1 Miraculously, as it seemed to her comforted son, death stayed its hand from Julia Cavendish.
For three days and nights of morphia she drowsed away the effects of that first hemorrhage. Heron Baynet, returning hot-foot to Harley Street on his secretary's telegram, insisted--despite the fact that he was a consultant--on ousting Dr. Redbank; on taking over the entire conduct of the case in person.
A year ago the little keen scientist of the lined face, the fine forehead, and the shining eye-glasses had suspected, warned, begged his distinguished patient to let him radiograph her lungs;--mentioned the possibility of a diabetic complication--advised Switzerland. Now perhaps his advice, and the one slender chance of life it offered, would be taken.
"How she tricked me!" he used to ruminate, looking down at the tired face on the smooth pillow. "How she fought me!" For although in his heart Sir Heron both pitied and admired this woman whose stubbornness and stamina had so long eluded his aid, it gave him a certain satisfaction, not altogether professional, to feel that she would now be completely in his power. Yet--would she be completely in his power? Already, on the fourth day of her illness, he sensed the stubbornness and the false stamina of stubbornness renewing themselves in her; already he perceived that his medical fight would be two-fold--against his patient as well as against her disease.
"I suppose you're pleased," she managed to stammer. "You warned me that this might happen if I refused to take your advice." And after he had given her the morphia injection, "The less I have of that stuff, the better. If I'm going to die, I'd rather die with my brain clear."
"You're not going to die yet awhile," retorted the specialist. "Not if you refrain from talking, lie perfectly still, and get away into the country as soon as you're fit to be moved."
Julia smiled up at him without moving her head. "I congratulate you on your bedside manner, Sir Heron, but you needn't be professional with me. My case is hopeless. It always has been hopeless. You haven't forgotten our compact, I hope? You won't tell my son or my son's wife more than is absolutely necessary?"
"Of course I won't tell your son," he humored her; "not if you'll consent to go to sleep."
"But I don't want to go to sleep."
"Oh yes, you do. Besides, if you go on talking, you'll have another hemorrhage."
That seemed to frighten her. "Very well," she said, closing her eyes, for already the morphia was pouring wave on wave of lassitude through her body. "Very well, I won't talk. Do you think you can manage to keep me alive for six months? It's rather important. I've got work to do."
Thinking her brain already under the influence of the drug, he humored her again. "We'll see about that in the morning. Meanwhile I shouldn't worry. Your daughter-in-law and your secretary between them will be able to manage quite well until you're up and about again."
"It isn't that sort of work," began Julia Cavendish; and pretended to fall asleep.
This pretense of falling asleep was a trick, learned from the drug. One had only, Julia discovered, to pretend sleep, and nurse or doctor left one entirely alone. Alone with one's dreams. Very curious, very pleasant dreams hers were, too. All about a book. A book called--Now what had she intended to call the book?--"Man's--Man's--Man's Law." Yes--that was the title. If only--one took--enough morphia--one could write--like--like de Quincey.
"I mustn't let them give me too much, though," thought Julia; and fell really asleep.
2
For Aliette those first four days of her "mother-in-law's" illness were almost happy. At Julia's particular request, both lovers had abandoned the "ridiculous flat," to take up their abode in Bruton Street; and the sense of self-sacrifice--for it was a sacrifice to abandon the little home where she had been so safe and face the inevitable difficulties of her anomalous position in Julia's household--seemed yet another chance of repaying her debt.
Work (she found enormously to do) saved her from overmuch introspection. Julia, the feudalist, had never learned domestic decentralization; her daily secretary, Mrs. Sanderson, a gray-haired gentlewoman with tortoise-shell spectacles and a diffidence which only just avoided crass stupidity, had become a typewriter-thumping automaton; her cook was a mere obedient preparer of ordered meals, and even Kate seemed incapable of performing the simplest household duty on her own initiative. Resultantly there devolved on Aliette, seated of a morning in the novelist's work-room, the manifold activities of a strenuous celebrity, a housekeeper, a woman of property, and an information bureau. For, of course, everybody wanted information about the celebrity's health.
The telephone and the telegrams were a curse. The press association rang, apologetically, twice a day. The Northcliffe press, commandingly, once. Julia's American publishers cabled almost hourly; and hourly, scandal for the moment forgotten, one or other of her private acquaintances quested for news of her. Even Dot Fancourt rallied gallantly to the receiver. While as for the three other sisters Wixton and their appanages, one would have imagined them afflicted to the verge of suicide.
Of an evening, Ronnie helped Aliette to deal with the "family"; but by day she had to cope with them single-handed. The "family" were never satisfied with Mrs. Sanderson's report; the "family" demanded to speak with the hospital nurse; the "family," barred by Sir Heron's instructions from visiting, demanded to speak with Sir Heron himself. Soon Aliette began to recognize their voices--Sir John Bentham, courteous if a little aloof; Lady Clementina, full-throated and fussy; May Robinson, piteous and protestant out of the depths of St. John's Wood; Alice Edwards, distantly jovial on the trunk-line from Cheltenham. "How they must be hating me," Aliette used to think.
On the afternoon of the fifth day, Julia--having coaxed permission from a reluctant nurse--sent down word that her "daughter-in-law" was to come up.
"You won't stay with her long, will you, ma'am?" said Smithers, permanently on guard at the bedroom door. (Mysteriously, since Aliette had moved to Bruton Street, the social sense of the basement had substituted "ma'am" for Mrs. Ronnie.) "The doctor says the less she talks, the better."
Aliette passed into the bedroom; and heard a weak voice say, "Leave us alone please, nurse."
Nurse--a pleasant-faced creature very much impressed at finding herself in charge of so literary an invalid--made her exit to a stiff rustle of starched linen. Aliette moved across to the bedside. Sunshine illuminated the elegance of the room, slanting down in dust-motes from the three open windows on to the écru pile carpet. Among Julia's cut-glass toilet-ware on the porphyry Empire wash-table showed none of the paraphernalia of sickness. The pillow-propped figure on the low mahogany and gold bedstead seemed, to the visitor, rather that of a resting than of a dying woman. A frilled boudoir-cap hid Julia's hair; a padded bed-jacket of crimson silk swathed her shoulders.
"I suppose I gave you all a rare fright," she said, thinking how well she had staged the little scene.
"We were rather frightened." Aliette took a chair, obviously arranged for her, at the bedside; and began to talk aimlessly of this and that.
But Julia soon interrupted the aimless phrases. "Are my servants behaving themselves?" she asked. "Are they making you and Ronnie really comfortable? I told Smithers to maid you. I hope she's been doing it properly."
"Beautifully," prevaricated Aliette.
"You're sure you wouldn't rather have your own maid? You could shut up the flat easily enough. You don't mind coming to live with me, do you? It's," the weak voice betrayed the first sign of emotion, "it's bound to be a little difficult for you, but I'm not quite up to running things myself yet. And Mrs. Sanderson is a fool."
"Of course I don't mind. It's wonderful to feel that I can be of some use at last."
Aliette did her best to prevent the patient from talking; but Julia Cavendish, feudalist, wanted to know a thousand domestic details. Whether cook was being economical? Whether the new kitchen-maid promised to be a success? If Mrs. Sanderson had remembered to take carbon-copies of important correspondence? Whether the "family" had been very troublesome?
"Families are bad enough when one's well. They're impossible in illness," pronounced Julia. "I'm always glad my husband died abroad. One day I must tell you about Ronnie's father." She relapsed into silence, closing her eyes; and Aliette thought she had fallen asleep. But in a moment the eyes opened again. "Talking of families, my dear, how is your sister?"
"Mollie? Oh, Mollie's gone back to Devonshire."
"Is she engaged to young Wilberforce?"
"No. I don't think so."
"What a pity!"
The nurse, tapping discreetly, announced it "time for Mrs. Cavendish's medicine"; and the invalid closed the interview with a weak, "If the family call, for heaven's sake keep them out of my room."
3
On the seventh day after the hemorrhage, Aliette's ordeal at the hands of the Wixton family began.
Sir John and his lady, dissatisfied with the meager information afforded them on the telephone, called in person to insist upon seeing "some one in authority." But Julia's bell had rung four times during the night, and nurse was lying down.
"Surely there's a day-nurse?" fussed Clementina.
"No, m'lady. Only Mrs. Ronnie, m'lady." Kate, erect and correct at the front door, watched the pair of them whisper together; heard them decide after some hesitation that they would like to see "Mrs. Ronald Cavendish"; and showed them upstairs into the drawing-room.
Rising to receive her guests, Aliette was humorously aware of Sir John's discomfort. She could almost read behind his keen brown eyes the thought, "So this is the little lady there's been all the trouble about, is it? Rather good-looking. I wonder what the deuce one ought to call her, Mrs. Cavendish or Mrs. Brunton?"
"How do you do--er--how do you do?" he compromised. "And how is your illustrious patient? I'm sure it's most kind of you to look after my sister-in-law. Very kind indeed."
But there was little compromise about the breasted Clementina. Her greeting, her scrutiny, her omission to shake hands, were definitely hostile. In attitude she resembled nothing so much as a virtuous English lady visiting the questionable quarter of Cairo. Aliette, her sense of humor fighting against her resentment, invited the pair of them to sit down, and offered propitiatory tea.
"Please don't trouble," retorted the female of the species Bentham. "We've had tea. And besides, we wouldn't think of disturbing you. As a matter of fact, it was my husband's idea that we should look in for a moment to get first-hand news about dear Julia. In a few days, I presume, we shall be able to see her ourselves."
That "dear Julia" made Aliette wholly resentful. "Ronnie's mother," she began stiffly, observing, not without a certain malicious satisfaction, how Lady Bentham writhed at the phrase, "is going on as well as we can possibly expect. But I'm afraid it will be some time before Sir Heron will allow her to receive visitors."
"But surely her sister----" protested Sir John.
"Not even her sister, I'm afraid," decided Aliette; and Julia, informed of the Bentham defeat, chuckled audibly.
But the interview, for all Julia's chuckles, left its scar on Aliette's sensitive pride--as did her talk with May Robinson.
The tea-broker's scrawny widow called two days later in her 1908 Panhard; accepted tea, and stayed for a full three quarters of an hour gossiping about her sister's symptoms. May, far from being outwardly hostile, positively beamed with that particular brand of offensive condescension which only those whose lives are devoted to good works know how to assume toward "fallen sisters." With her every non-committal word, the untempted widow contrived to suggest, "Considering what a thoroughly bad woman you must be, I think it remarkable, entirely remarkable and praiseworthy, not to say Christian of you, to have given up your fast life so as to look after my poor dear sister in her illness." Luckily for May, Paul Flower arriv............