Red Pottage Part 64

Her face became pinched and livid. She understood now, after the event.

"I am frightened for him," she said.

The Bishop had been alarmed while she poured out his tea before they began to talk.

"Perhaps he has gone back to London," she said, her eyes widening with a vague dread.

The Bishop had gone on to the station, and had ascertained that Hugh had not left by the one train which had stopped at Southminster between seven and nine. But he did not add to her anxiety by saying so.

The doctor's brougham, coming at full speed, drew up suddenly at the door.

"There he is at last," said the Bishop, and before the bell could be rung he opened the door.

A figure was already on the threshold, but it was not Dr. Brown. It was d.i.c.k.

"Where is Dr. Brown?" said Rachel and the Bishop simultaneously, looking at the doctor's well-known brougham and smoking horses.

"He asked me to come," said d.i.c.k, measuring Rachel with his eye. Then he did as he would be done by, and added, slowly: "He was kept. He was on his way here from Wilderleigh, where one of the servants is ill, and as I was dining there he offered me a lift back. And when we were pa.s.sing that farm near the wood a man stopped us. He said there had been an accident--some one nearly drowned. I went, too. It turned out to be Scarlett. Dr. Brown remained with him, and sent me to take you to him."

"Is he dead?" asked Rachel, her eyes never leaving d.i.c.k's face.

"No, but he is very ill."

"I will come now."

The chaplain came slowly across the hall, laden with books and papers.

"Let Canon Sebright know at once that I cannot take part in the service," said the Bishop, sharply; and he hurried down the steps after Rachel, and got into the carriage with her. d.i.c.k turned up the collar of his fur coat, and climbed up beside the coachman.

The carriage turned warily, and then set off at a great pace.

The cathedral loomed up suddenly, all aglow with light within. Out into the night came the dirge of the organ for the dying year.

The Bishop kept his eyes fixed on the pane. The houses were left behind.

They were in the country.

"Who is that?" said Rachel, suddenly, as a long shadow ran beside them along the white hedgerow.

"It is only d.i.c.k. There is a rise in the ground here, and he is running to ease the horses."

There was a long silence.

"I believe he did it on purpose," said Rachel, at last. "I forsook him in his great need, and now he has forsaken me."

"He would never forsake you, Rachel."

"Not knowingly," she said. "I did it knowing. That is the difference between him and me."

She did not speak again.

For a lifetime, as it seemed to the Bishop, the carriage swayed from side to side of the white road. At last, when he had given up all hope, it turned into a field and jolted heavily over the frozen ruts. Then it came to a stand-still.

Rachel was out of the carriage before d.i.c.k could get off the box.

She looked at him without speaking, and he led the way swiftly through the silent wood under the moon. The Bishop followed.

The keeper's cottage had a dim yellow glimmer in it. Man's little light looked like a kind of darkness in the great white, all-pervading splendor of the night. The cottage door was open. Dr. Brown was looking out.

Rachel went up to him.

"Where is he?" she said.

He tried to speak; he tried to hold her gently back while he explained something. But he saw she was past explanation, blind and deaf except for one voice, one face.

"Where is he?" she repeated, shaking her head impatiently.

"Here," said the doctor, and he led her through the kitchen. A man and woman rose up from the fireside as she came in. He opened the door into the little parlor.

On the floor on a mattress lay a tall figure. The head, supported on a pillow, was turned towards the door, the wide eyes were fixed on the candle on the table. The lips moved continually. The hands were picking at the blankets.

For the first moment Rachel did not know him. How could this be Hugh?

How could these blank, unrecognizing eyes be Hugh's eyes, which had never until now met hers without love?

But it was he. Yes, it was he. She traced the likeness as we do in a man's son to the man himself.

She fell on her knees beside him and took the wandering hands and kissed them.

He looked at her, through her, with those bright, unseeing eyes, and the burning hands escaped from hers back to their weary work.

d.i.c.k, whose eyes had followed Rachel, turned away biting his lip, and sat down in a corner of the kitchen. The keeper and his wife had slipped away into the little scullery.

The Bishop went up to d.i.c.k and put his arm round his shoulders. Two tears of pain were standing in d.i.c.k's hawk-eyes. He had seen Rachel kiss Hugh's hands. He ground his heel against the brick floor.

The Bishop understood, and understood, too, the sudden revulsion of feeling.

"Poor chap!" said d.i.c.k, huskily. "It's frightful hard luck on him to have to go just when she was to have married him. If it had been me I could not have borne it; but then I would have taken care I was not drowned. I'd have seen to that. But it's frightful hard luck on him, all the same."

"I suppose he was taking a short cut across the ice."

"Yes," said d.i.c.k, "and he got in where any one who knew the look of ice would have known he would be sure to get in. The keeper watched him cross the ice. It was some time before they could get near him to get him out, and it seems there is some injury."

Dr. Brown came slowly out, half closing the parlor door behind him.

"I can do nothing more," he said. "If he lived he would have brain fever. But he is dying."

"Does he know her?"

"No. He may know her at the last, but it is doubtful. I can do nothing, and I am wanted elsewhere."