CHAPTER X
To-morrow had come.
It was the same kind of morning as other mornings; there was no lurid conflagration lighting up the sky. Outside it was dull and quiet, and even the wind was still. Susan paused at the staircase window, gazing a little while.
In the hall beneath she heard Barnaby talking to the dogs. And his voice shook her. The stunned sense of finality that was with her gave way to a sharp and sudden pain.
She could not bear to go down to him. Turning, she fled back.
"Is that you, Susan?" called Lady Henrietta. She was sitting up at her breakfast, and the door of her room was ajar. "Where is Barnaby riding out so early? I heard his boots creaking as he went by."
"I don't know," the girl said, truly. "I haven't seen him."
"Then don't loiter like a draught in the door," said Lady Henrietta impatiently. "Come in and have your tea up here and help me to read my letters."
She did as she was bidden. The sharp kindliness of Barnaby's mother was sweet to her; and it was the last time she would sit with her, the last time she would listen with a smile that was not far from tears to her caustic prattle. Whatever happened to her, however they managed her disappearance, she and Lady Henrietta would never meet again. Would she think of her sometimes,—kindly?—She was not to know....
"What's the matter now?" said Lady Henrietta suddenly. "You look pale."
Hurriedly the girl defended herself from the imputation.
"Of course, it's Barnaby," said Lady Henrietta, undismayed. "I suppose he has been behaving badly."
"Oh no! Oh no!" cried Susan.
Lady Henrietta waved her hands impatiently. How fragile she looked, how pretty;—the pink in her cheekbones matching her painted silk peignoir. The hardness that sometimes marred her expression had softened to a pitying amusement, and she had a look of Barnaby when she smiled like that.
"You'd deny it with your last gasp," she said.
Susan was picking up and arranging the letters that were lying in disorder. It was difficult to sustain that quizzical regard. But Barnaby's mother had not finished with her. She was not to be distracted.
"You never tell me anything, either of you," she said. "What is a mother-in-law for but to rule the tempest and shoot about in the battle? It's too firmly fixed in your heads that I am a brittle thing, and whatever is raging round me I am not to be excited. And it's absurd. I don't mind having a heart,—in reason. It's amusing; a kind of trick up my sleeve. But I won't have it robbing me of my rightful flustrations.—I am as strong as a horse, if you two would realize it. And you and Barnaby are such a funny couple."
She scanned the girl's face a minute.
"I'm attached to you, you little wretch," she said. "But I don't believe you care a straw for him."
But as she spoke her merciless eyes had pierced the girl's mask of light-heartedness. On this last morning Susan was not mistress of herself.
"You are fond of him!" she said. "Dreadfully, ridiculously fond of him like any old-fashioned girl...."
"Oh, hush!" cried Susan. Anything to stop that unmerciful proclamation. She flung herself on her knees, and her terrified protest was stifled in Lady Henrietta's arms.
"How silly we are!" said she, but she held the girl tightly. "I'm to bridle my tongue, am I? You are afraid I shall tell him? Oh, you poor little girl, you baby, is it as bad as that?"
She pushed her away, as if ashamed of her own emotion, and a fierceness came into her voice, that had been entirely kind.
"If you allow that woman to ruin your lives—!" she said. "Oh, I'm not blind, I'm not altogether stupid—! If you let her take him from us—I'll never forgive you, Susan."
Having launched her bolt, all unconscious of its stabbing irony, she recovered her bantering equanimity, and looked whimsically at her listener.
"Why are you gazing at me," she said, "as if I were about to vanish? I'm not going to die of it. I am going to take the field."
*****
Barnaby was not in the house when the girl went at last downstairs. She wandered in and out of the library, trying to smother her expectation, listening without ceasing for the telegram that was to come and make an end. He did not appear at luncheon, and she sat alone, pretending to eat, but starting at every sound. Afterwards, to quiet her restlessness, she went round to the stables to say good-bye to the horses.
The pigeons flew down to her as she walked into the wide flagged yard. She went to the corn bin and scattered a handful as they circled round her and settled at her feet. The men must be still at dinner. There was no stud groom to look reproachful as she tipped a little oats in a sieve to give secretly to the horse that had been her own in this country of make-believe. She felt like a thief as she lifted the latch. It seemed wrong to be there by herself, without Barnaby. She had always gone round with him.
The horse lifted his beautiful head, and they stared at each other. She patted his quarter with her flat hand, and he went over and let her empty her parting gift in his manger.
"Good-bye," she said. "Good-bye, old boy!"
Tears choked her. She stumbled out through the straw and shut the door on him.
All down that side of the yard there was a row of boxes. The bay came first, and then the chestnut that Barnaby had ridden yesterday afternoon. He pulled a little with Barnaby; ... he had never pulled with her. And there was the hotter chestnut that she had called Mustard, and the brown horse that had been mishandled and had a trick of striking out when a stranger came up to him in the stall. She had gone with Barnaby to look at him when he first arrived from the dealers',—and Barnaby had caught her back just in time. The horse looked at her gravely, sadly, with no evil flicker in his eye. Life had dealt hardly with him as with her, and he seemed, best of them all, to understand. But Barnaby had forbidden her to go near him.... Mechanically she went on to Black Rose's box, but her place was empty.
There was a grey next door, an old horse that had carried her many times. He was to be fired in the spring, sold perhaps. She leant her head, shuddering, against him; and he licked at her hand like a dog.... What was the end of them, all these brave, patient, willing creatures? A few seasons' eager service, and then, step by step, as the tired muscles failed the undying spirit—knocking from hand to hand, harder fare, worse misusage,—the dreadful descent into hell.
Once, on their way back from hunting, they had come suddenly on a strange procession, a gaunt herd of worn-out shadows making their last journey, staggering humbly along the wayside. It was a haunting tragedy. Staring ribs, hollow eyes dim with misery,—and the cursing driver thrashing one that had fallen, and lay in a quivering heap on the grass. She had asked what this horror was.... Just a shipload of useless horses travelling in the dusk their unspeakable pilgrimage to the sea.
And she had turned on the men riding at her side. Shame on them, that were English, that called themselves a sporting nation.... What a lie that was! she had cried....
And Barnaby had said—"She's right there!" and the other men had not laughed....
There were voices in the saddle-room. One of the grooms crossed the yard whistling. She was still leaning her head against the old horse, and she waited. She did not want the men to stare at her and wonder; she did not want them to find her there.
"The master took out Black Rose, didn't he?"
"Yes. He's gone down the fields with his Lordship."
"Will he be riding her in the Hunt steeplechases?"
That was a stranger's voice, not one of Barnaby's servants.
"Can't say."—The stud groom was cautious.
"That's an ugly brute of his Lordship's. Why didn't he ride him here?" said another voice, joining in.
"He had to go somewhere in the motor, and so I'd orders to bring the horse over. It wasn't a job I envied," said Rackham's groom.
"If ever a horse was a devil, that one is," said the stud groom, laconically.
"Wants a devil to back him," muttered Rackham's man. "I never ride out of our yard without expecting he'll down me. Got a history, hasn't he?"
"Who told you that?"
"Stevens told me you'd passed a remark about him."
The stud groom received the insinuating suggestion with a dignity that was proof against pumping for the space of a minute. He chewed on a straw discreetly. Then his own knowledge became too much for him.
"If I told you his history, Arthur Jones," he said slowly, "you'd never lay your legs across him no more."
"Then for God's sake tell it," said Arthur Jones.
The stud groom laughed grimly. He was a man of saturnine humour, and liked impressing his underlings.
"His Lordship knows," he said. "If any man could cow a horse, he can. Weight tells. Weight and devilry. But any other gentleman buying Prince John I'd call it suicide. If I didn't,—according to circumstances, mind you"—he lowered his voice, not much, but enough—"call it murder."
Would the men never stop gossiping and disperse? She would have to face their curious looks at last.
"I was up Yorkshire way when his Lordship bought him," said the stud groom deliberately. "Four of us was leaning over the bars at that auction. Two of us had a mourning band on the sleeve of our coats, and the third chap had unpicked the crape off his a month ago. When they put Prince John in the ring there came a frost on the bidding. They said he'd ought to 'a been shot out of the road, and never put up for sale. His name wasn't Prince John then. He'd been run in two 'chases, owners up;—and he'd killed them both."
The men stood with their mouths open, digesting the horrid tale. And a stable lad ran into the yard from his vantage point on a hillock.
"They're down at the jumps," he said, "—and they're changing horses."
It was then that the girl came out, passing swift as an apparition. The men fell back, touching their caps.
"I'll lay she heard you," said Rackham's man.
The stud groom looked after her curiously and, crossing over to the door of the grey's box, that she had left unfastened, closed it without a word.
She did not know why she was hurrying to the house. What half-conscious panic had seized her as her inattentive mind took its wandering impression of the grooms' idle gossip? What words had reached her, lodging in her brain to inspire that wild sense of impending trouble? It was no good searching for Barnaby in the house. He was down at the jumps,—changing horses.
"There's a wire for you," said Lady Henrietta.
It had come. At first she looked at it stupidly, as if it, the signal, were some trivial interruption. She heard herself explaining, like an unthinking scholar repeating a half-forgotten lesson. "I must go away. I—I have to go away."
"Bad news?" asked Lady Henrietta quickly. Susan crumpled the telegram in her hand.
"Yes, it's bad news," she said. "It is from the lawyers."
Vaguely she recollected what she was to say. Something about going up to London at once, and perhaps on to America.
"Let me see it," said Lady Henrietta. "Yes, it sounds urgent. We'd better send somebody to fetch Barnaby. He will have to take you. You must catch the afternoon train."
"Yes, I must catch the afternoon train," repeated Susan. That was decided. Had not Barnaby mapped it out? She wondered dully how he had managed to convey private instructions for that impeccable message; but all the while she was thinking, thinking,—and suddenly she was conquered by her wild, unreasoning fear for him.
"I'll go and find him," she said.
Lady Henrietta demurred, curious, desiring to cross-examine; but the girl's face smote her, and she forbore to hold her back.
It was not far down the fields, and she went like a driven leaf, possessed by a fear that would not be stilled by reason. She had gone down there sometimes to watch them schooling hunters, and she had ridden the jumps herself, that day when Barnaby showed her how they trained steeplechasers, with real wide hedges and a movable leaping bar. He had tried to prevent her risking the double, bristling with difficulty, and she had defied him, larking over it, and then galloping back to him to say she was sorry.
She counted the fences mechanically as they came up one by one, visible against the winter sky; lines of artificial ramparts, defended by a guard rail, made up with furze;—and the lapping rim of that actual water jump. The strange thing was that as she came nearer and nearer, instead of diminishing, her premonition grew. She talked to herself to keep down her panic.
Why were so few men killed steeplechasing? Because it was dangerous, Barnaby had said. It was the rabbit holes and the mole-hills and the grips that broke your neck unawares.... That was the gate he had shut between them, he sitting on his horse on the far side laughing, while she practised hooking the latch and pushing it back with the handle of her whip. He had shown her first the nail studded in the horn of the handle to keep it from slipping;—and then he had clapped the gate shut, declaring that till she opened it fairly, without his help, she should never pass. And she had ridden through triumphantly at last. It was the only thing he had had to teach her. How quaint they were, these heavy wooden latches.... She let the gate swing and ran.
Rackham was on Black Rose, and Barnaby on a chestnut. They were walking their horses when she caught sight of them, and Barnaby was letting his look over a fence, flicking his whip at the ridge of furze with its withering yellow blossom. They were not talking loud, but she thought his voice sounded angry. The chestnut was restive.
"Keep still, you brute!" he said.
Something was wrong between the two men. Some old antagonism had flared up, rousing them to a hot discussion. The chestnut lifted his forefeet off the ground, and Barnaby shook his bridle carelessly, warning him again to be quiet. Then all at once up he went, seizing the unguarded moment....
Crash!
The girl saw him rise, saw him stagger, falling back on his rider; and she ran on with sobbing breath.
The chestnut rolled over sideways and struggled on to his legs. A little way off the mare was plunging, upset by what was happening; she could hardly be controlled. Susan had reached Barnaby, she had thrown herself down beside him to lift his head from the rough grass where he lay so still. Rackham had dismounted; he was coming to help;—but she was out of her mind with terror. She caught up Barnaby's whip, springing to her feet, lashing at him as if he were a wild beast that she must keep at bay. Then she dropped on her knees again, and laid her cheek on Barnaby's heart, and the turf was heaving up round them both.
Far off, indistinct, she heard troubled whispers, and one quite close.
"He's breathing still, my lady." (That was the stud groom, who had formerly served a countess. He always addressed her so.) She looked up at him.
"He's living yet, my lady," the man repeated in an awed undertone. "Best not try to move him. They've sent a car for the doctor. Best let him lie till they come...."
He knelt on the other side, and one of the men stood over him in his shirt-sleeves, folding up his coat. With significant carefulness they raised Barnaby's head a little and slipped it under. And then they all waited and watched for a hundred years....
When the doctor came he was still unconscious. Something was broken, and there was bad concussion. It was possible he might be injured internally, strained, crushed,—a cursory examination could not make sure. They stripped a hurdle of its furze, and he was lifted and laid upon it; the men hoisted it on their shoulders and tramped with a dreadful slowness through the fields to the house.
"I'll ride on and break it to his mother," said Rackham, averting his eyes from Susan as he spoke to her.
"Yes," she said dully. She had forgotten him.
And as it often is, the one who was thought least fitted to support a shock took it coolly. A lengthy experience of hunting accidents helped her to seize, comforted, on Rackham's report of concussion, and to believe in his blunt assurance that the whole thing was nothing worse than an ordinary spill. A more diplomatic messenger might have terrified her with his gentleness, but she suspected no concealment in a man who, without beating about the bush, looked her right in the face and lied. She did not see the men carry their burden in, and when the others came to her, relieving Rackham, she was comparatively calm. Her active fancy was diverted by measures that she ascribed to a misplaced anxiety for herself.
"I am not going to collapse," she insisted. "It's too ridiculous making this fuss about me and not letting me go to him. It's not the first time the poor boy has been brought back to me knocked silly. You needn't be so fidgety over me;—you had better look after Susan.... My dear, my dear, I know what it is! And concussion is a thing the doctors can't cut you to pieces for, thank Heaven. Give her a little brandy!"
Rackham's glance met the doctor's. The case was too serious to provoke a smile.
Lady Henrietta had turned to Susan.
"Oh," she said, with the air of one who wished to demonstrate to an over-anxious circle that she had her wits about her—"that telegram—! Of course you can't go now. We must wire up to town.—"
The girl listened to her without at first comprehending.
"Oh,—the telegram," she repeated. How pathetically absurd that futile invention sounded now.
"I must go to him," she said.
The doctor nodded encouragement.
"I'll bring a nurse back with me when I come again," he promised.
Into the girl's pale cheek came a sudden colour. She lifted her head and her eyes shone. She held out her hand, and all at once it was steady.
"No one else;—no one but me!" she cried.
Oh, the farce was not played out; the curtain was not down. She was still his wife to that audience; it was to her he belonged, to no other.... Desperately she stood on her rights;—the poor, fictitious rights she had purchased with all that pain.
"You can't nurse him," the doctor was saying gently. "You'd break down; you would make yourself ill. You don't know what you would be undertaking."
But Barnaby's mother was on her side.
"Fiddlesticks!" said she. She had brightened unaccountably; in her voice ran a queer little tremor of satisfaction. "Let her make herself ill if she likes. Why shouldn't she? I've no patience with modern vices, calling in hirelings—! A wife's place is with her husband, not quaking outside his door."
Susan was looking bravely in the doctor's doubtful face.
"You can trust me," she said, on her pale lips a wistful flicker that hardly was a smile.—"I too was a—hireling, once. I know how."
She knew he must yield. What man would dare to stop her? What man would dare to dispute her claim? Only Barnaby himself, who might one day laugh at the tragic humour of her assumption. A kind of despairing joy shook her soul, and was blotted in a passionate eagerness of devotion. Barnaby was hurt, perhaps dying, ... and nothing could conjure her from his side.