Free Dorothy Eden by Never Call It Loving

he was temporarily embarrassed, as was natural to a gentleman who enjoyed a gay life.
    “I’m here, Lucy,” she said at intervals during the long night, as the shrunken figure on the bed breathed with more and more difficulty.
    And in the morning there was a letter from Dublin.
“My dear Mrs. O’Shea,
    I cannot keep myself away from you any longer, so shall leave tonight for London. Please wire me at 16 Keppell Street, Russell Square, if I may hope to see you tomorrow, and where.
    Yours always,
    C.S.P.”
    She crushed the letter in her hands. Her face was distraught. She had promised not to leave Lucy, she could not leave her faithful old servant who, bereft of all other senses, could yet feel to grope for her hand and cling to it.
    But she hadn’t seen him for so long, and how was she to bear the thought of him waiting for the message she could not send. He would pace up and down the hotel lobby, hoping that perhaps, instead of the message that never arrived, she would arrive herself.
    This was torture. She was suffering every moment of his disappointment and perplexity. Would he think she had decided to give him up, that the price of loving him was too great and she was too mean-spirited to pay it?
    Lucy died late that night, and in the morning Katharine, saying she must tell Willie personally, took the train to London. Her first call was at the Keppell Street Hotel. Heavily veiled, she enquired at the desk for Mr. Parnell, only to be told that he had left for Dublin less than an hour ago. But there was a forwarding address. Had it been left for her?
    So at least she could write and know that within twenty-four hours he would have an explanation and the assurance that he had not been deserted.
    Willie came back to Eltham with her. He shed a few emotional tears over poor old Lucy, the loyal soul she had been, and took her to be buried at Cressing beside Katharine’s mother and father, where she would have hoped to lie. He behaved very nicely, and offered to stay longer if Kate would like him to. She saw that he expected to use Lucy’s death as a basis for a reconciliation. What better time for Katharine, weeping and forgiving, to seek his arms? She was dismayed and disgusted, and very relieved when, thoroughly bored with a house in mourning and an aloof wife, Willie could stand it no longer and went off to seek gaieties in London.
    After that the house was very quiet. But at last the longed-for letter with the Irish postmark arrived. Katharine cried when she read it, for Charles was full of sympathy for her loss. She could hardly imagine his happiness at receiving her letter. But matters were tense and he could not get back to England for a few days. Did she know that Captain O’Shea was suggesting his coming down to Eltham to visit, and what did she think of that?
    This was the first she had heard of such an idea. Willie must have been in touch with Charles since he had been here. It was typical of him not to have discussed the matter with his wife.
    She walked about feverishly trying to imagine how she could hide her feelings if Charles were actually in her house, sitting in her drawing room, and Willie was expecting her to play the part of a gracious hostess. It would be an impossible situation! She must plead all the excuses she could think of, Lucy’s death, the shabbiness of the house, Aunt Ben’s demands on her time, Willie’s own dislike of the country.
    “Katharine, my bird, you look so sad.” That was Aunt Ben, looking up from the froth of shawls with which she protected herself from draughts in the tapestry room. “You mustn’t grieve for Lucy. She had a quick and merciful end. She wasn’t left cooling her heels as I am. Now don’t sit at home brooding. Bring the children over this afternoon. I haven’t seen them for a long time.”
    Norah and Carmen loved going to visit Aunt Ben. They were awed by her great age which Norah guessed to be two hundred years at least. They pleaded with her to tell