Meanwhile the coat and hat in the hall had revealed the young man’s presence in the house.
For a moment Mrs. Dunstan paused, whilst Jane stood by trembling with fright. Then the old lady turned to Mr. Nicholas Jones, who was still standing on the doorstep, and said quietly:
“Will you telephone over to Mr. Blenkinsop, Nick, the first thing in the morning, and tell him I’ll be at his office by ten o’clock?”
Mr. Blenkinsop was Mrs. Dunstan’s solicitor, and as Jane explained to the cook later on, what could such an appointment mean but a determination to cut Miss Violet out of the missis’s will with the proverbial shilling?
After this Mrs. Dunstan took leave of her brother and went straight into the dining-room.
According to the subsequent testimony of all three servants, the mistress “went on dreadful.” Words were not easily distinguishable from behind the closed door, but it seems that, immediately she entered, Mrs. Dunstan’s voice was raised as if in terrible anger, and a few moments later Miss Violet fled crying from the dining-room, and ran quickly upstairs.
Whilst the door was thus momentarily opened and shut, the voice of the old lady was heard saying, in majestic wrath:
“That’s what you have done. Get out of this house. As for her, she’ll never see a penny of my money, and she may starve for aught I care!”
The quarrel seems to have continued for a short while after that, the servants being too deeply awed by those last vindictive words which they had heard to take much note of what went on subsequently.
Mrs. Dunstan and Mr. Athol were closeted together for some time; but apparently the old lady’s wrath did not subside, for when she marched up to bed an hour later she was heard to say: