Devil's Wind (26 page)

CHAPTER XXXI

THE END

Aeon on aeon, age on endless age,

The Watcher of the Universe is set.

His garment stirs the waters, and they live.

Lord, what is man that Thou art mindful yet?

Lord, what is man? The tide that we call Life

Ebbs deep, and draws us down in Time's dark Sea;

But when Death's breaking wave has turned the flood,

Shall it not bear us back again to Thee?

Dr. Renshaw latched the door of the sickroom behind him, and came out into the middle of the dining-room.

He was a small stout man, who was quiet at a patient's bedside and fussily noisy everywhere else. He took out a pocket-handkerchief that crackled with starch, chafed his forehead with it, blew out his short grey moustache and beard, and rammed the handkerchief back into his pocket again with a force that threatened to burst the lining.

“What's the good of talking?” he burst out, although Helen had said nothing. She leaned on the table and waited, and he took a short turn to the window, and then came back.

“Who is she? I suppose you won't tell me. Want to hush it up. No wonder. But I shall have to put a name on the certificate.”

“The certificate?” said Helen faintly.

“Why, yes—dying—of course she's dying. Dysentery for weeks, and a heart like that—what can I, or any one else, do with a bit of worn-out mechanism? It's worn out— worn to a standstill; nobody can do anything. Just as well, perhaps, poor unfortunate creature—but that's not my business. I'll send you some drops. They may keep her going till the morning.”

“You are not going—”

“My dear lady, fifty doctors wouldn't do her any good by staying. All the same, I'd stay if I could, but I've come from the Jamesons' now. She's bad, very bad, and he's tearing his hair out, poor boy, and looking down the road to see if I'm in sight. Oh, she's not going to die; but he's nervous, and she's quite bad enough. I shall be there all night.”

Helen opened her lips again.

“What can I do?”

“Make her comfortable; be nice to her. Talk? No, it won't make any difference, if she wants to. It's just a sputter before the flame goes out. I suppose she does want to talk to another woman, after all those months—”

And Dr. Renshaw swore under his breath, apologised to Helen for having done so, and stumbled out upon the verandah, catching his heel in the matting as he went.

Helen followed him, obtained a few more instructions, and then stood still, and heard him ride away.

When he was gone she came very slowly back into the room where Adela was lying. The numbness that had deadened feeling, had passed an hour ago. In Dick's arms it had merged into an exaltation that partook at the same time of the in tensest pain and the most exquisite joy.

Every fresh realisation, every new revelation of love, is joy. Even the sharp dividing sword of death, or deathlike parting, cannot alter that truth. The joy and pain do not mix. They lie apart, with the sword between, and every pulse, and every feeling, quivers to the double passion.

Now the exaltation which had possessed and sustained Helen fluttered, dropped, passed in its turn into a purely human feeling of pity.

Suddenly as she crossed the lamp-lit room, there were tears at her heart. She came up close to the bed, and saw that Adela was weeping, in a weak and desolate way, that brought the tears in a stinging rush from her heart to her eyes.

“Adie—don't—what is it?” she whispered, and she knelt by the bed, and put her arm across the heaving breast.

Adela made a small, vexed movement.

“You might have made me fit to be seen,” she said feebly. “You just brought him in—that horrid man—it was most unkind.”

“But you are quite, quite tidy,” said Helen soothingly. “There, Adie, don't. It is so bad for you.”

“What did he say?”

“He said that you must rest. He is sending you some medicine.”

Adela caught at her cousin's wrist, and held it tight. Her fingers were very thin and dry.

“Nellie,” she whispered, “am I very ill? Sometimes I feel so—frightened. Nellie, don't let him come again—that man.”

“He is very kind,” began Helen, but the fingers at her wrist became rigid.

“Doctors come—when you die,” said Adela. Her teeth chattered. For a moment she looked ghastly.

A panic seized Helen.

“Adie,” she said, forcing her voice, “would you like—to see—Dick?” She kneeled up straight beside the bed as she spoke. Adela started; she turned her eyes on Helen's face. They were frightened and brilliant.

“No—oh, no,” she half sobbed. “Don't let him—don't let him come—see me—like this.”

With her free hand she drew the sheet up close. The other burned on Helen's.

There was a knock on the door and Helen released herself, and took a medicine bottle from the waiting servant, who averted his eyes respectfully from the half-opened door.

Standing by the lamp, Helen measured out the prescribed dose, and then came back to her old place.

When Adela had drunk the medicine she lay quite still for ten minutes. Then she said in a languid voice:

“Give me your hand glass, Helen.”

Helen looked startled.

“Yes, I want it. Get it for me.”

Helen got up, but she went first to a box that stood in the corner of the room. She bent over it for a moment, and then came back with a light scarf of Honiton lace in her hand.

Adela reached out her shaking fingers for it with a pleased look.

“How pretty! Where did you get it?”

“It was a present,” said Helen in a low voice.

It had been Floss Monteith's wedding present. She remembered how she and Dick had unfastened the parcel together. As she answered, she stooped and arranged the scarf lightly about Adela's head and shoulders, as she lay high upon the pillows. The lace folds, with the pattern of field flowers and butterflies, came down on either side of the thin cheeks and hid the hollows in them. The light, close tracery disguised the lack of those pretty curls which had been Adela's pride.

When Helen held up the glass, Adela smiled in a vague, pleased manner.

“I look—nice,” she said, “quite nice—but it wants colour. Have you anything pink? I do love pink—and”—with one of her old inconsequent tones—“I'm not really a widow, you see, am I? The pink won't matter.”

She accentuated the last word, and an inward spasm of a laughter more tragic than tears shook Helen, and made composure very hard.

“No, it won't matter,” she said gently, and fetched a strand of rose-coloured velvet, knotting it in the lace at Adela's breast. Nothing mattered except to give a little relief, a little pleasure where there had been so much pain.

Adela lay there smiling at her own image. She would not let Helen take the glass away. Sometimes she shut her eyes, and then again she would open them upon a startled, questioning look. Then when she saw Helen and her own reflection she would smile once more.

Once the smile went suddenly, and she put out her hand and touched Helen. Her fingers fluttered.

“Nellie,” she whispered.

“What is it?” asked Helen.

“Come a little nearer. Bend down. Put your head here on the pillow, like you used to do—long ago. Nellie—it was a dear little baby. It was only a little bit dark, and its eyes were very like mine. I wish you had seen it. I didn't like babies before, but it had such a little soft round head. I cried—all day—when it died.”

Helen drew in her breath sharply, but Adela's hand strayed from hers, and fidgeted aimlessly with the hem of the sheet. After some time she said in a faint voice:

“Is—Richard—angry?”

“Oh, no one is angry, Adie—Adie dear,” said Helen.

“I couldn't— help it.”

After a pause she said again:

“Where is Richard?”

“Do you want him?”

“Yes—I think so—if he isn't cross. His hands are so warm; I'm cold.”

Helen went through the silent house to Richard Morton's study, and found him sitting at his table writing. His pen drove hard across the sheet of paper before him. He threw her a fierce, almost antagonistic glance as she came in, and she divined the anger, the jealous passion which would hold her against herself, against the world.

She stood by him for a moment, putting her hand on his, drawing him gently. Then she said in a low voice:

“Dick, she wants you.”

He turned on her; his face was hard.

“Helen, you must understand me. I will not see her. She has no claim—not a shadow. I will provide for her, but I will not see her. What you are made of, God knows. It's not decent. For Heaven's sake get her out of this house, or come out of it with me. Can't you see it is impossible—outrageous—that we should be under the same roof?”

“She is dying, Dick,” said Helen in her low, even tones.

He pushed back his chair and stared at her.

“What did you say?”

“She is dying—Adela is dying.”

“How?”

His tone was incredulous and angry. He had had no time to adjust it to this new shock.

Helen looked away, because his eyes hurt her so.

“She has had dysentery,” she said quickly. “She has had it for weeks. Now her heart is failing. You know it was never very strong, and Aunt Lucy—she died of heart trouble. Dr. Renshaw says that nothing can be done. He says that she won't suffer. And—Dick, she wants you.”

Richard Morton got up. His face was quite grey. To the end, to the very end, he must play his part in this intolerable tragedy. He must go to this dying woman who was Adela, who had been his wife and his beloved, and he must take her hand, and go down with her amongst the shadows.

At the door Helen stopped him.

“She doesn't know she is dying,” she whispered; “and, Dick, I think she doesn't realise—anything. It is so pitiful.”

A yard inside the lamp-lit room, Helen's feet faltered. Adela had turned a little upon the pillows. Her eyes were very bright, but they had an unseeing look. The colour in her cheeks flickered.

“Richard,” she called; and as Richard Morton went forward and sat down beside the bed Helen drew back, and shut the door upon them. Then she groped for a chair, and sat down upon it, whilst the room spun about her, and a long, long time went by. Every now and then one of the servants came and asked for an order. Helen answered composedly.

Food was to be left on the table. No, there would be no dinner that night. The memsahib was too ill. Imam Bux must stay in the sahib's office, within call. Milk must be boiled, and brought here.

Helen arranged everything with method. Then she sent even the ayah away into her dressing room, bidding her sleep, and sat down for the night's vigil.

It was a very long night.

The shaded lamp stood in a corner. Just beneath it was a circle of golden light. Outside this circle, the room was full of shadows that grew deeper and softer as they stretched away from the lamplight.

One very black shadow lay like a pool of deep, still water across the threshold of that closed door. Long, long afterwards, when people spoke of haunted houses, Helen's heart went back to that room, the room where Richard and Adela were. If one poor, disembodied soul may have a power of terror upon men, what dreadful power may not the embodied soul exert upon itself? The ghosts that haunt men's lives are the ghosts they have raised themselves. The most terrible spirit of all is the spirit of love profaned.

In the room with the closed doors, where Adela was dying, death was the least fearful thing. It had ceased even to terrify Adela, as she lay with its rising mists about her, deadening thought and fear before they stopped the failing, faltering heart. She lay in peace, and became less and less aware of the warmth of Richard's hand that held her own.

And Richard Morton?

At the first touch of that thin, fluttering hand the anger went out of him, and a quick wave of pity rose until it took his very breath. So frail—so weak—so broken—and those brilliant eyes, large and startled as they met his. He in his strength to enter into judgment? Was he the Almighty who had made this frailty? Who but the Almighty and the All-Merciful could mete out judgment and pity to His creature?

There was no sound in the room, except the soft sound of their breathing and a little crackling rustle from the dry wood that burned upon the open hearth. The firelight reached out into the dusk and warmed it. The lamp burned steadily in a distant corner. The room was very still.

And Richard Morton began to remember. Quick memories stabbed his heart. The firelight, and the darkness, and that small hand in his. The past came up about him as he sat and held his vigil. Once the door opened, and Helen came in. Richard did not move. He saw her touch first the wall and then a chair as she came. Her black hair had fallen low upon her neck. She leaned a while against the dressing table, then steadied her hand to pour another dose of the medicine, and brought it to the bedside, moving very slowly.

But Adela turned her head aside with a little moaning sound. Helen knelt down, and tried again, and yet again.

Then she shook her head, rose to her feet, and went out, holding to the doorpost as she went.

Once more the door was shut.

Helen waited alone, leaning back, her head against the wooden rail of the chair, her arms stretched out on either side, her hands open and relaxed. She looked past the fluttering lamp, into the darkness that hid the corners of the room, and into the black pool-like shadow that lay across the threshold which she had just crossed. The door was shut now between her and Dick. The door was shut and fastened. Dick was behind it, not with Adela who was dying, who might even now be dead, but with his memories of Adela. Memories never die. They sleep. We think them dead, then they rise up, and the face of the sun is darkened with them in the full midday of love.