I WAS SITTING next day by myself, with my mind full of these thoughts, when I was suddenly roused by a shadow which flitted across the light, and then by the sound of some one knocking at the window which opened into my garden. I looked up hurriedly, and saw Lady Isabella. She was very pale, yet looked breathless, as if she had been running. She made me a hasty, imperative gesture to open, and when I had done so, came in without suffering me to shut the window. ‘Mrs. Mulgrave,’ she said, panting between the words, ‘I have a very strange — request — to make. I want to speak with — some one — for ten minutes — alone. May we — come — here? I have nothing to conceal — from you. It is him; — he has something — to say to me — for the last time.’
‘Lady Isabella — —’ I said.
‘Don’t — say anything. It is strange — I know — but it must be; for the last time.’
She did not seem able to stand for another moment. She sank down into the nearest chair, making a great effort to command herself. ‘Dear Mrs. Mulgrave — please call him,’ she cried faintly: ‘he is there. It will only be for ten minutes — there is something to explain.’
I went out into the garden, and called him. He looked as much agitated as she did, and I went round the house, and through the kitchen-door with a sense of bewilderment which I could not put into words. Edith Bellinger’s bridegroom! What could he have to explain? What right had he to seek her, to make any private communication? I felt indignant with him, and impatient with her. Then I went into the dining-room and waited. My dining-room windows command the road, and along this I could see Mrs. Spencer walking in her quick, alert way. She was coming towards my house, in search, probably, of her companion. There was something absurd in the whole business, and yet the faces of the two I had just left were too tragical to allow any flippancy on the part of the spectator. Mrs. Spencer came direct to my door as I supposed, and I had to step out and stop the maid, who was about to usher her into the drawing-room where those two were. Mrs. Spencer was a little excited too.
‘Have you seen Isabella?’ she said. ‘She was only about half-a-dozen yards behind me, round the corner at the Lodge; and when I turned to look for her she was gone. She could not have dropped into the earth you know, and I know she would never have gone to the Lodge. Is she here? It has given me quite a turn, as the maids say. She cannot have vanished altogether, like a fairy. She was too substantial for that.’
‘She will be here directly,’ said I; ‘she is speaking to some one in the other room.’
‘Speaking — to some one! You look very strange, Mrs. Mulgrave, and Isabella has been looking very strange. Who is she speaking to? I am her nearest friend and I ought to know.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘you ought to know, that is certain — but wait, only wait, ten minutes — that was the time she said.’
And then we two sat and looked at each other, not knowing what to think. I knew scarcely more than she did, but the little that I knew made me only the more anxious. If his wife should hear of it — if Lady Isabella were to betray herself, compromise herself! And then what was the good of it all? No explanation could annul a fact, and the less explanation the better between a married man and his former love. This feeling made me wretched as the time went on. Time seems so doubly long when one is waiting, and especially when one is waiting for the result of some private, secret, mysterious interview. The house was so quiet, the maids moving about the kitchen, the chirp of the sparrows outside, the drip — drip of a shower, which was just over, from the leaves. All these sounds made the silence deeper, especially as there was no sound from that mysterious room.
‘The ten minutes are long past,’ said Mrs. Spencer. ‘I don’t understand what all this mystery can mean. It is more like an hour, I think.’
‘Oh, do you think so?’ said I, though I fully agreed with her. ‘When one is waiting time looks so long. She will be here directly. I hear her now — that was her voice.’
And so it certainly was. But everything became silent again the next instant. It was a sharp exclamation, sudden and high; and then we heard no more.
‘I cannot wait any longer,’ said Mrs. Spencer. ‘I don’t know what this can mean; I must have an explanation. Mrs. Mulgrave, if you will not come with me, I will go myself to Isabella. I don’t understand what she can mean.’
‘I will go,’ said I; and we rose at the same moment and hurried to the door. But we had not time to open it when a sudden sound was audible, which arrested us both. The door of the other room was opened, voices came towards us — two voices, and then a laugh. Was it Lady Isabella’s laugh? Mrs. Spencer drew near me and pinched my arm violently. ‘Is it Isabella? What, oh, what can it mean?’ she said with a look of terror. And then the door was thrown suddenly open, driving us back as we stood in our consternation within.
It was Lady Isabella who stood before us, and yet it was not the Lady Isabella I had ever known. When Mrs. Spencer saw her she gave a suppressed groan and sat down suddenly on the nearest chair. This Lady Isabella was leaning on Colonel Brentford’s arm. Her face was flushed and rosy; her eyes shining like stars, yet full of tears; dimples I had never seen before were in her cheeks and about her mouth. She was radiant, she was young, she was running over with joy and happiness. In her joy and triumph she did not notice, I suppose, the sudden despair of her friend. ‘I have come to tell you,’ she said hastily, ‘he never meant it. It is all over. Oh, do you understand? All this cloud that has lasted for ten years, that has come between us and the skies — it is all over, all over. He never meant it. Do you understand?’
Mrs. Spencer stood up tottering, looking like a ghost. ‘Isabella! I thought you had forgotten him. I thought it was this that was all over. I thought you were content.’
Lady Isabella gave her a look of that supreme happiness which is not considerate of other people’s feelings. ‘I am content now,’ she said, clasping her hands upon Colonel Brentford’s arm, ‘more than content.’
Mrs. Spencer answered with a bitter cry. ‘Then I am nothing to her, nothing to her!’ she said.
It was at this moment that I interfered. I could keep silence no longer. I put myself between the two who were so happy and the one who was so miserable. ‘Before another word is said I must have this explained to me,’ I said. ‘He is Edith Bellinger’s husband. And this is my house — —’
He interrupted me hurriedly: ‘I am no one’s husband but hers,’ he said. ‘You have been mistaken. Edith Bellinger has married my brother. There is no woman to me in the world but Isabella — never has been — never could be, though I lived a hundred years.’
‘And it is you who have brought us together,’ cried Lady Isabella, suddenly throwing her arms round me. ‘God bless you for it! I should never have known, it would never have been possible but for you.’
And he came to me and took both my hands. ‘God bless you for it, I say too! We might have been two forlorn creatures all our lives but for you.’
I was overwhelmed with their thanks, with the surprise, and the shock. If I had done anything to bring this about I had done it in ignorance; but they surrounded me so with their joy and their gratitude, and the excitement of the revolution which had happened in them, that it was some minutes before I could think of anything else. And there was so much to be explained. But when I recovered myself so far as to look round and think of the other who did not share in their joy, I found she was gone. She had disappeared while they were thanking me, while I was expressing my wonder and my good wishes. None of us had either heard or seen her departure, but she was gone.
‘Was Mrs. Spencer to blame?’ I asked with some anxiety when the tumult had subsided a little, and they had seated themselves like ordinary mortals and begun to accustom themselves to their delight. ‘Had she anything to do with the quarrel between you?’
‘Nothing at all,’ said Lady Isabella. ‘She never saw George till she saw him in your house.’
‘When you asked me for that rose—’ said he. ‘The rose you used to be so fond of; and I felt as if the skies had opened — —’
‘You turned your back upon me all the same,’ she said with the laugh that had suddenly become so joyous. They had forgotten everything but themselves and the new story of their reconciliation: which I suppose the old story of their estrangement thus recalled and reconsidered made doubly sweet.
‘But about Mrs. Spencer?’ I said.
‘Poor Mrs. Spen! She had got to be fond of me. She thought we were to spend all our lives together,’ said Lady Isabella with momentary gravity; and then the smile crept once more about the corners of her mouth, and the dimples which had been hidden all these years disclosed themselves, and her face warmed into sunshine as she turned to him. This was my fate whenever I tried to bring back the conversation to Mrs. Spencer, who, poor soul, had disappeared like a shadow before that sunshine. I was glad for their sakes to see them so happy; but still I could not but feel that it was hard to have given your life and love for years and to be rewarded at the end by that ‘poor Mrs. Spen.’
The news made a great commotion through all Dinglefield, and Mrs. Spencer did not make so much difficulty about it as I fancied she would. The marriage was from her house, and she took a great deal of trouble, and no mother could have been more careful and tender about a bride. But she made no fuss, poor soul — she had not the heart; and though I don’t like fuss, I missed it in this case, and felt that it was a sign how deep the blow had gone. Even Lady Isabella, pre-occupied as she was, felt it. She had not realized it perhaps — few people do. We are all in the habit of laughing at the idea of friendships so close and exacting, especially when they exist between women. But to Mrs. Spencer it was as if life itself had gone from her. Her companion had gone from her, the creature she loved best. Next to a man’s wife deserting him, or a woman’s husband, I know nothing more hard. Her pretty house, her flowers, her perfect comfort and grace of life palled upon her. She had kept them up chiefly, I think, for the young woman who, she had thought, poor soul, was wedded to her for life. Perhaps it was a foolish thought, perhaps it might be a little selfish to try to keep Colonel Brentford away. I suppose to be married is the happiest; but still I was very, very sorry, grieved more than I can say, for the woman who was forsaken; though she was only forsaken by another woman and not by a man.
However that, I fear, is a sentiment in which I should find few sympathizers. The Brentfords took a place in the neighbourhood, and I believe Lady Isabella was a very happy wife. As for poor little Edith Bellinger, she had married the Colonel’s elder brother, Sir Charles, and was Lady Brentford, to her great astonishment and that of everybody about. It had been her doubt and reluctance, poor child, to marry a man older than her father, which had made her ill. I think her mother missed her almost as much as Mrs. Spencer missed Lady Isabella. For every new tie that is made in this world some old ties must be broken. But what does that matter? Is it not the course of nature and the way of the world?