Part 51 (1/2)
”Oh,” interrupted Mrs. Frostwinch. ”Then it is Mr. Wynne. But I thought”--
”He isn't a priest any more,” Berenice struck in, replying to the unspoken doubt as if it had been in her own mind. ”I heard yesterday that he has left the Clergy House for good, and is staying with Mrs.
Staggchase.”
”Have you seen him lately?”
”He overtook me on the street yesterday.”
Mrs. Frostwinch put out her hand with a loving gesture.
”Bee,” said she tenderly, ”I want you to be happy. You've been like a daughter to me ever since your mother died, and I've thought of you almost as if you were my own child. If this is the man to make you happy”--
But Bee stooped forward and stopped the words with kisses.
”I can't talk of him,” she said, ”and he will never be anything to me.
He is angry, and he has a right to be. He”--
The entrance of the nurse interrupted them, and Berenice made haste to get away before there was opportunity for further question. In her anxiety to know something more of Mr. Wynne, Mrs. Frostwinch sent for Mrs. Staggchase, who came in the next day.
Mrs. Staggchase found her friend weak and frightfully changed. The high-bred face was haggard, the nostrils thin, while beneath the eyes were heavy purple shadows. A ghost of the old smile lighted her face, making it more ghastly yet, like the gleaming of a candle through a death-mask. The hand extended to the visitor was so transparent that it might almost have belonged to a spirit.
”My dear Anna,” Mrs. Staggchase exclaimed, ”I hadn't an idea”--
”That I was so near dying, my dear,” interrupted the other. ”I am worse than that, I am dead, really; but it doesn't matter. I want to talk to you about Bee.”
”About Bee?” echoed the other, seating herself beside the bed. ”What about her?”
”I should have said that I want to ask you about Mr. Wynne. Do you know anything about his relations to her?”
”The only relation that he has is that of a perfectly desperate adorer.
He wors.h.i.+ps the ground she walks on, but he doesn't cherish anything that could be decently called hope.”
”Then he does care for her?”
”My dear Anna, it almost makes me weep for my lost youth to see him. He has so wrought upon my glands of sentiment that this morning I actually examined my husband's wardrobe to see if the maid darns his stockings properly. Fred would be perfectly amazed if he knew how sentimental I feel. I even thought of sitting up last night to welcome him home from the club, but about half past one I came to the end of my novel and felt sleepy, so I gave that up.”
Mrs. Frostwinch smiled with the air of one who understands that the visitor is endeavoring to furnish a diversion from the dull sadness of the sick chamber.
”But Bee said he was angry with her.”
”The anger of lovers, my dear, is legitimate fuel for the flame. That's nothing. She's been amusing herself with him, and if she thinks he resents it, so much the better for him.”
”But is he”--
She hesitated as if not knowing how best to frame her question.
”He is a handsome creature, as you know if you remember him,” the visitor said, taking up the word. ”He is well born, he is well bred, if a little countrified. He's been shut up with monks and other mouldy things, and needs a little knocking about in the world; but I am very fond of him.”
”Then you think”--
”I think that whoever gets Bee will get a treasure; but I am not sure that she is any too good for my cousin. He hasn't much money, unless he gets a little fortune that ought to have been his, and which he has some hope of. I mean to give him something myself one of these days, if he behaves himself; but of course he hasn't any idea of that.”