Part 23 (2/2)
”What a lot of good people there are in the world,” I said. ”I am going to like Dr. Grey as much as I like his wife. He is a big, strong, well-developed man, of course?”
”Why 'of course?'?” he asked.
”Husbands of tiny wives invariably are; the infinitely small seems to have a remarkable affinity for the infinitely great.”
”Well, he is certainly a strapping fellow, and he is devoted to the wee woman he has made his wife. I believe, too, he will get on in his profession.”
”His wife says he is a very clever man indeed,” I remarked.
”Does she? An unbia.s.sed opinion of that kind is valuable. All the same, he has done me good, not so much with physic--for I take the Zermatt man's concoctions--as with his cheery outlook. I believe he thinks I am a trickster.”
”Do you know what I believe, sir?” I asked.
”No; tell me,” he said.
”I believe you are going to get better, and I shall take you back to Windyridge and the moors.”
He sighed then, and laid a hand fondly upon mine. ”Grace, my child, I will say now what it may be more difficult to say later. You have caught me in a good hour, and my weary spirits have been refreshed by the sight of your face and the sound of your voice; but you must be prepared for darker experiences. Sometimes I suffer; often I am terribly weak and depressed. Gottlieb, I know, does not expect me to recover, and my Inner Self (that is your expression, child, and I often think of it) tells me he is right. You are too sensible to be unduly distressed before the time comes, and I want to tell you what I have planned, and to tell you quite calmly and without emotion. Death to me is only a curtain between one room and the next, so that it does not disturb me to explain to you what I wish to be done when it is raised for me to pa.s.s through.
”Midway in the village you will find some gardens opposite the Mont Cervin Hotel. Pa.s.s through them and you will reach a little English church, surrounded by a tiny graveyard. There lie the bones of men who have been killed on the mountains, and of others who have found death instead of life in these health-giving heights. There is one sunny spot where I want my body to rest, and the chaplain knows it. You can bear to hear me speak of these things, can you?”
Yes, I could bear it. He spoke so naturally and with such ease that I hardly realised what it meant: it was unreal, far-off, fallacious.
”At first,” he continued, ”the idea was repugnant. I longed to be laid side by side with my wife in the homeland, but that feeling pa.s.sed. It was nothing more than sentiment, though it was a sentiment that nearly took me home, in spite of the doctors. But the more I have thought of it the more childish it has seemed. I am conscious of her presence here, always. Metaphysicians would explain that easily enough, no doubt, but to me it is an experience, and what can one want more? Why, then, should I run away to Windyridge and Fawks.h.i.+ll in order to find her, or be carried there for that purpose after death? No, no. Heaven is about me here, and our spirits will meet at once when the silver thread is loosed which binds me to earth. Am I right, Grace?”
I was crying a little now, but I could not contradict him.
”Gottlieb shakes his head, but Grey says I may last for months.
Perhaps he is right, but I have no desire to live. Why should I? And where could I end my days more pleasantly than amidst these masterpieces of the great Architect?”
Mrs. Grey came for me when the dinner bell sounded, and we went down together. It has been arranged that I am to lunch with the squire in his own room, but to have dinner with the rest at a little table which I share with the Greys.
The doctor is just a great bouncing boy, with merry eyes and thick brown hair. He is on good terms with everybody--guests of high degree and low, waiters, porters, chambermaids--all the cosmopolitan crowd.
He adores his little wife, and it is funny to see so big a man wors.h.i.+pping at so small a shrine.
I expressed my grat.i.tude to them both as we sat at dinner, and he laughed--such a hearty, boisterous laugh.
”It's my wife. Dot wouldn't hear of leaving, and you cannot get a separation order in these wilds. She has spent so much time with the old gentleman that I have been madly jealous for hours at a stretch.”
”Don't be untruthful, Ralph,” said Mrs. Grey. ”You know perfectly well that you have spoiled our honeymoon with the simple and sordid motive of gaining professional experience. Besides, you are nicest when you are jealous.”
”Am I, by Jove!” he laughed. ”Then 'niceness' will become habitual with me, for the way all the men look at you fans the flame of my jealousy. But this is poor stuff for Miss Holden, and I want to talk seriously to her.”
”What is your candid opinion of Mr. Evans?” I asked.
”He is marked to fall, Miss Holden, but if he can be persuaded to make the effort to live he need not fall for months, perhaps even for years.
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