Agatha came back to the drawing-room, and went straight to her
flowers. She did not look at her aunt.
"Well," asked the latter inquisitively. She loved discussing her
own ailments.
"Well, there is nothing new. He evidently thinks you immensely
better. So much better that I wonder he comes here at all."
"It is very kind of him to come," said Mrs. Greatorex calmly.
"It is too kind. And--for nothing."
"My dear Agatha, I'm afraid it cannot be for nothing. I expect he
will see little symptoms of---"
"I don't mean that. What"--impatiently--"I want to say is,
that he gains nothing by coming here."
"Nothing in a pecuniary sense, certainly," said Mrs. Greatorex;
"but he likes good society---"
Agatha made a sudden movement.
"I wonder how you can do it," said she.
"Do what?" asked Mrs. Greatorex, letting the pretty little pale
pink silk sock she was knitting lie upon her lap for a moment.
"Accept his services gratuitously?"
Mrs. Greatorex laughed.
"What have you got into your head now?" asked she. "He has
attended me for the past year. Last month I sent him a cheque
with a little hint to the effect that as I felt so much better I
need not trouble him again. He came the next day. I then told him
plainly I could afford no more fees out of my slender income. He
said--very gracefully, as I thought--that he could never bear
to resign a case until a perfect cure had been accomplished--or
something to that effect. Well, why should I not allow him to be
happy in his own way?"
"And I am a burden to you," said the girl in a low voice.
"My good child, never give yourself over to nonsense!" said Mrs.
Greatorex, with a shrug. "You know very well I am delighted to
have you."
She took up her little sock again and turned the heel.
The needles clicked on, and Agatha thought. _Was_ her aunt
delighted to have her? Sometimes things pointed that way. But
certainly she was a burden to her, as Mrs. Greatorex's income was
not only a small one, but she herself was a of a decidedly
miserly disposition. The girl had certainly a miserable twenty
pounds a year of her own, but that was too little. She made it
suffice for her dress, but it sufficed very badly. It was all,
however, her father, Colonel Nesbitt, had been able to leave her.
Sometimes the girl felt that she loved her, worldly as she was.
When she was sixteen, the colonel died. At sixteen she had found
herself an orphan, without a friend, and almost penniless, and
but that Mrs. Greatorex had then come forward, the poor child
would hardly have known what to do or where to go. Fortune
favours the brave, they say; sometimes, however, it favours the
beautiful.
Agatha Nesbitt was beautiful, and suddenly fortune came to her in
the shape of Mrs. Greatorex. It was not a great fortune, truly,
but it lifted the girl for the moment out of her Slough of
Despond.
But now another terror threatened her. This detestable Dr.
Darkham, whose visits to her aunt for the past few months had
been so regular--whose visits, now that her aunt had declared
herself off his hands, were still so regular--troubled here
more than she cared to think.
What there was in his manner to distress her she hardly knew---
hardly understood; but she had learned to regard his coming with
fear and loathing--to dread those _tête-à-têtes,_ when, in the
little ante-room, he wrote out his prescriptions and gave her his
instructions.
Not that a word had ever been spoken that all the world might not
hear--not a look; and, after all, what was there in the
lengthened regard of his dark, unfathomable eyes to alarm her?
She could not tell. Not--not love, certainly. He--a married man!
She had remonstrated with her aunt very often. To accept his
visits without payment! Mrs. Greatorex, whose pride in her birth
was excessive, but who would have gone any lengths to save her
pocket, had pooh-poohed the girl's expostulations, and had
continued to accept Dr. Darkham's visits without protest.
. . . . . . .
Agatha roused herself from her thoughts.
"I know how good you have been to me always," said she with
warmth. "You are my one friend. It is because I love you that I
can't bear you to have this Dr. Darkham coming here like this.
He---"
"My dear, he comes only because he likes to get away from the
atmosphere of his sordid home. That pays him. He likes nice
people, you know. Why do you dislike the poor man so much?"
"Dislike him?"
"Yes, you do. Like all girls, you are full of nonsensical fads,
and"--slowly--"it is my opinion that you think he is in love
with you."
"I can't congratulate you, then, on the girls you have known!"
said Agatha coldly.
"No?" Mrs. Greatorex laughed the little irritating laugh that
belonged to her. "A poor compliment to yourself! Still, I have
been studying you a little of late, and I feel sure I am right.
Get this latest fad of all out of your head, my dear girl, and as
soon as possible."
"You should remember he has a wife," said Agatha coldly.
"Why, so I should." Again that irritating little cackle grated on
the girl's ears. "But really, it is very hard to remember. He
himself forgets it so persistently. Poor man! who can blame him?
Bad as he is, and, of course, we know he rose from the rankest of
the ranks, still she--- What a woman! A perfect annoyance to the
neighbourhood."
"I can't see how she annoys anybody. One never sees her."
"You'll see her to-morrow night at the Firs-Robinsons', anyway.
Mrs. Poynter told me this morning that she was going."
"What?" said Agatha. She paused. She even forgot the argument in
question in the thought of seeing Mrs. Darkham at the dance
to-morrow night. How strange! "Are you sure she is going?"
"Quite sure."
"As a rule, she refuses all invitations."
"There's where she shows her one grain of sense."
"There's where Dr. Darkham shows his tyranny," said Agatha "I
believe he doesn't allow her to go anywhere."
Mrs. Greatorex shrugged her thin, ladylike shoulders.
"I suppose you know by this time that 'people are mostly fools.'
And even if such light talk be true, and Mrs. Darkham is such a
nonentity as to be controlled in the way you declare, her husband
is quite wise to exercise his power."
"It is not wisdom in this case, it is cowardice. He is afraid of
her vulgarity."
"No wonder. She was a tradesman's daughter, wasn't she?"
"Well," with some fire, "wasn't he a tradesman's son?"
"Still consider!"
"Oh, _you_ to consider!" the girl interrupted her vehemently---
"you who lay so much stress on 'family'; you who will hardly
acknowledge the Firs-Robinsons because they cannot swear to a
grandfather."
"What I was going to say was that Dr. Darkham must be pitied
about his marriage, to a certain degree. He has risen out of the
mire of his birth and his original surroundings. She has sunk
deeper into hers. I think," said Mrs. Greatorex, who had a fond
fancy that she was a sympathetic soul, "that, of all harrowing
afflictions, the worst must be that of a man tied for life to an
uncongenial companion."
"I think it must be infinitely worse for a woman to be tied for
life to a thoroughly bad husband."
"My dear Agatha! You will end by representing Dr. Darkham as a
modern Bluebeard. As for me, I pity him. And there are so many
cases just like his. A young man of his parentage--nobody at
all, in facts--starts in life, very naturally, by marrying
somebody in his own class. Some dreadful person! Then he, being
clever--a man--rises. She stands rootedly still. She is a
millstone round his neck, weighing him down, keeping him back
from the goal to which he would attain--the goal of equality
with his superiors which he feels ought to be his, because of the
intellect that ennobles him. Now we all know Mrs. Darkham. No
wonder he hates her."
"For all that, if a man marries a woman of his own free-will he
should deal fairly by her," said Agatha thoughtfully.
"Of course. But there are always exceptional cases. And surely
Mrs. Darkham is one of them."
"I don't think so. She is very vulgar, and very fat, and
unutterably dull; but one must remember that she was all that
when he married her. What, then, does he look for now?"
"Perhaps for the 'h's' she is always dropping," said Mrs.
Greatorex, with a laugh. "You say she never goes anywhere, that
he keeps her in durance vile; but she is going to this dance
to-morrow night at the Firs-Robinsons', and I saw her yesterday
at the Poynters'. What is it about her that jars so dreadfully?
She started the subject of that idiot son of hers, and wore it to
tatters, whilst we all sat aghast, and wished ourselves dead. I
was quite thankful Dr. Darkham wasn't there. I really think if he
had been, he would have been quite justified in murdering her."
"Oh no!" The words seemed to fall from Agatha unconsciously.
There was horror in them--she shuddered. "Aunt Hilda, how
dreadful! To murder her!"
Mrs. Greatorex laid down her knitting.
"It wasn't so much that she was vulgar--had bad taste--but
that she was so--so oppressive. And rude, too--very rude."
"I could fancy," said the girl slowly, "that she is very unhappy.
I have often thought it."
"You are prejudiced. _I_ could fancy that she is very nearly as
much out of her mind as that terrible son of hers."
"Poor Edwy! I met him yesterday in the wood. He came crash
through it like a young Samson. Poor, poor boy! To be deaf and
dumb and idiotic seems--well, a cruel sentence."
"Strange how people like that live on! Useless--mere burdens---
creatures one shrinks from. Why, he must be almost grown up now."
"He is sixteen; but he looks a mere child. His body has grown,
but his face has not; it is so young--pathetically young--and
at times almost beautiful."
"Not when he is excited."
"No, no! And not when he laughs. What a frightful sound it is!
You know, I suppose, that he can say one word. At least, not a
word, but a noise that has a meaning."
"Mr. Blount told me about it. _'Sho'_ is the sound, is it not?"
"Yes; and it always means his mother. He calls to her in that
way. It is very remarkable. You know he adores her. After all, I
think she can't be without some good quality, when that poor
stricken boy loves her so much."
"Like to like," said Mrs. Greatorex carelessly. "Really she is
nearly as dull as he is. Let us forget her. What of to-morrow
night? Did you hear who was likely to be there?"
"At the Firs-Robinsons'? Everybody, as far as I can see."
"Quite right, too. They are 'nobody,' if you like."
"I think Elfrida is charming," said Agatha quietly.
"Elfrida!" Mrs. Greatorex sniffed. "Elfrida, with Robinson at the
end of it! Firs-Robinson because of the society craze for double
names. Well, and so every one is to be there. What do they mean
by every one?"
"Why"--laughing--"I suppose _every one_. And I hear Lord
Stilton and his party, and Lord Ambert."
"Ambert!" Mrs. Greatorex let the sock fall to the floor this
time. "Can it be true that he wants to marry that girl? I can't
imagine Miss Robinson--a countess! But he is very hard up, and
she has a great deal of money. Money is everything nowadays!"
Then suddenly, leaning forward, and letting her brilliant eyes
rest upon her niece's face, as if indignant with her, "Why
haven't _you_ money?" said she.
The uncontrollable ambition that ruled her whole life betrayed
itself in these words. If Agatha had been an heiress she might
have married Lord Ambert.