Pale, worn, haggard with anxiety, Sydney Westerfield entered the room,
and looked once more on the faces which she had resigned herself never
to see again. She appeared to be hardly conscious of the kind reception
which did its best to set her at her ease.
“Am I in time?” were the first words that escaped her on entering the
room. Reassured by the answer, she turned back to the door, eager to
hurry upstairs to Kitty’s bedside.
Mrs. Linley’s gentle hand detained her.
The doctor had left certain instructions, warning the mother to guard
against any accident that might remind Kitty of the day on which Sydney
had left her. At the time of that bitter parting, the child had seen
her governess in the same walking-dress which she wore now. Mrs. Linley
removed the hat and cloak, and laid them on a chair.
“There is one other precaution which we must observe,” she said; “I
must ask you to wait in my room until I find that you may show yourself
safely. Now come with me.”
Mrs. Presty followed them, and begged earnestly for leave to wait the
result of the momentous experiment, at the door of Kitty’s bedroom. Her
self-asserting manner had vanished; she was quiet, she was even humble.
While the last chance for the child’s life was fast becoming a matter
of minutes only, the grandmother’s better nature showed itself on the
surface. Randal opened the door for them as the three went out together.
He was in that state of maddening anxiety about his poor little niece
in which men of his imaginative temperament become morbid, and say
strangely inappropriate things. In the same breath with which he
implored his sister-in-law to let him hear what had happened, without an
instant of delay, he startled Mrs. Presty by one of his familiar remarks
on the inconsistencies in her character. “You disagreeable old woman,”
he whispered, as she passed him, “you have got a heart, after all.”
Left alone, he was never for one moment in repose, while the slow
minutes followed each other in the silent house.
He walked about the room, he listened at the door, he arranged and
disarranged the furniture. When the nursemaid descended from the upper
regions with her mistress’s message for him, he ran out to meet her; saw
the good news in her smiling face; and, for the first and last time in
his life kissed one of his brother’s female servants. Susan--a well-bred
young person, thoroughly capable in ordinary cases of saying “For shame,
sir!” and looking as if she expected to feel an arm round her waist
next--trembled with terror under that astounding salute. Her master’s
brother, a pattern of propriety up to that time, a man declared by her
to be incapable of kissing a woman unless she had a right to insist on
it in the licensed character of his wife, had evidently taken leave of
his senses. Would he bite her next? No: he only looked confused, and
said (how very extraordinary!) that he would never do it again. Susan
gave her message gravely. Here was an unintelligible man; she felt the
necessity of being careful in her choice of words.
“Miss Kitty stared at Miss Westerfield--only for a moment, sir--as
if she didn’t quite understand, and then knew her again directly. The
doctor had just called. He drew up the blind to let the light in, and
he looked, and he says: ‘Only be careful’--” Tender-hearted Susan broke
down, and began to cry. “I can’t help it, sir; we are all so fond of
Miss Kitty, and we are so happy. ‘Only be careful’ (those were the exact
words, if you please), ‘and I answer for her life.’--Oh, dear! what have
I said to make him run away from me?”
Randal had left her abruptly, and had shut himself into the
drawing-room. Susan’s experience of men had not yet informed her that a
true Englishman is ashamed to be seen (especially by his inferiors) with
the tears in his eyes.
He had barely succeeded in composing himself, when another servant
appeared--this time a man--with something to say to him.
“I don’t know whether I have done right, sir,” Malcolm began. “There’s a
stranger downstairs among the tourists who are looking at the rooms and
the pictures. He said he knew you. And he asked if you were not related
to the gentleman who allowed travelers to see his interesting old
house.”
“Well?”
“Well, sir, I said Yes. And then he wanted to know if you happened to be
here at the present time.”
Randal cut the man’s story short. “And you said Yes again, and he gave
you his card. Let me look at it.”
Malcolm produced the card, and instantly received instructions to
show the gentleman up. The name recalled the dinner at the London
club--Captain Bennydeck.