“You won’t need to see her at all during the day,” I said. “She’ll just sit up in your room at night.”
“Oh, I hope she doesn’t knit,” laughed Margaret. “I don’t expect sleep will ever slide into my soul with her sitting there. I shall be the watched pot that never boils! However, no sleep – no walking; so it will be all to the good.”
With that we dismissed the matter.
“Now let’s forget everything, except this winged hour. It is such a heavenly afternoon!” she exclaimed. “Thank heaven I can always live in the present. I hope you don’t think it’s dreadful to have a nature like a duck’s back?”
She stepped out and the shadow which had overhung her ever since that unexpected outburst in her sitting- room lifted from her. Once more she shone out as the radiant being I had first known. It was impossible not to be infused by her brilliant gaiety, and as her lovely peals of laughter rang out, for the time being my nightmare was almost dispersed. Her inimitable mimicry, delicious raillery and stream of brilliantly garbled quotations almost made me forget the unforgettable. But her radiance suddenly clouded over when I said:
“What an amazing memory you have got!”
“Memory?” she answered almost sharply. “Yes, I admit I have plenty of memory and understanding. But what protection are such merely
“Protection?” I echoed blankly.
“Well, here we are,” she said in evasion, her hand on the farmyard gate. “Now I propose that you stay here, while I go in by myself and twist the good woman round my little finger. I’m sure your presence would cramp my little finger’s style. I’ll wish it luck,” and pulling off her glove she smilingly held up her tapering, pink-nailed finger. “What’s the matter?” she asked uneasily.
I’m afraid an uncontrollable inward shudder must have shown on my face. The last time I had looked at that slender finger, it had been stained with blood, and I could still see the pitiful little feathers that had stuck to it.
“I’ve got a stitch,” I lied. “I’ll wait here for your good news. Good luck.”
A prey to uninvited thoughts, I leaned against the gate. About five minutes later I heard myself hailed and was delighted to see the gardener with Sheen on a chain. As I patted the beautiful dog’s head, he slowly waved his sweeping tail.
“Please, sir,” explained the gardener, “the keeper found him in a distant wood, and when he brings him home, Miss Park, knowing where you was goin’, she asks me to follow you, thinking Miss Clewer would be that pleased to see him safe.”
Delighted to be the bearer of good news, I hurried towards the farmhouse, and was met by Margaret.
“Triumph to my little finger!” she began, but directly I spoke of Sheen her successful mission was forgotten in delight, and she ran towards the gate. “Darling, darling Sheen! How could you leave me?” I heard her eager voice.
Then something so dreadful happened – something so painful, that even now I can scarcely endure to recall it.
As Margaret approached her dog, expecting an exuberant welcome, an unaccountable change came over him. His tail was lowered until it disappeared between his cringing legs, and his whole body shook with unmistakable terror.
“Sheen – what is the matter?”
Her voice was piteous and, looking at her face, I saw it contorted with unbearable suffering.
“It’s Me!” she pleaded. “Sheen, it’s Me!”
But the dog she had said “would be mad with misery without her” cowered lower and lower as though it would creep through the ground, and his golden coat grew dark with sweat.
“Oh, what did happen last night?” wailed Margaret, and put out her hands to the dog in anguished propitiation.
“Back, miss, back!” shouted the terrified gardener.
The dog’s eyes showed white, he howled, snapped wildly in Margaret’s direction, and tore at his collar in frantic efforts to escape.
“Take him away!” cried Margaret. “Take him away! I’ll go back by the road,” and she started off as fast as her swift stride could carry her.
I overtook her, but could think of nothing to say. A terrible constraint lay between us. I looked at her. Tears coursed down her white, strained face and her mortally affronted eyes stared straight in front.
“Unaccountable things, dogs,” at last I ventured.
“Unaccountable? Do you think so?” she said sharply. “I wonder.” And as she strode on, she clenched her hands till the knuckles stood out white.
A moment later she turned to me as though she were on the point of really speaking, of letting something gush out. She made a little movement with one hand, but then it was as though an iron shutter slid between us, and in a cold formal voice she told me of her successful interview with the farmer’s wife. That was all we spoke of. We might almost have been strangers.
The next morning I went to give her some electric treatment. She looked bitterly troubled, but said she liked the hospital nurse, a pleasant, serene-faced young woman. I missed the accustomed twitter of the birds, and the room looked strangely deserted without the beautiful golden dog. I dared not ask about him, and I never saw him again.
With a pang of pity I noticed that all the mirrors had been removed.
“Has that queer thing happened again?” I ventured. “Did you think there was something wrong with your reflection?”
“Don’t ask me about that any more,” she answered feverishly. “I’ve finished with all that fanciful nonsense and I never wish to hear it alluded to again. Never, never, never!”
With that a safety-curtain of unhappy reserve fell between us. She seemed to consign herself to the loneliness of utter withdrawal, and from that time onward the shadows settled more and more darkly on her beautiful face.
A few days after her arrival I asked the nurse to come and talk to me about her patient. She had nothing very definite to report, except that, though her charge slept for a fair number of hours, her sleep was very troubled and brought little refreshment. In fact, she always seemed most tired and overwrought in the mornings.
“Of course,” the nurse said, “I do think that having no fresh air in the room these stifling hot nights may have something to do with her condition.”
“Why,” I asked, “do you mean to say she doesn’t have the window open in this weather?”
The stubborn summer had blazed out into a last fierce spell of heat, and I was indeed amazed.
“No, sir, I can’t persuade her to, and sometimes I can scarcely bear the closeness myself.”
I promised to use my influence.
“Then there’s another thing,” the nurse went on. “Do you think it can be good for anyone in an excited state of nerves to be doing all that rehearsing? If you’ll excuse my saying so, sir, I think you should order her to give up those theatricals.”
“Theatricals?” I echoed blankly. “What theatricals?”
“I don’t know when they’re to be, but I know she’s very busy rehearsing for them. Whenever she sends me to fetch something during the night, and she’s always asking me to fetch some book or something special from the stillroom – not that she ever scorns to use the things when I bring them – well, as I come back, all the way down that long passage, I hear her fairly screaming out her part. Wonderful actress she must be! You wouldn’t really think it could be her own voice; no, you wouldn’t think such a sweet young lady could produce so horrid a voice. It simply raises my hair – that acting voice of hers does. And, as I was saying, I really can’t think it can be good for anyone whose nerves are disturbed to be studying so violent a part.”
“Thank you, Nurse. I’ll speak about it.”
That afternoon I called on Margaret. After some casual talk I said, “I hear you sleep with your window shut. And, you know, you are looking extremely pale. To insist on keeping the window open all the year round may be a foolish fetish, but in this sort of weather, it really is essential.”
“If the nurse makes a fuss about that, I won’t keep her,” Margaret burst out. “How can I leave the window open when it’s from there that I feel that awful pressing in – that pressing and pushing away? How can I? Though, heaven knows, it’s foolish enough to think it’s any use to shut things. If stone walls cannot a prison make, nor iron
