These rather waspish comments — Lizzie never seemed able to resist having a thrust at Gracey — were made in the drawing-room at “Ultima Thule,” where the two wives sat waiting for their husbands to rejoin them. John and Lizzie were dining there at John’s express request: the groom had ridden over after lunch with a line from John, asking if he and Lizzie might take pot-luck with them that evening. Richard said: “Wonders will never cease,” and a refusal was not to be thought of; but Cook had been very put out by the shortness of the notice; so much so that Mary had driven to town to fetch delicacies; thinking as she went, how in the old days SHE would have run up a dinner for four, and one well worth eating, too, in less than an hour. Her hands did sometimes itch to show such a fair-weather worker as Cook what could be done.
By now the evening was more than half gone, and still the gentlemen lingered; though Lizzie had sung all Richard’s favourite songs and pieces, some of them more than once. To pass the time, she had also sung to Cuffy; for — as had happened ere this when she was dining there — Nannan had knocked to say Master Cuffy could not be got to sleep, for thinking his Auntie might sing to him. Cuffy as audience was better than none, so Lizzie begged for the child to be brought in; and thereupon Cuffy appeared on Nannan’s arm in his little red flannel nightgown, his feet swathed in a crib — blanket, his eyes alight with expectation. Seated on his mother’s knee he drank in: “There was a Friar of Orders Grey,” and the sad ditty of “Barbara Allan,” himself rendering “Sun of my Soul” before, soundly kissed and cosseted by his aunt, who had a great liking for the little man, he was carried back to bed.
Towards ten o’clock, Lizzie could no longer conceal her yawns. Mary and she had talked themselves out: and where she had first surreptitiously peeped, she now openly drew her watch from her belt. This, John’s latest present to her, was a magnificent affair, crusted back and front with diamonds, while tiny brilliants sprinkled the long gold chain on which it hung. Unlike most women, Lizzie could wear any quantity of jewellery without looking overloaded. At the present moment a little heap of rings and bracelets lay on the lid of the piano; for, in despair, she had re-seated herself at the keys and begun anew to sing.
At the best of times Mary found it hard to fix her mind on music for five minutes together; and on this evening she had had more than enough of it, and could now let her thoughts stray in comfort. She wondered what could be keeping the two men . . . it was certainly rather impolite of Richard . . . wondered if Nannan had at last got Cuffy to sleep. The dinner had been very nice; Cook needn’t have made so much fuss beforehand. But there! When they undertook anything of this kind, it usually went off well. The house, of course, had something to do with it. This room, for instance, how well it lighted up! Richard declared he much preferred it to John’s, and Mary’s eyes wandered lovingly round walls and furniture, lingering on the great gilt-edged mirror, which reached to the ceiling; the lovely girandoles, a present from Richard; the lustred chandelier; the glass-shaded ormolu clock. The carpet, too, was of a most uncommon lemon colour; the suite, in a brocade to match, had a pattern of French lilies on it. She loved every inch of the place. WHAT a happy ending to all their ups and downs! . . . to be settled at last in such a home. Did she look back on the “Black Hole,” or the snails and damp of Buddlecombe, she felt she did not always fully appreciate her present good fortune.
But Lizzie here striking up a tune Mary knew, her thoughts came back with a jerk. She eyed the singer in listening, and: “Handsomer than ever” was her mental comment; although by now Lizzie was embarked on that adventure which, more than any other, steals from a woman’s good looks. What with her full, exquisitely sloping shoulders — they stood out of the low-cut bertha as out of a cup — her dimpled arms and hands, the fingers elegantly curled on the notes of the piano; her rich red lips, opening to show the almond-white teeth; her massive throat, swelling and beating as she sang . . . yes, Lizzie had indeed thriven on matrimony. It was otherwise with John. One had grown gradually used, as time passed, to the loss of that air of radiant health, of masterful assertion, which had formerly distinguished him. But since his marriage he had turned almost into an old man. Thin as a lath, he walked with a slight stoop, and hair and beard were grey. His face seemed to have grown longer, too, more cadaverous; his eye had an absent, inturned expression. At dinner he had been very silent. He had just sat there listening to Lizzie, hanging on her lips — really, if he went on like this when the two of them were at a stranger’s house, it would not be quite the thing.
Afterwards, in the drawing-room, Lizzie had made open complaint of his inertia; discussing him in that barefaced way of hers which plumed itself on calling a spade a spade.
“Yes, he is growing stodgy, dehling — stodgy and slow! I said to him the other day, I said: ‘John, love! this will NEVER do. WHERE is the man I married?’ Will you believe it, Mary, he actually wished to stop at home from Government House Ball last night? While this evening, if you please, he throws up an important dinner-party at Sir Joshua Dent’s, to come here. Not but what it has been a CHARMIN’ evening, dehling. But a man in John’s position has not the right to pick and choose.”
“Are you sure he is quite well, Lizzie? He looks very thin to me.”
“Oh, dear, yes! Perfectly well. John was never made to be fat.”
The laggards at length appearing, Lizzie crashed out a chord and rose from the piano-stool to hail and reproach them. “A pretty pair to be sure,” cried she playfully yet not without malice, the while she slid on rings and clicked the catches of bracelets; a pretty pair of husbands to prefer the society of their pipes to that of their wives! She had been so looking forward to a duo with Richard. It was evident she had reckoned without her host! Richard made one lame attempt to fall in with her tone, John none at all. He seemed only in haste to go; asked for the carriage to be brought round at once; himself rang the bell and gave the order.
Lizzie might be too full of her own grievances to notice how the wind blew; but Mary had eyes in her head. She saw that something was seriously amiss the moment the two men entered the room. Richard looked pale and distracted — and as for John! Whatever could be the matter? Had they quarrelled? . . . had a scene?
Then, in coming along the passage from the bedroom, with Lizzie enshawled at her side, she caught a murmured word of Richard’s that was evidently meant only for John’s ear. And when she had seen her guests off she did not re-enter the house, but stood on the verandah, anxiously awaiting Richard who had gone to open the gate.
At the crunch of his feet on the gravel, she moved forward, exclaiming impetuously before she was level with him: “What’s the matter? What was wrong with John to-night?”
“Matter? What on earth do you mean?” He stooped to pick up something; was exaggeratedly casual and indifferent.
“Now, dear, you needn’t put on that tone to me. I saw directly you came into the room . . . have you and he fallen out?”
“Good God, no! What have you got in your head now?”
“Well, then what is it? You can’t deceive me, Richard . . . you don’t look like that for nothing.”
“Who wants to deceive you, I’d like to know?” He was very short and gruff.
“Is John ill?”
“My dear Mary, don’t try and PUMP me, if you please! You know my aversion to that kind of thing.”
“Richard, I heard with my own ears what you said to him in the hall . . . about a possible loophole. What did you mean? Oh, DON’T be so obstinate! — Very well, then! I shall go over and see John myself, the first thing in the morning.”
“Indeed and you’ll do nothing of the sort.”
“He’s my brother. I’ve a right to know what’s happened.”
“A confidence is a confidence; and I’m hanged if I’ll be hectored into betraying it.”
“Anyone would think I was asking out of mere curiosity,” cried Mary; and tears of vexation rose to her eyes. “I know — I have the feeling — there’s something wrong. And you go on talking about confidences . . . and your own pride in not betraying them . . . when John looked to me as if he’d got his death sentence.”
Richard’s start did not escape her. He retorted, though less surely: “But it is at his own urgent request, Mary, that I hold my tongue!”
“Then he DID come to consult you about his health? Oh, Richard, please! . . . don’t keep me in suspense. What is it?”
“My dear, if you had gone through what I did to-night! I suppose I may as well out with it; for as usual with your wild shot you have hit the bull’s-eye. The fact of the matter is, what I had to tell John did amount to a sentence of death.”
“Then . . . then it is . . .”
“The worst. I examined him. A growth in the liver. No, too late now, for anything of that kind. My private opinion is he hasn’t more than six months to live.”
“RICHARD! . . . though I think I’ve been afraid of something like this . . . it............