Greatheart Part 28

A distant hubbub had arisen in the main corridor, the banging of doors and laughter of careless voices. It was some time after one o'clock, and the merry-markers were on their way to bed.

"Never mind them!" said Biddy. "They're just a set of noisy children. Lie down again, Miss Isabel! They'll soon settle, and then p'raps ye'll get to sleep. It's not this way they'll be coming anyway."

"Someone is coming this way," said Isabel, listening with sudden close attention.

She was right. The quiet tread of a man's feet came down the corridor that led to their private suite. A man's hand knocked with imperious insistence upon the door.

"Sir Eustace!" said Biddy, in a dramatic whisper. "Will I tell him ye're asleep, Miss Isabel? Quick now! Get back to bed!"

But Isabel made no movement to comply. She only drew herself together with the nervous contraction of one about to face a dreaded ordeal.

Quietly the door opened. Biddy moved forward, her face puckered with anxiety. She met Sir Eustace on the threshold.

"Miss Isabel hasn't settled yet, Sir Eustace," she told him, her voice cracked and tremulous. "But she'll not be wanting anybody to disturb her.

Will your honour say good night and go?"

There was entreaty in the words. Her eyes besought him. Her old gnarled hands gripped each other, trembling.

But Sir Eustace looked over her head as though she were not there. His gaze sought and found his sister; and a frown gathered on his clear-cut, handsome face.

"Not in bed yet?" he said, and closing the door moved forward, pa.s.sing Biddy by.

Isabel stood and faced him, but she drew back a step as he reached her, and a hunted look crept into her wide eyes.

"You are late," she said. "I thought you had forgotten to say good night."

He was still in evening dress. It was evident that he had only just come upstairs. "No, I didn't forget," he said. "And it seems I am not too late for you. I shouldn't have disturbed you if you had been asleep."

She smiled a quivering, piteous smile. "You knew I should not be asleep,"

she said.

He glanced towards the bed which Biddy was setting in order with tender solicitude. "I expected to find you in bed nevertheless," he said. "What made you get up again?"

She shook her head in silence, standing before him like a child that expects a merited rebuke.

He put a hand on her shoulder that was authoritative rather than kind.

"Lie down again!" he said. "It is time you settled for the night."

She threw him a quick, half-furtive look. "No--no!" she said hurriedly.

"I can't sleep. I don't want to sleep. I think I will get a book and read."

His hand pressed upon her. "Isabel!" he said quietly. "When I say a thing I mean it."

She made a quivering gesture of appeal. "I can't go to bed, Eustace. It is like lying on thorns. Somehow I can't close my eyes to-night. They feel red-hot."

His hold did not relax. "My dear," he said, "you talk like a hysterical child! Lie down at once, and don't be ridiculous!"

She wavered perceptibly before his insistence. "If I do, Scott must give me a draught. I can't do without it--indeed--indeed!"

"You are going to do without it to-night," Eustace said, with cool decision. "Scott is worn out and has gone to bed. I made him promise to stay there unless he was rung for. And he will not be rung for to-night."

Isabel made a sharp movement of dismay. "But--but--I always have the draught sooner or later. I must have it. Eustace, I must! I can't do without it! I never have done without it!"

Eustace's face did not alter. It looked as if it were hewn in granite.

"You are going to make a beginning to-night," he said. "You have been poisoned by that stuff long enough, and I am going to put a stop to it.

Now get into bed, and be reasonable! Biddy, you clear out and do the same! You can leave the door ajar if you like. I'll call you if you are wanted."

He pointed to the half-open door that led into the small adjoining room in which Biddy slept. The old woman stood and stared at him with consternation in her beady eyes.

"Is it meself that could do such a thing?" she protested. "I never leave my young lady till she's asleep, Sir Eustace. I'd sooner come under the curse of the Almighty."

He raised his brows momentarily, but he kept his hand upon his sister. He was steadily pressing her towards the bed. "If you don't do as you are told, Biddy, you will be made," he observed. "I am here to-night for a definite purpose, and I am not going to be thwarted by you. So you had better take yourself out of my way. Now, Isabel, you know me, don't you?

You know it is useless to fight against me when my mind is made up. Be sensible for once! It's for your own good. You can't have that draught.

You have got to manage without it."

"Oh, I can't! I can't!" moaned Isabel. She was striving to resist his hold, but her efforts were piteously weak. The force of his personality plainly dominated her. "I shall lie awake all night--all night."

"Very well," he said inexorably. "You must. Sleep will come sooner or later, and then you can make up for it."

"Oh, but you don't understand." Piteously she turned and clasped his arm in desperate entreaty. "I shall lie awake in torture. I shall hear him calling all night long. He is there beyond the mountains, wanting me. And I can't get to him. It is agony--oh, it is agony--to lie and listen!"

He took her between his hands, very firmly, very quietly. "Isabel, you are talking nonsense--utter nonsense! And I refuse to listen to it. Get into bed! Do you hear? Yes, I insist. I am capable of putting you there.

If you mean to behave like a child, I shall treat you as one. Now for the last time, get into bed."

"Sir Eustace!" pleaded Biddy in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. "Don't force her, Sir Eustace! Don't now! Don't!"

He paid no attention to her. His eyes were fixed upon his sister's death-white face, and her eyes, strained and gla.s.sy were upturned to his.

He said no more. Isabel's breath came in short sobbing gasps. She resisted him no longer. Under the steady pressure of his hands, her body yielded. She seemed to wilt under the compulsion of his look. Slowly, tremblingly, she crumpled in his hold, sinking downwards upon the bed.

He bent over her, laying her back, taking the bedclothes from Biddy's shaking hands and drawing them over her.

Then over his shoulder briefly he addressed the old woman. "Turn out the light, and go!"

Biddy stood and gibbered. There was that in her mistress's numb acquiescence that terrified her. "Sure, you'll kill her, Sir Eustace!"

she gasped.

He made a compelling gesture. "You had better do as I say. If I want your help--or advice--I'll let you know. Do as I say! Do you hear me, Biddy?"

His voice fell suddenly and ominously to a note so deep that Biddy drew back still further affrighted and began to whimper.

Sir Eustace turned back to his sister, lying motionless on the pillow.

"Tell her to go, Isabel! I am going to stay with you myself. You don't want her, do you?"

"No," said Isabel. "I want Scott."

"You can't have Scott to-night." There was absolute decision in his voice. "It is essential that he should get a rest. He looked ready to drop to-night."