A Sovereign Remedy Part 51

"That will do no good," he replied gloomily. "Can you not see that your influence touches my life at every point? When I go through the wards I hear you have just pa.s.sed, I almost see the flutter of your dress. I am always reminded, I am always thinking of you. If you will not marry me, I must go away."

"I cannot marry you, and I have told you why. It is not as though I did not know what love meant. I have known it, and--and I do not know it now. But you need not go away. I will go."

"That, you shall not do," he replied, his chin setting itself long and stern. "Besides it would be no good. This place is redolent of you--your goodness, your sweetness. Oh! Helen, Helen! If you will only marry me, love will come--for you like me--I don't believe there is any one you like better--except perhaps Ned Blackborough."

"Ned!" she echoed, glad of evasion, "poor Ned! I have had such a curious feeling lately that he is in some way maimed; and yet not maimed. I don't know how to express it, but he seems to me to be using his soul more and his body less."

"I wish I could get rid of my body," muttered Dr. Ramsay so quaintly that Helen perforce had to smile; whereat, he said aggrievedly, "It isn't all that either, Mrs. Tressilian; love----"

She checked him with a soft sympathising hand. "Do I not know what love is? Dr. Ramsay! I cannot pity you."

"Then I shall have to go," he said obstinately. "I will not have my work spoiled by any woman."

She felt small somehow; a trifle remorseful perhaps as she left the room. He certainly had been rather dejected of late and it was such a pity.

And Ned also! He was not dejected, but he was changed, curiously changed.

In truth the past six weeks, since the night when he had out.w.a.tched the stars, to be met in the dawn by the mischance of a confidence not intended for his ears, had changed him a great deal. He had not seen Aura since. He had purposely left New Park, before she was well enough to receive visitors, and had only returned to it after she had been moved for a freshening up at the seaside. But he had heard of her constantly from Ted, who, after two or three days of intense anxiety, had gone back to business with renewed zest. This time interruption had apparently been beneficial; at least the first few days of Aura's convalescence and disappointment had been cheered by him with the most sanguine of outlooks on the future. He even went so far as to say that, perhaps after all, things were best as they were. They would move into a still better house, and be able to set up properly before taking upon themselves the responsibilities of life.

Aura had said "Perhaps," and after he had gone had lain and cried softly to herself. There is nothing in the wide world so sacred to a woman as her grief for the child which has died to save her life. It is grief of the most inward type, unknown, unrecognised by others, which lasts through the years and grows no slighter than it was when in the dim, between life and death, she first learns that her child has paid the ransom for her.

In a way, therefore, the doubt, which by degrees grew into a certainty, that Fate had denied motherhood to her, had at first almost brought her comfort.

If there was no probability of her being more fortunate in the future, happiness neither awaited her, nor could there be any rivalry between the dead child and a living one. There was a tragedy in both lives, not only in the one.

Such thoughts as these, aided by the very intensity of her grief, kept her going until she began to face the world again at the sea-side.

Then came one of those fiery furnaces of the soul through which so few pa.s.s unscathed. She used to wander down at the ebb low tide, past the groups of children building castles in the sand, past the uttermost outermost little waving fringe of sea-spoil left, but for a brief half hour, by the regretful retreat of the waves, and gaze out over the long, low sand-banks, claimed as their own by clouds of fluttering, settling, fluttering seagulls.

The tide had truly ebbed--the mud-flats of life lay bare. Her thoughts were like the gulls, never still for a second. Only in the slack tide of the estuary there was rest for a moment, and the long, brown arms of the seaweed waved sleepily, seeming to call her to rest with them.

So she would go back again to her lodgings, but in the night time she would rise and draw up her blind and look out.

And lo! the tide was up again, the sea lay like a sheet of silver and there was no more land, neither was there any sound of tears.

Thus, after a time, she came back to the new house on which Ted, during her absence, had been lavis.h.i.+ng enough money, he felt, to prove his undying affection twice over. He was quite full of its many advantages when she finally arrived there. For one thing, they would be able to entertain in it; and entertainments would be a great feature in his coming life. One of the chief reasons for Mr. Hirsch's enormous success had been his genius for giving _recherche_ dinners.

Ted could not hope to rival him; still with the _cordon bleue's_ help--here he became exceedingly affectionate--much was possible. They must certainly entertain Mr. Hirsch and his daughter. Oh yes! had not Aura heard of the daughter? Mr. Hirsch had imported her ready-made, grown-up--really a very nice-looking girl--from Berlin? She was about twenty, and no one had had any idea Hirsch was a widower; but he seemed devoted to the girl, and to have given up the search for a wife which had been his pursuit for years.

The fact of the matter being, though Ted did not know it, that, having failed once more in his endeavours to marry a well-connected Englishwoman, Mr. Hirsch had fallen back on a less legal establishment of his youth for which he had always paid with scrupulous honour.

Hence Miss Hirsch who, being a goodnatured creature like her father, bid fair to fill up his affections and give him the home for which, as he grew older, he was beginning to yearn.

Anyhow Mr. and Miss Hirsch would have to be entertained when they came to Blackborough, and Aura should have the long talked-of pink satin gown in which to receive them. It might even be possible to put them up. There were two good rooms on the first floor which would not be wanted yet awhile. Aura might see them after she had had her tea.

"Thanks, Ted," she replied hurriedly, "but--but perhaps I've done enough for to-day. I can see them tomorrow."

Just those few minutes of facing the new house, the new life had wearied her absolutely. And she had other things to face in the near future. Sooner or later she felt that she ought to tell her husband that those rooms would never in all human probability be wanted.

But she could not tell him now. That was beyond her strength.

CHAPTER XXV

"Mrs. Edward Cruttenden requests the pleasure of Lord Blackborough's company at dinner."

It was a printed card, and Ned Blackborough laid it down on the table, feeling that the world was getting beyond him.

This was about a week or so after Aura's return, and he had intended to call on her that very afternoon. Now he refrained.

"I am so sorry we had to give you such short notice," said Ted, whom he met in the street next day, "but the Hirschs were coming down unexpectedly and it had to be hurried. I hope you can come."

"Oh! I am coming all right," said Ned a trifle surlily. "I hope it won't be too much for Aura."

Ted looked at him with immense surprise. "My dear fellow! Aura is as well as she can be, and awfully interested in it. Well! I'm glad you can come. You'll like Miss Hirsch, she's charming, so fresh and gay."

It was a real parlourmaid who announced Lord Blackborough this time, and he saw a furtive green-grocer in the background; otherwise the house seemed to him much the same, only larger, more pretentious. The drawing-room was distinctly more--what was the word? chaste. Yes!

distinctly more chaste. It was white and gold, and was that Aura in a pink satin dress--ye heavens above! in pink satin! She did not look ill, but as their eyes met he was conscious of a distinct shock. There was something wanting in them, the best part of her was not there.

Where was it?

The question absorbed him even while he was being presented to Miss Hirsch, a jolly, handsome, rather stout girl, also--as the fates would have it--in pink satin. But she was literally ablaze with diamonds.

"Aha! my old friend Blackborough!" laughed Mr. Hirsch explosively, "this is good sight for sore eyes. Make me your compliments for my daughter, sir."

"I prefer to make them to Miss Hirsch herself," replied Ned gallantly, and then they went in to dinner.

It was an excellent repast. Ted had evidently pursued the only course consonant with success. He had ordered it direct from Benoist's and kept the minions of the great caterer out of evidence. Iced mellon gave place to _consomme biscuit_, _truite a l'aurore_ to _filets financieres_, _poularde ca.s.serole_ to something else, until at the end the conversation became interspersed with cigarettes and coffee.

It was an enormous success; and all the time Ned Blackborough was wondering what had become of Aura, whither she had gone. Only once did he get a glimpse of what he had known in the past, and that was when, after Miss Hirsch had sung like a second-cla.s.s professional (in other words like her mother) to his accompaniment, he had asked Aura if he might not accompany her also.

"My dear Blackborough," Ted had exclaimed, "after such singing as Miss Hirsch has just given us, I'm sure my wife would hardly like----"

"But _I_ should like," he had interrupted imperturbably.

Then it was that Aura had said swiftly in an undertone--

"Please don't."

He had obeyed, as he had obeyed the same order once before. But that night he sat up again and drank whisky and water and smoked opium-sodden cigarettes, and the next day he went down to call, for he did not intend that sort of thing should go on.

She did not intend it should either. He found her in the back garden, which was really quite of a decent size, busy planting something between the prim privets, and eunonyms and variegated hollies which, even in this late autumn, gave the wall-surrounding shrubbery a semblance of green.

"Do you know what I am planting?" she asked frankly. "I am planting some _iris alata_."

He narrowed his eyes and looked at her.

"Hardly in the most beautiful place in the world," he said cynically.