The New Warden Part 38

She went into the chemist's and bought some patent pills, all the time thinking hard. She had two witnesses to Gwendolen Scott's having possession of the note: Mr. Harding and Mr. Bingham; and one witness, Lady Dashwood, to her having delivered the collar and not the note! All these witnesses were unconscious of the meaning of the transaction.

She, Mrs. Potten, alone could piece together the evidence and know what it meant, and it was by a mere chance that she had been able to do this.

If she had not met Mr. Bingham (and she had never met him before in the street), and if she had not happened to have mentioned the proceeds of the Sale, she would still be under the impression that the note had been mislaid.

"And the impertinence of the young woman!" exclaimed Mrs. Potten, as she paid for her pills. "And she fancies herself in a position of trust, if you please! She means to figure, if you please, at the head of an establishment where we send our sons to be kept out of mischief for a bit! Well, I never heard of anything like it. Why, she'll be tampering with the bills!"

Mrs. Potten's indignation did not wane as the moments pa.s.sed, but rather waxed.

"And her mother is condescending about the engagement! Why," added Mrs.

Potten to herself with emphasis, as she got into her car--"why, if this had happened with one of my maids, I should have put it into the hands of the police."

"The Lodgings, King's," she said to the chauffeur. What was she going to do when she got there?

Mrs. Potten had no intention of bursting into the Lodgings in order to demand an explanation from Miss Scott. No, thank you, Miss Scott must wait upon Mrs. Potten. She must come out to Potten End and make her explanation! But Mrs. Potten was going to the Lodgings merely to ensure that this would be done on the instant.

"Don't drive in," she called, and getting out of the car she walked into the court and went up the two shallow steps of the front door and rang at the bell.

The retrousse nose of Robinson Junior appeared at the opened door. Lady Dashwood was not at home and was not expected till half-past one. It was then one o'clock. Mrs. Potten mused for a little and then asked if she might see Lady Dashwood's maid for a moment. Robinson Junior suppressed his scornful surprise that any one should want to see Louise, and ushered Mrs. Potten into the Warden's breakfast-room, and there, seating herself near the window, she searched for a visiting card and a pencil. Louise appeared very promptly.

"Madame wishes something?" she remarked as she closed the door behind her, and stood surveying Mrs. Potten from that distance.

"I do," said Mrs. Potten, taking in Louise's untidy blouse, her plain features, thick complexion and luminous brown eyes in one comprehensive glance. "Can you tell me if Miss Scott will be in for luncheon?" Mrs.

Potten spoke French with a strong English accent and much originality of style.

Yes, Miss Scott was returning to luncheon.

"And do you know if the ladies have afternoon engagements?"

Louise thought they had none, because Lady Dashwood was to be at home to tea. That she knew for certain, and she added in a voice fraught with import: "I shall urge Madame to rest after lunch."

"Humph! I see you look after her properly," said Mrs. Potten, beginning to write on her card with the pencil; "I thought she was looking very tired when I saw her this morning."

"Tired!" exclaimed Louise; "Madame is always tired in Oxford."

"Relaxing climate," said Mrs. Potten as she wrote.

"And this house does not suit Madame," continued Louise, motionless at the door.

"The drains wrong, perhaps," said Mrs. Potten, with absolute indifference.

"I know nothing of drains, Madame," said Louise, "I speak of other things."

"Sans doute il y a du 'dry rot,'" said Mrs. Potten, looking at what she had written.

"Ah!" exclaimed Louise, clasping her hands, "Madame has heard; I did not know his name, but what matter? Ghosts are always ghosts, and my Lady Dashwood has never been the same since that night, never!"

Mrs. Potten stared but she did not express surprise, she wanted to hear more without asking for more.

"Madame knows that the ghost comes to bring bad news about the Warden!"

"Bad news!" said Mrs. Potten, and she put her pencil back into her bag and wondered whether the news of the Warden's engagement had reached the servants' quarters.

"A disaster," said Louise. "Always a disaster--to Monsieur the Warden.

Madame understands?"

Louise gazed at Mrs. Potten as if she hoped that that lady had information to give her. But Mrs. Potten had none. She was merely thinking deeply.

"Well," she said, rising, "I suppose most old houses pretend to have ghosts. We have one at Potten End, but I have never seen it myself, and, as far as I know, it does no harm and no good. But Madame didn't see the ghost you speak of?" and here Mrs. Potten smiled a little satirically.

"It was Miss Scott," said Louise, darkly.

"Oh!" said Mrs. Potten, with a short laugh. "Oh, well!" and she came towards the maid with the card in her hand. "Now, will you be good enough to give this to Madame the moment that she returns and say that it is 'Urgent,' d'une importance extreme."

"Well," said Mrs. Potten to herself, as she walked through the court and gained the street, "and I should think it _was_ a disaster for a quiet, respectable Warden of an Oxford college to marry a person of the Scott type."

As to Louise, when she had closed the front door on Mrs. Potten's retreating figure, she gazed hard at the card in her hand. The writing was as follows:--

"Dear Lena,

"Can Miss Scott come to see me this afternoon without fail? Very kindly allow her to come early.

"M. P."

It did not contain anything more.

Now, Mrs. Potten really believed in ghosts, but she thought of them as dreary, uninteresting intruders on the world's history. There was Hamlet's father's ghost that spoke at such length, and there was the spirit that made Abraham's hair stand on end as it pa.s.sed before him, and then there was the ghost of Samuel that appeared to Saul and prophesied evil. But of all ghosts, the one that Mrs. Potten thought most dismal, was the ghost of the man-servant who came out from a mansion, full of light and music, one winter night on a Devon bye-road.

There he stood in the snow directing the lost travellers to the nearest inn, and (this was what struck Mrs. Potten's soul to the core) the half-crown (an actual precious piece of money) that was dropped into his hand--fell through the palm--on to the snow--and so the travellers knew that they had spoken to a spirit, and were leaving behind them a ghostly house with ghostly lights and the merriment of the dead.

Mrs. Potten's mind worked in columns, and had she been calm and happy she would have spent the time returning to Potten End in completing the list of ghosts she was acquainted with; but she was excited and full of tumultuous thoughts.

There was, indeed, in Mrs. Potten's soul the strife of various pa.s.sions: there was the desire to act in a high-handed, swift Potten manner, the desire to pursue and flatten any one who invaded the Potten preserves.

There was the desire to put her heavy individual foot upon a specimen of the modern female who betrays the honour and the interest of her own cla.s.s. There was also the general desire to show a fool that she was a fool. There was also the desire to snub Belinda Scott; and lastly, but not least, there was the desire to put her knife into any giddy young girl who had thrown her net over the Warden.

These desires fought tooth and nail with a certain dogged sentiment of fear--a fear of the Warden. If he was deeply in love, what might he do or not do? Would he put Potten End under a ban? Would he excommunicate her, Marian Potten?

And so Mrs. Potten's mind whirled.

At a certain shop in the High there was May Dashwood, looking at a window full of books. No doubt Lady Dashwood was inside, or, more probably, in the shop next door.

An inspiration came to Mrs. Potten. Was the Warden so very much in love?

Belinda Scott laid great stress on his being very much in love, and the whole thing being a surprise! Belinda Scott was a liar! And the little daughter who could stoop to thieving ten s.h.i.+llings at a bazaar, might well have been put on by her mother to some equally noxious behaviour to the Warden. She might have lain in wait for him behind doors and on staircases; she might----Mrs. Potten stopped her car, got out of it, and went behind May Dashwood and whispered in her ear.

May turned, her eyebrows very much raised, and listened to what Mrs.

Potten had to say.

Great urgency made Mrs. Potten as astute as a French detective.