I DISCOVER THAT DR. RENTON IS IN LOVE
Nurse has gone, and I am not overwhelmed with grief. I could quite see
that within another week the kitchen would have been turned into a
pugilistic ring, and she and Amelia would have settled their grievances
in a fight.
Amelia has said, with her nose in the air, "Seems to think I am just
here to wait on her, mum. Nurses halways imagines they're duchesses,
and just took to nursin' out of pilanthropy."
And nurse has said kindly, "I don't want to worry you, Mrs. Westover,
but probably _that_ girl is here just as a temporary, or I shouldn't
speak; but really her impertinence is----"
"She is _quite_ permanent," I have hastened to assure her, at which she
too has stuck her nose in the air; and so they have gone about as
though the law of gravitation was reversed, and their noses permanently
drawn heavenwards.
I am downstairs in the drawing-room. I found awaiting me an invalid
couch--an Ilkley--low and luxurious, with soft down cushions cased in
silk of a lovely golden hue--a couch contrived to ease the weariness of
tired people. They have pushed it into the window, and from here I can
see all my friends of the garden--the apple tree best loved of all, for
is it not our very _own_ tree, growing on our domain? One has a
peculiar affection for one's own possessions. Not that I am anything
but grateful to the beech in the frog-pond field for casting its cool
shadow across the lawn; but it belongs to somebody else--perhaps some
farmer who hardly knows of its existence.
My descent from the upper regions was somewhat perilous. We--Amelia,
nurse, and I--wanted to take Dimbie by surprise, so nurse said she
would superintend my removal. As a matter of fact, she did nothing of
the kind, for Amelia superintended it.
First of all she made me put up my hair. She said I could not "boss
the show" with it hanging down in two plaits. I reflected that were I
to dress it as high as the Eiffel Tower I should not be able to boss
_her_, but I did not mention this. Next she picked up _her_ end of the
chair and fairly ran with me down the stairs, nurse being bound to
follow. I closed my eyes and held my breath, and when I opened them
again I found myself staring at two gorgeous yellow flags decorated
with portraits of the King and Queen. They had certainly not been
there on the last occasion of my being in the drawing-room. The King
wore a top-hat and carelessly held a cigar in his kid-gloved hand. The
Queen, poor thing, was extremely _decolletée_, and wore mauve roses in
her hair. The King, in morning dress, seemed out of place to me by the
side of such grandeur on the part of his spouse.
Amelia broke into my musings.
"Thought we would have a bit of decoration, like the Jubilee, mum, in
your honour, so I got them flags in the village."
She looked at me expectantly, and nurse sniffed.
The sniff annoyed me.
"It was extremely kind of you, Amelia," I said warmly. "Thank you very
much."
"And the Hilkley, mum? The master got that, and we smuggled it into
the house without your hearing anythink that was going on. And he's
been wheeling it about hever since, trying to get the best persition,
where the sun wouldn't catch your eyes, and where you could see the
garden and the happle tree."
"I think it is lovely. Please lift me on to it, nurse. _You_ will
have to lift me to-morrow, Amelia," I said soothingly.
She watched the proceeding carefully, and with gentle hand arranged the
cushions. The hand was rough and coarsened by hard work, but I felt
that it would ever be ready to do my service.
I told them to leave me, as I wanted to be alone. I wanted to think.
Now that I was downstairs I wished to review my position. The familiar
aspect of the room, the furniture--which Amelia had pushed against the
walls with an undesirable effort at neatness--conjured up a thousand
pleasant memories. It had been on a snowy winter afternoon when Dimbie
and I had first come home. How peaceful, how delicious the warm,
fire-lit room had seemed after the rush of hotel life! We sat in the
gloaming talking, planning out our lives, what we would do, where we
would go; and now--ah! when should I cease to chafe at lying still? I
thought of all the people who had had to lie so much--Mrs. Browning,
Stevenson, and they had seemed so patient over years of ill-health--and
my inactivity was but for one year, and yet I was not patient.
* * * * *
Doctor Renton came into the room, bearing in his arms a great bunch of
roses.
"From your mother," he said; "she came round with them this morning.
She wanted to come with me."
"And why didn't she?" I felt my eyes kindle.
"You know," he replied with a shrug.
"Peter is a beast!" I said.
He smiled.
"You are evidently better. I am glad to find you downstairs. How did
you manage the removal?"
I described it fully, and he laughed.
"That girl of yours is a brick. I should keep her."
"She wouldn't go," I said.
"She will help you not to be lonely. Have you made any friends here
yet?"
"No," I returned. "I believe some people called when I was ill. But I
don't want anybody."
"You only want your husband?"
I nodded.
"You seem uncommonly fond of one another."
"Of course," I said.
To my surprise he sighed and walked to the window. I noticed his
figure was a little bent and his hair grey. I had known Dr. Renton all
my life, but for the first time it came to me that he was lonely.
"Why have you never married?" I asked suddenly. He surely wanted a
wife.
He started, and then smiled.
"All young married people want to know that of their friends," he said
evasively.
"I think you would have made an awfully nice husband, and--it seems
such a pity that you should be alone."
He picked up one of the roses which I had untied and held it to his
face.
"How do you mean, a pity?"
"Why, that you should be in that great big house at Dorking by yourself
when there are so many women in the world. They seem to overflow. I
don't know what is to be done with them all."
"So you want to marry me for the sake of reducing the number of
spinsters?" He laughed.
"Well, not exactly," I replied. "But I feel you have lost so much--you
and the woman you ought to have married."
"How do you know there was one?" he asked sharply.
I smiled.
"I guessed," I said. "I am quite brilliant at times. Where is she?"
"In India."
He stopped abruptly on the word, and from his attitude I realised he
would have given much to recall it. I felt I had been impertinent.
"Forgive me----" I began.
"Not at all," he said. "I don't mind. It's rather a relief to speak
of it. You--you are still in love, and will understand. Once there
was a time when I looked forward to being married. I looked forward
greatly. I thought of it morning, noon, and night."
"Well?" I said gently.
"She went abroad."
"But why? Didn't she return your love?"
"I--I don't know."
"You don't know?" I raised my voice.
"No."
"Didn't you tell her?"
"You see, she went off so quickly. She was in such a deuce of a hurry
to get abroad."
"What do you call a hurry?"
Dr. Renton shuffled.
"Perhaps you knew her for three months?"
"I knew her for two years."
"And you call two years a hurry?" I endeavoured to keep the sarcasm
out of my voice.
"Of course, I didn't know if she cared anything about me."
"Did you expect her to propose to you?"
"Oh, no, certainly not."
"I see, you dangled about her for two years. In fact, you almost
compromised her. Then you were astonished at the poor woman running
away. Year after year you played fast and loose with her----"
"I don't call two years year after year," he interrupted meekly.
"I do," I said severely. "Dimbie was only six weeks."
He laughed.
"We are not all made of the same stuff as Dimbie." He spoke so humbly,
so unlike his usual decided self, that I began to feel sorry for him.
"And do you think this woman will ever come back?"
"I wish to God she would," he said, with an intensity that startled me.
"Why, I do believe you still care for her," I said.
"Of course I do," he returned with asperity. "I thought I mentioned
that."
"No, you didn't. You simply said you had driven a woman to India.
Poor thing, my heart bleeds for her. I expect her tears have made a
sort of railway cutting down her cheeks, and she will be prematurely
aged."
Dr. Renton grunted.
"If you still care for her, may I ask why you don't follow her, or
write to her?"
"That is what I have asked myself a thousand times a day," he cried,
walking up and down the room. "For years I have been asking myself."
"Years!" I said in dismay. "Is it years?"
He nodded.
"Then I am afraid you are too late." I sighed.
"Of course I am. I've been a fool. Now it is too late."
"I'm very sorry."
He held out his hand.
"Good-bye."
"Can nothing be done?" I wondered.
"I'm afraid not, Marguerite."
"But you would be so happy married."
"Do you think all married people are happy?"
"No, according to Nanty few of them are. But I think _you_ would have
been, and I am sure of your wife. You are so strong and kind. I
always think of you in the same way as I think of Miss Fairbrother."
"Oh!" he said, turning his face away.
"Yes, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary and thirsty land. You
are both such comforting people. Do you remember Miss Fairbrother, my
old governess?"
"Yes," he said, and he walked quickly to the door and went out.