The curtain drew up on the first tableau. Joan sang appropriate words
in the sweetest tones of her rich contralto voice, her eyes, like those
of the audience, riveted on the face of the little invalid as he lay on
his truckle bed. White-cheeked, bandaged, reclining, the transformation
in the child's appearance was astounding. Considered as a piece of
stage-craft, Joan had every reason to congratulate herself on the
result, but the mother's heart felt a pang of dismay. The
representation was too life-like! Just so would the darling look if the
illness were real, not imaginary. In the afternoon he had not looked so
ghastly. Was the double excitement too much for his strength? Joan's
eyes turned from the stage to the first row of seats, where her husband
had his place. Geoffrey looked worried; his brows contracted as he
watched his son. Unconsciously Joan quickened the pace of the last
verse of her song. She was anxious to get to the second tableau, to see
Jack sitting up, smiling, his eyes alert.
The curtain fell. A low murmur from the audience swelled into somewhat
forced applause. The villagers also, Joan realised, had felt the scene
to be almost too realistic. Behind the scenes Honor as nurse and Pixie
as mother propped the child's back with cushions, and showered kisses on
his white cheeks.
"Smile, Jackey, smile!" they cried. "Now you are a getting-well boy,
and all the people will see you, and be so pleased! Just once more,
darling, and then away we go, driving off home to supper in the car.
Now a big smile!"
The curtain rose. Jack smiled his sweet, baby smile, and the audience
burst into cheers of hearty relief. Every one was smiling--not only the
invalid, but also the mother, the father, the neat, complacent nurse.
Esmeralda's voice swelled in glad content. That last scene had been
horrible; never, never again would she attempt to simulate so dreadful a
reality! What a comfort to see the darling once more bonnie and
smiling. Half an hour more and he would be safe in bed.
The curtain fell, was lifted again in response to a storm of applause,
the piano strummed out the first bars of "God Save the King," and the
audience, stumbling to their feet, began to join in the strain.
Suddenly, startlingly, a shriek rent the air, rising shrill above the
heavy chorus of voices--the piercing, treble shrieks of a young child,
followed by loud cries for help and a stampede of feet behind the
curtain.
The music ceased. Geoffrey Hilliard and his wife rushed with one accord
up the steps leading to the platform, the village doctor edged his way
hurriedly through the crowded hall, the real parish nurse, wearing for
the first time her new uniform, followed in his wake. And still the
treble shrieks continued--the terrible, childish shrieks. The women in
the audience shivered and turned pale. _Master Jack_! And only a
moment before he had been playing at sickness. It was ill-work trifling
with serious things. The pretty lamb! What could have happened?
Behind the curtain all was horror and confusion, a ghastly nightmare
exaggeration of the scene just depicted. There on the same bed lay
Jack, writhing in torture, the bandages charred and blackened, a
terrible smell of burning in the air. Bending over him in torment stood
the real father and mother; coming forward with calm, capable help came
the veritable nurse.
How had it happened? How? By what terrible lapse of care had the
precious child been allowed to fall into danger?
The mother's glance was fierce in its wrath and despair, but the
explanation when it came was but too simple. Jack had been bidden to
sit still in bed until his clothes should be brought; from the adjoining
dressing-room. But for a moment Pixie had left his side, but in that
moment a child-like impatience and restlessness had asserted itself with
fatal consequences. Jack had leapt up, rushed to the table, clutched at
a glass of milk placed ready for his own refreshment, and in so doing
had brought his bandaged head across the flame of an open candle, one of
the small "properties" of the cottage scene. In an instant he was in
flames; he threw up his little arm and the sleeve of the nightshirt
caught the blaze; he ran shrieking to and fro, dodging pursuit,
fighting, struggling, refusing to be held. For a moment the beholders
had been too aghast for action; then Pixie leapt for the blankets, while
Stanor overtook the child, tripped him up, wrapped and pressed and
wrapped again; unfolded with trembling hands--
It was no one's fault. No one could be blamed. Jack was old enough to
understand and obey, was proverbially docile and obedient. Under the
same circumstances at home he would have been left without a qualm. The
unusual circumstances had created an unusual restlessness not to be
anticipated. Even at that bitter moment Joan realised that if it was a
question of blame, she herself was at fault in having allowed the child
to take part in the tableau against her husband's better judgment. A
smaller nature might have found relief in scattering blame wholesale,
but there was a generosity in Irish Esmeralda's nature which lifted her
above the temptation. In the midst of her anguish she spared a moment
to comfort Pixie by a breathless "Not your fault!" before she became
unconscious of everything but the moaning figure on the bed.
The treatment of Jack's burns was completed with praiseworthy
expedition. The local chemist flew on winged feet to his shop in the
village street, whence he brought back all that was required. Nurse and
doctor sent away the relatives, and worked with swift, tender fingers;
and presently a swathed, motionless figure was carried out to an
impromptu ambulance, fitted up inside the great car, while the late
audience stood massed together in the street, looking on silent and
motionless--silent as to speech, but from every heart in that crowd went
up a cry to God, and every mother in the village knelt that night beside
her bed and prayed with tears for the life of little Jack Hilliard, and
for the support and comfort of his father and mother.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jack lay motionless in the darkened room, a tiny form outlined beneath
the bedclothes; on the pillow was a swathe of bandages, with barely an
inch between to show the small, scarred face. The night before, with
tossing curls, flushed cheeks, and curving coral lips, he had lain a
picture of childish beauty, at sight of which his parents' hearts had
glowed with tenderness and pride as they paid their good-night visit.
"He looks flushed. All this rehearsing is exciting. I shall be glad
when the tableaux are over," Geoffrey had said, and Joan had whispered
back ardently--
"But so _lovely_! If he looks like that to-morrow!"
And this was to-morrow; and there on the bed lay Jack, shorn, blinded,
tortured--a marble image that moaned, and moaned...
Through the night telephone and telegraph had been busy summoning the
most skilful aid. Here at least was one blessing of wealth--that the
question of expense need never be considered. This man for eyes, that
man for skin, a third for shock to the nerves; the cleverest nurses, the
newest appliances--the wonderful wires summoned them each in turn.
Throughout the night motor-cars whirled up the drive, tall men in top
coats, nurses in cloaks and bonnets, dismantled and passed into the
house, mysterious cases were hurried up back stairways. Joan and her
husband were banished from the sickroom, and sat in her boudoir awaiting
the verdict. It was the first time they had been alone together since
the accident, and when the door closed behind them Joan glanced at her
husband with a quivering fear. His face was white and drawn. He looked
old, and bowed, and broken, but there was no anger in his face.
"Geoffrey! Will you ever forgive me?"
For all answer he held out his arms. The old look of love was in his
eyes, the old beautiful softness; there was no bitterness in his look,
no anger, not the faintest shadow of blame.
"Dearest, don't! We both suffer. We must keep strong. We must help
each other."
"Geoff, you warned me. You said it would be bad. It was against your
wish ... It's my fault!"
"Darling, darling, don't make it worse!" He pressed her head against
his shoulder with tender, soothing touches. "No one could have
foreseen. I feared for excitement only; there was no thought of danger.
We have enough to bear, sweetheart. Don't torture yourself
needlessly."
"It's my doing, it's my punishment; I brought it about. I've been cold,
and selfish, and ungrateful. I had so much I ought to have been so
thankful, but I was discontented--I made you wretched. God gave me a
chance--" she pushed him away with frenzied hands and paced wildly, up
and down the room--"a chance of salvation by happiness, and I was too
mean, too poor to take it. Geoff, do you remember that poem of
Stevenson's, `The Celestial Surgeon'? They have been rinking in my head
all night, those last lines, those dreadful lines. I _was_ `obdurate.'
All the blessings which had been showered upon me left me dead; it
needed this `darting pain' to `_stab my dead heart wide awake_!'" She
repeated the words with an emphasis, a wildness which brought an
additional furrow into Geoffrey's brow.
He sighed heavily and sank down on a corner of the sofa. All night long
body and mind had been on the rack; he was chill, faint, wearied to
death. The prospect of another hysterical scene was almost more than he
could endure, yet through all his heart yearned over his wife, for he
realised that, great as was his own sorrow, hers was still harder to
bear. He might reason with her till doomsday, he might prove over and
again that for the night's catastrophe she was as free from blame as
himself, yet Esmeralda, being Esmeralda, would turn her back on reason
and persist in turning the knife in her own wound. Speech failed him;
but the voiceless prayer of his heart found an answer, for no words that
he could have spoken could have appealed to his wife's heart as did his
silence and the helpless sorrow of his face.
She came running to him, fell at his feet, and laid her beautiful head
upon his knee.
"Geoff, it's so hard, for I _was_ trying! In my own foolish way I was
trying to please, you. I may have been hasty, I may have been rash, but
I _did_ mean to do right.--I did try! I've loved you all the time,
Geoff, but I was spoiled. You were too good to me. My nature was not
fine enough to stand it. I _presumed_ on your love. I imagined, vain
fool! that nothing could kill it, and then you opened my eyes. _You_
said yourself that I had worn you out.--It killed me, Geoff, to think
you had grown tired!"
"Joan, darling, let's forget all that. I've been at fault too; there
were faults on both sides, but we have _always_ loved each other; the
love was there just as surely as the sun is behind the clouds. And now
... we _need_ our love... I--I'm worn out, dear. I can't go through
this if you fail me. Bury the past, forget it. You are my wife, I am
your husband--we _need_ each other. Our little child!"
They clung together, weeping. In each mind was a great o'ershadowing
dread, but the dread was not the same. The father asked of himself--
Would the boy _die_? The mother--Would he live, blinded, maimed,
crippled?
The door opened, a small face peered in and withdrew. Pixie had seen
the entwined arms, the heads pressed together, and realised that she was
not needed. She crept away, and sat alone watching the slow dawn.
The verdict of the specialists brought no lessening of the strain. It
was too soon to judge; the shock was severe, and it was a question of
strength holding out. Too soon to talk about the eyes. That must be
left. There were injuries, no doubt, but in the present condition of
inflammation and collapse it was only possible to wait. And to wait
was, to the distracted mother, the most unbearable torture she could
have had to endure.
The great house was quiet as the grave; the three guests had departed,
little Geoff had been carried away by the vicar's wife to the refuge of
her own full, healthful nursery. The boy was shocked and silenced by
the thought of his brother's danger, but at five years of age a
continuance of grief is as little to be expected as desired, and nothing
could be left to chance. A cry beneath the window, a sudden, unexpected
noise might be sufficient to turn the frail balance.
Pixie was alone, more helplessly, achingly alone than she had been in
her life. The doors of the sickroom were closed against her. Joan had
no need of her. Joan wanted Geoffrey--Geoffrey, only--Geoffrey alone to
herself. Even Bridgie's telegraphed offer had been refused. "Not now!
No. Don't let her come--later on," Esmeralda said, and turned
restlessly away, impatient even of the slight interruption.
If it had been an ordinary, middle-class house, wherein sudden illness
brings so much strain and upset, Pixie would have expended herself in
service, and have found comfort in so doing, but in the great ordered
house all moved like a well-oiled machine. Meals appeared on the table
at the ordinary hours, were carried away untouched, to be replaced by
others equally tempting, equally futile. Banks of flowers bloomed in
the empty rooms, servants flitted about their duties; there was no stir,
no stress, no overwork, no need at all for a poor little sister-in-law;
nothing for her to do but wander disconsolately from room to room, from
garden to garden, to weep alone, and pour out her tender heart in a
passion of love and prayer.
"Christ, there are so many little boys in your heaven--leave us Jack!
God, have pity on Esmeralda! She's his mother. ... _Her beloved son
... Must he go_?"
The silent house felt like a prison. Pixie opened a side door and crept
out into the garden. The sun was shining cloudlessly, the scent of
flowers hung on the air, the birds sang blithely overhead; to a
sorrowful heart there seemed something almost brutal in this
indifference of Nature. How could the sun shine when a little innocent
human soul lay suffering cruel torture in that upper room?
Pixie made her way to her favourite seat at the end of a long, straight
path, bordered on each side by square-cut hedges of yew. On the north
side the great bush had grown to a height of eight or ten feet, with a
width almost as great; on the southern side the hedge was kept trimmed
to a level of four feet, to allow a view of the sloping park. For two
hundred yards the path lay straight as a die between those grand old
hedges; occasionally a peacock strutted proudly along its length,
trailing its tail over the gravel, and then the final touch of
picturesqueness was given to the scene, but even the approach of an
ordinary humdrum human had an effect of dignity, of importance, in such
old-world surroundings. It gratified Pixie's keen sense of what it
dramatically termed "a situation" to place herself in this point of
vantage and act the part of audience; and to-day, though no one more
interesting than a gardener was likely to appear, she yet made
instinctively for the accustomed place. The sombre green of the yew was
more in accord with her mood than the riot of blossom in the gardens
beyond, and she was out of sight of those terrible upper windows. At
any moment, as it seemed, a hand from within might stretch out to lower
those blinds ... Could one live through the moment that saw them fall?
Pixie leaned back in her seat, and lived dreamily over the happenings of
the last three days. The morning after the accident the three visitors
had made haste to pack, and depart in different directions--Honor and
Robert Carr to town, Stanor Vaughan to friends at the other side of the
county. Honor had relied on Robert's escort, but he had hurried off by
the nine o'clock train, excusing himself on the score of urgent
business, which fact added largely to the girl's depression.
It was four, o'clock. All day long Pixie had been alone, unneeded,
unobserved, for Joan refused to leave the nursery floor, even for meals,
and Geoffrey remained by her side. Looking back over the whole course
of her life, the girl could not remember a time when she had been so
utterly thrown on herself. Always there had been some one at hand to
love, to pity, to demand. At school, at the time of her father's death,
there had been a bevy of dear girl friends--saintly Margaret, spectacled
Kate, Clara of the high forehead and long upper lip, Lottie, pretty and
clever, each vieing with the other to minister to her needs. Pixie
followed in thought the history of each old friend. Margaret had become
a missionary and had sailed for far-off China, Clara was mistress in a
High School, Lottie lived in India, married to a soldier husband, Kate
was domiciled as governess in Scotland. All were far away, all
engrossed in new interests, new surroundings.
Later on, in Pixie's own life, a lonely time had come when she had been
sent to Paris, to finish her education in the home of the dear school
Mademoiselle. She had been lonely then, it is true--homesick,
homeland-sick, so sick that she had even contemplated running away. But
how good they had been to her;--Mademoiselle and her dear old father--
how wise, how tactful, above all, how _kind_! Monsieur had died a few
years before and gone to his last "repose," and Mademoiselle--marvellous
and incredible fact--Mademoiselle had married a grey-bearded,
bald-headed personage whom her English visitor had mentally classed as a
contemporary of "_mon pere_" and tottering on the verge of dotage. It
appeared, however, by after accounts, that he was barely fifty, which
Dick Victor insisted was an age of comparative vigour. "Quite a
suitable match!" he had pronounced it, but Pixie obstinately withheld
her approval. Mademoiselle, as mademoiselle, would have been a regular
visitor for life; Madame, the wife of a husband exigent in disposition,
and deeply distrustful of "_le mer_" must perforce stay dutifully at
home in Paris, and was therefore lost to her English friends.
Ah! The years--what changes they brought! What toll they demanded! So
many friends lost to sight, drifted afar by the stream of life. So many
changes, so _many_ breaks. _What would the years bring next_?
Pixie shut her eyes and leaned back in her seat, and being young, and
sad, and faint, and hungry, and very, very tired, Mother Nature came to
her aid, and laying gentle fingers on the closed lids sealed them in
sleep, her kindliest gift.
Pixie slept, and round the corner of this straight green hedge fate came
marching towards her, with footsteps growing momentarily louder, and
louder upon the gravel path.