It was twenty years since he had called her by the name that had been so often on his lips in this house. It was almost as if the very atmosphere of the house, even in its desolation, recalled the old link between them, and made him forgetful of what had happened in Dorsetshire.
“No. I have a headache, that is all. I shall set to work presently and make everything comfortable for you. Only I can’t find Mary—I can’t get on without Mary. I don’t like the look of that charwoman—a wretched, untidy creature—and I don’t know what she has done with the furniture. I suppose she moved it in order to clean the rooms. It is just like their tricks, clearing out the furniture and then dawdling ever so long before they begin to scrub the floors.”
He looked at her earnestly, wondering whether she was pretending, whether she had repented that written acknowledgment of her crime, and was simulating madness. No, it was real enough. The eyes, with their dull fixed look and dilated pupils, the troubled movements of the hands, the tremulous lips, all told of the unsettled brain. There was but one course before him, to get her madness established as an accepted fact before there was any chance of her crime being discovered.
“Do not trouble about anything,” he said, gently. “I will get some of the furniture brought back presently, and I will get you a servant. Will you wait quietly here, while I see about two or three small matters?”
“Yes, I will wait; but don’t be long. It seems such a long while since yesterday,” she said, looking round the room in a forlorn way, “and everything is so strangely altered. Don’t be long, if you must go out.”
He promised to return in half an hour, and then he went out and spoke to the woman.
“How did she come here, and when?”
“She walked up to the door. It was just dinner-time—half-past twelve o’clock. I thought it was some one to see the house, so I let her in without asking any questions, and I showed her all the rooms, and it was some time before I saw she was wrong in her head. She looked about her just as people mostly do look, and she was very thoughtful, as if she was considering whether the place would suit. And then after she’d been a long time looking at the rooms and the garden, she went back into the drawing-room, and sat down at the table. I told her I should be glad if she could make it convenient to leave, as I had my washing to do. But she said she lived here, this was her home, and she told me to go away and get on with my work. She gave me such a scare that I didn’t know how to answer her. She spoke very mild, and I could see that she was a lady; but I could see that she was out of her mind, and that frightened me, for fear she should take a violent turn, and I all alone in the house with those young children. I was afraid to contradict her, so I just let her please herself and sit in the drawing-room alone, while I got on with my bit of washing, and kept the children well out of the way. I never felt more thankful in my life than when you rang the bell.”
“I am going as far as the post-office to send off some telegrams, and I want you to take care she doesn’t leave this house while I’m away,” said Lord Cheriton, emphasizing his request with a sovereign.
“Thank you kindly, sir. I’ll do my best. I’m sure I’m sorry for her with all my heart, poor dear lady.”