He shook his head; and then followed a string of various professional questions. Our conversation at an end, I requested to be shown to my room, promising to be in the drawing-room for five o’clock tea, when I should be introduced to Mrs Crawford.
‘As Mr Lennox, if you please,’ suggested her husband as we crossed the hall. ‘You remember that I asked you to drop the doctor, and seem an ordinary visitor?’
Of course I agreed; and then he told me he had spoken to her of me as an old college friend; and finally he left me to myself.
When I descended to the drawing-room, I found both Crawford and his wife waiting for me. He was standing by the open window playing with the climbing roses that were nodding by its sill: he was talking merrily as I entered, and looked the personification of life and good spirits. A girl was standing by the mantel-shelf with her back towards me, and I had barely time to admire the slight figure and graceful pose, before Crawford’s voice rang out in hearty cordiality.
‘Ah! there you are at last! Let me introduce you to my wife.—Beatrice, this is Mr John Lennox.’
She had half turned when he began speaking; but as he said my name, she gave a sudden gasp and confronted me with large startled eyes. I have seen the eyes of a snared bird and those of a hunted stag, but I have never seen such a look of piteous fear as dwelt in hers then. For one moment she seemed half mad with terror; but the next it fled as quickly as it came, and she held out her hand in greeting. As she did so, an ugly scar on the smooth white wrist caught my eye. It looked to me like an unskilful but intentional cut from a knife, and while we were exchanging commonplaces as to my journey, &c., I was wondering as to whether she had ever attempted her own life. She was in the first flush of her womanhood; and her glorious blue eyes and coil of auburn hair would alone have sufficed to stamp her as a beautiful woman, had it not been that the curious expression of her face outweighed every other fascination. She gave me the impression of being literally consumed by a terrible dread, to the nature of which I of course as yet held no clue; and with this dread, an equally strong desire to suppress all outward indication of it. Add to this, the fact that her face was entirely colourless, and that the hand she had given me, in spite of the June sunshine, was as cold as ice, and it will be seen that my first case promised to be full of interest.
She poured out the tea silently, while her husband and I went on chatting, and she did not speak again until he proposed to ring the nursery bell.
‘We have not seen Bertie all day,’ he added, ‘and I know you would like to show him off to Lennox.’
‘He is having his tea,’ she rejoined quickly. ‘Show him off in the morning, Arthur; I don’t think we want him now.’
‘O fie! There is an unkind mamma! I wonder what Bertie would say to you? He can finish his tea here, dear. I’ll fetch him.’