Part 19 (2/2)

”You always did talk wot,” remarked Carminow placidly. ”You're weally not a bit changed, Killigrew, in spite of Paris. By the way, I suppose you heard about Polkinghorne?”

”Yes, from Old Tring. I went to St. Renny a little while ago.”

”Ah! then you heard about Hilaria? I thought from Ruan's mention of her you had neither of you heard.”

”Heard what?”

”Why,” said Carminow in rather a shocked voice, ”about her illness.”

”No!...” exclaimed Ishmael and Killigrew in a breath; and Killigrew went on: ”What illness? I can't imagine the Hilaria we used to know ill.”

”She's not the Hilaria we used to know, I'm afraid. You would hardly recognize her. She's got a disease--you wouldn't know it if I were to tell you its name--that is one of the most obscure known to science, if you can call a thing known when no cure can be discovered to it. Yes, she's hopelessly paralysed, is poor Hilaria.” A certain impersonal note as he spoke of the illness had crept through all the genuine feeling in Carminow's voice.

”But it's impossible!” cried Ishmael, profoundly shocked, not so much at any personal feeling for Hilaria, as an instinctive protest that such things could be. ”Hilaria--why she was never still, and the things she did--why, you remember her walks and her fencing and everything--”

”Old Dr. Harvey at St. Renny puts it down very largely to those excessive walks she used to take,” said Carminow.

Ishmael said nothing; he was struck by a greater horror that it should have been those walks, which had so seemed to set Hilaria apart from her s.e.x, on which he had so often accompanied her, of which even now he could recall the delight though he had not thought of them since....

Carminow went on:

”But of course I don't agree with him; he only says that because he always disapproved of the way poor old Eliot brought her up. Personally I think it was a very healthy way, and I believe it will be for the good of the race when women are made to exercise more. But Hilaria had the seeds of this sclerosis in her then, and nothing can stop it; over-exertion may have made it worse, as it does any illness, but it couldn't have caused it. It's being mercifully rapid, that's one comfort.”

”It's ghastly,” said Killigrew in a low voice. ”Where is she, Carminow?

Have you seen her?”

”Well, yes, as a matter of fact I go when I can. I think it gives her pleasure to see anyone from the old days. She's in a home for such things in London. Her father lodges round the corner to be near her.

It's awful to see him. You know how he was about her.... She would be brought back from France when they found out how bad it was. D'you remember how her eyes used to give out sometimes when she was reading to us? That was all part of the same thing, always in her, beginning to come out.”

A little silence. Both Ishmael and Killigrew were wondering if they ought to go and see her or not, both fighting a repulsion of which Killigrew's was more purely aesthetic and Ishmael's rather a pa.s.sionate wish to keep thought of such a thing away from life....

They had come to the parting of their way from Carminow's, and all three were standing at the street corner under a flickering gas lamp.

”Well,” said Carminow a little awkwardly, ”I suppose now we've met I shall be seeing you fellows again? I'm genewally in in the evenings when I don't have to be on duty at the hospital.”

It was Ishmael who replied:

”I shall probably be round some time soon,” he said. ”I shall want to hear how the new drop worked, you know. By the way, what theatre is Miss Grey appearing at? It might be interesting to go and see the performance, mightn't it, Joe?”

”Oh, d.a.m.n it all! I can only think for the moment of poor little Hilaria,” exclaimed Killigrew. ”I used to be very fond of her.... I wonder--”

”I'll find out if she'd like to see you and Ruan when next I go if you like, but it's painful, because she can only get her words out in jerks,” said Carminow. ”It's the Strand that Miss Grey's appearing at.

Quite a small part; but at least it's a lady-like one, and her stage name is Miss Blanche Nevill. Good-night, you fellows!”

They echoed his farewell, and then, finding no belated growler, set out to walk all the way back to Tavistock Square. They mentioned neither Hilaria nor Blanche Grey again that night, but as Ishmael lay for a long time awake staring into the darkness he could not keep his mind from reverting with a sense of deep fear to what he had heard about Hilaria.

That such things could lie in wait in life, around the path of people one knew--people like oneself.... To others these exotic misfortunes, not to oneself or those near one. He had the sensation of incredulity with which one hears of some intimate friend involved in a train accident or attacked by some freakish fate such as may be read of in the newspapers daily but is never realised as being an actual and possible happening. Polkinghorne's death had made him believe there was such a thing as death, but it was so remote. This was different. If these things could come into life, ordinary every-day life....

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