CHAPTER VIII
"Ohdear! Oh dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Bullwell, "the poor thing's fainted!"
There was a comfortable sound in that homely phrase, yet still it seemed more than mere fainting to me. Doubtless women are accustomed to these little misadventures. They think nothing of them. But with a man, and when it is the woman whom he loves, I defy him to look with equanimity at the still white face, the closed eyes and that apparent cessation of all breathing.
We lifted her on to the settee and Mrs. Bullwell began to apply those remedies which, among her sex, will never pass out of use. She undid Clarissa's collar and her dress. She patted her hands and all with that quiet assurance of manner as though it were just in the day's work.
"Poor thing, poor thing," she kept on muttering. "She do look pale, don't she? You'd think she was dead to look at her—you would indeed."
"My God! Get some brandy!" said I, "while I telephone for a doctor."
"My goodness, sir, don't go to the expense of a doctor, she'll be all right in a minute or two. It's only a little weakness. I have 'em myself sometimes in the summer when it's hot in the kitchen. It passes off if I sit down a bit."
"Get that brandy," I repeated, and I rang up my friend Perowne.
"Will the cooking brandy do, sir?" she asked, as she went to the door.
"Cooking! Good Lord, no! Liqueur!"
By good fortune Perowne was in and promised to be with me at once. Then I turned to Clarissa. Much against her will, Mrs. Bullwell had gone for the best brandy and we were alone. I leant down my head to listen for her breathing. It was so faintly audible that I had to hold my own that I might hear it. And then, as I bent still lower, my cheek touched her lips. They were so cold; yet they set the blood racing hot in me. I rose quickly from my knees and walked to the open window. That must have been what a young man feels when first he is kissed by the first woman he loves. Events had passed so quickly with me in the last half-hour. I had been so near to one great adventure and now was near to the greatest adventure of all. It left the pulses beating in my forehead, my throat dry and every muscle in my body vibrating.
No doubt it was well that Mrs. Bullwell should come in at that moment with the brandy. It gave me something else to think about. We put the glass to her lips, but she made no effort to swallow. The brandy trickled down her chin and fell in drops upon her dress.
"She's thin, poor dear," said Mrs. Bullwell.
"Do you think," I whispered, "do you think she'll come round?"
"Why, of course she will, sir. I've never heard of no woman dying in a faint. Yes—I 'ave, though. A cousin of mine when she was a young girl, just like this young lady, she died in a faint—never came to again. We laid her on a couch just like this. We patted her hands, we gave her—well, there was no brandy in the house—but we gave her a drop of gin. But she never took no notice of nothing. She went off as though she'd gone to sleep and that was the end of her. The doctor made sure she was quite dead before we buried her."
I felt I could listen to no more of that. Another word or two from Mrs. Bullwell of that nature and she would have guessed my secret. I went out to the hall door and waited on the steps. When Perowne arrived I brought him straight into the room. He asked for no explanation. How I blessed him for that!
"Shall I go out of the room?" I asked.
"Stay where you are," said he.
So I stood staring out of the window, and not one vehicle that passed, not one human being who went by did I see. All my senses were strained to the hearing of the first sound of Clarissa's voice.
"He'll bring her round," I continually said to myself. "He'll bring her round, if any one can."
But the silence was unbroken. It came at last to be more than I could bear. I faced round into the room.
"Can't you do anything?" said I. "Can't you bring her round again?"
He stood up and looked at me. I knew he guessed it all by then. But he only asked if there were a bed where we could put her.
"She must go to bed at once," said he.
"There's Mr. Moxon's bed," began Mrs. Bullwell.
"I'll sleep there," said I. "Put her in my room."
There was no surprise in Perowne's face, but I am sure that if Mrs. Bullwell had described her feelings she would have made some allusion to that feather which has the power to lay low a woman even of her proportions.
So we carried her upstairs and laid her on my bed. I wonder shall I ever forget the strangeness of that first sensation which the sight of Clarissa's head upon my pillow brought me. But I was not allowed to look at her for long. Perowne told me to go downstairs and wait.
"I'll come and tell you how we're getting on in a minute or two. Don't worry yourself. Have some tea."
My Lord! They are casual, these doctors! It strikes you like that when they are dealing with some one in the hollow of whose hand lies your only hope of happiness.
I went out of the room and closed the door behind me. But to take tea when such an issue as Clarissa's life was weighing in the balance! I cannot remember walking downstairs to my room. The first thing that comes back to me is the memory of standing by my table with that little weapon in my hand which was to have done for me such wonders of legerdemain. With one touch of its bright steel trigger I was to have passed from that pit of depression—to what? The forgetfulness, the oblivion I suppose which, since my visit to Ballysheen, I had lost all power to conjure in my mind.
I think I must have stood some moments looking at it, holding it out in the palm of my open hand. At last I locked it away in an empty drawer. I had no further use for it then. I had come back to the power of something better than oblivion. Since that moment when Clarissa's lips had touched my cheek, I had discovered once more that priceless secret of remembrance. If Clarissa's life were safe it mattered little to me what issue should befall. She had come to me in trouble. I might never win her more than that. Indeed, I scarcely hoped of it. Her words on the cliffs that day at Ballysheen were always ringing in my ears. "You're ugly! You couldn't tell the truth!"
Perhaps she believed the truth was possible to me now. That she had come to me, and alone, was almost proof of it. But nothing could ever alter the other accusation. She might trust me implicitly by this, but any passion for me, that I knew was impossible. It was sufficient for me that she had placed herself in my hands. It was more than sufficient that now, with all her tragedy and her disillusionment, she might come to look upon me as her protector. Who could tell but one day, impoverished as she was, she might let me take her to some dressmaker's and say: "Show this lady the best dresses that you've got."
Possibly that is not the way it is done. But I may learn one of these days how women manage such things.
Whatever the issue might be I knew then that I had plenty to live for. She was penniless. She was at the mercy of all I could do for her. But suddenly came the fear that she might ask me to send her back to Dominica. Yet even that, cruel a return to such hopes of mine as it might seem, would still leave me with the consciousness that I had justified my existence.
"But she won't do that," said I. "She couldn't do that. Women have bigger hearts than that—moreover, women understand. She couldn't do that."
Yet I suppose I must really have feared it, but when the door opened and Perowne closed it after him, all thoughts of what might happen in the future were gone from me. The immediate present looked at me forebodingly from his eyes.
"Well," I said quickly, "what is it? Is she better? What's happened? Have you brought her to?"
He put his hand on my shoulder.
"I suppose you know about this?" said he.
"About what?"
"She's going to have a child."