OF AN OBSERVANT AND THOUGHTFUL, BUT SNIFFY, WAITER; AND HOW HE OPENED
A NEW BOTTLE OF COGNAC. HOW THE BARON SAW FENWICK HOME, WITHOUT HIS
HAT. AN OLD MEMORY FROM ROSALIND'S PAST AND HIS. AND THEN FACE TO FACE
WITH THE WHOLE. SLEEP UPON IT! BUT WHAT BECAME OF HIS HORRIBLE BABY?
At eleven o'clock that night a respectable man with weak eyes and
a cold was communing with a commanding Presence that lived in a
bureau--nothing less!--in the entrance-hall of the big hotel at the
new St. Sennans. It was that of a matron with jet earrings and
tube-curls and a tortoise-shell comb, and an educated contempt for
her species. It lived in that bureau with a speaking-pipe to speak
to every floor, and a telephone for the universe beyond. He that now
ventured to address it was a waiter, clearly, for he carried a
table-napkin, on nobody's behalf and uselessly, but with a feeling
for emblems which might have made him Rouge Dragon in another sphere.
As it was, he was the head waiter in the accursed restaurant or
dining-_salon_ at the excruciating new hotel, where he would bring you
cold misery from the counter at the other end, or lukewarm depression
_à la carte_ from the beyond--but nothing that would do you any good
inside, from anywhere.
"Are those parties going, in eighty-nine, do you make out?" The
Presence speaks, but with languid interest.
"Hapathetic party, and short customer. Takes you up rather free.
Name of Pilkington. Not heard 'em say anything!"
"Who did you say was going?"
"The German party. Party of full 'abit. Call at seven in the
morning. Fried sole and cutlets _à la_ mangtynong and sweet omelet
at seven-thirty sharp. Too much by way of smoking all day, in my
thinking! But they say plums and greengages, took all through meals,
is a set-off."
"I don't pretend to be an authority. Isn't that him, in the
smoking-room?"
"Goin' on in German? Prob'ly." Both stop and listen. What they hear
is the Baron, going on very earnestly indeed in German. What keeps
them listening is that another voice comes in occasionally--a voice
with more than mere earnestness in it; a voice rather of anguish
under control. Then both voices pause, and silence comes suddenly.
"Who's the other party?"
"In a blue soote, livin' in one of the sea-'ouses down on the beach.
Big customer. Prodooces a rousin' impression!"
"Is that his daughter that swims?... That's him--coming away."
But it isn't. It is the Baron, wrathful, shouting, swearing, neither
in German nor English, but in either or both. Where is that tamned
kellner? Why does he not answer the pell? This is an _abscheuliches_
hotel, and every one connected with it is an _Esel_. What he wants
is some cognac and a doctor forthwith. His friend has fainted, and
he has been pressing the tamned puddon, and nobody comes.
The attitude of the lady with the earrings epitomizes the complete
indifference of a hotel-keeper to the private lives of its guests
nowadays. That bell must be seen to, she says. Otherwise she is
callous. The respectable waiter hurries for the cognac, and returns
with a newly-drawn bottle and two glasses to the smoking-room, to find
that the gentleman has recovered and won't have any. He suggests that
our young man could step round for Dr. Maccoll; but the proposed
patient says, "The devil fly away with Dr. Maccoll!" which doesn't
look like docility. The respectable waiter takes note of his
appearance, and reports of it to his principal on dramatic grounds,
not as a matter into which human sympathies enter.
"Very queer he looks. Doo to reaction, or the coatin's of the stomach.
Affectin' the action of the heart.... No, there's nobody else in the
smoking-room. Party with the 'ook instead of a hand's watching of 'em
play penny-pool in the billiard-room." Surely a tale to bring a tear
to the eye of sensibility! But not to one that sees in mankind only
a thing that comes and goes and pays its bill--or doesn't. The lady in
the bureau appears to listen slightly to the voices that come afresh
from the smoking-room, but their duration is all she is concerned
with. "He's going now," she says. He is; and he does look queer--very
queer. His companion does not leave him at the door, but walks out
into the air with him without his hat, speaking to him volubly
and earnestly, always in German. His speech suggests affectionate
exhortation, and the way he takes his arm is affectionate. The voices
go out of hearing, and it is so long before the Baron returns,
hatless, that he must have gone all the way to the sea-houses down
on the beach.
* * * * *
Sally retired to her own couch in order to supply an inducement to her
mother to go to bed herself, and sit up no longer for Gerry's return,
which might be any time, of course. Rosalind conceded the point, and
was left alone under a solemn promise not to be a goose and fidget.
But she was very deliberate about it; and though she didn't fidget,
she went all the slower that she might think back on a day--an
hour--of twenty years ago, and on the incident that Gerry had half
recalled, quite accurately as far as it went, but strangely
unsupported by surroundings or concomitants.
It came back to her with both. She could remember even the face of her
mother's coachman Forsyth, who had driven her with Miss Stanynaught,
her _chaperon_ in this case, to the dance where she was to meet Gerry,
as it turned out; and how Forsyth was told not to come for them before
three in the morning, as he would only have to wait; and how Miss
Stanynaught, her governess of late, who was over forty, pleaded for
two, and Forsyth _did_ have to wait; and how she heard the music and
the dancing above, for they were late; and how they waded upstairs
against a descending stream of muslin skirts and marked attentions
going lawnwards towards the summer night, and bent on lemonade and
ices; and then their entry into the dancing-room, and an excited
hostess and daughters introducing partners like mad; and an excited
daughter greeting a gentleman who had come upstairs behind them, with
"Well, Mr. Palliser, you _are_ late. You don't deserve to be allowed
to dance at all." And that was Jessie Nairn, of course, who added,
"I've jilted you for Arthur Fenwick."
How well Rosalind could remember turning round and seeing a splendid
young chap who said, "What a jolly shame!" and didn't seem to be
oppressed by that or anything else; also Jessie's further speech,
apologizing for having also appropriated Miss Graythorpe's partner. So
they would have to console each other. What a saucy girl Jessie was,
to be sure! She introduced them with a run, "Mr. Algernon Palliser,
Miss Rosalind Graythorpe, Miss Rosalind Graythorpe, Mr. Algernon
Palliser," and fled. And Rosalind was piqued about Arthur Fenwick's
desertion. It seemed all so strange now--such a vanished world! Just
fancy!--she had been speculating if she should accept Arthur, if he
got to the point of offering himself.
But a shaft from Cupid's bow must have been shot from a slack string,
for Rosalind could remember how quickly she forgot Arthur Fenwick as
she took a good look at Gerry Palliser, his great friend, whom he had
so often raved about to her, and who was to be brought to play
lawn-tennis next Monday. And then to the ear of her mind, listening
back to long ago, came a voice so like the one she was to hear soon,
when that footstep should come on the stair.
"I can't waltz like Arthur, Miss Graythorpe. But you'll have to put
up with me." And the smile that spread over his whole face was so
like him now. Then came the allusion to _As You Like It_.
"I'll take you for pity, Mr. Palliser--'by my troth,' as my namesake
Rosalind, Celia's friend, in Shakespeare, says to what's his name ...
Orlando...."
"Come, I say, Miss Graythorpe, that's not fair. It was Benedict said
it to Beatrice."
"Did he? And did Beatrice say she wouldn't waltz with him?"
"Oh, please! I'm so sorry. No--it wasn't Benedict--it _was_ Rosalind."
"That's right! Now let me button your glove for you. You'll be for
ever, with those big fingers." For both of us, thought Rosalind, were
determined to begin at once and not lose a minute. That dear old time
... before...!
Then, even clearer still, came back to her the dim summer-dawn in the
garden, with here and there a Chinese lantern not burned out, and
the flagging music of the weary musicians afar, and she and Gerry with
the garden nearly to themselves. She could feel the cool air of the
morning again, and hear the crowing of a self-important cock. And the
informal wager which would live the longer--a Chinese lantern at the
point of death, or the vanishing moon just touching the line of
tree-tops against the sky, stirred by the morning wind. And the voice
of Gerry when return to the house and a farewell became inevitable.
She shut her eyes, and could hear it and her own answer.
"I shall go to India in six weeks, and never see you again."
"Yes, you will; because Arthur Fenwick is to bring you round to
lawn-tennis...."
"That won't make having to go any better. And then when I come back,
in ever so many years, I shall find you...."
"Gone to kingdom come?"
"No--married!... Oh no, do stop out--don't go in yet...."
"We ought to go in. Now, don't be silly."
"I can't help it.... Well!--a fellow I know asked a girl to marry
him he'd only known two hours."
"What very silly friends you must have, Mr. Palliser! Did she marry
him?"
"No! but they're engaged, and he's in Ceylon. But you wouldn't marry
me...."
"How on earth can you tell, in such a short time? What a goose you
are!... There!--the music's stopped, and Mrs. Nairn said that must
be the last waltz. Come along, or we shall catch it."
They had known each other exactly four hours!
Rosalind remembered it all, word for word. And how Gerry captured
a torn glove to keep; and when he came, as appointed, to lawn-tennis,
went back at once to Shakespeare, and said he had looked it up,
and it _was_ Beatrice and Benedict, and not Rosalind at all. She
could remember, too, her weary and reproachful _chaperon_, and the
well-deserved scolding she got for the way she had been going on
with that young Palliser. Eight dances!
So long ago! And she could think through it all again. And to him it
had become a memory of shreds and patches. Let it remain so, or become
again oblivion--vanish with the rest of his forgotten past! Her
thought that it would do so was confidence itself as she sat there
waiting for his footstep on the stair. For had she not spoken of
herself unflinchingly as the girl who said those words from
Shakespeare, and had not her asseveration slipped from the mind that
could not receive it as water slips from oil? She could wait there
without misgiving--could even hope that, whatever it was due to, this
recent stirring of the dead bones of memory might mean nothing, and
die away leaving all as it was before.
* * * * *
Sally, acknowledging physical fatigue with reluctance, after her long
walk and swim in the morning, went to bed. It presented itself to her
as a thing practicable, and salutary in her state of bewilderment, to
lie in bed with her eyes closed, and think over the events of the day.
It would be really quiet. And then she would be awake when Jeremiah
came in, and would call out for information if there was a sound of
anything to hear about. But her project fell through, for she had
scarcely closed her eyes when she fell into a trap laid for her by
sleep--deep sleep, such as we fancy dreamless. And when Fenwick came
back she could not have heard his words to her mother, even had they
risen above the choking undertone in which he spoke, nor her mother's
reply, more audible in its sudden alarm, but still kept down--for,
startled as she was at Gerry's unexpected words, she did not lose her
presence of mind.
"What is it, Gerry darling? What is it, dear love? Has anything
happened? I'll come."
"Yes--come into my room. Come away from our girl. She mustn't hear."
She knew then at once that his past had come upon him somehow. She
knew it at once from the tone of his voice, but she could make no
guess as to the manner of it. She knew, too, that that heartquake was
upon her--the one she had felt so glad to stave off that day upon the
beach--and that self-command had to be found in an emergency she might
not have the strength to meet.
For the shock, coming as it did upon her false confidence--a sudden
thunderbolt from a cloudless sky--was an overwhelming one. She knew
she would have a moment's outward calm before her powers gave way, and
she must use it for Sally's security. What Gerry said was true--their
girl _must not_ hear.
But oh, how quick thought travels! By the time Rosalind, after
stopping a second outside Sally's door, listening for any movement,
had closed that of her husband's room as she followed him in, placing
the light she carried on a chair as she entered, she had found in the
words "our girl" a foretaste of water in the desert that might be
before her.
Another moment and she knew she was safe, so far as Gerry himself
went. As he had himself said, he would be the same Gerry to her and
she the same Rosey to him, whatever wild beast should leap out of the
past to molest them. She knew it was as he caught her to his heart,
crushing her almost painfully in the great strength that went beyond
his own control as he shook and trembled like an aspen-leaf under the
force of an emotion she could only, as yet, guess at the nature of.
But the guess was not a wrong one, in so far as it said that each was
there to be the other's shield and guard against ill, past, present,
and to come--a refuge-haven to fly to from every tempest fate might
have in store. She could not speak--could not have found utterance
even had words come to her. She could only rest passive in his arms,
inert and dumb, feeling in the short gasps that caught his breath
how he struggled for speech and failed, then strove again. At last
his voice came--short, spasmodic sentences breaking or broken by like
spans of silence:
"Oh, my darling, my darling, remember!... remember!... whatever it
is ... it shall not come between us ... it shall not ... it _shall_
not.... Oh, my dear!... give me time, and I shall speak ... if I could
only say at once ... in one word ... could only understand ... that is
all ... to understand...." He relaxed his hold upon her; but she held
to him, or she might have fallen, so weak was she, and so unsteady was
the room and all in it to her sight. The image of him that she saw
seemed dim and in a cloud, as he pressed his hands upon his eyes and
stood for a moment speechless; then struggled again to find words
that for another moment would not come, caught in the gasping of his
breath. Then he got a longer breath, as for ease, and drawing her face
towards his own--and this time the touch of his hand was tender as
a child's--he kissed it repeatedly--kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her
lips. And in his kiss was security for her, safe again in the haven of
his love, come what might. She felt how it brought back to her the
breath she knew would fail her, unless her heart, that had beaten so
furiously a moment since, and then died away, should resume its life.
The room became steady, and she saw his face and its pallor plainly,
and knew that in a moment she should find her voice. But he spoke
first, again.
"That is what I want, dear love--to understand. Help me to
understand," he said. And then, as though feeling for the first time
how she was clinging to him for support, he passed his arm round her
gently, guiding her to sit down. But he himself remained standing by
her, as though physically unaffected by the storm of emotion, whatever
its cause, that had passed over him. Then Rosalind found her voice.
"Gerry darling--let us try and get quiet over it. After all, we are
both here." As she said this she was not very clear about her own
meaning, but the words satisfied her. "I see you have remembered more,
but I cannot tell how much. Now try and tell me--have you remembered
_all_?"
"I think so, darling." He was speaking more quietly now, as one docile
to her influence. His manner gave her strength to continue.
"Since you left Mr. Pilkington--your friend at the hotel--didn't you
say the name Pilkington?"
"No--there was no Pilkington! Oh yes, there was!--a friend of
Diedrich's...."
"Has it come back, I mean, since you left the house? Who is Diedrich?"
"Stop a bit, dearest love! I shall be able to tell it all directly."
She, too, was glad of a lull, and welcomed his sitting down beside
her on the bed-end, drawing her face to his, and keeping it with the
hand that was not caressing hers. Presently he spoke again, more at
ease, but always in the undertone, just above a whisper, that meant
the consciousness of Sally, too, near. Rosalind said, "She won't
hear," and he replied, "No; it's all right, I think," and continued:
"Diedrich Kreutzkammer--he's Diedrich--don't you remember? Of course
you do!... I heard him down on the beach to-day singing. I wanted to
go to him at once, but I had to think of it first, so I came home.
Then I settled to go to him at the hotel. I had not remembered
anything then--anything to speak of--I had not remembered IT. Now it
is all back upon me, in a whirl." He freed the hand that held hers
for a moment, and pressed his fingers hard upon his eyes; then took
her hand again, as before. "I wanted to see the dear old fellow and
talk over old times, at 'Frisco and up at the Gold River--that, of
course! But I wanted, too, to make him repeat to me all the story
I had told him of my early marriage--oh, my darling!--_our_ marriage,
and I did not know it! I know it now--I know it now."
Rosalind could feel the thrill that ran through him as his hand
tightened on hers. She spoke, to turn his mind for a moment. "How
came Baron Kreutzkammer at St. Sennans?"
"Diedrich? He has a married niece living at Canterbury. Don't you
remember? He told you and you told me...." Rosalind had forgotten
this, but now recalled it. "Well, we talked about the States--all the
story I shall have to tell you, darling, some time; but, oh dear, how
confused I get! _That_ wasn't the first. The first was telling him my
story--the accident, and so on--and it was hard work to convince him
it was really me at Sonnenberg. That was rather a difficulty, because
I had sent him in the name I had in America, and he only saw an old
friend he thought was dead. All _that_ was a trifle; but, oh, the
complications!..."
"What was the name you had in America?"
Fenwick answered musingly, "Harrisson," and then paused before saying,
"No, I had better not...." and leaving the sentence unfinished. She
caught his meaning, and said no more. After all, it could matter very
little if she never heard his American experiences, and the name
Harrisson had no association for her. She left him to resume, without
suggestion.
"He might have reminded me of anything that happened in the States,
and I should just have come back here and told it you, because, you
see, I should have been sure it was true, and no dream. It was India.
I had told him all, don't you see? And I got him to repeat it, and
then it all came back--all at once, the moment I saw it was _you_, my
darling--you yourself! It all became quite easy then. It was _us_--you
and me! I know it now--I know it now!"
"But, dearest, what made you see that it was us?"
"Why, of course, because of the name! He told me all I had told him
from the beginning in German. We always spoke German. He could not
remember your first name, but he remembered your mother's--it had
stayed in his mind--because of the German word _Nachtigall_ being so
nearly the same. As he said the word my mind got a frightful twist,
and I thought I was mad. I did, indeed, my dearest love--raving mad!"
"And then you knew it?"
"And then I knew it. I nearly fainted clean off, and he went for
brandy; but I came round, and the dear old boy saw me to this door
here. It has all only just happened." He remained silent again for
a little space, holding her hand, and then said suddenly: "It _has_
happened, has it not? Is it all true, or am I dreaming?"
"Be patient, darling. It is all true--at least, I think so. It is all
true if it is like this, because remember, dear, you have told me
almost nothing.... I only know that it has come back to you that I am
Rosey and that you are Gerry--the old Rosey and Gerry long ago in
India...." She broke down over her own words, as her tears, a relief
in themselves, came freely, taxing her further to keep her voice under
for Sally's sake. It was only for a moment; then she seemed to brush
them aside in an effort of self-mastery, and again began, dropping her
voice even lower. "It is all true if it is like this. I came out to
marry you in India ... my darling!... and a terrible thing happened
to me on the way ... the story you know more of now than I could tell
you then ... for how _could_ I tell it ... think?..."
Her husband started up from her side gasping, beating his head like
a madman. She was in terror lest she had done wrong in her speech.
"Gerry, Gerry!" she appealed to him in a scarcely raised voice, "think
of Sally!" She rose and went to him, repeating, "Think of Sally!" then
drew him back to his former place. His breath went and came heavily,
and his forehead was drenched with sweat, as in epilepsy; but the
paroxysm left him as he sank back beside her, saying only, "My God!
that miscreant!" but showing that he had heard her by the force of
the constraint he put upon his voice. It gave her courage to go on.
"I could not get it told then. I did not know the phrases--and you
were so happy, my darling--so happy when you met me at the station!
Oh, how could I? But I was wrong. I ought not to have let you marry
me, not knowing. And then ... it seemed deception, and I could not
right it...." Her voice broke again, as she hid her face on his
shoulder; but she knew her safety in the kiss she felt on her free
hand, and the gentleness of his that stroked her hair. Then she
heard his almost whispered words above her head, close to her ear:
"Darling, forgive me--forgive me! It was _I_ that was in fault.
I might have known...."
"Gerry, dear ... no!..."
"Yes, I might. There was a woman there--had been an officer's wife.
She came to me and spoke rough truths about it--told me her notion of
the tale in her own language. 'Put her away from you,' she said, 'and
you won't get another like her, and won't deserve her!' And she was
right, poor thing! But I was headstrong and obstinate, and would not
hear her. Oh, my darling, _how_ we have paid for it!"
"But you have found me again, dear love!" He did not answer, but
raised up her face from his shoulder, parting the loose hair
tenderly--for it was all free on her shoulders--and gazing straight
into her eyes with an expression of utter bewilderment. "Yes, darling,
what is it?" said she, as though he had spoken.
"I am getting fogged!" he said, "and cannot make it out. Was it pure
accident? Surely something must have happened to bring it about."
"Bring what about?"
"How came we to find each other again, I mean?"
"Oh, I see! Pure accident, I should say, dear! Why not? It would not
have happened if it had not been possible. Thank God it did!"
"Thank God it did! But think of the strangeness of it all! How came
Sally in that train?"
"Why not, darling? Where else could she have been? She was coming
back to tea, as usual."
"And she put me in a cab--bless her!--she and Conrad Vereker--and
brought me home to you. But did you know me at once, darling?"
"At once."
"But why didn't you tell me?"
"If you had shown the slightest sign of knowing me I should have told
you, and taken my chance; but you only looked at me and smiled, and
never knew me! Was mine a good plan? At least, it has answered." A
clasp and a kiss was the reply. She was glad that he should choose the
line of conversation, and did not break into the pause that followed.
The look of fixed bewilderment on his face was painful, but she did
not dare any suggestion of guidance to his mind. She had succeeded but
ill before in going back to the cause of their own early severance.
Yet that was what she naturally had most at heart, and longed to speak
of. Could she have chosen, she would have liked to resume it once for
all, in spite of the pain--to look the dreadful past in the face,
and then agree to forget it together. She was hungry to tell him that
even when he broke away from her that last time she saw him at
Umballa--broke away from her so roughly that his action had all the
force and meaning of a blow--she only saw _his_ image of the wrong she
had done, or seemed to have done him; that she had nothing for him
through it all but love and forgiveness. At least, she would have
tried to make sure that he had been able to connect and compare the
tale she had told him since their reunion with his new memory of the
facts of twenty years ago. But she dared say nothing further as yet.
For his part, at this moment, he seemed strangely willing to let all
the old story lapse, and to dwell only on the incredible chance that
had brought them again together. All that eventful day our story began
with had leaped into the foreground of his mind.
Presently he said, still almost whispering hoarsely, with a constant
note of amazement and something like panic in his voice: "If it hadn't
happened--the accident--I suppose I should have gone back to the
hotel. And what should I have done next? I should never have found
you and Sally...."
"Were you poor, Gerry darling?"
"Frightfully rich! Gold-fields, mining-place up the Yu-kon. Near the
Arctic Circle." He went on in a rapid undertone, as if he were trying
to supply briefly what he knew the woman beside him must be yearning
to know, if not quite unlike other women. "I wasn't well off
before--didn't get on at the Bar at St. Louis--but not poor exactly.
Then I made a small pile cattle-ranching in Texas, and somehow went
to live at Quebec. There were a lot of French Canadians I took to.
Then after that, 'Frisco and the gold...."
"Gerry dear!"
"Yes, love, what?"
"Have you any relations living in England?"
"Heaps, but I haven't spoken to one of them for years and years--not
since _then_. One of them's a Bart. with a fungus on his nose in
Shropshire. He's an uncle. Then there's my sister, if she's not
dead--my sister Livy. She's Mrs. Huxtable. I fancy they all think I'm
dead in the bush in Australia. I had a narrow squeak there...."
"Now, Gerry darling, I'll tell you what I want you to do...."
"Yes, dear, I will."
"You can't tell me all these things now, and you'll be ill; so lie
down on the bed there, and I'll sit by you till you go to sleep. Or
look, you get to bed comfortably, and I'll be back in a few minutes
and sit by you. Just till you go off. Now do as I tell you."
He obeyed like a child. It was wonderful how, in the returning power
of her self-command, she took him, as it were, in hand, and rescued
him from the tension of his bewilderment. Apart from the fact that the
fibre of her nature was exceptionally strong, her experience of this
last hour had removed the most part of the oppression that had weighed
her down for more than a twelvemonth--the doubt as to which way a
discovery of his past would tell on her husband's love for her. She
had no feeling now but anxiety on his behalf, and this really helped
her towards facing the situation calmly. All things do that take us
out of ourselves.
She stood again a moment outside Sally's door to make sure she was not
moving, then went to her own room, not sorry to be alone. She wanted
a pause for the whirl in her brain to stop, for the torrent of new
event that had rushed in upon it to find its equilibrium. If Gerry fell
asleep before she returned to him so much the better! She did not even
light her candle, preferring to be in the dark.
But this did not long defer her return to her husband's room. A very
few minutes in the darkness and the silence of her own were enough for
her, and she was grateful for both. Then she went back, to find him
in bed, sitting up and pressing his fingers on his eyes, as one does
when suffering from nervous headache. But he disclaimed any such
feeling in answer to her inquiry. She sat down beside him, holding his
hand, just as she had done in the night of the storm, and begged him
for her sake and his own to try to sleep. It would all seem so much
easier and clearer in the morning.
Yes, he would sleep, he said. And, indeed, he had resolved to affect
sleep, so as to induce her to go away herself and rest. But it was not
so easy. Half-grasped facts went and came--recollections that he knew
he should before long be able to marshal in their proper order
and make harmonious. For the time being, though they had not the
nightmare character of the recurrences he had suffered from before
his memory-revival, they stood between him and sleep effectually. But
he could and would simulate sleep directly, for Rosalind's sake. He
had looked at his watch and seen that it was near two in the morning.
Yes, he would sleep; but he must ask one question, or lose his reason
if she left him alone with it unanswered.
"Rosey darling!"
"What, dearest?"
"We'll forget the old story, won't we, and only think of _now_? That's
the right way to take it, isn't it?"
She kissed his face as she answered, just as she might have kissed
a child. "Quite right, dear love," she said; "and now go to sleep. Or
if you must talk a little more, talk about Conrad and Sally."
"Ah yes!" he answered; "that's all happiness. Conrad and Sally! But
there's a thing...."
"What thing, dear? What is it?"
"I shall ask it you in the end, so why not now?" She felt in his hand
a shudder that ran through him, as his hold on her fingers tightened.
"So why not now?" she repeated after him. "Why hesitate?"
The tremor strengthened in her hand and was heard in his voice plainly
as he answered with an effort: "What became of the baby?"
"What became of the baby!" There was a new terror in Rosalind's voice
as she repeated the words--a fear for his reason. "What baby?"
"_The_ baby--_his_ baby--_his_ horrible baby!"
"Gerry darling! Gerry _dearest_! do think...." His puzzled eyes,
bloodshot in his white face, turned full upon her; but he remained
silent, waiting to hear more. "You have forgotten, darling," she said
quietly.
His free hand that lay on the coverlid clenched, and a spasm caught
his arm, as though it longed for something to strike or strangle. "No,
no!" said he; "I am all right. I mean that damned monster's baby.
There _was_ a baby?" His voice shook on these last words as though he,
too, had a fear for his own reason. His face flushed as he awaited
her reply.
"Oh, Gerry darling! but you _have_ forgotten. His baby was Sally--my
Sallykin!"
For it was absolutely true that, although he had as complete a
knowledge, in a certain sense, of Sally's origin as the well-coached
student has of the subject he is to answer questions in, he had
forgotten it under the stress of his mental trial as readily as
the student forgets what his mind has only acquiesced in for its
purpose, in his joy at recovering his right to ignorance. Sally had
an existence of her own quite independent of her origin. She was his
and Rosalind's--a part of _their_ existence, a necessity. It was
easy and natural for him to dissociate the living, breathing reality
that filled so much of their lives from its mere beginnings. It was
less easy for Rosalind, but not an impossibility altogether, helped
by the forgiveness for the past that grew from the soil of her
daughter's love.
"You _had_ forgotten, dear," she repeated; "but you know now."
"Yes, I had forgotten, because of Sally herself; but she is _my_
daughter now...."
She waited, expecting him to say more; but he did not speak again. As
soon as he was, or seemed to be, asleep, she rose quietly and left him.
She was so anxious that no trace of the tempest that had passed over
her should be left for Sally to see in the morning that she got as
quickly as possible to bed; and, with a little effort to tranquillise
her mind, soon sank into a state of absolute oblivion. It was the
counterswing of the pendulum--Nature's protest against a strain beyond
her powers to bear, and its remedy.