A few days after he got a letter from Lizzie, saying she was alone
and ill, and asking him to come and see her. He took the next train to
Brighton. The land-lady's daughter, a girl of about twelve, opened the
door to him.
“How is Miss Baker? Is she any better?”
“Please, sir, she is not at all well, she has cold shivers; and mother
went away yesterday.”
“And who looks after Miss Baker?”
“Please, sir, I do.”
“You do! Is there no one else in the house?”
“No, sir.”
“Is Miss Baker in bed?”
“No, sir. She said she would get up a little while this afternoon,
'cause she said she thought you was coming.”
“Go and tell her I am here.”
“Please, sir, she said you was to go upstairs--the back room on the
second floor, please.”
“Come in.”
“I am so sorry you are ill, Lizzie. What is the matter?”
“I don't know; I think I caught a severe chill. I stayed out very late
on the beach.”
“But why are you crying? Do tell me. Can I do anything?”
“No no. What does it matter whether I laugh or cry? Nothing matters now.
I don't care what becomes of me.”
“A pretty girl like you; nonsense! Some one rich and grand will fall in
love with you, and give you everything you want.”
“I don't want any one to fall in love with me; I am done for--don't care
what becomes of me.”
“Do tell me about it. Have you heard anything further about him? Do tell
me; don't cry like that.”
“No, no, leave me, leave me! I am so miserable. I don't know why I wrote
to you. I hope I shall die.”
“It is very lucky you did write to me, for you are clearly very ill.
What is the matter?”
“I don't know; I can't get warm. This room is very cold--don't you think
so?”
“Cold? No.”
“I feel cold; my throat is very bad--perhaps I shall be better in the
morning.”
“You must see a doctor.”
“Oh, no! I don't want to see a doctor.”
“You must see a doctor.”
“No, no, I beg of you. I only wrote to you because I was feeling so
miserable.”
Lizzie stood between him and the door, imploring him not to fetch a
doctor, but to go away at once, and to tell no one she had written
to him, or that he had been to see her. “Nothing matters now--I am
ruined--I don't care what becomes of me.” He marvelled; but soon all
considerations were swept away in anxiety for her bodily health; and
having extorted a promise from her that she would not leave the room
until he came back, he rushed to the nearest chemist and hence to the
doctor.
“I want you to come at once, if possible, and see a young lady who,
I fear, is dangerously ill. She has not been in Brighton long. She is
quite alone. She sent for me. I live at Southwick. I came out at once.
I have known her a long time. I may say she is a great friend of mine.
I found her very ill--I must say her condition seems to me alarming. I
should like her to see a doctor at once. Can you come at once?”
“I am just finishing dinner. I will come in about ten minutes' time.
What is the address?”
“20 Preston Street.--I hope he does not think there is anything wrong,”
thought Frank. “He look's as if he did,” and with a view of removing
suspicion, he said: “She is a young lady whom I have known for some
years. We had lost sight of each other until we travelled down in the
train together. I say this because I do not wish you to think there is
anything wrong.”
“My good sir, I should not allow myself to have any opinions on the
matter. I am summoned to attend a patient, and I give the best advice in
my power.”
“Yes, but one can't help forming opinions--a beautiful young girl living
alone in lodgings, and having apparently for sole protector a young man,
are circumstances that might be easily misconstrued, and as I am engaged
to be married, I think it right to tell you exactly how I stand in
relation to this young woman.”
The doctor bowed.
“Do you not think I did well in making this explanation?”
“It can do no harm; we medical men see so much that we take no notice
of anything but our patient. But tell me something of this young lady's
suffering. Can you describe the symptoms?”
“She has a racking headache--she is shivering all over--she sits by the
fire and cannot get warm. It looks to me as if it were fever.”
“Does she complain of her throat?”
“Yes; she cannot swallow.”
“Probably an attack of quinsy.”
“Is that dangerous?”
“No; but it is infectious.”
“I don't mind about that--she is alone. I will see her through it.”
“I will go round to Preston Street immediately I have finished
dinner--in about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour.”
When the doctor had seen Lizzie, he said to Frank, who accompanied him
downstairs: “Just as I expected--quinsy. She will take from eight to ten
days to get well. We have taken it in time, that's one good thing. The
throat is very bad. She must have a linseed poultice, and she must use
the gargle. Is there any one in the house who can attend to her?”
“I am afraid not; the landlady went away this morning, leaving no one in
the house but that child. She will, I hope, be home to-morrow.”
“In that case you had better have a nurse in; I will give you the
address of one.”
When Frank returned he found her lying on the bed weeping. As before,
she refused to tell him the cause of her grief. She would make no other
answer than that nothing mattered now, that she didn't care what became
of her; and when he spoke of going to fetch a nurse, she waved her hands
excitedly, declaring she would on no consideration stop in the house
with a woman she didn't know. And, hardly able to decide what course he
should take, he promised not to leave her; she clung about him, and he
was forced to send the child (whose name he now found to be Emma) to
the chemist for the linseed, and he wrote a note asking for explicit
directions how it should be used. Then he had to persuade Lizzie to go
to bed. She resisted him, and it was with great difficulty that he got
her boots and stockings off; then she collected her strength, unbuttoned
her dress, and took off her stays. Then she said: “Go out of the room
for a moment.”
He found his way into the kitchen, and guessing that hot water would
be required, he lit a fire. But there was no muslin, and he had to send
Emma for some. Lizzie smiled faintly when they entered--Frank with a
basin, Emma with a kettle and a parcel of linen. Frank poured some rum
into a glass, and beat an egg up with it.
“What is that?” she asked; and her voice was so faint and hoarse that he
turned, quite startled.
“Something that will do your throat good and keep your strength up.
Possibly you will not be able to eat much to-morrow.” He held the
tumbler to her lips, and at length succeeded in getting her to drink it.
“Emma, is the kettle boiling?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You had better go downstairs and get some coals, and if you can't find
any nightlights you must go out and buy a box. Have you got any money
over?”
“Yes, sir, sixpence.”
“Now, Lizzie, let me put this on your throat. Throw your head well back.
There, it isn't too hot?”
And all that night he sat by her bedside. Often she could not get her
breath, and he had to lift her and prop her up with pillows; and four
times he lit the candle, and, with tired eyes, mixed the meal and placed
it on her throat. The firelight played upon the ceiling, the kettle sang
softly, the sufferer moaned, the light brought the rumble of a cart,
and they awoke from shallow sleeps that blurred but did not extinguish
consciousness of the actual present. “You must not uncover yourself; you
will catch cold. Let me pin this shawl about you.” About eight o'clock
Emma knocked at the door. Frank asked her to make him a cup of tea.
The morning dragged along amid many anxieties, for he could see she was
worse than she had been over night.
“The disease must take its course,” said the doctor; “we shall be
fortunate if by poulticing we can stop it; if we can't, it will come to
a head in about eight or nine days' time, and then it will break. Did
you see the nurse last night? Couldn't she come?”
“She,” said Frank, pointing to the sufferer, “wouldn't allow me to send
for her; she said she would not stay in the house with a strange woman.
She was very excited; I fancy she has had some great mental trouble--a
sweetheart, I suppose. I did not like to cross her. I thought I could
nurse her; I did my best. Was the poultice all right?”
“Quite right. But you will have to sit up with her to-night. You will be
very tired; you had better get in a nurse.”
“I think I shall be able to manage. The landlady is expected home this
evening or to-morrow morning. What had she better have to eat?”
“She won't be able to eat anything for some days. Try to get her to take
an egg beat up in a wine-glass of rum.”
Hourly she grew worse, and on the following day Frank stood by her bed
momentarily fearing that she would suffocate; once her face blackened
and he had to seize and lift her out of bed, and place her in a chair.
When she seemed a little easier he called Emma, and they made the bed
and cleaned up the room together. Then he ate a sausage and drank a
glass of beer that had been brought from the public-house.
The first night had seemed long and weary, but now the hours passed
quickly; he had forgotten all but the suffering woman, and in the
interest of inducing her to swallow some beef-tea, in the pride of such
successes another and then another day fled lightly. Nor did he feel
tired as he had done, and now a nap in an arm-chair seemed all that
he required. So the landlady came as an unwelcome interruption of an
absorbing occupation. Haggard and unshaven, he returned to Southwick,
where he found a note on his table from General Horlock, asking him to
dinner that evening.
“I know the meaning of this: Maggie will be there--a reconciliation! Can
I?” He turned his ear quickly from his conscience; he was frightened of
the voice that would tell him that Maggie was nothing to him, never had
been, never could be; that he had been born for Lizzie Baker, as the
soldier is for the sword or the bullet that kills him; others had passed
him, had been heard sharply, had gleamed dangerously in his eyes. They
were but signs and omens meant for others, not for him, and they had
passed. But this one had remained, though often lost, as that remains
which is to be, and she was now no less for him than before, though
now seemingly lost irrevocably to another; and in all the seeming of
irrevocable loss was drawing nearer--not with the victory and destiny of
old in her eyes, but with no less victory and destiny inherent in her.
Though far from him, she had been for long a disintegrated influence,
but what had been distant was now near, and all was yielding like a ship
in the attraction of the fabulous loadstone mountain. That room!--the
wash-hand-stand, the dirty panes of glass, the iron bed-there his fate
had been sealed. That body which he had lifted out of bed still lay
heavy in his arms. He still breathed the odour of the hair he had
gathered from the pillow and striven to pin up; those eyes of limpid
blue, pale as water where isles are sleeping, burned deep and livid in
his soul; the touch and sight of that flesh, the sound of that voice,
those tears, the solicitude and anxiety of those hours of night and day
conspired against him, and his life was big with incipient overthrow.
Lizzie was with him at all times. He saw her eyes, then her teeth, and
the perfume and touch of her hair was often about him; and yet he was
hardly conscious that a revolution of feeling was in progress within
him; and when the time came for him to go to Horlock's he went there
avoiding all thoughts of Maggie, although he knew he would be called
upon that night to take a decisive step. He saw little of her before
dinner, and during dinner the General's allusions to the quarrels of
lovers being the renewal of love vexed him, and he thought, “Confound
it! If I want to make it up I will; but I am not going to be bullied
into it.” When the ladies left the room he found it difficult to pretend
to the kind-hearted old soldier that he did not believe that Maggie
would forgive him. “Forgive me for what? I have done nothing.”
“To get on with women you must always admit you are in the wrong--ha,
ha, ha!” laughed the General; “now I have it from my wife--women know
everything--ha, ha, ha!” laughed the General. “Have another glass of
sherry?”
“No, thanks; couldn't take any more.”
“I took I won't tell you how many glasses before I proposed to my wife,
and then I was afraid; enough to make me--a clever woman like Mrs.
Horlock, I believe you wouldn't find a woman in England like
Mrs. Horlock. Look round; all that's her work. Look at that white
Arab--exactly like him. I won five hundred pounds with that horse; but I
wouldn't be satisfied, and I ran him again the following day and lost
it all and five hundred more with it. I had another horse. My wife
is modelling him in wax; she will show it to you in the next room.
Marvellous woman!”
Passing Maggie by who was sitting in the window, Frank inveigled Mrs.
Horlock into an anatomical discussion. The General stretched out
his feet, put on his spectacles, and took up the _St James's_.
The conversation dropped, and, full of apprehension and expecting
reconciliation, Frank went to Maggie and talked to her of the tennis
parties he was going to, of the people he had seen--of indifferent
things. The time was tense with the fate of their lives. Once she turned
her head and sighed. Time slipped by, and still they talked of their
friends--of things they knew perfectly. Maggie said: “I hope you are not
angry; I hope we shall remain friends.” Frank replied: “I hope so,”
and again the conversation paused. The General denounced Gladstone, and
praised his wife's sculpture. Ten o'clock! Angel was lifted out of his
basket. If Maggie had been Helen and Southwick Troy, he would not be
kept waiting; the dogs had to be taken out; Willy came to fetch Maggie;
hands were tendered, lips said good-bye, and, with a sense of parting,
they parted.
Feeling adrift and strangely alone, he walked to his lodging. His future
loomed up in his mind as vague and as illusive as the village that now
glared through the mist, white and phantasmal. He did not regret--we can
hardly regret the impossible. Then, falling back on a piece of prose,
he said: “Where was the good? Mount Rorke would never have given his
consent. Poor Lizzie; I hope she is better. I hope it has broken. She
won't get any relief until it does.”
And next day, towards evening, he went to Brighton. He found her
shrinking over the fire, wrapped in a woollen shawl.
“How are you to-day? You look a little better. I did not expect to find
you out of bed.”
“I am better, thank you; it broke yesterday, and I feel relieved. You
are very good. I think I should have died if it had not been for you.
Think of that landlady leaving me in the way she did.”
“What was the reason? Why did she rush off in that way?”
“She went to town to see her sister, and she says she was taken ill. She
drinks.”
“Does she? I hope she looked after you yesterday?”
“Oh, yes.”
“As well as I did?”
“I don't know about that; you are a very good nurse. It was very good of
you; no one else would have done it.”
“What, not even _he_?”
“You were with me for four days, and you never even went to bed--never
took your clothes off.”
“Never even washed myself. By George! I was glad to get home and have a
good wash. I was a sorry-looking object--haggard and unshaven.”
“Where did you say you had been to?”
“Nobody asked me.”
“Not Maggie?”
“No; I didn't tell you our engagement is broken off.”
“No; you didn't say nothing about it.”
“On account of you. She discovered that you had been to my studio, and
she said I was keeping a woman in Brighton.”
“Keeping a woman in Brighton--she thinks you are keeping me! I will
write to her and tell her that it is not true. What right has she to say
such things about me?”
“She doesn't say it about you. She says a woman.”
“She means me.”
“No, she doesn't; she doesn't know anything about you. Some one told her
I went into Brighton every day by the four o'clock train, and she put
two and two or rather two and three together, and said it was six.”
“But I will write to her. I will not be the cause of any one's marriage
being broken off.”
“You need not trouble. I saw her last night, and I could have made it
all right had I chosen--she was quite willing.”
“You can't care for her!”
“I suppose not. I don't think I ever really loved her. I thought I did.
I was mistaken.”
“You are very changeable.”
“No, I don't think I am--at least not so far as you are concerned. I was
mistaken. I was in love with some one else--with you.”
“With me?”
“Yes, with you. I was in love with you when we went to Reading, and
never got over it. I thought I had, but when love is real we never get
over it. I always loved you, and those four days I spent nursing you
have brought it all out. I shall never love any one else. I know you
don't care for me; you said once you couldn't care for me.”
“I! I am too miserable to care for any one. I wish you had let me die;
but that is ungrateful. You must excuse me, I am so miserable. Why speak
of loving me? I can love no one. I don't care what becomes of me. I am
ruined; nothing matters now.”
“I wish you would confide in me; you can trust me. Has he forsaken you?
Can you not make it up?”
“No, never now; I shall never see him again.”
“Has anything happened lately, since you came to Brighton?”
Lizzie nodded.
“Don't cry like that; tell me about it.”
“What's the use? Nothing matters now.”
“Has he been here?”
Lizzie nodded, and Frank folded the shawl about her, and wiped her tears
away with his pocket handkerchief. “Since you were ill?”
“No, before I was ill; he was down here watching me. He found out I had
gone to your studio, and he said the most dreadful things--that he would
break your head, and that I had never been true to him, and that I was
not fit to be the wife of an honest man.”
“But I will tell him that you came to my studio to sit for your
portrait.”
“No, you mustn't write; it would only make matters worse. No use; he
says he will never see me again.”
“Where can I see him? Has he gone back to London? I will follow him and
tell him he is mistaken.”
“No, please don't, and please don't go to the 'Gaiety'; he is a violent-
tempered man; something dreadful might occur. Please, promise me.”
“Not go to the 'Gaiety'? He doesn't know me.”
“Yes, he does.”
“Have I seen him? Do tell me; you know you can trust me. I am your
friend. Tell me--”
“You have seen him in the 'Gaiety,' in the grill-room--the waiter,
number two, the good-looking tall man.”
“Oh!”
“He wasn't always a waiter; his people are very superior. He has been
unfortunate.”
“And it was he you loved this long while?”
“I never cared for another man.”
“I must write and tell him he is committing an act of injustice. I will
make this matter right for you, Lizzie.”
“Do you think you can?”
“I am sure of it.”
He rang for the landlady, and asked for writing materials. She
apologised for the penny bottle of ink, and spoke of getting a table
from the next room, but he said he could write very well on the
chimney-piece. “I suppose I had better begin, 'Sir'?”
“Don't people generally begin, 'Dear Sir'?”
“Not when they don't know the people they are writing to.”
“But you do know him a little. He always said you were very haughty. You
used to sit at his table.”
“I think I had better begin the letter with 'Sir.'”
“Very well. You know best. He was always very jealous.”