III
Mabel remembered her husband's advice to watch, and for a few days didher best. But there was nothing that alarmed her. The old lady was alittle quiet, perhaps, but went about her minute affairs as usual. Sheasked the girl to read to her sometimes, and listened unblenching towhatever was offered her; she attended in the kitchen daily, organisedvarieties of food, and appeared interested in all that concerned herson. She packed his bag with her own hands, set out his furs for theswift flight to Paris, and waved to him from the window as he went downthe little path towards the junction. He would be gone three days, hesaid.
It was on the evening of the second day that she fell ill; and Mabel,running upstairs, in alarm at the message of the servant, found herrather flushed and agitated in her chair.
"It is nothing, my dear," said the old lady tremulously; and she addedthe description of a symptom or two.
Mabel got her to bed, sent for the doctor, and sat down to wait.
She was sincerely fond of the old lady, and had always found herpresence in the house a quiet sort of delight. The effect of her uponthe mind was as that of an easy-chair upon the body. The old lady was sotranquil and human, so absorbed in small external matters, soreminiscent now and then of the days of her youth, so utterly withoutresentment or peevishness. It seemed curiously pathetic to the girl towatch that quiet old spirit approach its extinction, or rather, as Mabelbelieved, its loss of personality in the reabsorption into the Spirit ofLife which informed the world. She found less difficulty incontemplating the end of a vigorous soul, for in that case she imagineda kind of energetic rush of force back into the origin of things; but inthis peaceful old lady there was so little energy; her whole point, soto speak, lay in the delicate little fabric of personality, built out offragile things into an entity far more significant than the sum of itscomponent parts: the death of a flower, reflected Mabel, is sadder thanthe death of a lion; the breaking of a piece of china more irreparablethan the ruin of a palace.
"It is syncope," said the doctor when he came in. "She may die at anytime; she may live ten years."
"There is no need to telegraph for Mr. Brand?"
He made a little deprecating movement with his hands.
"It is not certain that she will die--it is not imminent?" she asked.
"No, no; she may live ten years, I said."
He added a word or two of advice as to the use of the oxygen injector,and went away.
* * * * *
The old lady was lying quietly in bed, when the girl went up, and putout a wrinkled hand.
"Well, my dear?" she asked.
"It is just a little weakness, mother. You must lie quiet and donothing. Shall I read to you?"
"No, my dear; I will think a little."
It was no part of Mabel's idea to duty to tell her that she was indanger, for there was no past to set straight, no Judge to beconfronted. Death was an ending, not a beginning. It was a peacefulGospel; at least, it became peaceful as soon as the end had come.
So the girl went downstairs once more, with a quiet little ache at herheart that refused to be still.
What a strange and beautiful thing death was, she told herself--thisresolution of a chord that had hung suspended for thirty, fifty orseventy years--back again into the stillness of the huge Instrument thatwas all in all to itself. Those same notes would be struck again, werebeing struck again even now all over the world, though with an infinitedelicacy of difference in the touch; but that particular emotion wasgone: it was foolish to think that it was sounding eternally elsewhere,for there was no elsewhere. She, too, herself would cease one day, lether see to it that the tone was pure and lovely.
* * * * *
Mr. Phillips arrived the next morning as usual, just as Mabel had leftthe old lady's room, and asked news of her.
"She is a little better, I think," said Mabel. "She must be very quietall day."
The secretary bowed and turned aside into Oliver's room, where a heap ofletters lay to be answered.
A couple of hours later, as Mabel went upstairs once more, she met Mr.Phillips coming down. He looked a little flushed under his sallow skin.
"Mrs. Brand sent for me," he said. "She wished to know whether Mr.Oliver would be back to-night."
"He will, will he not? You have not heard?"
"Mr. Brand said he would be here for a late dinner. He will reach Londonat nineteen."
"And is there any other news?"
He compressed his lips.
"There are rumours," he said. "Mr. Brand wired to me an hour ago."
He seemed moved at something, and Mabel looked at him in astonishment.
"It is not Eastern news?" she asked.
His eyebrows wrinkled a little.
"You must forgive me, Mrs. Brand," he said. "I am not at liberty to sayanything."
She was not offended, for she trusted her husband too well; but she wenton into the sick-room with her heart beating.
The old lady, too, seemed excited. She lay in bed with a clear flush inher white cheeks, and hardly smiled at all to the girl's greeting.
"Well, you have seen Mr. Phillips, then?" said Mabel.
Old Mrs. Brand looked at her sharply an instant, but said nothing.
"Don't excite yourself, mother. Oliver will be back to-night."
The old lady drew a long breath.
"Don't trouble about me, my dear," she said. "I shall do very well now.He will be back to dinner, will he not?"
"If the volor is not late. Now, mother, are you ready for breakfast?"
* * * * *
Mabel passed an afternoon of considerable agitation. It was certain thatsomething had happened. The secretary, who breakfasted with her in theparlour looking on to the garden, had appeared strangely excited. He hadtold her that he would be away the rest of the day: Mr. Oliver had givenhim his instructions. He had refrained from all discussion of theEastern question, and he had given her no news of the Paris Convention;he only repeated that Mr. Oliver would be back that night. Then he hadgone of in a hurry half-an-hour later.
The old lady seemed asleep when the girl went up afterwards, and Mabeldid not like to disturb her. Neither did she like to leave the house; soshe walked by herself in the garden, thinking and hoping and fearing,till the long shadow lay across the path, and the tumbled platform ofroofs was bathed in a dusty green haze from the west.
As she came in she took up the evening paper, but there was no newsthere except to the effect that the Convention would close thatafternoon.
* * * * *
Twenty o'clock came, but there was no sign of Oliver. The Paris volorshould have arrived an hour before, but Mabel, staring out into thedarkening heavens had seen the stars come out like jewels one by one,but no slender winged fish pass overhead. Of course she might havemissed it; there was no depending on its exact course; but she had seenit a hundred times before, and wondered unreasonably why she had notseen it now. But she would not sit down to dinner, and paced up anddown in her white dress, turning again and again to the window,listening to the soft rush of the trains, the faint hoots from thetrack, and the musical chords from the junction a mile away. The lightswere up by now, and the vast sweep of the towns looked like fairylandbetween the earthly light and the heavenly darkness. Why did not Olivercome, or at least let her know why he did not?
Once she went upstairs, miserably anxious herself, to reassure the oldlady, and found her again very drowsy.
"He is not come," she said. "I dare say he may be kept in Paris."
The old face on the pillow nodded and murmured, and Mabel went downagain. It was now an hour after dinner-time.
Oh! there were a hundred things that might have kept him. He had oftenbeen later than this: he might have missed the volor he meant to catch;the Convention might have been prolonged; he might be exhausted, andthink it better to sleep in Paris after all, and have forgotten to wire.He might even have wired to Mr. Phillips, and the secretary haveforgotten to pass on the message.
She w
ent at last, hopelessly, to the telephone, and looked at it. Thereit was, that round silent month, that little row of labelled buttons.She half decided to touch them one by one, and inquire whether anythinghad been heard of her husband: there was his club, his office inWhitehall, Mr. Phillips's house, Parliament-house, and the rest. But shehesitated, telling herself to be patient. Oliver hated interference, andhe would surely soon remember and relieve her anxiety.
Then, even as she turned away, the bell rang sharply, and a white labelflashed into sight.--WHITEHALL.
She pressed the corresponding button, and, her hand shaking so much thatshe could scarcely hold the receiver to her ear, she listened.
"Who is there?"
Her heart leaped at the sound of her husband's voice, tiny and minuteacross the miles of wire.
"I--Mabel," she said. "Alone here."
"Oh! Mabel. Very well. I am back: all is well. Now listen. Can youhear?"
"Yes, yes."
"The best has happened. It is all over in the East. Felsenburgh has doneit. Now listen. I cannot come home to-night. It will be announced inPaul's House in two hours from now. We are communicating with the Press.Come up here to me at once. You must be present.... Can you hear?"
"Oh, yes."
"Come then at once. It will be the greatest thing in history. Tell noone. Come before the rush begins. In half-an-hour the way will bestopped."
"Oliver."
"Yes? Quick."
"Mother is ill. Shall I leave her?"
"How ill?"
"Oh, no immediate danger. The doctor has seen her."
There was silence for a moment.
"Yes; come then. We will go back to-night anyhow, then. Tell her weshall be late."
"Very well."
"... Yes, you must come. Felsenburgh will be there."