III
Suspense has been described as the most terrible of the many agonies the human heart and mind are so often called upon to endure.
Mrs. Mote, sitting in the twilight watching the gathering storm, listening in vain for the soft rumble of the little pony-cart, felt as if actual knowledge that what she feared had happened would be preferable to this anxiety.
More than once she got up and stood by one of the long narrow windows in the broad passage which commanded a view of the winding road, cut through the down, on which Penelope, if she ever came back, must appear. But Mrs. Mote was in no mood to pass the time of day with the upper housemaid, who would soon be coming to light the tall argand lamp in the corridor, and so at last she retreated into her room, there to remain in still wretchedness, convinced that Penelope had indeed gone, though her ears still remained painfully alive to the slightest sound which might give the lie to her dread.
It was eight o'clock. Already someone, probably Wantley, had ordered dinner to be put back half an hour, when the deep, soft-toned dressing-bell rang in the hall.
The maid listened dully to the comings to and fro up and down the staircase; there was an interval of silence; and then the door of her room suddenly opened, and Lady Wantley's tall figure was outlined for a moment against the dim patch of light afforded by the corridor window opposite.
'Surely your mistress did not intend to stay out so late to-night?' The voice was full of misgiving and agitation.
The old servant stood up; a curious instinct of loyalty to Mrs. Robinson seemed to impel her to say no word of her great fear. And yet she felt it not fair that Lady Wantley should be left in complete ignorance of what, if she, the old nurse, were right, would soon be known to the whole household.
'Perhaps my mistress is not coming back to-night; perhaps she intended to go on to London from Kingpole Farm,' she said in a curious, hesitating tone.
'From Kingpole Farm?' Lady Wantley advanced into the room. She turned and closed the door into the passage, and then seemed to tower above the stout little woman who stood before her in the twilight.
Mrs. Mote had taken up a corner of the black apron she always wore, and she was twisting it up and down in her fingers, remaining silent the while.
'Motey, what do you mean?' Lady Wantley spoke with a touch of haughty decision in her voice.
'What led you to suppose for a moment that my daughter has gone to Kingpole Farm? That, surely, is where Sir George Downing is staying!'
Then Mrs. Mote lost her head. She was spent with trouble, sick with suspense, and exasperated by Lady Wantley's clearly-conveyed rebuke. After all, Penelope was as dear—ay, perhaps dearer—to herself, the nurse, as to the mother who had had so little of the real trouble entailed by the rearing of her child. Was it likely that she, Motey, would say anything reflecting on the creature whom she loved so well, for whose honour she had often shown herself far more jealous than Lady Wantley had seemed to be, and whom she had saved, or so she firmly believed, from so many pitfalls?
'What made me think of it?' she repeated violently. 'Why, I know she's there! She wasn't likely to keep away any longer! Oh, my lady, how is it you've not seen, that you haven't come to understand, how it is with her? I should have thought that anyone who cared for her, and who isn't blind, must surely know, know that——'
Mrs. Mote's voice fell almost to a whisper as she added, throwing out her hands: 'She do like him; it's no good my saying anything else! Why didn't his lordship let her have Master David? He was the one for her; she's never liked anyone so well till just now.'
Then the speaker turned and nervously struck a match, lighting one of two tall candles standing on the chest of drawers behind her.
Lady Wantley's face looked very grey and drawn in the yellow light, but it was set in stern lines. 'Hush!' she said: 'you forget yourself, Motey,' and you are making a great mistake. If you refer to Sir George Downing'—she brought out the name with a certain effort—'you cannot be aware of what is known quite well to your mistress, for she herself told me that he is married. His wife, who is an American lady, once came to see your master.'
There was a long silence. Lady Wantley was waiting for the other to make some sign of submission, but the old servant only gave the woman who had been for so many years her own mistress a quick, furtive look, full of mingled pity and contempt, of fierce personal distress and impatience.
'Were they together then?' she said at last, and with apparent inconsequence she added; 'Does your ladyship remember Mrs. Winfrith, and what happened to her?'
Lady Wantley deigned no answer to Motey's questions. 'I know that you love my daughter,' she said slowly, almost reluctantly; but the servant, with a quick movement, shrank back, and her look, her gesture, forbade the other—the more fortunate woman who had borne the child Motey loved so well—to intrude on the nurse's relation to that child.
'Love her!' Motey was repeating to herself, though no words passed her lips, 'why, I'd give my body and soul for her, which is more than you would do!' But Mrs. Mote mis-estimated the mother-instinct in the woman who was now standing opposite to her.
Then, quickly, vehemently, the old nurse told of what she knew and what she feared with so great a dread, and the story which Lady Wantley heard, still standing, in dead silence, though it might have seemed very unconvincing to a lawyer, brought absolute conviction to Penelope's mother.
She was told in Motey's rough, expressive words of that first meeting in the great Paris station, when Mrs. Robinson, as if hypnotized by this singular-looking man, then a complete stranger, had accepted from him a real service, thus opening the door to an acquaintance which, with scarce any interval, had ripened into an absorbing passion. The maid recalled her own dawning suspicions, her powerlessness to stay the feeling which had seemed suddenly to overpower her mistress, her vain attempts to persuade Penelope to leave Pol les Thermes. Then the silent listener heard of the journey back, with Downing in close attendance, of Mrs. Mote's hope that this was the end of the affair, finally of the nurse's dismay when she discovered that he was actually coming to Monk's Eype.
The story the more impressed Lady Wantley because it was the first time she had received such confidences. She did not know, and Mrs. Mote saw no reason to enlighten her, that Penelope had always been fond of passing adventure, and she would have been astonished indeed had she known that, just at first, her daughter's vigilant companion had troubled but little about her mistress and Sir George Downing. Mrs. Mote had so often seen Penelope come forth, apparently unscathed, from romantic encounters, from long sentimental duels, in which the woman had always been an easy victor.
At last the nurse had said all there was to say. She had even shown Lady Wantley the letter which she regarded as such absolute evidence of what she feared, when again the door suddenly opened, and the two within the room started, or so it seemed to themselves, guiltily apart, as Mrs. Robinson, travel-stained and weary, and yet scarcely dishevelled, and with a bright colour in her cheeks, stood before them.
'I had an accident,' she said, rather breathlessly. 'The left wheel came off the pony-cart. That made me late, the more so that I was caught in the great storm which you do not seem to have had here.'
As she spoke she was glancing sharply from her mother to her maid. 'Were you afraid? I fear you have both been very anxious.' She added, 'I should have wired from Burcombe, but as I drove through I saw that the post-office was shut.' Again, as she spoke, she looked from the one to the other, and said rather coldly, 'But it's not so very late, after all.' Then she passed through into her own room, and Motey silently followed her.
That same night Wantley was sitting up, fully an hour after every one else had gone up to bed, smoking and reading, when Lady Wantley came into the room, which, as far as he knew, had never been entered by her since it had been set apart for his own use.
The young man rose, and tried to keep the surprise he felt out of his face. For a moment—a very disagreeable moment—he wondered if she had come to speak to him about Cecily Wake.
The great Lord Wantley had had a strong prejudice against Roman Catholics, and it was, of course, quite possible that his widow might consider herself bound to protest against the idea of a marriage between his successor and a Catholic girl. But he soon felt reassured on this point.
In a few moments he learnt that Lady Wantley had sought him out for a very different reason. 'I have to see Mr. Gumberg on urgent private business,' she said, 'and I have come to ask you if you will accompany me to London to-morrow morning. It is all-important that we should go quite early.'
'Certainly,' he said quickly; 'I will arrange everything.'
'Everything is arranged,' observed Lady Wantley very quietly. 'I have ordered the carriage for seven, and I have written a note to Penelope explaining my absence, but I have not mentioned the name of the person I am going to see. To do so was not necessary, and I beg that you also will keep it secret.'