Left alone, he was never for one moment in repose, while the slow minutes followed each other in the silent house.
He walked about the room, he listened at the door, he arranged and disarranged the furniture. When the nursemaid descended from the upper regions with her mistress’s message for him, he ran out to meet her; saw the good news in her smiling face; and, for the first and last time in his life kissed one of his brother’s female servants. Susan—a well-bred young person, thoroughly capable in ordinary cases of saying “For shame, sir!” and looking as if she expected to feel an arm round her waist next—trembled with terror under that astounding salute. Her master’s brother, a pattern of propriety up to that time, a man declared by her to be incapable of kissing a woman unless she had a right to insist on it in the licensed character of his wife, had evidently taken leave of his senses. Would he bite her next? No: he only looked confused, and said (how very extraordinary!) that he would never do it again. Susan gave her message gravely. Here was an unintelligible man; she felt the necessity of being careful in her choice of words.
“Miss Kitty stared at Miss Westerfield—only for a moment, sir—as if she didn’t quite understand, and then knew her again directly. The doctor had just called. He drew up the blind to let the light in, and he looked, and he says: ‘Only be careful—” Tender-hearted Susan broke down, and began to cry. “I can’t help it, sir; we are all so fond of Miss Kitty, and we are so happy. ‘Only be careful’ (those were the exact words, if you please), ‘and I answer for her life.‘—Oh, dear! what have I said to make him run away from me?”
Randal had left her abruptly, and had shut himself into the drawing-room. Susan’s experience of men had not yet informed her that a true Englishman is ashamed to be seen (especially by his inferiors) with the tears in his eyes.
He had barely succeeded in composing himself, when another servant appeared—this time a man—with something to say to him.
“I don’t know whether I have done right, sir,” Malcolm began. “There’s a stranger downstairs among the tourists who are looking at the rooms and the pictures. He said he knew you. And he asked if you were not related to the gentleman who allowed travelers to see his interesting old house.”
“Well?”
“Well, sir, I said Yes. And then he wanted to know if you happened to be here at the present time.”
Randal cut the man’s story short. “And you said Yes again, and he gave you his card. Let me look at it.”
Malcolm produced the card, and instantly received instructions to show the gentleman up. The name recalled the dinner at the London club—Captain Bennydeck.