The reply was whispered. Adela’s embrace grew closer; her face was hidden, and all at once she began to sob.
‘Love me, mother! Love me, dear mother!’
Mrs. Waltham beamed with real tenderness. For half an hour they talked as mother and child alone can. Then Adela walked back to the Manor, still dreaming. She did not feel able to call and see Letty.
There was an afternoon postal delivery at Wanley, and the postman had just left the Manor as Adela returned. Alice, who for a wonder had been walking in the garden, saw the man going away, and, thinking it possible there might be a letter for her, entered the house to look. Three letters lay on the hall table; two were for Richard, the other was addressed to Mrs. Mutimer. This envelope Alice examined curiously. Whose writing could that be? She certainly knew it; it was a singular hand, stiff, awkward, untrained. Why, it was the writing of Emma’s sister, Kate, Mrs. Clay. Not a doubt of it. Alice had received a note from Mrs. Clay at the time of Jane Vine’s death, and remembered comparing the hand with her own and blessing herself that at all events she wrote with an elegant slope, and not in that hideous upright scrawl. The post-mark? Yes, it was London, E.C. But if Kate addressed a letter to Mrs. Mutimer it must be with sinister design, a design not at all difficult to imagine. Alice had a temptation. To take this letter and either open it herself or give it secretly to her brother? But the servant might somehow make it known that such a letter had arrived.
‘Anything for me, Alice?’
It was Adela’s voice. She had approached unheard; Alice was so intent upon her thoughts.
‘Yes, one letter.’
There was no help for it. Alice glanced at her sister-in-law, and strolled away again into the garden.
Adela examined the envelope. She could not conjecture from whom the letter came; certainly from some illiterate person. Was it for her husband? Was not the ‘Mrs.’ a mistake for ‘Mr.’ or perhaps mere ill-writing that deceived the eye? No, the prefix was so very distinct. She opened the envelope where she stood.
‘Mrs. Mutimer, I dare say you don’t know me nor my name, but I write to you because I think it only right as you should know the truth about your husband, and because me and my sister can’t go on any longer as we are. My sister’s name is Emma Vine. She was engaged to be married to Richard M. two years before he knew you, and to the last he put her off with make-believe and promises, though it was easy to see what was meant. And when our sister Jane was on her very death-bed, which she died not a week after he married you, and I know well as it was grief as killed her. And now we haven’t got enough to eat for Emma and me and my two little children, for I am a widow myself. But that isn’t all. Because he found that his friends in Hoxton was crying shame on him, he got it said as Emma had misbehaved herself, which was a cowardly lie, and all to protect himself. And now Emma is that ill she can’t work; it’s come upon her all at once, and what’s going to happen God knows. And his own mother cried shame on him, and wouldn’t live no longer in the big house in Highbury. He offered us money—I will say so much—but Emma was too proud, and wouldn’t hear of it. And then he went giving her a bad name. What do you think of your husband now, Mrs. Mutimer? I don’t expect nothing, but it’s only right you should know. Emma wouldn’t take anything, not if she was dying of starvation, but I’ve got my children to think of. So that’s all I have to say, and I’m glad I’ve said it.—Yours truly, KATE CLAY.’