Classic Works from Women Writers

by Editors of Canterbury Classics

  Nevertheless the day followed the usual forms. At certain hours they went into the dining-room, and when they sat round the table they talked about indifferent things. St. John usually made it his business to start the talk and to keep it from dying out.

  “I’ve discovered the way to get Sancho past the white house,” said St. John on Sunday at luncheon. “You crackle a piece of paper in his ear, then he bolts for about a hundred yards, but he goes on quite well after that.”

  “Yes, but he wants corn. You should see that he has corn.”

  “I don’t think much of the stuff they give him; and Angelo seems a dirty little rascal.”

  There was then a long silence. Ridley murmured a few lines of poetry under his breath, and remarked, as if to conceal the fact that he had done so, “Very hot today.”

  “Two degrees higher than it was yesterday,” said St. John. “I wonder where these nuts come from,” he observed, taking a nut out of the plate, turning it over in his fingers, and looking at it curiously.

  “London, I should think,” said Terence, looking at the nut too.

  “A competent man of business could make a fortune here in no time,” St. John continued. “I suppose the heat does something funny to people’s brains. Even the English go a little queer. Anyhow they’re hopeless people to deal with. They kept me three-quarters of an hour waiting at the chemist’s this morning, for no reason whatever.”

  There was another long pause. Then Ridley enquired, “Rodriguez seems satisfied?”

  “Quite,” said Terence with decision. “It’s just got to run its course.” Whereupon Ridley heaved a deep sigh. He was genuinely sorry for every one, but at the same time he missed Helen considerably, and was a little aggrieved by the constant presence of the two young men.

  They moved back into the drawing-room.

  “Look here, Hirst,” said Terence, “there’s nothing to be done for two hours.” He consulted the sheet pinned to the door. “You go and lie down. I’ll wait here. Chailey sits with Rachel while Helen has her luncheon.”

  It was asking a good deal of Hirst to tell him to go without waiting for a sight of Helen. These little glimpses of Helen were the only respites from strain and boredom, and very often they seemed to make up for the discomfort of the day, although she might not have anything to tell them. However, as they were on an expedition together, he had made up his mind to obey.

  Helen was very late in coming down. She looked like a person who has been sitting for a long time in the dark. She was pale and thinner, and the expression of her eyes was harassed but determined. She ate her luncheon quickly, and seemed indifferent to what she was doing. She brushed aside Terence’s enquiries, and at last, as if he had not spoken, she looked at him with a slight frown and said:

  “We can’t go on like this, Terence. Either you’ve got to find another doctor, or you must tell Rodriguez to stop coming, and I’ll manage for myself. It’s no use for him to say that Rachel’s better; she’s not better; she’s worse.”

  Terence suffered a terrific shock, like that which he had suffered when Rachel said, “My head aches.” He stilled it by reflecting that Helen was overwrought, and he was upheld in this opinion by his obstinate sense that she was opposed to him in the argument.

  “Do you think she’s in danger?” he asked.

  “No one can go on being as ill as that day after day—” Helen replied. She looked at him, and spoke as if she felt some indignation with somebody.

  “Very well, I’ll talk to Rodriguez this afternoon,” he replied.

  Helen went upstairs at once.

  Nothing now could assuage Terence’s anxiety. He could not read, nor could he sit still, and his sense of security was shaken, in spite of the fact that he was determined that Helen was exaggerating, and that Rachel was not very ill. But he wanted a third person to confirm him in his belief.

  Directly Rodriguez came down he demanded, “Well, how is she? Do you think her worse?”

  “There is no reason for anxiety, I tell you—none,” Rodriguez replied in his execrable French, smiling uneasily, and making little movements all the time as if to get away.

  Hewet stood firmly between him and the door. He was determined to see for himself what kind of man he was. His confidence in the man vanished as he looked at him and saw his insignificance, his dirty appearance, his shiftiness, and his unintelligent, hairy face. It was strange that he had never seen this before.

  “You won’t object, of course, if we ask you to consult another doctor?” he continued.

  At this the little man became openly incensed.

  “Ah!” he cried. “You have not confidence in me? You object to my treatment? You wish me to give up the case?”

  “Not at all,” Terence replied, “but in serious illness of this kind—”

  Rodriguez shrugged his shoulders.

  “It is not serious, I assure you. You are overanxious. The young lady is not seriously ill, and I am a doctor. The lady of course is frightened,” he sneered. “I understand that perfectly.”

  “The name and address of the doctor is—?” Terence continued.

  “There is no other doctor,” Rodriguez replied sullenly. “Every one has confidence in me. Look! I will show you.”

  He took out a packet of old letters and began turning them over as if in search of one that would confute Terence’s suspicions. As he searched, he began to tell a story about an English lord who had trusted him—a great English lord, whose name he had, unfortunately, forgotten.

  “There is no other doctor in the place,” he concluded, still turning over the letters.

  “Never mind,” said Terence shortly. “I will make enquiries for myself.” Rodriguez put the letters back in his pocket.

  “Very well,” he remarked. “I have no objection.”

  He lifted his eyebrows, shrugged his shoulders, as if to repeat that they took the illness much too seriously and that there was no other doctor, and slipped out, leaving behind him an impression that he was conscious that he was distrusted, and that his malice was aroused.

  After this Terence could no longer stay downstairs. He went up, knocked at Rachel’s door, and asked Helen whether he might see her for a few minutes. He had not seen her yesterday. She made no objection, and went and sat at a table in the window.

  Terence sat down by the bedside. Rachel’s face was changed. She looked as though she were entirely concentrated upon the effort of keeping alive. Her lips were drawn, and her cheeks were sunken and flushed, though without colour. Her eyes were not entirely shut, the lower half of the white part showing, not as if she saw, but as if they remained open because she was too much exhausted to close them. She opened them completely when he kissed her. But she only saw an old woman slicing a man’s head off with a knife.

  “There it falls!” she murmured. She then turned to Terence and asked him anxiously some question about a man with mules, which he could not understand. “Why doesn’t he come? Why doesn’t he come?” she repeated. He was appalled to think of the dirty little man downstairs in connection with illness like this, and turning instinctively to Helen, but she was doing something at a table in the window, and did not seem to realise how great the shock to him must be. He rose to go, for he could not endure to listen any longer; his heart beat quickly and painfully with anger and misery. As he passed Helen she asked him in the same weary, unnatural, but determined voice to fetch her more ice, and to have the jug outside filled with fresh milk.

  When he had done these errands he went to find Hirst. Exhausted and very hot, St. John had fallen asleep on a bed, but Terence woke him without scruple.

  “Helen thinks she’s worse,” he said. “There’s no doubt she’s frightfully ill. Rodriguez is useless. We must get another doctor.”

  “But there is no other doctor,” said Hirst drowsily, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

  “Don’t be a damned fool!” Terence exclaimed. “Of course there’s another doctor, and, if there isn’t, you’ve got to
find one. It ought to have been done days ago. I’m going down to saddle the horse.” He could not stay still in one place.

  In less than ten minutes St. John was riding to the town in the scorching heat in search of a doctor, his orders being to find one and bring him back if he had to be fetched in a special train.

  “We ought to have done it days ago,” Hewet repeated angrily.

  When he went back into the drawing-room he found that Mrs. Flushing was there, standing very erect in the middle of the room, having arrived, as people did in these days, by the kitchen or through the garden unannounced.

  “She’s better?” Mrs. Flushing enquired abruptly; they did not attempt to shake hands.

  “No,” said Terence. “If anything, they think she’s worse.”

  Mrs. Flushing seemed to consider for a moment or two, looking straight at Terence all the time.

  “Let me tell you,” she said, speaking in nervous jerks, “it’s always about the seventh day one begins to get anxious. I daresay you’ve been sittin’ here worryin’ by yourself. You think she’s bad, but anyone comin’ with a fresh eye would see she was better. Mr. Elliot’s had fever; he’s all right now,” she threw out. “It wasn’t anythin’ she caught on the expedition. What’s it matter—a few days’ fever? My brother had fever for twenty-six days once. And in a week or two he was up and about. We gave him nothin’ but milk and arrowroot—”

  Here Mrs. Chailey came in with a message.

  “I’m wanted upstairs,” said Terence.

  “You see—she’ll be better,” Mrs. Flushing jerked out as he left the room. Her anxiety to persuade Terence was very great, and when he left her without saying anything she felt dissatisfied and restless; she did not like to stay, but she could not bear to go. She wandered from room to room looking for someone to talk to, but all the rooms were empty.

  Terence went upstairs, stood inside the door to take Helen’s directions, looked over at Rachel, but did not attempt to speak to her. She appeared vaguely conscious of his presence, but it seemed to disturb her, and she turned, so that she lay with her back to him.

  For six days indeed she had been oblivious of the world outside, because it needed all her attention to follow the hot, red, quick sights which passed incessantly before her eyes. She knew that it was of enormous importance that she should attend to these sights and grasp their meaning, but she was always being just too late to hear or see something which would explain it all. For this reason, the faces—Helen’s face, the nurse’s, Terence’s, the doctor’s—which occasionally forced themselves very close to her, were worrying because they distracted her attention and she might miss the clue. However, on the fourth afternoon she was suddenly unable to keep Helen’s face distinct from the sights themselves; her lips widened as she bent down over the bed, and she began to gabble unintelligibly like the rest. The sights were all concerned in some plot, some adventure, some escape. The nature of what they were doing changed incessantly, although there was always a reason behind it, which she must endeavour to grasp. Now they were among trees and savages, now they were on the sea, now they were on the tops of high towers; now they jumped; now they flew. But just as the crisis was about to happen, something invariably slipped in her brain, so that the whole effort had to begin over again. The heat was suffocating. At last the faces went further away; she fell into a deep pool of sticky water, which eventually closed over her head. She saw nothing and heard nothing but a faint booming sound, which was the sound of the sea rolling over her head. While all her tormentors thought that she was dead, she was not dead, but curled up at the bottom of the sea. There she lay, sometimes seeing darkness, sometimes light, while every now and then someone turned her over at the bottom of the sea.

  After St. John had spent some hours in the heat of the sun wrangling with evasive and very garrulous natives, he extracted the information that there was a doctor, a French doctor, who was at present away on a holiday in the hills. It was quite impossible, so they said, to find him. With his experience of the country, St. John thought it unlikely that a telegram would either be sent or received; but having reduced the distance of the hill town, in which he was staying, from a hundred miles to thirty miles, and having hired a carriage and horses, he started at once to fetch the doctor himself. He succeeded in finding him, and eventually forced the unwilling man to leave his young wife and return forthwith. They reached the villa at midday on Tuesday.

  Terence came out to receive them, and St. John was struck by the fact that he had grown perceptibly thinner in the interval; he was white too; his eyes looked strange. But the curt speech and the sulky masterful manner of Dr. Lesage impressed them both favourably, although at the same time it was obvious that he was very much annoyed at the whole affair. Coming downstairs he gave his directions emphatically, but it never occurred to him to give an opinion either because of the presence of Rodriguez who was now obsequious as well as malicious, or because he took it for granted that they knew already what was to be known.

  “Of course,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders, when Terence asked him, “Is she very ill?”

  They were both conscious of a certain sense of relief when Dr. Lesage was gone, leaving explicit directions, and promising another visit in a few hours’ time; but, unfortunately, the rise of their spirits led them to talk more than usual, and in talking they quarrelled. They quarrelled about a road, the Portsmouth Road. St. John said that it is macadamised where it passes Hindhead, and Terence knew as well as he knew his own name that it is not macadamised at that point. In the course of the argument they said some very sharp things to each other, and the rest of the dinner was eaten in silence, save for an occasional half-stifled reflection from Ridley.

  When it grew dark and the lamps were brought in, Terence felt unable to control his irritation any longer. St. John went to bed in a state of complete exhaustion, bidding Terence good-night with rather more affection than usual because of their quarrel, and Ridley retired to his books. Left alone, Terence walked up and down the room; he stood at the open window.

  The lights were coming out one after another in the town beneath, and it was very peaceful and cool in the garden, so that he stepped out on to the terrace. As he stood there in the darkness, able only to see the shapes of trees through the fine grey light, he was overcome by a desire to escape, to have done with this suffering, to forget that Rachel was ill. He allowed himself to lapse into forgetfulness of everything. As if a wind that had been raging incessantly suddenly fell asleep, the fret and strain and anxiety which had been pressing on him passed away. He seemed to stand in an unvexed space of air, on a little island by himself; he was free and immune from pain. It did not matter whether Rachel was well or ill; it did not matter whether they were apart or together; nothing mattered—nothing mattered. The waves beat on the shore far away, and the soft wind passed through the branches of the trees, seeming to encircle him with peace and security, with dark and nothingness. Surely the world of strife and fret and anxiety was not the real world, but this was the real world, the world that lay beneath the superficial world, so that, whatever happened, one was secure. The quiet and peace seemed to lap his body in a fine cool sheet, soothing every nerve; his mind seemed once more to expand, and become natural.

  But when he had stood thus for a time a noise in the house roused him; he turned instinctively and went into the drawing-room. The sight of the lamplit room brought back so abruptly all that he had forgotten that he stood for a moment unable to move. He remembered everything, the hour, the minute even, what point they had reached, and what was to come. He cursed himself for making believe for a minute that things were different from what they are. The night was now harder to face than ever.

  Unable to stay in the empty drawing-room, he wandered out and sat on the stairs half-way up to Rachel’s room. He longed for someone to talk to, but Hirst was asleep, and Ridley was asleep; there was no sound in Rachel’s room. The only sound in the house was the sound of Chailey moving in the
kitchen. At last there was a rustling on the stairs overhead, and Nurse McInnis came down fastening the links in her cuffs, in preparation for the night’s watch. Terence rose and stopped her. He had scarcely spoken to her, but it was possible that she might confirm him in the belief which still persisted in his own mind that Rachel was not seriously ill. He told her in a whisper that Dr. Lesage had been and what he had said.

  “Now, Nurse,” he whispered, “please tell me your opinion. Do you consider that she is very seriously ill? Is she in any danger?”

  “The doctor has said—” she began.

  “Yes, but I want your opinion. You have had experience of many cases like this?”

  “I could not tell you more than Dr. Lesage, Mr. Hewet,” she replied cautiously, as though her words might be used against her. “The case is serious, but you may feel quite certain that we are doing all we can for Miss Vinrace.” She spoke with some professional self-approbation. But she realised perhaps that she did not satisfy the young man, who still blocked her way, for she shifted her feet slightly upon the stair and looked out of the window where they could see the moon over the sea.