Notwithstanding Part 33

Cette paisible rumeur-la Vient de la ville.

Qu'as-tu fait, O toi que voila Pleurant sans cesse, Dis, qu'as-tu fait, toi que voila De ta jeunesse?"

PAUL VERLAINE.

The sound of the anthem came faint and sweet over the ivied wall into the garden of the Dower House, where Harry was standing alone under the cedar in his black clothes, his hands behind his back, mournfully contemplating the little mud hut which he and Tommy had made for the hedgehog which lived in the garden. His ally Tommy, who was a member of the choir, was absent. So was the hedgehog. It was not sitting in its own house looking out at the door as it ought to have been, and as Tommy had said it would. Harry had shed tears because the hedgehog did not appreciate its house. That p.r.i.c.kly recluse had shown such unwillingness to intrude, to force his society on the other possible inmates, indeed, although conscious of steady pressure from behind, had offered such determined and ball-like resistance at the front door, that a large crack had appeared in the wall.

Harry heaved a deep sigh, and then slowly got out his marbles. Marbles remain when hedgehogs pa.s.s away.

Presently the nurse, who had been watching him from the window, came swiftly from the house, and sat down near him, on the round seat under the cedar.

"Must I stop?" he said docilely at once, smiling at her.

"No, no," she said, trying to smile back at him. "Go on. But don't make a noise."

He gravely resumed his game, and she gazed at him intently, as if she had never seen him before, looking herself how worn and haggard in the soft September sunshine.

It was one of those gracious days when the world seems steeped in peace, when bitterness and unrest and self-seeking "fold their tents like the Arabs, and as silently steal away." No breath stirred. High in the windless s.p.a.ces above the elms, the rooks were circling and cawing. The unwhispering trees laid cool, transparent shadows across the lawns. All was still--so still that even the hedgehog, that reluctant householder, came slowly out of a clump of dahlias, and hunched himself on the sun-warmed gra.s.s.

The woman on the bench saw him, but she did not point him out to Harry.

Why should not the hedgehog also have his hour of peace? And presently, very pure and clear, came Annette's voice: "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat."

The Riff Choir knew only two anthems. The nurse leaned her tired head in its speckless little cap against the trunk of the cedar, and the tears welled up into her eyes.

She was tired, oh! so tired of hungering and thirsting, and the sun and the dust, so tired of the trampling struggle and turmoil of life, of being pushed from pillar to post, from patient to patient. For seventeen grinding years she had earned her bread in the house of strangers, and she was sick to death of it. And she had been handsome once, gay and self-confident once, innocent once. She had been determined that her mother should never know want. And she had never known it--never known either the straits to which her daughter had been reduced to keep that tiny home together. That was all over now. Her mother was dead, and her lover, if so he could be called, had pa.s.sed out of her life. And as she sat on the bench she told herself for the hundredth time that there was no one to fight for her but herself. She felt old and worn-out and ashamed, and the tears fell. She had not been like this, cunning and self-seeking, to start with. Life had made her so. She shut her eyes, so that she might not see that graceful, pathetic creature, with its beautiful eyes fixed on the marbles, of whom she had dared to make a cat's paw.

But presently she felt a soft cheek pressed to hers, and an arm round her neck.

"Don't cry, Nursie," Harry said gently. "Brother d.i.c.k has gone to heaven," and he kissed her, as a child might kiss its mother. She winced at his touch, and then pushed back her hair, still thick and wavy, with the grey just beginning to show in it, and returned his kiss.

And as he stood before her she took his hands and held them tightly, her miserable eyes fixed on him.

A silent sob shook her, and then she said--

"You know where G.o.d lives, Harry?"

Harry disengaged one hand and pointed to the sky above him. He was not often sure of giving the right answer, but he had a happy confidence that this was correct.

"Yes," she went on, "G.o.d lives in the sky and looks down on us. He is looking at us now."

Harry glanced politely up at the heavens and then back at his companion.

"He is looking at us now. He hears what I say. I'm not one that believes much in promises. n.o.body's ever kept any to me. But I call Him to witness that what I have taken upon myself I will perform, that I will do my duty by you, and I will be good to you always and be your best friend, whatever may happen--so help me G.o.d."

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

"But I wait in a horror of strangeness-- A tool on His workshop floor, Worn to the b.u.t.t, and banished His hand for evermore."

W. E. HENLEY.

In the sick-room all was still.

Lady Louisa lay with her eyes open, fixed. Blended with the cawing of the rooks came the tolling of the bell for her son's funeral. Janey had told her of d.i.c.k's death, had repeated it gently several times, had recounted every detail of the funeral arrangements and how her sister Lady Jane was not well enough to come to England for it. How the service was taking place this afternoon and she must go to it, but she should not be away long: Nurse would sit with her while she was away. How Harry was not to be present, as he had been frightened at the sight of the plumed horses. It was more than doubtful whether her mother understood anything at all of what she told her, whether she even heard a voice speaking. But Janey mercifully told her everything on the chance, big things and small: d.i.c.k's death, and the loss of Harry's bantam c.o.c.k, the Harvest Thanksgiving vegetable marrow, and the engagement of the Miss Blinketts' niece to a rising surgeon, and their disappointment that instead of giving her a ring his only present to her had been a snapshot of himself performing an operation. Scores of little things she gleaned together and told her. So that if by any hundredth part of a chance she could indeed still hear and understand she might not feel entirely cut off from the land of the living.

Her mother heard and understood everything. But to her it was as if her prison was at such an immense distance that communication was impossible. Janey's voice, tender and patient, reached down to her as in some deep grave. She could hear and understand and remember. But she could make no sign.

Ah! How much she remembered, as the bell tolled for d.i.c.k's last home-coming! Her thoughts went back to that grey morning three-and-thirty years ago when she had seen his face for the first time, the little pink puckered face which had had no hint in it of all the misery he was to cause her. And she recalled it as she had seen it last, nearly a year ago, hardly human, already dead save for a fluctuating animal life. And she remembered her strenuous search for a will, and how d.i.c.k's valet had told her that his master had been impressed by the narrowness of his escape when he injured his head, and had actually gone out on purpose to make his will the day he went to Fontainebleau, but had been waylaid by some woman. She had found the name and address of his man of business, and had been to see him, but could extract nothing from him except that Mr. Le Geyt had not called on him on the day in question, had not made any will as far as his knowledge went, and that he had ceased to employ him owing to a quarrel.

d.i.c.k's business relations with every one except Roger always ended in a quarrel sooner or later--generally sooner. She had made up her mind that d.i.c.k must die without leaving a will. It was necessary for the sake of others. But she had not told herself what she should do with a will of his if she could get hold of it. But she had not been able to discover one. The whole situation rose before her, and she, the only person who had an inkling of it, the only person who could deal with it, was powerless.

She had acc.u.mulated proofs, doctor's evidence, that Harry's was only a case of arrested development, that he was quite capable of taking his part in life. She had read all these papers to the nurse when first she came to Riff, and had shown herself sympathetic about Harry, which Janey had never been. Janey had always, like her father, thought that if d.i.c.k died childless Hulver ought to go to Roger, had not been dislodged from that position even by her mother's thrust that she said that because she was in love with him. Nurse in those first days of her ministry had warmly and without _arriere pensee_ encouraged Lady Louisa in her contention that Harry was only backward, and had proved that she was partly right by the great progress he made under her authority. She had been indefatigable in training him, drawing out his atrophied faculties.

The papers which Lady Louisa had so laboriously collected were in the drawer of the secretaire, near the fire. The key was on her watch-chain, and her watch and chain were on the dressing-table. Nurse had got them out and put them back at her request several times. She knew where they were.

And now that d.i.c.k was dead, Nurse would certainly use them on Harry's behalf, exactly as she herself had intended to use them.

Unscrupulous, wanton woman!

A paroxysm of rage momentarily blinded her. But after a time the familiar room came creeping stealthily back out of the darkness, to close in on her once more.

She had schemed and plotted, she had made use of the shrewd, capable woman at her bedside. But the shrewd, capable woman had schemed and plotted too, and had made use of her son, her poor half-witted Harry.

For now, at last, now that power had been wrested out of her own safe hands into the clutch of this designing woman, Lady Louisa owned to herself that Harry was half-witted. She had intended him, her favourite child, to have everything, and Janey and Roger to be his protective satellites. She had perfect confidence in Roger.

But now this accursed, self-seeking woman, who had made a cat's paw of Harry, had ruined everything. She, not Roger, would now have control of the property. She would be supreme. Harry would be wax in her hands. Her word would be law. She could turn her out of the Dower House if she wished it. Everything--even the Manvers diamonds in the safe downstairs which she had worn all her life--belonged to _her_ now. Everything except in name was hers already--if d.i.c.k had died intestate. And no doubt he had so died. How she had hoped and prayed he would do as he had done! How could she have guessed that his doing so would prove the worst, immeasurably the worst calamity of all? Lady Louisa was appalled.

She felt sick unto death.

She had laboured for her children's welfare to the last, and now she had been struck down as on a battlefield, and the feet of the enemy were trampling her in the dust.

The door opened, and the adversary came in. She and her patient eyed each other steadily. Then the nurse went to the dressing-table and took the watch with its chain and pendant key, and opened the drawer in the secretaire. Lady Louisa watched her take out a bundle of papers and put them in her pocket. Then she locked the drawer and replaced the watch, and returned to the bedside. She wiped away the beads of sweat which stood on Lady Louisa's forehead, touched her brow and nostrils with eau-de-Cologne, and sat down in her accustomed place. Lady Louisa saw that her eyes were red.

"If looks could kill, yours would kill me, milady," she said. "It's been hard on you to have me to tend you. But that's all over now. Don't you fret about it any more. I shall go away to-morrow, and I don't suppose you'll ever be troubled by the sight of me in this world again."

Presently Janey came in, and the nurse at once withdrew. She took off her gloves, and put back her heavy veil.

"It is all over," she said, with the familiar gesture of stroking her mother's hand. "Such a sunny, quiet day for d.i.c.k's home-coming. We ought all to be thankful that his long imprisonment is over, that his release has come."

The other prisoner heard from the depths of her forlorn cell.

"And I ought to tell you, mother, that there is no will. Aunt Jane and Roger have looked everywhere, and made inquiries. I am afraid there is no longer any doubt that d.i.c.k has died without making one. So you will have your wish." The gentle voice had a tinge of bitterness. "Everything will go to Harry."

When Janey came downstairs again she found Roger sitting in the library with a hand on each knee. He looked worn out.

She made fresh tea for him, and he drank it in silence, while she mended his split glove.

"Well, it's over," he said at last.