“There is only one man who can give Donal’s child what his father would have given him,” he went on.
“Who is he?” she asked.
“I am the man,” he answered, and he stood quite still.
“How—can you do it?” she asked again.
“I can marry you,” his clear, aloof voice replied.
“You!—You!—You!” she only breathed it out—but it was a cry.
Then he held up his hand as if to calm her.
“I told you in the wood that hatred was useless now and that your reason for hating me had no foundation. I know how you will abhor what I suggest. But it will not be as bad as it seems. You need not even endure the ignominy of being known as the Marchioness of Coombe. But when I am dead Donal’s son will be my successor. It will not be held against him that I married his beautiful young mother and chose to keep the matter a secret. I have long been known as a peculiar person given to arranging my affairs according to my own liking. The Head of the House of Coombe”—with an ironic twitch of the mouth—“ will have the law on his side and will not be asked for explanations. A romantic story will add to public interest in him. If your child is a daughter she will be protected. She will not be lonely, she will have friends. She will have all the chances of happiness a girl naturally longs for—all of them. Because you are her mother.”
Robin rose and stood before him as involuntarily as she had risen before, but now she looked different. Her hands were wrung together and she was the blanched embodiment of terror. She remembered things Fräulein Hirsh had said.
“I could not marry you—if I were to be killed because I didn’t,” was all she could say. Because marriage had meant only Donal and the dream, and being saved from the world this one man had represented to her girl mind.
“You say that because you have no doubt heard that it has been rumoured that I have a depraved old man’s fancy for you and that I have always hoped to marry you. That is as false as the other story I denied. I am not in love with you even in an antediluvian way. You would not marry me for your own sake. That goes without saying. But I will repeat what I said in the Wood when you told me you would believe me. There is Something—not you—not Donal—to be saved from suffering.”
“That is true,” the Duchess said and put out her hand as before. “And there is something longer drawn out and more miserable than mere dying—a dreary outcast sort of life. We know more about such things than you do.”
“You may better comprehend my action if I add a purely selfish reason for it,” Coombe went on. “I will give you one. I do not wish to be the last Marquis of Coombe.”
He took from the table a piece of paper. He had actually made notes upon it.
“Do not be alarmed by this formality,” he said. “I wish to spare words. If you consent to the performance of a private ceremony you will not be required to see me again unless you yourself request it. I have a quiet place in a remote part of Scotland where you can live with Dowie to take care of you. Dowie can be trusted and will understand what I tell her. You will be safe. You will be left alone. You will be known as a young widow. There are young widows everywhere.”
Her eyes had not for a moment left his. By the time he had ended they looked immense in her thin and white small face. Her old horror of him had been founded on a false belief in things which had not existed, but a feeling which has lasted almost a lifetime has formed for itself an atmosphere from whose influence it is not easy to escape. And he stood now before her looking as he had always looked when she had felt him to be the finely finished embodiment of evil. But—
“You are—doing it—for Donal,” she faltered.
“You yourself would be doing it for Donal,” he answered.
“Yes. And—I do not matter.”
“Donal’s wife and the mother of Donal’s boy or girl matters very much,” he gave back to her. He did not alter the impassive aloofness of his manner, knowing that it was better not to do so. An astute nerve specialist might have used the same method with a patient.
There was a moment or so of silence in which the immense eyes gazed before her almost through him—piteously.
“I will do anything I am told to do,” she said at last. After she had said it she turned and looked at the Duchess.
The Duchess held out both her hands. They were held so far apart that it seemed almost as if they were her arms. Robin swept towards the broad footstool but reaching it she pushed it aside and knelt down laying her face upon the silken lap sobbing soft and low.
“All the world is covered with dead—beautiful boys!” her sobbing said. “All alone and dead—dead!”
Chapter 20
No immediate change was made in her life during the days that followed. She sat at her desk, writing letters, referring to notes and lists and answering questions as sweetly and faithfully as she had always done from the first. She tried to remember every detail and she also tried to keep before her mind that she must not let people guess that she was thinking of other things—or rather trying not to think of them. It was as though she stood guard over a dark background of thought, of which others must know nothing. It was a background which belonged to herself and which would always be there. Sometimes when she lifted her eyes she found the Duchess looking at her and then she realised that the Duchess knew it was there too.
She began to notice that almost everybody looked at her in a kindly slightly troubled way. Very important matrons and busy excited girls who ran in and out on errands had the same order of rather evasive glance.
“You have no cough, my dear, have you?” more than one amiable grand lady asked her.
“No, thank you—none at all,” Robin answered and she was nearly always patted on the shoulder as her questioner left her.
Kathryn sitting by her desk one morning, watching her as she wrote a note, suddenly put her hand out and stopped her.
“Let me look at your wrist, Robin,” she said and she took it between her fingers.
“Oh! What a little wrist!” she exclaimed. “I—I am sure Grandmamma has not seen it. Grandmamma—” aloud to the Duchess, “Have you seen Robin’s wrist? It looks as if it would snap in two.”
There were only three or four people in the room and they were all intimates and looked interested.
“It is only that I am a little thin,” said Robin. “Everybody is thinner than usual. It is nothing.”
The Duchess’ kind look somehow took in those about her in her answer.
“You are too thin, my dear,” she said. “I must tell you frankly, Kathryn, that you will be called upon to take her place. I am going to send her away into the wilds. The War only ceases for people who are sent into wild places. Dr. Redcliff is quite fixed in that opinion. People who need taking care of must be literally hidden away in corners where war vibrations cannot reach them. He has sent Emily Clare away and even her friends do not know where she is.”
Later in the day Lady Lothwell came and in the course of a few minutes drew near to her mother and sat by her chair rather closely. She spoke in a lowered voice.
“I am so glad, mamma darling, that you are going to send poor little Miss Lawless into retreat for a rest cure,” she began. “It’s so tactless to continually chivy people about their health, but I own that I can scarcely resist saying to the child every time I see her, ‘Are you any better today?’ or, ‘Have you any cough?’ or, ‘How is your appetite?’ I have not wanted to trouble you about her but the truth is we all find ourselves talking her over. The point of her chin is growing actually sharp. What is Mrs. Gareth-Lawless doing?” curtly.
“Giving dinners and bridge parties to officers on leave. Robin never sees her.”
“Of course the woman does not want her about. She is too lovely for officers’ bridge parties,” rather sharply again.
“Mrs. Gareth-Lawless is not the person one would naturally turn to for sympathy in trouble. Illness would present itself to her mind as a sort of outrage.” The Duchess herself spok
e in a low tone and her eyes wandered for a moment or so to the corner where Robin sat among her papers.
“She is a sensitive child,” she said, “ and I have not wanted to alarm her by telling her she must give up the work her heart is in. I have seen for some time that she must have an entire holiday and that she must leave London behind her utterly for a while. Dr. Redcliff knows of the right remote sort of place for her. It is really quite settled. She will do as I advise her. She is very obedient.”
“Mamma,” murmured Lady Lothwell who was furtively regarding Robin also—and it must be confessed with a dewy eye—“I suppose it is because I have Kathryn—but I feel a sort of pull at my heart when I remember how the little thing bloomed only a few months ago! She was radiant with life and joy and youngness. It’s the contrast that almost frightens one. Something has actually gone. Does Doctor Redcliff think—Could she be going to die? Somehow,” with a tremulous breath, “one always thinks of death now.”
“No! No!” the Duchess answered. “Dr. Redcliff says she is not in real danger. Nourishment and relaxed strain and quiet will supply what she needs. But I will ask you, Millicent, to explain to people. I am too tired to answer questions. I realise that I have actually begun to love the child and I don’t want to hear amiable people continuously suggesting the probability that she is in galloping consumption—and proposing remedies.”
“Will she go soon?” Lady Lothwell asked.
“As soon as Dr. Redcliff has decided between two heavenly little places—one in Scotland and one in Wales. Perhaps next week or a week later. Things must be prepared for her comfort.”
Lady Lothwell went home and talked a little to Kathryn who listened with sympathetic intelligence.
“It would have been better not to have noticed her poor little wrists,” she said. “Years ago I believe that telling people that they looked ill and asking anxiously about their symptoms was regarded as a form of affection and politeness, but it isn’t done at all now.”
“I know, mamma!” Kathryn returned remorsefully. “But somehow there was something so pathetic in her little thin hand writing so fast—and the way her eyelashes lay on a sort of hollow of shadow instead of a soft cheek—I took it in suddenly all at once—And I almost burst out crying without intending to do it. Oh, mamma!” throwing out her hand to clutch her mother’s, “Since—since George—! I seem to cry so suddenly! Don’t—don’t you?”
“Yes—yes!” as they slipped into each other’s arms. “We all do—everybody—everybody!”
Their weeping was not loud but soft. Kathryn’s girl voice had a low violin-string wail in it and was infinitely touching in its innocent love and pity.
“It’s because one feels as if it couldn’t be true—as if he must be somewhere! George—good nice George. So good looking and happy and silly and dear! And we played and fought together when we were children. Oh! To kill George—George!”
When they sat upright again with wet eyes and faces Kathryn added,
“And he was only one! And that beautiful Donal Muir who danced with Robin at Grandmamma’s party! And people actually stared at them, they looked so happy and beautiful.” She paused and thought a moment. “Do you know, mamma, I couldn’t help believing he would fall in love with her if he saw her often—and I wondered what Lord Coombe would think. But he never did see her again. And now—! You know what they said about—not even finding him!”
“It is better that they did not meet again. If they had it would be easy to understand why the poor girl looks so ill.”
“Yes, I’m glad for her that it isn’t that. That would have been much worse. Being sent away to quiet places to rest might have been no good.”
“But even as it is, mamma is more anxious I am sure than she likes to own to herself. You and I must manage to convey to people that it is better not even to verge on making fussy inquiries. Mamma has too many burdens on her mind to be as calm as she used to be.”
It was an entirely uncomplicated situation. It became understood that the Duchess had become much attached to her companion as a result of her sweet faithfulness to her work. She and Dr. Redcliff had taken her in charge and prepared for her comfort and well-being in the most complete manner. A few months would probably end in a complete recovery. There were really no special questions even for the curious to ask and no one was curious. There was no time for curiosity. So Robin disappeared from her place at the small desk in the corner of the Duchess’ sitting room and Kathryn took her place and used her pen.
Chapter 21
In the front window of one of the row of little flat-faced brick houses on a narrow street in Manchester, Dowie sat holding Henrietta’s new baby upon her lap. They were what is known as “ weekly” houses, their rent being paid by the week and they were very small. There was a parlour about the size of a compartment in a workbox, there was a still smaller room behind it which was called a dining room and there was a diminutive kitchen in which all the meals were eaten unless there was “company to tea” which in these days was almost unknown. Dowie had felt it very small when she first came to it from the fine spaces and heights of the house in Eaton Square and found it seemingly full of very small children and a hysterically weeping girl awaiting the impending arrival of one who would be smaller than the rest.
“You’ll never stay here,” said Henrietta, crying and clutching the untidy half-buttoned front of her blouse. “ You come straight from duchesses and grandeur and you don’t know how people like us live. How can you stand us and our dirt, Aunt Sarah Ann?”
“There needn’t be dirt, Henrietta, my girl,” said Dowie with quite uncritical courage. “There wouldn’t be if you were yourself, poor lass. I’m not a duchess, you know. I’ve only been a respectable servant. And I’m going to see you through your trouble.”
Her sober, kindly capableness evolved from the slovenly little house and the untended children, from the dusty rooms and neglected kitchen the kind of order and neatness which had been plain to see in Robin’s more fortune-favoured apartment. The children became as fresh and neat as Robin’s nursery self. They wore clean pinafores and began to behave tidily at table.
“I don’t know how you do it, Aunt Sarah Ann,” sighed Henrietta. But she washed her blouse and put buttons on it.
“It’s just seeing things and picking up and giving a touch here and there,” said Dowie. She bought little comforts almost every day and Henrietta was cheered by cups of hot tea in the afternoon and found herself helping to prepare decent meals and sitting down to them with appetite before a clean tablecloth. She began to look better and recovered her pleasure in sitting at the front window to watch the people passing by and notice how many new black dresses and bonnets went to church each Sunday.
When the new baby was born there was neither turmoil nor terror.
“Somehow it was different from the other times. It seemed sort of natural,” Henrietta said. “And it’s so quiet to lie like this in a comfortable clean bed, with everything in its place and nothing upset in the room. And a bright bit of fire in the grate—and a tidy, swept-up hearth—and the baby breathing so soft in his flannels.”
She was a pretty thing and quite unfit to take care of herself even if she had had no children. Dowie knew that she was not beset by sentimental views of life and that all she wanted was a warm and comfortable corner to settle down into. Some masculine creature would be sure to begin to want her very soon. It was only to be hoped that youth and flightiness would not descend upon her—though three children might be supposed to form a barrier. But she had a girlish figure and her hair was reddish gold and curly and her full and not too small mouth was red and curly also. The first time she went to church in her little widow’s bonnet with the reddish gold showing itself under the pathetic little white crêpe border, she was looked at a good deal. Especially was she looked at by an extremely respectable middle-aged widower who had been a friend of her dead husband’s. His wife had been dead six years, he had a comfortable house and a comfo
rtable shop which had thriven greatly through a connection with army supplies.
He came to see Henrietta and he had the good sense to treat Dowie as if she were her mother. He explained himself and his circumstances to her and his previous friendship for her nephew. He asked Dowie if she objected to his coming to see her niece and bringing toys to the children.
“I’m fond of young ones. I wanted ’em myself. I never had any,” he said bluntly. “There’s plenty of room in my house. It’s a cheerful place with good solid furniture in it from top to bottom. There’s one room we used to call ‘the Nursery’ sometimes just for a joke—not often. I choked up one day when I said it and Mary Jane burst out crying. I could do with six.”
He was stout about the waist but his small blue eyes sparkled in his red face and Henrietta’s slimness unromantically but practically approved of him.
One evening Dowie came into the little parlour to find her sitting upon his knee and he restrained her when she tried to rise hastily.
“Don’t get up, Hetty,” he said. “Your Aunt Sarah Ann’ll understand. We’ve had a talk and she’s a sensible woman. She says she’ll marry me, Mrs. Dowson—as soon as it’s right and proper.”
“Yes, we’ve had a talk,” Dowie replied in her nice steady voice. “He’ll be a good husband to you, Henrietta—kind to the children.”
“I’d be kind to them even if she wouldn’t marry me,” the stout lover answered. “ I want ’em. I’ve told myself sometimes that I ought to have been the mother of six—not the father but the mother. And I’m not joking.”
“I don’t believe you are, Mr. Jenkinson,” said Dowie.
As she sat before the window in the scrap of a parlour and held the sleeping new baby on her comfortable lap, she was thinking of this and feeling glad that poor Jem’s widow and children were so well provided for. It would be highly respectable and proper. The ardour of Mr. Jenkinson would not interfere with his waiting until Henrietta’s weeds could be decorously laid aside and then the family would be joyfully established in his well-furnished and decent house. During his probation he would visit Henrietta and bring presents to the children and unostentatiously protect them all and “do” for them.