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Dust Flower

<h2>Chapter XXVI</h2> Waiting was becoming dreamlike. She didn’t find it tedious, or over-fraught with suspense. On the contrary, it was soothing. It was a little trance-like, too, almost as if she had been enwrapped in Rash’s stillness. It was so strange to see him still. It was so strange to be still herself. Of her own being, as of his, she had hardly any concept apart from the high winds of excitement. Calm like this was new to her, and because new it was appeasing, wonderful. It was not unlike content, only the content which comes in sleep, to be broken up by waking. Somewhere in her nature she liked seeing him as he was, helpless, inert, with no power of enraging her by being restive to her will. It was, in its way, a repetition of what she had said that morning: “If he wasn’t here—or if he was dead!” Longing for peace, her stormy soul seemed to know by instinct the price she would have to pay for it. For peace to be possible Rash must pass out of her life, and the thought of Rash passing out of her life was agony. While Miss Gallifer was downstairs at lunch Barbara had the sweet, unusual sense of having him all to herself. She had never so had him in their hours together because the violence of their clashes had prevented communion. Seated in this silence, in this quietude, she felt him hers. There was no one to dispute her claim, no one whose claim she had in any way to recognize as superior. Letty’s claim she had never recognized at all. It was accidental, spurious. Letty herself didn’t put it forth—and even she was gone. If Rash were to open his eyes he would see no one but herself. She was sorry when Miss Gallifer came back, though there was no help for that; but Miss Gallifer was obtrusive only when she chatted or moved about. For much of the time she pursued the secret of Violet Pryde with such assiduity that the room became quiescent, and communion with Rash could be re-established. The awesome silence was disturbed only by the turning of Miss Gallifer’s pages. It might have been three o’clock. Once more Barbara was lost in the unaccustomed hush, her eyes fixed on the white face on the pillow, in almost hypnotic restfulness. The pushing open of the door behind was so soft that she didn’t notice. Miss Gallifer turned another page. It was the sense that someone was in the room which made Barbara glance over her shoulder and Miss Gallifer look up. A little gray figure in a battered black hat stood just within the door. She stood just within the door, but with no consciousness of anything or anyone in the room. She saw only the upturned face and its deathlike fixity. With slow, spellbound movement she began to come forward. Barbara, who had never seen the Letty who used to be, knew her now only by a terrified intuition. Miss Gallifer was entirely at a loss, and somewhat indignant. The little gray vagrant was not of the type she had been used to treating with respect. “What are you doing here?” she asked quickly, as soon as speech came to her. Letty didn’t look at her, or remove her eyes from the face on the pillow. A woman in a trance could not have spoken with greater detachment or self-control. “I came—to see.” “Well, now that you’ve seen, won’t you please go away, before I call the police?” Of this Letty took no notice, going straight to the bedside, while Miss Gallifer moved toward Barbara, who stood as she had risen from her chair. “Do you know who she is?” Miss Gallifer asked, with curiosity greater than her indignation. Barbara nodded. “Yes, I know who she is. I thought she’d—disappeared.” “Oh, they never disappear for long—not that kind. What had I better do? Is she anything—to him?” Barbara was saved the necessity of answering because Letty, who was on the other side of the bed, bent over and kissed the feet, as she had kissed them once before. “Is she dotty?” Miss Gallifer whispered. “Ought I to take her by the shoulders and put her out the door? I could, you know—a scrap of a thing like that.” Barbara whispered back. “I can’t tell you who she is, but—but I wouldn’t interfere with her.” “Oh, the doctor’ll do that. He’ll not––” But Letty raised herself, addressing the nurse. “Is he—dead?” Miss Gallifer’s tone was the curt one we use to inferiors. “No, he’s not dead.” “Is he going to die?” “Not this time, I think.” Letty looked round her. “Well, I’ll just sit over here.” She went to a chair at the back of the room, in a corner on a line with the door. “I won’t give any trouble. The minute he begins to—to live I’ll go.” It was Barbara who arranged the matter peaceably, mollifying Miss Gallifer. Without explaining who Letty was she insisted on her right to remain. If Miss Gallifer was mystified, it was no more than Miss Towell was, or anyone else who touched the situation at a tangent. To that Barbara was indifferent, while Letty didn’t think of it. In rallying her forces Barbara’s first recollection had been, “I must be a sport.” With theoretical sporting instincts she knew herself the kind of sport who doesn’t always run true to form. Hating meanness she could lapse into the mean, and toward Letty herself had so lapsed. That accident she must guard against. The issues were so big that whatever happened, she couldn’t afford to reproach herself. Self-reproach would not only magnify defeat but poison success, since, if she availed herself of her advantages, no success would ever prove worth while. For her own sake rather than for Letty’s she made use of the hour while the doctors were again in consultation to explain the possibilities. She would have the whole thing clearly understood. Whether or not Letty did understand it she wasn’t quite sure, since she seemed cut off from thought-communication. She listened, nodded, was docile to instructions, but made no response. To be as lucid as possible Barbara put it in this way: “Since you’ve left him, and I’ve broken my engagement he’ll be absolutely free to choose; and yet, you must remember, we may—we may both lose him.” That both should lose him seemed indeed the more probable after the consultation. All the doctors looked grave, even Dr. Lancing. His dinner-party manner had forsaken him as he talked to Barbara, his emphasis being thrown on the word “prepared.” It was still one of those cases in which you couldn’t tell, though so far the symptoms were not encouraging. He felt himself bound in honor to say as much as that, hoping, however, for the best. Closing the front door on him Barbara felt herself shaken by a frightful possibility. If he never regained consciousness that would “settle it.” The suspense would be over. Her fate would be determined. She would no longer have to wonder and doubt, to strive or to cry. No longer would she run the risk of seeing another woman get him. She would find that which her tempestuous nature craved before everything—rest, peace, release from the impulse to battle and dominate. Not by words, not so much as by thought, but only in wild emotion she knew that, as far as she was concerned, it might be better for him to die. If he lived, and chose herself, the storm would only begin again. If he lived and chose the other.... But as to that she could see no reasonable prospect. She had only to look at Letty, shrinking in her corner of the bedroom, to judge any such mischance impossible. She was so humble; so negligible; so much a bit of flotsam of the streets. She had an appeal of her own, of course; but an appeal so lowly as to be obscured by the wayside dust which covered it. What was the flower to which Rash had now and then compared her? Wasn’t that what he called it—the dust flower?—that ragged blue thing of byways and backyards, which you couldn’t touch without washing your hands afterwards. No, no! Not even the legal tie which nominally bound them could hold in the face of this inequality. It would be too grotesque. The hours passed. The night nurse was now installed, and was reading Keith Macdermot’s Destiny. She was one of those tall, slender women whom you see to be all bone. As businesslike as Miss Gallifer, and quite as detached, Miss Moines was brisk and systematic. It being her habit to subdue a household to herself before she entered on her duties her eyes regarded Miss Walbrook and Letty with the startled glance of a horse’s. For before going Miss Gallifer had given her a hint. “You’ll have to do a lot of side-stepping here. This is the famous House of Mystery. You’ll find two nuts upstairs—that’s what I’d call them if they were men—but they’re women—girls, sort of—and you’ve just got to leave them alone. One’s a high-stepper—regular society—was engaged to the patient and now acts as if she’d married him; and the other—well, perhaps you can make her out; I can’t. Seems a little off. May be the poor castaway, once loved, and now broken-hearted but faithful, you read about in books. Anyhow, there they are, and you’d best let them be. It won’t be for more than—well, I give him twenty-four hours at the most. I begin to think that for once old Wisdom is right. Good-looker too, poor fellow, and can’t be more than thirty-five. I wonder what could have happened? I suppose they’ll go into that at the inquest.” But Miss Moines was too systematic to have companions in the room without marshaling them to some form of duty. They needed to eat; they needed to sleep. Now and then someone had to go out on the landing and comfort or reassure Steptoe, who sat on the attic stairs like a grief-stricken dog. Letty was the first to consent to go and lie down. She did so about nine o’clock, extracting a promise that whatever happened she would be called at twelve. If there was any change in the meantime—but that, Miss Moines assured her, was understood in all such ride-and-tie arrangements. At twelve Letty was to return and Barbara lie down till three, with the same proviso in case of the unexpected. But, so to put it, the unexpected seemed improbable, in view of that rigid form, and the white, upturned face. “And yet,” Miss Moines confided to Barbara, “I don’t think he’s as far gone as they think. Miss Gallifer only changed her mind when they talked her round. A doctor just sees the patient in glimpses, whereas a nurse lives with him, and knows what he can stand.” About eleven Miss Moines closed Keith Macdermot’s Destiny, and took the pulse. She nodded as she did so, with a slight exclamation of triumph. “Ah, ha! Fifty-eight! That’s the first good sign. It may not mean anything, but––” Barbara was too exhausted to feel more than a gleam of comfort. The lassitude being emotional rather than physical Miss Moines detected it easily enough, and sent her to rest before the hour agreed upon. She went the more willingly, since the pulse had risen and hope could begin once more. On the stairs Steptoe raised his bowed head, with a dazed stare. Seeing Miss Walbrook he stumbled to his feet. “’Ow is ’e now, miss?” She told him the good news. “Ah, thank God! Perhaps after all ’E’ll spare ’im.” Steptoe informed Letty, who right on the stroke of midnight returned to her post. “Pulse gone up two of them degrees, madam. ’E’s goin’ to pull through!” To Letty this was a signal. On going to rest in the little back spare room she had thrown off her street things, worn during all the hours of watching, and put on the dressing gown she had left there a few nights earlier. She was still wearing it, but at Steptoe’s news she went back again. On passing him the second time she was clad in the old gray rag and the battered hat in which it would be easier to escape. Steptoe said nothing; but he nodded to himself comprehendingly. A clock struck two. Miss Moines was hungry. Expecting to be hungry she had had a small tray, with what she called a “lunch,” placed for her in the dining-room. Had there been immediate danger she would not have left her post; but with Letty there she saw no harm in taking ten or fifteen minutes to conserve her strength. For the first time in all those hours Letty was alone with him. Not expecting to be so left she was at first frightened, then audacious. Except for the one time when she had approached the bedside and kissed his feet she had remained in her corner, watching with the silent, motionless intentness of a little animal. Her eyes hardly ever left the white face; but at this distance even the white face was dim. Now she was possessed by a great daring. She would steal to the bedside again. Again she would see the beloved features clearly. Again she would have the amazing bliss of kissing the coverlet that covered the dear feet. When Miss Moines returned she would be back again in her corner, as if she had never left it. If the pulse rose higher, if there was further hope, if he seemed to be reviving, she could slip away in the confusion of their joy. She rose and listened. The house was as still as it had been at other times when she had listened in the night. She glided to the bed. He lay as if he had been carved in stone, propped up with pillows to make breathing easier, his arms outside the coverlet. He was a little as he had been on the morning when she had passed her hand across his brow. As then, too, his hair rose in tongues of diabolic flame. She was near him. She was bending over him. She was bending not above his feet, but above his head. She knew how mad she was, but she couldn’t help herself. Stooping—stooping—closer—closer—her lips touched the forked black mane of his hair. She leaped back. She leaped not only because of her own boldness, but because he seemed to stir. It was as if this kiss, so light, so imperceptible, had sent a galvanic throbbing through his frame. She herself felt it, as now and then in winter she had felt an electric spark. Her sin had found her out. She was terrified. He lay just as he had lain before—only not quite—not quite! His arms were not just as they had been; the coverlet was slightly, ever so slightly, disturbed. The nurse would see it and know that.... There was a stirring of a hand. It was so little of a stirring that she thought her eyes must have deceived her when it stirred again—a restless toss, like a muscular contraction in sleep. She was not alarmed now, only excited, and wondering what she ought to do. She ought to run to the head of the stairs and call Miss Moines, only that she couldn’t bring herself to leave him. Then, as she stood in her attitude of doubt, the eyes opened and looked at her. They looked at her straight, and yet glassily. They looked at her with no gladness in the look, almost with no recognition. If anything there was a kind of sickness there, as if the finding her by his bedside was a disappointment. “I know what it is,” she said to herself. “He wants—her.” But the eyes closed again. The face was as white, the profile as rigid, as ever. She sped to Barbara, who was lying on a couch in the front spare room. “Come! He woke up! He wants you!” Back in the bedroom she effaced herself. They were all there now—Barbara, Steptoe, and Miss Moines. “It’s what he would do,” Miss Moines corroborated, “if he was coming back.” Letty had told part of what she had seen, but only part of it. The rest was her secret. The little mermaid’s kiss had left the prince as inanimate as before; hers had brought him back to life! It was the moment to run away. Miss Moines had said that having once opened his eyes he would open them again. When he did he mustn’t find her there. They were all so intent on watching that this was her opportunity. They were all so intent—but Steptoe. She was buttoning her jacket when she saw his eyes steal round in her direction. A second later he had tiptoed back into the hall, and closed the door behind him. It was vexing, but not fatal. He had probably gone for something. While he was getting it she would elude him. One thing was certain—she couldn’t face the look of disappointment in those sick dark eyes again. She opened the door. She shut it noiselessly behind her. Steptoe wasn’t there, and the way was free. Barbara stood just where Letty had described herself as standing when the eyes had given her that glassy stare. To herself she seemed to stand there for ever, though the time could be counted in minutes. The pounding of her heart was like a pulsating of the house. The eyes opened again. They opened, first wearily, and then with a fretful light which seemed to be searching for what they couldn’t find. Barbara stood still. There was another stirring of the hand, irritated, impatient. A little moan or groan was distinctly of complaint. The eyes having rolled hither and thither helplessly, the head turned slowly on the pillow so as to see the other side of the room. “He’s looking for something that he misses,” Miss Moines explained, wonderingly. “What do you suppose it can be?” “He wants—her.” Barbara found her at the street door, pleading with Steptoe, who actually held her by the arm. The loud whisper down the stairs was a cry as well as a command. “Come!” At the bedroom door they parted. With a light instinctive push Barbara forced Letty to go back to the spot on which she had stood earlier. She herself went to the other side of the bed, only to find that the head, in which the eyes were closed again, was now turned that way. As if aware that some mysterious decision was approaching Miss Moines kept herself in the background. Steptoe had hardly advanced from the threshold. Neither of the women by the bedside seemed to breathe. When the eyes opened for the third time the intelligence in them was keener. On Barbara they rested long, quietly, kindly, till memory came back. With memory there was again that restless stirring, that complaining moan. Once more, slowly, distressfully, the head turned on the pillow. On Letty the long, quiet, kindly regard lay as it had lain on Barbara. They waited; but in the look there was no more than that. From two hearts two silent prayers were going up. “Oh, God, end it somehow—and let me have peace!” “Oh, God, make him live again—and give them to each other!” Then, when no one was expecting it, a faint smile quivered on the lips, as if the returning mind saw something long desired and comforting. Faintly, feebly, unsteadily, the hands were raised toward the dust flower. The lips moved, enough to form dumbly the one word, “Come!” The invitation was beyond crediting. Letty trembled, and shrank back. But from the support of the pillow the whole figure leaned forward. The hands were lifted higher, more firmly and more longingly. Strength came with the need for strength. A smile which was of life, not death, beamed on the features and brought color to the face which had all these hours seemed carved in stone. “He’ll do now,” the nurse threw off, professionally. “He’ll be up in a few days.” It was Barbara who gave the sign to both Steptoe and Miss Moines. By the imperiousness of her gesture and her uplifted head she swept them out before her. If she was leaving all behind her she was leaving it superbly; but she wasn’t leaving all. Back of her tumultuous passions a spirit was crying to her spirit, “Now you’ll get what you want far more than you want this—rest from vain desire.” Letty approached the bedside slowly, as if drawn by an enchantment. To the outstretched hands she stretched out hers. The door was closed, and once more she was alone with him. But neither saw that for the space of a few inches the closed door was opened again, and that an old profile peered within. Then, as slowly, slowly, slowly, Letty sank on her knees, bowing her head on the hands which drew her closer, and closer still, a pair of old lips smiled contentedly. When the head drew back, the door was closed again. THE END <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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