"If she came to herself-"
"Then send for me. I would come instantly. Send to the town-hall any time before twelve, after that to Compton. Send without scruples, Lenore, you have truly the right."
They did not send, except that a note met him as he returned home, telling him that suffusion of the brain had set in. Camilla Tyrrell did not survive Raymond Poynsett twelve hours.
CHAPTER XXX. Come Back
And are ye sure the news is true? And are ye sure he's weel?-J. THOMPSON
Eleonora Vivian was striving to write her sorrowful announcements in the deepening dusk of that autumn evening, while her father had shut himself up after his vigil to sleep under Victor's care, when a message came that Lady Rosamond Charnock earnestly begged to see her. She stood with a face white and set, looking like a galvanized corpse, as her lips framed the words, "He is dead!"
"No!" almost screamed Rosamond, snatching her hand. "No! But no one can save him but you. Come!"
Without a word, Eleonora stepped into her own room, and came back in cloak, hat, and veil.
"Right," said Rosamond, seizing her arm, and taking her to the pony-carriage at the door, then explaining while driving rapidly: "He has left off raving ever since his mother has been with him, but he lies-not still but weak, not speaking, only moaning now and then. His throat is so dreadful that it is hard to give him anything, and he takes no notice of what one says, only if his mother takes the spoon. He gets weaker, and Dr. Worth says it is only because there is no impulse to revive him-he is just sinking because he can't be roused. When I heard that, I thought I knew who could."
Eleonora's lips once moved, but no sound came from them, and Rosamond urged her little pony to its best speed through the two parks from one veiled house to another, fastened it to the garden- door without calling any one, and led her silent companion up the stairs.
Mrs. Poynsett felt a hand on her shoulder, and Rosamond said, "I have brought our only hope," and Eleonora stood, looking at the ghastly face. The yellow skin, the inflamed purple lips, the cavernous look of cheeks and eyes, were a fearful sight, and only the feeble incessant groping of the skeleton fingers showed life or action.
"Put this into his hand," said Rosamond, and Lenore found the pebble token given to her, and obeyed. At the touch, a quivering trembled over face and form, the eyelids lifted, the eyes met hers, there was a catching of the breath, a shudder and convulsive movement. "He is going," cried his mother, but Anne started forward with drops of strong stimulant, Rosamond rubbed spirit into his forehead, the struggle lessened, the light flickered back into his brown eyes, his fingers closed on hers. "Speak to him," said Mrs. Poynsett. "Do you see her, Frankie dear?"
"Frank! dear Frank, here I am."
The eyes gazed with more meaning, the lips moved, but no sound came till Anne had given another drop of the stimulant, and the terrible pain of the swallowing was lessened. Then he looked up, and the words were heard.
"Is it true?"
"It is, my dear boy. It is Lena."
"Here, Frank," as still the wistful gaze was unsatisfied; she laid her hands on his, and then he almost smiled and tried to raise it to his cheeks, but he was too weak; and she obeyed the feeble gesture, and stroked the wasted face, while a look of content came over it, the eyes closed, and he slept with his face against her hand, his mother watching beside with ineffable gratitude and dawning hope.
Lenore was forgetting everything in this watching, but in another quarter of an hour Anne was forced again to torture him with her spoon; but life was evidently gaining ground, for though he put it from him at first, he submitted at Lena's gesture and word. She felt the increased warmth and power in his grasp, as he whispered, "Lena, you are come back," then felt for the token.
Alas! that she must leave him. They knew she must not stay away from her father; indeed, Rosamond had told no one of her attempt, her forlorn hope. Lena tried to give assurances that she only went because it could not be helped, and the others told him she would return, but still he held her, and murmured, "Stay." She could not tear herself away, she let him keep her hand, and again he dozed and his fingers relaxed. "Go now, my dear," said Mrs. Poynsett, "you have saved him. This stone will show him that you have been here. You will come back to-morrow, I may promise him?"
"Yes, yes. In the morning, or whenever I can be spared," whispered Lena, who was held for a moment to Mrs. Poynsett's breast, ere Rosamond took her away again, and brought her once more down-stairs and to the pony-carriage. There she leant back, weeping quietly but bitterly over the shock of Frank's terribly reduced state, which seemed to take from her all the joy of his revival, weeping too at the cruel need that was taking her away.
"He will do now! I know he will," said Rosamond, happy in her bold venture.
"Oh! if I could stay!"
"Most likely you would be turned out for fear of excitement. The stone will be safer for him."
"Where did that come from?" asked Lenore, struck suddenly with wonder.
"I wrote to Miss Strangeways, when I saw how he was always feeling, feeling, feeling for it, like the Bride of Lammermoor. I told her there was more than she knew connected with that bit of stone, and life or death might hang on it. Then when I'd got it, I hardly knew what to do with it, for if it had soothed the poor boy delirious, the coming to his right mind might have been all the worse."
Rosamond kissed her effusively, and she dreamily muttered, "He must be saved." There was a sort of strange mist round her, as though she knew not what she was doing, and she longed to be alone. She would not let Rosamond drive her beyond the Sirenwood gate, but insisted on walking through the park alone in the darkness, by that very path where Frank had ten months ago exchanged vows with her.
Rosamond turned back to the Hall. It was poor Cecil's pony-carriage that she was driving, and she took it to the stable-yard, where her entreaty had obtained it from the coachman, whom she rewarded by saying, "I was right, Brown, I fetched his best doctor," and the old servant understood, and came as near a smile as any one at Compton could do on such a day.
"Is the carriage gone for Mr. Charnock?"
"Yes, my lady, I sent Alfred with it; I did not seem as if I could go driving into Wil'sbro' on such a day."
Rosamond bade a kind farewell to the poor old coachman, and was walking homewards, when she saw a figure advancing towards her, strangely familiar, and yet hat and coat forbade her to believe it her husband, even in the dusk. She could not help exclaiming, "Miles!"
"Yes!" he said, coming to a standstill. "Are you Rosamond?"
"I am;-Anne is quite well and Frank better. Oh! this will do them good! You know-"
"Yes-yes, I know," he said hastily, as if he could not bear to let himself out to one as yet a stranger. "My mother?"
"Absorbed in Frank too much to feel it yet fully; Anne watches them both. Oh! Miles, what she has been!" and she clasped his hand again. "Let me call her."
And Rosamond opened the hall door just as some instinct, for it could hardly have been sense of hearing, had brought Anne upon the stairs, where, as Miles would have hurried up to her, she seemed, in the light gray dress she still wore, to hover like some spirit eluding his grasp like the fabled shades.
"Oh no! you ought not. Infection-I am steeped in it."
"Nonsense," and she was gathered into the strong grasp that was home and rest to her, while Miles was weeping uncontrollably as he held her in his arms. "O, Nannie, Nannie! I did not think it would be like this. Why did they keep me till he was gone? No, I did not get the telegram, I only heard at the station. They let me go this morning, and I did think I should have been in time." He loosed himself from her, and hung over the balustrade, struggling with a strong man's anguish, then said in a low voice, "Did he want me?"