Of course I minded expense, never more so than now when I saw the possibility before me of a long period of inaction. … But I minded other things more. Household detail for instance, and uneducated voices. I compromised and sanctioned the appeal to the house-agent, confirming that the irreducible minimum was to be purchased, explaining I was ill, not to be troubled about this sort of thing. I brushed aside a few “buts” and finally rid myself of them. I caught myself yearning for Ella, who would have saved me this and every trouble. Then scorned my desire to send for her and determined to be glad of my solitude, to rejoice in my freedom. I could look as ill as I liked without comment. I could sit where I was without attempting to tidy my belongings, and no one would ask me if I felt seedy, if the pain was coming on, if they could do anything for me. And then, fool that I was, I remember tears coming to my eyes because I was lonely, and sure that I had tired out even Ella’s patience. I wondered how any one could face a long illness, least of all any one like me who loved work, and above all independence, freedom. I knew, I knew even then that the time was coming when I could neither work nor be independent; the shadow was upon me that very first afternoon at Carbies. When I could see to write I dashed off a postcard to Ella telling her I was quite well and she was not to bother about me.
“I like the place, I’m sure I shall be able to write here. Don’t think of coming down, and keep the rest of the family off me if you can. …”
I spent the remainder of the evening weakly longing for her, and feeling that she need not have taken me at my word, that she might have come with me although I urged her not, that she should have understood me better.
That night I took less nepenthe, yet saw Margaret Capel more vividly. She stayed a long time too. This time she wore a blue peignoir, her hair down, and she looked very young and girlish. There were gnomes and fairies when she went, and after that the sea, swish and awash as if I had been upon a yacht. Unconsciousness only came to me when the yacht was submerged in a great wave … semi-consciousness.
But I am not telling the story of my illness. I should like to, but I fear it would have no interest for the general public, or for the young people amongst whom one looks for readers. I have sometimes thought nevertheless, both then and afterwards, that there must be a public who would like to hear what one does and thinks and suffers when illness catches one unawares; and all life’s interests alter and narrow down to temperatures and medicine-time, to fighting or submitting to nurses and weakness, to hatred and contempt of doctors, and a dumb blind rage against fate; to pain and the soporifics behind which its hold tightens.
Pineland did not cure me, although I spent hours in the open air and let my pens lie resting in their case. Under continual pains I grew sullen and resentful, always more ill-tempered and desirous of solitude. Dr. Kennedy called frequently. Sometimes I saw him and sometimes not, as the mood took me. He never came without speaking of the former occupant of the house, of Margaret Capel. He seemed to take very little personal interest in me or my condition. And I was too proud (or stupid) to force it on his notice. I asked him once, crudely enough, if he had been in love with Margaret Capel. He answered quite simply, as if he had been a child:
“One had no chance. From the first I knew there was no chance.”
“There was some one else?”
“He came up and down. I seldom met him. Then there were the circumstances. She was between the Nisi and the Absolute, the nether and the upper stone. …”
“Oh, yes, I remember now. She was divorced.”
“No, she was not. She divorced her husband,” he answered quite sharply and a little distressed. “Courts of Justice they are called, but Courts of Injustice would be a better name. They put her to the question, on the rack; no inquisition could have been worse. And she was broken by it. …”
“But there was some one else, you said yourself there was some one else. Probably these probing questions, this rack, were her deserts. Personally I am a monogamist,” I retorted. Not that I was really narrow or a Pharisee, only in contentious mood and cruel under the pressure of my own harrow. “Probably anything she suffered served her right,” I added indifferently.
“It all happened afterwards. I thought you knew,” he said incoherently.
“I know nothing except that you are always talking of Margaret Capel, and I am a little tired of the subject,” I answered pettishly. “Who was the man?”
“The man!”
“Yes, the man who came up and down to see her?”
“Gabriel Stanton.”
“Gabriel Stanton!” I sat upright in my chair; that really startled me. “Gabriel Stanton,” I repeated, and then, stupidly enough: “Are you sure?”
“Quite sure. But I won’t talk about it any more since it bores you. The house is so haunted for me, and you seemed so sympathetic, so interested. You won’t let me doctor you.”
“You haven’t tried very hard, have you?”
“You put me off whenever I try to ask you how you are, or any questions.”
“What is the good? I’ve seen twelve London doctors.”
“London has not the monopoly of talent.” He took up his hat, and then my hand.
“Offended?” I asked him.
“No. But my partner will be home tomorrow, and I’m relinquishing my place to him. It is really his case.”
“I refuse to be anybody’s case. I’ve heard from the best authorities that no one knows anything about neuritis and that it is practically incurable. One has to suffer and suffer. Even Almroth Wright has not found the anti-bacilli. Nepenthe gives me ease; that is all the doctoring I want—ease!”
“It is doing you a lot of harm. And what makes you think you’ve got neuritis?”
“What ailed your Margaret?” I answered mockingly. “Did you ever find that out?”
“No … yes. Of course I knew.”
“Did you ever examine her?” I was curious to know that; suddenly and inconsequently curious.
“Why do you ask?” But his face changed, and I knew the question had been cruel or impertinent. He let go my hand abruptly, he had been holding it all this time. “I did all that any doctor could.” He was obviously distressed and I ashamed.
“Don’t go yet. Sit down and have a cup of tea with me. I’ve been here three weeks and every meal has been solitary. Your Margaret”—I smiled at him then, knowing he would not understand—“comes to me sometimes at night with my nepenthe, but all day I am alone.”
“By your own desire then, I swear. You are not a woman to be left alone if you wanted company.” He dropped into a chair, seemed glad to stay. Presently over tea and crumpets, we were really talking of my illness, and if I had permitted it I have no doubt he would have gone into the matter more closely. As it was he warned me solemnly against the nepenthe and suggested I should try codein as an alternative, a suggestion I ignored completely, unfortunately for myself.
“Tell me about your partner,” I said, drinking my tea slowly.
“Oh! you’ll like him, all the ladies like him. He is very spruce and rather handsome; dapper, band-boxy. Not tall, turning grey. …”
“Did she like him?” I persisted.
“She would not have him near her. After his first visit she denied herself to him all the time. He used to talk to me about her, he could never understand it, he was not used to that sort of treatment, he is a tremendous favourite about here.”
“What did she say of him?”