Scarlet and Hyssop Part 35

So Box and c.o.x had their hearts' desire, and flew down the road inside the Park parallel to Park Lane. Here a motor-car, performing in a gusty and throbbing manner, was a shock to their sense of decency, and they made a simultaneous dash for the railings, until recalled to their own sense of decency by a vivid cut across their close-shaven backs and a steady pull on their mouths to show them that the whip was punitive, not suggestive of faster progress. The progress, indeed, was fast enough to satisfy even Mildred, who, however, was enjoying herself immensely. Both cobs had their heads free (she, like the wise woman she was in matters of horseflesh, abominating bearing-reins even for the brougham horses, and knowing that for speed they are death and ruin), necks arched, and were stepping high and long. Then, as they came to the bend of the road of the Ladies' Mile, she indicated the right-hand road, and found that they were a little beyond her control. Simultaneously a wayward gust picked up a piece of wandering newspaper and blew it right across Box's blinkers; from there it slid gradually on to c.o.x's. The same moment both heads were up, and, utterly beyond her control, they bolted straight for the gate at Hyde Park Corner. It is narrow; outside the double tide of traffic roared and jostled.

By good luck or bad luck--it did not seem at the moment to matter in the least--they were straight for the opening. If they had not been they would have upset over the posts or against the arch, but as they were they would charge at racing speed into an omnibus. A policeman outside, Mildred could see, had observed what had happened, and with frantic gesticulations was attempting to stem the double tide of carriages and open a lane for her, and it was with a curious indifference that she knew he would be too late. Pa.s.sers-by also had looked up and seen, and just as they charged through the arch she saw one rush out full into the roadway in the splendid and desperate attempt, no doubt, to avert the inevitable accident. "What a fool!" she thought. "I am done; why should he be done, too?" Then for the millionth part of a second their eyes met, and they recognised each other.

Then, though she had been cool enough before, she utterly lost her head.

She knew that she screamed, "Jack, for G.o.d's sake get out of the way!"

and simultaneously he had met the horses as a man meets an incoming breaker, struggling to reach some wreck on a rocky sh.o.r.e. With one hand he caught something, rein or blinker, G.o.d knows which, with the other the end of the pole. Thus, dragging and sc.r.a.ping and impotently resisting, he was borne off his feet, and they whirled into the mid-stream of traffic.

There was a crash, a cry, the man was jerked off like a fly; one cob went down, and Mildred was thrown out on to the roadway. She still held the reins; she saw a horse pulled up on its haunches just above her, within a yard of her head, and the next moment she had picked herself up unhurt.

On the other side of her wrecked phaeton, jammed against her fallen cob, was an omnibus. Under the centre of it lay the man who had saved her.

Suddenly, to her ears, the loud street hushed into absolute silence. A crowd, springing up like ants on a disturbed hill, swarmed round her, but she knew nothing of them. The omnibus made a half-turn, and slowly drew clear of her own carriage and of that which lay beneath its wheels.

And though she had recognised him before in that infinitesimal moment as she galloped through the arch, she might have looked for hours without recognising him now. Hoof and wheel had gone over his head, stamping it out of all semblance of humanity.

EPILOGUE

Lady Ardingly was sitting on the veranda of the New Hotel at Cairo, on a clear bright February afternoon of the year following. The coloured life of the East went jingling by, and she observed it with a critical indifference.

"We could all have blue gaberdines if we chose," she thought to herself; "but they are not becoming. Also it would be quite easy to put sepia on one's face instead of rouge."

And having thus dismissed the gorgeous East, she turned to the Egyptian Gazette. There were telegrams to be found in it, anyhow, which came from more civilized parts. She had not played Bridge for twenty-four hours, and felt slightly depressed. But whenever a carriage stopped at the hotel she looked up; it appeared that she expected some one.

At length the expected happened, and she rose from her seat and went to the top of the half-dozen steps that formed the entrance from the street.

"Ah, my dear," she said, "my dear Marie, I have sat here all afternoon!

I did not know when you might come. You are not dusty? You do not want to wash? Let us have immediately the apology for tea which they give one here."

Marie put up her veil and kissed the face that was presented to her. It was fearful and marvellous, but she was extraordinarily glad to see it.

"It was charming of you to wait for me," she said. "The train was very late. I think my maid has lost it. There was a sort of Babel at Alexandria, and the last I saw of her was that she was apparently engaged in a personal struggle with a man with 'Cook' on his cap."

"Then, it will be all right if you give her time," said Lady Ardingly.

"But meantime you have no luggage, no clothes? It does not matter. I will lend you all you want. Ah, my dear, you may smile, but I have all kinds of things."

The apology for tea was brought, and both accepted it, talking of trivialities. Then Lady Ardingly sat in a lower chair.

"And now talk to me, my dear," she said. "Tell me what news there is. I have not seen you since July!"

Marie paused a moment.

"I hardly know what to tell you," she said, "for I suppose you do not ask me for just the trivial news that I have, as last-comer from England."

"No, my dear; who cares? Anybody can tell me that. About yourself."

"Well, I saw Mildred," said Marie. "I saw her the same day as it happened. We went together to Jack's room. And we shook hands. I have not seen her since."

"Ah, she did her best to ruin him in life, and she succeeded in killing him," said Lady Ardingly very dryly. "I do not want news of her. She is a cook."

Marie bit her lip.

"I also do not want to talk of her," she said. "She is very gay this winter, I believe. She says it would look so odd if she didn't do things, just because of that awful accident. She thinks people would talk."

"She has a horror of that, I know," said Lady Ardingly, "except when they are not talking about her. If they are not talking about her, she joins in it. Did she, in confidence, tell you----"

"Yes, she told me in confidence that it was she who had started that silly story about me. She told me also that you knew it. So I am not violating her confidence."

Lady Ardingly made a noise in her throat which resembled gargling.

"That is enough," she said. "What else, dear Marie?"

Marie smiled.

"You mean Jim, I suppose?" she said.

"Yes, Jim."

"Well, Jim is coming out here in a week or so. He cannot get away any sooner. I have seen him a good deal."

"And you will in the future see him even oftener," suggested Lady Ardingly.

"Much oftener. I shall see him every day."

"I am very glad of that," she said; "I have a great respect for Mr.

Spencer. I see constantly that he is attacking my poor Ardingly. And I respect you also, my dear. You are the nicest good woman I know. Ah! my dear, when you are old like me, you will have pleasant back-pages to turn over."

"And to whom shall I owe them?" asked Marie.

"To your own good sense. My dear, I am not often sentimental. But I feel sentimental when I think of one morning in last July. You were a good woman always, Marie, I should imagine. That day you were a grand one, too--superb! I admired you, and it is seldom that I admire people."

There was a long silence. With the swiftness of sunset in the South, the colours were struck from the gay crowds, and where ten minutes before had been a riot of blues and reds, there was only a succession of various gray. But overhead the stars burned close and large, and the pale northern heavens were here supplanted by a velvet blue.

"And I admired Jack," said Lady Ardingly at length. "He was weak, if you like, and, if you choose, he was wicked. But there was, how shall I say it? the possibility of the big scale about him. That is the best thing; the next is to know that you are small. The worst is not to know that you are small."

Again Marie made no reply. Outside the patter of bare feet went right and left, donkeys jingled their chains, and the odour of the Southern night got more intense.

"Ah! my dear, we are lepers," said Lady Ardingly. "We are all wrong and bad, and we roll over each other in the gutter like these Arabs scrambling for backs.h.i.+sh. We strive for one thing, which is wealth, and when we have got it we spend it on pleasure. You are not so, and the odd thing is that the pleasure we get does not please us. It is always something else we want. I sit and I say 'What news?' and when I am told I say 'What else?' and still 'What else?' and I am not satisfied.

Younger folk than I do this, and they do that, and still, like me, they cry, 'What else? what else?' It means that we go after remedies for our _ennui_, for our leprosy, and there is no such remedy unless we become altogether different. Now, you are not so. Tell me your secret. Why are you different? Why can you sit still while we fidget? Why is it you can always keep clean in the middle of that muck-heap?"

Marie was moved and strangely touched. Her companion's face looked very haggard in the glare of the electric lamp overhead, and her eyes were weary and wistful.

"Dear Lady Ardingly," she said, "why do you say these things? I suppose my nature is not to fidget. I suppose, also, that the pleasures you refer to do not seem to me immensely attractive. I suppose I happen to be simple and not complex."