It was not till a few days after this that Meredith’s growing strength permitted a reference to the circumstances of his “illness,” as they all called it, which, of course, was not at all concerted, but occurred quite unintentionally in the course of the conversation. One or two things had been said before he took any part in the talk himself. At length, rousing himself from a sort of reverie, he said. “How was it, I wonder, that I was so lucky as to be knocked down at your door? Whoever the man was, he did me a good turn there; but how was it that I was found at your door? It was not in the evening, you say—which would have explained itself.”
“It was about five o’clock,” said Julia, suddenly interposing. She had treasured up all the details in her mind.
“About five o’clock!” said Meredith, looking round him with elevated eyebrows. “Now, tell me, some one, what could I be doing at five o’clock at this door?”
“And you were expected to dinner at half-past seven,” said Julia again.
“Evidently,” said Meredith, “she has entered into the mystery of the situation. What was I doing at five o’clock, being expected at half-past seven, at this door?”
“I have often thought of it,” said Gussy, “and wondered if you were coming to say you could not come to dinner. You had clients who stopped you several times before.”
He gave her a glance and laughed, but Gussy was quite unsuspicious, and instanced the clients in perfect good faith.
“Poor clients!” he said; “they have been left to themselves for a long time, but they don’t seem to have been clamoring for me. I don’t think it could be that.”
“Perhaps you were going to call somewhere in the neighborhood,” suggested Mrs. Harwood.
“I don’t think it could be that either—I don’t make many calls, and none about here. Try again. I must find it out.”
Janet on this occasion was seated full in view. She had not been able to change her position, as she generally did when he was brought in. She did not look up or take any notice. But Janet was aware that her head was bent stiffly, not naturally, over her work, and that in her whole appearance there must be the rigor of an artificial pose. Her head was{229} bent lower than it need to have been; her needle stumbled in her work, pricking her fingers; and her downcast face, in spite of her, was covered with a hot and angry flush. And he could see her, plainly, distinctly, near him as she had not allowed herself to be since before “the accident” had occurred. He did not take any notice for a little time, being apparently much engaged with his own thoughts; but presently he looked up, and caught the expression of both form and face as she sat in the full light of the window. Oh, that it should have so happened to-day, instead of on any of the preceding days in which it would have been of no consequence! Janet, through her drooping eyelashes, saw—as she could have seen, somehow, had he been behind her—a slight start and awakening in his face: and then he put up his hand to support his head, and fixed his eyes upon her under that shield.
“You are tired, Charley!” she heard Miss Harwood saying.
“No, no; not tired a bit, only thinking.”
His thinking was done with his eyes fixed on Janet, reading (she was sure) the dreadful consciousness which she felt to be in her. She waited, trembling, for his next words.
“I think,” he said, “a light begins to dawn upon me. I had been at Mimpriss’s, the library; I suppose on my usual quest for music.”
Janet did not know what might come next.
She had seen various glances directed towards her which made her think he would not spare her. She had made it a principle to forestall everything that could be said about herself.
“Oh, yes,” she said, hastily, “now I remember! I saw Mr. Meredith there.”
“You never said so before, Janet.”
“I think I must have said so, the first evening. Since then nobody has thought of such details.”
He looked at her doubtfully, with some vagueness.
“Now I begin to recollect,” he said; “I was at Mimpriss’s, and walked along, because it was his way home, with—a man I met: and then—yes, I’m beginning to remember. In a little time I shall have it all clear.”
He fixed his eyes upon her again under the shelter of his hand. How they seemed to burn into her! She sat quite still, unnaturally still, with her eyes fixed upon her work. Oh, how they burned, those eyes! they seemed to make holes in her, to reach her heart. But this was as far as he had gone as yet. He was beginning to see her in the shops, on the{230} pavement by his side—talking to him. Under the cover of his hand he kept asking her,
“What more? What more?”
“You don’t remember with whom it was you were walking?” said Gussy breathlessly.
“Hush, I’m thinking—it is coming, very vaguely, like a thing in the dark.”
“Janet, perhaps you saw what sort of man it was with whom Mr. Meredith was walking?”
“No,” said Janet. She was unable to form more than this one word: and she never looked at him, but stumbled on at her work, steadying her hands with a tremendous effort.
He saw well enough the perturbation in which she was, though none of the others might remark it; and she saw how he looked at her. Now the smile broke out again, more malicious than ever.
“No,” said Meredith, “I don’t suppose Miss Summerhayes would see him. I must have met him some time after she saw me at the shop. But I begin to get hold of it all. It was a dark night, and the lamps were lighted. My friend must surely have left me——”
“I was about to say,” cried Gussy, “he could not have been with you there, or he must have come in with you, and told us how it was.”
“There was nobody with me, then?”
“Nobody, except the man who picked you up and the policeman, who is always coming back to say he’s on the track of the murderer.”
“The murderer! That gives one an uncomfortable conviction, as if one had really been killed. I have a kind of vision of a face. When does this policeman generally come? I should like to have a talk with him. He might throw some light upon my very dim recollection.”
“Dolff is the one who sees him when he comes,” said Mrs. Harwood. “I did not, myself, feel equal to it; and Dolff seemed the right person.”
“Ah, yes; and so kind of him,” said Meredith. “I have been surrounded with true kindness. Dolff, please come and tell me—what does the policeman say?”
“Not much,” said Dolff, from the dark corner in which he had established himself.
Meredith turned half round towards him.
“Is the fellow any good?”
“No good at all,” cried Dolff. “He has always a new cock-and-bull story. He is no good.{231}”
“And none of you in the house saw anything?” Meredith said.
“Well, Charley, it was night. There was nobody at the window; and, had there been, they could have seen nothing. We did not even hear much. It must all have been done very quickly. My dears,” cried Mrs. Harwood, with a shiver, “how can we be thankful enough! You might have been killed, Charley. A minute more, and they say there would have been no hope.”
Even Meredith was respectful enough to be silent for a moment. But he resumed immediately,
“It is strange that no one should have seen anything. I should have thought—And who opened the door? Did anyone ring to get in? How was it? Perhaps that would help me to pull my thoughts together. Some one must have rung the bell; some good Samaritan.”
“No. It was Vicars who heard something, and ran to see what it was,” said Gussy. “Vicars is very quick-eared. He runs whenever there is any commotion.”
“Ah!” said Meredith again.
He put up his hand once more to cover his eyes, and under his regard Janet for the first time broke down. She got up hastily and threw her work from her.
“Shall I make the tea, Mrs. Harwood?” she said, in a trembling voice.
“Poor Janet,” said Mrs. Harwood. “She has never quite got over it. It made such an impression upon her nerves.”
“I think,” said Gussy, “it might have made more impression upon my nerves than upon Janet’s.”
“Oh, please don’t think of my nerves,” said Janet. “If you will let me, I will pour out the tea.”
Meredith said nothing. He was following out, with his brain still a little confused, the clue he had got hold of. It was Janet, certainly it was Janet. He read it in every line of her stiffened figure and conscious countenance, and in the overwhelming agitation which had at last triumphed over her self-control. Yes, he had met her in the library, and it was with her he had walked towards the ambush laid for him. What more? Was there anything more? He had in his mind a vague reminiscence of something else which he had seen, which a little more thinking would perhaps enable him to master. She must have seen what happened if it was she who was with him, as he believed. She must be aware, if not who it was that had assaulted him, at least how it was. He kept on thinking while they talked round him, trying to quicken{232} his own feeble brain into action, and saying to himself that she must know. If she knew, why was she silent? Then it occurred to Meredith what the reason was.
He glanced at Gussy, sitting by him, and even upon his face there came a certain uneasy color. Betray to Gussy his rendezvous with Janet! Ah, he understood now why Janet did not speak. She dared not. She must have stolen indoors somehow, and concealed the fact that she had ever been out. It would be her ruin to make her confess. Perhaps Meredith would not have cared so very much for this, if it had not appeared to him that he himself would cut but an indifferent figure—paying his addresses to the daughter of the house, and intriguing with the governess? He went over the same ground which Janet had already traversed, and he confessed to himself that it would not do. But what was this consciousness in his mind that he knew, or had known something more?
“Bring Charley his tea, Dolff,” said Mrs. Harwood. “I am sure he wants his tea. It is a nice habit for a man, which I hope you will keep up, Charley, when you are well. I always like to see a young man find pleasure in his tea.”
Her soft voice ran on while Dolff very unw............