“Yes, I belong to her. I have come to fetch her.”
He went into the drawing-room—the room that had looked pretty and picturesque enough in those unforgotten days—a small room furnished with quaint old secretaire and bookcase, Chippendale chairs, and a carved oak table, a pair of old blue-and-white jars on the top of a dark mahogany bureau, a high, brass fender that used to glitter in the firelight, sober brown damask curtains, and half-a-dozen Bartolozzi engravings of rustic subjects, in neat oval frames—a room that always looked like a Dutch picture.
Now that room was a scene of squalor and desolation. For furniture there was nothing but a shabby Pembroke table, wanting two castors, and two old cane-seated chairs, in each of which the cane was broken and bulging. A dilapidated doll, in a ragged red gauze frock, sprawled amidst the dirt on the bare floor, and a greasy rug lay in front of the fireless hearth.
Mrs. Porter was sitting with her elbows on the table, and her head resting on her clasped hands. She did not notice Lord Cheriton’s approach till he was standing close beside her, when she looked up at him.
At first her gaze expressed trouble and bewilderment; then her face brightened into a quiet smile, a look of long ago.
“You are earlier than usual, James,” she said, holding out her hand.
He took the hand in his; it was hot and dry, as if with a raging fever. It was the hand of a murderess; but it was also the hand of his victim, and he could not refuse to take it.
“Was your work over so soon to-day?” she asked. “I’m afraid it will be ever so long before dinner will be ready, and the house is all in a muddle—everything wretched”—looking about her with a puzzled air. “I can’t think what has happened to the rooms,” she muttered. “Servants are so troublesome.”
She passed her hand across her forehead, as if her head were paining her, and then looked at him helplessly.
“You are ill, Evelyn,” he said, gently.