Part 11 (1/2)
He had hardly seen her since their talk at Mountain Brook in the previous June. He had not gone again that summer to New Hamps.h.i.+re, and on the two or three occasions on which he had visited Bland's house in town she seemed to have retreated once more to her old place as the spirit of the furniture. He had made efforts to get nearer her, but she seemed to elude his approaches.
He knew she would not have summoned him without having something grave to say, and saw that his surmises were correct by her method of receiving him. She was not in the drawing-room, but in Emery Bland's library, with a background of bindings of red and blue and green and gold, a few Brangwyn and Meryon etchings, and one brilliant, sinister spot of color by Felicien Rops. There was a fire in the monumental fireplace, and as he entered, a log was just breaking in the middle and spluttering, across the tall, richly wrought French dog-irons.
It was the room of the successful New-Yorker who delights in giving himself all the indulgences of taste of which his youth has been deprived. The girl, dressed simply in some light stuff, and scarcely _decolletee_, seemed somewhat lost in the s.p.a.ciousness of her surroundings. She made no pretense at preliminary social small talk, going straight to her point. She did this by a repet.i.tion of the words with which she had opened the similar conversation at Mountain Brook.
”I've something to tell you.” Having said this while they were shaking hands, she went on as soon as they were seated in the firelight:
”At least Uncle Emery had something to tell you, and I asked him to let me do it.”
”Why?” He put the question rather blankly.
”Because I thought I could do it better.” But she caught herself up at once. ”No; not better. Of course, I can't do that. Only--only I _wanted_ him to let me do it.”
Chip's heart bounded. Edith was in New York. She had heard of his condition. She was coming back to him. He was to have his reward for taking pity on Maggie Clare. His tongue and lips were parched as he forced out the words:
”Then it's good news--or you wouldn't want to break it?”
She was not visibly perturbed. Rather, she was pensive, sitting with an elbow resting on the arm of her chair, the hand raised so as to lay a forefinger on her cheek. ”Don't you think that we often make news good or bad by our way of taking it?”
”That's asking me a question, when you've got information to give me.
What have you to tell me, Miss Bland?”
”I've something to tell you that will give you a great shock; so that I don't want to say it till I know you're prepared.”
”Oh, prepared! Is one ever prepared? For G.o.d's sake, Miss Bland, what is it? Is one of the children hurt? Is one of them dead?”
”That would be a great grief. I said that this would be a great shock.
There's a difference--and one _can_ be prepared.”
”Well, I am. Please don't keep me in suspense. Do tell me.”
She sat now with hands folded in her lap, looking at him quietly. ”No, you're not prepared.”
”Tell me what to do and I'll do it,” he said, nervously, ”only don't torture me.”
”One is prepared,” she said, tranquilly, ”by remembering beforehand one's own strength--by knowing that there's nothing one can't bear, and bear n.o.bly.”
”All right; all right; I'll do that. Now please go on.”
”But _will_ you?”
”Will I what?”
”Will you try to say to yourself: I'm a man, and I'm equal to this. It can't knock me down; it can't even stagger me. I'll take it in the highest way. I sha'n't let it degrade me or send me for help to degrading things--”
He flung his hands outward. ”Yes, yes. I know what you're driving at. I promise. Only, for G.o.d's sake, tell me. Is it about--?”
”It's about Mrs. Walker.”
”Yes, so I supposed. But what is it? Is she ill? Oh, she isn't dead?”