CHAPTER XI
Mary had spent the evening very anxiously. The formless future was a terror that she could not banish; she could evolve no definite line of action to sustain a hope.
She awoke from a troubled sleep with a startled sense of something having happened. After a few seconds, the cause was repeated. The silence was broken by the jangling of a bell, and nervous investigation proved it to be Mrs. Kincaid's.
The old lady explained that she was feeling very unwell—an explanation that was corroborated by her voice—and, striking a light, Mary saw that she was shivering violently.
"I can't stop it; and I'm so cold. I don't know what it is; it's like cold water running down my back."
Her companion looked at her quickly. "We'll put some more blankets on the bed. Wait a minute while I run upstairs!"
She returned with the bedclothes from her own room.
"You'll be much warmer before long," she said; "you must have taken a slight chill."
Mrs. Kincaid lay mute awhile.
"I've such a pain!" she murmured. "How could I have taken a chill?"
"Where is your pain?"
"In my side—a sharp, stabbing pain."
The servant appeared now, alarmed by the disturbance, and Mary told her to bring some coals, and then to dress herself as speedily as she could.
"Is there any linseed? Or oatmeal will do. I must make a poultice."
"I'll see, miss. There's some linseed, I think, but——"
"Fetch it, and a kettle. We'll light the fire at once; then I can make it up here."
The old lady moaned and shivered by turns; and some difficulty was experienced in getting the fire to burn. Mary held a newspaper before it, and the servant advanced theories on the subject of the chimney.
At last, when it was possible for the poultice to be applied, Mary sent her down for a hot-water bottle and the whisky.
"You'll be quite comfortable directly," she said to the invalid. "Something warm to drink, and the hot flannel to your feet 'll make a lot of difference."
"So cold I am, it's bitter—and the pain! I can't think what it can be."
"Let me put this on for you, then; it's all ready. It won't—is that it?... There! How's that?"
"Oh!" faltered Mrs. Kincaid, "oh, thank you! Ah! you do it very nicely."
"See, here we have the rest of the luxuries!" She mixed the stimulant, and took it to her. "Just raise your head," she murmured; "I'll hold the glass for you, so that you won't have to sit up. Take this, now, and while you're sipping it, Ellen will get the bottle ready."
"There isn't much in the kettle," said Ellen. "I don't——"
"Use what there is, and fill it up again. Then see if you can find me any brown paper."
In quest of brown paper, Ellen was gone some time; and, having set down the empty tumbler and made the bed tidier, Mary proceeded to search for some herself.
She found a sheet lining a drawer, and rolling it into the form of a tube, fixed it to the kettle spout, to direct the steam into the room. She had not long done so when the girl returned disconsolate to say there was no brown paper in the house. Mary drew her outside.
"Are you going to sit in there all night, miss?"
"Speak lower! Yes, I shall sit up. What time is it?"
The girl said that she had just been astonished to see by the kitchen clock that it was half-past four; it had seemed to her that she had not long fallen asleep when the bell rang.
"I want you to go and fetch Dr. Kincaid, Ellen; I'm afraid Mrs. Kincaid is going to be ill."
"Do you mean I'm to go at once?"
"Yes. Tell him his mother isn't well, and it would be better for him to see her. Bring him back with you. You aren't frightened to go out—it must be getting light?"
They drew up the blind of the landing window, and saw daylight creeping over the next-door yard.
"Do you think she's going to be very bad, miss?"
"I don't know; I can't tell. Hurry, Ellen, there's a good girl! get back as quickly as you can!"
A deep flush had overspread the face on the pillow. The eyes yearned, and an agonised expression strengthened Mary's belief in the gravity of the seizure; she feared it to be the beginning of inflammation of the lungs. Three-quarters of an hour must be allowed for Kincaid to arrive, and, conscious that she could now do nothing but wait, the time lagged dreadfully. The silence, banished at the earlier pealing of the bell, had regained its dynasty, and once more a wide hush settled upon the house, indicated by the occasional clicking of a cinder on the fender. At intervals the sick woman uttered a tremulous sigh, and met Mary's gaze with a look of appeal, as if she recognised in her presence a kind of protective sympathy; but she had ceased to complain, and the watcher abstained from any active demonstration. In the globe beside the mirror the gas flared brightly, and this, coupled with the heat of the fire, filled the room with a moist radiance, against which the narrow line of dawn above the window-sill grew slowly more defined. The advent had been long expected, when sharp footfalls on the pavement smote Mary's ear, and, forgetting that Kincaid had his own key, she sprang up to let him in. The hall-door swung back, and she paused with her hand on the banisters. He came swiftly forward and passed her with a hurried salutation on the stairs.
There was, however, no anxiety visible on his face as he approached the bed. Merely a little genial concern was to be seen. His questions were put encouragingly; when a reply was given, he listened with an air of confidence confirmed.
"Am I very ill?" she gasped.
"You feel very ill, I dare say, dear; but don't go persuading yourself you are, or that'll be a real trouble!"
His fingers were on her pulse, and he was smiling as he spoke. Yet he knew that her life was in danger. The worthiest acting is done where there is no applause—it is the acting of a clever medical man in a sick-room.
Mary stood on the threshold watching him.
"Who put that funnel on the kettle?" he inquired, without turning. He had not appeared to notice it.
"I did," she answered. "Am I to take it off?"
"No."
He signed to her to go below, and after a few minutes followed her into the parlour.
"Give me a pen and ink, Miss Brettan, please."
"I've put them ready for you," she said.
He wrote hastily, and rose with the prescription held out.
"Where's Ellen?"
"Here, waiting to take it."
A trace of surprise escaped him. He said curtly:
"You're thoughtful. Was it you who put on that poultice?"
Her tone was as distant as his.
"We did all we could before you came; I put on the poultice. Did I do right?"
"Quite right. I asked because of the way it was put on."
With that expression of approval he left her and returned to his mother. Mary, unable to complete her toilette, not knowing from minute to minute when she might be called, occupied herself in righting the disorder of the room. She had thrown on a loosely-fitting morning dress of cashmere, one of the first things that she had made after she was installed here. An instant; she had snatched to dip her face in water, but she had been able to do little to her hair, the coil of which still retained much of the scattered; softness of the night, and after Ellen came back from the chemist's she sent her upstairs for some; hairpins. She stood on the hearth, before the looking-glass, shaking the mass of hair about her shoulders, and then with uplifted arms winding it deftly on her head. The supple femininity of the attitude, so suggestive of recent rising, harmonised with the earliness of the sunshine that tinged the parlour; and when Kincaid reentered and found her so, he could not but be sensible of the impression, though he was indisposed to dwell upon it.
She looked round quickly:
"How is Mrs. Kincaid, doctor?"
"I'm very uneasy about her. I'm going back to the hospital now to arrange to stay here."
"What do you think has caused it?"
"I'm afraid she got damp and cold in the garden on Sunday."
"And it has gone to the lungs?"
"It has affected the left lung, yes."
She dropped the last hairpin, and as she stooped for it the swirl of the gown displayed a bare instep.
"I can help to nurse her, unless you'd rather send someone else?"
"You'll do very well, I think," he said; and he proceeded to give her some instructions.
She fulfilled these instructions with a capability he found astonishing. Before the day had worn through he perceived that, however her training had been acquired, he possessed in her a coadjutrix reliable and adroit. To herself, she was once more within her native province, but to him it was as if she had become suddenly voluble in a foreign tongue. He had no inclination to meditate upon her skill—to meditate about her was the last thing that he desired now—but there were moments when her performance of some duty supplied fresh food for wonder notwithstanding, and he noted her dexterity with curious eyes. He had, though, refrained from any further praise. The gratitude that he might have spoken was checked by the aloofness of her manner; and, in the closer association consequent upon the illness, the formality that had sprung up between them suffered no decrease. Indeed it became permanent in this contact, which both would have shunned.
After the one scene in which she left the choice to him, she had afforded him no chance to resume their earlier relations had he wished it, and the studied politeness of her address was a persistent reminder that she directed herself to him in his medical capacity alone. She held the present conditions the least exacting attainable, since the distastefulness of renewed intercourse was not to be avoided altogether; but she in nowise exonerated him for imposing them, and she considered that by having done so he had made her a singularly ungracious return for the humiliation of her avowal. She sustained the note he had struck; the key was in a degree congenial to her. But she resented while she concurred, and even more than to her judgment her acquiescence was attributable to her pride.
On the day following there were recurrences of pain, but on Wednesday this subsided, though the temperature remained high. Mary saw that his anxiety was, if anything, keener than it had been, and by degrees a latent admiration began to mingle with her bitterness. In the atmosphere of the sick-room the man and the woman were equally new to each other, and up to a certain point he was as great a surprise to her as was she to him. She saw him now professionally for the first time, and she recognised his resources, his despatch, with an appreciation quickened by experience. The visitor whom she had known lounging, loose-limbed and conversational, in an arm-chair had disappeared; the suppliant for a tenderness that she did not feel had become an authority whom she obeyed. Here, like this, the man was a power, and the change within him had its physical expression. His figure was braced, his movements had a resolution and a vigour that gave him another personality. He even awed her slightly. She thought that he must look more masterful to all the world in the exercise of his profession, but she thought also that everyone in the world would approve the difference.
The confidence that he inspired in her was so strong that on Thursday, when he told her that he intended to have a consultation, she heard him with a shock.
"You think it advisable?"
"I fear the worst, Miss Brettan; I can't neglect any chance."
She had some violets in her hand—it was her custom to brighten the view from the bed as much as she could every morning—and suddenly their scent was very strong.
"The worst?"
"God grant my opinion's wrong!" he said. "Will you ask the girl to take the wire for me?"
It was to a physician in the county town he had decided to telegraph, one whose prestige was gradually widening, and whose reputation had been built on something trustier than a chance summons to the couch of a notability. Mary had heard the name before, and she strove to persuade herself that his view of the case might prove more promising. The day that had opened so gloomily, however, offered during the succeeding hours small food for faith. Towards noon the sufferer became abruptly restless, and the united efforts of doctor and nurse were required to soothe her. She was fired by a passionate longing to get up, and pleaded piteously for permission. To "walk about a little while" was her one appeal, and the strenuousness of the entreaty was rendered more pathetic by her obvious belief that they refused because they failed to comprehend the violence of the desire. She endeavoured with failing energy to make it known, and—prevailed upon to desist at last—lay back with a look that was a lamentation of her helplessness. Later, she was slightly delirious and rambled in confused phrases of her son and her companion—his courtship and Mary's indifference. The man and the woman sat on either side, of her, but their gaze no longer met. At the first reference to his attachment Mary had started painfully, but now by a strong effort her nervousness had been suppressed, and from time to time she moved to wipe the fevered lips and brow with a semblance of self-possession. As the daylight waned, the disjointed sentences grew rarer. Kincaid went down. Except for the deep breathing, silence fell again, until, as dusk gathered, the sudden words "I feel much better" were uttered in a tone of restored tranquillity. Turning quickly, Mary saw that her ears had not deceived her. The assurance was repeated with a feeble smile; the features had gained a touch of the cheerfulness that had been so remarkable in the voice. Soon afterwards the eyes closed in what appeared to be sleep.
Kincaid was striding to and fro in the parlour, his arms locked across his breast. As Mary ran in, his head was lifted sharply.
"She feels much better," she exclaimed; "she has fallen asleep!"
He stood there, without speaking—and she shrank back with a stifled cry.
"Oh! I didn't know.... Is it that?".
"Yes," he said, scarcely above a whisper. And she understood that what she had told him was the presage of death.
After this, both knew it to be but a matter of time. The arrival of the physician served merely to confirm despondence. He pronounced the case hopeless, and reluctantly accepted a fee to defray the expenses of the journey.
"I wish we could have met in happier circumstances," he said.... "You've the comfort of knowing that you did everything that could be done."
A page with a message of inquiry came up the steps as he left; such messages had been delivered daily. But on Saturday, when the baker's man brought the bread to Laburnum Lodge, he found the blinds down; and within a few minutes of his handing the loaf to the weeping servant through the scullery window, the news circulated in Westport that Mrs. Kincaid had died unconscious at seven o'clock that morning.
While the baker's man derived this intelligence from the housemaid, Mary was behind the lowered blinds on the first floor, crying. She had just descended from her bedroom; seeing how deeply Kincaid was affected, she had retired there soon after the end. He had not shed tears, but that he was strongly moved was evident by the muscles of his mouth; and the quivering face of which she had had a glimpse kept recurring to her vividly.
He came in while she sat there. He was very pale, but now his face was under control again.
She rose, and advanced towards him irresolutely. "I'm so sorry! She was a very kind friend to me."
He put out his hand. For the first time since she had met him after posting the note, hers lay in it.
"Thank you," he said. "Thank you, too, for all you did for her; I shall always remember it gratefully, Miss Brettan."
He seemed to be at the point of adding something, but checked himself. Presently he made reference to the arrangements that must be seen to. That night he reoccupied his quarters in the hospital, and excepting in odd minutes, she did not see him again during the day. She found space, however, to mention that she purposed remaining until the funeral, and to this announcement he bowed, though he refrained from any inquiry as to her plans afterwards. "Plans," indeed, would have been a curious misnomer for the thoughts in her brain. The question that she had revolved earlier had been settled effectually by the death; now that all possibility of Mrs. Kincaid's recommending her had been removed, her plight admitted of nothing but conjecture.
In her solitude in the house of mourning, unbroken save for interruptions which emphasised the tragedy, or for some colloquy with the red-eyed servant, she passed her hours lethargic and weary. The week of suspense and insufficient rest had tired her out, and she no longer even sought to consider. Her mind drifted. A fancy that came to her was, that it would be delightful to be lying in a cornfield in hot sunshine, with a vault of blue above her. The picture was present more often than her thought of the impending horrors of London.
How much the week had held! what changes it had seen! She sat musing on this the next evening, listening to the church bells, and remembering that a Sunday ago the dead woman had been beside her. Last Sunday there was still a prospect of Westport continuing to be her home for years. Last Sunday it was that, in the churchyard, she had confessed her past. Only a week—how full, how difficult to realise! She was half dozing when she heard the hall-door unlocked, and Kincaid greeted her as she roused herself.
"Did I disturb you? were you asleep?"
"No; I was thinking, that's all."
He sighed, and dropped into the opposite chair. She noted his harassed aspect, and pitied him. The Sunday previous she had not been sensible of any pity at all. She understood his loss of his mother; the loss of his faith had represented much less to her, its being a faith on which she personally had set small store.
"There's plenty to think of!" he said wearily.
"You haven't seen Ellen, doctor, have you? She has been asking for you."
"Has she? what does she want?"
"She is anxious to know how long she'll be kept. Her sister is in service somewhere and the family want a parlourmaid on the first of the month. I am sorry to bother you with trifles now, but she asked me to speak to you."
"I must talk to her. Of course the house 'll be sold off; there's no one to keep it on for.... How fagged you look! are you taking proper care of yourself again?"
"Oh yes; it is just the reaction, nothing but what'll soon pass."
"You didn't have the relief you ought to have had; you worked like two women."
He paused, and his gaze dwelt on her questioningly. She read the question with such clearness that, when he spoke, the words seemed but an echo of the pause.
"How did you know so much?" he asked.
"After I lost my father I was a nurse in the Yaughton Hospital for some years."
The answer was direct, but it was brief. Half a dozen queries sprang to his lips, and were in turn repressed. Her past was her own; he confined his inquiries to her future.
"And what do you mean to do now?"
"I'm going to London."
"Do you expect to meet with any difficulties in the way of taking up nursing again?"
"I think you know that there were difficulties in the way."
"I have no wish to force your confidence——" he said, with a note of inquiry in his voice.
"I haven't my certificate."
"You can refer to the Matron."
"I know I can; I will not. I told you two years ago there were persons I could refer to, but I wouldn't do it."
"May I ask why you should have any objection to referring to this one?"
She was silent.
"Won't you tell me?"
"I think you might understand," she said in a very low voice. "I went there after my father's death. I am not the woman who left the Yaughton Hospital."
His eyes fell, and he stared abstractedly at the grate. When he raised them he saw that hers had closed. He looked at her lingeringly till they opened.
"Now that she is gone," he exclaimed unsteadily, "your position is not so easy! Have you any prospect that you don't mention?"
She shook her head.
"Well, is there anything you can suggest?" he asked. "Any way out of the difficulty that occurs to you? Believe me——"
"No," she said, "I can see nothing that is practicable; I——"
"Would you be willing to come on the nursing-staff here? We're short-handed in the night work. It is an opening, and it might lead to a permanent appointment."
Her heart began to beat rapidly; for an instant she did not reply.
"It is very considerate of you, very generous; but I am afraid that wouldn't do."
"Why not?"
"It wouldn't do, because—well, I should have left Westport in any case."
"You meant to, I know. But between the way you'd have left Westport if my mother had lived, and the way you'd leave it now, there is a vast difference."
"I must leave it, all the same."
"Pardon me," he said, "I can't permit you to do so. I wouldn't let any woman go out into the world with the knowledge that she went to meet certain distress. Your hospital experience appears to solve the problem. You could come on next week. If your reluctance is attributable to myself—hear me out, I must speak plainly!—if you refuse because what has passed between us makes further conversation with me a pain to you, you've only to remember that conversation between us in the hospital will necessarily be of the briefest kind. All that I remember is that I've asked you to be my wife and you don't care for me—I'm the man you've rejected. I wish to be something more serviceable, though; I wish to be your friend. In the hospital I shall have little chance, for there, to all intents and purposes, we shall be as much divided as if you went to London. While the chance does exist I want to use it; I want to advise you strongly to take the course I propose. It needn't prevent your attempting to find a post elsewhere, you know; on the contrary, it would facilitate your obtaining one."
Her hand had shaded her brow as she listened; now it sank slowly to her lap.
"I need hardly tell you I'm grateful," she said, in tones that struggled to be firm. "Anyone would be grateful; to me the offer is very—is more than good." Her composure broke down. "I know what I must seem to you—you have heard nothing but the worst of me!" she exclaimed.
"I would hear nothing that it hurt you to say," he answered; and for a minute neither of them said any more. There had been a gentleness in his last words that touched her keenly; the appeal in hers had gone home to him. Neither spoke, but the man's breath rose eagerly, and; the woman's head drooped lower and lower on her breast.
"Let me!" she said at last in a whisper that his pulses leaped to meet. "It was there—when I was a nurse. He was a patient. Before he left, he asked me to marry him. When I went to him he told me he was married already. Till then there had been no hint, not the faintest suspicion—I went to him, with the knowledge of them all, to be his wife."
"Thank God!" said Kincaid in his throat.
"She was—she had been on the streets; he hadn't seen her for years. He prayed to me, implored me——Oh, I'm trying to exonerate! myself, I'm not trying to shift the sin on to him, I but if the truest devotion of her life can plead I for a woman, Heaven knows that plea was mine!"
"And at the end of the three years?"
"There was news of her death, and he married someone else."
She got up abruptly, and moved to the window, looking out behind the blind.
"I can't tell you how I feel for you," he said huskily. "I can't give you an idea how deeply, how earnestly I sympathise!"
"Don't say anything," she murmured; "you needn't try; I think I understand to-night—you proved your sympathy while my claim on it was least."
"And you'll let me help you?"
The slender figure stood motionless; behind her the man was gripping the leather of his chair.
"If I may," she said constrainedly, "if I can go there like—as you——Ah, if the past can all be buried and there needn't be any reminder of what has been?"
"I'll be everything you wish, everything you'd have me seem!"
He took a sudden step towards her. She turned, her eyes humid with tears, with thankfulness—with entreaty. He stopped short, drew back, and resumed his seat.
"Now, what is it you were saying about Ellen?" he asked shortly.
And perhaps it was the most eloquent avowal he had ever made her of his love.