A Mere Chance Volume III Part 23

"Oh, Mr. Dalrymple--it was so kind of you to come," she said, in her quick, easy way. "I must apologise for summoning you in such a very informal manner, but--a--won't you sit down?"

She dropped into one of her soft, low chairs; and her visitor seated himself at a little distance from her, not hesitatingly, but with just so much deliberation as indicated a protest against the prolongation of the interview.

"I understood from your note that you wished to see me upon some business," he suggested gravely.

"I did," she replied, feeling unaccountably fl.u.s.tered. "Perhaps you will think it rather impertinent of me--perhaps it is a liberty for me to take--but the fact is I have so deep an interest in my cousin's welfare--she is so very dear to me--I must plead that as my excuse----"

"You are speaking of Mrs. Kingston?" he interposed in the same cool and distant manner, "I hope she is quite well? I have not had the pleasure of seeing her since her marriage."

"She is quite well, thank you. I trust she will keep so, but I am afraid she is not very strong. Mr. Dalrymple, I ought perhaps to tell you that I--that Rachel told me--that I am aware of the relations.h.i.+p that has existed between you."

"We will not speak of that, if you please, Mrs. Reade."

"But I sent for you on purpose to speak of it."

"Then I must ask you to excuse me," he said, rising haughtily. "I cannot discuss those matters with strangers--still less with a member of Miss Fetherstonhaugh's family."

"But, Mr. Dalrymple, _I_ am not to blame for anything that has happened--for any mistakes that have been made--I a.s.sure you I am not. I never knew of your accident--I never knew that Mr. Gordon came down--I never knew anything more than Rachel did, until it was too late. And I was her intimate friend all that time, and she made me her _confidante_.

I served her interests as far as a friend who loved her could, to the best of my power."

"If that is so, I am very grateful to you," he said gently, "though I am afraid you failed to see what her interests were. May I ask if you are acting under her instructions now? Did she authorise you to make this appointment for the purpose of speaking of these things?"

"Of course she did not."

"Then we will not speak of them. There would be very grave impropriety in doing so. You must see, Mrs. Reade, that nothing you can say will in the least degree affect the case for anyone. I think we all know the truth of the story now. It is too late to take any action one way or the other. For Mrs. Kingston's sake, the fewer reminiscences we allow the better. Our business is to reconcile ourselves to circ.u.mstances, since they are irrevocable, and to let the past alone. If it was your intention to explain to me that you were guiltless of active partic.i.p.ation in the crime which parted us, believe me, I appreciate the kind motive, and I thank you from my heart. But it is much better not to say any more about it."

He was still standing with his hat in his hand, and that peculiar distant look in his sad and haughty face. Mrs. Reade sat before him in her low chair silent, with her eyes cast down.

Not one of the numerous gentlemen in whose affairs she had condescended to take an interest had ever treated her like this, and she felt inexpressibly humiliated. Yet she had no sense of resentment, strange to say, against the individual who dominated her, and the position generally, in such an unexampled manner.

"Did I understand you to say that Mrs. Kingston was not strong?" he inquired after a short pause.

"I think she is very well," Mrs. Reade meekly responded. "Her const.i.tution is quite sound; but her nervous system is delicate. She cannot stand worry, or shocks, or any great excitement or fatigue--any of those things upset her."

"I should imagine so. But it is always possible to keep her free of those things, is it not?"

Mrs. Reade replied, not so much to the letter as to the spirit of the question.

"Her husband takes good care of her," she said. "He is very thoughtful for her comfort. She does not run any risk of harm that he can spare her. If we are all as careful of her welfare as he is, Mr. Dalrymple--if we are as scrupulous to protect her peace now she is at peace----"

She broke off, and lifted her eyes wistfully.

Mr. Dalrymple looked down upon her with stately and impenetrable composure.

"I am deeply thankful to know that her marriage has so far been satisfactory," he said. "I suppose the house in Toorak is nearly finished, is it not?"

"It is quite finished. They went into it three weeks ago."

"It promised to be a very good house, though rather of the _nouveaux riches_ order of architecture," he proceeded coolly; "and unfortunately it is impossible to manufacture trees, without which the best house looks bald and naked. But it stands well. It must be a very healthy situation; and that, after all, is the princ.i.p.al consideration."

"I hope she will be happy in it," said Mrs. Reade. Her soul rebelled against this mode of treating the question, and yet her efforts to divert the discussion into the channels that she had designed for it were absurdly feeble and futile.

"I hope so, indeed," he replied gravely. "I suppose you see a great deal of her, do you not?"

"Yes. I seldom miss a day without seeing her. Either I go to Toorak, or she comes here, or we meet somewhere about town. _I_ do whatever is in my power to help to make her happy."

"It must be a happiness to you, too, to have her friends.h.i.+p and confidence in such a marked degree."

"It is," said Mrs. Reade.

"I--if you will excuse me--I will say good morning. Allow me to thank you very much for permitting me to call, and for your kind interest in my misfortunes--and in Mrs. Kingston's welfare. But the greatest service you can do her, Mrs. Reade, is to be silent yourself, and to discourage gossip in others, about anything that occurred either before or since her marriage in connection with me. I hope I do not seem discourteous in saying this--if so, pray forgive me. I speak to you frankly, because you are her friend. I am afraid she has not had many friends--there is the more reason that we who desire her welfare and happiness, should take every precaution against imperilling it by allowing any hint of these private matters to reach the ears of vulgar scandalmongers. A great crime has been done, for which if there is anything in the theory of retribution, some one will have to answer some day; but in the meantime our part is to take care that _she_ is spared as much difficulty and suffering as possible."

"Yes, Mr. Dalrymple. That is what I think--that is what I was going to say."

"I am sure you think so. I am sure you see that that is all we can do for her now. Good morning. I am much obliged to you for your kindness.

It looks rather as if we were going to have a storm, does it not? The air is close and sultry, and the gla.s.s is falling very fast."

He turned from looking out of the window and made a stately bow; she laid her hand upon the bell mechanically--she had no arts wherewith to keep him; and in another minute he had pa.s.sed out of the house, and the door was shut upon him. The interview which was to have had such great results was over.

We have heard it said of a pioneer colonist, lessee of a Crown-land princ.i.p.ality, that, after bearing the reverses of fortune which, with the advent of free selectors, overwhelmed him, the loss of land and stock and the acc.u.mulated treasure of toilsome and prosperous years, with the fort.i.tude and equanimity of a gentleman, he was broken down at last by the unspeakable humiliation of the circ.u.mstance that he had "lived to hear himself called a boss-c.o.c.ky."

Mrs. Reade had not only been defied and defeated, and made to feel small and ridiculous in her own drawing-room, where never man or woman--man, especially--had never dared dispute her supremacy; but she had lived to hear herself called, or at any rate to find herself considered, a _gossip_--a common tattler and busybody, who intrigued in other people's private affairs from the vulgar feminine love of meddling--and the blow was equally bitter.

She stood in the bow window of her drawing-room, and watched the tall figure leisurely striding through the garden as if South Yarra and the adjacent suburbs were but a small part of his possessions; taking in all the details of his strong majestic figure, his thin, dark, proud face, with its immense moustache, the perfection of his quiet dress, and the repose and dignity of his bearing generally, and of every distinct movement that he made--even when trying to open a gate with a mysterious fastening, at which most people fumbled and bungled awkwardly.

But she was _not_ consumed with a pa.s.sion of angry resentment against him for the indignities and humiliations that he had heaped upon her.

No, she was filled with a vague but intense respect and admiration for him, a feeling that she had never before entertained for any individual of his s.e.x.

She did not say it to herself in so many words, but the thought of her heart undoubtedly was that here was the man, who as a husband, would just have suited her.

CHAPTER VII.

GOOD-BYE.

On that same day, at a little after four o'clock in the afternoon, Mrs.

Kingston might have been seen--she _was_ seen, in fact--going into the Town Hall by herself, having left her carriage in the street below. She mounted the stone steps lightly, with the train of her dress held up in her hand, looking exquisitely fresh and dainty in the dusty sultriness that everywhere prevailed; and she glided through the vestibule as if time were precious, paid her sixpence, and entered the hall, where she took a solitary seat under the shadow of the gallery at the lower end.

The organist was interpreting Mozart to some hundreds of receptive citizens, making the great organ sing like a choir of angels in the "Gloria" of the Twelfth Ma.s.s, "_et in terra pax, pax, pax hominibus; bonae, bonae voluntatis_." All the s.p.a.cious place was flooded with the impa.s.sioned harmonies of that inspired theme.

Rachel was not what is popularly called musical, but in the dulness of her empty life her soul slacked its thirst in this way, as a soul of a lower order, which had been denied its natural nourishment, might have found comfort in the emotional stimulus of champagne or brandy.

She could not play well herself, but she was like a fine instrument to be played upon; not one sweet phrase of melody pa.s.sed from her listening ear to her sensitive heart without wakening an echo that had the very divine afflatus in it in response. And in this resonance of enthusiasms and aspirations, dumb and suffocated in the bondage of her artificial life--in the sense of breathing spiritual air, and freedom, though with a pa.s.sion of enjoyment that filled her with far more pain than peace--she found the one true luxury of her much-envied lot.

Long ago--oh, so long ago!--the music of a violin had led her into enchantment, as the Pied Piper of Hamelin led away the children. To-day the music of the Town Hall organ, speaking now in Mozart's dramatic choruses, and again in Baptiste's Andante in G, was a similar but a sadder incantation.