“Griselda, my sweet one, the sweetest thing my life has held — _” The mother’s voice broke; she snatched her hands from her husband and son, and held out her arms to Griselda, who rushed into them weeping. Godfrey threw his arms round the two as they stood locked together. Jermyn looked dazed, Gregory broke into open crying, and Matthew stood with his eyes on his mother, as if dreading to see some change in her. Rachel hastened into the room, followed closely by Dufferin.
“It is nothing. It is nothing, I tell you. Stop this tragic acting, all of you. She has taken nothing that can harm her. Harriet, you are as normal as I thought! You took the tablet, and changed your mind. It would have been the wrong moment to change it if I had given you what you asked for. Of course I did not give it to you, when you came to me and explained you were not to be trusted with it. And I knew you didn’t want it; and now you know yourself; so you won’t come and ask for it again. Begging and crying for what you made that fuss about, when you thought you had it! I hope you see yourself as others see you. You can’t cut much of a figure in your own eyes.”
“Was there nothing harmful in what she took?” said Jermyn.
“Of course there was not. Should I give her what would harm her?” said Dufferin with guarded eyes on Harriet, who had sunk into a chair.
“I am thankful, I am thankful,” said Harriet. “I could not face it when I had done it. I wanted to live.”
“Well, you will know that another time,” said Dufferin. “I knew it about you this time. We all understand it easily. It is more or less what we all want.”
“And so are we all thankful, Doctor!” said Godfrey, speaking as if the breath in his voice were weak. “We are thankful to you from the bottom of our hearts for averting from us the great calamity that was threatening us.”
“Nothing was threatening you. I have averted nothing. Harriet simply had an idea, that met the fate of many ideas and turned out to be of no good.”
“Well, we are grateful for your wisdom in at once humouring my poor wife and saving her from herself. And she will thank you herself when she is up to it, and promise you that never again will she seek from you or anyone else what she sought from you the other day. For if you had yielded, and granted her the means of bringing on us all — Ah, we shudder at the thought.”
“I have given you all a memory you should never have had,” said Harriet in a faint voice.
“You would have given us a reality, as far as your thoughts of us went,” said Jermyn.
“I fear my thoughts of anyone but myself went only a little way.”
“Not a distance to be considered,” said Matthew.
“Well, now, that was a moment to live through,” said Godfrey, recovering his normal manner. “To think you had lost your wife, and because she didn’t find life with you worth living! That is a thing most men live more years than I have without having to face. Well, we are over it now. Harriet won’t forget again what she is to all of us. Because you forgot that, Harriet; you did, my dear.”
“Yes, I did, Godfrey. I forgot it. I thought only of myself.”
“That is not over-stating it,” said Matthew.
“No, my dear,” said his mother.
“I hope you are prepared to spare a thought in future for all of us to share between us?” said Jermyn.
“Yes, I am, my son.”
“You see, Harriet, they are all determined you shan’t do a thing like that again!” said her husband with a note of triumph.
“Do you feel quite well now?” said Griselda, pressing up to her mother.
“Yes, quite, my darling.”
“She is tired out,” said Gregory, “and no wonder.”
“She has done a very tiring thing,” said Griselda, forcing a natural laugh.
“You see, Mother, this kind of thing would soon do for you what you find you do not want,” said Matthew.
“Oh, now, leave that, Matthew,” said Godfrey. “Yes, my Harriet, you must settle down to rest.”
“It must be a strain, committing suicide,” said Rachel, who had been silently watching the scene. “If people survived it more often, there would be more witnesses of how trying it is. We must take the ordinary line of reproach; nothing else would be flattering; and you do deserve flattery, Harriet, having faced death, and found it so uncongenial to face it, which makes it more heroic. You must give me a lesson in facing it, as for me it is getting imperative. I believe I shall die without facing it, and I would much rather face it without dying, as you have. I am letting my tongue run away with me, and it is not a suitable occasion, that of a friend’s attempted suicide, but I am exhilarated at being your only guest to be in the heart of it all. You were still involved when Antony and I came in. It was noticeable.”
“Yes, oh yes, I daresay it was,” said Godfrey, giving a little laugh.
“Is Sir Percy in the house? Does he know it is all well?” said Gregory.
“Antony called to him over the stairs. He is waiting below with Mellicent,” said Rachel. “I hate to think of their not knowing the best part; it seems selfish to keep it from them; but denying ourselves the relation of it will be atonement. Harriet took something by mistake and got a fright! And really she did so much more. She makes the greatest sacrifice of all. But people will not realise that the pleasure in being well-informed should be intellectual; they make it social. You can all go downstairs and say to Percy that I am staying here for the night, because I cannot be spared. Don’t stand there, looking as if Harriet needed any of you, when she has me.”
“Yes, she is right. We can all go,” said Dufferin. “Matthew can bring me news of his mother in the morning.”
“Harriet and I will have a talk before I see her into bed,” said Rachel. “Our friendship is strengthened by our mutual interest in facing death. We will have a comfortable little chat about it. People will say it is braver to face life, so self-righteous and superficial. As if so many of them would be brave, nearly all of them! They talk as if nobody had ever known them. Harriet is quite an exception. Do go away, all of you. We don’t want an audience for intimate feminine gossip.”
“Oh, now, now, don’t talk too much about it. Put it out of your minds once and for all,” said Godfrey in an easy tone for an easy matter, going towards the door. “Help her to do that, Rachel, and we shall all be grateful to you. Good-night, my Harriet.” He came back and embraced his wife. “Good-night in the ordinary, normal way. We are not going to make much of it. We know what is best for you better than that. Well, Doctor, if it were not for you, we should be a sorry family to-night.”
“It would hardly be a natural thing to give a woman poison,” said Matthew. “It would involve danger for the doctor as well as for the woman. I don’t understand why Dufferin gave her anything at all.”
“Because her reason might have failed if she had been denied,” said Dufferin, in a low tone for Matthew’s ear. “You know why now, and if you don’t command yourself you will soon have something of the kind in your own experience. Camilla’s belonging to me can’t colour your outlook on every occasion.”
“What, Matthew, what?” said his father, rising mechanically on each stair. “What tone are you taking, my boy? You used to be all agog if anyone said a word against the doctor, forgot to praise him up to the skies. And now you take us up when we express our gratitude for a great service he has done us! Why, you are all in a whirl, and no wonder. Dufferin will understand it.”
“He is right. I needn’t have given her anything, but I thought it best in a way,” said Dufferin. “Well, Hardisty, you had a minute of suspense.”
“We have been reminding ourselves that they also serve who only stand and wait,” said Mellicent, “and have been at a loss to understand why.”