The New Warden Part 48

"My love to Mrs. Potten," repeated Lady Dashwood hurriedly, and Gwendolen turned away without finis.h.i.+ng her sentence.

May kissed Gwendolen and murmured in her ear: "Brave girl!" "Good-bye,"

she said aloud.

"Good-bye," said Gwen.

There was the familiar hall, its great bevelled doors, its oak panelling and its wide oak staircase. There was the round table in the middle under the electric chandelier and the dim portraits on the walls. All was familiar, and all had been thought of as hers for a time, all too short; for a day that now seemed as if it could never have been; for a dream and no part of the reality of Gwen's life.

There outside was the car which was to take her away for ever. Robinson Junior was holding open the door, his snub nose well in the air, his cheeks reddened by the chill autumn wind. He was waiting for her to get in. Then he would bang the door to, and have done with her, and the Lodgings would never again have anything to do with her--nor Oxford.

Oh, it was too wretched, but brave she would be, and Mrs. Dashwood at least would pity her and understand. What Lady Dashwood thought she did not care so very much.

Gwen went down the steps and got into the car. Robinson Junior did bang the door. He banged it and caught a piece of Gwendolen's skirt. Then he opened the door with ferocity as if it was somebody else's fault.

Gwendolen pulled her skirt and he banged the door to again. This time it shut her out from the Lodgings. The last moment had come. The car moved.

The two ladies waved their hands. Robinson Junior raised his finger to his ear. The car turned and went out of the Court into the narrow street.

It was all over! Robinson Junior did not come in. He slipped somewhere round at the back with mysterious swiftness, and Lady Dashwood shut the door herself. It was like closing a book at "The End" or writing a last Will and Testament. It was all over!

Then Lady Dashwood, who had been so composed that May had been deceived into thinking that she had almost recovered from her excitement and fatigue, suddenly leaned against the hall table. "May!" she called.

May did not hear her name called, she was already retreating up the staircase to her room as hastily as she dared. There was not much time, and yet she had not told her Aunt Lena yet that she meant to leave that very morning; she had mentioned no hour.

Her luggage was packed and labelled. Her hat and coat and gloves, exactly the things she had arrived in from Malvern, were there waiting for her to put them on and go away. Meanwhile _he_ was in Town, little dreaming of what was happening. He would be back soon. It would be horrible if he arrived before she left, and there was still an hour before she must start for the station! She would put on her hat and then go down, tell her Aunt Lena that she must go in an hour, and talk to her, give herself up to her till the taxi came. No, it would be impossible for him to arrive before she left; she was foolish to worry about it. It was pure nonsense--merely a nervous fear.

When she had put on her hat, it flashed into her mind that Mr. Bingham was coming to dinner, ostensibly to meet her. After their talk together she must write to him. She must scribble a little note and get it taken to All Souls. She must tell him that she had to leave Oxford quite unexpectedly.

She sat down at her writing table and took up a pen. She wrote a few words, and thought the words too cold and too abrupt. She must begin again, and she tore up the letter and threw it into the waste-paper basket. She wanted to write sympathetically and yet not to appear to think he needed sympathy. She wanted to write as if she was very much disappointed at not meeting him again, but without putting it into words that would sound self-a.s.sured--as if she knew and counted on his being grateful at her disappointment. And indeed, she thought, he was not much in love with her. Why should he be? That was a question May always asked herself when a man professed to be in love with her. Why? Why in the name of all----, etc. May always failed to see why.

This lack of vanity in May had led many people, who did not understand her, to accuse her of flirting.

But May, in writing to Bingham, realised to the full _his_ attractions.

He was too interesting a personality to be going about unclaimed. He ought to make some woman happy--some nice woman--not herself.

She began a fresh letter and was at the first sentence when a knock came at the door.

"Come in," she called.

In came Louise, looking full of sinister importance. Her hair, which was never very tidy, looked as if it had taken an intelligent interest in some crisis.

Louise glanced round the room at the luggage, at the coat, at the hat on May's head.

"Oh, Madame, what a desolation!" cried Louise, and she wrung her hands.

"I have packed very well, Louise," said May Dashwood. "I am accustomed to do it--I have no maid."

"Oh, what a desolation!" repeated Louise, as she advanced further into the room. Then she stopped and announced, with an affectation of horrible composure: "I come to inform Madame that it is impossible for her to depart."

May put down her pen. "What is the matter, Louise?"

Louise drew in her breath. "My lady suffers," she began, and as she proceeded her words flowed more and more quickly: "while Madame prepares to forsake her, my lady faints upon the floor in the breakfast parlour, she expires."

May rose, her heart beating.

"She now swallows a gla.s.s of brandy and a biscuit brought by Mrs.

Robinson, who is so slow, so slow and who understands nothing, but has the keys. I call and I call, eh bien, I call--oh, but what slowness, what insupportable delay."

May put her letter inside the writing case and moved away from the writing-table. She was composed now.

"Is she very ill?" she asked quietly.

"My lady has died every day for two weeks," continued Louise; "for many days she has died, and no one observes it but myself and the angels in heaven. Madame agonises, over what terrible events I know not. But they know, the spirits of the dead--they know and they come. I believe that, for this house, this Lodgings is gloomy, this Oxford is so full of sombre thought. My Lady Dashwood martyrs herself for others. I see it always with Monsieur le General Sir John Dashwood, excellent man as he is, but who insists on catching severe colds in the head--colds heavy, overpowering--he sneezing with a ferocity that is impossible. At last old Robinson telephones for a doctor at my demand, oh, how I demand! It was necessary to overcome the phlegm and the stupidity of the Robinson family. I say! I demand! It is only when Mrs. Robinson comes to a.s.sist at this terrible crisis, that I go to rush upstairs for Madame. I go to rush, but I am detained! 'Stay!' cries my lady, 'I forbid you to speak of it. I am not ill--it is an indisposition of the mildest.' You see, Madame, the extraordinary generosity of my Lady Dashwood! Her soul full of sublime resignation! 'I go to prevent Madame Mrs. Dashwood's departure,' I cry! My lady replies with immense self-renunciation, like that of the blessed saints: 'Say nothing, my poor Louise. I exist only to do good on this earth. I ask for nothing for myself. I suffer alone.

I endure without complaint. I speak not of my extreme agony in the head.

I do not mention the insupportable nausea of the stomach. I subdue my cries! I weep silently, alone in the presence of my G.o.d.'"

Louise paused for a second for breath.

Nothing at this moment could have made May smile. She looked at Louise with gravity.

"But," continued Louise, with the same vehement swiftness, "a good moment arrives. The form too full of Mrs. Robinson hides me as I escape from the room. I come to Madame here. Eh bien!" Here Louise broke off and, glancing round the room, made a gesture that implied unpacking May's luggage and putting everything back in the proper place. "I unpack for Madame, immediately, while Madame descends and a.s.sures my lady that she does not forsake her at the supreme moment."

Louise's eyes now seemed to pierce the s.p.a.ce in front of her, she defied contradiction.

"I will go and see Lady Dashwood," said May, calmly. "But don't unpack yet for me. I shall put her ladys.h.i.+p to bed, Louise. Go and see that everything is ready, please."

"I go to countermand Madame's taxi," said Louise, astutely.

"You can do that," said May; "I shall wait till the doctor comes--anyhow. Ask Robinson to telephone at once."

May went down to the breakfast-room, and found Mrs. Robinson's stout form coming out of the door. Within Lady Dashwood was seated in a chair by the fire.

"I am perfectly well, May," said Lady Dashwood, lifting up a white face to her niece as she came up to her. "I have sent Mrs. Robinson away.

That silly old fool, Louise, has made Robinson telephone for a doctor."

"Quite right of her," said May, quietly, "and I shall stop till he has come and gone."

"You didn't mean to go before lunch?" murmured Lady Dashwood.

"I can go after lunch," said May.

Lady Dashwood leaned her head back in a weak manner.

"Not so convenient to you perhaps, dear," she murmured, but in a voice that accepted the delay to May's departure. She accepted it and sighed and stared into the fire, and said not one word about the Warden, but she said: "I'm not going to bed. The house will be empty enough as it is;" and May knew she was thinking of the Warden's return.

"You must go to bed," May replied.

"I can't go to bed, child. I shall stay up and look after things," said Lady Dashwood, and she knew she was speaking with guile. "You forget, dear, that--the house will be so empty!"

"I shall put you to bed," said May.