'Why of course you can. You'll do splendidly. Look how you did before you knew me.'
'It's Eleanor,' cried Caroline in the bitterness of her loss. 'She's driving you away.'
His smile froze.
'What do you mean, Miss Denton-Smyth?'
'Oh, don't pretend. Don't draw away like that, it isn't as if I didn't know. I'm your friend, my dear boy, you mustn't mind my calling you that, because I'm nearly old enough to be your mother, and in any case I'm her nearest living relative at least in London, and I think she's a blind and selfish little thing. She's not good enough for you. She's one of these hard selfish modern girls who only cares about her career.'
He was looking down at his plate, and the hand crumbling his bread roll was still. Then he looked up, suddenly, and he was smiling cheerfully again. 'Do you know, I think I'd rather not discuss it, even with you?' he said, quite easily and pleasantly, as though he were asking her to pass the butter. 'But, of course, it isn't anything to do with Miss de la Roux -at least' - his instinct for truth urged him to definition - 'at least, nothing she can help.'
But Caroline would not stop. 'Of course she could help it. My dear boy, of course she could. She told me so. She told me all about it.'
That had roused him. He stared at her with wide astonished eyes.
'She told me all those ideas about marriage you both have and not living together and all that. Of course she says she loves you, and she says she would hate to spoil your career. But I told her that she hasn't begun to understand the first thing about love, because if she had she'd know perfectly well that none of her own silly little ideas about business would matter at all.'
'Oh, but they do matter. I think they matter tremendously.'
It was Caroline's turn to stare.
'I couldn't endure a wife who was prepared to "give up all" for me,' said Father Mortimer with vigour. 'I can't imagine a more humiliating situation. Think of the strain it would impose upon the husband, having to live up to some sort of ideal of value which would compensate to his wife for everything that she had missed. Good heavens! Just think of it, Miss Denton-Smyth. One would never have a minute's peace in life again, nor an undivided mind. One would never be able to enjoy advancement or work or achievement or anything. Why, one would come to loathe the woman!"
'Roger!' She had never said it before. Hardly even in her thoughts had she dared to call him that; but the shock of this revelation of his feelings called it out of her. She was dazed, shocked and disquieted beyond expression.
He laughed. 'Why of course one would. The ideal thing, I suppose, would be some sort of arrangement whereby neither husband nor wife need sacrifice their own work. And I believe it could be done. But one has no business to turn a wife into a laboratory experiment - and - well, in any case - that phase is all over and done with. But there's something I wish you would do. I wish you would try to persuade her to accept that American offer if she gets it. It would be a great chance for her to get really into the business. I want her to do it. I want her to do something that no woman has done before, but - I don't particularly want to see her again just now."
'I can't bear it,' cried Caroline suddenly. 'Everything's breaking up. Eleanor's going and you're going, and the company's almost gone. I can't face it all alone. I'm too old.'
'Oh, no, you're not. You've got real youth and spirit. You've got all the courage you always had. You'll make a fine thing out of life somehow, and I shall look to you to cheer me on when I'm losing a grip on things, and we'll meet once a year and toast Eleanor's success while she's making fortunes in America.'
'Oh, these young people,' thought Caroline, 'with their glib cry of "once a year." These thoughtless young, squandering their opportunities. How many years shall I have in which to meet him?'
But she had regained her spirit, and only said brightly, almost coquettishly: 'Oh, yes, we must. Still, she hasn't gone yet.'
'No, not yet. But we might as well begin now.'
He raised his glass.
Caroline faced him across the table. She did not know whether the strange feeling that seized upon her was pain or exaltation. She had lost everything. Father Mortimer, her dear dear Roger, was leaving her. Eleanor was leaving her. The Christian Cinema Company would be wound up. She was back where she had been a year ago. It was all to begin over again.
And yet it was not the same. She had touched glory. She had found a friend.
She raised her glass.
'To Eleanor's success,' she said.
He smiled and drank.
'And to your health,' he responded with a polite bow.
'Aren't you going to drink to my success as well?' she bridled. 'I'm not at the stage yet when it's only my health that matters.'
'Of course you're not. Success to you and all your new adventures.'
Their glasses clinked again above the orange jelly.
But health was a condition of success which Caroline perhaps had not adequately valued. For on her way home, crossing the Bayswater Road towards Netting Hill Gate Metropolitan Railway Station, she walked still in the ecstatic trance in which the company of her friend had wrapped her; and she failed to notice a motor-car swinging round the corner from Westbourne Grove. It caught and hurled her to the ground, though it did not run over her. No address was found upon her person; her clothes and the sum of three shillings and fourpence in her bag proclaimed her poverty; she was carried unconscious to the Bayswater Infirmary.
§4
The infirmary ward was long and high and light and bleakly, brilliantly public. Caroline felt that she had less privacy there than if she had been put on the pavement in Piccadilly. In and out, up and down, passed the nurses and wardmaids, wheeling hand-lorries, covered with glittering bottles, with mugs of tea, with enamel plates of watery milk pudding. Occasionally a screen was pulled round her bed and she enjoyed a minute's seclusion, though even then her feelings were outraged by the familiarity of the pert probationer, who handled her without reverence and called her 'ma.'
She could bear the pain. Her thigh was broken, and she lay with her leg slightly raised under an iron cage like a meat-cover. Her body seemed to ache from her shoulders to her heel; but she had known before what pain was like. What she felt she could not endure was the publicity. Ever since she roused herself into consciousness and realized her plight, she had suffered anguish from embarrassment and humiliation. That a director of the Christian Cinema Company, the author of The Path of Valour, the friend of Father Mortimer, should be in a public infirmary under the control of the Poor Law, between a charwoman with ruptured varicose veins and a factory girl with pernicious anaemia, was too much. She disliked the pink flannelette nightdress provided by the institution; she disliked the mugs in which her tepid tea was brought her; the bread and butter, which was cut too thick; the coarse institutional sheets, and most of all, the free-and-easy patronage of the young nurses and doctors.
'I've borne everything, everything. Poverty and discouragement and loneliness. But this is too much,' she told herself. The hot tears burned her eyes. 'I can't, I can't bear it.'
Two days after her accident, Eleanor arrived, neat, solicitous, efficient.
'You must get me out of this. You must get me out of this,' cried Caroline. 'They tell me I've broken a bone, and I may be on my back for weeks. What about the company? How can I see the influential business men I must see and have important interviews in a pauper's ward? And it's just terrible here. Terrible. The language, you'd never believe what it's like. That thing there,' - she jerked her head towards the factory girl's bed. 'Her language. And the jokes she makes with the nurses. Horrible. Wearing so-called pearls too - over a pauper's uniform, and plastering her face up with lipstick. Eleanor, you must get me away. Find me a nursing-home. Ask Father Mortimer to come and help me.'
But the girl only answered with cautious sympathy.
'I've spoken to the doctor and your ward sister. I really do believe that it's better for you to stay here. The quieter you keep, the quicker
your leg will heal.'
'Quiet? Quiet? What sort of quiet do you think I have here? Being wakened up at five o'clock in the morning to be washed, and then - you see - all day long this continual traffic. I might as well be lying in Selfridge's Bargain Basement during sale week.'
'I didn't quite mean that.'
Oh, why had she ever thought Eleanor intelligent? She could not see that this place was unendurable.
'It's no use trying to argue with you. I can see you don't want to do anything for me. You don't want to help me, though I should have thought that even for old times' sake you might have been a little charitable. But I might have known.'
She remembered now that there was some particular reason why she was angry with Eleanor. What was it? The girl was obstinate and hard and selfish, of course, but there was something else. Caroline's head ached. Her mind was confused. She could not concentrate.
'I want you — I want you - I want you to write to dear Enid at Marshington and tell her what has happened. She must send me some money immediately and I want some butter and fruit too. Invalids ought to have fruit and they have a lovely conservatory at Marshington and a vine with grapes on it. I remember the William pears we used to have at Denton, they were splendid, not like the fruit nowadays, all pulp and pip, and then write please to Father Mortimer and ask him to come here at once. And then I shall want you to go to Lucretia Road, and to get my papers from the office in Victoria Street. I must attend to the business. I can't let the company down. All my directors - all my schemes. I want you to come here every day and bring my letters. Now it's a good thing you can do shorthand and typewriting, because there will be a great deal to do.'
The girl was stupid. There she sat fiddling with her block and pencil, taking down a few notes and looking miserable, instead of being bright and helpful as she could be if she chose. 'Cousin Caroline-'
'Well? Well? Now don't interrupt me. I've got to think. It's very important. There are those particulars to be sent to the people who inquired. I had eight inquiries yesterday -no-not yesterday, Friday, I mean. I'm all confused. And then will you see the Bishop of Kensington-Gore for me? Of course, I ought to go myself. I always say, when you want a thing done properly, do it yourself. But here I am, tied by the leg.'
Oh, it was terrible to be dependent upon this obstructive and obstinate girl. She was trying to say something now -something about America and a man called Brooks. There had been a man called Brooks - Brooks - something to do with Macafee.
'I ought to have had a child,' wailed Caroline. 'My own child would never have grudged a few hours to help me if I were struck down in the middle of my most promising work, and though I always say that these things are sent to try our faith, I do think there are some occasions when a little sympathy would help us to bear the test.'
It was no use. Appealing to Eleanor was like appealing to a stone. She just sat there, looking white and troubled but mulish, not at all warm and sympathizing as she should look. There was something wrong about the girl. She had no ordinary heart at all. And those absurd clothes she wore that old tweed coat. Girls should be as fresh as flowers.
'I don't like your coat,' Caroline said aloud suddenly. Eleanor's solemnity broke into a dimpling smile. 'I'm sorry.'
'Next time you come, you might bring me a bed-jacket.' 'Cousin Caroline, don't you remember what I told you, about going to America? It's all fixed up. I heard yesterday - Monday - I can go - I sail a week on Friday. It's simply marvellous.'
'You what?'
'I sail a week on Friday in the Ruritania with Hugh and old Brooks - for six months - as Hugh's assistant.'
'On Friday? You're going to America a week on Friday? You're leaving me here?'
'But how can I help it? I'll do all I can to get you fixed up before I go. Couldn't Betty or Dorothy Smith from Marshington run up to see you? You have other friends. I can't play fast and loose with Brooks. It's simply amazing that he should have let Hugh take me.'
'You're going to leave me here? Oh, you can't, Eleanor -you can't. Don't you see - I must have you. I must. There's no one else who can run the company while I'm in bed. There's no one else. I can't -I can't. Oh, you're really only at the beginning of your career. You've got time in front of you, all time. But I'm growing old. This chance has come at the end of my life. You can't leave me alone.'
'But don't you see - '
'Now, now, now.' The ward sister bustled up officiously.
'Now then, we mustn't get upset, must we?'
'Time to go now. And you can come again to-morrow as a special favour, though it's not visiting day,' she whispered to Eleanor.
Caroline lay speechless. Eleanor was deserting her. Everyone was deserting her. Nobody cared. Life was running away from her.
Ah, but she'd fight for her rights. She'd fight to succeed. No one could take her work away from her. No one could take away the company that she had built up - she — she — she alone. Neither principalities nor powers could rob her of her right to work. Eleanor must stay. Father Mortimer would make her stay. He was her friend. She loved him. Perfect love casteth out fear.
'Milk pudding for supper again?' cried Caroline. 'I shall have a letter to the papers written about it. What do we pay rates for?'
The routine of supper, washing, thermometers and bed-making rolled round on its accustomed circle. The lights were lowered. The stir in the ward sank to a subdued rustling as the night probationer went about her work.
The ward was a deep tank filled with greenish water. Caroline lay drowning in it. She was drowning in fear and pain and loneliness. Nobody cared. Eleanor was leaving her. Father Mortimer was leaving her. The company - she had the company.
She dreamed that all her directors resigned one after the other, and woke up with a gasping start to remember that her dream was true.
She had to begin all over again - from a pauper's bed in an infirmary. She had undertaken the Lord's work, and the Lord was testing her. But how could she sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Could she draw Leviathan with a hook, when she must send out quite six thousand circulars? And Mrs. Hales would spy upon her will, but death, where is thy victory? She would summon Johnson for embezzlement of funds, for shall not the judge of all the earth do right? 'Nurse, Nurse, can't I have a sleeping-draught?' she called. 'If I don't sleep I shall never get through all the important business that I must deal with to-morrow. For women of the lower classes, sleep does not matter so much, but I always say that Mr. Lloyd George would never have got through all his important work during the war, beating the Germans for us, if he had not slept.'
'Hush, hush now. You mustn't be a naughty old thing. Disturbing the ward,' the night probationer admonished her.
'Stow it, you old bitch. Can't you let a girl get her beauty sleep?' grunted the factory girl from the next bed.
Caroline wondered if by any chance she had been killed in her accident, and lay in Hell already.
But next morning, things were better. The sunlight fell on the glass jars of daffodils crowded together on the white enamelled table in the centre of the ward. It moved like clear water across the whitewashed ceiling and the green-painted walls. And after dinner, Eleanor came, still in her old tweed coat, but carrying a bunch of primroses and a basket of fruit.
'Did you see Mrs. Hales about my rooms? You know, I've been thinking things over and if I am really to stay ill for a long time, I think you'd better pack up my things and perhaps you could store them in your club. There's always plenty of room at those girls' clubs, and then Mrs. Hales would let the room. Did you bring my letters?'
'Yes. I've them all here, from Lucretia Road and the office too.'
'You look very pale, child. It's all these late nights, I expect.'
'I'm all right. Look here, Cousin Caroline. First of all I want to tell you that I went to see Brooks and Hugh last night and told them I couldn't sail with them. Of course they were rather annoyed, but I can still get that job at Perrin's next month, and perha
ps go to the States later.'
'Well, I'm very glad you've decided to do the sensible thing, because of course it was the only possible thing to do. As it happens I can't do without you at the moment. I should like to, but I can't. Now about the letters.'
They went over the correspondence together. Two Nonconformist ministers and an elementary school teacher declared their interests in the company. A gentleman who signed himself Widdall Plumer wanted particulars of the Tona Perfecta Film. The Hoxted Branch of the Women's Co-operative Guild asked Miss Denton-Smyth to give one of their Thursday afternoon talks on 'Purer Cinemas.'
'You see,' cried Caroline. 'You see, what it is. It's just beginning to catch on. The leaven is just beginning to work, to leaven the whole lump. Oh, don't you see why you can't desert me now? These chances may never come again. Now, what other letters are there?'
'There's one here with the Marshington post-mark. Shall I read it?'
Poor Caroline Page 26