An hour later, when the dinner-table had been cleared, the maid's domestic duties took her to Lady Harry's room to make tea. She noticed the sad careworn look on her mistress's face, and spoke of it at once in her own downright way.
"I thought it was only an excuse," she said, "when you gave me that message to the gentlemen, at dinner-time. Are you really ill, my lady?"
"I am a little out of spirits," Iris replied.
Fanny made the tea. "I can understand that," she said to herself, as she moved away to leave the room; "I'm out of spirits myself."
Iris called her back: "I heard you say just now, Fanny, that you were out of spirits yourself. If you were speaking of some troubles of your own, I am sorry for you, and I won't say any more. But if you know what my anxieties are, and share them—"
"Mine is the biggest share of the two," Fanny broke out abruptly. "It goes against the grain with me to distress you, my lady; but we are beginning badly, and you ought to know it. The doctor has beaten me already."
"Beaten you already?" Iris repeated. "Tell me plainly what you mean?"
"Here it is, if you please, as plainly as words can say it. Mr. Vimpany has something—something wicked, of course—to say to my master; and he won't let it pass his lips here, in the cottage."
"Why not?"
"Because he suspects me of listening at the door, and looking through the keyhole. I don't know, my lady, that he doesn't even suspect You. 'I've learnt something in the course of my life,' he says to my master; 'and it's a rule with me to be careful of what I talk about indoors, when there are women in the house. What are you going to do to-morrow?' he says. My lord told him there was to be a meeting at the newspaper office. The doctor says: 'I'll go to Paris with you. The newspaper office isn't far from the Luxembourg Gardens. When you have done your business, you will find me waiting at the gate. What I have to tell you, you shall hear out of doors in the Gardens—and in an open part of them, too, where there are no lurking-places among the trees.' My master seemed to get angry at being put off in this way. 'What is it you have got to tell me?' he says. 'Is it anything like the proposal you made, when you were on your last visit here?' The doctor laughed. 'To-morrow won't be long in coming,' he says. 'Patience, my lord—patience.' There was no getting him to say a word more. Now, what am I to do? How am I to get a chance of listening to him, out in an open garden, without being seen? There's what I mean when I say he has beaten me. It's you, my lady—it's you who will suffer in the end."
"You don'tknowthat, Fanny."
"No, my lady—but I'm certain of it. And here I am, as helpless as yourself! My temper has been quiet, since my misfortune; it would be quiet still, but for this." The one animating motive, the one exasperating influence, in that sad and secret life was still the mistress's welfare—still the safety of the generous woman who had befriended and forgiven her. She turned aside from the table, to hide her ghastly face.
"Pray try to control yourself." As Iris spoke, she pointed kindly to a chair. "There is something that I want to say when you are composed again. I won't hurry you; I won't look at you. Sit down, Fanny."
She appeared to shrink from being seated in her mistress's presence. "Please to let me go to the window," she said; "the air will help me."
To the window she went, and struggled with the passionate self so steadily kept under at other times; so obstinately conquered now. "What did you wish to say to me?" she asked.
"You have surprised—you have perplexed me," Iris said. "I am at a loss to understand how you discovered what seems to have passed between your master and Mr. Vimpany. You don't surely mean to tell me that they talked of their private affairs while you were waiting at table?"
"I don't tell lies, my lady," Fanny declared impulsively. "They talked of nothing else all through the dinner."
"Beforeyou!"Iris exclaimed.
There was a pause. Fear and shame confessed themselves furtively on the maid's colourless face. Silently, swiftly, she turned to the door. Had a slip of the tongue hurried her into the betrayal of something which it was her interest to conceal? "Don't be alarmed," Iris said compassionately; "I have no wish to intrude on your secrets."
With her hand on the door, Fanny Mere closed it again, and came back.
"I am not so ungrateful," she said, "as to have any secrets from You. It's hard to confess what may lower me in your good opinion, but it must be done. I have deceived your ladyship—and I am ashamed of it. I have deceived the doctor—and I glory in it. My master and Mr. Vimpany thought they were safe in speaking French, while I was waiting on them. I know French as well as they do."
Iris could hardly believe what she heard. "Do you really mean what you say?" she asked.
"There's that much good in me," Fanny replied; "I always mean what I say."
"Why did you deceive me? Why have you been acting the part of an ignorant woman?"
"The deceit has been useful in your service," the obstinate maid declared. "Perhaps it may be useful again."
"Was that what you were thinking of," Iris said, "when you allowed me to translate English into French for you, and never told me the truth?"
"At any rate, I will tell you the truth, now. No: I was not thinking of you, when you wrote my errands for me in French—I was thinking again of some advice that was once given to me."
"Was it advice given by a friend?"
"Given by a man, my lady, who was the worst enemy I have ever had."
Her considerate mistress understood the allusion, and forbade her to distress herself by saying more. But Fanny felt that atonement, as well as explanation, was due to her benefactress. Slowly, painfully she described the person to whom she had referred. He was a Frenchman, who had been her music-master during the brief period at which she had attended a school: he had promised her marriage; he had persuaded her to elope with him. The little money that they had to live on was earned by her needle, and by his wages as accompanist at a music-hall. While she was still able to attract him, and to hope for the performance of his promise, he amused himself by teaching her his own language. When he deserted her, his letter of farewell contained, among other things the advice to which she had alluded.
"In your station of life," this man had written, "knowledge of French is still a rare accomplishment. Keep your knowledge to yourself. English people of rank have a way of talking French to each other, when they don't wish to be understood by their inferiors. In the course of your career, you may surprise secrets which will prove to be a little fortune, if you play your cards properly. Anyhow, it is the only fortune I have to leave to you." Such had been the villain's parting gift to the woman whom he had betrayed.
She had hated him too bitterly to be depraved by his advice.
On the contrary, when the kindness of a friend (now no longer in England) had helped her to obtain her first employment as a domestic servant, she had thought it might be to her interest to mention that she could read, write, and speak French. The result proved to be not only a disappointment, but a warning to her for the future. Such an accomplishment as a knowledge of a foreign language possessed by an Englishwoman, in her humble rank of life, was considered by her mistress to justify suspicion. Questions were asked, which it was impossible for her to answer truthfully. Small scandal drew its own conclusions—her life with the other servants became unendurable—she left her situation.
From that time, until the happy day when she met with Iris, concealment of her knowledge of French became a proceeding forced on her by her own poor interests. Her present mistress would undoubtedly have been taken into her confidence, if the opportunity had offered itself. But Iris had never encouraged her to speak of the one darkest scene in her life; and for that reason, she had kept her own counsel until the date of her mistress's marriage. Distrusting the husband, and the husband's confidential friend—for were they not both men?—she had thought of the vile Frenchman's advice, and had resolved to give it a trial; not with the degrading motive which he had suggested, but with the vague presentiment of making a discovery of wickedness, threatening mischief under a French disguise, which might be of service to her benefactress at some future time.
"And I may still turn it to your advantage, my lady," Fanny ventured to add, "if you will consent to say nothing to anybody of your having a servant who has learnt French."
Iris looked at her coldly and gravely. "Must I remind you," she said, "that you are asking my help in practicing a deception on my husband?"
"I shall be sent away," Fanny answered, "if you tell my master what I have told you."
This was indisputably true. Iris hesitated. In her present situation, the maid was the one friend on whom she could rely. Before her marriage, she would have recoiled from availing herself, under any circumstances, of such services as Fanny's reckless gratitude had offered to her. But the moral atmosphere in which she was living had begun, as Mrs. Vimpany had foreseen, to exert its baneful influence. The mistress descended to bargaining with the servant.
"Deceive the doctor," she said, "and I well remember that it may be for my good." She stopped, and considered for a moment. Her noble nature rallied its forces, and prompted her next words: "But respect your master, if you wish me to keep your secret. I forbid you to listen to what my lord may say, when he speaks with Mr. Vimpany to-morrow."
"I have already told your ladyship that I shall have no chance of listening to what they say to each other, out of doors," Fanny rejoined. "But I can watch the doctor at any rate. We don't know what he may not do when he is left by himself, while my master is at the meeting. I want to try if I can follow that rogue through the streets, without his finding me out. Please to send me on an errand to Paris to-morrow."
"You will be running a terrible risk," her mistress reminded her, "if Mr. Vimpany discovers you."
"I'll take my chance of that," was the reckless reply.
Iris consented.
ON the next morning Lord Harry left the cottage, accompanied by the doctor.
After a long absence, he returned alone. His wife's worst apprehensions, roused by what Fanny had told her, were more than justified, by the change which she now perceived in him. His eyes were bloodshot, his face was haggard, his movements were feeble and slow. He looked like a man exhausted by some internal conflict, which had vibrated between the extremes of anger and alarm. "I'm tired to death," he said; "get me a glass of wine."
She waited on him with eager obedience, and watched anxiously for the reviving effect of the stimulant.
The little irritabilities which degrade humanity only prolong their mischievous existence, while the surface of life stagnates in calm. Their annihilation follows when strong emotion stirs in the depths, and raises the storm. The estrangement of the day before passed as completely from the minds of the husband and wife—both strongly agitated—as if it had never existed. All-mastering fear was busy at their hearts; fear, in the woman, of the unknown temptation which had tried the man; fear, in the man, of the tell-tale disturbance in him, which might excite the woman's suspicion. Without venturing to look at him, Iris said: "I am afraid you have heard bad news?" Without venturing to look at her, Lord Harry answered: "Yes, at the newspaper office." She knew that he was deceiving her; and he felt that she knew it. For awhile, they were both silent.
From time to time, she anxiously stole a look at him.
His mind remained absorbed in thought. There they were, in the same room—seated near each other; united by the most intimate of human relationships—and yet how far, how cruelly far, apart! The slowest of all laggard minutes, the minutes which are reckoned by suspense, followed each other tardily and more tardily, before there appeared the first sign of a change. He lifted his drooping head. Sadly, longingly, he looked at her. The unerring instinct of true love encouraged his wife to speak to him.
"I wish I could relieve your anxieties," she said simply. "Is there nothing I can do to help you?"
"Come here, Iris."
She rose and approached him. In the past days of the honeymoon and its sweet familiarities, he had sometimes taken her on his knee. He took her on his knee now, and put his arm round her. "Kiss me," he said.
With all her heart she kissed him. He sighed heavily; his eyes rested on her with a trustful appealing look which she had never observed in them before.
"Why do you hesitate to confide in me?" she asked. "Dear Harry, do you think I don't see that something troubles you?"
"Yes," he said, "there is something that I regret."
"What is it?"
"Iris," he answered, "I am sorry I asked Vimpany to come back to us."
At that unexpected confession, a bright flush of joy and pride overspread his wife's face. Again, the unerring instinct of love guided her to discovery of the truth. The opinion of his wicked friend must have been accidentally justified, at the secret interview of that day, by the friend himself! In tempting her husband, Vimpany had said something which must have shocked and offended him. The result, as she could hardly doubt, had been the restoration of her domestic influence to its helpful freedom of control—whether for the time only it was not in her nature, at that moment of happiness, to inquire. "After what you have just told me," she ventured to say, "I may own that I am glad to see you come home, alone."
In that indirect manner, she confessed the hope that friendly intercourse between the two men had come to an end. His reply disappointed her.
"Vimpany only remains in Paris," he said, "to present a letter of introduction. He will follow me home."
"Soon?" she asked, piteously.
"In time for dinner, I suppose." She was still sitting on his knee. His arm pressed her gently when he said his next words, "I hope you will dine with us to-day, Iris?"
"Yes—if you wish it."
"I wish it very much. Something in me recoils from being alone with Vimpany. Besides, a dinner at home without you is no dinner at all."
She thanked him for that little compliment by a look. At the same time, her grateful sense of her husband's kindness was embittered by the prospect of the doctor's return. "Is he likely to dine with us often, now?" she was bold enough to say.
"I hope not."
Perhaps he was conscious that he might have made a more positive reply. He certainly took refuge in another subject—more agreeable to himself.
"My dear, you have expressed the wish to relieve my anxieties," he said; "and you can help me, I think, in that way. I have a letter to write—of some importance, Iris, to your interests as well as to mine—which must go to Ireland by to-day's post. You shall read it, and say if you approve of what I have done. Don't let me be disturbed. This letter, I can tell you, will make a hard demand on my poor brains—I must go and write in my own room."
Left alone with the thoughts that now crowded on her mind, Iris found her attention claimed once more by passing events. Fanny Mere arrived, to report herself on her return from Paris.
She had so managed her departure from Passy as to precede Lord Harry and Mr. Vimpany, and to watch for their arrival in Paris by a later train. They had driven from the railway to the newspaper office—-with the maid in attendance on them in another cab. When they separated, the doctor proceeded on foot to the Luxembourg Gardens. Wearing a plain black dress, and protected from close observation by her veil, Fanny followed him, cautiously keeping at a sufficient distance, now on one side of the street and now on the other. When my lord joined his friend, she just held them in view, and no more, as they walked up and down in the barest and loneliest part of the Gardens that they could find. Their talk having come to an end, they parted. Her master was the first who came out into the street; walking at a great rate, and looking most desperately upset. Mr. Vimpany next appeared, sauntering along with his hands in his pockets, grinning as if his own villainous thoughts were thoroughly amusing him. Fanny was now more careful than ever not to lose sight of the doctor. The course which he pursued led them to the famous hospital called the Hotel Dieu.
At the entrance she saw him take a letter out of his pocket, and give it to the porter. Soon afterwards, a person appeared who greeted him politely, and conducted him into the building. For more than an hour, Fanny waited to see Mr. Vimpany come out again, and waited in vain. What could he possibly want in a French hospital? And why had he remained in that foreign institution for so long a time? Baffled by these mysteries, and weary after much walking, Fanny made the best of her way home, and consulted her mistress.
Even if Iris had been capable of enlightening her, the opportunity was wanting. Lord Harry entered the room, with the letter which he had just written, open in his hand, As a matter of course, the maid retired.
THE Irish lord had a word to say to his wife, before he submitted to her the letter which he had just written.
He had been summoned to a meeting of proprietors at the office of the newspaper, convened to settle the terms of a new subscription rendered necessary by unforeseen expenses incurred in the interests of the speculation. The vote that followed, after careful preliminary consultation, authorised a claim on the purses of subscribing proprietors, which sadly reduced the sum obtained by Lord Harry's promissory note. Nor was this inconvenience the only trial of endurance to which the Irish lord was compelled to submit. The hope which he had entertained of assistance from the profits of the new journal, when repayment of the loan that he had raised became due, was now plainly revealed as a delusion. Ruin stared him in the face, unless he could command the means of waiting for the pecuniary success of the newspaper, during an interval variously estimated at six months, or even at a year to come.
"Our case is desperate enough," he said, "to call for a desperate remedy. Keep up your spirits, Iris—I have written to my brother."
Iris looked at him in dismay.
"Surely," she said, "you once told me you had written to your brother, and he answered you in the cruellest manner through his lawyers."
"Quite true, my dear. But, this time, there is one circumstance in our favour—my brother is going to be married. The lady is said to be an heiress; a charming creature, admired and beloved wherever she goes. There must surely be something to soften the hardest heart in that happy prospect. Read what I have written, and tell me what you think of it."
The opinion of the devoted wife encouraged the desperate husband: the letter was dispatched by the post of that day.
If boisterous good spirits can make a man agreeable at the dinner-table, then indeed Mr. Vimpany, on his return to the cottage, played the part of a welcome guest. He was inexhaustible in gallant attentions to his friend's wife; he told his most amusing stories in his happiest way; he gaily drank his host's fine white Burgundy, and praised with thorough knowledge of the subject the succulent French dishes; he tried Lord Harry with talk on politics, talk on sport, and (wonderful to relate in these days) talk on literature. The preoccupied Irishman was equally inaccessible on all three subjects. When the dessert was placed on the table—still bent on making himself agreeable to Lady Harry—Mr. Vimpany led the conversation to the subject of floriculture. In the interests of her ladyship's pretty little garden, he advocated a complete change in the system of cultivation, and justified his revolutionary views by misquoting the published work of a great authority on gardening with such polite obstinacy that Iris (eager to confute him) went away to fetch the book. The moment he had entrapped her into leaving the room, the doctor turned to Lord Harry with a sudden change to the imperative mood in look and manner.
"What have you been about," he asked, "since we had that talk in the Gardens to-day? Have you looked at your empty purse, and are you wise enough to take my way of filling it?"
"As long as there's the ghost of a chance left to me," Lord Harry replied, "I'll take any way of filling my purse but yours."
"Does that mean you have found a way?"
"Do me a favour, Vimpany. Defer all questions till the end of the week."
"And then I shall have your answer?"
"Without fail, I promise it. Hush!"
Iris returned to the dining-room with her book; and polite Mr. Vimpany owned in the readiest manner that he had been mistaken.
The remaining days of the week followed each other wearily. During the interval, Lord Harry's friend carefully preserved the character of a model guest—he gave as little trouble as possible. Every morning after breakfast the doctor went away by the train. Every morning (with similar regularity) he was followed by the resolute Fanny Mere. Pursuing his way through widely different quarters of Paris, he invariably stopped at a public building, invariably presented a letter at the door, and was invariably asked to walk in. Inquiries, patiently persisted in by the English maid, led in each case to the same result. The different public buildings were devoted to the same benevolent purpose. Like the Hotel Dieu, they were all hospitals; and Mr. Vimpany's object in visiting them remained as profound a mystery as ever.
Early on the last morning of the week the answer from Lord Harry's brother arrived. Hearing of it, Iris ran eagerly into her husband's room. The letter was already scattered in fragments on the floor. What the tone of the Earl's inhuman answer had been in the past time, that it was again now.
Iris put her arms round her husband's neck. "Oh, my poor love, what is to be done?"
He answered in one reckless word: "Nothing!"
"Is there nobody else who can help us?" she asked.
"Ah, well, darling, there's perhaps one other person still left,"
"Who is the person?"
"Who should it be but your own dear self?"
She looked at him in undisguised bewilderment: "Only tell me, Harry, what I can do?"
"Write to Mountjoy, and ask him to lend me the money."
He said it. In those shameless words, he said it. She, who had sacrificed Mountjoy to the man whom she had married, was now asked by that man to use Mountjoy's devotion to her, as a means of paying his debts! Iris drew back from him with a cry of disgust.
"You refuse?" he said.
"Do you insult me by doubting it?" she answered.
He rang the bell furiously, and dashed out of the room. She heard him, on the stairs, ask where Mr. Vimpany was. The servant replied: "In the garden, my lord."
Smoking a cigar luxuriously in the fine morning air, the doctor saw his excitable Irish friend hastening out to meet him.
"Don't hurry," he said, in full possession of his impudent good-humour; "and don't lose your temper. Will you take my way out of your difficulties, or will you not? Which is it—Yes or No?"
"You infernal scoundrel—Yes!"
"My dear lord, I congratulate you."
"On what, sir?"
"On being as great a scoundrel as I am."
THE unworthy scheme, by means of which Lord Harry had proposed to extricate himself from his pecuniary responsibilities, had led to serious consequences. It had produced a state of deliberate estrangement between man and wife.
Iris secluded herself in her own room. Her husband passed the hours of every day away from the cottage; sometimes in the company of the doctor, sometimes among his friends in Paris. His wife suffered acutely under the self-imposed state of separation, to which wounded pride and keenly felt resentment compelled her to submit. No friend was near her, in whose compassionate advice she might have token refuge. Not even the sympathy of her maid was offered to the lonely wife.
With the welfare of Iris as her one end in view, Fanny Mere honestly believed that it would be better and safer for Lady Harry if she and her husband finally decided on living separate lives. The longer my lord persisted in keeping the doctor with him as his guest, the more perilously he was associated with a merciless wretch, who would be capable of plotting the ruin of anyone—man or woman, high person or low person—who might happen to be an obstacle in his way. So far as a person in her situation could venture on taking the liberty, the maid did her best to widen the breach between her master and her mistress.
While Fanny was making the attempt to influence Lady Harry, and only producing irritation as the result, Vimpany was exerting stronger powers of persuasion in the effort to prejudice the Irish lord against any proposal for reconciliation which might reach him through his wife.
"I find an unforgiving temper in your charming lady," the doctor declared. "It doesn't show itself on the surface, my dear fellow, but there it is. Take a wise advantage of circumstances—say you will raise no inconvenient objections, if she wants a separation by mutual consent. Now don't misunderstand me. I only recommend the sort of separation which will suit our convenience. You know as well as I do that you can whistle your wife back again—"
Mr. Vimpany's friend was rude enough to interrupt him, there.
"I call that a coarse way of putting it," Lord Harry interposed.
"Put it how you like for yourself," the doctor rejoined. "Lady Harry may be persuaded to come back to you, when we want her for our grand project. In the meantime (for I am always a considerate man where women are concerned) we act delicately towards my lady, in sparing her the discovery of—what shall I call our coming enterprise?—venturesome villainy, which might ruin you in your wife's estimation. Do you see our situation now, as it really is? Very well. Pass the bottle, and drop the subject for the present."
The next morning brought with it an event, which demolished the doctor's ingenious arrangement for the dismissal of Iris from the scene of action. Lord and Lady Harry encountered each other accidentally on the stairs.
Distrusting herself if she ventured to look at him, Iris turned her eyes away from her husband. He misinterpreted the action as an expression of contempt. Anger at once inclined him to follow Mr. Vimpany's advice.
He opened the door of the dining-room, empty at that moment, and told Iris that he wished to speak with her. What his villainous friend had suggested that he should say, on the subject of a separation, he now repeated with a repellent firmness which he was far from really feeling. The acting was bad, but the effect was produced. For the first time, his wife spoke to him.
"Do you really mean it?" she asked,
The tone in which she said those words, sadly and regretfully telling its tale of uncontrollable surprise; the tender remembrance of past happy days in her eyes; the quivering pain, expressive of wounded love, that parted her lips in the effort to breathe freely, touched his heart, try as he might in the wretched pride of the moment to conceal it. He was silent.
"If you are weary of our married life," she continued, "say so, and let us part. I will go away, without entreaties and without reproaches. Whatever pain I may feel, you shall not see it!" A passing flush crossed her face, and left it pale again. She trembled under the consciousness of returning love—the blind love that had so cruelly misled her! At a moment when she most needed firmness, her heart was sinking; she resisted, struggled, recovered herself. Quietly, and even firmly, she claimed his decision. "Does your silence mean," she asked, "that you wish me to leave you?"
No man who had loved her as tenderly as her husband had loved her, could have resisted that touching self-control. He answered his wife without uttering a word—he held out his arms to her. The fatal reconciliation was accomplished in silence.
At dinner on that day Mr. Vimpany's bold eyes saw a new sight, and Mr. Vimpany's rascally lips indulged in an impudent smile. My lady appeared again in her place at the dinner-table. At the customary time, the two men were left alone over their wine. The reckless Irish lord, rejoicing in the recovery of his wife's tender regard, drank freely. Understanding and despising him, the doctor's devilish gaiety indulged in facetious reminiscences of his own married life.
"If I could claim a sovereign," he said, "for every quarrel between Mrs. Vimpany and myself, I put it at a low average when I declare that I should be worth a thousand pounds. How does your lordship stand in that matter? Shall we say a dozen breaches of the marriage agreement up to the present time?"
"Say two—and no more to come!" his friend answered cheerfully.
"No more to come!" the doctor repeated. "My experience says plenty more to come; I never saw two people less likely to submit to a peaceable married life than you and my lady. Ha! you laugh at that? It's a habit of mine to back my opinion. I'll bet you a dozen of champagne there will be a quarrel which parts you two, for good and all, before the year is out. Do you take the bet?"
"Done!" cried Lord Harry. "I propose my wife's good health, Vimpany, in a bumper. She shall drink confusion to all false prophets in the first glass of your champagne!"
The post of the next morning brought with it two letters.
One of them bore the postmark of London, and was addressed to Lady Harry Norland. It was written by Mrs. Vimpany, and it contained a few lines added by Hugh Mountjoy. "My strength is slow in returning to me" (he wrote); "but my kind and devoted nurse says that all danger of infection is at an end. You may write again to your old friend if Lord Harry sees no objection, as harmlessly as in the happy past time. My weak hand begins to tremble already. How glad I shall be to hear from you, it is, happily for me, quite needless to add."
In her delight at receiving this good news Iris impulsively assumed that her husband would give it a kindly welcome on his side; she insisted on reading the letter to him. He said coldly, "I am glad to hear of Mr. Mountjoy's recovery"—and took up the newspaper. Was this unworthy jealousy still strong enough to master him, even at that moment? His wife had forgotten it. Why had he not forgotten it too?
On the same day Iris replied to Hugh, with the confidence and affection of the bygone time before her marriage. After closing and addressing the envelope, she found that her small store of postage stamps was exhausted, and sent for her maid. Mr. Vimpany happened to pass the open door of her room, while she was asking for a stamp; he heard Fanny say that she was not able to accommodate her mistress. "Allow me to make myself useful," the polite doctor suggested. He produced a stamp, and fixed it himself on the envelope. When he had proceeded on his way downstairs, Fanny's distrust of him insisted on expressing itself. "He wanted to find out what person you have written to," she said. "Let me make your letter safe in the post." In five minutes more it was in the box at the office.
While these trifling events were in course of progress, Mr. Vimpany had gone into the garden to read the second of the two letters, delivered that morning, addressed to himself. On her return from the post-office, Fanny had opportunities of observing him while she was in the greenhouse, trying to revive the perishing flowers—neglected in the past days of domestic trouble.
Noticing her, after he had read his letter over for the second time, Mr. Vimpany sent the maid into the cottage to say that he wished to speak with her master. Lord Harry joined him in the garden—looked at the letter—and, handing it back, turned away. The doctor followed him, and said something which seemed to be received with objection. Mr. Vimpany persisted nevertheless, and apparently carried his point. The two gentlemen consulted the railway time-table, and hurried away together, to catch the train to Paris.
Fanny Mere returned to the conservatory, and absently resumed her employment among the flowers. On what evil errand had the doctor left the cottage? And, why, on this occasion, had he taken the master with him?
The time had been when Fanny might have tried to set these questions at rest by boldly following the two gentlemen to Paris; trusting to her veil, to her luck, and to the choice of a separate carriage in the train, to escape notice. But, although her ill-judged interference with the domestic affairs of Lady Harry had been forgiven, she had not been received again into favour unreservedly. Conditions were imposed, which forbade her to express any opinion on her master's conduct, and which imperatively ordered her to leave the protection of her mistress—if protection was really needed—in his lordship's competent hands. "I gratefully appreciate your kind intentions," Iris had said, with her customary tenderness of regard for the feelings of others; "but I never wish to hear again of Mr. Vimpany, or of the strange suspicions which he seems to excite in your mind." Still as gratefully devoted to Iris as ever, Fanny viewed the change in my lady's way of thinking as one of the deplorable results of her return to her husband, and waited resignedly for the coming time when her wise distrust of two unscrupulous men would be justified.
Condemned to inaction for the present, Lady Harry's maid walked irritably up and down the conservatory, forgetting the flowers. Through the open back door of the cottage the cheap clock in the hall poured its harsh little volume of sound, striking the hour. "I wonder," she said to herself, "if those two wicked ones have found their way to a hospital yet?" That guess happened to have hit the mark. The two wicked ones were really approaching a hospital, well known to the doctor by more previous visits than one. At the door they were met by a French physician, attached to the institution—the writer of the letter which had reached Mr. Vimpany in the morning.
This gentleman led the way to the official department of the hospital, and introduced the two foreigners to the French authorities assembled for the transaction of business.
As a medical man, Mr. Vimpany's claims to general respect and confidence were carefully presented. He was a member of the English College of Surgeons; he was the friend, as well as the colleague of the famous President of that College, who had introduced him to the chief surgeon of the Hotel Dieu. Other introductions to illustrious medical persons in Paris had naturally followed. Presented under these advantages, Mr. Vimpany announced his discovery of a new system of treatment in diseases of the lungs. Having received his medical education in Paris, he felt bound in gratitude to place himself under the protection of "the princes of science," resident in the brilliant capital of France. In that hospital, after much fruitless investigation in similar institutions, he had found a patient suffering from the form of lung disease, which offered to him the opportunity that he wanted. It was impossible that he could do justice to his new system, unless the circumstances were especially favourable. Air more pure than the air of a great city, and bed-room accommodation not shared by other sick persons, were among the conditions absolutely necessary to the success of the experiment. These, and other advantages, were freely offered to him by his noble friend, who would enter into any explanations which the authorities then present might think it necessary to demand.
The explanations having been offered and approved, there was a general move to the bed occupied by the invalid who was an object of professional interest to the English doctor.
The patient's name was Oxbye. He was a native of Denmark, and had followed in his own country the vocation of a schoolmaster. His knowledge of the English language and the French had offered him the opportunity of migrating to Paris, where he had obtained employment as translator and copyist. Earning his bread, poorly enough in this way, he had been prostrated by the malady which had obliged him to take refuge in the hospital. The French physician, under whose medical care he had been placed, having announced that he had communicated his notes enclosed in a letter to his English colleague, and having frankly acknowledged that the result of the treatment had not as yet sufficiently justified expectation, the officers of the institution spoke next. The Dane was informed of the nature of Mr. Vimpany's interest in him, and of the hospitable assistance offered by Mr. Vimpany's benevolent friend; and the question was then put, whether he preferred to remain where he was, or whether he desired to be removed under the conditions which had just been stated?
Tempted by the prospect of a change, which offered to him a bed-chamber of his own in the house of a person of distinction—with a garden to walk about in, and flowers to gladden his eyes, when he got better—Oxbye eagerly adopted the alternative of leaving the hospital. "Pray let me go," the poor fellow said: "I am sure I shall be the better for it." Without opposing this decision, the responsible directors reminded him that it had been adopted on impulse, and decided that it was their duty to give him a little time for consideration.
In the meanwhile, some of the gentlemen assembled at the bedside, looking at Oxbye and then looking at Lord Harry, had observed a certain accidental likeness between the patient and "Milord, the philanthropist," who was willing to receive him. The restraints of politeness had only permitted them to speak of this curious discovery among themselves. At the later time, however, when the gentlemen had taken leave of each other, Mr. Vimpany—finding himself alone with Lord Harry—had no hesitation in introducing the subject, on which delicacy had prevented the Frenchmen from entering.
"Did you look at the Dane?" he began abruptly.
"Of course I did!"
"And you noticed the likeness?"
"Not I!"
The doctor's uproarious laughter startled the people who were walking near them in the street. "Here's another proof," he burst out, "of the true saying that no man knows himself. You don't deny the likeness, I suppose?"
"Do you yourself see it?" Lord Harry asked.
Mr. Vimpany answered the question scornfully: "Is it likely that I should have submitted to all the trouble I have taken to get possession of that man, if I had not seen a likeness between his face and yours?"
The Irish lord said no more. When his friend asked why he was silent, he gave his reason sharply enough: "I don't like the subject."
ON the evening of that day Fanny Mere, entering the dining-room with the coffee, found Lord Harry and Mr. Vimpany alone, and discovered (as soon as she opened the door) that they changed the language in which they were talking from English to French.
She continued to linger in the room, apparently occupied in setting the various objects on the sideboard in order. Her master was speaking at the time; he asked if the doctor had succeeded in finding a bed-room for himself in the neighbourhood. To this Mr. Vimpany replied that he had got the bed-room. Also, that he had provided himself with something else, which it was equally important to have at his disposal. "I mean," he proceeded, in his bad French, "that I have found a photographic apparatus on hire. We are ready now for the appearance of our interesting Danish guest."
"And when the man comes," Lord Harry added, "what am I to say to my wife? How am I to find an excuse, when she hears of a hospital patient who has taken possession of your bed-room at the cottage—and has done it with my permission, and with you to attend on him?"
The doctor sipped his coffee. "We have told a story that has satisfied the authorities," he said coolly. "Repeat the story to your wife."
"She won't believe it," Lord Harry replied.
Mr. Vimpany waited until he had lit another cigar, and had quite satisfied himself that it was worth smoking.
"You have yourself to thank for that obstacle," he resumed. "If you had taken my advice, your wife would have been out of our way by this time. I suppose I must manage it. If you fail, leave her ladyship to me. In the meanwhile, there's a matter of more importance to settle first. We shall want a nurse for our poor dear invalid. Where are we to find her?"
As he stated that difficulty, he finished his coffee, and looked about him for the bottle of brandy which always stood on the dinner-table. In doing this, he happened to notice Fanny. Convinced that her mistress was in danger, after what she had already heard, the maid's anxiety and alarm had so completely absorbed her that she had forgotten to play her part. Instead of still busying herself at the sideboard, she stood with her back to it, palpably listening. Cunning Mr. Vimpany, possessing himself of the brandy, made a request too entirely appropriate to excite suspicion.
"Some fresh cold water, if you please," was all that he said.
The moment that Fanny left the room, the doctor addressed his friend in English, with his eye on the door: "News for you, my boy! We are in a pretty pickle—Lady Harry's maid understands French."
"Quite impossible," Lord Harry declared.
"We will put that to the test," Mr. Vimpany answered. "Watch her when she comes in again."
"What are you going to do."
"I am going to insult her in French. Observe the result."
In another minute Fanny returned with the fresh water. As she placed the glass jug before Mr. Vimpany he suddenly laid his hand on her arm and looked her straight in the face. "Vous nous avez mis dedans, drolesse!"* he said.
* In English: "You have taken us in, you jade!"
An uncontrollable look of mingled rage and fear made its plain confession in Fanny's face. She had been discovered; she had heard herself called "drolesse;" she stood before the two men self-condemned. Her angry master threatened her with instant dismissal from the house. The doctor interfered.
"No, no," he said; "you mustn't deprive Lady Harry, at a moment's notice, of her maid. Such a clever maid, too," he added with his rascally smile. "An accomplished person, who understands French, and is too modest to own it!"
The doctor had led Fanny through many a weary and unrewarded walk when she had followed him to the hospitals; he had now inflicted a deliberate insult by calling her "drolesse" and he had completed the sum of his offences by talking contemptuously of her modesty and her mastery of the French language. The woman's detestation of him, which under ordinary circumstances she might have attempted to conceal, was urged into audaciously asserting itself by the strong excitement that now possessed her. Driven to bay, Fanny had made up her mind to discover the conspiracy of which Mr. Vimpany was the animating spirit, by a method daring enough to be worthy of the doctor himself.
"My knowledge of French has told me something," she said. "I have just heard, Mr. Vimpany, that you want a nurse for your invalid gentleman. With my lord's permission, suppose you try Me?"
Fanny's audacity was more than her master's patience could endure. He ordered her to leave the room.
The peace-making doctor interfered again: "My dear lord, let me beg you will not be too hard on the young woman." He turned to Fanny, with an effort to look indulgent, which ended in the reappearance of his rascally smile. "Thank you, my dear, for your proposal," he said; "I will let you know if we accept it, to-morrow."
Fanny's unforgiving master pointed to the door; she thanked Mr. Vimpany, and went out. Lord Harry eyed his friend in angry amazement. "Are you mad?" he asked.
"Tell me something first," the doctor rejoined. "Is there any English blood in your family?"
Lord Harry answered with a burst of patriotic feeling: "I regret to say my family is adulterated in that manner. My grandmother was an Englishwoman."
Mr. Vimpany received this extract from the page of family history with a coolness all his own.
"It's a relief to hear that," he said. "You may be capable (by the grandmother's side) of swallowing a dose of sound English sense. I can but try, at any rate. That woman is too bold and too clever to be treated like an ordinary servant—I incline to believe that she is a spy in the employment of your wife. Whether I am right or wrong in this latter case, the one way I can see of paring the cat's claws is to turn her into a nurse. Do you find me mad now?"
"Madder than ever!"
"Ah, you don't take after your grandmother! Now listen to me. Do we run the smallest risk, if Fanny finds it her interest to betray us? Suppose we ask ourselves what she has really found out. She knows we have got a sick man from a hospital coming here—does she know what we want him for? Not she! Neither you nor I said a word on that subject. But she also heard us agree that your wife was in our way. What does that matter? Did she hear us say what it is that we don't want your wife to discover? Not she, I tell you again! Very well, then—if Fanny acts as Oxbye's nurse, shy as the young woman may be, she innocently associates herself with the end that we have to gain by the Danish gentleman's death! Oh, you needn't look alarmed! I mean his natural death by lung disease—no crime, my noble friend! no crime!"
The Irish lord, sitting near the doctor, drew his chair back in a hurry.
"If there's English blood in my family," he declared, "I'll tell you what, Vimpany, there's devil's blood in yours!"
"Anything you like but Irish blood," the cool scoundrel rejoined.
As he made that insolent reply, Fanny came in again, with a sufficient excuse for her reappearance. She announced that a person from the hospital wished to speak to the English doctor.
The messenger proved to be a young man employed in the secretary's office. Oxbye still persisting in his desire to be placed under Mr. Vimpany's care; one last responsibility rested on the official gentlemen now in charge of him. They could implicitly trust the medical assistance and the gracious hospitality offered to the poor Danish patient; but, before he left them, they must also be satisfied that he would be attended by a competent nurse. If the person whom Mr. Vimpany proposed to employ in this capacity could be brought to the hospital, it would be esteemed a favour; and, if her account of herself satisfied the physician in charge of Oxbye's case, the Dane might be removed to his new quarters on the same day.
The next morning witnessed the first in a series of domestic incidents at the cottage, which no prophetic ingenuity could have foreseen. Mr. Vimpany and Fanny Mere actually left Passy together, on their way to Paris!