by Edith Nesbit
“Ten minutes can’t matter,” she said. Then she called out to Bats, and he came up for the bag.
“Anthony must sleep here,” she said; “see that he does, will you? He’s tired out. You and Wilfred must manage somehow. Isn’t Tony wonderful! He can do things like that, Miracles really, and yet not notice if the person he’s doing it to is old or young. Oh! and I say, you’d better tell Wilfred about Tony and me. He must have guessed it, or he wouldn’t have sent me there as a surprise-party. And he may as well be told. I don’t mind every one’s knowing now. It was only at first when I thought we might change our minds. But now I — know we neither of us shall, I don’t care who knows about it.”
Bats lifted the bag.
“That all?” he said.
Drelincourt had lighted all the gas jets, and the laboratory windows shone, yellow oblongs in the night.
“Sure you don’t mind looking after her? “ Bats asked, as they reached the warehouse door; “not afraid or anything?”
“Of course not. Why on earth should I?”
“Telephone if you want anything,” he said.
“Of course,” she said again, and wondered why people were so silly. To her the adventure was thrilling in itself, and charming because she was now in the position which she always desired. To her responsibility, the exercise of her powers, the looking of others to her for help, was the breath of life, or at any rate its fullest joy. And that she should be doing things for Anthony; that he should be leaning on her; he who had always so wilfully and strongly stood alone! This was life as she saw it. And the woman in her was glad, furtively, that she and the man she loved were, for this night, exchanging homes.
Anthony met them at the door, brisk and businesslike.
“Got everything you want?” he asked. “Right! Now, Bill, you take the feet and I’ll take the head; get hold of the mattress — that’s right. We’ll lift her on to the bed.”
They lifted her and carried her into the little room that had been a counting-house when Malacca Wharf was alive.
“Now,” said Anthony, coming back and going to the bench, “come here, Rose. This glass, with the card on it labelled 1, you give her if she wakes. And if she wakes, ask her if she’d like to be undressed and go to bed. If she says no, let her be. If she says yes, help her to undress. No talking, mind. She may want to talk. She’s got all sorts of delusions. But quiet’s the thing. I think she’ll sleep all right. When she wakes in the morning, give her what’s in this other glass labelled 2. And ring us up. We’ll bring breakfast over. Keep her head low. Only one pillow. I think that’s all.”
“Yes,” said Rose.
“Sure you don’t mind. It’s awfully good of you,” he added, as an afterthought.
“I love to do anything to help you, you know that,” she answered, low, because of Bats standing patiently by the door.
“Telephone if she seems ill or anything. But she won’t. Good night.”
“Good night,” said Rose. “Good night, Billy.”
Bats went out. Anthony following, turned at the door and came back. He felt that he owed Rose something for this unquestioning service so willingly rendered.
“Good night,” he said again, almost as lovers say good night.
Rose, left alone, locked the door and went about in a business-like way, lowering most of the lights. Then she let down the gold and black table, set the bag on it, and unpacked carefully and methodically, setting everything ready on convenient chairs. Her best night-dress, the one with the most and the prettiest lace, she laid on the work-table.
“I suppose one ought to air things,” she said; “but this glorious weather — they can’t be damp.”
She rather prided herself on being in no hurry to go into that other room. But at last she stepped to its open door and looked in. The little room had its gas alight.
“So this is where he sleeps,” she told herself, and then went forward to look at the form that lay on his bed.
“How could he not have known she was young?” she asked herself, as for the first time she saw the delicate dark beauty of that quiet face. She sat down on a chair at the foot of the bed and looked. Rose was “no good “as an Artist; Esther Raven had been right; but she was artist enough to know beauty when she saw it.
“I am glad she’s saved,” she said; “how dreadful if she had died — all that beauty wasted and thrown away.”
And she sat quite still, looking, looking.
If you look at a sleeping person long enough and earnestly enough, that person wakes. Suddenly large dark luminous eyes returned Rose’s scrutiny. Neither spoke. For a long minute they looked at each other.
It was not till the girl on the bed moved her hand to her head that Rose spoke.
“You are to have some medicine now,” she said, and fetched it.
The other girl raised herself on her elbow and drank.
“Thank you,” she said, as Rose took the empty glass from her; “I am sorry to give you so much trouble.”
“I am very pleased to do anything for you,” said Rose, and both voices were ice-cold.
“Is he there?” the girl in the bed asked, her eyes questioning the open door.
“No, he’s gone to bed; he is very tired,” Rose answered. “It has taken hours to revive you.”
“Yes, of course,” the other said, and was silent.
“Don’t you think,” said Rose, “that you’d be more comfortable in bed?”
“Yes, but — oh, I see — this is a bed, is it not? Yes. Thank you.”
“I will help you to undress, if you like,” said Rose, hating herself for the sudden and intense repulsion which this beautiful vision inspired.
“Thank you,” said the vision again.
“I’ll get the things,” said Rose, and went into the room, calling upon herself to be reasonable. She was clear-sighted enough to realize exactly what that pang meant which she had felt when those eyes opened, when that voice — a very beautiful voice she hated to have to admit — asked for him. And she was level-headed enough to tell herself that jealousy — yes, it was that; she was certain of it — was nothing short of insane. He had never seen this woman before; he had not even known whether she was young or old.
“For shame! — he might be any ordinary young man,” she told herself, and added, veiling the egoism in a wordless vagueness of thought; “you might be any ordinary young woman instead of the strong, sensible, competent, compelling person that you are!”
She gathered together the needed objects from chair and table.
“And besides,” she said, with no vagueness now; “poor thing, how confusing and terrible for her. A strange place. Strange people. I must get her to like me and confide in me. She will need a friend.”
So Rose, stifling the first instinctive repulsions of her whole healthy nature, went back to the woman who had been dead and was alive.
“You’d like me to bathe your hands and face,” she said gently, kindly, dropping scented drops into the wash-hand basin; “and I’ll brush your pretty hair, and plait it. You mustn’t trouble to do anything. Let’s play that I’m your maid, shall we?”
The other smiled. “How kind you are,” she said. “I am foolish. Just now when I woke, I was afraid of you.”
“You weren’t really awake, not quite, were you?” Rose was laying the soft sweet sponge on the other’s forehead and hoping for enlightenment. She had promised not to question her charge. But her charge might speak, unquestioned, and throw some light on her personality, her identity, and the circumstances that had brought her here. She did.
“You are more gentle than my maid,” she said. That was enlightening. The stranger was, at any rate, of the class that has maids.
“What is your name?” she asked, as Rose brought soft towels.
“Rose.”
“It is very beautiful, like you,” said the other; “my name is Eugenia.”
Rose could not remember where she had heard that name before.
“
You must not talk so much,” she said, feeling how good it was of her to say it. And Eugenia answered —
“I know: he said so. But we must know each other’s names, my kind beautiful nurse. My dress — oh yes — it’s the red one. It hooks at the back.”
It did. But as Rose unhooked it the stuff tore, gave way rather like tinder, and as she withdrew the skirt, fragments of frayed red fell all about her.
If this had been a fancy dress it was a very flimsy one. But also very thorough. For under the dress the clothes were as strange to Rose as the dress itself. The white clothes were of linen, heavier than anything Rose herself wore, and trimmed much less elaborately. And the stays — Rose fumbled in vain for the fastenings. Her fingers met a broad hard surface two inches wide at least — wood, it felt like — where the fastenings should have been. A little patience revealed the fact that the things fastened at the back, and had to be unlaced from end to end. The stockings were of white cotton, rather coarse, with open-work at the feet and a pink edging at the top.
Rose noticed all this with a growing sense of confusion.
“What a beautiful night-gown,” the stranger said, lying back on the pillow and looking at the lace ruffles on the sleeves. “How kind of you to lend me such a beautiful thing. It was laid by in the drawer for your wedding, is it not?”
“No,” said Rose hotly.
“Ah! I am sorry. You have no doubt more beautiful ones in your trousseau. I have in mine much fine work, my own sewing. All girls prepare for their wedding long before, is it not?”
“You mustn’t talk, you know,” said Rose; “let me put my arm round you. Now stand up and I’ll pull the sheepskin away and then you can get into bed.”
The girl stood up, and Rose, with one arm round her slender shape, dragged away the sheepskin. Something hard fell and rolled away under the chest of drawers.
“All right, get into bed. I’ll pick it up afterwards.”
Rose took away the lambskin, folded the girl’s garments, set them in a neat pile and laid the torn red dress over all.
“Now go to sleep,” she said. “Call me if you want anything. I shall be in the next room. Good night!”
“Good night,” said the girl in the bed, a little forlornly; “won’t you kiss me? I feel so lonely and lost. It’s all so different.”
She stopped — Rose kissed her and felt arms round her neck.
“There, there, it’s all right,” she said; “I’ll take care of you.”
She turned out the gas and went back into the laboratory where now the gas jets strove with the grey of dawn, wrapped herself in a shawl since the dawn was chill, and sat down in Anthony’s armchair to watch out what was left of the night. She was very tired, and she roused herself suddenly from a pleasant languor that was creeping towards sleep to wonder what it was that had rolled away on the floor; a brooch or a button, most likely. Anyhow she would go and see. It would stop her from going to sleep. She went, fumbling under the furniture among the grey shadows, and came out into the laboratory with something in her hand. A ring.
She took it to one of the gas jets, turned the light full on, and looked at her find. It was her ring, the ring that Anthony had given her. The ring with the beryl and the chrysoprases.
“How clumsy of me,” she thought; “what a good thing I heard it fall. I shouldn’t like to lose you,” she said, and kissed it. “Silly!” she said, and put it on.
As it slipped with less ease than usual on her finger, she heard herself called.
“Rose, Rose!” and hastened back to the bedside. The stranger caught at her hand.
“My ring,” she said; “I want my ring. Did you see it when I undressed? He laid it on my heart when — I forgot — I mean it was on my heart. I heard something fall — was that it?”
“It was my ring that fell; this one,” said Rose.
The small hands fingered it in its place, then pushed Rose’s hand to where a shaft of gaslight struck through the door and made a yellow bar on the bed. “But this is my ring” she said. “He gave it to me. You mistake, dear Rose, is it not?”
The quick “No!” was stopped on Rose’s lips by the agonized anxiety of the other’s voice. “Humour her in everything. She has delusions,” Anthony had said. So Rose just said, “I suppose I was mistaken,” took the ring off and put it on the finger which Eugenia held out.
“It’s so large for me,” said she, sighing contentedly; “he’s going to have it altered. Only we always forget.” Then she kissed the ring, as Rose had kissed it three minutes before. “It’s very silly, I know,” she said, sighing contentedly, and smiling up at Rose, “but you understand.”
“Oh!” said Rose suddenly.
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” Rose answered. “I’ve just remembered something. She walked to the washhand-stand. Her rings were there, as she had laid them when she poured out the water and scented it for Eugenia’s washing. And there was her engagement ring. She turned, with it in her hand, to see its counterpart on the other woman’s. She went back into the laboratory, trembling and faint, glad to sink into the chair, with her hands pressed against her heart that fluttered.
Another ring, exactly like hers. And “he “ had given it to this woman? Who was “he “? The woman had said, “Where is he? “ and Rose had thought she meant Anthony. Had she? Had Anthony given her the ring? If not, how came there to be two rings so alike as to deceive even her, who had worn one of them for more than three months? How had this woman come here? Could Anthony have told her anything but the truth?
Impossible — and yet —
One sees well enough the endless ebb and flow of questions, doubts, surmises that broke across Rose’s heart in those hours of growing dawn. When it was, beyond all doubt, daylight with sunshine, and a sky of deepening blue, Rose made a careful toilet, bathed her eyes so that no one could have guessed that she had not only watched but wept, made her hair and dress neat, and resolutely sat down to read. She found “The Eyes of Light,” and did her best to lose herself in that gay and alluring work. But all the time she was saying to herself: “I will trust him. I will. I will. I will. I won’t ask a single question. Not even hint one. He couldn’t have lied to me. He couldn’t!”
And when he came at eight o’clock with coffee for her, she was brave enough to meet him with a smile. And his first words were, “Rose, I told you a lot of lies last night.”
CHAPTER XVIII. THE TRUTH
“HUSH!” said Rose, proud to be able to speak quite calmly; “she’s asleep.”
“Shut the room door, then,” said Anthony; “I must speak to you.” Then when Rose had softly closed it, he said —
“Look here, I don’t know why I did it. I’ve been trying to find out most of the night. And I think it was mainly because I thought if I told you the truth last night it might frighten you. I was a bit unnerved myself. But if you’d like me to tell you the truth I will.”
“I think I should like the truth,” said Rose evenly.
In quite a few words he told it, from Bats’ discovery of the body to his triumphant resuscitation of it. And then he stopped.
“Is that all?” she asked.
“That’s all the facts,” he said, “but there are conjectures. It’s — there’s something about it I don’t understand. But I’ll tell you the rest, Rose. Only don’t misunderstand.”
“I won’t misunderstand,” she said quietly.
“But your coffee’s getting cold,” he said. “You had no supper last night. You’ve had no breakfast. I’m a brute.”
She poured out a cup of coldish coffee and drank it.
“Now,” she said. And still he hesitated. The recital, with Rose’s eyes upon him, seemed almost impossible.
“You understand,” he said at last; “she was very weak. She couldn’t have stood any shock. When she came to, she thought I was her lover. And I let her think so.”
“Did she kiss you?” Rose asked, in a low voice.
“Yes,” said Anthony.
“Did you kiss her?”
“Yes,” he repeated miserably. “It wasn’t possible to do anything else.” He spoke like a man on the rack. Rose gave the instrument another firm turn.
“Was it just when she revived, when she was confused? Or had she time to — to see your face and hear your voice?”
“Yes, plenty of time.”
“I see.”
“Rose, dear,” he said; “do have your breakfast. I made the toast for you myself.”
She laughed.
“How funny life is,” she said.
“But, Rose; you aren’t angry. It’s a delusion. And the moment she’s well enough I must explain it to her. But I daren’t till then.”
“And that’s why you’re telling me the truth now. You want me to stand by and see that girl treating you as if — and you behaving as if you loved her. What do you think I’m made of, Tony?”
“I thought you’d help me,” he said simply. “It’s not my fault that this has happened.” And to himself he said, “Well, whatever happens now, at least it’s not all choked up with lies.”
“What I don’t understand,” said Rose deliberately, “is how she ever got into that secret room. Some one must have brought her there. You are sure you know nothing of it? It wasn’t you brought her here?”
“I suppose I deserve that you should doubt me,” he said bitterly; “but I’ve told you the truth. I’ve never seen her before. But I’ve seen a portrait that is very like her. Oh, Rose, don’t look at me like that. My dear, splendid Rose, don’t! I’ve never seen you cry before.”
“You thought I couldn’t, I suppose,” she sobbed; “and you haven’t told me all the truth now. What about the ring?”