Rose—my own Rose—I found older and graver. She could laugh still, and as
her visit was prolonged she laughed oftener and gradually gave up the new
habit of thinking visibly before she spoke. Her impulses being always
gay or cordial or merrily mischievous, she need never have become
cautious. But I could see that she had. It is melancholy indeed when a
natural self-unconsciousness is destroyed: and that is what had happened.
And how often I have seen it happen elsewhere! One of the prevailing
superstitions of English husbands is that wives are better for being
de-individualized.
One thing that a little perplexed me was Rose’s attitude to her daughter,
which appeared to me curiously detached. I wondered sometimes if there
were not some defective sympathy between them, as between Rose and the
child’s father. Rose was kind and gentle and a delightful companion to
the little girl; but no fierce maternal flame was discernible. I could
have wished for a glimpse of such a fire: but there was none. It seemed
to me a trifle hard on the mite that she should be at all out in the cold
on account of other people’s affairs; but on the other hand she never
seemed unhappy, or less happy than might be; and Rose had no intention of
unfairness. Besides, human nature can’t be logical.
As Ronnie got better he came oftener and oftener to us, to lie in a
deck-chair in the garden. Rose used to sit by him there and sometimes
read to him, or he told little Rose about India, very much as the old
Colonel had talked to her mother, but with additional modern piquancies.
Now and then Rose and Ronnie returned to their battleground in the
billiard-room; but he was not strong enough for a long game. Sir Edmund
and Lady Fergusson would now and then walk over to accompany him back or
push his wheeled chair.
Remembering the episode at St. Moritz, I was a little uneasy to see
Ronnie and Rose so much together. But I did not feel strongly enough
about it to interfere, even if interference had ever been my long suit.
Besides, I was so glad to see Rose happy again. Moreover, Rose was grown
up and a mother; Ronnie was grown up and ill. Not that being grown up
adds anything to power of resistance when emotional temptations offer.
Perhaps to say that I was uneasy is too strong. Rather was I not
unconscious that that popular plaything, fire, was adjacent, and yet not
conscious enough to be really apprehensive. It was always possible that
Ronnie’s state of dependence and fragility was the only cause of Rose’s
solicitude; while it was natural enough for a convalescing soldier, such
as he was, to sun himself in the company of an old playmate.
I forget how long Rose and Rose stayed with me on that occasion. But
after Ronnie had been taken off to some seaside resort they returned to
London and I was more alone than ever. That must have been the early
summer of 1906.
* * * * *
The next period of importance in this rambling narrative is October of
the same year, and I can place the day exactly, because on my way toward
home I was stopped by some one running out of the “Crown Inn” to say that
old Pritchard, the host, had had some kind of a stroke. I found him
pretty bad, the result of some extra conviviality on a life of excessive
and chronic alcoholism, the occasion for which—and this is how I remember
the date so distinctly—was his good fortune over the Cambridgeshire,
which that year was won by Polymelus.
Having done what I could to patch him up, I returned home. While I had
been in the “Crown” a tempest of cold rain had set in, bringing with it a
dreary consciousness of the end of fine weather. One had the feeling
that the year could never recover: winter was our fate and winter to a
country doctor means too much to do and a great deal of discomfort, with
too few of the roadside compensations which he gathers as he drives about
in the summer and the spring.
My thoughts went naturally to Rose, whose susceptibility to weather had
always been so acute; in whose world, could she plan it, rain would fall
only at night. I was still thinking of her as I left the car at the
garage door and walked into the house.
On the hall table was an envelope addressed to me in Rose’s writing, but
it had not passed through the post. I took it up with misgivings which
all too soon were to be justified.
“Dearest Dombeen” (it ran), “I have gone away with Ronnie. He needs me
more than anyone else does, or at least I believe so. Eustace will
understand why I have gone when he begins to think.” So far it was
written clearly and directly. But then came some broken sentences. “As
for Rose,” she had begun, and then had stopped. “Rose is my only” she
had begun again and again had stopped. “Will you” was another false
start and was also scored through. The letter finished merely like this.
“Dearest Dombeen, think your kindliest of me. Good-bye. Rose.”
How long I held the paper in my hand I cannot say; but I then rang to
know how it had got there at all.
Suzanne answered the summons.