Part 14 (1/2)

The next day the frost broke, and after a practice game on the Saul's ground, in preparation for a rugby match at the end of the week, Olva, bathed and feeling physically a fine, overwhelming fitness, went to see Margaret Craven.

This sense of his physical well-being was extraordinary. Mentally he was nearly beaten, almost at the limit of his endurance. Spiritually the catastrophe hovered more closely above him at every advancing moment, but, physically, he had never, in all his life before, felt such magnificent health. He had been sleeping badly now for weeks. He had been eating very little, but he felt no weariness, no faintness. It was as though his body were urging upon him the importance of his resistance, as though he were perceiving, too, with unmistakable clearness the cleavage that there was between body and soul. And indeed this vigour _did_ give him an energy to set about the numberless things that he had arranged to fill every moment of his day--the many little tinkling bells that he had set going to hide the urgent whisper of that other voice. He carried his day through with a rush, a whirl, so that he might be in bed again at night almost before he had finished his dressing in the morning--no pause, no opportunity for silence. . . .

And now he must see Margaret Craven, see her for herself, but also see her to talk to her about her brother. How much did Rupert Craven know?

How much--and here was the one tremendous question--had he told his sister? As Olva waited, once again, in the musty hall, saw once more the dim red gla.s.s of the distant window, smelt again the scent of oranges, his heart was beating so that he could not hear the old woman's trembling voice. How would Margaret receive him? Would there be in her eyes that shadow of distrust that he always saw now in Rupert's? His knees were trembling and he had to stay for an instant and pull himself together before he crossed the drawing-room threshold.

And then he was, instantly, rea.s.sured. Margaret was alone in the dim room, and as she came to meet him he saw in her approach to him that she had been wanting him. In her extended hands he found a welcome that implied also a need. He felt, as he met her and greeted her and looked again into the grave, tender eyes that he had been wanting so badly ever since he had seen them last, that there was nothing more wonderful than the way that their relations.h.i.+p advanced between every meeting. They met, exchanged a word or two and parted, but in the days that separated them their spirits seemed to leap together, to crowd into lonely hours a communion that bound them more closely than any physical intimacy could do.

”Oh! I'm so glad you've come. I had hoped it, wanted it.”

He sat down close to her, his dark eyes on her face.

”You're in trouble? I can see.”

She bent her eyes gravely on the fire, and as slowly she tried to put together the things that she wished to say he felt, in her earnest thoughtfulness, a rest, a relief, so wonderful that it was like plunging his body into cool water after a long and arid journey.

”No, it is nothing. I don't want to make things more overwhelming than they are. Only, it is, I think, simply that during these last days when mother and Rupert have both been ill, I have been overwhelmed.”

”Rupert?”

”Yes, we'll come to him in a moment. You must remember,” she smiled up at him as she said it, ”that I'm not the least the kind of person who makes the best of things--in fact I'm not a useful person at all. I suppose being abroad so long with my music spoiled me, but whatever it is I seem unable to wrestle with things. They frighten me, overwhelm me, as I say . . . I'm frightened now.”

He looked up at her last word and caught a corner reflection in the old gilt mirror--a reflection of a mult.i.tude of little things; silver boxes, photograph frames, old china pots, little silk squares, lying like scattered treasures from a wreck on a dark sea.

”What are you frightened about?”

”Well, there it is--nothing I suppose. Only I'm not good at managing sick people, especially when there's nothing definitely the matter with them. It's a case with all three of us--a case of nerves.”

”Well, that's as serious a thing as any other disease.”

”Yes, but I don't know what to do with it. Mother lies there all day.

She seldom speaks, she scarcely eats anything. She entirely refuses to have a doctor. But worse than that is the extraordinary feeling that she has had during this last week about Rupert. She refuses to see him,”

Margaret Craven finally brought out.

”Refuses?”

”Yes, she says that he is altered to her. She says that he will not let her alone, that he is imagining things. Poor Rupert is most terribly distressed. He is imagining nothing. He would do anything for her, he is devoted to her.”

”Since when has she had this idea?”

”You remember the day that you came last? when Rupert came in and had found your matchbox. It began about then. . . . Of course Rupert has not been well--he has never been well since that dreadful death of Mr.

Carfax, and certainly since that day when you were here I think that he's been worse--strange, utterly unlike himself, sleeping badly, eating nothing. Poor, poor Rupert, I would do anything for him, for them both, but I am so utterly, utterly useless, What can I do?” she finally appealed to him.

”You said once,” he answered her slowly, ”that I could help you. If you still feel that, tell me, and I will do anything, anything. You know that I will do anything.”

They came together, in that terrible room, like two children out of the dark. He suddenly caught her hand and she let him hold it. Then, very gently, she withdrew it.

”I think that you can make all the difference,” she answered slowly.