Red Pottage Part 58

"That is the giddiness, the vertigo after the shock."

"Is it? I dare say you are right. But I don't care either way."

"Why trouble your mind about it, or about anything?"

"Because I have a feeling, indeed, it would be extraordinary if I had not, for Dr. Brown is always rubbing it in, that I ought to meet my trouble bravely, and not sink down under it, as he thinks I am doing now. He says others have suffered more than I have. I know that, for I have been with them. It seems," said Hester, with the ghost of a smile, "that there is an etiquette about these things, just as the blinds are drawn up after a funeral. The moment has come for me, but I have not drawn up my blinds."

"You will draw them up presently."

"I would draw them up now," said Hester, looking at him steadily, "if I could. I owe it to you and Rachel to try, and I have tried, but I can't."

The Bishop's cheek paled a little.

"Take your own time," he said, but his heart sank.

He saw a little boat with torn sail and broken rudder, drifting on to a lee sh.o.r.e.

"I seem to have been living at a great strain for the last year," said Hester. "I don't know one word from another now, but I think I mean concentration. That means holding your mind to one place, doesn't it?

Well, now, something seems to have broken, and I can't fix it to anything any more. I can talk to you and Rachel for a few minutes if I hold my mind tight, but I can't really attend, and directly I am alone, or you leave off speaking, my mind gets loose from my body and wanders away to an immense distance, to long, dreary, desert places. And then if you come in I make a great effort to bring it back, and to open my eyes, because if I don't you think I'm ill. You don't mind if I shut them now, do you?--because I've explained about them, and holding them open does tire me so. I wish they could be propped open. And--my mind gets farther and further away every day. I hope you and Rachel won't think I am giving way if--sometime--I really can't bring it back any longer."

"Dear Hester, no."

"I will not talk any more then. If you and Rachel understand, that is all that matters. I used to think so many things mattered, but I don't now. And don't think I'm grieving about the book while I'm lying still.

I have grieved, but it is over. I'm too tired to be glad or sorry about anything any more."

Hester lay back spent and gray among her pillows.

The Bishop roused her to take the stimulant put ready near at hand, and then sat a long time watching her. She seemed unconscious of his presence. At last the nurse came in, and he went out silently, and returned to his study. Rachel was waiting there to hear the result of the interview.

"I can do nothing," he said. "I have no power to help her. After forty years ministry I have not a word to say to her. She is beyond human aid--at least, she is beyond mine."

"You think she will die?"

"I do not see what is going to happen to prevent it, but I am certain it might be prevented."

"You could not rouse her?"

"No, she discounted anything I could have said, by asking me not to say it. That is the worst of Hester. The part.i.tion between her mind and that of other people is so thin that she sees what they are thinking about.

Thank G.o.d, Rachel, that you are not cursed with the artistic temperament! That is why she has never married. She sees too much. I am not a match-maker, but if I had had to take the responsibility, I should have married her at seventeen to Lord Newhaven."

"You know he asked her?"

"No, I did not know it."

"It was a long time ago, when first she came out. Lady Susan was anxious for it, and pressed her. I sometimes think if she had been given time, and if her aunt had let her alone--but he married within the year. But what are we to do about Hester? Dr. Brown says something must be done, or she will sink in a decline. I would give my life for her, but I can do nothing. I have tried."

"So have I," said the Bishop. "But it has come to this. We have got to trust the one person whom we always show we tacitly distrust by trying to take matters out of His hands. We must trust G.o.d. So far we have strained ourselves to keep Hester alive, but she is past our help now.

She is in none the worse case for that. We are her two best friends save one. We must leave her to the best Friend of all. G.o.d has her in His hand. For the moment the greater love holds her away from the less, like the mother who takes her sick child into her arms, apart from the other children who are playing round her. Hester is in G.o.d's keeping, and that is enough for us. And now take a turn in the garden, Rachel. You are too much in-doors. I am going out on business."

When Rachel had left him the Bishop opened his despatch-box and took out a letter.

It was directed to Lady Newhaven.

"I promised to give it into her own hand a month after his death, whenever that might happen to be," he said to himself. "There was some trouble between them. I hope she won't confide it to me. Anyhow, I must go and get it over. I wish I did not dislike her so much. I shall advise her not to read it till I am gone."

CHAPTER XLIX

The mouse fell from the ceiling, and the cat cried, "Allah!"

--Syrian Proverb.

That help should come through such a recognized channel as a Bishop could surprise no one, least of all Lady Newhaven, who had had the greatest faith in the clergy all her life, but, nevertheless, so overwhelmed was she by despair and its physical sensations, that she very nearly refused to see the Bishop when he called. Her faith even in lawn sleeves momentarily tottered. Who would show her any good? Poor Lady Newhaven was crushed into a state of prostration so frightful that we must not blame her if she felt that even an Archbishop would have been powerless to help her.

She had thought, after the engagement was announced, of rushing up to London and insisting on seeing Hugh; but always, after she had looked out the trains, her courage had shrunk back at the last moment. There had been a look on Hugh's face during that last momentary meeting which she could not nerve herself to see again. She had been to London already once to see him, without success.

She knew Rachel was at the Palace at Southminster nursing Hester, and twice she had ordered the carriage to drive over to see her, and make a desperate appeal to her to give up Hugh. But she knew that she should fail. And Rachel would triumph over her. Women always did over a defeated rival. Lady Newhaven had not gone. The frightful injustice of it all wrung Lady Newhaven's heart to the point of agony. To see her own property deliberately stolen from her in the light of day, as it were, in the very market-place, before everybody, without being able to raise a finger to regain him! It was intolerable. For she loved Hugh as far as she was capable of loving anything. And her mind had grown round the idea that he was hers as entirely as a tree will grow round a nail fastened into it.

And now he was to marry Rachel, and soon. Let no one think they know pain until they know jealousy.

But when the Bishop sent up a second time, asking to see her on business, she consented.

It was too soon to see callers, of course. But a Bishop was different.

And how could she refuse to admit him when she had admitted that odious Captain Pratt only four days before. She hoped no one would become aware of that fact. It was as well for her that she could not hear the remarks of Selina and Ada Pratt, as they skated on the frozen meadows with half, not the better-half, of Middleshire.

"Poor Vi Newhaven. Yes, she won't see a creature. She saw Algy for a few minutes last week, but then he is an old friend, and does not count. He said she was quite heart-broken. He was quite upset himself. He was so fond of Ted Newhaven."

The Bishop would not even sit down. He said he was on the way to a confirmation, and added that he had been entrusted with a letter for her, and held it towards her.

"It is my husband's handwriting," she said, drawing back, with instinctive fear.

"It is from your husband," said the Bishop, gently, softening somewhat at the sight of the ravages which despair had made in the lovely face since he had last seen it. "He asked me to give it into your own hand a month after his death."

"Then he told you that--"

"He told me nothing, and I wish to hear nothing."

"I should like to confess all to you, to feel myself absolved," said Lady Newhaven in a low voice, the letter in her trembling hand.

He looked at her, and he saw that she would not say all. She would arrange details to suit herself, and would omit the main point altogether, whatever it might be, if, as it was more than probable, it told against herself. He would at least save her from the hypocrisy of a half-confession.

"If in a month's time you wish to make a full confession to me," he said, "I will hear it. But I solemnly charge you in the meanwhile to speak to no one of this difficulty between you and your husband.

Whatever it may have been, it is past. If he sinned against you, he is dead, and the least you can do is to keep silence. If you wronged him"--Lady Newhaven shook her head vehemently--"if you wronged him,"

repeated the Bishop, his face hardening, "be silent for the sake of the children. It is the only miserable reparation you can make him."

"You don't understand," she said, feebly.