Shadows of Flames Part 28

She sat and gazed out, unseeing, at the reeling landscape as the train rushed north--blind to all but the picture that memory painted on the dim curtain of the present. The train rushed north with the ardour of a t.i.tan to a tryst. The great engine panted as with pa.s.sion. Through the deepening twilight the rolling pasture lands of Durham glowed with a green that was more a feeling than an actual tint. The guard lighted the little lamp in the roof of the carriage. At once the twilight hollowed to a purple gulf through which they sped recklessly.

Now Sophy glanced again at her husband. His head was thrown back against the cushions, his hands relaxed. There was an expression of supreme peace on his quiet face. "The peace that pa.s.seth all understanding"

flashed through Sophy's mind. She shivered. This peace of Cecil's and that other divine peace were so cruelly removed one from the other. Yet this, too, was "past understanding" for all outside the black magic of its influence. The lamp turned the window-pane near which he sat into a dusky mirror. In its surface she saw repeated the sinister quiet of his profile, and through this reflection of his face dimly she saw the further landscape. Yes, thus it was that she saw the whole world now--through the medium of her husband's image.

When they got out at Dynehurst Station they found the night chilly with a promise of rain in the air. Gaynor hastened forward with his master's overcoat-- Bobby was bundled up in Miller's shawl over his little pea-jacket.

Sophy looked regretfully up at the sky, strewn thickly with little sh.e.l.ls of cloud. She dreaded a long rainy spell at Dynehurst--the weeping trees, and flowers, and walls. It was like being enclosed in a vast, grey-gla.s.s globe streaming with water, to be immured in Dynehurst during a season of rain.

Gerald had sent a waggonette and a brougham to meet them.

"Come with me, Sophy," Cecil said, taking her hand and going toward the brougham.

Side by side they went rolling swiftly between the darkling hedges, across broad pasture lands that gave forth a dank, sweet country perfume of earth and gra.s.s. There was a smell of cattle and the breath of cattle in the moist air. These scents and the being so close beside him in the brougham made her feel as though she were repeating her first drive to Dynehurst, taken during her honeymoon. That also had been on a night in May. But then all had been a wonder and a dream. Now she was horribly wide awake. There was no wonder--only a sad surmise, half answered by her own reason already. A long, dim corridor of locked doors seemed stretching before her. She must force each lock, drag him through the opened door with her, and lock it fast again behind them. They might emerge into that "wide place" of which the Psalmist spoke--she could not know. She could only hope; but hope seemed to have dwindled during that painful journey.

They entered the Park. The trees rose dark and blurred about them, deeper shadows on the pale grey shadow of the night. They gave forth a soft, seething sound in the gentle wind. It was as if they sighed in their sleep. A scent of dead leaves blew from the coverts--fresh and bitter. A wholesome autumn smell, mingling oddly with the sound of summer leaf.a.ge. They pa.s.sed the chapel, in which service was held every Sunday for the family and servants of Dynehurst. There all the Chesneys were buried. There Cecil would lie some day, and die, and little Bobby--Bobby grown to be a man, an old man maybe, with children and grandchildren of his own to follow. She imagined the dank crypt, and the coffins ranged there. It seemed a horrid way to be buried. She pressed closer to Cecil. She remembered how she had once wished that he would die....

Now the severe, dark ma.s.s of the house came into sight, pierced by squares of dusky orange. Against the skyey beach of cloud-sh.e.l.ls it reared like a grim cliff. The front door stood wide. Gerald was waiting for them. He came forward to a.s.sist Cecil.

"Sorry, old man," he said shyly, holding out his hand. "Have a shoulder?"

"Thanks," said his brother, "but I'm not a cripple, you know."

His tone was good-humoured. He got out first, being nearest the door, then turned to help Sophy.

"How d'ye do, Sophy?" said Gerald. His face lighted up as he saw her.

"Glad Cecil seems so fit. Thought the journey might knock him up a bit."

They went into the huge, oppressive hall. The skylight that ran from end to end of its hundred feet looked curiously blind in the glow from lamps and candles. There was a fire burning in the big fireplace at one end.

"Thought you might get chilly driving up," explained Gerald. He was a slight, dark man, rather Celtic in appearance. He was like the great-grandfather, for whom he was named, and who also had been a scholar and a dreamer.

"Good old chap!" said Chesney, expanding in the bright blaze. "Deuced thoughtful of you!" He was as fond of artificial warmth as a cat.

"And I had tea served--though it's only an hour to dinner," continued Gerald. He was much pleased at finding his brother so amiable. He had thought that illness might make him quite unbearable. It was for Sophy's sake that he was so glad. He himself merely kept out of the way when Cecil was outrageous.

The others arrived. Lady Wychcote joined them. Bobby, who was fast asleep, was taken straight to the nursery. Gaynor waited at the door for orders.

"Will you go to your room at once, Cecil, or stay with us a little while?" asked Sophy.

"Think I'll just have a nip of tea first," said Chesney. "Mind you make it strong--no slops, please."

He turned to Gerald.

"They simply brim me with slops now, old boy."

Why he felt so amicably towards Gerald he could not have said. His elder brother usually "got on his nerves." He had never been fond of him, even when they were lads. To-night, though, somehow "good old Gerald" seemed to appeal to him. He found his lank, dark face and shy eyes rather touching. Noticing this, Gerald, on his part, had a nervous feeling that his brother might be going to die, in spite of his apparent strength at the moment. It was so highly unnatural, this excessive cordiality of tone and manner.

Sophy, too, was unpleasantly struck by Cecil's manner to Gerald. She felt sure now that the morphine was accountable for it--that she and Gaynor had given him too much. She felt scared--and very tired. The stillness of the country after London and the train was like a louder roar of occult menace. When she handed him his cup, Chesney gulped the hot, black tea eagerly. He was at the exact point in the effect of that half-grain dose when he craved stimulant. He drank this cup, then another. The heat was grateful to that _fade_ feeling of his stomach, but what he really thirsted for was the more biting burn of raw spirit.

Suddenly the floor beneath his feet seemed to become transparent and he could see as though they were actually visible to him the well-stocked wine-cellars of Dynehurst. There was a special brand of cognac stored there--an 1820 vintage, smooth, mellow, powerful--a liquid that was like flame tempered in magic vats. He could taste it, as though a round mouthful actually stung his palate with its smooth, fiery globule. He determined to have a draught of it. How? The morphia cunning pointed out the way. All at once he slipped sideways in his chair, letting the cup drop from his hand. His head fell back. His lip lifted, showing the dry teeth. He looked unspeakably ghastly in the huge limpness of his slackened figure. Sophy and Gaynor ran to him. Gerald also started forward, but his mother caught his arm.

"Wait!" she said sharply. "They know what to do for him."

"Poor old Cecil! It's awful!" muttered his brother, very pale.

Gaynor put his arms about Cecil, as though trying to lift him. When Gerald saw this he broke from his mother and ran to help. Between them they laid Cecil on the floor. He half opened his eyes and moaned. Again his acting was so good that it deceived himself. He felt as he lay there that he was really on the verge of swooning--that only brandy would save him.

"Brandy!" he muttered.

Sophy looked wildly at Gaynor. She was shaking from head to foot.

"I'll get a dose of strychnine ready, madam," he said, turning towards the tea-table. Chesney's lids fell again.

"Brandy!" It was just a whisper.

"Whatever you're going to do, for G.o.d's sake do it quickly!" cried Gerald to Gaynor. He spoke in a high, shrill voice. He was terribly excited and alarmed.

"Brandy!" came the faint whisper, almost inaudible.

Gerald sprang up, rushed from the room. As Gaynor was heating water in a teaspoon to prepare the strychnine, he rushed back again, a bottle of brandy and a liqueur gla.s.s in his hand.

"Here!" he cried. "At least try this while the other's being got ready."

Gaynor's hand shook so that he slopped the water he had already prepared, and had to begin all over.

"Oh, hurry, Gaynor--hurry!" cried Sophy, in despair. Cecil seemed to have fainted again.

"Let's try this--do let's try this," urged Gerald, kneeling down by her.

"I'm afraid," she murmured. She was white to the lips. "They say it's so bad for him."

Gaynor came forward with the hypodermic needle. Sophy held it, shivering with repulsion, while the valet unfastened his master's sleeve-links and pushed back his sleeve.

"Good G.o.d! What's the matter with his arm?" whispered Gerald hoa.r.s.ely.

Sophy felt sick to death. Life seemed to her like a sickness--a disease.

She, too, had caught a glimpse of the disfigured flesh.

"Result of the fever, your lordship," said Gaynor in a low voice. He thrust the needle skilfully home between two less recent punctures.

Gerald drew back as though it had entered his own arm.

"He'll revive now, your lordship," said the valet in the same even voice. They waited. Cecil lay there motionless, his lip still curled back over his teeth. After a few moments:

"Brandy!" he breathed again.

"For G.o.d's sake, give it to him ... give it to him, Sophy!" Gerald urged.

Gaynor had his master's wrist in his fingers. "His pulse is slow, madam, but not bad," he said. Yet there was something of alarm, too, in his quiet face. They waited a few seconds. Then Chesney's lips again just formed the word that he seemed no longer able to utter.

"Oh, _try_ the brandy--just try it!" Gerald said again.