  It was on the second morning after this that the letters were brought in to Madame von Marwitz while she and Mrs. Talcott sat in the music-room together. The two days had told upon them both. The face of Mercedes was like a beautiful fruit, rain-sodden and gnawed at the heart by a worm. Mrs. Talcott's was more bleached, more desolate, more austere. The one letter that Handcock brought to Mrs. Talcott was from Gregory Jardine: "Dear Mrs. Talcott," it said, "Thank you for your kind note. I am very unhappy and only a little less unhappy than when Karen left me. One cause of our estrangement is, perhaps, removed; but the fact borne in upon me at the time of that parting was that, while she was everything in life to me, she hardly knew the meaning of the words love and marriage. I need not tell you that I will do all in my power to induce her to return to me, and all in my power to win her heart. It was useless to make any attempt at reconciliation while her guardian stood between us. I cannot pretend that I feel more kindly towards Madame von Marwitz now; rather the reverse. It is plain to me that she has treated Karen shamefully. You must forgive me for my frankness.—Sincerely yours, "Gregory Jardine." Mrs. Talcott when she looked up from this letter saw that Mercedes was absorbed in hers. Her expression had stiffened as she read, and when she had finished the hand holding it dropped to her side. She sat looking down in a dark contemplation. Mrs. Talcott asked no question. United in the practical exigencies of their search for Karen, united in their indestructible relation of respective dependence and stability, which the last catastrophe had hardly touched—for Mercedes had accepted her betrayal with a singular passivity, as if it had been a force of nature that had overtaken her—there was yet a whole new region of distrust between them. She and Mercedes, as Mrs. Talcott cheerlessly imaged it, were like a constable and his captive adrift, by a curious turn of fortune, on the waters of a sudden inundation. Together they baled out water and worked at the oar, but both were aware that when the present peril was past a sentence had still to be carried out on one of them. Mercedes could not evade her punishment. If Karen were found Gregory Jardine must come to know that her guardian had, literally, driven her from her home. In that case it rested with Gregory's sense of mercy whether Mercedes should be exposed to the world or not. And after reading Gregory's letter Mrs. Talcott reflected that there was not much to hope of mercy from him. So she showed a tactful consideration of her companion's state of nerves by pressing her no further than was necessary. On this occasion, however, there was no need for pressure; Mercedes, in her dismal plight, turned to her with the latest development of it. "Ah," she said, while she still continued to gaze down fixedly, "this it is to have true friends. This is human loyalty. It is well." "What's the matter, Mercedes?" Mrs. Talcott asked, as she was evidently invited to do. "Read if you will," said Madame von Marwitz. She held out the letter which Mrs. Talcott rose to take. It was from Mrs. Forrester and was full of sympathy for her afflicted friend, and full of sympathy for foolish, headstrong little Karen. The mingled sympathies rang strangely. She avowed self-reproach. She was afraid that she had precipitated the rupture between Karen and her husband, not quite, perhaps, understanding the facts. She had seen Gregory, she was very sorry for him. She was, apparently, sorry for everyone; except of course, Mr. Drew, the villain of the piece; but of Mr. Drew and of Mercedes's sacred love for him, she made no mention. Mrs. Forrester was fond, but she was wary. She had received, evidently, her dim thrust of disillusion. Mercedes had blamed herself and Mrs. Forrester did not deny that Mercedes must be to blame. "Yes; she's feeling pretty sick," Mrs. Talcott commented when she had read. "The trouble is that anybody who knows how much Karen loved you knows that she wouldn't have made off like that without you'd treated her ugly. That'll be the trouble with most of your friends, I reckon. Who's your other letter from?" Madame von Marwitz roused herself from her state of contemplation. She opened the second letter saying, tersely: "Scrotton." "She ain't likely to take sides with Karen," Mrs. Talcott observed, inserting her hand once more in the stocking she was darning, these homely occupations having for the last few days been brought into the music-room, since Mercedes would not be left alone. "She was always just as jealous of Karen as could be." She proceeded to darn and Madame von Marwitz to read, and as she read a dark flush mounted to her face. Clenching her hand on Miss Scrotton's letter, she brought it down heavily on the back of the chair she sat in. Then, without speaking, she got up, tossed the letter to Mrs. Talcott, and began to pace the room, setting the furniture that she encountered out of her way with vindictive violence. "My Darling, Darling Mercedes," Miss Scrotton wrote, "This is too terrible. Shall I come to you at once? I thought this morning after I had seen Mrs. Forrester and read your heartbreaking letter that I would start to-day; but let me hear from you, you may be coming up to town. If you stay in Cornwall, Mercedes, you must not be alone; you must not; and I am, as you know, devoted heart and soul. If all the world turned against you, Mercedes, I should keep my faith in you. I need hardly tell you what is being said. Claude Drew is in London and though, naturally, he does not dare face your friends with his story, rumours are abroad. Betty Jardine does not know him, but already she has heard; I met her only a few hours ago and the miserable little creature was full of malicious satisfaction. The story that she has heard—and believes—and that London will believe—is the crude, gross one that facts, so disastrously, have lent colour to; you, in a fit of furious jealousy, driving Karen away. My poor, great, suffering friend, I need not tell you that I understand. Your letter rings true to me in every line, and is but too magnanimous.—Oh Mercedes!—had you but listened to my warnings about that wretched man. Do you remember that I told you that you were scattering your pearls before swine? And your exculpation of Karen did not convince me as it seemed to do Mrs. Forrester. A really guileless woman is not found—late at night—in a man's arms. I cannot forget Karen's origins. There must be in her the element of reckless passion. Mr. Drew is spreading a highly idealised account of her and says that to see you together was to see Antigone in the clutches of Clytemnestra. There is some satisfaction in knowing that the miserable man is quite distracted and is haunted by the idea that Karen may have committed suicide. Betty Jardine says that in that case you and he would have to appear at the inquest.—Oh, my poor Mercedes!—But I feel sure that this is impossible. Temper, not tragedy, drove Karen from you and it was on her part a dastardly action. I am seeing everybody that I can; they shall have my version. The Duchess is in the country; I have wired to her that I will go to her at once if you do not send for me; it is important that she should have the facts as I see them before these abominable rumours reach her. Dear Mrs. Forrester means, I am sure, to do loyally; you may count upon her to listen to no scandal; but its breath alarms and chills her: she does not interpret your letter as I do. "Good-bye, my dear one. Wire to me please, at once. Ever and always ton Eleanor devouÉe." "Well," Mrs. Talcott commented warily, folding the letter and glancing at Madame von Marwitz; "she don't let any grass grow under her feet, does she? Do you want her down?" "Want her! Why should I want her! The insufferable fool!" cried Madame von Marwitz still striding to and fro with tigerish regularity. "Does she think me, too, a fool, to be taken in by her grimaces of loyalty when it is as apparent as the day that delight is her chief emotion. Here is her opportunity—parbleu!—At last! I am in the dust—and if also in the dock so much the better. She will stand by me when others fall away. She will defend the prostrate Titaness from the vultures that prey upon her and gain at last the significance she has, for so long, so eagerly and so fruitlessly pursued. Ah!—par exemple! Let her come to me expecting gratitude. I will spurn her from me like a dog!" Madame von Marwitz, varying her course, struck a chair aside as she spoke. "Well, I shouldn't fly out at her if I was you," said Mrs. Talcott. "She's as silly as they make 'em, I allow, but it's all to the good if her silliness keeps her sticking to you through thick and thin. It's just as well to have someone around to drive off the vultures, even if it's only a scarecrow—and Miss Scrotton is better than that. She's a pretty brainy woman, for all her silliness, and she's pretty fond of you, too, only you haven't treated her as well as she thinks you ought to have, and it makes her feel kind of spry and cheerful to see that her time's come to show you what a fine fellow she is. Most folks are like that, I guess," Mrs. Talcott mused, returning to her stocking, "they don't suffer so powerful over their friends' misfortunes if it gives them a chance of showing what fine fellows they are." "Friends!" Madame von Marwitz repeated with scorching emphasis. "Friends! Truly I have proved them, these friends of mine. Cowards and traitors all, or crouching hounds. I am to be left, I perceive, with the Scrotton as my sole companion." But now she paused in her course, struck by a belated memory. "You had a letter. You have heard from the husband." "Yes, I have," said Mrs. Talcott, "and you may as well see it." She drew forth Gregory's letter from under the heap of darning appliances on her lap. Madame von Marwitz snatched it from her and read it, once rapidly, once slowly; and then, absorbed again in dark meditations, she stood holding it, her eyes fixed on the ground. "He ain't as violent as might be expected, is he?" Mrs. Talcott suggested. Distrust was abroad in the air between her and Mercedes; she offered the fact of Gregory's temperateness as one that might mitigate some anticipations. "He is as insolent as might be expected," said Madame von Marwitz. She flung the letter back to Mrs. Talcott, resuming her pacing, with a bitter laugh. "And to think," she said presently, "that I hoped—but truly hoped—with all my heart—to reconcile them! To think that I offered myself to Karen as an intermediary. It was true—yes, literally true—what I told Mrs. Forrester—that I spoke to Karen of it—with all love and gentleness and that she turned upon me like a tigress." "And you'll recollect," said Mrs. Talcott, "that I told you to keep your hands off them and that you'd made enough mischief as it was. Why I guess you did hope she'd go back. You wanted to get rid of Karen and to have that young man to yourself; that's the truth, but you didn't tell that to Mrs. Forrester." "I deny it," said Madame von Marwitz; but mechanically; her thoughts were elsewhere. She still paced. "Well," said Mrs. Talcott, "you'd better send that telegram to Miss Scrotton, telling her not to come, or you'll have her down here as soon as she's seen the Duchess." "Send it; send it at once," said Madame von Marwitz. "Tell her that I do not need her. Tell her that I will write." The force of her fury had passed; counsels of discretion were making themselves felt. "Go at once and send it." She paused again as Mrs. Talcott rose. "If Karen is not found within three days, Tallie, I go to London. I believe that she is in London." Mrs. Talcott faced her. "If she's in London she'll be found as soon by Mr. Jardine as by you." "Yes; that may be," said Mercedes, and discretion, now, had evidently the mastery; "but Karen will not refuse to see me. I must see her. I must implore her forgiveness. You would not oppose that, would you, Tallie?" "No, I'd not oppose your asking her to forgive you," Mrs. Talcott conceded, "when she's got back to her husband. Only I advise you to stay where you are till you hear she's found." "I will do as you say, Tallie," said Madame von Marwitz meekly. She went to the piano, and seating herself began to play the Wohltemperirtes Clavier. |
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