The Paying Guest Part 13

'So he has paid the money! I'm very glad of that.'

'Mr. Cobb insisted on paying,' Mrs. Mumford answered with reserve.

'We could not hurt his feelings by refusing.'

'Well, that's all right, isn't it? You won't think so badly of us now? Of course you wish you'd never set eyes on me, Mrs. Mumford; but that's only natural: in your place I'm sure I should feel the same. Still, now the money's paid, you won't always think unkindly of me, will you?'

The girl lay propped on pillows; her pale face, with its healing scars, bore witness to what she had undergone, and one of her arms was completely swathed in bandages. Emmeline did not soften towards her, but the frank speech, the rather pathetic little smile, in decency demanded a suave response.

'I shall wish you every happiness, Louise.'

'Thank you. We shall be married as soon as ever I'm well, but I'm sure I don't know where. Mother hates his very name, and does her best to set me against him; but I just let her talk. We're beginning to quarrel a little--did you hear us this morning? I try to keep down my voice, and I shan't be here much longer, you know. I shall go home at first my stepfather has written a kind letter, and of course he's glad to know I shall marry Mr. Cobb. But I don't think the wedding will be there. It wouldn't be nice to go to church in a rage, as I'm sure I should with mother and Cissy looking on.'

This might, or might not, signify a revival of the wish to be married from 'Runnymede.' Emmeline quickly pa.s.sed to another subject.

Mrs. Higgins was paying a visit to Coburg Lodge, where, during the days of confusion, the master of the house had been left at his servants' mercy. On her return, late in the evening, she entered flurried and perspiring, and asked the servant who admitted her where Mrs. Mumford was.

'With master, in the library, 'm.'

'Tell her I wish to speak to her at once.'

Emmeline came forth, and a lamp was lighted in the dining-room, for the drawing-room had not yet been restored to a habitable condition.

Silent, and wondering in gloomy resignation what new annoyance was prepared for her, Emmeline sat with eyes averted, whilst the stout woman mopped her face and talked disconnectedly of the hards.h.i.+ps of travelling in such weather as this; when at length she reached her point, Mrs. Higgins became lucid and emphatic.

'I've heard things as have made me that angry I can hardly bear myself. Would you believe that people are trying to take away my daughter's character? It's Cissy 'Iggins's doing: I'm sure of it, though I haven't brought it 'ome to her yet. I dropped in to see some friends of ours--I shouldn't wonder if you know the name; it's Mrs. Jolliffe, a niece of Mr. Baxter--Baxter, Lukin and Co., you know. And she told me in confidence what people are saying--as how Louise was to marry Mr. Bowling, but he broke it off when he found _the sort of people she was living with_, here at Sutton--and a great many more things as I shouldn't like to tell you. Now what _do_ you think of--'

Emmeline, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng, broke in angrily:

'I think nothing at all about it, Mrs. Higgins, and I had very much rather not hear the talk of such people.'

'I don't wonder it aggravates you, Mrs. Mumford. Did anyone ever hear such a scandal! I'm sure n.o.body that knows you could say a word against your respectability, and, as I told Mrs. Jolliffe, she's quite at liberty to call here to-morrow or the next day--'

'Not to see _me_, I hope,' said Emmeline. 'I must refuse--'

'Now just let me tell you what I've thought,' pursued the stout lady, hardly aware of this interruption. 'This'll have to be set right, both for Lou's sake and for yours, and to satisfy us all.

They're making a mystery, d'you see, of Lou leaving 'ome and going off to live with strangers; and Cissy's been doing her best to make people think there's something wrong--the spiteful creature! And there's only one way of setting it right. As soon as Lou can be dressed and got down, and when the drawing-room's finished, I want her to ask all our friends here to five o'clock tea, just to let them see with their own eyes--'

'Mrs. Higgins!'

'Of course there'll be no expense for _you_, Mrs. Mumford--not a farthing. I'll provide everything, and all I ask of you is just to sit in your own drawing-room--'

'Mrs. Higgins, be so kind as to listen to me. This is quite impossible. I can't dream of allowing any such thing.'

The other glared in astonishment, which tended to wrath.

'But can't you see, Mrs. Mumford, that it's for your _own_ good as well as ours? Do you want people to be using your name--'

'What can it matter to me how _such_ people think or speak of me?'

cried Emmeline, trembling with exasperation.

'Such people! I don't think you know who you're talking about, Mrs.

Mumford. You'll let me tell you that my friends are as respectable as yours--'

'I shall not argue about it,' said Emmeline, standing up. 'You will please to remember that already I've had a great deal of trouble and annoyance, and what you propose would be quite intolerable. Once for all, I can't dream of such a thing.'

'Then all I can say is, Mrs. Mumford'--the speaker rose with heavy dignity--'that you're not behaving in a very ladylike way. I'm not a quarrelsome person, as you well know, and I don't say nasty things if I can help it. But there's one thing I _must_ say and _will_ say, and that is, that when we first came here you gave a very different account of yourself to what it's turned out. You told me and my daughter distinctly that you had a great deal of the very best society, and that was what Lou came here _for_, and you knew it, and you can't deny that you did. And I should like to know how much society she's seen all the time she's been here--that's the question I _ask_ you. I don't believe she's seen more than three or four people altogether. They may have been respectable enough, and I'm not the one to say they weren't, but I _do_ say it isn't what we was led to expect, and that you can't deny, Mrs. Mumford.'

She paused for breath. Emmeline had moved towards the door, and stood struggling with the feminine rage which impelled her to undignified altercation. To withdraw in silence would be like a shamed confession of the charge brought against her, and she suffered not a little from her consciousness of the modic.u.m of truth therein.

'It was a most unfortunate thing, Mrs. Higgins,' burst from her lips, 'that I ever consented to receive your daughter, knowing as I did that she wasn't our social equal.'

'Wasn't _what_?' exclaimed the other, as though the suggestion startled her by its novelty. 'You think yourself superior to us? You did us a favour--'

Whilst Mrs. Higgins was uttering these words the door opened, and there entered a figure which startled her into silence. It was that of Louise, in a dressing-gown and slippers, with a shawl wrapped about the upper part of her body.

'I heard you quarrelling,' she began. (Her bedroom was immediately above, and at this silent hour the voices of the angry ladies had been quite audible to her as she lay in bed.) 'What _is_ it all about? It's too bad of you, mother--'

'The idea, Louise, of coming down like that!' cried her parent indignantly. 'How did you know Mr. Mumford wasn't here? For shame!

Go up again this moment.'

'I don't see any harm if Mr. Mumford had been here,' replied the girl calmly.

'I'm sure it's most unwise of you to leave your bed,' began Emmeline, with anxious thought for Louise's health, due probably to her dread of having the girl in the house for an indefinite period.

'Oh, I've wrapped up. I feel shaky, that's all, and I shall have to sit down.' She did so, on the nearest chair, with a little laugh at her strange feebleness.

'Now please _don't_ quarrel, you two. Mrs. Mumford, don't mind anything that mother says.'

Thereupon Louise's mother burst into a vehement exposition of the reasons of discord, beginning with the calumnious stories she had heard at Mrs. Jolliffe's, and ending with the outrageous arrogance of Mrs. Mumford's latest remark. Louise listened with a smile.

'Now look here, mother,' she said, when silence came for a moment, 'you can't expect Mrs. Mumford to have a lot of strangers coming to the house just on my account. She's sick and tired of us all, and wants to see our backs as soon as ever she can. I don't say it to offend you, Mrs. Mumford, but you know it's true. And I tell you what it is: To-morrow morning I'm going back home. Yes, I am. You can't stay here, mother, after this, and I'm not going to have anyone new to wait on me. I shall go home in a cab, straight from this house to the other, and I'm quite sure I shan't take any harm.'

'You won't do it till the doctor's given you leave,' said Mrs.

Higgins with concern.

'He'll be here at ten in the morning, and I know he will give me leave. So there's an end of it. And you can go to bed and sleep in peace, Mrs. Mumford.'

It was not at all unamiably said. But for Mrs. Higgins's presence, Emmeline would have responded with a certain kindness. Still smarting under the stout lady's accusations, which continued to sound in sniffs and snorts, she answered as austerely as possible.

'I must leave you to judge, Miss Derrick, how soon you feel able to go. I don't wish you to do anything imprudent. But it will be much better if Mrs. Higgins regards me as a stranger during the rest of her stay here. Any communication she wishes to make to me must be made through a servant.'

Having thus delivered herself; Emmeline quitted the room. From the library, of which the door was left ajar, she heard Louise and her mother pa.s.s upstairs, both silent. Mumford, too well aware that yet another disturbance had come upon his unhappy household, affected to read, and it was only when the door of Louise's room had closed that Emmeline spoke to him.

'Mrs. Higgins will breakfast by herself to-morrow,' she said severely. 'She may perhaps go before lunch; but in any case we shall not sit down at table with her again.'

'All right,' Mumford replied, studiously refraining from any hint of curiosity.

So, next morning, their breakfast was served in the library. Mrs.

Higgins came down at the usual hour, found the dining-room at her disposal, and ate with customary appet.i.te, alone. Had Emmeline's experience lain among the more vigorously vulgar of her s.e.x she would have marvelled at Mrs. Higgins's silence and general self-restraint during these last hours. Louise's mother might, without transgressing the probabilities of the situation, have made this a memorable morning indeed. She confined herself to a rather frequent ringing of the bedroom bell. Her requests of the servants became orders, such as she would have given in a hotel or lodging-house, but no distinctly offensive word escaped her. And this was almost entirely due to Louise's influence for the girl impressed upon her mother that 'to make a row' would be the sure and certain way of proving that Mrs. Mumford was justified in claiming social superiority over her guests.