"YOU CAN TRUST DR. FERGUSSON."
When at about seven o'clock in the morning, Dr. Fergusson, and the
servant Elizabeth, once more reached the house amongst the woods,
Christina was dressed and ready to admit them by the little green gate
in the wall. She had made herself ready for the day at a very early
hour, stealing out of her beautiful charge's room whilst the latter was
sleeping peacefully, and Fergusson smiled approvingly when he caught
sight of the girl's trim figure and smiling face. He alighted quickly
from the car, and helped Elizabeth to descend; and, whilst the servant
hurried into the house, he put a quick question or two to Christina.
"Yes, she has had a quiet night on the whole," the girl answered; "she
has not slept much at a time, but she has dozed now and then, and she
has been wonderfully calm. She is asleep now, but she told me most
particularly that she wished to be awakened when you came. I think,"
the girl hesitated as she glanced into the doctor's face, "I think she
has something special to say to you."
"I am sorry to have to wake her," Fergusson answered, "but I am afraid
there is no help for it, if she wishes to speak to me. I can't wait
till she wakes naturally; I have a very busy day before me, besides
which I ought to take you back to the small girl." Whilst he spoke he
was walking up the flagged path to the house by Christina's side,
glancing with pardonable curiosity at the white building, against its
background of dark woods.
"Curious," he said reflectively. "I do not want to be unduly prying,
but it is impossible to help wondering what that exceptionally
beautiful woman is doing in this remote place, with apparently only an
old servant and a homicidal maniac for company."
Christina's eyes met his, and she flushed. In the face of the promise
of secrecy she had given to the lady of the house, she could not
mention to Fergusson the existence of the sick man, whose presence she
shrewdly suspected was in some way the reason for the beautiful lady's
residence in this desolate corner of the world; and, in answer to his
words, she only said quietly:
"I think there must be some very good reason why she does not wish
people to know she is here; but of course I don't know what the reason
is," and, saying this, she entered the hall door, and preceded the
doctor to the room where her charge of the night still lay sleeping, a
little smile on her beautiful face. Elizabeth stood beside her, and
Christina saw that the good woman's eyes were full of tears.
"It does me good to see her sleeping like that," she whispered to the
two who stood just within the doorway; "it's seldom she gets such
restful sleep."
"You are sure she really wants to speak to me?" Fergusson asked the
girl, speaking in low tones. "I cannot bear to disturb her, and yet I
must do it if she really wants me. I have one or two urgent cases that
should be seen early, and I cannot stay here."
"I am afraid we must disturb her," Christina whispered back. "Before
she went to sleep, she told me I was on no account to let you go
without speaking to her. I am sure she has something important she
wishes to say."
"Then I'll be going to make some tea for you all," Elizabeth said
gently; "you haven't slept much yourself, miss, I can see," she added,
looking kindly into Christina's face, which bore traces of her wakeful
vigil.
"I have lighted the kitchen fire," the girl said gaily, ignoring the
remarks about her own night, "and I think tea will be just the
loveliest thing in the world," and as Elizabeth went downstairs, she
crept softly to the bedside, and laid her hand upon the white hand on
the coverlet, the hand whose only ornament was its thick wedding ring.
"Dr. Fergusson has come back," she said very gently, when at her touch
the dark eyes opened. "I am so sorry to wake you, but you wanted to
speak to him." In that moment of waking, the smile that had lain on
the sleeping face faded from it, and a long sigh escaped her.
"I was dreaming that Max and I," she began, and then, as recollection
returned to her, she broke off her sentence, saying abruptly, "Yes, I
must speak to the doctor. I must take the risk--all the risk," she
added under her breath, and Christina saw that a look of fear stole
into her eyes.
"Is there something I can do for you?" Fergusson approached the bed,
and his voice was as gentle as Christina's had been. Something in the
fragile appearance of the woman before them, something in the anguish
of the deep eyes, gave both to the man and to the girl beside him, a
feeling of almost reverential awe. Instinctively, they realised the
presence of some great human tragedy; instinctively, they felt that in
its presence, all voices must be hushed, and that no rough things of
every day, should be allowed to intrude into the place of grief. The
woman in the bed raised herself on her pillow, and looked full into
Fergusson's face.
"I can trust you," she said. "I believe you will keep your own counsel
about--whatever you see or hear in this house."
"Certainly I shall," he replied. "When Miss Moore came to me
yesterday, I promised her that I would respect your confidence
absolutely. I have entered the patient I have just taken to the
asylum, as resident at the London address you gave me. I hope that was
right? I have a rooted objection to telling deliberate lies," he added
a little grimly.
"What I told you was quite true," she answered, smiling faintly. "Poor
Marion was only here temporarily, her home is in London. Will you tell
me about her before I ask you anything more? Is there any hope of her
recovery? It all seemed so dreadfully sudden."
"She must have had a tendency to homicidal mania for years, probably
all her life, and I should think her recovery is extremely doubtful.
In any case, she will have to be under restraint for a long time, a
very long time, and at present she is quite off her head."
"Poor Marion," his listener said sadly. "Poor, poor Marion. There
need be no difficulty about her expenses. She must have every care,
everything that is necessary, and if anything is ever wanted for her,
will the asylum authorities write to Mrs. Stanforth, c/o Mrs. Milton,
180, Gower Street."
The doctor jotted down the address in his notebook, then looked again
into the white, troubled face on the pillow, and said slowly:--
"There was something else you wanted me to do, was there not? Will you
tell me now what it is?"
A faint colour tinged the whiteness of her face, for a second her
glance wavered before his, and he saw that her hand moved restlessly.
"I know he will be angry with me," she said at last, "but--I must ask
you to see him. I am so afraid he is worse than he thinks, than we all
think. And you have promised secrecy? You have promised it?" she said
vehemently, putting out her hands towards him. Fergusson looked, as he
felt, profoundly puzzled.
"I have already promised to mention nothing of what I see or hear in
this house to a living soul," he said, a trace of irritation creeping
into his quiet voice. "I shall keep my promise. I cannot say more
than that. Is there someone you wish me to see?" The woman's dark
eyes turned to Christina, who stood at the foot of the bed, a silent
and interested spectator of the strange little scene.
"I want the doctor to see my--the sick man you helped," she said in
faltering accents. "Will you take him to the room you went to last
night? Will you explain that I--that Madge begs him to tell the doctor
all about his illness? He--he may be angry," she looked into
Fergusson's eyes again, "but I think--you will understand--I think you
will soothe him."
"Is he----" Fergusson was beginning, when one of those restlessly
moving hands touched his.
"Please--don't ask me to tell you--who he is," she said earnestly; "he
has been very ill; he has only come here--since he was convalescent,"
again her eyes fell before the doctor's glance, "but before he came
here he was very ill, and in great trouble. Ah! be good to him," she
exclaimed, her enforced calm of manner suddenly giving way; "let him
have peace now; he has had such a troubled life." The tortured look in
her eyes touched Fergusson deeply, his hand closed over her trembling
one with a strong, reassuring grasp.
"I will do my best for him," he said cheerily; "and I will ask no
unnecessary questions. You need not be afraid that I shall try to find
out anything beyond his physical symptoms. Trust me." And with
another kindly glance from those eminently trustworthy eyes of his, he
bade Christina lead the way to his new patient. In silence they
traversed the passage by which Christina had passed along on the
previous night, but as she knocked on the door of the sick man's
apartment, the doctor stooped towards her and whispered:--
"I don't know whether I ought to let you be mixed up in what may turn
out an unpleasant mystery. Would you rather go away at once? I can
explain my own presence to this man."
Christina shook her head, and her mouth took on a little determined
look, which Fergusson learnt to recognise later on as one of her most
marked characteristics.
"No--I will do what she asked me to do," she said. "I am not afraid of
mysteries, and I must help my beautiful lady as much as ever I can."
So saying, she turned the handle of the door, in response to an
impatient "Come in!" and she and Fergusson entered together. The sick
man lay propped up with pillows, his eyes turned towards the door, a
fretful expression on his face, an expression which turned to one of
acute fear, when he saw the doctor's form behind Christina.
"Who are you?" he exclaimed, shrinking back and trembling violently.
"Why have you come here? I tell you I am all right in this place; you
can't do me any harm now; I am safe--safe--why----"
"I have not come to do you any harm," the doctor answered soothingly,
hiding the surprise he undoubtedly felt. "I am only a doctor who wants
to make you well. You have been ill, haven't you?"
"Well, what of that?" the other answered sullenly, his eyes furtively
watching Fergusson's face, his weak mouth quivering. "I don't want a
doctor, even if I have been ill. I can do very well without a doctor.
Why did you come?"
Christina stepped softly to the bedside, and her voice was very gently.
"You remember me?" she said. "I came to help you last night; and I was
told to tell you now as a special message, that Madge sent the doctor,
that she begs you to tell him all about your illness. You can trust
Dr. Fergusson," the girl went on earnestly. "He will not tell anybody
that he has seen you. You can safely trust him."
"We are trusting too many people," came the querulous retort. "First
Elizabeth was busy, and you came to me last night, and you are a total
stranger. Though you were so kind to me, it is no use to pretend you
are not a stranger. Yet I had to trust you, and now I have to trust
the doctor. There are too many people in it now."
"This young lady, Miss Moore, and I, know absolutely nothing about you,
or about the lady of this house," Fergusson said firmly, but
soothingly. "We do not even know your relationship to one another.
Your secrets are quite safe with us, because we have no idea what those
secrets are. Therefore, you can safely trust us. And, in any case, I
can answer for Miss Moore, as for myself--in any case, we shall keep
silence about everything we have seen in this house." The sick man
muttered one or two more feeble remonstrances, after which, with the
sudden abandonment of his position, so characteristic of a weak nature,
he said resignedly:
"Well, well, it is no use talking--it is never of any use for me to
talk--and if Madge wishes me to be overhauled, so be it. I will put
myself into your hands, but, understand, I do it under protest."
Denis Fergusson only nodded and smiled in response, saying to
Christina--
"Now, if you will go and have that cup of tea, I will do my best for
the patient here, and come to fetch you in a few minutes"; and the
girl, taking the hint, left the two men together, and returned to the
other room, where she found the beautiful lady lying with eyes
wistfully turned towards the door, whilst Elizabeth vainly implored her
to drink the tea she had made.
"I couldn't think of tea, or of anything else till you came back," the
beautiful woman exclaimed, stretching out her hands to the girl, with
feverish eagerness. "Was he vexed--my poor Max--was he dreadfully
vexed when you took the doctor to his room?" Christina was conscious
of a sudden wonder. Why, she speculated, did this woman's voice drop
into accents of such divine tenderness when she spoke of the sick man?
What attraction could that weak, querulous invalid possess for this
stately, beautiful creature, who, to the girl's admiring eyes, seemed
as far above him as a star is far from the earth. Why did she love
him, as she most obviously did, with that intense, overmastering love
which in a woman of this calibre almost approaches to the divine?
"Just at first he was rather vexed," she answered, "but Dr. Fergusson
is very tactful; he inspires confidence. I think it will be all right
now. And I have come back here to have some tea with you," she added
brightly, seeing and understanding the old servant's anxious glances.
"I am going to confess that I have been awake a great deal of the
night, and tea will be very refreshing." She added these words,
because she saw that the other woman would be more likely to drink her
own tea, if she felt that Christina was really in need of the
refreshment, and her surmise was right.
"Oh! but you must have your tea at once," the woman in the bed
exclaimed. "I can't bear to think I have been keeping you awake;
indeed, it is dreadful to think that you have all unwittingly come into
my shadowed life," she added under her breath, whilst the girl seated
herself beside the bed; and Elizabeth served them both.
"I am glad I have been able to help you," Christina said impulsively,
when the servant softly left the room; "you don't know how glad I
should be if I could do anything--to--make things easier for you," she
ended rather lamely, but the admiration in her eyes was unmistakable,
and the shapely white hand with its one ring, was laid on Christina's.
"You have helped me to-night more than you suppose," she said; "there
is something very restful about your personality, little girl, do you
know that? All night you have given me a feeling of rest and peace."
"I am glad," Christina answered, a light flashing into her eyes; "I
believe I would rather be restful to people than anything else in the
world."
"A rest-bringer," was the soft answer; "you will always be that, if you
go on as you have begun. And, it is work worth doing--to bring rest to
tired souls, to those who go through the vale of misery, who know--what
pain means. Be a rest-bringer, little girl; you could not be anything
better or sweeter."
Christina flushed vividly, partly at the words of praise, partly
because, as they were spoken, a face rose before her mental vision, a
man's face, lined and rugged, with marks of pain carved upon it, with a
haunting look of pain in its grey eyes. And with that remembrance,
came also a sudden impetuous wish that it might be given to her to
bring rest to the man who was Lady Cicely's cousin, the man whose very
name she did not know. She was startled out of the strange train of
thought, by her companion's voice.
"I cannot imagine," she was saying, "why it is that your face and voice
are in some odd way familiar to me, and yet you assure me we have never
met before?"
"We have never met," Christina answered decidedly. "I could not have
forgotten you if I had ever seen you--and oh!" she went on with an
eager girlish gesture, "please mayn't I have some name to remember you
by--not any name that--that you would rather I did not know," she added
quickly, seeing an anxious look in the other's eyes; "only just
something to keep in my thoughts of you."
"Call me--just--Margaret in your thoughts," was the answer; "that is
one of my names; call me that."
"But it seems"--Christina hesitated--"it seems like impertinence, to
call you by a Christian name. You----"
"Yes, I know. I am old enough to be your mother,"--the dark eyes
looked wistfully into the eager young face--"and the life I have lived
makes me feel more as if I was a thousand, instead of only
thirty-eight. But still, there is a young corner in my heart--quite a
young corner, where I can feel like a girl again; and it would please
me if you called me Margaret."
"Margaret," Christina repeated softly; "I am glad you have such a
beautiful name. It seems to belong to your beautiful face." She spoke
dreamily, scarcely aware of what she said, but as the sound of her own
words fell on her ears, she flushed deeply, and a deprecating look came
into her eyes.
"Oh! I beg your pardon," she exclaimed; "I was speaking my thoughts
aloud, and it was rude of me. But, do you know, ever since I first saw
you, I have called you in my mind 'the beautiful lady.' You see, I had
no name by which to call you."
"It was very pretty of you," Margaret smiled, her fingers touching the
girl's dusky hair. "Once upon a time, long ago, when I was as young as
you, I was beautiful; it is not vanity to say that now. I was a
beautiful girl. But life, and all that life has brought--have----"
"They have made you more beautiful," the girl interrupted eagerly;
"they have put sadness into your face, but they have not taken away its
beauty; they have only added to it." Margaret smiled again, and an
answering smile flashed over the girl's face, making the older woman
lean towards her, and exclaim, with a puzzled stare--
"It certainly is most extraordinary how, when you smile, I find
something so familiar in your face. The quick way you smile, reminds
me of another face I have seen, but--I cannot remember where I saw it,
or whose it is. And your voice reminds me of just such another clear
voice, with restful cadences in it. Could I ever have known anyone
belonging to your family?"
Christina shook her head, recognising dimly that the woman before her,
belonged to a circle of life very different from that in which her
father and mother had moved.
"I don't think it is at all likely you ever saw any relation of mine,"
she answered. "My name is Moore, and we were always very poor, and
lived in an out-of-the-way Devonshire village. I never knew any of my
relations, and I don't even know my mother's maiden name. I think her
people had treated her very badly; she never mentioned them."
"Ah, well, it must be some chance likeness, but it will worry me, until
I can remember who the person is of whom you remind me. Is that the
doctor?" she broke off to say, her lighter tone changing to one of
acute anxiety. "What is he coming to tell me?" The animation that for
a few moments had lighted her features, and lessened some of the
tragedy, in her eyes died away, and the face that was turned towards
Dr. Fergusson, as he once more entered the room, had nothing upon it
but an agonised question.
"He has allowed you to examine him thoroughly?" she asked.
"Yes, quite thoroughly." Fergusson's voice was gentle, but very grave,
and as he came and stood beside the bed, Christina instinctively
realised that he hesitated to speak further, because what he had to say
was of a painful nature.
"Tell--me." Margaret spoke a little breathlessly; her eyes never left
the kind, shrewd face looking down at her; the anguish in their depths
hurt Denis's tender heart. To give pain to any woman, above all to a
woman so fragile, so physically unfit to bear it as this woman seemed
to be, was almost intolerable to him. Yet his honesty and strength of
nature never allowed him to evade the truth, when truth had to be told,
and he did not evade it now.
"I am afraid I have not good news to bring you," he said. "The patient
I have just examined, is only momentarily convalescent. I---think it
is only fair to be quite honest with you: there is no real hope of his
ultimate recovery." The woman in the bed uttered a little low sound,
which seemed to Christina the most pitiful she had ever heard, but when
she spoke, her voice was unnaturally quiet.
"You mean he has some incurable disease? Tell me the exact truth."
"Yes, quite incurable--and--very far advanced. I can give him a
certain amount of alleviation, but--it would not be right to let you
build any hopes on the possibility of a cure. There is no such
possibility."
When the doctor's voice ceased, there was a strange, tense silence in
the room for many minutes; and Christina, standing by the fireplace,
felt as if she could almost see and hear the woman in the bed,
gathering up her forces to meet this blow. Once the girl glanced at
the white face and deep eyes, but she turned away her glance again,
feeling it was not right that any other human being should gaze upon
the tortured soul, that looked out of those eyes. Margaret herself
first broke the silence.
"Will--it--be--long?" she asked.
"I think not," Fergusson answered gravely, "but in a case like this
everything depends upon the temperament of the patient, his
surroundings, his mental attitude. Anxiety, worry, any mental strain
would accelerate matters."
The white hands that all this time had been so still on the coverlet,
clasped themselves together, and there was a new note of passion in
Margaret's voice, as she said--
"And--the mental strain is exactly what I cannot help, cannot prevent,
cannot save him from."
"You must remember I am only giving you one man's opinion--only my
own," Fergusson replied gently. "Would you like me to bring a London
colleague to----"
"No--oh no!"--the look of fear he had before noticed in her eyes, leapt
into them once more--"nobody else must come here, nobody else must see
him. As it is, the risks"--she stopped suddenly, and ended her
sentence in less agitated tones--"I am quite satisfied with your
opinion, Dr. Fergusson," she said. "I would rather not have another
doctor, and--you will respect my wish for silence about everything that
has passed in this house?"
"Certainly I will respect it; you can trust me. In the patient's own
interest, I think I ought to see him again, perhaps in two or three
days; but nobody excepting Miss Moore and myself will know anything
about the affairs of your house."
Having given her a few technical instructions as to the treatment of
the sick man, the doctor was ready to take his departure, and he and
Christina left the house together, after the girl had for a moment been
drawn into Margaret's arms, and gently kissed.
"Thank you for all you have done," the beautiful woman whispered. "I
don't think I can ever be grateful enough to you. Perhaps, we shall
not ever meet again--but--think sometimes of me--pray sometimes for
me--little rest-bringer."
* * * * *
"That poor soul! that poor soul!" They were Fergusson's first words
after he had turned the car out of the rough lane, into the main road.
"I daresay it was fanciful, but the words in the Litany haunted me when
I watched her this morning: 'In all time of our tribulation--Good Lord,
deliver us.' She looks as if she had been through such an infinity of
tribulation."
Christina's eyes were still dim with the tears brought there by
Margaret's parting words, and her voice was not quite steady, as she
answered--
"Yes; the word seems to belong to her, but she gives me the feeling
that she is so strong, so tender, in spite of, or perhaps because of,
all that she has suffered. I--wish I could do something more for her."
"Perhaps the opportunity may yet be given you," Fergusson answered. "I
never believe people come into one's life purposelessly: we meet them
for some reason, and we get chances of helping them--even if sometimes
they seem only like 'ships that pass in the night,' greeting us as they
sail by."