Shadows of Flames Part 27

"Oswald! You are _bwutal_. You are never funny when you are bwutal."

"On the contrary," he a.s.sured her gravely, "I am a Celt. I am always funny when I am brutal. Your Englishman, now, is always brutal when he is funny."

"Oh, don't try to be witty with every breath!" she cried crossly. "I think it heartless of you, and that poor man was in danger of his life at the very moment he said that awful thing!"

"Indeed he was," said Tyne earnestly. "I know that I had clutched my knife with red slaughter hissing at my ear. Several men who were present have confessed the same thing to me. The vice of self-control was all that restrained us."

"At any rate," she said earnestly, seeing that it was hopeless to get at his serious side through sympathy for Cecil, "at any rate, you like poor dear Sophy, _don't_ you?"

"Yes, I burn discreetly 'with a hard, gem-like flame' for her."

"You wouldn't want to hurt her?"

"Not even for my own pleasure."

"Then _don't_ go about saying things about 'plum-puddings' and Grecian feasts and all that when her husband is mentioned, _will_ you? Even if you don't believe he's ill--be a good sort for Sophy's sake, and pretend to."

"Pretence is always lovely," said Tyne dreamily. "Zeus pretended to be a swan, and lo!--Artemis and Apollo!"

"I'm sure _you_ don't have to pretend to be a _goose_," said Olive, out of patience, and she walked away from him, proudly carrying off the last word.

But Tyne's native kindliness outweighed his love of drollery this time.

The memory of Sophy's beautiful, frozen profile as he had last seen it, and which had reminded him of the drooping, white profile of the Neapolitan Antinous, held him from further expressing his doubts of the genuineness of Chesney's attack. As for the others, they behaved with discreet and kindly sympathy, and carriages drew up often before the house in Regent's Park to leave cards and inquiries.

Thus the bitterness of humiliation was lifted from Sophy's heart, and thus, too, it came to pa.s.s that Amaldi could think of her again without that overwhelming surge of helpless pity, and fierce, thwarted indignation. He left cards on her and Chesney a few days later, and meeting Bobby as he turned from the door, had the rather bitter pleasure of holding him in his arms for a moment.

The child had not forgotten him. He gazed soberly into his eyes for a moment, then broke into the delicious chuckle that meant delighted affection with him, and pressing the firm little fruit of his fresh cheek to Amaldi's, said:

"Bobby man!... Bobby _nith_ man--tome back!"

Amaldi's heart glowed and ached. He kissed the boy with pa.s.sion, then set him gently down and went away. He had found that which was lost to him even as he found it, and the world seemed to him like a vast house full of vacant, echoing rooms.

It was decided that Chesney should be taken to Dynehurst during the next week. He affected a listless apathy, and seemed not to care whether he went or stayed. Dr. Hopkins expressed himself satisfied with his condition. He thought, however, that the sooner he could be moved to the country the better it would be for him in every way. He had written fully to Dr. Bellamy, the Wychcotes' physician at Dynehurst. For Sophy these intervening days were peaceful but heavy. She could not recapture, somehow, her high mood of the evening of her talk with Cecil. Things went along evenly, monotonously. He was never either cheerful or depressed--talked little, sometimes locked his bedroom door for hours together. This made her curiously apprehensive. What was he doing behind that locked door? She felt that Gaynor also was vaguely uneasy over this new phase, but they did not mention it to each other. Apart from this one thing, Cecil was very reasonable--submitted to having all wine withdrawn from his diet; even put up with having his cigarettes cut down to eight a day. Neither Sophy nor Gaynor suspected for a moment that he had a third hypodermic syringe in his possession. With the startling and crafty ac.u.men of the morphinomaniac, he had secreted it in the last place that they would have thought of--namely, in the same letter-case, of which now he left the key carelessly on his dressing-table or the little stand by his bed. Nor did they, in their inexperience of such things, realise that one who had for three years been addicted to the habit, and who, during two years of that time, had been accustomed to large and constant doses of the drug, could not possibly have supported its withdrawal, even gradually, with the composure shown by Chesney.

Dr. Hopkins always made his visits about ten in the morning; and, deeply cunning, determined that no mistake on his part should prevent his escape from the town where Algernon Carfew lived, an ever present menace, Chesney refrained from taking his usual dose until after the physician had seen him. These occasions of waiting for Hopkins to come and go were very painful. Sometimes the little doctor would be half an hour late, and each minute of this half hour seemed endless to the man, fretting with crawling skin and muscles spasmodically twitching, for the calming poison. So when Hopkins felt his forehead and his pulse on these occasions, he would find the one moist and the other feeble. These symptoms were in accord with the therapeutics of the case, hence the inexperienced doctor's satisfaction.

But though Sophy felt saddened by the way that Cecil seemed to keep her civilly aloof, as though what he was enduring were impossible of comprehension to her, on the other hand she was very happy in her surprise that this dreadful and mysterious habit should prove so easy to cure. She recalled De Quincy's _Confessions of an Opium Eater_, and the agonies that he described as accompanying his efforts to abstain.

Morphia, then, must differ in its effects from opium. She thanked G.o.d, in her ignorance, that Cecil's enemy was morphia and not opium.

XX

It was on a lovely afternoon that they left London for Durham. A Wednesday had been chosen, so that the usual week-end parties going to the country or returning from it might be avoided. A compartment had been reserved. Lady Wychcote went with them, and Gaynor travelled in the same carriage to be at hand in case his master needed him. Chesney, pale as always now, but quite composed, settled down with a copy of _Le Mannequin d'Osier_. France's brilliant cynicism suited his present mood admirably. Now and then he glanced out toward London as the train drew swiftly away. There was that subtle, just sketched smile about his lips that rested there so often during these days. He seemed to be savouring a pleasant, ironical secret which he alone knew. Lady Wychcote was absorbed in a novel by Mrs. Humphry Ward. She liked the political atmosphere in these books, though she sniffed at the politicians described in them. "Clockworks" she called them. She was very intolerant of the achievements of other women.

Bobby was very good, playing in grave silence with his red and white bricks on the shawl that Miller had spread for ham. But presently he began to shove one up and down along the seat near his father, saying, "Choo! Choo!" Sophy lifted him upon her lap and began to tell him stories in a low voice. She was very glad to be thus mechanically occupied. Dynehurst always depressed her. She felt a vague, grey gloom rising about her at the thought of spending several months there, with Cecil in this strange, cold, forbidding mood. She looked out of the window as she told the oft-repeated story of "The Three Bears," her subconscious mind attending to the tale, her fancy selecting bits in flying hedge and fence that she would jump were she riding to hounds across that country. Purposely she put serious matters from her. The rough music of the train lulled her mind. She seemed caught up by the swift motion, whirled from the ordinary course of life. The fixed events in it seemed like the stations that they pa.s.sed--existent only in a world already wheeling backward.

By the time that Darlington was reached, Bobby had begun to grow fretful from the journey. He demanded to be given the small engine on its stone pedestal in the station there. "Baby Puff-Puff!" he announced. "Bobby want--Bobby _want_!" Sophy sent Miller into the next carriage with him.

She had seen Chesney's eyes contract and fix upon the boy. The change of train annoyed him. Besides, he was beginning to crave another dose of morphia. The time for the dose to be given by Gaynor had not yet come.

When it did it would be so small that it would barely temper the fierce l.u.s.t of his accustomed nerves. He closed his eyes, frowning, his lip between his teeth. There was a bluish shade about his mouth. His eyes looked sunken thus closed, in the sidelight from the carriage-window.

Sophy watched him anxiously. She saw that Gaynor also glanced towards him from time to time. Lady Wychcote had dozed off, with her little travelling-cushion of green morocco behind her head. She slept tightly, as one might say, her eyelids and lips shut fast. She looked old asleep.

Her mouth settled and drew down at the corners. Old and hard and disappointed her face looked under its spotted veil, which from a hardy vanity she had not raised when reading.

Chesney crossed and uncrossed his legs several times. The hand on his knee clenched, until the great knuckles shone yellow with little reddish streaks outlining the bones. The eyes of Sophy and Gaynor met. In answer to her look the valet approached, treading softly.

"Do you not think--considering the long journey--we might give an--an extra dose, Gaynor?" she whispered.

"Yes, madam. I was thinking that," he whispered back.

Chesney's lids flew open at these whisperings, which seemed to have reached him even through the dull roar of the great wheels underneath.

His eyes looked hostile and mocking. There was a sort of cold hatred in them. Sophy shivered.

"Quick, Gaynor," she said; "prepare it quickly."

She went over to her husband.

"Are you suffering, Cecil?" she asked pityingly.

"Like h.e.l.l," he said.

"I was afraid so. I'm so sorry, dear. Gaynor is going to give you some medicine at once."

Incredulity, then an almost foolish softness flowed over his face.

"By G.o.d, you're an angel!" he stammered. He seized her hand and covered it with kisses, regardless of the valet's presence. This struck Sophy as very painful. She flushed, drawing her hand away, and saying again:

"I'm so sorry-- I should have thought of it before. Dr. Hopkins warned me that the journey might exhaust you."

"And-- I say, Sophy--make it double this time, will you? It will be no good else. I'm suffering actual pain, as well as from the lack of the d.a.m.ned stuff. The usual thing won't help me--not the least."

Sophy hesitated. She glanced towards Gaynor. He was holding a spoon filled with water from a little flask over the flame of a spirit lamp.

He was absorbed in the delicate task and did not see her look. She glanced back, still doubtful, to her husband. The expression of hatred had again gathered in his eyes. He closed them, trying to smile. This smile was like a grimace of pain and anger. Sophy went quickly over to Gaynor.

"He seems very ill," she murmured. "Might not a little larger dose than usual be better?"

Gaynor glanced, also, at his master. Then he said:

"Yes, I think in this instance it will be better, madam."

He dissolved a half-grain of morphia, drew it up into the little gla.s.s syringe, and took it over to his master. Chesney had confessed to taking six grains a day. They had cut this down to half in the past fortnight.

Every four hours now for three days Gaynor had been mixing a quarter of a grain at each dose. During the coming week this was to be reduced to an eighth.

Sophy turned aside her head as she saw the man approach Cecil with the little instrument. She could not shake off the horror with which it filled her.