CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Lady Kingsmead fainted dead away for once in her life, dropping in a huddled heap near the man she had loved and unloved.
Brigit stared at them for a moment, wondering vaguely which of them was dead, which only fainting. Then, just as she was kneeling to raise her mother to a better position, the door opened and two men, one of them Giacomo, Carron's valet, entered in great haste.
The second man was, he explained, a doctor, whom the valet had gone for on finding his master's body.
The next few minutes were minutes that Brigit never forgot. The Italian servant, chattering and weeping, the young doctor helping her to loosen Lady Kingsmead's tight clothes; his hurried explanations and questions; the very closeness of the air, with the smell of gunpowder still faintly perceptible.
Lady Kingsmead, laid upon Carron's bed, came to in a few minutes in violent hysterics, and the young doctor, when he had given her a soothing draught, insisted on the two women leaving.
"I must send for the coroner," he explained, "and it will be unpleasant. Your cab is still at the door, I think? May I have your address?"
He was very civil and sympathetic, this young medico, but he was also rather too obviously impressed by his own importance and this gruesome occasion. Brigit gave him the address of her flat, and helping her mother into a four-wheeler, as more suitable than a hansom, the two women drove away towards Kensington.
"I hadn't been in his room for years," sobbed Lady Kingsmead, forgetting her complexion. "Did you see the pastel of me on the wall between the windows? And I gave him the clock, too, for his thirty-fifth birthday. Oh, Brigit! He loved me insanely, poor Gerald, perfectly madly, and so did I." She broke off, to her daughter's relief, and sobbed again.
Brigit's flat was warm and smelt unaired. Two or three letters lay on the mat inside the door, a huge blue-bottle boomed at a window trying to get out.
Lady Kingsmead lay down on Maidie Compton's Chesterfield and wept loudly. "Oh, Gerald, Gerald, how we loved each other," she wailed. "He would have died for me. He very nearly killed himself——"
Suddenly the foolish woman sat up and pointed an accusing finger at her daughter. "And it is all your fault," she cried bitterly; "he said so in that letter—my poor love. Your fault, and you my daughter. You broke his heart, you tortured him, and you took him from me. I—I hate you."
Brigit stared coldly at her. "Don't make a fool of yourself, mother," she said. "You know perfectly well that there is not a word of truth in what you say."
"There is, there is! It was when you began to grow up that he ceased loving me. It is all your fault. He wrote it to you. You are to blame; you murdered him, his blood is on your head! And I scolded him when he told me about you and Joyselle. I refused to believe him. Oh, Gerald, Gerald!"
How much she believed of what she said it is impossible to say, but her lack of self-control and her immense egotism were such that together they made a formidable force to argue against.
Brigit sneered as she looked down at her. "For Heaven's sake, don't be so ridiculous," she said impatiently. "And don't—lie."
"I am not lying. He told me about you and Joyselle, and I believe him. Yes I do, I believe him. You are in love with the man, and that's why you don't marry his son——"
"Look here, mother," Brigit's temper was rising fast. "Answer one question quietly, will you? Do you believe what Gerald Carron told you about me and Joyselle?"
And Lady Kingsmead, whose hysterical excitement was now well beyond control, screamed out that she did believe it.
Brigit rose. "Very well. Think as you like. And—good-bye."
She left the house without a word, and taking a hansom went straight to Golden Square.
Félicité, who was alone, kissed her kindly and insisted on giving her tea. This, however, Brigit refused. Desperate as she was, she had come to the point of feeling that she could never again accept the little woman's hospitality. What she was going to do she did not know, but she was not going to marry Théo, and she would never again come to Golden Square.
"No, thanks," she said gently, "I want to see your husband, so as you think he is there, I will rush up to Chelsea. You look tired—petite mère."
Félicité smiled. "I am. I have been turning out our room and re-hanging all the pictures. But I like doing it. How is dear Tommy?"
"Much better, thanks. He is going to Margate to-morrow—to the sea, you know."
Félicité went downstairs with her and kissed her again at parting. "Théo will be very glad you are in town," she said. "And you, my daughter—do things go better with you?"
Touched by the kind light in her innocent eyes, Brigit lied. "Ah, yes, much better, thank you," she returned; "everything is all right."
And when she was in her hansom hurrying Chelseawards, she felt with a sigh that it was a harmless lie.
"She is a dear, poor Félicité, and when Victor has told her that I will not marry Théo, and I have gone away—she will be less troubled."