he checked himself. “I always hated poor Geoffrey,” he repeated, with
a smile. “You ought to be the last person to say that, Mrs. Glenarm!
I brought him all the way from London expressly to introduce him to
_you._”
“Then I wish you had left him in London!” retorted Mrs. Glenarm,
shifting suddenly from tears to temper. “I was a happy woman before I
met your brother. I can’t give him up!” she burst out, shifting back
again from temper to tears. “I don’t care if he _has_ deceived me.
I won’t let another woman have him! I _will_ be his wife!” She threw
herself theatrically on her knees before Julius. “Oh, _do_ help me to
find out the truth!” she said. “Oh, Julius, pity me! I am so fond of
him!”
There was genuine distress in her face, there was true feeling in her
voice. Who would have believed that there were reserves of merciless
insolence and heartless cruelty in this woman--and that they had been
lavishly poured out on a fallen sister not five minutes since?
“I will do all I can,” said Julius, raising her. “Let us talk of it when
you are more composed. Try a little music,” he repeated, “just to quiet
your nerves.”
“Would _you_ like me to play?” asked Mrs. Glenarm, becoming a model of
feminine docility at a moment’s notice.
Julius opened the Sonatas of Mozart, and shouldered his violin.
“Let’s try the Fifteenth,” he said, placing Mrs. Glenarm at the piano.
“We will begin with the Adagio. If ever there was divine music written
by mortal man, there it is!”
They began. At the third bar Mrs. Glenarm dropped a note--and the bow of
Julius paused shuddering on the strings.
“I can’t play!” she said. “I am so agitated; I am so anxious. How _am_ I
to find out whether that wretch is really married or not? Who can I ask?
I can’t go to Geoffrey in London--the trainers won’t let me see him. I
can’t appeal to Mr. Brinkworth himself--I am not even acquainted with
him. Who else is there? Do think, and tell me!”
There was but one chance of making her return to the Adagio--the chance
of hitting on a suggestion which would satisfy and quiet her. Julius
laid his violin on the piano, and considered the question before him
carefully.
“There are the witnesses,” he said. “If Geoffrey’s story is to be
depended on, the landlady and the waiter at the inn can speak to the
facts.”
“Low people!” objected Mrs. Glenarm. “People I don’t know. People who
might take advantage of my situation, and be insolent to me.”
Julius considered once more; and made another suggestion. With the fatal
ingenuity of innocence, he hit on the idea of referring Mrs. Glenarm to
no less a person than Lady Lundie herself!
“There is our good friend at Windygates,” he said. “Some whisper of the
matter may have reached Lady Lundie’s ears. It may be a little awkward
to call on her (if she _has_ heard any thing) at the time of a serious
family disaster. You are the best judge of that, however. All I can do
is to throw out the notion. Windygates isn’t very far off--and something
might come of it. What do you think?”
Something might come of it! Let it be remembered that Lady Lundie had
been left entirely in the dark--that she had written to Sir Patrick in
a tone which plainly showed that her self-esteem was wounded and her
suspicion roused--and that her first intimation of the serious dilemma
in which Arnold Brinkworth stood was now likely, thanks to Julius
Delamayn, to reach her from the lips of a mere acquaintance. Let this
be remembered; and then let the estimate be formed of what might come of
it--not at Windygates only, but also at Ham Farm!
“What do you think?” asked Julius.
Mrs. Glenarm was enchanted. “The very person to go to!” she said. “If I
am not let in I can easily write--and explain my object as an apology.
Lady Lundie is so right-minded, so sympathetic. If she sees no one
else--I have only to confide my anxieties to her, and I am sure she will
see me. You will lend me a carriage, won’t you? I’ll go to Windygates
to-morrow.”
Julius took his violin off the pi ano.
“Don’t think me very troublesome,” he said coaxingly. “Between this and
to-morrow we have nothing to do. And it is _such_ music, if you once get
into the swing of it! Would you mind trying again?”
Mrs. Glenarm was willing to do any thing to prove her gratitude, after
the invaluable hint which she had just received. At the second trial the
fair pianist’s eye and hand were in perfect harmony. The lovely melody
which the Adagio of Mozart’s Fifteenth Sonata has given to violin and
piano flowed smoothly at last--and Julius Delamayn soared to the seventh
heaven of musical delight.
The next day Mrs. Glenarm and Mrs. Delamayn went together to Windygates
House.
TENTH SCENE--THE BEDROOM.
CHAPTER THE FORTY-FIRST.
LADY LUNDIE DOES HER DUTY.
THE scene opens on a bedroom--and discloses, in broad daylight, a lady
in bed.
Persons with an irritable sense of propriety, whose self-appointed duty
it is to be always crying out, are warned to pause before they cry out
on this occasion. The lady now presented to view being no less a person
than Lady Lundie herself, it follows, as a matter of course, that the
utmost demands of propriety are, by the mere assertion of that fact,
abundantly and indisputably satisfied. To say that any thing short of
direct moral advantage could, by any possibility, accrue to any living
creature by the presentation of her ladyship in a horizontal, instead
of a perpendicular position, is to assert that Virtue is a question of
posture, and that Respectability ceases to assert itself when it ceases
to appear in morning or evening dress. Will any body be bold enough to
say that? Let nobody cry out, then, on the present occasion.
Lady Lundie was in bed.
Her ladyship had received Blanche’s written announcement of the
sudden stoppage of the bridal tour; and had penned the answer to Sir
Patrick--the receipt of which at Ham Farm has been already described.
This done, Lady Lundie felt it due to herself to take a becoming
position in her own house, pending the possible arrival of Sir Patrick’s
reply. What does a right-minded woman do, when she has reason to believe
that she is cruelly distrusted by the members of her own family? A
right-minded woman feels it so acutely that she falls ill. Lady Lundie
fell ill accordingly.
The case being a serious one, a medical practitioner of the highest
grade in the profession was required to treat it. A physician from the
neighboring town of Kirkandrew was called in.
The physician came in a carriage and pair, with the necessary bald head,
and the indispensable white cravat. He felt her ladyship’s pulse, and
put a few gentle questions. He turned his back solemnly, as only a great
doctor can, on his own positive internal conviction that his patient had
nothing whatever the matter with her. He said, with every appearance of
believing in himself, “Nerves, Lady Lundie. Repose in bed is essentially
necessary. I will write a prescription.” He prescribed, with perfect
gravity: Aromatic Spirits of Ammonia--16 drops. Spirits of Red
Lavender--10 drops. Syrup of Orange Peel--2 drams. Camphor Julep--1
ounce. When he had written, Misce fiat Hanstus (instead of Mix a
Draught)--when he had added, Ter die Sumendus (instead of To be taken
Three times a day)--and when he had certified to his own Latin, by
putting his initials at the end, he had only to make his bow; to slip
two guineas into his pocket; and to go his way, with an approving
professional conscience, in the character of a physician who had done
his duty.
Lady Lundie was in bed. The visible part of her ladyship was perfectly
attired, with a view to the occasion. A fillet of superb white lace
encircled her head. She wore an adorable invalid jacket of white
cambric, trimmed with lace and pink ribbons. The rest was--bed-clothes.
On a table at her side stood the Red Lavender Draught--in color soothing
to the eye; in flavor not unpleasant to the taste. A book of devotional
character was near it. The domestic ledgers, and the kitchen report
for the day, were ranged modestly behind the devout book. (Not even
her ladyship’s nerves, observe, were permitted to interfere with her
ladyship’s duty.) A fan, a smelling-bottle, and a handkerchief lay
within reach on the counterpane. The spacious room was partially
darkened. One of the lower windows was open, affording her ladyship the
necessary cubic supply of air. The late Sir Thomas looked at his widow,
in effigy, from the wall opposite the end of the bed. Not a chair was
out of its place; not a vestige of wearing apparel dared to show itself
outside the sacred limits of the wardrobe and the drawers. The sparkling
treasures of the toilet-table glittered in the dim distance, The jugs
and basins were of a rare and creamy white; spotless and beautiful to
see. Look where you might, you saw a perfect room. Then look at the
bed--and you saw a perfect woman, and completed the picture.
It was the day after Anne’s appearance at Swanhaven--toward the end of
the afternoon.
Lady Lundie’s own maid opened the door noiselessly, and stole on tip-toe
to the bedside. Her ladyship’s eyes were closed. Her ladyship suddenly
opened them.
“Not asleep, Hopkins. Suffering. What is it?”
Hopkins laid two cards on the counterpane. “Mrs. Delamayn, my lady--and
Mrs. Glenarm.”
“They were told I was ill, of course?”
“Yes, my lady. Mrs. Glenarm sent for me. She went into the library,
and wrote this note.” Hopkins produced the note, neatly folded in
three-cornered form.
“Have they gone?”
“No, my lady. Mrs. Glenarm told me Yes or No would do for answer, if you
could only have the goodness to read this.”
“Thoughtless of Mrs. Glenarm--at a time when the doctor insists on
perfect repose,” said Lady Lundie. “It doesn’t matter. One sacrifice
more or less is of very little consequence.”
She fortified herself by an application of the smelling-bottle, and
opened the note. It ran thus:
“So grieved, dear Lady Lundie, to hear that you are a prisoner in your
room! I had taken the opportunity of calling with Mrs. Delamayn, in the
hope that I might be able to ask you a question. Will your inexhaustible
kindness forgive me if I ask it in writing? Have you had any unexpected
news of Mr. Arnold Brinkworth lately? I mean, have you heard any thing
about him, which has taken you very much by surprise? I have a serious
reason for asking this. I will tell you what it is, the moment you are
able to see me. Until then, one word of answer is all I expect. Send
word down--Yes, or No. A thousand apologies--and pray get better soon!”
The singular question contained in this note suggested one of two
inferences to Lady Lundie’s mind. Either Mrs. Glenarm had heard a report
of the unexpected return of the married couple to England--or she was in
the far more interesting and important position of possessing a clew
to the secret of what was going on under the surface at Ham Farm. The
phrase used in the note, “I have a serious reason for asking this,”
appeared to favor the latter of the two interpretations. Impossible as
it seemed to be that Mrs. Glenarm could know something about Arnold of
which Lady Lundie was in absolute ignorance, her ladyship’s curiosity
(already powerfully excited by Blanche’s mysterious letter) was only
to be quieted by obtaining the necessary explanation forthwith, at a
personal interview.
“Hopkins,” she said, “I must see Mrs. Glenarm.”
Hopkins respectfully held up her hands in horror. Company in the bedroom
in the present state of her ladyship’s health!
“A matter of duty is involved in this, Hopkins. Give me the glass.”
Hopkins produced an elegant little hand-mirror. Lady Lundie carefully
surveyed herself in it down to the margin of the bedclothes. Above
criticism in every respect? Yes--even when the critic was a woman.
“Show Mrs. Glenarm up here.”
In a minute or two more the iron-master’s widow fluttered into
the room--a little over-dressed as usual; and a little profuse in
expressions of gratitude for her ladyship’s kindness, and of anxiety
about her ladyship’s health. Lady Lundie endured it as long as she
could--then stopped it with a gesture of polite remonstrance, and came
to the point.
“Now, my dear--about this question in your note? Is it possible you have
heard already that Arnold Brinkworth and his wife have come back from
Baden?” Mrs. Glenarm opened her eyes in astonishment. Lady Lundie put it
more plainly. “They were to have gone on to Switzerland, you know, for
their wedding tour, and they suddenly altered their minds, and came back
to England on Sunday last.”
“Dear Lady Lundie, it’s not that! Have you heard nothing about Mr.
Brinkworth except what you have just told me?”
“Nothing.”
There was a pause. Mrs. Glenarm toyed hesitatingly with her parasol.
Lady Lundie leaned forward in the bed, and looked at her attentively.
“What have _you_ heard about him?” she asked.
Mrs. Glenarm was embarrassed. “It’s so difficult to say,” she began.
“I can bear any thing but suspense,” said Lady Lundie. “Tell me the
worst.”
Mrs. Glenarm decided to risk it. “Have you never heard,” she asked,
“that Mr. Brinkworth might possibly have committed himself with another
lady before he married Miss Lundie?”
Her ladyship first closed her eyes in horror and then searched blindly
on the counterpane for the smelling-bottle. Mrs. Glenarm gave it to her,
and waited to see how the invalid bore it before she said any more.
“There are things one _must_ hear,” remarked Lady Lundie. “I see an act
of duty involved in this. No words can describe how you astonish me. Who
told you?”
“Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn told me.”
Her ladyship applied for the second time to the smelling-bottle. “Arnold
Brinkworth’s most intimate friend!” she exclaimed. “He ought to know if
any body does. This is dreadful. Why should Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn tell
_you?_”
“I am going to marry him,” answered Mrs. Glenarm. “That is my excuse,
dear Lady Lundie, for troubling you in this matter.”
Lady Lundie partially opened her eyes in a state of faint bewilderment.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “For Heaven’s sake explain yourself!”
“Haven’t you heard about the anonymous letters?” asked Mrs. Glenarm.
Yes. Lady Lundie had heard about the letters. But only what the public
in general had heard. The name of the lady in the background not
mentioned; and Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn assumed to be as innocent as the
babe unborn. Any mistake in that assumption? “Give me your hand, my poor
dear, and confide it all to _me!_”
“He is not quite innocent,” said Mrs. Glenarm. “He owned to a foolish
flirtation--all _her_ doing, no doubt. Of course, I insisted on a
distinct explanation. Had she really any claim on him? Not the shadow of
a claim. I felt that I only had his word for that--and I told him so.
He said he could prove it--he said he knew her to be privately married
already. Her husband had disowned and deserted her; she was at the
end of her resources; she was desperate enough to attempt any thing. I
thought it all very suspicious--until Geoffrey mentioned the man’s name.
_That_ certainly proved that he had cast off his wife; for I myself knew
that he had lately married another person.”
Lady Lundie suddenly started up from her pillow--honestly agitated;
genuinely alarmed by this time.
“Mr. Delamayn told you the man’s name?” she said, breathlessly.
“Yes.”
“Do I know it?”
“Don’t ask me!”
Lady Lundie fell back on the pillow.
Mrs. Glenarm rose to ring for help. Before she could touch the bell, her
ladyship had rallied again.
“Stop!” she cried. “I can confirm it! It’s true, Mrs. Glenarm! it’s
true! Open the silver box on the toilet-table--you will find the key in
it. Bring me the top letter. Here! Look at it. I got this from Blanche.
Why have they suddenly given up their bridal tour? Why have they gone
back to Sir Patrick at Ham Farm? Why have they put me off with an
infamous subterfuge to account for it? I felt sure something dreadful
had happened. Now I know what it is!” She sank back again, with closed
eyes, and repeated the words, in a fierce whisper, to herself. “Now I
know what it is!”
Mrs. Glenarm read the letter. The reason given for the suspiciously
sudden return of the bride and bridegroom was palpably a
subterfuge--and, more remarkable still, the name of Anne Silvester was
connected with it. Mrs. Glenarm became strongly agitated on her side.
“This _is_ a confirmation,” she said. “Mr. Brinkworth has been found
out--the woman _is_ married to him--Geoffrey is free. Oh, my dear
friend, what a load of anxiety you have taken off my mind! That vile
wretch--”
Lady Lundie suddenly opened her eyes.
“Do you mean,” she asked, “the woman who is at the bottom of all the
mischief?”
“Yes. I saw her yesterday. She forced herself in at Swanhaven. She
called him Geoffrey Delamayn. She declared herself a single woman. She
claimed him before my face in the most audacious manner. She shook my
faith, Lady Lundie--she shook my faith in Geoffrey!”
“Who is she?”
“Who?” echoed Mrs. Glenarm. “Don’t you even know that? Why her name is
repeated half a dozen times in this letter!”
Lady Lundie uttered a scream that rang through the room. Mrs. Glenarm
started to her feet. The maid appeared at the door in terror. Her
ladyship motioned to the woman to withdraw again instantly, and then
pointed to Mrs. Glenarm’s chair.
“Sit down,” she said. “Let me have a minute or two of quiet. I want
nothing more.”
The silence in the room was unbroken until Lady Lundie spoke again.
She asked for Blanche’s letter. After reading it carefully, she laid it
aside, and fell for a while into deep thought.
“I have done Blanche an injustice!” she exclaimed. “My poor Blanche!”
“You think she knows nothing about it?”
“I am certain of it! You forget, Mrs. Glenarm, that this horrible
discovery casts a doubt on my step-daughter’s marriage. Do you think, if
she knew the truth, she would write of a wretch who has mortally injured
her as she writes here? They have put her off with the excuse that
she innocently sends to _me._ I see it as plainly as I see you! Mr.
Brinkworth and Sir Patrick are in league to keep us both in the dark.
Dear child! I owe her an atonement. If nobody else opens her eyes, I
will do it. Sir Patrick shall find that Blanche has a friend in Me!”
A smile--the dangerous smile of an inveterately vindictive woman
thoroughly roused--showed itself with a furtive suddenness on her face.
Mrs. Glenarm was a little startled. Lady Lundie below the surface--as
distinguished from Lady Lundie _on_ the surface--was not a pleasant
object to contemplate.
“Pray try to compose yourself,” said Mrs. Glenarm. “Dear Lady Lundie,
you frighten me!”
The bland surface of her ladyship appeared smoothly once more; drawn
back, as it were, over the hidden inner self, which it had left for the
moment exposed to view.
“Forgive me for feeling it!” she said, with the patient sweetness which
so eminently distinguished her in times of trial. “It falls a little
heavily on a poor sick woman--innocent of all suspicion, and insulted by
the most heartless neglect. Don’t let me distress you. I shall rally, my
dear; I shall rally! In this dreadful calamity--this abyss of crime and
misery and deceit--I have no one to depend on but myself. For Blanche’s
sake, the whole thing must be cleared up--probed, my dear, probed to the
depths. Blanche must take a position that is worthy of her. Blanche must
insist on her rights, under My protection. Never mind what I suffer, or
what I sacrifice. There is a work of justice for poor weak Me to do.
It shall be done!” said her ladyship, fanning herself with an aspect of
illimitable resolution. “It shall be done!”
“But, Lady Lundie what can you do? They are all away in the south. And
as for that abominable woman--”
Lady Lundie touched Mrs. Glenarm on the shoulder with her fan.
“I have my surprise in store, dear friend, as well as you. That
abominable woman was employed as Blanche’s governess in this house.
Wait! that is not all. She left us suddenly--ran away--on the pretense
of being privately married. I know where she went. I can trace what
she did. I can find out who was with her. I can follow Mr. Brinkworth’s
proceedings, behind Mr. Brinkworth’s back. I can search out the truth,
without depending on people compromised in this black business, whose
interest it is to deceive me. And I will do it to-day!” She closed the
fan with a sharp snap of triumph, and settled herself on the pillow in
placid enjoyment of her dear friend’s surprise.
Mrs. Glenarm drew confidentially closer to the bedside. “How can you
manage it?” she asked, eagerly. “Don’t think me curious. I have my
interest, too, in getting at the truth. Don’t leave me out of it, pray!”
“Can you come back to-morrow, at this time?”
“Yes! yes!”
“Come, then--and you shall know.”
“Can I be of any use?”
“Not at present.”
“Can my uncle be of any use?”
“Do you know where to communicate with Captain Newenden?”
“Yes--he is staying with some friends in Sussex.”
“We may possibly want his assistance. I can’t tell yet. Don’t keep Mrs.
Delamayn waiting any longer, my dear. I shall expect you to-morrow.”
They exchanged an affectionate embrace. Lady Lundie was left alone.
Her ladyship resigned herself to meditation, with frowning brow and
close-shut lips. She looked her full age, and a year or two more, as she
lay thinking, with her head on her hand, and her elbow on the pillow.
After committing herself to the physician (and to the red lavender
draught) the commonest regard for consistency made it necessary that
she should keep her bed for that day. And yet it was essential that the
proposed inquiries should be instantly set on foot. On the one hand, the
problem was not an easy one to solve; on the other, her ladyship was
not an easy one to beat. How to send for the landlady at Craig Fernie,
without exciting any special suspicion or remark--was the question
before her. In less than five minutes she had looked back into her
memory of current events at Windygates--and had solved it.
Her first proceeding was to ring the bell for her maid.
“I am afraid I frightened you, Hopkins. The state of my nerves. Mrs.
Glenarm was a little sudden with some news that surprised me. I am
better now--and able to attend to the household matters. There is a
mistake in the butcher’s account. Send the cook here.”
She took up the domestic ledger and the kitchen report; corrected the
butcher; cautioned the cook; and disposed of all arrears of domestic
business before Hopkins was summoned again. Having, in this way,
dextrously prevented the woman from connecting any thing that her
mistress said or did, after Mrs. Glenarm’s departure, with any thing
that might have passed during Mrs. Glenarm’s visit, Lady Lundie felt
herself at liberty to pave the way for the investigation on which she
was determined to enter before she slept that night.
“So much for the indoor arrangements,” she said. “You must be my prime
minister, Hopkins, while I lie helpless here. Is there any thing wanted
by the people out of doors? The coachman? The gardener?”
“I have just seen the gardener, my lady. He came with last week’s
accounts. I told him he couldn’t see your ladyship to-day.”
“Quite right. Had he any report to make?”
“No, my lady.”
“Surely, there was something I wanted to say to him--or to somebody
else? My memorandum-book, Hopkins. In the basket, on that chair. Why
wasn’t the basket placed by my bedside?”
Hopkins brought the memorandum-book. Lady Lundie consulted it (without
the slightest necessity), with the same masterly gravity exhibited
by the doctor when he wrote her prescription (without the slightest
necessity also).
“Here it is,” she said, recovering the lost remembrance. “Not the
gardener, but the gardener’s wife. A memorandum to speak to her about
Mrs. Inchbare. Observe, Hopkins, the association of ideas. Mrs. Inchbare
is associated with the poultry; the poultry are associated with
the gardener’s wife; the gardener’s wife is associated with the
gardener--and so the gardener gets into my head. Do you see it? I am
always trying to improve your mind. You do see it? Very well. Now about
Mrs. Inchbare? Has she been here again?”
“No, my lady.”