What had she to do with Aubrey? Nothing—less than with any other man in the world—any stranger to whom she could speak with freedom, interchanging the common coin of ordinary intercourse. He was the only man in the world whom she must not talk of, must not see—the only one of whose presence it was necessary to obliterate every sign, and never to utter the name where she was. Poor Bee! Yet she felt him near, his presence suggested by everything, his name always latent in the air. She slept and waked in that strange atmosphere as in a dream. In Aubrey’s house, yet with Aubrey obliterated—the one person in existence with whom she had nothing, nothing to do.
It was late before she was allowed to see her brother next day, and Bee, in the meantime, left to her own devices, had not known what to do. She had taken pen and paper two or three times to let her father know that Charlie was found, but her mind revolted, somehow, from making that intimation. What would happen when he knew? He would come here immediately; he would probably attempt to remove Charlie; he would certainly order Bee away at once from a place so unsuitable for her. It was unsuitable for her, and yet—She scarcely saw even Mrs. Leigh after breakfast, but was left to herself, with the door open into that sanctuary which was Aubrey’s, with all his books and the newspapers laid out upon the table. Bee sat in the dining-room and looked into that other secluded place. In the light of day she dared not go into it. It seemed like thrusting herself into his presence who had no thought of her, who did not want her. Oh, not for Aubrey! Aubrey would not for the world disturb her, or bring any embarrassment into her mind. Aubrey would rather disappear from his own house, as if he had never existed, than remind her that he did exist, and perhaps sometimes thought of her still. Did he ever think of her? Bee knew that it would be wrong and unlike Aubrey if he kept in these rooms the poor little photograph of her almost childish face which he had once prized so much. It would have been indelicate, unlike a gentleman; and yet she made a hasty and furtive search everywhere to see if, perhaps, it might be somewhere, in some book or little frame. She would have been angry had she found it, and indignant; yet she felt a certain desolate sense of being altogether out of the question, steal into her heart, when she did not find it—in the inconsistencies of which the heart is full.
It was mid-day when she was called upstairs, to find Charlie established in the room which should have been the drawing-room, and round which she threw another wistful look as she came into it in full daylight. Oh, not a woman’s room in any way, with none of those little photograph frames about which strew a woman’s table—not one, and consequently none of Bee. She took this in at the first glance, as she made the three or four little steps between the door and Charlie’s couch. He was more hollow-eyed and worn in the daylight than he had been even on the night before, his appearance entirely changed from that of the commonplace young Oxford man to an eager, anxious being, with all the cares of a troubled soul concentrated in his eyes. Mrs. Leigh sat near him, and the nurse was busy with cushions and pillows arranging his couch.
“My dear, you will be thankful to hear that the doctor gives a very good report to-day. He says that, though he would not have sanctioned it, my remedy has done wonders. You are my remedy, Bee. I am proud of so successful an idea—though, to be sure, it was a very simple one. Now you must go on and complete the cure, and I give you carte blanche. Ask anyone here, anyone you please, so long as it is not too much for Charlie. He may see one or two people if nurse sanctions it. I am going out myself for the day. I shall not return till late in the afternoon, and you are mistress in the meantime—absolute mistress,” said Mrs. Leigh, kissing her. Bee felt that Aubrey’s mother would not even meet her eyes lest she should throw too much meaning into these words. Oh, there was no meaning in them, except so far as Charlie was concerned.
And then she was left alone with her brother, the most natural, the only suitable arrangement. Nurse gave the last pat to his cushions, the last twist to the coverlet, which was over his gaunt limbs, appealed to him the last time in dumb show whether he wanted anything, and then withdrew. It was most natural that his sister, whose appearance had done him so much good, should be left with him as his nurse; but she was frightened, and Charlie self-absorbed, and it was some time before either found a word to say. At last he said, “Bee!” calling her attention, and then was silent again for some time, speaking no more.
“Yes, Charlie!” There was a flutter in Bee’s voice as in her heart.
“I say, I wasn’t, perhaps, very nice to you last night; I couldn’t bear to be brought back; but they say I’m twice as well since you came. So I am. I’ve got something to keep me up. Bee, look here. Am I dreadful to look at? I know I haven’t an ounce of flesh left on my bones, but some don’t mind that; and then, my beard. I’ve heard it said that a beard that never was shaved was—was—an embellishment, don’t you know. Do you think I’m dreadful to look at, Bee?”
“Oh, Charlie,” said the girl, from the depths of her heart, “what does it matter how you look? The more ill you look the more need you have for your own people about you, who never would think twice of that.”
Charlie’s gaunt countenance was distorted with a grin of rage and annoyance. “I wish you’d shut up about my own people. The governor, perhaps, with his grand air, or Betty, as sharp as a needle—as if I wanted them!—or to be told that they would put up with me.”
“Charlie,” said Bee, trembling, “I don’t want to vex you, you are a little—but couldn’t you have a barber to come, and perhaps he could take it off.”