Lady Janet wrote t he check in a few seconds, and pushed it across the table.
Grace's hungry eyes devoured the golden line, "Pay to myself or bearer five hundred pounds," and verified the signature beneath, "Janet Roy." Once sure of the money whenever she chose to take it, the native meanness of her nature instantly asserted itself. She tossed her head, and let the check lie on the table, with an overacted appearance of caring very little whether she took it or not.
"Your ladyship is not to suppose that I snap at your check," she said.
Lady Janet leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. The very sight of Grace Roseberry sickened her. Her mind filled suddenly with the image of Mercy. She longed to feast her eyes again on that grand beauty, to fill her ears again with the melody of that gentle voice.
"I require time to consider—in justice to my own self-respect," Grace went on.
Lady Janet wearily made a sign, granting time to consider.
"Your ladyship's boudoir is, I presume, still at my disposal?"
Lady Janet silently granted the boudoir.
"And your ladyship's servants are at my orders, if I have occasion to employ them?"
Lady Janet suddenly opened her eyes. "The whole household is at your orders," she cried, furiously. "Leave me!"
Grace was far from being offended. If anything, she was gratified—there was a certain triumph in having stung Lady Janet into an open outbreak of temper. She insisted forthwith on another condition.
"In the event of my deciding to receive the check," she said, "I cannot, consistently with my own self-respect, permit it to be delivered to me otherwise than inclosed. Your ladyship will (if necessary) be so kind as to inclose it. Good-evening."
She sauntered to the door, looking from side to side, with an air of supreme disparagement, at the priceless treasures of art which adorned the walls. Her eyes dropped superciliously on the carpet (the design of a famous French painter), as if her feet condescended in walking over it. The audacity with which she had entered the room had been marked enough; it shrank to nothing before the infinitely superior proportions of the insolence with which she left it.
The instant the door was closed Lady Janet rose from her chair. Reckless of the wintry chill in the outer air, she threw open one of the windows. "Pah!" she exclaimed, with a shudder of disgust, "the very air of the room is tainted by her!"
She returned to her chair. Her mood changed as she sat down again—her heart was with Mercy once more. "Oh, my love!" she murmured "how low I have stooped, how miserably I have degraded myself—and all for You!" The bitterness of the retrospect was unendurable. The inbred force of the woman's nature took refuge from it in an outburst of defiance and despair. "Whatever she has done, that wretch deserves it! Not a living creature in this house shall say she has deceived me. She has not deceived me—she loves me! What do I care whether she has given me her true name or not! She has given me her true heart. What right had Julian to play upon her feelings and pry into her secrets? My poor, tempted, tortured child! I won't hear her confession. Not another word shall she say to any living creature. I am mistress—I will forbid it at once!" She snatched a sheet of notepaper from the case; hesitated, and threw it from her on the table. "Why not send for my darling?" she thought. "Why write?" She hesitated once more, and resigned the idea. "No! I can't trust myself! I daren't see her yet!"
She took up the sheet of paper again, and wrote her second message to Mercy. This time the note began fondly with a familiar form of address.
"MY DEAR CHILD—I have had time to think and compose myself a little, since I last wrote, requesting you to defer the explanation which you had promised me. I already understand (and appreciate) the motives which led you to interfere as you did downstairs, and I now ask you to entirely abandon the explanation. It will, I am sure, be painful to you (for reasons of your own into which I have no wish to inquire) to produce the person of whom you spoke, and as you know already, I myself am weary of hearing of her. Besides, there is really no need now for you to explain anything. The stranger whose visits here have caused us so much pain and anxiety will trouble us no more. She leaves England of her own free will, after a conversation with me which has perfectly succeeded in composing and satisfying her. Not a word more, my dear, to me, or to my nephew, or to any other human creature, of what has happened in the dining-room to-day. When we next meet, let it be understood between us that the past is henceforth and forever buried to oblivion. This is not only the earnest request—it is, if necessary, the positive command, of your mother and friend,
"JANET ROY.
"P.S.—I shall find opportunities (before you leave your room) of speaking separately to my nephew and to Horace Holmcroft. You need dread no embarrassment, when you next meet them. I will not ask you to answer my note in writing. Say yes to the maid who will bring it to you, and I shall know we understand each other."
After sealing the envelope which inclosed these lines, Lady Janet addressed it, as usual, to "Miss Grace Roseberry." She was just rising to ring the bell, when the maid appeared with a message from the boudoir. The woman's tones and looks showed plainly that she had been made the object of Grace's insolent self-assertion as well as her mistress.
"If you please, my lady, the person downstairs wishes—"
Lady Janet, frowning contemptuously, interrupted the message at the outset. "I know what the person downstairs wishes. She has sent you for a letter from me?"
"Yes, my lady."
"Anything more?"
"She has sent one of the men-servants, my lady, for a cab. If your ladyship had only heard how she spoke to him!"
Lady Janet intimated by a sign that she would rather not hear. She at once inclosed the check in an undirected envelope.
"Take that to her," she said, "and then come back to me."
Dismissing Grace Roseberry from all further consideration, Lady Janet sat, with her letter to Mercy in her hand, reflecting on her position, and on the efforts which it might still demand from her. Pursuing this train of thought, it now occurred to her that accident might bring Horace and Mercy together at any moment, and that, in Horace's present frame of mind, he would certainly insist on the very explanation which it was the foremost interest of her life to suppress. The dread of this disaster was in full possession of her when the maid returned.
"Where is Mr. Holmcroft?" she asked, the moment the woman entered the room.
"I saw him open the library door, my lady, just now, on my way upstairs."
"Was he alone?"
"Yes, my lady."
"Go to him, and say I want to see him here immediately."
The maid withdrew on her second errand. Lady Janet rose restlessly, and closed the open window. Her impatient desire to make sure of Horace so completely mastered her that she left her room, and met the woman in the corridor on her return. Receiving Horace's message of excuse, she instantly sent back the peremptory rejoinder, "Say that he will oblige me to go to him, if he persists in refusing to come to me. And, stay!" she added, remembering the undelivered letter. "Send Miss Roseberry's maid here; I want her."
Left alone again, Lady Janet paced once or twice up and down the corridor—then grew suddenly weary of the sight of it, and went back to her room. The two maids returned together. One of them, having announced Horace's submission, was dismissed. The other was sent to Mercy's room with Lady Janet's letter. In a minute or two the messenger appeared again, with the news that she had found the room empty.
"Have you any idea where Miss Roseberry is?"
"No, my lady."
Lady Janet reflected for a moment. If Horace presented himself without any needless delay, the plain inference would he that she had succeeded in separating him from Mercy. If his appearance was suspiciously deferred, she decided on personally searching for Mercy in the reception rooms on the lower floor of the house.
"What have you done with the letter?" she asked.
"I left it on Miss Roseberry's table, my lady."
"Very well. Keep within hearing of the bell, in case I want you again."
Another minute brought Lady Janet's suspense to an end. She heard the welcome sound of a knock at her door from a man's hand. Horace hurriedly entered the room.
"What is it you want with me, Lady Janet?" he inquired, not very graciously.
"Sit down, Horace, and you shall hear."
Horace did not accept the invitation. "Excuse me," he said, "if I mention that I am rather in a hurry."
"Why are you in a hurry?"
"I have reasons for wishing to see Grace as soon as possible."
"And I have reasons," Lady Janet rejoined, "for wishing to speak to you about Grace before you see her; serious reasons. Sit down."
Horace started. "Serious reasons?" he repeated. "You surprise me."
"I shall surprise you still more before I have done."
Their eyes met as Lady Janet answered in those terms. Horace observed signs of agitation in her, which he now noticed for the first time. His face darkened with an expression of sullen distrust—and he took the chair in silence.
CHAPTER XXIV. LADY JANET'S LETTER.
THE narrative leaves Lady Janet and Horace Holmcroft together, and returns to Julian and Mercy in the library.
An interval passed—a long interval, measured by the impatient reckoning of suspense—after the cab which had taken Grace Roseberry away had left the house. The minutes followed each other; and still the warning sound of Horace's footsteps was not heard on the marble pavement of the hall. By common (though unexpressed) consent, Julian and Mercy avoided touching upon the one subject on which they were now both interested alike. With their thoughts fixed secretly in vain speculation on the nature of the interview which was then taking place in Lady Janet's room, they tried to speak on topics indifferent to both of them—tried, and failed, and tried again. In a last and longest pause of silence between them, the next event happened. The door from the hall was softly and suddenly opened.
Was it Horace? No—not even yet. The person who had opened the door was only Mercy's maid.
"My lady's love, miss; and will you please to read this directly?"
Giving her message in those terms, the woman produced from the pocket of her apron Lady Janet's second letter to Mercy, with a strip of paper oddly pinned round the envelope. Mercy detached the paper, and found on the inner side some lines in pencil, hurriedly written in Lady Janet's hand. They ran thus.
"Don't lose a moment in reading my letter. And mind this, when H. returns to you—meet him firmly: say nothing."
Enlightened by the warning words which Julian had spoken to her, Mercy was at no loss to place the right interpretation on those strange lines. Instead of immediately opening the letter, she stopped the maid at the library door. Julian's suspicion of the most trifling events that were taking place in the house had found its way from his mind to hers. "Wait!" she said. "I don't understand what is going on upstairs; I want to ask you something."
The woman came back—not very willingly.
"How did you know I was here?" Mercy inquired.
"If you please, miss, her ladyship ordered me to take the letter to you some little time since. You were not in your room, and I left it on your table."
"I understand that. But how came you to bring the letter here?"
"My lady rang for me, miss. Before I could knock at her door she came out into the corridor with that morsel of paper in her hand—"
"So as to keep you from entering her room?"
"Yes, miss. Her ladyship wrote on the paper in a great hurry, and told me to pin it round the letter that I had left in your room. I was to take them both together to you, and to let nobody see me. 'You will find Miss Roseberry in the library' (her ladyship says), 'and run, run, run! there isn't a moment to lose!' Those were her own words, miss."
"Did you hear anything in the room before Lady Janet came out and met you?"
The woman hesitated, and looked at Julian.
"I hardly know whether I ought to tell you, miss."
Julian turned away to leave the library. Mercy stopped him by a motion of her hand.
"You know that I shall not get you into any trouble," she said to the maid. "And you may speak quite safely before Mr. Julian Gray."
Thus re-assured, the maid spoke.
"To own the truth, miss, I heard Mr. Holmcroft in my lady's room. His voice sounded as if he was angry. I may say they were both angry—Mr. Holmcroft and my lady." (She turned to Julian.) "And just before her ladyship came out, sir, I heard your name, as if it was you they were having words about. I can't say exactly what it was; I hadn't time to hear. And I didn't listen, miss; the door was ajar; and the voices were so loud nobody could help hearing them."
It was useless to detain the woman any longer. Having given her leave to withdraw, Mercy turned to Julian.
"Why were they quarreling about you?" she asked.
Julian pointed to the unopened letter in her hand.
"The answer to your question may be there," he said. "Read the letter while you have the chance. And if I can advise you, say so at once."
With a strange reluctance she opened the envelope. With a sinking heart she read the lines in which Lady Janet, as "mother and friend," commanded her absolutely to suppress the confession which she had pledged herself to make in the sacred interests of justice and truth. A low cry of despair escaped her, as the cruel complication in her position revealed itself in all its unmerited hardship. "Oh, Lady Janet, Lady Janet!" she thought, "there was but one trial more left in my hard lot—and it comes to me from you!"
She handed the letter to Julian. He took it from her in silence. His pale complexion turned paler still as he read it. His eyes rested on her compassionately as he handed it back.
"To my mind," he said, "Lady Janet herself sets all further doubt at rest. Her letter tells me what she wanted when she sent for Horace, and why my name was mentioned between them."
"Tell me!" cried Mercy, eagerly.
He did not immediately answer her. He sat down again in the chair by her side, and pointed to the letter.
"Has Lady Janet shaken your resolution?" he asked.
"She has strengthened my resolution," Mercy answered. "She has added a new bitterness to my remorse."
She did not mean it harshly, but the reply sounded harshly in Julian's ears. It stirred the generous impulses, which were the strongest impulses in his nature. He who had once pleaded with Mercy for compassionate consideration for herself now pleaded with her for compassionate consideration for Lady Janet. With persuasive gentleness he drew a little nearer, and laid his hand on her arm.
"Don't judge her harshly," he said. "She is wrong, miserably wrong. She has recklessly degraded herself; she has recklessly tempted you. Still, is it generous—is it even just—to hold her responsible for deliberate sin? She is at the close of her days; she can feel no new affection; she can never replace you. View her position in that light, and you will see (as I see) that it is no base motive which has led her astray. Think of her wounded heart and her wasted life—and say to yourself forgivingly, She loves me!"
Mercy's eyes filled with tears.
"I do say it!" she answered. "Not forgivingly—it is I who have need of forgiveness. I say it gratefully when I think of her—I say it with shame and sorrow when I think of myself."
He took her hand for the first time. He looked, guiltlessly looked, at her downcast face. He spoke as he had spoken at the memorable interview between them which had made a new woman of her.
"I can imagine no crueler trial," he said, "than the trial that is now before you. The benefactress to whom you owe everything asks nothing from you but your silence. The person whom you have wronged is no longer present to stimulate your resolution to speak. Horace himself (unless I am entirely mistaken) will not hold you to the explanation that you have promised. The temptation to keep your false position in this house is, I do not scruple to say, all but irresistible. Sister and friend! can yo
u still justify my faith in you? Will you still own the truth, without the base fear of discovery to drive you to it?"
She lifted her head, with the steady light of resolution shining again in her grand, gray eyes. Her low, sweet voice answered him, without a faltering note in it,
"I will!"
"You will do justice to the woman whom you have wronged—unworthy as she is; powerless as she is to expose you?"
"I will!"
"You will sacrifice everything you have gained by the fraud to the sacred duty of atonement? You will suffer anything—even though you offend the second mother who has loved you and sinned for you—rather than suffer the degradation of yourself?"
Her hand closed firmly on his. Again, and for the last time, she answered,
"I will!"
His voice had not trembled yet. It failed him now. His next words were spoken in faint whispering tones—to himself; not to her.
"Thank God for this day!" he said. "I have been of some service to one of the noblest of God's creatures!"
Some subtle influence, as he spoke, passed from his hand to hers. It trembled through her nerves; it entwined itself mysteriously with the finest sensibilities in her nature; it softly opened her heart to a first vague surmising of the devotion that she had inspired in him. A faint glow of color, lovely in its faintness, stole over her face and neck. Her breathing quickened tremblingly. She drew her hand away from him, and sighed when she had released it.
He rose suddenly to his feet and left her, without a word or a look, walking slowly down the length of the room. When he turned and came back to her, his face was composed; he was master of himself again.
Mercy was the first to speak. She turned the conversation from herself by reverting to the proceedings in Lady Janet's room.
"You spoke of Horace just now," she said, "in terms which surprised me. You appeared to think that he would not hold me to my explanation. Is that one of the conclusions which you draw from Lady Janet's letter?"
"Most assuredly," Julian answered. "You will see the conclusion as I see it if we return for a moment to Grace Roseberry's departure from the house."
The New Magdalen Page 23
