by Guy McCrone
Should she not ask their help about Phœbe? Beg them to advise her what she must do? Had not Mrs. Dermott straightened out the difficulty between David and young Wil Butter, in a way that could only leave her astonished?
As though in answer to her thinking, Mrs. Dermott turned. “And how are the young people in Vienna, Mrs. Moorhouse? I hear Mrs. Hayburn is expecting a baby.”
Bel blushed as though she had been detected in some misdeed. “So far as I know, they’re very well.”
“Are you talking about anybody I know?” Lady Ruanthorpe demanded, her hands clasped over her ebony stick.
“Yes, Lady Ruanthorpe. We are talking about Mungo’s sister, Phœbe.” Bel raised her voice a little.
“Oh, Phœbe? I know Phœbe. Nice child. She’s a friend of mine. How does she like Vienna?”
“She’s going to have a baby.” Mrs. Dermott repeated this information with unnecessary loudness.
Her hostess was not deaf. Like many of the old, she was given merely to indulging herself in fits of inattention. She stabbed an immense lump of coal in the fireplace. It fell to pieces, flaming brightly. She looked at the end of her stick. “Charles is always scolding me for doing that. He says it will ruin the end of this. But I don’t care.” She settled back, looked at the others and said, “Now what were we talking about. Oh yes, Phœbe. So she’s having a baby? Dear me! What a lot of babies! My daughter, your daughter, and now Phœbe.” And, as no one had anything to say to this, she added: “She’s coming home to have it, of course?”
“No, I don’t think she is,” Bel said, delighted that the subject had thus opened itself.
“I don’t see how she can have it there. Her husband ought to send her,” Lady Ruanthorpe said, with indignation.
“They have been writing to say that everything is better arranged in Vienna.”
“Everything fiddlesticks! What do you think, Mrs. Dermott?”
“If it had been my daughter, I would never have considered such nonsense for a moment!” Mrs. Dermott breathed all the indignation of a Victorian matron.
“Phœbe isn’t my daughter, unfortunately,” Bel said. “I’ve been terribly worried about it. You see, I brought her up.”
The old women looked at Bel. She had spoken with emotion. There were tears in her eyes. Lady Ruanthorpe blinked like an old parrot. Mrs. Dermott’s face went red, a little, and she said: “I know, my dear. Of course you have.”
They were all three quiet for a time. The large ormolu clock on the white marble mantelpiece ticked quietly under its glass dome.
“Mungo is her eldest brother. He had better write to her husband,” Lady Ruanthorpe said with decision. She believed in the direct attack.
“Henry Hayburn is very stubborn,” Bel said elegantly, wiping her eyes, and pleasantly aware that the sight of her tears had had its effect on the others.
In reply, Lady Ruanthorpe merely grunted.
Bel looked at Mrs. Dermott, the planner of campaigns, the skilful shepherdess of committees.
“I’ve been thinking,” Grace’s mother said presently. “And it has just struck me that it would be a good thing if Henry’s brother Stephen went on holiday to Austria this summer. You see, I’ve known these boys all my life. Their father was my husband’s friend. Henry was brought up to worship his brother Stephen. Stupidly, my husband always thought. Stephen was older, and much more of a success—to his mother’s way of thinking, anyway.”
Bel caught her meaning. “You mean that Stephen could persuade Henry?”
“Persuade Henry and bring Phœbe home. You see, Bel, she’s terribly young. And perhaps a little reckless. She won’t want to have her second baby so far away, I do assure you.”
“No.”
“And David will be delighted to give Stephen the time off and what money he needs. After all, Phœbe is David’s sister. I’ll make a point of seeing Stephen whenever I get home.”
Bel expressed appreciation. But now that it looked as though she might have her way, she was filled, perversely, with misgiving and a sense of guilt. She knew how angry her mother would be with this. Perhaps, after all, Mrs. Barrowfield’s counsel was right. Should not they all forbear from interfering? Had her emotions, her tenacious love for this sister of Arthur’s who had once done so much for herself, betrayed her reason?
But, after all, what did it come to? A child brought safely into the world among its own kind. Some months of separation for the young couple, at the most. A triumphant Phœbe returning to rejoin her husband with their baby. And yet Bel knew she would not, when next she found herself at Monteith Row, admit just what part she had taken in this affair. She hoped Mrs. Dermott might arrange it so that it would look as though it had been settled between Henry and his brother Stephen.
The men were joining them now, and Grace and Margaret were appearing.
Bel’s eyes met David’s, and she threw him a smile. But if the smile was elegant, it was likewise artificial. She was not so sure now that she liked David as much as usual. Mrs. Dermott had said that David was delighted about Wil Butter. Now she was quite certain he would be delighted to send Stephen Hayburn to Austria.
Bel decided that she liked men who were not always so easily made delighted.
V
Now Phœbe seemed to be all by herself in a swing-boat in the People’s Prater, clinging to its sides for dear life, as it swung up infinitely high, then crashed back with a sickening shudder, amid the roar of the people who had gathered round to look at her. Why didn’t it stop? Why couldn’t she get out? Why did it always tremble so shockingly when it reached the bottom of the swing? As though at any moment it would fall to pieces and kill her? And why did the people always roar each time it fell back? She must get out at once!
But where was Henry? Why wasn’t he here with her? Oh, there he was, standing among the roaring crowd, looking up expressionless, as though she did not belong to him! She would give him a good scolding for this when they let her out! Didn’t he know that she was going to have a child? His child? That all this horrible swinging was the worst thing possible for her now?
But who was it that was pushing her like a madman? She must try to turn round and shout to him to stop it at once! She could hear him howl with laughter every time he swung her! Yes! Just as she thought. Stephen—Henry’s brother. Stephen’s behaviour was amiable and good up there with them in the little house in the forest. They had spent several gay weeks together. But now, in the Prater, he looked like a maniac, a demon, as he hurled himself laughing against this dreadful swing!
Again there was a crash and a shudder as the swing descended. If the people would only stop roaring, she might make herself heard. Oh, there was Bel, pushing her way determinedly through the middle of them, trying to get to her! Bel would stop Stephen’s mad behaviour! Force him to see reason! Make him understand that she was going to have a child; that she must be careful, just now. Bel was always self-possessed. Always knew exactly what to do. Even now she looked calm, almost complacent. But wasn’t she too complacent? Didn’t Bel, even, grasp the danger of this mad joke?
Now she was swinging down to the ground again. The swing was shuddering dreadfully. This time it would certainly fall to pieces! And what a roar the people were making! But all the same she must shout. Bel must be made to hear her!
“Bel! Bel! Stop him! Stephen must stop!”
“It’s all right, Mrs. Hayburn, I’m here beside you. Just keep calm. The captain says we’ll be in the Firth of Forth in about an hour. Then we’ll be in sheltered water.”
Was she coming back to consciousness? Had she been dreaming? Or drugged by that silly student who was the only doctor on board ship? Or had fever made her delirious? Now, at any rate, she was in her senses again, and knew she was on her way from Hamburg to Leith. Coming home into Bel’s care to have her baby. And who was this beside her now? Of course, the stewardess.
Once more a wave struck the side of the little steamer, causing it to rear, shudder and fall back again like a str
icken animal. Spray struck the glass of her port-hole, like a handful of sharp pebbles; then the wave rose against it, filling her cabin with green darkness. Her tortured body could feel the engines chugging, vibrating, then racing as the propeller left the water. As the ship rolled back she could hear the water rushing from the deck above her, the roaring of the wind; and now her port-hole showed a disk of grey sky once more.
Must she be sick again? Must she rack her exhausted, pregnant body yet more?
“I’m sorry, stewardess.”
“It’s all right, Mrs. Hayburn. Don’t mind about me. Is that better? Wait a moment. Now lie back and rest. A drink of water?”
“Thank you. Did the captain say an hour?”
“Yes, Mrs. Hayburn. Just about an hour.”
In an hour this heaving torment would have ceased; this racking sickness would have stopped adding itself to the fevered chill, or worse, she had so foolishly given herself, sitting with Stephen, lightly clad, much too late, in the garden of a Hamburg restaurant. The day had been hot. They had dragged round the sights. She had stupidly overtired herself. Merely to sit on and on in the cool night air had been delicious.
But now she was paying for her folly. Her throat was on fire. There was a cannon-ball in her head. Her limbs ached with fever, and there was other, more ominous pain. If only the storm would stop! But in an hour. Just about an hour, the captain had said.
But she smiled gamely as another wave struck them, and said: “Stormy.”
“Yes. It’s one of the worst late August storms I’ve known, Mrs. Hayburn. I’ve been on this trip a good many years.”
But the pale girl had closed her eyes again, and consciousness seemed once more to have receded.
Sometime over an hour later Stephen Hayburn crawled from his cabin. The steamer was still swinging back and forth, but this was heaven to the last two days. He knocked gently on Phœbe’s door.
“Mr. Hayburn?”
“Yes; how is my sister-in-law?”
For answer the student doctor opened Phœbe’s door, closed it behind him, and stood supporting himself against the handrail in the passage. Was there sweat upon his brow because he too had been sick? Or was it the condition of the patient he had just left?
“How is she, Doctor?”
“Oh, she’ll be all right. It’s just this storm, and the other things coming together.” He was still callow. His reassurances did not yet have quite the professional ring.
It was dark now as Phœbe came back again—dark, except for the light of the candle in its hanging socket. She opened her eyes and lay looking at the white-painted boards of the ceiling reflecting the dim yellow light. Her sleeping-bunk was quite miraculously still. Now and then on the deck above her there were footsteps. The port-hole must be open a little, for at intervals a light breeze made the flame flicker, and there were dockland smells of tar, smoke and seaweed. Far-off shouts came across the water, and the horn of some distant vessel on the move.
She closed her eyes again. How strangely still it was! She could hear the water of the dock lapping gently against the iron sides of the boat. Now she could rest. If only this shivering would leave her; this rawness all the way down her throat. She would try to fall asleep; perhaps she might wake up better.
But now she caught a faint perfume in the cabin. What was it? Why was it so familiar? Of course. It reminded her of the soap they used at home in Grosvenor Terrace. She had forgotten. Viennese soap smelt quite differently. The stewardess must use this soap, too.
And the stewardess was good. She was still sitting, holding her hand. By way of thanks, Phœbe pressed her hand in return.
But the hand was soft. It was not any more the workworn hand of a ship’s stewardess. And why was her own hand now being lifted up and pressed to someone’s lips? Phœbe raised her head and looked down. In the candlelight she could see a familiar, fair head bending over her; a fair head that was bowed in an agony of love and contrition.
Chapter Sixteen
IT was warm work toiling uphill on his “Kangaroo”. Even now, in this first week of September, as Henry headed towards the little house in Ober Döbling, the air was still and sultry. He pedalled laboriously. His long, loose body sweated profusely. When he got in he would take off his clothes and stand under the spray he had arranged for himself in a corner of the garden. That would be cool and pleasant. And after his outdoor meal he would sit on for a little, inhaling the evening breath of the forest and the scent of wet earth, as his old landlord, Herr Weigel, moved about in the dusk, watering his garden.
But he must not linger long. He was resolved that all his time should be taken up with work while Phœbe was away. He had let himself get behind with things. It had been too pleasant up here this summer. Every night, almost, they had sat outside talking.
Now Henry was puffing along a dusty, suburban boulevard. Children on the pavement called to each other. They had come to look for this long-legged foreigner, mounted so strangely on two revolving wheels; for at this time the new “safety” bicycle was a novelty. Some of the bolder ran alongside, shouting. Young women sewing and gossiping together, as they sat on public benches beneath dusty chestnut-trees, looked up and smiled as he passed them by. But Henry was used to all this—so well used that he did not even notice.
No. There was much for him to do. There was no need for the loneliness he shrank away from. Phœbe and Stephen had been gone almost a week and he had managed very well. He had kept himself occupied with his books and his drawing-board.
He was passing villas now—villas separated from the street by high railings, hanging with dusty bougainvilia and parched rambler roses. Beyond, in their gardens, beneath umbrella-shaped trees, housewives were sitting at little metal tables set on the white gravel, occupying themselves with embroidery. In some gardens the evening meal had been laid out and was already in progress.
This being alone, this letting Phœbe go home with Stephen, was, after all, the right thing for him to do, surely. Was it not for the sake of their child?
It had flattered Henry’s simplicity that Stephen had come out here to them. He had always looked up to Stephen, envied him his easy manners, his knowledge of the world. His coming had been a pleasant surprise, and his companionship just what Phœbe had needed during these summer days of waiting.
And Stephen, primed with David’s money and Mrs. Dermott’s arguments, had set them thinking. After all, their child’s welfare must come before all else. If the chances of its arriving safely into the world were better at home, then home, as they both at last came to see, Phœbe must be sent. Now that Stephen would be able to take her with him, Henry had felt he must let her go.
Their Viennese friends had been bewildered. The disappointment of Stephanie Hirsch knew no bounds. That she should not be near Phœbe at the coming of the child, had been a blow to this gentle-hearted woman who had so much time and affection to throw away. She had begged her nephew Max to intervene. But it was all of no avail. And so Stephanie, and even the elder Fräulein Hirsch, had come with tears and roses to the Nordbahnhof to see Stephen and Phœbe go.
Now Henry had jumped from his bicycle, and was pushing it uphill. The way was steep and dusty. But for an occasional wine-garden, where heady, year-old wine was on sale, he was now quite in the country. To his left and right stretched the wine-lands. The clusters of grapes looked ripe already, as they hung in the evening sunshine, gold-green and matt blue, drinking in the last of the warm rays that slanted down upon them over the western forest. Their blue-sprayed leaves were limp with the long day or heat.
Now he had mounted again. In a short time he would be home. He pushed on with determination. Perhaps tonight there would be a letter. He had received an electric telegram saying Phœbe had arrived in Scotland. It had merely given that information; nothing more. But this evening there might be a letter giving him the details of her journey.
Now he had turned off the main road, and was walking once more, up towards the little house. The Saint B
ernard dog had spied him, and was stirring up the dust with his great, soft paws as he gambolled down to meet him. Old Weigel was working among his tomato plants. As he pushed his “Kangaroo” through the gate, the old man heard Henry. He shouted an evening greeting, and told him that letters had come.
II
Two hours later Henry was still in the garden, sitting motionless, staring before him. They had brought out his supper to him. Later they had taken it away again.
The old couple took counsel with each other. Something had happened to him. He had received bad news. They were afraid to ask him. But something must be done.
It was getting dark. Old Weigel lit a candle, set it inside its glass funnel and carried it out into the garden.
Was Herr Hayburn quite well?
Henry’s eyes wandered up to his face and he nodded.
Was Herr Hayburn’s letter from the gracious lady?
The eyes that looked up at him were wild. “My wife is very ill. The child was born dead.”
The old man winced. He stood by the little garden table unable to speak.
A cool breeze blew down from the woods. It brought with it a scent of pine resin. Here and there, down in the village, lights had begun to twinkle. In the distance there was the sound of a woman’s laughter.
Herr Weigel came to Henry, laid a hand for a moment on his shoulder, then took his old, fat and sympathetic body into the house. There was nothing he could do in the face of this. Nothing he could say.
Some little time later the Weigels looked out once more into the garden. It had become quite dark. They could see him still bent forward, his arms resting on the checked table-cloth, his strained face caught in the circle of light. In one hand were the folded letters.
The great dog ranging in the garden came and brushed against Henry, bringing him back to life a little. So there was to be no child. And Phœbe was dangerously ill. No child. Even with all his young anticipation, he had not fully known how much he had looked to having this child.