IV
It was successful—brilliantly successful—the operation. Lizzie made it so; at any rate she helped considerably. It was she who held his hand as he went under the anæsthetic; it was she who cheered him up in the morning, when he awoke dazed and frightened in a strange room. And then she slipped away and disappeared from the house. It was only later that Lethbridge found a scrawled pencil note, strangely smudged, on his desk:
“Let me no wot appens.—Lizzie.”
He didn’t know her address, so he couldn’t write and tell her that her Bill had come to consciousness again, completely recovered except for one thing. There was another blank in his mind now—the last three years. One of his first questions had been to ask how the fight had gone, and whether we’d broken through properly.
And then for a day or two Lizzie was forgotten; he had to make his own renunciation.
Molly came, a little surprised at his unusual invitation, and he left the door open so that she could see Peter in bed from one part of his sitting-room.
“Where have you buried yourself, Jimmy?” she cried. “I’ve been——” And then her face grew deathly white as she looked into the bedroom. Her lips moved, though no sound came from them; her hands were clenching and unclenching.
“But I’m mad,” he heard her whisper at length, “quite mad. I’m seeing things, Jimmy—seeing things. Why—dear God! it’s Peter!”
She took a step or two forward, and Peter saw her.
“Molly,” he cried weakly, “Molly, my darling——”
And Jimmy Lethbridge saw her walk forward slowly and uncertainly to the man who had come back. With a shaking little cry of pure joy she fell on her knees beside the bed, and Peter put a trembling hand on her hair. Then Jimmy shut the door, and stared blankly in front of him.
It was Lizzie who roused him—Lizzie coming shyly into the room from the hall.
“I seed her come in,” she whispered. “She looked orl right. ’Ow is ’e?”
“He’s got his memory back, Lizzie,” he said gently. “But he’s forgotten the last three years.”
“Forgotten me, as ’e?” Her lips quivered.
“Yes, Lizzie. Forgotten everything—barrel-organ and all. He thinks he’s on sick leave from the war.”
“And she’s wiv ’im now, is she?”
“Yes—she’s with him, Lizzie.”
She took a deep breath—then she walked to the glass and arranged her hat—a dreadful hat with feathers in it.
“Well, I reckons I’d better be going. I don’t want to see ’im. It would break me ’eart. And I said good-bye to ’im that last night before the operation. So long, mister. I’ve ’ad me year—she can’t tike that away from me.”
And then she was gone. He watched her from the window walking along the pavement, with the feathers nodding at every step. Once she stopped and looked back—and the feathers seemed to wilt and die. Then she went on again—and this time she didn’t stop. She’d “ ’ad ’er year,” had Lizzie; maybe the remembrance of it helped her gallant little soul when she returned the barrel-organ—the useless barrel-organ.
“So this was your present, Jimmy.” Molly was speaking just behind him, and her eyes were very bright.
“Yes, Molly,” he smiled. “Do you like it?”
“I don’t understand what’s happened,” she said slowly. “I don’t understand anything except the one big fact that Peter has come back.”
“Isn’t that enough?” he asked gently. “Isn’t that enough, my dear? Peter’s come back—funny old Peter. The rest will keep.”
And then he took her left hand and drew off the engagement ring he had given her.
“Not on that finger now—Molly; though I’d like you to keep it now if you will.”
For a while she stared at him wonderingly.
“Jimmy, but you’re big!” she whispered at length. “I’m so sorry!” She turned away as Peter’s voice, weak and tremulous, came from the other room.
“Come in with me, old man,” she said. “Come in and talk to him.”
But Jimmy shook his head.
“He doesn’t want me, dear; I’m just—just going out for a bit——”
Abruptly he left the room—they didn’t want him: any more than they wanted Lizzie.
Only she had had her year.
| X | Lady Cynthia and the Hermit |