A Woman Ventures: A Novel by David Graham Phillips - HTML preview

CHAPTER XXXIII.
 LIGHT.

AFTER a long and baffling search up and down through western Europe he learned that Courtleigh had robbed her and deserted her, and that she was alone, under the name of Mrs. Brandon, at a tiny house in Craven street near the Strand. He lifted and dropped its knocker, and a maid-of-all-work thrust through a crack in the door, her huge be-frowzled head with its thin hair drawn out at the back over a big wire-frame.

“How is Mrs. Brandon?” he said.

“Not so well, thank you, sir,” replied the maid, looking at him as suspiciously as her respect for the upper classes permitted.

“I wish to see the landlady.”

She instantly appeared, thrusting the maid aside and releasing a rush of musty air as she opened the door wide. She was fairly trembling with curiosity.

“I am Mrs. Brandon’s—next friend,” he said, remembering and using the phrase which in his reporter days he had often seen on the hospital entry-cards. “I am the guardian of her child. I’ve come to see what can be done for her.”

His determined, commanding tone and manner, and his appearance of prosperity, convinced Mrs. Clocker. “We’ve done all we could, sir. But the poor lady is in great straits, sir. She’s been most unfortunate.”

“Is there a physician?”

“Doctor Wackle, just up the way, sir.”

“Send for him at once. May I see her?”

The maid set off up the street and Stilson climbed a dingy first flight, a dingier second flight, and came to a low door which sagged far from its frame at the top. He entered softly—“She’s asleep, sir,” whispered Mrs. Clocker.

It was a miserable room where the last serious attempts to fight decay had been made perhaps half a century before. It now presented queer contrasts—ragged and tottering furniture strewn with handsome garments; silk and lace and chiffon and embroidery, the latest Paris devisings, crumpled and tossed about upon patch and stain and ruin; several extravagant hats and many handsome toilet-articles of silver and gold and cut glass spread in a fantastic jumble upon the dirty coverings of a dressing-table and a stand. Against the pillow—its case was neither new nor clean—lay the head of Marguerite. Her face was ugly with wrinkles and hollows, that displayed in every light and shade a skin shiny with sweat, and bluish yellow. Her hair was a matted mass from which had rusted the chemicals put on to hide the streaks of gray. She was in a stupor and was breathing quickly and heavily.

He had come, filled with pity and even eager to see her. He was ashamed of the repulsion which swept through him. Her face recalled all that was horrible in the past, foreboded new and greater horrors. He turned away and left the room. His millstone was once more suspended from his neck.

Dr. Wackle had come—a shabby, young-old man with thin black whiskers and damp, weak lips. In a manner that was a cringing apology for his own existence, he explained that Marguerite had pneumonia—that she was dangerously ill. He had given her up, but the prospect of payment galvanised hope. “There is a chance, sir,” he said. “And with——”

“What is the name and address of the best specialist in lung diseases?” he interrupted.

“There’s Doctor Farquhar in Half Moon Street, sir. He ’as been called by the royal family, sir.”

“Take a cab and bring him at once.”

While Wackle was away, Stilson arranged Marguerite’s account with the landlady and had some of his belongings brought from the Carlton and put into the vacant suite just under Marguerite’s. After two hours Dr. Farquhar came; at his heels Wackle, humble but triumphant. Stilson saw at one sharp glance that here was a man who knew his trade—and regarded it as a trade.

“What is your consultation fee?”

Dr. Farquhar’s suspicious face relaxed. “Five guineas,” he said, looking the picture of an English middle-class trader.

Stilson gave him the money. He carefully placed the five-pound note in his pocket-book and the five shillings in his change-purse. “Let me see the patient,” he said, resuming the manner of the small soul striving to play the part of “great man.” Stilson led the way to the sagged, hand-grimed door. Farquhar opened it and entered. “This foul air is enough to cause death by itself,” he said with a sneering glance at Wackle. “No—let the window alone!”—this to Wackle in the tone a brutal master would use to his dog.

Wackle stood as if petrified and Farquhar went to the head of the bed. Marguerite opened her eyes and closed them without seeing anything. He laid his hand upon her forehead, then flung away the covers and listened at her chest. “Umph!” he grunted and with powerful hands lifted her by the shoulders. Grasping her still more firmly he shook her roughly. Again he listened at her chest. “Umph!” he growled. He looked into her face which was now livid, then shook her savagely and listened again. He let her drop back against the pillows and tossed the covers over her. He took up his hat which lay upon a silk-and-lace dressing gown spread across the foot of the bed. He stalked from the room.

“Well?” said Stilson, when they were in the hall.

The great specialist shrugged his shoulders. “She may last ten hours—but I doubt it. I can do nothing. Good day, sir.” And he jerked his head and went away.

Stilson stood in the little hall—Wackle, the landlady and the maid-of-all-work a respectful group a few feet away. His glance wandered helplessly round, and there was something in his expression that made Wackle feel for his handkerchief and Mrs. Clocker and the maid burst into tears. Stilson went stolidly back to Marguerite’s room. He paused at the door, turned and descended. “Can you stay?” he said to Wackle. “I will pay you.”

“Gladly, sir. I’ll wait here with Mrs. Clocker.”

Stilson reascended, entered the room and again stood beside Marguerite. With gentle hands he arranged her pillow and the covers. Then he seated himself. An hour—two hours passed—he was not thinking or feeling; he was simply waiting. A stir in the bed roused him. “Who is there?” came in Marguerite’s voice, faintly. “Is it some one? or am I left all alone?”

“What can I do, Marguerite?” Stilson bent over her.

She opened her eyes, without surprise, almost without interest. “You?” she said. “Now they won’t dare neglect me.”

Her eyelids fell wearily. Without lifting them she went on: “How did you find me? Never mind. Don’t tell me. I’m so tired—too tired to listen.”

“Are you in pain?” he asked.

“No—the cough seems to be gone. I’m not going to get well—am I?” She asked as if she did not care to hear the answer.

He sat on the edge of the bed and gently stroked her forehead. She smiled and looked at him gratefully. “I feel so—so safe,” she said. “It is good to have you here. But—oh, I’m so, so tired. I want to rest—and rest—and rest.”

“I’ll sit here.” He took her hand. “You may go to sleep. I’ll not leave you.”

“I know you won’t. You always do what you say you’ll do.” She ended sleepily and her breath came in swift, heavy sighs with a rattling in the throat. But she soon woke again. “I’m tired,” she said. “Something—I guess it’s life—seems to be oozing out of my veins. I’m so tired, but so comfortable. I feel as if I were going to sleep and nobody, nothing would ever, ever wake me.”

He thought she was once more asleep, until she said suddenly: “I was going to write it, but my head whirled so—he stole everything but some notes I had in my stocking. But I don’t care now. I don’t forgive him—I just don’t care. What was I saying—yes—about—about Mary. She’s yours as well as mine, Robert—really, truly, yours. I made you doubt—because—I don’t know—partly because I thought you’d be better off without us—then, afterward, I didn’t want you to care any more for her than you did. You believe me, Robert?”

He nodded. “Yes,” he said, “I believe you.”

“And you forgive me?”

“There’s nothing to forgive—nothing.”

“It doesn’t matter. I only want to rest and stop thinking—and—and—everything. Will it be long?”

“Not long,” he said in a choked undertone.

Presently she coughed and a black fluid oozed hideously from her lips and seemed to be threatening to strangle her. He called the doctor who gave her an opiate.

“Come with me, sir,” said Wackle in a hoarse, sick-room whisper, “Mrs. Clocker has spread a nice cold lunch for you.”

Stilson waved him away. Alone again, he swept the finery from the sofa and stretched himself there. Trivial thoughts raced through his burning brain—the height and width of the candle flames, the pattern of the wall paper, the tracery of cracks in the ceiling, the number of yards of lace and of goods in the dresses heaped on the floor. As his thoughts flew from trifle to trifle, his head ached fiercely and his skin felt as if it were baking and cracking.

Then came a long sigh and a rattling in the throat from the woman in the bed. He started up. “Marguerite!” he called. He looked down at her. She sighed again, stretched herself at full length, settled her head into the pillow. “Marguerite,” he said. And he bent over her. “Are you there?” he whispered. But he knew that she was not.

He took the candle from the night stand and held it above his head. The dim flame made his living face old and sorrow-seamed, while her dead face looked smooth, almost young. Her expression of rest, of peaceful dreams, of care forever fled, brought back to him a far scene. He could hear the crash of the orchestra, the stirring rhythm of a Spanish dance; he could see the stage of the Gold and Glory as he had first seen it—the bright background of slender, girlish faces and forms; and in the foreground, slenderest and most girlish of all, Marguerite—the embodiment of the motion and music of the dance, the epitome of the swift-pulsing life of the senses.

He knelt down beside the bed and took her dead hand. “Good-bye, Rita,” he sobbed. “Good-bye, good-bye!”

Suddenly the day broke and the birds in the eaves began to chirp, to twitter, to sing. He rose, and with the sombre and clinging shadows of the past and the present there was mingled a light—faint, evasive, as yet itself a shadow. But it was light—the forerunner of the dawn of a new day upon a new land where his heart should sing as in the days of his youth.

THE END.