CHAPTER XXVIII
GOOD-BYE!
A chesterfield couch had been pulled well into the bay window of one ofKitty's big rooms so that Nan, from the nest of cushions amid which shelay, could see all that was passing in the street below. The warm Maysunshine poured into the room, revealing with painful clarity thechanges which the last three months had wrought in her. Never at anytime robust in appearance, she seemed the slenderest, frailest thing asshe lay there, the delicate angles of her face sharpened by fever andweakness, her cheeks so hollowed that the violet-blue eyes lookedalmost amazingly big and wide-open in her small face.
Kitty was sitting near her, a half-knitted jumper lying across herknees, the inevitable cigarette in her hand, while Barry, who hadreturned from Cannes some weeks ago--entirely unperturbed at findinghis new system a complete "wash-out"--leaned, big and debonair, againstthe window.
"When are we going to Mallow?" asked Nan fretfully. "I'm so tired ofstaring at those houses across the way."
Barry turned his head and regarded the houses opposite reflectively.
"They're not inspiring, I admit," he answered, "even though many ofthem _are_ the London habitations of belted earls and marquises."
"We'll go to Mallow as soon as you like," interposed Kitty. "I thinkyou're quite fit to stand the journey now."
"Fit? Of course I'm fit. Only"--Nan's face clouded--"it will meanyour leaving town just when the season's in full swing. I shan't likedragging you away."
"Season?" scoffed Kitty. "Season be blowed! The only thing thatmatters is whether you're strong enough to travel."
She regarded Nan affectionately. The latter had no idea howdangerously ill she had been. She remembered Roger's visit to the flatperfectly clearly. But everything which followed had been more or lessa blank, with blurred intervals of doubtful clarity, until one day shefound herself lying in a bed with Kitty standing at its foot and Petersitting beside it. She recollected quite well observing:
"Why, Peter, you've got some grey hairs! I never noticed them before."
Peter had laughed and made some silly reply about old age creeping on,and presently it seemed to her that Kitty, crying blindly, had led himout of the room while she herself was taken charge of by a cheerful,smiling person in a starched frock, whose pretty, curling hair insistedon escaping from beneath the white cap which coifed it.
Unknown to Nan, those were the first rational words she had spokensince the night on which she had fainted, after refusing to return toTrenby Hall with Roger. Moved by some inexplicable premonition ofimpending illness, Kitty had insisted on driving her, carefullypillowed and swaddled in rugs, to her house in Green Street that sameevening.
"If she's going to be ill," she remarked practically, "it will be mucheasier to nurse her at my place than at the flat."
Results had justified her. During the attack of brain fever whichfollowed, it had required all the skill of doctors and nurses to holdNan back from the gates of death. The fever burnt up her strength likea fire, and at first it had seemed as though nothing could check thedelirium. All the strain and misery of the last few months poureditself out in terrified imaginings. Wildly she besought those whowatched beside her to keep Roger away from her, and when the fear ofRoger was not present, the whole burden of her speech had been apitiful, incessant crying out for Peter--Peter!
Nothing would soothe her, and at last, in desperation, Kitty had goneto Mallory and begged him to come. His first impulse had been torefuse, not realising the danger of Nan's illness. Then, when it wasmade clear to him that her sole chance of life lay in his hands, he hadstifled his own feelings and consented at once.
But when he came Nan did not even recognise him. Instead, she gazed athim with dry, feverishly brilliant eyes and plucked at his coat-sleevewith restless fingers.
"Oh, you _look_ kind!" she had exclaimed piteously. "Will you bringPeter back to me? Nobody here"--she indicated Kitty and one of thenurses standing a little apart--"nobody here will let him come tome. . . . I'm sure he'd come if he knew how much I wanted him!"
Mallory had been rather wonderful with her.
"I'm sure he would," he said gently, though his heart was wrung at thesight of her flushed face and bright, unrecognising eyes. "Now willyou try to rest a little before I fetch him? See, I'll put my armround you--so, and if you'll go to sleep I'll send for him. He'll behere when you wake."
He had gathered her into his arms as he spoke, and his very touchseemed to soothe and quiet her.
"You're . . . rather like . . . Peter," she said, staring at him with atroubled frown on her face.
Holding that burningly bright gaze with his own steady one, he answeredquietly:
"I _am_ Peter. They said you wanted me, so of course I came. You knewI would."
"Peter? Peter?" she whispered. Then, shaking her head: "No. Youcan't be Peter. He's dead, I think. . . . I know he went awaysomewhere--right away from me."
Mallory's arms closed firmly round her and she yielded passively to hisembrace. Perhaps behind the distraught and weary mind which could notrecognise him, the soul that loved him felt his presence and wasvaguely comforted. She lay very still for some time, and presently oneof the nurses, leaning over her, signed to Peter that she was asleep.
"Don't move," she urged in a low voice. "This sleep may be the savingof her."
So, hour after hour, Peter had knelt there, hardly daring to change hisposition in the slightest, with Nan's head lying against his shoulder,and her hand in his. Now and again one of the nurses fed him with milkand brandy, and after a time the intolerable torture of his crampedarms and legs dulled into a deadly numbness.
Once, watching from the foot of the bed, Kitty asked him softly:
"Can you stand it, Peter?"
He looked up at her and smiled.
"Of course," he answered, as though there were no question in thematter.
It was only when the early dawn was peering in at the window that atlast Nan stirred in his arms and opened her eyes--eyes which held oncemore the blessed light of reason. Then in a voice hardly audible forweakness, but from which the wild, delirious note had gone, she hadspoken.
"Why, Peter, you've got some grey hairs!"
And Peter, forcing a smile to his drawn lips, had answered with hisjoking remark about old age creeping on. Then, letting the nurse takeher from his arms, he had toppled over on to the floor, lying pronewhile the second nurse rubbed his limbs and the agony of returning lifecoursed like a blazing fire through his veins. Afterwards, with thetears running down her face, Kitty had helped him out of the room.
Nan's recovery had been slow, and Peter had been compelled to abandonhis intention to see no more of her. She seemed restless and uneasy ifhe failed to visit her at least once a day, and throughout those longweeks of convalescence he had learned anew the same self-sacrifice andchivalry of spirit which had carried him forward to the utterrenunciation he had made that summer night in King Arthur's Castle.
There was little enough in the fragile figure, lying day after day on acouch, to rouse a man's passion. Rather, Nan's utter weakness calledforth all the solicitude and ineffable tenderness of which Peter wascapable--such tenderness--almost maternal in its selfless, protectivequality, as is only found in a strong man--never in a weak one.
At last, with the May warmth and sunshine, she had begun to pick upstrength, and now she was actually on the high road to recovery anddemanding for the third or fourth time when they might go to Mallow.
Inwardly she was conscious of an intense craving for the sea, with itssalt, invigorating breath, for the towering cliffs of the Cornishcoast, and the wide expanse of downland that stretched away to landwardtill it met and mingled with the tender blue of the sky.
"Strong enough to stand the journey?" she exclaimed in answer toKitty's remark. "I should think I am strong enough! I was outdoorsfor a couple of hours this morning, and I don't feel the least bittired. I'm only lying here"--indicating the Chesterf
ield with ahumorous little smile that faintly recalled the Nan of formerdays--"because I find it so extremely comfortable."
"That may be a slight exaggeration," returned Kitty. "Still, I thinkyou could travel now. And your coming down to Mallow will rather easethings."
"Ease things? What things?"
"Your meeting with Lady Gertrude, for one. You may haveforgotten--though you can be sure she hasn't!--that you left TrenbyHall rather unceremoniously! And then your illness immediatelyafterwards prevented your making your peace with her."
Nan's face changed. The light seemed to die out of her eyes.
"I'd almost forgotten Lady Gertrude," she said painfully.
"I don't think you'll find it difficult to meet her again," repliedKitty. "Roger stopped in town all through the time you were reallydangerously ill--"
"Did he?" interrupted Nan. "That was--rather nice of him, consideringhow I'd treated him."
"Do you still mean to marry the fellow?" asked Barry, bluntly.
"Yes." The monosyllable fell slowly but quite convincingly. "Whyhasn't he been to see me lately?" she added after a moment.
"Because I asked him not to," answered Kitty. "He stayed in Londontill you were out of danger. After that I bustled him off home, andtold him I should only bring you down to Mallow if he could induce LadyGertrude to behave decently to you."
"You seem to have ordered him about pretty considerably," remarked Nanwith a faint smile.
"Oh, he was quite meek with me," returned Kitty. "He had to be. Itold him his only chance was to keep away from you, to manage LadyGertrude properly, and not to worry you with letters."
"So that's why he hasn't written? I've wondered, sometimes."
Nan was silent for a time. Then she said quietly:
"You're a good pal, Kitten."
Followed a still longer pause. At last Kitty broke it reluctantly:
"I've something else to tell you."
Nan glanced up quickly, detecting some special significance in hertones.
"What is it?" she asked.
Kitty made a gesture to her husband that he should leave them alone.When he had gone:
"It's about Peter," she said, then paused unhappily.
"Yes. Go on. Peter and I are only friends now. We've--we've workedup quite a presentable sort of friendship since my illness, you know.What is there to tell me?"
"You know that Celia, his wife, has been out in India for some years.Well--"
Nan's frail body stiffened suddenly.
"She's coming home?" she said swiftly.
Kitty nodded.
"Yes. She's been very ill with sunstroke. And she's ordered home assoon as she is able to travel."
Nan made no answer for a moment. Then she said almost under her breath:
"Poor Peter!"
It was late in the afternoon when Peter came to pay his usual dailyvisit. Kitty brought him into the room and vanished hastily, leavingthe two alone together.
"You know?" he said quietly.
Nan bent her head.
"Yes, I know," she answered. "Oh, Peter, I'm so sorry!" Adding, aftera pause: "Must you have her with you?"
"I must, dear."
"You'd be happier alone."
"Less unhappy, perhaps." He corrected her gently. "But one can'talways consider one's own personal wishes. I've a responsibilitytowards Celia. She's my wife. And though she's been foolish andtreated life rather as though it were a game of battledore andshuttlecock, she's never done anything to unfit herself to be my wife.Even if she had--well, I still shouldn't consider I was absolved frommy responsibility towards her. Marriage is 'for better, for worse,'and I can't be coward enough to shirk if it turns out 'for worse.' IfI did, anything might happen--anything! Celia's a woman of nowill-power--driven like a bit of fluff by every breeze that blows. Soyou see, beloved, I must be waiting to help her when she comes back."
Nan lifted her eyes to his face.
"I see that you're just the best and bravest man I know--_preuxchevalier_, as I once called you. . . . Oh, Peter! She's the luckiestwoman in the world to be your wife! And she doesn't even know it!"
He drew her hands into his.
"Not really lucky to be my wife, Nan," he said quietly, "because I cangive her so little. Everything that matters--my love, my utter faith,all my heart and soul--are yours, now and for ever."
Her hands quivered in his clasp. She dared not trust herself to speak,lest she should give way and by her own weakness try his strength toohard.
"Good-bye, dear," he said with infinite tenderness. Then, with a ghostof the old whimsical smile that reminded her sharply, cruelly, of thePeter of happier days: "We seem always to be saying good-bye, don't we?And then Fate steps in and brings us together again. But this time itis really good-bye--good-bye for always. When we meet again--if wedo--I shall have Celia to care for, and you will be Roger's wife."
He stooped his head and pressed his lips against first one soft palmand then the other. She heard him cross the room and the door closebehind him. With a little cry she covered her face with her hands,crushing the palms where his kiss had lain against her shaking lips.
The Moon out of Reach Page 28