When the coast was quite clear, the offenders felt their way back, not disguising their satisfaction at their transgression. Mrs. Riley seemed to think that she ought to express the feeling the Bench would have had, had it been present. For she said: "You'll be laying yoursilves open to pinalties, me boys, if ye don't kape your hands off other payple's thrucks, and things that don't consurrun ye. So lave thim be, and attind to your schooling, till you're riddy for bid." Dave's blue eyes dwelt doubtfully on the speaker, expressing their owner's uncertainty whether she was in earnest or not. Indeed, her sympathy with the offenders disqualified her for judicial impressiveness. Anyhow, Dave remained unimpressed, to judge by his voice as he vanished down the Court to narrate this pleasant experience to Uncle Moses. It was on Saturday afternoon that this took place. Have you ever noticed the strange fatality which winds up all building jobs on Saturday? Only notthisSaturday—always next Saturday. It is called by some "making a clean finish."
Old Mrs. Prichard lent herself to the fiction that she would rejoice when the builders had made this clean finish. But she only did so to meet expectation half-way. She had no such eagerness for a quiet Sunday as was imputed to her. Very old people, with hearing at a low ebb, are often like this. The old lady during the ten days Mr. Bartlett had contrived to extend his job over—for his contract left all question of extras open—had become accustomed to the sound of the men outside, and was sorry when they died away in the distance, after breeding dissension with poles in the middle distance; that is to say, the Court below. She hadfelt alive to the proximity of human creatures; for Mr. Bartlett and John still came under that designation, though builders by trade. If it had not been Saturday, with a prospect of Dave and Dolly Wardle when they had done their dinners, she would have had no alleviation in view, and would have had to divide the time between knitting and dozing till Mrs. Burr came in—as she might or might not—and tea eventuated: the vital moment of her day.
However, this was Saturday, and Dave and Dolly came up in full force as the afternoon mellowed; and Aunt M'riar accompanied them, and Mrs. Burr she got back early off her job, and there was fourpennyworth of crumpets. Only that was three-quarters of an hour later.
But Dave was eloquent about his adventure with the truck, judging the old lady of over eighty quite a fit and qualified person to sympathize with the raptures of sitting on a handle, and being jerked violently into the air by a counterpoise of confederates. And no doubt she was; but not to the extent imputed to her by Dave, of a great sense of privation from inability to go through the experience herself. Nevertheless there was that in his blue eyes, and the disjointed rapidity of his exposition of his own satisfaction, that could bridge for her the gulf of two-thirds of a century between the sad old now—the vanishing time—and the merrythenof a growing life, and all the wonder of the things to be. The dim illumination of her smile spread a little to her eyes as she made believe to enter into the glorious details of the exploit; though indeed she was far from clear about many of them. And as for Dave, no suspicion crossed his mind that the old lady's professions of regret were feigned. He condemned Aunt M'riar's attitude, as that of an interloper between two kindred souls.
"There, child, that'll do for about Mr. Bartlett's truct." So the good woman had said, showing her lack ofgeist—her Philistinism. "Now you go and play at The Hospital with Dolly, and don't make no more noise than you can help." This referred to a game very popular with the children since Dave's experience as a patient. It promised soon to be the only record of his injuries, as witness his gymnastics of this morning.
But he was getting to be such a big boy now—seven, last birthday—that playing at games was becoming a mere concession to Dolly's tender youth. Old Mrs. Prichard's thin soprano had an appeal to this effect in it—on Dave's behalf—as she said: "Oh, but the dear child may tell me, please, all about the truck andsome more things, too, before he goes to play with Dolly. He has always such a many things to tell, has this little man! Hasn't he now, Mrs. Wardle?"
Aunt M'riar—good woman as she was—had a vice. She always would improve occasions. This time she must needs say:—"There, Davy, now! Hear what Mrs. Prichard says—so kind! You tell Mrs. Prichard all about Mrs. Marrowbone and the bull in the duckpond. You tell her!"
Dave, with absolute belief in the boon he was conferring on his venerable hearer, started at once on a complicated statement, as one who accepted the instruction in the spirit in which it was given. But first he had to correct a misapprehension. "The bool wasn't in the duckpong. The bool was in Farmer Jones's field, and the field was in the duckpong on the other side. And the dusk was in the pong where there wasn't no green." Evidently an oasis of black juice in the weed, which ducks enjoy. Dave thought no explanation necessary, and went on:—"Then Farmer Jones he was a horseback, and he rodid acrost the field, he did. And he undooed the gate with his whip to go froo, and it stumbled and let the bool froo, and Farmer Jones he rodid off to get the boy that understoodid the bool. He fetched him back behind his saddle, he did. And then the boy he got the bool's nose under control, and leaded him back easy, and they shet to the gate." One or two words—"control," for instance—treasured as essential and conscientiously repeated, gave Dave some trouble; but he got through them triumphantly.
"Is that all the story, Dave?" said Mrs. Prichard, who was affecting deep interest; although it was by now painfully evident that Dave had involved himself in a narrative without much plot. He nodded decisively to convey that it was substantially complete, but added to round it off:—"Mr. Marrowbone the Smith from Crincham he come next day and mended up the gate, only the bool he was tied to a post, and the boy whistled him a tune, or he would have tostid Mr. Marrowbone the Smith."
Said Aunt M'riar irrelevantly:—"What was the tune he whistled, Dave? You tell Mrs. Prichard what tune it was he whistled!" To which Dave answered with reserve:—"A long tune." Probably the whistler's stock was limited, and he repeated the piece, whatever it was,da capo ad libitum. This legend—the thin plot of Dave's story—will not strike some who have the misfortune to own bulls as strange. In some parts of the country boys are always requisitioned to attend on bulls, who especially hate men, perhaps resenting their monopoly of the termmanhood.
This conversation would scarcely have called for record but for what it led to.
Old Mrs. Prichard, like Aunt M'riar, had a vice. It was jealousy. Her eighty years' experience of a bitter world had left her—for all that she would sit quiet for hours and say never a word—still longing for the music of the tide that had gone out for her for ever. The love of this little man—which had not yet learned its value, and was at the service of age and youth alike—was to her even as a return of the sea-waves to some unhappy mollusc left stranded to dry at leisure in the sun. But her heart was in a certain sense athirst for the monopoly of his blue eyes. She did not grudge him to any legitimate claimant—to Uncle Mo or to Aunt M'riar, nor even to Mrs. Burr; though that good woman scarcely challenged jealousy. Indeed, Mrs. Burr regarded Dave and Dolly as mere cake-consumers—a public hungering for sweet-stuffs, and only to be bought off by occasional concessions. It was otherwise with unknown objects of Dave's affection, whose claims on him resembled Mrs. Prichard's own. Especially the old grandmother at the Convalescent Home, or whatever it was, where the child had recovered from his terrible accident. She grudged old Mrs. Marrowbone her place in Dave's affections, and naturally lost no opportunity of probing into and analysing them.
Said the old lady to Dave, when the bull was disposed of: "Was Mr. Marrowbone the Smith old Mrs. Marrowbone's grandson?" Dave shook his head rather solemnly and regretfully. It is always pleasanter to sayyesthanno; but in this case Truth was compulsory. "He wasn'tanyfinkof Granny Marrowbone's. No, he wasn't!" said he, and continued shaking his head to rub the fact in.
"Now you're making of it up, Dave," said Aunt M'riar. "You be a good little boy, and say Mr. Marrowbone the Smith was old Mrs. Marrowbone's grandson. Because you know he was—now don't you, Davy? You tell Mrs. Prichard he was old Mrs. Marrowbone's grandson!" Dave, however, shook his head obdurately. No concession!
"Perhaps he was her son," said Mrs. Prichard. But this surmise only prolonged the headshake; which promised to become chronic, to pause only when some ground of agreement could be discovered.
"The child don't above half know what he's talking about, not to sayknow!" Thus Aunt M'riar in a semi-aside to the old lady. It was gratuitous insult to add:—"He don't reely know what's a grandson, ma'am."
Dave's blue eyes flashed indignation. "Yorse Idoesknow!" cried he, loud enough to lay himself open to remonstrance. He continued under due restraint:—"I'm going to be old Mrs. Marrowbone's grangson." He then remembered that the treaty was conditional, and added a proviso:—"So long as I'm a good boy!"
"Won't you be my grandson, too, Davy darling?" said old Mrs. Prichard. And, if you can conceive it, there was pain in her voice—real pain—as well as the treble of old age. She was jealous, you see; jealous of this old Mrs. Marrowbone, who seemed to come between her and her little new-found waterspring in the desert.
But Dave was embarrassed, and she took his embarrassment for reluctance to grant her the same status as old Mrs. Marrowbone. It was nothing of the sort. It was merely his doubt whether such an arrangement would be permissible under canon law. It was bigamy, however much you chose to prevaricate. The old lady's appealing voice racked Dave's feelings. "I carn't!" he exclaimed, harrowed. "I've spromussed to be Mrs. Marrowbone's grangson—I have." And thereupon old Mrs. Prichard, perceiving that he was really distressed, hastened to set his mind at ease. Of course he couldn't be her grandson, if he was already Mrs. Marrowbone's. She overlooked or ignored the possible compromise offered by the fact that two grandmothers are the common lot of all mankind. But it would be unjust—this was clear to her—that Dave should suffer in any way from her jealous disposition. So she put her little grievance away in her inmost heart—where indeed there was scarcely room for it, so preoccupied had the places been—and then, as an active step towards forgetting it, went on to talk to Dave about old Mrs. Marrowbone, although she was not Mr. Marrowbone the Smith's grandmother.
"Tell us, Dave dear, about old Mrs. Marrowbone. Is she very old? Is she as old as me?" To which Aunt M'riar as a sort of Greek chorus added:—"There, Davy, now, you be a good boy, and tell how old Mrs. Marrowbone is."
Dave considered. "She's not the soyme oyge," said he. "She can walk to chutch and back, Sunday morning." But this was a judgment from physical vigour, possibly a fallible guide. Dave, being prompted, attempted description. Old Mrs. Marrowbone's hair was the only point he could seize on. A cat, asleep on the hearthrug, supplied a standard of comparison. "Granny Marrowbone's head's the colour of this," said Dave, with decision, selecting a pale grey stripe. And Widow Thrale's was like that—one with a deeper tone of brown, with scarcely any perceptible grey.
"And which on Pussy is most like mine, Dave?" said Mrs. Prichard. There was no hesitation in the answer to this. It was "that sort";—that is, the colour of Pussy's stomach, unequivocal white. And which did Dave like best—an unfair question which deserved and got a Parliamentary answer. "All free," said Dave.
But this was merely colour of hair, a superficial distinction. How about Granny Marrowbone's nose. "It's the soyme soyze," was the verdict, given without hesitation. What colour were her eyes? "Soyme as yours." But Dave was destined to incur public censure—Aunt M'riar representing the public—for a private adventure into description. "She's more teef than you," said he candidly.
"Well, now, I do declare if ever any little boy was so rude! I never did! Whatever your Uncle Moses would say if he was told, I can't think." Thus Aunt M'riar. But her attitude was artificial, for appearance sake, and she knew perfectly well that Uncle Moses would only laugh and encourage the boy. The culprit did not seem impressed, though ready to make concessions. Yet he did not really better matters by saying:—"She's got some teef, she has"; leaving it to be inferred that old Mrs. Prichard had none, which was very nearly true. The old lady did not seem the least hurt. Nor was she hurt even when Dave—seeking merely to supply accurate detail—added, in connection with the old hand that wandered caressingly over his locks and brows:—"Her hands is thicker than yours is, a lot!"
"I often think, Mrs. Wardle," said she, taking no advantage of the new topic offered, "what we might be spared if only our teeth was less untrustworthy. Mine stood me out till over fifty, and since then they've been going—going. Never was two such rows of teeth as I took with me to the Colony. Over fifty years ago, Mrs. Wardle!"
"To think of that!" said Aunt M'riar. It was the time—not the teeth—that seemed so wonderful. Naturally old Mrs. Prichard's teeth went with her. But fifty years! And their owner quite bright still, when once she got talking.
She was more talkative than usual this afternoon, and continued:—"No, I do not believe, Mrs. Wardle, there was ever a girl with suchlike teeth as mine were then." And then this memory brought back its companion memory of the long past, but with no new sadness to her voice: "Only my dear sister Phoebe's, Mrs. Wardle, I've told you about. She was my twin sister ... I've told you ... you recollect?..."
"Yes, indeed, ma'am, and died when you was in the Colony!"
"I've never seen another more beautiful than Phoebe." She spoke with such supreme unconsciousness of the twinship that Aunt M'riar forgot it, too, until her next words came. "I was never free to say it of her in those days, for they would have made sport of me for saying it. There was none could tell us apart then. It does not matter now." She seemed to fall away into an absent-minded dream, always caressing Dave's sunny locks, which wanted cutting.
Aunt M'riar did not instantly perceive why a twin could not praise her twin's beauty; at least, it needed reflection. She was clear on the point, however, by the time Dave, merely watchful till now, suddenly asked a question:—"What are stwins?" He had long been anxious for enlightenment on this point, and now saw his opportunity. His inquiry was checked—if his curiosity was not satisfied—by a statement that when a little boy had a brother the same age that was twins, incorrectlystwins. He had to affect satisfaction.
The old woman, roused by Dave's question, attested the general truth of his informant's statements; then went back to the memory of her sister. "But I never saw her again," said she.
"No, ma'am," said Aunt M'riar. "So I understood. It was in England she died?"
"No—no! Out at sea. She was drowned at sea. Fifty years ago ... Yes!—well on to fifty years ago." She fell back a little into her dreamy mood; then roused herself to say:—"I often wonder, Mrs. Wardle, suppose my sister had lived to be my age, should we have kept on alike?"
Aunt M'riar was not a stimulus to conversation as far as perspicuity went. A general tone of sympathy had to make up for it. "We should have seen, ma'am," said she.
"Supposing it had all gone on like as it was then, and we had just grown old together! Supposing we had neither married, and no man had come into it, should we all our lives have been mistaken for one another, so you could not tell us apart?"
Aunt M'riar said "Ah!" and shook her head. She was not imaginative enough to contribute to a conversation so hypothetical.
There was nothing of pathos, to a bystander, in the old woman's musical voice, beyond its mere age—its reedy tone—which would have shown in it just as clearly had she been speaking of any topic of the day. Conceive yourself speaking about long forgotten events of your childhood to a friend born thirty—forty—fifty years later, and say if such speech would not be to you what old Mrs. Prichard's was to herself and her hearer, much like revival of thepast history of someone else. It was far too long ago now—if it had ever been real; for sometimes indeed it seemed all a dream—to lacerate her heart in recollecting it. The memories that could do that belonged to a later time; some very much later—the worst of them. Not but that the early memories could sting, too, when dragged from their graves by some remorseless resurrectionist—some sound, like that piano; some smell, like those lilies of the valley. Measure her case against your own experience, if its span of time is long enough to supply a parallel.
Her speech became soliloquy—was it because of a certain want of pliancy in Aunt M'riar?—and seemed to dwell in a disjointed way on the possibility that her sister might have changed with time otherwise than herself, and might even have been hard to recognise had they met again later. It would be different with two girls of different ages, each of whom would after a long parting have no guide to the appearance of her sister; while twins might keep alike; the image of either, seen in the glass, forecasting the image of the other.
Aunt M'riar made a poor listener to this, losing clues and forging false constructions. But her obliging disposition made her seem to understand when she did not, and did duty for intelligence. Probably Dave—on the watch for everything within human ken—understood nearly as much as Aunt M'riar. Something was on the way, though, to rouse her, and when it came she started as from a blow. What was that the old lady had just said? How came that name in her mouth?...
"What I said just now, Mrs. Wardle?... Let me see!... About what my husband used to say—that Phoebe's memory would go to sleep, not like mine, and I was a fool to fret so about her. I would not know her again, maybe, if I saw her, nor she me.... Yes—he said all that.... What?"
"What was thenameyou said just now? Ralph ... something! Ralph what?"
"Oh—yes—I know! What Phoebe would have been if she had married my husband's brother—Mrs. Ralph Daverill...."
"Good Lord!" exclaimed Aunt M'riar.
"Ah, there now!" said the old lady. "To think I should never have told you his name!" She missed the full strength of Aunt M'riar's exclamation; accounted it mere surprise at what was either a reference to a former husband or an admission of a pseudonym. Aunt M'riar was glad to accept matters as they stood, merely disclaiming excessive astonishment and suggesting that she might easy have guessed that Mrs. Prichard had been marriedmore than once. She was not—she said—one of the prying sort. But she was silent about the cause of her amazement; putting the name in a safe corner of her memory, to grapple with it later.
The old woman, however, seemed to have no wish for concealments, saying at once:—"I never had but one husband, Mrs. Wardle; but I'll tell you. I've always gone by the name of Prichard ever since my son.... But I never told you of him neither! It is he I would forget...." This disturbed her—made her take the caressing hand restlessly from Dave's head, to hold and be held by the other. She had to be silent a moment; then said hurriedly:—"He was Ralph Thornton, after his father and uncle. His father was Thornton—Thornton Daverill.... I'll tell you another time." Thereupon Aunt M'riar held her tongue, and Mrs. Burr came in with the fourpennyworth of crumpets.
An unskilful chronicler throws unfair burdens on his reader. The latter need not read the chronicle certainly; there is always that resource! If, however, he reads this one, let him keep in mind that Aunt M'riar didnotknow that the escaped prisoner of her newspaper-cutting had been asking for a widow of the name of Daverill, whom he had somehow traced to Sapps Court, any more than she knew—at that date—that old Mrs. Prichard should really have been called old Mrs. Daverill. She only knew thathisname was Daverill. So it was not in order to prevent Mrs. Prichard seeing it that she cut that paragraph out of theMorning Star. She must have had some other reason.
A LADY AND GENTLEMAN, WHO HUNG FIRE. NATURAL HISTORY, AND ARTIFICIAL CHRONOLOGY. NEITHER WAS TWENTY YEARS YOUNGER. CONFIDENCES ABOUT ANOTHER LADY AND GENTLEMAN, SOME YEARS SINCE. HOW THE FIRST GENTLEMAN FINISHED HIS SECOND CIGAR. DR. LIVINGSTONE AND SEKELETU. MR. NORBURY'S QUORUM. WHY ADRIAN TORRENS WOKE UP, AND WHOSE VOICE PROMISED NOT TO MENTION HIS EYES. FEUDAL BEEF-TEA, AND MRS. BAILEY. AN EARLY VISIT, FROM AN EARL. AN EXPERIMENT THAT DISCLOSED A PAINFUL FACT
A LADY AND GENTLEMAN, WHO HUNG FIRE. NATURAL HISTORY, AND ARTIFICIAL CHRONOLOGY. NEITHER WAS TWENTY YEARS YOUNGER. CONFIDENCES ABOUT ANOTHER LADY AND GENTLEMAN, SOME YEARS SINCE. HOW THE FIRST GENTLEMAN FINISHED HIS SECOND CIGAR. DR. LIVINGSTONE AND SEKELETU. MR. NORBURY'S QUORUM. WHY ADRIAN TORRENS WOKE UP, AND WHOSE VOICE PROMISED NOT TO MENTION HIS EYES. FEUDAL BEEF-TEA, AND MRS. BAILEY. AN EARLY VISIT, FROM AN EARL. AN EXPERIMENT THAT DISCLOSED A PAINFUL FACT
It is three weeks later at the Castle; three weeks later, that is, than the story's last sight of it. It is the hottest night we havehad this year, says general opinion. Most of the many guests are scattered in the gardens after dinner, enjoying the night-air and the golden moon, which means to climb high in the cirrus-dappled blue in an hour or so. And then it will be a fine moonlight night.
On such a night there is always music somewhere, and this evening someone must be staying indoors to make it, as it comes from the windows of the great drawing-room that opens on the garden. Someone is playing a Beethoven sonata one knows well enough to pretend about with one's fingers, theoretically. Only one can't think which it is. So says Miss Smith-Dickenson, in the Shrubbery, to her companion, who is smoking a Havana large enough to play a tune on if properly perforated. But she wishes Miss Torrens would stop, and let Gwen and the Signore sing some Don Juan. That is Miss Dickenson's way. She always takes exception to this and to that, and wants t'other. It does not strike the Hon. Percival Pellew, the smoker of the big cigar, as a defect in her character, but rather as an indication of its illumination—a set-off to her appearance, which is, of course, at its best in the half-dark of a Shrubbery by moonlight, but ispasséefor all that. Can't help that, now, can we? But Mr. Pellew can make retrospective concession; she must have told well enough, properly dressed, fifteen years ago. She don't exactly bear the light now, and one can't expect it.
The Hon. Percival complimented himself internally on a greater spirituality, which can overlook such points—mere clay?—and discern a peculiar essence of soul in this lady which, had they met in her more palatable days, might have been not uncongenial to his own. Rather a pity!
Miss Dickenson could identify a glow-worm and correct the ascription of its light to any fellow's cigar-end thrown away. She made the best figure that was compatible with being indubitablypasséewhen she went down on one knee in connection with this identification. Mr. Pellew felt rather relieved. Her outlines seemed somehow to warrant or confirm the intelligence he had pledged himself to. He remarked, without knowing anything about it, that he thought glow-worms didn't show up till September.
"Try again, Mr. Pellew. It's partridge-shooting that doesn't begin till September. That's what you're thinking of."
"Well—August, then!"
"No—that's grouse, not glow-worms. You see, you are reduced to July, and it's July still. Do take my advice, Mr. Pellew, and leave Natural History alone. Nobody will ever know you know nothing about it, if you hold your tongue."
The Hon. Percival was silent. He was not thinking about his shortcomings as a Natural Historian. The reflection in his mind was:—"What a pity this woman isn't twenty years younger!" He could discriminate—so he imagined—between mere flippancy and spontaneous humour. The latter would have sat so well on the girl in her teens, and he would then have accepted the former as juvenile impertinence with so much less misgiving that he was being successfully made game of. He could not quite shake free of that suspicion. Anyhow, it was a pity Miss Smith-Dickenson was thirty-seven. That was the age her friend Lady Ancester had assessed her at, in private conversation with Mr. Pellew. "Though what the deuce my cousin Philippa"—thus ran a very rapid thought through his mind—"could think I wanted to know the young woman's age for, I can't imagine."
"There it is!" said the lady, stooping over the glow-worm. "Little hairy thing! I won't disturb it." She got on her feet again, saying:—"Thank you—I'm all right!" in requital of a slight excursion towards unnecessary help, which took the form of a jerk cut short and an apologetic tone. "But don't talk Zoölogy or Botany, please," she continued. "Because there's something I want you to tell me about."
"Anything consistent with previous engagements. Can't break any promises."
"Have you made any promises about the man upstairs?"
"Not the ghost of a one! But he isn't 'the man upstairs' to me. He's the man in the room at the end of my passage. That's how I came to see him."
"You did see him?"
"Oh yes—talked to him till the nurse stopped it. I found we knew each other. Met him in the Tyrol—at Meran—ten years ago. He was quite a boy then. But he remembered me quite well. It was this morning."
"Did he recognise you, or you him?"
"Why—neither exactly. We found out about Meran by talking. No—poor chap!—he can't recognise anybody, by sight at least. He won't do that yet awhile."
The lady said "Oh?" in a puzzled voice, as though she heard something for the first time; then continued: "Do you know, I have never quite realised that ... that the eyes were so serious. I knew all along that there wassomething, but ... but I understood it was only weakness."
"They have been keeping it dark—quite reasonably and properly, you know—but there is it! He can't see—simply can't see.His eyeslookall right, but they won't work. His sister knows, of course, but he has bound her over to secrecy. He made me promise to say nothing, and I've broken my promise, I suppose. But—somehow—I thought you knew."
"Only that there wassomething—no idea that he was blind. But I won't betray your confidence."
"Thank you. It's only a matter of time, as I gather. But a bad job for him till he gets his sight again."
"He will, I suppose, in the end?"
"Oh yes—in the end. Sir Coupland is cautious, of course. But I don't fancy he's really uneasy. His sight might come back suddenly, he said, at any moment. Of course,hebelieves his eyesight will come back. Only meanwhile he wants—it was a phrase of his own—to keep all the excruciation for his own private enjoyment. That's what he said!"
"I see. Of course, that makes a difference. And you think Sir Coupland thinks he will get all right again?"
Mr. Pellew says he does think so, reassuringly. "It has always struck me as peculiar," says he, "that Tim's family ... I beg pardon—I should have said the Earl's. But you see I remember him as a kid—we are cousins, you know—and his sisters always called him Tim.... Well, I mean the family here, you know, seem to know so little of the Torrenses. Lady Gwen doesn't seem to have recognised this chap in the Park."
"I believe she has never seen him. He has been a great deal abroad, you know."
"Yes, he's been at German Universities, and games of that sort."
"Is that your third cigar, Mr. Pellew?"
"No—second. Come, I say, Miss Dickenson, two's not much...."
But her remark was less a tobacco-crusade than a protest against too abrupt a production of family history by a family friend. Mr. Pellew felt confident it would come, though; and it did, at about the third whiff of the new cigar.
"I suppose you know the story?"
"Couldn't say, without hearing it first to know."
"About Philippa and Sir Hamilton Torrens?"
"Can't say I have. But then I'm the sort of fellah nobody ever tells things to."
"I suppose I oughtn't to have mentioned it."
"I shall not tell anyone you did so. You may rely on that." Mr. Pellew gave his cigar a half-holiday to say this seriously, and Miss Dickenson felt that his type, though too tailor-made, wasalways to be relied on; you had only to scratch it to find a Gentleman underneath. No audience ever fails to applaud the discovery on the stage. Evidently there was no reserve needed—a relation of the Earl, too! Still, she felt satisfied at this passing recognition of Prudence on her part. Preliminaries had been done justice to.
She proceeded to tell what she knew of the episode of her friend's early engagement to the father of the gentleman who had been shot. It was really a very flat story; so like a thousand others of its sort as scarcely to claim narration-space. Youth, beauty, high spirits, the London season, first love—warranted the genuine article—parental opposition to the union of Romeo and Juliet, on the vulgar, unpoetical ground of Romeo having no particular income and vague expectations; the natural impatience of eighteen and five-and-twenty when they don't get their own way in everything; misunderstandings, ups-and-downs, reconciliations and new misunderstandings; finally one rather more serious than its predecessors, and judicious non-interference of bystanders—underhanded bystanders who were secretly favouring another suitor, who wasn't so handsome and showy as Romeo certainly, but who was of sterling worth and all that sort of thing. Besides, he was very nearly an Earl, and Hamilton Torrens was three-doors off his father's Baronetcy and Pensham Steynes. This may have had its weight with Juliet. Miss Dickenson candidly admitted that she herself would have been influenced; but then, no doubt she was a worldling. Mr. Pellew admired the candour, discerning in it exaggeration to avoid any suspicion of false pretence. He did not suspect himself of any undue leniency to this lady. She was altogether toopasséeto admit of any such idea.
The upshot of the flat episode, of course, was that Philippa "became engaged" to her new suitor, and didnotfall out with him. They were married within the year, and three months later her formerfiancé'sfather died, rather unexpectedly. His eldest son, coming home from Burmah on sick-leave, died on the voyage, of dysentery; and his second brother, a naval officer, was in the autumn of the same year killed by a splinter at the Battle of Navarino. So by a succession of fatalities Romeo found himself the owner of his father's estate, and a not very distant neighbour of Juliet and his successful rival.
It appeared that he had consoled himself by marrying a Miss Abercrombie, Miss Dickenson believed. These Romeos always marry a Miss Something; who, owing to the way she comes into the story, is always on the top-rung of the ladder of insipidity. Nobody cares for her; she appears too late to interest us. Nodoubt there were several Miss Abercrombies on draught, and he selected the tallest or the cleverest or the most musical, avoiding, of course, the dowdiest.
However, there was Lady Ancester's romance, told to account for the languid intercourse between the Castle and Pensham Steynes, and the non-recognition of one another by Gwen and the Man in the Park. Miss Dickenson added a rider to the effect that she could quite understand the position. It would be a matter of mutual tacit consent, tempered down by formal calls enough to allay local gossip. "I think Miss Torrens has stopped," said she collaterally; you know how one speaks collaterally? "Shall we walk towards the house?"
Then the Hon. Percival made a speech he half repented of later;videlicet, when he woke next morning. It became the fulcrum, as it were, of an inexplicable misgiving that Miss Dickenson would be bearing the light worse than ever when he saw her at breakfast. The speech was:—"It's very nice out here. One can hear the Don at Covent Garden. Besides ... one can hear out here just as well." This must have been taken to mean that two could. For the lady's truncated reply was:—"Till you've finished your cigar, then!"
Combustion was lip-close when the cigar-end was thrown away. The reader of this story may be able to understand a thing its writer can only record without understanding—the fact that this gentleman felt grateful to the fine moonlight night, now nearly afait-accompli, for enhancing this lady's white silk, which favoured a pretence that she was only reasonablypassée, and enabled him to reflect upon the contour of her throat without interruption from its skin. For it had a contour by moonlight. Well!—sufficient to the day is the evil thereof; daylight might have its say to-morrow. Consider the clock put back a dozen years!
"Oh yes, he's asleep still, but I've seen him—looked in on my way down. Do you know, I really believe he will be quite fit for the journey to-morrow. He's getting such a much better colour, and last night he seemed so much stronger." Thus the last comer to the morning-rally of breakfast claimants, in its ante-room, awaiting its herald. Miss Irene Torrens is a robust beauty with her brother's eyes. She has been with him constantly since she came with her father three weeks ago, and the two of them watched his every breath through the terrible day and night that followed.
"Then perhaps he will let us see him," says Lady Gwen. "At last!"
"You must not expect too much," says Miss Torrens. She does not like saying it, but facts are overpowering. Her brother has exacted a pledge from her to say nothing, even now, about his blindness—merely to treat him as weak-eyed temporarily. He will pass muster, he says—will squeak through somehow. "I can't have that glorious girl made miserable," were the words he had used to her, half an hour since. This Irene will be all on tenterhooks till the interview is safely over. Meanwhile it is only prudent not to sound too hopeful a note. It is as well to keep a margin in reserve in case the performance should fall through.
Irene's response to her brother's words had been, "She is a glorious girl," and she was on the way to "You should have seen her eyes last night over that Beethoven!" But she broke down on the wordeyes. How else could it have been? Then the blind man had laughed, in the courage of his heart, as big a laugh as his pitiable weakness could sustain, and had made light of his affliction. He had never given way from the first hour of his revival, when he had asked to have the shutters open, and had been told they were already wide open, and the July sun streaming into the room.
It was the Countess who answered Irene's caution, as accompaniment to her morning salute. "We are not to expectanything, my dear. That is quite understood. It would be unreasonable. And we won't stop long and tire him. But this girl of mine will never be happy if he goes away without our—well!—becoming acquainted, I might almost say. Because really we are perfect strangers. And when one has shot a man, even by accident...." Her ladyship did not finish, but went on to hope the eyesight was recovering.
"Oh yes!" said Irene audaciously. "We are quite hopeful about it now. It will be all right with rest and feeding up. Only, if I let you in to see him youwillpromise me, won't you—not to say a word about his eyes? It only frightens him, and does no one any good." Of course, Miss Torrens got her promise. It was an easy one to make, because reference to the eyes only seemed a means towards embarrassment. Much easier to say nothing about them. Gwen and Miss Torrens, veryliéesalready, went out by the garden window to talk, but would keep within hearing because breakfast was imminent.
More guests, and the newspapers; as great an event in the early fifties as now, but with only a fraction of the twentieth century's allowance of news. Old General Rawnsley, guilty of his usual rudeness in capturing theTimesfrom all comers, had tosurrender it to the Hon. Percival because none but a dog-in-the-manger could read a letter from Sir C. Napier of Scinde, and about Dr. Livingstone and Sekeletu and the Leeambye all at the same time. All comers, or several male comers at least, essayed to pinion the successful captor of theTimes, thirsting for information about their own special subjects of interest. No—the Hon. Percival didnotsee anything, so far, about the new Arctic expedition that was to unearth, or dis-ice, theErebusandTerror; but the inquirer, a vague young man, shall have the paper directly. Neither has he come on anything, as yet, about a mutiny in the camp at Chobham. But the paper shall be at the disposal of this inquirer, too, as soon as the eye in possession has been run down to the bottom of this column. In due course both inquirers get hold of corners at the moment of surrender, and then have paroxysms of polite concession which neither means in earnest, during which the bone of contention becomes the prey of a passing wolf. Less poetically, someone else gets hold of the paper and keeps it.
The Hon. Percival really surrendered the paper, not because his interest in Lord Palmerston's speech had flagged, but because he had heard Miss Dickenson come in, and that consideration about her endurance of the daylight weighed upon him. On the whole, she is standing the glare of day better than he expected, and her bodice seems very nicely cut. It may have been an accident that she looked so dowdy yesterday morning. He and she exchange morning greetings, passionlessly but with civility. The lady may be accounting atête-à-têteby moonlight with a gentleman, an hour long, an escapade, and he may be resolving on caution for the future. By-the-by,cana lady have atête-à-têtewith another lady by moonlight? Scarcely!
Mr. Norbury, the butler, always feels the likeness of the breakfast rally to fish in a drop-net. If he acts promptly, he will land his usual congregation. He must look in at the door to see if there is a quorum. A quarum would do. A cujus is a great rarity; though even that happens after late dances, or when influenza is endemic. Mr. Norbury looked in at the rally and recognised its psychological moment. More briefly, he announced that breakfast was ready, while a gong rang up distant sheep astray most convincingly.
Adrian Torrens, too weak still to show alacrity in waking, hears the sound and is convinced. How he would rejoice to join the party below! He knowsthat, in his sleep; and resolves as soonas he can speak to tell Mrs. Bailey the nurse he could perfectly well have got up for breakfast. Yet he knows he is glad to be kept lying down, for all that.
He wakes cherishing his determination to say this to his tyrant, and is conscious of the sun by the warmth, and the unanimity of the birds. He knows, too, that the casement is open, by the sound of voices in the garden below. His sister's voice and another, whose owner's image was the last thing human he had seen, with the eyes that he dared not think had looked their last upon the visible world when the crash came from Heaven-knows-where and shut it out. He could identify it beyond a doubt; could swear to it, now that he had come to understand the real story of his terrible mishap, as the first sound that mixed with his returning life, back from a painless darkness which was a Heaven compared to the torture of his reviving consciousness. It was strange to be told now that at that moment the medical verdict had been given that he was dead. But he could swear to the voice—even to the words! What was it saying now?
"You may rely on me—indeed you may—to say nothing about the eyes. He will be just able to see us, I suppose?"
"He will hardly recognise you. How long was it altogether, do you think?"
"At Arthur's Bridge? Five minutes—perhaps less."
"He took a good look at you?"
"I suppose so. I think he did, as soon as he had got the dog chained. Oh yes—I should say certainly! I fancied he might have seen me before, but it seems not."
"He says not. But you were not out when he went to Konigsberg."
"Oh no—I had quite a long innings after that.... Well!—itdoessound like cricket, doesn't it? Go on."
"Oh—I see what you mean. What a ridiculous girl you are! What was I saying!... Oh, I recollect! That was just after he graduated at Oxford. Then he went to South America with Engelhardt. He really has been very little at home for three years—over three years—past."
"We shall see if he knows me. I won't say anything to guide him." Then he heard his sister's voice reply to the speaker with words she had used before:—"You know you must not expect too much." To which Lady Gwendolen reiterated: "Oh, you may trust me. I shall say nothing to him about it.... Oh, you darling!" This was to Achilles, manifestly. He had become restless at the sound of conversation below, and had been lookinground the door-jamb to see if by any chance a dog could get out. The entry of the nurse a moment since, with a proto-stimulant on a tray, had let him out to tear down the stairs to the garden, rudely thrusting aside the noble owner of the house, out of bounds in a dressing-gown and able to defy Society.
No lack of sight can quench the image in its victim's brain of Achilles' greeting to the owners of the two voices. His sister has her fair share of it—no more!—but her friend gets an accolade of a piece with the one she received that morning by Arthur's Bridge, three weeks since. So his owner's brain-image says, confirmed by sounds from without. He is conscious of the absurdity of building so vivid and substantial a superstructure on so little foundation, and would like to protest against it.
"Good-morning, Nurse. I'm better. What is it?—beef-tea. Earls' cooks make capital beef-tea. On the whole I am in favour of Feudalism. Nothing can be sweeter or neater or completer—or more nourishing—than its beef-tea. Don't put any salt in till I tell you.... Oh no—I'mnot going to spill it!" This is preliminary; the protest follows. "Who's talking to my sister under the window?... that's her voice." Of course, he knew perfectly well all the time.
The nurse listens a moment. "That's her ladyship," says she, meaning the Countess. Gwen's voice is not unlike her mother's, only fuller. "They are just going in to breakfast. The gong went a minute ago."
Now is his time to condemn the tyranny which keeps him in bed in the morning and lying down all day. "Icouldhave got up and gone downstairs, Mrs. Bailey, you know I could."
Mrs. Bailey pointed out that had this scheme been carried out a life would have been sacrificed. She explained to a newcomer, no less a person than the Earl himself, that Mr. Torrens would kill himself in five minutes if she did not keep the eyes of a lynx on him all the blessed day. She is always telling him so without effect, he never being any the wiser, even when she talks her head off. Patients never are, being an unmanageable class at the best. A nurse with her head on ought to be a rarity, according to Mrs. Bailey.
The image of the Earl in the blind man's mind is very little helped by recollection of the few occasions, some years ago, on which he has seen him. It becomes now, after a short daily chat with him each morning since he gained strength for interviews, that of an elderly gentleman with a hesitating manner anxious to accommodate difficulties, soothing an unreasonable race with abenevolent optimism, pouring oil on the troubled waters of local religion and politics, taking no real interest in the vortices into which it has pleased God to drag him, all with one distinct object in view—that of adding to his collections undisturbed. That is the impression he has produced on Mr. Adrian Torrens in a dozen of his visits to his bedside. His lordship has made it a practice to look in at his victim—for that is the way he thinks of him, will he nill he!—as early every day as possible, and as late. He has suffered agonies from constant longings to talk about his Amatis or his Elzevirs or his Petitots, checked at every impulse by the memory of the patient's blindness. He is always beginning to say how he would like to show him this or that, and collapsing. This also is an inference of Mr. Torrens, drawn in the dark, from sudden hesitations and changes of subject.
"How are we this morning, Nurse?" On the mend, it seems, being more refractory than ever; always a good sign with patients. But we must be kept in bed, till midday at any rate, for some days yet. Or weeks or months or years according to the degree of our intractability. The Earl accepts this as common form, and goes to the bedside saying sum-upwardly:—"No worse, at any rate!"
"Tremendously better, Lord Ancester!Tremendouslybetter, thanks to you and Mrs. Bailey.... Catch hold of the cup, Nurse.... Yes, I've drained it to the dregs.... I know what you are going to say, my lord...."
"I was going to say that Mrs. Bailey and I are not on the same footing. Mrs. Bailey didn't shoot you.... Yes, now grip hard! That's right! Better since yesterday certainly—no doubt of it!"
"Mrs. Bailey didn't shoot me in the mere vulgar literal sense. But she was contributory, if not an accessory after the fact. It was written in the Book of Fate that Mrs. Bailey would bring me beef-tea this very day. If she had accepted another engagement the incident would have had to be rewritten; which is impossible by hypothesis. Moreover, so far as I can be said to have been shot, it was as a trespasser, not as a man.... Is there a close season for trespassers? If there is, I admit that you may be technically right.Qui facit per alium facit per se.... By-the-by, I hope poor Alius is happier in his mind...."
"Poor who?" says the Earl. He is not giving close attention to the convalescent's disconnected chatter. He has been one himself, and knows how returning life sets loose the tongue.
"Thealiusyou facitted per. The poor chap that had the badluck to shoot me. Old Stephen—isn't he? Poor old chap!Whata mischance!"
"Oh yes—old Stephen! I see—he'salius, of course. He comes over two or three times a day to see how you are going on. They think him rather a nuisance in the house, I believe. I have tried to comfort him as well as I could. He will be glad of to-day's report. But he can't help being dispirited, naturally."
"He's so unaccustomed to homicide, poor old chap! People should be educated to it, in case of accidents. They might be allowed to kill a few women and children for practice—should never be left to the mercy of their consciences, all raw and susceptible. Poor old Stephen! I really think he might be allowed to come and see me now. I'm so very much improved that a visit from my assassin would be a pleasant experience—a wholesome stimulus. Wouldn't throw me back at all! Poor old Stephen!" He seemed seriously concerned about the old boy; would not be content without a promise that he and his wife should pay him an early visit.
He had been immensely better after that M.P. paid him a visit yesterday morning. Mrs. Bailey confirmed this, testifying to the difficulty with which the patient had been persuaded to remain in bed. But she had the whip-hand of him there, because he couldn't find his clothes without her help. This gives the Earl an idea of the condition of the patient's eyesight beyond his previous concept of its infirmities. He has been misled by its apparent soundness—for no one would have guessed the truth from outward seeming—and the nurse's accident of speech rouses his curiosity.
"Ah, by-the-by," he says, "I was just going to ask." Which is not strictly true, but apology to himself for his own neglect, "Howarethe eyes?"
"Oh, the eyes are right enough," says the patient. He goes on to explain that they are no inconvenience whatever so long as he keeps them shut. It is only when he opens them that he notices their defect; which is, briefly, that he can't see with them. His lordship seems to feel that eyes so conditioned are hardly satisfactory. It is really new knowledge to him, and he accepts it restlessly. He spreads his fingers out before the deceptive orbs that look so clear, showing indeed no defect but a kind of uncertainty; or rather perhaps a too great stillness as though always content with the object in front of them. "What do you see now?" he asks in a nervous voice.
"Something dark between me and the light."
"Is that all? Can't you see what it is?"
"A book." A mere guess based on the known predilections of the questioner.
"Oh dear!" says the Earl. "It was my hand." He sees that the nurse is signalling with headshakes and soundless lip-words, but has not presence of mind to catch her meaning.
The other seems to feel his speech apologetically, as though it were his own fault. "I see better later in the day," he says. Which may be true or not.
The nurse's signalling tells, and the questioner runs into an opposite extreme. "One is like that in the morning sometimes," says he absurdly, but meaning well. He is not an Earl who would be of much use in a hospital for the treatment of nervous disorders. However, having grasped the situation he shows tact, changing the conversation to the heat of the weather and the probable earliness of the crops. No one should evershowtact. He will only be caughtflagrante delicto. Mr. Torrens is perfectly well aware of what is occurring; and, when he lies still and unresponsive with his eyes closed, is not really resting after exertion, which is the nurse's interpretation of the action, but trying to think out something he wants to say to the Earl, and how to say it. It is not so easy as light jesting.
The nurse telegraphs silently lipwise that the patient will doze now for a quarter of an hour till breakfast; and the visitor, alive to the call of discretion, has gone out gently before the patient knows he has left the bedside.
Things that creak watch their opportunity whenever they hear silence. So the Earl's gentle exit ends in a musical and penetratingarpeggioof a door-hinge, equal to the betrayal of Masonic secrecy if delivered at the right moment. "Is Mrs. Bailey gone?" says the patient, ascribing the wrong cause to it.
"His lordship has gone, Mr. Torrens. He thought you were dropping off."
"Stop him—stop him! Say I have something particular to say. Do stop him!" It must be something very particular, Nurse thinks. But in any case the patient's demand would have to be complied with. So the Earl is recaptured and brought back.
"Is it anything I can do for you, Mr. Torrens? I am quite at your service."
"Yes—something of importance to me. Is Mrs. Bailey there?"
"She is just going." She had not intended to do so. But this was a hint clearly. It was accepted.
"All clear!" says the Earl. "And the door closed."
"My sister has promised to ask the Countess and your daughter—Lady Gwen, is it not?"
"That is my daughter's name, Gwendolen. 'Has promised to ask them' ... what?"
"To give me an opportunity before I go of thanking them both for all the great kindness they have shown me, and of apologizing for my wish to defer the interview."
"Yes—but why me?... I mean that that is all quite in order, but how do I come in?" As the speaker's voice smiles as well as his face, his hearer's blindness does not matter.
"Only this way. You know the doctors say my eyesight is not incurable—probably will come all to rights of itself...."
"Yes—and then?"
"I want them—her ladyship and...."
"My wife and daughter. I understand."
"... I want them to know as little about it as possible; to knownothingabout itifpossible. You knew very little about it yourself till just now."
"I was misled—kindly, I know—but misled for all that. And the appearance is so extraordinary. Nobody could guess...."
"Exactly. Because the eyes are really unaffected and are sure to come right. See now what I am asking you to do for me. Help me to deceive them about it. They will not test my eyesight as you did just now...."
"How do you know that?"
"Because I heard Irene and your daughter talking in the garden a few minutes ago—just after the breakfast-bell rang—talking about me, and I eavesdropped as hard as I could. Lady Gwendolen has promised Irene to say nothing about my eyesight for my sake. She will keep her promise...."
"How do you know that?"
"By the sound of her voice."
"She is only a human girl."
"I am convinced that she will keep it; though, I grant you, circumstances are against her. And neither she nor her mother will try to find out, if they believe I see them dimly. That is whereyoucome in. Only make them believe that. Don't let them suppose I am all in the dark. Say nothing of your crucial experiment just now. Irene—dear girl—has been a good sister to me, and has told many good round lies for my sake. But she will explain to God. I cannot ask you, Lord Ancester, to tell stories on my behalf. My petition is only for a modest prevarication—the cultivation of a reasonable misapprehension to attain a justifiableend. Consider the position analogous to that of one of Her Majesty's Ministers catechized by an impertinent demagogue. No fibs, you know—only what a truthful person tells instead of a fib! For my sake!"
"I am not thinking of my character for veracity," says the Earl thoughtfully. "You should be welcome to a sacrifice of that under the circumstances. I was thinking what form of false representation would be most likely to gain the end, and safest. Do you know, I am inclined to favour the policy of saying as little as possible? My dear wife is in the habit of imputing to me a certain slowness and defective observation of surrounding event. It is a common wifely attitude. You need not fear my being asked any questions. In any case, I fully understand your wishes, and you may rely on my doing my best. Here is your breakfast coming. I hope you will not be knocked up with all this talk."
BLIND MEN CAN'T SMOKE. CAN'T THEY? HOW THE COUNTESS AND HER DAUGHTER AT LAST INTERVIEWED THEIR GUEST. HIS SUBTLE ARRANGEMENTS FOR SEEMING TO SEE THEM. A BLUNDER OVER A HANDSHAKE, AND ALL THE FAT IN THE FIRE, NEARLY! AN ELECTRIC SHOCK. THE EXCELLENCE OF ACHILLES' HEART. HOW MR. TORRENS SPOILED IT ALL! BLUE NANKIN IS NOT CROWN DERBY. GWEN'S GREAT SCHEME. HOW SHE CARRIED IT OUT
BLIND MEN CAN'T SMOKE. CAN'T THEY? HOW THE COUNTESS AND HER DAUGHTER AT LAST INTERVIEWED THEIR GUEST. HIS SUBTLE ARRANGEMENTS FOR SEEMING TO SEE THEM. A BLUNDER OVER A HANDSHAKE, AND ALL THE FAT IN THE FIRE, NEARLY! AN ELECTRIC SHOCK. THE EXCELLENCE OF ACHILLES' HEART. HOW MR. TORRENS SPOILED IT ALL! BLUE NANKIN IS NOT CROWN DERBY. GWEN'S GREAT SCHEME. HOW SHE CARRIED IT OUT
The morning passed, with intermittent visitors, one at a time. Each one, coming away from the bedside, confirmed the report of his predecessor as to the visible improvement of the convalescent. Each one in turn, when questioned about the eyesight, gave a sanguine report—an echo of the patient's own confidence, real or affected, in its ultimate restoration. He would be all right again in a week or so.
Underhand ways were resorted to of cheating despair and getting at the pocket of Hope. Said one gentleman to the Earl—who was keeping his counsel religiously—"He can't read small print." Whereto the Earl replied—"Not yet awhile, but one could hardly expect that"; and felt that he was carrying out his promise with a minimum of falsehood. Yet his conscience wavered, because an eyesight may be unable to read small print, and yet unable to read large print, or any print at all. Perhaps he had better haveleft the first broad indisputable truth to impose on its hearer unassisted.
Another visitor scored a success on behalf of Optimism by reporting that the patient had smoked a cigar in defiance of medical prohibitions. "Can't be much wrong with his eyes," said this one, "if he can smoke. You shut your eyes, and try!" Put to the proof, this dictum received more confirmation than it deserved, solely to secure an audience for the flattering tales of Hope.
Much of the afternoon passed too, but without visitors. Because it would never do, said Irene, for her brother not to be at his best when Gwen and her mother came to pay their visit, resolved on this morning, at what was usually the best moment of his day—about five o'clock. Besides, he was to be got up and really dressed—not merely huddled into clothes—and this was a fatiguing operation, never carried out in dire earnest before. Doctor and Nurse had assented, on condition that Mr. Torrens should be content to remain in his room, and not insist on going downstairs. Where was the use of his doing so, with such a journey before him to-morrow? Better surely to husband the last grain of strength—the last inch-milligramme of power—for an eighteen-mile ride, even with all the tonics in the world to back it! Mr. Torrens consented to this reservation, and promised not to be rebellious.
So—in time—the hour was at hand when he would see.... No!—notsee—there was the sting of it!... that girl he had spoken with at Arthur's Bridge. The vision of her in the sunset was upon him still. He had pleaded with his sister that, come what might, she should not come to him in his darkness, in the hope that this darkness might pass away and leave her image open to him as before. For this hope had mixed itself with that strong desire of his heart that his own disaster should weigh upon her as little as possible. He had kept this meeting back almost till the eleventh hour, hoping against hope that light would break; longing each day for a gleam of the dawn that was to give him his life once more, and make the whole sad story a matter of the past. And now the time had come; and here he stood awaiting the ordeal he had to pass successfully, or face his failure as he might.
If he could but rig up an hour's colourable pretext of vision, however imperfect, the reality might return in its own good time—if that was the will of Allah—and that time might be soon enough. She might never know the terrible anticipations his underthought had had to fight against.
"You look better in the blue Mandarin silk than you would in your tailor's abominations," said Irene, referring to a dressing-gown costume she had insisted on. "Only your hair wants cutting, dear boy! I won't deceive you."
"That's serious!" He lets it pass nevertheless. "Look here, 'Rene, I want you to tell me.... Where are you?—oh, here!—all right.... Now tell me—should you say I saw you, by the look of my eyes?"
"Indeed I should. Indeed, indeed,nobodycould tell. Your eyes look as strong as—as that hooky bird's that sits in the sun at the Zoölogical and nictitates ... isn't that the word?... Goes twicky-twick with a membrane...."
"Fish eagle, I expect."
"Shouldn't wonder! Only, look here!... You mustn't claw hold of Gwen like that. How can you tell, without?"
"Where they are, do you mean? Oh, I know by the voice. You go somewhere else and speak." Whereupon Irene goes furtively behind him, and says suddenly:—"Now look at me!" It is a success, for the blind man faces round, looking full at her.
She claps her hands. "Oh, Adrian!" she cries, "are you sure you don't see—aren't you cheating?" A memory, in this, of old games of blindman's-buff. "You always did cheat, darling, you know, when we played on Christmas Eve. How do I know I can trust you?" She goes close to him again caressing his face. "Oh,dosay, dear boy, you can see a little!" But it is no use. He can say nothing.
There are a few moments of distressing silence, and then the brother says:—"Never mind, dear! It will be all right. They say so. Take me to the window that I may look out!" They stand together at the open casement, listening to the voices of the birds. The shrewdest observer might fail to detect the flaw in those two full clear eyes that seem to look out at the leagues of park-land, the spotted deer in the distance, the long avenue-road soon indistinguishable in the trees. The sister sees those eyes, no other than she has always known them, but knows that they see nothing.
"When I was here first," says the brother, "the thrushes were still singing. They are off duty by now, the very last of them." He stops listening. "That's a yellow-hammer. And that's a linnet.Youcan't tell one from the other."
"I know. I'm shockingly ignorant.... What, dear? What is it you want?" Her brother has been exploring the window-framewith a restless hand, as though in search of some latch or blind-cord. He cannot find what he wants.
"I want to come to a clearness about the position of this blessed window," he says. "Which direction is the bed in now? Well—describe it this way, suppose! Say I'm looking north now, with my shoulder against the window. Where's the bed? South-west—south-east—due south?"
"South-west by south. Perhaps that's not nautical, but you know what I mean."
"All right! Now, look here! As I stand here—looking out slantwise—where's the sunset? I mean, where would it be?—where does it mean to be?"
"You would be looking straight at it. Of course, you are not really looking north.... There—now you are!" She had taken her hands from the shoulder they were folded on and turned his head to the right. "But, I say, Adrian dear!..." She hesitates.
"What, for instance?"
"Don't try to humbug too much. Don't try to do it, darling boy. You'll only make a hash of it."
"All right, goosey-woosey! I'll fry my own fish. Don't you be uneasy!" And then they talk of other things: the journey home to-morrow, and how it shall be as good as lying in bed to Adrian, in the big carriage with an infinity of cushions; the new friends they have made here at the Towers, with something of wonderment that this chance has been so long postponed; the kindness they have had from them, and the ill-requital Adrian made for it yesterday by breaking that beautiful blue china tea-cup—any trifle that comes foremost—anything but the great grief that underlies the whole.
For Irene would have her brother at his best, that the visit to him of her new-made friend Gwen may go off well, and steer clear of the ambushes that beset it. Better that that visit should never come off, than that her friend should be left to share their fears for the future. Each is hiding from the other a weakening confidence in the renewal of suspended eyesight, weaker at the outset than either had been prepared to admit to the other.
"Look here, 'Rene," says Adrian, an hour later, during which his sister has read aloud to him, lying by the open window. "Never mind Becky Sharp; she'll keep till the evening. Can we see Arthur's Bridge from this window, where I saw your friend Lady Gwen? It was Arthur's, wasn't it? What Arthur? King Arthur?"
"Yes, if you like. Only don't go and call it Asses' Bridge, asyou did the other day—not when the family's here. It sounds disrespectful."
"Not a bit. It only looks as if Euclid had been round. But answer my question.... Oh, wecansee it! Very well, then; show me which way it lies. Is it visible—the actual bridge itself, I mean—not the place it's in?"
Irene got up and looked out of the window from behind her brother's chair. "Yes," she said. "One sees the stone arch plain. How can I show you?" She took his head in her hands again to guide it to a true line of sight.
"Between us and the sunset?"
"Thereabouts. Rather on the left."
"Very good. Now we can go on with Becky Sharp."
"That's it, my lord, is it? Where was I?—oh, Sir Pitt Crawley...." And then the reading was continued, till tea portended, and Irene went away to capture her visitors.
All the sting of his darkness came upon him in its fulness as he heard that voice on the stairs. Oh, could he but see her for one moment—only one moment—to be sure that that dazzling image of three weeks since was not a mere imagination! He knew well the enchantment of the rainbow gleam on sea and earth and sky—the glory that makes Aladdin's palace of the merest hovel. He could scarcely have said to a nicety why a self-deception on this score seemed to him fraught with such evil. If it was a terror on Gwen's behalf, that a false image cherished through a period of reviving eyesight should in the end prove an injustice to her, and cast a chill over his own passionate admiration—for it was that at least that a chance of five minutes had enthralled him with—he banished that terror artificially from his mind. What could it matter toher, if hewastaken aback and disappointed at her not turning out what his excited fancy had made her that evening at Arthur's Bridge? What was he toherthat any chance man might not have been, after so scanty an interchange of words?
That was his dominant feeling, or underlying it, as her voice neared the door of his room, saying:—"Fancy your carrying him away without our seeing him—so much as thinking of it! I call you a wicked, unprincipled sister." To which another voice, a maternal sort of voice, said what must have been: "Don't speak so loud!"—or its equivalent. For the girl's voice dropped, her last words being:—"Hewon't hear, at this distance."
Then, she was actually coming in at the door! He could hear the prodigious skirt-rustle that is now a thing of womanhood'spast—though we adored every comely example, mind you, we oldsters in those days, for all that she carried a milliner's shop on her back—and as it climaxed towards entry had to remember by force how slight indeed had been his interchange of words with the visitor he wished to see—to see by hearing, and to touch the hand of twice. For he had counted his coming privileges in his heart already, even if his reason had made light of its arithmetic. He would be on the safe side now—so he said to himself—and think of the elder lady as the player of the leadingrôle. No disparagement to her subordinate; the merest deference to convention!
There was no mishap about the first meeting; only a narrow escape of one. The man in the dark reckoned it safest to extend his hand and leave it, to await the first claimant. He took for granted this would be the mother, and as his hand closed on a lady's, not small enough to call his assumption in question, said half interrogatively:—"Lady Ancester?"
"That's Gwen," said his sister's voice. And at the word an electric shock of a sort passed up his arm, the hand that still held his showing no marked alacrity to release it.
"Yes, this isme," says the voice of its owner, "that'smamma."
Lady Ancester, standing close to her, meets his outstretched hand and shakes it cordially. Then follows pleasantry about mistaking the mother for the daughter, with assumption of imperfect or dim vision only to account for it, and a declaration from Adrian that he had been cautioned not to confuse the one with the other. Thereisa likeness, as a matter of fact, and Irene has talked to him of it. The whole thing is slighter than the telling of it.
Then the three ladies and the one man have grouped—composed themselves—for reasonable chat. He is in his invalid chair by special edict, at the window, and the two visitors face him half-flanking it. His sister leans over him behind on the chair-back. She has kept very close to him, guiding him under pretence that he wants support, which is scarcely the case now, so rapid has been his progress in this last week. She is very anxious lest her brother should venture too rashly on fictitious proofs of eyesight that does not exist. But it can all be put down to uneasiness about his strength.
The platitudes of mere chat ensue, the Countess being prolocutrix. But she can be sincerely earnest in speaking of her own concern about the accident, and her family's. Also to the full about the rejoicing of everyone when it was "certain that all wouldturn out well." She has been bound over to say nothing about the eyesight, and keeps pledges; almost too transparently, perhaps. A word or two about it as a thing of temporary abeyance might have been more plausible.
Gwen has become very silent since that first warmth of her greeting. She is leaving the conversation to her mother, which puzzles Irene, who had framed a different picture of the interview, and is disappointed so far. Achilles, the dog, too, may be disappointed—may be feeling that something more demonstrative is due to the position. Irene imputes this view to him, inferring it from his restless appeals to Gwen, as he leans against her skirts, throwing back a pathetic gaze of remonstrance for something too complex for his powers of language. Her comment:—"He is always like that,"—seems to convey an image of his whereabouts to his master, confirmed perhaps by expressive dog-substitutes for speech.