The Grey Lady Part 39

The doctor nodded. He glanced at Eve, then he said quietly -

"She will live about an hour. She wants me to come again and bring another man. I will do it, although it is useless. There are some things money cannot buy."

With a quick mechanical smile he was gone.

Eve went upstairs again to the room where Mrs. Harrington was fighting her last fight. As she pa.s.sed up the stairs, she noticed two letters on the hall table awaiting postage; one was addressed to Mrs. Ingham-Baker, the other to Luke, at Malta.

Mrs. Harrington had ordered the blinds to be pulled up, and the daylight showed her face to be little changed. It had always been grey; the shadows on it now were grey; the eyes were active and bright. It was only the body that was dying; Mrs. Harrington's mind was bright and keen as ever.

"That doctor is a fool," she said. "I have told him to come back and bring Sir James Harlow with him. And will you please send and tell Fitz that I should like to see him? You must arrange to stay on a few days until I am better. Captain Bontnor will have to do without you. My servants are not to be trusted alone. I shall want you to keep them in order; they require a tight reign."

"I have sent for Fitz," said Eve.

"Why?" snapped Mrs. Harrington. "To come and make love to you?

Leave that to Agatha. She has been teaching them both to do that for the last three years. Her idea is to marry the one who gets my money. I've known that all along."

Eve's dark eyes hardened suddenly. She could not believe what the doctor had told her five minutes earlier. Five minutes--one-twelfth part of Mrs. Harrington's life ebbed away.

"Pray do not talk like that," said the girl quietly.

Mrs. Harrington's cold grey eyes fell before Eve's glance of mingled wonder and contempt; her right hand was feebly plucking at the counterpane.

Far below, in the bas.e.m.e.nt, a bell rang, and soon after there was a step on the stairs.

"Who is that?" inquired Mrs. Harrington.

"Fitz."

The dying woman was looking at the door with an unwonted longing in her eyes.

"You seem to know his step," she said, with a jealous laugh.

Eve said nothing. The door opened, and Fitz came in.

Mrs. Harrington was the first to speak.

"I am not well this morning, dear," she said. "I sent for you because I have a few things I want you to do for me."

"Pleasure," murmured Fitz, glancing at Eve. He either did not know how ill Mrs Harrington was, or he did not care. It is probable that these two persons now at the dying woman's bed were the only two people who would be in any degree sorry at her death.

Eve, with a woman's instinct, busied herself with the pillow--with the little adjuncts of a sick-room which had already found their way to the bedside. She looked at Mrs. Harrington's face, saw the hard eyes fixed on Fitz, and something in the glance made her leave the room.

"Just leave me alone," the dying woman said peevishly as Eve went away; "I don't want a lot of people bothering about."

But Fitz stayed, and when Eve had closed the door the sudden look of cunning that came over the faded face did not appear to surprise him.

"Quick!" whispered Mrs. Harrington, "quick! I do not believe I am dying, as that doctor said I was, but it is better to make sure.

Open the left-hand drawer in the dressing-table; you will find my keys."

Fitz obeyed her, bringing the bunch of keys, rusty and black from being concealed in a thousand different hiding-places.

"Now," she said, "open that desk; it was--your father's. Bring it here. Be quick! Some one may come."

Her shrivelled fingers fumbled hastily among some old papers.

Finally she found an envelope, brown with age, on which was written, in her own spidery handwriting, "Recipe for apple jelly."

She thrust the envelope into Fitz's hands, and he smilingly read the superscription.

"That's nothing," she explained sharply; "that's only for the servants. One cannot be too careful. Inside there is some money.

I saved it up. It will help to furnish your new cabin."

"Thank you," said Fitz, looking critically at the envelope. "But--"

"You must take it," she interrupted; "it is the only money I ever saved." She broke off with a malicious laugh. "All these fools thought I was rich," she went on. "They have been scheming and plotting to get my money. There is no money. That is all there is.

You and Luke were the only two who never thought about it. You are both like your father. Here, shut the desk up again. Put it back on the table. Now hide the keys--left-hand corner, under the box of hairpins."

Fitz obeyed her and came back towards the bed. His large mind felt a sudden contempt for this petty and mean woman. He did not understand her, and the contempt he felt for her in some way hurt him. He was afraid of what she was going to say next.

"But," she said, "if I get better you must give me the money back."

Fitz gave a little laugh. Something prompted him to open the envelope and look at the contents. There were five notes of ten pounds each. The rich Mrs. Harrington of Grosvenor Gardens had saved fifty pounds, and she lay on her death-bed watching Fitz count this vast h.o.a.rd with a quiet deliberation. In its way it was a tragedy--the grimmest of all--for its dominant note was the contemptibility of human nature.

"I do not want the money. I should not keep it under any circ.u.mstances."

"What would you do with it?" she asked sharply.

"Give it to a charity."

"No, no, you must not do that; they are all swindles!"

In her eagerness she tried to sit up, and fell back with a puzzled look on her face, as if some one had struck her.

"Here," she gasped, "give it to me! give it to me!"

She clutched the envelope in her unsteady hands, and suddenly her jaw dropped.

Fitz ran to the door. On the stairs were the two doctors, followed closely by Eve. In a moment the doctors were at the bedside.

"Yes," said one of them--the younger of the two--and he glanced at his watch. "I gave her an hour."

The elder man took the dead woman's hand in his. He released the envelope from her grasp and read the superscription, "Recipe for apple jelly." With a grave smile he handed the envelope to Eve as Fitz took her out of the room.

They went downstairs together, and both were thinking of D'Erraha.

They went into the library, which was silent and gloomy. Fitz had not spoken yet, but she seemed to understand his silence, just as she had understood it once before. She had told him then. She did not do so now.

Eve was not thinking of the dead woman upstairs. This death came to her only as a faint reflection of the one great grief which had cut her life in two--as great griefs do. She was perhaps wondering how it was that Fitz seemed always to come to her at those moments when she could not do without him. She was more probably not thinking at all, but resting as it were in the sense of complete safety and protection which this man's presence gave her.

There was a little silence, broken only by the sound of street traffic faintly heard through the plate-gla.s.s windows. Fitz was looking at her, his blue eyes grave and searching. This was not a man to miss his opportunity, this youngest commander on the list.