“Nevertheless, it is his,” said her son. He made a step or two towards the opening, then turned back with some embarrassment. “Mother, it is possible—I do not say likely—but still it is possible: that—Spears may come here to make some final arrangements to-morrow, before he goes.”
“Oh Paul!” she said, with a low cry of pain: but there was nothing in this exclamation to which he could make any reply. He hesitated for a moment, then turned again and went away. Lady Markham stood where he had left her, clasping her hands together against her bosom as if to staunch the wounds she had received and hide them, feeling the throb and ache of suffering go over her from head to foot. She felt that he was merciless, not only abandoning her without a word of regret, but parading before her his preparations for this mad journey, and the new companions who were to replace his family in his life. But Paul only thought she was displeased by the name of Spears. He went his way heavily enough, going through the familiar place which was no longer home, to the room which had been his from his childhood, but was his no longer. As if this was not pain enough, there was looming before him, threatening him, this shadow of a last explanation with Spears. What was there to explain to Spears? He could not tell. Others had deserted the undertaking as well as he. And Paul would not say to himself that there was another question, though he was aware of it to the depths of his being. Not a word had been said about Janet; yet it was not possible but that something must be said on that subject. His whole life was still made uncertain, doubtful, suspended in a horrible uncertainty because of this. What honour demanded of him, Paul knew that he must do; but what was it that honour demanded? It was the last question of his old life that remained to be settled, but it was a bitter question. And just when it had to be decided, just when it was necessary that he should brave himself to do what might turn out to be his duty, why, why was he made the hearer unawares of Dolly’s little address in his defence? She had always stood up for him; he remembered many a boyish offence in which Dolly, a mere baby, uncertain in speech, had stood up for him. If he had to do this—which he did not describe to himself in other words—Dolly would still stand up for him. With all these thoughts in his mind as he went upstairs, Paul was far too deeply occupied to think much of the personage whom he contemptuously called Sir Gus—Sir Gus was only an accident, though a painful and almost fatal one, in the young man’s path.
When Lady Markham had sufficiently overcome the sharp keenness of this latest wound, her ear was caught by a murmur of voices in the other room. This had been going on, she was vaguely sensible, for some time through all Mr. Stainforth’s lingering and leavetaking, and through her own conversation with Paul; voices that were low and soft—not obtrusive; as if the speakers had no wish to attract attention, or to have their talk interfered with. Perhaps this tone is of all others the most likely to provoke any listener into interruption. A vague uneasiness awoke in Lady Markham’s mind. She put back the curtains which had partially veiled the entrance to her own room with a slightly impatient hand. When one is wounded and aching in heart and mind, it is so hard not to be impatient. Alice had seated herself in a low chair, half hidden in one of the lace curtains that veiled a window, and Fairfax was leaning against the window talking to her. There was something tender and confidential in the sound of his voice. It was he who spoke most, but her replies were in the same tone, a tone of which both were entirely unconscious, but which struck Lady Markham with mingled suspicion and alarm. How had these two got to know each other well enough to speak in such subdued voices? She had never known or realised how much they had been thrown together during her absence in the sick room. When she drew back the curtain, Alice instinctively withdrew her chair a hair’s breadth, and Fairfax stood quite upright, leaning upon the window no longer. This alteration of their attitudes at the sight of her startled Lady Markham still more. Fairfax came forward hurriedly as she came into the drawing-room, a little flushed and nervous.
“I hope you will not consider this visit an impertinence,” he said. “I thought I must come with Markham to take care of him. He—twisted his foot—did he tell you? It is all right now, but I thought it would be well to come and take care of him,” Fairfax said, with that conciliatory smile and unnecessary repetition which marked his own consciousness of a feeble cause.
“I did not hear anything about it,” Lady Markham said. “He has been writing me very short letters. You are very kind, Mr. Fairfax—very kind; we know that of old.”
“That is the last name to give my selfish intrusion,” he said; then added, after a pause, “And I had something I wanted to speak to you about. Did Miss Markham,” he said, hesitating, shifting from one foot to the other, and showing every symptom of extreme embarrassment—“Did Miss Markham tell you—what I had been saying to her?”
Alice had taken occasion of her mother’s entry upon the scene to rise from her chair and come quite out of the shelter of the curtain. She was standing (as indeed they all were) immediately in front of the window, with the light full upon her, when he put this question. He looked from Lady Markham to her as he spoke, and by bad luck caught Alice’s eye. Then—why or wherefore, who could say?—the countenances of these two foolish young people suddenly flamed, the one taking light from the other, with the most hot and overwhelming blush. Alice seemed to be enveloped in it; she felt it passing over her like the sudden reflection of some instantaneous flame. She shrank back a step, her eyes fell with an embarrassment beyond all power of explanation. As for Fairfax, he stole a second guilty look at her, and stopped short—his voice suddenly breaking off with a thrill in it, like that of a cord that has snapped. Lady Markham looked on at this extraordinary pantomime with consternation. What could she think, or any mother? She felt herself grow crimson, too, with alarm and distress.
“What was it you were saying, Mr. Fairfax? Alice has not said anything to me.”
“O—oh!” he said; then gave a faint little laugh of agitation and confusion, and something that sounded strangely like happiness. “It was—nothing—not much—something of very little importance—only about myself. Perhaps you would let me have a little conversation, when it is quite convenient, Lady Markham, with you?”
“Surely,” she said, but with a coldness she could not restrain. What a thing it is to be a mother! The sentiment has found utterance in Greek, so it does not profess to be novel. If not one thing, then another; sometimes two troubles together, or six, as many as she has children—except that, in the merciful dispensation of Providence, the woman who has many children cannot make herself so wretched about every individual as she who has few contrives to do. Only Paul and Alice however were old enough to give their mother this kind of discipline, and in a moment she felt herself plunged into the depths of a second anxiety. There was a very uncomfortable pause. Alice would have liked to run away to her room, to hide herself in utter shame of her own weakness, but dared not, fearing that this would only call the attention of the others more forcibly to it—as if anything was wanted to confirm that impression! She stood still, therefore, for a few minutes, and made one or two extremely formal remarks, pointing out that the days were already much shorter and the afternoon beginning to close in. Both her companions assented, the one with tender, the other with suspicious and alarmed glances. Then it occurred to Alice to say that she would go and see if Paul wanted anything. The others watched her breathless as she went away.