Poor Angelica! impetuous, imperious, but in that she was her father"s daughter, not saved by her wonderful intelligence from being fantastical.
There must inevitably have been an element of broad farce in the veriest tragedy into which she might have been brought at that time, an element which was rendered all the more conspicuous by her own inability to perceive at the moment that she was behaving ridiculously, and making others ridiculous. But the bishop himself was not conscious of any absurdity or loss of dignity. It was only the inconvenience that he felt just then. For he was fresh from a painful interview with Dr. Galbraith, and every nerve was jarring in response to the horror that had come upon him. His heart was wrung, and his conscience did not acquit him. He did recognize now, however, that Angelica was in no fit state of mind to be left alone, and sitting down beside a little table on which stood his constant companion and friend for many years, a large quarto copy of the Bible, he folded his hands upon it, seeming to pray, while he waited patiently until she should have calmed herself.
Her indignation had driven her to seek a more popular form of relief than the bishop had chosen. As she paced up and down the room in evident agitation, every now and then stopping short to wring her hands when terrible thoughts came crowding, she became in her own mind exceedingly abusive.
She revised and enlarged her reply to that cardinal who had piped to her earlier in the night about the sacred duties of wife and mother. "What do _you_ know about "the Sacred Duties of Wife and Mother"?" she jeered, increasing her pace as her pa.s.sion waxed. "Wait until you"re a wife and mother yourself, and then perhaps you"ll be able to give an opinion; and, meanwhile, attend to your own "Sacred Duties." You _will_ come poking your nose into the Sphere where it"s not wanted"--she shook her fist at him--"with your theories." She exclaimed: "You meddling priest! What you"re afraid of is that there won"t be slaves enough in the world to make money for you; or poor enough to bear witness to your Christian charity!
You needn"t be afraid, though. So long as we have _you_ there"ll be poverty in plenty!" Here she became conscious of the att.i.tude of her companion. The bishop blotted out the cardinal. His wrinkled hands, meekly folded; his white head bowed; his benign face expressive of intense mental suffering heroically borne, impressed her. "Resignation? No, not resignation exactly," her thoughts ran on. "To be resigned is to acquiesce. Resistance? Yes. To resist--but not to resist with rage. Be firm, but be gentle." She sat down at last in an easy-chair and leaned back, looking up at the ceiling. In a few minutes she was fast asleep.
When she awoke the room was empty, but outside she heard receding footsteps, and springing up with characteristic impetuosity she followed after "to see for herself."
The shutters were still closed in the library, and the lamps were burning; but it was broad daylight in the hall, and a heavy squall of rain was beating against the windows with mournful effect. Angelica saw a manservant standing beside some baggage as she pa.s.sed, and wondered who had arrived.
At the foot of the stairs she overtook Dr. Galbraith, and caught his arm.
"Is Edith better?" she exclaimed.
Dr. Galbraith looked down at her, clasped both her hands in one of his as they rested on his arm, and led her upstairs. Before they reached the top, his firm, cool touch had steadied her nerves, and calmed her.
"This is your room, I think," he said, stopping when they reached it.
Angelica took the hint, and went in, but she did not shut the door. "You might have told me, you pig, and then perhaps I should have been satisfied," she reflected, standing just inside her room, holding her head very high, and straining her ears to listen. She heard Dr. Galbraith go to the end of the corridor, and then, as the sound of his footsteps ceased, she knew that he must have gone into Edith"s room. The house was oppressively still. "I suppose I am to be tortured with suspense because I am young," she thought, and then she followed Dr. Galbraith.
The shutters were still closed in Edith"s room, and the gas was burning.
n.o.body had thought of letting the daylight in. The door was open, and a screen was drawn across it, but Angelica could see past the screen. She saw Edith first. She was lying on her bed, still dressed, and sensible now, but exhausted. Her yellow hair, all in disorder, fell over the pillow to one side, and on the same side her mother sat facing her, rocking herself to and fro, and holding Edith"s hand, which she patted from time to time in a helpless, piteous sort of way.
Edith was lying on her back, with her face turned toward Angelica. There were deep lines of suffering marked upon it, and her eyes glittered feverishly, but otherwise she was gray and ghastly, and old. It was the horrible look of age that impressed Angelica. There were three gentlemen present, the bishop, Dr. Galbraith, and Sir Mosley Menteith.
Edith was looking at her father. "That is why I sent for you all," she was saying feebly--"to tell you, you who reprersent the arrangement of society which has made it possible for me and my child to be sacrificed in this way. I have nothing more to say to any of you--except"--she sat up in bed suddenly, and addressed her husband in scathing tones--"except to you. And what I want to say to you is--Go! go! Father! turn him out of the house.
Don"t let me ever see that dreadful man again!"
She fell back on her pillow, white and still, and shut her eyes.
"My darling, you will kill yourself!" her mother exclaimed.
Dr. Galbraith stepped to the side of the bed hurriedly, and bent over her.
The bishop stood at the foot, holding on to the rail with both hands, his whole face quivering with suppressed emotion. Menteith gave them a vindictive glance, and then stole quietly away. Angelica had made her escape, and was standing at the head of the stairs, wringing her hands.
She was trembling with rage and excitement. "I am Jael--I am Judith--No! I am Ca.s.sandra," she was saying to herself. "I must speak!"
"I wish to G.o.d I hadn"t answered that telegram so promptly--coming to be made an exhibition of by a sick woman in her tantrums," Menteith reflected as he walked down the corridor. "I"m surprised at Edith. But it is so like a woman; you never can count upon them." Here he caught sight of Angelica, and quite started with interest. "That"s a deuced fine girl," he thought, and followed her to the library instinctively.
A servant had just opened the shutters. Angelica went to one of the windows and, throwing it up to the top, inhaled a deep breath of the fresh morning air. The rain had stopped. The servant put out the lamps and withdrew, after standing aside for a moment respectfully to allow Sir Mosley Menteith to enter. The latter glanced round the room, but Angelica was hidden by the curtain in the deep embrasure of the window. Menteith bit his nails and stood still for some time. Then the bishop came, followed by Dr. Galbraith, and walked straight up to him. It was a bad moment for Sir Mosley Menteith. He tried to inspect his father-in-law coolly, but his hand was somewhat tremulous as he raised it to twist the ends of his little light moustache.
"My daughter wishes you to leave the house," the bishop said sternly; "and--eh--I may say that I--that _we_--eh--her father and mother, also wish you to go--eh--now, at once."
Angelica sprang from her hiding place. "And take that," she cried, "for a present, you father of a speckled toad!" And seizing the heavy quarto Bible from the table, she flung it with all her might full in his face. It happened to hit him on the bridge of his nose, which it broke.
CHAPTER IX.
Later in the day Lord Dawne, who had ridden in, saw Dr. Galbraith"s carriage waiting before Mrs. Orton Beg"s little house in the Close. He reined in his horse, which was fidgety, and at the same moment Dr.
Galbraith came out.
"Nothing wrong here, I hope?" Lord Dawne inquired.
"No," was the curt response, "it is that poor child at the palace. I have been up with her all night."
"What is the matter now?" Lord Dawne inquired.
"Now--it is her brain," the doctor answered; then stepped into his carriage and was driven away.
Lord Dawne dismounted and met Mrs. Orton Beg, who was coming out with her bonnet on.
"No hope, I suppose!" he said in a tone of deep commiseration.
"Oh, it is worse than death!" she answered. "I am going there now. Dr.
Galbraith says I shall be of use."
The bishop and Angelica spent some time in the library together that morning. The bishop had sent for Angelica to talk to her, and she had come to talk to the bishop; and, being quicker of speech than he, she had taken the initiative.
"Did you ever feel like a horse with a bearing rein, champing his bit?"
she began the moment she burst into the room.
"No, I never did," said the bishop severely.
"Ah! then I can never make you understand how I feel now!" she said, throwing herself on to a chair opposite to him, sideways, so that she could clasp the back. "You look very unsympathetic," she remarked.
"It seems to me," the bishop began with increased severity, "that you have no respect for anybody."
"No, I have not," she answered decidedly--"at least not for bishops and doctors who let Menteith miscreants loose in society to marry whom they please."
The bishop winced.
"I am sorry to have to reprove you seriously," he recommenced, shaking his head. "But I feel that I should not be doing my duty if I neglected to point out to you the extremely reprehensible nature of your conduct, first in causing grievous distress of mind to Edith, in consequence of which partly she is now lying dangerously ill upstairs--"
Angelica stopped him by suddenly a.s.suming a dignified position on her chair. She looked hard at him, and as she did so great tears came into her eyes, and ran down her cheeks. "If I have done Edith any injury," she exclaimed, "I shall never forgive myself."
"Well, well," said the bishop kindly--
"But do you think I was so much to blame?" Angelica demanded, interrupting him. "I only did what you and Mrs. Beale and everybody else did--took it for granted that she had married a decent man. But go on," said Angelica, throwing herself back in her chair, and folding her arms. "What else have I done?"
"You have grievously injured a fellow-creature."
"Oh,"fellow" if you like, and "creature" too," said Angelica; "but the injury I did him was a piece of luck for which I expect to be congratulated."
"You took the sacred word of G.o.d," the bishop began--
"Because of the weight of it," Angelica interrupted again, "figuratively, too, it was most appropriate. I call it poetical justice, whichever way you look at it, and"--she burst into a sudden squall of rage--"if you nag me any more I"ll throw Bibles about until there isn"t a whole one in the house!"