FOR a quarter of an hour the drawing-room remained empty. At the end of
that time the council in the boudoir broke up. Lady Lydiard led the way
back into the drawing-room, followed by Hardyman, Isabel being left to
look after the dog. Before the door closed behind him, Hardyman turned
round to reiterate his last medical directions--or, in plainer words, to
take a last look at Isabel.
“Plenty of water, Miss Isabel, for the dog to lap, and a little bread or
biscuit, if he wants something to eat. Nothing more, if you please, till
I see him to-morrow.”
“Thank you, sir. I will take the greatest care--”
At that point Lady Lydiard cut short the interchange of instructions
and civilities. “Shut the door, if you please, Mr. Hardyman. I feel the
draught. Many thanks! I am really at a loss to tell you how gratefully I
feel your kindness. But for you my poor little dog might be dead by this
time.”
Hardyman answered, in the quiet melancholy monotone which was habitual
with him, “Your Ladyship need feel no further anxiety about the dog.
Only be careful not to overfeed him. He will do very well under Miss
Isabel’s care. By the bye, her family name is Miller--is it not? Is she
related to the Warwickshire Millers of Duxborough House?”
Lady Lydiard looked at him with an expression of satirical surprise.
“Mr. Hardyman,” she said, “this makes the fourth time you have
questioned me about Isabel. You seem to take a great interest in my
little companion. Don’t make any apologies, pray! You pay Isabel a
compliment, and, as I am very fond of her, I am naturally gratified when
I find her admired. At the same time,” she added, with one of her abrupt
transitions of language, “I had my eye on you, and I had my eye on her,
when you were talking in the next room; and I don’t mean to let you make
a fool of the girl. She is not in your line of life, and the sooner you
know it the better. You make me laugh when you ask if she is related to
gentlefolks. She is the orphan daughter of a chemist in the country. Her
relations haven’t a penny to bless themselves with, except an old aunt,
who lives in a village on two or three hundred a year. I heard of the
girl by accident. When she lost her father and mother, her aunt offered
to take her. Isabel said, ‘No, thank you; I will not be a burden on
a relation who has only enough for herself. A girl can earn an honest
living if she tries; and I mean to try’--that’s what she said. I admired
her independence,” her Ladyship proceeded, ascending again to the higher
regions of thought and expression. “My niece’s marriage, just at that
time, had left me alone in this great house. I proposed to Isabel to
come to me as companion and reader for a few weeks, and to decide for
herself whether she liked the life or not. We have never been separated
since that time. I could hardly be fonder of her if she were my own
daughter; and she returns my affection with all her heart. She has
excellent qualities--prudent, cheerful, sweet-tempered; with good sense
enough to understand what her place is in the world, as distinguished
from her place in my regard. I have taken care, for her own sake, never
to leave that part of the question in any doubt. It would be cruel
kindness to deceive her as to her future position when she marries. I
shall take good care that the man who pays his addresses to her is a man
in her rank of life. I know but too well, in the case of one of my own
relatives, what miseries unequal marriages bring with them. Excuse me
for troubling you at this length on domestic matters. I am very fond
of Isabel; and a girl’s head is so easily turned. Now you know what her
position really is, you will also know what limits there must be to the
expression of your interest in her. I am sure we understand each other;
and I say no more.”
Hardyman listened to this long harangue with the immovable gravity which
was part of his character--except when Isabel had taken him by surprise.
When her Ladyship gave him the opportunity of speaking on his side,
he had very little to say, and that little did not suggest that he had
greatly profited by what he had heard. His mind had been full of Isabel
when Lady Lydiard began, and it remained just as full of her, in just
the same way, when Lady Lydiard had done.
“Yes,” he remarked quietly, “Miss Isabel is an uncommonly nice girl, as
you say. Very pretty, and such frank, unaffected manners. I don’t deny
that I feel an interest in her. The young ladies one meets in society
are not much to my taste. Miss Isabel is my taste.”
Lady Lydiard’s face assumed a look of blank dismay. “I am afraid I have
failed to convey my exact meaning to you,” she said.
Hardyman gravely declared that he understood her perfectly. “Perfectly!”
he repeated, with his impenetrable obstinacy. “Your Ladyship exactly
expresses my opinion of Miss Isabel. Prudent, and cheerful, and
sweet-tempered, as you say--all the qualities in a woman that I admire.
With good looks, too--of course, with good looks. She will be a perfect
treasure (as you remarked just now) to the man who marries her. I may
claim to know something about it. I have twice narrowly escaped being
married myself; and, though I can’t exactly explain it, I’m all the
harder to please in consequence. Miss Isabel pleases me. I think I
have said that before? Pardon me for saying it again. I’ll call again
to-morrow morning and look at the dog as early as eleven o’clock, if you
will allow me. Later in the day I must be off to France to attend a sale
of horses. Glad to have been of any use to your Ladyship, I am sure.
Good-morning.”
Lady Lydiard let him go, wisely resigning any further attempt to
establish an understanding between her visitor and herself.
“He is either a person of very limited intelligence when he is away from
his stables,” she thought, “or he deliberately declines to take a plain
hint when it is given to him. I can’t drop his acquaintance, on Tommie’s
account. The only other alternative is to keep Isabel out of his way. My
good little girl shall not drift into a false position while I am living
to look after her. When Mr. Hardyman calls to-morrow she shall be out
on an errand. When he calls the next time she shall be upstairs with a
headache. And if he tries it again she shall be away at my house in the
country. If he makes any remarks on her absence--well, he will find that
I can be just as dull of understanding as he is when the occasion calls
for it.”
Having arrived at this satisfactory solution of the difficulty, Lady
Lydiard became conscious of an irresistible impulse to summon Isabel to
her presence and caress her. In the nature of a warm-hearted woman,
this was only the inevitable reaction which followed the subsidence of
anxiety about the girl, after her own resolution had set that anxiety at
rest. She threw open the door and made one of her sudden appearances at
the boudoir. Even in the fervent outpouring of her affection, there was
still the inherent abruptness of manner which so strongly marked Lady
Lydiard’s character in all the relations of life.
“Did I give you a kiss, this morning?” she asked, when Isabel rose to
receive her.
“Yes, my Lady,” said the girl, with her charming smile.
“Come, then, and give me a kiss in return. Do you love me? Very well,
then, treat me like your mother. Never mind ‘my lady’ this time. Give me
a good hug!”
Something in those homely words, or something perhaps in the look that
accompanied them, touched sympathies in Isabel which seldom showed
themselves on the surface. Her smiling lips trembled, the bright tears
rose in her eyes. “You are too good to me,” she murmured, with her head
on Lady Lydiard’s bosom. “How can I ever love you enough in return?”
Lady Lydiard patted the pretty head that rested on her with such filial
tenderness. “There! there!” she said, “Go back and play with Tommie, my
dear. We may be as fond of each other as we like; but we mustn’t cry.
God bless you! Go away--go away!”
She turned aside quickly; her own eyes were moistening, and it was part
of her character to be reluctant to let Isabel see it. “Why have I made
a fool of myself?” she wondered, as she approached the drawing-room
door. “It doesn’t matter. I am all the better for it. Odd, that Mr.
Hardyman should have made me feel fonder of Isabel than ever!”
With those reflections she re-entered the drawing-room--and suddenly
checked herself with a start. “Good Heavens!” she exclaimed irritably,
“how you frightened me! Why was I not told you were here?”
Having left the drawing-room in a state of solitude, Lady Lydiard on her
return found herself suddenly confronted with a gentleman, mysteriously
planted on the hearth-rug in her absence. The new visitor may be rightly
described as a gray man. He had gray hair, eyebrows, and whiskers; he
wore a gray coat, waistcoat, and trousers, and gray gloves. For
the rest, his appearance was eminently suggestive of wealth and
respectability and, in this case, appearances were really to be trusted.
The gray man was no other than Lady Lydiard’s legal adviser, Mr. Troy.
“I regret, my Lady, that I should have been so unfortunate as to startle
you,” he said, with a certain underlying embarrassment in his manner.
“I had the honor of sending word by Mr. Moody that I would call at this
hour, on some matters of business connected with your Ladyship’s house
property. I presumed that you expected to find me here, waiting your
pleasure--”
Thus far Lady Lydiard had listened to her legal adviser, fixing her eyes
on his face in her usually frank, straightforward way. She now stopped
him in the middle of a sentence, with a change of expression in her own
face which was undisguisedly a change to alarm.
“Don’t apologize, Mr. Troy,” she said. “I am to blame for forgetting
your appointment and for not keeping my nerves under proper control.”
She paused for a moment and took a seat before she said her next words.
“May I ask,” she resumed, “if there is something unpleasant in the
business that brings you here?”
“Nothing whatever, my Lady; mere formalities, which can wait till
to-morrow or next day, if you wish it.”
Lady Lydiard’s fingers drummed impatiently on the table. “You have known
me long enough, Mr. Troy, to know that I cannot endure suspense. You
_have_ something unpleasant to tell me.”
The lawyer respectfully remonstrated. “Really, Lady Lydiard!--” he
began.
“It won’t do, Mr. Troy! I know how you look at me on ordinary occasions,
and I see how you look at me now. You are a very clever lawyer; but,
happily for the interests that I commit to your charge, you are also a
thoroughly honest man. After twenty years’ experience of you, you can’t
deceive _me_. You bring me bad news. Speak at once, sir, and speak
plainly.”
Mr. Troy yielded--inch by inch, as it were. “I bring news which, I fear,
may annoy your Ladyship.” He paused, and advanced another inch. “It is
news which I only became acquainted with myself on entering this house.”
He waited again, and made another advance. “I happened to meet your
Ladyship’s steward, Mr. Moody, in the hall--”
“Where is he?” Lady Lydiard interposed angrily. “I can make _him_ speak
out, and I will. Send him here instantly.”
The lawyer made a last effort to hold off the coming disclosure a little
longer. “Mr. Moody will be here directly,” he said. “Mr. Moody requested
me to prepare your Ladyship--”
“Will you ring the bell, Mr. Troy, or must I?”
Moody had evidently been waiting outside while the lawyer spoke for him.
He saved Mr. Troy the trouble of ringing the bell by presenting himself
in the drawing-room. Lady Lydiard’s eyes searched his face as he
approached. Her bright complexion faded suddenly. Not a word more passed
her lips. She looked, and waited.
In silence on his part, Moody laid an open sheet of paper on the table.
The paper quivered in his trembling hand.
Lady Lydiard recovered herself first. “Is that for me?” she asked.
“Yes, my Lady.”
She took up the paper without an instant’s hesitation. Both the men
watched her anxiously as she read it.
The handwriting was strange to her. The words were these:--
“I hereby certify that the bearer of these lines, Robert Moody by name,
has presented to me the letter with which he was charged, addressed to
myself, with the seal intact. I regret to add that there is, to say the
least of it, some mistake. The inclosure referred to by the anonymous
writer of the letter, who signs ‘a friend in need,’ has not reached me.
No five-hundred pound bank-note was in the letter when I opened it.
My wife was present when I broke the seal, and can certify to this
statement if necessary. Not knowing who my charitable correspondent is
(Mr. Moody being forbidden to give me any information), I can only take
this means of stating the case exactly as it stands, and hold myself at
the disposal of the writer of the letter. My private address is at the
head of the page.--Samuel Bradstock, Rector, St. Anne’s, Deansbury,
London.”
Lady Lydiard dropped the paper on the table. For the moment, plainly as
the Rector’s statement was expressed, she appeared to be incapable of
understanding it. “What, in God’s name, does this mean?” she asked.
The lawyer and the steward looked at each other. Which of the two was
entitled to speak first? Lady Lydiard gave them no time to decide.
“Moody,” she said sternly, “you took charge of the letter--I look to you
for an explanation.”
Moody’s dark eyes flashed. He answered Lady Lydiard without caring to
conceal that he resented the tone in which she had spoken to him.
“I undertook to deliver the letter at its address,” he said. “I found
it, sealed, on the table. Your Ladyship has the clergyman’s written
testimony that I handed it to him with the seal unbroken. I have done my
duty; and I have no explanation to offer.”
Before Lady Lydiard could speak again, Mr. Troy discreetly interfered.
He saw plainly that his experience was required to lead the
investigation in the right direction.
“Pardon me, my Lady,” he said, with that happy mixture of the positive
and the polite in his manner, of which lawyers alone possess the secret.
“There is only one way of arriving at the truth in painful matters of
this sort. We must begin at the beginning. May I venture to ask your
Ladyship a question?”
Lady Lydiard felt the composing influence of Mr. Troy. “I am at your
disposal, sir,” she said, quietly.
“Are you absolutely certain that you inclosed the bank-note in the
letter?” the lawyer asked.
“I certainly believe I inclosed it,” Lady Lydiard answered. “But I was so
alarmed at the time by the sudden illness of my dog, that I do not feel
justified in speaking positively.”
“Was anybody in the room with your Ladyship when you put the inclosure
in the letter--as you believe?”
“_I_ was in the room,” said Moody. “I can swear that I saw her Ladyship
put the bank-note in the letter, and the letter in the envelope.”
“And seal the envelope?” asked Mr. Troy.
“No, sir. Her Ladyship was called away into the next room to the dog,
before she could seal the envelope.”
Mr. Troy addressed himself once more to Lady Lydiard. “Did your Ladyship
take the letter into the next room with you?”
“I was too much alarmed to think of it, Mr. Troy. I left it here, on the
table.”
“With the envelope open?”
“Yes.”
“How long were you absent in the other room?”
“Half an hour or more.”
“Ha!” said Mr. Troy to himself. “This complicates it a little.” He
reflected for a while, and then turned again to Moody. “Did any of the
servants know of this bank-note being in her Ladyship’s possession?”
“Not one of them,” Moody answered.
“Do you suspect any of the servants?”
“Certainly not, sir.”
“Are there any workmen employed in the house?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you know of any persons who had access to the room while Lady
Lydiard was absent from it?”
“Two visitors called, sir.”
“Who were they?”
“Her Ladyship’s nephew, Mr. Felix Sweetsir, and the Honorable Alfred
Hardyman.”
Mr. Troy shook his head irritably. “I am not speaking of gentlemen of
high position and repute,” he said. “It’s absurd even to mention Mr.
Sweetsir and Mr. Hardyman. My question related to strangers who might
have obtained access to the drawing-room--people calling, with her
Ladyship’s sanction, for subscriptions, for instance; or people calling
with articles of dress or ornament to be submitted to her Ladyship’s
inspection.”
“No such persons came to the house with my knowledge,” Moody answered.
Mr. Troy suspended the investigation, and took a turn thoughtfully in
the room. The theory on which his inquiries had proceeded thus far had
failed to produce any results. His experience warned him to waste
no more time on it, and to return to the starting-point of the
investigation--in other words, to the letter. Shifting his point of
view, he turned again to Lady Lydiard, and tried his questions in a new
direction.
“Mr. Moody mentioned just now,” he said, “that your Ladyship was called
into the next room before you could seal your letter. On your return to
this room, did you seal the letter?”
“I was busy with the dog,” Lady Lydiard answered. “Isabel Miller was of
no use in the boudoir, and I told her to seal it for me.”
Mr. Troy started. The new direction in which he was pushing his
inquiries began to look like the right direction already. “Miss Isabel
Miller,” he proceeded, “has been a resident under your Ladyship’s roof
for some little time, I believe?”
“For nearly two years, Mr. Troy.”
“As your Ladyship’s companion and reader?”
“As my adopted daughter,” her Ladyship answered, with marked emphasis.
Wise Mr. Troy rightly interpreted the emphasis as a warning to him to
suspend the examination of her Ladyship, and to address to Mr. Moody the
far more serious questions which were now to come.
“Did anyone give you the letter before you left the house with it?” he
said to the steward. “Or did you take it yourself?”
“I took it myself, from the table here.”
“Was it sealed?”
“Yes.”
“Was anybody present when you took the letter from the table?”
“Miss Isabel was present.”
“Did you find her alone in the room?”
“Yes, sir.”
Lady Lydiard opened her lips to speak, and checked herself. Mr. Troy,
having cleared the ground before him, put the fatal question.
“Mr. Moody,” he said, “when Miss Isabel was instructed to seal the
letter, did she know that a bank-note was inclosed in it?”
Instead of replying, Robert drew back from the lawyer with a look of
horror. Lady Lydiard started to her feet--and checked herself again, on
the point of speaking.
“Answer him, Moody,” she said, putting a strong constraint on herself.
Robert answered very unwillingly. “I took the liberty of reminding
her ladyship that she had left her letter unsealed,” he said. “And
I mentioned as my excuse for speaking,”--he stopped, and corrected
himself--“_I believe_ I mentioned that a valuable inclosure was in the
letter.”
“You believe?” Mr. Troy repeated. “Can’t you speak more positively than
that?”
“_I_ can speak positively,” said Lady Lydiard, with her eyes on the
lawyer. “Moody did mention the inclosure in the letter--in Isabel
Miller’s hearing as well as in mine.” She paused, steadily controlling
herself. “And what of that, Mr. Troy?” she added, very quietly and
firmly.
Mr. Troy answered quietly and firmly, on his side. “I am surprised that
your Ladyship should ask the question,” he said.
“I persist in repeating the question,” Lady Lydiard rejoined. “I say
that Isabel Miller knew of the inclosure in my letter--and I ask, What
of that?”
“And I answer,” retorted the impenetrable lawyer, “that the suspicion of
theft rests on your Ladyship’s adopted daughter, and on nobody else.”
“It’s false!” cried Robert, with a burst of honest indignation. “I wish
to God I had never said a word to you about the loss of the bank-note!
Oh, my Lady! my Lady! don’t let him distress you! What does _he_ know
about it?”
“Hush!” said Lady Lydiard. “Control yourself, and hear what he has to
say.” She rested her hand on Moody’s shoulder, partly to encourage
him, partly to support herself; and, fixing her eyes again on Mr. Troy,
repeated his last words, “‘Suspicion rests on my adopted daughter, and
on nobody else.’ Why on nobody else?”
“Is your Ladyship prepared to suspect the Rector of St. Anne’s of
embezzlement, or your own relatives and equals of theft?” Mr. Troy
asked. “Does a shadow of doubt rest on the servants? Not if Mr. Moody’s
evidence is to be believed. Who, to our own certain knowledge, had
access to the letter while it was unsealed? Who was alone in the room
with it? And who knew of the inclosure in it? I leave the answer to your
Ladyship.”
“Isabel Miller is as incapable of an act of theft as I am. There is my
answer, Mr. Troy.”
The lawyer bowed resignedly, and advanced to the door.
“Am I to take your Ladyship’s generous assertion as finally disposing of
the question of the lost bank-note?” he inquired.
Lady Lydiard met the challenge without shrinking from it.
“No!” she said. “The loss of the bank-note is known out of my house.
Other persons may suspect this innocent girl as you suspect her. It is
due to Isabel’s reputation--her unstained reputation, Mr. Troy!--that
she should know what has happened, and should have an opportunity of
defending herself. She is in the next room, Moody. Bring her here.”
Robert’s courage failed him: he trembled at the bare idea of exposing
Isabel to the terrible ordeal that awaited her. “Oh, my Lady!” he
pleaded, “think again before you tell the poor girl that she is
suspected of theft. Keep it a secret from her--the shame of it will
break her heart!”
“Keep it a secret,” said Lady Lydiard, “when the Rector and the Rector’s
wife both know of it! Do you think they will let the matter rest where
it is, even if I could consent to hush it up? I must write to them;
and I can’t write anonymously after what has happened. Put yourself in
Isabel’s place, and tell me if you would thank the person who knew you
to be innocently exposed to a disgraceful suspicion, and who concealed
it from you? Go, Moody! The longer you delay, the harder it will be.”
With his head sunk on his breast, with anguish written in every line
of his face, Moody obeyed. Passing slowly down the short passage which
connected the two rooms, and still shrinking from the duty that had
been imposed on him, he paused, looking through the curtains which hung
over the entrance to the boudoir.