VII
It was three-hours-and-half later when they reappeared. The lawn was as silent as when they had left it, though the sleep of things had weakened to a certain precarious slightness; and round the corner of the house a low line of light showed the dawn.
“Now, goodbye, dear,” said her husband, lightly. “You’ll let him know at once?”
“Of course.”
“And send to me directly after?”
“Yes.”
“And now for my walk across the fields to the hotel. These boots are thin, but I know the old way well enough. By Jove, I wonder what Mélanie—”
“Who?”
“O—what Mélanie will think, I was going to say. It slipped out—I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings at all.”
“Mélanie—who is she?”
“Well—she’s a French lady. You know, of course, Rosalys, that I thought you were perhaps dead—and—so this lady passes as Mrs. Durrant.”
Rosalys started.
“In fact I found her in the East, and took pity upon her—that’s all. Though if it had happened that you had not been living now I have got back, I should of course, have married her at once.”
“Is—she, then, here with you at the hotel?”
“O no—I wouldn’t bring her on here till I knew how things were.”
“Then where is she?”
“I left her at my rooms in London. O, it will be all right—I shall see her safely back to Paris, and make a little provision for her. Nobody in England knows anything of her existence.”
“When—did you part from her?”
“Well, of course, at breakfast-time.”
Rosalys bowed herself against the doorway. “O—O—what have I done! What a fool—what a weak fool!” she moaned. “Go away from me—go away!”
Jim was almost distressed when he saw the distortion of her agonized face.
“Now why should you take on like this! There’s nothing in it. People do these things. Living in a prim society here you don’t know how the world goes on!”
“O, but to think it didn’t occur to me that the sort of man—”
Jim, though anxious, seemed to awaken to something humorous in the situation, and vented a momentary chuckle. “Well, it is rather funny that I should have let it out. But still—”
“Don’t make a deep wrong deeper by cruel levity! Go away!”
“You’ll be in a better mood tomorrow, mark me, and then I’ll tell you all my history. There—I’m gone! Au revoir!”
He disappeared under the trees. Rosalys, rousing herself, closed the gate and fastened the door, and sat down in one of the hall chairs, her teeth shut tight, and her little hands clenched. When she had passed this mood, and returned upstairs, she regarded the state of her room sadly, and bent again over her writing-table, murmuring “O, how weak, how weak was I!”
But in a few minutes she found herself nerved to an unexpected and passionate vigour of action; and began writing her letter to Lord Parkhurst with great rapidity. Sheet after sheet she filled, and, having read them over, she sealed up the letter and placed it on the mantelpiece to be given to a groom and dispatched by hand as soon as the morning was a little further advanced.
With cold feet and a burning head she flung herself upon the bed just as she was, and waited for the day without the power to sleep. When she had lain nearly two hours, and the morning had crept in, and she could hear from the direction of the stables that the men were astir, she rang for her maid, and taking the letter in her hand stood with it in an attitude of suspense as the woman entered. The latter looked full of intelligence.
“Are any of the men about?” asked Rosalys.
“O yes, ma’am. There’ve been such an accident in the meads this past night—about half-a-mile down the river—and Jones ran up from the lodge to call for help quite early; and Benton and Peters went as soon as they were dressed. A gentleman drowned—yes—it’s Mr. James Durrant—the son of old Mr. Durrant who died some years ago. He came home only yesterday, after having been heard nothing of for years and years. He left Mrs. Durrant, who they say is a French lady, somewhere in London, but they have telegraphed and found her, and she’s coming. They say she’s quite distracted. The poor gentleman left the Three Lions last night and went out to dinner, saying he would walk home, as it was a fine night and not very far: and it is supposed he took the old shortcut across the moor where there used to be a path when he was a lad at home, crossing the big river by a plank. There is only a rail now, and he must have tried to get across upon it, for it was broken in two, and his body found in the water-weeds just below.”
“Is he dead?”
“O yes. They had a great trouble to get him out. The men have just come in from carrying him to the hotel. It will be sad for his poor wife when she gets there!”
“His poor wife—yes.”
“Travelling all the way from London on such a call!”
Rosalys had allowed the hand in which she held the letter to Lord Parkhurst to drop to her side: she now put it in the pocket of her dressing-gown.
“I was wishing to send somewhere,” she said. “But I think I will wait till later.”
The house was astir betimes on account of the wedding, and Rosalys’ companion in particular, who was not sad because she was going to live on with the bride. When Miss Jennings saw her cousin’s agitation she said she looked ill, and insisted upon sending for the doctor. He, who was the local practitioner, arrived at breakfast time; very proud to attend such an important lady, who mostly got doctored in London. He said Rosalys certainly was not quite in her usual state of health; prescribed a tonic, and declared that she would be all right in an hour or two. He then informed her that he had been suddenly called up that morning to the case of which they had possibly heard—the drowning of Mr. Durrant.
“And you could do nothing?” asked Rosalys.
“O no. He’d been under water too long for any human aid. Dead and stiff … It was not so very far down from here. … Yes, I remember him quite as a boy. But he has had no relations hereabout for years past—old Durrant’s property was sold to pay his debts, if you recollect; and nobody expected to see the son again. I think he has lived in the East Indies a good deal. Much better for him if he had not come—poor fellow!”
When the doctor had left Rosalys went to the window, and remained for some time thinking. There was the lake from which the water had flowed down the river that had drowned Jim after visiting her last night—as a mere interlude in his continuous life of caresses with the Frenchwoman Mélanie. She turned, took from her dressing-gown pocket the renunciatory letter to her intended husband Lord Parkhurst, thrust it through the bars of the grate, and watched it till it was entirely consumed.
The wedding had been fixed for an early hour in the afternoon, and as the morning wore on Rosalys felt increasing strength, mental and physical. The doctor’s dose had been a powerful one: the image of “Mélanie,” too, had much to do with her recuperative mood; more still, Rosalys’ innate qualities; the nerve of the woman who nine years earlier had gone to the city to be married as if it were a mere shopping expedition; most of all, she loved Lord Parkhurst; he was the man among all men she desired. Rosalys allowed things to take their course.
Soon the dressing began; and she sat through it quite calmly. When Lord Parkhurst rode across for a short visit that day he only noticed that she seemed strung-up, nervous, and that the flush of love which mantled her cheek died away to pale rather quickly.
On the way to church the road skirted the low-lying ground where the river was, and about a dozen men were seen in the bright green Meadow, standing beside the deep central stream, and looking intently at a broken rail.
“Who are those men?” said the bride.
“O—they are the coroner’s jury, I think,” said Miss Jennings; “come to view the place where that unfortunate Mr. Durrant lost his life last night. It was curious that, by the merest accident, he should have been at Mrs. Lacy’s dinner—since they hardly know him at all.”
“It was—I saw him there,” said Rosalys.
They had reached the church. Ten minutes later she was kneeling against the altar-railings, with Lord Parkhurst on her right hand. The wedding was by no means a gay one, and there were few people invited, Rosalys, for one thing, having hardly any relations. The newly united pair got away from the house very soon after the ceremony. When they drove off there was a group of people round the door, and some among the bystanders asked how far they were going that day.
“To Dover. They cross the Channel tomorrow, I believe.”
Tomorrow came, and those who had gathered together at the wedding went about their usual duties and amusements, Colonel Lacy among the rest. As he and his wife were returning home by the late afternoon train after a short journey up the line, he bought a copy of an evening paper, and glanced at the latest telegrams.
“My good God!” he cried.
“What?” said she, starting towards him.
He tried to read—then handed the paper; and she read for herself—.
We regret to announce that this distinguished nobleman and heroic naval officer, who arrived with Lady Parkhurst last evening at the Lord Chamberlain Hotel in this town, preparatory to starting on their wedding-tour, entered his dressing-room very early this morning, and shot himself through the head with a revolver. The report was heard shortly after dawn, none of the inmates of the hotel being astir at the time. No reason can be assigned for the rash act.