“You come in to your little dinner,” said Sophie, “and I will tell you everything as you are eating. Don’t mind me. You shall eat and drink, and I will talk. I am Madame Gordeloup—Sophie Gordeloup. Ah—you know the name now. Yes. That is me. Count Pateroff is my brother. You know Count Pateroff? He knowed Lord Ongar, and I knowed Lord Ongar. We know Lady Ongar. Ah—you understand now that I can have much to tell. It is well you was not gone without seeing me? Eh; yes! You shall eat and drink, but suppose you send that man into the kitchen!”
Sir Hugh was so taken by surprise that he hardly knew how to act on the spur of the moment. He certainly had heard of Madame Gordeloup, though he had never before seen her. For years past her name had been familiar to him in London, and when Lady Ongar had returned as a widow it had been, to his thinking, one of her worst offences that this woman had been her friend. Under ordinary circumstances his judgment would have directed him to desire the servant to put her out into the street as an impostor, and to send for the police if there was any difficulty. But it certainly might be possible that this woman had something to tell with reference to Lady Ongar which it would suit his purposes to hear. At the present moment he was not very well inclined to his sister-in-law, and was disposed to hear evil of her. So he passed on into the dining-room and desired Madame Gordeloup to follow him. Then he closed the room door, and standing up with his back to the fireplace, so that he might be saved from the necessity of asking her to sit down, he declared himself ready to hear anything that his visitor might have to say.
“But you will eat your dinner, Sir ’Oo? You will not mind me. I shall not care.”
“Thank you, no;—if you will just say what you have got to say, I will be obliged to you.”
“But the nice things will be so cold! Why should you mind me? Nobody minds me.”
“I will wait, if you please, till you have done me the honour of leaving me.”
“Ah, well—you Englishmen are so cold and ceremonious. But Lord Ongar was not with me like that. I knew Lord Ongar so well.”
“Lord Ongar was more fortunate than I am.”
“He was a poor man who did kill himself. Yes. It was always that bottle of Cognac. And there was other bottles was worser still. Never mind; he has gone now, and his widow has got the money. It is she has been a fortunate woman! Sir ’Oo, I will sit down here in the armchair.” Sir Hugh made a motion with his hand, not daring to forbid her to do as she was minded. “And you, Sir ’Oo;—will not you sit down also?”
“I will continue to stand if you will allow me.”
“Very well; you shall do as most pleases you. As I did walk here, and shall walk back, I will sit down.”
“And now if you have anything to say, Madame Gordeloup,” said Sir Hugh, looking at the silver covers which were hiding the chops and the asparagus, and looking also at his watch, “perhaps you will be good enough to say it.”
“Anything to say! Yes, Sir ’Oo, I have something to say. It is a pity you will not sit at your dinner.”
“I will not sit at my dinner till you have left me. So now, if you will be pleased to proceed—”
“I will proceed. Perhaps you don’t know that Lord Ongar died in these arms?” And Sophie, as she spoke, stretched out her skinny hands, and put herself as far as possible into the attitude in which it would be most convenient to nurse the head of a dying man upon her bosom. Sir Hugh, thinking to himself that Lord Ongar could hardly have received much consolation in his fate from this incident, declared that he had not heard the fact before. “No; you have not heard it. She have tell nothing to her friends here. He die abroad, and she has come back with all the money; but she tell nothing to anybody here, so I must tell.”
“But I don’t care how he died, Madame Gordeloup. It is nothing to me.”
“But yes, Sir ’Oo. The lady, your wife, is the sister to Lady Ongar. Is not that so? Lady Ongar did live with you before she was married. Is not that so? Your brother and your cousin both wishes to marry her and have all the money. Is not that so? Your brother has come to me to help him, and has sent the little man out of Warwickshire. Is not that so?”
“What the