"Isn't it frightful!" said old Miss Firs-Robinson, exclaiming as
much with her hands as with her tongue. "Such a death!"
"A terrible death, indeed," returned Mrs. Poynter--a pretty,
fashionable-looking young woman--with deep commiseration. "So
sudden!"
It was the next day, and the news of Mrs. Darkham's death had
spread and was now known far and wide. All the people in Rickton
had "a day," and this one belonged to Miss Firs-Robinson. A most
blessed thing, as everyone wanted to meet every one else and
discuss with them the tragedy. It was the rector's wife who had
been the first to use the word "tragedy," and it had caught on at
once. "She is so clever, you know. Always the right word on every
occasion. Really quite talented! The rector could never get on
without her; she has been the making of him. That last sermon of
his about regeneration, surely--_well!_ And she does write, you
know, for some of the papers. At all events, she has been known
to answer a charade most successfully. You _must_ remember. It
began with "My first was an ass.""
Lord Ambert and Elfrida were playing tennis in the courts below
against Captain Poynter and a rather pretty girl who was staying
with the Poynters.
Mr. Blount was standing on the terrace close to the nearest point
from which the tennis-court could be seen. He was supposed to be
making himself agreeable to the companion Fate had accorded him
for the moment, but in reality he was watching Elfrida with a sad
but absorbed gaze. Agatha Nesbitt, sitting at the end of the
terrace, seemed to read his thoughts, and beckoned him to come to
her. She herself was sitting where whoever came to the hall-door
could be readily seen.
"And I hear," said Mrs. Poynter, arching her brows and putting on
a look of perfect misery, "that Dr. Darkham is absolutely
inconsolable."
"Oh my dear, do you think so? Well, I don't know, I'm sure." Miss
Firs-Robinson as she spoke turned purple. "He is--well, you know,
I don't like him. But dissolute--one should be charitable, my
dear. I confess I have thought him a little queer at times in his
ways, but nothing so far gone as that. No, no."
"You mistake me," said Mrs. Poynter, flushing delicately, yet
with a glance round her. She wanted to laugh, but it is so
impossible to laugh alone. She caught Dicky Browne's eye at this
moment, however, and was happy.
"I'm sure I do, my dear," said old Miss Firs-Robinson heartily,
who was really a good soul. "Poor man! I'm talking of Dr.
Darkham, Dicky; he's gone all to pieces, they tell me, over this
business."
"I hope sincerely nobody will put him together again," returned
Mr. Browne piously.
"Such a feeling man!" said Mrs. Greatorex, dropping into a chair
near them. "No wonder he is in such a terrible state. I fear this
sad occurrence will place the neighbourhood in grief for some
time."
"I suppose so. And yet"--Mrs. Poynter turned to her next
neighbour--"You see, she was such a stranger to us, poor woman!
_Such_ a stranger!" She lifted her pale-gray gloves here, and did
something to her veil. "Did _you_" said she gently, looking at
Mrs. Greatorex, "see much or her?"
Mrs. Poynter's voice was wonderful. It was a perfect coo, like a
dove's. And she was very good-natured, too, in her own way, but
it _had_ to be her own way. She detested anything unpleasant,
anything that interfered with her, anything that rubbed her up
the wrong way, and she certainly detested Dr. Darkham. But she
had a little way with her that precluded the idea of her
detesting anybody.
"Oh yes, very, very often," said Mrs. Greatorex sweetly. "I
always tried to do what I could for her, poor creature!"
"And you?" said Mrs. Poynter, turning to Miss Firs-Robinson, who
was looking grim. The old lady had been studying Mrs. Greatorex.
"Did you see much of her?"
"Well, as little as I could help," said the spinster with all the
candour that adorned her, and a trifle of anger besides. "Because
a more odious, a more unpleasant person I never met in my life."
"Oh, dear Miss Firs-Robinson!" cried the rector's wife, a little
sallow woman. "You should remember, you should indeed. She is
dead, you know."
"Yes, I do know," said the old lady in a loud voice, "but how
does that alter matters? If the dead want to be praised, they
ought to behave themselves properly whilst they are alive, and
_she_ didn't. I am sorry the poor woman died like that, without
returning to consciousness even for a little while."
"It was quite hopeless from the very first," said Mrs. Poynter.
"Dr. Bland and Dr. Dillwyn were both quite agreed about that."
"Oh no!" Agatha spoke as if involuntarily. "Not quite agreed. Dr.
Dillwyn told me she might recover."
"Told you?" questioned Mrs. Greatorex quite gently. Then with a
little smile: "But when, dear Agatha?"
The girl looked at her and paused. She seemed to struggle with a
certain confusion.
Mrs. Greatorex, who would have made a splendid diplomatist, at
once regretted her question, and stepped into the breach. She had
made up her mind that her niece was to settle herself in life
well, and to have her even "mentioned" with so deplorable a
detrimental as Dillwyn--a young doctor just making his first
breach through the wall of life--would be destruction. She
therefore came to Agatha's rescue, and accepted the question as
answered.
"He seems to have had two minds on the subject," she said
slightingly, "which only shows how ridiculous it would be to
place any confidence in his opinion. Young men of his age are not
to be relied upon."
"I wonder if the party at Ambert Towers will be put off?" said
the rector's wife, lowering her voice and speaking
confidentially. "It was to be on Thursday next."
"I should think not. Lord Ambert is not the sort of man to---"
"No, he is not, indeed."
"He seems to me more reserved than unsympathetic," said Mrs.
Greatorex, who always supported him on principle. Were they not
of the same class? "Are you going?" asked she, addressing Mrs.
Poynter.
"We've been asked," said that pretty woman, with downcast lids.
"But do you think one should go--with this death so very
recent? Are"--she paused prettily--"are _you_ going?"
"Not as to a party"--with much _empressement_. "It will, I feel
sure, be a quiet affair, on account of poor Dr. Darkham's
bereavement."
"Oh, bereavement!" Mrs. Poynter permitted herself first a smile,
and then gave way to a subdued laugh. "I say, mustn't he be
glad?" said she.
"My dear Mrs. Poynter, hush! If any one should hear you! And,
really, you take quite a wrong view of it. You are worse than Mr.
Browne, who says quite dreadful things. I admire Dr. Darkham, you
know--I do indeed. I think him an ideal man. Fancy his devotion
to that dreadful being all these years!" She lifted her hands.
"Such a handsome man, my dear Mrs. Poynter; he is one in a
thousand."
"So glad," said Mrs. Poynter, rather frivolously. "Two of him in
a thousand would be more than one could endure. To me he always
seems--don't you know--well, so out of it."
"Out of it?"
"Well, not _in_ it, don't you know. A--a little on one side--
eh? A little--well, vulgar is a horrid word, isn't it? Oh, how
d'ye do, Lord Ambert? Been winning as usual?"
"Not as usual. I've been winning to-day because Miss
Firs-Robinson has been my partner!"
"Oh, I like that," said Elfrida, who was with him. "As if I was
the least use to you! You could have won the game quite as well
without me--better, I dare say. I don't believe I made five
good strokes all day. My ball went _into_ the net, instead of
over it, every time. I'm a perfect fraud!" She looked up at
Blount suddenly, brilliantly, intentionally. "Now am I not, Mr.
Blount?"
Blount hesitated and coloured, and Lord Ambert stared at him
superciliously. Blount shook his head.
"You must let me contradict you," said he shyly, boyishly.
"Shall I get you some tea?" asked Ambert, who was frowning.
"No, thank you. There is claret-cup somewhere, if one could only
find it. Mr. Blount, will you come with me on a voyage of
discovery?"
Poor Blount! His eyes lit up. He went quickly to her, and she led
him a fool's dance for the next ten minutes.
Ambert strolled leisurely away in an opposite direction, his face
set and angry.
"What a pity it is that she _will_ encourage that poor boy!" said
Mrs. Poynter to Agatha. "And when her mind is so entirely made up
to marry Lord Ambert!"
"Then you think---"
"I am afraid she is a terrible flirt," said Agatha. Whereon they
both laughed.
"Here comes John Dillwyn," said Mrs. Poynter presently. "And
straight to us. _You_ are not a flirt, I know, Agatha--which
makes me all the more afraid for you. You know he hasn't a penny.
Well, John," taking a sympathetic note at once, "so that poor
woman has slipped through your fingers. We are all so shocked
about it. There was no hope from the beginning, I suppose?"
"I don't think that. I fully believed there was a chance for her,
but it was a bare one. Still---"--he knitted his brows as if
perplexed--"I believed in it."
"You mustn't say that now, John," said Mrs. Poynter, patting her
cousin's arm; "you have your fortune to make, you know, and
mistakes are fatal. Ah, you'll get on, John; you have the courage
to confess your faults," said his cousin, smiling; "but don't
confess them before unappreciative people. Dr. Darkham is, of
course, very---"
"I saw him only for a moment this morning. He looked like death
himself. I had no idea he--er--cared for her so much. His
face looked quite changed."
"Agatha, I think we must go now," said a cold voice. Mrs.
Greatorex laid her hand on Agatha's shoulder. "How d'ye do, Dr.
Dillywn? I hope you have seen poor Dr. Darkham, and that he is
bearing up?"
"He seems greatly cut up," said Dillwyn.
"Ah, as I said. So sympathetic, so tender-hearted! I should so
like to tell him how I feel for him."
"I am afraid you will have no chance of doing that except by
letter. He is leaving home directly after the funeral for some
months."
"And are you to look after his patients?" asked Mrs. Greatorex,
turning to Dillwyn.
"Oh no"--smiling. "I am not big enough for that. Bland is to
see to them."
Once settled in the fly, that on all occasions was borrowed from
the inn to convey them to such distances as Mrs. Greatorex could
not walk, the latter turned to her niece.
"When did Dr. Dillwyn tell you Mrs. Darkham might recover?" asked
she very quietly.
"Last evening. I was standing at the gate, and he happened to be
passing by. I asked him about Mrs. Darkham's condition, and he
told me he thought she _might_ recover, but it was very
doubtful."
"I should think," said Mrs. Greatorex presently, "between you and
me, that Dr. Darkham is feeling profoundly relieved at this
present moment."
"You mean---"
"That that woman was the curse of his existence for the past
twenty years."
"She was dreadful, certainly. But Dr.--Dr. Dillwyn said he
looked so sorry."
"It was a shock, of course, but he will recover from that in no
time. And he is a handsome man, and rich and clever."
"Yes." Agatha looked at her as if wondering. There had been some
meaning in her tone that the girl felt but did not understand.
"Yes. Don't you see? There is a chance for you now," said Mrs.
Greatorex playfully, but with deadly meaning. The girl, after a
swift glance at her, turned away. She felt cold and sick. Was
this woman human, to pretend--to jest so--on the very threshold
of death? And was it all jesting? She drew a long breath, as if
suffocating.
"How can you talk like that?" she said.