Part 3 (2/2)

”Better like that,” a voice said in English. Between them they raised the thing up and carried it through the shallow water to a boat moored by the rocks. And then my voice became loosened. I gave a cry, which seemed to echo all round, and I jumped down from the sea-wall, and flew across the meadow and tore up the glen, till I fell full length by the neglected pond with the broken leaden nymph. For as they took _it_ up, the thing had divided in two, and somehow I had known the one was a mother and the other a child; one was I, and the other I still carried within me. And the voice which had said ”Better like that” was Hubert's.

But as I write, I know it must have been a vision of my sickness.

”Eustace,” I asked, ”how did it begin? Did I dream--or did you find me lying by the fountain on the terrace--the fountain of your poor water snake?”

”Forget it, dearest,” Eustace said, very quietly and sweetly, and with the old gentle truthfulness in his eyes. ”You must have over-walked that hot morning and got a sunstroke or fainted with fatigue. We did find you by the fountain--that is to say, our good Mrs. Davies did.” And Davies merely nodded.

_July_ 15, 1773.

Shall I ever know whether it really happened? Methinks that had I certainty I could face, stand up to, it. But to go on sinking and weltering in this hideous doubt!

_August_ 1, 1773.

The certainty has come; and G.o.d in Heaven, what undreamed certainties besides! I did not really want it, though I told myself I did. For I felt that Mrs. Davies knew, that she was watching her opportunity to tell me; and I, a coward, evading what I must some day learn. At last it has come.

It was this morning. This morning! It seems weeks and months ago--a whole lifetime pa.s.sed since! She was brus.h.i.+ng my hair, one of the many services required by my weakness, and which she performs with wonderful tenderness. We saw one another's face, but only reflected in the mirror; and I recognised when she was going to speak.

”Lady Brandling,” she said in her odd Welsh way--”Lady Brandling fell ill because she saw some things from the sea-wall.”

I knew what she meant--for are not my own thoughts for ever going over that same ground? But the sense of being surrounded by enemies, the whole horrid mystery about this accursed place, have taught me caution and even cunning. Davies has been as a mother to me in my illness; but I remembered my first impression of her unfriendliness towards Eustace and me, and of her being put to spy upon us. So I affected not to understand; and indeed, her singular mixture of English and Welsh, her outlandish modes of address, gave some countenance to the pretence.

”What do you mean, Davies?” I asked, but without looking up in the gla.s.s for fear of meeting her eyes there. ”What has the sea-wall to do with my illness? It was not there you found me when I fainted. You told me it was by the fountain.”

The old woman took a paper from her stays, and out of it a muddy piece of linen which she spread out on the dressing-table in front of me. It was a handkerchief of mine; and I understood that she had found it, treasured it as a sign of what I had witnessed. The place, the moment, might mean my death-warrant; for what I thought I saw had been really seen.

”It was on the sea-wall the morning that Lady Brandling fainted in the shrubbery,” she answered. And I felt that her eyes were on my face, asking what I had seen that day.

I made a prodigious effort over myself.

”And why have you kept it in that state instead of was.h.i.+ng it? Did you--was it picked up then or only now? _I suppose some one else found it?”_

Merciful G.o.d! how every word of that last sentence beat itself out in my heart and throat!--and yet I heard the words p.r.o.nounced lightly, indifferently.

”I picked it up myself, my lady,” answered Mrs. Davies. ”I went down to the sea-wall after I had put Lady Brandling to bed. I thought she might have left something there. I thought I should like to go there before the others came. I thought Lady Brandling had seen something. I want Lady Brandling to tell me truly if she saw something on the sea-wall.”

I felt it was a struggle, perhaps a struggle for life and death between her and me. I took a comb in my hand, to press it and steady me; and I looked up in the mirror and faced Davies's eyes, ready, I knew, to fix themselves on mine. ”Perhaps I may answer your question later, Davies,”

I said. ”But first you must answer mine: am I right in thinking that you were set to spy upon my husband and me from the moment we first came to St. Salvat's?”

A great change came over Davies's face. Whatever her intentions, she had not expected this, and did not know how to meet it. I felt that, were her intentions evil, I now held her in my hands, powerless for the time being.

But to my infinite surprise, and after only a short silence, she looked into my eyes quite simply and answered without hesitating.

”Lady Brandling is right. I was set to spy on Lady Brandling at the beginning. I did not love Lady Brandling at the beginning; her husband was taking the place of Sir Thomas. But I love Lady Brandling now.”

I could have sworn that it was true, for she has shown it throughout my illness. But I kept my counsel and answered very coldly,

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