BOOK IV CHAPTER I

    It was the most interesting case I have ever had (wrote M. Chatelard, in the third volume of his "Psychologie Féminine"), and the most abnormal. The illness, caused by shock, concussion—call it what you will—was benign, yet it was long. There was a little fever, a little delirium: un petit délire très doux, tout poétique, que, plongé dans mon vieux fauteuil de chêne, au milieu du silence de cet antique manoir, j'écoutais presqu'avec plaisir. Un gazouillement d'oiseau; une ame de femme, errant comme Psyché elle-même, sur les fleurs dans les jardins embaumés; délicates puerilitiés parfumées de la vie. Jamais une note de passion. Jamais un cri de ce coeur si profondement blessé....

    And when later, by almost imperceptible steps, we drew the gentle creature back to health, the singular phenomenon persisted.

    We physicians are, of course, accustomed in similar circumstances, to find a strong distaste in the patient suffering from shock to any effort of memory. Memory, indeed, by one of those marvellous dispensations of nature, is reluctant to bring back the events which have caused the mischief. But, with the beautiful Lady G—— (it is always thus I must recall her) there was something more than the mere recoil of weakness....

    On e?t pu croire que cette am ebrisée de passion, abreuvée de douleur, s'était dit qu'elle n'en voulait plus; qu'elle n'en pouvait plus. Co n'était pas, ici, les souvenirs, qui faisaient défaut. Je l'ai trop observée pour m'y méprendre. En avait-elle des souvenirs et d'assez poignants, mon Dieu! ... But with a strength of will which surprised me in her state, she put these memories from her and deliberately lived in the present. Elle goutait son présent, elle savourait la paix voluptueuse de sa convalescence....

    Je n'ai qu'à fermer les yeux, pour la revoir, sur son lit—longue, blanche et belle. Je revois ce jeune teint—divinement jeune sous cette grande chevelure d'argent; cet air de lys au soleil, à la fois languissant et mystérieusement heureux. Ces yeux noyés dans une pensée profonde. Ces lévres entr'ouvertes par un léger sourire. A qui rêvaitelle—à quoi? Cette belle bouche muette n'en soufflait jamais mot....

    Of the three who had loved her, for whom was that smile? Certes, not for the poor Sir! And of the other two? (I must here frankly set down the humiliating admission, to me, that woman was, and remains Sphynx—yes, Sphynx, even to me, her physician, who beheld her, watched, tended her, through all those moments of suffering, weakness, défaillance where the soul reveals itself.) Which of the two, then, reigned in her secret dream? The sardonic Major, who had tracked her till she could escape him no longer, whose love was merciless. There are women, and many, who would never know passion but for defeat. The husband? The reincarnated ghost? Well reincarnated, that one!—The most virile type that I ever met. Nature of fire, born lover, under all his reticence of English gentleman and soldier. I have seen that face of his, half bronze, half marble, grow crimson and white within the minute, as I spoke to him of the woman, the while there would not be a tremble in the hand that held this pipe. I will confess he had all my sympathy; he was worthy of her. But she—why, to this day I ask myself: does the man who possesses her know the secret of her heart?

    The day after the damaged motor had carried away the poor Governor—machine détraquée, clopin-clopant, symbole de cette vie qui jusqu'ici semblait rouler en triomphe et qui, desormais, se trainera si gauchement—the day following Sir G——'s departure, I say, the Major B—— also left. It was the very least he could have done. And after the astounding fact of his betrothal to the pretty little Miss C——, I myself felt his presence antipathetic.... Ah, but a strategist, that officer of Guides, strategist of the first order! A masterly move, that betrothal, to disarm any possible suspicion of his friend and keep the while a footing in his beloved's house! But the little one, she deserved better ... delicieuse enfant! With what innocent eyes she looked at me when I told her that, above all things, she must not whisper to my patient a word of her engagement. "Understand well, Miss," said I to her; and was ashamed of myself thus to join with him who was deceiving her. "It is because the least agitation, even a happy one, must be avoided." "Ah, that is why," said she, "you will not let her poor husband go to her?" "That is why," I replied, dissembling, "above all things, above all things, she must not be hurried."

*      *      *      *      *

She must not be hurried!

"If she wants me?" had said Harry English to Dr. Chatelard, in that dawn hour of dire omen.

"My dear sir," had answered the other, "immediately, of course!"

Rosamond lay, restored to those that loved her, a pale rose among her white tresses, and Harry English still waited her summons.

Still waiting!

*      *      *      *      *

"Above all," repeated the genial physician, who had stood by them so stoutly in their hour of trouble, as he took his reluctant departure from a house where his presence was, obviously, no longer needed, and where yet—unfortunate psychologist—he had failed to probe the story to the core, "above all, she must not be hurried!"

These were his farewell instructions.

It seemed to him that the patient husband had a strange smile on hearing this admonition.

"How much does he know?" asked Chatelard of himself, clinging with characteristic pertinacity to his peculiar interpretation of events. "How much does he suspect?"

Never before, perhaps, had the active-minded and gregarious Frenchman found himself thus regretting the prospect of a return to the congenial movement of his native city. But it was with a definite sense of reluctance that, on this March morning, he drove away through the budding orchard trees, leaving the Old Ancient House and all the desolate moorland behind him. This lonely antique habitation still held close the enigma of lives in which he had become deeply interested—interested, not only with that vivid intelligence which was ever eager to know, but with the warmth of a very excellent heart.

He would dearly have loved to know, true; but, above all, he would dearly have loved to help.

"Eh, Dieu sait," he sighed, as the fly jingled and bumbled over the grass-grown avenue, "Dieu sait ce qui va se passer là-bas, maintenant que je n'y suis plus!"

He gave a lingering look at the twisted chimney-stacks against the pale sky, before setting his face for Paris, Ville Lumière, once more.

*      *      *      *      *

"She must not be hurried!—Until she asks for me; then," had resolved Harry English, "I will wait."

And at first, indeed, it seemed as if the waiting could not be hard. For with the young year had come new hopes to the Old Ancient House. And with Rosamond turning to life in her room upstairs under the gables, he who loved her could well afford to sit with patience below.

Yet time went by, and the summons came not.

Upon that first blessed morning, indeed, when after all these long days she had awakened at last, and looked upon the world with seeing eyes once more, Rosamond had whispered to Aspasia:

"Harry—is he here?"

The girl's heart had leaped with joy.

"Yes," came her eager answer. "Will you see him?"

Like a little Mercury, one foot poised, hand outstretched to grasp the happy moment, Aspasia stood ready to take flight upon her errand of comfort. But the pale woman in the bed shrank. The old shy withdrawal from the thought of emotion—as once from sorrow, now from joy—seemed to be upon her.

"Not yet," she faintly sighed.

And, day by day, the singular little scene was re-enacted. In defiance of doctor's orders, Baby—with the sense of that other's hungry disappointment heavy upon her heart—would put her query ever more pleadingly:

"Will you not see him? Can you not see him? May it not be for to-day?"

But ever would come the same reply, while the lids sank over the timid eyes, and colour mounted slowly in the transparent face:

"Not yet."

Then the woman would fall back into her secret dream, lying hours in that quietude at which her physician marvelled, while he welcomed its healing power. It was a pause in life. So the young mother may lie and hold her infant in her languid arms and be happy because of its very weakness and incompleteness; and deem it more safely her own that it has yet no speech for her, no will to meet hers, even no power of love with which to answer hers.

It is harder to be patient in happiness than in sorrow. These days of waiting began to tell upon Harry English more than all the years had done.

Yet it was idle to say: "She must not be hurried," since time marches with us all, whether we will or no; and with time, the events which change our destiny. The most guarded being cannot escape the influence of those lives with which Fate has thrown his fortune, and Rosamond was destined at last to be shaken out of her dreams by the combined energies of other fortunes.

M. Chatelard had been gone some time. The green buds were swelling over the March land. The convalescent had been promoted to her armchair for an hour or two daily, when a telegram summoned Harry English to London.

Bethune had undertaken all the preliminary official steps for his friend. Now the moment could not be delayed when the missing officer must give his personal explanations. The excuse of his wife's danger could no longer be maintained for his absence: he had to leave the Old House without having seen her again.

For two mornings after his departure Baby entered her aunt's room to find her lying among a bower of flowers. The husband was pleading for himself, wooing his love, for the third time. At first he sent no word with his gift, but let these most gracious messengers speak in fragrance. Aspasia was wise enough to hold her tongue upon the subject. Even to her downright perceptions the silence which enwrapped the invalid seemed stirred, palpitating with the awakening of emotions, just as, all over the land, after her winter sleep, the earth was stirred, palpitating, to the promise of spring.

The third morning the girl was unwontedly late in making her appearance. But Rosamond did not seem to miss her. She rested, smiling among her pillows, her diaphanous hand enfolding the letter that Mary had (with a subdued look of triumph) brought her on top of an open box overflowing with lily-of-the-valley.

Rosamond's first love-letter had come to her blent with the same perfume. The acrid sweetness rose like a greeting, an intangible intermingling of past and present. It spoke more eloquently than even his words. She drew the flowers slowly from their case. Below all, nestling beneath the waxen bells, she found one deep-hearted dark crimson rose.

She held it to her lips, the while she read his letter.

*      *      *      *      *

And so Baby's presence was not missed. At mid-day she rushed into the room and flung herself upon the bed with so much of her old impetuosity that Rosamond sat up, startled at first, then smiling, shaken from her languor.

"What is it, Baby? What a little face of blushes!"

In the midst of her own turmoil of emotion, Baby's faithful heart leaped with joy. Rosamond had not spoken with that natural air these months.

"What is it?" repeated the woman, smiling.

Aspasia edged along the bed till her hot cheeks were hidden on Rosamond's neck. Then she thrust out her left hand blindly for inspection.

"Look!"

"What——?"

Yes, in very truth, Rosamond was laughing.

"What is it, Baby? ... Ah——"

Baby moved her long musician fingers slowly one after the other and finally stuck out the third.

"Ah," cried Rosamond again, sharply.

"She has seen," thought Aspasia, and was fain to raise her head to behold the effect of the great surprise.

"Is it possible," said the other, slowly, "or are you playing me some trick?"

"A trick," echoed Aspasia, indignantly. "No such thing!" She surveyed the important hand, with head on one side and an air of great complacency. Yet never had it appeared a more childish object. Upon the pink out-thrust finger the wedding-ring seemed absurdly misplaced.

"Baby, Baby, how is it you have never told me? Major Bethune, of course?"

"Yes," said the bride, suddenly shy. "They would not let me tell you. Idiots!"

The next instant the two women were clasped in each other's arms—both crying a little, as they kissed.

"There now," cried the new wife, at last, awakening to the conviction that she was hardly carrying out the doctor's instructions; and, indeed, it was evident that, left to her own devices, Aspasia had peculiar views upon the art of breaking news. "There now, this won't do. You lie still, and I'll tell you everything."

Placidly enough to reassure a more anxious nurse, Rosamond obeyed, her hand creeping down to her letter once more. This was but a surface agitation, after all—there was only one in the world who had power to stir the deeps.

Aspasia knelt down by the bed, and began to pour forth her story.... They had been engaged, oh, ever so long; but she never would have dreamed of anything so preposterous as marriage, especially now—not for ages, at least, but Raymond had ramped so....

It was only from the youthful Mrs. Bethune's picturesque tongue that such a description of Bethune's reticent wooing could have fallen.

And then something had happened, out there, and his blessed leave was curtailed, and, he had said, he positively would not go without her. "And so," said Baby, laughing and crying together, as pretty and absurd a spring bride as it was possible to see; "so he came down from London yesterday—with a special licence in his pocket—he went to the Inn, but he came to see me last night. I don't know how it happened, but we were married this morning, at the little church—you know, your little church, Aunt Rosamond.... Did you ever hear of such a thing? Without a trousseau, without a present, without a lawyer, without a cake! And I am going to Vienna for my honeymoon."

She laughed a little wildly, and dabbed her wet cheeks with a corner of the sheet. Then she stopped suddenly, abashed. Rosamond's eyes were lost in space; she was not even listening.

"I knew you did not want me," said Aspasia—a very different quality of tears welling up.

Rosamond started:

"I, not want you! Why, Baby, what makes you say that?"

"Oh," cried the girl, with a swift change of mood, "how can you want me, have you not got him? Dear Aunt Rosamond, darling Aunt Rosamond, don't keep him waiting any more!"

She was going to cast herself upon the bed in another fervent embrace, when something in Rosamond's look arrested her. Here were the deeps astir! It was as if a flame enkindled in a fragile lamp, as if she could see it tremble and burn.

She drew back before a mystery to which she vaguely felt she would never have the key.

"You know, he will return to-day," stammered she at last. "It's all right about his business. He is coming back."

"I know," answered Harry English's wife, in a low vibrating voice. Then she hesitated, and turned to look at the girl, a wistful inquiry in her shadowed eyes.

"Have they told him?" she asked, under her breath, raising one of the heavy white locks that lay across her breast.

"Oh," exclaimed Aspasia, springing to her meaning, "but you are beautiful with it, you are more beautiful than ever! No—I don't know if they've told him. Oh, darling," she cried, melting all into tenderness, pity, and amusement, as over a child, "it wasn't for that, it could not be for that, you wouldn't see him?"

"For that!" said Rosamond. A flame seemed to pass over her again. She quivered from head to foot, and a deep flush rose to the very roots of her blanched hair. "Oh, Baby, no. How could you guess, how could you understand—poor little bride of an hour?"

And, as once before, upon that crucial morning in the distant Indian palace, she had taken all her golden hair to cover her face and hide its misery from violating eyes, Rosamond now swept the silver veil across the betrayal of her blood, that even Baby might not look upon the tumult of her heart.

The scent of the dark rose, stronger even than the lilies, filled the room.

*      *      *      *      *

Bethune carried off his bride unobtrusively—unromantically. Rosamond was still upstairs. And that no farewells should take place between her and Major Bethune fell out so naturally that even Baby scarcely commented upon it. Rosamond had always held herself so much aloof. That this procedure should have been planned by Bethune himself because he could not trust himself in this good-bye, would have been the last thought to enter the little wife's head; her Raymond had always rather disliked poor Aunt Rosamond than otherwise. Such was her conviction. He could never forgive her for having been his friend's forgetful widow.

She herself had shed torrents of easy tears of parting within the walls of the panelled bedroom; and had subsequently driven away beside the man of her choice (in the selfsame fly, smelling of straw, that had provoked her enthusiasm at arrival, her modest luggage atop), petulantly reviling her bridegroom for his inconsiderate hurry, the while nestling comfortably into the hollow of his shoulder.

How far was she from guessing at the complex emotions that made the heart, against which she leaned, beat so heavily; from guessing that this very haste, this wilfully informal departure, this quick marriage itself, were all part of the determined act of renunciation he had sealed in his soul, with the touch of her lips on his! Renunciation, it is true, of no more tangible passion than a thought. Yet, had she known, she need not have feared, for he who can renounce the insidious sweetness of a dream, need fear no overthrow from realities.

As for her, her marriage was the irresponsible mating of a little bird. And she was setting forth with as airy a freedom, with as busy and cheerful an importance, as any small winged lady of the woods on the flight to choose a favourable aspect for her nest.

As the vehicle wheeled out of the noiseless grassy avenue upon the moorland road, Bethune caught her to him, and kissed her with more of ardour than he had ever shown.

"And so, Robin," said he, "you are going to set all traditions at defiance, and pipe your pretty songs in the morning land."

Mrs. Bethune smiled importantly; she still chose to keep up the fiction that in matrimony she by no means intended to give up her musical career, that career, with a capital C, that she had so often flourished defiantly in Sir Arthur's face! But, in her heart, she knew very well that when she had let love enter in, it had driven forth ambition.