Part 2

"Yes?" she said, "who is it? I can hardly hear you," and then, with startling closeness and clearness--the telephone plays one such tricks--came the answer in a voice she knew well, "It is I--Joan Panfillen! Are you alone, Althea? Yes? Ah! that's good! I want you to do me a kindness, dear. I want you to come round here now--at once. Don't tell anyone you are coming to me. I have a reason for this. Can you hear what I say, Althea?"

"Yes," said the listener hesitatingly, "yes, I hear you quite well now, Joan."

"Come in by the park side, I mean through the garden--the gate is unlocked, and I will let you in by the window. Be careful as you walk across the flags, it's very slippery to-night. Can you come now, at once?"

Althea hesitated a moment. Then she answered, in her low, even voice, "Yes, I'll come now, at once."

A kindness? What kindness could she, Althea Scrope, do Joan Panfillen? The fear of the other woman, the hidden distrust with which she regarded her, gathered sudden force. Not lately, but in the early days of Scrope's marriage, Mrs. Panfillen had more than once tried to use her friend's wife, believing--strange that she should have made such a mistake--that Althea might succeed where she herself had failed in persuading Scrope for his own good. Althea now told herself that no doubt Joan wished to see her on some matter connected with Perceval's coming speech.

As this thought came to her Althea's white forehead wrinkled in vexed thought. It was too bad that she should have to go out now, when she was expecting Mr. Bustard, to whom she had one or two rather important things to say about his sister----But stay, why should he be told that she was out? Why indeed should she be still out when Mr. Bustard did come? It was not yet five o'clock, and he seldom came before a quarter past. With luck she might easily go over to Joan Panfillen's house and be back before he came.

Althea walked quickly out of the drawing-room and down into the hall. Her fur cloak had been carefully hung up as she had directed. Perceval always said Luke was a stupid servant, but she liked Luke; he was careful, honest, conscientious, a very different type of man from the butler, Dockett.

Althea passed out into the chilly, foggy air. Delahay Street, composed of a few high houses, looked dark, forbidding, deserted. She had often secretly wondered why her husband chose to live in such a place. Of course she knew that their friends raved about the park side of the house, but the wife of Perceval Scrope scarcely ever went in or out of her own door without remembering a dictum of her father's: "Nothing makes up for a good front entrance."

Althea walked quickly towards Great George Street; to the left she passed Boar's Head Yard, where lived an old cabman in whom she took an interest, and whose cab generally stood at Storey's Gate.

How strange to think that here had once stood Oliver Cromwell's house! Her husband had told her this fact very soon after their marriage; it had seemed to please him very much that they lived so near the spot where Cromwell had once lived. Althea even at the time had thought this pleasure odd, in fact affected, on Perceval's part.

If the great Protector's house stood there _now_, filled with interesting little relics of the man, she could have understood, perhaps to a certain extent sympathised with, Perceval's feeling, for Cromwell had been one of her father's heroes. But to care or pretend to care for a vanished association----!

But Perceval was like that. No man living--or so Althea believed--was so full of strange whimsies and fads as was Perceval Scrope! And so thinking of him she suddenly remembered, with a tightening of the heart, how often her husband's feet had trodden the way she was now treading, hastening from the house which she had just left to the house to which she was now going.

Jealous of Joan Panfillen? Nay, Althea assured herself that there was no room in her heart for jealousy, but it was painful, even more, it was hateful, to know that there were people who pitied her because of this peculiar intimacy between Perceval and Joan. Why, quite lately, there had been a recrudescence of talk about their friendship, so an ill-bred busybody had hinted to Althea only the day before.

The wife was dimly aware that there had been a time when Mrs. Panfillen had hoped to form with her an unspoken compact; each would have helped the other, that is, to "manage" Perceval; but the moment when such an alliance would have been possible had now gone for ever--even if it had ever existed. Althea would have had to have been a different woman,--older, cleverer, less scrupulous, more indifferent than she was, even now, to the man she had married, to make such a compact possible.

When about to cross Great George Street she stopped and hesitated. Why should she do this thing, why leave her house at Joan Panfillen's bidding? But Althea, even as she hesitated, knew that she would go on. She had said that she was coming, and she was not one to break lightly even a light word.

As she crossed Storey's Gate, she noticed the stationary cab of the old man who lived in Boar's Head Yard. It had been standing there when she had come in from her walk, and she felt a thrill of pity--the old man made a gallant fight against misfortune. She and Joan Panfillen were both very kind to him.

Althea told herself that this sad world is full of real trouble, and the thought made her ashamed of the feelings which she had just allowed to possess and shake her with jealous pain. And yet--yet, though many people envied her, how far from happy Althea knew herself to be, and how terribly grey her life now looked, stretching out in front of her.

As she passed into Birdcage Walk, and came close to the little iron gate which Mrs. Panfillen had told her was unlocked, she saw that a woman stood on the path of the tiny garden behind the railings.

Of course it was not Joan herself; the thought that Joan, delicate, fragile as she was, would come out into the cold, foggy air was unthinkable; scarcely less strange was it to see standing there, cloakless and hatless, Joan's maid, a tall, gaunt, grey-haired woman named Bolt, who in the long ago had been nurse to the Panfillens' dead child. Scrope had told Althea the story of the brief tragedy very early in his acquaintance with her; he had spoken with strong feeling, and that although the child had been born, had lived, and had died before he himself had known Joan.

In the days when she had been Mrs. Panfillen's guest, that is before her marriage, Althea had known the maid well, known and liked her grim honesty of manner, but since Althea's marriage to Perceval Scrope there had come a change over Bolt's manner. She also had made Althea feel that she was an interloper, and now the sight of the woman standing waiting in the cold mist disturbed her.

Bolt looked as if she had been there a very long time, and yet Althea had hurried; she was even a little breathless. As she touched the gate, she saw that it swung loosely. Everything had been done to make her coming easy; how urgent must be Joan's need of her!

Althea became oppressed with a vague fear. She looked at the maid questioningly. "Is Mrs. Panfillen ill?" she asked. The other shook her head. "There's nothing ailing Mrs. Panfillen," she said in a low voice.

Together, quite silently, they traversed the flagged path, and then Bolt did a curious thing. She preceded her mistress's visitor up the iron steps leading to the boudoir window, and leaving her there, on the little balcony, went down again into the garden, and once more took up her station near the gate as if mounting guard.

The long French window giving access to the boudoir was closed, and in the moment that elapsed before it was opened from within Althea Scrope took unconscious note of the room she knew so well, and of everything in it, including the figure of the woman she had come to see.

It was a panelled octagon, the panels painted a pale Wedgwood blue, while just below the ceiling concave medallions were embossed with flower garlands and amorini.

A curious change had been made since Althea had last seen the room. An old six-leaved screen, of gold so faded as to have become almost silver in tint, which had masked the door, now stood exactly opposite the window behind which Althea was standing. It concealed the straight Empire sofa which, as Mr. Panfillen was fond of telling his wife's friends, on the very rare occasions when he found himself in this room with one of them, had formerly stood in the Empress Josephine's boudoir at Malmaison; and, owing to the way it was now placed, the old screen formed a delicate and charming background to Mrs. Panfillen's figure.

Scrope's Egeria stood in the middle of the room waiting for Scrope's wife. She was leaning forward in a curious attitude, as if she were listening, and the lemon-coloured shade of the lamp standing on the table threw a strange gleam on her lavender silk gown, fashioned, as were ever the clothes worn by Joan Panfillen, with a certain austere simplicity and disregard of passing fashion.

Althea tapped at the window, and the woman who had sent for her turned round, and, stepping forward, opened the window wide.

"Come in!" she cried. "Come in, Althea--how strange that you had to knock! I've been waiting for you so long."

"I came as quickly as I could--I don't think I can have been five minutes."

Althea stepped through the window, bringing with her a blast of cold, damp air. She looked questioningly at Mrs. Panfillen. She felt, she hardly knew why, trapped. The other's look of anxious, excited scrutiny disturbed her.

Mrs. Panfillen's fair face, usually pale, was flushed.

So had she reddened, suddenly, when Althea had come to tell her of her engagement to Perceval Scrope. So had she looked when standing on the doorstep as Althea and Perceval started for their honeymoon, just after there had taken place a strange little scene--for Scrope, following the example of Thomas Panfillen, who had insisted on what he called saluting the bride, had taken Panfillen's wife into his arms and kissed her.

"Althea"--Joan took the younger woman's hand in hers and held it, closely, as she spoke, "don't be frightened,--but Perceval is here, ill,--and I've sent for you to take him home."

"Ill?" A look of dismay came over Althea's face. "I hope he's not too ill to speak to-night--that would be dreadful--he'd be terribly upset, terribly disappointed!" Even as she spoke she knew she was using words which to the other would seem exaggerated, a little childish.

"I'm sure he'd rather you took him home, I'm sure he'd rather not be found----" Mrs. Panfillen hesitated a moment, and again she said the words "'ill', 'here'," and for the first time Althea saw that there was a look of great pain and strain on Joan's worn, sensitive face.

"Of course not!" said the young wife quickly. "Of course he mustn't be ill here; he must come home, at once."

Althea's pride was protesting hotly against her husband's stopping a moment in a house where he was not wanted--pride and a certain resentment warring together in her heart. How strange London people were! This woman whom folk--the old provincial word rose to her lips--whom folk whispered was over-fond of Perceval--why, no sooner was he ill than her one thought was how to get rid of him quietly and quickly!

Mrs. Panfillen, looking at her, watching with agonised intensity the slow workings of Althea's mind, saw quite clearly what Perceval's wife was feeling, saw it with a bitter sense of what a few moments ago she would have thought inconceivable she could ever feel again--amusement.

She went across to the window and opened it. As if in answer to a signal, the little iron gate below swung widely open: "Bolt has gone to get a cab," she said, without turning round; "we thought that it would be simplest. The old cabman knows us all--it will be quicker." She spoke breathlessly, but there was a tone of decision in her voice, a gentle restrained tone, but one which Althea knew well to spell finality.

"But where _is_ Perceval?"

Althea looked round her bewildered. She noticed, for the first time, that flung carelessly across two chairs lay his outdoor coat, his gloves, his stick, his hat. Then he also had come in by the park side of the house?

Mrs. Panfillen went towards her with slow, hesitating steps.

"He is here," she said in a low tone, "behind the screen. He was sitting on the sofa reading me the notes of his speech, and--and he fell back." She began moving the screen, and as she did so she went on, "I sent for Bolt--she was a nurse once, you know, and she got the brandy which you see there----"

But Althea hardly heard the words; she was gazing, with an oppressed sense of discomfort and fear, at her husband. Yes, Perceval looked ill--very ill,--and he was lying in so peculiar a position! "I suppose when people faint they have to put them like that," thought Althea to herself, but she felt concerned, a little frightened....

Perceval Scrope lay stretched out stiffly on the sofa, his feet resting on a chair which had been placed at the end of the short, frail-looking little couch. His fair, almost lint white, hair was pushed back from his forehead, showing its unusual breadth. The grey eyes were half closed, and he was still wearing, wound about his neck so loosely that it hid his mouth and chin, a silk muffler.

Althea had the painful sensation that he did not like her to be there, that it must be acutely disagreeable to him to feel that she saw him in such a condition of helplessness and unease. And yet she went on looking at him, strangely impressed, not so much by the rigidity, as by the intense stillness of his body. Scrope as a rule was never still; when he was speaking, his whole body, each of his limbs, spoke with him.

By the side of the sofa was a small table, on which stood a decanter, unstoppered.

"Has he been like that long?" Althea whispered at length. "He--he looks so strange."

Joan Panfillen came close up to the younger woman; again she put her hand on her companion's arm.

"Althea," she said, "don't you understand? Can't you see the dreadful thing that has happened?"--and as the other looked down into the quivering face turned up to hers, she added with sudden passion, "Should I want you to take him away if he were still here?--should I want him to go if there were anything left that I could do for him?"

And then Althea at last understood, and so understanding her mind for once moved quickly, and she saw with mingled terror and revolt what it was that the woman on whose face her eyes were now riveted was requiring of her.

"You sent for me to take him home--dead?"

It was a statement rather than a question. Mrs. Panfillen made a scarcely perceptible movement of assent. "It is what he would have wished," she whispered, "I am quite sure it is what he would have wished you to do."

"I--I am sorry, but I don't think I can do that."

Althea was speaking to herself rather than to the other woman. She was grappling with a feeling of mortal horror and fear. She had always been afraid of Perceval Scrope, afraid and yet fascinated, and now he, dead, seemed to be even more formidable, more beckoning, than he had been alive.

She turned away and covered her eyes with her hand. "Why did you tell me?" she asked, a little wildly. "If you hadn't told me that he was dead I should never have known. I should even have done the--the dreadful thing you want me to do."

"Bolt thought that--Bolt said you would not know," Mrs. Panfillen spoke with sombre energy. "She wished me to allow her to take him down into the garden to meet you in the darkness----But,--but Althea, that would have been an infamous thing from me to you----" She waited a moment, and then in a very different voice, in her own usual measured and gentle accents, she added, "My dear, forgive me. We will never speak of this again. I was wrong, selfish, to think of subjecting you to such an ordeal. All I ask"--and there came into her tone a sound of shamed pleading--"is that you should allow Tom--Tom and other people--to think that you were here when it happened."

Althea remained silent. Then, uncertainly, she walked across to the window and opened it. The action was symbolic--and so it was understood by the woman watching her so anxiously.

But still Althea said nothing. She stood looking out into the darkness, welcoming the feel of the cold damp air. She gave herself a few brief moments--they seemed very long moments to Joan Panfillen--before she said the irrevocable words, and when she did say them, they sounded muffled, and uttered from far away, for Althea as she spoke did not turn round; she feared to look again on that which might unnerve her, render her unfit for what she was about to do.

"Joan," she said, "I will do what you ask. You were right just now--right, I mean, in telling me what Perceval would have wished."

She spoke with nervous, dry haste, and, to her relief, the other woman spared her thanks....

There was a long silence, and then Mrs. Panfillen crept up close to Althea and touched her, making her start violently. "Then I will call Bolt," she said, and made as if to pass through the window, but Althea stopped her with a quick movement of recoil--"No, no!" she cried, "let me do that!" and she ran down the iron steps; it was good to be out of sight even for a moment of the still presence of the dead--the dead whose mocking spirit seemed to be still terribly alive.

But during the long, difficult minutes that followed, it was Joan Panfillen, not Althea Scrope, who shrank and blenched. It was Althea who put out her young strength to help to lift the dead man, and, under cover of the sheltering mist, to make the leaden feet retrace their steps down the iron stairway, and along the narrow path they had so often leapt up and along with eager haste.

To two of the three women the progress seemed intolerably slow, but to Althea it was all too swift; she dreaded with an awful dread the companioned drive which lay before her.

Perhaps something of what she was feeling was divined by Mrs. Panfillen, for at the very last Scrope's Egeria forgot self, and made, in all sincerity, an offer which on her part was heroic.

"Shall I come with you?" she whispered, averting her eyes from that which lay huddled up by Althea's side, "I will come, willingly; let me come--Althea."

But Althea only shook her head in cold, hurried refusal. She felt that with speech would go a measure of her courage.

Afterwards Althea remembered that there had come a respite,--what had seemed to her at the time an inexplicable delay. A man and a girl had gone slowly by, staring curiously at the two bare-headed women standing out on the pavement, and on whose pale faces there fell the quivering gleam of the old-fashioned cab lamp. Then, when the footfalls of these passers-by had become faint, Bolt spoke to the driver, and handed him some money. Althea heard the words as in dream, "Get along as quick as you can to 24, Delahay Street, there's a good man," and then the clink of silver in the stillness, followed by the full sound of the man's wheezy gratitude.

There came a sudden movement and the dread drive began, the horse slipping, the cab swaying and jolting over the frozen ground.

With a gesture which was wholly instinctive, Althea put out her arm,--her firm, rounded, living arm,--and slipped it round the inert, sagging thing which had been till an hour ago Perceval Scrope. And, as she did so, as she pressed him to her, and kept from him the ignominy of physical helplessness, there came a great lightening of her spirit.

Fear, the base fear bred of the imagination, fell away from her. For the first time there came the certainty that her husband was at last satisfied with her; for the first time she was able to do Perceval Scrope dead what she had never been able to do Perceval Scrope alive, a great service--a service which she might have refused to do.

Once or twice, very early in their married life, Perceval had praised her, and his praise had given Althea exquisite pleasure because it was so rare, so seldom lavished; and this long-lost feeling of joy in her husband's approval came back, filling her eyes with tears. Now at last Althea felt as if she and Perceval Scrope were one, fused in that kindly sympathy and understanding which, being the manner of woman she was, Althea supposed to be the very essence of conjugal love.

As they were clasped together, she, the quick, he, the dead, Althea lost count of time; it might have been a moment, it might have been an hour, when at last the jolting ceased.

As the old man got off the box of his cab, and rang the bell, Big Ben boomed out the quarter-past five.

Since she had last gone through that door a yawning gap had come in Althea's life, a gap which she had herself bridged. Fear had dropped from her; she could never again be afraid as she had been afraid when she, Joan and Perceval had formed for the last time a trinity. The feeling which had so upheld her, the feeling that for the first time she and her husband were in unison, gave her not only courage but serenity of spirit. Althea shrank from acting a lie, but she saw, for the first time, through Perceval Scrope's eyes, and she admitted the necessity.

As the door opened, she remembered, almost with exultation, that Dockett, the butler, was out, and that it was only with Luke, the slow young footman, that she would have to deal. As she saw his tall, thin figure emerge hesitatingly into the street, Mrs. Scrope called out in a strong, confident voice, "Luke--come here! Help me to get Mr. Scrope indoors. He is ill; and as soon as we have got him into the morning room, you must go off for a doctor, at once----"

She waved aside the cabman almost impatiently, and it was Althea, Althea helped by Luke, who carried Perceval Scrope over the threshold of his own house, and so into a small room on the ground floor, a room opening out of the hall, and looking out on to the street.

"He looks very bad, don't 'e, ma'am?" Luke was startled out of his acquired passivity. "I'd better go right off now." She bent her head.

And then Althea, again alone with the dead man, suddenly became oppressed once more with fear, not the physical terror which had possessed her when Joan Panfillen had told her the awful truth, but none the less to her a very agonising form of fear. Althea was afraid that now, when approaching the end of her ordeal, she would fail Scrope and the woman he had loved. What was she to say, what story could she invent to tell those who would come and press her with quick eager questions? She knew herself to be incapable, not only of untruth, but of invention, and yet now both were about to be required of her.

Althea turned out the lights, and wandered out into the hall. She felt horribly lonely; with the exception of the kindly, stupid youth who had now gone to find a doctor, there was not a member of her considerable household in sufficient human sympathy with her to be called to her aid.

She remembered with a pang that this question of their servants had been one of the many things concerning which there had been deep fundamental disagreement between her husband and herself. She had been accustomed to a well-ordered, decorous household, and would even have enjoyed managing such a one; but Perceval--Perceval influenced by Dockett--had ordained otherwise, and Althea had soon become uneasily aware that the order and decorum reigning below stairs were only apparent. Even now there came up from the basement the sound of loud talking, of unrestrained laughter.

Suddenly someone knocked at the door, a loud double knock which stilled, as if by magic, the murmur of the voices below.