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Title: The Wheels of Time
Author: Florence Louisa Barclay
Illustrator: R. G. Vosburgh
Release Date: April 11, 2018 [EBook #56965]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WHEELS OF TIME ***
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The Wheels of Time
* * * * *
The Wheels of Time
By
Florence L. Barclay
_Author of "The Rosary" and "The Mistress of Shenstone"_
_ILLUSTRATED BY R. G. VOSBURGH_
New York
Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
Publishers
Copyright, 1908, 1910,
By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
_To one woman who said "I go not," but afterwards repented and went_
* * * * *
Illustrations
"Flower," he said, "my lovely fragrant Flower!
"Good old Jane," she said. "I do enjoy talking to you"
"You are not much use at answering questions, darling, are you?"
"Oh, Flower! _You cared like this?_"
* * * * *
The Wheels of Time
The doctor stood, with his hand on the doorknob, and gave a final look
back into his wife's boudoir.
There was nothing in that room suggestive of town or of town life
and work--delicate green and white, a mossy carpet, masses of spring
flowers; cool, soft, noiseless, fragrant.
Standing in the doorway the doctor could hear the agitated clang of the
street-door bell, Stoddart crossing the hall; the opening and closing
of the door, and Stoddart's subdued and sympathetic voice saying: "Step
this way, please." A heavy, depressed foot or an anxious, hurried
one, according to the mental condition of its owner, obeyed; and the
shutting of the library door meant another patient added to the number
of those who were already listlessly turning over the pages of bound
volumes of _Punch_ or scrutinizing with unseeing eyes the Landseer
engraving over the mantelpiece.
In former days the waiting-room used to be the doctor's dining-room,
but before he married his pretty wife she put her foot down firmly on
this question. He had been explaining the Wimpole Street house and its
arrangements as they stood together in her sunny rose-garden.
"But, Deryck," she had exclaimed in dismay, waving her hands at him,
full of a great mass of freshly gathered roses, "I could not _possibly_
sit down and dine with you in a room where your horrible patients have
sat waiting for hours, leaving behind them the germs of all their
nasty, infectious diseases!"
The doctor caught the little hands, roses and all, and held them
against his breast, looking down into her face with laughing eyes.
"Flower," he said, "my lovely, fragrant Flower! Am I doing a foolish
thing in attempting to transplant you into the soil of busy London
life? Should I not do better if I left you in your rose-garden? Ah,
well, it is too late to ask that now; I can't leave Wimpole Street,
and"--his voice, always deep, suddenly thrilled to a deeper depth; a
tenderness of strong passion quivered in it--"I can't live without
you." He let go her hands and framed her upturned face in his strong,
brown fingers.
"What have you done to me, Flower? I was always self-contained and
self-sufficing, and now I find I can't live without you, Flower--_my_
Flower."
His eyes glowed down into her face. She looked up sweetly at him.
"But, Deryck," she said, "they _do_ leave the germs of all their nasty
infectious--"
The doctor's hands fell suddenly to his sides.
"My dear child," he said, and his voice instantly regained its usual
evenness of tone, "have I not told you that I am a mind specialist? The
people who come to my consulting-room are not, as a rule, suffering
from measles, scarlet fever, or smallpox!"
"Oh, well, they leave their dreadful morbid thoughts behind them; and
that is worse. I could not dine in a room where diseased minds have
sat for hours, brooding. It would give me creeps. And oh, Deryck, you
know that stupid article you read me the other day, about how mental
impressions, when a mind was highly strung or unbalanced, could leave
an impress upon walls or furniture--explaining ghost stories, you
know?--I forget who wrote it.... You did? My dear boy, how clever of
you!... Oh, no! How can you say I called it 'stupid'? Or if I did, I
meant 'interesting,' of course. See how well I remembered it, though
you thought I was not listening, because I had to keep counting the
stitches in the heels of your golf stockings, you ungrateful man! And I
am certain you are right about horrible thoughts sticking to furniture.
And however well Stoddart arranged the room he couldn't sweep them
away, and we should sit at dinner surrounded by them--oh, Deryck,
_surrounded!_"
Her lovely eyes looked widely at him, over the gathered roses.
The doctor laughed. It is so easy for a man to laugh before marriage.
"All right, Flower," he said. "There is nothing like convincing a
fellow with his own arguments. We will remodel the house. I'll talk it
over with Hunt. You shall have dining-room, drawing-room, and boudoir,
all on the first floor, and I and my freaks will have the run of the
ground floor. You will need only to pass through the hall to go in and
out of the house. So, if they drop their poor minds about, you will not
come across them. Now, choose me that promised button-hole, and then
let us come down to the stream. I don't like a rose-garden when half of
the windows of the house overlook it!"
This was seven years ago, and it now sometimes seemed to Dr. Brand as
if his tall Wimpole Street house represented in its stories the various
portions of the human anatomy; absolutely distinct in themselves,
but held together and kept going by the brain; the ever-busy brain
controlling all.
His wife's apartments on the first floor; his life with her there, into
which his professional interests were so rarely allowed to intrude;
certainly they represented the _heart_ of things; the man's whole heart
rested and centred there.
The floor above was given up to the nurseries, and there, already, two
pairs of little feet pattered ceaselessly, and merry voices shouted
clear and gleeful, and a little flower-faced girl peeped down at him
through the balustrade, and a small boy, gazing earnestly with dark,
steadfast eyes into the interior of a jumping rabbit which refused to
jump, reproduced absurdly his own intent professional manner.
In the basement were the kitchens, and he was as ignorant of them as,
he reflected with a smile, every perfectly healthy man should be of the
digestive organs of his own anatomy.
Then on the ground floor, between the life below-stairs and the
life above, but generating the needful supplies to keep the
whole establishment going, dwelt the Brain--_his_ brain, his
untiring, ever-growing capacity for hard work, represented by his
consulting-room, where so many strenuous hours were spent, and the old
dining-room, now called the library, where an ever-increasing number of
patients waited daily. This floor of his life was practically unshared
by any, excepting the faithful and punctilious old butler, whose
monotonous "Step this way, sir," "Please to step this way, ma'am,"
served to punctuate the departure of one case and the arrival of the
next.
Sometimes the desire to share the interest of this ever-varying daily
work with another, gripped him in the throes of its human necessity.
When his deep, penetrating eyes had been long bent upon the shifting,
shuffling mind of a patient, at last piercing with tender mercilessness
to the very core of that mind's malady; when his quick brain had
grasped the case in all its bearings, and his magnificent will-power
had compelled the shaken soul to see things as he saw them, to believe
things as he believed them, to face the future as the future alone
could rightly be faced; when his inspiring enthusiasm and belief in God
and life and human nature had set that mental cripple on his feet or
loosed the bands which had bound some poor "daughter of Abraham,--lo,
these eighteen years"; when, conducted by Stoddart's mechanical "Step
this way," they passed out from his consulting-room to tread with new
hopes the path of a new life, he would stride to his window, squaring
his shoulders, and taking in a deep breath of fresh air, he would say:
"God, what a victory! I must tell Flower."
But once in Flower's boudoir, with a dainty china teacup in his hand
and a muffin on his knee, hearing the blissful details of Blossom's
new syllable, or Dicky's latest development, or Flower's own triumphal
progress through the Park in the new motor-car, somehow the story of
the strenuous fight, the hopeful victory, seemed out of place. This was
the home of _feeling; thought_ must not intrude. This was the domain
of trivialities; the great issues of life must hide in the background.
This was the home of the Heart; the Brain must abide below.
Yet matrimony and motherhood had done much to deepen Flower. The
linking with his nature; the having perforce to awaken in order to meet
and satisfy the deep needs of his overmastering love; the constant
example of his unselfish nobility, singleness of purpose, and high
ideal of life; and, above all, the pangs and joys of motherhood; all
these had made of the wilful, wayward little Flower of the rose-garden,
a sweet and gracious woman; in outward face and form more exquisite
than ever, and in the hidden part an awakening soul, which needed only
an hour of deep agony, a tearing away of the flimsy veil of selfishness
and conventionality now stifling it, to bring it to the birth.
But that time of pain and stress came not to Flower, because the
strong, shielding love of a man was always around her, and his care
warded off the very thing which alone could have brought about his
comfort and her completion. And yet he was dimly conscious of a gradual
growth in her, and sometimes, half wistfully, he called her "Mary,"
that name so sacred to perfect motherhood, and which had seemed such an
incongruous gift from her sponsors, to his Flower of the rose-garden.
* * * * *
On this particular morning, when the doctor stood at the door looking
into the boudoir, Flower was bending over a huge bowl of daffodils,
arranging each golden trumpet to her liking.
The spring sunshine came glancing through the window and touched her
hair to the gold of the blossoms. The doctor noted this, and a sudden
look of adoration softened the cool clearness of his eyes.
The baby's godmother, on this last day of her visit, sitting by the
fire with her feet on the fender, opening and smoothing a copy of the
_Times_, glanced up, past the sunshine and the daffodils, saw that look
and promptly retired behind a leading article.
The baby's godmother was a perfectly beautiful woman in an absolutely
plain shell, but, unfortunately, no man had yet looked beneath the
shell and seen the woman herself in her perfection. She would have made
earth heaven for a blind lover who, not having eyes for the plainness
of her face or the massiveness of her figure, might have drawn nearer
and apprehended the wonder of her as a woman; experiencing the wealth
of tenderness of which she was capable, the blessed comfort of the
shelter of her love, the perfect comprehension of her sympathy, the
marvellous joy of winning and wedding her. But as yet no blind man with
far-seeing vision had come her way, and it always seemed to be her lot
to take a second place on occasions when she would have filled the
first to infinite perfection.
She had been bridesmaid at the doctor's wedding, to whom she would
have made a wife such as Flower, develop as she might, could never be.
She was godmother to the baby--she whose arms ached for motherhood
itself and whose motherliness would have been a thing for men to kneel
down and worship. She found her duties as godmother to various babies
consisted chiefly in praying that the foolish mistakes made by their
parents might be overruled by an all-wise Providence and work out
somehow to their ultimate good.
She had a glorious voice; but her face, not matching it, its existence
was rarely suspected; and as she accompanied to perfection, she was
usually in requisition to play for the singing of others. Only once, at
a concert, where the principal songstress failed at the last moment,
she volunteered to fill the empty place, and walked to the piano, when
the moment came, in the double capacity of singer and accompanist. How
she "brought down the house" on this occasion, and how a blind man's
eyes were opened, belongs to another story.
Meanwhile she was a woman of tact, and when she perceived how the
doctor was momentarily dazzled by the sunlight and the gold, she
retired, obviously, behind the _Times_ leader.
"Darling," said the doctor, "I am wired for to Brighton, in
consultation over a very important case. I must go down by an afternoon
train, and I doubt if I can get back to-night."
"How tiresome, Deryck! It is Myra's reception this evening, and I
promised to bring you with me. I shall hate going alone. However, I
suppose it cannot be helped. Did you ever see such daffodils? It makes
one long to be back in the woods at home."
The doctor hesitated. Downstairs the bell rang again, the hall door
opened and closed, Stoddart said, "Step this way, sir."
"Flower," said the doctor, "I have a jolly little plan for to-night. I
want you to come to Brighton with me. We will put up at the Metropole
and have a real good time. I ought to be able to get back to you there
soon after seven, and we can have dinner and go on the pier afterwards
and watch the moonlight on the sea. Or, if you prefer something more
lively, there is a good concert on in the Dome. I will telephone for
seats. It is a long while since we heard any music together."
He stopped rather breathlessly.
The front doorbell rang again.
The doctor's wife took out a daffodil and replaced it to better
advantage. Then she looked up with an exquisite smile.
"Dearest, you are so amusing with your sudden plans! It sounds
delightful, of course. I love Brighton in spring. I shall never forget
driving along the King's Road in the sunshine, with a huge bunch of
violets on my muff. It was too heavenly! Early March, and the whole
place seemed to sing of how summer was coming! But we cannot always do
what we like. I _must_ look in at Myra's party, and I should really
have thought you might have got back in time. If you appeared at
eleven, it would do."
The doctor's face, against the pale green woodwork of the door,
suddenly looked rather worn and thin.
"I am afraid I could not get back, Flower," he said. "I may have to put
in a second visit in the morning. And--darling--I want you to-night.
This case will be rather a strain. It will be just everything to have
you down there to come back to. The moment it is over I shall remember
you are waiting for me."
The baby's godmother looked up quietly over the _Times_. She had heard
the tone in his voice and she saw on his face just what she expected
to see. Notwithstanding his forty years, despite his brilliant powers,
his ceaseless energy, he looked at that minute like a tired child, just
needing to be gathered into a loving woman's arms and hushed to rest.
He was facing, beforehand, what he would be feeling after the strain
was over. He was yearning for the love and companionship, dreading the
solitude and loneliness. The baby's godmother knew exactly what he
needed. She awaited Flower's reply.
"Who is 'the case,' Deryck?"
The doctor hesitated an instant, then named a name so widely known that
the baby's godmother bounded in her chair.
"My dear Deryck," she cried, "if you are successful there, it means
fame--world wide! Oh, what can we do to help? Must you see patients
this morning?"
The doctor smiled.
"I must, Jeanette, unless you will see them for me. But work fits
me for work. It is only after it is all over one feels a bit tired
sometimes." He looked at Flower. "Well, sweet? Can you be ready at two
o'clock sharp?"
"Dear," she said, "I am _so_ sorry, but I can't see my way clear about
going with you to-day. If only it had been to-morrow! Nurse has asked
to go out to tea and to stay the evening, and I promised to have
the children down longer than usual. Of course there _is_ Emma, and
Marsdon could help. But I should not feel easy about it. And I promised
Dicky and Blossom we would have all the stuffed animals out and play
menagerie. I never _can_ feel it right to disappoint little children.
And you know you often say to me yourself, 'If you have promised them a
thing, keep to it at all costs.' Besides, there _is_ Myra's tiresome
'at home' to consider. Really, Deryck, I don't see how I can be away
today."
"All right, Flower," the doctor said quietly. "I am sorry I bothered
you by proposing it. Don't expect me up to lunch. Every moment will
be full this morning. Stoddart will put some sandwiches in my bag.
Good-bye."
The door closed behind him. They heard his quick step on the stairs and
the consulting-room door shut sharply.
The baby's godmother laid down the _Times_, folded her skirt back over
her knees, and stirred the fire with her shoe.
Flower sighed.
"Deryck really _is_ trying," she said.
The baby's godmother bit her lip. She had found that she could help the
doctor's wife best by never contradicting her.
"Very clever people usually are trying," she remarked after a pause,
"to those who have to live with them."
Flower wheeled round and looked at her.
"My good Jane, I don't know what you mean! Deryck is perfect to live
with, _perfect_! Have you stayed here ten days without finding that
out? He is only trying when he swoops down upon me with a sudden plan
and expects me to be ready to rush away with him at a moment's notice.
If he had let me know yesterday it might have been managed."
"I gathered he only knew himself this morning."
"That has nothing whatever to do with it. The crux of the whole matter
is that _I_ had promised _nurse_ she should have the evening, and I
cannot leave the children, with nurse away."
The baby's godmother bent over the grate, took up the poker, and
carefully built a little castle of molten coal in the very heart of the
bright fire. Her hands looked strong and firm and very capable. Her
face flushed as she bent over the glowing flame.
The doctor's wife, cool and dainty, put masses of early white lilac
into a tall crystal vase.
Silence reigned.
The clock struck eleven.
Then the baby's godmother laid down the fire-iron and began to speak,
her hands clasped firmly around her large knees.
"Flower, when a man such as your husband wants you, you should leave
everything--_everything_--to go to him. What are social engagements
and servants' plans, ay, even children, compared with the needs of
such a man as Deryck? Oh, my dear, couldn't you hear the appeal in
his voice? It was like the cry of a tired child in the dark, groping
for its resting-place, which just wants lifting up into its mother's
arms and hushing to sleep. Strong man though he is--and I suppose you
and I can hardly realize how strong he is when coping with the great
needs of others--he will always be a boy where he loves. He is so
young in heart, so eternally, passionately young. He wants mothering
just now. He is doing the work of three men, and doing it at high
pressure. I hear of it from outside, as perhaps you cannot. And when
the day is over he needs a place of rest--a tender, understanding place
of rest, where he can talk or be silent, sleep or wake, as the fancy
takes him, but where he will never be left alone to live again through
the happenings of the day, too tired to escape them. And oh, Flower,
you, and you alone, can do this for him. Shall I tell you? I know
half-a-dozen women at least who would throw over social engagements,
leave husbands, children, everything, and go down to stay at Brighton
or anywhere else on the chance of five minutes' conversation with
Deryck, or of his needing, at the moment, a comrade and friend."
"Horrid creatures!" cried Flower, mockingly, "their husbands ought to
have something to say to them for running after mine. I wonder a proper
person like you, Jane, is not ashamed to talk of them. And you need not
try to make me jealous. It is one of my theories that only small minds
are jealous. I have always stood far above the feeling."
"I know, dear, I know," said the baby's godmother, hastily. "I had not
the faintest hope of making you jealous. Besides, why should you be?
Deryck has never looked twice at any woman but you. We all know that."
Flower laid down her scissors and came and knelt on the hearthrug,
mollified and a little wistful. She spread out her damp hands to the
blaze and looked up into the baby's godmother's plain face, with a
mischievous, inquisitive smile.
"Do you know, Jane," she said, "I have sometimes wondered--you seem to
know each other so intimately--whether in the long-ago days, before he
met me, Deryck ever proposed to you?"
The baby's godmother laughed, and again stirred the fire with her toe.
"Well, my dear, you may rest assured he never did so, for the most
conclusive of all reasons,--I should not have refused him."
Flower laughed gaily.
[Illustration: "GOOD OLD JANE," SHE SAID, "I DO ENJOY TALKING TO YOU."]
"Good old Jane," she said. "I do enjoy talking to you, you are so
deliciously unconventional." Then more soberly, "It is not fair that
you should think I do not take proper care of Deryck and do not suffer
during his absences. I go through perfect agonies of mind during the
long hours of the night, when he is tearing down from Scotland by the
mail train. I keep waking and thinking how bumpy it must be to lie
along the seat of a railway carriage. He never will take a sleeper. And
I lie and think of all the signal-men who hold his life in their hands,
and hope they don't drink." Flower's voice trembled with emotion.
"After reading about all those fearful railway smashes lately, I wrote
on one of his visiting cards: _In case of accident, wire at once to
Mrs. Deryck Brand, Wimpole Street, London, W._ I put it into his
pocketbook, and it comforts me to know it is always upon him."
The lovely eyes of the doctor's wife were wet. Her lashes glistened in
the firelight. The baby's godmother stooped and took up the poker, then
laid it down again, unused.
"Well, Flower," she said at length, very deliberately, "and suppose an
accident happened and they wired to you? What would you do?"
"Do?" exclaimed the doctor's wife, her lovely eyes dilating. "Why, go
to him, of course!"
"But suppose nurse happened to be out? Or you had people coming to tea?
Or you had promised the children--"
"Jane, Jane, how odious you are! none of those things would matter, of
course. If he were hurt or ill, nothing could keep me from his side. I
should not even stop to pack. I should fly.... What?... Well, I might
let Marsdon pack a handbag, but I should certainly catch the first
possible train."
The baby's godmother stooped for the poker once more and this time she
assaulted the dying embers vigorously, remarking in a muffled voice:
"Yes, I think a handbag would be wise. Decidedly, I would have Marsdon
and a handbag in the programme." Then, suddenly dropping the poker with
a clatter, she caught Flower's fluttering hands in hers and held them
firmly, looking searchingly into her upturned face.
"Ah, child, child! You remind me of the story of a white rose-tree. Sit
down for five minutes while I tell it to you.
"Two friends of mine have a lovely little place in Hertfordshire.
She--Sybel--takes a great delight in her garden, particularly in
growing roses. They had one tiny girl of four years old, rightly named
Angela--the sweetest little angel-child I ever beheld. I ran down
to them for one night last June. Sybel and I were having tea in the
garden, close to a magnificent white rose-tree, a mass of fragrant
bud and blossom. Sybel was very proud of it. Presently we heard
little dancing feet down the gravel path behind us, and the baby-girl
appeared. She stood gravely contemplating us at tea, not asking for
anything. Sybel is a great disciplinarian. Suddenly the baby eyes fell
upon the rose-tree, and a wistful look of longing passed into them.
She drew close to Sybel and looked pleadingly up into her face. 'Oh,
mummie, they are _so_ lubly! May I pick one of your roses?' 'Certainly
not,' said Sybel. 'How often am I to tell you, baby, that you are
never to pick flowers in the garden! Run along to nurse, and don't be
troublesome.'
"The baby said no more, but I saw the little mouth droop and quiver.
The small feet trailed slowly away over the grass, all the dance gone
out of them, and Sybel gave me a long dissertation on the bringing up
of children and the importance of checking their natural tendency to
destructiveness, my only reply being, I am afraid, 'What on earth is
the good of a garden full of flowers if your own baby can't gather
and enjoy them!' To which Sybel made answer: 'It is just as well, my
dear Jane, that you remain unmarried. You would hopelessly spoil your
children if you had any.'
"With that we laughed and ceased sparring; for Sybel is a good sort
and was a devoted mother, provided her little child pleased her in all
things."
The baby's godmother paused a moment, as if mentally reviewing a scene
and seeking for words in which to describe it. Then she leaned forward,
with her arms upon her knees and her hands clasped in front of her, and
as she spoke, slowly and quietly, she kept her eyes fixed upon those
firmly folded hands.
"Three weeks later I was wired for, to go back there and comfort a
despairing, childless mother.
"When poor Sybel took me up to see the little body, it lay upon the
bed, smothered in white roses--roses in the little hands, roses round
the tiny feet, snowy petals framing the baby face, now whiter than the
whitest rose. When I saw them, and when poor Sybel fell on her knees at
the foot of the little bed and moaned in anguish of heart, I knew why
she had sent for me.
"'Oh, Jane,' she said, 'Jane! You remember. She wanted _one_ white
rose, _just one_, and I would not let her have it. Oh, my baby, my
baby!'
"'Sybel, dear,' I said helplessly, 'she has them all now.'
"'_Now!_' cried Sybel, in the most fearful accents of despair. 'What
good is it _now?_ Ten thousand roses strewn about her now are not worth
the one gathered by her own little hand when she wanted it, which would
have given her pleasure then. Too late! Too late! Oh, God, the wheels
of time! Will they never move backward? Shall I never hear again my
baby's voice saying, "Mummie, may I pick one of your roses?" Oh, baby,
speak to poor mummie and say you know you may have them all!'
"But the little angel-face was calmly unresponsive, and the tiny
marble hands so lightly clasped the rose stems that when the mother's
desperate weeping shook the bed, the roses those baby hands seemed
holding, dropped from them and fell, unheeded.
"Ah, poor breaking heart! Love's offering came too late."
The baby's godmother still kept her eyes on her folded hands. The
doctor's wife was crying softly.
"Oh, Flower," the deep, sad voice went on, "we are all apt to make the
same terrible mistake. When our dear ones have passed beyond all ken
of earthly pleasures, we send our costly wreaths of rarest flowers,
striving thus to atone for having denied them the one simple blossom
which was all they asked and needed. Let us learn to give our flowers
now--now while they can hold them and have them; now, while they can
scent their perfume and enjoy their beauty. Oh, child, give Deryck
his white rose while he asks it of you. A man requires the instant
fulfillment of his heart's desires. We women can wait. Some of us
enjoy the idea of waiting even for the wreaths and crosses, though we
shall not be there to see them. The morbid picturesqueness of the idea
appeals to us; but a man wants nothing for his cold clay save six feet
of honest earth. His needs are stronger, simpler, more intense than
ours. And what he needs, he needs now. When the battle is over and won,
he will leave the old suit of armor behind and forge ahead to pastures
new. Stand by him now, in the din, the dust, and the heat, with the
cup of cold water he craves. And oh, remember, the wheels of time go
forward, always; backward, never. I want you to be spared the agony of
vain regret."
The baby's godmother ceased speaking and looked up. The lines were hard
and stern about her mouth and eyes, but the eyes themselves were soft
and infinitely tender.
Flower rose and, stooping, kissed her gently.
"I wish he _had_ proposed to you," she said; "you would have done
better for him. But as it was I he wanted, I must do my best, and I
will go to Brighton."
Then slowly, with bent head, she left the room.
The baby's godmother sat lost in thought for many minutes. It had cost
her much to say what she had said, and she felt doubtful how long the
impression she had made would endure. Each heart must pass through the
furnace for itself. To hear of the refining of others, has no lasting
effect on the heart's own alloy.
She knew this, and her thoughts followed Flower anxiously. At length
she rose, and stood leaning her elbow upon the mantelpiece and looking
long at an old miniature of the doctor, placed there among Flower's
special treasures; but the doctor before Flower knew him, the doctor as
he was in years gone by, when he and the baby's godmother were faithful
chums, and she was his trusted confidante and the sharer of all his
hopes and ambitions. So she stood looking into the bright, dark eyes of
a very young man, a man with all the best of life before him, full of a
noble courage, an unfaltering faith in his ideals, an intellect which
should carry him anywhere he willed to go. A smile of conscious power
curved the lips. There was no hint of weariness about the keen, clear
eyes.
The baby's godmother took it up and laid it in the palm of her large
hand. Then she spoke to it softly. "Oh, Boy!" she said, "oh, Boy! I
have done my best for you. I would always have given you all I had to
give. But you wanted loveliness and I could only give you love. You
have the loveliness and now you are sighing for the love. God send you
that, my dear--my dear. Oh, Boy! I have done what I could."
She put the portrait down and turned away as the door opened suddenly
to admit the doctor's wife, breathless.
"Jane, such a nuisance! Madame Celestine has arrived. I entirely
forgot the appointment. My gown for the next Drawing-room, the final
fitting--oh, such a dream! Come up and see, and help and advise. You
old darling, what a blessing to have you here! I never _can_ be firm
with Celestine."
The luncheon gong had sounded punctually as the clock struck one. The
baby's godmother had waited, restlessly, ten minutes, and then received
a message not to wait, Mrs. Brand would be down from the workroom
shortly.
Tailor-made, booted, and hatted, ready for her journey into Norfolk,
Jane helped herself to cold chicken and salad, and kept her eye on the
clock, remembering "two sharp."
"If she comes down quite ready she can do it," thought the baby's
godmother, and turned her healthy attention to apple-tart and custard.
The door opened and the doctor's wife trailed in, in a teagown.
"Dear Jane, I apologize. But I knew my absence would not impair your
appetite, and you should not have left me until that good creature
had gone. The restraint of your presence removed, she launched out
into fresh suggestions, and wheedled me into having a gown for the
Devonshire's big squash, though I had meant to go in my Paquin. How
beautifully you carve, my dear, or did old Stoddart do it for you? This
fowl looks as if it had been handled by a man and an expert. Now, I
fear, I am going to make it look as if it had crossed the road in front
of a motor-car. What on earth are you gazing at? 'My pretty Jane, my
dearest Jane, oh, never look so shy!'" trilled the doctor's wife. "Is
anything wrong with the custard?"
"Flower! How are you to be ready at 2 sharp, when here it is 1.45 and
you in that flimsy teagown?"
"My dear, I am not going. It is always wisest to adhere to first plans.
I should _love_ to go, but I could not possibly be ready now, and I
cannot feel it right to leave the children when nurse--"
The door opened quickly and the doctor came in.
"Dearest," cried Flower, "Lunch after all? If only I had known you were
coming I would have saved a wing--"
"No," said the doctor, brightly, "no time for lunch to-day, and I
hardly ought to have come upstairs. I have one more patient to see, and
my hansom is at the door. But I wanted to say good-bye, dear, and also
to say--" he dropped his voice slightly--"don't worry about not having
been able to come. It was selfish of me to ask it of you, Flower. And
then I remembered, too, Jeanette was going home to-day, so I ran up to
bid her good-bye, a longer farewell than ours."
He went round the table and held out his hand to the baby's godmother.
"Good-bye, Jeanette. My love to all at home. Look us up again when you
can. And thank you for all your loving-kindness to me and mine."
The baby's godmother rose, and her hand went firmly home to his. Their
eyes were almost on a level as they stood together.
"Good-bye, Boy," she said. "Don't overwork. Rest whenever possible. And
remember, you and yours are always dear to me. Let me do all I can."
A half-puzzled, half-pleased look leaped into his eyes at sound of the
old name. It was many years since she had used it. He held her hand and
looked at her with steady scrutiny for a moment. She met his gaze full
and clear. She had nothing to hide.
"Good-bye, dear," said the doctor, then turned to his wife, and
hesitated.
"Good-bye, Flower," he said, rather wistfully.
Flower objected to any demonstration in public. She waved her napkin.
"Good-bye, my lord," she said, "and while you are gallivanting about at
Brighton, please remember your poor, little domesticated wife staying
at home to tend house and children."
The door closed sharply behind the doctor. The baby's godmother bent
over her plate in silence. The doctor's wife laughed, moved round the
table to cut a slice of cake, laughed again, rather mirthlessly, then
reiterated all the reasons why it was unreasonable of Deryck to have
asked her to go to Brighton, and of Jane to have made such a point of
her acquiescing, concluding with, "And why do you call him 'Boy'? Such
a silly, inappropriate name! And, oh, I wish I had gone! I hear his
hansom. What a hateful world!"
* * * * *
Eight o'clock in the evening.
The soft, green curtains were drawn in Flower's boudoir, shutting out
the chill of the spring night air. The electric light, shining through
water-lilies, gleamed, soft and bright, from walls and writing-table.
Flower had turned on every spray, hoping to lighten with exterior
brightness the heavy shadow of disappointment and foreboding which had
fallen upon her heart.
Since the doctor's hansom had tinkled rapidly away towards Victoria,
all had gone wrong with the doctor's wife.
The baby's godmother, who had had so much to say in the morning, became
absolutely monosyllabic, and conversation languished and died.
It was a relief to see her depart, with her neat, gentlemanly luggage,
for Liverpool Street Station, and yet it seemed desolate without her,
and the klip-klop of her rapidly receding hansom made a second sound to
be added to the series of knells which should ring in Flower's heart
that day.
Turning from the hall-door, she ran up to the nursery, to find out at
what hour nurse wished to be free for her outing, and found it was
to-morrow for which nurse had asked, not to-day. Nurse was quite sure
she had said Wednesday; how could she have said Tuesday, when the
married niece to whom she was going always went out to tea on Tuesdays
with her mother-in-law in Pimlico? But, of course, Master Deryck _was_
hammering at the time, which may have accounted for his mamma not
rightly catching the day. Emma came forward, a ready witness to the
fact that nurse had most certainly said Wednesday, and stuck to her
guns, in spite of Dicky's quiet little voice asserting gravely from the
position he had taken up at his mother's side, "_You_ had gone down for
the milk."
So the doctor's wife retreated in discomfiture and trailed slowly
downstairs, facing the fact that the one reason which had seemed an
insuperable obstacle to her falling in with her husband's wish and
plan, had been a mistake; a stupid, careless mistake.
What would Jane say if she knew?
The tersely expressed remark with which Jane would most likely define
the situation came into her mind, and she smiled a wan little smile,
for the doctor's wife possessed "the saving sense of humor."
Then she felt more cheerful, rang and ordered the motor, and dressed
for a spin in the park. But everything spoke of Brighton and the
enjoyment she might have had with the doctor on this lovely day.
The sun was almost warm, and there was a pursuing scent of violets
in the air. The crocuses were shouting to the sparrows, and the
many-colored hyacinths pushed their bright heads up through the brown
earth, obedient to the beckoning of the sunshine. The whole park sang
of springtime, of life and love and joys to come. And she longed for
him beside her, with his keen enjoyment, with his quick way of pointing
out a fresh beauty which she might otherwise have overlooked, with his
knack of making you feel that you were alive, and living every minute
to the full, receiving all it had to give, and, above all, with the
ever-kindling adoration of his love wrapping her round and making her
feel herself to be good and beautiful and worthy.
This afternoon she sadly needed reinstating in her own esteem. She knew
she was being unjust to herself, but she felt selfish and inadequate
and unworthy of him and of his love. It was Jane who had given her this
uncomfortable feeling. It was odious of Jane to call him "Boy" and to
pretend to understand his needs better than she, his own wife, did.
Oh, if only she had gone to Brighton! If only she had gone! But it was
not _her_ fault that she had been unable to fall in with the plan at
so short notice. Deryck himself had admitted that it was he who was
to blame, and she was not to worry. It was all very well for men to
tell poor, anxious women not to worry. He might have known she would
be wondering all the rest of the day how he was faring at Brighton,
whether he was too tired to eat and too tired to sleep. If only horrid
old celebrities would die at once when they fell ill, instead of
causing all this fuss and trouble.... It would be a great pity to be
too tired to eat at the Metropole, where the table d'hôte dinner was
so perfect.... It was trying of Deryck to rush off with only a packet
of sandwiches in his bag, when, by taking five minutes more from his
tiresome patients, he might have had the wing of a chicken and some
salad.... What a good lunch Jane had made! If she had _really_ been so
troubled at the thought of Deryck going off alone she would hardly have
hurried into the dining-room the moment the gong sounded and given her
mind so completely to her food. Jane was the sort of person who enjoyed
putting other people in the wrong. So different to Deryck, who saw at
once where the blame really belonged and never laid it upon others.
Which was it most right to believe--Deryck or Jane? Deryck, of course.
Then why feel condemned any longer?... How lovely it would have been at
Brighton! A _selfish_ person would have gone at once and not have been
so considerate for tiresome old nurse with her changeable plans. People
who change their plans without any adequate reason do not deserve much
consideration. If she had been a less devoted mother--How sweet it was
of Dicky to point out that Emma had gone down for the milk! So like
Deryck, who never would allow her to be unjustly put in the wrong. It
was wonderful to be so loved by two such natures, father and son. A
woman who was selfish or unworthy could never have drawn out such love.
Jane was not in the least likely ever to marry. How disgusting of her
to speak so approvingly of married women who ran after Deryck. Perhaps,
after all, one of those creatures would happen to be at the Metropole
this evening and would insist upon dining with him at a table for two.
Another wan little smile flitted across Flower's face. The dimple the
doctor loved peeped out. She knew so exactly how he would feel and
look, and how he would describe the whole occurrence to her afterwards,
giving her unconsciously the gratifying certainty that in her absence
no other woman could by any possibility usurp her place.
The gliding motion of the car made her drowsy. She leaned back with
closed eyes, enjoying the sensation of speeding forward, trusting to
the deft vigilance of her chauffeur, not even seeing for herself the
possible collisions avoided, the rapid half-turn which meant gliding
from danger into safety.
The roar of traffic on the distant thoroughfare sounded like the
breaking of the waves on the beach at Brighton. She fancied herself
driving along the King's Road, alighting at the Metropole and meeting
Deryck, to whom she would say, "Dearest, I came after all."
The sudden slowing of the car aroused her. They were held up for a
moment in a cross-stream of carriages near the main gate. She opened
her eyes and they fell upon a man and woman close by, sitting side by
side in a victoria. The woman had a spray of white roses on her muff.
Her companion bent towards her with a whispered word. She instantly
detached a milk-white bud from the rest and handed it to him. Her look
of blissful, submissive love as she did this, reached to the motor as
an enlightening beam. The man took the rose and fastened it carefully
in his button-hole without any expressed thanks, but, as he leaned
back in the carriage beside her, his look of restful and masterful
possession of herself and all she possessed seemed fully to content the
woman. Her eyes and lips smiled tenderly, and lifting the white roses
she laid them for a moment against her cheek.
"Home," said the doctor's wife, suddenly; and as the car turned
obediently and sped out at the gate the voice of the baby's godmother
seemed to pursue her relentlessly: "_Give Deryck his white rose while
he asks it of you. A man requires the instant fulfillment of his
heart's desires. When he needs a thing, he needs it_ NOW!"
Ah, Jeanette, you were very faithful, and you did what you could.
* * * * *
Arrived at home, the doctor's wife had tea in company with one or
two choice spirits who dropped in to discuss the reception at Myra
Ingleby's and the coming big affair at the Devonshire's, and much
interest was aroused by the fact that the doctor's wife was _not_ going
in her Paquin, but was to have an absolutely new creation by that
clever old dear, Celestine.
After all, Jane, with her attention fixed upon apple-tart and her mind
so completely, blankly unsympathetic, was enough to depress anybody.
Deryck would be the first to be indignant, if he knew what Jane had
said.
Her visitors gone, she rang for the children, and the promised game of
menagerie began, though their small minds had leaped to something else,
which they assured her they would like much better. But she insisted
on the menagerie, rapidly pulling all the stuffed animals out of the
toy cupboard and hurrying them into the middle of the room. She felt
unable to endure that no part of the programme she had explained to
Deryck should take place, and for many years to come the children used
to speak between themselves of menageries as "mother's favorite game."
All went well for a time. She enjoyed sitting on the soft carpet, with
Blossom rolling over her, a creamy billow of cashmere and lace, and
small Deryck in his black velvet suit, with his neat little black silk
legs and buckled shoes, gravely marshalling the animals and explaining
the mental condition of each, their relation to one another, and their
past and present experiences.
But by and by he began asking awkward questions about Noah's Ark and
would not be put off with evasive answers. The doctor's wife felt
helpless. She knew little of animals, less of ships, and nothing
whatever of ancient preachers of righteousness. A complete and
comprehensive knowledge of all three would have been required to have
satisfactorily answered Dicky's questions. So, harassed and worried,
she entrenched herself hastily in what appeared to be an impregnable
position.
"My dear little boy, how can I possibly tell? _I was not there._"
Deryck, the younger, was arranging that a bear who could only sit--who
had been born sitting and stiffened in that position--should ride, in
the procession, on the wide back of an elephant.
But he stopped the procession at this, set the bear down, and came and
stood opposite his mother, surveying her gravely, with his hands deep
in the pockets of his velvet breeches. She sat on the floor beside the
sofa, her lovely head thrown back against a cushion, looking up at him
with eyes full of love and almost wistful tenderness.
His little face at first was rather hard and stern, but, as he looked
at her, it softened. Her ignorance of Noah's domestic arrangements
seemed to matter less. She was so-lovely that it seemed unreasonable to
expect her to be other things!
"You are not much use at answering questions, darling, are you?" he
said gravely. "I must let the point stand over until father comes
home. You see, you never seem to know about anything you have not done
yourself."
[Illustration: "YOU ARE NOT MUCH USE AT ANSWERING QUESTIONS, DARLING,
ARE YOU?"]
"Dicky, you are not kind to poor mummie," protested Flower, piteously.
"No one could _possibly_ know what Noah did to the animals in the Ark
when the large ones trod upon the small ones, or how the elephant was
kept from stepping on the grasshopper."
"An average person would know," Dicky insisted coldly.
"Dicky, you are most unkind! You imply that I am stupid."
"I am afraid you are, darling," said the quiet little voice, and then,
in a sudden burst of admiration, "But you are _much_ too lovely for it
to matter." And the miniature edition of the doctor fell upon her and
clasped her in his arms.
"We must say our text to you, mother, as father is away," Dicky
remarked a few minutes later, when bedtime came.
Flower assented without enthusiasm. She did not approve of nurse's plan
of teaching the children a daily text, and always wondered why Deryck
encouraged it. But she did not wish again to present herself to her
little son's mind in a disappointing light.
Dicky arranged Baby Blossom "in a row" with himself. She immediately
began to say, "Do it--do it!" and had to be sternly hushed by her
brother. Then, with his hands behind him and his head erect, Dicky
announced impressively:
"Jesus said: 'If you shall ask anythink in my name, I will'--now,
baby--"
"Do it!" chirped Baby Blossom.
"Very nice," commented Flower, perfunctorily.
Baby Blossom, her duty done, took a header into the soft sofa-cushion,
shrieking with delight and waving her plump little legs in the air.
Deryck, though deserted, kept his place in the "row." He had not yet
finished with the text.
"Do you consider it true, mother?" he questioned, and his dark eyes
searched her face.
"Why--well--yes, dear, I suppose so," answered Flower, vaguely. "Baby,
take care! You will break your neck!"
"What does 'anythink' mean?" inquired Dicky.
"You should not say '_anythink_'; it is any_thing_."
"It is _anythink_ in nurse's Bible," asserted Dicky, "and I suppose it
means all that comes into your head. Anything you can think of."
"I believe," said Flower, with a sudden inspiration, "that it merely
refers to the religious experience of the apostles."
"Goodness," said Dicky, in nurse's best manner when arguing with
Marsdon, "then why don't it say so?" Adding, almost immediately, in his
own quiet, rather sad, little voice, "And what good is it to us then,
mummie?"
"None whatever," replied Flower, with decision, rising from the floor
and hugging baby. She felt she was scoring now and reasserting her
mental superiority. "That is why I object to people teaching such words
to children," she remarked from among Blossom's curls.
The small Deryck was silent. He stood very erect and gave a sharp pull
to the front of his little white waist-coat, swallowing hard, as if
something had hurt him. Flower felt slightly uncomfortable at being
thus suddenly left with the last word. Dicky was so very masculine, and
she was not at all sure of her own theology.
The silence, growing strained, was relieved by the advent of nurse, who
carried off Baby Blossom and bade Dicky make haste and say good-night
to his mamma and come along. He turned to her gravely. "Good-night,
mother," he said.
Flower embraced him effusively and suggested a visit to the Zoo, now
the warm weather was coming. Dicky allowed himself to be kissed, but
ignored the remark about the Zoo.
When he reached the door he turned and looked back bravely.
"Mother," he said, "I don't know about the 'postles, but I think I
ought to tell you that I have made that text my _h_own. Nurse says you
can always make a text your _h_own if it meets your need. I feel this
meets my need!"
He held his head bravely, though flinching a little, as if dreading his
mother's scorn or laughter.
But Flower did not laugh. She looked across the room at the brave
little figure, in blank astonishment. The sincerity of his convictions
reached and convinced her. But what an ignorant old Puritan nurse must
be! At last she smiled at Dicky, reassuringly.
"That may be true, darling. But my dear little boy, you haven't any
'needs.'"
"Oh, haven't I!" said Dicky, as one who would say, "That is all _you_
know!" Then taking hold of the outer handle he drew the door slowly
behind him, turning, before it quite closed, to fling back over his
shoulder, "I need an entirely new inside to my rabbit."
Left alone another remark of Dicky's returned to Flower's mind and
added to her despondency.
"You never seem to know about anything you have not done yourself,"
her little son had said, and this assertion let in a sudden light of
revelation upon her whole mental standpoint. How true it was, how
sickeningly, horribly true!
What did she know of Deryck's work? Of all the people who came and went
in the rooms below? Of the lectures he gave, or the essays he wrote,
eagerly attended, eagerly read by hundreds? What share had she in the
great interests of her husband's life? Jane had tried to speak of them
more than once, and she had changed the subject.
And sitting there, deeply convicted by the grave little voice of her
own tiny boy, she remembered times when Deryck had tried to talk to her
of these questions so near his heart--of the methods he had thought out
for curing diseased or weakened wills, for restoring shattered nerves
and unbalanced brains, for giving a new lease of sane and healthy life
to those who now walked fettered in the valley of a shadow worse than
death. And she had taken no interest, had not tried to understand, had
listened without hearing, and, at the first opportunity, talked of her
own trivial doings. Was not an intelligent sympathy with his work, one
of the white roses for which Deryck well might ask?
Slowly she passed to her bedroom and dressed for the evening's
function, wishing all the while that she need not go, and partook of
an early dinner alone, with her thoughts far away. Now it was eight
o'clock, and she sat in her boudoir waiting until it should be time to
be whirled through the noisy, lighted streets, to join the gay throng
at Myra's crush.
Oh, how different to have walked on the pier with him, nestling into
her furs, enjoying the cold night air and salty smell of brine and
seaweed! And then to have returned to their warm, bright room, Deryck,
pleased as any schoolboy, to have her away without her maid, amusing
her by his delightful attempts to take Marsdon's place and assist at
her toilet.
The fire, which had received so much unconscious attention from the
baby's godmother that morning, fell together in the grate, signifying
its need of coal. The doctor's wife rose and ministered to it, then
knelt on the hearthrug and watched the brightening flame. Her mind had
gone forward in its contemplation of that evening which might have
been. Her eyes were soft and tender. Her sweet lips parted gently. Her
hair gleamed golden in the firelight.
How wonderful was his love! Jane was right when she said, "He will
always be a boy where he loves. He is so young in heart, so eternally,
passionately young." How did Jane guess it? Only she, his wife, could
_know_ it to be true.
Seven years of married life had only added to the wonder and romance
of Deryck's love. Each time he took her away with him was like a fresh
honeymoon, more perfect than the last. Why did she forget when she
came home, how sweet it was to be away with him? Why had she defrauded
herself and him of the perfect hours which might have been theirs this
day? Why had she failed him in his time of need?
Oh, selfish! shallow! self-absorbed! Loving to _be_ loved, not rising
to the joy of loving. Taking his care and thought and adoration as her
due, giving no tender service in return. She bowed her head upon her
arms.
"Oh, Boy," she said, "not Jane's, but _mine!_ Oh, Boy, it shall be
different! You will come back to find a wife who understands, a wife
whose hands are filled with roses white, ready to give them now."
The doorbell sounded. She rose and wrapped her cloak about her. She had
little inclination for Myra's party, but he would be thinking of her
there, and anywhere would do to pass the hours till his return.
Stoddart brought in a telegram, retired softly, and closed the
door. She looked at it with a sudden thrill of comprehending joy. A
good-night message from Deryck? He nearly always sent her one. Ah, if
she had remembered to do the same for him! She glanced at the clock.
Twenty minutes past eight. Too late to get one through.
She slipped off her cloak and sank into an easy-chair, holding the
unopened message in her hand. She wished to realize to the full the
newness of what it meant to receive words from him. Then, when her
heart was ready, she opened the orange envelope gently and drew out the
folded paper.
It seemed a long message. She read it through once. She read it through
again. Then she sat quite still and listened to the ticking of the
clock. Then she looked at it again and heard a frightened voice, not
unlike her own, reading it aloud:
_From the Commissioner of Police, Brighton._
_Regret to announce Dr. Deryck Brand knocked down by motor-car corner
King's Road. Killed instantly. Wire instructions._
She rose and walked to the door. It opened as she reached it, and
Stoddart stood there saying the brougham waited. She waved him aside.
"I shall not want it to-night, thank you."
Passing into her room, she closed the door. The electric light over her
dressing-table shone brightly. She switched it off. Then, in the utter
darkness, she felt her way to the empty bed, his bed and hers, laid
down the telegram upon it, and stood quite still.
"O God," she whispered, "help me to think.... I am not clever. My
little boy thinks me stupid, and my big boy thinks me lovely; but Thou
knowest my loveliness seems to me but filthy rags. But now, in my hour
of need, oh, merciful God, let me think! There is something I want to
remember. Ah!" she almost shrieked, "the wheels of time! the wheels of
time! Never move backwards, they say; always forwards--always forwards.
And that is why it is too late. O God, too late, too late! My roses
ready--ready for him; but too late.... What did the children say:
'If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.' And Dicky says
anything means anything we need. God in heaven! I need the wheels of
time to move back six hours, that I may go with him."
She flung herself upon her knees beside the bed.
"O God, O God, in Jesus' name, put back the wheels of time, that I may
go with him!"
She shrieked, then crammed the quilt into her mouth, lest they should
hear and find her there.
"O God, O God--in Jesus' name--the wheels of time--back--back--that I
may go with him!"
She tore down her lovely hair and wound it round her hands. The pain
kept her from swooning, helped her to think.
"O God in heaven, in Jesus' name--put back the wheels of time--that
I may go with him. If ye shall ask _anything_--'anything' _means_
anything, Dicky; not mere religious experiences, but anything we want.
O God, I want another chance! Back--back--that I may go with him!"
Then she knelt very still, deathly still, while her heart thundered
in her ears and the room rocked to and fro. But she clung to the
bedclothes and knelt on.
The street door banged. She heard a step come up the stairs.
She cried again: "O God, O God--the wheels of time--back--back!"
The door opened and closed. Someone stood just within, breathing
quickly, listening intently.
Then the doctor's voice said: "In the dark, my darling? Why, what is
the matter?" And the room flashed into light.
"O God," she said, "O God! The wheels of time--turned back--that I--may
go--with him!"
His arms were round her, he had lifted her bodily and placed her on
the bed. His face was shocked and startled. He unwound the lovely hair
from the clenched hands and noted how much of it fell away in scattered
wisps to the floor. He wiped the blood from those sweet lips, bitten
through. Then he knelt down, gathered her to his heart, and spoke very
gently.
"Flower, my Flower! Something has frightened you. You have had a
shock. But it is all right, now, my heart's dearest. I have come back
to you. Listen, beloved. I was so pleased, because I got through the
consultation earlier than I thought, and found, if I made a dash for
it, I could just catch the fast train up. I dined on board--listen,
Flower! Don't keep on whispering, child. Never mind the wheels of time.
Listen to me! I meant to hurry home and dress, and give you a surprise
by turning up at Myra's. But then I felt too chilled, and determined
I must stay at home and have a brew of gruel. Some other chap, in a
hurry--a doctor who left before me--went off with my overcoat, and I
had to turn out without one. No time to make inquiries. Such a cold
fellow has come back to his little girl. Won't she see about warming
him?"
The gay voice ceased. The set face bent over her. The quick
professional eye noted each rigid muscle of that poor agonized face. He
laid his lips on hers, with one broken sob.
"Oh, my beloved! For God's sake--"
Then Flower lifted up her hand and pointed to the foot of the bed. He
looked and saw the open telegram. Reaching with one long arm, he took
it up and read it.
"Good heavens!" he said. "Run down and killed! The poor chap who took
my coat. My pocketbook was in it, and a bundle of letters." Then he
bent over his wife once more, and whispered in a tone of awed wonder:
"Oh, Flower! _You cared like this?_"
And the wonder in his voice, the almost boyish surprise, saved Flower.
She turned her face to his breast and wept and wept; wept herself to
calmness, and sobbed herself back into the haven of his love, the
earthly Paradise of her heart's peace.
[Illustration: "OH, FLOWER! YOU CARED LIKE THIS?"]
When at last she found speech possible, she said, "If I had gone--"
"Hush, my perfect one," the doctor said. "You were quite right." But
she laid her hand over his mouth, with a swift, silencing gesture, then
took his hand and kissed it, with infinite humility and tenderness.
"Deryck," she said, "it is _your_ love which has been perfect. I have
been quite wrong. But God in His infinite mercy has heard my prayer and
given me another chance. Oh, my beloved, I have but a poor white rose
to offer you--a crushed and faded thing; but it is all your own. Give
me another chance--oh, Deryck--a chance to _serve_. It is all I ask, it
is all I want--to serve; because now, indeed, I truly love."
Then the doctor knew that at last life held for him all that his heart
had craved through hungry years.
"Mary," he said, "oh, Mary!"
He dropped his head upon her breast, in sudden silence, and her white
hands, like roses, clasped it softly, and lay upon the darkness of his
hair.
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