Is Virginia with you? She left Worthing this morning.
Making a sign to Hemming not to disturb Mrs. Gaunt, he went over to the writing-table and wrote:
Virginia came home to-day, as previously arranged. Seems very well.
As Hemming took the message and departed, Grover came along the passage. Gaunt admitted her, with a shy smile.
"I have played her to sleep," he said. "It seems a shame to disturb her."
Grover went and stooped over Virginia, then raised her eyes to the husband's face.
"Spite of that tiresome chill, she looks a deal stronger, doesn't she, sir?" she asked in hushed accents.
He nodded, beckoning her to come to him at some distance, that their lowered tones might not disturb the sleeper. "Grover, is it true, for a fact, that Mrs. Mynors kept back a letter from Mrs. Gaunt to me?"
"I can't swear to it, sir, not what they'd take in a court of justice, I suppose; but I'll tell you what happened about it." She related the circumstances, and then asked whether he had, in fact, received the letter. When she heard that he had not, she looked triumphant, but she looked troubled too.
"I can't seem to make out the rights of it, sir, but there was something afoot. For some reason which I can't understand, they didn't want her to come back here. I can't make head nor tail of it myself."
"Was this Mr. Rosenberg's plot, do you think?"
"Well, sir, that is what is so puzzling. Mrs. Mynors is, I suppose, a respectable lady. She isn't what you call fast; and her daughter is a married woman. What could she mean?"
"Tell me frankly, Grover. Do you think they had an idea of making mischief, serious enough to cause a breach between Mrs. Gaunt and me?"
"Oh, for pity's sake, they couldn't be so wicked as that! And you but just married! But since you have put it so plain, I will just own to you that I feel sure in my own mind about one thing, which is that Baines, that's Mr. Rosenberg's chauffeur, was given orders not to bring back the car to fetch them that night. He never said so to me, not in so many words, but it was the look in his eye, sir, if you understand me."
"Do you think that her mother supposed that Mrs. Gaunt was not happy with me?"
"Why, sir, if you'll pardon the remark, that sounds like nonsense, for you have had no chance to be together so far. I can tell you I was thankful when I was once safe in the train with her this morning. I felt, even if she has to go back to bed the minute she gets home, home is the proper place for her, any way of it. And though she was leaving her little sister and all, she seemed to cheer up when we were off; and I know she felt a relief when we had got through London and were fair on our way. We had to steal out of the house as careful as anything, for Miss Pansy was not started for the parade front, it being so early. Fortunately, Mr. Tony was off for the day with his friend."
"Tony? Was the boy there?"
"Oh, yes, sir, for the whole time, and the last week we were in London as well."
Gaunt was surprised. No room or board for Tony had been charged in any of the minutely kept accounts which he had received. He made no comment, however, and the maid crossed the room and gazed once more upon the sleeping girl.
"Don't you think she looks bonny, sir?" she asked timidly; and was reassured when Gaunt's eyes met her own in friendly approval.
"She's more lovely than ever, Grover," he replied, to her immense gratification.
"You might carry her upstairs, sir," she suggested; "you can do it easy, can't you?"
His face changed. "No," he said decidedly, "it would startle her. You had better rouse her, please, if you want her to go with you now."
He walked away to the window, and stood in the empty space for which he had designed the statue of Love. Grover sent a keen, vexed glance after him. "Silly thing," was her disrespectful inward comment. "Why is he so plaguey shy of his own wife?"
"She'll have to get used to you, sir," she ventured after a pause, her heart in her mouth.
"It must be by degree," he answered, speaking with his back towards her.
With a shrug of her shoulders, having ventured all and more than all she dare, she bent over Virginia and aroused her. The grey cat bounded to the floor, hunching his back and stretching his legs in the heat of the glowing logs.
"Oh!" cried Virgie, springing to her feet, "I went to sleep while Mr. Gaunt was playing!"
"The greatest tribute you could pay me, since I played a lullaby," remarked her husband, strolling up.
*****
Next morning, though it was still cold, autumnal weather, the sun was shining. Gaunt could hardly believe his eyes when Virgie ran into the dining-room at the summons of the breakfast gong, looking as fresh and gay as the morning. The contrast between what was in his heart, and his cool, undemonstrative greeting, struck him as so grotesque that he almost laughed.
When they were seated, and she had poured out his coffee, they found it very difficult to know what to say. Virginia felt herself held back by what he had said the previous day. He had spoken as though he thought her stay at Omberleigh would be only temporary. She was eager to settle down, to know what she might do and plan, to begin some kind of a life together. In face of his attitude, she felt unable to make any advance, to offer any request or suggestion.
At last it occurred to her to ask what he had to do that day. He began to tell her that he was due in a certain part of the estate to——Then he pulled himself up, and said, with a covert eagerness:
"Unless you want me?"
She rested her elbows on the table and looked shyly at him. "Of course I should like to have your society for a while," she answered. "I want to go round the place again. I was so stupid that first day—I felt so ill I hardly knew what I was doing. But now I can walk finely! If you have time——"
"But of course I have. Caunter is all right without me. I am at your service. Do you remember one day when you were on the terrace, and Mrs. Ferris was here, you said, or she said, that you would like to remodel the garden? Well, you know this is the time of year to do that. If you set to work now it will be all ready for next spring."
She looked at him earnestly. "Please forgive me for asking," she said hesitatingly, "but yesterday I thought you said—you spoke as if you did not mean to keep me here. Did you mean that, or was it my fancy?"
He cleared his throat. "Oh, that was your fancy. Certainly it was. I was only thinking that—of course everything is uncertain—human life, for instance. I'm a good deal older than you. If anything should—should happen to me, for example—this place would be yours. I have bequeathed it to you. So it is worth your while to make it what you like."
"If anything happened to you?" Obviously she was surprised, and also distressed. "Osbert, what is likely to happen to you?"
"Oh, nothing, of course," he replied hastily. "Only sometimes the unexpected may arrive, may it not?"
"Don't talk like that," she cried impetuously. "It would be too dreadful, if anything stopped us just at the beginning—just as we are making a start. Oh, do you remember——" She broke off short.
"I remember every single smallest thing you ever did or said," he threw out suddenly.
"Then you remember when you and I had lunch together at the Savoy. I bored you horribly by trying to make conversation, when you didn't want to talk; and you told me that you knew all about me, as if you had known me all my life. I didn't think it was true," she laughed, playing with a fork and not daring to look at him. "Do you think it was?"
"It was as false, as detestable, as mistaken, and as insulting as all the other things I said that day," was his energetic answer.
She looked up then, and smiled at him. She was beginning to adjust her ideas.
"Then you are not thinking of sending me away?" she begged to know.
"Put that completely out of your head."
"If that is so, it will be the greatest fun to set to work upon the garden." She paused, recollected herself. "Will that interest you too? I beg your pardon for asking, but I do know so ridiculously little about you; and, you see, your garden doesn'tlookas if you liked gardens, if you will forgive me for saying it."
"I've been so lonely," he answered meekly. "There was nobody who cared whether the garden was nice or not. If you care, why I shall take the most tremendous interest in it."
She was evidently quite satisfied. "Let me see," she reflected. "How soon can we begin? I must go and say how-do-you-do to Mrs. Wells, and she will tell me what I am to order for dinner; and then I must send a line to Joey, and ask her to come over to tea to-morrow."
"You have a car of your own now," he broke in. "Don't be beholden to her any more than you wish."
"She was very kind," said Virgie, "and I know she would like to come if you don't mind. I'm sorry for her too."
"Why are you sorry for her?"
She looked up at him, with a half smile, and an appeal for response. "Her husband is such a—such adreadfulperson, isn't he?"
Gaunt, for the first time in their mutual acquaintance, gave the sympathy, the understanding for which she begged. He smiled, in the same way that she smiled, as if they were thoroughly in accord upon the point of Mr. Ferris. "Poor old Joey!" he replied. "Your society must be a godsend to her. They were kind to me while you were away. I went there several times. Joey let me read your letters to her."
This last was very tentatively said, with an apprehensive glance.
Virgie laughed, however. "Such silly letters," she remarked. Then, laying aside her table-napkin and rising: "Then in an hour's time, shall we go out in the garden?"
He eagerly assented. "I'll go down to the lodge and get Emerson to come along," he told her. "Then we can plan something."
They spent the entire morning in the garden, and at lunch time there was certainly no lack of conversation. In the absorbing topic of rock-gardening, the idea of redecorating the house fell temporarily into the background.
They motored into Buxton that afternoon, and spent some time viewing the plants in a celebrated nursery garden. Gaunt had learned to drive the car during her absence, and was himself at the wheel, which fact lessened for him the hardship of the situation. He was occupied with his driving, and not drawn irresistibly by the magnet of her charm. That evening, however, after dinner, when they were together in her beautiful warm white room, the tug of war began. He had to smother down the impulse to fight for his life, to make some kind of blundering bid for the love which he knew in his heart had been given to Rosenberg before he ever saw her.
Virginia could not but suppose that his coldness, his complete aloofness, his apparent declining of all beginnings of intimacy, arose from sheer shyness. She believed that some things are better and more easily expressed without words. Thus, that evening, when he was at the piano, playing out his heartache in soft, sad chords in passionate, rapid movements, she came and stood behind him—close behind him.
This was hard, but he bore it. Manfully he went on playing for a while; but the influence of her presence standing there, the emanation of her personality, checked his fingers. He stumbled, missed a note, dropped his hands, sat silent.
"It is cold, so far from the fire," said her coaxing voice. "I've been making you play till your fingers are frozen;" with which she took them in her velvet, soft clasp.
This was too much. He drew his hand from her clinging touch with a sensation as though he tore it from a trap, lacerating it in the attempt. He sprang from his seat. "Jove! I have just thought of something I must tell Hemming," he muttered hurriedly; and, pushing past her, left the room by way of the door into his own den.
Virginia stood amazed, confused, and somewhat uncomfortable.
This, her first advance, must certainly be her only one. She went and sat on the hearth-rug, gazing into the fire, and puzzling. Suddenly a clear light shone upon the darkness of her musing. But, of course!...
Gaunt had not married her for love, but in pursuance of some half-crazed scheme of vengeance. He had thought it his duty to reform a heartless, selfish coquette. Now that he had found her to be very unlike his preconceived idea of her, what did he, what could he, want with her?...
Why had she not sooner perceived this obvious truth? Colour flooded her, she blushed hotly in the solitude. His plans had proved abortive, and he found himself saddled with a young woman with whose company he would, no doubt, gladly dispense. He was apparently ready to continue their present semi-detached existence, so long as she made no attempt to force the barriers of his confidence or intimacy. She remembered, on reflection, that he had made no appeal to her, that he had confessed nothing. He had not even begged for forgiveness. He had merely owned himself mistaken in his estimate of her. Since the outburst which had, as it seemed, been shaken out of him at the unexpected sight of her, he had stood on guard all the time. She had really been very slow and stupid, or she would have seen, long ago, how embarrassing her presence must be, unless she grasped the terms of their mutual relation.
Her lips curved into an involuntary smile as she recalled her well-meant attempt at a kindness he did not want. She bit her lip as she gazed into the fire. "We-e-ell!" she said aloud, with a little grimace, "I've been slow at picking up my cue, but I think I've got it now."
Almost as she spoke Gaunt re-entered, and Grim the collie slunk in at his heels.
"I'm most awfully sorry for bolting like that, but it was important," he said, in tones of would-be friendly frankness. With that he turned to shut the dog out.
"Oh, let her come in, poor old girl! What has she done to be shut out?" cried Virgie, sitting on her heels upon the floor.
"I—I don't think your cats like her," he replied, hesitating.
"Well, I never! They will have to like her. If they are to live in the same house, they must be friends," was the quick retort. "Grim, Grim, poor old girl, come here then!"
Grim, more perceptive than her master, was quick to perceive the invitation in the sweet voice, and came bounding into the circle of firelight. Damian sat up and spat, his back an arch, his tail a column. Virgie flung her arms round Grim's handsome neck and hugged her.
"Don't you take a bit of notice of that cheeky kitten, my dear. If he doesn't like you, he can lump you. This was your house, long before he was born or thought of," she said, petting the collie till her tail thumped the ground with ecstasy; her tongue hung out and she slobbered with utter content.
"Osbert," said Virgie calmly, "there's a sheepskin mat out in the hall that would just do for her beside the fire here in the corner. If that is her place, the cats will very soon recognise it. Will you go and fetch it in for me, please?"
"But"—he paused—"this is your room, isn't it? and Grim's a big dog. Her place is in my den."
"Oh, she'll very soon find out where the warmest corner is, won't you, girl?" laughed Virgie. "Even ifyouwon't come into my room, I'll warrant she will! Unless"—with a daring glance—"you mean us to have separate establishments, even to the dogs and cats?"
He began to speak, halted, then said quietly enough: "I want you to have things as you like. I think you know that, really."
"Then this poor old thing shall come in just whenever she wants to," said Virgie, holding the golden muzzle in her hand, and kissing the white star upon the dog's forehead.
Gaunt, watching, made a note of the exact spot.
"Shall I not one day remember thy bower,One day when all days are one day to me?Thinking, 'I stirred not, and yet had the power!'Yearning, 'Ah, God, if again it might be!'"—D. G. Rossetti.
"You're not the sort to bet on, Percy," remarked Joey Ferris. "What have you been filling me up with? You came home here, saying you could put me wise about the Gaunt marriage, and that the whole thing was going phut, and she wasn't coming back to him!"
"Well!"
"Well, you're off the rails this time, old man. She came home on Wednesday, and this morning I had a note from her to say she would call for me in the car this afternoon, and take me over to Omberleigh to tea."
"Jove though!" Ferris stood stock still in his astonishment. "You're kidding, Joey?"
"Wish I may die," was the chaste rejoinder.
Ferris turned things rapidly over in his mind. "Did you go?" he asked at length.
"Go? I should think so. She is as well as ever she was in her life—laughing and talking, as different from the timid little crushed thing she was, as you are different from Gaunt! While she was away, he has had her own sitting-room all done up for her, and my word! he has done it in style. You never saw anything so classy; it's like the little boudoir at the Chase; and she says he never bought a thing, except the carpet and curtains. The furniture and china was all in the house, put away, and they've got enough left to furnish the dining-room as well. My, it'll be a nice place by the time she's done with it."
"Joey, I give you my word, that on Saturday she was in bed, delirious, and her mother sat up all night with her."
"That might be. Look how Bill's temperature runs up if he gets a bit of a chill! She was all right by Wednesday, and now she's as fit as a fiddle. Seems so keen about things too. Got a great idea of going over the mine. I thought we might have 'em both to lunch next week, and take them round after."
"Good idea. But have you forgotten that Rosenberg will be staying here?"
"Not me. That doesn't make a bit of difference. She was talking about him as easily as you might talk about me. Tell you what, Percy, you've got the wrong sow by the ear this time."
"If there's been a mistake, it was Rosenberg's, not mine," said Ferris. "You may bet on that. Seems to me he's about put himself in the cart."
"Why, how? What do you mean?"
Ferris laughed. "He insisted on laying me fifty sovereigns to one that she never went back to Gaunt. I told him he didn't know O.G. as well as I do."
"Pooh! He didn't know Virgie, much more likely. She's still water, is that little lady."
"Huh? You don't mean she's not straight?"
"Not much. She's the straightest goer I ever came across. But she doesn't wear her heart on her sleeve."
"I don't know where she keeps it then," said Percy, with a grin. "You don't suppose old Gaunt's got it, do you?"
"Couldn't tell you that, but one thing Icansay for certain. It doesn't belong to young Rosenberg."
"Are you sure, Joey?"
"Yes," said she simply.
"I can go pretty near the truth of it, I expect," she added presently. "Rosenberg tried to make mischief, and it hasn't come off."
"He told me Gaunt was cruel to her—actually tortured her," said Percy, in a lowered voice. "Said she let it out in her delirium."
"Go and tell that to the next one," scorned his wife. "If it's true, then being tortured agrees with her."
"You can't deny she was very ill when she first came here."
"Yes, but that was none of Gaunt's doing. That was because she had been starving herself and doing all the housework for the best part of two years."
"Well, I'll have to try and explain matters to Rosenberg when he comes next week," said Percy, quite meek and crestfallen.
*****
At Omberleigh meanwhile, since the moment when Virgie grasped the position, things had been going on fairly well. By degrees, a footing of friendly acquaintanceship had been established, which was sustained without difficulty on the woman's part. The man, however, was less satisfied. He went about each day with the knowledge that, if he was not quick about accomplishing some sort of suicide which should be obviously accidental, his own control might fail him at any moment, and the present state of tantalising half-and-half would become impossible to maintain.
Yet, for a strong, energetic, experienced man to kill himself in such a manner that nobody should suspect him of having done so was harder than he had foreseen. He turned over plan after plan in his mind, only to reject them all. He began to despair of ever accomplishing his purpose convincingly, as long as he stayed in England. The idea of taking Virginia to Switzerland suggested itself. There it would be comparatively simple. He would only have to leave her in a comfortable hotel, taking care that she had plenty of money, and go rambling on a mountain side alone, hurling himself down any precipice which looked sufficiently steep to make a thorough job of it.
Against this was the fact that it was growing late in the season for Switzerland, and most of the mountain hotels would be closed. The mere circumstance of his selecting Switzerland for a late autumn holiday might look suspicious in the light of after events.
To do the thing intentionally, which was by far the easiest plan, was, from his point of view, out of the question, because of the implied slur upon his widow. If a newly married man commits suicide, he may leave a hundred explanations, assuring his wife of his happiness with her, but they will impose upon nobody. He was determined not to expose his beloved to the evil tongues of rumour; yet he felt he must shortly take some definite action or go mad.
In this frame of mind he heard with interest that Gerald was coming to stay at Perley Hatch. So far, he had had no chance to gather anything of Virginia's feeling for him. Two or three times he had tried to ask, but voice and courage failed him. In his male density, he imagined that he would not be able to see the two together without coming to a conclusion. He urged the acceptance of Joey's invitation. Virginia's health, since her return, gave no cause for anxiety, and she was eager to explore the cave.
It was in a mood of great depression that he set out with her upon the day fixed. He was uncertain of everything—of her feeling, of his own intentions, of Gerald's worth. The existing state of things, difficult though it might be, was perilously sweet. There were hours when he told himself that he was an utter fool, and that his present attitude was a quixotry which bordered upon madness; yet there seemed no way to end it. Every day of the footing upon which he and his wife now stood made it more irrelevant, as it were, for him to turn from luke-warm companion into ardent lover ... and when he tried to face what would be his feeling if she rejected him, as she might—or worse still if, as was more likely, she submitted to his love without returning it—he felt that he simply did not dare risk it.
Virginia was quick to note his depression. The variability of his spirits nowadays was more noticeable than he supposed. Sometimes her light-hearted nonsense would beguile him into something like hilarity. These moments were usually, as she was well aware, followed by a corresponding withdrawal. She built all her hopes upon them, however, for it seemed to her that in the period of reaction he never slipped back quite so far into the realms of distance. It was an approach, though a very gradual one. Like a rising tide, each wave fell back; but, all the same, the flood mounted.
She chatted gaily as she sat beside him in the car, talking of the matters which engrossed her—the garden and the house; also of an invitation to the Chase to dine, which had lately been accepted. He could not perceive that she manifested the least consciousness of being on the way to meet her lover.
When they walked together into Joey's drawing-room, he was not so certain. Rosenberg, in spite of self-command, betrayed a very obvious embarrassment. If her feeling were doubtful, his was not. Her mere presence in the room seemed to set him a-quiver.
Gaunt shook hands with him more easily, less grudgingly than on the former occasion of their meeting. This surprised Gerald somewhat. He had gone from that meeting straight to the address given him by Joey, had seen Virginia, established an intimate footing of friendship, taken her about in his car, and done other things which a newly made husband would be most apt to resent. Yet Gaunt's greeting was almost kindly. This disturbed Gerald. There must be one of two reasons for it. Either he was so sure of his wife that he could afford to ignore other men, or he knew more than he pretended to, and was on the watch, eager to take his adversary off guard.
These thoughts produced considerable constraint in the young man's manner to Virgie, whose gentle sweetness was much the same as usual.
"You made a surprisingly quick convalescence," he remarked, thinking how delicious she was in her tailor suit of silver corduroy.
"Yes," she said. "I was sure you would be pleased to know that I was not nearly so ill as mamma thought me. She was alarmed because I was feverish, but it soon went off. I am quite splendidly well now. This air suits me—doesn't it, Osbert?"
"It really seems to," he replied, ready to worship her for calling him so naturally into the conversation. "Motoring, too, agrees with you. I feel very grateful to you, Rosenberg, for giving her some runs down in Sussex, though I wish you could have avoided the drenching."
The composed voice and words made Percy feel quite hot, and for a moment they disconcerted Gerald, but he took up his cue almost at once.
"I have been afraid to look you in the face, Gaunt," he replied gratefully, "since making such an utter ass of myself. I'm glad to take this chance of apologising; but I don't feel quite so repentant as I did, now that I see Mrs. Gaunt look so well and blooming."
Joey chimed in, vowing that the Derbyshire air was doing wonders for Virgie.
"If we could get some fine weather, Osbert ought to run you round the Peak," said Virgie to Gerald.
Gerald was puzzled. If this were acting it was jolly good. Surely this girl could not be afraid of her husband. He looked from one to the other, completely mystified.
Lunch was quite a hilarious meal. Tom and Bill were both present, and Virgie sat between them by special request. She confided various episodes from the career of Little Runt to their willing ears, and the way in which she understood them, and entered into conversation without the least effort, or any departure from her usual naturalness of manner, filled Gaunt with admiration. They behaved so well as to surprise both their parents, seeming quite hypnotised by the spell of the thrilling voice and the dainty nonsense talk with which she plied them.
After lunch, while the men stood about smoking a cigarette before starting, baby was brought down, and Joey and Virgie, kneeling on the drawing-room carpet, tried to inveigle her into making a tottering step alone. It was pathetically amusing to watch her little plump body, balanced upon its unsteady supports, her dimpled arms outspread, her baby lips parted in glee, showing the two rows of tiny pearls between. To and fro, to and fro, she wavered, with protecting arms on either hand, not touching, but guarding. Then at last, with a shriek of ecstasy at her own boldness, she ran forward—one step—two—and fell, a triumphant, huddled sweetness, right upon Virgie's breast.
The girl knelt up, clasping the rosy thing in her hugging arms, kissing her cheek and praising her courage. "Oh, babs, when you are a big, grown up girl," said she, "some day I will remind you that you took your first step to me."
Gaunt stood near the window, rigid, fascinated, his whole being melted into a tenderness so poignant as to be half painful. How many sources of happiness, simple and everyday, were in the world! How barren and dry and selfish his own life had been! In his moment of insight, he saw that even Joey Ferris, tied to Percy, might have her moments of utter beatification, since he had made her the mother of this babe.
He took a new resolve. When they got home that evening, he would have it out with Virginia, he would give her her choice. He would persuade her to tell him frankly if all her heart was bound up in Gerald. If it was not....
He did not hear Ferris suggesting to him that they should be on the move. They had to call him thrice before he started from his dream.
"She is coming, my life, my sweet,Were it never so airy a tread,My heart would hear it and beat,Were it earth in an earthy bed.My dust would hear it and beatHad I lain for a century dead,Would start and tremble under her feetAnd blossom in purple and red!"—Tennyson.
The entrance to the lead mine cave had now been artificially widened to allow of free entrance. From the valley below a light wooden stair had been erected, up which the visitors passed. Some good workmen from a similar mine elsewhere were now busy on the premises, making the final tests before the experts would pronounce that there was really money in the scheme.
The party came presently upon a spot where a big underground stream gushed from a tunnel, crossed a space about twenty feet wide, and disappeared in another tunnel on the opposite side of the cavern. It emerged three miles away, far down Branterdale. Nobody knew whence it came.
Since first the caves were discovered, great progress had been made; and only the previous day the men had chipped open a crack in the rock wall, discovering within another big space with a very dangerous floor.
"We've all got to be careful in here," remarked Percy, as he marshalled his party. "Perhaps, Joey, you and Mrs. Gaunt would be happier outside, for it's a case of crawling in."
Virgie and Joey, however, were not going to be left behind. They neither of them had any objection to crawling. With the help of their escort, they both got through quite easily, and found themselves in a curious place. Under their feet were spikes of rock, with deep inequalities between. The men had laid down planks, and warned the visitors to be careful not to step off them. On the further side of this cavern was a very deep cleft which had not yet been explored, as the men had found the air down there too foul for them to venture to descend.
"Like an old well—they don't know how deep," said Percy, indicating a black hole, or chasm, on the further side of the irregular-shaped space in which they stood. "They got a big bundle of hay, set it alight, and pitched it in, burning fiercely. The air down there put it out in no time."
"Not much chance for anybody who went over," remarked Gaunt, moving nearer.
"Not much. Don't stand too close," replied Percy. "You see, the men put in a stake, and rigged up a rope, meaning to go down and explore; but they will have to wait till something has been done before they can make use of it."
"What will they do?" asked Virgie, with interest.
"Pump air down, I think, and force the bad gas upwards," replied Percy, who was in his element, showing and explaining.
Gaunt stood on the plank near the hole, gazing at it as if it fascinated him. His hands were in his pockets. Virgie had made a little movement when he first approached it, putting out her hand as if to grasp his arm. She checked herself, for since his rebuff she had never touched him. But as he still stood there, seeming lost in his own thoughts, some kind of dread fell upon her. "Osbert," she said.
He turned sharply at the sound of her voice, and moved towards her.
"I believe my—my shoe-lace has come untied," said she.
It was the first thing that occurred to her to say, and she knew it was a lame excuse. He looked so intently at her that she almost thought he was aware that it was a pretext merely. Never before had she asked him to render her any such small personal service.
"Lean against the wall, and give me your foot," said he. "I'll do it up."
"Thanks. The—the air is rather close in here, isn't it?" she faltered, as she went to stand against the cave side. "Will you take me out? I feel a bit faint."
"We shall all go out in a minute or two," was his reply, as he knelt upon the plank at her feet.
He tried to steady himself as he bent over his task. He had seen something in her eyes which shook his purpose—a dawning anxiety, or fear, or.... Was that all? Was there not more? He could not be sure.
But, if her suspicions were awake, he might have to let this chance go.
The cave echoed to Joey's loud, jolly laugh. She and Gerald were standing upon a plank which see-sawed slightly, and it amused her to make it move up and down.
"Don't play the fool there, Joe," said Ferris sharply. "This place is really not safe, you know. You and Mrs. Gaunt had better creep out again. Come along, there's nothing to see."
He took her somewhat roughly by the arm. Her weight, suddenly removed from the plank, caused Gerald, who was at the further end, to stumble. He had been balanced upon one foot, and the uneven nature of the rocky floor gave him no place upon which to put the other foot down. It went into a hollow, quite a foot in depth. He gave a lurch, in the effort to reach the next plank, which was not quite near, and came down with all his weight upon one edge of it. It turned over, throwing him completely off his balance. He staggered, slipped, and before Joey had time to shriek, was over the edge of the poisonous gulf and had disappeared.
It all took place in a single instant. At one moment Joey and he were balancing one each end of the board, at the next Ferris had pulled her away, Gerald was crashing and stamping in the vain effort to regain his lost poise; and even as Ferris, hampered by the displaced planks, sprang to help him he was gone, and the place echoed to Joey's screams.
Gaunt, whose back had been turned to the scene, sprang up and realised instantly what had happened. In that same instant, like a flash, he saw what he must do. His chance had come to him, one in a thousand. In that same heart-beat he knew that he did not want to go—that never in all his existence had he loved life as he loved it now.
There was, however, not a moment for delay. None of the workmen were with them in the small cave; they were alone. A few minutes' hesitation might be fatal to the victim. Gaunt turned away from Virginia without looking at her, moved rapidly along a plank, took the rope which the workmen had left ready for a descent, and began to fasten it to his own body.
"Gaunt—no!" Ferris, who had stood for a moment paralysed like a man distraught, without moving or speaking, leapt at him.
"He is dead; he must be. Don't fling away your life. It's not only the bad air, it's the depth; these places go down nobody knows how deep!"
"One can but try," was the reply, as Gaunt completed the swift knotting of the rope.
"Listen to me!" he said, laying his hand upon the shaking Percy's nerveless arm, and speaking quietly and naturally with the intention of calming the other's hysteria. "Summon the men—get another rope. If I find him, I will signal by three tugs for you to pull him up. Do you understand?"
"Let—let one of the men go down," shrieked Ferris wildly.
"There isn't time. Virginia!" He raised his voice a little, and the white, still girl started.
"Crawl out at once and summon the men—as many as you can. Then send Ransom with the car for Dr. Dymock. Can you hear me?"
"Yes, I am going."
That was all. So he dismissed her, so he flung love and life away from him out of the struggle. He sat upon the edge of the hole, his electric torch fixed upon his chest, the rope about his middle, and began to tie a handkerchief over his mouth.
"Don't go—don't go; he's dead by now. Oh, can't somebody come? Help! Help!" cried Ferris distractedly. "Your fault, confound you!" he shrieked to the trembling, ashy Joey.
"Silence, Ferris; I think he is calling!"...
Percy's cries ceased abruptly, and in the sudden pause a moan came up to them from the echoing depths.
In another instant Gaunt had disappeared.
The die was cast, and a curious peace descended upon him. The pressure of the emergency held his brain to the exclusion of all else. For the moment he had no regrets; consciousness was bounded by the difficulties of his descent. This was not nearly as awful as he had expected. There was plenty of foothold, and he went down rapidly, coming upon Gerald's body some time before he thought it possible.
Most providentially the victim had fallen upon the bundle of hay which the workmen on the previous day had set alight and thrown in to dispel the noxious gas. The hole, at this point, was not very deep—not deeper than a well, though further along the cleft he saw a yawning gulf of unexplored horror and blackness. He stooped over Rosenberg, who was still groaning and not completely unconscious, though evidently much hurt.
"If you can hear what I say, try to do as I tell you," said he, speaking with great distinctness close to his ear. "Can you sit up?"
Gerald moved slightly, muttering something that sounded like "Let me alone!"
On that Gaunt saw that he had but one course. He must not attempt to reach the surface with him. He must transfer the rope from his own waist, and send up the injured man first.
He was still just capable of doing this, but he was growing deadly sick and faint. With the feeling that it was a race—a grim race between his failing faculties and time—he detached the cord. He succeeded, after what seemed to him like a protracted struggle, in fastening the knots round Gerald securely. Now what must he do? His brain was swimming, his breath came short, but he knew there was something else. Yes, of course! He must jerk the rope. Once—twice—thrice! He did it and waited.
Something was about to happen. He had forgotten what it was. His mind was swimming aimlessly round, like a fish in warm water, as he said to himself. He lay down. Then the thing upon which he was leaning his heavy head began to move; it was lifted; he tried to sit up, grasping in his hands the hay upon which he was crouched. The space was very narrow. Was it wide enough to serve him for a—for a—one of those things they use to bury the dead?
It was his last thought. Immediately upon thinking it he was asleep.
*****
"Fifty pounds to the man who brings him up!" cried Virgie, kneeling upon the very brink.
Gerald had been hauled up, dragged forth from the cave, through the hole, hurried into the open air. He was alive, and they thought he would recover. But the man who had risked his life to save him lay still in the deadly abyss.
One of the workmen, however, speedily upon her appeal, roped himself up.
"Can't be very deep, 'm," he said consolingly. "If I take two ropes with me, that'll be all right. We've got a plenty hands now, and my mates can pull."
He disappeared, and Virgie crouched there on the brink, huddled and shivering, counting the terrible moments.
As she knelt in the dark, dreadful place, full of booming, terrifying noises, all life changed its values before her eyes.
This was a man who had a touch of greatness in him. He made big mistakes; he was also capable of big heroism. She knew in her heart that, if Gaunt had not been there, if the accident had happened with only the Ferrises and herself in the cave, the delay—while men were fetched to do what her husband had immediately and simply done himself—might have been, would have been, fatal. The contrast between Percy, helplessly unnerved, and Gaunt, ready to rise at once to the height of the moment, had flashed itself upon her like an instantaneous photograph. She had herself risen with Osbert. He had called her, given her something to do—quiet, definite orders to carry out. Without a question, she went and did his bidding, though she was longing to break into cowardly pleading, to cry out to him not to throw away his life.
And she returned to find them all busy with Gerald, and nobody apparently giving a thought to the man still in the pit.
She soon changed that. Her beauty, her distress, her urgency, made stronger appeals to the men than her promise of liberal reward. And now everything, everything, hung upon the result—whether the man they brought to the surface would be still alive or not.
When the signal to draw up was given, she felt as if each passing clock-tick were a year. The dread which had sprung up in her, when she saw Gaunt hang brooding over the chasm, could never be dispersed, if he were dead. She would never know whether he truly wished to die or whether life was sweet to him.
How slowly they were hauling in the rope! How endlessly long it seemed.
Then, at last, she saw him drawn from the living tomb—limp, inert, ghastly. She rose, though her knees would hardly support her, and crawled to him as they undid the rope from about him.
The man who had gone down stood near, wiping the sweat from his eyes, and reeling slightly on his feet. He coughed, and spat, and seemed as if he would be sick. "Just hell down there, 'm," he told her, apologetically. "I'm afraid it's all over with him, God help you!"
*****
Gaunt was adrift upon a summer sea. The waves rose and fell, with a lulling cadence. He felt only one desire—the desire for sleep; but a perpetual calling kept him perversely awake. When he reached the land he would, he knew, attain perfect repose. He made an inquiry of some unseen companion as to what was the name of the land which they would reach. The answer to this was: "They call it Virginia."
This answer delighted him. Virginia! Country of all joy and beauty. He was going to Virginia, if only this summons would cease—if only some far away, disturbing voice was not calling to him from infinite distance, begging him to make some response. He tried to plead that this voice might be silenced. But it grew more and more insistent. He could not hear what it said, but he knew that he was wanted. He might not drift out into the peace he craved. He must stop, and answer, and find out what was expected of him. He tried as hard as he could to turn a deaf ear to the calling. He almost succeeded, several times, in dropping off into real, sound sleep. But just as he was sure that now he would be let alone, something shook him, something interfered with him; and there was a pulsing in his ear, terribly loud, like the voice of a drum, so that one could not escape it.
The calling went on. "Osbert! Osbert! I want you! Do you hear me?"
Quite suddenly his mind changed, and he knew that it was of supreme importance that he should answer. The difficulty lay in the manner of so doing. How can one communicate with the beating of a drum? He wished that he could explain how unreasonable it was to expect any response from him. He heard right enough, but how could he let anybody know that he heard, with the sea lapping all about and the drum beating in his ears?...
Then came a curious sensation, touching a chord which vibrated throughout his entire being. He remembered quite long ago that he had been carrying a girl upstairs. Her arms were round his neck, and her heart beat, beat, against his ear.Wasthat noise the sound of a drum after all, or was it the quick throbbing of a girl's heart?
The moment this idea occurred, it was as though a door had been unclosed, releasing him into the world of which hitherto he had been unconscious. He heard somebody saying:
"Lay him down, Mrs. Gaunt, you had much better. He will come round sooner if his head is quite flat."
Another voice replied, very, very near him: "I tell you I saw his lips move. All the time he was lying flat he never moved, and directly I lifted him up he sighed. There! Look! I tell you he is alive! I said he was! I knew he would come back if I called!—Osbert! Osbert! Can you hear?"
Ah, now, indeed, it would be a grand thing had one the means of letting other people, in other universes, know one's thoughts! He knew he must obey the voice that spoke, yet he was dumb, deaf, blind, because he was so far off. He was sinking away again into the tempting slumber that invited him, in spite of his ardent desire to remain here, where he could be sensible to the beating that was like the beating of a girl's heart.
"Well, lift him again then," said a doubtful voice; and once more he heard the drum, close to his ear. Now it was urgent that he should let it be understood that he knew what was going on. He must step over the edge of the plane on which he moved, and come into that upon which these others were moving; since it was clear that they would not come to him.
"There! I tell you it isn't fancy! He took quite a long breath! Osbert, can you hear me? Open your eyes, and then I shall know."
"By Jove," said another voice, "his eyelids flickered then. I saw it."
"Go on calling him, Mrs. Gaunt. You're right, I believe, it is the only way."
"Another whiff of that oxygen!"
Something like the wind of life swept through him. With an immense effort he opened his eyes.
All that he could see was Virgie's face as she stooped over him.
He knew—though how he could hardly say—that he was lying in her arms. A keen air blew upon him, his hand, which lay at his side, could feel short turf beneath it. He was coming back—beginning to make use once more of his outward senses.
"Do you know me?" she asked, bending over him. Her eyes were full of an intense purpose; there was no shyness, no consciousness—only a vehement desire.
He took a long breath, gathered all his force, and whispered huskily:
"My—wife!"
He saw the sweet face into which he gazed contract pitifully, and the shoulders shake with sobbing.
"There, there, that will do, Mrs. Gaunt," ordered Dr. Dymock peremptorily. "He will be all right now. You're utterly worn out. Lay him down and come away."
"Try—try first, if he will drink," she gasped, while the heart against his ear functioned violently.
He drank, for she told him that he must do so. Obviously she had to be obeyed. Then they laid him down, and raised her up, and took her away, out of his sight. This was too much. He felt it to be an outrage, when he had come back such a tremendous distance, just to be with her. "Virginia," he said, quite clearly.
Dymock bent towards him. "All right, old man, she is close by. You shall go home with her quite soon. She is a bit tired, that's all. You must try not to be inconsiderate."
A vague smile dawned on Gaunt's face. He made an effort or two, and finally achieved the repetition of the doctor's term. "In-con-sid-erate," he murmured. "That's—that's a word, isn't it?"
"Yes, a word. What did you expect?" asked the doctor gently.
"I thought I had done with words," sighed the patient, lifting his eyes to the grey autumnal sky.
"So did we all—all except your wife," was the reply. "She was certain that you would revive, if she went on calling you."
Gaunt filled his lungs with the sharp air. The brandy they had given him began to course in his veins. "Lift me up," he said.
Dr. Dymock raised him against his knee, and slowly, as though it were something of a feat, he lifted his hand and touched his forehead. Around him was the grassy sloping of the Dale. Workmen's tools and sheds were close by. At a distance were the two cars, in one of which Joey Ferris was bending over some one. Memory returned in a rolling flood.
"Rosenberg. Is he alive?"
"Oh, yes. Broken collar-bone, and I think a rib as well, but I am not sure yet. A good many cuts and bruises, but he'll do."
"You ought to—set his bones?"
"Yes, the delay is bad, but it was inevitable. With you it was a matter of life and death. However, you are all right now. Drink some more of this stuff, and then you had better get home as fast as you can."
Gaunt's eyes were fixed upon the figure of his wife, sitting on a heap of stones not far off. Ferris was standing awkwardly by, evidently trying to comfort her. Her face was hidden and her handkerchief was held to her eyes.
"Virginia—Virginia's crying," he said in slow surprise. "What for?"
The doctor laughed. "Women are like that when it's all over," was his reply. "Those are tears of joy. She has been strung up to a high point, for I tell you candidly that I think, had it not been for her persistence I should have given you up about a quarter of an hour ago, and gone to attend upon the man who is alive. But she held on. Everybody else thought you were gone."
"She mustn't cry," said Gaunt anxiously.
"She won't, now that she has got you back," was the reply; and the doctor, after administering another drink, smiled kindly and with meaning. "You are a lucky fellow, Gaunt—you have your reward for your forbearance with her last month. Do you remember I told you then that if you had patience you would win her in the end? Well, you did as I asked, and I was a true prophet, was I not?"