Of course Coombe had suspected this all along. Never for a moment had it been really deceived. Over and over again it had said: "My dear, that young man is not a mere local pract.i.tioner, mark my words!" From the first, Coombe had observed the marks of true distinction in him. He was so odd! He seemed to care nothing at all for appearances, and, as everybody knows, this comfortable att.i.tude of mind is the privilege of the famous few. Besides, there was the matter of the marriage. Coombe had been right in thinking that Mary Coombe had not gone into the matter blindfold. She had known very well upon which side her bread was b.u.t.tered, and as to her giving way to his whims in the absurd way she did--that, too, was understandable under the circ.u.mstances.

What puzzled Coombe, now, was how she had managed it. She was not pretty, at least not very pretty. She was not young, at least only comparatively young. And goodness knows, she was not clever! Hardly a mother in Coombe but had at least one daughter prettier, younger and cleverer; a daughter, in fact, who could give Mary Coombe aces and kings and still win out. Why had the doctor not been attached to one of these?

It was incomprehensible. Even if, through a misplaced devotion to his profession, he had determined to marry into a doctor's family--there was Esther! Esther Coombe was a fine girl and quite nice looking before she had begun to "go off." Even as it was she had more to recommend her than her step-mother. There seemed to be a general impression that all men are fools.

"If they would only let some woman with sense choose their wives for them," declared the eldest Miss Sinclair in a burst of confidence, "they might get along fairly well. But if ever a man gets married to the right woman, it happens by accident."

Nevertheless, at a special meeting of the Ladies' Aid, called for the purpose, it was decided to give the bride a present. They had not intended to do it for fear of establishing a precedent. But when it came out who Dr. Callandar was, it hardly seemed right to let one of their best known members go from them to a more exalted sphere in a city (which many of them might, from time to time, feel inclined to visit) without showing her by some small token how very highly she was held in their regard. Every one could see the sense of this and the vote was unanimous. In regard to the nature of the gift there was more diversity of opinion, but it was finally decided that, as the value of this kind of thing lies not in the gift but in the spirit of the giving, a brown jar with the word "Biscuits" in silver lettering would do very well.

Carving knives were thought of but as Mrs. Atkins very fitly said, "Everybody is sure to give carving knives"--a phenomenon which all the ladies accepted as a commonplace.

Of the prospective bride herself, Coombe saw little. She remained very much at home. She had lost much of her spasmodic energy, was inclined to be moody and even rude. Her state of health accounted naturally for this and also for the arrival of a new inmate at the Elms, a cool and capable looking person who was discovered, after much amazed enquiry, to be a trained nurse. Not a hospital nurse exactly but a kind of special nurse whose duties included ma.s.sage, and the giving of certain baths and things which the doctor thought strengthening. Her name was Miss Philps.

Coombe never got behind that. No one could ever boast that she knew more of Miss Philps than her name. She was, and remains to this day, a mystery.

There are people like that, although this was Coombe's first experience of one. Miss Philps was not a recluse. Everywhere Mrs. Coombe went, Miss Philps went too. Even Esther was not more a.s.siduous in her attentions.

She was not a silent person either, far from it. She bubbled over with precise and cheerful comment, she appeared to talk even more than was absolutely necessary and it was only upon her departure that her entertainers noticed that she had said nothing at all. A very baffling person to deal with. Coombe could not manage to "take to" her at all and great sympathy was felt for Mrs. Coombe when she was reported to have said to Miss Milligan that going out with Miss Philps felt exactly like a jail delivery--whatever that might be!

But if Miss Philps was not appreciated at large it was different in her own immediate circle. She had not been at the Elms a day before Esther recognised the doctor's wisdom in getting her. She was discreet, capable, kindly. The burden upon the girl's shoulders grew momentarily lighter. Miss Philps, with her matter of fact cheeriness, her strength and her experience, was exactly what that house of overstrained nerves needed.

"Dear me," she said, "you're all as fidgety as corn in a popper. And no need for it. I've nursed dozens worse than your mother, Miss Esther, and had them right as a trivet before I got through. As long as we can keep her hands off the stuff--and that's what I'm here for. So don't worry!"

Esther drew a deep breath. It was certainly good to feel the strain lifting, to have time for dreams again. The time was so pitifully short now. Two more weeks and she would leave Coombe behind her. The old life would be definitely over and done with. Looking back, she could see that it had been a happy life, and the future looked so dark. In youth, all life's happenings seem so terribly final. Every parting feels like a parting forever. Esther felt quite sure that she would never return to Coombe.

In the week before the wedding, freed from her continual attendance upon her mother, she un.o.btrusively paid farewell to all her old haunts and favourite places. It was a sweet sadness. She did not taste the sweet, but it was there. As one grows older, one does not linger over sad moments. It is because the sweet has vanished, only the bitter remains.

But in untried youth sadness has a touch of beauty, a glamour of romance which shrouds its deepest pain. It is as if something within us, infinitely wise, were smiling, knowing well that for the young there is always to-morrow.

The maple by the schoolhouse turned early that year. When Esther, in her pilgrimage, came to say good-bye it welcomed her with all the glory of autumn. Against its greener brothers it stood out, naming, defiant.

Beside it, the red pump seemed no longer red. Red and yellow, its falling leaves tossed themselves into the girl's lap as she sat upon the porch steps. It is almost certain that, as Esther gathered them, she compared her sad heart to a leaf which had fluttered from the tree of happy life. There seemed no outlook for her. She could not see through winter into spring.

The school children with their new teacher (whom Esther could not help but feel was sadly incompetent) had all gone home and it was very quiet on the porch steps. She closed her eyes and dreamed and clearly through her dream she heard, as she had heard that first morning in early summer, a determinedly cheerful, yet husky, voice singing. Some one was coming down the hill.

"From Wimbleton to Wombleton is fifteen miles; From Wombleton to Wimbleton is fifteen miles; From Wimbleton to Wombleton, from Wombleton to Wimbleton, From Wimbleton to Wombleton,--"

The song trailed off into silence as it had done before. The girl's closed eyes smarted with tears--"Oh, it is a very long way!" she murmured, and burying her face in fallen leaves she felt that at last she knew the meaning of despair.

But though his voice had echoed through Esther's dream, Callandar was not on the long hill nor anywhere near it. Unlike Esther, he paid no farewells during these last days. He avoided the hill particularly and drove past the schoolhouse seldom and always at top speed. If the sight of the turning maples moved him at all it was not because he compared his lost happiness to a fallen leaf. Callandar was long past such gentle sadnesses as these. Every day he filled as full of work as possible. He walked far and hard in hope of tiring himself into dreamless sleep at night. And every day his face grew older, greyer, more sternly set.

At the very last, and as if inspired by some special imp of the perverse, Mary declared that she must have a church wedding. Opposition was useless. With all the distorted force of her drug-ridden brain, she desired this one thing. She wept, she coaxed, she raved. Every woman, she stormed, had a right to a proper wedding. She had always been cheated, she had been a p.a.w.n shoved about at the bidding of others, her own wishes never consulted. Was there any reason, any reason at all, why she should not be properly married in the church?

He ventured quietly to remind her that there were peculiar circ.u.mstances in the case. But she burst out at that. He was ashamed of her. Ashamed of his own wife. If there were peculiar circ.u.mstances whose fault were they? Not hers, surely? Would she be where she was now if he had not neglected her all those years? Anyway, peculiar circ.u.mstances or not, she would be married decently or she would not be married at all.

With set lips, the doctor gave in. Opposition maddened her, and, after all, one farce more or less could not matter much.

"Very well," he said, "make your own arrangements."

Immediately, Mary became amiable. She was quite polite to Miss Philps, almost pleasant to Esther. Into the preparations for the wedding she entered with some of her old spasmodic energy. The occasion, she determined, should be a talked of one in Coombe. She made plans, a fresh one every day, and talked of them continually.

Only--there was one plan of which she did not speak. There was one unsaid thing which matured quietly, covered by the noise of much talking. Yet this plan more than any other would have to do with the success of her last appearance in Coombe. It would be foolish indeed, she decided, to let any promise, however well-meant, stand in the way of this success. She could not, and would not, face a crowded church feeling as she felt now. That was absurd! She would need some little stimulant to help her carry it off. A very slightly increased dose would do it. Only sufficient to banish that horrible craving, to give her a long, satisfying sleep and then just a touch more, very little, to brace her in the morning. Enough to send warm tingling thrills of well being through her tired body, to brighten her eyes, to clear her brain and steady her shaking nerves--to make her young again, young and a bride.

Only this once! Never again.

Of what use to continue the sophistries which justified her treachery to herself! Perhaps of the three it was she who suffered most during that last week. She lived in an agony of antic.i.p.ation, a h.e.l.l of desire for which a sane pen has no description. Yet no one must suspect that she antic.i.p.ated or desired anything--not the cool-eyed Miss Philps, not Esther, not the doctor, not even Jane. The mask must not slip for one single moment. So far, they suspected nothing; but they were always on their guard, always. A careless look, an unconsidered movement might betray her, and then--! She raved in her room sometimes when she thought of a possible balking of her purpose.

She was very clever. She still had self-control when it was necessary to have it in the furtherance of the one devouring pa.s.sion. Only when she was quite alone did she ever give way. The doctor thought her wonderfully docile and took heart of hope. A month or two alone with her in Prance and all would be well. In the meantime, patience! Naturally she was full of childish whims. He smiled at her indulgently when she asked him to request Miss Philps to stay outside of the fitting room at Miss Milligan's. "For you know," she said, "it is bad luck, very bad luck, for any person to see one, in one's wedding gown before the proper time. And anyway," the grey eyes filled with easy tears, "I'm sure it isn't good for me never to be trusted, not even with silly Miss Milligan."

The plea seemed genuine. It was like Mary to be concerned about the wedding-dress superst.i.tion. And what possible danger could there be?

Miss Milligan in all probability had never heard the fatal names of opium and cocaine save as unpleasant things a.s.sociated with Chinese and tooth-drawing. It was absurd to imagine Mary coming to harm there.

From this you will see that, upon the occasion of the last discovery, Mary had lied desperately and well. The "cache" in the bird-house had been found, but Miss Milligan's name had never been connected in the most remote way with that relapse. Mary had sworn that the new supply had not been new at all but had formed part of an old cache which she had hidden, in a place which even she had forgotten, all quite accidentally. And although many supplementary enquiries were made, the real truth had remained undiscovered.

So in the simplest way in the world, Mary secured several uninterrupted "fittings" with Miss Milligan while the excellent Miss Philps sat without and waited.

"This is positively the last time I shall have to trouble you, dear Miss Milligan," said her customer sweetly. "Of course, as soon as we are married, I am going to tell Dr. Callandar all about it and when he sees how very much better my medicine has made me, he will be quite ready to withdraw his objections. In the meantime I am sure you feel, as I do, that our little ruse has been quite justifiable!"

Miss Milligan did. She felt quite proud of her part in it. It is something to help a fellow woman and still more to get the better of a fellow man. Especially such a celebrated man as Dr. Callandar! She would order the fresh supply at once, that very afternoon, by the first mail.

And as soon as the packet came she would see that Mrs. Coombe had it in person. "There is certain to be a few last touches necessary to the dress after it has been sent home," she remarked with a smile of truly Machiavellian subtlety.

"Yes!" said Mary. "That night--after the dress comes home!" She spoke sharply, unnaturally. Her face turned a dull, pasty white. She shook so that Miss Milligan was thoroughly frightened. But presently she controlled herself and forced a pathetic smile.

"You see, dear Miss Milligan, how much I need it."

"Indeed a blind bat could see that!" said the dressmaker pityingly.

"Shall I call the nurse?"

But Mrs. Coombe would not hear of Miss Milligan calling the nurse!

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

It is the onlooker who sees most of the game and Aunt Amy was an ideal onlooker. Always self-effacing and silent, she was now more silent and self-effacing still. Consequently the princ.i.p.al actors tended to forget their parts when in her presence. No one explained anything to Aunt Amy but no one concealed anything from her. She simply "didn't matter." So far as the playing out of the little drama was concerned, Aunt Amy was supposed to be safely off the stage. She looked and listened, had her strange flashes of psychic insight and came to her own conclusions about it all, quite undisturbed by facts as they appeared to others. Her conclusions were very simple. Esther loved the doctor. The doctor loved Esther. That, in spite of this, Callandar was deliberately planning to marry Mary she considered a purely arbitrary matter arranged by those mysteriously malignant powers known as "They." Callandar, himself, had clearly no choice, Esther was helpless, and Mary triumphed easily and inevitably because Mary was one of "Them" herself. Aunt Amy had become firmly convinced of this latter fact. Everything went to prove it--the theft of the ring, the threat to shut her (Amy) up, the easy triumph over Esther, and a thousand and one trifles all "confirmation strong as proofs of holy writ." Of course it would be impossible to make this clear to Esther or the doctor. Amy realised that and did not try. But in her own mind she thought of it continually. And her little pile of proof mounted higher day by day.

Esther, absorbed in the care of her step-mother, was not even aware that Aunt Amy noticed her growing listlessness, her heavy eyes, her fits of brooding. She did not know that a silent foot paused before her closed door, listening. All she knew was that it was relief unspeakable to be with Aunt Amy, to let drop the mask of cheerful energy without fear of questioning or of wonder. Aunt Amy didn't matter.

Mary, too, felt that it was needless to hoodwink Amy. No need to pretend with her. She might show herself as irritable, as conscienceless, as nerve-racked and disagreeable as she chose without fear of displaying "symptoms." Aunt Amy was not looking for symptoms, indeed Mary thought she grew more stupid daily. After her marriage something would really have to be done about Amy. She hoped the doctor wouldn't be silly about it.

Even Dr. Callandar was not careful to hide his burden from those faded eyes. He was more self-conscious even with Ann or Bubble than he was with her. What matter if she did see his mouth harden or his eyes burn?--Poor Aunt Amy, such things could have no meaning for her. She was a soul apart.

A soul apart indeed, how far apart none of them quite realised; yet near enough to love--and hate. As the days went by and Esther drooped like a graceful plant athirst for water there grew in Aunt Amy's twisted brain a slow corroding anger. The timid, bitter anger of a weak nature which is often more deadly than the lordly pa.s.sion of the strong.

If she could only do something. If she could only outwit "Them"! She would do anything at all, if she could only find the thing to do. It was terrible to be so helpless. It was maddening to have to be so careful.

Yet careful she must be, she never forgot that. Often as she went about the house or stood in the sunny kitchen rolling out her flaky pie-crust, she pondered over ways and means. But none seemed suitable. Some of her plans were fantastic to a degree, but she always had sense enough to reject them in the end. In her planning she was conscious of no sense of right or wrong but only of suitability. There could be no question of right or wrong in dealing with "Them." They were outside the pale. No.

What she wanted was something simple and effective. A little poison, now--in a pie? But Amy knew nothing of poison, nor how to obtain any, nor how to use it effectively in a pie when once obtained. She might consult the doctor perhaps? But something warned Aunt Amy that the doctor would not take kindly to the idea of a little poison in a pie. So this beautiful scheme had to be given up. She sighed.

"What a big sigh, Auntie!" Esther, who was sitting at the table peeling apples, looked up questioningly. "A penny for your thoughts."

A look of cunning came over Aunt Amy's face. And instead of speaking her real thoughts she said, "I was thinking of weddings, Esther."