CHAPTER XXXII
WISE JULIA
There is a certain class of woman who loves a fracas of any kind.
The waiting-room at Northampton Park boasted of no attendant, so Regina was able to sit down by the bare mahogany table and wait until the storm which possessed her had passed by. Poor Regina! The first thought that came to her was that after all she had lied to no purpose. It was no small thing to a woman of her sturdy and open mind that she had spun a perfect tissue of lies to her own child. She knew that she had lied in a double sense, for she had not deceived Julia, and she knew now that others were on the track of Alfred’s wrongdoings. She was shaking now, shaking like a leaf, and as she sat there, her sad eyes roaming over the customary literature that one finds on the table of a suburban waiting-room, she wished she had been left in her fool’s paradise. She realized with a great shock the truth of the old saw, “If ignorance is bliss, ’twere folly to be wise.” Yes, she would rather have been left in her fool’s paradise! But there, since the outer world was already talking of Alfred’s doings, it was small wonder that she had lit upon the truth also.
Her talk with Julia, and the little incident that had caused her to take refuge in the waiting-room, had made her hopelessly late for her appointments, but that, Regina felt, could not be helped. She turned, when she left the waiting-room, and walked across the green into the Post-Office, where she sent off a couple of telegrams, and then she took the next train to London and went straight to her club, where she lunched by herself. I need not go into the details of her day. She kept her appointments, behaved herself in a perfectly rational manner, and went home, poor woman, with a heart as heavy as lead. When she got home a terrible shock was waiting for her. Mr. Whittaker had come home, inquired for her, and gone off with a portmanteau and left a note for her on the dining-room mantelshelf.
“The master was so put out,” the intelligent parlor-maid declared, looking quite reproachfully at Regina, “he came in at five o’clock; of course there wasn’t a soul at home. I knew Miss Julia had gone to Mrs. Marksby’s, and I told master so, and he went to the telephone to speak through to Miss Maudie—I mean Mrs. Marksby, but the young ladies, they were gone out somewhere or other, and Mr. Harry wasn’t in, and I’d no idea where you was. Master was put out! He had a cup of tea, and packed his bag and he tramped up and down the road, and then he said to me, ‘Margaret,’ said he, ‘I must go or I sha’n’t catch my train, but I’ve written a note to the mistress, and be sure you take care of her whilst I am away.’ Those were his last words, ‘be sure you take care of her whilst I am away!’”