“Do you think it wise for me to go in?” asked Goddard.
“She has been asking for you,” said the nurse. “It may do her good; but
don’t speak to her.”
“Then she has definitely turned the corner.”
“Yes; at last. But her recovery depends upon absolute quiet. It is
the heart now. A sudden excitement, and then”--she snapped her
fingers--“syncope.”
“That is to say--sudden death.”
“Of course,” said the nurse.
“I shall merely sit by her side for ten minutes,” said Daniel. “You are
sure it will please her?”
“It will be a sign of forgiveness,” said the nurse. She sighed. “Ah!
poor thing! I’ll go and prepare her.”
Goddard sat down wearily in the stiffly furnished drawing-room to await
his summons, and rested his head in his hands. He was very tired. The
strain, mental and physical, of the past three months had told upon him.
His face was worn and yellow, and his eyes were rather too bright for
health. A strange thing for him, he had been driven to seek medical
advice for insomnia. The prescription was immediate rest and change. He
shrugged his shoulders. After the election, perhaps.
Intense political feeling prevailed in the division. Goddard’s influence
was such as to leave none lukewarm. The conflict was raging fiercely.
One of the heaviest polls on record was anticipated. The strain of
candidature would have been great in ordinary circumstances. Coming as
it did upon an already over-worked man, it was dangerous. And then
there was Lizzie’s illness. He had already come to town several times
to satisfy himself that all was being done for her that money and skill
could accomplish. It had been a matter of feverish anxiety lest any act
of omission on his part should endanger her recovery.
He sat with his head in his hands, staring at the pattern of the carpet,
too tired to think coherently. To-morrow was polling day. He would have
to get back that evening. By the registers he ought to get in. “Daniel
Goddard, M.P.”--a name to conjure with in a few years’ time. And yet
there was something missing. He knew what it was only too well. It might
have been. He would have seen her in Hough to-morrow--eager, radiant,
driving about the polling-booths, wearing his colours. And if he
won--the joy of standing before her in his victory! But the other
picture rose up before him. All through the election he had been haunted
by the two women. He had wrestled with passionate desires. One night,
when news had come that Lizzie lay between life and death, a horrible,
overwhelming longing that she might die had kept him awake till the
morning, when he rose and took the first train to town, to assure
himself that no stone was being left unturned in order to save her.
He remembered now some of Emily’s descriptions of the horrors of that
bed-side, and he shivered. Thank God it was over. She wanted to see him.
Perhaps this might mark a change in their lives. He wondered whether she
knew anything of the election. Perhaps she might take a pride in being
the wife of a Member of Parliament. But what good could it do her? It
would not bring fresh interests into her life. Yes, it was hopeless.
Any common woman in the street would be as fit a companion for him. And
again the longing for the companionship he had lost came upon him, and
his thoughts, in his weary mood, lingered over the witchery of her odd
name--Rhodanthe.
“I am sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Goddard,” said the nurse,
coming in. “There were some odds and ends to do in the room. You’ll be
very, very quiet, won’t you?”
“You are sure there is no danger?” asked Goddard.
The nurse smiled at his insistence.
“Don’t speak to her or make her talk. That is all,” she said.
Goddard entered the sick-room on tiptoe. At the door Emily met him on
her way out, and whispered a caution not to stay too long. He went to
the bedside. Lizzie was lying very still and white. The flesh had left
her cheeks; they were pinched, her features sharp, the skin drawn away
tight against the bones. Her colourless lips hung loose; her teeth
were prominent--a death’s head rather than a living woman. Goddard was
shocked to the heart. He scarcely recognised her. Not only did he fail
to see in her any traces of the girl he had once thought to love, but
also she was no longer the woman he had hated.
“So you’ve come,” she whispered, moving a feeble hand.
He took it in his, tried to smile to reassure her. Her lips moved again.
“Won’t you kiss me?”
Her voice had not changed. It lessened the strange sense of
unfamiliarity with which he had been regarding her. There was an
involuntary touch of peevishness in the tone. He bent down and kissed
her cheek.
“Make haste and get well, Lizzie,” he said in a low voice.
She seemed satisfied with this, for she half closed her eyes, and let
her hand slip from his on to the counterpane. Daniel sat down in the
chair facing the small table by the bedside, on which were a bottle of
medicine and glass, a bunch of violets in water, and her Bible. This
last was a beautifully bound volume, edged with brass, and closed with
a heavy clasp. Daniel had given it to her in the early days of their
marriage, when she was eager to surround herself with all the obvious
essentials of gentility. He had learned lately from Emily’s chatter how
she had insisted upon this Bible being placed near her. “As if the Holy
Book could charm away the other things,” Emily had said in an awed tone.
The sight of it carried his thoughts back. Only once before had he sat
by her side like this--in this very room, too. She had been very white
and still then, but young and fresh, with gladness in her eyes that had
awakened within him an answering thrill. And there had been a little
wee pink thing at her breast. It had fluffy black down on its head,
he remembered. In this room, too, it had died three years later of
diphtheria. The room’s associations grew upon him. It was here that he
had first come by the knowledge of the curse of her life. She was lying
speechless one evening on the bed. He had bent over her unsuspectingly,
and then started back with a horrible spasm of disgust. Involuntarily
now he raised his head and looked at her. Her eyes were open, staring
at the ceiling. His fancy seemed to read in them the lingering horrors
through which she had passed. He shuddered, thanked God that the child
had died. The hereditary poison must have lurked in its young veins.
To shake off these thoughts he rose, stirred the fire into a blaze, and
returned to his seat. Then, moved by compunction--for this was a visit
of forgiveness--he stretched out his arm and smoothed the back of her
hand. A look of gratefulness appeared on her face, and she closed her
eyes again. Daniel’s heart softened a little towards her.
The minutes passed slowly. He grew restless, wished that the nurse or
Emily would come and relieve him. A sick-room, where one has to sit
perfectly still, is not the place for a man suffering from nervous
excitement. His eyes fell again on the Bible. He had not seen his gift
for years. There was a certain pathos in her desire to have it near her.
He took it up, undid the clasp, and looked at the fly-leaf. “To my dear
wife.” He sighed. He had tried to delude himself in those days that he
loved her. Could he ever write such an inscription again? He shook his
head, as the ever-haunting face of the other woman came between his eyes
and the leaf. He turned the pages. They fell open, naturally, where a
letter had been placed. The back of the envelope was turned to him. He
thought it was one of his own to his wife, and felt touched by the idea
of her keeping it there. He took it up curiously, but as his glance fell
on the address he started with great amazement. It was in Lady Phayre’s
handwriting--bore only his name. It had been opened. He himself surely
had never received such a letter. With heart furiously beating and
trembling fingers, he drew out the enclosure.
“_Go, my hero and leader of men, to your victory. And if you love me,
come back to me for your reward--whatsoever your heart desireth.
“Rhodanthe._”
For a few moments he remained staring at the paper, unable to
comprehend. Then the truth crashed down upon him--both the letter’s
significance and the probable history of its miscarriage. His brain
reeled. She loved him. The note of passion in the words drowned his
senses like a great diapason. She loved him. But for this other woman
she would be his. He rose from his chair, turning his back to his wife,
and put his hand to his forehead. His instinct was to fly from her
presence. The smouldering hatred had sprung into fierce flame. He made a
few steps by the foot of the bed, then stopped and looked at her. Their
eyes met. He saw that she had been following his movements from the time
he had first opened the Bible. A wave of gathering madness clouded his
brain, surged red before his eyes. Remaining sanity bade him rush from
the room if she was to live. An explosion of his passion would kill her.
But the expression of excitement and fear on her peaked, livid face read
in his disordered brain as one of mocking triumph. It swept away the
lingering self-control. He strode round to her side, lifted his arms
above his head, clenching the letter and shaking with passion, let loose
all the fury in his soul in a low, hoarse cry.
Lizzie rose to a sitting posture, gazed at him for a moment, an
awful terror in her eyes, and then, with a gasp, fell back on her
pillow--dead.
How long he stood there, as if petrified, he never knew. When he
recovered reason he wiped the great drops of perspiration from his
forehead, thrust the letter into his pocket, and rushed from the room.
“Emily! Nurse!” he shouted from the top of the landing; and when they
appeared hurriedly from the dining-room, “Come up at once: I think
Lizzie is dead.”
The women ran up the stairs.
“Go to her. I will fetch Dr. Carson,” he cried, brushing past them.
He caught up a hat from the hall, and in another moment was out of
doors. This pretext for absence and solitude was an inspiration. She
was dead. He was free. He had killed her. He did not notice that an icy,
heavy rain was sweeping the streets. He had killed her for Rhodanthe.
Rhodanthe was his: he had bought her with his soul. He bit his lips
to prevent himself from crying aloud. The rare passers-by turned round
scared at his wild face and furious gait.
The calm of the doctor’s waiting-room was a check, and allowed him to
concentrate his scattered faculties. When the medical man appeared,
alert and matter of fact, he was master of himself. He explained his
errand. He had been sitting with his wife, had idly reached for her
Bible by the bedside. She had sprang up to prevent him. The exertion had
killed her. He had looked through the Bible, found a letter written to
him which she had guarded through jealousy. The explanation was simple
and satisfactory, yet he felt deadly faint.
“You are upset,” said Dr. Carson, who had known him for several years.
“You have been burning the candle at both ends lately. Drink this while
I go and put on my coat.” He poured him out a glass of brandy, which he
took from a cupboard. Goddard gulped it down neat. The spirit saved him
from the threatening collapse and braced his nerves.
He accompanied the doctor to his own house in silence, left him at the
dining-room door to go upstairs to the bedroom, and entering, sat down
to wait. When the doctor returned, it was with a great effort that
Goddard compelled himself to look him in the eyes.
“I am afraid your wife is dead,” said the doctor gravely.
“And I am indirectly the cause,” said Goddard.
The other moved a deprecating hand. “Don’t let that add to your sadness.
Any other chance accident might have done it. Besides, may I speak to
you frankly?”
“By all means.”
“Then--if it will not pain you--it is better so.”
“Would she never have recovered?”
“Her health was shattered. In all probability she would have broken out
again. She and you have been spared some years of certain misery.”
“Then I have done a good action from a philosophical point of view?”
said Goddard, with a harsh laugh.
“If you put it that way, you have,” replied he doctor, somewhat stiffly.
“Look here, Carson,” cried Goddard excitedly. “I can’t tell you that I
am grieved she had gone. Don’t expect me to play the hypocrite.”
“I expect nothing but the misfortune of having you upon my hands in a
short time,” said the other.
“Then let me speak to you once and for all--as a medical man: I must
speak to somebody. These last few weeks I have been in hell fire. I
hated her. I wanted her to die. I used to wake up at nights wet through
with sweat, through the terror of it. I have been to blame throughout
from the first cursed day I married her. I didn’t love her; she didn’t
care much for me. I had to go my way: she couldn’t follow me. How
could she? She was left alone here all by herself--no company, no
occupations--nothing. You know her history--her father. The drink was in
her blood. I tried to save her--after my fashion. You, who have
attended her for the last eight years, can bear me out. But we were
strangers--not an impulse in common. Latterly--listen: I must tell some
one once, or I shall go mad. I knew what a woman could be--what it was
to want a woman passionately, madly. She came here one night, discovered
I was married--saw my wife drunk in this room. Since then my wife has
been like an incubus throttling me, dragging me down to damnation. And I
wanted her to die. In that room upstairs, an hour ago, when I kissed
her and forgave her, I wanted her to die. When the moment came it was
as though I had murdered her. Tell me, what am I to think? What am I to
do?”
His features were working strangely, his brow damp with the black hair
straggling across it. He looked at Carson with a searching appeal in his
eyes. The latter took his hand, felt his pulse.
“What you are to do,” he said, “is to go to bed at once and sleep. I’ll
send you round a draught. What you are to think, when you wake up, is
that you are not responsible for her death--that she might have died at
any moment, that it is better to die than to live a life of misery;
that you are a free man, young, with all that makes life worth living
in front of you. And lastly, if you like, that I have forgotten all you
have told me. Now, go to bed and stay there.”
“Impossible,” cried Goddard. “The election.”
“Damn the election!” said the doctor.
“I must go back to-day.”
“And----?”
“I’ll make the arrangements,” replied Goddard with a shiver. “To-day is
Tuesday. It will be for Friday. The poll will be declared at latest on
Thursday morning. I must be there. Man alive!” he cried, with a queer
tremor in his voice. “I cannot stay in this house! It would drive me
mad. To sit here doing nothing--nothing--only thinking. I must go back.
It will occupy my mind. There are two women in this house--the dead one
who is living, and the living one who is dead--has been dead to me. If
ever action and stimulus have been necessary to me, they are imperative
now. I must do it, man, I tell you--I must do it.”
He began to walk about the room in a state of restless excitement,
now and then moistening his lips with his tongue, and passing his hand
through his hair. Dr. Carson reasoned with him. He was a young man, and
felt himself powerless before Goddard’s stronger personality. By virtue
of mere professional prestige you cannot force a man to follow your
prescriptions. Goddard impetuously swept aside his arguments. At last he
stopped short, as if struck by a sudden inspiration.
“I tell you what, Carson, I’ll promise to start at once for the south of
France, as soon as this miserable business is over, and not do a stroke
of work for a month.”
“That’s the only sensible thing you have said to-day,” returned the
other, more cheerily. “You’d better let me see you again before you go.”
They parted. Goddard stumbled heavily upstairs to his own room, threw
himself on the bed, and lay there, holding his burning head in his
hands.
And Emily sat in the death-chamber and cried, the only soul on the wide
earth who had love for the poor, wrecked creature that was dead, for
Sophie, her sister, had never had a word of good to say on Lizzie’s
behalf. She alone knew and pitied the miserable tragedy of that poor,
futile life.