The Soldier and the Gentlewoman

by Hilda Vaughan

  Gwenllian’s head turned this way and that, like the head of a wild cat in a snare, until her eyes fell upon the sick man she had been keeping alive. On him it would be easy to avenge herself.

  The white china knob shook. She seized the back of a chair with both hands to keep herself from screaming. With a choking sensation she saw the door begin to open. The crack widened. The Doctor entered on tiptoe.

  “Hello,” he whispered, “I’m afraid I startled you. I made ’em give me the side door key, you know.”

  She was unable to utter a word.

  “You look pretty white,” she heard him say.

  She dropped down on to the chair at which she had been clutching. “Just a little tired, perhaps.”

  “I don’t wonder,” his voice droned over her head. “I ought to have insisted on wiring for a nurse the moment he was taken ill. You’re not fit to deal with a pneumonia case just after having the children with whooping-cough. But thank goodness, one will be here in the morning. And I’ve a good mind to send for another.”

  “You mustn’t,” she heard herself protest from force of habit. “We can’t afford it.”

  He went over to the bed, grumbling, below his breath, about false economy.

  “You ought to get some good nights’ sleep.”

  “I shall sleep all day as soon as nurse arrives.” She spoke mechanically, sitting, inert, exhausted, with hands hanging limp at her sides.

  She heard the Doctor ask: “Have those linseed poultices relieved him?”

  She had been given to murderous and abominable thoughts. The devil must have slipped them into her mind when she was too tired to resist. She must make amends: and, dragging herself to her feet, she crept to the bedside, and showed her carefully kept chart, and answered the Doctor’s questions with the precision of a trained nurse. “Herpes,” she heard herself whisper, and “rusty sputum. …Yes, his respiration was sixty again… The pain in his back seems to trouble him and that nasty short, dry cough keeps on disturbing his sleep.”

  “The crisis won’t be for another five days,” the Doctor said. “We’ll have to look out for his heart then. It isn’t up to much, as you know. I shall have injections of strychnine ready for the nurse to give at a moment’s notice. He’ll have to be watched as a cat watches a mouse, mind—day and night—and his pulse taken constantly… Now look here, my dear girl, you’d much better let me send for a night nurse, as well, before you crock up.”

  She shook her head.

  “If you’re so obstinate about saving a few pounds, I shall insist—”

  She clutched at his arm. “It’s not the money, only,” she protested in an urgent whisper, “it’s— oh, how can I tell you? I blame myself so! Please, please let me do something for him now that I can be of service.”

  The big steadying hand of the Doctor descended on her shoulder. “Blame yourself!” he exclaimed. “Stuff and nonsense!”

  “But I do,” she insisted, her eyes filling with tears, so that the Doctor loomed over her, blurred in the firelight, like a shaggy giant. “You see, he doesn’t love me.” But she did not speak the rest of her thought, “and I hate him.”

  “Is that any reason,” said the Doctor, gripping her shoulder very hard, “why you should wear yourself out nursing him?”

  “Yes,” she answered, in a low, strained tone.

  “Have it your own way,” he grumbled.

  Presently she was left in the bridal chamber where she and Dick had lain but never loved. She stood on guard beside the bed she would never share again, and stared down at the cyanosed face she loathed.

  Chapter V

  SHE SETS THEM BOTH FREE

  Between tall trees bordering the drive, she had followed a ribbon of pallor through the dark of a clouded night; but within the circle of yews was a final blackness. She stretched out her hands, groping with her fingers, turning herself round and round. Now I can talk aloud, she thought. Mad people do.

  She held her breath and listened. There was no stir of the air, nor drip of rain. Such an emptiness of all sound was strange in a country whose life was in the lisp of waters, the rustle of wind, and she seemed to have left earth behind. “I am released,” she whispered, hugging herself tight with folded arms.

  She crouched near to the earth and played upon it with her fingers as though she were playing a dance. She was free. He was dying who had served his turn. She had given her strength to maintain the hated burden of his life; but God was merciful. The man was dying. She rocked to and fro, clutching her knees and laughing. She had done her duty, and was to be rewarded. She was exalted above the fatigue of her body. A delicious giddiness lapped against her mind.

  There came to her memory the close of a day’s hunting at her father’s heels. He had taken her into an inn and given her a tumblerful of hot rum and milk. His friends had stood round her, asking why she was solemn and silent. They had laughed at her. She had been a little girl then, but she bad known already that she must keep guarded silence when ever she felt her self-control slipping. That knowledge had served her well since. Now, once more, she was floating on a warm, gently rocking tide. Here she might yield to it.

  She had been so long without profound and continuous sleep that the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet ached. There were tremors in all her limbs, and she began to ask herself—as if she were imagining a holiday after a long period of tension and labour—whether her nerve would go after her husband’s death. She could afford a breakdown then. She imagined herself tearing things to shreds, hearing the rip of linen. Tomorrow, perhaps, she said.

  Not until yesterday, had she dared count on release. Until the crisis was over, fever had lent a flush to his face, brightening his eyes and giving to his struggles for breath an urgent, agonised vitality. Day and night he had been tossing, hot as an engine that was running too fast. The speed of his pulse and respiration had given him the air of living more intensely than a normal man. “He’s putting up a better fight than I thought he could,” the Doctor had declared, and she had said within her: He’ll survive. He’ll live on for ever. Now he was cool and white and damp as a lily on a grave. No deceptive spot of colour disguised the clay of his cheeks. The eyes were lustreless in their sockets. The limp hands on the counterpane were bones with waxen skin wrinkled over them. Yesterday, Dr. Roberts had examined his patient’s heart and been silent. An hour later the nurse had come unexpectedly to Gwenllian’s room, saying that she had taken it upon herself to send for the Doctor.

  “But he will be here tonight as usual,” Gwenllian had said. “What made you think it necessary?”

  The woman’s thin lips tightened into minute creases. “I didn’t like to be responsible,” she had answered.

  And Gwenllian had dared to hope. She had visited Dick at once, and stared into his face. Hope had grown to certainty. Mad with joy, she had fled from the house that she might not betray her secret, and when the Doctor drove up to the house, she had remained in hiding. Now, alone in blackness, she twisted her hands together, unlocked them, and with her fingers played upon the ground. Suddenly, from a long way off, she heard a throbbing sound, and, starting up, exclaimed, “the Doctor’s car!” To escape from the encircling yews was not easy. She lost her way, and a bough struck her face. She was breathless and angry when at last she reached the drive and stumbled into the glare of headlights. Blinking and dazed, she stood in the ditch.

  The car passed her, slowed down, and came to a standstill a few yards ahead, leaving her in a darkness lit only by the red eye of a tail-lamp. “Drive on to the lodge and wait there,” she heard the Doctor say, and his big stooping figure loomed towards her. He’s sent the driver out of earshot because he’s going to tell me, she said to herself, and she clenched her fists and waited, her body tingling.

  The Doctor’s face, peering down into hers, was a pale rectangle, the big chin thrust forward.

  “Whatever were you doing among those trees?”

  “A breath of air.”

 
“It’s infernally dark ”

  “I can see in the dark, like a ‘witch’s fowl,’ ” she told him.

  “Wish I could,” he grumbled. “Can’t make your face out now a foot away.”

  She was glad of that. “You’ve seen him?” she asked.

  “Yes. I’ve seen him.” There was a pause. Somewhere in the night’s black stillness a fox barked. Instantly, the dogs at a farm far up the valley began to clamour. They want to kill, Gwenllian thought, and she said aloud: “Have you nothing to tell me?” The question choked her and she put a hand to her neck where a pulse was beating like a quick angry drum.

  “Yes, I think I’ve something to tell you.”

  There was another silence.

  “Nurse was afraid—” she prompted, and began to bite her fingers, unable to finish the sentence.

  “I know. I know,” the Doctor replied. “His heart needs every care. You’re to give him half an ounce of champagne in milk, as before, every hour, whenever he’s awake. Keep on feeling his pulse. Don’t on any account let him sit up. Don’t prop him up at all. Keep him flat on his back. Feed him out of a feeding cup. And watch his pulse. Have a kettle ready to dissolve one of the strychnine tablets I gave you. And, in case of collapse, be sure to lose no time in giving an injection.”

  “I know all that by heart already,” she cried. “I shan’t bungle it.”

  A hand grasped her shoulder. “My dear girl, I haven’t been a medico for close on fifty years without knowing a born nurse when I see her. I couldn’t have saved your husband’s life, and all Harley Street couldn’t have saved it, what’s more. It’s good nursing takes this trick. So don’t imagine I’ve any misgivings about your carrying out orders. It’s you who have saved him.”

  “Saved him?” she said. “Have I done that?”

  “I think I can say as much. I believe he’s safe now. Until yesterday, I don’t mind confessing to you, my dear, I feared you’d lose him. But now, though he’s as weak as a kitten, I’m confident he’ll pull through.”

  It seemed that the darkness had weight. She put her hands to her head, trying to lift the cruel pressure. She must not faint. To keep herself up, she clutched at the Doctor’s arm.

  He patted her gripping fingers. “You’re to be congratulated. You were right all through. Aren’t you pretty pleased with yourself?”

  She gave a small dry sob, which he interpreted in his own fashion.

  “Yes. So I should think!”

  Holding each other’s hands they stood for a long while, close together.

  “Are you all right?” he asked at length. “A bit overwrought, eh?”

  “Just a bit.”

  “Are you fit to take your turn to-night?”

  “I’m equal to anything now.”

  “Good girl! But it won’t be easy.”

  “No,” she muttered, “I don’t suppose it will.” How did one kill a man? Men had as many lives as cats. How much easier to kill herself! She would not fear to take her own life, though that, too, was a sin. But her life was of value. His was not. She must live for the sake of Plâs Einon and its heirs.

  She found herself in the hall, staring at the weapons that gleamed upon the walls. Swords and daggers and spears, and little sly stilettos: all had been made and used for killing men. But climbing the stairs, she went into the sick room, treading soft, as a good nurse should.

  “How is he?” she whispered.

  The nurse rose, rustling, from her low chair by the fireside. What a silly dress, thought Gwenllian. I do the job far better than she, without all that starch. She began to put on her old dressing gown and padded slippers.

  “Better, Doctor seemed to think,” the nurse told her. “He said I’d been unduly anxious. One never knows.”

  “You were perfectly right to send for him.”

  “Yes,” said the nurse with her brisk professional smile. “I’m glad for your sake, Mrs. Einon-Thomas, that I did. How relieved you must be! Doctor is quite sure tonight that your husband will recover.”

  “Quite sure?” Gwenllian repeated. “Did he use those very words?”

  “‘Positive,’ I think was his expression,” the nurse answered, more brightly than ever. “He’s so pleased with the way things are going, he won’t call again till noon tomorrow.”

  “Thank you,” said Gwenllian. “You go off to bed and have a good night.”

  “I wish you were going to, Mrs. Einon-Thomas.” Gwenllian heard herself utter a queer noise that might have been a laugh, and became aware of the nurse’s pale eyes fixed critically upon her.

  “You’ll forgive my saying so, Mrs. Einon-Thomas,” said the pruned, genteel voice, “but you do look bad! You ought to send for another nurse. Really you ought. It never does for relatives to nurse a case like this. They get worked up. It’s that wears you out, I always say.”

  “Yes,” Gwenllian agreed, “it’s emotion that wears one out.” She sank into the nearest chair. “We’ll talk of it tomorrow, nurse.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say so, I’m sure. Have you everything you want?”

  “Thank you. Everything.”

  “I’ll say good night, then.”

  “Good night.”

  When she was left alone, Gwenllian buried her face in her hands. Rage, grief and despair, too heavy to find ease in tears, weighed her down. After a long while a groan escaped her. Why had she borne heirs to this man? In this mood of desolation, she felt no love for her own children. Her heart was a cell without light.

  A faint voice asked for water. The word was repeated, but she did not move. Leave me alone, she thought. Leave me alone now. But at last she rose and took a feeding-cup to the sick man. I ought to be giving him champagne and milk, she told herself as she watched the feeble effort of his bloodless lips to suck. And suddenly, she knew not why, she slid her arms behind his thin shoulders, and, lifting him until he was almost upright, propped him with pillows. There were not enough on the bed to support him. She snatched the cushions from a settee and put these also behind his back. His listless eyes opened a little in surprise.

  “Ought I—?” he tried to ask.

  “You’ll be more comfortable like that,” she told him with decision, and turned away.

  “Thank you,” she heard him murmur. His thanks cut her. What was she about, disobeying the Doctor’s orders? Had she done it on purpose? Could she go through with what she had begun? She paced about the room squeezing her hands together and staring at her white knuckles. She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. Five minutes past two. When next she looked, it was a quarter past. Many hours of waiting seemed to have intervened. From the hall below, came the chiming of the half-hour. Was that all? Would dawn never break? Her patient stirred. She stood afar off and observed his struggle for speech.

  “I feel,” he managed to gasp, “I feel— so—”

  She stood over him, watching intently. “Queer,” was the word he tried to say. He had been pale before. Now his pallor was tinged with a blueish hue, and his lips were grey. The thinness of his face was accentuated; and his nostrils were pinched in. Though she listened for his breathing, she could not hear it. His eyes were closed. His head had sunk forward and drooped a little to one side. He gave a long sigh. “Lie down,” he whispered. But she did not take away the pillows.

  “I’m going to give you an injection,” she said into his ear.

  “Yes,” he breathed out with another sigh. “Yes, please.”

  She went to the table where a clean white towel covered the apparatus of the sickroom. With deliberate movements, she folded the towel and laid it aside, measured out two doses of champagne and milk and drank them. A shudder ran through her limbs. The drink left a sour taste in her mouth. For a moment she stood irresolute, staring at the bed. My father slept in it. He died in it, she told herself, and taking up a little glass tube, carefully removed from it a tablet which, in the cup of her left hand, she carried to the fire. She gripped the poker with her right hand and beat a hollow place
among the flames. Into this she dropped the tablet and, with a sudden darting gesture, ground it to pieces and covered it with live coals. She was trembling violently when she returned to the bedside with a syringe full of plain water, but steadied herself to make a quick, neat incision into her patient’s arm. He flinched but did not open his eyes.

  With her head turned away from him, she restored everything to its place. Ten minutes to three. She heaped more fuel upon the already blazing fire; then, with her dressing-gown close about her shoulders, crept on tiptoe from the room.

  In the upstairs study that she used as an estate office, everything was in its usual precise order. She could lay her hand in the dark upon candle and matches. In a moment, a tiny spearhead of light quivered within the shelter of her curved palm. When it was pointing steadily upwards, she raised it towards the scowling face of her father. She feared him no longer; she had transcended him. Would you, a man, have dared as much? she asked silently. Then with an abrupt twist of her shoulders, final and contemptuous, she turned her back upon him.

  She extinguished the candle and stole back to the bedroom. The body on her marriage bed had listed over: the eyelids were fallen a little apart. Gwenllian pulled away the pillows, and without touching it, let the corpse flop backwards. It stared with half open eyes at the pleated crimson canopy on which she, too, had gazed from below. She made as if to touch the wrist, but her fingers would not accept the contact. There’s no need, anyhow, she told herself, and went out to awaken the nurse.

  EPILOGUE

  I. Frances is enlightened

  II. Frances looks on her former home

  Chapter I

  FRANCES IS ENLIGHTENED

  Frances flung wide her bedroom window and leaned out. Beneath her palm’s pressure, the stone felt kindly warm. Tendrils of ivy, glistening wet, stirred about the sill; and, further off, tiny new beech leaves danced to the breeze. Day and night, the west wind had drawn swathes of white mist and grey squalls of rain over the branches of the trees; but a week of wet weather was little to pay for such a morning as this. Was ever Eden so enchanting in its freshness as her home in May?