Felix went back to London the afternoon of Frances Freeland's installation, taking Sheila with him. She had been 'bound over to keep the peace'--a task which she would obviously be the better able to accomplish at a distance. And, though to take charge of her would be rather like holding a burning match till there was no match left, he felt bound to volunteer.
He left Nedda with many misgivings; but had not the heart to wrench her away.
The recovery of a young man who means to get up to-morrow is not so rapid when his head, rather than his body, is the seat of trouble.
Derek's temperament was against him. He got up several times in spirit, to find that his body had remained in bed. And this did not accelerate his progress. It had been impossible to dispossess Frances Freeland from command of the sick-room; and, since she was admittedly from experience and power of paying no attention to her own wants, the fittest person for the position, there she remained, taking turn and turn about with Nedda, and growing a little whiter, a little thinner, more resolute in face, and more loving in her eyes, from day to day. That tragedy of the old--the being laid aside from life before the spirit is ready to resign, the feeling that no one wants you, that all those you have borne and brought up have long passed out on to roads where you cannot follow, that even the thought-life of the world streams by so fast that you lie up in a backwater, feebly, blindly groping for the full of the water, and always pushed gently, hopelessly back; that sense that you are still young and warm, and yet so furbelowed with old thoughts and fashions that none can see how young and warm you are, none see how you long to rub hearts with the active, how you yearn for something real to do that can help life on, and how no one will give it you!
All this--this tragedy--was for the time defeated. She was, in triumph, doing something real for those she loved and longed to do things for. She had Sheila's room.
For a week at least Derek asked no questions, made no allusion to the mutiny, not even to the cause of his own disablement. It had been impossible to tell whether the concussion had driven coherent recollection from his mind, or whether he was refraining from an instinct of self-preservation, barring such thoughts as too exciting. Nedda dreaded every day lest he should begin. She knew that the questions would fall on her, since no answer could possibly be expected from Granny except: "It's all right, darling, everything's going on perfectly--only you mustn't talk!"
It began the last day of June, the very first day that he got up.
"They didn't save the hay, did they?"
Was he fit to hear the truth? Would he forgive her if she did not tell it? If she lied about this, could she go on lying to his other questions? When he discovered, later, would not the effect undo the good of lies now? She decided to lie; but, when she opened her lips, simply could not, with his eyes on her; and said faintly: "Yes, they did."
His face contracted. She slipped down at once and knelt beside his chair. He said between his teeth:
"Go on; tell me. Did it all collapse?"
She could only stroke his hands and bow her head.
"I see. What's happened to them?"
Without looking up, she murmured:
"Some have been dismissed; the others are working again all right."
"All right!"
She looked up then so pitifully that he did not ask her anything more. But the news put him back a week. And she was in despair.
The day he got up again he began afresh:
"When are the assizes?"
"The 7th of August."
"Has anybody been to see Bob Tryst?"
"Yes; Aunt Kirsteen has been twice."
Having been thus answered, he was quiet for a long time. She had slipped again out of her chair to kneel beside him; it seemed the only place from which she could find courage for her answers. He put his hand, that had lost its brown, on her hair. At that she plucked up spirit to ask:
"Would you like me to go and see him?"
He nodded.
"Then, I will--to-morrow."
"Don't ever tell me what isn't true, Nedda! People do; that's why I didn't ask before."
She answered fervently:
"I won't! Oh, I won't!"
She dreaded this visit to the prison. Even to think of those places gave her nightmare. Sheila's description of her night in a cell had made her shiver with horror. But there was a spirit in Nedda that went through with things; and she started early the next day, refusing Kirsteen's proffered company.
The look of that battlemented building, whose walls were pierced with emblems of the Christian faith, turned her heartsick, and she stood for several minutes outside the dark-green door before she could summon courage to ring the bell.
A stout man in blue, with a fringe of gray hair under his peaked cap, and some keys dangling from a belt, opened, and said:
"Yes, miss?"
Being called 'miss' gave her a little spirit, and she produced the card she had been warming in her hand.
"I have come to see a man called Robert Tryst, waiting for trial at the assizes."
The stout man looked at the card back and front, as is the way of those in doubt, closed the door behind her, and said:
"Just a minute, miss."