Mrs. Mitcham, not expecting her mistress back till Monday, went on that
Saturday to visit a friend in Camden Town, and when she came back soon
after nine was surprised to find Miss Virginia’s husband on the mat
outside the door of the flat ringing the bell. He, of all people, should
know her mistress wasn’t there, thought Mrs. Mitcham, seeing that it was
in Miss Virginia’s house she was staying.
The carpet on the stairs was thick, and Mrs. Mitcham arrived at
Stephen’s side unnoticed. He was absorbed in ringing. He rang and rang.
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said Mrs. Mitcham respectfully.
He turned quickly. ‘Where is your mistress?’ he inquired.
‘My mistress, sir?’ said Mrs. Mitcham, much surprised. ‘I understood she
was coming back on Monday, sir.’
‘She left the Manor this afternoon on her way home. She ought to have
been here long ago. Have you had no telegram announcing her arrival?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Well, I have,’ he said, looking quite upset, Mrs. Mitcham noticed, and
pulling a telegram out of his overcoat pocket. ‘My wife telegraphed her
mother had started, and asked me to see if she got here safely.’
‘Safely, sir?’ echoed Mrs. Mitcham, surprised at the word.
‘Mrs. Cumfrit was--motoring up. As you know, my wife should not be
worried and made anxious just now,’ said Stephen frowning. ‘It is most
undesirable--most undesirable.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Mrs. Mitcham. ‘But I’m sure there is no cause. Mrs.
Cumfrit will be here presently. It’s not more than nine o’clock, sir.’
‘She left at half-past two.’
‘Allowing for punctures, sir----’ suggested Mrs. Mitcham respectfully.
‘Will you come in, sir?’ she added, unlocking the door and holding it
open for him.
‘Yes--and wait,’ said Stephen in a determined voice.
He went straight into the drawing-room without taking off his overcoat.
That Miss Virginia’s husband was upset was plain to Mrs. Mitcham. He
hardly seemed like the same gentleman who had on his last visit so
nicely called her and her mistress little children and told them to love
one another. She was quite glad to get away from him into her calm
kitchen.
Stephen was very much upset. He had received Virginia’s telegram at six
o’clock, just as he was quietly sitting in his hotel bedroom going over
his sermons and giving them the last important touches. These were
valuable hours, these afternoon and evening hours of the Saturdays
before he preached, and to be taken away from them for any reason was
most annoying. To be taken away from them for this one was more than
annoying, it was gravely disturbing. Again that side-car; again that
young man; as if a whole morning in it and with him were not
sufficiently deplorable. No wonder his poor little darling at home was
anxious. She said so in the telegram. It ran: <i>Mother left for Hertford
Street in Mr. Monckton’s side-car 2.30. Do see if arrived safely.
Anxious.</i>
Two-thirty; and it was then six. He went round at once. He didn’t know
much about motor-cycles, but at the pace he had seen them going he
judged that Monckton, not less swift than his confrères in upsetting the
peace of God’s countryside, would have had time to get to London.
No one, however, was in the flat, not even Mrs. Mitcham, who was bound
to it by duty. He rang in vain. As he went away he inquired of the hall
porter why no one was there, and learned that Mrs. Mitcham had gone out
at three o’clock and had not yet returned, and that Mrs. Cumfrit had
been away for the last week in the country,--which he already only too
well knew.
At half-past seven he called again--his sermons would suffer, he was
painfully aware--but with the same result. It was dark then, and he too
began to feel anxious; not on his mother-in-law’s account, for whatever
happened to her would be entirely her own fault, but on Virginia’s. She
would be in a terrible state if she knew her mother had not reached home
yet. That Mrs. Mitcham should still be absent from her duties he
regarded as not only reprehensible and another proof of Mrs. Cumfrit’s
laxness, but as a sign that she was unaware of her mistress’s impending
return, which was strange.
Immediately after dinner--a bad one, but if it had been good he could
not have appreciated it in his then condition of mind--he went back to
Hertford Street, and unable to believe, in spite of the hall porter’s
assurances, that the flat was still empty, rang and rang, and was found
by Mrs. Mitcham ringing. His mother-in-law must be there by now. She was
inside. He felt she was inside, and had gone to bed tired.
But directly he got in he knew she was not. There was a chill, a silence
about the flat, such as only places abandoned by their inhabitants have.
The drawing-room was as cold and tidy as a corpse. He kept his coat on.
The idea of taking it off in such bleakness would not have occurred to
him. He would have liked to keep his hat on too, for he had gone bald
early, but the teaching of his youth on the subject of ladies’
drawing-rooms and what to do in them prevented him.
Mrs. Mitcham, coming in to light the fire, found him staring out of the
window in the dark. The room was only lit by the shining in of the
street lamps. She was quite sorry for him. She had not supposed him so
much attached to Mrs. Cumfrit. Mrs. Mitcham was herself feeling rather
worried by now, and as she made Catherine’s bed and got her room ready
she had only kept cheerful by recollecting that a car had four tyres,
all of which might puncture, besides innumerable other parts, no doubt
equally able to have things the matter with them.
‘I’ll light the fire, if you please, sir,’ she said.
‘Not for me,’ said Stephen, without moving.
She lit it nevertheless, and also turned on the light by the sofa. She
didn’t like to draw the curtains, because he continued to stand at the
window staring into the street. Watching, thought Mrs. Mitcham; watching
anxiously. She was quite touched.
‘Is there anything you would like, sir?’ she inquired.
‘Nothing,’ said Stephen, his gaze riveted on the street.
Throughout that dreadful night Stephen watched at the window, and Mrs.
Mitcham came in at intervals to see what she could do for him. She made
coffee at eleven o’clock, and brought it to him, and fetched it away
again at midnight cold and untouched. She carried in an armful of
blankets at one o’clock, and arranged a bed for him on the sofa, into
which he did not go. At five she brought him tea, which he did not
drink. At eight she began to get breakfast ready. Throughout the night
he stood at the window, or walked up and down the room, and each time
she saw him he seemed to have grown thinner. Certainly his face looked
sharper than it had the night before. Mrs. Mitcham could not but be
infected by such agitation, though being naturally optimistic she felt
somehow that her mistress was delayed rather than hurt. Still, it was
impossible to see a gentleman like Mr. Colquhoun, a gentleman of great
learning, she had heard, who must know everything about everything and
had preached in St. Paul’s Cathedral,--it was impossible to see such a
gentleman grow thinner with anxiety before one’s eyes without becoming,
in spite of one’s secret faith, anxious too. And the hard fact that her
mistress’s bed had not been slept in stared her in the face.
‘I must wash,’ said Stephen hoarsely, when she told him breakfast was
ready and would do him good.
She conducted him to the bathroom.
‘I must shave,’ he said, looking at her with hollow eyes. ‘I have to
preach this morning. I must go back to my hotel and shave.’
‘Oh no, sir,’ said Mrs. Mitcham; and brought him George’s razors--a
little blunt, but yet razors.
He stared at them. His eyes seemed to become more hollow.
‘Razors?’ he said. ‘Here?’