She nodded.
"Then I have one or two things to add. Whatever happens, do not lose heart for one moment. I have seen these cases again and again....
Whatever happens, too, do not put yourself into a doctor"s hands until I have seen Mr. Baxter for myself. The thing may come suddenly or gradually. And the very instant you are convinced it is coming, telegraph to me. I will be here two hours after.... Do you understand?"
They halted twenty yards from the turning into the hamlet. He looked at her again with his kindly humorous eyes.
She nodded slowly and deliberately, repeating in her own mind his instructions; and beneath, like a whirl of waters, questions surged to and fro, clamoring for answer. But her self-control was coming back each instant.
"You understand, Miss Deronnais?" he said again.
"I understand. Will you write to me?"
"I will write this evening.... Once more, then. Get him down next week. Watch him carefully when he comes. Consult no doctor until you have telegraphed to me, and I have seen him."
She drew a long breath, nodding almost mechanically.
"Good-bye, Miss Deronnais. Let me tell you that you are taking it magnificently. Fear nothing; pray much."
He took her hand for a moment. Then he raised his hat and left her standing there.
II
Mrs. Baxter was exceedingly absorbed just now in a new pious book of meditations written by a clergyman. A nicely bound copy of it, which she had ordered specially, had arrived by the parcels post that morning; and she had been sitting in the drawing-room ever since looking through it, and marking it with a small silver pencil.
Religion was to this lady what horticulture was to Maggie, except of course that it was really important, while horticulture was not. She often wondered that Maggie did not seem to understand: of course she went to ma.s.s every morning, dear girl; but religion surely was much more than that; one should be able to sit for two or three hours over a book in the drawing-room, before the fire, with a silver pencil.
So at lunch she prattled of the book almost continuously, and at the end of it thought Maggie more unsubtle than ever: she looked rather tired and strained, thought the old lady, and she hardly said a word from beginning to end.
The drive in the afternoon was equally unsatisfactory. Mrs. Baxter took the book with her, and the pencil, in order to read aloud a few extracts here and there; and she again seemed to find Maggie rather vacuous and silent.
"Dearest child, you are not very well, I think," she said at last.
Maggie roused herself suddenly.
"What, Auntie?"
"You are not very well, I think. Did you sleep well?"
"Oh! I slept all right," said Maggie vaguely.
But after tea Mrs. Baxter did not feel very well herself. She said she thought she must have taken a little chill. Maggie looked at her with unperceptive eyes.
"I am sorry," she said mechanically.
"Dearest, you don"t seem very overwhelmed. I think perhaps I shall have dinner in bed. Give me my book, child.... Yes, and the pencil-case."
Mrs. Baxter"s room was so comfortable, and the book so fascinatingly spiritual, that she determined to keep her resolution and go to bed.
She felt feverish, just to the extent of being very sleepy and at her ease. She rang her bell and issued her commands.
"A little of the _volaille_," she said, "with a spoonful of soup before it.... No, no meat; but a custard or so, and a little fruit.
Oh! yes, Charlotte, and tell Miss Maggie not to come and see me after dinner."
It seemed that the message had roused the dear girl at last, for Maggie appeared ten minutes later in quite a different mood. There was really some animation in her face.
"Dear Auntie, I am so very sorry.... Yes; do go to bed, and breakfast there in the morning too. I"m just writing to Laurie, by the way."
Mrs. Baxter nodded sleepily from her deep chair.
"He"s coming down in Easter week, isn"t he?"
"So he says, my dear."
"Why shouldn"t he come next week instead, Auntie, and be with us for Easter? You"d like that, wouldn"t you?"
"Very nice indeed, dear child; but don"t bother the boy."
"And you don"t think it"s influenza?" put in Maggie swiftly, laying a cool hand on the old lady"s.
She maintained it was not. It was just a little chill, such as she had had this time last year: and it became necessary to rouse herself a little to enumerate the symptoms. By the time she had done, Maggie"s attention had begun to wander again: the old lady had never known her so unsympathetic before, and said so with gentle peevishness.
Maggie kissed her quickly.
"I"m sorry, Auntie," she said. "I was just thinking of something. Sleep well; and don"t get up in the morning."
Then she left her to a spoonful of soup, a little _volaille_, a custard, some fruit, her spiritual book and contentment.
Downstairs she dined alone in the green-hung dining-room; and she revolved for the twentieth time the thoughts that had been continuously with her since midday, moving before her like a kaleidoscope, incessantly changing their relations, their shapes, and their suggestions. These tended to form themselves into two main alternative cla.s.ses. Either Mr. Cathcart was a harmless fanatic, or he was unusually sharp. But these again had almost endless subdivisions, for at present she had no idea of what was really in his mind--as to what his hints meant. Either this curious old gentleman with shrewd, humorous eyes was entirely wrong, and Laurie was just suffering from a nervous strain, not severe enough to hinder him from reading law in Mr. Morton"s chambers; and this was all the substratum of Mr.
Cathcart"s mysteries: or else Mr. Cathcart was right, and Laurie was in the presence of some danger called insanity which Mr. Cathcart interpreted in some strange fashion she could not understand. And beneath all this again moved the further questions as to what spiritualism really was--what it professed to be, or mere superst.i.tious nonsense, or something else.
She was amazed that she had not demanded greater explicitness this morning; but the thing had been so startling, so suggestive at first, so insignificant in its substance, that her ordinary common sense had deserted her. The old gentleman had come and gone like a wraith, had uttered a few inconclusive sentences, and promised to write, had been disappointed with her at one moment and enthusiastic the next.
Obviously their planes ran neither parallel nor opposing; they cut at unexpected points; and Maggie had no notion as to the direction in which his lay. All she saw plainly was that there was some point of view other than hers.
So, then, she revolved theories, questioned, argued, doubted with herself. One thing only emerged--the old lady"s feverish cold afforded her exactly the opportunity she wished; she could write to Laurie with perfect truthfulness that his mother had taken to her bed, and that she hoped he would come down next week instead of the week after.
After dinner she sat down and wrote it, pausing many times to consider a phrase.
Then she read a little, and soon after ten went upstairs to bed.
III
It was a little before sunset on that day that Mr. James Morton turned down on to the Embankment to walk up to the Westminster underground to take him home. He was a great man on physical exercise, and it was a matter of principle with him to live far from his work. As he came down the little pa.s.sage he found his friend waiting for him, and together they turned up towards where in the distance the Westminster towers rose high and blue against the evening sky.
"Well?" said the old man.
Mr. Morton looked at him with a humorous eye.