Somehow Good Part 73

"Who's the other party?"

"In a blue soote, livin' in one of the sea-'ouses down on the beach.

Big customer. Prodooces a rousin' impression!"

"Is that his daughter that swims?... That's him--coming away."

But it isn't. It is the Baron, wrathful, shouting, swearing, neither in German nor English, but in either or both. Where is that tamned kellner? Why does he not answer the pell? This is an _abscheuliches_ hotel, and every one connected with it is an _Esel_. What he wants is some cognac and a doctor forthwith. His friend has fainted, and he has been pressing the tamned puddon, and n.o.body comes.

The att.i.tude of the lady with the earrings epitomizes the complete indifference of a hotel-keeper to the private lives of its guests nowadays. That bell must be seen to, she says. Otherwise she is callous. The respectable waiter hurries for the cognac, and returns with a newly-drawn bottle and two gla.s.ses to the smoking-room, to find that the gentleman has recovered and won't have any. He suggests that our young man could step round for Dr. Maccoll; but the proposed patient says, "The devil fly away with Dr. Maccoll!" which doesn't look like docility. The respectable waiter takes note of his appearance, and reports of it to his princ.i.p.al on dramatic grounds, not as a matter into which human sympathies enter.

"Very queer he looks. Doo to reaction, or the coatin's of the stomach.

Affectin' the action of the heart.... No, there's n.o.body else in the smoking-room. Party with the 'ook instead of a hand's watching of 'em play penny-pool in the billiard-room." Surely a tale to bring a tear to the eye of sensibility! But not to one that sees in mankind only a thing that comes and goes and pays its bill--or doesn't. The lady in the bureau appears to listen slightly to the voices that come afresh from the smoking-room, but their duration is all she is concerned with. "He's going now," she says. He is; and he does look queer--very queer. His companion does not leave him at the door, but walks out into the air with him without his hat, speaking to him volubly and earnestly, always in German. His speech suggests affectionate exhortation, and the way he takes his arm is affectionate. The voices go out of hearing, and it is so long before the Baron returns, hatless, that he must have gone all the way to the sea-houses down on the beach.

Sally retired to her own couch in order to supply an inducement to her mother to go to bed herself, and sit up no longer for Gerry's return, which might be any time, of course. Rosalind conceded the point, and was left alone under a solemn promise not to be a goose and fidget.

But she was very deliberate about it; and though she didn't fidget, she went all the slower that she might think back on a day--an hour--of twenty years ago, and on the incident that Gerry had half recalled, quite accurately as far as it went, but strangely unsupported by surroundings or concomitants.

It came back to her with both. She could remember even the face of her mother's coachman Forsyth, who had driven her with Miss Stanynaught, her _chaperon_ in this case, to the dance where she was to meet Gerry, as it turned out; and how Forsyth was told not to come for them before three in the morning, as he would only have to wait; and how Miss Stanynaught, her governess of late, who was over forty, pleaded for two, and Forsyth _did_ have to wait; and how she heard the music and the dancing above, for they were late; and how they waded upstairs against a descending stream of muslin skirts and marked attentions going lawnwards towards the summer night, and bent on lemonade and ices; and then their entry into the dancing-room, and an excited hostess and daughters introducing partners like mad; and an excited daughter greeting a gentleman who had come upstairs behind them, with "Well, Mr. Palliser, you _are_ late. You don't deserve to be allowed to dance at all." And that was Jessie Nairn, of course, who added, "I've jilted you for Arthur Fenwick."

How well Rosalind could remember turning round and seeing a splendid young chap who said, "What a jolly shame!" and didn't seem to be oppressed by that or anything else; also Jessie's further speech, apologizing for having also appropriated Miss Graythorpe's partner. So they would have to console each other. What a saucy girl Jessie was, to be sure! She introduced them with a run, "Mr. Algernon Palliser, Miss Rosalind Graythorpe, Miss Rosalind Graythorpe, Mr. Algernon Palliser," and fled. And Rosalind was piqued about Arthur Fenwick's desertion. It seemed all so strange now--such a vanished world! Just fancy!--she had been speculating if she should accept Arthur, if he got to the point of offering himself.

But a shaft from Cupid's bow must have been shot from a slack string, for Rosalind could remember how quickly she forgot Arthur Fenwick as she took a good look at Gerry Palliser, his great friend, whom he had so often raved about to her, and who was to be brought to play lawn-tennis next Monday. And then to the ear of her mind, listening back to long ago, came a voice so like the one she was to hear soon, when that footstep should come on the stair.

"I can't waltz like Arthur, Miss Graythorpe. But you'll have to put up with me." And the smile that spread over his whole face was so like him now. Then came the allusion to _As You Like It_.

"I'll take you for pity, Mr. Palliser--'by my troth,' as my namesake Rosalind, Celia's friend, in Shakespeare, says to what's his name ...

Orlando...."

"Come, I say, Miss Graythorpe, that's not fair. It was Benedict said it to Beatrice."

"Did he? And did Beatrice say she wouldn't waltz with him?"

"Oh, please! I'm so sorry. No--it wasn't Benedict--it _was_ Rosalind."

"That's right! Now let me b.u.t.ton your glove for you. You'll be for ever, with those big fingers." For both of us, thought Rosalind, were determined to begin at once and not lose a minute. That dear old time ... before...!

Then, even clearer still, came back to her the dim summer-dawn in the garden, with here and there a Chinese lantern not burned out, and the flagging music of the weary musicians afar, and she and Gerry with the garden nearly to themselves. She could feel the cool air of the morning again, and hear the crowing of a self-important c.o.c.k. And the informal wager which would live the longer--a Chinese lantern at the point of death, or the vanis.h.i.+ng moon just touching the line of tree-tops against the sky, stirred by the morning wind. And the voice of Gerry when return to the house and a farewell became inevitable.

She shut her eyes, and could hear it and her own answer.

"I shall go to India in six weeks, and never see you again."

"Yes, you will; because Arthur Fenwick is to bring you round to lawn-tennis...."

"That won't make having to go any better. And then when I come back, in ever so many years, I shall find you...."

"Gone to kingdom come?"

"No--married!... Oh no, do stop out--don't go in yet...."

"We ought to go in. Now, don't be silly."

"I can't help it.... Well!--a fellow I know asked a girl to marry him he'd only known two hours."

"What very silly friends you must have, Mr. Palliser! Did she marry him?"

"No! but they're engaged, and he's in Ceylon. But you wouldn't marry me...."

"How on earth can you tell, in such a short time? What a goose you are!... There!--the music's stopped, and Mrs. Nairn said that must be the last waltz. Come along, or we shall catch it."

They had known each other exactly four hours!

Rosalind remembered it all, word for word. And how Gerry captured a torn glove to keep; and when he came, as appointed, to lawn-tennis, went back at once to Shakespeare, and said he had looked it up, and it _was_ Beatrice and Benedict, and not Rosalind at all. She could remember, too, her weary and reproachful _chaperon_, and the well-deserved scolding she got for the way she had been going on with that young Palliser. Eight dances!

So long ago! And she could think through it all again. And to him it had become a memory of shreds and patches. Let it remain so, or become again oblivion--vanish with the rest of his forgotten past! Her thought that it would do so was confidence itself as she sat there waiting for his footstep on the stair. For had she not spoken of herself unflinchingly as the girl who said those words from Shakespeare, and had not her a.s.severation slipped from the mind that could not receive it as water slips from oil? She could wait there without misgiving--could even hope that, whatever it was due to, this recent stirring of the dead bones of memory might mean nothing, and die away leaving all as it was before.

Sally, acknowledging physical fatigue with reluctance, after her long walk and swim in the morning, went to bed. It presented itself to her as a thing practicable, and salutary in her state of bewilderment, to lie in bed with her eyes closed, and think over the events of the day.

It would be really quiet. And then she would be awake when Jeremiah came in, and would call out for information if there was a sound of anything to hear about. But her project fell through, for she had scarcely closed her eyes when she fell into a trap laid for her by sleep--deep sleep, such as we fancy dreamless. And when Fenwick came back she could not have heard his words to her mother, even had they risen above the choking undertone in which he spoke, nor her mother's reply, more audible in its sudden alarm, but still kept down--for, startled as she was at Gerry's unexpected words, she did not lose her presence of mind.

"What is it, Gerry darling? What is it, dear love? Has anything happened? I'll come."

"Yes--come into my room. Come away from our girl. She mustn't hear."

She knew then at once that his past had come upon him somehow. She knew it at once from the tone of his voice, but she could make no guess as to the manner of it. She knew, too, that that heartquake was upon her--the one she had felt so glad to stave off that day upon the beach--and that self-command had to be found in an emergency she might not have the strength to meet.

For the shock, coming as it did upon her false confidence--a sudden thunderbolt from a cloudless sky--was an overwhelming one. She knew she would have a moment's outward calm before her powers gave way, and she must use it for Sally's security. What Gerry said was true--their girl _must not_ hear.

But oh, how quick thought travels! By the time Rosalind, after stopping a second outside Sally's door, listening for any movement, had closed that of her husband's room as she followed him in, placing the light she carried on a chair as she entered, she had found in the words "our girl" a foretaste of water in the desert that might be before her.

Another moment and she knew she was safe, so far as Gerry himself went. As he had himself said, he would be the same Gerry to her and she the same Rosey to him, whatever wild beast should leap out of the past to molest them. She knew it was as he caught her to his heart, crus.h.i.+ng her almost painfully in the great strength that went beyond his own control as he shook and trembled like an aspen-leaf under the force of an emotion she could only, as yet, guess at the nature of.

But the guess was not a wrong one, in so far as it said that each was there to be the other's s.h.i.+eld and guard against ill, past, present, and to come--a refuge-haven to fly to from every tempest fate might have in store. She could not speak--could not have found utterance even had words come to her. She could only rest pa.s.sive in his arms, inert and dumb, feeling in the short gasps that caught his breath how he struggled for speech and failed, then strove again. At last his voice came--short, spasmodic sentences breaking or broken by like spans of silence:

"Oh, my darling, my darling, remember!... remember!... whatever it is ... it shall not come between us ... it shall not ... it _shall_ not.... Oh, my dear!... give me time, and I shall speak ... if I could only say at once ... in one word ... could only understand ... that is all ... to understand...." He relaxed his hold upon her; but she held to him, or she might have fallen, so weak was she, and so unsteady was the room and all in it to her sight. The image of him that she saw seemed dim and in a cloud, as he pressed his hands upon his eyes and stood for a moment speechless; then struggled again to find words that for another moment would not come, caught in the gasping of his breath. Then he got a longer breath, as for ease, and drawing her face towards his own--and this time the touch of his hand was tender as a child's--he kissed it repeatedly--kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her lips. And in his kiss was security for her, safe again in the haven of his love, come what might. She felt how it brought back to her the breath she knew would fail her, unless her heart, that had beaten so furiously a moment since, and then died away, should resume its life.

The room became steady, and she saw his face and its pallor plainly, and knew that in a moment she should find her voice. But he spoke first, again.

"That is what I want, dear love--to understand. Help me to understand," he said. And then, as though feeling for the first time how she was clinging to him for support, he pa.s.sed his arm round her gently, guiding her to sit down. But he himself remained standing by her, as though physically unaffected by the storm of emotion, whatever its cause, that had pa.s.sed over him. Then Rosalind found her voice.

"Gerry darling--let us try and get quiet over it. After all, we are both here." As she said this she was not very clear about her own meaning, but the words satisfied her. "I see you have remembered more, but I cannot tell how much. Now try and tell me--have you remembered _all_?"

"I think so, darling." He was speaking more quietly now, as one docile to her influence. His manner gave her strength to continue.

"Since you left Mr. Pilkington--your friend at the hotel--didn't you say the name Pilkington?"

"No--there was no Pilkington! Oh yes, there was!--a friend of Diedrich's...."

"Has it come back, I mean, since you left the house? Who is Diedrich?"