CHAPTER XXXIII

GRASP YOUR NETTLE

There is a wide difference between grasping your nettle and rushing in where angels fear to tread.

Several days had gone by and still the anxiously-looked-for summons had not arrived from Alfred Whittaker to his wife. To outward seeming Regina was as calm in the face of this new development of events as if no trace of cloud had ever arisen to come between her and her noble Alfred, but in her heart of hearts she watched every post with an anxiety that was absolutely at fever heat. At night, poor soul, she seemed to have given up sleeping, and Regina was a woman who needed, and had always taken, a fixed amount of time in bed--when I say that I mean of actual, sound, solid sleep. She was one of those persons who, docked of sleep, show the signs of wear and tear with fatal rapidity.

During the greater part of the week she did not go out of the Park, but left word with the sympathetic Margaret, who was perfectly aware that something out of the common was on foot, that in case of a telegram she was to be fetched from such and such a house. Then Maudie came gliding along in her motor brougham, full of sympathy, and, I must confess, at the same time, full of anxiety as to her mother's condition.

"How is it you are coming to the Park every day now?" Mrs. Whittaker asked on the sixth morning when Maudie arrived about lunch time.

"I was anxious about you, I thought you were not looking very well," Maudie remarked.

"I am perfectly well."

"Are you, dear? I fancied you were not quite yourself."

Julia was safely out of the road, or perhaps young Mrs. Marksby would not have said so much.

"I do wish, dear, you would get out of this depressing neighborhood. I assure you I feel quite a different woman since I was married and got away from this depressing place."

"One generally does when one gets married," said Regina, with a slight smile.

"Yes, I know, dear, but it takes a month of Sundays to get here even with a motor. I wish you would persuade daddy to come and live in the West End."

"It is not at all unlikely that we may do so, dear, a little later on. Oh--what's that?"

"That" was nothing more important than the knock of the postman.

"I will go," said Maudie, and Maudie did go. "Two letters for Julia and four for you."

"One from your father?" said Mrs. Whittaker, with an eagerness which, for the life of her, she could not suppress.

"Nothing in daddy's handwriting," said Maudie. "Mother dear, have you heard from daddy since he left home?"

"Oh yes, darling."

"Every day?"

"Not every day," said Regina, "no, not every day."

"Before I was married," said Maudie in her most severe tone, "on the few occasions when daddy went away without you, he made a rule of writing every day."

"He's on business," said Regina, feebly.

"Yes, darling, but he was on business then. You _have_ heard from him?"

"I have," said Regina.

"Oh, mother--I may as well tell you what's in my mind."

"I think you had better not," said Regina faintly.

"I'm sure I ought to do so. I can't bear to go on deceiving you any longer."

"Deceiving me?" said Regina. Her tone was feeble but questioning.

"Yes, deceiving you," cried Maudie. "Daddy--daddy's not gone away in an ordinary manner on business--oh yes, he calls it business, but he's gone away with that woman."

"Maud!"

"Harry saw them go away together, and you are watching for letters that never come--my poor, crushed darling," Maudie cried.

"Harry saw them go? Them? You mean that person, that creature we saw dining with daddy at the Trocadero?"

Then Maudie burst forth with the entire story as she had told it to Julia.

"And that is why I come every day. I knew you would want some support, and as I am a married woman, I knew I should be more support than Julia, although she _is_ so farseeing. It's a bitter blow, darling, but bear it like the martyr you are. Of course, Harry will be awfully angry with me; he says you never ought to interfere between husband and wife, even when they are your own father and mother."

"I would rather know the worst," said Regina; "it is no kindness to keep a woman of my calibre in the dark. I can't discuss it, Maudie darling, even with you. If your father has really left me for that other person I will bear the blow and face the world with what dignity I can. You--you had better not tell Harry that you have told me the truth, we will keep it a little secret between ourselves. I shouldn't like to feel that because of your sense of justice to me the first little rift had come between yourself and your husband. You are lunching with me to-day, dear?"

She turned the conversation into a conventional channel with a skill which was truly admirable, and Maudie, who was inclined to take her color from another, took her cue on that occasion from her mother and answered in the same strain.

"No, I'm lunching with Harry's mother. I'd rather stay here with you, darling, but if I don't go now and again without Harry the old lady is inclined to be a bit cranky, and I want to keep in with her, you know."

"Certainly! Most wise of you! By all means keep in with your husband's people; there is nothing to be gained by not doing so," said Regina. "Then you and I will say no more just now, darling. You will come across before you go back?"

"Yes, mother dear, I will. I have ordered the brougham for four o'clock."

"Engagements in town?" said Regina.

"Yes, one or two things on," Maudie answered. She talked as if their conversation had been all along of a most unimportant and trivial character.

"Then I shall see you again," said Regina. "Good-by, dearest."

She sat just where Maudie had left her for some little time after young Mrs. Marksby had disappeared into the ancestral mansion across the road, a dozen schemes revolving in her active brain. What should she do? Should she sit down meekly and tamely under this new revelation, and let Alfred deal with their lives as he would, or should she make a determined step and meet disaster face to face? "Grasp your nettle" had ever been a favorite saying with Regina, and she felt very much like grasping her nettle now. Then Margaret came in and told her that luncheon was served, and Regina went into the dining-room and thoughtfully helped herself. Appetite she had none. Now, let me tell you, when Regina's appetite failed her, then indeed she was in a distinctly bad way.

"Something has happened in this 'ere house," said Margaret in the confidential atmosphere of the kitchen. "Missus have had no lunch to-day, not enough to keep a fly alive. Just look at this plate, and that little dish you tossed up is one of her favorites. Why, she hasn't even picked the mushrooms out of it."

"Lor'! she must be bad," said the faithful cook. "Poor missus! I wonder if it's true what they be saying, that master's gone away for good and all. Six days he's been away and only one post-card has he sent home. Why, generally he writes home every day and sometimes twice. Ah, men! they're all alike, not a pin to choose between 'em. Now the last place that I was in, I only stayed my month, for the lady she had fifteen servants in one year and she only kept two, so you can guess what sort of a place I had lighted on. Master, he carried on something shameful, not that I blame him, for a man what comes home and can't get his meals regular and never knows whether missus will be in or out and everything else in the same way--well, you can't expect a house to be run what you can call comfortable, at least it never is, and this was a poor, feckless thing that didn't understand how to order a dinner for a gentleman, and didn't understand how to let the cook make a suggestion. All the same, the way that man carried on was fair disgraceful. Now, master here has kept his doings dark, and indeed if it hadn't been for what you overheard Miss Maudie that was tell Miss Julia, I don't know that we should have been any wiser than we were before. But there, men are all alike. Look at Bill Jackson, he kept company with Annie Hodgkinson for five years and a half, and then he up and fair jilts her for the sake of a little bit of a girl that doesn't know one end of a ham from the other. Of course he's miserable and he doesn't deserve to be anything else."

"For the matter of that," retorted the fair Margaret, "neither does she; she knew well enough what she was doing when she set her cap at Bill Jackson. Don't tell me that those innocent eyes don't see more than they pretend to, nasty little hussy! I'm sure, whatever happens in this house, missus has my profoundest sympathy, and that's more than I'd say for any missus, and as for master, he's like all the rest of them--fair disgraceful, I call it."

"Me too," said the cook, "me too."

Meanwhile Regina was sitting pecking, I can call it nothing else, at a dainty little pudding. Her thoughts were very bitter and her heart was full of a stern resolve. Yes, she would grasp her nettle, she would remain in doubt not a single day longer. She would just take a handbag, as Alfred had done, and she would leave a note for Julia, and she would go off to Paris by the night boat. She would grasp her nettle; she would, at least, learn the worst. If Alfred were no longer hers--well, she would shape her life accordingly. There should be no half measures, it should be all or nothing. Truly she had given all that she had to give freely. She had, as she believed, accepted and valued the whole of her husband's love. There should be no betwixt and between, it should be her or the other one, Regina or the hussy. And then Regina remembered that to carry out her scheme she must at once put on her things and go to the bank and get some money.