No grounds! No, certainly no grounds in this case. But then he had deceived her again and again. She had known it, had long known it, and had wrapped herself in her pride and framed her life and steeled her looks to repel pity. Pity? Whatever happened she had told herself that she would escape that. But hitherto he had at least kept his infidelities out of her sight, he had not paraded them before her. He had had so much respect for her. But if this were so — in her own home, with her own dependant? That were too much, and she would not bear it! No, never, never! She examined with minuteness the nib of her pen, saw that she had by some unconscious pressure split it, and looked about for her penknife. But her hand shook as she took up the knife, and she laid it down again, her face drawn with pain.
The corridor window? She rose and rang the bell. When the man came, she did not raise her eyes. “Is Lady Ann riding to-day?”
“Yes, my lady, they’ve just gone.”
“I wanted her to mend a pen. I’ve spoiled this one. Get me a new one from the library.”
So that temptation was out of her way! When the pen came she returned with a wrench to the books and finished them, and spoke to Mrs. Jemmett about them. And at lunch, a slight meal in those days, she wore her usual placid face, and as usual spoke little. There was some talk of George; he had sailed from Portsmouth with Lord Nelson’s squadron, he had been signalled in the Downs, and should by this time have joined Admiral Parker’s fleet in Yarmouth Roads. Probably there would be a letter from him in a day or two — but then his letters were all the same — they never contained much beyond the praises of the Polyphemus and his officers — never were such good fellows! — and of his “people” — no ship’s company ever had such stout hearts! The party laughed at his enthusiasm, but there was an undernote of tenderness in the laughter. Soon, very soon — my lord noted that the wind was westerly — there might be news, and it would doubtless be good news for England, for was not Lord Nelson there? But the Danes were stubborn fellows, and it might be sad news for some! No one confessed to anxiety — but!
Apparently, then, Charlotte Froyle’s warning had fallen on barren ground, and the girl, vexed with herself, was sorry that she had spoken. Apparently she had betrayed her feelings, and betrayed them for nothing. However, in her saner senses she was too prudent to reopen the subject or press the matter further; and a truce of platitudes reigned between her and her hostess. And the next day, with much parade and bustle at the last, with maid and valets and grooms and the rest, the visitors left in a body, the two friends parting with the usual kisses and amenities — which deceived neither.
But when the last farewells had been waved from the doorway and the knot of servants had dispersed, a stillness fell upon the house that gave my lady only too much time to think. Maids sauntered from room to room collecting linen, the footmen gaped as they counted the plate, the men who swept the stable court swept lazily. Mrs. Jemmett sat before her fire, her hands in her lap, Bowles yawned over the day before yesterday’s Post.
And my lady, whether she would or no, pondered. She saw my lord dawdle listlessly by the windows, his hands in his pockets, and she looked at the clock. It was half-past eleven, and Ann rode at twelve. And the day was fine, she would be sure to ride. Was my lord lingering here for that? Were his thoughts also occupied with that? Or what had he in his head? Why, above all and before all — it was this which troubled her most — was he staying at Queen’s Folly? Why had he dropped no hint of departure, he who for the past three years had not spent three days at a time alone with her, who hated dullness like the devil and had misspent his life in the avoidance of it? The shooting was over, the hunting was indifferent, why — why was he staying?
Alas! temptations recur, and with added strength. To-day my lady had no books to check and her work fell from her hands. She looked again at the clock; it wanted but ten minutes of twelve. And the corridor window was near, so near. But no, she would not stoop to play the spy. Yet, in justice to him and after what had been said — might it not be her duty to assure herself that all was right — that in this, at any rate, that spiteful girl had slandered him? How many misunderstandings, how much unhappiness it might avert were she sure! Were she sure!
And the girl, she reflected. Perhaps she owed it to the girl, owed it to her to expel once and for all that shadowy distrust, that haunting suspicion, that had been again and again exorcised, but only and always to reappear. George? True, there was George, but it was all on his side, and what assurance did it give of the girl’s good behaviour? She had been easy, almost light, to win in one case — and there was much in that case my lady misliked. She might not have heard all the truth about that — even now.
The clock’s silvery chime told her that it was noon. She rose, and sat down again, took up her work and thrust in the needle. No, she would not lower herself! To do so were to let fall that mask of indifference which she had worn so long — so long that it almost deceived herself — that mask which, if it had not saved her from pain, had at least shielded her from pity.
No! But with her mind made up, and with the very word on her lips, she dropped her work, she rose and moved towards the door. She paused with her hand on it. It was hateful, it was degrading to spy on him. Hateful, hateful! But in her own house, with her own dependant! For the girl’s sake, for George’s sake, if for nothing else, she ought to do it. For why was he stopping? Why was he stopping — ah, if she only knew that! — if not for this? She ought to know.
She opened the door and with a firm step she walked down the wide corridor, flanked here by an old Bareilly trunk or a cedar chest bound with silver, there by a low bookcase surmounted by Buddhas and Chinese dragons. The servants had no business to be on that floor at that hour and there was no one to overlook her. She moved slowly yet with a beating heart to the far window that looked on the stable court. Looking through it, she was as one who gazed from a stage box into the pit of a theatre, so plain to her was all that passed below.
She had hardly reached her goal when she stifled an exclamation. Not that she saw what she had come to see and feared to see. The governess was there, indeed, but in the background. She was standing beside the horse-block, somewhat apart, and holding Ann by the hand. And she looked frightened. In front of the two and nearer the window at which Lady Ellingham stood were a number of men, Lord Ellingham, Coker, Tom, three or four stablemen. But they too were only spectators. The centre of all was Bodmin. He was the performer. He was bestriding a pony — a new one the Countess fancied; and the pony was backing and kicking, while its rider strove with blows and excited cries to force it towards the gateway and out of the court.
Alarmed for the boy, Lady Ellingham nearly gave way to her first impulse and betrayed her presence. She raised her hand to tap on the window. But she had been well trained, she knew that interference would vex my lord, and though her fears cried out against the laughing indifference with which he watched the struggle, she held her hand, albeit with every plunge of the restive pony she expected the boy to be unseated.
But though he was nearly thrown off more than once, Bodmin clung to his saddle, and with a boy’s disregard of danger continued to strike and spur the pony. And presently, with a final kick which tossed its rider on to its neck, the beast gave way, dropped its head, and, boring and pulling, plunged away through the gateway. The men cheered the rider and ran to the entrance to follow his course, but quickly came back in a body, laughing and talking, and my lady could see that Ellingham was pleased. She breathed again and the colour which had ebbed from her face — she never had much — returned.
If she had gone then! But though she now lingered in idle curiosity rather than of set purpose, she remained. She saw the ladies’ horses led out, she saw Ann mount from the block and move about the court curveting and showing off. Then it was Rachel’s turn, and Lady Ellingham frowned as she noticed that my lord would not let the governess mount from the block but was bent on putting her up himself. The girl seemed to demur with modesty, but he
insisted, took her foot, and was evidently instructing her to spring at a signal. The men in the background smirked — or was it my lady’s fancy? — at one another. And a moment later — the girl was in the saddle now — the watcher caught her breath and stepped back with a half-stifled cry of pain.
This time it was from that which she had feared to see and had come to see that she recoiled. He was showing the girl — shameless thing, sitting there for all to see! — how to hold the reins. He took them from her hands, disentangled them and put them again between her fingers; leaning against her knees and the pony’s shoulder, as he did it. But it was not that, not that alone, intimate as the action was and eloquent as it seemed to the Countess, that sent a flame of passion, such passion as she thought she had long outlived, through Lady Ellingham’s veins. It was the laughing upward look that Ellingham shot at the girl, as he rallied her on her clumsiness, it was the frank boyish smile that she had once known so well and that years ago had lured her own heart from her, it was that look and that smile, now aimed at another, that drove my lady back from the window and sent her hand to her side.
And — and oh, this was too much! They were leading out his horse, and he was going with them! He was going with them, he who hardly ever rode with Ann, with his own daughter! With jealous eyes the Countess watched them pass through the gates, Ann leading, my lord riding by the governess’s side, and leaning towards her, handling her reins again, giving her another lesson as they paced along.
She did not stay to reason. To know is one thing, to see is another; and on what she had seen the suspicions that Charlotte Froyle had insinuated placed, and could only place, in a jealous woman’s view, one colour. In a moment the barriers that pride and self-respect had raised, and that for years had dammed back the flood of feeling, gave way, and with a violence proportioned to the stress that she had so long put upon herself, the bitter waters flowed forth and carried all away. The cold, sedate spectator whose indifference had seemed monstrous to Charlotte became in a twinkling a jealous, raging woman, insulted in her home, outraged in her tenderest point, tried at last beyond bearing — a fury. With burning cheeks and heaving breast she swept back to her room, and there behind a locked door paced to and fro, venting in broken stormy words the resentment that whirled her away.
Even so, habit and pride might in time have restored her to herself. Unfortunately jealousy would not let her rest, it drove her to action, and by and by she had a natural but an unhappy thought. She would see them return. She flew to another room, she waited and watched, and at last she saw them ride in. And again the children were together in front, and my lord was at the girl’s bridle-rein. He was talking to her, his eyes on her face, bending towards her while he rubbed his riding-crop across the pony’s hogged mane. He pointed to the girl’s stirrup, and with his boyish smile said something — something about the size of her foot, the suspicious woman fancied.
The sight and that smile, so gay, so frank, so well remembered — ay, remembered many a time with many a pang! — robbed my lady of the last shred of self-mastery. When the two came into the hall, and unluckily they came in alone by the side door, the children lingering behind to give sugar to their ponies, she met them, her face colourless, her eyes shining. She pointed an accusing finger at the amazed Rachel. “That girl must go!” she said with restrained passion. “She must go to-day! To-day! She shall not stay in this house another night — if it be not already too late! Shameless, insolent girl, go! Go to your room!”
My lord, if he did not look guilty, looked most certainly confounded. “What the devil is this?” he exclaimed in amazement. While Rachel, stricken dumb, and the colour driven from her face by the shock, stared in dismay.
CHAPTER XXXII
A CLIMAX
“WHAT the devil is this?” my lord repeated, and now there was as much anger as amazement in his tone — anger, for here at any rate he was innocent; amazement, for so far his worst offences had provoked his wife to no more than a cold and haughty disdain, the contempt of one who held herself above injury. “Have you gone mad, Kitty?”
“No,” my lady retorted with a passion equal to his. “I am sane at last. I see things as they are! I am no longer deceived! Let that girl,” and again she raised her hand and pointed to the stairs, “that shameless, deceitful girl, take herself out of my sight before I sully my lips by saying what she is!”
“By G — d, but I think you are mad!” my lord repeated. “What in heaven’s name has come to you? What has happened?”
“Happened?” Her voice rose a tone. “Have I not eyes to see? Am I blind, that you think my patience will last for ever? That it has no bottom, no end, sir? Let that girl go, and let her not dare to—”
She broke off. The children had burst in, in all the riot and fullness of their young life, into the hall. There, however, and in a moment, they felt the chill; they saw that something was wrong, and their voices died down. The Countess pointed to the stairs. “Go! Go!” she said, and her tone was so stem that even Ann did not venture to argue. “You are not wanted here!” she added, and stricken dumb, bending to the storm, the two stole silently across the room and up the stairs.
But in one way the interruption served. It had given Rachel time to collect her senses, and courage to take her part. “I do not know, Lady Ellingham, what you mean,” she said, her voice quivering with indignation, “nor what I have done to offend you. But if I am to understand—”
“Miserable girl!” my lady cried. “Do not bandy words with me! Do not dare! You are dismissed — this hour, this minute! Begone! Pack your things and leave the house!”
“By G — d!” my lord interposed — he was now boiling with indignation. “You are mad! You must be mad!”
But Rachel replied as if he had not spoken. “Then,” she said, outwardly calm, but tingling in every nerve, “I must have a reason. I cannot be treated in this way. I cannot be sent away, Lady Ellingham, and no reason given. No, I will not go,” she continued firmly, “on such terms. I have a right—”
“Right?” Lady Ellingham retorted in an indescribable tone. “You? You dare—” And then again there was an interruption. It was the luncheon hour; one of the men put in his head on his way to the gong. Lady Ellingham dismissed him by a gesture, but the break did something to restore her to reason. “I will see you in the library,” she said haughtily, and she turned and led the way into that room. The two followed. My lord closed the door.
“Now, if you please,” he said, before Lady Ellingham could speak — and it seemed as if they had changed places, for it was he who was now cold and hard—” we will have the facts. You have spoken to this young lady in such a way that nothing else will serve. I will have no more beating about the bush. Say at once, if you please, of what you accuse her.”
The Countess’s eyes sparkled with anger. “You ask me? You?”
“I do,” he replied. “And I must have an answer. It is I who in the last instance am responsible for this house, and what happens in it. Of what do you accuse Miss South?”
There are things which it is difficult to put into words, and for a moment words failed the jealous woman. Then, “You know very well,” she said. But she was aware that she was weakening.
“That will not do,” he rejoined — and he looked at her in a way that he had never looked at her before. Every trace of smiling youth, of easy good-humour, of tacit apology, was gone from his face, leaving it hard, stern, severe. On the heath at Newmarket, perhaps, or over the cards at White’s or the Cocoa-Tree, men had seen him with that face, but his wife never. “You have gone too far to be silent now. You must put your accusation into words.”
Lady Ellingham’s breast rose stormily, but she did not refuse the challenge. “She is intriguing with you!” she said. “Vilely, wickedly intriguing with you — under my roof! I have borne much — you alone know, sir, how much I have borne and kept silence! To what infidelities I have been blind, what insults I have declined to see! But this, this” — her vo
ice trembled—” I will not bear! My daughter’s governess! In my own house! If I bear this I lower myself to the vilest of women. I am a partner in my own shame!”
“There is not a word of truth in it,” my lord declared, so coldly, so dispassionately that it shook even her conviction. “Not a syllable!”
“And you would have me believe—”
“I would have you believe,” he replied sternly, “what I say.”
“That you have never — never—” she stammered, her voice almost failing her, “betrayed me? Never been unfaithful to me?”
“I did not say that. That is not the question here.”
“Please do not say more!” It was Rachel who interposed, and her voice was almost as cold and dry as my lord’s. “I understand now, and I do not wish to learn more, or to defend myself. Lady Ellingham has insulted me by suspicions — suspicions that are unjust as they are baseless. She has insulted me grossly,” she continued, her voice trembling, “and I will certainly go to-day — within the hour if it be possible. I should be wrong to stay an hour under the protection of one who can think such things of me, and can condemn me unheard.”
But, “No,” my lord said with decision. “You shall not go! You have done nothing!”
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 737