_ PART III CHAPTER I. THE POWER DIVINE
"Well, if this isn't a pleasure!"
Thus Lucas Errol, sitting on the terrace on a certain hot afternoon early in August, greeted Dot, whose multifarious duties did not permit her to be a very frequent visitor. He smiled at her with that cordiality which even on his worst days was never absent, but she thought him looking very ill.
"Are you sure I shan't tire you too much?" she asked him, as he invited her to sit down.
"Quite sure, my dear Dot!" he answered. "It does me good to see people. Lady Carfax is coming presently. The mother has gone to fetch her. It will be her last appearance, I am afraid, for the present. She is expecting her husband home to-morrow. But I'm glad you are here first. I was just wishing I could see you."
"Were you really?" said Dot.
"Yes, really. No, you needn't look at me like that. I'm telling the truth. I always do, to the best of my ability. Is that chair quite comfortable? Do you mind if I smoke?"
"I don't mind anything," Dot said. "And I'm so comfortable that I want to take off my hat and go to sleep."
"You may do the first," said Lucas. "But not the second, because I want to talk, and it's sort of uninteresting not to have an audience, especially when there is something important to be said."
"Something important!" echoed Dot. "I hope it's something nice."
"Oh, quite nice," he assured her. "It's to do with Bertie." He was smiling in his own peculiarly kindly fashion. "By the way, he's stewing indoors, studying for that exam, which he isn't going to pass."
"Not going to pass?" Dot looked up in swift anxiety. "Oh, don't you think he will?"
Lucas shook his head. "What's success anyway? I guess the Creator finds the failures just as useful to Him in the long run."
"But I don't want him to fail!" she protested.
"In my opinion," Lucas said slowly, "it doesn't matter a single red cent, so long as a man does his best. Believe me, it isn't success that counts. We're apt to think it's everything when we're young. I did myself once--before I began to realise that I hadn't come to stay." The shrewd blue eyes smiled at her under their heavy lids. "Now I don't want to distress you any," he said, "but I'm going to say something that p'r'aps you'll take to heart though you mustn't let it grieve you. Capper is coming here next month to perform an operation on me. It may be successful, and on the other hand--it may not. The uncertainty worries me some. I'm trying to leave my affairs in good order, but--there are some things beyond my scope that I'd like unspeakably to see settled before I take my chances. You can understand that?"
Dot's hand, warm, throbbing with life, slipped impulsively into his. "Dear Lucas, of course--of course I understand."
"Thanks! That's real nice of you. I always knew you were a woman of sense. I wonder if you can guess what it is I've set my heart on, eh, Dot?"
"Tell me," murmured Dot.
His eyes still rested upon her, but they seemed to be looking at something beyond. "P'r'aps I'm over fond of regulating other folks' affairs," he said. "It's a habit that easily grows on the head of a family. But I've a sort of fancy for seeing you and Bertie married before I go out. If you tell me it's quite impossible I won't say any more. But if you could see your way to it--well, it would be a real kindness, and I needn't say any more than that."
The weary, rather droning voice ceased to speak. The eyelids drooped more heavily. It seemed to Dot that a grey shadow lay upon the worn face. He looked so unutterably tired, so ready for the long, long sleep.
She sat quite still beside him, turning the matter in her mind.
After a little he went on speaking, with eyes half-closed. "It would hit him hard if I went under, but he wouldn't feel so badly if you were there. The mother too--she wants someone to lean on. There's Lady Carfax, but she has her own burden. And there'd be a lot for Bertie to see to, Nap being away. Besides--"
"Oh, Luke," Dot broke in, her eyes full of tears, "I--I can't imagine this place without you."
"No? Well, you mustn't let it distress you any. We've all got to go, sooner or later. There isn't anything in that. The main thing is to get it over, when it comes, with as little fuss as possible. Life isn't long enough for grieving. It's just a mortal waste of time. And what is Death anyway?" He raised his eyes with what seemed an effort. "You won't blame me," he said, "for wanting to close up the ranks a bit before I go. Of course I may live as long as any of you. God knows I shall do my best. I want to pull through--for several reasons. But if I've got to go, I'd like to feel I've left things as ship-shape as possible. Bertie will tell you what provision I desire to make for you. P'r'aps you and he will talk it over, and if you're willing I'll see the padre about it. But I kind of felt the first word ought to be with you. Bertie didn't like to speak because he'd promised to wait. You'll find he's a man of his word. That's why I've butted in. Say, child, I didn't mean to make you cry. That was clumsy of me."
He patted her hand gently, while Dot blinked away her tears.
"Don't let us talk about it any more now," she besought him. "Oh, Lucas--I do want you to live, more--more than anything."
"That's real kind of you," he said. "I'll do my best, you may be sure. I can hear Lady Carfax talking in the drawing-room. Won't you go and bring her out?"
He made no effort to rise when Anne came on to the terrace, but he gave her so vivid a smile of welcome that she scarcely noted the omission. It was their first meeting since Nap's departure, for Lucas had been confined to his bed for days. But that smile of his banished any sense of embarrassment from her mind. He was so candidly, so unaffectedly, pleased to see her.
She sat down in the riotous sunshine and gave herself up unreservedly to the pleasure of being with her friends. They were all congenial to her. Mrs. Errol, Dot, Lucas, but most especially Lucas, who occupied a unique position in her heart and in her thoughts. He had always been so perfectly her friend in need.
As the long, sunny afternoon wore away, she found herself watching him and in silence marvelling. How was it that this man in his utter, piteous weakness accomplished so much, ruled thus supreme? Wherein lay that potent charm of his which neither devil nor brute could effectively resist? Whence came it, this power of the soul, this deliberate and conscious mastery?
She watched Bertie waiting on him, hovering about him, ready to spring up at his lightest word to execute his scarcely-uttered wish. Other men--even great men--did not command this personal homage, this complete, incessant devotion. Undoubtedly there was something kingly about him; but wherein did it lie? Not in the impotent, unwieldy figure, not in the pleasant, emotionless drawl, not even in the friendly quiet of his eyes, the kindly sympathy of his smile. In none of these lay his power, and yet in all of them it was in some fashion apparent. No great force of personality characterised him, and yet his monarchy was absolute. No splendour of intellect, no keenness of wit, no smartness of repartee were his. Only a shrewdness of understanding that was never cruel, a humour that had no edge.
And presently Anne remembered that his own mother had given her the key to the problem, and she doubted not that it solved the whole. "It isn't personal magnetism," Mrs. Errol had said, "nor anything of that sort. It's just love."
That was the magic to which even Nap, the fierce, the passionate, the treacherous, had been forced to bow. In the midst of his weakness this man wielded an all-potent power--a power before which they all instinctively did homage--before which even devils humbled themselves--because it was Divine.
That was the secret of his strength. That was the weapon by which he conquered. She wondered if it had always been so, or if his physical weakness had tended to develop in him a greatness of heart of which more active men were quite incapable. It might be true, as Mrs. Errol had contended, that all men had their possibilities, but, this was the only man she had ever met who had turned them to account. All unconsciously, perhaps in response to a reaction which had been necessarily violent, Anne yielded herself that day for the first time in her life to a species of hero-worship that could not but beautify her own sad life.
When later she found herself alone with him, they talked for a space upon indifferent things, and then they did not talk at all. The intimacy between them made conversation unnecessary, and Lucas Errol's silence was as easy as his speech.
"You'll take care of yourself," he said once, "or I shan't be easy about you."
And, when she had promised that: "And you'll look us up as often as you find you can. P'r'aps if you can't come very often you'll manage to write."
But he made no direct reference to her husband's return. His sympathy neither sought nor needed expression in words.
Neither did he speak of himself. He only at parting held her hand very closely for several silent seconds. And Anne went away with a hushed feeling at her heart as if he had invoked a benediction.
Back to her home she went, strangely quiet and at peace. She had thought that visit to Baronmead would have been painful to her. She had expected to suffer afresh. But it was instead as if a healing hand had been laid upon her, and as she went she thought no more of Nap, the savage, the sudden, the terrible; but of Lucas, the gentle, the patient, the chivalrous, who had won and would for ever keep her perfect trust.
The light of a golden evening lay upon the Manor as she entered. It was wonderfully quiet. She went in by the French windows that led into the drawing-room, and here, tempted by an impulse that had not moved her for long, she sat down at the piano and began very softly to play.
She had not touched the keys since her last visit to Baronmead. She wondered, as idly she suffered her fingers to wander, how long it would be before she played again.
Yet it was hard to believe, sitting there in the quiet evening light, that the next day would witness her return to bondage, that bondage that had so cruelly galled her, the very thought of which had at one time filled her with repulsion. But her feelings had undergone a change of late. She could not feel that the old burden would ever return upon her. She had been emancipated too long. Her womanhood had developed too much during those months of liberty. No, it could never be the same. Patient and faithful wife she would still be. She was ready to devote herself ungrudgingly, without reservation, to her invalid husband. But his slave she would never be again. She had overcome her repugnance; she was willing to serve. But never again would he compel. The days of his tyranny were for ever gone.
It was no easy path that lay before her, but she had not forgotten how narrowly she had escaped the precipice. Even yet she still trembled when she remembered the all-engulfing pit of destruction that had opened before her, and the anguish of fear that had possessed her until deliverance had come. Lucas Errol had been her deliverer. She remembered that also, and a faint, sad smile touched her lips--Lucas Errol, king and cripple, ruler and weakling.
Softly the sunset faded. Anne's fingers ceased to roam over the keys. She clasped them in her lap and sat still.
All at once a quiet voice spoke. "My lady!"
With a start she turned. "Dimsdale! How you startled me!"
"I beg your ladyship's pardon," the old man said.
He was standing close behind her. There was an air of subdued importance about him. He was grave to severity.
But Anne did not look at him very critically. "I shall not want any tea," she said. "I will dine at eight in my sitting-room as usual. Is everything in readiness, Dimsdale? Is Sir Giles's room just as it should be?"
"Yes, my lady."
Anne rose and quietly closed the piano. She wondered why Dimsdale lingered, and after a moment it struck her that he had something to say. She took up her gloves and turned round to him.
"No one has been, I suppose?"
"No one, my lady."
"Are there any letters?"
"No letters, my lady."
"Then--" Anne paused, and for the first time looked at the old servant attentively. "Is anything the matter, Dimsdale?" she asked.
He hesitated, the fingers of one hand working a little, an unusual sign of agitation with him.
With an effort at last he spoke. "Your ladyship instructed me to open any telegram that might arrive."
Her heart gave a great throb of foreboding. "Certainly," she said. "Has there been a telegram then?"
Dimsdale's hand clenched. He looked at her anxiously, rather piteously.
"My lady--" he said, and stopped.
Anne stood like a statue. She felt as if her vitality were suddenly arrested, as if every pulse had ceased to beat.
"Please go on," she said in a whisper. "There has been a telegram. Either give it to me, or--tell me what was in it."
Dimsdale made a jerky movement, as if pulling himself together. He put an unsteady hand into his breast-pocket. "It came this afternoon, my lady, about an hour ago. I am afraid it's bad news--very bad news. Yes, my lady, I'm telling you, I'm telling you. I regret to say Sir Giles has been took worse, took very sudden like, and--and--"
"He is dead," Anne said very clearly, very steadily, in a tone that was neither of question nor of exclamation.
Dimsdale bent his head. "He died at half-past three, my lady."
He had the telegram in his hand. Anne took it from him and moved very quietly to the window.
Mutely the old man stood and watched her in the silence, thankful for her composure. He was himself severely shaken, and the ordeal of telling her had been no light one.
But as the silence still continued he began to grow uneasy again. He wondered if he ought to go, if she had forgotten to dismiss him. Her stately head was bent over the paper, which never crackled or stirred in her hand. There began to be something terrible, something fateful, in her passivity. Old Dimsdale shivered, and took the liberty of breaking the silence.
"Would your ladyship wish a message to be sent to Baronmead?"
She stirred at that, moved sharply as one suddenly awakened. Her face was quite white, but her eyes were alight, curiously vital, with a glitter that was almost of horror.
"To Baronmead!" she said, a queer note of sharpness in her voice. "No, certainly not, most certainly not!"
And there she stopped, stopped dead as though struck dumb. In the garden behind her, down among the lilac trees, a bird had begun to sing, eagerly, voluptuously, thrillingly, with a rapture as of the full spring-tide of life.
Anne stood for a space of many seconds and listened, her white face upraised, her eyes wide and shining.
And then suddenly her attitude changed. She put her hands over her face and tottered blindly from the open window.
Dimsdale started to support her, but she needed no support. In a moment she was looking at him again, but with eyes from which all light had faded.
"I must write some messages at once," she said. "One of the grooms must take them. No, I shall not send to Mrs. Errol to-night. I wish to be alone--quite alone. Please admit no one. And--yes--tell them to pull down the blinds, and--shut all the windows!"
Her voice quivered and sank. She stood a moment, collecting herself, then walked quietly to the door.
"Come to me in ten minutes for those telegrams," she said. "And after that, remember, Dimsdale, I am not to be disturbed by anyone."
And with that she passed out, erect and calm, and went up to her room. _