“Very well, sir. He is in uniform. He has friends with him.”
Her voice was as quiet as when she read aloud in the parsonage study. Her heart seemed to have ceased beating.
Now the carriage was drawing up at the hotel door. The manager, the staff, were waiting on the steps as if for Royalty. Sir William descended first, then Nelson, and together they aided Lady Hamilton’s graceful descent, the magnificent folds of fur falling about her. Fanny drew back from the window and stood by the fire.
Five, ten minutes passed. Of course there would be greetings downstairs, questions, answers. Then feet in the passage outside; a voice—“This way, my Lord,” and the door opened. He came in—if her life depended upon it she could not have moved a limb. Her very agitation froze her, and it was the old man who got at him first and clasped his hand, and put a feeble arm about his shoulders and kissed him on the cheek. He did not even see her in the darkening shadows of the room.
“My dear, dear father!” he said. Oh, well-remembered voice! Oh, pain and joy unspeakable! “It’s home to see you again. Is Fanny at Burnham Thorpe?”
She heard the quick startle in his tone, and then she moved into the firelight at last.
“I’m here, my dear husband.”
That was all. There were a million things she wanted to say, pleadings, loving words, passionate entreaties. But how could she? His father was there. They should have met alone, it was cruel, cruel that they had not, and yet even if they had, what could she have said? Nothing, nothing. When the heart is too full it chokes on its own utterances.
He took her hand and kissed her cheek. It was a moment of agonizing embarrassment to her. His father grasped his shoulder and led him to a chair by the fire and poured out all the questions she would have asked if she had dared. But, indeed, her heart was near to bursting. She had been forbidden to meet him, but that bold beautiful woman had shared all the honours of his return and was in London also now, waiting her time. All the Palermitan stories crowded on her mind. Would not one think that a wife who had never offended had more claim than that cold kiss?
She asked him in her soft voice whether he was well; whether he had any pain in what was left of his arm?—the pathetic empty sleeve wrung her heart. She had gathered up the little scraps of family news to tell him; the Boltons, the Matchams, his brothers, William and Maurice, would be coming up next day. Yes, they were all well, all full of eagerness to see him. She did her best, God knows, but what can a woman do so cruelly hampered? It all sounded stiff and unnatural. He took it for anger and answered with cold punctuality.