I knocked at the door and received a rather feeble request to enter.
Under the domelike canopy, her face pale, her eyes anxious, Edith was lying. “Oh dear,” she cried when she saw me. “My lesson! I’d forgotten.”
“Edith,” I said, “what’s wrong?”
“It was the same yesterday morning. I feel so ill.”
“Perhaps you should see a doctor.”
She stared at me miserably. “I’m going to have a baby,” she said.
“That’s a matter for rejoicing.”
“Oh Mrs. Verlaine…you’ve been married, but you didn’t ever have any babies.”
“No,” I said.
She looked at me earnestly and said: “You seem sad about it.”
“I should have loved to have babies.”
“But it’s terrible, Mrs. Verlaine. I heard Cook talking about the time when her daughter was born. It was terrible.”
“You shouldn’t listen to such tales. Why, women are having babies every day.”
She closed her eyes. “I know,” she said.
“You should be so happy.”
She turned her face to the pillow and I saw from her heaving shoulders that she was crying.
“Edith,” I said. “Edith, is anything wrong…apart from this?”
She turned her head sharply to look at me.
“What else could be wrong?” she asked.
“I wondered whether I could do anything to help.”
She was silent and I was thinking of those words I had overheard in the chapel. I was thinking too of something else I had overheard, a chance remark which had led me to believe that she was being blackmailed.
How could that be? She was an heiress, it was true, but I doubted whether she had control of her money. It might by now have passed into her husband’s possession—an unpleasant reflection.
Poor little Edith, married for her money to Napier Stacy when she was in love with Jeremy Brown, who had gone away to provide the only possible solution to their sad little love story.
But before he had gone had they consummated their love, and was the child she was now carrying the result? I suspected this might be the case for she was so young, so incapable of managing her life. I was filled with a great desire to protect her, and I wanted her to know this.
“Edith,” I said, “if I could do anything to help…please let me…if you think that’s possible.”
“I don’t know what to say…what to do, Mrs. Verlaine. I feel so…bewildered.”
I took her hand and pressed it; her fingers clung to mine and I was certain that she drew some comfort from my presence.
Then she seemed to come to a decision for she closed her eyes and murmured: “I just want to rest for a while.”
I understood. She might confide in me sometime but as yet she could not bring herself to do so.
“If you want to talk to me at any time…” I began.
She said, “Thank you, Mrs. Verlaine,” and closed her eyes.
I did not want to force confidences. I was sorry for her, because if ever I saw a frightened girl that girl was Edith.
Sir William was jubilant. He sent for me to play for him and before I did so he asked me to sit beside him for a while.
“I’m sure you have heard the news,” he said. “We are all delighted.”
He looked younger, I thought, and a great deal better than I had seen him yet.
“Your performance was such a success,” he went on, “that we must have another. You are a very good pianist, Mrs. Verlaine, I should say a great one.”
“Oh no. That is going too far,” I protested. “But I’m delighted that I pleased you and your friends.”
“It is pleasant to have music in the house again. Mrs. Stacy will continue practicing now for a while yet, I daresay.”
“Perhaps she will not wish to continue with lessons after the child is born.”
“We shall have to ask you to teach him.”
I laughed and said a few years would have to elapse before then.
“Not so many…wasn’t it Handel who was discovered playing the piano in an attic at the age of four? Music is in the family, Mrs. Verlaine. The child’s grandmother would have been a great pianist, I believe. She was, as you would say, very good.”
Yes, I thought, the atmosphere of this house was changing. He could refer to his wife without embarrassment. And this was all due to the child Edith was going to bear, a child which might not be this man’s grandchild.
I had admitted the possibility of the doubts which had been niggling in my mind for some time. Poor Edith, what a dilemma for her. What if she confessed to her husband…My imagination was running away with me, and I could see a terrible tragedy looming up over Edith’s head. I heard her voice raised in fear when she talked to a blackmailer. She looked so innocent on the surface, and she was innocent, I was sure of it. It was life that was cruel.
Sir William was silent for a while and I asked him if he would like me to play for him now.
He said he would and the pieces were on the piano for he had already selected them.
They were light, gay pieces; among them I remember were some of Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words. I remember in particular the “Spring Song,” gay light music, full of the promise of gay young life.
I had played for an hour when Mrs. Lincroft appeared. She came into the room and quietly shut the door behind her.
“He’s asleep,” she whispered. “He is so contented.” She smiled as though Sir William’s contentment was hers; and I thought of what Mrs. Rendall had hinted about the relationship between them.
“It is really so satisfactory…so soon,” she went on speaking quietly. “Personally I didn’t think Edith was robust enough, but often those delicate-looking girls are the ones who have the children. Then Napier…he has shown quite clearly that he…Well, what I mean is he could scarcely be called a devoted husband. But he knows that Sir William expects him to provide the heir. He was brought home for that.”
I said rather indignantly: “Rather like a stud bull.”
Mrs. Lincroft looked very shocked at my indelicacy and I was a little ashamed of it myself. There was no need for me to be so vehement. Napier had come home of his own free will, knowing what it involved.
“At least he must do his duty,” said Mrs. Lincroft.
“And it seems he has.”
“This puts him on a firmer footing here.”
“But surely as Sir William’s son, his only son…”
“Sir William would have left the house and a considerable portion of his income elsewhere if he had not come home. But he came…naturally he came. He was always ambitious; he always wanted to be first. That was why he was jealous of Beau. Well, that’s all over now. He’s accepted his father’s terms and when the child is born Sir William will feel more kindly toward Napier, I am sure.”
“Sir William is a hard man.”
Mrs. Lincroft looked pained. I had again forgotten my place. It was the influence of Napier. Why did I want to defend that man?
“Circumstances have made him so,” she said coldly, and there was a note in her voice which told me that I was showing poor taste in passing adverse opinions on my employer. She was a strange woman, but I was deeply impressed by her absolute devotion to two people—Alice and Sir William. She seemed to regret her coldness toward me for she went on in a different tone of voice: “Sir William is delighted now with this news. Once the boy is born everything will start to go well in this house. I feel sure of it.”
“What if it should not be a boy?”
She looked a little startled. “It’s a trend in the family to have boys. Miss Sybil Stacy was the only daughter for several generations. Sir William will have the child named Beaumont—and then I think he will be quite contented.”