Chapter Twenty Nine.
Colonel Grey led Mrs Lawless into a room on the right of the hall and rang the bell. He ordered wine, which he insisted on his companion drinking. He also requested that two bedrooms should be in readiness and a meal prepared. The ordinary affairs of life could not be neglected even if the issues at stake were distressingly serious. The Colonel was feeling more settled in mind since he was in possession of the facts. There was no immediate cause for alarm, he decided; and sought to hearten Mrs Lawless with his sanguine views. But though she appeared to listen she was too obviously nervous to attend to what he said. She sipped her wine, sitting by the fluttering curtains near the open window, looking out at the sunshine.
“Perhaps I ought not to have come,” she said once, and appeared while looking at nothing in particular to be watching the road with grave intentness. “I don’t think he’ll consent to see me.”
She was remembering how recently he had said to her that if she sent for him again he would not come. She had not sent, but her presence there amounted to the same thing.
And then after a while the door opened and he came in. The Colonel uttered a sudden exclamation.
“My dear fellow!” he cried in astonishment, his manner charged with grave solicitude. “My dear fellow! Is this wise?”
Mrs Lawless sprang up from her chair, but he put out a hand and motioned her back, and with her startled eyes on his leaden face, she sank down again without speaking. Lawless took a seat.
“I don’t know how you came to hear of this,” he said. “I didn’t intend it should get about. They’re making more of it than they need. In a few days I should have been back in Cape Town.”
He looked inquiringly at the Colonel.
“You’ve seen Hayhurst, I suppose?”
“Yes. He delivered the letters safely.” He sat forward and stared at the ghastly suffering face. “He gave me a fairly graphic history of their recovery. The whole circumstances were a huge surprise,—huge. It was a masterly undertaking. The service you have rendered is incalculable. When the time comes we shall know how to thank you more adequately, in the meanwhile you have our very earnest gratitude; and I can only express my sincere regret that the result should be so disastrous for you.”
Colonel Grey advanced his hand. To his surprise Lawless refused to take it.
“Disastrous! Yes,” he answered. “Letters that are of a nature to lend themselves to blackmailing purposes are not worth the risk of a man’s life—and character. I suppose you might argue that I’ve boasted I hold life cheaply, and you doubtless consider I have no character to lose. Confess now,” he added, in response to the other’s hastily uttered protest, “that until those letters were safe in your hands you entertained a suspicion that I might misuse them?”
The Colonel sought for words and sought vainly. He was far too ruggedly honest to deny the charge. After a moment or two of silence he tacitly admitted it.
“Most men are liable to mistakes,” he said. “And... I suppose I was prejudiced.”
The man lying back in the easy-chair smiled drily.
“I am so unfortunate as to prejudice most people unfavourably. A profligate adventurer can scarcely expect to do otherwise.”
An almost inaudible sound broke from Zoë Lawless’ lips. He did not look at her but continued in the same bitter strain to the pain and embarrassment of both his hearers.
“For every offence of which I’ve been guilty I’ve had to pay to the uttermost farthing. On appearance I’ve been convicted of sins I haven’t committed. It’s the luck, I suppose, of the man who is marked for failure from the beginning of things.”
“I can understand,” Colonel Grey said, making ready allowance for his mood, “your resentment of certain injuries. I offer you my frank apologies for the very unworthy suspicions I have entertained. But if I have harboured doubts of you, I have also had moments when I have felt that those doubts were unjustified. I assert, in spite of your morbid imagining, that you more readily inspire confidence than distrust.”
“Then how comes it that I failed in inspiring you with confidence?”
“It was probably,” Colonel Grey began, and stopped, looking with some pity at the haggard face. “Really, my dear fellow,” he said, “is it wise to continue this painful subject?”
“Why not?” The man in the chair sat straighter and pulled himself together with an effort. “I’ve a fancy somehow,” he said, “for having the matter out... You’ve had a down on me ever since you knew I fought against my own side in the Boer war. It’s natural, of course—most people would feel as you do about it. And yet I don’t regret it—even now.”
“That’s an old story,” the Colonel said. “Why revive it?”
“I’ve a feeling I should like to speak of it. I’ve never explained my motive—no one would understand, or sympathise with it, if I did. In your place, reversing the circumstances, I should feel as you do about it. But when a man has been kicked out of the Service for cowardice, there’s something he owes to himself as well as to his country. I had to prove my nature for my own satisfaction. If they’d given me a chance in the ranks I shouldn’t have fought for the Boers. But I had to face the bullets again... I had to disprove for my personal satisfaction that quality of unaccountable fear that forced me to retreat in a dangerous and important crisis. God knows what sudden and uncontrolled impulse governed me on that occasion! ... I experienced that same cold terror once again when, unarmed, I faced one of my own Tommies with a fixed bayonet in his hand. I can feel the horror of that terror now—the mad and well-nigh uncontrollable impulse to turn my back and run. But the motive that had led me to join the fighting proved stronger than my fear. I went for him with my hands; and the horror left me, as a nightmare terror leaves a sleeper when he wakes... That is the history of this scar on my face.”
He paused, pressed his hand to his brow as if weary, and then resumed with a sort of dogged determination to justify himself,—to make these two people, who both in their hearts he knew condemned utterly what he had felt to be a legitimate means of correcting a base tendency before it became confirmed in him as an incorrigible fault, understand in a sense,—see and feel with him. It mattered to him so tremendously, the opinion of these two silent listeners, the one who sat with crossed knees, watching him intently, the other with her troubled eyes downcast, looking upon the ground. And both, he felt, judging him,—condemning him.
“You’ll think it at one with the rest, no doubt,” he said; “but I don’t regret the thing I did which all Englishmen abhor. I know now that I can face death without flinching. I conquered fear. The knowledge gives me all the satisfaction necessary to qualify the odium of the term traitor. It’s not the right way to look at the matter, perhaps; but that’s how it is.”
“It’s not the right spirit—no?” The Colonel spoke gruffly. “No man is justified in sacrificing honour and duty to his own ends. I recognise that your object was not altogether unworthy. But as a soldier you had no choice.”
Mrs Lawless looked up in silent appeal at the speaker. Then abruptly she rose and stood with her back to the room, facing the window. Lawless rose also. His face was grey, and the skin seemed to have tightened over the bones as it does after a sharp or a long illness. Colonel Grey had seen men look as he did who had fallen on the field; he had seen them too, lots of them, in hospital.
Lawless put out a hand gropingly. He was tired. He had better get back to bed. It was all finished. He had not succeeded in convincing them. They saw things from a different level; they couldn’t get down to him.
“I daresay you’re right,” he said uncertainly. “Anyway, it hardly seems to matter. I’m derelict... and done for.”
Mrs Lawless turned quickly. He did not see the swift rush of pity that suffused her face, the tears that streamed from her eyes. He was not conscious that she sprang towards him, that it was her arm about him that saved him from falling when, having used up his last reserve of strength in attempting to gain the door, he stumbled over a mat in his progress, and fell forward a collapsed and pitiful object, with drawn and shrunken features, and pallid lips.
The Colonel was at her side in an instant.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “He’s only fainted. We’d better get him back to bed. He ought never to have left it... The folly of it!”
“I ought to have come,” she whispered, sobbing. “You see—I did no good... The sight of me distressed him. I might have guessed...”
She knelt on the floor beside him and pillowed his head on her knee. It gave her infinite pleasure merely to hold him in her arms against the bosom that had hungered for him so long. But oh! the pity of it! to see him reduced, this strong man, to a mere helpless wreck. She drew him closer to her and her tears fell on his face.
“I believe he’s dying,” she murmured... “And he’ll never know how greatly I loved him... Why do we keep these things to ourselves till too late?”
The Colonel rang for assistance. To his infinite relief it was the schoolmaster who came to the door when it opened. In his assumption of authority Mr Burton seemed a tower of strength. He took in the situation at a glance, and, unaccountably, appeared not in the least surprised. He assumed prompt and resolute command. Between them he and the Colonel got the patient back to his room and into bed. Mr Burton, anticipating something of the sort when Lawless insisted on dressing, had sent for the doctor, and the medical man arrived very shortly, and standing at the bedside looked with grave dissatisfaction at his patient.
“What’s the meaning of this?” he asked concisely.
And Mr Burton explained.
While they conferred and acted in the sick-room, Mrs Lawless remained outside the door, listening for any sound from within, her face tense with anxiety, and her eyes tormented. After a while the door opened and the Colonel came forth, and seeing her there took her by the arm and led her back to the sitting-room.
“They’ll be some time in there,” he said. “You can’t stand about waiting. You shall see him before he leaves.”
“Was he better?” she asked, not heeding him.
“He’d come round—Yes.”
She sat down at a small table, and stretched her arms upon it, and looked at him miserably.
“I have felt all along,” she said, “that that would be the end. It’s his life, Colonel Grey, that he’s given—for a packet of letters. A packet of letters! ... Oh! dear God!” she cried, and dropped her face on her arms and broke down again and wept.
“And what is his reward?” she flashed suddenly, looking up at him through her tears. “He came to you,—to you—I don’t know why, unless it’s because you are a soldier and he felt that as a soldier you judged him—full of a human appeal, and you crushed ruthlessly the glimmering hope he cherished of justifying himself... I saw the hope slain in his eyes, heard it die out of his voice. It was the cruellest thing you could have done. You knew, being a soldier, what your judgment meant.”
Colonel Grey flushed quickly. He stood before her awkward, hesitating,—accused, judged, condemned, and powerless to defend himself. It was the very devil to be censured with quiet vehemence by a beautiful weeping woman, and be unable to retort. He felt that in a measure he deserved her censure. His conscience was not entirely free from reproach. He had realised the direct appeal in Lawless’ attempt at self-justification, had recognised, as he had grudgingly admitted, extenuating circumstances, but if the man had been dying before him he doubted that he could have concealed his disapproval of conduct that no soldier could possibly defend. He sympathised with the man; in many ways he admired him; but the crime of treachery must ever remain a crime in his eyes. It was inexcusable, unjustifiable.
“I think, Mrs Lawless, that your husband, having been a soldier himself, will understand what you, perhaps, cannot,” he said. “I’m glad he explained as he did; it gave one an insight into the motives that can move a man to commit unworthy and seemingly inexplicable acts. I have both liking and respect for him apart from that grave offence, which I cannot in sincerity condone, though I appreciate his reason as he gave it. He is a brave man guilty of a serious mistake.”
“Ah! if we all had to pay so dearly for our mistakes!” she said, and brushed away the tears impatiently as they flowed freely over her cheeks. “But I don’t know why I reproach you. I felt once as you feel about it—and I let him see it. That was the beginning of our estrangement. I see things differently now. I see points of honour differently. Human beings can’t be classed and judged by a code. It is necessary to make distinctions. The individual has direct and special claims which you men drilled in a system don’t understand.”
“The judgment of human affairs is beyond human comprehension,” Colonel Grey said quietly.
“That is one way of evading responsibility,” she replied. “But we women understand these things—the mothers of the race. Even the childless woman is a mother, for the maternal instinct is the birthright of her sex. We mothers realise the needs of the children. Hugh was my child, and I allowed the mother-instinct to be swamped in the pride of the wife. I adopted the Army system, and judged him by your standard. I wasn’t true to my sex... And so we drifted apart... But he never attempted to justify himself to me. I wonder whether, if he had, I should have understood.”
He walked across to the window and stood there looking out. He felt distressed and troubled and extremely sorry for this woman in her anxiety with her burden of self-reproach.
“It is so hard,” the sorrowful voice went on tearfully, “to be facing this with the memory of all the years that have been wasted. If I had stood by him in his dark hour...”
Further utterance was stopped by the rush of tears that choked her. She dropped her head on her arms again, and for a while the only audible sounds were those made by her bitter weeping.
It was a distinct relief to Colonel Grey when the door opened to admit the doctor. He entered abruptly, closing the door behind him, an undersized, delicate-looking man, with an unattractive manner at variance with a pair of sympathetic eyes. The sympathetic eyes took in the scene rapidly. They were accustomed to scenes, and the sight of a woman’s tears failed to embarrass him. He took a chair, drew it up to the table opposite Zoë Lawless, and regarded her attentively as he sat down. She had raised her face at his entrance, and was vainly endeavouring to dry her tears.
“Don’t mind me,” he said bluntly. “Crying is often a relief. Let it come. You are Mr Lawless’ wife, I understand?”
She nodded, not trusting her voice, and looked at him appealingly. What was he going to tell her, this man in whose power it lay to pass sentence of death, or hold out hope of life?
“I understand further that you have had an interview with him which seems to have considerably excited him?”
“I have seen him... Yes,” she faltered, her eyes filling anew. She stretched out a hand to him impulsively. “Tell me how he is,” she entreated. “Is he going to die?”
“I hope not,” he answered, but neither the words nor his manner of uttering them greatly reassured her. “He is very ill. You saw that.”
She nodded again.
“He’ll be worse before he’s better. We have to send for trained nurses. The care he is having at present is inadequate.”
“I’ll nurse him,” she cried eagerly, jealously. “Oh! let me nurse him. It is something that I can do.”
He looked at her strangely. For a second he hesitated, then he said, very slowly and deliberately, with his grave eyes on her face:
“I’m going to be very unkind; but I’m sure you’ll recognise the necessity for my veto when you consider how unfortunate in effect your presence has already been. You must not think of nursing your husband, Mrs Lawless. You must not, unless he asks for you, enter the room. Sick people have strange fancies,” he added in pity for her wrung and suffering face. “It is often necessary to make these unnatural restrictions.”
She stared at him with an unspeakable anguish in her eyes.
“They’ll call me,” she said, “if—They won’t let him die without allowing me to see him?”
“Oh dear! no,” he answered quickly. “Of course not—no!”
He rose and held out a sympathetic hand.
“We won’t talk of dying yet awhile. He’s got a splendid constitution. He ought to pull through. But we won’t risk any further excitement. Except for Mr Burton and the nurses, I don’t wish anyone to go into his room. Fresh faces set the mind working, and we must keep him tranquil and composed.”
“A very unpleasant duty,” he remarked to the Colonel, who accompanied him outside. “I am sorry for the wife; she takes it badly. But in cases of sickness it is the patient we have to consider.”
“How’s it going with him?” the Colonel asked bluntly.
“At this stage, impossible to say. It will be touch and go. But as I dislike losing my patients, I never admit the go until the hammer falls.”
The Colonel looked after him as he walked away in the sunshine, feeling oddly discouraged, and very disinclined to re-enter the sitting-room. When, bracing himself to face it, he turned the door-handle and went in, he found that Mrs Lawless had dried her eyes, and was sitting very quiet and entirely composed, looking out of the window.