The Odd Women Part 82

After a pause, Everard began the narrative. But he did not see fit to give it with all the detail which Mary had learnt from her friend. He spoke of the excursion to Wast.w.a.ter, and of the subsequent meeting on the sh.o.r.e.

'The end of it was that Miss Nunn consented to marry me.'

'She consented?'

'That comes as a surprise?'

'Please go on.'

'Well, we arranged everything. Rhoda was to stay till the fifteen days were over, and the marriage would have been there. But then arrived your letter, and we quarrelled about it. I wasn't disposed to beg and pray for justice. I told Rhoda that her wish for evidence was an insult, that I would take no step to understand Mrs. Widdowson's behaviour. Rhoda was illogical, I think. She did not refuse to take my word, but she wouldn't marry me until the thing was cleared up. I told her that she must investigate it for herself, and so we parted in no very good temper.'

Miss Barfoot smiled and mused. Her duty, she now felt convinced, was to abstain from any sort of meddling. These two people must settle their affairs as they chose. To interfere was to incur an enormous responsibility. For what she had already done in that way Mary reproved herself.

'Now I want to ask you a plain question,' Everard resumed. 'That letter you wrote to me at Ostend--did it represent Rhoda's mind as well as your own?'

'It's quite impossible for me to say. I didn't know Rhoda's mind.'

'Well, perhaps that is a satisfactory answer. It implies, no doubt, that she was still resolved not to concede the point on which I insisted. But since then? Has she come to a decision?'

It was necessary to prevaricate. Mary knew of the interview between Miss Nunn and Mrs. Widdowson, knew its result; but she would not hint at this.

'I have no means of judging how she regards you, Everard.'

'It is possible she even thinks me a liar?'

'I understood you to say that she never refused to believe you.'

He made a movement of impatience.

'Plainly--you will tell me nothing?'

'I have nothing to tell.'

'Then I suppose I must see Rhoda. Perhaps she will refuse to admit me?'

'I can't say. But if she does her meaning would be unmistakable.'

'Cousin Mary'--he looked at her and laughed--'I think you will be very glad if she _does_ refuse.'

She seemed about to reply with some pleasantry, but checked herself, and spoke in a serious voice.

'No. I have no such feeling. Whatever you both agree upon will satisfy me. So come by all means if you wish. I can have nothing to do with it.

You had better write and ask her if she will see you, I should think.'

Barfoot rose from his seat, and Mary was glad to be released so quickly from a disagreeable situation. For her own part she had no need to put indiscreet questions; Everard's manner acquainted her quite sufficiently with what was going on in his thoughts. However, he had still something to say.

'You think I have behaved rather badly--let us say, harshly?'

'I am not so foolish as to form any judgment in such a case, cousin Everard.'

'Speaking as a woman, should you say that Rhoda had reason on her side--in the first instance?'

'I think,' Mary replied, with reluctance, but deliberately, 'that she was not unreasonable in wishing to postpone her marriage until she knew what was to be the result of Mrs. Widdowson's indiscreet behaviour.'

'Well, perhaps she was not,' Everard admitted thoughtfully.

'And what _has_ been the result?'

'I only know that Mrs. Widdowson has left London and gone to live at a house her husband has taken somewhere in the country.'

'I'm relieved to hear that. By-the-bye, the little lady's "indiscreet behaviour" is as much a mystery to me as ever.'

'And to me,' Mary replied with an air of indifference.

'Well, then, let us take it for granted that I was rather harsh with Rhoda. But suppose she still meets me with the remark that things are just as they were--that nothing has been explained?'

'I can't discuss your relations with Miss Nunn.'

'However, you defend her original action. Be so good as to admit that I can't go to Mrs. Widdowson and request her to publish a statement that I have never--'

'I shall admit nothing,' interrupted Miss Barfoot rather tartily. 'I have advised you to see Miss Nunn--if she is willing. And there's nothing more to be said.'

'Good. I will write to her.'

He did so, in the fewest possible words, and received an answer of equal brevity. In accordance with permission granted, on the Monday evening he found himself once more in his cousin's drawing-room, sitting alone, waiting Miss Nunn's appearance. He wondered how she would present herself, in what costume. Her garb proved to be a plain dress of blue serge, certainly not calculated for effect; but his eye at once distinguished the fact that she had arranged her hair as she wore it when he first knew her, a fashion subsequently abandoned for one that he thought more becoming.

They shook hands. Externally Barfoot was the more agitated, and his embarra.s.sment appeared in the awkward words with which he began.

'I had made up my mind never to come until you let me know that I was tried and acquitted But after all it is better to have reason on one's side.'

'Much better,' replied Rhoda, with a smile which emphasized her ambiguity.

She sat down, and he followed her example. Their relative positions called to mind many a conversation they had held in this room.

Barfoot--he wore evening-dress--settled in the comfortable chair as though he were an ordinary guest.

'I suppose you would never have written to me?'

'Never,' she answered quietly.

'Because you are too proud, or because the mystery is still a mystery?'

'There is no longer any mystery.'

Everard made a movement of surprise.

'Indeed? You have discovered what it all meant?'