The Case of Richard Meynell Part 71

"You had a bad fall, my poor child. Be brave!--the doctor will help you."

He longed to speak to her of her mother, to tell her the truth. It was borne in upon him that he _must_ tell her--if she was to die; that in the last strait, Alice's arms must be about her. But the doctor must decide.

Presently, she was a little easier. The warm stimulant dulled the consciousness which came in gusts.

Once or twice, as she recognized the faces near her, there was a touch of life, even of mockery. There was a moment when she smiled at Catharine--

"You're sweet. You won't say--'I told you so'!"

In one of the intervals when she seemed to have lapsed again into unconsciousness Meynell reported something of the search. They had found her a long distance from the path, at the foot of a steep and rocky scree, some twenty or thirty feet high, down which she must have slipped headlong. There she had lain for some eight hours in the storm before they found her. She neither moved nor spoke when they discovered her, nor had there been any sign of life, beyond the faint beating of the pulse, on the journey down.

The pale dawn was breaking when the doctor arrived. His verdict was at first not without hope. She _might_ live; if there were no internal injuries of importance. The next few hours would show. He sent his motor back to Whinborough Cottage Hospital for a couple of nurses, and prepared, himself, to stay the greater part of the day. He had just gone downstairs to speak to Meynell, and Catharine was sitting by the bed, when Hester once more roused herself.

"How that man hurt me!--don't let him come in again."

Then, in a perfectly hard, clear voice, she added imperiously--"I want to see my mother."

Catharine stooped toward her, in an agitation she found it difficult to conceal.

"Dear Hester!--we are sending a telegram as soon as the post-office is open to Lady Fox-Wilton."

Hester moved her hand impatiently.

"She's not my mother, and I'm glad. Where is--_my mother_?" She laid a strange, deep emphasis on the word, opening her eyes wide and threateningly. Catharine understood at once that, in some undiscovered way, she knew what they had all been striving to keep from her. It was no time for questioning. Catharine rose quietly.

"She is here, Hester, I will go and tell her."

Leaving one of the maids in charge, Catharine ran down to the doctor, who gave a reluctant consent, lest more harm should come of refusing the interview than of granting it. And as Catharine ran up again to Mary's room she had time to reflect, with self-reproach, on the strange completeness with which she at any rate had forgotten that frail ineffectual woman asleep in Mary's room from the moment of Hester's arrival till now.

But Mary had not forgotten her. When Catharine opened the door, it was to see a thin, phantom-like figure, standing fully dressed, and leaning on Mary's arm. Catharine went up to her with tears, and kissed her, holding her hands close.

"Hester asks for you--for her mother--her real mother. She knows."

"_She knows_?" Alice stood paralyzed a moment, gazing at Catharine. Then the colour rushed back into her face. "I am coming--I am coming--at once," she said impetuously. "I am quite strong. Don't help me, please.

And--let me go in alone. I won't do her harm. If you--and Mary--would stand by the door--I would call in a moment--if--"

They agreed. She went with tottering steps across the landing. On the threshold, Catharine paused; Mary remained a little behind. Alice went in and shut the door.

The blinds in Hester's room were up, and the snow-covered fells rising steeply above the house filled it with a wintry, reflected light; a dreary light, that a large fire could not dispel. On the white bed lay Hester, breathing quickly and shallowly; bright colour now in each sunken cheek. The doctor himself had cut off a great part of her hair--her glorious hair. The rest fell now in damp golden curls about her slender neck, beneath the cap-like bandage which hid the forehead and temples and gave her the look of a young nun. At first sight of her, Alice knew that she was doomed. Do what she would, she could not restrain the low cry which the sight tore from the depths of life.

Hester feebly beckoned. Alice came near, and took the right hand in hers, while Hester smiled, her eyelids fluttering. "Mother!"--she said, so as scarcely to be heard--and then again--"_Mother_!"

Alice sank down beside her with a sob, and without a word they gazed into each other's eyes. Slowly Hester's filled with tears. But Alice's were dry. In her face there was as much ecstasy as anguish. It was the first look that Hester's _soul_ had ever given her. All the past was in it; and that strange sense, on both sides, that there was no future.

At last Alice murmured:

"How did you know?"

"Philip told me."

The girl stopped abruptly. It had been on her tongue to say--"It was that made me go with him."

But she did not say it. And while Alice's mind, rushing miserably over the past, was trying to piece together some image of what had happened, Hester began to talk intermittently about the preceding weeks. Alice tried to stop her; but to thwart her only produced a restless excitement, and she had her way.

She spoke of Philip with horror, yet with a perfectly clear sense of her own responsibility.

"I needn't have gone--but I would go. There was a devil in me--that wanted to know. Now I know--too much. I'm glad it's over. This life isn't worth while--not for me."

So, from these lips of eighteen, came the voice of the world's old despairs!

Presently she asked peremptorily for Meynell, and he came to her.

"Uncle Richard, I want to be sure"--she spoke strongly and in her natural voice--"am I Philip's wife--or--or not? We were married on January 25th, at the Mairie of the 10th Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, by a man in a red scarf. We signed registers and things. Then--when we quarrelled--Philip said--he wasn't certain about that woman--in Scotland. You might be right. Tell me the truth, please. Am I--his wife?"

And as the words dropped faintly, the anxiety in her beautiful death-stricken eyes was strange and startling to see. Through all her recklessness, her defiance of authority and custom, could be seen at last the strength of inherited, implanted things; the instinct of a race, a family, overleaping deviation.

Meynell bent over her steadily, and took her hand in both his own.

"Certainly, you are his wife. Have no anxiety at all about that. My inquiries all broke down. There was no Scotch marriage."

Hester said nothing for a little; but the look of relief was clear. Alice on the farther side of the bed dropped her face in her hands. Was it not only forty-eight hours since, in Paris, Meynell had told her that he had received conclusive evidence of the Scotch marriage, and that Hester was merely Philip's victim, not his wife? Pa.s.sionately her heart thanked him for the falsehood. She saw clearly that Hester's mortal wounds were not all bodily. She was dying partly of self-contempt, self-judgment.

Meynell's strong words--his "n.o.ble lie"--had lifted, as it were, a fraction of the moral weight that was destroying her; had made a s.p.a.ce--a freedom, in which the spirit could move.

So much Alice saw; blind meanwhile to the tragic irony of this piteous stress laid at such a moment, by one so lawless, on the social law!

Thenceforward the poor sufferer was touchingly gentle and amenable.

Morphia had been given her liberally, and the relief was great. When the nurses came at midday, however, the pulse had already begun to fail. They could do nothing; and though within call, they left her mainly to those who loved her.

In the early afternoon she asked suddenly for the Communion, and Meynell administered it. The three women who were watching her received it with her. In Catharine's mind, as Meynell's hands brought her the sacred bread and wine, all thought of religious difference between herself and him had vanished, burnt away by sheer heat of feeling. There was no difference!

Words became mere transparencies, through which shone the ineffable.

When it was over, Hester opened her eyes--"Uncle Richard!" The voice was only a whisper now. "You loved my father?"

"I loved him dearly--and you--and your mother--for his sake."

He stooped to kiss her cheek.

"I wonder what it'll be like"--she said, after a moment, with more strength--"beyond? How strange that--I shall know before you! Uncle Richard--I'm--I'm sorry!"

At that the difficult tears blinded him, and he could not reply. But she was beyond tears, concentrating all the last effort of the mind on the sheer maintenance of life. Presently she added:

"I don't hate--even Philip now. I--I forget him. Mother!" And again she clung to her mother's hand, feebly turning her face to be kissed.

Once she opened her eyes when Mary was beside her, and smiled brightly.

"I've been such a trouble, Mary--I've spoilt Uncle Richard's life. But now you'll have him all the time--and he'll have you. You dear!--Kiss me.

You've got a golden mother. Take care of mine--won't you?--my poor mother!"

So the hours wore on. Science was clever and merciful and eased her pain.