A True Friend Part 52

"Oh, yes, he did, and he meant it too. I have heard him say a similar thing before. You see it was I that brought about this wretched marriage of his--because I pitied this woman, and thought her case was like my own--that she loved Wyvis as I loved Mark Brand. I brought that marriage about, and Wyvis has cursed me ever since."

"No, no," said Janetta, kissing her troubled face, "Wyvis would never curse his mother for doing what she thought right. Wyvis loves you.

Surely you know that--you believe that? Wyvis is not a bad son."

"No, my dear, not a bad son, but a cruelly injured one," said Mrs.

Brand. "And he blames me. I cannot blame him: it was all my fault for not opposing Mark when he wanted me to help him to carry out his wicked scheme."

"I think," said Janetta, tentatively, "that Cuthbert has more right to feel himself injured than Wyvis."

"Cuthbert?" Mrs. Brand repeated, in an indifferent tone. "Oh, Cuthbert is of no consequence: his father always said so. A lame, sickly, cowardly child! If we had had a strong, healthy lad of our own, Mark would not have put Wyvis in Cuthbert's place, but with a boy like Cuthbert, what would you expect him to do?"

It seemed to Janetta almost as if her mind were beginning to wander: the references to Cuthbert's boyish days appeared to be so extraordinarily clear and defined--almost as though she were living again through the time when Cuthbert was supplanted by her boy Wyvis. But when she spoke again, Mrs. Brand's words were perfectly clear, and apparently reasonable in tone.

"I often think that if I could do my poor boy some great service, he would forgive me in heart as well as in deed. I would do anything in the world for him, Janetta, if only I could give him back the happiness of which I robbed him."

Janetta could not exactly see that the poor mother's sins had been so great against Wyvis as against Cuthbert, but it was evident that Mrs.

Brand could never be brought to look at matters in this light. The thought that she had injured her first-born son had taken possession of her completely, and seriously disturbed the balance of her faculties.

The desire to make amends to Wyvis for her wrong-doing had already reached almost a maniacal point: how much further it might be carried Janetta never thought of guessing.

She was anxious about Mrs. Brand, but more so for her physical than for her mental strength. For her powers were evidently failing in every direction, and the doctor spoke warningly to Janetta of the weakness of her heart's action, and the desirability of s.h.i.+elding her from every kind of agitation. It was impossible to provide against every kind of shock, but Janetta promised to do her best.

The winter was approaching before Janetta's letter to Wyvis received an answer. She was beginning to feel very anxious about it, for his silence alarmed and also surprised her. She could hardly imagine a man of Wyvis'

disposition remaining unmoved when he read the letter that she had sent him. His wife's health was, moreover, giving her serious concern. She had caught cold on one of the foggy autumnal days, and the doctor a.s.sured her that her life would be endangered if she did not at once seek a warmer climate. But she steadily refused to leave the Red House.

"I won't go," she said to Janetta, with a red spot of anger on either cheek, "until I know whether he means to do the proper thing by me or not."

"He is sure to do that; you need have no fear," said Janetta, bluntly.

An angry gleam shot from the sick woman's eyes. "You defend him through thick and thin, don't you? Wyvis has a knack of getting women to stick up for him. They say the worst men are often the most beloved."

Janetta left the room, feeling both sick and sorry, and wondering how much longer she could bear this kind of life. It was telling upon her nerves and on her strength in every possible way. And yet she could not abandon her post--unless, indeed, Wyvis himself relieved her. And from him for many weary days there came no word.

But at last a telegram arrived--dated from Liverpool. "I shall be with you to-morrow. Your letter was delayed, and reached me only by accident," Wyvis said. And then his silence was explained.

Janetta carried the news of his approaching arrival to wife and mother in turn. Mrs. Wyvis took it calmly. "I told you so," she said, with a triumphant little nod. But Mrs. Brand was terribly agitated, and even, as it seemed to Janetta, amazed. "I never thought that he would come,"

she said, in a loud whisper, with a troubled face and various nervous movements of her hands. "I never thought that he would come back to her.

I must be quick. I must be quick, indeed." And when Janetta tried to soothe her, and said that she must now make haste to be well and strong when Wyvis was returning, she answered only in about the self-same words--"never thought it, my dear, indeed, I never did. But if he is coming back, so soon, I must be quick--I must be very quick."

And Janetta could not persuade her to say why.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

NIGHT.

It was the night before Wyvis' return. The whole household seemed somewhat disorganized by the prospect. There was an air of subdued excitement visible in the oldest and staidest of the servants, for in spite of Wyvis' many shortcomings and his equivocal position, he was universally liked by his inferiors, if not by those who esteemed themselves his superiors, in social station. Mrs. Brand had gone to bed early, and Janetta hoped that she was asleep; Mrs. Wyvis had kept Janetta at her bedside until after eleven o'clock, regaling her with an account of her early experience in Paris. When at last she seemed sleepy, Janetta said good-night and went to her own room. She was tired but wakeful. The prospect of Wyvis' return excited her; she felt that it would be impossible to sleep that night, and she resolved therefore to establish herself before the fire in her own room, with a book, and to see, by carefully abstracting her mind from actual fact, whether she could induce the shy G.o.ddess, sleep, to visit her.

She read for some time, but she had great difficulty in fixing her mind upon her book. She found herself conning the same words over and over again, without understanding their meaning in the least; her thoughts flew continually to Wyvis and his affairs, and to the mother and wife and son with whom her fate had linked her with such curious closeness.

At last she relinquished the attempt to read, and sat for some time gazing into the fire. She heard the clock strike one; the quarter and half-hour followed at intervals, but still she sat on. Anyone who had seen her at that hour would hardly have recognized her for the vivacious, sparkling, ever cheerful woman who made the brightness of the Red House; the suns.h.i.+ne had left her face, her eyes were wistful, almost sad; the lines of her mouth drooped, and her cheeks had grown very pale.

She felt very keenly that the period of happy, peaceful work and rest which she had enjoyed for the last few months was coming to an end. She was trying to picture to herself what her future life would be, and it was difficult to imagine it when her old ties had all been severed. "It seems as if I had to give up everybody that I ever cared for," she said to herself, not complainingly, but as one recognizing the fact that some persons are always more or less lonely in the world, and that she belonged to a lonely cla.s.s. "My father has gone--my brother and sisters do not need me; Margaret abandoned me; Wyvis and his mother and Julian are lost to me from henceforth. G.o.d forgive me," said Janetta to herself, burying her face in her hands and shedding some very heartfelt tears, "if I seem to be repining at my friends' good fortune; I do not mean it; I wish them every joy. But what I fear is, lest it should not be for their good--that Wyvis and his mother and Julian should be unhappy."

She was roused from her reflection by a sound in the corridor. It was a creaking board, she knew that well enough; but the board never creaked unless some one trod upon it. Who could be walking about the house at this time of night? Mrs. Brand, perhaps; she was terribly restless at night, and often went about the house, seeking to tire herself so completely that sleep would be inevitable on her return to bed. On a cold night, such expeditions were not, however, unattended by danger, as she was not careful to protect herself against draughts, and it was with the desire to care for her that Janetta at last rose and took up a soft warm shawl with which she thought that she might cover Mrs. Brand's shoulders.

With the shawl over her arm and a candle in one hand she opened her door and looked out into the pa.s.sage. It was unlighted, and the air seemed very chilly. Janetta stole along the corridor like a thief, and peeped into Mrs. Brand's bedroom; as was expected, it was empty. Then she looked into Julian's room, for she had several times found the grandmother praying by his bed, at dead of night; but Julian slumbered peacefully, and n.o.body else was there. Janetta rather wonderingly turned her attention to the lower rooms of the house. But Mrs. Brand was not to be found in any of the sitting rooms; and the hall door was securely locked and bolted, so that she could not have gone out into the garden.

"She must be upstairs," said Janetta to herself. "But what can she be doing in that upper storey, where there are only empty garrets and servants rooms! I did not look into the spare room, however; perhaps she has gone to see if it is ready for Wyvis, and I did not go to Juliet.

She cannot have gone to _her_, surely; she never enters the room unless she is obliged."

Nevertheless, her heart began to beat faster, and she involuntarily quickened her steps. She did not believe that Mrs. Brand would seek Juliet's room with any good intent, and as she reached the top of the stairs her eyes dilated and her face grew suddenly pale with fear. For a strange whiff of something--was it smoke?--came into her eyes, and an odd smell of burning a.s.sailed her nostrils. Fire, was it fire? She remembered that Wyvis had once said that the Red House would burn like tinder if it was ever set alight. The old woodwork was very combustible, and there was a great deal of it, especially in the upper rooms.

Juliet's door was open. Janetta stood before it for the s.p.a.ce of one half second, stupefied and aghast. Smoke was rapidly filling the room and circling into the corridor; the curtains near the window were in a blaze, and Mrs. Brand, with a lighted candle in her hand, was deliberately setting fire to the upholstery of the bed where the unconscious Juliet lay. Janetta never forgot the moment's vision that she obtained of Mrs. Brand's pale, worn, wildly despairing face--the face of a madwoman as she now perceived, who was not responsible for the deed she did.

Janetta sprang to the window curtains, dragged them down and trampled upon them. Her thick dressing gown, and the woollen shawl that she carried all helped in extinguis.h.i.+ng the flame. Her appearance had arrested Mrs. Brand in her terrible work; she paused and began to tremble, as if she knew in some vague way that she was doing what was wrong. The flame had already caught the curtains, which were of a light material, and was creeping up to the woodwork of the old-fas.h.i.+oned bed, singeing and blackening as it went. These, also, Janetta tore down, burning her hands as she did so, and then with her shawl she pressed out the sparks that were beginning to fly dangerously near the sleeping woman. A heavy ewer of water over the mouldering ma.s.s of torn muslin and lace completed her task; and by that time Juliet had started from her sleep, and was asking in hysterical accents what was wrong.

Her screams startled the whole household, and the servants came in various stages of dress and undress to know what was the matter. Mrs.

Brand had set down her candle and was standing near the door, trembling from head to foot, and apparently so much overcome by the shock as to be unable to answer any question. That was thought very natural. "Poor lady! what a narrow escape! No wonder she was upset," said one of the maids sympathetically, and tried to lead her back to her own room. But Mrs. Brand refused to stir.

Meanwhile Juliet was screaming that she was burning, that the whole house was on fire, that she should die of the shock, and that Wyvis was alone to blame--after her usual fas.h.i.+on of expressing herself wildly when she was suffering from any sort of excitement of mind.

"You are quite safe now," Janetta said at last, rather sharply. "The fire is out: it was never very much. Come into my room: the bed may be cold and damp now, and the smoke will make you cough."

She was right; the lingering clouds of smoke were producing unpleasant effects on the throat and lungs of Mrs. Wyvis Brand; and she was glad to be half led, half carried, by two of the servants into Janetta's room.

And no sooner was she laid in Janetta's bed than a little white figure rushed out of another room and flew towards her, crying out:

"Mother! Mother! You are not hurt?"

She was not hurt, but she was shaken and out of breath, and Julian's caresses were not altogether opportune. Still she did not seem to be vexed by them. Perhaps they were too rare to be unwelcome. She let him creep into bed beside her, and lay with her arm round him as if he were still a baby at her breast, and then for a time they slept together, mother and child, as they had not slept since the days of Julian's babyhood. For both it may have been a blessed hour. Julian scarcely knew what it was to feel a mother's love; and with Juliet, the softer side of her nature had long been hidden beneath a crust of coldness and selfishness. But those moments of tenderness which a common danger had brought to light would live for ever in Julian's memory.

While these two were sleeping, however, others in the house were busy.

As soon as Juliet was out of the room, Janetta turned anxiously to Mrs.

Brand. "Come with me, dear," she said. "Come back to your room. You will catch cold."

She felt no repulsion, nothing but a great pity for the hapless woman whose nature was not strong enough to bear the strain to which it had been subjected, and she wished, above all things, to keep secret the origin of the fire. If Mrs. Brand would but be silent, she did not think that Juliet could fathom the secret, but she was not sure that poor Mrs.

Brand would not betray herself. At present, she showed no signs of understanding what had been said to her.

"She is quite upset by the shock," said the maid who had previously spoken. "And no wonder. And oh! Miss Colwyn, don't you know how burnt your hands are! You must have them seen to, I'm sure."

"Never mind my hands, I don't feel them," said Janetta brusquely. "Help me to get Mrs. Brand to her room, and then send for a doctor. Go to Dr.

Burroughs, he will know what to do. I want him here as quickly as possible. And bring me some oil and cotton wool."

The servants looked at one another, astonished at the strangeness of her tone. But they were fond of her and always did her bidding gladly, so they performed her behest, and helped her to lead Mrs. Brand, who was now perfectly pa.s.sive in their hands, into her own room.

But when she was there, the old butler returned to knock at the door and ask to speak to Miss Colwyn alone. Janetta came out, with a feeling of curious fear. She held the handle of the door as he spoke to her.

"I beg pardon, m'm," he said deferentially, "but hadn't I better keep them gossiping maids out of the room over there?"