When Tom had travelled all night and driven five miles by the edge of a
forest at the foot of a chain of hills, he found himself at the place
the Lakemans had taken near Pitlochry. A lovely house, with a wood round
it, and through it a view of a glen, and a stream that hurried white and
frothing towards the distance. He asked how Miss Lakeman was in a
whisper, half expecting to hear that she was dead.
"Miss Lakeman hasn't been very well, sir," the servant answered, and
showed him into a charming room where there was a divine view from the
open windows. Near the farther window there was a breakfast-table laid
daintily for two, with fresh fruit and late roses in a bowl. Lena was
lying on a sofa beside it in a muslin gown, just as Mrs. Lakeman had
told Dawson Farley she would be. Her face looked thin and pale, her eyes
large and restless; she seemed weak and worried, but there was not a
sign of dangerous illness about her. She tried to raise herself as he
entered, but apparently was not able to do so.
"Tom, dear," she said, "I have been waiting for you--I knew you would
come."
"Of course," he answered; "but what is the matter?"
"I have been ill--very ill, but I'm better. I shall be well, now you
have come."
"I thought you were dying," he said, a little resentfully, thinking that
he had been hurried away from Margaret for nothing.
"I should have died if you hadn't come," she answered. "Sit
down--there," and she signed to a chair close to the sofa.
"Where's Mrs. Lakeman?" he asked, looking round uneasily.
"She has one of her bad attacks of neuralgia. You are glad to come to
us?" She turned up her great eyes almost imploringly at him.
"Yes; but I don't understand." He looked out at the glen beneath the
windows, and followed the course of the stream with his eyes. "That sort
of telegram shouldn't be sent without a good deal of reason."
"But I have been very ill, Tom, dear; and I have wanted you so." She
held out her hands; he looked at her uneasily, but he did not take them.
Somehow her manner was different from the one to which he was
accustomed, and a misgiving, he did not know of what, rose in his
heart. "I felt that no one else could make me well," she added, in a
pathetic voice.
"Good! We'll see what can be done. Now, are you going to give me some
breakfast?"
"It will be here directly. Tell me about naughty little Margaret. Is her
lover with her?"
"Why, of course not; I have just come away."
He didn't like being called a lover. "She and I are engaged; I
telegraphed yesterday--"
"Oh, but it was only a little joke, Tom, dear; you wouldn't be so unkind
to Mr. Garratt."
"It's all nonsense about Mr. Garratt--" He stopped, for the breakfast
was brought in. "Look here; I'd better pour out the coffee," he said;
and when he had done so, and given her some toast and buttered a scone
and helped himself to kidneys and bacon, he felt distinctly better.
"Now, then," he said; "it's all nonsense about Mr. Garratt, and she and
I are going to get married--soon as possible."
"No, no, Tom, dear, it's not nonsense," Lena said, with one of her usual
wriggles. "She told me all about him, and I saw them meet in the wood,
you know."
But he refused even to discuss it.
"That's all nonsense," he repeated, firmly. "What's the matter with Mrs.
Lakeman?"
"It's only neuralgia," Lena said; "you know she has a bad, black day now
and then. You don't mind being with me, Tom, dear? We always like being
together?" She was beginning to feel that she couldn't hold him; that
she had attempted more than she could carry out. She almost wished she
had left him to Margaret; her power over him seemed gone, and she was
handicapped by her mother's absence.
With a puzzled air he ate his breakfast. "What have you done to
yourself?" he asked, when he had finished; "have you caught a cold, or
overtired yourself, or just given in and taken to a sofa for no
particular reason?"
"I'm not strong," she said, looking up at him; "and I felt as if I
couldn't bear the waiting. We expected you every day; why didn't you
come?"
"I was with Margaret," he answered, at which Lena turned and buried her
face in the cushions and sobbed softly to herself.
"Oh, but I say, what is the matter?" he asked, in dismay; "there's
something behind all this; tell me what it means."
"It means that I am going to die," she said. "I must die, I can't live."
She held out her hands to him again, and almost against his will he felt
himself going towards her till he had taken them in his. "I want you,
dear," she said, and twined her arms round his neck. "I can't let you go
to little Margaret. She has Mr. Garratt, remember, and I shall only
live a little while. You must stay with me till I die--you will, won't
you?"
"This is all nonsense," he said again; and in a kindly, affectionate
manner, as a brother might have done, he gave her a kiss for the simple
reason that he didn't know what else to do. "You are ill and played
out."
"Yes, I'm ill," she said, and wriggled more completely into his arms.
He sincerely wished she wouldn't, but he held her for a few minutes
rather awkwardly and then laid her back on the sofa.
"Look here," he said, "I should like to go and unpack and all that, and
you ought to rest for a bit."
Of all the days that Tom had ever lived, that was the strangest--that
day alone with Lena, who was ill and not ill; with Mrs. Lakeman
invisible, he couldn't tell why; and with something at the back of--he
couldn't tell what. He wrote out some telegrams before he went
up-stairs. When he came down they had gone, and some instinct told him
there was a reason for their disappearance; that the answer that came
from Margaret later in the day was somewhat juggled, but how or why he
didn't know. Lena wriggled and looked in his face and talked in low
tones and called him "dear," but she had always done that. She did it to
most people, and, though it made him uncomfortable, he couldn't bring
himself to attach importance to it; he didn't even like being puzzled by
it. Perhaps Mrs. Lakeman would be down to-morrow, he thought, and then
things would explain themselves. Meanwhile he comforted himself by
writing a long letter to Margaret, and with hoping that the morning
would bring him one from her, but when it came there was not a sign.
Then he felt uneasy, and determined that unless there was some good
reason to the contrary he would go back to London that night.