Why didn’t Jim write, she asked herself fretfully, and immediately after relentless logic demanded of her why she did not write to Jim.
She went for a walk in the park that afternoon hoping that she would see him, but although she sat for an hour under his favourite tree, he did not put in an appearance and she went home depressed and angry with herself.
A stamp upon a postcard would have brought him, but that postcard she would not write.
The next day brought Mrs. Mary Weatherwale, a stout, cheery woman of sixty, with a rosy apple face. She came in a four-wheeled cab, depositing her luggage in the hall, and greeted Eunice like an old friend.
“How is she, my darling?” (“Darling” was a favourite word of hers, Eunice discovered with amusement.) “Poor old Jane, I haven’t seen her for years and years. We used to be good friends once, you know, very good friends, but she—but there, let bygones be bygones, darling; show me to her room, will you?”
It required all the cheerfulness of Mrs. Weatherwale to disguise her shock at the appearance of her one-time friend.
“Why, Jane,” she said, “what’s the matter with you?”
“Sit down, Mary,” said the other pettishly. “All right, young lady, you needn’t wait.”
This ungrateful dismissal was addressed to Eunice, who was very glad to make her escape. She was passing through the hall later in the afternoon, when Digby Groat came in. He looked at the luggage, which had not been removed from the hall, and turned with a frown to Eunice.
“What is the meaning of this?” he asked. “To whom does this belong?”
“A friend of Mrs. Groat is coming to stay,” said Eunice.
“A friend of mother’s?” he answered quickly. “Do you know her name?”
“Mrs. Weatherwale.”
She saw an instant change come over his face.
“Mrs. Weatherwale, eh,” he said slowly. “Coming to stay here? At my mother’s invitation, I suppose.” He stripped his gloves and flung them on to the hall table and went up the stairs two at a time.
What happened in the sick-room Eunice could only guess. The first intimation she had that all was not well, was the appearance of Mrs. Weatherwale strutting down the stairs, her face as red as a turkey-cock, her bead bonnet trembling with anger. She caught sight of Eunice and beckoned her.
“Get somebody to find a cab for me, my darling,” she said. “I’m going back to Somerset. I’ve been thrown out, my darling! What do you think of that? A woman of my age and my respectability; thrown out by a dirty little devil of a boy that I wouldn’t harbour in my cow-yard.” She was choleric and her voice was trembling with her righteous rage. “I’m talking about you,” she said, raising her voice, and addressing somebody, apparently Digby, who was out of sight of Eunice. “You always were a cruel little beast, and if anything happens to your mother, I’m going to the police.”
“You had better get out before I send for a policeman,” said Digby’s growling voice.
“I know you,” she shook her fist at her invisible enemy. “I’ve known you for twenty-three years, my boy, and a more cruel and nastier man never lived!”
Digby came slowly down the stairs, a smile on his face.
“Really, Mrs. Weatherwale,” he said, “you are unreasonable. I simply do not want my mother to be associated with the kind of people she chose as her friends when she was a girl. I can’t be responsible for her vulgar tastes then; I certainly am responsible now.”
The rosy face of the woman flushed an even deeper red.
“Common! Vulgar!” she spluttered. “You say that? You dirty little foreigner. Ah! That got home. I know your secret, Mr. Digby Groat!”
If eyes could kill, she would have died at that moment. He turned at the foot of the stairs and walked into his study, and slammed the door behind him.
“Whenever you want to know anything about that!”—Mrs. Weatherwale pointed at the closed door—“send for me. I’ve got letters from his mother about him when he was a child of so high that would make your hair stand on ends, darling.”
When at last a cab bore the indignant lady from Grosvenor Square, Eunice breathed a sigh of relief. One more family skeleton, she thought, but she had already inspected the grisly bones. She would not be sorry to follow in Mrs. Weatherwale’s footsteps, though, unknown to her, Digby Groat had other plans.
Those plans were maturing, when he heard a sharp rat-tat at the door and came out into the hall. “Was that a telegram for me?” he asked.
“No, for me,” said Eunice, and there was no need to ask whom that message was from; her shining eyes, her flushed face, told their own story.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“JIM!”
Eunice came running across the grass with outstretched hands, oblivious to the fact that it was broad daylight and that she was being watched by at least a hundred idle loungers in the park.
Jim took both her hands in his and she experienced a moment of serene comfort. Then they both talked at once; they were both apologetic, interrupting one another’s explanations with the expression of their own contrition.
“Jim, I’m going to leave Mrs. Groat’s house,” she said when they had reached sanity.
“Thank God for that,” said Jim.
“You are so solemn about it,” she laughed. “Did you really think I was in any danger there?”
“I know you were,” he said.
She had so much to tell him that she did not know where to begin.
“Were you sorry not to see me?”
“The days I have not seen you are dead, and wiped off the calendar,” said Jim.
“Oh, before I forget,” said Eunice, “Mrs. Weatherwale has gone.”
“Mrs. Weatherwale!” he repeated, puzzled.
“I haven’t told you? No, of course not. I did not see you yesterday. But Mrs. Groat asked me to write to Mrs. Weatherwale, who is an old friend of hers, asking her to come and stay. I think Mrs. Groat is rather afraid of Digby.”
“And she came?” asked Jim.
The girl nodded.
“She came and stayed about one hour, then arrived my lord Digby, who bundled her unceremoniously into the street. There is no love lost there, either, Jim. The dear old lady hated him. She was a charming old soul and called me ‘darling.’”
“Who wouldn’t?” said Jim. “I can call you darling even though I am not a charming old soul. Go on. So she went away? I wonder what she knows about Digby?”
“She knows everything. She knows about Estremeda, of that I am sure. Jim, doesn’t that make a difference?”
He shook his head.
“If you mean does it make any difference about Digby inheriting his mother’s money when she gets it, I can tell you that it makes none. The will does not specify that he is the son of John Groat, and the fact that he was born before she married this unfortunate shipping clerk does not affect the issue.”
“When is the money to be made over to the Groats?”
“Next Thursday,” said Jim, with a groan, “and I am just as far from stopping the transfer of the property as I have ever been.”
He had not told her of his meeting with Lady Mary Danton. That was not his secret alone. Nor could he tell her that Lady Mary was the woman who had warned her.
They strolled across the Park towards the Serpentine and Jim was unusually preoccupied.
“Do you know, Eunice, that I have an uncanny feeling that you really are in some way associated with the Danton fortune?”
She laughed and clung tighter to his arm.