The Halo Part 50

"I don't know. He thinks and thinks, and can't sleep, and the fever will not go. In a grown person I suppose they'd call it brain-fever."

"Poor little boy."

They had pa.s.sed the village and struck out on the straight road by the park.

"I--I have missed you, Victor," she burst out suddenly, looking round and laying her gloved hand on his arm.

"Hus.h.!.+" he answered in a stern voice.

A second later he broke the silence by asking her if Tommy drank milk.

"No," she returned sullenly, "he hates it."

"That is a pity."

When they reached the gate and turned into the avenue she found to her surprise that her eyes were full of tears. She had slept very little for nights, and her nerves were upset. She wanted a personal word from him, a look, but he gave her none.

"Theo sent you his love," he announced presently. "He is coming down to-morrow. How is your mother?"

"All right. Victor--are you glad to see me?"

She stood still as she spoke, but he walked on, and she had to rejoin him as he answered in a matter-of-fact voice:

"Of course I am, my dear child."

His mouth she saw was set and determined. Feeling as though he had struck her, she went on in silence, and the silence remained unbroken until they had reached the house.

"I may go to him at once?" Joyselle asked her, as Burton helped him take off his coat.

"Yes."

They went upstairs together, and outside the door of the boudoir he paused and took the violin out of its case.

Tommy, who was talking very loud about Alexander the Great, stared at him without recognition.

"Allo, Tommy; here I am," Joyselle began, taking the boy's hand. "Come to scold you for being ill and worrying us all."

"I don't want you--not that it isn't very kind of you to come. I want--him. And he won't come."

Joyselle frowned at Brigit, who was about to speak. "Well--I am going to play for you, and it may amuse you till he does come."

He tuned his violin and began to play.

Brigit sat down by the bed and laid her hand in Tommy's.

It was a simple nursery melody that Joyselle played:

"_Il etait une bergere, he ron ron ron, pet.i.t pa-ta-pon_----" She had known it all her life, but to Tommy, who had always sternly refused to have anything to do with the French governesses his mother had got for him, it was new.

He listened with an intent frown, the fingers of his left hand curled inwards and moving as though he were trying to follow the air on imaginary strings.

Then as Joyselle went on to the delightful Pont d'Avignon, his hand relaxed, and he closed his eyes for a moment.

The room was nearly dark, and rain beat in gusts on the windows.

"_Fais dodo_," sang the fiddle softly, "_fais dodo._"

"I like that. Play it again. Ah, Master--it is you. I am so glad----"

Joyselle did not stop, but he smiled down at the boy as he played on very softly. "Of course it is I. I am delighted to see you so much better. Do you know 'Ma Normandie'? This is it----"

Tommy moved a little and settled his head more comfortably.

The boudoir was in an angle of the house opposite to which, a floor higher, was the gallery. As he played, someone in the picture-gallery turned on the electric lights, and one long shaft, coming through the window, shone down on the player's head.

"See the Halo, Bicky?" asked the boy in a natural voice. "Isn't he splendid?" Then he added, with the frown she so dreaded: "Take me away before they begin to clap, will you?"

"No clapping allowed, Tommy," Joyselle a.s.sured him quietly. "Know this?"

And he played on.

His face, full of tender solicitude, was, Brigit thought, almost divinely beautiful as she watched it. And by some curious freak of the down-falling light only his head and shoulders were visible, and seemed almost to be floating in the gloom. Never had he been so handsome, and never so pitilessly remote. He had forgotten her; he had forgotten love; he was not even the Musician--he was a Healer, a being miles above and beyond her and her weak human longing.

Tommy's eyes had closed, and the low music went on and on. The room was now quite dark, save for the light that encircled Joyselle's head. It was like a wonderful picture, and the innate n.o.bility of the man obliterated for the time all else from his fine face.

Tommy was asleep, and still the music went on.

"_Salut demeure chaste et pure_," he was playing now, and Brigit recalled with a great heart throb the evening she had met him in the train. "_Salut demeure_----" The high note, pure and thrilling, lingered long, and then, as it had come, the light went, and it was dark.

The music ceased, and there was a long pause. Then, without a word, Joyselle left the room, closing the door softly behind him.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The morning of the fifth day after his arrival Joyselle went downstairs early, and out into the garden.

He looked, as he felt, very tired, for he had been with Tommy most of the time, day and night, and played until even his great strength was nearly exhausted.

For Tommy had clung to his presence in a very piteous way, crying weakly, since the fever had gone, every time the Master left the room, restless and unable to sleep unless played to, capricious and naughty about his food unless the Master sat by him while he ate.

Many children are disquietingly good during serious illness, and Tommy had been very patient while at his worst; but once on the road to recovery, the natural imp in him revived and flourished, making the road a hard one for his fellow-travellers.

There had been a phase when he smuggled his food under the bedclothes, pretending with diabolical cleverness to eat it; when the milk left by his side was poured out of the window the moment he had been left alone.

But Joyselle, discovering these crimes, had taken to sitting by the boy when his meals were brought, and with him Tommy was almost painfully eager to be good.

The danger, Dr. Long declared, was now over, and within a week the invalid was to be moved to Margate.