Marigold A story
stand the other thing after. I know quite well, if all these people
had known who I was in reality, they would have treated me quite
differently. I always thought women were stupid enough, but _men_,
oh! defend me from them. They’re ten times worse.”
“Yes. I always think the best men die young like Timothy, Princess.”
“Timothy?” and there was a strange recklessness and rage in her voice
and eyes. “Don’t mention him to me, Alice--never again. When--when he
was dying he turned away from me--on his side--away to the doctor. He
had forgotten me. I wanted him to turn my way.”
“I’d be more inclined to blame the doctor than him.”
A queer vivid light flashed into Marigold’s wonderful eyes.
“I don’t blame the doctor. He is an ignorant quack, who wants teaching
manners.”
And then she laughed with a little panting breath.
“Did you see those ugly marks on my neck?--that’s the doctor. Did you
see me lying in a heap upon yonder floor?--that’s the doctor. Did you
see that picture gone?--that’s the doctor. Did you see Timothy lying
dead?--that’s the doctor too. He wouldn’t let him live--wouldn’t even
prolong his life by sending him away--when once I asked him to.”
“Ah! he’s a bad lot,” said Alice mournfully; “a bad, bad lot. How did
he make those ugly marks upon your neck?”
“Finger-nails. He shook me like a rat, just because I wanted Timothy.”
She was standing there, her fingers clasped, more like a child than
a woman--exquisitely beautiful in this recklessness--something that
made Alice tremble, because she knew that at the back of it there was
nothing but smarting, unendurable pain.
But she knew it would be dangerous to offer sympathy, so, like the
sensible woman she was, she began stirring round, making the tea. “I
met Mr St Armand to-night as I came across the square.”
“Oh! he isn’t _Mr_ St Armand. He is Saint Armand. That’s his
title--just in the same way that---- Well, go on, Alice. What did he
say to you?”
“Nothing! He asked me how you were, Princess; and I said the little boy
you were nursing was dead, and you felt it.”
“How ridiculous! I shall go out to-morrow with the hope of meeting
him to contradict it. Now, I like St Armand--he is the only man who
has treated me the same, princess or beggar maid. If he was rude
to me, it was the rudeness of equality; and his politeness had no
sticky condescension in it. I wonder how the High Priest is getting
on? I’ve learnt a tremendous lot this last two months, Alice. The
only thing I need now to become a fully-fledged woman is practical
experience--experience and inches.”
“Will you be ordering a wreath for Timothy?” asked Alice later, as she
ate the tea that Marigold could scarcely touch.
“No.”
And then, in a different tone, after some minutes had elapsed:
“Alice, I’m very ill--in mind and spirit--not in body--and I can’t
think properly at all. I used to love Timothy--I loved him more this
morning than ever I had done, and now, and now I can’t do. It is
the thought of that--that last time. He could lie there without a
tear--without a word, and see me trampled on and hurt. I know it’s
reasonless. You’ll say that he was dead. It’s the strange power of the
doctor’s words, I think. For, even in those last few days he would
repeat them--almost hypnotically: ‘I’ll come for you and take you away,
Timothy’--‘I’ll come for you and take you away.’ And he did come,
and--I--I was left behind. But that’s not the worst. I can’t explain to
you the worst--it was so--so unexpected. And I daren’t sleep in that
bedroom next to his to-night. I dare not--for I have always prayed
for him at night--night and morning--and to-night I cannot. He has
gone away, and he doesn’t want my prayers. And I can’t think at all,
I can only feel. So I’ll come and sleep with you. You won’t mind for
one night? I’ll be better to-morrow. For lately I haven’t slept well
at all of nights. I have felt so ill and weak. And every night just
after midnight I awake with such a terrible feeling of fear--as if
something were drawing all the life out of me, and leaving nothing but
a paralysed skeleton behind. And, and--I think I’m like Timothy. If
you will only put your arm around me whilst we sleep, I think I shall
feel safer.”
And then suddenly she buried her face in her hands.
“Oh, Alice! Alice!” she cried; “if only he would have loved me, how I
would have loved him!”
And then as suddenly she got up, a certain stiffness in her movements,
as if she suffered from some cramping pain.
“I’ll wash the tea things. I want something to do. You write the letter
and get a boy to take it to the post. I don’t want you to go out again.
Thank Heaven we go to-morrow! This little cottage stifles me. It has
been a nightmare, and I thought it was to be a novel holiday.”
And that night, when everything was silent, St Armand took his usual
midnight stroll, calling upon his neighbours. And when he came to that
sad room where Marigold and Alice slept, he stared with much surprise
and some amusement.
“Here’s a sight to gladden the heart of the most rabid anarchist,”
said he. “Who would have thought that Royalty could so far forget
itself? But illness makes strange creatures of us, and the little girl
_is_ ill. Very different from my first visit here. I must see what
I can do. Even the devil is not so black as he is painted--unless he
gets the opportunity!”
Then, from curiosity only, he passed into Timothy’s silent room--like a
shadow lost on the wall.
“Not the stereotyped death-smile at all, Timothy,” said he. “They rave
so here on Lucifram about the smile of death, which is at best as
hollow and vacuous as that of the best painted society dame. But you’ve
managed differently, somehow or other--thanks to the quack doctor, I
suppose. Now, I wonder how those two parted this morning, for I presume
they parted here--there’s so much electricity about. Misunderstanding,
probably vowing they hated one another--for this isn’t all the Positive
current of love.” And for the second time that day he held his sides
with laughing, and instead of leaning on a lamp-post, he sat upon the
bed. And the thin, wasted figure of little Patches lay quite still,
content and peace and ineffable sweetness on his tiny baby face, for he
had grown so very small of late.
And at last St Armand rose, and before going, stooped over him again.
And he patted the cold cheek almost kindly.
“Well, well, my little boy, you’re out of it. If I could have done you
an ill turn, I would have done--but, unavoidably, I couldn’t.”
CHAPTER XXII
So the next day Marigold and Alice returned to the Palace in the
suburbs, which had been rented from a Duke whose pockets were always
empty. And it was quite a treat again to be in the long gardens and
the big airy rooms, away from poverty and the extreme closeness of
neighbours. So, at least, Alice found--she who was less susceptible to
surroundings than her mistress, yet at present evidently more so. For,
though Marigold went back to her usual dress and her usual occupations,
and received calls from certain stately ladies who had heard of her
return from abroad, and returned them, it was all done without heart or
life, or, rather, such a pathetic imitation that Alice could not bear
to see.
For now no more the gay voice rang through the corridors, nor the merry
laugh; and the stoutest, stiffest dowager might come and go without
one smile, one wry face or mimic action as the door closed. Marigold,
who did it with no thought of offence, nor forgetfulness of her own
shortcomings, but because it came so natural, and one must laugh at
these dear things just as one laughed at oneself. And now, instead
of the bright colours that had so greatly suited her, she dressed in
nothing but black; and one day, when Alice remonstrated, having heard
some remarks from the servants on her altered looks, she turned to a
window, and for a minute the absent colour rose in her cheeks.
“You forget; Timothy is dead,” she said, and the subject never rose
again.
Yet to Alice, in these simple silk frocks, she looked more lovely than
ever before; and then again, the other difference, the close band of
velvet round her neck, hiding the red scar that still spoilt, and
perhaps would always spoil, the lovely neck.
And many a time Alice would find her sitting alone in the big gardens
with their bright-coloured flowers and the butterflies playing round,
and to her the Princess looked nothing but that fairest, sensitive
plant, the heavenly lily, transformed from a golden butterfly into
something lovelier still. Then Alice, to hide her feelings, would scold
from the distance, where she was not heard, and had no wish to be.
“Moping,” said she, in the homely language of those who are not taught
to pick their words except in company. “Moping, and it’s not all for
Timothy. And it’s wearing her into her grave. Consumption! That’s what
he said to salve his conscience. Telling me the symptoms so that I
might know them when they rose. And it’s as well, perhaps, because I’d
never have guessed myself--I thought it was all the other way about.
But what can I do--what can I do?”
And one day a brilliant idea struck her--send for St Armand. He who,
in their return to the old life, had quite slipped her memory. Was he
not a gentleman of good birth?--a friend of the great High Priest?
And had he not promised her the best physicians?--though her mistress
absolutely refused to have a doctor near the place.
So she wrote a plain letter to the address that he had given her--the
High Priest’s Palace--and asked for his advice.
And the next afternoon Marigold walked out alone as usual in the
flower-gardens, taking a book and some trivial needlework, and sat as
usual, thinking and grieving, and scarcely understanding what she felt.
And looking up, she beheld St Armand approaching her, with the easy
confidence that characterised him.
“Marigold! This is better than a game of hide-and-seek--now that I’ve
found you.”
His manner was so kind, his voice so cheerful, that she smiled, though
the colour had risen all over her neck and face, for he was one of the
links in her past life--had he not been intimately acquainted with the
doctor?
“How did you find me?”
He sat down beside her. “A restless activity that leads me to discover
everything. You have treated us somewhat shabbily.”
“Whom?”
“Myself, who wished to be your friend; and the High Priest, who wished
to be your lover.”
Marigold took up the handkerchief she was embroidering.
“Believe me, I have grown too old for that last. I am no longer so
thoughtless as I used to be.”
“How old _are_ you, Marigold?”
“I don’t know. They never kept count, and it was impossible, under the
circumstances, that I should do.”
And the first tantalising smile crept on to her face as she looked
across at him, though with a difference from the olden times.
“You’re not too old for friendship, though. I will speak
candidly--you’re looking very ill.”
She drew herself up a little stiffly.
“It is the climate.”
“The climate is delightful. You nursed Timothy Wiggs too untiringly.”
“Don’t call him Timothy Wiggs. We never--I never used his last name.”
“I think, if you could bring yourself to call him Timothy Wiggs six
consecutive times without stopping, you would be quite cured of your
infatuation.”
“Sir!” said she, rising to her feet.
“Saint, you mean. Sit down, Princess. It is only fools and hypocrites
who can’t bear plain speaking. Sit down.”
He spoke so authoritatively, that somehow she obeyed him.
“You imagined a great deal about Timothy Wiggs, you know.”
“Oh, please don’t. He was the sweetest little boy I ever met.”
“I don’t doubt. They’re all sweet when they’re too ill to make