lordship +comes," she allowed herself the privilege of adding. + +Emily felt a little nervous when she pictured to herself Lord +Walderhurst crossing the door-mat of a house in Mortimer Street in +search of his Marchioness. She had not yet had time to tell him the +story of the episode of the glass of milk and Hester Osborn's sudden +outburst. Every moment had been given to carefully managed arrangement +for the journey which was to seem so natural. Hester's cleverness had +suggested every step and had supported her throughout. But for Hester +she was afraid she might have betrayed herself. There had been no time +for writing. But when James received her letter (of late she had more +than once thought of him as "James"), he would know the one thing that +was important. And she had asked him to come to her. She had apologised +for suggesting any alteration of his plans, but she had really asked him +to come to her. + +"I think he will come," she said to herself. "I do think he will. I +shall be so glad. Perhaps I have not been sensible, perhaps I have not +done the best thing, but if I keep myself safe until he comes back, that +really seems what is most important." + +Two or three days in the familiar rooms, attended only by the two +friendly creatures she knew so well, seemed to restore the balance of +life for her. Existence became comfortable and prosaic again. The best +bedroom and the room in which she spent her days were made quite +cheerful through Jane's enterprise and memories of the appointments of +Palstrey. Jane brought her tea in the morning, Mrs. Cupp presided over +the kitchen. The agreeable doctor, whose reputation they had heard so +much of, came and went, leaving his patient feeling that she might +establish a friendship. He looked so clever and so kind. + +She began to smile her childlike smile again. Mrs. Cupp and Jane told +each other in private that if she had not been a married lady, they +would have felt that she was Miss Fox-Seton again. She looked so like +herself, with her fresh colour and her nice, cheerful eyes. And yet to +think of the changes there had been, and what they had gone through! + +People in London know nothing--or everything--of their neighbours. The +people who lived in Mortimer Street were of the hard-worked +lodging-house keeping class, and had too many anxieties connected with +butcher's bills, rent, and taxes, to be able to give much time to their +neighbours. The life in the house which had changed hands had nothing +noticeable about it. It looked from the outside as it had always looked. +The door-steps were kept clean, milk was taken in twice a day, and local +tradesmen's carts left things in the ordinary manner. A doctor +occasionally called to see someone, and the only person who had inquired +about the patient (she was a friendly creature, who met Mrs. Cupp at the +grocer's, and exchanged a few neighbourly words) was told that ladies +who lived in furnished apartments, and had nothing to do, seemed to find +an interest in seeing a doctor about things working-women had no time to +bother about. Mrs. Cupp's view seemed to be that doctor's visits and +medicine bottles furnished entertainment. Mrs. Jameson had "as good a +colour and as good an appetite as you or me," but she was one who +"thought she caught cold easy," and she was "afraid of fresh air." + +Dr. Warren's interest in the Extraordinary Case increased at each visit +he made. He did not see the ruby ring again. When he had left the house +after his first call, Mrs. Cupp had called Lady Walderhurst's attention +to the fact that the ring was on her hand, and could not be considered +compatible with even a first floor front in Mortimer Street. Emily had +been frightened and had removed it. + +"But the thing that upsets me when I hand him in," Jane said to her +mother anxiously in private, "is the way she can't help looking. You +know what I mean, mother,--her nice, free, _good_ look. And we never +_could_ talk to her about it. We should have to let her know that it's +more than likely he thinks she's just what she isn't. It makes me mad to +think of it. But as it had to be, if she only looked a little awkward, +or not such a lady, or a bit uppish and fretful, she would seem so much +more real. And then there's another thing. You know she always _did_ +carry her head well, even when she was nothing but poor Miss Fox-Seton +tramping about shopping with muddy feet. And now, having been a +marchioness till she's got used to it, and knowing that she is one, +gives her an innocent, stately look sometimes. It's a thing she doesn't +know of herself, but I do declare that sometimes as she's sat there +talking just as sweet as could be, I've felt as if I ought to say, 'Oh! +if you please, my lady, if you _could_ look not quite so much as if +you'd got on a tiara.'" + +"Ah!" and Mrs. Cupp shook her head, "but that's what her Maker did for +her. She was born just what she looks, and she looks just what she was +born,--a respectable female." + +Whereby Dr. Warren continued to feel himself baffled. + +"She only goes out for exercise after dark, Mary," he said. "Also in the +course of conversation I have discovered that she believes every word of +the Bible literally, and would be alarmed if one could not accept the +Athanasian Creed. She is rather wounded and puzzled by the curses it +contains, but she feels sure that it would be wrong to question anything +in the Church Service. Her extraordinariness is wholly her +incompatibleness." + +Gradually they had established the friendship Emily had thought +possible. Once or twice Dr. Warren took tea with her. Her unabashed and +accustomed readiness of hospitality was as incompatible with her +circumstances as all the rest. She had the ease of a woman who had +amiably poured out tea for afternoon callers all her life. Women who +were uncertain of themselves were not amiably at ease with small social +amenities. Her ingenuous talk and her fervent italics were an absolute +delight to the man who was studying her. He, too, had noticed the +carriage of her head Jane Cupp had deplored. + +"I should say she was well born," he commented to his wife. "She holds +herself as no common woman could." + +"Ah! I haven't a doubt that she is well born, poor soul." + +"No, not 'poor soul.' No woman who is as happy as she is needs pity. +Since she has had time to rest, she looks radiant." + +In course of time, however, she was less radiant. Most people know +something of waiting for answers to letters written to foreign lands. It +seems impossible to calculate correctly as to what length of time must +elapse before the reply to the letter one sent by the last mail can +reach one. He who waits is always premature in the calculation he makes. +The mail should be due at a certain date, one is so sure. The letter +could be written on such a day and posted at once. But the date +calculated for arrives, passes,--the answer has not come. Who does not +remember? + +Emily Walderhurst had passed through the experience and knew it well. +But previously the letters she had sent had been of less vital +importance. When the replies to them had lingered on their way she had, +it is true, watched eagerly for the postman, and had lived restlessly +between the arrivals of the mails, but she had taught herself +resignation to the inevitable. Now life had altered its aspect and its +significance. She had tried, with the aid of an untried imagination, to +paint to herself the moments in which her husband would read the letter +which told him what she had told. She had wondered if he would start, if +he would look amazed, if his grey-brown eyes would light with pleasure! +Might he not want to see her? Might he not perhaps write at once? She +never could advance farther in her imagined reading of this reply than +the first lines: + +"MY DEAR EMILY,--The unexpected good news your letter contains has given +me the greatest satisfaction. You do not perhaps know how strong my +desire has been--" + +She used to sit and flush with happiness when she reached this point. +She so wished that she was capable of depicting to herself what the rest +would be. + +She calculated with the utmost care the probable date of the epistle's +arrival. She thought she made sure of allowing plenty of time for all +possible delays. The safety of her letters she had managed, with +Hester's aid, to arrange for. They were forwarded to her bankers and +called for. Only the letters from India were of any importance, and they +were not frequent. She told herself that she must be even more than +usually patient this time. When the letter arrived, if he told her he +felt it proper that he should return, no part of the strange experience +she had passed through would be of moment. When she saw his decorous, +well-bred face and heard his correctly modulated voice, all else would +seem like an unnatural dream. + +In her relief at the decent composure of the first floor front in +Mortimer Street the days did not seem at first to pass slowly. But as +the date she had counted on drew near she could not restrain a natural +restlessness. She looked at the clock and walked up and down the room a +good deal. She was also very glad when night came and she could go to +bed. Then she was glad when the morning arrived, because she was a day +nearer to the end. + +On a certain evening Dr. Warren said to his wife, "She is not so well +to-day. When I called I found her looking pale and anxious. When I +commented on the fact and asked how she was, she said that she had had a +disappointment. She had been expecting an important letter by a mail +arriving yesterday, and it had not come. She was evidently in low +spirits." + +"Perhaps she has kept up her spirits before because she believed the +letter would come," Mrs. Warren speculated. + +"She has certainly believed it would come." + +"Do _you_ think it will, Harold?" + +"She thinks it will yet. She was pathetically anxious not to be +impatient. She said she knew there were so many reasons for delay when +people were in foreign countries and very much occupied." + +"There are many reasons, I daresay," said Mrs. Warren with a touch of +bitterness," but they are not usually the ones given to waiting, +desperate women." + +Dr. Warren stood upon the hearthrug and gazed into the fire, knitting +his brows. + +"She wanted to tell or ask me something this afternoon," he said, "but +she was afraid. She looked like a good child in great trouble. I think +she will speak before long." + +She looked more and more like a good child in trouble as time passed. +Mail after mail came in, and she received no letter. She did not +understand, and her fresh colour died away. She spent her time now in +inventing reasons for the non-arrival of her letter. None of them +comprised explanations which could be disparaging in any sense to +Walderhurst. Chiefly she clung to the fact that he had not been well. +Anything could be considered a reason for neglecting letter writing if a +man was not well. If his illness had become serious she would, of +course, have heard from his doctor. She would not allow herself to +contemplate that. But if he was languid and feverish, he might so easily +put off writing from day to day. This was all the more plausible as a +reason, since he had not been a profuse correspondent. He had only +written when he had found he had leisure, with decent irregularity, so +to speak. + +At last, however, on a day when she had felt the strain of waiting +greater than she had courage for, and had counted every moment of the +hour which must elapse before Jane could return from her mission of +inquiry, as she rested on the sofa she heard the girl mount the stairs +with a step whose hastened lightness wakened in her an excited +hopefulness. + +She sat up with brightened face and eager eyes. How foolish she had been +to fret. Now--now everything would be different. Ah! how thankful she +was to God for being so good to her! + +"I think you must have a letter, Jane," she said the moment the door +opened. "I felt it when I heard your footstep." + +Jane was touching in her glow of relief and affection. + +"Yes, my lady, I have, indeed. And they said at the bank that it had +come by a steamer that was delayed by bad weather." + +Emily took the letter. Her hand shook, but it was with pleasure. She +forgot Jane, and actually kissed the envelope before she opened it. It +looked like a beautiful, long letter. It was quite thick. + +But when she had opened it, she saw that the letter itself was not very +long. Several extra sheets of notes or instructions, it did not matter +what, seemed to be enclosed. Her hand shook so that she let them fall on +the floor. She looked so agitated that Jane was afraid to do more than +retire discreetly and stand outside the door. + +In a few minutes she congratulated herself on the wisdom of not having +gone downstairs. She heard a troubled exclamation of wonder, and then a +call for herself. + +"Jane, please, Jane!" + +Lady Walderhurst was still sitting upon the sofa, but she looked pale +and unsteady. The letter was in her hand, which rested weakly in her +lap. It seemed as if she was so bewildered that she felt helpless. + +She spoke in a tired voice. + +"Jane," she said, "I think you will have to get me a glass of wine. I +don't think I am going to faint, but I do feel so--so upset." + +Jane was at her side kneeling by her. + +"Please, my lady, lie down," she begged. "Please do." + +But she did not lie down. She sat trembling and looking at the girl in a +pathetic, puzzled fashion. + +"I don't think," she quavered, "that his lordship can have received my +letter. He can't have received it. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't +say one word--" + +She had been too healthy a woman to be subject to attacks of nerves. She +had never fainted before in her life, and as she spoke she did not at +all understand why Jane seemed to move up and down, and darkness came on +suddenly in the middle of the morning. + +Jane managed by main strength to keep her from falling from the sofa, +and thanked Providence for the power vouchsafed to her. She reached the +bell and rang it violently, and hearing it, Mrs. Cupp came upstairs with +heavy swiftness. + + + + +Chapter Twenty one + + +Naturally a perceptive and closely reasoning woman, Mrs. Warren's close +intellectual intimacy with her husband had, in giving her the benefit of +intercourse with a wide experience, added greatly to her power of +reasoning by deduction. Warren frequently felt that his talk with her +was something like consultation with a specially clever and sympathetic +professional confrère. Her suggestions or conclusions were invariably +worth consideration. More than once his reflection upon them had led him +to excellent results. She made one night a suggestion with regard to the +Extraordinary Case which struck him as being more than usually astute. + +"Is she an intellectual woman?" she inquired. + +"Not in the least. An unsparingly brilliant person might feel himself +entitled to the right to call her stupid." + +"Is she talkative?" + +"Far from it. One of her charms is the nice respect she seems to feel +for the remarks of others." + +"And she is not excitable?" + +"Rather the reverse. If excitability is liveliness, she is dull." + +"I see," slowly, "you have not yet thought it possible that she +might--well--be under some delusion." + +Warren turned quickly and looked at her. + +"It is wonderfully brilliant of you to have thought of it. A delusion?" +He stood and thought it over. + +"Do you remember," his wife assisted him with, "the complications which +arose from young Mrs. Jerrold's running away, under similar +circumstances, to Scotland and hiding herself in a shepherd's cottage +under the impression that her husband was shadowing her with detectives? +You recollect what a lovable woman she was, and what horror she felt of +the poor fellow." + +"Yes, yes. That was an Extraordinary Case too." + +Mrs. Warren warmed with her subject. + +"Here is a woman obviously concealing herself from the world in a +lodging-house, plainly possessing money, owning a huge ruby ring, +receiving documents stamped with imposing seals, taking exercise only by +night, heart-wrung over the non-arrival of letters which are due. Every +detail points to one painful, dubious situation. On the other hand, she +presents to you the manner and aspect of a woman who is absolutely not +dubious, and who is merely anxious on the one point a dubious person +would be indifferent to. Isn't it, then, possible that over-wrought +physical condition may have driven her to the belief that she is hiding +from danger." + +Dr. Warren was evidently following the thought seriously. + +"She said," reflecting, "that all that mattered was that she should be +safe. 'I want to keep safe.' That was it. You are very enlightening, +Mary, always. I will go and see her again to-morrow. But," as the result +of another memory, "how sane she seems!" + + * * * * * + +He was thinking of this possible aspect of the matter as he mounted the +staircase of the house in Mortimer Street the next day. The stairway was +of the ordinary lodging-house type, its dinginess somewhat alleviated by +the fact that the Cupps had covered the worn carpet with clean +warm-coloured felting. The yellowish marbled paper on the walls +depressed the mind as one passed it; the indeterminate dun paint had +defied fog for years. The whole house presented only such features as +would encourage its proprietors to trust to the sufficing of infrequent +re-decoration. + +Jane had, however, made efforts in behalf of the drawing-room, in which +her mistress spent her days. She had introduced palliations by degrees +and with an unobtrusiveness which was not likely to attract the +attention of neighbours unaccustomed to lavish delivery by means of +furniture vans. She had brought in a rug or so, and had gradually +replaced objects with such as were more pleasant to live with and more +comfortable to use. Dr. Warren had seen the change wrought, and had +noted evidences that money was not unobtainable. The maid also was a +young woman whose manner towards her mistress was not merely respectful +and well-bred, but suggestive of watchful affection bordering on +reverence. Jane Cupp herself was a certificate of decorum and good +standing. It was not such young women who secluded themselves with +questionable situations. As she laid her hand on the drawing-room door +to open it and announce him, it occurred to Dr. Warren that he would +tell Mary that evening that if Mrs. Jameson had been the heroine of any +unconventional domestic drama it was an unmistakable fact that Jane Cupp +would have "felt it her duty as a young woman to leave this day month, +if you please, ma'am," quite six months ago. And there she was, in a +neat gown and apron,--evidently a fixture because she liked her +place,--her decent young face full of sympathetic interest. + +The day was dull and cold, but the front room was warm and made cheerful +by fire. Mrs. Jameson was sitting at a writing-table. There were letters +before her, and she seemed to have been re-reading them. She did not any +longer bloom with normal health. Her face was a little dragged, and the +first thing he noted in the eyes she lifted to him was that they were +bewildered. + +"She has had a shock," he thought. "Poor woman!" + +He began to talk to her about herself with the kindly perception which +was inseparable from him. He wondered if the time had not come when she +would confide in him. Her shock, whatsoever it had been, had left her in +the position of a woman wholly at a loss to comprehend what had +occurred. He saw this in her ingenuous troubled face. He felt as if she +was asking herself what she should do. It was not unlikely that +presently she would ask him what she should do. He had been asked such +things before by women, but they usually added trying detail accompanied +by sobs, and appealed to his chivalry for impossible aid. Sometimes they +implored him to go to people and use his influence. + +Emily answered all his questions with her usual sweet, good sense. She +was not well. Yesterday she had fainted. + +"Was there any disturbing reason for the faint?" he inquired. + +"It was because I was--very much disappointed," she answered, +hesitating. "I had a letter which--It was not what I expected." + +She was thinking desperately. She could understand nothing. It was not +explainable that what she had written did not matter at all, that James +should have made no reply. + +"I was awake all night," she added. + +"That must not go on," he said. + +"I was thinking--and thinking," nervously. + +"I can see that," was his answer. + +Perhaps she ought to have courage to say nothing. It might be safer. But +it was so lonely not to dare to ask anyone's advice, that she was +getting frightened. India was thousands and thousands of miles away, and +letters took so long to come and go. Anxiety might make her ill before +she could receive a reply to a second letter. And perhaps now in her +terror she had put herself into a ridiculous position. How could she +send for Lady Maria to Mortimer Street and explain to her? She realised +also that her ladyship's sense of humour might not be a thing to confide +in safely. + +Warren's strong, amiable personality was good for her. It served to aid +her to normal reasoning. Though she was not aware of the fact, her +fears, her simplicity, and her timorous adoration of her husband had not +allowed her to reason normally in the past. She had been too anxious and +too much afraid. + +Her visitor watched her with great interest and no little curiosity. He +himself saw that her mood was not normal. She did not look as poor Mrs. +Jerrold had looked, but she was not in a normal state. + +He made his visit a long one purposely. Tea was brought up, and he drank +it with her. He wanted to give her time to make up her mind about him. +When at last he rose to go away, she rose also. She looked nervously +undecided, but let him go towards the door. + +Her move forward was curiously sudden. + +"No, no," she said. "Please come back. I--oh!--I really think I ought to +tell you." + +He turned towards her, wishing that Mary were with him. She stood trying +to smile, and looking so entirely nice and well-behaved even in her +agitation. + +"If I were not so puzzled, or if there was _anybody_--" she said. "If +you could only advise me; I must--I _must_ keep safe." + +"There is something you want to tell me?" he said quietly. + +"Yes," she answered. "I am so anxious, and I am sure it must be bad for +one to be anxious always. I have not dared to tell anyone. My name is +not Mrs. Jameson, Dr. Warren. I am--I am Lady Walderhurst." + +He barely managed to restrain a start. He was obliged to admit to +himself that he had not thought of anything like this. But Mary had been +right. + +Emily blushed to her ears with embarrassment. He did not believe her. + +"But I _am_ really," she protested. "I _really_ am. I was married last +year. I was Emily Fox-Seton. Perhaps you remember." + +She was not flighty or indignant. Her frank face was only a little more +troubled than it had been before. She looked straight into his eyes +without a doubt of his presently believing her. Good heavens! if-- + +She walked to the writing-table and picked up a number of letters. They +were all stamped with the same seal. She brought them to him almost +composedly. + +"I ought to have remembered how strange it would sound," she said in her +amenable voice. "I hope I am not doing wrong in speaking. I hope you +won't mind my troubling you. It seemed as if I _couldn't_ bear it alone +any longer." + +After which she told him her story. + + * * * * * + +The unadorned straightforwardness of the relation made it an amazing +thing to hear, even more amazing than it would have been made by a more +imaginative handling. Her obvious inability to cope with the unusual and +villainous, combined with her entire willingness to obliterate herself +in any manner in her whole-souled tenderness for the one present object +of her existence, were things a man could not be unmoved by, even though +experience led him to smile at the lack of knowledge of the world which +had left her without practical defence. Her very humbleness and candour +made her a drama in herself. + +"Perhaps I was wrong to run away. Perhaps only a silly woman would have +done such a queer, unconventional thing. But I could think of nothing +else so likely to be quite safe, until Lord Walderhurst could advise me. +And when his letter came yesterday, and he did not speak of what I had +said--" Her voice quite failed her. + +"Captain Osborn has detained your letter. Lord Walderhurst has not seen +it." + +Life began to come back to her. She had been so horribly bewildered as +to think at moments that perhaps it might be that a man who was very +much absorbed in affairs-- + +"The information you sent him is the most important, and moving, a man +in his position could receive." + +"Do you think so, _really_?" She lifted her head with new courage and +her colour returned. + +"It is impossible that it should be otherwise. It is, I assure you, +_impossible_, Lady Walderhurst." + +"I am so thankful," she said devoutly. "I am so _thankful_ that I have +told you." + +Anything more touching and attractive than her full eyes and her +grown-up child's smile he felt he had never seen. + + + + +Chapter Twenty two + + +The attack of fever which had seemed to begin lightly for Lord +Walderhurst assumed proportions such as his medical man had not +anticipated. His annoyance at finding his duties interfered with fretted +him greatly. He was not, under the circumstances, a good patient, and, +partly as a result of his state of mind, he began, in the course of a +few weeks, to give his doctors rather serious cause for anxiety. On the +morning following Emily's confession to Dr. Warren she had received a +letter from her husband's physician, notifying her of his new anxieties +in connection with his patient. His lordship required extreme care and +absolute freedom from all excitement. Everything which medical science +and perfect nursing could do would be done. The writer asked Lady +Walderhurst's collaboration with him in his efforts at keeping the +invalid as far as possible in unperturbed spirits. For some time it +seemed probable that letter writing and reading would be out of the +question, but if, when correspondence might be resumed, Lady Walderhurst +would keep in mind the importance of serenity to the convalescent, the +case would have all in its favour. This, combined with expressions of +sympathetic encouragement and assurances that the best might be hoped +for, was the gist of the letter. When Dr. Warren arrived, Emily handed +the epistle to him and watched him as he read it. + +"You see," she said when he looked up, "that I did not speak too soon. +Now I shall have to trust to you for everything. I could _never_ have +borne it _all_ by myself. Could I?" + +"Perhaps not," thinking it over; "but you are very brave." + +"I don't think I'm brave," thinking it over on her own part, "but it +seemed as if there were things I _must_ do. But now you will advise me." + +She was as biddable as a child, he told his wife afterwards, and that a +woman of her height and carriage should be as biddable as she might have +been at six years old, was an effective thing. + +"She will do anything I tell her, she will go anywhere I advise. I +advise that she shall go to her husband's house in Berkeley Square, and +that together you and I will keep unobtrusive guard over her. All is +quite simple, really. All would have been comparatively simple at the +outset, if she had felt sure enough of her evidence to dare to confide +in some practical person. But she was too uncertain and too much afraid +of scandal, which might annoy her husband. She is deeply in awe of Lord +Walderhurst and deeply in love with him." + +"When one realises how unnecessary qualities and charms seem to be to +the awakening of the tender emotion, it is rather dull, perhaps, to ask +why. Yet one weakly asks it," was Mrs. Warren's summation. + +"And one cannot supply the answer. But the mere devotion itself in this +nice creature is a thing to be respected. She will control even her +anxieties and reveal nothing while she writes her cheerful letters, as +soon as she is allowed to write them." + +"Lord Walderhurst will be told nothing?" + +"Nothing until his recovery is complete. Now that she has made a clean +breast of everything to me and given herself into my hands, I believe +that she finds a sentimental pleasure in the thought of keeping her +secret until he returns. I will confess to you, Mary, that I think that +she has read of and tenderly sympathised with heroines who have done the +like before. She does not pose to herself as a heroine, but she dwells +affectionately on ingenuous mental pictures of what Lord Walderhurst +will say. It is just as well that it should be so. It is better for her +than fretting would be. Experience helped me to gather from the medical +man's letter that his patient is in no condition to be told news of any +kind, good or bad." + +The house in Berkeley Square was reopened. Lady Walderhurst returned to +it, as it was understood below stairs, from a visit to some German +health resort. Mrs. Cupp and Jane returned with her. The wife of her +physician in attendance was with her a great deal. It was most +unfortunate for her ladyship that my lord was detained in India by +illness. + +The great household, having presented opened shutters to the world, went +on in the even tenor of its way. There brooded over it, however, a sort +of hushed dignity of atmosphere. The very housemaids wore an air of +grave discretion. Their labours assumed the proportions of confidential +interested service, in which they felt a private pride. Not one among +them had escaped becoming attached to Lady Walderhurst. + +Away from Palstrey, away from Mortimer Street, Emily began to find +reality in the fact that everything had already become quite simple, +after all. The fine rooms looked so well ordered and decent in a stately +way. Melodramatic plotting ceased to exist as she looked at certain +dignified sofas and impressive candelabra. Such things became even more +impossible than they had become before the convincingness of the first +floor front bedroom in Mortimer Street, She began to give a good deal of +thought to the summer at Mallowe. There was an extraordinary luxury in +living again each day of it, the morning when she had taken the +third-class carriage which provided her with hot, labouring men in +corduroys as companions, that fleeting moment when the tall man with the +square face had passed the carriage and looked straight through her +without seeming to see her at all. She sat and smiled tenderly at the +mere reminiscent thought. And then the glimpse of him as he got into the +high phaeton at the station; and the moment when Lady Maria had +exclaimed "There's Walderhurst," and he had come swinging with his +leisurely step across the lawn. And he had scarcely seemed to see her +then, or notice her really when they met, until the morning he had +joined her as she gathered the roses and had talked to her about Lady +Agatha. But he had actually been noticing her a little even from the +first--he had been thinking about her a little all the time. And how far +she had been from guessing it when she had talked to Lady Agatha, how +pleased she had been the morning of the rose gathering when he had +seemed interested only in Agatha's self! She always liked to recall, +however, the way in which he had asked the few questions about her own +affairs. Her simplicity never wearied of the fascination of the way in +which he had looked at her, standing on the pathway, with that +delightful non-committal fixing of her with the monocle when she had +said: + +"People _are_ kind. You see, I have nothing to give, and I always seem +to be receiving." + +And he had gazed at her quite unmovedly and answered only: + +"What luck!" + +But since then he had mentioned this moment as one of those in which he +had felt that he might want to marry her, because she was so unconscious +of the fact that she gave much more to everybody than she received, that +she had so much to give and was totally unaware of the value of her +gifts. + +"His thoughts of me are so _beautiful_ very often," was her favourite +reflection, "though he always has that composed way of saying things. +What he says seems more _valuable_, because he is like that." + +In truth, his composed way of saying things it was which seemed to her +incomparable. Even when, without understanding its own longing for a +thing it lacked, her heart had felt itself a little unsustained she had +never ceased to feel the fascination of his entire freedom from any +shadow of interest in the mental attitude of others towards himself. +When he stood and gazed at people through the glass neatly screwed into +his eye, one felt that it was he whose opinion was of importance, not +the other person's. Through sheer chill imperviousness he seemed +entirely detached from the powers of criticism. What people said or +thought of his fixed opinion on a subject was not of the least +consequence, in fact did not exist; the entities of the persons who +cavilled at such opinions themselves ceased to exist, so far as he was +concerned. His was the immovable temperament. He did not snub people: he +cut the cord of mental communication with them and dropped them into +space. Emily thought this firmness and reserved dignity, and quailed +before the thought of erring in such a manner as would cause him to so +send her soul adrift. Her greatest terror during the past months had +been the fear of making him ridiculous, of putting him in some position +which might annoy him by objectionable publicity. + +But now she had no further fears, and could wait in safety and dwell in +peace upon her memories and her hopes. She even began to gain a kind of +courage in her thoughts of him. + +The atmosphere of the Berkeley Square mansion was good for her. She had +never felt so much its mistress before the staff of servants of whose +existence she was the centre, who so plainly served her with careful +pleasure, who considered her least wish or inclination as a royal +command, increased her realisation of her security and power. The +Warrens, who understood the dignity and meaning of mere worldly facts +her nature did not grasp, added subtly to her support. Gradually she +learned to reveal herself in simple talk to Mrs. Warren, who found her, +when so revealed, a case more extraordinary than she had been when +enshrouded in dubious mystery. + +"She is absolutely delicious," Mrs. Warren said to her husband. "That an +adoration such as hers could exist in the nineteenth century is--" + +"Almost degenerate," he laughed. + +"Perhaps it is regenerate," reflecting. "Who knows! Nothing earthly, or +heavenly, would induce me to cast a doubt upon it. Seated opposite to a +portrait of her James, I hear her opinions of him, when she is not in +the least aware of what her simplest observation conveys. She does not +know that she is including him when she is talking of other things, that +one sees that while she is too shy to openly use his name much, the very +breath of her life is a reference to him. Her greatest bliss at present +is to go unobtrusively into his special rooms and sit there dwelling +upon his goodness to her." + +In fact Emily spent many a quiet hour in the apartments she had visited +on the day of her farewell to her husband. She was very happy there. Her +soul was uplifted by her gratitude for the peace she had reached. The +reports of Lord Walderhurst's physician were never alarming and +generally of a reassuring nature. But she knew that he must exercise +great caution, and that time must elapse before he could confront his +return voyage. He would come back as soon as was quite safe. And in the +meantime her world held all that she could desire, lacking himself. + +Her emotion expressed itself in her earnest performance of her reverent +daily devotions. She read many chapters of the Bible, and often sat +happily absorbed in the study of her Book of Common Prayer. She found +solace and happiness in such things, and spent her Sunday mornings, +after the ringing of the church bells, quite alone in Walderhurst's +study, following the Service and reading the Collects and Lessons. The +room used to seem so beautifully still, even Berkeley Square wearing its +church-hour aspect suggested devout aloofness from worldly things. + +"I sit at the window and _think_," she explained to Mrs. Warren. "It is +so nice there." + +She wrote her letters to India in this room. She did not know how far +the new courage in her thoughts of her husband expressed itself in these +letters. When Walderhurst read them, however, he felt a sense of change +in her. Women were sometimes spoken of as "coming out amazingly." He +began to feel that Emily was, in a measure at least, "coming out." +Perhaps her gradually increasing feeling of accustomedness to the change +in her life was doing it for her. She said more in her letters, and said +it in a more interesting way. It was perhaps rather suggestive of the +development of a girl who was on the verge of becoming a delightful sort +of woman. + +Lying upon his back in bed, rendered, it may be, a trifle susceptible by +the weakness of slow convalescence, he found a certain habit growing +upon him--a habit of reading her letters several times, and of thinking +of her as it had not been his nature to think of women; also he slowly +awakened to an interest in the arrival of the English mails. The letters +actually raised his spirits and had an excellent physical effect. His +doctor always found him in good condition after he had heard from his +wife. + +"Your letters, my dear Emily," Walderhurst once wrote, "are a great +pleasure to me. You are to-day exactly as you were at Mallowe,--the +creature of amiable good cheer. Your comfort stimulates me." + +"How _dear_, how _dear_?" Emily cried to the silence of the study, and +kissed the letter with impassioned happiness. + +[Illustration: Lady Maria Bayne] + +The next epistle went even farther. It absolutely contained "things" and +referred to the past which it was her joy to pour libations before in +secret thought. When her eye caught the phrase "the days at Mallowe" in +the middle of a sheet, she was almost frightened at the rush of pleasure +which swept over her. Men who were less aloof from sentimental moods +used such phrases in letters, she had read and heard. It was almost as +if he had said "the dear old days at Mallowe" or "the happy days at +Mallowe," and the rapture of it was as much as she could bear. + +"I cannot help remembering as I lie here," she read in actual letters as +she went on, "of the many thoughts which passed through my mind as I +drove over the heath to pick you up. I had been watching you for days. I +always liked particularly your clear, large eyes. I recall trying to +describe them to myself and finding it difficult. They seemed to me then +to resemble something between the eyes of a very nice boy and the eyes +of a delightful sheep-dog. This may not appear so romantic a comparison +as it really is." + +Emily began most softly and sweetly to cry. Nothing more romantic could +she possibly have imagined. + +"I thought of them in spite of myself as I drove across the moor, and I +could scarcely express to you how angry I was at Maria. It seemed to me +that she had brutally imposed on you only because she had known she +might impose on a woman with such a pair of eyes. I was angry and +sentimental at one and the same time. And to find you sitting by the +wayside, absolutely worn out with fatigue and in tears, moved me really +more than I had anticipated being moved. And when you mistook my meaning +and stood up, your nice eyes looking into mine in such ingenuous appeal +and fear and trouble, I have never forgotten it, my dear, and I never +shall." + +His mood of sentiment did not sit easily upon him, but it meant a real +and interesting quite human thing. + +Emily sat alone in the room and brooded over it as a mother might brood +over a new-born child. She was full of tremulous bliss, and, dwelling +with reverent awe upon the wonder of great things drawing nearer to her +every hour, wept for happiness as she sat. + + * * * * * + +The same afternoon Lady Maria Bayne arrived. She had been abroad taking, +in no dull fashion, various "cures," which involved drinking mineral +waters while promenading to the sounds of strains of outdoor music, and +comparing symptoms wittily with friends equal to amazing repartee in +connection with all subjects. + +Dr. Warren was an old acquaintance, and as he was on the point of +leaving the house as she entered it she stopped to shake hands with him. + +"It's rather unfortunate for a man when one can only be glad to see him +in the house of an enemy." + +She greeted him with, "I must know what you are doing here. It's not +possible that Lady Walderhurst is fretting herself into fiddle-strings +because her husband chooses to have a fever in India." + +"No, she is behaving beautifully in all respects. May I have a few +minutes' talk with you, Lady Maria, before you see her?" + +"A few minutes' talk with me means something either amusing or +portentous. Let us walk into the morning-room." + +She led the way with a rustle of silk petticoats and a suggestion of +lifted eyebrows. She was inclined to think that the thing sounded more +portentous than amusing. Thank Heaven! it was not possible for Emily to +have involved herself in annoying muddles. She was not that kind of +woman. + +When she came out of the room some twenty minutes later she did not look +quite like herself. Her smart bonnet set less well upon her delicate +little old face, and she was agitated and cross and pleased. + +"It was ridiculous of Walderhurst to leave her," she was saying. "It was +ridiculous of her not to order him home at once. It was exactly like +her,--dear and ridiculous." + +In spite of her agitation she felt a little grotesque as she went +upstairs to see Emily,--grotesque, because she was obliged to admit to +herself that she had never felt so curiously excited in her life. She +felt as she supposed women did when they allowed themselves to shed +tears through excitement; not that she was shedding tears, but she was +"upset," that was what she called it. + +As the door opened Emily rose from a chair near the fire and came slowly +towards her, with an awkward but lovely smile. + +Lady Maria made a quick movement forward and caught hold of both her +hands. + +"My good Emily," she broke forth and kissed her. "My excellent Emily," +and kissed her again. "I am completely turned upside down. I never heard +such an insane story in my life. I have seen Dr. Warren. The creatures +were mad." + +"It is all over," said Emily. "I scarcely believe it was true now." + +Lady Maria being led to a sofa settled herself upon it, still wearing +her complex expression of crossness, agitation, and pleasure. + +"I am going to stay here," she said, obstinately. "There shall be no +more folly. But I will tell you that they have gone back to India. The +child was a girl." + +"It was a girl?" + +"Yes, absurdly enough." + +"Oh," sighed Emily, sorrowfully. "I'm _sure_ Hester was _afraid_ to +write to me." + +"Rubbish!" said Lady Maria. "At any rate, as I remarked before, I am +going to stay here until Walderhurst comes back. The man will be quite +mad with gratified vanity." + + + + +Chapter Twenty three + + +It was a damp and depressing day on which Lord Walderhurst arrived in +London. As his carriage turned into Berkeley Square he sat in the corner +of it rather huddled in his travelling-wraps and looking pale and thin. +He was wishing that London had chosen to show a more exhilarating +countenance to him, but he himself was conscious of being possessed by +something more nearly approaching a mood of eagerness than he remembered +experiencing at any period of his previous existence. He had found the +voyage home long, and had been restless. He wanted to see his wife. How +agreeable it would be to meet, when he looked across the dinner-table, +the smile in her happy eyes. She would grow pink with pleasure, like a +girl, when he confessed that he had missed her. He was curious to see in +her the changes he had felt in her letters. Having time and +opportunities for development, she might become an absolutely delightful +companion. She had looked very handsome on the day of her presentation +at Court. Her height and carriage had made her even impressive. She was +a woman, after all, to be counted on in one's plans. + +But he was most conscious that his affection for her had warmed. A +slight embarrassment was commingled with the knowledge, but that was the +natural result of his dislike to the sentimental. He had never felt a +shadow of sentiment for Audrey, who had been an extremely light, dry, +empty-headed person, and he had always felt she had been adroitly thrust +upon him by their united families. He had not liked her, and she had not +liked him. It had been very stupidly trying. And the child had not lived +an hour. He had liked Emily from the first, and now--It was an absolute +truth that he felt a slight movement in the cardiac region when the +carriage turned into Berkeley Square. The house would look very pleasant +when he entered it. Emily would in some subtle way have arranged that it +should wear a festal, greeting air. She had a number of nice, little +feminine emotions about bright fires and many flowers. He could picture +her childlike grown-up face as it would look when he stepped into the +room where they met. + +Some one was ill in Berkeley Square, evidently very ill. Straw was laid +thick all along one side of it, depressing damp, fresh straw, over which +the carriage rolled with a dull drag of the wheels. + +It lay before the door of his own house, he observed, as he stepped out. +It was very thickly scattered. The door swung open as the carriage +stopped. Crossing the threshold, he glanced at the face of the footman +nearest to him. The man looked like a mute at a funeral, and the +expression was so little in accord with his mood that he stopped with a +feeling of irritation. He had not time to speak, however, before a new +sensation arrested his attention,--a faint odour which filled the place. + +"The house smells like a hospital," he exclaimed, in great annoyance. +"What does it mean?" + +The man he addressed did not answer. He turned a perturbed awkward face +to his superior in rank, an older man, who was house steward. + +In the house of mortal pain or death there is but one thing more full of +suggestion than the faint smell of antiseptics,--the gruesome, cleanly, +unpleasant odour,--that is, the unnatural sound of the whispering of +hushed voices. Lord Walderhurst turned cold, and felt it necessary to +stiffen his spine when he heard his servant's answer and the tone in +which it was made. + +"Her ladyship, my lord--her ladyship is very low. The doctors do not +leave her." + +"Her ladyship?" + +The man stepped back deferentially. The door of the morning-room had +been opened, and old Lady Maria Bayne stood on the threshold. Her +worldly air of elderly gaiety had disappeared. She looked a hundred. She +was almost dilapidated. She had allowed to relax themselves the springs +which held her together and ordinarily supplied her with sprightly +movement. + +"Come here!" she said. + +When he entered the room, aghast, she shut the door. + +"I suppose I ought to break it to you gently," she said shakily, "but I +shall do no such thing. It's too much to expect of any woman who has +gone through what I have during these last three days. The creature is +dying; she may be dead now." + +She sank on the sofa and began to wipe away pouring tears. Her old +cheeks were pale and her handkerchief showed touches of rose-pink on its +dampness. She was aware of their presence, but was utterly indifferent. +Walderhurst stared at her haggard disorder and cleared his throat, +finding himself unable to speak without doing so. + +"Will you have the goodness to tell me," he said with weird stiffness, +"what you are talking about?" + +"About Emily Walderhurst," she answered. "The boy was born yesterday, +and she has been sinking ever since. She cannot possibly last much +longer." + +"She!" he gasped, turning lead colour. "Cannot possibly last,--Emily?" + +The wrench and shock were so unnatural that they reached that part of +his being where human feeling was buried under selfishness and inhuman +conventionality. He spoke, and actually thought, of Emily first. + +Lady Maria continued to weep shamelessly. + +"I am over seventy," she said, "and the last three days have punished me +quite enough for anything I may have done since I was born. I have been +in hell, too, James. And, when she could think at all, she has only +thought of you and your miserable child. I can't imagine what is the +matter with a woman when she can care for a man to such an extent. Now +she has what she wants,--she's dying for you." + +"Why wasn't I told?" he asked, still with the weird and slow stiffness. + +"Because she was a sentimental fool, and was afraid of disturbing you. +She ought to have ordered you home and kept you dancing attendance, and +treated you to hysterics." + +No one would have resented such a course of action more derisively than +Lady Maria herself, but the last three days had reduced her to something +like hysteria, and she had entirely lost her head. + +"She has been writing cheerfully to me--" + +"She would have written cheerfully to you if she had been seated in a +cauldron of boiling oil, it is my impression," broke in her ladyship. +"She has been monstrously treated, people trying to murder her, and she +afraid to accuse them for fear that you would disapprove. You know you +have a nasty manner, James, when you think your dignity is interfered +with." + +Lord Walderhurst stood clenching and unclenching his hands as they hung +by his sides. He did not like to believe that his fever had touched his +brain, but he doubted his senses hideously. + +"My good Maria," he said, "I do not understand a word you say, but I +must go and see her." + +"And kill her, if she has a breath left! You will not stir from here. +Thank Heaven! here is Dr. Warren." + +The door had opened and Dr. Warren came in. He had just laid down upon +the coverlet of a bed upstairs what seemed to be the hand of a dying +woman, and no man like himself can do such a thing and enter a room +without a singular look on his face. + +People in a house of death inevitably whisper, whatsoever their +remoteness from the sick-room. Lady Maria cried out in a whisper: + +"Is she still alive?" + +"Yes," was the response. + +Walderhurst went to him. + +"May I see her?" + +"No, Lord Walderhurst. Not yet." + +"Does that mean that it is not yet the last moment?" + +"If that moment had obviously arrived, you would be called." + +"What must I do?" + +"There is absolutely nothing to be done but to wait. Brent, Forsythe, +and Blount are with her." + +"I am in the position of knowing nothing. I must be told. Have you time +to tell me?" + +They went to Walderhurst's study, the room which had been Emily's holy +of holies. + +"Lady Walderhurst was very fond of sitting here alone," Dr. Warren +remarked. + +Walderhurst saw that she must have written letters at his desk. Her own +pen and writing-tablet lay on it. She had probably had a fancy for +writing her letters to himself in his own chair. It would be like her to +have done it. It gave him a shock to see on a small table a thimble and +a pair of scissors. + +"I ought to have been told," he said to Dr. Warren. + +Dr. Warren sat down and explained why he had not been told. + +As he spoke, interest was awakened in his mind by the fact that Lord +Walderhurst drew towards him the feminine writing-tablet and opened and +shut it mechanically. + +"What I want to know," he said, "is, if I shall be able to speak to her. +I should like to speak to her." + +"That is what one most wants," was Dr. Warren's non-committal answer, +"at such a time." + +"You think I may not be able to make her understand?" + +"I am very sorry. It is impossible to know." + +"This," slowly, "is very hard on me." + +"There is something I feel I must tell you, Lord Walderhurst." Dr. +Warren kept a keen eye on him, having, in fact, felt far from attracted +by the man in the past, and wondering how much he would be moved by +certain truths, or if he would be moved at all. "Before Lady +Walderhurst's illness, she was very explicit with me in her expression +of her one desire. She begged me to give her my word, which I could not +have done without your permission, that whatsoever the circumstances, if +life must be sacrificed, it should be hers." + +A dusky red shot through Walderhurst's leaden pallor. + +"She asked you that?" he said. + +"Yes. And at the worst she did not forget. When she became delirious, +and we heard that she was praying, I gathered that she seemed to be +praying to me, as to a deity whom she implored to remember her fervent +pleading. When her brain was clear she was wonderful. She saved your son +by supernatural endurance." + +"You mean to say that if she had cared more for herself and less for the +safety of the child she need not have been as she is now?" + +Warren bent his head. + +Lord Walderhurst's eyeglass had been dangling weakly from its cord. He +picked it up and stuck it in his eye to stare the doctor in the face. +The action was a singular, spasmodic, hard one. But his hands were +shaking. + +"By God!" he cried out, "if I had been here it should not have been so!" + +He got up and supported himself against the table with the shaking +hands. + +"It is very plain," he said, "that she has been willing to be torn to +pieces upon the rack to give me the thing I wanted. And now, good God in +heaven, I feel that I would have strangled the boy with my own hands +rather than lose her." + +In this manner, it seemed, did a rigid, self-encased, and conventional +elderly nobleman reach emotion. He looked uncanny. His stiff dignity +hung about him in rags and tatters. Cold sweat stood on his forehead and +his chin twitched. + +"Just now," he poured forth, "I don't care whether there is a child or +not. I want her--I care for nothing else. I want to look at her, I want +to speak to her, whether she is alive or dead. But if there is a spark +of life in her, I believe she will hear me." + +Dr. Warren sat and watched him, wondering. He knew curious things of the +human creature, things which most of his confrères did not know. He knew +that Life was a mysterious thing, and that even a dying flame of it +might sometimes be fanned to flickering anew by powers more subtle than +science usually regards as applicable influences. He knew the nature of +the half-dead woman lying on her bed upstairs, and he comprehended what +the soul of her life had been,--her divinely innocent passion for a +self-centred man. He had seen it in the tortured courage of her eyes in +hours of mortal agony. + +"Don't forget," she had said. "Our Father which art in Heaven. Don't let +anyone forget. Hallowed be thy name." + +The man, leaning upon his shaking hands before him, stood there, for +these moments at least, a harrowed thing. Not a single individual of his +acquaintance would have known him. + +"I want to see her before the breath leaves her," he gave forth in a +harsh, broken whisper. "I want to speak. Let me see her." + +Dr. Warren left his chair slowly. Out of a thousand chances against her, +might this one chance be for her,--the chance of her hearing, and being +called back to the shores she was drifting from, by this stiff, +conventional fellow's voice. There was no knowing the wondrousness of a +loving human thing, even when its shackles were loosening themselves to +set it free. + +"I will speak to those in charge with me," he said. "Will you control +every outward expression of feeling?" + +"Yes." + +Adjoining Lady Walderhurst's sleeping apartment was a small boudoir +where the medical men consulted together. Two of them were standing near +the window conversing in whispers. + +Walderhurst merely nodded and went to wait apart by the fire. Ceremony +had ceased to exist. Dr. Warren joined the pair at the window. Lord +Walderhurst only heard one or two sentences. + +"I am afraid that nothing, now, can matter--at any moment." + + * * * * * + +Those who do not know from experience what he saw when he entered the +next room have reason to give thanks to such powers as they put trust +in. + +There ruled in the large, dim chamber an awful order and silence. The +faint flickering of the fire was a marked sound. There was no other but +a fainter and even more irregular one heard as one neared the bed. +Sometimes it seemed to stop, then, with a weak gasp, begin again. A +nurse in uniform stood in waiting; an elderly man sat on a chair at the +bedside, listening and looking at his watch, something white and +lifeless lying in his grasp,--Emily Walderhurst's waxen, unmoving hand. +The odour of antiseptics filled the nostrils. Lord Walderhurst drew +near. The speaking sign of the moment was that neither nurse nor doctor +stirred. + +Emily lay low upon a pillow. Her face was as bloodless as wax and was a +little turned aside. The Shadow was hovering over it and touched her +closed lids and the droop of her cheek and corners of her mouth. She was +far, far away. + +This was what Walderhurst felt first,--the strange remoteness, the +lonely stillness of her. She had gone alone far from the place he stood +in, and which they two familiarly knew. She was going, alone, farther +still. As he stood and watched her closed eyes,--the nice, easily +pleased eyes,--it was they themselves, closed on him and all prosaic +things and pleasures, which filled him most strangely with that sense of +her loneliness, weirdly enough, _hers_, not his. He was not thinking of +himself but of her. He wanted to withdraw her from her loneliness, to +bring her back. + +He knelt down carefully, making no sound, stealthily, not removing his +eyes from her strange, aloof face. He slowly dared to close his hand on +hers which lay outside the coverlet. And it was a little chill and +damp,--a little chill. + +A power, a force which hides itself in human things and which most of +them know not of, was gathering within him. He was warm and alive, a +living man; his hand as it closed on the chill of hers was warm; his +newly awakened being sent heat to it. + +He whispered her name close to her ear. + +"Emily!" slowly, "Emily!" + +She was very far away and lay unmoving. Her breast scarcely stirred with +the faintness of her breath. + +"Emily! Emily!" + +The doctor slightly raised his eyes to glance at him. He was used to +death-bed scenes, but this was curious, because he knew the usual +outward aspect of Lord Walderhurst, and its alteration at this moment +suggested abnormal things. He had not the flexibility of mind which +revealed to Dr. Warren that there were perhaps abnormal moments for the +most normal and inelastic personages. + +"Emily!" said his lordship, "Emily!" + +He did not cease from saying it, in a low yet reaching whisper, at +regular intervals, for at least half an hour. He did not move from his +knees, and so intense was his absorption that the presence of those who +came near was as nothing. + +What he hoped or intended to do he did not explain to himself. He was of +the order of man who coldly waves aside all wanderings on the subjects +of occult claims. He believed in proven facts, in professional aid, in +the abolition of absurdities. But his whole narrow being concentrated +itself on one thing,--he wanted this woman back. He wanted to speak to +her. + +What power he unknowingly drew from the depths of him, what exquisite +answering thing he reached at, could not be said. Perhaps it was only +some remote and subtle turn of the tide of life and death which chanced +to come to his aid. + +"Emily!" he said again, after many times. + +Dr. Warren at this moment met the lifted eyes of the doctor who was +counting her pulse, and in response to his look went to him. + +"It seems slightly stronger," Dr. Forsythe whispered. + +The slow, faint breathing changed a shade; there was heard a breath +slightly, very slightly deeper, less flickering, then another. + +Lady Walderhurst slightly stirred. + +"Remain where you are," whispered Dr. Warren to her husband, "and +continue to speak to her. Do not alter your tone. Go on." + + * * * * * + +Emily Walderhurst, drifting out on a still, borderless, white sea, +sinking gently as she floated, sinking in peaceful painlessness deeper +and deeper in her drifting until the soft, cool water lapped her lips +and, as she knew without fear, would soon cover them and her quiet face, +hiding them for ever,--heard from far, very far away, across the +whiteness floating about her, a faint sound which at first only fell +upon the stillness without meaning. Everything but the silence had been +left behind aeons ago. Nothing remained but the soundless white sea and +the slow drifting and sinking as one swayed. It was more than sleep, +this still peace, because there was no thought of waking to any shore. + +But the far-off sound repeated itself again, again, again and again, +monotonously. Something was calling to Something. She was so given up to +the soft drifting that she had no thoughts to give, and gave none. In +drifting so, one did not think--thought was left in the far-off place +the white sea carried one from. She sank quietly a little deeper and the +water touched her lip. But Something was calling to Something, something +was calling something to come back. The call was low, low and strange, +so regular and so unbroken and insistent, that it arrested, she knew not +what. Did it arrest the floating and the swaying in the enfolding sea? +Was the drifting slower? She could not rouse herself to think, she +wanted to go on. Did she no longer feel the water lapping against her +lip? Something was calling to Something still. Once, aeons ago, before +the white sea had borne her away, she would have understood. + +"Emily, Emily, Emily!" + +Yes, once she would have known what the sound meant. Once it had meant +something, a long time ago. It had even now disturbed the water, and +made it cease to lap so near her lip. + + * * * * * + +It was at this moment that one doctor had raised his eyes to the other, +and Lady Walderhurst had stirred. + +When Walderhurst left his place beside his wife's bed, Dr. Warren went +with him to his room. He made him drink brandy and called his man to +him. "You must remember," he said, "that you are an invalid yourself." + +"I believe," was the sole answer, given with an abstracted knitting of +the brows,--"I believe that in some mysterious way I have made her hear +me." + +Dr. Warren looked grave. He was a deeply interested man. He felt that he +had been looking on at an almost incomprehensible thing. + +"Yes," was his reply. "I believe that you have." + +About an hour later Lord Walderhurst made his way downstairs to the room +in which Lady Maria Bayne sat. She still looked a hundred years old, but +her maid had redressed her toupee, and given her a handkerchief neither +damp nor tinted with rubbed-off rouge. She looked at her relative a +shade more leniently, but still addressed him with something of the +manner of a person undeservedly chained to a malefactor. Her irritation +was not modified by the circumstance that it was extremely difficult to +be definite in the expression of her condemnation of things which had +made her hideously uncomfortable. Having quite approved of his going to +India in the first place, it was not easy to go thoroughly into the +subject of the numerous reasons why a man of his years and +responsibilities ought to have realised that it was his duty to remain +at home and take care of his wife. + +"Incredible as it seems," she snapped, "the doctors _think_ there is a +slight change, for the better." + +"Yes," Walderhurst answered. + +He leaned against the mantel and gazed into the fire. + +"She will come back," he added in a monotone. + +Lady Maria stared at him. She felt that the man was eerie, Walderhurst, +of all men on earth! + +"Where do you think she has been?" She professed to make the inquiry +with an air of reproof. + +"How should one know?" rather with the old stiffness. "It is impossible +to tell." + +Lady Maria Bayne was not the person possessing the temperament to +incline him to explain that, wheresoever the outer sphere might be to +which the dying woman had been drifting, he had been following her, as +far as living man could go. + +The elderly house steward opened the door and spoke in the hollow +whisper. + +"The head nurse wished to know if your ladyship would be so good as to +see Lord Oswyth before he goes to sleep." + +Walderhurst turned his head towards the man. Lord Oswyth was the name of +his son. He felt a shock. + +"I will come to the nursery," answered Lady Maria. "You have not seen +him yet?" turning to Walderhurst. + +"How could I?" + +"Then you had better come now. If she becomes conscious and has life +enough to expect anything, she will expect you to burst forth into +praises of him. You had better at least commit to memory the colour of +his eyes and hair. I believe he has two hairs. He is a huge, fat, +overgrown thing with enormous cheeks. When I saw his bloated +self-indulgent look yesterday, I confess I wanted to slap him." + +Her description was not wholly accurate, but he was a large and robust +child, as Walderhurst saw when he beheld him. + +From kneeling at the pillow on which the bloodless statue lay, and +calling into space to the soul which would not hear, it was a far cry to +the warmed and lighted orris-perfumed room in which Life had begun. + +There was the bright fire before which the high brass nursery fender +shone. There was soft linen hanging to be warmed, there was a lace-hung +cradle swinging in its place, and in a lace-draped basket silver and +gold boxes and velvet brushes and sponges such as he knew nothing about. +He had not been in such a place before, and felt awkward, and yet in +secret abnormally moved, or it seemed abnormally to him. + +Two women were in attendance. One of them held in her arms what he had +come to see. It was moving slightly in its coverings of white. Its +bearer stood waiting in respectful awe as Lady Maria uncovered its face. + +"Look at it," she said, concealing her relieved elation under a slightly +caustic manner. "How you will relish the situation when Emily tells you +that he is like you, I can't be as sure as I should be of myself under +the same circumstances." + +Walderhurst applied his monocle and gazed for some moments at the object +before him. He had not known that men experienced these curiously +unexplainable emotions at such times. He kept a strong hold on himself. + +"Would you like to hold him?" inquired Lady Maria. She was conscious of +a benevolent effort to restrain the irony in her voice. + +Lord Walderhurst made a slight movement backward. + +"I--I should not know how," he said, and then felt angry at himself. He +desired to take the thing in his arms. He desired to feel its warmth. He +absolutely realised that if he had been alone with it, he should have +laid aside his eyeglass and touched its cheek with his lips. + + +Two days afterwards he was sitting by his wife's pillow, watching her +shut lids, when he saw them quiver and slowly move until they were wide +open. Her eyes looked very large in her colourless, more sharply +chiselled face. They saw him and him only, as light came gradually into +them. They did not move, but rested on him. He bent forward, almost +afraid to stir. + +He spoke to her as he had spoken before. + +"Emily!" very low, "Emily!" + +Her voice was only a fluttering breath, but she answered. + +"It--was--you!" she said. + + + + +Chapter Twenty four + + +Such individuals as had not already thought it expedient to gradually +loosen and drop the links of their acquaintance with Captain Alec Osborn +did not find, on his return to his duties in India, that the leave of +absence spent in England among his relatives had improved him. He was +plainly consuming enormous quantities of brandy, and was steadily going, +physically and mentally, to seed. He had put on flesh, and even his +always dubious good looks were rapidly deserting him. The heavy young +jowl looked less young and more pronounced, and he bore about an evil +countenance. + +"Disappointment may have played the devil with him," it was said by an +elderly observer; "but he has played the devil with himself. He was a +wrong'un to begin with." + +When Hester's people flocked to see her and hear her stories of exalted +life in England, they greeted her with exclamations of dismay. If Osborn +had lost his looks, she also had lost hers. She was yellow and haggard, +and her eyes looked over-grown. She had not improved in the matter of +temper, and answered all effusive questions with a dry, bitter little +smile. The baby she had brought back was a puny, ugly, and tiny girl. +Hester's dry, little smile when she exhibited her to her relations was +not pretty. + +"She saved herself disappointment by being a girl," she remarked. "At +all events, she knows from the outset that no one can rob her of the +chance of being the Marquis of Walderhurst." + +It was rumoured that ugly things went on in the Osborn bungalow. It was +known that scenes occurred between the husband and wife which were not +of the order admitted as among the methods of polite society. One +evening Mrs. Osborn walked slowly down the Mall dressed in her best gown +and hat, and bearing on her cheek a broad, purpling mark. When asked +questions, she merely smiled and made no answer, which was extremely +awkward for the well-meaning inquirer. + +The questioner was the wife of the colonel of the regiment, and when the +lady related the incident to her husband in the evening, he drew in his +breath sharply and summed the situation up in a few words. + +"That little woman," he said, "lives every day through twenty-four hours +of hell. One can see it in her eyes, even when she professes to smile at +the brute for decency's sake. The awfulness of a woman's forced smile at +the devil she is tied to, loathing him and bearing in her soul the +thing, blood itself could not wipe out. Ugh! I've seen it once before, +and I recognised it in her again. There will be a bad end to this." + +There probably would have been, with the aid of unlimited brandy and +unrestrained devil, some outbreak so gross that the social laws which +rule men who are "officers and gentlemen" could not have ignored or +overlooked it. But the end came in an unexpected way, and Osborn was +saved from open ignominy by an accident. + +On a certain day when he had drunk heavily and had shut Hester up with +him for an hour's torture, after leaving her writhing and suffocating +with sobs, he went to examine some newly bought firearms. In twenty +minutes it was he who lay upon the floor writhing and suffocating, and +but a few minutes later he was a dead man. A charge from a gun he had +believed unloaded had finished him. + + * * * * * + +Lady Walderhurst was the kindest of women, as the world knew. She sent +for little Mrs. Osborn and her child, and was tender goodness itself to +them. + +Hester had been in England four years, and Lord Oswyth had a brother as +robust as himself, when one heavenly summer afternoon, as the two women +sat on the lawn drinking little cups of tea, Hester made a singular +revelation, and made it without moving a muscle of her small +countenance. + +"I always intended to tell you, Emily," she began quietly, "and I will +tell you now." + +"What, dear?" said Emily, holding out to her a plate of tiny buttered +scones. "Have some of these nice, little hot ones." + +"Thank you." Hester took one of the nice, little hot ones, but did not +begin to eat it. Instead, she held it untouched and let her eyes rest on +the brilliant flower terraces spread out below. "What I meant to tell +you was this. The gun was not loaded, the gun Alec shot himself with, +when he laid it aside." + +Emily put down her tea-cup hastily. + +"I saw him take out the charge myself two hours before. When he came in, +mad with drink, and made me go into the room with him, Ameerah saw him. +She always listened outside. Before we left The Kennel Farm, the day he +tortured and taunted me until I lost my head and shrieked out to him +that I had told you what I knew, and had helped you to go away, he +struck me again and again. Ameerah heard that. He did it several times +afterwards, and she always knew. She always intended to end it in some +way. She knew how drunk he was that last day, and--It was she who went +in and loaded the gun while he was having his scene with me. She knew he +would go and begin to pull the things about without having the sense to +know what he was doing. She had seen him do it before. I know it was she +who put the load in. We have never uttered a word to each other about +it, but I know she did it, and that she knows I know. Before I married +Alec, I did not understand how one human being could kill another. He +taught me to understand, quite. But I had not the courage to do it +myself. Ameerah had." + +And while Lady Walderhurst sat gazing at her with a paling face, she +began quietly to eat the little buttered scone. + +THE END + +[** Transcriber changes: + +Original page 90 (Part One, Chapter 4): The whole treat, juvenile and +adult, male and female, burst into three cheers which were roars and +bellows[missing. inserted] + +Original page 37 (Part One, Chapter 2): "I wish I had such +clothes,[missing " inserted] answered Lady Maria, and she chuckled +again. + +Original page 150 (Part Two, Chapter 7): Realising this, he did not +quite understand why he rather liked it in the case of Emily Fox-Seton, +though he only liked it remotely and felt his own inaptness a shade absurd. + +Original page 277 (Part Two, Chapter 14): "I know what her ladyship +feels about being talked over. If I was a lady myself, I shouldn't like +it. And I know how deep you'll feel it, that when the doctor advised her +to get an experienced married person to be at hand, she said in that +dear way of hers, 'Jane, if your uncle could spare your mother, how I +should like to have her.'[extraneous ' omitted] I've never forgot her +kindness in Mortimer Street.'" + +Original page 312 (Part Two, Chapter 17): "My lady! my lady!" she gasped +out as soon as she dare[missing "d" inserted]. + +Original page 320 (Part Two, Chapter 17): "They may be as innocent as I +am. And they may be murderers in their hearts. I can prove nothing, I +can prevent nothing. "[extraneous " omitted]Oh! _do_ come home." + +Original page 432: Human nature at its best and worst is well +protrayed[changed to "portrayed"]. **] + + * * * * * + +TITLES SELECTED FROM GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list + + * * * * * + +THE SIEGE OF THE SEVEN SUITORS. By Meredith Nicholson. Illustrated by C. +Coles Phillips and Reginald Birch. + +Seven suitors vie with each other for the love of a beautiful girl, and +she subjects them to a test that is full of mystery, magic and sheer +amusement. + +THE MAGNET. By Henry C. Rowland. Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood. + +The story of a remarkable courtship involving three pretty girls on a +yacht, a poet-lover in pursuit, and a mix-up in the names of the girls. + +THE TURN OF THE ROAD. By Eugenia Brooks Frothingham. + +A beautiful young opera singer chooses professional success instead of +love, but comes to a place in life where the call of the heart is +stronger than worldly success. + +SCOTTIE AND HIS LADY. By Margaret Morse. Illustrated by Harold M. Brett. + +A young girl whose affections have been blighted is presented with a +Scotch Collie to divert her mind, and the roving adventures of her pet +lead the young mistress into another romance. + +SHEILA VEDDER. By Amelia E. Barr. Frontispiece by Harrison Fisher. + +A very beautiful romance of the Shetland Islands, with a handsome, +strong willed hero and a lovely girl of Gælic blood as heroine. A sequel +to "Jan Vedder's Wife." + +JOHN WARD. PREACHER. By Margaret Deland. + +The first big success of this much loved American novelist. It is a +powerful portrayal of a young clergyman's attempt to win his beautiful +wife to his own narrow creed. + +THE TRAIL OF NINETY-EIGHT. By Robert W. Service. Illustrated by Maynard +Dixon. + +One of the best stories of "Vagabondia" ever written, and one of the +most accurate and picturesque of the stampede of gold seekers to the +Yukon. The love story embedded in the narrative is strikingly original. + + * * * * * + +Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction + +Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York + + * * * * * + +TITLES SELECTED FROM GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list + + * * * * * + +A CERTAIN RICH MAN. By William Allen White. + +A vivid, startling portrayal of one man's financial greed, its wide +spreading power, its action in Wall Street, and its effect on the three +women most intimately in his life. A splendid, entertaining American +novel. + +IN OUR TOWN. By William Allen White. Illustrated by F.R. Gruger and W. +Glackens. + +Made up of the observations of a keen newspaper editor, Involving the +town millionaire, the smart set, the literary set, the bohemian set, and +many others. All humorously related and sure to hold the attention. + +NATHAN BURKE. By Mary S. Watts. + +The story of an ambitious, backwoods Ohio boy who rose to prominence. +Everyday humor of American rustic life permeates the book. + +THE HIGH HAND. By Jacques Futrelle. Illustrated by Will Grefe. + +A splendid story of the political game, with a son of the soil on the +one side, and a "kid glove" politician on the other. A pretty girl, +interested in both men, is the chief figure. + +THE BACKWOODSMEN. By Charles G.P. Roberts. Illustrated. + +Realistic stories of men and women living midst the savage beauty of the +wilderness. Human nature at its best and worst is well portrayed. + +YELLOWSTONE NIGHTS. By Herbert Quick. + +A jolly company of six artists, writers and other clever folks take a +trip through the National Park, and tell stories around camp fire at +night. Brilliantly clever and original. + +THE PROFESSOR'S MYSTERY. By Wells Hastings and Brian Hooker. Illustrated +by Hanson Booth. + +A young college professor, missing his steamer for Europe, has a +romantic meeting with a pretty girl, escorts her home, and is enveloped +in a big mystery. + + * * * * * + +Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction + +Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York + + * * * * * + +TITLES SELECTED FROM GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list + + * * * * * + +THE SECOND WIFE. By Thompson Buchanan. Illustrated by W.W. Fawcett. +Harrison Fisher wrapper printed in four Colors and gold. + +An intensely interesting story of a marital complication in a wealthy +New York family involving the happiness of a beautiful young girl. + +TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY. By Grace Miller White. Illustrated by Howard +Chandler Christy. + +An amazingly vivid picture of low class life in a New York college town, +with a heroine beautiful and noble, who makes a great sacrifice for +love. + +FROM THE VALLEY OF THE MISSING. By Grace Miller White. Frontispiece and +wrapper in colors by Penrhyn Stanlaws. + +Another story of "the storm country." Two beautiful children are +kidnapped from a wealthy home and appear many years after showing the +effects of a deep, malicious scheme behind their disappearance. + +THE LIGHTED MATCH. By Charles Neville Buck. Illustrated by R.F. +Schabelitz. + +A lovely princess travels incognito through the States and falls in love +with an American man. There are ties that bind her to someone in her own +home, and the great plot revolves round her efforts to work her way out. + +MAUD BAXTER. By C.C. Hotchkiss. Illustrated by Will Grefe. + +A romance both daring and delightful, involving an American girl and a +young man who had been impressed into English service during the +Revolution. + +THE HIGHWAYMAN. By Guy Rawlence. Illustrated by Will Grefe. + +A French beauty of mysterious antecedents wins the love of an Englishman +of title. Developments of a startling character and a clever untangling +of affairs hold the reader's interest. + +THE PURPLE STOCKINGS. By Edward Salisbury Field. Illustrated in colors; +marginal illustrations. + +A young New York business man, his pretty sweetheart, his sentimental +stenographer, and his fashionable sister are all mixed up in a +misunderstanding that surpasses anything in the way of comedy in years. +A story with a laugh on every page. + + * * * * * + +Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction + +Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York + + * * * * * + +TITLES SELECTED FROM GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list + + * * * * * + +THE SILENT CALL. By Edwin Milton Royle. Illustrated with scenes from the +play. + +The hero of this story is the Squaw Man's son. He has been taken to +England, but spurns conventional life for the sake of the untamed West +and a girl's pretty face. + +JOHN MARCH, SOUTHERNER. By George W. Cable. + +A story of the pretty women and spirited men of the South. As fragrant +in sentiment as a sprig of magnolia, and as full of mystery and racial +troubles as any romance of "after the war" days. + +MR. JUSTICE RAFFLES. By E.W. Hornung. + +This engaging rascal is found helping a young cricket player out of the +toils of a money shark. Novel in plot, thrilling and amusing. + +FORTY MINUTES LATE. By F. Hopkinson Smith. Illustrated by S.M. Chase. + +Delightfully human stories of every day happenings; of a lecturer's +laughable experience because he's late, a young woman's excursion into +the stock market, etc. + +OLD LADY NUMBER 31. By Louise Forsslund. + +A heart-warming story of American rural life, telling of the adventures +of an old couple in an old folk's home, their sunny, philosophical +acceptance of misfortune and ultimate prosperity. + +THE HUSBAND'S STORY. By David Graham Phillips. + +A story that has given all Europe as well as all America much food for +thought. A young couple begin life in humble circumstances and rise in +worldly matters until the husband is enormously rich--the wife in the +most aristocratic European society--but at the price of their happiness. + +THE TRAIL OF NINETY-EIGHT. By Robert W. Service. Illustrated by Maynard +Dixon. + +One of the best stories of "Vagabondia" ever written, and one of the +most accurate and picturesque descriptions of the stampede of gold +seekers to the Yukon. The love story embedded in the narrative is +strikingly original. + + * * * * * + +Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction + +Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York + + * * * * * + +TITLES SELECTED FROM GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list + + * * * * * + +HIS HOUR. By Elinor Glyn. Illustrated. + +A beautiful blonde Englishwoman visits Russia, and is violently made +love to by a young Russian aristocrat. A most unique situation +complicates the romance. + +THE GAMBLERS. By Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow, Illustrated by C.E. +Chambers. + +A big, vital treatment of a present day situation wherein men play for +big financial stakes and women flourish on the profits--or repudiate the +methods. + +CHEERFUL AMERICANS. By Charles Battell Loomis. Illustrated by Florence +Scovel Shinn and others. + +A good, wholesome, laughable presentation of some Americans at home and +abroad, on their vacations, and during their hours of relaxation. + +THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. By Ella Wheeler Wilcox. + +Clever, original presentations of present day social problems and the +best solutions of them. A book every girl and woman should possess. + +THE LIGHT THAT LURES. By Percy Brebner. Illustrated. Handsomely colored +wrapper. + +A young Southerner who loved Lafayette, goes to France to aid him during +the days of terror, and is lured in a certain direction by the lovely +eyes of a Frenchwoman. + +THE RAMRODDERS. By Holman Day. Frontispiece by Harold Matthews Brett. + +A clever, timely story that will make politicians think and will make +women realize the part that politics play--even in their romances. + + * * * * * + +Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction + +Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York + + * * * * * + +The Master's Violin + +By MYRTLE REED + +A Love Story with a musical atmosphere. A picturesque, old German +virtuoso is the reverent possessor of a genuine Cremona. He consents to +take as his pupil a handsome youth who proves to have an aptitude for +technique, but not the soul of the artist. The youth has led the happy, +careless life of a modern, well-to-do young American, and he cannot, +with his meagre past, express the love, the longing, the passion and the +tragedies of life and its happy phases as can the master who has lived +life in all its fulness. But a girl comes into his existence, a +beautiful bit of human driftwood that his aunt had taken into her heart +and home; and through his passionate love for her, he learns the lessons +that life has to give--and his soul awakens. + +Founded on a fact well known among artists, but not often recognized or +discussed. + +If you have not read "LAVENDER AND OLD LACE" by the same author, you +have a double pleasure in store--for these two books show Myrtle Reed in +her most delightful, fascinating vein--indeed they may be considered as +masterpieces of compelling interest. + + * * * * * + +Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK + + * * * * * + +The Prodigal Judge + +By VAUGHAN KESTER + +This great novel--probably the most popular book in this country +to-day--is as human as a story from the pen of that great master of +"immortal laughter and immortal tears," Charles Dickens. + +The Prodigal Judge is a shabby outcast, a tavern hanger-on, a genial +wayfarer who tarries longest where the inn is most hospitable, yet with +that suavity, that distinctive politeness and that saving grace of humor +peculiar to the American man. He has his own code of morals--very +exalted ones--but honors them in the breach rather than in the +observance. + +Clinging to the Judge closer than a brother, is Solomon +Mahaffy--fallible and failing like the rest of us, but with a sublime +capacity for friendship; and closer still, perhaps, clings little +Hannibal, a boy about whose parentage nothing is known until the end of +the story. Hannibal is charmed into tolerance of the Judge's picturesque +vices, while Miss Betty, lovely and capricious, is charmed into placing +all her affairs, both material and sentimental, in the hands of this +delightful old vagabond. + +The Judge will be a fixed star in the firmament of fictional characters +as surely as David Harum or Col. Sellers. He is a source of infinite +delight, while this story of Mr. Kester's is one of the finest examples +of American literary craftmanship. + + * * * * * + +Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction + +Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York + + * * * * * + +GROSSET & DUNLAP'S DRAMATIZED NOVELS + +Original, sincere and courageous--often amusing--the kind that are +making theatrical history. + + * * * * * + +MADAME X. By Alexandra Bisson and J. W. McConaughy. Illustrated with +scenes from the play. + +A beautiful Parisienne became an outcast because her husband would not +forgive an error of her youth. Her love for her son is the great final +influence in her career. A tremendous dramatic success. + +THE GARDEN OF ALLAH. By Robert Hichens. + +An unconventional English woman and an inscrutable stranger meet and +love in an oasis of the Sahara. Staged this season with magnificent cast +and gorgeous properties. + +THE PRINCE OF INDIA. By Lew. Wallace. + +A glowing romance of the Byzantine Empire, presenting with extraordinary +power the siege of Constantinople, and lighting its tragedy with the +warm underglow of an Oriental romance. As a play it is a great dramatic +spectacle. + +TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY. By Grace Miller White. Illust. by Howard +Chandler Christy. + +A girl from the dregs of society, loves a young Cornell University +student, and it works startling changes in her life and the lives of +those about her. The dramatic version is one of the sensations of the +season. + +YOUNG WALLINGFORD. By George Randolph Chester. Illust. by F.R. Gruger +and Henry Raleigh. + +A series of clever swindles conducted by a cheerful young man, each of +which is just on the safe side of a State's prison offence. As +"Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford," it is probably the most amusing expose of +money manipulation ever seen on the stage. + +THE INTRUSION OF JIMMY. By P. G. Wodehouse. Illustrations by Will Grefe. + +Social and club life in London and New York, an amateur burglary +adventure and a love story. Dramatized under the title of "A Gentleman +of Leisure," it furnishes hours of laughter to the play-goers. + + * * * * * + +Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York + + * * * * * + +THE NOVELS OF WINSTON CHURCHILL + +Skillful in plot, dramatic in episode, powerful and original in climax. + +MR. CREWE'S CAREER. Illus. by A.I. Keller and Kinneys. + +A New England state is under the political domination of a railway and +Mr. Crewe, a millionaire, seizes the moment when the cause of the people +against corporation greed is being espoused by an ardent young attorney, +to further his own interest in a political way, by taking up this cause. + +The daughter of the railway president, with the sunny humor and shrewd +common sense of the New England girl, plays no small part in the +situation as well as in the life of the young attorney who stands so +unflinchingly for clean politics. + +THE CROSSING. Illus. by S. Adamson and L. Baylis. + +Describing the battle of Fort Moultrie and the British fleet in the +harbor of Charleston, the blazing of the Kentucky wilderness, the +expedition of Clark and his handful of dauntless followers in Illinois, +the beginning of civilization along the Ohio and Mississippi, and the +treasonable schemes builded against Washington and the Federal +Government. + +CONISTON. Illustrated by Florence Scovel Shinn. + +A deft blending of love and politics distinguishes this book. The author +has taken for his hero a New Englander, a crude man of the tannery, who +rose to political prominence by his own powers, and then surrendered all +for the love of a woman. + +It is a sermon on civic righteousness, and a love story of a deep +motive. + +THE CELEBRITY. An Episode. + +An inimitable bit of comedy describing an interchange of personalities +between a celebrated author and a bicycle salesman of the most blatant +type. The story is adorned with some character sketches more living than +pen work. It is purest, keenest fun--no such piece of humor has appeared +for years: it is American to the core. + +THE CRISIS. Illus. by Howard Chandler Christy. + +A book that presents the great crisis in our national life with splendid +power and with a sympathy, a sincerity, and a patriotism that are +inspiring. The several scenes in the book in which Abraham Lincoln +figures must be read in their entirety for they give a picture of that +great, magnetic, loveable man, which has been drawn with evident +affection and exceptional success. + + * * * * * + +Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York + + * * * * * + +B. M. Bower's Novels + +Thrilling Western Romances + +Large 12 mos. Handsomely bound in cloth. Illustrated + + * * * * * + +CHIP, OF THE FLYING U + +A breezy wholesome tale, wherein the love affairs of Chip and Delia +Whitman are charmingly and humorously told. Chip's jealousy of Dr. Cecil +Grantham, who turns out to be a big, blue eyed young woman is very +amusing. A clever, realistic story of the American Cow-puncher. + +THE HAPPY FAMILY + +A lively and amusing story, dealing with the adventures of eighteen +jovial, big hearted Montana cowboys. Foremost amongst them, we find +Ananias Green, known as Andy, whose imaginative powers cause many lively +and exciting adventures. + +HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT + +A realistic story of the plains, describing a gay party of Easterners +who exchange a cottage at Newport for the rough homeliness of a Montana +ranch-house. The merry-hearted cowboys, the fascinating Beatrice, and +the effusive Sir Redmond, become living, breathing personalities. + +THE RANGE DWELLERS + +Here are everyday, genuine cowboys, just as they really exist. Spirited +action, a range feud between two families, and a Romeo and Juliet +courtship make this a bright, jolly, entertaining story, without a dull +page. + +THE LURE OF DIM TRAILS + +A vivid portrayal of the experience of an Eastern author, among the +cowboys of the West, in search of "local color" for a new novel. "Bud" +Thurston learns many a lesson while following "the lure of the dim +trails" but the hardest, and probably the most welcome, is that of love. + +THE LONESOME TRAIL + +"Weary" Davidson leaves the ranch for Portland, where conventional city +life palls on him. A little branch of sage brush, pungent with the +atmosphere of the prairie, and the recollection of a pair of large brown +eyes soon compel his return. A wholesome love story. + +THE LONG SHADOW + +A vigorous Western story, sparkling with the free, outdoor, life of a +mountain ranch. Its scenes shift rapidly and its actors play the game of +life fearlessly and like men. It is a fine love story from start to +finish. + + * * * * * + +Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction + +Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York + + * * * * * + +THE NOVELS OF GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON + +GRAUSTARK. + +A story of love behind a throne, telling how a young American met a +lovely girl and followed her to a new and strange country. A thrilling, +dashing narrative. + +BEVERLY OF GRAUSTARK. + +Beverly is a bewitching American girl who has gone to that stirring +little principality--Graustark--to visit her friend the princess, and +there has a romantic affair of her own. + +BREWSTER'S MILLIONS. + +A young man is required to spend one million dollars in one year in +order to inherit seven. How he does it forms the basis of a lively +story. + +CASTLE CRANEYCROW. + +The story revolves round the abduction of a young American woman, her +imprisonment in an old castle and the adventures created through her +rescue. + +COWARDICE COURT. + +An amusing social feud in the Adirondacks in which an English girl is +tempted into being a traitor by a romantic young American, forms the +plot. + +THE DAUGHTER OF ANDERSON CROW. + +The story centers about the adopted daughter of the town marshal in a +western village. Her parentage is shrouded in mystery, and the story +concerns the secret that deviously works to the surface. + +THE MAN FROM BRODNEY'S. + +The hero meets a princess in a far-away island among fanatically hostile +Musselmen. Romantic love making amid amusing situations and exciting +adventures. + +NEDRA. + +A young couple elope from Chicago to go to London traveling as brother +and sister. They are shipwrecked and a strange mix-up occurs on account +of it. + +THE SHERRODS. + +The scene is the Middle West and centers around a man who leads a double +life. A most enthralling novel. + +TRUXTON KING. + +A handsome good natured young fellow ranges on the earth looking for +romantic adventures and is finally enmeshed in most complicated +intrigues in Graustark. + + * * * * * + +Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York + + * * * * * + +LOUIS TRACY'S CAPTIVATING AND EXHILARATING ROMANCES + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list + + * * * * * + +CYNTHIA'S CHAUFFEUR. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy. + +A pretty American girl in London is touring in a car with a chauffeur +whose identity puzzles her. An amusing mystery. + +THE STOWAWAY GIRL. Illustrated by Nesbitt Benson. + +A shipwreck, a lovely girl stowaway, a rascally captain, a fascinating +officer, and thrilling adventures in South Seas. + +THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS. + +Love and the salt sea, a helpless ship whirled into the hands of +cannibals, desperate fighting and a tender romance. + +THE MESSAGE. Illustrated by Joseph Cummings Chase. + +A bit of parchment found in the figurehead of an old vessel tells of a +buried treasure. A thrilling mystery develops. + +THE PILLAR OF LIGHT. + +The pillar thus designated was a lighthouse, and the author tells with +exciting detail the terrible dilemma of its cut-off inhabitants. + +THE WHEEL O'FORTUNE. With illustrations by James Montgomery Flagg. + +The story deals with the finding of a papyrus containing the particulars +of some of the treasures of the Queen of Sheba. + +A SON OF THE IMMORTALS. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy. + +A young American is proclaimed king of a little Balkan Kingdom, and a +pretty Parisian art student is the power behind the throne. + +THE WINGS OF THE MORNING. + +A sort of Robinson Crusoe _redivivus_ with modern settings and a very +pretty love story added. The hero and heroine are the only survivors of +a wreck, and have many thrilling adventures on their desert island. + + * * * * * + +Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction + +Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York + + * * * * * + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Emily Fox-Seton, by Frances Hodgson Burnett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EMILY FOX-SETON *** + +***** This file should be named 17226-8.txt or 17226-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/2/2/17226/ + +Produced by Hilary Caws-Elwitt + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Emily Fox-Seton + Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst + +Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett + +Illustrator: C.D. Williams + +Release Date: December 5, 2005 [EBook #17226] +[Last updated: December 9, 2011] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EMILY FOX-SETON *** + + + + +Produced by Hilary Caws-Elwitt + + + + + +</pre> + +<img border="0" src="images/cover.jpg" width="400" height="591" class="center" alt="Cover of book" /> +<br /> +<br /> +<img border="0" src="images/efs.png" width="215" height="390" class="center" alt="Painting of Emily Fox-Seton" /> +<h4>Emily Fox-Seton</h4> + +<h1> EMILY FOX-SETON</h1> + + +<h3>BEING "THE MAKING OF A <br /> +MARCHIONESS" AND "THE<br /> +METHODS OF LADY<br /> +WALDERHURST"</h3> + + +<h3>By<br /> +Frances Hodgson Burnett</h3> + + +<p class="center"><b>ILLUSTRATED BY <br /> +<font size="+1">C.D. WILLIAMS</font></b></p> + + +<p class="center">NEW YORK<br /> +<font size="+2">GROSSET & DUNLAP</font><br /> +PUBLISHERS</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><i>Copyright, 1901, by The Century Company</i></p> + +<p><i>Copyright, 1901, by Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett</i></p> + +<p><i>Copyright, 1901, by Frederick A. Stokes Company</i></p> + +<img src="images/fas.png" width="239" height="70" alt="September, 1909" /> +<p><ins class="correction" +title="Transcriber's Note: Original text does not have a table of contents; inserted for the use of the reader.">Jump to chapters</ins></p> +<p> +<b>PART ONE</b><br /> +<a href="#Chapter_One"><b>Chapter One</b></a><br /> +<a href="#Chapter_Two"><b>Chapter Two</b></a><br /> +<a href="#Chapter_Three"><b>Chapter Three</b></a><br /> +<a href="#Chapter_Four"><b>Chapter Four</b></a><br /> +<a href="#Chapter_Five"><b>Chapter Five</b></a><br /> +<a href="#Chapter_Six"><b>Chapter Six</b></a><br /> +<b>PART TWO</b><br /> +<a href="#Chapter_Seven"><b>Chapter Seven</b></a><br /> +<a href="#Chapter_Eight"><b>Chapter Eight</b></a><br /> +<a href="#Chapter_Nine"><b>Chapter Nine</b></a><br /> +<a href="#Chapter_Ten"><b>Chapter Ten</b></a><br /> +<a href="#Chapter_Eleven"><b>Chapter Eleven</b></a><br /> +<a href="#Chapter_Twelve"><b>Chapter Twelve</b></a><br /> +<a href="#Chapter_Thirteen"><b>Chapter Thirteen</b></a><br /> +<a href="#Chapter_Fourteen"><b>Chapter Fourteen</b></a><br /> +<a href="#Chapter_Fifteen"><b>Chapter Fifteen</b></a><br /> +<a href="#Chapter_Sixteen"><b>Chapter Sixteen</b></a><br /> +<a href="#Chapter_Seventeen"><b>Chapter Seventeen</b></a><br /> +<a href="#Chapter_Eighteen"><b>Chapter Eighteen</b></a><br /> +<a href="#Chapter_Nineteen"><b>Chapter Nineteen</b></a><br /> +<a href="#Chapter_Twenty"><b>Chapter Twenty</b></a><br /> +<a href="#Chapter_Twenty_one"><b>Chapter Twenty one</b></a><br /> +<a href="#Chapter_Twenty_two"><b>Chapter Twenty two</b></a><br /> +<a href="#Chapter_Twenty_three"><b>Chapter Twenty three</b></a><br /> +<a href="#Chapter_Twenty_four"><b>Chapter Twenty four</b></a><br /> +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PART ONE</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<a name="Chapter_One" id="Chapter_One"></a> + +<img border="0" src="images/chapter_1.png" width="478" height="275" class="center" alt="Chapter One" /> + +<p><span class="dropcapw"><span class="dropcap">W</span></span>hen Miss Fox-Seton descended from the twopenny bus as it drew up, she +gathered her trim tailor-made skirt about her with neatness and decorum, +being well used to getting in and out of twopenny buses and to making +her way across muddy London streets. A woman whose tailor-made suit must +last two or three years soon learns how to protect it from splashes, and +how to aid it to retain the freshness of its folds. During her trudging +about this morning in the wet, Emily Fox-Seton had been very careful, +and, in fact, was returning to Mortimer Street as unspotted as she had +left it. She had been thinking a good deal about her dress—this +particular faithful one which she had already worn through a +twelvemonth. Skirts had made one of their appalling changes, and as she +walked down Regent Street and Bond Street she had stopped at the windows +of more than one shop bearing the sign "Ladies' Tailor and Habit-Maker," +and had looked at the tautly attired, preternaturally slim models, her +large, honest hazel eyes wearing an anxious expression. She was trying +to discover <i>where</i> seams were to be placed and how gathers were to be +hung; or if there were to be gathers at all; or if one had to be bereft +of every seam in a style so unrelenting as to forbid the possibility of +the honest and semi-penniless struggling with the problem of remodelling +last season's skirt at all. "As it is only quite an ordinary brown," she +had murmured to herself, "I might be able to buy a yard or so to match +it, and I <i>might</i> be able to join the gore near the pleats at the back +so that it would not be seen."</p> + +<p>She quite beamed as she reached the happy conclusion. She was such a +simple, normal-minded creature that it took but little to brighten the +aspect of life for her and to cause her to break into her good-natured, +childlike smile. A little kindness from any one, a little pleasure or a +little comfort, made her glow with nice-tempered enjoyment. As she got +out of the bus, and picked up her rough brown skirt, prepared to tramp +bravely through the mud of Mortimer Street to her lodgings, she was +positively radiant. It was not only her smile which was childlike, her +face itself was childlike for a woman of her age and size. She was +thirty-four and a well-set-up creature, with fine square shoulders and a +long small waist and good hips. She was a big woman, but carried herself +well, and having solved the problem of obtaining, through marvels of +energy and management, one good dress a year, wore it so well, and +changed her old ones so dexterously, that she always looked rather +smartly dressed. She had nice, round, fresh cheeks and nice, big, honest +eyes, plenty of mouse-brown hair and a short, straight nose. She was +striking and well-bred-looking, and her plenitude of good-natured +interest in everybody, and her pleasure in everything out of which +pleasure could be wrested, gave her big eyes a fresh look which made her +seem rather like a nice overgrown girl than a mature woman whose life +was a continuous struggle with the narrowest of mean fortunes.</p> + +<p>She was a woman of good blood and of good education, as the education of +such women goes. She had few relatives, and none of them had any +intention of burdening themselves with her pennilessness. They were +people of excellent family, but had quite enough to do to keep their +sons in the army or navy and find husbands for their daughters. When +Emily's mother had died and her small annuity had died with her, none of +them had wanted the care of a big raw-boned girl, and Emily had had the +situation frankly explained to her. At eighteen she had begun to work as +assistant teacher in a small school; the year following she had taken a +place as nursery-governess; then she had been reading-companion to an +unpleasant old woman in Northumberland. The old woman had lived in the +country, and her relatives had hovered over her like vultures awaiting +her decease. The household had been gloomy and gruesome enough to have +driven into melancholy madness any girl not of the sanest and most +matter-of-fact temperament. Emily Fox-Seton had endured it with an +unfailing good nature, which at last had actually awakened in the breast +of her mistress a ray of human feeling. When the old woman at length +died, and Emily was to be turned out into the world, it was revealed +that she had been left a legacy of a few hundred pounds, and a letter +containing some rather practical, if harshly expressed, advice.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">Go back to London [Mrs. Maytham had written in her feeble, crabbed +hand]. You are not clever enough to do anything remarkable in the way of +earning your living, but you are so good-natured that you can make +yourself useful to a lot of helpless creatures who will pay you a trifle +for looking after them and the affairs they are too lazy or too foolish +to manage for themselves. You might get on to one of the second-class +fashion-papers to answer ridiculous questions about house-keeping or +wall-papers or freckles. You know the kind of thing I mean. You might +write notes or do accounts and shopping for some lazy woman. You are a +practical, honest creature, and you have good manners. I have often +thought that you had just the kind of commonplace gifts that a host of +commonplace people want to find at their service. An old servant of mine +who lives in Mortimer Street would probably give you cheap, decent +lodgings, and behave well to you for my sake. She has reason to be fond +of me. Tell her I sent you to her, and that she must take you in for ten +shillings a week.</p> + +<p>Emily wept for gratitude, and ever afterward enthroned old Mrs. Maytham +on an altar as a princely and sainted benefactor, though after she had +invested her legacy she got only twenty pounds a year from it.</p> + +<p>"It was so <i>kind</i> of her," she used to say with heartfelt humbleness of +spirit. "I never <i>dreamed</i> of her doing such a generous thing. I hadn't +a <i>shadow</i> of a claim upon her—not a <i>shadow</i>." It was her way to +express her honest emotions with emphasis which italicised, as it were, +her outpourings of pleasure or appreciation.</p> + +<p>She returned to London and presented herself to the ex-serving-woman. +Mrs. Cupp had indeed reason to remember her mistress gratefully. At a +time when youth and indiscreet affection had betrayed her disastrously, +she had been saved from open disgrace and taken care of by Mrs. Maytham.</p> + +<p>The old lady, who had then been a vigorous, sharp-tongued, middle-aged +woman, had made the soldier lover marry his despairing sweetheart, and +when he had promptly drunk himself to death, she had set her up in a +lodging-house which had thriven and enabled her to support herself and +her daughter decently.</p> + +<p>In the second story of her respectable, dingy house there was a small +room which she went to some trouble to furnish up for her dead +mistress's friend. It was made into a bed-sitting-room with the aid of a +cot which Emily herself bought and disguised decently as a couch during +the daytime, by means of a red and blue Como blanket. The one window of +the room looked out upon a black little back-yard and a sooty wall on +which thin cats crept stealthily or sat and mournfully gazed at fate. +The Como rug played a large part in the decoration of the apartment. One +of them, with a piece of tape run through a hem, hung over the door in +the character of a <i>portière</i>; another covered a corner which was Miss +Fox-Seton's sole wardrobe. As she began to get work, the cheerful, +aspiring creature bought herself a Kensington carpet-square, as red as +Kensington art would permit it to be. She covered her chairs with +Turkey-red cotton, frilling them round the seats. Over her cheap white +muslin curtains (eight and eleven a pair at Robson's) she hung +Turkey-red draperies. She bought a cheap cushion at one of Liberty's +sales, and some bits of twopenny-halfpenny art china for her narrow +mantelpiece. A lacquered tea-tray and a tea-set of a single cup and +saucer, a plate and a teapot, made her feel herself almost sumptuous. +After a day spent in trudging about in the wet or cold of the streets, +doing other people's shopping, or searching for dressmakers or servants' +characters for her patrons, she used to think of her bed-sitting-room +with joyful anticipation. Mrs. Cupp always had a bright fire glowing in +her tiny grate when she came in, and when her lamp was lighted under its +home-made shade of crimson Japanese paper, its cheerful air, combining +itself with the singing of her little, fat, black kettle on the hob, +seemed absolute luxury to a tired, damp woman.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Cupp and Jane Cupp were very kind and attentive to her. No one who +lived in the same house with her could have helped liking her. She gave +so little trouble, and was so expansively pleased by any attention, that +the Cupps,—who were sometimes rather bullied and snubbed by the +"professionals" who generally occupied their other rooms,—quite loved +her. Sometimes the "professionals," extremely smart ladies and gentlemen +who did turns at the balls or played small parts at theatres, were +irregular in their payments or went away leaving bills behind them; but +Miss Fox-Seton's payments were as regular as Saturday night, and, in +fact, there had been times when, luck being against her, Emily had gone +extremely hungry during a whole week rather than buy her lunches at the +ladies' tea-shops with the money that would pay her rent. </p> + +<p> In the honest +minds of the Cupps, she had become a sort of possession of which they +were proud. She seemed to bring into their dingy lodging-house a touch +of the great world,—that world whose people lived in Mayfair and had +country-houses where they entertained parties for the shooting and the +hunting, and in which also existed the maids and matrons who on cold +spring mornings sat, amid billows of satin and tulle and lace, +surrounded with nodding plumes, waiting, shivering, for hours in their +carriages that they might at last enter Buckingham Palace and be +admitted to the Drawing-room. Mrs. Cupp knew that Miss Fox-Seton was +"well connected;" she knew that she possessed an aunt with a title, +though her ladyship never took the slightest notice of her niece. Jane +Cupp took "Modern Society," and now and then had the pleasure of reading +aloud to her young man little incidents concerning some castle or manor +in which Miss Fox-Seton's aunt, Lady Malfry, was staying with earls and +special favorites of the Prince's. Jane also knew that Miss Fox-Seton +occasionally sent letters addressed "To the Right Honourable the +Countess of So-and-so," and received replies stamped with coronets. Once +even a letter had arrived adorned with strawberry-leaves, an incident +which Mrs. Cupp and Jane had discussed with deep interest over their hot +buttered-toast and tea. </p> + +<p> Emily Fox-Seton, however, was far from making +any professions of grandeur. As time went on she had become fond enough +of the Cupps to be quite frank with them about her connections with +these grand people. The countess had heard from a friend that Miss +Fox-Seton had once found her an excellent governess, and she had +commissioned her to find for her a reliable young ladies' serving-maid. +She had done some secretarial work for a charity of which the duchess +was patroness. In fact, these people knew her only as a well-bred woman +who for a modest remuneration would make herself extremely useful in +numberless practical ways. She knew much more of them than they knew of +her, and, in her affectionate admiration for those who treated her with +human kindness, sometimes spoke to Mrs. Cupp or Jane of their beauty or +charity with a very nice, ingenuous feeling. Naturally some of her +patrons grew fond of her, and as she was a fine, handsome young woman +with a perfectly correct bearing, they gave her little pleasures, +inviting her to tea or luncheon, or taking her to the theatre.</p> + +<p>Her enjoyment of these things was so frank and grateful that the Cupps +counted them among their own joys. Jane Cupp—who knew something of +dressmaking—felt it a brilliant thing to be called upon to renovate an +old dress or help in the making of a new one for some festivity. The +Cupps thought their tall, well-built lodger something of a beauty, and +when they had helped her to dress for the evening, baring her fine, big +white neck and arms, and adorning her thick braids of hair with some +sparkling, trembling ornaments, after putting her in her four-wheeled +cab, they used to go back to their kitchen and talk about her, and +wonder that some gentleman who wanted a handsome, stylish woman at the +head of his table, did not lay himself and his fortune at her feet.</p> + +<p>"In the photograph-shops in Regent Street you see many a lady in a +coronet that hasn't half the good looks she has," Mrs. Cupp remarked +frequently. "She's got a nice complexion and a fine head of hair, +and—if you ask <i>me</i>—she's got as nice a pair of clear eyes as a lady +could have. Then look at her figure—her neck and her waist! That kind +of big long throat of hers would set off rows of pearls or diamonds +beautiful! She's a lady born, too, for all her simple, every-day way; +and she's a sweet creature, if ever there was one. For kind-heartedness +and good-nature I never saw her equal."</p> + +<p>Miss Fox-Seton had middle-class patrons as well as noble ones,—in fact, +those of the middle class were far more numerous than the duchesses,—so +it had been possible for her to do more than one good turn for the Cupp +household. She had got sewing in Maida Vale and Bloomsbury for Jane Cupp +many a time, and Mrs. Cupp's dining-room floor had been occupied for +years by a young man Emily had been able to recommend. Her own +appreciation of good turns made her eager to do them for others. She +never let slip a chance to help any one in any way.</p> + +<p>It was a good-natured thing done by one of her patrons who liked her, +which made her so radiant as she walked through the mud this morning. +She was inordinately fond of the country, and having had what she called +"a bad winter," she had not seen the remotest chance of getting out of +town at all during the summer months. The weather was beginning to be +unusually hot, and her small red room, which seemed so cosy in winter, +was shut in by a high wall from all chance of breezes. Occasionally she +lay and panted a little in her cot, and felt that when all the private +omnibuses, loaded with trunks and servants, had rattled away and +deposited their burdens at the various stations, life in town would be +rather lonely. Every one she knew would have gone somewhere, and +Mortimer Street in August was a melancholy thing. </p> + +<p> And Lady Maria had +actually invited her to Mallowe. What a piece of good fortune—what an +extraordinary piece of kindness! </p> + +<p> She did not know what a source of +entertainment she was to Lady Maria, and how the shrewd, worldly old +thing liked her. Lady Maria Bayne was the cleverest, sharpest-tongued, +smartest old woman in London. She knew everybody and had done everything +in her youth, a good many things not considered highly proper. A certain +royal duke had been much pleased with her and people had said some very +nasty things about it. But this had not hurt Lady Maria. She knew how to +say nasty things herself, and as she said them wittily they were usually +listened to and repeated.</p> + +<p>Emily Fox-Seton had gone to her first to write notes for an hour every +evening. She had sent, declined, and accepted invitations, and put off +charities and dull people. She wrote a fine, dashing hand, and had a +matter-of-fact intelligence and knowledge of things. Lady Maria began to +depend on her and to find that she could be sent on errands and depended +on to do a number of things. Consequently, she was often at South Audley +Street, and once, when Lady Maria was suddenly taken ill and was +horribly frightened about herself, Emily was such a comfort to her that +she kept her for three weeks.</p> + +<p>"The creature is so cheerful and perfectly free from vice that she's a +relief," her ladyship said to her nephew afterward. "So many women are +affected cats. She'll go out and buy you a box of pills or a porous +plaster, but at the same time she has a kind of simplicity and freedom +from spites and envies which might be the natural thing for a princess."</p> + +<p>So it happened that occasionally Emily put on her best dress and most +carefully built hat and went to South Audley Street to tea. (Sometimes +she had previously gone in buses to some remote place in the City to buy +a special tea of which there had been rumours.) She met some very smart +people and rarely any stupid ones, Lady Maria being incased in a +perfect, frank armour of good-humoured selfishness, which would have +been capable of burning dulness at the stake.</p> + +<p>"I won't have dull people," she used to say. "I'm dull myself."</p> + +<p>When Emily Fox-Seton went to her on the morning in which this story +opens, she found her consulting her visiting-book and making lists.</p> + +<p>"I'm arranging my parties for Mallowe," she said rather crossly. "How +tiresome it is! The people one wants at the same time are always nailed +to the opposite ends of the earth. And then things are found out about +people, and one can't have them till it's blown over. Those ridiculous +Dexters! They were the nicest possible pair—both of them good-looking +and both of them ready to flirt with anybody. But there was too much +flirting, I suppose. Good heavens! if I couldn't have a scandal and keep +it quiet, I wouldn't have a scandal at all. Come and help me, Emily."</p> + +<p>Emily sat down beside her.</p> + +<p>"You see, it is my early August party," said her ladyship, rubbing her +delicate little old nose with her pencil, "and Walderhurst is coming to +me. It always amuses me to have Walderhurst. The moment a man like that +comes into a room the women begin to frisk about and swim and languish, +except those who try to get up interesting conversations they think +likely to attract his attention. They all think it is possible that he +may marry them. If he were a Mormon he might have marchionesses of +Walderhurst of all shapes and sizes."</p> + +<p>"I suppose," said Emily, "that he was very much in love with his first +wife and will never marry again."</p> + +<p>"He wasn't in love with her any more than he was in love with his +housemaid. He knew he must marry, and thought it very annoying. As the +child died, I believe he thinks it his duty to marry again. But he hates +it. He's rather dull, and he can't bear women fussing about and wanting +to be made love to."</p> + +<p>They went over the visiting-book and discussed people and dates +seriously. The list was made and the notes written before Emily left the +house. It was not until she had got up and was buttoning her coat that +Lady Maria bestowed her boon.</p> + +<p>"Emily," she said, "I am going to ask you to Mallowe on the 2d. I want +you to help me to take care of people and keep them from boring me and +one another, though I don't mind their boring one another half so much +as I mind their boring me. I want to be able to go off and take my nap +at any hour I choose. I will <i>not</i> entertain people. What you can do is +to lead them off to gather things or look at church towers. I hope +you'll come."</p> + +<p>Emily Fox-Seton's face flushed rosily, and her eyes opened and sparkled.</p> + +<p>"O Lady Maria, you <i>are</i> kind!" she said. "You know how I should enjoy +it. I have heard so much of Mallowe. Every one says it is so beautiful +and that there are no such gardens in England."</p> + +<p>"They are good gardens. My husband was rather mad about roses. The best +train for you to take is the 2:30 from Paddington. That will bring you +to the Court just in time for tea on the lawn."</p> + +<p>Emily could have kissed Lady Maria if they had been on the terms which +lead people to make demonstrations of affection. But she would have been +quite as likely to kiss the butler when he bent over her at dinner and +murmured in dignified confidence, "Port or sherry, miss?" Bibsworth +would have been no more astonished than Lady Maria would, and Bibsworth +certainly would have expired of disgust and horror.</p> + +<p>She was so happy when she hailed the twopenny bus that when she got into +it her face was beaming with the delight which adds freshness and good +looks to any woman. To think that such good luck had come to her! To +think of leaving her hot little room behind her and going as a guest to +one of the most beautiful old houses in England! How delightful it would +be to live for a while quite naturally the life the fortunate people +lived year after year—to be a part of the beautiful order and +picturesqueness and dignity of it! To sleep in a lovely bedroom, to be +called in the morning by a perfect housemaid, to have one's early tea +served in a delicate cup, and to listen as one drank it to the birds +singing in the trees in the park! She had an ingenuous appreciation of +the simplest material joys, and the fact that she would wear her nicest +clothes every day, and dress for dinner every evening, was a delightful +thing to reflect upon. She got so much more out of life than most +people, though she was not aware of it.</p> + +<p>She opened the front door of the house in Mortimer Street with her +latch-key, and went upstairs, almost unconscious that the damp heat was +dreadful. She met Jane Cupp coming down, and smiled at her happily.</p> + +<p>"Jane," she said, "if you are not busy, I should like to have a little +talk with you. Will you come into my room?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, miss," Jane replied, with her usual respectful lady's maid's air. +It was in truth Jane's highest ambition to become some day maid to a +great lady, and she privately felt that her association with Miss +Fox-Seton was the best possible training. She used to ask to be allowed +to dress her when she went out, and had felt it a privilege to be +permitted to "do" her hair.</p> + +<p>She helped Emily to remove her walking dress, and neatly folded away her +gloves and veil. She knelt down before her as soon as she saw her seat +herself to take off her muddy boots.</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>thank</i> you, Jane," Emily exclaimed, with her kind italicised +manner. "That <i>is</i> good of you. I <i>am</i> tired, really. But such a nice +thing has happened. I have had such a delightful invitation for the +first week in August."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure you'll enjoy it, miss," said Jane. "It's so hot in August."</p> + +<p>"Lady Maria Bayne has been kind enough to invite me to Mallowe Court," +explained Emily, smiling down at the cheap slipper Jane was putting on +her large, well-shaped foot. She was built on a large scale, and her +foot was of no Cinderella-like proportions.</p> + +<p>"O miss!" exclaimed Jane. "How beautiful! I was reading about Mallowe in +'Modern Society' the other day, and it said it was lovely and her +ladyship's parties were wonderful for smartness. The paragraph was about +the Marquis of Walderhurst."</p> + +<p>"He is Lady Maria's cousin," said Emily, "and he will be there when I +am."</p> + +<p>She was a friendly creature, and lived a life so really isolated from +any ordinary companionship that her simple little talks with Jane and +Mrs. Cupp were a pleasure to her. The Cupps were neither gossiping nor +intrusive, and she felt as if they were her friends. Once when she had +been ill for a week she remembered suddenly realising that she had no +intimates at all, and that if she died Mrs. Cupp's and Jane's would +certainly be the last faces—and the only ones—she would see. She had +cried a little the night she thought of it, but then, as she told +herself, she was feverish and weak, and it made her morbid.</p> + +<p>"It was because of this invitation that I wanted to talk to you, Jane," +she went on. "You see, we shall have to begin to contrive about +dresses."</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed, miss. It's fortunate that the summer sales are on, isn't +it? I saw some beautiful colored linens yesterday. They were so cheap, +and they do make up so smart for the country. Then you've got your new +Tussore with the blue collar and waistband. It does become you."</p> + +<p>"I must say I think that a Tussore always looks fresh," said Emily, "and +I saw a really nice little tan toque—one of those soft straw ones—for +three and eleven. And just a twist of blue chiffon and a wing would make +it look quite <i>good</i>."</p> + +<p>She was very clever with her fingers, and often did excellent things +with a bit of chiffon and a wing, or a few yards of linen or muslin and +a remnant of lace picked up at a sale. She and Jane spent quite a happy +afternoon in careful united contemplation of the resources of her +limited wardrobe. They found that the brown skirt <i>could</i> be altered, +and, with the addition of new <i>revers</i> and collar and a <i>jabot</i> of +string-coloured lace at the neck, would look quite fresh. A black net +evening dress, which a patron had good-naturedly given her the year +before, could be remodelled and touched up delightfully. Her fresh face +and her square white shoulders were particularly adorned by black. There +was a white dress which could be sent to the cleaner's, and an old pink +one whose superfluous breadths could be combined with lace and achieve +wonders. </p> + +<p> "Indeed, I think I shall be very well off for dinner-dresses," +said Emily. "Nobody expects me to change often. Every one knows—if they +notice at all." She did not know she was humble-minded and of an angelic +contentedness of spirit. In fact, she did not find herself interested in +contemplation of her own qualities, but in contemplation and admiration +of those of other people. It was necessary to provide Emily Fox-Seton +with food and lodging and such a wardrobe as would be just sufficient +credit to her more fortunate acquaintances. She worked hard to attain +this modest end and was quite satisfied. She found at the shops where +the summer sales were being held a couple of cotton frocks to which her +height and her small, long waist gave an air of actual elegance. A +sailor hat, with a smart ribbon and well-set quill, a few new trifles +for her neck, a bow, a silk handkerchief daringly knotted, and some +fresh gloves, made her feel that she was sufficiently equipped.</p> + +<p>During her last expedition to the sales she came upon a nice white duck +coat and skirt which she contrived to buy as a present for Jane. It was +necessary to count over the contents of her purse very carefully and to +give up the purchase of a slim umbrella she wanted, but she did it +cheerfully. If she had been a rich woman she would have given presents +to every one she knew, and it was actually a luxury to her to be able to +do something for the Cupps, who, she always felt, were continually +giving her more than she paid for. The care they took of her small room, +the fresh hot tea they managed to have ready when she came in, the penny +bunch of daffodils they sometimes put on her table, were kindnesses, and +she was grateful for them. "I am very much obliged to you, Jane," she +said to the girl, when she got into the four-wheeled cab on the eventful +day of her journey to Mallowe. "I don't know what I should have done +without you, I'm sure. I feel so smart in my dress now that you have +altered it. If Lady Maria's maid ever thinks of leaving her, I am sure I +could recommend you for her place."</p> + +<img border="0" src="images/swag.png" width="187" height="70" class="center" alt="" /> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="Chapter_Two" id="Chapter_Two"></a> +<img border="0" src="images/chapter_2.png" width="475" height="275" class="center" alt="Chapter Two" /> + +<p><span class="dropcapt_tendrils"><span class="dropcap">T</span></span>here were other visitors to Mallowe Court travelling by the 2:30 from +Paddington, but they were much smarter people than Miss Fox-Seton, and +they were put into a first-class carriage by a footman with a cockade +and a long drab coat. Emily, who traveled third with some workmen with +bundles, looked out of her window as they passed, and might possibly +have breathed a faint sigh if she had not felt in such buoyant spirits. +She had put on her revived brown skirt and a white linen blouse with a +brown dot on it. A soft brown silk tie was knotted smartly under her +fresh collar, and she wore her new sailor hat. Her gloves were brown, +and so was her parasol. She looked nice and taut and fresh, but notably +inexpensive. The people who went to sales and bought things at three and +eleven or "four-three" a yard would have been able add her up and work +out her total. But there would be no people capable of the calculation +at Mallowe. Even the servants' hall was likely to know less of prices +than this one guest did. The people the drab-coated footman escorted to +the first-class carriage were a mother and daughter. The mother had +regular little features, and would have been pretty if she had not been +much too plump. She wore an extremely smart travelling-dress and a +wonderful dust-cloak of cool, pale, thin silk. She was not an elegant +person, but her appointments were luxurious and self-indulgent. Her +daughter was pretty, and had a slim, swaying waist, soft pink cheeks, +and a pouting mouth. Her large picture-hat of pale-blue straw, with its +big gauze bow and crushed roses, had a slightly exaggerated Parisian +air.</p> + +<p>"It is a little too picturesque," Emily thought; "but how lovely she +looks in it! I suppose it was so becoming she could not help buying it. +I'm sure it's Virot."</p> + +<p>As she was looking at the girl admiringly, a man passed her window. He +was a tall man with a square face. As he passed close to Emily, he +stared through her head as if she had been transparent or invisible. He +got into the smoking-carriage next to her.</p> + +<p>When the train arrived at Mallowe station, he was one of the first +persons who got out. Two of Lady Maria's men were waiting on the +platform. Emily recognised their liveries. One met the tall man, +touching his hat, and followed him to a high cart, in the shafts of +which a splendid iron-gray mare was fretting and dancing. In a few +moments the arrival was on the high seat, the footman behind, and the +mare speeding up the road. Miss Fox-Seton found herself following the +second footman and the mother and daughter, who were being taken to the +landau waiting outside the station. The footman piloted them, merely +touching his hat quickly to Emily, being fully aware that she could take +care of herself. </p> + +<p> This she did promptly, looking after her box, and +seeing it safe in the Mallowe omnibus. When she reached the landau, the +two other visitors were in it. She got in, and in entire contentment sat +down with her back to the horses. </p> + +<p> The mother and daughter wore for a few +minutes a somewhat uneasy air. They were evidently sociable persons, but +were not quite sure how to begin a conversation with an as yet +unintroduced lady who was going to stay at the country house to which +they were themselves invited.</p> + +<p>Emily herself solved the problem, producing her commonplace with a +friendly tentative smile.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it a lovely country?" she said.</p> + +<p>"It's perfect," answered the mother. "I've never visited Europe before, +and the English country seems to me just exquisite. We have a summer +place in America, but the country is quite different." </p> + +<p> She was +good-natured and disposed to talk, and, with Emily Fox-Seton's genial +assistance, conversation flowed. Before they were half-way to Mallowe, +it had revealed itself that they were from Cincinnati, and after a +winter spent in Paris, largely devoted to visits to Paquin, Doucet, and +Virot, they had taken a house in Mayfair for the season. Their name was +Brooke. Emily thought she remembered hearing of them as people who spent +a great deal of money and went incessantly to parties, always in new and +lovely clothes. The girl had been presented by the American minister, +and had had a sort of success because she dressed and danced +exquisitely. She was the kind of American girl who ended by marrying a +title. She had sparkling eyes and a delicate tip-tilted nose. But even +Emily guessed that she was an astute little person.</p> + +<p>"Have you ever been to Mallowe Court before?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>"No; and I am <i>so</i> looking forward to it. It is so beautiful."</p> + +<p>"Do you know Lady Maria very well?"</p> + +<p>"I've known her about three years. She has been very kind to me."</p> + +<p>"Well, I shouldn't have taken her for a particularly kind person. She's +too sharp."</p> + +<p>Emily amiably smiled. "She's so clever," she replied.</p> + +<p>"Do you know the Marquis of Walderhurst?" asked Mrs. Brooke.</p> + +<p>"No," answered Miss Fox-Seton. She had no part in that portion of Lady +Maria's life which was illumined by cousins who were marquises. Lord +Walderhurst did not drop in to afternoon tea. He kept himself for +special dinner-parties.</p> + +<p>"Did you see the man who drove away in the high cart?" Mrs. Brooke +continued, with a touch of fevered interest. "Cora thought it must be +the marquis. The servant who met him wore the same livery as the man up +there"—with a nod toward the box.</p> + +<p>"It was one of Lady Maria's servants," said Emily; "I have seen him in +South Audley Street. And Lord Walderhurst was to be at Mallowe. Lady +Maria mentioned it."</p> + +<p>"There, mother!" exclaimed Cora.</p> + +<p>"Well, of course if he is to be there, it will make it interesting," +returned her mother, in a tone in which lurked an admission of relief. +Emily wondered if she had wanted to go somewhere else and had been +firmly directed toward Mallowe by her daughter.</p> + +<p>"We heard a great deal of him in London this season," Mrs. Brooks went +on.</p> + +<p>Miss Cora Brooke laughed.</p> + +<p>"We heard that at least half a dozen people were determined to marry +him," she remarked with pretty scorn. "I should think that to meet a +girl who was indifferent might be good for him."</p> + +<p>"Don't be too indifferent, Cora," said her mother, with ingenuous +ineptness.</p> + +<p>It was a very stupid bit of revelation, and Miss Brooke's eyes flashed. +If Emily Fox-Seton had been a sharp woman, she would have observed that, +if the <i>rôle</i> of indifferent and piquant young person could be made +dangerous to Lord Walderhurst, it would be made so during this visit. +The man was in peril from this beauty from Cincinnati and her rather +indiscreet mother, though upon the whole, the indiscreet maternal parent +might unconsciously form his protection.</p> + +<p>But Emily only laughed amiably, as at a humorous remark. She was ready +to accept almost anything as humour.</p> + +<p>"Well, he <i>would</i> be a great match for any girl," she said. "He is so +rich, you know. He is very rich."</p> + +<p>When they reached Mallowe, and were led out upon the lawn, where the tea +was being served under embowering trees, they found a group of guests +eating little hot cakes and holding teacups in their hands. There were +several young women, and one of them—a very tall, very fair girl, with +large eyes as blue as forget-me-nots, and with a lovely, limp, and long +blue frock of the same shade—had been one of the beauties of the past +season. She was a Lady Agatha Slade, and Emily began to admire her at +once. She felt her to be a sort of added boon bestowed by kind Fate upon +herself. It was so delightful that she should be of this particular +house-party—this lovely creature, whom she had only known previously +through pictures in ladies' illustrated papers. If it should occur to +her to wish to become the Marchioness of Walderhurst, what could +possibly prevent the consummation of her desire? Surely not Lord +Walderhurst himself, if he was human. She was standing, leaning lightly +against the trunk of an ilex-tree, and a snow-white Borzoi was standing +close to her, resting his long, delicate head against her gown, +encouraging the caresses of her fair, stroking hand. She was in this +attractive pose when Lady Maria turned in her seat and said:</p> + +<p>"There's Walderhurst."</p> + +<p>The man who had driven himself over from the station in the cart was +coming towards them across the grass. He was past middle life and plain, +but was of good height and had an air. It was perhaps, on the whole, +rather an air of knowing what he wanted.</p> + +<p>Emily Fox-Seton, who by that time was comfortably seated in a cushioned +basket-chair, sipping her own cup of tea, gave him the benefit of the +doubt when she wondered if he was not really distinguished and +aristocratic-looking. He was really neither, but was well-built and +well-dressed, and had good grayish-brown eyes, about the colour of his +grayish-brown hair. Among these amiably worldly people, who were not in +the least moved by an altruistic prompting, Emily's greatest capital +consisted in the fact that she did not expect to be taken the least +notice of. She was not aware that it was her capital, because the fact +was so wholly a part of the simple contentedness of her nature that she +had not thought about it at all. The truth was that she found all her +entertainment and occupation in being an audience or a spectator. It did +not occur to her to notice that, when the guests were presented to him, +Lord Walderhurst barely glanced at her surface as he bowed, and could +scarcely be said to forget her existence the next second, because he had +hardly gone to the length of recognising it. As she enjoyed her +extremely nice cup of tea and little buttered scone, she also enjoyed +looking at his Lordship discreetly, and trying to make an innocent +summing up of his mental attitudes.</p> + +<p>Lady Maria seemed to like him and to be pleased to see him. He himself +seemed, in an undemonstrative way, to like Lady Maria. He also was +evidently glad to get his tea, and enjoyed it as he sat at his cousin's +side. He did not pay very much attention to any one else. Emily was +slightly disappointed to see that he did not glance at the beauty and +the Borzoi more than twice, and then that his examination seemed as much +for the Borzoi as for the beauty. She could not help also observing that +since he had joined the circle it had become more animated, so far at +least as the female members were concerned. She could not help +remembering Lady Maria's remark about the effect he produced on women +when he entered a room. Several interesting or sparkling speeches had +already been made. There was a little more laughter and chattiness, +which somehow it seemed to be quite open to Lord Walderhurst to enjoy, +though it was not exactly addressed to him. Miss Cora Brooke, however, +devoted herself to a young man in white flannels with an air of tennis +about him. She sat a little apart and talked to him in a voice soft +enough to even exclude Lord Walderhurst. Presently she and her companion +got up and sauntered away. They went down the broad flight of ancient +stone steps which led to the tennis-court, lying in full view below the +lawn. There they began to play tennis. Miss Brooke skimmed and darted +about like a swallow. The swirl of her lace petticoats was most +attractive.</p> + +<p>"That girl ought not to play tennis in shoes with ridiculous heels," +remarked Lord Walderhurst. "She will spoil the court."</p> + +<p>Lady Maria broke into a little chuckle.</p> + +<p>"She wanted to play at this particular moment," she said. "And as she +has only just arrived, it did not occur to her to come out to tea in +tennis-shoes."</p> + +<p>"She'll spoil the court all the same," said the marquis. "What clothes! +It's amazing how girls dress now."</p> + +<p>"I wish I had such <ins class="correction" +title="Transcriber's Note: The original text had no end-quote">clothes,"</ins> answered Lady Maria, and she chuckled +again. "She's got beautiful feet."</p> + +<p>"She's got Louis Quinze heels," returned his Lordship.</p> + +<p>At all events, Emily Fox-Seton thought Miss Brooke seemed to intend to +rather keep out of his way and to practise no delicate allurements. When +her tennis-playing was at an end, she sauntered about the lawn and +terraces with her companion, tilting her parasol prettily over her +shoulder, so that it formed an entrancing background to her face and +head. She seemed to be entertaining the young man. His big laugh and the +silver music of her own lighter merriment rang out a little +tantalisingly.</p> + +<p>"I wonder what Cora is saying," said Mrs. Brooke to the group at large. +"She always makes men laugh so."</p> + +<p>Emily Fox-Seton felt an interest herself, the merriment sounded so +attractive. She wondered if perhaps to a man who had been so much run +after a girl who took no notice of his presence and amused other men so +much might not assume an agreeable aspect.</p> + +<p>But he took more notice of Lady Agatha Slade than of any one else that +evening. She was placed next to him at dinner, and she really was +radiant to look upon in palest green chiffon. She had an exquisite +little head, with soft hair piled with wondrous lightness upon it, and +her long little neck swayed like the stem of a flower. She was lovely +enough to arouse in the beholder's mind the anticipation of her being +silly, but she was not silly at all. </p> + +<p> Lady Maria commented upon that fact +to Miss Fox-Seton when they met in her bedroom late that night. Lady +Maria liked to talk and be talked to for half an hour after the day was +over, and Emily Fox-Seton's admiring interest in all she said she found +at once stimulating and soothing. Her Ladyship was an old woman who +indulged and inspired herself with an Epicurean wisdom. Though she would +not have stupid people about her, she did not always want very clever +ones.</p> + +<p>"They give me too much exercise," she said. "The epigrammatic ones keep +me always jumping over fences. Besides, I like to make all the epigrams +myself."</p> + +<p>Emily Fox-Seton struck a happy mean, and she was a genuine admirer. She +was intelligent enough not to spoil the point of an epigram when she +repeated it, and she might be relied upon to repeat it and give all the +glory to its originator. Lady Maria knew there were people who, hearing +your good things, appropriated them without a scruple. To-night she said +a number of good things to Emily in summing up her guests and their +characteristics.</p> + +<p>"Walderhurst has been to me three times when I made sure that he would +not escape without a new marchioness attached to him. I should think he +would take one to put an end to the annoyance of dangling unplucked upon +the bough. A man in his position, if he has character enough to choose, +can prevent even his wife's being a nuisance. He can give her a good +house, hang the family diamonds on her, supply a decent elderly woman as +a sort of lady-in-waiting and turn her into the paddock to kick up her +heels within the limits of decorum. His own rooms can be sacred to him. +He has his clubs and his personal interests. Husbands and wives annoy +each other very little in these days. Married life has become +comparatively decent."</p> + +<p>"I should think his wife might be very happy," commented Emily. "He +looks very kind."</p> + +<p>"I don't know whether he is kind or not. It has never been necessary for +me to borrow money from him."</p> + +<p>Lady Maria was capable of saying odd things in her refined little +drawling voice.</p> + +<p>"He's more respectable than most men of his age. The diamonds are +magnificent, and he not only has three superb places, but has money +enough to keep them up. Now, there are three aspirants at Mallowe in the +present party. Of course you can guess who they are, Emily?"</p> + +<p>Emily Fox-Seton almost blushed. She felt a little indelicate.</p> + +<p>"Lady Agatha would be very suitable," she said. "And Mrs. Ralph is very +clever, of course. And Miss Brooke is really pretty."</p> + +<p>Lady Maria gave vent to her small chuckle.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Ralph is the kind of woman who means business. She'll corner +Walderhurst and talk literature and roll her eyes at him until he hates +her. These writing women, who are intensely pleased with themselves, if +they have some good looks into the bargain, believe themselves capable +of marrying any one. Mrs. Ralph has fine eyes and rolls them. +Walderhurst won't be ogled. The Brooke girl is sharper than Ralph. She +was very sharp this afternoon. She began at once."</p> + +<p>"I—I didn't see her"—wondering.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you did; but you didn't understand. The tennis, and the laughing +with young Heriot on the terrace! She is going to be the piquant young +woman who aggravates by indifference, and disdains rank and splendour; +the kind of girl who has her innings in novelettes—but not out of them. +The successful women are those who know how to toady in the right way +and not obviously. Walderhurst has far too good an opinion of himself to +be attracted by a girl who is making up to another man: he's not +five-and-twenty."</p> + +<p>Emily Fox-Seton was reminded, in spite of herself, of Mrs. Brooke's +plaint: "Don't be too indifferent, Cora." She did not want to recall it +exactly, because she thought the Brookes agreeable and would have +preferred to think them disinterested. But, after all, she reflected, +how natural that a girl who was so pretty should feel that the Marquis +of Walderhurst represented prospects. Chiefly, however, she was filled +with admiration at Lady Maria's cleverness.</p> + +<p>"How wonderfully you observe everything, Lady Maria!" she exclaimed. +"How wonderfully!"</p> + +<p>"I have had forty-seven seasons in London. That's a good many, you know. +Forty-seven seasons of débutantes and mothers tend toward enlightenment. +Now there is Agatha Slade, poor girl! She's of a kind I know by heart. +With birth and beauty, she is perfectly helpless. Her people are poor +enough to be entitled to aid from the Charity Organisation, and they +have had the indecency to present themselves with six daughters—six! +All with delicate skins and delicate little noses and heavenly eyes. +Most men can't afford them, and they can't afford most men. As soon as +Agatha begins to go off a little, she will have to step aside, if she +has not married. The others must be allowed their chance. Agatha has had +the advertising of the illustrated papers this season, and she has gone +well. In these days a new beauty is advertised like a new soap. They +haven't given them sandwich-men in the streets, but that is about all +that has been denied them. But Agatha has not had any special offer, and +I know both she and her mother are a little frightened. Alix must come +out next season, and they can't afford frocks for two. Agatha will have +to be sent to their place in Ireland, and to be sent to Castle Clare is +almost like being sent to the Bastille. She'll never get out alive. +She'll have to stay there and see herself grow thin instead of slim, and +colourless instead of fair. Her little nose will grow sharp, and she +will lose her hair by degrees."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Emily Fox-Seton gave forth sympathetically. "What a pity that +would be! I thought—I really thought—Lord Walderhurst seemed to admire +her."</p> + +<p>"Oh, every one admires her, for that matter; but if they go no further +that will not save her from the Bastille, poor thing. There, Emily; we +must go to bed. We have talked enough."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="Chapter_Three" id="Chapter_Three"></a> +<img border="0" src="images/chapter_3.png" width="475" height="275" class="center" alt="Chapter Three" /> + + + + + +<p><span class="dropcapt_flowers"><span class="dropcap">T</span></span>o awaken in a still, delicious room, with the summer morning sunshine +breaking softly into it through leafy greenness, was a delightful thing +to Miss Fox-Seton, who was accustomed to opening her eyes upon four +walls covered with cheap paper, to the sound of outside hammerings, and +the rattle and heavy roll of wheels. In a building at the back of her +bed-sitting-room there lived a man whose occupation, beginning early in +the morning, involved banging of a persistent nature.</p> + +<p>She awakened to her first day at Mallowe, stretching herself +luxuriously, with the smile of a child. She was so thankful for the +softness of her lavender-fragrant bed, and so delighted with the lovely +freshness of her chintz-hung room. As she lay upon her pillow, she could +see the boughs of the trees, and hear the chatter of darting starlings. +When her morning tea was brought, it seemed like nectar to her. She was +a perfectly healthy woman, with a palate as unspoiled as that of a +six-year-old child in the nursery. Her enjoyment of all things was so +normal as to be in her day and time an absolute abnormality.</p> + +<p>She rose and dressed at once, eager for the open air and sunshine. She +was out upon the lawn before any one else but the Borzoi, which rose +from beneath a tree and came with stately walk toward her. The air was +exquisite, the broad, beautiful stretch of view lay warm in the sun, the +masses of flowers on the herbaceous borders showed leaves and +flower-cups adorned with glittering drops of dew. She walked across the +spacious sweep of short-cropped sod, and gazed enraptured at the country +spread out below. She could have kissed the soft white sheep dotting the +fields and lying in gentle, huddled groups under the trees.</p> + +<p>"The darlings!" she said, in a little, effusive outburst.</p> + +<p>She talked to the dog and fondled him. He seemed to understand her mood, +and pressed close against her gown when she stopped. They walked +together about the gardens, and presently picked up an exuberant +retriever, which bounded and wriggled and at once settled into a steady +trot beside them. Emily adored the flowers as she walked by their beds, +and at intervals stopped to bury her face in bunches of spicy things. +She was so happy that the joy in her hazel eyes was pathetic.</p> + +<p>She was startled, as she turned into a rather narrow rose-walk, to see +Lord Walderhurst coming toward her. He looked exceedingly clean in his +fresh light knickerbocker suit, which was rather becoming to him. A +gardener was walking behind, evidently gathering roses for him, which he +put into a shallow basket. Emily Fox-Seton cast about for a suitable +remark to make, if he should chance to stop to speak to her. She +consoled herself with the thought that there were things she really +<i>wanted</i> to say about the beauty of the gardens, and certain clumps of +heavenly-blue campanulas, which seemed made a feature of in the +herbaceous borders. It was so much nicer not to be obliged to invent +observations. But his lordship did not stop to speak to her. He was +interested in his roses (which, she heard afterward, were to be sent to +town to an invalid friend), and as she drew near, he turned aside to +speak to the gardener. As Emily was just passing him when he turned +again, and as the passage was narrow, he found himself unexpectedly +gazing into her face.</p> + +<p>Being nearly the same height, they were so near each other that it was a +little awkward.</p> + +<p>"I beg pardon," he said, stepping back a pace and lifting his straw hat.</p> + +<p>But he did not say, "I beg pardon, Miss Fox-Seton," and Emily knew that +he had not recognised her again, and had not the remotest idea who she +was or where she came from.</p> + +<p>She passed him with her agreeable, friendly smile, and there returned to +her mind Lady Maria's remarks of the night before.</p> + +<p>"To think that if he married poor pretty Lady Agatha she will be +mistress of three places quite as beautiful as Mallowe, three lovely old +houses, three sets of gardens, with thousands of flowers to bloom every +year! How nice it would be for her! She is so lovely that it seems as if +he <i>must</i> fall in love with her. Then, if she was Marchioness of +Walderhurst, she could do so much for her sisters."</p> + +<p>After breakfast she spent her morning in doing a hundred things for Lady +Maria. She wrote notes for her, and helped her to arrange plans for the +entertainment of her visitors. She was very busy and happy. In the +afternoon she drove across the moor to Maundell, a village on the other +side of it. She really went on an errand for her hostess, but as she was +fond of driving and the brown cob was a beauty, she felt that she was +being given a treat on a level with the rest of her ladyship's generous +hospitalities. She drove well, and her straight, strong figure showed to +much advantage on the high seat of the cart. Lord Walderhurst himself +commented on her as he saw her drive away.</p> + +<p>"She has a nice, flat, straight back, that woman," he remarked to Lady +Maria. "What is her name? One never hears people's names when one is +introduced."</p> + +<p>"Her name is Emily Fox-Seton," her ladyship answered, "and she's a nice +creature."</p> + +<p>"That would be an inhuman thing to say to most men, but if one is a +thoroughly selfish being, and has some knowledge of one's own character, +one sees that a nice creature might be a nice companion."</p> + +<p>"You are quite right," was Lady Maria's reply, as she held up her +lorgnette and watched the cart spin down the avenue. "I am selfish +myself, and I realise that is the reason why Emily Fox-Seton is becoming +the lodestar of my existence. There is such comfort in being pandered to +by a person who is not even aware that she is pandering. She doesn't +suspect that she is entitled to thanks for it."</p> + +<p>That evening Mrs. Ralph came shining to dinner in amber satin, which +seemed to possess some quality of stimulating her to brilliance. She was +witty enough to collect an audience, and Lord Walderhurst was drawn +within it. This was Mrs. Ralph's evening. When the men returned to the +drawing-room, she secured his lordship at once and managed to keep him. +She was a woman who could talk pretty well, and perhaps Lord Walderhurst +was amused. Emily Fox-Seton was not quite sure that he was, but at least +he listened. Lady Agatha Slade looked a little listless and pale. Lovely +as she was, she did not always collect an audience, and this evening she +said she had a headache. She actually crossed the room, and taking a +seat by Miss Emily Fox-Seton, began to talk to her about Lady Maria's +charity-knitting which she had taken up. Emily was so gratified that she +found conversation easy. She did not realise that at that particular +moment she was a most agreeable and comforting companion for Agatha +Slade. She had heard so much of her beauty during the season, and +remembered so many little things that a girl who was a thought depressed +might like to hear referred to again. Sometimes to Agatha the balls +where people had collected in groups to watch her dancing, the +flattering speeches she had heard, the dazzling hopes which had been +raised, seemed a little unreal, as if, after all, they could have been +only dreams. This was particularly so, of course, when life had dulled +for a while and the atmosphere of unpaid bills became heavy at home. It +was so to-day, because the girl had received a long, anxious letter from +her mother, in which much was said of the importance of an early +preparation for the presentation of Alix, who had really been kept back +a year, and was in fact nearer twenty than nineteen.</p> + +<p>"If we were not in Debrett and Burke, one might be reserved about such +matters," poor Lady Claraway wrote; "but what is one to do when all the +world can buy one's daughters' ages at the book-sellers'?"</p> + +<p>Miss Fox-Seton had seen Lady Agatha's portrait at the Academy and the +way in which people had crowded about it. She had chanced to hear +comments also, and she agreed with a number of persons who had not +thought the picture did the original justice.</p> + +<p>"Sir Bruce Norman was standing by me with an elderly lady the first time +I saw it," she said, as she turned a new row of the big white-wool scarf +her hostess was knitting for a Deep-Sea Fisherman's Charity. "He really +looked quite annoyed. I heard him say: 'It is not good at all. She is +far, far lovelier. Her eyes are like blue flowers.' The moment I saw +you, I found myself looking at your eyes. I hope I didn't seem rude."</p> + +<p>Lady Agatha smiled. She had flushed delicately, and took up in her slim +hand a skein of the white wool.</p> + +<p>"There are some people who are never rude," she sweetly said, "and you +are one of them, I am sure. That knitting looks nice. I wonder if I +could make a comforter for a deep-sea fisherman."</p> + +<p>"If it would amuse you to try," Emily answered, "I will begin one for +you. Lady Maria has several pairs of wooden needles. Shall I?"</p> + +<p>"Do, please. How kind of you!"</p> + +<p>In a pause of her conversation, Mrs. Ralph, a little later, looked +across the room at Emily Fox-Seton bending over Lady Agatha and the +knitting, as she gave her instructions.</p> + +<p>"What a good-natured creature that is!" she said.</p> + +<p>Lord Walderhurst lifted his monocle and inserted it in his unillumined +eye. He also looked across the room. Emily wore the black evening dress +which gave such opportunities to her square white shoulders and firm +column of throat; the country air and sun had deepened the colour on her +cheek, and the light of the nearest lamp fell kindly on the big twist of +her nut-brown hair, and burnished it. She looked soft and warm, and so +generously interested in her pupil's progress that she was rather sweet.</p> + +<p>Lord Walderhurst simply looked at her. He was a man of but few words. +Women who were sprightly found him somewhat unresponsive. In fact, he +was aware that a man in his position need not exert himself. The women +themselves would talk. They wanted to talk because they wanted him to +hear them.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ralph talked.</p> + +<p>"She is the most primeval person I know. She accepts her fate without a +trace of resentment; she simply accepts it."</p> + +<p>"What is her fate?" asked Lord Walderhurst, still gazing in his +unbiassed manner through his monocle, and not turning his head as he +spoke.</p> + +<p>"It is her fate to be a woman who is perfectly well born, and who is as +penniless as a charwoman, and works like one. She is at the beck and +call of any one who will give her an odd job to earn a meal with. That +is one of the new ways women have found of making a living."</p> + +<p>"Good skin," remarked Lord Walderhurst, irrelevantly. "Good hair—quite +a lot."</p> + +<p>"She has some of the nicest blood in England in her veins, and she +engaged my last cook for me," said Mrs. Ralph.</p> + +<p>"Hope she was a good cook."</p> + +<p>"Very. Emily Fox-Seton has a faculty of finding decent people. I believe +it is because she is so decent herself"—with a little laugh.</p> + +<p>"Looks quite decent," commented Walderhurst. The knitting was getting on +famously.</p> + +<p>"It was odd you should see Sir Bruce Norman that day," Agatha Slade was +saying. "It must have been just before he was called away to India."</p> + +<p>"It was. He sailed the next day. I happen to know, because some friends +of mine met me only a few yards from your picture and began to talk +about him. I had not known before that he was so rich. I had not heard +about his collieries in Lancashire. Oh!"—opening her big eyes in +heart-felt yearning,—"how I wish I owned a colliery! It must be so +<i>nice</i> to be rich!"</p> + +<p>"I never was rich," answered Lady Agatha, with a bitter little sigh. "I +know it is hideous to be poor."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> never was rich," said Emily, "and I never shall be. You"—a little +shyly—"are so different."</p> + +<p>Lady Agatha flushed delicately again.</p> + +<p>Emily Fox-Seton made a gentle joke. "You have eyes like blue flowers," +she said. Lady Agatha lifted the eyes like blue flowers, and they were +pathetic.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she gave forth almost impetuously, "sometimes it seems as if it +does not matter whether one has eyes or not."</p> + +<p>It was a pleasure to Emily Fox-Seton to realise that after this the +beauty seemed to be rather drawn toward her. Their acquaintance became +almost a sort of intimacy over the wool scarf for the deep-sea +fisherman, which was taken up and laid down, and even carried out on the +lawn and left under the trees for the footmen to restore when they +brought in the rugs and cushions. Lady Maria was amusing herself with +the making of knitted scarfs and helmets just now, and bits of white or +gray knitting were the fashion at Mallowe. Once Agatha brought hers to +Emily's room in the afternoon to ask that a dropped stitch might be +taken up, and this established a sort of precedent. Afterward they began +to exchange visits.</p> + +<p>The strenuousness of things was becoming, in fact, almost too much for +Lady Agatha. Most unpleasant things were happening at home, and +occasionally Castle Clare loomed up grayly in the distance like a +spectre. Certain tradespeople who ought, in Lady Claraway's opinion, to +have kept quiet and waited in patience until things became better, were +becoming hideously persistent. In view of the fact that Alix's next +season must be provided for, it was most awkward. A girl could not be +presented and properly launched in the world, in a way which would give +her a proper chance, without expenditure. To the Claraways expenditure +meant credit, and there were blots as of tears on the letters in which +Lady Claraway reiterated that the tradespeople were behaving horribly. +Sometimes, she said once in desperation, things looked as if they would +all be obliged to shut themselves up in Castle Clare to retrench; and +then what was to become of Alix and her season? And there were Millicent +and Hilda and Eve.</p> + +<p>More than once there was the mist of tears in the flower-blue eyes when +Lady Agatha came to talk. Confidence between two women establishes +itself through processes at once subtle and simple. Emily Fox-Seton +could not have told when she first began to know that the beauty was +troubled and distressed; Lady Agatha did not know when she first slipped +into making little frank speeches about herself; but these things came +about. Agatha found something like comfort in her acquaintance with the +big, normal, artless creature—something which actually raised her +spirits when she was depressed. Emily Fox-Seton paid constant kindly +tribute to her charms, and helped her to believe in them. When she was +with her, Agatha always felt that she really was lovely, after all, and +that loveliness was a great capital. Emily admired and revered it so, +and evidently never dreamed of doubting its omnipotence. She used to +talk as if any girl who was a beauty was a potential duchess. In fact, +this was a thing she quite ingenuously believed. She had not lived in a +world where marriage was a thing of romance, and, for that matter, +neither had Agatha. It was nice if a girl liked the man who married her, +but if he was a well-behaved, agreeable person, of good means, it was +natural that she would end by liking him sufficiently; and to be +provided for comfortably or luxuriously for life, and not left upon +one's own hands or one's parents', was a thing to be thankful for in any +case. It was such a relief to everybody to know that a girl was +"settled," and especially it was such a relief to the girl herself. Even +novels and plays were no longer fairy-stories of entrancing young men +and captivating young women who fell in love with each other in the +first chapter, and after increasingly picturesque incidents were married +in the last one in the absolute surety of being blissfully happy +forevermore. Neither Lady Agatha nor Emily had been brought up on this +order of literature, nor in an atmosphere in which it was accepted +without reservation. </p> + +<p> They had both had hard lives, and knew what lay +before them. Agatha knew she must make a marriage or fade out of +existence in prosaic and narrowed dulness. Emily knew that there was no +prospect for her of desirable marriage at all. She was too poor, too +entirely unsupported by social surroundings, and not sufficiently +radiant to catch the roving eye. To be able to maintain herself +decently, to be given an occasional treat by her more fortunate friends, +and to be allowed by fortune to present to the face of the world the +appearance of a woman who was not a pauper, was all she could expect. +But she felt that Lady Agatha had the right to more. She did not reason +the matter out and ask herself why she had the right to more, but she +accepted the proposition as a fact. She was ingenuously interested in +her fate, and affectionately sympathetic. She used to look at Lord +Walderhurst quite anxiously at times when he was talking to the girl. An +anxious mother could scarcely have regarded him with a greater desire to +analyse his sentiments. The match would be such a fitting one. He would +make such an excellent husband—and there were three places, and the +diamonds were magnificent. Lady Maria had described to her a certain +tiara which she frequently pictured to herself as glittering above +Agatha's exquisite low brow. It would be infinitely more becoming to her +than to Miss Brooke or Mrs. Ralph, though either of them would have worn +it with spirit. She could not help feeling that both Mrs. Ralph's +brilliancy and Miss Brooke's insouciant prettiness were not unworthy of +being counted in the running, but Lady Agatha seemed somehow so much +more completely the thing wanted. She was anxious that she should always +look her best, and when she knew that disturbing letters were fretting +her, and saw that they made her look pale and less luminous, she tried +to raise her spirits.</p> + +<p>"Suppose we take a brisk walk," she would say, "and then you might try a +little nap. You look a little tired."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Agatha one day, "how kind you are to me! I believe you +actually care about my complexion—about my looking well."</p> + +<p>"Lord Walderhurst said to me the other day," was Emily's angelically +tactful answer, "that you were the only woman he had ever seen who +<i>always</i> looked lovely."</p> + +<p>"Did he?" exclaimed Lady Agatha, and flushed sweetly. "Once Sir Bruce +Norman actually said that to me. I told him it was the nicest thing that +could be said to a woman. It is all the nicer"—with a sigh—"because it +isn't <i>really</i> true."</p> + +<p>"I am sure Lord Walderhurst believed it true," Emily said. "He is not a +man who talks, you know. He is very serious and dignified." She had +herself a reverence and admiration for Lord Walderhurst bordering on +tender awe. He was indeed a well-mannered person, of whom painful things +were not said. He also conducted himself well toward his tenantry, and +was patron of several notable charities. To the unexacting and +innocently respectful mind of Emily Fox-Seton this was at once +impressive and attractive. She knew, though not intimately, many noble +personages quite unlike him. She was rather early Victorian and +touchingly respectable.</p> + +<p>"I have been crying," confessed Lady Agatha.</p> + +<p>"I was afraid so, Lady Agatha," said Emily.</p> + +<p>"Things are getting hopeless in Curzon Street. I had a letter from +Millicent this morning. She is next in age to Alix, and she says—oh, a +number of things. When girls see everything passing by them, it makes +them irritable. Millicent is seventeen, and she is too lovely. Her hair +is like a red-gold cloak, and her eyelashes are twice as long as mine." +She sighed again, and her lips, which were like curved rose-petals, +unconcealedly quivered. "They were <i>all</i> so cross about Sir Bruce Norman +going to India," she added.</p> + +<p>"He will come back," said Emily, benignly; "but he may be too late. Has +he"—ingenuously—"seen Alix?"</p> + +<p>Agatha flushed oddly this time. Her delicate skin registered every +emotion exquisitely. "He has seen her, but she was in the school-room, +and—I don't think—"</p> + +<p>She did not finish, but stopped uneasily, and sat and gazed out of the +open window into the park. She did not look happy.</p> + +<p>The episode of Sir Bruce Norman was brief and even vague. It had begun +well. Sir Bruce had met the beauty at a ball, and they had danced +together more than once. Sir Bruce had attractions other than his old +baronetcy and his coal-mines. He was a good-looking person, with a +laughing brown eye and a nice wit. He had danced charmingly and paid gay +compliments. He would have done immensely well. Agatha had liked him. +Emily sometimes thought she had liked him very much. Her mother had +liked him and had thought he was attracted. But after a number of +occasions of agreeable meetings, they had encountered each other on the +lawn at Goodwood, and he had announced that he was going to India. +Forthwith he had gone, and Emily had gathered that somehow Lady Agatha +had been considered somewhat to blame. Her people were not vulgar enough +to express this frankly, but she had felt it. Her younger sisters had, +upon the whole, made her feel it most. It had been borne in upon her +that if Alix, or Millicent with the red-gold cloak, or even Eve, who was +a gipsy, had been given such a season and such Doucet frocks, they would +have combined them with their wonderful complexions and lovely little +chins and noses in such a manner as would at least have prevented +desirable acquaintances from feeling free to take P. and O. steamers to +Bombay.</p> + +<p>In her letter of this morning, Millicent's temper had indeed got +somewhat the better of her taste and breeding, and lovely Agatha had +cried large tears. So it was comforting to be told that Lord Walderhurst +had said such an extremely amiable thing. If he was not young, he was +really <i>very</i> nice, and there were exalted persons who absolutely had +rather a fad for him. It would be exceptionally brilliant. </p> + +<p> The brisk +walk was taken, and Lady Agatha returned from it blooming. She was +adorable at dinner, and in the evening gathered an actual court about +her. She was all in pink, and a wreath of little pink wild roses lay +close about her head, making her, with her tall young slimness, look +like a Botticelli nymph. Emily saw that Lord Walderhurst looked at her a +great deal. He sat on an extraordinarily comfortable corner seat, and +stared through his monocle.</p> + +<p>Lady Maria always gave her Emily plenty to do. She had a nice taste in +floral arrangement, and early in her visit it had fallen into her hands +as a duty to "do" the flowers.</p> + +<p>The next morning she was in the gardens early, gathering roses with the +dew on them, and was in the act of cutting some adorable "Mrs. Sharman +Crawfords," when she found it behoved her to let down her carefully +tucked up petticoats, as the Marquis of Walderhurst was walking straight +toward her. An instinct told her that he wanted to talk to her about +Lady Agatha Slade.</p> + +<p>"You get up earlier than Lady Agatha," he remarked, after he had wished +her "Good-morning."</p> + +<p>"She is oftener invited to the country than I am," she answered. "When I +have a country holiday, I want to spend every moment of it out of doors. +And the mornings are so lovely. They are not like this in Mortimer +Street."</p> + +<p>"Do you live in Mortimer Street?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Do you like it?"</p> + +<p>"I am very comfortable. I am fortunate in having a nice landlady. She +and her daughter are very kind to me."</p> + +<p>The morning was indeed heavenly. The masses of flowers were drenched +with dew, and the already hot sun was drawing fragrance from them and +filling the warm air with it. The marquis, with his monocle fixed, +looked up into the cobalt-blue sky and among the trees, where a +wood-dove or two cooed with musical softness.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he observed, with a glance which swept the scene, "it is +different from Mortimer Street, I suppose. Are you fond of the country?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," sighed Emily; "oh, yes!"</p> + +<p>She was not a specially articulate person. She could not have conveyed +in words all that her "Oh, yes!" really meant of simple love for and joy +in rural sights and sounds and scents. But when she lifted her big kind +hazel eyes to him, the earnestness of her emotion made them pathetic, as +the unspeakableness of her pleasures often did.</p> + +<p>Lord Walderhurst gazed at her through the monocle with an air he +sometimes had of taking her measure without either unkindliness or +particular interest.</p> + +<p>"Is Lady Agatha fond of the country?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"She is fond of everything that is beautiful," she replied. "Her nature +is as lovely as her face, I think."</p> + +<p>"Is it?"</p> + +<p>Emily walked a step or two away to a rose climbing up the gray-red wall, +and began to clip off blossoms, which tumbled sweetly into her basket.</p> + +<p>"She seems lovely in everything," she said, "in disposition and manner +and—everything. She never seems to disappoint one or make mistakes."</p> + +<p>"You are fond of her?"</p> + +<p>"She has been so kind to me."</p> + +<p>"You often say people are kind to you."</p> + +<p>Emily paused and felt a trifle confused. Realising that she was not a +clever person, and being a modest one, she began to wonder if she was +given to a parrot-phrase which made her tiresome. She blushed up to her +ears.</p> + +<p>"People are kind," she said hesitatingly. "I—you see, I have nothing to +give, and I always seem to be receiving."</p> + +<p>"What luck!" remarked his lordship, calmly gazing at her.</p> + +<p>He made her feel rather awkward, and she was at once relieved and sorry +when he walked away to join another early riser who had come out upon +the lawn. For some mysterious reason Emily Fox-Seton liked him. Perhaps +his magnificence and the constant talk she had heard of him had warmed +her imagination. He had never said anything particularly intelligent to +her, but she felt as if he had. He was a rather silent man, but never +looked stupid. He had made some good speeches in the House of Lords, not +brilliant, but sound and of a dignified respectability. He had also +written two pamphlets. Emily had an enormous respect for intellect, and +frequently, it must be admitted, for the thing which passed for it. She +was not exacting.</p> + +<p>During her stay at Mallowe in the summer, Lady Maria always gave a +village treat. She had given it for forty years, and it was a lively +function. Several hundred wildly joyous village children were fed to +repletion with exhilarating buns and cake, and tea in mugs, after which +they ran races for prizes, and were entertained in various ways, with +the aid of such of the house-party as were benevolently inclined to make +themselves useful.</p> + +<p>Everybody was not so inclined, though people always thought the thing +amusing. Nobody objected to looking on, and some were agreeably +stimulated by the general sense of festivity. But Emily Fox-Seton was +found by Lady Maria to be invaluable on this occasion. It was so easy, +without the least sense of ill-feeling, to give her all the drudgery to +do. There was plenty of drudgery, though it did not present itself to +Emily Fox-Seton in that light. She no more realised that she was giving +Lady Maria a good deal for her money, so to speak, than she realised +that her ladyship, though an amusing and delightful, was an absolutely +selfish and inconsiderate old woman. So long as Emily Fox-Seton did not +seem obviously tired, it would not have occurred to Lady Maria that she +could be so; that, after all, her legs and arms were mere human flesh +and blood, that her substantial feet were subject to the fatigue +unending trudging to and fro induces. Her ladyship was simply delighted that the preparations went so well, +that she could turn to Emily for service and always find her ready. +Emily made lists and calculations, she worked out plans and made +purchases. She interviewed the village matrons who made the cake and +buns, and boiled the tea in bags in a copper; she found the women who +could be engaged to assist in cutting cake and bread-and-butter and +helping to serve it; she ordered the putting up of tents and forms and +tables; the innumerable things to be remembered she called to mind.</p> + +<p>"Really, Emily," said Lady Maria, "I don't know how I have done this +thing for forty years without you. I must always have you at Mallowe for +the treat."</p> + +<p>Emily was of the genial nature which rejoices upon even small occasions, +and is invariably stimulated to pleasure by the festivities of others. +The festal atmosphere was a delight to her. In her numberless errands to +the village, the sight of the excitement in the faces of the children +she passed on her way to this cottage and that filled her eyes with +friendly glee and wreathed her face with smiles. When she went into the +cottage where the cake was being baked, children hovered about in groups +and nudged each other, giggling. They hung about, partly through +thrilled interest, and partly because their joy made them eager to +courtesy to her as she came out, the obeisance seeming to identify them +even more closely with the coming treat. They grinned and beamed rosily, +and Emily smiled at them and nodded, uplifted by a pleasure almost as +infantile as their own. She was really enjoying herself so honestly that +she did not realise how hard she worked during the days before the +festivity. She was really ingenious, and invented a number of new +methods of entertainment. It was she who, with the aid of a couple of +gardeners, transformed the tents into bowers of green boughs and +arranged the decorations of the tables and the park gates.</p> + +<p>"What a lot of walking you do!" Lord Walderhurst said to her once, as +she passed the group on the lawn. "Do you know how many hours you have +been on your feet to-day?"</p> + +<p>"I like it," she answered, and, as she hurried by, she saw that he was +sitting a shade nearer to Lady Agatha than she had ever seen him sit +before, and that Agatha, under a large hat of white gauze frills, was +looking like a seraph, so sweet and shining were her eyes, so +flower-fair her face. She looked actually happy.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps he has been saying things," Emily thought. "How happy she will +be! He has such a nice pair of eyes. He would make a woman very happy." +A faint sigh fluttered from her lips. She was beginning to be physically +tired, and was not yet quite aware of it. If she had not been physically +tired, she would not even vaguely have had, at this moment, recalled to +her mind the fact that she was not of the women to whom "things" are +said and to whom things happen.</p> + +<p>"Emily Fox-Seton," remarked Lady Maria, fanning herself, as it was +frightfully hot, "has the most admirable effect on me. She makes me feel +generous. I should like to present her with the smartest things from the +wardrobes of all my relations."</p> + +<p>"Do you give her clothes?" asked Walderhurst.</p> + +<p>"I haven't any to spare. But I know they would be useful to her. The +things she wears are touching; they are so well contrived, and produce +such a decent effect with so little."</p> + +<p>Lord Walderhurst inserted his monocle and gazed after the straight, +well-set-up back of the disappearing Miss Fox-Seton.</p> + +<p>"I think," said Lady Agatha, gently, "that she is really handsome."</p> + +<p>"So she is," admitted Walderhurst—"quite a good-looking woman."</p> + +<p>That night Lady Agatha repeated the amiability to Emily, whose grateful +amazement really made her blush.</p> + +<p>"Lord Walderhurst knows Sir Bruce Norman," said Agatha. "Isn't it +strange? He spoke of him to me to-day. He says he is clever."</p> + +<p>"You had a nice talk this afternoon, hadn't you?" said Emily. "You both +looked so—so—as if you were enjoying yourselves when I passed."</p> + +<p>"Did he look as if he were enjoying himself? He was very agreeable. I +did not know he could be so agreeable."</p> + +<p>"I have never seen him look as much pleased," answered Emily Fox-Seton. +"Though he always looks as if he liked talking to you, Lady Agatha. That +large white gauze garden-hat"—reflectively—"is so <i>very</i> becoming."</p> + +<p>"It was very expensive," sighed lovely Agatha. "And they last such a +short time. Mamma said it really seemed almost criminal to buy it."</p> + +<p>"How delightful it will be," remarked cheering Emily, "when—when you +need not think of things like that!"</p> + +<p>"Oh!"—with another sigh, this time a catch of the breath,—"it would be +like Heaven! People don't know; they think girls are frivolous when they +care, and that it isn't serious. But when one knows one <i>must</i> have +things,—that they are like bread,—it is awful!"</p> + +<p>"The things you wear really matter." Emily was bringing all her powers +to bear upon the subject, and with an anxious kindness which was quite +angelic. "Each dress makes you look like another sort of picture. Have +you,"—contemplatively—"anything <i>quite</i> different to wear to-night and +to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"I have two evening dresses I have not worn here yet"—a little +hesitatingly. "I—well I saved them. One is a very thin black one with +silver on it. It has a trembling silver butterfly for the shoulder, and +one for the hair."</p> + +<p>"Oh, put that on to-night!" said Emily, eagerly. "When you come down to +dinner you will look so—so new! I always think that to see a fair +person suddenly for the first time all in black gives one a kind of +delighted start—though start isn't the word, quite. Do put it on."</p> + +<p>Lady Agatha put it on. Emily Fox-Seton came into her room to help to add +the last touches to her beauty before she went down to dinner. She +suggested that the fair hair should be dressed even higher and more +lightly than usual, so that the silver butterfly should poise the more +airily over the knot, with its quivering, outstretched wings. She +herself poised the butterfly high upon the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it is lovely!" she exclaimed, drawing back to gaze at the girl. "Do +let me go down a moment or so before you do, so that I can see you come +into the room."</p> + +<p>She was sitting in a chair quite near Lord Walderhurst when her charge +entered. She saw him really give something quite like a start when +Agatha appeared. His monocle, which had been in his eye, fell out of it, +and he picked it up by its thin cord and replaced it.</p> + +<p>"Psyche!" she heard him say in his odd voice, which seemed merely to +make a statement without committing him to an opinion—"Psyche!" </p> + +<p> He did +not say it to her or to any one else. It was simply a kind of +exclamation,—appreciative and perceptive without being +enthusiastic,—and it was curious. He talked to Agatha nearly all the +evening.</p> + +<p>Emily came to Lady Agatha before she retired, looking even a little +flushed.</p> + +<p>"What are you going to wear at the treat to-morrow?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"A white muslin, with <i>entre-deux</i> of lace, and the gauze garden-hat, +and a white parasol and shoes."</p> + +<p>Lady Agatha looked a little nervous; her pink fluttered in her cheek.</p> + +<p>"And to-morrow night?" said Emily.</p> + +<p>"I have a very pale blue. Won't you sit down, dear Miss Fox-Seton?"</p> + +<p>"We must both go to bed and sleep. You must not get tired."</p> + +<p>But she sat down for a few minutes, because she saw the girl's eyes +asking her to do it.</p> + +<p>The afternoon post had brought a more than usually depressing letter +from Curzon Street. Lady Claraway was at her motherly wits' ends, and +was really quite touching in her distraction. A dressmaker was entering +a suit. The thing would get into the papers, of course.</p> + +<p>"Unless something happens, something to save us by staving off things, +we shall have to go to Castle Clare at once. It will be all over. No +girl could be presented with such a thing in the air. They don't like +it."</p> + +<p>"They," of course, meant persons whose opinions made London's society's +law.</p> + +<p>"To go to Castle Clare," faltered Agatha, "will be like being sentenced +to starve to death. Alix and Hilda and Millicent and Eve and I will be +starved, quite slowly, for the want of the things that make girls' lives +bearable when they have been born in a certain class. And even if the +most splendid thing happened in three or four years, it would be too +late for us four—almost too late for Eve. If you are out of London, of +course you are forgotten. People can't help forgetting. Why shouldn't +they, when there are such crowds of new girls every year?"</p> + +<p>Emily Fox-Seton was sweet. She was quite sure that they would not be +obliged to go to Castle Clare. Without being indelicate, she was really +able to bring hope to the fore. She said a good deal of the black gauze +dress and the lovely effect of the silver butterflies.</p> + +<p>"I suppose it was the butterflies which made Lord Walderhurst say +'Psyche! Psyche!' when he first saw you," she added, <i>en passant</i>.</p> + +<p>"Did he say that?" And immediately Lady Agatha looked as if she had not +intended to say the words.</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Emily, hurrying on with a casual air which had a good +deal of tact in it. "And black makes you so wonderfully fair and aërial. +You scarcely look quite real in it; you might float away. But you must +go to sleep now."</p> + +<p>Lady Agatha went with her to the door of the room to bid her good-night. +Her eyes looked like those of a child who might presently cry a little. +"Oh, Miss Fox-Seton," she said, in a very young voice, "you are so +kind!"</p> + +<img border="0" src="images/roses.png" width="187" height="60" class="center" alt="" /> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="Chapter_Four" id="Chapter_Four"></a> +<img border="0" src="images/chapter_4.png" width="475" height="275" class="center" alt="Chapter Four" /> + + + +<p><span class="dropcapt_ribbons"><span class="dropcap">T</span></span>he parts of the park nearest to the house already presented a busy +aspect when Miss Fox-Seton passed through the gardens the following +morning. Tables were being put up, and baskets of bread and cake and +groceries were being carried into the tent where the tea was to be +prepared. The workers looked interested and good-humoured; the men +touched their hats as Emily appeared, and the women courtesied +smilingly. They had all discovered that she was amiable and to be relied +on in her capacity of her ladyship's representative.</p> + +<p>"She's a worker, that Miss Fox-Seton," one said to the other. "I never +seen one that was a lady fall to as she does. Ladies, even when they +means well, has a way of standing about and telling you to do things +without seeming to know quite how they ought to be done. She's coming to +help with the bread-and-butter-cutting herself this morning, and she put +up all them packages of sweets yesterday with her own hands. She did 'em +up in different-coloured papers, and tied 'em with bits of ribbon, +because she said she knowed children was prouder of coloured things than +plain—they was like that. And so they are: a bit of red or blue goes a +long way with a child."</p> + +<p>Emily cut bread-and-butter and cake, and placed seats and arranged toys +on tables all the morning. The day was hot, though beautiful, and she +was so busy that she had scarcely time for her breakfast. The household +party was in the gayest spirits. Lady Maria was in her most amusing +mood. She had planned a drive to some interesting ruins for the +afternoon of the next day, and a dinner-party for the evening. Her +favourite neighbours had just returned to their country-seat five miles +away, and they were coming to the dinner, to her great satisfaction. +Most of her neighbours bored her, and she took them in doses at her +dinners, as she would have taken medicine. But the Lockyers were young +and good-looking and clever, and she was always glad when they came to +Loche during her stay at Mallowe.</p> + +<p>"There is not a frump or a bore among them," she said. "In the country +people are usually frumps when they are not bores, and bores when they +are not frumps, and I am in danger of becoming both myself. Six weeks of +unalloyed dinner-parties, composed of certain people I know, would make +me begin to wear moreen petticoats and talk about the deplorable +condition of London society."</p> + +<p>She led all her flock out on to the lawn under the ilex-trees after +breakfast.</p> + +<p>"Let us go and encourage industry," she said. "We will watch Emily +Fox-Seton working. She is an example."</p> + +<p>Curiously enough, this was Miss Cora Brooke's day. She found herself +actually walking across the lawn with Lord Walderhurst by her side. She +did not know how it happened, but it seemed to occur accidentally.</p> + +<p>"We never talk to each other," he said.</p> + +<p>"Well," answered Cora, "we have talked to other people a great deal—at +least I have."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you have talked a good deal," said the marquis.</p> + +<p>"Does that mean I have talked too much?"</p> + +<p>He surveyed her prettiness through his glass. Perhaps the holiday stir +in the air gave him a festive moment.</p> + +<p>"It means that you haven't talked enough to me. You have devoted +yourself too much to the laying low of young Heriot."</p> + +<p>She laughed a trifle saucily.</p> + +<p>"You are a very independent young lady," remarked Walderhurst, with a +lighter manner than usual. "You ought to say something deprecatory or—a +little coy, perhaps."</p> + +<p>"I shan't," said Cora, composedly.</p> + +<p>"Shan't or won't?" he inquired. "They are both bad words for little +girls—or young ladies—to use to their elders."</p> + +<p>"Both," said Miss Cora Brooke, with a slightly pleased flush. "Let us go +over to the tents and see what poor Emily Fox-Seton is doing."</p> + +<p>"Poor Emily Fox-Seton," said the marquis, non-committally.</p> + +<p>They went, but they did not stay long. The treat was taking form. Emily +Fox-Seton was hot and deeply engaged. People were coming to her for +orders. She had a thousand things to do and to superintend the doing of. +The prizes for the races and the presents for the children must be +arranged in order: things for boys and things for girls, presents for +little children and presents for big ones. Nobody must be missed, and no +one must be given the wrong thing.</p> + +<p>"It would be dreadful, you know," Emily said to the two when they came +into her tent and began to ask questions, "if a big boy should get a +small wooden horse, or a little baby should be given a cricket bat and +ball. Then it would be so disappointing if a tiny girl got a work-box +and a big one got a doll. One has to get things in order. They look +forward to this so, and it's heart-breaking to a child to be +disappointed, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>Walderhurst gazed uninspiringly.</p> + +<p>"Who did this for Lady Maria when you were not here?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Oh, other people. But she says it was tiresome." Then with an illumined +smile; "She has asked me to Mallowe for the next twenty years for the +treats. She is so kind."</p> + +<p>"Maria is a kind woman"—with what seemed to Emily delightful +amiability. "She is kind to her treats and she is kind to Maria Bayne."</p> + +<p>"She is kind to <i>me</i>," said Emily. "You don't know how I am enjoying +this."</p> + +<p>"That woman enjoys everything," Lord Walderhurst said when he walked +away with Cora. "What a temperament to have! I would give ten thousand a +year for it."</p> + +<p>"She has so little," said Cora, "that everything seems beautiful to her. +One doesn't wonder, either. She's very nice. Mother and I quite admire +her. We are thinking of inviting her to New York and giving her a real +good time."</p> + +<p>"She would enjoy New York."</p> + +<p>"Have you ever been there, Lord Walderhurst?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"You ought to come, really. So many Englishmen come now, and they all +seem to like it."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I will come," said Walderhurst. "I have been thinking of it. +One is tired of the Continent and one knows India. One doesn't know +Fifth Avenue, and Central Park, and the Rocky Mountains."</p> + +<p>"One might try them," suggested pretty Miss Cora.</p> + +<p>This certainly was her day. Lord Walderhurst took her and her mother out +in his own particular high phaeton before lunch. He was fond of driving, +and his own phaeton and horses had come to Mallowe with him. He took +only his favourites out, and though he bore himself on this occasion +with a calm air, the event caused a little smiling flurry on the lawn. +At least, when the phaeton spun down the avenue with Miss Brooke and her +mother looking slightly flushed and thrilled in their high seats of +honour, several people exchanged glances and raised eye-brows.</p> + +<p>Lady Agatha went to her room and wrote a long letter to Curzon Street. +Mrs. Ralph talked about the problem-play to young Heriot and a group of +others.</p> + +<p>The afternoon, brilliant and blazing, brought new visitors to assist by +their presence at the treat. Lady Maria always had a large house-party, +and added guests from the neighbourhood to make for gaiety. At two +o'clock a procession of village children and their friends and parents, +headed by the village band, marched up the avenue and passed before the +house on their way to their special part of the park. Lady Maria and her +guests stood upon the broad steps and welcomed the jocund crowd, as it +moved by, with hospitable bows and nods and becks and wreathed smiles. +Everybody was in a delighted good-humour.</p> + +<p>As the villagers gathered in the park, the house-party joined them by +way of the gardens. A conjurer from London gave an entertainment under a +huge tree, and children found white rabbits taken from their pockets and +oranges from their caps, with squeals of joy and shouts of laughter. +Lady Maria's guests walked about and looked on, laughing with the +children.</p> + +<p>The great affair of tea followed the performance. No treat is fairly +under way until the children are filled to the brim with tea and buns +and cake, principally cake in plummy wedges.</p> + +<p>Lady Agatha and Mrs. Ralph handed cake along rows of children seated on +the grass. Miss Brooke was talking to Lord Walderhurst when the work +began. She had poppies in her hat and carried a poppy-coloured parasol, +and sat under a tree, looking very alluring.</p> + +<p>"I ought to go and help to hand cake," she said.</p> + +<p>"My cousin Maria ought to do it," remarked Lord Walderhurst, "but she +will not—neither shall I. Tell me something about the elevated railroad +and Five-Hundred-and-Fifty-Thousandth Street." He had a slightly rude, +gracefully languid air, which Cora Brooke found somewhat impressive, +after all.</p> + +<p>Emily Fox-Seton handed cake and regulated supplies with cheerful tact +and good spirits. When the older people were given their tea, she moved +about their tables, attending to every one. She was too heart-whole in +her interest in her hospitalities to find time to join Lady Maria and +her party at the table under the ilex-trees. She ate some +bread-and-butter and drank a cup of tea while she talked to some old +women she had made friends with. She was really enjoying herself +immensely, though occasionally she was obliged to sit down for a few +moments just to rest her tired feet. The children came to her as to an +omnipotent and benign being. She knew where the toys were kept and what +prizes were to be given for the races. She represented law and order and +bestowal. The other ladies walked about in wonderful dresses, smiling +and exalted, the gentlemen aided the sports in an amateurish way and +made patrician jokes among themselves, but this one lady seemed to be +part of the treat itself. She was not so grandly dressed as the +others,—her dress was only blue linen with white bands on it,—and she +had only a sailor hat with a buckle and bow, but she was of her +ladyship's world of London people, nevertheless, and they liked her more +than they had ever liked a lady before. It was a fine treat, and she +seemed to have made it so. There had never been quite such a varied and +jovial treat at Mallowe before.</p> + +<p>The afternoon waxed and waned. The children played games and raced and +rejoiced until their young limbs began to fail them. The older people +sauntered about or sat in groups to talk and listen to the village band. +Lady Maria's visitors, having had enough of rural festivities, went back +to the gardens in excellent spirits, to talk and to watch a game of +tennis which had taken form on the court.</p> + +<p>Emily Fox-Seton's pleasure had not abated, but her colour had done so. +Her limbs ached and her still-smiling face was pale, as she stood under +the beech-tree regarding the final ceremonies of the festal day, to +preside over which Lady Maria and her party returned from their seats +under the ilex-trees. The National Anthem was sung loudly, and there +were three tremendous cheers given for her ladyship. They were such +joyous and hearty cheers that Emily was stirred almost to emotional +tears. At all events, her hazel eyes looked nice and moistly bright. She +was an easily moved creature. </p> + +<p> Lord Walderhurst stood near Lady Maria and +looked pleased also. Emily saw him speak to her ladyship and saw Lady +Maria smile. Then he stepped forward, with his non-committal air and his +monocle glaring calmly in his eye.</p> + +<p>"Boys and girls," he said in a clear, far-reaching voice, "I want you to +give three of the biggest cheers you are capable of for the lady who has +worked to make your treat the success it has been. Her ladyship tells me +she has never had such a treat before. Three cheers for Miss Fox-Seton."</p> + +<p>Emily gave a gasp and felt a lump rise in her throat. She felt as if she +had been without warning suddenly changed into a royal personage, and +she scarcely knew what to do.</p> + +<p>The whole treat, juvenile and adult, male and female, burst into three +cheers which were roars and <ins class="correction" +title="Transcriber's Note: The original text had no period here'">bellows.</ins> Hats and caps were waved and tossed +into the air, and every creature turned toward her as she blushed and +bowed in tremulous gratitude and delight.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Lady Maria! oh, Lord Walderhurst!" she said, when she managed to +get to them, "how <i>kind</i> you are to me!"</p> + +<img border="0" src="images/arrows.png" width="187" height="70" class="center" alt="" /> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="Chapter_Five" id="Chapter_Five"></a> +<img border="0" src="images/chapter_5.png" width="475" height="275" class="center" alt="Chapter Five" /> + + +<p><span class="dropcapa_crown"><span class="dropcap">A</span></span>fter she had taken her early tea in the morning, Emily Fox-Seton lay +upon her pillows and gazed out upon the tree-branches near her window, +in a state of bliss. She was tired, but happy. How well everything had +"gone off"! How pleased Lady Maria had been, and how kind of Lord +Walderhurst to ask the villagers to give three cheers for herself! She +had never dreamed of such a thing. It was the kind of attention not +usually offered to her. She smiled her childlike smile and blushed at +the memory of it. Her impression of the world was that people were +really very amiable, as a rule. They were always good to her, at least, +she thought, and it did not occur to her that if she had not paid her +way so remarkably well by being useful they might have been less +agreeable. Never once had she doubted that Lady Maria was the most +admirable and generous of human beings. She was not aware in the least +that her ladyship got a good deal out of her. In justice to her +ladyship, it may be said that she was not wholly aware of it herself, +and that Emily absolutely enjoyed being made use of.</p> + +<p>This morning, however, when she got up, she found herself more tired +than she ever remembered being before, and it may be easily argued that +a woman who runs about London on other people's errands often knows what +it is to be aware of aching limbs. She laughed a little when she +discovered that her feet were actually rather swollen, and that she must +wear a pair of her easiest slippers. "I must sit down as much as I can +to-day," she thought. "And yet, with the dinner-party and the excursion +this morning, there may be a number of little things Lady Maria would +like me to do."</p> + +<p>There were, indeed, numbers of things Lady Maria was extremely glad to +ask her to do. The drive to the ruins was to be made before lunch, +because some of the guests felt that an afternoon jaunt would leave them +rather fagged for the dinner-party in the evening. Lady Maria was not +going, and, as presently became apparent, the carriages would be rather +crowded if Miss Fox-Seton joined the party. On the whole, Emily was not +sorry to have an excuse for remaining at home, and so the carriages +drove away comfortably filled, and Lady Maria and Miss Fox-Seton watched +their departure.</p> + +<p>"I have no intention of having my venerable bones rattled over hill and +dale the day I give a dinner-party," said her ladyship. "Please ring the +bell, Emily. I want to make sure of the fish. Fish is one of the +problems of country life. Fishmongers are demons, and when they live +five miles from one they can arouse the most powerful human emotions."</p> + +<p>Mallowe Court was at a distance from the country town delightful in its +effects upon the rusticity of the neighbourhood, but appalling when +considered in connection with fish. One could not dine without fish; the +town was small and barren of resources, and the one fishmonger of weak +mind and unreliable nature.</p> + +<p>The footman who obeyed the summons of the bell informed her ladyship +that the cook was rather anxious about the fish, as usual. The +fishmonger had been a little doubtful as to whether he could supply her +needs, and his cart never arrived until half-past twelve.</p> + +<p>"Great goodness!" exclaimed her ladyship when the man retired. "What a +situation if we found ourselves without fish! Old General Barnes is the +most ferocious old gourmand in England, and he loathes people who give +him bad dinners. We are all rather afraid of him, the fact is, and I +will own that I am vain about my dinners. That is the last charm nature +leaves a woman, the power to give decent dinners. I shall be fearfully +annoyed if any ridiculous thing happens."</p> + +<p>They sat in the morning-room together writing notes and talking, and as +half-past twelve drew near, watching for the fishmonger's cart. Once or +twice Lady Maria spoke of Lord Walderhurst.</p> + +<p>"He is an interesting creature, to my mind," she said. "I have always +rather liked him. He has original ideas, though he is not in the least +brilliant. I believe he talks more freely to me, on the whole, than to +most people, though I can't say he has a particularly good opinion of +me. He stuck his glass in his eye and stared at me last night, in that +weird way of his, and said to me, 'Maria, in an ingenuous fashion of +your own, you are the most abominably selfish woman I ever beheld.' +Still, I know he rather likes me. I said to him: 'That isn't quite true, +James. I am selfish, but I'm not <i>abominably</i> selfish. Abominably +selfish people always have nasty tempers, and no one can accuse me of +having a nasty temper. I have the disposition of a bowl of bread and +milk."</p> + +<p>"Emily,"—as wheels rattled up the avenue,—"<i>is</i> that the fishmonger's +cart?"</p> + +<p>"No," answered Emily at the window; "it is the butcher."</p> + +<p>"His attitude toward the women here has made my joy," Lady Maria +proceeded, smiling over the deep-sea fishermen's knitted helmet she had +taken up. "He behaves beautifully to them all, but not one of them has +really a leg to stand on as far as he is responsible for it. But I will +tell you something, Emily." She paused.</p> + +<p>Miss Fox-Seton waited with interested eyes.</p> + +<p>"He is thinking of bringing the thing to an end and marrying <i>some</i> +woman. I feel it in my bones."</p> + +<p>"Do you think so?" exclaimed Emily. "Oh, I can't help hoping—" But she +paused also.</p> + +<p>"You hope it will be Agatha Slade," Lady Maria ended for her. "Well, +perhaps it will be. I sometimes think it is Agatha, if it's any one. And +yet I'm not sure. One never could be sure with Walderhurst. He has +always had a trick of keeping more than his mouth shut. I wonder if he +could have any other woman up his sleeve?"</p> + +<p>"Why do you think—" began Emily.</p> + +<p>Lady Maria laughed.</p> + +<p>"For an odd reason. The Walderhursts have a ridiculously splendid ring +in the family, which they have a way of giving to the women they become +engaged to. It's ridiculous because—well, because a ruby as big as a +trouser's button <i>is</i> ridiculous. You can't get over that. There is a +story connected with this one—centuries and things, and something about +the woman the first Walderhurst had it made for. She was a Dame +Something or Other who had snubbed the King for being forward, and the +snubbing was so good for him that he thought she was a saint and gave +the ruby for her betrothal. Well, by the merest accident I found +Walderhurst had sent his man to town for it. It came two days ago."</p> + +<p>"Oh, how interesting!" said Emily, thrilled. "It <i>must</i> mean something."</p> + +<p>"It is rather a joke. Wheels again, Emily. Is <i>that</i> the fishmonger?"</p> + +<p>Emily went to the window once more. "Yes," she answered, "if his name is +Buggle."</p> + +<p>"His name <i>is</i> Buggle," said Lady Maria, "and we are saved."</p> + +<p>But five minutes later the cook herself appeared at the morning-room +door. She was a stout person, who panted, and respectfully removed beads +of perspiration from her brow with a clean handkerchief.</p> + +<p>She was as nearly pale as a heated person of her weight may be.</p> + +<p>"And what has happened now, cook?" asked Lady Maria.</p> + +<p>"That Buggle, your ladyship," said cook, "says your ladyship can't be no +sorrier than he is, but when fish goes bad in a night it can't be made +fresh in the morning. He brought it that I might see it for myself, and +it is in a state as could not be used by any one. I was that upset, your +ladyship, that I felt like I must come and explain myself."</p> + +<p>"What <i>can</i> be done?" exclaimed Lady Maria. "Emily, <i>do</i> suggest +something."</p> + +<p>"We can't even be sure," said the cook, "that Batch has what would suit +us. Batch sometimes has it, but he is the fishmonger at Maundell, and +that is four miles away, and we are short-'anded, your ladyship, now the +'ouse is so full, and not a servant that could be spared."</p> + +<p>"Dear me!" said Lady Maria. "Emily, this is really enough to drive one +quite mad. If everything was not out of the stables, I know you would +drive over to Maundell. You are such a good walker,"—catching a gleam +of hope,—"do you think you could walk?"</p> + +<p>Emily tried to look cheerful. Lady Maria's situation was really an awful +one for a hostess. It would not have mattered in the least if her +strong, healthy body had not been so tired. She was an excellent walker, +and ordinarily eight miles would have meant nothing in the way of +fatigue. She was kept in good training by her walking in town, Springy +moorland swept by fresh breezes was not like London streets.</p> + +<p>"I think I can manage it," she said nice-temperedly. "If I had not run +about so much yesterday it would be a mere nothing. You must have the +fish, of course. I will walk over the moor to Maundell and tell Batch it +must be sent at once. Then I will come back slowly. I can rest on the +heather by the way. The moor is lovely in the afternoon."</p> + +<p>"You dear soul!" Lady Maria broke forth. "What a boon you are to a +woman!"</p> + +<p>She felt quite grateful. There arose in her mind an impulse to invite +Emily Fox-Seton to remain the rest of her life with her, but she was too +experienced an elderly lady to give way to impulses. She privately resolved, however, that she would have her a good deal in +South Audley Street, and would make her some decent presents.</p> + +<p>When Emily Fox-Seton, attired for her walk in her shortest brown linen +frock and shadiest hat, passed through the hall, the post-boy was just +delivering the midday letters to a footman. The servant presented his +salver to her with a letter for herself lying upon the top of one +addressed in Lady Claraway's handwriting "To the Lady Agatha Slade." +Emily recognised it as one of the epistles of many sheets which so often +made poor Agatha shed slow and depressed tears. Her own letter was +directed in the well-known hand of Mrs. Cupp, and she wondered what it +could contain.</p> + +<p>"I hope the poor things are not in any trouble," she thought. "They were +afraid the young man in the sitting-room was engaged. If he got married +and left them, I don't know what they would do; he has been so regular."</p> + +<p>Though the day was hot, the weather was perfect, and Emily, having +exchanged her easy slippers for an almost equally easy pair of tan +shoes, found her tired feet might still be used. Her disposition to make +the very best of things inspired her to regard even an eight-mile walk +with courage. The moorland air was so sweet, the sound of the bees +droning as they stumbled about in the heather was such a comfortable, +peaceful thing, that she convinced herself that she should find the four +miles to Maundell quite agreeable.</p> + +<p>She had so many nice things to think of that she temporarily forgot that +she had put Mrs. Cupp's letter in her pocket, and was half-way across +the moor before she remembered it.</p> + +<p>"Dear me!" she exclaimed when she recalled it. "I must see what has +happened."</p> + +<p>She opened the envelope and began to read as she walked; but she had not +taken many steps before she uttered an exclamation and stopped.</p> + +<p>"How very nice for them!" she said, but she turned rather pale.</p> + +<p>From a worldly point of view the news the letter contained was indeed +very nice for the Cupps, but it put a painful aspect upon the simple +affairs of poor Miss Fox-Seton.</p> + +<p>"It is a great piece of news, in one way," wrote Mrs. Cupp, "and yet me +and Jane can't help feeling a bit low at the thought of the changes it +will make, and us living where you won't be with us, if I may take the +liberty, miss. My brother William made a good bit of money in Australia, +but he has always been homesick for the old country, as he always calls +England. His wife was a Colonial, and when she died a year ago he made +up his mind to come home to settle in Chichester, where he was born. He +says there's nothing like the feeling of a Cathedral town. He's bought +such a nice house a bit out, with a big garden, and he wants me and Jane +to come and make a home with him. He says he has worked hard all his +life, and now he means to be comfortable, and he can't be bothered with +housekeeping. He promises to provide well for us both, and he wants us +to sell up Mortimer Street, and come as quick as possible. But we +<i>shall</i> miss you, miss, and though her Uncle William keeps a trap and +everything according, and Jane is grateful for his kindness, she broke +down and cried hard last night, and says to me: 'Oh, mother, if Miss +Fox-Seton could just manage to take me as a maid, I would rather be it +than anything. Traps don't feed the heart, mother, and I've a feeling +for Miss Fox-Seton as is perhaps unbecoming to my station.' But we've +got the men in the house ticketing things, miss, and we want to know +what we shall do with the articles in your bed-sitting-room."</p> + +<p>The friendliness of the two faithful Cupps and the humble Turkey-red +comforts of the bed-sitting-room had meant home to Emily Fox-Seton. When +she had turned her face and her tired feet away from discouraging +errands and small humiliations and discomforts, she had turned them +toward the bed-sitting-room, the hot little fire, the small, fat black +kettle singing on the hob, and the two-and-eleven-penny tea-set. Not +being given to crossing bridges before she reached them, she had never +contemplated the dreary possibility that her refuge might be taken away +from her. She had not dwelt upon the fact that she had no other real +refuge on earth.</p> + +<p>As she walked among the sun-heated heather and the luxuriously droning +bees, she dwelt upon it now with a suddenly realising sense. As it came +home to her soul, her eyes filled with big tears, which brimmed over and +rolled down her cheeks. They dropped upon the breast of her linen blouse +and left marks.</p> + +<p>"I shall have to find a new bed-sitting-room somewhere," she said, the +breast of the linen blouse lifting itself sharply. "It will be so +different to be in a house with strangers. Mrs. Cupp and Jane—" She was +obliged to take out her handkerchief at that moment. "I am afraid I +can't get anything respectable for ten shillings a week. It was very +cheap—and they were so nice!"</p> + +<p>All her fatigue of the early morning had returned. Her feet began to +burn and ache, and the sun felt almost unbearably hot. The mist in her +eyes prevented her seeing the path before her. Once or twice she +stumbled over something.</p> + +<p>"It seems as if it must be farther than four miles," she said. "And then +there is the walk back. I <i>am</i> tired. But I must get on, really."</p> + +<img border="0" src="images/swag.png" width="187" height="70" class="center" alt="" /> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="Chapter_Six" id="Chapter_Six"></a> +<img border="0" src="images/chapter_6.png" width="475" height="275" class="center" alt="Chapter Six" /> + + +<p><span class="dropcapt_face"><span class="dropcap">T</span></span>he drive to the ruins had been a great success. It was a drive of just +sufficient length to put people in spirits without fatiguing them. The +party came back to lunch with delightful appetities. Lady Agatha and +Miss Cora Brooke had pink cheeks. The Marquis of Walderhurst had behaved +charmingly to both of them. He had helped each of them to climb about +among the ruins, and had taken them both up the steep, dark stairway of +one of the towers, and stood with them looking over the turrets into the +courtyard and the moat. He knew the history of the castle and could +point out the banquet-hall and the chapel and the serving-places, and +knew legends about the dungeons.</p> + +<p>"He gives us all a turn, mother," said Miss Cora Brooke. "He even gave a +turn yesterday to poor Emily Fox-Seton. He's rather nice."</p> + +<p>There was a great deal of laughter at lunch after their return. Miss +Cora Brooke was quite brilliant in her gay little sallies. But though +she was more talkative than Lady Agatha, she did not look more +brilliant.</p> + +<p>The letter from Curzon Street had not made the beauty shed tears. Her +face had fallen when it had been handed to her on her return, and she +had taken it upstairs to her room with rather a flagging step. But when +she came down to lunch she walked with the movement of a nymph. Her +lovely little face wore a sort of tremulous radiance. She laughed like a +child at every amusing thing that was said. She might have been ten +years old instead of twenty-two, her colour, her eyes, her spirits +seemed of a freshness so infantine.</p> + +<p>She was leaning back in her chair laughing enchantingly at one of Miss +Brooke's sparkling remarks when Lord Walderhurst, who sat next to her, +said suddenly, glancing round the table:</p> + +<p>"But where is Miss Fox-Seton?"</p> + +<p>It was perhaps a significant fact that up to this moment nobody had +observed her absence. It was Lady Maria who replied.</p> + +<p>"I am almost ashamed to answer," she said. "As I have said before, Emily +Fox-Seton has become the lodestar of my existence. I cannot live without +her. She has walked over to Maundell to make sure that we do not have a +dinner-party without fish to-night."</p> + +<p>"She has <i>walked</i> over to Maundell," said Lord Walderhurst—"after +yesterday?"</p> + +<p>"There was not a pair of wheels left in the stable," answered Lady +Maria. "It is disgraceful, of course, but she is a splendid walker, and +she said she was not too tired to do it. It is the kind of thing she +ought to be given the Victoria Cross for—saving one from a dinner-party +without fish."</p> + +<p>The Marquis of Walderhurst took up the cord of his monocle and fixed the +glass rigidly in his eye.</p> + +<p>"It is not only four miles to Maundell," he remarked, staring at the +table-cloth, not at Lady Maria, "but it is four miles back."</p> + +<p>"By a singular coincidence," said Lady Maria.</p> + +<p>The talk and laughter went on, and the lunch also, but Lord Walderhurst, +for some reason best known to himself, did not finish his. For a few +seconds he stared at the table-cloth, then he pushed aside his nearly +disposed-of cutlet, then he got up from his chair quietly.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me, Maria," he said, and without further ado went out of the +room, and walked toward the stables.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>There was excellent fish at Maundell; Batch produced it at once, fresh, +sound, and desirable. Had she been in her normal spirits, Emily would +have rejoiced at the sight of it, and have retraced her four miles to +Mallowe in absolute jubilation. She would have shortened and beguiled +her return journey by depicting to herself Lady Maria's pleasure and +relief.</p> + +<p>But the letter from Mrs. Cupp lay like a weight of lead in her pocket. +It had given her such things to think of as she walked that she had been +oblivious to heather and bees and fleece-bedecked summer-blue sky, and +had felt more tired than in any tramp through London streets that she +could call to mind. Each step she took seemed to be carrying her farther away from the few +square yards of home the bed-sitting-room had represented under the +dominion of the Cupps. Every moment she recalled more strongly that it +had been home—home. Of course it had not been the third-floor back room +so much as it had been the Cupps who made it so, who had regarded her as +a sort of possession, who had liked to serve her, and had done it with +actual affection.</p> + +<p>"I shall have to find a new place," she kept saying. "I shall have to go +among quite strange people."</p> + +<p>She had suddenly a new sense of being without resource. That was one of +the proofs of the curious heaviness of the blow the simple occurrence +was to her. She felt temporarily almost as if there were no other +lodging-houses in London, though she knew that really there were tens of +thousands. The fact was that though there might be other Cupps, or their +counterparts, she could not make herself believe such a good thing +possible. She had been physically worn out before she had read the +letter, and its effect had been proportionate to her fatigue and lack of +power to rebound. She was vaguely surprised to feel that the tears kept +filling her eyes and falling on her cheeks in big heavy drops. She was +obliged to use her handkerchief frequently, as if she was suddenly +developing a cold in her head.</p> + +<p>"I must take care," she said once, quite prosaically, but with more +pathos in her voice than she was aware of, "or I shall make my nose +quite red."</p> + +<img border="0" src="images/walderhurst.png" width="187" height="390" class="center" alt="Painting of the Marquis of Walderhurst" /> + +<h4>The Marquis of Walderhurst</h4> + +<p>Though Batch was able to supply fish, he was unfortunately not able to +send it to Mallowe. His cart had gone out on a round just before Miss +Fox-Seton's arrival, and there was no knowing when it would return.</p> + +<p>"Then I must carry the fish myself," said Emily. "You can put it in a +neat basket."</p> + +<p>"I'm very sorry, miss; I am, indeed, miss," said Batch, looking hot and +pained.</p> + +<p>"It will not be heavy," returned Emily; "and her ladyship must be sure +of it for the dinner-party."</p> + +<p>So she turned back to recross the moor with a basket of fish on her arm. +And she was so pathetically unhappy that she felt that so long as she +lived the odour of fresh fish would make her feel sorrowful. She had +heard of people who were made sorrowful by the odour of a flower or the +sound of a melody but in her case it would be the smell of fresh fish +that would make her sad. If she had been a person with a sense of +humour, she might have seen that this was a thing to laugh at a little. +But she was not a humorous woman, and just now——</p> + +<p>"Oh, I shall have to find a new place," she was thinking, "and I have +lived in that little room for years."</p> + +<p>The sun got hotter and hotter, and her feet became so tired that she +could scarcely drag one of them after another. She had forgotten that +she had left Mallowe before lunch, and that she ought to have got a cup +of tea, at least, at Maundell. Before she had walked a mile on her way +back, she realised that she was frightfully hungry and rather faint.</p> + +<p>"There is not even a cottage where I could get a glass of water," she +thought.</p> + +<p>The basket, which was really comparatively light, began to feel heavy on +her arm, and at length she felt sure that a certain burning spot on her +left heel must be a blister which was being rubbed by her shoe. How it +hurt her, and how tired she was—how tired! And when she left +Mallowe—lovely, luxurious Mallowe—she would not go back to her little +room all fresh from the Cupps' autumn house-cleaning, which included the +washing and ironing of her Turkey-red hangings and chair-covers; she +would be obliged to huddle into any poor place she could find. And Mrs. +Cupp and Jane would be in Chichester.</p> + +<p>"But what good fortune it is for them!" she murmured. "They need never +be anxious about the future again. How—how wonderful it must be to know +that one need not be afraid of the future! I—indeed, I think I really +must sit down."</p> + +<p>She sat down upon the sun-warmed heather and actually let her tear-wet +face drop upon her hands.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" she said helplessly. "I must not let +myself do this. I mustn't, Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"</p> + +<p>She was so overpowered by her sense of her own weakness that she was +conscious of nothing but the fact that she must control it. Upon the +elastic moorland road wheels stole upon one without sound. So the wheels +of a rapidly driven high cart approached her and were almost at her side +before she lifted her head, startled by a sudden consciousness that a +vehicle was near her.</p> + +<p>It was Lord Walderhurst's cart, and even as she gazed at him with +alarmed wet eyes, his lordship descended from it and made a sign to his +groom, who at once impassively drove on.</p> + +<p>Emily's lips tried to tremble into a smile; she put out her hand +fumblingly toward the fish-basket, and having secured it, began to rise.</p> + +<p>"I—sat down to rest," she faltered, even apologetically. "I walked to +Maundell, and it was so hot."</p> + +<p>Just at that moment a little breeze sprang up and swept across her +cheek. She was so grateful that her smile became less difficult.</p> + +<p>"I got what Lady Maria wanted," she added, and the childlike dimple in +her cheek endeavoured to defy her eyes.</p> + +<p>The Marquis of Walderhurst looked rather odd. Emily had never seen him +look like this before. He took a silver flask out of his pocket in a +matter-of-fact way, and filled its cup with something.</p> + +<p>"That is sherry," he said. "Please drink it. You are absolutely faint."</p> + +<p>She held out her hand eagerly. She could not help it.</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank you—thank you!" she said. "I am <i>so</i> thirsty!" And she drank +it as if it were the nectar of the gods.</p> + +<p>"Now, Miss Fox-Seton," he said, "please sit down again. I came here to +drive you back to Mallowe, and the cart will not come back for a quarter +of an hour."</p> + +<p>"You came on purpose!" she exclaimed, feeling, in truth, somewhat +awe-struck. "But how kind of you, Lord Walderhurst—how good!"</p> + +<p>It was the most unforeseen and amazing experience of her life, and at +once she sought for some reason which could connect with his coming some +more interesting person than mere Emily Fox-Seton. Oh,—the thought +flashed upon her,—he had come for some reason connected with Lady +Agatha. He made her sit down on the heather again, and he took a seat +beside her. He looked straight into her eyes.</p> + +<p>"You have been crying," he remarked.</p> + +<p>There was no use denying it. And what was there in the good gray-brown +eye, gazing through the monocle, which so moved her by its suggestion of +kindness and—and some new feeling?</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have," she admitted. "I don't often—but—well, yes, I have."</p> + +<p>"What was it?"</p> + +<p>It was the most extraordinary thump her heart gave at this moment. She +had never felt such an absolute thump. It was perhaps because she was +tired. His voice had lowered itself. No man had ever spoken to her +before like that. It made one feel as if he was not an exalted person at +all; only a kind, kind one. She must not presume upon his kindness and +make much of her prosaic troubles. She tried to smile in a proper casual +way.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it was a small thing, really," was her effort at treating the +matter lightly; "but it seems more important to me than it would to any +one with—with a family. The people I live with—who have been so kind +to me—are going away."</p> + +<p>"The Cupps?" he asked.</p> + +<p>She turned quite round to look at him.</p> + +<p>"How," she faltered, "did you know about them?"</p> + +<p>"Maria told me," he answered, "I asked her."</p> + +<p>It seemed such a human sort of interest to have taken in her. She could +not understand. And she had thought he scarcely realised her existence. +She said to herself that was so often the case—people were so much +kinder than one knew.</p> + +<p>She felt the moisture welling in her eyes, and stared steadily at the +heather, trying to wink it away.</p> + +<p>"I am really glad," she explained hastily. "It is such good fortune for +them. Mrs. Cupp's brother has offered them such a nice home. They need +never be anxious again."</p> + +<p>"But they will leave Mortimer Street—and you will have to give up your +room."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I must find another." A big drop got the better of her, and +flashed on its way down her cheek. "I can find a room, perhaps, but—I +can't find——" She was obliged to clear her throat.</p> + +<p>"That was why you cried?"</p> + +<p>"Yes." After which she sat still.</p> + +<p>"You don't know where you will live?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>She was looking so straight before her and trying so hard to behave +discreetly that she did not see that he had drawn nearer to her. But a +moment later she realised it, because he took hold of her hand. His own +closed over it firmly.</p> + +<p>"Will you," he said—"I came here, in fact, to ask you if you will come +and live with me?"</p> + +<p>Her heart stood still, quite still. London was so full of ugly stories +about things done by men of his rank—stories of transgressions, of +follies, of cruelties. So many were open secrets. There were men, who, +even while keeping up an outward aspect of respectability, were held +accountable for painful things. The lives of well-born struggling women +were so hard. Sometimes such nice ones went under because temptation was +so great. But she had not thought, she could not have dreamed——</p> + +<p>She got on her feet and stood upright before him. He rose with her, and +because she was a tall woman their eyes were on a level. Her own big and +honest ones were wide and full of crystal tears.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she said in helpless woe. "Oh!"</p> + +<p>It was perhaps the most effective thing a woman ever did. It was so +simple that it was heartbreaking. She could not have uttered a word, he +was such a powerful and great person, and she was so without help or +stay.</p> + +<p>Since the occurring of this incident, she has often been spoken of as a +beauty, and she has, without doubt, had her fine hours; but Walderhurst +has never told her that the most beautiful moment of her life was +undoubtedly that in which she stood upon the heather, tall and straight +and simple, her hands hanging by her sides, her large, tear-filled hazel +eyes gazing straight into his. In the femininity of her frank +defencelessness there was an appeal to nature's self in man which was +not quite of earth. And for several seconds they stood so and gazed into +each other's souls—the usually unilluminated nobleman and the prosaic +young woman who lodged on a third floor back in Mortimer Street.</p> + +<p>Then, quite quickly, something was lighted in his eyes, and he took a +step toward her.</p> + +<p>"Good heavens!" he demanded. "What do you suppose I am asking of you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't—know," she answered; "I don't—know."</p> + +<p>"My good girl," he said, even with some irritation, "I am asking you to +be my wife. I am asking you to come and live with me in an entirely +respectable manner, as the Marchioness of Walderhurst."</p> + +<p>Emily touched the breast of her brown linen blouse with the tips of her +fingers.</p> + +<p>"You—are—asking—<i>me</i>?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he answered. His glass had dropped out of his eye, and he picked +it up and replaced it. "There is Black with the cart," he said. "I will +explain myself with greater clearness as we drive back to Mallowe."</p> + +<p>The basket of fish was put in the cart, and Emily Fox-Seton was put in. +Then the marquis got in himself, and took the reins from his groom.</p> + +<p>"You will walk back, Black," he said, "by that path," with a wave of the +hand in a diverging direction.</p> + +<p>As they drove across the heather, Emily was trembling softly from head +to foot. She could have told no human being what she felt. Only a woman +who had lived as she had lived and who had been trained as she had been +trained could have felt it. The brilliance of the thing which had +happened to her was so unheard of and so undeserved, she told herself. +It was so incredible that, even with the splendid gray mare's high-held +head before her and Lord Walderhurst by her side, she felt that she was +only part of a dream. Men had never said "things" to her, and a man was +saying them—the Marquis of Walderhurst was saying them. They were not +the kind of things every man says or said in every man's way, but they +so moved her soul that she quaked with joy.</p> + +<p>"I am not a marrying man," said his lordship, "but I must marry, and I +like you better than any woman I have ever known. I do not generally +like women. I am a selfish man, and I want an unselfish woman. Most +women are as selfish as I am myself. I used to like you when I heard +Maria speak of you. I have watched you and thought of you ever since I +came here. You are necessary to every one, and you are so modest that +you know nothing about it. You are a handsome woman, and you are always +thinking of other women's good looks."</p> + +<p>Emily gave a soft little gasp.</p> + +<p>"But Lady Agatha," she said. "I was sure it was Lady Agatha."</p> + +<p>"I don't want a girl," returned his lordship. "A girl would bore me to +death. I am not going to dry-nurse a girl at the age of fifty-four. I +want a companion."</p> + +<p>"But I am so <i>far</i> from clever," faltered Emily.</p> + +<p>The marquis turned in his driving-seat to look at her. It was really a +very nice look he gave her. It made Emily's cheeks grow pink and her +simple heart beat.</p> + +<p>"You are the woman I want," he said. "You make me feel quite +sentimental."</p> + +<p>When they reached Mallowe, Emily had upon her finger the ruby which Lady +Maria had graphically described as being "as big as a trouser button." +It was, indeed, so big that she could scarcely wear her glove over it. +She was still incredible, but she was blooming like a large rose. Lord +Walderhurst had said so many "things" to her that she seemed to behold a +new heaven and a new earth. She had been so swept off her feet that she +had not really been allowed time to think, after that first gasp, of +Lady Agatha.</p> + +<p>When she reached her bedroom she almost returned to earth as she +remembered it. Neither of them had dreamed of this—neither of them. +What could she say to Lady Agatha? What would Lady Agatha say to her, +though it had not been her fault? She had not dreamed that such a thing +could be possible. How could she, oh, how could she?</p> + +<p>She was standing in the middle of her room with clasped hands. There was +a knock upon the door, and Lady Agatha herself came to her.</p> + +<p>What had occurred? Something. It was to be seen in the girl's eyes, and +in a certain delicate shyness in her manner.</p> + +<p>"Something very nice has happened," she said.</p> + +<p>"Something nice?" repeated Emily.</p> + +<p>Lady Agatha sat down. The letter from Curzon Street was in her hand half +unfolded.</p> + +<p>"I have had a letter from mamma. It seems almost bad taste to speak of +it so soon, but we have talked to each other so much, and you are so +kind, that I want to tell you myself. Sir Bruce Norman has been to talk +to papa about—about me."</p> + +<p>Emily felt that her cup filled to the brim at the moment.</p> + +<p>"He is in England again?"</p> + +<p>Agatha nodded gently.</p> + +<p>"He only went away to—well, to test his own feelings before he spoke. +Mamma is delighted with him. I am going home to-morrow."</p> + +<p>Emily made a little swoop forward.</p> + +<p>"You always liked him?" she said.</p> + +<p>Lady Agatha's delicate mounting colour was adorable.</p> + +<p>"I was quite <i>unhappy</i>," she owned, and hid her lovely face in her +hands.</p> + +<p>In the morning-room Lord Walderhurst was talking to Lady Maria.</p> + +<p>"You need not give Emily Fox-Seton any more clothes, Maria," he said. "I +am going to supply her in future. I have asked her to marry me."</p> + +<p>Lady Maria lightly gasped, and then began to laugh.</p> + +<p>"Well, James," she said, "you have certainly much more sense than most +men of your rank and age."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PART_TWO" id="PART_TWO"></a>PART TWO</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="Chapter_Seven" id="Chapter_Seven"></a> +<img border="0" src="images/chapter_7.png" width="475" height="275" class="center" alt="Chapter Seven" /> + + +<p><span class="dropcapw"><span class="dropcap">W</span></span>hen Miss Emily Fox-Seton was preparing for the extraordinary change in +her life which transformed her from a very poor, hardworking woman into +one of the richest marchionesses in England, Lord Walderhurst's cousin, +Lady Maria Bayne, was extremely good to her. She gave her advice, and +though advice is a cheap present as far as the giver is concerned, there +are occasions when it may be a very valuable one to the recipient. Lady +Maria's was valuable to Emily Fox-Seton, who had but one difficulty, +which was to adjust herself to the marvellous fortune which had befallen +her.</p> + +<p>There was a certain thing Emily found herself continually saying. It +used to break from her lips when she was alone in her room, when she was +on her way to her dressmaker's, and in spite of herself, sometimes when +she was with her whilom patroness.</p> + +<p>"I can't believe it is true! I can't believe it!"</p> + +<p>"I don't wonder, my dear girl," Lady Maria answered the second time she +heard it. "But what circumstances demand of you is that you should learn +to."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Emily, "I know I must. But it seems like a dream. +Sometimes," passing her hand over her forehead with a little laugh, "I +feel as if I should suddenly find myself wakened in the room in Mortimer +Street by Jane Cupp bringing in my morning tea. And I can see the +wallpaper and the Turkey-red cotton curtains. One of them was an inch or +so too short. I never could afford to buy the new bit, though I always +intended to."</p> + +<p>"How much was the stuff a yard?" Lady Maria inquired.</p> + +<p>"Sevenpence."</p> + +<p>"How many yards did you need?"</p> + +<p>"Two. It would have cost one and twopence, you see. And I really could +get on without it."</p> + +<p>Lady Maria put up her lorgnette and looked at her protégée with an +interest which bordered on affection, it was so enjoyable to her +epicurean old mind.</p> + +<p>"I didn't suspect it was as bad as that, Emily," she said. "I should +never have dreamed it. You managed to do yourself with such astonishing +decency. You were actually nice—always."</p> + +<p>"I was very much poorer than anyone knew," said Emily. "People don't +like one's troubles. And when one is earning one's living as I was, one +must be agreeable, you know. It would never do to seem tiresome."</p> + +<p>"There's cleverness in realising that fact," said Lady Maria. "You were +always the most cheerful creature. That was one of the reasons +Walderhurst admired you."</p> + +<p>The future marchioness blushed all over. Lady Maria saw even her neck +itself blush, and it amused her ladyship greatly. She was intensely +edified by the fact that Emily could be made to blush by the mere +mention of her mature fiancé's name.</p> + +<p>"She's in such a state of mind about the man that she's delightful," was +the old woman's internal reflection; "I believe she's in love with him, +as if she was a nurse-maid and he was a butcher's boy."</p> + +<p>"You see," Emily went on in her nice, confiding way (one of the most +surprising privileges of her new position was that it made it possible +for her to confide in old Lady Maria), "it was not only the living from +day to day that made one anxious, it was the Future!" (Lady Maria knew +that the word began in this case with a capital letter.) "No one knows +what the Future is to poor women. One knows that one must get older, and +one may not keep well, and if one could not be active and in good +spirits, if one could not run about on errands, and things fell off, +<i>what</i> could one do? It takes hard work, Lady Maria, to keep up even the +tiniest nice little room and the plainest presentable wardrobe, if one +isn't clever. If I had been clever it would have been quite different, I +dare say. I have been so frightened sometimes in the middle of the +night, when I wakened and thought about living to be sixty-five, that I +have lain and shaken all over. You see," her blush had so far +disappeared that she looked for the moment pale at the memory, "I had +nobody—nobody."</p> + +<p>"And now you are going to be the Marchioness of Walderhurst," remarked +Lady Maria.</p> + +<p>Emily's hands, which rested on her knee, wrung themselves together.</p> + +<p>"That is what it seems impossible to believe," she said, "or to be +grateful enough for to—to—" and she blushed all over again.</p> + +<p>"Say 'James'," put in Lady Maria, with a sinful if amiable sense of +comedy; "you will have to get accustomed to thinking of him as 'James' +sometimes, at all events."</p> + +<p>But Emily did not say "James." There was something interesting in the +innocent fineness of her feeling for Lord Walderhurst. In the midst of +her bewildered awe and pleasure at the material splendours looming up in +her horizon, her soul was filled with a tenderness as exquisite as the +religion of a child. It was a combination of intense gratitude and the +guileless passion of a hitherto wholly unawakened woman—a woman who had +not hoped for love or allowed her thoughts to dwell upon it, and who +therefore had no clear understanding of its full meaning. She could not +have explained her feeling if she had tried, and she did not dream of +trying. If a person less inarticulate than herself had translated it to +her she would have been amazed and abashed. So would Lord Walderhurst +have been amazed, so would Lady Maria; but her ladyship's amazement +would have expressed itself after its first opening of the eyes, with a +faint elderly chuckle.</p> + +<p>When Miss Fox-Seton had returned to town she had returned with Lady +Maria to South Audley Street. The Mortimer Street episode was closed, as +was the Cupps' house. Mrs. Cupp and Jane had gone to Chichester, Jane +leaving behind her a letter the really meritorious neatness of which was +blotted by two or three distinct tears. Jane respectfully expressed her +affectionate rapture at the wondrous news which "Modern Society" had +revealed to her before Miss Fox-Seton herself had time to do so.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid, miss," she ended her epistle, "that I am not experienced +enough to serve a lady in a grand position, but hoping it is not a +liberty to ask it, if at any time your own maid should be wanting a +young woman to work under her, I should be grateful to be remembered. +Perhaps having learned your ways, and being a good needlewoman and fond +of it, might be a little recommendation for me."</p> + +<p>"I <i>should</i> like to take Jane for my maid," Emily had said to Lady +Maria. "Do you think I might make her do?"</p> + +<p>"She would probably be worth half a dozen French minxes who would amuse +themselves by getting up intrigues with your footmen," was Lady Maria's +astute observation. "I would pay an extra ten pounds a year myself for +slavish affection, if it was to be obtained at agency offices. Send her +to a French hairdresser to take a course of lessons, and she will be +worth anything. To turn you out perfectly will be her life's ambition."</p> + +<p>To Jane Cupp's rapture the next post brought her the following letter:—</p> + +<p class="blockquote"><font style="font-variant: small-caps;">Dear Jane</font>,—It is just like you to write such a nice letter to me, and I +can assure you I appreciated all your good wishes very much. I feel that +I have been most fortunate, and am, of course, very happy. I have spoken +to Lady Maria Bayne about you, and she thinks that you might make me a +useful maid if I gave you the advantage of a course of lessons in +hairdressing. I myself know that you would be faithful and interested +and that I could not have a more trustworthy young woman. If your mother +is willing to spare you, I will engage you. The wages would be +thirty-five pounds a year (and beer, of course) to begin with, and an +increase later as you became more accustomed to your duties. I am glad +to hear that your mother is so well and comfortable. Remember me to her +kindly.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">Yours truly,</p> + +<p class="smcap">Emily Fox-Seton</p> + +<p>Jane Cupp trembled and turned pale with joy as she read her letter.</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother!" she said, breathless with happiness. "And to think she is +almost a marchioness this very minute. I wonder if I shall go with her +to Oswyth Castle first, or to Mowbray, or to Hurst?"</p> + +<p>"My word!" said Mrs. Cupp, "you are in luck, Jane, being as you'd rather +be a lady's maid than live private in Chichester. You needn't go out to +service, you know. Your uncle's always ready to provide for you."</p> + +<p>"I know he is," answered Jane, a little nervous lest obstacles might be +put in the way of her achieving her long-cherished ambition. "And it's +kind of him, and I'm sure I'm grateful. But—though I wouldn't hurt his +feelings by mentioning it—it is more independent to be earning your own +living, and there's more <i>life</i>, you see, in waiting on a titled lady +and dressing her for drawing-rooms and parties and races and things, and +travelling about with her to the grand places she lives in and visits. +Why, mother, I've heard tell that the society in the servants' halls is +almost like high life. Butlers and footmen and maids to high people has +seen so much of the world and get such manners. Do you remember how +quiet and elegant Susan Hill was that was maid to Lady Cosbourne? And +she'd been to Greece and to India. If Miss Fox-Seton likes travel and +his lordship likes it, I may be taken to all sorts of wonderful places. +Just think!"</p> + +<p>She gave Mrs. Cupp a little clutch in her excitement. She had always +lived in the basement kitchen of a house in Mortimer Street and had +never had reason to hope she might leave it. And now!</p> + +<p>"You're right, Jane!" her mother said, shaking her head. "There's a +great deal in it, particular when you're young. There's a great deal in +it."</p> + +<p>When the engagement of the Marquis of Walderhurst had been announced, to +the consternation of many, Lady Maria had been in her element. She was +really fine at times in her attitude towards the indiscreetly or +tactlessly inquiring. Her management of Lady Malfry in particular had +been a delightful thing. On hearing of her niece's engagement, Lady +Malfry had naturally awakened to a proper and well-behaved if belated +interest in her. She did not fling herself upon her breast after the +manner of worldly aunts in ancient comedies in which Cinderella attains +fortune. She wrote a letter of congratulation, after which she called at +South Audley Street, and with not too great obviousness placed herself +and her house at the disposal of such female relatives as required +protection during the period of their preparation for becoming +marchionesses. She herself could not have explained exactly how it was +that, without being put through any particular process, she understood, +before her call was half over, that Emily's intention was to remain with +Lady Maria Bayne and that Lady Maria's intention was to keep her. The +scene between the three was far too subtle to be of the least use upon +the stage, but it was a good scene, nevertheless. Its expression was +chiefly, perhaps, a matter of inclusion and exclusion, and may also have +been largely telepathic; but after it was over, Lady Maria chuckled +several times softly to herself, like an elderly bird of much humour, +and Lady Malfry went home feeling exceedingly cross.</p> + +<p>She was in so perturbed a humour that she dropped her eyelids and looked +rather coldly down the bridge of her nose when her stupidly cheery +little elderly husband said to her,—</p> + +<p>"Well, Geraldine?"</p> + +<p>"I beg pardon," she replied. "I don't quite understand."</p> + +<p>"Of course you do. How about Emily Fox-Seton?"</p> + +<p>"She seems very well, and of course she is well satisfied. It would not +be possible for her to be otherwise. Lady Maria Bayne has taken her up."</p> + +<p>"She is Walderhurst's cousin. Well, well! It will be an immense position +for the girl."</p> + +<p>"Immense," granted Lady Malfry, with a little flush. A certain tone in +her voice conveyed that discussion was terminated. Sir George knew that +her niece was not coming to them and that the immense position would +include themselves but slightly.</p> + +<p>Emily was established temporarily at South Audley Street with Jane Cupp +as her maid. She was to be married from Lady Maria's lean old arms, so +to speak. Her ladyship derived her usual epicurean enjoyment from the +whole thing,—from too obviously thwarted mothers and daughters; from +Walderhurst, who received congratulations with a civilly inexpressive +countenance which usually baffled the observer; from Emily, who was +overwhelmed by her emotions, and who was of a candour in action such as +might have appealed to any heart not adapted by the flintiness of its +nature to the macadamising of roads.</p> + +<p>If she had not been of the most unpretentious nice breeding and +unaffected taste, Emily might have been ingenuously funny in her process +of transformation.</p> + +<p>"I keep forgetting that I can afford things," she said to Lady Maria. +"Yesterday I walked such a long way to match a piece of silk, and when I +was tired I got into a penny bus. I did not remember until it was too +late that I ought to have called a hansom. Do you think," a shade +anxiously, "that Lord Walderhurst would mind?"</p> + +<p>"Just for the present, perhaps, it would be as well that I should see +that you shop in the carriage," her ladyship answered with a small grin. +"When you are a marchioness you may make penny buses a feature of the +distinguished <i>insouciance</i> of your character if you like. I shouldn't +myself, because they jolt and stop to pick up people, but you can, with +originality and distinction, if it amuses you."</p> + +<p>"It doesn't," said Emily. "I hate them. I have longed to be able to take +hansoms. Oh! how I have <i>longed</i>—when I was tired."</p> + +<p>The legacy left her by old Mrs. Maytham had been realised and deposited +as a solid sum in a bank. Since she need no longer hoard the income of +twenty pounds a year, it was safe to draw upon her capital for her +present needs. The fact made her feel comfortable. She could make her +preparations for the change in her life with a decent independence. She +would have been definitely unhappy if she had been obliged to accept +favours at this juncture. She felt as if she could scarcely have borne +it. It seemed as if everything conspired to make her comfortable as well +as blissfully happy in these days.</p> + +<p>Lord Walderhurst found an interest in watching her and her methods. He +was a man who, in certain respects, knew himself very well and had few +illusions respecting his own character. He had always been rather given +to matter-of-fact analysis of his own emotions; and at Mallowe he had +once or twice asked himself if it was not disagreeably possible that the +first moderate glow of his St. Martin's summer might die away and leave +him feeling slightly fatigued and embarrassed by the new aspect of his +previously regular and entirely self-absorbed existence. You might think +that you would like to marry a woman and then you might realise that +there were objections—that even the woman herself, with all her +desirable qualities, might be an objection in the end, that any woman +might be an objection; in fact, that it required an effort to reconcile +oneself to the fact of a woman's being continually about. Of course the +arriving at such a conclusion, after one had committed oneself, would be +annoying. Walderhurst had, in fact, only reflected upon this possible +aspect of affairs <i>before</i> he had driven over the heath to pick Emily +up. Afterwards he had, in some remote portion of his mentality, vaguely +awaited developments.</p> + +<p>When he saw Emily day by day at South Audley Street, he found he +continued to like her. He was not clever enough to analyse her; he could +only watch her, and he always looked on at her with curiosity and a +novel sensation rather like pleasure. She wakened up at sight of him, +when he called, in a way that was attractive even to an unimaginative +man. Her eyes seemed to warm, and she often looked flushed and softly +appealing. He began to note vaguely that her dresses were better, and +oftener changed, than they had been at Mallowe. A more observant man +might have been touched by the suggestion that she was unfolding petal +by petal like a flower, and that each carefully chosen costume was a new +petal. He did not in the least suspect the reverent eagerness of her +care of herself as an object hoping to render itself worthy of his +qualities and tastes.</p> + +<p>His qualities and tastes were of no exalted importance in themselves, +but they seemed so to Emily. It is that which by one chance or another +so commends itself to a creature as to incite it to the emotion called +love, which is really of importance, and which, not speaking in figures, +holds the power of life and death. Personality sometimes achieves this, +circumstances always aid it; but in all cases the result is the same and +sways the world it exists in—during its existence. Emily Fox-Seton had +fallen deeply and touchingly in love with this particular prosaic, +well-behaved nobleman, and her whole feminine being was absorbed in her +adoration of him. Her tender fancy described him by adjectives such as +no other human being would have assented to. She felt that he had +condescended to her with a generosity which justified worship. This was +not true, but it was true for her. As a consequence of this she thought +out and purchased her wardrobe with a solemnity of purpose such as might +well have been part of a religious ceremonial. When she consulted +fashion plates and Lady Maria, or when she ordered a gown at her +ladyship's dressmaker's, she had always before her mind, not herself, +but the Marchioness of Walderhurst—a Marchioness of Walderhurst whom +the Marquis would approve of and be pleased with. She did not expect +from him what Sir Bruce Norman gave to Lady Agatha.</p> + +<p>Agatha and her lover were of a different world. She saw them +occasionally, not often, because the simple selfishness of young love so +absorbed them that they could scarcely realise the existence of other +persons than themselves. They were to be married, and to depart for +fairyland as soon as possible. Both were fond of travel, and when they +took ship together their intention was to girdle the world at leisure, +if they felt so inclined. They could do anything they chose, and were so +blissfully sufficient for each other that there was no reason why they +should not follow their every errant fancy.</p> + +<p>The lines which had been increasing in Lady Claraway's face had +disappeared, and left her blooming with the beauty her daughters had +reproduced. This delightful marriage had smoothed away every difficulty. +Sir Bruce was the "most charming fellow in England." That fact acted as +a charm in itself, it seemed. It was not necessary to go into details as +to the mollifying of tradespeople and rearranging of the entire aspect +of life at Curzon Street. When Agatha and Emily Fox-Seton met in town +for the first time—it was in the drawing room at South Audley +Street—they clasped each other's hands with an exchange of entirely new +looks.</p> + +<p>"You look so—so <i>well</i>, Miss Fox-Seton," said Agatha, with actual +tenderness.</p> + +<p>If she had not been afraid of seeming a little rudely effusive she would +have said "handsome" instead of "well," for Emily was sweetly blooming.</p> + +<p>"Happiness is becoming to you," she added. "May I say how <i>glad</i> I am?"</p> + +<p>"Thank you, thank you!" Emily answered. "Everything in the world seems +changed, doesn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, everything."</p> + +<p>They stood and gazed into each other's eyes a few seconds, and then +loosed hands with a little laugh and sat down to talk.</p> + +<p>It was, in fact, Lady Agatha who talked most, because Emily Fox-Seton +led her on and aided her to delicate expansion by her delight in all +that in these days made up her existence of pure bliss. It was as if an +old-time fairy story were being enacted before Emily's eyes. Agatha +without doubt had grown lovelier, she thought; she seemed even fairer, +more willowy, the forget-me-not eyes were of a happier blue, as +forget-me-nots growing by clear water-sides are bluer than those grown +in a mere garden. She appeared, perhaps, even a little taller, and her +small head had, if such a thing were possible, a prettier flower-like +poise. This, at least, Emily thought, and found her own happiness added +to by her belief in her fancy. She felt that nothing was to be wondered +at when she heard Agatha speak of Sir Bruce. She could not utter his +name or refer to any act of his without a sound in her voice which had +its parallel in the light floating haze of blush on her cheeks. In her +intercourse with the world in general she would have been able to +preserve her customary sweet composure, but Emily Fox-Seton was not the +world. She represented a something which was so primitively of the +emotions that one's heart spoke and listened to her. Agatha was +conscious that Miss Fox-Seton had seen at Mallowe—she could never quite +understand how it had seemed so naturally to happen—a phase of her +feelings which no one else had seen before. Bruce had seen it since, but +only Bruce. There had actually been a sort of confidence between them—a +confidence which had been like intimacy, though neither of them had been +effusive.</p> + +<p>"Mamma is so happy," the girl said. "It is quite wonderful. And Alix and +Hilda and Millicent and Eve—oh! it makes such a difference to them. I +shall be able," with a blush which expressed a world of relieved +affection, "to give them so much pleasure. Any girl who marries happily +and—and well—can alter everything for her sisters, if she <i>remembers</i>. +You see, I shall have reason to remember. I know things from experience. +And Bruce is so kind, and gay, and proud of their prettiness. Just +imagine their excitement at all being bridesmaids! Bruce says we shall +be like a garden of spring flowers. I am so glad," her eyes suddenly +quite heavenly in their joyful relief, "that he is <i>young</i>!"</p> + +<p>The next second the heavenly relieved look died away. The exclamation +had been involuntary. It had sprung from her memory of the days when she +had dutifully accepted, as her portion, the possibility of being smiled +upon by Walderhurst, who was two years older than her father, and her +swift realisation of this fact troubled her. It was indelicate to have +referred to the mental image even ever so vaguely.</p> + +<p>But Emily Fox-Seton was glad too that Sir Bruce was young, that they +were all young, and that happiness had come before they had had time to +tire of waiting for it. She was so happy herself that she questioned +nothing.</p> + +<p>"Yes. It is nice," she answered, and glowed with honest sympathy. "You +will want to do the same things. It is so agreeable when people who are +married like to do the same things. Perhaps you will want to go out a +great deal and to travel, and you could not enjoy it if Sir Bruce did +not."</p> + +<p>She was not reflecting in the least upon domestic circles whose male +heads are capable of making themselves extremely nasty under stress of +invitations it bores them to accept, and the inclination of wives and +daughters to desire acceptance. She was not contemplating with any +premonitory regrets a future in which, when Walderhurst did not wish to +go out to dinner or disdained a ball, she should stay at home. Far from +it. She simply rejoiced with Lady Agatha, who was twenty-two marrying +twenty-eight.</p> + +<p>"You are not like me," she explained further. "I have had to work so +hard and contrive so closely that <i>everything</i> will be a pleasure to me. +Just to know that I <i>never</i> need starve to death or go into the +workhouse is such a relief that—"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" exclaimed Lady Agatha, quickly and involuntarily laying a hand on +hers, startled by the fact that she spoke as if referring to a wholly +matter-of-fact possibility.</p> + +<p>Emily smiled, realising her feeling.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I ought not to have said that. I forgot. But such things are +possible when one is too old to work and has nothing to depend on. You +could scarcely understand. When one is very poor one is frightened, +because occasionally one cannot help thinking of it."</p> + +<p>"But now—now! Oh! how different!" exclaimed Agatha, with heartfelt +earnestness.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Now I need never be afraid. It makes me so grateful to—Lord +Walderhurst."</p> + +<p>Her neck grew pink as she said it, just as Lady Maria had seen it grow +pink on previous occasions. Moderate as the words were, they expressed +ardour.</p> + +<p>Lord Walderhurst came in half an hour later and found her standing +smiling by the window.</p> + +<p>"You look particularly well, Emily. It's that white frock, I suppose. +You ought to wear a good deal of white," he said.</p> + +<p>"I will," Emily answered. He observed that she wore the nice flush and +the soft appealing look, as well as the white frock. "I wish—"</p> + +<p>Here she stopped, feeling a little foolish.</p> + +<p>"What do you wish?"</p> + +<p>"I wish I could do more to please you than wear white—or black—when +you like."</p> + +<p>He gazed at her, always through the single eyeglass. Even the vaguest +approach to emotion or sentiment invariably made him feel stiff and shy. +Realising this, he did not quite understand why he rather liked it in +the case of Emily Fox-Seton, though he only liked it remotely and felt his +own inaptness a shade absurd.</p> + +<p>"Wear yellow or pink occasionally," he said with a brief, awkward laugh.</p> + +<p>What large, honest eyes the creature had, like a fine retriever's or +those of some nice animal one saw in the Zoo!</p> + +<p>"I will wear anything you like," she said, the nice eyes meeting his, +not the least stupidly, he reflected, though women who were affectionate +often looked stupid. "I will do anything you like; you don't know what +you have done for me, Lord Walderhurst."</p> + +<p>They moved a trifle nearer to each other, this inarticulate pair. He +dropped his eyeglass and patted her shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Say 'Walderhurst' or 'James'—or—or 'my dear,'" he said. "We are going +to be married, you know." And he found himself going to the length of +kissing her cheek with some warmth.</p> + +<p>"I sometimes wish," she said feelingly, "that it was the fashion to say +'my lord' as Lady Castlewood used to do in 'Esmond.' I always thought it +nice."</p> + +<p>"Women are not so respectful to their husbands in these days," he +answered, with his short laugh. "And men are not so dignified."</p> + +<p>"Lord Castlewood was not very dignified, was he?"</p> + +<p>He chuckled a little.</p> + +<p>"No. But his rank was, in the reign of Queen Anne. These are democratic +days. I'll call you 'my lady' if you like."</p> + +<p>"Oh! No—no!" with fervour, "I wasn't thinking of anything like that."</p> + +<p>"I know you were not," he reassured her. "You are not that kind of +woman."</p> + +<p>"Oh! how <i>could</i> I be?"</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> couldn't," good-naturedly. "That's why I like you."</p> + +<p>Then he began to tell her his reason for calling at this particular +hour. He came to prepare her for a visit from the Osborns, who had +actually just returned from India. Captain Osborn had chosen, or chance +had chosen for him, this particular time for a long leave. As soon as +she heard the name of Osborn, Emily's heart beat a little quickly. She +had naturally learned a good deal of detail from Lady Maria since her +engagement. Alec Osborn was the man who, since Lord Walderhurst's +becoming a widower, had lived in the gradually strengthening belief that +the chances were that it would be his enormous luck to inherit the title +and estates of the present Marquis of Walderhurst. He was not a very +near relation, but he was the next of kin. He was a young man and a +strong one, and Walderhurst was fifty-four and could not be called +robust. His medical man did not consider him a particularly good life, +though he was not often ill.</p> + +<p>"He's not the kind of chap who lives to be a hundred and fifty. I'll say +that for him," Alec Osborn had said at mess after dinner had made him +careless of speech, and he had grinned not too pleasantly when he +uttered the words. "The only thing that would completely wipe my eye +isn't as likely to happen to him as to most men. He's unsentimental and +level headed, and doesn't like marriage. You can imagine how he's +chivied by women. A fellow in his position couldn't be let alone. But he +doesn't like marriage, and he's a man who knows jolly well what he likes +and what he doesn't. The only child died, and if he doesn't marry again, +I'm in a safe place. Good Lord! the difference it would make!" and his +grin extended itself.</p> + +<p>It was three months after this that the Marquis of Walderhurst followed +Emily Fox-Seton out upon the heath, and finding her sitting footsore and +depressed in spirit beside the basket of Lady Maria's fish, asked her to +marry him.</p> + +<p>When the news reached him, Alec Osborn went and shut himself up in his +quarters and blasphemed until his face was purple and big drops of sweat +ran down it. It was black bad luck—it was black bad luck, and it called +for black curses. What the articles of furniture in the room in the +bungalow heard was rather awful, but Captain Osborn did not feel that it +did justice to the occasion.</p> + +<p>When her husband strode by her to his apartment, Mrs. Osborn did not +attempt to follow him. She had only been married two years, but she knew +his face too well; and she also knew too well all the meaning of the +fury contained in the words he flung at her as he hurled himself past +her.</p> + +<p>"Walderhurst is going to be married!" Mrs. Osborn ran into her own room +and sat down clutching at her hair as she dropped her face in her little +dark hands. She was an Anglo-Indian girl who had never been home, and +had not had much luck in life at any time, and her worst luck had been +in being handed over by her people to this particular man, chiefly +because he was the next of kin to Lord Walderhurst. She was a curious, +passionate creature, and had been in love with him in her way. Her +family had been poor and barely decently disreputable. She had lived on +the outskirts of things, full of intense girlish vanity and yearnings +for social recognition, poorly dressed, passed over and snubbed by +people she aspired to know socially, seeing other girls with less beauty +and temperament enjoying flirtations with smart young officers, biting +her tongue out with envy and bitterness of thwarted spirit. So when +Captain Osborn cast an eye on her and actually began a sentimental +episode, her relief and excitement at finding herself counting as other +girls did wrought itself up into a passion. Her people were prompt and +sharp enough to manage the rest, and Osborn was married before he knew +exactly whither he was tending. He was not pleased with himself when he +wakened to face facts. He could only console himself for having been +cleverly led and driven into doing the thing he did not want to do, by +the facts that the girl was interesting and clever and had a good deal +of odd un-English beauty.</p> + +<p>It was a beauty so un-English that it would perhaps appear to its +greatest advantage in the contrasts afforded by life in England. She was +so dark, of heavy hair and drooping-lidded eyes and fine grained skin, +and so sinuous of lithe, slim body, that among native beauties she +seemed not to be sufficiently separated by marks of race. She had +tumbled up from childhood among native servants, who were almost her +sole companions, and who had taught her curious things. She knew their +stories and songs, and believed in more of their occult beliefs than any +but herself knew.</p> + +<p>She knew things which made her interesting to Alec Osborn, who had a +bullet head and a cruel lower jaw, despite a degree of the ordinary good +looks. The fact that his chances were good for becoming Marquis of +Walderhurst and taking her home to a life of English luxury and +splendour was a thing she never forgot. It haunted her in her sleep. She +had often dreamed of Oswyth Castle and of standing amidst great people +on the broad lawns her husband had described feelingly during tropical +days when they had sat together panting for breath. When there had been +mention made of the remote, awful possibility that Walderhurst might +surrender to the siege laid to him, she had turned sick at the thought. +It made her clench her hands until the nails almost pressed into the +skin of her palms. She could not bear it. She had made Osborn burst into +a big, harsh laugh one day when she had hinted to him that there were +occult things to be done which might prevent ill luck. He had laughed +first and scowled afterwards, cynically saying that she might as well be +working them up.</p> + +<p>He had not come out to India followed by regrets and affection. He had +been a black sheep at home, and had rather been hustled away than +otherwise. If he had been a more admirable kind of fellow, Walderhurst +would certainly have made him an allowance; but his manner of life had +been such as the Marquis had no patience with in men of any class, and +especially abhorred in men whom the accident of birth connected with +good names. He had not been lavish in his demonstrations of interest in +the bullet-headed young man. Osborn's personableness was not of a kind +attractive to the unbiassed male observer. Men saw his cruel young jowl +and low forehead, and noticed that his eyes were small. He had a good, +swaggering military figure to which uniform was becoming, and a kind of +animal good looks which would deteriorate early. His colour would fix +and deepen with the aid of steady daily drinking, and his features would +coarsen and blur, until by the time he was forty the young jowl would +have grown heavy and would end by being his most prominent feature.</p> + +<p>While he had remained in England, Walderhurst had seen him occasionally, +and had only remarked and heard unpleasant things of him,—a tendency to +selfish bad manners, reckless living, and low flirtation. He once saw +him on the top of a bus with his arm round the waist of an awful, +giggling shop-girl kind of person, who was adorned with tremendous +feathers and a thick fringe coming unfrizzled with the heat and sticking +out here and there in straight locks on her moist forehead. Osborn +thought that the arm business had been cleverly managed with such +furtiveness that no one could see it, but Walderhurst was driving +solemnly by in his respectable barouche, and he found himself gazing +through his monocle directly at his relative, and seeing, from the +street below, the point at which the young man's arm lost itself under +the profusely beaded short cape. A dull flush rose to his countenance, +and he turned away without showing any sign of recognition; but he was +annoyed and disgusted, because this particular kind of blatantly vulgar +bad taste was the sort of thing he loathed. It was the sort of thing +which made duchesses of women who did alluring "turns" at music halls or +sang suggestive songs in comic opera, and transformed into the +chatelaines of ancient castles young persons who had presided at the +ribbon counter. He saw as little as possible of his heir presumptive +after this, and if the truth were told, Captain Alec Osborn was +something of a factor in the affair of Miss Emily Fox-Seton. If +Walderhurst's infant son had lived, or if Osborn had been a refined, +even if dull, fellow, there are ten chances to one his lordship would +have chosen no second marchioness.</p> + +<p>Captain Osborn's life in India had not ended in his making no further +debts. He was not a man to put the brake on in the matter of +self-indulgence. He got into debt so long as a shred of credit remained +to him, and afterwards he tried to add to his resources by cards and +betting at races. He made and lost by turn, and was in a desperate state +when he got his leave. He applied for it because he had conceived the +idea that his going home as a married man might be a good thing for him. +Hester, it seemed not at all improbable, might accomplish something with +Walderhurst. If she talked to him in her interesting semi-Oriental way, +and was fervid and picturesque in her storytelling, he might be +attracted by her. She had her charm, and when she lifted the heavy lids +of her long black eyes and fixed her gaze upon her hearer as she talked +about the inner side of native life, of which she knew such curious, +intimate things, people always listened, even in India, where the thing +was not so much of a novelty, and in England she might be a sort of +sensation.</p> + +<p>Osborn managed to convey to her gradually, by a process of his own, a +great deal of what he wanted her to do. During the months before the +matter of the leave was quite decided, he dropped a word here and there +which carried a good deal of suggestion to a mind used to seizing on +passing intimations. The woman who had been Hester's Ayah when she was a +child had become her maid. She was a woman with a wide, silent +acquaintance with her own people. She was seldom seen talking to anyone +and seldom seemed to leave the house, but she always knew everything. +Her mistress was aware that if at any time she chose to ask her a +question about the secret side of things concerning black or white +peoples, she would receive information to be relied upon. She felt that +she could have heard from her many things concerning her husband's past, +present, and future, and that the matter of the probable succession was +fully comprehended by her.</p> + +<p>When she called her into the room after recovering outwardly from her +hour of desperation, she saw that the woman was already aware of the +blow that had fallen upon the household. What they said to each other +need not be recorded here, but there was more in the conversation than +the mere words uttered, and it was one of several talks held before Mrs. +Osborn sailed for England with her husband.</p> + +<p>"He may be led into taking into consideration the fact that he has cut +the ground from under a fellow's feet and left him dangling in the air," +said Osborn to his wife. "Best thing will be to make friends with the +woman, hang her!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Alec, yes," Hester Osborn answered, just a little feverishly. "We +must make friends with her. They say she is a good sort and was +frightfully poor herself."</p> + +<p>"She won't be poor now, hang her!" remarked Captain Osborn with added +fervour. "I should like to break her neck! I wonder if she rides?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sure she has not been well enough off to do anything like that."</p> + +<p>"Good idea to begin to teach her." And he laughed as he turned on his +heel and began to walk the deck with a fellow passenger.</p> + +<p>It was these people Lord Walderhurst had come to prepare her for.</p> + +<p>"Maria has told you about them, I know," he said. "I dare say she has +been definite enough to explain that I consider Osborn altogether +undesirable. Under the veneer of his knowledge of decent customs he is a +cad. I am obliged to behave civilly to the man, but I dislike him. If he +had been born in a low class of life, he would have been a criminal."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Emily exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Any number of people would be criminals if circumstances did not +interfere. It depends a good deal on the shape of one's skull."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" exclaimed Emily again, "do you think so?"</p> + +<p>She believed that people who were bad were bad from preference, though +she did not at all understand the preference. She had accepted from her +childhood everything she had ever heard said in a pulpit. That +Walderhurst should propound ideas such as ministers of the Church of +England might regard as heretical startled her, but he could have said +nothing startling enough to shake her affectionate allegiance.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do," he answered. "Osborn's skull is quite the wrong shape."</p> + +<p>But when, a short time after, Captain Osborn brought the skull in +question into the room, covered in the usual manner with neatly brushed, +close-cropped hair, Emily thought it a very nice shape indeed. Perhaps a +trifle hard and round-looking and low of forehead, but not shelving or +bulging as the heads of murderers in illustrated papers generally did. +She owned to herself that she did not see what Lord Walderhurst +evidently saw, but then she did not expect of herself an intelligence +profound enough to follow his superior mental flights.</p> + +<p>Captain Osborn was well groomed and well mannered, and his demeanour +towards herself was all that the most conventional could have demanded. +When she reflected that she herself represented in a way the possible +destruction of his hopes of magnificent fortune, she felt almost +tenderly towards him, and thought his easy politeness wonderful. Mrs. +Osborn, too! How interesting and how beautiful in an odd way Mrs. Osborn +was! Every movement of her exceeding slimness was curiously graceful. +Emily remembered having read novels whose heroines were described as +"undulating." Mrs. Osborn was undulating. Her long, drooping, and dense +black eyes were quite unlike other girls' eyes. Emily had never seen +anything like them. And she had such a lonely, slow, shy way of lifting +them to look at people. She was obliged to look up at tall Emily. She +seemed a schoolgirl as she stood near her. Emily was the kind of +mistaken creature whose conscience, awakening to unnecessary remorses, +causes its owner at once to assume all the burdens which Fate has laid +upon the shoulders of others. She began to feel like a criminal herself, +irrespective of the shape of her skull. Her own inordinate happiness and +fortune had robbed this unoffending young couple. She wished that it had +not been so, and vaguely reproached herself without reasoning the matter +out to a conclusion. At all events, she was remorsefully sympathetic in +her mental attitude towards Mrs. Osborn, and being sure that she was +frightened of her husband's august relative, felt nervous herself +because Lord Walderhurst bore himself with unrelated courtesy and kept his +monocle fixed in his eye throughout the interview. If he had let it drop +and allowed it to dangle in an unbiassed manner from its cord, Emily +would have felt more comfortable, because she was sure his demeanour +would have appeared a degree more encouraging to the Osborns.</p> + +<p>"Are you glad to be in England again?" she asked Mrs. Osborn.</p> + +<p>"I never was here before," answered the young woman. "I have never been +anywhere but in India."</p> + +<p>In the course of the conversation she explained that she had not been a +delicate child, and also conveyed that even if she had been one, her +people could not have afforded to send her home. Instinct revealed to +Emily that she had not had many of the good things of life, and that she +was not a creature of buoyant spirits. The fact that she had spent a +good many hours of most of her young days in reflecting on her ill-luck +had left its traces on her face, particularly in the depths of her +slow-moving, black eyes.</p> + +<p>They had come, it appeared, in the course of duty, to pay their respects +to the woman who was to be their destruction. To have neglected to do so +would have made them seem to assume an indiscreet attitude towards the +marriage.</p> + +<p>"They can't like it, of course," Lady Maria summed them up afterwards, +"but they have made up their minds to lump it as respectably as +possible."</p> + +<p>"I am <i>so</i> sorry for them," said Emily.</p> + +<p>"Of course you are. And you will probably show them all sorts of +indiscreet kindnesses, but don't be too altruistic, my good Emily. The +man is odious, and the girl looks like a native beauty. She rather +frightens me."</p> + +<p>"I don't think Captain Osborn is odious," Emily answered. "And she <i>is</i> +pretty, you know. She is frightened of us, really."</p> + +<p>Remembering days when she herself had been at a disadvantage with people +who were fortunate enough to be of importance, and recalling what her +secret tremor before them had been, Emily was very nice indeed to little +Mrs. Osborn. She knew from experience things which would be of use to +her—things about lodgings and things about shops. Osborn had taken +lodgings in Duke Street, and Emily knew the quarter thoroughly. +Walderhurst watched her being nice, through his fixed eyeglass, and he +decided that she had really a very good manner. Its goodness consisted +largely in its directness. While she never brought forth unnecessarily +recollections of the days when she had done other people's shopping and +had purchased for herself articles at sales marked 11-3/4<i>d</i>, she was +interestingly free from any embarrassment in connection with the facts. +Walderhurst, who had been much bored by himself and other people in time +past, actually found that it gave a fillip to existence to look on at a +woman who, having been one of the hardest worked of the genteel +labouring classes, was adapting herself to the role of marchioness by +the simplest of processes, and making a very nice figure at it too, in +her entirely unbrilliant way. If she had been an immensely clever woman, +there would have been nothing special in it. She was not clever at all, +yet Walderhurst had seen her produce effects such as a clever woman +might have laboured for and only attained by a stroke of genius. As, for +instance, when she had met for the first time after her engagement, a +certain particularly detestable woman of rank, to whom her relation to +Walderhurst was peculiarly bitter. The Duchess of Merwold had counted +the Marquis as her own, considering him fitted by nature to be the +spouse of her eldest girl, a fine young woman with projecting teeth, who +had hung fire. She felt Emily Fox-Seton's incomprehensible success to be +a piece of impudent presumption, and she had no reason to restrain the +expression of her sentiments so long as she conveyed them by methods of +inference and inclusion.</p> + +<p>"You must let me congratulate you very warmly, Miss Fox-Seton," she +said, pressing her hand with maternal patronage. "Your life has changed +greatly since we last saw each other."</p> + +<p>"Very greatly indeed," Emily flushed frankly in innocent gratitude as +she answered. "You are very kind. Thank you, thank you."</p> + +<p>"Yes, a great change." Walderhurst saw that her smile was feline and +asked himself what the woman was going to say next. "The last time we +met you called to ask me about the shopping you were to do for me. Do +you remember? Stockings and gloves, I think."</p> + +<p>Walderhurst observed that she expected Emily to turn red and show +herself at a loss before the difficulties of the situation. He was on +the point of cutting into the conversation and disposing of the matter +himself when he realised that Emily was neither gaining colour nor +losing it, but was looking honestly into her Grace's eyes with just a +touch of ingenuous regret.</p> + +<p>"It was stockings," she said. "There were some marked down to one and +elevenpence halfpenny at Barratt's. They were really <i>quite</i> good for +the price. And you wanted four pairs. And when I got there they were all +gone, and those at two and three were not the least bit better. I was so +disappointed. It was too bad!"</p> + +<p>Walderhurst fixed his monocle firmly to conceal the fact that he was +verging upon a cynical grin. The woman was known to be the stingiest of +small great persons in London, her economies were noted, and this +incident was even better than many others society had already rejoiced +over. The picture raised in the minds of the hearers of her Grace foiled +in the purchase of stockings marked down to 1<i>s</i>. 11-1/2<i>d</i>. would be a +source of rapture for some time to come. And Emily's face! The regretful +kindness of it, the retrospective sympathy and candid feeling! It was +incredibly good!</p> + +<p>"And she did it quite by accident!" he repeated to himself in his inward +glee. "She did it quite by accident! She's not clever enough to have +done it on purpose. What a brilliantly witty creature she would be if +she had invented it!"</p> + +<p>As she had been able unreluctantly to recall her past upon this +occasion, so she was able to draw for Mrs. Osborn's benefit from the +experience it had afforded her. She wanted to make up to her, in such +ways as she could, for the ill turn she had inadvertently done her. As +she had at once ranged herself as an aid on the side of Lady Agatha, so +she ranged herself entirely without obtrusiveness on the side of the +Osborns.</p> + +<p>"It's true that she's a good sort," Hester said when they went away. +"Her days of being hard up are not far enough away to be forgotten. She +hasn't any affectation, at any rate. It makes it easier to stand her."</p> + +<p>"She looks like a strong woman," said Osborn. "Walderhurst got a good +deal for his money. She'll make a strapping British matron."</p> + +<p>Hester winced and a dusky red shot up in her cheek. "So she will," she +sighed.</p> + +<p>It was quite true, and the truer it was the worse for people who +despairingly hung on and were foolish enough to hope against hope.</p> + +<img border="0" src="images/swag.png" width="187" height="70" class="center" alt="" /> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="Chapter_Eight" id="Chapter_Eight"></a> +<img border="0" src="images/chapter_8.png" width="475" height="275" class="center" alt="Chapter Eight" /> + + +<p><span class="dropcapt_tendrils"><span class="dropcap">T</span></span>he marriage of Lady Agatha came first, and was a sort of pageant. The +female writers for fashion papers lived upon it for weeks before it +occurred and for some time after. There were numberless things to be +written about it. Each flower of the garden of girls was to be +described, with her bridesmaid's dress, and the exquisite skin and eyes +and hair which would stamp her as the beauty of her season when she came +out. There yet remained five beauties in Lady Claraway's possession, and +the fifth was a baby thing of six, who ravished all beholders as she +toddled into church carrying her sister's train, aided by a little boy +page in white velvet and point lace.</p> + +<p>The wedding was the most radiant of the year. It was indeed a fairy +pageant, of youth and beauty, and happiness and hope.</p> + +<p>One of the most interesting features of the occasion was the presence of +the future Marchioness of Walderhurst, "the beautiful Miss Fox-Seton." +The fashion papers were very strenuous on the subject of Emily's beauty. +One of them mentioned that the height and pose of her majestic figure +and the cut of her profile suggested the Venus of Milo. Jane Cupp cut +out every paragraph she could find and, after reading them aloud to her +young man, sent them in a large envelope to Chichester. Emily, +faithfully endeavouring to adjust herself to the demands of her +approaching magnificence, was several times alarmed by descriptions of +her charms and accomplishments which she came upon accidentally in the +course of her reading of various periodicals.</p> + +<p>The Walderhurst wedding was dignified and distinguished, but not +radiant. The emotions Emily passed through during the day—from her +awakening almost at dawn to the silence of her bedroom at South Audley +Street, until evening closed in upon her sitting in the private parlour +of an hotel in the company of the Marquis of Walderhurst—it would +require too many pages to describe.</p> + +<p>Her first realisation of the day brought with it the physical +consciousness that her heart was thumping—steadily thumping, which is +quite a different matter from the ordinary beating—at the realisation +of what had come at last. An event which a year ago the wildest dream +could not have depicted for her was to-day an actual fact; a fortune +such as she would have thought of with awe if it had befallen another +woman, had befallen her unpretending self. She passed her hand over her +forehead and gasped as she thought of it.</p> + +<p>"I hope I shall be able to get accustomed to it and not be a—a +disappointment," she said. "Oh!" with a great rising wave of a blush, +"how good of him! How can I <i>ever</i>—"</p> + +<p>She lived through the events of the day in a sort of dream within a +dream. When Jane Cupp brought her tea, she found herself involuntarily +making a mental effort to try to look as if she was really awake. Jane, +who was an emotional creature, was inwardly so shaken by her feelings +that she herself had stood outside the door a few moments biting her +lips to keep them from trembling, before she dared entirely trust +herself to come in. Her hand was far from steady as she set down the +tray.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Jane," Emily said, by way of trying the sound of her +voice.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, miss," Jane answered. "It's a beautiful morning, miss. I +hope—you are very well?"</p> + +<p>And then the day had begun.</p> + +<p>Afterwards it marched on with solemn thrill and stately movement through +hours of wondrous preparation for an imposing function, through the +splendid gravity of the function itself, accompanied by brilliant crowds +collected and looking on in a fashionable church, and motley crowds +collected to look on outside the edifice, the latter pushing and +jostling each other and commenting in more or less respectful if excited +undertones, but throughout devouring with awe-struck or envious eyes. +Great people whom Emily had only known through the frequent mention of +their names in newspapers or through their relationship or intimacy with +her patrons, came to congratulate her in her rôle of bride. She seemed +to be for hours the centre of a surging, changing crowd, and her one +thought was to bear herself with an outward semblance of composure. No +one but herself could know that she was saying internally over and over +again, to steady herself, making it all seem real, "I am being married. +This is my wedding. I am Emily Fox-Seton being married to the Marquis of +Walderhurst. For his sake I must not look stupid or excited. I am not in +a dream."</p> + +<p>How often she said this after the ceremony was over and they returned to +South Audley Street, for the wedding breakfast could scarcely be +computed. When Lord Walderhurst helped her from the carriage and she +stepped on to the strip of red carpet and saw the crowd on each side of +it and the coachman and footmen with their big white wedding favours and +the line of other equipages coming up, her head whirled.</p> + +<p>"That's the Marchioness," a young woman with a bandbox exclaimed, +nudging her companion. "That's 'er! Looks a bit pale, doesn't she?"</p> + +<p>"But, oh Gawd! look at them di-monds an' pearls—jess look at 'em!" +cried the other. "Wish it was me."</p> + +<p>The breakfast seemed splendid and glittering and long; people seemed +splendid and glittering and far off; and by the time Emily went to +change her bridal magnificence for her travelling costume she had borne +as much strain as she was equal to. She was devoutly grateful for the +relief of finding herself alone in her bedroom with Jane Cupp.</p> + +<p>"Jane," she said, "you know exactly how many minutes I can dress in and +just when I must get into the carriage. Can you give me five minutes to +lie down quite flat and dab my forehead with eau de cologne? Five +minutes, Jane. But be quite sure."</p> + +<p>"Yes, miss—I do beg pardon—my lady. You can have five—safe."</p> + +<p>She took no more,—Jane went into the dressing-room and stood near its +door, holding the watch in her hand,—but even five minutes did her +good.</p> + +<p>She felt less delirious when she descended the stairs and passed through +the crowds again on Lord Walderhurst's arm. She seemed to walk through a +garden in resplendent bloom. Then there were the red carpet once more, +and the street people, and the crowd of carriages and liveries, and big, +white favours.</p> + +<p>Inside the carriage, and moving away to the echo of the street people's +cheer, she tried to turn and look at Lord Walderhurst with an unalarmed, +if faint, smile.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, with the originality which marked him, "it is really +over!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Emily agreed with him. "And I never can forget Lady Maria's +goodness."</p> + +<p>Walderhurst gazed at her with a dawning inquiry in his mind. He himself +did not know what the inquiry was. But it was something a trifle +stimulating. It had something to do with the way in which she had +carried herself throughout the whole thing. Really few women could have +done it as well. The pale violet of her travelling costume which was +touched with sable was becoming to her fine, straight figure. And at the +moment her eyes rested on his with the suggestion of trustful appeal. +Despite the inelasticity of his mind, he vaguely realised his bridegroom +honours.</p> + +<p>"I can begin now," he said with stiff lightness, if such a paradox can +be, "to address you as the man in Esmond addressed his wife. I can call +you 'my lady.'"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she said, still trying to smile, but quivering.</p> + +<p>"You look very nice," he said. "Upon my word you do."</p> + +<p>And kissed her trembling honest mouth almost as if he had been a +man—not quite—but almost.</p> + +<img border="0" src="images/helmet.png" width="187" height="87" class="center" alt="" /> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="Chapter_Nine" id="Chapter_Nine"></a> +<img border="0" src="images/chapter_9.png" width="475" height="275" class="center" alt="Chapter Nine" /> + + +<p><span class="dropcapt_flowers"><span class="dropcap">T</span></span>hey began the new life at Palstrey Manor, which was ancient and most +beautiful. Nothing Walderhurst owned was as perfect an example of olden +time beauty, and as wonderful for that reason. Emily almost wept before +the loveliness of it, though it would not have been possible for her to +explain or particularise the grounds for her emotion. She knew nothing +whatever of the venerable wonders of the architecture. To her the place +looked like an immense, low-built, rambling fairy palace—the palace of +some sleeping beauty during whose hundred years of slumber rich +dark-green creepers had climbed and overgrown its walls and towers, +enfolding and festooning them with leaves and tendrils and actual +branches. The huge park held an enchanted forest of trees; the long +avenue of giant limes, their writhen limbs arching and interlocking, +their writhen roots deep in velvet moss, was an approach suited to a +fairy story.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>During her first month at Palstrey Emily went about still in her dream. +It became more a dream every day. The old house was part of it, the +endless rooms, the wonderful corridors, the gardens with their +revelations of winding walks, labyrinths of evergreens, and grass paths +leading into beautiful unexpected places, where one suddenly came upon +deep, clear pools where water plants grew and slow carp had dreamed +centuries away. The gardens caused Emily to disbelieve in the existence +of Mortimer Street, but the house at times caused her to disbelieve in +herself. The picture gallery especially had this effect upon her. The +men and women, once as alive as her everyday self, now gazing down at +her from their picture frames sometimes made her heart beat as if she +stood in the presence of things eerie. Their strange, rich, ugly, or +beautiful garments, their stolid or fervid, ugly or beautiful, faces, +seemed to demand something of her; at least she had just enough +imagination to feel somewhat as if they did. Walderhurst was very kind +to her, but she was afraid she might bore him by the exceeding ignorance +of her questions about people whom he had known from his childhood as +his own kith and kin. It was not unlikely that one might have become so +familiar with a man in armour or a woman in a farthingale that questions +connected with them might seem silly. Persons whose ancestors had always +gazed intimately at them from walls might not unnaturally forget that +there were other people to whom they might wear only the far-away aspect +of numbers in catalogues of the Academy, or exhibitions of that order.</p> + +<p>There was a very interesting catalogue of the Palstrey pictures, and +Emily found and studied it with deep interest. She cherished a touching +secret desire to know what might be discoverable concerning the women +who had been Marchionesses of Walderhurst before. None of them but +herself, she gathered, had come to their husbands from bed-sitting rooms +in obscure streets. There had been noble Hyrsts in the reign of Henry +I., and the period since then elapsed had afforded time for numerous +bridals. Lady Walderhurst was overcome at moments by her reflections +upon what lay behind and before her, but not being a complex person or +of fervid imagination, she was spared by nature the fevers of complex +emotions.</p> + +<p>In fact, after a few weeks had passed she came out of her dream and +found her happiness enduring and endurable. Each day's awakening was a +delight to her, and would probably be so to the end of her existence, +absolutely because she was so sane and uncomplex a creature. To be +deftly assisted in her dressing by Jane Cupp, and to know that each +morning she might be fittingly and becomingly attired without anxiety as +to where her next gown was to come from, was a lovely thing. To enjoy +the silent, perfect workings of the great household, to drive herself or +be driven, to walk and read, to loiter through walled gardens and +hothouses at will,—such things to a healthy woman with an unobscured +power of enjoyment were luxuries which could not pall.</p> + +<p>Walderhurst found her an actual addition to his comfort. She was never in +the way. She seemed to have discovered the trick of coming and going +undisturbingly. She was docile and affectionate, but not in the least +sentimental. He had known men whose first years of marriage, not to +speak of the first months, had been rendered unbearable by the fact that +their wives were constantly demanding or expecting the expression of +sentiments which unsentimental males had not at their fingers' ends. So +the men had been annoyed or bored, and the women had been dissatisfied. +Emily demanded nothing of the sort, and was certainly not dissatisfied. +She looked very handsome and happy. Her looks positively improved, and +when people began to call and she to pay visits, she was very much +liked. He had certainly been quite right in deciding to ask her to marry +him. If she had a son, he should congratulate himself greatly. The more +he saw of Osborn the more he disliked him. It appeared that there was a +prospect of a child there.</p> + +<p>This last was indeed true, and Emily had been much touched and awakened +to sympathy. It had gradually become revealed to her that the Osborns +were poorer than they could decently admit. Emily had discovered that +they could not even remain in the lodgings in Duke Street, though she +did not know the reason, which was that Captain Osborn had been obliged +to pay certain moneys to stave off a scandal not entirely unconnected +with the young woman his arm had encircled the day Walderhurst had seen +him on the top of the bus. He was very well aware that if he was to +obtain anything from Lord Walderhurst, there were several things which +must be kept entirely dark. Even a scandal belonging to the past could +be made as unpleasant as an error of to-day. Also the young woman of the +bead cape knew how to manage him. But they must remove to cheaper +lodgings, and the rooms in Duke Street had been far from desirable.</p> + +<p>Lady Walderhurst came in one morning from a walk, with a fresh colour +and bright eyes, and before taking off her hat went to her husband's +study.</p> + +<p>"May I come in?"</p> + +<p>Walderhurst had been writing some uninteresting letters and looked up +with a smile.</p> + +<p>"Certainly," he answered. "What a colour you have! Exercise agrees with +you. You ought to ride."</p> + +<p>"That was what Captain Osborn said. If you don't mind, I should like to +ask you something."</p> + +<p>"I don't mind. You are a reasonable woman, Emily. One's safe with you."</p> + +<p>"It is something connected with the Osborns."</p> + +<p>"Indeed!" chilling slightly. "I don't care about them, you know."</p> + +<p>"You don't dislike her, do you?"</p> + +<p>"No-o, not exactly."</p> + +<p>"She's—the truth is, she is not at all well," with a trifle of +hesitance; "she ought to be better taken care of than she is in +lodgings, and they are obliged to take very cheap ones."</p> + +<p>"If he had been a more respectable fellow his circumstances would have +been different," rather stiffly.</p> + +<p>Emily felt alarmed. She had not dreamed of the temerity of any remark +suggestive of criticism.</p> + +<p>"Yes," hastily, "of course. I am sure you know best; but—I thought +perhaps—"</p> + +<p>Walderhurst liked her timidity. To see a fine, tall, upstanding creature +colour in that way was not disagreeable when one realised that she +coloured because she feared she might offend one.</p> + +<p>"What did you think 'perhaps'?" was his lenient response.</p> + +<p>Her colour grew warmer, but this time from a sense of relief, because he +was evidently not as displeased as he might have been.</p> + +<p>"I took a long walk this morning," she said. "I went through the High +Wood and came out by the place called The Kennel Farm. I was thinking a +good deal of poor Mrs. Osborn because I had heard from her this morning, +and she seemed so unhappy. I was looking at her letter again when I +turned into the lane leading to the house. Then I saw that no one was +living there, and I could not help going in to look—it is such a +delightful old building, with its queer windows and chimneys, and the +ivy which seems never to have been clipped. The house is so roomy and +comfortable—I peeped in at windows and saw big fireplaces with benches +inside them. It seems a pity that such a place should not be lived in +and—well, I thought how <i>kind</i> it would be of you to lend it to the +Osborns while they are in England."</p> + +<p>"It would indeed be kind," remarked his lordship, without fervour.</p> + +<p>Her momentary excitement led Emily to take the liberty of putting out +her hand to touch his. She always felt as if connubial familiarities +were rather a liberty; at least she had not, so far, been able to +overcome a feeling rather of that order. And this was another thing +Walderhurst by no means disliked. He himself was not aware that he was a +man with a good deal of internal vanity which enjoyed soothing food. In +fact, he had not a sufficiently large brain to know very much about +himself or to be able to analyse his reasons for liking or disliking +people or things. He thought he knew his reasons for his likes and +dislikes, but he was frequently very far away from the clear, impersonal +truth about them. Only the brilliant logic and sensitiveness of genius +really approaches knowledge of itself, and as a result it is usually +extremely unhappy. Walderhurst was never unhappy. He was sometimes +dissatisfied or annoyed, but that was as far as his emotions went.</p> + +<p>Being pleased by the warm touch of Emily's hand, he patted her wrist and +looked agreeably marital.</p> + +<p>"The place was built originally for a family huntsman, and the pack was +kept there. That is why it is called The Kennel Farm. When the last +lease fell out it remained unlet because I don't care for an ordinary +tenant. It's the kind of house that is becoming rare, and the bumpkin +farmer and his family don't value antiquities."</p> + +<p>"If it were furnished as it <i>could</i> be furnished," said Emily, "it would +be <i>beautiful</i>. One <i>can</i> get old things in London if one can afford +them. I've seen them when I've been shopping. They are not cheap, but +you can get them if you really search."</p> + +<p>"Would you like to furnish it?" Walderhurst inquired. The consciousness +that he could, if he chose, do the utmost thing of its kind in this way, +at the moment assumed a certain proportion of interest to him under the +stimulation of the wonder and delight which leaped into Emily's eyes as +the possibility confronted her. Having been born without imagination, +his wealth had not done for him anything out of the ordinary every-day +order.</p> + +<p>"Would I <i>like</i> to do it? Oh, <i>dear</i>!" she exclaimed. "Why, in all my +life I have never <i>dreamed</i> of being able to do such things."</p> + +<p>That, of course, was true, he reflected, and the fact added to his +appreciation of the moment. There were, of course, many people to whom +it would be impossible to contemplate the spending of a sum of money of +any importance in the indulgence of a wish founded on mere taste. He had +not thought of the thing particularly in detail before, and now that he +realised the significance of the fact as a fact, Emily had afforded him +a new sensation.</p> + +<p>"You may do it now, if you wish," he said. "I once went over the place +with an architect, and he said the whole thing could be made comfortable +and the atmosphere of the period wholly retained for about a thousand +pounds. It is not really dilapidated and it is worth saving. The gables +and chimneys are very fine. I will attend to that, and you can do the +rest in your own way."</p> + +<p>"It may take a good deal of money to buy the old things," gasped Emily. +"They are not cheap in these days. People have found out that they are +wanted."</p> + +<p>"It won't cost twenty thousand pounds," Walderhurst answered. "It is a +farm-house after all, and you are a practical woman. Restore it. You +have my permission."</p> + +<p>Emily put her hands over her eyes. This was being the Marchioness of +Walderhurst, and made Mortimer Street a thing still more incredible. +When she dropped her hands, she laughed even a trifle hysterically.</p> + +<p>"I <i>couldn't</i> thank you," she said. "It is as I said. I never quite +believed there were people who were able to think of doing such things."</p> + +<p>"There are such people," he said. "You are one of them."</p> + +<p>"And—and—" She put it to him with a sudden recollection of the thing +her emotions had momentarily swept away. "Oh! I must not forget, because +I am so pleased. When it is furnished—"</p> + +<p>"Oh! the Osborns? Well, we will let them have it for a few months, at +any rate."</p> + +<p>"They will be so <i>thankful</i>," emotionally. "You will be doing them +<i>such</i> a favour."</p> + +<p>"I am doing it for you, not for them. I like to see you pleased."</p> + +<p>She went to take off her hat with moisture in her eyes, being +overpowered by his munificence. When she reached her room she walked +about a little, because she was excited, and then sat down to think of +the relief her next letter would carry to Mrs. Osborn. Suddenly she got +up, and, going to her bedside, knelt down. She respectfully poured forth +devout thanks to the Deity she appealed to when she aided in the +intoning of the Litany on Sundays. Her conception of this Power was of +the simplest conventional nature. She would have been astonished and +frightened if she had been told that she regarded the Omnipotent Being +as possessing many of the attributes of the Marquis of Walderhurst. This +was, in fact, true without detracting from her reverence in either case.</p> + +<img border="0" src="images/roses.png" width="187" height="60" class="center" alt="" /> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="Chapter_Ten" id="Chapter_Ten"></a> +<img border="0" src="images/chapter_10.png" width="475" height="275" class="center" alt="Chapter Ten" /> + +<p><span class="dropcapt_ribbons"><span class="dropcap">T</span></span>he Osborns were breakfasting in their unpleasant sitting-room in Duke +Street when Lady Walderhurst's letter arrived. The toast was tough and +smoked, and the eggs were of the variety labelled "18 a shilling" in the +shops; the apartment was also redolent of kippered herring, and Captain +Osborn was scowling over the landlady's weekly bill when Hester opened +the envelope stamped with a coronet. (Each time Emily wrote a note and +found herself confronting the coronet on the paper, she blushed a little +and felt that she must presently awake from her dream.) Mrs. Osborn +herself was looking far from amiable. She was ill and nervous and +irritable, and had, in fact, just been crying and wishing that she was +dead, which had given rise to unpleasantness between herself and her +husband, who was not in the mood to feel patient with nerves.</p> + +<p>"Here's one from the Marchioness," she remarked slightingly.</p> + +<p>"I have had none from the Marquis," sneered Osborn. "He might have +condescended a reply—the cold-blooded beggar!"</p> + +<p>Hester was reading her letter. As she turned the first page her +expression changed. As has previously been suggested, the epistolary +methods of Lady Walderhurst were neither brilliant nor literary, and yet +Mrs. Osborn seemed to be pleased by what she read. During the reading of +a line or so she wore an expression of slowly questioning wonder, which, +a little later on, settled into relief.</p> + +<p>"I can only say I think it's very decent of them," she ejaculated at +last; "really decent!"</p> + +<p>Alec Osborn looked up, still scowlingly.</p> + +<p>"I don't see any cheque," he observed. "That would be the most decent +thing. It's the thing we want most, with this damned woman sending in +bills like this for the fourth-rate things we live on, and for her +confounded tenth-rate rooms."</p> + +<p>"This is better than cheques. It means our having something we couldn't +hope for cheques enough to pay for. They are offering to lend us a +beautiful old place to live in for the rest of our stay."</p> + +<p>"What!" Osborn exclaimed. "Where?"</p> + +<p>"Near Palstrey Manor, where they are staying now."</p> + +<p>"Near Palstrey! How near?" He had been slouching in his chair and now +sat up and leaned forward on the table. He was eager.</p> + +<p>Hester referred to the letter again.</p> + +<p>"She doesn't say. It is a sort of antiquity, I gather. It's called The +Kennel Farm. Have you ever been to Palstrey?"</p> + +<p>"Not as a guest." He was generally somewhat sardonic when he spoke of +anything connected with Walderhurst. "But once I was in the nearest +county town by chance and rode over. By Jove!" starting a little, "I +wonder if it can be a rum old place I passed and reined in to have a +look at. I hope it is."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"It's near enough to the Manor to be convenient."</p> + +<p>"Do you think," hesitating, "that we shall see much of them?"</p> + +<p>"We shall if we manage things decently. She likes you, and she's the +kind of woman to be sympathising and make a fuss over another +woman—particularly one who is under the weather and can be +sentimentalised over."</p> + +<p>Hester was pushing crumbs about on the tablecloth with her knife, and a +dull red showed itself on her cheek.</p> + +<p>"I am not going to make capital of—circumstances," she said sullenly. +"I won't."</p> + +<p>She was not a woman easily managed, and Osborn had had reason on more +than one occasion to realise a certain wicked stubbornness in her. There +was a look in her eye now which frightened him. It was desperately +necessary that she should be kept in a tractable mood. As she was a girl +with affections, and he was a man without any, he knew what to do.</p> + +<p>He got up and went to her side, putting his arm round her shoulders as +he sat in a chair near her. "Now, little woman," he said. "Now! For +God's sake don't take it that way. Don't think I don't understand how +you feel."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe you know anything about the way I feel," she said, +setting her narrow white teeth and looking more like a native woman than +he had ever seen her. A thing which did not aid his affection for her, +such as it was, happened to be that in certain moods she suggested a +Hindoo beauty to him in a way which brought back to him memories of the +past he did not care to have awakened.</p> + +<p>"Yes I do, yes I do," he protested, getting hold of her hand and trying +to make her look at him. "There are things such a woman as you can't +help feeling. It's because you feel them that you must be on your +mettle—Lord knows you've got pluck enough—and stand by a fellow now. +What shall I do, my God, if you don't?"</p> + +<p>He was, in fact, in such straits that the ring of emotion in his voice +was not by any means assumed.</p> + +<p>"My God!" he repeated, "what shall we all do if you won't?"</p> + +<p>She lifted her eyes then to look at him. She was in a sufficiently +nervous condition to be conscious that tears were always near.</p> + +<p>"Are there worse things than you have told me?" she faltered.</p> + +<p>"Yes, worse things than it would be fair to bother you with. I don't +want you to be tormented. I was a deuced fool before I met you and began +to run straight. Things pile in now that would have lain quiet enough if +Walderhurst had not married. Hang it all! he ought to do the decent +thing by me. He owes something to the man who may stand in his shoes, +after all."</p> + +<p>Hester lifted her slow eyes again.</p> + +<p>"You've not much of a chance now," she said. "She's a fine healthy +woman."</p> + +<p>Osborn sprang up and paced the floor, set upon by a sudden spasm of +impotent rage. He snapped his teeth rather like a dog.</p> + +<p>"Oh! curse her!" he gave forth. "The great, fresh-coloured lumping +brute! What did she come into it for? Of all the devilish things that +can happen to a man, the worst is to be born to the thing I was born to. +To know through your whole life that you're just a stone's-throw from +rank and wealth and splendour, and to have to live and look on as an +outsider. Upon my word, I've felt more of an outsider just because of +it. There's a dream I've had every month or so for years. It's a dream +of opening a letter that tells me he's dead, or of a man coming into the +room or meeting me in the street and saying suddenly, 'Walderhurst died +last night, Walderhurst died last night!' They're always the same words, +'Walderhurst died last night!' And I wake up shaking and in a cold sweat +for joy at the gorgeous luck that's come at last."</p> + +<p>Hester gave a low cry like a little howl, and dropped her head on her +arms on the table among the cups and saucers.</p> + +<p>"She'll have a son! She'll have a son!" she cried. "And then it won't +matter whether <i>he</i> dies or not."</p> + +<p>"Ough!" was the sound wrenched from Osborn's fury. "And our son might +have been in it. Ours might have had it all! Damn—damn!"</p> + +<p>"He won't,—he won't now, even if he lives to be born," she sobbed, and +clutched at the dingy tablecloth with her lean little hands.</p> + +<p>It was hard on her. She had had a thousand feverish dreams he had never +heard of. She had lain awake hours at night and stared with wide-open +eyes at the darkness, picturing to her inner soul the dream of splendour +that she would be part of, the solace for past miseries, the high +revenges for past slights that would be hers after the hour in which she +heard the words Osborn had just quoted, "Walderhurst died last night!" +Oh! if luck had only helped them! if the spells her Ayah had taught her +in secret had only worked as they would have worked if she had been a +native woman and had really used them properly! There was a spell she +had wrought once which Ameerah had sworn to her was to be relied on. It +took ten weeks to accomplish its end. In secret she had known of a man +on whom it had been worked. She had found out about it partly from the +remote hints which had aided her half knowledge of strange things and by +keeping a close watch. The man had died—he had died. She herself, and +with her own eyes had seen him begin to ail, had heard of his fevers and +pains and final death. He had died. She knew that. And she had tried the +thing herself in dead secrecy. And at the fifth week, just as with the +native who had died, she heard that Walderhurst was ill. During the next +four weeks she was sick with the tension of combined horror and delight. +But he did not die in the tenth week. They heard that he had gone to +Tangiers with a party of notable people, and that his "slight" +indisposition had passed, leaving him in admirable health and spirits.</p> + +<p>Her husband had known nothing of her frenzy. She would not have dared to +tell him. There were many things she did not tell him. He used to laugh +at her native stories of occult powers, though she knew that he had seen +some strange things done, as most foreigners had. He always explained +such things contemptuously on grounds which presupposed in the +performers of the mysteries powers of agility, dexterity, and universal +knowledge quite as marvellous as anything occult could have been. He did +not like her to show belief in the "tricks of the natives," as he called +them. It made a woman look a fool, he said, to be so credulous.</p> + +<p>During the last few months a new fever had tormented her. Feelings had +awakened in her which were new. She thought things she had never thought +before. She had never cared for children or suspected herself of being +the maternal woman. But Nature worked in her after her weird fashion. +She began to care less for some things and more for others. She cared +less for Osborn's moods and was better able to defy them. He began to be +afraid of her temper, and she began to like at times to defy his. There +had been some fierce scenes between them in which he had found her meet +with a flare of fury words she would once have been cowed by. He had +spoken one day with the coarse slightingness of a selfish, irritable +brute, of the domestic event which was before them. He did not speak +twice.</p> + +<p>She sprang up before him and shook her clenched fist in his face, so +near that he started back.</p> + +<p>"Don't say a word!" she cried. "Don't dare—don't dare. I tell you—look +out, if you don't want to be killed."</p> + +<p>During the outpouring of her frenzy he saw her in an entirely new light +and made discoveries. She would fight for her young, as a tigress fights +for hers. She was nursing a passion of secret feeling of which he had +known nothing. He had not for a moment suspected her of it. She had not +seemed that kind of girl. She had been of the kind that cares for finery +and social importance and the world's favour, not for sentiments.</p> + +<p>On this morning of the letter's arrival he watched her sobbing and +clutching the tablecloth, and reflected. He walked up and down and +pondered. There were a lot of things to be thought over.</p> + +<p>"We may as well accept the invitation at once," he said. "Grovel as much +as you choose. The more the better. They'll like it."</p> + +<img border="0" src="images/arrows.png" width="187" height="70" class="center" alt="" /> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="Chapter_Eleven" id="Chapter_Eleven"></a> +<img border="0" src="images/chapter_11.png" width="475" height="275" class="center" alt="Chapter Eleven" /> + + +<p><span class="dropcapt_crown"><span class="dropcap">T</span></span>he Osborns arrived at The Kennel Farm on a lovely rainy morning. The +green of the fields and trees and hedges was sweetly drenched, and the +flowers held drops which sparkled when the fitful sun broke forth and +searched for the hidden light in them. A Palstrey carriage comfortably +met them and took them to their destination.</p> + +<p>As they turned into the lane, Osborn looked out at the red gables and +chimneys showing themselves among the trees.</p> + +<p>"It's the old place I looked at," he said, "and a jolly old place it +is."</p> + +<p>Hester was drinking in the pure sweetness of the fresh air and filling +her soul with the beauty of such things as she had never seen before. In +London she had grown hopeless and sick of spirit. The lodgings in Duke +Street, the perpetual morning haddock and questionable eggs and unpaid +bills, had been evil things for her. She had reached a point at which +she had felt she could bear them no longer. Here, at all events, there +would be green trees and clear air, and no landlady. With no rent to +pay, there would be freedom from one torment at least.</p> + +<p>She had not expected much more than this freedom, however. It had seemed +highly probable that there might be discomforts in an ancient farmhouse +of the kind likely to be lent to impecunious relatives.</p> + +<p>But before they crossed the threshold it was plain to her that, for some +reason, they had been given more. The old garden had been put in +order—a picturesque and sweet disorderly order, which had allowed +creepers to luxuriate and toss, and flowers to spring out of crannies, +and clumps of things to mass themselves without restraint.</p> + +<p>The girl's wretched heart lifted itself as they drove up to the +venerable brick porch which had somewhat the air of a little church +vestibule. Through the opened door she saw a quaint comfort she had not +dreamed of. She had not the knowledge of things which would have told +her what wonders Emily had done with the place, but she could see that +its quaint furnishings were oddly beautiful in their harmony. The heavy +chairs and benches and settles seemed to have been part of centuries of +farm-house life, and to belong to the place as much as the massive beams +and doors.</p> + +<p>Hester stood in the middle of the hall and looked about her. Part of it +was oak panelled and part was whitewashed. There were deep, low windows +cut in the thick walls.</p> + +<p>"I never saw anything the least like it," she said.</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't expect to see anything like it in India," her husband +answered. "And you won't find many places like it in England. I should +like a look at the stables."</p> + +<p>He went out almost immediately and took the look in question, finding +the result unexpectedly satisfactory. Walderhurst had lent him a decent +horse to ride, and there was a respectable little cart for Hester. +Palstrey Manor had "done them" very well. This was a good deal more than +he had expected. He knew such hospitality would not have been shown him +if he had come to England unmarried. Consequently his good luck was +partly a result of Hester's existence in his life. At the same time +there awakened in him a consciousness that Hester would not have been +likely to produce such results unless in combination with another +element in the situation,—the element of another woman who was +sympathetic and had some power,—the new Lady Walderhurst, in fact.</p> + +<p>"And yet, confound her—confound her!" he thought, as he walked into the +loose box to look the mare over and pat her sleekness.</p> + +<p>The relations which established themselves between Palstrey and The +Kennel Farm were marked by two characteristic features. One of these was +that Lord Walderhurst did not develop any warmer interest in the +Osborns, and that Lady Walderhurst did. Having acceded to Emily's +wishes, and really behaved generously in the matter of providing for his +heir presumptive and his wife, Lord Walderhurst felt impelled to no +further demonstration of feeling.</p> + +<p>"I don't like him any better than I did," he remarked to Emily. "And I +cannot say that Mrs. Osborn attracts me. Of course there is a reason why +a kind-hearted woman like yourself should be specially good to her just +now. Do anything you wish for them while they are in the neighbourhood. +But as for me, the fact that a man is one's heir presumptive is not +enough in itself alone to endear him to one, rather the contrary."</p> + +<p>Between these two it is to be confessed there existed that rancour which +is not weakened by the fact that it remains unexpressed and lurks in the +deeps of the inward being. Walderhurst would not have been capable of +explaining to himself that the thing he chiefly disliked in this robust, +warm-blooded young man was that when he met him striding about with his +gun over his shoulder and a keeper behind him, the almost unconscious +realisation of the unpleasant truth that he was striding over what might +prove to be his own acres, and shooting birds which in the future he +would himself possess the right to preserve, to invite other people to +shoot, to keep less favoured persons from shooting, as lord of the +Manor. This was a truth sufficiently irritating to accentuate all his +faults of character and breeding.</p> + +<p>Emily, whose understanding of his nature developed with every day of her +life, grew into a comprehension of this by degrees. Perhaps her greatest +leap forward was taken on the day when, as he was driving her in the +cart which had picked her up on the moor, they saw Osborn tramping +through a cover with his gun. He did not see them, and a shade of +irritation swept Walderhurst's face.</p> + +<p>"He seems to feel very much at home," he commented.</p> + +<p>Then he was silent for a space during which he did not look pleased.</p> + +<p>"If he were my son," he said, "it would be a different matter. If +Audrey's child had lived—"</p> + +<p>He stopped and gave the tall mare a light cut with his whip. He was +evidently annoyed with himself for having spoken.</p> + +<p>A hot wave of colour submerged Emily. She felt it rush over her whole +body. She turned her face away, hoping Walderhurst would not observe +her. This was the first time she had heard him utter his dead wife's +name. She had never heard anyone speak it. Audrey had evidently not been +a much-beloved or regretted person. But she had had a son.</p> + +<p>Her primitive soul had scarcely dared to approach, even with awe, the +thought of such a possibility for herself. As in the past she had not +had the temerity to dream of herself as a woman who possessed +attractions likely to lead to marriage, so she was mentally restrained +in these days. There was something spinster-like in the tenor of her +thoughts. But she would have laid down her life for this dull man's +happiness. And of late she had more than once blamed herself for +accepting so much, unthinkingly.</p> + +<p>"I did not realise things properly," she had said to herself in humble +pain. "I ought to have been a girl, young and strong and beautiful. His +sacrifice was too great, it was immense."</p> + +<p>It had been nothing of the sort. He had pleased himself and done what +was likely to tend, and had tended, altogether to his own ease and +comfort. In any case Emily Fox-Seton was a fine creature, and only +thirty-four, and with Alec Osborn at the other side of the globe the +question of leaving an heir had been less present and consequently had +dwindled in importance.</p> + +<p>The nearness of the Osborns fretted him just now. If their child was a +son, he would be more fretted still. He was rather glad of a +possibility, just looming, of his being called away from England through +affairs of importance.</p> + +<p>He had spoken to Emily of this possibility, and she had understood that, +as his movements and the length of his stay would be uncertain, she +would not accompany him.</p> + +<p>"There is one drawback to our marriage," he said.</p> + +<p>"Is it—is it anything I can remove?" Emily asked.</p> + +<p>"No, though you are responsible for it. People seldom can remove the +drawbacks they are responsible for. You have taught me to miss you."</p> + +<p>"Have I—have I?" cried Emily. "Oh! I <i>am</i> happy!"</p> + +<p>She was so happy that she felt that she must pass on some of her good +fortune to those who had less. She was beautifully kind to Hester +Osborn. Few days passed without the stopping of a Walderhurst carriage +before the door of The Kennel Farm. Sometimes Emily came herself to take +Mrs. Osborn to drive, sometimes she sent for her to come to lunch and +spend the day or night at Palstrey. She felt an interest in the young +woman which became an affection. She would have felt interested in her +if there had not existed a special reason to call forth sympathy. Hester +had many curious and new subjects for conversation. Emily liked her +descriptions of Indian life and her weird little stories of the natives. +She was charmed with Ameerah, whose nose rings and native dress, +combining themselves with her dark mystic face, rare speech, and +gliding, silent movements, awakened awe in the rustics and mingled +distrust and respect in the servants' hall at Palstrey.</p> + +<p>"She's most respectably behaved, my lady, though foreign and strange in +her manners," was Jane Cupp's comment. "But she has a way of looking at +a person—almost stealthy—that's upset me many a time when I've noticed +it suddenly. They say that she knows things, like fortune-telling and +spells and love potions. But she will only speak of them quite secret."</p> + +<p>Emily gathered that Jane Cupp was afraid of the woman, and kept a +cautious eye upon her.</p> + +<p>"She is a very faithful servant, Jane," she answered. "She is devoted to +Mrs. Osborn."</p> + +<p>"I am sure she is, my lady. I've read in books about the faithfulness of +black people. They say they're more faithful than white ones."</p> + +<p>"Not more faithful than <i>some</i> white ones," said Lady Walderhurst with +her good smile. "Ameerah is not more faithful than you, I'm very sure."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my lady!" ejaculated Jane, turning red with pleasure. "I do hope +not. I shouldn't like to think she could be."</p> + +<p>In fact the tropic suggestion of the Ayah's personality had warmed the +imagination of the servants' hall, and there had been much talk of many +things, of the Osborns as well as of their servants, and thrilling +stories of East Indian life had been related by Walderhurst's man, who +was a travelled person. Captain Osborn had good sport on these days, and +sport was the thing he best loved. He was of the breed of man who can +fish, hunt, or shoot all day, eat robust meals and sleep heavily all +night; who can do this every day of a year, and in so doing reach his +highest point of desire in existence. He knew no other aspirations in +life than such as the fortunes of a man like Walderhurst could put him +in possession of. Nature herself had built him after the model of the +primeval type of English country land-owner. India with her blasting and +stifling hot seasons and her steaming rains gave him nothing that he +desired, and filled him with revolt against Fate every hour of his life. +His sanguine body loathed and grew restive under heat. At The Kennel +Farm, when he sprang out of his bed in the fresh sweetness of the +morning and plunged into his tub, he drew every breath with a physical +rapture. The air which swept in through the diamond-paned, ivy-hung +casements was a joy.</p> + +<p>"Good Lord!" he would cry out to Hester through her half-opened door, +"what mornings! how a man <i>lives</i> and feels the blood rushing through +his veins! Rain or shine, it's all the same to me. I can't stay indoors. +Just to tramp through wet or dry heather, or under dripping or shining +trees, is enough. How can one believe one has ever lain sweating with +one's tongue lolling out, and listened to the whining creak of the +punkah through nights too deadly hot to sleep in! It's like remembering +hell while one lives in Paradise."</p> + +<p>"We shan't live in Paradise long," Hester said once with some +bitterness. "Hell is waiting for us."</p> + +<p>"Damn it! don't remind a man. There are times when I don't believe it." +He almost snarled the answer. It was true that his habit was to enhance +the pleasure of his days by thrusting into the background all +recollections of the reality of any other existence than that of the +hour. As he tramped through fern and heather he would remember nothing +but that there was a chance—there was chance, good Lord! After a man +not over strong reached fifty-four or five, there were more chances than +there had been earlier.</p> + +<p>After hours spent in such moods, it was not pleasant to come by accident +upon Walderhurst riding his fine chestnut, erect and staid, and be +saluted by the grave raising of his whip to his hat. Or to return to the +Farm just as the Palstrey barouche turned in at the gate with Lady +Walderhurst sitting in it glowing with health and that enjoyable +interest in all things which gave her a kind of radiance of eye and +colour.</p> + +<p>She came at length in a time when she did not look quite so radiant. +This, it appeared, was from a reason which might be regarded as natural +under the circumstances. A more ardent man than Lord Walderhurst might +have felt that he could not undertake a journey to foreign lands which +would separate him from a wife comparatively new. But Lord Walderhurst +was not ardent, and he had married a woman who felt that he did all +things well—that, in fact, a thing must be well because it was his +choice to do it. His journey to India might, it was true, be a matter of +a few months, and involved diplomatic business for which a certain +unimpeachable respectability was required. A more brilliant man, who had +been less respectable in the most decorous British sense, would not have +served the purpose of the government.</p> + +<p>Emily's skin had lost a shade of its healthful freshness, it struck +Hester, when she saw her. There was a suggestion of fulness under her +eyes. Yet with the bright patience of her smile she defied the remote +suspicion that she had shed a tear or so before leaving home. She +explained the situation with an affectionally reverent dwelling upon the +dignity of the mission which would temporarily bereave her of her mate. +Her belief in Walderhurst's intellectual importance to the welfare of +the government was a complete and touching thing.</p> + +<p>"It will not be for very long," she said, "and you and I must see a +great deal of each other. I am so glad you are here. You know how one +misses—" breaking off with an admirable air of determined cheer—"I +must not think of that."</p> + +<p>Walderhurst congratulated himself seriously during the days before his +departure. She was so exactly what he liked a woman to be. She might +have made difficulties, or have been sentimental. If she had been a +girl, it would have been necessary to set up a sort of nursery for her, +but this fine amenable, sensible creature could take perfect care of +herself. It was only necessary to express a wish, and she not only knew +how to carry it out, but was ready to do so without question. As far as +he was concerned, he was willing to leave all to her own taste. It was +such decent taste. She had no modern ideas which might lead during his +absence to any action likely to disturb or annoy him. What she would +like best to do would be to stay at Palstrey and enjoy the beauty of it. +She would spend her days in strolling through the gardens, talking to +the gardeners, who had all grown fond of her, or paying little visits to +old people or young ones in the village. She would help the vicar's wife +in her charities, she would appear in the Manor pew at church regularly, +make the necessary dull calls, and go to the unavoidable dull dinners +with a faultless amiability and decorum.</p> + +<p>"As I remarked when you told me you had asked her to marry you," said +Lady Maria on the occasion of his lunching with her on running up to +town for a day's business, "you showed a great deal more sense than most +men of your age and rank. If people <i>will</i> marry, they should choose the +persons least likely to interfere with them. Emily will never interfere +with you. She cares a great deal more about your pleasure than her own. +And as to that, she's so much like a big, healthy, good child that she +would find pleasure wheresoever you dropped her."</p> + +<p>This was true, yet the healthy, childish creature had, in deep privacy, +cried a little, and was pathetically glad to feel that the Osborns were +to be near her, and that she would have Hester to think of and take care +of during the summer.</p> + +<p>It was pathetic that she should cherish an affection so ingenuous for +the Osborns, for one of them at least had no patience with her. To +Captain Osborn her existence and presence in the near neighbourhood were +offences. He told himself that she was of the particular type of woman +he most disliked. She was a big, blundering fool, he said, and her size +and very good nature itself got on his nerves and irritated him.</p> + +<p>"She looks so deucedly prosperous with her first-rate clothes and her +bouncing health," he said.</p> + +<p>"The tread of her big feet makes me mad when I hear it."</p> + +<p>Hester answered with a shrill little laugh.</p> + +<p>"Her big feet are a better shape than mine," she said. "I ought to hate +her, and I would if I could, but I can't."</p> + +<p>"I can," muttered Osborn between his teeth as he turned to the mantel +and scratched a match to light his pipe.</p> + +<img border="0" src="images/swag.png" width="187" height="70" class="center" alt="" /> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="Chapter_Twelve" id="Chapter_Twelve"></a> +<img border="0" src="images/chapter_12.png" width="475" height="275" class="center" alt="Chapter Twelve" /> + + +<p><span class="dropcapw"><span class="dropcap">W</span></span>hen Lord Walderhurst took his departure for India, his wife began to +order her daily existence as he had imagined she would. Before he had +left her she had appeared at the first Drawing-room, and had spent a few +weeks at the town house, where they had given several imposing and +serious dinner parties, more remarkable for dignity and good taste than +liveliness. The duties of social existence in town would have been +unbearable for Emily without her husband. Dressed by Jane Cupp with a +passion of fervour, fine folds sweeping from her small, long waist, +diamonds strung round her neck, and a tiara or a big star in her full +brown hair, Emily was rather superb when supported by the consciousness +that Walderhurst's well-carried maturity and long accustomedness were +near her. With him she could enjoy even the unlively splendour of a +function, but without him she would have been very unhappy. At Palstrey +she was ceasing to feel new, and had begun to realise that she belonged +to the world she lived in. She was becoming accustomed to her +surroundings, and enjoyed them to the utmost. Her easily roused +affections were warmed by the patriarchal atmosphere of village life. +Most of the Palstrey villagers had touched their forelocks or curtsied +to Walderhursts for generations. Emily liked to remember this, and had +at once conceived a fondness for the simple folk, who seemed somehow +related so closely to the man she worshipped.</p> + +<p>Walderhurst had not the faintest conception of what this worship +represented. He did not even reach the length of realising its +existence. He saw her ingenuous reverence for and belief in him, and was +naturally rather pleased by them. He was also vaguely aware that if she +had been a more brilliant woman she would have been a more exacting one, +and less easily impressed. If she had been a stupid woman or a clumsy +one, he would have detested her and bitterly regretted his marriage. But +she was only innocent and gratefully admiring, which qualities, +combining themselves with good looks, good health, and good manners, +made of a woman something he liked immensely. Really she had looked very +nice and attractive when she had bidden him good-by, with her emotional +flush and softness of expression and the dewy brightness of her eyes. +There was something actually moving in the way her strong hand had wrung +his at the last moment.</p> + +<p>"I only <i>wish</i>," she had said, "I only do so <i>wish</i> that there was +something I could <i>do</i> for you while you are away—something you could +leave me to <i>do</i>."</p> + +<p>"Keep well and enjoy yourself," he had answered. "That will really +please me."</p> + +<p>Nature had not so built him that he could suspect that she went home and +spent the rest of the morning in his rooms, putting away his belongings +with her own hands, just for the mere passion of comfort she felt in +touching the things he had worn, the books he had handled, the cushions +his head had rested against. She had indeed mentioned to the housekeeper +at Berkeley Square that she wished his lordship's apartments to remain +untouched until she herself had looked over them. The obsession which is +called Love is an emotion past all explanation. The persons susceptible +to its power are as things beneath a spell. They see, hear, and feel +that of which the rest of their world is unaware, and will remain +unaware for ever. To the endearing and passion-inspiring qualities Emily +Walderhurst saw in this more than middle-aged gentleman an unstirred +world would remain blind, deaf, and imperceptive until its end +transpired. This, however, made not the slightest difference in the +reality of these things as she saw and felt and was moved to her soul's +centre by them. Bright youth in Agatha Norman, at present joyously +girdling the globe with her bridegroom, was moved much less deeply, +despite its laughter and love.</p> + +<p>A large lump swelled in Emily's throat as she walked about the +comfortable, deserted apartments of her James. Large tears dropped on +the breast of her dress as they had dropped upon her linen blouse when +she walked across the moor to Maundell. But she bravely smiled as she +tenderly brushed away with her hand two drops which fell upon a tweed +waistcoat she had picked up. Having done this, she suddenly stooped and +kissed the rough cloth fervently, burying her face in it with a sob.</p> + +<p>"I do <i>love</i> him so!" she whispered, hysterically. "I do so <i>love</i> him, +and I shall so <i>miss</i> him!" with the italicised feelingness of old.</p> + +<p>The outburst was in fact so strongly italicised that she felt the next +moment almost as if she had been a little indecent. She had never been +called upon by the strenuousness of any occasion to mention baldly to +Lord Walderhurst that she "loved" him. It had not been necessary, and +she was too little used to it not to be abashed by finding herself +proclaiming the fact to his very waistcoat itself. She sat down holding +the garment in her hands and let her tears fall.</p> + +<p>She looked about her at the room and across the corridor through the +open door at his study which adjoined it. They were fine rooms, and +every book and bust and chair looked singularly suggestive of his +personality. The whole house was beautiful and imposing in Emily's eyes. +"He has made all my life beautiful and full of comfort and happiness," +she said, trembling. "He has saved me from everything I was afraid of, +and there is nothing I can <i>do</i>. Oh!" suddenly dropping a hot face on +her hands, "if I were only Hester Osborn. I should be glad to suffer +anything, or die in any way. I should have paid him back—just a +little—if I might."</p> + +<p>For there was one thing she had learned through her yearning fervour, +not through any speech of his. All the desire and pride in him would be +fed full and satisfied if he could pass his name on to a creature of his +own flesh and blood. All the heat his cold nature held had concentrated +itself in a secret passion centred on this thing. She had begun to +awaken to a suspicion of this early in their marriage, and afterwards by +processes of inclusion and exclusion she had realised the proud +intensity of his feeling despite his reserve and silence. As for her, +she would have gone to the stake, or have allowed her flesh to be cut +into pieces to form that which would have given him reason for +exultation and pride. Such was the helpless, tragic, kindly love and +yearning of her.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The thing filled her with a passion of tenderness for Hester Osborn. She +yearned over her, too. Her spinster life had never brought her near to +the mystery of birth. She was very ignorant and deeply awed by the mere +thought of it. At the outset Hester had been coldly shy and reticent, +but as they saw each other more she began to melt before the unselfish +warmth of the other woman's overtures of friendship. She was very lonely +and totally inexperienced. As Agatha Slade had gradually fallen into +intimacy of speech, so did she. She longed so desperately for +companionship that the very intensity of her feelings impelled her to +greater openness than she had at first intended.</p> + +<p>"I suppose men don't know," she said to herself sullenly, in thinking of +Osborn, who spent his days out of doors. "At any rate, they don't care."</p> + +<p>Emily cared greatly, and was so full of interest and sympathy that there +was something like physical relief in talking to her.</p> + +<p>"You two have become great pals," Alec said, on an afternoon when he +stood at a window watching Lady Walderhurst's carriage drive away. "You +spend hours together talking. What is it all about?"</p> + +<p>"She talks a good deal about her husband. It is a comfort to her to find +someone to listen. She thinks he is a god. But we principally talk +about—me."</p> + +<p>"Don't discourage her," laughed Osborn. "Perhaps she will get so fond of +you that she will not be willing to part with us, as she will be obliged +to take both to keep one."</p> + +<p>"I wish she would, I wish she would!" sighed Hester, tossing up her +hands in a languid, yet fretted gesture.</p> + +<p>The contrast between herself and this woman was very often too great to +be equably borne. Even her kindness could not palliate it. The simple +perfection of her country clothes, the shining skins of her horses, the +smooth roll of her carriage, the automatic servants who attended her, +were suggestive of that ease and completeness in all things, only to be +compassed by long-possessed wealth. To see every day the evidences of it +while one lived on charitable sufferance on the crumbs which fell from +the master's table was a galling enough thing, after all. It would +always have been galling. But it mattered so much more now—so much more +to Hester than she had known it could matter even in those days when as +a girl she had thirstily longed for it. In those days she had not lived +near enough to it all to know the full meaning and value of it—the +beauty and luxury, the stateliness and good taste. To have known it in +this way, to have been almost part of it and then to leave it, to go +back to a hugger-mugger existence in a wretched bungalow hounded by +debt, pinched and bound hard and fast by poverty, which offered no +future prospect of bettering itself into decent good luck! Who could +bear it?</p> + +<p>Both were thinking the same thing as their eyes met.</p> + +<p>"How are we to stand it, after this?" she cried out sharply.</p> + +<p>"We can't stand it," he answered. "Confound it all, something <i>must</i> +happen."</p> + +<p>"Nothing will," she said; "nothing but that we shall go back worse off +than before."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>At this period Lady Walderhurst went to London again to shop, and spent +two entire happy days in buying beautiful things of various kinds, which +were all to be sent to Mrs. Osborn at The Kennel Farm, Palstrey. She had +never enjoyed herself so much in her life as she did during those two +days when she sat for hours at one counter after another looking at +exquisite linen and flannel and lace. The days she had spent with Lady +Maria in purchasing her trousseau had not compared with these two. She +looked actually lovely as she almost fondled the fine fabrics, smiling +with warm softness at the pretty things shown her. She spent, in fact, +good deal of money, and luxuriated in so doing as she could never have +luxuriated in spending it in finery for herself. Nothing indeed seemed +too fairy-like in its fineness, no quantity of lace seemed in excess. +Her heart positively trembled in her breast sometimes, and she found +strange tears rising in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"They are so sweet," she said plaintively to the silence of her own +bedroom as she looked some of her purchases over. "I don't know why they +give me such a feeling. They look so little and—helpless, and as if +they were made to hold in one's arms. It's absurd of me, I daresay."</p> + +<p>The morning the boxes arrived at The Kennel Farm, Emily came too. She +was in the big carriage, and carried with her some special final +purchases she wanted to bring herself. She came because she could not +have kept away. She wanted to see the things again, to be with Hester +when she unpacked them, to help her, to look them all over, to touch +them and hold them in her hands.</p> + +<p>She found Hester in the large, low-ceilinged room in which she slept. +The big four-post bed was already snowed over with a heaped-up drift of +whiteness, and open boxes were scattered about. There was an odd +expression in the girl's eyes, and she had a red spot on either cheek.</p> + +<p>"I did not expect anything like this," she said. "I thought I should +have to make some plain, little things myself, suited to its station," +with a wry smile. "They would have been very ugly. I don't know how to +sew in the least. You forget that you were not buying things for a +prince or a princess, but for a little beggar."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't!" cried Emily, taking both her hands. "Let us be <i>happy</i>! It +was so <i>nice</i> to buy them. I never liked anything so much in my life."</p> + +<p>She went and stood by the bedside, taking up the things one by one, +touching up frills of lace and smoothing out tucks.</p> + +<p>"Doesn't it make you happy to look at them?" she said.</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> look at them," said Hester, staring at her, "as if the sight of +them made you hungry, or as if you had bought them for yourself."</p> + +<p>Emily turned slightly away. She said nothing. For a few moments there +was a dead silence.</p> + +<p>Hester spoke again. What in the world was it in the mere look of the +tall, straight body of the woman to make her feel hot and angered?</p> + +<p>"If you had bought them for yourself," she persisted, "they would be +worn by a Marquis of Walderhurst."</p> + +<p>Emily laid down the robe she had been holding. She put it on the bed, +and turned round to look at Hester Osborn with serious eyes.</p> + +<p>"They <i>may</i> be worn by a Marquis of Walderhurst, you know," she +answered. "They may."</p> + +<p>She was remotely hurt and startled, because she felt in the young woman +something she had felt once or twice before, something resentful in her +thoughts of herself, as if for the moment she represented to her an +enemy.</p> + +<p>The next moment, however, Hester Osborn fell upon her with embraces.</p> + +<p>"You are an angel to me," she cried. "You are an angel, and I can't +thank you. I don't know how."</p> + +<p>Emily Walderhurst patted her shoulder as she kindly enfolded her in warm +arms.</p> + +<p>"Don't thank me," she half whispered emotionally. "Don't. Just let us +<i>enjoy</i> ourselves."</p> + +<img border="0" src="images/helmet.png" width="187" height="87" class="center" alt="" /> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="Chapter_Thirteen" id="Chapter_Thirteen"></a> +<img border="0" src="images/chapter_13.png" width="475" height="275" class="center" alt="Chapter Thirteen" /> + + +<p><span class="dropcapa_face"><span class="dropcap">A</span></span>lec Osborn rode a good deal in these days. He also walked a good deal, +sometimes with a gun over his shoulder and followed by a keeper, +sometimes alone. There was scarcely a square yard of the Palstrey Manor +lands he had not tramped over. He had learned the whole estate by heart, +its woods, its farms, its moorlands. A morbid secret interest in its +beauties and resources possessed him. He could not resist the temptation +to ask apparently casual questions of keepers and farmers when he found +himself with them. He managed to give his inquiries as much the air of +accident as possible, but he himself knew that they were made as a +result of a certain fevered curiosity. He found that he had fallen into +the habit of continually making plans connected with the place. He said +to himself, "If it were mine I would do this, or that. If I owned it, I +would make this change or that one. I would discharge this keeper or put +another man on such a farm." He tramped among the heather thinking these +things over, and realising to the full what the pleasure of such powers +would mean to a man such as himself, a man whose vanity had never been +fed, who had a desire to control and a longing for active out-of-door +life.</p> + +<p>"If it were mine, if it were mine!" he would say to himself. "Oh! damn +it all, if it were only mine!"</p> + +<p>And there were other places as fine, and finer places he had never +seen,—Oswyth, Hurst, and Towers,—all Walderhurst's all belonging to +this one respectable, elderly muff. Thus he summed up the character of +his relative. As for himself he was young, strong, and with veins +swelling with the insistent longing for joyful, exultant life. The +sweating, panting drudgery of existence in India was a thought of hell +to him. But there it was, looming up nearer and nearer with every +heavenly English day that passed. There was nothing for it but to go +back—go back, thrust one's neck into the collar again, and sweat and be +galled to the end. He had no ambitions connected with his profession. He +realised loathingly in these days that he had always been waiting, +waiting.</p> + +<p>The big, bright-faced woman who was always hanging about Hester, doing +her favours, he actually began to watch feverishly. She was such a fool; +she always looked so healthy, and she was specially such a fool over +Walderhurst. When she had news of him, it was to be seen shining in her +face.</p> + +<p>She had a sentimental school-girl fancy that during his absence she +would apply herself to the task of learning to ride. She had been +intending to do so before he went away; they had indeed spoken of it +together, and Walderhurst had given her a handsome, gentle young mare. +The creature was as kind as she was beautiful. Osborn, who was +celebrated for his horsemanship, had promised to undertake to give the +lessons.</p> + +<p>A few days after her return from London with her purchases, she asked +the husband and wife to lunch with her at Palstrey, and during the meal +broached the subject.</p> + +<p>"I should like to begin soon, if you can spare the time for me," she +said. "I want to be able to go out with him when he comes back. Do you +think I shall be slow in learning? Perhaps I ought to be lighter to ride +well."</p> + +<p>"I think you will be pretty sure to have a first-class seat," Osborn +answered. "You will be likely to look particularly well."</p> + +<p>"Do you think I shall? How good you are to encourage me. How soon could +I begin?"</p> + +<p>She was quite agreeably excited. In fact, she was delighted by innocent +visions of herself as Walderhurst's equestrian companion. Perhaps if she +sat well, and learned fine control of her horse, he might be pleased, +and turn to look at her, as they rode side by side, with that look of +approval and dawning warmth which brought such secret joy to her soul.</p> + +<p>"When may I take my first lesson?" she said quite eagerly to Captain +Osborn, for whom a footman was pouring out a glass of wine.</p> + +<p>"As soon," he answered, "as I have taken out the mare two or three times +myself. I want to know her thoroughly. I would not let you mount her +until I had learned her by heart."</p> + +<p>They went out to the stables after lunch and visited the mare in her +loose box. She was a fine beast, and seemed as gentle as a child.</p> + +<p>Captain Osborn asked questions of the head groom concerning her. She had +a perfect reputation, but nevertheless she was to be taken over to the +Kennel stables a few days before Lady Walderhurst mounted her.</p> + +<p>"It is necessary to be more than careful," Osborn said to Hester that +night. "There would be the devil and all to pay if anything went wrong."</p> + +<p>The mare was brought over the next morning. She was a shining bay, and +her name was Faustine.</p> + +<p>In the afternoon Captain Osborn took her out. He rode her far and +learned her thoroughly before he brought her back. She was as lively as +a kitten, but as kind as a dove. Nothing could have been better tempered +and safer. She would pass anything, even the unexpected appearance of a +road-mending engine turning a corner did not perceptibly disturb her.</p> + +<p>"Is she well behaved?" Hester asked at dinner time.</p> + +<p>"Yes, apparently," was his answer; "but I shall take her out once or +twice again."</p> + +<p>He did take her out again, and had only praise for her on each occasion. +But the riding lessons did not begin at once. In fact he was, for a +number of reasons, in a sullen and unsociable humour which did not +incline him towards the task he had undertaken. He made various excuses +for not beginning the lessons, and took Faustine out almost every day.</p> + +<p>But Hester had an idea that he did not enjoy his rides. He used to +return from them with a resentful, sombre look, as if his reflections +had not been pleasant company for him. In truth they were not pleasant +company. He was beset by thoughts he did not exactly care to be beset +by—thoughts which led him farther than he really cared to go, which did +not incline him to the close companionship of Lady Walderhurst. It was +these thoughts which led him on his long rides; it was one of them which +impelled him, one morning, as he was passing a heap of broken stone, +piled for the mending of the ways by the roadside, to touch Faustine +with heel and whip. The astonished young animal sprang aside curvetting. +She did not understand, and to horse-nature the uncomprehended is +alarming. She was more bewildered and also more fretted when, in passing +the next stone heap, she felt the same stinging touches. What did it +mean? Was she to avoid this thing, to leap at sight of it, to do what? +She tossed her delicate head and snorted in her trouble. The country +road was at some distance from Palstrey, and was little frequented. No +one was in sight. Osborn glanced about him to make sure of this fact. A +long stretch of road lay before him, with stone heaps piled at regular +intervals. He had taken a big whiskey and soda at the last wayside inn +he had passed, and drink did not make him drunk so much as mad. He +pushed the mare ahead, feeling in just the humour to try experiments +with her.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"Alec is very determined that you shall be safe on Faustine," Hester +said to Emily. "He takes her out every day."</p> + +<p>"It is very good of him," answered Emily.</p> + +<p>Hester thought she looked a trifle nervous, and wondered why. She did +not say anything about the riding lessons, and in fact had seemed of +late less eager and interested. In the first place, it had been Alec who +had postponed, now it was she. First one trifling thing and then another +seemed to interpose.</p> + +<p>"The mare is as safe as a feather-bed," Osborn said to her one afternoon +when they were taking tea on the lawn at Palstrey. "You had better begin +now if you wish to accomplish anything before Lord Walderhurst comes +back. What do you hear from him as to his return?"</p> + +<p>Emily had heard that he was likely to be detained longer than he had +expected. It seemed always to be the case that people were detained by +such business. He was annoyed, but it could not be helped. There was a +rather tired look in her eyes and she was paler than usual.</p> + +<p>"I am going up to town to-morrow," she said. "The riding lessons might +begin after I come back."</p> + +<p>"Are you anxious about anything?" Hester asked her as she was preparing +for the drive back to The Kennel Farm.</p> + +<p>"No, no," Emily answered. "Only—"</p> + +<p>"Only what?"</p> + +<p>"I should be so glad if—if he were not away."</p> + +<p>Hester gazed reflectively at her suddenly quivering face.</p> + +<p>"I don't think I ever saw a woman so fond of a man," she said.</p> + +<p>Emily stood still. She was quite silent. Her eyes slowly filled. She had +never been able to say much about what she felt for Walderhurst. Hers +was a large, dumb, primitive affection.</p> + +<p>She sat at her open bedroom window a long time that evening. She rested +her chin upon her hand and looked up at the deeps of blue powdered with +the diamond dust of stars. It seemed to her that she had never looked up +and seen such myriads of stars before. She felt far away from earthly +things and tremulously uplifted. During the last two weeks she had lived +in a tumult of mind, of amazement, of awe, of hope and fear. No wonder +that she looked pale and that her face was full of anxious yearning. +There were such wonders in the world, and she, Emily Fox-Seton, no, +Emily Walderhurst, seemed to have become part of them.</p> + +<p>She clasped her hands tight together and leaned forward into the night +with her face turned upwards. Very large drops began to roll fast down +her cheeks, one after the other. The argument of scientific observation +might have said she was hysterical, and whether with or without reason +is immaterial. She did not try to check her tears or wipe them away, +because she did not know that she was crying. She began to pray, and +heard herself saying the Lord's Prayer like a child.</p> + +<p>"Our Father who art in Heaven—Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be +Thy name," she murmured imploringly.</p> + +<p>She said the prayer to the end, and then began it over again. She said +it three or four times, and her appeal for daily bread and the +forgiveness of trespasses expressed what her inarticulate nature could +not have put into words. Beneath the entire vault of heaven's dark blue +that night there was nowhere lifted to the Unknown a prayer more humbly +passion-full and gratefully imploring than her final whisper.</p> + +<p>"For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. +Amen, amen."</p> + +<p>When she left her seat at the window and turned towards the room again, +Jane Cupp, who was preparing for the morrow's journey and was just +entering with a dress over her arm, found herself restraining a start at +sight of her.</p> + +<p>"I hope you are quite well, my lady," she faltered.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Lady Walderhurst answered. "I think I am very well—very well, +Jane. You will be quite ready for the early train to-morrow morning."</p> + +<p>"Yes, my lady, quite."</p> + +<p>"I have been thinking," said Emily gently, almost in a tone of reverie, +"that if your uncle had not wanted your mother so much it would have +been nice to have her here with us. She is such an experienced person, +and so kind. I never forget how kind she was to me when I had the little +room in Mortimer Street."</p> + +<p>"Oh! my lady, you was kind to <i>us</i>," cried Jane.</p> + +<p>She recalled afterwards, with tears, how her ladyship moved nearer to +her and took her hand with what Jane called "her wonderful <i>good</i> look," +which always brought a lump to her throat.</p> + +<p>"But I always count on you, Jane," she said. "I count on you so much."</p> + +<p>"Oh! my lady," Jane cried again, "it's my comfort to believe it. I'd lay +down my life for your ladyship, I would indeed."</p> + +<p>Emily sat down, and on her face there was a soft, uplifted smile.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, and Jane Cupp saw that she was reflective again, and +the words were not addressed exactly, to herself, "one would be quite +ready to lay down one's life for the person one loved. It seems even a +little thing, doesn't it?"</p> + +<img border="0" src="images/roses.png" width="187" height="60" class="center" alt="" /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="Chapter_Fourteen" id="Chapter_Fourteen"></a> +<img border="0" src="images/chapter_14.png" width="475" height="275" class="center" alt="Chapter Fourteen" /> + + +<p><span class="dropcapl_tendrils"><span class="dropcap">L</span></span>ady Walderhurst remained in town a week, and Jane Cupp remained with +her, in the house in Berkeley Square, which threw open its doors to +receive them on their arrival quite as if they had never left it. The +servants' hall brightened temporarily in its hope that livelier doings +might begin to stir the establishment, but Jane Cupp was able to inform +inquirers that the visit was only to be a brief one.</p> + +<p>"We are going back to Palstrey next Monday," she explained. "My lady +prefers the country, and she is very fond of Palstrey; and no wonder. It +doesn't seem at all likely she'll come to stay in London until his +lordship gets back."</p> + +<p>"We hear," said the head housemaid, "that her ladyship is very kind to +Captain Osborn and his wife, and that Mrs. Osborn's in a delicate state +of health."</p> + +<p>"It would be a fine thing for us if it was in our family," remarked an +under housemaid who was pert.</p> + +<p>Jane Cupp looked extremely reserved.</p> + +<p>"Is it true," the pert housemaid persisted, "that the Osborns can't +abide her?"</p> + +<p>"It's true," said Jane, severely, "that she's goodness itself to them, +and they ought to adore her."</p> + +<p>"We hear they don't," put in the tallest footman. "And who wonders. If +she was an angel, there's just a chance that she may give Captain Osborn +a wipe in the eye, though she is in her thirties."</p> + +<p>"It's not for <i>us</i>," said Jane, stiffly, "to discuss thirties or forties +or fifties either, which are no business of ours. There's one gentleman, +and him a marquis, as chose her over the heads of two beauties in their +teens, at least."</p> + +<p>"Well, for the matter of that," admitted the tall footman, "I'd have +chose her myself, for she's a fine woman."</p> + +<p>Lady Maria was just on the point of leaving South Audley Street to make +some visits in the North, but she came and lunched with Emily, and was +in great form.</p> + +<p>She had her own opinion of a number of matters, some of which she +discussed, some of which she kept to herself. She lifted her gold +lorgnette and looked Emily well over.</p> + +<p>"Upon my word, Emily," she said, "I am proud of you. You are one of my +successes. Your looks are actually improving. There's something rather +etherealised about your face to-day. I quite agree with Walderhurst in +all the sentimental things he says about you."</p> + +<p>She said this last partly because she liked Emily and knew it would +please her to hear that her husband went to the length of dwelling on +her charms in his conversation with other people, partly because it +entertained her to see the large creature's eyelids flutter and a big +blush sweep her cheek.</p> + +<p>"He really was in great luck when he discovered you," her ladyship went +on briskly. "As for that, I was in luck myself. Suppose you had been a +girl who could not have been left. As Walderhurst is short of female +relatives, it would have fallen to me to decently dry-nurse you. And +there would have been the complications arising from a girl being baby +enough to want to dance about to places, and married enough to feel +herself entitled to defy her chaperone; she couldn't have been trusted +to chaperone herself. As it is, Walderhurst, can go where duty calls, +etc., and I can make my visits and run about, and you, dear thing, are +quite happy at Palstrey playing Lady Bountiful and helping the little +half-breed woman to expect her baby. I daresay you sit and make dolly +shirts and christening robes hand in hand."</p> + +<p>"We enjoy it all very much," Emily answered, adding imploringly, "please +don't call her a little half-breed woman. She's such a dear little +thing, Lady Maria."</p> + +<p>Lady Maria indulged in the familiar chuckle and put up her lorgnette to +examine her again.</p> + +<p>"There's a certain kind of early Victorian saintliness about you, Emily +Walderhurst, which makes my joy," she said. "You remind me of Lady +Castlewood, Helen Pendennis, and Amelia Sedley, with the spitefulness +and priggishness and catty ways left out. You are as nice as Thackeray +<i>thought</i> they were, poor mistaken man. I am not going to suffuse you +with blushes by explaining to you that there is what my nephew would +call a jolly good reason why, if you were not an early Victorian and +improved Thackerayian saint, you would not be best pleased at finding +yourself called upon to assist at this interesting occasion. Another +kind of woman would probably feel like a cat towards the little Osborn. +But even the mere reason itself, as a reason, has not once risen in your +benign and pellucid mind. You have a pellucid mind, Emily; I should be +rather proud of the word if I had invented it myself to describe you. +But I didn't. It was Walderhurst. You have actually wakened up the man's +intellects, such as they are."</p> + +<p>She evidently had a number of opinions of the Osborns. She liked neither +of them, but it was Captain Osborn she especially <i>dis</i>liked.</p> + +<p>"He is really an underbred person," she explained, "and he hasn't the +sharpness to know that is the reason Walderhurst detests him. He had +vulgar, cheap sort of affairs, and nearly got into the kind of trouble +people don't forgive. What a fool a creature in his position is to +offend the taste of the man he may inherit from, and who, if he were not +antagonistic to him, would regard him as a sort of duty. It wasn't his +immorality particularly. Nobody is either moral or immoral in these +days, but penniless persons must be decent. It's all a matter of taste +and manners. I haven't any morals myself, my dear, but I have beautiful +manners. A woman can have the kind of manners which keep her from +breaking the Commandments. As to the Commandments, they are awfully easy +things <i>not</i> to break. Who wants to break them, good Lord! Thou shall do +no murder. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not commit, etc. Thou shalt +not bear false witness. That's simply gossip and lying, and they are bad +manners. If you have good manners, you <i>don't</i>."</p> + +<p>She chatted on in her pungent little worldly, good-humoured way through +the making of a very excellent lunch. After which she settled her smart +bonnet with clever touches, kissed Emily on both cheeks, and getting +into her brougham rolled off smiling and nodding.</p> + +<p>Emily stood at the drawing-room window and watched her equipage roll +round the square and into Charles Street, and then turned away into the +big, stately empty room, sighing without intending to do so while she +smiled herself.</p> + +<p>"She's so witty and so amusing," she said; "but one would no more think +of <i>telling</i> her anything than one would think of catching a butterfly +and holding it while one made it listen. She would be so <i>bored</i> if she +was confided in."</p> + +<p>Which was most true. Never in her life had her ladyship allowed herself +the indiscretion of appearing a person in whom confidences might be +reposed. She had always had confidences enough of her own to take care +of, without sharing those of other people.</p> + +<p>"Good heavens!" she had exclaimed once, "I should as soon think of +assuming another woman's wrinkles."</p> + +<p>On the first visit Lady Walderhurst made to The Kennel Farm the morning +after her return to Palstrey, when Alec Osborn helped her from her +carriage, he was not elated by the fact that he had never seen her look +so beautifully alive and blooming during his knowledge of her. There was +a fine rose on her cheek, and her eyes were large and happily illumined.</p> + +<p>"How well you look!" broke from him with an involuntariness he was +alarmed to realise as almost spiteful. The words were an actual +exclamation which he had not meant to utter, and Emily Walderhurst even +started a trifle and looked at him with a moment's question.</p> + +<p>"But you look well, too," she answered. "Palstrey agrees with both of +us. You have such a colour."</p> + +<p>"I have been riding," he replied. "I told you I meant to know Faustine +thoroughly before I let you mount her. She is ready for you now. Can you +take your first lesson to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"I—I don't quite know," she hesitated. "I will tell you a little later. +Where is Hester?"</p> + +<p>Hester was in the drawing-room. She was lying on a sofa before an open +window and looking rather haggard and miserable. She had, in fact, just +had a curious talk with Alec which had ended in something like a scene. +As Hester's health grew more frail, her temper became more fierce, and +of late there had been times when a certain savagery, concealed with +difficulty in her husband's moods, affected her horribly.</p> + +<p>This morning she felt a new character in Emily's manner. She was timid +and shy, and a little awkward. Her child-like openness of speech and +humour seemed obscured. She had less to say than usual, and at the same +time there was a suggestion of restless unease about her. Hester Osborn, +after a few minutes, began to have an odd feeling that the woman's eyes +held a question or a desire in them.</p> + +<p>She had brought some superb roses from the Manor gardens, and she moved +about arranging them for Hester in vases.</p> + +<p>"It is beautiful to come back to the country," she said. "When I get +into the carriage at the station and drive through the sweet air, I +always feel as if I were beginning to live again, and as if in London I +had not been quite alive. It seemed so <i>heavenly</i> in the rose garden at +Palstrey to-day, to walk about among those thousands of blooming lovely +things breathing scent and nodding their heavy, darling heads."</p> + +<p>"The roads are in a beautiful condition for riding," Hester said, "and +Alec says that Faustine is perfect. You ought to begin to-morrow +morning. Shall you?"</p> + +<p>She spoke the words somewhat slowly, and her face did not look happy. +But, then, it never was a really happy face. The days of her youth had +been too full of the ironies of disappointment.</p> + +<p>There was a second's silence, and then she said again:</p> + +<p>"Shall you, if it continues fine?"</p> + +<p>Emily's hands were full of roses, both hands, and Hester saw both hands +and roses tremble. She turned round slowly and came towards her. She +looked nervous, awkward, abashed, and as if for that moment she was a +big girl of sixteen appealing to her and overwhelmed with queer +feelings, and yet the depths of her eyes held a kind of trembling, +ecstatic light. She came and stood before her, holding the trembling +roses as if she had been called up for confession.</p> + +<p>"I—I mustn't," she half whispered. The corners of her lips drooped and +quivered, and her voice was so low that Hester could scarcely hear it. +But she started and half sat up.</p> + +<p>"You <i>mustn't</i>?" she gasped; yes, really it was gasped.</p> + +<p>Emily's hand trembled so that the roses began to fall one by one, +scattering a rain of petals as they dropped.</p> + +<p>"I mustn't," she repeated, low and shakily. "I had—reason.—I went to +town to see—somebody. I saw Sir Samuel Brent, and he told me I must +not. He is quite sure."</p> + +<p>She tried to calm herself and smile. But the smile quivered and ended in +a pathetic contortion of her face. In the hope of gaining decent +self-control, she bent down to pick up the dropped roses. Before she had +picked up two, she let all the rest fall, and sank kneeling among them, +her face in her hands.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Hester, Hester!" she panted, with sweet, stupid unconciousness of +the other woman's heaving chest and glaring eyes. "It has come to me +too, actually, after all."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="Chapter_Fifteen" id="Chapter_Fifteen"></a> +<img border="0" src="images/chapter_15.png" width="475" height="275" class="center" alt="Chapter Fifteen" /> + + +<p><span class="dropcapt_flowers"><span class="dropcap">T</span></span>he Palstrey Manor carriage had just rolled away carrying Lady +Walderhurst home. The big, low-ceilinged, oak-beamed farm-house parlour +was full of the deep golden sunlight of the late afternoon, the air was +heavy with the scent of roses and sweet-peas and mignonette, the +adorable fragrance of English country-house rooms. Captain Osborn +inhaled it at each breath as he stood and looked out of the +diamond-paned window, watching the landau out of sight. He felt the +scent and the golden glow of the sunset light as intensely as he felt +the dead silence which reigned between himself and Hester almost with +the effect of a physical presence. Hester was lying upon the sofa again, +and he knew she was staring at his back with that sardonic widening of +her long eyes, a thing he hated, and which always foreboded things not +pleasant to face.</p> + +<p>He did not turn to face them until the footman's cockade had disappeared +finally behind the tall hedge, and the tramp of the horses' feet was +deadening itself in the lane. When he ceased watching and listening, he +wheeled round suddenly.</p> + +<p>"What does it all mean?" he demanded. "Hang her foolish airs and +graces.<i> Why</i> won't she ride, for she evidently does not intend to."</p> + +<p>Hester laughed, a hard, short, savage little un-mirthful sound it was.</p> + +<p>"No, she doesn't intend to," she answered, "for many a long day, at +least, for many a month. She has Sir Samuel Brent's orders to take the +greatest care of herself."</p> + +<p>"Brent's? Brent's?"</p> + +<p>Hester struck her lean little hands together and laughed this time with +a hint at hysteric shrillness.</p> + +<p>"I told you so, I told you so!" she cried. "I knew it would be so, I +knew it! By the time she reaches her thirty-sixth birthday there will be +a new Marquis of Walderhurst, and he won't be either you or yours." And +as she finished, she rolled over on the sofa, and bit the cushions with +her teeth as she lay face downwards on them. "He won't be you, or belong +to you," she reiterated, and then she struck the cushions with her +clenched fist.</p> + +<p>He rushed over to her, and seizing her by the shoulders shook her to and +fro.</p> + +<p>"You don't know what you are talking about," he said; "you don't know +what you are saying."</p> + +<p>"I do! I do! I do!" she screamed under her breath, and beat the cushions +at every word. "It's true, it's true. She's drivelling about it, +drivelling!"</p> + +<p>Alec Osborn threw back his head, drawing in a hard breath which was +almost a snort of fury.</p> + +<p>"By God!" he cried, "if she went out on Faustine now, she would not come +back!"</p> + +<p>His rage had made him so far beside himself that he had said more than +he intended, far more than he would have felt safe. But the girl was as +far beside herself as he was, and she took him up.</p> + +<p>"Serve her right," she cried. "I shouldn't care. I hate her! I hate her! +I told you once I couldn't, but I do. She's the biggest fool that ever +lived. She knew <i>nothing</i> of what I felt. I believe she thought I would +rejoice with her. I didn't know whether I should shriek in her face or +scream out laughing. Her eyes were as big as saucers, and she looked at +me as if she felt like the Virgin Mary after the Annunciation. Oh! the +stupid, <i>inhuman</i> fool!"</p> + +<p>Her words rushed forth faster and faster, she caught her breath with +gasps, and her voice grew more shrill at every sentence. Osborn shook +her again.</p> + +<p>"Keep quiet," he ordered her. "You are going into hysterics, and it +won't do. Get hold of yourself."</p> + +<p>"Go for Ameerah," she gasped, "or I'm afraid I can't. She knows what to +do."</p> + +<p>He went for Ameerah, and the silently gliding creature came bringing her +remedies with her. She looked at her mistress with stealthily +questioning but affectionate eyes, and sat down on the floor rubbing her +hands and feet in a sort of soothing massage. Osborn went out of the +room, and the two women were left together. Ameerah knew many ways of +calming her mistress's nerves, and perhaps one of the chief ones was to +lead her by subtle powers to talk out her rages and anxieties. Hester +never knew that she was revealing herself and her moods until after her +interviews with the Ayah were over. Sometimes an hour or so had passed +before she began to realise that she had let out things which she had +meant to keep secret. It was never Ameerah who talked, and Hester was +never conscious that she talked very much herself. But afterwards she +saw that the few sentences she had uttered were such as would satisfy +curiosity if the Ayah felt it. Also she was not, on the whole, at all +sure that the woman felt it. She showed no outward sign of any interest +other than the interest of a deep affection. She loved her young +mistress to-day as passionately as she had loved her as a child when she +had held her in her bosom as if she had been her own. By the time Emily +Walderhurst had reached Palstrey, Ameerah knew many things. She +understood that her mistress was as one who, standing upon the brink of +a precipice, was being slowly but surely pushed over its edge—pushed, +pushed by Fate. This was the thing imaged in her mind when she shut +herself up in her room and stood alone in the midst of the chamber +clenching her dark hands high above her white veiled head, and uttering +curses which were spells, and spells which were curses.</p> + +<p>Emily was glad that she had elected to be alone as much as possible, and +had not invited people to come and stay with her. She had not invited +people, in honest truth, because she felt shy of the responsibility of +entertainment while Walderhurst was not with her. It would have been +proper to invite his friends, and his friends were all people she was +too much in awe of, and too desirous to please to be able to enjoy +frankly as society. She had told herself that when she had been married +a few years she would be braver.</p> + +<p>And now her gladness was so devout that it was pure rejoicing. How could +she have been calm, how could she have been conversational, while +through her whole being there surged but one thought. She was sure that +while she talked to people she would have been guilty of looking as if +she was thinking of something not in the least connected with +themselves.</p> + +<p>If she had been less romantically sentimental in her desire to avoid all +semblance of burdening her husband she would have ordered him home at +once, and demanded as a right the protection of his dignity and +presence. If she had been less humble she would have felt the importance +of her position and the gravity of the claims it gave her to his +consideration, instead of being lost in prayerful gratitude to heaven.</p> + +<p>She had been rather stupidly mistaken in not making a confidante of Lady +Maria Bayne, but she had been, in her big girl shyness, entirely like +herself. In some remote part of her nature she had shrunk from a certain +look of delighted amusement which she had known would have betrayed +itself, despite her ladyship's good intentions, in the eyes assisted by +the smart gold lorgnette. She knew she was inclined to be +hyper-emotional on this subject, and she felt that if she had seen the +humour trying to conceal itself behind the eye-glasses, she might have +been hysterical enough to cry even while she tried to laugh, and pass +her feeling off lightly. Oh, no! Oh, no! Somehow she <i>knew</i> that at such +a moment, for some fantastic, if subtle, reason, Lady Maria would only +see her as Emily Fox-Seton, that she would have actually figured before +her for an instant as poor Emily Fox-Seton making an odd confession. She +could not have endured it without doing something foolish, she felt that +she would not, indeed.</p> + +<p>So Lady Maria went gaily away to make her round of visits and be the +amusing old life and soul of house-party after house-party, suspecting +nothing of a possibility which would actually have sobered her for a +moment.</p> + +<p>Emily passed her days at Palstrey in a state of happy exaltation. For a +week or so they were spent in wondering whether or not she should write +a letter to Lord Walderhurst which should convey the information to him +which even Lady Maria would have regarded as important, but the more she +argued the question with herself, the less she wavered from her first +intention. Lady Maria's frank congratulation of herself and Lord +Walderhurst in his wife's entire unexactingness had indeed been the +outcome of a half-formed intention to dissipate amiably even the vaguest +inclination to verge on expecting things from people. While she thought +Emily unlikely to allow herself to deteriorate into an encumbrance, her +ladyship had seen women in her position before, whose marriages had made +perfect fools of them through causing them to lose their heads +completely and require concessions and attentions from their newly +acquired relations which bored everybody. So she had lightly patted and +praised Emily for the course of action she preferred to "keep her up +to."</p> + +<p>"She's the kind of woman ideas sink into if they are well put," she had +remarked in times gone by. "She's not sharp enough to see that things +are being suggested to her, but a suggestion acts upon her +delightfully."</p> + +<p>Her suggestions acted upon Emily as she walked about the gardens at +Palstrey, pondering in the sunshine and soothed by the flower scents of +the warmed borders. Such a letter written to Walderhurst might change +his cherished plans, concerning which she knew he held certain +ambitions. He had been so far absorbed in them that he had gone to India +at a time of the year which was not usually chosen for the journey. He +had become further interested and absorbed after he had reached the +country, and he was evidently likely to prolong his stay as he had not +thought of prolonging it. He wrote regularly though not frequently, and +Emily had gathered from the tone of his letters that he was more +interested than he had ever been in his life before.</p> + +<p>"I would not interfere with his work for anything in the world," she +said. "He cares more for it than he usually cares for things. I care for +everything—I have that kind of mind; an intellectual person is +different. I am perfectly well and happy here. And it will be so nice to +look forward."</p> + +<p>She was not aware how Lady Maria's suggestions had "sunk in." She would +probably have reached the same conclusion without their having been +made, but since they had been made, they had assisted her. There was one +thing of all others she felt she could not possibly bear, which was to +realise that she herself could bring to her James's face an expression +she had once or twice seen others bring there (Captain Osborn +notably),—an expression of silent boredom on the verge of irritation. +Even radiant domestic joy might not be able to overrule this, if just at +this particular juncture he found himself placed in the position of a +man whom decency compelled to take the next steamer to England.</p> + +<p>If she had felt tenderly towards Hester Osborn before, the feeling was +now increased tenfold. She went to see her oftener, she began to try to +persuade her to come and stay at Palstrey. She was all the more kind +because Hester seemed less well, and was in desperate ill spirits. Her +small face had grown thin and yellow, she had dark rings under her eyes, +and her little hands were hot and looked like bird's claws. She did not +sleep and had lost her appetite.</p> + +<p>"You must come and stay at Palstrey for a few days," Emily said to her. +"The mere change from one house to another may make you sleep better."</p> + +<p>But Hester was not inclined to avail herself of the invitation. She made +obstacles and delayed acceptance for one reason and another. She was, in +fact, all the more reluctant because her husband wished her to make the +visit. Their opposed opinions had resulted in one of their scenes.</p> + +<p>"I won't go," she had said at first. "I tell you I won't."</p> + +<p>"You will," he answered. "It will be better for you."</p> + +<p>"Will it be worse for me if I don't?" she laughed feverishly. "And how +will it be better for you if I do? I know you are in it."</p> + +<p>He lost his temper and was indiscreet, as his temper continually +betrayed him into being.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am in it," he said through his teeth, "as you might have the +sense to see. Everything is the better for us that throws us with them, +and makes them familiar with the thought of us and our rights."</p> + +<p>"Our rights," the words were a shrill taunt.</p> + +<p>"What rights have you, likely to be recognised, unless you kill her. Are +you going to kill her?"</p> + +<p>He had a moment of insanity.</p> + +<p>"I'd kill her and you too if it was safe to do it. You both deserve it!"</p> + +<p>He flung across the room, having lost his wits as well as his temper. +But a second later both came back to him as in a revulsion of feeling.</p> + +<p>"I talk like a melodramatic fool," he cried. "Oh, Hester, forgive me!" +He knelt on the floor by her side, caressing her imploringly. "We both +take fire in the same way. We are both driven crazy by this damned blow. +We're beaten; we may as well own it and take what we can get. She's a +fool, but she's better than that pompous, stiff brute Walderhurst, and +she has a lot of pull over him he knows nothing about. The smug animal +is falling in love with her in his way. She can make him do the decent +thing. Let us keep friends with her."</p> + +<p>"The decent thing would be a thousand a year," wailed Hester, giving in +to his contrition in spite of herself, because she had once been in love +with him, and because she was utterly helpless. "Five hundred a year +wouldn't be indecent."</p> + +<p>"Let us keep on her good side," he said, fondling her, with a relieved +countenance. "Tell her you will come and that she is an angel, and that +you are sure a visit to the Manor will save your life."</p> + +<p>They went to Palstrey a few days later. Ameerah accompanied them in +attendance upon her mistress, and the three settled down into a life so +regular that it scarcely seemed to wear the aspect of a visit. The +Osborns were given some of the most beautiful and convenient rooms in +the house. No other visitors were impending and the whole big place was +at their disposal. Hester's boudoir overlooked the most perfect nooks of +garden, and its sweet chintz draperies and cushions and books and +flowers made it a luxurious abode of peace.</p> + +<p>"What shall I do," she said on the first evening in it as she sat in a +soft chair by the window, looking out at the twilight and talking to +Emily. "What shall I do when I must go away?"</p> + +<p>"I don't mean only from here,—I mean away from England, to loathly +India."</p> + +<p>"Do you dislike it so?" Emily asked, roused to a new conception of her +feeling by her tone.</p> + +<p>"I could never describe to you how much," fiercely. "It is like going to +the place which is the opposite of Heaven."</p> + +<p>"I did not know that," pityingly. "Perhaps—I wonder if something might +not be done: I must talk to my husband."</p> + +<p>Ameerah seemed to develop an odd fancy for the society of Jane Cupp, +which Jane was obliged to confess to her mistress had a tendency to +produce in her system "the creeps."</p> + +<p>"You must try to overcome it, Jane," Lady Walderhurst said. "I'm afraid +it's because of her colour. I've felt a little silly and shy about her +myself, but it isn't nice of us. You ought to read 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' +and all about that poor religious Uncle Tom, and Legree, and Eliza +crossing the river on the blocks of ice."</p> + +<p>"I have read it twice, your ladyship," was Jane's earnestly regretful +response, "and most awful it is, and made me and mother cry beyond +words. And I suppose it is the poor creature's colour that's against +her, and I'm trying to be kind to her, but I must own that she makes me +nervous. She asks me such a lot of questions in her queer way, and +stares at me so quiet. She actually asked me quite sudden the other day +if I loved the big Mem Sahib. I didn't know what she <i>could</i> mean at +first, but after a while I found out it was her Indian way of meaning +your ladyship, and she didn't intend disrespect, because she spoke of +you most humble afterwards, and called his lordship the Heaven born."</p> + +<p>"Be as kind as you can to her, Jane," instructed her mistress. "And take +her a nice walk occasionally. I daresay she feels very homesick here."</p> + +<p>What Ameerah said to her mistress was that these English servant women +were pigs and devils, and could conceal nothing from those who chose to +find out things from them. If Jane had known that the Ayah could have +told her of every movement she made during the day or night, of her +up-gettings and down-lyings, of the hour and moment of every service +done for the big Mem Sahib, of why and how and when and where each thing +was done, she would have been frightened indeed.</p> + +<p>One day, it is true, she came into Lady Walderhurst's sleeping apartment +to find Ameerah standing in the middle of it looking round its contents +with restless, timid, bewildered eyes. She wore, indeed, the manner of +an alarmed creature who did not know how she had got there.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing here?" demanded Jane. "You have no right in this +part of the house. You're taking a great liberty, and your mistress will +be angry."</p> + +<p>"My Mem Sahib asked for a book," the Ayah quite shivered in her alarmed +confusion. "Your Mem Sahib said it was here. They did not order me, but +I thought I would come to you. I did not know it was forbidden."</p> + +<p>"What was the book?" inquired Jane severely. "I will take it to her +ladyship."</p> + +<p>But Ameerah was so frightened that she had forgotten the name, and when +Jane knocked at the door of Mrs. Osborn's boudoir, it was empty, both +the ladies having gone into the garden.</p> + +<p>But Ameerah's story was quite true, Lady Walderhurst said in the evening +when Jane spoke of the matter as she dressed her for dinner. They had +been speaking of a book containing records of certain historical +Walderhursts. It was one Emily had taken from the library to read in her +bedroom.</p> + +<p>"We did not ask her to go for it. In fact I did not know the woman was +within hearing. She moves about so noiselessly one frequently does not +know when she is near. Of course she meant very well, but she does not +know our English ways."</p> + +<p>"No, my lady, she does not," said Jane, respectfully but firmly. "I took +the liberty of telling her she must keep to her own part of the house +unless required by your ladyship."</p> + +<p>"You mustn't frighten the poor creature," laughed her mistress. She was +rather touched indeed by the slavish desire to please and do service +swiftly which the Ayah's blunder seemed to indicate. She had wished to +save her mistress even the trouble of giving the order. That was her +Oriental way, Emily thought, and it was very affectionate and +child-like.</p> + +<p>Being reminded of the book again, she carried it down herself into the +drawing-room. It was a volume she was fond of because it recorded +romantic stories of certain noble dames of Walderhurst lineage.</p> + +<p>Her special predilection was a Dame Ellena, who, being left with but few +servitors in attendance during her lord's absence from his castle on a +foraging journey into an enemy's country, had defended the stronghold +boldly against the attack of a second enemy who had adroitly seized the +opportunity to forage for himself. In the cellars had been hidden +treasure recently acquired by the usual means, and knowing this, Dame +Ellena had done splendid deeds, marshalling her small forces in such way +as deceived the attacking party and showing herself in scorn upon the +battlements, a fierce, beauteous woman about to give her lord an heir, +yet fearing naught, and only made more fierce and full of courage by +this fact. The son, born but three weeks later, had been the most +splendid and savage fighter of his name, and a giant in build and +strength.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," Emily said when they discussed the legend after dinner, "I +suppose she felt that she could do <i>anything</i>," with her italics. "I +daresay <i>nothing</i> could make her afraid, but the thought that something +might go wrong while her husband was away. And strength was given her."</p> + +<p>She was so thrilled that she got up and walked across the room with +quite a fine sweep of heroic movement in her momentary excitement. She +held her head up and smiled with widening eyes.</p> + +<p>But she saw Captain Osborn drag at his black moustache to hide an +unattractive grin, and she was at once abashed into feeling silly and +shy. She sat down again with awkward self-consciousness.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I'm making you laugh at me," she apologised, "but that story +always gives me such a romantic feeling. I like her so."</p> + +<p>"Oh! not at all, not all," said Osborn. "I was not laughing really; oh +no!"</p> + +<p>But he had been, and had been secretly calling her a sentimental, +ramping idiot.</p> + +<p>It was a great day for Jane Cupp when her mother arrived at Palstrey +Manor. It was a great day for Mrs. Cupp also. When she descended from +the train at the little country station, warm and somewhat flushed by +her emotions and the bugled splendours of her best bonnet and black silk +mantle, the sight of Jane standing neatly upon the platform almost +overcame her. Being led to his lordship's own private bus, and seeing +her trunk surrounded by the attentions of an obsequious station-master +and a liveried young man, she was conscious of concealing a flutter with +dignified reserve.</p> + +<p>"My word, Jane!" she exclaimed after they had taken their seats in the +vehicle. "My word, you look as accustomed to it as if you had been born +in the family."</p> + +<p>But it was when, after she had been introduced to the society in the +servants' hall, she was settled in her comfortable room next to Jane's +own that she realised to the full that there were features of her +position which marked it with importance almost startling. As Jane +talked to her, the heat of the genteel bonnet and beaded mantle had +nothing whatever to do with the warmth which moistened her brow.</p> + +<p>"I thought I'd keep it till I saw you, mother," said the girl +decorously. "I know what her ladyship feels about being talked over. If +I was a lady myself, I shouldn't like it. And I know how deep you'll +feel it, that when the doctor advised her to get an experienced married +person to be at hand, she said in that dear way of hers, 'Jane, if your +uncle could spare your mother, how I should like to have <ins class="correction" +title="Transcriber's Note: The original text has a single quote after the period.">her.</ins> I've never +forgot her kindness in Mortimer Street.'"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Cupp fanned her face with a handkerchief of notable freshness.</p> + +<p>"If she was Her Majesty," she said, "she couldn't be more sacred to me, +nor me more happy to be allowed the privilege."</p> + +<p>Jane had begun to put her mother's belongings away. She was folding and +patting a skirt on the bed. She fussed about a little nervously and then +lifted a rather embarrassed face.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you <i>are</i> here, mother," she said. "I'm thankful to <i>have</i> +you!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Cupp ceased fanning and stared at her with a change of expression. +She found herself involuntarily asking her next question in a half +whisper.</p> + +<p>"Why, Jane, what is it?"</p> + +<p>Jane came nearer.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," she answered, and her voice also was low. "Perhaps I'm +silly and overanxious, because I <i>am</i> so fond of her. But that Ameerah, +I actually dream about her."</p> + +<p>"What! The black woman?"</p> + +<p>"If I was to say a word, or if you did, and we was wrong, how should we +feel? I've kept my nerves to myself till I've nearly screamed sometimes. +And my lady would be so hurt if she knew. But—well," in a hurried +outburst, "I do wish his lordship was here, and I do wish the Osborns +wasn't. I do wish it, I tell you that."</p> + +<p>"Good Lord!" cried Mrs. Cupp, and after staring with alarmed eyes a +second or so, she wiped a slight dampness from her upper lip.</p> + +<p>She was of the order of female likely to take a somewhat melodramatic +view of any case offering her an opening in that direction.</p> + +<p>"Jane!" she gasped faintly, "do you think they'd try to take her life?"</p> + +<p>"Goodness, no!" ejaculated Jane, with even a trifle of impatience. +"People like them daren't. But suppose they was to try to, well, to +upset her in some way, what a thing for them it would be."</p> + +<p>After which the two women talked together for some time in whispers, +Jane bringing a chair to place opposite her mother's. They sat knee to +knee, and now and then Jane shed a tear from pure nervousness. She was +so appalled by the fear of making a mistake which, being revealed by +some chance, would bring confusion upon and pain of mind to her lady.</p> + +<p>"At all events," was Mrs. Cupp's weighty observation when their +conference was at an end, "here we both are, and two pairs of eyes and +ears and hands and legs is a fat lot better than one, where there's +things to be looked out for."</p> + +<p>Her training in the matter of subtlety had not been such as Ameerah's, +and it may not be regarded as altogether improbable that her observation +of the Ayah was at times not too adroitly concealed, but if the native +woman knew that she was being remarked, she gave no sign of her +knowledge. She performed her duties faithfully and silently, she gave no +trouble, and showed a gentle subservience and humbleness towards the +white servants which won immense approbation. Her manner towards Mrs. +Cupp's self was marked indeed by something like a tinge of awed +deference, which, it must be confessed, mollified the good woman, and +awakened in her a desire to be just and lenient even to the dark of skin +and alien of birth.</p> + +<p>"She knows her betters when she sees them, and has pretty enough manners +for a black," the object of her respectful obeisances remarked. "I +wonder if she's ever heard of her Maker, and if a little brown Testament +with good print wouldn't be a good thing to give her?"</p> + +<p>This boon was, in fact, bestowed upon her as a gift. Mrs. Cupp bought it +for a shilling at a small shop in the village. Ameerah, in whose dusky +being was incorporated the occult faith of lost centuries, and whose +gods had been gods through mystic ages, received the fat, little brown +book with down-dropped lids and grateful obeisance. These were her words +to her mistress:</p> + +<p>"The fat old woman with protruding eyes bestowed it upon me. She says it +is the book of her god. She has but one. She wishes me to worship him. +Am I a babe to worship such a god as would please her. She is old, and +has lost her mind."</p> + +<p>Lady Walderhurst's health continued all that could be desired. She arose +smiling in the morning, and bore her smile about with her all day. She +walked much in the gardens, and spent long, happy hours sewing in her +favourite sitting-room. Work which she might have paid other women to +do, she did with her own hands for the mere sentimental bliss of it. +Sometimes she sat with Hester and sewed, and Hester lay on a sofa and +stared at her moving hands.</p> + +<p>"You know how to do it, don't you?" she once said.</p> + +<p>"I was obliged to sew for myself when I was so poor, and this is +delightful," was Emily's answer.</p> + +<p>"But you could buy it all and save yourself the trouble."</p> + +<p>Emily stroked her bit of cambric and looked awkward.</p> + +<p>"I'd rather not," she said.</p> + +<p>Well as she was, she began to think she did not sleep quite so soundly +as had been habitual with her. She started up in bed now and again as if +she had been disturbed by some noise, but when she waited and listened +she heard nothing. At least this happened on two or three occasions. And +then one night, having been lying folded in profound, sweet sleep, she +sprang up in the black darkness, wakened by an actual, physical reality +of sensation, the soft laying of a hand upon her naked side,—that, and +nothing else.</p> + +<p>"What is that? Who is there?" she cried. "Someone is in the room!"</p> + +<p>Yes, someone was there. A few feet from her bed she heard a sobbing +sigh, then a rustle, then followed silence. She struck a match and, +getting up, lighted candles. Her hand shook, but she remembered that she +must be firm with herself.</p> + +<p>"I must not be nervous," she said, and looked the room over from end to +end.</p> + +<p>But it contained no living creature, nor any sign that living creature +had entered it since she had lain down to rest. Gradually the fast +beating of her heart had slackened, and she passed her hand over her +face in bewilderment.</p> + +<p>"It wasn't like a dream at all," she murmured; "it really wasn't. I +<i>felt</i> it."</p> + +<p>Still as absolutely nothing was to be found, the sense of reality +diminished somewhat, and being so healthy a creature, she regained her +composure, and on going back to bed slept well until Jane brought her +early tea.</p> + +<p>Under the influence of fresh morning air and sunlight, of ordinary +breakfast and breakfast talk with the Osborns, her first convictions +receded so far that she laughed a little as she related the incident.</p> + +<p>"I never had such a real dream in my life," she said; "but it must have +been a dream."</p> + +<p>"One's dreams are very real sometimes," said Hester.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it was the Palstrey ghost," Osborn laughed. "It came to you +because you ignore it." He broke off with a slight sudden start and +stared at her a second questioningly. "Did you say it put its hand on +your side?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Don't tell her silly things that will frighten her. How ridiculous of +you," exclaimed Hester sharply. "It's not proper."</p> + +<p>Emily looked at both of them wonderingly.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" she said. "I don't believe in ghosts. It won't +frighten me, Hester. I never even heard of a Palstrey ghost."</p> + +<p>"Then I am not going to tell you of one," said Captain Osborn a little +brusquely, and he left his chair and went to the sideboard to cut cold +beef.</p> + +<p>He kept his back towards them, and his shoulders looked uncommunicative +and slightly obstinate. Hester's face was sullen. Emily thought it sweet +of her to care so much, and turned upon her with grateful eyes.</p> + +<p>"I was only frightened for a few minutes, Hester," she said. "My dreams +are not vivid at all, usually."</p> + +<p>But howsoever bravely she ignored the shock she had received, it was not +without its effect, which was that occasionally there drifted into her +mind a recollection of the suggestion that Palstrey had a ghost. She had +never heard of it, and was in fact of an orthodoxy so ingenuously entire +as to make her feel that belief in the existence of such things was a +sort of defiance of ecclesiastical laws. Still, such stories were often +told in connection with old places, and it was natural to wonder what +features marked this particular legend. Did it lay hands on people's +sides when they were asleep? Captain Osborn had asked his question as if +with a sudden sense of recognition. But she would not let herself think +of the matter, and she would not make inquiries.</p> + +<p>The result was that she did not sleep well for several nights. She was +annoyed at herself, because she found that she kept lying awake as if +listening or waiting. And it was not a good thing to lose one's sleep +when one wanted particularly to keep strong.</p> + +<p>Jane Cupp during this week was, to use her own words, "given quite a +turn" by an incident which, though a small matter, might have proved +untoward in its results.</p> + +<p>The house at Palstrey, despite its age, was in a wonderful state of +preservation, the carved oak balustrades of the stairways being +considered particularly fine.</p> + +<p>"What but Providence," said Jane piously, in speaking to her mother the +next morning, "made me look down the staircase as I passed through the +upper landing just before my lady was going down to dinner. What but +Providence I couldn't say. It certainly wasn't because I've done it +before that I remember. But just that one evening I was obliged to cross +the landing for something, and my eye just lowered itself by accident, +and there it was!"</p> + +<p>"Just where it would have tripped her up. Good Lord! it makes my heart +turn over to hear you tell it. How big a bit of carving was it?" Mrs. +Cupp's opulent chest trimmings heaved.</p> + +<p>"Only a small piece that had broken off from old age and worm-eatenness, +I suppose, but it had dropped just where she wouldn't have caught sight +of it, and ten to one would have stepped on it and turned her ankle and +been thrown from the top to the bottom of the whole flight. Suppose I +<i>hadn't</i> seen it in time to pick it up before she went down. Oh, dear! +Oh, dear! Mother!"</p> + +<p>"I should say so!" Mrs. Cupp's manner approached the devout. This +incident it was which probably added to Jane's nervous sense of +responsibility. She began to watch her mistress's movements with +hyper-sensitive anxiety. She fell into the habit of going over her +bedroom two or three times a day, giving a sort of examination to its +contents.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I'm so fond of her that it's making me downright silly," she +said to her mother; "but it seems as if I can't help it. I feel as if +I'd like to know everything she does, and go over the ground to make +sure of it before she goes anywhere. I'm so proud of her, mother; I'm +just as proud as if I was some connection of the family, instead of just +her maid. It'll be such a splendid thing if she keeps well and +everything goes as it should. Even people like us can see what it means +to a gentleman that can go back nine hundred years. If I was Lady Maria +Bayne, I'd be here and never leave her. I tell you nothing could drive +me from her."</p> + +<p>"You are well taken care of," Hester had said. "That girl is devoted to +you. In her lady's maid's way she'd fight for your life."</p> + +<p>"I think she is as faithful to me as Ameerah is to you," Emily answered. +"I feel sure Ameerah would fight for you."</p> + +<p>Ameerah's devotion in these days took the form of a deep-seated hatred +of the woman whom she regarded as her mistress's enemy.</p> + +<p>"It is an evil thing that she should take this place," she said. "She is +an old woman. What right hath she to think she may bear a son. Ill luck +will come of it. She deserves any ill fortune which may befall her."</p> + +<p>"Sometimes," Lady Walderhurst once said to Osborn, "I feel as if Ameerah +disliked me. She looks at me in such a curious, stealthy way."</p> + +<p>"She is admiring you," was his answer. "She thinks you are something a +little supernatural, because you are so tall and have such a fresh +colour."</p> + +<p>There was in the park at Palstrey Manor a large ornamental pool of +water, deep and dark and beautiful because of the age and hugeness of +the trees which closed around it, and the water plants which encircled +and floated upon it. White and yellow flags and brown velvet rushes grew +thick about its edge, and water-lilies opened and shut upon its surface. +An avenue of wonderful limes led down to a flight of mossy steps, by +which in times gone by people had descended to the boat which rocked +idly in the soft green gloom. There was an island on it, on which roses +had been planted and left to run wild; early in the year daffodils and +other spring flowers burst up through the grass and waved scented heads. +Lady Walderhurst had discovered the place during her honeymoon, and had +loved it fondly ever since. The avenue leading to it was her favourite +walk; a certain seat under a tree on the island her favourite +resting-place.</p> + +<p>"It is so still there," she had said to the Osborns. "No one ever goes +there but myself. When I have crossed the little old bridge and sit down +among the greenness with my book or work, I feel as if there was no +world at all. There is no sound but the rustle of the leaves and the +splash of the moor-hens who come to swim about. They don't seem to be +afraid of me, neither do the thrushes and robins. They know I shall only +sit still and watch them. Sometimes they come quite near."</p> + +<p>She used, in fact, to take her letter-writing and sewing to the sweet, +secluded place and spend hours of pure, restful bliss. It seemed to her +that her life became more lovely day by day.</p> + +<img border="0" src="images/hester.png" width="220" height="390" class="center" alt="Painting of Hester Osborn" /> +<h4>Hester Osborn</h4> + +<p>Hester did not like the pool. She thought it too lonely and silent. She +preferred her beflowered boudoir or the sunny garden. Sometimes in these +days she feared to follow her own thoughts. She was being pushed—pushed +towards the edge of her precipice, and it was only the working of Nature +that she should lose her breath and snatch at strange things to stay +herself. Between herself and her husband a sort of silence had grown. +There were subjects of which they never spoke, and yet each knew that +the other's mind was given up to thought of them day and night. There +were black midnight hours when Hester, lying awake in her bed, knew that +Alec lay awake in his also. She had heard him many a time turn over with +a caught breath and a smothered curse. She did not ask herself what he +was thinking of. She knew. She knew because she was thinking of the same +things herself. Of big, fresh, kind Emily Walderhurst lost in her dreams +of exultant happiness which never ceased to be amazed and grateful to +prayerfulness; of the broad lands and great, comfortable houses; of all +it implied to be the Marquis of Walderhurst or his son; of the long, +sickening voyage back to India; of the hopeless muddle of life in an +ill-kept bungalow; of wretched native servants, at once servile and +stubborn and given to lies and thefts. More than once she was forced to +turn on her face that she might smother her frenzied sobs in her pillow.</p> + +<p>It was on such a night—she had awakened from her sleep to notice such +stillness in Osborn's adjoining room, that she thought him profoundly +asleep—that she arose from her bed to go and sit at her open window.</p> + +<p>She had not been seated there many minutes before she became singularly +conscious, she did not know how, of some presence near her among the +bushes in the garden below. It had indeed scarcely seemed to be sound or +movement which had attracted her attention, and yet it must have been +one or both, for she involuntarily turned to a particular spot.</p> + +<p>Yes, something, someone, was standing in a corner, hidden by shrubbery. +It was the middle of the night, and people were meeting. She sat still +and almost breathless. She could hear nothing and saw nothing but, +between the leafage, a dim gleam of white. Only Ameerah wore white. +After a few seconds' waiting she began to think a strange thing, though +she presently realised that, taking all things into consideration, it +was not strange at all. She got up very noiselessly and stole into her +husband's room. He was not there; the bed was empty, though he had slept +there earlier in the night.</p> + +<p>She went back to her own bed and got into it again. In ten minutes' time +Captain Osborn crept upstairs and returned to bed also. Hester made no +sign and did not ask any questions. She knew he would have told her +nothing, and also she did not wish to hear. She had seen him speaking to +Ameerah in the lane a few days before, and now that he was meeting her +in the night she knew that she need not ask herself what the subject of +their consultation might be. But she looked haggard in the morning.</p> + +<p>Lady Walderhurst herself did not look well, For the last two or three +nights she had been starting from her sleep again with that eerie +feeling of being wakened by someone at her bedside, though she had found +no one when she had examined the room on getting up.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry to say I am afraid I am getting a little nervous," she had +said to Jane Cupp. "I will begin to take valerian, though it is really +very nasty."</p> + +<p>Jane herself had a somewhat harried expression of countenance. She did +not mention to her mistress that for some days she had been faithfully +following a line of conduct she had begun to mark out for herself. She +had obtained a pair of list slippers and had been learning to go about +softly. She had sat up late and risen from her bed early, though she had +not been rewarded by any particularly marked discoveries. She had +thought, however, that she observed that Ameerah did not look at her as +much as had been her habit, and she imagined she rather avoided her. All +she said to Lady Walderhurst was:</p> + +<p>"Yes, my lady, mother thinks a great deal of valerian to quiet the +nerves. Will you have a light left in your room to-night, my lady?"</p> + +<p>"I am afraid I could not sleep with a light," her mistress answered. "I +am not used to one."</p> + +<p>She continued to sleep, disturbedly some nights, in the dark. She was +not aware that on some of the nights Jane Cupp either slept or laid +awake in the room nearest to her. Jane's own bedroom was in another part +of the house, but in her quiet goings about in the list shoes she now +and then saw things which made her nervously determined to be within +immediate call.</p> + +<p>"I don't say it isn't nerves, mother," she said, "and that I ain't silly +to feel so suspicious of all sorts of little things, but there's nights +when I couldn't stand it not to be quite near her."</p> + +<img border="0" src="images/swag.png" width="187" height="70" class="center" alt="" /> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="Chapter_Sixteen" id="Chapter_Sixteen"></a> +<img border="0" src="images/chapter_16.png" width="475" height="275" class="center" alt="Chapter Sixteen" /> + + +<p><span class="dropcapt_ribbons"><span class="dropcap">T</span></span>he Lime Avenue was a dim, if lovely, place at twilight. When the sun +was setting, broad lances of gold slanted through the branches and +glorified the green spaces with mellow depths of light. But later, when +the night was drawing in, the lines of grey tree-trunks, shadowed and +canopied by boughs, suggested to the mind the pillars of some ruined +cathedral, desolate and ghostly.</p> + +<p>Jane Cupp, facing the gloom of it during her lady's dinner-hour, and +glancing furtively from side to side as she went, would have been awed +by the grey stillness, even if she had not been in a timorous mood to +begin with. In the first place, the Lime Avenue, which was her +ladyship's own special and favourite walk, was not the usual promenade +of serving-maids. Even the gardeners seldom set foot in it unless to +sweep away dead leaves and fallen wood. Jane herself had never been here +before. This evening she had gone absolutely because she was following +Ameerah.</p> + +<p>She was following Ameerah because, during the afternoon tea-hour in the +servants' hall, she had caught a sentence or so in the midst of a +gossiping story, which had made her feel that she should be unhappy if +she did not go down the walk and to the water-side,—see the water, the +boat, the steps, everything.</p> + +<p>"My word, mother!" she had said, "it's a queer business for a +respectable girl that's maid in a great place to be feeling as if she +had to watch black people, same as if she was in the police, and not +daring to say a word; for if I did say a word, Captain Osborn's clever +enough to have me sent away from here in a jiffy. And the worst of it +is," twisting her hands together, "there <i>mayn't</i> be <i>anything</i> going on +really. If they were as innocent as lambs they couldn't act any +different; and just the same, things <i>might</i> have happened by accident."</p> + +<p>"That's the worst of it," was Mrs. Cupp's fretted rejoinder. "Any old +piece of carving might have dropped out of a balustrade, and any lady +that wasn't well might have nightmare and be disturbed in her sleep."</p> + +<p>"Yes," admitted Jane, anxiously, "that is the worst of it. Sometimes I +feel so foolish I'm all upset with myself."</p> + +<p>The gossip in servants' halls embraces many topics. In country houses +there is naturally much to be said of village incidents, of the scandals +of cottages and the tragedies of farms. This afternoon, at one end of +the table the talk had been of a cottage scandal which had verged on +tragedy. A handsome, bouncing, flaunting village girl had got into that +"trouble" which had been anticipated for her by both friends and enemies +for some time. Being the girl she was, much venomous village social stir +had resulted. It had been predicted that she would "go up to London," or +that she would drown herself, having an impudent high spirit which +brought upon her much scornful and derisive flouting on her evil day. +The manor servants knew a good deal of her, because she had been for a +while a servant at The Kennel Farm, and had had a great fancy for +Ameerah, whom it had pleased her to make friends with. When she fell +suddenly ill, and for days lay at the point of death, there was a +stealthy general opinion that Ameerah, with her love spells and potions, +could have said much which might have been enlightening, if she had +chosen. The girl had been in appalling danger. The village doctor, who +had been hastily called in, had at one moment declared that life had +left her body. It was, in fact, only Ameerah who had insisted that she +was not dead. After a period of prostration, during which she seemed a +corpse, she had slowly come back to earthly existence. The graphic +descriptions of the scenes by her bedside, of her apparent death, her +cold and bloodless body, her lagging and ghastly revival to +consciousness, aroused in the servants' hall a fevered interest. Ameerah +was asked questions, and gave such answers as satisfied herself if not +her interlocutors. She was perfectly aware of the opinions of her fellow +servitors. She knew all about them while they knew nothing whatsoever +about her. Her limited English could be used as a means of baffling +them. She smiled, and fell into Hindustani when she was pressed.</p> + +<p>Jane Cupp heard both questions and answers. Ameerah professed to know +nothing but such things as the whole village knew. Towards the end of +the discussion, however, in a mixture of broken English and Hindustani, +she conveyed that she had believed that the girl would drown herself. +Asked why, she shook her head, then said that she had seen her by the +Mem Sahib's lake at the end of the trees. She had asked if the water was +deep enough, near the bridge, to drown. Ameerah had answered that she +did not know.</p> + +<p>There was a general exclamation. They all knew it was deep there. The +women shuddered as they remembered how deep they had been told it was at +that particular spot. It was said that there was no bottom to it. +Everybody rather revelled in the gruesomeness of the idea of a +bottomless piece of water. Someone remembered that there was a story +about it. As much as ninety years ago two young labourers on the place +had quarrelled about a young woman. One day, in the heat of jealous rage +one had seized the other and literally thrown him into the pond. He had +never been found. No drags could reach his body. He had sunk into the +blackness for ever.</p> + +<p>Ameerah sat at the table with downcast eyes. She had a habit of sitting +silent with dropped eyes, which Jane could not bear. As she drank her +tea she watched her in spite of herself.</p> + +<p>After a few minutes had passed, her appetite for bread and butter +deserted her. She got up and left the hall, looking pale.</p> + +<p>The mental phases through which she went during the afternoon ended in +her determination to go down the avenue and to the water's side this +evening. It could be done while her ladyship and her guests were at +dinner. This evening the Vicar and his wife and daughter were dining at +the Manor.</p> + +<p>Jane took in emotionally all the mysterious silence and dimness of the +long tree-pillared aisle, and felt a tremor as she walked down it, +trying to hold herself in hand by practical reflections half whispered.</p> + +<p>"I'm just going to have a look, to make sure," she said, "silly or not. +I've got upset through not being able to help watching that woman, and +the way to steady my nerves is to make sure I'm just giving in to +foolishness."</p> + +<p>She walked as fast as she could towards the water. She could see its +gleam in the dim light, but she must pass a certain tree before she +could see the little bridge itself.</p> + +<p>"My goodness! What's that?" she said suddenly. It was something white, +which rose up as if from the ground, as if from the rushes growing at +the water's edge.</p> + +<p>Just a second Jane stood, and choked, and then suddenly darted forward, +running as fast as she could. The white figure merely moved slowly away +among the trees. It did not run or seem startled, and as Jane ran she +caught it by its white drapery, and found herself, as she had known she +would, dragging at the garments of Ameerah. But Ameerah only turned +round and greeted her with a welcoming smile, mild enough to damp any +excitement.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing here?" Jane demanded. "Why do you come to this +place?"</p> + +<p>Ameerah answered her with simple fluency in Hindustani, with her manner +of not realising that she was speaking to a foreigner who could not +understand her. What she explained was that, having heard that Jane's +Mem Sahib came here to meditate on account of the stillness, she herself +had formed the habit of coming to indulge in prayer and meditation when +the place was deserted for the day. She commended the place to Jane, and +to Jane's mother, whom she believed to be holy persons given to +devotional exercises. Jane shook her.</p> + +<p>"I don't understand a word you say," she cried. "You know I don't. Speak +in English."</p> + +<p>Ameerah shook her head slowly, and smiled again with patience. She +endeavoured to explain in English which Jane was sure was worse than she +had ever heard her use before. Was it forbidden that a servant should +come to the water?</p> + +<p>She was far too much for Jane, who was so unnerved that she burst into +tears.</p> + +<p>"You are up to some wickedness," she sobbed; "I know you are. You're +past bearing. I'm going to write to people that's got the right to do +what I daren't. I'm going back to that bridge."</p> + +<p>Ameerah looked at her with a puzzled amiability for a few seconds. She +entered into further apologies and explanations in Hindustani. In the +midst of them her narrow eyes faintly gleamed, and she raised a hand.</p> + +<p>"They come to us. It is your Mem Sahib and her people. Hear them."</p> + +<p>She spoke truly. Jane had miscalculated as to her hour, or the time +spent at the dinner-table had been shorter than usual. In fact, Lady +Walderhurst had brought her guests to see the young moon peer through +the lime-trees, as she sometimes did when the evening was warm.</p> + +<p>Jane Cupp fled precipitately. Ameerah disappeared also, but without +precipitation or any sign of embarrassment.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"You look as if you had not slept well, Jane," Lady Walderhurst remarked +in the morning as her hair was being brushed. She had glanced into the +glass and saw that it reflected a pale face above her own, and that the +pale face had red rims to its eyes.</p> + +<p>"I have been a bit troubled by a headache, my lady," Jane answered.</p> + +<p>"I have something like a headache myself." Lady Walderhurst's voice had +not its usual cheerful ring. Her own eyes looked heavy. "I did not rest +well. I have not rested well for a week. That habit of starting from my +sleep feeling that some sound has disturbed me is growing on me. Last +night I dreamed again that someone touched my side. I think I shall be +obliged to send for Sir Samuel Brent."</p> + +<p>"My lady," exclaimed Jane feverishly, "if you would—if you would."</p> + +<p>Lady Walderhurst's look at her was nervous and disturbed.</p> + +<p>"Do you—does your mother think I am not as well as I should be, Jane?" +she said.</p> + +<p>Jane's hands were actually trembling.</p> + +<p>"Oh no, my lady. Oh no! But if Sir Samuel could be sent for, or Lady +Maria Bayne, or—or his lordship—"</p> + +<p>The disturbed expression of Lady Walderhurst's face changed to something +verging on alarm. It was true that she began to be horribly frightened. +She turned upon Jane, pallor creeping over her skin.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she cried, a sound of almost child-like fear and entreaty in her +voice. "I am sure you think I am ill, I am sure you do. What—what is +it?"</p> + +<p>She leaned forward suddenly and rested her forehead on her hands, her +elbows supported by the dressing-table. She was overcome by a shock of +dread.</p> + +<p>"Oh! if anything should go wrong!" in a faint half wail; "if anything +<i>could</i> happen!" She could not bear the mere thought. It would break her +heart. She had been so happy. God had been so good.</p> + +<p>Jane was inwardly convulsed with contrition commingled with anger at her +own blundering folly. Now it was she herself who had "upset" her +ladyship, given her a fright that made her pale and trembling. What did +she not deserve for being such a thoughtless fool. She might have known. +She poured forth respectfully affectionate protestations.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, I beg your pardon, my lady. Indeed, it's only my silliness! +Mother was saying yesterday that she had never seen a lady so well and +in as good spirits. I have no right to be here if I make such mistakes. +Please, my lady—oh! might mother be allowed to step in a minute to +speak to you?"</p> + +<p>Emily's colour came, back gradually. When Jane went to her mother, Mrs. +Cupp almost boxed her ears.</p> + +<p>"That's just the way with girls," she said. "No more sense than a pack +of cats. If you can't keep quiet you'd better just give up. Of course +she'd think you meant they was to be sent for because we was certain she +was a dying woman. Oh my! Jane Cupp, get away!"</p> + +<p>She enjoyed her little interview with Lady Walderhurst greatly. A woman +whose opinion was of value at such a time had the soundest reasons for +enjoying herself. When she returned to her room, she sat and fanned +herself with a pocket handkerchief and dealt judicially with Jane.</p> + +<p>"What we've got to do," she said, "is to think, and think we will. Tell +her things outright we must not, until we've got something sure and +proved. Then we can call on them that's got the power in their hands. We +can't call on them till we can show them a thing no one can't deny. As +to that bridge, it's old enough to be easy managed, and look accidental +if it broke. You say she ain't going there to-day. Well, this very +night, as soon as it's dark enough, you and me will go down and have a +look at it. And what's more, we'll take a man with us. Judd could be +trusted. Worst comes to worst, we're only taking the liberty of making +sure it's safe, because we know it <i>is</i> old and we're over careful."</p> + +<p>As Jane had gathered from her, by careful and apparently incidental +inquiry, Emily had had no intention of visiting her retreat. In the +morning she had, in fact, not felt quite well enough. Her nightmare had +shaken her far more on its second occurring. The stealthy hand had +seemed not merely to touch, but to grip at her side, and she had been +physically unable to rise for some minutes after her awakening. This +experience had its physical and mental effects on her.</p> + +<p>She did not see Hester until luncheon, and after luncheon she found her +to be in one of her strange humours. She was often in these strange +humours at this time. She wore a nervous and strained look, and +frequently seemed to have been crying. She had new lines on her forehead +between the eyebrows. Emily had tried in vain to rouse and cheer her +with sympathetic feminine talk. There were days when she felt that for +some reason Hester did not care to see her.</p> + +<p>She felt it this afternoon, and not being herself at the high-water mark +of cheerfulness, she was conscious of a certain degree of +discouragement. She had liked her so much, she had wanted to be friends +with her and to make her life an easier thing, and yet she appeared +somehow to have failed. It was because she was so far from being a +clever woman. Perhaps she might fail in other things because she was not +clever. Perhaps she was never able to give to people what they wanted, +what they needed. A brilliant woman had such power to gain and hold +love.</p> + +<p>After an hour or so spent in trying to raise the mental temperature of +Mrs. Osborn's beflowered boudoir, she rose and picked up her little +work-basket.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you would take a nap if I left you," she said. "I think I will +stroll down to the lake."</p> + +<p>She quietly stole away, leaving Hester on her cushions.</p> + +<img border="0" src="images/helmet.png" width="187" height="87" class="center" alt="" /> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="Chapter_Seventeen" id="Chapter_Seventeen"></a> +<img border="0" src="images/chapter_17.png" width="475" height="275" class="center" alt="Chapter Seventeen" /> + +<p><span class="dropcapa_crown"><span class="dropcap">A</span></span> few minutes later a knock at the door being replied to by Hester's +curt "Come in!" produced the modest entry of Jane Cupp, who had come to +make a necessary inquiry of her mistress. "Her ladyship is not here; she +has gone out." Jane made an altogether involuntary step forward. Her +face became the colour of her clean white apron.</p> + +<p>"Out!" she gasped.</p> + +<p>Hester turned sharply round.</p> + +<p>"To the lake," she said. "What do you mean by staring in that way?"</p> + +<p>Jane did not tell her what she meant. She incontinently ran from the +room without any shadow of a pretence at a lady's maid's decorum.</p> + +<p>She fled through the rooms, to make a short cut to the door opening on +to the gardens. Through that she darted, and flew across paths and +flowerbeds towards the avenue of limes.</p> + +<p>"She shan't get to the bridge before me," she panted. "She shan't, she +shan't. I won't let her. Oh, if my breath will only hold out!"</p> + +<p>She did not reflect that gardeners would naturally think she had gone +mad. She thought of nothing whatever but the look in Ameerah's downcast +eyes when the servants had talked of the bottomless water,—the eerie, +satisfied, sly look. Of that, and of the rising of the white figure from +the ground last night she thought, and she clutched her neat side as she +ran.</p> + +<p>The Lime Avenue seemed a mile long, and yet when she was running down it +she saw Lady Walderhurst walking slowly under the trees carrying her +touching little basket of sewing in her hand. She was close to the +bridge.</p> + +<p>"My lady! my lady!" she gasped out as soon as <ins class="correction" +title="Transcriber's Note: The original text reads 'dare'">she dared</ins>. She could not +run screaming all the way. "Oh, my lady! if you please!"</p> + +<p>Emily heard her and turned round. Never had she been much more amazed in +her life. Her maid, her well-bred Jane Cupp, who had not drawn an +indecorous breath since assuming her duties, was running after her +calling out to her, waving her hands, her face distorted, her voice +hysteric.</p> + +<p>Emily had been just on the point of stepping on to the bridge, her hand +had been outstretched towards the rail. She drew back a step in alarm +and stood staring. How strange everything seemed to-day. She began to +feel choked and trembling.</p> + +<p>A few seconds and Jane was upon her, clutching at her dress. She had so +lost her breath that she was almost speechless.</p> + +<p>"My lady," she panted. "Don't set foot on it; don't—don't, till we're +sure."</p> + +<p>"On—on what?"</p> + +<p>Then Jane realised how mad she looked, how insane the whole scene was, +and she gave way to her emotions. Partly through physical exhaustion and +breathlessness, and partly through helpless terror, she fell on her +knees.</p> + +<p>"The bridge!" she said. "I don't care what happens to me so that no harm +comes to you. There's things being plotted and planned that looks like +accidents. The bridge would look like an accident if part of it broke. +There's no bottom to the water. They were saying so yesterday, and <i>she</i> +sat listening. I found her here last night."</p> + +<p>"She! Her!" Emily felt as if she was passing through another nightmare.</p> + +<p>"Ameerah," wailed poor Jane. "White ones have no chance against black. +Oh, my lady!" her sense of the possibility that she might be making a +fool of herself after all was nearly killing her. "I believe she would +drive you to your death if she could do it, think what you will of me."</p> + +<p>The little basket of needlework shook in Lady Walderhurst's hand. She +swallowed hard, and without warning sat down on the roots of a fallen +tree, her cheeks blanching slowly.</p> + +<p>"Oh Jane!" she said in simple woe and bewilderment. "I don't understand +any of it. How could—how <i>could</i> they want to hurt me!" Her innocence +was so fatuous that she thought that because she had been kind to them +they could not hate or wish to injure her.</p> + +<p>But something for the first time made her begin to quail. She sat, and +tried to recover herself. She put out a shaking hand to the basket of +sewing. She could scarcely see it, because suddenly tears had filled her +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Bring one of the men here," she said, after a few moments. "Tell him +that I am a little uncertain about the safety of the bridge."</p> + +<p>She sat quite still while Jane was absent in search of the man. She held +her basket on her knee, her hand resting on it. Her kindly, slow-working +mind was wakening to strange thoughts. To her they seemed inhuman and +uncanny. Was it because good, faithful, ignorant Jane had been rather +nervous about Ameerah that she herself had of late got into a habit of +feeling as if the Ayah was watching and following her. She had been +startled more than once by finding her near when she had not been aware +of her presence. She had, of course, heard Hester say that native +servants often startled one by their silent, stealthy-seeming ways. But +the woman's eyes had frightened her. And she had heard the story about +the village girl.</p> + +<p>She sat, and thought, and thought. Her eyes were fixed upon the +moss-covered ground, and her breath came quickly and irregularly several +times.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what to do," she said. "I am sure—if it is true—I don't +know what to do."</p> + +<p>The under-gardener's heavy step and Jane's lighter one roused her. She +lifted her eyes to watch the pair as they came. He was a big, young man +with a simple rustic face and big shoulders and hands.</p> + +<p>"The bridge is so slight and old," she said to him, "that it has just +occurred to me that it might not be quite safe. Examine it carefully to +make sure."</p> + +<p>The young man touched his forehead and began to look the supports over. +Jane watched him with bated breath when he rose to his feet.</p> + +<p>"They're all right on this side, my lady," he said. "I shall have to get +in the boat to make sure of them that rest on the island."</p> + +<p>He stamped upon the end nearest and it remained firm.</p> + +<p>"Look at the railing well," said Lady Walderhurst. "I often stand and +lean on it and—and watch the sunset."</p> + +<p>She faltered at this point, because she had suddenly remembered that +this was a habit of hers, and that she had often spoken of it to the +Osborns. There was a point on the bridge at which, through a gap in the +trees, a beautiful sunset was always particularly beautiful. It was the +right-hand rail facing these special trees she rested on when she +watched the evening sky.</p> + +<p>The big, young gardener looked at the left-hand rail and shook it with +his strong hands.</p> + +<p>"That's safe enough," he said to Jane.</p> + +<p>"Try the other," said Jane.</p> + +<p>He tried the other. Something had happened to it. It broke in his big +grasp. His sunburnt skin changed colour by at least three shades.</p> + +<p>"Lord A'mighty!" Jane heard him gasp under his breath. He touched his +cap and looked blankly at Lady Walderhurst. Jane's heart seemed to +herself to roll over. She scarcely dared look at her mistress, but when +she took courage to do so, she found her so white that she hurried to +her side.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Jane," she said rather faintly. "The sky is so lovely this +afternoon that I meant to stop and look at it. I should have fallen into +the water, which they say has no bottom. No one would have seen or heard +me if you had not come."</p> + +<p>She caught Jane's hand and held it hard. Her eyes wandered over the +avenue of big trees, which no one but herself came near at this hour. It +would have been so lonely, so lonely!</p> + +<p>The gardener went away, still looking less ruddy than he had looked when +he arrived on the spot. Lady Walderhurst rose from her seat on the mossy +tree-trunk. She rose quite slowly.</p> + +<p>"Don't speak to me yet, Jane," she said. And with Jane following her at +a respectful distance, she returned to the house and went to her room to +lie down.</p> + +<p>There was nothing to prove that the whole thing was not mere chance, +mere chance. It was this which turned her cold. It was all impossible. +The little bridge had been entirely unused for so long a time, it had +been so slight a structure from the first; it was old, and she +remembered now that Walderhurst had once said that it must be examined +and strengthened if it was to be used. She had leaned upon the rail +often lately; one evening she had wondered if it seemed quite as steady +as usual. What could she say, whom could she accuse, because a piece of +rotten wood had given away.</p> + +<p>She started on her pillow. It was a piece of rotten wood which had +fallen from the balustrade upon the stairs, to be seen and picked up by +Jane just before she would have passed down on her way to dinner. And +yet, what would she appear to her husband, to Lady Maria, to anyone in +the decorous world, if she told them that she believed that in a +dignified English household, an English gentleman, even a deposed heir +presumptive, was working out a subtle plot against her such as might +adorn a melodrama? She held her head in her hands as her mind depicted +to her Lord Walderhurst's countenance, Lady Maria's dubious, amused +smile.</p> + +<p>"She would think I was hysterical," she cried, under her breath. "He +would think I was vulgar and stupid, that I was a fussy woman with +foolish ideas, which made him ridiculous. Captain Osborn is of his +family. I should be accusing him of being a criminal. And yet I might +have been in the bottomless pond, in the bottomless pond, and no one +would have known."</p> + +<p>If it all had not seemed so incredible to her, if she could have felt +certain herself, she would not have been overwhelmed with this sense of +being baffled, bewildered, lost.</p> + +<p>The Ayah who so loved Hester might hate her rival. A jealous native +woman might be capable of playing stealthy tricks, which, to her strange +mind, might seem to serve a proper end. Captain Osborn might not know. +She breathed again as this thought came to her. He could not know; it +would be too insane, too dangerous, too wicked.</p> + +<p>And yet, if she had been flung headlong down the staircase, if the fall +had killed her, where would have been the danger for the man who would +only have deplored a fatal accident. If she had leaned upon the rail and +fallen into the black depths of water below, what could have been blamed +but a piece of rotten wood. She touched her forehead with her +handkerchief because it felt cold and damp. There was no way out. Her +teeth chattered.</p> + +<p>"They may be as innocent as I am. And they may be murderers in their +hearts. I can prove nothing, I can <ins class="correction" +title="Transcriber's Note: The original text has a close quote after the period.">prevent nothing.</ins> Oh! <i>do</i> come home."</p> + +<p>There was but one thought which remained clear in her mind. She must +keep herself safe—she must keep herself safe. In the anguish of her +trouble she confessed, by putting it into words, a thing which she had +not confessed before, and even as she spoke she did not realise that her +words contained confession.</p> + +<p>"If I were to die now," she said with a touching gravity, "he would care +very much."</p> + +<p>A few moments later she said, "It does not matter what happens to me, +how ridiculous or vulgar or foolish I seem, if I can keep myself +safe—until after. I will write to him now and ask him to try to come +back."</p> + +<p>It was the letter she wrote after this decision which Osborn saw among +others awaiting postal, and which he stopped to examine.</p> + +<img border="0" src="images/roses.png" width="187" height="60" class="center" alt="" /> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="Chapter_Eighteen" id="Chapter_Eighteen"></a> +<img border="0" src="images/chapter_18.png" width="475" height="275" class="center" alt="Chapter Eighteen" /> + + +<p><span class="dropcaph"><span class="dropcap">H</span></span>ester sat at the open window of her boudoir in the dark. She had +herself put out the wax candles, because she wanted to feel herself +surrounded by the soft blackness. She had sat through the dinner and +heard her husband's anxious inquiries about the rotten handrail, and had +watched his disturbed face and Emily's pale one. She herself had said +but little, and had been glad when the time came that she could decently +excuse herself and come away.</p> + +<p>As she sat in the darkness and felt the night breath of the flowers in +the garden, she was thinking of all the murderers she had ever heard of. +She was reflecting that some of them had been quite respectable people, +and that all of them must have lived through a period in which they +gradually changed from respectable people to persons in whose brains a +thought had worked which once they would have believed impossible to +them, which they might have scouted the idea of their giving room to. +She was sure the change must come about slowly. At first it would seem +too mad and ridiculous, a sort of angry joke. Then the angry joke would +return again and again, until at last they let it stay and did not laugh +at it, but thought it over. Such things always happened because some one +wanted, or did not want, something very much, something it drove them +mad to think of being forced to live without, or with. Men who hated a +woman and could not rid themselves of her, who hated the sight of her +face, her eyes, her hair, the sound of her voice and step, and were +rendered insane by her nearness and the thought that they never could be +free from any of these things, had before now, commonplace or +comparatively agreeable men, by degrees reached the point where a knife +or a shot or a heavy blow seemed not only possible but inevitable. +People who had been ill-treated, people who had faced horrors through +want and desire, had reached the moment in which they took by force what +Fate would not grant them. Her brain so whirled that she wondered if she +was not a little delirious as she sat in the stillness thinking such +strange things.</p> + +<p>For weeks she had been living under a strain so intense that her +feelings had seemed to cease to have any connection with what was +normal.</p> + +<p>She had known too much; and yet she had been certain of nothing at all.</p> + +<p>But she and Alec were like the people who began with a bad joke, and +then were driven and driven. It was impossible not to think of what +might come, and of what might be lost for ever. If the rail had not been +tried this afternoon, if big, foolish Emily Walderhurst had been lying +peacefully among the weeds to-night!</p> + +<p>"The end comes to everyone," she said. "It would have been all over in a +few minutes. They say it isn't really painful."</p> + +<p>Her lips quivered, and she pressed her hands tightly between her knees.</p> + +<p>"That's a murderer's thought," she muttered querulously. "And yet I +wasn't a bad girl to begin with."</p> + +<p>She began to see things. The chief thing was a sort of vision of how +Emily would have looked lying in the depths of the water among the +weeds. Her brown hair would have broken loose, and perhaps tangled +itself over her white face. Would her eyes be open and glazed, or half +shut? And her childish smile, the smile that looked so odd on the face +of a full-grown woman, would it have been fixed and seemed to confront +the world of life with a meek question as to what she had done to +people—why she had been drowned? Hester felt sure that was what her +helpless stillness would have expressed.</p> + +<p>How happy the woman had been! To see her go about with her unconsciously +joyous eyes had sometimes been maddening. And yet, poor thing! why had +she not the right to be happy? She was always trying to please people +and help them. She was so good that she was almost silly. The day she +had brought the little things from London to The Kennel Farm, Hester +remembered that, despite her own morbid resentment, she had ended by +kissing her with repentant tears. She heard again, in the midst of her +delirious thoughts, the nice, prosaic emotion of her voice as she said:</p> + +<p>"<i>Don't</i> thank me—don't. Just let us <i>enjoy</i> ourselves."</p> + +<p>And she might have been lying among the long, thick weeds of the pond. +And it would not have been the accident it would have appeared to be. Of +that she felt sure. Brought face to face with this definiteness of +situation, she began to shudder.</p> + +<p>She went out into the night feeling that she wanted air. She was not +strong enough to stand the realisation that she had become part of a web +into which she had not meant to be knitted. No; she had had her +passionate and desperate moments, but she had not meant things like +this. She had almost hoped that disaster might befall, she had almost +thought it possible that she would do nothing to prevent it—almost. But +some things were too bad.</p> + +<p>She felt small and young and hopelessly evil as she walked in the dark +along a grass path to a seat under a tree. The very stillness of the +night was a horror to her, especially when once an owl called, and again +a dreaming bird cried in its nest.</p> + +<p>She sat under the tree in the dark for at least an hour. The thick +shadow of the drooping branches hid her in actual blackness and +seclusion.</p> + +<p>She said to herself later that some one of the occult powers she +believed in had made her go out and sit in this particular spot, because +there was a thing which was not to be, and she herself must come +between.</p> + +<p>When she at last rose it was with panting breath. She stole back to her +room, and lighted with an unsteady hand a bedroom candle, whose flame +flickered upon a distorted, little dark face. For as she had sat under +the tree she had, after a while, heard whispering begin quite near her; +had caught, even in the darkness, a gleam of white, and had therefore +deliberately sat and listened.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>There could be, to the purely normal geniality of Emily Walderhurst's +nature, no greater relief than the recognition that a cloud had passed +from the mood of another.</p> + +<p>When Hester appeared the next morning at the breakfast-table, she had +emerged from her humour of the day before and was almost affectionate in +her amiability. The meal at an end, she walked with Emily in the garden.</p> + +<p>She had never shown such interest in what pertained to her as she +revealed this morning. Something she had always before lacked Emily +recognised in her for the first time,—a desire to ask friendly +questions, to verge on the confidential. They talked long and without +reserve. And how pretty it was of the girl, Emily thought, to care so +much about her health and her spirits, to be so interested in the +details of her every-day life, even in the simple matter of the +preparation and serving of her food, as if the merest trifle was of +consequence. It had been unfair, too, to fancy that she felt no interest +in Walderhurst's absence and return. She had noticed everything closely, +and actually thought he ought to come back at once.</p> + +<p>"Send for him," she said quite suddenly; "send for him now."</p> + +<p>There was an eagerness expressed in the dark thinness of her face which +moved Emily.</p> + +<p>"It is dear of you to care so much, Hester," she said. "I didn't know +you thought it mattered."</p> + +<p>"He must come," said Hester. "That's all. Send for him."</p> + +<p>"I wrote a letter yesterday," was Lady Walderhurst's meek rejoinder. "I +got nervous."</p> + +<p>"So did I get nervous," said Hester; "so did I."</p> + +<p>That she was disturbed Emily could see. The little laugh she ended her +words with had an excited ring in it.</p> + +<p>During the Osborns' stay at Palstrey the two women had naturally seen a +good deal of each other, but for the next two days they were scarcely +separated at all. Emily, feeling merely cheered and supported by the +fact that Hester made herself so excellent a companion, was not aware of +two or three things. One was that Mrs. Osborn did not lose sight of her +unless at such times as she was in the hands of Jane Cupp.</p> + +<p>"I may as well make a clean breast of it," the young woman said. "I have +a sense of responsibility about you that I haven't liked to speak of +before. It's half hysterical, I suppose, but it has got the better of +me."</p> + +<p>"You feel responsible for <i>me</i>!" exclaimed Emily, with wondering eyes.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do," she almost snapped. "You represent so much. Walderhurst +ought to be here. I'm not fit to take care of you."</p> + +<p>"I ought to be taking care of you," said Emily, with gentle gravity. "I +am the older and stronger. You are not nearly so well as I am."</p> + +<p>Hester startled her by bursting into tears.</p> + +<p>"Then do as I tell you," she said. "Don't go anywhere alone. Take Jane +Cupp with you. You have nearly had two accidents. Make Jane sleep in +your dressing-room."</p> + +<p>Emily felt a dreary chill creep over her. That which she had felt in the +air when she had slowly turned an amazed face upon Jane in the Lime +Avenue, that sense of the strangeness of things again closed her in.</p> + +<p>"I will do as you wish," she answered.</p> + +<p>But before the next day closed all was made plain to her, all the +awfulness, all the cruel, inhuman truth of things which seemed to lose +their possibility in the exaggeration of proportion which made their +incongruousness almost grotesque.</p> + +<p>The very prettiness of the flowered boudoir, the very softness of the +peace in the velvet spread of garden before the windows, made it even +more unreal.</p> + +<p>That day, the second one, Emily had begun to note the new thing. Hester +was watching her, Hester was keeping guard. And as she realised this, +the sense of the abnormalness of things grew, and fear grew with it. She +began to feel as if a wall were rising around her, built by unseen +hands.</p> + +<p>The afternoon, an afternoon of deeply golden sun, they had spent +together. They had read and talked. Hester had said most. She had told +stories of India,—curious, vivid, interesting stories, which seemed to +excite her.</p> + +<p>At the time when the sunlight took its deepest gold the tea-tray was +brought in. Hester had left the room a short time before the footman +appeared with it, carrying it with the air of disproportionate solemnity +with which certain male domestics are able to surround the smallest +service. The tea had been frequently served in Hester's boudoir of late. +During the last week, however, Lady Walderhurst's share of the meal had +been a glass of milk. She had chosen to take it because Mrs. Cupp had +suggested that tea was "nervous." Emily sat down at the table and filled +a cup for Hester. She knew she would return in a few moments, so set the +cup before Mrs. Osborn's place and waited. She heard the young woman's +footsteps outside, and as the door opened she lifted the glass of milk +to her lips.</p> + +<p>She was afterwards absolutely unable to describe to herself clearly what +happened the next moment. In fact, it was the next moment that she saw +Hester spring towards her, and the glass of milk had been knocked from +her hand and rolled, emptying itself, upon the floor. Mrs. Osborn stood +before her, clenching and unclenching her hands.</p> + +<p>"Have you drunk any of it?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>"No," Emily answered. "I have not."</p> + +<p>Hester Osborn dropped into a chair and leaned forward, covering her face +with her hands. She looked like a woman on the verge of an outbreak of +hysteria, only to be held in check by a frenzied effort.</p> + +<p>Lady Walderhurst, quite slowly, turned the colour of the milk itself. +But she did nothing but sit still and gaze at Hester.</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute." The girl was trying to recover her breath. "Wait till I +can hold myself still. I am going to tell you now. I am going to tell +you."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Emily answered faintly.</p> + +<p>It seemed to her that she waited twenty minutes before another word was +spoken, that she sat quite that long looking at the thin hands which +seemed to clutch the hidden face. This was a mistake arising from the +intensity of the strain upon her nerves. It was scarcely five minutes +before Mrs. Osborn lowered her hands and laid them, pressed tightly palm +to palm, between her knees.</p> + +<p>She spoke in a low voice, such a voice as a listener outside could not +have heard.</p> + +<p>"Do you know," she demanded, "what you represent to us—to me and to my +husband—as you sit there?"</p> + +<p>Emily shook her head. The movement of disclaimer was easier than speech. +She felt a sort of exhaustion.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe you do," said Hester. "You don't seem to realise +anything. Perhaps it's because you are so innocent, perhaps it's because +you are so foolish. You represent the thing that we have the right to +<i>hate</i> most on earth."</p> + +<p>"Do <i>you</i> hate me?" asked Emily, trying to adjust herself mentally to +the mad extraordinariness of the situation, and at the same time +scarcely understanding why she asked her question.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes I do. When I do not I wonder at myself." The girl paused a +second, looked down, as if questioningly, at the carpet, and then, +lifting her eyes again, went on in a dragging, half bewildered voice: +"When I do <i>not</i>, I actually believe it is because we are both—women +together. Before, it was different."</p> + +<p>The look which Walderhurst had compared to "that of some nice animal in +the Zoo" came into Emily's eyes as two honest drops fell from them.</p> + +<p>"Would <i>you</i> hurt me?" she faltered. "Could <i>you</i> let other people hurt +me?"</p> + +<p>Hester leaned further forward in her chair, widening upon her such +hysterically insistent, terrible young eyes as made her shudder.</p> + +<p>"Don't you <i>see</i>?" she cried. "<i>Can't</i> you see? But for <i>you</i> my son +would be what Walderhurst is—my son, not yours."</p> + +<p>"I understand," said Emily. "I understand."</p> + +<p>"Listen!" Mrs. Osborn went on through her teeth. "Even for that, there +are things I haven't the nerve to stand. I have thought I could stand +them. But I can't. It does not matter why. I am going to tell you the +truth. You represent too much. You have been too great a temptation. +Nobody meant anything or planned anything at first. It all came by +degrees. To see you smiling and enjoying everything and adoring that +stilted prig of a Walderhurst put ideas into people's heads, and they +grew because every chance fed them. If Walderhurst would come home—"</p> + +<p>Lady Walderhurst put out her hand to a letter which lay on the table.</p> + +<p>"I heard from him this morning," she said. "And he has been sent to the +Hills because he has a little fever. He must be quiet. So you see he +<i>cannot</i> come yet."</p> + +<p>She was shivering, though she was determined to keep still.</p> + +<p>"What was in the milk?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"In the milk there was the Indian root Ameerah gave the village girl. +Last night as I sat under a tree in the dark I heard it talked over. +Only a few native women know it."</p> + +<p>There was a singular gravity in the words poor Lady Walderhurst spoke in +reply.</p> + +<p>"That," she said, "would have been the cruelest thing of all."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Osborn got up and came close to her.</p> + +<p>"If you had gone out on Faustine," she said, "you would have met with +<i>an accident</i>. It might or might not have killed you. But it would have +been an accident. If you had gone downstairs before Jane Cupp saw the +bit of broken balustrade you might have been killed—by accident again. +If you had leaned upon the rail of the bridge you would have been +drowned, and no human being could have been accused or blamed."</p> + +<p>Emily gasped for breath, and lifted her head as if to raise it above the +wall which was being slowly built round her.</p> + +<p>"Nothing will be done which can be proved," said Hester Osborn. "I have +lived among native people, and know. If Ameerah hated me and I could not +get rid of her I should die, and it would all seem quite natural."</p> + +<p>She bent down and picked up the empty glass from the carpet.</p> + +<p>"It is a good thing it did not break," she said, as she put it on the +tray. "Ameerah will think you drank the milk and that nothing will hurt +you. You escape them always. She will be frightened."</p> + +<p>As she said it she began to cry a little, like a child.</p> + +<p>"Nothing will save <i>me</i>," she said. "I shall have to go back, I shall +have to go back!"</p> + +<p>"No, no!" cried Emily.</p> + +<p>The girl swept away her tears with the back of a clenched hand.</p> + +<p>"At first, when I hated you," she was even petulant and plaintively +resentful, "I thought I could let it go on. I watched, and watched, and +bore it. But the strain was too great. I broke down. I think I broke +down one night, when something began to beat like a pulse against my +side."</p> + +<p>Emily got up and stood before her. She looked perhaps rather as she had +looked when she rose and stood before the Marquis of Walderhurst on a +memorable occasion, the afternoon on the moor. She felt almost quiet, +and safe.</p> + +<p>"What must I do?" she asked, as if she was speaking to a friend. "I am +afraid. Tell me."</p> + +<p>Little Mrs. Osborn stood still and stared at her. The most incongruous +thought came to her mind. She found herself, at this weird moment, +observing how well the woman held her stupid head, how finely it was set +on her shoulders, and that in a modern Royal Academy way she was rather +like the Venus of Milo. It is quite out of place to think such things at +such a time. But she found herself confronted with them.</p> + +<p>"Go away," she answered. "It is all like a thing in a play, but I know +what I am talking about. Say you are ordered abroad. Be cool and +matter-of-fact. Simply go and hide yourself somewhere, and call your +husband home as soon as he can travel."</p> + +<p>Emily Walderhurst passed her hand over her forehead.</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> like something in a play," she said, with a baffled, wondering +face. "It isn't even respectable."</p> + +<p>Hester began to laugh.</p> + +<p>"No, it isn't even respectable," she cried. And her laughter was just in +time. The door opened and Alec Osborn came in.</p> + +<p>"What isn't respectable?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Something I have been telling Emily," she answered, laughing even a +trifle wildly. "You are too young to hear such things. You must be kept +respectable at any cost."</p> + +<p>He grinned, but faintly scowled at the same time.</p> + +<p>"You've upset something," he remarked, looking at the carpet.</p> + +<p>"I have, indeed," said Hester. "A cup of tea which was half milk. It +will leave a grease spot on the carpet. That won't be respectable."</p> + +<p>When she had tumbled about among native servants as a child, she had +learned to lie quickly, and she was very ready of resource.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="Chapter_Nineteen" id="Chapter_Nineteen"></a> +<img border="0" src="images/chapter_19.png" width="475" height="275" class="center" alt="Chapter Nineteen" /> + + +<p><span class="dropcapa_face"><span class="dropcap">A</span></span>s she heard the brougham draw up in the wet street before the door, +Mrs. Warren allowed her book to fall closed upon her lap, and her +attractive face awakened to an expression of agreeable expectation, in +itself denoting the existence of interesting and desirable qualities in +the husband at the moment inserting his latch-key in the front door +preparatory to mounting the stairs and joining her. The man who, after +twenty-five years of marriage, can call, by his return to her side, this +expression to the countenance of an intelligent woman is, without +question or argument, an individual whose life and occupations are as +interesting as his character and points of view.</p> + +<p>Dr. Warren was of the mental build of the man whose life would be +interesting and full of outlook if it were spent on a desert island or +in the Bastille. He possessed the temperament which annexes incident and +adventure, and the perceptiveness of imagination which turns a light +upon the merest fragment of event. As a man whose days were filled with +the work attendant upon the exercise of a profession from which can be +withheld few secrets, and to which most mysteries explain themselves, +his brain was the recording machine of impressions which might have +stimulated to vividness of imagination a man duller than himself, and +roused to feeling one of far less warm emotions.</p> + +<p>He came into the room smiling. He was a man of fifty, of strong build, +and masculine. He had good shoulders and good colour, and the eyes, +nose, and chin of a man it would be a stupid thing to attempt to deal +with in a blackguardly manner. He sat down in his chair by the fire and +began to chat, as was his habit before he and his wife parted to dress +for dinner. When he was out during the day he often looked forward to +these chats, and made notes of things he would like to tell his Mary. +During her day, which was given to feminine duties and pleasures, she +frequently did the same thing. Between seven and eight in the evening +they had delightful conversational opportunities. He picked up her book +and glanced it over, he asked her a few questions and answered a few; +but she saw it was with a somewhat preoccupied manner. She knew a +certain remote look in his eye, and she waited to see him get up from +his chair and begin to walk to and fro, with his hands in his pockets +and his head thrown back. When, after having done this, he began in +addition to whistle softly and draw his eyebrows together, she broke in +upon him in the manner of merely following an established custom.</p> + +<p>"I am perfectly sure," was her remark, "that you have come upon one of +the Extraordinary Cases."</p> + +<p>The last two words were spoken as with inverted commas. Of many deep +interests he added to her existence, the Extraordinary Cases were among +the most absorbing. He had begun to discuss them with her during the +first year of their married life. Accident had thrown one of them into +her immediate personal experience, and her clear-headed comprehension +and sympathy in summing up singular evidence had been of such value to +him that he had turned to her in the occurrence of others for the aid +straightforward, mutual logic could give. She had learned to await the +Extraordinary Case with something like eagerness. Sometimes, it was +true, its incidents were painful; but invariably they were absorbing in +their interest, and occasionally illuminating beyond description. Of +names and persons it was not necessary she should hear anything—the +drama, the ethics, were enough. With an absolute respect for his +professional reserves, she asked no questions he could not reply to +freely, and avoided even the innocent following of clues. The +Extraordinary Case was always quite enough as it stood. When she saw the +remotely speculative look in his eye, she suspected one, when he left +his chair and paced the floor with that little air of restlessness, and +ended with unconscious whistling which was scarcely louder than a +breath, she felt that evidence enough had accumulated for her.</p> + +<p>He stopped and turned round.</p> + +<p>"My good Mary," he owned at once, "its extraordinariness consists in its +baffling me by being so perfectly ordinary."</p> + +<p>"Well, at least that is not frequent. What is its nature? Is it awful? +Is it sad? Is it eccentric? Is it mad or sane, criminal or domestic?"</p> + +<p>"It is nothing but suggestive, and that it suggests mystery to me makes +me feel as if I myself, instead of a serious practitioner, am a +professional detective."</p> + +<p>"Is it a case in which you might need help?"</p> + +<p>"It is a case in which I am impelled to give help, if it proves that it +is necessary. She is such an exceedingly nice woman."</p> + +<p>"Good, bad, or indifferent?"</p> + +<p>"Of a goodness, I should say—of a goodness which might prevent the +brain acting in the manner in which a brutal world requires at present +that the human brain should act in self-defence. Of a goodness which may +possibly have betrayed her into the most pathetic trouble."</p> + +<p>"Of the kind—?" was Mrs. Warren's suggestion.</p> + +<p>"Of that kind," with a troubled look; "but she is a married woman."</p> + +<p>"She <i>says</i> she is a married woman."</p> + +<p>"No. She does not say so, but she looks it. That's the chief feature of +the case. Any woman bearing more obviously the stamp of respectable +British matrimony than this one does, it has not fallen to me to look +upon."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Warren's expression was <i>intriguée</i> in the extreme. There was a +freshness in this, at least.</p> + +<p>"But if she bears the stamp as well as the name—! Do tell me all it is +possible to tell. Come and sit down, Harold."</p> + +<p>He sat down and entered into details.</p> + +<p>"I was called to a lady who, though not ill, seemed fatigued from a +hurried journey and, as it seemed to me, the effects of anxiety and +repressed excitement. I found her in a third-class lodging-house in a +third-class street. It was a house which had the air of a place hastily +made inhabitable for some special reason. There were evidences that +money had been spent, but that there had been no time to arrange things. +I have seen something of the kind before, and when I was handed into my +patient's sitting-room, thought I knew the type I should find. It is +always more or less the same,—a girl or a very young woman, pretty and +refined and frightened, or pretty and vulgar and 'carrying it off' with +transparent pretences and airs and graces. Anything more remote from +what I expected you absolutely cannot conceive."</p> + +<p>"Not young and pretty?"</p> + +<p>"About thirty-five or six. A fresh, finely built woman with eyes as +candid as a six-year-old girl's. Quite unexplanatory and with the best +possible manner, only sweetly anxious about her health. Her confidence +in my advice and the earnestness of her desire to obey my least +instructions were moving. Ten minutes' conversation with her revealed to +me depths of long-secreted romance in my nature. I mentally began to +swear fealty to her."</p> + +<p>"Did she tell you that her husband was away?"</p> + +<p>"What specially struck me was that it did not occur to her that her +husband required stating, which was ingenuously impressive. She did not +explain her mother or her uncles, why her husband? Her mental attitude +had a translucent clearness. She wanted a medical man to take charge of +her, and if she had been an amiable, un-brilliant lady who was a member +of the royal house, she would have conversed with me exactly as she +did."</p> + +<p>"She was so respectable?"</p> + +<p>"She was even a little Mid-Victorian, dear Mary; a sort of clean, +healthy, Mid-Victorian angel."</p> + +<p>"There's an incongruousness in the figure in connection with being +obviously in hiding in a lodging-house street." And Mrs. Warren gave +herself to reflection.</p> + +<p>"I cannot make it as incongruous as she was. I have not told you all. I +have saved to the last the feature which marked her most definitely as +an Extraordinary Case. I suppose one does that sort of thing from a +sense of drama."</p> + +<p>"What else?" inquired Mrs. Warren, roused from her speculation.</p> + +<p>"What respectable conclusion <i>could</i> one deduce from the fact that a +letter lay on the table near her, sealed with an imposing coat of arms. +One's eye having accidentally fallen on it, one could, of course, only +avoid glancing at it again, so I recognised 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."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Warren began to resign herself.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"That might all be true," he admitted promptly. "It <i>would</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"They're not usually like that," Mrs. Warren remarked.</p> + +<p>"I have not found them so," he replied.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps she believes the man will marry her."</p> + +<p>There was odd unexpectedness in the manner in which Dr. Warren suddenly +began to laugh.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Then," Mrs. Warren answered, "it is the most Extraordinary Case we have +had yet."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<img border="0" src="images/swag.png" width="187" height="70" class="center" alt="" /> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="Chapter_Twenty" id="Chapter_Twenty"></a> +<img border="0" src="images/chapter_20.png" width="475" height="275" class="center" alt="Chapter Twenty" /> + + +<p><span class="dropcapl_ribbons"><span class="dropcap">L</span></span>ady 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.</p> + +<p>"Has she heard that he is coming back?" Captain Osborn asked his wife.</p> + +<p>"She has written to ask him to come."</p> + +<p>Osborn grinned.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What German baths does she intend going to?" Alec Osborn inquired.</p> + +<p>Hester consulted the letter with a manner denoting but languid interest.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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—!</p> + +<p>"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 good-natured. It doesn't +cost her enough to constitute a claim."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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, and +ugly frilled pincushions looked so unmelodramatically normal and safe.</p> + +<p>"It seems so home-like," she said; adding courageously, "it is a very +comfortable place, really."</p> + +<p>"We can make it much more cheerful, my lady," Jane said, with grateful +appreciation. "And the relief makes it like Paradise." She was leaving +the room and stopped at the door. "There's not a person, black or white, +can get across the door-mat, past mother and me, until his lordship +comes," she allowed herself the privilege of adding.</p> + +<p>Emily felt a little nervous when she pictured to herself Lord +Walderhurst crossing the door-mat of a house in Mortimer Street in +search of his Marchioness. She had not yet had time to tell him the +story of the episode of the glass of milk and Hester Osborn's sudden +outburst. Every moment had been given to carefully managed arrangement +for the journey which was to seem so natural. Hester's cleverness had +suggested every step and had supported her throughout. But for Hester +she was afraid she might have betrayed herself. There had been no time +for writing. But when James received her letter (of late she had more +than once thought of him as "James"), he would know the one thing that +was important. And she had asked him to come to her. She had apologised +for suggesting any alteration of his plans, but she had really asked him +to come to her.</p> + +<p>"I think he will come," she said to herself. "I do think he will. I +shall be so glad. Perhaps I have not been sensible, perhaps I have not +done the best thing, but if I keep myself safe until he comes back, that +really seems what is most important."</p> + +<p>Two or three days in the familiar rooms, attended only by the two +friendly creatures she knew so well, seemed to restore the balance of +life for her. Existence became comfortable and prosaic again. The best +bedroom and the room in which she spent her days were made quite +cheerful through Jane's enterprise and memories of the appointments of +Palstrey. Jane brought her tea in the morning, Mrs. Cupp presided over +the kitchen. The agreeable doctor, whose reputation they had heard so +much of, came and went, leaving his patient feeling that she might +establish a friendship. He looked so clever and so kind.</p> + +<p>She began to smile her childlike smile again. Mrs. Cupp and Jane told +each other in private that if she had not been a married lady, they +would have felt that she was Miss Fox-Seton again. She looked so like +herself, with her fresh colour and her nice, cheerful eyes. And yet to +think of the changes there had been, and what they had gone through!</p> + +<p>People in London know nothing—or everything—of their neighbours. The +people who lived in Mortimer Street were of the hard-worked +lodging-house keeping class, and had too many anxieties connected with +butcher's bills, rent, and taxes, to be able to give much time to their +neighbours. The life in the house which had changed hands had nothing +noticeable about it. It looked from the outside as it had always looked. +The door-steps were kept clean, milk was taken in twice a day, and local +tradesmen's carts left things in the ordinary manner. A doctor +occasionally called to see someone, and the only person who had inquired +about the patient (she was a friendly creature, who met Mrs. Cupp at the +grocer's, and exchanged a few neighbourly words) was told that ladies +who lived in furnished apartments, and had nothing to do, seemed to find +an interest in seeing a doctor about things working-women had no time to +bother about. Mrs. Cupp's view seemed to be that doctor's visits and +medicine bottles furnished entertainment. Mrs. Jameson had "as good a +colour and as good an appetite as you or me," but she was one who +"thought she caught cold easy," and she was "afraid of fresh air."</p> + +<p>Dr. Warren's interest in the Extraordinary Case increased at each visit +he made. He did not see the ruby ring again. When he had left the house +after his first call, Mrs. Cupp had called Lady Walderhurst's attention +to the fact that the ring was on her hand, and could not be considered +compatible with even a first floor front in Mortimer Street. Emily had +been frightened and had removed it.</p> + +<p>"But the thing that upsets me when I hand him in," Jane said to her +mother anxiously in private, "is the way she can't help looking. You +know what I mean, mother,—her nice, free, <i>good</i> look. And we never +<i>could</i> talk to her about it. We should have to let her know that it's +more than likely he thinks she's just what she isn't. It makes me mad to +think of it. But as it had to be, if she only looked a little awkward, +or not such a lady, or a bit uppish and fretful, she would seem so much +more real. And then there's another thing. You know she always <i>did</i> +carry her head well, even when she was nothing but poor Miss Fox-Seton +tramping about shopping with muddy feet. And now, having been a +marchioness till she's got used to it, and knowing that she is one, +gives her an innocent, stately look sometimes. It's a thing she doesn't +know of herself, but I do declare that sometimes as she's sat there +talking just as sweet as could be, I've felt as if I ought to say, 'Oh! +if you please, my lady, if you <i>could</i> look not quite so much as if +you'd got on a tiara.'"</p> + +<p>"Ah!" and Mrs. Cupp shook her head, "but that's what her Maker did for +her. She was born just what she looks, and she looks just what she was +born,—a respectable female."</p> + +<p>Whereby Dr. Warren continued to feel himself baffled.</p> + +<p>"She only goes out for exercise after dark, Mary," he said. "Also in the +course of conversation I have discovered that she believes every word of +the Bible literally, and would be alarmed if one could not accept the +Athanasian Creed. She is rather wounded and puzzled by the curses it +contains, but she feels sure that it would be wrong to question anything +in the Church Service. Her extraordinariness is wholly her +incompatibleness."</p> + +<p>Gradually they had established the friendship Emily had thought +possible. Once or twice Dr. Warren took tea with her. Her unabashed and +accustomed readiness of hospitality was as incompatible with her +circumstances as all the rest. She had the ease of a woman who had +amiably poured out tea for afternoon callers all her life. Women who +were uncertain of themselves were not amiably at ease with small social +amenities. Her ingenuous talk and her fervent italics were an absolute +delight to the man who was studying her. He, too, had noticed the +carriage of her head Jane Cupp had deplored.</p> + +<p>"I should say she was well born," he commented to his wife. "She holds +herself as no common woman could."</p> + +<p>"Ah! I haven't a doubt that she is well born, poor soul."</p> + +<p>"No, not 'poor soul.' No woman who is as happy as she is needs pity. +Since she has had time to rest, she looks radiant."</p> + +<p>In course of time, however, she was less radiant. Most people know +something of waiting for answers to letters written to foreign lands. It +seems impossible to calculate correctly as to what length of time must +elapse before the reply to the letter one sent by the last mail can +reach one. He who waits is always premature in the calculation he makes. +The mail should be due at a certain date, one is so sure. The letter +could be written on such a day and posted at once. But the date +calculated for arrives, passes,—the answer has not come. Who does not +remember?</p> + +<p>Emily Walderhurst had passed through the experience and knew it well. +But previously the letters she had sent had been of less vital +importance. When the replies to them had lingered on their way she had, +it is true, watched eagerly for the postman, and had lived restlessly +between the arrivals of the mails, but she had taught herself +resignation to the inevitable. Now life had altered its aspect and its +significance. She had tried, with the aid of an untried imagination, to +paint to herself the moments in which her husband would read the letter +which told him what she had told. She had wondered if he would start, if +he would look amazed, if his grey-brown eyes would light with pleasure! +Might he not want to see her? Might he not perhaps write at once? She +never could advance farther in her imagined reading of this reply than +the first lines:</p> + +<p>"MY DEAR EMILY,—The unexpected good news your letter contains has given +me the greatest satisfaction. You do not perhaps know how strong my +desire has been—"</p> + +<p>She used to sit and flush with happiness when she reached this point. +She so wished that she was capable of depicting to herself what the rest +would be.</p> + +<p>She calculated with the utmost care the probable date of the epistle's +arrival. She thought she made sure of allowing plenty of time for all +possible delays. The safety of her letters she had managed, with +Hester's aid, to arrange for. They were forwarded to her bankers and +called for. Only the letters from India were of any importance, and they +were not frequent. She told herself that she must be even more than +usually patient this time. When the letter arrived, if he told her he +felt it proper that he should return, no part of the strange experience +she had passed through would be of moment. When she saw his decorous, +well-bred face and heard his correctly modulated voice, all else would +seem like an unnatural dream.</p> + +<p>In her relief at the decent composure of the first floor front in +Mortimer Street the days did not seem at first to pass slowly. But as +the date she had counted on drew near she could not restrain a natural +restlessness. She looked at the clock and walked up and down the room a +good deal. She was also very glad when night came and she could go to +bed. Then she was glad when the morning arrived, because she was a day +nearer to the end.</p> + +<p>On a certain evening Dr. Warren said to his wife, "She is not so well +to-day. When I called I found her looking pale and anxious. When I +commented on the fact and asked how she was, she said that she had had a +disappointment. She had been expecting an important letter by a mail +arriving yesterday, and it had not come. She was evidently in low +spirits."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps she has kept up her spirits before because she believed the +letter would come," Mrs. Warren speculated.</p> + +<p>"She has certainly believed it would come."</p> + +<p>"Do <i>you</i> think it will, Harold?"</p> + +<p>"She thinks it will yet. She was pathetically anxious not to be +impatient. She said she knew there were so many reasons for delay when +people were in foreign countries and very much occupied."</p> + +<p>"There are many reasons, I daresay," said Mrs. Warren with a touch of +bitterness," but they are not usually the ones given to waiting, +desperate women."</p> + +<p>Dr. Warren stood upon the hearthrug and gazed into the fire, knitting +his brows.</p> + +<p>"She wanted to tell or ask me something this afternoon," he said, "but +she was afraid. She looked like a good child in great trouble. I think +she will speak before long."</p> + +<p>She looked more and more like a good child in trouble as time passed. +Mail after mail came in, and she received no letter. She did not +understand, and her fresh colour died away. She spent her time now in +inventing reasons for the non-arrival of her letter. None of them +comprised explanations which could be disparaging in any sense to +Walderhurst. Chiefly she clung to the fact that he had not been well. +Anything could be considered a reason for neglecting letter writing if a +man was not well. If his illness had become serious she would, of +course, have heard from his doctor. She would not allow herself to +contemplate that. But if he was languid and feverish, he might so easily +put off writing from day to day. This was all the more plausible as a +reason, since he had not been a profuse correspondent. He had only +written when he had found he had leisure, with decent irregularity, so +to speak.</p> + +<p>At last, however, on a day when she had felt the strain of waiting +greater than she had courage for, and had counted every moment of the +hour which must elapse before Jane could return from her mission of +inquiry, as she rested on the sofa she heard the girl mount the stairs +with a step whose hastened lightness wakened in her an excited +hopefulness.</p> + +<p>She sat up with brightened face and eager eyes. How foolish she had been +to fret. Now—now everything would be different. Ah! how thankful she +was to God for being so good to her!</p> + +<p>"I think you must have a letter, Jane," she said the moment the door +opened. "I felt it when I heard your footstep."</p> + +<p>Jane was touching in her glow of relief and affection.</p> + +<p>"Yes, my lady, I have, indeed. And they said at the bank that it had +come by a steamer that was delayed by bad weather."</p> + +<p>Emily took the letter. Her hand shook, but it was with pleasure. She +forgot Jane, and actually kissed the envelope before she opened it. It +looked like a beautiful, long letter. It was quite thick.</p> + +<p>But when she had opened it, she saw that the letter itself was not very +long. Several extra sheets of notes or instructions, it did not matter +what, seemed to be enclosed. Her hand shook so that she let them fall on +the floor. She looked so agitated that Jane was afraid to do more than +retire discreetly and stand outside the door.</p> + +<p>In a few minutes she congratulated herself on the wisdom of not having +gone downstairs. She heard a troubled exclamation of wonder, and then a +call for herself.</p> + +<p>"Jane, please, Jane!"</p> + +<p>Lady Walderhurst was still sitting upon the sofa, but she looked pale +and unsteady. The letter was in her hand, which rested weakly in her +lap. It seemed as if she was so bewildered that she felt helpless.</p> + +<p>She spoke in a tired voice.</p> + +<p>"Jane," she said, "I think you will have to get me a glass of wine. I +don't think I am going to faint, but I do feel so—so upset."</p> + +<p>Jane was at her side kneeling by her.</p> + +<p>"Please, my lady, lie down," she begged. "Please do."</p> + +<p>But she did not lie down. She sat trembling and looking at the girl in a +pathetic, puzzled fashion.</p> + +<p>"I don't think," she quavered, "that his lordship can have received my +letter. He can't have received it. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't +say one word—"</p> + +<p>She had been too healthy a woman to be subject to attacks of nerves. She +had never fainted before in her life, and as she spoke she did not at +all understand why Jane seemed to move up and down, and darkness came on +suddenly in the middle of the morning.</p> + +<p>Jane managed by main strength to keep her from falling from the sofa, +and thanked Providence for the power vouchsafed to her. She reached the +bell and rang it violently, and hearing it, Mrs. Cupp came upstairs with +heavy swiftness.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="Chapter_Twenty_one" id="Chapter_Twenty_one"></a> +<img border="0" src="images/chapter_21.png" width="475" height="275" class="center" alt="Chapter Twenty one" /> + +<p><span class="dropcapn"><span class="dropcap">N</span></span>aturally a perceptive and closely reasoning woman, Mrs. Warren's close +intellectual intimacy with her husband had, in giving her the benefit of +intercourse with a wide experience, added greatly to her power of +reasoning by deduction. Warren frequently felt that his talk with her +was something like consultation with a specially clever and sympathetic +professional confrère. Her suggestions or conclusions were invariably +worth consideration. More than once his reflection upon them had led him +to excellent results. She made one night a suggestion with regard to the +Extraordinary Case which struck him as being more than usually astute.</p> + +<p>"Is she an intellectual woman?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>"Not in the least. An unsparingly brilliant person might feel himself +entitled to the right to call her stupid."</p> + +<p>"Is she talkative?"</p> + +<p>"Far from it. One of her charms is the nice respect she seems to feel +for the remarks of others."</p> + +<p>"And she is not excitable?"</p> + +<p>"Rather the reverse. If excitability is liveliness, she is dull."</p> + +<p>"I see," slowly, "you have not yet thought it possible that she +might—well—be under some delusion."</p> + +<p>Warren turned quickly and looked at her.</p> + +<p>"It is wonderfully brilliant of you to have thought of it. A delusion?" +He stood and thought it over.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember," his wife assisted him with, "the complications which +arose from young Mrs. Jerrold's running away, under similar +circumstances, to Scotland and hiding herself in a shepherd's cottage +under the impression that her husband was shadowing her with detectives? +You recollect what a lovable woman she was, and what horror she felt of +the poor fellow."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes. That was an Extraordinary Case too."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Warren warmed with her subject.</p> + +<p>"Here is a woman obviously concealing herself from the world in a +lodging-house, plainly possessing money, owning a huge ruby ring, +receiving documents stamped with imposing seals, taking exercise only by +night, heart-wrung over the non-arrival of letters which are due. Every +detail points to one painful, dubious situation. On the other hand, she +presents to you the manner and aspect of a woman who is absolutely not +dubious, and who is merely anxious on the one point a dubious person +would be indifferent to. Isn't it, then, possible that over-wrought +physical condition may have driven her to the belief that she is hiding +from danger."</p> + +<p>Dr. Warren was evidently following the thought seriously.</p> + +<p>"She said," reflecting, "that all that mattered was that she should be +safe. 'I want to keep safe.' That was it. You are very enlightening, +Mary, always. I will go and see her again to-morrow. But," as the result +of another memory, "how sane she seems!"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>He was thinking of this possible aspect of the matter as he mounted the +staircase of the house in Mortimer Street the next day. The stairway was +of the ordinary lodging-house type, its dinginess somewhat alleviated by +the fact that the Cupps had covered the worn carpet with clean +warm-coloured felting. The yellowish marbled paper on the walls +depressed the mind as one passed it; the indeterminate dun paint had +defied fog for years. The whole house presented only such features as +would encourage its proprietors to trust to the sufficing of infrequent +re-decoration.</p> + +<p>Jane had, however, made efforts in behalf of the drawing-room, in which +her mistress spent her days. She had introduced palliations by degrees +and with an unobtrusiveness which was not likely to attract the +attention of neighbours unaccustomed to lavish delivery by means of +furniture vans. She had brought in a rug or so, and had gradually +replaced objects with such as were more pleasant to live with and more +comfortable to use. Dr. Warren had seen the change wrought, and had +noted evidences that money was not unobtainable. The maid also was a +young woman whose manner towards her mistress was not merely respectful +and well-bred, but suggestive of watchful affection bordering on +reverence. Jane Cupp herself was a certificate of decorum and good +standing. It was not such young women who secluded themselves with +questionable situations. As she laid her hand on the drawing-room door +to open it and announce him, it occurred to Dr. Warren that he would +tell Mary that evening that if Mrs. Jameson had been the heroine of any +unconventional domestic drama it was an unmistakable fact that Jane Cupp +would have "felt it her duty as a young woman to leave this day month, +if you please, ma'am," quite six months ago. And there she was, in a +neat gown and apron,—evidently a fixture because she liked her +place,—her decent young face full of sympathetic interest.</p> + +<p>The day was dull and cold, but the front room was warm and made cheerful +by fire. Mrs. Jameson was sitting at a writing-table. There were letters +before her, and she seemed to have been re-reading them. She did not any +longer bloom with normal health. Her face was a little dragged, and the +first thing he noted in the eyes she lifted to him was that they were +bewildered.</p> + +<p>"She has had a shock," he thought. "Poor woman!"</p> + +<p>He began to talk to her about herself with the kindly perception which +was inseparable from him. He wondered if the time had not come when she +would confide in him. Her shock, whatsoever it had been, had left her in +the position of a woman wholly at a loss to comprehend what had +occurred. He saw this in her ingenuous troubled face. He felt as if she +was asking herself what she should do. It was not unlikely that +presently she would ask him what she should do. He had been asked such +things before by women, but they usually added trying detail accompanied +by sobs, and appealed to his chivalry for impossible aid. Sometimes they +implored him to go to people and use his influence.</p> + +<p>Emily answered all his questions with her usual sweet, good sense. She +was not well. Yesterday she had fainted.</p> + +<p>"Was there any disturbing reason for the faint?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"It was because I was—very much disappointed," she answered, +hesitating. "I had a letter which—It was not what I expected."</p> + +<p>She was thinking desperately. She could understand nothing. It was not +explainable that what she had written did not matter at all, that James +should have made no reply.</p> + +<p>"I was awake all night," she added.</p> + +<p>"That must not go on," he said.</p> + +<p>"I was thinking—and thinking," nervously.</p> + +<p>"I can see that," was his answer.</p> + +<p>Perhaps she ought to have courage to say nothing. It might be safer. But +it was so lonely not to dare to ask anyone's advice, that she was +getting frightened. India was thousands and thousands of miles away, and +letters took so long to come and go. Anxiety might make her ill before +she could receive a reply to a second letter. And perhaps now in her +terror she had put herself into a ridiculous position. How could she +send for Lady Maria to Mortimer Street and explain to her? She realised +also that her ladyship's sense of humour might not be a thing to confide +in safely.</p> + +<p>Warren's strong, amiable personality was good for her. It served to aid +her to normal reasoning. Though she was not aware of the fact, her +fears, her simplicity, and her timorous adoration of her husband had not +allowed her to reason normally in the past. She had been too anxious and +too much afraid.</p> + +<p>Her visitor watched her with great interest and no little curiosity. He +himself saw that her mood was not normal. She did not look as poor Mrs. +Jerrold had looked, but she was not in a normal state.</p> + +<p>He made his visit a long one purposely. Tea was brought up, and he drank +it with her. He wanted to give her time to make up her mind about him. +When at last he rose to go away, she rose also. She looked nervously +undecided, but let him go towards the door.</p> + +<p>Her move forward was curiously sudden.</p> + +<p>"No, no," she said. "Please come back. I—oh!—I really think I ought to +tell you."</p> + +<p>He turned towards her, wishing that Mary were with him. She stood trying +to smile, and looking so entirely nice and well-behaved even in her +agitation.</p> + +<p>"If I were not so puzzled, or if there was <i>anybody</i>—" she said. "If +you could only advise me; I must—I <i>must</i> keep safe."</p> + +<p>"There is something you want to tell me?" he said quietly.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered. "I am so anxious, and I am sure it must be bad for +one to be anxious always. I have not dared to tell anyone. My name is +not Mrs. Jameson, Dr. Warren. I am—I am Lady Walderhurst."</p> + +<p>He barely managed to restrain a start. He was obliged to admit to +himself that he had not thought of anything like this. But Mary had been +right.</p> + +<p>Emily blushed to her ears with embarrassment. He did not believe her.</p> + +<p>"But I <i>am</i> really," she protested. "I <i>really</i> am. I was married last +year. I was Emily Fox-Seton. Perhaps you remember."</p> + +<p>She was not flighty or indignant. Her frank face was only a little more +troubled than it had been before. She looked straight into his eyes +without a doubt of his presently believing her. Good heavens! if—</p> + +<p>She walked to the writing-table and picked up a number of letters. They +were all stamped with the same seal. She brought them to him almost +composedly.</p> + +<p>"I ought to have remembered how strange it would sound," she said in her +amenable voice. "I hope I am not doing wrong in speaking. I hope you +won't mind my troubling you. It seemed as if I <i>couldn't</i> bear it alone +any longer."</p> + +<p>After which she told him her story.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The unadorned straightforwardness of the relation made it an amazing +thing to hear, even more amazing than it would have been made by a more +imaginative handling. Her obvious inability to cope with the unusual and +villainous, combined with her entire willingness to obliterate herself +in any manner in her whole-souled tenderness for the one present object +of her existence, were things a man could not be unmoved by, even though +experience led him to smile at the lack of knowledge of the world which +had left her without practical defence. Her very humbleness and candour +made her a drama in herself.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I was wrong to run away. Perhaps only a silly woman would have +done such a queer, unconventional thing. But I could think of nothing +else so likely to be quite safe, until Lord Walderhurst could advise me. +And when his letter came yesterday, and he did not speak of what I had +said—" Her voice quite failed her.</p> + +<p>"Captain Osborn has detained your letter. Lord Walderhurst has not seen +it."</p> + +<p>Life began to come back to her. She had been so horribly bewildered as +to think at moments that perhaps it might be that a man who was very +much absorbed in affairs—</p> + +<p>"The information you sent him is the most important, and moving, a man +in his position could receive."</p> + +<p>"Do you think so, <i>really</i>?" She lifted her head with new courage and +her colour returned.</p> + +<p>"It is impossible that it should be otherwise. It is, I assure you, +<i>impossible</i>, Lady Walderhurst."</p> + +<p>"I am so thankful," she said devoutly. "I am so <i>thankful</i> that I have +told you."</p> + +<p>Anything more touching and attractive than her full eyes and her +grown-up child's smile he felt he had never seen.</p> + +<img border="0" src="images/roses.png" width="187" height="60" class="center" alt="" /> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="Chapter_Twenty_two" id="Chapter_Twenty_two"></a> +<img border="0" src="images/chapter_22.png" width="475" height="275" class="center" alt="Chapter Twenty two" /> + + + +<p><span class="dropcapt_ribbons"><span class="dropcap">T</span></span>he attack of fever which had seemed to begin lightly for Lord +Walderhurst assumed proportions such as his medical man had not +anticipated. His annoyance at finding his duties interfered with fretted +him greatly. He was not, under the circumstances, a good patient, and, +partly as a result of his state of mind, he began, in the course of a +few weeks, to give his doctors rather serious cause for anxiety. On the +morning following Emily's confession to Dr. Warren she had received a +letter from her husband's physician, notifying her of his new anxieties +in connection with his patient. His lordship required extreme care and +absolute freedom from all excitement. Everything which medical science +and perfect nursing could do would be done. The writer asked Lady +Walderhurst's collaboration with him in his efforts at keeping the +invalid as far as possible in unperturbed spirits. For some time it +seemed probable that letter writing and reading would be out of the +question, but if, when correspondence might be resumed, Lady Walderhurst +would keep in mind the importance of serenity to the convalescent, the +case would have all in its favour. This, combined with expressions of +sympathetic encouragement and assurances that the best might be hoped +for, was the gist of the letter. When Dr. Warren arrived, Emily handed +the epistle to him and watched him as he read it.</p> + +<p>"You see," she said when he looked up, "that I did not speak too soon. +Now I shall have to trust to you for everything. I could <i>never</i> have +borne it <i>all</i> by myself. Could I?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not," thinking it over; "but you are very brave."</p> + +<p>"I don't think I'm brave," thinking it over on her own part, "but it +seemed as if there were things I <i>must</i> do. But now you will advise me."</p> + +<p>She was as biddable as a child, he told his wife afterwards, and that a +woman of her height and carriage should be as biddable as she might have +been at six years old, was an effective thing.</p> + +<p>"She will do anything I tell her, she will go anywhere I advise. I +advise that she shall go to her husband's house in Berkeley Square, and +that together you and I will keep unobtrusive guard over her. All is +quite simple, really. All would have been comparatively simple at the +outset, if she had felt sure enough of her evidence to dare to confide +in some practical person. But she was too uncertain and too much afraid +of scandal, which might annoy her husband. She is deeply in awe of Lord +Walderhurst and deeply in love with him."</p> + +<p>"When one realises how unnecessary qualities and charms seem to be to +the awakening of the tender emotion, it is rather dull, perhaps, to ask +why. Yet one weakly asks it," was Mrs. Warren's summation.</p> + +<p>"And one cannot supply the answer. But the mere devotion itself in this +nice creature is a thing to be respected. She will control even her +anxieties and reveal nothing while she writes her cheerful letters, as +soon as she is allowed to write them."</p> + +<p>"Lord Walderhurst will be told nothing?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing until his recovery is complete. Now that she has made a clean +breast of everything to me and given herself into my hands, I believe +that she finds a sentimental pleasure in the thought of keeping her +secret until he returns. I will confess to you, Mary, that I think that +she has read of and tenderly sympathised with heroines who have done the +like before. She does not pose to herself as a heroine, but she dwells +affectionately on ingenuous mental pictures of what Lord Walderhurst +will say. It is just as well that it should be so. It is better for her +than fretting would be. Experience helped me to gather from the medical +man's letter that his patient is in no condition to be told news of any +kind, good or bad."</p> + +<p>The house in Berkeley Square was reopened. Lady Walderhurst returned to +it, as it was understood below stairs, from a visit to some German +health resort. Mrs. Cupp and Jane returned with her. The wife of her +physician in attendance was with her a great deal. It was most +unfortunate for her ladyship that my lord was detained in India by +illness.</p> + +<p>The great household, having presented opened shutters to the world, went +on in the even tenor of its way. There brooded over it, however, a sort +of hushed dignity of atmosphere. The very housemaids wore an air of +grave discretion. Their labours assumed the proportions of confidential +interested service, in which they felt a private pride. Not one among +them had escaped becoming attached to Lady Walderhurst.</p> + +<p>Away from Palstrey, away from Mortimer Street, Emily began to find +reality in the fact that everything had already become quite simple, +after all. The fine rooms looked so well ordered and decent in a stately +way. Melodramatic plotting ceased to exist as she looked at certain +dignified sofas and impressive candelabra. Such things became even more +impossible than they had become before the convincingness of the first +floor front bedroom in Mortimer Street, She began to give a good deal of +thought to the summer at Mallowe. There was an extraordinary luxury in +living again each day of it, the morning when she had taken the +third-class carriage which provided her with hot, labouring men in +corduroys as companions, that fleeting moment when the tall man with the +square face had passed the carriage and looked straight through her +without seeming to see her at all. She sat and smiled tenderly at the +mere reminiscent thought. And then the glimpse of him as he got into the +high phaeton at the station; and the moment when Lady Maria had +exclaimed "There's Walderhurst," and he had come swinging with his +leisurely step across the lawn. And he had scarcely seemed to see her +then, or notice her really when they met, until the morning he had +joined her as she gathered the roses and had talked to her about Lady +Agatha. But he had actually been noticing her a little even from the +first—he had been thinking about her a little all the time. And how far +she had been from guessing it when she had talked to Lady Agatha, how +pleased she had been the morning of the rose gathering when he had +seemed interested only in Agatha's self! She always liked to recall, +however, the way in which he had asked the few questions about her own +affairs. Her simplicity never wearied of the fascination of the way in +which he had looked at her, standing on the pathway, with that +delightful non-committal fixing of her with the monocle when she had +said:</p> + +<p>"People <i>are</i> kind. You see, I have nothing to give, and I always seem +to be receiving."</p> + +<p>And he had gazed at her quite unmovedly and answered only:</p> + +<p>"What luck!"</p> + +<p>But since then he had mentioned this moment as one of those in which he +had felt that he might want to marry her, because she was so unconscious +of the fact that she gave much more to everybody than she received, that +she had so much to give and was totally unaware of the value of her +gifts.</p> + +<p>"His thoughts of me are so <i>beautiful</i> very often," was her favourite +reflection, "though he always has that composed way of saying things. +What he says seems more <i>valuable</i>, because he is like that."</p> + +<p>In truth, his composed way of saying things it was which seemed to her +incomparable. Even when, without understanding its own longing for a +thing it lacked, her heart had felt itself a little unsustained she had +never ceased to feel the fascination of his entire freedom from any +shadow of interest in the mental attitude of others towards himself. +When he stood and gazed at people through the glass neatly screwed into +his eye, one felt that it was he whose opinion was of importance, not +the other person's. Through sheer chill imperviousness he seemed +entirely detached from the powers of criticism. What people said or +thought of his fixed opinion on a subject was not of the least +consequence, in fact did not exist; the entities of the persons who +cavilled at such opinions themselves ceased to exist, so far as he was +concerned. His was the immovable temperament. He did not snub people: he +cut the cord of mental communication with them and dropped them into +space. Emily thought this firmness and reserved dignity, and quailed +before the thought of erring in such a manner as would cause him to so +send her soul adrift. Her greatest terror during the past months had +been the fear of making him ridiculous, of putting him in some position +which might annoy him by objectionable publicity.</p> + +<p>But now she had no further fears, and could wait in safety and dwell in +peace upon her memories and her hopes. She even began to gain a kind of +courage in her thoughts of him.</p> + +<p>The atmosphere of the Berkeley Square mansion was good for her. She had +never felt so much its mistress before the staff of servants of whose +existence she was the centre, who so plainly served her with careful +pleasure, who considered her least wish or inclination as a royal +command, increased her realisation of her security and power. The +Warrens, who understood the dignity and meaning of mere worldly facts +her nature did not grasp, added subtly to her support. Gradually she +learned to reveal herself in simple talk to Mrs. Warren, who found her, +when so revealed, a case more extraordinary than she had been when +enshrouded in dubious mystery.</p> + +<p>"She is absolutely delicious," Mrs. Warren said to her husband. "That an +adoration such as hers could exist in the nineteenth century is—"</p> + +<p>"Almost degenerate," he laughed.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it is regenerate," reflecting. "Who knows! Nothing earthly, or +heavenly, would induce me to cast a doubt upon it. Seated opposite to a +portrait of her James, I hear her opinions of him, when she is not in +the least aware of what her simplest observation conveys. She does not +know that she is including him when she is talking of other things, that +one sees that while she is too shy to openly use his name much, the very +breath of her life is a reference to him. Her greatest bliss at present +is to go unobtrusively into his special rooms and sit there dwelling +upon his goodness to her."</p> + +<p>In fact Emily spent many a quiet hour in the apartments she had visited +on the day of her farewell to her husband. She was very happy there. Her +soul was uplifted by her gratitude for the peace she had reached. The +reports of Lord Walderhurst's physician were never alarming and +generally of a reassuring nature. But she knew that he must exercise +great caution, and that time must elapse before he could confront his +return voyage. He would come back as soon as was quite safe. And in the +meantime her world held all that she could desire, lacking himself.</p> + +<p>Her emotion expressed itself in her earnest performance of her reverent +daily devotions. She read many chapters of the Bible, and often sat +happily absorbed in the study of her Book of Common Prayer. She found +solace and happiness in such things, and spent her Sunday mornings, +after the ringing of the church bells, quite alone in Walderhurst's +study, following the Service and reading the Collects and Lessons. The +room used to seem so beautifully still, even Berkeley Square wearing its +church-hour aspect suggested devout aloofness from worldly things.</p> + +<p>"I sit at the window and <i>think</i>," she explained to Mrs. Warren. "It is +so nice there."</p> + +<p>She wrote her letters to India in this room. She did not know how far +the new courage in her thoughts of her husband expressed itself in these +letters. When Walderhurst read them, however, he felt a sense of change +in her. Women were sometimes spoken of as "coming out amazingly." He +began to feel that Emily was, in a measure at least, "coming out." +Perhaps her gradually increasing feeling of accustomedness to the change +in her life was doing it for her. She said more in her letters, and said +it in a more interesting way. It was perhaps rather suggestive of the +development of a girl who was on the verge of becoming a delightful sort +of woman.</p> + +<p>Lying upon his back in bed, rendered, it may be, a trifle susceptible by +the weakness of slow convalescence, he found a certain habit growing +upon him—a habit of reading her letters several times, and of thinking +of her as it had not been his nature to think of women; also he slowly +awakened to an interest in the arrival of the English mails. The letters +actually raised his spirits and had an excellent physical effect. His +doctor always found him in good condition after he had heard from his +wife.</p> + +<p>"Your letters, my dear Emily," Walderhurst once wrote, "are a great +pleasure to me. You are to-day exactly as you were at Mallowe,—the +creature of amiable good cheer. Your comfort stimulates me."</p> + +<p>"How <i>dear</i>, how <i>dear</i>?" Emily cried to the silence of the study, and +kissed the letter with impassioned happiness.</p> + +<img border="0" src="images/lady_maria.png" width="180" height="385" class="center" alt="Painting of Lady Maria Bayne" /> +<h4>Lady Maria Bayne</h4> + +<p>The next epistle went even farther. It absolutely contained "things" and +referred to the past which it was her joy to pour libations before in +secret thought. When her eye caught the phrase "the days at Mallowe" in +the middle of a sheet, she was almost frightened at the rush of pleasure +which swept over her. Men who were less aloof from sentimental moods +used such phrases in letters, she had read and heard. It was almost as +if he had said "the dear old days at Mallowe" or "the happy days at +Mallowe," and the rapture of it was as much as she could bear.</p> + +<p>"I cannot help remembering as I lie here," she read in actual letters as +she went on, "of the many thoughts which passed through my mind as I +drove over the heath to pick you up. I had been watching you for days. I +always liked particularly your clear, large eyes. I recall trying to +describe them to myself and finding it difficult. They seemed to me then +to resemble something between the eyes of a very nice boy and the eyes +of a delightful sheep-dog. This may not appear so romantic a comparison +as it really is."</p> + +<p>Emily began most softly and sweetly to cry. Nothing more romantic could +she possibly have imagined.</p> + +<p>"I thought of them in spite of myself as I drove across the moor, and I +could scarcely express to you how angry I was at Maria. It seemed to me +that she had brutally imposed on you only because she had known she +might impose on a woman with such a pair of eyes. I was angry and +sentimental at one and the same time. And to find you sitting by the +wayside, absolutely worn out with fatigue and in tears, moved me really +more than I had anticipated being moved. And when you mistook my meaning +and stood up, your nice eyes looking into mine in such ingenuous appeal +and fear and trouble, I have never forgotten it, my dear, and I never +shall."</p> + +<p>His mood of sentiment did not sit easily upon him, but it meant a real +and interesting quite human thing.</p> + +<p>Emily sat alone in the room and brooded over it as a mother might brood +over a new-born child. She was full of tremulous bliss, and, dwelling +with reverent awe upon the wonder of great things drawing nearer to her +every hour, wept for happiness as she sat.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The same afternoon Lady Maria Bayne arrived. She had been abroad taking, +in no dull fashion, various "cures," which involved drinking mineral +waters while promenading to the sounds of strains of outdoor music, and +comparing symptoms wittily with friends equal to amazing repartee in +connection with all subjects.</p> + +<p>Dr. Warren was an old acquaintance, and as he was on the point of +leaving the house as she entered it she stopped to shake hands with him.</p> + +<p>"It's rather unfortunate for a man when one can only be glad to see him +in the house of an enemy."</p> + +<p>She greeted him with, "I must know what you are doing here. It's not +possible that Lady Walderhurst is fretting herself into fiddle-strings +because her husband chooses to have a fever in India."</p> + +<p>"No, she is behaving beautifully in all respects. May I have a few +minutes' talk with you, Lady Maria, before you see her?"</p> + +<p>"A few minutes' talk with me means something either amusing or +portentous. Let us walk into the morning-room."</p> + +<p>She led the way with a rustle of silk petticoats and a suggestion of +lifted eyebrows. She was inclined to think that the thing sounded more +portentous than amusing. Thank Heaven! it was not possible for Emily to +have involved herself in annoying muddles. She was not that kind of +woman.</p> + +<p>When she came out of the room some twenty minutes later she did not look +quite like herself. Her smart bonnet set less well upon her delicate +little old face, and she was agitated and cross and pleased.</p> + +<p>"It was ridiculous of Walderhurst to leave her," she was saying. "It was +ridiculous of her not to order him home at once. It was exactly like +her,—dear and ridiculous."</p> + +<p>In spite of her agitation she felt a little grotesque as she went +upstairs to see Emily,—grotesque, because she was obliged to admit to +herself that she had never felt so curiously excited in her life. She +felt as she supposed women did when they allowed themselves to shed +tears through excitement; not that she was shedding tears, but she was +"upset," that was what she called it.</p> + +<p>As the door opened Emily rose from a chair near the fire and came slowly +towards her, with an awkward but lovely smile.</p> + +<p>Lady Maria made a quick movement forward and caught hold of both her +hands.</p> + +<p>"My good Emily," she broke forth and kissed her. "My excellent Emily," +and kissed her again. "I am completely turned upside down. I never heard +such an insane story in my life. I have seen Dr. Warren. The creatures +were mad."</p> + +<p>"It is all over," said Emily. "I scarcely believe it was true now."</p> + +<p>Lady Maria being led to a sofa settled herself upon it, still wearing +her complex expression of crossness, agitation, and pleasure.</p> + +<p>"I am going to stay here," she said, obstinately. "There shall be no +more folly. But I will tell you that they have gone back to India. The +child was a girl."</p> + +<p>"It was a girl?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, absurdly enough."</p> + +<p>"Oh," sighed Emily, sorrowfully. "I'm <i>sure</i> Hester was <i>afraid</i> to +write to me."</p> + +<p>"Rubbish!" said Lady Maria. "At any rate, as I remarked before, I am +going to stay here until Walderhurst comes back. The man will be quite +mad with gratified vanity."</p> + +<img border="0" src="images/arrows.png" width="187" height="70" class="center" alt="" /> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="Chapter_Twenty_three" id="Chapter_Twenty_three"></a> +<img border="0" src="images/chapter_23.png" width="475" height="275" class="center" alt="Chapter Twenty three" /> + +<p><span class="dropcapi"><span class="dropcap">I</span></span>t was a damp and depressing day on which Lord Walderhurst arrived in +London. As his carriage turned into Berkeley Square he sat in the corner +of it rather huddled in his travelling-wraps and looking pale and thin. +He was wishing that London had chosen to show a more exhilarating +countenance to him, but he himself was conscious of being possessed by +something more nearly approaching a mood of eagerness than he remembered +experiencing at any period of his previous existence. He had found the +voyage home long, and had been restless. He wanted to see his wife. How +agreeable it would be to meet, when he looked across the dinner-table, +the smile in her happy eyes. She would grow pink with pleasure, like a +girl, when he confessed that he had missed her. He was curious to see in +her the changes he had felt in her letters. Having time and +opportunities for development, she might become an absolutely delightful +companion. She had looked very handsome on the day of her presentation +at Court. Her height and carriage had made her even impressive. She was +a woman, after all, to be counted on in one's plans.</p> + +<p>But he was most conscious that his affection for her had warmed. A +slight embarrassment was commingled with the knowledge, but that was the +natural result of his dislike to the sentimental. He had never felt a +shadow of sentiment for Audrey, who had been an extremely light, dry, +empty-headed person, and he had always felt she had been adroitly thrust +upon him by their united families. He had not liked her, and she had not +liked him. It had been very stupidly trying. And the child had not lived +an hour. He had liked Emily from the first, and now—It was an absolute +truth that he felt a slight movement in the cardiac region when the +carriage turned into Berkeley Square. The house would look very pleasant +when he entered it. Emily would in some subtle way have arranged that it +should wear a festal, greeting air. She had a number of nice, little +feminine emotions about bright fires and many flowers. He could picture +her childlike grown-up face as it would look when he stepped into the +room where they met.</p> + +<p>Some one was ill in Berkeley Square, evidently very ill. Straw was laid +thick all along one side of it, depressing damp, fresh straw, over which +the carriage rolled with a dull drag of the wheels.</p> + +<p>It lay before the door of his own house, he observed, as he stepped out. +It was very thickly scattered. The door swung open as the carriage +stopped. Crossing the threshold, he glanced at the face of the footman +nearest to him. The man looked like a mute at a funeral, and the +expression was so little in accord with his mood that he stopped with a +feeling of irritation. He had not time to speak, however, before a new +sensation arrested his attention,—a faint odour which filled the place.</p> + +<p>"The house smells like a hospital," he exclaimed, in great annoyance. +"What does it mean?"</p> + +<p>The man he addressed did not answer. He turned a perturbed awkward face +to his superior in rank, an older man, who was house steward.</p> + +<p>In the house of mortal pain or death there is but one thing more full of +suggestion than the faint smell of antiseptics,—the gruesome, cleanly, +unpleasant odour,—that is, the unnatural sound of the whispering of +hushed voices. Lord Walderhurst turned cold, and felt it necessary to +stiffen his spine when he heard his servant's answer and the tone in +which it was made.</p> + +<p>"Her ladyship, my lord—her ladyship is very low. The doctors do not +leave her."</p> + +<p>"Her ladyship?"</p> + +<p>The man stepped back deferentially. The door of the morning-room had +been opened, and old Lady Maria Bayne stood on the threshold. Her +worldly air of elderly gaiety had disappeared. She looked a hundred. She +was almost dilapidated. She had allowed to relax themselves the springs +which held her together and ordinarily supplied her with sprightly +movement.</p> + +<p>"Come here!" she said.</p> + +<p>When he entered the room, aghast, she shut the door.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I ought to break it to you gently," she said shakily, "but I +shall do no such thing. It's too much to expect of any woman who has +gone through what I have during these last three days. The creature is +dying; she may be dead now."</p> + +<p>She sank on the sofa and began to wipe away pouring tears. Her old +cheeks were pale and her handkerchief showed touches of rose-pink on its +dampness. She was aware of their presence, but was utterly indifferent. +Walderhurst stared at her haggard disorder and cleared his throat, +finding himself unable to speak without doing so.</p> + +<p>"Will you have the goodness to tell me," he said with weird stiffness, +"what you are talking about?"</p> + +<p>"About Emily Walderhurst," she answered. "The boy was born yesterday, +and she has been sinking ever since. She cannot possibly last much +longer."</p> + +<p>"She!" he gasped, turning lead colour. "Cannot possibly last,—Emily?"</p> + +<p>The wrench and shock were so unnatural that they reached that part of +his being where human feeling was buried under selfishness and inhuman +conventionality. He spoke, and actually thought, of Emily first.</p> + +<p>Lady Maria continued to weep shamelessly.</p> + +<p>"I am over seventy," she said, "and the last three days have punished me +quite enough for anything I may have done since I was born. I have been +in hell, too, James. And, when she could think at all, she has only +thought of you and your miserable child. I can't imagine what is the +matter with a woman when she can care for a man to such an extent. Now +she has what she wants,—she's dying for you."</p> + +<p>"Why wasn't I told?" he asked, still with the weird and slow stiffness.</p> + +<p>"Because she was a sentimental fool, and was afraid of disturbing you. +She ought to have ordered you home and kept you dancing attendance, and +treated you to hysterics."</p> + +<p>No one would have resented such a course of action more derisively than +Lady Maria herself, but the last three days had reduced her to something +like hysteria, and she had entirely lost her head.</p> + +<p>"She has been writing cheerfully to me—"</p> + +<p>"She would have written cheerfully to you if she had been seated in a +cauldron of boiling oil, it is my impression," broke in her ladyship. +"She has been monstrously treated, people trying to murder her, and she +afraid to accuse them for fear that you would disapprove. You know you +have a nasty manner, James, when you think your dignity is interfered +with."</p> + +<p>Lord Walderhurst stood clenching and unclenching his hands as they hung +by his sides. He did not like to believe that his fever had touched his +brain, but he doubted his senses hideously.</p> + +<p>"My good Maria," he said, "I do not understand a word you say, but I +must go and see her."</p> + +<p>"And kill her, if she has a breath left! You will not stir from here. +Thank Heaven! here is Dr. Warren."</p> + +<p>The door had opened and Dr. Warren came in. He had just laid down upon +the coverlet of a bed upstairs what seemed to be the hand of a dying +woman, and no man like himself can do such a thing and enter a room +without a singular look on his face.</p> + +<p>People in a house of death inevitably whisper, whatsoever their +remoteness from the sick-room. Lady Maria cried out in a whisper:</p> + +<p>"Is she still alive?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," was the response.</p> + +<p>Walderhurst went to him.</p> + +<p>"May I see her?"</p> + +<p>"No, Lord Walderhurst. Not yet."</p> + +<p>"Does that mean that it is not yet the last moment?"</p> + +<p>"If that moment had obviously arrived, you would be called."</p> + +<p>"What must I do?"</p> + +<p>"There is absolutely nothing to be done but to wait. Brent, Forsythe, +and Blount are with her."</p> + +<p>"I am in the position of knowing nothing. I must be told. Have you time +to tell me?"</p> + +<p>They went to Walderhurst's study, the room which had been Emily's holy +of holies.</p> + +<p>"Lady Walderhurst was very fond of sitting here alone," Dr. Warren +remarked.</p> + +<p>Walderhurst saw that she must have written letters at his desk. Her own +pen and writing-tablet lay on it. She had probably had a fancy for +writing her letters to himself in his own chair. It would be like her to +have done it. It gave him a shock to see on a small table a thimble and +a pair of scissors.</p> + +<p>"I ought to have been told," he said to Dr. Warren.</p> + +<p>Dr. Warren sat down and explained why he had not been told.</p> + +<p>As he spoke, interest was awakened in his mind by the fact that Lord +Walderhurst drew towards him the feminine writing-tablet and opened and +shut it mechanically.</p> + +<p>"What I want to know," he said, "is, if I shall be able to speak to her. +I should like to speak to her."</p> + +<p>"That is what one most wants," was Dr. Warren's non-committal answer, +"at such a time."</p> + +<p>"You think I may not be able to make her understand?"</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry. It is impossible to know."</p> + +<p>"This," slowly, "is very hard on me."</p> + +<p>"There is something I feel I must tell you, Lord Walderhurst." Dr. +Warren kept a keen eye on him, having, in fact, felt far from attracted +by the man in the past, and wondering how much he would be moved by +certain truths, or if he would be moved at all. "Before Lady +Walderhurst's illness, she was very explicit with me in her expression +of her one desire. She begged me to give her my word, which I could not +have done without your permission, that whatsoever the circumstances, if +life must be sacrificed, it should be hers."</p> + +<p>A dusky red shot through Walderhurst's leaden pallor.</p> + +<p>"She asked you that?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Yes. And at the worst she did not forget. When she became delirious, +and we heard that she was praying, I gathered that she seemed to be +praying to me, as to a deity whom she implored to remember her fervent +pleading. When her brain was clear she was wonderful. She saved your son +by supernatural endurance."</p> + +<p>"You mean to say that if she had cared more for herself and less for the +safety of the child she need not have been as she is now?"</p> + +<p>Warren bent his head.</p> + +<p>Lord Walderhurst's eyeglass had been dangling weakly from its cord. He +picked it up and stuck it in his eye to stare the doctor in the face. +The action was a singular, spasmodic, hard one. But his hands were +shaking.</p> + +<p>"By God!" he cried out, "if I had been here it should not have been so!"</p> + +<p>He got up and supported himself against the table with the shaking +hands.</p> + +<p>"It is very plain," he said, "that she has been willing to be torn to +pieces upon the rack to give me the thing I wanted. And now, good God in +heaven, I feel that I would have strangled the boy with my own hands +rather than lose her."</p> + +<p>In this manner, it seemed, did a rigid, self-encased, and conventional +elderly nobleman reach emotion. He looked uncanny. His stiff dignity +hung about him in rags and tatters. Cold sweat stood on his forehead and +his chin twitched.</p> + +<p>"Just now," he poured forth, "I don't care whether there is a child or +not. I want her—I care for nothing else. I want to look at her, I want +to speak to her, whether she is alive or dead. But if there is a spark +of life in her, I believe she will hear me."</p> + +<p>Dr. Warren sat and watched him, wondering. He knew curious things of the +human creature, things which most of his confrères did not know. He knew +that Life was a mysterious thing, and that even a dying flame of it +might sometimes be fanned to flickering anew by powers more subtle than +science usually regards as applicable influences. He knew the nature of +the half-dead woman lying on her bed upstairs, and he comprehended what +the soul of her life had been,—her divinely innocent passion for a +self-centred man. He had seen it in the tortured courage of her eyes in +hours of mortal agony.</p> + +<p>"Don't forget," she had said. "Our Father which art in Heaven. Don't let +anyone forget. Hallowed be thy name."</p> + +<p>The man, leaning upon his shaking hands before him, stood there, for +these moments at least, a harrowed thing. Not a single individual of his +acquaintance would have known him.</p> + +<p>"I want to see her before the breath leaves her," he gave forth in a +harsh, broken whisper. "I want to speak. Let me see her."</p> + +<p>Dr. Warren left his chair slowly. Out of a thousand chances against her, +might this one chance be for her,—the chance of her hearing, and being +called back to the shores she was drifting from, by this stiff, +conventional fellow's voice. There was no knowing the wondrousness of a +loving human thing, even when its shackles were loosening themselves to +set it free.</p> + +<p>"I will speak to those in charge with me," he said. "Will you control +every outward expression of feeling?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Adjoining Lady Walderhurst's sleeping apartment was a small boudoir +where the medical men consulted together. Two of them were standing near +the window conversing in whispers.</p> + +<p>Walderhurst merely nodded and went to wait apart by the fire. Ceremony +had ceased to exist. Dr. Warren joined the pair at the window. Lord +Walderhurst only heard one or two sentences.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid that nothing, now, can matter—at any moment."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Those who do not know from experience what he saw when he entered the +next room have reason to give thanks to such powers as they put trust +in.</p> + +<p>There ruled in the large, dim chamber an awful order and silence. The +faint flickering of the fire was a marked sound. There was no other but +a fainter and even more irregular one heard as one neared the bed. +Sometimes it seemed to stop, then, with a weak gasp, begin again. A +nurse in uniform stood in waiting; an elderly man sat on a chair at the +bedside, listening and looking at his watch, something white and +lifeless lying in his grasp,—Emily Walderhurst's waxen, unmoving hand. +The odour of antiseptics filled the nostrils. Lord Walderhurst drew +near. The speaking sign of the moment was that neither nurse nor doctor +stirred.</p> + +<p>Emily lay low upon a pillow. Her face was as bloodless as wax and was a +little turned aside. The Shadow was hovering over it and touched her +closed lids and the droop of her cheek and corners of her mouth. She was +far, far away.</p> + +<p>This was what Walderhurst felt first,—the strange remoteness, the +lonely stillness of her. She had gone alone far from the place he stood +in, and which they two familiarly knew. She was going, alone, farther +still. As he stood and watched her closed eyes,—the nice, easily +pleased eyes,—it was they themselves, closed on him and all prosaic +things and pleasures, which filled him most strangely with that sense of +her loneliness, weirdly enough, <i>hers</i>, not his. He was not thinking of +himself but of her. He wanted to withdraw her from her loneliness, to +bring her back.</p> + +<p>He knelt down carefully, making no sound, stealthily, not removing his +eyes from her strange, aloof face. He slowly dared to close his hand on +hers which lay outside the coverlet. And it was a little chill and +damp,—a little chill.</p> + +<p>A power, a force which hides itself in human things and which most of +them know not of, was gathering within him. He was warm and alive, a +living man; his hand as it closed on the chill of hers was warm; his +newly awakened being sent heat to it.</p> + +<p>He whispered her name close to her ear.</p> + +<p>"Emily!" slowly, "Emily!"</p> + +<p>She was very far away and lay unmoving. Her breast scarcely stirred with +the faintness of her breath.</p> + +<p>"Emily! Emily!"</p> + +<p>The doctor slightly raised his eyes to glance at him. He was used to +death-bed scenes, but this was curious, because he knew the usual +outward aspect of Lord Walderhurst, and its alteration at this moment +suggested abnormal things. He had not the flexibility of mind which +revealed to Dr. Warren that there were perhaps abnormal moments for the +most normal and inelastic personages.</p> + +<p>"Emily!" said his lordship, "Emily!"</p> + +<p>He did not cease from saying it, in a low yet reaching whisper, at +regular intervals, for at least half an hour. He did not move from his +knees, and so intense was his absorption that the presence of those who +came near was as nothing.</p> + +<p>What he hoped or intended to do he did not explain to himself. He was of +the order of man who coldly waves aside all wanderings on the subjects +of occult claims. He believed in proven facts, in professional aid, in +the abolition of absurdities. But his whole narrow being concentrated +itself on one thing,—he wanted this woman back. He wanted to speak to +her.</p> + +<p>What power he unknowingly drew from the depths of him, what exquisite +answering thing he reached at, could not be said. Perhaps it was only +some remote and subtle turn of the tide of life and death which chanced +to come to his aid.</p> + +<p>"Emily!" he said again, after many times.</p> + +<p>Dr. Warren at this moment met the lifted eyes of the doctor who was +counting her pulse, and in response to his look went to him.</p> + +<p>"It seems slightly stronger," Dr. Forsythe whispered.</p> + +<p>The slow, faint breathing changed a shade; there was heard a breath +slightly, very slightly deeper, less flickering, then another.</p> + +<p>Lady Walderhurst slightly stirred.</p> + +<p>"Remain where you are," whispered Dr. Warren to her husband, "and +continue to speak to her. Do not alter your tone. Go on."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Emily Walderhurst, drifting out on a still, borderless, white sea, +sinking gently as she floated, sinking in peaceful painlessness deeper +and deeper in her drifting until the soft, cool water lapped her lips +and, as she knew without fear, would soon cover them and her quiet face, +hiding them for ever,—heard from far, very far away, across the +whiteness floating about her, a faint sound which at first only fell +upon the stillness without meaning. Everything but the silence had been +left behind aeons ago. Nothing remained but the soundless white sea and +the slow drifting and sinking as one swayed. It was more than sleep, +this still peace, because there was no thought of waking to any shore.</p> + +<p>But the far-off sound repeated itself again, again, again and again, +monotonously. Something was calling to Something. She was so given up to +the soft drifting that she had no thoughts to give, and gave none. In +drifting so, one did not think—thought was left in the far-off place +the white sea carried one from. She sank quietly a little deeper and the +water touched her lip. But Something was calling to Something, something +was calling something to come back. The call was low, low and strange, +so regular and so unbroken and insistent, that it arrested, she knew not +what. Did it arrest the floating and the swaying in the enfolding sea? +Was the drifting slower? She could not rouse herself to think, she +wanted to go on. Did she no longer feel the water lapping against her +lip? Something was calling to Something still. Once, aeons ago, before +the white sea had borne her away, she would have understood.</p> + +<p>"Emily, Emily, Emily!"</p> + +<p>Yes, once she would have known what the sound meant. Once it had meant +something, a long time ago. It had even now disturbed the water, and +made it cease to lap so near her lip.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It was at this moment that one doctor had raised his eyes to the other, +and Lady Walderhurst had stirred.</p> + +<p>When Walderhurst left his place beside his wife's bed, Dr. Warren went +with him to his room. He made him drink brandy and called his man to +him. "You must remember," he said, "that you are an invalid yourself."</p> + +<p>"I believe," was the sole answer, given with an abstracted knitting of +the brows,—"I believe that in some mysterious way I have made her hear +me."</p> + +<p>Dr. Warren looked grave. He was a deeply interested man. He felt that he +had been looking on at an almost incomprehensible thing.</p> + +<p>"Yes," was his reply. "I believe that you have."</p> + +<p>About an hour later Lord Walderhurst made his way downstairs to the room +in which Lady Maria Bayne sat. She still looked a hundred years old, but +her maid had redressed her toupee, and given her a handkerchief neither +damp nor tinted with rubbed-off rouge. She looked at her relative a +shade more leniently, but still addressed him with something of the +manner of a person undeservedly chained to a malefactor. Her irritation +was not modified by the circumstance that it was extremely difficult to +be definite in the expression of her condemnation of things which had +made her hideously uncomfortable. Having quite approved of his going to +India in the first place, it was not easy to go thoroughly into the +subject of the numerous reasons why a man of his years and +responsibilities ought to have realised that it was his duty to remain +at home and take care of his wife.</p> + +<p>"Incredible as it seems," she snapped, "the doctors <i>think</i> there is a +slight change, for the better."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Walderhurst answered.</p> + +<p>He leaned against the mantel and gazed into the fire.</p> + +<p>"She will come back," he added in a monotone.</p> + +<p>Lady Maria stared at him. She felt that the man was eerie, Walderhurst, +of all men on earth!</p> + +<p>"Where do you think she has been?" She professed to make the inquiry +with an air of reproof.</p> + +<p>"How should one know?" rather with the old stiffness. "It is impossible +to tell."</p> + +<p>Lady Maria Bayne was not the person possessing the temperament to +incline him to explain that, wheresoever the outer sphere might be to +which the dying woman had been drifting, he had been following her, as +far as living man could go.</p> + +<p>The elderly house steward opened the door and spoke in the hollow +whisper.</p> + +<p>"The head nurse wished to know if your ladyship would be so good as to +see Lord Oswyth before he goes to sleep."</p> + +<p>Walderhurst turned his head towards the man. Lord Oswyth was the name of +his son. He felt a shock.</p> + +<p>"I will come to the nursery," answered Lady Maria. "You have not seen +him yet?" turning to Walderhurst.</p> + +<p>"How could I?"</p> + +<p>"Then you had better come now. If she becomes conscious and has life +enough to expect anything, she will expect you to burst forth into +praises of him. You had better at least commit to memory the colour of +his eyes and hair. I believe he has two hairs. He is a huge, fat, +overgrown thing with enormous cheeks. When I saw his bloated +self-indulgent look yesterday, I confess I wanted to slap him."</p> + +<p>Her description was not wholly accurate, but he was a large and robust +child, as Walderhurst saw when he beheld him.</p> + +<p>From kneeling at the pillow on which the bloodless statue lay, and +calling into space to the soul which would not hear, it was a far cry to +the warmed and lighted orris-perfumed room in which Life had begun.</p> + +<p>There was the bright fire before which the high brass nursery fender +shone. There was soft linen hanging to be warmed, there was a lace-hung +cradle swinging in its place, and in a lace-draped basket silver and +gold boxes and velvet brushes and sponges such as he knew nothing about. +He had not been in such a place before, and felt awkward, and yet in +secret abnormally moved, or it seemed abnormally to him.</p> + +<p>Two women were in attendance. One of them held in her arms what he had +come to see. It was moving slightly in its coverings of white. Its +bearer stood waiting in respectful awe as Lady Maria uncovered its face.</p> + +<p>"Look at it," she said, concealing her relieved elation under a slightly +caustic manner. "How you will relish the situation when Emily tells you +that he is like you, I can't be as sure as I should be of myself under +the same circumstances."</p> + +<p>Walderhurst applied his monocle and gazed for some moments at the object +before him. He had not known that men experienced these curiously +unexplainable emotions at such times. He kept a strong hold on himself.</p> + +<p>"Would you like to hold him?" inquired Lady Maria. She was conscious of +a benevolent effort to restrain the irony in her voice.</p> + +<p>Lord Walderhurst made a slight movement backward.</p> + +<p>"I—I should not know how," he said, and then felt angry at himself. He +desired to take the thing in his arms. He desired to feel its warmth. He +absolutely realised that if he had been alone with it, he should have +laid aside his eyeglass and touched its cheek with his lips.</p> + + +<p>Two days afterwards he was sitting by his wife's pillow, watching her +shut lids, when he saw them quiver and slowly move until they were wide +open. Her eyes looked very large in her colourless, more sharply +chiselled face. They saw him and him only, as light came gradually into +them. They did not move, but rested on him. He bent forward, almost +afraid to stir.</p> + +<p>He spoke to her as he had spoken before.</p> + +<p>"Emily!" very low, "Emily!"</p> + +<p>Her voice was only a fluttering breath, but she answered.</p> + +<p>"It—was—you!" she said.</p> + +<img border="0" src="images/swag.png" width="187" height="70" class="center" alt="" /> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<a name="Chapter_Twenty_four" id="Chapter_Twenty_four"></a> +<img border="0" src="images/chapter_24.png" width="475" height="275" class="center" alt="Chapter Twenty four" /> + + +<p><span class="dropcaps"><span class="dropcap">S</span></span>uch individuals as had not already thought it expedient to gradually +loosen and drop the links of their acquaintance with Captain Alec Osborn +did not find, on his return to his duties in India, that the leave of +absence spent in England among his relatives had improved him. He was +plainly consuming enormous quantities of brandy, and was steadily going, +physically and mentally, to seed. He had put on flesh, and even his +always dubious good looks were rapidly deserting him. The heavy young +jowl looked less young and more pronounced, and he bore about an evil +countenance.</p> + +<p>"Disappointment may have played the devil with him," it was said by an +elderly observer; "but he has played the devil with himself. He was a +wrong'un to begin with."</p> + +<p>When Hester's people flocked to see her and hear her stories of exalted +life in England, they greeted her with exclamations of dismay. If Osborn +had lost his looks, she also had lost hers. She was yellow and haggard, +and her eyes looked over-grown. She had not improved in the matter of +temper, and answered all effusive questions with a dry, bitter little +smile. The baby she had brought back was a puny, ugly, and tiny girl. +Hester's dry, little smile when she exhibited her to her relations was +not pretty.</p> + +<p>"She saved herself disappointment by being a girl," she remarked. "At +all events, she knows from the outset that no one can rob her of the +chance of being the Marquis of Walderhurst."</p> + +<p>It was rumoured that ugly things went on in the Osborn bungalow. It was +known that scenes occurred between the husband and wife which were not +of the order admitted as among the methods of polite society. One +evening Mrs. Osborn walked slowly down the Mall dressed in her best gown +and hat, and bearing on her cheek a broad, purpling mark. When asked +questions, she merely smiled and made no answer, which was extremely +awkward for the well-meaning inquirer.</p> + +<p>The questioner was the wife of the colonel of the regiment, and when the +lady related the incident to her husband in the evening, he drew in his +breath sharply and summed the situation up in a few words.</p> + +<p>"That little woman," he said, "lives every day through twenty-four hours +of hell. One can see it in her eyes, even when she professes to smile at +the brute for decency's sake. The awfulness of a woman's forced smile at +the devil she is tied to, loathing him and bearing in her soul the +thing, blood itself could not wipe out. Ugh! I've seen it once before, +and I recognised it in her again. There will be a bad end to this."</p> + +<p>There probably would have been, with the aid of unlimited brandy and +unrestrained devil, some outbreak so gross that the social laws which +rule men who are "officers and gentlemen" could not have ignored or +overlooked it. But the end came in an unexpected way, and Osborn was +saved from open ignominy by an accident.</p> + +<p>On a certain day when he had drunk heavily and had shut Hester up with +him for an hour's torture, after leaving her writhing and suffocating +with sobs, he went to examine some newly bought firearms. In twenty +minutes it was he who lay upon the floor writhing and suffocating, and +but a few minutes later he was a dead man. A charge from a gun he had +believed unloaded had finished him.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Lady Walderhurst was the kindest of women, as the world knew. She sent +for little Mrs. Osborn and her child, and was tender goodness itself to +them.</p> + +<p>Hester had been in England four years, and Lord Oswyth had a brother as +robust as himself, when one heavenly summer afternoon, as the two women +sat on the lawn drinking little cups of tea, Hester made a singular +revelation, and made it without moving a muscle of her small +countenance.</p> + +<p>"I always intended to tell you, Emily," she began quietly, "and I will +tell you now."</p> + +<p>"What, dear?" said Emily, holding out to her a plate of tiny buttered +scones. "Have some of these nice, little hot ones."</p> + +<p>"Thank you." Hester took one of the nice, little hot ones, but did not +begin to eat it. Instead, she held it untouched and let her eyes rest on +the brilliant flower terraces spread out below. "What I meant to tell +you was this. The gun was not loaded, the gun Alec shot himself with, +when he laid it aside."</p> + +<p>Emily put down her tea-cup hastily.</p> + +<p>"I saw him take out the charge myself two hours before. When he came in, +mad with drink, and made me go into the room with him, Ameerah saw him. +She always listened outside. Before we left The Kennel Farm, the day he +tortured and taunted me until I lost my head and shrieked out to him +that I had told you what I knew, and had helped you to go away, he +struck me again and again. Ameerah heard that. He did it several times +afterwards, and she always knew. She always intended to end it in some +way. She knew how drunk he was that last day, and—It was she who went +in and loaded the gun while he was having his scene with me. She knew he +would go and begin to pull the things about without having the sense to +know what he was doing. She had seen him do it before. I know it was she +who put the load in. We have never uttered a word to each other about +it, but I know she did it, and that she knows I know. Before I married +Alec, I did not understand how one human being could kill another. He +taught me to understand, quite. But I had not the courage to do it +myself. Ameerah had."</p> + +<p>And while Lady Walderhurst sat gazing at her with a paling face, she +began quietly to eat the little buttered scone.</p> + +<img border="0" src="images/end.png" width="190" height="95" class="center" alt="The End" /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<hr class="ads" /> + +<p class="center">TITLES SELECTED FROM<br /> +<font size="4">GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST</font></p> +<hr class="ads" /> +<p class="center"><font size="1"><b>May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list</b></font></p> + +<hr class="ads" /> + +<p><u>THE SIEGE OF THE SEVEN SUITORS.</u> By Meredith Nicholson. Illustrated by C. +Coles Phillips and Reginald Birch.<br /> + Seven suitors vie with each other for the love of a beautiful girl, and +she subjects them to a test that is full of mystery, magic and sheer +amusement.</p> + +<p><u>THE MAGNET.</u> By Henry C. Rowland. Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood.<br /> + The story of a remarkable courtship involving three pretty girls on a +yacht, a poet-lover in pursuit, and a mix-up in the names of the girls.</p> + +<p><u>THE TURN OF THE ROAD.</u> By Eugenia Brooks Frothingham.<br /> + A beautiful young opera singer chooses professional success instead of +love, but comes to a place in life where the call of the heart is +stronger than worldly success.</p> + +<p><u>SCOTTIE AND HIS LADY.</u> By Margaret Morse. Illustrated by Harold M. Brett.<br /> + A young girl whose affections have been blighted is presented with a +Scotch Collie to divert her mind, and the roving adventures of her pet +lead the young mistress into another romance.</p> + +<p><u>SHEILA VEDDER.</u> By Amelia E. Barr. Frontispiece by Harrison Fisher.<br /> + A very beautiful romance of the Shetland Islands, with a handsome, +strong willed hero and a lovely girl of Gælic blood as heroine. A sequel +to "Jan Vedder's Wife."</p> + +<p><u>JOHN WARD. PREACHER.</u> By Margaret Deland.<br /> + The first big success of this much loved American novelist. It is a +powerful portrayal of a young clergyman's attempt to win his beautiful +wife to his own narrow creed.</p> + +<p><u>THE TRAIL OF NINETY-EIGHT.</u> By Robert W. Service. Illustrated by Maynard +Dixon.<br /> + One of the best stories of "Vagabondia" ever written, and one of the +most accurate and picturesque of the stampede of gold seekers to the +Yukon. The love story embedded in the narrative is strikingly original.</p> + +<hr class="ads" /> + +<p class="center"><i><font size="1"><b>Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction</b></font></i></p> +<hr class="ads" /> +<p class="smcap_c">Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York</p> +<hr class="ads" /> +<hr /> +<hr class="ads" /> +<p class="center">TITLES SELECTED FROM<br /> +<font size="4">GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST</font></p> +<hr class="ads" /> +<p class="center"><font size="1"><b>May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list</b></font></p> +<hr class="ads" /> + +<p><u>A CERTAIN RICH MAN.</u> By William Allen White.<br /> + A vivid, startling portrayal of one man's financial greed, its wide +spreading power, its action in Wall Street, and its effect on the three +women most intimately in his life. A splendid, entertaining American +novel.</p> + +<p><u>IN OUR TOWN.</u> By William Allen White. Illustrated by F.R. Gruger and W. +Glackens.<br /> + Made up of the observations of a keen newspaper editor, Involving the +town millionaire, the smart set, the literary set, the bohemian set, and +many others. All humorously related and sure to hold the attention.</p> + +<p><u>NATHAN BURKE.</u> By Mary S. Watts.<br /> + The story of an ambitious, backwoods Ohio boy who rose to prominence. +Everyday humor of American rustic life permeates the book.</p> + +<p><u>THE HIGH HAND.</u> By Jacques Futrelle. Illustrated by Will Grefe.<br /> + A splendid story of the political game, with a son of the soil on the +one side, and a "kid glove" politician on the other. A pretty girl, +interested in both men, is the chief figure.</p> + +<p><u>THE BACKWOODSMEN.</u> By Charles G.P. Roberts. Illustrated.<br /> + Realistic stories of men and women living midst the savage beauty of the +wilderness. Human nature at its best and worst is well <ins class="correction" +title="Transcriber's Note: The original text reads +'protrayed'">portrayed</ins>.</p> + +<p><u>YELLOWSTONE NIGHTS.</u> By Herbert Quick.<br /> + A jolly company of six artists, writers and other clever folks take a +trip through the National Park, and tell stories around camp fire at +night. Brilliantly clever and original.</p> + +<p><u>THE PROFESSOR'S MYSTERY.</u> By Wells Hastings and Brian Hooker. Illustrated +by Hanson Booth.<br /> + A young college professor, missing his steamer for Europe, has a +romantic meeting with a pretty girl, escorts her home, and is enveloped +in a big mystery.</p> + +<hr class="ads" /> + +<p class="center"><i><font size="1"><b>Ask for complete free list of G. & D. 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Illustrated by Howard +Chandler Christy.<br /> + An amazingly vivid picture of low class life in a New York college town, +with a heroine beautiful and noble, who makes a great sacrifice for +love.</p> + +<p><u>FROM THE VALLEY OF THE MISSING.</u> By Grace Miller White. Frontispiece and +wrapper in colors by Penrhyn Stanlaws.<br /> + Another story of "the storm country." Two beautiful children are +kidnapped from a wealthy home and appear many years after showing the +effects of a deep, malicious scheme behind their disappearance.</p> + +<p><u>THE LIGHTED MATCH.</u> By Charles Neville Buck. Illustrated by R.F. +Schabelitz.<br /> + A lovely princess travels incognito through the States and falls in love +with an American man. There are ties that bind her to someone in her own +home, and the great plot revolves round her efforts to work her way out.</p> + +<p><u>MAUD BAXTER.</u> By C.C. Hotchkiss. Illustrated by Will Grefe.<br /> + A romance both daring and delightful, involving an American girl and a +young man who had been impressed into English service during the +Revolution.</p> + +<p><u>THE HIGHWAYMAN.</u> By Guy Rawlence. Illustrated by Will Grefe.<br /> + A French beauty of mysterious antecedents wins the love of an Englishman +of title. Developments of a startling character and a clever untangling +of affairs hold the reader's interest.</p> + +<p><u>THE PURPLE STOCKINGS.</u> By Edward Salisbury Field. Illustrated in colors; +marginal illustrations.<br /> + A young New York business man, his pretty sweetheart, his sentimental +stenographer, and his fashionable sister are all mixed up in a +misunderstanding that surpasses anything in the way of comedy in years. +A story with a laugh on every page.</p> + +<hr class="ads" /> + +<p class="center"><i><font size="1"><b>Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction</b></font></i></p> + +<p class="smcap_c">Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York</p> +<hr class="ads" /> +<hr /> +<hr class="ads" /> +<p class="center">TITLES SELECTED FROM<br /> +<font size="4">GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST</font></p> +<hr class="ads" /> +<p class="center"><font size="1"><b>May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list</b></font></p> + +<hr class="ads" /> + +<p><u>THE SILENT CALL. </u> By Edwin Milton Royle. Illustrated with scenes from the +play.<br /> + The hero of this story is the Squaw Man's son. He has been taken to +England, but spurns conventional life for the sake of the untamed West +and a girl's pretty face.</p> + +<p><u>JOHN MARCH, SOUTHERNER.</u> By George W. Cable.<br /> + A story of the pretty women and spirited men of the South. As fragrant +in sentiment as a sprig of magnolia, and as full of mystery and racial +troubles as any romance of "after the war" days.</p> + +<p><u>MR. JUSTICE RAFFLES.</u> By E.W. Hornung.<br /> + This engaging rascal is found helping a young cricket player out of the +toils of a money shark. Novel in plot, thrilling and amusing.</p> + +<p><u>FORTY MINUTES LATE.</u> By F. Hopkinson Smith. Illustrated by S.M. Chase.<br /> + Delightfully human stories of every day happenings; of a lecturer's +laughable experience because he's late, a young woman's excursion into +the stock market, etc.</p> + +<p><u>OLD LADY NUMBER 31.</u> By Louise Forsslund.<br /> + A heart-warming story of American rural life, telling of the adventures +of an old couple in an old folk's home, their sunny, philosophical +acceptance of misfortune and ultimate prosperity.</p> + +<p><u>THE HUSBAND'S STORY.</u> By David Graham Phillips.<br /> + A story that has given all Europe as well as all America much food for +thought. A young couple begin life in humble circumstances and rise in +worldly matters until the husband is enormously rich—the wife in the +most aristocratic European society—but at the price of their happiness.</p> + +<p><u>THE TRAIL OF NINETY-EIGHT.</u> By Robert W. Service. Illustrated by Maynard +Dixon.<br /> + One of the best stories of "Vagabondia" ever written, and one of the +most accurate and picturesque descriptions of the stampede of gold +seekers to the Yukon. The love story embedded in the narrative is +strikingly original.</p> + +<hr class="ads" /> + +<p class="center"><i><font size="1"><b>Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction</b></font></i></p> + +<p class="smcap_c">Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York</p> +<hr class="ads" /> +<hr /> +<hr class="ads" /> +<p class="center">TITLES SELECTED FROM<br /> +<font size="4">GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST</font></p> +<hr class="ads" /> +<p class="center"><font size="1"><b>May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list</b></font></p> + + +<hr class="ads" /> + +<p><u>HIS HOUR.</u> By Elinor Glyn. Illustrated.<br /> + A beautiful blonde Englishwoman visits Russia, and is violently made +love to by a young Russian aristocrat. A most unique situation +complicates the romance.</p> + +<p><u>THE GAMBLERS.</u> By Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow, Illustrated by C.E. +Chambers.<br /> + A big, vital treatment of a present day situation wherein men play for +big financial stakes and women flourish on the profits—or repudiate the +methods.</p> + +<p><u>CHEERFUL AMERICANS.</u> By Charles Battell Loomis. Illustrated by Florence +Scovel Shinn and others.<br /> + A good, wholesome, laughable presentation of some Americans at home and +abroad, on their vacations, and during their hours of relaxation.</p> + +<p><u>THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD.</u> By Ella Wheeler Wilcox.<br /> + Clever, original presentations of present day social problems and the +best solutions of them. A book every girl and woman should possess.</p> + +<p><u>THE LIGHT THAT LURES.</u> By Percy Brebner. Illustrated. Handsomely colored +wrapper.<br /> + A young Southerner who loved Lafayette, goes to France to aid him during +the days of terror, and is lured in a certain direction by the lovely +eyes of a Frenchwoman.</p> + +<p><u>THE RAMRODDERS.</u> By Holman Day. Frontispiece by Harold Matthews Brett.<br /> + A clever, timely story that will make politicians think and will make +women realize the part that politics play—even in their romances.</p> + +<hr class="ads" /> + +<p class="center"><i><font size="1"><b>Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction</b></font></i></p> + +<p class="smcap_c">Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York</p> +<hr class="ads" /> +<hr /> + +<h2>The Master's Violin</h2> + +<p class="center">By MYRTLE REED</p> + +<img src="images/violin.png" width="100" height="131" alt="book cover" align="left" /><p>A Love Story with a musical atmosphere. A picturesque, old German +virtuoso is the reverent possessor of a genuine Cremona. He consents to +take as his pupil a handsome youth who proves to have an aptitude for +technique, but not the soul of the artist. The youth has led the happy, +careless life of a modern, well-to-do young American, and he cannot, +with his meagre past, express the love, the longing, the passion and the +tragedies of life and its happy phases as can the master who has lived +life in all its fulness. But a girl comes into his existence, a +beautiful bit of human driftwood that his aunt had taken into her heart +and home; and through his passionate love for her, he learns the lessons +that life has to give—and his soul awakens.</p> + +<p>Founded on a fact well known among artists, but not often recognized or +discussed.</p> +<hr class="ads" style="width: 50%" /> +<p>If you have not read "LAVENDER AND OLD LACE" by the same author, you +have a double pleasure in store—for these two books show Myrtle Reed in +her most delightful, fascinating vein—indeed they may be considered as +masterpieces of compelling interest.</p> + +<hr class="ads" /> + +<p class="center"><i><font size="1"><b>Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction</b></font></i></p> +<hr class="ads" /> +<p class="center">GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK</p> + +<hr /> + +<h2>The Prodigal Judge</h2> +<p class="center">By VAUGHAN KESTER</p> + +<p>This great novel—probably the most popular book in this country +to-day—is as human as a story from the pen of that great master of +"immortal laughter and immortal tears," Charles Dickens.</p> + +<p>The Prodigal Judge is a shabby outcast, a tavern hanger-on, a genial +wayfarer who tarries longest where the inn is most hospitable, yet with +that suavity, that distinctive politeness and that saving grace of humor +peculiar to the American man. He has his own code of morals—very +exalted ones—but honors them in the breach rather than in the +observance.</p> + +<p>Clinging to the Judge closer than a brother, is Solomon +Mahaffy—fallible and failing like the rest of us, but with a sublime +capacity for friendship; and closer still, perhaps, clings little +Hannibal, a boy about whose parentage nothing is known until the end of +the story. Hannibal is charmed into tolerance of the Judge's picturesque +vices, while Miss Betty, lovely and capricious, is charmed into placing +all her affairs, both material and sentimental, in the hands of this +delightful old vagabond.</p> + +<p>The Judge will be a fixed star in the firmament of fictional characters +as surely as David Harum or Col. Sellers. He is a source of infinite +delight, while this story of Mr. Kester's is one of the finest examples +of American literary craftmanship.</p> + +<hr class="ads" /> + +<p class="center"><i><font size="1"><b>Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction</b></font></i></p> +<hr class="ads" /> +<p class="smcap_c">Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York</p> + +<hr /> +<hr class="ads" /> +<p class="center"><font size="+1">GROSSET & DUNLAP'S</font><br /> +<font size="+2">DRAMATIZED NOVELS</font></p> +<hr class="ads" /> +<p class="center">Original, sincere and courageous—often amusing—the kind that are +making theatrical history.</p> + +<hr class="ads" /> + +<p>MADAME X. By Alexandra Bisson and J. W. McConaughy. Illustrated with +scenes from the play.<br /> + A beautiful Parisienne became an outcast because her husband would not +forgive an error of her youth. Her love for her son is the great final +influence in her career. A tremendous dramatic success.</p> + +<p>THE GARDEN OF ALLAH. By Robert Hichens.<br /> + An unconventional English woman and an inscrutable stranger meet and +love in an oasis of the Sahara. Staged this season with magnificent cast +and gorgeous properties.</p> + +<p>THE PRINCE OF INDIA. By Lew. Wallace.<br /> + A glowing romance of the Byzantine Empire, presenting with extraordinary +power the siege of Constantinople, and lighting its tragedy with the +warm underglow of an Oriental romance. As a play it is a great dramatic +spectacle.</p> + +<p>TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY. By Grace Miller White. Illust. by Howard +Chandler Christy.<br /> + A girl from the dregs of society, loves a young Cornell University +student, and it works startling changes in her life and the lives of +those about her. The dramatic version is one of the sensations of the +season.</p> + +<p>YOUNG WALLINGFORD. By George Randolph Chester. Illust. by F.R. Gruger +and Henry Raleigh.<br /> + A series of clever swindles conducted by a cheerful young man, each of +which is just on the safe side of a State's prison offence. As +"Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford," it is probably the most amusing expose of +money manipulation ever seen on the stage.</p> + +<p>THE INTRUSION OF JIMMY. By P. G. Wodehouse. Illustrations by Will Grefe.<br /> + Social and club life in London and New York, an amateur burglary +adventure and a love story. Dramatized under the title of "A Gentleman +of Leisure," it furnishes hours of laughter to the play-goers.</p> + +<hr class="ads" /> + +<p class="smcap_c">Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York</p> +<hr class="ads" /> +<hr /> +<hr class="ads" /> +<p class="center"><b>THE NOVELS OF<br /> +<font size="+2">WINSTON CHURCHILL</font></b></p> +<hr class="ads" /> +<p class="center">Skillful in plot, dramatic in episode, powerful and original in climax.</p> +<hr class="ads" /> +<p><u>MR. CREWE'S CAREER.</u> Illus. by A.I. Keller and Kinneys.<br /> + A New England state is under the political domination of a railway and +Mr. Crewe, a millionaire, seizes the moment when the cause of the people +against corporation greed is being espoused by an ardent young attorney, +to further his own interest in a political way, by taking up this cause.<br /> + The daughter of the railway president, with the sunny humor and shrewd +common sense of the New England girl, plays no small part in the +situation as well as in the life of the young attorney who stands so +unflinchingly for clean politics.</p> + +<p><u>THE CROSSING.</u> Illus. by S. Adamson and L. Baylis.<br /> + Describing the battle of Fort Moultrie and the British fleet in the +harbor of Charleston, the blazing of the Kentucky wilderness, the +expedition of Clark and his handful of dauntless followers in Illinois, +the beginning of civilization along the Ohio and Mississippi, and the +treasonable schemes builded against Washington and the Federal +Government.</p> + +<p><u>CONISTON.</u> Illustrated by Florence Scovel Shinn.<br /> + A deft blending of love and politics distinguishes this book. The author +has taken for his hero a New Englander, a crude man of the tannery, who +rose to political prominence by his own powers, and then surrendered all +for the love of a woman.<br /> + It is a sermon on civic righteousness, and a love story of a deep +motive.</p> + +<p><u>THE CELEBRITY.</u> An Episode.<br /> + An inimitable bit of comedy describing an interchange of personalities +between a celebrated author and a bicycle salesman of the most blatant +type. The story is adorned with some character sketches more living than +pen work. It is purest, keenest fun—no such piece of humor has appeared +for years: it is American to the core.</p> + +<p><u>THE CRISIS.</u> Illus. by Howard Chandler Christy.<br /> + A book that presents the great crisis in our national life with splendid +power and with a sympathy, a sincerity, and a patriotism that are +inspiring. The several scenes in the book in which Abraham Lincoln +figures must be read in their entirety for they give a picture of that +great, magnetic, loveable man, which has been drawn with evident +affection and exceptional success.</p> + +<hr class="ads" /> + +<p class="smcap_c">Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York</p> +<hr class="ads" /> +<hr /> +<hr class="ads" /> +<p class="center"><b><font size="+2">B. M. Bower's Novels</font><br /> +<font size="+1">Thrilling Western Romances</font></b></p> +<hr class="ads" /> +<p class="center">Large 12 mos. Handsomely bound in cloth. Illustrated</p> +<hr class="ads" /> + +<p><u>CHIP, OF THE FLYING U</u><br /> + A breezy wholesome tale, wherein the love affairs of Chip and Delia +Whitman are charmingly and humorously told. Chip's jealousy of Dr. Cecil +Grantham, who turns out to be a big, blue eyed young woman is very +amusing. A clever, realistic story of the American Cow-puncher.</p> + +<p><u>THE HAPPY FAMILY</u><br /> + A lively and amusing story, dealing with the adventures of eighteen +jovial, big hearted Montana cowboys. Foremost amongst them, we find +Ananias Green, known as Andy, whose imaginative powers cause many lively +and exciting adventures.</p> + +<p><u>HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT</u><br /> + A realistic story of the plains, describing a gay party of Easterners +who exchange a cottage at Newport for the rough homeliness of a Montana +ranch-house. The merry-hearted cowboys, the fascinating Beatrice, and +the effusive Sir Redmond, become living, breathing personalities.</p> + +<p><u>THE RANGE DWELLERS</u><br /> + Here are everyday, genuine cowboys, just as they really exist. Spirited +action, a range feud between two families, and a Romeo and Juliet +courtship make this a bright, jolly, entertaining story, without a dull +page.</p> + +<p><u>THE LURE OF DIM TRAILS</u><br /> + A vivid portrayal of the experience of an Eastern author, among the +cowboys of the West, in search of "local color" for a new novel. "Bud" +Thurston learns many a lesson while following "the lure of the dim +trails" but the hardest, and probably the most welcome, is that of love.</p> + +<p><u>THE LONESOME TRAIL</u><br /> + "Weary" Davidson leaves the ranch for Portland, where conventional city +life palls on him. A little branch of sage brush, pungent with the +atmosphere of the prairie, and the recollection of a pair of large brown +eyes soon compel his return. A wholesome love story.</p> + +<p><u>THE LONG SHADOW</u><br /> + A vigorous Western story, sparkling with the free, outdoor, life of a +mountain ranch. Its scenes shift rapidly and its actors play the game of +life fearlessly and like men. It is a fine love story from start to +finish.</p> + +<hr class="ads" /> + +<p class="center"><i><font size="1"><b>Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction</b></font></i></p> + +<p class="smcap_c">Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York</p> +<hr class="ads" /> +<hr /> +<hr class="ads" /> +<p class="center">THE NOVELS OF<br /> +<font size="+1">GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON</font></p> +<hr class="ads" /> +<p>GRAUSTARK.<br /> + A story of love behind a throne, telling how a young American met a +lovely girl and followed her to a new and strange country. A thrilling, +dashing narrative.</p> + +<p>BEVERLY OF GRAUSTARK.<br /> + Beverly is a bewitching American girl who has gone to that stirring +little principality—Graustark—to visit her friend the princess, and +there has a romantic affair of her own.</p> + +<p>BREWSTER'S MILLIONS.<br /> + A young man is required to spend one million dollars in one year in +order to inherit seven. How he does it forms the basis of a lively +story.</p> + +<p>CASTLE CRANEYCROW.<br /> + The story revolves round the abduction of a young American woman, her +imprisonment in an old castle and the adventures created through her +rescue.</p> + +<p>COWARDICE COURT.<br /> + An amusing social feud in the Adirondacks in which an English girl is +tempted into being a traitor by a romantic young American, forms the +plot.</p> + +<p>THE DAUGHTER OF ANDERSON CROW.<br /> + The story centers about the adopted daughter of the town marshal in a +western village. Her parentage is shrouded in mystery, and the story +concerns the secret that deviously works to the surface.</p> + +<p>THE MAN FROM BRODNEY'S.<br /> + The hero meets a princess in a far-away island among fanatically hostile +Musselmen. Romantic love making amid amusing situations and exciting +adventures.</p> + +<p>NEDRA.<br /> + A young couple elope from Chicago to go to London traveling as brother +and sister. They are shipwrecked and a strange mix-up occurs on account +of it.</p> + +<p>THE SHERRODS.<br /> + The scene is the Middle West and centers around a man who leads a double +life. A most enthralling novel.</p> + +<p>TRUXTON KING.<br /> + A handsome good natured young fellow ranges on the earth looking for +romantic adventures and is finally enmeshed in most complicated +intrigues in Graustark.</p> + +<hr class="ads" /> + +<p class="smcap_c">Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York</p> +<hr class="ads" /> +<hr /> +<hr class="ads" /> +<p class="center"><b><font size="+2">LOUIS TRACY'S</font></b><br /> +CAPTIVATING AND EXHILARATING ROMANCES</p> +<hr class="ads" /> +<p class="center"><font size="1"><b>May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list</b></font></p> +<hr class="ads" /> + +<p><u>CYNTHIA'S CHAUFFEUR.</u> Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy.<br /> + A pretty American girl in London is touring in a car with a chauffeur +whose identity puzzles her. An amusing mystery.</p> + +<p><u>THE STOWAWAY GIRL.</u> Illustrated by Nesbitt Benson.<br /> + A shipwreck, a lovely girl stowaway, a rascally captain, a fascinating +officer, and thrilling adventures in South Seas.</p> + +<p><u>THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS.</u><br /> + Love and the salt sea, a helpless ship whirled into the hands of +cannibals, desperate fighting and a tender romance.</p> + +<p><u>THE MESSAGE.</u> Illustrated by Joseph Cummings Chase.<br /> + A bit of parchment found in the figurehead of an old vessel tells of a +buried treasure. A thrilling mystery develops.</p> + +<p><u>THE PILLAR OF LIGHT.</u><br /> + The pillar thus designated was a lighthouse, and the author tells with +exciting detail the terrible dilemma of its cut-off inhabitants.</p> + +<p><u>THE WHEEL O'FORTUNE.</u> With illustrations by James Montgomery Flagg.<br /> + The story deals with the finding of a papyrus containing the particulars +of some of the treasures of the Queen of Sheba.</p> + +<p><u>A SON OF THE IMMORTALS.</u> Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy.<br /> + A young American is proclaimed king of a little Balkan Kingdom, and a +pretty Parisian art student is the power behind the throne.</p> + +<p><u>THE WINGS OF THE MORNING.</u><br /> + A sort of Robinson Crusoe <i>redivivus</i> with modern settings and a very +pretty love story added. The hero and heroine are the only survivors of +a wreck, and have many thrilling adventures on their desert island.</p> + +<hr class="ads" /> + +<p class="center"><i><font size="1"><b>Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction</b></font></i></p> + +<p class="smcap_c">Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York</p> +<hr class="ads" /> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Emily Fox-Seton, by Frances Hodgson Burnett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EMILY FOX-SETON *** + +***** This file should be named 17226-h.htm or 17226-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/2/2/17226/ + +Produced by Hilary Caws-Elwitt + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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a/17226.txt b/17226.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..380802e --- /dev/null +++ b/17226.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9823 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Emily Fox-Seton, by Frances Hodgson Burnett + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Emily Fox-Seton + Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst + +Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett + +Illustrator: C.D. Williams + +Release Date: December 5, 2005 [EBook #17226] +[Last updated: December 9, 2011] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EMILY FOX-SETON *** + + + + +Produced by Hilary Caws-Elwitt + + + + + +[Illustration: Emily Fox-Seton] + + + EMILY FOX-SETON + + +BEING "THE MAKING OF A + MARCHIONESS" AND "THE + METHODS OF LADY + WALDERHURST" + + + By +Frances Hodgson Burnett + + + ILLUSTRATED BY + C.D. WILLIAMS + + + NEW YORK + GROSSET & DUNLAP + PUBLISHERS + + + +Copyright, 1901, by The Century Company + +Copyright, 1901, by Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett + +Copyright, 1901, by Frederick A. Stokes Company + +September, 1909 + + +[** Transcriber's note: I have corrected a few obvious printers' errors. +Details are AFTER the text so as not to interrupt the flow of what was +intended to be an enjoyable read and not a scholarly work. **] + + + + +PART ONE + + + + +Chapter One + + +When Miss Fox-Seton descended from the twopenny bus as it drew up, she +gathered her trim tailor-made skirt about her with neatness and decorum, +being well used to getting in and out of twopenny buses and to making +her way across muddy London streets. A woman whose tailor-made suit must +last two or three years soon learns how to protect it from splashes, and +how to aid it to retain the freshness of its folds. During her trudging +about this morning in the wet, Emily Fox-Seton had been very careful, +and, in fact, was returning to Mortimer Street as unspotted as she had +left it. She had been thinking a good deal about her dress--this +particular faithful one which she had already worn through a +twelvemonth. Skirts had made one of their appalling changes, and as she +walked down Regent Street and Bond Street she had stopped at the windows +of more than one shop bearing the sign "Ladies' Tailor and Habit-Maker," +and had looked at the tautly attired, preternaturally slim models, her +large, honest hazel eyes wearing an anxious expression. She was trying +to discover _where_ seams were to be placed and how gathers were to be +hung; or if there were to be gathers at all; or if one had to be bereft +of every seam in a style so unrelenting as to forbid the possibility of +the honest and semi-penniless struggling with the problem of remodelling +last season's skirt at all. "As it is only quite an ordinary brown," she +had murmured to herself, "I might be able to buy a yard or so to match +it, and I _might_ be able to join the gore near the pleats at the back +so that it would not be seen." + +She quite beamed as she reached the happy conclusion. She was such a +simple, normal-minded creature that it took but little to brighten the +aspect of life for her and to cause her to break into her good-natured, +childlike smile. A little kindness from any one, a little pleasure or a +little comfort, made her glow with nice-tempered enjoyment. As she got +out of the bus, and picked up her rough brown skirt, prepared to tramp +bravely through the mud of Mortimer Street to her lodgings, she was +positively radiant. It was not only her smile which was childlike, her +face itself was childlike for a woman of her age and size. She was +thirty-four and a well-set-up creature, with fine square shoulders and a +long small waist and good hips. She was a big woman, but carried herself +well, and having solved the problem of obtaining, through marvels of +energy and management, one good dress a year, wore it so well, and +changed her old ones so dexterously, that she always looked rather +smartly dressed. She had nice, round, fresh cheeks and nice, big, honest +eyes, plenty of mouse-brown hair and a short, straight nose. She was +striking and well-bred-looking, and her plenitude of good-natured +interest in everybody, and her pleasure in everything out of which +pleasure could be wrested, gave her big eyes a fresh look which made her +seem rather like a nice overgrown girl than a mature woman whose life +was a continuous struggle with the narrowest of mean fortunes. + +She was a woman of good blood and of good education, as the education of +such women goes. She had few relatives, and none of them had any +intention of burdening themselves with her pennilessness. They were +people of excellent family, but had quite enough to do to keep their +sons in the army or navy and find husbands for their daughters. When +Emily's mother had died and her small annuity had died with her, none of +them had wanted the care of a big raw-boned girl, and Emily had had the +situation frankly explained to her. At eighteen she had begun to work as +assistant teacher in a small school; the year following she had taken a +place as nursery-governess; then she had been reading-companion to an +unpleasant old woman in Northumberland. The old woman had lived in the +country, and her relatives had hovered over her like vultures awaiting +her decease. The household had been gloomy and gruesome enough to have +driven into melancholy madness any girl not of the sanest and most +matter-of-fact temperament. Emily Fox-Seton had endured it with an +unfailing good nature, which at last had actually awakened in the breast +of her mistress a ray of human feeling. When the old woman at length +died, and Emily was to be turned out into the world, it was revealed +that she had been left a legacy of a few hundred pounds, and a letter +containing some rather practical, if harshly expressed, advice. + +Go back to London [Mrs. Maytham had written in her feeble, crabbed +hand]. You are not clever enough to do anything remarkable in the way of +earning your living, but you are so good-natured that you can make +yourself useful to a lot of helpless creatures who will pay you a trifle +for looking after them and the affairs they are too lazy or too foolish +to manage for themselves. You might get on to one of the second-class +fashion-papers to answer ridiculous questions about house-keeping or +wall-papers or freckles. You know the kind of thing I mean. You might +write notes or do accounts and shopping for some lazy woman. You are a +practical, honest creature, and you have good manners. I have often +thought that you had just the kind of commonplace gifts that a host of +commonplace people want to find at their service. An old servant of mine +who lives in Mortimer Street would probably give you cheap, decent +lodgings, and behave well to you for my sake. She has reason to be fond +of me. Tell her I sent you to her, and that she must take you in for ten +shillings a week. + +Emily wept for gratitude, and ever afterward enthroned old Mrs. Maytham +on an altar as a princely and sainted benefactor, though after she had +invested her legacy she got only twenty pounds a year from it. + +"It was so _kind_ of her," she used to say with heartfelt humbleness of +spirit. "I never _dreamed_ of her doing such a generous thing. I hadn't +a _shadow_ of a claim upon her--not a _shadow_." It was her way to +express her honest emotions with emphasis which italicised, as it were, +her outpourings of pleasure or appreciation. + +She returned to London and presented herself to the ex-serving-woman. +Mrs. Cupp had indeed reason to remember her mistress gratefully. At a +time when youth and indiscreet affection had betrayed her disastrously, +she had been saved from open disgrace and taken care of by Mrs. Maytham. + +The old lady, who had then been a vigorous, sharp-tongued, middle-aged +woman, had made the soldier lover marry his despairing sweetheart, and +when he had promptly drunk himself to death, she had set her up in a +lodging-house which had thriven and enabled her to support herself and +her daughter decently. + +In the second story of her respectable, dingy house there was a small +room which she went to some trouble to furnish up for her dead +mistress's friend. It was made into a bed-sitting-room with the aid of a +cot which Emily herself bought and disguised decently as a couch during +the daytime, by means of a red and blue Como blanket. The one window of +the room looked out upon a black little back-yard and a sooty wall on +which thin cats crept stealthily or sat and mournfully gazed at fate. +The Como rug played a large part in the decoration of the apartment. One +of them, with a piece of tape run through a hem, hung over the door in +the character of a _portiere_; another covered a corner which was Miss +Fox-Seton's sole wardrobe. As she began to get work, the cheerful, +aspiring creature bought herself a Kensington carpet-square, as red as +Kensington art would permit it to be. She covered her chairs with +Turkey-red cotton, frilling them round the seats. Over her cheap white +muslin curtains (eight and eleven a pair at Robson's) she hung +Turkey-red draperies. She bought a cheap cushion at one of Liberty's +sales, and some bits of twopenny-halfpenny art china for her narrow +mantelpiece. A lacquered tea-tray and a tea-set of a single cup and +saucer, a plate and a teapot, made her feel herself almost sumptuous. +After a day spent in trudging about in the wet or cold of the streets, +doing other people's shopping, or searching for dressmakers or servants' +characters for her patrons, she used to think of her bed-sitting-room +with joyful anticipation. Mrs. Cupp always had a bright fire glowing in +her tiny grate when she came in, and when her lamp was lighted under its +home-made shade of crimson Japanese paper, its cheerful air, combining +itself with the singing of her little, fat, black kettle on the hob, +seemed absolute luxury to a tired, damp woman. + +Mrs. Cupp and Jane Cupp were very kind and attentive to her. No one who +lived in the same house with her could have helped liking her. She gave +so little trouble, and was so expansively pleased by any attention, that +the Cupps,--who were sometimes rather bullied and snubbed by the +"professionals" who generally occupied their other rooms,--quite loved +her. Sometimes the "professionals," extremely smart ladies and gentlemen +who did turns at the balls or played small parts at theatres, were +irregular in their payments or went away leaving bills behind them; but +Miss Fox-Seton's payments were as regular as Saturday night, and, in +fact, there had been times when, luck being against her, Emily had gone +extremely hungry during a whole week rather than buy her lunches at the +ladies' tea-shops with the money that would pay her rent. In the honest +minds of the Cupps, she had become a sort of possession of which they +were proud. She seemed to bring into their dingy lodging-house a touch +of the great world,--that world whose people lived in Mayfair and had +country-houses where they entertained parties for the shooting and the +hunting, and in which also existed the maids and matrons who on cold +spring mornings sat, amid billows of satin and tulle and lace, +surrounded with nodding plumes, waiting, shivering, for hours in their +carriages that they might at last enter Buckingham Palace and be +admitted to the Drawing-room. Mrs. Cupp knew that Miss Fox-Seton was +"well connected;" she knew that she possessed an aunt with a title, +though her ladyship never took the slightest notice of her niece. Jane +Cupp took "Modern Society," and now and then had the pleasure of reading +aloud to her young man little incidents concerning some castle or manor +in which Miss Fox-Seton's aunt, Lady Malfry, was staying with earls and +special favorites of the Prince's. Jane also knew that Miss Fox-Seton +occasionally sent letters addressed "To the Right Honourable the +Countess of So-and-so," and received replies stamped with coronets. Once +even a letter had arrived adorned with strawberry-leaves, an incident +which Mrs. Cupp and Jane had discussed with deep interest over their hot +buttered-toast and tea. + +Emily Fox-Seton, however, was far from making any professions of +grandeur. As time went on she had become fond enough of the Cupps to be +quite frank with them about her connections with these grand people. The +countess had heard from a friend that Miss Fox-Seton had once found her +an excellent governess, and she had commissioned her to find for her a +reliable young ladies' serving-maid. She had done some secretarial work +for a charity of which the duchess was patroness. In fact, these people +knew her only as a well-bred woman who for a modest remuneration would +make herself extremely useful in numberless practical ways. She knew +much more of them than they knew of her, and, in her affectionate +admiration for those who treated her with human kindness, sometimes +spoke to Mrs. Cupp or Jane of their beauty or charity with a very nice, +ingenuous feeling. Naturally some of her patrons grew fond of her, and +as she was a fine, handsome young woman with a perfectly correct +bearing, they gave her little pleasures, inviting her to tea or +luncheon, or taking her to the theatre. + +Her enjoyment of these things was so frank and grateful that the Cupps +counted them among their own joys. Jane Cupp--who knew something of +dressmaking--felt it a brilliant thing to be called upon to renovate an +old dress or help in the making of a new one for some festivity. The +Cupps thought their tall, well-built lodger something of a beauty, and +when they had helped her to dress for the evening, baring her fine, big +white neck and arms, and adorning her thick braids of hair with some +sparkling, trembling ornaments, after putting her in her four-wheeled +cab, they used to go back to their kitchen and talk about her, and +wonder that some gentleman who wanted a handsome, stylish woman at the +head of his table, did not lay himself and his fortune at her feet. + +"In the photograph-shops in Regent Street you see many a lady in a +coronet that hasn't half the good looks she has," Mrs. Cupp remarked +frequently. "She's got a nice complexion and a fine head of hair, +and--if you ask _me_--she's got as nice a pair of clear eyes as a lady +could have. Then look at her figure--her neck and her waist! That kind +of big long throat of hers would set off rows of pearls or diamonds +beautiful! She's a lady born, too, for all her simple, every-day way; +and she's a sweet creature, if ever there was one. For kind-heartedness +and good-nature I never saw her equal." + +Miss Fox-Seton had middle-class patrons as well as noble ones,--in fact, +those of the middle class were far more numerous than the duchesses,--so +it had been possible for her to do more than one good turn for the Cupp +household. She had got sewing in Maida Vale and Bloomsbury for Jane Cupp +many a time, and Mrs. Cupp's dining-room floor had been occupied for +years by a young man Emily had been able to recommend. Her own +appreciation of good turns made her eager to do them for others. She +never let slip a chance to help any one in any way. + +It was a good-natured thing done by one of her patrons who liked her, +which made her so radiant as she walked through the mud this morning. +She was inordinately fond of the country, and having had what she called +"a bad winter," she had not seen the remotest chance of getting out of +town at all during the summer months. The weather was beginning to be +unusually hot, and her small red room, which seemed so cosy in winter, +was shut in by a high wall from all chance of breezes. Occasionally she +lay and panted a little in her cot, and felt that when all the private +omnibuses, loaded with trunks and servants, had rattled away and +deposited their burdens at the various stations, life in town would be +rather lonely. Every one she knew would have gone somewhere, and +Mortimer Street in August was a melancholy thing. + +And Lady Maria had actually invited her to Mallowe. What a piece of good +fortune--what an extraordinary piece of kindness! + +She did not know what a source of entertainment she was to Lady Maria, +and how the shrewd, worldly old thing liked her. Lady Maria Bayne was +the cleverest, sharpest-tongued, smartest old woman in London. She knew +everybody and had done everything in her youth, a good many things not +considered highly proper. A certain royal duke had been much pleased +with her and people had said some very nasty things about it. But this +had not hurt Lady Maria. She knew how to say nasty things herself, and +as she said them wittily they were usually listened to and repeated. + +Emily Fox-Seton had gone to her first to write notes for an hour every +evening. She had sent, declined, and accepted invitations, and put off +charities and dull people. She wrote a fine, dashing hand, and had a +matter-of-fact intelligence and knowledge of things. Lady Maria began to +depend on her and to find that she could be sent on errands and depended +on to do a number of things. Consequently, she was often at South Audley +Street, and once, when Lady Maria was suddenly taken ill and was +horribly frightened about herself, Emily was such a comfort to her that +she kept her for three weeks. + +"The creature is so cheerful and perfectly free from vice that she's a +relief," her ladyship said to her nephew afterward. "So many women are +affected cats. She'll go out and buy you a box of pills or a porous +plaster, but at the same time she has a kind of simplicity and freedom +from spites and envies which might be the natural thing for a princess." + +So it happened that occasionally Emily put on her best dress and most +carefully built hat and went to South Audley Street to tea. (Sometimes +she had previously gone in buses to some remote place in the City to buy +a special tea of which there had been rumours.) She met some very smart +people and rarely any stupid ones, Lady Maria being incased in a +perfect, frank armour of good-humoured selfishness, which would have +been capable of burning dulness at the stake. + +"I won't have dull people," she used to say. "I'm dull myself." + +When Emily Fox-Seton went to her on the morning in which this story +opens, she found her consulting her visiting-book and making lists. + +"I'm arranging my parties for Mallowe," she said rather crossly. "How +tiresome it is! The people one wants at the same time are always nailed +to the opposite ends of the earth. And then things are found out about +people, and one can't have them till it's blown over. Those ridiculous +Dexters! They were the nicest possible pair--both of them good-looking +and both of them ready to flirt with anybody. But there was too much +flirting, I suppose. Good heavens! if I couldn't have a scandal and keep +it quiet, I wouldn't have a scandal at all. Come and help me, Emily." + +Emily sat down beside her. + +"You see, it is my early August party," said her ladyship, rubbing her +delicate little old nose with her pencil, "and Walderhurst is coming to +me. It always amuses me to have Walderhurst. The moment a man like that +comes into a room the women begin to frisk about and swim and languish, +except those who try to get up interesting conversations they think +likely to attract his attention. They all think it is possible that he +may marry them. If he were a Mormon he might have marchionesses of +Walderhurst of all shapes and sizes." + +"I suppose," said Emily, "that he was very much in love with his first +wife and will never marry again." + +"He wasn't in love with her any more than he was in love with his +housemaid. He knew he must marry, and thought it very annoying. As the +child died, I believe he thinks it his duty to marry again. But he hates +it. He's rather dull, and he can't bear women fussing about and wanting +to be made love to." + +They went over the visiting-book and discussed people and dates +seriously. The list was made and the notes written before Emily left the +house. It was not until she had got up and was buttoning her coat that +Lady Maria bestowed her boon. + +"Emily," she said, "I am going to ask you to Mallowe on the 2d. I want +you to help me to take care of people and keep them from boring me and +one another, though I don't mind their boring one another half so much +as I mind their boring me. I want to be able to go off and take my nap +at any hour I choose. I will _not_ entertain people. What you can do is +to lead them off to gather things or look at church towers. I hope +you'll come." + +Emily Fox-Seton's face flushed rosily, and her eyes opened and sparkled. + +"O Lady Maria, you _are_ kind!" she said. "You know how I should enjoy +it. I have heard so much of Mallowe. Every one says it is so beautiful +and that there are no such gardens in England." + +"They are good gardens. My husband was rather mad about roses. The best +train for you to take is the 2:30 from Paddington. That will bring you +to the Court just in time for tea on the lawn." + +Emily could have kissed Lady Maria if they had been on the terms which +lead people to make demonstrations of affection. But she would have been +quite as likely to kiss the butler when he bent over her at dinner and +murmured in dignified confidence, "Port or sherry, miss?" Bibsworth +would have been no more astonished than Lady Maria would, and Bibsworth +certainly would have expired of disgust and horror. + +She was so happy when she hailed the twopenny bus that when she got into +it her face was beaming with the delight which adds freshness and good +looks to any woman. To think that such good luck had come to her! To +think of leaving her hot little room behind her and going as a guest to +one of the most beautiful old houses in England! How delightful it would +be to live for a while quite naturally the life the fortunate people +lived year after year--to be a part of the beautiful order and +picturesqueness and dignity of it! To sleep in a lovely bedroom, to be +called in the morning by a perfect housemaid, to have one's early tea +served in a delicate cup, and to listen as one drank it to the birds +singing in the trees in the park! She had an ingenuous appreciation of +the simplest material joys, and the fact that she would wear her nicest +clothes every day, and dress for dinner every evening, was a delightful +thing to reflect upon. She got so much more out of life than most +people, though she was not aware of it. + +She opened the front door of the house in Mortimer Street with her +latch-key, and went upstairs, almost unconscious that the damp heat was +dreadful. She met Jane Cupp coming down, and smiled at her happily. + +"Jane," she said, "if you are not busy, I should like to have a little +talk with you. Will you come into my room?" + +"Yes, miss," Jane replied, with her usual respectful lady's maid's air. +It was in truth Jane's highest ambition to become some day maid to a +great lady, and she privately felt that her association with Miss +Fox-Seton was the best possible training. She used to ask to be allowed +to dress her when she went out, and had felt it a privilege to be +permitted to "do" her hair. + +She helped Emily to remove her walking dress, and neatly folded away her +gloves and veil. She knelt down before her as soon as she saw her seat +herself to take off her muddy boots. + +"Oh, _thank_ you, Jane," Emily exclaimed, with her kind italicised +manner. "That _is_ good of you. I _am_ tired, really. But such a nice +thing has happened. I have had such a delightful invitation for the +first week in August." + +"I'm sure you'll enjoy it, miss," said Jane. "It's so hot in August." + +"Lady Maria Bayne has been kind enough to invite me to Mallowe Court," +explained Emily, smiling down at the cheap slipper Jane was putting on +her large, well-shaped foot. She was built on a large scale, and her +foot was of no Cinderella-like proportions. + +"O miss!" exclaimed Jane. "How beautiful! I was reading about Mallowe in +'Modern Society' the other day, and it said it was lovely and her +ladyship's parties were wonderful for smartness. The paragraph was about +the Marquis of Walderhurst." + +"He is Lady Maria's cousin," said Emily, "and he will be there when I +am." + +She was a friendly creature, and lived a life so really isolated from +any ordinary companionship that her simple little talks with Jane and +Mrs. Cupp were a pleasure to her. The Cupps were neither gossiping nor +intrusive, and she felt as if they were her friends. Once when she had +been ill for a week she remembered suddenly realising that she had no +intimates at all, and that if she died Mrs. Cupp's and Jane's would +certainly be the last faces--and the only ones--she would see. She had +cried a little the night she thought of it, but then, as she told +herself, she was feverish and weak, and it made her morbid. + +"It was because of this invitation that I wanted to talk to you, Jane," +she went on. "You see, we shall have to begin to contrive about +dresses." + +"Yes, indeed, miss. It's fortunate that the summer sales are on, isn't +it? I saw some beautiful colored linens yesterday. They were so cheap, +and they do make up so smart for the country. Then you've got your new +Tussore with the blue collar and waistband. It does become you." + +"I must say I think that a Tussore always looks fresh," said Emily, "and +I saw a really nice little tan toque--one of those soft straw ones--for +three and eleven. And just a twist of blue chiffon and a wing would make +it look quite _good_." + +She was very clever with her fingers, and often did excellent things +with a bit of chiffon and a wing, or a few yards of linen or muslin and +a remnant of lace picked up at a sale. She and Jane spent quite a happy +afternoon in careful united contemplation of the resources of her +limited wardrobe. They found that the brown skirt _could_ be altered, +and, with the addition of new _revers_ and collar and a _jabot_ of +string-coloured lace at the neck, would look quite fresh. A black net +evening dress, which a patron had good-naturedly given her the year +before, could be remodelled and touched up delightfully. Her fresh face +and her square white shoulders were particularly adorned by black. There +was a white dress which could be sent to the cleaner's, and an old pink +one whose superfluous breadths could be combined with lace and achieve +wonders. + +"Indeed, I think I shall be very well off for dinner-dresses," said +Emily. "Nobody expects me to change often. Every one knows--if they +notice at all." She did not know she was humble-minded and of an angelic +contentedness of spirit. In fact, she did not find herself interested in +contemplation of her own qualities, but in contemplation and admiration +of those of other people. It was necessary to provide Emily Fox-Seton +with food and lodging and such a wardrobe as would be just sufficient +credit to her more fortunate acquaintances. She worked hard to attain +this modest end and was quite satisfied. She found at the shops where +the summer sales were being held a couple of cotton frocks to which her +height and her small, long waist gave an air of actual elegance. A +sailor hat, with a smart ribbon and well-set quill, a few new trifles +for her neck, a bow, a silk handkerchief daringly knotted, and some +fresh gloves, made her feel that she was sufficiently equipped. + +During her last expedition to the sales she came upon a nice white duck +coat and skirt which she contrived to buy as a present for Jane. It was +necessary to count over the contents of her purse very carefully and to +give up the purchase of a slim umbrella she wanted, but she did it +cheerfully. If she had been a rich woman she would have given presents +to every one she knew, and it was actually a luxury to her to be able to +do something for the Cupps, who, she always felt, were continually +giving her more than she paid for. The care they took of her small room, +the fresh hot tea they managed to have ready when she came in, the penny +bunch of daffodils they sometimes put on her table, were kindnesses, and +she was grateful for them. "I am very much obliged to you, Jane," she +said to the girl, when she got into the four-wheeled cab on the eventful +day of her journey to Mallowe. "I don't know what I should have done +without you, I'm sure. I feel so smart in my dress now that you have +altered it. If Lady Maria's maid ever thinks of leaving her, I am sure I +could recommend you for her place." + + + + +Chapter Two + + +There were other visitors to Mallowe Court travelling by the 2:30 from +Paddington, but they were much smarter people than Miss Fox-Seton, and +they were put into a first-class carriage by a footman with a cockade +and a long drab coat. Emily, who traveled third with some workmen with +bundles, looked out of her window as they passed, and might possibly +have breathed a faint sigh if she had not felt in such buoyant spirits. +She had put on her revived brown skirt and a white linen blouse with a +brown dot on it. A soft brown silk tie was knotted smartly under her +fresh collar, and she wore her new sailor hat. Her gloves were brown, +and so was her parasol. She looked nice and taut and fresh, but notably +inexpensive. The people who went to sales and bought things at three and +eleven or "four-three" a yard would have been able add her up and work +out her total. But there would be no people capable of the calculation +at Mallowe. Even the servants' hall was likely to know less of prices +than this one guest did. The people the drab-coated footman escorted to +the first-class carriage were a mother and daughter. The mother had +regular little features, and would have been pretty if she had not been +much too plump. She wore an extremely smart travelling-dress and a +wonderful dust-cloak of cool, pale, thin silk. She was not an elegant +person, but her appointments were luxurious and self-indulgent. Her +daughter was pretty, and had a slim, swaying waist, soft pink cheeks, +and a pouting mouth. Her large picture-hat of pale-blue straw, with its +big gauze bow and crushed roses, had a slightly exaggerated Parisian +air. + +"It is a little too picturesque," Emily thought; "but how lovely she +looks in it! I suppose it was so becoming she could not help buying it. +I'm sure it's Virot." + +As she was looking at the girl admiringly, a man passed her window. He +was a tall man with a square face. As he passed close to Emily, he +stared through her head as if she had been transparent or invisible. He +got into the smoking-carriage next to her. + +When the train arrived at Mallowe station, he was one of the first +persons who got out. Two of Lady Maria's men were waiting on the +platform. Emily recognised their liveries. One met the tall man, +touching his hat, and followed him to a high cart, in the shafts of +which a splendid iron-gray mare was fretting and dancing. In a few +moments the arrival was on the high seat, the footman behind, and the +mare speeding up the road. Miss Fox-Seton found herself following the +second footman and the mother and daughter, who were being taken to the +landau waiting outside the station. The footman piloted them, merely +touching his hat quickly to Emily, being fully aware that she could take +care of herself. + +This she did promptly, looking after her box, and seeing it safe in the +Mallowe omnibus. When she reached the landau, the two other visitors +were in it. She got in, and in entire contentment sat down with her back +to the horses. + +The mother and daughter wore for a few minutes a somewhat uneasy air. +They were evidently sociable persons, but were not quite sure how to +begin a conversation with an as yet unintroduced lady who was going to +stay at the country house to which they were themselves invited. + +Emily herself solved the problem, producing her commonplace with a +friendly tentative smile. + +"Isn't it a lovely country?" she said. + +"It's perfect," answered the mother. "I've never visited Europe before, +and the English country seems to me just exquisite. We have a summer +place in America, but the country is quite different." + +She was good-natured and disposed to talk, and, with Emily Fox-Seton's +genial assistance, conversation flowed. Before they were half-way to +Mallowe, it had revealed itself that they were from Cincinnati, and +after a winter spent in Paris, largely devoted to visits to Paquin, +Doucet, and Virot, they had taken a house in Mayfair for the season. +Their name was Brooke. Emily thought she remembered hearing of them as +people who spent a great deal of money and went incessantly to parties, +always in new and lovely clothes. The girl had been presented by the +American minister, and had had a sort of success because she dressed and +danced exquisitely. She was the kind of American girl who ended by +marrying a title. She had sparkling eyes and a delicate tip-tilted nose. +But even Emily guessed that she was an astute little person. + +"Have you ever been to Mallowe Court before?" she inquired. + +"No; and I am _so_ looking forward to it. It is so beautiful." + +"Do you know Lady Maria very well?" + +"I've known her about three years. She has been very kind to me." + +"Well, I shouldn't have taken her for a particularly kind person. She's +too sharp." + +Emily amiably smiled. "She's so clever," she replied. + +"Do you know the Marquis of Walderhurst?" asked Mrs. Brooke. + +"No," answered Miss Fox-Seton. She had no part in that portion of Lady +Maria's life which was illumined by cousins who were marquises. Lord +Walderhurst did not drop in to afternoon tea. He kept himself for +special dinner-parties. + +"Did you see the man who drove away in the high cart?" Mrs. Brooke +continued, with a touch of fevered interest. "Cora thought it must be +the marquis. The servant who met him wore the same livery as the man up +there"--with a nod toward the box. + +"It was one of Lady Maria's servants," said Emily; "I have seen him in +South Audley Street. And Lord Walderhurst was to be at Mallowe. Lady +Maria mentioned it." + +"There, mother!" exclaimed Cora. + +"Well, of course if he is to be there, it will make it interesting," +returned her mother, in a tone in which lurked an admission of relief. +Emily wondered if she had wanted to go somewhere else and had been +firmly directed toward Mallowe by her daughter. + +"We heard a great deal of him in London this season," Mrs. Brooks went +on. + +Miss Cora Brooke laughed. + +"We heard that at least half a dozen people were determined to marry +him," she remarked with pretty scorn. "I should think that to meet a +girl who was indifferent might be good for him." + +"Don't be too indifferent, Cora," said her mother, with ingenuous +ineptness. + +It was a very stupid bit of revelation, and Miss Brooke's eyes flashed. +If Emily Fox-Seton had been a sharp woman, she would have observed that, +if the _role_ of indifferent and piquant young person could be made +dangerous to Lord Walderhurst, it would be made so during this visit. +The man was in peril from this beauty from Cincinnati and her rather +indiscreet mother, though upon the whole, the indiscreet maternal parent +might unconsciously form his protection. + +But Emily only laughed amiably, as at a humorous remark. She was ready +to accept almost anything as humour. + +"Well, he _would_ be a great match for any girl," she said. "He is so +rich, you know. He is very rich." + +When they reached Mallowe, and were led out upon the lawn, where the tea +was being served under embowering trees, they found a group of guests +eating little hot cakes and holding teacups in their hands. There were +several young women, and one of them--a very tall, very fair girl, with +large eyes as blue as forget-me-nots, and with a lovely, limp, and long +blue frock of the same shade--had been one of the beauties of the past +season. She was a Lady Agatha Slade, and Emily began to admire her at +once. She felt her to be a sort of added boon bestowed by kind Fate upon +herself. It was so delightful that she should be of this particular +house-party--this lovely creature, whom she had only known previously +through pictures in ladies' illustrated papers. If it should occur to +her to wish to become the Marchioness of Walderhurst, what could +possibly prevent the consummation of her desire? Surely not Lord +Walderhurst himself, if he was human. She was standing, leaning lightly +against the trunk of an ilex-tree, and a snow-white Borzoi was standing +close to her, resting his long, delicate head against her gown, +encouraging the caresses of her fair, stroking hand. She was in this +attractive pose when Lady Maria turned in her seat and said: + +"There's Walderhurst." + +The man who had driven himself over from the station in the cart was +coming towards them across the grass. He was past middle life and plain, +but was of good height and had an air. It was perhaps, on the whole, +rather an air of knowing what he wanted. + +Emily Fox-Seton, who by that time was comfortably seated in a cushioned +basket-chair, sipping her own cup of tea, gave him the benefit of the +doubt when she wondered if he was not really distinguished and +aristocratic-looking. He was really neither, but was well-built and +well-dressed, and had good grayish-brown eyes, about the colour of his +grayish-brown hair. Among these amiably worldly people, who were not in +the least moved by an altruistic prompting, Emily's greatest capital +consisted in the fact that she did not expect to be taken the least +notice of. She was not aware that it was her capital, because the fact +was so wholly a part of the simple contentedness of her nature that she +had not thought about it at all. The truth was that she found all her +entertainment and occupation in being an audience or a spectator. It did +not occur to her to notice that, when the guests were presented to him, +Lord Walderhurst barely glanced at her surface as he bowed, and could +scarcely be said to forget her existence the next second, because he had +hardly gone to the length of recognising it. As she enjoyed her +extremely nice cup of tea and little buttered scone, she also enjoyed +looking at his Lordship discreetly, and trying to make an innocent +summing up of his mental attitudes. + +Lady Maria seemed to like him and to be pleased to see him. He himself +seemed, in an undemonstrative way, to like Lady Maria. He also was +evidently glad to get his tea, and enjoyed it as he sat at his cousin's +side. He did not pay very much attention to any one else. Emily was +slightly disappointed to see that he did not glance at the beauty and +the Borzoi more than twice, and then that his examination seemed as much +for the Borzoi as for the beauty. She could not help also observing that +since he had joined the circle it had become more animated, so far at +least as the female members were concerned. She could not help +remembering Lady Maria's remark about the effect he produced on women +when he entered a room. Several interesting or sparkling speeches had +already been made. There was a little more laughter and chattiness, +which somehow it seemed to be quite open to Lord Walderhurst to enjoy, +though it was not exactly addressed to him. Miss Cora Brooke, however, +devoted herself to a young man in white flannels with an air of tennis +about him. She sat a little apart and talked to him in a voice soft +enough to even exclude Lord Walderhurst. Presently she and her companion +got up and sauntered away. They went down the broad flight of ancient +stone steps which led to the tennis-court, lying in full view below the +lawn. There they began to play tennis. Miss Brooke skimmed and darted +about like a swallow. The swirl of her lace petticoats was most +attractive. + +"That girl ought not to play tennis in shoes with ridiculous heels," +remarked Lord Walderhurst. "She will spoil the court." + +Lady Maria broke into a little chuckle. + +"She wanted to play at this particular moment," she said. "And as she +has only just arrived, it did not occur to her to come out to tea in +tennis-shoes." + +"She'll spoil the court all the same," said the marquis. "What clothes! +It's amazing how girls dress now." + +"I wish I had such clothes," answered Lady Maria, and she chuckled +again. "She's got beautiful feet." + +"She's got Louis Quinze heels," returned his Lordship. + +At all events, Emily Fox-Seton thought Miss Brooke seemed to intend to +rather keep out of his way and to practise no delicate allurements. When +her tennis-playing was at an end, she sauntered about the lawn and +terraces with her companion, tilting her parasol prettily over her +shoulder, so that it formed an entrancing background to her face and +head. She seemed to be entertaining the young man. His big laugh and the +silver music of her own lighter merriment rang out a little +tantalisingly. + +"I wonder what Cora is saying," said Mrs. Brooke to the group at large. +"She always makes men laugh so." + +Emily Fox-Seton felt an interest herself, the merriment sounded so +attractive. She wondered if perhaps to a man who had been so much run +after a girl who took no notice of his presence and amused other men so +much might not assume an agreeable aspect. + +But he took more notice of Lady Agatha Slade than of any one else that +evening. She was placed next to him at dinner, and she really was +radiant to look upon in palest green chiffon. She had an exquisite +little head, with soft hair piled with wondrous lightness upon it, and +her long little neck swayed like the stem of a flower. She was lovely +enough to arouse in the beholder's mind the anticipation of her being +silly, but she was not silly at all. + +Lady Maria commented upon that fact to Miss Fox-Seton when they met in +her bedroom late that night. Lady Maria liked to talk and be talked to +for half an hour after the day was over, and Emily Fox-Seton's admiring +interest in all she said she found at once stimulating and soothing. Her +Ladyship was an old woman who indulged and inspired herself with an +Epicurean wisdom. Though she would not have stupid people about her, she +did not always want very clever ones. + +"They give me too much exercise," she said. "The epigrammatic ones keep +me always jumping over fences. Besides, I like to make all the epigrams +myself." + +Emily Fox-Seton struck a happy mean, and she was a genuine admirer. She +was intelligent enough not to spoil the point of an epigram when she +repeated it, and she might be relied upon to repeat it and give all the +glory to its originator. Lady Maria knew there were people who, hearing +your good things, appropriated them without a scruple. To-night she said +a number of good things to Emily in summing up her guests and their +characteristics. + +"Walderhurst has been to me three times when I made sure that he would +not escape without a new marchioness attached to him. I should think he +would take one to put an end to the annoyance of dangling unplucked upon +the bough. A man in his position, if he has character enough to choose, +can prevent even his wife's being a nuisance. He can give her a good +house, hang the family diamonds on her, supply a decent elderly woman as +a sort of lady-in-waiting and turn her into the paddock to kick up her +heels within the limits of decorum. His own rooms can be sacred to him. +He has his clubs and his personal interests. Husbands and wives annoy +each other very little in these days. Married life has become +comparatively decent." + +"I should think his wife might be very happy," commented Emily. "He +looks very kind." + +"I don't know whether he is kind or not. It has never been necessary for +me to borrow money from him." + +Lady Maria was capable of saying odd things in her refined little +drawling voice. + +"He's more respectable than most men of his age. The diamonds are +magnificent, and he not only has three superb places, but has money +enough to keep them up. Now, there are three aspirants at Mallowe in the +present party. Of course you can guess who they are, Emily?" + +Emily Fox-Seton almost blushed. She felt a little indelicate. + +"Lady Agatha would be very suitable," she said. "And Mrs. Ralph is very +clever, of course. And Miss Brooke is really pretty." + +Lady Maria gave vent to her small chuckle. + +"Mrs. Ralph is the kind of woman who means business. She'll corner +Walderhurst and talk literature and roll her eyes at him until he hates +her. These writing women, who are intensely pleased with themselves, if +they have some good looks into the bargain, believe themselves capable +of marrying any one. Mrs. Ralph has fine eyes and rolls them. +Walderhurst won't be ogled. The Brooke girl is sharper than Ralph. She +was very sharp this afternoon. She began at once." + +"I--I didn't see her"--wondering. + +"Yes, you did; but you didn't understand. The tennis, and the laughing +with young Heriot on the terrace! She is going to be the piquant young +woman who aggravates by indifference, and disdains rank and splendour; +the kind of girl who has her innings in novelettes--but not out of them. +The successful women are those who know how to toady in the right way +and not obviously. Walderhurst has far too good an opinion of himself to +be attracted by a girl who is making up to another man: he's not +five-and-twenty." + +Emily Fox-Seton was reminded, in spite of herself, of Mrs. Brooke's +plaint: "Don't be too indifferent, Cora." She did not want to recall it +exactly, because she thought the Brookes agreeable and would have +preferred to think them disinterested. But, after all, she reflected, +how natural that a girl who was so pretty should feel that the Marquis +of Walderhurst represented prospects. Chiefly, however, she was filled +with admiration at Lady Maria's cleverness. + +"How wonderfully you observe everything, Lady Maria!" she exclaimed. +"How wonderfully!" + +"I have had forty-seven seasons in London. That's a good many, you know. +Forty-seven seasons of debutantes and mothers tend toward enlightenment. +Now there is Agatha Slade, poor girl! She's of a kind I know by heart. +With birth and beauty, she is perfectly helpless. Her people are poor +enough to be entitled to aid from the Charity Organisation, and they +have had the indecency to present themselves with six daughters--six! +All with delicate skins and delicate little noses and heavenly eyes. +Most men can't afford them, and they can't afford most men. As soon as +Agatha begins to go off a little, she will have to step aside, if she +has not married. The others must be allowed their chance. Agatha has had +the advertising of the illustrated papers this season, and she has gone +well. In these days a new beauty is advertised like a new soap. They +haven't given them sandwich-men in the streets, but that is about all +that has been denied them. But Agatha has not had any special offer, and +I know both she and her mother are a little frightened. Alix must come +out next season, and they can't afford frocks for two. Agatha will have +to be sent to their place in Ireland, and to be sent to Castle Clare is +almost like being sent to the Bastille. She'll never get out alive. +She'll have to stay there and see herself grow thin instead of slim, and +colourless instead of fair. Her little nose will grow sharp, and she +will lose her hair by degrees." + +"Oh!" Emily Fox-Seton gave forth sympathetically. "What a pity that +would be! I thought--I really thought--Lord Walderhurst seemed to admire +her." + +"Oh, every one admires her, for that matter; but if they go no further +that will not save her from the Bastille, poor thing. There, Emily; we +must go to bed. We have talked enough." + + + + +Chapter Three + + +To awaken in a still, delicious room, with the summer morning sunshine +breaking softly into it through leafy greenness, was a delightful thing +to Miss Fox-Seton, who was accustomed to opening her eyes upon four +walls covered with cheap paper, to the sound of outside hammerings, and +the rattle and heavy roll of wheels. In a building at the back of her +bed-sitting-room there lived a man whose occupation, beginning early in +the morning, involved banging of a persistent nature. + +She awakened to her first day at Mallowe, stretching herself +luxuriously, with the smile of a child. She was so thankful for the +softness of her lavender-fragrant bed, and so delighted with the lovely +freshness of her chintz-hung room. As she lay upon her pillow, she could +see the boughs of the trees, and hear the chatter of darting starlings. +When her morning tea was brought, it seemed like nectar to her. She was +a perfectly healthy woman, with a palate as unspoiled as that of a +six-year-old child in the nursery. Her enjoyment of all things was so +normal as to be in her day and time an absolute abnormality. + +She rose and dressed at once, eager for the open air and sunshine. She +was out upon the lawn before any one else but the Borzoi, which rose +from beneath a tree and came with stately walk toward her. The air was +exquisite, the broad, beautiful stretch of view lay warm in the sun, the +masses of flowers on the herbaceous borders showed leaves and +flower-cups adorned with glittering drops of dew. She walked across the +spacious sweep of short-cropped sod, and gazed enraptured at the country +spread out below. She could have kissed the soft white sheep dotting the +fields and lying in gentle, huddled groups under the trees. + +"The darlings!" she said, in a little, effusive outburst. + +She talked to the dog and fondled him. He seemed to understand her mood, +and pressed close against her gown when she stopped. They walked +together about the gardens, and presently picked up an exuberant +retriever, which bounded and wriggled and at once settled into a steady +trot beside them. Emily adored the flowers as she walked by their beds, +and at intervals stopped to bury her face in bunches of spicy things. +She was so happy that the joy in her hazel eyes was pathetic. + +She was startled, as she turned into a rather narrow rose-walk, to see +Lord Walderhurst coming toward her. He looked exceedingly clean in his +fresh light knickerbocker suit, which was rather becoming to him. A +gardener was walking behind, evidently gathering roses for him, which he +put into a shallow basket. Emily Fox-Seton cast about for a suitable +remark to make, if he should chance to stop to speak to her. She +consoled herself with the thought that there were things she really +_wanted_ to say about the beauty of the gardens, and certain clumps of +heavenly-blue campanulas, which seemed made a feature of in the +herbaceous borders. It was so much nicer not to be obliged to invent +observations. But his lordship did not stop to speak to her. He was +interested in his roses (which, she heard afterward, were to be sent to +town to an invalid friend), and as she drew near, he turned aside to +speak to the gardener. As Emily was just passing him when he turned +again, and as the passage was narrow, he found himself unexpectedly +gazing into her face. + +Being nearly the same height, they were so near each other that it was a +little awkward. + +"I beg pardon," he said, stepping back a pace and lifting his straw hat. + +But he did not say, "I beg pardon, Miss Fox-Seton," and Emily knew that +he had not recognised her again, and had not the remotest idea who she +was or where she came from. + +She passed him with her agreeable, friendly smile, and there returned to +her mind Lady Maria's remarks of the night before. + +"To think that if he married poor pretty Lady Agatha she will be +mistress of three places quite as beautiful as Mallowe, three lovely old +houses, three sets of gardens, with thousands of flowers to bloom every +year! How nice it would be for her! She is so lovely that it seems as if +he _must_ fall in love with her. Then, if she was Marchioness of +Walderhurst, she could do so much for her sisters." + +After breakfast she spent her morning in doing a hundred things for Lady +Maria. She wrote notes for her, and helped her to arrange plans for the +entertainment of her visitors. She was very busy and happy. In the +afternoon she drove across the moor to Maundell, a village on the other +side of it. She really went on an errand for her hostess, but as she was +fond of driving and the brown cob was a beauty, she felt that she was +being given a treat on a level with the rest of her ladyship's generous +hospitalities. She drove well, and her straight, strong figure showed to +much advantage on the high seat of the cart. Lord Walderhurst himself +commented on her as he saw her drive away. + +"She has a nice, flat, straight back, that woman," he remarked to Lady +Maria. "What is her name? One never hears people's names when one is +introduced." + +"Her name is Emily Fox-Seton," her ladyship answered, "and she's a nice +creature." + +"That would be an inhuman thing to say to most men, but if one is a +thoroughly selfish being, and has some knowledge of one's own character, +one sees that a nice creature might be a nice companion." + +"You are quite right," was Lady Maria's reply, as she held up her +lorgnette and watched the cart spin down the avenue. "I am selfish +myself, and I realise that is the reason why Emily Fox-Seton is becoming +the lodestar of my existence. There is such comfort in being pandered to +by a person who is not even aware that she is pandering. She doesn't +suspect that she is entitled to thanks for it." + +That evening Mrs. Ralph came shining to dinner in amber satin, which +seemed to possess some quality of stimulating her to brilliance. She was +witty enough to collect an audience, and Lord Walderhurst was drawn +within it. This was Mrs. Ralph's evening. When the men returned to the +drawing-room, she secured his lordship at once and managed to keep him. +She was a woman who could talk pretty well, and perhaps Lord Walderhurst +was amused. Emily Fox-Seton was not quite sure that he was, but at least +he listened. Lady Agatha Slade looked a little listless and pale. Lovely +as she was, she did not always collect an audience, and this evening she +said she had a headache. She actually crossed the room, and taking a +seat by Miss Emily Fox-Seton, began to talk to her about Lady Maria's +charity-knitting which she had taken up. Emily was so gratified that she +found conversation easy. She did not realise that at that particular +moment she was a most agreeable and comforting companion for Agatha +Slade. She had heard so much of her beauty during the season, and +remembered so many little things that a girl who was a thought depressed +might like to hear referred to again. Sometimes to Agatha the balls +where people had collected in groups to watch her dancing, the +flattering speeches she had heard, the dazzling hopes which had been +raised, seemed a little unreal, as if, after all, they could have been +only dreams. This was particularly so, of course, when life had dulled +for a while and the atmosphere of unpaid bills became heavy at home. It +was so to-day, because the girl had received a long, anxious letter from +her mother, in which much was said of the importance of an early +preparation for the presentation of Alix, who had really been kept back +a year, and was in fact nearer twenty than nineteen. + +"If we were not in Debrett and Burke, one might be reserved about such +matters," poor Lady Claraway wrote; "but what is one to do when all the +world can buy one's daughters' ages at the book-sellers'?" + +Miss Fox-Seton had seen Lady Agatha's portrait at the Academy and the +way in which people had crowded about it. She had chanced to hear +comments also, and she agreed with a number of persons who had not +thought the picture did the original justice. + +"Sir Bruce Norman was standing by me with an elderly lady the first time +I saw it," she said, as she turned a new row of the big white-wool scarf +her hostess was knitting for a Deep-Sea Fisherman's Charity. "He really +looked quite annoyed. I heard him say: 'It is not good at all. She is +far, far lovelier. Her eyes are like blue flowers.' The moment I saw +you, I found myself looking at your eyes. I hope I didn't seem rude." + +Lady Agatha smiled. She had flushed delicately, and took up in her slim +hand a skein of the white wool. + +"There are some people who are never rude," she sweetly said, "and you +are one of them, I am sure. That knitting looks nice. I wonder if I +could make a comforter for a deep-sea fisherman." + +"If it would amuse you to try," Emily answered, "I will begin one for +you. Lady Maria has several pairs of wooden needles. Shall I?" + +"Do, please. How kind of you!" + +In a pause of her conversation, Mrs. Ralph, a little later, looked +across the room at Emily Fox-Seton bending over Lady Agatha and the +knitting, as she gave her instructions. + +"What a good-natured creature that is!" she said. + +Lord Walderhurst lifted his monocle and inserted it in his unillumined +eye. He also looked across the room. Emily wore the black evening dress +which gave such opportunities to her square white shoulders and firm +column of throat; the country air and sun had deepened the colour on her +cheek, and the light of the nearest lamp fell kindly on the big twist of +her nut-brown hair, and burnished it. She looked soft and warm, and so +generously interested in her pupil's progress that she was rather sweet. + +Lord Walderhurst simply looked at her. He was a man of but few words. +Women who were sprightly found him somewhat unresponsive. In fact, he +was aware that a man in his position need not exert himself. The women +themselves would talk. They wanted to talk because they wanted him to +hear them. + +Mrs. Ralph talked. + +"She is the most primeval person I know. She accepts her fate without a +trace of resentment; she simply accepts it." + +"What is her fate?" asked Lord Walderhurst, still gazing in his +unbiassed manner through his monocle, and not turning his head as he +spoke. + +"It is her fate to be a woman who is perfectly well born, and who is as +penniless as a charwoman, and works like one. She is at the beck and +call of any one who will give her an odd job to earn a meal with. That +is one of the new ways women have found of making a living." + +"Good skin," remarked Lord Walderhurst, irrelevantly. "Good hair--quite +a lot." + +"She has some of the nicest blood in England in her veins, and she +engaged my last cook for me," said Mrs. Ralph. + +"Hope she was a good cook." + +"Very. Emily Fox-Seton has a faculty of finding decent people. I believe +it is because she is so decent herself"--with a little laugh. + +"Looks quite decent," commented Walderhurst. The knitting was getting on +famously. + +"It was odd you should see Sir Bruce Norman that day," Agatha Slade was +saying. "It must have been just before he was called away to India." + +"It was. He sailed the next day. I happen to know, because some friends +of mine met me only a few yards from your picture and began to talk +about him. I had not known before that he was so rich. I had not heard +about his collieries in Lancashire. Oh!"--opening her big eyes in +heart-felt yearning,--"how I wish I owned a colliery! It must be so +_nice_ to be rich!" + +"I never was rich," answered Lady Agatha, with a bitter little sigh. "I +know it is hideous to be poor." + +"_I_ never was rich," said Emily, "and I never shall be. You"--a little +shyly--"are so different." + +Lady Agatha flushed delicately again. + +Emily Fox-Seton made a gentle joke. "You have eyes like blue flowers," +she said. Lady Agatha lifted the eyes like blue flowers, and they were +pathetic. + +"Oh!" she gave forth almost impetuously, "sometimes it seems as if it +does not matter whether one has eyes or not." + +It was a pleasure to Emily Fox-Seton to realise that after this the +beauty seemed to be rather drawn toward her. Their acquaintance became +almost a sort of intimacy over the wool scarf for the deep-sea +fisherman, which was taken up and laid down, and even carried out on the +lawn and left under the trees for the footmen to restore when they +brought in the rugs and cushions. Lady Maria was amusing herself with +the making of knitted scarfs and helmets just now, and bits of white or +gray knitting were the fashion at Mallowe. Once Agatha brought hers to +Emily's room in the afternoon to ask that a dropped stitch might be +taken up, and this established a sort of precedent. Afterward they began +to exchange visits. + +The strenuousness of things was becoming, in fact, almost too much for +Lady Agatha. Most unpleasant things were happening at home, and +occasionally Castle Clare loomed up grayly in the distance like a +spectre. Certain tradespeople who ought, in Lady Claraway's opinion, to +have kept quiet and waited in patience until things became better, were +becoming hideously persistent. In view of the fact that Alix's next +season must be provided for, it was most awkward. A girl could not be +presented and properly launched in the world, in a way which would give +her a proper chance, without expenditure. To the Claraways expenditure +meant credit, and there were blots as of tears on the letters in which +Lady Claraway reiterated that the tradespeople were behaving horribly. +Sometimes, she said once in desperation, things looked as if they would +all be obliged to shut themselves up in Castle Clare to retrench; and +then what was to become of Alix and her season? And there were Millicent +and Hilda and Eve. + +More than once there was the mist of tears in the flower-blue eyes when +Lady Agatha came to talk. Confidence between two women establishes +itself through processes at once subtle and simple. Emily Fox-Seton +could not have told when she first began to know that the beauty was +troubled and distressed; Lady Agatha did not know when she first slipped +into making little frank speeches about herself; but these things came +about. Agatha found something like comfort in her acquaintance with the +big, normal, artless creature--something which actually raised her +spirits when she was depressed. Emily Fox-Seton paid constant kindly +tribute to her charms, and helped her to believe in them. When she was +with her, Agatha always felt that she really was lovely, after all, and +that loveliness was a great capital. Emily admired and revered it so, +and evidently never dreamed of doubting its omnipotence. She used to +talk as if any girl who was a beauty was a potential duchess. In fact, +this was a thing she quite ingenuously believed. She had not lived in a +world where marriage was a thing of romance, and, for that matter, +neither had Agatha. It was nice if a girl liked the man who married her, +but if he was a well-behaved, agreeable person, of good means, it was +natural that she would end by liking him sufficiently; and to be +provided for comfortably or luxuriously for life, and not left upon +one's own hands or one's parents', was a thing to be thankful for in any +case. It was such a relief to everybody to know that a girl was +"settled," and especially it was such a relief to the girl herself. Even +novels and plays were no longer fairy-stories of entrancing young men +and captivating young women who fell in love with each other in the +first chapter, and after increasingly picturesque incidents were married +in the last one in the absolute surety of being blissfully happy +forevermore. Neither Lady Agatha nor Emily had been brought up on this +order of literature, nor in an atmosphere in which it was accepted +without reservation. + +They had both had hard lives, and knew what lay before them. Agatha knew +she must make a marriage or fade out of existence in prosaic and +narrowed dulness. Emily knew that there was no prospect for her of +desirable marriage at all. She was too poor, too entirely unsupported by +social surroundings, and not sufficiently radiant to catch the roving +eye. To be able to maintain herself decently, to be given an occasional +treat by her more fortunate friends, and to be allowed by fortune to +present to the face of the world the appearance of a woman who was not a +pauper, was all she could expect. But she felt that Lady Agatha had the +right to more. She did not reason the matter out and ask herself why she +had the right to more, but she accepted the proposition as a fact. She +was ingenuously interested in her fate, and affectionately sympathetic. +She used to look at Lord Walderhurst quite anxiously at times when he +was talking to the girl. An anxious mother could scarcely have regarded +him with a greater desire to analyse his sentiments. The match would be +such a fitting one. He would make such an excellent husband--and there +were three places, and the diamonds were magnificent. Lady Maria had +described to her a certain tiara which she frequently pictured to +herself as glittering above Agatha's exquisite low brow. It would be +infinitely more becoming to her than to Miss Brooke or Mrs. Ralph, +though either of them would have worn it with spirit. She could not help +feeling that both Mrs. Ralph's brilliancy and Miss Brooke's insouciant +prettiness were not unworthy of being counted in the running, but Lady +Agatha seemed somehow so much more completely the thing wanted. She was +anxious that she should always look her best, and when she knew that +disturbing letters were fretting her, and saw that they made her look +pale and less luminous, she tried to raise her spirits. + +"Suppose we take a brisk walk," she would say, "and then you might try a +little nap. You look a little tired." + +"Oh," said Agatha one day, "how kind you are to me! I believe you +actually care about my complexion--about my looking well." + +"Lord Walderhurst said to me the other day," was Emily's angelically +tactful answer, "that you were the only woman he had ever seen who +_always_ looked lovely." + +"Did he?" exclaimed Lady Agatha, and flushed sweetly. "Once Sir Bruce +Norman actually said that to me. I told him it was the nicest thing that +could be said to a woman. It is all the nicer"--with a sigh--"because it +isn't _really_ true." + +"I am sure Lord Walderhurst believed it true," Emily said. "He is not a +man who talks, you know. He is very serious and dignified." She had +herself a reverence and admiration for Lord Walderhurst bordering on +tender awe. He was indeed a well-mannered person, of whom painful things +were not said. He also conducted himself well toward his tenantry, and +was patron of several notable charities. To the unexacting and +innocently respectful mind of Emily Fox-Seton this was at once +impressive and attractive. She knew, though not intimately, many noble +personages quite unlike him. She was rather early Victorian and +touchingly respectable. + +"I have been crying," confessed Lady Agatha. + +"I was afraid so, Lady Agatha," said Emily. + +"Things are getting hopeless in Curzon Street. I had a letter from +Millicent this morning. She is next in age to Alix, and she says--oh, a +number of things. When girls see everything passing by them, it makes +them irritable. Millicent is seventeen, and she is too lovely. Her hair +is like a red-gold cloak, and her eyelashes are twice as long as mine." +She sighed again, and her lips, which were like curved rose-petals, +unconcealedly quivered. "They were _all_ so cross about Sir Bruce Norman +going to India," she added. + +"He will come back," said Emily, benignly; "but he may be too late. Has +he"--ingenuously--"seen Alix?" + +Agatha flushed oddly this time. Her delicate skin registered every +emotion exquisitely. "He has seen her, but she was in the school-room, +and--I don't think--" + +She did not finish, but stopped uneasily, and sat and gazed out of the +open window into the park. She did not look happy. + +The episode of Sir Bruce Norman was brief and even vague. It had begun +well. Sir Bruce had met the beauty at a ball, and they had danced +together more than once. Sir Bruce had attractions other than his old +baronetcy and his coal-mines. He was a good-looking person, with a +laughing brown eye and a nice wit. He had danced charmingly and paid gay +compliments. He would have done immensely well. Agatha had liked him. +Emily sometimes thought she had liked him very much. Her mother had +liked him and had thought he was attracted. But after a number of +occasions of agreeable meetings, they had encountered each other on the +lawn at Goodwood, and he had announced that he was going to India. +Forthwith he had gone, and Emily had gathered that somehow Lady Agatha +had been considered somewhat to blame. Her people were not vulgar enough +to express this frankly, but she had felt it. Her younger sisters had, +upon the whole, made her feel it most. It had been borne in upon her +that if Alix, or Millicent with the red-gold cloak, or even Eve, who was +a gipsy, had been given such a season and such Doucet frocks, they would +have combined them with their wonderful complexions and lovely little +chins and noses in such a manner as would at least have prevented +desirable acquaintances from feeling free to take P. and O. steamers to +Bombay. + +In her letter of this morning, Millicent's temper had indeed got +somewhat the better of her taste and breeding, and lovely Agatha had +cried large tears. So it was comforting to be told that Lord Walderhurst +had said such an extremely amiable thing. If he was not young, he was +really _very_ nice, and there were exalted persons who absolutely had +rather a fad for him. It would be exceptionally brilliant. + +The brisk walk was taken, and Lady Agatha returned from it blooming. She +was adorable at dinner, and in the evening gathered an actual court +about her. She was all in pink, and a wreath of little pink wild roses +lay close about her head, making her, with her tall young slimness, look +like a Botticelli nymph. Emily saw that Lord Walderhurst looked at her a +great deal. He sat on an extraordinarily comfortable corner seat, and +stared through his monocle. + +Lady Maria always gave her Emily plenty to do. She had a nice taste in +floral arrangement, and early in her visit it had fallen into her hands +as a duty to "do" the flowers. + +The next morning she was in the gardens early, gathering roses with the +dew on them, and was in the act of cutting some adorable "Mrs. Sharman +Crawfords," when she found it behoved her to let down her carefully +tucked up petticoats, as the Marquis of Walderhurst was walking straight +toward her. An instinct told her that he wanted to talk to her about +Lady Agatha Slade. + +"You get up earlier than Lady Agatha," he remarked, after he had wished +her "Good-morning." + +"She is oftener invited to the country than I am," she answered. "When I +have a country holiday, I want to spend every moment of it out of doors. +And the mornings are so lovely. They are not like this in Mortimer +Street." + +"Do you live in Mortimer Street?" + +"Yes." + +"Do you like it?" + +"I am very comfortable. I am fortunate in having a nice landlady. She +and her daughter are very kind to me." + +The morning was indeed heavenly. The masses of flowers were drenched +with dew, and the already hot sun was drawing fragrance from them and +filling the warm air with it. The marquis, with his monocle fixed, +looked up into the cobalt-blue sky and among the trees, where a +wood-dove or two cooed with musical softness. + +"Yes," he observed, with a glance which swept the scene, "it is +different from Mortimer Street, I suppose. Are you fond of the country?" + +"Oh, yes," sighed Emily; "oh, yes!" + +She was not a specially articulate person. She could not have conveyed +in words all that her "Oh, yes!" really meant of simple love for and joy +in rural sights and sounds and scents. But when she lifted her big kind +hazel eyes to him, the earnestness of her emotion made them pathetic, as +the unspeakableness of her pleasures often did. + +Lord Walderhurst gazed at her through the monocle with an air he +sometimes had of taking her measure without either unkindliness or +particular interest. + +"Is Lady Agatha fond of the country?" he inquired. + +"She is fond of everything that is beautiful," she replied. "Her nature +is as lovely as her face, I think." + +"Is it?" + +Emily walked a step or two away to a rose climbing up the gray-red wall, +and began to clip off blossoms, which tumbled sweetly into her basket. + +"She seems lovely in everything," she said, "in disposition and manner +and--everything. She never seems to disappoint one or make mistakes." + +"You are fond of her?" + +"She has been so kind to me." + +"You often say people are kind to you." + +Emily paused and felt a trifle confused. Realising that she was not a +clever person, and being a modest one, she began to wonder if she was +given to a parrot-phrase which made her tiresome. She blushed up to her +ears. + +"People are kind," she said hesitatingly. "I--you see, I have nothing to +give, and I always seem to be receiving." + +"What luck!" remarked his lordship, calmly gazing at her. + +He made her feel rather awkward, and she was at once relieved and sorry +when he walked away to join another early riser who had come out upon +the lawn. For some mysterious reason Emily Fox-Seton liked him. Perhaps +his magnificence and the constant talk she had heard of him had warmed +her imagination. He had never said anything particularly intelligent to +her, but she felt as if he had. He was a rather silent man, but never +looked stupid. He had made some good speeches in the House of Lords, not +brilliant, but sound and of a dignified respectability. He had also +written two pamphlets. Emily had an enormous respect for intellect, and +frequently, it must be admitted, for the thing which passed for it. She +was not exacting. + +During her stay at Mallowe in the summer, Lady Maria always gave a +village treat. She had given it for forty years, and it was a lively +function. Several hundred wildly joyous village children were fed to +repletion with exhilarating buns and cake, and tea in mugs, after which +they ran races for prizes, and were entertained in various ways, with +the aid of such of the house-party as were benevolently inclined to make +themselves useful. + +Everybody was not so inclined, though people always thought the thing +amusing. Nobody objected to looking on, and some were agreeably +stimulated by the general sense of festivity. But Emily Fox-Seton was +found by Lady Maria to be invaluable on this occasion. It was so easy, +without the least sense of ill-feeling, to give her all the drudgery to +do. There was plenty of drudgery, though it did not present itself to +Emily Fox-Seton in that light. She no more realised that she was giving +Lady Maria a good deal for her money, so to speak, than she realised +that her ladyship, though an amusing and delightful, was an absolutely +selfish and inconsiderate old woman. So long as Emily Fox-Seton did not +seem obviously tired, it would not have occurred to Lady Maria that she +could be so; that, after all, her legs and arms were mere human flesh +and blood, that her substantial feet were subject to the fatigue +unending trudging to and fro induces. Her ladyship was simply delighted +that the preparations went so well, that she could turn to Emily for +service and always find her ready. Emily made lists and calculations, +she worked out plans and made purchases. She interviewed the village +matrons who made the cake and buns, and boiled the tea in bags in a +copper; she found the women who could be engaged to assist in cutting +cake and bread-and-butter and helping to serve it; she ordered the +putting up of tents and forms and tables; the innumerable things to be +remembered she called to mind. + +"Really, Emily," said Lady Maria, "I don't know how I have done this +thing for forty years without you. I must always have you at Mallowe for +the treat." + +Emily was of the genial nature which rejoices upon even small occasions, +and is invariably stimulated to pleasure by the festivities of others. +The festal atmosphere was a delight to her. In her numberless errands to +the village, the sight of the excitement in the faces of the children +she passed on her way to this cottage and that filled her eyes with +friendly glee and wreathed her face with smiles. When she went into the +cottage where the cake was being baked, children hovered about in groups +and nudged each other, giggling. They hung about, partly through +thrilled interest, and partly because their joy made them eager to +courtesy to her as she came out, the obeisance seeming to identify them +even more closely with the coming treat. They grinned and beamed rosily, +and Emily smiled at them and nodded, uplifted by a pleasure almost as +infantile as their own. She was really enjoying herself so honestly that +she did not realise how hard she worked during the days before the +festivity. She was really ingenious, and invented a number of new +methods of entertainment. It was she who, with the aid of a couple of +gardeners, transformed the tents into bowers of green boughs and +arranged the decorations of the tables and the park gates. + +"What a lot of walking you do!" Lord Walderhurst said to her once, as +she passed the group on the lawn. "Do you know how many hours you have +been on your feet to-day?" + +"I like it," she answered, and, as she hurried by, she saw that he was +sitting a shade nearer to Lady Agatha than she had ever seen him sit +before, and that Agatha, under a large hat of white gauze frills, was +looking like a seraph, so sweet and shining were her eyes, so +flower-fair her face. She looked actually happy. + +"Perhaps he has been saying things," Emily thought. "How happy she will +be! He has such a nice pair of eyes. He would make a woman very happy." +A faint sigh fluttered from her lips. She was beginning to be physically +tired, and was not yet quite aware of it. If she had not been physically +tired, she would not even vaguely have had, at this moment, recalled to +her mind the fact that she was not of the women to whom "things" are +said and to whom things happen. + +"Emily Fox-Seton," remarked Lady Maria, fanning herself, as it was +frightfully hot, "has the most admirable effect on me. She makes me feel +generous. I should like to present her with the smartest things from the +wardrobes of all my relations." + +"Do you give her clothes?" asked Walderhurst. + +"I haven't any to spare. But I know they would be useful to her. The +things she wears are touching; they are so well contrived, and produce +such a decent effect with so little." + +Lord Walderhurst inserted his monocle and gazed after the straight, +well-set-up back of the disappearing Miss Fox-Seton. + +"I think," said Lady Agatha, gently, "that she is really handsome." + +"So she is," admitted Walderhurst--"quite a good-looking woman." + +That night Lady Agatha repeated the amiability to Emily, whose grateful +amazement really made her blush. + +"Lord Walderhurst knows Sir Bruce Norman," said Agatha. "Isn't it +strange? He spoke of him to me to-day. He says he is clever." + +"You had a nice talk this afternoon, hadn't you?" said Emily. "You both +looked so--so--as if you were enjoying yourselves when I passed." + +"Did he look as if he were enjoying himself? He was very agreeable. I +did not know he could be so agreeable." + +"I have never seen him look as much pleased," answered Emily Fox-Seton. +"Though he always looks as if he liked talking to you, Lady Agatha. That +large white gauze garden-hat"--reflectively--"is so _very_ becoming." + +"It was very expensive," sighed lovely Agatha. "And they last such a +short time. Mamma said it really seemed almost criminal to buy it." + +"How delightful it will be," remarked cheering Emily, "when--when you +need not think of things like that!" + +"Oh!"--with another sigh, this time a catch of the breath,--"it would be +like Heaven! People don't know; they think girls are frivolous when they +care, and that it isn't serious. But when one knows one _must_ have +things,--that they are like bread,--it is awful!" + +"The things you wear really matter." Emily was bringing all her powers +to bear upon the subject, and with an anxious kindness which was quite +angelic. "Each dress makes you look like another sort of picture. Have +you,"--contemplatively--"anything _quite_ different to wear to-night and +to-morrow?" + +"I have two evening dresses I have not worn here yet"--a little +hesitatingly. "I--well I saved them. One is a very thin black one with +silver on it. It has a trembling silver butterfly for the shoulder, and +one for the hair." + +"Oh, put that on to-night!" said Emily, eagerly. "When you come down to +dinner you will look so--so new! I always think that to see a fair +person suddenly for the first time all in black gives one a kind of +delighted start--though start isn't the word, quite. Do put it on." + +Lady Agatha put it on. Emily Fox-Seton came into her room to help to add +the last touches to her beauty before she went down to dinner. She +suggested that the fair hair should be dressed even higher and more +lightly than usual, so that the silver butterfly should poise the more +airily over the knot, with its quivering, outstretched wings. She +herself poised the butterfly high upon the shoulder. + +"Oh, it is lovely!" she exclaimed, drawing back to gaze at the girl. "Do +let me go down a moment or so before you do, so that I can see you come +into the room." + +She was sitting in a chair quite near Lord Walderhurst when her charge +entered. She saw him really give something quite like a start when +Agatha appeared. His monocle, which had been in his eye, fell out of it, +and he picked it up by its thin cord and replaced it. + +"Psyche!" she heard him say in his odd voice, which seemed merely to +make a statement without committing him to an opinion--"Psyche!" + +He did not say it to her or to any one else. It was simply a kind of +exclamation,--appreciative and perceptive without being +enthusiastic,--and it was curious. He talked to Agatha nearly all the +evening. + +Emily came to Lady Agatha before she retired, looking even a little +flushed. + +"What are you going to wear at the treat to-morrow?" she asked. + +"A white muslin, with _entre-deux_ of lace, and the gauze garden-hat, +and a white parasol and shoes." + +Lady Agatha looked a little nervous; her pink fluttered in her cheek. + +"And to-morrow night?" said Emily. + +"I have a very pale blue. Won't you sit down, dear Miss Fox-Seton?" + +"We must both go to bed and sleep. You must not get tired." + +But she sat down for a few minutes, because she saw the girl's eyes +asking her to do it. + +The afternoon post had brought a more than usually depressing letter +from Curzon Street. Lady Claraway was at her motherly wits' ends, and +was really quite touching in her distraction. A dressmaker was entering +a suit. The thing would get into the papers, of course. + +"Unless something happens, something to save us by staving off things, +we shall have to go to Castle Clare at once. It will be all over. No +girl could be presented with such a thing in the air. They don't like +it." + +"They," of course, meant persons whose opinions made London's society's +law. + +"To go to Castle Clare," faltered Agatha, "will be like being sentenced +to starve to death. Alix and Hilda and Millicent and Eve and I will be +starved, quite slowly, for the want of the things that make girls' lives +bearable when they have been born in a certain class. And even if the +most splendid thing happened in three or four years, it would be too +late for us four--almost too late for Eve. If you are out of London, of +course you are forgotten. People can't help forgetting. Why shouldn't +they, when there are such crowds of new girls every year?" + +Emily Fox-Seton was sweet. She was quite sure that they would not be +obliged to go to Castle Clare. Without being indelicate, she was really +able to bring hope to the fore. She said a good deal of the black gauze +dress and the lovely effect of the silver butterflies. + +"I suppose it was the butterflies which made Lord Walderhurst say +'Psyche! Psyche!' when he first saw you," she added, _en passant_. + +"Did he say that?" And immediately Lady Agatha looked as if she had not +intended to say the words. + +"Yes," answered Emily, hurrying on with a casual air which had a good +deal of tact in it. "And black makes you so wonderfully fair and aerial. +You scarcely look quite real in it; you might float away. But you must +go to sleep now." + +Lady Agatha went with her to the door of the room to bid her good-night. +Her eyes looked like those of a child who might presently cry a little. +"Oh, Miss Fox-Seton," she said, in a very young voice, "you are so +kind!" + + + + +Chapter Four + + +The parts of the park nearest to the house already presented a busy +aspect when Miss Fox-Seton passed through the gardens the following +morning. Tables were being put up, and baskets of bread and cake and +groceries were being carried into the tent where the tea was to be +prepared. The workers looked interested and good-humoured; the men +touched their hats as Emily appeared, and the women courtesied +smilingly. They had all discovered that she was amiable and to be relied +on in her capacity of her ladyship's representative. + +"She's a worker, that Miss Fox-Seton," one said to the other. "I never +seen one that was a lady fall to as she does. Ladies, even when they +means well, has a way of standing about and telling you to do things +without seeming to know quite how they ought to be done. She's coming to +help with the bread-and-butter-cutting herself this morning, and she put +up all them packages of sweets yesterday with her own hands. She did 'em +up in different-coloured papers, and tied 'em with bits of ribbon, +because she said she knowed children was prouder of coloured things than +plain--they was like that. And so they are: a bit of red or blue goes a +long way with a child." + +Emily cut bread-and-butter and cake, and placed seats and arranged toys +on tables all the morning. The day was hot, though beautiful, and she +was so busy that she had scarcely time for her breakfast. The household +party was in the gayest spirits. Lady Maria was in her most amusing +mood. She had planned a drive to some interesting ruins for the +afternoon of the next day, and a dinner-party for the evening. Her +favourite neighbours had just returned to their country-seat five miles +away, and they were coming to the dinner, to her great satisfaction. +Most of her neighbours bored her, and she took them in doses at her +dinners, as she would have taken medicine. But the Lockyers were young +and good-looking and clever, and she was always glad when they came to +Loche during her stay at Mallowe. + +"There is not a frump or a bore among them," she said. "In the country +people are usually frumps when they are not bores, and bores when they +are not frumps, and I am in danger of becoming both myself. Six weeks of +unalloyed dinner-parties, composed of certain people I know, would make +me begin to wear moreen petticoats and talk about the deplorable +condition of London society." + +She led all her flock out on to the lawn under the ilex-trees after +breakfast. + +"Let us go and encourage industry," she said. "We will watch Emily +Fox-Seton working. She is an example." + +Curiously enough, this was Miss Cora Brooke's day. She found herself +actually walking across the lawn with Lord Walderhurst by her side. She +did not know how it happened, but it seemed to occur accidentally. + +"We never talk to each other," he said. + +"Well," answered Cora, "we have talked to other people a great deal--at +least I have." + +"Yes, you have talked a good deal," said the marquis. + +"Does that mean I have talked too much?" + +He surveyed her prettiness through his glass. Perhaps the holiday stir +in the air gave him a festive moment. + +"It means that you haven't talked enough to me. You have devoted +yourself too much to the laying low of young Heriot." + +She laughed a trifle saucily. + +"You are a very independent young lady," remarked Walderhurst, with a +lighter manner than usual. "You ought to say something deprecatory or--a +little coy, perhaps." + +"I shan't," said Cora, composedly. + +"Shan't or won't?" he inquired. "They are both bad words for little +girls--or young ladies--to use to their elders." + +"Both," said Miss Cora Brooke, with a slightly pleased flush. "Let us go +over to the tents and see what poor Emily Fox-Seton is doing." + +"Poor Emily Fox-Seton," said the marquis, non-committally. + +They went, but they did not stay long. The treat was taking form. Emily +Fox-Seton was hot and deeply engaged. People were coming to her for +orders. She had a thousand things to do and to superintend the doing of. +The prizes for the races and the presents for the children must be +arranged in order: things for boys and things for girls, presents for +little children and presents for big ones. Nobody must be missed, and no +one must be given the wrong thing. + +"It would be dreadful, you know," Emily said to the two when they came +into her tent and began to ask questions, "if a big boy should get a +small wooden horse, or a little baby should be given a cricket bat and +ball. Then it would be so disappointing if a tiny girl got a work-box +and a big one got a doll. One has to get things in order. They look +forward to this so, and it's heart-breaking to a child to be +disappointed, isn't it?" + +Walderhurst gazed uninspiringly. + +"Who did this for Lady Maria when you were not here?" he inquired. + +"Oh, other people. But she says it was tiresome." Then with an illumined +smile; "She has asked me to Mallowe for the next twenty years for the +treats. She is so kind." + +"Maria is a kind woman"--with what seemed to Emily delightful +amiability. "She is kind to her treats and she is kind to Maria Bayne." + +"She is kind to _me_," said Emily. "You don't know how I am enjoying +this." + +"That woman enjoys everything," Lord Walderhurst said when he walked +away with Cora. "What a temperament to have! I would give ten thousand a +year for it." + +"She has so little," said Cora, "that everything seems beautiful to her. +One doesn't wonder, either. She's very nice. Mother and I quite admire +her. We are thinking of inviting her to New York and giving her a real +good time." + +"She would enjoy New York." + +"Have you ever been there, Lord Walderhurst?" + +"No." + +"You ought to come, really. So many Englishmen come now, and they all +seem to like it." + +"Perhaps I will come," said Walderhurst. "I have been thinking of it. +One is tired of the Continent and one knows India. One doesn't know +Fifth Avenue, and Central Park, and the Rocky Mountains." + +"One might try them," suggested pretty Miss Cora. + +This certainly was her day. Lord Walderhurst took her and her mother out +in his own particular high phaeton before lunch. He was fond of driving, +and his own phaeton and horses had come to Mallowe with him. He took +only his favourites out, and though he bore himself on this occasion +with a calm air, the event caused a little smiling flurry on the lawn. +At least, when the phaeton spun down the avenue with Miss Brooke and her +mother looking slightly flushed and thrilled in their high seats of +honour, several people exchanged glances and raised eye-brows. + +Lady Agatha went to her room and wrote a long letter to Curzon Street. +Mrs. Ralph talked about the problem-play to young Heriot and a group of +others. + +The afternoon, brilliant and blazing, brought new visitors to assist by +their presence at the treat. Lady Maria always had a large house-party, +and added guests from the neighbourhood to make for gaiety. At two +o'clock a procession of village children and their friends and parents, +headed by the village band, marched up the avenue and passed before the +house on their way to their special part of the park. Lady Maria and her +guests stood upon the broad steps and welcomed the jocund crowd, as it +moved by, with hospitable bows and nods and becks and wreathed smiles. +Everybody was in a delighted good-humour. + +As the villagers gathered in the park, the house-party joined them by +way of the gardens. A conjurer from London gave an entertainment under a +huge tree, and children found white rabbits taken from their pockets and +oranges from their caps, with squeals of joy and shouts of laughter. +Lady Maria's guests walked about and looked on, laughing with the +children. + +The great affair of tea followed the performance. No treat is fairly +under way until the children are filled to the brim with tea and buns +and cake, principally cake in plummy wedges. + +Lady Agatha and Mrs. Ralph handed cake along rows of children seated on +the grass. Miss Brooke was talking to Lord Walderhurst when the work +began. She had poppies in her hat and carried a poppy-coloured parasol, +and sat under a tree, looking very alluring. + +"I ought to go and help to hand cake," she said. + +"My cousin Maria ought to do it," remarked Lord Walderhurst, "but she +will not--neither shall I. Tell me something about the elevated railroad +and Five-Hundred-and-Fifty-Thousandth Street." He had a slightly rude, +gracefully languid air, which Cora Brooke found somewhat impressive, +after all. + +Emily Fox-Seton handed cake and regulated supplies with cheerful tact +and good spirits. When the older people were given their tea, she moved +about their tables, attending to every one. She was too heart-whole in +her interest in her hospitalities to find time to join Lady Maria and +her party at the table under the ilex-trees. She ate some +bread-and-butter and drank a cup of tea while she talked to some old +women she had made friends with. She was really enjoying herself +immensely, though occasionally she was obliged to sit down for a few +moments just to rest her tired feet. The children came to her as to an +omnipotent and benign being. She knew where the toys were kept and what +prizes were to be given for the races. She represented law and order and +bestowal. The other ladies walked about in wonderful dresses, smiling +and exalted, the gentlemen aided the sports in an amateurish way and +made patrician jokes among themselves, but this one lady seemed to be +part of the treat itself. She was not so grandly dressed as the +others,--her dress was only blue linen with white bands on it,--and she +had only a sailor hat with a buckle and bow, but she was of her +ladyship's world of London people, nevertheless, and they liked her more +than they had ever liked a lady before. It was a fine treat, and she +seemed to have made it so. There had never been quite such a varied and +jovial treat at Mallowe before. + +The afternoon waxed and waned. The children played games and raced and +rejoiced until their young limbs began to fail them. The older people +sauntered about or sat in groups to talk and listen to the village band. +Lady Maria's visitors, having had enough of rural festivities, went back +to the gardens in excellent spirits, to talk and to watch a game of +tennis which had taken form on the court. + +Emily Fox-Seton's pleasure had not abated, but her colour had done so. +Her limbs ached and her still-smiling face was pale, as she stood under +the beech-tree regarding the final ceremonies of the festal day, to +preside over which Lady Maria and her party returned from their seats +under the ilex-trees. The National Anthem was sung loudly, and there +were three tremendous cheers given for her ladyship. They were such +joyous and hearty cheers that Emily was stirred almost to emotional +tears. At all events, her hazel eyes looked nice and moistly bright. She +was an easily moved creature. + +Lord Walderhurst stood near Lady Maria and looked pleased also. Emily +saw him speak to her ladyship and saw Lady Maria smile. Then he stepped +forward, with his non-committal air and his monocle glaring calmly in +his eye. + +"Boys and girls," he said in a clear, far-reaching voice, "I want you to +give three of the biggest cheers you are capable of for the lady who has +worked to make your treat the success it has been. Her ladyship tells me +she has never had such a treat before. Three cheers for Miss Fox-Seton." + +Emily gave a gasp and felt a lump rise in her throat. She felt as if she +had been without warning suddenly changed into a royal personage, and +she scarcely knew what to do. + +The whole treat, juvenile and adult, male and female, burst into three +cheers which were roars and bellows. Hats and caps were waved and tossed +into the air, and every creature turned toward her as she blushed and +bowed in tremulous gratitude and delight. + +"Oh, Lady Maria! oh, Lord Walderhurst!" she said, when she managed to +get to them, "how _kind_ you are to me!" + + + + +Chapter Five + + +After she had taken her early tea in the morning, Emily Fox-Seton lay +upon her pillows and gazed out upon the tree-branches near her window, +in a state of bliss. She was tired, but happy. How well everything had +"gone off"! How pleased Lady Maria had been, and how kind of Lord +Walderhurst to ask the villagers to give three cheers for herself! She +had never dreamed of such a thing. It was the kind of attention not +usually offered to her. She smiled her childlike smile and blushed at +the memory of it. Her impression of the world was that people were +really very amiable, as a rule. They were always good to her, at least, +she thought, and it did not occur to her that if she had not paid her +way so remarkably well by being useful they might have been less +agreeable. Never once had she doubted that Lady Maria was the most +admirable and generous of human beings. She was not aware in the least +that her ladyship got a good deal out of her. In justice to her +ladyship, it may be said that she was not wholly aware of it herself, +and that Emily absolutely enjoyed being made use of. + +This morning, however, when she got up, she found herself more tired +than she ever remembered being before, and it may be easily argued that +a woman who runs about London on other people's errands often knows what +it is to be aware of aching limbs. She laughed a little when she +discovered that her feet were actually rather swollen, and that she must +wear a pair of her easiest slippers. "I must sit down as much as I can +to-day," she thought. "And yet, with the dinner-party and the excursion +this morning, there may be a number of little things Lady Maria would +like me to do." + +There were, indeed, numbers of things Lady Maria was extremely glad to +ask her to do. The drive to the ruins was to be made before lunch, +because some of the guests felt that an afternoon jaunt would leave them +rather fagged for the dinner-party in the evening. Lady Maria was not +going, and, as presently became apparent, the carriages would be rather +crowded if Miss Fox-Seton joined the party. On the whole, Emily was not +sorry to have an excuse for remaining at home, and so the carriages +drove away comfortably filled, and Lady Maria and Miss Fox-Seton watched +their departure. + +"I have no intention of having my venerable bones rattled over hill and +dale the day I give a dinner-party," said her ladyship. "Please ring the +bell, Emily. I want to make sure of the fish. Fish is one of the +problems of country life. Fishmongers are demons, and when they live +five miles from one they can arouse the most powerful human emotions." + +Mallowe Court was at a distance from the country town delightful in its +effects upon the rusticity of the neighbourhood, but appalling when +considered in connection with fish. One could not dine without fish; the +town was small and barren of resources, and the one fishmonger of weak +mind and unreliable nature. + +The footman who obeyed the summons of the bell informed her ladyship +that the cook was rather anxious about the fish, as usual. The +fishmonger had been a little doubtful as to whether he could supply her +needs, and his cart never arrived until half-past twelve. + +"Great goodness!" exclaimed her ladyship when the man retired. "What a +situation if we found ourselves without fish! Old General Barnes is the +most ferocious old gourmand in England, and he loathes people who give +him bad dinners. We are all rather afraid of him, the fact is, and I +will own that I am vain about my dinners. That is the last charm nature +leaves a woman, the power to give decent dinners. I shall be fearfully +annoyed if any ridiculous thing happens." + +They sat in the morning-room together writing notes and talking, and as +half-past twelve drew near, watching for the fishmonger's cart. Once or +twice Lady Maria spoke of Lord Walderhurst. + +"He is an interesting creature, to my mind," she said. "I have always +rather liked him. He has original ideas, though he is not in the least +brilliant. I believe he talks more freely to me, on the whole, than to +most people, though I can't say he has a particularly good opinion of +me. He stuck his glass in his eye and stared at me last night, in that +weird way of his, and said to me, 'Maria, in an ingenuous fashion of +your own, you are the most abominably selfish woman I ever beheld.' +Still, I know he rather likes me. I said to him: 'That isn't quite true, +James. I am selfish, but I'm not _abominably_ selfish. Abominably +selfish people always have nasty tempers, and no one can accuse me of +having a nasty temper. I have the disposition of a bowl of bread and +milk." + +"Emily,"--as wheels rattled up the avenue,--"_is_ that the fishmonger's +cart?" + +"No," answered Emily at the window; "it is the butcher." + +"His attitude toward the women here has made my joy," Lady Maria +proceeded, smiling over the deep-sea fishermen's knitted helmet she had +taken up. "He behaves beautifully to them all, but not one of them has +really a leg to stand on as far as he is responsible for it. But I will +tell you something, Emily." She paused. + +Miss Fox-Seton waited with interested eyes. + +"He is thinking of bringing the thing to an end and marrying _some_ +woman. I feel it in my bones." + +"Do you think so?" exclaimed Emily. "Oh, I can't help hoping--" But she +paused also. + +"You hope it will be Agatha Slade," Lady Maria ended for her. "Well, +perhaps it will be. I sometimes think it is Agatha, if it's any one. And +yet I'm not sure. One never could be sure with Walderhurst. He has +always had a trick of keeping more than his mouth shut. I wonder if he +could have any other woman up his sleeve?" + +"Why do you think--" began Emily. + +Lady Maria laughed. + +"For an odd reason. The Walderhursts have a ridiculously splendid ring +in the family, which they have a way of giving to the women they become +engaged to. It's ridiculous because--well, because a ruby as big as a +trouser's button _is_ ridiculous. You can't get over that. There is a +story connected with this one--centuries and things, and something about +the woman the first Walderhurst had it made for. She was a Dame +Something or Other who had snubbed the King for being forward, and the +snubbing was so good for him that he thought she was a saint and gave +the ruby for her betrothal. Well, by the merest accident I found +Walderhurst had sent his man to town for it. It came two days ago." + +"Oh, how interesting!" said Emily, thrilled. "It _must_ mean something." + +"It is rather a joke. Wheels again, Emily. Is _that_ the fishmonger?" + +Emily went to the window once more. "Yes," she answered, "if his name is +Buggle." + +"His name _is_ Buggle," said Lady Maria, "and we are saved." + +But five minutes later the cook herself appeared at the morning-room +door. She was a stout person, who panted, and respectfully removed beads +of perspiration from her brow with a clean handkerchief. + +She was as nearly pale as a heated person of her weight may be. + +"And what has happened now, cook?" asked Lady Maria. + +"That Buggle, your ladyship," said cook, "says your ladyship can't be no +sorrier than he is, but when fish goes bad in a night it can't be made +fresh in the morning. He brought it that I might see it for myself, and +it is in a state as could not be used by any one. I was that upset, your +ladyship, that I felt like I must come and explain myself." + +"What _can_ be done?" exclaimed Lady Maria. "Emily, _do_ suggest +something." + +"We can't even be sure," said the cook, "that Batch has what would suit +us. Batch sometimes has it, but he is the fishmonger at Maundell, and +that is four miles away, and we are short-'anded, your ladyship, now the +'ouse is so full, and not a servant that could be spared." + +"Dear me!" said Lady Maria. "Emily, this is really enough to drive one +quite mad. If everything was not out of the stables, I know you would +drive over to Maundell. You are such a good walker,"--catching a gleam +of hope,--"do you think you could walk?" + +Emily tried to look cheerful. Lady Maria's situation was really an awful +one for a hostess. It would not have mattered in the least if her +strong, healthy body had not been so tired. She was an excellent walker, +and ordinarily eight miles would have meant nothing in the way of +fatigue. She was kept in good training by her walking in town, Springy +moorland swept by fresh breezes was not like London streets. + +"I think I can manage it," she said nice-temperedly. "If I had not run +about so much yesterday it would be a mere nothing. You must have the +fish, of course. I will walk over the moor to Maundell and tell Batch it +must be sent at once. Then I will come back slowly. I can rest on the +heather by the way. The moor is lovely in the afternoon." + +"You dear soul!" Lady Maria broke forth. "What a boon you are to a +woman!" + +She felt quite grateful. There arose in her mind an impulse to invite +Emily Fox-Seton to remain the rest of her life with her, but she was too +experienced an elderly lady to give way to impulses. She privately +resolved, however, that she would have her a good deal in South Audley +Street, and would make her some decent presents. + +When Emily Fox-Seton, attired for her walk in her shortest brown linen +frock and shadiest hat, passed through the hall, the post-boy was just +delivering the midday letters to a footman. The servant presented his +salver to her with a letter for herself lying upon the top of one +addressed in Lady Claraway's handwriting "To the Lady Agatha Slade." +Emily recognised it as one of the epistles of many sheets which so often +made poor Agatha shed slow and depressed tears. Her own letter was +directed in the well-known hand of Mrs. Cupp, and she wondered what it +could contain. + +"I hope the poor things are not in any trouble," she thought. "They were +afraid the young man in the sitting-room was engaged. If he got married +and left them, I don't know what they would do; he has been so regular." + +Though the day was hot, the weather was perfect, and Emily, having +exchanged her easy slippers for an almost equally easy pair of tan +shoes, found her tired feet might still be used. Her disposition to make +the very best of things inspired her to regard even an eight-mile walk +with courage. The moorland air was so sweet, the sound of the bees +droning as they stumbled about in the heather was such a comfortable, +peaceful thing, that she convinced herself that she should find the four +miles to Maundell quite agreeable. + +She had so many nice things to think of that she temporarily forgot that +she had put Mrs. Cupp's letter in her pocket, and was half-way across +the moor before she remembered it. + +"Dear me!" she exclaimed when she recalled it. "I must see what has +happened." + +She opened the envelope and began to read as she walked; but she had not +taken many steps before she uttered an exclamation and stopped. + +"How very nice for them!" she said, but she turned rather pale. + +From a worldly point of view the news the letter contained was indeed +very nice for the Cupps, but it put a painful aspect upon the simple +affairs of poor Miss Fox-Seton. + +"It is a great piece of news, in one way," wrote Mrs. Cupp, "and yet me +and Jane can't help feeling a bit low at the thought of the changes it +will make, and us living where you won't be with us, if I may take the +liberty, miss. My brother William made a good bit of money in Australia, +but he has always been homesick for the old country, as he always calls +England. His wife was a Colonial, and when she died a year ago he made +up his mind to come home to settle in Chichester, where he was born. He +says there's nothing like the feeling of a Cathedral town. He's bought +such a nice house a bit out, with a big garden, and he wants me and Jane +to come and make a home with him. He says he has worked hard all his +life, and now he means to be comfortable, and he can't be bothered with +housekeeping. He promises to provide well for us both, and he wants us +to sell up Mortimer Street, and come as quick as possible. But we +_shall_ miss you, miss, and though her Uncle William keeps a trap and +everything according, and Jane is grateful for his kindness, she broke +down and cried hard last night, and says to me: 'Oh, mother, if Miss +Fox-Seton could just manage to take me as a maid, I would rather be it +than anything. Traps don't feed the heart, mother, and I've a feeling +for Miss Fox-Seton as is perhaps unbecoming to my station.' But we've +got the men in the house ticketing things, miss, and we want to know +what we shall do with the articles in your bed-sitting-room." + +The friendliness of the two faithful Cupps and the humble Turkey-red +comforts of the bed-sitting-room had meant home to Emily Fox-Seton. When +she had turned her face and her tired feet away from discouraging +errands and small humiliations and discomforts, she had turned them +toward the bed-sitting-room, the hot little fire, the small, fat black +kettle singing on the hob, and the two-and-eleven-penny tea-set. Not +being given to crossing bridges before she reached them, she had never +contemplated the dreary possibility that her refuge might be taken away +from her. She had not dwelt upon the fact that she had no other real +refuge on earth. + +As she walked among the sun-heated heather and the luxuriously droning +bees, she dwelt upon it now with a suddenly realising sense. As it came +home to her soul, her eyes filled with big tears, which brimmed over and +rolled down her cheeks. They dropped upon the breast of her linen blouse +and left marks. + +"I shall have to find a new bed-sitting-room somewhere," she said, the +breast of the linen blouse lifting itself sharply. "It will be so +different to be in a house with strangers. Mrs. Cupp and Jane--" She was +obliged to take out her handkerchief at that moment. "I am afraid I +can't get anything respectable for ten shillings a week. It was very +cheap--and they were so nice!" + +All her fatigue of the early morning had returned. Her feet began to +burn and ache, and the sun felt almost unbearably hot. The mist in her +eyes prevented her seeing the path before her. Once or twice she +stumbled over something. + +"It seems as if it must be farther than four miles," she said. "And then +there is the walk back. I _am_ tired. But I must get on, really." + + + + +Chapter Six + + +The drive to the ruins had been a great success. It was a drive of just +sufficient length to put people in spirits without fatiguing them. The +party came back to lunch with delightful appetities. Lady Agatha and +Miss Cora Brooke had pink cheeks. The Marquis of Walderhurst had behaved +charmingly to both of them. He had helped each of them to climb about +among the ruins, and had taken them both up the steep, dark stairway of +one of the towers, and stood with them looking over the turrets into the +courtyard and the moat. He knew the history of the castle and could +point out the banquet-hall and the chapel and the serving-places, and +knew legends about the dungeons. + +"He gives us all a turn, mother," said Miss Cora Brooke. "He even gave a +turn yesterday to poor Emily Fox-Seton. He's rather nice." + +There was a great deal of laughter at lunch after their return. Miss +Cora Brooke was quite brilliant in her gay little sallies. But though +she was more talkative than Lady Agatha, she did not look more +brilliant. + +The letter from Curzon Street had not made the beauty shed tears. Her +face had fallen when it had been handed to her on her return, and she +had taken it upstairs to her room with rather a flagging step. But when +she came down to lunch she walked with the movement of a nymph. Her +lovely little face wore a sort of tremulous radiance. She laughed like a +child at every amusing thing that was said. She might have been ten +years old instead of twenty-two, her colour, her eyes, her spirits +seemed of a freshness so infantine. + +She was leaning back in her chair laughing enchantingly at one of Miss +Brooke's sparkling remarks when Lord Walderhurst, who sat next to her, +said suddenly, glancing round the table: + +"But where is Miss Fox-Seton?" + +It was perhaps a significant fact that up to this moment nobody had +observed her absence. It was Lady Maria who replied. + +"I am almost ashamed to answer," she said. "As I have said before, Emily +Fox-Seton has become the lodestar of my existence. I cannot live without +her. She has walked over to Maundell to make sure that we do not have a +dinner-party without fish to-night." + +"She has _walked_ over to Maundell," said Lord Walderhurst--"after +yesterday?" + +"There was not a pair of wheels left in the stable," answered Lady +Maria. "It is disgraceful, of course, but she is a splendid walker, and +she said she was not too tired to do it. It is the kind of thing she +ought to be given the Victoria Cross for--saving one from a dinner-party +without fish." + +The Marquis of Walderhurst took up the cord of his monocle and fixed the +glass rigidly in his eye. + +"It is not only four miles to Maundell," he remarked, staring at the +table-cloth, not at Lady Maria, "but it is four miles back." + +"By a singular coincidence," said Lady Maria. + +The talk and laughter went on, and the lunch also, but Lord Walderhurst, +for some reason best known to himself, did not finish his. For a few +seconds he stared at the table-cloth, then he pushed aside his nearly +disposed-of cutlet, then he got up from his chair quietly. + +"Excuse me, Maria," he said, and without further ado went out of the +room, and walked toward the stables. + + * * * * * + +There was excellent fish at Maundell; Batch produced it at once, fresh, +sound, and desirable. Had she been in her normal spirits, Emily would +have rejoiced at the sight of it, and have retraced her four miles to +Mallowe in absolute jubilation. She would have shortened and beguiled +her return journey by depicting to herself Lady Maria's pleasure and +relief. + +But the letter from Mrs. Cupp lay like a weight of lead in her pocket. +It had given her such things to think of as she walked that she had been +oblivious to heather and bees and fleece-bedecked summer-blue sky, and +had felt more tired than in any tramp through London streets that she +could call to mind. Each step she took seemed to be carrying her farther +away from the few square yards of home the bed-sitting-room had +represented under the dominion of the Cupps. Every moment she recalled +more strongly that it had been home--home. Of course it had not been the +third-floor back room so much as it had been the Cupps who made it so, +who had regarded her as a sort of possession, who had liked to serve +her, and had done it with actual affection. + +"I shall have to find a new place," she kept saying. "I shall have to go +among quite strange people." + +She had suddenly a new sense of being without resource. That was one of +the proofs of the curious heaviness of the blow the simple occurrence +was to her. She felt temporarily almost as if there were no other +lodging-houses in London, though she knew that really there were tens of +thousands. The fact was that though there might be other Cupps, or their +counterparts, she could not make herself believe such a good thing +possible. She had been physically worn out before she had read the +letter, and its effect had been proportionate to her fatigue and lack of +power to rebound. She was vaguely surprised to feel that the tears kept +filling her eyes and falling on her cheeks in big heavy drops. She was +obliged to use her handkerchief frequently, as if she was suddenly +developing a cold in her head. + +"I must take care," she said once, quite prosaically, but with more +pathos in her voice than she was aware of, "or I shall make my nose +quite red." + +[Illustration: The Marquis of Walderhurst] + +Though Batch was able to supply fish, he was unfortunately not able to +send it to Mallowe. His cart had gone out on a round just before Miss +Fox-Seton's arrival, and there was no knowing when it would return. + +"Then I must carry the fish myself," said Emily. "You can put it in a +neat basket." + +"I'm very sorry, miss; I am, indeed, miss," said Batch, looking hot and +pained. + +"It will not be heavy," returned Emily; "and her ladyship must be sure +of it for the dinner-party." + +So she turned back to recross the moor with a basket of fish on her arm. +And she was so pathetically unhappy that she felt that so long as she +lived the odour of fresh fish would make her feel sorrowful. She had +heard of people who were made sorrowful by the odour of a flower or the +sound of a melody but in her case it would be the smell of fresh fish +that would make her sad. If she had been a person with a sense of +humour, she might have seen that this a was thing to laugh at a little. +But she was not a humorous woman, and just now---- + +"Oh, I shall have to find a new place," she was thinking, "and I have +lived in that little room for years." + +The sun got hotter and hotter, and her feet became so tired that she +could scarcely drag one of them after another. She had forgotten that +she had left Mallowe before lunch, and that she ought to have got a cup +of tea, at least, at Maundell. Before she had walked a mile on her way +back, she realised that she was frightfully hungry and rather faint. + +"There is not even a cottage where I could get a glass of water," she +thought. + +The basket, which was really comparatively light, began to feel heavy on +her arm, and at length she felt sure that a certain burning spot on her +left heel must be a blister which was being rubbed by her shoe. How it +hurt her, and how tired she was--how tired! And when she left +Mallowe--lovely, luxurious Mallowe--she would not go back to her little +room all fresh from the Cupps' autumn house-cleaning, which included the +washing and ironing of her Turkey-red hangings and chair-covers; she +would be obliged to huddle into any poor place she could find. And Mrs. +Cupp and Jane would be in Chichester. + +"But what good fortune it is for them!" she murmured. "They need never +be anxious about the future again. How--how wonderful it must be to know +that one need not be afraid of the future! I--indeed, I think I really +must sit down." + +She sat down upon the sun-warmed heather and actually let her tear-wet +face drop upon her hands. + +"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" she said helplessly. "I must not let +myself do this. I mustn't, Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" + +She was so overpowered by her sense of her own weakness that she was +conscious of nothing but the fact that she must control it. Upon the +elastic moorland road wheels stole upon one without sound. So the wheels +of a rapidly driven high cart approached her and were almost at her side +before she lifted her head, startled by a sudden consciousness that a +vehicle was near her. + +It was Lord Walderhurst's cart, and even as she gazed at him with +alarmed wet eyes, his lordship descended from it and made a sign to his +groom, who at once impassively drove on. + +Emily's lips tried to tremble into a smile; she put out her hand +fumblingly toward the fish-basket, and having secured it, began to rise. + +"I--sat down to rest," she faltered, even apologetically. "I walked to +Maundell, and it was so hot." + +Just at that moment a little breeze sprang up and swept across her +cheek. She was so grateful that her smile became less difficult. + +"I got what Lady Maria wanted," she added, and the childlike dimple in +her cheek endeavoured to defy her eyes. + +The Marquis of Walderhurst looked rather odd. Emily had never seen him +look like this before. He took a silver flask out of his pocket in a +matter-of-fact way, and filled its cup with something. + +"That is sherry," he said. "Please drink it. You are absolutely faint." + +She held out her hand eagerly. She could not help it. + +"Oh, thank you--thank you!" she said. "I am _so_ thirsty!" And she drank +it as if it were the nectar of the gods. + +"Now, Miss Fox-Seton," he said, "please sit down again. I came here to +drive you back to Mallowe, and the cart will not come back for a quarter +of an hour." + +"You came on purpose!" she exclaimed, feeling, in truth, somewhat +awe-struck. "But how kind of you, Lord Walderhurst--how good!" + +It was the most unforeseen and amazing experience of her life, and at +once she sought for some reason which could connect with his coming some +more interesting person than mere Emily Fox-Seton. Oh,--the thought +flashed upon her,--he had come for some reason connected with Lady +Agatha. He made her sit down on the heather again, and he took a seat +beside her. He looked straight into her eyes. + +"You have been crying," he remarked. + +There was no use denying it. And what was there in the good gray-brown +eye, gazing through the monocle, which so moved her by its suggestion of +kindness and--and some new feeling? + +"Yes, I have," she admitted. "I don't often--but--well, yes, I have." + +"What was it?" + +It was the most extraordinary thump her heart gave at this moment. She +had never felt such an absolute thump. It was perhaps because she was +tired. His voice had lowered itself. No man had ever spoken to her +before like that. It made one feel as if he was not an exalted person at +all; only a kind, kind one. She must not presume upon his kindness and +make much of her prosaic troubles. She tried to smile in a proper casual +way. + +"Oh, it was a small thing, really," was her effort at treating the +matter lightly; "but it seems more important to me than it would to any +one with--with a family. The people I live with--who have been so kind +to me--are going away." + +"The Cupps?" he asked. + +She turned quite round to look at him. + +"How," she faltered, "did you know about them?" + +"Maria told me," he answered, "I asked her." + +It seemed such a human sort of interest to have taken in her. She could +not understand. And she had thought he scarcely realised her existence. +She said to herself that was so often the case--people were so much +kinder than one knew. + +She felt the moisture welling in her eyes, and stared steadily at the +heather, trying to wink it away. + +"I am really glad," she explained hastily. "It is such good fortune for +them. Mrs. Cupp's brother has offered them such a nice home. They need +never be anxious again." + +"But they will leave Mortimer Street--and you will have to give up your +room." + +"Yes. I must find another." A big drop got the better of her, and +flashed on its way down her cheek. "I can find a room, perhaps, but--I +can't find----" She was obliged to clear her throat. + +"That was why you cried?" + +"Yes." After which she sat still. + +"You don't know where you will live?" + +"No." + +She was looking so straight before her and trying so hard to behave +discreetly that she did not see that he had drawn nearer to her. But a +moment later she realised it, because he took hold of her hand. His own +closed over it firmly. + +"Will you," he said--"I came here, in fact, to ask you if you will come +and live with me?" + +Her heart stood still, quite still. London was so full of ugly stories +about things done by men of his rank--stories of transgressions, of +follies, of cruelties. So many were open secrets. There were men, who, +even while keeping up an outward aspect of respectability, were held +accountable for painful things. The lives of well-born struggling women +were so hard. Sometimes such nice ones went under because temptation was +so great. But she had not thought, she could not have dreamed---- + +She got on her feet and stood upright before him. He rose with her, and +because she was a tall woman their eyes were on a level. Her own big and +honest ones were wide and full of crystal tears. + +"Oh!" she said in helpless woe. "Oh!" + +It was perhaps the most effective thing a woman ever did. It was so +simple that it was heartbreaking. She could not have uttered a word, he +was such a powerful and great person, and she was so without help or +stay. + +Since the occurring of this incident, she has often been spoken of as a +beauty, and she has, without doubt, had her fine hours; but Walderhurst +has never told her that the most beautiful moment of her life was +undoubtedly that in which she stood upon the heather, tall and straight +and simple, her hands hanging by her sides, her large, tear-filled hazel +eyes gazing straight into his. In the femininity of her frank +defencelessness there was an appeal to nature's self in man which was +not quite of earth. And for several seconds they stood so and gazed into +each other's souls--the usually unilluminated nobleman and the prosaic +young woman who lodged on a third floor back in Mortimer Street. + +Then, quite quickly, something was lighted in his eyes, and he took a +step toward her. + +"Good heavens!" he demanded. "What do you suppose I am asking of you?" + +"I don't--know," she answered; "I don't--know." + +"My good girl," he said, even with some irritation, "I am asking you to +be my wife. I am asking you to come and live with me in an entirely +respectable manner, as the Marchioness of Walderhurst." + +Emily touched the breast of her brown linen blouse with the tips of her +fingers. + +"You--are--asking--_me_?" she said. + +"Yes," he answered. His glass had dropped out of his eye, and he picked +it up and replaced it. "There is Black with the cart," he said. "I will +explain myself with greater clearness as we drive back to Mallowe." + +The basket of fish was put in the cart, and Emily Fox-Seton was put in. +Then the marquis got in himself, and took the reins from his groom. + +"You will walk back, Black," he said, "by that path," with a wave of the +hand in a diverging direction. + +As they drove across the heather, Emily was trembling softly from head +to foot. She could have told no human being what she felt. Only a woman +who had lived as she had lived and who had been trained as she had been +trained could have felt it. The brilliance of the thing which had +happened to her was so unheard of and so undeserved, she told herself. +It was so incredible that, even with the splendid gray mare's high-held +head before her and Lord Walderhurst by her side, she felt that she was +only part of a dream. Men had never said "things" to her, and a man was +saying them--the Marquis of Walderhurst was saying them. They were not +the kind of things every man says or said in every man's way, but they +so moved her soul that she quaked with joy. + +"I am not a marrying man," said his lordship, "but I must marry, and I +like you better than any woman I have ever known. I do not generally +like women. I am a selfish man, and I want an unselfish woman. Most +women are as selfish as I am myself. I used to like you when I heard +Maria speak of you. I have watched you and thought of you ever since I +came here. You are necessary to every one, and you are so modest that +you know nothing about it. You are a handsome woman, and you are always +thinking of other women's good looks." + +Emily gave a soft little gasp. + +"But Lady Agatha," she said. "I was sure it was Lady Agatha." + +"I don't want a girl," returned his lordship. "A girl would bore me to +death. I am not going to dry-nurse a girl at the age of fifty-four. I +want a companion." + +"But I am so _far_ from clever," faltered Emily. + +The marquis turned in his driving-seat to look at her. It was really a +very nice look he gave her. It made Emily's cheeks grow pink and her +simple heart beat. + +"You are the woman I want," he said. "You make me feel quite +sentimental." + +When they reached Mallowe, Emily had upon her finger the ruby which Lady +Maria had graphically described as being "as big as a trouser button." +It was, indeed, so big that she could scarcely wear her glove over it. +She was still incredible, but she was blooming like a large rose. Lord +Walderhurst had said so many "things" to her that she seemed to behold a +new heaven and a new earth. She had been so swept off her feet that she +had not really been allowed time to think, after that first gasp, of +Lady Agatha. + +When she reached her bedroom she almost returned to earth as she +remembered it. Neither of them had dreamed of this--neither of them. +What could she say to Lady Agatha? What would Lady Agatha say to her, +though it had not been her fault? She had not dreamed that such a thing +could be possible. How could she, oh, how could she? + +She was standing in the middle of her room with clasped hands. There was +a knock upon the door, and Lady Agatha herself came to her. + +What had occurred? Something. It was to be seen in the girl's eyes, and +in a certain delicate shyness in her manner. + +"Something very nice has happened," she said. + +"Something nice?" repeated Emily. + +Lady Agatha sat down. The letter from Curzon Street was in her hand half +unfolded. + +"I have had a letter from mamma. It seems almost bad taste to speak of +it so soon, but we have talked to each other so much, and you are so +kind, that I want to tell you myself. Sir Bruce Norman has been to talk +to papa about--about me." + +Emily felt that her cup filled to the brim at the moment. + +"He is in England again?" + +Agatha nodded gently. + +"He only went away to--well, to test his own feelings before he spoke. +Mamma is delighted with him. I am going home to-morrow." + +Emily made a little swoop forward. + +"You always liked him?" she said. + +Lady Agatha's delicate mounting colour was adorable. + +"I was quite _unhappy_," she owned, and hid her lovely face in her +hands. + +In the morning-room Lord Walderhurst was talking to Lady Maria. + +"You need not give Emily Fox-Seton any more clothes, Maria," he said. "I +am going to supply her in future. I have asked her to marry me." + +Lady Maria lightly gasped, and then began to laugh. + +"Well, James," she said, "you have certainly much more sense than most +men of your rank and age." + + + + +PART TWO + + + + +Chapter Seven + + +When Miss Emily Fox-Seton was preparing for the extraordinary change in +her life which transformed her from a very poor, hardworking woman into +one of the richest marchionesses in England, Lord Walderhurst's cousin, +Lady Maria Bayne, was extremely good to her. She gave her advice, and +though advice is a cheap present as far as the giver is concerned, there +are occasions when it may be a very valuable one to the recipient. Lady +Maria's was valuable to Emily Fox-Seton, who had but one difficulty, +which was to adjust herself to the marvellous fortune which had befallen +her. + +There was a certain thing Emily found herself continually saying. It +used to break from her lips when she was alone in her room, when she was +on her way to her dressmaker's, and in spite of herself, sometimes when +she was with her whilom patroness. + +"I can't believe it is true! I can't believe it!" + +"I don't wonder, my dear girl," Lady Maria answered the second time she +heard it. "But what circumstances demand of you is that you should learn +to." + +"Yes," said Emily, "I know I must. But it seems like a dream. +Sometimes," passing her hand over her forehead with a little laugh, "I +feel as if I should suddenly find myself wakened in the room in Mortimer +Street by Jane Cupp bringing in my morning tea. And I can see the +wallpaper and the Turkey-red cotton curtains. One of them was an inch or +so too short. I never could afford to buy the new bit, though I always +intended to." + +"How much was the stuff a yard?" Lady Maria inquired. + +"Sevenpence." + +"How many yards did you need?" + +"Two. It would have cost one and twopence, you see. And I really could +get on without it." + +Lady Maria put up her lorgnette and looked at her protegee with an +interest which bordered on affection, it was so enjoyable to her +epicurean old mind. + +"I didn't suspect it was as bad as that, Emily," she said. "I should +never have dreamed it. You managed to do yourself with such astonishing +decency. You were actually nice--always." + +"I was very much poorer than anyone knew," said Emily. "People don't +like one's troubles. And when one is earning one's living as I was, one +must be agreeable, you know. It would never do to seem tiresome." + +"There's cleverness in realising that fact," said Lady Maria. "You were +always the most cheerful creature. That was one of the reasons +Walderhurst admired you." + +The future marchioness blushed all over. Lady Maria saw even her neck +itself blush, and it amused her ladyship greatly. She was intensely +edified by the fact that Emily could be made to blush by the mere +mention of her mature fiance's name. + +"She's in such a state of mind about the man that she's delightful," was +the old woman's internal reflection; "I believe she's in love with him, +as if she was a nurse-maid and he was a butcher's boy." + +"You see," Emily went on in her nice, confiding way (one of the most +surprising privileges of her new position was that it made it possible +for her to confide in old Lady Maria), "it was not only the living from +day to day that made one anxious, it was the Future!" (Lady Maria knew +that the word began in this case with a capital letter.) "No one knows +what the Future is to poor women. One knows that one must get older, and +one may not keep well, and if one could not be active and in good +spirits, if one could not run about on errands, and things fell off, +_what_ could one do? It takes hard work, Lady Maria, to keep up even the +tiniest nice little room and the plainest presentable wardrobe, if one +isn't clever. If I had been clever it would have been quite different, I +dare say. I have been so frightened sometimes in the middle of the +night, when I wakened and thought about living to be sixty-five, that I +have lain and shaken all over. You see," her blush had so far +disappeared that she looked for the moment pale at the memory, "I had +nobody--nobody." + +"And now you are going to be the Marchioness of Walderhurst," remarked +Lady Maria. + +Emily's hands, which rested on her knee, wrung themselves together. + +"That is what it seems impossible to believe," she said, "or to be +grateful enough for to--to--" and she blushed all over again. + +"Say 'James'," put in Lady Maria, with a sinful if amiable sense of +comedy; "you will have to get accustomed to thinking of him as 'James' +sometimes, at all events." + +But Emily did not say "James." There was something interesting in the +innocent fineness of her feeling for Lord Walderhurst. In the midst of +her bewildered awe and pleasure at the material splendours looming up in +her horizon, her soul was filled with a tenderness as exquisite as the +religion of a child. It was a combination of intense gratitude and the +guileless passion of a hitherto wholly unawakened woman--a woman who had +not hoped for love or allowed her thoughts to dwell upon it, and who +therefore had no clear understanding of its full meaning. She could not +have explained her feeling if she had tried, and she did not dream of +trying. If a person less inarticulate than herself had translated it to +her she would have been amazed and abashed. So would Lord Walderhurst +have been amazed, so would Lady Maria; but her ladyship's amazement +would have expressed itself after its first opening of the eyes, with a +faint elderly chuckle. + +When Miss Fox-Seton had returned to town she had returned with Lady +Maria to South Audley Street. The Mortimer Street episode was closed, as +was the Cupps' house. Mrs. Cupp and Jane had gone to Chichester, Jane +leaving behind her a letter the really meritorious neatness of which was +blotted by two or three distinct tears. Jane respectfully expressed her +affectionate rapture at the wondrous news which "Modern Society" had +revealed to her before Miss Fox-Seton herself had time to do so. + +"I am afraid, miss," she ended her epistle, "that I am not experienced +enough to serve a lady in a grand position, but hoping it is not a +liberty to ask it, if at any time your own maid should be wanting a +young woman to work under her, I should be grateful to be remembered. +Perhaps having learned your ways, and being a good needlewoman and fond +of it, might be a little recommendation for me." + +"I _should_ like to take Jane for my maid," Emily had said to Lady +Maria. "Do you think I might make her do?" + +"She would probably be worth half a dozen French minxes who would amuse +themselves by getting up intrigues with your footmen," was Lady Maria's +astute observation. "I would pay an extra ten pounds a year myself for +slavish affection, if it was to be obtained at agency offices. Send her +to a French hairdresser to take a course of lessons, and she will be +worth anything. To turn you out perfectly will be her life's ambition." + +To Jane Cupp's rapture the next post brought her the following letter:-- + +DEAR JANE,--It is just like you to write such a nice letter to me, and I +can assure you I appreciated all your good wishes very much. I feel that +I have been most fortunate, and am, of course, very happy. I have spoken +to Lady Maria Bayne about you, and she thinks that you might make me a +useful maid if I gave you the advantage of a course of lessons in +hairdressing. I myself know that you would be faithful and interested +and that I could not have a more trustworthy young woman. If your mother +is willing to spare you, I will engage you. The wages would be +thirty-five pounds a year (and beer, of course) to begin with, and an +increase later as you became more accustomed to your duties. I am glad +to hear that your mother is so well and comfortable. Remember me to her +kindly. + +Yours truly, + +EMILY FOX-SETON + +Jane Cupp trembled and turned pale with joy as she read her letter. + +"Oh, mother!" she said, breathless with happiness. "And to think she is +almost a marchioness this very minute. I wonder if I shall go with her +to Oswyth Castle first, or to Mowbray, or to Hurst?" + +"My word!" said Mrs. Cupp, "you are in luck, Jane, being as you'd rather +be a lady's maid than live private in Chichester. You needn't go out to +service, you know. Your uncle's always ready to provide for you." + +"I know he is," answered Jane, a little nervous lest obstacles might be +put in the way of her achieving her long-cherished ambition. "And it's +kind of him, and I'm sure I'm grateful. But--though I wouldn't hurt his +feelings by mentioning it--it is more independent to be earning your own +living, and there's more _life_, you see, in waiting on a titled lady +and dressing her for drawing-rooms and parties and races and things, and +travelling about with her to the grand places she lives in and visits. +Why, mother, I've heard tell that the society in the servants' halls is +almost like high life. Butlers and footmen and maids to high people has +seen so much of the world and get such manners. Do you remember how +quiet and elegant Susan Hill was that was maid to Lady Cosbourne? And +she'd been to Greece and to India. If Miss Fox-Seton likes travel and +his lordship likes it, I may be taken to all sorts of wonderful places. +Just think!" + +She gave Mrs. Cupp a little clutch in her excitement. She had always +lived in the basement kitchen of a house in Mortimer Street and had +never had reason to hope she might leave it. And now! + +"You're right, Jane!" her mother said, shaking her head. "There's a +great deal in it, particular when you're young. There's a great deal in +it." + +When the engagement of the Marquis of Walderhurst had been announced, to +the consternation of many, Lady Maria had been in her element. She was +really fine at times in her attitude towards the indiscreetly or +tactlessly inquiring. Her management of Lady Malfry in particular had +been a delightful thing. On hearing of her niece's engagement, Lady +Malfry had naturally awakened to a proper and well-behaved if belated +interest in her. She did not fling herself upon her breast after the +manner of worldly aunts in ancient comedies in which Cinderella attains +fortune. She wrote a letter of congratulation, after which she called at +South Audley Street, and with not too great obviousness placed herself +and her house at the disposal of such female relatives as required +protection during the period of their preparation for becoming +marchionesses. She herself could not have explained exactly how it was +that, without being put through any particular process, she understood, +before her call was half over, that Emily's intention was to remain with +Lady Maria Bayne and that Lady Maria's intention was to keep her. The +scene between the three was far too subtle to be of the least use upon +the stage, but it was a good scene, nevertheless. Its expression was +chiefly, perhaps, a matter of inclusion and exclusion, and may also have +been largely telepathic; but after it was over, Lady Maria chuckled +several times softly to herself, like an elderly bird of much humour, +and Lady Malfry went home feeling exceedingly cross. + +She was in so perturbed a humour that she dropped her eyelids and looked +rather coldly down the bridge of her nose when her stupidly cheery +little elderly husband said to her,-- + +"Well, Geraldine?" + +"I beg pardon," she replied. "I don't quite understand." + +"Of course you do. How about Emily Fox-Seton?" + +"She seems very well, and of course she is well satisfied. It would not +be possible for her to be otherwise. Lady Maria Bayne has taken her up." + +"She is Walderhurst's cousin. Well, well! It will be an immense position +for the girl." + +"Immense," granted Lady Malfry, with a little flush. A certain tone in +her voice conveyed that discussion was terminated. Sir George knew that +her niece was not coming to them and that the immense position would +include themselves but slightly. + +Emily was established temporarily at South Audley Street with Jane Cupp +as her maid. She was to be married from Lady Maria's lean old arms, so +to speak. Her ladyship derived her usual epicurean enjoyment from the +whole thing,--from too obviously thwarted mothers and daughters; from +Walderhurst, who received congratulations with a civilly inexpressive +countenance which usually baffled the observer; from Emily, who was +overwhelmed by her emotions, and who was of a candour in action such as +might have appealed to any heart not adapted by the flintiness of its +nature to the macadamising of roads. + +If she had not been of the most unpretentious nice breeding and +unaffected taste, Emily might have been ingenuously funny in her process +of transformation. + +"I keep forgetting that I can afford things," she said to Lady Maria. +"Yesterday I walked such a long way to match a piece of silk, and when I +was tired I got into a penny bus. I did not remember until it was too +late that I ought to have called a hansom. Do you think," a shade +anxiously, "that Lord Walderhurst would mind?" + +"Just for the present, perhaps, it would be as well that I should see +that you shop in the carriage," her ladyship answered with a small grin. +"When you are a marchioness you may make penny buses a feature of the +distinguished _insouciance_ of your character if you like. I shouldn't +myself, because they jolt and stop to pick up people, but you can, with +originality and distinction, if it amuses you." + +"It doesn't," said Emily. "I hate them. I have longed to be able to take +hansoms. Oh! how I have _longed_--when I was tired." + +The legacy left her by old Mrs. Maytham had been realised and deposited +as a solid sum in a bank. Since she need no longer hoard the income of +twenty pounds a year, it was safe to draw upon her capital for her +present needs. The fact made her feel comfortable. She could make her +preparations for the change in her life with a decent independence. She +would have been definitely unhappy if she had been obliged to accept +favours at this juncture. She felt as if she could scarcely have borne +it. It seemed as if everything conspired to make her comfortable as well +as blissfully happy in these days. + +Lord Walderhurst found an interest in watching her and her methods. He +was a man who, in certain respects, knew himself very well and had few +illusions respecting his own character. He had always been rather given +to matter-of-fact analysis of his own emotions; and at Mallowe he had +once or twice asked himself if it was not disagreeably possible that the +first moderate glow of his St. Martin's summer might die away and leave +him feeling slightly fatigued and embarrassed by the new aspect of his +previously regular and entirely self-absorbed existence. You might think +that you would like to marry a woman and then you might realise that +there were objections--that even the woman herself, with all her +desirable qualities, might be an objection in the end, that any woman +might be an objection; in fact, that it required an effort to reconcile +oneself to the fact of a woman's being continually about. Of course the +arriving at such a conclusion, after one had committed oneself, would be +annoying. Walderhurst had, in fact, only reflected upon this possible +aspect of affairs _before_ he had driven over the heath to pick Emily +up. Afterwards he had, in some remote portion of his mentality, vaguely +awaited developments. + +When he saw Emily day by day at South Audley Street, he found he +continued to like her. He was not clever enough to analyse her; he could +only watch her, and he always looked on at her with curiosity and a +novel sensation rather like pleasure. She wakened up at sight of him, +when he called, in a way that was attractive even to an unimaginative +man. Her eyes seemed to warm, and she often looked flushed and softly +appealing. He began to note vaguely that her dresses were better, and +oftener changed, than they had been at Mallowe. A more observant man +might have been touched by the suggestion that she was unfolding petal +by petal like a flower, and that each carefully chosen costume was a new +petal. He did not in the least suspect the reverent eagerness of her +care of herself as an object hoping to render itself worthy of his +qualities and tastes. + +His qualities and tastes were of no exalted importance in themselves, +but they seemed so to Emily. It is that which by one chance or another +so commends itself to a creature as to incite it to the emotion called +love, which is really of importance, and which, not speaking in figures, +holds the power of life and death. Personality sometimes achieves this, +circumstances always aid it; but in all cases the result is the same and +sways the world it exists in--during its existence. Emily Fox-Seton had +fallen deeply and touchingly in love with this particular prosaic, +well-behaved nobleman, and her whole feminine being was absorbed in her +adoration of him. Her tender fancy described him by adjectives such as +no other human being would have assented to. She felt that he had +condescended to her with a generosity which justified worship. This was +not true, but it was true for her. As a consequence of this she thought +out and purchased her wardrobe with a solemnity of purpose such as might +well have been part of a religious ceremonial. When she consulted +fashion plates and Lady Maria, or when she ordered a gown at her +ladyship's dressmaker's, she had always before her mind, not herself, +but the Marchioness of Walderhurst--a Marchioness of Walderhurst whom +the Marquis would approve of and be pleased with. She did not expect +from him what Sir Bruce Norman gave to Lady Agatha. + +Agatha and her lover were of a different world. She saw them +occasionally, not often, because the simple selfishness of young love so +absorbed them that they could scarcely realise the existence of other +persons than themselves. They were to be married, and to depart for +fairyland as soon as possible. Both were fond of travel, and when they +took ship together their intention was to girdle the world at leisure, +if they felt so inclined. They could do anything they chose, and were so +blissfully sufficient for each other that there was no reason why they +should not follow their every errant fancy. + +The lines which had been increasing in Lady Claraway's face had +disappeared, and left her blooming with the beauty her daughters had +reproduced. This delightful marriage had smoothed away every difficulty. +Sir Bruce was the "most charming fellow in England." That fact acted as +a charm in itself, it seemed. It was not necessary to go into details as +to the mollifying of tradespeople and rearranging of the entire aspect +of life at Curzon Street. When Agatha and Emily Fox-Seton met in town +for the first time--it was in the drawing room at South Audley +Street--they clasped each other's hands with an exchange of entirely new +looks. + +"You look so--so _well_, Miss Fox-Seton," said Agatha, with actual +tenderness. + +If she had not been afraid of seeming a little rudely effusive she would +have said "handsome" instead of "well," for Emily was sweetly blooming. + +"Happiness is becoming to you," she added. "May I say how _glad_ I am?" + +"Thank you, thank you!" Emily answered. "Everything in the world seems +changed, doesn't it?" + +"Yes, everything." + +They stood and gazed into each other's eyes a few seconds, and then +loosed hands with a little laugh and sat down to talk. + +It was, in fact, Lady Agatha who talked most, because Emily Fox-Seton +led her on and aided her to delicate expansion by her delight in all +that in these days made up her existence of pure bliss. It was as if an +old-time fairy story were being enacted before Emily's eyes. Agatha +without doubt had grown lovelier, she thought; she seemed even fairer, +more willowy, the forget-me-not eyes were of a happier blue, as +forget-me-nots growing by clear water-sides are bluer than those grown +in a mere garden. She appeared, perhaps, even a little taller, and her +small head had, if such a thing were possible, a prettier flower-like +poise. This, at least, Emily thought, and found her own happiness added +to by her belief in her fancy. She felt that nothing was to be wondered +at when she heard Agatha speak of Sir Bruce. She could not utter his +name or refer to any act of his without a sound in her voice which had +its parallel in the light floating haze of blush on her cheeks. In her +intercourse with the world in general she would have been able to +preserve her customary sweet composure, but Emily Fox-Seton was not the +world. She represented a something which was so primitively of the +emotions that one's heart spoke and listened to her. Agatha was +conscious that Miss Fox-Seton had seen at Mallowe--she could never quite +understand how it had seemed so naturally to happen--a phase of her +feelings which no one else had seen before. Bruce had seen it since, but +only Bruce. There had actually been a sort of confidence between them--a +confidence which had been like intimacy, though neither of them had been +effusive. + +"Mamma is so happy," the girl said. "It is quite wonderful. And Alix and +Hilda and Millicent and Eve--oh! it makes such a difference to them. I +shall be able," with a blush which expressed a world of relieved +affection, "to give them so much pleasure. Any girl who marries happily +and--and well--can alter everything for her sisters, if she _remembers_. +You see, I shall have reason to remember. I know things from experience. +And Bruce is so kind, and gay, and proud of their prettiness. Just +imagine their excitement at all being bridesmaids! Bruce says we shall +be like a garden of spring flowers. I am so glad," her eyes suddenly +quite heavenly in their joyful relief, "that he is _young_!" + +The next second the heavenly relieved look died away. The exclamation +had been involuntary. It had sprung from her memory of the days when she +had dutifully accepted, as her portion, the possibility of being smiled +upon by Walderhurst, who was two years older than her father, and her +swift realisation of this fact troubled her. It was indelicate to have +referred to the mental image even ever so vaguely. + +But Emily Fox-Seton was glad too that Sir Bruce was young, that they +were all young, and that happiness had come before they had had time to +tire of waiting for it. She was so happy herself that she questioned +nothing. + +"Yes. It is nice," she answered, and glowed with honest sympathy. "You +will want to do the same things. It is so agreeable when people who are +married like to do the same things. Perhaps you will want to go out a +great deal and to travel, and you could not enjoy it if Sir Bruce did +not." + +She was not reflecting in the least upon domestic circles whose male +heads are capable of making themselves extremely nasty under stress of +invitations it bores them to accept, and the inclination of wives and +daughters to desire acceptance. She was not contemplating with any +premonitory regrets a future in which, when Walderhurst did not wish to +go out to dinner or disdained a ball, she should stay at home. Far from +it. She simply rejoiced with Lady Agatha, who was twenty-two marrying +twenty-eight. + +"You are not like me," she explained further. "I have had to work so +hard and contrive so closely that _everything_ will be a pleasure to me. +Just to know that I _never_ need starve to death or go into the +workhouse is such a relief that--" + +"Oh!" exclaimed Lady Agatha, quickly and involuntarily laying a hand on +hers, startled by the fact that she spoke as if referring to a wholly +matter-of-fact possibility. + +Emily smiled, realising her feeling. + +"Perhaps I ought not to have said that. I forgot. But such things are +possible when one is too old to work and has nothing to depend on. You +could scarcely understand. When one is very poor one is frightened, +because occasionally one cannot help thinking of it." + +"But now--now! Oh! how different!" exclaimed Agatha, with heartfelt +earnestness. + +"Yes. Now I need never be afraid. It makes me so grateful to--Lord +Walderhurst." + +Her neck grew pink as she said it, just as Lady Maria had seen it grow +pink on previous occasions. Moderate as the words were, they expressed +ardour. + +Lord Walderhurst came in half an hour later and found her standing +smiling by the window. + +"You look particularly well, Emily. It's that white frock, I suppose. +You ought to wear a good deal of white," he said. + +"I will," Emily answered. He observed that she wore the nice flush and +the soft appealing look, as well as the white frock. "I wish--" + +Here she stopped, feeling a little foolish. + +"What do you wish?" + +"I wish I could do more to please you than wear white--or black--when +you like." + +He gazed at her, always through the single eyeglass. Even the vaguest +approach to emotion or sentiment invariably made him feel stiff and shy. +Realising this, he did not quite understand why he rather liked it in +the case of Emily Fox-Seton, though he only liked it remotely and felt +his own inaptness a shade absurd. + +"Wear yellow or pink occasionally," he said with a brief, awkward laugh. + +What large, honest eyes the creature had, like a fine retriever's or +those of some nice animal one saw in the Zoo! + +"I will wear anything you like," she said, the nice eyes meeting his, +not the least stupidly, he reflected, though women who were affectionate +often looked stupid. "I will do anything you like; you don't know what +you have done for me, Lord Walderhurst." + +They moved a trifle nearer to each other, this inarticulate pair. He +dropped his eyeglass and patted her shoulder. + +"Say 'Walderhurst' or 'James'--or--or 'my dear,'" he said. "We are going +to be married, you know." And he found himself going to the length of +kissing her cheek with some warmth. + +"I sometimes wish," she said feelingly, "that it was the fashion to say +'my lord' as Lady Castlewood used to do in 'Esmond.' I always thought it +nice." + +"Women are not so respectful to their husbands in these days," he +answered, with his short laugh. "And men are not so dignified." + +"Lord Castlewood was not very dignified, was he?" + +He chuckled a little. + +"No. But his rank was, in the reign of Queen Anne. These are democratic +days. I'll call you 'my lady' if you like." + +"Oh! No--no!" with fervour, "I wasn't thinking of anything like that." + +"I know you were not," he reassured her. "You are not that kind of +woman." + +"Oh! how _could_ I be?" + +"_You_ couldn't," good-naturedly. "That's why I like you." + +Then he began to tell her his reason for calling at this particular +hour. He came to prepare her for a visit from the Osborns, who had +actually just returned from India. Captain Osborn had chosen, or chance +had chosen for him, this particular time for a long leave. As soon as +she heard the name of Osborn, Emily's heart beat a little quickly. She +had naturally learned a good deal of detail from Lady Maria since her +engagement. Alec Osborn was the man who, since Lord Walderhurst's +becoming a widower, had lived in the gradually strengthening belief that +the chances were that it would be his enormous luck to inherit the title +and estates of the present Marquis of Walderhurst. He was not a very +near relation, but he was the next of kin. He was a young man and a +strong one, and Walderhurst was fifty-four and could not be called +robust. His medical man did not consider him a particularly good life, +though he was not often ill. + +"He's not the kind of chap who lives to be a hundred and fifty. I'll say +that for him," Alec Osborn had said at mess after dinner had made him +careless of speech, and he had grinned not too pleasantly when he +uttered the words. "The only thing that would completely wipe my eye +isn't as likely to happen to him as to most men. He's unsentimental and +level headed, and doesn't like marriage. You can imagine how he's +chivied by women. A fellow in his position couldn't be let alone. But he +doesn't like marriage, and he's a man who knows jolly well what he likes +and what he doesn't. The only child died, and if he doesn't marry again, +I'm in a safe place. Good Lord! the difference it would make!" and his +grin extended itself. + +It was three months after this that the Marquis of Walderhurst followed +Emily Fox-Seton out upon the heath, and finding her sitting footsore and +depressed in spirit beside the basket of Lady Maria's fish, asked her to +marry him. + +When the news reached him, Alec Osborn went and shut himself up in his +quarters and blasphemed until his face was purple and big drops of sweat +ran down it. It was black bad luck--it was black bad luck, and it called +for black curses. What the articles of furniture in the room in the +bungalow heard was rather awful, but Captain Osborn did not feel that it +did justice to the occasion. + +When her husband strode by her to his apartment, Mrs. Osborn did not +attempt to follow him. She had only been married two years, but she knew +his face too well; and she also knew too well all the meaning of the +fury contained in the words he flung at her as he hurled himself past +her. + +"Walderhurst is going to be married!" Mrs. Osborn ran into her own room +and sat down clutching at her hair as she dropped her face in her little +dark hands. She was an Anglo-Indian girl who had never been home, and +had not had much luck in life at any time, and her worst luck had been +in being handed over by her people to this particular man, chiefly +because he was the next of kin to Lord Walderhurst. She was a curious, +passionate creature, and had been in love with him in her way. Her +family had been poor and barely decently disreputable. She had lived on +the outskirts of things, full of intense girlish vanity and yearnings +for social recognition, poorly dressed, passed over and snubbed by +people she aspired to know socially, seeing other girls with less beauty +and temperament enjoying flirtations with smart young officers, biting +her tongue out with envy and bitterness of thwarted spirit. So when +Captain Osborn cast an eye on her and actually began a sentimental +episode, her relief and excitement at finding herself counting as other +girls did wrought itself up into a passion. Her people were prompt and +sharp enough to manage the rest, and Osborn was married before he knew +exactly whither he was tending. He was not pleased with himself when he +wakened to face facts. He could only console himself for having been +cleverly led and driven into doing the thing he did not want to do, by +the facts that the girl was interesting and clever and had a good deal +of odd un-English beauty. + +It was a beauty so un-English that it would perhaps appear to its +greatest advantage in the contrasts afforded by life in England. She was +so dark, of heavy hair and drooping-lidded eyes and fine grained skin, +and so sinuous of lithe, slim body, that among native beauties she +seemed not to be sufficiently separated by marks of race. She had +tumbled up from childhood among native servants, who were almost her +sole companions, and who had taught her curious things. She knew their +stories and songs, and believed in more of their occult beliefs than any +but herself knew. + +She knew things which made her interesting to Alec Osborn, who had a +bullet head and a cruel lower jaw, despite a degree of the ordinary good +looks. The fact that his chances were good for becoming Marquis of +Walderhurst and taking her home to a life of English luxury and +splendour was a thing she never forgot. It haunted her in her sleep. She +had often dreamed of Oswyth Castle and of standing amidst great people +on the broad lawns her husband had described feelingly during tropical +days when they had sat together panting for breath. When there had been +mention made of the remote, awful possibility that Walderhurst might +surrender to the siege laid to him, she had turned sick at the thought. +It made her clench her hands until the nails almost pressed into the +skin of her palms. She could not bear it. She had made Osborn burst into +a big, harsh laugh one day when she had hinted to him that there were +occult things to be done which might prevent ill luck. He had laughed +first and scowled afterwards, cynically saying that she might as well be +working them up. + +He had not come out to India followed by regrets and affection. He had +been a black sheep at home, and had rather been hustled away than +otherwise. If he had been a more admirable kind of fellow, Walderhurst +would certainly have made him an allowance; but his manner of life had +been such as the Marquis had no patience with in men of any class, and +especially abhorred in men whom the accident of birth connected with +good names. He had not been lavish in his demonstrations of interest in +the bullet-headed young man. Osborn's personableness was not of a kind +attractive to the unbiassed male observer. Men saw his cruel young jowl +and low forehead, and noticed that his eyes were small. He had a good, +swaggering military figure to which uniform was becoming, and a kind of +animal good looks which would deteriorate early. His colour would fix +and deepen with the aid of steady daily drinking, and his features would +coarsen and blur, until by the time he was forty the young jowl would +have grown heavy and would end by being his most prominent feature. + +While he had remained in England, Walderhurst had seen him occasionally, +and had only remarked and heard unpleasant things of him,--a tendency to +selfish bad manners, reckless living, and low flirtation. He once saw +him on the top of a bus with his arm round the waist of an awful, +giggling shop-girl kind of person, who was adorned with tremendous +feathers and a thick fringe coming unfrizzled with the heat and sticking +out here and there in straight locks on her moist forehead. Osborn +thought that the arm business had been cleverly managed with such +furtiveness that no one could see it, but Walderhurst was driving +solemnly by in his respectable barouche, and he found himself gazing +through his monocle directly at his relative, and seeing, from the +street below, the point at which the young man's arm lost itself under +the profusely beaded short cape. A dull flush rose to his countenance, +and he turned away without showing any sign of recognition; but he was +annoyed and disgusted, because this particular kind of blatantly vulgar +bad taste was the sort of thing he loathed. It was the sort of thing +which made duchesses of women who did alluring "turns" at music halls or +sang suggestive songs in comic opera, and transformed into the +chatelaines of ancient castles young persons who had presided at the +ribbon counter. He saw as little as possible of his heir presumptive +after this, and if the truth were told, Captain Alec Osborn was +something of a factor in the affair of Miss Emily Fox-Seton. If +Walderhurst's infant son had lived, or if Osborn had been a refined, +even if dull, fellow, there are ten chances to one his lordship would +have chosen no second marchioness. + +Captain Osborn's life in India had not ended in his making no further +debts. He was not a man to put the brake on in the matter of +self-indulgence. He got into debt so long as a shred of credit remained +to him, and afterwards he tried to add to his resources by cards and +betting at races. He made and lost by turn, and was in a desperate state +when he got his leave. He applied for it because he had conceived the +idea that his going home as a married man might be a good thing for him. +Hester, it seemed not at all improbable, might accomplish something with +Walderhurst. If she talked to him in her interesting semi-Oriental way, +and was fervid and picturesque in her storytelling, he might be +attracted by her. She had her charm, and when she lifted the heavy lids +of her long black eyes and fixed her gaze upon her hearer as she talked +about the inner side of native life, of which she knew such curious, +intimate things, people always listened, even in India, where the thing +was not so much of a novelty, and in England she might be a sort of +sensation. + +Osborn managed to convey to her gradually, by a process of his own, a +great deal of what he wanted her to do. During the months before the +matter of the leave was quite decided, he dropped a word here and there +which carried a good deal of suggestion to a mind used to seizing on +passing intimations. The woman who had been Hester's Ayah when she was a +child had become her maid. She was a woman with a wide, silent +acquaintance with her own people. She was seldom seen talking to anyone +and seldom seemed to leave the house, but she always knew everything. +Her mistress was aware that if at any time she chose to ask her a +question about the secret side of things concerning black or white +peoples, she would receive information to be relied upon. She felt that +she could have heard from her many things concerning her husband's past, +present, and future, and that the matter of the probable succession was +fully comprehended by her. + +When she called her into the room after recovering outwardly from her +hour of desperation, she saw that the woman was already aware of the +blow that had fallen upon the household. What they said to each other +need not be recorded here, but there was more in the conversation than +the mere words uttered, and it was one of several talks held before Mrs. +Osborn sailed for England with her husband. + +"He may be led into taking into consideration the fact that he has cut +the ground from under a fellow's feet and left him dangling in the air," +said Osborn to his wife. "Best thing will be to make friends with the +woman, hang her!" + +"Yes, Alec, yes," Hester Osborn answered, just a little feverishly. "We +must make friends with her. They say she is a good sort and was +frightfully poor herself." + +"She won't be poor now, hang her!" remarked Captain Osborn with added +fervour. "I should like to break her neck! I wonder if she rides?" + +"I'm sure she has not been well enough off to do anything like that." + +"Good idea to begin to teach her." And he laughed as he turned on his +heel and began to walk the deck with a fellow passenger. + +It was these people Lord Walderhurst had come to prepare her for. + +"Maria has told you about them, I know," he said. "I dare say she has +been definite enough to explain that I consider Osborn altogether +undesirable. Under the veneer of his knowledge of decent customs he is a +cad. I am obliged to behave civilly to the man, but I dislike him. If he +had been born in a low class of life, he would have been a criminal." + +"Oh!" Emily exclaimed. + +"Any number of people would be criminals if circumstances did not +interfere. It depends a good deal on the shape of one's skull." + +"Oh!" exclaimed Emily again, "do you think so?" + +She believed that people who were bad were bad from preference, though +she did not at all understand the preference. She had accepted from her +childhood everything she had ever heard said in a pulpit. That +Walderhurst should propound ideas such as ministers of the Church of +England might regard as heretical startled her, but he could have said +nothing startling enough to shake her affectionate allegiance. + +"Yes, I do," he answered. "Osborn's skull is quite the wrong shape." + +But when, a short time after, Captain Osborn brought the skull in +question into the room, covered in the usual manner with neatly brushed, +close-cropped hair, Emily thought it a very nice shape indeed. Perhaps a +trifle hard and round-looking and low of forehead, but not shelving or +bulging as the heads of murderers in illustrated papers generally did. +She owned to herself that she did not see what Lord Walderhurst +evidently saw, but then she did not expect of herself an intelligence +profound enough to follow his superior mental flights. + +Captain Osborn was well groomed and well mannered, and his demeanour +towards herself was all that the most conventional could have demanded. +When she reflected that she herself represented in a way the possible +destruction of his hopes of magnificent fortune, she felt almost +tenderly towards him, and thought his easy politeness wonderful. Mrs. +Osborn, too! How interesting and how beautiful in an odd way Mrs. Osborn +was! Every movement of her exceeding slimness was curiously graceful. +Emily remembered having read novels whose heroines were described as +"undulating." Mrs. Osborn was undulating. Her long, drooping, and dense +black eyes were quite unlike other girls' eyes. Emily had never seen +anything like them. And she had such a lonely, slow, shy way of lifting +them to look at people. She was obliged to look up at tall Emily. She +seemed a schoolgirl as she stood near her. Emily was the kind of +mistaken creature whose conscience, awakening to unnecessary remorses, +causes its owner at once to assume all the burdens which Fate has laid +upon the shoulders of others. She began to feel like a criminal herself, +irrespective of the shape of her skull. Her own inordinate happiness and +fortune had robbed this unoffending young couple. She wished that it had +not been so, and vaguely reproached herself without reasoning the matter +out to a conclusion. At all events, she was remorsefully sympathetic in +her mental attitude towards Mrs. Osborn, and being sure that she was +frightened of her husband's august relative, felt nervous herself +because Lord Walderhurst bore himself with unrelated courtesy and kept his +monocle fixed in his eye throughout the interview. If he had let it drop +and allowed it to dangle in an unbiassed manner from its cord, Emily +would have felt more comfortable, because she was sure his demeanour +would have appeared a degree more encouraging to the Osborns. + +"Are you glad to be in England again?" she asked Mrs. Osborn. + +"I never was here before," answered the young woman. "I have never been +anywhere but in India." + +In the course of the conversation she explained that she had not been a +delicate child, and also conveyed that even if she had been one, her +people could not have afforded to send her home. Instinct revealed to +Emily that she had not had many of the good things of life, and that she +was not a creature of buoyant spirits. The fact that she had spent a +good many hours of most of her young days in reflecting on her ill-luck +had left its traces on her face, particularly in the depths of her +slow-moving, black eyes. + +They had come, it appeared, in the course of duty, to pay their respects +to the woman who was to be their destruction. To have neglected to do so +would have made them seem to assume an indiscreet attitude towards the +marriage. + +"They can't like it, of course," Lady Maria summed them up afterwards, +"but they have made up their minds to lump it as respectably as +possible." + +"I am _so_ sorry for them," said Emily. + +"Of course you are. And you will probably show them all sorts of +indiscreet kindnesses, but don't be too altruistic, my good Emily. The +man is odious, and the girl looks like a native beauty. She rather +frightens me." + +"I don't think Captain Osborn is odious," Emily answered. "And she _is_ +pretty, you know. She is frightened of us, really." + +Remembering days when she herself had been at a disadvantage with people +who were fortunate enough to be of importance, and recalling what her +secret tremor before them had been, Emily was very nice indeed to little +Mrs. Osborn. She knew from experience things which would be of use to +her--things about lodgings and things about shops. Osborn had taken +lodgings in Duke Street, and Emily knew the quarter thoroughly. +Walderhurst watched her being nice, through his fixed eyeglass, and he +decided that she had really a very good manner. Its goodness consisted +largely in its directness. While she never brought forth unnecessarily +recollections of the days when she had done other people's shopping and +had purchased for herself articles at sales marked 11-3/4_d_, she was +interestingly free from any embarrassment in connection with the facts. +Walderhurst, who had been much bored by himself and other people in time +past, actually found that it gave a fillip to existence to look on at a +woman who, having been one of the hardest worked of the genteel +labouring classes, was adapting herself to the role of marchioness by +the simplest of processes, and making a very nice figure at it too, in +her entirely unbrilliant way. If she had been an immensely clever woman, +there would have been nothing special in it. She was not clever at all, +yet Walderhurst had seen her produce effects such as a clever woman +might have laboured for and only attained by a stroke of genius. As, for +instance, when she had met for the first time after her engagement, a +certain particularly detestable woman of rank, to whom her relation to +Walderhurst was peculiarly bitter. The Duchess of Merwold had counted +the Marquis as her own, considering him fitted by nature to be the +spouse of her eldest girl, a fine young woman with projecting teeth, who +had hung fire. She felt Emily Fox-Seton's incomprehensible success to be +a piece of impudent presumption, and she had no reason to restrain the +expression of her sentiments so long as she conveyed them by methods of +inference and inclusion. + +"You must let me congratulate you very warmly, Miss Fox-Seton," she +said, pressing her hand with maternal patronage. "Your life has changed +greatly since we last saw each other." + +"Very greatly indeed," Emily flushed frankly in innocent gratitude as +she answered. "You are very kind. Thank you, thank you." + +"Yes, a great change." Walderhurst saw that her smile was feline and +asked himself what the woman was going to say next. "The last time we +met you called to ask me about the shopping you were to do for me. Do +you remember? Stockings and gloves, I think." + +Walderhurst observed that she expected Emily to turn red and show +herself at a loss before the difficulties of the situation. He was on +the point of cutting into the conversation and disposing of the matter +himself when he realised that Emily was neither gaining colour nor +losing it, but was looking honestly into her Grace's eyes with just a +touch of ingenuous regret. + +"It was stockings," she said. "There were some marked down to one and +elevenpence halfpenny at Barratt's. They were really _quite_ good for +the price. And you wanted four pairs. And when I got there they were all +gone, and those at two and three were not the least bit better. I was so +disappointed. It was too bad!" + +Walderhurst fixed his monocle firmly to conceal the fact that he was +verging upon a cynical grin. The woman was known to be the stingiest of +small great persons in London, her economies were noted, and this +incident was even better than many others society had already rejoiced +over. The picture raised in the minds of the hearers of her Grace foiled +in the purchase of stockings marked down to 1_s_. 11-1/2_d_. would be a +source of rapture for some time to come. And Emily's face! The regretful +kindness of it, the retrospective sympathy and candid feeling! It was +incredibly good! + +"And she did it quite by accident!" he repeated to himself in his inward +glee. "She did it quite by accident! She's not clever enough to have +done it on purpose. What a brilliantly witty creature she would be if +she had invented it!" + +As she had been able unreluctantly to recall her past upon this +occasion, so she was able to draw for Mrs. Osborn's benefit from the +experience it had afforded her. She wanted to make up to her, in such +ways as she could, for the ill turn she had inadvertently done her. As +she had at once ranged herself as an aid on the side of Lady Agatha, so +she ranged herself entirely without obtrusiveness on the side of the +Osborns. + +"It's true that she's a good sort," Hester said when they went away. +"Her days of being hard up are not far enough away to be forgotten. She +hasn't any affectation, at any rate. It makes it easier to stand her." + +"She looks like a strong woman," said Osborn. "Walderhurst got a good +deal for his money. She'll make a strapping British matron." + +Hester winced and a dusky red shot up in her cheek. "So she will," she +sighed. + +It was quite true, and the truer it was the worse for people who +despairingly hung on and were foolish enough to hope against hope. + + + + +Chapter Eight + + +The marriage of Lady Agatha came first, and was a sort of pageant. The +female writers for fashion papers lived upon it for weeks before it +occurred and for some time after. There were numberless things to be +written about it. Each flower of the garden of girls was to be +described, with her bridesmaid's dress, and the exquisite skin and eyes +and hair which would stamp her as the beauty of her season when she came +out. There yet remained five beauties in Lady Claraway's possession, and +the fifth was a baby thing of six, who ravished all beholders as she +toddled into church carrying her sister's train, aided by a little boy +page in white velvet and point lace. + +The wedding was the most radiant of the year. It was indeed a fairy +pageant, of youth and beauty, and happiness and hope. + +One of the most interesting features of the occasion was the presence of +the future Marchioness of Walderhurst, "the beautiful Miss Fox-Seton." +The fashion papers were very strenuous on the subject of Emily's beauty. +One of them mentioned that the height and pose of her majestic figure +and the cut of her profile suggested the Venus of Milo. Jane Cupp cut +out every paragraph she could find and, after reading them aloud to her +young man, sent them in a large envelope to Chichester. Emily, +faithfully endeavouring to adjust herself to the demands of her +approaching magnificence, was several times alarmed by descriptions of +her charms and accomplishments which she came upon accidentally in the +course of her reading of various periodicals. + +The Walderhurst wedding was dignified and distinguished, but not +radiant. The emotions Emily passed through during the day--from her +awakening almost at dawn to the silence of her bedroom at South Audley +Street, until evening closed in upon her sitting in the private parlour +of an hotel in the company of the Marquis of Walderhurst--it would +require too many pages to describe. + +Her first realisation of the day brought with it the physical +consciousness that her heart was thumping--steadily thumping, which is +quite a different matter from the ordinary beating--at the realisation +of what had come at last. An event which a year ago the wildest dream +could not have depicted for her was to-day an actual fact; a fortune +such as she would have thought of with awe if it had befallen another +woman, had befallen her unpretending self. She passed her hand over her +forehead and gasped as she thought of it. + +"I hope I shall be able to get accustomed to it and not be a--a +disappointment," she said. "Oh!" with a great rising wave of a blush, +"how good of him! How can I _ever_--" + +She lived through the events of the day in a sort of dream within a +dream. When Jane Cupp brought her tea, she found herself involuntarily +making a mental effort to try to look as if she was really awake. Jane, +who was an emotional creature, was inwardly so shaken by her feelings +that she herself had stood outside the door a few moments biting her +lips to keep them from trembling, before she dared entirely trust +herself to come in. Her hand was far from steady as she set down the +tray. + +"Good morning, Jane," Emily said, by way of trying the sound of her +voice. + +"Good morning, miss," Jane answered. "It's a beautiful morning, miss. I +hope--you are very well?" + +And then the day had begun. + +Afterwards it marched on with solemn thrill and stately movement through +hours of wondrous preparation for an imposing function, through the +splendid gravity of the function itself, accompanied by brilliant crowds +collected and looking on in a fashionable church, and motley crowds +collected to look on outside the edifice, the latter pushing and +jostling each other and commenting in more or less respectful if excited +undertones, but throughout devouring with awe-struck or envious eyes. +Great people whom Emily had only known through the frequent mention of +their names in newspapers or through their relationship or intimacy with +her patrons, came to congratulate her in her role of bride. She seemed +to be for hours the centre of a surging, changing crowd, and her one +thought was to bear herself with an outward semblance of composure. No +one but herself could know that she was saying internally over and over +again, to steady herself, making it all seem real, "I am being married. +This is my wedding. I am Emily Fox-Seton being married to the Marquis of +Walderhurst. For his sake I must not look stupid or excited. I am not in +a dream." + +How often she said this after the ceremony was over and they returned to +South Audley Street, for the wedding breakfast could scarcely be +computed. When Lord Walderhurst helped her from the carriage and she +stepped on to the strip of red carpet and saw the crowd on each side of +it and the coachman and footmen with their big white wedding favours and +the line of other equipages coming up, her head whirled. + +"That's the Marchioness," a young woman with a bandbox exclaimed, +nudging her companion. "That's 'er! Looks a bit pale, doesn't she?" + +"But, oh Gawd! look at them di-monds an' pearls--jess look at 'em!" +cried the other. "Wish it was me." + +The breakfast seemed splendid and glittering and long; people seemed +splendid and glittering and far off; and by the time Emily went to +change her bridal magnificence for her travelling costume she had borne +as much strain as she was equal to. She was devoutly grateful for the +relief of finding herself alone in her bedroom with Jane Cupp. + +"Jane," she said, "you know exactly how many minutes I can dress in and +just when I must get into the carriage. Can you give me five minutes to +lie down quite flat and dab my forehead with eau de cologne? Five +minutes, Jane. But be quite sure." + +"Yes, miss--I do beg pardon--my lady. You can have five--safe." + +She took no more,--Jane went into the dressing-room and stood near its +door, holding the watch in her hand,--but even five minutes did her +good. + +She felt less delirious when she descended the stairs and passed through +the crowds again on Lord Walderhurst's arm. She seemed to walk through a +garden in resplendent bloom. Then there were the red carpet once more, +and the street people, and the crowd of carriages and liveries, and big, +white favours. + +Inside the carriage, and moving away to the echo of the street people's +cheer, she tried to turn and look at Lord Walderhurst with an unalarmed, +if faint, smile. + +"Well," he said, with the originality which marked him, "it is really +over!" + +"Yes," Emily agreed with him. "And I never can forget Lady Maria's +goodness." + +Walderhurst gazed at her with a dawning inquiry in his mind. He himself +did not know what the inquiry was. But it was something a trifle +stimulating. It had something to do with the way in which she had +carried herself throughout the whole thing. Really few women could have +done it as well. The pale violet of her travelling costume which was +touched with sable was becoming to her fine, straight figure. And at the +moment her eyes rested on his with the suggestion of trustful appeal. +Despite the inelasticity of his mind, he vaguely realised his bridegroom +honours. + +"I can begin now," he said with stiff lightness, if such a paradox can +be, "to address you as the man in Esmond addressed his wife. I can call +you 'my lady.'" + +"Oh!" she said, still trying to smile, but quivering. + +"You look very nice," he said. "Upon my word you do." + +And kissed her trembling honest mouth almost as if he had been a +man--not quite--but almost. + + + + +Chapter Nine + + +They began the new life at Palstrey Manor, which was ancient and most +beautiful. Nothing Walderhurst owned was as perfect an example of olden +time beauty, and as wonderful for that reason. Emily almost wept before +the loveliness of it, though it would not have been possible for her to +explain or particularise the grounds for her emotion. She knew nothing +whatever of the venerable wonders of the architecture. To her the place +looked like an immense, low-built, rambling fairy palace--the palace of +some sleeping beauty during whose hundred years of slumber rich +dark-green creepers had climbed and overgrown its walls and towers, +enfolding and festooning them with leaves and tendrils and actual +branches. The huge park held an enchanted forest of trees; the long +avenue of giant limes, their writhen limbs arching and interlocking, +their writhen roots deep in velvet moss, was an approach suited to a +fairy story. + + * * * * * + +During her first month at Palstrey Emily went about still in her dream. +It became more a dream every day. The old house was part of it, the +endless rooms, the wonderful corridors, the gardens with their +revelations of winding walks, labyrinths of evergreens, and grass paths +leading into beautiful unexpected places, where one suddenly came upon +deep, clear pools where water plants grew and slow carp had dreamed +centuries away. The gardens caused Emily to disbelieve in the existence +of Mortimer Street, but the house at times caused her to disbelieve in +herself. The picture gallery especially had this effect upon her. The +men and women, once as alive as her everyday self, now gazing down at +her from their picture frames sometimes made her heart beat as if she +stood in the presence of things eerie. Their strange, rich, ugly, or +beautiful garments, their stolid or fervid, ugly or beautiful, faces, +seemed to demand something of her; at least she had just enough +imagination to feel somewhat as if they did. Walderhurst was very kind +to her, but she was afraid she might bore him by the exceeding ignorance +of her questions about people whom he had known from his childhood as +his own kith and kin. It was not unlikely that one might have become so +familiar with a man in armour or a woman in a farthingale that questions +connected with them might seem silly. Persons whose ancestors had always +gazed intimately at them from walls might not unnaturally forget that +there were other people to whom they might wear only the far-away aspect +of numbers in catalogues of the Academy, or exhibitions of that order. + +There was a very interesting catalogue of the Palstrey pictures, and +Emily found and studied it with deep interest. She cherished a touching +secret desire to know what might be discoverable concerning the women +who had been Marchionesses of Walderhurst before. None of them but +herself, she gathered, had come to their husbands from bed-sitting rooms +in obscure streets. There had been noble Hyrsts in the reign of Henry +I., and the period since then elapsed had afforded time for numerous +bridals. Lady Walderhurst was overcome at moments by her reflections +upon what lay behind and before her, but not being a complex person or +of fervid imagination, she was spared by nature the fevers of complex +emotions. + +In fact, after a few weeks had passed she came out of her dream and +found her happiness enduring and endurable. Each day's awakening was a +delight to her, and would probably be so to the end of her existence, +absolutely because she was so sane and uncomplex a creature. To be +deftly assisted in her dressing by Jane Cupp, and to know that each +morning she might be fittingly and becomingly attired without anxiety as +to where her next gown was to come from, was a lovely thing. To enjoy +the silent, perfect workings of the great household, to drive herself or +be driven, to walk and read, to loiter through walled gardens and +hothouses at will,--such things to a healthy woman with an unobscured +power of enjoyment were luxuries which could not pall. + +Walderhurst found her an actual addition to his comfort. She was never in +the way. She seemed to have discovered the trick of coming and going +undisturbingly. She was docile and affectionate, but not in the least +sentimental. He had known men whose first years of marriage, not to +speak of the first months, had been rendered unbearable by the fact that +their wives were constantly demanding or expecting the expression of +sentiments which unsentimental males had not at their fingers' ends. So +the men had been annoyed or bored, and the women had been dissatisfied. +Emily demanded nothing of the sort, and was certainly not dissatisfied. +She looked very handsome and happy. Her looks positively improved, and +when people began to call and she to pay visits, she was very much +liked. He had certainly been quite right in deciding to ask her to marry +him. If she had a son, he should congratulate himself greatly. The more +he saw of Osborn the more he disliked him. It appeared that there was a +prospect of a child there. + +This last was indeed true, and Emily had been much touched and awakened +to sympathy. It had gradually become revealed to her that the Osborns +were poorer than they could decently admit. Emily had discovered that +they could not even remain in the lodgings in Duke Street, though she +did not know the reason, which was that Captain Osborn had been obliged +to pay certain moneys to stave off a scandal not entirely unconnected +with the young woman his arm had encircled the day Walderhurst had seen +him on the top of the bus. He was very well aware that if he was to +obtain anything from Lord Walderhurst, there were several things which +must be kept entirely dark. Even a scandal belonging to the past could +be made as unpleasant as an error of to-day. Also the young woman of the +bead cape knew how to manage him. But they must remove to cheaper +lodgings, and the rooms in Duke Street had been far from desirable. + +Lady Walderhurst came in one morning from a walk, with a fresh colour +and bright eyes, and before taking off her hat went to her husband's +study. + +"May I come in?" + +Walderhurst had been writing some uninteresting letters and looked up +with a smile. + +"Certainly," he answered. "What a colour you have! Exercise agrees with +you. You ought to ride." + +"That was what Captain Osborn said. If you don't mind, I should like to +ask you something." + +"I don't mind. You are a reasonable woman, Emily. One's safe with you." + +"It is something connected with the Osborns." + +"Indeed!" chilling slightly. "I don't care about them, you know." + +"You don't dislike her, do you?" + +"No-o, not exactly." + +"She's--the truth is, she is not at all well," with a trifle of +hesitance; "she ought to be better taken care of than she is in +lodgings, and they are obliged to take very cheap ones." + +"If he had been a more respectable fellow his circumstances would have +been different," rather stiffly. + +Emily felt alarmed. She had not dreamed of the temerity of any remark +suggestive of criticism. + +"Yes," hastily, "of course. I am sure you know best; but--I thought +perhaps--" + +Walderhurst liked her timidity. To see a fine, tall, upstanding creature +colour in that way was not disagreeable when one realised that she +coloured because she feared she might offend one. + +"What did you think 'perhaps'?" was his lenient response. + +Her colour grew warmer, but this time from a sense of relief, because he +was evidently not as displeased as he might have been. + +"I took a long walk this morning," she said. "I went through the High +Wood and came out by the place called The Kennel Farm. I was thinking a +good deal of poor Mrs. Osborn because I had heard from her this morning, +and she seemed so unhappy. I was looking at her letter again when I +turned into the lane leading to the house. Then I saw that no one was +living there, and I could not help going in to look--it is such a +delightful old building, with its queer windows and chimneys, and the +ivy which seems never to have been clipped. The house is so roomy and +comfortable--I peeped in at windows and saw big fireplaces with benches +inside them. It seems a pity that such a place should not be lived in +and--well, I thought how _kind_ it would be of you to lend it to the +Osborns while they are in England." + +"It would indeed be kind," remarked his lordship, without fervour. + +Her momentary excitement led Emily to take the liberty of putting out +her hand to touch his. She always felt as if connubial familiarities +were rather a liberty; at least she had not, so far, been able to +overcome a feeling rather of that order. And this was another thing +Walderhurst by no means disliked. He himself was not aware that he was a +man with a good deal of internal vanity which enjoyed soothing food. In +fact, he had not a sufficiently large brain to know very much about +himself or to be able to analyse his reasons for liking or disliking +people or things. He thought he knew his reasons for his likes and +dislikes, but he was frequently very far away from the clear, impersonal +truth about them. Only the brilliant logic and sensitiveness of genius +really approaches knowledge of itself, and as a result it is usually +extremely unhappy. Walderhurst was never unhappy. He was sometimes +dissatisfied or annoyed, but that was as far as his emotions went. + +Being pleased by the warm touch of Emily's hand, he patted her wrist and +looked agreeably marital. + +"The place was built originally for a family huntsman, and the pack was +kept there. That is why it is called The Kennel Farm. When the last +lease fell out it remained unlet because I don't care for an ordinary +tenant. It's the kind of house that is becoming rare, and the bumpkin +farmer and his family don't value antiquities." + +"If it were furnished as it _could_ be furnished," said Emily, "it would +be _beautiful_. One _can_ get old things in London if one can afford +them. I've seen them when I've been shopping. They are not cheap, but +you can get them if you really search." + +"Would you like to furnish it?" Walderhurst inquired. The consciousness +that he could, if he chose, do the utmost thing of its kind in this way, +at the moment assumed a certain proportion of interest to him under the +stimulation of the wonder and delight which leaped into Emily's eyes as +the possibility confronted her. Having been born without imagination, +his wealth had not done for him anything out of the ordinary every-day +order. + +"Would I _like_ to do it? Oh, _dear_!" she exclaimed. "Why, in all my +life I have never _dreamed_ of being able to do such things." + +That, of course, was true, he reflected, and the fact added to his +appreciation of the moment. There were, of course, many people to whom +it would be impossible to contemplate the spending of a sum of money of +any importance in the indulgence of a wish founded on mere taste. He had +not thought of the thing particularly in detail before, and now that he +realised the significance of the fact as a fact, Emily had afforded him +a new sensation. + +"You may do it now, if you wish," he said. "I once went over the place +with an architect, and he said the whole thing could be made comfortable +and the atmosphere of the period wholly retained for about a thousand +pounds. It is not really dilapidated and it is worth saving. The gables +and chimneys are very fine. I will attend to that, and you can do the +rest in your own way." + +"It may take a good deal of money to buy the old things," gasped Emily. +"They are not cheap in these days. People have found out that they are +wanted." + +"It won't cost twenty thousand pounds," Walderhurst answered. "It is a +farm-house after all, and you are a practical woman. Restore it. You +have my permission." + +Emily put her hands over her eyes. This was being the Marchioness of +Walderhurst, and made Mortimer Street a thing still more incredible. +When she dropped her hands, she laughed even a trifle hysterically. + +"I _couldn't_ thank you," she said. "It is as I said. I never quite +believed there were people who were able to think of doing such things." + +"There are such people," he said. "You are one of them." + +"And--and--" She put it to him with a sudden recollection of the thing +her emotions had momentarily swept away. "Oh! I must not forget, because +I am so pleased. When it is furnished--" + +"Oh! the Osborns? Well, we will let them have it for a few months, at +any rate." + +"They will be so _thankful_," emotionally. "You will be doing them +_such_ a favour." + +"I am doing it for you, not for them. I like to see you pleased." + +She went to take off her hat with moisture in her eyes, being +overpowered by his munificence. When she reached her room she walked +about a little, because she was excited, and then sat down to think of +the relief her next letter would carry to Mrs. Osborn. Suddenly she got +up, and, going to her bedside, knelt down. She respectfully poured forth +devout thanks to the Deity she appealed to when she aided in the +intoning of the Litany on Sundays. Her conception of this Power was of +the simplest conventional nature. She would have been astonished and +frightened if she had been told that she regarded the Omnipotent Being +as possessing many of the attributes of the Marquis of Walderhurst. This +was, in fact, true without detracting from her reverence in either case. + + + + +Chapter Ten + +The Osborns were breakfasting in their unpleasant sitting-room in Duke +Street when Lady Walderhurst's letter arrived. The toast was tough and +smoked, and the eggs were of the variety labelled "18 a shilling" in the +shops; the apartment was also redolent of kippered herring, and Captain +Osborn was scowling over the landlady's weekly bill when Hester opened +the envelope stamped with a coronet. (Each time Emily wrote a note and +found herself confronting the coronet on the paper, she blushed a little +and felt that she must presently awake from her dream.) Mrs. Osborn +herself was looking far from amiable. She was ill and nervous and +irritable, and had, in fact, just been crying and wishing that she was +dead, which had given rise to unpleasantness between herself and her +husband, who was not in the mood to feel patient with nerves. + +"Here's one from the Marchioness," she remarked slightingly. + +"I have had none from the Marquis," sneered Osborn. "He might have +condescended a reply--the cold-blooded beggar!" + +Hester was reading her letter. As she turned the first page her +expression changed. As has previously been suggested, the epistolary +methods of Lady Walderhurst were neither brilliant nor literary, and yet +Mrs. Osborn seemed to be pleased by what she read. During the reading of +a line or so she wore an expression of slowly questioning wonder, which, +a little later on, settled into relief. + +"I can only say I think it's very decent of them," she ejaculated at +last; "really decent!" + +Alec Osborn looked up, still scowlingly. + +"I don't see any cheque," he observed. "That would be the most decent +thing. It's the thing we want most, with this damned woman sending in +bills like this for the fourth-rate things we live on, and for her +confounded tenth-rate rooms." + +"This is better than cheques. It means our having something we couldn't +hope for cheques enough to pay for. They are offering to lend us a +beautiful old place to live in for the rest of our stay." + +"What!" Osborn exclaimed. "Where?" + +"Near Palstrey Manor, where they are staying now." + +"Near Palstrey! How near?" He had been slouching in his chair and now +sat up and leaned forward on the table. He was eager. + +Hester referred to the letter again. + +"She doesn't say. It is a sort of antiquity, I gather. It's called The +Kennel Farm. Have you ever been to Palstrey?" + +"Not as a guest." He was generally somewhat sardonic when he spoke of +anything connected with Walderhurst. "But once I was in the nearest +county town by chance and rode over. By Jove!" starting a little, "I +wonder if it can be a rum old place I passed and reined in to have a +look at. I hope it is." + +"Why?" + +"It's near enough to the Manor to be convenient." + +"Do you think," hesitating, "that we shall see much of them?" + +"We shall if we manage things decently. She likes you, and she's the +kind of woman to be sympathising and make a fuss over another +woman--particularly one who is under the weather and can be +sentimentalised over." + +Hester was pushing crumbs about on the tablecloth with her knife, and a +dull red showed itself on her cheek. + +"I am not going to make capital of--circumstances," she said sullenly. +"I won't." + +She was not a woman easily managed, and Osborn had had reason on more +than one occasion to realise a certain wicked stubbornness in her. There +was a look in her eye now which frightened him. It was desperately +necessary that she should be kept in a tractable mood. As she was a girl +with affections, and he was a man without any, he knew what to do. + +He got up and went to her side, putting his arm round her shoulders as +he sat in a chair near her. "Now, little woman," he said. "Now! For +God's sake don't take it that way. Don't think I don't understand how +you feel." + +"I don't believe you know anything about the way I feel," she said, +setting her narrow white teeth and looking more like a native woman than +he had ever seen her. A thing which did not aid his affection for her, +such as it was, happened to be that in certain moods she suggested a +Hindoo beauty to him in a way which brought back to him memories of the +past he did not care to have awakened. + +"Yes I do, yes I do," he protested, getting hold of her hand and trying +to make her look at him. "There are things such a woman as you can't +help feeling. It's because you feel them that you must be on your +mettle--Lord knows you've got pluck enough--and stand by a fellow now. +What shall I do, my God, if you don't?" + +He was, in fact, in such straits that the ring of emotion in his voice +was not by any means assumed. + +"My God!" he repeated, "what shall we all do if you won't?" + +She lifted her eyes then to look at him. She was in a sufficiently +nervous condition to be conscious that tears were always near. + +"Are there worse things than you have told me?" she faltered. + +"Yes, worse things than it would be fair to bother you with. I don't +want you to be tormented. I was a deuced fool before I met you and began +to run straight. Things pile in now that would have lain quiet enough if +Walderhurst had not married. Hang it all! he ought to do the decent +thing by me. He owes something to the man who may stand in his shoes, +after all." + +Hester lifted her slow eyes again. + +"You've not much of a chance now," she said. "She's a fine healthy +woman." + +Osborn sprang up and paced the floor, set upon by a sudden spasm of +impotent rage. He snapped his teeth rather like a dog. + +"Oh! curse her!" he gave forth. "The great, fresh-coloured lumping +brute! What did she come into it for? Of all the devilish things that +can happen to a man, the worst is to be born to the thing I was born to. +To know through your whole life that you're just a stone's-throw from +rank and wealth and splendour, and to have to live and look on as an +outsider. Upon my word, I've felt more of an outsider just because of +it. There's a dream I've had every month or so for years. It's a dream +of opening a letter that tells me he's dead, or of a man coming into the +room or meeting me in the street and saying suddenly, 'Walderhurst died +last night, Walderhurst died last night!' They're always the same words, +'Walderhurst died last night!' And I wake up shaking and in a cold sweat +for joy at the gorgeous luck that's come at last." + +Hester gave a low cry like a little howl, and dropped her head on her +arms on the table among the cups and saucers. + +"She'll have a son! She'll have a son!" she cried. "And then it won't +matter whether _he_ dies or not." + +"Ough!" was the sound wrenched from Osborn's fury. "And our son might +have been in it. Ours might have had it all! Damn--damn!" + +"He won't,--he won't now, even if he lives to be born," she sobbed, and +clutched at the dingy tablecloth with her lean little hands. + +It was hard on her. She had had a thousand feverish dreams he had never +heard of. She had lain awake hours at night and stared with wide-open +eyes at the darkness, picturing to her inner soul the dream of splendour +that she would be part of, the solace for past miseries, the high +revenges for past slights that would be hers after the hour in which she +heard the words Osborn had just quoted, "Walderhurst died last night!" +Oh! if luck had only helped them! if the spells her Ayah had taught her +in secret had only worked as they would have worked if she had been a +native woman and had really used them properly! There was a spell she +had wrought once which Ameerah had sworn to her was to be relied on. It +took ten weeks to accomplish its end. In secret she had known of a man +on whom it had been worked. She had found out about it partly from the +remote hints which had aided her half knowledge of strange things and by +keeping a close watch. The man had died--he had died. She herself, and +with her own eyes had seen him begin to ail, had heard of his fevers and +pains and final death. He had died. She knew that. And she had tried the +thing herself in dead secrecy. And at the fifth week, just as with the +native who had died, she heard that Walderhurst was ill. During the next +four weeks she was sick with the tension of combined horror and delight. +But he did not die in the tenth week. They heard that he had gone to +Tangiers with a party of notable people, and that his "slight" +indisposition had passed, leaving him in admirable health and spirits. + +Her husband had known nothing of her frenzy. She would not have dared to +tell him. There were many things she did not tell him. He used to laugh +at her native stories of occult powers, though she knew that he had seen +some strange things done, as most foreigners had. He always explained +such things contemptuously on grounds which presupposed in the +performers of the mysteries powers of agility, dexterity, and universal +knowledge quite as marvellous as anything occult could have been. He did +not like her to show belief in the "tricks of the natives," as he called +them. It made a woman look a fool, he said, to be so credulous. + +During the last few months a new fever had tormented her. Feelings had +awakened in her which were new. She thought things she had never thought +before. She had never cared for children or suspected herself of being +the maternal woman. But Nature worked in her after her weird fashion. +She began to care less for some things and more for others. She cared +less for Osborn's moods and was better able to defy them. He began to be +afraid of her temper, and she began to like at times to defy his. There +had been some fierce scenes between them in which he had found her meet +with a flare of fury words she would once have been cowed by. He had +spoken one day with the coarse slightingness of a selfish, irritable +brute, of the domestic event which was before them. He did not speak +twice. + +She sprang up before him and shook her clenched fist in his face, so +near that he started back. + +"Don't say a word!" she cried. "Don't dare--don't dare. I tell you--look +out, if you don't want to be killed." + +During the outpouring of her frenzy he saw her in an entirely new light +and made discoveries. She would fight for her young, as a tigress fights +for hers. She was nursing a passion of secret feeling of which he had +known nothing. He had not for a moment suspected her of it. She had not +seemed that kind of girl. She had been of the kind that cares for finery +and social importance and the world's favour, not for sentiments. + +On this morning of the letter's arrival he watched her sobbing and +clutching the tablecloth, and reflected. He walked up and down and +pondered. There were a lot of things to be thought over. + +"We may as well accept the invitation at once," he said. "Grovel as much +as you choose. The more the better. They'll like it." + + + + +Chapter Eleven + + +The Osborns arrived at The Kennel Farm on a lovely rainy morning. The +green of the fields and trees and hedges was sweetly drenched, and the +flowers held drops which sparkled when the fitful sun broke forth and +searched for the hidden light in them. A Palstrey carriage comfortably +met them and took them to their destination. + +As they turned into the lane, Osborn looked out at the red gables and +chimneys showing themselves among the trees. + +"It's the old place I looked at," he said, "and a jolly old place it +is." + +Hester was drinking in the pure sweetness of the fresh air and filling +her soul with the beauty of such things as she had never seen before. In +London she had grown hopeless and sick of spirit. The lodgings in Duke +Street, the perpetual morning haddock and questionable eggs and unpaid +bills, had been evil things for her. She had reached a point at which +she had felt she could bear them no longer. Here, at all events, there +would be green trees and clear air, and no landlady. With no rent to +pay, there would be freedom from one torment at least. + +She had not expected much more than this freedom, however. It had seemed +highly probable that there might be discomforts in an ancient farmhouse +of the kind likely to be lent to impecunious relatives. + +But before they crossed the threshold it was plain to her that, for some +reason, they had been given more. The old garden had been put in +order--a picturesque and sweet disorderly order, which had allowed +creepers to luxuriate and toss, and flowers to spring out of crannies, +and clumps of things to mass themselves without restraint. + +The girl's wretched heart lifted itself as they drove up to the +venerable brick porch which had somewhat the air of a little church +vestibule. Through the opened door she saw a quaint comfort she had not +dreamed of. She had not the knowledge of things which would have told +her what wonders Emily had done with the place, but she could see that +its quaint furnishings were oddly beautiful in their harmony. The heavy +chairs and benches and settles seemed to have been part of centuries of +farm-house life, and to belong to the place as much as the massive beams +and doors. + +Hester stood in the middle of the hall and looked about her. Part of it +was oak panelled and part was whitewashed. There were deep, low windows +cut in the thick walls. + +"I never saw anything the least like it," she said. + +"You wouldn't expect to see anything like it in India," her husband +answered. "And you won't find many places like it in England. I should +like a look at the stables." + +He went out almost immediately and took the look in question, finding +the result unexpectedly satisfactory. Walderhurst had lent him a decent +horse to ride, and there was a respectable little cart for Hester. +Palstrey Manor had "done them" very well. This was a good deal more than +he had expected. He knew such hospitality would not have been shown him +if he had come to England unmarried. Consequently his good luck was +partly a result of Hester's existence in his life. At the same time +there awakened in him a consciousness that Hester would not have been +likely to produce such results unless in combination with another +element in the situation,--the element of another woman who was +sympathetic and had some power,--the new Lady Walderhurst, in fact. + +"And yet, confound her--confound her!" he thought, as he walked into the +loose box to look the mare over and pat her sleekness. + +The relations which established themselves between Palstrey and The +Kennel Farm were marked by two characteristic features. One of these was +that Lord Walderhurst did not develop any warmer interest in the +Osborns, and that Lady Walderhurst did. Having acceded to Emily's +wishes, and really behaved generously in the matter of providing for his +heir presumptive and his wife, Lord Walderhurst felt impelled to no +further demonstration of feeling. + +"I don't like him any better than I did," he remarked to Emily. "And I +cannot say that Mrs. Osborn attracts me. Of course there is a reason why +a kind-hearted woman like yourself should be specially good to her just +now. Do anything you wish for them while they are in the neighbourhood. +But as for me, the fact that a man is one's heir presumptive is not +enough in itself alone to endear him to one, rather the contrary." + +Between these two it is to be confessed there existed that rancour which +is not weakened by the fact that it remains unexpressed and lurks in the +deeps of the inward being. Walderhurst would not have been capable of +explaining to himself that the thing he chiefly disliked in this robust, +warm-blooded young man was that when he met him striding about with his +gun over his shoulder and a keeper behind him, the almost unconscious +realisation of the unpleasant truth that he was striding over what might +prove to be his own acres, and shooting birds which in the future he +would himself possess the right to preserve, to invite other people to +shoot, to keep less favoured persons from shooting, as lord of the +Manor. This was a truth sufficiently irritating to accentuate all his +faults of character and breeding. + +Emily, whose understanding of his nature developed with every day of her +life, grew into a comprehension of this by degrees. Perhaps her greatest +leap forward was taken on the day when, as he was driving her in the +cart which had picked her up on the moor, they saw Osborn tramping +through a cover with his gun. He did not see them, and a shade of +irritation swept Walderhurst's face. + +"He seems to feel very much at home," he commented. + +Then he was silent for a space during which he did not look pleased. + +"If he were my son," he said, "it would be a different matter. If +Audrey's child had lived--" + +He stopped and gave the tall mare a light cut with his whip. He was +evidently annoyed with himself for having spoken. + +A hot wave of colour submerged Emily. She felt it rush over her whole +body. She turned her face away, hoping Walderhurst would not observe +her. This was the first time she had heard him utter his dead wife's +name. She had never heard anyone speak it. Audrey had evidently not been +a much-beloved or regretted person. But she had had a son. + +Her primitive soul had scarcely dared to approach, even with awe, the +thought of such a possibility for herself. As in the past she had not +had the temerity to dream of herself as a woman who possessed +attractions likely to lead to marriage, so she was mentally restrained +in these days. There was something spinster-like in the tenor of her +thoughts. But she would have laid down her life for this dull man's +happiness. And of late she had more than once blamed herself for +accepting so much, unthinkingly. + +"I did not realise things properly," she had said to herself in humble +pain. "I ought to have been a girl, young and strong and beautiful. His +sacrifice was too great, it was immense." + +It had been nothing of the sort. He had pleased himself and done what +was likely to tend, and had tended, altogether to his own ease and +comfort. In any case Emily Fox-Seton was a fine creature, and only +thirty-four, and with Alec Osborn at the other side of the globe the +question of leaving an heir had been less present and consequently had +dwindled in importance. + +The nearness of the Osborns fretted him just now. If their child was a +son, he would be more fretted still. He was rather glad of a +possibility, just looming, of his being called away from England through +affairs of importance. + +He had spoken to Emily of this possibility, and she had understood that, +as his movements and the length of his stay would be uncertain, she +would not accompany him. + +"There is one drawback to our marriage," he said. + +"Is it--is it anything I can remove?" Emily asked. + +"No, though you are responsible for it. People seldom can remove the +drawbacks they are responsible for. You have taught me to miss you." + +"Have I--have I?" cried Emily. "Oh! I _am_ happy!" + +She was so happy that she felt that she must pass on some of her good +fortune to those who had less. She was beautifully kind to Hester +Osborn. Few days passed without the stopping of a Walderhurst carriage +before the door of The Kennel Farm. Sometimes Emily came herself to take +Mrs. Osborn to drive, sometimes she sent for her to come to lunch and +spend the day or night at Palstrey. She felt an interest in the young +woman which became an affection. She would have felt interested in her +if there had not existed a special reason to call forth sympathy. Hester +had many curious and new subjects for conversation. Emily liked her +descriptions of Indian life and her weird little stories of the natives. +She was charmed with Ameerah, whose nose rings and native dress, +combining themselves with her dark mystic face, rare speech, and +gliding, silent movements, awakened awe in the rustics and mingled +distrust and respect in the servants' hall at Palstrey. + +"She's most respectably behaved, my lady, though foreign and strange in +her manners," was Jane Cupp's comment. "But she has a way of looking at +a person--almost stealthy--that's upset me many a time when I've noticed +it suddenly. They say that she knows things, like fortune-telling and +spells and love potions. But she will only speak of them quite secret." + +Emily gathered that Jane Cupp was afraid of the woman, and kept a +cautious eye upon her. + +"She is a very faithful servant, Jane," she answered. "She is devoted to +Mrs. Osborn." + +"I am sure she is, my lady. I've read in books about the faithfulness of +black people. They say they're more faithful than white ones." + +"Not more faithful than _some_ white ones," said Lady Walderhurst with +her good smile. "Ameerah is not more faithful than you, I'm very sure." + +"Oh, my lady!" ejaculated Jane, turning red with pleasure. "I do hope +not. I shouldn't like to think she could be." + +In fact the tropic suggestion of the Ayah's personality had warmed the +imagination of the servants' hall, and there had been much talk of many +things, of the Osborns as well as of their servants, and thrilling +stories of East Indian life had been related by Walderhurst's man, who +was a travelled person. Captain Osborn had good sport on these days, and +sport was the thing he best loved. He was of the breed of man who can +fish, hunt, or shoot all day, eat robust meals and sleep heavily all +night; who can do this every day of a year, and in so doing reach his +highest point of desire in existence. He knew no other aspirations in +life than such as the fortunes of a man like Walderhurst could put him +in possession of. Nature herself had built him after the model of the +primeval type of English country land-owner. India with her blasting and +stifling hot seasons and her steaming rains gave him nothing that he +desired, and filled him with revolt against Fate every hour of his life. +His sanguine body loathed and grew restive under heat. At The Kennel +Farm, when he sprang out of his bed in the fresh sweetness of the +morning and plunged into his tub, he drew every breath with a physical +rapture. The air which swept in through the diamond-paned, ivy-hung +casements was a joy. + +"Good Lord!" he would cry out to Hester through her half-opened door, +"what mornings! how a man _lives_ and feels the blood rushing through +his veins! Rain or shine, it's all the same to me. I can't stay indoors. +Just to tramp through wet or dry heather, or under dripping or shining +trees, is enough. How can one believe one has ever lain sweating with +one's tongue lolling out, and listened to the whining creak of the +punkah through nights too deadly hot to sleep in! It's like remembering +hell while one lives in Paradise." + +"We shan't live in Paradise long," Hester said once with some +bitterness. "Hell is waiting for us." + +"Damn it! don't remind a man. There are times when I don't believe it." +He almost snarled the answer. It was true that his habit was to enhance +the pleasure of his days by thrusting into the background all +recollections of the reality of any other existence than that of the +hour. As he tramped through fern and heather he would remember nothing +but that there was a chance--there was chance, good Lord! After a man +not over strong reached fifty-four or five, there were more chances than +there had been earlier. + +After hours spent in such moods, it was not pleasant to come by accident +upon Walderhurst riding his fine chestnut, erect and staid, and be +saluted by the grave raising of his whip to his hat. Or to return to the +Farm just as the Palstrey barouche turned in at the gate with Lady +Walderhurst sitting in it glowing with health and that enjoyable +interest in all things which gave her a kind of radiance of eye and +colour. + +She came at length in a time when she did not look quite so radiant. +This, it appeared, was from a reason which might be regarded as natural +under the circumstances. A more ardent man than Lord Walderhurst might +have felt that he could not undertake a journey to foreign lands which +would separate him from a wife comparatively new. But Lord Walderhurst +was not ardent, and he had married a woman who felt that he did all +things well--that, in fact, a thing must be well because it was his +choice to do it. His journey to India might, it was true, be a matter of +a few months, and involved diplomatic business for which a certain +unimpeachable respectability was required. A more brilliant man, who had +been less respectable in the most decorous British sense, would not have +served the purpose of the government. + +Emily's skin had lost a shade of its healthful freshness, it struck +Hester, when she saw her. There was a suggestion of fulness under her +eyes. Yet with the bright patience of her smile she defied the remote +suspicion that she had shed a tear or so before leaving home. She +explained the situation with an affectionally reverent dwelling upon the +dignity of the mission which would temporarily bereave her of her mate. +Her belief in Walderhurst's intellectual importance to the welfare of +the government was a complete and touching thing. + +"It will not be for very long," she said, "and you and I must see a +great deal of each other. I am so glad you are here. You know how one +misses--" breaking off with an admirable air of determined cheer--"I +must not think of that." + +Walderhurst congratulated himself seriously during the days before his +departure. She was so exactly what he liked a woman to be. She might +have made difficulties, or have been sentimental. If she had been a +girl, it would have been necessary to set up a sort of nursery for her, +but this fine amenable, sensible creature could take perfect care of +herself. It was only necessary to express a wish, and she not only knew +how to carry it out, but was ready to do so without question. As far as +he was concerned, he was willing to leave all to her own taste. It was +such decent taste. She had no modern ideas which might lead during his +absence to any action likely to disturb or annoy him. What she would +like best to do would be to stay at Palstrey and enjoy the beauty of it. +She would spend her days in strolling through the gardens, talking to +the gardeners, who had all grown fond of her, or paying little visits to +old people or young ones in the village. She would help the vicar's wife +in her charities, she would appear in the Manor pew at church regularly, +make the necessary dull calls, and go to the unavoidable dull dinners +with a faultless amiability and decorum. + +"As I remarked when you told me you had asked her to marry you," said +Lady Maria on the occasion of his lunching with her on running up to +town for a day's business, "you showed a great deal more sense than most +men of your age and rank. If people _will_ marry, they should choose the +persons least likely to interfere with them. Emily will never interfere +with you. She cares a great deal more about your pleasure than her own. +And as to that, she's so much like a big, healthy, good child that she +would find pleasure wheresoever you dropped her." + +This was true, yet the healthy, childish creature had, in deep privacy, +cried a little, and was pathetically glad to feel that the Osborns were +to be near her, and that she would have Hester to think of and take care +of during the summer. + +It was pathetic that she should cherish an affection so ingenuous for +the Osborns, for one of them at least had no patience with her. To +Captain Osborn her existence and presence in the near neighbourhood were +offences. He told himself that she was of the particular type of woman +he most disliked. She was a big, blundering fool, he said, and her size +and very good nature itself got on his nerves and irritated him. + +"She looks so deucedly prosperous with her first-rate clothes and her +bouncing health," he said. + +"The tread of her big feet makes me mad when I hear it." + +Hester answered with a shrill little laugh. + +"Her big feet are a better shape than mine," she said. "I ought to hate +her, and I would if I could, but I can't." + +"I can," muttered Osborn between his teeth as he turned to the mantel +and scratched a match to light his pipe. + + + + +Chapter Twelve + + +When Lord Walderhurst took his departure for India, his wife began to +order her daily existence as he had imagined she would. Before he had +left her she had appeared at the first Drawing-room, and had spent a few +weeks at the town house, where they had given several imposing and +serious dinner parties, more remarkable for dignity and good taste than +liveliness. The duties of social existence in town would have been +unbearable for Emily without her husband. Dressed by Jane Cupp with a +passion of fervour, fine folds sweeping from her small, long waist, +diamonds strung round her neck, and a tiara or a big star in her full +brown hair, Emily was rather superb when supported by the consciousness +that Walderhurst's well-carried maturity and long accustomedness were +near her. With him she could enjoy even the unlively splendour of a +function, but without him she would have been very unhappy. At Palstrey +she was ceasing to feel new, and had begun to realise that she belonged +to the world she lived in. She was becoming accustomed to her +surroundings, and enjoyed them to the utmost. Her easily roused +affections were warmed by the patriarchal atmosphere of village life. +Most of the Palstrey villagers had touched their forelocks or curtsied +to Walderhursts for generations. Emily liked to remember this, and had +at once conceived a fondness for the simple folk, who seemed somehow +related so closely to the man she worshipped. + +Walderhurst had not the faintest conception of what this worship +represented. He did not even reach the length of realising its +existence. He saw her ingenuous reverence for and belief in him, and was +naturally rather pleased by them. He was also vaguely aware that if she +had been a more brilliant woman she would have been a more exacting one, +and less easily impressed. If she had been a stupid woman or a clumsy +one, he would have detested her and bitterly regretted his marriage. But +she was only innocent and gratefully admiring, which qualities, +combining themselves with good looks, good health, and good manners, +made of a woman something he liked immensely. Really she had looked very +nice and attractive when she had bidden him good-by, with her emotional +flush and softness of expression and the dewy brightness of her eyes. +There was something actually moving in the way her strong hand had wrung +his at the last moment. + +"I only _wish_," she had said, "I only do so _wish_ that there was +something I could _do_ for you while you are away--something you could +leave me to _do_." + +"Keep well and enjoy yourself," he had answered. "That will really +please me." + +Nature had not so built him that he could suspect that she went home and +spent the rest of the morning in his rooms, putting away his belongings +with her own hands, just for the mere passion of comfort she felt in +touching the things he had worn, the books he had handled, the cushions +his head had rested against. She had indeed mentioned to the housekeeper +at Berkeley Square that she wished his lordship's apartments to remain +untouched until she herself had looked over them. The obsession which is +called Love is an emotion past all explanation. The persons susceptible +to its power are as things beneath a spell. They see, hear, and feel +that of which the rest of their world is unaware, and will remain +unaware for ever. To the endearing and passion-inspiring qualities Emily +Walderhurst saw in this more than middle-aged gentleman an unstirred +world would remain blind, deaf, and imperceptive until its end +transpired. This, however, made not the slightest difference in the +reality of these things as she saw and felt and was moved to her soul's +centre by them. Bright youth in Agatha Norman, at present joyously +girdling the globe with her bridegroom, was moved much less deeply, +despite its laughter and love. + +A large lump swelled in Emily's throat as she walked about the +comfortable, deserted apartments of her James. Large tears dropped on +the breast of her dress as they had dropped upon her linen blouse when +she walked across the moor to Maundell. But she bravely smiled as she +tenderly brushed away with her hand two drops which fell upon a tweed +waistcoat she had picked up. Having done this, she suddenly stooped and +kissed the rough cloth fervently, burying her face in it with a sob. + +"I do _love_ him so!" she whispered, hysterically. "I do so _love_ him, +and I shall so _miss_ him!" with the italicised feelingness of old. + +The outburst was in fact so strongly italicised that she felt the next +moment almost as if she had been a little indecent. She had never been +called upon by the strenuousness of any occasion to mention baldly to +Lord Walderhurst that she "loved" him. It had not been necessary, and +she was too little used to it not to be abashed by finding herself +proclaiming the fact to his very waistcoat itself. She sat down holding +the garment in her hands and let her tears fall. + +She looked about her at the room and across the corridor through the +open door at his study which adjoined it. They were fine rooms, and +every book and bust and chair looked singularly suggestive of his +personality. The whole house was beautiful and imposing in Emily's eyes. +"He has made all my life beautiful and full of comfort and happiness," +she said, trembling. "He has saved me from everything I was afraid of, +and there is nothing I can _do_. Oh!" suddenly dropping a hot face on +her hands, "if I were only Hester Osborn. I should be glad to suffer +anything, or die in any way. I should have paid him back--just a +little--if I might." + +For there was one thing she had learned through her yearning fervour, +not through any speech of his. All the desire and pride in him would be +fed full and satisfied if he could pass his name on to a creature of his +own flesh and blood. All the heat his cold nature held had concentrated +itself in a secret passion centred on this thing. She had begun to +awaken to a suspicion of this early in their marriage, and afterwards by +processes of inclusion and exclusion she had realised the proud +intensity of his feeling despite his reserve and silence. As for her, +she would have gone to the stake, or have allowed her flesh to be cut +into pieces to form that which would have given him reason for +exultation and pride. Such was the helpless, tragic, kindly love and +yearning of her. + + * * * * * + +The thing filled her with a passion of tenderness for Hester Osborn. She +yearned over her, too. Her spinster life had never brought her near to +the mystery of birth. She was very ignorant and deeply awed by the mere +thought of it. At the outset Hester had been coldly shy and reticent, +but as they saw each other more she began to melt before the unselfish +warmth of the other woman's overtures of friendship. She was very lonely +and totally inexperienced. As Agatha Slade had gradually fallen into +intimacy of speech, so did she. She longed so desperately for +companionship that the very intensity of her feelings impelled her to +greater openness than she had at first intended. + +"I suppose men don't know," she said to herself sullenly, in thinking of +Osborn, who spent his days out of doors. "At any rate, they don't care." + +Emily cared greatly, and was so full of interest and sympathy that there +was something like physical relief in talking to her. + +"You two have become great pals," Alec said, on an afternoon when he +stood at a window watching Lady Walderhurst's carriage drive away. "You +spend hours together talking. What is it all about?" + +"She talks a good deal about her husband. It is a comfort to her to find +someone to listen. She thinks he is a god. But we principally talk +about--me." + +"Don't discourage her," laughed Osborn. "Perhaps she will get so fond of +you that she will not be willing to part with us, as she will be obliged +to take both to keep one." + +"I wish she would, I wish she would!" sighed Hester, tossing up her +hands in a languid, yet fretted gesture. + +The contrast between herself and this woman was very often too great to +be equably borne. Even her kindness could not palliate it. The simple +perfection of her country clothes, the shining skins of her horses, the +smooth roll of her carriage, the automatic servants who attended her, +were suggestive of that ease and completeness in all things, only to be +compassed by long-possessed wealth. To see every day the evidences of it +while one lived on charitable sufferance on the crumbs which fell from +the master's table was a galling enough thing, after all. It would +always have been galling. But it mattered so much more now--so much more +to Hester than she had known it could matter even in those days when as +a girl she had thirstily longed for it. In those days she had not lived +near enough to it all to know the full meaning and value of it--the +beauty and luxury, the stateliness and good taste. To have known it in +this way, to have been almost part of it and then to leave it, to go +back to a hugger-mugger existence in a wretched bungalow hounded by +debt, pinched and bound hard and fast by poverty, which offered no +future prospect of bettering itself into decent good luck! Who could +bear it? + +Both were thinking the same thing as their eyes met. + +"How are we to stand it, after this?" she cried out sharply. + +"We can't stand it," he answered. "Confound it all, something _must_ +happen." + +"Nothing will," she said; "nothing but that we shall go back worse off +than before." + + * * * * * + +At this period Lady Walderhurst went to London again to shop, and spent +two entire happy days in buying beautiful things of various kinds, which +were all to be sent to Mrs. Osborn at The Kennel Farm, Palstrey. She had +never enjoyed herself so much in her life as she did during those two +days when she sat for hours at one counter after another looking at +exquisite linen and flannel and lace. The days she had spent with Lady +Maria in purchasing her trousseau had not compared with these two. She +looked actually lovely as she almost fondled the fine fabrics, smiling +with warm softness at the pretty things shown her. She spent, in fact, +good deal of money, and luxuriated in so doing as she could never have +luxuriated in spending it in finery for herself. Nothing indeed seemed +too fairy-like in its fineness, no quantity of lace seemed in excess. +Her heart positively trembled in her breast sometimes, and she found +strange tears rising in her eyes. + +"They are so sweet," she said plaintively to the silence of her own +bedroom as she looked some of her purchases over. "I don't know why they +give me such a feeling. They look so little and--helpless, and as if +they were made to hold in one's arms. It's absurd of me, I daresay." + +The morning the boxes arrived at The Kennel Farm, Emily came too. She +was in the big carriage, and carried with her some special final +purchases she wanted to bring herself. She came because she could not +have kept away. She wanted to see the things again, to be with Hester +when she unpacked them, to help her, to look them all over, to touch +them and hold them in her hands. + +She found Hester in the large, low-ceilinged room in which she slept. +The big four-post bed was already snowed over with a heaped-up drift of +whiteness, and open boxes were scattered about. There was an odd +expression in the girl's eyes, and she had a red spot on either cheek. + +"I did not expect anything like this," she said. "I thought I should +have to make some plain, little things myself, suited to its station," +with a wry smile. "They would have been very ugly. I don't know how to +sew in the least. You forget that you were not buying things for a +prince or a princess, but for a little beggar." + +"Oh, don't!" cried Emily, taking both her hands. "Let us be _happy_! It +was so _nice_ to buy them. I never liked anything so much in my life." + +She went and stood by the bedside, taking up the things one by one, +touching up frills of lace and smoothing out tucks. + +"Doesn't it make you happy to look at them?" she said. + +"_You_ look at them," said Hester, staring at her, "as if the sight of +them made you hungry, or as if you had bought them for yourself." + +Emily turned slightly away. She said nothing. For a few moments there +was a dead silence. + +Hester spoke again. What in the world was it in the mere look of the +tall, straight body of the woman to make her feel hot and angered? + +"If you had bought them for yourself," she persisted, "they would be +worn by a Marquis of Walderhurst." + +Emily laid down the robe she had been holding. She put it on the bed, +and turned round to look at Hester Osborn with serious eyes. + +"They _may_ be worn by a Marquis of Walderhurst, you know," she +answered. "They may." + +She was remotely hurt and startled, because she felt in the young woman +something she had felt once or twice before, something resentful in her +thoughts of herself, as if for the moment she represented to her an +enemy. + +The next moment, however, Hester Osborn fell upon her with embraces. + +"You are an angel to me," she cried. "You are an angel, and I can't +thank you. I don't know how." + +Emily Walderhurst patted her shoulder as she kindly enfolded her in warm +arms. + +"Don't thank me," she half whispered emotionally. "Don't. Just let us +_enjoy_ ourselves." + + + + +Chapter Thirteen + + +Alec Osborn rode a good deal in these days. He also walked a good deal, +sometimes with a gun over his shoulder and followed by a keeper, +sometimes alone. There was scarcely a square yard of the Palstrey Manor +lands he had not tramped over. He had learned the whole estate by heart, +its woods, its farms, its moorlands. A morbid secret interest in its +beauties and resources possessed him. He could not resist the temptation +to ask apparently casual questions of keepers and farmers when he found +himself with them. He managed to give his inquiries as much the air of +accident as possible, but he himself knew that they were made as a +result of a certain fevered curiosity. He found that he had fallen into +the habit of continually making plans connected with the place. He said +to himself, "If it were mine I would do this, or that. If I owned it, I +would make this change or that one. I would discharge this keeper or put +another man on such a farm." He tramped among the heather thinking these +things over, and realising to the full what the pleasure of such powers +would mean to a man such as himself, a man whose vanity had never been +fed, who had a desire to control and a longing for active out-of-door +life. + +"If it were mine, if it were mine!" he would say to himself. "Oh! damn +it all, if it were only mine!" + +And there were other places as fine, and finer places he had never +seen,--Oswyth, Hurst, and Towers,--all Walderhurst's all belonging to +this one respectable, elderly muff. Thus he summed up the character of +his relative. As for himself he was young, strong, and with veins +swelling with the insistent longing for joyful, exultant life. The +sweating, panting drudgery of existence in India was a thought of hell +to him. But there it was, looming up nearer and nearer with every +heavenly English day that passed. There was nothing for it but to go +back--go back, thrust one's neck into the collar again, and sweat and be +galled to the end. He had no ambitions connected with his profession. He +realised loathingly in these days that he had always been waiting, +waiting. + +The big, bright-faced woman who was always hanging about Hester, doing +her favours, he actually began to watch feverishly. She was such a fool; +she always looked so healthy, and she was specially such a fool over +Walderhurst. When she had news of him, it was to be seen shining in her +face. + +She had a sentimental school-girl fancy that during his absence she +would apply herself to the task of learning to ride. She had been +intending to do so before he went away; they had indeed spoken of it +together, and Walderhurst had given her a handsome, gentle young mare. +The creature was as kind as she was beautiful. Osborn, who was +celebrated for his horsemanship, had promised to undertake to give the +lessons. + +A few days after her return from London with her purchases, she asked +the husband and wife to lunch with her at Palstrey, and during the meal +broached the subject. + +"I should like to begin soon, if you can spare the time for me," she +said. "I want to be able to go out with him when he comes back. Do you +think I shall be slow in learning? Perhaps I ought to be lighter to ride +well." + +"I think you will be pretty sure to have a first-class seat," Osborn +answered. "You will be likely to look particularly well." + +"Do you think I shall? How good you are to encourage me. How soon could +I begin?" + +She was quite agreeably excited. In fact, she was delighted by innocent +visions of herself as Walderhurst's equestrian companion. Perhaps if she +sat well, and learned fine control of her horse, he might be pleased, +and turn to look at her, as they rode side by side, with that look of +approval and dawning warmth which brought such secret joy to her soul. + +"When may I take my first lesson?" she said quite eagerly to Captain +Osborn, for whom a footman was pouring out a glass of wine. + +"As soon," he answered, "as I have taken out the mare two or three times +myself. I want to know her thoroughly. I would not let you mount her +until I had learned her by heart." + +They went out to the stables after lunch and visited the mare in her +loose box. She was a fine beast, and seemed as gentle as a child. + +Captain Osborn asked questions of the head groom concerning her. She had +a perfect reputation, but nevertheless she was to be taken over to the +Kennel stables a few days before Lady Walderhurst mounted her. + +"It is necessary to be more than careful," Osborn said to Hester that +night. "There would be the devil and all to pay if anything went wrong." + +The mare was brought over the next morning. She was a shining bay, and +her name was Faustine. + +In the afternoon Captain Osborn took her out. He rode her far and +learned her thoroughly before he brought her back. She was as lively as +a kitten, but as kind as a dove. Nothing could have been better tempered +and safer. She would pass anything, even the unexpected appearance of a +road-mending engine turning a corner did not perceptibly disturb her. + +"Is she well behaved?" Hester asked at dinner time. + +"Yes, apparently," was his answer; "but I shall take her out once or +twice again." + +He did take her out again, and had only praise for her on each occasion. +But the riding lessons did not begin at once. In fact he was, for a +number of reasons, in a sullen and unsociable humour which did not +incline him towards the task he had undertaken. He made various excuses +for not beginning the lessons, and took Faustine out almost every day. + +But Hester had an idea that he did not enjoy his rides. He used to +return from them with a resentful, sombre look, as if his reflections +had not been pleasant company for him. In truth they were not pleasant +company. He was beset by thoughts he did not exactly care to be beset +by--thoughts which led him farther than he really cared to go, which did +not incline him to the close companionship of Lady Walderhurst. It was +these thoughts which led him on his long rides; it was one of them which +impelled him, one morning, as he was passing a heap of broken stone, +piled for the mending of the ways by the roadside, to touch Faustine +with heel and whip. The astonished young animal sprang aside curvetting. +She did not understand, and to horse-nature the uncomprehended is +alarming. She was more bewildered and also more fretted when, in passing +the next stone heap, she felt the same stinging touches. What did it +mean? Was she to avoid this thing, to leap at sight of it, to do what? +She tossed her delicate head and snorted in her trouble. The country +road was at some distance from Palstrey, and was little frequented. No +one was in sight. Osborn glanced about him to make sure of this fact. A +long stretch of road lay before him, with stone heaps piled at regular +intervals. He had taken a big whiskey and soda at the last wayside inn +he had passed, and drink did not make him drunk so much as mad. He +pushed the mare ahead, feeling in just the humour to try experiments +with her. + + * * * * * + +"Alec is very determined that you shall be safe on Faustine," Hester +said to Emily. "He takes her out every day." + +"It is very good of him," answered Emily. + +Hester thought she looked a trifle nervous, and wondered why. She did +not say anything about the riding lessons, and in fact had seemed of +late less eager and interested. In the first place, it had been Alec who +had postponed, now it was she. First one trifling thing and then another +seemed to interpose. + +"The mare is as safe as a feather-bed," Osborn said to her one afternoon +when they were taking tea on the lawn at Palstrey. "You had better begin +now if you wish to accomplish anything before Lord Walderhurst comes +back. What do you hear from him as to his return?" + +Emily had heard that he was likely to be detained longer than he had +expected. It seemed always to be the case that people were detained by +such business. He was annoyed, but it could not be helped. There was a +rather tired look in her eyes and she was paler than usual. + +"I am going up to town to-morrow," she said. "The riding lessons might +begin after I come back." + +"Are you anxious about anything?" Hester asked her as she was preparing +for the drive back to The Kennel Farm. + +"No, no," Emily answered. "Only--" + +"Only what?" + +"I should be so glad if--if he were not away." + +Hester gazed reflectively at her suddenly quivering face. + +"I don't think I ever saw a woman so fond of a man," she said. + +Emily stood still. She was quite silent. Her eyes slowly filled. She had +never been able to say much about what she felt for Walderhurst. Hers +was a large, dumb, primitive affection. + +She sat at her open bedroom window a long time that evening. She rested +her chin upon her hand and looked up at the deeps of blue powdered with +the diamond dust of stars. It seemed to her that she had never looked up +and seen such myriads of stars before. She felt far away from earthly +things and tremulously uplifted. During the last two weeks she had lived +in a tumult of mind, of amazement, of awe, of hope and fear. No wonder +that she looked pale and that her face was full of anxious yearning. +There were such wonders in the world, and she, Emily Fox-Seton, no, +Emily Walderhurst, seemed to have become part of them. + +She clasped her hands tight together and leaned forward into the night +with her face turned upwards. Very large drops began to roll fast down +her cheeks, one after the other. The argument of scientific observation +might have said she was hysterical, and whether with or without reason +is immaterial. She did not try to check her tears or wipe them away, +because she did not know that she was crying. She began to pray, and +heard herself saying the Lord's Prayer like a child. + +"Our Father who art in Heaven--Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be +Thy name," she murmured imploringly. + +She said the prayer to the end, and then began it over again. She said +it three or four times, and her appeal for daily bread and the +forgiveness of trespasses expressed what her inarticulate nature could +not have put into words. Beneath the entire vault of heaven's dark blue +that night there was nowhere lifted to the Unknown a prayer more humbly +passion-full and gratefully imploring than her final whisper. + +"For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. +Amen, amen." + +When she left her seat at the window and turned towards the room again, +Jane Cupp, who was preparing for the morrow's journey and was just +entering with a dress over her arm, found herself restraining a start at +sight of her. + +"I hope you are quite well, my lady," she faltered. + +"Yes," Lady Walderhurst answered. "I think I am very well--very well, +Jane. You will be quite ready for the early train to-morrow morning." + +"Yes, my lady, quite." + +"I have been thinking," said Emily gently, almost in a tone of reverie, +"that if your uncle had not wanted your mother so much it would have +been nice to have her here with us. She is such an experienced person, +and so kind. I never forget how kind she was to me when I had the little +room in Mortimer Street." + +"Oh! my lady, you was kind to _us_," cried Jane. + +She recalled afterwards, with tears, how her ladyship moved nearer to +her and took her hand with what Jane called "her wonderful _good_ look," +which always brought a lump to her throat. + +"But I always count on you, Jane," she said. "I count on you so much." + +"Oh! my lady," Jane cried again, "it's my comfort to believe it. I'd lay +down my life for your ladyship, I would indeed." + +Emily sat down, and on her face there was a soft, uplifted smile. + +"Yes," she said, and Jane Cupp saw that she was reflective again, and +the words were not addressed exactly, to herself, "one would be quite +ready to lay down one's life for the person one loved. It seems even a +little thing, doesn't it?" + + + + +Chapter Fourteen + + +Lady Walderhurst remained in town a week, and Jane Cupp remained with +her, in the house in Berkeley Square, which threw open its doors to +receive them on their arrival quite as if they had never left it. The +servants' hall brightened temporarily in its hope that livelier doings +might begin to stir the establishment, but Jane Cupp was able to inform +inquirers that the visit was only to be a brief one. + +"We are going back to Palstrey next Monday," she explained. "My lady +prefers the country, and she is very fond of Palstrey; and no wonder. It +doesn't seem at all likely she'll come to stay in London until his +lordship gets back." + +"We hear," said the head housemaid, "that her ladyship is very kind to +Captain Osborn and his wife, and that Mrs. Osborn's in a delicate state +of health." + +"It would be a fine thing for us if it was in our family," remarked an +under housemaid who was pert. + +Jane Cupp looked extremely reserved. + +"Is it true," the pert housemaid persisted, "that the Osborns can't +abide her?" + +"It's true," said Jane, severely, "that she's goodness itself to them, +and they ought to adore her." + +"We hear they don't," put in the tallest footman. "And who wonders. If +she was an angel, there's just a chance that she may give Captain Osborn +a wipe in the eye, though she is in her thirties." + +"It's not for _us_," said Jane, stiffly, "to discuss thirties or forties +or fifties either, which are no business of ours. There's one gentleman, +and him a marquis, as chose her over the heads of two beauties in their +teens, at least." + +"Well, for the matter of that," admitted the tall footman, "I'd have +chose her myself, for she's a fine woman." + +Lady Maria was just on the point of leaving South Audley Street to make +some visits in the North, but she came and lunched with Emily, and was +in great form. + +She had her own opinion of a number of matters, some of which she +discussed, some of which she kept to herself. She lifted her gold +lorgnette and looked Emily well over. + +"Upon my word, Emily," she said, "I am proud of you. You are one of my +successes. Your looks are actually improving. There's something rather +etherealised about your face to-day. I quite agree with Walderhurst in +all the sentimental things he says about you." + +She said this last partly because she liked Emily and knew it would +please her to hear that her husband went to the length of dwelling on +her charms in his conversation with other people, partly because it +entertained her to see the large creature's eyelids flutter and a big +blush sweep her cheek. + +"He really was in great luck when he discovered you," her ladyship went +on briskly. "As for that, I was in luck myself. Suppose you had been a +girl who could not have been left. As Walderhurst is short of female +relatives, it would have fallen to me to decently dry-nurse you. And +there would have been the complications arising from a girl being baby +enough to want to dance about to places, and married enough to feel +herself entitled to defy her chaperone; she couldn't have been trusted +to chaperone herself. As it is, Walderhurst, can go where duty calls, +etc., and I can make my visits and run about, and you, dear thing, are +quite happy at Palstrey playing Lady Bountiful and helping the little +half-breed woman to expect her baby. I daresay you sit and make dolly +shirts and christening robes hand in hand." + +"We enjoy it all very much," Emily answered, adding imploringly, "please +don't call her a little half-breed woman. She's such a dear little +thing, Lady Maria." + +Lady Maria indulged in the familiar chuckle and put up her lorgnette to +examine her again. + +"There's a certain kind of early Victorian saintliness about you, Emily +Walderhurst, which makes my joy," she said. "You remind me of Lady +Castlewood, Helen Pendennis, and Amelia Sedley, with the spitefulness +and priggishness and catty ways left out. You are as nice as Thackeray +_thought_ they were, poor mistaken man. I am not going to suffuse you +with blushes by explaining to you that there is what my nephew would +call a jolly good reason why, if you were not an early Victorian and +improved Thackerayian saint, you would not be best pleased at finding +yourself called upon to assist at this interesting occasion. Another +kind of woman would probably feel like a cat towards the little Osborn. +But even the mere reason itself, as a reason, has not once risen in your +benign and pellucid mind. You have a pellucid mind, Emily; I should be +rather proud of the word if I had invented it myself to describe you. +But I didn't. It was Walderhurst. You have actually wakened up the man's +intellects, such as they are." + +She evidently had a number of opinions of the Osborns. She liked neither +of them, but it was Captain Osborn she especially _dis_liked. + +"He is really an underbred person," she explained, "and he hasn't the +sharpness to know that is the reason Walderhurst detests him. He had +vulgar, cheap sort of affairs, and nearly got into the kind of trouble +people don't forgive. What a fool a creature in his position is to +offend the taste of the man he may inherit from, and who, if he were not +antagonistic to him, would regard him as a sort of duty. It wasn't his +immorality particularly. Nobody is either moral or immoral in these +days, but penniless persons must be decent. It's all a matter of taste +and manners. I haven't any morals myself, my dear, but I have beautiful +manners. A woman can have the kind of manners which keep her from +breaking the Commandments. As to the Commandments, they are awfully easy +things _not_ to break. Who wants to break them, good Lord! Thou shall do +no murder. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not commit, etc. Thou shalt +not bear false witness. That's simply gossip and lying, and they are bad +manners. If you have good manners, you _don't_." + +She chatted on in her pungent little worldly, good-humoured way through +the making of a very excellent lunch. After which she settled her smart +bonnet with clever touches, kissed Emily on both cheeks, and getting +into her brougham rolled off smiling and nodding. + +Emily stood at the drawing-room window and watched her equipage roll +round the square and into Charles Street, and then turned away into the +big, stately empty room, sighing without intending to do so while she +smiled herself. + +"She's so witty and so amusing," she said; "but one would no more think +of _telling_ her anything than one would think of catching a butterfly +and holding it while one made it listen. She would be so _bored_ if she +was confided in." + +Which was most true. Never in her life had her ladyship allowed herself +the indiscretion of appearing a person in whom confidences might be +reposed. She had always had confidences enough of her own to take care +of, without sharing those of other people. + +"Good heavens!" she had exclaimed once, "I should as soon think of +assuming another woman's wrinkles." + +On the first visit Lady Walderhurst made to The Kennel Farm the morning +after her return to Palstrey, when Alec Osborn helped her from her +carriage, he was not elated by the fact that he had never seen her look +so beautifully alive and blooming during his knowledge of her. There was +a fine rose on her cheek, and her eyes were large and happily illumined. + +"How well you look!" broke from him with an involuntariness he was +alarmed to realise as almost spiteful. The words were an actual +exclamation which he had not meant to utter, and Emily Walderhurst even +started a trifle and looked at him with a moment's question. + +"But you look well, too," she answered. "Palstrey agrees with both of +us. You have such a colour." + +"I have been riding," he replied. "I told you I meant to know Faustine +thoroughly before I let you mount her. She is ready for you now. Can you +take your first lesson to-morrow?" + +"I--I don't quite know," she hesitated. "I will tell you a little later. +Where is Hester?" + +Hester was in the drawing-room. She was lying on a sofa before an open +window and looking rather haggard and miserable. She had, in fact, just +had a curious talk with Alec which had ended in something like a scene. +As Hester's health grew more frail, her temper became more fierce, and +of late there had been times when a certain savagery, concealed with +difficulty in her husband's moods, affected her horribly. + +This morning she felt a new character in Emily's manner. She was timid +and shy, and a little awkward. Her child-like openness of speech and +humour seemed obscured. She had less to say than usual, and at the same +time there was a suggestion of restless unease about her. Hester Osborn, +after a few minutes, began to have an odd feeling that the woman's eyes +held a question or a desire in them. + +She had brought some superb roses from the Manor gardens, and she moved +about arranging them for Hester in vases. + +"It is beautiful to come back to the country," she said. "When I get +into the carriage at the station and drive through the sweet air, I +always feel as if I were beginning to live again, and as if in London I +had not been quite alive. It seemed so _heavenly_ in the rose garden at +Palstrey to-day, to walk about among those thousands of blooming lovely +things breathing scent and nodding their heavy, darling heads." + +"The roads are in a beautiful condition for riding," Hester said, "and +Alec says that Faustine is perfect. You ought to begin to-morrow +morning. Shall you?" + +She spoke the words somewhat slowly, and her face did not look happy. +But, then, it never was a really happy face. The days of her youth had +been too full of the ironies of disappointment. + +There was a second's silence, and then she said again: + +"Shall you, if it continues fine?" + +Emily's hands were full of roses, both hands, and Hester saw both hands +and roses tremble. She turned round slowly and came towards her. She +looked nervous, awkward, abashed, and as if for that moment she was a +big girl of sixteen appealing to her and overwhelmed with queer +feelings, and yet the depths of her eyes held a kind of trembling, +ecstatic light. She came and stood before her, holding the trembling +roses as if she had been called up for confession. + +"I--I mustn't," she half whispered. The corners of her lips drooped and +quivered, and her voice was so low that Hester could scarcely hear it. +But she started and half sat up. + +"You _mustn't_?" she gasped; yes, really it was gasped. + +Emily's hand trembled so that the roses began to fall one by one, +scattering a rain of petals as they dropped. + +"I mustn't," she repeated, low and shakily. "I had--reason.--I went to +town to see--somebody. I saw Sir Samuel Brent, and he told me I must +not. He is quite sure." + +She tried to calm herself and smile. But the smile quivered and ended in +a pathetic contortion of her face. In the hope of gaining decent +self-control, she bent down to pick up the dropped roses. Before she had +picked up two, she let all the rest fall, and sank kneeling among them, +her face in her hands. + +"Oh, Hester, Hester!" she panted, with sweet, stupid unconciousness of +the other woman's heaving chest and glaring eyes. "It has come to me +too, actually, after all." + + + + +Chapter Fifteen + + +The Palstrey Manor carriage had just rolled away carrying Lady +Walderhurst home. The big, low-ceilinged, oak-beamed farm-house parlour +was full of the deep golden sunlight of the late afternoon, the air was +heavy with the scent of roses and sweet-peas and mignonette, the +adorable fragrance of English country-house rooms. Captain Osborn +inhaled it at each breath as he stood and looked out of the +diamond-paned window, watching the landau out of sight. He felt the +scent and the golden glow of the sunset light as intensely as he felt +the dead silence which reigned between himself and Hester almost with +the effect of a physical presence. Hester was lying upon the sofa again, +and he knew she was staring at his back with that sardonic widening of +her long eyes, a thing he hated, and which always foreboded things not +pleasant to face. + +He did not turn to face them until the footman's cockade had disappeared +finally behind the tall hedge, and the tramp of the horses' feet was +deadening itself in the lane. When he ceased watching and listening, he +wheeled round suddenly. + +"What does it all mean?" he demanded. "Hang her foolish airs and +graces._ Why_ won't she ride, for she evidently does not intend to." + +Hester laughed, a hard, short, savage little un-mirthful sound it was. + +"No, she doesn't intend to," she answered, "for many a long day, at +least, for many a month. She has Sir Samuel Brent's orders to take the +greatest care of herself." + +"Brent's? Brent's?" + +Hester struck her lean little hands together and laughed this time with +a hint at hysteric shrillness. + +"I told you so, I told you so!" she cried. "I knew it would be so, I +knew it! By the time she reaches her thirty-sixth birthday there will be +a new Marquis of Walderhurst, and he won't be either you or yours." And +as she finished, she rolled over on the sofa, and bit the cushions with +her teeth as she lay face downwards on them. "He won't be you, or belong +to you," she reiterated, and then she struck the cushions with her +clenched fist. + +He rushed over to her, and seizing her by the shoulders shook her to and +fro. + +"You don't know what you are talking about," he said; "you don't know +what you are saying." + +"I do! I do! I do!" she screamed under her breath, and beat the cushions +at every word. "It's true, it's true. She's drivelling about it, +drivelling!" + +Alec Osborn threw back his head, drawing in a hard breath which was +almost a snort of fury. + +"By God!" he cried, "if she went out on Faustine now, she would not come +back!" + +His rage had made him so far beside himself that he had said more than +he intended, far more than he would have felt safe. But the girl was as +far beside herself as he was, and she took him up. + +"Serve her right," she cried. "I shouldn't care. I hate her! I hate her! +I told you once I couldn't, but I do. She's the biggest fool that ever +lived. She knew _nothing_ of what I felt. I believe she thought I would +rejoice with her. I didn't know whether I should shriek in her face or +scream out laughing. Her eyes were as big as saucers, and she looked at +me as if she felt like the Virgin Mary after the Annunciation. Oh! the +stupid, _inhuman_ fool!" + +Her words rushed forth faster and faster, she caught her breath with +gasps, and her voice grew more shrill at every sentence. Osborn shook +her again. + +"Keep quiet," he ordered her. "You are going into hysterics, and it +won't do. Get hold of yourself." + +"Go for Ameerah," she gasped, "or I'm afraid I can't. She knows what to +do." + +He went for Ameerah, and the silently gliding creature came bringing her +remedies with her. She looked at her mistress with stealthily +questioning but affectionate eyes, and sat down on the floor rubbing her +hands and feet in a sort of soothing massage. Osborn went out of the +room, and the two women were left together. Ameerah knew many ways of +calming her mistress's nerves, and perhaps one of the chief ones was to +lead her by subtle powers to talk out her rages and anxieties. Hester +never knew that she was revealing herself and her moods until after her +interviews with the Ayah were over. Sometimes an hour or so had passed +before she began to realise that she had let out things which she had +meant to keep secret. It was never Ameerah who talked, and Hester was +never conscious that she talked very much herself. But afterwards she +saw that the few sentences she had uttered were such as would satisfy +curiosity if the Ayah felt it. Also she was not, on the whole, at all +sure that the woman felt it. She showed no outward sign of any interest +other than the interest of a deep affection. She loved her young +mistress to-day as passionately as she had loved her as a child when she +had held her in her bosom as if she had been her own. By the time Emily +Walderhurst had reached Palstrey, Ameerah knew many things. She +understood that her mistress was as one who, standing upon the brink of +a precipice, was being slowly but surely pushed over its edge--pushed, +pushed by Fate. This was the thing imaged in her mind when she shut +herself up in her room and stood alone in the midst of the chamber +clenching her dark hands high above her white veiled head, and uttering +curses which were spells, and spells which were curses. + +Emily was glad that she had elected to be alone as much as possible, and +had not invited people to come and stay with her. She had not invited +people, in honest truth, because she felt shy of the responsibility of +entertainment while Walderhurst was not with her. It would have been +proper to invite his friends, and his friends were all people she was +too much in awe of, and too desirous to please to be able to enjoy +frankly as society. She had told herself that when she had been married +a few years she would be braver. + +And now her gladness was so devout that it was pure rejoicing. How could +she have been calm, how could she have been conversational, while +through her whole being there surged but one thought. She was sure that +while she talked to people she would have been guilty of looking as if +she was thinking of something not in the least connected with +themselves. + +If she had been less romantically sentimental in her desire to avoid all +semblance of burdening her husband she would have ordered him home at +once, and demanded as a right the protection of his dignity and +presence. If she had been less humble she would have felt the importance +of her position and the gravity of the claims it gave her to his +consideration, instead of being lost in prayerful gratitude to heaven. + +She had been rather stupidly mistaken in not making a confidante of Lady +Maria Bayne, but she had been, in her big girl shyness, entirely like +herself. In some remote part of her nature she had shrunk from a certain +look of delighted amusement which she had known would have betrayed +itself, despite her ladyship's good intentions, in the eyes assisted by +the smart gold lorgnette. She knew she was inclined to be +hyper-emotional on this subject, and she felt that if she had seen the +humour trying to conceal itself behind the eye-glasses, she might have +been hysterical enough to cry even while she tried to laugh, and pass +her feeling off lightly. Oh, no! Oh, no! Somehow she _knew_ that at such +a moment, for some fantastic, if subtle, reason, Lady Maria would only +see her as Emily Fox-Seton, that she would have actually figured before +her for an instant as poor Emily Fox-Seton making an odd confession. She +could not have endured it without doing something foolish, she felt that +she would not, indeed. + +So Lady Maria went gaily away to make her round of visits and be the +amusing old life and soul of house-party after house-party, suspecting +nothing of a possibility which would actually have sobered her for a +moment. + +Emily passed her days at Palstrey in a state of happy exaltation. For a +week or so they were spent in wondering whether or not she should write +a letter to Lord Walderhurst which should convey the information to him +which even Lady Maria would have regarded as important, but the more she +argued the question with herself, the less she wavered from her first +intention. Lady Maria's frank congratulation of herself and Lord +Walderhurst in his wife's entire unexactingness had indeed been the +outcome of a half-formed intention to dissipate amiably even the vaguest +inclination to verge on expecting things from people. While she thought +Emily unlikely to allow herself to deteriorate into an encumbrance, her +ladyship had seen women in her position before, whose marriages had made +perfect fools of them through causing them to lose their heads +completely and require concessions and attentions from their newly +acquired relations which bored everybody. So she had lightly patted and +praised Emily for the course of action she preferred to "keep her up +to." + +"She's the kind of woman ideas sink into if they are well put," she had +remarked in times gone by. "She's not sharp enough to see that things +are being suggested to her, but a suggestion acts upon her +delightfully." + +Her suggestions acted upon Emily as she walked about the gardens at +Palstrey, pondering in the sunshine and soothed by the flower scents of +the warmed borders. Such a letter written to Walderhurst might change +his cherished plans, concerning which she knew he held certain +ambitions. He had been so far absorbed in them that he had gone to India +at a time of the year which was not usually chosen for the journey. He +had become further interested and absorbed after he had reached the +country, and he was evidently likely to prolong his stay as he had not +thought of prolonging it. He wrote regularly though not frequently, and +Emily had gathered from the tone of his letters that he was more +interested than he had ever been in his life before. + +"I would not interfere with his work for anything in the world," she +said. "He cares more for it than he usually cares for things. I care for +everything--I have that kind of mind; an intellectual person is +different. I am perfectly well and happy here. And it will be so nice to +look forward." + +She was not aware how Lady Maria's suggestions had "sunk in." She would +probably have reached the same conclusion without their having been +made, but since they had been made, they had assisted her. There was one +thing of all others she felt she could not possibly bear, which was to +realise that she herself could bring to her James's face an expression +she had once or twice seen others bring there (Captain Osborn +notably),--an expression of silent boredom on the verge of irritation. +Even radiant domestic joy might not be able to overrule this, if just at +this particular juncture he found himself placed in the position of a +man whom decency compelled to take the next steamer to England. + +If she had felt tenderly towards Hester Osborn before, the feeling was +now increased tenfold. She went to see her oftener, she began to try to +persuade her to come and stay at Palstrey. She was all the more kind +because Hester seemed less well, and was in desperate ill spirits. Her +small face had grown thin and yellow, she had dark rings under her eyes, +and her little hands were hot and looked like bird's claws. She did not +sleep and had lost her appetite. + +"You must come and stay at Palstrey for a few days," Emily said to her. +"The mere change from one house to another may make you sleep better." + +But Hester was not inclined to avail herself of the invitation. She made +obstacles and delayed acceptance for one reason and another. She was, in +fact, all the more reluctant because her husband wished her to make the +visit. Their opposed opinions had resulted in one of their scenes. + +"I won't go," she had said at first. "I tell you I won't." + +"You will," he answered. "It will be better for you." + +"Will it be worse for me if I don't?" she laughed feverishly. "And how +will it be better for you if I do? I know you are in it." + +He lost his temper and was indiscreet, as his temper continually +betrayed him into being. + +"Yes, I am in it," he said through his teeth, "as you might have the +sense to see. Everything is the better for us that throws us with them, +and makes them familiar with the thought of us and our rights." + +"Our rights," the words were a shrill taunt. + +"What rights have you, likely to be recognised, unless you kill her. Are +you going to kill her?" + +He had a moment of insanity. + +"I'd kill her and you too if it was safe to do it. You both deserve it!" + +He flung across the room, having lost his wits as well as his temper. +But a second later both came back to him as in a revulsion of feeling. + +"I talk like a melodramatic fool," he cried. "Oh, Hester, forgive me!" +He knelt on the floor by her side, caressing her imploringly. "We both +take fire in the same way. We are both driven crazy by this damned blow. +We're beaten; we may as well own it and take what we can get. She's a +fool, but she's better than that pompous, stiff brute Walderhurst, and +she has a lot of pull over him he knows nothing about. The smug animal +is falling in love with her in his way. She can make him do the decent +thing. Let us keep friends with her." + +"The decent thing would be a thousand a year," wailed Hester, giving in +to his contrition in spite of herself, because she had once been in love +with him, and because she was utterly helpless. "Five hundred a year +wouldn't be indecent." + +"Let us keep on her good side," he said, fondling her, with a relieved +countenance. "Tell her you will come and that she is an angel, and that +you are sure a visit to the Manor will save your life." + +They went to Palstrey a few days later. Ameerah accompanied them in +attendance upon her mistress, and the three settled down into a life so +regular that it scarcely seemed to wear the aspect of a visit. The +Osborns were given some of the most beautiful and convenient rooms in +the house. No other visitors were impending and the whole big place was +at their disposal. Hester's boudoir overlooked the most perfect nooks of +garden, and its sweet chintz draperies and cushions and books and +flowers made it a luxurious abode of peace. + +"What shall I do," she said on the first evening in it as she sat in a +soft chair by the window, looking out at the twilight and talking to +Emily. "What shall I do when I must go away?" + +"I don't mean only from here,--I mean away from England, to loathly +India." + +"Do you dislike it so?" Emily asked, roused to a new conception of her +feeling by her tone. + +"I could never describe to you how much," fiercely. "It is like going to +the place which is the opposite of Heaven." + +"I did not know that," pityingly. "Perhaps--I wonder if something might +not be done: I must talk to my husband." + +Ameerah seemed to develop an odd fancy for the society of Jane Cupp, +which Jane was obliged to confess to her mistress had a tendency to +produce in her system "the creeps." + +"You must try to overcome it, Jane," Lady Walderhurst said. "I'm afraid +it's because of her colour. I've felt a little silly and shy about her +myself, but it isn't nice of us. You ought to read 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' +and all about that poor religious Uncle Tom, and Legree, and Eliza +crossing the river on the blocks of ice." + +"I have read it twice, your ladyship," was Jane's earnestly regretful +response, "and most awful it is, and made me and mother cry beyond +words. And I suppose it is the poor creature's colour that's against +her, and I'm trying to be kind to her, but I must own that she makes me +nervous. She asks me such a lot of questions in her queer way, and +stares at me so quiet. She actually asked me quite sudden the other day +if I loved the big Mem Sahib. I didn't know what she _could_ mean at +first, but after a while I found out it was her Indian way of meaning +your ladyship, and she didn't intend disrespect, because she spoke of +you most humble afterwards, and called his lordship the Heaven born." + +"Be as kind as you can to her, Jane," instructed her mistress. "And take +her a nice walk occasionally. I daresay she feels very homesick here." + +What Ameerah said to her mistress was that these English servant women +were pigs and devils, and could conceal nothing from those who chose to +find out things from them. If Jane had known that the Ayah could have +told her of every movement she made during the day or night, of her +up-gettings and down-lyings, of the hour and moment of every service +done for the big Mem Sahib, of why and how and when and where each thing +was done, she would have been frightened indeed. + +One day, it is true, she came into Lady Walderhurst's sleeping apartment +to find Ameerah standing in the middle of it looking round its contents +with restless, timid, bewildered eyes. She wore, indeed, the manner of +an alarmed creature who did not know how she had got there. + +"What are you doing here?" demanded Jane. "You have no right in this +part of the house. You're taking a great liberty, and your mistress will +be angry." + +"My Mem Sahib asked for a book," the Ayah quite shivered in her alarmed +confusion. "Your Mem Sahib said it was here. They did not order me, but +I thought I would come to you. I did not know it was forbidden." + +"What was the book?" inquired Jane severely. "I will take it to her +ladyship." + +But Ameerah was so frightened that she had forgotten the name, and when +Jane knocked at the door of Mrs. Osborn's boudoir, it was empty, both +the ladies having gone into the garden. + +But Ameerah's story was quite true, Lady Walderhurst said in the evening +when Jane spoke of the matter as she dressed her for dinner. They had +been speaking of a book containing records of certain historical +Walderhursts. It was one Emily had taken from the library to read in her +bedroom. + +"We did not ask her to go for it. In fact I did not know the woman was +within hearing. She moves about so noiselessly one frequently does not +know when she is near. Of course she meant very well, but she does not +know our English ways." + +"No, my lady, she does not," said Jane, respectfully but firmly. "I took +the liberty of telling her she must keep to her own part of the house +unless required by your ladyship." + +"You mustn't frighten the poor creature," laughed her mistress. She was +rather touched indeed by the slavish desire to please and do service +swiftly which the Ayah's blunder seemed to indicate. She had wished to +save her mistress even the trouble of giving the order. That was her +Oriental way, Emily thought, and it was very affectionate and +child-like. + +Being reminded of the book again, she carried it down herself into the +drawing-room. It was a volume she was fond of because it recorded +romantic stories of certain noble dames of Walderhurst lineage. + +Her special predilection was a Dame Ellena, who, being left with but few +servitors in attendance during her lord's absence from his castle on a +foraging journey into an enemy's country, had defended the stronghold +boldly against the attack of a second enemy who had adroitly seized the +opportunity to forage for himself. In the cellars had been hidden +treasure recently acquired by the usual means, and knowing this, Dame +Ellena had done splendid deeds, marshalling her small forces in such way +as deceived the attacking party and showing herself in scorn upon the +battlements, a fierce, beauteous woman about to give her lord an heir, +yet fearing naught, and only made more fierce and full of courage by +this fact. The son, born but three weeks later, had been the most +splendid and savage fighter of his name, and a giant in build and +strength. + +"I suppose," Emily said when they discussed the legend after dinner, "I +suppose she felt that she could do _anything_," with her italics. "I +daresay _nothing_ could make her afraid, but the thought that something +might go wrong while her husband was away. And strength was given her." + +She was so thrilled that she got up and walked across the room with +quite a fine sweep of heroic movement in her momentary excitement. She +held her head up and smiled with widening eyes. + +But she saw Captain Osborn drag at his black moustache to hide an +unattractive grin, and she was at once abashed into feeling silly and +shy. She sat down again with awkward self-consciousness. + +"I'm afraid I'm making you laugh at me," she apologised, "but that story +always gives me such a romantic feeling. I like her so." + +"Oh! not at all, not all," said Osborn. "I was not laughing really; oh +no!" + +But he had been, and had been secretly calling her a sentimental, +ramping idiot. + +It was a great day for Jane Cupp when her mother arrived at Palstrey +Manor. It was a great day for Mrs. Cupp also. When she descended from +the train at the little country station, warm and somewhat flushed by +her emotions and the bugled splendours of her best bonnet and black silk +mantle, the sight of Jane standing neatly upon the platform almost +overcame her. Being led to his lordship's own private bus, and seeing +her trunk surrounded by the attentions of an obsequious station-master +and a liveried young man, she was conscious of concealing a flutter with +dignified reserve. + +"My word, Jane!" she exclaimed after they had taken their seats in the +vehicle. "My word, you look as accustomed to it as if you had been born +in the family." + +But it was when, after she had been introduced to the society in the +servants' hall, she was settled in her comfortable room next to Jane's +own that she realised to the full that there were features of her +position which marked it with importance almost startling. As Jane +talked to her, the heat of the genteel bonnet and beaded mantle had +nothing whatever to do with the warmth which moistened her brow. + +"I thought I'd keep it till I saw you, mother," said the girl +decorously. "I know what her ladyship feels about being talked over. If +I was a lady myself, I shouldn't like it. And I know how deep you'll +feel it, that when the doctor advised her to get an experienced married +person to be at hand, she said in that dear way of hers, 'Jane, if your +uncle could spare your mother, how I should like to have her. I've never +forgot her kindness in Mortimer Street.'" + +Mrs. Cupp fanned her face with a handkerchief of notable freshness. + +"If she was Her Majesty," she said, "she couldn't be more sacred to me, +nor me more happy to be allowed the privilege." + +Jane had begun to put her mother's belongings away. She was folding and +patting a skirt on the bed. She fussed about a little nervously and then +lifted a rather embarrassed face. + +"I'm glad you _are_ here, mother," she said. "I'm thankful to _have_ +you!" + +Mrs. Cupp ceased fanning and stared at her with a change of expression. +She found herself involuntarily asking her next question in a half +whisper. + +"Why, Jane, what is it?" + +Jane came nearer. + +"I don't know," she answered, and her voice also was low. "Perhaps I'm +silly and overanxious, because I _am_ so fond of her. But that Ameerah, +I actually dream about her." + +"What! The black woman?" + +"If I was to say a word, or if you did, and we was wrong, how should we +feel? I've kept my nerves to myself till I've nearly screamed sometimes. +And my lady would be so hurt if she knew. But--well," in a hurried +outburst, "I do wish his lordship was here, and I do wish the Osborns +wasn't. I do wish it, I tell you that." + +"Good Lord!" cried Mrs. Cupp, and after staring with alarmed eyes a +second or so, she wiped a slight dampness from her upper lip. + +She was of the order of female likely to take a somewhat melodramatic +view of any case offering her an opening in that direction. + +"Jane!" she gasped faintly, "do you think they'd try to take her life?" + +"Goodness, no!" ejaculated Jane, with even a trifle of impatience. +"People like them daren't. But suppose they was to try to, well, to +upset her in some way, what a thing for them it would be." + +After which the two women talked together for some time in whispers, +Jane bringing a chair to place opposite her mother's. They sat knee to +knee, and now and then Jane shed a tear from pure nervousness. She was +so appalled by the fear of making a mistake which, being revealed by +some chance, would bring confusion upon and pain of mind to her lady. + +"At all events," was Mrs. Cupp's weighty observation when their +conference was at an end, "here we both are, and two pairs of eyes and +ears and hands and legs is a fat lot better than one, where there's +things to be looked out for." + +Her training in the matter of subtlety had not been such as Ameerah's, +and it may not be regarded as altogether improbable that her observation +of the Ayah was at times not too adroitly concealed, but if the native +woman knew that she was being remarked, she gave no sign of her +knowledge. She performed her duties faithfully and silently, she gave no +trouble, and showed a gentle subservience and humbleness towards the +white servants which won immense approbation. Her manner towards Mrs. +Cupp's self was marked indeed by something like a tinge of awed +deference, which, it must be confessed, mollified the good woman, and +awakened in her a desire to be just and lenient even to the dark of skin +and alien of birth. + +"She knows her betters when she sees them, and has pretty enough manners +for a black," the object of her respectful obeisances remarked. "I +wonder if she's ever heard of her Maker, and if a little brown Testament +with good print wouldn't be a good thing to give her?" + +This boon was, in fact, bestowed upon her as a gift. Mrs. Cupp bought it +for a shilling at a small shop in the village. Ameerah, in whose dusky +being was incorporated the occult faith of lost centuries, and whose +gods had been gods through mystic ages, received the fat, little brown +book with down-dropped lids and grateful obeisance. These were her words +to her mistress: + +"The fat old woman with protruding eyes bestowed it upon me. She says it +is the book of her god. She has but one. She wishes me to worship him. +Am I a babe to worship such a god as would please her. She is old, and +has lost her mind." + +Lady Walderhurst's health continued all that could be desired. She arose +smiling in the morning, and bore her smile about with her all day. She +walked much in the gardens, and spent long, happy hours sewing in her +favourite sitting-room. Work which she might have paid other women to +do, she did with her own hands for the mere sentimental bliss of it. +Sometimes she sat with Hester and sewed, and Hester lay on a sofa and +stared at her moving hands. + +"You know how to do it, don't you?" she once said. + +"I was obliged to sew for myself when I was so poor, and this is +delightful," was Emily's answer. + +"But you could buy it all and save yourself the trouble." + +Emily stroked her bit of cambric and looked awkward. + +"I'd rather not," she said. + +Well as she was, she began to think she did not sleep quite so soundly +as had been habitual with her. She started up in bed now and again as if +she had been disturbed by some noise, but when she waited and listened +she heard nothing. At least this happened on two or three occasions. And +then one night, having been lying folded in profound, sweet sleep, she +sprang up in the black darkness, wakened by an actual, physical reality +of sensation, the soft laying of a hand upon her naked side,--that, and +nothing else. + +"What is that? Who is there?" she cried. "Someone is in the room!" + +Yes, someone was there. A few feet from her bed she heard a sobbing +sigh, then a rustle, then followed silence. She struck a match and, +getting up, lighted candles. Her hand shook, but she remembered that she +must be firm with herself. + +"I must not be nervous," she said, and looked the room over from end to +end. + +But it contained no living creature, nor any sign that living creature +had entered it since she had lain down to rest. Gradually the fast +beating of her heart had slackened, and she passed her hand over her +face in bewilderment. + +"It wasn't like a dream at all," she murmured; "it really wasn't. I +_felt_ it." + +Still as absolutely nothing was to be found, the sense of reality +diminished somewhat, and being so healthy a creature, she regained her +composure, and on going back to bed slept well until Jane brought her +early tea. + +Under the influence of fresh morning air and sunlight, of ordinary +breakfast and breakfast talk with the Osborns, her first convictions +receded so far that she laughed a little as she related the incident. + +"I never had such a real dream in my life," she said; "but it must have +been a dream." + +"One's dreams are very real sometimes," said Hester. + +"Perhaps it was the Palstrey ghost," Osborn laughed. "It came to you +because you ignore it." He broke off with a slight sudden start and +stared at her a second questioningly. "Did you say it put its hand on +your side?" he asked. + +"Don't tell her silly things that will frighten her. How ridiculous of +you," exclaimed Hester sharply. "It's not proper." + +Emily looked at both of them wonderingly. + +"What do you mean?" she said. "I don't believe in ghosts. It won't +frighten me, Hester. I never even heard of a Palstrey ghost." + +"Then I am not going to tell you of one," said Captain Osborn a little +brusquely, and he left his chair and went to the sideboard to cut cold +beef. + +He kept his back towards them, and his shoulders looked uncommunicative +and slightly obstinate. Hester's face was sullen. Emily thought it sweet +of her to care so much, and turned upon her with grateful eyes. + +"I was only frightened for a few minutes, Hester," she said. "My dreams +are not vivid at all, usually." + +But howsoever bravely she ignored the shock she had received, it was not +without its effect, which was that occasionally there drifted into her +mind a recollection of the suggestion that Palstrey had a ghost. She had +never heard of it, and was in fact of an orthodoxy so ingenuously entire +as to make her feel that belief in the existence of such things was a +sort of defiance of ecclesiastical laws. Still, such stories were often +told in connection with old places, and it was natural to wonder what +features marked this particular legend. Did it lay hands on people's +sides when they were asleep? Captain Osborn had asked his question as if +with a sudden sense of recognition. But she would not let herself think +of the matter, and she would not make inquiries. + +The result was that she did not sleep well for several nights. She was +annoyed at herself, because she found that she kept lying awake as if +listening or waiting. And it was not a good thing to lose one's sleep +when one wanted particularly to keep strong. + +Jane Cupp during this week was, to use her own words, "given quite a +turn" by an incident which, though a small matter, might have proved +untoward in its results. + +The house at Palstrey, despite its age, was in a wonderful state of +preservation, the carved oak balustrades of the stairways being +considered particularly fine. + +"What but Providence," said Jane piously, in speaking to her mother the +next morning, "made me look down the staircase as I passed through the +upper landing just before my lady was going down to dinner. What but +Providence I couldn't say. It certainly wasn't because I've done it +before that I remember. But just that one evening I was obliged to cross +the landing for something, and my eye just lowered itself by accident, +and there it was!" + +"Just where it would have tripped her up. Good Lord! it makes my heart +turn over to hear you tell it. How big a bit of carving was it?" Mrs. +Cupp's opulent chest trimmings heaved. + +"Only a small piece that had broken off from old age and worm-eatenness, +I suppose, but it had dropped just where she wouldn't have caught sight +of it, and ten to one would have stepped on it and turned her ankle and +been thrown from the top to the bottom of the whole flight. Suppose I +_hadn't_ seen it in time to pick it up before she went down. Oh, dear! +Oh, dear! Mother!" + +"I should say so!" Mrs. Cupp's manner approached the devout. This +incident it was which probably added to Jane's nervous sense of +responsibility. She began to watch her mistress's movements with +hyper-sensitive anxiety. She fell into the habit of going over her +bedroom two or three times a day, giving a sort of examination to its +contents. + +"Perhaps I'm so fond of her that it's making me downright silly," she +said to her mother; "but it seems as if I can't help it. I feel as if +I'd like to know everything she does, and go over the ground to make +sure of it before she goes anywhere. I'm so proud of her, mother; I'm +just as proud as if I was some connection of the family, instead of just +her maid. It'll be such a splendid thing if she keeps well and +everything goes as it should. Even people like us can see what it means +to a gentleman that can go back nine hundred years. If I was Lady Maria +Bayne, I'd be here and never leave her. I tell you nothing could drive +me from her." + +"You are well taken care of," Hester had said. "That girl is devoted to +you. In her lady's maid's way she'd fight for your life." + +"I think she is as faithful to me as Ameerah is to you," Emily answered. +"I feel sure Ameerah would fight for you." + +Ameerah's devotion in these days took the form of a deep-seated hatred +of the woman whom she regarded as her mistress's enemy. + +"It is an evil thing that she should take this place," she said. "She is +an old woman. What right hath she to think she may bear a son. Ill luck +will come of it. She deserves any ill fortune which may befall her." + +"Sometimes," Lady Walderhurst once said to Osborn, "I feel as if Ameerah +disliked me. She looks at me in such a curious, stealthy way." + +"She is admiring you," was his answer. "She thinks you are something a +little supernatural, because you are so tall and have such a fresh +colour." + +There was in the park at Palstrey Manor a large ornamental pool of +water, deep and dark and beautiful because of the age and hugeness of +the trees which closed around it, and the water plants which encircled +and floated upon it. White and yellow flags and brown velvet rushes grew +thick about its edge, and water-lilies opened and shut upon its surface. +An avenue of wonderful limes led down to a flight of mossy steps, by +which in times gone by people had descended to the boat which rocked +idly in the soft green gloom. There was an island on it, on which roses +had been planted and left to run wild; early in the year daffodils and +other spring flowers burst up through the grass and waved scented heads. +Lady Walderhurst had discovered the place during her honeymoon, and had +loved it fondly ever since. The avenue leading to it was her favourite +walk; a certain seat under a tree on the island her favourite +resting-place. + +"It is so still there," she had said to the Osborns. "No one ever goes +there but myself. When I have crossed the little old bridge and sit down +among the greenness with my book or work, I feel as if there was no +world at all. There is no sound but the rustle of the leaves and the +splash of the moor-hens who come to swim about. They don't seem to be +afraid of me, neither do the thrushes and robins. They know I shall only +sit still and watch them. Sometimes they come quite near." + +She used, in fact, to take her letter-writing and sewing to the sweet, +secluded place and spend hours of pure, restful bliss. It seemed to her +that her life became more lovely day by day. + +[Illustration: Hester Osborn] + +Hester did not like the pool. She thought it too lonely and silent. She +preferred her beflowered boudoir or the sunny garden. Sometimes in these +days she feared to follow her own thoughts. She was being pushed--pushed +towards the edge of her precipice, and it was only the working of Nature +that she should lose her breath and snatch at strange things to stay +herself. Between herself and her husband a sort of silence had grown. +There were subjects of which they never spoke, and yet each knew that +the other's mind was given up to thought of them day and night. There +were black midnight hours when Hester, lying awake in her bed, knew that +Alec lay awake in his also. She had heard him many a time turn over with +a caught breath and a smothered curse. She did not ask herself what he +was thinking of. She knew. She knew because she was thinking of the same +things herself. Of big, fresh, kind Emily Walderhurst lost in her dreams +of exultant happiness which never ceased to be amazed and grateful to +prayerfulness; of the broad lands and great, comfortable houses; of all +it implied to be the Marquis of Walderhurst or his son; of the long, +sickening voyage back to India; of the hopeless muddle of life in an +ill-kept bungalow; of wretched native servants, at once servile and +stubborn and given to lies and thefts. More than once she was forced to +turn on her face that she might smother her frenzied sobs in her pillow. + +It was on such a night--she had awakened from her sleep to notice such +stillness in Osborn's adjoining room, that she thought him profoundly +asleep--that she arose from her bed to go and sit at her open window. + +She had not been seated there many minutes before she became singularly +conscious, she did not know how, of some presence near her among the +bushes in the garden below. It had indeed scarcely seemed to be sound or +movement which had attracted her attention, and yet it must have been +one or both, for she involuntarily turned to a particular spot. + +Yes, something, someone, was standing in a corner, hidden by shrubbery. +It was the middle of the night, and people were meeting. She sat still +and almost breathless. She could hear nothing and saw nothing but, +between the leafage, a dim gleam of white. Only Ameerah wore white. +After a few seconds' waiting she began to think a strange thing, though +she presently realised that, taking all things into consideration, it +was not strange at all. She got up very noiselessly and stole into her +husband's room. He was not there; the bed was empty, though he had slept +there earlier in the night. + +She went back to her own bed and got into it again. In ten minutes' time +Captain Osborn crept upstairs and returned to bed also. Hester made no +sign and did not ask any questions. She knew he would have told her +nothing, and also she did not wish to hear. She had seen him speaking to +Ameerah in the lane a few days before, and now that he was meeting her +in the night she knew that she need not ask herself what the subject of +their consultation might be. But she looked haggard in the morning. + +Lady Walderhurst herself did not look well, For the last two or three +nights she had been starting from her sleep again with that eerie +feeling of being wakened by someone at her bedside, though she had found +no one when she had examined the room on getting up. + +"I am sorry to say I am afraid I am getting a little nervous," she had +said to Jane Cupp. "I will begin to take valerian, though it is really +very nasty." + +Jane herself had a somewhat harried expression of countenance. She did +not mention to her mistress that for some days she had been faithfully +following a line of conduct she had begun to mark out for herself. She +had obtained a pair of list slippers and had been learning to go about +softly. She had sat up late and risen from her bed early, though she had +not been rewarded by any particularly marked discoveries. She had +thought, however, that she observed that Ameerah did not look at her as +much as had been her habit, and she imagined she rather avoided her. All +she said to Lady Walderhurst was: + +"Yes, my lady, mother thinks a great deal of valerian to quiet the +nerves. Will you have a light left in your room to-night, my lady?" + +"I am afraid I could not sleep with a light," her mistress answered. "I +am not used to one." + +She continued to sleep, disturbedly some nights, in the dark. She was +not aware that on some of the nights Jane Cupp either slept or laid +awake in the room nearest to her. Jane's own bedroom was in another part +of the house, but in her quiet goings about in the list shoes she now +and then saw things which made her nervously determined to be within +immediate call. + +"I don't say it isn't nerves, mother," she said, "and that I ain't silly +to feel so suspicious of all sorts of little things, but there's nights +when I couldn't stand it not to be quite near her." + + + + +Chapter Sixteen + + +The Lime Avenue was a dim, if lovely, place at twilight. When the sun +was setting, broad lances of gold slanted through the branches and +glorified the green spaces with mellow depths of light. But later, when +the night was drawing in, the lines of grey tree-trunks, shadowed and +canopied by boughs, suggested to the mind the pillars of some ruined +cathedral, desolate and ghostly. + +Jane Cupp, facing the gloom of it during her lady's dinner-hour, and +glancing furtively from side to side as she went, would have been awed +by the grey stillness, even if she had not been in a timorous mood to +begin with. In the first place, the Lime Avenue, which was her +ladyship's own special and favourite walk, was not the usual promenade +of serving-maids. Even the gardeners seldom set foot in it unless to +sweep away dead leaves and fallen wood. Jane herself had never been here +before. This evening she had gone absolutely because she was following +Ameerah. + +She was following Ameerah because, during the afternoon tea-hour in the +servants' hall, she had caught a sentence or so in the midst of a +gossiping story, which had made her feel that she should be unhappy if +she did not go down the walk and to the water-side,--see the water, the +boat, the steps, everything. + +"My word, mother!" she had said, "it's a queer business for a +respectable girl that's maid in a great place to be feeling as if she +had to watch black people, same as if she was in the police, and not +daring to say a word; for if I did say a word, Captain Osborn's clever +enough to have me sent away from here in a jiffy. And the worst of it +is," twisting her hands together, "there _mayn't_ be _anything_ going on +really. If they were as innocent as lambs they couldn't act any +different; and just the same, things _might_ have happened by accident." + +"That's the worst of it," was Mrs. Cupp's fretted rejoinder. "Any old +piece of carving might have dropped out of a balustrade, and any lady +that wasn't well might have nightmare and be disturbed in her sleep." + +"Yes," admitted Jane, anxiously, "that is the worst of it. Sometimes I +feel so foolish I'm all upset with myself." + +The gossip in servants' halls embraces many topics. In country houses +there is naturally much to be said of village incidents, of the scandals +of cottages and the tragedies of farms. This afternoon, at one end of +the table the talk had been of a cottage scandal which had verged on +tragedy. A handsome, bouncing, flaunting village girl had got into that +"trouble" which had been anticipated for her by both friends and enemies +for some time. Being the girl she was, much venomous village social stir +had resulted. It had been predicted that she would "go up to London," or +that she would drown herself, having an impudent high spirit which +brought upon her much scornful and derisive flouting on her evil day. +The manor servants knew a good deal of her, because she had been for a +while a servant at The Kennel Farm, and had had a great fancy for +Ameerah, whom it had pleased her to make friends with. When she fell +suddenly ill, and for days lay at the point of death, there was a +stealthy general opinion that Ameerah, with her love spells and potions, +could have said much which might have been enlightening, if she had +chosen. The girl had been in appalling danger. The village doctor, who +had been hastily called in, had at one moment declared that life had +left her body. It was, in fact, only Ameerah who had insisted that she +was not dead. After a period of prostration, during which she seemed a +corpse, she had slowly come back to earthly existence. The graphic +descriptions of the scenes by her bedside, of her apparent death, her +cold and bloodless body, her lagging and ghastly revival to +consciousness, aroused in the servants' hall a fevered interest. Ameerah +was asked questions, and gave such answers as satisfied herself if not +her interlocutors. She was perfectly aware of the opinions of her fellow +servitors. She knew all about them while they knew nothing whatsoever +about her. Her limited English could be used as a means of baffling +them. She smiled, and fell into Hindustani when she was pressed. + +Jane Cupp heard both questions and answers. Ameerah professed to know +nothing but such things as the whole village knew. Towards the end of +the discussion, however, in a mixture of broken English and Hindustani, +she conveyed that she had believed that the girl would drown herself. +Asked why, she shook her head, then said that she had seen her by the +Mem Sahib's lake at the end of the trees. She had asked if the water was +deep enough, near the bridge, to drown. Ameerah had answered that she +did not know. + +There was a general exclamation. They all knew it was deep there. The +women shuddered as they remembered how deep they had been told it was at +that particular spot. It was said that there was no bottom to it. +Everybody rather revelled in the gruesomeness of the idea of a +bottomless piece of water. Someone remembered that there was a story +about it. As much as ninety years ago two young labourers on the place +had quarrelled about a young woman. One day, in the heat of jealous rage +one had seized the other and literally thrown him into the pond. He had +never been found. No drags could reach his body. He had sunk into the +blackness for ever. + +Ameerah sat at the table with downcast eyes. She had a habit of sitting +silent with dropped eyes, which Jane could not bear. As she drank her +tea she watched her in spite of herself. + +After a few minutes had passed, her appetite for bread and butter +deserted her. She got up and left the hall, looking pale. + +The mental phases through which she went during the afternoon ended in +her determination to go down the avenue and to the water's side this +evening. It could be done while her ladyship and her guests were at +dinner. This evening the Vicar and his wife and daughter were dining at +the Manor. + +Jane took in emotionally all the mysterious silence and dimness of the +long tree-pillared aisle, and felt a tremor as she walked down it, +trying to hold herself in hand by practical reflections half whispered. + +"I'm just going to have a look, to make sure," she said, "silly or not. +I've got upset through not being able to help watching that woman, and +the way to steady my nerves is to make sure I'm just giving in to +foolishness." + +She walked as fast as she could towards the water. She could see its +gleam in the dim light, but she must pass a certain tree before she +could see the little bridge itself. + +"My goodness! What's that?" she said suddenly. It was something white, +which rose up as if from the ground, as if from the rushes growing at +the water's edge. + +Just a second Jane stood, and choked, and then suddenly darted forward, +running as fast as she could. The white figure merely moved slowly away +among the trees. It did not run or seem startled, and as Jane ran she +caught it by its white drapery, and found herself, as she had known she +would, dragging at the garments of Ameerah. But Ameerah only turned +round and greeted her with a welcoming smile, mild enough to damp any +excitement. + +"What are you doing here?" Jane demanded. "Why do you come to this +place?" + +Ameerah answered her with simple fluency in Hindustani, with her manner +of not realising that she was speaking to a foreigner who could not +understand her. What she explained was that, having heard that Jane's +Mem Sahib came here to meditate on account of the stillness, she herself +had formed the habit of coming to indulge in prayer and meditation when +the place was deserted for the day. She commended the place to Jane, and +to Jane's mother, whom she believed to be holy persons given to +devotional exercises. Jane shook her. + +"I don't understand a word you say," she cried. "You know I don't. Speak +in English." + +Ameerah shook her head slowly, and smiled again with patience. She +endeavoured to explain in English which Jane was sure was worse than she +had ever heard her use before. Was it forbidden that a servant should +come to the water? + +She was far too much for Jane, who was so unnerved that she burst into +tears. + +"You are up to some wickedness," she sobbed; "I know you are. You're +past bearing. I'm going to write to people that's got the right to do +what I daren't. I'm going back to that bridge." + +Ameerah looked at her with a puzzled amiability for a few seconds. She +entered into further apologies and explanations in Hindustani. In the +midst of them her narrow eyes faintly gleamed, and she raised a hand. + +"They come to us. It is your Mem Sahib and her people. Hear them." + +She spoke truly. Jane had miscalculated as to her hour, or the time +spent at the dinner-table had been shorter than usual. In fact, Lady +Walderhurst had brought her guests to see the young moon peer through +the lime-trees, as she sometimes did when the evening was warm. + +Jane Cupp fled precipitately. Ameerah disappeared also, but without +precipitation or any sign of embarrassment. + + * * * * * + +"You look as if you had not slept well, Jane," Lady Walderhurst remarked +in the morning as her hair was being brushed. She had glanced into the +glass and saw that it reflected a pale face above her own, and that the +pale face had red rims to its eyes. + +"I have been a bit troubled by a headache, my lady," Jane answered. + +"I have something like a headache myself." Lady Walderhurst's voice had +not its usual cheerful ring. Her own eyes looked heavy. "I did not rest +well. I have not rested well for a week. That habit of starting from my +sleep feeling that some sound has disturbed me is growing on me. Last +night I dreamed again that someone touched my side. I think I shall be +obliged to send for Sir Samuel Brent." + +"My lady," exclaimed Jane feverishly, "if you would--if you would." + +Lady Walderhurst's look at her was nervous and disturbed. + +"Do you--does your mother think I am not as well as I should be, Jane?" +she said. + +Jane's hands were actually trembling. + +"Oh no, my lady. Oh no! But if Sir Samuel could be sent for, or Lady +Maria Bayne, or--or his lordship--" + +The disturbed expression of Lady Walderhurst's face changed to something +verging on alarm. It was true that she began to be horribly frightened. +She turned upon Jane, pallor creeping over her skin. + +"Oh!" she cried, a sound of almost child-like fear and entreaty in her +voice. "I am sure you think I am ill, I am sure you do. What--what is +it?" + +She leaned forward suddenly and rested her forehead on her hands, her +elbows supported by the dressing-table. She was overcome by a shock of +dread. + +"Oh! if anything should go wrong!" in a faint half wail; "if anything +_could_ happen!" She could not bear the mere thought. It would break her +heart. She had been so happy. God had been so good. + +Jane was inwardly convulsed with contrition commingled with anger at her +own blundering folly. Now it was she herself who had "upset" her +ladyship, given her a fright that made her pale and trembling. What did +she not deserve for being such a thoughtless fool. She might have known. +She poured forth respectfully affectionate protestations. + +"Indeed, I beg your pardon, my lady. Indeed, it's only my silliness! +Mother was saying yesterday that she had never seen a lady so well and +in as good spirits. I have no right to be here if I make such mistakes. +Please, my lady--oh! might mother be allowed to step in a minute to +speak to you?" + +Emily's colour came, back gradually. When Jane went to her mother, Mrs. +Cupp almost boxed her ears. + +"That's just the way with girls," she said. "No more sense than a pack +of cats. If you can't keep quiet you'd better just give up. Of course +she'd think you meant they was to be sent for because we was certain she +was a dying woman. Oh my! Jane Cupp, get away!" + +She enjoyed her little interview with Lady Walderhurst greatly. A woman +whose opinion was of value at such a time had the soundest reasons for +enjoying herself. When she returned to her room, she sat and fanned +herself with a pocket handkerchief and dealt judicially with Jane. + +"What we've got to do," she said, "is to think, and think we will. Tell +her things outright we must not, until we've got something sure and +proved. Then we can call on them that's got the power in their hands. We +can't call on them till we can show them a thing no one can't deny. As +to that bridge, it's old enough to be easy managed, and look accidental +if it broke. You say she ain't going there to-day. Well, this very +night, as soon as it's dark enough, you and me will go down and have a +look at it. And what's more, we'll take a man with us. Judd could be +trusted. Worst comes to worst, we're only taking the liberty of making +sure it's safe, because we know it _is_ old and we're over careful." + +As Jane had gathered from her, by careful and apparently incidental +inquiry, Emily had had no intention of visiting her retreat. In the +morning she had, in fact, not felt quite well enough. Her nightmare had +shaken her far more on its second occurring. The stealthy hand had +seemed not merely to touch, but to grip at her side, and she had been +physically unable to rise for some minutes after her awakening. This +experience had its physical and mental effects on her. + +She did not see Hester until luncheon, and after luncheon she found her +to be in one of her strange humours. She was often in these strange +humours at this time. She wore a nervous and strained look, and +frequently seemed to have been crying. She had new lines on her forehead +between the eyebrows. Emily had tried in vain to rouse and cheer her +with sympathetic feminine talk. There were days when she felt that for +some reason Hester did not care to see her. + +She felt it this afternoon, and not being herself at the high-water mark +of cheerfulness, she was conscious of a certain degree of +discouragement. She had liked her so much, she had wanted to be friends +with her and to make her life an easier thing, and yet she appeared +somehow to have failed. It was because she was so far from being a +clever woman. Perhaps she might fail in other things because she was not +clever. Perhaps she was never able to give to people what they wanted, +what they needed. A brilliant woman had such power to gain and hold +love. + +After an hour or so spent in trying to raise the mental temperature of +Mrs. Osborn's beflowered boudoir, she rose and picked up her little +work-basket. + +"Perhaps you would take a nap if I left you," she said. "I think I will +stroll down to the lake." + +She quietly stole away, leaving Hester on her cushions. + + + + +Chapter Seventeen + +A few minutes later a knock at the door being replied to by Hester's +curt "Come in!" produced the modest entry of Jane Cupp, who had come to +make a necessary inquiry of her mistress. "Her ladyship is not here; she +has gone out." Jane made an altogether involuntary step forward. Her +face became the colour of her clean white apron. + +"Out!" she gasped. + +Hester turned sharply round. + +"To the lake," she said. "What do you mean by staring in that way?" + +Jane did not tell her what she meant. She incontinently ran from the +room without any shadow of a pretence at a lady's maid's decorum. + +She fled through the rooms, to make a short cut to the door opening on +to the gardens. Through that she darted, and flew across paths and +flowerbeds towards the avenue of limes. + +"She shan't get to the bridge before me," she panted. "She shan't, she +shan't. I won't let her. Oh, if my breath will only hold out!" + +She did not reflect that gardeners would naturally think she had gone +mad. She thought of nothing whatever but the look in Ameerah's downcast +eyes when the servants had talked of the bottomless water,--the eerie, +satisfied, sly look. Of that, and of the rising of the white figure from +the ground last night she thought, and she clutched her neat side as she +ran. + +The Lime Avenue seemed a mile long, and yet when she was running down it +she saw Lady Walderhurst walking slowly under the trees carrying her +touching little basket of sewing in her hand. She was close to the +bridge. + +"My lady! my lady!" she gasped out as soon as she dared. She could not +run screaming all the way. "Oh, my lady! if you please!" + +Emily heard her and turned round. Never had she been much more amazed in +her life. Her maid, her well-bred Jane Cupp, who had not drawn an +indecorous breath since assuming her duties, was running after her +calling out to her, waving her hands, her face distorted, her voice +hysteric. + +Emily had been just on the point of stepping on to the bridge, her hand +had been outstretched towards the rail. She drew back a step in alarm +and stood staring. How strange everything seemed to-day. She began to +feel choked and trembling. + +A few seconds and Jane was upon her, clutching at her dress. She had so +lost her breath that she was almost speechless. + +"My lady," she panted. "Don't set foot on it; don't--don't, till we're +sure." + +"On--on what?" + +Then Jane realised how mad she looked, how insane the whole scene was, +and she gave way to her emotions. Partly through physical exhaustion and +breathlessness, and partly through helpless terror, she fell on her +knees. + +"The bridge!" she said. "I don't care what happens to me so that no harm +comes to you. There's things being plotted and planned that looks like +accidents. The bridge would look like an accident if part of it broke. +There's no bottom to the water. They were saying so yesterday, and _she_ +sat listening. I found her here last night." + +"She! Her!" Emily felt as if she was passing through another nightmare. + +"Ameerah," wailed poor Jane. "White ones have no chance against black. +Oh, my lady!" her sense of the possibility that she might be making a +fool of herself after all was nearly killing her. "I believe she would +drive you to your death if she could do it, think what you will of me." + +The little basket of needlework shook in Lady Walderhurst's hand. She +swallowed hard, and without warning sat down on the roots of a fallen +tree, her cheeks blanching slowly. + +"Oh Jane!" she said in simple woe and bewilderment. "I don't understand +any of it. How could--how _could_ they want to hurt me!" Her innocence +was so fatuous that she thought that because she had been kind to them +they could not hate or wish to injure her. + +But something for the first time made her begin to quail. She sat, and +tried to recover herself. She put out a shaking hand to the basket of +sewing. She could scarcely see it, because suddenly tears had filled her +eyes. + +"Bring one of the men here," she said, after a few moments. "Tell him +that I am a little uncertain about the safety of the bridge." + +She sat quite still while Jane was absent in search of the man. She held +her basket on her knee, her hand resting on it. Her kindly, slow-working +mind was wakening to strange thoughts. To her they seemed inhuman and +uncanny. Was it because good, faithful, ignorant Jane had been rather +nervous about Ameerah that she herself had of late got into a habit of +feeling as if the Ayah was watching and following her. She had been +startled more than once by finding her near when she had not been aware +of her presence. She had, of course, heard Hester say that native +servants often startled one by their silent, stealthy-seeming ways. But +the woman's eyes had frightened her. And she had heard the story about +the village girl. + +She sat, and thought, and thought. Her eyes were fixed upon the +moss-covered ground, and her breath came quickly and irregularly several +times. + +"I don't know what to do," she said. "I am sure--if it is true--I don't +know what to do." + +The under-gardener's heavy step and Jane's lighter one roused her. She +lifted her eyes to watch the pair as they came. He was a big, young man +with a simple rustic face and big shoulders and hands. + +"The bridge is so slight and old," she said to him, "that it has just +occurred to me that it might not be quite safe. Examine it carefully to +make sure." + +The young man touched his forehead and began to look the supports over. +Jane watched him with bated breath when he rose to his feet. + +"They're all right on this side, my lady," he said. "I shall have to get +in the boat to make sure of them that rest on the island." + +He stamped upon the end nearest and it remained firm. + +"Look at the railing well," said Lady Walderhurst. "I often stand and +lean on it and--and watch the sunset." + +She faltered at this point, because she had suddenly remembered that +this was a habit of hers, and that she had often spoken of it to the +Osborns. There was a point on the bridge at which, through a gap in the +trees, a beautiful sunset was always particularly beautiful. It was the +right-hand rail facing these special trees she rested on when she +watched the evening sky. + +The big, young gardener looked at the left-hand rail and shook it with +his strong hands. + +"That's safe enough," he said to Jane. + +"Try the other," said Jane. + +He tried the other. Something had happened to it. It broke in his big +grasp. His sunburnt skin changed colour by at least three shades. + +"Lord A'mighty!" Jane heard him gasp under his breath. He touched his +cap and looked blankly at Lady Walderhurst. Jane's heart seemed to +herself to roll over. She scarcely dared look at her mistress, but when +she took courage to do so, she found her so white that she hurried to +her side. + +"Thank you, Jane," she said rather faintly. "The sky is so lovely this +afternoon that I meant to stop and look at it. I should have fallen into +the water, which they say has no bottom. No one would have seen or heard +me if you had not come." + +She caught Jane's hand and held it hard. Her eyes wandered over the +avenue of big trees, which no one but herself came near at this hour. It +would have been so lonely, so lonely! + +The gardener went away, still looking less ruddy than he had looked when +he arrived on the spot. Lady Walderhurst rose from her seat on the mossy +tree-trunk. She rose quite slowly. + +"Don't speak to me yet, Jane," she said. And with Jane following her at +a respectful distance, she returned to the house and went to her room to +lie down. + +There was nothing to prove that the whole thing was not mere chance, +mere chance. It was this which turned her cold. It was all impossible. +The little bridge had been entirely unused for so long a time, it had +been so slight a structure from the first; it was old, and she +remembered now that Walderhurst had once said that it must be examined +and strengthened if it was to be used. She had leaned upon the rail +often lately; one evening she had wondered if it seemed quite as steady +as usual. What could she say, whom could she accuse, because a piece of +rotten wood had given away. + +She started on her pillow. It was a piece of rotten wood which had +fallen from the balustrade upon the stairs, to be seen and picked up by +Jane just before she would have passed down on her way to dinner. And +yet, what would she appear to her husband, to Lady Maria, to anyone in +the decorous world, if she told them that she believed that in a +dignified English household, an English gentleman, even a deposed heir +presumptive, was working out a subtle plot against her such as might +adorn a melodrama? She held her head in her hands as her mind depicted +to her Lord Walderhurst's countenance, Lady Maria's dubious, amused +smile. + +"She would think I was hysterical," she cried, under her breath. "He +would think I was vulgar and stupid, that I was a fussy woman with +foolish ideas, which made him ridiculous. Captain Osborn is of his +family. I should be accusing him of being a criminal. And yet I might +have been in the bottomless pond, in the bottomless pond, and no one +would have known." + +If it all had not seemed so incredible to her, if she could have felt +certain herself, she would not have been overwhelmed with this sense of +being baffled, bewildered, lost. + +The Ayah who so loved Hester might hate her rival. A jealous native +woman might be capable of playing stealthy tricks, which, to her strange +mind, might seem to serve a proper end. Captain Osborn might not know. +She breathed again as this thought came to her. He could not know; it +would be too insane, too dangerous, too wicked. + +And yet, if she had been flung headlong down the staircase, if the fall +had killed her, where would have been the danger for the man who would +only have deplored a fatal accident. If she had leaned upon the rail and +fallen into the black depths of water below, what could have been blamed +but a piece of rotten wood. She touched her forehead with her +handkerchief because it felt cold and damp. There was no way out. Her +teeth chattered. + +"They may be as innocent as I am. And they may be murderers in their +hearts. I can prove nothing, I can prevent nothing. Oh! _do_ come home." + +There was but one thought which remained clear in her mind. She must +keep herself safe--she must keep herself safe. In the anguish of her +trouble she confessed, by putting it into words, a thing which she had +not confessed before, and even as she spoke she did not realise that her +words contained confession. + +"If I were to die now," she said with a touching gravity, "he would care +very much." + +A few moments later she said, "It does not matter what happens to me, +how ridiculous or vulgar or foolish I seem, if I can keep myself +safe--until after. I will write to him now and ask him to try to come +back." + +It was the letter she wrote after this decision which Osborn saw among +others awaiting postal, and which he stopped to examine. + + + + +Chapter Eighteen + + +Hester sat at the open window of her boudoir in the dark. She had +herself put out the wax candles, because she wanted to feel herself +surrounded by the soft blackness. She had sat through the dinner and +heard her husband's anxious inquiries about the rotten handrail, and had +watched his disturbed face and Emily's pale one. She herself had said +but little, and had been glad when the time came that she could decently +excuse herself and come away. + +As she sat in the darkness and felt the night breath of the flowers in +the garden, she was thinking of all the murderers she had ever heard of. +She was reflecting that some of them had been quite respectable people, +and that all of them must have lived through a period in which they +gradually changed from respectable people to persons in whose brains a +thought had worked which once they would have believed impossible to +them, which they might have scouted the idea of their giving room to. +She was sure the change must come about slowly. At first it would seem +too mad and ridiculous, a sort of angry joke. Then the angry joke would +return again and again, until at last they let it stay and did not laugh +at it, but thought it over. Such things always happened because some one +wanted, or did not want, something very much, something it drove them +mad to think of being forced to live without, or with. Men who hated a +woman and could not rid themselves of her, who hated the sight of her +face, her eyes, her hair, the sound of her voice and step, and were +rendered insane by her nearness and the thought that they never could be +free from any of these things, had before now, commonplace or +comparatively agreeable men, by degrees reached the point where a knife +or a shot or a heavy blow seemed not only possible but inevitable. +People who had been ill-treated, people who had faced horrors through +want and desire, had reached the moment in which they took by force what +Fate would not grant them. Her brain so whirled that she wondered if she +was not a little delirious as she sat in the stillness thinking such +strange things. + +For weeks she had been living under a strain so intense that her +feelings had seemed to cease to have any connection with what was +normal. + +She had known too much; and yet she had been certain of nothing at all. + +But she and Alec were like the people who began with a bad joke, and +then were driven and driven. It was impossible not to think of what +might come, and of what might be lost for ever. If the rail had not been +tried this afternoon, if big, foolish Emily Walderhurst had been lying +peacefully among the weeds to-night! + +"The end comes to everyone," she said. "It would have been all over in a +few minutes. They say it isn't really painful." + +Her lips quivered, and she pressed her hands tightly between her knees. + +"That's a murderer's thought," she muttered querulously. "And yet I +wasn't a bad girl to begin with." + +She began to see things. The chief thing was a sort of vision of how +Emily would have looked lying in the depths of the water among the +weeds. Her brown hair would have broken loose, and perhaps tangled +itself over her white face. Would her eyes be open and glazed, or half +shut? And her childish smile, the smile that looked so odd on the face +of a full-grown woman, would it have been fixed and seemed to confront +the world of life with a meek question as to what she had done to +people--why she had been drowned? Hester felt sure that was what her +helpless stillness would have expressed. + +How happy the woman had been! To see her go about with her unconsciously +joyous eyes had sometimes been maddening. And yet, poor thing! why had +she not the right to be happy? She was always trying to please people +and help them. She was so good that she was almost silly. The day she +had brought the little things from London to The Kennel Farm, Hester +remembered that, despite her own morbid resentment, she had ended by +kissing her with repentant tears. She heard again, in the midst of her +delirious thoughts, the nice, prosaic emotion of her voice as she said: + +"_Don't_ thank me--don't. Just let us _enjoy_ ourselves." + +And she might have been lying among the long, thick weeds of the pond. +And it would not have been the accident it would have appeared to be. Of +that she felt sure. Brought face to face with this definiteness of +situation, she began to shudder. + +She went out into the night feeling that she wanted air. She was not +strong enough to stand the realisation that she had become part of a web +into which she had not meant to be knitted. No; she had had her +passionate and desperate moments, but she had not meant things like +this. She had almost hoped that disaster might befall, she had almost +thought it possible that she would do nothing to prevent it--almost. But +some things were too bad. + +She felt small and young and hopelessly evil as she walked in the dark +along a grass path to a seat under a tree. The very stillness of the +night was a horror to her, especially when once an owl called, and again +a dreaming bird cried in its nest. + +She sat under the tree in the dark for at least an hour. The thick +shadow of the drooping branches hid her in actual blackness and +seclusion. + +She said to herself later that some one of the occult powers she +believed in had made her go out and sit in this particular spot, because +there was a thing which was not to be, and she herself must come +between. + +When she at last rose it was with panting breath. She stole back to her +room, and lighted with an unsteady hand a bedroom candle, whose flame +flickered upon a distorted, little dark face. For as she had sat under +the tree she had, after a while, heard whispering begin quite near her; +had caught, even in the darkness, a gleam of white, and had therefore +deliberately sat and listened. + + * * * * * + +There could be, to the purely normal geniality of Emily Walderhurst's +nature, no greater relief than the recognition that a cloud had passed +from the mood of another. + +When Hester appeared the next morning at the breakfast-table, she had +emerged from her humour of the day before and was almost affectionate in +her amiability. The meal at an end, she walked with Emily in the garden. + +She had never shown such interest in what pertained to her as she +revealed this morning. Something she had always before lacked Emily +recognised in her for the first time,--a desire to ask friendly +questions, to verge on the confidential. They talked long and without +reserve. And how pretty it was of the girl, Emily thought, to care so +much about her health and her spirits, to be so interested in the +details of her every-day life, even in the simple matter of the +preparation and serving of her food, as if the merest trifle was of +consequence. It had been unfair, too, to fancy that she felt no interest +in Walderhurst's absence and return. She had noticed everything closely, +and actually thought he ought to come back at once. + +"Send for him," she said quite suddenly; "send for him now." + +There was an eagerness expressed in the dark thinness of her face which +moved Emily. + +"It is dear of you to care so much, Hester," she said. "I didn't know +you thought it mattered." + +"He must come," said Hester. "That's all. Send for him." + +"I wrote a letter yesterday," was Lady Walderhurst's meek rejoinder. "I +got nervous." + +"So did I get nervous," said Hester; "so did I." + +That she was disturbed Emily could see. The little laugh she ended her +words with had an excited ring in it. + +During the Osborns' stay at Palstrey the two women had naturally seen a +good deal of each other, but for the next two days they were scarcely +separated at all. Emily, feeling merely cheered and supported by the +fact that Hester made herself so excellent a companion, was not aware of +two or three things. One was that Mrs. Osborn did not lose sight of her +unless at such times as she was in the hands of Jane Cupp. + +"I may as well make a clean breast of it," the young woman said. "I have +a sense of responsibility about you that I haven't liked to speak of +before. It's half hysterical, I suppose, but it has got the better of +me." + +"You feel responsible for _me_!" exclaimed Emily, with wondering eyes. + +"Yes, I do," she almost snapped. "You represent so much. Walderhurst +ought to be here. I'm not fit to take care of you." + +"I ought to be taking care of you," said Emily, with gentle gravity. "I +am the older and stronger. You are not nearly so well as I am." + +Hester startled her by bursting into tears. + +"Then do as I tell you," she said. "Don't go anywhere alone. Take Jane +Cupp with you. You have nearly had two accidents. Make Jane sleep in +your dressing-room." + +Emily felt a dreary chill creep over her. That which she had felt in the +air when she had slowly turned an amazed face upon Jane in the Lime +Avenue, that sense of the strangeness of things again closed her in. + +"I will do as you wish," she answered. + +But before the next day closed all was made plain to her, all the +awfulness, all the cruel, inhuman truth of things which seemed to lose +their possibility in the exaggeration of proportion which made their +incongruousness almost grotesque. + +The very prettiness of the flowered boudoir, the very softness of the +peace in the velvet spread of garden before the windows, made it even +more unreal. + +That day, the second one, Emily had begun to note the new thing. Hester +was watching her, Hester was keeping guard. And as she realised this, +the sense of the abnormalness of things grew, and fear grew with it. She +began to feel as if a wall were rising around her, built by unseen +hands. + +The afternoon, an afternoon of deeply golden sun, they had spent +together. They had read and talked. Hester had said most. She had told +stories of India,--curious, vivid, interesting stories, which seemed to +excite her. + +At the time when the sunlight took its deepest gold the tea-tray was +brought in. Hester had left the room a short time before the footman +appeared with it, carrying it with the air of disproportionate solemnity +with which certain male domestics are able to surround the smallest +service. The tea had been frequently served in Hester's boudoir of late. +During the last week, however, Lady Walderhurst's share of the meal had +been a glass of milk. She had chosen to take it because Mrs. Cupp had +suggested that tea was "nervous." Emily sat down at the table and filled +a cup for Hester. She knew she would return in a few moments, so set the +cup before Mrs. Osborn's place and waited. She heard the young woman's +footsteps outside, and as the door opened she lifted the glass of milk +to her lips. + +She was afterwards absolutely unable to describe to herself clearly what +happened the next moment. In fact, it was the next moment that she saw +Hester spring towards her, and the glass of milk had been knocked from +her hand and rolled, emptying itself, upon the floor. Mrs. Osborn stood +before her, clenching and unclenching her hands. + +"Have you drunk any of it?" she demanded. + +"No," Emily answered. "I have not." + +Hester Osborn dropped into a chair and leaned forward, covering her face +with her hands. She looked like a woman on the verge of an outbreak of +hysteria, only to be held in check by a frenzied effort. + +Lady Walderhurst, quite slowly, turned the colour of the milk itself. +But she did nothing but sit still and gaze at Hester. + +"Wait a minute." The girl was trying to recover her breath. "Wait till I +can hold myself still. I am going to tell you now. I am going to tell +you." + +"Yes," Emily answered faintly. + +It seemed to her that she waited twenty minutes before another word was +spoken, that she sat quite that long looking at the thin hands which +seemed to clutch the hidden face. This was a mistake arising from the +intensity of the strain upon her nerves. It was scarcely five minutes +before Mrs. Osborn lowered her hands and laid them, pressed tightly palm +to palm, between her knees. + +She spoke in a low voice, such a voice as a listener outside could not +have heard. + +"Do you know," she demanded, "what you represent to us--to me and to my +husband--as you sit there?" + +Emily shook her head. The movement of disclaimer was easier than speech. +She felt a sort of exhaustion. + +"I don't believe you do," said Hester. "You don't seem to realise +anything. Perhaps it's because you are so innocent, perhaps it's because +you are so foolish. You represent the thing that we have the right to +_hate_ most on earth." + +"Do _you_ hate me?" asked Emily, trying to adjust herself mentally to +the mad extraordinariness of the situation, and at the same time +scarcely understanding why she asked her question. + +"Sometimes I do. When I do not I wonder at myself." The girl paused a +second, looked down, as if questioningly, at the carpet, and then, +lifting her eyes again, went on in a dragging, half bewildered voice: +"When I do _not_, I actually believe it is because we are both--women +together. Before, it was different." + +The look which Walderhurst had compared to "that of some nice animal in +the Zoo" came into Emily's eyes as two honest drops fell from them. + +"Would _you_ hurt me?" she faltered. "Could _you_ let other people hurt +me?" + +Hester leaned further forward in her chair, widening upon her such +hysterically insistent, terrible young eyes as made her shudder. + +"Don't you _see_?" she cried. "_Can't_ you see? But for _you_ my son +would be what Walderhurst is--my son, not yours." + +"I understand," said Emily. "I understand." + +"Listen!" Mrs. Osborn went on through her teeth. "Even for that, there +are things I haven't the nerve to stand. I have thought I could stand +them. But I can't. It does not matter why. I am going to tell you the +truth. You represent too much. You have been too great a temptation. +Nobody meant anything or planned anything at first. It all came by +degrees. To see you smiling and enjoying everything and adoring that +stilted prig of a Walderhurst put ideas into people's heads, and they +grew because every chance fed them. If Walderhurst would come home--" + +Lady Walderhurst put out her hand to a letter which lay on the table. + +"I heard from him this morning," she said. "And he has been sent to the +Hills because he has a little fever. He must be quiet. So you see he +_cannot_ come yet." + +She was shivering, though she was determined to keep still. + +"What was in the milk?" she asked. + +"In the milk there was the Indian root Ameerah gave the village girl. +Last night as I sat under a tree in the dark I heard it talked over. +Only a few native women know it." + +There was a singular gravity in the words poor Lady Walderhurst spoke in +reply. + +"That," she said, "would have been the cruelest thing of all." + +Mrs. Osborn got up and came close to her. + +"If you had gone out on Faustine," she said, "you would have met with +_an accident_. It might or might not have killed you. But it would have +been an accident. If you had gone downstairs before Jane Cupp saw the +bit of broken balustrade you might have been killed--by accident again. +If you had leaned upon the rail of the bridge you would have been +drowned, and no human being could have been accused or blamed." + +Emily gasped for breath, and lifted her head as if to raise it above the +wall which was being slowly built round her. + +"Nothing will be done which can be proved," said Hester Osborn. "I have +lived among native people, and know. If Ameerah hated me and I could not +get rid of her I should die, and it would all seem quite natural." + +She bent down and picked up the empty glass from the carpet. + +"It is a good thing it did not break," she said, as she put it on the +tray. "Ameerah will think you drank the milk and that nothing will hurt +you. You escape them always. She will be frightened." + +As she said it she began to cry a little, like a child. + +"Nothing will save _me_," she said. "I shall have to go back, I shall +have to go back!" + +"No, no!" cried Emily. + +The girl swept away her tears with the back of a clenched hand. + +"At first, when I hated you," she was even petulant and plaintively +resentful, "I thought I could let it go on. I watched, and watched, and +bore it. But the strain was too great. I broke down. I think I broke +down one night, when something began to beat like a pulse against my +side." + +Emily got up and stood before her. She looked perhaps rather as she had +looked when she rose and stood before the Marquis of Walderhurst on a +memorable occasion, the afternoon on the moor. She felt almost quiet, +and safe. + +"What must I do?" she asked, as if she was speaking to a friend. "I am +afraid. Tell me." + +Little Mrs. Osborn stood still and stared at her. The most incongruous +thought came to her mind. She found herself, at this weird moment, +observing how well the woman held her stupid head, how finely it was set +on her shoulders, and that in a modern Royal Academy way she was rather +like the Venus of Milo. It is quite out of place to think such things at +such a time. But she found herself confronted with them. + +"Go away," she answered. "It is all like a thing in a play, but I know +what I am talking about. Say you are ordered abroad. Be cool and +matter-of-fact. Simply go and hide yourself somewhere, and call your +husband home as soon as he can travel." + +Emily Walderhurst passed her hand over her forehead. + +"It _is_ like something in a play," she said, with a baffled, wondering +face. "It isn't even respectable." + +Hester began to laugh. + +"No, it isn't even respectable," she cried. And her laughter was just in +time. The door opened and Alec Osborn came in. + +"What isn't respectable?" he asked. + +"Something I have been telling Emily," she answered, laughing even a +trifle wildly. "You are too young to hear such things. You must be kept +respectable at any cost." + +He grinned, but faintly scowled at the same time. + +"You've upset something," he remarked, looking at the carpet. + +"I have, indeed," said Hester. "A cup of tea which was half milk. It +will leave a grease spot on the carpet. That won't be respectable." + +When she had tumbled about among native servants as a child, she had +learned to lie quickly, and she was very ready of resource. + + + + +Chapter Nineteen + + +As she heard the brougham draw up in the wet street before the door, +Mrs. Warren allowed her book to fall closed upon her lap, and her +attractive face awakened to an expression of agreeable expectation, in +itself denoting the existence of interesting and desirable qualities in +the husband at the moment inserting his latch-key in the front door +preparatory to mounting the stairs and joining her. The man who, after +twenty-five years of marriage, can call, by his return to her side, this +expression to the countenance of an intelligent woman is, without +question or argument, an individual whose life and occupations are as +interesting as his character and points of view. + +Dr. Warren was of the mental build of the man whose life would be +interesting and full of outlook if it were spent on a desert island or +in the Bastille. He possessed the temperament which annexes incident and +adventure, and the perceptiveness of imagination which turns a light +upon the merest fragment of event. As a man whose days were filled with +the work attendant upon the exercise of a profession from which can be +withheld few secrets, and to which most mysteries explain themselves, +his brain was the recording machine of impressions which might have +stimulated to vividness of imagination a man duller than himself, and +roused to feeling one of far less warm emotions. + +He came into the room smiling. He was a man of fifty, of strong build, +and masculine. He had good shoulders and good colour, and the eyes, +nose, and chin of a man it would be a stupid thing to attempt to deal +with in a blackguardly manner. He sat down in his chair by the fire and +began to chat, as was his habit before he and his wife parted to dress +for dinner. When he was out during the day he often looked forward to +these chats, and made notes of things he would like to tell his Mary. +During her day, which was given to feminine duties and pleasures, she +frequently did the same thing. Between seven and eight in the evening +they had delightful conversational opportunities. He picked up her book +and glanced it over, he asked her a few questions and answered a few; +but she saw it was with a somewhat preoccupied manner. She knew a +certain remote look in his eye, and she waited to see him get up from +his chair and begin to walk to and fro, with his hands in his pockets +and his head thrown back. When, after having done this, he began in +addition to whistle softly and draw his eyebrows together, she broke in +upon him in the manner of merely following an established custom. + +"I am perfectly sure," was her remark, "that you have come upon one of +the Extraordinary Cases." + +The last two words were spoken as with inverted commas. Of many deep +interests he added to her existence, the Extraordinary Cases were among +the most absorbing. He had begun to discuss them with her during the +first year of their married life. Accident had thrown one of them into +her immediate personal experience, and her clear-headed comprehension +and sympathy in summing up singular evidence had been of such value to +him that he had turned to her in the occurrence of others for the aid +straightforward, mutual logic could give. She had learned to await the +Extraordinary Case with something like eagerness. Sometimes, it was +true, its incidents were painful; but invariably they were absorbing in +their interest, and occasionally illuminating beyond description. Of +names and persons it was not necessary she should hear anything--the +drama, the ethics, were enough. With an absolute respect for his +professional reserves, she asked no questions he could not reply to +freely, and avoided even the innocent following of clues. The +Extraordinary Case was always quite enough as it stood. When she saw the +remotely speculative look in his eye, she suspected one, when he left +his chair and paced the floor with that little air of restlessness, and +ended with unconscious whistling which was scarcely louder than a +breath, she felt that evidence enough had accumulated for her. + +He stopped and turned round. + +"My good Mary," he owned at once, "its extraordinariness consists in its +baffling me by being so perfectly ordinary." + +"Well, at least that is not frequent. What is its nature? Is it awful? +Is it sad? Is it eccentric? Is it mad or sane, criminal or domestic?" + +"It is nothing but suggestive, and that it suggests mystery to me makes +me feel as if I myself, instead of a serious practitioner, am a +professional detective." + +"Is it a case in which you might need help?" + +"It is a case in which I am impelled to give help, if it proves that it +is necessary. She is such an exceedingly nice woman." + +"Good, bad, or indifferent?" + +"Of a goodness, I should say--of a goodness which might prevent the +brain acting in the manner in which a brutal world requires at present +that the human brain should act in self-defence. Of a goodness which may +possibly have betrayed her into the most pathetic trouble." + +"Of the kind--?" was Mrs. Warren's suggestion. + +"Of that kind," with a troubled look; "but she is a married woman." + +"She _says_ she is a married woman." + +"No. She does not say so, but she looks it. That's the chief feature of +the case. Any woman bearing more obviously the stamp of respectable +British matrimony than this one does, it has not fallen to me to look +upon." + +Mrs. Warren's expression was _intriguee_ in the extreme. There was a +freshness in this, at least. + +"But if she bears the stamp as well as the name--! Do tell me all it is +possible to tell. Come and sit down, Harold." + +He sat down and entered into details. + +"I was called to a lady who, though not ill, seemed fatigued from a +hurried journey and, as it seemed to me, the effects of anxiety and +repressed excitement. I found her in a third-class lodging-house in a +third-class street. It was a house which had the air of a place hastily +made inhabitable for some special reason. There were evidences that +money had been spent, but that there had been no time to arrange things. +I have seen something of the kind before, and when I was handed into my +patient's sitting-room, thought I knew the type I should find. It is +always more or less the same,--a girl or a very young woman, pretty and +refined and frightened, or pretty and vulgar and 'carrying it off' with +transparent pretences and airs and graces. Anything more remote from +what I expected you absolutely cannot conceive." + +"Not young and pretty?" + +"About thirty-five or six. A fresh, finely built woman with eyes as +candid as a six-year-old girl's. Quite unexplanatory and with the best +possible manner, only sweetly anxious about her health. Her confidence +in my advice and the earnestness of her desire to obey my least +instructions were moving. Ten minutes' conversation with her revealed to +me depths of long-secreted romance in my nature. I mentally began to +swear fealty to her." + +"Did she tell you that her husband was away?" + +"What specially struck me was that it did not occur to her that her +husband required stating, which was ingenuously impressive. She did not +explain her mother or her uncles, why her husband? Her mental attitude +had a translucent clearness. She wanted a medical man to take charge of +her, and if she had been an amiable, un-brilliant lady who was a member +of the royal house, she would have conversed with me exactly as she +did." + +"She was so respectable?" + +"She was even a little Mid-Victorian, dear Mary; a sort of clean, +healthy, Mid-Victorian angel." + +"There's an incongruousness in the figure in connection with being +obviously in hiding in a lodging-house street." And Mrs. Warren gave +herself to reflection. + +"I cannot make it as incongruous as she was. I have not told you all. I +have saved to the last the feature which marked her most definitely as +an Extraordinary Case. I suppose one does that sort of thing from a +sense of drama." + +"What else?" inquired Mrs. Warren, roused from her speculation. + +"What respectable conclusion _could_ one deduce from the fact that a +letter lay on the table near her, sealed with an imposing coat of arms. +One's eye having accidentally fallen on it, one could, of course, only +avoid glancing at it again, so I recognised 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 good-natured. 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, and +ugly frilled pincushions looked so unmelodramatically normal and safe. + +"It seems so home-like," she said; adding courageously, "it is a very +comfortable place, really." + +"We can make it much more cheerful, my lady," Jane said, with grateful +appreciation. "And the relief makes it like Paradise." She was leaving +the room and stopped at the door. "There's not a person, black or white, +can get across the door-mat, past mother and me, until his lordship +comes," she allowed herself the privilege of adding. + +Emily felt a little nervous when she pictured to herself Lord +Walderhurst crossing the door-mat of a house in Mortimer Street in +search of his Marchioness. She had not yet had time to tell him the +story of the episode of the glass of milk and Hester Osborn's sudden +outburst. Every moment had been given to carefully managed arrangement +for the journey which was to seem so natural. Hester's cleverness had +suggested every step and had supported her throughout. But for Hester +she was afraid she might have betrayed herself. There had been no time +for writing. But when James received her letter (of late she had more +than once thought of him as "James"), he would know the one thing that +was important. And she had asked him to come to her. She had apologised +for suggesting any alteration of his plans, but she had really asked him +to come to her. + +"I think he will come," she said to herself. "I do think he will. I +shall be so glad. Perhaps I have not been sensible, perhaps I have not +done the best thing, but if I keep myself safe until he comes back, that +really seems what is most important." + +Two or three days in the familiar rooms, attended only by the two +friendly creatures she knew so well, seemed to restore the balance of +life for her. Existence became comfortable and prosaic again. The best +bedroom and the room in which she spent her days were made quite +cheerful through Jane's enterprise and memories of the appointments of +Palstrey. Jane brought her tea in the morning, Mrs. Cupp presided over +the kitchen. The agreeable doctor, whose reputation they had heard so +much of, came and went, leaving his patient feeling that she might +establish a friendship. He looked so clever and so kind. + +She began to smile her childlike smile again. Mrs. Cupp and Jane told +each other in private that if she had not been a married lady, they +would have felt that she was Miss Fox-Seton again. She looked so like +herself, with her fresh colour and her nice, cheerful eyes. And yet to +think of the changes there had been, and what they had gone through! + +People in London know nothing--or everything--of their neighbours. The +people who lived in Mortimer Street were of the hard-worked +lodging-house keeping class, and had too many anxieties connected with +butcher's bills, rent, and taxes, to be able to give much time to their +neighbours. The life in the house which had changed hands had nothing +noticeable about it. It looked from the outside as it had always looked. +The door-steps were kept clean, milk was taken in twice a day, and local +tradesmen's carts left things in the ordinary manner. A doctor +occasionally called to see someone, and the only person who had inquired +about the patient (she was a friendly creature, who met Mrs. Cupp at the +grocer's, and exchanged a few neighbourly words) was told that ladies +who lived in furnished apartments, and had nothing to do, seemed to find +an interest in seeing a doctor about things working-women had no time to +bother about. Mrs. Cupp's view seemed to be that doctor's visits and +medicine bottles furnished entertainment. Mrs. Jameson had "as good a +colour and as good an appetite as you or me," but she was one who +"thought she caught cold easy," and she was "afraid of fresh air." + +Dr. Warren's interest in the Extraordinary Case increased at each visit +he made. He did not see the ruby ring again. When he had left the house +after his first call, Mrs. Cupp had called Lady Walderhurst's attention +to the fact that the ring was on her hand, and could not be considered +compatible with even a first floor front in Mortimer Street. Emily had +been frightened and had removed it. + +"But the thing that upsets me when I hand him in," Jane said to her +mother anxiously in private, "is the way she can't help looking. You +know what I mean, mother,--her nice, free, _good_ look. And we never +_could_ talk to her about it. We should have to let her know that it's +more than likely he thinks she's just what she isn't. It makes me mad to +think of it. But as it had to be, if she only looked a little awkward, +or not such a lady, or a bit uppish and fretful, she would seem so much +more real. And then there's another thing. You know she always _did_ +carry her head well, even when she was nothing but poor Miss Fox-Seton +tramping about shopping with muddy feet. And now, having been a +marchioness till she's got used to it, and knowing that she is one, +gives her an innocent, stately look sometimes. It's a thing she doesn't +know of herself, but I do declare that sometimes as she's sat there +talking just as sweet as could be, I've felt as if I ought to say, 'Oh! +if you please, my lady, if you _could_ look not quite so much as if +you'd got on a tiara.'" + +"Ah!" and Mrs. Cupp shook her head, "but that's what her Maker did for +her. She was born just what she looks, and she looks just what she was +born,--a respectable female." + +Whereby Dr. Warren continued to feel himself baffled. + +"She only goes out for exercise after dark, Mary," he said. "Also in the +course of conversation I have discovered that she believes every word of +the Bible literally, and would be alarmed if one could not accept the +Athanasian Creed. She is rather wounded and puzzled by the curses it +contains, but she feels sure that it would be wrong to question anything +in the Church Service. Her extraordinariness is wholly her +incompatibleness." + +Gradually they had established the friendship Emily had thought +possible. Once or twice Dr. Warren took tea with her. Her unabashed and +accustomed readiness of hospitality was as incompatible with her +circumstances as all the rest. She had the ease of a woman who had +amiably poured out tea for afternoon callers all her life. Women who +were uncertain of themselves were not amiably at ease with small social +amenities. Her ingenuous talk and her fervent italics were an absolute +delight to the man who was studying her. He, too, had noticed the +carriage of her head Jane Cupp had deplored. + +"I should say she was well born," he commented to his wife. "She holds +herself as no common woman could." + +"Ah! I haven't a doubt that she is well born, poor soul." + +"No, not 'poor soul.' No woman who is as happy as she is needs pity. +Since she has had time to rest, she looks radiant." + +In course of time, however, she was less radiant. Most people know +something of waiting for answers to letters written to foreign lands. It +seems impossible to calculate correctly as to what length of time must +elapse before the reply to the letter one sent by the last mail can +reach one. He who waits is always premature in the calculation he makes. +The mail should be due at a certain date, one is so sure. The letter +could be written on such a day and posted at once. But the date +calculated for arrives, passes,--the answer has not come. Who does not +remember? + +Emily Walderhurst had passed through the experience and knew it well. +But previously the letters she had sent had been of less vital +importance. When the replies to them had lingered on their way she had, +it is true, watched eagerly for the postman, and had lived restlessly +between the arrivals of the mails, but she had taught herself +resignation to the inevitable. Now life had altered its aspect and its +significance. She had tried, with the aid of an untried imagination, to +paint to herself the moments in which her husband would read the letter +which told him what she had told. She had wondered if he would start, if +he would look amazed, if his grey-brown eyes would light with pleasure! +Might he not want to see her? Might he not perhaps write at once? She +never could advance farther in her imagined reading of this reply than +the first lines: + +"MY DEAR EMILY,--The unexpected good news your letter contains has given +me the greatest satisfaction. You do not perhaps know how strong my +desire has been--" + +She used to sit and flush with happiness when she reached this point. +She so wished that she was capable of depicting to herself what the rest +would be. + +She calculated with the utmost care the probable date of the epistle's +arrival. She thought she made sure of allowing plenty of time for all +possible delays. The safety of her letters she had managed, with +Hester's aid, to arrange for. They were forwarded to her bankers and +called for. Only the letters from India were of any importance, and they +were not frequent. She told herself that she must be even more than +usually patient this time. When the letter arrived, if he told her he +felt it proper that he should return, no part of the strange experience +she had passed through would be of moment. When she saw his decorous, +well-bred face and heard his correctly modulated voice, all else would +seem like an unnatural dream. + +In her relief at the decent composure of the first floor front in +Mortimer Street the days did not seem at first to pass slowly. But as +the date she had counted on drew near she could not restrain a natural +restlessness. She looked at the clock and walked up and down the room a +good deal. She was also very glad when night came and she could go to +bed. Then she was glad when the morning arrived, because she was a day +nearer to the end. + +On a certain evening Dr. Warren said to his wife, "She is not so well +to-day. When I called I found her looking pale and anxious. When I +commented on the fact and asked how she was, she said that she had had a +disappointment. She had been expecting an important letter by a mail +arriving yesterday, and it had not come. She was evidently in low +spirits." + +"Perhaps she has kept up her spirits before because she believed the +letter would come," Mrs. Warren speculated. + +"She has certainly believed it would come." + +"Do _you_ think it will, Harold?" + +"She thinks it will yet. She was pathetically anxious not to be +impatient. She said she knew there were so many reasons for delay when +people were in foreign countries and very much occupied." + +"There are many reasons, I daresay," said Mrs. Warren with a touch of +bitterness," but they are not usually the ones given to waiting, +desperate women." + +Dr. Warren stood upon the hearthrug and gazed into the fire, knitting +his brows. + +"She wanted to tell or ask me something this afternoon," he said, "but +she was afraid. She looked like a good child in great trouble. I think +she will speak before long." + +She looked more and more like a good child in trouble as time passed. +Mail after mail came in, and she received no letter. She did not +understand, and her fresh colour died away. She spent her time now in +inventing reasons for the non-arrival of her letter. None of them +comprised explanations which could be disparaging in any sense to +Walderhurst. Chiefly she clung to the fact that he had not been well. +Anything could be considered a reason for neglecting letter writing if a +man was not well. If his illness had become serious she would, of +course, have heard from his doctor. She would not allow herself to +contemplate that. But if he was languid and feverish, he might so easily +put off writing from day to day. This was all the more plausible as a +reason, since he had not been a profuse correspondent. He had only +written when he had found he had leisure, with decent irregularity, so +to speak. + +At last, however, on a day when she had felt the strain of waiting +greater than she had courage for, and had counted every moment of the +hour which must elapse before Jane could return from her mission of +inquiry, as she rested on the sofa she heard the girl mount the stairs +with a step whose hastened lightness wakened in her an excited +hopefulness. + +She sat up with brightened face and eager eyes. How foolish she had been +to fret. Now--now everything would be different. Ah! how thankful she +was to God for being so good to her! + +"I think you must have a letter, Jane," she said the moment the door +opened. "I felt it when I heard your footstep." + +Jane was touching in her glow of relief and affection. + +"Yes, my lady, I have, indeed. And they said at the bank that it had +come by a steamer that was delayed by bad weather." + +Emily took the letter. Her hand shook, but it was with pleasure. She +forgot Jane, and actually kissed the envelope before she opened it. It +looked like a beautiful, long letter. It was quite thick. + +But when she had opened it, she saw that the letter itself was not very +long. Several extra sheets of notes or instructions, it did not matter +what, seemed to be enclosed. Her hand shook so that she let them fall on +the floor. She looked so agitated that Jane was afraid to do more than +retire discreetly and stand outside the door. + +In a few minutes she congratulated herself on the wisdom of not having +gone downstairs. She heard a troubled exclamation of wonder, and then a +call for herself. + +"Jane, please, Jane!" + +Lady Walderhurst was still sitting upon the sofa, but she looked pale +and unsteady. The letter was in her hand, which rested weakly in her +lap. It seemed as if she was so bewildered that she felt helpless. + +She spoke in a tired voice. + +"Jane," she said, "I think you will have to get me a glass of wine. I +don't think I am going to faint, but I do feel so--so upset." + +Jane was at her side kneeling by her. + +"Please, my lady, lie down," she begged. "Please do." + +But she did not lie down. She sat trembling and looking at the girl in a +pathetic, puzzled fashion. + +"I don't think," she quavered, "that his lordship can have received my +letter. He can't have received it. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't +say one word--" + +She had been too healthy a woman to be subject to attacks of nerves. She +had never fainted before in her life, and as she spoke she did not at +all understand why Jane seemed to move up and down, and darkness came on +suddenly in the middle of the morning. + +Jane managed by main strength to keep her from falling from the sofa, +and thanked Providence for the power vouchsafed to her. She reached the +bell and rang it violently, and hearing it, Mrs. Cupp came upstairs with +heavy swiftness. + + + + +Chapter Twenty one + + +Naturally a perceptive and closely reasoning woman, Mrs. Warren's close +intellectual intimacy with her husband had, in giving her the benefit of +intercourse with a wide experience, added greatly to her power of +reasoning by deduction. Warren frequently felt that his talk with her +was something like consultation with a specially clever and sympathetic +professional confrere. Her suggestions or conclusions were invariably +worth consideration. More than once his reflection upon them had led him +to excellent results. She made one night a suggestion with regard to the +Extraordinary Case which struck him as being more than usually astute. + +"Is she an intellectual woman?" she inquired. + +"Not in the least. An unsparingly brilliant person might feel himself +entitled to the right to call her stupid." + +"Is she talkative?" + +"Far from it. One of her charms is the nice respect she seems to feel +for the remarks of others." + +"And she is not excitable?" + +"Rather the reverse. If excitability is liveliness, she is dull." + +"I see," slowly, "you have not yet thought it possible that she +might--well--be under some delusion." + +Warren turned quickly and looked at her. + +"It is wonderfully brilliant of you to have thought of it. A delusion?" +He stood and thought it over. + +"Do you remember," his wife assisted him with, "the complications which +arose from young Mrs. Jerrold's running away, under similar +circumstances, to Scotland and hiding herself in a shepherd's cottage +under the impression that her husband was shadowing her with detectives? +You recollect what a lovable woman she was, and what horror she felt of +the poor fellow." + +"Yes, yes. That was an Extraordinary Case too." + +Mrs. Warren warmed with her subject. + +"Here is a woman obviously concealing herself from the world in a +lodging-house, plainly possessing money, owning a huge ruby ring, +receiving documents stamped with imposing seals, taking exercise only by +night, heart-wrung over the non-arrival of letters which are due. Every +detail points to one painful, dubious situation. On the other hand, she +presents to you the manner and aspect of a woman who is absolutely not +dubious, and who is merely anxious on the one point a dubious person +would be indifferent to. Isn't it, then, possible that over-wrought +physical condition may have driven her to the belief that she is hiding +from danger." + +Dr. Warren was evidently following the thought seriously. + +"She said," reflecting, "that all that mattered was that she should be +safe. 'I want to keep safe.' That was it. You are very enlightening, +Mary, always. I will go and see her again to-morrow. But," as the result +of another memory, "how sane she seems!" + + * * * * * + +He was thinking of this possible aspect of the matter as he mounted the +staircase of the house in Mortimer Street the next day. The stairway was +of the ordinary lodging-house type, its dinginess somewhat alleviated by +the fact that the Cupps had covered the worn carpet with clean +warm-coloured felting. The yellowish marbled paper on the walls +depressed the mind as one passed it; the indeterminate dun paint had +defied fog for years. The whole house presented only such features as +would encourage its proprietors to trust to the sufficing of infrequent +re-decoration. + +Jane had, however, made efforts in behalf of the drawing-room, in which +her mistress spent her days. She had introduced palliations by degrees +and with an unobtrusiveness which was not likely to attract the +attention of neighbours unaccustomed to lavish delivery by means of +furniture vans. She had brought in a rug or so, and had gradually +replaced objects with such as were more pleasant to live with and more +comfortable to use. Dr. Warren had seen the change wrought, and had +noted evidences that money was not unobtainable. The maid also was a +young woman whose manner towards her mistress was not merely respectful +and well-bred, but suggestive of watchful affection bordering on +reverence. Jane Cupp herself was a certificate of decorum and good +standing. It was not such young women who secluded themselves with +questionable situations. As she laid her hand on the drawing-room door +to open it and announce him, it occurred to Dr. Warren that he would +tell Mary that evening that if Mrs. Jameson had been the heroine of any +unconventional domestic drama it was an unmistakable fact that Jane Cupp +would have "felt it her duty as a young woman to leave this day month, +if you please, ma'am," quite six months ago. And there she was, in a +neat gown and apron,--evidently a fixture because she liked her +place,--her decent young face full of sympathetic interest. + +The day was dull and cold, but the front room was warm and made cheerful +by fire. Mrs. Jameson was sitting at a writing-table. There were letters +before her, and she seemed to have been re-reading them. She did not any +longer bloom with normal health. Her face was a little dragged, and the +first thing he noted in the eyes she lifted to him was that they were +bewildered. + +"She has had a shock," he thought. "Poor woman!" + +He began to talk to her about herself with the kindly perception which +was inseparable from him. He wondered if the time had not come when she +would confide in him. Her shock, whatsoever it had been, had left her in +the position of a woman wholly at a loss to comprehend what had +occurred. He saw this in her ingenuous troubled face. He felt as if she +was asking herself what she should do. It was not unlikely that +presently she would ask him what she should do. He had been asked such +things before by women, but they usually added trying detail accompanied +by sobs, and appealed to his chivalry for impossible aid. Sometimes they +implored him to go to people and use his influence. + +Emily answered all his questions with her usual sweet, good sense. She +was not well. Yesterday she had fainted. + +"Was there any disturbing reason for the faint?" he inquired. + +"It was because I was--very much disappointed," she answered, +hesitating. "I had a letter which--It was not what I expected." + +She was thinking desperately. She could understand nothing. It was not +explainable that what she had written did not matter at all, that James +should have made no reply. + +"I was awake all night," she added. + +"That must not go on," he said. + +"I was thinking--and thinking," nervously. + +"I can see that," was his answer. + +Perhaps she ought to have courage to say nothing. It might be safer. But +it was so lonely not to dare to ask anyone's advice, that she was +getting frightened. India was thousands and thousands of miles away, and +letters took so long to come and go. Anxiety might make her ill before +she could receive a reply to a second letter. And perhaps now in her +terror she had put herself into a ridiculous position. How could she +send for Lady Maria to Mortimer Street and explain to her? She realised +also that her ladyship's sense of humour might not be a thing to confide +in safely. + +Warren's strong, amiable personality was good for her. It served to aid +her to normal reasoning. Though she was not aware of the fact, her +fears, her simplicity, and her timorous adoration of her husband had not +allowed her to reason normally in the past. She had been too anxious and +too much afraid. + +Her visitor watched her with great interest and no little curiosity. He +himself saw that her mood was not normal. She did not look as poor Mrs. +Jerrold had looked, but she was not in a normal state. + +He made his visit a long one purposely. Tea was brought up, and he drank +it with her. He wanted to give her time to make up her mind about him. +When at last he rose to go away, she rose also. She looked nervously +undecided, but let him go towards the door. + +Her move forward was curiously sudden. + +"No, no," she said. "Please come back. I--oh!--I really think I ought to +tell you." + +He turned towards her, wishing that Mary were with him. She stood trying +to smile, and looking so entirely nice and well-behaved even in her +agitation. + +"If I were not so puzzled, or if there was _anybody_--" she said. "If +you could only advise me; I must--I _must_ keep safe." + +"There is something you want to tell me?" he said quietly. + +"Yes," she answered. "I am so anxious, and I am sure it must be bad for +one to be anxious always. I have not dared to tell anyone. My name is +not Mrs. Jameson, Dr. Warren. I am--I am Lady Walderhurst." + +He barely managed to restrain a start. He was obliged to admit to +himself that he had not thought of anything like this. But Mary had been +right. + +Emily blushed to her ears with embarrassment. He did not believe her. + +"But I _am_ really," she protested. "I _really_ am. I was married last +year. I was Emily Fox-Seton. Perhaps you remember." + +She was not flighty or indignant. Her frank face was only a little more +troubled than it had been before. She looked straight into his eyes +without a doubt of his presently believing her. Good heavens! if-- + +She walked to the writing-table and picked up a number of letters. They +were all stamped with the same seal. She brought them to him almost +composedly. + +"I ought to have remembered how strange it would sound," she said in her +amenable voice. "I hope I am not doing wrong in speaking. I hope you +won't mind my troubling you. It seemed as if I _couldn't_ bear it alone +any longer." + +After which she told him her story. + + * * * * * + +The unadorned straightforwardness of the relation made it an amazing +thing to hear, even more amazing than it would have been made by a more +imaginative handling. Her obvious inability to cope with the unusual and +villainous, combined with her entire willingness to obliterate herself +in any manner in her whole-souled tenderness for the one present object +of her existence, were things a man could not be unmoved by, even though +experience led him to smile at the lack of knowledge of the world which +had left her without practical defence. Her very humbleness and candour +made her a drama in herself. + +"Perhaps I was wrong to run away. Perhaps only a silly woman would have +done such a queer, unconventional thing. But I could think of nothing +else so likely to be quite safe, until Lord Walderhurst could advise me. +And when his letter came yesterday, and he did not speak of what I had +said--" Her voice quite failed her. + +"Captain Osborn has detained your letter. Lord Walderhurst has not seen +it." + +Life began to come back to her. She had been so horribly bewildered as +to think at moments that perhaps it might be that a man who was very +much absorbed in affairs-- + +"The information you sent him is the most important, and moving, a man +in his position could receive." + +"Do you think so, _really_?" She lifted her head with new courage and +her colour returned. + +"It is impossible that it should be otherwise. It is, I assure you, +_impossible_, Lady Walderhurst." + +"I am so thankful," she said devoutly. "I am so _thankful_ that I have +told you." + +Anything more touching and attractive than her full eyes and her +grown-up child's smile he felt he had never seen. + + + + +Chapter Twenty two + + +The attack of fever which had seemed to begin lightly for Lord +Walderhurst assumed proportions such as his medical man had not +anticipated. His annoyance at finding his duties interfered with fretted +him greatly. He was not, under the circumstances, a good patient, and, +partly as a result of his state of mind, he began, in the course of a +few weeks, to give his doctors rather serious cause for anxiety. On the +morning following Emily's confession to Dr. Warren she had received a +letter from her husband's physician, notifying her of his new anxieties +in connection with his patient. His lordship required extreme care and +absolute freedom from all excitement. Everything which medical science +and perfect nursing could do would be done. The writer asked Lady +Walderhurst's collaboration with him in his efforts at keeping the +invalid as far as possible in unperturbed spirits. For some time it +seemed probable that letter writing and reading would be out of the +question, but if, when correspondence might be resumed, Lady Walderhurst +would keep in mind the importance of serenity to the convalescent, the +case would have all in its favour. This, combined with expressions of +sympathetic encouragement and assurances that the best might be hoped +for, was the gist of the letter. When Dr. Warren arrived, Emily handed +the epistle to him and watched him as he read it. + +"You see," she said when he looked up, "that I did not speak too soon. +Now I shall have to trust to you for everything. I could _never_ have +borne it _all_ by myself. Could I?" + +"Perhaps not," thinking it over; "but you are very brave." + +"I don't think I'm brave," thinking it over on her own part, "but it +seemed as if there were things I _must_ do. But now you will advise me." + +She was as biddable as a child, he told his wife afterwards, and that a +woman of her height and carriage should be as biddable as she might have +been at six years old, was an effective thing. + +"She will do anything I tell her, she will go anywhere I advise. I +advise that she shall go to her husband's house in Berkeley Square, and +that together you and I will keep unobtrusive guard over her. All is +quite simple, really. All would have been comparatively simple at the +outset, if she had felt sure enough of her evidence to dare to confide +in some practical person. But she was too uncertain and too much afraid +of scandal, which might annoy her husband. She is deeply in awe of Lord +Walderhurst and deeply in love with him." + +"When one realises how unnecessary qualities and charms seem to be to +the awakening of the tender emotion, it is rather dull, perhaps, to ask +why. Yet one weakly asks it," was Mrs. Warren's summation. + +"And one cannot supply the answer. But the mere devotion itself in this +nice creature is a thing to be respected. She will control even her +anxieties and reveal nothing while she writes her cheerful letters, as +soon as she is allowed to write them." + +"Lord Walderhurst will be told nothing?" + +"Nothing until his recovery is complete. Now that she has made a clean +breast of everything to me and given herself into my hands, I believe +that she finds a sentimental pleasure in the thought of keeping her +secret until he returns. I will confess to you, Mary, that I think that +she has read of and tenderly sympathised with heroines who have done the +like before. She does not pose to herself as a heroine, but she dwells +affectionately on ingenuous mental pictures of what Lord Walderhurst +will say. It is just as well that it should be so. It is better for her +than fretting would be. Experience helped me to gather from the medical +man's letter that his patient is in no condition to be told news of any +kind, good or bad." + +The house in Berkeley Square was reopened. Lady Walderhurst returned to +it, as it was understood below stairs, from a visit to some German +health resort. Mrs. Cupp and Jane returned with her. The wife of her +physician in attendance was with her a great deal. It was most +unfortunate for her ladyship that my lord was detained in India by +illness. + +The great household, having presented opened shutters to the world, went +on in the even tenor of its way. There brooded over it, however, a sort +of hushed dignity of atmosphere. The very housemaids wore an air of +grave discretion. Their labours assumed the proportions of confidential +interested service, in which they felt a private pride. Not one among +them had escaped becoming attached to Lady Walderhurst. + +Away from Palstrey, away from Mortimer Street, Emily began to find +reality in the fact that everything had already become quite simple, +after all. The fine rooms looked so well ordered and decent in a stately +way. Melodramatic plotting ceased to exist as she looked at certain +dignified sofas and impressive candelabra. Such things became even more +impossible than they had become before the convincingness of the first +floor front bedroom in Mortimer Street, She began to give a good deal of +thought to the summer at Mallowe. There was an extraordinary luxury in +living again each day of it, the morning when she had taken the +third-class carriage which provided her with hot, labouring men in +corduroys as companions, that fleeting moment when the tall man with the +square face had passed the carriage and looked straight through her +without seeming to see her at all. She sat and smiled tenderly at the +mere reminiscent thought. And then the glimpse of him as he got into the +high phaeton at the station; and the moment when Lady Maria had +exclaimed "There's Walderhurst," and he had come swinging with his +leisurely step across the lawn. And he had scarcely seemed to see her +then, or notice her really when they met, until the morning he had +joined her as she gathered the roses and had talked to her about Lady +Agatha. But he had actually been noticing her a little even from the +first--he had been thinking about her a little all the time. And how far +she had been from guessing it when she had talked to Lady Agatha, how +pleased she had been the morning of the rose gathering when he had +seemed interested only in Agatha's self! She always liked to recall, +however, the way in which he had asked the few questions about her own +affairs. Her simplicity never wearied of the fascination of the way in +which he had looked at her, standing on the pathway, with that +delightful non-committal fixing of her with the monocle when she had +said: + +"People _are_ kind. You see, I have nothing to give, and I always seem +to be receiving." + +And he had gazed at her quite unmovedly and answered only: + +"What luck!" + +But since then he had mentioned this moment as one of those in which he +had felt that he might want to marry her, because she was so unconscious +of the fact that she gave much more to everybody than she received, that +she had so much to give and was totally unaware of the value of her +gifts. + +"His thoughts of me are so _beautiful_ very often," was her favourite +reflection, "though he always has that composed way of saying things. +What he says seems more _valuable_, because he is like that." + +In truth, his composed way of saying things it was which seemed to her +incomparable. Even when, without understanding its own longing for a +thing it lacked, her heart had felt itself a little unsustained she had +never ceased to feel the fascination of his entire freedom from any +shadow of interest in the mental attitude of others towards himself. +When he stood and gazed at people through the glass neatly screwed into +his eye, one felt that it was he whose opinion was of importance, not +the other person's. Through sheer chill imperviousness he seemed +entirely detached from the powers of criticism. What people said or +thought of his fixed opinion on a subject was not of the least +consequence, in fact did not exist; the entities of the persons who +cavilled at such opinions themselves ceased to exist, so far as he was +concerned. His was the immovable temperament. He did not snub people: he +cut the cord of mental communication with them and dropped them into +space. Emily thought this firmness and reserved dignity, and quailed +before the thought of erring in such a manner as would cause him to so +send her soul adrift. Her greatest terror during the past months had +been the fear of making him ridiculous, of putting him in some position +which might annoy him by objectionable publicity. + +But now she had no further fears, and could wait in safety and dwell in +peace upon her memories and her hopes. She even began to gain a kind of +courage in her thoughts of him. + +The atmosphere of the Berkeley Square mansion was good for her. She had +never felt so much its mistress before the staff of servants of whose +existence she was the centre, who so plainly served her with careful +pleasure, who considered her least wish or inclination as a royal +command, increased her realisation of her security and power. The +Warrens, who understood the dignity and meaning of mere worldly facts +her nature did not grasp, added subtly to her support. Gradually she +learned to reveal herself in simple talk to Mrs. Warren, who found her, +when so revealed, a case more extraordinary than she had been when +enshrouded in dubious mystery. + +"She is absolutely delicious," Mrs. Warren said to her husband. "That an +adoration such as hers could exist in the nineteenth century is--" + +"Almost degenerate," he laughed. + +"Perhaps it is regenerate," reflecting. "Who knows! Nothing earthly, or +heavenly, would induce me to cast a doubt upon it. Seated opposite to a +portrait of her James, I hear her opinions of him, when she is not in +the least aware of what her simplest observation conveys. She does not +know that she is including him when she is talking of other things, that +one sees that while she is too shy to openly use his name much, the very +breath of her life is a reference to him. Her greatest bliss at present +is to go unobtrusively into his special rooms and sit there dwelling +upon his goodness to her." + +In fact Emily spent many a quiet hour in the apartments she had visited +on the day of her farewell to her husband. She was very happy there. Her +soul was uplifted by her gratitude for the peace she had reached. The +reports of Lord Walderhurst's physician were never alarming and +generally of a reassuring nature. But she knew that he must exercise +great caution, and that time must elapse before he could confront his +return voyage. He would come back as soon as was quite safe. And in the +meantime her world held all that she could desire, lacking himself. + +Her emotion expressed itself in her earnest performance of her reverent +daily devotions. She read many chapters of the Bible, and often sat +happily absorbed in the study of her Book of Common Prayer. She found +solace and happiness in such things, and spent her Sunday mornings, +after the ringing of the church bells, quite alone in Walderhurst's +study, following the Service and reading the Collects and Lessons. The +room used to seem so beautifully still, even Berkeley Square wearing its +church-hour aspect suggested devout aloofness from worldly things. + +"I sit at the window and _think_," she explained to Mrs. Warren. "It is +so nice there." + +She wrote her letters to India in this room. She did not know how far +the new courage in her thoughts of her husband expressed itself in these +letters. When Walderhurst read them, however, he felt a sense of change +in her. Women were sometimes spoken of as "coming out amazingly." He +began to feel that Emily was, in a measure at least, "coming out." +Perhaps her gradually increasing feeling of accustomedness to the change +in her life was doing it for her. She said more in her letters, and said +it in a more interesting way. It was perhaps rather suggestive of the +development of a girl who was on the verge of becoming a delightful sort +of woman. + +Lying upon his back in bed, rendered, it may be, a trifle susceptible by +the weakness of slow convalescence, he found a certain habit growing +upon him--a habit of reading her letters several times, and of thinking +of her as it had not been his nature to think of women; also he slowly +awakened to an interest in the arrival of the English mails. The letters +actually raised his spirits and had an excellent physical effect. His +doctor always found him in good condition after he had heard from his +wife. + +"Your letters, my dear Emily," Walderhurst once wrote, "are a great +pleasure to me. You are to-day exactly as you were at Mallowe,--the +creature of amiable good cheer. Your comfort stimulates me." + +"How _dear_, how _dear_?" Emily cried to the silence of the study, and +kissed the letter with impassioned happiness. + +[Illustration: Lady Maria Bayne] + +The next epistle went even farther. It absolutely contained "things" and +referred to the past which it was her joy to pour libations before in +secret thought. When her eye caught the phrase "the days at Mallowe" in +the middle of a sheet, she was almost frightened at the rush of pleasure +which swept over her. Men who were less aloof from sentimental moods +used such phrases in letters, she had read and heard. It was almost as +if he had said "the dear old days at Mallowe" or "the happy days at +Mallowe," and the rapture of it was as much as she could bear. + +"I cannot help remembering as I lie here," she read in actual letters as +she went on, "of the many thoughts which passed through my mind as I +drove over the heath to pick you up. I had been watching you for days. I +always liked particularly your clear, large eyes. I recall trying to +describe them to myself and finding it difficult. They seemed to me then +to resemble something between the eyes of a very nice boy and the eyes +of a delightful sheep-dog. This may not appear so romantic a comparison +as it really is." + +Emily began most softly and sweetly to cry. Nothing more romantic could +she possibly have imagined. + +"I thought of them in spite of myself as I drove across the moor, and I +could scarcely express to you how angry I was at Maria. It seemed to me +that she had brutally imposed on you only because she had known she +might impose on a woman with such a pair of eyes. I was angry and +sentimental at one and the same time. And to find you sitting by the +wayside, absolutely worn out with fatigue and in tears, moved me really +more than I had anticipated being moved. And when you mistook my meaning +and stood up, your nice eyes looking into mine in such ingenuous appeal +and fear and trouble, I have never forgotten it, my dear, and I never +shall." + +His mood of sentiment did not sit easily upon him, but it meant a real +and interesting quite human thing. + +Emily sat alone in the room and brooded over it as a mother might brood +over a new-born child. She was full of tremulous bliss, and, dwelling +with reverent awe upon the wonder of great things drawing nearer to her +every hour, wept for happiness as she sat. + + * * * * * + +The same afternoon Lady Maria Bayne arrived. She had been abroad taking, +in no dull fashion, various "cures," which involved drinking mineral +waters while promenading to the sounds of strains of outdoor music, and +comparing symptoms wittily with friends equal to amazing repartee in +connection with all subjects. + +Dr. Warren was an old acquaintance, and as he was on the point of +leaving the house as she entered it she stopped to shake hands with him. + +"It's rather unfortunate for a man when one can only be glad to see him +in the house of an enemy." + +She greeted him with, "I must know what you are doing here. It's not +possible that Lady Walderhurst is fretting herself into fiddle-strings +because her husband chooses to have a fever in India." + +"No, she is behaving beautifully in all respects. May I have a few +minutes' talk with you, Lady Maria, before you see her?" + +"A few minutes' talk with me means something either amusing or +portentous. Let us walk into the morning-room." + +She led the way with a rustle of silk petticoats and a suggestion of +lifted eyebrows. She was inclined to think that the thing sounded more +portentous than amusing. Thank Heaven! it was not possible for Emily to +have involved herself in annoying muddles. She was not that kind of +woman. + +When she came out of the room some twenty minutes later she did not look +quite like herself. Her smart bonnet set less well upon her delicate +little old face, and she was agitated and cross and pleased. + +"It was ridiculous of Walderhurst to leave her," she was saying. "It was +ridiculous of her not to order him home at once. It was exactly like +her,--dear and ridiculous." + +In spite of her agitation she felt a little grotesque as she went +upstairs to see Emily,--grotesque, because she was obliged to admit to +herself that she had never felt so curiously excited in her life. She +felt as she supposed women did when they allowed themselves to shed +tears through excitement; not that she was shedding tears, but she was +"upset," that was what she called it. + +As the door opened Emily rose from a chair near the fire and came slowly +towards her, with an awkward but lovely smile. + +Lady Maria made a quick movement forward and caught hold of both her +hands. + +"My good Emily," she broke forth and kissed her. "My excellent Emily," +and kissed her again. "I am completely turned upside down. I never heard +such an insane story in my life. I have seen Dr. Warren. The creatures +were mad." + +"It is all over," said Emily. "I scarcely believe it was true now." + +Lady Maria being led to a sofa settled herself upon it, still wearing +her complex expression of crossness, agitation, and pleasure. + +"I am going to stay here," she said, obstinately. "There shall be no +more folly. But I will tell you that they have gone back to India. The +child was a girl." + +"It was a girl?" + +"Yes, absurdly enough." + +"Oh," sighed Emily, sorrowfully. "I'm _sure_ Hester was _afraid_ to +write to me." + +"Rubbish!" said Lady Maria. "At any rate, as I remarked before, I am +going to stay here until Walderhurst comes back. The man will be quite +mad with gratified vanity." + + + + +Chapter Twenty three + + +It was a damp and depressing day on which Lord Walderhurst arrived in +London. As his carriage turned into Berkeley Square he sat in the corner +of it rather huddled in his travelling-wraps and looking pale and thin. +He was wishing that London had chosen to show a more exhilarating +countenance to him, but he himself was conscious of being possessed by +something more nearly approaching a mood of eagerness than he remembered +experiencing at any period of his previous existence. He had found the +voyage home long, and had been restless. He wanted to see his wife. How +agreeable it would be to meet, when he looked across the dinner-table, +the smile in her happy eyes. She would grow pink with pleasure, like a +girl, when he confessed that he had missed her. He was curious to see in +her the changes he had felt in her letters. Having time and +opportunities for development, she might become an absolutely delightful +companion. She had looked very handsome on the day of her presentation +at Court. Her height and carriage had made her even impressive. She was +a woman, after all, to be counted on in one's plans. + +But he was most conscious that his affection for her had warmed. A +slight embarrassment was commingled with the knowledge, but that was the +natural result of his dislike to the sentimental. He had never felt a +shadow of sentiment for Audrey, who had been an extremely light, dry, +empty-headed person, and he had always felt she had been adroitly thrust +upon him by their united families. He had not liked her, and she had not +liked him. It had been very stupidly trying. And the child had not lived +an hour. He had liked Emily from the first, and now--It was an absolute +truth that he felt a slight movement in the cardiac region when the +carriage turned into Berkeley Square. The house would look very pleasant +when he entered it. Emily would in some subtle way have arranged that it +should wear a festal, greeting air. She had a number of nice, little +feminine emotions about bright fires and many flowers. He could picture +her childlike grown-up face as it would look when he stepped into the +room where they met. + +Some one was ill in Berkeley Square, evidently very ill. Straw was laid +thick all along one side of it, depressing damp, fresh straw, over which +the carriage rolled with a dull drag of the wheels. + +It lay before the door of his own house, he observed, as he stepped out. +It was very thickly scattered. The door swung open as the carriage +stopped. Crossing the threshold, he glanced at the face of the footman +nearest to him. The man looked like a mute at a funeral, and the +expression was so little in accord with his mood that he stopped with a +feeling of irritation. He had not time to speak, however, before a new +sensation arrested his attention,--a faint odour which filled the place. + +"The house smells like a hospital," he exclaimed, in great annoyance. +"What does it mean?" + +The man he addressed did not answer. He turned a perturbed awkward face +to his superior in rank, an older man, who was house steward. + +In the house of mortal pain or death there is but one thing more full of +suggestion than the faint smell of antiseptics,--the gruesome, cleanly, +unpleasant odour,--that is, the unnatural sound of the whispering of +hushed voices. Lord Walderhurst turned cold, and felt it necessary to +stiffen his spine when he heard his servant's answer and the tone in +which it was made. + +"Her ladyship, my lord--her ladyship is very low. The doctors do not +leave her." + +"Her ladyship?" + +The man stepped back deferentially. The door of the morning-room had +been opened, and old Lady Maria Bayne stood on the threshold. Her +worldly air of elderly gaiety had disappeared. She looked a hundred. She +was almost dilapidated. She had allowed to relax themselves the springs +which held her together and ordinarily supplied her with sprightly +movement. + +"Come here!" she said. + +When he entered the room, aghast, she shut the door. + +"I suppose I ought to break it to you gently," she said shakily, "but I +shall do no such thing. It's too much to expect of any woman who has +gone through what I have during these last three days. The creature is +dying; she may be dead now." + +She sank on the sofa and began to wipe away pouring tears. Her old +cheeks were pale and her handkerchief showed touches of rose-pink on its +dampness. She was aware of their presence, but was utterly indifferent. +Walderhurst stared at her haggard disorder and cleared his throat, +finding himself unable to speak without doing so. + +"Will you have the goodness to tell me," he said with weird stiffness, +"what you are talking about?" + +"About Emily Walderhurst," she answered. "The boy was born yesterday, +and she has been sinking ever since. She cannot possibly last much +longer." + +"She!" he gasped, turning lead colour. "Cannot possibly last,--Emily?" + +The wrench and shock were so unnatural that they reached that part of +his being where human feeling was buried under selfishness and inhuman +conventionality. He spoke, and actually thought, of Emily first. + +Lady Maria continued to weep shamelessly. + +"I am over seventy," she said, "and the last three days have punished me +quite enough for anything I may have done since I was born. I have been +in hell, too, James. And, when she could think at all, she has only +thought of you and your miserable child. I can't imagine what is the +matter with a woman when she can care for a man to such an extent. Now +she has what she wants,--she's dying for you." + +"Why wasn't I told?" he asked, still with the weird and slow stiffness. + +"Because she was a sentimental fool, and was afraid of disturbing you. +She ought to have ordered you home and kept you dancing attendance, and +treated you to hysterics." + +No one would have resented such a course of action more derisively than +Lady Maria herself, but the last three days had reduced her to something +like hysteria, and she had entirely lost her head. + +"She has been writing cheerfully to me--" + +"She would have written cheerfully to you if she had been seated in a +cauldron of boiling oil, it is my impression," broke in her ladyship. +"She has been monstrously treated, people trying to murder her, and she +afraid to accuse them for fear that you would disapprove. You know you +have a nasty manner, James, when you think your dignity is interfered +with." + +Lord Walderhurst stood clenching and unclenching his hands as they hung +by his sides. He did not like to believe that his fever had touched his +brain, but he doubted his senses hideously. + +"My good Maria," he said, "I do not understand a word you say, but I +must go and see her." + +"And kill her, if she has a breath left! You will not stir from here. +Thank Heaven! here is Dr. Warren." + +The door had opened and Dr. Warren came in. He had just laid down upon +the coverlet of a bed upstairs what seemed to be the hand of a dying +woman, and no man like himself can do such a thing and enter a room +without a singular look on his face. + +People in a house of death inevitably whisper, whatsoever their +remoteness from the sick-room. Lady Maria cried out in a whisper: + +"Is she still alive?" + +"Yes," was the response. + +Walderhurst went to him. + +"May I see her?" + +"No, Lord Walderhurst. Not yet." + +"Does that mean that it is not yet the last moment?" + +"If that moment had obviously arrived, you would be called." + +"What must I do?" + +"There is absolutely nothing to be done but to wait. Brent, Forsythe, +and Blount are with her." + +"I am in the position of knowing nothing. I must be told. Have you time +to tell me?" + +They went to Walderhurst's study, the room which had been Emily's holy +of holies. + +"Lady Walderhurst was very fond of sitting here alone," Dr. Warren +remarked. + +Walderhurst saw that she must have written letters at his desk. Her own +pen and writing-tablet lay on it. She had probably had a fancy for +writing her letters to himself in his own chair. It would be like her to +have done it. It gave him a shock to see on a small table a thimble and +a pair of scissors. + +"I ought to have been told," he said to Dr. Warren. + +Dr. Warren sat down and explained why he had not been told. + +As he spoke, interest was awakened in his mind by the fact that Lord +Walderhurst drew towards him the feminine writing-tablet and opened and +shut it mechanically. + +"What I want to know," he said, "is, if I shall be able to speak to her. +I should like to speak to her." + +"That is what one most wants," was Dr. Warren's non-committal answer, +"at such a time." + +"You think I may not be able to make her understand?" + +"I am very sorry. It is impossible to know." + +"This," slowly, "is very hard on me." + +"There is something I feel I must tell you, Lord Walderhurst." Dr. +Warren kept a keen eye on him, having, in fact, felt far from attracted +by the man in the past, and wondering how much he would be moved by +certain truths, or if he would be moved at all. "Before Lady +Walderhurst's illness, she was very explicit with me in her expression +of her one desire. She begged me to give her my word, which I could not +have done without your permission, that whatsoever the circumstances, if +life must be sacrificed, it should be hers." + +A dusky red shot through Walderhurst's leaden pallor. + +"She asked you that?" he said. + +"Yes. And at the worst she did not forget. When she became delirious, +and we heard that she was praying, I gathered that she seemed to be +praying to me, as to a deity whom she implored to remember her fervent +pleading. When her brain was clear she was wonderful. She saved your son +by supernatural endurance." + +"You mean to say that if she had cared more for herself and less for the +safety of the child she need not have been as she is now?" + +Warren bent his head. + +Lord Walderhurst's eyeglass had been dangling weakly from its cord. He +picked it up and stuck it in his eye to stare the doctor in the face. +The action was a singular, spasmodic, hard one. But his hands were +shaking. + +"By God!" he cried out, "if I had been here it should not have been so!" + +He got up and supported himself against the table with the shaking +hands. + +"It is very plain," he said, "that she has been willing to be torn to +pieces upon the rack to give me the thing I wanted. And now, good God in +heaven, I feel that I would have strangled the boy with my own hands +rather than lose her." + +In this manner, it seemed, did a rigid, self-encased, and conventional +elderly nobleman reach emotion. He looked uncanny. His stiff dignity +hung about him in rags and tatters. Cold sweat stood on his forehead and +his chin twitched. + +"Just now," he poured forth, "I don't care whether there is a child or +not. I want her--I care for nothing else. I want to look at her, I want +to speak to her, whether she is alive or dead. But if there is a spark +of life in her, I believe she will hear me." + +Dr. Warren sat and watched him, wondering. He knew curious things of the +human creature, things which most of his confreres did not know. He knew +that Life was a mysterious thing, and that even a dying flame of it +might sometimes be fanned to flickering anew by powers more subtle than +science usually regards as applicable influences. He knew the nature of +the half-dead woman lying on her bed upstairs, and he comprehended what +the soul of her life had been,--her divinely innocent passion for a +self-centred man. He had seen it in the tortured courage of her eyes in +hours of mortal agony. + +"Don't forget," she had said. "Our Father which art in Heaven. Don't let +anyone forget. Hallowed be thy name." + +The man, leaning upon his shaking hands before him, stood there, for +these moments at least, a harrowed thing. Not a single individual of his +acquaintance would have known him. + +"I want to see her before the breath leaves her," he gave forth in a +harsh, broken whisper. "I want to speak. Let me see her." + +Dr. Warren left his chair slowly. Out of a thousand chances against her, +might this one chance be for her,--the chance of her hearing, and being +called back to the shores she was drifting from, by this stiff, +conventional fellow's voice. There was no knowing the wondrousness of a +loving human thing, even when its shackles were loosening themselves to +set it free. + +"I will speak to those in charge with me," he said. "Will you control +every outward expression of feeling?" + +"Yes." + +Adjoining Lady Walderhurst's sleeping apartment was a small boudoir +where the medical men consulted together. Two of them were standing near +the window conversing in whispers. + +Walderhurst merely nodded and went to wait apart by the fire. Ceremony +had ceased to exist. Dr. Warren joined the pair at the window. Lord +Walderhurst only heard one or two sentences. + +"I am afraid that nothing, now, can matter--at any moment." + + * * * * * + +Those who do not know from experience what he saw when he entered the +next room have reason to give thanks to such powers as they put trust +in. + +There ruled in the large, dim chamber an awful order and silence. The +faint flickering of the fire was a marked sound. There was no other but +a fainter and even more irregular one heard as one neared the bed. +Sometimes it seemed to stop, then, with a weak gasp, begin again. A +nurse in uniform stood in waiting; an elderly man sat on a chair at the +bedside, listening and looking at his watch, something white and +lifeless lying in his grasp,--Emily Walderhurst's waxen, unmoving hand. +The odour of antiseptics filled the nostrils. Lord Walderhurst drew +near. The speaking sign of the moment was that neither nurse nor doctor +stirred. + +Emily lay low upon a pillow. Her face was as bloodless as wax and was a +little turned aside. The Shadow was hovering over it and touched her +closed lids and the droop of her cheek and corners of her mouth. She was +far, far away. + +This was what Walderhurst felt first,--the strange remoteness, the +lonely stillness of her. She had gone alone far from the place he stood +in, and which they two familiarly knew. She was going, alone, farther +still. As he stood and watched her closed eyes,--the nice, easily +pleased eyes,--it was they themselves, closed on him and all prosaic +things and pleasures, which filled him most strangely with that sense of +her loneliness, weirdly enough, _hers_, not his. He was not thinking of +himself but of her. He wanted to withdraw her from her loneliness, to +bring her back. + +He knelt down carefully, making no sound, stealthily, not removing his +eyes from her strange, aloof face. He slowly dared to close his hand on +hers which lay outside the coverlet. And it was a little chill and +damp,--a little chill. + +A power, a force which hides itself in human things and which most of +them know not of, was gathering within him. He was warm and alive, a +living man; his hand as it closed on the chill of hers was warm; his +newly awakened being sent heat to it. + +He whispered her name close to her ear. + +"Emily!" slowly, "Emily!" + +She was very far away and lay unmoving. Her breast scarcely stirred with +the faintness of her breath. + +"Emily! Emily!" + +The doctor slightly raised his eyes to glance at him. He was used to +death-bed scenes, but this was curious, because he knew the usual +outward aspect of Lord Walderhurst, and its alteration at this moment +suggested abnormal things. He had not the flexibility of mind which +revealed to Dr. Warren that there were perhaps abnormal moments for the +most normal and inelastic personages. + +"Emily!" said his lordship, "Emily!" + +He did not cease from saying it, in a low yet reaching whisper, at +regular intervals, for at least half an hour. He did not move from his +knees, and so intense was his absorption that the presence of those who +came near was as nothing. + +What he hoped or intended to do he did not explain to himself. He was of +the order of man who coldly waves aside all wanderings on the subjects +of occult claims. He believed in proven facts, in professional aid, in +the abolition of absurdities. But his whole narrow being concentrated +itself on one thing,--he wanted this woman back. He wanted to speak to +her. + +What power he unknowingly drew from the depths of him, what exquisite +answering thing he reached at, could not be said. Perhaps it was only +some remote and subtle turn of the tide of life and death which chanced +to come to his aid. + +"Emily!" he said again, after many times. + +Dr. Warren at this moment met the lifted eyes of the doctor who was +counting her pulse, and in response to his look went to him. + +"It seems slightly stronger," Dr. Forsythe whispered. + +The slow, faint breathing changed a shade; there was heard a breath +slightly, very slightly deeper, less flickering, then another. + +Lady Walderhurst slightly stirred. + +"Remain where you are," whispered Dr. Warren to her husband, "and +continue to speak to her. Do not alter your tone. Go on." + + * * * * * + +Emily Walderhurst, drifting out on a still, borderless, white sea, +sinking gently as she floated, sinking in peaceful painlessness deeper +and deeper in her drifting until the soft, cool water lapped her lips +and, as she knew without fear, would soon cover them and her quiet face, +hiding them for ever,--heard from far, very far away, across the +whiteness floating about her, a faint sound which at first only fell +upon the stillness without meaning. Everything but the silence had been +left behind aeons ago. Nothing remained but the soundless white sea and +the slow drifting and sinking as one swayed. It was more than sleep, +this still peace, because there was no thought of waking to any shore. + +But the far-off sound repeated itself again, again, again and again, +monotonously. Something was calling to Something. She was so given up to +the soft drifting that she had no thoughts to give, and gave none. In +drifting so, one did not think--thought was left in the far-off place +the white sea carried one from. She sank quietly a little deeper and the +water touched her lip. But Something was calling to Something, something +was calling something to come back. The call was low, low and strange, +so regular and so unbroken and insistent, that it arrested, she knew not +what. Did it arrest the floating and the swaying in the enfolding sea? +Was the drifting slower? She could not rouse herself to think, she +wanted to go on. Did she no longer feel the water lapping against her +lip? Something was calling to Something still. Once, aeons ago, before +the white sea had borne her away, she would have understood. + +"Emily, Emily, Emily!" + +Yes, once she would have known what the sound meant. Once it had meant +something, a long time ago. It had even now disturbed the water, and +made it cease to lap so near her lip. + + * * * * * + +It was at this moment that one doctor had raised his eyes to the other, +and Lady Walderhurst had stirred. + +When Walderhurst left his place beside his wife's bed, Dr. Warren went +with him to his room. He made him drink brandy and called his man to +him. "You must remember," he said, "that you are an invalid yourself." + +"I believe," was the sole answer, given with an abstracted knitting of +the brows,--"I believe that in some mysterious way I have made her hear +me." + +Dr. Warren looked grave. He was a deeply interested man. He felt that he +had been looking on at an almost incomprehensible thing. + +"Yes," was his reply. "I believe that you have." + +About an hour later Lord Walderhurst made his way downstairs to the room +in which Lady Maria Bayne sat. She still looked a hundred years old, but +her maid had redressed her toupee, and given her a handkerchief neither +damp nor tinted with rubbed-off rouge. She looked at her relative a +shade more leniently, but still addressed him with something of the +manner of a person undeservedly chained to a malefactor. Her irritation +was not modified by the circumstance that it was extremely difficult to +be definite in the expression of her condemnation of things which had +made her hideously uncomfortable. Having quite approved of his going to +India in the first place, it was not easy to go thoroughly into the +subject of the numerous reasons why a man of his years and +responsibilities ought to have realised that it was his duty to remain +at home and take care of his wife. + +"Incredible as it seems," she snapped, "the doctors _think_ there is a +slight change, for the better." + +"Yes," Walderhurst answered. + +He leaned against the mantel and gazed into the fire. + +"She will come back," he added in a monotone. + +Lady Maria stared at him. She felt that the man was eerie, Walderhurst, +of all men on earth! + +"Where do you think she has been?" She professed to make the inquiry +with an air of reproof. + +"How should one know?" rather with the old stiffness. "It is impossible +to tell." + +Lady Maria Bayne was not the person possessing the temperament to +incline him to explain that, wheresoever the outer sphere might be to +which the dying woman had been drifting, he had been following her, as +far as living man could go. + +The elderly house steward opened the door and spoke in the hollow +whisper. + +"The head nurse wished to know if your ladyship would be so good as to +see Lord Oswyth before he goes to sleep." + +Walderhurst turned his head towards the man. Lord Oswyth was the name of +his son. He felt a shock. + +"I will come to the nursery," answered Lady Maria. "You have not seen +him yet?" turning to Walderhurst. + +"How could I?" + +"Then you had better come now. If she becomes conscious and has life +enough to expect anything, she will expect you to burst forth into +praises of him. You had better at least commit to memory the colour of +his eyes and hair. I believe he has two hairs. He is a huge, fat, +overgrown thing with enormous cheeks. When I saw his bloated +self-indulgent look yesterday, I confess I wanted to slap him." + +Her description was not wholly accurate, but he was a large and robust +child, as Walderhurst saw when he beheld him. + +From kneeling at the pillow on which the bloodless statue lay, and +calling into space to the soul which would not hear, it was a far cry to +the warmed and lighted orris-perfumed room in which Life had begun. + +There was the bright fire before which the high brass nursery fender +shone. There was soft linen hanging to be warmed, there was a lace-hung +cradle swinging in its place, and in a lace-draped basket silver and +gold boxes and velvet brushes and sponges such as he knew nothing about. +He had not been in such a place before, and felt awkward, and yet in +secret abnormally moved, or it seemed abnormally to him. + +Two women were in attendance. One of them held in her arms what he had +come to see. It was moving slightly in its coverings of white. Its +bearer stood waiting in respectful awe as Lady Maria uncovered its face. + +"Look at it," she said, concealing her relieved elation under a slightly +caustic manner. "How you will relish the situation when Emily tells you +that he is like you, I can't be as sure as I should be of myself under +the same circumstances." + +Walderhurst applied his monocle and gazed for some moments at the object +before him. He had not known that men experienced these curiously +unexplainable emotions at such times. He kept a strong hold on himself. + +"Would you like to hold him?" inquired Lady Maria. She was conscious of +a benevolent effort to restrain the irony in her voice. + +Lord Walderhurst made a slight movement backward. + +"I--I should not know how," he said, and then felt angry at himself. He +desired to take the thing in his arms. He desired to feel its warmth. He +absolutely realised that if he had been alone with it, he should have +laid aside his eyeglass and touched its cheek with his lips. + + +Two days afterwards he was sitting by his wife's pillow, watching her +shut lids, when he saw them quiver and slowly move until they were wide +open. Her eyes looked very large in her colourless, more sharply +chiselled face. They saw him and him only, as light came gradually into +them. They did not move, but rested on him. He bent forward, almost +afraid to stir. + +He spoke to her as he had spoken before. + +"Emily!" very low, "Emily!" + +Her voice was only a fluttering breath, but she answered. + +"It--was--you!" she said. + + + + +Chapter Twenty four + + +Such individuals as had not already thought it expedient to gradually +loosen and drop the links of their acquaintance with Captain Alec Osborn +did not find, on his return to his duties in India, that the leave of +absence spent in England among his relatives had improved him. He was +plainly consuming enormous quantities of brandy, and was steadily going, +physically and mentally, to seed. He had put on flesh, and even his +always dubious good looks were rapidly deserting him. The heavy young +jowl looked less young and more pronounced, and he bore about an evil +countenance. + +"Disappointment may have played the devil with him," it was said by an +elderly observer; "but he has played the devil with himself. He was a +wrong'un to begin with." + +When Hester's people flocked to see her and hear her stories of exalted +life in England, they greeted her with exclamations of dismay. If Osborn +had lost his looks, she also had lost hers. She was yellow and haggard, +and her eyes looked over-grown. She had not improved in the matter of +temper, and answered all effusive questions with a dry, bitter little +smile. The baby she had brought back was a puny, ugly, and tiny girl. +Hester's dry, little smile when she exhibited her to her relations was +not pretty. + +"She saved herself disappointment by being a girl," she remarked. "At +all events, she knows from the outset that no one can rob her of the +chance of being the Marquis of Walderhurst." + +It was rumoured that ugly things went on in the Osborn bungalow. It was +known that scenes occurred between the husband and wife which were not +of the order admitted as among the methods of polite society. One +evening Mrs. Osborn walked slowly down the Mall dressed in her best gown +and hat, and bearing on her cheek a broad, purpling mark. When asked +questions, she merely smiled and made no answer, which was extremely +awkward for the well-meaning inquirer. + +The questioner was the wife of the colonel of the regiment, and when the +lady related the incident to her husband in the evening, he drew in his +breath sharply and summed the situation up in a few words. + +"That little woman," he said, "lives every day through twenty-four hours +of hell. One can see it in her eyes, even when she professes to smile at +the brute for decency's sake. The awfulness of a woman's forced smile at +the devil she is tied to, loathing him and bearing in her soul the +thing, blood itself could not wipe out. Ugh! I've seen it once before, +and I recognised it in her again. There will be a bad end to this." + +There probably would have been, with the aid of unlimited brandy and +unrestrained devil, some outbreak so gross that the social laws which +rule men who are "officers and gentlemen" could not have ignored or +overlooked it. But the end came in an unexpected way, and Osborn was +saved from open ignominy by an accident. + +On a certain day when he had drunk heavily and had shut Hester up with +him for an hour's torture, after leaving her writhing and suffocating +with sobs, he went to examine some newly bought firearms. In twenty +minutes it was he who lay upon the floor writhing and suffocating, and +but a few minutes later he was a dead man. A charge from a gun he had +believed unloaded had finished him. + + * * * * * + +Lady Walderhurst was the kindest of women, as the world knew. She sent +for little Mrs. Osborn and her child, and was tender goodness itself to +them. + +Hester had been in England four years, and Lord Oswyth had a brother as +robust as himself, when one heavenly summer afternoon, as the two women +sat on the lawn drinking little cups of tea, Hester made a singular +revelation, and made it without moving a muscle of her small +countenance. + +"I always intended to tell you, Emily," she began quietly, "and I will +tell you now." + +"What, dear?" said Emily, holding out to her a plate of tiny buttered +scones. "Have some of these nice, little hot ones." + +"Thank you." Hester took one of the nice, little hot ones, but did not +begin to eat it. Instead, she held it untouched and let her eyes rest on +the brilliant flower terraces spread out below. "What I meant to tell +you was this. The gun was not loaded, the gun Alec shot himself with, +when he laid it aside." + +Emily put down her tea-cup hastily. + +"I saw him take out the charge myself two hours before. When he came in, +mad with drink, and made me go into the room with him, Ameerah saw him. +She always listened outside. Before we left The Kennel Farm, the day he +tortured and taunted me until I lost my head and shrieked out to him +that I had told you what I knew, and had helped you to go away, he +struck me again and again. Ameerah heard that. He did it several times +afterwards, and she always knew. She always intended to end it in some +way. She knew how drunk he was that last day, and--It was she who went +in and loaded the gun while he was having his scene with me. She knew he +would go and begin to pull the things about without having the sense to +know what he was doing. She had seen him do it before. I know it was she +who put the load in. We have never uttered a word to each other about +it, but I know she did it, and that she knows I know. Before I married +Alec, I did not understand how one human being could kill another. He +taught me to understand, quite. But I had not the courage to do it +myself. Ameerah had." + +And while Lady Walderhurst sat gazing at her with a paling face, she +began quietly to eat the little buttered scone. + +THE END + +[** Transcriber changes: + +Original page 90 (Part One, Chapter 4): The whole treat, juvenile and +adult, male and female, burst into three cheers which were roars and +bellows[missing. inserted] + +Original page 37 (Part One, Chapter 2): "I wish I had such +clothes,[missing " inserted] answered Lady Maria, and she chuckled +again. + +Original page 150 (Part Two, Chapter 7): Realising this, he did not +quite understand why he rather liked it in the case of Emily Fox-Seton, +though he only liked it remotely and felt his his own inaptness a shade +absurd. + +Original page 277 (Part Two, Chapter 14): "I know what her ladyship +feels about being talked over. If I was a lady myself, I shouldn't like +it. And I know how deep you'll feel it, that when the doctor advised her +to get an experienced married person to be at hand, she said in that +dear way of hers, 'Jane, if your uncle could spare your mother, how I +should like to have her.'[extraneous ' omitted] I've never forgot her +kindness in Mortimer Street.'" + +Original page 312 (Part Two, Chapter 17): "My lady! my lady!" she gasped +out as soon as she dare[missing "d" inserted]. + +Original page 320 (Part Two, Chapter 17): "They may be as innocent as I +am. And they may be murderers in their hearts. I can prove nothing, I +can prevent nothing. "[extraneous " omitted]Oh! _do_ come home." + +Original page 432: Human nature at its best and worst is well +protrayed[changed to "portrayed"]. **] + + * * * * * + +TITLES SELECTED FROM GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list + + * * * * * + +THE SIEGE OF THE SEVEN SUITORS. By Meredith Nicholson. Illustrated by C. +Coles Phillips and Reginald Birch. + +Seven suitors vie with each other for the love of a beautiful girl, and +she subjects them to a test that is full of mystery, magic and sheer +amusement. + +THE MAGNET. By Henry C. Rowland. Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood. + +The story of a remarkable courtship involving three pretty girls on a +yacht, a poet-lover in pursuit, and a mix-up in the names of the girls. + +THE TURN OF THE ROAD. By Eugenia Brooks Frothingham. + +A beautiful young opera singer chooses professional success instead of +love, but comes to a place in life where the call of the heart is +stronger than worldly success. + +SCOTTIE AND HIS LADY. By Margaret Morse. Illustrated by Harold M. Brett. + +A young girl whose affections have been blighted is presented with a +Scotch Collie to divert her mind, and the roving adventures of her pet +lead the young mistress into another romance. + +SHEILA VEDDER. By Amelia E. Barr. Frontispiece by Harrison Fisher. + +A very beautiful romance of the Shetland Islands, with a handsome, +strong willed hero and a lovely girl of Gaelic blood as heroine. A sequel +to "Jan Vedder's Wife." + +JOHN WARD. PREACHER. By Margaret Deland. + +The first big success of this much loved American novelist. It is a +powerful portrayal of a young clergyman's attempt to win his beautiful +wife to his own narrow creed. + +THE TRAIL OF NINETY-EIGHT. By Robert W. Service. Illustrated by Maynard +Dixon. + +One of the best stories of "Vagabondia" ever written, and one of the +most accurate and picturesque of the stampede of gold seekers to the +Yukon. The love story embedded in the narrative is strikingly original. + + * * * * * + +Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction + +Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York + + * * * * * + +TITLES SELECTED FROM GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list + + * * * * * + +A CERTAIN RICH MAN. By William Allen White. + +A vivid, startling portrayal of one man's financial greed, its wide +spreading power, its action in Wall Street, and its effect on the three +women most intimately in his life. A splendid, entertaining American +novel. + +IN OUR TOWN. By William Allen White. Illustrated by F.R. Gruger and W. +Glackens. + +Made up of the observations of a keen newspaper editor, Involving the +town millionaire, the smart set, the literary set, the bohemian set, and +many others. All humorously related and sure to hold the attention. + +NATHAN BURKE. By Mary S. Watts. + +The story of an ambitious, backwoods Ohio boy who rose to prominence. +Everyday humor of American rustic life permeates the book. + +THE HIGH HAND. By Jacques Futrelle. Illustrated by Will Grefe. + +A splendid story of the political game, with a son of the soil on the +one side, and a "kid glove" politician on the other. A pretty girl, +interested in both men, is the chief figure. + +THE BACKWOODSMEN. By Charles G.P. Roberts. Illustrated. + +Realistic stories of men and women living midst the savage beauty of the +wilderness. Human nature at its best and worst is well portrayed. + +YELLOWSTONE NIGHTS. By Herbert Quick. + +A jolly company of six artists, writers and other clever folks take a +trip through the National Park, and tell stories around camp fire at +night. Brilliantly clever and original. + +THE PROFESSOR'S MYSTERY. By Wells Hastings and Brian Hooker. Illustrated +by Hanson Booth. + +A young college professor, missing his steamer for Europe, has a +romantic meeting with a pretty girl, escorts her home, and is enveloped +in a big mystery. + + * * * * * + +Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction + +Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York + + * * * * * + +TITLES SELECTED FROM GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list + + * * * * * + +THE SECOND WIFE. By Thompson Buchanan. Illustrated by W.W. Fawcett. +Harrison Fisher wrapper printed in four Colors and gold. + +An intensely interesting story of a marital complication in a wealthy +New York family involving the happiness of a beautiful young girl. + +TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY. By Grace Miller White. Illustrated by Howard +Chandler Christy. + +An amazingly vivid picture of low class life in a New York college town, +with a heroine beautiful and noble, who makes a great sacrifice for +love. + +FROM THE VALLEY OF THE MISSING. By Grace Miller White. Frontispiece and +wrapper in colors by Penrhyn Stanlaws. + +Another story of "the storm country." Two beautiful children are +kidnapped from a wealthy home and appear many years after showing the +effects of a deep, malicious scheme behind their disappearance. + +THE LIGHTED MATCH. By Charles Neville Buck. Illustrated by R.F. +Schabelitz. + +A lovely princess travels incognito through the States and falls in love +with an American man. There are ties that bind her to someone in her own +home, and the great plot revolves round her efforts to work her way out. + +MAUD BAXTER. By C.C. Hotchkiss. Illustrated by Will Grefe. + +A romance both daring and delightful, involving an American girl and a +young man who had been impressed into English service during the +Revolution. + +THE HIGHWAYMAN. By Guy Rawlence. Illustrated by Will Grefe. + +A French beauty of mysterious antecedents wins the love of an Englishman +of title. Developments of a startling character and a clever untangling +of affairs hold the reader's interest. + +THE PURPLE STOCKINGS. By Edward Salisbury Field. Illustrated in colors; +marginal illustrations. + +A young New York business man, his pretty sweetheart, his sentimental +stenographer, and his fashionable sister are all mixed up in a +misunderstanding that surpasses anything in the way of comedy in years. +A story with a laugh on every page. + + * * * * * + +Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction + +Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York + + * * * * * + +TITLES SELECTED FROM GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list + + * * * * * + +THE SILENT CALL. By Edwin Milton Royle. Illustrated with scenes from the +play. + +The hero of this story is the Squaw Man's son. He has been taken to +England, but spurns conventional life for the sake of the untamed West +and a girl's pretty face. + +JOHN MARCH, SOUTHERNER. By George W. Cable. + +A story of the pretty women and spirited men of the South. As fragrant +in sentiment as a sprig of magnolia, and as full of mystery and racial +troubles as any romance of "after the war" days. + +MR. JUSTICE RAFFLES. By E.W. Hornung. + +This engaging rascal is found helping a young cricket player out of the +toils of a money shark. Novel in plot, thrilling and amusing. + +FORTY MINUTES LATE. By F. Hopkinson Smith. Illustrated by S.M. Chase. + +Delightfully human stories of every day happenings; of a lecturer's +laughable experience because he's late, a young woman's excursion into +the stock market, etc. + +OLD LADY NUMBER 31. By Louise Forsslund. + +A heart-warming story of American rural life, telling of the adventures +of an old couple in an old folk's home, their sunny, philosophical +acceptance of misfortune and ultimate prosperity. + +THE HUSBAND'S STORY. By David Graham Phillips. + +A story that has given all Europe as well as all America much food for +thought. A young couple begin life in humble circumstances and rise in +worldly matters until the husband is enormously rich--the wife in the +most aristocratic European society--but at the price of their happiness. + +THE TRAIL OF NINETY-EIGHT. By Robert W. Service. Illustrated by Maynard +Dixon. + +One of the best stories of "Vagabondia" ever written, and one of the +most accurate and picturesque descriptions of the stampede of gold +seekers to the Yukon. The love story embedded in the narrative is +strikingly original. + + * * * * * + +Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction + +Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York + + * * * * * + +TITLES SELECTED FROM GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list + + * * * * * + +HIS HOUR. By Elinor Glyn. Illustrated. + +A beautiful blonde Englishwoman visits Russia, and is violently made +love to by a young Russian aristocrat. A most unique situation +complicates the romance. + +THE GAMBLERS. By Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow, Illustrated by C.E. +Chambers. + +A big, vital treatment of a present day situation wherein men play for +big financial stakes and women flourish on the profits--or repudiate the +methods. + +CHEERFUL AMERICANS. By Charles Battell Loomis. Illustrated by Florence +Scovel Shinn and others. + +A good, wholesome, laughable presentation of some Americans at home and +abroad, on their vacations, and during their hours of relaxation. + +THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. By Ella Wheeler Wilcox. + +Clever, original presentations of present day social problems and the +best solutions of them. A book every girl and woman should possess. + +THE LIGHT THAT LURES. By Percy Brebner. Illustrated. Handsomely colored +wrapper. + +A young Southerner who loved Lafayette, goes to France to aid him during +the days of terror, and is lured in a certain direction by the lovely +eyes of a Frenchwoman. + +THE RAMRODDERS. By Holman Day. Frontispiece by Harold Matthews Brett. + +A clever, timely story that will make politicians think and will make +women realize the part that politics play--even in their romances. + + * * * * * + +Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction + +Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York + + * * * * * + +The Master's Violin + +By MYRTLE REED + +A Love Story with a musical atmosphere. A picturesque, old German +virtuoso is the reverent possessor of a genuine Cremona. He consents to +take as his pupil a handsome youth who proves to have an aptitude for +technique, but not the soul of the artist. The youth has led the happy, +careless life of a modern, well-to-do young American, and he cannot, +with his meagre past, express the love, the longing, the passion and the +tragedies of life and its happy phases as can the master who has lived +life in all its fulness. But a girl comes into his existence, a +beautiful bit of human driftwood that his aunt had taken into her heart +and home; and through his passionate love for her, he learns the lessons +that life has to give--and his soul awakens. + +Founded on a fact well known among artists, but not often recognized or +discussed. + +If you have not read "LAVENDER AND OLD LACE" by the same author, you +have a double pleasure in store--for these two books show Myrtle Reed in +her most delightful, fascinating vein--indeed they may be considered as +masterpieces of compelling interest. + + * * * * * + +Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK + + * * * * * + +The Prodigal Judge + +By VAUGHAN KESTER + +This great novel--probably the most popular book in this country +to-day--is as human as a story from the pen of that great master of +"immortal laughter and immortal tears," Charles Dickens. + +The Prodigal Judge is a shabby outcast, a tavern hanger-on, a genial +wayfarer who tarries longest where the inn is most hospitable, yet with +that suavity, that distinctive politeness and that saving grace of humor +peculiar to the American man. He has his own code of morals--very +exalted ones--but honors them in the breach rather than in the +observance. + +Clinging to the Judge closer than a brother, is Solomon +Mahaffy--fallible and failing like the rest of us, but with a sublime +capacity for friendship; and closer still, perhaps, clings little +Hannibal, a boy about whose parentage nothing is known until the end of +the story. Hannibal is charmed into tolerance of the Judge's picturesque +vices, while Miss Betty, lovely and capricious, is charmed into placing +all her affairs, both material and sentimental, in the hands of this +delightful old vagabond. + +The Judge will be a fixed star in the firmament of fictional characters +as surely as David Harum or Col. Sellers. He is a source of infinite +delight, while this story of Mr. Kester's is one of the finest examples +of American literary craftmanship. + + * * * * * + +Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction + +Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York + + * * * * * + +GROSSET & DUNLAP'S DRAMATIZED NOVELS + +Original, sincere and courageous--often amusing--the kind that are +making theatrical history. + + * * * * * + +MADAME X. By Alexandra Bisson and J. W. McConaughy. Illustrated with +scenes from the play. + +A beautiful Parisienne became an outcast because her husband would not +forgive an error of her youth. Her love for her son is the great final +influence in her career. A tremendous dramatic success. + +THE GARDEN OF ALLAH. By Robert Hichens. + +An unconventional English woman and an inscrutable stranger meet and +love in an oasis of the Sahara. Staged this season with magnificent cast +and gorgeous properties. + +THE PRINCE OF INDIA. By Lew. Wallace. + +A glowing romance of the Byzantine Empire, presenting with extraordinary +power the siege of Constantinople, and lighting its tragedy with the +warm underglow of an Oriental romance. As a play it is a great dramatic +spectacle. + +TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY. By Grace Miller White. Illust. by Howard +Chandler Christy. + +A girl from the dregs of society, loves a young Cornell University +student, and it works startling changes in her life and the lives of +those about her. The dramatic version is one of the sensations of the +season. + +YOUNG WALLINGFORD. By George Randolph Chester. Illust. by F.R. Gruger +and Henry Raleigh. + +A series of clever swindles conducted by a cheerful young man, each of +which is just on the safe side of a State's prison offence. As +"Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford," it is probably the most amusing expose of +money manipulation ever seen on the stage. + +THE INTRUSION OF JIMMY. By P. G. Wodehouse. Illustrations by Will Grefe. + +Social and club life in London and New York, an amateur burglary +adventure and a love story. Dramatized under the title of "A Gentleman +of Leisure," it furnishes hours of laughter to the play-goers. + + * * * * * + +Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York + + * * * * * + +THE NOVELS OF WINSTON CHURCHILL + +Skillful in plot, dramatic in episode, powerful and original in climax. + +MR. CREWE'S CAREER. Illus. by A.I. Keller and Kinneys. + +A New England state is under the political domination of a railway and +Mr. Crewe, a millionaire, seizes the moment when the cause of the people +against corporation greed is being espoused by an ardent young attorney, +to further his own interest in a political way, by taking up this cause. + +The daughter of the railway president, with the sunny humor and shrewd +common sense of the New England girl, plays no small part in the +situation as well as in the life of the young attorney who stands so +unflinchingly for clean politics. + +THE CROSSING. Illus. by S. Adamson and L. Baylis. + +Describing the battle of Fort Moultrie and the British fleet in the +harbor of Charleston, the blazing of the Kentucky wilderness, the +expedition of Clark and his handful of dauntless followers in Illinois, +the beginning of civilization along the Ohio and Mississippi, and the +treasonable schemes builded against Washington and the Federal +Government. + +CONISTON. Illustrated by Florence Scovel Shinn. + +A deft blending of love and politics distinguishes this book. The author +has taken for his hero a New Englander, a crude man of the tannery, who +rose to political prominence by his own powers, and then surrendered all +for the love of a woman. + +It is a sermon on civic righteousness, and a love story of a deep +motive. + +THE CELEBRITY. An Episode. + +An inimitable bit of comedy describing an interchange of personalities +between a celebrated author and a bicycle salesman of the most blatant +type. The story is adorned with some character sketches more living than +pen work. It is purest, keenest fun--no such piece of humor has appeared +for years: it is American to the core. + +THE CRISIS. Illus. by Howard Chandler Christy. + +A book that presents the great crisis in our national life with splendid +power and with a sympathy, a sincerity, and a patriotism that are +inspiring. The several scenes in the book in which Abraham Lincoln +figures must be read in their entirety for they give a picture of that +great, magnetic, loveable man, which has been drawn with evident +affection and exceptional success. + + * * * * * + +Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York + + * * * * * + +B. M. Bower's Novels + +Thrilling Western Romances + +Large 12 mos. Handsomely bound in cloth. Illustrated + + * * * * * + +CHIP, OF THE FLYING U + +A breezy wholesome tale, wherein the love affairs of Chip and Delia +Whitman are charmingly and humorously told. Chip's jealousy of Dr. Cecil +Grantham, who turns out to be a big, blue eyed young woman is very +amusing. A clever, realistic story of the American Cow-puncher. + +THE HAPPY FAMILY + +A lively and amusing story, dealing with the adventures of eighteen +jovial, big hearted Montana cowboys. Foremost amongst them, we find +Ananias Green, known as Andy, whose imaginative powers cause many lively +and exciting adventures. + +HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT + +A realistic story of the plains, describing a gay party of Easterners +who exchange a cottage at Newport for the rough homeliness of a Montana +ranch-house. The merry-hearted cowboys, the fascinating Beatrice, and +the effusive Sir Redmond, become living, breathing personalities. + +THE RANGE DWELLERS + +Here are everyday, genuine cowboys, just as they really exist. Spirited +action, a range feud between two families, and a Romeo and Juliet +courtship make this a bright, jolly, entertaining story, without a dull +page. + +THE LURE OF DIM TRAILS + +A vivid portrayal of the experience of an Eastern author, among the +cowboys of the West, in search of "local color" for a new novel. "Bud" +Thurston learns many a lesson while following "the lure of the dim +trails" but the hardest, and probably the most welcome, is that of love. + +THE LONESOME TRAIL + +"Weary" Davidson leaves the ranch for Portland, where conventional city +life palls on him. A little branch of sage brush, pungent with the +atmosphere of the prairie, and the recollection of a pair of large brown +eyes soon compel his return. A wholesome love story. + +THE LONG SHADOW + +A vigorous Western story, sparkling with the free, outdoor, life of a +mountain ranch. Its scenes shift rapidly and its actors play the game of +life fearlessly and like men. It is a fine love story from start to +finish. + + * * * * * + +Ask for complete free list of G. & D. 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How he does it forms the basis of a lively +story. + +CASTLE CRANEYCROW. + +The story revolves round the abduction of a young American woman, her +imprisonment in an old castle and the adventures created through her +rescue. + +COWARDICE COURT. + +An amusing social feud in the Adirondacks in which an English girl is +tempted into being a traitor by a romantic young American, forms the +plot. + +THE DAUGHTER OF ANDERSON CROW. + +The story centers about the adopted daughter of the town marshal in a +western village. Her parentage is shrouded in mystery, and the story +concerns the secret that deviously works to the surface. + +THE MAN FROM BRODNEY'S. + +The hero meets a princess in a far-away island among fanatically hostile +Musselmen. Romantic love making amid amusing situations and exciting +adventures. + +NEDRA. + +A young couple elope from Chicago to go to London traveling as brother +and sister. They are shipwrecked and a strange mix-up occurs on account +of it. + +THE SHERRODS. + +The scene is the Middle West and centers around a man who leads a double +life. A most enthralling novel. + +TRUXTON KING. + +A handsome good natured young fellow ranges on the earth looking for +romantic adventures and is finally enmeshed in most complicated +intrigues in Graustark. + + * * * * * + +Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York + + * * * * * + +LOUIS TRACY'S CAPTIVATING AND EXHILARATING ROMANCES + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list + + * * * * * + +CYNTHIA'S CHAUFFEUR. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy. + +A pretty American girl in London is touring in a car with a chauffeur +whose identity puzzles her. An amusing mystery. + +THE STOWAWAY GIRL. Illustrated by Nesbitt Benson. + +A shipwreck, a lovely girl stowaway, a rascally captain, a fascinating +officer, and thrilling adventures in South Seas. + +THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS. + +Love and the salt sea, a helpless ship whirled into the hands of +cannibals, desperate fighting and a tender romance. + +THE MESSAGE. Illustrated by Joseph Cummings Chase. + +A bit of parchment found in the figurehead of an old vessel tells of a +buried treasure. A thrilling mystery develops. + +THE PILLAR OF LIGHT. + +The pillar thus designated was a lighthouse, and the author tells with +exciting detail the terrible dilemma of its cut-off inhabitants. + +THE WHEEL O'FORTUNE. With illustrations by James Montgomery Flagg. + +The story deals with the finding of a papyrus containing the particulars +of some of the treasures of the Queen of Sheba. + +A SON OF THE IMMORTALS. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy. + +A young American is proclaimed king of a little Balkan Kingdom, and a +pretty Parisian art student is the power behind the throne. + +THE WINGS OF THE MORNING. + +A sort of Robinson Crusoe _redivivus_ with modern settings and a very +pretty love story added. The hero and heroine are the only survivors of +a wreck, and have many thrilling adventures on their desert island. + + * * * * * + +Ask for complete free list of G. & D. 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