The Love-Story of Aliette Brunton
something, anything, for Julia. "I owe her so much," she thought; "such
a debt of gratitude."
The impotence of her muscles stung her mind. Her mind ached with
memories, memories of Julia, of her brusk kindliness, of her courage. "I
wonder if she knew," thought Aliette. And at that, painfully, her mind
conjured up the "scene" she had made--Julia comforting her--Julia's
unspoken challenge--her own promise. "She knew then," thought Aliette.
"She must have known. That was why she wanted to be certain--of me."
At last the nurse arrived. At last Ronnie, tired out, white-faced, and
unshaven, left his post on the landing and joined her.
She asked him, "How is she?"
"Better. Much better. She's asleep."
"Isn't there anything I can do?"
"No, dear, nothing." His voice seemed curiously toneless, and after two
or three nervous puffs at a cigarette he again went upstairs.
Another half-hour went by. Already Aliette could see hints of dawn
behind the dining-room curtains. Now, knowing danger averted, her mind
reacted. She wanted desperately to sleep. Her eyes closed wearily. But
her ears were still keen to sound. She heard the doctor's feet and
Ronnie's creep cautiously downstairs, heard their whispered colloquy at
the dining-room door, woke from her brief doze before they could open
it.
"I do hope you haven't been frightened." Dr. Redbank smiled
professionally at the pale pretty woman by the fireside. "I hear we have
to thank your thoughtfulness for the ice. Most useful it was, too. I
have assured your husband that there is no cause for immediate alarm."
"You're sure, doctor?"
"Quite sure. However, as I understand that your mother-in-law's regular
attendant is away, I purpose looking in tomorrow, or rather this
morning, at about half-past ten. Meanwhile, you must keep her quiet;
and, of course, no solid food." He shook hands with her; and went out,
accompanied by Ronnie. Aliette, still sleepy, heard the front door close
gently behind him.
"Good man, that," said Ronnie, returning. He sat down heavily at the
table, and tried to light himself another cigarette. But his hands
trembled. The smoke seemed to stifle him.
"Won't you have some coffee?" she asked, suddenly wide awake, and as
suddenly aware of the misery in his eyes.
"Thanks dear, not yet."
Rising, she laid a hand on his arm.
"Man," she ventured, "was it very terrible?"
"Dreadful." His voice, usually so controlled, shook on the word,
jangling her overwrought nerves to breaking strain. "She's dying.
Dying."
"But the doctor said----"
"Never mind the doctor. _I_ know. And Alie," a sob tore at his
diaphragm, "it's my fault."
"_Your_ fault?" Awfully, she guessed his meaning.
"Yes."
Her hand dropped from his arm, and they stared at one another in
silence.
"Tell me," she said at last.
"No. Not now. Not yet." The remoteness of his eyes frightened her.
"I'd rather know," she pleaded; and again, "Why is it your fault? How
can it be your fault?"
"I'd rather not tell you." Once more she caught that frightening
remoteness in his eyes--in his very voice. Then, awfully, his reserve
broke. "She knew all the time, Alie."
"Knew what?" There was no need for her question.
"That she had consumption. That her only hope was to go away. She only
stayed on in London for--for," the words choked in his throat, "my
sake."
Minutes passed. Through the chinks in the curtains Aliette could see
dawn growing and growing. Her mouth ached to comfort him; but she dared
not speak. Her eyes ached for tears; but she dared not shed a tear.
Superstition tortured her mind--it seemed to her as though, Biblically,
their sin had found them out. Then resolutely, remembering the promise
sealed by her own lips to the dying, she put superstition from her.
"Not your fault," she said at last. "Not even _our_ fault.
Ronnie--believe me--even if she did know that she--that she was very
ill--she knew that you and I loved her, that we couldn't, either of us,
do without her. She's--she's not going to die. Not with us, both of us,
to nurse her--to look after her."
"Alie--you--you believe there's a chance?" He rose from the table; and
she saw that the remoteness had gone from his eyes.
"Chance!" she smiled at him. "Chance! It's not a question of chance,
man. We'll _make_ her get well."
And with those words, Aliette knew that she had paid a little of her
debt to them both.
CHAPTER XXV
1
Miraculously, as it seemed to her comforted son, death stayed its hand
from Julia Cavendish.
For three days and nights of morphia she drowsed away the effects of
that first hemorrhage. Heron Baynet, returning hot-foot to Harley Street
on his secretary's telegram, insisted--despite the fact that he was a
consultant--on ousting Dr. Redbank; on taking over the entire conduct of
the case in person.
A year ago the little keen scientist of the lined face, the fine
forehead, and the shining eye-glasses had suspected, warned, begged his
distinguished patient to let him radiograph her lungs;--mentioned the
possibility of a diabetic complication--advised Switzerland. Now perhaps
his advice, and the one slender chance of life it offered, would be
taken.
"How she tricked me!" he used to ruminate, looking down at the tired
face on the smooth pillow. "How she fought me!" For although in his
heart Sir Heron both pitied and admired this woman whose stubbornness
and stamina had so long eluded his aid, it gave him a certain
satisfaction, not altogether professional, to feel that she would now be
completely in his power. Yet--would she be completely in his power?
Already, on the fourth day of her illness, he sensed the stubbornness
and the false stamina of stubbornness renewing themselves in her;
already he perceived that his medical fight would be two-fold--against
his patient as well as against her disease.
"I suppose you're pleased," she managed to stammer. "You warned me that
this might happen if I refused to take your advice." And after he had
given her the morphia injection, "The less I have of that stuff, the
better. If I'm going to die, I'd rather die with my brain clear."
"You're not going to die yet awhile," retorted the specialist. "Not if
you refrain from talking, lie perfectly still, and get away into the
country as soon as you're fit to be moved."
Julia smiled up at him without moving her head. "I congratulate you on
your bedside manner, Sir Heron, but you needn't be professional with me.
My case is hopeless. It always has been hopeless. You haven't forgotten
our compact, I hope? You won't tell my son or my son's wife more than is
absolutely necessary?"
"Of course I won't tell your son," he humored her; "not if you'll
consent to go to sleep."
"But I don't want to go to sleep."
"Oh yes, you do. Besides, if you go on talking, you'll have another
hemorrhage."
That seemed to frighten her. "Very well," she said, closing her eyes,
for already the morphia was pouring wave on wave of lassitude through
her body. "Very well, I won't talk. Do you think you can manage to keep
me alive for six months? It's rather important. I've got work to do."
Thinking her brain already under the influence of the drug, he humored
her again. "We'll see about that in the morning. Meanwhile I shouldn't
worry. Your daughter-in-law and your secretary between them will be able
to manage quite well until you're up and about again."
"It isn't that sort of work," began Julia Cavendish; and pretended to
fall asleep.
This pretense of falling asleep was a trick, learned from the drug. One
had only, Julia discovered, to pretend sleep, and nurse or doctor left
one entirely alone. Alone with one's dreams. Very curious, very pleasant
dreams hers were, too. All about a book. A book called--Now what had she
intended to call the book?--"Man's--Man's--Man's Law." Yes--that was the
title. If only--one took--enough morphia--one could write--like--like de
Quincey.
"I mustn't let them give me too much, though," thought Julia; and fell
really asleep.
2
For Aliette those first four days of her "mother-in-law's" illness were
almost happy. At Julia's particular request, both lovers had abandoned
the "ridiculous flat," to take up their abode in Bruton Street; and the
sense of self-sacrifice--for it was a sacrifice to abandon the little
home where she had been so safe and face the inevitable difficulties of
her anomalous position in Julia's household--seemed yet another chance
of repaying her debt.
Work (she found enormously to do) saved her from overmuch introspection.
Julia, the feudalist, had never learned domestic decentralization; her
daily secretary, Mrs. Sanderson, a gray-haired gentlewoman with
tortoise-shell spectacles and a diffidence which only just avoided crass
stupidity, had become a typewriter-thumping automaton; her cook was a
mere obedient preparer of ordered meals, and even Kate seemed incapable
of performing the simplest household duty on her own initiative.
Resultantly there devolved on Aliette, seated of a morning in the
novelist's work-room, the manifold activities of a strenuous celebrity,
a housekeeper, a woman of property, and an information bureau. For, of
course, everybody wanted information about the celebrity's health.
The telephone and the telegrams were a curse. The press association
rang, apologetically, twice a day. The Northcliffe press, commandingly,
once. Julia's American publishers cabled almost hourly; and hourly,
scandal for the moment forgotten, one or other of her private
acquaintances quested for news of her. Even Dot Fancourt rallied
gallantly to the receiver. While as for the three other sisters Wixton
and their appanages, one would have imagined them afflicted to the verge
of suicide.
Of an evening, Ronnie helped Aliette to deal with the "family"; but by
day she had to cope with them single-handed. The "family" were never
satisfied with Mrs. Sanderson's report; the "family" demanded to speak
with the hospital nurse; the "family," barred by Sir Heron's
instructions from visiting, demanded to speak with Sir Heron himself.
Soon Aliette began to recognize their voices--Sir John Bentham,
courteous if a little aloof; Lady Clementina, full-throated and fussy;
May Robinson, piteous and protestant out of the depths of St. John's
Wood; Alice Edwards, distantly jovial on the trunk-line from Cheltenham.
"How they must be hating me," Aliette used to think.
On the afternoon of the fifth day, Julia--having coaxed permission from
a reluctant nurse--sent down word that her "daughter-in-law" was to come
up.
"You won't stay with her long, will you, ma'am?" said Smithers,
permanently on guard at the bedroom door. (Mysteriously, since Aliette
had moved to Bruton Street, the social sense of the basement had
substituted "ma'am" for Mrs. Ronnie.) "The doctor says the less she
talks, the better."
Aliette passed into the bedroom; and heard a weak voice say, "Leave us
alone please, nurse."
Nurse--a pleasant-faced creature very much impressed at finding herself
in charge of so literary an invalid--made her exit to a stiff rustle of
starched linen. Aliette moved across to the bedside. Sunshine
illuminated the elegance of the room, slanting down in dust-motes from
the three open windows on to the _écru_ pile carpet. Among Julia's
cut-glass toilet-ware on the porphyry Empire wash-table showed none of
the paraphernalia of sickness. The pillow-propped figure on the low
mahogany and gold bedstead seemed, to the visitor, rather that of a
resting than of a dying woman. A frilled boudoir-cap hid Julia's hair; a
padded bed-jacket of crimson silk swathed her shoulders.
"I suppose I gave you all a rare fright," she said, thinking how well