Tante Part 49

No; not all. Her little gold watch ticked peacefully, lying on the table beside her bed as it had lain beside her for so many years; her beautiful little watch, treasured by her since the distant birthday when Onkel Ernst had given it.

She clutched it tightly in her hand and it seemed to her, as she had once said to Gregory, that the iron drove deep into her heart and turned up not only dark forgotten things but dark and dreadful things never seen before.

She leaned against the table, putting the hand that held Onkel Ernst's watch to her eyes, and his agony became part of her own. How he had suffered. And the other man, the young, forgotten Russian. Mrs.

Talcott's story became real to her as it had not yet been. It entered her; it filled her past; it linked itself with everything that she had been and done and believed. And the iron drove down deeper, until of her heart there seemed only to be left a deep black hole.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

Mrs. Talcott had a broken night and it was like a continuation of some difficult and troubled dream when she heard the voice of Mercedes saying to her: "Tallie, Tallie, wake up. Tallie, will you wake! _Bon Dieu!_ how she sleeps!"

The voice of Mercedes when she had heard it last had been the voice of pa.s.sion and desperation, but its tone was changed this morning; it was fretful, feverishly irritable, rather than frantic.

Mrs. Talcott opened her eyes and sat up in bed. She wore a Jaeger nightgown and her head, with its white hair coiled at the top, was curiously unaltered by its informal setting.

"What do you mean by coming waking me up like this after the night you've given me," she demanded, fully awakened now. "Go right straight away or I'll put you out."

"Don't be a fool, Tallie," said Madame von Marwitz, who, in a silken dressing-gown and with her hair unbound, had an appearance at once childish and damaged. "Where is Karen? I've been to her room and she is not there. The door downstairs is unbolted. Is she gone out to walk so early?"

Mrs. Talcott sat still and upright in her bed. "What time is it?" she asked.

"It is seven. I have been awake since dawn. Do you imagine that I have had a pleasant night?"

Mrs. Talcott did not answer this query. She sprang out of bed.

"Perhaps she's gone to meet the bus at the cross-roads. But I told her I was going to take her. Tell Burton to come round with the car as quick as he can. I'll go after her and see that she's all right. Why, the child hasn't got any money," Mrs. Talcott muttered, deftly drawing on her clothes beneath her nightgown which she held by the edge of the neck between her teeth.

Madame von Marwitz listened to her impeded utterance frowning.

"The bus? What do you mean? Why is she meeting the bus?"

"To take her to London where she's going to the Lippheims," said Mrs.

Talcott, casting aside the nightgown and revealing herself in chemise and petticoat. "You go and order that car, Mercedes," she added, as she buckled together her st.u.r.dy, widely-waisted stays. "This ain't no time for talk."

Madame von Marwitz looked at her for another moment and then rang the bell. She put her head outside the door to await the housemaid and, as this person made some delay, shouted in a loud voice: "Handc.o.c.k! Jane!

Louise! Where are you? _Faineantes!_" she stamped her foot, and, as the housemaid appeared, running; "Burton," she commanded. "The car. At once.

And tell Louise to bring me my tea-gown, my shoes and stockings, my fur cloak, at once; but at once; make haste!"

"What are you up to, Mercedes?" Mrs. Talcott inquired, as Madame von Marwitz thrust her aside from the dressing-table and began to wind up her hair before the mirror.

"I am getting ready to go with you, _parbleu_!" Madame von Marwitz replied. "Is that you, Louise? Come in. You have the things? Put on my shoes and stockings; quickly; _mais depechez-vous donc_! The tea-gown--yes, over this--over it I say! So. Now bring me a motor-veil and gloves. I shall do thus."

Mrs. Talcott, while Louise with an air of profoundest gloom arrayed her mistress, kept silence, but when Louise had gone in search of the motor-veil she remarked in a low but imperative voice: "You'll get out at the roadside and wait for me, that's what you'll do. I won't have you along when I meet Karen. She couldn't bear the sight of you."

"Peace!" Madame von Marwitz commanded, adjusting the sash of her tea-gown. "I shall see Karen. The deplorable misunderstanding of last night shall be set right. Her behaviour has been undignified and underhanded; but I misunderstood her, and, pierced to the heart by the treachery of a man I trusted, I spoke wildly, without thought. Karen will understand. I know my Karen."

It was not the moment for dispute. Louise had re-entered with the veil and Madame von Marwitz bound it about her head, standing before the mirror, and gazing at herself, fixedly and unseeingly, with dark eyes set in purpled orbits. She turned then and swept from the room, and Mrs.

Talcott, pinning on her hat as she went, followed her.

Not until they were speeding through the fresh, chill air, did Mrs.

Talcott speak. Madame von Marwitz, leaning to one side of the open car, scanned the stretch of road before them, melancholy and monotonous under the pale morning sky, and Mrs. Talcott, moving round determinedly in her corner, faced her.

"I want to tell you, right now, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, "that Karen's done with you. There's no use in your coming, for you'll never get her back. I've told her all about you, Mercedes;--yes, I ain't afraid of you and you know it;--I told her. I made up my mind to it last night after I'd seen you and heard all your shameful story and how you'd treated her. I made up my mind that you shouldn't get hold of her again, not if I could help it. The time had come to tell that child that her husband was right all along and that you ain't a woman to be trusted.

She'd seen for herself what you could do, and I made a sure thing of it.

I've held my tongue for all my life, but I spoke out last night. I want her to be quit of you for good. I want her to go back to her husband.

Yes, Mercedes; I've burst up the whole concern."

Madame von Marwitz, her hand holding tightly the side of the car and her eyes like large, dark stones in her white face, was sitting upright and was staring at her. She could not speak and Mrs. Talcott went on.

"She knows all about you now; about you and Baldwin Tanner and you and Ernst, and about that pitiful young Russian. She knows how you treated them. She knows how it wasn't you but Ernst who was her real friend, and how you didn't want her to live with you. She knows that you're a mighty unfortunate creature and a mighty dangerous one; and what I advise you to do, Mercedes, is to get out here and go right home. Karen won't ever come back to you again, I'm as sure of it as I'm sure my name's Hannah Talcott."

They sped, with softly singing speed, through the chill morning air. The hard, tight, dark eyeb.a.l.l.s still fixed themselves on the old woman almost lifelessly, and still she sat grasping the side of the car. She had the look of a creature shot through the heart and maintaining the poise and pride of its startled and arrested life. Mechanical forces rather than volition seemed to sustain her.

"Say, Mercedes, will you get out?" Mrs. Talcott repeated. And the rigid figure then moved its head slightly in negation.

They reached the cross-roads where a few carts and an ancient fly stood waiting for the arrival of the omnibus that plied between the Lizard and Helston. Karen was nowhere to be seen.

"Perhaps she went across the fields and got into the bus at the Lizard,"

said Mrs. Talcott. "We'll wait and see, and if she isn't in the bus we'll go on to Helston. Perhaps she's walking."

Madame von Marwitz continued to say nothing, and in a moment they heard behind them the clashing and creaking of the omnibus. It drew up at the halt and Karen was not in it.

"To Helston," said Mrs. Talcott, standing up to speak to the chauffeur.

They sped on before the omnibus had resumed its journey.

Tints of azure and purple crept over the moors; the whitening sky showed rifts of blue; it was a beautiful morning. Mrs. Talcott, keeping a keen eye on the surrounding country, became aware presently that Mercedes had turned her gaze upon her and was examining her.

She looked round.

There was no anger, no resentment, even, on the pallid face. It seemed engaged, rather, in a deep perplexity--that of a child struck down by the hand that, till then, had cherished it. It brooded in sick wonder on Mrs. Talcott, and Mrs. Talcott looked back with her ancient, weary eyes.

Madame von Marwitz broke the silence. She spoke in a toneless voice.

"Tallie--how could you?" she said. "Oh, Tallie--how could you have told her?"

"Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, gently but implacably, "I had to. It was right to make sure you shouldn't get hold of her again. She had to go, and she had to go for good. If you want me to go, too, I will, but it's only fair to tell you that I never felt much sorrier for you than I do at this minute."

"There have been tragedies in my life," Madame von Marwitz went on in the low, dulled voice. "I have been a pa.s.sion-tossed woman. Yes, I have not been guiltless. But how could you cut out my heart with all its scars and show it to my child?"

"It was right to do it, Mercedes, so as you shouldn't ruin her life.

She's not your child, and you've shown her she's not. A mother don't behave so to her child, however off her head she goes."

"I was mad last night." The tears ran slowly down Madame von Marwitz's cheeks. "I can tell that to Karen. I can explain. I can throw myself on her mercy. I loved him and my heart was broken. One is not responsible.

It is the animal, wounded to death, that shrieks and tears at the spear it feels entering its flesh."

"I'm awful sorry for you, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott.