A WOMAN’S RING.
It was a wet day. A cold, steady autumn rain that made Levallion Castle
chilly and shivery, and so lonely that its mistress had no desire
to look at the dark corners of the room where she sat at tea-time.
Levallion was out. She had hardly let him from her sight for three
days; she scarcely knew why, except that he was all she had in the
world to cling to. Lady Levallion pushed away her untasted tea and
went out of the big, lonely drawing-room up-stairs. Rain or no rain,
she would get her hat and go out. She could not sit alone for another
minute.
She was hurrying down-stairs as she had hurried up, passing a closed
door without so much as a glance, when something stopped her as short
as a hand on her shoulder.
“Oh!” she said aloud. “What was that?” She wheeled in the dim passage
and stared in sick horror at the door which must shut in something more
dreadful than she knew, for never in her life had she heard a cry like
that.
As she stared, the door opened. A nurse in a white uniform came out.
“Did you----” she began. “Oh, my lady, I beg your pardon! I thought it
was the doctor.”
The passage was nearly dark; she could not see how white her ladyship’s
face was, nor how startled her eyes.
“The doctor!” Ravenel said sharply. “Do you mean you sent for him? Is
Captain Gordon worse?”
“No, not exactly. But he’s very restless and delirious. I’m afraid he
may injure his arm.” She looked curiously at the slight girl in rough
tweed, who was so young to be mistress of Levallion Castle.
It was odd that in all these days the countess had never sent to ask
after the invalid. But fine ladies had very little heart, as a rule.
“There, do you hear that?” she said, rather desirous of harrowing the
feelings of this one. “I must go back. He’s getting another bad turn.”
Hear that! Every drop of Lady Levallion’s blood stood still. For in
that dreadful voice she did not know Adrian Gordon was calling on a
woman’s name.
“Nel, Nel!” he cried. “I want my Nel.”
Fascinated, drawn as if by ropes, Lady Levallion followed the nurse
through the half-closed door she had sworn to herself never to enter;
stood in the middle of the room, wide-eyed, dry-lipped.
Unshaven, grim, haggard, Adrian was tossing from side to side in his
bed. He turned his eyes to her unseeingly, and said again, in the very
face of the very woman he called on:
“Nel, I want my Nel. Can’t you stop this pain? I’m making a fool of
myself. For God’s sake, bring Nel!”
And then he cried out in the screaming groan that turns every woman,
but a nurse, sick with horror.
Ravenel made a wild step toward him, in another minute would have flung
away all she had by drawing the tossing, restless head to her breast,
by crying that she was here--his Nel, who loved him still. But between
her and him the nurse had slipped quietly, and was touching his burning
forehead with a professional hand.
“The poor soul wouldn’t know her if she were here!” she muttered. “Yes,
yes; she’s coming.” But if she had glanced over her shoulder she would
not have known Lady Levallion’s face.
“Can’t you get him some morphine?” Ravenel cried.
“I only had a certain amount. The doctor ought to be here soon. I sent
for him an hour ago.”
An hour ago! Lady Levallion clenched her teeth.
While she had been sitting in comfort, he had been in this pain. It was
true he had behaved vilely to her, but she could not bear any living
thing to suffer like this.
“Let me try!” she said, and the nurse looked up with surprise at the
pity in her voice. She could feel, then, little interest as she had
seemed to take in the patient.
At the touch of the shaky hand she laid on his forehead Adrian lay
quiet; but only for an instant.
“Where is she?” said that dreadful voice. “Nel!”
She dared not trust herself to speak. If only the nurse would go!
“I hear some one.” She got the lie out somehow. “Go and see if it’s
the doctor,” and as the woman hurried to the door, she stooped and
whispered in Gordon’s ear:
“I’m here. It’s Nel. Do you want me?”
“Nel,” he said, so naturally that she thought he answered her, and was
terrified of what he might say before the white-dressed woman, who was
all eyes and ears. But the next minute she saw it was accident. He did
not know her.
And yet something had quieted him; whether it was her voice, her touch,
she could not say. He lay still, only wincing now and then. The nurse
came to the bedside.
“You really seem to have soothed him,” she said incredulously. “Perhaps
you would stay a little.”
“I can’t--not long!” stammering. For, suppose Levallion came and found
her here, she who had vowed she hated illness. She put the cowardly
thought from her.
“He wouldn’t think anything,” she said to herself, “for he’s a thousand
times too good and too proud to imagine what a beast I am. For I am a
beast! If Adrian were well I should hate him. Oh, why does he call me!
Me, that he threw away like a squeezed orange.” But even as she thought
it she never stopped her involuntary mechanical smoothing of the
short-cropped hair she had never thought to touch again in life. And
the feel of it sent a thrill through her that made her start back. What
was she doing? Levallion’s wife had no right there. Any other woman on
earth might soothe Adrian’s pain, but not she!
“Please don’t stop, your ladyship,” said the nurse quickly. “I must
keep him still on account of his arm. There are some splinters of
bone in it that don’t come away as they should. When the doctor comes
we must get that ring cut off--it’s cutting into his swollen hand.”
She pointed to where a tiny bit of gold gleamed at the edge of the
bandages, and Lady Levallion started.
The other woman’s ring! That mysterious woman who had come to ask after
him. She had forgotten them both! She moved slowly away from the bed,
her face once more as hard as the nurse thought a great lady’s should
be. Let him suffer as he might, die if he liked; it was no business of
hers any more!
“I don’t think I had anything to do with quieting him,” she said
shortly. “I fancy the pain just happened to grow less.”
“Very likely,” said Sister Elizabeth dryly. “Delirious patients are
peculiar; probably that girl he seems to want so much is some one he
really hates the thought of.”
“Really!” said Lady Levallion uninterestedly. But there was fright in
her face as she stared at the nurse’s broad back. Had she spoken by
accident, or had Adrian let out more of a name than that one syllable?
A queer terror ran through her, though there was little enough the man
could tell. Sister Elizabeth could not have dared to refer to it if
he had; and yet Ravenel doubted. The nurse did not look like a stupid
woman.
“I will go out and send some one to hurry Doctor Houghton,” she said
coldly, moving toward the door.
“Nel!” the sudden cry made her stop short, for it seemed so certain
that he must know she was here and was leaving him. “Don’t let the band
play any more waltzes. I never danced with you, only with fools--hair
full of scent--you know the kind. Nel, Nel, Nel!”
Lady Levallion stopped her ears and ran.
White and shaking, she leaned against the wall of the passage, that
was light enough now, for the servants had lit the lamps. Her hands
still at her ears, her eyes shut, her mouth drawn into that awful bow
that means helpless pity, she stood, her face an open book that any
passer-by might read.
“Talk of the pains of hell!” she thought. “They don’t wait till you’re
dead. They say every one builds their own fire there, and Adrian’s
seems to be a pretty good blaze. Only why should I burn in it? I never
put one stick to it,” without knowing it, she was muttering, but
unintelligibly enough.
“Ravenel,” said a quiet voice in her ear, as some one took her hands
away, “my dear child, what is the matter?”
It was Levallion, in a streaming mackintosh, his handsome face really
old in his surprised concern. She would sooner it had been a mad dog.
“It’s him, it’s----” she caught her breath, steadied herself, “Captain
Gordon! I’ve been in there, the nurse called me. Oh, I never saw any
one in pain like that, or delirious! I couldn’t stay.”
Levallion stripped off his wet coat and dropped it. How could any nurse
be such a fool? He would settle with her presently. There were sights
no girl like Ravenel should see.
“You poor child!” he said softly. “No wonder you look queer. I’ll go in
and see him.”
She caught his arm.
“No, no!” she cried frantically. “Don’t go. He’s off his head. He keeps
calling for some woman, and it doesn’t seem fair--oh, don’t listen,
Levallion! Take me away.”
“Darling,” Levallion was not given to endearments, but the word fell on
deaf ears. He slipped his arm round her, furious that she should have
been made so unhappy. His eyes, that were always bad to meet, blazed as
he thought of that senseless fool of a nurse.
“Come away and rest. Here’s Doctor Houghton; it will be all right now.
And there’s some one else come I’ve been to meet at the station.”
Some one else! And Houghton’s step in the passage. Lady Levallion
steadied herself with the courage that had never failed her. She even
met Levallion’s eyes.
“I’m silly, but it upset me,” she said quite naturally. And above her
voice came Adrian’s loud one through the closed door, as he called her
name. “Who else has come?”
“Me,” said a voice, suspiciously and determinedly troubled. “Didn’t you
know?”
“Tommy!” she said stupidly, as the boy kissed her. A week ago she would
have been wild with joy, to-day--Tommy knew! It would be awful to have
any one who knew in the house.
“Exactly. And I want my tea. Do you habitually,” he made the slightest
possible pause, and went on, cheerfully, “reside in this passage?”
Ravenel shivered, for Tommy’s eyes were hard and stern on hers for all
his careless voice. He had made sense enough of that reiterated cry
that was Greek to Levallion.
“No, come on!” she answered hastily. “I was just speaking to the nurse.
You come, too, Levallion. Doctor Houghton doesn’t want you.” And she
held his hand tight behind the shelter of Tommy’s back as she smiled at
the doctor.
“Want him? No,” Houghton returned hurriedly. “I’ll see him by and by.”
But before his quick hand was on Adrian’s door Ravenel had dragged
Levallion away.
“I don’t want you to feel--left out--with me and Tommy!” she whispered,
and loathed herself. “It was so good of you to bring him.”
The man’s hard eyes grew kind. Tommy whistled as he followed them to
the drawing-room and fresh tea; but Levallion did not know Tommy well.
He never whistled unless he was angry. All through her tea-making
Ravenel knew that Tommy was storing up wrath against her that would
break out the second Levallion left them, which he did on a summons
from Doctor Houghton.
Ravenel prepared for battle, and then felt wretched. Never in all her
life had she really fought with Tommy.
“Look here,” said he, and, to her surprise, quite coolly; “I suppose
you can’t help having Gordon in the house, but if I were you I wouldn’t
be found outside his own door looking like a sick cat.”
“I couldn’t help it,” angrily. “I was passing and the nurse came out.
You needn’t put on silly airs about it; nobody hates him worse than I
do. And he hates me. He wasn’t even civil that day he came.”
“If I hated him, or anything else,” dryly, “I’d keep my face
straighter--before Levallion!”
“If you think of me like that you can hold your tongue over it,” her
voice very low and furious.
“I don’t pine to talk about it,” unpleasantly. “But other people than
me have ears, and I heard fully well what Gordon was calling out,” with
ungrammatical force.
“Don’t you ever dare to call me that!” she sprang up and caught his
arm. “Listen to me. I tell you the girl Adrian called is dead--dead! Do
you hear me?”
“‘R. I. P.,’ then!” said Tommy, with a curious catch in his voice.
“Mind you, Ravenel, I’d sooner that was true than that you----”
Lady Levallion forgot she was a countess.
“Shut up!” she said. “There’s somebody coming, and you’re making a fuss
about nothing. I haven’t any dark secrets, except that I was engaged to
a man who--threw me over,” quickly. “If you want to know, I hate him.
There!”
“Then you’d better do it with less fuss,” returned Sir Thomas in a
casual tone of brotherly conversation, as the door opened on Levallion
and Houghton.
“Do what?” the former asked idly, looking with a curious pride at the
two handsome, flushed young faces.
“Argue,” coolly. “Ravenel never will own she’s wrong.”
“A woman is never wrong, my good sir!” said Levallion piously.
“Ravenel, you’ll be glad to hear Gordon’s asleep.”
“Oh,” said Houghton, “that reminds me! I forgot to give you this, Lord
Levallion. I fancy it is valuable, and it might be lost. I had to cut
it off Captain Gordon’s hand. I beg your pardon, Lady Levallion; I
interrupted you!”
“I didn’t speak,” she said quietly, and she best knew where she got
her composure. For Houghton was holding out to Levallion her own
emerald-and-opal ring.
Bent, filed through, dulled by a fevered hand, she still could not
mistake it. It was her very ring and no other, but how--a voice that
sounded like a real voice was sudden, insistent, in her ears.
“You mustn’t, you daren’t think, here.”
Dazed, she looked to see if Tommy had spoken; but Tommy was gaping
silently at that long-lost ring. No one had opened their mouths. It was
her own mind that had warned her.
In the sudden, causeless silence that had fallen on the room Levallion
slipped the broken ring into his pocket.