Chapter Eighteen.
Pamela rose the next morning with a dumb anger in her heart. She had passed a sleepless night,—a night of anguish, such as she had not experienced since the time following her discovery of the existence of Arnott’s wife. She did not know how to act. She needed advice sorely, and knew of no one to whom she could turn in her trouble. The delicacy of her position made it impossible for her to seek outside help. Whatever difficulty arose through her relations with Arnott, she must face it alone.
On one thing she was resolved; the night’s reflection had confirmed her on this point; Blanche must go at once. Arnott’s insistence that the girl should remain weighed with her very lightly, and failed to shake her determination.
She went downstairs with her decision arrived at, with no intention of discussing the matter again. There was no one to discuss it with she found on descending; Arnott had breakfasted and left the house, taking a small amount of luggage with him. This, she realised, was his way of evading unpleasantness. Possibly the recognition that he dared not further assert his authority, coupled with a dislike for admitting defeat had moved him to this course as the only dignified way out of a dilemma. He left her to act on her own responsibility.
Pamela breakfasted alone. For the first time since their marriage she experienced a relief in his absence. She lingered over the meal, encouraging a sense of independence which this solitariness gave her. Had she known that he had gone away for ever it would not have troubled her at the moment. She did not wish him back. Realising this with a faint touch of surprise, she set herself to analyse her feelings in regard to him. It caused her something of a shock to discover from this analysis that in three years her love for him had shrunk to inconsiderable dimensions. She was conscious of a feeling of contempt for him which came dangerously near to repulsion. The scene of the previous night had killed her respect for him finally. Further, it had convinced her that he had ceased entirely to care for her. This man of uncontrolled passions had wearied of her, as doubtless he had wearied of his first wife. Possibly, if she had left him three years ago before his passion had begun to wane, his love would have endured longer. With men of Arnott’s temperament the inaccessible is always the most desired.
When she had finished breakfast she went upstairs to the nursery for her difficult interview with the governess. She had expected Miss Maitland to come down with the children. It was past the hour for their morning walk. To her amazement, when she entered the nursery, Maggie was in sole charge, endeavouring with the willing incapacity of her type to get the children into their walking things. Pamela was helping her by amusing the boy while she fitted his cap over the unruly curls. At sight of his mother the boy fought vigorously to go to her, while Pamela darted gleefully forward with the news that there was no Miss Maitland anywhere; she had looked in the bed and under the bed, and Maggie had hunted too. But Miss Maitland had gone, and her clothes had gone. Some one had come quite early and carried her trunk away.
“Perhaps,” Pamela ended cheerfully, “some one came and fetched her away in the night.”
Her mother turned white while she listened to the child’s excited explanation. She took the boy from Maggie, and while she proceeded with his dressing, asked in a low voice what the girl knew about the matter. Maggie’s information was not more lucid than the child’s. No one, it appeared, had seen Miss Maitland leave; but a strange boy had come for her luggage at seven, and John had carried it downstairs. The strange boy had left a note for the missis. Pamela asked for the note. Maggie had not seen it, but she believed it had been left in the hall.
Pamela finished dressing the children, and led little David downstairs. She told Maggie to take them in the garden and let them play in the shade; she would come out later and join them. Then she turned back, white and trembling, an ugly doubt haunting her mind, and searched for the note that had been left for her. Would the note, she wondered, explain this horrible mystery, or merely increase her doubt? It was lying where the boy had left it on the hall table, and it was addressed, she saw, in Blanche’s handwriting. She opened it and read it where she stood. The writer had omitted the formality of the customary mode of address, she had also omitted to sign her name at the end.
“When you read this,” she had written, “you will probably have heard of my departure, and you will feel less surprise at the abrupt manner of my leaving when I say that I was an unwilling listener to what passed between you and Mr Arnott after I left the drawing-room last night. For the sake of my reputation I could not remain beneath your roof an hour longer than was necessary. I made my preparations last night and left early this morning. I warn you, by the knowledge I possess, to be careful how you discuss me and my actions. If my reputation suffers I shall know where to attach the blame.”
Pamela folded the note carefully, and carried it with her into the sitting-room, and sat down to think. This girl held the dangerous knowledge of her false position as Arnott’s wife. She meant to make use of the knowledge if at any time it suited her to use it. The thought was bitterly humiliating. For the time it swamped every other consideration, even the doubt which had haunted her before reading the note was lost sight of in the shock of this discovery.
She tried to recall what had been said on the previous evening that had revealed their secret to this girl, who from her own admission had been eavesdropping. But of that interview no clear recollection remained. She could not recall the scraps of actual talk; only the bitterness of that monstrous duologue lingered in her memory, and the insults Herbert had flung at her in his anger, and her own threat to leave him. Reviewing the scene now, the sordidness of it gripped her, disgusted her. And to think that a third person should have deliberately listened to that painful, miserable interview. The thought of Blanche’s duplicity enraged her; the veiled threat conveyed in the note angered her more than it alarmed her. How dared she threaten her with the disclosure of her infamously acquired knowledge?
She read the note carefully a second time. There was no suggestion in it that the writer’s flight were in any sense connected with Arnott’s sudden departure. And yet that veiled threat at the end...
Pamela pondered over this doubt for a long while; and the longer she considered it the greater the doubt grew. It occurred to her that Blanche had had some motive in penning those offensive words. Could it be possible that after his angry exit last night Herbert had gone to this girl and arranged with her the manner of her leaving? Pamela wished she knew. Better the ugly truth than the horror of this uncertainty. At least she would know how to act if she knew the worst. Possibly he would write, she reflected. He could scarcely behave so outrageously as to leave home in this secret fashion and tender no explanation of his whereabouts, or his purpose in leaving. There was nothing for it but to wait and see what the days brought forth. But this waiting in utter ignorance was galling. It forced home to her to the full the degradation of her false position. Had it not been for the children she would have quitted his home finally. But, as Arnott had reminded her, the children were her first consideration; she had forfeited the right to consider herself.
She allowed an hour to slip by in these unprofitable and bitter reflections before she recollected her promise to the children, and rising, went out into the garden to join them. It caused her a shock of dismay to discover Mrs Carruthers sitting under the trees with them—a puzzled, perturbed Mrs Carruthers, fully informed by Pamela, the younger, of the governess’ mysterious disappearance. She looked up when Pamela came towards them, rose, and advanced to meet her.
“My dear,” she said, “you look worried. Whatever is this I’ve been hearing from Pamela? She tells me Blanche has gone.”
It was impossible, Pamela realised, to keep Mrs Carruthers in ignorance of obvious domestic events; but she would have preferred to delay talking over these disturbing matters until she was better prepared. It had not occurred to her, until confronted with the actual difficulty, that she would be called upon to discuss with any interested inquirer the mysterious details of the absconding of her children’s governess, which, in conjunction with Arnott’s unexpected departure on the same day, might very easily give rise to gossip. Arnott’s interest in the governess had aroused attention at Muizenberg, as Pamela was perfectly aware. She could only hope to avert scandal in regard to this event by the caution with which she explained it. So far as Mrs Carruthers was concerned she felt that she could rely upon her absolute discretion; she was the one woman she knew in whom she could have confided, had it been possible to confide in any one. But the nature of her trouble sealed her lips; it was too sordid and shameful a story to impart to other ears.
“Yes; she has gone,” she answered.
“But why?” demanded Mrs Carruthers, who felt, through having recommended Blanche, in a sense responsible for the girl.
“She ran away,” piped Pamela junior’s shrill treble.
“Go and play,” said Pamela. “Mummy wants to talk business.”
“But you said you’d come and play too,” the child protested.
“So I will presently. Run away now, like a good girlie.”
Mrs Carruthers drew a hand through Pamela’s arm and strolled with her along the path.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Why should Blanche leave you in this manner? It’s such a mad thing to do. What can the girl have been thinking of? It ruins her prospects. One couldn’t recommend her after such extraordinary behaviour. Maggie tells me she went before any one was up. But why, Pamela? She must have had a reason.”
“I suppose she had,” Pamela agreed. “The only thing I can think of is that she knew I was going to dismiss her and simply forestalled me.”
Mrs Carruthers looked perplexed.
“I thought you were entirely satisfied with her,” she remarked.
“No,” Pamela returned. “In many respects she was admirable. But I never cared much for her; and as you know I found her system in the nursery very trying. She had too much authority. I meant to try a nurse again.”
“Well, I am astonished,” Mrs Carruthers exclaimed. “I believed she was a perfect treasure. But the fact of your intention to dismiss her is no warrant for her extraordinary behaviour. To run away like that! My dear Pamela, it’s absurd. What does Mr Arnott think about it?”
At this sudden and wholly unforeseen question Pamela’s composure forsook her. She flushed red, and then went so very pale that Mrs Carruthers, watching her, could not fail to detect her agitation. She did not know what to make of these signs of distress. Had Pamela been guilty of making away with the governess she could not have appeared more conscience-stricken. Her eyes refused to meet Mrs Carruthers’ steady gaze: they shifted uneasily and sought the gravel of the path.
“I don’t know,” she stammered.
The answer, as much as her manner of uttering it, sounded disingenuous even in her own ears. She made an effort to collect her scattered wits, conscious that she was conveying a suggestion to her friend’s mind of the very suspicions she was anxious to avert.
“Herbert had left before we knew about Blanche,” she explained with nervous haste. “He went away this morning immediately after breakfast. You see,” she looked at Mrs Carruthers quickly, with wide apprehensive eyes which appealed mutely for sympathy, “that makes it so much more difficult for me,—his not being here to advise me. Oh! Connie, I am so bothered. I don’t know how to act.”
“That’s awkward,” said Mrs Carruthers, feeling too bewildered to detect that the remark was scarcely tactful.
She thought for a moment.
“I’ll ask Dickie when he gets home this evening what he thinks you ought to do. He’ll come in and have a chat with you, if you like. After all, it isn’t your business to bother about the girl if she chooses to serve you such a trick. I should put her out of my mind, if I were in your place. I am disappointed in that girl.”
Suddenly tears rose in Pamela’s eyes. She tried hard to blink them away unseen; but they welled bigger and bigger until they overflowed and rolled down her white cheeks. Mrs Carruthers slipped an arm about her waist.
“You poor dear!” she said.
“It’s stupid of me,” murmured Pamela apologetically. “But I’m so worried. I feel all unstrung. It seems so odd for Blanche to have gone away like that. It’s so difficult to explain.”
“I shouldn’t attempt explanations,” Mrs Carruthers advised. “When do you expect Mr Arnott home?” she asked.
Again the distressing change of colour showed in Pamela’s face, and again her embarrassed, reluctant admission that she did not know when to expect him puzzled her listener anew. The whole business was incomprehensible.
Mrs Carruthers’ knowledge of the Arnott’s affairs was greater than Pamela realised. Being fairly astute, her perception had led her to detect more of the breach than was obvious to the ordinary observer. Had she not already suspected it, Pamela’s manner would have convinced her that the governess’ flight was not alone responsible for her present distress. A more personal trouble could alone account for the unhinged state of her mind. To avoid adding to her embarrassment, she left the subject with the reflection that dwelling on annoyances merely aggravated them, and proposed joining the children.
But Pamela’s face haunted her for the rest of the day. Despite a strong disinclination to allow the suspicion, the belief that Arnott’s absence and the girl’s flight were in some way connected, and not merely coincident, as his wife had so lamely endeavoured to convey, was difficult to banish. Pamela’s very anxiety to disprove the connection suggested to the unbiassed mind that the connection was there. Mrs Carruthers did not like Arnott. She threw that fact into the balance of her judgment, and resolved to give him the benefit of the doubt.