MRS. BRANDRETH
You know, when you're on shipboard, how new people appear from day to
day, long after you've seen everyone on the passenger list! It is as if
they had been dropped on deck from stealthy aeroplanes in the dark
watches of the night.
And that was the way in which this girl appeared--this girl who worked
the lightning change in Major Murray. It didn't seem possible that she
could have come on board the ship nearly two days ago, and we not have
heard of her, for she was the prettiest person I'd ever seen in my life.
One would have thought that rumours of her beauty would have spread,
since _someone_ must have seen her, even if she had been shut up in her
cabin.
Heads were turned in her direction as she came walking slowly toward us,
and thanks to this silent sensation--like a breeze rippling a field of
wheat--I saw the tall, slight figure in mourning while it was still far
off.
The creature was devastatingly pretty, too pretty for any one's peace of
mind, including her own: the kind of girl you wouldn't ask to be your
bridesmaid for fear the bridegroom should change his mind at the altar!
"Jim," I exclaimed, "the prettiest girl in the world is now coming
toward you."
"Really?" said he. "I was under the impression that she sat beside me."
I suppose I must have spoken rather more loudly than I meant, for my
excited warning to Jim caught the ear of Major Murray. My deep interest
in the invalid had woven an invisible link between him and me, though we
had never spoken, nor even smiled at each other: for sympathy inevitably
has this effect. Therefore his hearing was attuned to my voice more
readily than to others in his neighbourhood. He had apparently been half
asleep; but he opened his eyes wide just in time to see the girl as she
approached his chair. Never had I beheld such a sudden change on a human
face. It was a transfiguration.
The man was very weak, but he sat straight up, and for a moment all look
of illness was swept away. "Rosemary!" he cried out, sharply.
The girl stopped. She had been pale, but at sight of him and the sound
of his voice she flushed to her forehead. I thought that her first
impulse was to escape, but she controlled it.
"Major Murray!" she faltered. "I--I didn't dream of--seeing you here."
"I have dreamed many times of seeing you," he answered. "And I wished
for it--very much."
"Ah," thought I, "_that_ is the real wish! _That's_ what the look in his
eyes means, not just getting back to England and dying in a certain
house. Now I _know_."
Everyone near his chair had become more or less interested in Murray,
romantic and pathetic figure that he was. Now, a middle-aged man whose
chair was near to Murray's on the right, scrambled out of a fur rug. "I
am off to the smoking room," he said. "Won't you" (to the girl) "take my
chair and talk to your friend? I shall be away till after lunch, maybe
till tea-time."
I fancied that the girl was divided in her mind between a longing to
stay and a longing to flee. But of course she couldn't refuse the offer,
and presently she was seated beside Major Murray, their arms touching. I
could hear almost all they said. This was not eavesdropping, because if
they'd cared to be secretive they could have lowered their voices.
Soon, to my surprise, I learned that the girl was married. She didn't
look married, or have the air of being married, somehow, and in the
conversation that followed she contradicted herself two or three times.
Perhaps it was only because I confused my brain with wild guesses, but
from some things she said one would think she was free as air; from
others, that she was tied down to a rather monotonous kind of existence.
She spoke of America as if she knew it only from a short visit. Then, in
answer to a question of Murray's, she said, as if reluctantly, that she
had lived there, in New York, and Baltimore, and Washington, for years.
It was quite evident to me--whether or not it was to Murray--that Mrs.
Brandreth (as he called her after the first outburst of "Rosemary!")
disliked talking of herself and her way of life. She wanted to talk
about Major Murray, or, failing that subject, of almost anything that
was remote from her own affairs.
I gathered, however, that she and Murray had known each other eight
years ago or more, and that they had met somewhere abroad, out of
England. There had been an aunt of Rosemary's with whom she had
travelled as a young girl. The aunt was dead; but even the loss of a
loved relative didn't account to my mind for this girl's sensitiveness
about the past.
"They must have been engaged, these two, and something happened to break
it off," I thought. "But _he_ can bear to talk of old times, and she
can't. Odd, because she must have been ridiculously young for a love
affair all those years ago. She doesn't look more than twenty-one now,
though she must be more, of course--at least twenty-four. And he is
probably thirty-two or three."
I am often what Jim calls "intuitive," and I had a strong impression
that there was something the beautiful Mrs. Brandreth was desperately
anxious to conceal, desperately afraid of betraying by accident. Could
it have to do with her husband? I wondered. She seemed very loth to
speak of him, and I couldn't make out from what she said whether the man
was still in existence. Her mourning--so becoming to her magnolia skin,
great dark eyes, and ash-blonde hair--didn't look like widow's mourning.
Still, it might be, with the first heaviness of crepe thrown off. Or, of
course, the girl's peculiar reticence might mean that there had been, or
was to be, a divorce.
I didn't move from my deck-chair till luncheon time, but I had to go
then with Jim; and we left Mrs. Brandreth ordering her food from the
deck steward. She would have it with Major Murray, who, poor fellow, was
allowed no other nourishment than milk.
When we came back on deck it was to walk. We had been below for an hour
or more, but the girl and the man were still together. As Jim and I
passed and repassed those chairs, I could throw a quick glance in their
direction without being observed. Mrs. Brandreth's odd nervousness and
shy distress seemed to have gone. The two were talking so earnestly that
a school of porpoises might have jumped on deck without their knowing
that anything out of the way had happened.
Later in the afternoon, the owner of Mrs. Brandreth's chair appeared;
but when she would blushingly have given up her place, he refused to
take it. "I've only come to say," he explained, "that one seat on deck
is the same to me as any other. So why shouldn't I have _your_ chair,
wherever it is, and you keep mine? It's very nice for the Major here to
have found a friend, and it will do him a lot of good. I'm a doctor, and
if I were his physician, such society would be just what I should
prescribe for him."
Mrs. Brandreth had a chair, it seemed, though she said she'd come on
board so tired that she had stayed in her cabin till this morning.
Whether or not she were pleased at heart with the proposal, she accepted
it after a little discussion, and Murray's tragic eyes burned with a new
light.
I guessed that his wish had been to see this beautiful girl again before
he died. The fact that he was doomed to death no doubt spiritualized his
love. He no longer dreamed of being happy in ways which strong men of
his age call happiness; and so, in these days, he asked little of Fate.
Just a farewell sight of the loved one; a new memory of her to take away
with him. And if I were right in my judgment, this was the reason why,
even if Mrs. Brandreth had a husband in the background, these hours with
her would be hours of joy for Murray--without thought of any future.
That evening, as Jim and I were strolling out of our little salon to
dinner, the door of the cabin adjoining mine opened, and it was with a
shock of surprise that I saw Mrs. Brandreth. So _she_ was my mysterious
neighbour who cried and moaned in her sleep!... I was thrilled at the
discovery. But almost at once I told myself that I ought to have
Sherlocked the truth the moment this troubled, beautiful being had
appeared on deck.
Mrs. Brandreth was in black, of course, but she had changed into
semi-evening dress, and her white neck was like swansdown in its folded
frame of filmy black gauze. Over the glittering waves of her ash-blonde
hair she had thrown a long black veil of embroidered Spanish lace, which
fell nearly to her knees, and somehow, before she could close the door,
a gust blew it back, shutting in the veil. The girl was struggling to
free herself when Jim said, "Let me help you."
Naturally, she had to thank him, and explain how she ought to have
fastened her window, as ours was the windy side of the ship to-night.
She and I smiled at each other, and so our acquaintance began. I guessed
from the veil that she was dining in Murray's company, and pictured them
together with the deck to themselves, moonlight flooding the sea.
Next day the smile and nod which Mrs. Brandreth and I exchanged won a
pleasant look from Major Murray for me. We began speaking soon after
that; and before another day had passed Jim or I often dropped into the
empty chair, if Mrs. Brandreth was not on deck. Murray was interested to
know that we would be neighbours of his, and that I was the
grand-daughter of the famous beauty his old bachelor cousin had loved.
I remember it was the night after my first real talk with him that I met
Mrs. Brandreth again as we both opened our doors. Jim was playing bridge
or poker with some men, and hadn't noticed the dressing bugle. I was
ready, and going to remind him of the hour; yet I was charmed to be
delayed by Mrs. Brandreth. Hitherto, though friendly when we were with
our two men, or only one of them, she had seemed like a wild bird trying
to escape if we happened to be alone. It was as if she were afraid I
might ask questions which she would not wish to answer. But now she
stopped me of her own accord.
"I--I've been wanting to tell you something," she began, with one of her
bright blushes. "It's only this: when I'm tired or nervous I'm afraid I
talk in my sleep. I came on board tired out. I had--a great grief a few
months ago, and I can't get over the strain of it. Sometimes when I wake
up I find myself crying, and have an impression that I've called out.
Now I know that you're next door, I'm rather worried lest I have
disturbed you."
I hurried to reassure her. She hadn't disturbed me at all. I was, I
said, a splendid sleeper.
"You haven't heard anything?" she persisted.
I felt she would know I was fibbing if I did fib, so it wasn't worth
while. "I _have_ heard a sound like sobbing now and then," I admitted.
"But no words? I hope not, as people say such _silly_ things in their
sleep, don't they?--things not even true."
"I think I've heard you cry out 'Mother!' once or twice."
"Oh! And that is all?"
"Really, that's all--absolutely!" It was true, and I could speak with
such sincerity that I forced belief.
Mrs. Brandreth looked relieved. "I'm glad!" she smiled. "I hate to make
myself ridiculous. And I'm trying very hard now to control my
subconscious self, which gets out of hand at night. It's simply the
effect of my--grief--my loss I spoke of just now. I'm fairly normal
otherwise."
"I hope you're not entirely normal!" I smiled back. "People one speaks
of as 'normal' are so bromidic and dull! You look far too interesting,
too individual to be normal."
She laughed. "So do you!"
"Oh, I'm not normal at all, thank goodness!"
"Well, you're certainly interesting--and individual--far more than _I_
am."
"Anyhow, I'm sympathetic," I said. "I'm tremendously interested in other
people. Not in their _affairs_, but in themselves. I never want to know
anything they don't want me to know, yet I'm so conceited, I always
imagine that I can help when they need help--just by sympathy alone,
without a spoken word. But to come back to you! I have a lovely remedy
for restlessness at night; not that I need it often myself, but my
French-Italian maid carries dried orange leaves and blossoms for me. She
thinks _tisanes_ better than doctor's medicines. May she make some
orange-flower tea for you to-night at bedtime?"
Mrs. Brandreth had shown signs of stiffening a little as I began, but
she melted toward the last, and said that she would love to try the
poetic-sounding tea.
It was concocted, proved a success, and she was grateful. Perhaps she
remembered my hint that I never wanted to know things which my friends
didn't want me to know, because she made some timid advances as the days
went on. We had quite intimate talks about books and various views of
life as we walked the deck together; and I began to feel that there was
something else she longed to say--something which rose constantly to her
lips, only to be frightened back again. What could it be? I wondered.
And would she in the end speak, or decide to be silent?