Chapter XXVII The Home-Coming
On the day preceding that fixed for her wedding, Dora Maybury purposely went down to breakfast later than usual, as she wished to be alone during the meal. She did not want to meet the prying eyes of her elder sister, or answer her still more prying questions.
Miss H. R. Maybury, however, was not easily put off. This was the last day that the two sisters would be spending under the same roof for some time to come, and H. R. intended to make the most of it.
When, therefore, Dora reached the breakfast-room, she found her sister seated behind the coffee-urn.
“It is rather provoking of you to be so late, Dora,” said H. R. “We have had to keep breakfast on the table for an hour, just on your account.”
“You needn’t have done that,” replied Dora, coldly; “I only want a cup of tea and some bread and butter.”
“You won’t look much like a bride to-morrow if you starve yourself to-day,” observed H. R.
Dora made no rejoinder, but took her seat at the table.
“There isn’t any tea—won’t coffee do?” inquired H. R.
“Anything will do,” said Dora, shortly.
“Dear me!” cried H. R. “I hope you will be in a nicer mood when you sit down to breakfast for the first time with Harold.”
“I expect he’ll say pleasanter things to me than you do,” returned Dora.
H. R. was taken somewhat aback. “Here is some coffee,” she said, more amicably; “there is a plate of bacon and eggs for you in the fender,” she added.
“I couldn’t touch it!” cried Dora.
“I don’t see why you should lose your appetite because you’re going to be married to-morrow,” said H. R.
“Don’t you? Well, perhaps you’ll understand my feelings better when you find yourself on the eve of your wedding day!” snapped Dora.
H. R., having no reply ready, pretended to read the morning paper.
At length something occurred to her
“Oh, by the way, dear,” she said, when Dora had sipped her coffee and nibbled a few mouthfuls of bread and butter, “some more presents have come for you.”
“Oh!” said Dora, indifferently
“They are on the hall table—shall I get them for you?”
“If you like. I am in no hurry.”
But H. R. had recognised Jim’s writing on one parcel, and wanted to watch her sister’s face when Dora opened the packet. Jim, it should be added had placed the presents from Koko and himself on the hall table very late on the previous night.
H. R. left the breakfast-room, and presently returned bearing three parcels in her arms.
“I think there must be one from Frank, too; he was wrapping up something very mysteriously before he went to school this morning.”
Dora turned over the three parcels which H. R. set down on the table before her. After scrutinising the writing on each, she opened that addressed to her in Frank’s irregular round-hand. Frank’s present proved to be a volume of Tennyson’s works in a handsome morocco leather cover.
“Dear Frank! what a nice present!” cried Dora. “He must have saved up his pocket-money for months!”
“He gets a good many tips,” said H. R., drily.
“Pretty girls’ brothers generally do,” observed a harsh voice at the door.
Following the remark came Miss Bird herself. The maiden lady duly admired the Tennyson.
“The other two presents,” said H. R., “are from Mr Somers and Dr Mortimer, and Dora won’t open them because she knows I’m burning to see them.”
“And make nasty remarks about them when you’ve seen them?” suggested Miss Bird.
Before H. R. could think of a suitable retort, Dora had drawn Koko’s present from its enclosing wrappers.
“A work-box—full of things!” she said, laughing; “everything I can possibly want, even down to matches!”
The three ladies all agreed that it was a very nice work-box.
“And now for the third parcel,” said H. R., meaningly.
“It is a fan,” said Dora, quietly opening Jim’s parcel—“an ivory one.”
She passed it on to Miss Bird.
“A beautiful present, my dear,” said that lady. “I admire Dr Mortimer’s taste.”
“And look!” cried H. R., who next inspected the fan; “it has a sprig of rosemary upon it. How very sentimental! That means remembrance, doesn’t it? Dora, I do believe Dr Mortimer likes you more than he cares to admit.”
“Please don’t talk such nonsense, H. R.,” said Dora, holding out her hand for the fan.
“Come, now,” said H. R., spreading out the fan and peeping over it, “tell me! Don’t you think I’m right?”
“Right about what?” asked Dora, with trembling lips. “Oh, please give me my fan!”
“Give the child her fan and don’t tease her,” rasped out Miss Bird, who saw through the deliberate malice of H. R.’s question.
“Why doesn’t she answer, then?” said H. R., examining the sprig of rosemary with renewed interest; “anybody would think that she liked him by the way she goes on.”
The blood rushed into Dora’s face.
“See how she is blushing!” added H. R., unsparingly.
“I’m not blushing,” cried Dora, whose cheeks sadly belied her words.
“You are—I believe you do like him!”
Dora rose from her chair. The blood had died out of her face, and she was very white.
“And why,” she demanded, her eyes flashing ominously, “shouldn’t I like him? Is there any sin in it? When he came you all condemned him, but he has been quite patient and nice and gentlemanly all the time, in spite of the things that have been said to him. Yes, I do like him, and I shall always value this present from him. Please give it to me.”
H. R. handed her the fan. “In that case, Dora, dear,” she said, cuttingly, “it seems a pity that you are marrying Mr Jefferson to-morrow.”
Dora closed the fan and held it tightly to her bosom. Her sister’s final remark had brought the blood surging into her face again. “Oh,” she cried, “how I hate you, H. R.—yes, hate you!”
And with that she gave a piteous little cry and ran out of the room.
For a few moments there was silence, and then Miss Bird turned her stern, lined face towards the elder sister. “Miss Maybury,” she said, “I am ashamed of you.”
“Your opinion of me,” said H. R., with a forced lightness of tone, “does not concern me at all.”
“To think,” Miss Bird went on, “that you should taunt that poor child with a fact that has been patent to every woman in this house for weeks past! You have seen it—you know it. I repeat, I am heartily ashamed of you.”
“Please spare me your lectures, Miss Bird.”
“I will spare you nothing. I tell you to your face that you are a cruel, jealous woman. Dora is much younger than you, but is being married before you, and that is rankling in your mind. And so you bully her and tax her with liking Dr Mortimer when you know she likes him—ay, likes him far better than she likes the man she is marrying.”
“But,” interrupted H. R.; “Mr Jefferson happens to be very well off, and so our dear little innocent Dora does not see her way to give him up.”
Miss Bird rose from her seat and walked up to where H. R. was sitting.
“Do you really know why Dora is marrying this young stockbroker?” she said.
“Because she is tired of working in the post-office, and wants to have a good time, I suppose,” replied H. R.
“Oh! you suppose that! Well, I will tell you why. She is marrying him because she wishes to make your father’s position secure in the Jeffersons’ office, and, if possible, to improve it. She is deliberately marrying young Mr Jefferson with that object in view.”
“Then she is very silly,” said H. R., scornfully.
“Silly! Yes, she is silly! But how old is she?—nineteen! And at nineteen aren’t many girls very silly—aren’t their heads full of romantic ideas of self-sacrifice, and other nonsense! Yes, she is silly! If she were your age—twenty-eight—she would be marrying Mr Jefferson for her own sake, but she is only nineteen, and so she is marrying him for her father’s sake. Now you understand!”
“I simply don’t believe you,” said H. R.
“It matters little whether you believe me or not. I have told you the truth. I am a very much older woman than you, and it has been my recreation all my life—for want of a better—to watch the people round me and dissect their motives. Old maids are good judges of character. You yourself will find you are a better judge of character in a few years’ time than you are now.”
Then, with this final lash from her tongue, Miss Bird stalked out of the room, while Miss H. R. Maybury, feeling considerably crestfallen, made her way downstairs to commence her household duties.
Somehow or other Dora got through this miserable day. At lunch and tea and dinner she hardly spoke a word, but she brightened up when her father got home from the office, where he had been working later than usual in order to be free the next day. He had brought an evening paper with him, and read out the latest bulletin concerning the Earl of Lingfield’s health.
“So,” added the ex-merchant, “our friend Dr Mortimer was not sent for merely to assist. According to this bulletin he actually performed the operation—a very perilous one, I am told.”
“It will make him,” said Miss Bird, laying down her knitting needles.
“Yes,” agreed Mr Maybury, “a man possessed of his nerve and skill will be in great demand. I am sorry in one way, because it will mean that he will leave us.”
“I hope this success won’t turn his head and drive him back to his vicious courses,” said Mrs Maybury, somewhat severely.
Mr Cleave was scanning the new number of his favourite weekly.
“I should not be surprised,” he conjectured, in his quavering tenor, “if alcohol proved Mortimer’s stumbling-block in life. There is a sad case in the Abstainer’s list this week of a young naval doctor who has lately lost his post on account of his habitual drunkenness.”
Miss Bird cast a lowering eye on her fellow-boarder, but before she could make any remark the door was opened with unexpected suddenness, and Mary came in.
“Oh, if you please, mum,” she said, addressing Mrs Maybury, “there’s some policemen at the door, and Mr Somers, and they’ve brought Dr Mortimer——”
But here the little maid broke down and burst into tears. Fortunately Koko appeared at this juncture to complete the announcement.
“Jim has been hurt by Hooligans,” he said, quietly. “At first I wanted to take him to a hospital, but he told me he would like to be brought here.”
“Is he badly hurt?” asked Mr Maybury.
“Yes,” said Koko, “very seriously hurt. The police fetched a doctor——”
He paused, for he noticed that Dora had risen to her feet, and, white as death, was awaiting the doctor’s verdict.
“The doctor pronounced him to be suffering from concussion of the brain and a fracture of the spine.”
Mr Maybury walked out of the room, closing the door after him. The police ambulance containing Jim’s unconscious form had been set down in the hall. By the ambulance stood Dr Taplow’s representative—the bearded man.
“Please follow me,” said Mr Maybury, and those in the drawing-room could hear ominously heavy footsteps on the stairs as the policemen bore their burden up to Jim’s little room on the second landing. Koko slipped out of the drawing-room after giving Mrs Maybury and the others further details concerning the affair. Dora made as if to follow him.
“You had better stay in here, dear,” said Mrs Maybury; “anybody else will only be in the way, at present.”
“I am only going into the dining-room,” said Dora.
How long she waited in the dining-room, Dora never knew. It seemed like a lifetime. She heard the police go out and shut the front door after them, and later she heard the front door opened and closed again, and yet again. At length, after what seemed an interminable period, Mr Maybury came into the dining-room. His face was very grave.
“Father—tell me the truth!”
Dora was looking at him with beseeching eyes that would brook no subterfuge.
“The doctor says,” replied Mr Maybury, “that he will not live more than twenty-four hours.”
Dora hid her face on his shoulder.
“Oh, father, father,” she sobbed, “if he dies my heart will break!”
Mr. Maybury gently disengaged himself from her embrace, and looked steadily into her face.
“Dora, tell me! do you love him?”
She buried her face again in the kind shoulder.
“Yes,” she said, “with all my heart.”
For a long, tense minute no word was spoken. Then Mr Maybury broke the silence.
“If that is so,” he said, “you must not marry Mr Jefferson, and I must go and tell him so.”
Dora raised her head. Her eyes shone like stars because of the great love she bore for Jim Mortimer.
“Go, then,” she said, “and I promise you I will be brave—now, and until the end.”