A week passed. She watched Laurence's struggle, saw his strong body
wasting away day by day, saw him weakening under the incessant fever.
There had been no gleam of recognition for her; he was delirious or
lay in a stupor. She tried to follow his wanderings in that strange
borderland where the physical struggle was transmuted into fantasies
reflecting his past life. Broken phrases told her he was fighting old
battles over again.... He was contesting a field of war, leading his
men into action; he shouted hoarse words of command, then cried out--he
was down but the men must go on, take that position on the ridge....
Then he saw his brother fall, but he couldn't stop, must go on,
on ... through the icy water, up that slope where the bullets sang....
A soldier's funeral. He beat time to the Dead March and the last
bugle-call....
Or it was a courtroom scene. He was fighting hard for somebody's life,
he pleaded passionately in low murmurs. The man hadn't meant to do
wrong, Gentlemen of the Jury, he had meant well, only somehow things
were against him and he had got into trouble.... Your Honour, before
you pronounce sentence, I ask to be heard....
Then he was in a storm, the snow blinded him, he was freezing, couldn't
go on ... or in a desert, lost, crying for water. Always the struggle
of mind and body against odds, it seemed, a desperate losing battle....
Mary would watch this, always calm, cool, alert for anything she could
do to relieve or supplement the nurses. When she gave way it was after
she had locked herself into a room alone, and then it was not an
emotional breakdown but a drop into nothingness. She would lie with her
eyes shut, feeling nothing, caring for nothing. Somewhere there was a
dumb sense of injury, of injustice--but even this seemed not to matter,
since there was no one to complain to.... Things were like this.
As the days went by, all outside the sickroom became more shadowy
to her. Even Jim coming in to see her, grown suddenly a man in this
trouble, stalwart and serious; her father's visits, the young doctor,
Horace Lavery, her daily consultations with Nora--her mind, aloof and
critical, received and registered all the detail of life, dealt with
it, but it had the thin quality of shadow. The reality was there with
Laurence. Sometimes he murmured her name, spoke to her; not recognizing
her there beside him, but seeing her far in the past--tenderly. There
seemed no harshness in his memory of her, no pain from those battles
they had gone through or the long estrangement. His tone was appealing,
it had a child-like pathetic demand. He wanted her to do something
about this that was bothering him.
* * * * *
Then came a day when the fever broke. Instead of going up toward night
it went down. The patient slept quietly a good deal of the night, and
woke in the dawn, conscious.
Mary too had slept soundly that night for the first time; waking she
saw the beaming face of the nurse.
"You can go in, he's quite himself.... But don't let him talk, he's too
weak."
He lay there, too weak indeed even to put out his hand toward her,
but his eyes welcomed her. How young those eyes looked, vividly blue
in his wasted face! The outline of his face under the black beard was
that of his youth and his body was slender as in youth. He smiled at
her faintly. She knelt beside him and kissed him lightly with deep
tenderness, and whispered that he mustn't try to talk, thank God he was
better, but he must be very quiet and get back his strength, everything
was all right. His eyes smiled at her, rested on her face with the old
warmth of youthful love. He whispered her name.
The nurse came in with some soup, and Mary fed him like a child, with
deep solicitude, with delight. His eyes closed, he must sleep again;
but when she moved he stirred to keep her there. She nodded and drew a
chair to the bedside and sat motionless long after he slept.
* * * * *
In the early afternoon, when Laurence had waked and was again sleeping,
with the fever still down, Horace Lavery insisted upon taking Mary out
for an airing. When she objected, he took her by the arm and led her to
a mirror. "Don't you think you need a change?" he enquired severely.
She smiled at the pallid face in the glass, looking certainly ten
years older in this fortnight, with deep lines in it, the hair
carelessly pushed back.
"You've got to keep up your strength, you know, and you haven't poked
your nose outdoors since you came," Horace stated. "It's a lovely day.
I'll get a carriage."
"Well," agreed Mary. "I feel like celebrating. But only an
hour--Laurence might wake and want me there."
The whole atmosphere of the house was changed--a subdued rejoicing
had filled it as the black shadow lifted. Nora even for the first
time smiled at Mary coming downstairs in her long black cloak and
bonnet. And Mary smiled back radiantly and clasped Nora's rather limp
hand. Nora, by way of celebrating too, perhaps, had put on a lavender
silk dress, more striking than becoming in contrast to her red hair,
now neatly arranged. She had a visitor, at whom Mary just glanced in
passing--a stout woman in black satin, with a large feathered bonnet
and diamond earrings. Mary of course would never have thought of
wearing diamond earrings on the street. She possessed a very handsome
pair--she and Laurence always gave one another handsome presents on
Christmas--but she had hollow gold balls made to fit over the diamonds
for the street or in travelling.... Nora's visitor certainly looked
vulgar ... and that dress Nora was wearing was a terrible colour,
though it was very rich silk. Nora looked like a witch in it, with
her thin face and carroty hair.... Had Nora also, perhaps, a pair of
diamond earrings?...
Mary, with a high colour in her cheeks, swept haughtily out of the
house.
* * * * *
The victoria drove slowly down the cobbled street, Mary and Lavery
sitting side by side. With an effort she turned her attention toward
her silent escort, and observed that he was attired in a frock-coat,
light grey trousers and a silk hat.
"You're all dressed up!" she said with faint gaiety.
"Yes--usher at a wedding at five o'clock--up to today I didn't think I
could do it--but now I don't mind. Why, today I'd hardly mind getting
married myself!"
His smoothly-shaven face showed signs of the days of stress which,
after forty, man nor woman can encounter with impunity. There was a
tremor of the muscles round his mouth as he said abruptly:
"I don't know why I got tied up this way with you and Laurence. Awful
mistake--and dead against my principles. Why, it spoils life, that's
what it does. And it ain't that I'm so fond of you two either--that is,
I don't think I am." He smiled uncertainly. "Old fool," he muttered.
Mary laid her hand on his arm.
"Don't do that, damn it," he said, drawing out a scented handkerchief.
"Can't you see I'm about to cry?"
"Well, do, then," said Mary.
"At my time of life a nervous strain like this is no joke," he retorted
peevishly. "I tell you I'm going to cut your acquaintance. I can't
afford it."
"Well, do."
He scowled. "At forty-five a man has a right to think of
himself--consider his little comforts and so on. He can't afford
emotions, they're simply ruinous.... And I might have known you and
Laurence would let me in for them. You're that kind. I suspected it all
along."
It was a warm misty day of Indian summer. The carriage turned into the
drive on the shore of the lake. There trees were shedding softly their
last golden leaves. The lake was a deep cloudy blue, lapping in ripples
on the sand.
"I think I'd like to walk a ways," said Mary suddenly. "It seems years
since I stepped foot on the ground."
She left her wrap in the carriage, which followed them slowly as they
strolled along the shore, and halted when they sat down after a time
on a bench facing the water. They were silent, relaxed and weary,
each immersed in a separate stream of thought; but conscious too of
companionship. When Lavery spoke finally it was as though he were
thinking aloud.
"I believe we are not meant to go through such emotional strain--I
mean, human beings simply aren't constructed for it," he meditated. "I
think we've gone off on a tangent, a wrong turning. We've overdeveloped
our emotions, and Nature penalizes us every time for it. When you
consider it, the physical world being what it is, really hostile to
us, so that we have to be always on guard, and with all our care we're
liable to an accident any minute--why, it's not reasonable for us to
care so much for life or death--our own or other people's. Is it now?
We put a wrong emphasis there, I'm sure."
Mary remained silent, and he went on:
"Of course, you may say that what we think is our highest development
is all, in a way, against Nature.... Nature works for the mass, for
the average, she wants quantity, not quality--she's inclined, when she
sees a head rising above the mass to hit it.... What does Nature do for
the finer, more sensitive human beings? She knocks them, every chance
she gets. Suppose we develop altruistic feelings, a disinterested
love for some other human being, we get hit through it, every time.
No, ma'am, it doesn't pay! This world is constructed for people with
tough shells--all others pass at their own risk.... And I think maybe
we'd do better by the world, and other people, and ourselves, if we
recognized that--if we had a real philosophy of toughness, instead of
what we've mistakenly developed.... The philosophy of tenderness is
the fashion, of course--people profess it, are actually ashamed not
to--and a few practise it. But what good is it? It doesn't fit the
facts, that's all, doesn't work. Since we're flung out defenceless into
a world that doesn't care a hang about us as individuals, we ought
to grow a tough shell as quick as we can, and stay in it if we want
to survive. The only philosophical solution is not to have personal
feelings.... You must either not admit them at all, but live like a
crab in your shell--or else you must transcend them. Mystics say this
can be done--I've never tried it myself. They say you can merge your
own individuality in the mass, so that you are simply a part of what is
going on, and don't feel personal loss or pain much.... What say about
that?"
He turned to Mary, and saw that she had not been listening. She was
staring at the blue shimmering water--and suddenly she flushed
deeply, painfully, and looked distressed.
"What's the matter?" asked Lavery sharply. "What's bothering you now?"
"It's about Nora--"
"Nora? What about her?"
"Well, I just thought that I might have asked her to go up and see
Laurence for a minute, now he's better.... She hasn't been near the
room since I came.... And I took it that way, as if she had no business
there...."
Lavery looked sideways at her, discomfited.
"Well, you couldn't have too many people running in--he isn't fit for
it," he muttered.
"No, but I do feel badly about her.... You see, it goes back years.
She was in our house, took care of the boys when they were little. She
really loved them--and I guess she'd always been fond of Laurence,
she knew him before I did. But I didn't notice it until ... well,
I discovered it suddenly and ... she was turned out of the house
practically.... I didn't concern myself about how she lived after
that...."
"So that was the trouble," said Lavery, looking curiously at her. "I
never knew that--I mean, that she was concerned in it.... And you were
awfully angry?"
Mary frowned. "I don't know what I was.... It did something to me--I
never got over it--couldn't."
"I suppose you were very much in love with Laurence then."
"I don't know whether I was or not, that wasn't the way I thought about
it.... I didn't think about it much anyway--I never liked thinking
about my feelings ... or talking about them."
"You don't mind talking a little this way, do you?"
"No, not now--it seems so long ago, and then--I'm hardly the same
person I was then."
"And so you turned her out.... But you didn't want to leave Laurence?"
Mary was silent for some moments.
"Perhaps I did, perhaps not.... I didn't leave him, in one way, and in
another I did. It couldn't be the same."
"Oh, no ... but still in the course of time you might have forgiven
him."
"It wasn't that.... I don't believe there's such a thing as
forgiveness. We forget, that's all."
"And you didn't forget.... I wonder if you loved Laurence."
"I don't know. He always said I didn't.... But he's had his life
anyway."
"No doubt. And you've had yours."