Shadows of Flames Part 43

"Well, Daphne?" he said, rather guiltily, when she entered. She marvelled that he could call her "Daphne." It was like throwing the flowers from a sacred grave into the mire. She sat down near him, and said:

"I've come to tell you that I'm going with Bobby to Italy to-morrow."

He looked blank, not taking it in at first; then he scowled.

"I see. Shuffling off this marital coil with a vengeance, ain't you?"

"I'm going with Bobby because he needs me. But even if he didn't need me, I should go. I will not sit by and see you destroy yourself."

"Yes. I can imagine that to hear of the process from a distance would be more agreeable."

"I've tried with all my might to help you. You've only laughed at me. It amused you to deceive me. I was no help to you. If I did help you in any way, it was to ruin yourself."

"Strong words, my love. So you consider me a ruin?"

"Almost."

Her lips quivered. She closed them firmly. For his own good she was not going to let that haggard face move her unduly.

"Mh. I see. Well, though I do not seem to appeal to your compa.s.sion, I trust that I do to your sense of the picturesque. Ruins are supposed to be romantic. However, a human ruin hasn't the same value in the landscape as an architectural one. Human ruins are generally put under ground, not on top of it. I dare say the Cecil Chesney ruin will be thus disposed of. Shall you return for the ceremony, or have you decided to live permanently in Italy?"

Sophy looked at him with a sort of impa.s.sioned hardness.

"I will come back when you are cured--when you have gone of your own accord to a place where they can cure you. Until then--I will never come back."

He looked at her, hiding his real shock under a harsh sarcasm.

"'These be news!'" he exclaimed dryly. "Unlike the leopard, you seem to have been changing your spots--the spots on the sun of my happiness--the little freckles on the fair lily of your character."

"I have changed," she said. "You have changed me."

"That's very interesting. Our strongest influence seems really to be our unconscious influence. Fancy my having changed the dear partner of my joys and sorrows to this semblance, and all the while being myself in total ignorance of the change! Well, well! The world wags and we wag with it. So you're determined to put off the old Adam--in other words, Cecil Chesney?"

Sophy looked at him for a moment without answering, then she said simply:

"Why should I want to be with you when you treat me like this? Why should I risk my life for a man who doesn't love me?"

"So I don't love you, eh?"

"No."

"You really think that?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because you put a poisonous drug before me."

He flushed, biting his lip hard. Then he said in a cold, rough voice:

"Look here--am I to take this announcement seriously?"

"Yes."

"You mean you're really going to cut off to Italy and leave me in the lurch--like a sick dog in a ditch?"

"I'm going to Italy to-morrow."

"G.o.d! you're a fine helpmate!" he cried savagely. "'Eyes take your fill ... lips take your last embrace.' Come here!" he barked suddenly, tapping the side of the bed with his gaunt hand. "Come to your husband, wifie, dear!"

Sophy stood up. "No," she said.

"What! You refuse me a chaste embrace?--even at parting? You're really a sublime wife, ain't you?"

"I'm not a wife. I am myself. You are not my husband. You are not even yourself. Until you are yourself I will not come near you. I will not pretend to be your wife."

His face was livid--dreadful. He reared himself in the bed. All his huge frame, so noticeably thinner, trembled. He flung out an arm towards the door.

"d.a.m.n you! go, then!" he said behind his teeth. "If you're going, go!"

She was gone while he was yet speaking.

Dr. Carfew arrived at Dynehurst the next morning. Sophy was to leave for the Continent that afternoon. He had a long conference with Lady Wychcote, Gerald, Bellamy and Nurse Harding. Sophy was present but said very little. When Lady Wychcote so far put aside her usual att.i.tude of haughty reserve as to urge the great specialist to take charge of her son's case, he met her courteously but bluntly.

"Unless Mr. Chesney is put in one of the places that I provide for such patients, I cannot do so, your ladyship," he said. "It would be quite useless."

Then the question of committing Cecil to such a place, even without his consent, was discussed. Lady Wychcote listened to the arguments for this course with a moderation which she had not hitherto shown. When Carfew had ended, by explaining at some length, for him, the sound reasons for adopting such a measure in the present case, she sat very thoughtful.

All looked at her intently. At last she said:

"You really think that his mind may go, unless he is controlled in time?"

"I do."

"And he is dangerous--to others--to himself?"

"Surely your ladyship has had proof of that."

"Do you mean that he might go to the length of--of self-destruction?"

"Neither his own life nor the lives of others can be safe with an uncontrolled madman--whether his madness is temporary or permanent."

Lady Wychcote turned her lips inward. She was very pale. She had on no rouge whatever to-day. At last she said in a thin voice:

"My own wishes can hardly stand against such a statement from such an authority, Dr. Carfew. But there is my daughter-in-law to consult. Let us hear her opinion."

Sophy turned quietly. She had been looking out of the window at the great, yew-walled garden that swept back from the library windows. She had been thinking how like graves the flower-beds looked. It was a beautiful but sad garden. But she had also been listening attentively to every word. The sudden yielding of her mother-in-law stirred a dark pool of humour lying at the roots of her tragedy. She realised that Lady Wychcote had decided to shift the self-a.s.sumed burden of her (Sophy's) "wifely duty" on to the burly shoulders of the specialist.