The Captives Part 47

"Warlock dead!" Uncle Mathew half rose from his chair in his astonishment. "That fellow dead! Well, I'm d.a.m.ned, indeed I am. That fellow--! Well, there's a good riddance! I know it isn't good form to speak about a man who's kicked the bucket otherwise than kindly, but he was a weight on my chest that fellow was, with his long white beard and his soft voice ... Well, well. To be sure! Whatever will my poor sisters do? And what's happened to that young chap, his son, nice lad he was, took dinner with us that day last year?"

"He's gone away," said Maggie. Mathew, stupid though he was, heard behind the quiet of Maggie's voice a warning. He flung her a hurried surrept.i.tious look. Her face was perfectly composed, her hands still upon her lap. Nevertheless he said to himself, "Danger there, my boy!

Something's happened there!"

And yet his curiosity drove him for a moment further.

"Gone, has he? Where to?"

"He went abroad," said Maggie, "after his father's death. I don't know where he's gone."

"Oh, did he? Pity! Restless, I expect--I was at his age."

There was a little pause between them when Maggie sat very quietly looking at her hands. Then, smiling, she glanced up and said:

"But tell me about yourself, Uncle Mathew. You've told me nothing."

He fidgeted a little, s.h.i.+fting his thick legs, stroking his nose with his finger.

"I don't know that I've anything very good to tell you, my dear. Truth is, I haven't been doing so very well lately."

"Oh, Uncle, I'm sorry!"

"It's nothing to make yourself miserable about, my dear. I always turn my corners. d.a.m.n rocky ones they are sometimes too. Everything's turned itself wrong these last weeks, either too soon or too late. I don't complain, all the same it makes things a bit inconvenient. Thank you for that five pounds you sent me, my dear, very helpful it was I can tell you."

"Do you want another five pounds?" she asked him. He struggled with himself. His hesitation was so obvious that it was quite touching. She put her hand on his knee.

"Do have another five pounds, Uncle. It won't be difficult for me at all. I've been spending nothing all these weeks when I've been ill.

Please do."

He shook his head firmly.

"No, my dear, I won't. As I came along I said to myself, 'Now, you'll be asking Maggie for money, and when she says "Yes" you're not to take it'--and so I'm not going to. I may be a rotter--but I'm not a rotten rotter."

He clung to his decision with the utmost resolve as though it were his last plank of respectability.

"I can't believe," he said to her with great solemnity, "that things can really go wrong. I know too much. It isn't men like me who go under. No. No."

He saw then her white face and strange grey ghostly eyes as though her soul had gone somewhere on a visit and the house was untenanted. He felt again the gulp in his throat. He bent forward, resting his fat podgy hand on her knee.

"Don't you worry, Maggie dear. I've always noticed that things are never bad for long. You've still got your old uncle, and you're young, and there are plenty of fish in the sea ... there are indeed. You cheer up! It will be all right soon."

She put her hands on his.

"Oh I'm not--worrying." But as she spoke a strange strangled little sob had crept unbidden into her throat, choking her.

He thought, as he got up, "It's that d.a.m.ned young feller I gave dinner to. I'd like to wring his neck."

But he said no more, bent closer and kissed her, said he was soon coming again, and went away.

After he had gone the house sank into its grey quiet again. What was Maggie thinking? No one knew. What was Aunt Anne thinking? No one knew ... But there was something between these two, Maggie and Aunt Anne.

Every one felt it and longed for the storm to burst. Bad enough things outside with Mr. Warlock dead, members leaving right and left, and the Chapel generally going to wrack and ruin, but inside!

Old Martha, who had never liked Maggie, felt now a strange, uncomfortable pity for her. She didn't want to feel pity, no, not she, pity for no one, and especially not for an ugly untidy girl like that, but there it was, she couldn't help herself! Such a child that girl, and she'd been as nearly dead as nothing, and now she was suffering, suffering awful ... Any one could see ... All that Warlock boy. Martha had seen him come stumbling down the stairs that day and had heard Maggie's cry and then the fall. Awful noise it made. Awful. She'd stood in the hall, looking up the stairs, her heart beating like a hammer.

Yes, just like a hammer! Then she'd gone up. It wasn't a nice sight, the poor girl all in a lump on the floor and Miss Anne just as she always looked before one of her attacks, as though she were made of grey gla.s.s from top to toe ...

But Martha hadn't pitied Maggie then. Oh, no. Might as well die as not.

Who wanted her? No one. Not even her young man apparently.

Better if she died. But slowly something happened to Martha. Not that she was sentimental. Not in the least. But thoughts would steal in--steal in just when you were at your work. The girl lying there so good and patient--all the pots and pans winking at you from the kitchen-wall. Must remember to order that ketchup--cold last night in bed--think another blanket ... yes, very good and patient. Can't deny it. Always smiles just that same way. Smiles at every one except Miss Arne. Won't smile at her. Wonder why not? Something between those two.

What about dinner? A little onion fry--that's the thing these damp days--Onion fry--Onion Fry. ONION FRY ... One last look back before the world is filled with the sense, smell, and taste of it.--Poor girl, so white and so patient--the young man will never come back--never ...

never ... ONION FRY.

No; no one knew what Maggie was thinking. No one found out until Maggie had her second visitor, Miss Avies.

When Martha opened the door to Miss Avies she was astonished. Miss Avies hadn't been near the house since old Warlock died. What was she wanting here now, with her stiff back and bossy manner.

"I don't know whether you can see--"

"Oh nonsense, it's Maggie Cardinal I want to see. She's now in the drawing-room sitting on a chair with a shawl on by the fire. Don't tell me!"

Martha quivered with anger. "The doctor's orders is--"

"I'm going to be doctor to-day," she said, and strode inside. She went upstairs and found Aunt Elizabeth sitting with Maggie.

"How do you do, Miss Cardinal?" They shook hands, Miss Avies standing over Aunt Elizabeth like the boa constrictor raised above the mouse.

"That's all right ... No, I don't want to see your sister. And to be quite honest, I don't want to see you either. It's your niece I want to see. And alone--"

"Certainly--it's only the doctor said--"

"Not to excite her. I know. But I'm not going to excite her. I'm going to give her some medicine. You come back in half an hour from now. Will you? That's right. Thank you so much."

Aunt Elizabeth, unhappy, uncomfortable, filled with misgivings, as in these days she always was, left the room.

"Well, there ... that's right," said Miss Avies, settling herself in the opposite side of the fire from Maggie and looking at her with not unfriendly eyes. "How are you?"

"Oh much better, thank you," said Maggie. "Ever so much better."

"No, you're not," said Miss Avies. "And you're only lying when you say you are. You'll never get better unless you do what I tell you--"

"What's that?" asked Maggie.

"Face things. Face everything. Have it all out. Don't leave a bit of it alone, and then just keep what's useful."

"I don't quite know what you mean," said Maggie--but the faint colour had faded from her cheeks and her hands had run together for protection.

Miss Avies's voice softened--"I'm probably going away very soon," she said, "going away and not coming back. All my work's over here. But I wanted to see you before I went. You remember another talk we had here?"

"Very well," said Maggie.