CHAPTER XV.
The news of her husband’s illness had fallen like a knell on Annie’s ears; for in a moment she saw that the bright vision of pleasure and satisfied ambition which Aubrey’s words about a London engagement in the same theater with him had called up could not be indulged in, except at the sacrifice of an unmistakable duty. It was her husband who lay ill, neglected and solitary. For one moment she tried to stifle conscience by saying to herself that she did not know where he was; but then she felt ashamed of the flimsy excuse, for she could not doubt that he was at Garstone Grange. Aubrey had said that it was on Wednesday night that the accident had happened to him, and it was on Wednesday night that she herself had seen and even touched him in the streets of Beckham. She must go to him, and at once, before Aubrey could guess her secret, before she herself, in an unguarded moment, should let him know how much this separation would cost her. She dared not trust herself to think what a great part of the fact of his being engaged at the same theater had had in her joy at the prospect of playing again in London; it was a dangerous subject, and she shunned it instinctively. She tried to keep her thoughts fixed on this one simple idea—she must go to Garstone, nurse her husband through his illness, bear his brutal temper and thankless snubs as best she might, and then slip back quietly into her free stage life once more, taking her chance of getting a town engagement.
So, on the morning after her talk with Aubrey, she got the manager to cancel the rest of her engagement, and, having packed her trunk the night before, she left for Beckham within an hour of his releasing her. She looked restlessly and eagerly from the windows of the cab as she drove to the station “to see if any of the company were about.” At last she caught sight of Aubrey Cooke going down a street, with his back to the cab, therefore so that he could not see her; and after that she looked out no more, but sat with burning cheeks and her eyes fixed on the front seat of the cab, all curiosity and interest gone out of her.
She got to Beckham at three o’clock in the afternoon, and drove straight to the Grange, which she reached before the dark November day had closed. To her surprise, the man-servant who opened the door recognized her at once.
To her questions he replied that Mr. Harold was being nursed by the housekeeper, that Lady Braithwaite and Mr. Stephen were abroad, Sir George was in town, Mr. Wilfred in Leicestershire, and Mr. William somewhere—he did not know where—“studying.”
Annie then asked to see the housekeeper, and learned from her that Harry’s accident was indeed as serious as Aubrey Cooke’s words had implied. He had slipped as he was getting into the dog-cart, one night after supping with some friends in Beckham—Annie happened to know something about those friends—and the wheel had passed over him and broken his left arm, besides inflicting other less serious injuries; he had not yet quite recovered from another illness, and had been disregarding his doctor’s orders. After being taken to a surgeon by the gentleman who was with him, to have his arm set, he had insisted on being driven back home to the Grange at five o’clock in the morning. The housekeeper continued that he had then, contrary to the advice she had ventured to give him, insisted upon drinking brandy in the billiard-room; that she had waited about, not daring to go in and speak to him again, until she heard a fall and a groan, and, running in, had found that he had fallen and again displaced his broken arm. She had got him to bed with the help of the men-servants and sent for the doctor; but no skill could prevent inflammation of the wounded limb, and he was now lying in a high fever and could recognize no one.
“I would strongly advise you not to see him, ma’am, until he is quieter. He is very violent, and he uses dreadful language.”
“I don’t suppose he says anything worse than what I have heard him say when he was in full possession of his senses, Mrs. Stanley,” said Annie, quietly. “It is not fair that all the care of nursing my husband should fall upon you; so, if you please, I will go to him now.”
Mrs. Stanley led the way to the room to which they had carried him—not his own, but a larger and more convenient one. She drew the arm of the young wife through her own as they entered, for Annie had grown very white and was shaking from head to foot when her husband’s voice, speaking disjointedly to an imaginary listener, met her ear. She recovered her self-command before venturing to look at him; but, however strong her emotion might have been, it would not have affected him. He took no notice of her presence; his wide-open eyes did not even see her.
Annie did not give way again; but from that hour she took her place by his bedside alternately with Mrs. Stanley, listening to idle babblings of his useless vicious life, to invectives against the carelessness of grooms, the meanness of his brother George, the “airs Sue gave herself.” But there was never one word of herself; she had passed out of his life; been forgotten, as if those few months of their married life had never been. Only once did he refer to her, and that was not to Annie, his wife, but to Miss Lane of Garstone Grange.
“Saw the pretty little governess going to church; felt half inclined to go too, just to look at her,” he murmured once while she sat by his bedside listening. But then he rambled off into talk which concerned a dog he had bought, and Susan Green, the blacksmith’s daughter, and let fall some epithets which, it occurred to Annie, would apply particularly well to Miss West, at whose house he and his companions had been supping on the Wednesday night, or rather Thursday morning, when she had run against him in Beckham Street, and when he had met with his accident.
It was a hard punishment for the weakness of marrying him and the fault of leaving him that she was suffering now, as she listened to his wandering talk about other women, which showed his contempt for a sex he did not understand, or think worth the trouble of trying to understand. And all the while she had to try to overcome the disgust with which he inspired her and the longing to be again in the society of one man, one brilliant, interesting companion, for whom every word she uttered had a charm, every action of hers was right.
When Mrs. Stanley took her place in the sickroom, she would fly like an escaped bird out of doors, and wander through the fields and the now leafless copses by herself, rejoicing in her temporary freedom, trying to forget the horrible fact that she was married, and the very existence of that unconscious, senseless clog upon her life that she had left in the darkened room up-stairs. These rambles brought almost as much pain as pleasure to her; they recalled to her so vividly the long marauding expeditions she had had with William, when they used to return home laden with birds’ eggs and ducks’ feathers, and moss-covered twigs, all of which William had to carry as soon as they got near the house, for fear any of the household should think that Mrs. Harold Braithwaite was so childish as to care for such rubbish. Harry had been merely an every-day trial then, to be shirked as much as conscience permitted; now he had become, and by her own fault, an obstacle to her happiness which there was no possibility of removing.
She had returned to the sickroom one afternoon to relieve the housekeeper, and, finding that Harry was sleeping quietly—a fact which made her a little nervous, as it proved he was getting better—she opened a book and settled herself in an arm-chair by the fire, whence she could see any movement of the invalid’s by merely raising her eyes. The book was George Sands’ “Consuelo.” Opening it at first carelessly, the earliest pages fixed her attention, and before long she bent over it, completely absorbed in the fascinating story.
She did not see the sick man’s eyes open, fall upon her, and remain fixed, at first vacantly, then intently, upon her bent head. She did not even notice the slight sound he made as he struggled to raise himself on his elbow, nor the faint gasp of astonishment he gave when, having succeeded, he had satisfied himself that it was his long-forgotten wife.
“Annie!” he exclaimed, in a voice hoarse with weakness and with no warmer emotion than amazement.
She looked up and said “Harry!” with just the same amount of tenderness.
“Why are you here?” he asked curiously, as he fell weakly back upon his pillow.
“Why, to nurse you, of course!” said she in a soft voice, rising at once without any noise or bustle, but in a quietly matter-of-fact manner.
She came to the bed, arranged his pillow more comfortably, raised his head, and gave him something to drink, while he stared at her silently and received her attentions without any remark, until she quietly went back again to her arm-chair and “Consuelo.” Still he gazed at her fixedly, and, as she opened the book at the right place, which she had been careful not to lose on hearing her husband address her for the first time after nearly four years’ separation, he said:
“You’ve gone off shockingly!”
“Yes, I know I have,” said Annie, quite calmly, putting her finger on the line she had come to as she looked up. “But you had better not talk now,” she added, coaxingly; “it is very bad when you are still so weak.”
Down went her head again; but, with characteristic tact, he insisted on continuing:
“I don’t think I ever saw anybody so much altered. I suppose that is why you have come back. You found nobody else would admire you any longer, so it was time to come and saddle yourself on your husband.”
Instead of being stung to the quick by this reproach, which was meant to be very severe, Annie had some difficulty in repressing an impulse to laugh; but she only said, soothingly:
“It is all right, Harry; I am going away again as soon as ever you are well. I’ll turn away so”—and she moved the chair round to face the fire—“and then you won’t be annoyed by the sight of my ugly face.”
She went on reading, or pretending to read, for some minutes, until her husband’s voice once more interrupted her.
“A fine lot of affection you seem to have for me now you have come back! I dare say you wish I was dead all the time. Never even asking me how I feel! What did you come at all for?”
Annie put down her book again, and came toward the bed.
“I didn’t think it was good for you to talk just at first. I thought, if I sat quite quietly, you would go to sleep again.”
“No, you didn’t; you wanted to read your book. What is it?”
“It is a French book called ‘Consuelo.’”
“French! Oh, of course—something too learned for me!”
“It is not learned at all. I’ll translate it to you if you like; but I don’t think you would care much about it.”
“Oh, no; it would be over my head, of course!”
His voice was growing very feeble and husky. Annie poured some medicine into a glass and brought it to him.
“Now,” said she, coaxingly, as she slipped her hand under his pillow to raise his head, “you had better drink this, and then lie still for a little while. You are not very strong yet, you know.”
“I sha’n’t drink it—I won’t have that vile stuff poured down my throat!” said he, in a weak, dogged whisper.
“You had better take it. Can’t you feel how weak your voice is getting?” said Annie, persuasively.
“I won’t take that, I tell you! That won’t do—do me—any good! Fetch me some brandy-and-soda.”
“No, I can’t do that; it wouldn’t be good for you.”
“Do you hear what I say? Fetch me some brandy-and-soda!”
He made a feeble, spasmodic effort to knock the glass out of her hand; but she held it out of his reach, and, laying his obstinate head, which she was still supporting, gently down on the pillow again, she put the medicine down on the table.
“Don’t you mean to obey me? I won’t drink your filthy poisons! If you want to get rid of me you had better doctor some brandy for me, and then perhaps I’ll take it.”
“The brandy by itself would be poison to you now, without my doctoring,” said Annie, quietly. “As soon as you are well again you can drink what you like, you know; and the more faithfully you follow the doctor’s orders now, the sooner you will be able to drink as much brandy as you please.”
She said it in a very soft, gentle voice; but she could not quite keep the scorn she felt for him out of the last words. Weak tears of impotent anger gathered in Harry’s eyes.
“You treat me like a dog! A fine make-believe your wifely duty is. When I’m well again I’ll turn you out of the house at an hour’s notice—that I will!”
She saw that he was exciting himself dangerously; and fearing the effects of this emotion upon him in his weak state, she took the hand he was convulsively clinching on the bedclothes in one of hers, and putting her lips to it, said, in the most winning tone the actress could assume:
“My poor dear Harry, I would give you what you want if I dared; and when the doctor comes, I will ask if you may have it. And I will go away when you like; but you will let me stay until you are well, won’t you?”
Harry was touched by this unexpected appeal.
“All right; you may stay,” he murmured magnanimously.
“And won’t you let me give you your medicine? I’ll drink some of it first, if you like, to show you it isn’t poison.”
“No, that is only nonsense. I’ll take it,” whispered the grumpy invalid, conquered; and when he had drank it, and she laid his head gently down again, he said, “Thank you. You may kiss me if you like, old girl.”
Annie availed herself of this permission—not enthusiastically, but still not without a touch of tenderness; and she sat in the chair by the bedside until he went quietly off to sleep again.
The next few conversations she had with her husband, who got better rapidly with the careful nursing he received, were after the same pattern—a little wrangle, with taunts and sneers on his side, and careless submission on hers, followed by a sort of tame reconciliation. Before long she had managed, by a firm refusal to do anything which she did not think good for him and a very gentle manner, to get the upper hand of the obstinate invalid; and, when Mrs. Stanley had a tussle with him on account of his unwillingness to have his wounds dressed or to take his medicine at the proper hours, she always went to Annie to get over the difficulty. Sometimes during a battle with the housekeeper he would say:
“Well, send Annie, then, and perhaps I’ll have it done.”
This flattering preference was received by its object with anything but gratitude. To be called up from her sleep in the middle of the night, or to be sent for in the course of a meal, because “Mr. Harold says he won’t take any slops, ma’am, unless you come and see that his beef-tea isn’t hot enough to scald his throat,” did not fill her with any pride in this rise in her husband’s esteem. At last, one night, when he was fairly on the road to convalescence, she flatly refused to go when Mrs. Stanley came to say Mr. Harold would not let her dress the wound on his shoulder, but wanted his wife to do it.
“Tell him I say you can do it much better than I, Mrs. Stanley; and, if he won’t let you do it, he must wait till to-morrow morning,” said the undutiful wife sleepily, as she turned over and shut her eyes again.
The next morning Harry, who was to go down-stairs for the first time that day, bounced over on his side away from her as soon as she entered his room and came up to the bedside. Annie walked softly toward the door; then the invalid, who had recovered much of the power of his lungs, roared:
“Stop! Where are you going?”
“I am going to breakfast,” said she, calmly.
“Without even wishing me good-morning! After refusing point-blank just to step along the corridor in the night when I might have been dying! You’re a nice wife!”
“Now, look here, Harry; I don’t pretend to do more than just my simple duty to you, and don’t for a moment set myself up for a model wife.”
“I should think not indeed! Everybody would laugh if you did.”
“Everybody would laugh, as you say, if I pretended to show any affection for a husband so selfish that he will break a night’s rest of a very good nurse—I have been that, remember—on the most trifling pretexts. I dare say you think it an honor to choose me instead of Mrs. Stanley to put on a poultice or arrange a bandage; but I assure you it is one I don’t appreciate. You are nearly well now, and the task I set myself of seeing you through your illness is over. My presence can only irritate you now, and I think of taking the hint you have often given me, and going to-day.”
“Go? What—leave me here all alone when I’ve shown you I like to have you near me? All right—go along then, you hard, heartless vixen! No, no,” he called, as she turned again toward the door—“Annie, Annie, I didn’t mean it—I’m not ungrateful—I have been selfish! Don’t go till I’m quite well; don’t leave me all alone, Annie, till I can get about again! I like to hear your voice; and you move so quietly, and you talk so prettily—I’m always dull when you’re out of the room—I’m sorry I’ve been so cross. Don’t go, Annie, till I’m quite well. Wait till next week. Won’t you wait just till next week, Annie?”
She came back to his side again, looking very grave.
“Look here, Harry,” she said; “you are well enough now for me to speak to you seriously, as I could not speak when you were lying there likely to die. You have been very rude to me and ungracious, considering that I came simply to do my best to get you well quickly. Now the duty I set myself is over, and I assure you, strange as it may seem to you, I feel no irresistible wish to stay here a moment longer than is necessary. If you wish me to stay here still and do my best to amuse you until you are strong enough to amuse yourself again, I will do so, on one condition. It is that now you will drop the tone of childish insolence to me which I have excused on account of your illness, and speak to me as other men speak to their wives—no better than that,” she added, with a slight shade of irony.
“So you want to preach and domineer over me,” protested Harry, rather sulkily, “just because I said I didn’t mind your being in the room. Yes, yes, I will be civil,” he added hastily, as Annie’s head moved away; “I didn’t mean to be rude to you: I really am grateful for the way you have taken care of me. Only don’t speak to me in that hard voice: just say something in your soft, pretty way, and I shall come round directly. You always get over me when you speak in your soft voice, you know.”
“Well, then, may I go to breakfast, Harry?” said she, smiling, and taking the hand he involuntarily stretched toward her.
“Yes, yes; I won’t be selfish again. Kiss me first,” said the invalid, in a more contented tone.
And Annie put her lips lightly to his forehead and left the room. It was very tiresome that she should have to delay her departure from the Grange for this whim of her capricious husband. She hoped that she might be able to leave in a day or two, especially as George was expected at the Grange; and, if she were to remain until his arrival, she knew well that she would find it difficult to get away. For she could not fail to see that, while she had lost the first freshness of her beauty, she had acquired, by her early encounters with the world and by contact with the wits of the green-room, other charms of even greater power, which a man of Sir George’s type would be likely to rate highly—especially in the country, where women who can talk are rare. She had no longer the least fear of him, and she only dreaded, in worldly-wise feminine vanity, not his attraction for her, but hers for him.
For the longing to be again at work in her profession was strong upon her, and an unacknowledged wish to see that member of it whom she liked best was stronger still. She knew, too, that these few days of delay in returning to London might make the difference between her obtaining or losing all chance of the engagement Aubrey Cooke had spoken of to her. Her excitement and impatience grew so high as she thought the matter over during her solitary breakfast, that she felt obliged to throw a shawl round her and rush into the open air to calm the fever rising within her before returning to her peevish lord and master up-stairs. How could she induce him to let her go at once, without exciting the spirit of contradiction in him which would make him tease her to stay because he saw she wished to go? She had turned reluctantly toward the house again, and was going indoors to Harry, who would probably be dressed and up for the first time since his illness now, when a wild but delighted shout from the gate frightened her. She saw a tall figure racing over the lawn toward her, and in another minute she was in William’s frantic embrace.
He lifted her off her feet, he made little rushes at her, he danced round her with savage cries, he showed ecstasy in every uncivilized and unheard-of way, asking her when she had come and why she had not written to tell him.
“I didn’t know where you were, William, my dear boy,” said Annie. “Did you know I was here?”
“Rather! What do you think I’ve come for except to see you? And I saw George in town yesterday, and I’ve told him, and he is coming, and Wilfred and everybody; and we’ll have the whole place lit up, and—Hooray! I must give you another hug!”
He was suiting the action to the word when the window of Harry’s room, which was on that side of the house, was thrown sharply up by the invalid, who was sitting by it, and his angry and no longer weak voice called out:
“Be off! Leave her alone, you impudent young scamp! Annie, come here; I want you. Why have you been so long gone? You don’t care what happens to me!”
“I’m coming,” said Annie, resignedly.