Sweet Ligia sang, and as I passed
I was not fettered to the mast.
By the blinding light of two hurricane-lamps the eminent surgeons were
bending over their patient. Deftly, gently, rapidly they turned and
touched him here and there, their inscrutable, clean-shaven, clever
faces close together, directing by an occasional short word the
Salvières doctor, who was proudly serving as assistant to these great
men. Beyond the brilliant circle of light stood Tatiana, turning her
wedding-ring round and round her finger, her eyes fixed upon it as if
her life depended upon the exactness of its fit. Jean, Régis, and the
abbé had retreated to the recess, where the round windows shone back
at them like mirrors. The setting down of a stethoscope or of a
measuring-tape in its little metal wheel upon the deal table near the
bed, made the nerves of every person present thrill. The minutes dragged
like weary hours, and the silky sound of the rain falling from the slate
roof to the paving of the narrow-walled inclosure about the station was
distinctly exasperating.
“Can he hear--understand?” Tatiana whispered to her private physician as
he crossed before her to get something from a side-shelf.
“No, Madame la Duchesse,” answered one of the Paris miracle-workers who
had heard, stepping to her side. “That will pass, however; it is merely
the effect of shock.”
“And,” she ventured, with great pleading eyes raised to his cold, clear
ones, “will the--the injury be hard to heal?”
The man of science did not reply at once. He was of the opinion that
unpleasant news is worse than useless to communicate to the great of
this world; a delicate coat of fine gold should, according to him,
always mask the bitterness of the pill; but the hardening of her gaze
made him attend, and quickly.
“_Pas de bêtises, docteur_,” she said, harshly. “I want the truth. We
are responsible, my husband and I, so pray don’t shilly-shally; speak
out.”
“Believe me, Madame la Duchesse, nothing is further from my mind than to
lead you astray.” There was a fine curl of deprecation on his thin upper
lip. “But before my learned colleague and I have been enabled to take
counsel together a decision on my part would be--er--premature--even
discourteous, I may add.”
Tatiana’s slim foot tapped the granite floor impatiently. “How long
will it take you to come to a--courteous understanding?” she demanded,
taking a lightning-like distaste for this frigid person who was
attempting to overawe her at ten thousand francs an hour.
Fortunately the eminent _confrère_, more tactful, and a man of the
world, had listened with one ear, and now joined them.
“I think, Madame la Duchesse,” he said, urbanely, “that a secret
consultation is scarcely needed.” The throwing of dust in his client’s
eyes, be they ever so _erhaben_--as the Germans call it--was not his
habit. He posed, on the contrary, for a _docteur tant-mieux_--an
optimist of the finest orient, scorning the school of the _tant-pis_
medical man; and his critical mind could not but acknowledge that his
colleague was exhibiting the bedside manner of a half-frozen frog, so,
throwing a considerable amount of warmth into a tone already
sympathetic, he resumed:
“I understand, Madame la Duchesse, that this gentleman is not related
either to yourself or to Monsieur le Duc?”
“No,” she snapped.
“It makes our task easier, of course, in telling you that violent
contact with a hard substance has caused a deep-seated injury--to the
lumbar vertebræ; in fact, I need not explain that this is extremely
serious.”
“Is there any hope of recovery?” she asked, feeling herself get
dry-lipped at the horror of this condemnation.
“None at all!” the cheerful doctor asserted.
And just then from the bed came the poor, brainless voice.
“I tell you, Loris--jump.... Don’t be afraid--you wanted this, you
know.... I’d always hoped it might one day be said of me that I’d
lived clean. I wasn’t straitlaced as if I’d swallowed the Statue of
Liberty up to her manly bosom. But it’s too late now--there’s no
time.... Jump, Laurence--_jump_! I can tuck you under my arm.... Are you
still afraid?... Don’t you believe in a free United States--”
The hearers listened in silence. This _blague_ and _bagout_ so
essentially Parisian were his, doubtless, by some curious trick of
ancestry, but it was rather gruesome just then.
“Won’t they laugh at home...!” The sickening drone went on. “I! caught
in a double cross like this ... good for crabs and evil tongues....
Great Scott! isn’t that a treat!” He laughed a ghastly ringing laugh
that suddenly choked in his throat, and gave a grimace of pain that
brought the doctors back to his side.
“I thought he could not feel--anything?” Tatiana murmured, profoundly
shocked. “If one must see him suffer too--”
“Reassure yourself, Madame la Duchesse. He does not really feel--as yet,
and this wandering of the mind is quite natural. It is when he comes to
himself that your kindly task will be--er--difficult.” It was _Docteur
Tant-Mieux_ who spoke, rubbing the tips of his long surgical fingers
together, as if washing his hands of all doubt on the subject.
“Is there,” Salvières said, coming forward, “any danger in moving him
to more comfortable quarters?”
The two _confrères_ glanced swiftly at each other. “Do you,” inquired
the optimist, “see any risk, Docteur de Partenay, in the patient’s
being carried to the château, as Monsieur le Duc so thoughtfully
suggests?”
“Hummmm-m,” the pessimist hesitated. “Not a very great deal, provided
the transportation is done on a water-mattress and by very careful
bearers; but no doubt the infirmary of the Castle--about which I have
heard so much”--here he bowed first to the Duke and then to the
Duchess--“can be called upon for all appliances necessary.”
“And,” resumed Salvières, “will it be impossible, say in a few days, to
put the--patient on a yacht and take him back to his own land?
He--he--is an American.”
“In this season, Monsieur le Duc, _la belle saison_,” the great man
addressed responded, visibly undeterred by a newly awakened squall that
was shrieking its way around and around the “Station,” “I should say
not; but with your permission my colleague and I will answer your
question after a second examination of the patient, when he has been
removed from here. You have no doubt considered the necessity of our
spending the night at Salvières.”
“Certainly,” Tatiana and Jean exclaimed together. “Jean,” she went on,
“will you be so good as to give orders to have ‘Mr. Harrington’
moved to the Louis XI. suite on the ground floor of the west wing. The
ground floor will be advisable, messieurs, is it not so? Besides, it is
in the newer portion of the house and very comfortably installed,” and
she turned to the doctors.
To this they agreed, much impressed, in spite of their professional
phlegm, by the simplicity with which this Duchess referred to a wing
dating back five hundred years as the “newer portion” of her Castle.
Two hours later the transit had been accomplished and Preston Wynne was
resting in the high-ceiled room where once the King of “many watches”
had slept. The doctors’ opinion before their departure the next
morning--by means of another special train, their valuable presence
being peremptorily required in Paris--was to the effect that “Mr.
Harrington” would in all human probability recover consciousness within
the next few hours. They would, as promised, despatch a medical student
_de troisième année_ to Salvières, as also an orderly, to take full
charge of the patient and accompany him to America, were the voyage
decided upon. Money, they were told, was no object, and so they might
well believe when thinking of the plethoric cheques folded in their
respective pocket-books! Hope of complete or even partial recovery, they
repeated, there was none--none whatsoever--and it was with a heavy heart
that Tatiana, after seeing them off, turned her steps to the sick-room.
Her feelings were hardly to be analyzed as she came to the bedside and
looked long and intently at the boyish face on the low, hard pillow
scarcely elevating it from the smoothly drawn sheet. With his eyes
closed, his hair swept back from the forehead, very white, and breathing
very softly, Preston Wynne seemed to have recovered some of
childhood’s lines. He was barely twenty-six, but just then he gave the
impression of sixteen rather, and Tatiana sighed. “What a pity,” she
murmured; and quite in spite of herself, for she was a singularly
merciful and forgiving woman, she felt a sudden wave of disgust sweep
over her as she thought of Laurence lying in princely state in the old
chapel, and of this her fifth and last victim. Basil, Piotr,
Marguerite, Neville, and now this poor young stranger who had, according
to his own broken and wandering words, tried to resist her fascination.
Had any one ever heard of such inconceivable ill-fortune, of such
persistent mischance, as had befallen those who had loved her? Well, she
had paid the price; not only of her peculiar reading of the plighted
faith, but of that fault, perhaps far more heinous yet--a total lack of
heart, of gratitude, and of motherhood. Still Tatiana could not bring it
upon herself to say the “repose in peace” which comes so readily to
Russian lips whenever they think of those that are no more, and,
slipping into an arm-chair at the foot of Preston’s bed, she sat, her
eyes fixed upon the quiet figure before her. A bunch of sun-rays,
clean-washed by the storm, was thrusting its golden points through the
lace of the undercurtains, and after a while Tatiana turned her eyes
toward them, though her thoughts were far away. She did not notice the
passing of the hours, and the light was beginning to veil itself when
she suddenly became aware that Preston was awake and looking straight at
her, perfectly calm and reasonable.
With a nervous start she rose and came closer to him. “How are you now?”
she asked in as matter-of-fact a tone as she could summon to her
assistance.
“I am all right, I believe, except that I feel lame all over,” he
replied, smiling in that peculiarly winning fashion she had always
liked. “We were wrecked--” he continued, puckering his brows in
puzzlement. “When you moved, madame, I was just trying to piece the last
few hours together.”
“Yes,” she encouraged, “but don’t do it too fast. You have gone
through a great deal, Mr. Wynne, and rest is what you need most. Are you
thirsty?”
“I am, thank you,” he said, still quite evenly; and as she took from the
table a long glass with something cool in it, he made a motion to raise
himself on his elbow, desisted, and glanced inquiringly at her.
“Are my legs broken?” he queried.
She deftly passed her left arm under his head and put the glass to his
lips.
“No,” she said, her face hidden from him as she bent, “you broke no
bones, marvelous to relate.”
“That was lucky!” he admitted, but now there was not only surprise, but
an odd wistfulness in his voice. “Still, I cannot move my legs at all.
It’s curious!”
“Not in the least; you were properly battered by the waves, my poor
child, let me tell you.”
“I dare say. I remember something about that. But tell me, Madame de
Salvières, how do I come here under your roof?” He hesitated, bit his
under lip, and fell silent, battling bravely with his hazy thoughts.
Tatiana, who wished herself a million miles away, replaced the
half-empty glass upon the tray, and, stepping across to the nearest
window, busied herself with a blind apparently recalcitrant--a strange
happening in a dwelling where everything went always as neatly as
clockwork.
Behind the stiff brocaded curtains falling straight on each side of his
couch Preston was vainly trying to pull himself together. How was he
here? What had become of Laurence after she had been torn from his arms
in that hell of waters? Why was it the Duchess de Salvières--Prince
Palitzin’s sister--who nursed him, and, in the name of all wonders,
why were her eyes so kind and sympathetic? Assuredly he deserved no such
treatment from her.
“Madame de Salvières,” he said at length, “would you very much mind
coming here, since I cannot stir yet, and telling me something?”
Instantly Tatiana was at his side, her hand lightly touching his.
“I feel awfully foolish,” he explained, “as foolish as a man well can
feel--and, to be truthful, I don’t know where to begin, but I’d like
to know what--what has happened to--to me, for instance?”
His fine eyes were searching hers imploringly, and, drawing a chair
toward her with her foot, she sat down close to him without releasing
her hold upon his cold fingers.
“You were a passenger on the _Wild Rose_,” she began. “You remember
that?”
“Yes.”
“The yacht was caught in a storm and foundered a few cable-lengths from
our rocks.”
“Yes, I remember that, too; and then....”
“Oh! then,” Tatiana resumed, “our life-savers did their duty, as they
always do, and brought you ashore.”
“But,” Preston rebegan, fine beads of perspiration starting on his
forehead, “I--I was not alone.”
“Of course not. There were the captain, the officers, the crew, and my
sister-in-law, your hostess.”
“Yes, certainly.”
“And now that you know all that is necessary for you to know at present,
it will be best for you to go to sleep again, my dear Mr. Wynne. Later,
when you are quite recovered, we will, if you wish it, discuss further.”
She was surprised at the indifference of her tone. She might have been
holding forth on the details of some approaching festivity, so natural
did it sound.
“But,” objected Preston, “I am not a bit sleepy, Madame de Salvières,
and if it is not asking too much of you, would you--would you tell
me--more?”
“What more can I tell you?” she said, trying desperately to keep on
playing her impossible rôle. “Wrecks are wrecks, disagreeable moments
to be gone through, of course, with casualties sometimes, and
unpleasantness in any case. Some of the crew were drowned last night, as
you may easily imagine, and we heard from the first mate that you
conducted yourself with extreme bravery, so all is for the best in this
best of worlds.”
“Drowned!” he exclaimed. “Drowned! It is not a very nice way to make
one’s exit. They were good fellows, those sailors of the _Wild Rose_.
I am sorry. The captain?” he inquired, with a swift widening of the
eyes. “Braines, I mean--Captain Braines--was he saved?”
“I am afraid not--at least he has not reappeared; but, really, you must
listen to me now, and postpone the rest of the inquiry, Mr. Wynne. I
cannot allow you to agitate yourself after the knocking about you had. I
cannot, really!”
There was a hurried note in her words, a haste to finish that his
swiftly awakening faculties did not miss; also he noticed, with that
keenness of perception which sometimes follows a profound nervous shock,
that the great gems on her fingers sparkled oddly, a quivering sparkle
that denoted a tremor of hands held still by sheer will-power, and in a
second his mind was made up.
“Madame de Salvières,” he said, resolutely, “you are awfully kind to
spare me, but I feel that there are things I ought to know--that, to
express myself more clearly, I _deserve_ to know. Give me a little more
of that cordial and tell me all, _please_! I am not a child; I feel
perfectly normal, I give you my honor, save for that queer numbness I
told you of, and I ask you to be truly merciful and not to keep me in
suspense.”
Without a word Tatiana rose, reached for the restorative, and when this
had been obediently swallowed to the last drop made him take a cup of
cold, strong bouillon; then she sat down again.
“It would be absurd,” she said, firmly, “to pretend not to understand
you, Mr. Wynne. I would have preferred to wait a little longer before
causing you more--” She stopped to choose an adequate word, and, finding
none, hastily put in “pain.” “To cause you more pain than can be
helped; but if you persist in wanting the truth, there is nothing left
for me to do but to tell it to you brutally.”
He did not stir even an eyelash; he was gazing at her in the glow of the
setting sun, which left him in shadow and bathed her in a sort of glory
which did not even make her wink, and he thought: “What a merciful and
masterful face! This is indeed a woman to rely upon in time of need.”
“Your affection for Laurence Palitzin--pardon me, but I cannot avoid
alluding to that now--is very profound, I suppose. Of course you are a
gentleman, and I am perfectly aware that you cannot speak of this
feeling to any one, but you must yield one point and answer me this:
Will it break your heart if the incident of last night and
its--consequences oblige you to--part from her? Never to see her again,
for instance?”
“You mean,” Preston said, a slow flush rising to the roots of his hair,
“will it cause me an insufferable sacrifice to give up--having brought
this upon myself by my unforgivable imprudence and indiscretion--the
friendship which Madame Palitzin was so kind as to honor me with?”
Tatiana, wondering at his delicacy and pluck, nodded. “Yes,” she
admitted, “that is precisely what I mean.”
“Then I will answer in the negative, with all the frankness you
impose upon me, madame. The affection and respect I feel for Madame
Palitzin command me before all things to avoid--late in the day,
alas!--compromising her by the merest hint of any deeper sentiment. May
I assure you that from this day I will neither seek to see her, nor to
communicate with her by spoken or written word? I have been guilty of
unpardonable _légèreté_ in accepting her invitation to cruise with
her on the _Wild Rose_, but ... friendship alone--” He had become a
little breathless, and, shaken with pity, Tatiana put her fingers on
his lips in an impulsive, irresistible gesture, and drew them as swiftly
away again.
“Enough,” she said. “You are a very fine character, Mr. Wynne, permit me
to say so.” She had grown horribly pale, and her lips were twitching.
“But excuse me,” he pleaded. “One word more. Should your brother--Prince
Basil, I mean--consider that his wife’s actions in accepting me as
her guest, harmless as were her intentions, are--capable of
misinterpretation by--by the public, I hold myself at his disposal,
you understand. I am an American, and doubtless you have often heard,
madame, that we do not look kindly upon dueling; but I think
differently, and I’ll give him satisfaction if he judges this to be
his due.”
Tatiana rose brusquely and stepped out of the sun-path piercing the
room from end to end like a glittering sword-blade. To hear this poor
cripple, this maimed boy, speak so gravely of giving Basil satisfaction
was more than she could bear, and for the first time in her life the
dauntless Tatiana felt herself within measurable distance of hysterics.
“My brother,” she said at last, in a spiritless voice very foreign to
her, “is--oh, a man every inch of him, not a brute, thank God!--and
he will see as I do, that punishment more than adequate has been
meted out. Let us say nothing further of all this.”
She turned with her customary quickness, and he caught sight of her
ashy face.
“Madame--Madame de Salvières!” he cried. “What is it? Has worse
happened? Is she hurt? Is sh....?”
His lips were trembling pitifully, and Tatiana rushed forward, threw
her arms about him, and pressed his face against her breast as she
would have done with Pavlo.
“Hush!” she murmured over him. “Hush! God knows what He does. It is
best for her like this--for you--for all of us.”
Gently she knelt down, still holding him, and there was silence in the
room. Far down below the cliffs the whistle of some sea-birds winging
their way home cut the clear air that blew softly in at the windows,
and Preston, who had never known a mother’s caress, suddenly burst
into a passion of tears.
“It is not as if you had loved her,” she murmured, “as if it had been
all your doing. You have many excuses. We cannot think altogether
harshly of her--now, of course, but relationship does not exclude
justice; and the blame is not all upon you, be assured of that.”
He drew slightly away from her and stared at her in amazement.
“How--how do you know it?” he stammered.
“That is my secret, and will remain so,” she consoled. “Suffice it that
I do know, and--absolve you.”
“I--I wish it were I,” he whispered.
“Don’t!” she implored, drying his eyes with her scrap of a
handkerchief. “Don’t say things like that.... You have paid enough
already.”
“Paid!” he scoffed through set teeth. “Paid, with a ducking and a few
bruises? You call that paying?”
She was silent. What should she do? Tell him the whole truth while she
was about it--give him the whole terrific dose at one draught? Would
this be wiser, more merciful? Would one desperate shock counteract the
other? All this raced across her mind while she smoothed the telltale
flatness of the pillow, the uncrumpled sheet with its embroidered
crest and crown. She was for energetic measures by nature, by
conviction based upon a deep knowledge of life, but still she
hesitated; and, quite carried beyond himself by her silence, he
made a violent effort to sit up.
Just an instant too late she pressed him down with both her strong,
tender hands on his shoulders.
“Oh!” he said, faintly, understanding as in the revealing light of a
lightning flash. “Oh! I have paid back a little, then? _Tant mieux!_”
And this time he lay quite still, his struggle over.