I rang for the waiter. “Show this lady out,” I said.
Even this failed to have the slightest effect on her. She sauntered to the door, as perfectly at her ease as if the room had been hers—not mine.
I had thought of driving to the farm. Shall I confess it? My temper was so completely upset that active movement of some kind offered the one means of relief in which I could find refuge. The farm was not more than five miles distant, and I had been a good walker all my life. After making the needful inquiries, I set forth to visit Eunice on foot.
My way through the town led me past the Minister’s house. I had left the door some fifty yards behind me, when I saw two ladies approaching. They were walking, in the friendliest manner, arm in arm. As they came nearer, I discovered Miss Jillgall. Her companion was the middle-aged lady who had declined to give her name, when we met accidentally at Mr. Gracedieu’s door.
Hysterically impulsive, Miss Jillgall seized both my hands, and overwhelmed me with entreaties that I would go back with her to the house. I listened rather absently. The middle-aged lady happened to be nearer to me now than on either of the former occasions on which I had seen her. There was something in the expression of her eyes which seemed to be familiar to me. But the effort of my memory was not helped by what I observed in the other parts of her face. The iron-gray hair, the baggy lower eyelids, the fat cheeks, the coarse complexion, and the double chin, were features, and very disagreeable features, too, which I had never seen at any former time.
“Do pray come back with us,” Miss Jillgall pleaded. “We were just talking of you. I and my friend—” There she stopped, evidently on the point of blurting out the name which she had been forbidden to utter in my hearing.
The lady smiled; her provokingly familiar eyes rested on me with a humorous enjoyment of the scene.
“My dear,” she said to Miss Jillgall, “caution ceases to be a virtue when it ceases to be of any use. The Governor is beginning to remember me, and the inevitable recognition—with his quickness of perception—is likely to be a matter of minutes now.” She turned to me. “In more ways than one, sir, women are hardly used by Nature. As they advance in years they lose more in personal appearance than the men do. You are white-haired, and (pray excuse me) you are too fat; and (allow me to take another liberty) you stoop at the shoulders—but you have not entirely lost your good looks. I am no longer recognizable. Allow me to prompt you, as they say on the stage. I am Mrs. Tenbruggen.”
As a man of the world, I ought to have been capable of concealing my astonishment and dismay. She struck me dumb.
Mrs. Tenbruggen in the town! The one woman whose appearance Mr. Gracedieu had dreaded, and justly dreaded, stood before me—free, as a friend of his kinswoman, to enter his house, at the very time when he was a helpless man, guarded by watchers at his bedside. My first clear idea was to get away from both the women, and consider what was to be done next. I bowed—and begged to be excused—and said I was in a hurry, all in a breath.