Mrs. Dalyell had something like an attaque des nerfs, which was a malady unknown to her. She could not eat anything. In order that the servants might not suppose there was anything irregular in their master’s proceedings, she said nothing before Foggo about her anxiety. She said she was tired, looking over all that weary linen. “And old Janet, that was stranger than ever, and she always was a strange creature. I think I will lie down for a little after lunch. And I almost wish that I had not bidden Fred to bring over the Scrymgeours with him for the afternoon.” If this was said to throw dust in Foggo’s eyes, Mrs. Dalyell might have spared herself the trouble. For Foggo had read his Scotsman that morning, and had heard a murmur of dismay which had come to Yalton by the backstairs, by the kitchen—nobody knew how. “God help the poor woman!” Foggo said, when he retired to his own domain, with more feeling than respect. “She’s full of trouble, but she will not let on, and though she’s in horror of something, it’s not half so bad as what has come to pass.”
“If that story’s true,” said the cook, who was too much disturbed and too anxious to hear everything to take any trouble about her own work, which the kitchen-maid was accomplishing sadly while her principal talked and cried over the dreadful rumour which had swept hither on the wings of the wind. “Oh, it’s true enough,” said Foggo, whose disposition was dismal—“and there’s little dinner will be wanted here this night, for sooner or later they must hear. It was more than I could well bear to hear them talking of the big tea on the terrace and who was coming. I hope the Scrymgeour people will not be so mad as to let their young ones come: and nobody else will come, for it’s well known over the country by this time, though she doesn’t know.”
“Oh, my poor bonnie lady,” said the cook weeping—“and the kind maister, that had a pleasant word for everybody.”
“Not so pleasant a word for them that crossed him,” said Foggo. “Not that I would say a word against him, and him a drowned man.”
Early in the afternoon Fred came home. It was a house that stood always with open doors and windows, so that there was no need to open to any familiar comer; but Foggo was in the hall, chiefly because he too was excited and eager to have the first of any news that might arrive, when the youth with his light step came in. His eager question, “Is my father at home?” made the grave butler more solemn than ever.
“No, sir, the master has not been back since he left the house yesterday morning,” said Foggo.
But though his looks were so significant, that the very dogs saw that something was the matter, Fred neither gave nor communicated any news. He rushed upstairs three steps at a time, and burst into the drawing-room, where his mother was sitting. She had tried to lie down, as she had said, but Mrs. Dalyell could not rest: her nerves would not be stilled, and her thoughts grew so many that they buzzed in her ears, and seemed to suffocate her in her throat. She was sitting at the window which commanded the gate, so that she might see who appeared, ever watching for that telegraph boy, who in a moment might set all right.
“You have come back early, Fred,” she said. “And have you come alone?”
“Mother, what’s this I hear, that my father has never come home?”
“Who has told you such a thing? Your father has many affairs in his hands; he’s often been called away in a hurry.”