The Rocks of Valpre by Ethel May Dell (best contemporary novels .txt) 📕

fingers, and so remained for a long time.
Bertrand lay with closed eyes, his breathing still short and occasionally difficult, but no longer agonized.
There came the sound of flying feet along the corridor, and an impatient hand hammered on the door.
"Hullo, Bertrand! Are you all right? Chris wants to know," shouted a boyish voice.
Bertrand started violently, and a quiver of pain went through him. He fixed his eyes imploringly on Max, who instantly rose to the occasion.
"Of course he's all right. You clear out! We're busy."
"What are you doing?" Keen curiosity sounded in Noel's voice.
"Never mind! We don't want you," came the brotherly rejoinder.
"But I say--"
"Clear out!" ordered Max. "Go and tell Chris that Bertrand is writing a letter to catch the post; which reminds me," he added grimly, "you can also tell Holmes to come and fetch it in a quarter of an hour. Don't forget now. It's important."
He pulled the letter entrusted to his keeping from his pocket and tossed it on to the table.
Noel departed, and with an effort Bertrand spoke.
"But that was not the truth."
"Near enough," responded the second Wyndham complacently. "That is, if you don't want everyone to know."
Bertrand's brows contracted. "No--no! I would not that your sister should know, or Mr. Mordaunt."
"They will have to sooner or later," observed Max.
"Then--let it be later," murmured Bertrand.
Again there fell a silence, during which he seemed to be collecting his strength, for when he spoke again it was with more firmness.
"Mr. Wyndham!"
"All right, you can call me Max. I'm listening," said Max.
Bertrand faintly smiled. That touch of good-fellowship pleased him. Young as he was, this boy somehow made him feel that he understood many things.
"Then, Max," he said, "I think that you know already that which I am going to say to you. However, it is better to say it. It is not possible that I shall live very long."
He paused, but Max said nothing. He sat, still holding Bertrand's wrist, his gaze upon the opposite wall.
"You knew it, no?" Bertrand questioned.
"I suspected it," Max said. He turned slightly and looked at the man upon the bed. "This isn't your first attack," he said.
Bertrand shuddered irrepressibly. "Nor my second," he said.
"I can give you something to ease the pain," Max said. "But if you're wise you will consult a doctor."
Again a faint smile flickered over Bertrand's face. "I am not enough wise," he said, "to desire to prolong my life under these conditions."
"I should say the same myself," observed Max somewhat curtly.
He offered no further advice, but sat on, waiting apparently for further developments.
After a little Bertrand proceeded. "I have known now for some time that this malady was incurable. I think that I would not have it otherwise, for I am very tired. I am old too--much older than even you can comprehend. I have undergone the suffering of a lifetime, and I am too tired to suffer much more. But--look you, Max--I do not want to make suffer those my friends whom I shall leave behind. That is why I pray that the end may come quick--quick. And, till then--I will bear my pain alone."
"And if you can't?" said Max. "If it gets too much for you?"
"The good God will give me strength," the Frenchman said steadfastly.
Max shrugged his shoulders. "It's your affair, not mine. But I don't see why you shouldn't tell Trevor. He will be hurt by and bye if you don't."
But Bertrand instantly negatived the suggestion. "He is already much--much too good to me. I cannot--I will not--be further indebted to him. My services are almost nominal now. Also"--he paused--"if I tell him, I cannot remain here longer, and--I have made a promise that for the present I will remain."
Max's shrewd eyes took another quick look at him. "For Chris's benefit, I suppose?" he said, and though his tone was a question, it scarcely sounded as if he expected an answer.
Bertrand's eyes met his for an instant in a single lightning glance of interrogation. They fell again immediately, and there followed a considerable pause before he made reply: "I do not abandon my friends when they are troubled and they have need of me."
"Does Chris need you?" Max asked ruthlessly.
Again that swift glance shooting upwards; again a lengthy pause. Then, "_Vous avez la vue percante_," Bertrand remarked in a low tone.
"I can't help seeing things," Max returned. "I suppose it's my speciality. I knew you were in love with her from the first moment I saw you."
Bertrand made a slight movement, as if the crude statement hurt him; but he answered quite quietly, "You have divined a secret which is known to none other. I confide it to your honourable keeping."
The corners of Max's mouth went down. He looked as if he were on the verge of making some ironical rejoinder, but he restrained it, merely asking, "Are you sure that no one else knows it?"
"You mean--?" The words came sharply this time; Bertrand's eyes searched his face with keen anxiety.
"Chris herself," Max said.
"_La petite Christine! Ma foi, no_! She has never known!" Bertrand's reply was instant and held unshaken conviction.
"You seem very sure of that," Max observed.
"I am sure. Also"--a queer little smile of tenderness touched Bertrand's drawn face--"she never will know now."
"Meaning you will never tell her?" Max said.
"Me, I will die first!" Bertrand answered simply.
Max grunted. "Women have an awkward knack of finding things out without being told," he observed.
"She will never discover this while I live," Bertrand answered. "I am her friend--the friend of her childhood--nothing more than that."
"But if she did find out?" Max said.
"She will not."
"But--suppose it for a moment--if she did?" He stuck to his point doggedly, plainly determined to get an answer.
"In that case I should depart at once," Bertrand answered.
"Yes, and where would you go to?"
Bertrand was silent.
"You would go back to London and starve?" Max persisted.
"Perhaps." Bertrand spoke as though the matter were one of indifference to him. "It would not be for long," he said rather dreamily.
"Oh, rot!" Max's rejoinder was intentionally vehement. "Look here," he said, as Bertrand looked at him in surprise, "you can't go on like that. It's too damned foolish. If, for any reason, you do leave this place, you must have some plan of action. You can't let yourself drift."
"No?" Bertrand still looked surprised.
"No," Max returned vigorously. "Now listen to me, Bertrand. If I am to keep quiet about this illness of yours, you have got to make me a promise."
Bertrand raised his brows interrogatively.
"Just this," Max said, "that if you find yourself at a loose end, you will come to me."
Bertrand looked quizzical. "A loose end?" he questioned.
"You know what it means all right," Max returned sternly. "Is it a promise?"
"That I come to you if I need a friend?" amended Bertrand. "But--why should I do that?"
"Because I am a friend if you like," said Max bluntly.
Bertrand's hand closed hard upon his. "I have--no words," he said, in a voice from which all banter had departed.
Max gripped the hand. "Then it's a promise?"
Bertrand hesitated.
"You have no choice," Max reminded him. "And if you will come to me I can find a way to help you. It wouldn't even be difficult. And you would have skilled nursing and attention. Come, it's either that or Trevor will have to be told. He'll see that you don't go back to starve in the streets."
"I will not have Mr. Mordaunt told," Bertrand said quickly and firmly.
"Then you will give me this promise," Max returned immovably.
With a gesture of helplessness the Frenchman yielded. "_Eh bien_, I promise."
"Good!" said Max. He laid Bertrand's hand down and rose.
Yet a moment he stood above him, looking downwards. "You keep your promises, eh?" he asked abruptly.
Bertrand flushed. "I am a man of honour," he said proudly.
"Yes, I know you are." Max touched his shoulder with a boyish, propitiatory movement. "I beg your pardon, old chap. I'd be one myself if I could."
"But you--but you--" Bertrand protested in confusion.
"I am a Wyndham," said Max, with a bitter smile. "It doesn't run in our family, that. But I'll play the game with you, man, just because you're straight."
He patted Bertrand's shoulder lightly, and turned away. There were not many who knew Max Wyndham intimately, and of those not one who would have credited the fact that the innate honour of a French castaway had somehow made him feel ashamed.


CHAPTER XIII
WOMANHOOD

"A thousand thanks, _chere Madame_, for the generous favour which you have bestowed upon me! I shall make it my business to see that no rumour of your droll secret of Valpre ever reach the ear of the strict husband, lest he should imagine that among the rocks of that paradise there lies entombed something more precious to him than the gay romance of your youth.
"To this undertaking I subscribe my signature, with many compliments to the good secretary; and to you, _chere Madame_, my ever constant devotion.
"_Toujours a vous_, GUILLAUME RODOLPHE.
"P.S.--It is with profound regret that I find myself unable to visit you, but my duty recalls me to my regiment in Paris."
A faint sigh escaped Chris, the first breath she had drawn for many seconds. She stood by her dressing-table in the full glare of the electric light, dressed in white, her wonderful hair shining like burnished copper. She was to give her first dinner-party that night. It was not to be a very large affair, yet it was something of an ordeal in her estimation. She would probably have faced it more easily away from Aunt Philippa's critical eyes. But this was a condition not obtainable. Aunt Philippa had decided to remain some little time longer at Kellerton Old Park in consequence of an engagement having fallen through, a state of affairs that Noel regarded with a disgust too forcible to be expressed in words, and which had driven Max away within three days of his arrival.
Upon Chris had devolved the main burden of her aunt's society, and a heavy burden she had begun to find it. Aunt Philippa had apparently determined to spend her time in transforming her young niece into a practical housewife--a gigantic task which she tackled with praiseworthy zeal. She had already instituted several reforms in the household, and her thrifty mind contemplated several more. Chris's attitude, which had at first been one of indifference, had gradually developed into one of passive resistance. She was, as a matter of fact, too preoccupied just then to turn her attention to active opposition; but she did not pretend to enjoy the tutelage thus ruthlessly pressed upon her. She had been compelled to relinquish her readings with Bertrand, of whom she now saw very little; for, though rigidly courteous at all times, he consistently avoided Aunt Philippa whenever possible. She on her part treated him with disdainful sufferance, much as she had treated Cinders in the old days. She resented his presence, but endured it perforce.
Under these circumstances it was not surprising that there should occur moments of occasional friction between her niece and herself, especially since, under the most favourable conditions, they had never yet managed to discover a single point in common.
This constant jarring in the background of the ceaseless anxiety that consumed her night and day had worn Chris's nerves to a very thin edge, and now that relief had come at last in the form of the letter she held in her hand she was almost too spent to feel it. The tension had endured for