The Brightener
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I think Jim has laid down for himself a certain line of action with me. He yields to me on all matters as to which he's comparatively indifferent, so that I won't notice much when he turns into the Rock of Gibraltar over big issues.
This was one of the occasions when he yielded, and we flashed to Ralston Old Manor directly after luncheon. There wasn't time for a telegram to be delivered there before our arrival, and the Manor had no 'phone, so we appeared en surprise. And the "surprise" was a double one, for I was amazed to come upon Mrs. Jennings walking with Rosemary down the elm avenue. Evidently the visitor was going home, and her hostess was accompanying her as far as the gate. Our car running along the drive startled them from what seemed to be the most intimate talk. At sight of us they both looked up, and their manner changed. Rosemary smiled a welcome. Gaby smiled, in politeness. But before the smile there was the fraction of a second when each face revealed something it didn't mean to reveal – or I imagined it. Rosemary's had lost the look of exalted happiness which had thrilled me on her wedding day. For that instant it had a haunted look. As for Gaby, the fleeting expression of her face was not so hard to understand. For some reason she was annoyed that we had come, and felt an impulse of dislike toward us.
"Can those two have met before?" I asked myself. It seemed improbable: yet it was odd that strangers who had known each other only a couple of days should be on such terms.
They parted on the spot, when we had slowed down, Mrs. Jennings walking on alone the short distance to the gate, and Rosemary getting into the car with us, to drive to the house. I couldn't resist asking the question, "Had you ever seen Mrs. Jennings before she was married?" For, after all, there was no reason why I should not ask it. But Rosemary looked me full in the face as she answered:
"No, I never met her until she and her husband called the day before yesterday. She had been very kind about getting the house beautifully ready for us, and finding servants. I feel I know her quite well, because she has come in every day to explain about repairs that have had to be made, and that sort of thing."
"Do you like her?" I asked.
"I think she's tremendously clever," Rosemary said.
I was inclined to think so, too. "It's she who has been trying to persuade the Murrays not to have Sir Beverley Drake," I told myself. "She wants the job for her husband."
Happiness had had a wonderful effect upon Murray, even in this short time. It seemed to have electrified him with a new vitality. He had walked a few steps without any help, and for the first time in many weeks felt an appetite for food.
"If I didn't know there was no hope for me, I should almost think there was some!" he said, laughing. "Of course there isn't any! This is only a flash in the pan, but I may as well enjoy it while it lasts, and it makes things a little less tragic for my angel of mercy. I feel that it might be best to 'let well alone,' as they say, and not disturb myself with a new treatment. All the American specialists agreed that nothing on earth could change the course of events, so why fuss, as I'm more comfortable than I hoped to be? If you don't think it would be rude to Sir Beverley – "
But there I broke in upon him, and Jim helped me out. We did think it would be rude. Sir Beverley would be wounded. For our sakes, if for nothing else, we asked that Sir Beverley should be allowed to make his call and examination as arranged.
Murray did not protest much when he saw how we took his suggestion; and Rosemary protested not at all. She simply sat still with a queer, fatal look on her beautiful face; and suspicions of her began to stir within me again. Did she not want to give her husband a chance of life?
The answer to that question, so far as Sir Beverley came into it, was that she could easily have influenced Murray not to heed us if she had been determined to do so. But that was just the effect she gave; lack of determination. It was as if, in the end, she wanted Murray to decide for himself, without being biassed by her.
"That Gaby Lorraine is in it somehow, all the same," I decided. "She was able to make Rosemary send us the telegram, and if we hadn't come over, and argued, she would have got her away."
It seemed rather sinister.
Ralston Murray was charmed with his heritage, and wanted Rosemary to show us all over the house, which she did. It was beautiful in its simple way: low-ceilinged rooms, many with great beams, and exquisite oak panelling of linen-fold and other patterns. But the fame of the Manor, such as it was, lay in its portraits and pictures by famous artists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Rosemary frankly confessed that she knew very little about Old Masters of any age; and Jim had been, as he said, in the same boat until the idea had struck him of renewing the past glories of the family place, Courtenaye Abbey. After renting the Abbey from me, and beginning to restore its dilapidations, he had studied our heirlooms of every sort; had bought books, and had consulted experts. Consequently, he had become as good a judge of a Lely, a Gainsborough, a Romney, a Reynolds, and so on, as I had become, through being my grandmother's grand-daughter.
I wondered what was in his mind as we went through the hall and the picture gallery, and began to be so excited over my own thoughts that I could hardly wait to find out his.
"Well, what is your impression of the famous collection?" I asked, the instant our car whirled us away from the door of Ralston Old Manor. "What do you think of everything?"
"Think, my child?" echoed Jim. "I'm bursting with what I think; and so, I expect, are you!"
"I wonder how long it is since the pictures were valued?" I muttered.
"I suppose they must have been done," said Jim, "at the time of old Ralston's death, so that the amount of his estate could be judged."
"Yes," I agreed; "I suppose the income-tax people, or whoever the fiends are that assess heirs for death duties, would not have accepted any old estimates. But that would mean that the pictures were all right ten months ago."
We looked at each other. "There's been some queer hocus-pocus going on," mumbled Jim.
"It sounds like black magic!" I breathed.
"Black fraud," he amended. "Ought we to speak to Murray – just drop him a hint, and suggest his getting an expert to have a look round?"
"It would worry him, and he oughtn't to be worried now," I said.
"Still, he wants everything to be all right for his wife when he goes west."
"I know," said I; "but I don't feel that these happy days of his – his last days, perhaps – ought to be disturbed. If – if Rosemary loves him as much as we believe she does, she'd rather have a fuss after he's gone than before. We might be breaking open a wasp's nest if we spoke. And it isn't our business, is it?"
"Unless we could find out something on the quiet," thoughtfully suggested Jim. "For instance, is there anybody in this neighbourhood who's a pretty good artist and a smart copyist – anybody, I mean, who could have had the run of the Manor while the house was unoccupied except by a caretaker?"
"Yes, we might set ourselves to find out that," I assented. "And, by the way – apropos of nothing, of course! – I think we might call on the Jenningses, don't you? – as the doctor intimated that they didn't 'feel grand enough' to call on us."
"I think we might," echoed Jim. "And why not to-day, while we're close to Merriton?"
Quick as a flash I seized the speaking-tube and directed the chauffeur. We had gone only a mile out of the way, and that was soon retraced.
Both the doctor and his wife were at home, in their rather ugly modern villa, which was one of the few blots on the beauty of Merriton. But there were no pictures at all in the little drawing room. The distempered walls were decorated with a few Persian rugs (not bad, though of no great interest) given to Doctor Jennings, it seemed, by a grateful patient now dead. By round-about ways we tried to learn whether there was artistic talent in the family, but our efforts failed. As Jim said later, when the call had ended in smoke, "There was nothing doing!"
CHAPTER VII
SIR BEVERLEY'S IMPRESSIONS
Jim is not a bad amateur detective, and he didn't abandon his efforts to get behind the portrait mystery. But we had decided that, for Murray's sake, "discretion was the better part of valour" for us; and the care with which he had to work added a lot to his difficulties. Besides, there were a good many other things to think of just then: things concerning ourselves, also things concerning the Murrays. And those things which concerned them were a thousand times more important than any faked heirlooms.
Sir Beverley Drake gave some faint hope that Ralston Murray's life might be saved. There was a serum upon which he had been experimenting for years, and in which he had begun enthusiastically to believe, for obscure tropical maladies resembling Murray's.
We had asked him to motor on to the Abbey and luncheon, after his visit to Ralston Old Manor, hardly daring to think that he would accept. But he did accept; and I saw by his face the moment we met that the news he had to give was, at the worst, not bad. I was so happy when I heard what he had to say that I could have danced for joy.
"Mind, I don't promise anything," Sir Beverley reminded me. "But there is hope. Murray must have had a marvellous constitution to have gone through what he has, in the war and since. If he hadn't had that, he'd be dead now. And then, of course, this amazing romance of his – this deathbed marriage – as you might call it – has given him a wonderful fillip. Happiness is an elixir of life, even in the most desperate cases at times, so I've got something hopeful to work on. I don't feel sure even of a partial success for my treatment, and I told them that. It's an experiment. If it fails, Murray may burn out rather than flicker out, and go a few weeks sooner than he need if let alone. If it succeeds – why, there's no limit to the success it might have!"
"You mean, he might be entirely cured – a well man again?" I almost gasped.
"Yes, it's just on the cards," Sir Beverley answered.
"Of course, Murray decided at once to run the risk?" asked Jim.
"Of course," replied the specialist. But he looked thoughtful.
"And Rosemary?" I added. "Couldn't she have kissed your feet for the blessed message of hope you gave her?"
Sir Beverley smiled at the picture. "I saw no sign of such a desire on the part of the beautiful lady," he said.
"She's rather shy of expressing her emotions," I explained Rosemary to the great man. "But she has the deepest feelings!"
"So I should judge," he answered rather drily. "Perhaps, though, she has no great faith in the experiment, and would prefer for her husband's peace to let 'well enough alone,' as people vaguely say."
Again I felt the disagreeable shock I'd experienced when Rosemary had first spoken to me of Murray's death as certain. "It must be that," I said, quickly. "She adores him."
"She gave me proof of that, in case I'd doubted," Sir Beverley answered. "I told them that before beginning the hypodermic injections of serum I should like to change and purify Murray's blood by transfusion, and so give him an extra chance. Mrs. Murray instantly offered her blood, and didn't flinch when I told her a pint would be necessary. Her husband refused to let her make such a sacrifice for him, and was quite indignant that I didn't protest against it. But she begged, coaxed, insisted. It was really a moving scene, and – er – went far to remove my first impression."
"What was your first impression?" I catechized. "Oh, don't think I ask from curiosity! I'm Rosemary's friend. Jim and I are both as much interested in Ralston Murray's case as if he were our brother. In a way, we're responsible for the marriage – at least, we advised it. I know Rosemary well, I believe, though she has a hard nature to understand. And if you had an unfavourable impression of her, perhaps out of my knowledge I might explain it away."
"Well, to tell the truth," said Sir Beverley bluntly, "when I gave the verdict which I'd thought would enchant her, Mrs. Murray seemed – not happy, but terrified. I expected for a second or two that she would faint. I must confess, I felt – chilled."
"What – did she say?" I faltered.
"She said nothing at all. She looked – frozen."
"I hope poor Murray didn't get the same impression you got?" said Jim.
"I don't think he did. She was sitting on the edge of his sofa, holding his hand, after I'd made my examination of the patient, and had called her back into the room. And when I told them what I hoped, I saw Mrs. Murray squeeze his fingers suddenly very tight with her small ones. To me – combined with the staring look in her eyes – the movement seemed convulsive, such as you might see in a prisoner, pronounced guilty by the foreman of the jury. But naturally no thought of that kind jumped into Murray's head! When she pressed his hand, he lifted hers to his lips and kissed it. All the same, my impression remained – like a lump of ice I'd swallowed by mistake – until Mrs. Murray so eagerly offered her blood for her husband. Then I had to acknowledge that she must be truly in love with him – for some women, even affectionate wives, wouldn't have the physical or mental courage for such an ordeal."
"I hope she won't weaken when the time comes!" exclaimed Jim.
"I don't somehow think she will weaken," Sir Beverley replied, a puzzled frown drawing his thick eyebrows together.
I was puzzled, too, but I praised Rosemary, and gave no hint of my own miserable, reawakened suspicions. What I wanted to do was to see her as soon as possible, and judge for myself.
CHAPTER VIII
WHILE WE WAITED
When Sir Beverley Drake undertakes a case, he puts his whole soul into it, and no sacrifice of time or trouble is too much. I loved the dear man when he quietly announced that he would live at Ralston Old Manor, coming in the day before the transfusion, and remaining till what he called the "end of the treatment, first phase."
This meant that he would be on the spot for a month. By that time he could be practically certain whether or not the serum had "gripped" the disease, and would at last conquer it. If "success" were the verdict, Sir Beverley would instruct another doctor how to continue the hypodermics and other treatment, and observe results.
"Selfishly, I should have liked to put the patient into a nursing home at Exeter," he said, "where I could stay at home and visit him once a day. But I didn't feel that would be giving the man his best chance. He's in love with his wife, and in love with his house. I wouldn't separate him from either."
This was splendid of Sir Beverley, and splendid for Murray – except for one possibility which I foresaw. What if Rosemary or Murray himself should suggest Paul Jennings as the doctor understudy? I was afraid that this might happen, both because Jennings lived so near the Manor, and because of the friendship which Rosemary had oddly struck up with the French wife.
I dared not prejudice Sir Beverley against Murray's distant cousin, for I'd heard nothing to Paul's disadvantage – rather the contrary. He was said to be a smart doctor, up to date in his methods, and "sure to get on." Still, I thought of the changed portraits, and tried to put the microbe of an idea into Sir Beverley's head. I told him that, if it hadn't been for Ralston Murray, Jennings would without much doubt have inherited the Manor, with a large sum of money.
The specialist's quick brain caught what was in mine as if I'd tossed it to him, like a ball. "I suppose, if Murray died now, Jennings could hope for nothing," he said, "except perhaps a small legacy. Murray will have made a will in his wife's favour?"
"Yes," I replied, "or he made a will when he was engaged to her, and has added a codicil since. But it's unusual in some ways, and might be disputed."
Sir Beverley smiled. "Well, don't worry," he reassured me. "I have my own candidate to take over the job when I leave the Manor. I wouldn't trust a stranger, no matter how good a doctor he might be. So that's that."
It was! I felt satisfied; and also more than satisfied with Rosemary. I went to see her the day before the transfusion experiment, and found her radiant in a strange, spiritual way. It seemed to me more like exaltation than any earthly sort of happiness; and her words proved that my feeling about it was right.
"Whether Ralston lives or dies, I shall always be so thankful that I could do this thing for him. I don't think it's a big thing, though he does, and it was hard to persuade him. But to do it gives me the most divine joy, which I can't describe. If I'd been born for that and nothing else, it would be enough."
"How you love him!" The words broke from me.
"I do love him," she answered in a low voice, as if she spoke more to herself than me. "Whatever may happen, I have loved him, and always will in this world and the next."
"Aren't you frightened?" I asked.
"Frightened?" she echoed. "Oh, no!"
And quite a new sort of respect for her grew up within me – respect for her physical courage. She was such a tall lily-in-silver-moonlight creature, and so sensitive, that one could not have been disgusted with her, as one can with some women, for cowardice; but she was brave in her love. When she said that she was not frightened, I knew she wasn't trying to make herself think so. She had no fear at all. She was eager for the moment when she could make the gift.
Jim and I were allowed to be in the house when the experiment was tried, not with the hope of seeing Murray or Rosemary afterward, but in order to know the result without waiting.
We sat in the library, and were presently joined by Paul Jennings and Gaby. They had grown so fond of "the hero and heroine of this romance" (as Gaby put it) that they hadn't been able to keep away.
Jennings explained to us in detail the whole process of transfusion, and why it was more effectual in a case like Murray's than the saline injections given by some modern men. I felt rather faint as I listened, seeing as if in a picture what those two devoted ones were going through. But I knew that they were in the hands of a master, and that the assistant and nurses he had brought would be the most efficient of their kind.
"Would you do for me what your friend is doing for her husband?" Paul Jennings suddenly flung the question at his wife. And she answered him, not in words, but with a smile. I couldn't read what that smile meant, and I wondered if he could.
Jim would not have needed to ask me a thing like that!
After what seemed a long time of suspense Sir Beverley came to tell us the news – looking like a strong-faced, middle-aged pierrot in his surgeon's "make-up."
"All's well," he said. "They've both stood it grandly; and now they're asleep. I thought you'd like to hear it from me, myself."
Then he looked from us to the Jenningses, whom he had never seen before. I introduced them, and for the first time I became aware of what Gaby Lorraine could be when she wished intensely to charm a man. She radiated some subtle attraction of sex – deliberately radiated it, and without one spoken word. She hadn't tried that "stunt" on my Jim, and if she had on Ralston Murray I hadn't been there to see. There was something she wanted to get out of Sir Beverley!
CHAPTER IX
THE GOOD NEWS
I thought I knew what that "something" was. I thought that Gaby wished to "tame" Sir Beverley, and make him so much her slave that he would appoint Paul to understudy him with Murray. I chuckled as I "deduced" this ambition, for poor Gaby was in blissful ignorance of a certain conversation I'd had with Sir Beverley.
"She'll find him a hard nut to crack," I said to myself. Still, I suffered some bad moments in the month that followed. The Jenningses were as often at the Manor as we were, and Gaby came frequently alone, seldom failing to see Sir Beverley. He did seem to admire her, and to like Paul well enough to worry me.
"Will he stick to his point about his own doctor?" I wondered. But when the time came to prove his strength of mind, he did stick.
When he had been at Ralston Old Manor four weeks and two days there was a letter for me from him in my morning post at the Abbey. "I want you to come along as soon as you can and break something to Mrs. Murray," he wrote. "I think she would rather hear it from you than me."
I hardly waited to finish breakfast; but I was more excited than frightened. If the news had been bad, I thought that Sir Beverley was the man to have told it straight out. If it were good, he wouldn't mind tantalizing me a little.
Sir Beverley was walking under the elms, his hands behind his back, taking his early stroll, when my car drove up. I got out at once and joined him.
"The man's going to get well —well, I tell you!" he joyously announced. "No dreary semi-invalid for a devoted wife to take care of, but a man in the prime of life, for a woman to adore. I'm sure of it."
"But how wonderful!" I cried, ecstatically squeezing his arm. "What a triumph, after dozens of great doctors had given him up! Does he know yet?"
Sir Beverley shook his head. "I'm going to tell him this morning. I wanted to wait till Mrs. Murray had been told."
"Why on earth didn't you tell her yourself – tell them both together?" I asked.
He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, I only thought she'd rather get the good news from an intimate friend like you. If it makes her break down a bit she won't mind before you as she would before me, and it wouldn't be wise to surprise her in front of the invalid. When Murray hears from my lips, and Mrs. Murray from yours, there won't have to be any preliminaries: they can just fall into each other's arms."
I argued no further. Indeed, there was no need. I knew as well as if he'd had the embarrassment of putting it into words, how Sir Beverley had feared that Rosemary might disappoint her husband, if the great news were told in his presence. I thought also that if she were "strange" in the way she had been strange before, he didn't want to see her being it!
All my lurking suspicions of Rosemary had died an ignominious death at the moment when, radiant with the light of her own devotion, she had tried to define the love she felt. I was sure that what Sir Beverley had mistaken for "horror" was only an effort at self-control when – perhaps rather suddenly – he had given his first hint of hope. But I didn't insist to Sir Beverley. Rosemary would soon prove to him that I was right.
He and I walked into the house together, and as he went to his patient, I inquired for Mrs. Murray. Her boudoir opened off a corridor which ran at right angles out of the panelled hall where many of the once famous, now infamous, portraits hung. Murray had been moved down to a wing on the ground floor after Sir Beverley came to the Manor, and this boudoir of Rosemary's had a door opening into that wing. It was a charming, low-ceilinged room, with a network of old beams, leaded windows with wide sills where bowls of flowers stood, and delightful chintz chosen by Rosemary herself. She came almost at once, through the door leading from the invalid's wing; and as the sunlight touched her bright hair and white dress I was thrilled by her ethereal beauty. Never had she been more lovely, but she looked fragile as a crystal vase.
"Darling!" I exclaimed, snatching her in my arms. "You are a dream to-day – but I want to see you more solid. You will be soon – a strong pink rose instead of a white lily – because there's the most gorgeous news to-day. I met Sir Beverley and he gave me leave to tell you, because I love you so much. Your dear man is saved. You've helped to save him, and – "
The words died on my lips. I had to put out all my strength with a sudden effort to keep her from falling. She didn't faint, but her knees collapsed. I held her for an instant, then supported her till she had sunk into a chair which was luckily near. If she hadn't been in my arms I think she would have fallen. Her head lay against the high back of the grandfather chair, and her face was so white that she reminded me of a snow-wreath flitting past one's window, ghostlike at twilight.