CHAPTER XVI.

A FRUSTRATED ELOPEMENT

On the following morning Sir Robert went to Jack’s room before that young man was up, and sitting on the edge of his bed, gave him such a searching catechism, ending with such a severe lecture, that his late ward was surprised at the thoroughness with which the baronet, his fears once roused, tackled the subject of his wife’s flirtation.

The result of this was satisfactory in the main to Sir Robert. Jack appeared to be perfectly frank and only slightly ashamed of himself. He protested that he and Lady Sarah had never been more to each other than sympathetic companions and devoted friends, and that, while he admitted he was fonder of her than he had ever been of any woman, they had never exceeded the limits of innocent flirtation; and Jack reminded the baronet that he must have been aware, all this time, that they did flirt.

Sir Robert scarcely knew how to meet this.

It was true that his wife had openly flirted with Jack before him; but coquetry was ingrain in her nature, and when she had nobody else to amuse herself with, she even, upon occasion, coquetted, much to his delight, with her husband himself.

The upshot of the conversation was that he obtained from Jack a solemn promise to go away without an attempt to communicate with Lady Sarah, and to travel abroad for a time, undertaking the while not to correspond with her.

Upon this promise Jack was allowed to leave the house at once, under an appearance of perfect amity with its master; and the simple-minded baronet congratulated himself on having got out of a difficulty and saved his brilliant wife from further danger, in a fairly satisfactory manner.

When Lady Sarah came downstairs, she was met by her husband, who escorted her into the morning-room, and told her, very gently and without any further appearance of anger or resentment, that he and Jack had talked over the matter of their conversation of the previous night, and that they had both come to the conclusion that the best thing to be done was that all relations between the young man and his friends at the Mill-house should be broken off for the present.

Lady Sarah, sitting by the window with her lips compressed and her hands tightly clasped, listened in dead silence. When he had finished she paused, and receiving no reply, at length said:

“Well! I hope you’re satisfied that we’ve done the best thing possible to bury this unhappy affair of the loss of the picture?”

“Oh, quite,” said she lightly, in a hard, scoffing tone. “Jack and I are each put in a corner, and bidden not to turn our faces round from the wall to look at each other. Nothing could be better.”

“I wish you wouldn’t take it like that, my dear. You must realise that you have been playing with your reputation,” he said.

“Oh, hang my reputation. What’s the use of having a husband at all if his presence isn’t sufficient security for his wife’s good behaviour?”

It was “a nasty one,” and it was meant to be so. Sir Robert drew back, wounded.

“It’s by your own wish,” said he rather drily, “that our relations are not closer than they are.”

“Certainly. And how long is this arrangement to last? How long is it going to take my invalid reputation to get well again?”

Sir Robert frowned uneasily.

“Do you mean that you want to know when Jack can come here again?”

“Yes. People will talk, you know. And instead of my intercourse with him being looked upon, as it always was, and as it rightly was, as perfectly innocent, people will put their heads together, and talk about what Sir Robert ‘found out.’”

“We must risk something,” said Sir Robert shortly. “We risk as little as we can. I want, if you please, your word of honour that you will hold no sort of communication with him until I give you leave to do so. That you will neither see him nor write to him nor receive letters from him.”

“Oh, I must promise, I suppose. Though it’s rather hard upon him, considering that the picture affair was my fault, and not his at all.”

“He must expect to take his share of the blame,” said Sir Robert. “And now, my dear, since we shall be more dependent upon each other’s society, I hope you will not find me very exacting or very tiresome.”

His tone was full of tenderness, but it met with no response from Lady Sarah. Perhaps, in the circumstances, it was scarcely likely that the spoilt beauty would receive his overtures graciously. She rose, shrugged her shoulders, and saying briefly, “Oh, I shall be very good,” she went out of the room forgetting that she had had no breakfast.

Sir Robert looked depressed and uneasy. It was not a good beginning, certainly, of the happy domestic life he had begun to hope for.

Before the day was over it became plain that Lady Sarah had thought the matter out, and had made up her mind what part to play.

She showed herself wonderfully bright, lively, charming, not only to her husband, but to Rhoda, so that Minnie raised her eyebrows, and, after making futile guesses as to what could have happened, and as to the reason of Jack Rotherfield’s abrupt disappearance, expressed the opinion that her aunt was too amiable to be able to “keep it up.”

But she was wrong. Day after day passed and still Lady Sarah was sweet-tempered and bright, playful with her husband, amusing with Rhoda and Minnie, and affectionate to Caryl.

Sir Robert was delighted at this new phase of his wife’s character, and congratulated himself, dear, simple man, on the accident which had seemed so terrible at the time, which had given him an opportunity of putting matters on a sound and safe footing.

But Rhoda and Minnie, with their acute feminine perception of character, detected something forced in Lady Sarah’s laughter, something insincere and hollow in her amiability. She chatted with a vivacity which was almost feverish, and her laughter did not, to their keen ears, ring quite true.

And then Rhoda could not help noticing that Lady Sarah became suddenly much more fond of taking walks by herself than formerly, and saw her coming out of a little newspaper shop in the High Street, where it was very unlikely that she would buy either books or stationery.

Rhoda, ashamed of herself for the thought, came nevertheless to the conclusion that Lady Sarah went there to get letters which she could not safely receive at home.

The suspicion was a dreadful one to bear, for if she was right, Rhoda saw that Lady Sarah had not scrupled to break her promise to her husband as soon as it was made.

Rhoda changed her own line of conduct a little, gave up, as much as possible, her share of Sir Robert’s work, in the hope that his wife would take it up. The only result was, however, that, used to Rhoda’s orderly ways, poor Sir Robert soon got into a hopeless muddle with his notes and manuscripts, when he was thus suddenly left once more to his own devices, while Lady Sarah secretly enjoyed his discomfiture.

Rhoda, meanwhile, kept almost entirely to Caryl’s rooms, except when he went out, when she never failed to accompany him. She scarcely ever got a moment to herself, and she had been thus almost confined to the house for a fortnight, when, running down the hill to the pillar-box at the corner to post a letter to one of her sisters, she caught sight of a motor-car turning into a side-road, and asked herself, with a horrible shock of suspicion and surprise, whether it was not that of Jack Rotherfield.

It was dusk, and she knew there was a possibility that she might have been mistaken; but the presence of Jack in the neighbourhood, in spite of his promise and Lady Sarah’s, was only too probable, and much against her own inclination, Rhoda felt obliged to keep a look out for eventualities.

When she got home, she was surprised to find Lady Sarah in Caryl’s room, sitting by the boy, holding his hand, and speaking to him with much more than her usual kindness and sweetness.

Rhoda held her breath, and her cheeks blanched with a growing fear. Was this only a coincidence, the reappearance of Jack Rotherfield, and the sudden undergrowth in Lady Sarah of something like an ordinary mother’s love for her child?

Rhoda could not but ask herself the question; and when Lady Sarah looked up at her quickly, and holding out her hand, said: “Ah, Miss Pembury, I’ve been trying to interest Caryl, but you are his real mother, and I hope you always will be.” Rhoda could scarcely make an audible answer, so strong was her conviction that important events were impending.

Lady Sarah was dressed for dinner, and was looking, Rhoda thought, even handsomer than usual, her eyes being very bright, and her whole countenance suffused with an unusual softness, as if at last she had found out how to feel.

It was with a deep anxiety at her heart that Rhoda quickly made her own toilet, and hurried downstairs. Dinner was now usually a very lively affair, as Lady Sarah’s new high spirits seemed always at their highest when she was with her husband and Rhoda together. On this occasion, however, she was scarcely herself. She asked questions without waiting for the answers, and laughed without reason.

And through it all Rhoda noticed with pain that the new affection she had just shown to her boy, whom she had kissed with real heartiness when she left him, was not present in her manner when she addressed her husband.

Sir Robert felt that something was wrong, but evidently did not know what to make of the change in his wife. He asked her rather diffidently if she felt quite well, and was answered quite snappishly in the affirmative.

After dinner Lady Sarah made an excuse of a slight headache to retire to her own rooms, and Rhoda, on the alert, also made an excuse, so that she might be on the watch for developments.

She did not go upstairs, however, but slipping out of the house by the garden door, waited about in the shadow of the trees under the east wall, and kept her eye on the windows of Lady Sarah’s rooms.

She could see that some one was flitting about between the three rooms, bedroom, dressing-room and boudoir. Then there was an interval, and Rhoda presently saw Lady Sarah, in her motor-coat, hat and veil, come quickly and stealthily out of the house, carrying her travelling bag in her hand.

The girl could scarcely suppress an exclamation of horror. She remained, however, shivering and without uttering a sound, until Lady Sarah came close to her and put out her hand to open the side-gate which led into the road.

As she did so, she uttered a soft whistle.

And the sound was echoed from the other side of the wall.

The key was in the lock, when Rhoda sprang forward and touched Lady Sarah on the hand.

“Don’t go,” she whispered hoarsely. “Oh, Lady Sarah, think of your boy! Come back, come back!”

Lady Sarah had sprung away from her, and Rhoda, commanding the door in the wall, stood erect, blocking the way through.

“What do you mean? What do you want?” she hissed out fiercely.

“I want you to consider what you’re doing. I know that Mr. Rotherfield is waiting outside: I know that his car is in one of the side roads.”

“You are a spy,” cried Lady Sarah.

“I couldn’t help myself. I caught sight of the car before dinner, and, and----”

“And you lay in wait for me! I might have expected it!”

“Could I do anything else? I’ve said nothing to anybody. No one but me has the least idea of anything being wrong.”

“There’s nothing wrong.”

“Oh, there is, there is. You want to run away, from your home, your husband, your child. Lady Sarah, you are fond of Caryl; I could see it in your eyes this evening. You looked at him just as one wanted you always to look. Remember how he looked at you in return, remember the touch of his hand on your cheek. Oh, you wouldn’t like him to lose you; you wouldn’t like to lose him. Think what you’re doing, think, think. You will never be able to come back. How can you be happy, with all your friends cut off, your home wrecked, your own father and mother rendered miserable and ashamed for you. Lady Sarah, you’re not heartless; I’ll never believe it after seeing you with Caryl to-night. Come back, come back.”

Lady Sarah’s eyes flashed. She was crying with rage as well as with disappointment and alarm. Rhoda had unintentionally raised her voice during her impassioned entreaty, and Lady Sarah knew that Jack, waiting on the outer side of the wall, must know by this time that their plan was in danger of frustration.

Rhoda, indeed, did not content herself with entreaty. By the interposition of her person between Lady Sarah and the door, she made it impossible for the wilful woman to escape.

For this time, at least, it was plain that the escapade must be given up.

“You will tell Sir Robert, of course,” she sobbed out.

“No, no, no. I don’t want to make mischief. I want to prevent it. But will you keep your word if you promise not to try to go away again? Tell me, tell me, that you will. Oh, Lady Sarah, you must, you must. The shock of your going away, the scandal, the horror of it, would kill your own boy.”

“Nonsense. You’d better let me go and get it over. Sir Robert will soon forget me. Let me pass.”

She had flung herself on Rhoda, who, desperate, used her last weapon.

“If you go,” she said firmly, “I’ll tell Sir Robert what I know about the scarred hand, and Mr. Rotherfield shall be had up for Langton’s murder.”

“You wretch!”

But though Lady Sarah uttered the word with all the fierceness of which she was capable, she dared not, in the face of this threat, go any further with her wicked plan.

“All right. I give way,” she said in a tone of rage and despair.

Rhoda trembling and sick at heart, saw Sir Robert’s wife tear off her coat and veil, and hurry back into the house.

Rhoda had gained a victory, but what was the price to be paid? That there would be a reckoning to meet she felt sure, and it was with a heavy sense of foreboding, and with none of the spirits of a conqueror that she in her turn went, slowly and timidly, back to the house.