Chapter XXV
The afternoon was very hot, so hot that the breaking of the waves onthe shore sounded like the repeated sigh of some exhausted creature,and even on the terrace under an awning the bricks were hot, and theair danced perpetually over the short dry grass. The red flowers in thestone basins were drooping with the heat, and the white blossoms whichhad been so smooth and thick only a few weeks ago were now dry, andtheir edges were curled and yellow. Only the stiff and hostile plantsof the south, whose fleshy leaves seemed to be grown upon spines, stillremained standing upright and defied the sun to beat them down. Itwas too hot to talk, and it was not easy to find any book that wouldwithstand the power of the sun. Many books had been tried and then letfall, and now Terence was reading Milton aloud, because he said thewords of Milton had substance and shape, so that it was not necessary tounderstand what he was saying; one could merely listen to his words; onecould almost handle them.
There is a gentle nymph not far from hence,
he read,
That with moist curb sways the smooth Severn stream. Sabrina is her name, a virgin pure; Whilom she was the daughter of Locrine, That had the sceptre from his father Brute.
The words, in spite of what Terence had said, seemed to be laden withmeaning, and perhaps it was for this reason that it was painful tolisten to them; they sounded strange; they meant different things fromwhat they usually meant. Rachel at any rate could not keep her attentionfixed upon them, but went off upon curious trains of thought suggestedby words such as "curb" and "Locrine" and "Brute," which broughtunpleasant sights before her eyes, independently of their meaning. Owingto the heat and the dancing air the garden too looked strange--the treeswere either too near or too far, and her head almost certainly ached.She was not quite certain, and therefore she did not know, whether totell Terence now, or to let him go on reading. She decided that shewould wait until he came to the end of a stanza, and if by that time shehad turned her head this way and that, and it ached in every positionundoubtedly, she would say very calmly that her head ached.
Sabrina fair, Listen where thou art sitting Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave, In twisted braids of lilies knitting The loose train of thy amber dropping hair, Listen for dear honour's sake, Goddess of the silver lake, Listen and save!
But her head ached; it ached whichever way she turned it.
She sat up and said as she had determined, "My head aches so thatI shall go indoors." He was half-way through the next verse, but hedropped the book instantly.
"Your head aches?" he repeated.
For a few moments they sat looking at one another in silence, holdingeach other's hands. During this time his sense of dismay and catastrophewere almost physically painful; all round him he seemed to hear theshiver of broken glass which, as it fell to earth, left him sitting inthe open air. But at the end of two minutes, noticing that she was notsharing his dismay, but was only rather more languid and heavy-eyed thanusual, he recovered, fetched Helen, and asked her to tell him what theyhad better do, for Rachel had a headache.
Mrs. Ambrose was not discomposed, but advised that she should go to bed,and added that she must expect her head to ache if she sat up to allhours and went out in the heat, but a few hours in bed would cure itcompletely. Terence was unreasonably reassured by her words, as he hadbeen unreasonably depressed the moment before. Helen's sense seemedto have much in common with the ruthless good sense of nature, whichavenged rashness by a headache, and, like nature's good sense, might bedepended upon.
Rachel went to bed; she lay in the dark, it seemed to her, for a verylong time, but at length, waking from a transparent kind of sleep, shesaw the windows white in front of her, and recollected that some timebefore she had gone to bed with a headache, and that Helen had said itwould be gone when she woke. She supposed, therefore, that she was nowquite well again. At the same time the wall of her room was painfullywhite, and curved slightly, instead of being straight and flat. Turningher eyes to the window, she was not reassured by what she saw there. Themovement of the blind as it filled with air and blew slowly out, drawingthe cord with a little trailing sound along the floor, seemed to herterrifying, as if it were the movement of an animal in the room. Sheshut her eyes, and the pulse in her head beat so strongly that eachthump seemed to tread upon a nerve, piercing her forehead with a littlestab of pain. It might not be the same headache, but she certainly had aheadache. She turned from side to side, in the hope that the coolnessof the sheets would cure her, and that when she next opened her eyesto look the room would be as usual. After a considerable number of vainexperiments, she resolved to put the matter beyond a doubt. She got outof bed and stood upright, holding on to the brass ball at the end of thebedstead. Ice-cold at first, it soon became as hot as the palm of herhand, and as the pains in her head and body and the instability of thefloor proved that it would be far more intolerable to stand and walkthan to lie in bed, she got into bed again; but though the change wasrefreshing at first, the discomfort of bed was soon as great as thediscomfort of standing up. She accepted the idea that she would haveto stay in bed all day long, and as she laid her head on the pillow,relinquished the happiness of the day.
When Helen came in an hour or two later, suddenly stopped her cheerfulwords, looked startled for a second and then unnaturally calm, the factthat she was ill was put beyond a doubt. It was confirmed when the wholehousehold knew of it, when the song that some one was singing in thegarden stopped suddenly, and when Maria, as she brought water, slippedpast the bed with averted eyes. There was all the morning to getthrough, and then all the afternoon, and at intervals she made an effortto cross over into the ordinary world, but she found that her heat anddiscomfort had put a gulf between her world and the ordinary world whichshe could not bridge. At one point the door opened, and Helen came inwith a little dark man who had--it was the chief thing she noticed abouthim--very hairy hands. She was drowsy and intolerably hot, and as heseemed shy and obsequious she scarcely troubled to answer him, althoughshe understood that he was a doctor. At another point the door openedand Terence came in very gently, smiling too steadily, as she realised,for it to be natural. He sat down and talked to her, stroking her handsuntil it became irksome to her to lie any more in the same position andshe turned round, and when she looked up again Helen was beside her andTerence had gone. It did not matter; she would see him to-morrow whenthings would be ordinary again. Her chief occupation during the day wasto try to remember how the lines went:
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave, In twisted braids of lilies knitting The loose train of thy amber dropping hair;
and the effort worried her because the adjectives persisted in gettinginto the wrong places.
The second day did not differ very much from the first day, except thather bed had become very important, and the world outside, when shetried to think of it, appeared distinctly further off. The glassy, cool,translucent wave was almost visible before her, curling up at the endof the bed, and as it was refreshingly cool she tried to keep hermind fixed upon it. Helen was here, and Helen was there all day long;sometimes she said that it was lunchtime, and sometimes that it wasteatime; but by the next day all landmarks were obliterated, and theouter world was so far away that the different sounds, such as thesounds of people moving overhead, could only be ascribed to their causeby a great effort of memory. The recollection of what she had felt, orof what she had been doing and thinking three days before, had fadedentirely. On the other hand, every object in the room, and the beditself, and her own body with its various limbs and their differentsensations were more and more important each day. She was completelycut off, and unable to communicate with the rest of the world, isolatedalone with her body.
Hours and hours would pass thus, without getting any further through themorning, or again a few minutes would lead from broad daylight to thedepths of the night. One evening when the room appeared very dim, eitherbecause it was evening or becau
se the blinds were drawn, Helen said toher, "Some one is going to sit here to-night. You won't mind?"
Opening her eyes, Rachel saw not only Helen but a nurse in spectacles,whose face vaguely recalled something that she had once seen. She hadseen her in the chapel. "Nurse McInnis," said Helen, and the nursesmiled steadily as they all did, and said that she did not find manypeople who were frightened of her. After waiting for a moment they bothdisappeared, and having turned on her pillow Rachel woke to find herselfin the midst of one of those interminable nights which do not end attwelve, but go on into the double figures--thirteen, fourteen, and soon until they reach the twenties, and then the thirties, and then theforties. She realised that there is nothing to prevent nights from doingthis if they choose. At a great distance an elderly woman sat with herhead bent down; Rachel raised herself slightly and saw with dismay thatshe was playing cards by the light of a candle which stood in the hollowof a newspaper. The sight had something inexplicably sinister about it,and she was terrified and cried out, upon which the woman laid downher cards and came across the room, shading the candle with her hands.Coming nearer and nearer across the great space of the room, she stoodat last above Rachel's head and said, "Not asleep? Let me make youcomfortable."
She put down the candle and began to arrange the bedclothes. It struckRachel that a woman who sat playing cards in a cavern all night longwould have very cold hands, and she shrunk from the touch of them.
"Why, there's a toe all the way down there!" the woman said, proceedingto tuck in the bedclothes. Rachel did not realise that the toe was hers.
"You must try and lie still," she proceeded, "because if you lie stillyou will be less hot, and if you toss about you will make yourself morehot, and we don't want you to be any hotter than you are." She stoodlooking down upon Rachel for an enormous length of time.
"And the quieter you lie the sooner you will be well," she repeated.
Rachel kept her eyes fixed upon the peaked shadow on the ceiling, andall her energy was concentrated upon the desire that this shadow shouldmove. But the shadow and the woman seemed to be eternally fixed aboveher. She shut her eyes. When she opened them again several more hourshad passed, but the night still lasted interminably. The woman was stillplaying cards, only she sat now in a tunnel under a river, and the lightstood in a little archway in the wall above her. She cried "Terence!"and the peaked shadow again moved across the ceiling, as the woman withan enormous slow movement rose, and they both stood still above her.
"It's just as difficult to keep you in bed as it was to keep Mr. Forrestin bed," the woman said, "and he was such a tall gentleman."
In order to get rid of this terrible stationary sight Rachel again shuther eyes, and found herself walking through a tunnel under the Thames,where there were little deformed women sitting in archways playingcards, while the bricks of which the wall was made oozed with damp,which collected into drops and slid down the wall. But the little oldwomen became Helen and Nurse McInnis after a time, standing in thewindow together whispering, whispering incessantly.
Meanwhile outside her room the sounds, the movements, and the lives ofthe other people in the house went on in the ordinary light of the sun,throughout the usual succession of hours. When, on the first day of herillness, it became clear that she would not be absolutely well, for hertemperature was very high, until Friday, that day being Tuesday, Terencewas filled with resentment, not against her, but against the forceoutside them which was separating them. He counted up the number of daysthat would almost certainly be spoilt for them. He realised, with an oddmixture of pleasure and annoyance, that, for the first time in his life,he was so dependent upon another person that his happiness was in herkeeping. The days were completely wasted upon trifling, immaterialthings, for after three weeks of such intimacy and intensity all theusual occupations were unbearably flat and beside the point. The leastintolerable occupation was to talk to St. John about Rachel's illness,and to discuss every symptom and its meaning, and, when this subject wasexhausted, to discuss illness of all kinds, and what caused them, andwhat cured them.
Twice every day he went in to sit with Rachel, and twice every day thesame thing happened. On going into her room, which was not very dark,where the music was lying about as usual, and her books and letters, hisspirits rose instantly. When he saw her he felt completely reassured.She did not look very ill. Sitting by her side he would tell her whathe had been doing, using his natural voice to speak to her, only a fewtones lower down than usual; but by the time he had sat there for fiveminutes he was plunged into the deepest gloom. She was not the same;he could not bring them back to their old relationship; but although heknew that it was foolish he could not prevent himself from endeavouringto bring her back, to make her remember, and when this failed he was indespair. He always concluded as he left her room that it was worse tosee her than not to see her, but by degrees, as the day wore on, thedesire to see her returned and became almost too great to be borne.
On Thursday morning when Terence went into her room he felt the usualincrease of confidence. She turned round and made an effort to remembercertain facts from the world that was so many millions of miles away.
"You have come up from the hotel?" she asked.
"No; I'm staying here for the present," he said. "We've just hadluncheon," he continued, "and the mail has come in. There's a bundle ofletters for you--letters from England."
Instead of saying, as he meant her to say, that she wished to see them,she said nothing for some time.
"You see, there they go, rolling off the edge of the hill," she saidsuddenly.
"Rolling, Rachel? What do you see rolling? There's nothing rolling."
"The old woman with the knife," she replied, not speaking to Terencein particular, and looking past him. As she appeared to be looking at avase on the shelf opposite, he rose and took it down.
"Now they can't roll any more," he said cheerfully. Nevertheless she laygazing at the same spot, and paid him no further attention although hespoke to her. He became so profoundly wretched that he could not endureto sit with her, but wandered about until he found St. John, who wasreading _The_ _Times_ in the verandah. He laid it aside patiently, andheard all that Terence had to say about delirium. He was very patientwith Terence. He treated him like a child.
By Friday it could not be denied that the illness was no longer anattack that would pass off in a day or two; it was a real illness thatrequired a good deal of organisation, and engrossed the attention ofat least five people, but there was no reason to be anxious. Insteadof lasting five days it was going to last ten days. Rodriguez wasunderstood to say that there were well-known varieties of this illness.Rodriguez appeared to think that they were treating the illness withundue anxiety. His visits were always marked by the same show ofconfidence, and in his interviews with Terence he always waved asidehis anxious and minute questions with a kind of flourish which seemedto indicate that they were all taking it much too seriously. He seemedcuriously unwilling to sit down.
"A high temperature," he said, looking furtively about the room,and appearing to be more interested in the furniture and in Helen'sembroidery than in anything else. "In this climate you must expect ahigh temperature. You need not be alarmed by that. It is the pulse wego by" (he tapped his own hairy wrist), "and the pulse continuesexcellent."
Thereupon he bowed and slipped out. The interview was conductedlaboriously upon both sides in French, and this, together with thefact that he was optimistic, and that Terence respected the medicalprofession from hearsay, made him less critical than he would have beenhad he encountered the doctor in any other capacity. Unconsciouslyhe took Rodriguez' side against Helen, who seemed to have taken anunreasonable prejudice against him.
When Saturday came it was evident that the hours of the day must be morestrictly organised than they had been. St. John offered his services; hesaid that he had nothing to do, and that he might as well spend theday at the villa if he could be of use. As if they were starting on adifficult expedit
ion together, they parcelled out their duties betweenthem, writing out an elaborate scheme of hours upon a large sheet ofpaper which was pinned to the drawing-room door. Their distance fromthe town, and the difficulty of procuring rare things with unknownnames from the most unexpected places, made it necessary to think verycarefully, and they found it unexpectedly difficult to do the simplebut practical things that were required of them, as if they, being verytall, were asked to stoop down and arrange minute grains of sand in apattern on the ground.
It was St. John's duty to fetch what was needed from the town, sothat Terence would sit all through the long hot hours alone in thedrawing-room, near the open door, listening for any movement upstairs,or call from Helen. He always forgot to pull down the blinds, so that hesat in bright sunshine, which worried him without his knowing what wasthe cause of it. The room was terribly stiff and uncomfortable. Therewere hats in the chairs, and medicine bottles among the books. He triedto read, but good books were too good, and bad books were too bad, andthe only thing he could tolerate was the newspaper, which with itsnews of London, and the movements of real people who were givingdinner-parties and making speeches, seemed to give a little backgroundof reality to what was otherwise mere nightmare. Then, just as hisattention was fixed on the print, a soft call would come from Helen, orMrs. Chailey would bring in something which was wanted upstairs, and hewould run up very quietly in his socks, and put the jug on the littletable which stood crowded with jugs and cups outside the bedroom door;or if he could catch Helen for a moment he would ask, "How is she?"
"Rather restless. . . . On the whole, quieter, I think."
The answer would be one or the other.
As usual she seemed to reserve something which she did not say, andTerence was conscious that they disagreed, and, without saying italoud, were arguing against each other. But she was too hurried andpre-occupied to talk.
The strain of listening and the effort of making practical arrangementsand seeing that things worked smoothly, absorbed all Terence's power.Involved in this long dreary nightmare, he did not attempt to think whatit amounted to. Rachel was ill; that was all; he must see that therewas medicine and milk, and that things were ready when they were wanted.Thought had ceased; life itself had come to a standstill. Sunday wasrather worse than Saturday had been, simply because the strain wasa little greater every day, although nothing else had changed. Theseparate feelings of pleasure, interest, and pain, which combine to makeup the ordinary day, were merged in one long-drawn sensation of sordidmisery and profound boredom. He had never been so bored since he wasshut up in the nursery alone as a child. The vision of Rachel as she wasnow, confused and heedless, had almost obliterated the vision of her asshe had been once long ago; he could hardly believe that they had everbeen happy, or engaged to be married, for what were feelings, whatwas there to be felt? Confusion covered every sight and person, and heseemed to see St. John, Ridley, and the stray people who came up now andthen from the hotel to enquire, through a mist; the only people who werenot hidden in this mist were Helen and Rodriguez, because they couldtell him something definite about Rachel.
Nevertheless the day followed the usual forms. At certain hours theywent into the dining-room, and when they sat round the table they talkedabout indifferent things. St. John usually made it his business to startthe talk and to keep it from dying out.
"I've discovered the way to get Sancho past the white house," said St.John on Sunday at luncheon. "You crackle a piece of paper in his ear,then he bolts for about a hundred yards, but he goes on quite well afterthat."
"Yes, but he wants corn. You should see that he has corn."
"I don't think much of the stuff they give him; and Angelo seems a dirtylittle rascal."
There was then a long silence. Ridley murmured a few lines of poetryunder his breath, and remarked, as if to conceal the fact that he haddone so, "Very hot to-day."
"Two degrees higher than it was yesterday," said St. John. "I wonderwhere these nuts come from," he observed, taking a nut out of the plate,turning it over in his fingers, and looking at it curiously.
"London, I should think," said Terence, looking at the nut too.
"A competent man of business could make a fortune here in no time," St.John continued. "I suppose the heat does something funny to people'sbrains. Even the English go a little queer. Anyhow they're hopelesspeople to deal with. They kept me three-quarters of an hour waiting atthe chemist's this morning, for no reason whatever."
There was another long pause. Then Ridley enquired, "Rodriguez seemssatisfied?"
"Quite," said Terence with decision. "It's just got to run its course."Whereupon Ridley heaved a deep sigh. He was genuinely sorry for everyone, but at the same time he missed Helen considerably, and was a littleaggrieved by the constant presence of the two young men.
They moved back into the drawing-room.
"Look here, Hirst," said Terence, "there's nothing to be done for twohours." He consulted the sheet pinned to the door. "You go and lie down.I'll wait here. Chailey sits with Rachel while Helen has her luncheon."
It was asking a good deal of Hirst to tell him to go without waiting fora sight of Helen. These little glimpses of Helen were the only respitesfrom strain and boredom, and very often they seemed to make up for thediscomfort of the day, although she might not have anything to tellthem. However, as they were on an expedition together, he had made uphis mind to obey.
Helen was very late in coming down. She looked like a person who hasbeen sitting for a long time in the dark. She was pale and thinner,and the expression of her eyes was harassed but determined. She ateher luncheon quickly, and seemed indifferent to what she was doing. Shebrushed aside Terence's enquiries, and at last, as if he had not spoken,she looked at him with a slight frown and said:
"We can't go on like this, Terence. Either you've got to find anotherdoctor, or you must tell Rodriguez to stop coming, and I'll managefor myself. It's no use for him to say that Rachel's better; she's notbetter; she's worse."
Terence suffered a terrific shock, like that which he had suffered whenRachel said, "My head aches." He stilled it by reflecting that Helen wasoverwrought, and he was upheld in this opinion by his obstinate sensethat she was opposed to him in the argument.
"Do you think she's in danger?" he asked.
"No one can go on being as ill as that day after day--" Helen replied.She looked at him, and spoke as if she felt some indignation withsomebody.
"Very well, I'll talk to Rodriguez this afternoon," he replied.
Helen went upstairs at once.
Nothing now could assuage Terence's anxiety. He could not read, norcould he sit still, and his sense of security was shaken, in spite ofthe fact that he was determined that Helen was exaggerating, and thatRachel was not very ill. But he wanted a third person to confirm him inhis belief.
Directly Rodriguez came down he demanded, "Well, how is she? Do youthink her worse?"
"There is no reason for anxiety, I tell you--none," Rodriguez replied inhis execrable French, smiling uneasily, and making little movements allthe time as if to get away.
Hewet stood firmly between him and the door. He was determined to seefor himself what kind of man he was. His confidence in the man vanishedas he looked at him and saw his insignificance, his dirty appearance,his shiftiness, and his unintelligent, hairy face. It was strange thathe had never seen this before.
"You won't object, of course, if we ask you to consult another doctor?"he continued.
At this the little man became openly incensed.
"Ah!" he cried. "You have not confidence in me? You object to mytreatment? You wish me to give up the case?"
"Not at all," Terence replied, "but in serious illness of this kind--"
Rodriguez shrugged his shoulders.
"It is not serious, I assure you. You are overanxious. The young lady isnot seriously ill, and I am a doctor. The lady of course is frightened,"he sneered. "I understand that perfectly."
"The name and address o
f the doctor is--?" Terence continued.
"There is no other doctor," Rodriguez replied sullenly. "Every one hasconfidence in me. Look! I will show you."
He took out a packet of old letters and began turning them over as if insearch of one that would confute Terence's suspicions. As he searched,he began to tell a story about an English lord who had trusted him--agreat English lord, whose name he had, unfortunately, forgotten.
"There is no other doctor in the place," he concluded, still turningover the letters.
"Never mind," said Terence shortly. "I will make enquiries for myself."Rodriguez put the letters back in his pocket.
"Very well," he remarked. "I have no objection."
He lifted his eyebrows, shrugged his shoulders, as if to repeat thatthey took the illness much too seriously and that there was no otherdoctor, and slipped out, leaving behind him an impression that he wasconscious that he was distrusted, and that his malice was aroused.
After this Terence could no longer stay downstairs. He went up, knockedat Rachel's door, and asked Helen whether he might see her for a fewminutes. He had not seen her yesterday. She made no objection, and wentand sat at a table in the window.
Terence sat down by the bedside. Rachel's face was changed. She lookedas though she were entirely concentrated upon the effort of keepingalive. Her lips were drawn, and her cheeks were sunken and flushed,though without colour. Her eyes were not entirely shut, the lower halfof the white part showing, not as if she saw, but as if they remainedopen because she was too much exhausted to close them. She opened themcompletely when he kissed her. But she only saw an old woman slicing aman's head off with a knife.
"There it falls!" she murmured. She then turned to Terence and askedhim anxiously some question about a man with mules, which he could notunderstand. "Why doesn't he come? Why doesn't he come?" she repeated. Hewas appalled to think of the dirty little man downstairs in connectionwith illness like this, and turning instinctively to Helen, but she wasdoing something at a table in the window, and did not seem to realisehow great the shock to him must be. He rose to go, for he could notendure to listen any longer; his heart beat quickly and painfully withanger and misery. As he passed Helen she asked him in the same weary,unnatural, but determined voice to fetch her more ice, and to have thejug outside filled with fresh milk.
When he had done these errands he went to find Hirst. Exhausted and veryhot, St. John had fallen asleep on a bed, but Terence woke him withoutscruple.
"Helen thinks she's worse," he said. "There's no doubt she's frightfullyill. Rodriguez is useless. We must get another doctor."
"But there is no other doctor," said Hirst drowsily, sitting up andrubbing his eyes.
"Don't be a damned fool!" Terence exclaimed. "Of course there's anotherdoctor, and, if there isn't, you've got to find one. It ought to havebeen done days ago. I'm going down to saddle the horse." He could notstay still in one place.
In less than ten minutes St. John was riding to the town in thescorching heat in search of a doctor, his orders being to find one andbring him back if he had to be fetched in a special train.
"We ought to have done it days ago," Hewet repeated angrily.
When he went back into the drawing-room he found that Mrs. Flushing wasthere, standing very erect in the middle of the room, having arrived,as people did in these days, by the kitchen or through the gardenunannounced.
"She's better?" Mrs. Flushing enquired abruptly; they did not attempt toshake hands.
"No," said Terence. "If anything, they think she's worse."
Mrs. Flushing seemed to consider for a moment or two, looking straightat Terence all the time.
"Let me tell you," she said, speaking in nervous jerks, "it's alwaysabout the seventh day one begins to get anxious. I daresay you've beensittin' here worryin' by yourself. You think she's bad, but any onecomin' with a fresh eye would see she was better. Mr. Elliot's hadfever; he's all right now," she threw out. "It wasn't anythin' shecaught on the expedition. What's it matter--a few days' fever? Mybrother had fever for twenty-six days once. And in a week or two he wasup and about. We gave him nothin' but milk and arrowroot--"
Here Mrs. Chailey came in with a message.
"I'm wanted upstairs," said Terence.
"You see--she'll be better," Mrs. Flushing jerked out as he left theroom. Her anxiety to persuade Terence was very great, and when he lefther without saying anything she felt dissatisfied and restless; she didnot like to stay, but she could not bear to go. She wandered from roomto room looking for some one to talk to, but all the rooms were empty.
Terence went upstairs, stood inside the door to take Helen's directions,looked over at Rachel, but did not attempt to speak to her. She appearedvaguely conscious of his presence, but it seemed to disturb her, and sheturned, so that she lay with her back to him.
For six days indeed she had been oblivious of the world outside, becauseit needed all her attention to follow the hot, red, quick sights whichpassed incessantly before her eyes. She knew that it was of enormousimportance that she should attend to these sights and grasp theirmeaning, but she was always being just too late to hear or see somethingwhich would explain it all. For this reason, the faces,--Helen'sface, the nurse's, Terence's, the doctor's,--which occasionally forcedthemselves very close to her, were worrying because they distracted herattention and she might miss the clue. However, on the fourth afternoonshe was suddenly unable to keep Helen's face distinct from the sightsthemselves; her lips widened as she bent down over the bed, and shebegan to gabble unintelligibly like the rest. The sights were allconcerned in some plot, some adventure, some escape. The nature of whatthey were doing changed incessantly, although there was always a reasonbehind it, which she must endeavour to grasp. Now they were among treesand savages, now they were on the sea, now they were on the tops of hightowers; now they jumped; now they flew. But just as the crisis was aboutto happen, something invariably slipped in her brain, so that the wholeeffort had to begin over again. The heat was suffocating. At last thefaces went further away; she fell into a deep pool of sticky water,which eventually closed over her head. She saw nothing and heard nothingbut a faint booming sound, which was the sound of the sea rolling overher head. While all her tormentors thought that she was dead, shewas not dead, but curled up at the bottom of the sea. There she lay,sometimes seeing darkness, sometimes light, while every now and thensome one turned her over at the bottom of the sea.
After St. John had spent some hours in the heat of the sun wranglingwith evasive and very garrulous natives, he extracted the informationthat there was a doctor, a French doctor, who was at present away ona holiday in the hills. It was quite impossible, so they said, to findhim. With his experience of the country, St. John thought it unlikelythat a telegram would either be sent or received; but having reduced thedistance of the hill town, in which he was staying, from a hundred milesto thirty miles, and having hired a carriage and horses, he startedat once to fetch the doctor himself. He succeeded in finding him, andeventually forced the unwilling man to leave his young wife and returnforthwith. They reached the villa at midday on Tuesday.
Terence came out to receive them, and St. John was struck by the factthat he had grown perceptibly thinner in the interval; he was white too;his eyes looked strange. But the curt speech and the sulky masterfulmanner of Dr. Lesage impressed them both favourably, although at thesame time it was obvious that he was very much annoyed at the wholeaffair. Coming downstairs he gave his directions emphatically, but itnever occurred to him to give an opinion either because of the presenceof Rodriguez who was now obsequious as well as malicious, or because hetook it for granted that they knew already what was to be known.
"Of course," he said with a shrug of his shoulders, when Terence askedhim, "Is she very ill?"
They were both conscious of a certain sense of relief when Dr. Lesagewas gone, leaving explicit directions, and promising another visit in afew hours' time; but, unfortunately, the rise of their spirits led themto talk more than usu
al, and in talking they quarrelled. They quarrelledabout a road, the Portsmouth Road. St. John said that it is macadamisedwhere it passes Hindhead, and Terence knew as well as he knew his ownname that it is not macadamised at that point. In the course of theargument they said some very sharp things to each other, and the restof the dinner was eaten in silence, save for an occasional half-stifledreflection from Ridley.
When it grew dark and the lamps were brought in, Terence felt unable tocontrol his irritation any longer. St. John went to bed in a stateof complete exhaustion, bidding Terence good-night with rather moreaffection than usual because of their quarrel, and Ridley retired to hisbooks. Left alone, Terence walked up and down the room; he stood at theopen window.
The lights were coming out one after another in the town beneath, and itwas very peaceful and cool in the garden, so that he stepped out on tothe terrace. As he stood there in the darkness, able only to see theshapes of trees through the fine grey light, he was overcome by a desireto escape, to have done with this suffering, to forget that Rachel wasill. He allowed himself to lapse into forgetfulness of everything. As ifa wind that had been raging incessantly suddenly fell asleep, the fretand strain and anxiety which had been pressing on him passed away.He seemed to stand in an unvexed space of air, on a little island byhimself; he was free and immune from pain. It did not matter whetherRachel was well or ill; it did not matter whether they were apart ortogether; nothing mattered--nothing mattered. The waves beat on theshore far away, and the soft wind passed through the branches of thetrees, seeming to encircle him with peace and security, with dark andnothingness. Surely the world of strife and fret and anxiety was not thereal world, but this was the real world, the world that lay beneath thesuperficial world, so that, whatever happened, one was secure. The quietand peace seemed to lap his body in a fine cool sheet, soothing everynerve; his mind seemed once more to expand, and become natural.
But when he had stood thus for a time a noise in the house roused him;he turned instinctively and went into the drawing-room. The sight of thelamp-lit room brought back so abruptly all that he had forgotten that hestood for a moment unable to move. He remembered everything, the hour,the minute even, what point they had reached, and what was to come.He cursed himself for making believe for a minute that things weredifferent from what they are. The night was now harder to face thanever.
Unable to stay in the empty drawing-room, he wandered out and sat on thestairs half-way up to Rachel's room. He longed for some one to talkto, but Hirst was asleep, and Ridley was asleep; there was no soundin Rachel's room. The only sound in the house was the sound of Chaileymoving in the kitchen. At last there was a rustling on the stairsoverhead, and Nurse McInnis came down fastening the links in her cuffs,in preparation for the night's watch. Terence rose and stopped her. Hehad scarcely spoken to her, but it was possible that she might confirmhim in the belief which still persisted in his own mind that Rachel wasnot seriously ill. He told her in a whisper that Dr. Lesage had been andwhat he had said.
"Now, Nurse," he whispered, "please tell me your opinion. Do youconsider that she is very seriously ill? Is she in any danger?"
"The doctor has said--" she began.
"Yes, but I want your opinion. You have had experience of many caseslike this?"
"I could not tell you more than Dr. Lesage, Mr. Hewet," she repliedcautiously, as though her words might be used against her. "The case isserious, but you may feel quite certain that we are doing all we can forMiss Vinrace." She spoke with some professional self-approbation. Butshe realised perhaps that she did not satisfy the young man, who stillblocked her way, for she shifted her feet slightly upon the stair andlooked out of the window where they could see the moon over the sea.
"If you ask me," she began in a curiously stealthy tone, "I never likeMay for my patients."
"May?" Terence repeated.
"It may be a fancy, but I don't like to see anybody fall ill in May,"she continued. "Things seem to go wrong in May. Perhaps it's the moon.They say the moon affects the brain, don't they, Sir?"
He looked at her but he could not answer her; like all the others, whenone looked at her she seemed to shrivel beneath one's eyes and becomeworthless, malicious, and untrustworthy.
She slipped past him and disappeared.
Though he went to his room he was unable even to take his clothes off.For a long time he paced up and down, and then leaning out of the windowgazed at the earth which lay so dark against the paler blue of the sky.With a mixture of fear and loathing he looked at the slim black cypresstrees which were still visible in the garden, and heard the unfamiliarcreaking and grating sounds which show that the earth is still hot.All these sights and sounds appeared sinister and full of hostility andforeboding; together with the natives and the nurse and the doctor andthe terrible force of the illness itself they seemed to be in conspiracyagainst him. They seemed to join together in their effort to extract thegreatest possible amount of suffering from him. He could not get used tohis pain, it was a revelation to him. He had never realised before thatunderneath every action, underneath the life of every day, pain lies,quiescent, but ready to devour; he seemed to be able to see suffering,as if it were a fire, curling up over the edges of all action, eatingaway the lives of men and women. He thought for the first time withunderstanding of words which had before seemed to him empty: thestruggle of life; the hardness of life. Now he knew for himself thatlife is hard and full of suffering. He looked at the scattered lights inthe town beneath, and thought of Arthur and Susan, or Evelyn and Perrottventuring out unwittingly, and by their happiness laying themselvesopen to suffering such as this. How did they dare to love each other, hewondered; how had he himself dared to live as he had lived, rapidly andcarelessly, passing from one thing to another, loving Rachel as he hadloved her? Never again would he feel secure; he would never believe inthe stability of life, or forget what depths of pain lie beneath smallhappiness and feelings of content and safety. It seemed to him as helooked back that their happiness had never been so great as his painwas now. There had always been something imperfect in their happiness,something they had wanted and had not been able to get. It had beenfragmentary and incomplete, because they were so young and had not knownwhat they were doing.
The light of his candle flickered over the boughs of a tree outside thewindow, and as the branch swayed in the darkness there came before hismind a picture of all the world that lay outside his window; he thoughtof the immense river and the immense forest, the vast stretches of dryearth and the plains of the sea that encircled the earth; from the seathe sky rose steep and enormous, and the air washed profoundly betweenthe sky and the sea. How vast and dark it must be tonight, lying exposedto the wind; and in all this great space it was curious to think howfew the towns were, and how small little rings of light, or singleglow-worms he figured them, scattered here and there, among the swellinguncultivated folds of the world. And in those towns were little men andwomen, tiny men and women. Oh, it was absurd, when one thought of it,to sit here in a little room suffering and caring. What did anythingmatter? Rachel, a tiny creature, lay ill beneath him, and here in hislittle room he suffered on her account. The nearness of their bodies inthis vast universe, and the minuteness of their bodies, seemed to himabsurd and laughable. Nothing mattered, he repeated; they had no power,no hope. He leant on the window-sill, thinking, until he almost forgotthe time and the place. Nevertheless, although he was convinced thatit was absurd and laughable, and that they were small and hopeless, henever lost the sense that these thoughts somehow formed part of a lifewhich he and Rachel would live together.
Owing perhaps to the change of doctor, Rachel appeared to be ratherbetter next day. Terribly pale and worn though Helen looked, there was aslight lifting of the cloud which had hung all these days in her eyes.
"She talked to me," she said voluntarily. "She asked me what day of theweek it was, like herself."
Then suddenly, without any warning or any apparent reason, the tearsformed in her eyes and rol
led steadily down her cheeks. She criedwith scarcely any attempt at movement of her features, and without anyattempt to stop herself, as if she did not know that she was crying. Inspite of the relief which her words gave him, Terence was dismayed bythe sight; had everything given way? Were there no limits to the powerof this illness? Would everything go down before it? Helen had alwaysseemed to him strong and determined, and now she was like a child. Hetook her in his arms, and she clung to him like a child, crying softlyand quietly upon his shoulder. Then she roused herself and wiped hertears away; it was silly to behave like that, she said; very silly, sherepeated, when there could be no doubt that Rachel was better. She askedTerence to forgive her for her folly. She stopped at the door and cameback and kissed him without saying anything.
On this day indeed Rachel was conscious of what went on round her. Shehad come to the surface of the dark, sticky pool, and a wave seemed tobear her up and down with it; she had ceased to have any will of herown; she lay on the top of the wave conscious of some pain, but chieflyof weakness. The wave was replaced by the side of a mountain. Her bodybecame a drift of melting snow, above which her knees rose in hugepeaked mountains of bare bone. It was true that she saw Helen and sawher room, but everything had become very pale and semi-transparent.Sometimes she could see through the wall in front of her. Sometimes whenHelen went away she seemed to go so far that Rachel's eyes could hardlyfollow her. The room also had an odd power of expanding, and though shepushed her voice out as far as possible until sometimes it became abird and flew away, she thought it doubtful whether it ever reached theperson she was talking to. There were immense intervals or chasms, forthings still had the power to appear visibly before her, between onemoment and the next; it sometimes took an hour for Helen to raise herarm, pausing long between each jerky movement, and pour out medicine.Helen's form stooping to raise her in bed appeared of gigantic size, andcame down upon her like the ceiling falling. But for long spaces of timeshe would merely lie conscious of her body floating on the top of thebed and her mind driven to some remote corner of her body, or escapedand gone flitting round the room. All sights were something of aneffort, but the sight of Terence was the greatest effort, because heforced her to join mind to body in the desire to remember something. Shedid not wish to remember; it troubled her when people tried to disturbher loneliness; she wished to be alone. She wished for nothing else inthe world.
Although she had cried, Terence observed Helen's greater hopefulnesswith something like triumph; in the argument between them she had madethe first sign of admitting herself in the wrong. He waited for Dr.Lesage to come down that afternoon with considerable anxiety, but withthe same certainty at the back of his mind that he would in time forcethem all to admit that they were in the wrong.
As usual, Dr. Lesage was sulky in his manner and very short in hisanswers. To Terence's demand, "She seems to be better?" he replied,looking at him in an odd way, "She has a chance of life."
The door shut and Terence walked across to the window. He leant hisforehead against the pane.
"Rachel," he repeated to himself. "She has a chance of life. Rachel."
How could they say these things of Rachel? Had any one yesterdayseriously believed that Rachel was dying? They had been engaged for fourweeks. A fortnight ago she had been perfectly well. What could fourteendays have done to bring her from that state to this? To realise whatthey meant by saying that she had a chance of life was beyond him,knowing as he did that they were engaged. He turned, still enveloped inthe same dreary mist, and walked towards the door. Suddenly he saw itall. He saw the room and the garden, and the trees moving in the air,they could go on without her; she could die. For the first time sinceshe fell ill he remembered exactly what she looked like and the way inwhich they cared for each other. The immense happiness of feeling herclose to him mingled with a more intense anxiety than he had felt yet.He could not let her die; he could not live without her. But after amomentary struggle, the curtain fell again, and he saw nothing and feltnothing clearly. It was all going on--going on still, in the same way asbefore. Save for a physical pain when his heart beat, and the fact thathis fingers were icy cold, he did not realise that he was anxious aboutanything. Within his mind he seemed to feel nothing about Rachel orabout any one or anything in the world. He went on giving orders,arranging with Mrs. Chailey, writing out lists, and every now and thenhe went upstairs and put something quietly on the table outside Rachel'sdoor. That night Dr. Lesage seemed to be less sulky than usual. Hestayed voluntarily for a few moments, and, addressing St. John andTerence equally, as if he did not remember which of them was engaged tothe young lady, said, "I consider that her condition to-night is verygrave."
Neither of them went to bed or suggested that the other should go tobed. They sat in the drawing-room playing picquet with the door open.St. John made up a bed upon the sofa, and when it was ready insistedthat Terence should lie upon it. They began to quarrel as to who shouldlie on the sofa and who should lie upon a couple of chairs covered withrugs. St. John forced Terence at last to lie down upon the sofa.
"Don't be a fool, Terence," he said. "You'll only get ill if you don'tsleep."
"Old fellow," he began, as Terence still refused, and stopped abruptly,fearing sentimentality; he found that he was on the verge of tears.
He began to say what he had long been wanting to say, that he was sorryfor Terence, that he cared for him, that he cared for Rachel. Did sheknow how much he cared for her--had she said anything, asked perhaps? Hewas very anxious to say this, but he refrained, thinking that it was aselfish question after all, and what was the use of bothering Terence totalk about such things? He was already half asleep. But St. John couldnot sleep at once. If only, he thought to himself, as he lay in thedarkness, something would happen--if only this strain would come to anend. He did not mind what happened, so long as the succession of thesehard and dreary days was broken; he did not mind if she died. He felthimself disloyal in not minding it, but it seemed to him that he had nofeelings left.
All night long there was no call or movement, except the opening andshutting of the bedroom door once. By degrees the light returned intothe untidy room. At six the servants began to move; at seven they creptdownstairs into the kitchen; and half an hour later the day began again.
Nevertheless it was not the same as the days that had gone before,although it would have been hard to say in what the differenceconsisted. Perhaps it was that they seemed to be waiting for something.There were certainly fewer things to be done than usual. People driftedthrough the drawing-room--Mr. Flushing, Mr. and Mrs. Thornbury. Theyspoke very apologetically in low tones, refusing to sit down, butremaining for a considerable time standing up, although the only thingthey had to say was, "Is there anything we can do?" and there wasnothing they could do.
Feeling oddly detached from it all, Terence remembered how Helen hadsaid that whenever anything happened to you this was how people behaved.Was she right, or was she wrong? He was too little interested to framean opinion of his own. He put things away in his mind, as if one ofthese days he would think about them, but not now. The mist of unrealityhad deepened and deepened until it had produced a feeling of numbnessall over his body. Was it his body? Were those really his own hands?
This morning also for the first time Ridley found it impossible to sitalone in his room. He was very uncomfortable downstairs, and, as hedid not know what was going on, constantly in the way; but he would notleave the drawing-room. Too restless to read, and having nothing to do,he began to pace up and down reciting poetry in an undertone. Occupiedin various ways--now in undoing parcels, now in uncorking bottles, nowin writing directions, the sound of Ridley's song and the beat of hispacing worked into the minds of Terence and St. John all the morning asa half comprehended refrain.
They wrestled up, they wrestled down, They wrestled sore and still: The fiend who blinds the eyes of men, That night he had his will.
Like stags full spent, among the bent They dro
pped awhile to rest--
"Oh, it's intolerable!" Hirst exclaimed, and then checked himself, as ifit were a breach of their agreement. Again and again Terence would creephalf-way up the stairs in case he might be able to glean news of Rachel.But the only news now was of a very fragmentary kind; she had drunksomething; she had slept a little; she seemed quieter. In the same way,Dr. Lesage confined himself to talking about details, save once whenhe volunteered the information that he had just been called in toascertain, by severing a vein in the wrist, that an old lady ofeighty-five was really dead. She had a horror of being buried alive.
"It is a horror," he remarked, "that we generally find in the very old,and seldom in the young." They both expressed their interest in what hetold them; it seemed to them very strange. Another strange thing aboutthe day was that the luncheon was forgotten by all of them until it waslate in the afternoon, and then Mrs. Chailey waited on them, and lookedstrange too, because she wore a stiff print dress, and her sleeves wererolled up above her elbows. She seemed as oblivious of her appearance,however, as if she had been called out of her bed by a midnight alarmof fire, and she had forgotten, too, her reserve and her composure; shetalked to them quite familiarly as if she had nursed them and held themnaked on her knee. She assured them over and over again that it wastheir duty to eat.
The afternoon, being thus shortened, passed more quickly than theyexpected. Once Mrs. Flushing opened the door, but on seeing them shut itagain quickly; once Helen came down to fetch something, but she stoppedas she left the room to look at a letter addressed to her. She stood fora moment turning it over, and the extraordinary and mournful beautyof her attitude struck Terence in the way things struck him now--assomething to be put away in his mind and to be thought about afterwards.They scarcely spoke, the argument between them seeming to be suspendedor forgotten.
Now that the afternoon sun had left the front of the house, Ridley pacedup and down the terrace repeating stanzas of a long poem, in a subduedbut suddenly sonorous voice. Fragments of the poem were wafted in at theopen window as he passed and repassed.
Peor and Baalim Forsake their Temples dim, With that twice batter'd God of Palestine And mooned Astaroth--
The sound of these words were strangely discomforting to both the youngmen, but they had to be borne. As the evening drew on and the redlight of the sunset glittered far away on the sea, the same sense ofdesperation attacked both Terence and St. John at the thought that theday was nearly over, and that another night was at hand. The appearanceof one light after another in the town beneath them produced in Hirst arepetition of his terrible and disgusting desire to break down and sob.Then the lamps were brought in by Chailey. She explained that Maria, inopening a bottle, had been so foolish as to cut her arm badly, but shehad bound it up; it was unfortunate when there was so much work to bedone. Chailey herself limped because of the rheumatism in her feet, butit appeared to her mere waste of time to take any notice of the unrulyflesh of servants. The evening went on. Dr. Lesage arrived unexpectedly,and stayed upstairs a very long time. He came down once and drank a cupof coffee.
"She is very ill," he said in answer to Ridley's question. All theannoyance had by this time left his manner, he was grave and formal, butat the same time it was full of consideration, which had not markedit before. He went upstairs again. The three men sat together in thedrawing-room. Ridley was quite quiet now, and his attention seemed tobe thoroughly awakened. Save for little half-voluntary movements andexclamations that were stifled at once, they waited in complete silence.It seemed as if they were at last brought together face to face withsomething definite.
It was nearly eleven o'clock when Dr. Lesage again appeared in the room.He approached them very slowly, and did not speak at once. He lookedfirst at St. John and then at Terence, and said to Terence, "Mr. Hewet,I think you should go upstairs now."
Terence rose immediately, leaving the others seated with Dr. Lesagestanding motionless between them.
Chailey was in the passage outside, repeating over and over again, "It'swicked--it's wicked."
Terence paid her no attention he heard what she was saying, but itconveyed no meaning to his mind. All the way upstairs he kept saying tohimself, "This has not happened to me. It is not possible that this hashappened to me."
He looked curiously at his own hand on the banisters. The stairs werevery steep, and it seemed to take him a long time to surmount them.Instead of feeling keenly, as he knew that he ought to feel, he feltnothing at all. When he opened the door he saw Helen sitting by thebedside. There were shaded lights on the table, and the room, thoughit seemed to be full of a great many things, was very tidy. There was afaint and not unpleasant smell of disinfectants. Helen rose and gave upher chair to him in silence. As they passed each other their eyes met ina peculiar level glance, he wondered at the extraordinary clearness ofhis eyes, and at the deep calm and sadness that dwelt in them. He satdown by the bedside, and a moment afterwards heard the door shut gentlybehind her. He was alone with Rachel, and a faint reflection of thesense of relief that they used to feel when they were left alonepossessed him. He looked at her. He expected to find some terriblechange in her, but there was none. She looked indeed very thin, and, asfar as he could see, very tired, but she was the same as she had alwaysbeen. Moreover, she saw him and knew him. She smiled at him and said,"Hullo, Terence."
The curtain which had been drawn between them for so long vanishedimmediately.
"Well, Rachel," he replied in his usual voice, upon which she opened hereyes quite widely and smiled with her familiar smile. He kissed her andtook her hand.
"It's been wretched without you," he said.
She still looked at him and smiled, but soon a slight look of fatigue orperplexity came into her eyes and she shut them again.
"But when we're together we're perfectly happy," he said. He continuedto hold her hand.
The light being dim, it was impossible to see any change in her face.An immense feeling of peace came over Terence, so that he had no wishto move or to speak. The terrible torture and unreality of the last dayswere over, and he had come out now into perfect certainty and peace. Hismind began to work naturally again and with great ease. The longer hesat there the more profoundly was he conscious of the peace invadingevery corner of his soul. Once he held his breath and listened acutely;she was still breathing; he went on thinking for some time; they seemedto be thinking together; he seemed to be Rachel as well as himself;and then he listened again; no, she had ceased to breathe. So much thebetter--this was death. It was nothing; it was to cease to breathe.It was happiness, it was perfect happiness. They had now what they hadalways wanted to have, the union which had been impossible while theylived. Unconscious whether he thought the words or spoke them aloud, hesaid, "No two people have ever been so happy as we have been. No one hasever loved as we have loved."
It seemed to him that their complete union and happiness filled the roomwith rings eddying more and more widely. He had no wish in the worldleft unfulfilled. They possessed what could never be taken from them.
He was not conscious that any one had come into the room, but later,moments later, or hours later perhaps, he felt an arm behind him. Thearms were round him. He did not want to have arms round him, and themysterious whispering voices annoyed him. He laid Rachel's hand, whichwas now cold, upon the counterpane, and rose from his chair, and walkedacross to the window. The windows were uncurtained, and showed the moon,and a long silver pathway upon the surface of the waves.
"Why," he said, in his ordinary tone of voice, "look at the moon.There's a halo round the moon. We shall have rain to-morrow."
The arms, whether they were the arms of man or of woman, were round himagain; they were pushing him gently towards the door. He turned of hisown accord and walked steadily in advance of the arms, conscious ofa little amusement at the strange way in which people behaved merelybecause some one was dead. He would go if they wished it, but nothingthey could do would disturb his happiness.
br /> As he saw the passage outside the room, and the table with the cups andthe plates, it suddenly came over him that here was a world in which hewould never see Rachel again.
"Rachel! Rachel!" he shrieked, trying to rush back to her. But theyprevented him, and pushed him down the passage and into a bedroom farfrom her room. Downstairs they could hear the thud of his feet on thefloor, as he struggled to break free; and twice they heard him shout,"Rachel, Rachel!"