The butler, hearing a familiar voice, had thrown open the sitting-room door, announcing: "Mrs.Julius Beaufort"--and had then closed it again on the two ladies.They must have been together, he thought, about an hour.When Mrs.Mingott's bell rang Mrs.Beaufort had already slipped away unseen, and the old lady, white and vast and terrible, sat alone in her great chair, and signed to the butler to help her into her room.She seemed, at that time, though obviously distressed, in complete control of her body and brain.The mulatto maid put her to bed, brought her a cup of tea as usual, laid everything straight in the room, and went away;but at three in the morning the bell rang again, and the two servants, hastening in at this unwonted summons (for old Catherine usually slept like a baby), had found their mistress sitting up against her pillows with a crooked smile on her face and one little hand hanging limp from its huge arm.
The stroke had clearly been a slight one, for she was able to articulate and to make her wishes known; and soon after the doctor's first visit she had begun to regain control of her facial muscles.But the alarm had been great; and proportionately great was the indignation when it was gathered from Mrs.Mingott's fragmentary phrases that Regina Beaufort had come to ask her--incredible effrontery!--to back up her husband, see them through--not to "desert" them, as she called it--in fact to induce the whole family to cover and condone their monstrous dishonour.
"I said to her: "Honour's always been honour, and honesty honesty, in Manson Mingott's house, and will be till I'm carried out of it feet first,'" the old woman had stammered into her daughter's ear, in the thick voice of the partly paralysed."And when she said: `But my name, Auntie--my name's Regina Dallas,' I said: `It was Beaufort when he covered you with jewels, and it's got to stay Beaufort now that he's covered you with shame.'"So much, with tears and gasps of horror, Mrs.Welland imparted, blanched and demolished by the unwonted obligation of having at last to fix her eyes on the unpleasant and the discreditable."If only I could keep it from your father-in-law: he always says:
`Augusta, for pity's sake, don't destroy my last illusions'
--and how am I to prevent his knowing these horrors?"the poor lady wailed.
"After all, Mamma, he won't have SEEN them," her daughter suggested; and Mrs.Welland sighed: "Ah, no; thank heaven he's safe in bed.And Dr.Bencomb has promised to keep him there till poor Mamma is better, and Regina has been got away somewhere."Archer had seated himself near the window and was gazing out blankly at the deserted thoroughfare.It was evident that he had been summoned rather for the moral support of the stricken ladies than because of any specific aid that he could render.Mr.Lovell Mingott had been telegraphed for, and messages were being despatched by hand to the members of the family living in New York; and meanwhile there was nothing to do but to discuss in hushed tones the consequences of Beaufort's dishonour and of his wife's unjustifiable action.
