CHAPTER XVII.

MRS. PELHAM.

The Pelhams returned home and took up their quarters at Mrs. Evershed’s house in Mark Place.

Pelham had been in London two or three days before he could muster sufficient courage to visit Mrs. Pelham.

“You must come, Dick,” said his young wife; “your keeping away looks strange. Mrs. Pelham has been talking to mother about you and wondering why you never come near her. She sent us an invitation only yesterday, and she wants us to take tea with her this afternoon. I accepted her invitation for us both. Come with me, and get it over.”

Pelham remained silent for a moment. Then he said—

“Yes, Barbara, it is best to get it over. I will come.”

At the appointed hour they arrived at Ashley Mansions. Mrs. Pelham was alone in the old drawing-room where Dick had so often greeted her in the presence of little Piers.

Barbara in her rich furs, her eyes sparkling and the color of health and happiness on her cheeks, made a lovely picture as she advanced eagerly into the room. She held out both her hands, and tears of sympathy filled her eyes. She put her arms round the little widow’s neck and kissed her. Mrs. Pelham received her with effusion, but her real anxiety was to get a glimpse of Dick.

“Ah!” she said, “you have come at last.” She looked full up into the young man’s face and burst into tears.

“I didn’t think you would have left me so long,” she continued. “I thought you would have been a son to me now.”

She sobbed audibly. Pelham was visibly affected. Mrs. Pelham sat down, and he placed himself near her. Presently she held out one of her hands and invited him to clasp it in his.

“No one in all the world is as dear to me as you are now,” she said.

“I thought that under the circumstances you would rather not see me,” said Pelham.

“What a strange thought to come to you! You certainly were wrong. Do you think I grudge you what once belonged to him? I am not quite so base as that.”

“Dick has been in very low spirits since little Piers’s death,” said Barbara suddenly. “He felt his death dreadfully. He loved him as if he were his own brother.”

“I know that,” said Mrs. Pelham, taking out her handkerchief and applying it afresh to her eyes. “And now—I say it quite frankly, Dick—now that God has seen fit to remove little Piers, I am more glad that you should have the property than any one else in the world. If anything could reconcile me to the death of my only boy, it is the thought that you are his heir.”

“Thank you,” said Dick. “You are more than good.”

“Will you come and visit us at Pelham Towers this winter, Mrs. Pelham?” said Barbara.

Mrs. Pelham looked attentively from one young face to the other—Barbara’s full of eagerness, fire and enthusiasm, Dick’s strangely downcast.

“Yes, I will come,” she answered. “Dick, you feel all this too much.”

Pelham walked to the mantelpiece. There he stood fidgeting with one of the ornaments, his back turned to Mrs. Pelham and Barbara. Barbara saw that the interview was proving too much for him. She was distressed and alarmed at his state, and as soon as possible rose to leave.

“What a short visit!” said Mrs. Pelham in a fretful tone. “I hoped you would both stay and have a long talk. There is so much that we have to talk over together.”

“I will come again to-morrow,” said Barbara in her soft voice, glancing as she spoke towards her husband.

“He is dreadfully upset,” she continued, dropping her voice almost to a whisper. “I will come by myself if I may.”

“When do you leave London?” asked Mrs. Pelham.

“On Saturday, I think. Don’t we go to Pelham Towers on Saturday, Dick?”

“Yes,” replied Pelham. “We will both come to say good-by before we leave London, and we hope to see you, Mrs. Pelham, at the Towers in the winter,” he added.

The two women said a few more words to each other, and then Barbara and her husband found themselves outside the door.

They walked as far as Mark Place.

“I shan’t come in just yet, Barbara,” said Dick. “That visit has upset me—I shall go for a walk. Ask your mother not to wait dinner.”

He turned immediately and left her. Barbara went up-stairs to the drawing-room, where her mother was waiting for her.

“Did you see Mrs. Pelham?” asked Mrs. Evershed.

“Yes.”

“I am glad Dick went there at last.”

Barbara made no reply.

“She is recovering, is she not?” said Mrs. Evershed.

“She seemed to me to be in very great trouble,” replied Barbara. “Seeing Dick upset her dreadfully.”

“He ought to have gone there long ago,” said her mother. “His not doing so arouses suspicion.”

“Arouses suspicion, mother?” echoed Barbara. “What do you mean?”

“Well, Barbara, you may as well know it—there has been considerable talk about a _post obit_.”

“_Post obit_—what is that?” asked Barbara.

“It is a document in which a man makes himself liable to pay away property which he does not possess at the time, but which will be his at the death of a relation.”

“I do not understand,” said Barbara.

“Well, my dear, that is what your husband has done.”

“My husband has signed a _post obit_! I think you must be wrong.”

“I am not wrong. Your husband promised to pay a certain sum of money on the death of Piers Pelham. It is always considered a shady thing to do, and I cannot imagine how a man like Dick could have been guilty of such an indiscretion. It makes at the present moment a handle for talk. I don’t like it, I must say so frankly.”

Barbara was silent. Her face had turned very pale.

“The story as it reached my ears was something as follows,” continued Mrs. Evershed. “You remember how kind we thought Dr. Tarbot when he lent me that ten thousand pounds!”

“Certainly, mother, and he was very kind. I don’t like him for most things, but I always did think he was generous about that.”

“It seems, Barbara, that he was not quite so generous as we imagined, for Dick—poor fellow!—was implicated in the matter too. Dr. Tarbot required some security for his money. I had none to give him, and the security he claimed was that Dick should pay him as soon as he came in for the property.”

“For what property?”

“Barbara, my dear, how silly you are! The Pelham property.”

“Are you sure you are right?”

“Positive. You can ask your husband yourself.”

“When did this happen?” asked the girl. She was trembling visibly.

“Sit down, dear. Really, Barbara, you are a most impulsive person. There’s nothing so dreadful in what I tell you—it may be an indiscretion, of course, but many men do it.”

“Not men like Dick,” said Barbara—she spoke with an effort.

“My dear child, notwithstanding your quixotic views with regard to that husband of yours, you must accept facts. Dick signed a document which is called a _post obit_, in which he promised to pay back the capital of ten thousand pounds to Dr. Tarbot whenever he came in for the Pelham estates.”

“When did he sign the document?” asked Barbara.

“On the day the loan was made to me.”

Lady Pelham walked to the window and stood there looking out. Everything seemed dim and strange. She had a queer singing in her ears. She could hear nothing for a moment but this tempestuous noise. She turned and faced her mother.

“I am going out, mother,” she said.

“But it is so late, dear, and you have only just come in.”

“I must go.”

“Where?”

“I will tell you presently.”

“Barbara, are you going to have secrets from me, your mother?”

“I will tell you presently. I cannot now.”

Barbara left the room.

Mrs. Evershed walked to the window and watched her as she crossed the little quadrangle which stood in front of Mark Place. The girl went down a street, which led into a wide thoroughfare.

“How queerly she takes it,” thought the mother. “Many a man has done a similar thing before now. I am sorry Barbara is so sensitive. Doubtless those two will have their first quarrel over this matter. How did the rumor get out? Such private things as these are never known as a rule. What can it mean?”

Meanwhile Barbara, her heart on fire, and the noise of its loud beating quite audible in her ears, walked rapidly in the direction of Tarbot’s house in Harley Street. She arrived there about six o’clock. When the servant answered her summons she asked if the doctor was in. The man said no.

“When do you expect him to return?” asked Barbara.

“Not until late, madam. He had to go into the country to attend a patient.”

Barbara hesitated for a moment; then with reluctance she put her next question.

“Is Mrs. Tarbot at home?”

“I will inquire, madam, if you will wait a moment.”

“If she is at home I should like to see her.”

“What name shall I say?”

“Lady Pelham.”

The man invited Barbara in and went up-stairs to make the inquiry. He returned quickly to say that his mistress was at home, and would be pleased to see Lady Pelham.

Barbara followed him up the richly carpeted stairs into a magnificent drawing-room on the first floor. This room had been newly furnished, and showed excellent taste in all its arrangements. The electric light was subdued by golden silk draperies over the pomegranate shaped globes, the curtains were drawn before the large windows, there was a fire in the grate. From the depths of a deep arm-chair a tall woman dressed in black rose as Barbara entered. She had a pale face and radiant red-gold hair. She came a step or two forward and half hesitated whether to hold out her hand or not. Barbara advanced to meet her. For a moment she could not recognize in this graceful and perfectly dressed lady Nurse Ives, whom she had last seen at Ashley Mansions.

“Is this really you?” was the exclamation which burst involuntarily from her lips.

“Yes, it is I,” replied Mrs. Tarbot. “I am changed.”

“You are transformed.”

Mrs. Tarbot gave a faint smile.

“Won’t you sit down?” she said.

“Thank you,” answered Barbara. She seated herself and threw up her veil.

“It is good of you to pay me this visit,” said Tarbot’s wife.

“I have come to you because your husband is out. This is not an ordinary call.”

“Indeed!” Mrs. Tarbot looked at Barbara with an intense and hungry stare.

“I will treat whatever you tell me as confidential,” she said.

Barbara looked full at her. Her very voice had altered, her manners were those of a refined and well-educated woman. Her dress, black, and of the softest lace and silk, scarcely rustled as she moved.

Now as she returned Barbara’s gaze her eyes grew bright. The eyes themselves were of a very pale blue, painfully deficient in color by daylight, but at night the pupils were apt to dilate, and in the midst of the white face the eyes glowed dark, somber and watchful. Barbara thought she had never seen a more peculiar or a stronger type of face. She was so much engaged in the amazing discovery of the changed Nurse Ives that she could not speak for a moment.

“Have you got over your astonishment?” said Mrs. Tarbot at last, speaking very softly.

Barbara started and colored.

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” she replied. “I hope you will forgive me. You are so transformed that I did not know you.”

“That is true, Lady Pelham,” was the slow reply; “I am as much altered as the circumstances of my life have changed. When you last saw me I was only a nurse. My parentage is humble, my mother is a very humble person indeed. She is an excellent woman and with plenty of character, but she belongs to the peasantry of our county.”

“What is your county?” asked Barbara.

“Cornwall.”

“Ah!”

“My mother has a little cottage in Cornwall by the sea coast. She pays ten pounds a year for it. She lives not very far from Falmouth. I remember the time when there was extreme difficulty in meeting that ten pounds rent. Then I went away and was trained as a nurse, and——”

“And you married Dr. Tarbot?”

“Yes, I married Dr. Tarbot. I am sorry he is out. He would doubtless have answered whatever question you intend to ask better than I could.”

“I wished to see him with regard to a curious rumor which is afloat, but I have something else to say to you.”

“What is that? I am all attention.”

“May I trust you?”

“Absolutely.”

“It is about my husband. He is not well. He is troubled by a nervous ailment.”

Mrs. Tarbot looked watchful and eager. She no longer lay back in her chair; she sat upright, her thin hands were folded on her lap, the jewels with which her fingers were loaded shone in the firelight. Her eyes, filled with bold intentness, were fixed on Barbara’s white face. All the remarkable and gracious beauty of the young face was torture to the jealous heart of the other woman. She saw that a new development in her strange history was imminent, and roused herself, bracing every nerve to meet it. “Yes,” she said, “a nervous ailment. This is the age for such maladies. We live too fast, we put too much into our lives, nerves get overwrought, they give way. Our grandmothers vegetated, they did not know the meaning of nerves. A young man, rich, in the prime of youth, who has just married the girl he loves, ought not to suffer from nervous troubles.”

“My husband cannot get over the death of the child.”

“Ah!”

“He is haunted by strange fears in connection with that death.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I say, and I have come now to ask you to tell me frankly and fully, knowing that God is present and is listening to us, what the child really died of.”

“Acute disease of the heart.”

“I wish you would tell Dick so. His mind is in a strange state of confusion. If you were to see him and repeat the words you have just told me it might give him untold relief.”

“My word alone would not do that. When Dr. Tarbot signed the death certificate he spoke of the cause of death as aortic disease—that means disease of the aortic valve of the heart, a species of heart disease which invariably ends suddenly. Dr. Williamson and Sir Richard Spears were of the same opinion. My word goes for nothing. Let your husband see the great specialists who examined the boy’s heart within twenty-four hours of his death.”

“I am greatly obliged to you,” said Barbara. She rose to go as she spoke. “I will tell Dick what you say. Yes, he must see the doctors. Their verdict will set his mind at rest.”

Barbara held out her hand.

“I am glad you came to see me,” said Mrs. Tarbot, “and if in the future I can help you, pray command me.”

“But how can you help me?”

“I mean this. From what you say, your husband is suffering from nerve depression. Nothing else can account for the curious state you have half described. The doctors whom he consults may set his mind at rest, but if after seeing them his troubles return, his complaint ought to be treated as something physical, an ailment of the body which requires cure.”

“But how can such a thing be cured? How can a thought, a dominant thought, be banished?”

“It can, and—I can do it.”

“You, Mrs. Tarbot? You?”

“Yes, I. Did I ever tell you that I spent three years of my life in Paris?”

“No.”

“I did. I was one of the principal assistants of the great Dr. Weismann. When he lived he was the greatest mesmerist, the greatest hypnotist of his day. He accomplished more cures by hypnotism than I can describe to you. Now, the hypnotism of suggestion would, in case of need, cure your husband.”

“But I don’t believe in it, nor, I am sure, does he.”

“You may come to believe in it yet. When you do, send for me, and I will help you. I will do my best for you.”

Barbara promised, feeling as she did so a vague sense of coming trouble. Soon afterwards she took her leave and hurried home as quickly as she could.