The next morning witnessed the first in a series of domestic incidents at the cottage, which no prophetic ingenuity could have foreseen. Mr. Vimpany and Fanny Mere actually left Passy together, on their way to Paris!
CHAPTER XLIII
FICTION: ATTEMPTED BY MY LORD
THE day on which the doctor took his newly-appointed nurse with him to the hospital became an occasion associated with distressing recollections in the memory of Iris.
In the morning, Fanny Mere had asked for leave to go out. For some time past this request had been so frequently granted, with such poor results so far as the maid's own designs were concerned, that Lady Harry decided on administering a tacit reproof, by means of a refusal. Fanny made no attempt at remonstrance; she left the room in silence.
Half an hour later, Iris had occasion to ring for her attendant. The bell was answered by the cook—who announced, in explanation of her appearance, that Fanny Mere had gone out. More distressed than displeased by this reckless disregard of her authority, on the part of a woman who had hitherto expressed the most grateful sense of her kindness, Iris only said: 'Send Fanny to me as soon as she comes back.'
Two hours passed before the truant maid returned.
'I refused to let you go out this morning,' Lady Harry said; 'and you have taken the liberty of leaving the house for two hours. You might have made me understand, in a more becoming manner, that you intended to leave my service.'
Steadily respectful, Fanny answered: 'I don't wish to leave your ladyship's service.'
'Then what does your conduct mean?'
'It means, if you please, that I had a duty to do—and did it.'
'A duty to yourself?' Iris asked.
'No, my lady; a duty to you.'
As she made that strange reply the door was opened, and Lord Harry entered the room. When he saw Fanny Mere he turned away again, in a hurry, to go out. 'I didn't know your maid was with you,' he said. 'Another time will do.'
His permitting a servant to be an obstacle in his way, when he wished to speak to his wife, was a concession so entirely unbecoming in the master of the house, and so strangely contrary to his customary sense of what was due to himself, that Iris called him back in astonishment. She looked at her maid, who at once understood her, and withdrew. 'What can you possibly be thinking of?' she said to her husband, when they were alone. Putting that question, she noticed an embarrassment in his manner, and an appearance of confusion in his face, which alarmed her. 'Has something happened?' she asked; 'and is it so serious that you hesitate to mention it to me?'
He sat down by her and took her hand. The loving look in his eyes, which she knew so well, was not in them now; they expressed doubt, and something with it which suggested an effort at conciliation.
'I am fearing I shall surprise you,' he said.
'Don't keep me in suspense!' she returned. 'What is it?'
He smiled uneasily: 'It's something about Vimpany.'
Having got as far as that, he stopped. She drew her hand away from him. 'I understand now,' she said; 'I must endeavour to control myself—you have something to tell me which will try my temper.'
He held up his hands in humorous protest: 'Ah, my darling, here's your vivid imagination again, making mountains out of molehills, as they say! It's nothing half so serious as you seem to think; I have only to tell you of a little change.'
'A little change?' she repeated. 'What change?'
'Well, my dear, you see—' He hesitated and recovered himself. 'I mean, you must know that Vimpany's plans are altered. He won't any longer occupy his bedroom in the cottage here.'
Iris looked inexpressibly relieved. 'Going away, at last!' she exclaimed. 'Oh, Harry, if you have been mystifying me, I hope you will never do it again. It isn't like you; it's cruel to alarm me about nothing. Mr. Vimpany's empty bedroom will be the most interesting room in the house, when I look into it to-night.'
Lord Harry got up, and walked to the window. As a sign of trouble in his mind, and of an instinctive effort to relieve it, the object of this movement was well-known to Iris. She followed him and stood by his side. It was now plain to her that there was something more to be told—and that he was hesitating how to confide it to his wife.
'Go on,' she said resignedly.
He had expected her to take his arm, or perhaps to caress him, or at least to encourage him by her gentlest words and her prettiest smiles. The steady self-restraint which she now manifested was a sign, as he interpreted it, of suppressed resentment. Shrinking, honestly shrinking, from the bare possibility of another quarrel, he confronted the hard necessities of further confession.
'Well, now,' he said, 'it's only this—you mustn't look into the empty bedroom to-night.'
'Why not?'
'Ah, for the best of all good reasons! Because you might find somebody in there.'
This reply excited her curiosity: her eyes rested on him eagerly. 'Some friend of yours?' she asked.
He persisted in an assumption of good-humour, which betrayed itself as mere artifice in the clumsiest manner: 'I declare I feel as if I were in a court of justice, being cross-examined by a lawyer of skill and dexterity! Well, my sweet counsellor, no—not exactly a friend of mine.'
She reflected for a moment. 'You don't surely mean one of Mr. Vimpany's friends?' she said.
He pretended not to have heard her, and pointed to the view of the garden from the window. 'Isn't it a lovely day? Let's go and look at the flowers,' he suggested.
