“You think it would be better if I told, her?” Claire asked anxiously. “I wondered myself, but naturally I dreaded it, and I thought she might prefer to get over the first shock alone. I had decided to write first, and see her later on. But you think...”
“I think decidedly that you ought to break the news in person. You can lead up to it more naturally in words. Even the most carefully written letters are apt to read coldly; perhaps the more care we spend on them, the more coldly they read.”
“Yes, that’s true, that’s quite true, but I thought it would be better not to wait. She is staying at home just now. I don’t think he will visit her there, for he seemed to shrink from meeting her mother, but he may write and try—” Claire drew herself up on the point of betraying that borrowing of money which was the most shameful feature of the fraud, but Mrs Fanshawe was too much absorbed in her own schemes to notice the omission. She had seen a way of getting rid of an unwelcome guest, and was all keenness to turn it to account.
“He is sure to try to see her again while he is at large. He will probably urge her to marry him at once. You should certainly not defer your visit if it is to be of any use. How dreadful it would be if she were to marry him under an assumed name! You mustn’t let us interfere with your arrangement, my dear. You only promised me ten days, so I can’t grumble if you run away, and for the short time that Erskine is at home, there are so many friends to fit in... You understand, I am sure, that I am thinking of your own convenience!”
“I understand perfectly, thank you!” Claire replied, her head in the air, the indignant colour dying her cheeks with red. Mrs Fanshawe’s arguments in favour of haste might be wise enough, but her personal desire was all too plainly betrayed. And she pointedly ignored the fact that the proposed interview need not have interrupted Claire’s visit, since it and the journey involved could easily have been accomplished in the course of a day. “I understand perfectly, thank you. I will go upstairs and pack now. Perhaps there is a train I could catch before lunch?”
“The twelve-thirty. That will give you the afternoon in town. I’ll order a fly from the inn. I’m so sorry for you, dear! Most nerve-racking to have to break bad news, but you’ll feel happier when it’s done. Perhaps you could take the poor thing with you to that sweet little farm!”
Not for the world would Claire have spent the next hour in Mrs Fanshawe’s company. She hurried to her room, and placing her watch on the dressing-table, so timed her packing that it should not be completed a moment before the lumbering country “fly” drove up to the door. Then, fully dressed, she descended the staircase, and held out a gloved hand to her hostess, apparently unconscious of an offered kiss.
It was some slight consolation to note the change of bearing which had come over Mrs Fanshawe during the last hour, and to realise that the success of her scheme had not brought much satisfaction. She was nervous, she was more than nervous, she was afraid! The while Claire had been packing upstairs, she had had time to realise Erskine’s return, and his reception of the news she would have to break. As she drove away from the door, Claire realised that her hostess would have paid a large sum down to have been able to undo that morning’s work!
For her own part, Claire cared nothing either way: literally and truthfully at that moment even the thought of leaving Erskine had no power to wound. The quickly-following events of the last twenty-four hours had had a numbing effect on her brain. She was miserable, sore, and wounded; the whole fabric of life seemed tumbling to pieces. Love, for the moment, was in abeyance. As the fly passed the last yard of mown grass which marked the boundary of the Fanshawe property, she threw out her arms with one of the expressive gestures, which remained with her as a result of her foreign training. “Fini!” she cried aloud. Mentally at that moment, she swept the Fanshawes, mother and son, from the stage of her life.
Where should she go next? Back to solitude, and the saffron parlour? London in August held no attraction, but the solitary prospect of being able to see Sophie, and at the moment Claire shrank from Sophie’s sharp eyes. Should she telegraph to the farm, and ask how soon she could be received; and at the same time telegraph to Mary Rhodes asking for an immediate interview? A few minutes’ reflection brought a decision in favour of this plan, and she drew a pocket-book from her dressing-bag, and busied herself in composing the messages. One to the farm, a second to Laburnum Crescent announcing her immediate return, then came a pause, to consider the difficult wording of the third. Would it be possible to drop a word of warning, intelligible to Cecil herself, but meaningless to anyone else who might by chance open the wire?