Chapter XIX: Tomina's Desperation

LADY GAVIN welcomed Tomina very affectionately. Her niece, Madge Dudley, a girl about Tomina's own age, was staying with her. She was genuinely glad to see Tomina again.

"We have heard such absurd stories about you, that I am glad to see you much the same as usual. I pictured you in a smock, or is that male attire in your part of the world? You hardly look like our country cousins. Tell me what you have been doing with yourself."

They were dining alone, a rather unusual event, and so talk became personal.

Tomina tried to tell her.

Then Lady Gavin said—

"As you have quite got over that affair with Gerald Norman, I'll tell you that I have been spending the afternoon with his mother. They came from the Riviera a week ago and are in some nice rooms overlooking Kensington Gardens. It's quite painful to see her, and as for him, I wouldn't know him. He is almost ridiculously devoted to her, and she, poor thing, cries herself silly whenever he leaves her."

"It's rather touching," said Madge. "I saw him the other day, Tomina; he was buying flowers for her, but he looks quite careworn and aged. I couldn't get a laugh out of him. Do you remember the day he marched into this room in a perfect fury because you had not met him at the arranged time? Billy Cassel turned up, and he was so amusing that you forgot the appointment altogether. I can see Gerald now in his immaculate frock-coat and light spats and hear him say to you:

"'I have been waiting three-quarters of an hour! We are punctual in the Service!'

"And then you smiled at him perfectly calm. 'But I am not in—service—yet!' you said.

"And he turned quite white, bowed, and returned you the tickets—for a 'matinée,' wasn't it?—and took his leave promptly. I can remember how frightened and indignant you looked."

"I am sure I never showed that I was frightened of him."

"I always knew you were!"

"How is Mrs. Norman?" said Lady Gavin.

"She will never be better. She can talk, and she can be lifted into a carriage or bath-chair and taken out, but she has to be fed like a child; her limbs are powerless."

"It is like a living death," said Madge. "I don't think people should be seen when they are like that; it makes one feel so miserable."

"Oh, Madge, surely one's own feelings don't matter!" said Tomina.

"Mine do very much. That doesn't sound like you, Tomina; you used to say that you never intended to take other people's troubles on your shoulders, for your own were far too heavy!"

"Did I? I am a selfish creature at the best of times."

Through all the light chatter that ensued, Tomina's thoughts were far-away. It had been a distinct shock to her to hear that Colonel Norman was once again in her near neighbourhood. She felt she longed to see him and yet shrank from doing so. Her last waking thought that night was—

"I must not leave town without seeing him. I may never meet him again."

She heard the next day that they were going down to Torquay very soon. She was making up her mind to call upon Mrs. Norman when Lady Gavin informed her that she had every minute of the day mapped out for her.

"We do not get you up here very often. I am opening a bazaar at Knightsbridge this morning at twelve o'clock—I want you to come with me; and we have an 'at home' this afternoon and a few people to dine. Your friends will want to see you, Tomina."

Tomina sighed, but was very submissive.

Madge laughed at her resigned expression.

"You have been getting lazy in the country."

"Yes, my days there are not so full as yours."

"You have forgotten how we work. I mean to cut the 'at home' to-day. You can take my place, and I shan't be missed."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to my dressmaker at once. Will you come with me and give me your advice? It won't take you long. And then I'm going down to Richmond to lunch with the Fitzpatricks."

Tomina agreed to accompany her to her dressmaker's, promising to meet her stepmother at the bazaar later on. When she and Madge eventually separated, Tomina found that she had nearly an hour on her hands, so she sauntered up Regent Street, and looked in at the shop windows.

Suddenly she met Colonel Norman face to face. As she shook hands with him, her heart beat violently. He had been so much in her thoughts that the unexpected sight of him almost unnerved her.

But outwardly Tomina was calm and smiling.

"I have been hearing from my stepmother that you are in town. I hope your mother is better?"

"I think she is. Lady Gavin very kindly came to see her. They were old friends, you know. It is good to see you again."

The light was in his tired eyes as he spoke. Tomina noticed for the first time that he was getting grey.

"I am only in town for a day or two."

Then Colonel Norman spoke in a hesitating tone—

"I wonder if you would befriend me? I'm somewhat in a dilemma, for I'm very ignorant—but I'm doing a little shopping for my mother. She has begged me to do it myself. Her maid doesn't please her. It's a—a hat or a bonnet for her, and she gave me the name of a milliner somewhere about here."

"I shall be delighted," said Tomina. "What is the name of the milliner? I expect it is 'Le Brun.'"

"That's it. A French place, she said."

They were close to the shop. Tomina accompanied him in, half amused, half touched, by his natural bewilderment in his task.

"It must be something bright and cheerful, but which will be comfortable lying down," said the Colonel, gravely.

"We'll look at some motor bonnets," said Tomina, gaily; "they have perfect dreams here, and I'm sure we can pick out one which she will like."

In a few minutes they were deep in the important choice. Grey, blue, mauve, and rose bonnets of all sorts and shades were shown them. Tomina insisted upon trying some on herself.

"I declare! I shall get one for my van. It's just what I want on a cold and windy day, for spring is very stormy at Little Honeycombe. How do you like this, now? It would do for either your mother or myself?"

She turned to Colonel Norman, looking perfectly bewitching in a black satin bonnet fitting close to her head with a tiny bunch of cherries on either side over her ears, and tied with cherry-coloured ribbon under the chin.

"I think it would suit your lady perfectly, sir," said the milliner.

Tomina blushed and laughed as she turned away.

Colonel Norman's look remained with her, but there seemed to be sadness as well as tender admiration in it, which rather puzzled her at the time.

After a little further consultation, a pretty mauve bonnet trimmed with a tiny wreath of heliotrope, was ordered to be sent on approval for Mrs. Norman, and Tomina ordered the cherry bonnet for herself.

As she left the shop, she said lightly—

"We have done our shopping very satisfactorily. I don't know what my old women will say to me! But they ought to like my choice, for they are exactly like our grandmother's coal-scuttles, are they not? Now I must leave you! I ought to be in Knightsbridge at twelve. Will you call a taxi for me?"

"Can you come to see my mother once before you leave?" Colonel Norman said after he had hailed a taxi. "Could you come to-morrow afternoon—to see if our choice is approved?"

He tried to smile. But Tomina's quick eyes saw that he was weary in body and soul; and her heart ached for him.

"Yes, I will," she said promptly; "I will come between three and four."

He wrung her hand, and they parted. Tomina was singularly grave and sober for the rest of that day. Her friends agreed that her time in the country had improved her health but not her spirits. And she, hearing the flow of chatter and laughter around her, wondered that she could ever have been in it and of it.

The next day, she went round to the house in the quiet terrace overlooking the gardens. She found Mrs. Norman alone, but she was supremely delighted to see her. She was lying back on her couch looking haggard and aged, though her maid had tried to hide the ravages of sickness and years by a liberal coating of enamel and rouge. The fretful discontent in her voice was very noticeable.

"Tomina Gavin, is it not? Well, I am glad to see you. My illness seems to have cut me off entirely from all my friends. You know of the terrible time that I have had? I can't speak of it. And doctors are a fraud. They take your money and do you no good. Look at me, still stretched flat on my back and unable to move a single limb, and I have been like this for over six months. Don't you think they ought to have cured me or found me some remedy by this time? Sit down and talk to me. Gerald is out; he had to go to our lawyer about business, he said. It is most inconsiderate, I told him. There is no reason why the lawyer should not come here, and I should have enjoyed listening to their conversation. But men are so secretive about business matters, and Gerald is very obstinate. I spoiled him as a boy, and I suppose I am reaping the result."

She paused for breath.

"How did you like your bonnet?" Tomina asked.

"Oh, you helped to choose it, did you not? I liked it fairly well. Of course, I have never worn such things, and I do hate novelty in any shape or form. I said to Gerald, if he liked to walk by the side of an old crock—made old before her time—she had better be as respectably clothed as she could be! It's an awful existence; I wonder if you have any conception how awful it is to me! It seems superfine torture to fix on me, above all others, as the one to drag on this living death!"

Her voice broke—she began to cry weakly.

Tomina tried to comfort her.

"No one knows how long my days are," the invalid sobbed, "or how weary the nights. If I had a daughter, it might be easier for me. I suppose Gerald does his best, but men are no nurses, they are so dense, so clumsy, so unsympathetic. Sometimes he goes out for half an hour, he says. I wait and watch the clock till he comes back. It is all I can do. The half-hour stretches into an hour, and then he tells me he met somebody, or my errands took him longer than he thought. And last night I was wakeful, and I wanted to change my position. I won't have the nurse sleep with me—she worries me to death—and so Gerald sleeps in the dressing-room. Well, I called and called—so like a man, he was sound and fast asleep! And when he was roused at last, I was crying from weakness and weariness. I can't tell you how I suffer!"

Tomina listened and sympathised, and Mrs. Norman talked on, about herself and her pitiful lot.

At last, Tomina said—

"I feel a little shy about suffering. I have never had it, but there is special reward and blessing for those who bear it patiently. Doesn't it comfort you to think of the time when there will be no more of it?"

"You mean when I am dead?" Mrs. Norman cried shrilly. "Oh, how cruel of you to remind me of such a thing! Do you mean to say that you think I shall never get back the use of my limbs in this life? I will, I must. I'll try every specialist in the country. What is the good of spending money on anything but health? I say to Gerald, when he speaks of taking a house,—

"'What good does a house and grounds do me? Why six feet square is enough for my wants at present. My couch is my dwelling-place.'

"I told him I would never, never go back near the Court. I am glad he has sold it, for we wanted the money. I mean to try every cure in the world before I rest satisfied that I can't be cured. We are going down to Torquay. I have heard that there is a very clever doctor there. And I am strong enough to have massage now, they say. I have had a little of it, but it worries me, and I generally send away my masseuse after the third day. Gerald is vexed when I do it, but he is often vexed now with his poor old mother. Must you be going? Gerald ought to be in—he knows that I cannot bear to be alone. Men are so thoughtless and self-absorbed. He never seems to realise the long hours that I have to lie here doing nothing."

Tomina took her leave in deep depression of spirit. She was disappointed that she had not seen Colonel Norman again; she had counted upon it, and it looked as if he had purposely avoided her. Then her heart was overwhelmed with pity as she thought of his devotion and selfless life so unappreciated by his mother. She felt, with a shock, that suffering had not refined or beautified Mrs. Norman's character. On the contrary, she seemed more selfish, and more peevish than when she had seen her in the early days of her illness.

"No wonder he looks weary and aged!" she mused. "Why does he not provide her with a lady companion and go right away from her for the time? It is spoiling his life."

The following day she received a letter from him.

"MY DEAR TOMINA,

"Forgive me for writing instead of seeing you, and a thousand thanks for your visit of mercy yesterday! My heart sorely wanted to be with you; my head took me right away from your zone. I feel in justice to you, Tomina—because I would not have you regard me as fickle or changeable—I must explain, that after long and earnest thought, I have come to the conclusion that I must remain an unmarried man. My poor little mother is my first consideration now. I shall devote the rest of my life to her. She may live many years, the doctors say, and I would neither remove myself from her reach when she so pathetically depends upon me, nor yet bring a young wife into such a depressing and unwholesome atmosphere.

"Perhaps you will say I am wasting paper and ink in explaining my position to you, as you have repeated to me again and again that you could not be to me what you once were—and what in my heart I try to imagine that you still are. This may be so. But if I do not throw myself in your way again, it is not because I have ceased to care for you. There is an inner shrine in my soul which you will always occupy. I can never, never change; but I need not and will not ever bring myself before you again. This is in fact a letter of farewell. I want you—God knows how much. I want—you—to be happy. I believe you will be. I like to think of you amongst your devoted villagers in the peaceful country. And if by-and-by, the man of your choice turns up—ah! well—I am not such a stoic as I thought myself—we will not mention him. Only Gerald Norman will always be

"YOUR TRUE FRIEND.

"If you send me no reply, I shall understand that you have accepted
and understood my explanation."

Tomina read this letter in the privacy of her bedroom. She looked dazed at first, and then she burst into a passion of tears. She wept till she could weep no more, and brought on a racking headache. Then promptly she put herself to bed, and stayed there, refusing to see any one at all that day. The next morning, she appeared at breakfast very white, with dark circles round her eyes, but with very resolute lips and shining face.

"What is the matter with you, Tomina?" her stepmother asked. "I have not seen that look upon your face since that time when, as a child, you slipped off by yourself to the dentist to have two teeth out!"

Tomina tried to laugh.

"I remember! I desperately wanted a five-shilling kodak—and you always gave me half a crown for each tooth out. I shall never forget my fury with the dentist who refused to extract sound teeth out of my head!"

"Are you meditating any such idea of self-sacrifice now?"

"Oh no, indeed! I am struggling with a mental problem, that is all."

She wrote a reply to the letter received.

"MY DEAR GERALD,

"My pride, my waywardness, my obstinacy, have all melted into one intense desire to make up to you for all I have made you suffer in these past years! I am going, metaphorically, to throw myself into your arms! Of course, I had a miserable sleepless night after that letter received from you. It was not sheer contradictoriness, Gerald, that made me desire what I had previously spurned, when you told me you could offer it no longer. I felt as though, if I accepted your resolution, and passed out of your life, I would be the most miserable and disconsolate creature in the universe. And you gave me no option in the matter. I lay hour after hour trying to see a way out of it, and then a delicious ray of early morning sunshine came stealing into my room and alighted on a small picture which I always carry about with me. It is a picture that reminds me that I am 'Tomina the Carrier.'

"And the light flashed through me, and I saw that I should not be unmaidenly or forward if I persisted in your reconsidering your hasty decision.

"You are trying to do what no man ought to do, or is able to do. Your mother told me she ought to have a daughter to relieve you. I want to be that daughter. It will be no depressing or unwholesome atmosphere for me. The two of us together will carry the burden so lightly that it will prove to be no burden at all. I am in training for carrying, remember. It is my vocation, and I have hugged it and am delighting in it, and if I can smooth even a tiny wrinkle out of your careworn brow, or bring the glimmer of a smile to your face and heart it will be sufficient reward. For, perhaps, I ought to tell you that the love I once had for you, and which I thought was crushed out of existence, has been there all the time. And if we love each other, Gerald, surely it can be no hardship to help your poor little mother through some of her weary days? I shall wait in town for your answer.

"Your repentant

"TOMINA."

And when her letter was sent, Tomina possessed her soul in patience, and was sweetness itself to her stepmother, accompanying her everywhere, and making herself pleasant to all her old acquaintances and friends. Colonel Norman's reply was brief.

"MY DEAR TOMINA,

"Your sweet pity for me and my circumstances came like balm to the wounded. No, I cannot let you sacrifice yourself. You do not realise the life I lead. It is not fit for any woman save the very strongest and most professional of nurses. Do not let us torture each other any more. I could not and would not allow you to carry the least corner of my burden. No true man would. And I care for you too much to bring you into a life that would sap every bit of brightness and spirit out of you.

"May God bless you! We leave to-morrow afternoon for Torquay.

"Your affectionate friend,

"GERALD."

Tomina read this in her bedroom and stood looking out of her window with despair in her eyes and heart. She came downstairs and told her stepmother that she must return to little Honeycombe the next afternoon.

"I hate London," she said, with quiet emphasis. "I am always tossed up and down when I am in it, and I am longing for the peace of the country."

"Dr. Carisbrooke would like to see you before you go," said Lady Gavin. "I met him to-day, and he asked after you."

"Oh, I am not in the doctor's hands any more!"

"He is more a friend than a doctor. He is coming to lunch to-morrow."

"I can catch the three-o'clock train then from Paddington."

"Tomina is as restless and excitable as ever," Lady Gavin said to her niece later that day. "She is full of moods. Yesterday she was almost brilliant in her talk and laughter; to-day she is like stone, utterly unresponsive and dull. And she is so thin! I shall tell Dr. Carisbrooke that I think she has been in the country long enough. It is actually making her religious!"

Madge laughed.

"Is that the climax? Why shouldn't she be religious if she likes? We are supposed to be a Christian country and nation. I very often wish I was; it makes people really content, they say. And it has altered her. She used to be one of the most selfish of persons, and she is certainly not that now."

Tomina tried to fill up every moment of her time those last days in town, so that she would not be obliged to think. The next morning she went out shopping, for she wished to take back some presents to some of her old women. She was in Oxford Street, when once again she saw Gerald Norman approaching her.

A panic of fright seized her. She could not and would not meet him again. Hastily, she turned and crossed the street to avoid him. Then, in a moment, she missed her footing and fell immediately in front of a motor. For an instant she thought all was over, then somebody had caught her and swung her clear of the traffic.

The next moment she was standing safe and sound on the pavement with somebody's arm round her. She heard as if in a dream a voice saying: "That was a near shave!"

And then "Tomina!" was breathed into her ear.

She opened her eyes.

"Of course, I might have known it would be you," she said with a quick-caught sobbing breath; "you always come to my rescue! We can't escape each other!"

Colonel Norman made no reply. He only held her tight. Then, calling a taxi, he helped her in.

"Are you hurt, sweetheart? Tell me."

Tomina shook her head. The fall and the fright had unnerved her. She leant her head against the broad shoulder so close to her and began to cry.

And Colonel Norman was shaken out of his cold grave demeanour. For one awful second, he had thought the motor was crushing the life out of his only love. He gave an involuntary shudder even now.

"You ought not to go about alone," he said. "If I had not seen you! You were dashing so recklessly across!"

"I was running away from you," murmured Tomina.

Then she shifted her position and sat up.

"I am better now. It gave me such a fright, for I never expected to be alive. I suppose, if I had been killed, I shouldn't have been frightened at all."

But Colonel Norman did not move his arm. He was still holding her.

"I wanted to see you," he said, "but I did not like to call. I am afraid you must have thought my last letter very hard. It really is for your own sake, dearest."

"You mustn't call me 'dearest.' I am nothing to you now. Yes, I did think it hard. If you thought more of me, you would know that you are breaking my heart."

"You could not live the life that I am doing, Tomina."

"I could, and I should enjoy it. I should try to brighten up your mother and would remove some of your furrows of care. I should manage you both. I am quite capable of it. Where are we going, Gerald? I must get home. I am going down to Little Honeycombe this afternoon." Tomina was rapidly recovering her composure.

"I ordered him to drive on till I told him to stop. I am sure your stepmother and all who care for you would say it was criminal to tie you to my mother's bedside. She is very exacting, poor little thing, and would demand the uttermost from us both."

Then Tomina had an inspiration.

"I believe I have just time to go and see your mother and wish her good-bye. Shall I? Would you tell the driver where to go?"

"That's most kind of you. She will be so pleased."

Directions were given, and then Tomina said—

"Now we'll be very nice to each other for the rest of our time. I do feel that I owe my life to you. How quick you were! Even now, I don't know how you did it. But you always do turn up in the nick of time. Do you remember when you rescued me from the tree?"

Colonel Norman smiled.

"You were very angry, were you not?"

"Ah! I think I have altered since then."

Then silence fell upon them, but Tomina did not feel embarrassed. She was only quite content to sit by his side and think over her inspiration.

A little later, she was greeting Mrs. Norman affectionately.

"It's good to see you again, my dear. Come and sit down and tell me what you have been doing with yourself."

"I have been falling down in the middle of the street and your son has been picking me up."

"How horrible!"

"Yes, wasn't it?"

Tomina went on to describe her accident. Colonel Norman stood at the window listening and occasionally putting in a word.

"We are going to Torquay this afternoon," said Mrs. Norman. "I am really quite sorry to go. I have no friends there, and I do like to see people sometimes. Do you ever come down to Torquay?"

"No, I don't think I have ever been there, but perhaps I may come some day."

"I wish you would."

Then Tomina got up from her seat and knelt down by the side of Mrs. Norman's couch. Putting her hand softly in hers, she said with great ease and quietness—

"Mrs. Norman, you said the other day that you would like to have a daughter. Now, I have come to ask you if you will accept me as one."

For a moment the silence was so intense that you could have heard a pin drop.

Then great tears rose in Mrs. Norman's eyes. She looked across at her son.

"I should like it very much. Gerald, why did you not tell me?"

Before he could speak, Tomina said hurriedly—

"He is not quite sure whether we should all be happy together, but we would, would we not? I could stay at home and take care of you when he went out. We should be glad to get rid of him sometimes. And I'm sure I could shop for you better than he does. I would choose you lovely bonnets!"

"My dear child, I am very, very glad. I sometimes think I shall not be a burden for very long. If I don't get better, I must get worse. There is no doubt of that."

Then Colonel Norman came over to the couch, and Tomina rose to her feet. She had a pink flush on her cheeks, and she dared not look at him. For one moment she wondered if he were too angry to speak.

Then he took her hand in his, and, in a deeply moved voice, he said—

"You will give us your blessing, mother? We mean to make you happy, if we can. I feel as if Tomina has been snatched from death to-day, because you and I need her so badly. She says she will look after us both."

"So that is all settled very comfortably," said Tomina. There was a little tremor in her voice as she bent over Mrs. Norman and kissed her. "And now you will see me down at Torquay before very long, I expect. I must go now. My doctor is coming to lunch with us, and I promised that I should be back."

She smiled and nodded to her and then left the room. Colonel Norman followed her into the hall, and then for an instant they stood and looked into each other's eyes.

"Don't be angry, Gerald. There was no other way. Tell me you are not sorry I did it."

"My darling!"

He could get no further than those two words, but he took her into his arms and kept her there.