He walked home feeling tottering and feeble; he had had a blow, but also a strong consolation--his daughter"s child--his grandson. Of course the child should be a boy. There was something to live for in such news as this. A boy to step into his shoes by-and-bye--to keep up the credit of the old house; a boy who should have no shame on him, and no dark history. Yes, yes, this was very good news, and unlooked for; he had much to live for yet.
After this Mr. Paget followed his daughter about like a shadow. Every day her mind and her powers were developing in fresh directions. She had certainly lost some of the charm of her childish ways, but her gain had been greater than her loss. Her face had always been spirituelle, the expression sprightly, the eyes under their arched brows full of light. People had spoken of the girlish face as beautiful, but now that it belonged to a grave and patient, in some respects a suffering woman, they found that it possessed more than ordinary loveliness. The soul had come back again into Valentine"s eyes. She knew two things. She was loved--her husband told her that no woman had ever been loved so well before. She was also to become a mother. She considered herself, notwithstanding her crosses, blessed among women, and she resolved to live worthily.
Patience and faith both were hers, and whenever she felt inclined to rebel, to fret, to fume, she thought of the day when she should show her baby to her husband, and tell him face to face that all her heart, all her best affections were divided between him and their child.
She kept to her resolution of living on in the little house in Park-Lane. She led a busy life, interesting herself a good deal in the anxieties and cares of others. When a woman takes up that _role_ she always finds abundance to do, for there are few pairs of shoulders that have not a burden to carry. She also wrote by every mail to her husband. She had already received one letter from him, posted at Teneriffe. This letter was affectionate--cheerful. Valentine read it over and over. It was a very nice letter, but its words did not reach down into her heart as that other letter of Gerald"s, written before he sailed, had done. She was puzzled by it. Still she owned to herself that it was just the letter she ought to receive, just the pleasant happy words of a man who was leading a busy and useful life; who was going away for a definite object, and hoped soon to return to his wife and his home.
All went well with Valentine until a certain day. She rose as usual on the morning of that day, went down to breakfast, opened one or two letters, attended to a couple of domestic matters, and went slowly back to the drawing-room. She liked to dust and tidy her little drawing-room herself. She had put it in order this morning, had arranged fresh flowers in the vases, and was finally giving one or two fresh touches to Gerald"s violin, which she always kept near her own piano, when she was startled by the consciousness that she was not alone.
She raised her head, turned quickly, a cold air seemed to blow on her face.
"Valentine!" said her husbands voice, in a tone of unspeakable agony.
She fancied she even saw his shadowy outline. She stretched out her arms to him--he faded away.
That afternoon Mrs. Wyndham paid her father a visit in the City. She was shown into his private room by Helps, who eyed her from head to foot with great anxiety.
Mr. Paget looked into her face and grew perceptibly paler. He was certainly nervous in these days--nervous, and very much aged in appearance.
"Is anything wrong, Valentine?" he could not help saying to his daughter. It was the last sentence he wished to pa.s.s his lips--he bit them with vexation after the words had escaped them.
"Sit down, my dear; have you come to take me for a drive, like--like--old times?"
"I have not, father. I have come to know when you expect to hear tidings of the arrival of the _Esperance_ at Sydney."
"Not yet, Valentine. Impossible so soon. In any case we shall have a cable from Melbourne first--the vessel will touch there."
"When are you likely to hear from Melbourne?"
"Not for some days yet."
"But you know the probable time. Can you not ascertain it? Will you hear in ten days? In a week? In three days?"
"You are persistent, Valentine."
Mr. Paget raised his eyes and looked at her from head to foot.
"I will ascertain," he said in an almost cold voice, as he sounded an electric bell by his side.
Helps answered the summons.
"Helps, when is the _Esperance_ due at Melbourne?"
Again Helps glanced quickly at Mrs. Wyndham; he was standing rather behind her, but could catch a glimpse of her face.
"By the end of May," he said, speaking slowly. His quick eyes sought his chief"s; they took their cue. "Not sooner," he continued. "Possibly by the end of May."
"Thank you," said Valentine.
The man withdrew.
"I have nearly a month to wait," she said, rising and looking at her father. "I did not know that the voyage would be such a lengthy one.
When you do hear the news will be bad, father; yes, the news will be bad. I have nothing to say about it, no explanation to offer, only I know."
Before Mr. Paget could make a single reply, Valentine had left him. He was decidedly alarmed about her.
"Can she be going out of her mind?" he soliloquized. "Women sometimes do before the birth of their children. What did she mean? It is impossible for her to know anything. Pshaw! What is there to know? I verily believe I am cultivating that abomination of the age--nerves!"
Whatever Valentine did mean, she met her father that evening as if nothing had happened. She was bright, even cheerful; she played and sang for him. He concluded that she was not out of her mind, that she had simply had a fit of the dismals, and dismissed the matter.
The month pa.s.sed by, slowly for Valentine--very slowly, also, for her father. It pa.s.sed into s.p.a.ce, and there was no news of the _Esperance_.
More days went by, no news, no tidings of any sort. Valentine thought the vessel was a fortnight overdue. Her father knew that it was at least a month behind its time. When he wrote his letter to the rector of Jewsbury-on-the-Wold he felt even more anxious than his words seemed to admit.
The day after the receipt of this letter Lilias came to town and took Valentine home with her. The next morning Mr. Paget went as usual to his office. His first inquiry was for news of the _Esperance_. The invariable answer awaited him.
"No tidings as yet."
He went into the snug inner room where he lunched, where Valentine"s picture hung, and where he had made terms with Gerald Wyndham. He sank down into an easy-chair, and covered his face with his hands.
"Would to G.o.d this suspense were at an end," he said.
The words had scarcely pa.s.sed his lips when Helps knocked for admission at the inner door, he opened it, caught a glimpse of his servant"s face, and fell back.
"You heard," he said. "Come in and tell me quick. The _Esperance_ is lost, and every soul on board----"
"Hush, sir," said Helps. "There"s no news of the _Esperance_. Command yourself, sir. It isn"t that--it"s the other thing. The young gentleman from India, he"s outside--he wants to see you."
"Good G.o.d, Helps. Positively I"m faint. Shut the door for a moment; he has come, then. You are sure?"
"This is his card, sir. Mr. George Carmichael."
"Give me a moment"s time, Helps. So he has come. It would have been all right but for this confounded uncertainty with regard to the _Esperance_. But it is all right, of course. Plans such as mine don"t fail, they are too carefully made. All the same, I am shaken, Helps.
Helps, I am growing into an old man."
"You do look queer, Mr. Paget; have a little brandy, sir; you"d better."
"Thank you; a little, then. Open that cupboard, you will find the flask. Brandy steadies the nerves. Now I am better. Helps, it was in this room I made terms with young Wyndham."
"G.o.d forgive you, sir, it was."
"Why do you say that? You did not disapprove at the time."
"I didn"t know Mr. Wyndham, sir; had I known, I wouldn"t have allowed breathing man to harm a hair of his head."
"How would you have prevented it?"
"How?"