CHAPTER VIII
On a warm summer evening, some three weeks later, Richard Meadowes sat in the library of his town house thinking, perhaps not unnaturally, of Anne Champion and wondering where she was.
‘Dr. Sebastian Shepley, to wait upon you, sir,’ said the man-servant, showing some one in, and Meadowes rose to greet his visitor, feeling the room strangely warm.
‘Ah, Shepley,’ was all he said for welcome to the tall steady-eyed man who came forward into the room.
Shepley sat down opposite to Richard Meadowes and facing the sunlight. His pleasant blue eyes rested on Meadowes inquiringly for a moment.
‘I fear I have intruded on you, sir,’ he said, noticing the other man’s embarrassment.
‘I—I am pleased to see you,’ said Meadowes, not with absolute veracity. The situation seemed at that moment intolerable to him—better, he thought, make a quick end of it.
‘You have heard about Anne Champion?’ he said, forcing himself to look straight at Sebastian Shepley.
‘I am come for no other reason than to ask your aid in the matter,’ said Shepley, ‘for the last I have heard of Anne was the message of thanks you gave me from her anent the amber necklace. Often as I’ve writ to her I have heard never a word in answer. Tell me, sir, do you know aught of where she went?’
‘I know naught of Anne now,’ said Meadowes, looking down as he spoke.
‘Now?’ asked Shepley, for something in the other’s voice attracted his attention.
‘A year and more she lived with me, and she bore me a son,’ said Meadowes.
There was a moment of silence that seemed to tingle.
‘There—swallow your lies!’ cried Shepley; and he struck with all his great strength across Meadowes’ lips. Without another word he left the room, passed out through the hall, and strode away down the Square.
‘Lies, lies—hellish black lies every word he spoke,’ he cried in his heart. ‘And ah! my poor Annie, what is come to you these weary years?’ Then remembering that Anne’s neighbours in Yard’s Entry might have some knowledge of her whereabouts he turned his steps in that direction.
It was drawing to sundown when at last he reached Yard’s Entry. He stood still for a moment and looked up at the little window he had known as Anne’s, and which used to reflect the sunlight. It was blazing scarlet just now. Then he went up to the doorway and knocked; Mrs. Nare appeared in answer to his summons.
‘A good even to you, mistress,’ said Shepley. ‘And can you tell me aught of Anne Champion, who lived here some two years since?’
Mrs. Nare squinted up at him out of her narrow old eyes.
‘Anne, she came back here some three weeks agone,’ she said. ‘Came and went her ways again. And now she hath come here mortal stricken—taken with a fever she’ve caught working amidst the rags for a Jew man in Flower and Dean Street.’
Sebastian waited to hear no more; he ran up the dark stair and unceremoniously opened the door of Anne’s room.
Such a blaze of light smote across his eyes as he came in that he was half-blinded, for the skies were scarlet that night from a great sunset, and all the room was lit up with the red glow. He stood for a moment in the doorway shading his eyes from the dazzle, then stepped across the crazy old floor, that creaked and gave under his heavy tread.
‘Annie, Annie!’ he cried, kneeling down beside her.
For Anne, she thought she dreamed again; the weary tossings of the desolate day were done—she tasted a supreme felicity. What if with the breaking day the vision fled, and she woke again to want and loneliness? enough that now it tarried with her. She would not move, she scarcely dared to breathe for dread lest the dream should depart; but lay very still and felt the kindly strength of Sebastian’s arm support her, and his cool hard cheek pressed against hers that burned with fever. ‘Annie,’ he said again, and this time Anne opened her eyes and smiled.
‘Eh, Sebastian, Sebastian, my dear man, stay—stay one minute, for dreams be terrible short,’ she cried. Nor would all Shepley’s words reassure her of his actual presence.
‘So many days as I’ve lain here, an’ such dreams and dreams! Lor’! them was dreams! You and Dick Sundon, Dick Sundon an’ you, back and fore you came and went the two of you. Sometimes Phil ’ud be there too (Phil my boy as is)—(Lord Christ, have a care on Phil, being that he’s so young and with none but Dick Sundon a-carin’ of him!) . . . then I’d dream of Dick for hours and hours, an’ now, Sebastian, ’tis you; Lord send this dream stays!’
Shepley knelt beside her, listening to all her strange babble of ‘Dick’ and ‘Phil;’ but feeling how the fever ran hot in her blood he pushed back the fears that came to him with her words. He looked round the room, with the stamp of relentless poverty set everywhere on it, and thanked Heaven he was there now. For poor Anne lay on the bare boards of this place that was now her shelter, and for covering she had thrown over her the dress she had taken off. No trace of meat or drink was to be seen anywhere.
As he sat thus taking in the bareness of poor Anne’s sick-room, with a perfunctory little knock the door was shoved open and Mistress Nare came in. She walked across the floor on tiptoe and stood looking at Anne.
‘The fever hath gotten that hold on her blood ’twill burn her up before the week is out,’ she said sagely, winking across at Sebastian. ‘And by your leave, sir, I’d make bold to say you’d best sit farther off from her—’tis a catching sickness I dare swear.’
‘I am come here to cure her,’ said Sebastian; ‘I am a surgeon to my trade.’
‘For certain then, sir, you’ve come too late,’ croaked the old woman.
Sebastian rose angrily.
‘Have a care what you say,’ he exclaimed. ‘And now, if you’ll do me a service, you shall go and buy all that Anne Champion needs—a bed to lie on——’
‘And die on,’ interpolated Mrs. Nare viciously, but Sebastian gave no heed to her remark, only went on with his enumeration:—
‘And blankets to cover her, and food to eat and wine to drink—all these things she must have before the day is done; so hasten you—if so be you wish for this.’ He drew from his pocket a coin and laid it in the old woman’s hand.
‘A bed and blankets. Food and wine and fire,’ repeated Mistress Nare. ‘Good lack, sir, dyin’ Anne she’ve not got so much as will buy a shroud to wrap her in!’
‘Here,’ said Sebastian hastily, shaking out from his purse a handful of coins. ‘How much will you require?’ Mrs. Nare was convinced.
‘Happen three guineas, sir, to begin with,’ she said, and her crooked old fingers closed greedily over the yellow coins.
‘Well, hasten—hasten,’ said Sebastian, and Mrs. Nare shuffled off down the stair chuckling and curious.
‘Dyin’ Annie’s gotten a lover up to the last, Matthew,’ she said as she passed her son on the stair. So much for maternal jealousy.