CHAPTER XX.NOTICE TO QUIT.
With the curious intuition common to the sick, Prudence felt that something was wrong. There was an atmosphere of unrest about her.
She noted the frown on the brow of Mrs. Wilcox and the hardness of her tone when she asked her how she felt, and if she thought she would be able to sit up for a while to-morrow, though Mrs. Wilcox did her best to speak in her natural voice.
She remarked the averted face of her old enemy, the medical woman, but she was too prostrate to heed them, or to enquire if anything unpleasant had occurred.
She did not seem to mind much what happened now. Justice was probably on her track. She was a criminal hiding from the law. She would be hunted down, exposed, put to public shame. Augusta—her poorAugusta—how was she? In what condition would she be found? Tears of sorrow and weakness gushed from the eyes of the afflicted lady, but the rest and quiet and the absence of fresh agitation gradually calmed her nerves, and she had leisure to reflect on her course of action. There was nothing for it but to come forward, if compelled, and speak the whole truth. She had had enough of subterfuges and prevarications. She would tell her story—they might believe it or not as they liked. She thought, in the apathy of despair, they probably wouldn’t—time would tell, for surely Augusta, if ever she became able to speak, would confirm her testimony—granted she had not lost her memory of the events connected with her previous life. There would be two or three years to wait probably, but that could not be helped. She might, meantime, be cast into prison. For that she was prepared. With the courage of despair she braced herself to meet whatever fate might have in store for her. At any rate, it could not be worse than the tortures she had already endured.
When, two days later, the detective from Scotland Yard called, she was able to receive him in Mrs. Wilcox’s sanctum, for that ladywould not suffer him to be shown into the drawing-room. It was with a sense of having been through all this before, that Prudence read that “Victoria, by the Grace of God, Queen,” summoned her to give evidence at the Arrow Street Police Court, on the ensuing Monday morning, “in the case of the Queenv.Sarah Anne Brown, otherwise,” &c., &c.
Well, the worst had come, and she would go through with it somehow. What awaited her when the trial was over she did not venture to speculate. That she had come within the clutches of the law she did not doubt, and her future loomed vague and dreadful. Where could she go if she escaped prison? Her name would be in every paper, her story on every lip. Even the lady who sold the Water of Youth had never heard of a case of a grown, an elderly person, being transformed into a baby by its effects. She foresaw that it would be generally believed that she had got rid of Augusta, and that the baby was—but who or what the baby might be considered was a point on which she absolutely refused to speculate.
Long after the man from Scotland Yardhad taken his departure, she sat in a sort of stupor, taking no note of objects round her, and unaware that she was alone, when she was startled by the entrance of Mrs. Wilcox.
The air of that lady was portentous.
“Miss Semaphore,” she said, “there is something I have been anxious to say to you for several days back, but did not like to speak while you were ill. Now, however, that you are able to receivevisitors”—with sarcastic emphasis—“I think you are well enough to hear what I have got to say. It is this, that I desire that you will look for accommodation elsewhere, and leave my house at the very earliest opportunity.”
“You mean to turn me out?” asked Prudence in alarm.
“Far be it from me to turn anyone out,” said Mrs. Wilcox. “I merely request you to leave.”
“But why?” said Prudence timidly.
“Why?” echoed Mrs. Wilcox almost in a shriek. “Why? I think you had better ask yourself that question, Miss Semaphore. I have always tried to keep my house respectable, and I must say, Miss Semaphore, if I was to die for it, that I looked to you and your sister to aid me in that endeavour,rather than to bring disgrace on a first-class and well-conducted establishment. ‘Why?’ indeed!”
“I have had a great deal of worry lately,” said Prudence, “quite without any fault of my own, but neither my sister nor myself have done anything to bring disgrace on your establishment, Mrs. Wilcox.”
“No!” ejaculated Mrs. Wilcox angrily. “Then what about all this baby-farming business, and detectives from Scotland Yard coming here looking for you?”
Utterly confounded by such unexpected knowledge on the part of her landlady, and ignorant of how much more she might have learned, Prudence could only gaze at her in helpless bewilderment, while Mrs. Wilcox stood nodding her head and grimly enjoying the confusion she had occasioned.
“I have been—I am in great trouble,” Prudence stuttered; “but I am not to blame—no one is really to blame, if you’d only believe me. The whole thing was an accident. If you know anything at all about it, you must know it was an accident!”
“An accident?” shrieked Mrs. Wilcox. It flashed through her mind that perhaps after all the medical woman was right.
“Quite an accident,” said Prudence. “Simply an overdose. The bottle broke, you see, so the poor dear made haste to swallow the contents, and accidently took too much.”
“I really think, Miss Semaphore,” said Mrs. Wilcox very slowly, “I really think your mind is wandering.”
“Oh no, indeed I’m not wandering. That was how it happened, and of course after that I had to get rid of the poor dear, especially as I never dreamt you knew anything about it.”
More and more confirmed in her belief that Prudence was either raving or confessing a murder, Mrs. Wilcox spoke.
“Well, without enquiring further as to what has happened, or how it happened, having no desire to be mixed up in a very painful affair, I think, Miss Semaphore, we had better part, and the sooner you can make it convenient the better.”
“Oh, do keep me until after Monday,” cried Prudence, breaking down. “The trial will be on Monday, and that will decide what course I must take; but now I am ill, I am not fit to undertake packing. I cannot go.”
“I am sorry to insist, Miss Semaphore, but go you must. I will tell Jane she is to help you to pack. Even if I were willing to keep you, Captain Wilcox is not, and in such matters he is terribly severe. I really cannot gainsay him. He says he will not have you under this roof for forty-eight hours longer, and would sooner forfeit payment for your week’s board now due than let you stay.”
Prudence got up and groped her way blindly to the door.
“Very well,” she said, turning on the threshold. “Send Jane to me at once. I will leave before dinner.”
With the assistance of Jane, Miss Prudence put her belongings together, dressed, and desired the maid to call a cab. No one came to the door to see her off; but, glancing at the windows, she saw Mrs. Wilcox peeping out from her sanctum, and Mrs. Dumaresq and the medical woman from the window of their respective apartments.
With a heart full of bitterness, Prudence turned away, and bade the man drive on. Up one street and down another they went, the unhappy lady taking no note of where she was going, until she was roused from her brown study by the cabman, who drew up,descended from his box, and thrust his head in the window to ask where she wanted to go.
“I don’t know, cabman,” said Prudence helplessly. “I am looking for apartments. Do you know of any that are nice and respectable?”
“Why, yessem, I do,” said the man, “which my wife’s own sister, she keeps ’em in Victoria Crescent, an’ clean an’ respectable they are, that I’ll hanswer for; an’ she cooks splendid.”
“Then drive there, please,” said Prudence apathetically, and fell back into doleful musings, until the cab stopped at the address.
Mrs. Perkins, the cabman’s sister-in-law, married to an ex-butler, was a kindly, cheerful body, who willingly accepted a week’s rent in advance in lieu of references. In her sage-green parlour Prudence sat down with a feeling of rest and privacy, to which she had long been a stranger, and braced herself as best she might for the ordeal before her.
“My poor darling Gussie,” the goodhearted creature murmured over and over again. “What you must suffer! My dear sister, what must you think of me for sendingyou to that dreadful woman? But I did it for the best, I did it for the best.”
The excitement of the move was a great strain on Prudence in her weak state of health; but Mrs. Perkins proved an admirable nurse, and though quite unable to leave her bedroom for the next few days, the unhappy spinster rejoiced at being free from the supervision of the medical woman.