Imogen: or, Only Eighteen

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.”