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<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2> <div class="block2"> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> <div>"And Death stopped knitting at the muffling band.</div> <div>'The shroud is done,' he muttered, 'toe to chin.'</div> <div>He snapped the ends, and tucked his needles in."</div> <div class="right">John Masefield.</div> </div></div> </div> After a sleepless night, and after the protracted toilet of the old and feeble, Lady Louisa tackled her task with unabated determination. She dictated a telegram to her lawyer, sent out the nurse for a walk, and desired Janey to bring Harry to her. Harry, who was toiling over his arithmetic under the cedar, with the help of a tutor from Riebenbridge and a box of counters, obeyed with alacrity. He looked a very beaming creature, with "fresh morning face," as he came into his mother's room. "Good morning, mamma." "Good morning, my son." The terrible ruler looked benign. She nodded and smiled at him. He did not feel as cowed as usual. "You can go away, Janey, and you needn't come back till I ring." "And now tell me all about the performing[Pg 123] dogs," said the terrible ruler in the bed, when Janey had left the room. Harry saw that she was really interested, and he gave her an exact account, interrupted by the bubbling up of his own laughter, of a dog which had been dressed up as a man in a red coat, with a cocked hat and a gun. He could hardly tell her for laughing. The dread personage laughed too, and said, "Capital! Capital!" And he showed her one of the tricks, which consisted of sitting up on your hind legs with a pipe in your mouth. He imitated exactly how the dog had sat, which in a man was perhaps not quite so mirth-provoking as in a dog. Nevertheless, the dread personage laughed again. It promised to be an agreeable morning. He hoped it would be a long time before she remembered his arithmetic and sent him back to it, that hopeless guess-work which he sometimes bribed Tommy the gardener's boy to do for him in the tool-shed. "And then you got your gloves!" said the dread personage suddenly. "How many pairs was it?" Harry was bewildered, and stared blankly at her. "You must remember how many pairs it was." Harry knit his poor brow, rallied his faculties, and said it was two pairs. "And now," said Lady Louisa, "you may have a chocolate out of my silver box, and let me hear all about—you know what," and she nodded confidentially at him. [Pg 124] But he only gaped at her, half frightened. She smiled reassuringly at him. "Nurse told me all about it," she said encouragingly. "That was why you weren't to tell me. She wanted it to be a great surprise to me." "I wasn't to say a word," said Harry doubtfully,—"not a word—about that." "No. That was just what Nurse said to me. You weren't to say a single word last night, until she had told me. But now I know all about it, so we can talk. Was it great fun?" "I don't know." "It was great fun when I did it. How I laughed!" "I didn't laugh. She told me not to." "Well, no. Not at first. She was quite right. And what did her brother say? Nurse said he went with you." "Yes. We called for him, and he went with us, with a flower in his button-hole—a rose it was. He gave me one too." Harry looked at his button-hole, as if expecting to see the rose still in it. But that sign of merry-making was absent. Lady Louisa had on a previous occasion severely reprimanded Nurse for taking Harry to tea at her brother's house, a solicitor's clerk in Ipswich. Her spirits rose. She had detected her in an act of flagrant disobedience. And as likely as not they had all gone to a play together. "Capital!" she said suavely. "He was just[Pg 125] the right person to go with. That was what I said to Nurse. And what did he talk about?" "He said, 'Mum's the word. Keep it all quiet till the old cat dies,' and he slapped me on the back and said, 'Mind that, brother-in-law.' He was very nice indeed." A purple mark like a bruise came to Lady Louisa's clay-coloured cheeks. There was a long pause before she spoke again. "And did you write your name nicely, like Janey taught you?" She spoke with long-drawn gasps, each word articulated with difficulty. "Yes," said Harry anxiously, awed by the fixity of her eyes upon him. "I did indeed, mamma. I was very particular." "Your full name?" "Yes, the man said my full name—Henry de la Pole Manvers." "That was the man at the registry office?" "Yes." "And"—the voice laboured heavily and was barely audible—"did Nurse write her name nicely too?" "Yes, and her brother and the man. We all wrote them, and then we all had tea at Frobisher's,—only it wasn't tea,—and Nurse's brother ordered a bottle of champagne. Nurse didn't want him to, but he said people didn't get married every day. And he drank our health, and I drank a little tiny sip, and it made me sneeze." [Pg 126] Lady Louisa lay quite motionless, the sweat upon her forehead, looking at her son, who smiled seraphically back at her. And so Nurse had actually thought she could outwit her—had pitted herself against her? She would shortly learn a thing or two on that head. A great cold was invading her. And as she looked at Harry, it was as if some key, some master key, were suddenly and noiselessly turned in the lock. Without moving her eyes, she saw beyond him the door, expecting to see the handle turn, and Nurse or Janey to come in. But the door remained motionless. Nevertheless, a key somewhere had turned. Everything was locked tight—the room, the walls, the bed, herself in it—as in a vice. "Go back to your lessons," she said to Harry, "and send Janey to me." She felt a sudden imperative need of Janey. But Harry, so docile, so schooled to obedience, made no motion to obey her. He only looked vacantly, expectantly at her. She spoke again, but he paid no heed. She spoke yet again with anger, but this time he was fidgeting with the watch on her table and did not even look up. She saw him as if through a glass screen. A wave of anger shook her. "Leave the room this moment, and do as I tell you," she said, with her whole strength. Had he suddenly became deaf? Or had she——? Was she——? A great fear took her. He put[Pg 127] back the watch on its stand, and touched the silver box in which the chocolates were kept. "May I have another—just one other?" he said, opening it, his voice barely audible through the glass screen. And then, glancing at her for permission, he was seized with helpless laughter. "Oh, mamma! You do look so funny, with your mouth all on one side—funnier than the dog in the hat." His words and his laughter reached her, faint yet distinct, and she understood what had befallen her. Two large tears gathered in her anguished eyes and then slowly ran down her distorted face. Everything else remained fixed, as in a vice, save Harry, rocking himself to and fro, and snapping his fingers with delight. <hr />[Pg 128] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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