She had not paused to think that they would look on it as their honour which she had played with. His rather pitiful dignity hurt her more than anything that had gone before.
"I cannot do that," she answered; "there is nothing exactly that you could blame him for. I did what I did out of my own free will and because I thought it was right."
He still stared at her. "Right," he repeated; "you use the word in a strange sense, surely; and as for blaming him"--she saw how suddenly his hands clenched, the knuckles standing out white--"if you will let me know where to find him, I will settle that between us."
Joan moved towards the door. "I cannot," she said; "please, Uncle John, don"t ask me any more. I have hurt your honour; it must be me that you punish. I am going away to-morrow, let me go out of your life altogether. I shall not make any attempt to come back."
"You are going to him?" he questioned. "Before G.o.d, if you do that I will find you out and----"
"No," she interrupted, "you need not be afraid; I am not going back to him."
With her hand on the door she heard him order her to come back as he had not finished what he had to say, and she stayed where she was, not turning again to look at him.
"You are being stubborn in your sin." How strange the words sounded from Uncle John, who had never said a cross word to her in his life. "Very well, then, there is nothing for us to do except, as you say, to try and forget that we have ever loved you. When you go out of our house to-morrow it shall be the end. Your aunt is with me in this. But you shall have money; it shall be paid to you regularly through my solicitor, and to-night I am writing to him to tell him to render you every a.s.sistance he can. You can go there whenever you are in need of help. Miss Abercrombie has also promised your aunt, I believe, to do what she can for you."
"I would rather not take any money from you," whispered Joan; "I will be able to earn enough to keep myself."
"When you are doing that," he answered grimly, "you may communicate with the solicitor and he will put the money aside for such time as you may need it. But until then you owe it to us to use our money in preference to what could only be given to you in charity or disgrace."
She waited in silence for some minutes after his last words. If she could have run to him then and cried out her fear and dismay and regret, perhaps some peace might have been achieved between them which would have helped to smooth out the tangle of their lives. But Joan was hopelessly dumb. She had gone into her escapade with light laughter on her lips, now she was paying the cost. One cannot take the world and readjust it to one"s own beliefs. That was the lesson she was to learn through loneliness and tears. This breaking of home ties was only the first step in the lesson.
She stole out of his presence at last and up to her own room. Her packing was all finished, she had dismantled the walls of her pictures, the tables of her books. Everything she possessed had been given to her by either Uncle John or Aunt Janet. Christmas presents, Easter presents, birthday presents, presents for no particular excuse except that she was their little girl and they loved her. It seemed to Joan as if into the black box which contained all these treasures she had laid away also their love for her. It took on almost the appearance of a coffin and she hated it.
Miss Abercrombie saw her off at the station next morning. She had given Joan several addresses where she could look for rooms and was coming up to London in about a month herself, and would take Joan back with her into the country. "I want you to remember, though," she added, "that you can always come to me any time before that if you feel inclined. You need not even write; just turn up; you have my address; I shall always be glad to have you. I want to help you through what I know is going to be a very bitter time."
"Thank you," Joan answered; but even at the time she had a ridiculous feeling that Miss Abercrombie was very glad to be seeing the last of her.
After the train had slid out of the station and the small, purposeful figure had vanished from sight she sat back and tried to collect her thoughts to review the situation. She was feeling tired and desperately unhappy. They had let her see, even these dear people whom of all others in the world she loved, that she had gone outside their pale. She was in their eyes an outcast, a leper. She was afraid to see in other people"s eyes the look of horror and agony which she had read in Aunt Janet"s. Of what use was her book-learned wisdom in the face of this, it vanished into thin air. Hopeless, ashamed, yet a little defiant, Joan sat and stared at the opposite wall of the railway carriage.
At Victoria Station she put her luggage into the cloak-room, deciding to see what could be done in the way of rooms, without the expense of going from place to place in a cab. The places Miss Abercrombie had recommended her to struck her as being expensive, and it seemed to her tortured nerves as if the landladies viewed her with distrustful eyes.
She finally decided to take a bus down to Chelsea; she remembered having heard from someone that Chelsea was a cheap and frankly Bohemian place to live in.
London was not looking its very best on this particular morning. A green-grey fog enshrouded shops and houses, the Park was an invisible blur and the atmosphere smarted in people"s eyes and irritated their throats. Despite the contrariness of the weather, Joan clambered on to the top of the bus, she felt she could not face the inside stuffiness.
She was tired and, had she but owned to it, hungry. It was already late afternoon and she had only had a cup of coffee and a bun since her arrival.
As the bus jolted and b.u.mped down Park Lane and then along Knightsbridge, she sat huddled up and miserable on the back seat, the day being well in accord with her mood. She was only dimly aware that they were pa.s.sing the flat where she and Gilbert had lived, she was more acutely conscious of the couple who sat just in front of her--the man"s arm flung round the girl"s shoulders, her head very close to his.
Waves of misery closed round Joan. A memory, which had not troubled her for some time, of Gilbert"s hands about her and the scent of heliotrope, stirred across her mind. She could feel the hot tears splashing on her ungloved hands, a fit of sobbing gulped at her throat. Lest she should altogether lose control of herself she rose quickly and fumbled her way down the steps. The bus had just reached the corner of Sloane Street.
She would go across the Park, she decided, and have her cry out. It was no use going to look for rooms in her present state, no landlady would dream of having her.
Half blinded by her tears and the fog combined, she turned and started to cross the road. Voices yelled at her from either side, a motor car with enormous headlights came straight at her out of the fog. Joan hesitated, if she had stayed quite still the danger would have flashed past her, but she was already too unnerved to judge of what her action should be. As if fascinated by the lights she shut her eyes and moved blindly towards them.
There were more sharp shouts, a great grinding noise of brakes and rushing wheels brought to a sudden pause, then the darkness of black, absolute night surged over and beyond the pain which for a moment had held Joan. She floated out, so it seemed, on to a sea of nothingness, and a great peace settled about her heart.
CHAPTER VIII
"With heart made empty of delight And hands that held no more fair things; I questioned her;--"What shall requite The savour of my offerings?""
E. NESBIT.
"You have got your back against the wall, you have got to fight, you have got to fight, to fight!"
The words pounded across Joan"s mind over and over again. She struggled in obedience to their message against the waves of sleep that lapped her round. Struggled and fought, till at last, after what seemed like centuries of darkness, she won back to light and opened her eyes.
She was lying in a long narrow bed, one of many, ranged on both sides down the hospital walls. Large windows, set very high up, opened on to grey skies and a flood of rather cold sunshine. At the foot of her bed, watching her with impartial eyes, stood a man, and beside him two nurses, their neat pink dresses and starched ap.r.o.ns rustling a little as they moved.
Joan"s eyes, wide and bewildered, met the doctor"s, and he leant forward and smiled.
"That"s better," he said, "you have got to make an effort towards living yourself, young lady." He nodded and turned to the nurse at his right hand. "How long has she been in now, Nurse?"
"Ten days to-morrow," the woman answered, "and except for the first day, when she moaned a good deal and talked about having to fight, she has scarce seemed to be conscious."
Joan"s lips, prompted by the insistent voice within her, repeated, "I have got to fight," stiffly.
The doctor came a little nearer and stooped to hear the words, "Yes," he agreed, "that is right, you have got to fight. See if you can get her to talk now and again, Nurse," he added; "she wants rousing, otherwise there is nothing radically to keep her back."
Joan"s face, however, seemed to linger in his mind, for, as he was about to leave the ward after his tour of inspection, he turned again to the elder nurse in charge.
"Have you been able to find out anything about bed 14?" he asked.
"No, sir. We have had no inquiries and there was nothing in any of her pockets except a cloak-room ticket for Victoria Station."
"Humph," he commented, "yet she must have relations. She does not look the friendless waif type."
Nurse Taylor pursed up her lips. She had her own opinion as to the patient in bed 14. "There was the unfortunate circ.u.mstance of her condition," she mentioned; "the girl may very well have been desperate and lonely."
"Anyway, she hasn"t any right to be left like this," the doctor retorted. "If you can get her to talk about relations, find out where they are and send for them. That is my advice."
Nurse Taylor owned a great many excellent qualities; tact and compa.s.sion were not among them. Long years spent in a profession which brought her daily into contact with human sin and human suffering had done nothing to soften her outlook or smooth down the hard, straight lines which she had laid down for her own and everyone else"s guidance. She disapproved of Joan, but obedience to the doctor"s orders was a religion to her; even where she disapproved she always implicitly carried them out.
Next day, therefore, she stopped for quite a long time at Joan"s bed, talking in her toneless, high voice. Had Joan any people who could be written to, what was her home address, would they not be worried at hearing nothing from her?
Joan could only shake her head to all the questions. Very vaguely and in detached fragments she was beginning to remember the time that had preceded her accident. The memory of Aunt Janet"s face and Uncle John"s parting words was like an open wound, it bled at every touch and she shrank from Nurse Taylor"s pointed questions. She remembered how she had sat on the top of the bus with the black weight of misery on her heart and of how the tears had come. She had been looking for rooms; that recollection followed hard on the heels of the other.
When she was well enough to get about she would have to start looking for rooms again, for she had quite definitely made up her mind not to be a burden to Miss Abercrombie. It was her own fight; when she had gathered her strength about her, she would fight it out alone and make a success of it. Half wistfully she looked into the future and dreamt about the baby that was coming into her life. She would have to learn to live down this feeling of shame that burnt at her heart as she thought of him. He would be all hers, a small life to make of it what she pleased. Well, she would have to see that she made it fine and gay and brave. Shame should not enter into their lives, not if she fought hard enough.
Nurse Taylor described her to the junior afterwards as a most stubborn and hardened type of girl.
"The poor thing has hardly got her wits about her yet," the other answered; "she is very little trouble in the wards, we have had worse."
"Well, the doctor can question her himself next time," Nurse Taylor snorted. "I am not here to be snubbed by her sort."
She did not, however, let the matter drop entirely. At the end of her third week Joan was promoted to an armchair in the verandah and there one afternoon, after the teas had been handed round, Nurse Taylor brought her a visitor. A tall, sad-faced, elderly woman, who walked with a curiously deprecating movement, seeming to apologize for every step she took. Yet kindliness and a certain strength shone at Joan from behind the large, round-rimmed gla.s.ses she wore, and her mouth was clean cut and sharp.
"This is Mrs. Westwood." Nurse Taylor introduced them briefly. "She wants to have a little talk with you, Miss Rutherford. If I were you I should tell her about things," she added pointedly. "I do not know if you have any plans made, but you are up for discharge next week."