Robin had spent the night at the cottage and Mrs. Bennett had been very
good to her. They had sat by the fire together for a long time and had
talked of the dead boys on the battlefield, while Robin's head had
rested against the old fairy woman's knee and the shrivelled hand had
stroked and patted her tremulously. It had been nearing dawn when the
girl went to bed and at the last Mrs. Bennett had held on to her dress
and asked her a pleading question.
"Isn't there anything you'd like me to do for you--anything on earth,
Miss, dear? Sometimes there's things an old woman can do that young ones
can't. If there was anything you'd like to tell me about--that I could
keep private--? It'd be as safe with me as if I was a dumb woman. And it
might just happen that--me being so old--I might be a help some way."
She was giving her her chance, as in the course of her long life she had
given it to other poor girls she loved less. One had to make ways and
open gates for them.
But Robin only kissed her as lovingly as a child.
"I don't know what is going to happen to me," she said. "I can't think
yet. I may want to ask you to let me come here--if--if I am frightened
and don't know what to do. I know you would let me come and--talk to
you--?"
The old fairy woman almost clutched her in enfolding arms. Her answer
was a hoarse and trembling whisper.
"You come to me, my poor pretty," she said. "You come to me day or
night--_whatsoever_. I'm not so old but what I can do anything--you want
done."
The railroad journey back to London seemed unnaturally long because her
brain began to work when she found herself half blindly gazing at the
country swiftly flying past the carriage window. Perhaps the anxiousness
in Mrs. Bennett's face had wakened thought in connecting itself with
Lord Coombe's words and looks in the wood.
When the door of the house in Eaton Square opened for her she was
conscious of shrinking from the sympathetic eyes of the war-substituted
woman-servant who was the one who had found her lying on the landing.
She knew that her face was white and that her eyelids were stained and
heavy and that the woman saw them and was sorry for her.
The mountain climb of the stairs seemed long and steep but she reached
her room at last and took off her hat and coat and put on her house
dress. She did it automatically as if she were going downstairs to her
work, as though there had been no break in the order of her living.
But as she was fastening the little hooks and buttons her stunned brain
went on with the thought to which it had begun to awaken in the train.
Since the hour when she had fallen unconscious on the landing she had
not seemed to think at all. She had only _felt_ things which had nothing
to do with the real world.
There was a fire in the grate and when the last button was fastened she
sat down on a seat before it and looked into the redness of the coals,
her hands loosely clasped on her knee. She sat there for several minutes
and then she turned her head and looked slowly round the room. She did
it because she was impelled by a sense of its emptiness--by the fact
that she was quite alone in it. There was only herself--only Robin in
it.
That was her first feeling--the aloneness--and then she thought of
something else. She seemed to feel again the hand of Lord Coombe on her
shoulder when he held her back in the darkened wood and she could hear
his almost whispered words.
"In this Wood--even now--there is Something which must be saved from
suffering. It is helpless--it is blameless. It is not you--it is not
Donal--God help it."
Then she was not alone--even as she sat in the emptiness of the room.
She put up her hands and covered her face with them.
"What--will happen?" she murmured. But she did not cry.
The deadliness of the blow which had stupefied her still left her barely
conscious of earthly significances. But something of the dark mistiness
was beginning to lift slowly and reveal to her vague shadows and shapes,
as it were. If no one would believe that she was married to Donal, then
people would think that she had been the kind of girl who is sent away
from decent houses, if she is a servant, and cut off in awful disgrace
from her family and never spoken to again, if she belongs to the upper
classes. Books and Benevolent Societies speak of her as "fallen" and
"lost." Her vision of such things was at once vague and primitive. It
took the form of pathetic fictional figures or memories of some hushed
rumour heard by mere chance, rather than of anything more realistic. She
dropped her hands upon her lap and looked at the fire again.
"Now I shall be like that," she said listlessly. "And it does not
matter. Donal knew. And I do not care--I do not care."
"The Duchess will send me away," she whispered next. "Perhaps she will
send me away to-day. Where shall I go!" The hands on her lap began to
tremble and she suddenly felt cold in spite of the fire. The sound of a
knock on the door made her start to her feet. The woman who had looked
sorry for her when she came in had brought a message.
"Her grace wishes to see you, Miss," she said.
"Thank you," Robin answered.
After the servant had gone away she stood still a moment or so.
"Perhaps she is going to tell me now," she said to the empty room.
* * * * *
Two aspects of her face rose before the Duchess as the girl entered the
room where she waited for her with Lord Coombe. One was that which had
met her glance when Mademoiselle Vallé had brought her charge on her
first visit. She recalled her impression of the childlikeness which
seemed all the dark dew of appealing eyes, which were like a young doe's
or a bird's rather than a girl's. The other was the star-like radiance
of joy which had swept down the ballroom in Donal's arms with dancing
whirls and swayings and pretty swoops. About them had laughed and
swirled the boys now lying dead under the heavy earth of Flemish fields.
And Donal--!
This face looked small and almost thin and younger than ever. The eyes
were like those of a doe who was lost and frightened--as if it heard
quite near it the baying of hounds, but knew it could not get away.
She hesitated a moment at the door.
"Come here, my dear," the Duchess said.
Lord Coombe stood by a chair he had evidently placed for her, but she
did not sit down when she reached it. She hesitated again and looked
from one to the other.
"Did you send for me to tell me I must go away?" she said.
"What do you mean, child?" said the Duchess.
"Sit down," Lord Coombe said and spoke in an undertone rapidly. "She
thinks you mean to turn her out of the house as if she were a
kitchen-maid."
Robin sat down with her listless small hands clasped in her lap.
"Nothing matters at all," she said, "but I don't know what to do."
"There is a great deal to do," the Duchess said to her and she did not
speak as if she were angry. Her expression was not an angry one. She
looked as if she were wondering at something and the wondering was
almost tender.
"We know what to do. But it must be done without delay," said Lord
Coombe and his voice reminded her of Mersham Wood.
"Come nearer to me. Come quite close. I want--" the Duchess did not
explain what she wanted but she pointed to a small square ottoman which
would place Robin almost at her knee. Her own early training had been of
the statelier Victorian type and it was not easy for her to deal freely
with outward expression of emotion. And here emotion sprang at her
throat, so to speak, as she watched this childish thing with the
frightened doe's eyes. The girl had been an inmate of her house for
months; she had been kind to her and had become fond of her, but they
had never reached even the borders of intimacy.
And yet emotion had seized upon her and they were in the midst of
strange and powerful drama.
Robin did as she was told. It struck the Duchess that she always did as
she was told and she spoke to her hoping that her voice was not
ungentle.
"Don't look at me as if you were afraid. We are going to take care of
you," she said.
But the doe's eyes were still great with hopeless fearfulness.
"Lord Coombe said--that no one would believe me," Robin faltered. "He
thought I was not married to Donal. But I was--I was. I _wanted_ to be
married to him. I wanted to do everything he wanted me to do. We loved
each other so much. And we were afraid every one would be angry. And so
many were killed every day--and before he was killed--Oh!" with a sharp
little cry, "I am glad--I am glad! Whatever happens to me I am _glad_ I
was married to him before he was killed!"
"You poor children!" broke from the Duchess. "You poor--poor mad young
things!" and she put an arm about Robin because the barrier built by
lack of intimacy was wholly overthrown.
Robin trembled all over and looked up in her face.
"I may begin to cry," she quavered. "I do not want to trouble you by
beginning to cry. I must not."
"Cry if you want to cry," the Duchess answered.
"It will be better," said Lord Coombe, "if you can keep calm. It is
necessary that you should be calm enough to think--and understand. Will
you try? It is for Donal's sake."
"I will try," she answered, but her amazed eyes still yearningly
wondered at the Duchess. Her arm had felt almost like Dowie's.
"Which of us shall begin to explain to her?" the Duchess questioned.
"Will you? It may be better."
They were going to take care of her. She was not to be turned into the
street--though perhaps if she were turned into the street without money
she would die somewhere--and that would not matter because she would be
thankful.
The Duchess took one of her hands and held it on her knee. She looked
kind still but she was grave.
"Do not be frightened when I tell you that most people will _not_
believe what you say about your marriage," she said. "That is because it
is too much like the stories other girls have told when they were in
trouble. It is an easy story to tell when a man is dead. And in Donal's
case so much is involved that the law would demand proofs which could
not be denied. Donal not only owned the estate of Braemarnie, but he
would have been the next Marquis of Coombe. You have not remembered this
and--" more slowly and with a certain watchful care--"you have been too
unhappy and ill--you have not had time to realise that if Donal has a
son--"
She heard Robin's caught breath.
"What his father would have inherited he would inherit also. Braemarnie
would be his and in his turn he would be the Marquis of Coombe. It is
because of these important things that it would be said that it would be
immensely to your interest to insist that you were married to Donal Muir
and the law would not allow of any shade of doubt."
"People would think I wanted the money and the castles--for myself?"
Robin said blankly.
"They would think that if you were a dishonest woman--you wanted all you
could get. Even if you were not actually dishonest they would see you
would want it for your son. You might think it ought to be his--whether
his father had married you or not. Most women love their children."
Robin sat very still. The stunned brain was slowly working for itself.
"A child whose mother seems bad--is very lonely," she said.
"It is not likely to have many friends."
"It seems to belong to no one. It _must_ be unhappy. If--Donal's mother
had not been married--even he would have been unhappy."
No one made any reply.
"If he had been poor it would have made it even worse. If he had
belonged to nobody and had been poor too--! How could he have borne it!"
Lord Coombe took the matter up gently, as it were removing it from the
Duchess' hands.
"But he had everything he wished for from his birth," he said. "He was
always happy. I like to remember the look in his eyes. Thank God for
it!"
"That beautiful look!" she cried. "That beautiful laughing look--as if
all the world were joyful!"
"Thank God for it," Coombe said again. "I once knew a wretched village
boy who had no legal father though his mother swore she had been
married. His eyes looked like a hunted ferret's. It was through being
shamed and flouted and bullied. The village lads used to shout 'Bastard'
after him."
It was then that the baying of the hounds suddenly seemed at hand. The
large eyes quailed before the stark emptiness of the space they gazed
into.
"What shall I do--what shall I do?" Robin said and having said it she
did not know that she turned to Lord Coombe.
"You must try to do what we tell you to do--even if you do not wish to
do it," he said. "It shall be made as little difficult for you as is
possible."
The expression of the Duchess as she looked on and heard was a changing
one because her mind included so many aspects of the singular situation.
She had thought it not unlikely that he would do something unusual.
Could anything much more unusual have been provided than that a man, who
had absolute splendour of rank and wealth to offer, should for strange
reasons of his own use the tact of courts and the fine astuteness of
diplomatists in preparing the way to offer marriage to a penniless,
friendless and disgraced young "companion" in what is known as
"trouble"? It was because he was himself that he understood what he was
dealing with--that splendour and safety would hold no lure, that
protection from disgrace counted as nothing, that only one thing had
existence and meaning for her. And even as this passed through her mind,
Robin's answer repeated it.
"I will do it whether it is difficult or not," she said, "but--" she
actually got up from her ottoman with a quiet soft movement and stood
before them--not a defiant young figure, only simple and elementally
sweet-- "I am not ashamed," she said. "I am not ashamed and _I_ do not
matter at all."
There was that instant written upon Coombe's face--so far at least as
his old friend was concerned--his response to the significance of this.
It was the elemental thing which that which moved him required; it was
what the generations and centuries of the house of Coombe required--a
primitive creature unashamed and with no cowardice or weak vanity
lurking in its being. The Duchess recognised it in the brief moment of
almost breathless silence which followed.
"You are very splendid, child," he said after it, "though you are not at
all conscious of it."
"Sit down again." The Duchess put out a hand which drew Robin still
nearer to her. "Explain to her now," she said.
Robin's light soft body rested against her when it obeyed. It responded
to more than the mere touch of her hand; its yielding was to something
which promised kindness and even comfort--that something which Dowie and
Mademoiselle had given in those days which now seemed to have belonged
to another world. But though she leaned against the Duchess' knee she
still lifted her eyes to Lord Coombe.
"This is what I must ask you to listen to," he said. "We believe what
you have told us but we know that no one else will--without legal proof.
We also know that some form may have been neglected because all was done
in haste and ignorance of formalities. You can give no clue--the
ordinary methods of investigation are in confusion as the whole country
is. This is what remains for us to face. _You_ are not ashamed, but if
you cannot prove legal marriage Donal's son will know bitter
humiliation; he will be robbed of all he should possess--his life will
be ruined. Do you understand?"
"Yes," she answered without moving her eyes from his face. She seemed to
him again as he stood before her in the upper room of Lady Etynge's
house when, in his clear aloof voice, he had told her that he had come
to save her. He had saved her then, but now it was not she who needed
saving.
"There is only one man who can give Donal's child what his father would
have given him," he went on.
"Who is he?" she asked.
"I am the man," he answered, and he stood quite still.
"How--can you do it?" she asked again.
"I can marry you," his clear, aloof voice replied.
"You!--You!--You!" she only breathed it out--but it was a cry.
Then he held up his hand as if to calm her.
"I told you in the wood that hatred was useless now and that your reason
for hating me had no foundation. I know how you will abhor what I
suggest. But it will not be as bad as it seems. You need not even endure
the ignominy of being known as the Marchioness of Coombe. But when I am
dead Donal's son will be my successor. It will not be held against him
that I married his beautiful young mother and chose to keep the matter a
secret. I have long been known as a peculiar person given to arranging
my affairs according to my own liking. The Head of the House of
Coombe"--with an ironic twitch of the mouth--"will have the law on his
side and will not be asked for explanations. A romantic story will add
to public interest in him. If your child is a daughter she will be
protected. She will not be lonely, she will have friends. She will have
all the chances of happiness a girl naturally longs for--all of them.
Because you are her mother."
Robin rose and stood before him as involuntarily as she had risen
before, but now she looked different. Her hands were wrung together and
she was the blanched embodiment of terror. She remembered things
Fräulein Hirsh had said.
"I could not marry you--if I were to be killed because I didn't," was
all she could say. Because marriage had meant only Donal and the dream,
and being saved from the world this one man had represented to her girl
mind.
"You say that because you have no doubt heard that it has been rumoured
that I have a depraved old man's fancy for you and that I have always
hoped to marry you. That is as false as the other story I denied. I am
not in love with you even in an antediluvian way. You would not marry me
for your own sake. That goes without saying. But I will repeat what I
said in the Wood when you told me you would believe me. There is
Something--not you--not Donal--to be saved from suffering."
"That is true," the Duchess said and put out her hand as before. "And
there is something longer drawn out and more miserable than mere
dying--a dreary outcast sort of life. We know more about such things
than you do."
"You may better comprehend my action if I add a purely selfish reason
for it," Coombe went on. "I will give you one. I do not wish to be the
last Marquis of Coombe."
He took from the table a piece of paper. He had actually made notes upon
it.
"Do not be alarmed by this formality," he said. "I wish to spare words.
If you consent to the performance of a private ceremony you will not be
required to see me again unless you yourself request it. I have a quiet
place in a remote part of Scotland where you can live with Dowie to take
care of you. Dowie can be trusted and will understand what I tell her.
You will be safe. You will be left alone. You will be known as a young
widow. There are young widows everywhere."
Her eyes had not for a moment left his. By the time he had ended they
looked immense in her thin and white small face. Her old horror of him
had been founded on a false belief in things which had not existed, but
a feeling which has lasted almost a lifetime has formed for itself an
atmosphere from whose influence it is not easy to escape. And he stood
now before her looking as he had always looked when she had felt him to
be the finely finished embodiment of evil. But--
"You are--doing it--for Donal," she faltered.
"You yourself would be doing it for Donal," he answered.
"Yes. And--I do not matter."
"Donal's wife and the mother of Donal's boy or girl matters very much,"
he gave back to her. He did not alter the impassive aloofness of his
manner, knowing that it was better not to do so. An astute nerve
specialist might have used the same method with a patient.
There was a moment or so of silence in which the immense eyes gazed
before her almost _through_ him--piteously.
"I will do anything I am told to do," she said at last. After she had
said it she turned and looked at the Duchess.
The Duchess held out both her hands. They were held so far apart that it
seemed almost as if they were her arms. Robin swept towards the broad
footstool but reaching it she pushed it aside and knelt down laying her
face upon the silken lap sobbing soft and low.
"All the world is covered with dead--beautiful boys!" her sobbing said.
"All alone and dead--dead!"