Mammon and Co Part 34

"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 G.o.d 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 Pa.s.sion."

"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 m.u.f.fled 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 m.u.f.fled 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 pa.s.sing 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!