There was a big-ribbed looking-glass outside the window of the doctor’s
consulting-room, that tilted in the warm, reddish sunlight of the
September morning, while through the open sash there stole in the
aromatic smell of fresh-laid asphalt. There was not much traffic going
on, only occasionally the clip-clop of a horse’s hoofs sounded staccato
on the wooden pavement of Harley Street, and Edith could hear without
effort all that Sir Thomas was saying.
He hardly led up to it, for she had come there that morning simply to
know what the result of his examination had been, and he merely asked
her a question or two as to her health since the birth of the baby. And
then, without preparing her, for he knew that there is no breaking such
news, he told her quite quietly, in a word or two.
Edith had been sitting opposite the window, looking at him with her
pleasant, direct gaze, as if giving her very courteous attention to a
story that did not particularly entertain her, but in which she was
bound, for politeness’ sake, to appear interested. But when he finished
she smiled at him as if his tale had had some slightly humorous
conclusion. She did not feel in the least stunned, nor had she any
consciousness of having received a shock. Only for a moment the little
trivial circumstances of the hour and the place grew more vivid; she
noticed that the clock on the chimney-piece had stopped, odd in the
consulting-room of a great doctor; that Sir Thomas had a scar running
across the back of his left hand; that one of her own gloves had fallen
on to the floor. Then this attention to trivialities subsided again, and
she felt perfectly normal, perfectly herself.
“Thank you for telling me so kindly and considerately,” she said. “You
see how successful you have been, how little it has upset me? It is
then--it is very serious.”
“Yes.”
Again she smiled at him.
“I quite understand,” she said.
Sir Thomas got up and held out his hand to her.
“Ah, my dear lady,” he said, “you are a brave woman. Meet your--your
illness with the same bravery day by day. Those are the patients, people
like you, who get well, and get well quickly.”
“What are my chances?” she asked briskly.
“They are excellent. Thanks to that little hæmorrhage you had last week,
and thanks to your common sense in consulting me about it without losing
time, we have detected the disease in an early stage. All depends
now--humanly speaking--on yourself, on your obedience to what we tell
you to do, and the scrupulous rigour with which you carry out your
treatment.”
That allusion to treatment, to obedience to orders, brought Edith
closer, more immediately in contact, as it were, with the news.
“You have no doubt whatever that I have consumption?” she asked quickly.
“I am afraid none. Of course the hæmorrhage, as I told you before, might
have come from the throat, but the examination I have made since I saw
you last proves the presence of what you call the little insects.”
“And what am I to do?” she asked.
“Go out to Davos as soon as ever you can. I would have you leave by this
afternoon’s train, if it was possible. And there you will live out of
doors day and night as far as possible. Until you check the disease it
gains on you. As I told you, you have an excellent chance, and you
mustn’t imperil it by delay.”
Edith considered this for a moment.
“I will be at Davos in a fortnight from to-day,” she said. “That is
reasonable, is it not?”
“Yes, if you will be an outdoor invalid in the interval,” he said.
Edith was silent, wondering at herself for the perfect calmness which
she felt. At first she thought that the suddenness of the news might
have partly stunned her, but the minutes were passing, and still she had
no consciousness of having received a shock. She understood, too, the
gravity of the sentence which had been pronounced; it was not that her
mind refused to grasp it. Now she almost laughed.
“I feel I ought to apologise for being so unagitated,” she said, “but I
don’t feel the least inclined to be agitated. Perhaps I have been
fearing this all these last days, and anyhow the fear is removed, now I
know. Now about my plans; I will tell you.”
Edith hesitated again. She had known Sir Thomas from her childhood; he
had done all that was possible for her late husband; he had brought her
child into the world. She determined to ask him several things which
concerned her, so it seemed, more intimately than her illness.
“Can you give me a quarter of an hour now?” she asked. “There are
several questions I want to put to you. How dazzling this reflected sun
is. Ah, I can sit out of the glare there!”
She moved her place so that she sat with her back to the light and
covered her eyes with her hands.
“First, then, about my plans,” she said. “I will be at Davos in a
fortnight, but I won’t promise to be an invalid in the interval. I mean
to go with my husband to Munich for ten days and hear Wagner opera. We
had planned it all, you see, and we shall start in two days. From there
I will go to Davos.”
“Ah, I protest against that!” said Sir Thomas. “It means fatigue,
excitement, bad air, the three things you must avoid. I will speak to
Mr. Grainger myself.”
“No, indeed, you must not,” said she. “It must be I who tell him. Now, I
don’t mean to tell him until after we have seen the opera together. Oh,
Sir Thomas, I can’t. I simply can’t start my invalid life without one
more treat, as the children say, without one more week of Indian summer.
After that, I promise to tell him, and I promise to be the most willing
and obedient of patients. It does mean such a lot to me! I can’t tell
you how much. I shall fret and worry over not having gone there with him
if I don’t go. But I intend to. So please tell me how to minimise any
harm it may do me.”
There was no doubt she was in earnest over this; that week at Munich
with Hugh, even now within half an hour of the news she had heard,
seemed to her to matter more than anything else. A far less acute man
than Sir Thomas could have seen that.
“Of course, if you intend to fret over not having gone--” he began.
“I don’t intend to; I shan’t be able to avoid it, and, indeed, I will be
so good afterwards and so determined to get well. But just a little more
happiness first!”
Yes; the thought of missing Munich clearly touched her more intimately
than the knowledge that this deadly disease had built nests in her. It
was the child’s cry for “five minutes more” before bedtime, five minutes
of romance, of play. Munich and its music, much as she loved it, was, in
itself, nothing to her; what she could not bear to miss was this extra
week of holiday, this one more week of Hugh’s unsuspecting, joyful
companionship. However well he bore this news when he knew, he would
still be bearing it. Until she was well again, if she was going to get
well, his sky would always be overcast; he would be anxious, solicitous,
with fear always in the back of his mind, however well he hid it, and
she felt she must be partner for just a little while more of his riotous
boyish happiness, which was so “Hugh” to her. Some part of this, no
doubt, Sir Thomas guessed; he knew at any rate that she had set her mind
on another week of life. He knew, too, from his previous knowledge of
her, that she was one of those whose body is in fine obedience to their
will, and whose will is set on health and the joy of living.
“But will you be sensible during that week at Munich?” he asked. “Will
you rest when you are tired, and stop at home and not go to the opera if
you feel it is too much for you?”
Edith took her hands away from her eyes with a superb wide gesture. Her
need was imperative; she did not care what price was paid for it.
“No, I won’t promise to be in the least sensible during that week,” she
said. “I might just as well not go to Munich at all, as be sensible. I
mean to have a splendid time just for one week more, to watch Hugh’s
complete happiness just for that week, and know that it is mine. And if
I die a month sooner in consequence, I will say ‘Thank God for Munich,’
with my latest breath. After that week I will tell Hugh everything; I
will be very good, very obedient, and, oh, how cheerful! But I will have
this week as we planned it.”
At heart Sir Thomas exulted in the obstinacy of his patient. He loved
those who loved the joys of living, and made light of their infirmities
even at the risk of increasing them. But he felt professionally bound to
apply the brake here.
“But, my dear lady, how can you have a splendid time--which with all my
heart I desire for you--if you are feeling very tired and languid? You
can’t--your body must react on your mind. Also you will risk having
another hæmorrhage; you will risk, for the sake of a week, doing
yourself a damage that it may take six months to repair.”
Edith leaned forward in her chair, brilliant, radiant, her brave soul
shining like a beacon in her tired eyes.
“You know all about me,” she said; “I have suffered a good deal of
mental pain in my life, and I think that that has taught me to despise
physical discomfort. Anyhow, I do. I don’t care how tired I get for just
this week, and I defy all the little insects in the world to make me
enjoy myself less. So that is settled. And now I have one or two more
questions, and then, if you please, we will call my sister in, and tell
her.”
She leaned back again, and again covered her eyes with her hands. She
was getting into more intimate lands now, and was silent a moment.
“Will this age me much?” she asked, “I mean, if I get well, shall I be
an old woman? I am, as you know, much older than my husband, and if this
will further increase the difference in our ages it might be better----”
Sir Thomas cut this short with some decision.
“It will do nothing of the kind,” he said. “If you do as you are told,
the very cure itself, which heals your disease, will rest you in other
ways. When you are well again, you will be better in general health and
younger than you are now. At least, I have often seen that happen. Only
you must fight the little insects to the death. And you have a good
chance of doing so.”
Again the hands came away from her eyes, and the shadow of the fear that
had been there before was past away.
“Thank you, my dear friend,” she said. “Now, is Davos a dreadful place?
Can a man be there much without being bored to death? And what is the
shortest time in which you think I could get well?”
“I have known cures of cases far worse than yours being complete in a
year, as far as the actual presence of disease goes. But that means a
year of complete invalid life, passed at Davos, or perhaps at some
higher place just for the summer months, without ever coming down into
lower air.”
“You mean I mustn’t come to England for a year?” asked Edith.
“Not if you want to give yourself the best chance. Davos is delightful
in the winter for any man who cares about outdoor sports, but I should
say very dull when the ice goes.”
“And what is the risk of infection to others? Would it be better, I
mean, for my husband, when he is at Davos to live in a hotel. I suppose
I shall take a house, shall I not?”
“The risk would be unappreciable.”
“Or for my sister, or her children, or my baby?”
“There would be no risk if you are sensible about it. You would not, of
course, well, kiss anybody. And there are other precautions as well,
which of course you will observe.”
Edith nodded at him.
“Yes, I will be very sensible,” she said. “And now please call Peggy in,
and I will tell her.”
“I will just examine your heart first,” he said. “It will not take more
than a minute or two. I remember there was a little weakness.”
He was satisfied, however, with this.
“No, that is sound enough,” he said. “It is a little weak in its action,
but there is nothing wrong. But, my dear lady, you have to concentrate
all your forces to fight this new enemy. You must, you absolutely must
avoid fatigue and worry.”
But she cut him short.
“Ah then, I must certainly go to Munich,” she said. “It will save me no
end of worry. Now let us have Peggy in; I want to tell her at once.”
Peggy was but next door, and the summoning of her in took no longer than
the opening of it. At present all she knew was that Edith wanted to get
a clean bill of health before starting for Munich. She had confessed to
fatigue, but had breathed to her sister no suspicion of her fear, and
their coming up to town together was a plan that had been formed several
weeks before. And though the length of time that she had been kept in
the waiting-room, while Edith saw Sir Thomas alone, had a little
disquieted her, yet the serenity of Edith’s face when she was admitted
to his consulting-room, immensely reassured her. Then Sir Thomas closed
the door behind her, and she sat down opposite her sister. Edith spoke:
“Dear Peggy,” she said, “I suppose I ought to break it to you, but it’s
so ridiculous to break things. I’ve got consumption. Isn’t it dreadful?”
Peggy looked at her blankly, and then this most unorthodox patient
leaned back in her chair and burst into shouts of laughter. She simply
could not help it, the blankness of Peggy’s face was so excruciatingly
funny. Then the infection of the laughter caught her sister also, and
they just sat and laughed. Once Peggy tried to compose her face, and
said, “Oh, Edith!” in a trembling voice, but that set Edith off again
till the tears streamed.
“Oh, I’m better!” she said at length. “But how funny it was. I should
never be good at breaking things to people, should I, Sir Thomas? O
Peggy, what a pity Hugh wasn’t here, too! He loves laughing. Yes, and
we’re going to Munich just as we planned, and after that I go to Davos
for a whole year. Then, if I am good, perhaps I shall be quite well
again, and younger and better than I am now. That will be an advantage.”
“Oh, my darling,” said Peggy. “I am so--so--there are no words.”
“No, it was much better to laugh. Fancy there being a humorous side to
consumption. What a good thing! And since Sir Thomas has allowed me to
go to Munich, I shall not tell Hughie till afterward. And from there I
go straight to Davos, and behave too beautifully. That is a fair
statement of our interview, is it not, Sir Thomas? Now, Peggy, we must
go home to lunch. I am so hungry.”
But the doctor could not quite let this pass.
“I’ve been doing my utmost to persuade Mrs. Grainger not to go to
Munich,” he said. “Will she listen to you?”
“Not for a single instant,” said Edith.
“My dear lady, be serious for a moment.”
Edith rose.
“Oh, don’t make me laugh again,” she said. “Good-bye, Sir Thomas, you
are the kindest man in the world. Please come and see me to-morrow, and
tell me whom I shall be under, and all about it. I must have a house
there. I hate hotels. Perhaps we had better go to a hotel first, until
we can get something to suit us. And you and the children, Peggy, are
coming out to stay with me, but I mustn’t kiss you. Sir Thomas, since I
am to be idle by your orders, you will probably receive some time next
year a small book with the compliments of the author, called ‘Our Life
in High Altitudes.’”
They got into the brougham that was waiting and drove off. Then in spite
of orders Peggy turned to her sister and kissed her.
“You blessed darling,” she said. “But, oh, Edith, don’t be so splendid
about it, or you will break my heart.”
Edith still had that radiant look with which she had heard her sentence.
“Splendid?” she said. “I’m not splendid. I am behaving exactly as I feel
inclined. Is it odd, do you think? I don’t. Besides, what would be the
use of curling up and snivelling? I’m not made like that.”
“No, you dear,” said Peggy, half-sobbing, “that’s just it. That’s just
the splendidness that makes me cry.”
Edith took her sister’s hand.
“Ah, don’t Peggy!” she said. “Don’t let us give way for a single second
if we can help. Don’t let us ever think about giving way, or else that
will become natural. I won’t. I won’t! I will not!” she said with great
emphasis.
There was silence a moment, then Edith spoke again.
“Now I shall sit out on my balcony all afternoon,” she said, “and hold
this all in front of me, till I am quite certain that I fully realise
it. And then, Peggy, this evening I will talk it over with you just
once, and from then until--until the time that I am well again, we will
never allude to it any more.”
“Yes, dear,” said she.
Then Edith’s face broadened into a great smile again.
“And, oh, what a beautiful laugh we had,” she said. “I can truly say in
the future, if I am very much amused about something, ‘I haven’t laughed
so much since they told me I had consumption.’”
“Don’t, don’t!” said Peggy.
Peggy, even in September, was full of business. There was a factory to
be visited, a school of work to be inspected, and a “home” where
surprise-descents were distinctly good for the matron, who was not
wholly satisfactory, and it was not till after six that she got back to
Rye House. But busy though she had been, it had required all her force
and determination to get through her errands, for her mind kept flying
back like a released spring to Edith, whom she had left sitting out in
the warm autumn sunshine, facing what she had been told, adjusting, as
she would have to do, her mind and her whole self to new conditions.
When Peggy got back, they were to have their talk, just the one talk.
The hours had passed quickly for Edith, and if anyone had watched her,
not knowing what occupied her mind so intensely, he would have said that
here was a woman with a true gift of lotus-eating, so quietly she sat,
so content to do nothing whatever. Once or twice only in those hours did
anything of a disquieting nature seem to cross her mind, and even then a
couple of sharp-drawn breaths, or a sudden look as of pain or fright in
her eyes, soon past, was all the surface sign of it. And at the end,
when she heard Peggy’s motor draw up at the door, it was with the same
patient and smiling content, which for the most of the afternoon had
lain like sunlight on her face, that she went downstairs.
The two had tea together in Peggy’s sitting-room, and then Edith took
her favourite chair and spoke. Again there was no transition possible
from the topics of the day which had occupied them at tea, and she began
without preamble.
“Yes, dear, I have thought it all out,” she said, “and I know at this
moment just how I feel about it, and what I hope I shall continue to
feel. Peggy, it is so simple; big things always are, I think. Isn’t that
a blessing? Now I shall begin at the beginning, not like Hugh’s stories,
which begin in the middle, and go on till I get to the end, and then I
shall stop. I don’t want you to say anything at all. It’s my innings.”
“Peggy, I don’t want to die, and I don’t intend to die if I can help. I
want and mean to get well, and I shall do all I can to get well. But
when one is told that one has consumption, one has to realise that it
may mean that one is not going to get well. So about dying. You must
take care of Hugh, won’t you? And you must make him marry again. I tell
you that because--oh, my dear, the flesh is so strong--though I mean to
tell him that myself if I find I am getting worse instead of better, I
can’t be certain that I shall be able to. All that is at all decent in
me will urge me to tell him, but there is a lot in me that isn’t, and I
find, and shall find, it difficult to think of him as another woman’s
husband. And perhaps my tongue will quite refuse to ask him to promise
that he will marry again. So I ask you to tell him in case I don’t.
“That is the most important thing if I die. And, oh, Peggy, if I am to
die, pray that it may come quick, and pray that I shall not be afraid. I
hope I shall not, but one can’t tell. And pray that my darling will be
with me when it comes, that his face will be the last I see here. Just
as I know--oh, how I know it--that when he joins me, mine will be the
first that he sees on the other side.
“Then this afternoon I wondered also how matters could be arranged, what
about Dennis? And as I couldn’t possibly know, it was no use thinking
about that.”
“Peggy, next to Hugh and baby, you are the person I am most sorry to
leave. Don’t miss me too much although I should be frantic if I thought
you wouldn’t. And remember that if I die, I now, in my sober senses,
bless and praise God for the exquisite happiness I have had. I should
have loved to have had other children, to have seen them grow up; I
can’t help being sorry, if that is not to be. That is why I don’t want
to die. But, oh, what a splendid time I have had. I thank God for it.
Remember that.”
Edith had been speaking again with her hands over her eyes just as she
had spoken to the doctor this morning, but here she took them away, and
grasped one of her sister’s hands in both hers.
“And one thing more about dying, and I have done,” she said. “You
mustn’t let it hurt you to hear me talk of it, Peggy. It is just this.
You know how you dissuaded me from marrying Hugh, saying the years which
made me old would leave him young. Well, perhaps you were right, and
perhaps this is the solution of it. If so, I am quite content. I would
infinitely rather die than have that wintry tragedy. I just want to
assure you of that, and that is all about dying.”
Edith sat silent a moment, and Peggy could not speak, for it was all she
could do not to break into open weeping. Had Edith been less gallant,
less courageous of soul, she could have consoled and strengthened her.
But she stood in no need of that; and the tears that stood in Peggy’s
eyes were more of love and admiration than of pity.
Then Edith rose.
“Now all that is gone,” she said. “We put it all behind us; it is not to
be. I am going to live, and, oh, my dear, do you know what that old
angel, Sir Thomas, told me? He said that if I got well as I intend to
do--I should be younger and better than I am now. There is the other
solution. I would dearly like to renew my youth a little, to have the
health and vigour of the past year over again for a few years more. That
is worth living for. Some day I shall write a list of things worth
living for. There are heaps of them. Sunshine and snow, and Hugh, and
music and you, and ‘Gambits’ and baby. Those are only the first few that
occur to me, but there are about twenty million others and I am going to
live for them all. They are ‘Things in General,’ in fact, which we spoke
of the other day, and are all delightful. As you said, one has to make
them part of you. And I am going to do exactly what I am told, and leave
nothing undone that can help to make me well, and do nothing that can
stand in the way of that. Ah, I forgot Munich! But please don’t argue
about Munich. I intend to go there. Also, Peggy, I am going to tell Hugh
a lie about it. I shall tell him that Sir Thomas said it couldn’t
possibly hurt me, in fact, that he recommended me to go. Otherwise, you
see, Hugh will think it very wrong of me not to have told him first, so
that he might refuse to go. I daresay it is wrong, and it is also
selfish, because I am doing it simply for my pleasure. But I don’t
care. I will start being good next Tuesday week, and not before. Oh, and
one more arrangement! I wish you would take care of baby and his nurse
until we get settled at Davos.”
“Why, of course!” said Peggy.
“That is dear of you. And you must come out with the children and be
with us a great deal, both for Hugh’s sake and mine. Oh, Peggy, Hugh
mustn’t get bored, and I don’t see how to help it. He mustn’t stop with
me out there after the ice goes. I can’t cut into his life like that.
Ah! well--one needn’t think about that yet. And, my dear, if ever you
see me faltering and being cowardly or despondent or ungrateful, try not
to notice it. It won’t be me: it will be these nasty little insects. I
shall be doing my best! I promise you that. And that is all, I think.”
Again she held out her hands for Peggy, but that would not do for Peggy.
“Ah! you mustn’t kiss me,” cried Edith. “I promised not to kiss
anybody.”
But Peggy clung to her.
“Thank God for people like you!” she said.
* * * * *
Hugh was to arrive (and did so) next day, for he and his wife were
starting from town the morning after for Munich, and he arrived rather
in the manner of a loquacious whirlwind in the middle of lunch. He
greeted neither Peggy nor Edith, but waved a telegraphic form at them.
“I’ve got to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ at once!” he cried. “It was handed to me
at the station at Mannington, but I couldn’t reply before I saw you,
Edith, as Munich is your treat. Burgmann is ill, and they ask if I will
sing ‘Tristan’ on Monday week in his place. Yes, at Munich, of course,
I said so. Heavens! Do you grasp the inwardness of this sacred fact? An
Englishman asked to sing ‘Tristan’ in Germany, to the high ge-born
Tedeschi! Lord, what fun! I shall go mad, as Mr. Tree said. But how
frightfully _chic_ it would be to say ‘No.’ Yes, chicken, please.”
He sat down and turned to Edith.
“It’s our last evening there,” he said, “and it’s the last performance
of the cycle. Which shall we do? Shall we sing, or shall we see? I want
you to settle.”
Edith took the prepaid form which Hugh had been waving about with the
other.
“I don’t settle,” she said; “it settles itself. Of course you sing.
Please have this sent at once, will you, Peggy?”
“Oh! but that’s rather sudden,” said Hugh. “You don’t consider me. I
shall have no more fun now until it’s over. No cigarettes, no anything
but scales. It may be awfully nice for you--I say, that sounds so
gloriously conceited, but I won’t alter it--but it will absolutely spoil
Munich for me.”
“Oh! Hughie, it crowns it for both of us,” said she.
“I travelled up with Mrs. Owen,” said Hugh, eating very rapidly, “and I
think she’s going to the dogs, and if so, it’s your influence Edith. She
smoked a cigarette in the train. I don’t think your influence is a very
good one. You domineer, too: you domineer most frightfully. That sending
of the telegram was mere brute force.”
“But you told me to settle. I did so. Why, Hugh, it is the most gorgeous
thing that ever happened. It’s the best birthday present I ever
received.”
Hugh dropped his knife and fork with a crash, and jumped up.
“Why, I remembered this morning,” he said, “and that silly telegram
drove it out of my head again. Edith, my darling, many, many happy
returns----”
He bent over her to kiss her, and, forgetful for the moment, she raised
her face to his. Then, and it was like a stab to her, she remembered.
Hugh’s face was close to hers, his lips all but touched her.
“Ah! no,” she cried quickly; “you mustn’t kiss me. I’ve--I’ve got a
cold, and if I gave it you, you might not be able to sing. Thank you,
dear, a thousand times, for your good wishes.”
Hugh looked at her for a moment in mild astonishment.
“As if I cared,” he said.
“Ah, but I do,” said Edith. “You catch cold so easily, too.”
Hugh went back to his seat.
“I don’t like your having colds,” he said, “independently of the fact
that I mayn’t kiss you on your birthday. You had one in August; now
you’ve got another. I’ve a good mind--” And then he stopped.
“Hugh, it’s very rude to begin sentences and not finish them,” said
Peggy.
“Yes, isn’t it? By the way, all my music is down at Mannington. I must
go and get a copy of ‘Tristan’ this afternoon, as I shall have to begin
learning it up again at once. What are my ladies going to do?”
Peggy, it appeared, was at leisure, and offered to drive him where he
wanted in the motor; Edith had “things,” so she comprehensively
expressed it, and was at nobody’s disposal till tea. This, as a matter
of fact, suited Hugh’s “good mind” very well, and soon after lunch he
set out with Peggy. But no sooner were they alone than he announced a
strangely disconcerting manœuvre.
“Yes, let’s go and get ‘Tristan’ first,” he said, “and then I want you
to drop me at Sir Thomas Ransom’s. Edith’s got no business to have
colds. I shall get him to come and see her. I’ve several times thought
she wasn’t very well, but she always said she was. Do you think she’s
well, Peggy?”
This was awkward, but after an extremely rapid consideration, Peggy
concluded that she had a prior engagement of secrecy to Edith, which
entailed what is elegantly called “diplomacy,” in dealing with Hugh.
“No, since you ask me, I don’t,” she began.
“Then, why didn’t you tell me?”
After all diplomatic truth would serve her purpose. And she proceeded to
use extremely misleading accuracy.
“Because Edith knows it herself,” she said; “and as a matter of fact,
went to see Sir Thomas yesterday, so there is no need for you to go. In
any case, Hugh, you can’t spring a doctor on a grown-up person, as if
she was a child. But I know she saw Sir Thomas yesterday. In
fact”--Peggy paused a moment, wondering how far astray truth-telling
would lead her--“in fact, I went with her.”
“And what did he say?” asked Hugh, with inconvenient abruptness.
Peggy looked firmly out of the window.
“Oh! what doctors always say; avoid over-excitement and curried prawns,
and hot rooms and fatigue.”
“Then, did he know she was going to Munich?”
“Yes; oh, yes--I am certain of that! He--he encouraged her to go.”
Peggy was beginning to feel slightly feverish with the strain of this,
and there was a heartache in every word. But she had promised secrecy,
and secrecy implied that she would do her best that Hugh should suspect
nothing. But it was rather hard work, for Hugh showed no sign of being
tired of questioning her. Diplomatic truth, too, having served its turn,
was discarded, and diplomatic inexactitude had become necessary.
“She needed encouragement, then,” said Hugh. “She felt not quite up to
it.”
“Not at all. She wanted to go very much, and he encouraged her, as I
said.”
The motor stopped at this moment by the music shop where Hugh was to buy
“Tristan,” and he got out.
“I shan’t be a minute,” he said. “Will you wait for me and drive me to
Harley Street?”
For a moment after Hugh had left her Peggy seriously considered the
propriety of telling the worse lie, breaking the previous engagement.
She knew quite well that what she and Sir Thomas had been unable to do
Hugh could do with the utmost ease. In a moment Edith would consent to
go to Davos at once if Hugh wished it, but Hugh, in order to wish it,
had to know what Peggy knew and was bound not to tell him. Yet her mind
hesitated between the two courses, and for the first minute of waiting
she had no idea whether she would break faith to Edith or really
lie--properly lie to Hugh. She had seen that he was already more than
half way toward suspicion. Either she had to quiet that by really
magnificent lying, or by lying, quite as magnificent, break faith with
her sister, and tell him all. Then, too, he was determined to see Sir
Thomas. Perhaps Sir Thomas might not see his way to lying, if Hugh
asked, as he probably would, more of these direct questions. And if Sir
Thomas was to tell him, it was clearly much better that she should do so
first. If anybody was to tell the truth, she had much better be the
first to tell it.
And then the determining factor came into her mind, and that was the
freedom and individuality of all persons. When vital matters, matters of
life and death and love, came on to the stage, the ordering of the
stage, the ordering of the crowd, the lights, the whole arrangement,
must be made to fit the chief actor. Edith on this half-tragic,
half-triumphant stage that was set for her had chosen the manner of the
enactment. Peggy was but a figure in the crowd; Edith ordered her to
stand thus, and to do thus, and to say thus. It was Edith’s show. She
had ordered Hugh also into his place, that place where her heart was.
And her lover, her beloved, had to obey no less than Peggy. This week of
Munich was ordained. Edith knew the risks she ran, and she chose to run
them, and, after all, it was her business. It might be expensive, but it
was fine. It was young, too--gloriously, unwisely young--so young that
it made Peggy feel dreadfully old. There was no calculation about it, no
counting of cost. Edith was willing to risk anything to have the week
she wanted, the week of the boisterous, unsuspecting Hugh. Oh! that
passionate enjoyment of the pleasure of somebody else! The seven veils
of the sanctuary lift there. It was the abandonment of love; and whether
the tragedy to be paid for was long weeks of lingering illness, or any
other supreme torture, the price was cheap. Peggy divined that; Edith
knew it. And mentally Peggy abased herself when the light of that vision
shone upon her, as it did while she waited in Berners Street for Hugh.
He did not keep her waiting long, and Peggy at once began to weave the
web of the deceit that was forced on her. Few people had had less
practice in that difficult art than she, and as she conducted this piece
of diplomacy, she felt that she really must have a great natural gift
that way. At the same time she remembered having been diplomatic to
Hugh over the question of their going to Mannington in the summer, and
her diplomacy had been blessed with singular success. Now she had two
objects in view, one that Hugh should not go to Sir Thomas, the other
that the vague uneasiness that was certainly rising, mist-like, from his
mind should be dispelled. Edith should have the sunny week that her soul
desired, and for that an unanxious, unsuspecting Hugh was necessary. She
should have him, if Peggy could procure him.
“Such a wise idea of yours to go and see Sir Thomas!” she said, with
extraordinary craft, “because he will certainly laugh at you, and that
perhaps will set your mind at ease. And it’s most important that it
should be at rest. Really it matters more than anything else.”
“Why? How is that?” asked Hugh.
“Oh! dear me, how stupid men are! Can’t you see that Edith is looking
forward to Munich with the keenest, most vivid anticipations? Well, at
the risk of making you more conceited than you are already, I will tell
you why. It’s because she is going to be alone with you and your
enjoyment. There is nothing in the world she loves as much as seeing you
have a good time. And it will spoil it all for her if you are uneasy and
causelessly anxious. That’s why I urge you to see Sir Thomas.”
This had a very distinct effect on Hugh.
“My seeing Sir Thomas is nothing,” he said. “But I felt as if you were
keeping something back. Can’t you tell me what he said?”
“I can’t go into medical details,” said Peggy; “but I can tell you this,
that when Edith called me in after she had consulted him and told me
what he had said we both simply sat and roared with laughter. And I
rather think he joined.”
Hugh gave a great sigh of relief, and Peggy ejaculated “God forgive me!”
below her breath.
“Oh, why didn’t you tell me that?” he said.
“Because I thought it so much better that you should see Sir Thomas,”
said Peggy quite glibly.
Hugh turned on her.
“You have the making of a diplomatist,” he said. “What’s the use of my
seeing Sir Thomas now you have told me that? And Edith really looks
forward to Munich, and it will spoil it if I’m not in tearing spirits?
Lord! I won’t spoil it. Where shall we go instead?”
“The Zoo,” said Peggy without hesitation.
Hugh called the changed direction out of the window to the chauffeur,
and sat silent awhile.
“After all, it was absurd of me to think there could be anything wrong,”
he said, “or of course she would have told me.”
Peggy sighed, an elaborate, effective sigh.
“I was wondering when that would occur to you,” she observed.
Hugh let this pass.
“So I’ve just got to--to shout and sing?” he asked.
“Yes, if you want Edith to have a good time. I can tell you, too, that I
have never seen her look forward with such pleasure to anything as this
Munich trip. It’s taken her fancy.”
“I’m her man, then,” said Hugh.
* * * * *
Peggy thought it incumbent on her to tell Edith what had occurred,
feeling that she might view this deliberate deception in a different
light to the mere concealment which was all that she had contemplated.
But Edith poured scorn on her scruples.
“Peggy, you are a true friend!” she said, “and how easily you seem to
have--well, told the truth. It’s quite Bismarckian. Have you been
practising lately?”
Peggy was slowly pulling off her gloves.
“No, I don’t think I have,” she said. “Oh! I was diplomatic with Hugh
once in the summer, I remember, and I rather enjoyed it. But, oh! Edith,
it gave me the heartache this afternoon. And what will Hugh think of me
when he knows?”
“He will think that you have been a true friend to me,” said her sister.
“He will love you for it when--when he understands. Ah! but we are on
forbidden ground again.”
Edith paused.
“I remember once talking to you about Hugh’s first appearance in town,”
she said. “I told you then that if he failed, which was impossible, I
should not be sorry, because I would have to comfort him again, and make
him happy. Well, that is closer to me now. When I tell him what Sir
Thomas told me yesterday he will want that comfort. But now he will
really want it, for I am more to him than his art.”
Edith gently smoothed the sofa cushion beside her.
“I am--I really am!” she said.
* * * * *
The dressing-gong sounded sonorously and its echoes died into silence.
“You will see,” said Edith.