‘There is no draught,’ said Gerald; ‘you are afraid of being obliged to go into particulars, that is all.’
‘I am not in the least afraid,’ said Lottie. ‘There is Mrs. Damerel. She is in the nursery at the rectory, though you think you have her here. She is counting Agatha’s curl-papers to see if there is the right number, for children are never properly attended to when the mother’s eye is wanting. I don’t know where you are, Mr. Gerald Gresham; that would be too delicate an inquiry. But look, your brother has gone upon ‘Change, though he is in the middle of his guests. He looks as like business as if he had all the Reduced Consols on his mind; he looks as if—— good heavens!’
Lottie stopped, and her tone was so full of alarm and astonishment, that I turned suddenly round to look too, in a fright. Harry Gresham was standing at the door; he had a yellow envelope in his hand, another of those terrible telegrams which are always bringing misery. He had turned round unawares facing us, and facing the stream of people who were always coming and going. I never saw in all my life so ghastly a face. It showed the more that he was so ruddy and cheerful by nature. In a moment every tinge of colour had disappeared from it. His mouth was drawn down, his blue eyes looked awful, shrinking back as it were among the haggard lines of the eyelids. The sight of him struck Lottie dumb, and came upon me like a touch of horror. But Gerald, it was evident, was not taken by surprise. Some crisis which he had been looking for had come at last.
‘He has had some bad news,’ he said; ‘excuse me, my mother is ill—it must be that;’ and he went through the stream of guests, fording the current as it were with noiseless rapidity. As for Lottie, she drew me back into the recess of the window and clung to me and cried—but not for Harry Gresham. Her nerves were at the highest strain, and broke down under this last touch; that was all.
‘I knew something was going to happen,’ she said. ‘I felt it in the air; but I never thought it was coming upon them.’
‘It must be his mother,’ I said, though I did not think so. ‘Hush, Lottie! Don’t frighten her, poor child.’
Lottie was used to restraining herself, and the tears relieved her. She dried her eyes and gave me a nervous hug as she loosed her arm from my waist.
‘I cannot stand this any longer,’ she said; ‘I must go and dance, or something. I know there is trouble coming, and if I sit quiet I shall make a fool of myself. But you will help them if you can,’ she cried in my ear. Alas! what could I do?
By the time she left me the brothers had disappeared, and after half an hour’s waiting, as nothing seemed to come of it, and as the heat increased I went to the window again. The moon had gone off the house, but still shone white and full on the lawn like a great sheet of silvery gauze, bound and outlined by the blackest shadow. My mind had gone away from that temporary interruption. I was not thinking about the Greshams at all, when all at once I heard a rustle under the window. When I looked down two figures were standing there in the shadow. I thought at first they were robbers, perhaps murderers, waiting to waylay some one. All my self-command could not restrain a faint exclamation. There seemed a little struggle going on between the two. ‘You don’t know her,’ said the one; ‘why should you trust her?’ ‘She is safer than the servants,’ said the other, ‘and she is fond of poor Ada.’ If my senses had not been quickened by excitement and alarm I should never have heard what they said. Then something white was held up to me in a hand that trembled.
‘Give it to Ada—when you can,’ said Harry Gresham in a quick, breathless, imperative voice.