she drove up to queen anne’s mansions in the dusk, and was whirled up in the lift and deposited in front of her own door. she inserted her little latchkey—gilded, but practical—into the key-hole. the drawing-room, she saw, glancing through the iridescent panes at the side of the door, was lighted up.
“she is at home, then,” she thought to herself. “dear, sweet, tiresome little thing that she is. entertaining dr. andré with strong tea, and weak philosophy, no doubt. but now that i have got her out of this mess, i intend to wash my hands of her and her amatory affairs. i am sure i hope i may never again see a situation so at first hand. i prefer to invent them myself. it is less wearing in the long run.”
but there was no one with mrs. elles, the servant said, mrs. elles had been at home all day, had eaten hardly any lunch, and had just sent off a telegram.
“some new folly, i suppose?” thought egidia. “luckily, it does not matter now.”
she opened the drawing-room door.
“well, ph?be,” she said in jubilant tones, before she had passed the portière, “congratulate me! i have saved you—at least i think i have.{272}”
ph?be elles was sitting there, staged, as it were, most effectively on a red draped sofa. she was dressed in white, and her face was as white as her dress, except for the famous spot of colour on each cheek. her eyes were not as bright as usual; they seemed a little glazed, but she smiled sweetly though faintly when she saw egidia, and raised her hand, in a deprecating way.
“yes, i have saved you, ph?be, do you hear?” went on egidia, full of her subject. “i have completely killed off the jane anne cawthorne you were so afraid of and her evidence, and i venture to predict that your husband will now have nothing better to do than to withdraw his absurd petition in consequence!”
“it matters so little now!” said his wife, closing her eyes.
egidia was hurt at this little show of gratitude for the three arduous days’ work she had done for her.
“why, what is the matter with you?” she said, coldly.
“nothing! everything!” mrs. elles flung her arms along the back of the sofa with a despairing gesture, and the lace sleeves of her elaborate tea-gown fell back from them, disclosing a pretty girlish arm.
“that is a ridiculously thin gown to wear if you have got a chill, or a touch of influenza, as i suppose you have,” egidia said testily. “let me recommend you to go to bed at once, and throw it off.{273}”
“oh, please, egidia!” came the moan of the wounded pose. “please! you can’t think how it all sounds—now! you tell me to lie down—i shall lie down soon enough!”
“my dear ph?be, you are rather maddening, are not you?” said the novelist, mildly. “i am sure i do not know what you want to be at, but if you are not ill, and don’t want to lie down, then sit up, and give me some tea! i have been travelling since exactly nine o’clock this morning!”
she rang the bell, and ordered tea for herself, while her guest regarded her with lack-lustre eyes, and did not speak, though she held her lips a little helplessly parted.
“cheer up! you look very pretty!” egidia said to her soothingly, taking off her hat and flinging it on to a chair. “rather like frou-frou in the deathbed scene. poor little frou-frou!”
she sat down beside mrs. elles on the sofa and took her hands.
“don’t you really want to hear what i have done?”
“yes, dear, i know that you have done something kind, and like you. i want to hear, i do indeed, but i can’t somehow, understand properly—my brain seems clouded....”
“have you been taking things—morphia?” asked egidia, sternly, as the suspicion crossed her mind.
“morphia—no,” mrs. elles answered, with a wan smile. “surely morphia is no good—it is only temporary in its effects, isn’t it?{274}”
“morphia, only temporary? do please explain what you mean?”
“dear egidia,” the other woman said appealingly, “do you mind waiting till edmund comes? i have sent for him, and then you will know all. he is sure to be here directly.”
“mr. rivers won’t be such a fool as to come to this house, i should hope!” egidia exclaimed angrily, and her use of the formal prefix alone showed how angry she was. “he knows what a piece of folly that would be, even if you don’t!”
“he will come this time, egidia. don’t be cross with me, or you will perhaps be sorry afterwards. egidia, i want to thank you—i want you to forgive me for all the trouble i have caused you—the annoyance i have subjected you to. and i know you have done your best for me—about jane anne cawthorne, i mean—but—but i have settled it another and a shorter way, you see.... edmund!——”
she rose from her sofa as rivers came in, and it was then that the sceptical egidia noticed for the first time how weak she seemed to be, and realised that it was not all acting, and that the young woman had really gone through some veritable emotion. she looked as if a mighty wind had blown her, tossed her, and had scattered all her energies.
“edmund!” she was saying, in a faint voice, her fingers clutching the lapel of his coat. “edmund! you did come! i knew you would. and i don’t mind now—dying is the only way to make you nice to me.{275}”
“you should not have come here,” said egidia to edmund, quite violently, in her anger and bewilderment. even now, she found it quite impossible to take ph?be elles seriously; she had cried “wolf” so often, that the very accents and circumstance of tragedy in her connection inevitably suggested farce, or at any rate drawing-room comedy.
“mrs. elles sent me an urgent telegram, bidding me come here at once on a matter of life and death,” said rivers simply, “so of course i came.”
“it is a matter of death,” mrs. elles said, tottering back to the sofa. “listen, both of you. i have done this because i was so miserable, and my life seemed of no use to any one—rather the reverse, in fact. i saw so well, that if i lived, i should live only to disgrace you, edmund. people have explained to me what it was that i should be doing to you, injuring you, preventing you from ever being president, forcing you to live abroad, and ruining you generally. i saw the thought in your eyes that last time that i was with you, and that you almost hated me—i represented disgrace and shame to you! oh, don’t deny it! i am quite sure that you do not love me, or you would have loved through it all, and been willing to go through it all gladly for the sake of getting me. men do—some men! so i took the only way—i took poison!”
she allowed herself to fall back exhausted.
“tchk! tchk!” came from edmund or egidia. the nemesis of pose still pursued her votary. they neither of them believed in her.{276}
“now look here, ph?be!” said egidia, speaking to her severely, as to a spoilt child. “look here! what tricks have you been playing with yourself? i insist on knowing.”
“and i want to tell you,” mrs. elles replied plaintively, “if only you would let me! i never thought people treated—people like me—like this! it isn’t even kind.”
so speaking, she clearly signified her annoyance at the complete failure of this scene, as a scene, though she knew that she had the trump card of death up her sleeve, and that in less than ten minutes the inherent tragedy of it all would be proved to both these scoffers in the most effectual way.
“listen,” she said to them again, and her voice was very poignant and low. “i will tell you. i asked a man, who had promised me that he would do anything in the world for me, that i might ask him to do, to give me the means of death in an envelope sealed, so that i might use it if the burden of life became too great for me to bear. i told him that the mere knowledge that i could end it at any given time would help me to bear it. i did not tell him that i meant to use what he gave me at once, i perhaps did not—quite—but this morning in the fog—i felt it all so hopeless—so sad—and the future as black as the present, that i drank it off all at once. that was an hour ago—and in another hour i shall be dead.”
“who do you say gave it you?” rivers asked quickly, when she had finished.{277}
“dr. andré. now please don’t—bother me any more.” she sank back—she had literally grown ashen.
“quick! go and fetch him! three floors below!” said egidia to rivers, in a frenzied whisper.
“but he can’t have been such a devil!” she ejaculated, as the door closed on rivers. mrs. elles’s strange and indubitable pallor it was that frightened her.
. . . . . . . .
in ten minutes rivers came back again, followed by dr. andré. the latter was smiling, and his smile did not fade away, when confronted with the serious face of egidia, and the prostrate form of his victim. mrs. elles had not spoken a word during rivers’ absence, she appeared to have sunk into a state of coma. when dr. andré entered she opened her eyes wide, and it was on him, not on rivers, that her gaze fell.
“dear lady!” he said, going up to her, and taking one of her little helpless hands. “forgive me! i have betrayed you!”
“what?” she said, and her voice had sunk to a whisper. “i have taken what you gave me. tell them....”
“all right!” he said, in his foreign accent, gently stroking the hand which she abandoned to him. “i have given you a mauvais quart d’heure, i admit, but i have not killed you. could you or any one else seriously imagine that i should be accessory to sending a sweet woman like you out of the world?{278}”
“you have very nearly frightened her out of it!” egidia, to whom the doctor’s flowery language did not appeal, remarked.
“i acted for the best,” he said earnestly. “mr. rivers will explain it to you. i gave mrs. elles something to take when she asked me, knowing that if i were to refuse her, the obstinate lady would have recourse to some other person less scrupulous than i. but what i gave her could not possibly harm her. a little bromide and water. the symptoms exhibited here are actually the result of sheer apprehension. most curious! but she will not die, but live to be grateful to me.”
“or to hate you for having made her ridiculous,” said egidia, bluntly.
while the doctor had been speaking, he had begun to make mesmeric passes in front of mrs. elles, and it was quite certain that she did not hear the conclusion of his speech, or egidia’s answer. her eyelids closed, she began to breathe regularly, she lay back, but no longer in an attitude of tension. she would have been pleased to know how exquisitely pretty and helpless she looked, and how plainly dr. andré’s face showed that he thought so. even egidia was touched, in spite of her annoyance at the little trick she had played on them all. but then it had failed so absurdly, so lamentably!
“poor little thing!” she said thoughtfully to rivers. “it is curious how comedy dogs her wherever she goes, and whatever she does. it is very hard{279} to seek the sublime always and achieve—the ridiculous. i must be more gentle with her. i am hard.”
“no, you are very good!” said rivers kindly.
as he spoke there was a ring at the outer door, and a pink envelope was put into egidia’s hands.
“for her!” she said, indicating mrs. elles.
“shall i bring her back?” said dr. andré.
“it is only something from her lawyers,” said egidia.
“why bring her back to worries?”
“but it is a telegram—immediate. you must take the responsibility of opening it.”
“i will,” said egidia. “she empowered me to open all her letters and telegrams once, in a moment of confidence.”
she opened it. an expression of intense relief flooded her countenance.
“thank god!” she cried, almost hysterically, putting the paper into rivers’ hands, “he can’t divorce her now, can he?”
“hardly!” said rivers, smiling at the clever woman’s na?veté. “he died this morning at half-past nine. poor fellow, though i don’t know him!”
had the widow heard? she opened her eyes at that moment and smiled sweetly at dr. andré, as his hands passed to and fro in front of her face. with characteristic tact, he left her in her happy trance a little longer, dreaming, perchance, of fresh woods and pastures new.
the end
