The telegram, however, had come from Marshdale. It was addressed to Lady Level, and proved to be from her husband.
"Do not come to Marshdale to-day. Put it off until next week. I am writing to you. Wait for letter. Let Charles know."
Now my Lady Level, staring at the message, and being in chronic resentment against her husband, all sorts of unorthodox suspicions rife within her, put the worst possible construction upon this mandate.
"I knew how much he would have me at Marshdale!" she exclaimed in anger, as she tossed the telegram on the table. "'Don't come down till next week! Wait for letter!' Yes, and next week there'll come another message, telling me I am not to go at all, or that he will be back here. It is a shame!"
"But what is it?" cried old Mrs. Guy, who did not understand, and knew nothing of any misunderstanding between Blanche and her husband. "Not to go, you say? Is his lordship ill?"
"Oh, of course; very ill, indeed," returned Blanche, suppressing the scorn she felt.
Putting the telegram into an envelope, she addressed it to me, called Sanders, and bade him take it at once to my office. He did so. But I had also received one to the same effect from Lord Level, who, I suppose, concluded it best to send to me direct. Telling Sanders I would call on Lady Level that evening, I thought no more about the matter, and was glad, rather than otherwise, that the journey to Marshdale was delayed. This chapter, however, has to do with Blanche, and not with me.
Now, whether the step that Lady Level took had its rise in an innocent remark made by Mrs. Guy, or whether it was the result of her own indignant feeling, cannot be told. "My dear," said the old lady, "if my husband were ill, I should go to him all the more." And that was just what Blanche Level resolved to do.
The previous arrangement had been that she should drive to my office, to save me time, pick me up, and so onwards to Victoria Station, to take the four o'clock train, which would land us at Marshdale in an hour.
"My dear, I thought I understood that you were not going to Marshdale; that the telegram stopped you," said Mrs. Guy, hearing Blanche give orders for the carriage to be at the door at a quarter past three to convey her to Victoria, and perceiving also that she was making preparations for a journey.