Sir George Tressady — Volume II

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

"Yes. Kenrick, if Lady Maxwell calls to see me to-night, you will say, please, that I am particularly engaged, and unable to receive anyone."

Letty Tressady had just come in from her river party. Dressed in a delicate gown of lace and pale green chiffon, she was standing beside her writing-table with Lady Maxwell's card in her hand. Kenrick had given it to her on her arrival, together with the message which had accompanied it, and she had taken a few minutes to think it over. As she gave the man his order, the energy of the small figure, as it half turned towards the door, the brightness of the eyes under the white veil she had just thrown back, no less than the emphasis of her tone, awakened in the butler the clear perception that neither the expected visit nor his mistress's directions were to be taken as ordinary affairs. After he left the drawing-room, Grier passed him on the stairs. He gave her a slight signal, and the two retired to some nether region to discuss the secrets of their employers.

Meanwhile Letty, having turned on the electric light in the room, walked to the window and set it half open behind the curtain. In that way she would hear the carriage approaching, it was between eight and nine o'clock. No doubt Lady Maxwell would drive round after dinner.

Then, still holding the card lightly in her hand, she threw herself on the sofa. She was tired, but so excited that she could not rest—first, by the memory of the day that had just passed; still more by the thought of the rebuff she was about to administer to the great lady who had affronted her. No doubt her letter had done its work. The remembrance of it tilled her with an uneasy joy. Did George know of it by now? She did not care. Lady Maxwell, of course, was coming to try and appease her, to hush it up. There had been a scene, it was to be supposed, between her and her stiff husband. Letty gloated over the dream of it. Tears, humiliation, reproaches, she meted them all out in plenty to the woman she hated. Nor would things end there. Why, London was full of gossip! Harding's paragraph—for of course it was Harding's—had secured that. How clever of him! Not a name!—not a thing that could be taken hold of!—yet so clear. Well!—if she, Letty, was to be trampled on and set aside, at any rate other people should suffer too.

So George had gone off to France, leaving her alone, without "Good-bye." She did not believe a word of his excuse; and, if it were true, it was only another outrage that he should have thought twice of such a matter at such a crisis. But it was probably a mere device of his and hers—she would find out for what.

Her state of tension was too great to allow her to stay in the same place for more than a few minutes. She got up, and went to the glass before the mantelpiece. Taking out the pins that held her large Gainsborough hat, she arranged her hair with her hands, putting the curls of the fringe in their right place, fastening up some stray ends. She had given orders, as we have seen, to admit no one, and was presumably going to bed. Nevertheless, her behaviour was instinctively the behaviour of one who expects a guest.

When, more or less to her satisfaction, she had restored the symmetry of the little curled and crimped head, she took her face between her hands, and stared at her own reflection. Memories of the party she had just left, of the hot river, the slowly filling locks, the revelry, the champagne, danced in her mind, especially of a certain walk through a wood. She defiantly watched the face in the glass grow red, the eyelids quiver. Then, like the tremor from some volcanic fire far within, a shudder ran through her. She dropped her head on her hands. She hated—hated him! Was it to-morrow evening she had told him he might come? She would go down to Ferth.

Wheels in the quiet street! Letty flew to the window like an excited child, her green and white twinkling through the room.

A brougham, and a tall figure in black stepping slowly out of it. Letty sheltered herself behind a curtain, held her breath, and listened.

Presently her lower lip dropped a little. What was Kenrick about? The front door had closed, and Lady Maxwell had not re-entered her carriage.