"I am afraid the mischief is already done, Alick, and that its results will be apparent long before Dr. Wilmot can reach here," said Lady Muriel. "However, let us sleep upon it. I am sure to hear whether the news has spread in the house long before breakfast, and we can consult again." And Lady Muriel took leave of her husband, and retired to her room.
Trust a woman for observation. Lady Muriel was perfectly right. The nods and shoulder-shrugs and whisperings which she had observed in the drawing-room had already borne fruit. On her return to her own room she saw a little note lying on her table--a little note which, as she learned from Pinner, her attendant, had just been brought by Lady Fairfax's maid. It ran thus:
"Dearest Lady Muriel,--A frightful attack of neuralgia (my neuralgia)--which, as you know, is so awful--has been hanging over me for the last three days, and now has come upon me in its fullest force. I am quite out of my mind with it. I have striven--O, how I have striven!--to keep up and try to forget it, when surrounded by your pleasant circle, and when looking at your dear self. But it is all in vain. I am in agonies. The torture of the rack itself can be nothing to what I am suffering tonight.
"Poor dear Sir Benjamin Brodie used to say that I should never be well in a northern climate. I fear he was right. I fear that the air of this darling Kilsyth, earthly Paradise though it is--and I am sure that I have found it so during three weeks of bliss; O, such happiness!--is too bracing, too invigorating for poor me. But I should loathe myself if I were to make this an open confession. So I will steal away, dearest Lady Muriel, without making any formal adieux. When all your dear friends assemble at breakfast to-morrow, I shall be on my sorrowing way south, and only regret that my wretched health prevents me longer remaining where I have been so entirely happy.
"With kindest regards to your dear husband, I am, dearest Lady Muriel, ever your loving
";Emily Fairfax.
"P.S.--I have told my maid to beg some of your people to get me horses from the Kilsyth Arms; so that I shall speed away early in the morning without disturbing any one. I hope dear Madeleine will soon be quite herself again."
Lady Muriel read this letter through twice with great calmness, though a very scornful smile curled her lip during its perusal. She then twisted the note up into a wisp, and was about to burn it in the flame of the candle, when she heard a short solemn tap at her chamber-door. She turned round, bade Pinner open the door, and looked with more displeasure than astonishment at the Duchess of Northallerton, who appeared in the entrance. The Duchess had the credit in society of being a "haughty-looking woman." Her stronghold in life, beyond the fact of her being a duchess, had been in her Roman nose and arched eyebrows. But, somehow, haughty looks become wonderfully modified in déshabillé, and Roman noses and arched eyebrows lose a good deal of their potency when taken in conjunction with two tight little curls twisted up in hairpins, and a headdress which, however much fluted and gauffered, is unmistakably a nightcap. The Duchess's nocturnal adornments were unmistakably of this homely character, and her white wrapper was of a hue, which, if she had not been a duchess, would have been pronounced dingy. But her step was undoubtedly tragic, and the expression of her face solemn to a degree. Lady Muriel received her with uplifted eyebrows, and motioned her to a chair. The Duchess dropped stiffly into the appointed haven of rest; but arched her eyebrows at Pinner with great significance.
"You can go, Pinner. I shall not require you any more," said Lady Muriel; adding, "I presume that was what you wished, Duchess?" as the maid left the room.
"Precisely, dear Muriel; but you always were so wonderfully ready to interpret one's thoughts. I remember your dear mother used to say--but I won't worry you with my stories. I came to speak to you about dear Madeleine."
"Ye-es," said Lady Muriel quietly, finding the Duchess paused.
"Well, now, she's worse than any of them suspect. Ah, I can see it by your face. And I know what is the matter with her. Don't start; I won't even ask you; I won't let you commit yourself in any way; but I know that it's measles."
Lady Muriel kept her countenance admirably while the Duchess proceeded. "I know it by a sort of instinct. When Madeleine first complained of her head, I looked narrowly at her, and I said to myself, 'Measles! undoubtedly measles!' Now, you know, Muriel, though there is nothing dangerous in measles to a young person like Madeleine,--and she will shake them off easily, and be all the better afterwards,--they are very dangerous when taken by a person of mature age. And the fact is, the Duke has never had them--never. When Errington was laid up with them, I recollect the Duke wouldn't remain in the house, but went off to the Star and Garter, and stayed there until all trace of the infection was gone. And he's horribly afraid of them. You know what cowards men are in such matters; and he said just now he thought there was a rash on his neck. Such nonsense! Only where his collar had rubbed him, as I told him. But he's dreadfully frightened; and he has suggested that instead of waiting till the end of the week, as we had intended, we had better go to-morrow."
"I think that perhaps under all circumstances it would be the best course," said Lady Muriel, quite calmly.
"I knew your good sense would see it in the right light, my dear Muriel," said the Duchess, who had been nervously anticipating quite a different answer, and who was overjoyed. "I was perfectly certain of your coincidence in our plan. Now, of course, we shall not say a word as to the real reason of our departure--the Duke, I know, would not have that for the world. We shall not mention it at Redlands either; merely say we--O, I shall find some good excuse, for Mrs. Murgatroyd is a chattering little woman, as you know, Muriel. And now I won't keep you up any longer, dear. You'll kindly tell some one to get us horses to be ready by--say twelve to-morrow. Stay to luncheon? No, dear. I think we had better go before luncheon. The Duke, you see, is so absurd about his ridiculous rash. Goodnight, dear." And the Duchess stalked off to tell the Duke, who was not the least frightened, and whose rash was entirely fictitious, how well she had sped on her mission.
Lady Muriel accurately obeyed the requests made to her in Lady Fairfax's letter, and verbally by the Duchess; and each of them found their horses ready at the appointed time. Lady Emily departed mysteriously before breakfast; but as the Duchess's horses were not ordered till twelve, and as the post came in at eleven, her grace had time to receive a letter from Mrs. Murgatroyd, of Redlands, whither they were next bound, requesting them to postpone their arrival for a day or two, as a German prince, who had by accident shot a stag, had been so elated by the feat, that he had implored to be allowed to stay on, with the chance of repeating it; and as he occupied the rooms intended for the Duke and Duchess, it was impossible to receive them until he left. After reading this letter, the Duchess went to Lady Muriel, and expressed her opinion that she had been too precipitate; that, after all, nothing positive had been pronounced; that there were no symptoms of the Duke's rash that morning, which had been undoubtedly caused, as she had said last night, by his collar, and which was no rash at all; and that perhaps, after all, their real duty was to stay and help their dear Muriel to nurse her dear invalid. But they had miscalculated the possibility of deceiving their dear Muriel. Lady Muriel at once replied that it was impossible that they could remain at Kilsyth; that immediately on the Duchess's quitting her on the previous night she had made arrangements as to the future disposition of the rooms which they occupied; that she would not for the world take upon herself the responsibility which would necessarily accrue to her if any of them caught the disease; and that she knew the Duchess's own feelings would tell her that she, Lady Muriel, however ungracious it might seem, was in the right in advising their immediate departure. The Duchess tried to argue the point, but in vain; and so she and the Duke, and their servants and baggage, departed, and passed the next three days at a third-rate roadside inn between Kilsyth and Redlands, where the Duke got lumbago, and the Duchess got bored; and where they passed their time alternately wishing that they had not left Kilsyth, or that the people at Redlands were ready to receive them.
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