第90章 CHAPTER XXXI(1)

Duly shaved with one of Stanley's razors, bathed, and breakfasted, Felix was on the point of getting into the car to return to Joyfields when he received a message from his mother: Would he please go up and see her before he went?

He found her looking anxious and endeavoring to conceal it.

Having kissed him, she drew him to her sofa and said: "Now, darling, come and sit down here, and tell me all about this DREADFUL business." And taking up an odorator she blew over him a little cloud of scent. "It's quite a new perfume; isn't it delicious?"

Felix, who dreaded scent, concealed his feelings, sat down, and told her. And while he told her he was conscious of how pathetically her fastidiousness was quivering under those gruesome details--fighting with policemen, fighting with common men, prison--FOR A LADY; conscious too of her still more pathetic effort to put a good face on it. When he had finished she remained so perfectly still, with lips so hard compressed, that he said:

"It's no good worrying, Mother."

Frances Freeland rose, pulled something hard, and a cupboard appeared. She opened it, and took out a travelling-bag.

"I must go back with you at once," she said.

"I don't think it's in the least necessary, and you'll only knock yourself up."

"Oh, nonsense, darling! I must."

Knowing that further dissuasion would harden her determination, Felix said: "I'm going in the car."

"That doesn't matter. I shall be ready in ten minutes. Oh! and do you know this? It's splendid for taking lines out under the eyes!"

She was holding out a little round box with the lid off. "Just wet your finger with it, and dab it gently on."

Touched by this evidence of her deep desire that he should put as good a face on it as herself, Felix dabbed himself under the eyes.

"That's right. Now, wait for me, dear; I shan't be a minute. I've only to get my things. They'll all go splendidly in this little bag."

In a quarter of an hour they had started. During that journey Frances Freeland betrayed no sign of tremor. She was going into action, and, therefore, had no patience with her nerves.

"Are you proposing to stay, Mother?" Felix hazarded; "because I don't think there's a room for you."

"Oh! that's nothing, darling. I sleep beautifully in a chair. It suits me better than lying down." Felix cast up his eyes, and made no answer.

On arriving, they found that the doctor had been there, expressed his satisfaction, and enjoined perfect quiet. Tod was on the point of starting back to Transham, where Sheila and the two laborers would be brought up before the magistrates. Felix and Kirsteen took hurried counsel. Now that Mother, whose nursing was beyond reproach, had come, it would be better if they went with Tod. All three started forthwith in the car.

Left alone, Frances Freeland took her bag--a noticeably old one, without any patent clasp whatever, so that she could open it--went noiselessly upstairs, tapped on Derek's door, and went in. A faint but cheerful voice remarked: "Halloo, Granny!"

Frances Freeland went up to the bed, smiled down on him ineffably, laid a finger on his lips, and said, in the stillest voice: "You mustn't talk, darling!" Then she sat down in the window with her bag beside her. Half a tear had run down her nose, and she had no intention that it should be seen. She therefore opened her bag, and, having taken out a little bottle, beckoned Nedda.

"Now, darling," she whispered, "you must just take one of these.

It's nothing new; they're what my mother used to give me at your age. And for one hour you must go out and get some fresh air, and then you can come back."

"Must I, Granny?"

"Yes; you must keep up your strength. Kiss me."

Nedda kissed a cheek that seemed extraordinarily smooth and soft, received a kiss in the middle of her own, and, having stayed a second by the bed, looking down with all her might, went out.

Frances Freeland, in the window, wasted no thoughts, but began to run over in her mind the exact operations necessary to defeat this illness of darling Derek's. Her fingers continually locked and interlocked themselves with fresh determinations; her eyes, fixed on imaginary foods, methods of washing, and ways of keeping him quiet, had an almost fanatical intensity. Like a good general she marshalled her means of attack and fixed them in perfect order.

Now and then she gazed into her bag, making quite sure that she had everything, and nothing that was new-fangled or liable to go wrong.

For into action she never brought any of those patent novelties that delighted her soul in times of peace. For example, when she herself had pneumonia and no doctor, for two months, it was well known that she had lain on her back, free from every kind of remedy, employing only courage, nature, and beef tea, or some such simple sustenance.

Having now made her mental dispositions, she got up without sound and slipped off a petticoat that she suspected of having rustled a little when she came in; folding and popping it where it could not be suspected any more, she removed her shoes and put on very old velvet slippers. She walked in these toward the bed, listening to find out whether she could hear herself, without success. Then, standing where she could see when his eyes opened, she began to take stock. That pillow wasn't very comfortable! A little table was wanted on both sides, instead of on one. There was no odorator, and she did not see one of those arrangements! All these things would have to be remedied.

Absorbed in this reconnoitring, she failed to observe that darling Derek was looking at her through eyelashes that were always so nice and black. He said suddenly, in that faint and cheerful voice:

"All right, Granny; I'm going to get up to-morrow."

Frances Freeland, whose principle it was that people should always be encouraged to believe themselves better than they were, answered. "Yes, darling, of course; you'll be up in no time.

It'll be delightful to see you in a chair to-morrow. But you mustn't talk."

Derek sighed, closed his eyes, and went off into a faint.