Florence Barclay - The Mistress of Shenstone

The doctor turned away; but not before he had caught the sudden look of dumb anguish which leaped into those quiet eyes. He reached the door; paused a moment; then came back.

“Mrs. O’Mara,” he said, with a hand upon her shoulder, “you have a sorrow of your own?”

She drew away from him, in terror. “Oh, hush!” she whispered. “Don’t ask! Don’t unnerve me, sir. Help me to think of her, only.” Then, more calmly: “But of course I shall think of none but her, while she needs me. Only – only, sir – as you are so kind – ” she drew from her bosom a crumpled telegram, and handed it to the doctor. “Mine came at the same time as hers,” she said, simply.

The doctor unfolded the War Office message.

Regret to report Sergeant O’Mara killed in assault on Targai yesterday.

“He was a good husband,” said Margaret O’Mara, simply; “and we were very happy.”

The doctor held out his hand. “I am proud to have met you, Mrs. O’Mara. This seems to me the bravest thing I have ever known a woman do.”

She smiled through her tears. “Thank you, sir,” she said, tremulously. “But it is easier to bear my own sorrow, when I have work to do for her.”

“God Himself comfort you, my friend,” said Deryck Brand, and it was all he could trust his voice to say; nor was he ashamed that he had to fumble blindly for the handle of the door.

The doctor had finished breakfast, and was asking Groatley for a time-table, when word reached him that Lady Ingleby was awake. He went upstairs immediately.

Myra was sitting up in bed, propped with pillows. Her cheeks were flushed; her eyes bright and hard.

She held out her hand to the doctor.

“How good you have been,” she said, speaking very fast, in a high unnatural voice: “I am afraid I have given you a great deal of trouble. I don’t remember much about last night, excepting that they said Michael had been killed. Has Michael really been killed, do you think? And will they give me details? Surely I have a right to know details. Nothing can alter the fact that I was Michael’s wife, can it? Do go to breakfast, Maggie. There is nothing gained by standing there, smiling, and saying you do not want any breakfast. Everybody wants breakfast at nine o’clock in the morning. I should want breakfast, if Michael had not been killed. Tell her she ought to have breakfast, Sir Deryck. I believe she has been up all night. It is such a comfort to have her. She is so brave and bright; and so full of sympathy.”

“She is very brave,” said the doctor; “and you are right as to her need of breakfast. Go down-stairs for a little while, Mrs. O’Mara. I will stay with Lady Ingleby.”

She moved obediently to the door; but Sir Deryck reached it before her. And the famous London specialist held the door open for the sergeant’s young widow, with an air of deference such as he would hardly have bestowed upon a queen.

Then he came back to Lady Ingleby. His train left in three-quarters of an hour. But his task here was not finished. She had slept; but before he dare leave her, she must weep.

“Where is Peter?” inquired the excited voice from the bed. “He always barks to be let out, in the morning; but I have heard nothing of him yet.”

“He was exhausted last night, poor little chap,” said the doctor. “He could scarcely walk. I carried him up, myself; and put him on the bed in the next room. The coat was still there, I wrapped him in it. He licked my hand, and lay down, content.”

“I want to see him,” said Lady Ingleby. “Michael loved him. He seems all I have left of Michael.”

“I will fetch him,” said the doctor.

He went into the adjoining room, leaving the door ajar. Myra heard him reach the bed. Then followed a long silence.

“What is it?” she called at last. “Is he not there? Why are you so long?”

Then the doctor came back. He carried something in his arms, wrapped in the old shooting jacket.

“Dear Lady Ingleby,” he said, “little Peter is dead. He must have died during the night, in his sleep. He was lying just as I left him, curled up in the coat; but he is quite cold and stiff. Faithful little heart!” said the doctor, with emotion, holding his burden, tenderly.

“What!” cried Myra, with both arms outstretched. “Peter has died, because Michael is dead; and I – I have not even shed a tear!” She fell back among the pillows in a paroxysm of weeping.

The doctor stood by, silently; uncertain what to do. Myra’s sobs grew more violent, shaking the bed with their convulsive force. Then she began to shriek inarticulately about Michael and Peter, and to sob again, with renewed violence.

At that moment the doctor heard the horn of a motor-car in the avenue; then, almost immediately, the clang of the bell, and the sounds of an arrival below. A look of immense relief came into his face. He went to the top of the great staircase, and looked over.

The Honourable Mrs. Dalmain had arrived. The doctor saw her tall figure, in a dark green travelling coat, walk rapidly across the hall.

“Jane!” he said. “Jeanette! Ah, I knew you would not fail us! Come straight up. You have arrived at the right moment.”

Jane looked up, and saw the doctor standing at the top of the stairs; something wrapped in an old coat, held carefully in his arms. She threw him one smile of greeting and assurance; then, wasting no time in words, rapidly pulled off her coat, hat, and fur gloves, flinging them in quick succession to the astonished butler. The doctor only waited to see her actually mounting the stairs. Then, passing through Lady Ingleby’s room, he laid Peter’s little body back on his dead master’s bed, still wrapped in the old tweed coat.

As he stepped back into Lady Ingleby’s room, closing the door between, he saw Jane Dalmain kneel down beside the bed, and gather the weeping form into her arms, with a gesture of immense protective tenderness.

“Oh Jane,” sobbed Lady Ingleby, as she hid her face in the sweet comfort of that generous bosom; “Oh Jane! Michael has been killed! And little Peter died, because Michael was dead. Little Peter died , and I had not even shed a tear!”

The doctor passed quickly out, closing the door behind him. He did not wait to hear the answer. He knew it would be wise, and kind, and right. He left his patient in safe hands. Jane was there, at last. All would be well.

From the moment when the express for Cornwall had slowly but irrevocably commenced to glide away from the Paddington platform; when she had looked her last upon Margaret O’Mara’s anxious devoted face, softly framed in her simple widow’s bonnet; when she had realised that her somewhat original rest-cure had really safely commenced, and that she was leaving, not only her worries, but her very identity behind her – Lady Ingleby had leaned back with closed eyes in a corner of her reserved compartment, and given herself up to quiet retrospection.

The face, in repose, was sad – a quiet sadness, as of regret which held no bitterness. The cheek, upon which the dark fringe of lashes rested, was white and thin having lost the tint and contour of perfect health. But, every now and then, during those hours of retrospection, the wistful droop of the sweet expressive mouth curved into a smile, and a dimple peeped out unexpectedly, giving a look of youthfulness to the tired face.

When London and, its suburbs were completely left behind, and the summer sunshine blazed through the window from the clear blue of a radiant June sky, Lady Ingleby leaned forward, watching the rapid unfolding of country lanes and hedges; wide commons, golden with gorse; fir woods, carpeted with blue-bells; mossy banks, overhung with wild roses, honeysuckle, and traveller’s-joy; the indescribable greenness and soft fragrance of England in early summer; and, as she watched, a responsive light shone in her sweet grey eyes. The drear sadness of autumn, the deadness of winter, the chill uncertainty of spring – all these were over and gone. “Flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come,” murmurs the lover of Canticles; and in Myra Ingleby’s sad heart there blossomed timidly, flowers of hope; vague promise of future joy, which life might yet hold in store. A blackbird in the hawthorn, trilled gaily; and Myra softly sang, to an air of Garth Dalmain’s, the “Blackbird’s Song.”