Of the three, old Robert was the first to regain his equanimity. Of all the Lauderdale tempers, his was the least hard to rouse and the soonest to expend itself, and therefore the least dangerous. It was commonly said among them that Katharine Ralston, John’s mother, who had hardly ever been seen angry, had the most deadly temper in the family, though it was not easy to tell on what the tradition rested. John and Alexander had certainly not the best, and it was safe to predict that when they met again there would be war.
The old gentleman had made very unwonted exertions that afternoon, and before she had finished doing what she could for Katharine’s arm, Mrs. Deems became anxious about him. His cheeks grew hollow, and as the blood sank away from them his face became almost ghastly. Ralston looked at him attentively and then glanced at the nurse. She nodded, and got a stimulant and gave it to him, and felt his pulse, and shook her head almost imperceptibly.
“How long is it since the doctor was sent for?” she asked of Ralston, in a low voice.
“It must be twenty minutes, I should think.”
“Oh — longer than that, I’m sure!” exclaimed Katharine, whose suffering lengthened time.
“He’ll be here presently, then,” said Mrs. Deems, somewhat reassured. “How do you feel, Mr. Lauderdale? A little weak?”
“All right,” growled the broken voice. “Take care of Katharine.”
But he did not open his eyes, and spoke rather as though he were dreaming, than as if he were awake.
“Provided he’s at home,” said Ralston, half aloud and thinking of the doctor. “Hadn’t we better send for some one else, too?”
He addressed the question to everybody, in a general way.
“Best wait till the carriage comes back,” suggested Mrs. Deems.
This seemed sensible, and a silence followed which lasted some time. Ralston stood motionless beside the nurse. Katharine had swallowed some tea and lay quietly in her chair, while the skilful woman did her best with the ice and napkins. The old man’s jaw had dropped a little, and he was breathing heavily, as though asleep. Mrs. Deems did not like the sound, for she glanced at him more and more uneasily.
“There, Miss Katharine,” she said, at last, “that’s the best we can do till the doctor comes. I think it’s only the small bone that’s broken, but I don’t like to handle it. I guess it’s better to leave it so till he comes. Best not try to move yourself.”
Then she went round the table to old Lauderdale again, listened attentively to his breathing and felt his pulse.
“Are you asleep, Mr. Lauderdale?” she asked, almost in a whisper.
The jaw moved, and he spoke some unintelligible words.
“I can’t hear what you say,” said Mrs. Deems, bending down anxiously.
He cleared his throat, coughed a little and spoke louder.
“Take care of Katharine,” he said, still without opening his eyes.
“Don’t worry about me, uncle Robert,” said Katharine, looking at him with anxiety.
Both she and Ralston turned enquiring glances to Mrs. Deems. She merely shook her head sadly and said nothing. Ralston beckoned to her to come and speak with him. She poured out another dose of the old man’s stimulant and set it to his lips. He swallowed it rather eagerly and without difficulty. Then she glanced at Ralston and left the room. A moment later he followed her, and found her waiting for him on the other side of the curtain.
“You’re very anxious, aren’t you, Mrs. Deems?” he enquired, in a whisper.
“Well,” she answered, “I suppose I am. I guess he’s had a strain with this trouble. I do wish the doctor’d come, though. It’s a long while since they went for him.”
“Don’t you think he’s in danger now — that he might go off at any moment?” asked Ralston.
“Well — they do — with heart failure. That’s the danger. But it’s a strong family, Mr. Ralston, and he’s been a strong man, old Mr. Lauderdale, though he’s as weak as a babe now. You just can’t tell, in these cases, and that’s the fact.”
There was a sound of wheels. A moment later Leek appeared.
“Doctor Routh can’t be found, sir,” he said. “They’ve been to his house and to two or three other places, but he can’t be found, sir. So I’ve sent for Doctor Cheever. He’s always on call, as they say in this country, sir.”
“Quite right, Leek,” answered Ralston.
He looked round for Mrs. Deems, but she had gone back into the drawing-room. She was evidently very anxious.
CHAPTER XIII.
ROBERT LAUDERDALE’S CONDITION was precarious, and Mrs. Deems was well aware of the fact as the minutes passed and neither of the doctors who had been sent for appeared. It was Doctor Routh’s custom to come a few minutes before dinner time, as well as in the morning, and his visit at that hour was almost a certainty. As ill-luck would have it, Doctor Cheever was also out when the carriage reached his house, having been called away a few moments previously. Urgent messages were left for both, and the brougham returned empty a second time. So far as the old gentleman was concerned, Mrs. Deems knew well enough how to do what lay in her power, and she could do nothing more than she had done for Katharine already. But she knew how the least delay in setting a broken bone increased the difficulty and the pain when it came to be done at last, and her anxiety about Robert Lauderdale did not prevent her from feeling nervous about the young girl.
No one spoke in the great drawing-room where the old man and Katharine lay with closed eyes in their chairs, while the nurse and Ralston sat watching them. But when Leek came with the news that Doctor Cheever could not be found, either, Mrs. Deems was roused almost to anger.
“You’ve got to get a surgeon, anyway,” she said, sharply, to Ralston. “If you don’t, they’ll have a bad time when it comes to setting her arm. Mr. Lauderdale I can manage, perhaps, till the doctor comes, but I’m no bone-setter.”
Ralston left the room, took the carriage, and went himself in search of a surgeon, and returned with one in less than a quarter of an hour. A few minutes later Doctor Routh appeared, and last of all came young Doctor Cheever. Then everything was done quickly and well. The three practitioners understood one another without words, and the machinery of the great house of the old millionaire did their bidding.
But Doctor Routh shook his head when he was alone with John Ralston half an hour later.
“I don’t like the look of things,” he said. “Of course, there’s no telling about you Lauderdales. You’re pretty strong people all round. I don’t want any confidences. I don’t want to know what’s happened. I can see the results, and they’re enough for me. You’re a quarrelsome set, but you’d better have managed to fight somewhere else. I’m afraid you’ve killed him this time. However — there’s no telling.”
“How about Miss Lauderdale?” asked John, anxiously. “How long will she be laid up?”
“Oh — three or four weeks. But they must keep her quiet for a day or two, until the inflammation goes down. When the bone’s begun to heal and the arm’s immobilized, she can be about. It’s no use your staying here. You can’t see either of them. But if I were you — I don’t say anything positive, I’m only giving you a hint — if I were you, I’d be at home this evening. If things get worse, I’ll send for you.”
“Are you going to stay yourself?” asked Ralston.
“Of course. Practically, as far as one can judge, your uncle’s dying. You may just as well be here as any one else. He’s very fond of you, in spite of your little tiff last winter. You’re the only man in the family he’d like to see, and you won’t be in the way.”
It was his manner of putting it. At any other time Ralston would have smiled at the idea of being ‘in the way’ of death.
“I suppose there’s really no hope,” he answered, gravely. “But the only person he’d really wish to have with him is Miss Lauderdale.”
“Well — that’s impossible, my dear boy. She can’t be running about the house in the middle of the night with h
er arm just broken. It might be dangerous.”
“You’d better not let her know if anything happens, then — or she will.”
John Ralston left the house very reluctantly at last, and returned to his home, feeling broken and helpless, as people who have nervous organizations do feel when they have been under great emotion and are left in anxiety. Naturally enough, Katharine’s present condition was uppermost in his mind, and every step which took him further from her was an added pain. But a multitude of other considerations thrust themselves upon him at the same time, and he asked himself what was to happen on the morrow.
He had made up his mind, before Alexander Junior had left the house, that it was absolutely necessary to put an end to the present situation at once, and to declare his marriage without delay. He had never wished it to be kept a secret, and he had now the best of reasons for insisting that it should be made public. He might have been willing to believe that Katharine’s fall had been an accident, and that her father had not meant to hurt her, but the fact remained that the accident had occurred through his brutal roughness, with the result that John had struck the elder man in the face. It was not safe for Katharine to stay any longer in her father’s house.
On the other hand, it seemed clear that Robert Lauderdale was near his end. It was hardly to be hoped that he could survive the strain of his late fit of passion, weakened as he was and old. Even Doctor Routh thought it improbable. What would happen if he died that night? If Katharine had to be moved, — she could scarcely stay in the house after the old man was dead, — to whose house should she go? John swore, inwardly, that she should not return to her father’s. And he thought, too, of his next meeting with the latter. Society would be amazed and horrified to hear that they had actually come to blows. Society, especially in our country, detests the idea of personal violence. Its verdict is against any use of such means to settle difficulties. Society, therefore, must be kept in ignorance of what had happened. No one had seen the blow, not even Katharine, who had just fallen to the floor. She alone had seen John and her father struggling, for they had loosed their hold on seeing that she was hurt, and the servants had found them bending over her. Consequently, a great part of what had happened would be kept secret. Robert Lauderdale would not speak of it, and Mrs. Deems was bound to secrecy by her profession. John wondered how Alexander Junior would meet him, however, and whether there was to be any renewal of hostilities.
Altogether, when he let himself into his own house, he was in need of counsel and advice. There was no one but his mother to whom he cared to appeal for either. She had known all along of his devotion to Katharine Lauderdale, though she knew nothing of the secret marriage. She knew how hard Katharine’s life was made in the girl’s own home, by her father’s determined opposition to the match, and John had told her something of other matters — how old Robert had confided to Katharine what he meant to do with his money, and how her father had tried to force her to betray the confidence. Ralston was puzzled, too, by Alexander Junior’s evident willingness to quarrel with his uncle, or at least by his determination to make no concessions whatever to him, and wondered whether his mother could not suggest some explanation.
Mrs. Ralston was, in some ways, very like her son, and the two understood one another perfectly. It would, perhaps, be more accurate to say that she had made him like herself, not intentionally, but by force of example, a result very unusual in the relations between mother and son. She was by no means a manlike woman, but she possessed many of the qualities which make the best men. She was fearless and truthful, and she was more than that — she had a man’s sense of honour from a man’s point of view, and admitted to herself that honour was the only religion in which she could believe. Like Katharine, she, the elder Katharine Lauderdale, had been brought up amidst contradictory influences, and had then married the Admiral, a brave officer, a man of considerable scientific attainments, and a determined agnostic, of the school of thirty years ago, when many people believed that science was to bring about a sort of millennium within the next few years. In that direction she went further than her son. Her sense of fairness had shown her how unfair it would be to make an unbeliever of him before he was old enough to judge for himself, and in this idea she had made him go to church like other boys, and had persuaded his father not to talk atheism before him. The result had been to produce, more or less, the state of mind typical in these last years of the century, amongst a certain class of people who are collectively described as cultured, though they cannot always be spoken of individually as cultivated. John felt that he believed in something, but he had not the slightest idea what that something might be, and did not take the smallest trouble to find out. In this respect he differed from Katharine. Under very similar conditions, the young girl vacillated between a set of undefinable but much discussed beliefs, which included pseudo-Buddhism, Psychological Research, the wreck of what was for a few years Theosophy, and the latest discoveries in hypnotism, taken altogether and kneaded into an amorphous mass, on the one hand, while, on the other, she was attracted by the rigid forms of actual Christianity, widely opposed, but nearest in whole-heartedness, which are found in the Presbyterian and the Roman Catholic churches. But John’s mother was a peaceable agnostic, who had transferred the questions of right, wrong, and ultimate good before the tribunal of honour which held perpetual session in her heart.
She never discussed such points if she could avoid doing so, and if drawn into discussion against her will, she said frankly that she wished she might believe, but could not. In dealing with the world, her strength of character, her directness and her humanity stood her in good stead. In her heart’s dealings with itself, she thought of Musset’s famous lines— ‘If Heaven be void, then we offend no God. But if God is, let God be pitiful!’ And she offended no one, nor desired to offend any. She had in life the advantage, the only one, perhaps, which the agnostic has over the believer — the safety of her own soul was not in the balance when the humanity of others appealed to her own. He who believes that he has a soul to save can be unselfish only with his bodily safety.
Mrs. Ralston was eminently a woman of the world in the best sense of an expression which many think can mean no good. She had never been beautiful and had never been vain, but she had much which attracts as beauty does, and holds as no beauty can. Of the Lauderdales now living, she was undeniably the most gifted. Katharine might have rivalled her, had she developed under more favourable circumstances. But with the education she had received, good as it had been of its kind, it was not probable that the young girl would grow up into such a woman.
Yet Mrs. Ralston had no accomplishments, in the ordinary sense of the word. Her husband used to say that this was one of her chief attractions in his eyes — he hated women who played the piano, and sang little songs, and made little sketches, for the small price paid by cheap social admiration, and greedily accepted by the performer of such tricks. There were people who did such things well, and whose business it was to do them. Why should any one do them badly? Mrs. Ralston never attempted anything of the sort.
On the other hand, she was well acquainted with a number of modern languages, and knew enough of the classics not to talk about ‘reading Horace in the original Greek,’ which is as much knowledge in that direction, perhaps, as a woman needs, and as most men have occasion to use in daily life. She had read very widely, and her criticism, if not that of pure reason, was that of a clear judgment. She had found out early what most people never learn at all, that she could widen her experience of life vicariously by assimilating that of other people, in fact and even in fiction. Good fiction is very like reality. Bad fiction is generally made up of fragments of reality unskilfully patched together. She picked out truths wherever she found them, and set them in their places in the body of all truth.
She was, in a way, the least American of all the Lauderdales. She herself would have said, on the contrary, from her own point of view, that she was the most really American in the tri
be. She loved the country, she especially loved New York, and she loved her own people better than any other with which she was acquainted. This strong attachment to everything American was in itself contrary to the ideas of most persons with whom she was brought into close relations. What calls itself society, pre-eminently, and numbers itself by hundreds, and shuts itself off as much as possible, requiring those who would be counted with it to pass a special examination in the subjects about which it happens to be mad at the time — Society with a capital letter, in fact, is tired of work, it associates home with hard labour and a bad climate, and Europe with fine weather, idleness, and amusement. ‘They manage those things better in France,’ expresses New York society’s opinion of things in general apart from business. Mrs. Ralston differed from Society, and thought that many things were managed quite as well in America.
“That’s because you’ve been abroad so much, my dear,” said her friends. “Wait till you’ve lived ten years at a stretch in New York. You’ll think just as we do. You won’t like it half so much. And besides — think of clothes and things!”
Now Mrs. Ralston did think of ‘clothes and things.’ She had never been beautiful, but she had in a high degree the strength and grace distinctive in many of the Lauderdales. She was tall, long-limbed, slight as a girl, at five and forty years of age, less strong than Katharine, perhaps, though that might be doubted, and certainly lighter and much thinner. She, too, was dark — a keen, strong face, like her son’s, with the same bright brown eyes, and the same fine hair, though not nearly so black, but her face was kindlier than his, and far less sad. She had possessed the power of enjoying things for their own sake as long as Mrs. Lauderdale, Katharine’s mother, who had kept her faculty of enjoying the world subjectively, with little interest in it for itself, but with the intensely strong attachment of easily satisfied personal vanity. The difference was, that the one form of enjoyment was doomed to destruction with the beauty which was its source, while the other increased with the ever broadening and deepening humanity in which it found its dominant interest. If Mrs. Lauderdale had been shut off from the gay side of social existence for a time, as Mrs. Ralston had been in the first years of her widowhood, she would have become sour and discontented. Mrs. Ralston had seen where the real bitterness of life lay, and the bitterness had appealed to her heart almost as much as ever the sweetness had. She had suffered in some ways much, but not long; she had been disappointed more than once, but had been repaid.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 729