The History of Sir Richard Calmady: A Romance
window curtain and looked out. The sky was clear and starlit. Naples,
with its curving lines of innumerable lights, lay outstretched below.
In the southeast, midway between the two, a blood-red fire marked the
summit of Vesuvius. While in the dimly seen garden immediately
beneath--the paved alleys of which showed curiously pale, asserting
themselves against the darkness of the flower borders, and otherwise
impenetrable shadows of the ilex and cypress grove--a living creature
moved, black, slow of pace, strange of shape. At first Helen took it
for some strayed animal. It alarmed her, exciting her to wildest
conjectures as to its nature and purpose, wandering in the grounds of
the villa thus. Then, as it passed beyond the dusky shade of the trees,
she recognised it. Richard Calmady shuffled forward haltingly, to the
terminal wall of the garden, leaned his arms on it, looking down at the
beautiful and vicious city and out into the night.
Helen de Vallorbes shivered--the marble floor striking up chill, for
all the thickness of the carpet, to her bare feet. Her eyes were hard
with excitement and her breath came very quick. Suddenly, yielding to
an impulse of superstitious terror, she dragged the curtains together,
shutting out that very pitiful sight, and, turning, fled across the
room and buried herself, breathless and trembling, between the sheets
of the soft, warm, faintly fragrant bed.
"He is horrible," she said aloud, "horrible! And it has come to me at
last. It has come--I love--I love!"
CHAPTER IV
"MATER ADMIRABILIS"
"There, there, my good soul, don't blubber. Hysterics won't restore
Lady Calmady to health, or bring Sir Richard back to England, home, and
duty, or be a ha'porth of profit to yourself or any other created
being. Keep your tears for the first funeral. For I tell you plainly I
shan't be surprised out of seven days' sleep if this business involves
a visit to the churchyard before we get to the other side of it."
John Knott stood with his back to the Chapel-Room fire, his shoulders
up to his ears, his hands forced down into the pockets of his
riding-breeches. Without, black-thorn winter held the land in its
cheerless grasp. The spring was late. Night frosts obtained, followed
by pallid, half-hearted sunshine in the early mornings, too soon
obliterated by dreary, easterly blight. This afternoon offered
exception to the rule only in the additional discomfort of small,
sleeting rain and a harsh skirling of wind in the eastward-facing
casements.--"Livery weather," the doctor called it, putting down his
existing lapse from philosophic tolerance to insufficient secretions of
the biliary duct.
Before him stood Clara--sometime Dickie Calmady's devoted nurse and
playfellow--her eyes very bright and moist, the reds and whites of her
fresh complexion in lamentable disarray.
"I'd never have believed it of Sir Richard," she assented, chokingly.
"It isn't like him, so pretty as he was in all his little ways, and
loving to her ladyship, and civilly behaved to everybody, and careful
of hurting anybody's feelings--more so than you'd expect in a young
gentleman like him. No! it isn't like him. In my opinion he's been got
hold of by some designing person, who's worked on him to keep him away
to serve their own ends. There, I'd never have believed it of him, that
I wouldn't!"
The doctor's massive head sank lower, his massive shoulders rose
higher, his loose lips twisted into a snarling smile.
"Lord bless you, that's nothing new! We none of us ever do believe it
of them when the little beggars are in long clothes, or first breeched
for that matter. It's a trick of Mother Nature's--one-idead old lady,
who cares not a pin for morality, but only for increase. She knows well
enough if we did believe it of them we should clear them off wholesale,
along with the blind kittens and puppies. A bucket full of water, and
broom to keep them under, would make for a mighty lessening of
subsequent violations of the Decalogue! Don't tell me King Herod was
not something of a philanthropist when he got to work on the infant
population of Bethlehem. One woman wept for each of the little brats
then, but his Satanic Majesty only knows how many women wouldn't have
had cause to weep for each one of them later, if they'd been spared to
grow up."
While speaking, Dr. Knott kept his gaze fixed upon his companion. His
humour was none of the gentlest truly, yet he did not let that obscure
the main issue. He had business with Clara, and merely waited till the
reds and whites of her comely face should have resumed their more
normal relations before pursuing it. He talked, as much to afford her
opportunity to overcome her emotion, as to give relief to his own.
Though now well on the wrong side of sixty, John Knott was hale and
vigorous as ever. His rough-hewn countenance bore even closer
resemblance, perhaps, to that of some stone gargoyle carved on
cathedral buttress or spout. But his hand was no less skilful, his
tongue no less ready in denunciation of all he reckoned humbug, his
heart no less deeply touched, for all his superficial irascibility, by
the pains, and sins, and grinding miseries, of poor humanity than of
old.
"That's right now," he said approvingly, as the heaving of Clara's
bosom became less pronounced. "Wipe your eyes, and keep your nerves
steady. You've got a head on your shoulders--always had. Well, keep it
screwed on the right way, for you'll need all the common sense that is
in it if we are to pull Lady Calmady through. Do?--To begin with this,
give her food every two hours or so. Coax her, scold her, reason with
her, cry even.--After all, I give you leave to, just a little, if that
will serve your purpose and not make your hand shake--only make her
take nourishment. If you don't wind up the clock regularly, some fine
morning you'll find the wheels have run down."
"But her ladyship won't have any one sit up with her."
"Very well, then sleep next door. Only go in at twelve and two, and
again between five and six."
"But she won't have anybody occupy the dressing-room. It used to be the
night nursery you remember, sir, and not a thing in it has been touched
since Sir Richard moved down to the gun-room wing."
"Oh, fiddle-de-dee! It's just got to be touched now, then. I can't be
bothered with sentiment when it's ten to one whether I save my
patient."
Again sobs rose in Clara's throat. The poor woman was hard pressed. But
that fixed gaze from beneath the shaggy eyebrows was upon her, and,
with quaint gurglings, she fought down the sobs.
"My lady's as gentle as a lamb," she said, "and I'd give the last drop
of my blood for her. But talk of managing her, of making her do
anything, as well try to manage the wind, she's that set in her ways
and obstinate!"
"If you can't manage her, who can?--Mr. March?"
Clara shook her head. Then reluctantly, for though honestly ready to
lay down her life for her mistress, she found it far from easy to
invite supersession in respect of her, she said:--"Miss St. Quentin's
more likely to get round my lady than any one else."
"Well, then, I'll talk to her. Where is Miss St. Quentin?"
"Here, Dr. Knott. Do you want me?"
Honoria had strolled into the room from the stairhead, her attention
arrested by the all-too-familiar sound--since sorrowful happenings
often of late had brought him to Brockhurst--of the doctor's voice. The
skirt of the young lady's habit, gathered up in her left hand,
displayed a slightly unconventional length of muddy riding-boot. The
said skirt, her tan, covert coat, and slouched, felt hat, were furred
with wet. Her garments, indeed, showed evident traces of hard service,
and, though notably well cut, were far from new or smart. They were
sad-coloured, moreover, as is the fashion of garments designed for
work. And this weather-stained, mud-bespattered costume, taken in
connection with her pale, sensitive face, her gallant bearing, and the
luminous smile with which she greeted not only Dr. Knott but the
slightly flustered Clara, offered a picture pensive in tone, but very
harmonious, and of a singularly sincere and restful quality. To all,
indeed, save those troubled by an accusing conscience and fear of
detection, Honoria St. Quentin's presence brought a sense of security
and reassurance at this period of her development. Her enthusiasms
remained to her, but they were tempered by a wider experience and a
larger charity--at least in the majority of cases.
"I'm in a beastly mess," she observed casually.
"So are we," Knott answered. He had a great liking for this young lady,
finding in her a certain stoicism along with a quickness of practical
help. "But our mess is worse than yours, in that it is internal rather
than external. Yours'll brush off. Not so ours--eh, Clara? There, you
can go. I'll talk things over with Miss St. Quentin, and she'll talk
'em over with you later."
Honoria's expression had grown anxious. She spoke in a lower tone of
voice.
"Is Lady Calmady worse?"
"In a sense, yes--simply because she is no better. And she's ill, I
tell you, just as dangerously ill as any woman can be, who has nothing
whatever actually the matter with her."
"Except an only son," put in Honoria. "I am beginning to suspect that
is about the most deadly disease going. The only thing to be said in
its favour is that it is not infectious."
John Knott could not quite keep admiration from his eyes, or
provocation from his tongue. He richly enjoyed getting a rise out of
Miss St. Quentin.
"I am not so sure of that," he said. "In the case of beautiful women,
judging by history, it has shown a tendency to be recurrently sporadic
in any case."
"Recommend all such to spend a few months at Brockhurst then, under
existing circumstances," Honoria answered. "There will be very little
fear for them after that. They will have received such a warning,
swallowed such an antidote!--It is like assisting at the infliction of
slow torture. It almost gets on one's brain at times."
"Why do you stay on then?"
Honoria looked down at her muddy boots and then across at the doctor.
She was slightly the taller of the two, for in these days his figure
had fallen together and he had taken to stooping. Her expression had a
delightful touch of self-depreciation.
"Why does any one stay by a sinking ship, or volunteer for a forlorn
hope? Why do you sit up all night with a case of confluent smallpox, or
suck away the poisonous membrane from a diphtheric throat, as I hear
you did only last week? I don't know. Just because, if we are made on
certain lines, we have to, I suppose. One would be a trifle too much
ashamed to be seen in one's own company, afterwards, if one deserted.
It really requires less pluck to stick than to run--that's the reason
probably.--But about dear Lady Calmady. The excellent Clara was in
tears. Is there any fresh mischief over and above the only son?"
"Not at present. But it's an open question how soon there may
be.--Good-day, Mr. March. Been riding? Ought to be a bit careful of
that cranky chest of yours in this confounded weather.--Lady
Calmady?--Yes, as I was telling Miss St. Quentin, her strength is so
reduced that complications may arise any day. A chill, and her lungs
may go; a shock, and her heart. It comes to a mere question of the
point of least resistance. I won't guarantee the continued soundness of
any organ unless we get changed conditions, a let up of some sort."
The doctor looked up from under his eyebrows, first at Honoria and then
at Julius. He spoke bitterly, defiant of his inclination towards
tenderness.
"She's just worn herself out," he said, "that's the fact, in the
service of others, loving, giving, attempting the impossible in the way