“No,” he said, “no: how can I tell? I have not seen him. I could not be a judge. It is on Paul’s account; but I shall be at the village—always at hand whatever you may want.”
This reassured her a little, and the glimmer of a feeble smile came on her face. She gave him her trembling hand for a moment. He had been very “kind.” It was not a word that expressed his devotion, but Alice did not know what other to use: very—very kind.
“The house will seem more empty still if you go. It looks so lonely,” said Alice; “like what it used to be when they were away in town and we left behind. Oh, if that were all! Paul ought to have been here all the time, and you have taken his place. It is unjust that you should go when he comes.”
“I shall not go,” said Fairfax softly. He had held her hand in his for a moment—only for a moment. Alice, in her grief, was soothed by his sympathy; but Fairfax, on the other hand, was very well aware that he must take no advantage of that sympathy. He would have liked to kiss the trembling hand in an effusion of tender pity, and if it had been Lady Markham he might have done so; but it was Alice, and he dared not. He held himself aloof by main strength, keeping himself from even a word more. There was almost a little chill in it to the girl, whose heart was full of trouble and pain, and whose tearful eyes appealed unconsciously to that “kindness” in which she had such confidence. To be deserted by any one at such a moment would have seemed hard to her. The house was oppressed by the slow rolling-up of this cloud, which was about to overcloud all their life.
Lady Markham now scarcely left the sick-room at all. When they warned her that she would exhaust herself, that she would not be able to bear the strain, she would shake her head with a woeful sort of smile. She was not of the kind that breaks down. She was sure of herself so long as she should be wanted, and afterwards, what did it matter? Now and then she would come out and take a turn or two along the corridor, rather because of the restlessness of anguish that would take possession of her than from any desire to “change the air,” as the nurse said. And when she was out of the room Sir William’s worn eyes would watch the door. “Don’t leave me alone,” he said to her in his feeble voice. He had grown very feeble now. For by far the greater part of the time he was occupied entirely with his bodily sufferings; but now and then it would occur to him that there was something in his pocket-book, something that would give a great deal of trouble—and that there was somebody who wanted to see him and to force an explanation. How was he able in his weak state, to give any explanation? He had entreated his wife at first not to allow him to be disturbed, and now as everything grew dimmer, he could not bear that she should leave him. There was protection in her presence. At times it occurred to him that his enemy was lurking outside, and that all his attendants could do was to keep the intruder at bay. Now and then he would hear a step in the corridor, which no doubt was his; but the nurses were all faithful, and the dangerous visitor was never let in. At these moments Sir William turned his feeble head to look for his wife. She would protect him. As he went further and further, deeper and deeper, into the valley of the shadow, he forgot even what the danger was; but the idea haunted him still. All this time he had never asked for Paul. He had not wished to see any one, only to have his room well watched and guarded, and nobody allowed to disturb him. When the doctors came there was always a thrill of alarm in his mind—not for his own condition, as might have been supposed, but lest in their train or under some disguise the man who was his enemy might get admission. And thus, without any alarm in respect to himself, without any personal uneasiness about what was coming, he descended gradually the fatal slope. The thought of death never occurred to him at all. No solemn alarm was his, not even any consciousness of what might be coming. He never breathed a word as to what he wished to be done, or gave any directions. In short, he did not apparently think much of his illness. The idea of a dangerous and disagreeable visitor who would go away again if no notice was taken of him, and of whom it was expedient to take no notice, was the master idea in his mind, and with all the strength he had he kept this danger secret—it was all the exertion of which he was now capable.
And to be a visitor in the house at such a melancholy moment was most embarrassing. There are some people who have a special knack of mixing themselves up in the affairs of others, and Fairfax was one of these. He was himself strangely isolated and alone in the world, and it seemed to him that he had never found so much interest in anything as in this family story into the midst of which he had been so suddenly thrown. Almost before he had become acquainted with them, circumstances had made him useful, and for the moment necessary, to them. He was an intruder, yet he was doing the work of a son. And then in those long summer evenings which Lady Markham spent in her husband’s sick-room, what a strange charmed life the young man had drifted into! When the children went to bed, Alice would leave the great drawing-room blazing with lights, for that smaller room at the end which was Lady Markham’s sanctuary, and which was scarcely lighted at all, and there the two young people would sit alone, waiting for Lady Markham’s appearance or for news from the sick-room, with only one dim lamp burning, and the summer moonlight coming in through the little golden-tinted panes of the great Elizabethan window. Sometimes they scarcely said anything to each other, the anxiety which was the very atmosphere of the house hushing them into watchfulness and listening which forbade speech; but sometimes, on the other hand, they would talk in half-whispers, making to each other without knowing it, many disclosures both of their young lives and characters, which advanced them altogether beyond that knowledge of each other which ordinary acquaintances possess.
Nothing like love, it need not be said, was in those bits of intercourse, broken sometimes by a hasty summons from the sick-room to Alice, or a hurried commission to Fairfax—a telegram that had to be answered, or something that it was necessary to explain to the doctor. In the intervals of these duties, which seemed as natural to the one as to the other, the girl and the young man would talk or would be silent, somehow pleased and soothed mutually by each other’s presence, though neither was conscious of thinking of the other. Alice at least was not conscious. She felt that it was “a comfort” that he should be there, so sympathetic, so kind, ready to go anywhere at a moment’s notice; and she had come to be able to say to him “Go” or “Come” without hesitation, and to take for granted his willing service. But it was scarcely to be expected that Fairfax should be unconscious of the strangeness of the union which was invisibly forming itself between them. At first a certain amusement had mixed with the natural surprise of suddenly finding himself in circumstances so strange; but it must be allowed that by degrees Fairfax came to think Sir William’s illness a fortunate chance, and so long as imminent danger was not thought of, had no objection to its continuance.
But things had become more grave from day to day. Sir William, without doubt, seemed going to die, and Paul did not come, and the stranger’s services became more and more necessary, yet more and more incongruous with the circumstances of the house. The whole came to a climax when Gus whispered that revelation across the table in the inn parlour. The excitement and distress with which Fairfax received it is not to be described. Could it be true? Certainly Gus was absolutely convinced of its truth, and unaware of any possibility of denial. Fairfax asked himself, with a perplexity more serious than he had ever known in his life before, what he ought to do. Was it his duty to say something or to say nothing? to warn them of the extraordinary blow that was coming, or to hold his peace and merely look on? When he went back up the peaceful avenue into the house which he was beginning to call home—the house over which one dread cloud was hanging, but which had no prevision of the other calamity—he felt as if he himself were a traitor conniving at its destruction. But to whom could he speak? Not to Lady Markham who had so much to bear—and Alice—to tell such a tale to Alice was impossible. It was then that he determined at any cost that Paul must come, and he himself go away. That Paul would not tolerate his presence in the house he was aware, instinctively feeling that neither could he, in Paul’s place, have borne it. And to go away was not so easy as it once might have been; but there seemed no longer any question what his duty was. He put up some of his things in a bag, and himself carried them with him down the avenue, not able to feel otherwise than sadly heavy and sore about the heart. He could not abandon the ladies; but he could not stay there any longer with that secret in his possession. His telegram to Paul was in a different tone from those which the ladies sent.
“The doctors give scarcely any hope,” he said. “Come instantly. I cannot but feel myself an intruder at such a moment; but I will not leave till you come.”
Then he went sadly with his bag to the Markham Arms. Was it right? Was it wrong? It even glanced across his mind that to establish himself there by the side of Gus might seem to the Markhams like taking their enemy’s side against them. But what else could he do? He would neither intrude upon them nor abandon them.