Studies in love and in terror Part 25

For a moment they looked at one another in constraint. Mrs. Archdale also had altered, altered far less than John c.o.xeter, but she was aware, as he was not aware, of the changes which long nearness to death had brought her; and for almost the first time in her life she was more absorbed in her own sensations than in those of the person with her.

Seeing John c.o.xeter standing there waiting for her, looking so like his old self, so absolutely unchanged, confused her and made her feel desperately shy.

She held out her hand, but c.o.xeter scarcely touched it. After having held her so long in his arms, he did not care to take her hand in formal greeting. She mistook his gesture, thought that he was annoyed at having received no word from her since they had parted. The long day in between had been to Nan Archdale full of nervous horror, for relations, friends, acquaintances had come in troops to see her, and would not be denied.

Already she had received two or three angry notes from people who thought they loved her, and who were bitterly incensed that she had refused to see them when they had rushed to hear her account of an adventure which might so easily have happened to them. She made the mistake of confusing c.o.xeter with these selfish people.

"I am so sorry," she said in a low voice, "that when you called yesterday I was supposed to be asleep. I have been most anxious to see you"--she waited a moment and then added his name--"Mr. c.o.xeter. I knew that you would have the latest news, and that you would tell it me."

"There is news," he said, "of all the boats; good news--with the exception of the last boat----" His voice sounded strangely to himself.

"Oh, but that must be all right too, Mr. c.o.xeter! The captain said the boats might drift about for a long time."

c.o.xeter shook his head. "I'm afraid not," he said. "In fact"--he waited a moment, and she came close up to him.

"Tell me," she commanded in a low voice, "tell me what you know. They say I ought to put it all out of my mind, but I can think of nothing else. Whenever I close my eyes I see the awful struggle that went on round that last boat!" She gave a quick, convulsive sob.

c.o.xeter was dismayed. How wildly she spoke, how unlike herself she seemed to-day--how unlike what she had been during the whole of their terrible ordeal.

Already that ordeal had become, to him, something to be treasured. There is no lack of physical courage in the breed of Englishmen to which John c.o.xeter belonged. Pain, entirely una.s.sociated with shame, holds out comparatively little terror to such as he. There was something rueful in the look he gave her.

"The last boat was run down in the fog," he said briefly. "Some of the bodies have been washed up on the French coast."

She looked at him apprehensively. "Any of the people we had spoken to?

Any of those who were with us in the railway carriage?"

"Yes, I'm sorry to say that one of the bodies washed up is that of the person who sat next to you."

"That poor French boy?"

c.o.xeter shook his head. "No, no--he's all right; at least I believe he's all right. It--the body I mean--was that of your other neighbour;" he added, unnecessarily, "the man who made sweets."

And then for the first time c.o.xeter saw Nan Archdale really moved out of herself. What he had just said had had the power to touch her, to cause her greater anguish than anything which had happened during the long hours of terror they had gone through. She turned and, moving as if blindly, pressed her hand to her face as if to shut out some terrible and pitiful sight.

"Ah!" she exclaimed in a low voice, "I shall never forgive myself over that! Do you know I had a kind of instinct that I ought to ask that man the name, the address"--her voice quivered and broke--"of his friend--of that poor young woman who saw him off at the Paris station."

Till this moment c.o.xeter had not known that Nan had been aware of what had, to himself, been so odious, so ridiculous, and so grotesque, a scene. But now he felt differently about this, as about everything else that touched on the quick of life. For the first time he understood, even sympathized with, Nan's concern for that majority of human beings who are born to suffering and who are bare to the storm....

"Look here," he said awkwardly, "don't be unhappy. It's all right. That man spoke to me on the boat--he did what you wished, he made a will providing for that woman; I took charge of it for him. As a matter of fact I went and saw his old mother yesterday. She behaved splendidly."

"Then the life-saver was no good after all?"

"No good," he said, and he avoided looking at her. "At least so it would seem, but who can tell?"

Nan's eyes filled with tears; something beckoning, appealing seemed to pa.s.s from her to him....

The door suddenly opened.

"Mrs. Eaton, ma'am. She says she only heard what happened, to-day, and she's sure you will see her."

Before Mrs. Archdale could answer, a woman had pushed her way past the maid into the room. "Nan? Poor darling! What an awful thing! I _am_ glad I came so early; now you will be able to tell me all about it!"

The visitor, looking round her, saw John c.o.xeter, and seemed surprised.

Fortunately she did not know him, and, feeling as if, had he stayed, he must have struck the woman, he escaped from the room.

As c.o.xeter went through the hall, filled with a perplexity and pain very alien from his positive nature, a good-looking, clean-shaven man, who gave him a quick measured glance, pa.s.sed by. With him there had been no parleying at the door as in c.o.xeter's own case.

"Who's that?" he asked, with a scowl, of the servant.

"The doctor, sir," and he felt absurdly relieved. "We sent for him yesterday, for Mrs. Archdale seemed very bad last night." The servant dropped her voice, "It's the doctor, sir, as says Mrs. Archdale oughtn't to see visitors. You see it was in all the papers about the shipwreck, sir, and of course Mrs. Archdale's friends all come and see her to hear about it. They've never stopped. The doctor, he says that she ought to have stayed in bed and been quite quiet. But what would be the good of that, seeing she don't seem able to sleep? I suppose you've not suffered that way yourself, sir?"

The young woman was staring furtively at c.o.xeter, but, noting his cold manner and imperturbable face, she felt that he was indeed a disappointing hero of romance--not at all the sort of gentleman with whom one would care to be shipwrecked, if it came to a matter of choice.

"No," he said solemnly, "I can't say that I have."

He looked thoughtfully out into what had never been to him a "long unlovely street," and which just now was the only place in the world where he desired to stay. c.o.xeter, always so sure of himself, and of what was the best and wisest thing to do in every circ.u.mstance of life, felt for the first time unable to cope with a situation presented to his notice.

As he was hesitating, a carriage drove up, and a footman came forward with a card, while the occupant of the carriage called out, making anxious inquiries as to Mrs. Archdale's condition, and promising to call again the same afternoon.

c.o.xeter suddenly told himself that it behoved him to see the doctor, and ascertain from him whether Mrs. Archdale was really ill.

He crossed the street, and began pacing up and down, and unconsciously he quickened his steps as he went over every moment of his brief interview with Nan. All that was himself--and there was a good deal more of John c.o.xeter than even he was at all aware of--had gone out to her in a rapture of memory and longing, but she, or so it seemed to him, had purposely made herself remote.

At last, after what seemed a very long time, the doctor came out of Mrs.

Archdale's house and began walking quickly down the street.

c.o.xeter crossed over and touched him on the arm. "If I may," he said, "I should like a word with you. I want to ask you--I mean I trust that Mrs.

Archdale is recovering from the effect of the terrible experience she went through the other night." He spoke awkwardly, stiffly. "I saw her for a few minutes just before you came, and I was sorry to find her very unlike herself."

The doctor went on walking; he looked coldly at c.o.xeter.

"It's a great pity that Mrs. Archdale's friends can't leave her alone!

As to being unlike herself, you and I would probably be very unlike ourselves if we had gone through what this poor lady had just gone through!"

"You see, I was with her on the boat. We were not travelling together,"

c.o.xeter corrected himself hastily, "I happened to meet her merely on the journey. My name is c.o.xeter."

The other man's manner entirely altered. He slackened in his quick walk.

"I beg your pardon," he said; "of course I had no notion who you were.

She says you saved her life! That but for you she would have been in that boat--the boat that was lost."

c.o.xeter tried to say something in denial of this surprising statement, but the doctor hurried on, "I may tell you that I'm very worried about Mrs. Archdale--in fact seriously concerned at her condition. If you have any influence with her, I beg you to persuade her to refuse herself to the endless busybodies who want to hear her account of what happened.

She won't have a trained nurse, but there ought to be someone on guard--a human watchdog warranted to snarl and bite!"

"Do you think she ought to go away from London?" asked c.o.xeter in a low voice.

"No, I don't think that--at least not for the present," the medical man frowned thoughtfully. "What she wants is to be taken out of herself. If I could prescribe what I believe would be the best thing for her, I should advise that she go away to some other part of London with someone who will never speak to her of what happened, and yet who will always listen to her when she wants to talk about it--some sensible, commonplace person who could distract her mind without tiring her, and who would make her do things she has never done before. If she was an ordinary smart lady, I should prescribe philanthropy"--he made a slight grimace--"make her go and see some of my poorer patients--come into contact with a little _real_ trouble. But that would be no change to Mrs. Archdale. No; what she wants is someone who will force her to be selfish--who will take her up the Monument one day, and to a music-hall the next, motor her out to Richmond Park, make her take a good long walk, and then sit by the sofa and hold her hand if she feels like crying----" He stopped, a little ashamed of his energy.