In that serious emergency, Mrs. Vimpany recovered her presence of mind.
She made for the door, with the object of speaking to Lord Harry before he could present himself in the drawing-room. But Iris had heard him ask for her in the hall; and that one circ.u.mstance instantly stripped of its concealments the character of the woman in whose integrity she had believed. Her first impression of Mrs. Vimpany--so sincerely repented, so eagerly atoned for--had been the right impression after all! Younger, lighter, and quicker than the doctor"s wife, Iris reached the door first, and laid her hand on the lock.
"Wait a minute," she said.
Mrs. Vimpany hesitated. For the first time in her life at a loss what to say, she could only sign to Iris to stand back. Iris refused to move. She put her terrible question in the plainest words:
"How does Lord Harry know that I am in this house?"
The wretched woman (listening intently for the sound of a step on the stairs) refused to submit to a shameful exposure, even now. To her perverted moral sense, any falsehood was acceptable, as a means of hiding herself from discovery by Iris. In the very face of detection, the skilled deceiver kept up the mockery of deceit.
"My dear," she said, "what has come to you? Why won"t you let me go to my room?"
Iris eyed her with a look of scornful surprise. "What next?" she said.
"Are you impudent enough to pretend that I have not found you out, yet?"
Sheer desperation still sustained Mrs. Vimpany"s courage. She played her a.s.sumed character against the contemptuous incredulity of Iris, as she had sometimes played her theatrical characters against the hissing and hooting of a brutal audience.
"Miss Henley," she said, "you forget yourself!"
"Do you think I didn"t see in your face," Iris rejoined, "that you heard him, too? Answer my question."
"What question?"
"You have just heard it."
"No!"
"You false woman!"
"Don"t forget, Miss Henley, that you are speaking to a lady."
"I am speaking to Lord Harry"s spy!"
Their voices rose loud; the excitement on either side had reached its climax; neither the one nor the other was composed enough to notice the sound of the carriage-wheels, leaving the house again. In the meanwhile, n.o.body came to the drawing-room door. Mrs. Vimpany was too well acquainted with the hot-headed Irish lord not to conclude that he would have made himself heard, and would have found his way to Iris, but for some obstacle, below stairs, for which he was not prepared. The doctor"s wife did justice to the doctor at last. Another person had, in all probability, heard Lord Harry"s voice--and that person might have been her husband.
Was it possible that he remembered the service which she had asked of him; and, even if he had succeeded in calling it to mind, was his discretion to be trusted? As those questions occurred to her, the desire to obtain some positive information was more than she was able to resist. Mrs. Vimpany attempted to leave the drawing-room for the second time.
But the same motive had already urged Miss Henley to action. Again, the younger woman outstripped the older. Iris descended the stairs, resolved to discover the cause of the sudden suspension of events in the lower part of the house.
CHAPTER XI
MRS. VIMPANY"S FAREWELL
THE doctor"s wife followed Miss Henley out of the room, as far as the landing--and waited there.
She had her reasons for placing this restraint on herself. The position of the landing concealed her from the view of a person in the hall. If she only listened for the sound of voices she might safely discover whether Lord Harry was, or was not, still in the house. In the first event, it would be easy to interrupt his interview with Iris, before the talk could lead to disclosures which Mrs. Vimpany had every reason to dread. In the second event, there would be no need to show herself.
Meanwhile, Iris opened the dining-room door and looked in.
n.o.body was there. The one other room on the ground floor, situated at the back of the building, was the doctor"s consulting-room. She knocked at the door. Mr. Vimpany"s voice answered: "Come in." There he was alone, drinking brandy and water, and smoking his big black cigar.
"Where is Lord Harry?" she said.
"In Ireland, I suppose," Mr. Vimpany answered quietly.
Iris wasted no time in making useless inquiries. She closed the door again, and left him. He, too, was undoubtedly in the conspiracy to keep her deceived. How had it been done? Where was the wild lord, at that moment?
Whilst she was pursuing these reflections in the hall, Rhoda came up from the servants" tea-table in the kitchen. Her mistress gave her the necessary instructions for packing, and promised to help her before long. Mrs. Vimpany"s audacious resolution to dispute the evidence of her own senses, still dwelt on Miss Henley"s mind. Too angry to think of the embarra.s.sment which an interview with Lord Harry would produce, after they had said their farewell words in Ireland, she was determined to prevent the doctor"s wife from speaking to him first, and claiming him as an accomplice in her impudent denial of the truth. If he had been, by any chance, deluded into leaving the house, he would sooner or later discover the trick that had been played on him, and would certainly return. Iris took a chair in the hall.
It is due to the doctor to relate that he had indeed justified his wife"s confidence in him.
The diamond pin, undergoing valuation in London, still represented a present terror in his mind. The money, the money--he was the most attentive husband in England when he thought of the money! At the time when Lord Harry"s carriage stopped at his house-door, he was in the dining-room, taking a bottle of brandy from the cellaret in the sideboard. Looking instantly out of the window, he discovered who the visitor was, and decided on consulting his instructions in the pocket-diary. The attempt was rendered useless, as soon as he had opened the book, by the unlucky activity of the servant in answering the door. Her master stopped her in the hall. He was pleasantly conscious of the recovery of his cunning. But his memory (far from active under the most favourable circ.u.mstances) was slower than ever at helping him now. On the spur of the moment he could only call to mind that he had been ordered to prevent a meeting between Lord Harry and Iris. "Show the gentleman into my consulting-room," he said.
Lord Harry found the doctor enthroned on his professional chair, surprised and delighted to see his distinguished friend. The impetuous Irishman at once asked for Miss Henley.
"Gone," Mr. Vimpany answered
"Gone--where?" the wild lord wanted to know next.
"To London."
"By herself?"
"No; with Mr. Hugh Mountjoy."
Lord Harry seized the doctor by the shoulders, and shook him: "You don"t mean to tell me Mountjoy is going to marry her?"
Mr. Vimpany feared nothing but the loss of money. The weaker and the older man of the two, he nevertheless followed the young lord"s example, and shook him with right good-will. "Let"s see how you like it in your turn," he said. "As for Mountjoy, I don"t know whether he is married or single--and don"t care."
"The devil take your obstinacy! When did they start?"
"The devil take your questions! They started not long since."
"Might I catch them at the station?"
"Yes; if you go at once."
So the desperate doctor carried out his wife"s instructions--without remembering the conditions which had accompanied them.
The way to the station took Lord Harry past the inn. He saw Hugh Mountjoy through the open house door paying his bill at the bar. In an instant the carriage was stopped, and the two men (never on friendly terms) were formally bowing to each other.
"I was told I should find you," Lord Harry said, "with Miss Henley, at the station."