THE YOUNG WIDOW
It was early October. Audrey stood at the garden door of Flank Hall.
The estuary, in all the colours of unsettled, mild, bright weather, lay at
her feet beneath a high arch of changing blue and white. The capricious
wind moved in her hair, moved in the rich grasses of the sea-wall, bent at
a curtseying angle the red-sailed barges, put caps on the waves in the
middle distance, and drew out into long horizontal scarves the smoke of
faint steamers in the offing.
Audrey was dressed in black, but her raiment had obviously not been
fashioned in the village, nor even at Colchester, nor yet at Ipswich, that
great and stylish city. She looked older; she certainly had acquired
something of an air of knowledge, assurance, domination, sauciness and
challenge, which qualities were all partly illustrated in her large,
audacious hat. The spirit which the late Mr. Moze had so successfully
suppressed was at length coming to the surface for all beholders to see,
and the process of evolution begun at the moment when Audrey had bounced up
and prevented an authoritative solicitor from leaving the study was already
advanced. Nevertheless, at frequent intervals Audrey's eyes changed, and
she seemed for an instant to be a very naive, very ingenuous and wistful
little thing--and this though she had reached the age of twenty. Perhaps
she was feeling sorry for the girl she used to be.
And no doubt she was also thinking of her mother, who had died within eight
hours of their nocturnal interview. The death of Mrs. Moze surprised
everyone, except possibly Mrs. Moze. As an unsuspected result of the
operation upon her, an embolism had been wandering in her veins; it reached
the brain, and she expired, to the great loss of the National Reformation
Society. Such was the brief and simple history. When Audrey stood by the
body, she had felt that if it could have saved her mother she would have
enriched the National Reformation Society with all she possessed.
Gradually the sense of freedom had grown paramount in her, and she had
undertaken the enterprise of completely subduing Mr. Foulger to her own
ends.
The back hall was carpetless and pictureless, and the furniture in it was
draped in grey-white. Every room in the abode was in the same state, and,
since all the windows were shuttered, every room lay moribund in a ghostly
twilight. Only the clocks remained alive, probably thinking themselves
immortal. The breakfast things were washed up and stored away. The last two
servants had already gone. Behind Audrey, forming a hilly background, were
trunks and boxes, a large bunch of flowers encased in paper, and a case of
umbrellas and parasols; the whole strikingly new, and every single item
except the flowers labelled "Paris via Charing Cross and Calais."
Audrey opened her black Russian satchel, and the purse within it. Therein
were a little compartment full of English gold, another full of French
gold, another full of multicoloured French bank-notes; and loose in the
satchel was a blue book of credit-notes, each for five hundred francs, or
twenty pounds--a thick book! And she would not have minded much if she had
lost the whole satchel--it would be so easy to replace the satchel with
all its contents.
Then a small brougham came very deliberately up the drive. It was the
vehicle in which Miss Ingate went her ways; in accordance with Miss
Ingate's immemorial command, it travelled at a walking pace up all the
hills to save the horse, and at a walking pace down all hills lest the
horse should stumble and Miss Ingate be destroyed. It was now followed by
a luggage-cart on which was a large trunk.
At the same moment Aguilar, the gardener, appeared from somewhere--he who
had been robbed of a legacy of ten pounds, but who by his ruthless and
incontestable integrity had secured the job of caretaker of Flank Hall.
The drivers touched their hats to Audrey and jumped down, and Miss Ingate,
with a blue veil tied like a handkerchief round her bonnet and chin--sign
that she was a traveller--emerged from the brougham, sardonically smiling
at her own and everybody's expense, and too excited to be able to give
greetings. The three men started to move the trunks, and the two women
whispered together in the back-hall.
"Audrey," demanded Miss Ingate, with a start, "what are those rings on your
finger?"
Audrey replied:
"One's a wedding ring and the other's a mourning ring. I bought them
yesterday at Colchester.... Hsh!" She stilled further exclamations from
Miss Ingate until the men were out of the hall.
"Look here! Quick!" she whispered, hastily unlocking a large hat-case that
was left. And Miss Ingate looked and saw a block toque, entirely unsuitable
for a young girl, and a widow's veil.
"I look bewitching in them," said Audrey, relocking the case.
"But, my child, what does it mean?"
"It means that I'm not silly enough to go to Paris as a girl. I've had more
than enough of being a girl. I'm determined to arrive in Paris as a young
widow. It will be much better in every way, and far easier for you. In
fact, you'll have no chaperoning to do at all. I shall be the chaperon. Now
don't say you won't go, because you will."
"You ought to have told me before."
"No, I oughtn't. Nothing could have been more foolish."
"But who are you the widow of?"
"Hurrah!" cried Audrey. "You are a sport, Winnie! I'll tell you all the
interesting details in the train."
In another minute Aguilar, gloomy and unbending, had received the keys of
Flank Hall, and the procession crunched down the drive on its way to the
station.