The house had become very quiet.
Under Barnaby's windows and right down the avenue the crunching granite
was spread with tan. The servants moved silently about their work,
even in the far kitchens whence not a sound could be heard.
For a long time he was unconscious; for a long time he lay breathing
heavily, and they could not tell if he was in pain. Other doctors came
down from London, and Lady Henrietta had to be told what it was that
the girl was fighting with that pale and steady face.
"It's love, sheer love, that keeps her going," said one witness to
another, watching her courage in the deeps of agony and uncertainty,
and, at last, in the breakers of hope.
She was safe in giving herself without stint, because for a long while
he did not know her, and it did not matter to him who it was that was
soothing him with a passionate gentleness of which his jarred brain
would have no knowledge when it recovered its normal tone. She could
sit at his bedside hushing him, whispering that she loved him, she
loved him, and he must sleep.
Sometimes he talked to her in unintelligible mutterings, sometimes his
rambling speeches, without beginning or end, were bitter to understand.
"You mustn't mind what he says," the doctor warned her kindly. "It's
certain to be rubbish. Generally they go over and over some silly
thing they remember.--I had a patient once who got into fearful trouble
through winding off something about a murder he had read in a book."
--That was after he had stood awhile listening gravely to Barnaby's
restless talk.
--"I'll find a way out. Wait a bit, my darling.... We'll not have our
lives ruined by that mad marriage. I'll find a way out for us."
It was not always the same. Sometimes in the night it would be--"I
tell you she's my wife. No, no, not the other. Awfully good joke,
what? Mustn't lose my head, though; mustn't lose my head."
And Susan would lay her cheek against his in an agony lest he should
hurt himself with his excitement.
"Sleep!" she would whisper, "oh, my dearest, lie still and sleep...."
"But I love her. Don't you know that? I can't marry my girl. Because
I love her;--just because I love her--mustn't lose my head!"
Once after she had quieted him, and he had lain a little while
motionless he called her.
"Are you there?" he said. His voice was so sensible that she trembled.
"Yes," she said softly, and he gave a sigh of content. But soon he was
muttering again, and restless.
"She wants me to sleep," he was repeating, "she wants me to sleep."
No, he had not known who she was. She bent over him, smoothing his
forehead with a tender and anxious hand. Sometimes her touch was
magnetic.
"Yes," she said. "Hush, my dearest."
"Kiss me," he murmured suddenly, "and I'll go to sleep."
And since at all costs he must be coaxed to slumber, she kissed him for
the woman who was not there.
* * * * *
Slowly he turned the corner, slowly.
And at last she found him watching her one morning as she came towards
him with a cup in her hand, across the great, wide room. She liked
this room; it was so vast and simple. Its battered furniture must have
been his when he was a boy. And there was no clutter of pictures and
photographs; only a few ancient oil-paintings of hounds and horses.
Above his bed a square patch in the wall-paper that was unfaded,
betrayed where a woman's portrait had hung once and had been taken down.
"Hullo!" he said.
He lay looking at her, thin and haggard, but his whimsical smile
unchanged.
"It's she," he said, "or is it the stuff that dreams are made of?"
"It is she," said Susan.
"I've been ill, haven't I?" he said. "And I say, Susan, have you been
nursing me?"
"Yes," she said, steadily.
"I thought so. I've had a kind of feeling that you were there. What's
it all about? Wasn't I down at the jumps with Rackham,--and the horse
went up--? Did I get damaged?"
"Rather," she said.
"And you didn't fly to America?"
"No," she said.
His weak, amused voice, talking in pauses, smote on her heart.
"Ah," said Barnaby. "It would have looked bad if you'd bolted,
wouldn't it? No end heartless. Susan,--oh, I've noticed things, off
and on,--you've been killing yourself looking after me.--"
His smile was troubled. She shook her head at him.
"You didn't do it," he said, "because, oh,--because of some queer
notion that you owed us something--? You didn't do it to make it up to
us,--to pay us out?"
She put her arm under his pillow and, raising him slightly, lifted the
cup to him and let him drink. If Barnaby could have known:--if he
could have seen her claiming him in her hour of desperation--! If he
could have dimly guessed what a dreadful happiness had walked hand in
hand with pain! She had won something of her mad adventure. She was
the woman who had nursed him, who had waked night after night at his
pillow. Nobody could rob her of that. And when she was gone he would
perhaps think of her with kindness....
"It wasn't remorse," she said.
"It's awfully good of you," said Barnaby. "But why--but why----"
There was a faint eagerness in his puzzled voice.
"Perhaps," she said bravely, "it was the dramatic instinct. How could
a poor actress forget all her traditions? How could she help rising to
her part? Don't talk.... Lie quiet and laugh at me all you want."
* * * * *
One day Lady Henrietta came into the room with a budget of letters and
all she could rake of gossip.
"You two have been shut up so long," she said, "I believe you have both
forgotten there is such a thing as an outside world. Why don't you ask
who has been inquiring for you?"
"Who has been inquiring for me?" said Barnaby.
He was propped high in his pillows, and was looking like himself. In
the afternoon he was to dress and sit in a chair and read the paper.
"Everybody," she said. "Poor Rackham has been two or three times a day
when you were bad. Of course it was his horse that did the mischief.
He would not be satisfied without seeing Susan----"
"Did you see him?" asked Barnaby. There was something a little odd in
his intonation.
"Susan see anybody?" exclaimed his mother. "She had eyes for nobody
but her patient. All the wild horses in Rackham's stables would not
drag her away from you.--He's thinking of going abroad for a bit, he
says. To America, or Canada;--he confused me with his talk of cities
and mines and mountains. I don't know if he has any idea of making a
fortune there or if he is looking out for a lady. I said you might
have to go out there too, but the unfortunate accident had postponed
it,--and he said it was a bigger place than I fancied, but to let him
know if he could be of any use to you. His manner was rather queer."
"Poor chap," said Barnaby. "I daresay he is hard up. It would have
been lucky for him if I--Why, what is the matter, Susan?"
"Don't tease her," said Lady Henrietta. "You can't possibly realize
what a fright she had!" She turned briskly to the girl, however. "We
never heard any more of that mysterious telegram that was to carry you
off so quickly the day Barnaby was hurt," she said. "Have you quite
forgotten it? Does absolutely nothing matter to you but him?"
Barnaby had begun to laugh, weakly, uncontrollably.
"Oh, that will keep," he said.
"What do you know about it?" said Lady Henrietta, catching him up
sharply. "It came when you were out. I understood she was looking for
you when she witnessed your smash. And I'm convinced it has never
entered her head from that day to this."
Then she remembered her heap of letters.
"Look at all these!" she cried. "All begging for news of him! And the
offerings! There never was anything so romantic.... There's one old
woman down in the village that's killed her pig and, Barnaby--she sent
up a delicate bit in a dish for you."
"Romantic--?" said Barnaby.
"Oh, romance has singular manifestations," said Lady Henrietta. "You
never know.... There was that girl of Bessy's, for example, who used
to write poetry.--She was too romantic, poor thing, and that's why she
never married.--She went in for hero-worship. Used to go into kind of
trances of adoration over a famous soldier that she had never seen.
And once I tumbled over her sitting on the hearth-rug with her hands
clasped behind her head, gazing with a rapt expression into the fire.
I thought she was fighting his battles with him in her imagination, or
poetising; but she whispered--'Don't interrupt me! I'm darning his
socks.--'"
She was turning over her letters.
"Here's one for you, Susan," she said. "It's a London postmark. A big
hotel, but rather a common hand."
Susan took it indifferently. Lady Henrietta was already plunged in the
midst of a family letter; wherein an aunt of Barnaby's was presuming to
offer her advice. She read out bits of it with little shrieks of scorn.
"'When Toby broke his leg I made a point of----' Who cares what folly
she committed when Toby broke his leg? 'I do hope, Henrietta, you see
that the doctors do not permit the poor boy's wife to be in and out of
the sick-room. It irritates the nurses.' ... Ah, but ours is a
romantic sick-room! If _we_ had married a fool like Charlotte's
daughter-in-law--!"
She glanced up smiling at the other two. Providence, not she, had
taken the field; and she had faith in its workings as efficacious. But
Susan was not attending. She was reading her letter still. "My dear,"
said Lady Henrietta, "who is the common person?"
But she got no answer.
"Come! Tell us," said Barnaby; and at his voice Susan started.
"Somebody I--used to know," she said.
Lady Henrietta had returned to her own correspondence. Her mild
curiosity could wait until the girl had finished deciphering the almost
illegible scrawl.
"You might straighten the pillows for me," said Barnaby.
She tore the letter across and threw it into the fire. Then she came
over to him and did what he wanted with a jealous eagerness that was
new.
"Was it a worrying letter?" he said, in a low voice. He had nothing to
do but look at her.
"No," she said, "it didn't worry me." But her tone was subdued, too
quiet, as if she had had a shock.
"I'm eternally grateful to you for burning it, though," he said; "that
abominable scent it reeked with was like a whiff of nightmare. I seem
to remember it. I wonder where I can have run across a woman who
advertised herself like that.... I'm glad you burnt it. Considerate
nurse. It was the only thing to do."
She was grateful to him for not insisting. Not yet, not yet; not just
this morning! ... Afterwards she would tell him.... She moved away
from his side and picked up a newspaper from the pile that lay with the
letters.
"Do you know what you look like?" said Lady Henrietta, tapping her
cheek. "Like a child that has been startled, like a child when an
unkind shake has scattered its house of cards."
It was true. But such a tottering house, such a dream-built,
precarious house of cards!--
Lady Henrietta dropped her voice, ostensibly to communicate a paragraph
in the aunt's letter that was unsuited to the profane masculine
understanding.
"I don't want to pry," she said; "but was that by any chance an
anonymous letter?"
"Oh, no, no, it was not," said Susan.
"Not Julia's hand disguised? That woman is capable of anything. She's
been here several times inquiring. Sending in brazen messages!--"
"Is there anything in the paper?" said Barnaby.
Susan glanced hastily up and down the sheet. No, there was nothing.
Among the theatrical announcements an American play that had come to
London.
"She is looking in the advertisements!" said Lady Henrietta,
affectionately scornful. "My dear, the poor boy is thirsting for
murders and politics."
The advertisements.... And among them----
"_To-night at 8._
"_The Great American Comedy--'Shut Your Windows' ... Mr. Rostiman's
Company. Mr. Hayes, Mr. Vine..._" (a long list of names that were
unknown to her, and unmeaning);--"_And Miss Adelaide Fish_."
* * * * *
Barnaby was up and dressed.
He was much amused at his own weakness, at his dependence on that slim,
supporting arm. He let Susan settle him carefully in a chair, and then
frightened her by getting on to his feet and pretending to walk out of
the room. She flew to him, scared, reproachful, making him lean his
weight on her shoulder as she brought him back.
"Tyrannical girl!" he said.
She looked down on him as he sat there, dressed and shaved, his clothes
fitting rather loosely, his blue eyes hollow. How unspeakably dear he
was. How hard to face emptiness....
"I'll put your mother in charge of you while I am gone," she said.
"Don't be too long," said Barnaby. "I'll miss you."
Unwillingly her heart sank. He would miss her. In that little while;
in that scant half-hour--!
"Patient," she said, "you flatter."
And smiled at him bravely, and went away.
"I'll go to him immediately," said Lady Henrietta. She was writing
furiously, despatching a counterblast to the aunt's interfering letter,
which had contained more warnings than she had read aloud. It deserved
six pages.
"How do you spell inseparable?" she asked, hardly interrupting the
delightful business of administering a slap to one whose
daughters-in-law were not wax and whose sons were wild. Distractedly
she glanced at Susan.
"You look wan," she said. "I told them you were to have the motor with
the hood off. Get all the air you can. Do you mind taking this old
brooch into the town to be mended?" Her eyes twinkled as she unpinned
it and put it in Susan's hand.
"There!" she said, "that will make sure you don't hurry back too soon,
pretending you have had your breath of air."
The girl went into her own room and slipped on a hat and coat. While
she tied a veil round her head she remembered that in the diamond star,
which was the only thing in the house that was her own, a stone was
loose. Since she must go in to the jeweller's on Lady Henrietta's
trumped-up errand she might as well take it with her.
The motor was not round when she descended, and she sank into one of
the deep chairs in the hall. When she was away from Barnaby the
strength in her seemed to fail. It had been heavily tried, and the
strain was telling on her, now that it was relaxed.
The tan that had been scattered on the avenue still deadened the sound
of wheels. But she saw Macdonald, who was waiting to pack her into the
car, moving to the door; and rising, she went towards it. She had not
time to draw back as she saw her mistake, for Julia was on the steps.
Swift in seizing her opportunity the visitor walked in at the open
door. There was something belligerent in her entrance.
"How is he?" she asked, without preamble, addressing Susan. Macdonald
had fallen back discreetly.
"He is better," said Susan coldly. "I have to go out, Miss Kelly."
"I must see him," said Julia, in a low, intense voice that would not be
denied. "I've tried and tried, but they never would let me in. You
will take me to him."
"_I?_" said Susan.
Julia did not blench under these accents of proud surprise.
"Yes," she said. "You daren't refuse me. I know too much."
The assurance in her voice warned the girl that this was no hysterical
vapouring, but a challenge. She answered her bravely, maintaining an
outward calm.
"I am sorry I cannot do as you wish," she said.
How lovely the woman was, with her angry flush, and her long-lashed
eyes. How recklessly she spoke. Some theatrical impulse in her had
overridden prudence; whoever liked might have heard her.... With that
odd irrelevance that keeps the mind steady under fire Susan was
wondering who it was that had said--"Yes, she's a beauty, but the back
of her neck is common----"
"You have no right to keep us apart," said Julia. "I've been patient
... but this is too much! After all I'm not stone; I'm a woman--With
all the world gabbling about you and your devotion--! I daresay you
think you are getting an influence over him. Poor Barnaby--! All this
while you have had him at your mercy!"
She fixed her eyes on Susan with an indescribable stare of scorn.
"Will you take me to him?" she said.
"I will not," said Susan.
Julia came nearer. They were practically alone. Macdonald was putting
rugs in the motor.
"I believe you are fond of him," she said ruthlessly. "Fond of him!
You the cheat, you the impostor--!"
Ah,--she had known what was coming. She had read it in Julia's eyes.
Desperately she stood her ground.
"You insulted me once before," she said slowly.
"Yes," said Julia. "Even then I was not blinded.... But now I know.
I've known ever since the Hunt Ball, when Barnaby----"
"Barnaby--?" Susan repeated the word under her breath as if it was
strange to her.
"--When Barnaby said that you were not his wife."
The girl stretched out her hands unconsciously for a support that she
did not find. There was a mist between them, and she swayed on her
feet. Weak in spirit and body from her long nursing, she felt as if
someone had struck her a whirling blow. In a kind of vision she saw
Barnaby and Julia dancing;--always Barnaby and Julia dancing;--people
had talked that night; they had sympathized with her.... Well might
Julia laugh at her disapproving world if he had whispered--that! And
it was true. She had only to look in Julia's triumphant face to know
that this thing was true.
She could not speak. She turned and walked slowly towards the stairs,
and began to go up. On the landing above she waited until Julia had
reached her side. Then she went along the corridor without turning her
head until they had come to the end.
At Barnaby's door she stopped and, turning the handle, spoke at last to
the other woman, the woman to whom he had betrayed her.
"Go to him," she said.
And without another word she left her, and left the house.
Barnaby looked up, surprised.
Susan must have started, and Lady Henrietta would not open his door so
slowly. Who was this rustling on his threshold?
She took a little run into the room, and stopped.
"Oh, Barnaby!" she cried emotionally. "At last--!"
His unresponsiveness was thrown away on her excited mood. Flushed with
victory she misread his expression, less like rapture than
consternation.
"This is a bit unexpected," he said. "I'm not in very good form,
Julia. I'm afraid I must ask you to excuse me--"
"Was I too sudden?" she said. "Ah, poor Barnaby; how you are
altered;--how ill you look! Let me do something for you--"
She rushed at him with enthusiasm, casting a glance around her for
illumination, and he could but smile at her hasty gesture, not yet
grasping its full significance, not realizing the jealous
self-assertion that lay behind her bewildering readiness to push him
back in his chair, to shake up his pillows, to administer some potion.
"I don't want anything, thanks," he said. He was still grappling with
the problem of her appearance.
"Oh--" she cried, desisting, "to think of you, helpless all this time,
and in the hands of that woman--!"
"Are you speaking of my wife?" he said.
Julia laughed softly, reproachfully, and let her eyes rest on his.
"Foolish man!" she said. "You might have trusted me. Think what I've
had to endure! Wasn't I punished enough for that ancient
misunderstanding? Did you think I was so vindictive that you dared not
confide in me? But I would have shared your burdens. For your sake I
could even forgive your mother."
What was she driving at? His mouth set in a stiff line that might have
warned her if she had not been so sure.
"I meant to wait," she said, "to pretend I was ignorant like the rest;
to hug the secret till you struggled out of that wicked tangle and came
to me. I understand you so well. I knew for whose sake you were
trying to avoid a scandal. Oh, Barnaby, how mad it was--and how like
you--!"
"Julia," he said, "what do you mean?"
She missed the dangerous note in his voice, too quiet.
"I'm not angry with you--now," she said caressingly. "But, Barnaby,
was it fair to me? People are so uncharitable ... they talked cruelly
about us. And if I hadn't known that she was not your wife,--if I
hadn't known you were free----"
"That's a mistake," he said grimly. "I am not free."
She stared at him. So great was her gift of illusion, so invincible
the vanity that in her was the breath of life, that she had put down
his stiffness, his strangeness, to the effort to keep his feelings in
control. The glad shock of her visit must have been almost too much
for him. But what was that he was saying?
"Oh," she burst out. "Don't tell me she has entrapped you! That's
what I was afraid of; that's why I felt I must see you at all risks, in
spite of all opposition. I knew she would try to take advantage of
your weakness while you were her prisoner, while you lay here at her
mercy, no match for her--!"
No, he was not strong yet. His forehead was wet and his mouth was dry.
He had a curious longing to find himself back in that cool bed yonder.
"Oh, for God's sake," he cried. "Stop talking nonsense!"
His adjuration checked her passionate speech. She remained gazing.
"I don't know," he said slowly, "how you got hold of
your--hallucination. I don't know on what grounds you are making
that--accusation. Did I hear you say that Susan was not my wife?
Don't repeat it."
Julia drew a quick breath of amazement.
"Barnaby!" she gasped, in an incredulous, startled voice.
"Don't repeat it," he said stubbornly. Yes, the old fire was
extinguished, the old spell shattered. And still she gazed at him,
unable to comprehend. All at once she began to laugh.
"She did not deny it!" she said. "At first she tried to keep me from
you, but when I told her I knew all,--that you had confessed it
yourself,--she was beaten. Oh, anybody who saw her face would have
known the truth!"
She was frightened then. His eyes were so blue and blazing.
"You told Susan," he repeated, "that I--that _I_ had said she was not
my wife?"
"Yes," she said, still defiant, but quailing a little before his look.
He stood up. He was regarding her with an expression that held no
memories of the past. It was all blotted out; no trampled passion, no
hidden tenderness stirred in him to excuse her.
"If you were not a woman--!" he said, in an implacable tone that was
unknown to her.--"You had better go."
* * * * *
"What a monster I am!" said Lady Henrietta. "How neglectful!--Was I
more than five minutes? You'd have rung if you'd wanted me, wouldn't
you? Poor boy, were you very dull?"
"It's nearly time for her to come back," he said.
He was looking tired. Getting up had not done him good. Feeling
somewhat guilty his mother sat down to amuse him and make up for her
lapse by half an hour's brisk attention.
Somehow his curious depression affected her. She, too, began to listen
for the motor.
"I told her not to hurry back," she said apologetically, as time went
by. "She's been doing far too much. If she doesn't take care of
herself now you're better, she will break down."
"Wasn't that the car?" said Barnaby.
But no light step came hurrying up the stairs.
"I'll ask," said Lady Henrietta, and rang. The servant who came knew
nothing, and was sent down to make inquiries. She was puzzled by the
report.
"I can't understand this!" she said. "Barnaby--they say the car has
come back without her."
His look alarmed her. She jumped up quickly.
"I'll see the man myself," she said; "it must be some ridiculous
blunder."
She was a long time downstairs. When she came back she was bewildered
and indignant.
"They tell me," she said, "that Julia Kelly has been; that she saw
Susan before she went out----"
"She came up here," said Barnaby.
"So the servants tell me," she said. "I can hardly believe it--! And
the man says that Susan made him drive her straight to the station. He
heard her ask when there was a train to London. There is no message--"
Anger was struggling in her voice with apprehension. She looked
suspiciously at her son.
"Barnaby--" she said emphatically, "if this is Julia's doing--I'll
never forgive either of you!"
He had got on his feet, and stood uncertainly, as if measuring his
strength. The look on his face struck her into silence.
"Don't couple me with Julia," he said, setting his teeth. The sweat
was glistening like dew on his forehead. "Poor little girl ... poor
little girl.... So she's gone. Why, what's the matter with me? What
an incapable fool I am!--How am I to go and find her if I
can't--walk--straight across a room--?"