Part 24 (1/2)

”No, indeed, how could I have?” said Mrs. Murray, who still seemed almost overpowered by the astonis.h.i.+ng revelation that had been made to her. ”You must remember that I had never seen your granddaughter, so how could I know?”

”Of your share in this disgraceful business it is not necessary to speak,” said Mr. Anstruther, giving Eleanor a glance of the very strongest disapproval and dislike, ”but Margaret's share in it concerns me deeply, and first of all I must apologise to you,” he added, turning to Mrs. Murray, ”in her name for the liberty she has dared to take with your most kind and hospitable house. To send a stranger into it in her place, under her name, and to go off under an a.s.sumed one to total strangers seems to be incredible. I can really hardly grasp the amazing fact now, that Margaret, whom I have brought up so carefully, and who has had her every action regulated by me since her infancy, should at the very first opportunity break loose in this manner.” He gazed with renewed disapproval at Eleanor. ”You must have gained an enormous influence over her in a very short s.p.a.ce of time to have been able to persuade her to act in such an outrageous manner.”

”It was her idea; she persuaded me into it,” said Eleanor, the words slipping out of her mouth unawares. Then fearing that they might sound as though she wished to lay all the blame upon Margaret, she added impulsively, ”But it was I who kept her to it so long. She wanted to give up the idea weeks ago, and confess everything, after she had only tried it for two or three days, but I would not let her go back from her word.

And so though she has not been nearly so happy with young people as she thought somehow she must be, she has bravely stayed on there for my sake.”

Was it merely her imagination or did the severity of Mr. Anstruther's face relax somewhat as he heard that his granddaughter had not been as happy as she had hoped to be? His tone, however, when he spoke again had lost none of its former anger. ”Your shameful audacity in impersonating my granddaughter and thrusting yourself, uninvited, into a house in which you have no right, deserves to be severely punished. I am not at all sure that such an offence is not punishable by law. How would you like to find yourself in prison? Mrs. Murray could prosecute you if she liked, and if she takes my advice she will.”

”And would you advise Mrs. Danvers to prosecute Margaret?” Mrs. Murray asked.

”Eh--er--that is a different matter altogether,” Mr. Anstruther answered, thoroughly taken aback by the unexpected remark.

”Yes, but she, too, impersonated somebody else and thrust herself into a house to which she was not invited,” said Mrs. Murray, ”so we could hardly put one in prison and leave the other out, could we?”

”Of course, Charlotte, if you are disposed to look upon the matter leniently, nothing more remains for me to say,” Mr. Anstruther said in a displeased tone. ”I gather, then, that you are not even angry with Miss Carson for her treatment of you. Certainly I have not yet heard you utter one word of blame to her, and when you consider how callously she has deceived you all these weeks no condemnation could be too strong for her.”

”I don't believe you are callous, my dear,” said Mrs. Murray, looking gently into Eleanor's downcast face.

”Oh, I am ashamed, so dreadfully ashamed!” Eleanor said, ”when I think of all your kindness to me, and of how little right I had to any of it.”

”And so you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said Mr. Anstruther. ”But, however, as I said before, your share in the matter has not so much to do with me as my granddaughter's has. I am going now to see her, and you must come with me. I do not intend to lose sight of you until I have found her. How do I know that you are telling me the truth, and that she is at this particular house you mention?”

Though Eleanor's eyes flashed at this remark, she recognised the justice of it and received it in silence. After all, why should Mr. Anstruther believe anything she said?

”Yes, go, my dear,” said Mrs. Murray, and Eleanor rose obediently.

”And if you will take my advice Charlotte, you will get your housemaid to pack her boxes, so that she can leave for good and all the first thing to-morrow,” Mr. Anstruther said before she was well out of the room.

He was standing in the hall when she came down with her hat and coat on, and he motioned her to precede him into the cab, but giving her head a little shake, Eleanor opened the drawing-room door and, after hesitating for a moment on the threshold, went in. Mrs. Murray was sitting before the fire crying silently. At the sight of her tears Eleanor's hesitation vanished and she ran across the room and flung herself on her knees and put both her arms in a protecting fas.h.i.+on round the old lady's neck.

”Don't cry about me,” she said. ”Oh, I am so sorry, so ashamed! I ought never to have done it.”

”And I thought you were such a dear girl,” said Mrs. Murray, ”so good, so straightforward, so merry, and charming. And to think that you were deceiving me all the time. Oh, it is bitter to be disappointed in any one like this! Tell me what tempted you to do it. Mr. Anstruther says it was the thought of living in comparative ease and comfort for a time, and so you sent Margaret to the drudgery of a governess's life in your place.”

”No, no,” said Eleanor vehemently; ”I may be selfish and deceitful, but I am not so calculating as all that. Besides, Margaret has been made no drudge of. As far as mere comfort, food, and good rooms, and so on goes, she has been treated quite as well there as I have here. It was the singing lessons that tempted me. I did want to have my voice trained so much, and when I heard Madame Martelli was going to teach Margaret I just could not help coming in her place.”

Though Eleanor was scarcely aware of it herself, her voice and manner had altered when she began to speak of her singing. Neither were any longer repentant or humbled. She spoke as if she were trying to excuse even to justify, her conduct.

”You are neither ashamed nor sorry,” said Mr. Anstruther's stern voice from the doorway, ”so do not seek to deceive Mrs. Murray on that point.

Will you kindly come now. I am waiting.”

But when Mr. Anstruther told the driver that he wished to go into Seabourne, the man refused, rather sulkily, to take him across the downs in that mist, ”to say nothing of my being stranded miles away from home, then,” he said; ”but I'll take you back to the station, and from there you can train into Seabourne almost as quick.”

So they drove down to Chailfield Station where they were fortunate enough just to catch a train, and on arriving at Seabourne station they took another cab up to The Cedars. During the whole way Mr. Anstruther spoke no single word to his companion, and Eleanor, glancing from time to time at his grim face, fairly s.h.i.+vered as she thought of how Margaret was going to catch it.

CHAPTER XV

AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR