If you're going to faint, do me a favour--wait till I can get the brandy-bottle. Oh! it's natural to you, is it? I see. A thick skin and a slow circulation; you will live to be an old woman. A friend of yours, Miss Henley?"
Fanny answered composedly for herself: "I am Miss Henley's maid, sir."
"What's become of the other one?" Mr. Vimpany asked. "Aye? aye? Staying at a farm-house for the benefit of her health, is she? If I had been allowed time enough, I would have made a cure of Rhoda Bennet. There isn't a medical man in England who knows more than I do of the nervous maladies of women--and what is my reward? Is my waiting-room crammed with rich people coming to consult me? Do I live in a fashionable Square? Have I even been made a Baronet? Damn it--I beg your pardon, Miss Henley--but it is irritating, to a man of my capacity, to be completely neglected. For the last three days not a creature has darkened the doors of this house. Could I say a word to you?"
He led Iris mysteriously into a corner of the room. "About our friend downstairs?" he began.
"When may we hope that he will be well again, Mr. Vimpany?"
"Maybe in three weeks. In a month at most. I have nobody here but a stupid servant girl. We ought to have a competent nurse. I can get a thoroughly trained person from the hospital; but there's a little difficulty. I am an outspoken man. When I am poor, I own I am poor. My lord must be well fed; the nurse must be well fed. Would you mind advancing a small loan, to provide beforehand for the payment of expenses?"
Iris handed her purse to him, sick of the sight of Mr. Vimpany. "Is that all?" she asked, making for the door.
"Much obliged. That's all."
As they approached the room on the ground floor, Iris stopped: her eyes rested on the doctor. Even to that coarse creature, the eloquent look spoke for her. Fanny noticed it, and suddenly turned her head aside. Over the maid's white face there passed darkly an expression of unutterable contempt. Her mistress's weakness had revealed itself--weakness for one of the betrayers of women; weakness for a man! In the meantime, Mr. Vimpany (having got the money) was ready to humour the enviable young lady with a well-filled purse.
"Do you want to see my lord before you go?" he asked, amused at the idea. "Mind! you mustn't disturb him! No talking, and no crying. Ready? Now look at him."
There he lay on a shabby little sofa, in an ugly little room; his eyes closed; one helpless hand hanging down; a stillness on his ghastly face, horribly suggestive of the stillness of death--there he lay, the reckless victim of his love for the woman who had desperately renounced him again and again, who had now saved him for the third time. Ah, how her treacherous heart pleaded for him! Can you drive him away from you after this? You, who love him, what does your cold-blooded prudence say, when you look at him now?
She felt herself drawn, roughly and suddenly, back into the passage. The door was closed; the doctor was whispering to her. "Hold up, Miss! I expected better things of you. Come! come!--no fainting. You'll find him a different man to-morrow. Pay us a visit, and judge for yourself."
After what she had suffered, Iris hungered for sympathy. "Isn't it pitiable?" she said to her maid as they left the house.
"I don't know, Miss."
"You don't know? Good heavens, are you made of stone? Have you no such thing as a heart in you?"
"Not for the men," Fanny answered. "I keep my pity for the women."
Iris knew what bitter remembrances made their confession in those words. How she missed Rhoda Bennet at that moment!
CHAPTER XIX
MR. HENLEY AT HOME
FOR a month, Mountjoy remained in his cottage on the shores of the Solway Firth, superintending the repairs.
His correspondence with Iris was regularly continued; and, for the first time in his experience of her, was a cause of disappointment to him.
Her replies revealed an incomprehensible change in her manner of writing, which became more and more marked in each succeeding instance. Notice it as he might in his own letters, no explanation followed on the part of his correspondent. She, who had so frankly confided her joys and sorrows to him in past days, now wrote with a reserve which seemed only to permit the most vague and guarded allusion to herself. The changes in the weather; the alternation of public news that was dull, and public news that was interesting; the absence of her father abroad, occasioned by doubt of the soundness of his investments in foreign securities; vague questions relating to Hugh's new place of abode, which could only have proceeded from a preoccupied mind--these were the topics on which Iris dwelt, in writing to her faithful old friend. It was hardly possible to doubt that something must have happened, which she had reasons--serious reasons, as it seemed only too natural to infer--for keeping concealed from Mountjoy. Try as he might to disguise it from himself, he now knew how dear, how hopelessly dear, she was to him by the anxiety that he suffered, and by the jealous sense of injury which defied his self-command. His immediate superintendence of the workmen at the cottage was no longer necessary. Leaving there a representative whom he could trust, he resolved to answer his last letter, received from Iris, in person.
The next day he was in London.
Calling at the house, he was informed that Miss Henley was not at home, and that it was impossible to say with certainty when she might return. While he was addressing his inquiries to the servant, Mr. Henley opened the library door. "Is that you, Mountjoy?" he asked. "Come in: I want to speak to you."
Short and thick-set, with a thin-lipped mouth, a coarsely-florid complexion, and furtive greenish eyes; hard in his manner, and harsh in his voice; Mr. Henley was one of the few heartless men, who are innocent of deception on the surface: he was externally a person who inspired, at first sight, feelings of doubt and dislike. His manner failed to show even a pretence of being glad to see Hugh. What he had to say, he said walking up and down the room, and scratching his bristly iron-gray hair from time to time. Those signs of restlessness indicated, to those who knew him well, that he had a selfish use to make of a fellow-creature, and failed to see immediately how to reach the end in view.
"I say, Mountjoy," he began, "have you any idea of what my daughter is about?"
"I don't even understand what you mean," Hugh replied. "For the last month I have been in Scotland."
"You and she write to each other, don't you?"
"Yes."
"Hasn't she told you--"
"Excuse me for interrupting you, Mr. Henley; she has told me nothing."
Mr. Henley stared absently at the superbly-bound books on his library-shelves (never degraded by the familiar act of reading), and scratched his head more restlessly than ever.
"Look here, young man. When you were staying with me in the country, I rather hoped it might end in a marriage engagement. You and Iris disappointed me--not for the first time.