Читать книгу Where the Path Breaks - Williamson Alice Muriel, Williamson Charles Norris - Страница 3

He turned the page, but for a moment it was a blank, blurred surface, as if everything on it had been blocked out by order of the censor. He found himself counting his own heart-beats, and it was only as they slowed down that the page cleared, and the eyes he had seen in the lost dream looked up at him from the paper.

They gave him back himself. A thousand details of the past rushed upon him in a galloping army.

“Lady Denin, widow of Captain Sir John Denin,” he read. “She is shown in this photograph in her presentation dress, as Miss Barbara Fay.”

Barbara had disliked the photograph. He could see it now, in a silver frame on her mother’s writing desk, in the drawing-room of the little furnished house taken for the season in London. He had been shown into that room when he made his first call. Mrs. Fay had asked him to come, just when he was wondering how to get the invitation. And Mrs. Fay had given him one of those photographs. It occurred to him that she must also have given one to the newspaper. Barbara would not have wished it to be published. But he had thought it beautiful, and he thought it more than ever beautiful now.

His wife – no, his widow! That was what the paper said: “Lady Denin, widow of Captain Sir John Denin.” What would she do, what would she say, if she could see the wreck of John Denin, in a German hospital in Belgium, staring hungrily at her picture?

He asked himself this, and answered almost without hesitation. She was so loyal, so fine, that she would not grudge him his life. She would even try, perhaps, to think she was glad that he lived. Yet she could not in her secret heart, be glad. Such gladness would not be natural to human nature. She had been hurried into marrying him, partly because he loved her and was going away to fight, partly because her mother urged it as the best solution of her difficulties. Now, all things Mrs. Fay had wanted for the girl were hers without the one drawback; the plain, dull fellow who had to be taken with them – the fly in the ointment, the pill in the jam. Barbara had dearly loved the old black and white house. She had said so a dozen times. She had never once said that she loved John Denin. She had only smiled and been kind, and looked at him in a baffling way, with that mysterious message in her eyes which he had been too stupid to read. Mrs. Fay had loved the house too, and the whole place; and it was hard to believe in looking back, that she had not loved the money, and the idea of a title for her beautiful girl.

John Denin, who ought to have died and had not died, asked himself what was now the next best thing to do. Also he asked the eyes in the photograph, but they seemed gently to evade his eyes, just as they had often evaded them in life.

Next on the page to Barbara’s picture was the portrait of her cousin, Captain d’Arcy, of whom she had spoken more than once, the “hero and knight” of her childhood. He looked a handsome enough fellow in his uniform, though hardly of the “hero and knight” type. He was too full-fleshed for that: a big, low-browed, thick-lipped man of thirty-six or seven, who would think a great deal of himself and his own pleasure. Evidently he had changed since the days when he was the ideal hero of a sixteen-year-old girl. Denin, scarred and wrecked, a bit of human driftwood, was dimly shocked at the mean pleasure had in this thought. Barbara – wife or widow – was unlikely to feel her old love rekindle at sight of her cousin, and Denin was glad – glad. Barbara was not a girl to fall in love easily. But, if she believed herself free, she might some day…

A spurt of fire darting up his spine seemed to burn the base of his brain. It struck him almost with horror that the question he had been asking a few minutes ago had answered itself. No matter how undesirable he might be as a husband, he must for Barbara’s own sake force the fact of his continued existence upon her.

“As soon as I can control my hand enough to hold a pencil, I’ll write to her – or her mother. Or perhaps I’ll try to telegraph, if that’s possible from here,” he thought. Poor Barbara! Poor Mrs. Fay! It would be a blow to them, and – yes, by Jove, to Frank Denin, his cousin. Poor Frank, too! He had got the Denin estates and the money which ought to have gone with the baronetcy, and then by an extra stroke of luck the title had fallen to him, on top of all the rest. It would be a wrench for him to give it up after more than eight months of enjoyment. Then there was that pretty American girl, Miss VanKortland, to whom poor old Frank had proposed time after time. All his money and the two big places had made no difference to her. She had plenty of money of her own. She had seemed to like Frank Denin, but she was a desperate flirt and had always said that if she ever married out of her own country, it would be a man with a title. It was Kathryn VanKortland who had introduced Sir John Denin to Barbara Fay at a dance, not long after Barbara’s presentation. John had felt grateful to Kathryn for that, and indirectly grateful to Frank because if it hadn’t been for him he would not have been invited to Miss VanKortland’s dance. How strangely, vividly, yet dreamily those days and everything that had happened in them came back to him, while the people whose faces he called up thought of him in his grave! He wondered how it was that Eric Mantell had escaped, and how Eric came to believe that he had identified John Denin’s body. He wondered also whether, now that Frank Denin was “Sir Frank,” Kathryn VanKortland had changed her mind.

“I wish I could make the title over to Frank,” the man in the hospital cot said to himself. “God knows I don’t value it for myself, and I don’t believe Barbara does. But it can’t be. And there’s just one thing to be done.”

There seemed to the weary brain of the invalid, however, no great hurry about doing the one thing. Barbara was certainly not grieving for him. There was no one else to care very much except some of the old servants, and he had remembered all of them in his will before going to the front. As for Frank, in a way it would be a good thing for him if he could secure Kathryn before the news came bereaving him of the baronetcy. The girl could not leave him if they were married, or even throw him over with decency if they were engaged. Besides, Denin wanted to write the letter himself. He would not trust the task to one of the nurses, and had confided to no one yet the fact that memory of his past had come back. He was only just beginning to use his right hand for a few minutes at a time. It would be a week at the least, before he could write even a short letter without help.

Two days went by, and the surgeon’s orders to “let him alone,” so that he might “come round of his own accord,” were still observed. Nobody questioned the invalid about himself, though the nurses said to each other that he had “begun to think.”

On the third day, a wounded British aviator was brought into his ward. The news ran about like wildfire, and Denin soon learned that a fellow countryman of his had arrived. The aviator, it seemed, had been in the act of dropping bombs on some railway bridge which meant the cutting of important communications, when he had been brought down with his monoplane, by German guns. Both his legs were broken, but otherwise he was not seriously hurt.

Denin enquired of a nurse who the man was, and heard that he was Flight Commander Walter Severne.

The sound of that name brought a faint thrill. Denin did not know Walter Severne, but he had met an elder brother of his, who was one of the first and cleverest military airmen of England. It was probable that Walter Severne might have seen John Denin somewhere, or his photograph – if only the photograph in that copy of the Illustrated London News, which had labeled him as “dead on the field of honor.” If his scars had not changed him past casual recognition, Severne would be likely to know him again, and it occurred to Denin that to be identified in such a way would not be a bad thing. Besides, if the aviator had not been away from England long, he might possibly have news to give of Barbara – and Frank – and Kathryn VanKortland.

They were more or less in the same set, in the normal days of peace which seemed so long ago. He asked permission, when he was got up for his hour out of bed, to talk to the wounded Englishman, and was told that he might do so, provided that an English-speaking nurse was near enough to hear everything they said to each other.

Denin’s progress along the ward was slow. He had not been an invalid eight months for nothing, and the mending of his splintered bones and torn muscles was hardly short of a miracle, as surgeons and nurses reminded him frequently, with glee. He moved with a crutch, and one foot could not yet be allowed to touch ground, though Schwarz gaily assured him that some fine day he might be as much of a man as ever again, thanks to his enemies’ skill and care. Severne had been told that an Englishman who had lost his memory through injuries to the head, and forgotten his own name, was coming to talk to him. Lying flat on his back with both legs in plaster-of-Paris, the aviator looked up expectantly; but no light of recognition shone in his eyes when the tall form in hospital pajamas hobbled into his range of vision.

Denin did not know whether to be relieved or disappointed. Certainly he was not surprised, for he had asked for a mirror that morning, and had studied his marred face during a long, grim moment. From temple to jaw on the left side it was scarred with a permanent red scar. A white seam where stitches had been, ran through the right eyebrow. A glancing bit of shrapnel had cleft his square chin precisely in the center, giving a queer effect as of a deep dimple which had not been there before August 18th; and his thick black hair was threaded with gray at both temples.

A chair was given to him, in which to sit by the newcomer’s bedside. Severne was very young and, it seemed to Denin in contrast with that new vision of himself, as beautiful as a girl. Warned that the other man had lost his memory, the wounded aviator was pityingly careful not to ask questions. He talked cheerfully about his own adventures, and said that he had been “at home” on leave only a week ago.

“At home!” Denin echoed. “What was it like – over there?”

“Awfully jolly,” said Severne. “Not that they don’t care, or aren’t thinking about us, every minute, night and day. But you know how our people are. They make the best of things; they have their own kind of humor – and we understand. Fact is, I – went over to get married. I suppose – er – you never knew the Lacy-Wilmots of Devonshire? They’re neighbors of ours. I married the second daughter, Evelyn. I – we had two days together.”

“You were lucky,” said Denin.

“Think so? Well, we didn’t look at it like that. I wrote to her this morning. Hope she’ll get the letter.”

“Some fellows had only an hour or two with their brides, I heard,” Denin said, almost apologetically.

“That’s true,” said Severne. “Jove! There are shoals of war brides, poor girls, and as brave as they make ’em, every one!”

“What about – the war widows?” Denin ventured, stumbling slightly over the words.

“They’re brave too, all right. But I expect there are some broken hearts. Not all, though, by any means. Damn it, no! Lady Denin, for instance. Did you ever hear of her? I mean, did you ever hear of John Denin? They had about an hour of being married before he went off with the first lot in August, poor chap.”

“What about Denin?”

“Oh, you didn’t know him, then? Why should you? I didn’t myself, but he belonged to one or two clubs with my brother Bob. I may have seen him myself. Awfully fine chap. Everybody liked him, though he was close as a clam – no talker. Came into a ripping place and piles of oof a few years ago. Not much on looks, though he was an A1 sportsman and athlete. Girls thought him a big catch. I’ve heard plenty say so. Well, he married an American girl, a beauty, the day he left for the front, and about a fortnight later she was a widow with everything he had, made over to her. That wasn’t much above eight months ago. But the day Evie and I were tied up, the first of last week, Lady Denin married her cousin, d’Arcy of the – th Gurkhas. Quick work – what? No heartbreak there!”

As there came no answer, Severne supposed that his visitor felt no interest in this bit of gossip apropos of war widows. He glanced up from his hard, flat pillow at the other man, and saw what he took for a far-away look on the scarred face. To change the subject to one more congenial, the aviator began to chat of things at the front; but almost instantly the English-speaking nurse intervened. The two invalids had talked long enough. Both must rest. They could see each other again next day.

Without any protest, and scarcely saying good-by, Denin dragged himself back to his own part of the ward. “‘Nobody home!’ The poor fellow looks as if he wasn’t all there yet.” Severne excused the seeming rudeness of the nameless one.

Denin had not had his full hour of freedom from bed, but he declared that he was tired and that his head ached, so he was allowed to lie down. He turned his face to the wall, and appeared to sleep, but never had he been more vividly awake.

His plan had fallen into ruin with one bewildering crash. The corner-stone had been torn out from the foundation. His duty – or what he had seen as his duty – was changed. After all, Barbara had not been disappointed in her cousin. She had found him her “knight and her hero” as of old. She had loved the man so passionately that she had given herself to him after only eight months of widowhood. If he had heard this thing of a woman other than Barbara, Denin would have been revolted. It could only have looked like an almost defiant admission that there was no love in the first marriage – nothing but interest. He could not, would not, however, think that Barbara’s act was a proof of hardness. Lying on his bed, with his face to the blank white wall, he began to make desperate excuses for the girl.

She had married him by special license at three days’ notice eight months ago, hurried into a decision by his love, and perhaps the glamour of war’s red light. Her mother, too, had given her no peace until she made up her mind. For the hundredth time he assured himself of that fact. And as for the well-nigh indecent haste of the second wedding; why, after all, was it so much worse than the first?

Her marriage with him, John Denin, had been a marriage only in name. She was left a girl, with no memories of wifehood. No doubt this new giving of herself had been another “war wedding.” Trevor d’Arcy in his picture looked like a man who would do his best to seize whatever he wanted. He had of course been going away, perhaps after being wounded and nursed by Barbara. It would be natural, very natural, for her to feel that she would be happier when d’Arcy was at the front, if they belonged to each other. Denin told himself savagely that it would be brutal to blame the girl. She had a right to love and joy, and she should have both, unspoiled. He would be damned sooner than snatch happiness from Barbara, and drag her through the dust of shame, a woman claimed as wife by two men.

“This decides things for me, then, forever and ever,” he thought, a strange quietness settling down upon him, like a cloud in which a man is lost on a mountain-top. “She’s free as light. John Denin died last August in France.”