Imogen: or, Only Eighteen

Chapter Twelve

The Bull by the Horns

For so young a man, Robin Winchester was possessed of a remarkable amount of presence of mind. Added to which, he was not, as will be seen, wholly unprepared for a dénouement, probably stormy, and very certainly painful, of the complicated state of affairs as to which, Cassandra-like, he had lifted up his voice. At Trixie’s appeal he turned and walked rapidly back in the direction whence she had come, without speaking; he had no idea of wasting his breath in words, and for another reason. So strongly was he imbued with the suspicion that the girl beside him had been “at it again with one of her odious practical jokes,” that he doubted his own self-control should he once allow his indignation to find words. He had no cause to ask her for direction. Two or three moments brought them to a spot whence the pitiful, and, it must be allowed, almost alarming sounds were clearly audible.

“She is there,” whispered Beatrix, “on the bench behind those trees.”

“Go on first and show me,” he said, sternly.

But to his amazement his guide rebelled.

“I won’t,” she said. “I’ll stay here. She’s given me such a fright already, and I don’t want her to see me. You speak to her and I’ll wait.”

Robin was not given to strong language, especially to a woman; he opened his mouth and shut it again without speaking. Then a second thought struck him. Perhaps it was better so, though no thanks to Trixie. He caught her by the arm and held her, not too gently.

“You’ll give me your word of honour, Beatrix Helmont,” he said, “that you will stay here, on this spot, till I come back and say you may go?”

“Yes; if I must stay, I will. But you are very rough and unkind, Robin. Why are you angry with me?”

He gave her no answer, but hurried on to the bench. Some instinct had warned Imogen that she was no longer alone. She had sat up, and was trying to look about her composedly. The effort only made her seem the more piteous. Robin’s heart positively swelled as he looked at her, recalling the last, the only time indeed he had ever seen her, and her glad girlish beauty.

She did not start as he came near; she sat still as if stupefied.

“Miss Wentworth,” he said most gently and respectfully, “I am afraid you have had a start or a fright, or – or that you have had bad news. Can I do anything?”

She looked at him and smiled, the strangest smile he had ever seen, and with a thrill of horror he remembered Trixie’s words, “Gone out of her mind.” But in a moment he was relieved of this worst of terrors.

“You are Mr Robin Winchester,” she said. “Yes, thank you. I have had bad news, and I am so dreadfully tired. I want to go home – to go in, I mean; but I am afraid of meeting any one, because, you see – though it is very silly of me – I have been crying. How can I get in without meeting any one?”

“Do you know the way in by the fernery, and the little back-stair up from what used to be the schoolroom?” he asked.

She shook her head. Then he considered for a moment in silence.

“Miss Wentworth,” he said, “Trixie is there, behind the trees. It was she that saw you and called me. If you could agree to it, the very best thing would be to let her take you in. You need not speak to her, and she will do what I tell her.”

She gave a little shiver, but did not object.

“Very well,” she said, “if she has seen me already. You will make her promise not to tell? There is something else – you are very kind – could you do it?”

“Anything,” he said, fervently.

“My head is getting so bad, and I don’t want to be ill here,” she said. “I do so want to get away. And mamma would want to know; there would be so many explanations. It has all got quite clear while I have been crying. Could you get a telegram sent for me, without anybody knowing?”

“Certainly; at once,” he replied. “I have a pencil and paper.”

She pressed her hand to her forehead. Then she quietly dictated an address and a message, which he wrote down without comment.

“You should have the reply this evening,” he said. Then, “Wait here one moment,” he added, and he retraced his steps to Trixie.

“You will do as I tell you, exactly,” he said, “and without a word now or ever to any one? You hear me?”

“I’ll do it,” she said, sulkily, “because it suits me to. All the same, I’d like to know what business it is of yours?”

“It’s this much my business, that if you break your promise I will tell your father all I know; and if you want proof that I do know, well I have in my pocket a letter I got from Eva Lesley last night, enclosing —another letter. Eva wrote to me in preference to Rex, not wanting to worry him, and – well, for other reasons.”

Trixie had grown pale, but she stood her ground. “I never touched anybody’s letters,” she said. “And how can you say any one did? People – accidents happen about letters sometimes.”

“Yes, they do; but there is such a thing as circumstantial evidence; and what is more, I, with my own hands, put the right note into the envelope addressed to Miss Wentworth that morning, as Rex was so hurried, and I laid it with the other one, stamped and directed to Miss Lesley, on the hall table.”

She grew paler and paler.

“I didn’t touch them,” she repeated.

“We have only your own word for it,” he said, scornfully; “and supposing Mabella Forsyth says you did? But I am wasting time upon you. I have warned you. Take your own way.”

“I won’t tell anything about this morning. I swear I won’t,” she said, in terror.

Five minutes later saw Imogen safe in her own room, thither escorted by Trixie, silent and panic-stricken. And an hour or so later, when Mrs Wentworth returned from a drive in the pony carriage, to which she had been invited by Florence, she was met by Colman with the news that Miss Imogen was in bed and asleep, her head was so bad. It was only to be hoped, added the maid, after the manner of her kind, that the young lady had not got a bad chill, and was not going to have a regular illness.

Mrs Wentworth spent the rest of the afternoon in her own room, which opened into Imogen’s, watching for her to awake. The anxiety almost absorbed all other feelings.

“How can I tell her?” she kept saying to herself. “And why, oh why did Florence not tell me before? And to think that he is actually back, and that she must meet him after, and I that have encouraged it. There is no one – no, not one creature – I can confide in. For Florence meant something when she begged me not to trust Miss Forsyth. But – oh dear, and how my darling Imogen warned me too! – but how could Major Winchester have been so careless, if the letter he is so annoyed about really was the one sent to Imogen; and how am I to tell her, and she perhaps sickening for brain fever or typhoid fever, or something?” The poor woman’s brain was in a whirl, for Florence had not dared to do more than warn her vaguely. It was a relief when, about six o’clock, an orange-coloured envelope was brought in by Colman.

“Can you both spend a week with me on your way home?” it said. “Welcome any day; the sooner the better.”

It came from an old friend, Imogen’s godmother, and as there had been vague talk of the visit it was not altogether unexpected; not at least too surprising that Mrs Hume should have telegraphed.

“Can I send an answer back?” asked Imogen’s mother.

“Yes, ma’am. I was to say the messenger is waiting. There are telegraph forms in the envelope case on the writing-table,” was the maid’s reply.

And in another moment the answer was forthcoming – a warmly-worded acceptance, announcing the Wentworths’ arrival some time the following afternoon.

This settled, Mrs Wentworth, who did not often act with such promptitude and decision, relapsed into nervousness and depression. She established herself on a chair beside the door of communication with Imogen’s room, longing for and yet dreading her awaking.

For, strange as it may seem, the girl was really asleep, and soundly so. It was her first experience of violent emotion, and, coming on the top of the past days of tension and excitement, it had completely exhausted her. At first she had meant to lie still, and, if need were, feign sleep till time sufficient for Mrs Hume’s telegram should have elapsed, but real slumber had come, saving her, not improbably, from the illness that would not have been an abnormal result of all she had gone through. But at last, half an hour or so before the dressing-gong sounded, she awoke. For a moment or two she was in a chaos of bewilderment; then by degrees, as this cleared a little, she became conscious of one overmastering impression; the latest and strongest on her brain before she fell asleep. They – she and her mother – must leave, must seek shelter somewhere, anywhere, at once. Then the remembrance of the commission she had, in her desperation, entrusted to Robin Winchester returned.

“Has it – has the?” she began to say, raising herself to look about her. But her full senses revived before she said more. The room was quite in darkness, except for the faint red glow of the slumbering fire. It might have been the middle of the night; nay more, days might have passed, for all she knew, since that terrible afternoon.

“Perhaps I have been very ill, and am only now beginning to get better,” she thought. But no, though her head was dizzy and ached a good deal, she did not feel weak or exhausted. Then she had on her usual dress, the same dress she had worn all day. With a sigh almost of regret Imogen had to decide that nothing very remarkable had happened. She was still in the world of ordinary doings, and she must face what lay before her.

A dark figure, aroused by even the half-audible words she had begun to utter, crossed the room to the bedside.

“Mamma?” said Imogen.

“Yes, darling. I have been watching for you to awake. Is your head better, sweetest?”

“I think so,” the girl, now fully on the alert, replied. “What time is it? The middle of the night?”

“Oh no, dear, the dressing-gong has not sounded yet.”

“Has it not?” in a tone of disappointment.

“I won’t come down to dinner; you will tell them about my headache. But you must go down, mamsey,” with unconscious selfishness, “and – it would not do to seem to make a fuss.”

“No dear,” very submissively. “But first, Imogen, I have to tell you what I have done. I don’t know what you’ll say. I have had a telegram from Mrs Hume, begging us so to go to her at once. I fancy she has some party she wants you for; and so, as it was so near our time for leaving, and you not seeming very well, and – ”

“You have said we would go? Oh, I do hope you did,” said Imogen, with feverish eagerness.

“Oh, why didn’t you wake me? – if only we could go to-night.”

“Not to-night, dearest; that couldn’t be; but to-morrow. I have telegraphed that we will be with her to-morrow.”

“Oh, thank you! I am so glad,” said Imogen. Then after a moment’s pause, “Mamma,” she went on, “you have heard something, and you see that I have. It has all been a terrible mistake. But do not ask me to speak about it yet. Afterwards, when we are away from here, I will tell you all. I cannot yet. Only one thing, you must understand that Major Winchester has not been to blame. So, if you see him to-night, you will be nice to him; promise me you will.”

“I will do my best,” said poor Mrs Wentworth.

“For every sake,” Imogen went on. She frowned as if thinking deeply. “I am not sure yet that there has not been some trick in it. Mamma, do not say one word you can help to Miss Forsyth or Trixie, and try not to let them think there is anything the matter.”

“Yes,” her mother agreed. “I will tell Mrs Helmont of the telegram – that it has hastened our going a little. They won’t be surprised; they are so accustomed to comings and goings. It really is most fortunate, most fortunate, that Mrs Hume should have thought of telegraphing. Lucky coincidences do happen sometimes, you see.”

She was trying to speak cheerfully. Trouble affecting Imogen brought out the real unselfishness underlying the superficial frivolity.

“Yes, they do,” said Imogen, smiling in spite of herself.

There was more truth in Mrs Wentworth’s remark than Imogen was aware of. Coincidences do occur in real life more strangely, more fortunately, sometimes, than even in fiction. It had been specially fortunate for all concerned that it was Robin and no one else whom Beatrix ran up against in her fright, and Robin’s being there at that moment was only thanks to his having driven round by Wood Court, where he had left some of his belongings, before his brother’s hasty summons to London. Fortunate, too, had been Major Winchester’s meeting with Florence on her return from Catborough, so that the two were able to lay their heads together as to warnings and explanations to Mrs Wentworth. And the kindliness and sympathy Florence extended to the mother as well as to the daughter met with its reward. Never before had Florence been able to feel to her so warmly as by the close of that – to some at least of the party – terribly trying evening.

“There is real heroism in her,” Florence could not help saying to Rex. “No one would have suspected what she must be feeling, to see her so cheerful and composed.”

The climax had come when Mrs Wentworth was bidding Major Winchester good-night; “and good-bye, probably,” she added, “for we are leaving so early in the morning. But I must not forget to ask how Mrs Bertrand is,” she went on. “Imogen called me back as I was coming down to dinner to remind me to ask you.”

“She is going on wonderfully well; there is every hope of a perfect cure,” he replied. “Thank you and Miss Wentworth a thousand times. Yes, I think it is good-bye, not on account of your early start, but I am off before breakfast to-morrow for a shoot at Gorsage.”

“I shall be here, however,” Robin had put in softly, “if I can be of the least use.”

“It is far more than I deserve. They are good, truly good women,” said Rex, in reply to Florence’s remark. And this, in her heart, his cousin endorsed. “Rex has been foolish – very foolish,” she said to herself. “But he has done his best to put things straight. After all, poor child, she will outlive it. It seems to have left a mark on him, however. He looks ten years older than when he went away.”

Some one else was remarking this with satisfaction.

“It has hit him in a tender point, I delighted to see,” Miss Forsyth was saying to herself. “Major Reginald Winchester, the mirror of chivalry and honour, to have flirted so egregiously with an inexperienced little fool, as to have brought her to the brink of a brain fever and goodness knows what not: it would be a nice story to tell, if I could tell it, which, alas! I fear I can’t. But, after all, it is not the publishing it I care about; it is the delight of knowing I have scored one against him.”

He caught her eye fixed upon him with something almost diabolical in its malice, and his strange suspicions redoubled. Then came his talk with Robin.

“Why did Eva not write to me direct – telegraph – anything?” he said at first, with a touch of impatience, when he had heard what his brother had to tell.

“Telegraphing would have done no good. Then she wanted to save you annoyance, to spare your ever hearing of the – mistake – at all, if possible,” was the reasonable reply. “Don’t you see, if the Miss Wentworth whose note she received had been an elderly spinster, no harm would have been done; at least so Eva thought, though I am not sure that I agree with her,” with a touch of grim humour.

“I have told her about Imogen,” said Rex. “Not by her surname. Eva specially says she had never heard of a Miss Wentworth. That postscript was so extraordinarily unlucky too,” he added reflectively.

“Angey particularly wanted no one to know the exact date of the operation.”

“And the confusion between the names – Evangeline and Eveleen,” Robin went on.

“Upon my word, I never knew anything like it. It is as if malicious imps had been told off to play into that – into Miss Forsyth’s hands. If she– if Miss Wentworth gets ill, and anything happens to her, I, for one, shall feel as if she had been murdered.”

Rex could bear no more.

“Robin,” he exclaimed, “do you want to send me out of my mind? In your – only natural, I allow” – and he threw a quick and searching glance at his brother – “feeling for her, you seem to think I have no feeling at all. Keep to the point. What motive had that woman in doing as she did? and how can she be shown up and punished?”

“Spite,” answered Robin. “Spite, at her, Imogen, or you; that is my answer to the first question. And – ”

“She has no special motive for malevolence at me,” interrupted Rex, “and her jealousy of Imogen can scarcely be so deep-seated. Beatrix hates me, in her mad, reckless way, for getting her a scolding, as she would express it; but even she, wild as she is – ”

“Would have hesitated to open two envelopes, read their contents, and fasten them up again, after changing the letters,” said Robin. “Well, yes, it is to be hoped so; at least, I can’t help hoping so, considering she’s our cousin.”

“And you are certain, entirely certain, that the letters were rightly put in at first?” repeated his brother.

“Absolutely, entirely certain that the one I shut into the envelope addressed to Miss Wentworth was for Miss Wentworth. Yes, as certain as that I’m sitting on this chair. And I am also absolutely certain that as I was crossing the outer hall to look if the dogcart had come, I saw Miss Forsyth come down-stairs and stop at the table where notes and letters for the post always lie, and stand there looking at the letters. There was no one about; everybody was late that morning except ourselves, and Florence, and that woman. But that is all I can vouch for, though Trixie’s terror made me surer than ever.”

“Do you think she knew?”

Robin shook his head.

“I can’t say. Perhaps not all the details; but she tacitly owned to a plot of some kind.”

“If I can frighten Miss Forsyth into silence, that is the best we can hope for, I suppose,” said Rex.

“The best one should hope for, I should say,” Robin replied. “Of course one yearns to expose that woman, but the real concern is to shield Miss Wentworth. Miss Forsyth has put herself beneath contempt. I care nothing about her, provided we can stop her making a good story of it and – and getting Imogen laughed at; and you, too, for that matter.”

“Don’t take me into consideration,” said his brother.

“Not for Eva’s sake?” suggested Robin, gently.

“Eva would only feel as I do,” said Major Winchester. “Her whole sympathies will be with Miss Wentworth.”

“She is an angel, I know,” said Robin. “Well, keep cool about it, Rex, and be prepared for Miss Forsyth if you see your chance.”

Major Winchester had not to wait for it, nor did it come in any way such as could have been predicted. He was off the next morning, almost as soon as it was light, and did not return till about three in the afternoon. As he came up the drive, tired and depressed, with every step the painful scenes of the day before seemed to be re-enacted. He could not forgive himself, even though it was difficult to define precisely where and how he had been to blame. But he found no difficulty in defining and concentrating his overwhelming indignation. Instead of at all softening it, the last few hours had increased it tenfold. And now that, to a certain extent, Imogen was beyond the reach of Miss Forsyth’s malevolence, Rex almost felt as if silence were becoming impossible to him.

“She must be exposed,” he muttered to himself, “so that every honourable door may be closed to her. At all costs I cannot see that she should be allowed to get off scot-free.”

So thinking, he did not at once notice steps coming quickly behind him, nor till he heard his own name pronounced, in a mocking tone, did he realise that some one was overtaking him.

“It is you, Major Winchester, is it? This is your first appearance here to-day. You were off betimes this morning; early starts seem to be the order of the day with you.”

The effrontery of this greeting – for the voice was Mabella’s – almost took away Rex’s presence of mind and power of speech. He soon recovered them, however, and turning sharply, faced her.

“Yes, Miss Forsyth,” he said, quickly, “it is I. If you have anything to say to me, say it; if not, be so good as to walk on. Unfortunately, there are not two roads to the house from here.”

She laughed; there was not a trace of nervousness in her laugh.

“You are no diplomatist, Major Winchester. Here you are showing your colours to the enemy at once, before you have really any to show.”

“I have not the slightest objection to your knowing what I was thinking about,” he said. “I am only considering whether I shall expose you, or whether, for the sake of others, I must leave you to the punishment which is sure to come sooner or later, even if I have no hand in bringing it upon you.”

“Goody-goody talk runs off me like water off a duck’s back, I warn you,” she said. “Keep to common-sense, if you please. I shall not pretend I don’t know what you mean; I do perfectly, and I intend to treat you with entire candour. What I would ask you is this: how can you ‘expose me’ – to use your courteous phrase – without proof, reliable and certain, that I am guilty? Such proof you know you have not got. All you can say is that your brother saw me standing at the table whereon lay the two letters in question. Is it likely that people would believe that I, a lady born and bred, would have done such an unheard-of thing as to open them, read them, and change their envelopes? And when the circumstances are explained further, of your agitation and hurry that morning, do you think you would gain much by your attempt at showing me up?” He was silent for a moment. Then, “Yes,” he said, “I believe my story would be accepted. There is not only this last distinct act; there is the whole string of misleading remarks and suggestions on your part, and,” – he hesitated to name her – “Trixie’s, which show the plot into which, Heaven knows why, you inveigled that misguided girl as a fellow-conspirator.”

“Ah, Trixie,” she said. “I will revert to her in a moment, though, en passant, I may tell you there was not much ‘inveigling’ required on my part. Your cousin Beatrix hates you, Major Winchester, with a very pretty hatred;” and she laughed gently, delighted to see that he started a little. If “hate” was not a pleasant word on Imogen’s childish lips, it did not gain when pronounced by Mabella.

“Yes,” she went on, “she hates you, though not as – But that will keep. But what I am going to say will indeed surprise you. I am going to treat you with unheard-of generosity – to furnish you myself with the necessary weapons. Here they are. You are perfectly correct in your surmises. I did open the envelopes and change their contents, not out of mischief, but from a far deeper motive; and I did, and have done, and meant to do all I possibly could to mislead that silly woman and her daughter into believing you were in love with the girl, and on the point of proposing to her; in which scheme I persuaded Trixie to join me, even as far as I remember, before they came. There, now, what do you say to that?”