walked in—Helena Gracedieu.
She explained her object in calling on me, with the exasperating composure which was peculiarly her own. No parallel to it occurs to me in my official experience of shameless women.
'I don't wish to speak of what happened yesterday, so far as I know anything about it,' she began. 'It is quite enough for me that you have been obliged to leave the house and to take refuge in this hotel. I have come to say a word about the future. Are you honoring me with your attention?'
I signed to her to go on. If I had answered in words, I should have told her to leave the room.
'At first,' she resumed, 'I thought of writing; but it occurred to me that you might keep my letter, and show it to Philip, by way of lowering me in his good opinion, as you have lowered me in the good opinion of his father. My object in coming here is to give you a word of warning. If you attempt to make mischief next between Philip and myself, I shall hear of it—and you know what to expect, when you have me for an enemy. It is not worth while to say any more. We understand each other, I hope?'
She was determined to have a reply—and she got it.
'Not quite yet,' I said. 'I have been hitherto, as becomes a gentleman, always mindful of a woman's claims to forbearance. You will do well not to tempt me into forgetting that
I rang for the waiter. 'Show this lady out,' I said.
Even this failed to have the slightest effect on her. She sauntered to the door, as perfectly at her ease as if the room had been hers—not mine.
I had thought of driving to the farm. Shall I confess it? My temper was so completely upset that active movement of some kind offered the one means of relief in which I could find refuge. The farm was not more than five miles distant, and I had been a good walker all my life. After making the needful inquiries, I set forth to visit Eunice on foot.
My way through the town led me past the Minister's house. I had left the door some fifty yards behind me, when I saw two ladies approaching. They were walking, in the friendliest manner, arm in arm. As they came nearer, I discovered Miss Jillgall. Her companion was the middle-aged lady who had declined to give her name, when we met accidentally at Mr. Gracedieu's door.
Hysterically impulsive, Miss Jillgall seized both my hands, and overwhelmed me with entreaties that I would go back with her to the house. I listened rather absently. The middle-aged lady happened to be nearer to me now than on either of the former occasions on which I had seen her. There was something in the expression of her eyes which seemed to be familiar to me. But the effort of my memory was not helped by what I observed in the other parts of her face. The iron-gray hair, the baggy lower eyelids, the fat cheeks, the coarse complexion, and the double chin, were features, and very disagreeable features, too, which I had never seen at any former time.
'Do pray come back with us,' Miss Jillgall pleaded. 'We were just talking of you. I and my friend—' There she stopped, evidently on the point of blurting out the name which she had been forbidden to utter in my hearing.
The lady smiled; her provokingly familiar eyes rested on me with a humorous enjoyment of the scene.
'My dear,' she said to Miss Jillgall, 'caution ceases to be a virtue when it ceases to be of any use. The Governor is beginning to remember me, and the inevitable recognition—with
As a man of the world, I ought to have been capable of concealing my astonishment and dismay. She struck me dumb.
Mrs. Tenbruggen in the town! The one woman whose appearance Mr. Gracedieu had dreaded, and justly dreaded, stood before me—free, as a friend of his kinswoman, to enter his house, at the very time when he was a helpless man, guarded by watchers at his bedside. My first clear idea was to get away from both the women, and consider what was to be done next. I bowed—and begged to be excused—and said I was in a hurry, all in a breath.
Hearing this, the best of genial old maids was unable to restrain her curiosity. 'Where are you going?' she asked.
Too confused to think of an excuse, I said I was going to the farm.
'To see my dear Euneece?' Miss Jillgall burst out. 'Oh, we will go with you!' Mrs. Tenbruggen's politeness added immediately, 'With the greatest pleasure.'
CHAPTER XLVII. THE JOURNEY TO THE FARM.
My first ungrateful impulse was to get rid of the two cumbersome ladies who had offered to be my companions. It was needless to call upon my invention for an excuse; the truth, as I gladly perceived, would serve my purpose. I had only to tell them that I had arranged to walk to the farm.
Lean, wiry, and impetuous, Miss Jillgall received my excuse with the sincerest approval of it, as a new idea. 'Nothing could be more agreeable to me,' she declared; 'I have been a wonderful walker all my life.' She turned to her friend. 'We will go with him, my dear, won't we?'
Mrs. Tenbruggen's reception of this proposal inspired me with hope; she asked how far it was to the farm. 'Five miles!' she repeated. 'And five miles back again, unless the farmer lends us a cart. My dear Selina, you might as well ask me to walk to the North Pole. You have got rid of one of us, Mr. Governor,' she added, pleasantly; 'and the other, if you only walk fast enough, you will leave behind you on the road. If I believed in luck—which I don't—I should call you a fortunate man.'
But companionable Selina would not hear of a separation. She asked, in her most irresistible manner, if I objected to driving instead of walking. Her heart's dearest wish, she said, was to make her bosom friend and myself better acquainted with each other. To conclude, she reminded me that there was a cab-stand in the next street.
