Part 10 (1/2)
Come to me when you have seen him. Do not think, whatever your decision is, that I shall not realize what it costs you, or fail to do all in my power to help you to carry it out.
Yours affectionately,
HELEN VERNY.
Stella dropped the letter and looked at Marian. Marian sat erect, and her eyes burned. She was tearless and outraged by sorrow. There are people who take joy as a personal virtue and sorrow as a personal insult, and Marian was one of these people. Happiness had softened and uplifted her; pain struck her down and humiliated her solid sense of pride.
”Why wasn't he killed?” she asked bitterly, meeting Stella's questioning eyes. ”I could have borne his being killed. Value! What does Lady Verny mean by value? His career is smashed; his life is to all intents and purposes over. And mine with it! It is very kind of her to say he will release me. I do not need his mother to tell me that. She seems to have overlooked the fact that I have given him my word! Is it likely that I should fail him or that I could consent to be released? I do not need any one to tell me my duty. But I hate life! I _hate_ it! I think it all stupid, vile, senseless! Why did I ever meet him? What good has love been to me? A few hours' happiness, and then this martyrdom set like a trap to catch us! And I don't like invalids. I have never seen any one very ill. I sha'n't know what to say to him.”
”Oh, yes, you will, when you see him,” said Stella; it was all that for a while she could say.
She had always believed that Marian had a deep, but close-locked, nature. Love presumably would be the key.
It was unlocked now. Pain had unlocked it, instead of love, and Stella s.h.i.+vered at the tearless hardness, the sharp, shallow sense of personal privation that occupied Marian's heart. She had not yet thought of Julian.
Stella told herself that Marian's was only the blindness of the unimaginative. The moment Marian saw Julian it would pa.s.s, and yield before the directer illumination of the heart. Marian's nature was perhaps one of those that yields very slowly to pain. When she saw Julian she would forget everything else. She would not think of her losses and sacrifices any more, or her duties. Stella felt curiously stung and wasted by Marian's use of the word ”duty.” Was that all there was for the woman whom Julian loved? Was that all there was for Julian!
But she could deal only with what Marian had; so, when she spoke again, Stella said all she could to comfort Marian. She spoke of Julian's courage; she said no life in Julian could be useless that left his brain free to act. She suggested that he would find a new career for himself, and she pictured his future successes. Beneath her lips and her quick outer mind she thought only of Julian, broken.
They stopped in a large, quiet square, at the door of a private hospital. There was no sound but the half-notes of birds stirring at twilight in the small square garden, and far off the m.u.f.fled murmur of distant streets.
A nurse opened the door.
”You are Miss Young?” she said to Marian. ”Yes, of course, we were expecting you. Sister would like to see you first.”
They stood for a moment in a small neat office. The sister rose from an old Dutch bureau, one of the traces of the house's former occupants, and held out her hand to Marian. Her eyes rested with intentness upon the girl's face.
”Sir Julian is almost certain to know you,” she said gently, ”but you mustn't talk much to him. He has been much weakened by exposure. He lay in a wood for three days without food or water. There is every hope of his partial recovery, Miss Young; but he needs rest and rea.s.surance. We can give him the rest here, but we must look to you to help us to bring back to him the love of life.”
Marian stood with her beautiful head raised proudly. She waited for a moment to control her voice; then she asked quietly:
”Is the paralysis likely to be permanent?”
The sister moved a chair toward her, but Marian shook her head.
”It is a state of partial paralysis. He will be able to get about on crutches,” the sister replied. ”Won't you rest for a few moments before going up to him, Miss Young?”
”No, thank you,” said Marian; ”I will go up to him at once.”
She turned quickly toward the door, and meeting Stella's eyes, she took and held her arm tightly for a moment, and then, loosing it, walked quickly toward the stairs. Stella followed her as if she had no being.
She had lost all consciousness of herself. She was a thought that clung to Julian, an unbodied idea fixed upon the cross of Julian's pain. She did not see the staircase up which she pa.s.sed; she walked through the wood in which Julian had lain three days.
He was in a large, airy room with two other men. Stella did not know which was Julian until he opened his eyes. There was no color in his face, and very little substance. The other men were raised in bed and looked alive, but Julian lay like something made of wax and run into a mold. Only his eyes lived--lived and flickered, and held on to his drifting consciousness.
The nurse guided Marian to his bed, and, drawing a chair forward, placed it close to him. Marian leaned down and kissed his forehead. She had determined to do that, whatever he looked like; and she did it.
His lips moved. She bent down, and a whisper reached her: ”I said I'd come back to you, and I have.” Then he closed his eyes. He had nothing further to say.
Marian did not cry. After the first moment she did not look at Julian; she looked away from him out of the window. She did not feel that it was Julian who lay there like a broken toy. It was her duty. She had submitted to it; but nothing in her responded to this submission except her iron will.