THE LADY WANDERS
That was the beginning of a very bad time for Mrs Plummer.
She was sitting peacefully reading--she was not one of those ladies who
indulge in "fancy work," and was always ready to confess that never,
under any circumstances, if she could help it, would she have a needle
in her hand--when Miss Arnott came rushing into the room in a condition
which would have been mildly described as dishevelled. She was a young
lady who was a little given to vigorous entrances and exits, and was
not generally, as regards her appearance, a disciple of what has been
spoken of as "the bandbox brigade." But on that occasion she moved Mrs
Plummer, who was not easily moved in that direction, to an exhibition
of surprise.
"My dear child! what have you been doing to yourself, and where have
you been?"
"I've been to the woods. Mrs Plummer, I've come to tell you that we're
going abroad."
"Going abroad? Isn't that rather a sudden resolution? I thought you had
arranged--"
"Never mind what I've arranged. We're going abroad to-morrow, if we
can't get away to-night."
"To-morrow? To-night? My child, are you in earnest?"
"Very much so. That is, I don't wish to put any constraint on you. You,
of course, are at liberty to go or stay, exactly as you please. I
merely wish to say that I am going abroad, whether you come with me or
whether you don't; and that I intend to start either to-night or
to-morrow morning."
They left the next morning. The packing was done that night. At an
early hour they went up to town; at eleven o'clock they started for the
Continent. That evening they dined in Paris. Mrs Plummer would have
liked to remonstrate--and did remonstrate so far as she dared; but it
needed less sagacity than she possessed to enable her to see that, in
Miss Arnott's present mood, the limits of daring might easily be
passed. When she ventured to suggest that before their departure Mr
Stacey should be consulted, the young lady favoured her with a little
plain speaking.
"Why should I consult Mr Stacey? He is only my servant."
"Your servant? My dear!"
"He renders me certain services, for which I pay him. Doesn't that mean
that, in a certain sense, he's my servant? I have authority over him,
but he has none over me--not one iota. He was my trustee; but, as I
understand it, his trusteeship ceased when I entered into actual
possession of my uncle's property. He does as I tell him, that's all. I
shouldn't dream of consulting him as to my personal movements--nor
anyone. As, in the future, my movements may appear to you to be
erratic, please, Mrs Plummer, let us understand each other now. You are
my companion--good! I have no objection. When we first met, you told me
that my liberty would be more complete with you than without you. I
assure you, on my part, that I do not intend to allow you to interfere
with my perfect freedom of action in the least degree. I mean to go
where I please, when I please, how I please, and I want no criticism.
You can do exactly as you choose; I shall do as I choose. I don't
intend to allow you, in any way whatever, to be a clog upon my
movements. The sooner we understand each other perfectly on that point
the better it will be for both sides. Don't you think so?"
Mrs Plummer had to think so.
"I'm sure that if you told me you meant to start in ten minutes for the
North Pole, you'd find me willing; that is, if you'd be willing to take
me with you."
"Oh, I'd be willing to take you, so long as you don't even hint at a
disinclination to be taken."
They stayed in Paris for two days. Then they wandered hither and
thither in Switzerland. Everywhere, it seemed, there were too many
people.
"I want to be alone," declared Miss Arnott. "Where there isn't a soul
to speak to except you and Evans,"--Evans was her maid--"you two don't
count. But I can't get away from the crowds; they're even on the tops
of the mountains. I hate them."
Mrs Plummer sighed; being careful, however, to conceal the sigh from
Miss Arnott. It seemed to her that the young lady had an
incomprehensible objection to everything that appealed to anyone else.
She avoided hotels where the cooking was decent, because other people
patronised them. She eschewed places where there was something to be
obtained in the way of amusement, because other reasonable creatures
showed a desire to be amused. She shunned beauty spots, merely because
she was not the only person in the world who liked to look upon the
beauties of nature. Having hit upon an apparently inaccessible retreat,
from the ordinary tourist point of view, in the upper Engadine, where,
according to Mrs Plummer, the hotel was horrible, and there was nothing
to do, and nowhere to go, there not being a level hundred yards within
miles, the roads being mere tracks on the mountain sides, she did show
some disposition to rest awhile. Indeed, she showed an inclination to
stay much longer than either Mrs Plummer or Evans desired. Those two
were far from happy.
"What a young lady in her position can see in a place like this beats
me altogether. The food isn't fit for a Christian, and look at the room
we have to eat it in; it isn't even decently furnished. There's not a
soul to speak to, and nothing to do except climb up and down the side
of a wall. She'll be brought in one day--if they ever find her--nothing
but a bag of bones; you see if she isn't!"
In that strain Evans frequently eased her mind, or tried to.
To this remote hamlet, however, in course of time, other people began
to come. They not only filled the hotel, which was easy, since Miss
Arnott already had most of it, and would have had all, if the landlord,
who was a character, had not insisted on keeping certain rooms for
other guests; but they also overflowed into the neighbouring houses.
These newcomers filled Miss Arnott with dark suspicions. When indulging
in her solitary expeditions one young man in particular, named
Blenkinsop, developed an extraordinary knack of turning up when she
least expected him.
"I believe I'm indebted to you for these people coming here."
This charge she levelled at Mrs Plummer, who was amazed.
"To me! Why, they're all complete strangers to me; I never saw one of
them before, and haven't the faintest notion where they come from or
who they are.
"All the same, I believe I am; to you or to Evans; probably to both."
"My dear, what do you mean? The things you say!"
"It's the things you say, that's what I mean. You and Evans have been
talking to the people here; you have been telling them who I am, and a
great many things you have no right to tell them. They've been telling
people down in the valley, and the thing has spread; how the rich
Arnott girl, who has so much money she herself doesn't know how much,
is stopping up here all alone. I know. These creatures have come up in
consequence. That man Blenkinsop as good as told me this afternoon that
he only came because he heard that I was here."
"My dear, what can you expect? You can't hide your light under a
bushel. You would have much more real solitude in a crowd than in a
place like this."
"Should I? We shall see. If this sort of thing occurs again I shall
send you and Evans home. I shall drop my own name, and take a
pseudonym; and I shall go into lodgings, and live on fifty francs a
week--then we'll see if I sha'n't be left alone."
When Mrs Plummer retailed these remarks to Evans, the lady's maid--who
had already been the recipient of a few observations on her own
account--expressed herself with considerable frankness on the subject
of her mistress.
"I believe she's mad--I do really. I don't mean that she's bad enough
for a lunatic asylum or anything like that; but that she has a screw
loose, and that there's something wrong with her, I'm pretty nearly
sure. Look at the fits of depression she has--with her quite young and
everything to make her all the other way. Look how she broods. She
might be like the party in the play who'd murdered sleep, the way she
keeps awake of nights. I know she reads till goodness knows what time;
and often and often I don't believe she has a wink of sleep all night
It isn't natural--I know I shouldn't like it if it was me. She might
have done some dreadful crime, and be haunted by it, the way that she
goes on--she might really."
It was, perhaps, owing to the fact that the unfortunate lady
practically had no human society except the lady's maid's that Mrs
Plummer did not rebuke her more sharply for indulging in such free and
easy comments on the lady to whom they were both indebted. She did
observe that Evans ought not to say such things; but, judging from
certain passages in a letter which, later on, she sent to Mrs Stacey,
it is possible that the woman's words had made a greater impression
than she had cared to admit.
They passed from the Engadine to Salmezzo, a little village which
nestles among the hills which overlook Lake Como. It was from there
that the letter in question was written. After a page or two about
nothing in particular it went on like this:--
"I don't want to make mountains out of molehills, and I don't wish you
to misunderstand me; but I am beginning to wonder if there is not
something abnormal about the young lady whom I am supposed to chaperon.
In so rich, so young, and so beautiful a girl--and I think she grows
more beautiful daily--this horror of one's fellow-creatures--carried to
the extent she carries it--is in itself abnormal. But, lately, there
has been something more. She is physically, or mentally, unwell; which
of the two I can't decide. I am not in the least bit morbid; but,
really, if you had been watching her--and, circumstanced as I am, you
can't help watching her--you would begin to think she must be haunted.
It's getting on my nerves. Usually, I should describe her as one of the
most self-possessed persons I had ever met; but, during the last week
or two, she has taken to starting--literally--at shadows.
"The other day, at the end of the little avenue of trees which runs in
front of my bedroom, right before my eyes, she stopped and leaned
against one of the trees, as if for support. I wondered what she meant
by it--the attitude was such an odd one. Presently a man came along the
road, and strode past the gate. The nearer he came the more she slunk
behind the tree. When he had passed she crouched down behind the tree,
and began to cry. How she did cry! While I was hesitating whether I
ought to go to her or not, apparently becoming conscious that she might
be overlooked, she suddenly got up and--still crying--rushed off among
the trees.
"Now who did she think that man was she heard coming along the road?
Why did she cry like that when she found it wasn't he? Were they tears
of relief or disappointment? It seemed very odd.
"Again, one afternoon she went for a drive with me; it is not often
that she will go anywhere with me, especially for a drive, but that
afternoon the suggestion actually came from her. After we had gone some
distance we alighted from the vehicle to walk to a point from which a
famous view can be obtained. All at once, stopping, she caught me by
the arm.
"'Who's that speaking?' she asked. Up to then I had not been conscious
that anyone was speaking. But, as we stood listening, I gradually
became conscious, in the intense silence, of a distant murmur of voices
which was just, and only just, audible. Her hearing must be very acute.
'It is an English voice which is speaking,' she said. She dragged me
off the path among the shadow of the trees. She really did drag; but I
was so taken aback by the extraordinary look which came upon her face,
and by the strangeness of her tone, that I was incapable of offering
the least resistance. On a sudden she had become an altogether
different person; a dreadful one, it seemed to me. Although I was
conscious of the absurdity of our crouching there among the trees, I
could not say so--simply because I was afraid of her. At last she said,
as if to herself, 'It's not his voice.' Then she gave a gasp, or a
groan, or sigh--I don't know what it was. I could feel her shuddering;
it affected me most unpleasantly. Presently two perfectly inoffensive
young Englishmen, who were staying at our hotel, came strolling by.
Fortunately they did not look round. If they had seen us hiding there
among the trees I don't know what they would have thought.
"I have only given you two instances. But recently, she is always doing
ridiculous things like that, which, although they are ridiculous, are
disconcerting. She certainly is unwell mentally, or physically, or
both; but not only so. I seriously do believe she's haunted. Not by
anything supernatural, but by something, perhaps, quite ordinary. There
may be some episode in her life which we know nothing of, and which it
might be much better for her if we did, and that haunts her. I should
not like to venture to hint at what may be its exact nature; because I
have no idea; but I would not mind hazarding a guess that it has
something to do with a man."
Mrs Plummer's sagacity was not at fault; it had something to do with a
man--her husband. She had hoped that constant wandering might help her
to banish him from her mind--him and another man. The contrary proved
to be the case. The farther she went the more present he seemed to
be--they both seemed to be.
And, lately, the thing had become worse. She had begun to count the
hours which still remained before the prison gates should be reopened.
So swiftly the time grew shorter. When they were reopened, what would
happen then? Now she was haunted; what Mrs Plummer had written was
true. Day and night she feared to see his face; she trembled lest every
unknown footstep might be his. A strange voice made her heart stand
still.
The absurdity of the thing did not occur to her? she was so wholly
obsessed by its horror. Again Mrs Plummer was right, she was unwell
both mentally and physically. The burden which was weighing on her,
body and soul, was rapidly becoming heavier than she could bear. She
magnified it till it filled her whole horizon. Look where she would it
was there, the monster who--it seemed to her, at any moment--might
spring out at her from behind the prison gates. The clearness of her
mental vision was becoming obscured, the things she saw were distorted
out of their true proportions.
As a matter of fact, the hour of Robert Champion's release was drawing
near. The twelve months were coming to an end. The probability was that
they had seemed much longer to him than to her. To her it seemed that
the hour of his release would sound the knell of the end of all things.
She awaited it as a condemned wretch might await the summons to the
gallows. As, with the approaching hour, the tension grew tighter, the
balance of her mind became disturbed. Temporarily, she was certainly
not quite sane.
One afternoon she crowned her display of eccentricity by rushing off
home almost at a moment's notice. On the previous day--a Tuesday--she
had arranged with the landlord to continue in his hotel for a further
indefinite period. On the Wednesday, after lunch, she came to Mrs
Plummer and announced that they were going home at once. Although Mrs
Plummer was taken wholly by surprise, the suggestion being a complete
reversal of all the plans they had made, Miss Arnott's manner was so
singular, and the proposition was in itself so welcome, that the elder
lady fell in with the notion there and then, without even a show of
remonstrance. The truth is that she had something more than a suspicion
that Miss Arnott would be only too glad to avail herself of any excuse
which might offer, and return to England alone, leaving her--Mrs
Plummer--alone with Evans. Why the young lady should wish to do such a
thing she had no idea, but that she did wish to do it she felt
uncomfortably convinced. The companion managing to impress the lady's
maid with her aspect of the position, the trunks were packed in less
than no time, so that the entire cortege was driven over to catch the
afternoon train, leaving the smiling landlord with a thumping cheque,
to compensate him for the rapidity with which the eccentric young
Englishwoman thought proper to break the engagements into which she had
solemnly entered.
That was on the Wednesday. On the Saturday--by dint of losing no time
upon the way--they arrived at Exham Park. On the Sunday Robert
Champion's term of imprisonment was to come to an end; on that day he
would have been twelve months in jail. What a rigid account she had
kept of it all, like the schoolboy who keeps count of the days which
bar him from his holidays. But with what a different feeling in her
heart! She had seen that Sunday coming at her from afar off--nearer and
nearer. What would happen when it came, and he was free to get at her
again, she did not know. What she did know was that she meant to have
an hour or two at Exham Park before the Sunday dawned, and the monster
was set free again. She had come at headlong speed from the Lake of
Como to have it.