Volume Ii Part 29 (1/2)

And behind Kenrick, Justine, the French maid, pushed her way in, weeping and exclaiming. Lady Tressady, it seemed, had been in frightful pain all the afternoon. She was now easier for the moment, though dangerously exhausted. But if the heart attacks returned during the next twenty-four hours, nothing could save her. The probability was that they would return, and she was asking piteously for her son, who had seen her, Justine believed, the day before these seizures began, just before his departure for Paris, and had written. ”Et la pauvre ame!” cried the Frenchwoman at last, not caring what she said to this amazing daughter-in-law, ”elle est la toujours, quand les douleurs s'apaisent un peu, ecoutant, esperant--et personne ne vient--_personne_! Voulez-vous bien, madame, me dire ou on peut trouver Sir George?”

”Poste Restante, Trouville,” said Letty, sullenly. ”It is the only address that I know of.”

But she stood there irresolute and frowning, while the French girl, hardly able to contain herself, stared at the disfigured face, demanding by her quick-breathing silence, by her whole att.i.tude, something else, something more than Sir George's address.

Meanwhile Marcella waited in the background, obliged to hear what pa.s.sed, and struck with amazement. It is perhaps truer of the moral world than the social that one half of it never conceives how the other half lives.

George Tressady's mother--alone--dying--in her son's absence--and Letty Tressady knew nothing of her illness till it had become a question of life and death, and had then actually refused to go--forgotten the summons even!

When Letty, feverish and bewildered, turned back to the companion whose heart had been poured out before her during this past hour of high emotion, she saw a new expression in Lady Maxwell's eyes from which she shrank.

”Ought I to go?” she said fretfully, almost like a peevish child, putting her hand to her brow.

”My carriage is downstairs,” said Marcella, quickly. ”I can take you there at once. Is there a nurse?” she asked, turning to the maid.

Oh, yes; there was an excellent nurse, just installed, or Justine could not have left her mistress; and the doctor close by could be got at a moment's notice. But the poor lady wanted her son, or at least some one of the family,--Justine bit her lip, and threw a nervous side glance at Letty,--and it went to the heart to see her. The girl found relief in describing her mistress's state to this grave and friendly lady, and showed more feeling and sincerity in speaking of it than might have been expected from her affected dress and manner.

Meanwhile Letty seemed to be wandering aimlessly about the room. Marcella went up to her.

”Your hat is here, on this chair. I have a shawl in the carriage. Won't you come at once, and leave word to your maid to bring after you what you want? Then I can go on, if you wish it, and send your telegram to Sir George.”

”But you wanted him to do something?” said Letty, looking at her uncertainly.

”Mothers come first, I think!” said Marcella, with a smile of wonder.

”It is best to write it before we go. Will you tell me what to say?”

She went to the writing-table, and had to write the telegram with small help from Letty, who in her dazed, miserable soul was still fighting some demonic resistance or other to the step asked of her. Instinctively and gradually, however, Marcella took command of her. A few quiet words to Justine sent her to make arrangements with Grier. Then Letty found a cloak that had been sent for being drawn round her shoulders, and was coaxed to put on her hat. In another minute she was in the Maxwells'

brougham, with her hand clasped in Marcella's.

”They will want me to sit up,” she said, das.h.i.+ng an irrelevant tear from her eyes, as they drove away. ”I am so tired--and I hate illness!”

”Very likely they won't let you see her to-night. But you will be there if the illness comes on again. You would feel it terribly if--if she died all alone, with Sir George away.”

”Died!” Letty repeated, half angrily. ”But that would be so horrible--what could I do?”

Marcella looked at her with a strange smile.

”Only be kind, only forget everything but her!”

The softness of her voice had yet a severity beneath it that Letty felt, but had no spirit to resent, Rather it awakened an uneasy and painful sense that, after all, it was not she who had come off conqueror in this great encounter. The incidents of the last half-hour seemed in some curious way to have reversed their positions. Letty, smarting, felt that her relation to George's dying mother had revealed her to Lady Maxwell far more than any wild and half-sincere confessions could have done. Her vanity felt a deep inner wound, yet of a new sort. At any rate, Marcella's self-abas.e.m.e.nt was over, and Letty instinctively realised that she would never see it again, while at the same time a new and clinging need had arisen in herself. The very neighbourhood of the personality beside her had begun to thrill and subjugate her. She had been conscious enough before--enviously, hatefully conscious--of all the attributes and possessions that made Maxwell's wife a great person in the world of London. What was stealing upon her now was glamour and rank and influence of another kind.

Not unmixed, no doubt, with more mundane thoughts! No ordinary preacher, no middle-cla.s.s eloquence perhaps would have sufficed--nothing less dramatic and distinguished than the scene which had actually pa.s.sed, than a Marcella at her feet. Well! there are many modes and grades of conversion. Whether by what was worst in her, or what was best; whether the same weaknesses of character that had originally inflamed her had now helped to subdue her or no, what matter? So much stood--that one short hour had been enough to draw this vain, selfish nature within a moral grasp she was never again to shake off.

Meanwhile, as they drove towards Warwick Square Marcella's only thought was how to hand her over safe to her husband. A sense of agonised responsibility awoke in the elder woman at the thought of Cathedine. But no more emotion--only common sense and gentleness.

As they neared Warwick Square, Letty withdrew her hand.

”I don't suppose you will ever want to see me again,” she said huskily, turning her head away.