HOW CHALLIS CAME TO, AND SPOKE. BUT HE ASKED FOR MARIANNE, AND DIDN'T
KNOW JUDITH FROM ADAM. HOW THE LATTER PROMISED TO TELL HER FATHER.
THE WORLD'S GUESSES, MEANWHILE. HOW THE DUCHESS SAID WHAT THE POINT
WAS, AND CHALLIS RELAPSED
It was on a Saturday, the twenty-fourth of August, that Alfred Challis
met with his mishap, at half-past nine in the morning. It was not till
eight o'clock on Monday that he began to regain consciousness, very
slowly, having been nearly forty-eight hours speechless, and seemingly
insensible.
Experience tends to show that in most cases of recovery from coma,
whether the cause be traumatic or otherwise, the first memories that
present themselves are those of the last events of which the patient
has been conscious. With Challis it was otherwise. During his stupor he
had forgotten, apparently, all about his accident--about what led to
it--about Royd Hall, his infatuation for Judith, his wife's desertion.
Nothing of the story of the past year-and-a-half was left when he first
became aware that he was in a strange room, lying on luxurious pillows,
with a great deal of bandage on his head and a great deal of pain
inside it. What must seem strangest of all was that he had forgotten
Judith herself!
For Judith, whose communications with her family will be easiest
explained later, had been roused before her usual calling-time by her
little maid, Cintilla, who announced joyously that if Judith pleased,
miss, Sir Alfred Challis had spoken. "Did he ask for me?" said the
young lady. But Cintilla couldn't say. The nurse didn't hear words. A
nurse had been got from Grime on the Saturday afternoon.
"Ask the nurse not to talk to anyone else till I can come," said
Judith. Then she scrambled into some clothes and a _peignoir_, and went
straight to his bedside.
"My little Cintilla said Sir Alfred Challis had spoken, Miss O'Connor,
but that you couldn't make out what he said?"
"Oh yes--I'm quite sure he spoke. But I shouldn't like to swear to the
words, Miss Arkroyd."
"But short of swearing to them ... you've an impression?"
"Yes--but I think it must have been a mistaken one. I thought what he
said was 'Polly Anne.'... Perhaps there's someone?..."
The story has more than once spoken of Judith Arkroyd's splendid nerve
and powers of self-control--at least, against all moral disturbing
forces. On this occasion the perfect self-possession with which she
said, "Oh yes!--he was speaking of his wife," would have done credit to
Julius Cæsar or Napoleon.
The nurse showed by a perfectly natural question her absolute
unsuspicion of a fox under the cloak. "Had Lady Challis far to come?"
For she must have been sent for--that saw itself.
"We don't know--I mean, we don't know where Lady Challis is. When
Sir Alfred comes to himself, he will tell us.... Is he not speaking
again?..." Yes, he was. Both listened. Judith was reflective a moment
over what to do; then said: "Would you kindly knock at my father's
door, and say we think Sir Alfred is coming to himself? Or tell James
to tell him." The nurse thinks to herself: "More obvious, surely, for
this young lady to hunt up her father, and leave the patient to me!"
But Judith, seeing hesitation, suggests a motive. When Sir Alfred opens
his eyes he may be alarmed to find himself alone with a professional
nurse. Also, Judith is always authoritative.
She seemed half-frightened of the patient, left alone with him. Would
not you, woman, who are reading this, have taken the hand of the man if
you loved him? Did Judith love him? She did not take his hand. Do you
find her inexplicable? She was not really so; it is only the story's
want of skill that makes her seem so. Then, think of the conflict of
feeling and motive under her circumstances.... However, let that wait!
Perhaps it was as well that she did not take his hand. Possibly what
she did and said was safest, all things considered. She remained
standing, immovable as a statue, by the bedside, and when his eyes
opened and turned to her, more in inquiry than astonishment or alarm,
said simply, "Well?" and waited for speech to come from him.
"Are you real?" said Challis. Her white, scared look and seeming
shrinking from him grew more marked. His words, creepy and uncanny all
the more that their speaker uttered them so equably, made her fear
his reason had given way. Even those who have loved one demented will
shrink from his insanity. But she kept her self-command, and replied
with a voice under control:
"Scroop--do you not know me? I am Judith."
"Judith?"
"Yes--Judith Arkroyd. Do you not remember?"
"Judith Arkroyd--yes--a--oh yes!" There was an amiable air about him of
a wish to be civil--an evasive acquiescence he might have shown to an
attractive lady he had met in Society, and now met again and took the
word of for her identity. He would talk a little, and something in the
conversation would soon remind him whom he was speaking to. That sort
of thing! His provisional pretence of recognition was more convincing
a thousand times of his forgetfulness than any amount of denial of it
would have been.
What could Judith do? Attack the position at once? Say to him: "Try to
think! Try to recall all our love-passages of this year past! Remember
the little garden in the moonlight, and your arms you found it so
hard to restrain within the rules of good-breeding! Remember your
mad, hot outburst, and your flight from an _entichement_ you found
insupportable; your quarrel with your wife; your troth-plight and mine;
the tension of that Bill question. And last and most, or worst, that
automobile and the man ahead, already as good as slain! Think of any of
these things, and surely you will remember that this is I, Judith, that
was to have been your wife!" All that this man must have forgotten,
to forget _her_, rushed through Judith's mind, to take form in words
should she nerve herself to utter it, or any choice from it. But the
next thing he said clashed so ruthlessly with the last of her thought
that speech on those lines was made hopeless.
"My head aches so confoundedly that I feel quite an idiot, and can't
think of anything. But I can see one thing--someone is being very kind
to me. I think if my wife were to come she would be able to thank you
for me. Is she not here? Can she not be got? My wife Polly Anne?"
Yes--the barrier of his utter lack of recognition could not be
surmounted yet, if ever. She must accept the _rôle_ of a stranger; for
now, certainly--perhaps for good. Luckily, he had closed his eyes as
his voice grew fainter with his effort, and died out on his last word.
She fought bravely against the tremulousness of her own to say: "We do
not know where to send to her. Can you tell us?"
"Yes--but don't frighten her. Send it as from me. Say I have had a
slight accident--that is it, I suppose?..."
"Yes, you have had an accident--a fall."
"... And am doing perfectly well. Mind you say that!"
"Oh yes--that shall be worded all right. But where are we to send?"
"Number eighty-three--I think it's number eighty-three--Great Coram
Street." Again his great effort to speak overcame him; and, though he
got through the last words plainly, they ended in a groan. Then Judith
heard her father coming, and the nurse, and left the room to meet him.
The nurse passed on into the room, but Sir Murgatroyd stopped to speak
with his daughter. He looked ill and harassed, and his age was visible
on him. The last two days had tried him, no doubt!
"They say Sir Alfred has spoken. Is that so?"
"Yes--he has been speaking to me. But, oh--papa--papa!..." It stopped
him dead to hear the distress in her voice.
"Yes, dear child, what? Tell me--tell me all!..." It took her a moment
to choke down a sob, and then it came.
"He does not know who I _am_--he does not _know_ me." There is such
a thing as a whisper, as well as a cry, of pain, and Judith's strong
resolve of self-control curbed her last words down to one. Her father,
as he took her in his arms, felt how she was trembling with the shock
of her upset. She had borne the effects of the motor accident better
than this.
The old gentleman kissed her tenderly, calling her by an old pet name
he sometimes used. "Dear girl, dear Jujube," said he. "I am afraid you
loved this man."
She seemed to recoil from this placing of the fact on record. "That is
all over now," said she stonily. "But you are a dear good papa"; and
kissed him in return affectionately. He seemed relieved, and said: "But
now you will tell me all about it." She replied: "I will. All!" And
then her mother came, in haste, and all went together into Challis's
room. But previous exertions had told upon the patient, and he was
equal to no more than a few broken words of thanks, recognizing no one,
but somehow conscious that he was being hospitably cared for, and that
his visitors were his hosts.
* * * * *
Up to this time Judith's family had been kept in the dark about the
important fact in the story of the accident--the reason why Judith and
Challis were in the motor-car at all. Each may have had his or her
surmise as to the object of their rendezvous and sudden departure, but
they had not conversed openly about it, so far. Sibyl had certainly
said to her husband in confidence, at an hour when she supposed all the
rest of the house asleep: "You'll see that I'm right, Frank! It was an
elopement, pre-arranged. Fancy their meeting by accident--parcel of
nonsense!" To which her husband, who was going to sleep, and not in
his usual linguistic form, had replied: "Oh, gammon, Sib!" Sibyl had
then adduced reasons, such as that Challis could not have been on his
way to the Rectory out there near the Park Gate; that the Duchess at
least knew nothing of any appointment for Judith to come to the Castle
at an hour which, according to her Grace, was "almost yesterday"; and
that, most of all, M. Rossier had said Sir Alfred had a map in his
pocket. What did Sir Alfred want with a map unless they were going a
long distance? But his Lordship was not listening, and her Ladyship
convicted him of it, and then both their ships went to sleep.
All this makes one _see_ Judith, and how each member of her family,
without being exactly afraid of her, left the elucidation of the
mystery to the others. But behind a natural reluctance to belling the
cat--though the metaphor is no doubt exaggerated--lay the feeling that
the truth might work out as tragedy; the facts might contain the germs
of heart-break. Silence certainly had its recommendations. Besides,
explanation was inevitable in the end; so why analyze and probe now,
with the uncertainty still hanging over us whether this gentleman
would live or die; and the other uncertainty as to whether the inquest
to-morrow would absolve the motor-car, or find that poor Jim had been
the victim of its gross carelessness? Its owner was feeling bound to
make a fight for its chauffeur, but he had told M. Rossier his mind as
plainly as his French would permit.
As for poor Jim's death, there was no lack of perfectly honest and
heart-felt sorrow for the tragical disaster on the part of any member
of the family, except Judith. She _said_ nothing, certainly; but surely
it was a case in which a stony silence was ungraceful? However, her
mother and sister let her go her own way. She was Judith!--and would be
so to the end of the chapter.
Meanwhile it was a serious grief to the Baronet and Lord Felixthorpe,
shared to a great extent by their respective wives, that poor Jim had
left no family that would have been open to endowment or adoption. When
Athelstan Taylor, arriving late on Saturday evening with Mr. Brownrigg,
who had remained on at the Rectory, brought the full particulars of
Jim's death, he had also the unpleasant task of crushing out all the
plans Sir Murgatroyd and his wife were forming for Lizarann's benefit.
They had all but adopted her in anticipation; indeed, a sort of
competition for possession of the child had arisen between them and
their son-in-law. But, alas!--poor little Lizarann, or the shell she
had left, lay dead in the sound of the sea that was to have done her
so much good. It was a cruel disappointment to Sir Murgatroyd.
The Rector's surmises, which he kept to himself, about the true story
of the motor-car and Challis's meeting with Judith, were based on
fuller information than the Baronet's. He was quite satisfied in his
own mind that the pair had resolved to anticipate the retrospective
operation of the measure before Parliament by constituting themselves
legally man and wife, and making its action in their case impossible.
He knew Challis's disposition was towards taking this step; and while
he was far from having the heart to say, "Serve him right!" of the
man who, when he went up to his bedside and touched him and spoke to
him, lay dead and irresponsive--perhaps never to speak again--still,
he could not but feel that in that man's place he would soonest have
taken his chance of some possible reasonable operation of Law later on.
Failing which he would--so he thought--have borne his lot courageously
as in any other case where Duty bars the road that Inclination beckons
us to take. But, then, how about that awkward thought--what right would
he have had to prescribe his own high moralities to a woman whose sole
crime would have been that she loved him? "Judge not, that ye be not
judged," said he to himself, as he turned from the impassive figure on
the bed. You see, he _had_ never been under fire on that battle-field!
But, whatever he thought, he said not a word of it to the Baronet or
the Family, and he purposely avoided speech apart with Judith. He
looked forward, by preference, to hearing the first explanation from
Challis himself.
The doctor came and went--saw no danger--anticipated early return to
consciousness--would not oppose Sir Murgatroyd wiring for Sir Rhyscombe
Edison, if he thought it necessary; but he did not see, neither did a
colleague, summoned from Grime to consult, what Sir Rhyscombe could say
more than "Wait with patience!" Apparently there was no depression of
the cranium, and certainly there was no fracture. Still, it was all for
their interest that Sir Rhyscombe should come; the less responsibility
for himself and Dr. Shaw Cox, the better for them! Sir Murgatroyd
consented to let the wire he had written stand over till next day,
though he nearly went back on his word when his wife said: "Just
consider!--a two hundred pound fee!" As far as that went, he would have
wired for the whole College of Surgeons if he had thought it his duty,
and taken his chance of the workhouse.
Mr. Brownrigg the Grauboschite found his visit very different from
what he had anticipated; and, indeed, felt himself very much _de
trop_. He had been in the habit of regarding places like Royd Hall from
their guest-recipient point of view--a kind of gratuitous taverns, or
hydropathic establishments, rather, of a refined sort; where, provided
always that he behaved sweetly, and tipped the servants liberally, all
the currents of Life were to run smooth, and troubles be unknown. But
this sudden inroad of Death and Misadventure had changed all that; and
while he had to acknowledge to himself that his affection for his hosts
had grown much greater since they became, as it were, human as well as
merely opulent and amiable, he could not shut his eyes to the fact that
the character of his visit had completely changed. Still less could
he shut his eyes to that other fact--that he really wasn't wanted.
Least of all when he found grounds for suspecting that his hostess was
writing to put off other guests! He mooted the suggestion, with all
due round-abouting, that he should return to his rooms at Cambridge
to-morrow, and come another time.
But he was so sorry for himself that the Rector saw it, and
good-naturedly suggested to Mr. Brownrigg that he should pay him
a visit at the Rectory for a day or two before going home. Lady
Murgatroyd had only postponed her house-party for a few days, just till
all these troubles should blow over; and then, who knew but what Sir
Alfred Challis would at least be well enough to be moved before the end
of the week? Mr. Brownrigg accepted the invitation _con amore_.
And then, throughout a very cheerless and oppressed Sunday, slightly
alleviated by callers, things went on without change. Judith scarcely
left her room, and was reticent. Very little allusion was made to
yesterday's events by the other members of the family in conversation
with one another. It rarely went beyond an inquiry whether Challis
had shown any sign of consciousness. None of the family appeared at
Church--a very rare event in the annals of Royd.
Towards Judith the attitude of her mother and sister was a perfectly
indescribable compromise between toleration and exasperation, good-will
towards a blood relation in difficulties, and condemnation without
benefit of clergy, all kept in abeyance pending illumination. Probably
the freest speech on the matter was Lady Arkroyd's to the Duchess, when
the latter, having been told all the facts in full, asked in her brief,
incisive way--which none but a Duchess could have resorted to without
seeming questionable form, dear!--"What were they up to, Therèse?
That's the point!" and her ladyship replied: "Oh, of course we all know
perfectly well, Thyringia. Only nobody's to say anything. They were
going to take the wind out of the sails of this precious new bit of
legislation by going through a ceremony, at any rate...."
"I see. A honeymoon under protest. I suppose Judith would have come
back here and said nothing about it?"
"My dear, I really won't undertake to say what Judith would or wouldn't
have done. She would have had to come back for her things, anyhow!"
Thyringia looked amused. Perhaps she was canvassing in her mind the
sorry plight of a thingless bride. Many complications would suggest
themselves to the mind of a Duchess of experience. "Not so much as a
tooth-brush, poor girl!" said she. "However, she could have bought
_that_ at any chemist's shop. What are you going to do?"
"Why should we do anything? If that Bill passes...."
"My dear, it was through Committee in the Lords on Friday afternoon.
The Bishop will be black in the face with rage. I shall see him in a
day or two, and be able to twit him. Poor Dr. Barham!... But I don't
see that there can be any marrying now--not till this Sir Alfred gets a
divorce.... _Can_ he?"
"No; he has the most exasperating wife. She _is_ his wife now, or will
be on Tuesday, if Murgatroyd is right! And she's quite _sans reproche_,
as I understand. _Isn't_ it a nuisance?"
"Do you _want_ Judith to marry this man, Therèse?"
"My dear!--is it likely? But if the girl has set her heart on him,
it _is_ a nuisance to have him married to a woman who won't commit
anything and make it possible...."
"Couldn't he force her to divorce him by...?"
"By committing something himself? Oh no!--she's too sharp for that. Of
course, she wants to pay them out, and make it all as uncomfortable as
possible. I'm sorry for Judith, but I must say it's a great deal her
own fault. Oh dear!--why _cannot_ people be ordinary and reasonable?
Hush!--there she is...."
At the sound of an identifying skirt-rustle descending the stairs, the
Duchess dropped her voice to say reflectively: "Yes--why can't the
woman misbehave herself, and be hanged to her?" She was silent by the
time the rustle reached the door. It was Judith, self-possessed, but
pallid, who met a cautious half-approach to the burning subject of the
day with, "Now do, dear Duchess, be a good woman, and _don't_ ask me
questions now. I'm coming over to-morrow, and I'll tell you _all_ about
it.... No, really, I can't tell you about it now, if I try; it only
makes my head go round."
On which her Grace, telegraphed to aside by slightly raised eyebrows
and an almost unperceptible shrug of Lady Arkroyd's shoulders, that
seemed to mean, "You see?--Judith all over. I told you!" merged inquiry
in mere commiseration. Oh no--_she_ wasn't going to catechize and be
odious. Poor child! How ill she was looking! And no wonder! It was all
so dreadful. But, at any rate, she, Judith, was not to blame for this
terrible mishap. No one would ever believe _that_!
"I'm not so sure even of that myself," said the young lady wearily.
And the Duchess made a mental note that this girl really looked her
loveliest in trouble. But this girl did not intend to _s'appuyer_ on
the topic. She had only come in just to say a word of greeting, and
that she would come over to Thanes to-morrow. And now she must go and
lie down, for her head was simply splitting. No; she knew Mr. Taylor
was in the next room with the others, but she couldn't stay to talk
even to him. Her mother must make her apologies. For this was in what
was regarded as the confidential room of the house--the little cabinet
off the first staircase landing, with the suite of buhl furniture
that belonged to Cardinal Richelieu, or somebody; and the cinquecento
Milanese armour, made for Galeazzo Sforza, who was a Monster of
Iniquity. It was always spoken of as "the _mezzanina_ room."
This may be enough to make it understood how a complete revelation of
the circumstances preceding the accident was still to be made, two days
after its occurrence; although pretty shrewd guesses of their general
nature were afloat. It was with a sense of relief that Sir Murgatroyd
said to his wife, as they came away from Challis's side, satisfied
that, for the present at least, his revived powers of speech had
lapsed, "Judith has promised to tell me the whole." And it was with a
sense of relief that her mother heard him. For the doubt of what story
might be still to come was more painful than any probable certainty
would have been.
* * * * *
Down in the village and round the Abbey Well, and round Mrs. Fox's
cottage and its tenant lying dead, survivors of the Feudal System hung
about in groups, and spoke their pristine mother-tongue, an institution
that has not been Americanized in Royd, so far. If that tenant's
subtenant, the victim or _bénéficiare_ of a recent writ of ejectment,
was also hanging about, unseen owing to the Nature of Things, he must
have lamented the pain he was giving, and the trouble his survivors
were having with his residuum. Our interpretation of Jim Coupland's
character favours that view, granting the needful assumptions. But, of
course, he may have been extinct, whatever that means. Poor Jim!