Lynette sat still upon the boulder, thinking, long after the red umbrella
had departed. While it was yet visible in the white-hot distance, hovering
like some gaudy Brobdingnagian butterfly in advance of the white
perambulator pushed by the white-clad nurse, the heads of two little
shabbyish, youngish people of the unmistakable Cockney tourist type rose
over the edge of a pale sand-crest, fringed with wild chamomile and
blazing poppies. And the female, a small draggled young woman in a large
hat, trimmed with fatigued and dusty peonies, called out excitedly:
"Oh, William, it's 'er--it's 'er!"
"By Cripps, so it is!" came from the male companion of the battered
peonies. He advanced with a swagger that was the unconvincing mask of
diffidence assumed by an undersized, lean young man, in the chauffeur's
doubtful-weather panoply of black waterproof jacket, breeches merging
into knee-boots, the whole crowned with a portentous peaked cap, with
absurd brass ventilators, and powdered with many thicknesses and shades of
dust. His hair was dusty. The very eyelashes of the honest, ugly light
eyes, set wide apart in the thin wedge-shaped, tanned face that the absurd
cap shaded, were dusty as a miller's; dust lay thick in all the chinks and
creases of his leading features, and a large black smudge of oily grime
was upon his wide upper lip, impinging upon his nose. Nor was his
companion much less dusty, though the checks of a travelling ulster of
green and yellow plaid, adorned with huge steel buttons, would have
advertised the Kentish Town Ladies' Drapery Establishment whence they
emanated, through the medium of a Fleet Street fog.
"Might we speak to you, ma'am?" The dusty young man respectfully touched
the dusty peak of the cap with brass ventilators, and, with a shock of
surprise, Lynette recognised Saxham's chauffeur.
"Keyse!... It is Keyse!" She looked at him in surprise.
"Keyse, ma'am." He touched the cap again, and made a not ungraceful
gesture, indicating the wearer of the weather-beaten peonies and the
green-and-yellow ulster, who clung to his thin elbow with a red,
hard-working hand. "Me an' my wife, that is. Bein' on a sort of outin', a
kind of Beanfeast for Two, we took the notion, being stryngers to South
Wyles, of droppin' in 'ere an' tippin' the 'Ow Do." He breathed hard, and
rivulets of perspiration began to trickle down from under the preposterous
cap, converting the dust that filled the haggard lines of his thin face
into mud. "An' payin' our respects." His eye slewed appealingly at his
companion, asking as plainly as an eye can, "What price that?" And the
glance that shot back from the dusty shadow of the exhausted peonies
answered, "Not bad by 'arf--for you!"
Lynette smiled at the little Cockney couple. The surprise that had checked
the beating of her heart had passed. It was pleasant to see these faces
from Harley Street. She answered:
"I understand. My husband has given you a holiday. Is he well?" She
flushed, realising that it was pain to have to ask others for the news of
him that he had denied her. "I mean because he has not written.... I have
been feeling rather anxious. Was he quite well when you left?"
"'Was he----'? Yes, 'm!" W. Keyse shot out the affirmative with such
explosive suddenness that the hand upon his arm must have nipped hard.
"I am so glad!" Lynette turned to the young woman in the ulster, whose
face betrayed no guilty knowledge of the pinch. She was small, and pale,
and gritty, and her blue eyes had red rims to them from the fatigue of the
journey, or some other cause. But they were honest and clear, and not
unpretty eyes, looking out from a forest of dusty yellowish fringe,
deplorably out of curl. Yet a fringe that had associations for Lynette,
reaching a long way from Harley Street, and back to the old days at
Gueldersdorp before the Siege.
"Surely I know you? I must have known you at Gueldersdorp." She added as
Mrs. Keyse's eyes said "Yes": "You used to be a housemaid at the Convent.
How strange that I should not have remembered it until now! And your
husband.... I do not remember ever having seen him before he came to us at
Harley Street. But his name comes back to me in connection with a
letter"--she knitted her brows, chasing the vague, fleeting memory--"a
love-letter that was sent to Miss Du Taine inside a chocolate-box, just
when school was breaking up. It was you who smuggled the box in!"
"To oblige, bein' begged to by Keyse as a fyvour. 'E didn't know 'is own
mind--them d'ys!" explained Mrs. Keyse, sweeping her husband's scorching
countenance with a glance of withering scorn.
"Nor did you," retorted W. Keyse, stung to defiance. "Walkin' out with a
Dopper you was--if it comes to that." He spun round, mid-ankle deep in
sand, to finish. "An' you'd 'ave bin joined by a Dutch dodger and settled
down on a Vaal sheep-farm, if the order 'adn't come 'ummin' along the wire
from 'Eadquarters that said, 'Jane 'Arris, you're to 'ave this bloke, and
no other. Till Death do you part. Everlasting--Amen!'"
There was so strong a flavour of Church about the final sentence that
Mrs. Keyse could not keep admiration out of her eyes.
Her own eyes dancing with mirthful amusement, Lynette looked from one to
the other of the unexpected visitors, and, tactfully changing the subject
of the conversation, hoped that they were enjoying their trip?--a query
which so obviously failed to evoke an expression of pleased assent in
either of the small, thin, wearied faces that she hastened to add:
"But perhaps this is the very beginning of your holiday? When did you
leave London?"
"Yes'dy mornin' at 'arf-past six," said W. Keyse, carefully avoiding her
eyes. A spasm contracted the tired face under the dusty peonies. Their
wearer put her hand to the collar of the green-and-yellow ulster, and
undid a button there.
"'Yesterday morning at half-past six'!" Lynette repeated in wonder.
"An' if the machine I 'ad on 'ire from a pal o' mine--chap what keeps a
second-hand shop for 'em in the Portland Road--'adn't 'ad everythink
'appen to 'er wot _can_ 'appen to a three-an'-a-'arf 'orse-power Baby
Junot wot 'ad seen 'er best d'ys before automobilin' 'ad cut its front
teeth," said W. Keyse, with bitterness, "we would 'ave bin 'ere before! As
it is, we've left the car at a little 'Temperance Tavern' in S'rewsbury,
kep' by a Methodist widder, 'oo thinks such new-fangled inventions
sinful--an' only consented to take charge on account o' the Prophet Elijer
a-going up to 'Eaven in a fiery chariot--an' come on 'ere by tryne."
Lynette looked at the man in silence. She even repeated after him, rather
dully:
"You came on here--by train?"
"Slow Parliamentary--stoppin' at every 'arf-dozen stytions," explained W.
Keyse, "for collectors in velveteens and Scotch caps to ask for tickets,
plyse? And but that the porter on the 'Erion Down Platform 'ad see you
walkin' on the Links, and my wife knoo your dress and the colour of your
'air 'arf a mile 'orf, we'd 'ave lost precious time in finding you, and
giving you the--the message what we've come 'ere to bring!"
"From my husband? From Dr. Saxham?"
W. Keyse shifted from one foot to the other, and coughed an embarrassed
cough.
"Not exac'ly from Dr. Saxham."
Lynette looked at W. Keyse, and it seemed to her that the little sallow
Cockney face had Fate in it. A sudden terror whitened her to the lips. She
cried out in a voice that had lost all its sweetness:
"You have deceived me in saying he was well. Something has happened to
him! He is very ill, or----?"
She could not utter the word. Instinctively her eyes went past the
stammering man to the woman who hung behind his elbow. And the wearer of
the nodding peonies cried out:
"No, no! The Doctor isn't dead--or ill, to call ill!" She turned angrily
upon her husband. "See wot a turn you've give 'er," she snapped. "Why
couldn't you up and speak out?"
W. Keyse was plainly nonplussed. He took off the giant cap with the brass
ventilators, and turned it round and round, looking carefully inside it.
But he found no eloquence therein.
"Why did I bring a skirt, I arsk, if I'm to do the patter?" He addressed
himself in an audible aside to Mrs. Keyse. "You might as well 'ave stopped
at 'ome with the nipper," he added, complainingly, "if I ain't to 'ave no
better 'elp than this!"
"You mean kindly, I know." Lynette tried to smile in saying it. "There is
trouble that you are here to break to me; I understand that very well.
Please tell me without delay, plainly what has happened? I am
very--strong! I shall not faint--if that is what you are afraid of?"
She caught her breath, for the woman broke out into dry sobbing and cried
out wildly:
"Oh, come back to 'im! Come back, if you're a woman! Gawd, Who made 'im,
knows as 'ow 'e can't bear no more! Oh! if my 'art's so wrung by what I've
seen him suffer, think what he's bore these crooil weeks an' months!"
The peonies rocked in the gale of Emigration Jane's emotion. Her
hard-worked hands went out, entreating for him; her dowdy little figure
seemed to grow tall, so impressive was the earnestness of her appeal.
"Him and you are toffs, and me and Keyse are common folks.... Flesh and
blood's the syme, though, only covered wiv different skins. An' Human
Nature's Human Nature, 'owever you fake 'er up an' christen 'er! An' Love
must 'ave give an' take of Love, or else Love's got to die! Burn a lamp
wivout oil, and see wot 'appens. It goes out!--You're left in the
dark!"--Her homely gesture, illustrating the homely analogy, seemed to
bring down blackness. Lynette hung speechless upon her fateful lips.
"--Then, like as not, you'll overturn the table gropin'. 'Smashed!' you'll
say, 'an' nobody but silly me to blyme! It would 'ave lighted up a 'appy
'ome if I 'adn't been a barmy idiot. It would 'ave showed me the face of
my 'usband leanin' to kiss me in our blessed marriage-bed, an' my baby
smilin' in its cradle-sleep 'ard by.... Oh!--Oh!"--She choked and clutched
her bosom, and her voice rose in the throaty screech of incipient
hysteria--"An' I've left my own sweet, unweaned boy to come and say these
words to you!... An' the darlin' darlin' fightin' with the bottle they're
tryin' to give 'im, and roarin' for 'is mam.... And my breasts as 'ard as
stones, an' throbbin'!... Gawd 'elp me!" She panted and fought and choked,
striving for speech.
"Keep your hair on!" advised W. Keyse in a hoarse whisper. She turned on
him like a tigress, her eyes flaming under her straightened fringe.
"Keep yours! I've come to speak, and speak I mean to--for the sake of the
best man Gawd's made for a 'undred years. Bar one, you says, but bar none,
says I, an' charnce it! Since the day 'e stood up for you in that Dutch
saloon-bar at Gueldersdorp, what is there we don't owe to 'im--you and me,
and all the blooming crew of us? And because 'e'll tyke no thanks, 'e gits
ingratitude--the dirtiest egg the Devil ever hatched!"
"Cripps!" gasped W. Keyse, awe-stricken by this lofty flight of rhetoric.
Ignoring him, she pursued her way.
"You're a beautiful young lydy"--her tone softened from its strenuous
pitch--"wot 'ave 'ad a disappyntment, like many of us 'ave at the start.
You'd set your 'art on Another One. 'E got killed, an' you married the
Doctor--but it's never bin no real marriage. You've ate 'is bread, as the
sayin' is, an' give 'im a stone. An' e's beat 'is pore 'art to bloody rags
agynst it--d'y after d'y, an' night after night! I seen it, I tell you!"
she shrilled--"I seen it wiv me own eyes! You pretty, silly kid! Don't you
know wot 'arm you're doing? You crooil byby! do you reckon Gawd gave you
the man to torture an' break an' spoil?"
A hand, imperatively clapped over the mouth of Mrs. W. Keyse, stemmed the
torrent of her eloquence.
"Dry up! You've said enough," ordered her spouse.
"Do not stop her!" Lynette said, without removing her fascinated eyes from
the Pythoness. "Let her tell me everything that she has seen and knows."
"I seen the Doctor--many, many times," the woman went on, as W. Keyse
reluctantly ungagged her, "watchin' Keyse and me in our poor 'ome-life
together--with the eyes of a starvin' dog lookin' at a bone. You ought to
know 'ow starvin' 'urts...." The strenuous voice soared and quivered. "You
learned that at Gueldersdorp! Yet you can see your 'usband dyin' of
'unger, an' never put out your 'and! Dyin' for want of a kiss an' a bit o'
cuddle--that's the kind o' dyin' I mean--dyin' for what Gawd gives to the
very brutes He myde! Seems to you I talk low!... Well, there's nothink
lower than Nature, _An' She Goes As 'Igh As 'Eaven_!" said Emigration
Jane.
The wide, sweeping gesture with which the shabby little woman took in land
and sea and sky was quite noble and inspiring to witness. And now the
tears were running down her face, and her voice lost its raucous
shrillness, and became plaintive, and even soft.
"I'm to tell you everythink I've seen, an' know about the Doctor.... I've
seen 'im age, age, a bit more every d'y. I've seen 'im waste, waste, with
loneliness and trouble--never turnin' bitter on accounts of it--never
grudgin' 'elp that 'e could give to man or woman or kid. Late on the night
you left 'ome I see 'im come up to your bedroom. 'E switched on the light.
'E forgot the blinds was up. 'E looked round, all 'aggard an' lost an'
wild-like, before 'e dropped down cryin' beside the bed."
She sobbed, and dropped on her own knees in the sand among the prickly
yellow dwarf roses, weeping quite wildly, and wringing her hands.
"The mornin' found 'im there. Six weeks ago that was; an' every night
since then it's bin the syme gyme. Never the blinds left up since that
first time, but always light, and his shadow moves about. An' in my bed I
wake a-cryin' so, an' don't know which of 'em I'm cryin' for--the lonely
shadow or the lonely man----"
She could not go on, and W. Keyse took up the tale.
"She's told you true. Maybe we'd never 'ave come but for the feelin' that
things was workin' up to wot the pypers call a Domestic Tragedy. Or at the
best the break-up of a 'Ome. That's wot my wife she kep' on stuffin' into
me," said W. Keyse. "An'--strewth! when the Doctor sent for me an' pyde me
orf ... full wages right on up to the end o' the year, an' the syme to
Morris an' the 'ouse'old staff, tellin' us e's goin' on a voyage, I s'ys
to 'er, 'It's come!'"
"On a voyage! Where?"
"Oh, carn't you guess?" cried the woman on the ground, desperately looking
up with tragic eyes out of a swollen, tear-stained face.
A mist came before Lynette's vision, and a sudden tremor shook her like a
reed. She swayed as though the ground had heaved beneath her, but she
would not fall. She choked back the cry that had risen in her throat. This
was the time to act, not the time to weep for him. She knelt an instant by
the woman on the ground, put her arms round her, kissed her wet cheek, and
then rose up, pale and calm and collected, saying to W. Keyse:
"Take her to the Plas. Ask for Mrs. Pugh, the housekeeper. She is to
prepare a room for you; you are to breakfast, and rest all day, and return
to London by the night mail. Good-bye! God bless you both! I was going to
him to-night at latest.... I am going to him now.... Pray that he is alive
when I reach him! But he will be. God is good!"
Her face was transfigured by the new light that shone in it. She was
strong, salient, resourceful--no longer the shy willowy girl. She was
moving from them with her long swift step, when W. Keyse recovered
himself.
"'Old 'ard! Beg pardon, ma'am! but 'ave you the spondulics?" He blushed
at her puzzled look, and amended: "'Ave you money enough upon you to pay
the railway-fare?"
She lifted a little gold-netted purse attached to her neck-chain.
"Five pounds. My maid is to follow. You know Marie? You will let her
travel with you?"
"Righto! But you'll want a wrap, coat or shawl, or somethink. Midnight
before you gits in--if you catch this next up-Express.... Watto! Give us
'old o' this 'ere, Missus! You can 'ave mine instead."
"Please, no! I need nothing ... nothing!" She stayed his savage attack on
the buttons of Mrs. Keyse's green-and-yellow ulster by holding out her
watch. "How much time have I left to catch the up-Express?"
"Eight minutes. By Cripps! you'll 'ave to run for it."
She waved her white hand, and was gone, swiftly as a bird or a deer.
"They've signalled!" W. Keyse announced after a breathless interval,
during which the slender flying figure grew smaller upon the straining
sight. It vanished, and a thin, nearing screech announced the up-Express.
His wife jumped up and clutched him.
"William! Suppose she's lost it!"
"Garn! No fear!" scoffed W. Keyse.
As he scoffed he was full of fear. They heard the clanking stoppage, the
shrill whistle of departure. They looked breathlessly towards the green
wood that fringed the cliff-base under the Castle head. The iron way ran
through the belt of trees. The Express rushed through, broke roaring upon
their unimpeded vision, devoured the gleaming line of metals that lay
between wood and tunnel, and left them with the taste of cindery steam in
their open mouths, and the memory of a white handkerchief waved at a
carriage-window by a slender hand.
"It's a'right, old gal!" said W. Keyse, beaming. "Come on up to the 'ouse.
I could do wiv a bit o' peck, an' I lay so could you. Lumme!" His
triumphant face fell by the fraction of an inch. "What'll she do when she
lands in 'ome, wivout a woman to git a cup o' tea for 'er? Or curl 'er
'air, or undo 'er st'yl'yoes an' things?"
"She'll do wot other young wimmen does under sim'lar circumstances," said
Mrs. Keyse enigmatically. She added: "If she 'as luck, she'll 'ave a man
for' er maid, an' if she 'as sense, she'll reckon the swop a good one!"