My husband was the next to go.
He made excuse of his Parliamentary duties. He might be three or four
weeks away, but meantime Alma would be with me, and in any case I was
not the sort of person to feel lonely.
Never having heard before of any devotion to his duty as a peer, I
asked if that was all that was taking him to London.
"Perhaps not all," he answered, and then, with a twang of voice and a
twitch of feature, he said:
"I'm getting sick of this God-forsaken place, and then . . . to tell you
the truth, your own behaviour is beginning to raw me."
With my husband's departure my triumphal course seemed to come to a
close. Left alone with Alma, I became as weak and irresolute as before
and began to brood upon Price's warning.
My maid had found a fierce delight in my efforts to assert myself as
mistress in my husband's house, but now (taking her former advantage)
she was for ever harping upon my foolishness in allowing Alma to remain
in it.
"She's deceiving you, my lady," said Price. "_Her_ waiting for a steamer
indeed! Not a bit of her. If your ladyship will not fly out at me again
and pack me off bag and baggage, I'll tell you what's she's waiting
for."
"What?"
"She's waiting for . . . she thinks . . . she fancies . . . well, to
tell you the honest truth, my lady, the bad-minded thing suspects that
something is going to happen to your ladyship, and she's just waiting
for the chance of telling his lordship."
I began to feel ill. A dim, vague, uneasy presentiment of coming trouble
took frequent possession of my mind.
I tried to suppress it. I struggled to strangle it as an ugly monster
created by the nervous strain I had been going through, and for a time I
succeeded in doing so. I had told Martin that nothing would happen
during his absence, and I compelled myself to believe that nothing would
or could.
Weeks passed; the weather changed; the golden hue of autumn gave place
to a chilly greyness; the sky became sad with winterly clouds; the land
became soggy with frequent rains; the trees showed their bare black
boughs; the withered leaves drifted along the roads before blustering
winds that came up from the sea; the evenings grew long and the mornings
dreary; but still Alma, with her mother, remained at Castle Raa.
I began to be afraid of her. Something of the half-hypnotic spell which
she had exercised over me when I was a child asserted itself again, but
now it seemed to me to be always evil and sometimes almost demoniacal.
I had a feeling that she was watching me day and night. Occasionally,
when she thought I was looking down, I caught the vivid gaze of her
coal-black eyes looking across at me through her long sable-coloured
eyelashes.
Her conversation was as sweet and suave as ever, but I found myself
creeping away from her and even shrinking from her touch.
More than once I remembered what Martin in his blunt way had said of
her: "I hate that woman; she's like a snake; I want to put my foot on
it."
The feeling that I was alone in this great gaunt house with a woman who
was waiting and watching to do me a mischief, that she might step into
my shoes, was preying upon my health and spirits.
Sometimes I had sensations of faintness and exhaustion for which I could
not account. Looking into my glass in the morning, I saw that my nose
was becoming pinched, my cheeks thin, and my whole face not merely pale,
but grey.
Alma saw these changes in my appearance, and in the over-sweet tones of
her succulent voice she constantly offered me her sympathy. I always
declined it, protesting that I was perfectly well, but none the less I
shrank within myself and became more and more unhappy.
So fierce a strain could not last very long, and the climax came about
three weeks after my husband had left for London.
I was rising from breakfast with Alma and her mother when I was suddenly
seized with giddiness, and, after staggering for a moment, I fainted
right away.
On recovering consciousness I found myself stretched out on the floor
with Alma and her mother leaning over me.
Never to the last hour of my life shall I forget the look in Alma's eyes
as I opened my own. With her upper lip sucked in and her lower one
slightly set forward she was giving her mother a quick side-glance of
evil triumph.
I was overwhelmed with confusion. I thought I might have been speaking
as I was coming to, mentioning a name perhaps, out of that dim and
sacred chamber of the unconscious soul into which God alone should see.
I noticed, too, that my bodice had been unhooked at the back so as to
leave it loose over my bosom.
As soon as Alma saw that my eyes were open, she put her arm under my
head and began to pour out a flood of honeyed words into my ears.
"My dear, sweet darling," she said, "you scared us to death. We must
send for a doctor immediately--your own doctor, you know."