That evening Anne Harding had what she called "a downright talk" with
Lady Wychcote. The two "hit it off" very well, considering all things.
There was a certain hardness in the little trained nurse, as in the
haughty old aristocrat, which commanded their mutual respect; though
Anne's hardness was always kind, and Lady Wychcote's nearly always
unkind. Still the two able creatures set a certain value on each other,
and this wrought for understanding.
Anne told her ladyship outright that she would give up the case unless
Dr. Carfew or Sir Lionel Playfair were put in charge. Dr. Bellamy had
told her that he would not assume further responsibility. Sophy had
ranged herself firmly on the side of Bellamy and Anne. Gerald was with
her in this decision.
Lady Wychcote looked rather grimly at the Lilliputian envoy.
"Very well," she said. "But I will not countenance an enforced removal
to one of their asylums."
"Could not your ladyship leave that to Doctor Carfew?"
"No," was her ladyship's reply.
"Perhaps I can bring _him_ to reason," Anne had said to Sophy after this
interview. "At any rate, I want him to hear plainly, from a _man_, what
his fate will be if he goes on with his poisons."
Sophy said nothing.
"Poor soul! She's given up!" thought Anne. "Well, _I_ must tussle to the
bitter end--that's what nurses are here for."
As soon as Chesney was rational, she "had it out" with him.
"Well, for God's sake, bring on your damned quack and let him have his
quack-quackery out!" was his surly response. "I suppose I'm of too tough
a fibre to be slain by an ass's jawbone. But I warn you--no sanatorium
hocus-pocus!"
"Oh, you needn't worry!" Anne had said crossly. "Your mother's on your
side. She'll help you destroy yourself. Mothers have a sort of gift that
way, you know. But if you were _my_ man--I'd clap you in a safe place,
no matter _what_ you said or did!"
Chesney gave her one of his ugliest looks.
"Leave me in peace!" he growled. "I've said I'd see your precious
Carfew. Now you're working me up just because of your own nasty little
temper. A fine nurse, _you_ are!"
"Well, I can't beat you for a patient," retorted Anne, with her puggy
sniff.
That same night Bobby had a bad attack of croup. Sophy and Bellamy and
Anne--who had left Chesney unceremoniously to the strange nurse's
care--fought until daybreak for his life.
After it was all over, and Bobby safe, Bellamy told Sophy that the time
to keep his promise had come. She gazed at him, startled--not
recollecting.
"My promise to tell you frankly when I thought the boy needed a change
of climate," he reminded her. "He needs it now, Mrs. Chesney. You both
need it."
Sophy whitened.
"You don't mean...?"
"No, no! Nothing in the least serious. But, though we've had some fine
days lately, the boy needs a drier climate--hotter sunshine. The Italian
Lakes are not at all bad in summer, Mrs. Chesney, though people stare at
the idea of going to Italy in the summer. I spent a delightful July and
August once at Cadenabbia. Why not try Como? Or, if you want to be
perfectly quiet, the other lake--Maggiore. There's a capital hotel at
Baveno. I've been there, too. Nice gardens for the boy to play in.
Pleasant jaunts to the Barromean Islands--if you care for that sort of
thing."
Sophy seemed to be only half listening to him. She had a far-away look
in her eyes. He thought that she was brooding over the sad plight in
which she would have to leave her husband if she took her boy to Italy.
But Sophy was only thinking how strange it was that an English physician
was ordering to go to the place where Amaldi had been born. She had
thought she might never see him again. Now she might see him very soon.
It gave her a frank pleasure to think of seeing Amaldi again. She liked
him warmly.
Bellamy was speaking to her with great earnestness:
"Mrs. Chesney, pray don't worry over having to leave your husband.
Carfew comes to-morrow, you know, and he will tell you what I tell you
now, I feel convinced--that it will be the best thing possible for
Chesney to have the brace of feeling that he must do without you, for a
time."
Sophy looked at him with her candid eyes.
"I wasn't worrying," she said. "I've thought that out for myself. I
know"--she spoke with quiet emphasis--"whether Doctor Carfew says so or
not, that it will be best for me to leave Cecil now. Not only for
him.... I'm thinking of myself, too, Doctor Bellamy. I've come to the
end ... for the present. I haven't anything more to give him." Her voice
became suddenly bitter. "Not hope, or patience, or belief ... or ...
anything that could really help him," she ended, flushing a little,
feeling that she had said too much.
"You are simply worn out, dear lady," he replied gently. "Your own
natural feeling has worn you out as much as anything. What Chesney needs
now is the cruel kindness of skilled professionals. I hope that we can
succeed in getting his consent to go to Carfew's sanatorium."
Sophy looked at him rather inscrutably.
"I shall speak to him about that myself--I made up my mind to do so last
night."
Bellamy had never noticed how determined her beautiful mouth could look.
He thought how sad it was that character needed to be hammered out on
such rough anvils. It was strange to see it being thus shaped under
one's eyes, as it were.
From this talk with Bellamy Sophy went straight to Lady Wychcote.
"Doctor Bellamy says that Bobby must have a complete change of climate.
I am going to take him to Italy, as soon as I can get packed," she said,
without preliminaries.
Lady Wychcote's brow lowered.
"What! You will leave your husband to hirelings?" she asked, in her
coldest, most metallic tones.
"'Hirelings' are the best people to leave Cecil with at present. You
must see that yourself," Sophy answered, unmoved, and quite as coldly.
"You actually mean it?"
"Yes."
Lady Wychcote's mouth thinned to a hair. The width of this hair-line
indicated an ironic smile.
"You have heard the saying, I presume, that a wife should forsake all
lesser ties in order to cleave to her husband?"
"I have," replied Sophy. "And that other saying, too: 'Wives, submit
yourselves unto your husbands as unto the Lord.' I haven't the least
intention of submitting myself to Cecil as 'unto the Lord.' And I don't
mean to sacrifice my son to him, either."
Lady Wychcote said nothing at once, only sat and looked at her
daughter-in-law. As she saw the hardness to which Sophy's face was
congealing under this look, she broke her silence by observing:
"I was trying to realise that you actually propose to leave the man,
whom you promised to cherish in sickness and in health--to leave him in
the clutch of a hideous illness--merely because your son, _his_ son, has
had an attack of croup."
Sophy said quietly:
"Why do you call it an 'illness,' Lady Wychcote?"
Her mother-in-law reddened; but replied doggedly:
"Because it is an illness. He came near dying the other night."
"People who persistently take poison must come near dying sometimes,"
said Sophy.
Lady Wychcote rose.
"I pity my son!" she exclaimed. "I pity him from the depths of my soul!"
"Yes.... I pity him, too," said Sophy.
"But not for the same reason. I pity him because he has married a
heartless woman!"
Sophy shook her head gently. She had not risen. She sat looking up at
her irate mother-in-law out of tired grey eyes.
"You don't think that," she said. "You don't like me--and you are very
angry with me because I won't play 'patient Griselda' any longer--but
you don't think me heartless."
"Upon my word!" exclaimed her ladyship, with a sort of gasp. "Upon my
word!" she repeated. Words failed her.
Now Sophy rose too. She looked earnestly into the angry, pinched face.
She was sorry for the mother whose ambition had outweighed her love--and
was now but a grey ash of disappointment on her burnt-out, irascible
heart.
"Lady Wychcote," she said, "I must tell you, whether you believe me or
not, I must tell you that even now, after I had seen Bobby safe and well
in proper hands, I would come back to Cecil--if it would do him any real
good. No--please let me finish. I shan't speak like this again. I would
come back--horrible, hideous as it all is--I would stay near him. But I
cannot help him. I am sure that it only does him harm to have
me--us--always overlooking--forgiving--weakly, miserably forgiving. I do
_not_ forgive any longer--I will never forgive again--unless he will
submit himself to those who can cure him. I won't risk my life and
Bobby's--for his selfishness--his brutal self-indulgence. I wanted you
to understand why I go--just how I feel. It is only fair. I am going to
Italy with Bobby. Nothing can change me--nothing that you, or any one
else, can say. Nothing--nothing!"
Lady Wychcote received this with bitter silence; then she said in a low
voice of the most concentrated resentment:
"So you propose to leave the burden of your wifely duty on _my_
shoulders?"
"No!" cried Sophy passionately. "As things are now, I have no wifely
duty! The only duty left me is my duty to my son and to myself! I have
no husband! And while this vile habit lasts, you have no son! He loves
only morphia. Morphia is wife and mother and child and God to him. Oh,
Lady Wychcote, do you, too, leave him! Leave him to those who can save
him. Forsake him so that, from sheer loneliness, he will be forced to
find himself again. It is the only way--the only, only way!"
One cannot speak out of the fulness of the heart with genuine, human
passion, and not move something--even if it be only the outmost,
thinnest veil of the atmosphere of another spirit. Lady Wychcote was
stirred unwillingly by this ardent appeal, but she would not yield her
pride.
"Pardon me," she said frigidly, "but your desertion of your post only
gives me double reason for remaining at mine."
She turned and went regally away towards her own apartments. But in
truth her inward spirit was not nearly as determined as her
well-corseted back. That Sophy should actually have resolved to leave
her alone with Cecil filled her with dismay. She had not realised, until
about to lose it, the admirable "buffer" between her and the full
consequences of Cecil's "illness," that Sophy's presence had provided.
Lady Wychcote had, to a marked degree, your healthy egoist's detestation
of sick-rooms. Not only did the mere word "morphinomaniac" fill her with
dread, but it roused in her the born Conservative's resentment against
anything in the least _outre_ or eccentric. It was Sophy who had
watched, pleaded, interviewed doctors, read aloud, endured abuse, lain
awake at night. The body of Sophy's vigorous young health had stood
between her and that great, drug-poisoned body of her son.
What if...? Yes, to this point had Lady Wychcote been brought by the
realisation of her daughter-in-law's imminent departure. What if, after
all, the doctors were right? If, for his own sake, it would be better to
have Cecil sent to a sanatorium?