AFTER this fright, however, which was—so much is that poison to one which is another’s antidote—so joyful for Gussy, everything relapsed into a still and apprehensive silence which to two in the house seemed full of fate. Better and better was the news that came from the sick-room. Morning after morning Gussy came to the breakfast-table pale but radiant with the bulletin. Better, and better, and better. He not only knew her, but had smiled and said a few words. He had a long and refreshing sleep. He was promoted to a little solid food. The doctor was satisfied, nay, astonished, at the progress made. But all this took a long time.
There was a long interval of that dark and melancholy weather which gives winter its special horror in London—one day more dull and gray and dismal than the other, depressing in any circumstances, miserable when there is anxiety and suspense within. The new year had begun with the chills and snows and dreariness which so often accompany it. The only relief in the prospect was that Dolff ere many days had passed would have to return to Oxford. If it only might be that he could go without seeing the convalescent? He wished this himself in a half-and-half way sometimes, hoping that he might not be compelled to congratulate Meredith on his recovery, or indeed face him at all, though he was glad that he was getting well: yet sometimes also with a lurking desire to see him, to judge for himself how much he was changed, and if he had any consciousness of “what had happened.” Dolff did not indicate to himself the tremendous moment of his passion by any more clear description than this. Perhaps on the whole he wished more than he feared to see Meredith again. Then perhaps he would get out of his eyes the white face upon the pavement, with the faint lamplight upon it, which he had never been able to forget.
The day on which Meredith was first allowed to see the family was a Monday in the middle of January. His couch was wheeled into the drawing-room in the afternoon, Gussy proudly attending and announcing her patient. The daylight was beginning to wane, and to two at least of the party it was more easy to see him than it was for him to see them. Janet had withdrawn into the further part of the room, as was becoming in her position, and Dolff stood uneasily near the door, removing himself, without intention, in the mere excitement and uneasiness of this first meeting, from the light. Meredith was still very pale, and the change in his face, which had been florid red and white, was striking. His black hair, and the beard which had grown during his illness, made his pallor still more apparent, but it was scarcely the paleness which gives refinement and spirituality to a face worn with suffering. He shook hands with them all, and turned his head, asking, “Is that Miss Summerhayes?” in a way which compelled Janet to come forward, though so much against her will. He glanced up at her with something of his old look, a sort of smile in his eyes, the telegraph of old, which implied some secret understanding between them, and which once had so fluttered Janet’s heart. But it only brought a sickening thrill now of alarm and repugnance. This was the only thing she noted specially in the first interview, a look which showed her that all was not over, that he was not ready yet to relinquish the amusement which she had given him (if that was how to describe it), and that, though he had been at death’s door, and was so much altered in appearance, in himself he was not changed. Janet was too young to know that to be at death’s door is no sufficient reason for any change in that strange and perverse thing which is called the heart. She had been a little moved by the sight of him, so colorless and feeble, notwithstanding the change in her own feelings towards him. There is something piteous in the sight of a strong man, young, and in the flower of life, lying helpless upon a couch, ministered to like a child. It touched her heart, and something of the reverence for weakness, which is inherent in humanity, moved her as she came unwillingly, yet obediently to his side. But that side glance, the old confidential look, the smile which might have been called a leer by a more severe spectator, caught Janet in the midst of her momentary awe, and drove her back upon herself. She was not, as the reader knows, so lofty in her views, so generous in her motives, as would become a heroine; but she was startled and shocked by this, and thrown back into her original dismay and fear.
After this he saw the family every day. It became the habit of the house as he slowly recovered (and it was very slow progress) to have the couch rolled into the drawing-room every day, visitors shut out, and the whole efforts of the household, which were not very effectual in that department, devoted to the amusement of the patient. They were not very clever in the way of amusement. Mrs. Harwood talked to him, occasionally lighting upon an old story which had some interest for the invalid, and Gussy talked with no such reservoir of interest to fall back upon, generally dropping after a time into household details, which did not amuse him at all.
Janet, when she was not able to escape, sat demurely silent as far off as possible, her head bent over her work; and Dolff, who seemed to have been seized by a feverish desire to be present during these séances, as if something to his detriment might happen if he were absent, stood about, sometimes standing at one window, sometimes at another, adjured by his mother and sister not to get into the light, uncomfortable and unnecessary everywhere. Meredith, as he got able to talk a little, took up again his old habit of somewhat contemptuous banter to Dolff. He begged to know if he had not been singing lately—if Miss Summerhayes had been cruel and ceased to play the accompaniments, which she was so clever at. It was evident that his mind was far from any painful associations in respect to Dolff. He declared that it would amuse him to hear one of the old songs.
“Not the new ones,” he said, with that exasperating smile, “the refined ones, which Miss Summerhayes prefers. Sing me one of those, Dolff, that you brought from the Vic.”
“One of those! They’re not fit for a drawing-room, Meredith; you know they’re not.”
“We heard them in the drawing-room often enough, didn’t we, Gussy! Come, humor me—everybody humors me—sing me—that one, you know, with the chorus—” and the sick man hummed a bar or two of the most uproarious of those songs which had so startled the decorous family.
He laughed and flashed at Janet—who by some extraordinary trick of nature was aware now, when her back was turned to him, of those looks—a wicked glance. Nothing he could have asked would have been more painful, nothing could have shone more distinctly the mockery and malice of his intention. A man who had nearly died calling upon his almost murderer for a rollicking music-hall song! It was a ghastly request to the two performers, who looked at each other, or, rather, who looked each in the direction of where the other was, with a sort of helpless, mutual appeal.
“Why don’t you do it, Dolff, when Charley asks you? What does it matter, if it’s not very suitable, so long as it amuses him?”
Dolff muttered something about being out of practice, not having sung anything for weeks.
“No,” said Meredith, “I know how everybody has denied themselves for me. Never mind; I shall like it just as much.”
“Can’t you go and do it, Dolff?” cried Gussy, impatiently, “when he tells you it will amuse him? It is not for you, to show off how well you can do it. I daresay it will amuse him more if you do it very badly. What does it matter if you are in practice or not?”
Once more Dolff murmured something to the effect that he did not like to be laughed at, with his head down between his shoulders and his chin on his breast.
“Good heavens!” cried Gussy, “as if it mattered! I should have thought you would be glad to be laughed at, so long as it amused him.”
Dolff turned his head towards Janet in an appeal for help. She was as unwilling as he was, and felt the tragic ridicule of the proposal even more keenly, as well as the malice and cruel amusement in Meredith’s eyes. She knew that he was trying to catch her attention to make her the confidante of his meaning as usual; but Janet kept her eyes fixed upon her work, and would not see. At length, however, she rose up, and putting away the needlework she was busy with, went to the piano. If it had to be done, it was better to do it without further remark. She had played the first bars of the accompaniment several times over before Dolff reluctantly followed her. It was almost the first time he had voluntarily addressed Janet in all those weeks. He said, sullenly, “Does he want to drive me mad? Is that his revenge?” over her head.
Janet replied, playing softly,
“He knows nothing yet. He wants to make us both ridiculous, for no reason. Sing; I’ll help you all I can.”
Dolff breathed a sigh that fluttered the music upon the piano.
“What pluck you have,” he said, with unwilling admiration.
He had sworn never to trust her again, never to have anything to do with her; but how hard it was when he stood by her thus, and felt the charm of her presence, the readiness and courage and support of her little alert soul.
“Sing,” she said, firmly, holding down the beginning notes to make a bruyant, noisy dash of sound and give him courage.
And Dolff sang—like a martyr—giving forth the uproarious, would-be fun of the words as if they were a psalm, stumbling over every second line, losing his place, forgetting what came next. The audience laughed behind them audibly, noisily, as indeed was right enough, and the effect intended by the song. But it was not at the song they laughed, but at the singer and his ludicrous gravity, and the embarrassment which was freely attributed to temper, both by his mother and sister.
Mrs. Harwood was a little offended at last by the laughter of the others though it was an absurd performance. A woman soon becomes weary of ridicule when called forth by a child of her own.
“You are very merry,” she said. “I never heard you laugh so much before, Gussy, at your brother’s performance.”
“It is very absurd, mamma.”
“It is very absurd, I know,” said Mrs. Harwood, with a little rising color, “and I think it was very self-denying of Dolff to consent to make himself ridiculous for Charley’s amusement. You ought to be a little grateful to him instead of making fun of him. Many would not have done it,” said the mother, with a toss upward of her head.
“Mamma! why, he used to sing like that every evening when he came home first.”
“Don’t you interfere, Ju. If he did, he has seen since that, as he said, it was not appropriate to a drawing-room: and I think it is very good of him, exceedingly self-denying and kind, to do it—when he is more or less making a fool of himself—to amuse Charley.”
“Dear Mrs. Harwood,” said Meredith, from his sofa, “I am getting selfish; you are all so good to me. And I am very much obliged to Dolff. I have not laughed so much since—I hope he doesn’t mind. Thanks, Dolff; that’s capital. You’ve sung it like—like the great—what do you call the man?—Barry himself. Let us have another, please.”
But Dolff hurried off as soon as he had uttered the last note, with a sense of humiliation which nothing else could have given him—humiliation, contempt of himself, misery which could not be gauged by any moral estimate. He felt as if all that he had ever done to Meredith was fully paid and atoned for by the exhibition he had thus been compelled to make: and that, if this were to go on, he would fly at the fellow’s throat some day and this time make sure work of it.
His look, his laugh—which had never stopped—which began before the performance began, which was not at his song but at him, roused every grim possibility in Dolff’s nature. Was that to be his revenge, the coward? a revenge like a woman’s, and yet more cruel. To make him ridiculous—to hold him up to derision. And Gussy, with her smile, backing up that fellow, who had bewitched her! Dolff suddenly bethought himself of all he knew, and of what the effect would be upon Gussy if he reported to her what he had seen and heard. This thought sobered him and calmed down the tumult in his veins. If Gussy knew—if she could be made aware that, as Meredith laughed at himself, Dolff, so had he laughed at her, and that to another woman—a woman the deceiver loved, or pretended to love.
Dolff was but a rough fellow, hot-tempered, wanting in delicacy of feeling—but when he thought of the effect of that enlightenment upon his sister he shrank within himself. No; it would be too much to let her know. It was true, also, that he could not let her know without betraying his own dreadful secret, and ruining Janet. Why should he mind ruining Janet, who had cared so little either for the honor or truth of her friends! But he began to reflect, with a softening heart, that Janet had certainly stood by him. She had prevented him from giving himself up at first. She had held him up all along. She had not abandoned him even now, but supported him in that hideous song, though she hated it.
Poor Dolff! it was a sad thing for him to have stood so close to her at the piano, to have felt the spell again, though she had not so much as looked at him. No doubt it was her fault at the first, led astray by that fellow and his blandishments—but since, there was not a word to be said against her; she had stood by him, sustained him, kept him from committing himself—even in the horror of this song she had made it bearable by sharing the scorn, by covering him when he failed. Perhaps he had been hard upon Janet! Oh, if that little fact, that short, all-important scrap of time could be but blown away, made to vanish and to be heard of no more! Oh, if he could but forget, and return to what he was before! Many a man has had the same thought before Dolff: a little scrap of time, a single day, an hour or two—and to think that should influence, darken, perhaps ruin, a whole life; and that no power on earth could do away with it—not that of all the kings and potentates that ever were! At all events, Dolff added to himself fiercely, in conclusion, if only that fellow were out of the house—if only it were not the first idea of everybody to nurse and tend and amuse him. Amuse him! and that he himself, of all others, should be made to exhibit and do tricks like a monkey for Charley Meredith’s sake!
“Our songster has forsaken us,” said Meredith; “but it was very good while it lasted. Dolff has a great deal of expression, Mrs. Harwood. You may not like that sort of thing, which is not exactly, as he said, adapted for drawing-rooms, but he does it very well; not quite so well as before Miss Summerhayes converted him, but still well enough. It seems to me, Gussy, as if the conversion was not going on——”
“Indeed, I don’t at all know what you refer to,” said Mrs. Harwood; “nor how my son wanted conversion, Charley—and by Miss Summerhayes.”
“I only meant musically,” said the patient, with a little air of languor. He added, “I have laughed too much. It is a pleasant way of exhaustion, but it is exhaustion all the same.”
“I was afraid it would be too much for you,” cried the ever-anxious Gussy; “you over-estimate your strength. Lay back your head, dear Charley, and perhaps you will get a little sleep.”
“I take great liberties with you all,” he said, “but not so much as to go to sleep in your mother’s drawing-room, Gussy.”
“Oh, my dear boy, don’t think of that,” said Mrs. Harwood, at once forgetting his offence before this exhibition of weakness.
“You are spoiling me,” he said, half closing his eyes. “How am I ever to go out into the world again after all this coddling?”
“Ask Miss Summerhayes to play one of those nocturnes she plays so well: that will do as well as sleep,” said Gussy.
He put out his hand for hers, drawing it beneath the rug that covered him. Gussy’s countenance beamed with a mild rapture as she sat close by the couch with her hand in his. It was pleasant to this luxurious person to hold in his—whoever the owner of it might be—a woman’s hand.
And Janet sat and played—softly, entering into the dramatic situation notwithstanding the repugnance and revolt in her heart. She could not help entering into her rôle—soothing the invalid with soft music, rolling forth gently from the piano, in subdued notes, the spirit of a nocturne which was full of balmy night air and the soft influences of the stars—yet in herself feeling all that was unlike to this, an impatience which she could scarcely restrain, a fierce dislike and resentment. He had made her share in Dolff’s ridiculousness, and now he made her play him to sleep like a slave, like something that belonged to him and had no right to contravene his will. Her heart rebelled, though her fingers obeyed. Oh, if he could but be pushed away—banished somewhere out of her sphere, never to be seen again. His laugh was intolerable; his look more intolerable still. Some time or other, she felt, she would say to him, before them all, “Don’t look at me, don’t take me into your confidence. I will not have your confidence.” She knew what he would do if she were driven to such a folly. He would open his eyes wide and appeal to Gussy to know what was the matter. “Have I said anything to Miss Summerhayes that could convey that idea?” he would ask with the most guileless innocence. And Janet knew that there would be nothing to reply.
All this was while he had not remembered, while the events of that night had not returned to his mind. But they would return, she felt sure, as he got stronger. He would remember everything—the share she had in it, and Dolff’s face in his passion. Oh, dreadful thought! for then what would he do?