After only one week of travelling in Scotland, my lord and my lady
returned unexpectedly to London. Introduced to the mountains and lakes
of the Highlands, her ladyship positively declined to improve her
acquaintance with them. When she was asked for her reason, she answered
with a Roman brevity, “I have seen Switzerland.”
For a week more, the newly-married couple remained in London, in the
strictest retirement. On one day in that week the nurse returned in a
state of most uncustomary excitement from an errand on which Agnes had
sent her. Passing the door of a fashionable dentist, she had met Lord
Montbarry himself just leaving the house. The good woman’s report
described him, with malicious pleasure, as looking wretchedly ill. “His
cheeks are getting hollow, my dear, and his beard is turning grey. I
hope the dentist hurt him!”
Knowing how heartily her faithful old servant hated the man who had
deserted her, Agnes made due allowance for a large infusion of
exaggeration in the picture presented to her. The main impression
produced on her mind was an impression of nervous uneasiness. If she
trusted herself in the streets by daylight while Lord Montbarry
remained in London, how could she be sure that his next chance-meeting
might not be a meeting with herself? She waited at home, privately
ashamed of her own undignified conduct, for the next two days. On the
third day the fashionable intelligence of the newspapers announced the
departure of Lord and Lady Montbarry for Paris, on their way to Italy.
Mrs. Ferrari, calling the same evening, informed Agnes that her husband
had left her with all reasonable expression of conjugal kindness; his
temper being improved by the prospect of going abroad. But one other
servant accompanied the travellers—Lady Montbarry’s maid, rather a
silent, unsociable woman, so far as Emily had heard. Her ladyship’s
brother, Baron Rivar, was already on the Continent. It had been
arranged that he was to meet his sister and her husband at Rome.
One by one the dull weeks succeeded each other in the life of Agnes.
She faced her position with admirable courage, seeing her friends,
keeping herself occupied in her leisure hours with reading and drawing,
leaving no means untried of diverting her mind from the melancholy
remembrance of the past. But she had loved too faithfully, she had been
wounded too deeply, to feel in any adequate degree the influence of the
moral remedies which she employed. Persons who met with her in the
ordinary relations of life, deceived by her outward serenity of manner,
agreed that “Miss Lockwood seemed to be getting over her
disappointment.” But an old friend and school companion who happened to
see her during a brief visit to London, was inexpressibly distressed by
the change that she detected in Agnes. This lady was Mrs. Westwick, the
wife of that brother of Lord Montbarry who came next to him in age, and
who was described in the “Peerage” as presumptive heir to the title. He
was then away, looking after his interests in some mining property
which he possessed in America. Mrs. Westwick insisted on taking Agnes
back with her to her home in Ireland. “Come and keep me company while
my husband is away. My three little girls will make you their
playfellow, and the only stranger you will meet is the governess, whom
I answer for your liking beforehand. Pack up your things, and I will
call for you to-morrow on my way to the train.” In those hearty terms
the invitation was given. Agnes thankfully accepted it. For three happy
months she lived under the roof of her friend. The girls hung round her
in tears at her departure; the youngest of them wanted to go back with
Agnes to London. Half in jest, half in earnest, she said to her old
friend at parting, “If your governess leaves you, keep the place open
for me.” Mrs. Westwick laughed. The wiser children took it seriously,
and promised to let Agnes know.
On the very day when Miss Lockwood returned to London, she was recalled
to those associations with the past which she was most anxious to
forget. After the first kissings and greetings were over, the old nurse
(who had been left in charge at the lodgings) had some startling
information to communicate, derived from the courier’s wife.
“Here has been little Mrs. Ferrari, my dear, in a dreadful state of
mind, inquiring when you would be back. Her husband has left Lord
Montbarry, without a word of warning—and nobody knows what has become
of him.”
Agnes looked at her in astonishment. “Are you sure of what you are
saying?” she asked.
The nurse was quite sure. “Why, Lord bless you! the news comes from the
couriers’ office in Golden Square—from the secretary, Miss Agnes, the
secretary himself!” Hearing this, Agnes began to feel alarmed as well
as surprised. It was still early in the evening. She at once sent a
message to Mrs. Ferrari, to say that she had returned.
In an hour more the courier’s wife appeared, in a state of agitation
which it was not easy to control. Her narrative, when she was at last
able to speak connectedly, entirely confirmed the nurse’s report of it.
After hearing from her husband with tolerable regularity from Paris,
Rome, and Venice, Emily had twice written to him afterwards—and had
received no reply. Feeling uneasy, she had gone to the office in Golden
Square, to inquire if he had been heard of there. The post of the
morning had brought a letter to the secretary from a courier then at
Venice. It contained startling news of Ferrari. His wife had been
allowed to take a copy of it, which she now handed to Agnes to read.
The writer stated that he had recently arrived in Venice. He had
previously heard that Ferrari was with Lord and Lady Montbarry, at one
of the old Venetian palaces which they had hired for a term. Being a
friend of Ferrari, he had gone to pay him a visit. Ringing at the door
that opened on the canal, and failing to make anyone hear him, he had
gone round to a side entrance opening on one of the narrow lanes of
Venice. Here, standing at the door (as if she was waiting for him to
try that way next), he found a pale woman with magnificent dark eyes,
who proved to be no other than Lady Montbarry herself.
She asked, in Italian, what he wanted. He answered that he wanted to
see the courier Ferrari, if it was quite convenient. She at once
informed him that Ferrari had left the palace, without assigning any
reason, and without even leaving an address at which his monthly salary
(then due to him) could be paid. Amazed at this reply, the courier
inquired if any person had offended Ferrari, or quarrelled with him.
The lady answered, “To my knowledge, certainly not. I am Lady
Montbarry; and I can positively assure you that Ferrari was treated
with the greatest kindness in this house. We are as much astonished as
you are at his extraordinary disappearance. If you should hear of him,
pray let us know, so that we may at least pay him the money which is
due.”
After one or two more questions (quite readily answered) relating to
the date and the time of day at which Ferrari had left the palace, the
courier took his leave.
He at once entered on the necessary investigations—without the
slightest result so far as Ferrari was concerned. Nobody had seen him.
Nobody appeared to have been taken into his confidence. Nobody knew
anything (that is to say, anything of the slightest importance) even
about persons so distinguished as Lord and Lady Montbarry. It was
reported that her ladyship’s English maid had left her, before the
disappearance of Ferrari, to return to her relatives in her own
country, and that Lady Montbarry had taken no steps to supply her
place. His lordship was described as being in delicate health. He lived
in the strictest retirement—nobody was admitted to him, not even his
own countrymen. A stupid old woman was discovered who did the housework
at the palace, arriving in the morning and going away again at night.
She had never seen the lost courier—she had never even seen Lord
Montbarry, who was then confined to his room. Her ladyship, “a most
gracious and adorable mistress,” was in constant attendance on her
noble husband. There was no other servant then in the house (so far as
the old woman knew) but herself. The meals were sent in from a
restaurant. My lord, it was said, disliked strangers. My lord’s
brother-in-law, the Baron, was generally shut up in a remote part of
the palace, occupied (the gracious mistress said) with experiments in
chemistry. The experiments sometimes made a nasty smell. A doctor had
latterly been called in to his lordship—an Italian doctor, long
resident in Venice. Inquiries being addressed to this gentleman (a
physician of undoubted capacity and respectability), it turned out that
he also had never seen Ferrari, having been summoned to the palace (as
his memorandum book showed) at a date subsequent to the courier’s
disappearance. The doctor described Lord Montbarry’s malady as
bronchitis. So far, there was no reason to feel any anxiety, though the
attack was a sharp one. If alarming symptoms should appear, he had
arranged with her ladyship to call in another physician. For the rest,
it was impossible to speak too highly of my lady; night and day, she
was at her lord’s bedside.
With these particulars began and ended the discoveries made by
Ferrari’s courier-friend. The police were on the look-out for the lost
man—and that was the only hope which could be held forth for the
present, to Ferrari’s wife.
“What do you think of it, Miss?” the poor woman asked eagerly. “What
would you advise me to do?”
Agnes was at a loss how to answer her; it was an effort even to listen
to what Emily was saying. The references in the courier’s letter to
Montbarry—the report of his illness, the melancholy picture of his
secluded life—had reopened the old wound. She was not even thinking of
the lost Ferrari; her mind was at Venice, by the sick man’s bedside.
“I hardly know what to say,” she answered. “I have had no experience in
serious matters of this kind.”
“Do you think it would help you, Miss, if you read my husband’s letters
to me? There are only three of them—they won’t take long to read.”
Agnes compassionately read the letters.
They were not written in a very tender tone. “Dear Emily,” and “Yours
affectionately”—these conventional phrases, were the only phrases of
endearment which they contained. In the first letter, Lord Montbarry
was not very favourably spoken of:—“We leave Paris to-morrow. I don’t
much like my lord. He is proud and cold, and, between ourselves, stingy
in money matters. I have had to dispute such trifles as a few centimes
in the hotel bill; and twice already, some sharp remarks have passed
between the newly-married couple, in consequence of her ladyship’s
freedom in purchasing pretty tempting things at the shops in Paris. ‘I
can’t afford it; you must keep to your allowance.’ She has had to hear
those words already. For my part, I like her. She has the nice, easy
foreign manners—_she_ talks to me as if I was a human being like
herself.”
The second letter was dated from Rome.
“My lord’s caprices” (Ferrari wrote) “have kept us perpetually on the
move. He is becoming incurably restless. I suspect he is uneasy in his
mind. Painful recollections, I should say—I find him constantly reading
old letters, when her ladyship is not present. We were to have stopped
at Genoa, but he hurried us on. The same thing at Florence. Here, at
Rome, my lady insists on resting. Her brother has met us at this place.
There has been a quarrel already (the lady’s maid tells me) between my
lord and the Baron. The latter wanted to borrow money of the former.
His lordship refused in language which offended Baron Rivar. My lady
pacified them, and made them shake hands.”
The third, and last letter, was from Venice.
“More of my lord’s economy! Instead of staying at the hotel, we have
hired a damp, mouldy, rambling old palace. My lady insists on having
the best suites of rooms wherever we go—and the palace comes cheaper
for a two months’ term. My lord tried to get it for longer; he says the
quiet of Venice is good for his nerves. But a foreign speculator has
secured the palace, and is going to turn it into an hotel. The Baron is
still with us, and there have been more disagreements about money
matters. I don’t like the Baron—and I don’t find the attractions of my
lady grow on me. She was much nicer before the Baron joined us. My lord
is a punctual paymaster; it’s a matter of honour with him; he hates
parting with his money, but he does it because he has given his word. I
receive my salary regularly at the end of each month—not a franc extra,
though I have done many things which are not part of a courier’s proper
work. Fancy the Baron trying to borrow money of _me!_ He is an
inveterate gambler. I didn’t believe it when my lady’s maid first told
me so—but I have seen enough since to satisfy me that she was right. I
have seen other things besides, which—well! which don’t increase my
respect for my lady and the Baron. The maid says she means to give
warning to leave. She is a respectable British female, and doesn’t take
things quite so easily as I do. It is a dull life here. No going into
company—no company at home—not a creature sees my lord—not even the
consul, or the banker. When he goes out, he goes alone, and generally
towards nightfall. Indoors, he shuts himself up in his own room with
his books, and sees as little of his wife and the Baron as possible. I
fancy things are coming to a crisis here. If my lord’s suspicions are
once awakened, the consequences will be terrible. Under certain
provocations, the noble Montbarry is a man who would stick at nothing.
However, the pay is good—and I can’t afford to talk of leaving the
place, like my lady’s maid.”
Agnes handed back the letters—so suggestive of the penalty paid already
for his own infatuation by the man who had deserted her!—with feelings
of shame and distress, which made her no fit counsellor for the
helpless woman who depended on her advice.
“The one thing I can suggest,” she said, after first speaking some kind
words of comfort and hope, “is that we should consult a person of
greater experience than ours. Suppose I write and ask my lawyer (who is
also my friend and trustee) to come and advise us to-morrow after his
business hours?”
Emily eagerly and gratefully accepted the suggestion. An hour was
arranged for the meeting on the next day; the correspondence was left
under the care of Agnes; and the courier’s wife took her leave.
Weary and heartsick, Agnes lay down on the sofa, to rest and compose
herself. The careful nurse brought in a reviving cup of tea. Her quaint
gossip about herself and her occupations while Agnes had been away,
acted as a relief to her mistress’s overburdened mind. They were still
talking quietly, when they were startled by a loud knock at the house
door. Hurried footsteps ascended the stairs. The door of the
sitting-room was thrown open violently; the courier’s wife rushed in
like a mad woman. “He’s dead! They’ve murdered him!” Those wild words
were all she could say. She dropped on her knees at the foot of the
sofa—held out her hand with something clasped in it—and fell back in a
swoon.
The nurse, signing to Agnes to open the window, took the necessary
measures to restore the fainting woman. “What’s this?” she exclaimed.
“Here’s a letter in her hand. See what it is, Miss.”
The open envelope was addressed (evidently in a feigned hand-writing)
to “Mrs. Ferrari.” The post-mark was “Venice.” The contents of the
envelope were a sheet of foreign note-paper, and a folded enclosure.
On the note-paper, one line only was written. It was again in a feigned
handwriting, and it contained these words:
“_To console you for the loss of your husband._”
Agnes opened the enclosure next.
It was a Bank of England note for a thousand pounds.