“It is no joking matter, I assure you,” said Helen, leaning one hand on the dressing-table and nodding her head with much solemnity. “Reginald has been so angry with me, I declare I feel just as I used to do after I had had a lecture from papa. I never saw him in such a rage in my life, and all about you,” she concluded indignantly.
“Cela va sans dire,” replied Alice, coolly selecting a handkerchief from her sachet.
“What is this monstrous tale you have been telling him about not being visited, and being tabooed as a divorcée? I never heard of anything so utterly absurd. I told him that it was entirely a delusion; that living so much alone had made you fancy and imagine things; and that I was certain it was all a mistake—mere imagination.”
“You should not have said that, Helen,” replied Alice gravely. “Is it imagination that, although I have lived here for three years, not one in the neighbourhood has crossed the threshold with the exception of the rector and the Ruffords? Am I taxing my imagination very heavily when I say that I am never asked to join in any of the local charities, bazaars, or concerts, although belonging to one of the oldest families in the county, and known to be abundantly blessed with riches? Am I drawing on my imagination when I tell you that the looks which I meet are too disdainful to describe?—that were I that dreadful woman I heard you telling auntie about, who had run away from her husband and children—gone off with an actor I think you said—they could not hold me in greater scorn and contempt?”
“And why has this never come to my ears? Why have you kept it from me all along? Reginald has been telling me that he left you under my charge and Mark’s, and a pretty way I have fulfilled my trust, he says, when he comes home, only to find you outlawed from society. Why was I not told? Was this fair to me, Alice?” said Mrs. Mayhew, sinking into a seat with an air of being entirely overwhelmed.
“We kept it from you on purpose, auntie and I; we thought there was no use in worrying you and Mark, and all you could have said or done would not have been of the slightest use. All the waters in the sea would not have washed me white in the estimation of my charitable neighbours. When first I came here I was too miserable to notice anything; then for a long time I was very ill, as you know. It was fully a year before I became really alive to my position, as you would call it. Then auntie spoke to the rector, and he told her the truth—that it was said that Reginald had separated from me for very good reasons; and he asked her point-blank if we were on friendly terms. What could she say?”—with a gesture of appeal—“she told him the truth—that we were not, but that our difference was entirely a matter between ourselves, and did not concern the world at large. But, unfortunately for us, the world at large is deeply interested in our affairs. The rector believed auntie, I am sure, but no one else will listen to such an explanation for one second; and as it transpired through the servants and the post-office that I never received any Indian letters, but lots of English ones in a man’s hand—Geoffrey’s—my fate was sealed. I am considered a dreadful young person. Tell me, Helen,” putting on a most bewitching little hat, and looking at her mischievously with her head on one side, “do I look very improper?”
“Alice, how can you go on like this?” exclaimed her cousin hysterically. “How can you jest on such a subject? What an odd extraordinary girl you are; at one moment in the wildest spirits, at another in the depths of woe.”
“You cannot accuse me of very wild spirits lately, at any rate, and you must not forget that I have Irish blood in my veins, and excuse my vagaries on that score. I can tell you that I surprise myself very much at times.”
“Alice! Alice!” shouted Geoffrey from downstairs.
“There, I must be off. Do not look so dismal, my dear horrified Helen. Now that Reginald has come here, people will think better of me, you will see. Come along,” she continued, taking her arm and hurrying her down the corridor, and flying with her downstairs at a breakneck pace, “they are all waiting for us on the tennis-ground; even Mark is going to play.”