第82章 Chapter XXXIV. Mrs. Presty.(1)

Belonging to the generation which has lived to see the Age of Hurry, and has no sympathy with it, Mrs. Presty entered the sitting-room at the hotel, two hours before the time that had been fixed for leaving Sandyseal, with her mind at ease on the subject of her luggage. "My boxes are locked, strapped and labeled; I hate being hurried. What's that you're reading?" she asked, discovering a book on her daughter's lap,; and a hasty action on her daughter's part, which looked like trying to hide it.

Mrs. Norman made the most common, and--where the object is to baffle curiosity--the most useless of prevaricating replies. When her mother asked her what she was reading she answered:

"Nothing."

"Nothing!" Mrs. Presty repeated with an ironical assumption of interest. "The work of all others, Catherine, that I most want to read." She snatched up the book; opened it at the first page, and discovered an inscription in faded ink which roused her indignation. "To dear Catherine, from Herbert, on the anniversary of our marriage." What unintended mockery in those words, read by the later light of the Divorce! "Well, this is mean," said Mrs.

Presty. "Keeping that wretch's present, after the public exposure which he has forced on you. Oh, Catherine!"

Catherine was not quite so patient with her mother as usual.

"Keeping my best remembrance of the happy time of my life," she answered.

"Misplaced sentiment," Mrs. Presty declared; "I shall put the book out of the way. Your brain is softening, my dear, under the influence of this stupefying place."

Catherine asserted her own opinion against her mother's opinion, for the second time. "I have recovered my health at Sandyseal," she said. "I like the place, and I am sorry to leave it."

"Give me the shop windows, the streets, the life, the racket, and the smoke of London," cried Mrs. Presty. "Thank Heaven, these rooms are let over our heads, and out we must go, whether we like it or not."

This expression of gratitude was followed by a knock at the door, and by a voice outside asking leave to come in, which was, beyond all doubt, the voice of Randal Linley. With Catherine's book still in her possession, Mrs. Presty opened the table-drawer, threw it in, and closed the drawer with a bang. Discovering the two ladies, Randal stopped in the doorway, and stared at them in astonishment.

"Didn't you expect to see us?" Mrs. Presty inquired.

"I heard you were here, from our friend Sarrazin," Randal said;

"but I expected to see Captain Bennydeck. Have I mistaken the number? Surely these are his rooms?"

Catherine attempted to explain. "They _were_ Captain Bennydeck's rooms," she began; "but he was so kind, although we are perfect strangers to him--"

Mrs. Presty interposed. "My dear Catherine, you have not had my advantages; you have not been taught to make a complicated statement in few words. Permit me to seize the points (in the late Mr. Presty's style) and to put them in the strongest light.

This place, Randal, is always full; and we didn't write long enough beforehand to secure rooms. Captain Bennydeck happened to be downstairs when he heard that we were obliged to go away, and that one of us was a lady in delicate health. This sweetest of men sent us word that we were welcome to take his rooms, and that he would sleep on board his yacht. Conduct worthy of Sir Charles Grandison himself. When I went downstairs to thank him, he was gone--and here we have been for nearly three weeks; sometimes seeing the Captain's yacht, but, to our great surprise, never seeing the Captain himself."

"There's nothing to be surprised at, Mrs. Presty. Captain Bennydeck likes doing kind things, and hates being thanked for it. I expected him to meet me here to-day."

Catherine went to the window. "He is coming to meet you," she said. "There is his yacht in the bay."

"And in a dead calm," Randal added, joining her. "The vessel will not get here, before I am obliged to go away again."

Catherine looked at him timidly. "Do I drive you away?" she asked, in tones that faltered a little.

Randal wondered what she could possibly be thinking of and acknowledged it in so many words.

"She is thinking of the Divorce," Mrs. Presty explained. "You have heard of it, of course; and perhaps you take your brother's part?"

"I do nothing of the sort, ma'am. My brother has been in the wrong from first to last." He turned to Catherine. "I will stay with you as long as I can, with the greatest pleasure," he said earnestly and kindly. "The truth is, I am on my way to visit some friends; and if Captain Bennydeck had got here in time to see me, I must have gone away to the junction to catch the next train westward, just as I am going now. I had only two words to say to the Captain about a person in whom he is interested--and I can say them in this way." He wrote in pencil on one of his visiting cards, and laid it on the table. "I shall be back in London, in a week," he resumed, "and you will tell me at what address I can find you. In the meanwhile, I miss Kitty. Where is she?"