ESCAPE
"_But next day passed, and next day yet
With still some cause to wait one day more._"
--Robert Browning.
When Grover presently entered her room with lunch, Virginia was quick
to perceive an estrangement. The woman's face was set in stern lines,
and her eyes were cast down, except at such moments as she fancied that
Virginia was not looking, when she sent furtive, searching glances at
the wistful face upon the pillow.
Virginia wondered what had happened, But felt too languid to inquire,
dreading that some kind of a scene might follow. By degrees she
gathered, more from hint than direct speech, that the main grievance
was being turned out of the room during the two nights of delirium.
After what her mother had just revealed, of her unconscious ravings,
she could not but be thankful that Grover had not heard them. She did
not know of the short dialogue which took place between the two deadly
enemies, outside her door that morning.
Mrs. Mynors had arisen from the sofa and gone out to speak to Grover,
who was in waiting outside with the early tea for her mistress,
Virginia being still asleep.
"I hope Mrs. Gaunt's better, ma'am?" Grover asked, with prim frigidity.
"Better? Poor unhappy child! It might be better for her perhaps if
there were no chance of her recovery," was the unlooked-for reply,
delivered with exaggerated emphasis.
"Indeed, ma'am?"
"Yes, indeed, and indeed! God help her, poor innocent lamb! You need
not think to keep anything dark in future, you and your wretched
master! In her delirium the unhappy creature has let out everything.
And you--you must have known! You who came here with her as his spy!
Mounting guard over her night and day, lest she should let her people
know of his diabolical cruelty. I have outwitted you, and now I know
everything. I shall find means to protect my injured child!"
"I have no idea what you mean, ma'am," replied Grover, inflexibly
respectful.
"Oh, no, of course not! You may as well drop the mask. I know you, and
I know him," was the instant retort, as Mrs. Mynors, in her elegant
wrapper, disappeared into her own room.
Grover went about all that day racking her brains as to what she ought
to do. She was quite confident that she had been turned out of the room
in order that these revelations--in which she did not believe--might be
made, or be said to have been made. They were part, she was sure, of
some plot or scheme which was being hatched. Ought she to write to Mr.
Gaunt, and tell him that she thought he had better come to Worthing and
take his wife home? She was a slow-witted, but very sensible woman, and
she feared that, should she take such a course, Gaunt might fear that
things were more serious than they actually were. Yet she distrusted
Mrs. Mynors profoundly, and watched her as closely as she could. She
overheard her say to the doctor, outside Virginia's room:
"She ought to be kept very quiet; her nerves are all wrong. Mind you
make her stay in bed as long as you can. Don't let her think of
travelling till next week at the soonest."
She also saw her come out of the sick-room with the letter just written
by Virginia to Gaunt in her hand. She carried it into her own room, and
something in the way she looked at it produced in Grover an
overpowering impression that she did not mean to forward it.
With a determination to ascertain, the woman knocked at the door some
minutes later, and was sure she heard the rustle of paper and the hasty
closing of a drawer before Mrs. Mynors told her to come in.
"Beg pardon, ma'am, but should I take Mrs. Gaunt's letter to post? It's
almost time."
"Thanks, I have just sent it off."
This made the servant certain that her suspicion was correct. She went
slowly into Virginia's room, more and more perplexed as to what she
ought to do, and wondering what were her mistress's own feelings in the
matter. Since the Bignor episode, she had been so shaken in her faith
in Virginia that she was half ready to believe that it was a case of
like mother, like daughter, and that the dainty butterfly would never
return to gloomy Omberleigh. The idea filled her with resentment. "His
fault," she muttered to herself. "Such a place, enough to give you a
fit of the blues, dirty and dull and drab; he ought to have had it all
done up for her--make her think that he wanted to please her! He don't
know enough to go indoors when it rains, not where a woman's concerned,
that's very certain. But, oh, gracious goodness, what will happen to
him if she turns out a light one? It's my belief he'd never stand it.
He'd go mad or cut his throat."
Gloomily she ran ribbons into under-linen, made the bed, and went about
her usual sick-room duties. All the time she was wondering whether she
could not "say something." The difficulty lay in thinking what to say.
Virginia was very quiet--unusually so. When Grover had gone out, she
locked the door, put on a dressing-gown, and sat up by the fire. She
found herself stronger than she had thought. Her fever having passed,
she was all right. She was certain that there was no reason why she
should not travel on Wednesday; but she determined to say nothing about
it to her mother.
When next Mrs. Mynors came in to see her, she was lying with eyes half
closed, and whispered that she felt very weak, and was not equal to
talking. This was satisfactory, and the visitor crept away.
Next morning the girl, with the elasticity of youth, awoke feeling very
much better. Grover could not but remark it. Yet, when her mother came
in, she was languid and monosyllabic.
She could not, however, escape a renewal of the bombardment of
yesterday, with regard to her return to Omberleigh. Mrs. Mynors brought
in her work after lunch, and attacked the subject with determination.
She was met with a meekness which surprised her. Virginia owned that
she was at present too unwell to face anything difficult--to undergo
any trying experience. Next week it would be different. She thought
they might postpone serious discussion. The wind was somewhat taken out
of her opponent's sails, but there was no doubt this depression and
invalidism was satisfactory in her eyes. She made, as she thought,
quite certain that her daughter had no intention of travelling at
present.
"I'm sure Osbert does not expect me. He has not written at all. He is
waiting to hear again, I suppose."
"Not written! When I told him how ill you are! Oh, Virgie, what a brute
the man is!"
The speaker omitted to mention that in her letter to her son-in-law she
had begged him not to write to Virgie, as his letters "agitated her
unaccountably," and that she herself had heard from him that morning to
the effect that he hoped a doctor had been called in.
She went away after a while, and wrote to Gerald in town.
"I think there is no doubt she is growing to see that we are right,"
she wrote. "I am letting her come along at her own pace. The discovery
that we know her secret has shaken her, and she has at least given up
all idea of travelling at present. That being so, I shall run up to
town to-morrow morning, as there are several things I must do. You and
I can return here together in the evening. I will come up by the early
express, and if you were to take tickets for the matinee at the
Criterion, I should not object. One gets so bored here with invalids
all day."
* * * * *
That night when Grover came into the room to make the final
arrangements, she found Mrs. Mynors there, in the act of saying good
night to a limp and disconsolate daughter.
"I am running up to town on business by the 8:4 to-morrow, Grover,"
said she, turning round with that alarming sweetness which convinced
the hearer that some demand upon her good-nature would be immediately
made. "I wonder whether, while you are making Mrs. Gaunt's tea
to-morrow morning, you would bring me a cup; these lodging-house people
are so disagreeable about a little thing like that! Bring it at seven
o'clock sharp, if you would be so kind."
"Very well, mum," replied Grover in her gruffest tones, which were very
gruff indeed.
"Good-bye, my precious; rest well," murmured the lady, bending over the
bed. "We shall cheer up when Gerald comes back, and if you are very
good I will beg the doctor to let you get up on Thursday."
"If I feel well enough," sighed Virginia, closing her eyes.
Grover felt all her distrust reviving. She was certain that Virgie was
feeling almost completely recovered. Was there anything up? Some plot?
Had young Rosenberg planned for the mother to be away in town while he
came down here and carried off Virginia in his car?
She turned from the closing of the door upon Mrs. Mynors' exit, with a
very grim mouth. The patient was sitting bolt upright in bed, with an
expression so changed, so alert, that she paused just where she stood,
in amazement.
"Grover," panted the girl, in a shaken, excited voice, "come here; I
want to speak to you."
Grover approached, slowly and doubtfully, suspicion written all over
her. When she was quite near, Virginia drew her down so that she sat
upon the bed, and put her arms round her, laying her head upon a
singularly unresponsive bosom.
"Grover, I want you to help me," she whispered. "I am going to do
something desperate--something secret--and I can't do it unless you
stand by me."
The woman paused. She was angry with herself for being influenced, as
influenced she undoubtedly was, by the clinging arms, and the nestling
golden head. "Now, what have you got in your head, ma'am?" she asked,
as coldly as she could. She almost jumped when she heard the reply.
"_I want you to help me run away._"
"Never!" Putting aside the girlish embrace, she rose to her feet, her
homely face stern and reproachful. "Never! Not while I'm in his
service! He may have scared you, as your mother tells me he has, but if
so, you should have known better. It's only because you know so little
of him, and he so unused to women. Oh, my dear, my dear, I don't
suppose for a minute you'll listen to me, but I must say it! You go
back, my dear, and do your duty! Your place is there, with him! You
chose him, and it's God's law that you should cleave to him, though I
have no right to be talking like this, ma'am, but if it was the last
word I ever said----"
"Grover, Grover," cried Virginia, grasping a solid arm and shaking it,
"what on earth are you talking about? Isn't that just what I want you
to do? To take me back to Omberleigh? What did you think I meant?"
Grover's face was a study. It was as though layer after layer of gloom
and apprehension passed from its surface.
"That what you mean? Run away _home_?" she panted.
"To Omberleigh, yes." She could not bring her lips to utter the word
_home_, but Grover did not remark such a detail, though Gaunt had
noted it fast enough in the letter she wrote him the previous week.
"I don't know whether it is that my chill has made me a little mad,"
whispered Virgie, "but I feel as if I am in prison. I feel as if they
had made up their minds that I should not go back, and you know I must.
I have overstayed my time already."
"Well, ma'am, if that's what you want, to go back where you belong, you
shall go, though an army stood in the way," cried Grover, with such
goodwill that Virgie flung her arms round her again, this time to meet
with a warm response. Then she slid out of bed, and stood, her arms
outstretched, making graceful motions to show that she was strong and
vigorous.
"I am a horrid little cheat," she said, smiling. "I am afraid I tried
to make mother think I was feeling very bad, so that she might not be
afraid to go off by the early train and leave me! Grover, I have looked
up all the trains. You must pack to-night, and we can get to town by
one o'clock. We must go straight through; there is a train with a
dining-car, getting us to Derby at 6:34, and we can wire for the car to
meet us. I hope I am not being very silly, but it seems to me the only
way to get free of it all. Another thing is the parting from Pansy. I
shall go without saying anything at all to her, and leave a letter for
her. She is so happy here, she will not really miss me, and it will
save her a bad fit of crying if I slip away. Me, too, for that matter,"
she added, colouring. "I can't help feeling the parting, you know,
Grover."
"That I well believe, ma'am, but it is for a time. She is doing so
nicely that she will be able to come to Omberleigh before long, and
think how she will enjoy lying on the terrace and playing with Cosmo
and Damian."
Virgie had to laugh, though a pang shot through her heart. Little did
this good, loyal Grover know the dreadful truth!
At the thought of the malice that awaited her, the unknown suffering in
store, she flinched, and for a moment felt faint. Then she rallied.
This precipitate flight was, she knew, her only chance of preserving
her self-respect. When Gerald returned, it would all be different
somehow. Now, before she had time to think, she must make her dash for
duty. What she had said in her delirium she knew not; but she knew well
enough that, during those confidential moments, seated in the field
below the Roman Villa, she had admitted her marital unhappiness, and
that Gerald had understood.
"I can't understand one thing," she said, as she lay watching Grover
draw out her trunk, open it, and begin her packing methodically. "And
that is, why Mr. Gaunt has not written to me since I took my chill."
"I think I can tell you, ma'am. It is because your letters to him have
been stopped."
"Grover!"
"If, when we get home, ma'am, you find that he has had the letter you
wrote this afternoon, why, I'll beg your mamma's pardon for what I have
said. But I am sure she opened it, and I don't believe she ever sent it
to post. Another thing, ma'am. Muriel (the lodging-house maid) told me
that Mrs. Mynors had a letter with the Manton postmark yesterday. Why
didn't she tell you she had heard?"
"I thought it so strange he did not write," said Virgie, knitting
puzzled brows. "But, Grover, they have no right to do such things! Even
if mamma thinks, as she seems to think, that he--Mr. Gaunt--is not--I
mean, if she does not like him, and does not want me to go away, she
has no right to tamper with letters, do you think?"
"It's not for me, ma'am, to pass any remarks upon what your mamma does.
But I think it is for me to let you know she done it," replied Grover,
with demure emphasis. Virgie could not help smiling, in spite of her
tumultuous emotions.
Grover proved a most able accomplice and conspirator. She duly brought
tea to Mrs. Mynors next morning, and said, in subdued tones, that Mrs.
Gaunt had not passed a very good night. She was now sleeping, and had
better not be disturbed. Would Mrs. Mynors mind slipping downstairs
without coming into her room?
This had the desired effect. The elder Virginia departed for her little
jaunt to town--travelling by the first-class-only express--with a
perfectly serene mind. Virginia the younger was, she felt convinced,
wholly contented with her bed for that day. Grover meanwhile completed
her preparations with the utmost composure. She went down, paid the
landlady, and explained to her that Mrs. Gaunt was called home
unexpectedly, and wanted to slip away without distressing the little
lady.
Noiselessly the trunks were carried downstairs, noiselessly though,
with beating heart, Virginia followed. It was not until Worthing was
left behind; not, indeed, until they had passed, safe and unrecognised,
through London, that she could relax the tension of her will.
Now the die was cast. She had chosen. She was doing what she firmly
believed to be right. Once before, when in straits, she had taken a way
out which seemed the only way, but which she yet knew to be unworthy of
her. Now she was blindly doing the hard thing because it was the right
thing. The consequences were not in her hands.