The Westcotes Part 13

"Indeed, no; it was not that."

He struck the table impatiently with the paper-knife.

"My dear woman, do exert some common sense! What in the name of wonder could the fellow have to discuss with you at that hour? Your pardon if, finding no apparent limits to your innocence, I a.s.sume it to be illimitable, and point out that he would scarcely break bounds and play Romeo beneath the window of a middle-aged lady for the purpose of discussing water-colours with her, or the exploits of Vespasian."

The taunt brought red to Dorothea's cheeks, and stung her into courage.

"He came to see me," she persisted. Her voice dropped a little. "I had come to feel a regard for M. Raoul; and he--" She could not go on. Her eyes met her brother's for a moment, then fell before them.

What she expected she could not tell. Certainly she did not expect what happened, and his sudden laughter smote her like a whip. It broke in a shout of high, incontrollable mirth, and he leaned back and shook in his chair until the tears streamed down his cheeks.

"You!" he gasped. "You! Oh, oh, oh!"

She stood beneath the scourge, silent. She felt it curl across and bite the very flesh, and thought it was killing her, Her bosom heaved.

It ceased. He sat upright again, wiping his eyes.

"But it's incredible!" he protested; "the scoundrel has fooled you all along. Yes, of course," he pondered; "that explains the success of the trick, which otherwise was clumsy beyond belief; in fact, its clumsiness puzzled me. But how was I to guess?" He pulled himself up on the edge of another guffaw. "Look here, Dorothea, be sensible. It's clear as daylight the fellow was after Polly, and made you his cats- paw. Face it, my dear; face it, and conquer your illusions. I understand it must cost you some suffering, but, after all, you must find some blame in yourself--in your heart, I mean, not in your conduct. Doubtless your conduct showed weakness, or he would never have dared--but, there, I can trust my sister. Face it; the thing's absurd!

You, a woman of thirty-eight (or is it thirty-nine?), and he, if I may judge from appearances, young enough to be your son! Polly was his game--the deceitful little s.l.u.t! You must see it for yourself. And after all, it's more natural. Immoral, I've no doubt--"

He paused in the middle of his harangue. A parliamentary candidate (unsuccessful) for Axcester had once dared to poke fun at Endymion Westcote for having a.s.serted, in a public speech, that indecency was worse than immorality. For the life of him Endymion could never see where the joke came in; but the fellow had ill.u.s.trated it with such a wealth of humorous instances, and had kept his ignorant audience for twenty minutes in such fits of laughter, that he never afterwards approached the ant.i.thesis but he skirted it with a red face.

And Dorothea?

The scourge might cut into her heart; it could not reach the image of Raoul she shielded there. She knew her lover too well, and that he was incapable of this baseness. But the injurious charge, diverted from him, fell upon her own defences, and, breaking them, let in the cruel light at length on her pa.s.sion, her folly. This was how the world would see it. . . . Yes! Raoul was right--there is no enemy comparable with Time. Looks, fortune, birth, breed, unequal hearts and minds--all these Love may confound and play with; but Time which divides the dead from the living, sets easily between youth and age a gulf which not only forbids love but derides:

Age, I do abhor thee; Youth, I do adore thee; O, my Love, my Love is young!

She could give counsel, sympathy, care; could delight in his delights, hope in his hopes, melt with his woes, and, having wept a little, find comfort for them. She could thrill at his footsteps, blush at his salutation, sit happily beside him and talk or be silent, reading his moods. He might fill her waking day, haunt her dreams, in the end pa.s.s into prison for her sake, having crowned love with martyrdom. And the world would laugh as Endymion had laughed! Her hands went up to shut out the roar of it. A coa.r.s.e amour with Polly--that could be understood. Polly was young. Polly . . .

"What will you do?" she heard herself asking, and could scarcely believe the voice belonged to her.

"Do? Why, if my theory be right--and I hope I've convinced you--I see no use in meddling. The girl is respectably married. It will cause her quite unnecessary trouble if we rip this affair open again. Her husband will have just ground for complaint, and it might--I need not point out--be a little awkward, eh?"

For the first time in her life Dorothea regarded her brother with something like contempt. But the flash gave way to a look of weary resolve.

"Then I must tell the truth--to others," she said.

It confounded him for a moment. But although here was a new Dorothea, belying all experience, his instinct for handling men and women told him at once what had happened. He had driven her too far. He was even clever enough to foresee that winning her back to obedience would be a ticklish, almost desperate, business; and even sensitive enough to redden at his blunder.

"You do not agree with my view?" he asked, tapping the table slowly.

"I disbelieve it. I have no right to believe it, even if I had the power. He is in prison. You must help me to set him free. If not--"

"He cannot, possibly return to Axcester."

"Oh, what is that to me?" she cried with sudden impatience. Then her tone fell back to its dull level. "I have not been pleading for myself."

"No, no: I understand." His brow cleared, as a man's who faces a bad business and resolves to go through with it. "Well, there is only one way to spare you and everyone. We must get him a cartel."

"A cartel?"

"Yes--get him exchanged, and sent home to his friends. The War Office owes me something, and will no doubt oblige me in a small affair like this without asking questions. Oh, certainly it can be managed. I will write at once."

CHAPTER X

DARTMOOR

Dorothea had the profoundest faith in her brother's ability. That he hit at once on this simple solution which had eluded her through many wakeful nights did not surprise her in the least. Nor did she doubt for a moment that he would manage it as he promised.

But she could not thank him. He had beaten her spirit sorely--so sorely, that for days her whole body ached with the bruise. She did not accuse him: her one flash of contempt had lasted for an instant only, and the old habit of reverence quickly effaced it. But he had exposed her weakness; had forced her to see it, naked and pitiful, with no chivalry--either manly or brotherly--covering it; and seeing it with nothing to depend upon, she learned for the first time in her life the high, stern lesson of independence.

She learned it unconsciously, but she never forgot it. And it is to Endymion's credit that he recognised the great alteration and allowed for it. He had driven her too far. She would never again be the same Dorothea. And never again by word or look did he remind her of that hour of abas.e.m.e.nt.

An exchange of prisoners was not to be managed in a day, and would take weeks, perhaps six weeks or a couple of months. He discussed this with her, quietly, as a matter of business entrusted to him, explained what steps he had taken, what letters he had written; when he expected definite news from the War Office. She met him on the same ground.

"Yes, he could not have done better." She trusted him absolutely.

And in fact he had been better than his word. Ultimate success, to be sure, was certain. It were strange if Mr. Westcote, who had opened his purse to support a troop of Yeomanry, who held two parliamentary seats at the Government's service and two members at call to bully the War Office whenever he desired, who might at any time have had a baronetcy for the asking--it were strange indeed if Mr. Westcote could not obtain so trivial a favour as the exchange of a prisoner. He could do this, but he could not appreciably hurry the correspondence by which Pall Mall bargained a Frenchman in the forest of Dartmoor against an Englishman in the fortress of Briancon in the Hautes Alpes. Foreseeing delays, he had written privately to the Commandant at Dartmoor--a Major Sotheby, with whom he had some slight acquaintance--advising him of his efforts and requesting him to show the prisoner meanwhile all possible indulgence. The letter contained a draft, for ten pounds, to be spent upon small comforts at the Commandant's discretion; but M. Raoul was not to be informed of the donor, or of his approaching liberty.

In theory--such was the routine--Raoul remained one of the Axcester contingent of prisoners, and all reports concerning him must pa.s.s through the Commissary's hands. In the last week of October, when brother and sister daily expected the cartel, arrived a report that the prisoner was in hospital with a sharp attack of pleurisy. Major Sotheby added a private note:-

_"I feared yesterday that the exchange would come too late for him; but to-day the Medical Officer, who has just left me, speaks hopefully.

I have no doubt, however, that a winter in this climate would be fatal.

The fellow's lungs are breaking down, and even if they could stand the fogs, the cold must finish him."_

Dorothea stood by a window in the library when Endymion read this out to her; the very window through which she had been gazing that spring morning when Raoul first kissed her. To-day the first of the winter's snow fell gently, persistently, out of a leaden and windless sky.

She turned. "I must go to him," she said.

"But to what purpose--"

"Oh, you may trust me!"

"My dear girl, that was not in my mind." He spoke gently. "But until the warrant arrives--"

"We will give it until to-morrow; by every account it should reach us to-morrow. You shall take it with me. I must see him once more; only once--in your presence, if you wish."

Next morning they rode into the town together, an hour before the mail's arrival. Endymion alighted at the Town House to write a business letter or two before strolling down to the post office. Dorothea cantered on to the top of the hill, and then walked Mercury to and fro, while she watched the taller rise beyond. The snow had ceased falling; but a crisp north wind skimmed the drifts and powdered her dark habit.

Twice she pulled out her watch; but the coach was up to time in spite of the heavy roads; and as it topped the rise she reined Mercury to the right-about and cantered back to await it. Already the street had begun to fill as usual; and, as usual, there was General Rochambeau picking his way along the pavement to present himself for the Admiral's letter--the letter which never arrived.

Would _her_ letter never arrive?

He halted on the kerb by her stirrup. She asked after the Admiral's health.