Doris shook her head.
"No, I am not mistaken. I will tell you--if you don"t mind--exactly what I have heard and seen."
And with a puckered brow and visible effort she entered on the story of the happenings of which she had been a witness in Bentley"s studio. She was perfectly conscious--for a time--that she was telling it against a dead weight of half scornful, half angry incredulity on Lady Dunstable"s part. Rachel Dunstable listened, indeed, attentively. But it was clear that she resented the story, which she did not believe; resented the telling of it, on her own ground, by this young woman whom she disliked; and resented above all the compulsory discussion which it involved, of her most intimate affairs, with a stranger and her social inferior. All sorts of suspicions, indeed, ran through her mind as to the motives that could have prompted Mrs. Meadows to hurry up to Scotland, without taking even the decently polite trouble to announce herself, bringing this unlikely and trumped-up tale. Most probably, a mean jealousy of her husband, and his greater social success!--a determination to force herself on people who had not paid the same attention to herself as to him, to _make_ them pay attention, w.i.l.l.y-nilly. Of course Herbert had undesirable acquaintances, and was content to go about with people entirely beneath him, in birth and education. Everybody knew it, alack! But he was really not such a fool--such a heartless fool--as this story implied! Mrs. Meadows had been taken in--willingly taken in--had exaggerated everything she said for her own purposes. The mother"s wrath indeed was rapidly rising to the smiting point, when a change in the narrative arrested her.
"And then--I couldn"t help it!"--there was a new note of agitation in Doris"s voice--"but what had happened was so _horrid_--it was so like seeing a man going to ruin under one"s eyes, for, of course, one knew that she would get hold of him again--that I ran out after your son and begged him to break with her, not to see her again, to take the opportunity, and be done with her! And then he told me quite calmly that he _must_ marry her, that he could not help himself, but he would never live with her. He would marry her at a registry office, provide for her, and leave her. And then he said he would do it _at once_--that he was going to his lawyers to arrange everything as to money and so on--on condition that she never troubled him again. He was eager to get it done--that he might be delivered from her--from her company--which one could see had become dreadful to him. I implored him not to do such a thing--to pay any money rather than do it--but not to marry her! I begged him to think of you--and his father. But he said he was bound to her--he had compromised her, or some such thing; and he had given his word in writing. There was only one thing which could stop it--if she had told him lies about her former life. But he had no reason to think she had; and he was not going to try and find out. So then--I saw a ray of daylight--"
She stopped abruptly, looking full at the woman opposite, who was now following her every word--but like one seized against her will.
"Do you remember a Miss Wigram, Lady Dunstable--whose father had a living near Crosby Ledgers?"
Lady Dunstable moved involuntarily--her eyelids flickered a little.
"Certainly. Why do you ask?"
"_She_ saw Mr. Dunstable--and Miss Flink--in my uncle"s studio, and she was so distressed to think what--what Lord Dunstable"--there was a perceptible pause before the name--"would feel, if his son married her, that she determined to find out the truth about her. She told me she had one or two clues, and I sent her to a cousin of mine--a very clever solicitor--to be advised. That was yesterday morning. Then I got my uncle to find out your son--and bring him to me yesterday afternoon before I started. He came to our house in Kensington, and I told him I had come across some very doubtful stories about Miss Flink. He was very unwilling to hear anything. After all, he said, he was not going to live with her. And she had nursed him--"
"Nursed him!" said Lady Dunstable, quickly. She had risen, and was leaning against the mantelpiece, looking sharply down upon her visitor.
"That was the beginning of it all. He was ill in the winter--in his lodgings."
"I never heard of it!" For the first time, there was a touch of something natural and pa.s.sionate in the voice.
Doris looked a little embarra.s.sed.
"Your son told me it was pneumonia."
"I never heard a word of it! And this--this creature nursed him?" The tone of the robbed lioness at last!--singularly inappropriate under all the circ.u.mstances. Doris struggled on.
"An actor friend of your son brought her to see him. And she really devoted herself to him. He declared to me he owed her a great deal--"
"He need have owed her nothing," said Lady Dunstable, sternly. "He had only to send a postcard--a wire--to his own people."
"He thought--you were so busy," said Doris, dropping her eyes to the carpet.
A sound of contemptuous anger showed that her shaft--her mild shaft--had gone home. She hurried on--"But at last I got him to promise me to wait a week. That was yesterday at five o"clock. He wouldn"t promise me to write to you--or his father. He seemed so desperately anxious to settle it all--in his own way. But I said a good deal about your name--and the family--and the horrible pain he would be giving--any way. Was it kind--was it right towards you, not only to give you _no_ opportunity of helping or advising him--but also to take no steps to find out whether the woman he was going to marry was--not only unsuitable, wholly unsuitable--that, of course, he knows--but _a disgrace_? I argued with him that he must have some suspicion of the stories she has told him at different times, or he wouldn"t have tried to protect himself in this particular way. He didn"t deny it; but he said she had looked after him, and been kind to him, when n.o.body else was, and he should feel a beast if he pressed her too hardly."
""When n.o.body else was"!" repeated Lady Dunstable, scornfully, her voice trembling with bitterness. "Really, Mrs. Meadows, it is very difficult for me to believe that my son ever used such words!"
Doris hesitated, then she raised her eyes, and with the happy feeling of one applying the scourge, in the name of Justice, she said with careful mildness:--
"I hope you will forgive me for telling you--but I feel as if I oughtn"t to keep back anything--Mr. Dunstable said to me: "My mother might have prevented it--but--she was never interested in me.""
Another indignant exclamation from Lady Dunstable. Doris hurried on.
"Only this is the important point! At last I got his promise, and I got it in writing. I have it here."
Dead silence. Doris opened her little handbag, took out a letter, in an open envelope, and handed it to Lady Dunstable, who at first seemed as if she were going to refuse it. However, after a moment"s hesitation, she lifted her long-handled eyegla.s.s and read it. It ran as follows:
DEAR MRS. MEADOWS,--I do not know whether I ought to do what you ask me. But you have asked me very kindly--you have really been awfully good to me, in taking so much trouble. I know I"m a stupid fool--they always told me so at home. But I don"t want to do anything mean, or to go back on a woman who once did me a good turn; with whom also once--for I may as well be quite honest about it--I thought I was in love. However, I see there is something in what you say, and I will wait a week before marrying Miss Flink. But if you tell my people--I suppose you will--don"t let them imagine they can break it off--except for that one reason. And _I_ shan"t lift a finger to break it off. I shall make no inquiries--I shall go on with the lawyers, and all that. My present intention is to marry Miss Flink--on the terms I have stated--in a week"s time. If you do see my people--especially my father--tell them I"m awfully sorry to be such a nuisance to them. I got myself into the mess without meaning it, and now there"s really only one way out. Thank you again.
Yours gratefully, HERBERT DUNSTABLE.
Lady Dunstable crushed the letter in her hand. All pretence of incredulity was gone. She began to walk stormily up and down. Doris sank back in her chair, watching her, conscious of the most strangely mingled feelings, a touch of womanish triumph indeed, a pleasing sense of retribution, but, welling up through it, something profound and tender.
If _he_ should ever write such a letter to a stranger, while his mother was alive!
Lady Dunstable stopped.
"What chance is there of saving my son?" she said, peremptorily. "You will, of course, tell us all you know. Lord Dunstable must go to town at once." She touched an electric bell beside her.
"Oh no!" cried Doris, springing up. "He mustn"t go, please, until we have some more information. Miss Wigram is coming--this afternoon."
Rachel Dunstable stood stupefied--with her hand on the bell.
"Miss Wigram--coming."
"Don"t you see?" cried Doris. "She was to spend all yesterday afternoon and evening in seeing two or three people--people who know. There is a friend of my uncle"s--an artist--who saw a great deal of Miss Flink, and got to know a lot about her. Of course he may not have been willing to say anything, but I think he probably would--he was so mad with her for a trick she played him in the middle of a big piece of work. And if he was able to put us on any useful track, then Miss Wigram was to come up here straight, and tell you everything she could. But I thought there would have been a telegram--from her--" Her voice dropped on a note of disappointment.
There was a knock at the door. The butler entered, and at the same moment the luncheon gong echoed through the house.
"Tell Miss Field not to wait luncheon for me," said Lady Dunstable sharply. "And, Ferris, I want his lordship"s things packed at once, for London. Don"t say anything to him at present, but in ten minutes" time just manage to tell him quietly that I should like to see him here. You understand--I don"t want any fuss made. Tell Miss Field that Mrs.
Meadows is too tired to come in to luncheon, and that I will come in presently."
The butler, who had the aspect of a don or a bishop, said "Yes, my lady," in that dry tone which implied that for twenty years the house of Dunstable had been built upon himself, as its rock, and he was not going to fail it now. He vanished, with just one lightning turn of the eyes towards the little lady in the blue linen dress; and Lady Dunstable resumed her walk, sunk in flushed meditation. She seemed to have forgotten Doris, when she heard an exclamation:--
"Ah, there _is_ the telegram!"
And Doris, running to the window, waved to a diminutive telegraph boy, who, being new to his job, had come up to the front entrance of the Lodge instead of the back, and was now--recognising his misdeed--retreating in alarm from the mere aspect of "the great fortified post." He saw the lady at the window, however, and checked his course.
"For me!" cried Doris, triumphantly--and she tore it open.
Can"t arrive till between eight and nine. Think I have got all we want. Please take a room for me at hotel.--ALICE WIGRAM.
Doris turned back into the room, and handed the telegram to Lady Dunstable, who read it slowly.
"Did you say this was the Alice Wigram I knew?"
"Her father had one of your livings," repeated Doris. "He died last year."
"I know. I quarrelled with him. I cannot conceive why Alice Wigram should do me a good turn!" Lady Dunstable threw back her head, her challenging look fixed upon her visitor. Doris was certain she had it in her mind to add--"or you either!"--but refrained.
"Lord Dunstable was always a friend to her father," said Doris, with the same slight emphasis on the "Lord" as before. "And she felt for the estate--the poor people--the tenants."
Rachel Dunstable shook her head impatiently.
"I daresay. But I got into a sc.r.a.pe with the Wigrams. I expect that you would think, Mrs. Meadows--perhaps most people would think, as of course her father did--that I once treated Miss Wigram unkindly!"
"Oh, what does it matter?" cried Doris, hastily,--"what _does_ it matter? She wants to help--she"s sorry for you. You should _see_ that woman! It would be too awful if your son was tied to her for life!"
She sat up straight, all her soul in her eyes and in her pleasant face.