"No, not 'poor soul.' No woman who is as happy as she is needs pity.
Since she has had time to rest, she looks radiant."
In course of time, however, she was less radiant. Most people know
something of waiting for answers to letters written to foreign lands. It
seems impossible to calculate correctly as to what length of time must
elapse before the reply to the letter one sent by the last mail can
reach one. He who waits is always premature in the calculation he makes.
The mail should be due at a certain date, one is so sure. The letter
could be written on such a day and posted at once. But the date
calculated for arrives, passes,--the answer has not come. Who does not
remember?
Emily Walderhurst had passed through the experience and knew it well.
But previously the letters she had sent had been of less vital
importance. When the replies to them had lingered on their way she had,
it is true, watched eagerly for the postman, and had lived restlessly
between the arrivals of the mails, but she had taught herself
resignation to the inevitable. Now life had altered its aspect and its
significance. She had tried, with the aid of an untried imagination, to
paint to herself the moments in which her husband would read the letter
which told him what she had told. She had wondered if he would start, if
he would look amazed, if his grey-brown eyes would light with pleasure!
Might he not want to see her? Might he not perhaps write at once? She
never could advance farther in her imagined reading of this reply than
the first lines:
"MY DEAR EMILY,--The unexpected good news your letter contains has given
me the greatest satisfaction. You do not perhaps know how strong my
desire has been--"
She used to sit and flush with happiness when she reached this point.
She so wished that she was capable of depicting to herself what the rest
would be.
She calculated with the utmost care the probable date of the epistle's
arrival. She thought she made sure of allowing plenty of time for all
possible delays. The safety of her letters she had managed, with
Hester's aid, to arrange for. They were forwarded to her bankers and
called for. Only the letters from India were of any importance, and they
were not frequent. She told herself that she must be even more than
usually patient this time. When the letter arrived, if he told her he
felt it proper that he should return, no part of the strange experience
she had passed through would be of moment. When she saw his decorous,
well-bred face and heard his correctly modulated voice, all else would
seem like an unnatural dream.
In her relief at the decent composure of the first floor front in
Mortimer Street the days did not seem at first to pass slowly. But as
the date she had counted on drew near she could not restrain a natural
restlessness. She looked at the clock and walked up and down the room a
good deal. She was also very glad when night came and she could go to
bed. Then she was glad when the morning arrived, because she was a day
nearer to the end.
On a certain evening Dr. Warren said to his wife, "She is not so well
to-day. When I called I found her looking pale and anxious. When I
commented on the fact and asked how she was, she said that she had had a
disappointment. She had been expecting an important letter by a mail
arriving yesterday, and it had not come. She was evidently in low
spirits."
"Perhaps she has kept up her spirits before because she believed the
letter would come," Mrs. Warren speculated.
"She has certainly believed it would come."
"Do _you_ think it will, Harold?"
"She thinks it will yet. She was pathetically anxious not to be
impatient. She said she knew there were so many reasons for delay when
people were in foreign countries and very much occupied."
"There are many reasons, I daresay," said Mrs. Warren with a touch of
bitterness," but they are not usually the ones given to waiting,
desperate women."
Dr. Warren stood upon the hearthrug and gazed into the fire, knitting
his brows.
"She wanted to tell or ask me something this afternoon," he said, "but
she was afraid. She looked like a good child in great trouble. I think
she will speak before long."
She looked more and more like a good child in trouble as time passed.
Mail after mail came in, and she received no letter. She did not
understand, and her fresh colour died away. She spent her time now in
inventing reasons for the non-arrival of her letter. None of them
comprised explanations which could be disparaging in any sense to
Walderhurst. Chiefly she clung to the fact that he had not been well.
Anything could be considered a reason for neglecting letter writing if a
man was not well. If his illness had become serious she would, of
course, have heard from his doctor. She would not allow herself to
contemplate that. But if he was languid and feverish, he might so easily
put off writing from day to day. This was all the more plausible as a
reason, since he had not been a profuse correspondent. He had only
written when he had found he had leisure, with decent irregularity, so
to speak.
At last, however, on a day when she had felt the strain of waiting
greater than she had courage for, and had counted every moment of the
hour which must elapse before Jane could return from her mission of
inquiry, as she rested on the sofa she heard the girl mount the stairs
with a step whose hastened lightness wakened in her an excited
hopefulness.
She sat up with brightened face and eager eyes. How foolish she had been
to fret. Now--now everything would be different. Ah! how thankful she
was to God for being so good to her!
"I think you must have a letter, Jane," she said the moment the door
opened. "I felt it when I heard your footstep."
Jane was touching in her glow of relief and affection.
"Yes, my lady, I have, indeed. And they said at the bank that it had
come by a steamer that was delayed by bad weather."
Emily took the letter. Her hand shook, but it was with pleasure. She
forgot Jane, and actually kissed the envelope before she opened it. It
looked like a beautiful, long letter. It was quite thick.
But when she had opened it, she saw that the letter itself was not very
long. Several extra sheets of notes or instructions, it did not matter
what, seemed to be enclosed. Her hand shook so that she let them fall on
the floor. She looked so agitated that Jane was afraid to do more than
retire discreetly and stand outside the door.
In a few minutes she congratulated herself on the wisdom of not having
gone downstairs. She heard a troubled exclamation of wonder, and then a
call for herself.
"Jane, please, Jane!"
Lady Walderhurst was still sitting upon the sofa, but she looked pale
and unsteady. The letter was in her hand, which rested weakly in her
lap. It seemed as if she was so bewildered that she felt helpless.
She spoke in a tired voice.
"Jane," she said, "I think you will have to get me a glass of wine. I
don't think I am going to faint, but I do feel so--so upset."
Jane was at her side kneeling by her.
"Please, my lady, lie down," she begged. "Please do."
But she did not lie down. She sat trembling and looking at the girl in a
pathetic, puzzled fashion.
"I don't think," she quavered, "that his lordship can have received my
letter. He can't have received it. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't
say one word--"
She had been too healthy a woman to be subject to attacks of nerves. She
had never fainted before in her life, and as she spoke she did not at
all understand why Jane seemed to move up and down, and darkness came on
suddenly in the middle of the morning.
Jane managed by main strength to keep her from falling from the sofa,
and thanked Providence for the power vouchsafed to her. She reached the
bell and rang it violently, and hearing it, Mrs. Cupp came upstairs with
heavy swiftness.
Chapter Twenty one
Naturally a perceptive and closely reasoning woman, Mrs. Warren's close
intellectual intimacy with her husband had, in giving her the benefit of
intercourse with a wide experience, added greatly to her power of
reasoning by deduction. Warren frequently felt that his talk with her
was something like consultation with a specially clever and sympathetic
professional confrère. Her suggestions or conclusions were invariably
worth consideration. More than once his reflection upon them had led him
to excellent results. She made one night a suggestion with regard to the
Extraordinary Case which struck him as being more than usually astute.
"Is she an intellectual woman?" she inquired.
"Not in the least. An unsparingly brilliant person might feel himself
entitled to the right to call her stupid."
"Is she talkative?"
"Far from it. One of her charms is the nice respect she seems to feel
for the remarks of others."
"And she is not excitable?"
"Rather the reverse. If excitability is liveliness, she is dull."
"I see," slowly, "you have not yet thought it possible that she
might--well--be under some delusion."
Warren turned quickly and looked at her.
"It is wonderfully brilliant of you to have thought of it. A delusion?"
He stood and thought it over.
"Do you remember," his wife assisted him with, "the complications which
arose from young Mrs. Jerrold's running away, under similar
circumstances, to Scotland and hiding herself in a shepherd's cottage
under the impression that her husband was shadowing her with detectives?
You recollect what a lovable woman she was, and what horror she felt of
the poor fellow."
"Yes, yes. That was an Extraordinary Case too."
Mrs. Warren warmed with her subject.
"Here is a woman obviously concealing herself from the world in a
lodging-house, plainly possessing money, owning a huge ruby ring,
receiving documents stamped with imposing seals, taking exercise only by
night, heart-wrung over the non-arrival of letters which are due. Every
detail points to one painful, dubious situation. On the other hand, she
presents to you the manner and aspect of a woman who is absolutely not
dubious, and who is merely anxious on the one point a dubious person
would be indifferent to. Isn't it, then, possible that over-wrought
physical condition may have driven her to the belief that she is hiding
from danger."
Dr. Warren was evidently following the thought seriously.
"She said," reflecting, "that all that mattered was that she should be
safe. 'I want to keep safe.' That was it. You are very enlightening,
Mary, always. I will go and see her again to-morrow. But," as the result
of another memory, "how sane she seems!"
* * * * *
He was thinking of this possible aspect of the matter as he mounted the
staircase of the house in Mortimer Street the next day. The stairway was
of the ordinary lodging-house type, its dinginess somewhat alleviated by
the fact that the Cupps had covered the worn carpet with clean
warm-coloured felting. The yellowish marbled paper on the walls
depressed the mind as one passed it; the indeterminate dun paint had
defied fog for years. The whole house presented only such features as
would encourage its proprietors to trust to the sufficing of infrequent
re-decoration.
Jane had, however, made efforts in behalf of the drawing-room, in which
her mistress spent her days. She had introduced palliations by degrees
and with an unobtrusiveness which was not likely to attract the
attention of neighbours unaccustomed to lavish delivery by means of
furniture vans. She had brought in a rug or so, and had gradually
replaced objects with such as were more pleasant to live with and more
comfortable to use. Dr. Warren had seen the change wrought, and had
noted evidences that money was not unobtainable. The maid also was a
young woman whose manner towards her mistress was not merely respectful
and well-bred, but suggestive of watchful affection bordering on
reverence. Jane Cupp herself was a certificate of decorum and good
standing. It was not such young women who secluded themselves with
questionable situations. As she laid her hand on the drawing-room door
to open it and announce him, it occurred to Dr. Warren that he would
tell Mary that evening that if Mrs. Jameson had been the heroine of any
unconventional domestic drama it was an unmistakable fact that Jane Cupp
would have "felt it her duty as a young woman to leave this day month,
if you please, ma'am," quite six months ago. And there she was, in a
neat gown and apron,--evidently a fixture because she liked her
place,--her decent young face full of sympathetic interest.
The day was dull and cold, but the front room was warm and made cheerful
by fire. Mrs. Jameson was sitting at a writing-table. There were letters
before her, and she seemed to have been re-reading them. She did not any
longer bloom with normal health. Her face was a little dragged, and the
first thing he noted in the eyes she lifted to him was that they were
bewildered.
"She has had a shock," he thought. "Poor woman!"
He began to talk to her about herself with the kindly perception which
was inseparable from him. He wondered if the time had not come when she
would confide in him. Her shock, whatsoever it had been, had left her in
the position of a woman wholly at a loss to comprehend what had
occurred. He saw this in her ingenuous troubled face. He felt as if she
was asking herself what she should do. It was not unlikely that
presently she would ask him what she should do. He had been asked such
things before by women, but they usually added trying detail accompanied
by sobs, and appealed to his chivalry for impossible aid. Sometimes they
implored him to go to people and use his influence.
Emily answered all his questions with her usual sweet, good sense. She
was not well. Yesterday she had fainted.
"Was there any disturbing reason for the faint?" he inquired.
"It was because I was--very much disappointed," she answered,
hesitating. "I had a letter which--It was not what I expected."
She was thinking desperately. She could understand nothing. It was not
explainable that what she had written did not matter at all, that James
should have made no reply.
"I was awake all night," she added.
"That must not go on," he said.
"I was thinking--and thinking," nervously.
"I can see that," was his answer.
Perhaps she ought to have courage to say nothing. It might be safer. But
it was so lonely not to dare to ask anyone's advice, that she was
getting frightened. India was thousands and thousands of miles away, and
letters took so long to come and go. Anxiety might make her ill before
she could receive a reply to a second letter. And perhaps now in her
terror she had put herself into a ridiculous position. How could she
send for Lady Maria to Mortimer Street and explain to her? She realised
also that her ladyship's sense of humour might not be a thing to confide
in safely.
Warren's strong, amiable personality was good for her. It served to aid
her to normal reasoning. Though she was not aware of the fact, her
fears, her simplicity, and her timorous adoration of her husband had not
allowed her to reason normally in the past. She had been too anxious and
too much afraid.
Her visitor watched her with great interest and no little curiosity. He
himself saw that her mood was not normal. She did not look as poor Mrs.
Jerrold had looked, but she was not in a normal state.
He made his visit a long one purposely. Tea was brought up, and he drank
it with her. He wanted to give her time to make up her mind about him.
When at last he rose to go away, she rose also. She looked nervously
undecided, but let him go towards the door.
Her move forward was curiously sudden.
"No, no," she said. "Please come back. I--oh!--I really think I ought to
tell you."
He turned towards her, wishing that Mary were with him. She stood trying
to smile, and looking so entirely nice and well-behaved even in her
agitation.
"If I were not so puzzled, or if there was _anybody_--" she said. "If
you could only advise me; I must--I _must_ keep safe."
"There is something you want to tell me?" he said quietly.
"Yes," she answered. "I am so anxious, and I am sure it must be bad for
one to be anxious always. I have not dared to tell anyone. My name is
not Mrs. Jameson, Dr. Warren. I am--I am Lady Walderhurst."
He barely managed to restrain a start. He was obliged to admit to
himself that he had not thought of anything like this. But Mary had been
right.
Emily blushed to her ears with embarrassment. He did not believe her.
"But I _am_ really," she protested. "I _really_ am. I was married last
year. I was Emily Fox-Seton. Perhaps you remember."
She was not flighty or indignant. Her frank face was only a little more
troubled than it had been before. She looked straight into his eyes
without a doubt of his presently believing her. Good heavens! if--
She walked to the writing-table and picked up a number of letters. They
were all stamped with the same seal. She brought them to him almost
composedly.
"I ought to have remembered how strange it would sound," she said in her
amenable voice. "I hope I am not doing wrong in speaking. I hope you
won't mind my troubling you. It seemed as if I _couldn't_ bear it alone
any longer."
After which she told him her story.
* * * * *
The unadorned straightforwardness of the relation made it an amazing
thing to hear, even more amazing than it would have been made by a more
imaginative handling. Her obvious inability to cope with the unusual and
villainous, combined with her entire willingness to obliterate herself
in any manner in her whole-souled tenderness for the one present object
of her existence, were things a man could not be unmoved by, even though
experience led him to smile at the lack of knowledge of the world which
had left her without practical defence. Her very humbleness and candour
made her a drama in herself.
"Perhaps I was wrong to run away. Perhaps only a silly woman would have
done such a queer, unconventional thing. But I could think of nothing
else so likely to be quite safe, until Lord Walderhurst could advise me.
And when his letter came yesterday, and he did not speak of what I had
said--" Her voice quite failed her.
"Captain Osborn has detained your letter. Lord Walderhurst has not seen
it."
Life began to come back to her. She had been so horribly bewildered as
to think at moments that perhaps it might be that a man who was very
much absorbed in affairs--
"The information you sent him is the most important, and moving, a man
in his position could receive."
"Do you think so, _really_?" She lifted her head with new courage and
her colour returned.
"It is impossible that it should be otherwise. It is, I assure you,
_impossible_, Lady Walderhurst."
"I am so thankful," she said devoutly. "I am so _thankful_ that I have
told you."
Anything more touching and attractive than her full eyes and her
grown-up child's smile he felt he had never seen.
Chapter Twenty two
The attack of fever which had seemed to begin lightly for Lord
Walderhurst assumed proportions such as his medical man had not
anticipated. His annoyance at finding his duties interfered with fretted
him greatly. He was not, under the circumstances, a good patient, and,
partly as a result of his state of mind, he began, in the course of a
few weeks, to give his doctors rather serious cause for anxiety. On the
morning following Emily's confession to Dr. Warren she had received a
letter from her husband's physician, notifying her of his new anxieties
in connection with his patient. His lordship required extreme care and
absolute freedom from all excitement. Everything which medical science
and perfect nursing could do would be done. The writer asked Lady
Walderhurst's collaboration with him in his efforts at keeping the
invalid as far as possible in unperturbed spirits. For some time it
seemed probable that letter writing and reading would be out of the
question, but if, when correspondence might be resumed, Lady Walderhurst
would keep in mind the importance of serenity to the convalescent, the
case would have all in its favour. This, combined with expressions of
sympathetic encouragement and assurances that the best might be hoped
for, was the gist of the letter. When Dr. Warren arrived, Emily handed
the epistle to him and watched him as he read it.
"You see," she said when he looked up, "that I did not speak too soon.
Now I shall have to trust to you for everything. I could _never_ have
borne it _all_ by myself. Could I?"
"Perhaps not," thinking it over; "but you are very brave."
"I don't think I'm brave," thinking it over on her own part, "but it
seemed as if there were things I _must_ do. But now you will advise me."
She was as biddable as a child, he told his wife afterwards, and that a
woman of her height and carriage should be as biddable as she might have
been at six years old, was an effective thing.
"She will do anything I tell her, she will go anywhere I advise. I
advise that she shall go to her husband's house in Berkeley Square, and
that together you and I will keep unobtrusive guard over her. All is
quite simple, really. All would have been comparatively simple at the
outset, if she had felt sure enough of her evidence to dare to confide
in some practical person. But she was too uncertain and too much afraid
of scandal, which might annoy her husband. She is deeply in awe of Lord
Walderhurst and deeply in love with him."
"When one realises how unnecessary qualities and charms seem to be to
the awakening of the tender emotion, it is rather dull, perhaps, to ask
why. Yet one weakly asks it," was Mrs. Warren's summation.
"And one cannot supply the answer. But the mere devotion itself in this
nice creature is a thing to be respected. She will control even her
anxieties and reveal nothing while she writes her cheerful letters, as
soon as she is allowed to write them."
"Lord Walderhurst will be told nothing?"
"Nothing until his recovery is complete. Now that she has made a clean
breast of everything to me and given herself into my hands, I believe
that she finds a sentimental pleasure in the thought of keeping her
secret until he returns. I will confess to you, Mary, that I think that
she has read of and tenderly sympathised with heroines who have done the
like before. She does not pose to herself as a heroine, but she dwells
affectionately on ingenuous mental pictures of what Lord Walderhurst
will say. It is just as well that it should be so. It is better for her
than fretting would be. Experience helped me to gather from the medical
man's letter that his patient is in no condition to be told news of any
kind, good or bad."
The house in Berkeley Square was reopened. Lady Walderhurst returned to
it, as it was understood below stairs, from a visit to some German
health resort. Mrs. Cupp and Jane returned with her. The wife of her
physician in attendance was with her a great deal. It was most
unfortunate for her ladyship that my lord was detained in India by
illness.
The great household, having presented opened shutters to the world, went
on in the even tenor of its way. There brooded over it, however, a sort
of hushed dignity of atmosphere. The very housemaids wore an air of
grave discretion. Their labours assumed the proportions of confidential
interested service, in which they felt a private pride. Not one among
them had escaped becoming attached to Lady Walderhurst.