The Happy Warrior Part 29

She raised her head--A nurse, the man she had first seen, another man--older. He pointed at the figure on the bed and motioned with his head towards the door. Maurice seemed to sleep. She rose with a little shuddering gasp and looked at them, twisting her hands together--if they had pity! ... what did they require of her?

The older man was bending over the bed, whispering with the younger.

The nurse came to her, smiling gently, and nodded towards him: "Sir Mervyn Aston. He will speak to you outside. Will you not leave us just a moment? Quite all right."

She remembered the name. It was the specialist Maurice had sometimes consulted. She had not bothered much about it: but she remembered the name. Sir Mervyn looked towards her and moved across the room. She looked again at the bed. The nurse nodded brightly. She followed Sir Mervyn to the door.

"Down-stairs," he said, and trod heavily down before her. He was a great man and took the privilege of bad manners. In the library he turned to her: "Did you send for me?" She had not expected that. She had expected sympathy--at least information. She stared at him, momentarily surprised out of her grief. His face was stern; she believed his manner accused her.

"No," she said.

"You expected this?"

Expected it! Of what could he be thinking?

"I've told Lord Burdon repeatedly that this life--I've warned him again and again to get out of it. Hasn't he told you?"

Now she knew that he was accusing her. She never had cared to listen when Maurice told her he had been to Harley Street. She stood twisting her hands together, nervous before this brusque man.

"Hasn't he told you?"

"No."

He looked sharply at her. He was a great man and had learned to read between the lines that his fashionable patients presented him. "A pity," he said briefly. "This might have been averted for many years."

"Tell me"--she said, and could say no more: "tell me--"

His tone became a little kinder. "We must hope for the best, you know.

There is always that. I will look in again at midnight. They are making him quite comfortable up-stairs."

He said a little more that she did not catch. Presently she realised that he had left her. "This might have been averted for many years!"

She ran to a bureau and fumbled frantically for pen and paper. She was in a sudden panic to do one thing that she believed would soften that dreadful sentence if the worst came. She was in a panic to get it done before there might be a sound from above and a horrid running down the stairs. She found her writing materials. Pen in hand she listened, trembling violently. No sound! As quickly as she could write she scrawled to Mr. Pemberton: "I have decided. We are going to Burdon Old Manor at once. Make arrangements to let the house, please."

Whatever happened now, she had begun her share of the bargain she prayed to press on death. If death would spare him, she would devote her life to him!

As she was sealing the letter Rollo came in. He had been to a matinee with Mrs. Espart and Dora, at home for her holidays. Lady Burdon gave a little motherly cry at the sight of him and took him in her arms.

They went up-stairs together.

The doctor had gone. The nurse told her Lord Burdon was asleep; but when she went to her former position on her knees beside the bed and took his hand again, he opened his eyes and his eyes smiled at her; and then closed; he seemed desperately weary.

She did not cry now. There was this bargain to be forced on death; and, as with the letter, so now with her promises, she was in a panic to get them done, believing that if death--G.o.d, as she named it--might know all she offered to pay, he must accept the price and hold his hand.

She was not the first that has believed death--or heaven--is open to a deal.

Through the long evening she knelt there, Rollo with her. Thus and thus she promised--thus and thus would she do--thus and thus--thus and thus! Mostly she bargained, frantically reiterating. At intervals she would turn to protest--protesting that her sin was very light for so heavy a threat. What had she done? She had done no wrong. She had no flagrant faults--she was serenely good, as goodness is judged. She was devout--she was charitable. Only one little failing, heaven! She had desired to enjoy herself, and enjoying herself had neglected him. But he did not care for the things she liked. Indeed he did not! He was happiest when she was happy. Indeed he was! Yet she saw the error of her way. If he might be spared, heaven--thus and thus--thus and thus--thus and thus!

Physical weariness overcame her as she heaped her promises, leading her mind astray and tricking it into nightmare dreams whence she would struggle with trembling limbs. The dreams took gross or strange forms.

She would be running down the street pursued by the tumbler contents-bill, somersaulting behind. It caught her and fell flat, flinging out its armlike corners, and she saw it was Maurice. She stooped to him, and it was the bill again, gone from her on the wind.

She pursued it, and saw it take semblance of Maurice, and pursued it with stumbling feet and could not catch it.

She struggled from these horrors and found her mind again. She was intensely cold, she found. Sir Mervyn had come and was bending over her husband. Sir Mervyn nodded to her and sat down by the bed. She dared ask no questions. She crouched lower where she knelt. The night went on--Sir Mervyn still there. She prayed on--thus and thus! thus and thus! She was tricked into the nightmare dreams. She was with Rollo's friend, Percival, and running to Rollo, who seemed in distress.

A woman stopped them. She recognised in her the girl who had come with that claim to be Lady Burdon years before. The girl caught Percival and held him and Percival held her. She struggled to be free, for Rollo was calling her wildly. His cries grew louder, louder, louder, and burst as a real cry suddenly upon her.

"Mother! Mother!"

She started up. Rollo was on his feet, bending towards his father.

"Lift! Lift!" Lord Burdon murmured.

Sir Mervyn raised him. She clutched his hand. He rallied upon the strength of life's last pulse and flutter, and smiled, and murmured, "Poor old girl!"

Then she saw death come; and she turned and threw her arms about her son.

BOOK FOUR

BOOK OF STORMS AND OF THREATENING STORM. THE ELEMENT OF LOVE

CHAPTER I

PLANS AND DREAMS AND PROMISES

I

Three women were counting the years now. The years were rolling up--curtain by curtain, like mists from a distant hillside; and behind them the ultimate prospects for which Lady Burdon waited, Mrs. Espart waited, and Aunt Maggie waited began to be revealed. Mrs. Espart had conveyed to Lady Burdon her ambition--formulated long ago--with regard to Dora and Rollo. Lady Burdon reckoned the union as very desirable and gave its consummation a first place among her aspirations for her Rollo. Aunt Maggie saw the hour of her revenge approaching so that its years might now be estimated on the fingers of one hand.

So near the desirable ends were approaching that the women began to name dates for their arrival. Youth, with only a few years lived and so enormous an experience gained in those years (as youth believes), cannot endure the thought of planning ahead for a s.p.a.ce that is a fair proportion of its whole lifetime. Five years is a monstrous, an insupportable period to youth that has lived but four times five or less. Age, with fewer years to live than have been lived, and with the knowledge of how little a decade has to show, will plan for five years hence with nothing near so much of sighs and groanings as youth will suffer if it must wait five months.

The women began to name dates. Those very close friends, Lady Burdon and Mrs. Espart, spoke of dates frequently. Mrs. Espart and Dora had already "come into the family" as Mrs. Espart smilingly expressed it, when, at Lord Burdon's death, and on being acquainted with her dear friend's intention to let the Mount Street house on a short lease and retire to Burdon Old Manor, she had offered herself as lessee. The offer had been most gratefully, most gladly accepted. The great town house was made over to Mrs. Espart for a seven years' term and thus, in Mrs. Espart's phrase, "remained in the family"--ready for Rollo and Dora, as the ladies plotted.

And now they were naming dates. "When Rollo is twenty-four," Lady Burdon said to Mrs. Espart, come over from Abbey Royal to lunch at the Manor one day, "look, dear, he is just on twenty now. You know my plans. Next year he is to go to Cambridge. His illness has thrown him back. But next year will be time enough. Three years at Cambridge, then, and that will bring him almost to twenty-three. Then I wish him to go abroad--to travel for a year. That is so good for a young man, I think. Then when he comes back he will be ready to settle down and he will come back just the age for that tradition of ours--celebrating comings-of-age at twenty-four instead of twenty-one. That would be so splendid for the wedding, wouldn't it?"

"Splendid!" Mrs. Espart agreed. "Splendid! That old Mr. Amber of yours was trying to tell me the other day how that twenty-four tradition arose. But, really, he mumbles so when he gets excited--!"

"Oh, he's hopeless," Lady Burdon agreed. Her tone dismissed his name as though she found his hopelessness a little trying, and she went back to "Yes, splendid, won't it be? When I look back, Ella, everything has gone wonderfully. From the very beginning, you know--the very beginning, I planned a good marriage for Rollo. It was so essential.

To be your Dora--well, that makes it perfect; yes, perfect!"--and Lady Burdon stretched out her hands and gave a happy little sigh as though she put her hands into a happy future and touched her Rollo there.

"And I for Dora," Mrs. Espart said. "From the very beginning, too, I arranged great matches for Dora in my mind. That it should be your Rollo,"--she gave a little laugh at her adaptation of the words--"that it should be your Rollo--why, really, perfect is the word!"

They were silent for a s.p.a.ce, enjoying the beauty of the hillside that the thinning years were disclosing.

"You've never said anything to Rollo?" Mrs. Espart asked.