OF JUDITH'S STATE OF MIND, AND HOW SHE TOLD HER FATHER, BUT DID NOT
IMPRESS HIM AS HE WOULD HAVE WISHED. WHO KNOWS WHAT JUDITH WAS? OF A
MYSTERIOUS VISITOR TO THE HALL. HOW NO ONE RECOGNIZED MARIANNE. IS
MY HUSBAND DYING? A SCENE ON THE BIG STAIRCASE, AND HOW TWO TOFFS
WERE FAR FROM ODIOUS. HOW THE NURSE RECOGNIZED ATHELSTAN TAYLOR.
HOW JUDITH SAID GOOD-BYE TO CHALLIS. HOW IT CAME OUT WHO MR. KEITH
HORNE'S FRIEND WAS
A sleepless night had preceded that interview between Judith and
Challis, and she was not at her best when his wandering speech and cold
unrecognition struck a chill to her soul. When a like event occurs--and
it does chance, now and again--between folk who have been linked
together for a lifetime, and the uninjured survivor, awaiting with
the return of consciousness the accents and the look of the affection
of a few hours ago, is repelled by the insensate stare of eyes that
only see a stranger, the unimpassioned sound of a voice from which all
tenderness has vanished, even then the trial is a hard one. But the
memory of the past years is too strong to allow belief that the thing
will last--it is dismissed as a passing nightmare, as the nurse by the
bedside of fever dismisses the wanderings of delirium. It will last its
time, and pass away and be forgotten.
A cool judgment and more experience might have told the girl to
bear her soul in patience; to treat the wanderings of a brain
shaken as Challis's had been as mere sleep-waking. But even had her
self-possession been at its best, she had no long-past years of love
to look back to, to give her confidence in its return with a returning
calm of health. And not only this, but these same wandering words of
his had shown how full his soul still was of the past in which she
had no share. She had been allowed a peep into her lover's heart, and
had felt the force of another love's preoccupation of it. If only his
utterances had been stark rambling, mere Tom-of-Bedlam incoherence! But
the worst of it was, their outward form was clothed in such a terrible
sanity.
There was one thing in it that hit very hard--had a special sting of
its own. Judith knew perfectly well about Challis's bygones. He had
taken her into his confidence about the humble home of the days of his
obscurity. His half-humorous reviews of his past had shown her plainly
how little hold his first wife Kate--the "Ziz" of his novel--had ever
had upon him. He had evidently wedded the wrong sister first. He spoke
of Bob's mother with affection, certainly, but it was an affection that
was artificial and perfunctory, whereas, even if he had never been
passionately in love with Polly Anne--if no volcanic eruption had ever
raged on account of this young person, whom Judith would have classed
as an insignificant puss--still, that Deceased Wife's Sister seemed
to have generated something that was at least a very good working
substitute for a _grande passion_. What was the worth of all his
protestations to her, Judith, if this memory of the days of Great Coram
Street was to be the first resurrection of his mind from its temporary
death?
But where was the use of answering the question now? Or any question
at all, for that matter? Was not the last chance gone of passing the
barrier that held them apart? Well--she had kept her share of the
compact. "I am ready, if it can be arranged," she had said. And she
had complied with every arrangement, stipulating only that the wedding
was to be a mere legal precaution--a formal bar to the creation of
a new obstacle by a retrospective mood of the Lords and Commons.
It would keep the position unaltered; and that was only fair-play,
surely! But now all was changed. She had always been alive to the fact
that Marianne _in esse_, legally warranted in the appropriation of
her husband's children, and canonically warranted in her paroxysm of
sensitiveness to consanguinity, was a very different force to reckon
with from Marianne _in posse_, sained and assoilzied by an Act of
Parliament.
Did she, we may wonder, ask herself the question: If it were possible,
even at this eleventh hour, to get that knot officially tied, and be
ready to laugh at the "retrospective action" of the measure that would
be the Law of the Land in forty-eight hours, would she be ready to jump
at the opportunity? Or, was she not rather relieved at the turn things
had taken? However, there was this to be considered:--if the motor
accident had not happened, and the wedding had come off, she would
never have had to face that blank stare of oblivion, and Great Coram
Street! Some women won't marry a widower lest too many tender memories
should still be treasured in some secret corner of his heart. That is
unreasonable; because the source of them is supposed to be underground,
or in Heaven, or in Purgatory, according to the _façon-de-parler_ of
the moment. But ... Great Coram Street! And the Deceased Wife's Sister
still undeceased, and to be legalized retrospectively on Wednesday!
Be it noted, though, that this is only conjecture! The story has no
warrant for saying that any such thought crossed Judith's mind.
She made a clean breast of the whole matter to her father. She
told him all about that last interview of hers with Challis at
Trout Bend three or four weeks since; and of the arrangement they
had made, and confirmed by subsequent correspondence. Challis was
to reside for fifteen days at some place far enough from his or
her ordinary residence to insure practical secrecy, where there
was a parish-priest qualified to receive his affidavit and issue
an ordinary marriage-licence. "I forget what he called him," said
Judith. "Something like Harrogate." No doubt it was "surrogate." If
in Challis's judgment the passing of the Bill should be put beyond
reasonable doubt, he was at once to procure this licence, and make
every necessary arrangement, keeping her fully informed. He had at
first intended to procure a special licence, but had been deterred by
someone telling him that such a licence might be refused, or at least
delayed. He preferred the idea of dealing with a country parson with
whom he could make acquaintance, and to whose local charities he could
subscribe liberally. Besides, he could mesmerize that parson. You can't
mesmerize Doctor's Commons.
The young lady then narrated, almost more graphically than seemed quite
canny under her circumstances, her reception of a telegram the previous
evening, fixing the time and place of their meeting in accordance with
the terms of a letter of her own, which had told how her brother-in-law
had placed the automobile at her disposal. She described the meeting at
the Park Gate, minus its salutations; the rapid spin along the mile of
road, till they reached the curve; Challis's appeal to the chauffeur
for caution, and M. Rossier's contemptuous disregard; the sudden
appearance of Jim as the car whirled round the corner; and how Challis,
springing to his feet, was shot straight into the road at the very
moment when she knew well, although her eyes had left him, that Jim was
under the wheels; and then her own dazed condition, that almost grew
to stupor as she rode back; and her arrival at home, when her mother,
brought out by Elphinstone, simply ran back terrified. The Baronet
suspected a shade of exaggeration here, and headed off an indictment of
his wife for panic.
"But _why_ the motor-car at all?" said he.
"We turned it all over," said the young lady, "and could see no other
way. The railway was out of the question...."
"Why?"
"Well--picture me to yourself, meeting a swarm of locals on the
platform at Furnival. And fancy my asking for the carriage! Where
should I have said I was going? You've no idea, papa dear, what a poor
liar I am! Not because I'm truthful, but because I'm stupid. Anyhow,
we had taken the trains for granted; and when it came to Bradshaw,
we found that to get to this obscure place and back would mean eight
hours. And what was worst was that if there had been any accident or
delay I should have been stranded till next day--at the Hare and Hounds
I believe it would have been, as a matter of fact--and that wouldn't
have suited me at all...."
"Yes--yes--you were quite right. How long was it to take with the
motor?"
"Within five hours, all told. An hour and three-quarters of car each
way. If all had gone well...."
"Why did Sir Alfred Challis come to meet you?"
Judith didn't seem over-clear on this point. "He made believe," she
said, "that he thought we should lose the way. But I don't believe
that was it. I believe the fun of the ride had more to do with it than
anything."
The Baronet seemed a little _froissé_ by something in his daughter's
tone. "It has been a sorry piece of fun for him," said he. "And for
you, too, my girl." For he was almost vexed with himself for allowing
the inception of a thought of condemnation. See how much she _must_
have suffered, this fool of a daughter of his!
"Don't pity _me_!" said she. "But you are a dear, good papa always."
There was something in this of her old tone of contrasting her
experience with his simplicity. This belief in his pastoral character
was a tradition in the family.
Perhaps it was a part of this character that made him feel that a
blank was being left in their conversation that at least called for a
passing word to fill it in. "This poor fellow's death ..." he began,
taking for granted that Jim Coupland's share in the tragedy would be as
prominent in his daughter's mind as his own. But she stopped him with
an exclamation of alarm as he hesitated.
"Why should he die?" she cried. "There is no chance of his death. See
what the doctors said--both of them...."
He interrupted her. "I was not speaking of Sir Alfred. I was speaking
of Jim Coupland--the blind man, who was killed--is it possible you
do not know that he died?" For, to hear her speak, no one could have
dreamed she knew of that sombre background to a sad day's work, the man
lying dead near at hand.
"Jim Coupland!" she repeated; and the tone of her reply grated on her
father, to whom the thought of Jim's death was an ever-present burden.
Again she repeated, "Jim Coupland!" with a fuller stress on each
syllable that all but seemed contempt. "Yes--but what is Jim Coupland
... compared to...?" Then she qualified her words: "Oh, well, of
course, one feels all that I suppose one ought to feel, but...."
"What what?"
"But it's no use pretending...."
"My dear Judith, I _don't_ understand."
"My dear papa, do you mean to say that if you were in my place....
However, it really is no use talking about it." Her manner was excited
and resentful, till she suppressed it with an effort, and calmed down
to say: "Suppose we _don't_ talk about it!"
There was a symptom of indignation in her father's tone as he replied:
"We shall gain nothing by talking at all, Judith, if I am right about
your meaning. I may be wrong, my dear"--he softened rather--"but what
you _seem_ to me to mean, by the way you speak about this poor fellow's
shocking death, is ... well!--in short, is, that you are indifferent to
it."
"Is it so very surprising? Would you not think me a hypocrite if I were
to profess to be heart-broken about this--this wretched blind cripple,
who was the cause of it all?"
This took place in the garden, where the father and daughter had
walked apart, to be alone, away from the house. Judith had really
been as anxious to speak with him as he with her. But she was not in
love with this turn in the conversation. As she stood with bitten
lip and flashing eye in front of the wires of a cage containing a
sulphur-crested cockatoo--for they were close to the aviary where she
and Challis had talked about the parroquets--a hideous shriek from the
bird caught her last words, and almost seemed a vindictive endorsement
of their spirit.
Her father, to whom the death of the innocent man was a thing that
threw all other disquiets into the shade, suppressed whatever he felt
of resentment or disgust, and showed only wonderment. "My dear child,"
said he, "you are not yourself. If you were, you _could_ not say such
things. I can hardly believe that you realize that the man is _dead_
when you speak so." He stopped a moment, puzzled. "I suppose, though,
he must have been still alive when you last saw him?"
"Oh yes, he was shouting. But I knew he went under the wheel. I _felt
him_." Her father shuddered, but she seemed calm.
"Did you not see him again?"
"No--that was the last I saw of him. I never looked for him....
Well!--I thought Sir Alfred Challis was killed."
The Baronet felt apologetic. "I see, my dear, of course! Yes--yes--that
would be so. I suppose the poor fellow must have had life enough in him
to get off the road ... only ... well!--I don't understand...."
"What doesn't my papa understand?" There is again the shade of the old
family tradition of patronage in her voice. Disinclination to accept it
in this case may have roughened her father's reply a little:
"I don't understand what Taylor said. I'm sure--yes, I'm sure!--he
said he found him _lying in the road_. You must have passed him as you
returned?"
"Very likely."
"Judith!" This was sudden remonstrance, almost anger. But it softened
as it had done before. "Well--well--perhaps it was only natural ... of
course, I am forgetting...."
"Perhaps what was only natural?... Oh dear!--well, of course I know
what you mean--my not being able to go into hysterics over this man's
death. The circumstances are what I believe are called touching, no
doubt, but...."
The Baronet was flushed, and quite angry at this. "The circumstances
are what are rightly called touching," he said. "Poor Jim Coupland
was coming out to meet him--so I understood the Rector--in the full
expectation that he was bringing that dear little girl of his back
to him. And he was only bringing the news of her death.... What did
you say?..." For Judith had muttered _sotto voce_ that then it didn't
matter. But she did not repeat it, saying only, "I said nothing."
Her father did not believe this, and the end of his sentence hung fire,
he looking doubtful. So Judith repeated his last words, to start him
fresh. "'He was only bringing the news of the little girl's death' ...
you were saying?..."
"Yes!--the news of her death. And then this damnable motor-car of yours
comes tearing round the corner, with its damned hooting, and he's under
the wheels in a moment! I shall tell Frank I won't have the thing in
the house again, once he's taken it away. It's simply a horror and
an abomination...." And so on. He was in want of a safety-valve, and
here it was. The fact was that Judith's apathy about poor Jim had made
him feel thoroughly uncomfortable; it was so unlike his measure and
conception of what his family ought to be.
As for Judith, she may have felt that sort of alarm at this impetuous
utterance that a child will remain susceptible of in later years,
who would laugh at any like explosion of a non-parent. It is an
inheritance from the nursery. Impressed by her father's denunciation of
the motor-car, or possibly thinking to herself, "No more scenes, for
Heaven's sake!" she relaxed so far as to say, formally, "I'm sorry for
the little girl." But she spoiled whatever there was of graceful in a
grudging concession by adding, "Perhaps that will satisfy you?"
The old gentleman said nothing, but looked at her, puzzled and hurt
at what he shrank from thinking her heartlessness; trying to concoct
excuses for it that would make her seem less ungracious. For he loved
this daughter of his, so much so that even now he felt proud of her
rich beauty, none the worse for all her stress and trouble. Indeed, as
she stood there, caressing the great white bird that had shrieked--she
had taken it as she spoke from its cage, and was kissing its terrifying
beak with tenderness--her black mass of hair against its yellow crest;
her ivory-white skin against the driven snow of its feathers, each made
whiter in its own way by yet another white, the soft folds of a creamy
summer dress most late Augusts would have condemned; her beautiful
hand in the sun, with the bird's black claw upon its jewels--all these
might have said a word in arrest of judgment to a parent readier
to disbelieve in his daughter than Sir Murgatroyd. No doubt they
influenced him to think that he had succeeded in glossing over what he
would have condemned as callousness in one further away from him. But
she--as other father's daughters are--was his little girl of twenty
years ago grown up. She did not really mean this heartlessness, thought
he; it was a sort of _parti pris_--a parade, an affectation!
Was he right, after all? Is the story wrong in its estimate of her? Has
it laid too much stress on the hard side of this girl's character--its
vanity and love of power? Some moralist has said that no mortal should
be called heartless as long as he or she can fall in love. Judith
Arkroyd _must_ have been in love with Alfred Challis; for see what
risks she was running to secure him! Why--yes!--to secure him; that
was just it. She _wanted_ him, and took the only road to possession
that seemed open to her. Now if, when he lay insensible, that time
when there was none to see, she had only stooped to kiss the inanimate
hand, had even held it till the nurse returned! Should we not have felt
more sorrow for her after that, when his returning speech showed how
completely she had, for the moment, passed from his mind? No doubt she
was in love with him, in one manner of loving. But there are so many!
This story is not going to break its heart about her--to chant
dirges over the grave of her share of this _grande passion_. And its
commiseration for her grows no mellower from dwelling on the fact it
has to record: that exasperation against poor Jim Coupland, to whom
she thought proper to ascribe the whole miscarriage of the scheme, was
really a source of relief to her--a sort of counter-irritant. To her
father, Jim's death and his child's filled the whole horizon--a black
cloud. Challis's mishap he did not distress himself about; he would
be all right presently--had he not spoken? As for his loss of memory,
_that_ meant nothing. Did he not himself, when he came round after
_his_ mishap, ask whether "the trout" had been taken, meaning the fox?
Loss of memory was the rule, not the exception, in such cases. And as
for the future of Challis and Judith, that was a difficulty there must
be some legal way out of. It was incredible that Challis's wife should
go on holding him at arm's length, and yet bar his union with another
woman. Some solution of that problem could be found, Bill or no Bill!
As for opposing his daughter's wishes, if they were really deep-rooted,
that he would not do. All his opposition to Challis hitherto had been
to him as Marianne's husband. If their marriage could be legally
annulled or dissolved, he was not going to stand in the way of his
daughter's happiness.
But this anger of hers against Jim showed her as a new Judith, whom
he had never suspected the existence of. In her childhood she had
been proud and domineering with her brothers and sisters--two elder
brothers had died in the army, and a sister was married in India; none
of them have crossed this story--but not, so far as her father knew,
malignant or revengeful. It gave him a great discomfort at heart; set
him wondering which of her ancestors on either side she had harked back
to. Was it Josceline de Varennes, who, in one of those spirited middle
ages, hid a knife under her bridal pillow and gave her first husband
a warm reception to his couch, in order that she should marry Hugh
Arkroyd? There was the knife, to prove it, in the glass cabinet with
the green-dragon china service. But--as long ago as King Stephen! Oh
no!--it was that old fiend of a great-grandmother of Therèse's. Every
old family has an ancestral scapegoat, and a certain "Lady Sarah," of
the days of the second George, was very popular in this one.
But Sir Murgatroyd scarcely did more than seek for the scapegoat, in
case he should be forced to condemn this member of the congregation. He
did not pass sentence. He only said gently, "You will feel differently,
Judith dear, when you are yourself again. All this has upset you." In
reply to which the young lady said wearily, "We shall see, I suppose,
presently. I can't be very demonstrative about either now, though of
course it's very sad, and so on, about the little girl." And then she
talked to the parrot, kissing him and calling him her darling, and
saying now he must go back in his wicked cruel cage. All which her
father set down to mere bravado, and thought it best to say no more to
her in her present mood. But he had a very serious look on his face as
they walked towards the house together.
It was a relief to him to hear the robust musical voice of the Rector
in the large drawing-room that opened on the lawn, which was their most
natural way back into the house. But Judith paused on the terrace. "Oh
dear!" said she. "There's our Father Confessor! I can't stand sympathy,
and I don't want to be catechized, thank you! Be a dear good papa,
and say pretty things for me!" And then, in spite of an attempt at
remonstrance by her father, slipped away; going round by a side-terrace
that, ending at the house-corner in a vague architectural effort three
centuries old--a Nereid and a Triton and a sink, with an Ionic canopy
over all to keep the rain off--allowed of an approach to the main
_façade_ of the house, and the carriage-drive through the beech avenue
in the Park.
But she did not at once carry out her scheme of escape. The shadow of
the Ionic canopy was sweet on the base of the sink, and the seat it
made was tempting, and the cleanness of its moss and lichens acceptable
even to a skirt of _crêpe-de-Chine_. It was only an old dress, too,
according to Judith's ideas, so she spent a little time with the Triton
and the Nereid before going on into the house. She felt stunned and
bewildered, for all she had shown so bold a front, and was glad of rest.
Presently her desire to know that Challis was progressing got the
better of a terror that was on her that his oblivion might be lasting.
She could hear the voices of the party in the drawing-room still in
conversation, the Rector's very distinctly; so she decided that she
could slip indoors with safety, and rose to go.
A little diffident gate, that had shrunk away into the heart of a yew
hedge, led out to the drive and entrance to the house; and one could
see and not be seen there, even by visitors who had been over the
ground before. Judith stopped at this gate, not to be caught by an
early sample, unexplained. It was not yet twelve o'clock, and there
at the door was a vehicle with one horse, steaming. And a lady in
black was descending from it, and Samuel evidently meant to let her
in. Judith waited for her to vanish; gave her ample time, more than
enough, to be shown into the drawing-room, and then went straight on to
the house.
The vehicle was a hired fly from Furnival, whose driver Judith at once
recognized as an _habitué_ of the railway-station. He was mopping his
brow with his handkerchief, for the morning had become very hot; but
he put his hat on to touch it to Miss Arkroyd, who of course was very
familiar to him. Having done this, he took it off again, and went on
mopping. He referred to the dryness of this sort of day pointedly;
but Judith missed his sub-intent, and conceived that the position was
covered by the approach of Bullett the groom, with a pail of water for
the horse. The lady must have come straight from the train.
Judith looked through the glass door--as _she_ thought, carefully--to
make sure the great hall at the foot of the stairs was empty. She
was quite without conjecture or suspicion as to who the visitor was,
or she might not have contented herself so easily that the coast was
clear. Anyhow, there was no one visible from where she stood and looked
through. So she passed in and walked straight across to the stairs, and
so up to the first landing. As she turned the angle, she saw a lady in
black, whom she did not recognize, seated in the recess on the left,
who rose when their eyes met. Not a bad-looking woman, of a sort, but
not self-explanatory.
Count over the times Judith had met Marianne. They do not amount to
much--at least, until that evening at the theatre. Two dinners and a
visit in London a couple of years ago--consider how little that means
to a young lady who may be under an equal social obligation to remember
half-a-dozen new faces every day! Consider, too, that in this early
time Mr. Challis was in the eyes of this young lady nothing beyond a
popular author whose works she hadn't read; and as for his wife, why
should she notice her at all? "Which was she, Sib?" we can fancy her
asking. Was she, for instance, the underdressed one with the mole, or
the rawboned giggler? Then, as to that visit to the play a few months
later, think of the exciting pre-occupations! Is it certain that Miss
Arkroyd paid as much attention to her hostess as you and I might have
thought the circumstances demanded? Anyhow, there had been nothing
to fix Marianne in Judith's memory to such an extent that she should
recall at once the travel-worn--and trouble-worn--face she hardly
glanced at, and would have left without a second look had its owner not
risen, as though to speak. She might have done so, nevertheless, if it
had not been for something in the visitor's action which suggested a
lady kept outside the drawing-room rather than a person allowed inside
the house. You know the sort of difference--the difference between
subservient conciliation and conciliatory self-assertion.
What caught and retained Judith's second look was that this person
answered to neither description. Her manner was _sui generis_, and the
_genus_ had in it a touch of something odd that wasn't insanity. Was
it desperation? It was creditable to Judith's penetration that she
at once dismissed the only idea that suggested itself. An image shot
into her mind of Jim Coupland's sister, employed as cook by Challis,
humorously described by him more than once. Stuff and nonsense!--out of
the question!
"Are you ... being attended to?" She threw a slight smile of protest
into the question, to guard against the possibility of wrong form. If
she had mistaken the facts, her hearer would understand the implication
of courtesy--no fear of misunderstanding between _us_!
"The young man went in. I can wait." The speaker looked away from Miss
Arkroyd. Her manner was not conciliatory. But even then no idea crossed
Judith's mind of who she actually was. In fact, prohibitives were at
every point of the compass. How could the news have reached Marianne?
How could she have come so quick to Royd?
"Is it anything I can do?" This was bald civility on the face of it;
almost stipulated that it should be refused. The speaker's arrested
foot on the next stair waited to go up when the refusal should warrant
it. But it had to wait, long enough to make its owner wonder what was
coming.
"Yes!--you can, Miss Arkroyd." Judith's good breeding concealed her
surprise. She stood committed, and awaited the instruction. Was this
tiresome person going to give it, or be choked by it? It came at last.
"You can tell me whether my husband is dying or not."
And then Judith knew that she was face to face with Marianne Challis,
the woman she had injured.
* * * * *
Sir Murgatroyd found his wife talking with Athelstan Taylor, of course
about the current events. "This is good news about Challis," said the
Rector. "Lady Arkroyd tells me he has recovered consciousness."
The Baronet demurred slightly. "Ye-es. At least, he has spoken."
"And not incoherently?"
"N-no. Oh no--not _incoherently_." But the stress on this word had
reservation in it, and her ladyship exclaimed impatiently, "Oh, my
dear, you always make the worst of everything!" A pitying smile, aside
to the Rector, was quite a little essay on the unreasonableness of
husbands--that intractable class. Mr. Taylor looked from one to the
other. It would be early to take sides, but of course the prescribed
form in such a case is to help the wife to commiserate her mate's
shortcomings. It was safest to endorse the lady's view, provisionally.
"We mustn't expect too much at first," said he, deprecating the crude
judgment of inexperience, a quality common to all our family except
ourself. "The author won't be in trim for dictating copy for some days
to come, I'm afraid." He hesitated a moment, before adding, "You have
kept it from him, I suppose, for the present?"
"Mr. Taylor is referring to poor Coupland's death, my dear," said the
Baronet. Which his wife resented slightly, as suggesting that her
sympathies needed a stimulus. "_Do_ you suppose I don't understand
that, my dear?" said she _sotto voce_; a reply apart. But she might
just as well have left the matter to stand there, and not let herself
be betrayed into a candid admission that, in view of the sad end of
poor little Lizarann, her father's death almost assumed the form of a
Merciful Dispensation. We should be thankful, at least, that he had
been spared the hearing of it.
"The whole thing has been terribly sad," said Athelstan Taylor. Indeed,
he seemed as if he could hardly bear to speak of it. He turned from the
subject abruptly. When could he look forward to seeing Challis without
danger of his hurting himself by talking?
Sir Murgatroyd looked inquiry at his wife, and she at him. Then he
took the reply on himself, as she seemed very doubtful. "The fact is,
Rector," said he, "it isn't by any means certain that he would know
you. He can hardly be said to have come to himself yet. What he said
to...."
"What he said to the nurse was hardly sense," Lady Arkroyd struck
in abruptly. No doubt she wanted to keep Judith out of it. But Sir
Murgatroyd held to his purpose--would have no evasion or prevarication.
"I was not referring to what he said to the nurse, my dear Therèse. I
was going on to speak of what he said to Judith. What _did_ he say to
the nurse?"
"Oh, I don't know! Tell it your own way." Lady Arkroyd abdicates.
Her husband did not notice her impatience, but continued: "It happened
that my daughter was present when he showed consciousness, and he
did not recognize her, and asked for his wife. It was a very singular
thing, too, that when Judith told him we did not know where to write to
her, he gave the address he lived at several years ago. But I cannot
say that seems to me so strange as his non-recognition of Judith,
considering...."
"My _dear_!" from the lady, remonstratively.
But the Baronet sticks to his colours, though he speaks temperately.
"My dear Therèse, Mr. Taylor is so old a friend that I really do think
it would be absurd to make any secrets. After all, what does the whole
thing amount to?..." Here the Rector interrupted him.
"I think it's only fair of me, Lady Arkroyd, to say that I know all
about it already. This poor chap--I'm not going to say a word in
defence of him--took me into his confidence some weeks ago. That is to
say, he sketched as possible the scheme which I now see he and Judith
must have attempted to carry out. I tried to dissuade him from it,
and, indeed, fancied he had given it up.... No; I thought it best to
hold my tongue about it, in order to retain my influence with him. He
had been speaking freely to me, assuming that what he said would go no
farther, and I should only have lost my hold over him by talking to you
of it, without any corresponding gain." This was in answer to what was
evidently the beginning of a question: "Why was the knowledge of this
plan to be kept from _us_?"
However, the Baronet was ready with ungrudging admission that the
Rector had acted for the best; his wife with a rather more stinted
allowance of assent. Of course, Judith would have gone her own way in
any case ... but still!... "Are we not her parents? Should we not have
been told on principle?" seemed to be an implication lurking behind
lips that had shut it in, and leaking out through a stirring of the
eyebrows. Her husband, averse to reserves, and noting this one, said,
"What were you going to say, Therèse?"
But Therèse said, "_Do_ wait, my dear!" to him, and to the Rector,
"Would you excuse me one moment?... What is it, Samuel?" The last
was because Samuel was in the room with a card on a hand-tray, to
be dealt with furtively, if possible, its bearer's mission in life
being self-subordination. Being called on to state what it was, he
said it was a lady, and might she speak to her ladyship for a moment.
This was a metaphrasis, because it was palpably a card, on which her
ladyship read to herself the name "Mrs. M. Craik," and seemed none the
wiser. Then she handed it to Sir Murgatroyd, who took his glasses to
the reading of it, and said, "No, I don't know the name." Whereupon
her ladyship said, "I suppose I must see her. You'll excuse me, Mr.
Taylor?" and departed, after instructions to Samuel about the room the
lady was to be shown into.
Now, if she had read the name aloud, the chances are that Athelstan
Taylor, who had a lively enough recollection of his visit of
intercession to Marianne's mother a year ago, would have remembered it.
And then Lady Arkroyd would have known beforehand who it was she was on
her way to interview.
As it was, she continued quite in the dark about the identity of "Mrs.
M. Craik," until, following Samuel at what she thought a sufficient
interval to allow of his disposing of the stranger as arranged, she
came out upon a scene at the stairfoot in the entrance-hall that taxed
her presence of mind; with a result that was not an uncommon one with
her, that she could see no way of meeting the demand upon it, except by
an appeal to her husband to rescue her. For, ready as she always was to
set his judgment aside when doing so involved her in no difficulty, she
always looked to him to extricate her when she found herself in a bad
one.
"Oh, thank God if he is living ... if he is only living to speak to me
once ... just once! Oh, do say again that he is not dead. I will never
think ill of you again. Oh, do let me go to him where he is now...."
Thus far the poor soul had spoken through a deluge of tears, when Lady
Arkroyd came out from a side-door, and her mind said to her that if it
was to be hysterics, she did wish Sir Murgatroyd would come. But as
to exactly who this was, this female in black who was making a scene
gratuitously, the thing of all others her ladyship hated, she was for
the moment quite at a loss to guess. Of course, a moment's reflection
would have made it clear, but, you see, she was so totally unprepared.
Her first information as to whom she was speaking with--seeing that she
was as much at sea about Marianne's personal identity as Judith had
been at first--came from her daughter, standing handsome and impassive
on the stairs, above this excited woman; making her seem a suppliant by
her own unmoved placidity, and herself almost cruel by the severity of
the contrast.
"This is Lady Challis, mamma." Judith's speech quite ignores the
tension of the situation--passes it by. "She wishes to go to Sir
Alfred. Is there any objection?" What can it matter to the speaker?--is
the implication. _Let_ her go to Sir Alfred, by all means!
Her mother's breath is fairly taken away. "Lady Challis!" she repeats.
And then, as silence seems to wait for something else, the blankest
interjection: "Oh-h-h!" with the minimum of meaning sound can convey.
Then poor Marianne, with no Charlotte at hand to suggest possible ugly
interpretations, bursts out, "I am _not_ Lady Challis. I am nothing of
the sort. Dear Lady Arkroyd--you must remember me?--you came to see me
at home. Do let me go--let me go to my husband!"
Lady Arkroyd was puzzled. Perhaps, after all, there had been a mistake
at the outset, and there _had_ been all along "something against" this
impossible wife. Nothing suggested itself to her as a practicable
course. This lady had turned to her with a beseeching face, for
which she had "Why, of course!" ready in her heart, being quite a
good-natured woman, but there were such odd complications afoot she
could not utter it. Judith, from her security behind Marianne, was
endeavouring to telegraph without audible speech the words "Deceased
Wife's Sister"; and, indeed, after two or three repetitions, her mother
caught the clue. But she was little, if any, the wiser; and it was then
the prompting came to rush for succour to her husband, still talking to
the Rector in the drawing-room.
"_Do_ you mind my speaking to my husband for a moment first?" Marianne
minds nothing, so long as it is on a road that leads to her object, and
her ladyship goes quickly away.
"May I leave you alone for a few moments, Lady Challis?" says Judith,
going. "Please step in here till my mother returns, and sit down." That
is, into the little room off the landing. Judith goes upstairs quickly;
and Samuel, always on the watch, officiates as pilot.
Lady Arkroyd walked back into the drawing-room. She looked despair
before trusting herself to speech, and the action of her hands laid
an imaginary case for despair before the two gentlemen, who stopped
talking to hear its spoken particulars. Her husband encouraged
revelation by saying "Well?" interrogatively.
"Oh, my dear, what _is_ to be done? It's the Deceased Wife's Sister! I
wish you would come."
The Baronet gives the slightest of whistles. "Where have you got her?"
he asks.
"My dear, she's in hysterics!"
"Yes--but _where_?"
"In the front hall. And Judith is there _with_ her!"
"I say, we'd better go." Thus the Baronet to the Rector, who assents
without reserve. Observe that this colloquy has gone on in undertones.
Not that anyone could hear--they might have shouted, for that
matter--but to endorse the tension of the situation.
Arriving in the hall, and seeing first the place where Judith had
been standing, her mother felt a sense of relief. Her absence made
the position easier to deal with. But--where was the Deceased Wife's
Sister? Samuel explained. He had shown the lady into the _mezzanina_
room, as directed. Samuel felt proud of his Italian, over this.
Marianne had not been sorry to be alone again for a moment, after
her first effort of self-announcement. She looked out through the
window over the rounded slopes, thickly wooded enough to seem a
stretch of forest; with the little groups of roe-deer in the glades
the beech-woods grudged them, in their ambition to cover the whole
land. She saw the wide level lawns, clothed with the grass of
centuries, dreaming of the music of bygone scythes, before the days
of mowing-machines and their economies of power no man stinted then;
the peacocks walking with precision, and satisfied that they were
appreciated; the beds ablaze with asters and marigolds, and dahlias,
and standard roses still blooming, and proud of their little tickets
that told what variety they were. She saw all these, and out beyond
them the smoke-cloud of the great manufacturing centre, with its
confidence of one day gobbling up the park and its wood and warren,
vert and venison, and getting at its coal, and using it up to make
steel armour-plates, that shall send other armour-plates to the bottom
of the sea. Unless, indeed, civilization collapses; whereof it is not
proper form to say--the sooner the better!
All this has nothing to do with Marianne, except, perhaps, as showing
what a many things did not cross her mind that might have done so. The
whole thing was dim to her, and swam about. Now that the excitement
was less, she began to be afraid she might make a fool of herself and
faint off, as she did that time with Charlotte Eldridge. She was sorry
now that after travelling so far on a very poor breakfast in London,
she had not had the sense to get a biscuit or a sandwich at Furnival.
When Sir Murgatroyd and her ladyship came into the _mezzanina_ room,
they found her seated with closed eyes, and alarmingly white. But she
rallied at the sound of their voices. Oh no!--she was all right. Now
all she wanted was to know about her husband. Was he in danger? Had he
been in danger?
The Baronet, in a voice good to banish hysteria in any form,
justifiable or otherwise, rather outwent the truth in his testimony.
Sir Alfred had never been in any danger at all! Who had told Lady
Challis that story? The old gentleman's pooh-poohing laugh was pleasant
to Marianne's ears. Only she didn't feel quite sure she wasn't an
impostor. She had come on the distinct understanding--with whom, hard
to specify--that Titus was dying. Had she been imposed upon?
"It was in the Sunday paper yesterday," she said. "And I saw it on all
the posters at the stations, coming by rail."
"Those damnable newspapers--you'll excuse me, Lady Challis--I should
have all the editors hanged if I had my way. Yes, I would indeed! Why,
there never _was_ any danger! These things happen every day." He went
on to narrate how, when his mare Eurydice threw him at Stamford's
Croft, he had been carried home unconscious, and remained so over two
days. "But your mare had to be shot, my dear," said his wife, vaguely.
When Athelstan Taylor, who had hung back a moment to exchange a few
words with the nurse, whom he had met on the stairs coming from
Challis's bedside, followed his companions into the _mezzanina_
room, he was surprised and pleased to find the Baronet apparently on
the most comfortable and communicative terms with the embarrassing
lady-visitor. It was all just as if none of the events that made the
visit embarrassing had ever happened. Marianne might have been the
wife of any neighbour, the victim of a bad accident; who had come at a
summons to learn the worst, and was being assured that no bones were
badly broken, and the patient in perfect trim for inspection without a
shock to the feelings of the most sensitive. The escapade of Challis
and Judith might have been a dream, and the terms he had been on with
Marianne those of Philemon and Baucis. Ignoring was evidently the order
of the day, and the Rector made up his mind to comply with it.
"This is our Rector, Lady Challis," said the old gentleman, introducing
him. "The Rev. Athelstan Taylor. I think he will tell you he is just as
confident as I am that Sir Alfred will be himself again in the course
of a day or two--perhaps in a few hours. Eh, Rector?"
The voice of the big man with the fresh face, sun-tanned with a
pedestrian summer, was a new reassurance to the frightened, worn-out
woman. It said, filling the little room musically, "Every reason to
suppose it, at any rate! I hope we shall all be as lucky if we are ever
in as bad an accident, which Heaven forbid!" But an inflexion of his
tone contained reference to other injury done in this accident, and
made Marianne remember the details in the newspaper. "Was there not a
man killed?" she asked.
All looked very sad. "Yes, unhappily," was the joint reply. The
Rector began giving some particulars of Jim's death, but stopped.
"You were just going up to Sir Alfred," he said. For the general bias
of the party in the room, as he entered it, had seemed to be towards
migration. The visitor had half-risen from a sofa, but had fallen back
as the conversation showed signs of continuing.
Lady Arkroyd and her husband exchanged looks, and appeared to assent
to the move. Marianne began to rise again, but with such visible sign
of fatigued effort that the other three signalled to one another, so
to speak, that this would never do! Lady Arkroyd spoke, preferring to
indicate that her husband, with man's proverbial want of tact, was
inconsiderately overlooking a guest's comfort. "My dear, I'm sure
Lady Challis has had nothing to eat since she left London, and she
was travelling all night. She's completely worn out." She added a
corollary, "Men forget these things."
The Rev. Athelstan had a suggestion to make: "One minute," said he.
"Just let me say ... I spoke to the nurse just now. She said Sir
Alfred had not talked again, but had shown he wanted to get rid of the
bandage on his head. She was going to take it off, as she says it isn't
the least wanted. Lady Challis would just have time to get a little
refreshed while she does it. And then Sir Alfred will be looking quite
like himself. You know, there was no visible injury ever, except that
scratch on the forehead--just a bit of plaister!"
And thus it came about that Marianne Challis was taking a cup of black
coffee and a biscuit, but nothing else, thank you, in the house she had
refused to follow her husband to over a year ago, at the very moment
that his second return of consciousness prompted him to ask again for
Polly Anne.
* * * * *
Judith, barely pausing to see that Marianne was "shown in" to the
side-room--because it is not enough to know which door; you have to be
properly shown in by a servant--had gone quickly to the patient's room,
meeting the nurse by the way. She stopped her.
"Is Sir Alfred Challis conscious?"
"I think a little more so. He hasn't spoken, but he evidently wants
that bandage off his head. I thought it might be better to mention it
before taking it off. Not that I'm really afraid of the responsibility.
Only it's as well to be on the safe side. Is Lady Arkroyd downstairs?"
"I think she's just coming up. Sir Alfred's wife is here."
"Oh, indeed. I hope she won't upset him. I shall find Lady Arkroyd
downstairs.... Oh, by-the-bye, Miss Arkroyd, what did your mother say
was the name of the big parson--Reverend what?"
"Reverend Athelstan Taylor."
"I thought so." And the nurse, a well-defined and explicit person, went
downstairs as Judith passed on along the lobby.
The figure on the bed was moving slightly as she entered the room,
feeling how venturesome her conduct was; and was evidently fidgeting,
as the nurse had said, about the bandage. She went up and stood beside
him, hiding a kind of desperation under an immovable exterior. Should
she speak to him by name? If so, by what name? As his memory was
playing such tricks, might not his present style and title be strange
to him? Besides, she had never called him "Sir Alfred." And if she
called him "Scroop," as she had done almost throughout, and _still_ he
did not recognize her, how then? But surely he was speaking again!
"You're very good--but what am I being kept here for? I say!--I hope
Polly Anne's all right...."
"Please don't pull at that bandage; it shall be taken off as soon as
the nurse comes back. Why shouldn't 'Polly Anne' be all right?" She
couldn't help the inverted commas.
"Because she hasn't come. Did you send to the address I gave?"
Judith replied stonily, "Your wife is here. She will come directly....
Listen! Do you not know me?" For she knew how short their time must
be; how brief and abrupt the farewell that had to be packed into it,
whatever form it might take. She did not certainly know whether she
hoped he would say "Yes."
He kept her waiting, to turn his eyes full on her and consider the
point. "N-n-n-no!" said he, prolonging the first letter. "I don't
_think_ I do." His civil manner was heart-rending to the woman beside
him. Recollect that only three days before, though they would not have
become _de facto_ man and wife, their compact of marriage would have
been irrevocable! He kept his eyes still on her with a puzzled look,
adding immediately after, "Could you not tell me of something to remind
me?"
What to remind him of, and avoid all claim of tender memory for
the past, in view of the fact that he might disallow that past
altogether!--that was Judith's difficulty. She must keep to suggestions
prosaic and bald--just the colourless events of daily life. She tried
to speak with absolute calm indifference, tempered by good-will.
"Is it possible you do not remember this room--the room the German
Baroness saw the ghost in?" She made a not too successful attempt at a
laugh over this. "Why!--you slept here before!"
"Where is 'here'?"
"My father's house, Royd Hall. I am Judith Arkroyd."
Challis's voice and manner were like his old self again as he answered,
"I do feel so out of it!" and laughed a sort of apology. "I'm horribly
ashamed. I shall have to ask Polly Anne to jog my memory. Is she
coming?"
"Oh yes--she's coming." Judith had hard work to refrain from breaking
out "Have you forgotten Trout Bend and the convict's bridge; the
little Tophet garden and the letter, and all my shawl in a blaze?
Have you no memory of the play you wrote for me to play in; of your
fatuous declaration of a passion a man of your sobriety should have
been ashamed of; above all of our meeting of two days since, our
reckless race along the sunlit road, and its tragic ending?" But she
knew all this, that her tongue was itching to remind him of, was good
for oblivion only; knew it by a thousand tokens, most of all by the
revelation chance had given of the background of his mind. Even the
knowledge that all fruition of their crazy scheme was perforce at an
end was as nothing compared to that. Therefore she felt it safest to
say curtly that Marianne was coming, and to add that the nurse would be
back in a moment to remove the bandage.
Challis closed his eyes again with a tired sigh. "I can't trust myself
to talk," said he. "All sorts of things keep coming into my head, and
convincing me I must be out of my senses. But I'm clear about one
thing. Someone is being very kind to me. I have a general impression
that I don't deserve it, and I want to thank ... want to thank...." He
seemed to give it up as a bad job, and to relapse into half-stupor.
Judith was fast coming to the conclusion that the sooner she and
Challis saw the last of one another the better for both. But "to part
at last without a kiss!" The words of Morris's poem came into her mind.
Well--suppose in this case we were to say, "without a handshake"? That
would be quite enough. At least, that knight beside the Haystack in the
Floods would have known whom the kissed lips belonged to. Challis's
disordered head had constituted him a stranger to her. All the same, to
have the tale of their love end on a blank and vanish, and none write a
word of epilogue--not so much as a bare _finis_!--grated on her sense
of the fitness of things. She would just try to print the word herself,
without provoking an appendix. If he was insensible again and did not
hear her, what did it matter?
"The nurse will come directly," she repeated. "I have to go now.
Good-bye!"
He opened his eyes again, rousing himself. "Oh--good-bye--good-bye!"
said he. "I am sorry you have to go." He took her hand, shaking it
frankly and warmly. She was afraid the touch of her own hand might
bring back the past--the useless past--and almost stinted to return its
pressure.
She turned in the doorway, and said, referring to footsteps approaching
the room without, "Perhaps you will know this gentleman who is coming
now, and he will tell you who I am." A bitterness in her heart made the
last words come, and then she said to the nurse and Athelstan Taylor,
who was with her, "He's been talking again, quite like himself, only he
doesn't know me from Adam. But I fancy he'll soon be all right."
"That's good hearing," said the Rector cheerfully. "You'll find the
Duchess downstairs. She's asking for you, to take you to Thanes."
"Oh, is she? I think I shall put my things on at once, and go with
her." She went to her room and rang for her maid, whom she sent with a
message to the Duchess. She would be ready in five minutes, she said,
and meant to stop the night.
When the little handmaiden had finished her ministrations, and her
mistress and the Duchess had driven away, she was found in tears by a
fellow-servant, and explained them by saying Miss Judith was angry with
her. Because she had never once called her Cintilla, but only Clemency,
which was merely her proper name.
"My dear sir," said Challis to the Rector, standing by his bed,
"you say, 'Don't I know you?' And you say it so confidently that it
convinces me I _ought_ to know you. But I can't say I do. Honour
bright!"
"Never mind! Don't try to think about it. You'll come to rights
presently. Let this good lady get that thing off your head. The best
thing you can do is to lie still."
So Challis lay still and listened to the conversation. And this is what
he heard:
"I hadn't flattered myself you would remember your humble servant,
Mr. Taylor, but I felt pretty sure you wouldn't have forgotten the
incident."
"I wasn't likely to do that. Faugh!--I've got the flavour of the place
upon me still. That antiseptic sack and rubber gloves!--all the horror
of it! But apart from that, the story the creature told was such a
queer one."
"Seal of confession, I suppose?"
"Hardly that! But not, perhaps, to be repeated except to serve some
special end. I understood he left it to my discretion."
"I had no motive but curiosity. Don't tell me!"
"How came you to remember my name?"
"I didn't. Miss Arkroyd told it me. I remembered your look when I
showed you into the ward. But I ought to have remembered your name,
because I posted Dr. Crumpton's letter to you...."
"I remember. It was to ask which of his aliases this man had given me.
They didn't know what name to bury him under."
"Oh, I remember ... Thomas Essendean. No, it wasn't that. That was one
they rejected. What was it he told you?"
"Kay Thorne, or perhaps _Key_--_Key_ Thorne.... What?" For Challis,
by this time bandageless and ready to receive visitors, but evidently
glad to keep his head down on the pillow, had uttered an exclamation,
without opening his eyes. "What's 'hullo,' Challis?" said the Rector.
For a moment, he felt afraid that the patient's mind was wandering. But
only for a moment. For when Challis spoke again, it was quite quietly
and collectedly.
"Name of my first wife's first ... no!--I don't mean that. Name of
a friend of mine eight--ten--years ago. Not Kaith; _Keith_ Horne.
He wasn't a shining light. He came to awful grief in the end. Penal
servitude, I believe...."
"You mustn't tire yourself with talking," said the nurse. "We shall
have her ladyship up directly. You know she's coming?"
"Oh no!--might my wife come? Her ladyship can come afterwards."
The Rector understood. He glanced at the nurse indicatively. "Mrs.
Challis had better come first," he said. Then he said good-bye to
Challis, and went his way. In the passage was Lady Arkroyd, followed by
Marianne. "You'll find him immensely improved," said he. "I can't say
he remembered me, but he will next time."
Then, as he shook hands with the scared and bewildered lady in black,
he thought to himself, "Now, what a queer story I could tell you, if I
didn't feel that the right course is to keep a lock on my tongue!"
For it had just come home to him that Marianne was _not_ Challis's
Deceased Wife's Sister at all, because "poor Kate" had never been his
Deceased Wife. She was the late Mr. Keith Horne's! And as regarded the
"living in sin business," evidently _she_ was the real Simon Pure, and
Marianne a mere pretender!