To-morrow had come.
It was the same kind of morning as other mornings; there was no lurid
conflagration lighting up the sky. Outside it was dull and quiet, and
even the wind was still. Susan paused at the staircase window, gazing
a little while.
In the hall beneath she heard Barnaby talking to the dogs. And his
voice shook her. The stunned sense of finality that was with her gave
way to a sharp and sudden pain.
She could not bear to go down to him. Turning, she fled back.
"Is that you, Susan?" called Lady Henrietta. She was sitting up at her
breakfast, and the door of her room was ajar. "Where is Barnaby riding
out so early? I heard his boots creaking as he went by."
"I don't know," the girl said, truly. "I haven't seen him."
"Then don't loiter like a draught in the door," said Lady Henrietta
impatiently. "Come in and have your tea up here and help me to read my
letters."
She did as she was bidden. The sharp kindliness of Barnaby's mother
was sweet to her; and it was the last time she would sit with her, the
last time she would listen with a smile that was not far from tears to
her caustic prattle. Whatever happened to her, however they managed
her disappearance, she and Lady Henrietta would never meet again.
Would she think of her sometimes,--kindly?--She was not to know....
"What's the matter now?" said Lady Henrietta suddenly. "You look pale."
Hurriedly the girl defended herself from the imputation.
"Of course, it's Barnaby," said Lady Henrietta, undismayed. "I suppose
he has been behaving badly."
"Oh no! Oh no!" cried Susan.
Lady Henrietta waved her hands impatiently. How fragile she looked,
how pretty;--the pink in her cheekbones matching her painted silk
peignoir. The hardness that sometimes marred her expression had
softened to a pitying amusement, and she had a look of Barnaby when she
smiled like that.
"You'd deny it with your last gasp," she said.
Susan was picking up and arranging the letters that were lying in
disorder. It was difficult to sustain that quizzical regard. But
Barnaby's mother had not finished with her. She was not to be
distracted.
"You never tell me anything, either of you," she said. "What is a
mother-in-law for but to rule the tempest and shoot about in the
battle? It's too firmly fixed in your heads that I am a brittle thing,
and whatever is raging round me I am not to be excited. And it's
absurd. I don't mind having a heart,--in reason. It's amusing; a kind
of trick up my sleeve. But I won't have it robbing me of my rightful
flustrations.--I am as strong as a horse, if you two would realize it.
And you and Barnaby are such a funny couple."
She scanned the girl's face a minute.
"I'm attached to you, you little wretch," she said. "But I don't
believe you care a straw for him."
But as she spoke her merciless eyes had pierced the girl's mask of
light-heartedness. On this last morning Susan was not mistress of
herself.
"You _are_ fond of him!" she said. "Dreadfully, ridiculously fond of
him like any old-fashioned girl...."
"Oh, hush!" cried Susan. Anything to stop that unmerciful
proclamation. She flung herself on her knees, and her terrified
protest was stifled in Lady Henrietta's arms.
"How silly we are!" said she, but she held the girl tightly. "I'm to
bridle my tongue, am I? You are afraid I shall tell him? Oh, you poor
little girl, you baby, is it as bad as that?"
She pushed her away, as if ashamed of her own emotion, and a fierceness
came into her voice, that had been entirely kind.
"If you allow that woman to ruin your lives--!" she said. "Oh, I'm not
blind, I'm not altogether stupid--! If you let her take him from
us--I'll never forgive you, Susan."
Having launched her bolt, all unconscious of its stabbing irony, she
recovered her bantering equanimity, and looked whimsically at her
listener.
"Why are you gazing at me," she said, "as if I were about to vanish?
I'm not going to die of it. I am going to take the field."
* * * * *
Barnaby was not in the house when the girl went at last downstairs.
She wandered in and out of the library, trying to smother her
expectation, listening without ceasing for the telegram that was to
come and make an end. He did not appear at luncheon, and she sat
alone, pretending to eat, but starting at every sound. Afterwards, to
quiet her restlessness, she went round to the stables to say good-bye
to the horses.
The pigeons flew down to her as she walked into the wide flagged yard.
She went to the corn bin and scattered a handful as they circled round
her and settled at her feet. The men must be still at dinner. There
was no stud groom to look reproachful as she tipped a little oats in a
sieve to give secretly to the horse that had been her own in this
country of make-believe. She felt like a thief as she lifted the
latch. It seemed wrong to be there by herself, without Barnaby. She
had always gone round with him.
The horse lifted his beautiful head, and they stared at each other.
She patted his quarter with her flat hand, and he went over and let her
empty her parting gift in his manger.
"Good-bye," she said. "Good-bye, old boy!"
Tears choked her. She stumbled out through the straw and shut the door
on him.
All down that side of the yard there was a row of boxes. The bay came
first, and then the chestnut that Barnaby had ridden yesterday
afternoon. He pulled a little with Barnaby; ... he had never pulled
with her. And there was the hotter chestnut that she had called
Mustard, and the brown horse that had been mishandled and had a trick
of striking out when a stranger came up to him in the stall. She had
gone with Barnaby to look at him when he first arrived from the
dealers',--and Barnaby had caught her back just in time. The horse
looked at her gravely, sadly, with no evil flicker in his eye. Life
had dealt hardly with him as with her, and he seemed, best of them all,
to understand. But Barnaby had forbidden her to go near him....
Mechanically she went on to Black Rose's box, but her place was empty.
There was a grey next door, an old horse that had carried her many
times. He was to be fired in the spring, sold perhaps. She leant her
head, shuddering, against him; and he licked at her hand like a dog....
What was the end of them, all these brave, patient, willing creatures?
A few seasons' eager service, and then, step by step, as the tired
muscles failed the undying spirit--knocking from hand to hand, harder
fare, worse misusage,--the dreadful descent into hell.
Once, on their way back from hunting, they had come suddenly on a
strange procession, a gaunt herd of worn-out shadows making their last
journey, staggering humbly along the wayside. It was a haunting
tragedy. Staring ribs, hollow eyes dim with misery,--and the cursing
driver thrashing one that had fallen, and lay in a quivering heap on
the grass. She had asked what this horror was.... Just a shipload of
useless horses travelling in the dusk their unspeakable pilgrimage to
the sea.
And she had turned on the men riding at her side. Shame on them, that
were English, that called themselves a sporting nation.... What a lie
that was! she had cried....
And Barnaby had said--"She's right there!" and the other men had not
laughed....
There were voices in the saddle-room. One of the grooms crossed the
yard whistling. She was still leaning her head against the old horse,
and she waited. She did not want the men to stare at her and wonder;
she did not want them to find her there.
"The master took out Black Rose, didn't he?"
"Yes. He's gone down the fields with his Lordship."
"Will he be riding her in the Hunt steeplechases?"
That was a stranger's voice, not one of Barnaby's servants.
"Can't say."--The stud groom was cautious.
"That's an ugly brute of his Lordship's. Why didn't he ride him here?"
said another voice, joining in.
"He had to go somewhere in the motor, and so I'd orders to bring the
horse over. It wasn't a job I envied," said Rackham's groom.
"If ever a horse was a devil, that one is," said the stud groom,
laconically.
"Wants a devil to back him," muttered Rackham's man. "I never ride out
of our yard without expecting he'll down me. Got a history, hasn't he?"
"Who told you that?"
"Stevens told me you'd passed a remark about him."
The stud groom received the insinuating suggestion with a dignity that
was proof against pumping for the space of a minute. He chewed on a
straw discreetly. Then his own knowledge became too much for him.
"If I told you his history, Arthur Jones," he said slowly, "you'd never
lay your legs across him no more."
"Then for God's sake tell it," said Arthur Jones.
The stud groom laughed grimly. He was a man of saturnine humour, and
liked impressing his underlings.
"His Lordship knows," he said. "If any man could cow a horse, he can.
Weight tells. Weight and devilry. But any other gentleman buying
Prince John I'd call it suicide. If I didn't,--according to
circumstances, mind you"--he lowered his voice, not much, but
enough--"call it murder."
Would the men never stop gossiping and disperse? She would have to
face their curious looks at last.
"I was up Yorkshire way when his Lordship bought him," said the stud
groom deliberately. "Four of us was leaning over the bars at that
auction. Two of us had a mourning band on the sleeve of our coats, and
the third chap had unpicked the crape off his a month ago. When they
put Prince John in the ring there came a frost on the bidding. They
said he'd ought to 'a been shot out of the road, and never put up for
sale. His name wasn't Prince John then. He'd been run in two 'chases,
owners up;--and he'd killed them both."
The men stood with their mouths open, digesting the horrid tale. And a
stable lad ran into the yard from his vantage point on a hillock.
"They're down at the jumps," he said, "--and they're changing horses."
It was then that the girl came out, passing swift as an apparition.
The men fell back, touching their caps.
"I'll lay she heard you," said Rackham's man.
The stud groom looked after her curiously and, crossing over to the
door of the grey's box, that she had left unfastened, closed it without
a word.
She did not know why she was hurrying to the house. What
half-conscious panic had seized her as her inattentive mind took its
wandering impression of the grooms' idle gossip? What words had
reached her, lodging in her brain to inspire that wild sense of
impending trouble? It was no good searching for Barnaby in the house.
He was down at the jumps,--changing horses.
"There's a wire for you," said Lady Henrietta.
It had come. At first she looked at it stupidly, as if it, the signal,
were some trivial interruption. She heard herself explaining, like an
unthinking scholar repeating a half-forgotten lesson. "I must go away.
I--I have to go away."
"Bad news?" asked Lady Henrietta quickly. Susan crumpled the telegram
in her hand.
"Yes, it's bad news," she said. "It is from the lawyers."
Vaguely she recollected what she was to say. Something about going up
to London at once, and perhaps on to America.
"Let me see it," said Lady Henrietta. "Yes, it sounds urgent. We'd
better send somebody to fetch Barnaby. He will have to take you. You
must catch the afternoon train."
"Yes, I must catch the afternoon train," repeated Susan. That was
decided. Had not Barnaby mapped it out? She wondered dully how he had
managed to convey private instructions for that impeccable message; but
all the while she was thinking, thinking,--and suddenly she was
conquered by her wild, unreasoning fear for him.
"I'll go and find him," she said.
Lady Henrietta demurred, curious, desiring to cross-examine; but the
girl's face smote her, and she forbore to hold her back.
It was not far down the fields, and she went like a driven leaf,
possessed by a fear that would not be stilled by reason. She had gone
down there sometimes to watch them schooling hunters, and she had
ridden the jumps herself, that day when Barnaby showed her how they
trained steeplechasers, with real wide hedges and a movable leaping
bar. He had tried to prevent her risking the double, bristling with
difficulty, and she had defied him, larking over it, and then galloping
back to him to say she was sorry.
She counted the fences mechanically as they came up one by one, visible
against the winter sky; lines of artificial ramparts, defended by a
guard rail, made up with furze;--and the lapping rim of that actual
water jump. The strange thing was that as she came nearer and nearer,
instead of diminishing, her premonition grew. She talked to herself to
keep down her panic.
Why were so few men killed steeplechasing? Because it was dangerous,
Barnaby had said. It was the rabbit holes and the mole-hills and the
grips that broke your neck unawares.... That was the gate he had shut
between them, he sitting on his horse on the far side laughing, while
she practised hooking the latch and pushing it back with the handle of
her whip. He had shown her first the nail studded in the horn of the
handle to keep it from slipping;--and then he had clapped the gate
shut, declaring that till she opened it fairly, without his help, she
should never pass. And she had ridden through triumphantly at last.
It was the only thing he had had to teach her. How quaint they were,
these heavy wooden latches.... She let the gate swing and ran.
Rackham was on Black Rose, and Barnaby on a chestnut. They were
walking their horses when she caught sight of them, and Barnaby was
letting his look over a fence, flicking his whip at the ridge of furze
with its withering yellow blossom. They were not talking loud, but she
thought his voice sounded angry. The chestnut was restive.
"Keep still, you brute!" he said.
Something was wrong between the two men. Some old antagonism had
flared up, rousing them to a hot discussion. The chestnut lifted his
forefeet off the ground, and Barnaby shook his bridle carelessly,
warning him again to be quiet. Then all at once up he went, seizing
the unguarded moment....
Crash!
The girl saw him rise, saw him stagger, falling back on his rider; and
she ran on with sobbing breath.
The chestnut rolled over sideways and struggled on to his legs. A
little way off the mare was plunging, upset by what was happening; she
could hardly be controlled. Susan had reached Barnaby, she had thrown
herself down beside him to lift his head from the rough grass where he
lay so still. Rackham had dismounted; he was coming to help;--but she
was out of her mind with terror. She caught up Barnaby's whip,
springing to her feet, lashing at him as if he were a wild beast that
she must keep at bay. Then she dropped on her knees again, and laid
her cheek on Barnaby's heart, and the turf was heaving up round them
both.
Far off, indistinct, she heard troubled whispers, and one quite close.
"He's breathing still, my lady." (That was the stud groom, who had
formerly served a countess. He always addressed her so.) She looked
up at him.
"He's living yet, my lady," the man repeated in an awed undertone.
"Best not try to move him. They've sent a car for the doctor. Best
let him lie till they come...."
He knelt on the other side, and one of the men stood over him in his
shirt-sleeves, folding up his coat. With significant carefulness they
raised Barnaby's head a little and slipped it under. And then they all
waited and watched for a hundred years....
When the doctor came he was still unconscious. Something was broken,
and there was bad concussion. It was possible he might be injured
internally, strained, crushed,--a cursory examination could not make
sure. They stripped a hurdle of its furze, and he was lifted and laid
upon it; the men hoisted it on their shoulders and tramped with a
dreadful slowness through the fields to the house.
"I'll ride on and break it to his mother," said Rackham, averting his
eyes from Susan as he spoke to her.
"Yes," she said dully. She had forgotten him.
And as it often is, the one who was thought least fitted to support a
shock took it coolly. A lengthy experience of hunting accidents helped
her to seize, comforted, on Rackham's report of concussion, and to
believe in his blunt assurance that the whole thing was nothing worse
than an ordinary spill. A more diplomatic messenger might have
terrified her with his gentleness, but she suspected no concealment in
a man who, without beating about the bush, looked her right in the face
and lied. She did not see the men carry their burden in, and when the
others came to her, relieving Rackham, she was comparatively calm. Her
active fancy was diverted by measures that she ascribed to a misplaced
anxiety for herself.
"I am not going to collapse," she insisted. "It's too ridiculous
making this fuss about me and not letting me go to him. It's not the
first time the poor boy has been brought back to me knocked silly. You
needn't be so fidgety over me;--you had better look after Susan.... My
dear, my dear, I know what it is! And concussion is a thing the
doctors can't cut you to pieces for, thank Heaven. Give her a little
brandy!"
Rackham's glance met the doctor's. The case was too serious to provoke
a smile.
Lady Henrietta had turned to Susan.
"Oh," she said, with the air of one who wished to demonstrate to an
over-anxious circle that she had her wits about her--"that telegram--!
Of course you can't go now. We must wire up to town.--"
The girl listened to her without at first comprehending.
"Oh,--the telegram," she repeated. How pathetically absurd that futile
invention sounded now.
"I must go to him," she said.
The doctor nodded encouragement.
"I'll bring a nurse back with me when I come again," he promised.
Into the girl's pale cheek came a sudden colour. She lifted her head
and her eyes shone. She held out her hand, and all at once it was
steady.
"No one else;--no one but me!" she cried.
Oh, the farce was not played out; the curtain was not down. She was
still his wife to that audience; it was to her he belonged, to no
other.... Desperately she stood on her rights;--the poor, fictitious
rights she had purchased with all that pain.
"_You_ can't nurse him," the doctor was saying gently. "You'd break
down; you would make yourself ill. You don't know what you would be
undertaking."
But Barnaby's mother was on her side.
"Fiddlesticks!" said she. She had brightened unaccountably; in her
voice ran a queer little tremor of satisfaction. "Let her make herself
ill if she likes. Why shouldn't she? I've no patience with modern
vices, calling in hirelings--! A wife's place is with her husband, not
quaking outside his door."
Susan was looking bravely in the doctor's doubtful face.
"You can trust me," she said, on her pale lips a wistful flicker that
hardly was a smile.--"I too was a--hireling, once. I know how."
She knew he must yield. What man would dare to stop her? What man
would dare to dispute her claim? Only Barnaby himself, who might one
day laugh at the tragic humour of her assumption. A kind of despairing
joy shook her soul, and was blotted in a passionate eagerness of
devotion. Barnaby was hurt, perhaps dying, ... and nothing could
conjure her from his side.