East of the Shadows Part 14

"Perfectly quiet, and, I think, inclined to sleep," she answered. "I have promised him to come again to-morrow."

"You might come for a little while both morning and afternoon if he goes on all right. Will you see the nurse and arrange with her? She will know which is his best time."

Philippa said she would do so, and the doctor went in for a final look at his patient before leaving the house.

As the girl sat alone later in the evening, she pondered over the words Francis had spoken. That his memory had not failed in any detail within what might be termed the radius of his love story she was well aware. It had been further proved to-day; he had mentioned her singing. Fortunately that presented no difficulty to her, for, although she did not possess a voice in any way remarkable, still, she had been well trained and had sung a good deal in her father's lifetime. He had also spoken of riding, and of her going to Scotland.

It might be that he remembered riding with her, and perhaps the first Philippa had arranged a visit to Scotland--she could not tell. But beyond this he had spoken of Bessacre and Bessmoor, giving the places their correct names without hesitating. She had always understood that the names of places presented the gravest difficulty to a memory in any way troubled or imperfect. Did this mean that his mind was perfectly clear upon all that had happened up to the time of the accident, but that from that moment all was darkness? This was frequently so in cases of concussion of the brain, as she knew, but against this explanation was the fact that he had recognised both the doctor and Mrs. Goodman. If he only remembered them as they were at the time of his accident, surely he would have made some comment on their altered appearance. It was this that puzzled--this that made the situation so complex.

She made a little plan of campaign in her mind--of books she would read with him, of various little things which she would order which might amuse him. The way bristled with pitfalls if once she allowed herself to consider them. Twenty years! How everything must have altered since then! For instance, how much had the ordinary everyday sights such as pa.s.s us every day without our giving them a thought changed in that time! Twenty years ago the motor-car was unknown, electric light was in its infancy. The Heathcotes had cars, but she remembered that Francis' room looked out on a part of the garden and that the drive was not visible from the windows. Therefore, although it was possible that he might have heard the sound of a horn or siren, he would never actually have seen a car. Electric light was installed in his room.

She had no idea when this had been done, but he must be quite accustomed to it.

It was not until she began to sum them up that she realised how innumerable are the changes wrought by a couple of decades--in our habits, even in our speech. English 'as she is spoke' is a variable quant.i.ty, and the jargon of to-day is forgotten to-morrow. Philippa the first had mentioned in one of her letters that she was having "a jolly time." Well, "jolly" as an adjective is as dead as the dodo, and if the letter had been written by her to-day, she, being what she was, would undoubtedly have used the word "ripping."

Her namesake smiled to herself as she thought of it. Fortunately here again she was safe. Having lived so much abroad, and having spoken fluently in several languages, she had not contracted the habit of employing all the hundred-and-one words of current slang such as are on the lips of most young people.

On the whole, she decided it was useless to consider possible pitfalls.

They did exist, but she must rely on her quickness and presence of mind, and hope to escape them.

After a while she summoned Mrs. Goodman and asked her help in the matter of songs. Could she tell her of any songs Francis had cared for particularly? The old woman looked puzzled at first, but after some reflection said that, in a lumber-room, there was a pile of music which had been cleared out of the library years ago. He always had his piano in the library, she explained, and it was there that he and Miss Philippa used to play and sing together. "The same piano stands in the morning-room now. I have so many things that were his. My lady told me to throw away his bats and racquets and such things, but I couldn't do it. And some of them he himself asked me to take care of for him, many years ago in his school-days. He probably forgot all about them, but they were safely kept. Will you come one day and see them, Miss Phil?"

The girl promised readily. She was only too anxious to learn all she could; every detail of his life, however seemingly unimportant, might be of help to her.

The old woman sat talking for a time, and then Philippa suggested that they should go together in search of the music.

Mrs. Goodman demurred, saying she feared the place might be dusty, for it was long since she visited it, and no one else had access to it; but Philippa laughingly overcame her scruples, and they mounted the stairs together.

The sun was low and it was growing dusk when they entered a rambling attic at the top of the house. It was filled with the heterogeneous collection of odds and ends such as acc.u.mulate in any large house--pieces of furniture, broken or too worn for use; pictures, some with frames and some without; toys, a nursery chair, and who knows what beside. Mrs. Goodman laid her hand on a rocking-horse which peered out of the gloom like some weird monster, head upreared and snorting fiercely.

"The Major told me nothing here need be disturbed," she said, with a little quiver in her voice. "He was always so fond of his horse." But in the latter part of her sentence it was clear that "he" was not the Major. The old woman stroked the battered steed tenderly. "It doesn't seem long since I saw him ride it," she went on; "sitting on it in his little holland blouse as proud as a prince. He was very small then, and as soon as he was old enough his mother gave him a pony. Gipsy, its name was. I shall never forget his delight."

"Have you known him ever since he was born?" asked Philippa gently.

"Very nearly," was the reply. "I knew Lady Louisa before she was married. My father was one of her father's oldest tenants. I was married some years before my lady, and lost both my husband and child.

When Francis was born he wasn't very strong, and my lady engaged a nurse for him with the best possible recommendations, but she was no use and the child didn't thrive. My lady was very troubled about him--he was her only one, you see--and when the nurse proved so unsatisfactory she wrote to me and asked me to come.

"I remember her letter now. 'Will you come and help me to look after him?' she wrote, 'for I would rather he had your affection, Jane, than the wider experience of strangers. I know you will never neglect him, and can trust you.' So I came. He was about a year old--a tiny, weakly baby; but he throve wonderfully, although my lady used to say we were like two hens with one chick. She was very wise and would not let him be spoilt. His father died when he was about ten years old. He was much older than Lady Louisa and had been twice married, as I think I told you."

She paused for a few minutes and then resumed: "Francis was always so happy. It was his nature. Very high-spirited, and as a child very quick-tempered, but if he was angry it was just a flash, all over in a minute."

"Who has been nursing him in his illness?" asked Philippa.

"At first, of course, he had trained nurses, but later, when he could not be called ill in himself, he just had his own valet for some time.

But after a while, to Lady Louisa's great distress, some one spread a report in the village that he was out of his mind, so she arranged that his rooms were to be quite separate. They were never entered by the house servants. I sent for a nephew of mine, a quiet, trustworthy man who I knew could keep his tongue in his head, and for years he has waited on him, and his wife has had charge of his rooms under my supervision. I have been to see him every day and seen to his comfort, but I am very old now and past work. If that were not so, should not I be nursing him now?" she asked sadly. "It is difficult to stand aside and watch others doing what you long to do yourself. But that must be in old age. It is years since he crossed the threshold of his own rooms, and I am sure there are people on the place now who don't know he lives here--so quiet was it kept, by my lady's wish. Oh," she cried tremulously, "if my dear lady could only be here to see the change in him!"

"You have seen him to-day?" asked Philippa. "How did you think he was looking?"

"He looks very ill," answered the old woman; "but he was quite his old self. He had some little joke ready for me. He was always full of fun. Isn't it wonderful? It seems just as if all those years had been wiped right off, as you would wipe a slate."

"Did he speak of old times?"

"Not exactly, but he was just having his breakfast as I went in, and I stood beside him while he ate it, and he laughed when I tried to help him, and asked whether I shouldn't feed him with a spoon--whether I thought he was a baby again. Then he spoke of you, and asked if I had seen you and how you were."

They found the music presently, and Philippa possessed herself of a quant.i.ty of it and carried it down-stairs to the morning-room to try it over on the little piano which had belonged to Francis years before.

The instrument was rather thin in tone, and some of the notes were out of tune, but Mrs. Goodman promised before she left her, to send for a man from Renwick next morning to put it in order, so that it could be taken up-stairs to the sitting-room.

Turning over the songs, which were, of course, quite out of date, and mostly of the highly sentimental order which found favour in the early eighties, Philippa's eye was arrested by some words which seemed to her familiar. They were the ones Francis had quoted at their first meeting. He had spoken of a song Phil had been in the habit of singing, which seemed to him written for them. She tried it through.

The tune had a certain happy charm which once heard might easily linger in the memory after the music was hushed. The words were these:--

"My heart met yours, when spring was all awaking, Down in the valley where the violets bloom; Through soft grey clouds the kind May sun was breaking, Setting ablaze the gold flower of the broom.

Your heart met mine, and all the birds were singing, Singing for joy that winter's day was done; On every side the harebells pale were ringing A bridal peal for joy--our hearts were one.

Our hearts are one, and nothing can dissever The chain that binds us close; come good or ill, The golden radiance floods life's pathway ever, The scent of violets lingers round us still."

How many years was it since the simple words had been sung in that house, and the notes of the old piano sounded to the lilting cadence of its melody? And now, of the two who had sung it together, one was gone, and the other--well, for the other some of the golden radiance still shone after all the bitter years fate had meted out; and the scent of the violets lingered still.

Philippa dropped her face until it touched the faded bunch upon her breast. What is there about the scent of violets that always conjures up thoughts of the past? They have beyond the scent of all other flowers a power of memory. The scent of roses tells of long summer days, of dreams soft and tender as light summer airs; lilies speak of love and of love's crown; but it is violets that help us to regret.

CHAPTER XII

PROGRESS

"The days are made on a loom whereof the warp and woof are past and future time."--EMERSON.

The improvement in Francis Heathcote's condition in the days which followed was, so the doctor and nurses declared, phenomenal. Robert Gale ceased to tug at his beard in angry perplexity, and melted into something which might almost have been called jocularity, as he watched the man gaining in health and strength. "Splendid! Splendid!" he would say, rubbing his hands together in satisfaction. "Go on as you are going, and you'll see the last of me soon."

And as the days went by, peacefully and seemingly uneventfully, the time she spent with Francis became more and more the pivot on which Philippa's whole mind and thought turned. Day by day, almost hour by hour, he appeared to gain visibly in vigour. The cheerfulness and high spirits which had characterised him in an unusual degree before his accident, returned to him; and she marvelled increasingly at the almost boyish gaiety which he evinced at times. There were moments when she had perforce to remind herself of the long years of loneliness and deprivation through which he had pa.s.sed. They seemed to have left no mark on him. And yet she could not think they were forgotten, for once--it was at her second visit to him--he spoke at some length of his illness. Not, however, with any bitterness or annoyance, but merely as one might mention a curious experience through which one had lived, and for which one was little or none the worse.

"It is all so muddled to me. Sometimes it seems as if I had waited years for the sight of your face, and then again it would seem only the day before that I had seen you. Sometimes I saw you so clearly that I thought you were in the room, only I never could get you to speak to me. And I never could touch you. The moment I thought you were coming nearer you went away altogether. That was what bothered me. I suppose it was imagination or some kind of delirium, but it was rather dreadful, for when I couldn't see you everything was swallowed up in a horrible darkness. It was only when you came that there was daylight at all, the rest was a dreadful night."

"Don't talk of it," she had begged him, "it is over now." And seeing that the subject distressed her he had not spoken of it again.

Philippa found no difficulty in amusing him, or distracting his attention from anything which her intuition warned her might lead to dangerous questioning. She sang to him, and read to him, choosing lighter stories from the magazines, and preferably those in which the plot was laid in other countries or in previous centuries. He showed no signs of bewilderment when such events as the Indian Mutiny or the French Revolution were mentioned, and the girl could not be sure whether he listened without comprehending, for the mere pleasure of hearing her voice and knowing her companions.h.i.+p, or whether some feeling of half-shamed reticence prevented his acknowledging that he had never heard of these things before.

Perhaps, again, the mention of them awoke echoes which had long been silent, and dragged forgotten facts out of oblivion to the light of day--just as one may enter a room which has been closely sealed for years, and see objects once familiar but long since absolutely forgotten, shrouded in dust and dim with disuse, but of which the sight instantly recalls every trifling a.s.sociation.

Sometimes he would comment upon the situations or characters in a story, frequently making fun of them and their peculiarities, and at others he would bid her lay down the book and talk to him instead. He found the greatest pleasure in the time they spent together, when Philippa would take up her embroidery and sit beside him, and he would lie on the sofa with his eyes on her, watching her every movement as her dexterous needle slipped rapidly through the canvas.

He was thoughtful of her, never omitting to question her as to whether she had been out, and constantly bidding her not to give up all her own amus.e.m.e.nts for his sake. He did not speak a great deal of his love, but his devotion showed itself plainly in a hundred different ways--in his deep grat.i.tude for any slight service rendered--in his look of gladness when she came--in the inflexion of his voice, and so on. He seemed determined not to peril his new-found joy, or weary her by any protestations.

It was all quite easy, and Philippa was conscious of a great content, which she attributed to the reaction from her anxiety lest she should fail in the thing she had undertaken, and the natural pride which a nurse may legitimately feel when she sees a patient making strides on the road of convalescence.

She had received a letter from Marion, who wrote from a heart evidently torn with misgivings as to the wisdom of the course Philippa was pursuing. Her words were affectionate and guarded, but doubt and even disapproval could easily be read between the lines. She wrote of the grave dangers which must presently confront her friend, of the moment which must surely come when it would be impossible to go on without acknowledging the truth, and the word which might have been said at once would have to be spoken. She earnestly begged her to withdraw herself altogether, to leave the nursing of Francis Heathcote to others. The pain she would now cause would be nothing to the pain which would be his later when her daily presence had become a delightful habit with him--and so on, and so on. She reiterated the Major's regret that Philippa should have been drawn into the affair while a guest in their house, and particularly during their absence.

Her pity for Francis was intense, but that did not alter her fixed opinion that Philippa was not doing the best or the kindest thing by a.s.sisting to deceive him; for that was what it really amounted to. She knew Philippa's power of sympathy, and her loving heart had no doubt blinded her to what was wise and right.