Might be healed? Ah, but how little satisfying was hope, when but for her own imbecility, her own mad act — in that light she saw it now! — she might at this moment have been happy, safe, assured, blest in the repentant tenderness, the returning passion of one who had been her maiden choice, and whom she had never ceased to love, even when he had been least faithful! For he had never been as so many others in his case. He had never been harsh, brutal, ungenerous, even in his infidelities. He had only been unfaithful; stabbing her to the heart indeed, and torturing that tender bosom, but never erasing from it the image of her first love. And how many, how many had tempted him! Wicked, wicked women! Theirs, theirs had been nine-tenths of the blame!
She paced the room torn by doubts, racked by fears, measuring his displeasure — and with all his faults he had never in the past shown displeasure to her. Rather had his bearing been that of one who mutely owned himself in fault, owned her perfection, pleaded only the force of circumstances and his own weakness. How intolerable then, if at this crisis, when his better angel and his sober years prevailed, she had wrecked all!
Her fevered eyes fell on the clock. It wanted twenty minutes of eleven. In twenty minutes it would be too late to do anything. Should she, after all, make one last appeal to that wretched, hard-hearted girl — who held her fate in her hands? Or should she consult him of whom she had in a moment grown afraid? At the worst she might prove to him that she was anxious to comply with his wishes, that the fault did not lie with her. He had willed that she should humble herself and she had done it, and the tacit order had been dear to her. She pondered, and at last she rang the bell.
“When does Miss South start?” she asked.
“At eleven, my lady.”
“From the side door?”
“No, my lady, from the stable court.”
“Where is his lordship?”
“He was in the stables, but I believe he is at the front now.”
She dismissed the man and went to her room; and anxiously before the mirror she twitched a curl this way, straightened a ribbon — this was no time, ah, no time to neglect herself! Then she snatched up a cloak and hat and traversed the passage and stairs to the great doors. Yes, there was the Earl, standing near the entrance gates, sombrely switching at the gravel with his cane. A few paces from him Ann was playing with a dog. My lady saw that she was in time, and with a quick-beating heart she went to him.
“If you wish it,” she said with a new and touching humility. “I will speak to Miss South again, and beg her to stay. I do not think I shall succeed. I have said already all that it is possible to say. But I will try again — if it is your pleasure.”
“Well — try then!” he said gloomily. “But wait a minute. There’s the boy coming out.”
He signed to her to stand aside as Bodmin rode out of the stable court. He was on the new pony and he waved his hand gaily as he passed. The cob was fresh, and bored and pulled at the bit, its stout haunches gathered under it, its eye wicked. But the boy, proud of his new mount, and delighted with the chance of showing off before them, went by laughing and slapping his gaiter with his whip to prove his confidence.
My lady was not sorry to find an indifferent subject, and with a show of more anxiety than she felt, “Is that pony safe?” she asked.
My lord was not to be propitiated. “Safe? Good lord, yes!” he said. “A bit fresh.”
“But should not someone” — she spoke timidly, for, alas, she was beginning to fear him!—” go with him?”
“Rubbish! The boy’s not a molly-coddle!” His eye followed his heir with pride.
They watched the two sidle away along the turf beside the drive, the figures of horse and boy dwarfed by the walls of lofty trees that flanked the glade. Then they turned. My lord looked at his watch. “You had better meet her in the court,” he said. “If you go through the house, you will miss her.”
The stable clock struck as he spoke. From where they stood, by the outer gates, they could look through the inner gateway into the stable court and could see drawn up at a side door the carriage that awaited the governess. It was the hour of the servants’ “elevens,” and the men had gone in to their snack. There was no one in the court except the driver of the carriage, sitting on his box and now and again stroking one of the horses with the tail of his whip.
My lady moved towards the court. “You’ll have to be quick,” my lord called after her. “She is coming out, I think.”
Lady Ellingham hastened her steps, and had covered a dozen yards or more when a gun-shot rang out; fired apparently at some distance. It was too common a sound at the Folly to alarm, and my lady did not turn. But before she had taken a second ten steps — though she walked quickly, in fear lest the chaise should move away — there came to her ears another sound — an ominous sound to experienced ears. It was the rattle of galloping hoofs on a hard road, and my lady turned, and instinctively looked back in misgiving. The next moment my lord’s voice rose. “Damnation!” he exclaimed. “That pony’s off!” In a dozen strides he was beside my lady. “Take care!” he exclaimed and pushed her to the side; and even in that moment of alarm she recognized that his first thought was for her. “Look out, Kitty! He’s coming this way — ah!” The last word was pitched in a different key, and of itself would have stricken her with terror, if she had had no eyes to see.
But she could see. The cob was coming towards them, hurtling down the drive at the top of its speed, its head between its knees. It was completely out of control and running away, making blindly for its stable. The boy was sitting it bravely, leaning back and dragging with all his small strength at the shortened reins, but to no purpose. And then, and almost in the same moment, the two — the poor mother as quickly as my lord — discerned the deadly peril that awaited their child. The stable door — their thoughts darted instinctively to it, for it was full in their sight, and scarce forty yards away — was open, and it was low in the brow — too low for the rider to pass through it, if the cob pursued its reckless course. And even as the peril declared itself, it was upon them. The pony thundered through the gates beside them, my lord with a stifled cry rushed to head it off. He was yards too late. The cob swerved, and passed him. It made at the same frenzied pace for the stable gateway. It swept through it in a flash.
“Throw yourself off!” my lord shouted. “Throw yourself off!”
But whether the boy heard the words or not — and the clatter of the galloping hoofs may have deafened him — he did not act, and the only person who could act, the man on the chaise, was hard put to it to control his horses, and had not the quickness of wit to switch them across the frightened animal’s path. Probably if he had had the thought, the notice was too short, for the court was crossed in a second. My lord uttered a strangled cry, my lady hid her face.
And then, with the gaping doorway no more than four or five lengths ahead of the runaway, a little slender figure sprang from behind the chaise, flung itself, as it seemed to my lord, full in the cob’s way, caught, heaven knew how, some impossible rein, and in the tenth part of a second all, horse, boy and that little figure, came plunging and crashing to the ground and rolled to the base of the wall in a ghastly medley of upturned girths and gleaming irons. Such a sight on the kindly greensward or the gentle plough — who has not seen it with a qualm and held his breath? But on the hard ground of the court, with the merciless walls of the stables but a pace away! My lord ran, his face white as a woman’s. My lady heard, looked, and shuddered. In a strength not her own she staggered after him. “Now God have mercy on us,” she whispered, and repeated it again and again.
Even before my lord arrived the men were out, a dozen of them, clustering like bees about the fallen, and before the clatter of hoofs and the thunder of the crash had ceased to echo from the walls they had flung themselves upon the writhing heap, secured the kicking pony by main force, and with nervous arms were dragging two forms clear. One, one, lay senseless and motionless in their arms. The other tottered fr
ee, and, white-faced, supported by the wall, “Oh, was I wrong?” Rachel wailed, looking round on the men with terrified eyes. “Have I killed him? Was I wrong?”
A single man had a thought to spare for her. One voice — it was Coker’s — answered her. “No, you were d — d right!” he said huskily. “He’d ha’ been smashed like an egg ‘gainst that lintel!” Then, “Don’t take on, my lord,” he continued. “Don’t take on! He’s alive! I’ll swear he’s alive!” he repeated desperately — for he did not believe it.
Men, women, all, summoned by the sound of the fall, were crowding round now, some hysterical, some mute and aghast, one here and there peering fearfully over another’s shoulder. Only Bowles remembered my lady and started to meet her. But his aid was not needed. In a moment she was among them, dry-eyed and quiet, and the roughest men made way for her.
Coker lifted the lad, but, “I’ll carry him,” the father said jealously, and took the light form from his arms. He stroked back the hair that had fallen over the forehead, and gave a long look at the pale, bloodstained face. He turned to the house-door.
But on the threshold he gave a curt order, and the chaise, the scared horses flogged to a canter, bounded from the yard to fetch the Ringwood apothecary. Another order, as brief, and a man flew to the stables to saddle a hunter and gallop to Salisbury — there was no surgeon nearer.
My lady clutched her husband’s sleeve as if she would never let it go, and together, with the boy’s head drooping lifeless from his shoulder, they threaded the passages and climbed the stairs. Mrs. Jemmett panted before them, and opened a door, then unbidden hastened for sponges and water. My lord laid the small form — oh, so small it seemed now — on the bed, and with shaking fingers began to loosen the little stock and put off the bloodstained clothes, while my lady, watching with hungry eyes for the flutter of an eyelid, wiped the blood from the face that lay so white on the pillow, so much more like to death than life. Jemmett held the bowl, while my lord’s valet, gently insinuating himself, brought defter hands to the task of undressing. About the half-open door hung a score of terrified servants, those for the most part who had no business there. They augured the worst, and some sobbed noisily. They whispered that the boy was dead.
But he was not dead — yet. The heart still beat faintly, but it beat. My lord had assured himself of that, and presently, when all had been done that they dared to do, he signed to the servants to go, and he and my lady were left alone, standing together beside the bed. With one prayer in their hearts and woe in their eyes they looked at one another. He opened his arms, and without a word, in the hush that lay on the great house stricken by calamity, she fell into them and felt the heart that suffered with her beat against hers. And tears came to her relief.
CHAPTER XXXIV
SUSPENSE
IN the confusion Rachel was overlooked, yet not entirely. Some hand of housemaid or kitchen-maid helped her to her room, brought hot water and aided her to wash, soothed the hysterical excitement that now that the danger was past prostrated her. Nor was it unnatural that the girl should be overlooked at the first or should meet with less care and attention than she deserved, for only the Earl and the man on the carriage — and Coker or another from a window — had witnessed the part that she had played. And though the truth became quickly known, and was spread by many tongues, it was at first believed that the runaway had knocked down the governess as she stepped into the chaise.
For a time she could only cry in an agony of doubt, “Oh, if I have killed him! If I have killed him!” and live over again the dreadful moment when they had been hurled to the ground. And the maid, scared by her hysterical fit and ignorant of the facts, could only do her best, with such words as came to her, to comfort her. “’Twas no fault of yours, miss! You couldn’t help it!” she babbled. “Nobody can blame you, miss.”
“Oh, but his mother! His mother!” Rachel wailed. “What will his mother say? Please, please,” as she grew a little more composed, “go and ask if he is alive. And come and tell me. Promise you will come and tell me,” she insisted, clinging to the girl’s sleeve. “Ah,” and she gave way to a fresh burst of grief, “if he is dead!”
The maid did not understand where the trouble lay, but she promised, and glad to be nearer the centre of excitement and to satisfy her own curiosity, she hastened away on her errand; while Rachel, though she ached in every limb, paced the floor in dreadful suspense. The thing that her brave heart had inspired her to do, now seemed to her the most dreadful mistake, the origin of all the evil. And if the consequences were to be fatal? Anguished by the thought, she cast herself on her knees and hid her face on the bed — oh, that he might live! That he might live! That she might be spared this at least!
She was still on her knees, gripping the coverlet, with her face buried deep in it, when the door opened. The sound did not reach her, and for a moment the Countess gazed at the little prostrate form, her own face working convulsively. Then, “Miss South! Miss South!” she whispered.
Low as the accents were, Rachel heard them, and sprang to her feet. She turned and saw. “Oh!” she cried, and raised her hands as if she would ward off the mother. “Is he — is he — ?” She could not continue, but her eyes spoke for her.
“He lives,” the Countess murmured through her tears, and the next moment — Rachel never knew how or who made the first advance — the two were in one another’s arms, and my lady was holding the girl to her, soothing her, stroking her hair, pouring out broken words of gratitude. “There is hope, good hope,” she murmured. “He lives, and through you. Through you! Oh, we should go on our knees to you! My dear, forgive me! Forgive me!”
Rachel could not answer in words. She could only weep in a transport of thankfulness. At last, “I was afraid,” she stammered. “Oh, I was afraid that I had killed him!”
“You saved him! Our boy! They say that it was the only chance. And there is good hope, thank God! Ah, it was He sent you to us, and set you there and gave you the courage! My dear, my dear, what shall we say to you?” And they wept in one another’s arms, two women brought together at last by a common feeling, set on one level, meeting on the one ground of their womanhood.
But life even in such moments does not stand still. Someone knocked. “If you please, my lady, the doctor is here.”
The Countess dried her tears and put Rachel in a chair. “Come in,” she said.
The apothecary entered, burly, smiling, at home — it was his hour also, for him too rank had for the time ceased to count. “So this — this is the heroine, is it?” he said cheerfully. “Well, what’s amiss? Let me feel your pulse, young lady. Umph! Spir. Am., I see. Just walk across the room, my dear. Good! Nothing to alarm your ladyship. No harm done.”
As he mixed a dose the mother glided from the room, and Rachel’s eyes sought his and asked a question. “Unconscious,” he pronounced, “and will be for some hours. Result of concussion — natural result. No fracture, my dear, and every hope. Dr. Stephens will be here in an hour or so, but there is only one treatment — to keep the patient quiet and trust to nature. He may lie like that for twenty-four hours and no harm done.”
Presently Rachel also was left to nature, and in her bed was sleeping the sleep of exhaustion. And on the great house that for an hour or two had pulsed with life, with raised voices and hurrying feet, fell the stillness of suspense. For though the physician bore out the apothecary’s view — with such reservations as befitted his station — the boy lay through the long hours of the afternoon and gave no sign of life. My lord paced the library, and each hour ascended to inquire or to murmur a word of encouragement to his wife; while she, hidden by the curtains of the bed, sat untiring, devouring with hungry eyes the still face that lay so deathlike on the pillow, the form that looked so pitifully small in the wide bed.
For a time the knowledge that he lived and that there was hope had sufficed. But with every hour of waiting fear grew and increased. The servants, ever inclined to the darker view, shook their he
ads and whispered gloomily; and when sunset came the twilight found a change. It found the library deserted, and my lord softly pacing the bedroom or standing silent by the bed, my lady’s hand in his. Hope that had flamed high at noon fluttered low in the dusk, and only the burly apothecary and the physician — and he with growing caution — still fanned it and kept it alight. The watchers’ fears already pictured the end. The little heart that beat so feebly might so easily cease to beat.
But as the tall clock in the hall, where the lamps shone on empty grandeur, struck nine, a breath, a quiver ran through the passages, ran through the house, reached in a twinkling the farthest purlieu where stable-lads bedded their horses, or scullery-maids wept over the sink. He had spoken! He had spoken! The house stirred and stretched itself. Bowles swore in his pantry and blew his nose. Mrs. Jemmett dried her eyes and reached for the teapot. A footman deliberately dropped a plate, and after kicking the fragments far and wide fell to fisticuffs with his fellow. And my lord, coming hurriedly out of the bedroom, fell over Rachel, who should have been still in bed, wrung her hand as if he would never let it go, and went by her speechless. And Ann — Ann who had crouched on the stairs for hours, tearless and silent, solemnly burned her favourite doll in the dining-room fire — a rite the secret of which was known only to herself.
The crises of life pass and to pathos succeeds bathos. The water swirls above the depths, it slides on, and ripples over the shallows. A casual eye turned on the party assembled at the breakfast-table ten days later would have noted little change though so much had happened. Ann, turbulently demanding butter with her jam, Bodmin dragging her back by the hair as she made a long arm for it, Rachel timidly interposing, with an eye to the ruling powers, my lord exclaiming, “For God’s sake, Miss South, give her the butter and whip her afterwards!” my lady silent and absent, with a crease of pain between her eyes — all seemed to be as it had been.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 739