V
The familiar summons was answered by Harriet herself. As she came into the room her rather scared eyes were caught at once by the profile of the dowager. But the reception in store for her was far from being of the kind she had reason to expect, for which she had had too little time to prepare.
To begin with Lady Wargrave rose to receive her. And that stately and considered act was supplemented by the simple words of the Duke.
“She knows everything,” he said from the depths of his invalid chair, without a suspicion of theatricality.
Harriet, all the color struck from her face, shrank back, a picture of horror and timidity.
“Sit down, my dear, and let us hold a little family council.” That note of intimacy and affection was so strange in Charlotte’s ear, that it hit her almost as hard as the previous words had hit the wife of his bosom. However, the two ladies sat, and the Duke with a nonchalance that hardly seemed credible, went on in a quietly domestic voice, as he turned to Harriet again. “We shall value your help and advice, if you feel inclined to give it, in this matter of Mary and the young man Dinneford.”
At this amazing speech Lady Wargrave stirred uneasily on her cushion of thorns. She breathed hard, her mordant mouth grew set, in her grim eyes were unutterable things.
“One moment, Johnnie,” she interposed. “Does Mrs.—er Sanderson quite understand what it means to us?”
“Perfectly,” he said, “no one better.” The depth of the tone expressed far more than those dry words. “It may help matters,” he added, turning to Harriet again, “if I say at once that we are going to ask you to make two decisions in the name of the people you have served so long and so faithfully. And the first is this: Since, as you will see I have been forced, much against my will, to let a third person into our secret, you have now the opportunity of taking your true position in the sight of the world.”
Lady Wargrave shivered. Somehow this was a turn of the game she had not been able to foresee.