by E. F. Benson
“I’m a damned awkward sort of fellow,” said Toby. “Suppose she begins to talk, God knows what I shall say.”
“She won’t; I know her better than you.”
Toby put his hat down, and drew off a glove.
“Very well,” he said. “Send for her maid.”
Jack laid his hand on Toby’s arm.
“You’re a good fellow, Toby,” he said, “and may God preserve you from the fate of your brother!”
Jack rang the bell, and sent for Kit’s maid. The two brothers remained together in the hall without speaking till she came down again.
“Her ladyship will see Lord Evelyn now,” she said.
Toby went up the staircase behind the woman. They came to Kit’s door, and having tapped and been answered, he entered.
The blinds, as he had seen from the street, were down, and the room in low half-light. The dressing-table was close in front of the window, and in the dim rose light that filtered through the red stuff, he could at first see nothing but a faint sparkle of silver-backed brushes and bottles. Then to the right of the window the bed became outlined to his more accustomed gaze, and from it came Kit’s voice, rather gentler and lower-pitched than its wont.
“Toby, it is dear of you to come to see me,” she said. “But isn’t it stupid of me? Directly after seeing Lily yesterday I came back here, and tripped on those steps leading from Jack’s room. I came an awful bang. I must have been stunned, for I remember nothing till I found myself lying on the sofa here. Oh dear, I’ve got such a headache!”
Toby found himself suddenly encouraged. Of all moral qualities, he was disposed to put loyalty the first, and certainly Kit was being magnificently loyal. Her voice was perfectly her own; she did not say that she had stumbled over something of Jack’s, still less that he, as Toby knew, had knocked her down. He drew a chair up to the bedside.
“It is bad luck, Kit,” he said; “and really I am awfully sorry for you. Is your head very bad?”
“Oh, it aches!” said Kit; “but it was all my own fault. Now, if anyone else had been to blame for it, I should have been furious, and that would have made it ache worse.” She laughed rather feebly. “So one is saved something,” she went on, “and even with this head I am duly grateful. It is a day wasted, which is always a bore, but otherwise — —”
And she stopped abruptly, for the glibness of her loyalty was suddenly cut short by a pang of pain almost intolerable, which pierced her like a sword. She bit the bedclothes in her determination not to cry aloud, and a twenty seconds’ anguish left her weak and trembling.
“I wanted to see you, Toby,” she said. “Just to tell you how, how — —” And she paused a moment thinking that her insistence on the fact that her accident was no one’s fault but her own, might seem suspicious— “how glad I was to see Lily yesterday!” she went on. “I wonder if she would come to see me; ask her. But you must go now; I can’t talk. Just ring the bell as you go out. I want my maid.”
She stretched a hand from under the bedclothes to him, and he took it with a sudden fright, feeling its cold feebleness.
“Good-bye, Kit,” he said. “Get better soon.”
She could not reply, for another sword of pain pierced her, and he went quickly out, ringing the bell as he passed the mantelpiece.
Jack was still in the hall when he came downstairs again, and he looked up in surprise at the speed of Toby’s return.
“She fell down, she told me,” he said. “You were quite right, Jack — not a word.”
Jack had not time to reply when Kit’s maid hurried downstairs into the hall.
“What is it?” asked Jack.
“Her ladyship is in great pain, my lord,” she said. “She told me to send for the doctor at once.”
Jack rang the bell and looked up at Toby blankly, appealingly.
“Go into your room, Jack,” he said. “I’ll send for the doctor, and do all that.”
A footman was sent off at once for Kit’s doctor, and Toby sat down at a writing-table in the hall and scribbled a note to his wife, to be taken by a messenger at once to his house. If Lily was not at home, he was to find out where she had gone and follow her. The note only contained a few words:
“My Dearest: Kit is in trouble — worse than I can tell you. Come at once to her. She wants you.
“Toby.”
When he had written and sent this, he went back to Jack. The latter was sitting at his table, his face in his hands, doing nothing. Toby went up to him.
“Come, Jack,” he said, speaking as if with authority, “make an effort and pull yourself together. Get to your work, or try to. There is a pile of letters there you haven’t looked at. Read them. Some may want answers. If so, answer them. I have sent for Kit’s doctor, and for Lily.”
Jack looked up.
“It isn’t fit that Lily should come here,” he said.
Toby thought of Kit’s visit the afternoon before, and Lily’s refusal to him to say anything of what it had been about. That it had been private was all she would tell him, and not about money. And as they were sitting alone in the evening he thought he saw her crying once.
“I think it is very possible she knows,” he said. “Kit had a private talk with her yesterday. Wait till she comes.”
Jack rose from his seat.
“Oh, Toby, if you had only telegraphed for me from Stanborough, instead of packing him off!”
“I wish to God I had!” said Toby drearily.
Jack took up his letters, as Toby had told him, and began opening them. There was one from Mr. Alington enclosing a cheque. He barely looked at it. Money, his heart’s desire, had been given him, and the leanness of it had entered into his soul. But seeing the sense of Toby’s advice to do something, he answered some of these letters, mechanically and correctly.
Before long Lily was announced, and Toby rose quickly, and went out into the hall to meet her.
“Ah, Toby,” she said, “you did quite right to send for me. They just caught me before I went out. You needn’t tell me anything. Kit told me all.”
Toby nodded.
“Will you see Jack?” he asked.
“Yes, if he would care to see me. Ask him whether he will or not.”
But Jack had followed Toby, and before he could answer had come out of his room.
“It is awfully good of you to come, Lily!” he said. “But go away again. It is not fit you should be here.”
“If Kit wants me, I shall see her,” she said. “Please let her know that I am here, Jack.”
“It isn’t fit,” said Jack again.
“I think differently,” said Lily gently. “Please tell her at once, Jack.”
Jack looked at her a moment in silence, biting his lip nervously.
“Ah God!” he cried, suddenly stung by some helpless remorse and regret, and without more words he went upstairs to see whether Kit would see her. He could not bring himself to go into the room, but asked through the maid. Soon he appeared again at the head of the stairs, beckoning to Lily, who was waiting in the hall below, and she went up. He held the door of Kit’s bedroom open for her, and she went in.
The room was very dark, and, like Toby, it took her a few seconds before she could distinguish objects. From the corner to the right of the rose-square of the window came a faint moaning. Lily walked across to the bedside.
“Kit,” she said, “my poor Kit! I have come.”
There was silence, and the moaning ceased. Then came Kit’s voice in a whisper:
“Lily,” she said, “I told him. I told him all. Then — then — I somehow fell down those stairs leading from his room, and hurt myself awfully. My fault entirely.... I was not looking where I was going. Oh, I have felt so terribly ill since this morning, and it is only morning still, isn’t it? Have they sent for the doctor?”
“Yes, they expect him immediately. Oh, Kit, are you not glad you told him? It was the only way. Now you have done all you can. It would be worse to bear if you had not told
him. Oh, I wish — I wish I could take the pain instead of you! Hold my hand. Grip it with all your force; it will make the pain seem easier. And oh, Kit, pray to God without ceasing.”
“I can’t — I can’t,” moaned Kit; “I never pray. I have not prayed for years.”
“Pray now, then. If you have turned your back on Him, He has never turned His back on you. The Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief, born of a woman! Only be willing to let Him help you — that is sufficient. Think of the graciousness of that! And this is the very week of His Passion.”
“I can’t pray,” moaned Kit again; “but pray for me.”
The grip of Kit’s hand tightened in Lily’s, and she could feel the stones in her rings biting into her flesh. Yet she hardly felt it; she was only aware of it. And her whole soul went up in supplication.
“O most pitiful, have pity,” she said. “Help Kit in the hour of her need; deliver her body from pain and death, and her soul, above all, from sin. Give her amendment of life, and time to amend, and the will to amend. Make her sorry. Oh, Almighty One, stand near one of Thy children in her pain and need. Help her — help her!”
The door of the room opened quietly, and Dr. Ferguson entered. He held in his hand a little bag. He went to the window and drew up the blinds, letting in a splash of primrose-coloured sunshine; then shook hands with Lily, who rose at his entrance, in silence.
“You had better leave us, Lady Evelyn,” he said. “Please send the nurse up as soon as she comes.”
Lily turned to the bedside once more before leaving the room, and Kit smiled in answer to her. Her face was terribly drawn and white, and the dew of pain stood on her forehead. Lily bent and kissed her, and left the room.
She rejoined Toby and Jack in the smoking-room. Jack got up when she entered with eyes of questioning.
“The doctor is with her,” said Lily. “He will be sure to tell us as soon as he can.”
“Do you think she is very bad?”
“I don’t know. She is in dreadful pain. How on earth did she manage to fall so badly down these steps?”
“Did she tell you that?”
“Yes; she said it was entirely her own fault.”
Jack turned away a moment.
“I knocked her down,” he said at length.
Lily’s eye flashed, but grew soft again.
“Don’t let her know that you have told me,” she said. “Oh, poor Jack!”
Jack turned to her again quickly.
“Lily, do you think she will die?” he asked. “And will it be that which killed her?”
“Don’t say such things, Jack,” said Lily firmly. “You have no right to say or think them yet. We must hope for the best. Dr. Ferguson will certainly tell us as soon as he knows.”
For another half-hour they sat there, the most part in silence. Lily took up a book, but did not read it; Jack sat at a table beginning letter after letter, and tearing them up again, and all waited in the grip of sickening, quaking suspense for the doctor’s report. Footsteps, which at such times fall with a muffled sound, moved about the house, and occasionally the ceiling jarred with the reverberation of a step in Kit’s room, which was overhead. Lunch was announced, but still none of them moved. At last a heavy footstep came downstairs, the door of the smoking-room opened, and Dr. Ferguson entered.
“It is a very grave case,” he said quietly. “I should like another opinion, Lord Conybeare.”
Jack had faced round in his chair, and sat for a moment in silence, biting the end of his pen. His hands were perfectly steady, but one of his eyebrows kept twitching, and the colour was struck from his face.
“Please telegraph, or send a carriage to whomever you wish for,” he said.
“A hansom will be quickest,” said Dr. Ferguson, “unless you have horses already in. Excuse me, I will write a note.”
Toby got up.
“I’ll take it, Jack,” he said. “Lily’s carriage is still waiting.”
“Thank you, Lord Evelyn,” said the doctor. “Sir John Fox will certainly see you if you send your card in. He will be at home now. In fact I need not write. Bring him back with you, please.”
Toby left the room, and Dr. Ferguson got up.
“She is very ill?” said Jack.
“Yes, the condition may become critical in an hour or two. I shall then” — and he looked at Jack— “I shall then have to try to save Lady Conybeare at whatever cost.”
Jack gave a sudden short crack of laughter, but recovered himself.
“Meanwhile, Lord Conybeare,” continued the doctor, “you are to consider yourself a patient too. I insist on your having lunch.”
“I can’t eat,” said Jack.
“Excuse me, but you have got to. And you too, Lady Evelyn. By the way, Lady Conybeare tells me she had a fall. That, of course, caused this premature event. When did it happen?”
For a moment Jack swayed where he stood, and sat down again heavily. He seemed about to speak; but Lily interrupted him quickly:
“Yesterday afternoon, about four o’clock. Lady Conybeare told me about it. Please come in to lunch, Dr. Ferguson, unless you are going upstairs again at once, in which case I will send you some up. Come, Jack.”
Toby returned before long, bringing Sir John with him. The two doctors had a short consultation together, and then went upstairs again.
Outside the muffled house the spring day ran its course of exquisite hours. The trees in the Park opposite were already covered with little green buds, not yet turned black by the soot of the city, and the flower-beds were bright and heavily fragrant with big, succulent hyacinths. Up and down Park Lane surged the busy traffic; now a jingling hansom would cut in front of a tall, nodding bus, now a dray would slowly cross the Park gate, damming up for a moment the two tides of carriages passing in and out. The great bourdon hum of London droned like some overladen bee, still intent on gathering more riches, and the yearly renewal of the lease of life granted every springtime made gay the tenants of this goodly heritage of earth. Inside the house Jack and Lily sat alone, for she had sent Toby away for an hour or two to get some air. They hardly spoke to each other; each listened intently for a foot on the stairs.
About four o’clock, just as the sun, still high, was beginning to cut the rim of the taller trees in the Park, Dr. Ferguson entered. He beckoned to Jack, who left the room. Outside in the hall he stopped.
“You must decide,” he said. “We cannot possibly save the mother and the child.”
“Save the mother!” cried Jack. “Oh, save her!”
His voice was suddenly raised almost to a shriek, and through the closed door, Lily, hearing it, started up. In another moment he came back into the room, trembling frightfully, with a wild, scared look.
“Jack! Jack!” she said. “My poor fellow! be brave. What is it?”
“They have to try to save one,” said Jack. “Oh, Lily!” And with a sudden upheaval of his nature, and an uprising of all that was tender and remorseful, long overlaid by his selfish, unscrupulous life, he gave way utterly and abandonedly. “Oh, Kit! Kit!” he moaned. “If she dies it will be my doing. I shall have murdered her. And we have been married six years! She was not twenty when we married — a child almost. And what have I done for her? Have I ever made this wicked, difficult business of life any easier for her? I, too, have been false and faithless, and when poor, brave Kit came to tell me — what she told me — I did that which may have killed her. She has to bear it all, and I, brute, bully and coward, go scot-free. She fell like a log, and I was not sorry, only frightened. And she told you, she told Toby, she told the doctor, that she had fallen herself. Poor, loyal Kit! And I am a fine fellow to be loyal to! O God! God! God!”
He writhed on the sofa, where he had flung himself in dumb, twisted agony. The pains of hell, a soul knowingly lost, were his. All the love he had once borne to Kit, all the years of their excellent comradeship together, rose and filled the cup of unutterable remorse.
Lily, woman to her heart’
s core, was one throb of pity for them both, and could scarce find words.
“Oh, Jack!” she said; “there is hope. It is not hopeless. They did not say that. It is awful; but be strong. We have to wait.”
He did not answer her, but lay like a man dead, his face hidden in the elbow of his arm. Lily saw it was no use attempting to reach him by any words. For the time he lay outside the range of human sympathy, inaccessible. The outer darkness of remorse and regret was round him, not to be illuminated, but unpierceable and of necessity so. He was not a good man, but an utterly bad one would not have so suffered.
So they sat silent, and the sun sank lower behind the trees, till at length a few rays through the yet thinly clad branches came in level at the window. Suddenly Jack sat up.
“I hear a step,” he said, and next moment Lily perceived it, too.
“Go into the hall to them, Jack,” she said, thinking that he would rather face the inevitable moment of news alone.
“I can’t,” said he.
The step came down the stairs, across the flagged hall, and Dr. Ferguson entered.
“She will pull through,” he said. “Unless anything quite unforeseen happens, Lady Conybeare will do well.”
CHAPTER V. TOBY ACTS WITHOUT SPEAKING
Ted Comber had passed an arduous but most satisfactory morning. His own particular hairdresser had been kind, sympathetic and consoling. Gray hairs were there, and it was no use denying it; but there was a wonderful new preparation, not really a hair-dye, but a natural product, which, like everything else connected with the hair, cost ten and sixpence the bottle, and was to be confidently recommended. He would send it round to South Audley Street. A little to be applied with a brush every day to the parts affected, and the smell was not unpleasant.
From there he had gone to his tailor’s, and had a long talk to Mr. Barrett, who fully appreciated the solemnity of the braid idea, and said it might be an epoch. Down the edge of the coat — exactly so — and the waistcoat in the same manner, very broad. And what did his lordship think about the treatment of the trouser? Braid on the outside of the leg, or not? And his lordship thought braid. The suit could be ready by Saturday evening, and so Ted could wear it for the first time on Easter Sunday, said kind Mr. Barrett.