AN INTEREST IN LIFE
Doctor Hilary was walking down the lane in a somewhat preoccupied frame
of mind. He had been oddly preoccupied the last day or so, lapsing into
prolonged meditations from which he would emerge with a sudden and almost
guilty start.
Coming opposite the drive gates of Chorley Old Hall, he was brought to a
sense of his surroundings by a figure, which emerged suddenly from them
and came to a dead stop.
"Oh!" ejaculated Doctor Hilary. "Good afternoon." And he took off his
cap.
"Good afternoon," responded Trix. She turned along the lane beside him.
"Have you been interviewing the gardens?" he asked. She fancied there was
the faintest trace of anxiety in his voice.
A sudden spirit of mischief took possession of Trix. She had been given
leave. It was really too good an opportunity to be lost.
"Oh no," she responded, dove-like innocence in her voice, "I've just been
having tea with Mr. Danver."
If she wanted to see amazement written on his face, she had her desire.
It spread itself large over his countenance, finding verbal expression in
an utterly astounded gasp.
"He seems very well," said Trix demurely.
"Miss Devereux!" ejaculated Doctor Hilary.
"Yes?" asked Trix sweetly.
"Have you known all the time?" he demanded.
Trix shook her head, laughter dancing in her eyes. It found its way to
her lips.
"Oh, you looked so surprised," she gurgled. "I hadn't the tiniest bit of
an idea. How could I? I was never so flummuxed in all my life as when I
realized who was talking to me."
Doctor Hilary was silent.
Trix put her hand on his arm, half timidly.
"Don't be angry," she said. "He wasn't. And I've promised faithfully not
to tell."
Doctor Hilary glanced down at the hand on his arm.
"I'm not angry," he said with a queer smile, "I'm only--" He stopped.
"Flummuxed, like I was," nodded Trix, removing her hand. "It's quite the
amazingest thing I ever knew." She gave another little gurgle of
laughter, looking up at the very blue sky as if inviting it to share her
pleasure.
"How much did he tell you?" asked Doctor Hilary.
Trix lowered her chin, and considered briefly.
"Just nothing, now I come to think of it, beyond the fact that he was Mr.
Danver. But then I'd really been the first to volunteer that piece of
information. I haven't the faintest notion why there's all this mystery,
and why he has pretended to be dead. He didn't want me to know that. So
please don't say anything that could tell me. He said I could talk to
you."
"I won't," smiled Doctor Hilary answering the request.
They walked on a few steps in silence.
"But what I should like to know," he said after a minute, "is how you
managed to get inside the house at all?"
"Oh dear!" sighed Trix twisting her glove round her wrist.
Doctor Hilary looked rather surprised.
"Don't say if you'd rather not," he remarked quickly.
Trix sighed again.
"Oh, I may as well. It will only be the third time I've had to own up."
And she proceeded with a careful recapitulation of the events of the
afternoon.
"You must have been very frightened," said he as she ended.
"I was," owned Trix.
"Ah, well; it's all over now," he comforted her.
"Y-yes," said Trix doubtfully.
"What's troubling you?" he demanded.
"The sneeze," confessed Trix in a very small voice.
Doctor Hilary stifled a sudden spasm of laughter. She was so utterly and
entirely in earnest.
"I wouldn't worry over a little thing like that, if I were you," said he
consolingly.
Once more Trix sighed.
"Of course it's absurd," she said. "I know it's absurd. But, somehow,
little things do worry me, even when I know they're silly. And there's
just enough that's not silliness in this to let it be a real worry."
"A genuine midge bite," he suggested. "But, you know, rubbing it only
makes it worse."
She laughed a trifle shakily.
"And honestly," he pursued, "though I do understand your--your conscience
in the matter, I'm really very glad you've seen Mr. Danver."
"Well, so was I," owned Trix.
Again there was a silence. They were walking down a narrow lane bordered
on either side with high banks and hedges. The dust lay rather thick on
the grass and leaves. It had already covered their shoes with its grey
powder. Doctor Hilary was turning certain matters in his mind. Presently
he gave voice to them.
"It is exceedingly good for him that someone besides myself and the
butler and his wife should know that he is alive, and that he should know
they do know it. I agreed to this mad business because I believed it
would give him an interest in living, eccentric though the interest might
be."
Trix gurgled.
"It sounds so odd," she explained, "to hear you say that pretending to be
dead could give any one an interest in life." And she gurgled again.
Trix's gurgling was peculiarly infectious.
"Odd!" laughed Doctor Hilary. "It's the oddest thing imaginable. No one
but Nick could have conceived the whole business, or found the smallest
interest in it. But he did find an interest, and that was enough for me.
He is lonely now, I grant. But before this--this invention, he was
stagnant as well as lonely. His mind, and seemingly his soul with it, had
become practically atrophied. His mind has now been roused to interest,
though the most extraordinarily eccentric interest."
"And his soul?" queried Trix simply.
Doctor Hilary shook his head.
"Ah, that I don't know," he said.
They parted company at the door of Doctor Hilary's house. Trix went on
slowly down the road. She paused opposite the presbytery, before turning
to the left in the direction of Woodleigh. She rang the bell, and asked
to see Father Dormer.
He came to her in the little parlour.
"Oh," said Trix, getting up as he entered, "I only came to ask you to say
a Mass for my intention. And, please, will you say one every week till I
ask you to stop?"
"By all means," he responded.
"Thank you," said Trix. Then she glanced at a clock on the mantelpiece.
"I had no idea it was so late," she said.
She walked home at a fair pace. The midge bite had ceased to worry her.
But then, at Doctor Hilary's suggestion, she had ceased to rub it. She
was thinking of only one thing now, of a solitary old figure in a large
and gloomy library.
She sighed heavily once or twice. Well, at all events she had asked for
Masses for him.