He put his arm round her; he drew her head against his shoulder; and she looked up into his face, trying to smile.
"You won"t leave me?" she whispered hoa.r.s.ely.
He laid his hand upon her forehead. It was damp with the first sweat of her agony.
He carried her to her room and sent for Mrs. Wilc.o.x and the doctor and the nurse. Then he went back and began turning the things in and out of his portmanteau in a melancholy, undecided manner. Mrs. Wilc.o.x came and found him doing it.
"I"m not going," he said in answer to her indignant stare.
"I"m glad to hear it. Because if you _do_ go--"
"I am not going."
But Mrs. Wilc.o.x"s maternal instinct had subdued her fear of Nevill Tyson, and he respected her defiance even more than he had respected her fear.
"If you go you"ll put her in a fever, and _I_ won"t answer for the consequences."
He said nothing, for he had a sense of justice, and it was her hour.
Besides, he was no little conscience-stricken.
He went out to look for Stanistreet, and found him in the courtyard, piling his own luggage on the dog-cart. He put his hand on his shoulder.
"Look here," said he, "I can"t go. It"s a d.a.m.ned nuisance, but it"s out of the question. Leave those things till to-morrow."
"To-morrow?" Stanistreet stared vaguely at his host.
"Yes; you must see me through this, Stanny. I can"t trust myself by myself. For G.o.d"s sake let"s go and do something, or I"ll go off my head."
They spent the afternoon in the low coverts about the Toft, and the evening in the billiard-room, sitting forlornly over whiskey-and-soda.
A peculiar throbbing silence and mystery seemed to hang about the house.
Stanistreet was depressed and hardly spoke, while Tyson vainly tried to hide his nervousness under a fict.i.tious jocularity. He looked eagerly for the night, by which time he had concluded that all anxiety would be ended. But when ten o"clock came and he found that nothing more nor less than a long night-watch was required of him, his nerves revolted.
"I wonder how long this business is going to last? I wish to G.o.d I"d never stayed." He leaned back against the chimney-piece, grinding his heels on the fender in his irritation. "I was a fool not to get away in the morning when I had the chance."
He looked up and saw Stanistreet regarding him with a curiously critical expression. Louis did not look very like sitting up all night; his lean face was haggard already.
"I say, Stanistreet, it"s awfully good of you to stop like this. I"m confoundedly sorry I asked you to. I don"t know how we"re going to get through the night." He cast a glance at the billiard-table. "Pity we can"t knock the b.a.l.l.s about a bit--but you see they"d hear us, and she might think it a little cold-blooded."
"My dear fellow, I"m ready to sit up with you till any time in the morning, and I never felt less like billiards in my life."
"Then there"s nothing for it that I can see but a mighty smoke--it"ll soothe our nerves any way. And a mighty drink--we shall need it, you bet."
He rang the bell, lit his first cigar, and settled himself for his watch.
His irritation was still sullenly fermenting; for not only was he going to spend a disagreeable night, but he had been most inconsiderately balked of a pleasant one.
"It"s inconceivable," said he, "the things women expect you to do. If I could do her the smallest good by stopping I wouldn"t complain. But I can"t see her, can"t go near her, can"t do her the least bit of good in the world--I would be better out of the way, in fact--and yet I have to stick here, fretting myself into a fever. If I didn"t do it I should be an unfeeling, heartless, disgusting brute. See? That"s the way they reason."
Presently, under the soothing influence of the cigar, he settled down into some semblance of his former self. He talked almost as well as usual, touching on such light local topics as Miss Batchelor and the new Parish Council; he told Mrs. Nevill"s barrister story with variations, and that landed him in a discussion of his plans. "I very much doubt whether I shall die a country gentleman after all. It isn"t the life for me. That old man"s respectability was ideal--transcendental--it"s too much for me. I don"t know why he left it to me. Sheer cussedness, I suppose. It would have been just like him if he had left me his immortality, on the condition that I should spend it at Drayton Parva. I couldn"t stand that. I don"t even know if I can stand another year of it.
I shall be dragged to the center again some of these days. It must come.
As it is, I"m a rag of a human moth fluttering round the lamps of town."
"Fate," said Stanistreet.
"Not at all. If I go, it"ll be chance that takes me--pure chance."
"Don"t see much difference myself."
"There"s all the difference. Ask any man who"s been chivied about to all the ends of the earth and back again. He can tell you something about, chance, but I doubt if he swears much by fate. Chance--oh Lord, don"t I know it!--chance takes you up and plays with you, pleases you or teases you, and drops you when she"s tired of you. Like--some ladies of our acquaintance, and you"re none the worse for it, not you! Fate looks devilish well after you, loves you or hates you, and in either case sticks to you and ruins you. Like your wife. To complete the little allegory, you can have as many chances as you like, but only one fate.
Needless to say, though my chances have been many and charming, I naturally prefer my--fate."
Tyson was a master of the graceful art of symbolism, and Stanistreet had caught the trick from him. At the present moment he would have given a great deal to know how much of all this was a mere playing with words.
There was a sound of hurrying feet in the room upstairs, and the two men held their breath. Tyson was the first to recover.
"Good G.o.d, Stanistreet, how white you are! I wish I hadn"t let you in for this. I"m not in the least nervous myself, you know. She"s all right.
Thompson says so. I"m awfully sorry for the poor little soul, but if you come to think of it, it"s the most natural and ordinary thing in the world."
But Stanistreet"s thoughts were back in yesterday. He could see nothing, think of nothing but the little figure going through the doorway, and laughing as it went.
"Do you mind not talking about it?" said he.
Tyson sat quiet for a while, except when some obscure movement overhead roused him from his philosophic calm. Towards midnight Mrs. Wilc.o.x came to the door and spoke to him for a minute. After that he became thoughtful. "I don"t quite like the look of it," said he; "he"s sent for Baker of Drayton--I suppose it means that the idiot has just sense enough not to trust his own judgment. But I don"t like it."
By the time he had struck another att.i.tude, lit another cigar, and gulped down another tumbler of whiskey-and-soda, philosophic calm gave way to philosophic doubt. "I don"t know who has the management of these things, but what I want to know is--why do they make women like that? Is it justice? Is it even common decency? What do you think?"
Stanistreet moved impatiently. "I don"t think. I"ve no opinion on the subject. And I never interfere between a man and his Maker--it"s bad form. They must settle it between them."
"It"s all very well to be so infernally polite. But this sort of thing wakes you up impolitely, and makes you ask impolite questions. I suppose I"ve seen men die by dozens--so have you--seen them die as if they enjoyed it, and seen them foaming at the mouth, kicking against death--and I can"t say it particularly staggered my belief in my Maker.
But when it comes to the women, somehow it seems more polite not to believe in him than to believe that he does these d.a.m.nable things on purpose."
Stanistreet closed his eyes to shut out the sight of Tyson and his eternal cigar, and the slow monotonous movement of his lips. His friend"s theological views were not exactly the supreme interest of the moment.
"Down there in the desert" (Tyson seemed to dream as he raised his eyes to the great map of the Soudan that hung above the chimney-piece), "where there"s no end to the sand and the sky, and man"s nothing and woman less than nothing, this curious belief in the infinite seems the natural thing; it simply possesses you. You know the feeling? But here it gets crowded out somehow; it"s too big for these little houses we"ve got to live in, and work in, and die in. It"s beastly business thinking, though.
I fancy old Tennyson got very near the mark--
""Perplexed in faith, but _pure in deeds_.
At last he beat his music out; There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half--""
There was a sharp bitter cry, stifled in the instant of its utterance, and Tyson started to his feet. His mouth worked convulsively. "My G.o.d!
I don"t care who"s responsible for this filthy world. n.o.body but a fiend could take that little thing and torture her so. Think of it, Louis!"
"I"m trying not to think of it. It"s d.a.m.nable as you say, but--other women have to stand it."
"Other women!" Tyson flung the words out like an execration that throbbed with his scorn and loathing of the s.e.x. Other women! By an act of his will he had put his wife on a high pedestal for the moment--made her shine, for the moment, white and fair above the contemptible herd, her obscure mult.i.tudinous sisterhood. Other women! The phrase had an undertone of dull pa.s.sionate self-reproach that was distinctly audible to Stanistreet"s finer ear. Stanistreet knew many things about Tyson--knew, for instance, the cause that but for this would have taken him up to town; and Tyson knew that he knew.
If it came to that, Stanistreet too had some grounds for self-reproach.
He took up a book and tried to read; but the words reeled and staggered and grew dim before him; he found himself listening to the ticking of the clock, and the pulse of time became a woman"s heart beating violently with pain, a heart indistinguishable from his own. Other women (it was he who had used the words)--was it simply by her share in their grim lot that Mrs. Nevill Tyson had contrived to invest herself with this somber significance? Perhaps. It was the same woman that he had driven with, laughed with, flirted with a hundred times--the woman that in the natural course of things (Tyson apart) he would infallibly have made love to; and yet in one day and one night her prettinesses, her impertinences had fallen from her like a frivolous garment, leaving only the simple eternal lines of her womanhood. Henceforth, whatever he might think, he would not think of her to-morrow as he had thought yesterday; whatever he felt to-morrow, his feeling would never lose that purifying touch of tragic pity. Mrs. Nevill Tyson would never be the same woman that he had known before. And yet--she was a fool, a fool; and he doubted if her sufferings would make her any wiser.
Tyson looked at his watch. "Look there, Stanistreet, it"s two o"clock--there must be some blundering. I"ll speak to Baker. What are those d.a.m.ned doctors thinking of! Why can"t they have done with it? Why can"t they put her under chloroform?"