A Lame Dog's Diary Part 14

"I think we are going to drive down to Richmond and see some trees and gra.s.s, and behave in a rural sort of way this afternoon," she announced as she seated herself in the carriage.

"And what about all your engagements for this afternoon?" I asked.

"And the Red Book, and the visiting-list, and the shopping-list, and the visiting-cards, which I see with you?"

"I never keep engagements," said Mrs. Fielden; "and every one knows my memory is so bad that they always forgive me. Some one gave me a little notebook the other day, with my initials in silver upon it--I can't remember who it was--and I put down in it all the tarsome things I ought to do, and then I lost the little pocket-book."

"If I ever find it," I said, "I shall bring it to you, and read out all your tarsome engagements to you."

"I didn't say 'tarsome,'" said Mrs. Fielden.

"I suppose you are whirling through the London season," I said presently; "and going everywhere, and having your frocks chronicled in the magazines, and going to a great many parties?"

"No," said Mrs. Fielden; "I have been down at Stanby."

"I wish," I remarked, "that you did not always give one unexpected replies. Why have you been down at Stanby? You didn't say anything about it when I saw you last night."

"Do you know old Miss Lydia Blind?" said Mrs. Fielden. "She is ill, and I got rather a pathetic letter from her, so I went down to Stanby to look after her."

She fumbled for the pocket of her dress, raising first what seemed to be a layer of lace, and then a number of layers of chiffon, and then, after rustling amongst some silk to find her artfully-concealed pocket, she produced a letter and handed it to me.

"Am I to read it?" I said; and Mrs. Fielden nodded.

"... One so often hears," so the letter ran, "of a case of long illness in which the one who is strong, and who acts as nurse to the invalid, breaks down before the end comes. To me it has always seemed to show that the strong one's courage has failed somehow, and that, had zeal been stronger or faith greater, she might have endured to the end...."

And, again, in a postscript: "When I was younger I was very impatient, and I think I could not well have borne it had I known that life was to be a waiting time. I do not say this in any discontented spirit, dear, and I only write to you because you always understand...." And then the letter broke off suddenly, and I handed it back to Mrs. Fielden.

"So this is you, as Miss Lydia knows you," I said.

"I want you to go and see her when you go back to Stowel. Will you?"

said Mrs. Fielden. "Miss Lydia is an angel, I think; the best woman really that ever lived. Will you take her some things I am sending her, and ask how she is when you go back?"

We drove under the trees of Richmond Park in Mrs. Fielden's big, luxurious carriage. She generally drives in a Victoria, and I asked her why she had the landau out this afternoon.

"A whim," said Mrs. Fielden. "I am full of whims."

But of course a landau is the only carriage in which a lame man, who has to sit with his foot up, can put it comfortably on the opposite seat.

We drove onwards, and she stopped the carriage to look at the view from Richmond Hill, and the soft air blew up to us in a manner very cool and refres.h.i.+ng; and then we got out and walked about for a time, and Mrs.

Fielden gave me her arm.

"I don't really require an arm," I said, "but I like taking yours."

"It is a very strong arm," said Mrs. Fielden; and she exclaimed quickly, "I believe I am getting fat! My maid tells me all my dresses want altering. I wish it was time to think about beginning to hunt again."

"Do you know," I said, "I always thought, till I got back to England, that my leg had been taken off below the knee, and that I should be able to get astride of a horse again. I never used to see it, of course, when they dressed it; and when I counted up the things I should be able to do, riding was always one of them. I didn't sell my horses till just the other day."

Mrs. Fielden did not sympathize, but one of her silences fell between us. We did not speak again till she began to tell me an amusing story which made us both laugh; but when she was sitting in the carriage, and the footman was helping me in, and we were still laughing, I could have sworn that her eyes looked larger and softer than I have ever seen them.

CHAPTER XII.

It is always rather melancholy arriving at home alone, and I miss Palestrina very much at these times, and I feel ill-disposed towards Thomas. Down-Jock pretended not to know me, and barked furiously when I drove up to the door, and then ran away on three legs, making believe, as he sometimes does when he wants to appeal to one's pity, that he is old and lame.

It was still early in the afternoon, and the suns.h.i.+ne was blazing over everything when I hobbled down the hill to inquire for Miss Lydia. The houses in Stowel are all roofed with red tiles, and each garden has flowering shrubs in it or beds full of bright-coloured flowers, so that the little place has a very warm and happy look on a sunny summer day.

A great heavy horse-chestnut tree hung over the walls of the doctor's house, and scattered fragments of pink blossom when the soft air stirred gently. The wistaria on the post-office was in full bloom.

And the place was so full of pleasant sounds this afternoon--of singing birds, and heavy-rolling wagons moving up the broad street, and the laughter of children, and the soft rush of the summer wind through the trees--that one felt that a day like this gave one a very strong leaning in favour of the happy view that life is, after all, a good thing.

One had, of course, to stop and speak to several old friends, who said they were thankful to see me back, as though a visit to London was an expedition fraught with many dangers.

When I reached the little cottage with the green gate, and the maid opened the door to me, she told me that Lydia Blind had died an hour ago.

The staircase of the little house is directly opposite the front door.

I could not but believe that if I waited a little while Miss Lydia would descend the stairs, as she always did, with a smile which never failed to welcome every one. Or, if she were not within doors, that I would only have to pa.s.s out into the little garden at the back of the house to find her. I thought suddenly of the words of a boy I used to know at school, who, when a young playfellow died, said between his sobs, "It was so hard upon him dying before he had had a good time."

Certainly ever since we knew her Lydia's life had been one long sacrifice to a witless invalid, and I couldn't help feeling that perhaps no one would ever know the extent of her patient service.

Probably there never lived a more unselfish woman, and I cannot think why she never married.

She was a person who lacked worldly wisdom, and in worldly matters she was not prosperous--she never sowed that sort of grain. It was very touching to find that she had not even a few trinkets to leave behind, but that one by one each had been sold to pay for something for the invalid--a doctor's fee, or a chemist's heavy bill. She left the world as un.o.btrusively as she lived in it. Her last illness was very sudden and brief, and probably she would have been thankful that the little household was spared any extra expense.

The news of Lydia's death was unexpected by every one. When I turned and left the house and was walking home again, I met Mrs. Taylor going to inquire about her neighbour's health, with an offering of fruit in a little basket. She begged me, in the Stowel fas.h.i.+on, to turn and walk back with her, declaring that she felt so seriously upset by the news that if I would only see her as far as her gate I should be doing her a kindness. In the garden the General, who had run down to Stowel for a couple of days, was reclining in a deck-chair, Indian fas.h.i.+on. He was reading some cookery recipes in a number of _Truth_, and he turned to his niece as she crossed the lawn and said, "Do you think your cook could manage this, Mary? Select a fine pineapple----"

"Oh, uncle," said Mrs. Taylor with a good deal of feeling, "we have had such bad news! Our dear old friend in the village, Miss Lydia Blind, is dead."

"What Lydia Blind?" said the General; and Mrs. Taylor replied,--

"You never knew her, dear. She wasn't able to come to the party; indeed, I think she has been ailing ever since about that time, but we had no idea that the end was so near."

"It can't be the Lydia Blind I used to know?" said the General.

"Oh no, you couldn't have known her," said Mrs. Taylor with a sob; "she was just a dear old maiden lady living in the village on very small means."

"She hadn't a sister called Belinda, had she?" said the General.

Mrs. Taylor said she had, and I remembered suddenly how I had seen Lydia Blind standing one morning in front of the General's picture in the photographer's shop, and had heard her say, "I used to know him."

Mrs. Taylor went indoors, and I said good-bye, but the General said to me abruptly, "I should like to see her; will you take me there?" And he did not speak again until we found ourselves in the little porch of the cottage. He looked very tall standing by the low door of the house, and an odd idea came to me that Miss Lydia would have been proud of her afternoon caller.

"Let me go alone," he said gruffly, when he had asked permission to go to her room; and I waited in Lydia's morning-room, with its twine cases and unframed sketches, and the photographs of babies.

"I cannot see the sister," said the General irritably, when he had rejoined me in the darkened room. "Is she still dumb, poor thing? If ever there was a case," he went on, "of one life--and, to my mind, the sweeter and the better life--being sacrificed to another, it is in the case of Lydia Blind." He sat down on the little green sofa, and looked about him with eyes that seemed to see nothing. "I never expected such a thing," he said; "I couldn't have expected a thing like this ... I didn't even know she lived here.... Do you remember her," he said, "when she was very pretty? No, no, of course you wouldn't.... It doesn't hurt you to walk a little, does it? I have lived nearly all my life out of doors, and when anything upsets me I cannot stand being within four walls...."

We went out and crossed the field-path into the woods beyond. The paths of the wood are narrow and uneven, and at first we walked in single file, until we came to the broader road beyond the stream, and then we walked on side by side, the General suiting his pace to my slow, awkward gait.

"... Did you ever know the Bazeleys at all? No, you wouldn't, of course: that would be before your time. They had a very pretty place in Lincolns.h.i.+re--a charming place--with a veranda round the house, and wicker-chairs with coloured cus.h.i.+ons on them--more like an Indian house than an English one.... Harold Bazeley was in love with Lydia too."

(I believe the General was talking more to himself than to me.) "It was one night sitting in the veranda that I heard him begin to make love to her for all he was worth, and I had to cut it.... Poor chap!

he came into the smoking-room that night, where I was sitting alone, and he sat down by the table and put his head in his hands. He may have been saying his prayers (for he was always a religious man ... he did a lot of good for the men under him in India), and I sat with him till it was time to go to bed. I don't know if it was any comfort to him, but I knew from his face that Lydia must have said no, and I thought perhaps he wouldn't like being alone.... Well, then of course one didn't like to rush in and ask one's best friend's girl to marry one so soon after his disappointment. One had very strict ideas about honour in those days; I hope one has not lost them.... It is very odd that I was never here before, until last spring. Nearly all my service has been abroad, and I generally used to spend my leave hunting or in London, and my niece used to come up and stay with me there.... I didn't care much for Taylor in those days, but he really isn't a bad sort of fellow."

The sun began to sink behind the trees, and the General seemed to wake from the reverie in which he had been talking to me, and said: "You oughtn't to be out after sunset, if you have still got malaria about you," and we began to walk slowly homewards.