CHAPTER XX
"HONBLE. BLANCHE FARROW—Wyndfell Hall—Darnaston—Suffolk—Very private—Meet me outside Darnaston Church at twelve o'clock, midday, to-morrow, Wednesday—MARK GIFFORD."
Blanche sat up in bed and stared down at the telegraph form. What on earth did this mean? But for the fact that she knew it to be out of the question, she would have suspected a foolish and vulgar practical joke.
She noted that the telegram had been sent off at 9.30 the night before (just after Mark must have received her letter). She also saw that it had been inscribed for morning delivery. That was like Mark Gifford. He was nothing if not careful and precise with regard to everything of a business kind.
Then she began asking herself the sort of rather futile questions people do ask themselves, when puzzled, and made uneasy by what seems an inexplicable occurrence. How would Mark get to Darnaston by twelve o'clock to-day? Surely he could only do so by starting before it was light, and motoring the whole way from London?
She gazed at the words "very private." What did they portend? Quickly she examined her conscience. No, she had done nothing—nothing which could have brought her into contact, even slightly, with the law. Of course, she was well aware that Mark had never forgotten, even over all these years, the dreadful scrape into which she had got herself by going to those gambling parties in the pleasant, quiet, Jermyn Street flat where she and Varick had first become acquainted. But that had been a sharp lesson, and one by which she had profited.
She next took a rapid mental survey of her family, all so much more respectable and prosperous than herself. The only person among them capable of getting into any real scrape was poor little Bubbles.
Bubbles was now practically well again. She had written out the announcement which was to appear in the Times and the Morning Post, and had insisted on its being sent off.
Donnington had been somewhat perturbed by the thought of their engagement being thus at once made public. But Bubbles had observed cheerfully: "Once people know about it, I shan't be able to get out of it, even if I want to!" To that Bill had said, sorely, that if she wanted to give him the chuck she should of course do so, even on the altar steps. Bubbles had laughed at that and exclaimed: "I only said it to tease you, old thing! The real truth is that I want father to understand that I really mean it—that's all. He reads the Times right through every day, and he'll think it true if he sees it there. As for his tiresome widow, she'll see it in the Morning Post—and then she'll believe it, too!"
Blanche Farrow told herself that this mysterious and extraordinary message might have something to do with Bubbles; and as she got up, she went on thinking with increasing unease of the unexpected assignation which lay before her.