“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.