The Westcotes Part 15

"From the gallery here," he whispered, "you look right down into the Convalescent Ward."

Through the iron bars of the gallery Dorothea caught a glimpse of a long bare room, with twenty or thirty dejected figures in suits and caps of greyish-blue flannel, huddled about a stove. Some were playing at cards, others at dominoes. The murmur of their voices ascended and hummed in the little pa.s.sage.

"Hist! Your friend is below there, if you care to have a peep at him."

But Dorothea had already drawn back. All this spying and listening revolted her. The polite Commandant noted the movement.

"You prefer that he should be fetched at once?" He stepped past them into the corridor. "Smithers!" he called. "Smithers!"

A hospital orderly appeared at a door almost opposite the pa.s.sage, and saluted.

"Run down to the Convalescent Ward and fetch up Number Two-six-seven- two.--I know the number of each of my children. I never make a mistake," he confided in Dorothea's ear. "As quick as you can, please!

Stay; you may add that some visitors have called and wish to speak with him."

The orderly saluted again, and hurried off.

"You wish, of course, to see him alone together?"

"I think," answered Endymion, slowly, "my sister would prefer a word or two with him alone."

"Certainly. Will you step into the surgery, Miss Westcote?" He indicated the door at which the orderly had appeared. "Smithers will not take two minutes in fetching the prisoner; and perhaps, if you will excuse us, a visit to the hospital itself will repay your brother.

We are rather proud of our sanitation here: a glance over our arrangements--five minutes only--"

Endymion, at a nod from Dorothea, permitted himself to be led away by the inexorable man.

She watched them to the end of the corridor, and had her hand on the surgery door to push it open, when a voice from below smote her ears.

"Number Two-six-seven-two to come to the surgery at once, to see visitors!"

The voice rang up through the little pa.s.sage behind her. She turned; the door at the end of it stood half-open; beyond it she saw the bars of the gallery, and through these a s.p.a.ce of whitewashed wall at the end of the ward.

She was turning again, when a babble of voices answered the orderly's announcement. "Raoul! Raoul!" half-a-dozen were calling, and then one spoke up sharp and distinct:

"Tenez, mon bonhomme, ce sera votre _gilet_, a coup sur!"

A burst of laughter followed.

"C'est son _gilet_--his little Waistcoat--a chauffer la poitrine--"

"Des visiteurs, dit il? Voyons, coquin, n'y-a-t-il pas par hasard une visiteuse de la partie."

"Une 'Waistcoat' par example?--de quarante ans environ, le drap un peu rape . . ."

"Qui se nomme Dorothee--ce que veut dire le gilet dieudonne . . ."

"Easy now!" the Orderly's voice remonstrated. "Easy, I tell you, ye born mill-clappers! There's a lady in the party, if that's what you're asking."

Dorothea put out a hand against the jamb of the surgery door, to steady herself She heard the smack of a palm below and some one uttered a serio-comic groan.

"Enfonce! Il m'a parie dix sous qu'elle viendrait avant le jour de Pan, et aussi du tabac avec tout le Numero Six. Nous en ferons la dot de Mademoiselle!" The fellow burst out singing--

"J'ai du bon tabac Dans ma tabatiere."

"Dites donc, mon pet.i.t,"--but the cheerful epithet he bestowed on Raoul is unquotable here--"Elle ne fume pas, votre Anglaise? Elle n'est pas Creole, c'est entendu."

Dorothea had stepped into the surgery. A small round table stood in the middle of the room; she caught at the edge of it and rested so for a moment, for the walls seemed to be swaying and she durst not lift her hands to shut out the roars of laughter. They rang in her ears and shouted and stunned her. Her whole body writhed.

The hubbub below sank to a confused murmur. She heard footsteps in the corridor--the firm tramp of the orderly followed by the shuffle of list slippers.

"Number Two-six-seven-two is outside, ma'am. Am I to show him in?"

She bent her head and moved towards the fireplace. She heard him shuffle in, and the door shut behind him. Still she did not turn.

"Dorothea!"--his voice shook with joy, with pa.s.sion. How well she knew that deep Provencal tremolo. She could have laughed aloud in her bitterness.

"Dorothea!"

She faced him at length. He stood there, stretching out both hands to her. He was handsome as ever, but pale and sadly pinched. Beyond all doubt he had suffered. His grey-blue hospital suit hung about him in folds.

In her eyes he read at once that something was wrong--but without comprehending. "You sent for me," he stammered; "you have come--"

She found her voice and, to her surprise, it was quite firm.

"Yes, we have brought your release," she said; and, watching his eyes, saw the joy leap up in them, saw it quenched the next instant as he composed his features to a fond solicitude for her.

"But you?" he murmured. "What has happened? Tell me--no, do not draw away! Your hand, at least."

Contempt, for herself or for him, gave her a moment's strength, but it broke down again.

"It is horrible!" was all she answered and looked about her with a s.h.i.+ver.

"Ah, the place frightens you! Well," he laughed, rea.s.suringly, "it frightened me at first. But for the thought of you, dearest, to comfort--"

She stepped past him and opened the door. For a moment a wild notion seized him that she was escaping, and he put out an imploring hand; but he saw that, with her hand on the jamb, she was listening, and he, too, listened. The voices in the Convalescent Ward came up to them, scarcely m.u.f.fled, through the low pa.s.sage, and with them a cackling laugh. Then he understood.

Their eyes met. He bowed his head.

"Nevertheless, I have suffered."

He said it humbly, after many seconds, and in a voice so low that it seemed a second or two before she heard. For the first time she put out a hand and touched his sleeve.

"Yes, you have suffered, and for me. Let me go on believing that. You did a n.o.ble thing, and I shall try to remember you by it--to remember that you were capable of it. 'It was for my sake,' I shall say, and then I shall be proud. Oh, yes, sometimes I shall be very proud! But in love--"

Her voice faltered, and he looked up sharply.

"In love"--she smiled, but pa.s.sing faintly--"it's the little things, is it not? It's the little things that count."

She touched his sleeve again, and pa.s.sed into the room, leaving him there at a standstill, as Endymion and the Commandant came round the corner at the far end of the corridor.