Lilian Part 18

"Surely, madam! I will telephone at once, madam. He shall be here in one quarter hour. I know where he is. He is a very good doctor."

"Oh, thank you!" Concierges were marvellous persons.

As soon as she had gone again the concierge made all the pages tremble.

It was the thwarted desire to kneel at Lilian's feet and kiss her divine shoes that caused him to terrorize the pages.

As for telegraphing to Miss Grig, she decided that obviously she could send no message till the doctor had examined and reported. In regard to the hotel authorities and servants she now had no shame. She alone was responsible for Felix's welfare, and she would be responsible, and they must all think what they liked about her relations with him. She did not care.

The concierge was indeed marvellous, for in less than twenty minutes there was a knock at Felix's door. Lilian opened, saw a professional face with hair half sandy, half grey, and, turning to Felix, murmured:

"It's the doctor, darling."

Felix, to whom she had audaciously said not a word about sending for a doctor, actually sat up, furious.

"I'm not going to see a doctor," he gasped. "I'm not going to see any doctor."

"Come in, doctor, please."

The moment was dramatic. Felix of course was beaten.

"You'll find me in the next room, doctor," she said, after a minute, and the doctor bowed. In another ten minutes the doctor entered her bedroom.

"It's a mild attack of pneumonia," said he, standing in front of her.

"Very mild. I can see no cause for anxiety. You'd better have a nurse for the night."

"I would sooner sit up myself," Lilian answered. "I've nursed pneumonia before."

"Then have a nurse for the day," the doctor suggested. "I can get an English one from the Alexandra Hospital--a very good one. She might come in at once and stay till ten o'clock, say." Then he proceeded to the treatment, prescriptions, and so on.... An English nurse!

Lilian felt extraordinarily grateful and rea.s.sured. She knew where she was now. She was in England again.

"Ought I to telegraph home?" she asked.

"I shouldn't if I were you," the doctor replied. "Better to wait for a day or two. Telegrams are so disturbing, aren't they?"

His gentle manner was inexpressibly soothing. It was so soothing that just as he was leaving she kept him back with a gesture.

"Doctor, before you go, I wish you would do something for me." And she sat down, her face positively burning and shed tears.

In the night, as she sat with Felix, the patient's condition unquestionably improved. He even grew cheerful and laudatory.

"You're a great girl," he muttered weakly but firmly. "I know I was most absurdly cross, but I'm a rotten invalid."

She looked at him steadily, and, her secret resolve enfeebled by his surprising and ravishing appreciation, she let forth, against the dictates of discretion, the terrific fact which was overwhelming her and causing every fibre in her to creep.

"It's true what I told you."

"What?"

"You know----" (A pause.)

"How do you know it's true?"

"The doctor----"

His reception of the tidings falsified every expectation. He waited a moment, and then said calmly:

"That's all right. I'll see to that."

She did not kiss him, but, sitting on the bed, put her head beside his on the pillow. Seen close, his eyelashes appeared as big as horsehairs and transcendently masculine. She tasted the full, deep savour of life then, moveless, in an awkward posture, in the midst of the huge sleeping hotel. She had no regrets, no past, only a future.

VIII

Marriage

Lilian went to bed in the morning, not only with the a.s.surance that Felix was in no danger, but with his words echoing in her heart: "We shall get married--here--the moment I'm fit." She was nursing his body; he was nursing her mind. He had realized at once, of course, that the situation was completely altered, and that he had now one sole duty--his duty towards her. And, moreover, he had cared for her pride--had not used the least word or even inflection to indicate that she was absolutely dependent on his good nature. The very basis of his att.i.tude towards her was that he and she were indivisible in the matter. She rose about two o'clock, and she had scarcely got out of bed when the Irish nurse, Kate O'Connor, tapped at her door, and having received permission to enter, came in with a conspiratorial air.

"I heard you stirring. He's going on splendidly," said the glinting-eye Kate, clad from head to foot in whitest white. "But he sent me out of the room after we'd had our little talk with Dr. Samson, and the doctor stayed some while afterwards. Then there came another gentleman--French gentleman--and I was sent out again. He told me not to say anything to you, and I promised I wouldn't; but naturally I must tell you."

Lilian thanked her undisturbed, guessing that Felix was at work upon the arrangements for the marriage. In the night he had asked her: "Where were you born? What parish?" And on her inquiring why he wanted to know he had replied casually: "Oh, it's nothing. Just curiosity." But she had not been deceived. She understood him--how he loved to plan and organize their doings by himself, saying naught.

The fact was that he had been asking the doctor about local lawyers, and, having learned what he desired, he had sent for the most suitable _avoue_, and put into his hands all the business of the marriage of two British subjects in a French town. Apparently, as he had foreseen, the chief doc.u.ments required were the birth certificates of himself and Lilian, and he had telegraphed for these to his own solicitor in London.

Lilian continued to receive no information concerning the progress of the formalities, and she sought for none. She lived in a state of contemplation. Her anxieties, except the vague, wonderful, and semi-mystical anxiety of far-off motherhood had been dissipated. She was uplifted; she had a magnificent sense of responsibility, which gave her a new dignity, gravity and a.s.surance. Kate O'Connor called her "madam," and referred to her as "madam," especially when speaking to Felix. The a.s.sumption underlying the behaviour of everybody was that she was Felix's wife. As for the French lawyer, she never even saw him.

Meanwhile Felix's recovery was unexpectedly slow, and he went through several slight relapses. Now and then his voice was suddenly become hoa.r.s.e and faint, and with the same suddenness it resumed the normal.

At length he grew cantankerous. The two women were delighted, telling each other that this crotchetiness was a certain sign of strength. One day he got up and dressed fully and sat at the window for half an hour, returning to bed immediately afterwards. The same evening he convinced Lilian that there was no more need for her to watch through the night.

The next morning when Lilian entered his room the nurse was not there.

"I've sent her off," Felix explained. "I much prefer to have you with me than any nurse on earth." He was dressed before ten-thirty. "Now put your things on," said he.

"What for? I don't want to go out."

"We're going out together. Look what a fine day it is! We're going to be married at eleven o'clock, at the _mairie_. Now hurry up." His voice hardened into a command.

"But--but does Dr. Samson agree to you going out?" she asked, quite over-taxed.

"Samson doesn't know, as it happens; but if he did of course he'd agree."

She might have refused to go. But could she refuse to go and be married--she, the bearer of his child? She perceived that he had been too clever for her, had trapped her, in his determination to regularize her situation at the earliest possible moment. She forced a timid smile and covered him up for the journey.

The lift-boy smiled a welcome to him. The concierge was the very symbol of attentive deference, and in the carriage enveloped Lilian's feet with the rug as though they had been two precious jewels--as they were. The manager himself made a majestic appearance, and shot out congratulations like stars from a Roman candle. And the weather was supremely gorgeous.

At the _mairie_ waited the _avoue_ and his clerk, who were to act as witnesses. The _avoue_ and Felix talked to dirty and splendid officials; Felix and Lilian signed papers.