"I'll get the particulars from the reference first," thought Mrs. Milroy, "and then question the creature herself, and see if the two stories agree."
The letter of inquiry was short, and scrupuously to the point.
Mrs. Milroy began by informing her correspondent that the state of her health necessitated leaving her daughter entirely under the governess's influence and control. On that account she was more anxious than most mothers to be thoroughly informed in every respect about the person to whom she confided the entire charge of an only child; and feeling this anxiety, she might perhaps be excused for putting what might be thought, after the excellent character Miss Gwilt had received, a somewhat unnecessary question. With that preface, Mrs. Milroy came to the point, and requested to be informed of the circumstances which had obliged Miss Gwilt to go out as a governess.
The letter, expressed in these terms, was posted the same day. On the morning when the answer was due, no answer appeared. The next morning arrived, and still there was no reply. When the third morning came, Mrs. Milroy's impatience had broken loose from all restraint. She had rung for the nurse in the manner which has been already recorded, and had ordered the woman to be in waiting to receive the letters of the morning with her own hands. In this position matters now stood; and in these domestic circumstances the new series of events at Thorpe Ambrose took their rise.
Mrs. Milroy had just looked at her watch, and had just put her hand once more to the bell-pull, when the door opened and the nurse entered the room.
"Has the postman come?" asked Mrs. Milroy.
The nurse laid a letter on the bed without answering, and waited, with unconcealed curiosity, to watch the effect which it produced on her mistress.
Mrs. Milroy tore open the envelope the instant it was in her hand. A printed paper appeared (which she threw aside), surrounding a letter (which she looked at) in her own handwriting! She snatched up the printed paper. It was the customary Post-office circular, informing her that her letter had been duly presented at the right address, and that the person whom she had written to was not to be found.
"Something wrong?" asked the nurse, detecting a change in her mistress's face.
The question passed unheeded. Mrs. Milroy's writing-desk was on the table at the bedside. She took from it the letter which the major's mother had written to her son, and turned to the page containing the name and address of Miss Gwilt's reference. "Mrs Mandeville, 18 Kingsdown Crescent, Bayswater," she read, eagerly to herself, and then looked at the address on her own returned letter. No error had been committed: the directions were identically the same.
"Something wrong?" reiterated the nurse, advancing a step nearer to the bed.
"Thank God--yes!" cried Mrs. Milroy, with a sudden outburst of exultation. She tossed the Post-office circular to the nurse, and beat her bony hands on the bedclothes in an ecstasy of anticipated triumph. "Miss Gwilt's an impostor! Miss Gwilt's an impostor! If I die for it, Rachel, I'll be carried to the window to see the police take her away!"
"It's one thing to say she's an impostor behind her back, and another thing to prove it to her face," remarked the nurse. She put her hand as she spoke into her apron pocket, and, with a significant look at her mistress, silently produced a second letter.
"For me?" asked Mrs. Milroy.
"No!" said the nurse; "for Miss Gwilt."
The two women eyed each other, and understood each other without another word.
"Where is she?" said Mrs. Milroy.
The nurse pointed in the direction of the park. "Out again, for another walk before breakfast--by herself."
Mrs. Milroy beckoned to the nurse to stoop close over her. "Can you open it, Rachel?" she whispered.
Rachel nodded.
"Can you close it again, so that nobody would know?"
"Can you spare the scarf that matches your pearl gray dress?" asked Rachel.
"Take it!" said Mrs. Milroy, impatiently.
The nurse opened the wardrobe in silence, took the scarf in silence, and left the room in silence. In less than five minutes she came back with the envelope of Miss Gwilt's letter open in her hand.
"Thank you, ma'am, for the scarf," said Rachel, putting the open letter composedly on the counterpane of the bed.
Mrs. Milroy looked at the envelope. It had been closed as usual by means of adhesive gum, which had been made to give way by the application of steam. As Mrs. Milroy took out the letter, her hand trembled violently, and the white enamel parted into cracks over the wrinkles on her forehead.
Rachel withdrew to the window to keep watch on the park. "Don't hurry," she said. "No signs of her yet."
Mrs. Milroy still paused, keeping the all-important morsel of paper folded in her hand. She could have taken Miss Gwilt's life, but she hesitated at reading Miss Gwilt's letter.
"Are you troubled with scruples?" asked the nurse, with a sneer. "Consider it a duty you owe to your daughter."
"You wretch!" said Mrs. Milroy. With that expression of opinion, she opened the letter.
It was evidently written in great haste, was undated, and was signed in initials only. Thus it ran:
"Diana Street.
"BY DEAR LYDIA--The cab is waiting at the door, and I have only a moment to tell you that I am obliged to leave London, on business, for three or four days, or a week at longest. My letters will be forwarded if you write. I got yours yesterday, and I agree with you that it is very important to put him off the awkward subject of yourself and your family as long as you safely can. The better you know him, the better you will be able to make up the sort of story that will do. Once told, you will have to stick to it; and, having to stick to it, beware of making it complicated, and beware of making it in a hurry. I will write again about this, and give you my own ideas. In the meantime, don't risk meeting him too often in the park.
"Yours, M. O."
"Well?" asked the nurse, returning to the bedside. "Have you done with it?"
"Meeting him in the park!" repeated Mrs. Milroy, with her eyes still fastened on the letter. "Him! Rachel, where is the major?"
"In his own room."
"I don't believe it! "
"Have your own way. I want the letter and the envelope."
"Can you close it again so that she won't know?"
"What I can open I can shut. Anything more?"
"Nothing more."
Mrs. Milroy was left alone again, to review her plan of attack by the new light that had now been thrown on Miss Gwilt.
The information that had been gained by opening the governess's letter pointed plainly to the conclusion that an adventuress had stolen her way into the house by means of a false reference. But having been obtained by an act of treachery which it was impossible to acknowledge, it was not information that could be used either for warning the major or for exposing Miss Gwilt. The one available weapon in Mrs. Milroy's hands was the weapon furnished by her own returned letter, and the one question to decide was how to make the best and speediest use of it.
The longer she turned the matter over in her mind, the more hasty and premature seemed the exultation which she had felt at the first sight of the Post-office circular. That a lady acting as reference to a governess should have quitted her residence without leaving any trace behind her, and without even mentioning an address to which her letters could be forwarded, was a circumstance in itself sufficiently suspicious to be mentioned to the major. But Mrs. Milroy, however perverted her estimate of her husband might be in some respects, knew enough of his character to be assured that, if she told him what had happened, he would frankly appeal to the governess herself for an explanation. Miss Gwilt's quickness and cunning would, in that case, produce some plausible answer on the spot, which the major's partiality would be only too ready to accept; and she would at the same time, no doubt, place matters in train, by means of the post, for the due arrival of all needful confirmation on the part of her accomplice in London. To keep strict silence for the present, and to institute (without the governess's knowledge) such inquiries as might be necessary to the discovery of undeniable evidence, was plainly the only safe course to take with such a man as the major, and with such a woman as Miss Gwilt. Helpless herself, to whom could Mrs. Milroy commit the difficult and dangerous task of investigation? The nurse, even if she was to be trusted, could not be spared at a day's notice, and could not be sent away without the risk of exciting remark. Was there any other competent and reliable person to employ, either at Thorpe Ambrose or in London? Mrs. Milroy turned from side to side of the bed, searching every corner of her mind for the needful discovery, And searching in vain. "Oh, if I could only lay my hand on some man I could trust!" she thought, despairingly. "If I only knew where to look for somebody to help me!"
As the idea passed through her mind, the sound of her daughter's voice startled her from the other side of the door.