"I am not going back. I want to see the body--this man's body. I want to see his face.... No; I am not a child, mamma. Let me have my way."
"If you must, darling, you must. But I cannot see what use it can be.
See--here is Aunt Constance! _She_ does not want to see it...." A confirmatory head-shake from Miss Dickenson. "Why should _you_?"
"Aunt Constance never spoke to him. I did. And he spoke to me. Let me go, mamma dear. Don't oppose me." Indeed, the girl seems almost feverishly anxious, quite on a sudden, to have this wish. No need for her mother to accompany her, she adds. To which her mother replies:--"I would if you wished it, dear Gwen"; whereupon Aunt Constance, perceiving in her heart an opportunity for public service tending to distinction, says so would she. Further, in view of a verdict from somebody somewhere later on, that she showed a very nice feeling on this occasion, she takes an opportunity before they reach the cottage to say to Lady Gwendolen in an important aside:--"You won't let your mother go into the room, dear. Anything of this sort tells so on her system." To which the reply is rather abrupt:--"You needn't come, either of you." So that is settled.
The body had not been carried into a room of the cottage, but into what goes by the name of the Verderer's Hall, some fifty yards off. That much carriage was spared by doing so. It now lies on the "Lord's table," so called not from any reference to sacramental usage, but because the Lord of the Manor sat at it on the occasions of the Manorial Courts. Three centuries have passed since the last Court Baron; the last landlord who sat in real council with his tenantry under its roof having been Roger Earl of Ancester, who was killed in the Civil War. But old customs die hard, and every Michaelmas Day--except it fall on a Sunday--the Earl or his Steward at twelve o'clock receives from the person who enjoys a right of free-warren over certain acres that have long since harboured neither hare nor rabbit, an annual tribute which a chronicle as old as Chaucer speaks of as "iiij tusshes of a wild bore." If no boars' tusks are forthcoming, he has to be content with some equivalent devised to meet their scarcity nowadays. Otherwise, the old Hall grows to be more and more a museum of curios connected with the Park and outlying woodlands, the remains of the old forest that covered the land when even Earls were upstarts. A record pair of antlers on the wall is still incredulously measured tip to tip by visitors unconvinced by local testimony, and a respectable approach to Roman Antiquities is at rest after a learned description by Archaeology. The place smells sweet of an old age that is so slow--that the centuries have handled so tenderly--that one's heart thinks of it rather as spontaneous preservation than decay. It will see to its own survival through some lifetimes yet, if no man restores it or converts it into a Studio.
Is his rating "Death" or not, whose body is so still on its extemporised couch--just a mattress from the keeper's cottage close at hand? Was the doctor's wording warranted when he said just now under his breath:--"_It_ is in here"? Could he not have said "He"? What does the dog think, that waits and watches immovable at _its_ feet? If this is death, what is he watching for? What does the old keeper himself think, who lingers by this man whom he may have slain--this man who _may_ live, yet? He has scarcely taken his eyes off that white face and its strapped-up wound from the first moment of his sight of it. He does not note the subdued entry of Lady Gwendolen and the two doctors, and when touched on the shoulder to call his attention to the presence of a ladyship from the Castle, defers looking round until a fancy of his restless hope dies down--a fancy that the mouth was closing of itself.
He has had such fancies by scores for the last few hours, and said farewell to each with a groan.
"My mother is at the cottage, Stephen," says Gwen. "She would like to see you, I know." Thereon the old man turns to go. He looks ten years older than his rather contentious self of yesterday. The young lady says no word either way of his responsibility for this disaster. She cannot blame, but she cannot quite absolve him yet, without a grudge. Her mother can; and will, somehow.
The dog has run to her side for a moment--has uttered an undertone of bewildered complaint; then has gone back patiently to his old post, and is again watching. The great surgeon and the girl stand side by side, watching also. The humbler medico stands back a little, his eyes rather on his senior than on the body.
"It is absolutely certain--this?" says Lady Gwen; questioning, not affirming. She is wonderfully courageous--so Sir Coupland thinks--in the presence of Death. But she is ashy white.
He utters the barest syllable of doubt; then half-turns for courtesy to his junior, who echoes it. Then each shakes his head, looking at the other.
"Is there no sound--nothing to show?" Gwen has some hazy idea that there ought to be, if there is not, some official note of death due from the dying, a rattle in the throat at least.
Sir Coupland sees her meaning. "In a case of this sort," says he, "sheer loss of blood, the breath may cease so gradually that sound is impossible. All one can say is that there _is_ no breath, and no action of the heart--so far as one can tell." He speaks in a business-like way that is a sort of compliment to his hearer; no accommodation of facts as to a child; then raises the lifeless hand slightly and lets it fall, saying:--"See!"
To his surprise the girl, without any comment, also raises the band in hers, and stands holding it. "Yes--it will fall," says he, as though she had spoken questioning it. But still she holds it, and never shrinks from the horror of its mortality, somewhat to the wonder of her only spectator. For the other doctor has withdrawn, to speak to someone outside.
Of a sudden the dog Achilles starts barking. A short, sharp, startled bark--once, twice--and is silent. The girl lays the dead hand gently down, not dropping it, but replacing it where it first lay. She does not speak for a moment--cannot, perhaps. Then it comes with a cry, neither of pain nor joy--mere tension. "Oh, Dr. Merridew ... the fingers closed ... They closed on mine ... the fingers _closed_.... I know it. I know it ... The fingers _closed_!..." She says it again and again as though in terror that her word might be doubted. He sees as she turns to him that all her pride of self-control has given way. She is fighting against an outburst of tears, and her breath comes and goes at will, or at the will of some power that drives it. Sir Coupland may be contemplating speech--something it is correct to say, something the cooler judgment will endorse--but whatever it is he keeps it to himself.
He is not one of those cheap sages that has _hysteria_ on his tongue's tip to account for everything. It _may_ be that; but it may be ...
Well--he has seen some odd cases in his time.
So, without speaking to the agitated young lady, he simply calls his colleague back; and, after a word or two aside with him, says to her:--"You had better leave him to us. Go now." It gives her confidence that he does not soothe or cajole, but speaks as he would to a man. She goes, and as she walks across to the Keeper's Lodge makes a little peace for her heart out of small material. Sir Coupland said "him" this time--look you!--not "it" as before.
The daughter finds the mother, five minutes later, trying a well-meant word to the old keeper; to put a little heart in him, if possible. It was no fault of his; he only carried out his orders, and so on. Gwen is silent about her experience; she will not raise false hopes. Besides, she is only half grieved for the old chap--has only a languid sympathy in her heart for him who, tampering with implements of Death, becomes Cain unawares. If she is right, he will know in time. Meanwhile it will be a lesson to him to avoid triggers, and will thus minimise the exigencies of Hell. Also, she has recovered her self-command; and will not show, even to her mother, how keen her interest has been in this man in the balance betwixt life and death.
As to the older lady, who has fought shy of seeing the body, the affair is no more than a casualty, very little coloured by the fact that its victim is a "gentleman." This sort of thing may impress the groundlings, while a real Earl or Duke remains untouched. A coronet has a very levelling effect on the plains below. Your mere baronet is but a hillock, after all. Possibly, however, this is a proletariate view, which always snubs rank, and her ladyship the Countess may never have given a thought to this side of the case. Certainly she is honestly grieved on behalf of her old friend Stephen, whom she has known for thirty years past. In fact, of the two, as they walk back to the Towers, the mother shows more than the daughter the reaction of emotion.
Says her daughter to her as they walk back--the three as they came--"I believe he will recover, for all that. I believe Dr. Merridew believes it, too. I am certain the fingers moved." Her manner lays stress on her own equanimity. It is more self-contained than need be, all things considered.
"The eyesight is easily deceived," says Miss Dickenson, prompt with the views of experience. She always holds a brief for common sense, and is considered an authority. "Even experts are misled--sometimes--in such cases...."
Gwen interrupts:--"It had nothing to do with eyesight. I _felt_ the fingers move." Whereupon her mother, roused by her sudden emphasis, says:--"But we are so glad that it _should_ be so, Gwen darling." And then, when the girl stops in her walk and says:--"Of course you are--but why not?" she has a half-smile as for petulance forgiven, as she says:--"Because you fired up so about it, darling; that's all. We did not understand that you had hold of the hand. Was it stiff?" This in a semi-whisper of protest against the horror of the subject.
"Not the least. Cold!--oh, how cold!" She shudders of set purpose to show how cold. "But not _stiff_."
The two other ladies go into a partnership of seniority, glancing at each other; and each contributes to a duet about the duty of being hopeful, and we shall soon know, and at any rate, the case could not be in better hands, and so on. But whereas the elder lady was only working for reassurance--puzzled somewhat at a certain flushed emphasis in this beautiful daughter of hers--Miss Smith-Dickenson was taking mental notes, and looking intuitive. She was still looking intuitive when she joined the numerous party at lunch, an hour later. She had more than one inquiry addressed to her about "this unfortunate accident," but she reserved her information, with mystery, acquiring thereby a more defined importance. A river behind a _barrage_ is much more impressive than a pump.
Sir Coupland Merridew's place at table was still empty when the first storm of comparison of notes set in over the events and deeds of the morning. A conscious reservation was in the air about the disaster of last night, causing talk to run on every other subject, but betrayed by more interest in the door and its openings than lunch generally shows.
Presently it would open for the overdue guest, and he would have news worth hearing, said Hope. For stinted versions of event had leaked out, and had outlived the reservations and corrections of those who knew.
Lunch was conscious of Sir Coupland's arrival in the house before he entered, and its factors nodded to each other and said: "That's him!"
Nice customs of Grammar bow before big mouthfuls. However, Miss Smith-Dickenson did certainly say: "I believe that _is_ Sir Coupland."
It was, and in his face was secret content and reserve. In response to a volley of What?--Well?--Tell us!--and so forth, he only said:--"Shan't tell you anything till I've had something to eat!" But he glanced across at Lady Gwen and nodded slightly--a nod for her exclusive use.
Lunch, liberated by what amounted to certainty that the man was not killed, ran riot; almost all its factors taking a little more, thank you! It was brought up on its haunches by being suddenly made aware that Sir Coupland--having had something to eat--had spoken. He had to repeat his words to reach the far end of the long table.
"Yes--I said ... only of course if you make such a row you can't hear.... I said that this gentleman cannot be said to have recovered consciousness"--here he paused for a mistaken exclamation of disappointment to get nipped in the bud, and then continued--"yet a while. However, I am glad to say I--both of us, Dr. Nash and myself, I should say--were completely mistaken about the case. It has turned out contrary to every expectation that...." Nobody noticed that a pause here was due to Lady Gwen having made "No!" with her lips, and looked a protest at the speaker. He went on:--"Well ... in short ... I would have sworn the man was dead ... and he isn't! That's all I have to say about it at present. It might be over-sanguine to say he is alive--meaning that he will succeed in keeping so--but he is certainly not _dead_."
Miss Dickenson lodged her claim to a mild form of omniscience by saying with presence of mind:--"Exactly!" but without presumption, so that only her near neighbours heard her. Self-respect called for no more.
Had the insensible man spoken?--the Earl asked pertinently. Oh dear, no!
Nothing so satisfactory as that, so far. The vitality was almost _nil_.
The Earl retired on his question to listen to what a Peninsular veteran was saying to Gwen. This ancient warrior was one who talked but little, and then only to two sorts, old men like himself, with old memories of India and the Napoleonic wars, and young women like Gwen. As this was his way, it did not seem strange that he should address her all but exclusively, with only a chance side-word now and then to his host, for mere courtesy.
"When I was in Madras in eighteen-two--no--eighteen-three," he said, "I was in the Nineteenth Dragoons under Maxwell--he was killed, you know--in that affair with the Mahrattas...."
"I know. I've read about the Battle of Assaye, and how General Wellesley had two horses shot under him...."
"That was it. Scindia, you know--that affair! They had some very good artillery for those days, and our men had to charge up to the guns. I was cut down in Maxwell's cavalry charge, and went near bleeding to death. He was a fine fellow that did it...."
"Never mind him! You were going to tell me about yourself."
"Why--I was given up for dead. It was a good job I escaped decent interment. But the surgeon gave me the benefit of the doubt, and stood me over for a day or two. Then, as I didn't decay properly...."
"Oh, General--don't be so horrible!" This from Miss Smith-Dickenson close at hand. But Gwen is too eager to hear, to care about delicacies of speech, and strikes in:--
"Do go on, General! Never mind Aunt Constance. She is so fussy. Go on--'didn't decay properly'...."
"Well--I was behindhand! Not up to my duties, considered as a corpse!
The doctor stood me over another twenty-four hours, and I came to. I was very much run down, certainly, but I _did_ come to, or I shouldn't be here now to tell you about it, my dear. I should have been sorry."
A matter-of-fact gentleman "pointed out" that had General Rawnsley died of his wounds, he would not have been in a position to feel either joy or sorrow, or to be conscious that he was not dining at Ancester. The General fished up a wandering eyeglass to look at him, and said:--"Quite correct!" Miss Smith-Dickenson remarked upon the dangers attendant on over-literal interpretations. The Hon. Mr. Pellew perceived in this that Miss Dickenson had a sort of dry humour.
"But you _did_ come to, General, and you _are_ telling me about it,"
said Lady Gwen. "Now, how long was it before you rejoined your regiment?"
"H'm--well! I wasn't good for much two months later, or I should have come in for the fag-end of the campaign. All right in three months, I should say. But then--I was a young fellah!--in those days. How old's your man?"
"This gentleman who has been shot?" says Gwen, with some stiffness. "I have not the slightest idea." But Sir Coupland answered the question for her. "At a guess, General, twenty-five or twenty-six. He ought to do well if he gets through the next day or two. He may have a good constitution. I can't say yet. Yours must have been remarkable."
"I had such a good appetite, you know," says the General. "Such a devil of a twist! If I had had my way, I should have been at Argaum two months later. But, good Lard!--they wouldn't let me out of Hospital." The old soldier, roused by the recollection of a fifty-year-old grievance, still rankling, launched into a denunciation of the effeminacy and timidity of Authorities and Seniors, of all sorts and conditions. His youth was back upon him with its memories, and he had forgotten that he too was now a Senior. His torrent of thinly disguised execrations was of service to Lady Gwen; as the original subject of the conversation, just shot, was naturally forgotten. She had got all the enlightenment she wanted about him, and was cultivating an artificial lack of interest in his accident.
She was, however, a little dissatisfied with her own success in this branch of horticulture. Her anxiety had felt itself fully justified till now by the bare facts of the case. Her longing that this man should not die was so safe while it seemed certain that he could not live, that she felt under no obligation to account to herself for it. Analysis of niceties of feeling in the presence of Death were uncalled for, surely.
But now, with at least a chance of his recovery, she felt that she ought to be able to think of something else. So she talked of Sardanapalus and Charles Keane at the Princesses' Theatre--the first a play, the second a player--and the General, declining more than monosyllables to the matter-o'-fact gentleman, subsided into wrathful recollection of an exasperated young Dragoon chafing under canvas beneath an Indian sun, and panting for news of his regiment in the north, fifty years before.
But such intermittent conversation could not prevent her seeing that Norbury the butler had handed a visiting-card, pencilled on the back, to her father, and had whispered a message to him with a sense of its gravity, and that her father had replied:--"Yes, say I will be there presently." Nor that--in response to remote inquiry from his Countess at the end of an avenue of finger-glasses--he had thrown the words "Hamilton Torrens and the daughter--mother too ill to come--won't come up to the house until he's fit to move!" all the length of the table.
That her mother had said:--"Oh yes--you know them," perhaps because of an apologetic manner in her husband for being the recipient of the message. Also that curiosity and information were mutual in the avenue, and that next-door neighbours but one were saying:--"What's that?" and getting no answer.