‘Business, you know, must be attended to,’ she said, ‘though everything else should go to the wall.’
Her face changed as she turned away; she gave a glance as she passed at the face of the man who held open the door for her, and it seemed to Mrs. Blencarrow that there was a gleam of knowledge in it, a suppressed disrespect. She was aware, even while this idea framed itself in her mind, that it was a purely fantastic idea, but the profound self-consciousness in her own soul tinged everything she saw; she hurried downstairs with a sort of reluctant swiftness, a longing to escape and yet an eagerness to go.
CHAPTER VI.
‘IS IT TRUE?’
A few days passed without any further incident. Mrs. Blencarrow’s appearance in the meantime had changed in a singular way. Her wonderful self-command was shaken; sometimes she had an air of suppressed excitement, a permanent flush under her eyes, a nervous irritation almost uncontrollable; at other moments she was perfectly pale and composed, but full of an acute consciousness of every sound. She spent a great part of her time in her business-room downstairs, going and coming on many occasions hurriedly, as if by an impulse she could not resist. This could not be hidden from those keen observers, the servants, who all kept up a watch upon her, quickened by whispers that began to reach them from without. Mrs. Blencarrow, on her side, realized very well what must be going on without. She divined the swiftness with which Mrs. Bircham’s information would circulate through the county, and the effect it would produce. Whether it was false or true would make no difference at first. There would be the same wave of discussion, of wonder, of doubt; her whole life would be investigated to see what were the likelihoods on either side, and her recent acts and looks and words all talked over. She was a very proud woman, and her sensations were something like those of a civilized man who is tied to a stake and sees the savages dancing round him, preparing to begin the torture. She expected every moment to see the dart whirl through the air, to feel it quiver in her flesh; the waiting at the beginning, anticipating the first missile, must be, she thought, the worst of all.
She watched for the first sound of the tempest, and Emmy and the servants watched her, the one with sympathy and terror, the others with keen curiosity not unheightened by expectation. She was a good mistress, and some of them were fond of her; some of them were capable of standing by her through good and evil; but it is not in human nature not to watch with excitement the bursting of such a cloud, or to look on without a certain keen pleasure in seeing how a victim—a heroine—will comport herself in the moment of danger. It was to them as good as a play. There were some in her own house who did not believe it; there were some who had long, they said, been suspicious; but all, both those who believed it and those who did not believe it, were keen to see how she would comport herself in this terrible crisis of fate.
The days went by very slowly in this extraordinary tension of spirit; the first stroke came as such a stroke generally does—from a wholly unexpected quarter. Mrs. Blencarrow was sitting one afternoon with Emmy in the drawing-room. The large room looked larger with only these two in it. Emmy, a little figure only half visible, lay in a great chair near the fire, buried in it, her small face showing like a point of whiteness amid the ruddy tones of the firelight and the crimson of the chair. Her mother was on the other side of the fire, with a screen thrown between her and the glow, scarcely betraying her existence at all, in the shade in which she sat, by any movement. The folds of her velvet dress caught the firelight and showed a little colour lying coiled about her feet; but this was all that a spectator would have seen. Emmy was busy with some fleecy white knitting, which she could go on with in the partial darkness; the faint sound of her knitting-pins was audible along with the occasional puff of flame from the fire, or falling of ashes on the hearth. There was not much conversation between them. Sometimes Emmy would ask a question: ‘When are the boys coming home, mamma?’ ‘Perhaps to-day,’ with a faint movement in the darkness; ‘but they are going back to school on Monday,’ Mrs. Blencarrow said, with a tone of relief. It might have been imagined that she said ‘Thank Heaven!’ under her breath. Emmy felt the meaning of that tone as she felt everything, but blamed herself for thinking so, as if she were doing wrong.
‘It is a strange thing to say,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow; ‘but I almost wish they were going straight back to school, without coming home again.’
‘Oh, mamma!’ said Emmy, with a natural protest.
‘It seems a strange thing,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow, ‘to say——’ She had paused between these two last words, and there was a slight quiver in her voice.
She had paused to listen; there was some sound in the clear air, which was once more hard with frost; it was the sound of a carriage coming up the avenue. All was so still around the house that they could hear it for a long way. Mrs. Blencarrow drew a long, shivering breath.