CHAPTER XVIII
AND AFTER
In front of the door of "The Palatial" was a garden-bed filled withweeds and flowers mixed up together like the good and evil in theheart of a man, and to the right-hand side of this bed stood an old andbackless wooden chair. No sooner had John limped outside the door ofthe cottage than he became sensible that, what between one thing andanother--weariness, loss of blood from his wound, and intense mentalemotion--if he did not sit down somewhere quickly, he should follow theexample set by Jess and faint away. Accordingly he steered for the oldchair and sank into it with gratitude. Presently he saw Mrs. Nevillerunning up the path with a bottle of brandy in her hand.
"Ah!" he thought to himself, "that will just come in handy for me. IfI don't have a glass of brandy soon I shall roll off this infernalchair--I am sure of it."
"Where is Jess?" panted Mrs. Neville.
"In there," he said; "she has recovered. It would have been better forus both if she hadn't," he added to himself.
"Why, bless me, Captain Niel, how queer you look!" said Mrs. Neville,fanning herself with her hat; "and there is such a row going on at thecamp there; the volunteers swear that they will attack the militaryfor deserting them, and I don't know what all; and they simply wouldn'tbelieve me when I said you were not shot. Why, I never! Look! your bootis full of blood! So you were hit after all."
"Might I trouble you to give me some brandy, Mrs. Neville?" said Johnfaintly.
She filled a glass she had brought with her half full of water froma little irrigation furrow that ran down from the main _sluit_ by theroad, and then topped it up with brandy. He drank it, and felt decidedlybetter.
"Dear me!" said Mrs. Neville, "there are a pair of you now. You shouldjust have seen that girl go down when she saw the body coming along theroad! I made sure that it was you; but it wasn't. They say that it waspoor Jim Smith, son of old Smith of Rustenburg. I tell you what it is,Captain Niel, you had better be careful; if that girl isn't in love withyou she is something very like it. A girl does not pop over like thatfor Dick, Tom, or Harry. You must forgive an old woman like me forspeaking out plain, but she is an odd girl is Jess, just like ten womenrolled into one so far as her mind goes, and if you don't take care youwill get into trouble, which will be rather awkward, as you are goingto marry her sister. Jess isn't the one to have a bit of a flirt to passaway the time and have done with it, I can tell you;" and she shook herhead solemnly, as though she suspected him of trifling with his futuresister-in-law's young affections, then, without waiting for an answer,she turned and went into the cottage.
As for John, he only groaned. What could he do but groan? The thing wasself-evident, and if ever a man felt ashamed of himself that man wasJohn Niel. He was a strictly honourable individual, and it cut him tothe heart to think that he had entered on a course which, consideringhis engagement to Bessie, was not honourable. When a few minutes beforehe had told Jess he loved her he had said a disgraceful thing, howevertrue it might be. And that was the worst of it; it was true; he did loveher. He felt the change come sweeping over him like a wave as shestood looking at him in the room, utterly drowning and overpowering hisaffection for Bessie, to whom he was bound by every tie of honour. Itwas a new and a wonderful experience this passion that had arisen withinhim, as a strong man armed, driving every other affection away into thewaste places of his mind; and, unfortunately, as he already guessed, itwas overmastering and enduring. He cursed himself in his shame and angeras he sat recovering his equilibrium on the broken chair and tying ahandkerchief tightly round his wounded leg. What a fool he had been! Whyhad he not waited to see which of the two he really loved? Why hadJess gone away like that and thrown him into temptation with her prettysister? He was sure now that she had cared for him all along. Well,there it was, and a bad business too! One thing he was clear about; itshould go no farther. He would not break his engagement to Bessie; itwas not to be thought of. But, all the same, he felt sorry for himself,and sorry for Jess too.
Just then, however, the bandage on his leg slipped, and the woundbegan to bleed so fast that he was fain to hobble into the house forassistance.
Jess, who had apparently quite recovered from her agitation, wasstanding by the table talking to Mrs. Neville, who was persuading herto swallow some of the brandy she had been at such pains to fetch. Themoment she caught sight of John's face, which had now turned ghastlywhite, and saw the red line trickling down his boot, she took up her hatthat was lying on the table.
"You had better lie down on the old bedstead in the little room," shesaid; "I am going for the doctor."
Assisted by Mrs. Neville he was only too glad to take this advice, butlong before the doctor arrived John had followed Jess's example, andgone off into a dead faint, to the intense alarm of Mrs. Neville, whowas vainly endeavouring to check the flow of blood, which had now becomecopious. On the arrival of the doctor it appeared that the bullet hadgrazed the walls of one of the arteries on the inside of his thighwithout actually cutting them, which had now given way, rendering itnecessary to tie the artery. This operation, with the assistanceof chloroform, he proceeded to carry out successfully, announcingafterwards that a great deal of blood had already been lost.
When at last it was over Mrs. Neville asked about John being moved up tothe hospital, but the doctor declared that he must lie where he was,and that Jess must stop and help to nurse him, with the assistance of asoldier's wife whom he would send to her.
"Dear me," said Mrs. Neville, "that is very awkward."
"It will be more awkward if you try to move him at present," was thegrim reply, "for the silk may slip, in which case the artery willprobably break out again, and he will bleed to death."
As for Jess, she said nothing, but set to work to make preparationsfor her task of nursing. As Fate had once more thrown them together sheaccepted the position gladly, though it is fair to say that she wouldnot have sought it.
In about an hour's time, just as John was beginning to recover from thepainful effects of the chloroform, the soldier's wife who was to assisther in nursing arrived. As Jess soon discovered, she was not only a lowstamp of woman, but both careless and ignorant into the bargain, and allthat she could be relied on to do was to carry out some of the rougherwork of the sick-room. When John woke up and learned whose was thepresence that was bending over him, and whose the cool hand that layupon his forehead, he groaned again and went to sleep. But Jess did notgo to sleep. She sat by him there throughout the night, till at last thecold lights of the dawn came gleaming through the window and fell uponthe white face of the man she loved. He was still sleeping soundly, and,as the night was exceedingly hot and oppressive, she had left nothingbut a sheet over him. Before she went to rest a little herself sheturned to look at him once more, and as she looked she saw the sheetgrow suddenly red with blood. The artery had broken out fresh.
Calling to the soldier's wife to run across to the doctor, Jess shookher patient till he awoke, for he was sleeping quite soundly, and would,no doubt, have continued to do so till he glided away into a stilldeeper sleep; and then between them they did what they could to quenchthat dreadful pumping flow, Jess knotting her handkerchief round hisleg and twisting it with a stick, while he pressed his thumb upon thesevered artery. But, strive as they would, they were only partiallysuccessful, and Jess began to think that he would die in her arms fromloss of blood. It was agonising to wait there minute after minute andsee his life ebbing away.
"I don't think I shall last much longer, Jess. God bless you, dear!" hesaid. "The place is beginning to go round and round."
Poor soul! she could only set her teeth and wait for the end.
Presently John's pressure on the wounded artery relaxed, and hefainted off, and, oddly enough, just then the flow of blood diminishedconsiderably. Another five minutes, and she heard the quick step of thedoctor coming up the path.
"Thank God you have come! He has bled dreadfully."
"I was out attending a poor fellow who was shot through th
e lung, andthat fool of a woman waited for me to come back instead of following me.I have brought you an orderly in place of her. By Jove, he has bled!I suppose the silk has slipped. Well, there is only one thing for it.Orderly, the chloroform."
Then followed another long half-hour of slashing and tying and horror,and when at last the unfortunate John opened his eyes again he was tooweak to speak, and could only smile feebly. For three days after this helay in a dangerous state, for if the artery had broken out for the thirdtime the chances were that, having so little blood left in his veins,he would die before anything could be done for him. At times he was verydelirious from weakness, and these were the critical hours, for it wasalmost impossible to keep him still, and every moment threw Jess intoan agony of terror lest the silk fastenings of the artery should breakaway. Indeed there was only one fashion in which she could quiet him,and that was by placing her slim white hand upon his forehead or givingit to him to hold. Oddly enough, this had more effect upon his feveredmind than anything else. For hour after hour she would sit thus, thoughher arm ached, and her back felt as if it were about to break in two,till at last she was rewarded by seeing his wild eyes cease theirwanderings and close in peaceful sleep.
Yet with it all that week was perhaps the happiest time in her life.There he lay: the man she loved with all the intensity of her deepnature, and she ministered to him, and felt that he loved her, anddepended on her as a babe upon its mother. Even in his delirium hername was continually on his lips, and generally with some endearing termbefore it. She felt in those dark hours of doubt and sickness as thoughthey two were growing life to life, knit up in a divine identity shecould not analyse or understand. She felt that it was so, and shebelieved that, once being so, whatever her future might be, thatcommunion could never be dissolved, and therefore was she happy, thoughshe knew that his recovery meant their lifelong separation. For thoughJess, when thrown utterly off her balance, had once given her passionway, it was not a thing she meant to repeat. She had, she knew, injuredBessie enough already in taking her future husband's heart. That shecould not help now, but she would take no more. John should go back toher sister.
And so she sat and gazed at that sleeping man through the long watchesof the night, and was happy. There lay her joy. Soon they must part andshe would be left desolate; but whilst he lay there he was hers. It waspassing sweet to her woman's nature to place her hand upon him and seehim sleep, for this desire to watch the sleep of a beloved object is oneof the highest and strangest manifestations of passion. Truly, and witha keen insight into the human heart, has the poet said that there is nojoy like the joy of a woman watching what she loves asleep. As Jess satand gazed those beautiful and tender lines came floating to her mind,and she thought how true they were:
For there it lies, so tranquil, so beloved, All that it hath of life with us is living; So gentle, stirless, helpless, and unmoved, And all unconscious of the joy 'tis giving; All it hath felt, inflicted, passed and proved, Hushed into depths beyond the watcher's diving; There lies the thing we love with all its errors And all its charms, like death without its terrors.
Ay! there lay the thing she loved.
The time went on, and the artery broke out no more. Then at last camea morning when John opened his eyes and watched the pale earnestface bending over him as though he were trying to remember something.Presently he shut them again. He had remembered.
"I have been very ill, Jess," he said after a pause.
"Yes, John."
"And you have nursed me?"
"Yes, John."
"Am I going to recover?"
"Of course you are."
He closed his eyes again.
"I suppose there is no news from outside?"
"No more; things are just the same."
"Nor from Bessie?"
"None: we are quite cut off."
Then came a pause.
"John," said Jess, "I want to say something to you. When people aredelirious, or when delirium is coming on, they sometimes say things thatthey are not responsible for, and which had better be forgotten."
"Yes," he said, "I understand."
"So," she went on, in the same measured tone, "we will forget everythingyou may fancy that you said, or that I did, since the time when you camein wounded and found that I had fainted."
"Quite so," said John. "I renounce them all."
"_We_ renounce them all," she corrected, and gave a solemn little nodof her head and sighed, and thus they ratified that audacious compact ofoblivion.
But it was a lie, and they both knew that it was a lie. If love hadexisted before, was there anything in his helplessness and her long andtender care to make it less? Alas! no; rather was their companionshipthe more perfect and their sympathy the more complete. "Propinquity,sir, propinquity," as the wise man said;--we all know the evils of it.
It was a lie, and a very common and everyday sort of lie. Who, beingbehind the scenes, has not laughed in his sleeve to see it acted?--Whohas not admired and wondered at the cold and formal bow and shake of thehand, the tender inquiries after the health of the maiden aunt and thebaby, the carelessly expressed wish that we may meet somewhere--all sopalpably overdone? _That_ the heroine of the impassioned scene at whichwe had unfortunately to assist an hour ago! Where are the tears, theconvulsive sobs, the heartbroken grief? And _that_ the young gentlemanwho saw nothing for it but flight or a pistol bullet! There, all theworld's a stage, and fortunately most of us can act at a pinch.
Yes, we can act; we can paint the face and powder the hair, and summonup the set smile and the regulation joke and make pretense that thingsare as things were, when they are as different as the North Pole fromthe Torrid Zone. But unfortunately, or fortunately--I do not knowwhich--we cannot bedeck our inner selves and make them mime as theoccasion pleases, and sing the old song when their lips are set to astrange new chant. Of a surety there is within us a spark of the EternalTruth, for in our own hearts we cannot lie. And so it was with thesetwo. From that day forward they forgot that scene in the sitting-room of"The Palatial," when Jess put out her strength and John bent and brokebefore it like a reed before the wind. Surely it was a part of thedelirium! They forgot that now, alas! they loved each other with a lovewhich did but gather force from its despair. They talked of Bessie, andof John's marriage, and discussed Jess's plans to go to Europe, justas though these were not matters of spiritual life and death to eachof them. In short, however for one brief moment they might have goneastray, now, to their honour be it said, they followed the path of dutywith unflinching feet, nor did they complain when the stones cut them.
But it was a living lie, and they knew it. For behind them stood theirrevocable Past, who for good or evil had bound them together in hisunchanging bonds, and with cords that never can be broken.