Jealous of Joan Panfillen? Nay, Althea assured herself that there was no room in her heart for jealousy, but it was painful, even more, it was hateful, to know that there were people who pitied her because of this peculiar intimacy between Perceval and Joan. Why, quite lately, there had been a recrudescence of talk about their friendship, so an ill-bred busybody had hinted to Althea only the day before.
The wife was dimly aware that there had been a time when Mrs. Panfillen had hoped to form with her an unspoken compact; each would have helped the other, that is, to "manage" Perceval; but the moment when such an alliance would have been possible had now gone for ever—even if it had ever existed. Althea would have had to have been a different woman,—older, cleverer, less scrupulous, more indifferent than she was, even now, to the man she had married, to make such a compact possible.
When about to cross Great George Street she stopped and hesitated. Why should she do this thing, why leave her house at Joan Panfillen's bidding? But Althea, even as she hesitated, knew that she would go on. She had said that she was coming, and she was not one to break lightly even a light word.
As she crossed Storey's Gate, she noticed the stationary cab of the old man who lived in Boar's Head Yard. It had been standing there when she had come in from her walk, and she felt a thrill of pity—the old man made a gallant fight against misfortune. She and Joan Panfillen were both very kind to him.
Althea told herself that this sad world is full of real trouble, and the thought made her ashamed of the feelings which she had just allowed to possess and shake her with jealous pain. And yet—yet, though many people envied her, how far from happy Althea knew herself to be, and how terribly grey her life now looked, stretching out in front of her.
As she passed into Birdcage Walk, and came close to the little iron gate which Mrs. Panfillen had told her was unlocked, she saw that a woman stood on the path of the tiny garden behind the railings.
Of course it was not Joan herself; the thought that Joan, delicate, fragile as she was, would come out into the cold, foggy air was unthinkable; scarcely less strange was it to see standing there, cloakless and hatless, Joan's maid, a tall, gaunt, grey-haired woman named Bolt, who in the long ago had been nurse to the Panfillens' dead child. Scrope had told Althea the story of the brief tragedy very early in his acquaintance with her; he had spoken with strong feeling, and that although the child had been born, had lived, and had died before he himself had known Joan.
In the days when she had been Mrs. Panfillen's guest, that is before her marriage, Althea had known the maid well, known and liked her grim honesty of manner, but since Althea's marriage to Perceval Scrope there had come a change over Bolt's manner. She also had made Althea feel that she was an interloper, and now the sight of the woman standing waiting in the cold mist disturbed her.
Bolt looked as if she had been there a very long time, and yet Althea had hurried; she was even a little breathless. As she touched the gate, she saw that it swung loosely. Everything had been done to make her coming easy; how urgent must be Joan's need of her!
Althea became oppressed with a vague fear. She looked at the maid questioningly. "Is Mrs. Panfillen ill?" she asked. The other shook her head. "There's nothing ailing Mrs. Panfillen," she said in a low voice.