Chapter Twenty One.
She was Everything.
Notwithstanding the ardent vow which I had made before dinner, I did spend that night under the Grays’ roof. I not only spent it there, but I slept profoundly in the luxurious bed in my large and luxurious chamber. In my sleep I dreamt of Tom Valentine. I was with him in Africa; I was going through adventures by his side. After the extraordinary fashion of dreams, there seemed nothing at all remarkable to me in the fact that Tom and I were going through peril together. It seemed to me, in my dream, that we were following a somewhat forlorn hope, and that the same spirit animated us both. I dreamt nothing at all about Cousin Geoffrey’s will.
When the morning broke I thought over the visions of the night and determined to banish them. Tom Valentine was going to Africa in a week. I should probably never see him more. Well, never mind, he was a brave and interesting man. I was glad to think he liked to talk to me; that he, the hero of many an adventure, thought me a good listener—thought it worth his while to thrill my ears and heart with stories both of peril and of sadness. I was glad to know that in a very distant degree I could claim cousinship with Tom Valentine. I determined not to associate him with Cousin Geoffrey’s odious will. This will degraded my cousin. I would think of him apart from it in future. I believed myself quite strong enough to carry out the resolve.
Soon after breakfast that day a pretty little victoria, drawn by a pair of ponies, stopped at the Grays’ house. I was in my room at the moment and had a good view of the carriage sweep. I bent from my window to see who had arrived. Lady Ursula Redmayne sat in the victoria.
A moment or two later I was summoned to see this capricious young woman. I felt certain that she was devoured with curiosity, but I was determined to parry all her questions.
Lady Ursula was alone in the drawing-room when I entered.
“How do you do, Rosamund?” she said. “You did not expect me to find you out here: but of course Rupert and Tom told me all about you. Sit down there, where I can take a good look at you. Rosamund, what a remarkably wicked young woman you are.”
“I don’t understand you, Lady Ursula.”
“Please call me Ursula. We shall be cousins when I am Rupert Valentine’s wife. Do you know, Rosamund, that I have taken an immense fancy to you!”
“What! you have taken a fancy to a wicked young woman!”
“Yes, yes; particularly as she is in reality more naughty than wicked. Rosamund, why did you not come to the Chamber of Myths at the appointed day and hour?”
“I gave Captain Valentine my reason.”
“Pardon me, you did not give him any adequate reason; but it is so easy to deceive a man. Now, I want the truth. Come, Rosamund, confide in me. You know that letter contains news of the deepest interest to you, perhaps to me, perhaps to others. Ah, you blush! I have hit upon the truth.”
I had been sitting when Lady Ursula began to speak, now I stood up.
“As far as any one can predict the future, Lady Ursula,” I said, “the contents of my Cousin Geoffrey Rutherford’s letter will never be known except to the two people who are already in possession of the secret.”
“Who are they?”
“I am one, Mr Gray is the other. Think what you like about the letter, Lady Ursula, you are never, never likely to know more of its contents than you do at this moment.”
Lady Ursula was a person largely blessed with the bump of curiosity, but she was also a lady, and she knew when to stop.
Her face wore a blank, half-amused, half-indignant expression. Then coming up to me she bent forward and kissed my forehead.
“I might have guessed I should have my drive for nothing,” she said. “Now then, to change the subject. Where did you get that fascinating dress you wore last night?”
“The dress I wore last night was my mother’s wedding-gown.”
“Delicious! Who but Rosamund Lindley would have dared to appear in an antiquated robe of that sort! My dear, your daring deserved its success. Rupert declares that he thought his great-grandmother had suddenly come into the room. His great-grandmother young and—and beautiful.”
I scarcely heard Lady Ursula’s last words. I was standing by the window watching a boy who was approaching the house. He was a telegraph boy, and as he walked up the steps I saw him take a yellow envelope out of the little bag fastened to his side. I knew even before the servant brought it in, that that telegram was for me. I also knew that it contained bad tidings. My heart sank low in my breast.
Lady Ursula’s gay, high voice kept rambling on. I ceased to hear a word she was saying. The drawing-room door was opened. The neat parlour-maid walked up the long apartment. She held out a silver salver, with the telegram lying on it.
“For you, miss,” she said. “And the boy is waiting to know if there is any answer.”
The contents of the telegram were brief and emphatic.
“Your mother is very ill; come home at once.”
My father had dictated that telegram. I raised a cold, white face to Lady Ursula’s.
“Good-bye,” I said. “This explains why I must leave you.” I put the telegram into her hand and rushed out of the room. I am not quite sure to this day whether I bid the kind Grays good-bye. I know that somehow or other I found myself in a cab, and in some fashion I caught an early train, and reached home in the bright spring sunshine before the day had half travelled through its course.
Even our ugly garden showed faint traces of the resurrection of all things. A stunted lilac-tree was putting out buds. An almond-tree was adorning itself in a hazy pink robe. There was a faint, tender perfume of violets in the air. I turned the handle of the shabby little front-door and went in.
If spring had given tokens of its presence outside, however, it had printed no fairy footfall inside our ugly and desolate little home. Inside there was close air, confusion, untidiness; but there was also something else—supreme terror, a dark fear. The shadow of this fear sat on my father’s brow. He hurried to meet me the moment I set foot inside the threshold; his face was unkempt, unwashed, his eyes bloodshot; he held out a trembling hand, and grasped my shoulder.
“Thank heaven you have come, Rose,” he said.
“How is mother?” I managed to gasp.
My father’s painful clutch on my shoulder grew harder and firmer.
“Come in here,” he said. He dragged me into the drawing-room, and softly closed the door. “Listen,” he said; “yesterday night your mother’s cough grew worse; this morning she broke a blood-vessel.”
“Then she is dying,” I said in a voice of terror.
“No, she shan’t die—you have got to save her!”
“I? Father—father—how can I?”
“Don’t prevaricate—don’t look me in the face, and tell lies at this moment. Dr Johnson and Dr Keith, from London, are both up-stairs. They will tell you what you have to do. Go to them; obey their directions. There is not a moment to be lost.”
My father’s trembling hand still held my shoulder; he emphasised his words with cruel pinches. I wrenched myself away with a sudden effort.
“You hurt me when you hold me like that,” I said.
“Who cares whether I hurt you or not, child? it’s your mother’s life that hangs in the balance. What matter about you—what are you? Go up-stairs to the doctors. Listen to their directions and obey them.”
I was sobbing feebly. My father’s manner had unnerved me.
“I hate women who cry,” he said, turning away. “You have always made a great profession of caring for your mother. Go up-stairs now, and act on it.”
“How can I?” I repeated. “Father, why do you speak to me as you are doing? My mother wants money, peace, rest.”
“Exactly, Rosamund. Penury and a hard life are killing your mother. Go up-stairs. Don’t talk any more humbug. Get your mother what she wants. Gray, the lawyer, has been here this morning.”
“Oh,” I said, “and he has told you?”
“He has told me that you can be rich if you please. He has told me also the source from which the wealth can come. You think that I will shrink from that source. I shrink from nothing that will save your mother. Gray thinks it highly probable that you will act like a weak idiot.”
“Father, did Mr Gray tell you what I had to do?”
“He did not. I did not ask him. Whatever it is, do it. Go up-stairs now and see the doctors.”
My father opened the drawing-room door and pushed me out. He locked the door behind me. I heard him pacing the little room, and his groans of agony reached me through the thin panels of the locked door. I stumbled up-stairs. On the landing I met George. His hair was ruffled; his eyes red and sunk into his head. He had evidently been crying—crying, hard man that he was, until his eyelids were swelled and blistered.
“So you have come, Rose,” he said; “that is well. You will put everything right, of course?”
“You have seen Mr Gray, too,” I whispered. “Yes, yes; for God’s sake don’t lose a minute in putting things straight.”
“But can I?” I whispered back. “Even money cannot always, always save.”
“You can but try,” retorted George. “Go and speak to the doctors. Our mother’s life depends on your actions I am firmly convinced. Here is Dr Johnson. Will you talk to my sister, doctor?”
The family physician motioned me into a spare bedroom. He introduced me to the London doctor, and they began a semi-technical explanation of my mother’s case.
“Things are bad, but not hopeless,” said Dr Keith. “If certain measures are taken directly, there is no reason why Mrs Lindley may not revive and gain strength, and have many years of life before her. Her lungs are undoubtedly affected, but the worst mischief is in connection with the heart. Listen, Miss Lindley. I have one emphatic direction to give. Your mother must have no more worries.”
“No more worries,” I repeated under my breath. “Yes, yes, I understand.”
“You are looking very ill yourself, my dear child,” said Dr Johnson.
“Never mind me,” I said, turning away impatiently.
“But I must and will mind you,” retorted our fussy little family doctor. “Dr Keith, there is not a more admirable girl in the land than Rosamund Lindley.”
Dr Keith bowed an acknowledgment of my merits. Then he took his watch out of his pocket.
“I really must catch the next train,” he said. “Good-bye, Miss Lindley. Johnson will go into the particulars of our proposed treatment with you; but remember above all things, no worry. As much cheerfulness as you can possibly manage; a generous diet, the best champagne—I have ordered a special brand—and—and—I think we’ll do. In all probability in about a fortnight Mrs Lindley will be well enough to be moved by easy stages to Cannes. Good-bye, Miss Lindley; keep up a brave heart.”
Dr Keith went cheerfully out of the room. Perhaps he imagined that he had given me excellent advice. Perhaps he had, if I could only have acted on it. I rushed away to my room, bathed my face and hands, put on slippers which made no sound, and my prettiest afternoon dress. Then on tip-toe I went across the landing to my mother’s room; on tip-toe my father was coming up the stairs.
“Well, Rosamund, you have seen the doctors?”
“Yes, father.”
“You know what they wish?”
“Yes, father.”
“You will do it?”
“Yes—I will do it.”
“Good girl. Kiss me. God bless you. George, George,—come here!”
George’s red face had been peeping round his bedroom door.
“George, your sister will do what is required. By God’s blessing we may keep your mother with us yet.”
“Thank you, Rosamund,” said George. He bent his big sulky head and kissed me lightly on my forehead. He, too, in his fashion, was blessing me. I felt as if my heart would break.
I turned the handle of my mother’s door and went in. There was no confusion in this room. A bright little fire burned in the grate. One of the windows was open about an inch. The room was sweet with the perfume of violets. Somebody—my father probably—had picked a few from the garden and brought them in. My mother herself was lying high up in bed supported by pillows. There was a faint pink on each of her cheeks, but the rest of her sweet and lovely face was white as death. Her gentle eyes looked too bright, her lips wore too sweet a smile.
The moment I saw her the whole attitude of my mind changed. I ceased to feel that I was about to do any sacrifice. I became eager—excited to set the seal to that which would open wide the fairy doors of peace and health and ease and luxury for my mother. I absolutely lived in her life at that moment. I was nothing—she was everything. I rejoiced; my heart even danced at the thought that it was in my power to bestow a great gift upon her. I went up and kissed her.
“You look well, Rose,” she whispered, reading the joy which filled my eyes.
“Oh, yes, I am very well,” I replied. “I am so glad to be back with you, mother. I am going to stay with you night and day until you are as strong as you ever were.”
While I spoke I held her hand, which I softly stroked. In a few minutes I stole out of the room. George was still lingering about on the landing.
“Well, well?” he whispered.
“Don’t whisper, George, but come down-stairs with me at once; I want to write a letter, and I want you to take it for me.”
I sat down at my mother’s desk in the drawing-room and scribbled a hasty line:
“Dear Mr Gray,—
“I will fulfil the conditions of Cousin Geoffrey’s will. Please give George a hundred pounds to bring back with him.
“Yours very truly,—
“Rosamund Lindley.”
George was looking over my shoulder as I wrote.
“You must get some of that money in small change,” I said, looking up at him. “And then you are to buy all the things I have mentioned in this list. Don’t forget one of them, and come back by the first possible train.”
While I was speaking to George my father came into the room.
“It’s all right,” I said; “and George is going to town to get the things we shall immediately require. Now go, George, and be quick. Father, I want to speak to you.”
“What is it, Rose?”
“Will you please go out and ascertain if the Priory is still to let?”
“The Priory! Are you mad, child?”
“No, I assure you I am quite sane. The Priory is a very pleasant sunny house, beautifully furnished. The Ashtons only left it a week ago. If it is still to let, please take it without a moment’s delay. It is not the least matter about the price. It faces due south, and has a lovely garden. I think we may be able to remove my mother there to-morrow.”