No hope in herself; no hope in her friends; no hope any where on earth. Nothing to be done but to wait for the end--with faith in the Divine Mercy; with faith in the better world.
She took out of her trunk a little book of Prayers and Meditations--worn with much use--which had once belonged to her mother. She sat by the window reading it. Now and then she looked up from it--thinking. The parallel between her mother's position and her own position was now complete. Both married to husbands who hated them; to husbands whose interests pointed to mercenary alliances with other women; to husbands whose one want and one purpose was to be free from their wives. Strange, what different ways had led mother and daughter both to the same fate! Would the parallel hold to the end? "Shall I die," she wondered, thinking of her mother's last moments, "in Blanche's arms?"
The time had passed unheeded. The morning movement in the house had failed to catch her ear. She was first called out of herself to the sense of the present and passing events by the voice of the servant-girl outside the door.
"The master wants you, ma'am, down stairs."
She rose instantly and put away the little book.
"Is that all the message?" she asked, opening the door.
"Yes, ma'am."
She followed the girl down stairs; recalling to her memory the strange words addressed to her by Geoffrey, in the presence of the servants, on the evening before. Was she now to know what those words really meant? The doubt would soon be set at rest. "Be the trial what it may," she thought to herself, "let me bear it as my mother would have borne it."
The servant opened the door of the dining-room. Breakfast was on the table. Geoffrey was standing at the window. Hester Dethridge was waiting, posted near the door. He came forward--with the nearest approach to gentleness in his manner which she had ever yet seen in it--he came forward, with a set smile on his lips, and offered her his hand!
She had entered the room, prepared (as she believed) for any thing that could happen. She was not prepared for this. She stood speechless, looking at him.
After one glance at her, when she came in, Hester Dethridge looked at him, too--and from that moment never looked away again, as long as Anne remained in the room.
He broke the silence--in a voice that was not like his own; with a furtive restraint in his manner which she had never noticed in it before.
"Won't you shake hands with your husband," he asked, "when your husband asks you?"
She mechanically put her hand in his. He dropped it instantly, with a start. "God! how cold!" he exclaimed. His own hand was burning hot, and shook incessantly.
He pointed to a chair at the head of the table.
"Will you make the tea?" he asked.
She had given him her hand mechanically; she advanced a step mechanically--and then stopped.
"Would you prefer breakfasting by yourself?" he said.
"If you please," she answered, faintly.
"Wait a minute. I have something to say before you go."
She waited. He considered with himself; consulting his memory--visibly, unmistakably, consulting it before he spoke again.
"I have had the night to think in," he said. "The night has made a new man of me. I beg your pardon for what I said yesterday. I was not myself yesterday. I talked nonsense yesterday. Please to forget it, and forgive it. I wish to turn over a new leaf. and make amends--make amends for my past conduct. It shall be my endeavor to be a good husband. In the presence of Mrs. Dethridge, I request you to give me a chance. I won't force your inclinati ons. We are married--what's the use of regretting it? Stay here, as you said yesterday, on your own terms. I wish to make it up. In the presence of Mrs. Dethridge, I say I wish to make it up. I won't detain you. I request you to think of it. Good-morning."
He said those extraordinary words like a slow boy saying a hard lesson--his eyes on the ground, his fingers restlessly fastening and unfastening a button on his waistcoat.
Anne left the room. In the passage she was obliged to wait, and support herself against the wall. His unnatural politeness was horrible; his carefully asserted repentance chilled her to the soul with dread. She had never felt--in the time of his fiercest anger and his foulest language--the unutterable horror of him that she felt now.
Hester Dethridge came out, closing the door behind her. She looked attentively at Anne--then wrote on her slate, and held it out, with these words on it:
"Do you believe him?"
Anne pushed the slate away, and ran up stairs. She fastened the door--and sank into a chair.
"He is plotting something against me," she said to herself. "What?"
A sickening, physical sense of dread--entirely new in her experience of herself--made her shrink from pursuing the question. The sinking at her heart turned her faint. She went to get the air at the open window.
At the same moment there was a ring at the gate bell. Suspicious of any thing and every thing. she felt a sudden distrust of letting herself be seen. She drew back behind the curtain and looked out.
A man-servant, in livery, was let in. He had a letter in his hand. He said to the girl as he passed Anne's window, "I come from Lady Holchester; I must see Mr. Delamayn instantly."
They went in. There was an interval. The footman reappeared, leaving the place. There was another interval. Then there came a knock at the door. Anne hesitated. The knock was repeated, and the dumb murmuring of Hester Dethridge was heard outside. Anne opened the door.
Hester came in with the breakfast. She pointed to a letter among other things on the tray. It was addressed to Anne, in Geoffrey's handwriting, and it contained these words:
"My father died yesterday. Write your orders for your mourning. The boy will take them. You are not to trouble yourself to go to London. Somebody is to come here to you from the shop."
Anne dropped the paper on her lap without looking up. At the same moment Hester Dethridge's slate was passed stealthily between her eyes and the note--with these words traced on it. "His mother is coming to-day. His brother has been telegraphed from Scotland. He was drunk last night. He's drinking again. I know what that means. Look out, missus--look out."
Anne signed to her to leave the room. She went out, pulling the door to, but not closing it behind her.
There was another ring at the gate bell. Once more Anne went to the window. Only the lad, this time; arriving to take his orders for the day. He had barely entered the garden when he was followed by the postman with letters. In a minute more Geoffrey's voice was heard in the passage, and Geoffrey's heavy step ascended the wooden stairs. Anne hurried across the room to draw the bolts. Geoffrey met her before she could close the door.
"A letter for you," he said, keeping scrupulously out of the room. "I don't wish to force your inclinations--I only request you to tell me who it's from."
His manner was as carefully subdued as ever. But the unacknowledged distrust in him (when he looked at her) betrayed itself in his eye.
She glanced at the handwriting on the address.
"From Blanche," she answered.
He softly put his foot between the door and the post--and waited until she had opened and read Blanche's letter.
"May I see it?" he asked--and put in his hand for it through the door.
The spirit in Anne which would once have resisted him was dead in her now. She handed him the open letter.
It was very short. Excepting some brief expressions of fondness, it was studiously confined to stating the purpose for which it had been written. Blanche proposed to visit Anne that afternoon, accompanied by her uncle, she sent word beforehand, to make sure of finding Anne at home. That was all. The letter had evidently been written under Sir Patrick's advice.
Geoffrey handed it back, after first waiting a moment to think.
"My father died yesterday," he said. "My wife can't receive visitors before he is buried.