Part 34 (1/2)
”And how to look after ourselves,” thought Mary.
At that moment dinner was announced, and she went in on Morris's arm, the Colonel gallantly insisting that it should be so. After this things progressed a good deal better. The first plunge was over, and the cool refres.h.i.+ng waters of Mary's conversation seemed to give back to Morris's system some of the tone that it had lost. Also, when he thought fit to use it, he had a strong will, and he thought fit this night. Lastly, like many a man in a quandary before him, he discovered the strange advantages of a scientific but liberal absorption of champagne. Mary noticed this as she noticed everything, and said presently with her eyes wide open:
”Might I ask, my dear, if you are--ill? You are eating next to nothing, and that's your fourth large gla.s.s of champagne--you who never drank more than two. Don't you remember how it used to vex my poor dad, because he said that it always meant half a bottle wasted, and a temptation to the cook?”
Morris laughed--he was able to laugh by now--and replied, as it happened, with perfect truth, that he had an awful toothache.
”Then everything is explained,” said Mary. ”Did you ever see me with a toothache? Well, I should advise you not, for it would be our last interview. I will paint it for you after dinner with pure carbolic acid; it's splendid, that is if you don't drop any on the patient's tongue.”
Morris answered that he would stick to champagne. Then Mary began to narrate her experiences in the convent in a fas.h.i.+on so funny that the Colonel could scarcely control his laughter, and even Morris, toothache, heartache, and all, was genuinely amused.
”Imagine, my dear Morris,” she said, ”you know the time I get down to breakfast. Or perhaps you don't. It's one of those things which I have been careful to conceal from you, but you will one day, and I believe that over it our matrimonial happiness may be wrecked. Well, at what hour do you think I found myself expected to be up in that convent?”
”Seven,” suggested Morris.
”At seven! At a quarter to five, if you please! At a quarter to five every morning did some wretched person come and ring a dinner-bell outside my door. And it was no use going to sleep again, not the least, for at half-past five two hideous old lay-sisters arrived with buckets of water--they have a perfect pa.s.sion for cleanliness--and began to scrub out the cell whether you were in bed or whether you weren't.”
Then she rattled on to other experiences, trivial enough in themselves, but so entertaining when touched and lightened with her native humour, that very soon the evening had worn itself pleasantly away without a single sad or untoward word.
”Good night, dear!” said Mary to Morris, who this time managed to embrace her with becoming warmth; ”you will come and see me to-morrow, won't you--no, not in the morning. Remember I have been getting up at a quarter to five for a month, and I am trying to equalise matters; but after luncheon. Then we will sit before a good fire, and have a talk, for the weather is so delightfully bad that I am sure I shan't be forced to take exercise.”
”Very well, at three o'clock,” said Morris, when the Colonel, who had been reflecting to himself, broke in.
”Look here, my dear, you must be down to lunch, or if you are not you ought to be; so, as I want to have a chat with you about some of your poor father's affairs, and am engaged for the rest of the day, I will come over then if you will allow me.”
”Certainly, uncle, if you like; but wouldn't Morris do instead--as representing me, I mean?”
”Yes,” he answered; ”when you are married he will do perfectly well, but until that happy event I am afraid that I must take your personal opinion.”
”Oh! very well,” said Mary with a sigh; ”I will expect you at a quarter past one.”
CHAPTER XVIII
TWO EXPLANATIONS
Accordingly, at a quarter past one on the following day the Colonel arrived at Seaview, went in to lunch with Mary, and made himself very amusing and agreeable about the domestic complications of his old friend, Lady Rawlins and her objectionable husband, and other kindred topics. Then, adroitly enough, he changed the conversation to the subject of the great gale, and when he talked of it awhile, said suddenly:
”I suppose that you have heard of the dreadful thing that happened here?”
”What dreadful thing?” asked Mary. ”I have heard nothing; you must remember that I have been in a convent where one does not see the English papers.”
”The death of Stella Fregelius,” said the Colonel sadly.
”What! the daughter of the new rector--the young lady whom Morris took off the wreck, and whom I have been longing to ask him about, only I forgot last night? Do you mean to say that she is dead?”
”Dead as the sea can make her. She was in the old church yonder when it was swept away, and now lies beneath its ruins in four fathoms of water.”
”How awful!” said Mary. ”Tell me about it; how did it happen?”
”Well, through Morris, poor fellow, so far as I can make out, and that is why he is so dreadfully cut up. You see she helped him to carry on his experiments with that machine, she sitting in the church and he at home in the Abbey, with a couple of miles of coast and water between them. Well, you are a woman of the world, my dear, and you must know that all this sort of thing means a great deal more intimacy than is desirable. How far that intimacy went I do not know, and I do not care to inquire, though for my part I believe that it was a very little way indeed. Still, Eliza Layard got hold of some c.o.c.k and bull tale, and you can guess the rest.”