Beatrice
Chapter 5 : The medical a.s.sistant looked a little surprised. He had never, it is true, happened to

The medical a.s.sistant looked a little surprised. He had never, it is true, happened to be present at a meeting between husband and wife, when one of the pair had just been rescued by a hair's-breadth from a violent and sudden death, and therefore wanted experience to go on. But it struck him that there was something missing. The lady did not seem to him quite to fill the part of the Heaven-thanking spouse. It puzzled him very much. Perhaps he showed this in his face. At any rate, Lady Honoria, who was quick enough, read something there.

"He is safe now, is he not?" she asked. "It will not matter if I go away."

"No, my lady," answered the a.s.sistant, "he is out of danger, I think; it will not matter at all."

Lady Honoria hesitated a little; she was standing in the pa.s.sage.

Then she glanced through the door into the opposite room, and caught a glimpse of Beatrice's rigid form and of the doctor bending over it. Her head was thrown back and the beautiful brown hair, which was now almost dry again, streamed in ma.s.ses to the ground, while on her face was stamped the terrifying seal of Death.

Lady Honoria shuddered. She could not bear such sights. "Will it be necessary for me to come back to-night?" she said.

"I do not think so," he answered, "unless you care to hear whether Miss Granger recovers?"

"I shall hear that in the morning," she said. "Poor thing, I cannot help her."

"No, Lady Honoria, you cannot help her. She saved your husband's life, they say."

"She must be a brave girl. Will she recover?"

The a.s.sistant shook his head. "She may, possibly. It is not likely now."

"Poor thing, and so young and beautiful! What a lovely face, and what an arm! It is very awful for her," and Lady Honoria shuddered again and went.

Outside the door a small knot of sympathisers was still gathered, notwithstanding the late hour and the badness of the weather.

"That's his wife," said one, and they opened to let her pa.s.s.

"Then why don't she stop with him?" asked a woman audibly. "If it had been my husband I'd have sat and hugged him for an hour."

"Ay, you'd have killed him with your hugging, you would," somebody answered.

Lady Honoria pa.s.sed on. Suddenly a thick-set man emerged from the shadow of the pines. She could not see his face, but he was wrapped in a large cloak.

"Forgive me," he said in the hoa.r.s.e voice of one struggling with emotions which he was unable to conceal, "but you can tell me. Does she still live?"

"Do you mean Miss Granger?" she asked.

"Yes, of course. Beatrice--Miss Granger?"

"They do not know, but they think----"

"Yes, yes--they think----"

"That she is dead."

The man said never a word. He dropped his head upon his breast and, turning, vanished again into the shadow of the pines.

"How very odd," thought Lady Honoria as she walked rapidly along the cliff towards her lodging. "I suppose that man must be in love with her.

Well, I do not wonder at it. I never saw such a face and arm. What a picture that scene in the room would make! She saved Geoffrey and now she's dead. If he had saved her I should not have wondered. It is like a scene in a novel."

From all of which it will be seen that Lady Honoria was not wanting in certain romantic and artistical perceptions.

CHAPTER V

ELIZABETH IS THANKFUL

Geoffrey, lying before the fire, newly hatched from death, had caught some of the conversation between his wife and the a.s.sistant who had recovered him to life. So she was gone, that brave, beautiful atheist girl--gone to test the truth. And she had saved his life!

For some minutes the a.s.sistant did not enter. He was helping in another room. At last he came.

"What did you say to Lady Honoria?" Geoffrey asked feebly. "Did you say that Miss Granger had saved me?"

"Yes, Mr. Bingham; at least they tell me so. At any rate, when they pulled her out of the water they pulled you after her. She had hold of your hair."

"Great heavens!" he groaned, "and my weight must have dragged her down.

Is she dead, then?"

"We cannot quite say yet, not for certain. We think that she is."

"Pray G.o.d she is not dead," he said more to himself than to the other.

Then aloud--"Leave me; I am all right. Go and help with her. But stop, come and tell me sometimes how it goes with her."

"Very well. I will send a woman to watch you," and he went.

Meanwhile in the other room the treatment of the drowned went slowly on.

Two hours had pa.s.sed, and as yet Beatrice showed no signs of recovery.

The heart did not beat, no pulse stirred; but, as the doctor knew, life might still linger in the tissues. Slowly, very slowly, the body was turned to and fro, the head swaying, and the long hair falling now this way and now that, but still no sign. Every resource known to medical skill, such as hot air, rubbing, artificial respiration, electricity, was applied and applied in vain, but still no sign!

Elizabeth, pale and pinched, stood by handing what might be required.

She did not greatly love her sister, they were antagonistic and their interests clashed, or she thought they did, but this sudden death was awful. In a corner, pitiful to see, offering groans and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed prayers to heaven, sat the old clergymen, their father, his white hair about his eyes. He was a weak, coa.r.s.e-grained man, but in his own way his clever and beautiful girl was dear to him, and this sight wrung his soul as it had not been wrung for years.

"She's gone," he said continually, "she's gone; the Lord's will be done.

There must be another mistress at the school now. Seventy pounds a year she will cost--seventy pounds a year!"

"Do be quiet, father," said Elizabeth sharply.

"Ay, ay, it is very well for you to tell me to be quiet. You are quiet because you don't care. You never loved your sister. But I have loved her since she was a little fair-haired child, and so did your poor mother. 'Beatrice' was the last word she spoke."

"Be quiet, father!" said Elizabeth, still more sharply. The old man, making no reply, sank back into a semi-torpor, rocking himself to and fro upon his chair.

Meanwhile without intermission the work went on.

"It is no use," said the a.s.sistant at last, as he straightened his weary frame and wiped the perspiration from his brow. "She must be dead; we have been at it nearly three hours now."

"Patience," said the doctor. "If necessary I shall go on for four--or till I drop," he added.

Ten minutes more pa.s.sed. Everybody knew that the task was hopeless, but still they hoped.