OF A SLEEPLESS NIGHT MRS. NIGHTINGALE HAD, AND HOW SALLY WOKE UP
AND TALKED
Was it possible, thought Rosalind in the sleepless night that followed,
that the recurrence of the tennis-garden in Fenwick's mind might
grow and grow, and be a nucleus round which the whole memory of his
life might re-form? Even so she had seen, at a chemical lecture, a
supersaturated solution, translucent and spotless, suddenly fill with
innumerable ramifications from one tiny crystal dropped into it. Might
not this shred of memory chance to be a crystal of the right salt
in the solvent of his mind, and set going a swift arborescence to
penetrate the whole? Might not one branch of that tree be a terrible
branch--one whose leaves and fruit were poisoned and whose stem was
clothed with thorns? A hideous metaphor of the moment--call it the
worst in her life--when her young husband, driven mad with the
knowledge that had just forced its way into his reluctant mind, had
almost struck her away from him, and with angry words, of which the
least was traitress, had broken through the effort of her hands to
hold him, and left her speechless in her despair.
It was such a nightmare idea, this anticipation that next time she met
Gerry's eyes she might see again the anger that was in them on that
blackest of her few married days, might see him again vanish from
her, this time never to return. And it spread an ever growing horror,
greater and greater in the silence and the darkness of the night, till
it filled all space and became a power that thrilled through every
nerve, and denied the right of any other thing in the infinite void
to be known or thought of. Which of us has not been left, with no
protection but our own weak resolutions, to the mercy of a dominant
idea in the still hours when others were near us sleeping whom we
might not wake to say one word to save us?
What would his face be like--how would his voice sound--when she saw
him next? Or would some short and cruel letter come to say he had
remembered all, and now--for all the gratitude he owed her--he could
not bear to look upon her face again, hers who had done him such a
wrong! If so, what should she--what could she do?
There was only one counter-thought to this that brought with it a
momentary balm. She would send Sally to him to beg, beseech, implore
him not to repeat his headstrong error of the old years, to swear to
him that if only he could know all he would forgive--nay, more, that
if he could know quite all--the very whole of the sad story--not only
would he forgive, but rather seek forgiveness for himself for the too
harsh judgment he so rashly formed.
What should she say to Sally? how should she instruct her to plead
for her? Never mind that now. All she wanted in her lonely, nervous
delirium was the ease the thought gave her, the mere thought of the
force of Sally's fixed, immovable belief--_that_ she was certain
of--that whatsoever her mother had done was right. Never mind the exact
amount of revelation she would have to make to Sally. She might surely
indulge the idea, just to get at peace somehow, till--as pray Heaven it
might turn out--she should know that Gerry's mind was still unconscious
of its past. The chances were, so she thought mechanically to herself,
that all her alarms were groundless.
And at the first--strange as it is to tell--Sally's identity was only
that of the daughter she had now, that filled her life, and gave her
the heart to live. She was the Sally space was full of for her. _What_
she was, and _why_ she was, merged, as it usually did, in the broad
fact of her existence. But there was always the chance that this _what_
and _why_--two bewildering imps--should flaunt their unsolved conundrum
through her mother's baffled mind. There they were, sure enough in the
end, enjoying her inability to answer, dragging all she prayed daily
to be better able to forget out into the light of the memory they had
kindled. There they were, chuckling over her misery, and hiding--so
Rosalind feared--a worse question than any, keeping it back for a
final stroke to bring her mental fever to its height--how could Sally
be the daughter of a devil and her soul be free from the taint of his
damnation?
If Rosalind had only been well read in the mediæval classics, and had
known that story of Merlin's birth--the Nativity that was to rewrite
the Galilean story in letters of Hell, and give mankind for ever
to be the thrall of the fallen angel his father! And now the babe
at its birth was snatched away to the waters of baptism, and poor
Satan--alas!--obliged to cast about for some new plan of campaign;
which, to say truth, he must have found, and practised with some
success. But Rosalind had never read this story. Had she done so she
might have felt, as we do, that the tears of an absolutely blameless
mother might serve to cleanse the inherited sin from a babe unborn as
surely as the sacramental fount itself.
And it may be that some such thought had woven itself into the story
Fenwick's imagination framed for Rosalind the evening before--that time
that she said of Sally, "She is not a devil!" The exact truth, the
ever-present record that was in her mind as she said this, must remain
unknown to us.
But to return to her as she is now, racked by a twofold mental fever,
an apprehension of a return of Fenwick's memory, and a stimulated
recrudescence of her own; with the pain of all the scars burnt in
twenty years ago revived now by her talk with him of a few hours since.
She could bear it no longer, there alone in the darkness of the night.
She _must_ get at Sally, if only to look at her. Why, that child never
could be got to wake unless shaken when she was wanted. Ten to one she
wouldn't this time. And it would make all the difference just to see
her there, alive and leagues away in dreamland. If her sleep lasted
through the crackle of a match to light her candle, heard through the
open door between their rooms, the light of the candle itself wouldn't
wake her. Rosalind remembered as she lit the candle and found her
dressing-gown--for the night air struck cold--how once, when a
ten-year-old, Sally had locked herself in, and no noise or knocking
would rouse her; how she herself, alarmed for the child, had thereon
summoned help, and the door was broken open, but only to be greeted
by the sleeper, after explanation, with, "Why didn't you knock?"
She was right in her forecast, and perhaps it was as well the girl did
not wake. She would only have had a needless fright, to see her mother,
haggard with self-torment, by her bedside at that hour. So Rosalind
got her full look at the rich coils of black hair that framed up the
unconscious face, that for all its unconsciousness had on it the
contentment of an amused dreamer, at the white ivory skin it set off
so well, at the one visible ear that heard nothing, or if it did,
translated it into dream, and the faint rhythmic movement that vouched
for soundless breath. She looked as long as she dared, then moved away.
But she had barely got her head back on her pillow when "Was that you,
mother?" came from the next room. Her mother always said of Sally that
nothing was certain but the _imprévu_, and ascribed to her a monstrous
perversity. It was this that caused her to sleep profoundly through
that most awakening of incidents, a person determined not to disturb
you, and then to wake up short into that person's self-congratulations
on success.
"Of course it was, darling. Who else could it have been?"
Sally's reply, "I thought it was," seems less reasonable--mere
conversation making--and a sequel as of one reviewing new and more
comfortable positions in bed follows naturally. A decision on the point
does not prohibit conversation, rather facilitates it.
"What did you come for, mammy?"
"Eau-de-Cologne." The voice has a fell intention of instant sleep in it
which Sally takes no notice of.
"Have you got it?"
"Got it? Yes. Go to sleep, chatterbox."
It was true about the eau-de-Cologne, for Rosalind, with a self-acting
instinct that explanation might be called for, had picked up the
bottle on her return journey. You see, she was always practising
wicked deceits and falsehoods, all to save that little chit being made
miserable on her account. But the chit wasn't going to sleep again. She
was going to enjoy her new attitude awake. Who woke her up? Answer that.
"I say, mother!"
"What, kitten? Go to sleep."
"All right--in a minute. Do you remember Mr. Fenwick's bottle of
eau-de-Cologne?"
"Of course I do. Go to sleep."
"Just going. But wasn't it funny?"
"What funny?--Oh, the eau-de-Cologne!"
Rosalind isn't really sleepy, and may as well talk. "Yes, that was very
funny. I wonder where he got it." She seems roused, and her daughter is
repentant.
"Oh dear! What a shame! I've just spoiled your go-off. Poor mother!"
"Never mind, chick! I like to talk a little. It _was_ funny that he
should have a big bottle of eau-de-Cologne, of all things, in his
pocket."
"Yes, but it was rummer still about Rosalind Nightingale--_his_
Rosalind Nightingale, the one he knew." This is dangerous ground, and
Rosalind knows it. But a plea of half-sleep will cover mistakes, and
conversation about the pre-electrocution period is the nearest approach
to taking Sally into her confidence that she can hope for. She is so
weary with her hours of wakefulness that she becomes a little reckless,
foreseeing a resource in such uncertainty of speech as may easily be
ascribed to a premature dream.
"It's not _impossible_ that it should have been your grandmother,
kitten. But we can't find out now. And it wouldn't do us any good that
I can see."
"It would be nice to know for curiosity. Couldn't anything be fished
out in the granny connexion? No documents?"
"Nothing will ever be fished out by me in that connexion, Sally
darling." Sally knows from her mother's tone of voice that they are
approaching an _impasse_. She means to give up the point the moment it
comes fully in view. But she will go on until that happens. She has to
think out what was the name of the Sub-Dean before she speaks again.
"Didn't the Reverend Decimus Ireson grab all the belongings?"
"They were left to him, child. It was all fair, as far as that goes.
I didn't grudge him the things--indeed, I felt rather grateful to him
for taking them. It would only have been painful, going over them.
Different people feel differently about these things. I didn't want
old recollections."
"Hadn't the Reverend Decimus a swarm of brats?"
"Sal--ly _dar_ling!... Well, yes, he had. There were two families. One
of six daughters, I forget which."
"Couldn't they be got at, to see if they wouldn't recollect something?"
"Of course they could. They've married a lawyer--at least, one of them
has. And all the rest, I believe, live with them." At another time Sally
would have examined this case in relation to the Deceased Wife's Sister
Bill. She was too interested now to stop her mother continuing: "But
what a silly chick you are! Why should _they_ know anything about it?"
"Why shouldn't they?"
Her mother's reply is emphasized. "My dear, do consider! I was with
your grandmother till within a month of her marriage with the Reverend,
as you call him, and I should have been ten times more likely to hear
about Mr. Fenwick than ever they would afterwards. Your grandmother had
never even seen them when I went away to India to be married."
"What's the lawyer's name?"
"Bearman, I think, or Dearman. But why?--Oh, no, by-the-bye, I think
it's Beazley."
"Because I could write and ask, or call. Sure to hear something."
"My dear, you'll hear nothing, and they'll only think you mad."
Rosalind was beginning to feel that she had made a mistake. She did not
feel so sure Sally would hear nothing. A recollection crossed her mind
of how one of the few incidents there was time for in her short married
life had been the writing of a letter by her husband to his friend, the
real Fenwick, and of much chaff therein about the eldest of these very
daughters, and her powerful rivalry to Jessie Nairn. It came back to
her now. Sally alarmed her still further.
"Yes, mother. I shall just get Mr. Fenwick to hunt up the address, and
go and call on the Beazleys." This sudden assumption of a concrete form
by the family was due to a vivid image that filled Sally's active brain
immediately of a household of parched women presided over by a dried
man who owned a wig on a stand and knew what chaff-wax meant, which
she didn't. A shop window near Lincoln's Inn was responsible. But to
Rosalind it really seemed that Sally must have had other means of
studying this family, and she was frightened.
"You don't know them, kitten?"
"Not the least. Don't want to." This reflection suggests caution.
"Perhaps I'd better write...."
"Better do nothing of the sort, child. Better go to sleep...."
"All right." But Sally does not like quitting the subject so abruptly,
and enlarges on it a little more. She sketches out a letter to be
written to the lady who is at present a buffer-state between the dried
man and the parched women. "Dear madam," she recites, "you may perhaps
recall--or will perhaps recall--which is right, mother?"
"Either, dear. Go to sleep." But just at this moment Rosalind
recollects with satisfaction that the name was neither Beazley nor
Dearman, but Tressilian Tredgold. She has been thinking of falling
back on affectation of sleep to avoid more alarms, but this makes it
needless.
"I'm sure I've got the name wrong," she says, with revived wakefulness
in her voice.
But Sally is murmuring to herself--"Perhaps recall my mother, Mrs.
Rosalind Nightingale--Rosalind in brackets--by her maiden name of--by
the same name--who married the late Mr. Graythorpe in India--I say,
mother...."
"Yes, little goose."
"How am I to put all that?"
"Go to sleep! I don't think you'll find that family very--coming. My
impression is you had much better leave it alone. What good would it
do you to find out who Mr. Fenwick was? And perhaps have him go away
to Australia!"
"Why Australia?"
Oh dear, what mistakes Rosalind did make! Why on earth need she
name the place she knew Gerry did go to? America would have done just
as well.
"Australia--New Zealand--America--anywhere!" But Sally doesn't
mind--has fallen back on her letter-sketch.
"Apologizing for troubling you, believe me, dear madam, yours
faithfully--or very faithfully, or truly--Rosalind Nightingale.... No;
I should not like Mr. Fenwick to go away anywhere. No more would you.
I want him here, for us. So do you!"
"I should be very sorry indeed for Mr. Fenwick to go away. We should
miss him badly. But fancy what his wife must be feeling, if he has one.
I can sympathize with her." It really was a relief to say anything so
intensely true.
Did the reality with which she spoke impress Sally more than the mere
words, which were no more than "common form" of conversation? Probably,
for something in them brought back her conference with the Major on
Boxing Day morning when her mother was at church. What was that
she had said to him when she was sitting on his knee improving his
whiskers?--that if she, later on, saw reason to suppose his suspicions
true, she would ask her mother point-blank. Why not? And here she was
with the same suspicions, quite, quite independent of the Major. And
see how dark it was in both rooms! One could say anything. Besides, if
her mother didn't want to answer, she could pretend to be asleep. She
wouldn't ask too loud, to give her a chance.
"Mother darling, if Mr. Fenwick was to make you an offer, how should
you like it?"
"Oh dear! _What's_ the child saying? What is it, Sallykin? I was just
going off."
Now, obviously, you can ask a lady Sally's question in the easy course
of flowing chat, but you can't drag her from the golden gates of sleep
to ask it. It gets too official. So Sally backed out, and said she had
said nothing, which wasn't the case. The excessive readiness with which
her mother accepted the statement looks, to us, as if she had really
been awake and heard.