Will hailed a cab in St James’s Street, and drove straight to his sister’s, only pausing by the way to despatch a hasty telegram to the management of the Harmony: “Signora Casalmonte seriously indisposed. Quite unable to sing this evening. Must fill up her place for to-night, at least, and probably for to-morrow as well, by understudy.”
Then he went on to Maud’s. “Mrs Sartoris at home?”
“Yes, sir; but she’s just this minute gone up to dress for dinner.”
“Tell her I must see her at once,” Will exclaimed with decision,?—?“on important business. Let her come down just as she is. If she’s not presentable, ask her to throw a dressing-gown round her, or anything, to save time, and run down without delay, as I must speak with her immediately on a most pressing matter.”
The maid, smiling incredulity, ran upstairs with his message. Will, with heart on fire, much perturbed on Linnet’s account, walked alone into the drawing-room, to await his sister’s coming. He was too anxious to sit still; he paced up and down the room, with hands behind his back, and eyes fixed on the carpet. A minute . . . two minutes . . . four, five, ten passed, and yet no Maud. It seemed almost as if she meant to keep him waiting on purpose. He chafed at it inwardly; at so critical a juncture, surely she might hurry herself after such an urgent message.
At last, Maud descended?—?ostentatiously half-dressed. She wore an evening skirt?—?very rich and handsome; but, in place of a bodice, she had thrown loosely around her a becoming blue bedroom jacket, trimmed with dainty brown facings. Arthur Sartoris, in full clerical evening costume and spotless white tie, followed close behind her. Maud burst into the room with a stately sweep of implied remonstrance. “This is very inconvenient, Will,” she said in her chilliest tone, holding up one cheek as she spoke in a frigid way for a fraternal salute, and pulling her jacket together symbolically?—?“very, very inconvenient. We’ve the Dean and his wife coming to dine, as you know, in a quarter of an hour?—?and the Jenkinses, and the Macgregors, and those people from St Christopher’s. Fortunately, I happened to go up early to dress, and had got pretty well through with my hair when your name was announced, or I’m sure I don’t know how I could ever have come down to you. Oh, Arthur?—?you’re ready?—?run and get me the maiden-hair and the geranium from my room; I can be sticking them in before the glass, while Will’s talking to me about this sudden and mysterious business of his. They’re in the tumbler on the wash-hand-stand, behind the little red pot; and?—?wait a moment?—?of course I shall want some hairpins?—?the thin twisted American ones. You know where I keep them?—?in the silver-topped box. Go quick, there’s a dear. Well, Will, what do you want me for?”
This was a discouraging reception, to be sure, and boded small good for his important errand. Will knew well on a dinner night the single emotion of a British matron! Church, crown, and constitution might fall apart piecemeal before Maud Sartoris’s eyes, and she would take no notice of them. Still at least he must try, for Linnet’s sake he must try; and he began accordingly. In as brief words as he could find, he explained hastily to Maud the nature and gravity of the existing situation. Signora Casalmonte, that beautiful, graceful singer who had made the success of Cophetua’s Adventure?—?Signora Casalmonte (he never spoke of her as “Linnet” to Maud, of course,) had long suffered terribly at the hands of her husband, whose physical cruelty, not to mention other things, had driven her to-day to leave his house hurriedly, without hope of return again. Flying in haste from his violence, and not knowing where to look for aid in her trouble, she had taken refuge for the moment?—?Will eyed his sister close?—?it was an error of judgment?—?no more?—?at his rooms in St James’s. “You recollect,” he said apologetically, “we were very old friends; I had known her in the Tyrol, and had so much to do with her while she was singing in my opera.”
Maud nodded assent, and went on unconcerned, with a quiet smile on her calm face, arranging the geranium and maiden-hair in a neat little spray at one side of her much frizzed locks, with the profoundest attention.
“Well?” she said inquiringly at last, as Will, floundering on, paused for a moment and glanced at her. “So the lady with many names?—?Casalmonte, Hausberger, Linnet, Carlotta, and so forth?—?is this moment at your rooms, and I suppose is going to sup there. A queer proceeding, isn’t it? It’s no business of mine, of course, but I certainly must say I should have thought your own sister was the last person in the world even you would dream of coming to tell about this nice little escapade of yours.”
“Maud,” Will said, very seriously, “let’s be grave; this is no laughing matter.” Then, in brief words once more, he went on to explain the difficulty he felt as to Linnet’s arrangements for the immediate future. He said nothing about the divorce, of course; nothing about his love and devotion towards Linnet. Those chords could have struck no answering string in the British matron’s severely proper nature. He merely pointed out that Linnet was a friend in distress, whose good name he wished to save against unjust aspersions. Having left her husband she ought to go somewhere to a responsible married woman?—?“And I’ve come to ask you, Maud,” he concluded, “as an act of Christian charity to a sister in distress, will you take her in, for to-night at least, till I can see with greater clearness what to do with her in future?”
Maud stared at him in blank horror. “My dear boy,” she cried, “are you mad? What a proposal to make to me! How on earth can you ever think I could possibly do it?”
“And it would be such a splendid chance, too,” Will cried, carried away by his enthusiasm?—?“the Dean coming to dinner and all! in a clergyman’s house, with such people to vouch for her! Why, with backers like that, scandal itself couldn’t venture to wag its vile tongue at her!”
Maud looked at him with a faint quiver in her clear-cut nostrils. “That’s just it!” she answered promptly. “But there, Will, you’re a heathen! You’ll never understand! You have quite a congenital incapacity for appreciating and entering into the clerical situation. Isn’t that so, dear Arthur? You belong to another world?—?the theatrical world?—?where morals and religion are all topsy-turvy, anyhow! How could you suppose for a moment a clergyman’s wife could receive into her house, on such a night as this, an opera-singing woman with three aliases to her name, who’s just run away in a fit of pique from her lawful husband! Whether she’s right or wrong, she’s not a person one could associate with! To mix oneself up like that with a playhouse scandal! and the Dean coming to dine, whose influence for a canonry’s so important to us all! The dear, good Dean! Now Arthur, isn’t Will just too ridiculous for anything?”
“It certainly would seem extremely inconsistent,” Arthur Sartoris replied, fingering that clerical face dubiously; “extremely inconsistent.” But he added after a pause, with a professional afterthought, “Though, of course, Maud, if she’s leaving him on sufficient grounds?—?compelled to it, in fact, not through any fault of her own, but through the man’s misconduct?—?and if she thinks it would be wrong to put up with him any longer, yet feels anxious to avoid all appearance of evil, why, naturally, as Christians, we sympathise with her most deeply. But as to taking her int............