At the present moment all her best rooms, those rooms which overlooked her beloved cathedral, had been given up by her to a rather fretful-natured and very dissatisfied Belgian family, and so she had taken up her quarters on the darker and colder side of her house, that which overlooked the street.
It was there, in a severe-looking study on the ground floor, that Mrs. Otway found her this evening.
As her visitor was ushered in by the cross-looking old servant who was popularly supposed to be the only person of whom Miss Forsyth stood in fear, she got up and came forward, a very kindly, welcoming look on her plain face.
“Well, Mary,” she said, “what’s the matter now? Mrs. Purlock drunk again, eh?”
“Well, yes—as a matter of fact the poor woman was quite drunk this morning! But I’ve really come to know if you can spare me to-morrow afternoon. I want to go to London on business. I was also wondering if you know of any nice quiet hotel or lodging near Piccadilly—I should prefer a lodging—where I could spent two nights?”
“Near Piccadilly? Yes, of course I do—in Half-Moon Street. I’ll engage two rooms for you. And as for to-morrow, I can spare you quite well. In fact I shall probably manage better alone. Can’t you go up by that nice early morning train, my dear?”
Mrs. Otway shook her head. “No, I can’t possibly get away before the afternoon. You see I must look after Mrs. Purlock. She got into rather bad trouble this morning. And oh, Miss Forsyth, I’m so sorry for her! She believes her two boys are being starved to death in Germany. Unfortunately she knows that woman whose husband signed his letter ‘Your loving Jack Starving.’ It’s thoroughly upset Mrs. Purlock, and if, as they all say, drink drowns thought and makes one feel happy, can we wonder at all the drinking that goes on just now? But I’m going to try to-morrow morning to arrange for her to go away to a sister—a very sensible, nice woman she seems, who certainly won’t let her do anything of the sort.”
“Surely you’re rather inconsistent?” said Miss Forsyth briskly. “You spoke only a minute ago as if you almost approved of drunkenness,” but there was an intelligent twinkle in her eye.
Mrs. Otway smiled, but it was a very sad smile. “You know quite well, dear Miss Forsyth, that I didn’t mean that! Of course I don’t approve, I only meant that—that I understand.” She waited a moment, and then added, quietly, and with a little sigh, “So you see I can’t go up to town to-morrow morning. What I want to do there will wait quite well till the afternoon.”
Miss Forsyth accompanied her visitor into the hall—the old eighteenth-century hall which was so exquisitely proportioned, but the walls of which were covered with the monstrously ugly mid-Victorian marble paper she much disliked, but never felt she could afford to change as long as it still looked so irritatingly “good” and clean. She opened the front door on to the empty, darkened street; and then, to Mrs. Otway’s great surprise, she suddenly bent forward and kissed her warmly.