The Crown of Life Part 38

"Of course," said Irene, with emphasis. "He must understand that _you_ have no such feeling----"

"Oh, he knows that! He knows I am grateful to him--very grateful----"

She broke down again, and sobbed. Irene, without speaking, put her arms around the girl and kissed her cheek.

Dr. Derwent and his daughter met again at luncheon. Afterwards, Irene followed into the library.

"I wish to ask you something, father. When you and Arnold spoke about this hateful thing, did you tell him, unmistakably, that aunt was slandered?"

"I told him that I myself had no doubt of it."

"Did he seem--do you think that _he_ doubts?"

"Why?"

Irene kept silence, feeling that her impression was too vague to be imparted.

"Try," said her father, "to dismiss the matter from your thoughts. It doesn't concern you. You will never hear an allusion to it from Jacks.

Happen what may"--his voice paused, with suggestive emphasis--"you have nothing to do with it. It doesn't affect your position or your future in the least."

As she withdrew, Irene was uneasily conscious of altered relations with her father. The change had begun when she wrote to him announcing her engagement; since, they had never conversed with the former freedom, and the shadow now hanging over them seemed to chill their mutual affection. For the first time, she thought with serious disquiet of the gulf between old and new that would open at her marriage, of all she was losing, of the duties she was about to throw off--duties which appeared so much more real, more sacred, than those she undertook in their place. Her father's widowerhood had made him dependent upon her in a higher degree than either of them quite understood until they had to reflect upon the consequences of parting; and Irene now perceived that she had dismissed this consideration too lightly. She found difficulty in explaining her action, her state of mind, her whole self.

Was it really only a few weeks ago? To her present mood, what she had thought and done seemed a result of youth and inexperience, a condition long outlived.

When she had sat alone for half an hour in the drawing-room, Eustace joined her. He said their father had gone out. They talked of indifferent things till bedtime.

In the morning, the servant who came into Irene's room gave her a note addressed in the Doctor's hand. It contained the news that Mrs.

Hannaford had died before daybreak. Dr. Derwent himself did not appear till about ten o'clock, when he arrived together with his niece. Olga had been violently hysterical; it seemed the wisest thing to bring her to Bryanston Square; the change of surroundings and Irene's sympathy soon restored her to calm.

At midday a messenger brought Irene a letter from Arnold Jacks. Arnold wrote that he had just heard of her aunt's death: that he was deeply grieved, and hastened to condole with her. He did not come in person, thinking she would prefer to let this sad day pa.s.s over before they met, but he would call to-morrow morning. In the meantime, he would be grateful for a line a.s.suring him that she was well.

Having read this, Irene threw it aside as if it had been a tradesman's circular. Not thus should he have written--if write he must instead of coming. In her state of agitation after the hours spent with Olga, this bald note of sympathy seemed almost an insult; to keep silence as to the real cause of Mrs. Hannaford's death was much the same, she felt, as hinting a doubt of the poor lady's innocence. Arnold Jacks was altogether too decorous. Would it not have been natural for a man in his position to utter at least an indignant word? It might have been as allusive as his fine propriety demanded, but surely the word should have been spoken!

After some delay, she replied in a telegram, merely saying that she was quite well.

Olga, as soon as she felt able, had sat down to write a letter. She begged her cousin to have it posted at once.

"It's to Mr. Otway," she said, in an unsteady voice. And, when the letter had been despatched, she added, "It will be a great blow to him.

I had a letter last night asking for news--Oh, I meant to bring it!"

she exclaimed, with a momentary return of her distracted manner. "I left it in my room. It will be lost-destroyed!"

Irene quieted her, promising that the letter should be kept safe.

"Perhaps he will call," Olga said presently. "But no, not so soon. He may have written again. I must have the letter if there is one. Someone must go over to the house this evening."

Through a great part of the afternoon, she slept, and whilst she was sleeping there arrived for her a telegram, which, Irene did not doubt, came from Piers Otway. It proved to be so, and Olga betrayed nervous tremors after reading the message.

"I shall have a letter in the morning," she said to her cousin, several times; and after that she did not care to talk, but sat for hours busy with her thoughts, which seemed not altogether sad.

At eleven o'clock next morning, Arnold Jacks was announced. Irene, who sat with Olga in the drawing-room, had directed that her visitor should be shown into the library, and there she received him. Arnold stepped eagerly towards her; not smiling indeed, but with the possibility of a smile manifest in every line of his countenance. There could hardly have been a stronger contrast with his manner of the day before yesterday. For this Irene had looked. Seeing precisely what she expected, her eyes fell; she gave a careless hand; she could not speak.

Arnold talked, talked. He said the proper things, and said them well; to things the reverse of proper, not so much as the faintest reference.

This duty discharged, he spoke of the house he had taken; his voice grew animated; at length the latent smile stole out through his eyes and spread to his lips. Irene kept silence. Respecting her natural sadness, the lover made his visit brief, and retired with an air of grave satisfaction.

CHAPTER XXVI

Olga knew that by her mother's death she became penniless. The income enjoyed by Mrs. Hannaford under the will of her sister in America was only for life by allowing a third of it to her husband, she had made saving impossible, and, as she left no will, her daughter could expect only such trifles as might legally fall to her share when things were settled. To her surviving parent, the girl was of course no more than a stranger. It surprised no one that Lee Hannaford, informed through the lawyers of what had happened, simply kept silence, leaving his wife's burial to the care of Dr. Derwent.

Three days of gloom went by; the funeral was over; Irene and her cousin sat together in their mourning apparel, not simply possessed by natural grief, but overcome with the nervous exhaustion which results from our habits and customs in presence of death. Olga had been miserably crying, but was now mute and still; Irene, pale, with an expression of austere thoughtfulness, spoke of the subject they both had in mind.

"There is no necessity to take any step at all--until you are quite yourself again--until you really wish. This is your home; my father would like you to stay."

"I couldn't live here after you are married," replied the other, weakly, despondently.

Irene glanced at her, hung a moment on the edge of speech, then spoke with a self-possession which made her seem many years older than her cousin.

"I had better tell you now, that we may understand each other. I am not going to be married."

To Olga's voiceless astonishment she answered with a pale smile. Grave again, and gentle as she was firm, Irene continued.

"I am going to break my engagement. It has been a mistake. To-night I shall write a letter to Mr. Jacks, saying that I cannot marry him; when it has been sent, I shall tell my father."

Olga had begun to tremble. Her features were disturbed with an emotion which banished every sign of sorrow; which flushed her cheeks and made her eyes seem hostile in their fixed stare.

"How can you do that?" she asked, in a hard voice "How is it possible?"

"It seems to me far more possible then the alternative--a life of repentence."

"But--what do you mean, Irene? When everything is settled--when your house is taken--when everyone knows! What do you mean? Why shall you do this?"

The words rushed forth impetuously, quivering on a note of resentment.

The flushed cheeks were turning pallid; the girl's breast heaved with indignant pa.s.sion.

"I can't fully explain it to you, Olga." The speaker's tones sounded very soft and reasonable after that outbreak. "I am doing what many a girl would do, I feel sure, if she could find courage--let us say, if she saw clearly enough. It will cause confusion, ill-feeling, possibly some unhappiness, for a few weeks, for a month or two; then Mr. Jacks will feel grateful to me, and my father will acknowledge I did right; and everybody else who knows anything about it will have found some other subject of conversation."

"You are fond of somebody else?"

It was between an exclamation and an inquiry. Bending forward, Olga awaited the reply as if her life depended upon it.

"I am fond of no one--in that sense."

Irene's look was so fearless, her countenance so tranquil in its candour, that the agitated girl grew quieter.

"It isn't because you are _thinking_ of someone else that you can't marry Mr. Jacks?"

"I am thinking simply of myself. I am afraid to marry him. No thought of the kind you mean has entered my head."