A MORNING CALL
The Dowager was being created for the day. Created seems the only term applicable to the process, for Lily, Marchioness of Port Arthur, as finished by her Maker and her maid, were two entirely distinct and separate articles. Stimson alone was initiated in these mysteries. Even Lady Isabelle had never been allowed to see her mother as she really was, and no one exactly knew how she was put together, though several tradesmen in Bond Street might have been able to make shrewd guesses at her component parts.
The Dowager never appeared in public until lunch time. She had, she told her friends, earned the right to this little luxury now that the struggle of life was nearly over. Doubtless her Ladyship knew best what she had done to deserve such an indulgence. But, be that as it may, her daily retirement gave her a much coveted opportunity for attending to matters in the private life of other people, and one of these affairs claimed her attention after the Secretary's arrival at Roberts' Hall.
Stimson had finished her morning's budget; that is, she had retailed to her Ladyship all those things about which the Dowager declared pathetically she had not the slightest desire to know, but which, had the maid omitted to mention them, would have cost her her place.
"And so, as I was saying, my Lady," Stimson concluded her recital, "Mr. Stalbridge, the butler, he tells me as there was a strange lady come to Coombe Farm yesterday, a foreigner like."
"I do not know, Stimson, why you worry me with these trivialities," said the Dowager, "in which I can have no possible interest. You say she was a foreigner?"
"Yes, my lady. A Spaniard, Mr. Stalbridge thought, and her name——"
"You needn't trouble me to tell me her name, Stimson."
"No, my Lady. I shouldn't presume, my Lady. But, of course, when I heard as it was Madame Darcy, I couldn't help thinking——"
"I do not employ you to think, Stimson. I understand you to say that the lady's name was Madame Darcy? Surely my daughter met a Madame Darcy the other night, somewhere?"
"Yes, my Lady, at Mr. Stanley's dinner."
"It is quite immaterial to me where Lady Isabelle met this person. But, as you say, it was at Mr. Stanley's dinner. So I infer she must be a friend of his."
"She's not staying at the Hall, my Lady."
"No," said the Marchioness. "I shouldn't have supposed she would stay at the Hall. Stimson, you may get me my bonnet and a light shawl."
"But I thought your Ladyship said as how you was not well enough to go out this morning."
"I said, Stimson, that you could get me my bonnet and a light shawl. Perhaps a little air will do me good."
"If your Ladyship was thinking of taking a little stroll, it's very pretty towards the Coombe Farm, not ten minutes' walk across the Park to the left of the house."
"As you very well know, Stimson," her mistress remarked with asperity, "I am too nearly tottering on the brink of the grave to venture out of the garden. Perhaps there is a side-door by which I can leave the house and be alone. I shouldn't have the strength to talk to anybody."
"No, your Ladyship. I'll show you the way, and if Mrs. Roberts should send to inquire for your Ladyship's health——"
"Say I have been obliged to lie down by a headache, and shall not appear till lunch."
"But if anyone saw your Ladyship——"
"In that case," snapped the Marchioness, "I should be obliged to dismiss you as being untruthful."
In a good cause the Dowager was only too apt to overtax her strength, and this was probably the reason why, half an hour later, she was obliged to sink down on a wooden bench outside the door of Coombe Farm and request the privilege of resting herself for a few minutes. The farmer's wife, who, like most people of her class, took a vast interest in the guests at the Hall, knew intuitively that she was a Marchioness, and having ducked almost to the dust, rushed into the house to get her Ladyship a glass of fresh milk and impart the astounding intelligence to her lodger. A moment later Madame Darcy appeared upon the scene.
"I am going to take the liberty of introducing myself, as I have the pleasure of knowing your daughter," she said.
Her Ladyship was affable in the extreme.
"This is, indeed, a pleasure, Madame Darcy," she murmured. "Dear Isabelle was so impressed with you the other night that she has done nothing but talk of you since; but, of course, I could not have supposed my walk would have had such a charming termination. Is not your coming into the country rather unexpected?"
"Yes," replied Madame Darcy. "It is what you in this country call a whim, is it not? I am not yet quite sure of your language."
The Marchioness smiled indulgently.
"Yes," she said, "that's quite right. It is very clever of you."
"I do not like your London," pursued the stranger. "It suffocates me, and I wish to run away into the country."
"And how did you know of this charming spot?" said her Ladyship, still angling on general principles.
"Oh, I have heard it mentioned."
"By Mr. Stanley, perhaps?" suggested the Dowager. "You knew he was to be here."
"Oh, yes," rejoined Madame Darcy, judging it better to be frank. "But I came here to be quite alone. I need rest and quiet."
"I see," said the Marchioness, who was quite bewildered. "But you and Mr. Stanley are very old friends, are you not?"
"Our fathers were. We have not met often recently."
"Yes, yes, of course," said the Marchioness. "Mr. Stanley told me. He's such a nice young fellow. We often see him at our house. I take quite an interest in him. And how pleasantly he is situated, too. Diplomacy is such a delightful profession. But then"—and here she sighed gently—"like other delightful things in this world it must require a very long purse."
If Madame Darcy had had any knowledge of English manners and customs, the Dowager's method of attack would have put her on her guard at once. But being totally unversed in the ways of British matrimonial diplomacy, she took the Marchioness' remarks to mean nothing more than an expression of kindly interest in the young man's welfare, and did not hesitate to inform her that the Secretary was amply able to afford any position he chose to take.
"Oh, yes," said the Dowager. "His father's greatly interested in sugar, I believe. Or is it salt? I am very ignorant about these matters. Which do you grow in your country?"
Madame Darcy repressed a smile and informed her guest that Mr. Stanley's father grew sugar, and was one of the most wealthy planters in that section of the world.
"Well, I must be going now," said the Marchioness. "I have had such a pleasant little chat, and I shall certainly ask Mrs. Roberts to call on you."
"Oh, pray don't," returned Madame Darcy. "That is—excuse me, I did not mean to be rude—but I have come down here for absolute rest, and do not feel in the mood for any gaiety."
"I quite understand," said the Dowager, "and will respect your feelings. Indeed, I will not mention having met you at all, and then no one need be the wiser. No, thanks. I shall be quite able to go by myself. Perhaps we may meet again in London. You must ask Mr. Stanley to bring you to call on me. Such a nice young fellow! He ought to be married to keep him out of mischief." And the Marchioness returned to her room to complete her headache.
Scarcely fifteen minutes had elapsed since the Dowager's departure, when, just by accident, Stanley strolled by, and lifting his eyes caught sight of Madame Darcy's face at the cottage window.
"What!" he exclaimed. "You here!" and stood silent a moment as a wave of feeling rushed over him, the first pleasure of seeing her sad sweet face being swept away by consternation at the thought of how she had played into her husband's hands by following him to this place.
She read what was in his mind, saying, with that charming accent which appealed to him so strongly:
"You should not express your thoughts so clearly in your face. You are thinking—but it is not of me—it is of yourself—in this part of the world men think only of themselves—in my country they think of us." And she gave a sigh.
"You are, what you English call 'put out' at my coming—you think it will compromise you—strange country where the men consider that they will be compromised. You do not think of me, not one little bit—eh? I am right?"
"I'm afraid so," he said. "You see, nowadays, chivalry doesn't exist far north or south of the equator."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"I carry my own climate, my own atmosphere," she said.
The Secretary bowed.
"No? You are not convinced? I had thought better of you."
"You see," he said, feeling it wiser to be blunt, feeling that he must, if possible, bring this wayward, entrancing, fantastic creature within the limits of practical common sense. "You see, your precious husband has been making trumped-up charges against me, on your account, which are highly unpleasant."
"He is a beast!"
"Quite so, but as far as circumstantial evidence goes, he has some cause on his side. Your arrival at my private apartments in London was most unfortunate; but your following me here was simply the worst sort of foolishness."
The Secretary was aggrieved and showed it; but the result of his plaint was most unexpected.
His fair companion sprang to her feet and gave him a flashing glance, that startled him out of the fancied security of his egotism.
"I come here to follow you! How dare you?"
"Oh, I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to be rude, really; but I naturally inferred——"
"No!" she cried. "Why should I come for you?— Bah! I come for her!"
"For whom?"
"For her," she cried, pointing towards the Hall.
"For her?" inquired Stanley, somewhat dazed by this unexpected change of base. "But who is she?"
"I do not know. I do not care; but she writes to my husband—she makes appointments with him."
"Oh, the nameless friend."
"Now you understand why I have come?"
"Yes, I see. Still I think it lays you open to misconstruction. You had better return to London. I suppose you know you were followed to my house?"
She snapped her fingers airily.
"I care just that for being followed. What of it?"
"My dear Inez, you forget that you're not in our native country. We can't fight duels galore in this part of the world, and cut the throats of inconvenient witnesses. People will talk; there are the newspapers; and—the dowagers; and the nonconformist conscience to be considered. You don't know what you are letting me—I mean yourself, in for."
"I tell you, I must confirm my suspicions. I must see your—what you call it—your visitors' book—which they have in great houses— I must compare the handwriting of the guests with the handwriting of these letters. When I have proved my case I will return to London—not one moment before. You are my friend, you will help me."
"Of course I will help you; but I assure you there is no one in the house who could be suspected for a moment."
"At least, you will help me to prove myself wrong?" and she shot at him one of those unsettling glances.
"Of course—with all my heart—and then you'll go back to London and take Mr. Sanks' advice, won't you?"
"You are very anxious to have me go," she said, piqued.
"No, no!" he assured her hastily. "Far from it; but can't you see—that it is for your sake that I urge it. Supposing anyone saw us now; what would they think, what could they think—an early morning rendezvous."
"They would say that you were making a report to me of your progress in discovering the plot against the treaty between England and our country."
He looked at her dumbfounded and said nothing. Indeed there was nothing he could say without risking some imprudent disclosure.
"Ah," she cried, laughing merrily at his discomfiture. "You see, you diplomats do not know everything. It is true I only write supervised letters home, but that does not prevent my receiving letters from my country first hand, and my father has written much about this treaty. It seems they are going to try and bribe the Senators to defeat it, with money raised here, and some cowardly scoundrel has been engaged as go-between."
Stanley stood looking at her in horrified astonishment. Was it possible that if she knew so much she did not know that she was condemning her own husband? But her next words proved to him that such must be the case.
"My father writes me," she continued, "that on proving the identity of this go-between, the success or failure of the plot depends, and so far, the government have been at a loss to identify him."
The Secretary, who held the key to the situation, could see excellent reasons why the Executive had kept Señor De Costa in the dark; what Madame was saying was evidently what everybody knew. Of the truth she had not the remotest inkling.
"Well," she cried gaily, "why don't you speak?"
"I have nothing to say," he replied.
"Diplomatic to the end, I see," she retorted. "But you can't expect to share my confidences unless you give me yours. Now tell me, have you discovered any of the conspirators yet?"
"I can truthfully say," he replied, "that as far as I know, there is nobody at Roberts' Hall connected with the conspiracy to which you allude."
"So you've come down here at the busiest season of your year on indefinite leave just to pay a country-house visit."
"How did you know that?" he asked.
"Randell," she replied.
"Good Heavens!" he cried, "you haven't been to my rooms again."
"Naturally not," she returned coldly. "Your servant brought a pair of gloves to my hotel, which I left at your rooms."
The Secretary bit his lips and changed the conversation, and made a mental note of the fact that if Randell was becoming talkative, he would have to go.
"You asked me," he said, "if I had discovered one of the agents of this mysterious treaty of which you seem to know so much. Perhaps you will tell me if you have?"
"Yes," she said, smiling.
"Who is it?" he asked.
"Ah!" she cried. "I thought I should break down your reserve."
"Well," he said sheepishly, "what have you to say?"
"Nothing," she replied. "I only exchange confidences for confidences. Tell me whom you suspect, and I will tell you whom I know."
"What you ask is impossible," he replied, feeling that he could never wound her by admitting his suspicions of her husband.
"So be it," she said gaily, giving him her hand, and added, "Come and see me again when you can spare a little time from your detective work."
The Secretary saw she was laughing at him, and took his leave discomfited. Madame Darcy watched him go, and sighed gently as she turned to re-enter the house. She also had felt that she would not have dared to wound him by mentioning her suspicions.