He repeated my name.
"Merrett? Merrett? Are you Mrs. Merrett?"
"I am, sir. And I"m the wife of Mr. Montagu Babbacombe."
Just what Mr. FitzHoward had spoken of happened again. He sort of reeled; and a look came on to his face which was shocking. I never saw a man so changed all of a sudden. I thought he was going to have a fit. The two ladies were every bit as much surprised as I was. The younger one went hurrying to him.
"Douglas, what ever is the matter?" He seemed to have a difficulty in speaking, as though his breath was short.
"I--I"ve not felt very well to-day; that"s all."
"It"s the first time you"ve spoken of it. Shall I send for the doctor?"
"No. It"s nothing. It"s only a pa.s.sing touch." He tried to brace himself up: but though he tried hard he still seemed limp. "If you will come to my room, Mrs.--what did you say your name was?"
"Merrett, sir."
"If you will come into my room, Mrs. Merrett, I will speak to you there."
"Douglas," said the elder of the ladies, just as he had his hand upon the handle of the door, "who is Mr. Montagu Babbacombe?"
"Babbacombe?" He tried to meet her eyes: but couldn"t. "Oh, he"s a wretched mountebank."
It fired my blood to hear him speak of my James like that.
"Begging your pardon, sir, but he"s nothing of the kind. And if that"s the way you"re going to speak of my husband I"d rather say what I have to say before the ladies."
"I dare say you would; but you won"t. You will come into my own room, Mrs. Merrett."
"Excuse me, sir, but I will not. You can tell me just as well here as anywhere what it is you"ve done with my husband."
CHAPTER XIII
WHO"S THAT CALLING?
I do believe, if we"d been alone, he would have struck me. As it was, I"m sure he would have liked to. That I should dare to speak to him like that--him so big, and me so small, and him a great gentleman, and me just nothing and n.o.body--it did put his back up. He glared as if he would have liked to eat me. And yet, all the while, I knew that somewhere inside of him he was afraid of me. It mayn"t sound sense, I own; but I know what I mean if I can"t just say it.
The elder lady came and put her hand upon his arm.
"Douglas, why do you look at her like that? She"s only a child."
He spoke, as it might be, between his gritted teeth.
"Since Mrs. Merrett won"t come to my room, I"m afraid I must ask you two to leave this; to enable me to speak a few plain truths to her in private."
"She"s only anxious for her husband. Why should you be angry with her on that account? She says that you first saw him on the day on which you first saw Twickenham."
He shot round at her with quite as savage a look as he had given me.
"Who told you that?"
"She was telling us just before you came."
"It strikes me she"s tarred with the same brush as her scoundrelly husband."
It did make me wild to hear him! It always does when people say things against James. And especially him!
"How dare you stand there and speak of him like that before my face--when, for all I know, his blood"s upon your hands!"
I didn"t mean it; not at the time I didn"t. I just said it because I was in a rage. But if I had meant it ever so much it couldn"t have affected him more. He shrank back from me as if I were some dreadful thing; his jaw dropped open; he stared as if his eyes would start out of his head. It was horrid to see. The young lady came stalking up to me. She spoke that cold and haughty as if I was the dirt under her feet; which perhaps she thought I was.
"Aren"t you forgetting yourself, my good woman, in using such language? Or are you, as I thought at first, a little mad?" Having given me one, she gave him one too. "And pray, Douglas, why should you behave in such an extraordinary fashion merely because this person talks as if she were insane?"
He did not reply at once. Instead, he turned his back and walked away from us across the room. When I saw his face again he looked more like he ought to. He stood before the fireplace, and, in his turn, set up to be haughty. But it didn"t sit so well on him as it did upon his sister. I should say that it came to her by nature--while he had to practise how to do it.
"I am placed in a difficult position."
"I don"t see it. Why don"t you answer her question?"
"Because I have no answer to give her."
"You mean that you don"t know what has become of her husband?"
"Absolutely nothing."
The young lady turned to me.
"You hear what my brother says."
"I hear; but you must excuse my saying, miss, I mean my lady, that I don"t believe him."
"Why should you doubt my brother"s word?"
"Don"t you--after what you"ve just now seen?"
She bit her lip.
"Impertinent creature!" she said, as she turned away. But I knew she doubted too.
I put a question on my own.
"Mr. Howarth, sir, why did you give Mr. FitzHoward a five-pound note to make you known to my husband under a false name?"
"Pure curiosity. Your husband gave a rather remarkable exhibition. As the person you allude to seemed to think that I ought to have some sort of a name I gave the first which occurred to me. By the way, your husband himself seems to have had what you call a false name."