In the Tideway Part 8

Miss Willina was on her feet in a moment. "Take him upstairs, Rick, and put him to bed--between the blankets. I'll come directly with gruel and mustard. And, Rick! give him a good scrub--all over--with the roughest--bath towel--you can find."

The last directions were called up the stairs as she went into the hall to see Will Lockhart put on his mackintosh properly.

"Good-bye, Miss Macdonald. I'm not in the least envious of the professor's immediate future," he said with smiling eyes, but with vague regrets still at his heart. "I'm glad, though, he was at the other side of the stream to-night. I liked the shadows."

"And the reality?" she asked quickly.

He stooped and kissed the pretty little hand browned by sun and wind.

"It is like the breath of your sea. The memory of it will help to blow away the cobwebs until I come back--in the summer."

"The summer is over."

"Not St. Martin's, and one often has a spell of fine weather late in the year when the earlier portions have been stormy."

She shook her head.

V

"Well, Hooper, what is it?"

Lady Maud stood at bay once more, with that diffident-looking man at the door. Three weeks had pa.s.sed since his first interview; only three weeks, and it seemed to her an eternity of fear and anxiety. But now the letters written in reply to hers had come from the American doctor, and she knew the worst. Mr. Wilson's case had at once been easy and difficult. Easy because of his singular lack of will power; difficult for the same reason, joined to a very bad ancestral record.

So bad that his maternal uncle, from whom he had inherited his large fortune, being deeply resentful of the treatment his sister had endured from her drunken husband, had burdened his legacy with certain unusual conditions as to sobriety and control. Consequently, when, shortly after his release from the restraints of minority, the inherited tendency had shown itself in Mr. Wilson, he had voluntarily placed himself in Dr. Haddon's charge, urged to the step by his fear of pecuniary loss. That was, briefly, the whole story, save that he, Dr. Haddon, continued to have charge of the case and would be obliged if Lady Maud would co-operate with him in continuing a system which had hitherto been so successful, and which, he did not scruple to add, was Mr. Wilson's only chance of fulfilling the conditions under which he held his fortune. For himself, he believed there was no danger of a relapse; it might even be possible after some years to relax the supervision, and in any case he begged her to remember that the hereditary tendency must needs be weakened by a generation even of enforced sobriety. He had hoped that there might be no necessity for her to be made acquainted with these circ.u.mstances, as the whole affair had been dealt with in the strictest confidence, and the essence of his treatment lay in ignoring the difficulty; but now that the untoward event reported by Hooper had occurred, it was better she should clearly understand the position of affairs. Briefly, he was paid for keeping Mr. Wilson from losing a very large portion of his wealth. Apart from that, it was an interesting case. In regard to Hooper, he was thoroughly trustworthy and conscientious,--a most necessary thing when influence was easy to attain. At the same time, if Hooper failed to commend himself to Lady Maud, he could be replaced. In view of the heavy stake at issue, however, he would recommend extreme caution in making any change. As for his reasons for allowing Mr. Wilson to marry under the circ.u.mstances, they were manifold; and his belief in the system was so great that he felt confident Lady Maud would never find cause for blame in her husband's conduct. The letter, in its bald statement of fact, its a.s.sumption of a perfectly satisfactory state of affairs, carried with it a sort of cold comfort. And yet Lady Maud felt a wild revolt against it such as no verdict of disease or death would have aroused.

Like most women who marry men to whom they are indifferent, she had looked forward, odd as it may seem, to having children who would give a zest to an otherwise insipid life. And now the mere possibility was a terror: not in pity for those who might come handicapped into the race, but from sheer physical horror that they should be his and hers.

And this terror came uppermost in the first few minutes of shock.

"I have heard from Dr. Haddon this morning, my lady. In future I am to take my orders from you; so I have come to ask for them."

The disapproval in his tone was audible. She felt a rash, resentful desire to bid him go and leave her free, but the doctor's warning checked the words. What if she should have burdened her life for nothing,--she who had refused money again and again because it seemed vulgar to her fastidiousness? She might appeal to her husband as a man, chance her influence against the Hooper-Haddon system; but what if she failed? During those last three weeks she had silenced the heart which, despite all her efforts, would have its way, by protestations that she was only awaiting the doctor's reply, that by and by she would no longer consent to be this man's wife on these terms. To live on as if she knew nothing; to give neither help nor condemnation; to acquiesce without a word in a future which filled her with shame and horror.

When she knew the facts, she would decide, and now she knew too much.

"I have no orders," she said in a low voice; "no new ones; you can go." Then suddenly a thought flashed through her and she arrested him with a gesture.

"Yes, my lady?"

Still she was silent, one hand gripping the edge of the table, her breath coming fast. "I do not think--this place--is good for Mr.

Wilson."

"Indeed, your ladyship," broke in Hooper, relieved, "I have thought so myself,--the--the irregular habits in regard to spirits are trying."

"I think he would be better away."

"Exactly so, my lady; only I did not like--all the arrangements being, as it were, settled."

Her voice had gained in steadiness by this time. "There need be no alteration. I should remain here, of course." She paused, and Hooper shifted uneasily. "Mr. Wilson had an invitation to Perthshire yesterday. I should _like_ him to accept it. Do you understand?"

"But indeed, my lady, I cannot. To begin with, I am not allowed by Dr.

Haddon--"

She stopped him angrily. "If you cannot obey me, there are others--so Dr. Haddon says. I consider this place is bad for Mr. Wilson, and it is my wish he should leave it. Do you hear?"

For the life of her, try after calmness as she would, entreaty and despair made her command falter. He must go--if only to give her time to think; time to settle what course she would choose.

"If your ladyship takes the responsibility--in regard to Dr. Haddon, I mean."

"I take it all--the responsibility for everything."

"Then I will suggest it. I may not succeed; but I will do my best, and if I fail, your ladyship must remember that I was not engaged for such work."

The grotesqueness of it all struck her sense of humour despite the turmoil of emotion in which she found herself.

"Yes, yes!" she said impatiently; "I will remember it was not your place!"

When he had gone, she stood for some time without moving, her hand still grasping the table, body and mind alike in a state of tension.

Then her nerves seemed to slacken, the spirit to leave her. She walked listlessly towards the fire, and, leaning her arms on the mantelpiece, rested her head upon them. So standing, the little curls about her temples outlined themselves against the ugliness of Rick Halmar's devil.

"It is not all my fault," she muttered with a sort of sob; "not all my fault, surely. I must have time. I must have time."

The rest of the day was torture to her. She did not regret the sudden impulse which had decreed her husband's exile, if it could be managed, yet she dreaded to have him say the words which would proclaim the success of her treachery against him. He came over once to where she sate in the twilight pretending to read, and laid his hand affectionately on her shoulder. It was only some trivial remark he had to make, but she started so visibly that Eustace, watching her, as he had watched her every mood during those weeks, came to her afterwards with a frown.

"What is the matter, Maud? Why should you keep me at arm's length?

Surely I know too much for that already."

"What do you know?" she asked with the recklessness which of late had crept into her manner.

"I know you are unhappy. Do you remember what I told you that night?

You shall not suffer."

Her lips trembled, and she turned from him hastily to join a group gathered round the professor. He had come back from Eval House greatly depressed in spirits, and with a running cold in his head, which Cynthia Strong was treating with pulsatilla, as yet rather unsuccessfully; but it required time, she explained, when the first stages had been badly managed on the old methods. The group was engaged in examining the famous Rhine ring, with which gift, apparently, Miss Willina had tried to content the learned man; but even its possession failed to comfort him.

"I have deciphered the inscription," he said gloomily. "It is, briefly, 'Order, Truth, Honesty.' The last word bears many side meanings, and perhaps Purity would be a better translation. All the terminations being feminine, it may be inferred that the ring was worn by a woman; possibly one of unusual worth. It may even have been a badge of virtue; a tribute paid by the community to merit, or by the lover to his beloved."

If he had said a funeral memento to the dead, his voice could not have been more lugubrious.

"How interesting!" murmured Cynthia Strong. "Even in those days the mental qualities were deemed superior to mere physical attractions."

"I beg your pardon," retorted the professor quite tartly. "Order, as used here, means complete, perfect; according to our modern speech, beautiful. Truth has also a secondary meaning. A free, but at the same time accurate, translation would be 'Beautiful, constant, chaste.'"

Rick Halmar was twisting the ring about in his strong deft hands. "I expect some beggar gave it to his wife," he said cheerfully. "It must have been just as jolly then as now to have somebody to stick by you through thick and thin. To have the dinner ready, and not swear if you hadn't done what you ought to have done. Not brought in enough fish for the kids, for instance; though how they ever caught any with those bone hooks, I can't think. I couldn't."

"You must remember the great incentive of hunger," remarked the professor in the same tone. "Besides, in those days dexterity in the chase was the master key to a woman's affections."

"I say, Weeks, old man! why weren't you born then?" cried Rick, happily unconscious of all complications.