Jane was still looking at the wet place on her hand when the doctor
entered.
"Esther's been crying," she told him. In her voice was the awe which
children feel at the phenomenon of tears in grown-ups.
Callandar felt his heart contract--Esther crying! But he could not
question the child.
"I don't know why," went on Jane obligingly. "Esther's so strange
lately. Every one is strange. You are strange too. Am I strange?"
"A little," said Callandar gravely.
"Perhaps it's catching? Do you want mother? She is upstairs and her door
is locked. Perhaps she'll be down in a little while. She said Esther was
to stay in and entertain you, but Esther wouldn't. She has gone to a
garden party. I'll entertain you if you like."
"That will be very nice."
"Shall I play for you on the piano?"
"Thanks. And you won't mind if I sit in the corner here and close my
eyes, until your mother comes?"
"No. You may go quite to sleep if you wish. I'm not sensitive about my
playing. Bubble says you are nearly always tired now. He says you have
such a 'normous practice that you hardly ever get a wink of sleep.
That's what makes you look so kind of hollow-eyed, Bubble says."
"So Bubble has been diagnosing my case, has he?"
"Oh, he doesn't talk about professional cases usually. He said that
about you because Mrs. Atkins said that being engaged didn't seem to
agree with you. She said she was just as glad you didn't take a fancy to
her Gracie if prospective matteromony made you look like the dead
march in Saul."
"Observing woman!"
"What," resumed Jane, "is a dead march in Saul?"
"It is a musical composition."
Jane considered this and then dismissed it with a shrug. "It sounded as
if it was something horrid. Mrs. Atkins thinks she's smart. Anyway, I
didn't tell mother."
"Well, suppose you run now and tell her that I am here."
"Can't. The door is locked."
"Then let us have some of the music you promised. I'll sit here and
wait."
Strange to say, Jane's music was not unsoothing. She had a smooth, light
touch and the little airs she played tinkled sweetly enough from the old
piano. The weary, nerve-wrung man was more than half asleep when she
grew tired of playing and slipped off to bed without disturbing him. The
moments ticked themselves away on the big hall clock. Mrs. Coombe did
not come, nor did the doctor waken.
He was aroused an hour later by a voice upon the veranda. It was
Esther's voice and in response to it he heard a deeper murmur, a man's
voice without doubt. There was a moment or two of low-toned talk, then
"Good-night," and the girl came in alone.
She did not see him as she came slowly across to the table. He thought
she looked grave and sad, older too--but, so dear! With a weary gesture
she began to pull off her long gloves.
"Who was it with you, Esther?" He tried hard to make the inquiry, so
devouringly eager, sound carelessly casual.
She looked up with a start.
"Oh--I didn't see you, Doctor! Mr. Macnair was with me. Did you wish to
see him?" She could play at the game of carelessness better than he.
"Where is mother?" she added quickly.
"In her room, I think. Esther, are you going to marry Macnair?"
The girl slipped off her second glove, blew gently into its fingers,
smoothed them and laid it with nice care upon the table beside
its fellow.
"I do not know."
He realised with a shock that he had expected an indignant denial.
"You do not love him!"
"No. Not now. He knows that. And I do not expect ever to love him. But
perhaps, after a long while, if I could make him happy--it is so
terrible not to be happy," she finished pathetically.
Callandar could have groaned aloud; the danger was so clear. And how
could he, of all men, warn her. Yet he must try. He came quickly across
to where she stood and compelled her gaze to his.
"Do not make that mistake, Esther! It is fatal. Try to believe that in
spite of--of everything, I am speaking disinterestedly. You are young
and the young hate suffering. You would marry him, out of pity. But I
tell you that no man's happiness comes to him that way. You will have
sacrificed yourself to no purpose. The risk is too awful. Wait. Time is
kind. You will know it, some day. But even though you do not believe it
now--wait. Wait forever, rather than marry a man to whom you cannot give
your heart."
"That is your advice?" She spoke heavily. "You would like some day to
see me marry a man I could--love?"
"Yes, a thousand times yes!"
"I shall think over what you say." She was still gravely controlled but
it was a control which would not last much longer. She glanced around
the empty room with a quick caught breath. "Why are you left all alone?"
"Is a keeper necessary?" Then, ashamed of his irritation and willing to
end a scene which threatened to make things harder for both of them, he
added in his ordinary tone, "I really do not know who is responsible for
such unparalleled neglect. Jane played me to sleep, I fancy. She said
her mother was upstairs but would be down presently. It must be late. I
had better go."
"Wait a moment, I will see if there is any message from mother."
As she left the room her light scarf slipped from her shoulders and fell
softly across his arm. Callandar crushed it passionately to his lips and
then, folding it carefully, laid it beside the gloves upon the table.
Even the scarf was not for him. Aunt Amy, passing through the hall on
her way upstairs, saw the dumb caress and shivered anew at the
mysterious power of "They" which could tear such a man as Callandar from
the woman he loved.
Esther was gone only a moment and when she returned she brought with her
a change of atmosphere. Something had banished every trace of
self-consciousness from her manner. She looked anxious but it was an
anxiety with which no embarrassment mingled.
"Doctor," she said at once, "mother seems to be ill. The door is locked
and she did not answer my knocking. Yet she is not asleep. I could hear
her talking. I think you ought to come up."
An indescribable look flitted across the doctor's face. He looked at the
girl a moment in measuring silence and then pointed to a chair.
"Sit down," he said briefly, "I thought that this would come. I have
been afraid of it for some time. Is it possible that you have no
suspicion at all in regard to these peculiar--illnesses--of your
mother's?"
The startled wonder in her eyes was answer enough even without the
quick, "What do you mean?"
Callandar's face grew gravely compassionate. "I think you ought to
know," he said. "I have put off saying anything because I was not
absolutely sure myself. And I have never had quite the right opportunity
of finding out. But I have had fears for some time now that your mother
is in the habit of taking some drug which--well, which is certainly not
good for her. Do not look so frightened. It may not be serious. Do you
remember when you first consulted me about your mother and how we both
agreed that the medicine she was taking for her nervous attacks might be
harmful? I was suspicious then, but there was little to go on, only her
fear of any one seeing the prescription, and a few general symptoms
which might be due to various causes. Since then I--I have noticed
things which have made me anxious. I think for her own sake as well as
yours and mine, the sooner the truth is known the better. Are you sure
the door is locked?"
"Yes," the girl's voice was tense, "but the window is open. It opens on
the top of the veranda. You could enter there."
"If that is the only way, I must take it. I thought, I hoped that if
things were as I feared she would tell me herself, but she never has. It
is useless, now, to hope for her confidence. The instinct is so strongly
for concealment. We must help her in spite of herself."
"Hurry then! I shall wait here. You will call me if necessary?"
She did not ask him exactly what it was that he feared nor did he tell
her, but for the first time in many weeks they were able to look at each
other as comrades look. The eruption of the old trouble into the new
obscured the latter so that, for the time at least, the sick woman
behind the locked door held first place in both their thoughts.
It seemed to Esther that she waited a long time before the summons came.
Then she heard him call, "Esther!" It was a doctor's call, cool,
passionless, commanding. She flew up the stairs, closing Jane's door as
she hurried by. The door to her mother's room was open. It was brightly
lighted. The shade of the lamp had been removed and its garish yellow
fell full upon the bed and the strange figure which lay there.
Mary Coombe had apparently thrown herself down fully dressed--but in
what a costume! Surely no nightmare held anything more bizarre. Esther
had no time to notice details but she remembered afterwards how the feet
were clothed in different coloured stockings and that while one
displayed a gaily buckled slipper, the other was carefully laced into a
tan walking boot. Just now she could see nothing but the face, for the
greatest shock was there. It did not look like Mary's face at all--it
was strange, old, yellow and repulsive. Her unbrushed, lustreless hair
hung about it in a dull mat, one of her hands was clutched in it--the
hand was dirty.
A terrible thought struck every vestige of colour from Esther's cheek.
Her terrified gaze swept over the disordered room, up to the face of the
man who stood there so silently, then down again to the inert woman upon
the bed. Once, not long ago, she had seen a drunken man asleep upon the
roadside grass--like this.
"Is it--is it drink?" The words were a whisper of horror.
The doctor shook his head.
"I wish it were. I wish it were only that. Have you never heard of the
drug habit--morphia, opium? That is what we have to fight--and it is
what I feared."
"Oh!" It was a breath of relief. To Esther, who knew nothing of drugs,
or drug habits, the truth seemed less awful than the thing she
had imagined.
"Is--is it serious?" she asked timidly.
The doctor smiled grimly. "You will see. No need to frighten you now.
But it will be a fight from this on." He threw a light coverlet over the
helpless figure and replacing the shade on the lamp, turned down the
flaring wick. "I will tell you what I can, but at present it is very
little. Probably this began long ago, before your father's death. In the
first place there may have been a prescription--I think you said she had
had an illness in which she suffered greatly. The drug, opium in some
form probably, may have been given to reduce the pain--and continued
after need for it was gone without knowledge of its dangerous qualities.
Nervous people form the habit very quickly. Then--I am only
guessing--as the amount contained in the original prescription ceased to
produce the desired effect, she may have found out what drug it was that
her appetite craved. If she saw the danger then, it was already too
late. She could not give up voluntarily and was compelled to go on,
shutting her eyes to the inevitable consequences, if indeed she ever
clearly knew them."
"But now that you know? It ought not to be hard to help her now that you
know. There are other drugs--"
"Yes. There is a frying-pan and a fire. In fact I fear that she has
already tried that expedient herself. Some of the symptoms point to
cocaine. No, our best hope is in the decreasing dose with proper
auxiliary treatment. I cannot tell yet how serious the case may be. At
any rate there must be an end of the mystery. Every one in the house
must know, even Jane; for in this fight ignorance means danger. But," he
hesitated and his face grew dark, "you cannot realise what this is going
to mean. It is my burden, not yours. At least I have the right to save
you that. We must have a nurse--"
A little eager cry burst from her. "Oh, no! Not that! You wouldn't do
that. You can't mean not to let me help."
"You do not know--"
"I do not care what it means. But if you won't let me help, if you shut
me out--" Her voice quivered dangerously, but with a spark of her old
fire she recovered herself. "You cannot," she added more firmly,
"because it is my burden as well as yours. Whatever she is to you, she
was my father's wife and I am responsible to him. Unless extra help is
really needed, no nurse shall take my place."
"Very well," quietly. "Call Aunt Amy, then, and search the room. She
will sleep for a long time yet. When she wakes there must be no more of
the drug within her reach. I must find out the amount to which she has
been accustomed and arrange a decreasing dose. But if you are to be a
nurse, you know, you must expect a bad time. It will not be easy."
Esther's reply was to call Aunt Amy and while the doctor explained to
the bewildered old lady the danger in which her niece stood and the
absolute importance of keeping all "medicine" away from her, Esther
quietly and swiftly searched the room. Boxes and drawers she unlocked
and opened, the dresser, the writing-table, the bureau, the long unused
sewing basket, all were examined without success. But in the locked box
which contained her father's portrait, she made another discovery which
woke a little throb of angry pity in her heart. There, still wrapped in
its carelessly torn off postal wrappings, lay the box containing the
ruby ring which Jessica Bremner had returned. Mary must have got it from
the post herself and had immediately hidden it, careless of the fact
that all Esther's careful savings had been necessary to make the return
possible. Without comment she slipped the ring into the bosom of
her dress.
"Have you found anything?"
"Nothing yet."
Aunt Amy took a fascinated step nearer the figure on the bed. If
Callandar could have intercepted the look she cast upon it he might have
been warned of the subtle change which had taken place in her of late,
but the doctor had turned to help Esther. Aunt Amy could gaze
undisturbed.
"She looks like Richard," said Aunt Amy suddenly. "Do you remember
Richard?" She brushed her hand over her eyes in a painful effort of
memory. "He was a bad man, a very bad man."
"She means her brother Richard," explained Esther. "He has been dead for
ages. I believe he was not a family ornament."
"Just like Richard," murmured Aunt Amy again with a quickly checked
chuckle. "But you ought to be glad of that. You won't have to marry her
now. You can marry Esther."
If a shell had burst in the quiet room, it could scarcely have caused
more consternation. The doctor's stern face quivered, Esther's searching
hand dropped paralysed. Here was a danger indeed! Was their secret
really so patent? Or had it been but a vagrant guess of a clouded mind?
Callandar recovered himself first. Without glancing at the girl he
walked quietly over to the bed and placing his hand upon Aunt Amy's
shoulder compelled wavering eyes to his.
"Aunt Amy, you must never say that again." He spoke with the crisp
incisiveness of a master, but for once his subject did not immediately
respond. With a sulky look she tried to wrench herself free.
"Why?" she questioned. But Callandar knew his business too
well to argue. "You must never say it again," he repeated.
"You--must--never--say--it--again!"
The poor, weak lips began to quiver. Her own boldness had frightened her
quite as much as his vehemence. Her eyes fluttered and fell.
"Very well, Doctor," she answered meekly.
They searched now in silence and presently Esther emerged from the
closet with a pair of dainty slippers in her hand.
"I think I have found something," she said. "There are three pairs of
party slippers and the toes of them are all stuffed with these." She
handed the doctor a package of innocent looking tablets done up in
purplish blue paper.
Callandar glanced at them, shook them out and counted their number.
"You are sure you have them all?"
"I can find no trace of more."
"Then I think we have a strong fight coming--but a good hope, too."