CHAPTER XIX
IT had been arranged by Captain Lumley that he was to go to London, where, by a certain train and on a certain day, he would be joined by Mrs. Blagdon. In this short breathing-space Letty had much to think of, and accomplish. She collected, sorted, and packed some clothes, and a few treasured personal belongings; but abandoned all her jewellery, except one or two trifling ornaments, a string of pearls, and her uncle’s diamond heart, destroyed the whole of her innocent correspondence, put the photograph of her wedding group into the waste-paper basket in four pieces, and, heaviest task of all, set about writing letters to her aunt, to Frances, and to Maude Hesketh. To her she said:
“I know that you alone realise the awful life I have led since my marriage, and will pity and forgive me. I never see you now, and I am shut away from all the world—not a wife, but a prisoner. Sometimes last winter when Frances and her father were at Bournemouth, I was afraid that my mind would have given way; the loneliness and monotony seemed to deaden my brain. Dear Cousin Maudie, do not think too badly of me, and love me still.”
The leave-taking epistle destined for her husband,was a more difficult task; how many sheets of paper were destroyed, before she had succeeded to her satisfaction!
Waggett the nurse had an inarticulate understanding with her master, and all this packing, letter-writing, and hours of weeping in the nursery, excited her suspicions,—and could mean but one thing. When Cara was asleep, Miss Waggett slipped down to the village post office and sent a telegram to Mr. Blagdon’s London address, which said, ‘Your presence required urgently.’
Blagdon, who was on the eve of a trip to Paris, returned by the first train—actually passing his wife on her flight to London. When, in a ferocious temper, he arrived at Sharsley, he was informed that Mrs. Blagdon was not at home, had left at twelve o’clock in the village fly, taking luggage with her. Then a letter addressed to him was produced; it had been placed in a conspicuous position on the smoking-room chimney-piece.
He snatched this from the old man-servant’s hand, tearing it open as he walked away; then, glancing over it, he slapped his great thigh and exclaimed exultantly:
“By Gad, she’s done it! She’s done it!”
The letter began:
“Hugo,“I am to-day leaving this house for ever. To me it has been a miserable home. I can no longer endure your neglect and cruelty. I am going to Lancelot Lumley, and you are free to take any stepsyou please. I shall be thankful to be released from you, and you, I know, will be glad to be rid of me, since you have so often told me that you wished I were dead. Well, in future we shall be dead to one another. I need not ask you to be good to Cara; it breaks my heart to leave her, but it breaks my heart to stay.“Letty.”
“Hugo,
“I am to-day leaving this house for ever. To me it has been a miserable home. I can no longer endure your neglect and cruelty. I am going to Lancelot Lumley, and you are free to take any stepsyou please. I shall be thankful to be released from you, and you, I know, will be glad to be rid of me, since you have so often told me that you wished I were dead. Well, in future we shall be dead to one another. I need not ask you to be good to Cara; it breaks my heart to leave her, but it breaks my heart to stay.
“Letty.”
“By Gad!” he repeated, “this is great news! Dead to me—I should say so, the little puling fool!”
In a condition of supreme satisfaction he went to his writing-table and filled a number of telegraph forms: one of these was a long one to his lawyer, others were addressed to his mother, his sister, and to several of his chief friends. In short, a dozen wires carrying the startling news were promptly despatched from Sharsley Post Office.
(The intelligence was received in various fashions. Mrs. Blagdon wept and kept her room: she was growing old and feeble; Lady Rashleigh said, “Hullo! here is a nice business! Letty has bolted with Captain Lumley. I wouldn’t have believed she had it in her!” and Lord Robert who was present, shouted his usual ejaculation, ‘My hat!’)
When this task had been accomplished, Mr. Blagdon drained a four-finger whisky and soda, and summoned the housekeeper to his presence.
Bates appeared, was much on thequi vive, the impression that something had happened was obvious to the whole household.
“Bates,” he began, “Mrs. Blagdon has—er—left here, and is never to be admitted to this house again. I shall probably close it before long. You can put away all the linen and china and that sort of thing, and pack off the cook.”
“Yes, sir, excuse me, but it’s not a cook we have, but a kitchenmaid. We are terribly short-handed, only old Jenkins for man-servant, a boy for the knives, and one housemaid. The big rooms are all in an awful state of dust, and with them old tapestries and pictures, and moth and damp, I expect there’s a lot of damage already. We had no fires last winter—and——”
At this point, the voice of her complaint was interrupted by a succession of piercing screams immediately on the other side of the door.
“It’s only Miss Cara,” explained Bates reassuringly; “she is just in from her walk.”
Miss Cara’s papa rose from his chair and hastily entered the hall, where he beheld Waggett, struggling with an animated bundle of white embroidery and bare legs, which had cast itself down upon the marble flags, and was rending the air with uncontrolled shrieks, and even squeals of passion.
“What’s all this?” he demanded peremptorily.
The child ceased her cries, raised her tearless face, and stared at him threateningly.
“I want my mummy!” she shouted. “I want my own mummy!”
“Your mummy isn’t here—be quiet this moment.”
A defiant yell was Cara’s sole answer.
“Shut up—shut up at once, you little devil! Do you hear me?” and her father reached down, and shook her roughly by the arm.
Cara surveyed him with a pair of rebellious blue eyes, then drew in her breath and screamed with a deafening increase of shrill and reckless fury. Such were her efforts, that her little face was actually purple and congested, as she drummed on the marble pavement with the heels of her best shoes.
“Go ’way!” she panted. “Go ’way—ugly man—I want my mummy!”
“Iknow what you want, and what you’ll get!” cried her father, beside himself with anger, and snatching her up, he proceeded to administer to the astonished Cara, a first and ruthless chastisement: carrying out the punishment with the broad palm of a powerful hand in loud and resounding smacks.
The subject was so completely dazed by the experience she had almost ceased to cry, merely ejaculating:
“Bad man! Bad man! Bad man!”
Meanwhile Nurse Waggett stood by, the embodiment of complacent satisfaction, till, at a sign from the executioner, she took over her gasping, sobbing, bewildered charge, and carried her off to her own apartments. Subsequently the threat, “I’ll bring yourfather!” had a magical effect upon Miss Caroline Blagdon: he remained an ineffaceable impression of awe and terror, for many and many a day.
The news of ‘the break-up at the Court,’ as it wascalled, was all over the village by eight o’clock that night; women ran into one another’s houses with ‘Have you heard?’ Men discussed the matter over their half-pints at the ‘New Plough,’ and the general verdict was, that “the poor young lady had led a worse than dog’s life, andhehad been rightly served.”