CHAPTER XIII
Cynthia and Georgina Welwyn were dining at Beechmark on the eventfulevening. They took their departure immediately after the scene in thedrawing-room when Geoffrey French, at his cousin's wish, gatheredBuntingford's guests together, and revealed the identity of the woman inthe wood. In the hurried conversation that followed, Cynthia scarcelyjoined, and she was more than ready when Georgina proposed to go. JulianHorne found them their wraps, and saw them off. It was a beautiful night,and they were to walk home through the park.
"Shall I bring you any news there is to-morrow?" said Horne from thedoorstep--"Geoffrey has asked me to stay till the evening. Everybody elseof course is going early. It will be some time, won't it,"--he loweredhis voice--"before we shall see the bearing of all this?"
Cynthia assented, rather coldly; and when she and her sister were walkingthrough the moonlit path leading to the cottage, her silence was stillmarked, whereas Georgina in her grim way was excited and eager to talk.
The truth was that Cynthia was not only agitated by the news of theevening. She was hurt--bitterly hurt. Could not Buntingford have sparedher a word in private? She was his kinswoman, his old and particularfriend, neglectful as he had shown himself during the war. Had he notonly a few weeks before come to ask her help with the trouble-some girlwhose charge he had assumed? She had been no good, she knew. Helena hadnot been ready to make friends; and Cynthia's correctness had always beenrepelled by the reckless note in Helena. Yet she had done her best onthat and other occasions and she had been rewarded by being treated inthis most critical, most agitated moment like any other of Buntingford'sweek-end guests. Not a special message even--just the news that everybodymight now know, and--Julian Horne to see them off! Yet Helena had beensent for at once. Helena had been closeted with Philip for half an hour.No doubt he had a special responsibility towards her. But what use couldshe possibly be? Whereas Cynthia felt herself the practical, experiencedwoman, able to give an old friend any help he might want in a graveemergency.
"Of course we must all hope she will die--and die quickly!" said LadyGeorgina, with energy, after some remarks to which Cynthia paid smallattention. "It would be the only sensible course for Providence--aftermaking such a terrible mistake."
"Is there any idea of her dying?" Cynthia looked down upon her sisterwith astonishment. "Geoffrey didn't say so."
"He said she was 'very ill,' and from her conduct she must be crazy. Sothere's hope."
"You mean, for Philip?"
"For the world in general," said Georgina, cautiously, with an unnoticedglance at her companion. "But of course Philip has only himself to blame.Why did he marry such a woman?"
"She may have been very beautiful--or charming--you don't know."
Lady Georgina shrugged her shoulders.
"Well, of course there must have been something to bait the hook! Butwhen a man marries out of his own class, unless the woman dies, the mangoes to pieces."
"Philip has not gone to pieces!" cried Cynthia indignantly.
"Because she removed herself. For practical purposes that was as good asdying. He has much to be grateful for. Suppose she had come home withhim! She would have ruined him socially and morally."
"And if she doesn't die," said Cynthia slowly, "what will Philip dothen?"
"Ship her off to America, as she asks him, and prove a few little factsin the divorce court--simple enough! It oughtn't to take him much morethan six months to get free--which he never has been yet!" addedGeorgina, with particular emphasis.
"It's a mercy, my dear, that you didn't just happen to be LadyBuntingford!"
"As if I had ever expected to be!" said Cynthia, much nettled.
"Well, you would, and you wouldn't have been!" said Georginaobstinately. "It's very complicated. You would have had to be marriedagain--after the divorce."
"I don't know why you are so unkind, Georgie!" There was a littlequaver in Cynthia's voice. "Philip's a very old friend of mine, and I'mvery sorry and troubled about him. Why do you smirch it all with thesehorrid remarks?"
"I won't make any more, if you don't like them," said Georgina,unabashed--"except just to say this, Cynthia--for the first time Ibegin to believe in your chance. There was always something not clearedup about Philip, and it might have turned out to be something pastmending. Now it is cleared up; and it's bad--but it might have beenworse. However--we'll change the subject. What about that handsomeyoung woman, Helena?"
"Now, if you'd chanced to say it was a mercy _she_ didn't happen to beLady Buntingford, there'd have been some sense in it!" Cynthia's tonebetrayed the soreness within.
Lady Georgina laughed, or rather chuckled.
"I know Philip a great deal better than you do, my dear, though he isyour friend. He has made himself, I suspect, as usual, much too nice tothat child; and he may think himself lucky if he hasn't broken herheart. He isn't a flirt--I agree. But he produces the sameeffect--without meaning it. Without meaning anything indeed--except tobe good and kind to a young thing. The men with Philip's manners andPhilip's charm--thank goodness, there aren't many of them!--have anabominable responsibility. The poor moth flops into the candle beforeshe knows where she is. But as to marrying her--it has never entered hishead for a moment, and never would."
"And why shouldn't it, please?"
"Because she is much too young for him--and Philip is a tired man.Haven't you seen that, Cynthy? Before you knew him, Philip hadexhausted his emotions--that's my reading of him. I don't for a momentbelieve his wife was the only one, if what Geoffrey said of her, andwhat one guesses, is true. She would never have contented him. And nowit's done. If he ever marries now, it will be for peace--not passion.As I said before, Cynthy--and I mean no offence--your chances arebetter than they were."
Cynthia winced and protested again, but all the same she was secretlysoothed by her odd sister's point of view. They began to discuss thesituation at the Rectory,--how Alice Alcott, their old friend, with hersmall domestic resources, could possibly cope with it, if a long illnessdeveloped.
"Either the woman will die, or she will be divorced," said Georginatrenchantly. "And as soon as they know she isn't going to die, what onearth will they do with her?"
As she spoke they were passing along the foot of the Rectory garden. TheRectory stood really on the edge of the park, where it bordered on thehighroad; and their own cottage was only a hundred yards beyond. Therewere two figures walking up and down in the garden. The Welwynsidentified them at once as the Rector and his sister.
Cynthia stopped.
"I shall go and ask Alice if we can do anything for her."
She made for the garden gate that opened on the park and called softly.The two dim figures turned and came towards her. It was soon conveyed tothe Alcotts that the Welwyns shared their knowledge, and a conversationfollowed, almost in whispers under a group of lilacs that flung roundthem the scents of the unspoilt summer. Alice Alcott, to get a breath ofair, had left her patient in the charge of their old housemaid, for aquarter of an hour, but must go back at once and would sit up all night.A nurse was coming on the morrow.
Then, while Georgina employed her rasping tongue on Mr. Alcott, Cynthiaand the Rector's sister conferred in low tones about various urgentmatters--furniture for the nurse's room, sheets, pillows, and the rest.The Alcotts were very poor, and the Rectory had no reserves.
"Of course, we could send for everything to Beechmark," murmuredMiss Alcott.
"Why should you? It is so much further. We will send in everything youwant. What are we to call this--this person?" said Cynthia.
"Madame Melegrani. It is the name she has passed by for years."
"You say she is holding her own?"
"Just--with strychnine and brandy. But the heart is very weak. She toldDr. Ramsay she had an attack of flu last week--temperature up to 104. Butshe wouldn't give in to it--never even went to bed. Then came theexcitement of travelling down here and the night in the park. This is theresult. It makes me nervous to think that we
shan't have Dr. Ramsayto-morrow. His partner is not quite the same thing. But he is going toLondon with Lord Buntingford."
"Buntingford--going to London?" said Cynthia in amazement.
Miss Alcott started. She remembered suddenly that her brother had toldher that no mention was to be made, for the present, of the visit toLondon. In her fatigue and suppressed excitement she had forgotten. Shecould only retrieve her indiscretion--since white lies were not practisedat the Rectory--by a hurried change of subject and by reminding herbrother it was time for them to go back to the house. They accordinglydisappeared.
"What is Buntingford going to London for?" said Georgina as they nearedtheir own door.
Cynthia could not imagine--especially when the state of the Rectorypatient was considered. "If she is as bad as the Alcotts say, they willprobably want to-morrow to get a deposition from her of some kind,"remarked Georgina, facing the facts as usual. Cynthia acquiesced. But shewas not thinking of the unhappy stranger who lay, probably dying, underthe Alcotts' roof. She was suffering from a fresh personal stab. For,clearly, Geoffrey French had not told all there was to be known; therewas some further mystery. And even the Alcotts knew more than she.Affection and pride were both wounded anew.
But with the morning came consolation. Her maid, when she called her,brought in the letters as usual. Among them, one in a large familiarhand. She opened it eagerly, and it ran:--
"Saturday night, 11 p.m.
"MY DEAR CYNTHIA:--I was so sorry to find when I went to the drawing-roomjust now that you had gone home. I wanted if possible to walk part of theway with you, and to tell you a few things myself. For you are one of myoldest friends, and I greatly value your sympathy and counsel. But theconfusion and bewilderment of the last few hours have been such--you willunderstand!
"To-morrow we shall hardly meet--for I am going to London on a strangeerrand! Anna--the woman that was my wife--tells me that six months aftershe left me, a son was born to me, whose existence she has till nowconcealed from me. I have no reason to doubt her word, but of course foreverybody's sake I must verify her statement as far as I can. My son--alad of fifteen--is now in London, and so is the French _bonne_--ZelieRonchicourt--who originally lived with us in Paris, and was with Anna atthe time of her confinement. You will feel for me when you know that heis apparently deaf and dumb. At any rate he has never spoken, and thebrain makes no response. Anna speaks of an injury at birth. There mightpossibly be an operation. But of all this I shall know more presently.The boy, of course, is mine henceforth--whatever happens.
"With what mingled feelings I set out to-morrow, you can imagine. I feelno bitterness towards the unhappy soul who has come back so suddenly intomy life. Except so far as the boy is concerned--(_that_ I feelcruelly!)--I have not much right--For I was not blameless towards her inthe old days. She had reasons--though not of the ordinary kind--for thefrantic jealousy which carried her away from me. I shall do all I can forher; but if she gets through this illness, there will be a divorce inproper form.
"For me, in any case, it is the end of years of miserableuncertainty--of a semi-deception I could not escape--and of a moralloneliness I cannot describe. I must have often puzzled you and manyothers of my friends. Well, you have the key now. I can and will speakfreely when we meet again.
"According to present plans, I bring the boy back to-morrow. Ramsay is tofind me a specially trained nurse and will keep him under his ownobservation for a time. We may also have a specialist down at once.
"I shall of course hurry back as soon as I can--Anna's state iscritical--
"Yours ever effectionately,
"BUNTINGFORD."
"P.S.--I don't know much about the domestic conditions in the Ramsays'house. Ramsay I have every confidence in. He has always seemed to me avery clever and a very nice fellow. And I imagine Mrs. Ramsay is acompetent woman."
"She isn't!" said Cynthia, suddenly springing up in bed. "She is anincompetent goose! As for looking after that poor child and hisnurse--properly--she couldn't!"
Quite another plan shaped itself in her mind. But she did not as yetcommunicate it to Georgina.
After breakfast she loaded her little pony carriage with all the invalidnecessaries she had promised Miss Alcott, and drove them over to theRectory. Alcott saw her arrival from his study, and came out, his fingeron his lip, to meet her.
"Many, many thanks," he said, looking at what she had brought. "It isawfully good of you. I will take them in--but I ask myself--will she everlive through the day? Lord Buntingford and Ramsay hurried off by thefirst train this morning. She has enquired for the boy, and they willbring him back as soon as they can. She gives herself no chance! She isso weak--but her will is terribly strong! We can't get her to obey thedoctor's orders. Of course, it is partly the restlessness of thecondition."
Cynthia's eyes travelled to the upper window above the study.Buntingford's wife lay there! It seemed to her that the little room heldall the secrets of Buntingford's past. The dying woman knew them, and shealone. A new jealousy entered into Cynthia--a despairing sense of theirrevocable. Helena was forgotten.
At noon Julian Horne arrived, bringing a book that Cynthia had lent him.He stayed to gossip about the break-up of the party.
"Everybody has cleared out except myself and Geoffrey. Miss Helena andher chaperon went this morning before lunch. Buntingford of course hadgone before they came down. French tells me they have gone to a littleinn in Wales he recommended. Miss Helena said she wanted something todraw, and a quiet place. I must say she looked pretty knocked up!--Isuppose by the dance?"
His sharp greenish eyes perused Cynthia's countenance. She made no reply.His remark did not interest a preoccupied woman. Yet she did not fail toremember, with a curious pleasure, that there was no mention of Helena inBuntingford's letter.
Between five and six that afternoon a party of four descended at astation some fifteen miles from Beechmark, where Buntingford was not verylikely to be recognized. It consisted of Buntingford, the doctor, awrinkled French _bonne_, in a black stuff dress, and black bonnet, and afrail little boy whom a spectator would have guessed to be eleven ortwelve years old. Buntingford carried him, and the whole party passedrapidly to a motor standing outside. Then through a rainy evening theysped on at a great pace towards the Beechmark park and village. The boysat next to Buntingford who had his arm round him. But he was neverstill. He had a perpetual restless motion of the head and the emaciatedright hand, as though something oppressed the head, and he were trying tobrush it away. His eyes wandered round the faces in the car,--from hisfather to the doctor, from the doctor to the Frenchwoman. But there wasno comprehension in them. He saw and did not see. Buntingford hung overhim, alive to his every movement, absorbed indeed in his son. The boy'spaternity was stamped upon him. He had Buntingford's hair and brow; everyline and trait in those noticeable eyes of his father seemed to bereproduced in him; and there were small characteristics in the handswhich made them a copy in miniature of his father's. No one seeing himcould have doubted his mother's story; and Buntingford had been able toverify it in all essential particulars by the evidence of the old_bonne_, who had lived with Anna in Paris before her flight, and had beenpresent at the child's birth. The old woman was very taciturn, andapparently hostile to Buntingford, whom she perfectly remembered; but shehad told enough.
The June evening was in full beauty when the car drew up at theRectory. Alcott and Dr. Ramsay's partner received them. The patientthey reported had insisted on being lifted to a chair, and wasfeverishly expecting them.
Buntingford carried the boy upstairs, the _bonne_ following. The doctorsremained on the landing, within call. At sight of her mistress, Zelie'srugged face expressed her dismay. She hurried up to her, dropped on herknees beside her, and spoke to her in agitated French. Anna Melegraniturned her white face and clouded eyes upon her for a moment; but made noresponse. She looked past her indeed to where Buntingford stood with theboy, and made a faint gesture that seemed to summon him.
He pu
t him down on his feet beside her. The pathetic little creature waswearing a shabby velveteen suit, with knickerbockers, which bagged abouthis thin frame. The legs like white sticks appearing below theknickerbockers, the blue-veined hollows of the temples, and the tinyhands--together with the quiet wandering look--made so pitiable animpression that Miss Alcott standing behind the sick woman could not keepback the tears. The boy himself was a centre of calm in the agitatedroom, except for the constant movement of the head. He seemed to perceivesomething familiar in his mother's face, but when she put out a feeblehand to him, and tried to kiss him, he began to whimper. Her expressionchanged at once; with what strength she had she pushed him away. "_Il estafreux_!" she said sombrely, closing her eyes.
Buntingford lifted him up, and carried him to Zelie, who was in aneighbouring room. She had brought with her some of the coloured bricks,and "nests" of Japanese boxes which generally amused him. He was soonsitting on the floor, aimlessly shuffling the bricks, and apparentlyhappy. As his father was returning to the sickroom a note was put intohis hand by the Rector. It contained these few words--"Don't make finalarrangements with the Ramsays till you have seen me. Think I couldpropose something you would like better. Shall be here all the evening.Yours affectionately--Cynthia."
He had just thrust it into his pocket, when the Rector drew him aside atthe head of the stairs, while the two doctors were with the patient.
"I don't want to interfere with any of your arrangements," whispered theRector, "but I think perhaps I ought to tell you that Mrs. Ramsay is nogreat housewife. She is a queer little flighty thing. She spends her timein trying to write plays and bothering managers. There's no harm in her,and he's very fond of her. But it is an untidy, dirty little house! Andnothing ever happens at the right time. My sister said I must warn you.She's had it on her mind--as she's had a good deal of experience of Mrs.Ramsay. And I believe Lady Cynthia has another plan."
Buntingford thanked him, remembering opportunely that when he hadproposed to Ramsay to take the boy into his house, the doctor hadaccepted with a certain hesitation, which had puzzled him. "I will goover and see my cousin when I can be spared."
But a sudden call from the sickroom startled them both. Buntingfordhurried forward.
When Buntingford entered he found the patient lying in a deepold-fashioned chair propped up by pillows. She had been supplied with thesimplest of night-gear by Miss Alcott, and was wearing besides a bluecotton overall or wrapper in which the Rector's sister was oftenaccustomed to do her morning's work. There was a marked incongruitybetween the commonness of the dress, and a certain cosmopolitan stamp, atouch of the grand air, which was evident in its wearer. The face, evenin its mortal pallor and distress, was remarkable both for its intellectand its force. Buntingford stood a few paces from her, his sad eyesmeeting hers. She motioned to him.
"Send them all away."
The doctors went, with certain instructions to Buntingford, one of themremaining in the room below. Buntingford came to sit close by her.
"They say I shall kill myself if I talk," she said in her gaspingwhisper. "It doesn't matter. I must talk! So--you don't doubt the boy?"Her large black eyes fixed him intently.
"No. I have no doubts--that he is my son. But his condition is verypiteous. I have asked a specialist to come down."
There was a gleam of scorn in her expression.
"That'll do no good. I suppose--you think--we neglected the boy._Niente_. We did the best we could. He was under a splendid man--inNaples--as good as any one here. He told me nothing could be done--andnothing can be done."
Buntingford had the terrible impression that there was a certaintriumph in the faint tone. He said nothing, and presently the whisperbegan again.
"I keep seeing those people dancing--and hearing the band. I dropped alittle bag--did anybody find it?"
"Yes, I have it here." He drew it out of his pocket, and put it in herhand, which feebly grasped it.
"Rocca gave it to me at Florence once, I am very fond of it. I supposeyou wonder that--I loved him?"
There was a strange and tragic contrast between the woman's weakness, andher bitter provocative spirit; just as there was between the picturesquestrength of Buntingford--a man in his prime--and the humble, deprecatinggentleness of his present voice and manner.
"No," he answered. "I am glad--if it made you happy."
"Happy!" She opened her eyes again. "Who's ever happy? We werenever happy!"
"Yes--at the beginning," he said, with a certain firmness. "Why takethat away?"
She made a protesting movement.
"No--never! I was always--afraid. Afraid you'd get tired of me. I wasonly happy--working--and when they hung my picture--in the Salon--youremember?"
"I remember it well."
"But I was always jealous--of you. You drew better--than I did. That mademe miserable."
After a long pause, during which he gave her some of the preparedstimulant Ramsay had left ready, she spoke again, with rather morevigour.
"Do you remember--that Artists' Fete--in the Bois--when I went asPrimavera--Botticelli's Primavera?"
"Perfectly."
"I was as handsome then--as that girl you were rowing. And now--But Idon't want to die!"--she said with sudden anguish--"Why should I die? Iwas quite well a fortnight ago. Why does that doctor frighten me so?" Shetried to sit more erect, panting for breath. He did his best to sootheher, to induce her to go back to bed. But she resisted with all herremaining strength; instead, she drew him down to her.
"Tell me!--confess to me!"--she said hoarsely--"Madame de Chaville wasyour mistress!"
"Never! Calm yourself, poor Anna! I swear to you. Won't you believe me?"
She trembled violently. "If I left you--for nothing--"
She closed her eyes, and tears ran down her cheeks.
He bent over her--"Won't you rest now--and let them take you back to bed?You mustn't talk like this any more. You will kill yourself."
He left her in Ramsay's charge, and went first to find Alcott, begginghim to pray with her. Then he wandered out blindly, into the summerevening. It was clear to him that she had only a few more hours--or atmost--days to live. In his overpowering emotion--a breaking up of thegreat deeps of thought and feeling--he found his way into the shelter ofone of the beechwoods that girdled the park, and sat there in a kind ofmoral stupor, till he had somehow mastered himself. The "old unhappyfar-off things" were terribly with him; the failures and faults of hisown distant life, far more than those of the dying woman. The onlythought--the only interest--which finally gave him fresh strength--wasthe recollection of his boy.
Cynthia!--her letter--what was it she wanted to say to him? He got up,and resolutely turned his steps towards the cottage.
Cynthia was waiting for him. She brought him into the little drawing-roomwhere a lamp had been lighted, and a tray of food was waiting of whichshe persuaded him to eat some mouthfuls. But when he questioned her as tothe meaning of her letter, she evaded answering for a little while, tillhe had eaten something and drunk a glass of wine. Then she stretched outa hand to him, with a quiet smile.
"Come and see what I have been doing upstairs. It will be dreadful if youdon't approve!"
He followed her in surprise, and she led him upstairs through thespotless passages of the cottage, bright with books and engravings, wherenever a thing was out of place, to a room with a flowery paper and brightcurtains, looking on the park.
"I had it all got ready in a couple of hours. We have so much room--andit is such a pleasure--" she said, in half apology. "Nobody ever gets anymeals at the Ramsays'--and they can't keep any servants. Of course you'llchange it, if you don't like it. But Dr. Ramsay himself thought it thebest plan. You see we are only a stone's throw from him. He can run inconstantly. He really seemed relieved!"
And there in a white bed, with the newly arrived specialnurse--kind-faced and competent--beside him, lay his recovered son,deeply and pathetically asleep. For in his sleep the piteous headmovement had ceas
ed, and he might have passed for a very delicate childof twelve, who would soon wake like other children to a new summer day.
Into Buntingford's strained consciousness there fell a drop of balm as hesat beside him, listening to the quiet breathing, and comforted by themere peace of the slight form.
He looked up at Cynthia and thanked her; and Cynthia's heart sang forjoy.