Part 16 (1/2)
She stood with her eyes on the writing, the book in her hand, for many minutes. Then put the volume down with a sigh. After all, she thought, real friends are as rare as Christian charity.
Crunching sounds--boot pressure of gravel, made her look out of the window on to the path leading to the gate. The doctor was coming up it to the house. She went out to meet him.
Gracie was not well--restless and feverish--was now lying on her bed sleeping. The doctor, on his previous visit, had thought it a cold merely, but there were faint symptoms which made him promise to come again. He was there in fulfilment of that promise now.
She was waiting for him at the door when he reached it. Nodding to her, in an informal, friendly way, he questioned cheerily:
”And how is the little one this morning?”
”Much better, I think, doctor. She is sleeping peacefully now.”
”Sleeping? Still? Is she drowsy?... Let me see her.”
They walked into the bedroom together. The noise of their entrance roused the child. She looked up and around her, with the frightened eyes of one suddenly awakened from alarming dreams.
”Well, little girlie!”
The doctor spoke merrily. He was of that type; did not carry the undertaker with him when visiting a patient. He advanced to take the child's hand lying on the coverlet; continued:
”This is a nice idea of yours, upon my word! Going to sleep in the day----”
His intent in the adoption of a rea.s.suring tone was to change the current of her thoughts: the wild thoughts evidently surging in that active little brain. But when he clasped the child's hand in his own, the merriment left his voice, the smile his face. His other hand he placed on her forehead, then turning, said:
”Why did you not send for me?”
The mother was standing close beside the child, stooping so that her face was on a level with the terror-stricken little one's bright eyes.
She was speaking loving words, in the loving way that appeals to children. Words which read so foolishly, yet sound so sweetly. She turned round suddenly, startled by the gravity in the doctor's voice.
”Send!” she cried. ”Why? She--she is not--oh, don't tell me----”
”Hus.h.!.+”
She became quiet at once. Another phase of the doctor's character showed: his will power. The loving anxiety was suppressed. The practical woman was to the fore, intent on the doctor's instructions:
”She must be undressed and put to bed. Have a fire here; it must be kept going night and day. Send one of your maids”--he was writing on a leaf of his note-book as he spoke, and finis.h.i.+ng, tore it out--”with this prescription at once.”
Gracie was fever-stricken! Tossed in delirium all that night and the next day. All the next day and night--and the mother sat by the bedside, tending, never leaving the little one.
The doctor came three and four times a day. Each time he looked grave.
There was no sign of improvement in the child's condition. The mother, worn out with watching, ever looking to him for comfort, read none.
Did ever--during all those hours of wearing, waiting, anxious watching--the thought of Masters cross her mind? She had shut him resolutely out of her heart, turned the key of consciousness upon him.
But even bolts and bars are proverbially of small efficacy in such cases.
In those long hours, the only silence breaking sounds were the monotonous ticking of the clock and the short, quick breathing of the little white-robed, white-faced form on the white pillows. Sometimes, then, the woman's resolution broke down; thoughts of The Man crept in upon her all unbidden. Gentler thoughts than she had harboured in the previous days: troubles' softening influence was around.
Their first meeting! She thought of that. Of his affection for Gracie; of the child's love for him. Surely a child's instinctive love and trust went for something. Perhaps, after all--and then those horrible words of his rang in her ears, and she hid her hot face in the white coverlet.
Never, never--they were unforgivable. Besides, he did not seek forgiveness.
Strange that, by the bedside of the panting child, with Life and Death fighting for possession of the fragile little form, her ears ever straining to catch the sound of that softer breathing which she knew would signal Life's victory--strange, that with fear and hope surging in her bosom, even while her gentle hand restrained her dear one's restless tossing to and fro and cooled the burning forehead and feverish, clinging little fingers; strange that there should seem no wrong, nothing incongruous in the thought of an almost stranger--of William Masters. Perhaps it was because Gracie loved him so dearly: that must have been the reason.