Christina Part 17

"I know he will be angry with me," she said at last, "but--I must ask you to see him. I am so afraid he is worse than he thinks, than we all think. And you have promised secrecy? You have promised it?" she said vehemently, putting out her hands towards him. Fergusson looked, as he felt, profoundly puzzled.

"I have already promised to mention nothing of what I see or hear in this house to a living soul," he said, a trace of irritation creeping into his quiet voice. "I shall keep my promise. I cannot say more than that. Is there someone you wish me to see?" The woman's dark eyes turned to Christina, who stood at the foot of the bed, a silent and interested spectator of the strange little scene.

"I want the doctor to see my--the sick man you helped," she said in faltering accents. "Will you take him to the room you went to last night? Will you explain that I--that Madge begs him to tell the doctor all about his illness? He--he may be angry," she looked into Fergusson's eyes again, "but I think--you will understand--I think you will soothe him."

"Is he----" Fergusson was beginning, when one of those restlessly moving hands touched his.

"Please--don't ask me to tell you--who he is," she said earnestly; "he has been very ill; he has only come here--since he was convalescent,"

again her eyes fell before the doctor's glance, "but before he came here he was very ill, and in great trouble. Ah! be good to him," she exclaimed, her enforced calm of manner suddenly giving way; "let him have peace now; he has had such a troubled life." The tortured look in her eyes touched Fergusson deeply, his hand closed over her trembling one with a strong, rea.s.suring grasp.

"I will do my best for him," he said cheerily; "and I will ask no unnecessary questions. You need not be afraid that I shall try to find out anything beyond his physical symptoms. Trust me." And with another kindly glance from those eminently trustworthy eyes of his, he bade Christina lead the way to his new patient. In silence they traversed the pa.s.sage by which Christina had pa.s.sed along on the previous night, but as she knocked on the door of the sick man's apartment, the doctor stooped towards her and whispered:--

"I don't know whether I ought to let you be mixed up in what may turn out an unpleasant mystery. Would you rather go away at once? I can explain my own presence to this man."

Christina shook her head, and her mouth took on a little determined look, which Fergusson learnt to recognise later on as one of her most marked characteristics.

"No--I will do what she asked me to do," she said. "I am not afraid of mysteries, and I must help my beautiful lady as much as ever I can."

So saying, she turned the handle of the door, in response to an impatient "Come in!" and she and Fergusson entered together. The sick man lay propped up with pillows, his eyes turned towards the door, a fretful expression on his face, an expression which turned to one of acute fear, when he saw the doctor's form behind Christina.

"Who are you?" he exclaimed, shrinking back and trembling violently.

"Why have you come here? I tell you I am all right in this place; you can't do me any harm now; I am safe--safe--why----"

"I have not come to do you any harm," the doctor answered soothingly, hiding the surprise he undoubtedly felt. "I am only a doctor who wants to make you well. You have been ill, haven't you?"

"Well, what of that?" the other answered sullenly, his eyes furtively watching Fergusson's face, his weak mouth quivering. "I don't want a doctor, even if I have been ill. I can do very well without a doctor.

Why did you come?"

Christina stepped softly to the bedside, and her voice was very gently.

"You remember me?" she said. "I came to help you last night; and I was told to tell you now as a special message, that Madge sent the doctor, that she begs you to tell him all about your illness. You can trust Dr. Fergusson," the girl went on earnestly. "He will not tell anybody that he has seen you. You can safely trust him."

"We are trusting too many people," came the querulous retort. "First Elizabeth was busy, and you came to me last night, and you are a total stranger. Though you were so kind to me, it is no use to pretend you are not a stranger. Yet I had to trust you, and now I have to trust the doctor. There are too many people in it now."

"This young lady, Miss Moore, and I, know absolutely nothing about you, or about the lady of this house," Fergusson said firmly, but soothingly. "We do not even know your relations.h.i.+p to one another.

Your secrets are quite safe with us, because we have no idea what those secrets are. Therefore, you can safely trust us. And, in any case, I can answer for Miss Moore, as for myself--in any case, we shall keep silence about everything we have seen in this house." The sick man muttered one or two more feeble remonstrances, after which, with the sudden abandonment of his position, so characteristic of a weak nature, he said resignedly:

"Well, well, it is no use talking--it is never of any use for me to talk--and if Madge wishes me to be overhauled, so be it. I will put myself into your hands, but, understand, I do it under protest."

Denis Fergusson only nodded and smiled in response, saying to Christina--

"Now, if you will go and have that cup of tea, I will do my best for the patient here, and come to fetch you in a few minutes"; and the girl, taking the hint, left the two men together, and returned to the other room, where she found the beautiful lady lying with eyes wistfully turned towards the door, whilst Elizabeth vainly implored her to drink the tea she had made.

"I couldn't think of tea, or of anything else till you came back," the beautiful woman exclaimed, stretching out her hands to the girl, with feverish eagerness. "Was he vexed--my poor Max--was he dreadfully vexed when you took the doctor to his room?" Christina was conscious of a sudden wonder. Why, she speculated, did this woman's voice drop into accents of such divine tenderness when she spoke of the sick man?

What attraction could that weak, querulous invalid possess for this stately, beautiful creature, who, to the girl's admiring eyes, seemed as far above him as a star is far from the earth. Why did she love him, as she most obviously did, with that intense, overmastering love which in a woman of this calibre almost approaches to the divine?

"Just at first he was rather vexed," she answered, "but Dr. Fergusson is very tactful; he inspires confidence. I think it will be all right now. And I have come back here to have some tea with you," she added brightly, seeing and understanding the old servant's anxious glances.

"I am going to confess that I have been awake a great deal of the night, and tea will be very refres.h.i.+ng." She added these words, because she saw that the other woman would be more likely to drink her own tea, if she felt that Christina was really in need of the refreshment, and her surmise was right.

"Oh! but you must have your tea at once," the woman in the bed exclaimed. "I can't bear to think I have been keeping you awake; indeed, it is dreadful to think that you have all unwittingly come into my shadowed life," she added under her breath, whilst the girl seated herself beside the bed; and Elizabeth served them both.

"I am glad I have been able to help you," Christina said impulsively, when the servant softly left the room; "you don't know how glad I should be if I could do anything--to--make things easier for you," she ended rather lamely, but the admiration in her eyes was unmistakable, and the shapely white hand with its one ring, was laid on Christina's.

"You have helped me to-night more than you suppose," she said; "there is something very restful about your personality, little girl, do you know that? All night you have given me a feeling of rest and peace."

"I am glad," Christina answered, a light flas.h.i.+ng into her eyes; "I believe I would rather be restful to people than anything else in the world."

"A rest-bringer," was the soft answer; "you will always be that, if you go on as you have begun. And, it is work worth doing--to bring rest to tired souls, to those who go through the vale of misery, who know--what pain means. Be a rest-bringer, little girl; you could not be anything better or sweeter."

Christina flushed vividly, partly at the words of praise, partly because, as they were spoken, a face rose before her mental vision, a man's face, lined and rugged, with marks of pain carved upon it, with a haunting look of pain in its grey eyes. And with that remembrance, came also a sudden impetuous wish that it might be given to her to bring rest to the man who was Lady Cicely's cousin, the man whose very name she did not know. She was startled out of the strange train of thought, by her companion's voice.

"I cannot imagine," she was saying, "why it is that your face and voice are in some odd way familiar to me, and yet you a.s.sure me we have never met before?"

"We have never met," Christina answered decidedly. "I could not have forgotten you if I had ever seen you--and oh!" she went on with an eager girlish gesture, "please mayn't I have some name to remember you by--not any name that--that you would rather I did not know," she added quickly, seeing an anxious look in the other's eyes; "only just something to keep in my thoughts of you."

"Call me--just--Margaret in your thoughts," was the answer; "that is one of my names; call me that."

"But it seems"--Christina hesitated--"it seems like impertinence, to call you by a Christian name. You----"

"Yes, I know. I am old enough to be your mother,"--the dark eyes looked wistfully into the eager young face--"and the life I have lived makes me feel more as if I was a thousand, instead of only thirty-eight. But still, there is a young corner in my heart--quite a young corner, where I can feel like a girl again; and it would please me if you called me Margaret."

"Margaret," Christina repeated softly; "I am glad you have such a beautiful name. It seems to belong to your beautiful face." She spoke dreamily, scarcely aware of what she said, but as the sound of her own words fell on her ears, she flushed deeply, and a deprecating look came into her eyes.

"Oh! I beg your pardon," she exclaimed; "I was speaking my thoughts aloud, and it was rude of me. But, do you know, ever since I first saw you, I have called you in my mind 'the beautiful lady.' You see, I had no name by which to call you."

"It was very pretty of you," Margaret smiled, her fingers touching the girl's dusky hair. "Once upon a time, long ago, when I was as young as you, I was beautiful; it is not vanity to say that now. I was a beautiful girl. But life, and all that life has brought--have----"

"They have made you more beautiful," the girl interrupted eagerly; "they have put sadness into your face, but they have not taken away its beauty; they have only added to it." Margaret smiled again, and an answering smile flashed over the girl's face, making the older woman lean towards her, and exclaim, with a puzzled stare--

"It certainly is most extraordinary how, when you smile, I find something so familiar in your face. The quick way you smile, reminds me of another face I have seen, but--I cannot remember where I saw it, or whose it is. And your voice reminds me of just such another clear voice, with restful cadences in it. Could I ever have known anyone belonging to your family?"

Christina shook her head, recognising dimly that the woman before her, belonged to a circle of life very different from that in which her father and mother had moved.

"I don't think it is at all likely you ever saw any relation of mine,"

she answered. "My name is Moore, and we were always very poor, and lived in an out-of-the-way Devons.h.i.+re village. I never knew any of my relations, and I don't even know my mother's maiden name. I think her people had treated her very badly; she never mentioned them."

"Ah, well, it must be some chance likeness, but it will worry me, until I can remember who the person is of whom you remind me. Is that the doctor?" she broke off to say, her lighter tone changing to one of acute anxiety. "What is he coming to tell me?" The animation that for a few moments had lighted her features, and lessened some of the tragedy, in her eyes died away, and the face that was turned towards Dr. Fergusson, as he once more entered the room, had nothing upon it but an agonised question.

"He has allowed you to examine him thoroughly?" she asked.

"Yes, quite thoroughly." Fergusson's voice was gentle, but very grave, and as he came and stood beside the bed, Christina instinctively realised that he hesitated to speak further, because what he had to say was of a painful nature.

"Tell--me." Margaret spoke a little breathlessly; her eyes never left the kind, shrewd face looking down at her; the anguish in their depths hurt Denis's tender heart. To give pain to any woman, above all to a woman so fragile, so physically unfit to bear it as this woman seemed to be, was almost intolerable to him. Yet his honesty and strength of nature never allowed him to evade the truth, when truth had to be told, and he did not evade it now.

"I am afraid I have not good news to bring you," he said. "The patient I have just examined, is only momentarily convalescent. I---think it is only fair to be quite honest with you: there is no real hope of his ultimate recovery." The woman in the bed uttered a little low sound, which seemed to Christina the most pitiful she had ever heard, but when she spoke, her voice was unnaturally quiet.

"You mean he has some incurable disease? Tell me the exact truth."

"Yes, quite incurable--and--very far advanced. I can give him a certain amount of alleviation, but--it would not be right to let you build any hopes on the possibility of a cure. There is no such possibility."