CHAPTER IV
When Doris reached home that evening, the little Kensington house, with half its carpets up and all but two of its rooms under dust-sheets, looked particularly lonely and unattractive. Arthur"s study was unrecognisable. No cheerful litter anywhere. No smell of tobacco, no sign of a male presence! Doris, walking restlessly from room to room, had never felt so forsaken, so dismally certain that the best of life was done. Moreover, she had fully expected to find a letter from Arthur waiting for her; and there was nothing.
It was positively comic that under such circ.u.mstances anybody should expect her--Doris Meadows--to trouble her head about Lady Dunstable"s affairs. Of course she would feel it if her son made a ridiculous and degrading marriage. But why not?--why shouldn"t he come to grief like anybody else"s son? Why should heaven and earth be moved in order to prevent it?--especially by the woman to whose possible jealousy and pain Lady Dunstable had certainly never given the most pa.s.sing thought.
All the same, the distress shown by that odd girl, Miss Wigram, and her appeal both to the painter and his niece to intervene and save the foolish youth, kept echoing in Doris"s memory, although neither she nor Bentley had received it with any cordiality. Doris had soon made out that this girl, Alice Wigram, was indeed the clergyman"s daughter whom Lady Dunstable had snubbed so unkindly some twelve months before. She was evidently a sweet-natured, susceptible creature, to whom Lord Dunstable had taken a fancy, in his fatherly way, during occasional visits to her father"s rectory, and of whom he had spoken to his wife.
That Lady Dunstable should have unkindly slighted this motherless girl, who had evidently plenty of natural capacity under her shyness, was just like her, and Doris"s feelings of antagonism to the tyrant were only sharpened by her acquaintance with the victim. Why should Miss Wigram worry her self? Lord Dunstable? Well, but after all, capable men should keep such wives in order. If Lord Dunstable had not been scandalously weak, Lady Dunstable would not have become a terror to her s.e.x.
As for Uncle Charles, he had simply declined all responsibility in the matter. He had never seen the Dunstables, wouldn"t know them from Adam, and had no concern whatever in what happened to their son. The situation merely excited in him one man"s natural amus.e.m.e.nt at the folly of another. The boy was more than of age. Really he and his mother must look after themselves. To meddle with the young man"s love affairs, simply because he happened to visit your studio in the company of a lady, would be outrageous. So the painter laughed, shook his head, and went back to his picture. Then Miss Wigram, looking despondently from the silent Doris to the artist at work, had said with sudden energy, "I must find out about her! I"m--I"m sure she"s a horrid woman! Can you tell me, sir"--she addressed Bentley--"the name of the gentleman who was painting her before she came here?"
Bentley had hummed and hawed a little, twisting his red moustache, and finally had given the name and address; whereupon Miss Wigram had gathered up her papers, some of which had drifted to the floor between her table and Doris"s easel, and had taken an immediate departure, a couple of hours before her usual time, throwing, as she left the studio, a wistful and rather puzzled look at Mrs. Meadows.
Doris congratulated herself that she had kept her own counsel on the subject of the Dunstables, both with Uncle Charles and Miss Wigram.
Neither of them had guessed that she had any personal acquaintance with them. She tried now to put the matter out of her thoughts. Jane brought in a tray for her mistress, and Doris supped meagrely in Arthur"s deserted study, thinking, as the sunset light came in across the dusty street, of that flame and splendour which such weather must be kindling on the moors, of the blue and purple distances, the glens of rocky mountains hung in air, "the gleam, the shadow, and the peace supreme"!
She remembered how on their September honeymoon they had wandered in Ross-shire, how the whole land was dyed crimson by the heather, and how impossible it was to persuade Arthur to walk discreetly rather than, like any c.o.c.kney tripper, with his arm round his sweetheart. Scotland had not been far behind the Garden of Eden under those circ.u.mstances.
But Arthur was now pursuing the higher, the intellectual joys.
She finished her supper, and then sat down to write to her husband. Was she going to tell him anything about the incident of the afternoon? Why should she? Why should she give him the chance of becoming more than ever Lady Dunstable"s friend--pegging out an eternal claim upon her grat.i.tude?
Doris wrote her letter. She described the progress of the spring cleaning; she reported that her sixth ill.u.s.tration was well forward, and that Uncle Charles was wrestling with another historical picture, a _machine_ neither better nor worse than all the others. She thought that after all Jane would soon give warning; and she, Doris, had spent three pounds in petty cash since he went away; how, she could not remember, but it was all in her account book.
And she concluded:
I understand then that we meet at Crewe on Friday fortnight? I have heard of a lodging near Capel Curig which sounds delightful. We might do a week"s climbing and then go on to the sea. I really _shall_ want a holiday. Has there not been ten minutes even--since you arrived--to write a letter in?--or a postcard? Shall I send you a few addressed?
Having thus finished what seemed to her the dullest letter she had ever written in her life, she looked at it a while, irresolutely, then put it in an envelope hastily, addressed, stamped it, and rang the bell for Jane to run across the street with it and post it. After which, she sat idle a little while with flushed cheeks, while the twilight gathered.
The gate of the trim front garden swung on its hinges. Doris turned to look. She saw, to her astonishment, that the girl-accountant of the morning, Miss Wigram, was coming up the flagged path to the house. What could she want?
"Oh, Mrs. Meadows--I"m so sorry to disturb you--" said the visitor, in some agitation, as Doris, summoned by Jane, entered the dust-sheeted drawing-room. "But you dropped an envelope with an address this afternoon. I picked it up with some of my papers and never discovered it till I got home."
She held out the envelope. Doris took it, and flushed vividly. It was the envelope with his Scotch address which Arthur had written out for her before leaving home--"care of the Lord Dunstable, Franick Castle, Pitlochry, Perthshire, N.B." She had put it in her portfolio, out of which it had no doubt slipped while she was at work.
She and Miss Wigram eyed each other. The girl was evidently agitated.
But she seemed not to know how to begin what she had to say.
Doris broke the silence.
"You were astonished to find that I know the Dunstables?"
"Oh, no!--I didn"t think--" stammered her visitor--"I supposed some friend of yours might be staying there."
"My husband is staying there," said Doris, quietly. Really it was too much trouble to tell a falsehood. Her pride refused.
"Oh, I see!" cried Miss Wigram, though in fact she was more bewildered than before. Why should this extraordinary little lady have behaved at the studio as if she had never heard of the Dunstables, and be now confessing that her husband was actually staying in their house?
Doris smiled--with perfect self-possession.
"Please sit down. You think it odd, of course, that I didn"t tell you I knew the Dunstables, while we were talking about them. The fact is I didn"t want to be mixed up with the affair at all. We have only lately made acquaintance with the Dunstables. Lady Dunstable is my husband"s friend. I don"t like her very much. But neither of us knows her well enough to go and tell her tales about her son."
Miss Wigram considered--her gentle, troubled eyes bent upon Doris. "Of course--I know--how many people dislike Lady Dunstable. She did a--rather cruel thing to me once. The thought of it humiliated and discouraged me for a long time. It made me almost glad to leave home.
And of course she hasn"t won Mr. Herbert"s confidence at all. She has always snubbed and disapproved of him. Oh, I knew him very little. I have hardly ever spoken to him. You saw he didn"t recognise me this afternoon. But my father used to go over to Crosby Ledgers to coach him in the holidays, and he often told me that as a boy he was _terrified_ of his mother. She either took no notice of him at all, or she was always sneering at him, and scolding him. As soon as ever he came of age and got a little money of his own, he declared he wouldn"t live at home.
His father wanted him to go into Parliament or the army, but he said he hated the army, and if he was such a dolt as his mother thought him it would be ridiculous to attempt politics. And so he just drifted up to town and looked out for people that would make much of him, and wouldn"t snub him. And that, of course, was how he got into the toils of a woman like that!"
The girl threw up her hands tragically.
Doris sat up, with energy.
"But what on earth," she said, "does it matter to you or to me?"
"Oh, can"t you see?" said the other, flushing deeply, and with the tears in her eyes. "My father had one of Lord Dunstable"s livings. We lived on that estate for years. Everybody loved Lord Dunstable. And though Lady Dunstable makes enemies, there"s a great respect for the _family_.
They"ve been there since Queen Elizabeth"s time. And it"s _dreadful_ to think of a woman like--well, like that!--reigning at Crosby Ledgers. I think of the poor people. Lady Dunstable"s good to them; though of course you wouldn"t hear anything about it, unless you lived there. She tries to do her duty to them--she really does--in her own way. And, of course, they _respect_ her. No Dunstable has ever done anything disgraceful! Isn"t there something in "_n.o.blesse oblige"? Think_ of this woman at the head of that estate!"
"Well, upon my word," said Doris, after a pause, "you _are_ feudal.
Don"t you feel yourself that you are old-fashioned?"
Mrs. Meadows"s half-sarcastic look at first intimidated her visitor, and then spurred her into further attempts to explain herself.
"I daresay it"s old-fashioned," she said slowly, "but I"m sure it"s what father would have felt. Anyway, I went off to try and find out what I could. I went first to a little club I belong to--for professional women--near the Strand, and I asked one or two women I found there--who know artists--and models--and write for papers. And very soon I found out a great deal. I didn"t have to go to the man whose address Mr.
Bentley gave me. Madame Vavasour _is_ a horrid woman! This is not the first young man she"s fleeced--by a long way. There was a man--younger than Mr. Dunstable, a boy of nineteen--three years ago. She got him to promise to marry her; and the parents came down, and paid her enormously to let him go. Now she"s got through all that money, and she boasts she"s going to marry young Dunstable before his parents know anything about it. She"s going to make sure of a peerage this time. Oh, she"s odious! She"s greedy, she"s vulgar, she"s false! And of course"--the girl"s eyes grew wide and scared--"there may be other things much worse.
How do we know?"
"How do we know indeed!" said Doris, with a shrug. "Well!"--she turned her eyes full upon her guest--"and what are you going to do?"
An eager look met hers.
"Couldn"t you--couldn"t you write to Mr. Meadows, and ask him to warn Lady Dunstable?"
Doris shook her head.
"Why don"t you do it yourself?"
The girl flushed uncomfortably. "You see, father quarrelled with her about that unkind thing she did to me--oh, it isn"t worth telling!--but he wrote her an angry letter, and they never spoke afterwards. Lady Dunstable never forgives that kind of thing. If people find fault with her, she just drops them. I don"t believe she"d read a letter from me!"
"_Les offenses_, etc.," said Doris, meditating. "But what are the facts?
Has the boy actually promised to marry her? She may have been telling lies to my uncle."
"She tells everybody so. I saw a girl who knows her quite well. They write for the same paper--it"s a fashion paper. You saw that hat, by the way, she had on? She gets them as perquisites from the smart shops she writes about. She has a whole cupboard of them at home, and when she wants money she sells them for what she can get. Well, she told me that Madame--they all call her Madame, though they all know quite well that she"s not married, and that her name is Flink--boasts perpetually of her engagement. It seems that he was ill in the winter--in his lodgings. His mother knew nothing about it--he wouldn"t tell her, and Madame nursed him, and made a fuss of him. And Mr. Dunstable thought he owed her a great deal--and she made scenes and told him she had compromised herself by coming to nurse him--and all that kind of nonsense. And at last he promised to marry her--in writing. And now she"s so sure of him that she just bullies him--you saw how she ordered him about to-day."
"Well, why doesn"t he marry her, if he"s such a fool--why hasn"t he married her long ago?" cried Doris.
Miss Wigram looked distressed.
"I don"t know. My friend thinks it"s his father. She believes, at least, that he doesn"t want to get married without telling Lord Dunstable; and that, of course, means telling his mother. And he hates the thought of the letters and the scenes. So he keeps it hanging on; and lately Madame has been furious with him, and is always teasing and sniffing at him.
He"s dreadfully weak, and my friend"s afraid that before he"s made up his own mind what to do that woman will have carried him off to a registry office--and got the horrid thing done for good and all."