The Mystery of Mrs. Brandreth/Chapter 9

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 blindfold 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 which followed. The Jennings 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.

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 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 near 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 until Mrs. Murray had been told.”

“Why on earth didn't you tell her yourself, tell them both together?”

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 before the invalid. When Murray hears from my lips, and Mrs. Murray from yours, there needn't 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, that Sir Beverley had feared 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 ignominous [sic] 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 that 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 paneled hall where many of the once famous, now infamous, portraits hung. Murray had been moved down to a wing on the ground floor when 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 a strong pink rose instead of a white lily soon, 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 up 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 which flits past one's window, ghostlike at twilight.

Her eyes were half closed. She didn't look at me, or seem to be any longer conscious of my presence, but I dropped on my knees beside her, and covered her cold hands with my own.

“I oughtn't to have told you so abruptly!” I said. “Sir Beverley trusted me. I've betrayed his trust. But I thought, as you knew there was hope, hearing that now it was certainty, wouldn't excite you too much. Oh, Rosemary, dear, think how glorious it will be! No more fears, no more anxieties! Instead of saying to yourself, 'I have him only for a few weeks,' you will know that you have years together to look forward to. You will be like Jim and me. You can travel. You can-”'

“Yes,” Rosemary almost whispered. “Yes, it is glorious for Ralston. I am thankful. You are good to sympathize so much, and I'm grateful. I—I'd hardly thought before that he could get well. All those specialists—they were so sure—many of them very celebrated, as celebrated as Sir Beverley—and he is only one against a dozen. That's why it is a surprise, you see.”

She was making so violent an effort to control herself that I felt guiltily conscious of my eyes upon her face. One would have thought that, instead of giving her the key to happiness, I had handed her that of a dungeon where she would be shut up for life.

“Would you rather I'd go?” I stammered. “Would you like to be alone?”

She nodded, moistening her lips.

“Yes, thank you, Elizabeth,” she breathed. “I—yes, for a little while I'd like to be alone with my joy—to pray.”

I jumped up like a marionette.

“Of course!” I said. “I understand.”

But I didn't understand, as perhaps she guessed from my quivering voice.

“I wish I could make you really understand,” she sighed. “I—I'm different from other women. I can't take things as they do, as you would. But I told you once before, whatever happens I love him.”

“I'm sure you do,” I answered, as I opened the door and slipped softly out. Yet that wasn't as true as it had been a few minutes ago. I felt as if I'd been through an earthquake which had shaken me up without warning.

“I'm glad that it was I and not Sir Beverley who told her,” I said to myself. But I said it sadly. The sunshine was dimmed. I longed like a child to escape from that house, escape quickly, and run to Jim's arms as to a fortress.

Sir Beverley kept his promise, and sent for a man who had worked with him in his experiments. Then he went back to Exeter, promising to return he were sent for, or in any case to “look in” once a fortnight.

There was no need, however, to send for him. Ralston Murray got on, as the new man, Doctor Thomas, said, “like a house on fire.”

At first, there was little change to be noticed in his appearance. It was only that the bad symptoms, the constant high temperature, the agonizing pains in all the bones, and the deadly weakness, diminished and presently ceased. Then, the next time Jim and I called, I cried out:

“Why, you are fatter!”

Murray laughed with a gay, almost boyish ring in his laugh.

“Transformation of the living skeleton into the fat man!” he cried. “What a happy world this is after all, and I'm the happiest man in it—that is, I would be, if Rosemary weren't shrinking as rapidly as I increase. What are we to do with her? She says she's perfectly well. But look at her little face.”

We looked at it, and though she smiled as brightly as she could, the smile was camouflage. Always pearly, her skin was dead white now. Even the lips had lost their coral red, though she bit them to bring back the blood, and a slight hollow had broken the exquisite oval of her cheeks. Her eyes looked far too big, and even her hair had lost something of its moonlight sheen. It was duller, and the ash tint of its blend was accentuated.

“I'm perfectly all right!” she insisted. “It's only the reaction after so much anxiety. Anybody would have it, in my place.”

“Yes, of course,” I soothed her. But I knew that there must be more than that. She looked as if she never slept. My heart yearned over her, yet I despaired now of doing any good. She would not confide in me. All my self-confidence in myself as a brightener was gone.