Lady Merton, Colonist Part 31

"I must slip away," said Anderson, presently, in her ear; "I promised to look in on Philip if possible. And to-morrow I fear I shall be too busy."

And he went on to tell her his own news of the day--that the Conference would be over sooner than he supposed, and that he must get back to Ottawa without delay to report to the Canadian Ministry. That afternoon he had written to take his pa.s.sage for the following week.

It seemed to her that he faltered in telling her; and, as for her, the crowd of uniformed or jewelled figures around them became to her, as he spoke, a mere meaningless confusion. She was only conscious of him, and of the emotion which at last he could not hide.

She quietly said that she would soon follow him to Portman Square, and he went away. A few minutes afterwards, Elizabeth said good-night to her hostess, and emerged upon the gallery running round the fine Italianate hall which occupied the centre of the house. Hundreds of people were hanging over the bal.u.s.trading of the gallery, watching the guests coming and going on the marble staircase which occupied the centre of the hall.

Elizabeth's slight figure slowly descended.

"Pretty creature!" said one old General, looking down upon her. "You remember--she was a Gaddesden of Martindale. She has been a widow a long time now. Why doesn't someone carry her off?"

Meanwhile Elizabeth, as she went down, dreamily, from step to step, her eyes bent apparrently upon the crowd which filled all the s.p.a.ces of the great pictorial house, was conscious of one of those transforming impressions which represent the sudden uprush and consummation in the mind of some obscure and long-continued process.

One moment, she saw the restless scene below her, the diamonds, the uniforms, the blaze of electric light, the tapestries on the walls, the handsome faces of men and women; the next, it had been wiped out; the prairies unrolled before her; she beheld a green, boundless land invaded by a mirage of sunny water; scattered through it, the white farms; above it, a vast dome of sky, with summer clouds in glistening ranks climbing the steep of blue; and at the horizon's edge, a line of snow-peaks. Her soul leapt within her. It was as though she felt the freshness of the prairie wind upon her cheek, while the call of that distant land--Anderson's country--its simpler life, its undetermined fates, beat through her heart.

And as she answered to it, there was no sense of renunciation. She was denying no old affection, deserting no ancient loyalty. Old and new; she seemed to be the child of both--gathering them both to her breast.

Yet, practically, what was going to happen to her, she did not know. She did not say to herself, "It is all clear, and I am going to marry George Anderson!" But what she knew at last was that there was no dull hindrance in herself, no cowardice in her own will; she was ready, when life and Anderson should call her.

At the foot of the stairs Mariette's gaunt and spectacled face broke in upon her trance. He had just arrived as she was departing.

"You are off--so early?" he asked her, reproachfully.

"I want to see Philip before he settles for the night."

"Anderson, too, meant to look in upon your brother."

"Yes?" said Elizabeth vaguely, conscious of her own reddening, and of Mariette's glance.

"You have heard his news?" He drew her a little apart into the shelter of a stand of flowers. "We both go next week. You--Lady Merton--have been our good angel--our providence. Has he been saying that to you? All the same--_ma collegue_--I am disappointed in you!"

Elizabeth's eye wavered under his.

"We agreed, did we not--at Glacier--on what was to be done next to our friend? Oh! don't dispute! I laid it down--and you accepted it. As for me, I have done nothing but pursue that object ever since--in my own way. And you, Madam?"

As he stood over her, a lean Don Quixotish figure, his long arms akimbo, Elizabeth's fluttering laugh broke out.

"Inquisitor! Good night!"

"Good night--but--just a word! Anderson has done well here. Your public men say agreeable things of him. He will play your English game--your English Imperialist game--which I can't play. But only, if he is happy--if the fire in him is fed. Consider! Is it not a patriotic duty to feed it?"

And grasping her hand, he looked at her with a gentle mockery that pa.s.sed immediately into that sudden seriousness--that unconscious air of command--of which the man of interior life holds the secret. In his jests even, he is still, by natural gift, the confessor, the director, since he sees everything as the mystic sees it, _sub specie aeternitatis_.

Elizabeth's soft colour came and went. But she made no reply--except it were through an imperceptible pressure of the hand holding her own.

At that moment the ex-Viceroy, resplendent in his ribbon of the Garter, who was pa.s.sing through the hall, perceived her, pounced upon her, and insisted on seeing her to her carriage. Mariette, as he mounted the staircase, watched the two figures disappear--smiling to himself.

But on the way home the cloud of sisterly grief descended on Elizabeth. How could she think of herself--when Philip was ill--suffering--threatened? And how would he bear the news of Anderson's hastened departure?

As soon as she reached home, she was told by the sleepy butler that Mrs.

Gaddesden was in the drawing-room, and that Mr. Anderson was still upstairs with Philip.

As she entered the drawing-room, her mother came running towards her with a stifled cry:

"Oh, Lisa, Lisa!"

In terror, Elizabeth caught her mother in her arms.

"Mother--is he worse?"

"No! At least Barnett declares to me there is no real change. But he has made up his mind, to-day, that he will never get better. He told me so this evening, just after you had gone; and Barnett could not satisfy him. He has sent for Mr. Robson." Robson was the family lawyer.

The two women looked at one another in a pale despair. They had reached the moment when, in dealing with a sick man, the fictions of love drop away, and the inexorable appears.

"And now he'll break his heart over Mr. Anderson's going!" murmured the mother, in an anguish. "I didn't want him to see Philip to-night--but Philip heard his ring--and sent down for him."

They sat looking at each other, hand in hand--waiting--and listening.

Mrs. Gaddesden murmured a broken report of the few words of conversation which rose now, like a blank wall, between all the past, and this present; and Elizabeth listened, the diamonds in her hair and the folds of her satin dress glistening among the shadows of the half-lit room, the slow tears on her cheeks.

At last a step descended. Anderson entered the room.

"He wants you," he said, to Elizabeth, as the two women rose. "I am afraid you must go to him."

The electric light immediately above him showed his frowning, shaken look.

"He is so distressed by your going?" asked Elizabeth, trembling.

Anderson did not answer, except to repeat insistently--

"You must go to him. I don't myself think he is any worse--but--"

Elizabeth hurried away. Anderson sat down beside Mrs. Gaddesden, and began to talk to her.

When his sister entered his room, Philip was sitting up in an arm-chair near the fire; looking so hectic, so death-doomed, so young, that his sister ran to him in an agony--"Darling Philip--my precious Philip--why did you want me? Why aren't you asleep?"

She bent over him and kissed his forehead, and then taking his hand she laid it against her cheek, caressing it tenderly.

"I'm not asleep--because I've had to think of a great many things," said the boy in a firm tone. "Sit down, please, Elizabeth. For a few days past, I've been pretty certain about myself--and to-night I screwed it out of Barnett. I haven't said anything to you and mother, but--well, the long and short of it is, Lisa, I'm not going to recover--that's all nonsense--my heart's too d.i.c.ky--I'm going to die."

She protested with tears, but he impatiently asked her to be calm. "I've got to say something--something important--and don't you make it harder, Elizabeth! I'm not going to get well, I tell you--and though I'm not of age--legally--yet I do represent father--I am the head of the family--and I have a right to think for you and mother. Haven't I?"

The contrast between the authoritative voice, the echo of things in him, ancestral and instinctive, and the poor lad's tremulous fragility, was moving indeed. But he would not let her caress him.

"Well, these last weeks, I've been thinking a great deal, I can tell you, and I wasn't going to say anything to you and mother till I'd got it straight. But now, all of a sudden, Anderson comes and says that he's going back. Look here, Elizabeth--I've just been speaking to Anderson. You know that he's in love with you--of course you do!"

With a great effort, Elizabeth controlled herself. She lifted her face to her brother's as she sat on a low chair beside him. "Yes, dear Philip, I know."

"And did you know too that he had promised me not to ask you to marry him?"