The discovery of Minnie Bodkin's note in Algernon's secretaire at the office had incited Castalia to make some other attempts to pry into that depository of her husband's papers. She made excuses to step into the post-office whenever she had any reason for thinking Algernon was absent. Sometimes it was with the pretence of wishing to see him, sometimes on the plea of wanting to rest. She had learned that her husband frequently went into the "Blue Bell," to have luncheon, in the middle of the day; and that, from one cause or another, the Whitford Post-office was not really honoured with so much of his personal superintendence as she had been led to suppose. And this again was a fertile source of self-tormenting. Where was he, when he was not at the office?
It whetted her suspicious curiosity to find the secretaire always carefully locked, ever since her discovery of Miss Bodkin's note there. She now wished that she had searched it thoroughly when she had the opportunity, instead of hastening off to Dr. Bodkin's house, after having read the first letter she came upon. But her feelings at that time had been very different from what they now were. She had been nettled, truly, and jealous of any private consultation between Minnie Bodkin and her husband; hating to think that he could trust, and be confidential with, another woman than herself, but not distinctly suspecting either Minnie or Algernon of any intent to wrong her. Miss Bodkin loved power, and influence, and admiration, and Castalia wished no woman to influence Algernon, or to be admired by him for any qualities whatsoever, except herself; but all her little envious resentments against Minnie had been mere pinpricks compared with the cruel pangs of jealousy that now pierced her heart when she thought of Rhoda Maxfield.
That secretaire! It seemed to have an irresistible attraction for her thoughts. She even dreamt sometimes of trying to open it, and finding fresh fastenings arise more and more complicated, as she succeeded in undoing one lock after the other. It was not Algernon's habit to lock up anything belonging to him. There must be some special reason for his doing so in this case! And to Castalia's jaundiced mind it seemed that the special reason could only be a desire to keep his letters secret from her. She grew day by day more restless. The servants at Ivy Lodge remarked with wonder their mistress's frequent absences from home. She, who had so dreaded and disliked walking, was now constantly to be seen on the road to the town, or on the meadow-path by the river. This kind of exercise, however, merely fatigued without refreshing her, and she became so lean and haggard, and her eyes had such a feverish glitter, that her looks might have alarmed anyone who loved her, and witnessed the change in her.
"There she goes again!" exclaimed Lydia to her fellow servant, as she watched her mistress down the garden-path, behind the house, one afternoon. "She can't bide at home for an hour together now!"
"She wears herself to the bone," said Polly, shaking her head.
"She wears other folks to the bone, and that's worse," returned the pitiless Lydia.
Meanwhile Castalia had passed out of the little wicket-gate of her garden into the fields, and so along the meadow-path towards Whitford. She made her way along the path resolutely, though with a languid step. The ground was hardened by recent frost, and the usually muddy track was dry. At the corner of the Grammar School playground she turned up the lane towards the High Street, keeping close to the wall of the Grammar School, so as to be out of view of any from the side windows. Before she quite reached the High Street she caught sight of Mr. Diamond, walking briskly along in the direction of his lodgings. He did not see Castalia, or did not choose to see her; for, although she had once or twice saluted him in the street, she had on another occasion regarded him with her most unrecognising stare, and Matthew Diamond was not a man to risk enduring that a second time. But Castalia quickened her step so as to intercept him before he crossed the end of Grammar School Lane.
"Mr. Diamond!" she said almost out of breath.
"Madam!"
Diamond raised his hat and stood still, in some surprise.
"Would you be kind enough—do you happen to know whether Mr. Errington has left the post-office? You must have passed the door. You might have seen him coming out."
"I am sorry, madam, that I cannot inform you."
"You—you haven't seen him anywhere in the town?"
"No; I have only just left the Grammar School. Have you any further commands?"
He asked the question after a slight pause, because Castalia remained standing exactly across his path, glancing anxiously up and down the High Street, and apparently oblivious of Diamond's existence.
"Oh no! I beg your pardon," she answered, moving aside. As she did so young Ingleby came up, and was about to pass them when Diamond touched him on the shoulder and said, "Ingleby, have you chanced to see Mr. Errington?"
"Yes, sir; I saw him going down the High Street not two minutes ago, close to old Maxfield's shop. Do you want him, Mrs. Errington? I can easily catch him if I run."
"No, no, no! Don't go! You must not go after him."
She walked away without any word or sign of farewell, leaving Diamond and the boy looking after her in surprise.
"That is the most disagreeable woman I ever came across!" exclaimed Ingleby, with school-boy frankness. "I hate her stuck-up airs. But Errington is such a capital fellow——! I'd do anything for him."
Diamond did not choose to discuss either the husband or the wife with young Ingleby, but he said to himself, as he pursued his homeward way, that Mrs. Errington's manner had been not only disagreeable but very strange.
Castalia reached the office and walked in. She entered the inner part that was screened off from the public, and passed Mr. Gibbs, behind his desk, without any recognition. She was about to enter Algernon's private room at the back, when Gibbs, rising and bowing, said "Did you want anything, ma'am? Mr. Errington is not there."
"Oh! I'll go in and sit down."
Gibbs looked uneasy and doubtful, and presently made an excuse to follow her into the room. Her frequent visits to the office of late by no means pleased Mr. Obadiah Gibbs.
"I didn't know how the fire was," said he, poking at the hot coals, and looking furtively at Mrs. Errington.
She was seated in her husband's chair in front of his desk. The little secretaire stood on a table at one side of it.
"I'm afraid Mr. Errington may not be back very soon," said Gibbs.
"Do you know where he's gone?"
"Not I, ma'am."
"Does he often go away during business hours?"
"Why—I don't know what you would call 'often,' ma'am—I crave pardon. I must attend to the office now; there is some one there." And Mr. Gibbs withdrew, leaving the door half open.
Castalia shut it, and fastened it inside. Then she pulled out a bunch of keys from her pocket, and tried them, one after the other, on the lock of the secretaire. This time it was safely secured, and not one of her keys fitted it. Then she opened the drawer of the table, and examined its contents. They consisted of papers, some printed, some written, a pair of driving gloves, and the cover of a letter directed to Algernon Errington, Esq., in a woman's hand. Castalia pounced on the cover, and thrust it into her pocket. After that, she looked behind the almanac on the chimney-piece, and rummaged amongst a litter of newspapers, and torn scraps of writing that lay in a basket. She was thus engaged when Mr. Gibbs's hand was laid on the handle of the door, and Mr. Gibbs's voice was heard demanding admission.
Castalia opened the door at once, and Mr. Gibbs came in with a look of unconcealed annoyance on his face. He looked round the room sharply.
"What do you want?" asked Castalia.
"I want to see that all's right here, ma'am. I'm responsible."
"What should be wrong? What do you mean?" she demanded with so coldly-haughty an air, that Gibbs was abashed. He felt he had gone too far, and muttered an apology. "I wanted to see to the fire. I'm afraid the coal-box is nearly empty. That old woman is so careless. I beg your pardon, but Mr. Errington is very particular about the room being kept warm."
Castalia deigned not to notice him or his speech. She drew her shawl round her shoulders, and began to move away.
"Can I give any message for you to Mr. Errington, ma'am?"
"No——you need not mention that I came. I shall tell him myself this evening."
As she walked down the High Street, she reflected on Mr. Gibbs's unwonted rudeness of look and manner.
"He is told to watch me; to drive me away if possible; to prevent me making any discoveries. I daresay they are all in a league together. I am the poor dupe of a wife—the stranger who knows nothing, and is to know nothing. We shall see; we shall see. I wonder where Ancram can have gone! That boy spoke of seeing him near Maxfield's house."
At that moment she found herself close to it, and with a sudden impulse she entered the shop, and, walking up to a man who stood behind the counter, said, "Is Mr. Errington here?"
The man was James Maxfield, and he answered sulkily, "I don't know whether he's gone or not. You'd better inquire at the private door."
Castalia's heart gave a great throb. "He has been here, then?" she said.
"You'd better inquire at the private door," was all James's response, delivered still more surlily than before.
Castalia left the shop, and knocked at the door indicated to her by James's thumb jerked over his shoulder. "Is Mr. Errington gone?" she asked of the girl who opened the door.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Did he—did he stay long?"
"About half an hour, I think."
"Is Mr. Maxfield at home?"
"No, ma'am; master is at Duckwell, and has been since Saturday."
"Who is it, Sally?" cried Betty Grimshaw's voice from the parlour, and upon hearing it Castalia walked hastily away.
When she reached her own home again, between fatigue and excitement she could scarcely stand. She threw herself on the sofa in her little drawing-room, unable to mount the stairs.
"Deary me, missus," cried Polly, who happened to admit her, "why you're a'most dead! Where-ever have you been?"
"I've been walking in the fields. I came round by the road. I'm very tired."
"Tired? Nay, and well you may be if you took all that round! I thought you'd happen been into Whitford. Lawk, how you're squashing your bonnet! Let me take it off for you."
"I don't care; leave it alone."
But Polly would not endure to see "good clothes ruinated," as she said, so she removed her mistress's shawl and bonnet—folding, and smoothing, and straightening them as well as she could. "Now you'd better take a drop o' wine," she said. "You're a'most green. I never saw such a colour."
Despite her rustic bluntness, Polly was kind in her way. She made her mistress swallow some wine, and put her slippers on her feet for her, and brought a pillow to place beneath her head. "You see you han't got no strength to spare. You're very weak, missus," she said. Then she muttered as she walked away, "Lord, I wouldn't care to be a lady myself! I think they're mostly poor creeturs."
Left alone, Castalia closed her eyes and tried to review the situation, but at first her brain would do nothing but represent to her over and over again certain scenes and circumstances, with a great gap here and there, like a broken kaleidoscope.
Ancram had been to Maxfield's house, and it could not have been to see the old man, who had been absent for some days. Perhaps Ancram was in the habit of going thither! He had never said a word to her about it. How sly he had been! How sly Rhoda had been! All his pretended unwillingness to have Rhoda invited to Ivy Lodge had been a blind. There was nothing clear or definite in her mind except a bitter, burning, jealous hatred of Rhoda.
"We shall see if Ancram confesses to having been to that house to-day," said Castalia to herself. Then she went upstairs wearily. She was physically tired, being weak and utterly unused to much walking, and called Lydia to dress her and brush her hair. And when her toilet was completed, she sat quite still in the drawing-room, neither playing, reading, nor working—quite still, with her hands folded before her, and awaited her husband.
She would first try to lead him to confess his visit to the Maxfields, and, if that failed, would boldly tax him with it. She even went over the very words she would say to her husband when he should descend from his dressing-room before dinner.
But she could not foresee a circumstance which disturbed the plan she had arranged in her mind. When Algernon returned to Ivy Lodge he did not go into his dressing-room as usual, but marched straight into the drawing-room, where Castalia was sitting.
"That's an agreeable sort of letter!" he said, flinging one down on the table.
He was not in a passion—he had never been known to be in a passion—but he was evidently much vexed. His mouth was curved into a satirical smile; he drew his breath between his teeth with a hissing sound, and nodded his head twice or thrice, after repeating ironically, "That's an uncommonly agreeable sort of letter!" Then he thrust his hands deep into his pockets, threw himself into an easy-chair, stretched his legs straight out before him, and looked at his wife.
Castalia was surprised, and curious, and a little anxious, but she made an effort to carry out her programme despite this unexpected beginning. She remained motionless on the sofa, and said, with elaborate indifference of manner, "Do you wish me to read the letter? I wonder at your allowing me to know anything of your affairs."
"Read it? Of course! Why else did I give it to you? Don't be absurd, Castalia. Pshaw!" And he impatiently changed the position of his feet with a sharp, sudden movement.
Castalia's sympathy with his evident annoyance overcame her resentment for the moment. She could not bear to see him troubled. She opened the letter.
"Why it's from Uncle Val!" she exclaimed.
It was from her uncle, addressed to her husband, and was written in a tone of considerable severity. To Castalia it appeared barbarously cruel. Lord Seely curtly refused any money assistance; and stated that he wrote to Algernon instead of to Castalia, because he perceived that, although the application for money had been written by Castalia's hand, it had not been dictated by her head. Lord Seely further advised his niece's husband, in the strongest and plainest terms, to use every method of economy, to retrench his expenditure, to refrain from superfluous luxuries, and to live on his salary.
"The little allowance I give Castalia for her dress will be continued to her," wrote his lordship. "Beyond that, I am unable to give either her or you one farthing. Understand this, and act on it. And, moreover, I had better tell you at once, as an additional inducement to be prudent, that I see no prospect of procuring advancement for you in any other department of his Majesty's service than the one you are in at present. My advice to you is to endeavour to merit advancement by diligence in the performance of your duties. You have abilities which are sure to serve you if honestly applied. You are so young, that even after ten or fifteen years' work you would be in the prime of all your faculties and powers. And ten or fifteen years' good work might give you an excellent position. As to Castalia, I cannot help feeling a conviction that her discontent is chiefly reflected, and that if she saw you cheerful and active in your daily business, she would not repine at her lot."
Castalia put the letter down on the table in silence. She was astonished, indignant; but yet a little gleam of satisfaction pierced through those feelings—a hope that she and her husband might be drawn closer together by this common trouble. She would show him how well able she was to endure this, and worse, if he would only love her and trust her entirely. Even her jealousy for Rhoda Maxfield was mitigated for the moment. All that fair-weather prettiness and philandering would be put out of sight at the first growl of a storm. The wife would be the nearest to him if troubles came. No pink-and-white coquetry could usurp her right to suffer with him and for him, at all events.
"That's a pleasant sort of thing, isn't it?" said Algernon, who had been watching her face as she read.
"It is too bad of Uncle Val, Ancram."
"Too bad! Yes; to put it mildly, it is too bad, I think. Too bad? By George, I never heard of anything so outrageous!"
"Do you know, I think that my lady is at the bottom of it."
"I wish she was at the bottom of the Thames!"
"Ancram, I do feel sorry for you. It is such a shame to bury your talents, and all that. But still, you know, it is true what he says about your having plenty of time before you. And as to being poor—of course it is horrid to be poor, but we can bear it, I daresay. And, really, I don't think I should mind it so much if once we were acknowledged to be quite, quite poor; because then it wouldn't matter what one wore, and nobody would expect one to have things like other people of one's rank."
Poor Castalia was not eloquent, but had she possessed the most fluent and persuasive tongue in the world, it would not have availed to make Algernon acquiesce in her view of the situation. She was for indignantly breaking off all connection with relatives who could behave as Uncle Val had behaved. It was not his refusing to advance more money (in her conscience Castalia did not believe he could afford much assistance of that kind), but his writing with such cruel coldness to Ancram—his declaring that Ancram's case was not a hard one—his lecturing about duties, and cheerful activity, and so on, just as if Ancram had been an ordinary plodding young man instead of a being exceptionally gifted with all sorts of shining qualities—these were offences not to be forgiven. Castalia, for her part, would have endured any privation, rather than beg more favours of Uncle Val and my lady.
But Algernon's feeling in the matter was by no means the same as Castalia's. He dismissed all her attempts to express her willingness to share his lot for good or ill as matters of no importance. She might find it easy enough. Yes; the chief burthen would not fall on her! And, besides, she did not at all realise what it would be to have to live on the salary of the postmaster of Whitford, and to practise "rigid economy," as my lord phrased it. It was really provoking to see the cool way in which she took it for granted that matters would be mended by their being "acknowledged to be quite, quite poor." "My dear Castalia," he said, with an air of superior tolerance, "you have about as much comprehension of the actual state of the case as a canary-bird."
She paused, silently looking at him for a moment. Then she drew nearer to him, and laid her arm round his shoulder. She wore a dinner-dress with loose hanging sleeves, which were not becoming to her wasted frame. But the poor thin arm clung with a loving touch to her husband, as she said, "I know I am not so clever as you, Ancram, but I can see and understand that if we haven't money enough to pay for things we must do without them." (Castalia advanced this in the tone of one stating a self-evident proposition.) "And I shan't care, Ancram, if you trust me, and—and—don't put any one else before me. I never put any one before you. I was fond of Uncle Val. I think he was the only person I really loved in the world before I saw you. But if he treats you badly I shall give him up."
Algernon shook off the clinging arm from his shoulder, not roughly, but slightingly.
"What on earth are you talking about, Cassy? What do you suppose we are to do? I tell you I must have some money, and you must write to your uncle again without delay."
She drew back with a hurt sense of having been unappreciated. The tears sprang to her eyes, and she put her hand into her pocket to take her handkerchief. The hand fell on something that rustled, and was stiff. It was the letter cover she had found in her husband's office that morning. The touch of the crisp paper recalled not only the events of the afternoon, but her own sensations during them. "Where were you this afternoon?" she asked, suddenly checking her tears, as the dry, burning, jealous feeling awoke again in her heart.
"Where was I? Where must I be? Where am I every afternoon? At the office—confound it!"
"You were not there all the afternoon. I—happened to look in there, and you were gone."
"I suppose you came just at the moment I happened to be absent, then. I had to see one or two men on business. Not pleasant business. I was not amusing myself, I assure you," he added with a short hard laugh.
"What men had you to see?"
"Oh, no one whom you know anything about. Isn't dinner ready? I shan't dress. I have to go out again this evening."
"This evening!"
"Yes; it is a frightful bore, but I have a business appointment. Do ring and tell the cook to make haste."
"You are not going out again this evening, Ancram?"
"I tell you I must. How can you be so childish, Castalia? Whilst I am gone you can employ yourself in making out the draught of a letter to your uncle."
"I will not write to my uncle! I will not. You don't care for me. You—you deceive me," burst out Castalia. And then a storm of sobs choked her voice, and she hurried away, filling the little house with a torrent of incoherent sounds.
Algy looked after her, with his head bent down and his eyebrows raised. Castalia was really very trying to live with. As to her refusal to write to her uncle, she would not of course persist in it. It was out of the question that she should persist in opposing any wish of his. But she was really very trying.
When dinner was announced, Castalia sent word that she had a headache and could not eat. She was lying down in her own room. Her husband murmured a few words of sympathy, but ate his dinner with no sensible diminution of appetite, and, as soon as it was despatched, he lit a cigar, wrapped himself in his great-coat, and went out.
Castalia heard the street-door shut. She rose swiftly from the bed on which she had thrown herself, put on a bonnet and cloak, muffled her face in a veil, and followed her husband.
The night was dark and cheerless. It was one of those murky November nights when one seems to see and breathe through a dusky gauze. The road from Ivy Lodge to Whitford was not lighted. At a long distance before her, Castalia saw a red, glowing speck, which she knew to be the lamp over the chemist's shop, kept by Mr. Barker, her landlord. After that, a few street lamps glimmered, and the town of Whitford had fairly begun.
It was not late, and yet most of the shops were shut, and the streets very silent and deserted. Castalia strained her eyes onward through the darkness, and presently saw her husband's figure come into the circle of faint light made by a street lamp, traverse it, and disappear again into the shade. She had walked so quickly in her excitement as to have overtaken him sooner than she had expected. Whither was he going?
She slunk along in the shadow of the houses, frightened at the faint sound of her own footfall on the flagstones, starting nervously at every noise, hurrying across the lighted spaces in front of the few shops that remained open with averted face and beating heart, fearing to be noticed by those within. But never once did she falter in her purpose of following her husband. She would have been turned back by no obstacle short of one which defied her physical powers to pass it.
Algernon was now nearing Maxfield's house. The shutters of the shop were closed, but the door was still open, and a light streamed from it on to the pavement. Castalia followed, watching breathlessly. Her husband passed the shop, went on a pace or two, stopped at the private door, and rang the bell. She could see the action of his arm as he raised it. The door was opened without much delay, and Algernon went in.
Castalia stood still, trying to collect her thoughts and determine on her course of action. What should she do? Her husband might be an hour—hours—in that house. She could not stand there in the street. An impulse came upon her to make herself known—to go in and tax Algernon with perfidy and deception then and there. But she checked the impulse. It would have been a desperate step. Algernon might never forgive her. It might be possible for her to reach a pitch of rage and jealousy which would make her deaf to any such considerations—careless as to the consequences of her actions if she could but gratify the imperious passion of the moment. She was dimly conscious that this might be possible; but for the present she had sufficient control over her own actions to pause and deliberate. There she stood, alone at night, in Whitford High Street—stealthily, trembling, and wretched—she, Castalia Kilfinane! Who would believe it? What would her uncle feel if he could see her now, or guess what she was enduring?
The idea came into her mind—floating like a waif on the current of indignant misery that seemed to flood all her spirit—that there might be hundreds of human beings whom she had seen and thought happy smarting with some secret wound like her own, and living lives the half of which was never known to the world. Castalia had never been apt to let her imagination busy itself with the sorrows of others, and at this moment the conception had no softening effect. It only added an extra flavour of bitterness and rebellion to her sufferings. It was too cruel. Why should such things be? And what had she done to merit so much unhappiness? She shivered a little as a breeze from the river came bringing with it the clammy breath of the marsh mists—the white cloud-kraken that Minnie Bodkin had so often watched from her window.
How long Castalia remained standing at her post she could never reckon; she was conscious only of burning pain of mind, and of a determination not to shrink from her purpose because of the pain. A footstep came sounding along the quiet street and startled her. She shrank back as far as she could, pressing her shoulder close against the wall, and uncertain whether to walk on or remain still. It was a man who came towards her, turning from a narrow street opening into the High Street, which Castalia knew to be Lady Lane. He walked with a very rapid step, hanging his head, and looking neither to the right nor to the left. Castalia was, perhaps, the only dweller in Whitford who would not have recognised the figure as being that of David Powell, the Methodist preacher.
As Powell neared Castalia, he seemed to become aware of her presence by some sixth sense, for to all appearance he had not looked towards her. The truth was, that all his outward perceptions were habitually disregarded by him, except such as carried with them some suggestion of helpfulness and sympathy. A fashionable lady might have stood facing him during a long sermon in chapel, or in the open fields, and (unless she had displayed signs of "grace") he would have taken no heed of her—would not have been able to tell the colour of her garments. But let the same woman be tearful, ragged, sick, or injured, and no observation could be more rapid and comprehensive than David Powell's, to convey all needful particulars of her state and requirements. So this night, as he passed along the quiet Whitford streets, the few persons he had met hitherto were to him as shadows. But when the vague outline of a woman's form made itself a blot of blacker shadow in the darkness, those accustomed sentinels, his senses, gave the spirit notice of a fellow-creature in want, possibly of bread, certainly of sympathy.
He stopped within a few paces of Castalia, and perceived by that time that she was well and warmly clad, and that her trouble, whatever it was, could not be alleviated by alms. In her desire to avoid notice, she shrank away more and more almost crouching down against the wall. It occurred to Powell that she might be ill. "Are you suffering?" he asked, in a low musical voice. "Can I help you?"
Finding that she did not reply, he advanced a step farther, and was stretching out his hand to touch her on the shoulder, when, driven to bay, she raised herself up to her full height, and answered quickly and resentfully, "No; I am not ill. I am waiting for some one."
He stood still, irresolutely. Her voice and accent struck him with surprise, he recognised them as belonging to a person of a different class from any he had expected. How came such a lady to be alone at that hour, standing in the cold street? At length he said, gently, "If I may advise you, it would be well for you to go home. The person who keeps you waiting in the street in such weather, and at this hour, must surely be very thoughtless. Can I not assist you? I am David Powell, a poor preacher of the Word. You need have no fear of me."
"No; please to go away. I am not at all afraid. Go away, go away!" she added with an imperative emphasis, for she began to fear lest her husband should come out of the house, hear the sound of her voice, and find her there. Powell obeyed her, and walked slowly away. There was, in truth, so far as he knew, no reason to fear that any evil could happen to the woman in Whitford High Street, except the evil of standing so long in the cold, raw weather. It had now begun to rain; a fine drizzling rain, that was very chill.
When he had walked some distance along the High Street, and was close to the turning that led to Mrs. Thimbleby's house, he stopped and looked back. Almost at the same moment he saw a man come out of Maxfield's house, and advance along the street towards him. Then, at rather a long interval, the cloaked lady began to move onward also, but without overtaking the man, or apparently trying to do so. It was a strange adventure, and one entirely unparalleled in Powell's experience of the little town; and after he had reached his lodgings he could not, for a long time, divert his thoughts from dwelling on it.
Meanwhile, Algernon, unconscious of the watcher behind him, proceeded straight onward to the post-office. Then he turned up the narrow passage or entry in which was the side door that gave access to his private office. Castalia did not follow him beyond the mouth of the entry. Standing there and listening, she heard the sharp sound of a match being struck, then the turning of a key, and a door softly opened and shut.
It then struck Castalia for the first time that this unexpected visit to the office afforded an opportunity for her to reach home without her husband's discovering her absence. She had not considered before how this was to be accomplished; and, indeed, had Algernon returned directly to Ivy Lodge from Maxfield's house it would have been impossible.
She now saw this, and hastened back along the road, in a tremor at her narrow escape; for, although the impulse had crossed her mind to declare herself, and boldly enter Maxfield's house in quest of her husband, that was a very different matter from being suddenly discovered against her will. In the latter case she would, as she well knew, have been at an immense disadvantage with her husband, who, instead of being accused, would become accuser.
Nothing short, indeed, of the passion of jealousy within her would have given her strength to combat her husband. This was the only way in which her idolatrous admiration, her very love for him, could be turned into a weapon against him.
"I could bear anything else! Anything else!" she said to herself. "But to be fooled and deceived, and put aside for that girl——!" A great hot wave of passion seemed to flow through her whole body as she thought of Rhoda. "Let the servants see me! What do I care?" she said recklessly. At that moment she would not have heeded if the whole town had seen her, and known her errand into Whitford, and its result. She rang loudly at the bell of Ivy Lodge, and walked in past the servant, with a white face and glittering eyes.
"Isn't master coming?" stammered the girl, staring at her mistress.
"I don't know. Go to bed. I don't want you."
There was something in her face which checked further speech on Lydia's part. Lydia was fairly frightened. She crept away to the garret, where Polly was already sleeping soundly, and vainly tried to rouse her fellow-servant, to feel some interest in her account of how missus had stalked into the house by herself like a ghost, and had ordered her off to bed, and to get up a discussion as to missus's strange goings on altogether of late.
Castalia went to her own room, uncertain whether to undress and go to bed or to remain up and confront her husband when he should return. One dominant desire had been growing in her heart for many days past, and had now become a force overwhelming all smaller motives, and drawing them resistlessly into its strong current. This dominant desire was to be revenged—not on her husband, but on Rhoda Maxfield. And it might be that by waiting and watching yet awhile, by concealing from Ancram the discovery she had that night made, she might be enabled more effectually to strike at her rival. If Ancram knew, he would try to shield Rhoda. He would put the thing in such a light before the world as to elicit sympathy for Rhoda and make her (Castalia) appear ridiculous or obnoxious. He had the gift to do such things when it pleased him. But Rhoda should not escape. No; she would keep her own counsel yet awhile longer.
When Algernon came home about midnight, letting himself into the house with a private key which he carried, he found his wife asleep, or seeming to sleep, and congratulating himself on escaping the querulous catechism as to where he had been, and what he had been doing, which he would have to endure had Castalia been awake on his return. As he crossed the bedchamber to his dressing-room, she moved, and put up one hand to screen her eyes from the light.
"Don't let me disturb you, Cassy," he said. "I have been detained very late. I am going downstairs again—there is a spark of fire in the dining-room—to have one cigar before I turn in. Go to sleep again."
He bent down to kiss her, but she kept her face obstinately buried in the pillow. So he took her left hand, which hung down, and lightly touched it with his lips, saying, "Poor sleepy Cassy!" and went away.
And then she raised her thin left hand, on which her wedding-ring hung loosely, and passionately kissed it where her husband's lips had rested, and burst into a storm of crying, until she fairly sobbed herself to sleep.
"So you had that fine gentleman, Mr. Algernon—What-d'ye-call-it—Errington, here last evening?" said Jonathan Maxfield to his daughter, on his return from Duckwell.
"Yes, father; he had been before in the afternoon. He was very anxious to see you; but Aunt Betty told him you wouldn't be back until to-day."
"Very anxious to see me, was he? I have my own opinion about that. But, no doubt, he wants me to believe that he's anxious."
"He seems in a good deal of distress of mind, father."
"I daresay. And what about the minds of the folks as hold his promises to pay? Just so much waste paper, those are, I take it; I'd as lief have his word of honour myself. And most people in Whitford know what that's worth."
"I think he has been very unfortunate, father."
"H'm! What worldly folks calls misfortin' is generally the Lord's dealing according to deserts. It's set forth in Scripture that the righteous man shall prosper, and the unrighteous be brought to naught."
"But—father, even good people are sometimes chastened by afflictions," said Rhoda timidly.
Old Max knitted his brows.
"There's nothing," said he, "more dangerous than for the young and inexperienced to wrest texts; it leads 'em far astray. When that kind o' chastening is spoken of, it don't mean the sort of trouble as has fallen on young Errington. The Almighty has given every man reason enough to understand that, if he spends thirteenpence out of every shilling, he'll be beggared before the year's end. I don't believe in men being ruined without fault or foolishness of their own."
"He asked me if I—if you—if I thought——he asked me to ask you to have a little patience with him about some bills. I didn't know that he had any bill here; but he said you would understand."
"Aye, aye! I understand. It isn't bills for tea, and flour, and bacon, and such like. It's a different kind o' bills the young gentleman's been meddling with; and a fine hand he's made of it."
"Couldn't you help him, father?"
Rhoda spoke pleadingly, but with the timidity which always attended her requests to her father, whose recent indulgence had never reached a point of weakness, and who clearly showed, in all his dealings with his daughter, that he was not carried away by his affection for her, but acted with the consciousness of a will unfettered by precedents, and perfectly able to choose its course without regard to what other people might expect of him.
For herself, in pleading for Algernon, she was not moved by self-conscious sentimentality, neither did she suppose herself to be doing anything heroic. The peculiar tenderness she still felt for him was made up of pity and memory. The Algy she had loved was gone—had melted into thin air, like a dream under the morning sunlight. Mr. Errington, the postmaster of Whitford, and the husband of the Honourable Castalia Kilfinane, was a very different personage. Still he was inextricably connected in her mind with that bright idol of her childhood and her youth. His marriage had put all possibility of love-making between him and herself as much out of the question, to her mind, as if he had been proved to be her brother. Rhoda had read no romances, and she was neither of an innovating spirit nor a passionate temperament, and it is surprising what power a sincere conviction of the irrevocable and inevitable has to control the "natural feelings" we hear so much of! But she clung tenaciously to a better opinion of Algernon than his actions warranted—as has been the case with many another woman—chiefly to justify herself for ever having loved him.
"Couldn't you help him, father?" she repeated, seeing that her father did not at once reply, but was sitting meditating, with a not altogether ill-pleased expression of face.
"Help him!" cried old Max. "Why should I help him? A reprobate, unregenerate, vain, ungrateful worldling! I did help him once, and earned much gratitude for my pains. And what a sneaking, poor, mean, pitiful fellow he must be to come here and whine to you! A poor, pitiful fellow! Talk of a gentleman! Yah!"
Old Max derived so much grim satisfaction from the contemplation of Algernon's pitiful behaviour that it seemed almost to soften him towards the culprit, in whom any glimpse of nobility would not have been very welcome to his enemy. When you hate a man on excellent private grounds, it is certainly unpleasant to see him displaying qualities in public which win a fallacious admiration. And this aggravation was one which old Max had been suffering for some time at the hands of the popular Algernon. His present money difficulties, combined with his unworthy methods of meeting them, at once gratified and justified Jonathan Maxfield's vindictiveness.
He gave forth the queer grunting noise that served him for a laugh, as he said, "And a lot o' good his fine marriage has done him! And his grand relations! I told him long ago that if he wanted help from such as them, he must ask it with a pocket full of money. Then he might ha' been uplifted into high places. And it wasn't only my own wisdom neither, though that might ha' been enough for such a half-fledged young cockerel as he was in them days, seeing it has been enough for his betters before now. I had the warrant of Scripture; for what says Solomon? 'Wealth maketh many friends; but the poor is separated from his neighbour.'"
Still Rhoda did not altogether despair of inducing her father to do something for Algernon. What that something might be, or how far it was possible for her father to assist young Errington, except by simply giving or lending him money, Rhoda was ignorant. Algernon in talking to her had spoken very glibly, but, to her, very unintelligibly, of bills which were in her father's hands; and had pointed out, with an air of candour and conviction, that it would be imprudent on Mr. Maxfield's part to drive matters to extremity. It had all sounded very convincing, simply from the tone in which it was said. Many of us are astonishingly uncritical as to the coherence and cogency of words if they be but set to a good tune.
Algernon himself was rather hopeful since that interview with Rhoda. It could not be, after all, that Jonathan Maxfield would actually cause him, Algernon Errington, any personal inconvenience for the sake of a sum which was really a mere trifle to Maxfield, and which appeared very trifling to Algernon under every aspect except that of being called upon to pay it.
He had learned not long previously that certain bills he had given, backed by the name of that solid capitalist, the Honourable Jack Price, had found their way into old Max's hands. This startled him considerably, for he had no reason to count on the old man's forbearance. The time was drawing nigh when the bills would become due.
About a month ago some other bills had fallen due, and had been duly honoured. They had been given to a London wine merchant, who would certainly not have scrupled to take any strong measure for getting his money. And even the name of Jack Price was no talisman to charm away this grasping tradesman's determination to be paid for goods delivered; the wine merchant in question doing a large City business, and feeling no anxiety as to the opinion entertained by the Honourable Mr. Price's fashionable connection about himself or his wares. Under the pressure of this disagreeable conviction, the money had been found to honour the bills held by the wine merchant.
For the discharge of the liabilities represented by the bills now in Maxfield's hands, Algernon had reckoned on Castalia's extracting some money from her uncle. Algernon did not abandon the hope that she might yet succeed in doing so. Castalia must be urged to make new and stronger representations of their necessities to Lord Seely. But it could not be denied that my lord's last letter had been a very heavy blow; and that, moreover, a number of slight embarrassments, which Algernon had hitherto looked on as mere gossamer threads, to be broken when he pleased, had recently exhibited a disconcerting toughness and power of constraining his actions and destroying his comfort.
The thought not infrequently occurred to him that, if he were alone in the world, unhampered by a wife who had no flexibility of character, and who had recently displayed a stubborn kind of obtuseness, showing itself in such remarks as that if they had not money to pay for luxuries, they must do without luxuries, and that if they were poor, it would be better to seem poor, and the like dull commonplaces, which were peculiarly distasteful to Algernon's vivacious intelligence—if, he thought, he had no wife, or a different wife, things would undoubtedly go better with him. He was too quick not to perceive that his marriage, far from improving his social position, had been eminently unpopular amongst his friends and acquaintances. To be sure he had never intended to return to Whitford after allying himself with the family of Lord Seely. He had meant to shake the dust of the sleepy little town from his feet for ever. He reckoned up the advantages he had expected to gain by marrying Castalia, and set the real result against each one in his mind.
He had expected to get into the diplomatic service. He was a provincial postmaster!
He had expected to live in some splendid metropolis. He found himself in the obscure town which, of all others, he wished to avoid!
He had expected to be courted and caressed by wealthy, noble, and distinguished persons. He was looked coldly or shyly upon by even the insignificant middle-class society of a county town!
All this seemed peculiarly hard and unjust, because Algernon had always intended to bear his honours gracefully, without stiffness or arrogance. He would cut nobody; he would turn the cold shoulder to nobody. He had pictured himself sometimes making a meteoric reappearance in Whitford some day; flashing with brief brilliancy across the horizon of that remote neighbourhood, affably shaking hands with old acquaintance, occupying the best rooms in the "Blue Bell," and scattering largesse among the servants, rattling through the streets side by side with some county magnate, whose companionship should by no means chill his recognition of such local stars of the second or third magnitude as the Pawkinses of Pudcombe Hall. He was inclined by taste and temperament to be thoroughly "bon prince."
Such fancies may seem childish, but it was a fact that Algernon had indulged in them. With all his tact, he had a considerable strain of his mother's Ancramism in his blood. And the contrast between those former day-dreams and the present reality was so terrible, so mortifying, so ridiculous (direst and most soul-chilling word of all to Algernon!) that he was unable to face it. Some way out must be found. It was impossible, on any tenable theory of society, that he should be permanently consigned to oblivion and the daily round of inglorious duties.
As to what Lord Seely said about meriting advancement by diligence, and working for ten or fifteen years, it seemed to Algernon pretty much like exhorting a convict to step his daily round of treadmill in so painstaking a manner as to win the approbation of the gaol authorities. What would he care for their approbation? It was impossible to take either pride or pleasure in working out one's penal sentence.
Algernon felt very bitter against Lord Seely as he pondered these things, and not a little bitter against Castalia, who had, as it were, bound him to this wheel, and had latterly added the sting of her intolerable temper to his other vexations. Fate had used him despitefully. He seemed to consider that some gratitude was due to him on the part of the supernal powers for his excellent intentions—he would have borne prosperity so well! A feeling grew upon him, which would have been desperation but for his ever-present, instinctive efforts not to hurt himself.
On the morning after the visit to Maxfield's house—of which Castalia had been an unseen witness—Algernon went to the post-office somewhat earlier than usual. As he reached it a man was coming out, who scowled upon him with so sullen and hostile a countenance, that it affected him like a blow.
He was, on the whole, in better spirits on this special morning than he had been for some time past. Not that he was habitually depressed by his troubles, but there was a certain apprehension and anxiety in his daily life which flavoured it all unpleasantly. But on this morning he was, for various reasons, feeling hopeful of at least a reprieve from care, and the man's angry frown not only hurt but startled him.
"Who is that fellow who has just gone out?" he asked of Gibbs, entering the office by the public door instead of his own private one, in order to put the question.
"That is Roger Heath, the man who has lost his money-letter."
"An uncommonly ill-looking rascal, I take leave to think."
"Ahem! He is a decent, God-fearing man, sir, I believe; but at present he is wrath, and not without some excuse, either. He tells me he has written to the head office——"
"And what then?"
"And has been told that due inquiries will be made, of course."
"And what then?"
"Why then—I suppose that's the last he'll hear of it."
Algernon lightly flicked a white handkerchief over his face and bright curling hair, filling the close little office with a delicate perfume as he said, "So there's an end of that!"
"An end of it, I suppose, so far as Heath is concerned. But I doubt we shall hear more of the matter in the office."
Algernon paused with his hand on the lock of the door leading to his private room. He kept his hand there, and scarcely turned his head as he asked, "How so?"
Mr. Gibbs shook his head, and began to expatiate on the singular misfortunes which had been accumulated on the Whitford Post-office, and to hint that when two or three suspicious cases had followed each other in that way, an office was marked by the superior authorities, and means were taken to discover the culprit.
"Means! What means?" said Algernon, carelessly. "You said yourself that it was next to impossible to trace a stolen letter. And, really, if people will be such idiots as to send money by post without precaution, in spite of all the warnings that are given to them, they deserve to lose it."
"That may be, sir. Still, of course, it is no light matter to steal a letter. And as to the means of tracing it, why I have heard of trap-letters being sent, containing marked money."
The handle clicked, the door was opened and sharply shut again, and the Whitford postmaster disappeared into his private room.
It was more than an hour before Algernon reappeared in the outer office. He advanced towards Gibbs, and leaning on his shoulder with great affability, said to him in a low voice, "You've no suspicion of any one about this place, eh? The old woman that cleans the office, that boy Jem, no suspicion of anybody, eh? Oh! well I'm excessively glad of that! One hates to be distrustful of the people about one."
Gibbs shook his head emphatically and decisively. "No one has access to the office unless in my presence, sir; not a creature."
"The fact is," said Algernon, slowly, "that I have missed one or two papers of my own lately; matters of no consequence. God knows why anyone should have thought it worth while to take them! But they're gone."
Gibbs looked up with serious alarm in his face.
"Dear me, sir!" he exclaimed; "dear me, Mr. Errington! I wish you had mentioned this before."
"Oh well, you know, I thought I might be mistaken. I hate being on the watch about trifles. But latterly I am quite sure that papers have disappeared from my secretaire."
"From that little cabinet with drawers in it, that stands in your room?"
"Exactly."
"But—I was under the impression that you kept that carefully locked!"
Algernon laughed outright. "What a fellow you are, Gibbs! Fancy my keeping anything carefully locked! The fact is, it is as often open as shut. Only a few days ago, for instance, Mrs. Errington mentioned to me that she found it unlocked when she was here——" He stopped as if struck by a sudden thought, and turned his eyes away from Gibbs, who was looking up at him with the same uneasy expression on his face. "By-the-way, Mrs. Errington did not stay very long here, did she?" asked Algernon, with a degree of marked embarrassment very unusual in him. It was an embarrassment so ingeniously displayed that one might almost have suspected he wished it to be observed.
"When do you mean, sir? Mrs. Errington comes very often; very often indeed."
"Does she?—I mean—I mean the last time she was here. Did she stay long then?"
"N—no," answered Gibbs, removing his eyes from Algernon's face, and biting the feather of his pen thoughtfully. "At least, I think not, sir. I cannot be sure. She very often does not pass out through my office, but goes away by the private door in the passage."
There was a pause.
"I really am very glad that you don't suspect any of the people about the place, Gibbs," said Algernon at length, rousing himself with some apparent effort from a reverie. "As long as I have any authority here, no innocent person shall be made unhappy for one moment by watchfulness and suspicion."
"That's a very kind feeling, Mr. Errington. But I shouldn't think an innocent person would mind being watched in such a case. For my own part, I hope we shall trace the matter out. It shan't be my fault if we don't."
"You are wonderfully energetic, Gibbs. An invaluable public servant. But, Gibbs, it will not, I think, be any part of your duty to mention to any one at present the losses I have spoken of from my secretaire. There is no reason, as yet, to connect them with the missing letters. I did not duly consider what I was saying. The papers, after all, were only private letters of my own, Gibbs. They concern no one but myself. One was a mere note—an invitation from a lady. They could have had no value for a thief, you know. I—I daresay I mislaid it, and never put it into the secretaire at all."
Algernon went away with downcast eyes and hurried step, and Mr. Gibbs stared after him with a bewildered gaze. Then slowly the expression of his face changed to one of consternation and pity. "Poor young man!" he exclaimed, half aloud. "That woman has been making free with his papers beyond a doubt. And he does his best to shield her. A worldly-minded, vain woman she is, that looks at us as if we were made of a different kind of clay from her. And they say she is furiously jealous of her husband. But this—this is serious! This is very serious, indeed. I am sorry for the young man with all my heart!"
It was no more possible to do anything unusual in Whitford without arresting attention, and being subjected to animadversion, than it was possible for atmospheric conditions to change without affecting the barometer.
Who could tell how it got abroad in the town that young Mrs. Errington was in the habit of following her husband about; of watching him, spying on his actions, and examining his private correspondence? Mr. Obadiah Gibbs, who could have told more than any one on the latter head, was not given to talking. Yet the fact oozed out.
It assumed, of course, a great variety of forms and colours, according to the more or less distorting mediums through which it passed. The fact, as uttered by Miss Chubb, for example, was a very different-looking fact from that which was narrated with bated breath, and nods, and winks, by Mrs. Smith, the surgeon's wife. And her version, again, varied considerably from those of Mr. Gladwish, the Methodist shoemaker; Mr. Barker, the Church of England chemist; and the bosom friends of the servants at Ivy Lodge. Still, under one shape and another, Mrs. Algernon Errington's jealousy of her husband, and her consequent behaviour, were within the cognisance of Whitford, and were discussed in all circles there.
The predominant feeling ran strongly against Castalia. There were persons, indeed, who, exercising an exemplary impartiality (on which they much prided themselves), refused to take sides in the matter, but considered it most probable that both parties were to blame. Mrs. Smith was among these. She had, she declared, that rare gift in woman—a judicial mind, although her conception of the judicial functions appeared to be limited to putting on the black cap and passing sentence. But in the main, public sympathy was with Algernon. He had offended many old acquaintances by his aristocratic marriage; but at least he was now making the only amends in his power by being extremely unhappy in it! A great many wiseacres, male and female, were now able to shake their heads, and say they had known all along how it would turn out. This came of flying too high; for, if Mrs. Errington, senior, was an Ancram by birth, her husband had been only a country surgeon—not even M.D., though she called him "doctor." And this justifying of their predictions was, in a vague way, imputed to Algernon as a merit; or, at the least, it softened disapproval. Then, too, in justice to Whitfordians, it must be said that all their knowledge of Castalia showed them an insolent, supercilious, uninteresting woman, who made no secret of her contempt for them and their town, and who, "although but a poor postmaster's wife, when you came to look at it," as Mrs. Smith the judicial truly observed, gave herself more airs than a duchess. What good, or capacities for good, there might be in her, was hidden from Whitford, whilst her unpleasant qualities were abundantly manifested to all beholders.
Poor Castalia, in her quite unaffected nonchalance and disregard of "all those people," was totally ignorant how much resentment and dislike she was creating, and in what a hostile atmosphere she was living. Her husband's popularity, dimmed by his alliance with her, began to revive when it was perceived that she persecuted and harassed him, and (as was shrewdly suspected) involved him in money difficulties by her extravagance. Some of the men thought it served him right; why did he marry such a woman? But the ladies, as a rule, were on Algernon's side.
There were exceptions, of course. Miss McDougall stood up for her friend, as she said, albeit with some admixture of Mrs. Smith's judicial tendency to blame everybody all round, and a personal disposition towards spitefulness. Minnie Bodkin said very little when the subject was mentioned in her presence; but when an opinion was forced from her, she did not deliver it entirely in favour of Algernon. She was sorry for his wife, she said. And nine-tenths of her hearers would retort with raised hands and eyes, that they, for their part, were sorry for the young man, and that they could not understand what dear Minnie found to pity in Mrs. Algernon Errington. "A woman who spies on her husband, my dear! Who condescends to open his letters—how a woman can so degrade herself is a mystery to me! And they say she actually follows him about the street at nights—skulks after him! Oh! it is almost too bad to repeat!"
"I don't know that all that is true. But if it be so, it seems to me that there is great cause for pity," Minnie would reply. And the answer was set down to poor dear Miss Bodkin's eccentricity.
There had been, for some time back, a talk of carelessness and mismanagement at the Whitford Post-office. Then Roger Heath made no secret of his loss, and was not soft-hearted or mild in his manner of speaking of it. He complained aloud, and spared nobody. And there were plenty of voices ready to carry his denunciations through all classes of Whitford society. It was very strange! Such a thing as the loss of a money-letter had been almost unknown during the reign of the late postmaster; and now there was, not one case, but two—three—a dozen! The number increased, as it passed from mouth to mouth, at a wonderful rate. There must be great negligence (to say the least of it) somewhere in the Whitford Post-office. If the present postmaster was too much above his business to look after it properly, it was a pity his high friends didn't remove him to some situation better suited to such a fine gentleman!
To be sure he was worried out of his wits by that woman. It really was true that she haunted the office at all hours. She had been seen slipping out of the private door in the entry. She was even said to have a pass key which enabled her to go in and out at her will. Was it not rumoured on very good authority that she had actually gone to the office alone, in the dead of night? What could she want to be always prowling about there for? It was all very well to say she went to spy on her husband, but if things went wrong in the office in consequence of her spyings, it became a public evil. Anyway, it was most extraordinary and unheard-of behaviour, and somebody ought to take the matter up! This latter somewhat vague suggestion was a favourite climax to gossip on the subject of the Algernon Erringtons.
With respect to their private affairs, things did not mend. Tradesmen dunned, and grumbled, and could not get their money, and some declined to execute further orders from Ivy Lodge until their accounts were settled. Among the angriest had been Mr. Ravell, the principal draper of the town, whom Castalia had honoured with a good deal of her custom. But one day, not long after Algernon's conversation with his clerk, mentioned in the last chapter, he was met in the High Street by Mr. Ravell, who bowed very deferentially, and stopped, hesitatingly. "Could I say a word to you, sir?" said Mr. Ravell.
"Certainly," replied Algernon. They were close to the post-office, and he took the draper into his private room, and bade him be seated.
"I suppose, Mr. Ravell," said Algernon, with a shrug and a smile, "that you have come about your bill! Mrs. Errington mentioned to me a short time ago that you had been rather importunate. Upon my word, Mr. Ravell, I think you need not have been in such a deuce of a hurry! I know Mrs. Errington does not understand making bargains, and I suppose you don't neglect to arrange your prices so as not to lose by giving her a little credit, eh?"
This was said lightly, but either the words or the tone made Mr. Ravell colour and look a little confused. He was seated, and Algernon was standing near him with his back to the fire, expressing a sense of his own superiority to the draper in every turn of his well-built figure and every line of his half-smiling, half-bored countenance.
"Why, you see, Mr. Errington, we are not in the habit of giving long credit, unless to a few old-established customers who deal largely with us. It would not suit our style of doing business. And it was reported that you were not settled permanently here. And—and—one or two unpleasant things had been said. But I hope you will not continue to feel so greatly offended with us for sending in the account. It was merely in the regular way of our transactions, I assure you."
"Oh, I'm not offended at all, Mr. Ravell! And I hope by the end of this month to clear off all scores between us entirely. Mrs. Errington has not furnished me with any details, but——"
Ravell looked up quickly. "Clear off all scores between us, sir?" he said.
"I presume you will have no objection to that, Mr. Ravell?"
"Oh, of course, sir, you will have your joke! I am glad you are not offended. You see ladies don't always understand these matters. Mrs. Errington was a little severe on us when she paid the account yesterday. At least, so my cashier said."
"My wife paid your account yesterday?" cried Algernon, with a blank look.
"Yes, sir, in full. We should have been quite satisfied if settlement had been made up to the end of last quarter. But it was paid in full. Oh, I thought you had been aware of it! Mrs. Errington said—my people understood her to say, that it was by your wish, as you were so greatly annoyed at the bill being sent in so often."
"Oh! Yes. Quite right, Mr. Ravell."
He spoke slowly, and as if he were thinking of something other than the words he uttered. Ravell looked at him curiously. Algernon suddenly caught the man's eye, and broke into a little careless laugh. "The fact is," said he, with a frank toss of his head, "that I did not know Mrs. Errington had paid you. I suppose she had received some remittances, or—but in short," checking himself, and laughing once more, "I daresay you won't trouble yourself as to where the money comes from so long as it comes to you!"
Mr. Ravell laughed back again, but rather in a forced manner. "Not at all, sir! Not at all," he said, bowing and smiling. And, seeing Algernon look significantly at his watch, he bowed and smiled himself out of the office.
Then Mr. Ravell went away to report to his wife the details of his interview with the postmaster, and before noon the next day it was reported throughout Whitford that Mrs. Algernon Errington had the command of mysterious stores of money whereof her husband knew nothing; and that, nevertheless, she ran him into debt right and left, and refused to pay a farthing until she was absolutely forced to do so.
This report was not calculated to make those tradesmen who had not been paid more patient and forbearing. If Mrs. Algernon Errington could find money for one she could for another, they argued, and a shower of bills descended on Ivy Lodge within the next week or two. Algernon said they came like a swarm of locusts, and threatened to devour all before them. He acknowledged to himself that the payment of Ravell's bill had been a fatal precedent. "And, perhaps," he thought, "there was no need for getting rid of the notes after all! However, the thing is done and can't be undone."
The necessity for another appeal to Lord Seely grew more and more imminent. Castalia had displayed an unexpected obstinacy about the matter. She had held to her refusal to ask for more money from her uncle, but Algernon had not yet urged her very strongly to do so. The moment had now come, he thought, when an appeal absolutely must be made, and he doubted not his own power to cause Castalia to make it. Her manner, to be sure, had been very singular of late; alternately sullen and excited, passing from cold silence to passionate tenderness without any intermediate phases. He had surprised her occasionally crying convulsively, and at other times on coming home he had found her sitting absolutely unoccupied, with a blank, fixed face. The few persons who saw Castalia frequently, observed the change in her, and commented on it. Miss Chubb once dropped a word to Algernon indicating a vague suspicion that his wife's intellect was disordered. He did not choose to appear to perceive the drift of her words, but the hint dwelt in his mind.
"You must write to Lord Seely this evening, Cassy," he said one day on returning home to dinner. He had found his wife at her desk, and, on seeing him, she huddled away a confused heap of papers into a drawer, and hastily shut it.
"Must I?" she answered gloomily.
"Well, I don't wish to use an offensive phrase. You will write to oblige me. It has been put off long enough."
"Why should I oblige you?" said Castalia, looking up at him with sunken eyes. She looked so ill and haggard, as to arrest Algernon's attention—not too lavishly bestowed on her in general.
"Cassy," said he, "I am afraid you are not well!"
The tears came into her eyes. She turned her head away. "Do you really care whether I am ill or well?" she asked.
"Do I really care? What a question! Of course I care. Are you suffering?"
"N—no; not now. I believe I should not feel any suffering if you only loved me, Ancram."
"Castalia! How can you be so absurd?"
He rose from his seat beside her, and walked impatiently up and down the room. Nothing irritated him so much as to be called on for sentiment or tenderness.
"There!" she exclaimed, with a little despondent gesture of the head, "you were speaking and looking kindly, and I have driven you away! I wish I was dead."
Algernon stopped in his walk, and cast a singular look at his wife. Then after a moment he said, in his usual light manner, "My dear Cassy, you are low and nervous. It really is not good for you to mope by yourself as you do. Come, rouse yourself to write this letter to my lord, then after dinner you can have the fly to drive to my mother's. She complains that she sees you very seldom."
"Will you come too, Ancram?"
"I——well, yes; if it is possible, I will come too."
"I think," said Castalia, putting her hands on his shoulders, and gazing wistfully into his face, "that if you and I could go away to some quiet strange place—far away from all these odious people—across the seas somewhere—I think we might be happy even now."
"Upon my honour, there's nothing I should like so much as to get away across the seas! And you might as well hint to my lord, in the course of your letter, that I should be very well contented with a berth in the Colonies. A good climate, of course! One wouldn't care to be shipped off to Sierra Leone!"
"I will write that to Uncle Val, willingly. But—don't ask me to beg money of him again."
Algernon made a rapid calculation in his mind, and answered without appreciable pause, "Well, Cassy, it shall be as you will. But as to begging——that, I think, is scarcely the word between us and Lord Seely."
"I'll run upstairs and bathe my eyes, and I shall still have time to write before dinner," said Castalia, and left the room.
When he was alone, Algernon opened the writing-table drawer, and glanced at the papers in it. Castalia's hurried manner of concealing them had suggested to his mind the suspicion that she might have been writing secretly to her uncle. He found no letter addressed to Lord Seely, but he did find an unfinished fragment of writing addressed to himself. It consisted of a few incoherent phrases of despondency and reproach—the expression of confidence betrayed and affection unrequited. There was a word or two in it about the writer's weariness of life and desire to quit it.
Castalia had written many such fragments of late; sometimes as a mere outlet for suppressed feeling, sometimes under the impression that she really could not long support an existence uncheered by sympathy or counsel, embittered by jealousy, and chilled by neglect. She had written such fragments, and then torn them up in many a lonely hour, but she had never thought of complaining of Algernon to Lord Seely. She would complain of him to no human being. But all Algernon's insight into his wife's character did not enable him to feel sure of this. Indeed, he had often said to himself that no rational being could be expected to follow the vagaries of Castalia's sickly fancies and impracticable temper. He would not have been surprised to find her pouring out a long string of lamentations about her lot to Lord Seely. He was not much surprised at what he did find her to have written, although the state of feeling it displayed seemed to him as unreasonable and unaccountable as ever. He gave himself no account of the motive which made him take the fragment of writing, fold it, and place it carefully inside a little pocket-book which he carried.
"I wonder," he thought to himself, "if Castalia is likely to die!"