AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR.
The two following days passed peacefully over. Prudence told her
carefully-concocted story to Mrs. Wilcox, and said she would probably
follow her sister in a fortnight. She despatched a great box, avowedly
for the use of Augusta, to Paddington Station, and left it at the
cloak-room to be kept till called for. She took every precaution that
suggested itself to her, and even contemplated announcing at table the
receipt of a letter from her sister declaring she was enjoying the fine
sea air.
In fact, she felt she was beginning to lie with an _aplomb_ that at once
frightened and delighted her, but was accompanied by twinges of
conscience. Many tears she shed in secret over the deception she was
forced to practise.
The interest and excitement about Miss Semaphore had already abated
somewhat. Her room had been turned out, cleaned, and made ready for a
new boarder, and Prudence, who had sent on the additional thirty pounds
to good Mrs. Brown, was congratulating herself on having acted with
great promptitude, foresight, and caution, under trying and exceptional
circumstances.
Her main idea now was to hear from the widow of the explorer whose fatal
Water of Youth had proved the direful spring of all her woes. Night and
day she considered the subject. Was there an antidote? If not, would her
sister ever grow up? If she did grow up, would she grow up normally? Had
she really, as Prudence thought, preserved her memory and understanding?
Was she to be treated exactly like an ordinary baby? and, if not, in
what respects should a difference be made? Should she be sent to school
later on? Would her intelligence grow or lessen? All these racking
questions, to which she could give no answer, tormented the younger Miss
Semaphore continually.
When, sooner than she had ventured to hope, she found a letter lying on
the hall-table addressed to her, in a foreign handwriting, and bearing
the Paris post-mark, the poor lady was so overcome between fear and hope
that she scarcely had courage to open it. With tottering limbs, she made
her way upstairs, locked her door, and sat down to read the most
important missive she had ever received.
Mrs. Geldheraus expressed herself shocked and surprised at the sad story
unfolded by Miss Prudence Semaphore, but, unfortunately, was not very
helpful. She had never before heard of anyone taking too much of the
Water of Youth, and knew of no method of counteracting its effects.
“I explained to your sister,” she said, “that a tablespoonful took about
ten years off one’s age. Thus a woman of forty, taking two
tablespoonfuls, would, in effect, be twenty. After that, a tea-spoonful
every two years, would keep her at twenty as long as the Water lasted.
She seemed quite to understand my directions. As such a case as you
describe has never entered into my experience, I fear, dear madam, I can
only recommend you to be patient under these distressing circumstances.
I can give you no idea of how long the effects will last. Usually, the
greater the quantity required in the first instance, the sooner the dose
must be repeated, as the acquired youth wears off with a rapidity in
proportion to one’s actual age. Whether this, however, will be the case
with your sister, I cannot say. No one who has hitherto tried the Water
has returned to infancy, so your sister’s is a very exceptional and
awkward position, especially, as you tell me, you are living at a
boarding-house. You may be thankful that your sister did not take a
little more, or she would probably have vanished for ever, and your
circumstances would be even more painful than they are. It is most
probable that she retains her adult memory and understanding unimpaired,
remaining a woman in mind though not in body. I regret, dear madam, that
I cannot be more helpful, and am, yours faithfully,
SOPHIE GELDHERAUS.”
As she concluded, Prudence broke down utterly, and, throwing herself on
her bed, gave way to a bitter outburst of weeping. There was nothing for
it now but to let things take their course, to accept all the annoyance,
deception, seclusion, and suspicion involved in so anomalous, so
unprecedented a situation. She saw nothing before her but a life spent
in avoiding acquaintances, in evading enquiry—the life of a fugitive,
dogged by a blameless past.
“It is horrible, horrible!” she wailed. “If it were anything else, I
think I could bear it, but this is so incredible, so unheard of. How am
I to manage about our business matters? Will Mr. Carson believe me if I
tell him the truth? Will he ever credit that the infant I show him is
Augusta?” (Mr. Carson was the solicitor who managed the affairs of the
Misses Semaphore.) “What about signing deeds and so forth? Then, if I
pretend she has died, he will want to come to the funeral, or see the
death certificate, or take out probate, or something of that kind that
will involve enquiry. Oh! what, what am I to do?”
At last, exhausted by weeping, Miss Prudence lay still, and stared with
sodden eyes at the flies dancing on the ceiling. The one agreeable
object of her reflections was that at least she had got Augusta safely
away, and placed her in hands that were both kind and safe.
A longing to see her sister came over her. Though Augusta was dumb and
helpless, it would at least be some consolation to talk to her, to pour
out her woes.
To a woman of the stamp of Prudence, the necessity for secretiveness,
for independent or uncounselled action, is terrible. She wanted someone
to advise her, someone to lean on, and little consolation as she could
expect from communing with Augusta, it would at least be a relief to say
all that was in her mind.
Accordingly she rose, wrote a few lines to “good Mrs. Brown,” announcing
her intention of calling at Plummer’s Cottages the following afternoon,
and having donned a thick veil to conceal her distorted features,
proceeded to post the note.
The walk did her good. A fresh wind was blowing, that cooled the hot
cheeks of the troubled lady. In the air was something of rest that
soothed her, and it was in a more equable frame of mind that she
returned home.
At the door of 37, Beaconsfield Gardens, she became conscious that
something unusual was agitating the inmates. A loud, angry voice reached
her, muffled by intervening doors—a voice she seemed to recognise; and
when, in answer to her ring, Müller opened the door, his face was
flushed and his manner agitated.
“Oh, blease,” he gasped, when he saw her, “I am glat that you, matam,
hafe come. Here it is a voman asking you to see, and ven I say you are
not _zu Haus_, she _schimpf_ and cry, and vill not go avay.”
Prudence’s heart stopped beating, and she caught the door-post to save
herself from falling.
“Where is she, Müller?” she gasped faintly.
“I did show her into the morning room,” said Müller, “ven she say that
avay she vill not go; but therein she vill not remain, but valk into the
hall and calls for you.”
Before he could say any more, there appeared before the shocked eyes of
Prudence a vision of good Mrs. Brown, flushed, dishevelled, her bonnet
to one side. With unsteady gait, she lurched down the hall, and
confronted the trembling lady.
“So you’ve come at larst,” she said; “nice way to keep a ’spectable
woman awytin for you. S’pose I’ve nothin’ better to do than sitting
’ere?”
“What do you want with me, Mrs. Brown?” asked Prudence, in an agitated
voice.
“Wot d’ I want with you? Well, I likes that. Wot do I want, she sez! I
want to know wot d’ you mean by sending a ’spectable married woman for
the keep of that there byby a cheque as she can’t get no money for? Eh?
Tell me that? A bloomin’ shame, I calls it; but you just fork out that
thirty pounds as you howe me, or I’ll ’ave the law of you,” said good
Mrs. Brown, loudly but indistinctly.
Prudence was miserably conscious that two or three heads were peering
over the balustrade from the landing above.
“Will you come in here, please,” she said as firmly as she could, “and
tell me exactly what is the matter?”
“The matter?” queried Mrs. Brown, as she lurched against her. “Matter
enough! What did you go for to send me a cheque at all, wen I told you I
wouldn’t ’ave no cheques?”
By this Prudence had got her into the morning room, deserted, for a
wonder, and closed the door.
“Now,” she said tremblingly, “what is all this about, and what do you
mean by coming here and making such a noise? I am sorry I sent you a
cheque, but I quite forgot you told me not to, and it is all right;
there is nothing wrong with it.”
“Nothin’ wrong! Wy wot d’ you take me for, a-sendin’ me a cheque as no
one ’ll change?” said Mrs. Brown. “Nice conduck of a female as calls
’erself a lydy, a-sending of a pore woman to one public hafter another,
an’ not one o’ the lot ’ll change the thing!”
“Let me see it,” said Prudence, bewildered.
Mrs. Brown glared rather unsteadily at the speaker for a minute, and
then fumbled in her bag. After many futile dives, she at last turned out
the contents on the table. There, amidst papers, a thimble, sixpence in
coppers, some pawn tickets, a half-crown, a reel of cotton, a stump of
blue pencil, and various other odds and ends, was the letter of
Prudence, with her cheque, now very crumpled and dirty, protruding.
“Calls erself a lydy,” pursued good Mrs. Brown, “an’ sends me that!”
Here she banged the cheque on the table.
Prudence, from force of habit, had crossed the cheque and marked it “not
negotiable,” as the family solicitor, when first she had the handling of
money, had instructed her always to do.
“I am sorry,” she said, “the cheque is crossed, and that is why they
would not change it. It should be passed through a bank. If you will
wait here quietly for a moment, I will write you another.”
Good Mrs. Brown at first seemed indisposed to allow Prudence to leave
the room at all. “Give me my money,” she said; “I don’t want none o’
your cheques. Money down’s the thing for me!”
A vast amount of explanation was required before she seemed to grasp the
sense of what the unhappy lady was saying. Then she suddenly sat down on
a chair and burst into tears, much to Miss Semaphore’s alarm and
distress.
“You won’t try to starve the blessed hinfant,” she said, “and rob a pore
woman of ’er ’ard earned money?”
Prudence earnestly assured her she would not, that nothing was farther
from her intentions. She apologised again and again about the unlucky
cheque, and implored her unexpected visitor to be calm, to be patient
for one moment while she ran upstairs to fetch her cheque book.
Mrs. Brown, however, followed her to the door, and protested huskily
against the younger Miss Semaphore’s “giving” her “the slip.”
As poor Prudence escaped, she had the misery of seeing the heads of Mrs.
Whitley, the medical woman, and even of the stately Mrs. Dumaresq
herself, hastily withdrawn from over the balustrade on the first
landing. Every minute seemed an hour until a fresh cheque was made out,
and good Mrs. Brown, grasping it tightly in one hand, had gone off to
negociate it after a deal of explanation. Prudence felt quite sick with
agitation and apprehension.
“I really almost believe,” she said to herself, “I really am inclined to
think that Mrs. Brown must have been drinking.”
A dreadful uneasiness as to how Augusta might be faring weighed heavy on
her heart.
“I will certainly go to-morrow and see the place,” she resolved, “and if
I do not like it, I’ll take Augusta away.”
Her spirits drooped at the prospect of an impending conflict with good
Mrs. Brown, for even if her thoughts wronged the respectable woman, that
afternoon’s experience showed that the lady in question had another side
to her character besides that observed by Prudence at London Bridge
Station.