“Tt, tt! There, I’ve been and waked him. And yet they say men make such excellent nurses in time of war. But you see, Lawford, what did I tell you? Wasn’t I now an infallible prophet? Your wife has been giving me a most glowing account. Quite your old self, she tells me, except for just this—this touch of facial paralysis. And I think, do you know” (the kind old creature stooped over the bed, but still, Lawford noticed bitterly, still without his spectacles)—“yes, I really think there is a decided improvement. Not quite so—drawn. We must make haste slowly. Wedderburn, you know, believes profoundly in Simon; he pulled his wife through a dangerous confinement. And here’s pills and tonics and liniments—a whole chemist’s shop. Oh, we are getting on swimmingly.”
Flamelight was flickering in the candled dusk. Lawford turned his head and saw Sheila’s coiled, beautiful hair in the firelight.
“You haven’t told Alice?” he asked.
“My dear good man,” said Mr. Bethany, “of course we haven’t. You shall tell her yourself on Monday. What an incredible tradition it will be! But you mustn’t worry; you mustn’t even think. And no more of these jaunts, eh? That Ferguson business—that was too bad. What are we going to do with the fellow now we have created him? He will come home to roost—mark my words. And as likely as not down the Vicarage chimney. I wouldn’t have believed it of you, my dear fellow.” He beamed, but looked, none the less, very lean and fagged and depressed.
“How did the wedding go off?” Lawford managed to think of inquiring.
“Oh, A1,” said Mr. Bethany. “I’ve just been describing it to Alice—the bride, her bridegroom, mother, aunts, cake, presents, finery, blushes, tears, and everything that was hers. We’ve been in fits, haven’t we, Mrs. Lawford? And Alice says I’m a Worth in a clerical collar—didn’t she? And that it’s only Art that has kept me out of an apron. Now look here; quiet, quiet, quiet; no excitement, no pranks. What is there to worry about, pray? And now Little Dorrit’s down with influenza too. And Craik and I will have double work to do. Well, well; goodbye, my dear. God bless you, Lawford. I can’t tell you how relieved, how unspeakably relieved I am to find you so much—so much better. Feed him up, my other dear; body and mind and soul and spirit. And there goes the bell. I must have a biscuit. I’ve swallowed nothing but a Cupid in plaster of Paris since breakfast. Goodnight; we shall miss you both—both.”
But when Sheila returned, her husband was sunk again into a quiet sleep, from which not even the many questions she fretted to put to him seemed weighty enough to warrant his disturbance.
So when Lawford again opened his eyes he found himself lying wide awake, clear and refreshed, and eager to get up. But upon the air lay the still hush of early morning. He tried in vain to catch back sleep again. A distant shred of dream still floated in his mind, like a cloud at evening. He rarely dreamed, but certainly something immensely interesting had but a moment ago eluded him. He sat up and looked at the clear red cinders and their maze of grottoes. He got out of bed and peeped through the blinds. To the east and opposite to him gardens and an apple-orchard lay, and there in strange liquid tranquillity hung the morning star, and rose, rifling into the dusk of night, the first grey of dawn. The street beneath its autumn leaves was vacant, charmed, deserted.
Hardly since childhood had Lawford seen the dawn unless over his winter breakfast-table. Very much like a child now he stood gazing out of his bow-window—the child whom Time’s busy robins had long ago covered over with the leaves of numberless hours. A vague exultation fumed up into his brain. Still on the borders of sleep, he unlocked the great wardrobe and took out an old faded purple and crimson dressing-gown that had belonged to his grandfather, the chief glory of every Christmas charade. He pulled the cowl-like hood over his head and strode majestically over to the looking-glass.
He looked in there a moment on the strange face, like a child dismayed at its own excitement, and a fit of sobbing that was half uncontrollable laughter swept over him. He threw off the hood and turned once more to the window. Consciousness had flooded back indeed. What would Sheila have said to see him there? The unearthly beauty and stillness, and man’s small labours, garden and wall and rooftree idle and smokeless in the light of daybreak—there seemed to be some half-told secret between them. What had life done with him to leave a reality so clouded? He put on his slippers, and, gently opening the door, crept with extreme caution up the stairs. At a long, narrow landing window he confronted a panorama of starry night-gardens, sloping orchards; and beyond them fields, hills, Orion, the Dogs, in the clear and cloudless darkness.
“My God, how beautiful!” a voice whispered. And a cock crowed mistily afar. He stood staring like a child into the wintry brightness of a pastry-cook’s. Then once more he crept stealthily on. He stooped and listened at a closed door, until he fancied that above the beating of his own heart he could hear the breathing of the sleeper within. Then, taking firm hold of the handle with both hands, he slowly noiselessly turned it, and peeped in on Alice.
The moon was long past her faint shining here. The blind was down. And yet it was not pitch dark. He stood with eyes fixed, waiting. Then he edged softly forward and knelt
