Part 58 (1/2)
”Your wife? For G.o.d's sake, don't tell her!” Neville's voice replied.
”Such a disgraceful--” Here his words sank to a whisper, and Thelma could not distinguish them. Another minute, and her husband entered with soft precaution, fearing to awake her--she stretched out her arms to welcome him, and he hastened to her with an exclamation of tenderness and pleasure.
”My darling! Not asleep yet?”
She smiled,--but there was something very piteous in her smile, had the dim light enabled him to perceive it.
”No, not yet, Philip! And yet I think I have been dreaming of--the Altenfjord.”
”Ah! it must be cold there now,” he answered lightly. ”It's cold enough here, in all conscience. To-night there is a bitter east wind, and snow is falling.”
She heard this account of the weather with almost morbid interest. Her thoughts instantly betook themselves again to Norway, and dwelt there.
To the last,--before her aching eyes closed in the slumber she so sorely needed,--she seemed to be carried away in fancy to a weird stretch of gloom-enveloped landscape where she stood entirely alone, vaguely wondering at the dreary scene. ”How strange it seems!” she murmured almost aloud. ”All snow and darkness at the Altenfjord!”
CHAPTER XXV.
”Le temps ou nous nous sommes aimes n'a guere dure, jeune fille; il a pa.s.se comme un coup de vent!”
_Old Breton Ballad._
The next morning dawned, cold and dismal. A dense yellow fog hung over the metropolis like a pall--the street lamps were lighted, but their flare scarcely illumined the thoroughfares, and the chill of the snow-burdened air penetrated into the warmest rooms, and made itself felt even by the side of the brightest fires. Sir Philip woke with an uncomfortable sense of headache and depression, and grumbled,--as surely every Englishman has a right to grumble, at the uncompromising wretchedness of his country's winter climate. His humor was not improved when a telegram arrived before breakfast, summoning him in haste to a dull town in one of the Midland counties, on pressing business connected with his candidature for Parliament.
”What a bore!” he exclaimed, showing the missive to his wife. ”I _must_ go,--and I shan't be able to get back tonight. You'll be all alone, Thelma. I wish you'd go to the Winsleighs!”
”Why?” said Thelma quietly. ”I shall much prefer to be here. I do not mind, Philip. I am accustomed to be alone.”
Something in her tone struck him as particularly sad, and he looked at her intently.
”Now, my darling,” he said suddenly, ”if this Parliamentary bother is making you feel worried or vexed in any way, I'll throw it all up--by Jove, I will!” And he drew her into his warm embrace. ”After all” he added, with a laugh, ”what does it matter! The country can get on without me!”
Thelma smiled a little.
”You must not talk so foolishly, Philip,” she said tenderly. ”It is wrong to begin a thing of importance, and not go through with it. And I am not worried or vexed at all. What would people say of me if I, your wife, were, for my own selfish comfort and pleasure of having you always with me, to prevent you from taking a good place among the men of your nation? Indeed, I should deserve much blame! And so, though it is a gloomy day for you, poor boy,--you must go to this place where you are wanted, and I shall think of you all the time you are gone, and shall be so happy to welcome you home to-morrow!”
And she kissed and clung to him for a moment in silence. All that day Philip was haunted by the remembrance of the lingering tenderness of her farewell embrace. By ten o'clock he was gone, taking Neville with him; and after her household duties were over, Thelma prepared herself to go and lunch with old Mrs. Lorimer, and see what she would advise concerning the affair of Sir Francis Lennox. But, at the same time, she resolved that nothing should make her speak of the reports that were afloat about her husband and Violet Vere.
”I know it is all false,” she said to herself over and over again. ”And the people here are as silly as the peasants in Bosekop, ready to believe any untruth so long as it gives them something to talk about.
But they may chatter as they please--I shall not say one word, not even to Philip--for it would seem as if I mistrusted him.”
Thus she put away all the morbid fancies that threatened to oppress her, and became almost cheerful.
And while she made her simple plans for pleasantly pa.s.sing the long, dull day of her husband's enforced absence, her friend, Lady Winsleigh, was making arrangements of a very different nature. Her ladys.h.i.+p had received a telegram from Sir Francis Lennox that morning. The pink missive had apparently put her in an excellent humor, though, after reading it, she crumpled it up and threw it in the waste-paper basket, from which receptacle, Louise Renaud, her astute attendant, half an hour later extracted it, secreting it in her own pocket for private perusal at leisure. She ordered her brougham, saying she was going out on business,--and before departing, she took from her dressing-case certain bank-notes and crammed them hastily into her purse--a purse which, in all good faith, she handed to her maid to put in her sealskin m.u.f.f-bag.
Of course, Louise managed to make herself aware of its contents,--but when her ladys.h.i.+p at last entered her carriage her unexpected order, ”To the Brilliant Theatre, Strand,” was sufficient to startle Briggs, and cause him to exchange surprise signals with ”Mamzelle,” who merely smiled a prim, incomprehensible smile.
”_Where_ did your la's.h.i.+p say?” asked Briggs dubiously.
”Are you getting deaf, Briggs?” responded his mistress pleasantly. ”To the Brilliant Theatre!” She raised her voice, and spoke with distinct emphasis. There was no mistaking her. Briggs touched his hat,--in the same instant he winked at Louise, and then the carriage rolled away.
At night, the Brilliant Theatre is a pretty little place,--comfortable, cosy, bright, and deserving of its name;--in broad day, it is none of these things. A squalid dreariness seems to have settled upon it--it has a peculiar atmosphere of its own--an atmosphere dark, heavy, and strangely flavored with odors of escaping gas and crushed orange-peel.