Philip let them pass, and then took up his post of observation again;
but when he saw them open the case that contained the shining steel
instruments and little sponges, the needles and all the apparatus for
their operation; when he saw the surgeon sign to Dora to rise and, by a
touch firm and gentle, direct her to leave the bedroom, Philip could
bear up no longer, all his courage forsook him. He fled to the library,
and there let his choking tears have way. Wretched and forsaken, he
broke down utterly.
"O God!" he cried, "it is too much; I have not deserved such
punishment."
Gabrielle was a great help to the doctors, and prompt and reliable in
her movements--a nurse of the first order. She watched with a calm,
clear vision the work of the bistoury on the little throat, and knew
exactly when to hand the implements necessary, as the work proceeded,
and earned the compliment of the surgeon thereupon; but it was not
merely her nurse's intelligence that was at work, it was her love for
the child she ached to save.
The preparation being completed, the surgeon with a hand at once deft
and rapid, introduced the tube into the trachea. Eva opened her eyes
almost immediately. A flush of living colour returned to her face, and
she breathed freely again. The tube was then bandaged into place, and a
long silk hankerchief tied firmly round the throat. Soon the child's
face lost its aspect of deathly struggle, and put on a smiling look of
profound relief and happy peace. Her countenance lit up with a seraphic
light; it was as though the child's soul had just been wafted back to
its dwelling-place from a visit to paradise.
When all was done, Dora was fetched and shown the success of the
operation.
"Then she is saved!" she cried, clasping her hands and lifting to heaven
a glance of thanksgiving.
"Not yet," said the doctor; "there remains the morbid action to cure;
but there is hope, every hope. Only you must watch the child with
extreme attention; she must not be left for a moment. She must not be
allowed to move for some time. If the tube got displaced, or if the
heart, which is very feeble, should receive the least shock, everything
would be over in a moment. But," added he, "I confide your child to this
lady's care," indicating Gabrielle; "I have seldom met with a nurse so
gifted. Rely in all security upon her; I have given her my instructions,
and she knows to the full the importance of them."
The surgeon bowed to Dora, and departed.
Dora returned to the bedside on tiptoe, and, placing her finger on her
lips, made signs to Eva that she was to keep perfectly quiet; then,
throwing her a kiss and a smile of a guardian angel, she sat down beside
the child. Her face betrayed no sign of weakness, expressed neither
grief nor despair; it was scarcely sad. She had the look of a man who
throws himself into the sea, to try and save some beloved friend in
deadly peril of drowning.
Philip did not go to bed. He begged Gabrielle to come two or three times
during the night to tell him how the child fared, and he remained in the
library. Dora watched all night by Eva's bed. She was valiant, and
inspired others with her own brave spirit. She had thrown aside the
thought of all that had happened in the drawing-room a few hours
before; far, indeed, from her thoughts was the man who had insulted her,
and who no longer existed in her thoughts--the distracted mother had
swamped the indignant woman. It was with death that she had to fight
now, and she fought with a _sang-froid_ and a courage that were the
astonishment and admiration of all who surrounded her.
The morning and the afternoon passed without new disquieting symptoms
arising, and at night the doctor left his patient going on
satisfactorily.
The following morning, about seven o'clock, Dora, worn out with
excitement, had fallen into a dose.
Gabrielle went to tell Philip that Eva also was sleeping, and that such
sleep was a very good sign. Their hopes rose considerably. Philip could
not resist the longing he had to go and look upon his wife and child,
both sleeping calmly at last, unconscious of pain and anxiety. He crept
stealthily upstairs, opened very softly the door of the dear child's
room, and with loving eyes looked towards the bed. Unhappily, Eva had
just woke up. She saw in the doorway her father whom she loved, and had
not seen for several days; she raised herself eagerly and tried to
call, "Daddy." The little form fell back heavily upon the pillow.
When Gabrielle came into the room again, Dora was still sleeping. Eva
slept too, but it was the sleep from which none waken.
XV
THE SEPARATION
When Dora awoke, Gabrielle was standing at the bedside, motionless,
beautiful in her impassive grace, and looking like one of the angels
that painters represent at the bedside of children whose souls they have
come to bear to the abode of the seraphim.
Dora looked at Gabrielle, then at the child. With heartrending cry she
threw herself on Eva's body. The struggle was over, and she had lost the
battle. Her strength forsook her, all her being seemed to be crushed.
She slipped inanimate on the floor. They bore her to her own room,
where, for more than a week, she lay benumbed by her grief, unconscious
of everything, hovering between life and death. None but Gabrielle and
Hobbs were allowed access to her chamber. Philip was excluded by the
doctor's command. In her delirium the name of her husband was often on
her lips. "Philip," she would cry, "murderer! you have killed my child."
He had been indeed her murderer! involuntarily it is true, but
nevertheless he had killed her. If he had resisted his desire to look
upon his child, she would probably have recovered, surrounded as she was
by the most assiduous care. Her death had been accidental. In moving,
and in trying to lift her poor little fragile body into a sitting
posture, she had caused the derangement of the tube, and the heart had
been suddenly stopped. Choking and syncope instantly did their dreadful
work, and all was over.
Neither Dora nor Gabrielle ever knew, however, that Philip had been the
involuntary cause of Eva's death. He himself never suspected the
terrible truth.
"In spite of my injunctions," said the doctor, "the child has been
allowed to move herself. She must have sat up in bed."
The last words that Eva had said to her mother came back constantly to
Dora's memory. "How sad it is here! Oh, mama, how I wish we were in our
other house; you know, the one where we lived when we were happy." Poor
little darling! "When we were happy." A phrase like that in the mouth of
a child of five, intended by nature for joy and brightness, had made
Dora's heart bleed. The last words of the child were the irrevocable
sentence of the father. Tears might have relieved Dora's desolate heart,
and her faithful watchers hoped day by day for the crisis which never
came. But she lay in numb paralysing grief, and never a tear fell. Her
life was not in danger, but her reason was. The delirium continued day
and night. Often she did not know her two devoted nurses, Gabrielle and
Hobbs. Her utterances were mostly incoherent sentences in which three
names occurred constantly--Philip, Eva, Sabaroff. "Is that man gone?"
and she would seek upon her arm for traces of the loathed kisses he had
placed there. "Where is Philip? Gone too, no doubt." Then she would
resume: "Eva? Yes, I am alone, all alone; everybody is gone." The scene
quite unnerved the two dear women who were enforced spectators of it.
They would take her hands and kiss them--Gabrielle with affectionate
warmth, and Hobbs with the most touching respect.
The days dragged on, but the doctor did not despair. Dora's constitution
was so strong, her will so powerful, her courage so lofty always, that
there might be a crisis at any moment, and a favourable change might
well ensue. He counted upon help in the carrying out of anything he
might plan for the patient's good. He was well aware of all that had
been passing latterly in the house. He was the friend and confidant of
both husband and wife. Nothing had been hidden from him, not even the
scene between Sabaroff and Dora. He advised Philip to leave the house.
"You must do it," said he; "only time can cure your wife. Have patience.
Go away for a few days. She is dazed; an explanation would but irritate
her more--she is not in a state to listen. I quite expect to see her
recover her mental faculties as suddenly as she lost them. The strength
of her character is prodigious, and that strength will probably show
itself in some sudden decision. Do not cross her in anything," added he
to Gabrielle, who had come to receive his directions. "Whatever decision
she may take when the crisis is over, be very careful to fall in with
it. I do not despair of anything, neither for her nor for you, my dear
fellow," said he, shaking hands with Philip, in whose eyes tears were
glistening.
Philip consented to obey. He left his house, went to Paris for two days,
and on his return to London remained a week at the Alexandra Hotel, a
few yards from his house, which he visited twice or thrice a day for
news of Dora. We shall see later how he employed his time during these
few days of banishment.
* * * * *
Eva had been dead ten days. One morning, when Dora awoke from an
excellent night of ten hours' sleep, Gabrielle and Hobbs were astonished
to see their patient calm, and not only in full possession of her
faculties, but apparently strong and courageous. The evening before she
had wept for the first time, but the crisis had ended there.
Dora asked for breakfast. When Gabrielle reminded her that she had some
medicine to take first, Dora reiterated her demand in an imperative
fashion. "I tell you I am hungry," said she, and she not only asked for
her breakfast, but she chose her own food. Her orders were obeyed. She
ate a small boiled sole, an egg, and two slices of toast, and drank a
cup of tea. Gabrielle and Hobbs were fairly amazed. They looked at Dora,
they looked at each other, they could not believe their eyes. It was a
resurrection.
"I am going to get up," said Dora, when the tray had been removed.
"You cannot think of such a thing," said Gabrielle.
"I tell you, I am going to get up," repeated Dora; "I am better, much
better."
Her eyes shot lightning glances. Her two nurses were dumfounded, and
knew not what to do. The doctor had not yet arrived on his morning
round.
"Do have patience, ma'am. Wait at least until the doctor comes," said
Hobbs, thoroughly alarmed. And she insisted upon it that her mistress
must not get up until Dr. Templeton came.
"I shall not wait for anything," said Dora. "I tell you that I am going
to get up."
She left her bed, swayed for a moment on her feet; but presently,
standing bravely up without support of any kind, she said, with a
laugh--
"You see quite well that I am better. I am cured. I shall dress and go
out."
"But you are crazy," said Gabrielle.
"You are joking, ma'am," added Hobbs.
It is true that the doctor had told them to do nothing which might cross
her, but the two good women said to themselves: "Yet, if she wanted to
throw herself out of the window, we should certainly not let her do it.
And to go out in her present state is probably about as dangerous." They
did not know what to do. The doctor did not come. Still less did they
know what to think. Was Dora completely mad, or was this some marvellous
and mysterious metamorphosis? No, she was not mad. Dora possessed
something which has saved thousands of much-tried human beings from
spiritual and moral shipwreck, and has reattached them to life again.
She possessed that internal god whom the Greeks called _enthusiasm_,
that divine transport which, lifting the soul above itself, excites to
great resolutions and lofty actions.
Eva was no more. Philip was gone, and little she cared to know where.
She was free, mistress of her actions. She had no longer husband or
child. Well! there was still left to her a third motive for living, Art.
The mother and the wife had ceased to exist, but the artist was still
alive.
Gabrielle tried once more to dissuade Dora from going out, but without
success; no argument could influence her. She consented, however, that
Gabrielle should accompany her. She dressed herself without help. The
mourning raiment which had been ordered she had not yet been able to
have fitted, but she found in her wardrobe a black dress which served. A
hat which Hobbs in a few minutes trimmed with crape completed her
toilette. She did not appear to be in the least excited. She was calm,
deliberate, sure of each of her words, sure of each of her movements.
Gabrielle, who was under the influence of this powerful will, obeyed her
sister's most trivial wishes, and appeared to be completely reassured
about her. She begged her, however, for her own satisfaction, to let her
feel her pulse and take her temperature. The pulse was normal, and the
temperature did not indicate the least trace of fever. The case appeared
to her to be a most exceptional one, almost phenomenal in fact, but she
was reassured and much comforted. She no longer felt any anxiety,
especially as the morning promised to be fine, and the open air could
certainly do Dora nothing but good.
"Well! where are we going?" said Gabrielle, whose curiosity was keenly
aroused.
"To St. John's Wood," replied Dora.
"To St. John's Wood?"
"Yes, I am going to take a studio there. I have something left to me
still. I can paint, and paint I will!"
Gabrielle was amazed. She gazed with affectionate eyes at Dora, and
kissed her. It was happiness to see her reviving interest in life.
"Send for a cab, darling," said Dora.
When the vehicle was at the door, Dora, with Gabrielle at her side,
descended the steps with a firm foot, seated herself in the cab, and
gave the driver an address in Finchley Road.
She was set down in front of the office of an estate agent, and told the
driver to wait. There she was given several addresses of apartments to
let. Two or three rooms, one of them large and possessing a good north
light, was what she wanted.
After a round of inspection, she fixed her choice upon a set of rooms a
few yards from Elm Avenue. The place suited her requirements in every
respect, and the price was reasonable, thirty pounds a year.
She was not asked for references, for her name was well known in these
regions. The people who let her the rooms thought that Philip had need
of a studio there for some special work, and that his wife had been sent
to choose a suitable one for him.
"When do you wish to take possession, madam?" asked the agent, who had
accompanied her.
"At once," replied Dora, "that is, to-morrow or the next day."
And the whole matter was arranged then and there.
When Dora got into her cab again, she began to talk almost gaily. She
looked happy once more. It was a glimpse of the old Dora that Gabrielle
had known all her life, but missed for a while, and now rejoiced to see
again.
At the end of a couple of hours they were at home again. Poor Hobbs had
been a prey to terrible fears, all the while conjuring up in her mind
visions of her beloved mistress being brought back on a litter in a
dying condition. She had spent the time watching at the window in mortal
anxiety.
Dora stepped briskly out of the cab, paid the driver, and threw her arms
round the poor woman, who looked more dead than alive.
"Ah, at last," gasped Hobbs. "Oh, ma'am how could you! how could you!"
So saying, she burst into tears, and then began to smile again on seeing
Dora standing so alert and on the point of making fun of her.
"But what do you mean, my dear Hobbs?" said Dora. "I feel quite
recovered. The fresh air has done me a lot of good and has given me a
ferocious appetite."
"Well, well! I declare!" exclaimed Hobbs, comforted a little by these
words and the sight of her patient. But she went on wondering whether
she was dreaming or whether Dora had gone clean mad.
"Hobbs," said Dora, "we must make haste about our preparations. We leave
the house to-morrow, and, God be praised, never to return," she added.
"To-morrow, ma'am!" rejoined Hobbs, with a look that seemed to express
the impossibility of further astonishment.
"Yes, to-morrow, we get to a new home and take leave of this one."
"She has already taken leave of something else," thought the distressed
servant.
"We go to St. John's Wood! But why do you stare so, Hobbs? You are not
going to remain here and let me go without you, surely?"
"How could I think of doing such a thing!" said poor Hobbs, really hurt
by the suggestion.
And she fell to laughing and crying softly to herself without knowing
why, thoroughly bewildered at the turn things had taken.
Dora passed the remainder of the day in choosing the things she intended
to take away with her; first, the furniture of her own bedroom and that
of Hobbs, then some studio belongings, the two easels, and her portrait
which Philip had not finished, the old clock that stood in the hall,
and a few other things that belonged to her personally; some table
silver, and many an odd piece of furniture that had been dear to her in
the old house, but which had been since relegated to the attics, as
being not worthy to figure in the new one. The next day she bought a
Japanese screen and a few things which, while costing little, would yet
help her in the execution of the project which she had set her mind
upon. These purchases made, there remained twenty pounds in her purse.
She summoned the servants to the dining-room and told them that their
master would return home shortly and would pay their wages.
On the morning of the second day after her sudden decision, a van was
brought to the door for her few effects, and at five o'clock she had
turned her back upon the house that she had grown to loathe. Two days
later she was thoroughly installed in her new one.
Here she had succeeded in fitting up a studio, which was an imitation, a
cheap and pathetic reproduction, exact in almost every detail, of the
one in which she had passed the happiest hours of her old life in Elm
Avenue.
Each item of furniture occupied precisely the same spot as in the St.
John's Wood studio, and the whole effect was tasteful, for the work had
been a labour of love to Dora. The two easels were placed side by side
in the centre of the room, and on Philip's stood the unfinished
portrait. On one side of the door she had placed an old oak chest that
she had picked up at a dealer's for a small sum, and which resembled
closely one that Philip owned and prized; on the other side of the door
stood the old clock, which she did not, however, set going. What did the
time of day matter to her now? Clocks go too slowly when one is tired of
life. Away in a corner she hung Philip's old working jacket, which she
had come across in the depths of a chest in one of the attics. It would
no longer be only in her dreams that she would see the St. John's Wood
studio, for it had sprung into existence again under her hands; and in
these surroundings she would be able to continue the life that had been
interrupted by the events already chronicled. She was going to try to
bring to life again one part of her past. She turned to work to help her
to forget the other.
She had come here with new hope in her heart, to call her talent to her
rescue, and to serve Art faithfully and ask of it her bread. At the
least, she felt that here she could, when her time came, die without a
malediction on her lips.
Dora gave orders to Hobbs to refuse her door generally. Lorimer and Dr.
Templeton were the only exceptions. She laid the greatest stress on
these directions, and Hobbs solemnly promised to obey to the letter.
Without delay she traced herself a programme which she resolved to
follow out faithfully. She would work at her easel three hours every
morning, would take outdoor exercise every afternoon to keep herself
refreshed and strong, and the evenings should be devoted to reading and
needlework.
She had brought with her several excellent photographs of Eva, and fully
intended to make a portrait of the child whom death had robbed her of.
Her brush would help her to see again that sweet flesh of her flesh.
"But not yet, not just yet," she said.
As she had to earn a livelihood, and painting was to be her means of
subsistence, she resolved to look about at once for a model. She chose a
little Italian boy who played a concertina under her windows almost
every day. The picturesque urchin was ready enough to pose for the
_signora_, and beamed with delight at the shilling Dora put into his
grubby little palm at the conclusion of each sitting.
Dora took her first walk in the neighbourhood, and Hobbs went with her.
They set out without any destination in view, but had not been walking
more than five minutes when they found themselves in Elm Avenue. No
trace of any emotion crossed Dora's face, and, instead of turning back
as Hobbs was for doing, Dora would insist on going as far as No. 50. The
house was to let. No one had lived in it since Philip left. Dora drew up
on the other side of the road in front of the house. Hobbs tried to draw
her away, for she feared that the sight of her old home might be too
painful for her mistress.
"No," said Dora, "I am going to show you how thoroughly cured and strong
I am ... I am going in."
Hobbs remembered Dr. Templeton's injunctions never to cross her whims,
and so did not persist further.
Dora rang the bell. A woman, evidently a caretaker, opened the door.
"Do you wish to see the house, ma'am?"
"Yes, if you please," replied Dora.
She was invited to "step in," and the woman prepared to show her over
the premises.
"The studio is a very fine one, and communicates with the garden. Your
husband is an artist, I suppose, ma'am?"
"Yes," said Dora.
"Then you would like to see the studio first, perhaps?"
As soon as they reached it, Dora asked the woman to leave her there
alone a little while, under pretence that she had measurements to take
and many details to think out.
For the first time since the sudden change had come over her, which had
so astonished her sister, Dora was seized with a fit of sadness. Her
lips trembled, her teeth chattered. Hobbs did not take her eyes off her
mistress, but she did not venture to speak. Dora opened the door that
led to the garden, and a sharp cry escaped her. A little girl of Eva's
age was romping about on the lawn. She stood rooted to the ground, and a
flood of tears gushed from her eyes.
"Let us go away," said Hobbs. "You ought never to have come in at all.
You think yourself much stronger than you are."
"Yes, let us go," said Dora.
They straightway went home.
Dora remained pensive all the evening. She scarcely opened her lips
again that day. The book she tried to read fell again and again from
her hands. When she noticed Hobbs look at her, she said, "I tell you it
is nothing. I was wrong to go into the house, and I shall not do it
again. But how was I to know that, when I opened the garden door, I
should see on the lawn" ...
She broke off, looked once more at Hobbs, and could no longer contain
herself. Tears choked her respiration; she was stifling. Sobbing like a
child, she hid her grief in the good woman's bosom.
"It shall never happen again, Hobbs; don't scold me, it is all over."
Next day she was calm again but weak; and Hobbs, without telling her,
sent a telegram to Gabrielle to beg her to come to her dear mistress,
that day if possible.
Gabrielle lost no time in responding to the call; but she could not
discover in Dora any symptoms that were at all disquieting. Dora from
that day avoided Elm Avenue in her walks.
She had set bravely to work at her painting; and as the weeks went on
she seemed to pick up the dropped thread of life, and gradually to
attach herself to it again. Her health did not suffer in the new
existence, and her courage remained firm. At the end of a month she had
done the picture of the little Italian boy, and sold it for twenty-five
guineas.
"Look, Hobbs," she cried, on returning home; "look what I have
earned--twenty-five guineas! Well-earned money that!"
And, in her delight, she kissed the bank notes. Then finding herself
quite naturally on her favourite topic, she poured into the ears of the
devoted Hobbs an eloquent harangue upon the wrong use of money and the
demoralisation of the rich. The discourse was edifying, and duly
impressed the only listener; but Philip, to whom it was really
addressed, was far off, and did not get the benefit of it.
XVI
PHILIP RETURNS TO THE FOLD