Chapter XVIII: Another Meeting

“I CAN’T think why Leo does not come back,” said Dulcibel complainingly.

“Perhaps he had somewhere else to go on his way,” suggested Nessie.

She was knitting a vague little mat with her small, limp, white hands, seated in Dulcibel’s bedroom, near the sofa on which Dulcibel lay. At the farthest of the three windows sat Marian, busily working, and still more busily thinking. Dulcibel never seemed content now unless Marian were within call.

“He had no business to go anywhere else. Leo knows how terribly anxious I am—how I cannot rest till I hear about the night. I do think he might come back, and tell me about your father, before attending to other business. It is not as if he were obliged. He is quite a man of leisure. And he has never been as late as this before. I am quite sure something must be detaining him—something seriously wrong. Nessie, do go and watch at the side window in the dining-room, and let me know directly you see him coming.”

Dulcibel spoke in a high, flurried tone, her cheeks flushing. Nessie obeyed, and Marian came nearer.

“I wouldn’t worry, if I were you,” she said soothingly. “It’ll be all right.”

“Not worry! How do you know it will be all right?” asked Dulcibel. “Oh, dear—if only Leo would make haste! I don’t know how to stand this suspense. My pillows are so uncomfortable, Marian; please shake them up. No; that is worse. I am aching all over to-day, and I feel so restless. I shall ask Mr. Forest if I can’t have a drive to-morrow, and see my husband perhaps. It seems so absurd to go on being ill like this, without any particular illness. If only Leo would come! I am quite sure something must be wrong—my husband is worse—or—”

Dulcibel was beginning to sob.

“But he may be better,” said Marian. “Perhaps he’s able to take more notice to-day, and likes to have Mr. Ackroyd with him.”

“I know it is not that—I am quite sure!” said Dulcibel. “Things always turn out wrongly with me.”

“If I was the one to say that to Mrs. Rutherford, I suppose I should be told that I showed a want of trust in God,” Marian said quietly.

Dulcibel almost smiled, then sighed.

“It’s easier to preach than to practice. If Leo would but come! Hush—is that the front door? Why doesn’t Nessie tell me she has seen him? Yes, it certainly is; and I can hear Leo’s voice. Something is wrong! Marian, go at once, please, and send him to me as quickly as possible. Don’t let him wait a moment.”

Marian obeyed, hastening down the wide oak staircase. At the foot of it she encountered Leonard Ackroyd alone.

“If you please, sir, Mrs. Rutherford is anxious to see you at once,” Marian said. “She is very much afraid Mr. Rutherford must be worse, from your coming later.”

“No; he is just about the same. Is Miss Rutherford with her mother? I’ll go upstairs to them?”

“Miss Rutherford is in the dining-room, I believe, sir. I will send her to you.”

Leonard went upstairs lightly, yet three steps at a time, in long strides; and Marian walked across the hall to the dining-room. She felt some surprise that Nessie had not come out, but entered, with a light tap.

No Nessie appeared within. One glance revealed that fact; and then all thought of Nessie faded out of Marian’s mind. For somebody else stood there beside the massive dining-table—stood facing her calmly, with lady-like composure and indifference.

Marian knew again these velvet-black eyes, with the marked, dark brows above—would have known them anywhere in the world. And the likeness to the little child of Marian’s recollections was more striking now than on a former occasion. The cold air had freshened Joan, and brought quite a color to her cheeks. Not only that, but, as she met Marian’s intense gaze, her dark brows drew together into the old petulant, childish frown of displeasure.

“What do you want?” Joan asked.

Marian scarcely understood the question. Her mind was possessed by one thought, and for the moment she quite lost sight of the need for self-control. With fixed, hungry eyes, and clasped hands she drew slowly nearer. Joan retreated two or three steps, but Marian followed as if unconsciously.

“What do you mean? What do you want?” demanded Joan, with considerable sharpness.

“Joan—my dear!” Marian spoke the words as if they were wrenched from her, not in the least knowing what she said. “O, my dear Joan—darling!”

“I am Miss Brooke, if you please!” Joan grew as white as pasteboard, standing haughtily upright. “Are you out of your mind, Marian? How dare you speak to me like that?”

“She doesn’t know! O, God, help me!” cried Marian, in thick, broken tones, staggering back against the sideboard. “I’m wrong—wrong—oh, help me!”

Joan stood looking, as deep sobs burst from Marian’s laboring chest. Two long minutes of silence were broken by no other sounds.

“I don’t understand what is the matter with you to-day—” Joan said this coldly and distinctly. “You seem to me to be talking nonsense. I don’t wish to say anything to give you pain, for I know you have been good to Mrs. Rutherford all through her illness. But of course I cannot be spoken to in such a way.”

“No, no; I was wrong,” moaned Marian, in a tone of such anguish that Joan could not turn away, could not walk out of the room and leave her. “I didn’t mean to say anything—I didn’t think I could be so weak!” Then the passionate sobs came back, and Marian leaned over the corner of the sideboard, wringing her hands again. “But, oh, I don’t know how to bear it—I don’t know how to bear it—now I’ve seen your face again! If you can’t say one kind word to me, I almost think—I—shall die.”

“I do not understand. What difference can it make to you how I choose to speak?” asked Joan.

What difference—and Joan was her own child! But the words that quivered on Marian’s lips were not uttered.

“It is quite an absurd fancy. I never knew anybody behave in such a way,” said Joan, refusing to face certain wild conjectures springing up in her mind. “Do leave off crying, and be sensible. Mrs. Rutherford may want you at any moment. Of course I feel kindly towards you, and so we all do, for your care of mother, but I do not in the least know what you mean by all this. Please have no more scenes.”

Marian drew herself upright, and gave Joan one look of unspeakable pain and reproach, then slowly left the room, just as Leo entered it. Joan sat down, suddenly finding herself unable to stand.

“Aunt Dulcibel would like to see you,” he began; and then stopped. “Why, Joan—”

She could hardly utter the words, “I can’t.”

“Joan, what has happened?”

“I don’t know—only—” Joan was shivering like an aspen, and as white as when she had first left the hotel. “Don’t ask, please. I can’t see mother. I’m going back to father.”

“Has Marian said anything to you about him?”

“No, nothing!”

“But she must have said something. You were not like this when I left you.”

“Oh, no; she is only—odd!”

“How? I don’t understand.”

Joan took the most efficacious possible step for putting an end to further questions, for she nearly fainted away. Leo, much distressed, laid her on the sofa, and summoned the old housekeeper to his aid. Nessie presently stole in, to ask why nobody came upstairs, and was greatly concerned to find the state of affairs.

Leo and Nessie would gladly have kept Joan at the Hall for a few hours, but Joan would not hear of it. She offered no explanation of her sudden illness, and made nothing of it, seeming only desirous to get back as quickly as possible to George Rutherford. Before she was quite well enough for the drive Leo went once more for a few words with Dulcibel, whom he found in a very fractious state.

“It was too bad of Joan,” she said—“after promising to come and see her, and now to be going away without a word. But Joan never did care for her, and it was most ungrateful. Of course Joan couldn’t help fainting; but surely she could stay a little while, till well enough to walk upstairs. And where was Marian all this time? Nobody had seen Marian; and everything was upside down; and it was all extremely trying.”

Leo did his best to sympathize, and then went off in search of Marian. Quite by accident he met her outside, coming towards Dulcibel’s room. She looked inexpressibly wan and wretched, with drooping air, and heavy, reddened eyes. Leo paused, and gave her one searching glance.

“Come here, Marian,” he said, opening a door; and she followed him meekly into the little boudoir. “I want to know what has passed between you and Miss Brooke.”

“Sir?” Marian said.

“What passed between you and Miss Brooke? Something, surely—” as no answer came—“if it could cause her to faint, and you—”

Marian’s regretful start was very perceptible.

“Sir, I acted wrongly,” she said. “I acted wrongly, and I am sorry for it. But it wouldn’t make matters any better if I was to explain things to you, and I’d better hold my tongue.”

“Did you say anything about the doctor’s opinion of Mr. Rutherford?”

“No, sir. We did not mention Mr. Rutherford,” Marian answered, hanging her head patiently. “I behaved with what Miss Brooke counted too much freedom. She rebuked me, and I—I was much upset. I do not defend myself, but—”

Leo was considerably perplexed.

“Miss Brooke has not complained of you,” he said.

“No, sir. The less spoken the better,” Marian said, calmly and sadly. “I didn’t expect to be so easily overcome. I thought I was stronger. But we’re often most weak where we count ourselves strong; and so it’s proved with me.”

“Why should you be ‘weak,’ as you call it, in connection with Miss Brooke?” asked Leo.

Marian murmured something about a “likeness.”

“Are you speaking the truth to me?” asked Leonard, with some severity.

She raised her saddened, dim eyes to his.

“Yes, sir, the truth, but not all the truth. Miss Brooke does bear a likeness to one in the past, and it upsets me to see her. But there’s more behind, which I’d best not tell, and you’d best not ask. If Mr. Rutherford was up and well—”

Leo sighed.

“We must hope for that,” he said. “I suppose I ought not to insist on a fuller explanation just now. But I cannot risk any repetition of such scenes, for Miss Brooke’s own sake.”

“No, sir. You shall not have to blame me again.”

“How if you prove weak and easily overcome a second time, Marian?”

She straightened herself, and smiled dimly.

“There’s strength for the weak, and I’m safer now I don’t count myself to be strong,” she said. “No, I shall not be overcome again. I know now what I have to bear, and the sorrow I’ve brought on myself has to be borne with patience. It’s no easy matter, but it must be done. I’d offer to leave, and go back to my father’s, but I do think Mrs. Rutherford would feel it. She seems to depend on me so. It would be easier for me to go than to stay; only I can’t think it right. But you must decide, sir. They all look to you now.”

“I think we must not make any sudden changes,” said Leo gravely.