The Happy Warrior Part 11

Mrs. Erps communicated to the constable: "Jus' 'er very words. _Dahn_ she went--"

The eyes opened again.

"Your 'usbing, dear, I'm askin'. 'Usbing. Ain't you got a ma, my dear? Ain't you got a pa?"

She said: "Dead ... dead ... Oh, dear..."

"Orfing," communicated Mrs. Erps.

"Rambling in her mind," said the constable. "Not answering you, she wasn't."

"You pop off, young man," commanded Mrs. Erps with sudden hostility.

"Ramberling! Didn't I ask her, and didn't she give answer back to me?

Ramberling! You pop off. I'll fine where she lives, and my old man 'll come to the station if so need be. 'E ain't afraid of yer, so don't you think it. Served on a joory, he has, before now.

Ramberling! I'm going to rub 'er pore feet. That's what I'm goin' to do. Ramberling! She knows me as spoke 'er fair before ever you came.

'Excoose me,' I says to her, 'excoose me--'"

The policeman, from the door: "Yes, I've heard that."

Mrs. Erps, bending over the stairs: "Pop off! That's what I'm telling you. Pop off!"

III

Mrs. Erps rubbed the "pore feet," put a hot bottle to them, covered the poor, motionless form with two of the wool blenkits, called up her old man when he came in; and in his presence and in that of the lady second floor lodger and the young man first back lodger, trembling with witnessed honesty, she opened the pretty dear's purse and searched her pocket for any clue to her home. There was none. Mrs. Erps, having counted the money in the purse, written down the amount and had the paper signed by her old man, by second floor and by first back, bade them pop off, and sat beside her patient with soothing words and frequently a kiss to the reiterated "Oh, dear ... oh, dear ... O G.o.d!"

that came in scarcely audible sighs as from one numbed with pain and utterly tired.

So, only now and then sighing, eyes closed, she lay for close upon three hours. Mrs. Erps stole away to cook up a nice bit of fried fish for 'er old man, revisiting the first front at intervals, waiting to hear that weary moan, and returning down-stairs increasingly troubled with: "I don't like to hear her. Fair wrings my 'art, it does."

A visit paid towards seven o'clock was better rewarded. Audrey opened her eyes, looked full and intelligently at Mrs. Erps, standing there with a lighted candle, and quite naturally addressed her. She questioned nothing. She seemed fully to understand where she was and why. In tones weak but quite clear and collected she made two requests. Please let her stay here for the night and leave her quite alone; she wanted nothing, just to be alone; and please send a telegram for her.

She dictated the message and it was sent--to Maggie, and with Mrs.

Erps' address added, and running: "Please come at once. He is dead.

Audrey."

IV

Miss Oxford arrived in the early afternoon of the next day. All the devotion of the years she had mothered Audrey, all the longing--longing--longing of the past months for news, all the agony of suspense in the train journey (the papers informing her as they informed new Lady Burdon at Miller's Field), all a breaking heart's distress was in the little cry she gave when she entered first front and saw that strangely white, strangely impa.s.sive face lying on the pillow.

"My darling! Oh, my darling"--arms about the still form, tears raining down.

No responsive movement; just "Dear Maggie--dear Maggie."

"Why did you never write?"

"Dear Maggie..."

There was no more of explanation between them.

"Maggie, I want to be quite, quite still. Not to talk, Maggie darling.

Just hold my hand and let me lie here. Are you holding it?"

"Audrey! Audrey! Yes--yes. In both mine."

"I don't feel you."

She seemed to feel nothing, to want nothing, and, though she lay now with wide eyes, to see nothing. She just lay, scarcely seeming to breathe. Once she said, in a very fond voice, "Yes, Roly," as if she were in conversation with him. No other sound.

After a long time Maggie told her: "Darling, I'm going to bring a doctor to see you."

No reply nor movement when Maggie released the hand she held and left the room to seek Mrs. Erps. No interest nor response when the doctor came, or while he examined her. He took Maggie aside. "She's very young. How long has she been married?"

"In June--the first of June."

They spoke in whispers. When he was going, he repeated what he had most impressed. "No fear of it happening so far as I can see. She doesn't seem in pain. That numbness? Mental. Her mind is too occupied. I don't think movement would bring it on; but don't move her yet. We mustn't run risks. It would be fatal--almost certainly fatal if it happened. Another shock would do it; nothing else, I think.

Well, there's no likelihood of shock, is there? You can guard against that. See to that and you've no need to worry. She couldn't possibly live through it in her present state. Otherwise--why, we'll soon be on the right road and getting strong for it. I'll look in to-night."

This was in the pa.s.sage, and with Mrs. Erps in waiting at the front door rehearsing in her mind: "As I was telling you when you come, doctor, 'Excoose me,' I says to 'er, 'excoose me--'" But what Mrs.

Erps overheard caused her to let him escape and to say instead to Miss Oxford, "Oh, the pore love! If any one makes a sahnd to shock 'er--not if I knows it, they don't."

Mrs. Erps knew quite well the meaning of that recurrent "it" in the doctor's words.

V

But it was not in Mrs. Erps's power to prevent the shock that came.

It came in direct train of action from that "Yes, Roly" that Maggie had heard, separated from it by the days of high fever, the mind wandering, that almost immediately supervened. As one that falls asleep upon a resolution and wakes at once to remember it and to act upon it, so, the fever releasing her to her senses, Audrey took up immediately that which lay in those words of hers.

She had fallen into a natural sleep that promised the end of her fever.

She awoke, and directly she awoke sat up in bed. She was alone. Only the one thought was in her mind; she got up and began to dress.

The resolution of her mind governed the extreme weakness of her body.

She was no more aware of her feebleness than one strung up in battle notices a wound not immediately crippling. She knew exactly what she must do. She found her purse on the mantelpiece and took it and left the house without being noticed--or thinking to escape or to give notice. Only that one thought occupied her; a few yards down the street she met a cab and hailed it. "Burdon House, Mount Street," she directed the driver.

"Yes, Roly," had been when Roly, visiting her more clearly, more real than any other figure about her during that numb and impa.s.sive period when she desired to be quiet in order to talk with him, had told her to go to Gran, to comfort Gran, and to be comforted.

VI

Old butler n.o.ble admitted her. Events had caused old butler n.o.ble to be considerably shaken in his wits. A week ago the door would have been closed to a young woman who asked for Lady Burdon and refused her name. To-day, on the explanation, "The name does not matter. Lady Burdon will be glad to see me," it was held open and the visitor taken to the library.

This was the second day of new Lord and Lady Burdon's visit for the latter to make Jane Lady Burdon's acquaintance. Only that morning old butler n.o.ble had made the mistake of turning away a Miller's Field friend who had called to see new Lady Burdon, carrying out a promise to report how baby Rollo, left behind, was getting on. "Her ladyship is seeing no one," n.o.ble had informed her. The excellent Miller's Field friend had been too overawed by his manner to explain exactly whom it was she wished to see. She sent a note of explanation by messenger.

n.o.ble delivered it to his mistress, who read it and sent him with it to new Lady Burdon. The note was foolishly worded. New Lady Burdon, ill at ease in this house, crimsoned to think it had been read. From the outset, hostile and prepared for hostility, she had taken a sharp dislike to this old man-servant; angry and mortified, she questioned him and spoke to him as he was unaccustomed to be addressed.

It was beneath the lesson of this incident that he admitted Audrey without question. She was none of his mistress's friends. In the first place he knew all such; in the second they did not call at the impossible hour of half-past six in the evening, nor present the strange appearance--white, not very steady, faltering in voice--that she bore.