Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905. Various
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guard my pocket against the medical profession – I’ll not stir from this spot till he takes himself off.”
“Don’t be so foolish!” urged French. “If your knee is injured it is a very serious thing.”
“Well, it isn’t seriously injured,” she said, perversely. “I have changed my mind, and I mean to have it tied up with witch hazel.”
Fortunately her equipage was now seen approaching in the charge of two park policemen, who had stopped the horses about a mile further on, righted the sleigh and now brought it back not much the worse for the misadventure. The coachman and groom were collected from the bushes, and, as they were quite uninjured, Stephen lifted his aunt into the back seat and they turned their faces homeward.
However much the rest of the party may have been inconvenienced, French had certainly attained the object of his solicitude – namely, to have his thoughts distracted from Simeon Ponsonby.
CHAPTER VIII
The second cable from Lopez arrived soon after dinner; it brought small comfort. Its nineteen words told the story but too conclusively.
Strayed from party while hunting. Weather turned foggy. Search parties persevered for two weeks. Hope abandoned. Expedition homeward bound.
There was no further excuse for concealment; indeed, it was French’s plain duty to tell Deena what might be told by the newspapers if he delayed.
It was just nine o’clock, and he walked rapidly to the Minthrops’ and rang the bell. Outside an electric cab was waiting, its great lamps casting pathways of light across street and sidewalk. The motorman was inside; an indication that long waiting had driven him to shelter, though the circumstance had no significance to Stephen.
The bell was answered by the butler, who looked portentous and stood resolutely in the doorway.
“Not at ’ome, sir,” he said, in response to Stephen’s request to see Mrs. Ponsonby.
“Then I must see Mr. Minthrop,” French insisted.
The man hesitated and then relaxed his wooden expression.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. French. I did not recognize you, sir. The truth is, we’re a bit h’upset h’inside. Mrs. Minthrop is tuk ill, sir – very sudden – and we’re expecting the good word every minute. I shall tell Mr. Minthrop you called.”
Stephen nodded and turned away – the fates had ordained that he was to carry his secret till the morning. It had been a harassing burden in the daylight hours, but during the night it became maddening; it seemed beyond his resolution to tell Deena that the pleasure trip he had set on foot for her husband’s advantage had ended in death.
As early as he thought permissible, the next morning, he presented himself at Ben’s door – this time gaining, a cheerful admission – and was shown to the library on the second floor. There he found the young father, radiantly happy, and so self-centered that he had entirely forgotten the misfortune overhanging his sister-in-law.
“Come and see my son,” he said, proudly, and in spite of an expression of reluctance on the part of French to intrude into the upper regions of the house, he pushed him ahead of him up the next flight of stairs and knocked softly at the door of a back bedroom.
Deena’s voice bade them enter, and French was ushered into a large room fitted out as a nursery, with the newest appliances for baby comfort. There was a bassinette so be-muslined and be-ribboned and be-laced that it looked like a ball dress standing by itself in the middle of the floor; and a bathtub that looked like a hammock; and a weighing machine; and a chart for recording the daily weight; and a large table with a glass top; and a basket containing all the articles for the Lilliputian toilet; while near the fender some doll-like clothes were airing.
Deena was sitting in a low rocking-chair near the fire with her nephew in her arms. She welcomed her visitors with a smile, and turned down a corner of the baby’s blanket to display his puckered ugliness to Stephen. She was looking happy, tender, proud, maternally beautiful.
“Hasn’t he a beautifully shaped head?” she demanded, passing her hand tenderly over the furry down that served him for hair. “And look at his ears and his hands – was there ever anything so exquisite?”
It was French’s first introduction to a young human, and he found it slightly repulsive, but Deena, in her Madonna-like sweetness, made his heart swell.
“He is part of an exquisite picture,” he answered.
Ben, who had been for a moment with Polly, now came into the room with his usual noisy bustle, and Deena got up and, surrendering the baby to the nurse, led the way downstairs.
At the library door Stephen paused to whisper to Ben:
“Stay with me while I tell her,” in tones of abject fright; but Ben shook his head.
“Look here, old man,” he said, in mild remonstrance, “if you had had a baby last night, you wouldn’t be casting about for fresh trouble to-day – now, would you?”
Stephen gave him an indignant glance, and, following Deena, he shut the library door. He did it in so pronounced a way that she looked up surprised, and was even more at a loss to account for the gravity of his expression; she wondered whether he had thought her rude yesterday when she had disappeared from the table at lunch and had never returned, but it was not like French to be touchy.
“I left you very unceremoniously yesterday,” she began, “but the nurse appeared for a moment at the door, and I did not want to alarm Ben. You were not offended?”
“Believe me, no,” French answered, with a sort of shudder; “for the first time in my life I was glad to see you go – your presence was torture to me – I was concealing something from you, Mrs. Ponsonby, and it has got to get itself told.”
While he spoke her expression changed rapidly from amazement to alarm, and she got up and came close to him – waiting – but without a word.
“Simeon is lost,” he said, hoarsely, hurling the bald fact at her before his courage failed. “I tried to tell you yesterday,” he went on, drawing the cables from his pocket, “but I couldn’t; it all seemed so vague at first, and I ventured to wait until I got more news.”
She was standing before him with her hands clasped and her face deadly pale, but with a calm that frightened him.
“Do you mean lost at sea?” she asked, in a steady voice – toneless but perfectly clear.
He shook his head.
“No – on land. He was hunting – it must have been the very hunt we were talking about – and wandered from his party. A fog came on, and they were unable to find him. Lopez telegraphs that they sent out search parties for a fortnight, but could find no trace.”
He longed for a word from her, but none came.
“At last they abandoned hope,” he concluded. “The expedition is now on its way home.”
She had turned her back upon him, and he waited in misery to hear her sob, to see her shoulders shake with her weeping; but, instead, the whole figure seemed to stiffen, and, wheeling round, she faced him with blazing eyes.
“The cowards!” she cried. “To abandon a man to starvation! What are they made of to do such a barbarous thing!”
“We must not judge them unheard,” Stephen ventured. “Their search may have been exhaustive – they may have risked their own lives gladly – and you know,” he added, gently, “that beyond a certain time it would have been useless from the standpoint of saving life.”
“It was inhuman to sail away and leave him,” she went on, beating her hands together in a sort of rage. “How can you defend them! You, who sent him off on this horrible journey – how can you sleep in your bed when you know Simeon in perishing by inches! I should think you would be on your way now – this moment – to search for him! Oh, do something – don’t just accept it in this awful way. Haven’t you any pity?” Unconsciously she laid her hand on his shoulder, as if she would