“It is a woman’s hand, of course,” he said.
“A woman!” she gasped. “Are you sure?”
He looked up in surprise.
“Of course I’m sure,” said Digby; “look at the size of it! It is much too small for a man.”
So she had wronged Jim cruelly! And yet what was he doing there in the house? How had he got in? The whole thing was so inexplicable that she gave it up, only—she must tell Jim and ask him to forgive her.
As soon as she was free she went to the telephone. Jim was not in the office.
“Who is it speaking?” asked the voice of the clerk.
“Never mind,” said the girl hurriedly, and hung up the receiver.
All day long she was haunted by the thought of the injustice she had done the man she loved. He would send her a note, she thought, or would call her up, and at every ring of the telephone the blood came into her face, only to recede when she heard the answer, and discovered the caller was some person in whom she had no interest.
That day was one of the longest she had ever spent in her life. There was practically no work to do, and even the dubious entertainment of Digby was denied her. He went out in the morning and did not come back until late in the afternoon, going out again as soon as he had changed his clothes.
She ate her dinner in solitude and was comforted by the thought that she would soon be free from this employment. She had written to her old employer and he had answered by return of post, saying how glad he would be if he could get her back. Then they could have their little tea-parties all over again, she thought, and Jim, free of this obsession about Digby Groat, would be his old cheerful self.
The nurse was going out that evening and Mrs. Groat sent for her. She hated the girl, but she hated the thought of being alone much more.
“I want you to sit here with me until the nurse comes home,” she said. “You can take a book and read, but don’t fidget.”
Eunice smiled to herself and went in search of a book.
She came back in time to find Mrs. Groat hiding something beneath her pillow. They sat in silence for an hour, the old woman playing with her hands on her lap, her head sunk forward, deep in thought, the girl trying to read, and finding it very difficult. Jim’s face so constantly came between her and the printed page, that she would have been glad for an excuse to put down the book, glad for any diversion.
It was Mrs. Groat who provided her with an escape from her ennui.
“Where did you get that scar on your wrist?” she asked, looking up.
“I don’t know,” said Eunice. “I have had it ever since I was a baby. I think I must have been burnt.”
There was another long silence.
“Where were you born?”
“In South Africa,” said the girl.
Again there was an interval, broken only by the creak of Mrs. Groat’s chair.
In sheer desperation, for the situation was getting on her nerves, Eunice said: “I found an old miniature of yours the other day, Mrs. Groat.”
The woman fixed her with her dark eyes.
“Of me?” she said, and then, “Oh, yes, I remember. Well? Did you think it looks like me?” she asked sourly.
“I think it was probably like you years ago. I could trace a resemblance,” said Eunice diplomatically.
The answer seemed to amuse Jane Groat. She had a mordant sense of humour, the girl was to discover.
“Like me when I was like that, eh?” she said. “Do you think I was pretty?”
Here Eunice could speak whole-heartedly and without evasion.
“I think you were very beautiful,” she said warmly.
“I was, too,” said the woman, speaking half to herself. “My father tried to bury me in a dead-and-alive village. He thought I was too attractive for town. A wicked, heartless brute of a man,” she said, and the girl was somewhat shocked.
Apparently the old doctrine of filial piety did not run in Jane Groat’s family.
“When I was a girl,” the old woman went on, “the head of the family was the family tyrant, and lived for the exercise of his power. My father hated me from the moment I was born and I hated him from the moment I began to think.”
Eunice said nothing. She had not invited the confidence, nevertheless it fascinated her to hear this woman draw aside the veil which hid the past. What great tragedy had happened, she speculated, that had turned the beautiful original of the miniature into this hard and evil-looking woman?
“Men would run after me, Miss Weldon,” she said with a curious complacence. “Men whose names are famous throughout the world.”
The girl remembered the Marquis of Estremeda and wondered whether her generosity to him was due to the part he had played as pursuing lover.
“There was one man who loved me,” said the old woman reflectively, “but he didn’t love me well enough. He must have heard something, I suppose, because he was going to marry me and then he broke it off and married a simpering fool of a girl from Malaga.”
She chuckled to herself. She had had no intention of discussing her private affairs with Eunice Weldon, but something had started her on a train of reminiscence. Besides, she regarded Eunice already as an unofficial member of the family. Digby would tell her sooner or later. She might as well know from her, she thought.
“He was a Marquis,” she went on, “a hard man, too, and he treated me badly. My father never forgave me after I came back, and never spoke another word in his life, although he lived for nearly twenty years.”
After she had come back, thought Eunice. Then she had gone away with this Marquis? The Marquis of Estremeda. And then he had deserted her, and had married this “simpering fool” from Malaga. Gradually the story was revealing itself before her eyes.
“What happened to the girl?” she asked gently. She was almost afraid to speak unless she stopped the loquacious woman.
“She died,” said Mrs. Groat with a thin smile. “He said I killed her. I only told her the truth. Besides, I owed him something,” she frowned. “I wish I hadn’t,” she muttered, “I wish I hadn’t. Sometimes the ghost of her comes into this room and looks down at me with her deep black eyes and tells me that I killed her!” She mumbled something, and again with that note of complacency in her voice:
“When she heard that my child was the son—” she stopped quickly and looked round. “What am I talking about?” she said gruffly.
Eunice held her breath. Now she knew the secret of this strange household! Jim had told her something about it; told her of the little shipping clerk who had married Mrs. Groat, and for whom she had so profound a contempt. A shipping clerk from the old man’s office, whom he had paid to marry the girl that her shame should be hidden.
Digby Groat was actually the son of—the Marquis of Estremeda! In law he was not even the heir to the Danton millions!
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
EUNICE could only stare at the old woman. “Get on with your book,” grumbled Mrs. Groat pettishly, and the girl, looking up through her lashes, saw the suspicious eyes fixed on her and the tremulous mouth moving as though she were speaking.
She must tell Jim. Despite her sense of loyalty, she realized that this was imperative. Jim was vitally interested in the disposal of the Danton estate, and he must know.
Suddenly the old woman began speaking again.
“What did I tell you just now?” she asked.
“You were talking about your youth,” said the girl.
“Did I say anything about—a man?” asked the old woman suspiciously. She had forgotten! Eunice forced the lie to her lips.
“No,” she replied, so loudly that anybody but this muddled woman would have known she was not speaking the truth.