Missing, Mrs. Humphry Ward [free e books to read online .TXT] 📗

says--in the letter'--she pointed to it--'they asked you about his hands. Do you remember how you used to mock at them?'

'As if one could remember after a year and a half!'

'No, you couldn't forget, Bridget--a thing like that--I know you couldn't. And what made you do it! Did you think I had forgotten George?'

At that the tears streamed down her face, unheeded. She approached her sister piteously.

'Bridget, tell me what he looked like! Did you speak to him--did you see his eyes open? Oh my poor George!--and I here--never thinking of him'--she broke off incoherently, twisting her hands. 'Miss Eustace says he was wounded in two places--severely--that she's afraid there's no hope. Did they say that to you, Bridget--tell me!--for Heaven's sake tell me!'

'You'll make yourself ill,' said Bridget harshly. 'You'd better lie down, and let me pack for you.'

Nelly laughed out.

'As if I'd ever let you do anything for me any more! No, that's done with. You've been so accustomed to manage me all these years. You thought you could manage me now--you thought you could let George die--and I should never know--and you'd make me marry--William Farrell. Bridget--_I hate you!'_

She broke off, shivering, but resumed almost at once--'I see it all--I think I see it all. And now it's all done for between you and me. If George dies, I shall never come back to live with you again. You'd better make plans, Bridget. It's over for ever.'

'You don't know what you're saying, now,' said Bridget, coldly.

Nelly did not hear her, she was lost in a whirl of images and thoughts. And governed by them she went up to Bridget again, thrusting her small white face under her sister's eyes.

'What sort of a room was he in, Bridget? Who was nursing him? Are you sure he didn't know you? Did you call him by his name? Did you make him understand?'

'He knew nobody,' said Bridget, drawing back, against her will, before the fire in Nelly's wild eyes. 'He was in a very good room. There was a nurse sitting with him.'

'Was he--was he very changed?'

'Of course he was. If not, I should have known him.'

Nelly half smiled. Bridget could never have thought that soft mouth capable of so much scorn. But no words came. Then Nelly walked away to a drawer where she kept her accounts, her cheque-book, and any loose money she might be in possession of. She took out her cheque-book and some two or three pounds that lay there.

'If you want money, I can lend you some,' said Bridget, catching at the old note of guardianship.

'Thank you. But I shall not want it.'

'Nelly, don't be a fool!' said Bridget, stung at last into speech. 'Suppose all you think is true--I don't admit it, mind--but suppose it's true. How was I doing such a terrible wrong to you?--in the eyes, I mean, of sensible people--in not disturbing your mind. Nobody expected--that man I saw--to know anybody again--or to live more than a few days. Even if I had been certain--and how could I be certain?--wasn't it _reasonable_ to weigh one thing against another? You know very well--it's childish to ignore it--what's been going on here----'

But she paused. Nelly, writing a letter, was not apparently concerned with anything Bridget had been saying. It did not seem to have reached her ears. A queer terror shot through Bridget. But she dismissed it. As if Nelly could ever really get on without her. Little, feckless, sentimental thing!

Nelly finished her letter and put it up.

'I have written to Sir William's agent, Bridget'--she said turning towards her sister--'to say that I give up the farm. I shall pay the servant. Hester will look after my things, and send them--when I want them.'

'Why Hester?' said Bridget, with something of a sneer.

Nelly did not answer. She put up her letter, took the money and the cheque-book and went out of the room. Bridget heard her call their one servant, Mrs. Dowson, and presently steps ascended the stairs and Nelly's door shut. The sound of the shutting door roused in her again that avenging terror. Her first impulse was to go and force herself into Nelly's room, so as to manage and pack for her as usual. But something stopped her. She consoled herself by going down to the kitchen to look after the supper. Nelly, of course, must have some food before her night journey.

Behind that shut door, Nelly was looking into the kind weather-beaten face of Mrs. Dowson.

'Mrs. Dowson, I'm going away to-night--and I'm not coming back. Sir William knows.'

Then she caught the woman's gnarled hands, and her own features began to work.

'Mrs. Dowson, they've found my husband! Did Sir William tell you? He's not dead--he's alive--But he's very, very ill.'

'Oh, you poor lamb!' cried Mrs. Dowson. 'No--Sir William tellt me nowt. The Lord be gracious to you!' Bathed in sudden tears, she kissed one of the hands that held hers, pouring out incoherent words of hope. But Nelly did not cry, and presently she said firmly--

'Now, please, you must help me to pack. Sir William will be here at nine.'

Presently all was ready. Nelly had hunted out an old grey travelling dress in which George had often seen her, and a grey hat with a veil. She hastily put all her black clothes aside.

'Miss Martin will send me anything I want. I have asked her to come and fetch my things.'

'But Miss Cookson will be seein' to that!' said Mrs. Dowson wondering. Nelly made no reply. She locked her little box, and then stood upright, looking round the small room. She seemed to be saying 'Good-bye' for ever to the Nelly who had lived, and dreamed, and prayed there. She was going to George--that was all she knew.

Downstairs, Bridget was standing at the door of the little dining-room. 'I have put out some cold meat for you,' she said, stiffly. 'You won't get anything for a long time.'

Nelly acquiesced. She drank some tea, and ate as much as she could. Neither she nor Bridget spoke, till Bridget, who was at the window looking out into the snow, turned round to say--'Here's the motor.'

Nelly rose, and tied her veil on closely. Mrs. Dowson brought her a thick coat, which had been part of her trousseau, and wrapped her in it.

'You had better take your grey shawl,' said Bridget.

'I have it here, Miss,' said Mrs. Dowson, producing it. 'I'll put it over her in the motor.'

She disappeared to open the door to Sir William's knock.

Nelly turned to her sister.

'Good-bye, Bridget.'

Bridget flamed out.

'And you don't mean to write to me? You mean to carry out this absurd plan of separation!'

'I don't know what I shall do--till I have seen George,' said Nelly steadily. 'He'll settle for me. Only you and I are not sisters any more.'

Bridget shrugged her shoulders, with some angry remark about 'theatrical nonsense.' Nelly went out into the passage, threw her arms about Mrs. Dowson's neck, for a moment, and then hurried out towards the car. It stood there in the falling snow, its bright lights blazing on the bit of Westmorland wall opposite, and the overhanging oaks, still heavy with dead leaf. Farrell was standing at the door, holding a fur rug. He and Mrs. Dowson tucked it in round Nelly's small cloaked figure.

Then without a word, Farrell shut the door of the car, and took the seat beside the driver. In another minute Bridget was watching the lights of the lamps rushing along the sides of the lane, till at a sharp bend of the road it disappeared.

There was a break presently in the snow-fall, and as they reached the shores of Windermere, Nelly was aware of struggling gleams of moonlight on steely water. The anguish in her soul almost resented the break in the darkness. She was going to George; but George was dying, and while he had been lying there in his lonely suffering, she had been forgetting him, and betraying him. The recollection of Farrell's embrace overwhelmed her with a crushing sense of guilt. George indeed should never know. But that made no difference to her own misery.

The miles flew by. She began to think of her journey, to realise her helplessness and inexperience in the practical things of life. She must get her passport, and some money. Who would advise her, and tell her how to get to France under war conditions? Would she be allowed to go by the short sea passage? For that she knew a special permit was necessary. Could she get it at once, or would she be kept waiting in town? The notion of having to wait one unnecessary hour tortured her. Then her thoughts fastened on Miss Eustace of the Enquiry Office, who had written her the letter which had arrived simultaneously with Dr. Howson's telegram. 'Let me know if I can be of any use to you, for your journey. If there is anything you want to know that we can help you in, you had better come straight to this office.'

Yes, that she would do. But the train arrived in London at 7 A.M. And she could not possibly see Miss Eustace before ten or eleven. She must just sit in the waiting-room till it was time. And she must get some money. She had her cheque-book and would ask Sir William to tell her how to get a cheque cashed in London. She was ashamed of her own ignorance in these small practical matters.

The motor stopped. Sir William jumped down, but before he came to open the door for her, she saw him turn round and wave his hand to two persons standing outside the station. They hurried towards the motor, and as Nelly stepped down from it, she felt herself grasped by eager hands.

'You poor darling! I thought we couldn't be in time. But we flew. Don't trouble about anything. We've done it all.'

Cicely!--and behind her Marsworth.

Nelly drew back.

'Dear Cicely!' she said faintly--'but I can manage--I can manage quite well.'

Resistance, however, was useless. Marsworth and Cicely, it seemed, were going to London with her--Cicely probably to France; and Marsworth had already telegraphed about her passport. She would have gladly gone by herself, but she finally surrendered--for George's sake, that she might get to him the quicker.

Then everything was done for her. Amid the bustle of the departing train, she was piteously aware of Farrell, and just before they started, she leant out to give him her hand.

'I will tell George all you have done for me,' she said, gulping down a sob.

He pressed her hand before releasing it, but said nothing. What was there to say? Meanwhile, Cicely, to ease the situation, was chattering hard, describing how Farrell had sent his chauffeur to Ambleside on a motor bicycle, immediately after leaving Nelly, and so had got a telephone message through to Cicely.

'We had the small car out and ready in ten minutes, and, by good luck, there was a motor-transport man on leave, who had come to see a brother in the hospital. We laid hands on him, and he drove us here. But it's a mercy we're not sitting on the Raise! You remember that heap of stones on the top of the Raise, that thing they say is a barrow--the grave of some old British party before