5
Thirty hours—the fag-end of a broken night, a day and another night—passed before O'Rane appeared. The painful silence of the house was violated only by guardedly light steps and hushed voices. Bertrand and George took their meals at the club; I stayed behind, neglecting my work and subsisting on tinned tongue, stale bread and cold water, to run errands, answer telephone calls and carry up trays of food to Lady Loring. At first I believed that poor Sonia was trying to hypnotise herself and intensify her own tortures, but in time a new gravity settled on the faces of the doctor and nurse.
I had never before been in a house where a confinement was taking place; I do not wish to repeat the experience. Whenever I carried up a meal, Lady Loring or the trained nurse would say vaguely, "I'm afraid she's having a bad time," but for the rest I was left to myself in the great silent library with my senses strained to catch any sound from the familiar white bedroom where I had spent so many days with Sonia, trying to distract her thoughts. O'Rane, from the moment when he telephoned for the doctor, had been with her. There was some ineffectual attempt to banish him from the room, but Lady Loring afterwards let him stay and admitted that his personality was keeping Sonia from the surrender which she sometimes seemed ready to make.
When he came into the library at breakfast-time on the second day, his clothes were shapeless and dusty, his face unshaven and grey with fatigue.
"The doctor says it's a boy," he told me hoarsely. "Is there any water in the room? I've had nothing to eat or drink since first I went up there; and then I must get some air into my lungs."
He sighed and dropped limply on to a sofa.
"How's Sonia?" I asked him.
"They can't say yet. She's doped. They've given her as much as they dare, as much as her heart will stand.... My God! I'm glad I'm not a woman! I can understand their having one child, because they don't know what's in store for them, but their courage in having a second ...!"
I poured him out a cup of coffee and buttered him two slices of toast.
"I wouldn't try to talk overmuch," I told him.
"It's a bit of a relief to me," he answered with a smile. "All this time——" He lifted his right hand above his head and began stiffly to open and shut the fingers. "I was gripping her wrist," he explained; "I only let go twice, and the first time it was bruised purple, as if she'd shut it in a door.... And nobody said anything.... Sonia kept getting spasms of pain which made her moan or cry out, and her nerve gave way from time to time ... and then I—I tried to hypnotise her, I found that by repeating 'Sonia, Sonia, Sonia' very distinctly and very low, I could capture her mind.... God! how it got on my nerves!"
The first cup of coffee was followed by a second, which he gulped in scalding mouthfuls, asking at short intervals what the time was and how long he had already stayed away.
"Violet and the nurse are pretty well beat out," he explained; "I want to pack them off for a bit of a rest while I mount guard. And we've got to shift the boy before Sonia comes round...."
"You're not moving him—yet?"
"Only to another room. I—I promised her, you see."
He bade me a hurried good-bye and disappeared upstairs until the middle of the afternoon. George came in after luncheon, put half a dozen breathless enquiries and returned hot-foot to his office. Bertrand had a question in the House, but, as soon as he could get away, he came and demanded a full report.
"You don't gather when the child's to be moved?" he said, when I had done. "I—— This is an extraordinary business, Stornaway. I've lived a devil of a long time and I've done some pretty odd things and mixed with some pretty curious people and all that sort of thing, but I'm hanged if I've ever done anything like this before. What are we all up to? I feel I've been stampeded."
"Well, neither of us is doing anything very active," I pointed out, looking at my cigar and book.
"We're countenancing it. If you sat by and watched a drunken man making pipe-lights out of five-pound notes.... What have they decided to do? I don't understand them; I can't keep pace with them."
In so far as I had been admitted to O'Rane's confidence, he had decided to keep the child in London until it could be safely moved and then to send it with its nurse to a cottage which he had mysteriously acquired on the South coast. And there his plans for the time being had ended.
"He's apparently committing himself to three households," Bertrand cried. "The first because his wife refuses to live with him, the second because he wants to make his friends believe that they are living together, the third because he requires a home for his wife's child, which in time will come to be regarded as his child...."
"I've got no influence over him," I said in protest against his tone of injury.
Bertrand shook his head gloomily.
"When once he's made up his mind—it doesn't matter how fantastic a thing may be...."
The door opened, and O'Rane came in to repeat his request of the morning for water and any food that was available. He had found time to shave and change his clothes, but I have never seen a man more utterly exhausted.
"Is there any news?" Bertrand asked.
"She's doing—very fairly, I think," he answered with a drawl that was almost a stammer. "The effect—drug, you know—wearing off. She woke up—for a few moments. Now getting some natural sleep."
I put a stiff dash of brandy into the water and watched O'Rane's grey cheeks colouring.
"Did she seem comfortable?" I enquired.
"Comfortable?" he repeated with a laugh. "The physical relief, you know.... Whatever happens now, she's free from pain, she's bound to feel better and better.... When I was wounded, there were times when I thought I couldn't bear it; the nurses told me that I said quite clearly, 'It's no use hurting me any more; I can't stand it.' Dear souls! as if they could help it! And one did stand it.... But, when the pain began to abate, when you didn't have to keep yourself braced up against it, I went as limp as a rag. It was like the end of a long fever.... After that, whether I was asleep or awake, I always knew that the real hell was over. There might be little twinges in unexpected places, but the pain was over, over. And the feeling of weakness was so delicious! Like an endless repetition of the glorious moment when you're just dropping off to sleep.... That's how Sonia is now."
The next report came after dinner, when the doctor had concluded his evening visit and she had been put to sleep for the night.
"She's had a frightful time," he told us, "and there's always the possibility of a relapse, but I know she's not going to relapse, I'm not going to let her."
"And the child?"
"Oh, he's all right."
The next morning O'Rane joined me at breakfast after a night's unbroken rest. Despite a mild protest from the nurse, he had insisted on staying in Sonia's room and had slept in his clothes on the floor for twelve hours on end.
"She's had a wonderful night," he told me, exultantly. "And the boy's doing magnificently. They seem to think it'll be reasonably safe to move him to-morrow. And then, if all's well with Sonia, I shall go back to Melton. I shall only want to talk to her, if I stay any longer; and, as it is, if a board creaks or anyone touches the bed.... That good angel Violet has promised not to go until everything's all right. Don't you think she's been wonderful? Violet Loring, I mean. I'd got no sort of call on her."
"I don't know that the baby upstairs has any great call on you," I answered.
"We—ell, you can't open an account with a thing twenty-four hours old," he laughed. "I say, Stornaway, I had no idea that babies were so small. Hullo, that's Violet's step! There's nothing wrong, is there?"
Lady Loring had come in to say that Sonia was asking for him. He hurried upstairs, leaving his breakfast unfinished, and did not return for a couple of hours. I asked him whether there was anything amiss, for there was an unfamiliar frown on his face.
"No, but it was curious ..." he began hesitatingly. "You remember how she made me promise.... Well, I went in and asked her how she was, and she said she was feeling better.... And then she asked about the child ... wanted to know whether it was a boy or a girl ... wanted to know how it was.... It ended by my carrying him in for her to see.... I was in two minds whether to do it, because she was working herself up to a pitch of great excitement, but I thought it would only make things worse, if I refused. She wanted to see what he was like, you know, whether there was even the remotest resemblance.... She gave a sob, when I brought him in, and said, 'He's got my eyes.' I'm afraid the whole thing excited her rather. She suddenly got the idea that she oughtn't to have asked me to bring him in. Poor mite! he's not responsible for his own father, and I told her that if we started quarrelling over a thing like that.... Another curious thing, Stornaway; I have always imagined that I should hate the very existence of the child; when I was first told what was the matter with Sonia, I felt that there was a sheet of fire between us. I don't feel that now; I feel that Grayle has passed utterly out of our lives. As for punishing that poor, helpless little creature.... I suppose you hate babies, but I wish you'd have a look at this one and tell me what he's like. I've always thought what fun it would be to have a son and watch him growing up.... I should have thought that Sonia, that any woman, after all she's gone through.... Still, when you've been treated as Grayle treated her, when you've waited in dread and horror all these weary months...." He broke off in perplexity, which only lifted when he suddenly began to smile. "You will have a look at him, won't you? And tell me what he's like. He's going to the country to-morrow."
After dinner that night I made my way to the bedroom which had been temporarily converted into a nursery. It was dark and empty, and I walked to the door of Sonia's room in search of Lady Loring. A low sound of voices penetrated to the passage: I knocked and went in to find O'Rane standing by the bed with a thickly swathed child in his arms, while his wife lay with her hand in Lady Loring's, looking up at him.
"I hope you're feeling better," I said to Sonia.
"David says you haven't even seen him yet," she pouted, disregarding my words. She stretched our her arms to the slumbering child. "Darling, you're being rather left out of all this, aren't you? But if you will go to sleep when the loveliest things are being said about you.... My blessed, I've waked you!"
There was a half-perceptible movement under the long shawl. O'Rane's arms began to rock gently.
"Take him back, David," Sonia begged. "And then just come in for one moment to say good-night. I feel so feeble that I simply can't stand more."
As he left the room, Lady Loring nodded to me, and I prepared to follow her. Sonia was lying with closed eyes, but, as I moved, she raised herself and beckoned with one hand.
"Mr. Stornaway! Just one moment before he comes back! They want to take my baby away. I know I asked them to, but that was before.... You won't let them, will you? He's mine, mine! David thinks I'm saying it because I ought to, because everybody would expect me to, but I'm not! On my honour I'm not! I'd go through it again rather than let them take my baby away."
"He won't be taken away, if you want to keep him," I promised her. "Good-night, my dear Sonia. Go straight off to sleep and don't worry about anything. If you want your child, David won't try to steal him. You're sure you want him?"
"David?"
"I meant the boy."
A smile dawned on her tired face.
"I want so much! I always have.... Oh, I know you despise me, and you're quite right. I despise myself. But I must be loved, I can't get on without it. And I've been, oh! so lonely!"
She gave a little sob. I felt a hand on my arm and turned to find Lady Loring shaking her head and pointing to the door.
"Tell me anything I can do to help you, Sonia," I said, "and I'll do it. Now good-night. You've got to go to sleep, and I shan't let David even say good-night to you."
I met O'Rane in the passage and carried him off to the library.
"Lady Loring wants to get her off to sleep," I explained. "You and the child between you have rather excited her. If you will take my advice, you'll go back to Melton by the first train to-morrow. The two of you are wearing each other out. I'll do whatever's necessary here."
"But I can't leave her yet."
"You can and must. You've got your work to do. O'Rane, you may remember that I've advised you a good many times to face facts and end this business. In your greater wisdom you've always refused——"
"You never seemed to appreciate that I loved Sonia."
"Indeed I did. But I thought we agreed that there were some tests which the greatest love in the world couldn't survive."
He took up his stand by the fireplace, smiling to himself and rocking gently from heel to toe with his hands in his pockets.
"I thought so, too. But wouldn't it be a fair-weather love? I treated Sonia badly, and she treated me worse. Until I married, I always thought that marriage was an easy, straightforward business; you just fell in love, and there was an end of it. If I spoiled her life because I hadn't the imagination, the consideration.... I'm sorry, Stornaway, I can't discuss it. One's pride is rather involved. I always said that I loved her more than a man had ever loved a woman before; if I can't prove it.... But I'm boring you."
"I'm only tired. So are you, so's everyone. We'd better all go to bed. Promise me one thing. If you go in to say good-night to—your wife, don't stay more than a moment."
THE END