It seemed to Dominey that he had never seen anything more pathetic than
that eager glance, half of hope, half of apprehension, flashed upon him
from the strange, tired eyes of the woman who was standing before
the log fire in a little recess of the main hall. By her side stood a
pleasant, friendly looking person in the uniform of a nurse; a yard or
two behind, a maid carrying a jewel case. Rosamund, who had thrown back
her veil, had been standing with her foot upon the fender. Her whole
expression changed as Dominey came hastily towards her with outstretched
hands.
“My dear child,” he exclaimed, “welcome home!”
“Welcome?” she repeated, with a glad catch in her throat. “You mean it?”
With a self-control of which he gave no sign, he touched the lips which
were raised so eagerly to his as tenderly and reverently as though this
were some strange child committed to his care.
“Of course I mean it,” he answered heartily. “But what possessed you to
come without giving us notice? How was this, nurse?”
“Her ladyship has had no sleep for two nights,” the latter replied. “She
has been so much better that we dreaded the thought of a relapse, so
Mrs. Coulson, our matron, thought it best to let her have her own
way about coming. Instead of telegraphing to you, unfortunately, we
telegraphed to Doctor Harrison, and I believe he is away.”
“Is it very wrong of me?” Rosamund asked, clinging to Dominey's arm.
“I had a sudden feeling that I must get back here. I wanted to see you
again. Every one has been so sweet and kind at Falmouth, especially
Nurse Alice here, but they weren't quite the same thing. You are not
angry? These people who are staying here will not mind?”
“Of course not,” he assured her cheerfully. “They will be your guests.
To-morrow you must make friends with them all.”
“There was a very beautiful woman,” she said timidly, “with red hair,
who passed by just now. She looked very angry. That was not because I
have come?”
“Why should it be?” he answered. “You have a right here--a better right
than any one.”
She drew a long sigh of contentment.
“Oh, but this is wonderful!” she cried. “And you dear,--I shall call you
Everard, mayn't I?--you look just as I hoped you might. Will you take me
upstairs, please? Nurse, you can follow us.”
She leaned heavily on his arm and even loitered on the way, but her
steps grew lighter as they approached her own apartment. Finally, as
they reached the corridor, she broke away from him and tripped on with
the gaiety almost of a child to the door of her room. Then came a little
cry of disappointment as she flung open the door. Several maids were
there, busy with a refractory fire and removing the covers from the
furniture, but the room was half full of smoke and entirely unprepared.
“Oh, how miserable!” she exclaimed. “Everard, what shall I do?”
He threw open the door of his own apartment. A bright fire was burning
in the grate, the room was warm and comfortable. She threw herself with
a little cry of delight into the huge Chesterfield drawn up to the edge
of the hearthrug.
“I can stay here, Everard, can't I, until you come up to bed?” she
pleaded. “And then you can sit and talk to me, and tell me who is here
and all about the people. You have no idea how much better I am. All my
music has come back to me, and they say that I play bridge ever so well.
I shall love to help you entertain.”
The maid was slowly unfastening her mistress's boots. Rosamund held up
her foot for him to feel.
“See how cold I am!” she complained. “Please rub it. I am going to have
some supper up here with nurse. Will one of you maids please go down
and see about it? What a lot of nice new things you have, Everard!” she
added, looking around. “And that picture of me from the drawing-room, on
the table!” she cried, her eyes suddenly soft with joy. “You dear thing!
What made you bring that up?”
“I wanted to have it here,” he told her.
“I'm not so nice as that now,” she sighed, a little wistfully.
“Do not believe it,” he answered. “You have not changed in the least.
You will be better-looking still when you have been here for a few
months.”
She looked at him almost shyly--tenderly, yet still with that gleam of
aloofness in her eyes.
“I think,” she murmured, “I shall be just what you want me to be. I
think you could make me just what you want. Be very kind to me, please,”
she begged, stretching her arms out to him. “I suppose it is because I
have been ill so long, but I feel so helpless, and I love your strength
and I want you to take care of me. Your own hands are quite cold,” she
added anxiously. “You look pale, too. You're not ill, Everard?”
“I am very well,” he assured her, struggling to keep his voice
steady. “Forgive me now, won't you, if I hurry away. There are guests
here--rather important guests. To-morrow you must come and see them
all.”
“And help you?”
“And help me.”
Dominey made his escape and went reeling down the corridor. At the top
of the great quadrangular landing he stopped and stood with half-closed
eyes for several moments. From downstairs he could hear the sound of
pleasantly raised voices, the music of a piano in the distance,
the click of billiard balls. He waited until he had regained his
self-possession. Then, as he was on the point of descending, he saw
Seaman mounting the stairs. At a gesture he waited for him, waited until
he came, and, taking him by the arm, led him to a great settee in a dark
corner. Seaman had lost his usual blitheness. The good-humoured smile
played no longer about his lips.
“Where is Lady Dominey?” he asked.
“In my room, waiting until her own is prepared.”
Seaman's manner was unusually grave.
“My friend,” he said, “you know very well that when we walk in the great
paths of life I am unscrupulous. In those other hours, alas! I have a
weakness,--I love women.”
“Well?” Dominey muttered.
“I will admit,” the other continued, “that you are placed in a delicate
and trying position. Lady Dominey seems disposed to offer to you the
affection which, notwithstanding their troubles together, she doubtless
felt for her husband. I risk your anger, my friend, but I warn you to be
very careful how you encourage her.”
A light flashed in Dominey's eyes. For the moment angry words seemed
to tremble upon his lips. Seaman's manner, however, was very gentle. He
courted no offence.
“If you were to take advantage of your position with--with any other,
I would shrug my shoulders and stand on one side, but this mad
Englishman's wife, or rather his widow, has been mentally ill. She is
still weak-minded, just as she is tender-hearted. I watched her as she
passed through the hall with you just now. She turns to you for love
as a flower to the sun after a long spell of cold, wet weather. Von
Ragastein, you are a man of honour. You must find means to deal with
this situation, however difficult it may become.”
Dominey had recovered from his first wave of weakness. His companion's
words excited no sentiment of anger. He was conscious even of regarding
him with a greater feeling of kindness than ever before.
“My friend,” he said, “you have shown me that you are conscious of one
dilemma in which I find myself placed, and which I confess is exercising
me to the utmost. Let me now advise you of another. The Princess
Eiderstrom has brought me an autograph letter from the Kaiser,
commanding me to marry her.”
“The situation,” Seaman declared grimly, “but for its serious side,
would provide all the elements for a Palais Royal farce. For the
present, however, you have duties below. I have said the words which
were thumping against the walls of my heart.”
Their descent was opportune. Some of the local guests were preparing to
make their departure, and Dominey was in time to receive their adieux.
They all left messages for Lady Dominey, spoke of a speedy visit to
her, and expressed themselves as delighted to hear of her return and
recovery. As the last car rolled away, Caroline took her host's arm and
led him to a chimney seat by the huge log fire in the inner hall.
“My dear Everard,” she said, “you really are a very terrible person.”
“Exactly why?” he demanded.
“Your devotion to my sex,” she continued, “is flattering but far too
catholic. Your return to England appears to have done what we understood
to be impossible--restored your wife's reason. A fiery-headed Hungarian
Princess has pursued you down here, and has now gone to her room in
a tantrum because you left her side for a few minutes to welcome your
wife. And there remains our own sentimental little flirtation, a broken
and, alas, a discarded thing! There is no doubt whatever, Everard, that
you are a very bad lot.”
“You are distressing me terribly,” Dominey confessed, “but all the same,
after a somewhat agitated evening I must admit that I find it pleasant
to talk with some one who is not wielding the lightnings. May I have a
whisky and soda?”
“Bring me one, too, please,” Caroline begged. “I fear that it will
seriously impair the note which I had intended to strike in our
conversation, but I am thirsty. And a handful of those Turkish
cigarettes, too. You can devote yourself to me with a perfectly clear
conscience. Your most distinguished guest has found a task after his own
heart. He has got Henry in a corner of the billiard-room and is
trying to convince him of what I am sure the dear man really believes
himself--that Germany's intentions towards England are of a particularly
dove-like nature. Your Right Honourable guest has gone to bed, and Eddy
Pelham is playing billiards with Mr. Mangan. Every one is happy. You
can devote yourself to soothing my wounded vanity, to say nothing of my
broken heart.”
“Always gibing at me,” Dominey grumbled.
“Not always,” she answered quietly, raising her eyes for a moment.
“There was a time, Everard, before that terrible tragedy--the last time
you stayed at Dunratter--when I didn't gibe.”
“When, on the contrary, you were sweetness itself,” he reflected.
She sighed reminiscently.
“That was a wonderful month,” she murmured. “I think it was then for
the first time that I saw traces of something in you which I suppose
accounts for your being what you are to-day.”
“You think that I have changed, then?”
She looked him in the eyes.
“I sometimes find it difficult to believe,” she admitted, “that you are
the same man.”
He turned away to reach for his whisky and soda.
“As a matter of curiosity,” he asked, “why?”
“To begin with, then,” she commented, “you have become almost a
precisian in your speech. You used to be rather slangy at times.”
“What else?”
“You used always to clip your final g's.”
“Shocking habit,” he murmured. “I cured myself of that by reading aloud
in the bush. Go on, please?”
“You carry yourself so much more stiffly. Sometimes you have the air of
being surprised that you are not in uniform.”
“Trifles, all these things,” he declared. “Now for something serious?”
“The serious things are pretty good,” she admitted. “You used to drink
whiskys and sodas at all hours of the day, and quite as much wine as was
good for you at dinner time. Now, although you are a wonderful host, you
scarcely take anything yourself.”
“You should see me at the port,” he told her, “when you ladies are well
out of the way! Some more of the good, please?”
“All your best qualities seem to have come to the surface,” she went on,
“and I think that the way you have come back and faced it all is simply
wonderful. Tell me, if that man's body should be discovered after all
these years, would you be charged with manslaughter?”
He shook his head. “I do not think so, Caroline.”
“Everard.”
“Well?”
“Did you kill Roger Unthank?”
A portion of the burning log fell on to the hearth. Then there was
silence. They heard the click of the billiard balls in the adjoining
room. Dominey leaned forward and with a pair of small tongs replaced the
burning wood upon the fire. Suddenly he felt his hands clasped by his
companion's.
“Everard dear,” she said, “I am so sorry. You came to me a little tired
to-night, didn't you? I think that you needed sympathy, and here I am
asking you once more that horrible question. Forget it, please. Talk
to me like your old dear self. Tell me about Rosamund's return. Is she
really recovered, do you think?”
“I saw her only for a few minutes,” Dominey replied, “but she seemed to
me absolutely better. I must say that the weekly reports I have received
from the nursing home quite prepared me for a great improvement. She is
very frail, and her eyes still have that restless look, but she talks
quite coherently.”
“What about that horrible woman?”
“I have pensioned Mrs. Unthank. To my surprise I hear that she is still
living in the village.”
“And your ghost?”
“Not a single howl all the time that Rosamund has been away.”
“There is one thing more,” Caroline began hesitatingly.
That one thing lacked forever the clothing of words. There came a
curious, almost a dramatic interruption. Through the silence of the hall
there pealed the summons of the great bell which hung over the front
door. Dominey glanced at the clock in amazement.
“Midnight!” he exclaimed. “Who on earth can be coming here at this time
of night!”
Instinctively they both rose to their feet. A manservant had turned the
great key, drawn the bolts, and opened the door with difficulty. Little
flakes of snow and a gust of icy wind swept into the hall, and following
them the figure of a man, white from head to foot, his hair tossed with
the wind, almost unrecognisable after his struggle.
“Why, Doctor Harrison!” Dominey cried, taking a quick step forward.
“What brings you here at this time of night!”
The doctor leaned upon his stick for a moment. He was out of breath, and
the melting snow was pouring from his clothes on to the oak floor. They
relieved him of his coat and dragged him towards the fire.
“I must apologise for disturbing you at such an hour,” he said, as he
took the tumbler which Dominey pressed into his hand. “I have only just
received Lady Dominey's telegram. I had to see you--at once.”