Читать книгу Notwithstanding - Mary Cholmondeley - Страница 6

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"Vous êtes bien pâle, ma belle,

Comment vous appelez-vous?

Je suis l'amante, dit-elle.

Cueillez la branche de houx."

Annette stirred at last when a shaft of sunlight fell upon her head. She sat up stiffly, and stared round the unfamiliar chamber, with the low sun slanting across the floor and creeping up the bottom of the door. Nothing stirred. A chill silence made itself felt. The room seemed to be aware of something, to be beforehand with her. Some nameless instinct made her get up suddenly and go to the bed.

Dick Le Geyt was lying on his back, with his eyes wide open. There was a mute appeal in his sharp-featured face, sharper featured than ever before, and in his thin outstretched hands, with the delicate nervous fingers crooked. He had needed help, and he had not found it. He had perhaps called to her, and she had not listened. She had been deaf to everything except herself. A sword seemed to pierce Annette's brain. It was as if some tight bandage were cleft and violently riven from it. She came shuddering to herself from out of the waking swoon of the last two days. Hardly knowing what she did, she ran out of the room and into the passage. But it must be very early yet. No one was afoot. What to do next? She must rouse some one, and at once. But whom? She was about to knock at the nearest door, when she heard a hurried movement within, and the door opened.

A grey-haired woman in a dressing-gown looked out, the same whom she had seen the night before at dinner.

"I thought I heard some one call," she said. "Is anything wrong?" Then, as Annette leaned trembling against the wall, "Can I be of any use?"

Annette pointed to her own open door, and the woman went in with her at once.

She hastened instantly to the bed and bent over it. She touched the forehead, the wrist, with rapid, business-like movements. She put her hand upon Dick's heart.

"Is he dead?" asked Annette.

"No," she said, "but he is unconscious, and he is very ill. It is some kind of seizure. When did your husband become like this?"

"I—don't know," said Annette.

The woman turned indignantly upon her.

"You don't know! Yet surely you sat up with him? You look as if you had been up all night."

"I sat up, but I did not look at him," said Annette. "I never thought he was ill."

The elder woman's cheek reddened at the callousness of Annette's words, as at a blow. She was silent for a moment, and then said coldly—

"We have only one thing to think of now, and that is how to save his life, if it can be saved."

And in a moment, as it seemed to Annette, the house was awakened, and a doctor and a Sister of Mercy appeared and were installed at Dick's bedside. After a few hours, consciousness came back intermittently; but Dick, so excitable the day before, took but little heed of what went on around him. When, at the doctor's wish, Annette spoke to him, he looked at her without recognition.

The doctor was puzzled, and asked her many questions as to his condition on the previous day. She remembered that he had had a fall from his horse a day or two before, and had hurt his neck; and the doctor established some mysterious link between the accident and the illness, which he said had been terribly aggravated by drink. Had Monsieur taken much stimulant the night before? Yes, Monsieur had appeared to be intoxicated.

Mrs. Stoddart's steel eyes softened somewhat as she looked at Annette. She and the doctor noticed the extreme exhaustion from which she was suffering, and exchanged glances. Presently Mrs. Stoddart took the girl to her own room, and helped her to undress, and made her lie down on her bed.

"I will bring you your dressing-gown, if you will tell me where it is."

"I don't know," said Annette; and then she recollected, and said, "I haven't any things with me."

"Not even a handkerchief?"

"I think not a handkerchief."

"How long is it since you have slept?"

"I don't know." These words seemed her whole stock-in-trade.

Mrs. Stoddart frowned.

"I can't have you ill on my hands too," she said briskly; "one is enough." And she left the room, and presently came back with a glass with a few drops in it. She made Annette swallow them, and put a warm rug over her, and darkened the room.

And presently Annette's eyes closed, and the anguish of the last two days was lifted from her, as a deft hand lifts a burden. She sighed and leaned her cheek against a pillow which was made of rest; and presently she was wandering in a great peace in a wide meadow beside a little stream whispering among its forget-me-nots. And across the white clover, and the daisies, and the little purple orchids, came the feet of one who loved her. And they walked together beside the stream, the kind, understanding stream, he and she—he and she together. And all was well, all was well.

Many hours later, Mrs. Stoddart and the doctor came and looked at her, and he thrust out his under lip.

"I can't bear to wake her," she said.

"One little half-hour, then," he said, and went back to the next room.

Mrs. Stoddart sat down by the bed, and presently Annette, as if conscious of her presence, opened her eyes.

"I see now," she said slowly, looking at Mrs. Stoddart with the fixed gravity of a child, "I was wrong."

"How wrong, my dear?"

"Rivers are not meant for that, nor the little streams either. They are not meant to drown oneself in. They are meant to run and run, and for us to walk beside, and pick forget-me-nots."

Mrs. Stoddart's scrutinizing eyes filled with sudden tears. What tragedy was this into which she had thrust herself? She drew back the curtain, and let the afternoon light fall on Annette's face. Her eyelids trembled, and into her peaceful, rapt face distress crept slowly back. Mrs. Stoddart felt as if she had committed a crime. But there was another to think of besides Annette.

"You have slept?"

"Yes. I ought not to have gone to sleep while Dick was ill."

"You needed sleep."

"Is—is he better?"

"He is somewhat better."

"I will go to him."

"He does not need you just now."

"Has the doctor found out what is the matter with him?"

"He thinks he has." Mrs. Stoddart spoke very slowly. "As far as I understand, there is a cerebral lesion, and it is possible that it may not be as serious as he thought at first. It may have been aggravated for the moment by drink, the effects of which are passing off. But there is always the risk—in this case a great risk—that the injury to the brain may increase. In any case, his condition is very grave. His family ought to be communicated with at once."

Annette stared at her in silence.

"They must be summoned," said Mrs. Stoddart.

"But I don't know who they are," said Annette. "I don't even know his real name. He is called Mr. Le Geyt. It is the name he rides under."

Mrs. Stoddart reddened. She had had her doubts.

"A wife should know her husband's name," she said.

"But, you see, I'm not his wife."

There was a moment's silence. Mrs. Stoddart's eyes fell on Annette's wedding ring.

"That is nothing," said Annette. "Dick said I had better have one, and he bought it in a shop before we started. I think I'll take it off. I hate wearing it."

"No, no. Keep it on."

There was another silence.

"But you must know his address."

"No. I know he is often in Paris. But I have only met him at—at a cabaret."

"Could you trust me?" said Mrs. Stoddart humbly.

Annette trembled, and her face became convulsed.

"You are very kind," she said, "very kind—getting the nurse, and helping, and this nice warm rug, and everything—but I'm afraid I can't trust anyone any more. I've left off trusting people."