"But it was even thou, my companion, my guide,
and mine own familiar friend."
It was not until Janet was sitting alone in the room she had taken at an
hotel that her dazed mind began to recover itself. It did not recoil in
horror from the remembrance of that grim ascent to the flat. It did not
dwell on Cuckoo's death.
Janet said over and over again to herself, in tearless anguish, "Cuckoo
and Fred! Cuckoo and Fred!"
The shock had succeeded to a great strain, and she succumbed to it.
She sat on her box in the middle of the room hour after hour in the
stifling heat. The afternoon sun beat in on her, but she did not pull
down the blind. There was an armchair in the corner, but Janet
unconsciously clung to the box, as the only familiar object in an
unfamiliar world. Late in the afternoon, when Anne found her, Janet was
still sitting on it, gazing in front of her, with an untasted cup of tea
beside her, which the chambermaid had brought her.
Anne sat down on the box and put her arms round her.
"My dear," she said; "my dear."
And Janet said no word, but hid her convulsed face on Anne's shoulder.
Janet had a somewhat confused remembrance of what happened after that.
Anne ordered, and she obeyed, and there was another journey in a cab,
and presently she was sitting in a cool, white bedroom leading out of
Anne's room; at least Anne said it did. Anne came in and out now and
then, and forced her to drink a cup of milk, and smoothed her hair with
a very tender hand. But Janet made no response.
Anne was of those who do not despise the little things of life. She saw
that Janet was suffering from a great shock, and she sent for the only
child there was in the great, dreary London house--the vulgar kitchen
kitten belonging to the cook.
Anne silently held the warm, sleepy kitten against Janet's cheek. It
purred when it was touched, and then fell asleep, a little ball of
comfort against Janet's neck. The white, over-strained face relaxed.
Anne's gentle touch and presence had not achieved that, but the kitten
did. Two large tears rolled down into its fur.
The peace and comfort and physical well-being of feeling a little life
warm--asleep, pressed close against you, is perhaps not new. Perhaps it
goes back as far as the wilderness, which ceased to be a wilderness when
Eve brought forth her firstborn in it. I think she must have forgotten
all about her lost Garden of Eden when she first heard the breathing of
her sleeping child against her bosom. The brambles and the thorns would
prick very little after that.
Later on, when Anne came in softly, Janet was asleep, with the kitten on
her shoulder.
An hour later Anne came in once more in a wonderful white gown, and
stood a moment watching Janet. Anne was not excited, but a little tumult
was shaking her, as a summer wind stirs and ripples all the surface of a
deep-set pool. She knew that she would meet Stephen to-night at the
dinner-party for which she was already late, and that knowledge, though
long experience had taught her that it was useless to meet him, that he
would certainly not speak to her if he could help it, still the
knowledge that she should see him caused a faint colour to burn in her
pale cheek, a wavering light in her grave eyes, a slight tremor of her
whole delicate being. She looked, as she stood in the half-light, a
woman to whose exquisite hands even a poet might have entrusted his
difficult, double-edged love, much more a hard man of business such as
Stephen.
Janet's face, which had been so wan, was flushed a deep red. She stirred
uneasily, and began speaking hoarsely and incoherently.
"All burnt," she said, over and over again. "All burnt. Nothing left."
Anne laid down the fan she held in her hand, and drew a step nearer.
Janet suddenly sat up, opened her eyes to a horrible width, and stared
at her.
"I have burnt them all, Fred," she said, looking full at Anne.
"Everything. There is nothing left. I promised I would, and I have. But
oh! Fred, how could you do it? How could you, could you, do it?" And she
burst into a low cry of anguish.
Anne took her by the arm.
"You are dreaming, Janet," she said. "Wake up. Look! You are here with
me, Anne--your friend."
Janet winced, and her eyelids quivered. Then she looked round her
bewildered, and said in a more natural voice: "I don't know where I am.
I thought I was at home with Fred."
"I have sent for your brother, and he will come and take you home
to-morrow."
"Something dreadful has happened," said Janet. "It is like a stone on my
head. It crushes me, but I don't know what it is."
Anne looked gravely at Janet, and half unconsciously unclasped the thin
chain, with its heavy diamond pendant, from her neck. Her hand trembled
as she did it. She was not thinking of Janet at that moment. "I shall
not see him to-night," she was saying to herself. And the delicate
colour faded, the hidden tumult died down. She was calm and practical
once more. She wrote a note, sent it down to the waiting carriage to
deliver, got quickly out of the flowing white gown into a
dressing-gown, and returned to Janet.
* * * * *
Fred came to London the following day. Even his mercurial nature was
distressed at Cuckoo's sudden death, and at Janet's wan, fixed face. But
he felt that if his sister must be ill, she could not be better placed
than in that ducal household. A good many persons among Fred's
acquaintances heard of Janet's illness during the next few days, and of
the kindness of the Duke and Duchess of Quorn.
The Duke and Duchess really were kind. The benevolence of so
down-trodden and helpless a creature as the Duke--who was of no
importance except in affairs of the realm, where he was a power--his
kindness, of course, was of no account. But the Duchess rose to the
occasion. She was one of those small, square, kind-hearted, determined
women, with a long upper lip, whose faces are set on looking upwards,
who can make life vulgarly happy for struggling, middle-class men, if
they are poor enough to give their wives scope for an unceasing energy
on their behalf. She was a _femme incomprise_, misplaced. By birth she
was the equal of her gentle-mannered husband, but she was one of
Nature's vulgarians all the same, and directly the thin gilt of a
certain youthful prettiness wore off--she had been a plump, bustling
little partridge at twenty--her innate commonness came obviously to the
surface; in fact, it became the surface.
"Age could not wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite vulgarity."
There was no need for her to push, but she pushed. She made embarrassing
jokes at the expense of her children. In society she was familiar where
she should have been courteous, openly curious where she should have
ignored, gratuitously confidential where she should have been reticent.
She never realized the impression she made on others. She pursued her
discomfortable objects of pursuit, namely, eligible young men and
endless charities, with the same total disregard of appearances, the
same ungainly agility, which an elderly hen will sometimes suddenly
evince in chase of a butterfly.
Some one had nicknamed her "the steam roller," and the name stuck to
her.
She was--perhaps not unnaturally--annoyed when Anne brought a stranger
back to the house with her in the height of the season, and installed
her in one of the spare rooms, while she herself was absent, talking
loudly at a little musical tea-party. But when she saw Janet next day
sitting in one of Anne's dressing-gowns in Anne's sitting-room, she
instantly took a fancy to her; one of those heavy, prodding fancies
which immediately investigate by questions--the Duchess never hesitated
to ask questions--all the past life of the victim, as regards illnesses,
illnesses of relations, especially if obscure and internal, cause of
death of parents, present financial circumstances, etc. Janet, whose
strong constitution rapidly rallied from the shock that had momentarily
prostrated her, thought these subjects of conversation natural and even
exhilarating. She was accustomed to them in her own society. The first
time the Smiths had called on her at Ivy Cottage, had they not enquired
the exact area of her little drawing-room? She found the society of the
Duchess vaguely delightful and sympathetic, a welcome relief from her
own miserable thoughts. And the Duchess told Janet in return about a
very painful ailment from which the Duke suffered, and which it
distressed him "to hear alluded to," and all about Anne's millionaire.
When, a few days later, Janet was able to travel, the Duchess parted
from her with real regret, and begged her to come and stay with them
again after her marriage.
Anne seemed to have receded from Janet during these last days. Perhaps
the Duchess had elbowed her out. Perhaps Anne divined that Janet had
been told all about her unfortunate love affair. Anne's patient dignity
had a certain remoteness in it. Her mother, whose hitherto thinly-draped
designs on Stephen were now clothed only in the recklessness of
despair, made Anne's life well-nigh unendurable to her at this time, a
constant mortification of her refinement and her pride. She withdrew
into herself. And perhaps also Anne was embarrassed by the knowledge
that she had inadvertently become aware, when Janet's mind had wandered,
of something connected with the burning of papers which Janet was
concealing, and which, as Anne could see, was distressing her more even
than the sudden death of Mrs Brand.
Fred took charge of his sister in an effusive manner when she was well
enough to travel. She was very silent all the way home. She had become
shy with her brother, depressed in his society. She had always known
that evil existed in the world, but she had somehow managed to combine
that knowledge with the comfortable conviction that the few people she
cared for were "different." She observed nothing except what happened
under her actual eyes, and then only if her eyes were forcibly turned in
that direction.
She knew Fred drank only because she had seen him drunk. The shaking
hand, and broken nerve, and weakly-violent temper, the signs of
intemperance when he was sober, were lost upon her. She dismissed them
with the reflection that Fred was like that. Cause and effect did not
exist for Janet. And those for whom they do not exist sustain heavy
shocks.
Cuckoo her friend, and Fred her brother!
The horror of that remembrance never left her during these days. She
could not think about it. She could only silently endure it.
Poor Janet did not realize even now that the sole reason why Cuckoo had
made friends with her was in order to veil the intimacy with her
brother. The hard, would-be smart woman would not, without some strong
reason, have made much of so unfashionable an individual as Janet in the
first instance, though there was no doubt that in the end Cuckoo had
grown fond of Janet for her own sake. And her genuine liking for the
sister had survived the rupture with the brother.
The dog-cart was waiting for Fred and Janet at Mudbury, and, as they
drove in the dusk through the tranquil country lanes, Janet drew a long
breath.
"You must not take on about Mrs Brand's death too much," said Fred at
last, who had also been restlessly silent for the greater part of the
journey.
Janet did not answer.
"We must all die some day," continued Fred. "It's the common lot. I did
not like Mrs Brand as much as you did, Janet. She was not my sort--but
still--when I heard the news----"
"I loved her," said Janet hoarsely. "I would have done anything for
her."
"You must cheer up," said Fred, "and try and look at the bright side.
That was what the Duke was saying only yesterday when I called to thank
him. He was in such a hurry that he hardly had a moment to spare, but I
took a great fancy to him. No airs and soft sawder, and a perfect
gentleman. I shall call again when next I am in London. I shan't forget
their kindness to you."
Again no answer.
"It is your duty to cheer up," continued Fred. "George is coming over to
see you to-morrow morning."
"I think, don't you think, Fred," said Janet suddenly, "that George is
good--really good, I mean?"
"He is all right," said Fred. "Not exactly open-handed. You must lay
your account for that, Janet. You'll find him a bit of a screw, or I'm
much mistaken."
Janet was too dazed to realize what Fred's discovery of George's
meanness betokened.
Silence again.
They were nearing home. The lights of Ivy Cottage twinkled through the
violet dusk. Janet looked at them without seeing them.
Cuckoo her friend, and Fred her brother!
"I suppose, Janet," said Fred suddenly, "you were not able to ask Mrs
Brand--no--of course not----But perhaps you were able to put in a word
for me to Brand about that--about waiting for his money?"
"I never said anything to either of them," said Janet. "I never thought
of it again. I forgot all about it."