events moved quickly; as, at certain crises of our lives, they have a knack of doing. during twenty years very little had really happened to nora; in a few crowded, bewildering days for her the whole world was turned upside down. on the friday--the day after the funeral--nora told dr. banyard that she was inclined to be of his opinion, that the creditors had better be called together, and matters left in their hands. she did not tell him that her faith in her father remained unshaken. it was made clear to her that this was a question of hours, possibly even of minutes, if something was not done to appease the creditors at once then the worst would befall; it was no use delivering herself of pious expressions of faith when action was required. so she authorized the doctor to do his best for her, and left everything to his discretion.
throughout that day she was puzzled by the singularity of miss harding's behaviour; she had cares enough of her own to occupy her mind, yet she could not help but notice that there was something very strange the matter with elaine. the young lady's outburst of the evening before had not been explained. all day long she was in a state of nervous tremor which was almost hysterical; such conduct was unusual in elaine, who had been wont to laugh at the idea both of nerves and of hysterics. nora did not know what to make of her. so far as she could gather, from the cryptic utterances which the girl now and then let fall, she was troubled about three things. first, because of the poverty which apparently was in store for nora; then because of the various amounts, which together did not amount to a very large sum, and most of which, to tell the truth, the creditor had herself forgotten, in which she was indebted to nora; and, in the third part, because of a nebulous scheme she had for endowing nora with unnamed, but seemingly immense supplies of ready money. it was this scheme which, apparently, was worrying her more than anything else; though what it really was, was beyond nora's comprehension. elaine talked--vaguely, it is true, but passionately, none the less--of being in possession of funds which nora knew perfectly well she never had had, and probably never would have; and about which she waxed quite warm when nora smilingly asked if she was quite sure she was not dreaming.
"you're not to laugh!" she cried. "you're not to laugh! you are to have it! you shall have it!"
"i shall have what?"
"the money i'm telling you about!"
"but what money are you telling me about? elaine, you don't seriously wish me to believe that you have money. only this week you were crying because of what you said you owed me; though i say you owe me nothing, since all that has been between us has been for love's sake. and only last week you told me that your pockets were empty, and you didn't know where you were going to get something to put in them; don't you remember?"
"but i may know where money is!"
"yes, and so may i; there's money in the bank, but it's neither yours nor mine; and i'm sure--don't you know i'm sure? you must be a goose if you don't--that you've no more idea how, honestly, it's to be wooed and won than i have; so what's the use of our pretending?"
to the speaker's surprise miss harding glared at her for some moments in silence; then, as if in sudden rage, she flung herself out of the room without a word; sounds were audible as if she were sobbing as she went.
"what," inquired nora of herself, not by any means for the first time that day, "can be the matter with elaine?"
on the saturday the storm broke on her from a quarter for which, at the moment, she was unprepared. word had been brought that the earl and countess of mountdennis were in the drawing-room, waiting to see her. her first impulse was to send an excuse; the mere announcement of their presence made her conscious of a sinking heart; but it was not her way to excuse herself because she feared unpleasantness; second thoughts prevailed. she recognized that, from their point of view, they were entitled to see her, even in these first days of her bereavement. she needed none to tell her that the purport of their presence was not likely to be an agreeable one; that they probably had not come upon an errand of love; she had too shrewd a notion of their characters. under the circumstances the last thing she might expect from them was sympathy; she was aware that they had a standard of their own; and that according to that the more a person stood in need of sympathy the less likely they were to vouchsafe it. still they were robert's parents; it was for her to consider him rather than herself; so, for the first time since her father was taken ill she ventured into the drawing-room.
the frigidity of the reception which they accorded her was ominous; she knew at once that so far from having deserved their sympathy she had incurred their displeasure. the last time they had met they had both of them taken her, not only metaphorically, but literally, to their bosoms; showering oh her tokens of affection which erred, if anything, on the side of redundance. now the lady permitted her to touch a fish-like hand, taking care not to allow her to approach too near; while the gentleman merely bowed. it was he who spoke first, as if he were addressing some one whose behaviour had both pained and shocked him.
"we only learnt this morning, actually by the merest accident, that your father was not only dead, but buried."
"not only dead but buried!"
this was the countess. it was a standing joke that, if they were both engaged in the same conversation, when he did not echo her she echoed him. if they ever differed it must have been in private; in public their agreement was so complete as sometimes to approach almost to the verge of the exasperating.
"we were not even aware that your father was unwell; we had received positively no information on the subject whatever."
"positively none whatever!"
"it seems to me--to us--a most extraordinary thing that you should not have apprised us of the condition of your father's health; that you should have given us no intimation of any kind; that you should have kept us in utter ignorance."
"in utter ignorance!"
"may i ask, may we ask, miss lindsay, why you have not treated us with at least some approximation to that consideration which our position obviously demanded?"
"our position obviously demanded!"
"to begin with, it was all very sudden; and then i didn't know where you were.
"but you might have made inquiries, anybody would have told you; almost, one might say, the first person you met in the street. we are not the kind of people who hide ourselves in holes."
"no, not in holes!"
"the moment we learnt what had occurred--learnt, as i have observed, by the sheerest accident,--we rushed back to holtye, that very moment; though to do so involved us in the most serious inconvenience; but we had no option."
"we had no option."
"because, not only were we informed, by accident, that your father was dead and buried, but we were also told, at the same time, what struck us as being so surprising as to be almost incredible, that he had not left behind him even so much as a sixpence."
"not even so much as a sixpence!"
"you will remember, miss lindsay--that is, i take it for granted that information was given to you to that effect, that before sanctioning my--our--son robert's engagement to you i made a special point of calling upon your father, who then and there informed, i may say, assured, me that, on the occasion of your marriage, he would present you with a house and furniture, and settle on you five thousand pounds a year. on the strength of that positive and definite assurance i--we--gave our consent, which, without it, we never should have dreamt of doing. we have our duty to perform, not only to our son, but to ourselves, and i may say, to our family, of which we are the representatives; i therefore offer no excuse for taking advantage of the first opportunity which arises to ask if your father has left his affairs in a condition which will enable you to carry out that assurance. on behalf of the countess of mountdennis, and of myself, i beg you, miss lindsay, in answering that question, to be perfectly plain and perfectly candid."
"perfectly plain and perfectly candid!"
the earl, very tall, very straight, very thin, waved his hard felt hat in one hand, and his gold-knobbed malacca cane in the other, in a manner which was hardly so impressive as he perhaps intended; the countess, her gloved hands clasped in front of her, wagged not only her head, but her whole body, as if to punctuate, and notify her approval, of his remarks as they fell from him. nora was silent. at the back of her mind had been the consciousness that, sooner or later, this question would have to be confronted; but she had not anticipated that it would be addressed to her so suddenly, so brusquely, with such a stand-and-deliver air. when she began to speak her lips were tremulous; and, though she might not have been aware of it, her eyes were moist; the feeling was strong upon her how different it all was from what she had expected.
"i--i'm sorry to say that, so far as we have been able to ascertain, the state of my father's affairs is not--not altogether satisfactory."
it was the countess who took up the running then; the earl who played the part of echo; but as her volubility was much greater than his she did not give him so many opportunities to shine as he had given her.
"not altogether satisfactory! my good young woman, what do you mean? i suppose all ideas of a house and furniture and five thousand a year must be given up, though your father led us to expect that there would be much more than that after he was dead; but the earl has asked you a plain question and what we want is a plain answer; how much has he left you? if you can't give us the exact sum let's have it approximately, in pounds, shillings and pence."
"i'm afraid that i'm not yet in a position which enables me to do that."
"not in a position? what do you mean, you're not in a position? are you in a position to say that he has left you anything, except debts?"
"i'm certain that when he said he had that money he had it; i believe he was a rich man when he died. only he was very reserved; and, in consequence, we have not been able to find where the money is."
"stuff and nonsense! you'd have found the money if there'd been any to find; it's only when there is none that none's found! have you any sort of solid foundation for thinking that he did leave money?"
"he gave me to understand that i should be left well off; and i can't believe he would have done so if it had not been true."
"some people can't believe anything; i know a woman who can't believe that her husband committed murder, though he was found guilty on the clearest possible evidence, confessed his guilt, and was hung ten years ago. husbands and wives can't exist on the incomes they believe they have; tradesmen want coin of the realm. i'm informed that by the time everything's sold, and everything will have to be sold, and the debts paid, there'll be nothing left for you; i want you to tell me, plainly, please, if that's true."
at last the earl had his chance.
"yes, plainly, please, if that's true!"
"i am afraid that, as matters stand at present, it does seem as if it were likely to be true."
the countess, putting up her lorgnettes, surveyed her fixedly, and severely.
"you must allow me to remark, miss lindsay, that you have a way of fencing with a plain question which, under the circumstances, seems peculiar, and which compels me to wonder if it can be possible that you knowingly obtained my son's consent to marry you under false pretences."
at this nora did fire up.
"how dare you say such a thing! i did not obtain his consent, he obtained mine."
"we know very well what that means. i have not arrived at my time of life without understanding what are the wiles with which a young woman of no position lures a handsome young fellow of good family; i have not the slightest doubt that my son would never have asked you to be his wife had you not made it quite clear to him that you wished him to."
nora stood up; one could see that the colour kept coming and going in her cheeks; that she was trembling; that she seemed to be panting for breath.
"i--i think you'd better go."
the countess went calmly on; the girl's agitation seemed to make the elder woman calmer, and more corrosive.
"i am going when it suits me; i assure you i have no wish to stay a moment longer in this abode of misrepresentation than i am compelled to. but before i go i wish to appeal to your sense of decency, if you have any sense of decency----"
"how--how dare you! how dare you speak to me like this!"
"i say, if you have any sense of decency, to release him from the most unfortunate position in which your father's misrepresentations, and your own peculiar behaviour, have entangled him."
"has--has he sent you here?"
"if you persist in putting such a question i shall understand that you have no sense of decency; surely any young woman with a spark of honour in her composition, must perceive that in such a situation the man would not be likely to send--that the initiative must come from her, not from him."
"i simply wish to learn if mr. robert spencer knows that you have come to me upon this errand."
"he does not know; which gives you an opportunity to free him gracefully before the true state of affairs does come to his knowledge."
"if he wishes to be what you call 'free,' do you suppose that for one moment i would stand in his way?"
"it is not so much a question of what he wishes, as of what you wish. if you wish, though ever so slightly, to hold him to his bargain, i dare say he'll be held, even to the extent of making you his wife; though he will regret it ever afterwards, and will probably live to curse the day on which you first placed yourself in his path. young men have married undesirable women, who were in no way fitted to be their wives, and who were thinking only of themselves, before to-day, and will again; i have seen examples of it in my own family, to my great sorrow. i intend, if i can, to save my son robert from such a fate, whatever you may say or do; the purport of my presence here is merely to learn if you are, or are not, possessed of a shred of principle."
"i cannot conceive why you talk to me like this; what makes you think yourself entitled to take up such an attitude towards me; what i have done which causes you to address me in such a strain."
"that's high-faluting, it's talk of that sort which makes me suspect that you must be even worse than i supposed. your father held you out to the world as a young woman who was rich already, and who would be still richer later on, and you tacitly endorsed his positive statements; then he dies just in time to save himself from being made a fraudulent bankrupt, leaving you worse than a pauper, and you have the assurance to pretend to wonder why i and the earl regard you--i will be as civil as i can--askance. talk sense, miss lindsay; don't presume on our simplicity any longer. you are perfectly well aware that, had we been aware of the truth from the first, we should never have countenanced you in any way whatever. your father's lies, with which you went out of your way to associate yourself--i know!--deceived us; and they deceived my son; there's the truth for you, if you never heard it before."
nora looked as if she could have said many things; but she only asked a question.
"what, precisely, is it that you wish me to do?"
"i wish you to do something to, at least in part, undo the mischief which you have done already, to atone for the evil of which you have been the cause; i wish you to show by your demeanour your consciousness of the miserably false position in which you have been placed by others, or in which you have placed yourself, it doesn't matter which. in other, and plainer words, i wish you to hand me my son's letters and presents, and to sit down at once and write a letter, which i will hand him, in which you express your appreciation of the fact that he asked you to become his wife under an entire misapprehension, and that now, since circumstances have turned out so wholly different to what they were represented to be, your own self-respect forbids you to allow any association to continue between you; and that, in short, all is over between you, in every possible sense of the phrase. i want you to put that down, as plainly, and as finally, as it can be put, in black and white, because, miss lindsay, i wish to save my son robert, at the earliest possible, from the danger in which he stands, and to do it while he is still absent."
"but, my dear mother," exclaimed the voice of some new-comer, "your son robert is not still absent, he is here."
looking round the trio saw that the honourable robert spencer was standing at the open window.
