Fierce, certainly, and forbidding she was on this February evening. She lay high on her pillow, tormented by her chronic bronchitis and by rheumatic pain, her brows drawn together, her vigorous hands clasped before her in an evident tension, as though she only restrained herself with difficulty from defying maid, doctor, and her own sense of prudence.
“Well, you have dressed?” she said, sharply, as Julie Le Breton entered her room.
“I did not get your message till I had finished dinner. And I dressed before dinner.”
Lady Henry looked her up and down, like a cat ready to pounce.
“You didn’t bring me those letters to sign?”
“No, I thought you were not fit for it.”
“I said they were to go tonight. Kindly bring them at once.”
Julie brought them. With groans and flinchings that she could not repress, Lady Henry read and signed them. Then she demanded to be read to. Julie sat down, trembling. How fast the hands of Lady Henry’s clock were moving on!
Mercifully, Lady Henry was already somewhat sleepy, partly from weakness, partly from a dose of bromide.
“I hear nothing,” she said, putting out an impatient hand. “You should raise your voice. I didn’t mean you to shout, of course. Thank you—that’ll do. Good night. Tell Hutton to keep the house as quiet as he can. People must knock and ring, I suppose; but if all the doors are properly shut it oughtn’t to bother me. Are you going to bed?”
“I shall sit up a little to write some letters. But—I shan’t be late.”
“Why should you be late?” said Lady Henry, tartly, as she turned away.
Julie made her way downstairs with a beating heart. All the doors were carefully shut behind her. When she reached the hall it was already half-past ten o’clock. She hurried to the library, the large panelled room behind the dining-room. How bright Hutton had made it look! Up shot her spirits. With a gay and dancing step she went from chair to chair, arranging everything instinctively as she was accustomed to do in the drawing-room. She made the flowers less stiff; she put on another light; she drew one table forward and pushed its fellow back against the wall. What a charming old room, after all! What a pity Lady Henry so seldom used it! It was panelled in dark oak, while the drawing-room was white. But the pictures, of which there were two or three, looked even better here than upstairs. That beautiful Lawrence—a “red boy” in gleaming satin—that pair of Hoppners, fine studies in blue, why, who had ever seen them before? And another light or two would show them still better.
A loud knock and ring. Julie held her breath. Ah! A distant voice in the hall. She moved to the fire, and stood quietly reading an evening paper.
“Captain Warkworth would be glad if you would see him for a few minutes, miss. He would like to ask you himself about her ladyship.”
“Please ask him to come in, Hutton.”
Hutton effaced himself, and the young man entered, Then Julie raised her voice.
“Remember, please, Hutton, that I particularly want to see the Duchess.”
Hutton bowed and retired. Warkworth came forward.
“What luck to find you like this!”
He threw her one look—Julie knew it to be a look of scrutiny—and then, as she held out her hand, he stooped and kissed it.
“He wants to know that my suspicions are gone,” she thought. “At any rate, he should believe it.”
“The great thing,” she said, with her finger to her lip, “is that Lady Henry should hear nothing.”
She motioned her somewhat puzzled guest to a seat on one side of the fire, and, herself, fell into another opposite. A wild vivacity was in her face and manner.
“Isn’t this amusing? Isn’t the room charming? I think I should receive very well”—she looked round her—“in my own house.”
“You would receive well in a garret—a stable,” he said. “But what is the meaning of this? Explain.”
“Lady Henry is ill and is gone to bed. That made her very cross—poor Lady Henry! She thinks I, too, am in bed. But you see—you forced your way in—didn’t you?—to inquire with greater minuteness after Lady Henry’s health.”
She bent towards him, her eyes dancing.
“Of course I did. Will there presently be a swarm on my heels, all possessed with a similar eagerness, or—?”
He drew his chair, smiling, a little closer to her. She, on the contrary, withdrew hers.
“There will, no doubt, be six or seven,” she said, demurely, “who will want personal news. But now, before they come”—her tone changed—“is there anything to tell me?”
“Plenty,” he said, drawing a letter out of his pocket. “Your writ, my dear lady, runs as easily in the City as elsewhere.” And he held up an envelope.
She flushed.
“You have got your allotment? But I knew you would. Lady Froswick promised.”
“And a large allotment, too,” he said, joyously. “I am the envy of all my friends. Some of them have got a few shares, and have already sold them—grumbling. I keep mine three days more on the best advice—the price may go higher yet. But, anyway, there”—he shook the envelope—“there it is—deliverance from debt—peace of mind for the first time since I was a lad at school—the power of going, properly fitted out and equipped, to Africa—if I go—and not like a beggar—all in that bit of paper, and all the work of—someone you and I know. Fairy godmother! tell me, please, how to say a proper thank you.”
The young soldier dropped his voice. Those blue eyes which had done him excellent service in many different parts of the globe were fixed with brilliance on his companion; the lines of a full-lipped mouth quivered with what seemed a boyish pleasure. The comfort of money relief was never acknowledged more frankly or more handsomely.
Julie hurriedly repressed him. Did she feel instinctively that there are thanks which it sometimes humiliates a man to remember, lavishly as he may have poured them
