Margaret Oliphant - The Sorceress. Volume 2 of 3

He went in and out of her room with that irritated, though self-controlled look, which she knew so well. He had never shown it to the world, and when he had demanded of her in his angry way why this was and that, and how on earth such and such things had happened, Mrs. Kingsward had till lately taken it so sweetly that he had not himself suspected how heavy it was upon her. And when she had begun to show signs of being unable to bear the responsibility of everything in earth and heaven, the Colonel had felt himself an injured man. There were signs that he might eventually throw that responsibility on Bee. But in the meantime he had nobody to blame, as has been said, and the burden of irritation and disturbance was heavy upon him.

The next morning after his talk with Dr. Brown he came in with that clouded brow to find Charlie by her bedside. The Colonel came up and stood looking at the face on the pillow, now wan in the reaction of the fever, and utterly weak, but still smiling at his approach.

“I have been telling Charlie,” she said, in her faint voice, “that he must go back to his college. Why should he waste his time here?”

“He will not go back yet,” said Colonel Kingsward; “are you feeling a little better this morning, my dear?”

“Oh, not to call ill at all,” said the sufferer. “Weak – a sort of sinking, floating away. I take hold of somebody’s hand to keep me from falling through. Isn’t it ridiculous?” she said, after a little pause.

“Your weakness is very great,” said the husband, almost sternly.

“Oh, no, Edward. It’s more silly than anything – when I am not really ill, you know. I’ve got Charlie’s hand here under the counterpane,” she said again, with her faint little laugh.

“You won’t always have Charlie’s hand, or anyone’s hand, Lucy.”

She looked at him with a little anxiety.

“No, no. I’ll get stronger, perhaps, Edward.”

“Do you feel as if you were at all stronger, my dear?”

She loosed her son’s hand, giving him a little troubled smile. “Go away now, Charlie dear. I don’t believe you’ve had your breakfast. I want to speak to – papa.” Then she waited, looking wistfully in her husband’s face till the door had closed. “You have something to say to me, Edward. Oh, what is it? Nothing has happened to anyone?”

“No, nothing has happened,” he said. He turned away and walked to the window, then came back again, turning his head half-way from her as he spoke. “It is only that you are, my poor darling – weaker every day.”

“Does the doctor think so?” she said, with a little eagerness, with a faint suffusion of colour in her face.

He did not say anything – could not perhaps – but slightly moved his head.

“Weaker every day, and that means, Edward!” She put out her thin, hot hands. “That means – ”

The man could not say anything. He could do his duty grimly, but when the moment came he could not put it into words. He sank down on the chair Charlie had left, and put down his face on the pillow, his large frame shaken by sobs which he could not restrain.

These sobs made Mrs. Kingsward forget the meaning of this communication altogether. She put her hands upon him trying to raise his head. “Edward! Oh, don’t cry, don’t cry! I have never seen you cry in all my life. Edward, for goodness’ sake! You will kill me if you go on sobbing like that. Oh, Edward, Edward, I never saw you cry before.”

Moulsey had darted forward from some shadowy corner where she was and gripped him by the arm.

“Stop, sir – stop it,” she cried, in an authoritative whisper, “or you’ll kill her.”

He flung Moulsey off and raised his head a little from the pillow.

“You have never seen me with any such occasion before,” he said, taking her hands into his and kissing them repeatedly.

He was not a man of many caresses, and her heart was touched with a feeble sense of pleasure.

“Dear!” she said softly, “dear!” feebly drawing a little nearer to him to put her cheek against his.

Colonel Kingsward looked up as soon as he was able and saw her lying smiling at him, her hand in his, her eyes full of that wonderful liquid light which belongs to great weakness. The small worn face was all illuminated with smiles; it was like the face of a child – or perhaps an angel. He looked at first with awe, then with doubt and alarm. Had he failed after all in the commission which he had executed at so much cost to himself, and against the doctor’s orders? He had been afraid for the moment of the sight of her despair – and now he was frightened by her look of ease, the absence of all perturbations. Had she not understood him? Would it have to be told again, more severely, more distinctly, this dreadful news?

Mrs. Kingsward said nothing of the communication her husband had made to her. Did she understand it? He went about heavily all day, pondering the matter, going and coming to her room, trying in vain to make out what was in her mind. But he could not divine what was in that mind, hidden from him in those veils of individual existence which never seemed to him to have been so baffling before. In the afternoon she had heard, somehow, the voices of the elder boys, and had asked if they were there, and had sent for them. The two big fellows, with the mud on their boots and the scent of the fresh air about them, stood huddled together, speechless with awe and grief, by the bedside, when their father came in. They did not know what to say to their mother in such circumstances. They had never talked to her about herself, but always about themselves; and now they were entirely at a loss after they had said, “How are you, mamma? Are you very bad, mamma? Oh, I’m so sorry;” and “Oh, I wish you were better.” What could boys of twelve and fourteen say? For the moment they felt as if their hearts were broken; but they did not want to stay there; they had nothing to say to her. Their pang of sudden trouble was confused with shyness and awkwardness, and their consciousness that she was altogether in another atmosphere and another world. Mrs. Kingsward was not a clever woman, but she understood miraculously what was in those inarticulate young souls. She kissed them both, drawing each close to her for a moment, and then bade them run away. “Were you having a good game?” she said, with that ineffable, feeble smile. “Go and finish it, my darlings.” And they stumbled out very awkwardly, startled to meet their father’s look as they turned round, and greatly disturbed and mystified altogether, though consoled somehow by their mother’s look.

They said to each other after a while that she looked “jolly bad,” but that she was in such good spirits it must be all right.

Their father was as much mystified as they; but he was troubled in conscience, as if he had not spoken plainly enough, had not made it clear enough what “her state” was. She had not asked for the clergyman – she had not asked for anything. Was it necessary that he should speak again? There was one thing she had near her, but that so fantastic a thing! – a photograph – one of the quantities of such rubbish the girls and she had brought home – a woman wrapped in a mantle floating in the air.

“Take that thing away,” he said to Moulsey. It irritated him to see a frivolous thing like that – a twopenny-halfpenny photograph – so near his wife’s bed.

“Don’t take it away,” she said, in the whisper to which her voice had sunk; “it gives me such pleasure.”

“Pleasure!” he cried; even to speak of pleasure was wrong at such a moment. And then he added, “Would you like me to read to you? Would you like to see – anyone?”

“To see anyone? Whom should I wish to see but you, Edward, and the children?”