She found herself in a room unexpectedly small and narrow, furnished
with sparse simplicity. Nearly everything was white, walls, covers,
the bed-hangings, pendent from a sort of crown. The only colour was
contained in the dull mauve-grey carpet and in the dark wood of the
severely beautiful Directoire furniture. The curtains were drawn, so
that although it was nearly midday there was a clear, luminous
twilight. On the panel beside the bed, facing the entrance, hung a
silver crucifix, under which were wax candles in brackets.
All this was but a general impression. What the girl chiefly saw was
the fragile figure in the bed, the grey eyes staring out of the drawn
and pallid face, the thin arms outstretched to greet her.
“Catherine! You have come, then! I did not know till a moment ago. My
dear--my dear!”
There was strained pathos in the quivering features, a catch in the
voice which poured forth its words in a rapid torrent. Tears dimmed
the invalid’s eyes, the veins stood out on her waxen temples as with
feverish intensity she kissed the young girl on both cheeks, then
clung to the warm hands with her own transparent ones.
“My darling Germaine!”
Now the first shock was over Catherine felt easier. Until this moment
she had nurtured a cankering doubt as to whether or not Mme. Bender
would recognize her.
“Madame! madame! Calm yourself! You will suffer for this.”
It was Jeanne who spoke, solicitous and reproving, hovering near by as
though in readiness to interpose at the slightest warning symptom.
Catherine had a fleeting impression of watchful eyes regarding them
anxiously.
“No, no, Jeanne, I am quite myself. You need have no fear. Only I am
so very, very glad to see this dear child, who has come all the way
across the ocean to be with me. Leave us for a little. I promise I
shall not become excited.”
“Very well, madame, I will go, but I shall not be far away. If madame
wants me, she has only to call.”
She withdrew into the adjoining room, not without a backward glance
full of doubt, and, it seemed to the girl, distrust. Through the
half-open door she could be heard moving about, as if reluctant to
remove herself from earshot. Evidently, although the patient appeared
quite normal, she was not satisfied. Probably experience had taught
her not to rely upon these fortunate phases too implicitly.
The Frenchwoman still detained Catherine’s hands, stroking them with
trembling, quick movements. Her eyes devoured the vivid young face.
“Sit there, my child, in the big chair, quite close to me. Now, tell
me everything about yourself. Did you have a good crossing, and was
Eduardo in time at the station? You were well looked after?”
“Everything was perfect, Germaine dear! Quite, quite perfect.”
On no account must Mme. Bender know what had actually happened.
Clearly she had not the least suspicion that her orders were
neglected.
“And your room? Do you like it? I told Jeanne to give you my own old
one, at the corner. I have lain here thinking how charming you would
look against the green and gold. Are you happy there?”
“It is a beautiful room, Germaine. It is like you to think of it.”
“No, no. I have nothing pleasanter to think of, here alone. I have
always marvelled how, out of that dull, cold New England, where no one
has any eyebrows, you could have got that colouring of a Tintoretto.
It warms one, like the sun.”
She ran on flutteringly in her pure and lovely French, and as the
sentences followed one another with rapid irrelevance the girl scanned
her features for some sign of aberration. After a few minutes he began
to feel less uneasy. Germaine was much as she had always been--aged,
of course, and tremulous from weakness, but otherwise little changed.
In the haggard features it was still possible to trace remnants of the
beauty which had first captivated Harry Bender. The luxuriant hair was
streaked with grey, but it retained its natural wave, and was worn as
she had always worn it, drawn back from a central parting to show her
delicate ears. On the right temple it revealed the end of the ugly
scar which marked the injury of last year.
Above all else it was the eyes which held Catherine’s attention. Wide,
strained and wistful, the eyes of a neurasthenic, they now riveted
their gaze eagerly on the girl’s face, now darted this way and that
with frequent watchful glances towards the open door. They expressed
timidity, lack of assurance, and some other less easily defined
emotion baffling to the onlooker; yet in them Catherine could detect
nothing to indicate loss of reason.
Nor in the rather childish prattle, skipping like a dragonfly from
topic to topic, was there anything unusual. At no time had Mme. Bender
possessed a keen or logical brain, though fineness of taste and an
evasive charm had in a great measure made up for lack of
understanding. Always she had given the impression of being withdrawn
in an inner fantastic world, and when it came to practical affairs she
had accepted the dictates of her husband without question. Now it
struck Catherine that these characteristics had assumed exaggerated
form. She had definitely reverted to a child-like state, trusting and
fearing without reason, shrinking from reality and claiming
protection. Just how far this retirement might extend it was
impossible to say.
All was now silent in the next room, though the girl did not remark
the fact until upon her companion’s face she caught an expression of
acute listening. Then she knew that Germaine wished to tell her
something, and had been waiting for the maid to go away.
“Catherine, my dear!”
She whispered the words, meantime clutching Catherine’s arm in a
nervous grasp.
“What is it, Germaine?”
“Yesterday--or was it the day before?--I had a dreadful experience.
Something so stupid happened. Have they told you?”
“A little, Germaine. You drank something by mistake. Wasn’t that it?”
returned the girl, embarrassed to find a suitable reply.
The grey eyes took on an eager glitter.
“A mistake--yes, yes! Just that. So foolish of me--I cannot yet think
how it came about.” She paused, again listening, then continued
earnestly: “I want you to believe me when I say it was an accident. I
had here on my table my sleeping-draught in a little glass, and in
another glass a solution of carbolic in which at night I put a little
dental plate. You understand?” she demanded urgently, her eyes
searching Catherine’s face.
“Of course. What happened then?”
“You see, one of the glasses is green. That is the one that contains
the sleeping-draught. Well, while Jeanne was out of the room getting
me a hot-water bottle, I took up the green glass and drank a little.
Only a very little, for at once I knew I had taken the wrong thing.
Ah!” with a convulsive shudder, her eyes closing, “it was strong, so
strong! It burnt my throat. My throat is still raw, though Jeanne
declares that is my imagination. You know sometimes my imagination is
very vivid.… Yet I cannot see how…” Her voice trailed off and she
pressed her fingers to her throat with a distracted gesture. “Anyhow I
screamed. ‘Jeanne, Jeanne, come at once!’ I called, ‘I have taken
poison!’ But she was at the back of the apartment, she could not hear
me. Meantime the drop I had swallowed burnt like fire all the way
down. I was in agony. It was a long time before I could make her
hear--poor Jeanne! She was terribly upset.”
Spent by the recollection, she lay back upon her pillows, while
perspiration broke out and lay in heavy drops on the waxen skin.
Catherine eyed her in keen distress.
“There, dear, it is all over now. Try to forget about it.”
Suddenly the prone figure stiffened, sat bolt upright, staring with a
look of terror. At the quick change Catherine realized the fact that
she was alone with a patient who a short time ago had suffered an
alarming attack. Ought she to summon Jeanne? Yet a second before she
had been impressed by the lucidity, the poignant underlying
conviction, of the invalid’s recital. She watched, uncertain what to
do.
“Forget it! Ah, that is what I must not do!” breathed the hoarse voice
fearfully. “I must remember it, so I cannot commit so frightful an
error again. The great trouble is my memory. I forget things so
easily--so easily! I must have forgotten which glass was which,
otherwise how could I have done what I did? You see? It shakes one’s
confidence. It----”
She checked herself with a gasp, eyes dilating. Following the
direction of their gaze, Catherine saw that Jeanne had come back, was
standing just inside the door. So engrossed had she been by her
cousin’s excitement she had not heard the light footfall.
The maid approached, anxious and disapproving.
“Madame! madame!” she declared with authority, “this will not do! I
implore you not to speak of that affair. Mademoiselle, you see? She is
getting into a panic again. Did I not warn you?” she ended accusingly.
Catherine thought it better not to reply. Besides, her attention was
transfixed by the instant alteration which had taken place with the
patient. Mme. Bender’s wan features assumed a timid, conciliatory
smile as she relaxed and lay back, breathing hard.
“It is nothing, Jeanne! I was only telling mademoiselle how imbecile
it was of me to mistake the plain glass for the green. Never in my
life have I done such a thing. It makes me feel quite, quite odd!” She
finished with an hysterical laugh of apology infinitely pathetic.
The maid, now on the other side of the bed, nodded at Catherine with
grim significance.
“One makes these mistakes sometimes when one is not quite oneself,”
she remarked soothingly yet with emphasis. “One imagines all sorts of
things. Madame knows now that she was wrong, because I showed her the
plain glass with the disinfectant still in it. Is it not so, madame?”
“Ah, yes, that is so. You were right, of course,” agreed the invalid
with eager alacrity. Then she caught the maid’s unresponsive hand in
hers and pressed it affectionately. “What should I do, where should I
be, without my dear, good Jeanne? No one, Catherine, would do for me
what she does,” she added, as though longing to assure the other of
her appreciation.
“You had better go now, mademoiselle,” suggested the woman firmly.
“This has been quite enough for one day.”
The girl rose, but a lightning clutch at her sleeve pulled her back
again.
“No, Jeanne, let her stay! I will not excite myself, really I will
not!”
With unmoved face the maid bent and loosed the fragile fingers.
“No, madame,” she said quietly, then stooping so that her lips were
close to the other’s ear she whispered in a low, distinct tone:
“Madame must try to behave reasonably, if she wishes to be permitted
company at all.”
At once Mme. Bender gave in with complete docility.
“Very well, then, I will do as you say. But she is to come again soon?
Catherine, my dear, you will sit with me often, will you not? I am
alone so much, and I think and think--such strange, disturbing
thoughts…”
“But of course, dear, I mean to be with you every day. As long as you
will have me.”
She kissed the thin cheek and withdrew, gravely nonplussed by the
recent scene. Jeanne followed her out, closing the door softly, and
when they had reached the bend in the passage spoke in an undertone.
“You see?” she said, and her tone though sorrowful held a touch of
triumph--almost, thought Catherine, as if she believed her word had
been doubted.
“I don’t know what to say, Jeanne,” faltered the girl. “Madame was
much more rational than I expected. In fact, if I had not been told
about this insanity, I doubt if I should have noticed anything. It was
only when she mentioned the poison----”
A quick gleam came into the other’s eyes.
“Ah, yes, I heard a little of what madame was saying. It is as I told
you, she is trying to justify her action and make us think it was
unintentional.”
“You are quite certain it wasn’t accidental?” suggested Catherine
doubtfully. “It seemed to me----”
The maid raised her eyebrows.
“Who can say?” she returned after a pause. “But it is strange, is it
not, how the mention of it throws her into a fever? No, I am afraid
she has lain there making up this story, which she now believes to be
true. She is often like that.”
“Do you mean, Jeanne,” whispered Catherine, recalling the marked
discrepancy between the invalid’s statement and the maid’s, “that what
she says about calling you and your not hearing her is an invention?”
A pitying smile broke over the sallow face.
“I am sorry to say, mademoiselle, there is not one word of truth in
it,” she replied positively. “I was upon the threshold at the time,
and snatched the glass from her lips. She did not know, of course,
that I was watching. Eduardo, Berthe, both heard me cry out, and ran
to see what was the matter.”
There seemed no doubt about it. Catherine pondered the matter
unhappily.
“But why? Why should she want to take her life?” was all she could
manage to say. “A year ago I saw no sign of such a thing, wretched
though she was.”
“Ah, that is the nature of her malady. Melancholia. It comes in fits,
and when the spell is upon her the poor creature cannot be held
responsible. Only three weeks ago--but no, I must not alarm you
unduly,” she broke off, closing her lips with determination.
“Tell me, Jeanne, I would much rather know the truth.”
“Well, then,” admitted the woman reluctantly, watching her as she
spoke, “if you must know, I came into the room there to find madame,
in her nightdress, standing upon the window-sill, preparing to throw
herself into the court below. If you will look you will see that I
have had two bars fastened across the opening, to prevent her
attempting it a second time.”
Catherine drew in her breath sharply. This was something not easily
explained away. Painfully she inquired the details, and learned that
after the rescue Mme. Bender suffered from nervous collapse, following
which the entire affair appeared to be erased from her memory. Not
once had she referred to it, nor asked why the bars were there.
“You understand why it is I have moved my bed into madame’s
dressing-room,” went on the maid. “As I told you last night, it is not
safe to leave her for any length of time.”
Inconsequently Catherine recalled Jeanne’s departure the evening
before, but naturally said nothing. After all, her charge had no doubt
been sound asleep.
“Of course it isn’t,” she replied earnestly. “But all the same it is
too much for you. Oughtn’t you to engage a professional nurse?”
The look of fanatical obstinacy she had seen before tightened the
strongly marked features.
“Ah, no, mademoiselle. Such a thing might drive the poor creature to
desperation. No, I have served her for fifteen years, and I shall
continue to do so now that her need of me is so great. Who so well as
myself understands her, who would protect her, not only from herself,
but”--she hesitated, then finished with slow emphasis--“from those who
perhaps might do her injury?”
What on earth could she mean? Catherine stared at her in astonishment.
“Surely, Jeanne, there can be no such person. Why do you suppose there
is?”
For a second there was guarded silence. Then the maid, with a
suggestion of a shrug, replied:
“I must not make any accusations, mademoiselle. But does it not strike
you as strange, to say the least, that on the occasion I have
mentioned and also two days ago the attempts at suicide should have
followed close upon the visits of an old friend?”
This was news indeed!
“Whom do you mean, Jeanne? I understood madame saw no visitors.”
“No one, except”--here she halted and glanced about her, then brought
out the name with apparent reluctance--“Mademoiselle Cushing.”
Hermione Cushing! Catherine could not suppress a start. She gazed
fixedly into the unflinching eyes of the maid.
“Miss Cushing!” she echoed, wonderingly. “But what possible reason is
there to connect her visits with--with----”
“There may be no connection. Do not misunderstand me, mademoiselle.
Only, since you have put the question to me, I will say plainly that
this lady, who calls herself an old and intimate friend, seems to me
to exert a bad, a depressing influence on madame. So sure am I of this
that I have done my utmost to discourage her coming; but,” and she
made a gesture of helplessness, “I cannot always keep her away. I know
that she persistently speaks of things which are distressing to anyone
in madame’s condition.”
“What sort of things, Jeanne?” demanded the girl curiously.
At the same time she rapidly reviewed the disjointed letter which had
so upset her peace of mind, recalling the writer’s complaints about
the difficulty in seeing her friend. Was there anything behind it all?
The maid’s eyes turned from hers secretively.
“Mademoiselle Cushing cannot forget that madame is a rich woman, has
been for years her patron and supporter. No doubt she is afraid that
madame will die and leave her unprovided for. In short, she thinks
always of feathering her nest.”
Indefinite as the explanation was, it hinted at unpleasing
possibilities. It seemed to her she was beginning to understand in
part the problem with which Jeanne had to cope. Had she not somewhere
heard the prayer, “Oh, Lord, save us from our friends!”?
She came to herself to find the intelligent brown eyes regarding her
shrewdly.
“And now, mademoiselle, that you see what all this is like, do you not
think it would be happier for you to leave this sad abode? You can do
no good here--you are young, you wish to be gay. It is no life for one
whose duty does not call her to it. Believe me, I know what I am
saying when I beg you to go elsewhere to live.”
Catherine had not expected this renewed importunity.
“On the contrary, Jeanne, I shall be quite content to stay, at least
for a few months, and I honestly think I may have a good effect on
madame’s spirits. She was so evidently glad to see me just now----”
She stopped in time to see an expression of strong displeasure settle
over her companion’s features. Before she could finish her sentence,
however, the silence was pierced by a long ring at the telephone. She
found herself listening mechanically to the gruff voice of Eduardo
answering the call.
A moment later the butler issued from the study, came a step towards
them, then, spying Catherine, halted.
“A gentleman to speak to you, miss,” he announced in an offhand
manner, more loudly than was necessary. “A Mr. Geoffrey Macadam.”
Her friend of the train! The tension snapped, as with a glad sense of
relief she hurried towards the study.
She could not say what instinct made her glance back at the two
servants, nor why the penetrating look of question passing between
them should cause her such poignant discomfort. Certainly it told her
that she was an unwelcome alien in their midst, but she half-fancied
an additional meaning less easy to interpret.
A tremor shook her voice as she spoke into the telephone.