The Testing of Diana Mallory Part 78

Marsham returned the pressure, first strongly, again more feebly. Then a wave of narcotic sleep returned upon him, and he seemed to sink into it profoundly.

Next morning, as Marsham, after his dressing, was lying moody and exhausted on his pillows, he suddenly said to his servant:

"I want something out of that cabinet by the fire."

"Yes, sir." The man moved toward it obediently.

"Find a newspaper in the top drawer, folded up small--on the right-hand side."

Richard looked.

"I am sorry, sir, but there is nothing in the drawer at all."

"Nonsense!" said Marsham, angrily. "You've got the wrong drawer!"

The whole cabinet was searched to no purpose. Marsham grew very pale. He must, of course, have destroyed the paper himself, and his illness had effaced his memory of the act, as of other things. Yet he could not shake off an impression of mystery. Twice now, weeks after Ferrier's death, he seemed to have been in Ferrier's living presence, under conditions very unlike those of an ordinary dream. He could only remind himself how easily the brain plays tricks upon a man in his state.

After breakfast, Sir James Chide was admitted. But Oliver was now in the state of obsession, when the whole being, already conscious of a certain degree of pain, dreads the approach of a much intenser form--hears it as the footfall of a beast of prey, drawing nearer room by room, and can think of nothing else but the suffering it foresees, and the narcotic which those about him deal out to him so grudgingly, rousing in him, the while, a secret and silent fury. He answered Sir James in monosyllables, lying, dressed, upon his sofa, the neuralgic portion of the spine packed and cushioned from any possible friction, his forehead drawn and frowning.

Sir James shrank from asking him about himself. But it was useless to talk of politics; Oliver made no response, and was evidently no longer abreast even of the newspapers.

"Does your man read you the _Times_?" asked Sir James, noticing that it lay unopened beside him.

Oliver nodded. "There was a dreadful being my mother found a fortnight ago. I got rid of him."

He had evidently not strength to be more explicit. But Sir James had heard from Lady Lucy of the failure of her secretarial attempt.

"I hear they talk of moving you for the winter."

"They talk of it. I shall oppose it."

"I hope not!--for Lady Lucy's sake. She is so hopeful about it, and she is not fit herself to spend the winter in England."

"My mother must go," said Oliver, closing his eyes.

"She will never leave you."

Marsham made no reply; then, without closing his eyes again, he said, between his teeth: "What is the use of going from one h.e.l.l to another h.e.l.l--through a third--which is the worst of all?"

"You dread the journey?" said Sir James, gently. "But there are ways and means."

"No!" Oliver's voice was sudden and loud. "There are none!--that make any difference."

Sir James was left perplexed, cudgelling his brains as to what to attempt next. It was Marsham, however, who broke the silence. With his dimmed sight he looked, at last, intently, at his companion.

"Is--is Miss Mallory still at Beechcote?"

Sir James moved involuntarily.

"Yes, certainly."

"You see a great deal of her?"

"I do--I--" Sir James cleared his throat a little--I look upon her as my adopted daughter."

"I should like to be remembered to her."

"You shall be," said Sir James, rising. "I will give her your message.

Meanwhile, may I tell Lady Lucy that you feel a little easier this morning?"

Oliver slowly and sombrely shook his head. Then, however, he made a visible effort.

"But I want to see her. Will you tell her?"

Lady Lucy, however, was already in the room. Probably she had heard the message from the open doorway where she often hovered. Oliver held out his hand to her, and she stooped and kissed him. She asked him a few low-voiced questions, to which he mostly answered by a shake of the head. Then she attempted some ordinary conversation, during which it was very evident that the sick man wished to be left alone.

She and Sir James retreated to her sitting-room, and there Lady Lucy, sitting helplessly by the fire, brushed away some tears of which she was only half conscious. Sir James walked up and down, coming at last to a stop beside her.

"It seems to me this is as much a moral as a physical breakdown. Can nothing be done to take him out of himself?--give him fresh heart?"

"We have tried everything--suggested everything. But it seems impossible to rouse him to make an effort."

Sir James resumed his walk--only to come to another stop.

"Do you know--that he just now--sent a message by me to Miss Mallory?"

Lady Lucy started.

"Did he?" she said, faintly, her eyes on the blaze. He came up to her.

"_There_ is a woman who would never have deserted you!--or him!" he said, in a burst of irrepressible feeling, which would out.

Lady Lucy's glance met his--silently, a little proudly. She said nothing and presently he took his leave.

The day wore on. A misty sunshine enwrapped the beech woods. The great trees stood marked here and there by the first fiery summons of the frost. Their supreme moment was approaching which would strike them, head to foot, into gold and amber, in a purple air. Lady Lucy took her drive among them as a duty, but between her and the enchanted woodland there was a gulf fixed.

She paid a visit to Oliver, trembling, as she always did, lest some obscure catastrophe, of which she was ever vaguely in dread, should have developed. But she found him in a rather easier phase, with Lankester, who had just returned from town, reading aloud to him. She gave them tea, thinking, as she did so, of the noisy parties gathered so recently, during the election weeks, round the tea-tables in the hall. And then she returned to her own room to write some letters.

She looked once more with distaste and weariness at the pile of letters and notes awaiting her. All the business of the house, the estate, the village--she was getting an old woman; she was weary of it. And with sudden bitterness she remembered that she had a daughter, and that Isabel had never been a real day's help to her in her life. Where was she now? Campaigning in the north--speaking at a bye-election--lecturing for the suffrage. Since the accident she had paid two flying visits to her mother and brother. Oliver had got no help from her--nor her mother; she was the Mrs. Jellyby of a more hypocritical day. Yet Lady Lucy in her youth had been a very motherly mother; she could still recall in the depths of her being the thrill of baby palms pressed "against the circle of the breast."

She sat down to her task, when the door opened behind her. A footman came in, saying something which she did not catch. "My letters are not ready yet"--she threw over her shoulder, irritably, without looking at him. The door closed. But some one was still in the room. She turned sharply in astonishment.

"May I disturb you, Lady Lucy?" said a tremulous voice.