Mr. Alwynn had returned from his eventful morning call at Vandon very
grave and silent. He shook his head when Ruth came to him in the study
to ask what the result had been, and said Dare would tell her himself on
his return from London, whither he had gone on business.
Ruth went back to the drawing-room. She had not strength or energy to
try to escape from Mrs. Alwynn. Indeed it was a relief not to be alone
with her own thoughts, and to allow her exhausted mind to be towed along
by Mrs. Alwynn's, the bent of whose mind resembled one of those
mechanical toy animals which, when wound up, will run very fast in any
direction, but if adroitly turned, will hurry equally fast the opposite
way. Ruth turned the toy at intervals, and the morning was dragged
through, Mrs. Alwynn in the course of it exploring every realm--known to
her--of human thought, now dipping into the future, and speculating on
spring fashions, now commenting on the present, now dwelling fondly on
the past, the gayly dressed, officer-adorned past of her youth.
There was a meal, and after that it was the afternoon. Ruth supposed
that some time there would be another meal, and then it would be
evening, but it was no good thinking of what was so far away. She
brought her mind back to the present. Mrs. Alwynn had just finished a
detailed account of a difference of opinion between herself and the
curate's wife on the previous day.
"And she had not a word to say, my dear, not a word--quite _hors de
combat_--so I let the matter drop. And you remember that beautiful pig
we killed last week? You should have gone to look at it hanging up,
Ruth, rolling in fat, it was. Well, it is better to give than to
receive, so I shall send her one of the pork-pies. And if you will get
me one of those round baskets which I took the dolls down to the
school-feast in--they are in the lowest shelf of the oak chest in the
hall--I'll send it down to her at once."
Ruth fetched the basket and put it down by her aunt. Reminiscences of
the school-feast still remained in it, in the shape of ends of ribbon
and lace, and Mrs. Alwynn began to empty them out, talking all the time,
when she suddenly stopped short, with an exclamation of surprise.
"Goodness! Well, now! I'm sure! Ruth!"
"What is it, Aunt Fanny?"
"Why, my dear, if there isn't a letter for you under the odds and ends,"
holding it up and gazing resentfully at it; "and now I remember, a
letter came for you on the morning of the school-feast, and I said to
John, 'I sha'n't forward it, because I shall see Ruth this afternoon,'
and, dear me! I just popped it into the basket, for I thought you would
like to have it, and you know how busy I was, Ruth, that day, first one
thing and then another, so much to think of--and--_there it is_."
"I dare say it is of no importance," said Ruth, taking it from her,
while Mrs. Alwynn, repeatedly wondering how such a thing could have
happened to a person so careful as herself, went off with her basket to
the cook.
When she returned in a few minutes she found Ruth standing by the
window, the letter open in her hand, her face without a vestige of
color.
"Why, Ruth," she said, actually noticing the alteration in her
appearance, "is your head bad again?"
Ruth started violently.
"Yes--no. I mean--I think I will go out. The fresh air--"
She could not finish the sentence.
"And that tiresome letter--did it want an answer?"
"None," said Ruth, crushing it up unconsciously.
"Well, now," said Mrs. Alwynn, "that's a good thing, for I'm sure I
shall never forget the way your uncle was in once, when I put a letter
of his in my pocket to give him (it was a plum-colored silk, Ruth, done
with gold beads in front), and then I went into mourning for my poor
dear Uncle James--such an out-of-the-common person he was, Ruth, and
such a beautiful talker--and it was not till six months later--niece's
mourning, you know--that I had the dress on again--and a business I had
to meet it, for all my gowns seem to shrink when they are put by--and I
put my hand in the pocket, and--"
But Ruth had disappeared.
Mrs. Alwynn was perfectly certain at last that something must be wrong
with her niece. Earlier in the day she had had a headache. Reasoning by
analogy, she decided that Ruth must have eaten something at Mrs.
Thursby's dinner-party which had disagreed with her. If any one was ill,
she always attributed it to indigestion. If Mr. Alwynn coughed, or if
she read in the papers that royalty had been unavoidably prevented
attending some function at which its presence had been expected, she
instantly put down both mishaps to the same cause; and when Mrs. Alwynn
had come to a conclusion it was not her habit to keep it to herself.
She told Lady Mary the exact state in which, reasoning always by
analogy, she knew Ruth's health must be, when that lady drove over that
afternoon in the hope of seeing Ruth, partly from curiosity, or, rather,
a Christian anxiety respecting the welfare of others, and partly, too,
from a real feeling of affection for Ruth herself. Mrs. Alwynn bored her
intensely; but she sat on and on in the hope of Ruth's return, who had
gone out, Mrs. Alwynn agreeing with every remark she made, and treating
her with that pleased deference of manner which some middle-class
people, not otherwise vulgar, invariably drop into in the presence of
rank; a Scylla which is only one degree better than the Charybdis of
would-be ease of manner into which others fall. If ever the enormous
advantages of noble birth and ancient family, with all their attendant
heirlooms and hereditary instincts of refinement, chivalrous feeling,
and honor, become in future years a mark for scorn (as already they are
a mark for the envy that calls itself scorn), it will be partly the
fault of the vulgar adoration of the middle classes. Mrs. Alwynn being,
as may possibly have already transpired in the course of this narrative,
a middle-class woman herself, stuck to the hereditary instincts of _her_
class with a vengeance, and when Ruth at last came in Lady Mary was
thankful.
Her cold, pale eyes lighted up a little as she greeted Ruth, and looked
searchingly at her. She saw by the colorless lips and nervous
contraction of the forehead, and by the bright, restless fever of the
eyes that had formerly been so calm and clear, that something was
amiss--terribly amiss.
"I've been telling Lady Mary how poorly you've been, Ruth, ever since
Mrs. Thursby's dinner-party," said Mrs. Alwynn, by way of opening the
conversation.
But in spite of so auspicious a beginning the conversation flagged. Lady
Mary made a few conventional remarks to Ruth, which she answered, and
Mrs. Alwynn also; but there was a constraint which every moment
threatened a silence. Lady Mary proceeded to comment on the poaching
affray of the previous night, and the arrest of a man who had been
seriously injured; but at her mention of the subject Ruth became so
silent, and Mrs. Alwynn so voluble, that she felt it was useless to stay
any longer, and had to take her leave without a word with Ruth.
"Something is wrong with that girl," she said to herself, as she drove
back to Atherstone. "I know what it is. Charles has been behaving in his
usual manner, and as there is no one else to point out to him how
infamous such conduct is, I shall have to do it myself. Shameful! That
charming, interesting girl! And yet, and yet, there was a look in her
face more like some great anxiety than disappointment. If she had had a
disappointment, I do not think she would have let any one see it. Those
Deyncourts are all too proud to show their feelings, though they have
got them, too, somewhere. Perhaps, on the whole, considering how
excessively disagreeable and scriptural Charles can be, and what
unexpected turns he can give to things, I had better say nothing to him
at present."
The moment Lady Mary had left the house, Ruth hurried to her uncle's
study. He was not there. He had not yet come in. She gave a gesture of
despair, and flung herself down in the old leather chair opposite to his
own, on which many a one had sat who had come to him for help or
consolation. All the buttons had been gradually worn off that chair by
restless or heavy visitors. Some had been lost, but others--the greater
part, I am glad to say--Mr. Alwynn had found and had deposited in a
Sèvres cup on the mantle-piece, till the wet afternoon should come when
he and his long packing-needle should restore them to their home.
The room was very quiet. On the mantle-piece the little conscientious
silver clock ticked, orderly, gently (till Ruth could hardly bear the
sound), then hesitated, and struck a soft, low tone. She started to her
feet, and paced up and down, up and down. Would he never come in? She
dared not go out to look for him for fear of missing him. Why did not he
come back when she wanted him so terribly? She sat down again. She
tried to be patient. It was no good. Would he never come?
She heard a sound, rushed out to meet him in the passage, and pulled him
into the study.
"Uncle John," she gasped, holding out a letter in her shaking hand.
"That man who was taken up last night was--Raymond. He is in prison. He
is ill. Let us go to him," and she explained as best she could that a
letter had only just been found written to her by Raymond in July,
warning her he was in the neighborhood of Arleigh, near the old nurse's
cottage, and that she might see him at any moment, and must have money
in readiness. The instant she had read the letter she rushed up to
Arleigh, to see her old nurse, and met her coming down, in great
agitation, to tell her that Raymond, whom she had shielded once before
under promise of secrecy, had been arrested the night before.
In a quarter of an hour Mr. Alwynn and Ruth were driving swiftly through
the dusk, in a close carriage, in the direction of D----. On their way
they met a dog-cart driving as quickly in the opposite direction which
grazed their wheel as it passed; and Ruth, looking out, caught a
glimpse, by the flash of their lamps, of Charles's face, with a look
upon it so fierce and haggard that she shivered in nameless foreboding
of evil, wondering what could have happened to make him look like that.