Asking for Miss Henley at the doctor's door, Hugh was informed that she
had gone out, with her invalid maid, for a walk. She had left word, if
Mr. Mountjoy called in her absence, to beg that he would kindly wait
for her return.
On his way up to the drawing-room, Mountjoy heard Mrs. Vimpany's
sonorous voice occupied, as he supposed, in reading aloud. The door
being opened for him, he surprised her, striding up and down the room
with a book in her hand; grandly declaiming without anybody to applaud
her. After what Hugh had already heard, he could only conclude that
reminiscences of her theatrical career had tempted the solitary actress
to make a private appearance, for her own pleasure, in one of those
tragic characters to which her husband had alluded. She recovered her
self-possession on Mountjoy's appearance, with the ease of a mistress
of her art. "Pardon me," she said, holding up her book with one hand,
and tapping it indicatively with the other: "Shakespeare carries me out
of myself. A spark of the poet's fire burns in the poet's humble
servant. May I hope that I have made myself understood? You look as if
you had a fellow-feeling for me."
Mountjoy did his best to fill the sympathetic part assigned to him, and
only succeeded in showing what a bad actor he would have been, if he
had gone on the stage. Under the sedative influence thus administered,
Mrs. Vimpany put away her book, and descended at once from the highest
poetry to the lowest prose.
"Let us return to domestic events," she said indulgently. "Have the
people at the inn given you a good dinner?"
"The people did their best," Mountjoy answered cautiously.
"Has my husband returned with you?" Mrs. Vimpany went on.
Mountjoy began to regret that he had not waited for Iris in the street.
He was obliged to acknowledge that the doctor had not returned with
him.
"Where is Mr. Vimpany?"
"At the inn."
"What is he doing there?"
Mountjoy hesitated. Mrs. Vimpany rose again into the regions of tragic
poetry. She stepped up to him, as if he had been Macbeth, and she was
ready to use the daggers. "I understand but too well," she declared in
terrible tones. "My wretched husband's vices are known to me. Mr.
Vimpany is intoxicated."
Hugh tried to make the best of it. "Only asleep," he said. Mrs. Vimpany
looked at him once more. This time, it was Queen Katharine looking at
Cardinal Wolsey. She bowed with lofty courtesy, and opened the door. "I
have occasion," she said, "to go out"----and made an exit.