They reached Pretoria shortly after nine. Dare drove with Pamela to the
Grand Hotel where he engaged rooms. They breakfasted together at a
small table in the public room. A rather silent meal it proved; Pamela
was tired, and somewhat depressed now that they were arrived at their
destination; the fatigue of the long journey told upon her; and her eyes
were heavy, the result of insufficient rest.
All the glamour was ended; the pleasurable excitement, the sense of
adventure, of happy forgetfulness, was as a dream of the night which the
daylight dispelled utterly, leaving only a vague regret of glowing
memories dimly recalled and greatly missed. She _felt_ as a woman might
feel who had been pleasantly drugged and wakes painfully in a bleak,
unlovely world.
Dare prescribed a warm bath and bed. She could do nothing that morning.
He would see her again at the lunch hour, when she was rested, and tell
her what arrangements he had been able to make in the interval.
She acquiesced silently, too weary and depressed to care whether she saw
Arnott that day or the next. Now that the meeting loomed so imminent
all her courage was oozing away. She realised with a sense of horror at
herself that she shrank almost with repulsion from the thought of
standing beside the sick bed of the man she once had loved, for whom she
now felt nothing but a cold resentment, a bitter anger for the evil part
he had played in her life. She did not desire to see him. But the
reason which had led her to him governed her still. Her future course
was none the less plain because it was difficult to follow.
The much needed rest brought with its refreshment a greater tranquillity
of mind; and when she met Dare at luncheon she was herself again, quiet
and composed, a little nervous obviously, but equal to facing the ordeal
when the moment for doing so arrived.
She was relieved to hear that she was not expected to visit the invalid
until the following morning. She might not, Dare informed her, see him
even then. It depended entirely upon how he received the news of her
presence whether she was admitted to his room. He was making good
progress, and the doctors had no wish to retard his recovery by risking
the excitement of an emotional scene.
"I have vouched for your absolute discretion," he said, meeting the
wistful eyes with a reassuring smile. "I don't fancy you are the sort
of woman who indulges in scenes."
"No," she said quietly. "I've got beyond that." She lowered her gaze
to the flowers in the centre of the table, contemplating their beauty
with a kind of tired relief. Dare watched her intently.
"I feel," she added after a pause, "rather as though I had become
frozen. I don't seem to care much what happens. You'll go with me in
the morning, I suppose?"
"Naturally," he answered.
She raised her eyes again to his swiftly.
"After I have seen him once," she said, "it won't be so difficult. I'll
be able to release you then from your kind office. You mustn't waste
your time any longer on my account."
"I don't reckon it time wasted," he returned.
"Not wasted,--no. I couldn't have managed without you. But I feel it
is very selfish of me to have accepted so much from you. You've set me
in the path. I'll be able to walk it now unaided."
"We will talk of that," he said easily, "after you have seen him. In
the meantime I am not going to let you dwell on the matter. You are
going to drive with me this afternoon. It's beautiful country about
here, and the roads are excellent. We'll forget the painful purpose of
this journey, Pamela, and enjoy ourselves. I claim that as my fee for
the services you insist on recognising."
"You are so good to me," she said.
Her voice was low and tenderly tremulous, and her eyes, lifted to his,
shone misty and soft and confiding. Dare gripped the table with both
hands, and stared back at her across the flowers which divided them in
their slender crystal vase. His face was tense.
"It is easy to be that," he answered gruffly, oblivious of the people in
the room, oblivious of everything but the sweet, tired beauty of her
face, and the trustful affection in the earnest eyes.
"I say," he added, recollecting himself, "let's get out of this."
She rose; and he followed her from the room, aware of the glances she
attracted in passing, and not indifferent to the covert looks directed
at himself. He was well known in Pretoria; one or two faces there were
not unfamiliar to him. He heard his name pronounced distinctly as he
passed through the doors in Pamela's wake. It might be well after all,
he decided, to leave her as she suggested on the morrow. It was
difficult to have continually in mind the necessity for playing the
discreet part of disinterested friend under observant eyes. He had not
intended to leave so soon; but in the circumstances it was wiser; and
from Johannesburg he would have only a two hours' journey if the
necessity for his presence arose. He would extract a promise from her
to wire to him if she found herself in any difficulty.
He did not unfold his plans to her then. He decided to leave matters as
they stood until the morrow. So much depended on the result of the
morning's interview. It seemed to him that his own fate, being
inseparable from hers, hung in the balance of the next twenty-four
hours.
He felt almost as nervous as Pamela the following day, when he
accompanied her to the Home, and waited in the little room where he had
waited before to learn the doctor's verdict.
The matron came in and talked hopefully with Pamela of her husband's
progress. Mr Arnott had been informed that his wife was there, and had
expressed the wish to see her. She thought that very possibly the visit
would cheer him; he had shown a growing tendency towards depression of
late, which was not unusual in the early stages of convalescence.
Pamela listened very quietly to the amiable chatter of this pleasant,
capable looking woman, whose clear eyes were curiously observant of the
white-faced stranger, so tardy in her duty to her sick husband, so
little concerned, it seemed to her, about his condition now that she was
here. The doctor had let fall some vague intimation of domestic
estrangement in instructing her as to the precautions necessary to take
in regard to this visit; but in view of the man's serious illness the
other woman looked on the wife's unforgiving attitude as heartless in
the extreme. She did not know of the agony of suspense hidden behind
the quiet manner, the fear which the calm eyes concealed. She noticed
only the stranger's wonderful composure, the utter lack of spontaneous
inquiry into her husband's case. The only questions that were asked
were put by the man who accompanied her, and who appeared more
interested in the patient, if not more sympathetic, than the wife.
When the doctor entered the matron withdrew; and the medical man, an
older man than the junior partner whom Dare had interviewed on his first
visit, drew a chair forward and sat down opposite to Pamela.
He scrutinised her intently, with kindly interested gaze, thinking her
over in the light of the information he had received from Dare on the
previous day, which, meagre as it had been, had conveyed the impression
that the wife was much to be pitied. Dare's version had explained the
young woman whose connection with Arnott had puzzled the doctor when
first called upon to attend this case. Confronted with Pamela, he found
the situation difficult of comprehension.
"You must be prepared," he warned her, "for a terrible change in your
husband. He's been very ill--he is very ill still. But his recovery is
more satisfactory than we had hoped for. You must be very careful not
to excite him."
"Yes," said Pamela gravely; and he felt that the warning was
unnecessary.
"He is expecting you," he added. "I believe he is anxious to see you.
It is quite possible that this illness of his has wiped a good deal of
the near past from his memory. I would advise you not to recall
anything of a painful nature. Approach him if possible only on present
matters. And cheer him up a little. You can possibly do more for him
than I can at this stage."
Pamela smiled at him bravely.
"I have come with the intention of doing all that is in my power," she
answered gently. "If he will let me, I will devote myself to him. I
want to help him--if I can."
"I don't think there should be any difficulty about that," he replied.
"For a while you will have to be satisfied to leave him here. Later, if
you wish, he can be moved to where you are staying. He could not
undertake the journey to Cape Town yet."
"No?" Pamela said, thinking abruptly of Connie and the children. "I
had thought--"
"Too great a risk," he said decidedly. "We'll err on the side of
caution, Mrs Arnott. He is making such a splendid recovery, I should
be sorry if we did anything to retard it now. I think you will have to
make up your mind to remain in Pretoria for a time. I will let you know
as soon as I consider it safe for him to travel. In any case the hot
weather would prohibit a long journey. Didn't you find it very trying
coming up?"
"I don't think I mind the heat very much," she answered, evading a more
direct reply.
"That's fortunate," he returned, smiling, "because there is no getting
away from it out here." He rose. "Now, if you are ready, I will direct
you to Mr Arnott's room."
He glanced at Dare.
"You'll remain here?" he said.
Dare nodded. Under his brows he was observing Pamela, who, with the old
nervous light in her eyes, was waiting near the door. She did not look
at him as she passed out. In silence she accompanied the doctor along
the passage to Arnott's room which was situated at the end of it. The
door stood open, and a nurse who was standing inside came forth, and
took up her position in the passage within call in case she were needed.
The doctor motioned to Pamela to enter.
"I've brought Mrs Arnott to see you," he said.
His words broke the dead stillness that reigned in the room abruptly;
but as soon as he had uttered them and quietly withdrawn, the stillness
descended again, more deadly, more paralysing than before, it seemed to
Pamela, left alone for the first time with the man who when last she had
seen him had flung out of her presence in anger, and who now, moving his
head feebly on the pillow, turned a pallid, eager, so old face towards
her, and held out his hand to her, and broke into pitiful frying.
Pamela felt inexpressibly shocked. She had prepared herself for a
change, but not so great a change as this. His hair had whitened during
his illness; it was quite white, like a very old man's; his chin was
unshaven, and the unfamiliar beard was white also; his moustache alone
retained a few dark hairs. His face was thin, and so altered that, but
for the eyes, she would have failed in recognising it. And the sight of
him lying there, weak and helpless and so feebly crying, hurt her beyond
measure, moved her to an almost terrified compassion, so that for a
second she could not stir or speak. Something seemed to clutch at her
heart and stop its beating. She had never seen Arnott cry before. The
thought of tears in connection with him would have occurred to her as
impossible. And here he lay,--crying,--holding out a trembling hand to
her, and sobbing like a child.
With a swift, sudden movement, as though her limbs relaxed abruptly and
responded automatically to the rush of pity that leapt up within her,
submerging for the time all other feeling, she approached the bed and
knelt beside it and put her arms about him, as she might have put them
about a suffering child, appealing for sympathy. She drew his head to
her shoulder, and with the so sadly altered face hidden from her sight
against her breast, felt her courage returning, and was able to
articulate his name, and murmur soothing words to him as she caressed
the silvered hair.
"Herbert!--my dear," she said; "it's Pamela. It's all right, dear...
Don't cry... don't cry."
"I've been ill," he said, speaking thickly, with a slight impediment
that made the words difficult to understand. "I've wanted you, Pam...
You've been a long time coming."
He spoke querulously, and sobbed again with a sort of complaining
self-pity, as though he felt she had been neglectful, that she ought to
have known and come to him before. Pamela would have realised without
the doctor's preparation that the enfeebled mind had lost its power to
remember recent events. It was quite possible that he did not realise
even where he was, that, had he been told, he would have failed to
recall the circumstances of his coming to Pretoria. The subject of
their differences, of his desertion of her, had faded entirely from his
recollection. He only knew that he was ill, that he had wanted her, and
that she had been long in coming. He took up his complaint again.
"I've wanted you," he reiterated. "I've kept on wanting you. Why
didn't you come sooner?"
"I came as soon as I could," she answered soothingly. "They would not
let me see you before. You've been very ill. You are getting better
now. Soon you will be much stronger, and then we will go home."
He lay still for a second or so, taking in the significance of her
words.
"Home!" he repeated vaguely... "Yes."
He drew in his breath quiveringly like a tired child, and lay back on
the pillow and stared at her with the familiar eyes set in the
unfamiliar face. Pamela felt oddly disconcerted by his gaze, and only
with difficulty forced herself to meet it. She wished that he would not
look at her, wished that he had remained with his face hidden against
her breast.
"I should like to go home," he said.
He spoke with a puzzled intonation as though not quite dear in his mind
as to where home was; but very sure of one thing, that home meant being
with Pamela, and that he wanted to be with her.
"You'll stay with me?" he asked presently.
"I will come and see you often," she answered, "every day. I have come
to be with you. As soon as you are able to be moved I will take you
away. You must make haste and get strong."
"Yes," he said, "get strong. I have had funny dreams," he added, still
keeping his eyes on her face. "I get funny dreams now occasionally,--
when I'm awake. That's strange, isn't it? Why do I dream when I am
awake?"
"That is only weakness," she replied gently. "Now I am here you won't
dream any more."
"No," he said, and seemed satisfied with her reply. "I've thought
sometimes you were dead," he said; "but you aren't." He stroked her
hand softly. "I'm glad you're all right, Pam."
His eyes, still puzzled, still striving vainly to recall facts which
seemed to hover on the borderland of memory, and which always eluded
him, wandered from her face, wandered aimlessly about the room, and came
back to her face again with the same perplexed, inquiring look which was
so difficult to meet. She felt that she wanted to push away the hand
that so loosely held hers, wanted to get upon her feet and rush from the
room,--away from the haunting sight of the grey, drawn face, and the
insistent, puzzled eyes,--away from the presence of this man who seemed
like a stranger to her, between whom and herself there yet existed an
ugly and dishonouring bond.
She controlled herself with a great effort and continued talking
soothingly to him, obeying mechanically the will power that had governed
her actions throughout. But how much the effort cost her, only she,
herself, could ever realise. While she stayed there with him, listening
to his thick, disconnected utterances, and replying with a gentleness
born of pity only, it seemed to her that something within her, something
that was vital and necessary to the appreciation of life, died utterly,
and left her apathetic and indifferent, a woman denuded of all the best
warm impulses of the heart. The best of herself was dead; there only
remained the dull, unloving semblance of her former self.