Chapter 27

THE USES OF DELIRIUM

"Don't you think I might get up and sit by the window and look at the sea, Carey?"

Miss Carew hesitated, and then summoned the nurse.

"Miss Dexter was to have one whole day in bed after the journey."

The nurse, looking into Molly's eager eyes, compromised for one half hour, in which Miss Dexter might lie on the sofa in a fur cloak.

It was a big sofa befitting the largest bedroom in the hotel, and Molly lay back on its cushions with the peculiar physical satisfaction of weakness, resting after very slight efforts. Yesterday she had been too exhausted for enjoyment, but this afternoon her sensations were delightful.

The short afternoon light was ruddy on the glorious brown sails of the fishing-boats, and drew out all their magnificent contrast to the blue water. But the sun still sparkled garishly on the crest of the waves, and the milder glow of the sunset had not begun.

Weakness was sheltered and at rest within, while without was the immense movement of wind and water, and the passing smile of the sun on the great, unshackled forces of winter. Molly's rest was like a child's security in the arms of a kindly giant. Her mind had been absorbed by illness--an illness that had had her completely in grip, the first serious illness she had ever known. There had been a struggle in the depths of her life's forces such as she had never imagined; but now life had conquered, and she was at rest. In that time there had been awful delirium: horrible things, guilty and hideous, had clung about her, all round her. One wicked presence especially had taken a strange form, a face without a body, and yet it had hands--it must have had hands because the horror of it was that it constantly opened the doors of the different cupboards, but most often the door of the big wardrobe, and looked out, and that although Molly had had the wardrobe locked and the key put under her pillow. And this face was very like Molly's, and the question she had to settle was whether this face was her mother's or her own. At times she reasoned--and the logical process was so deadly tiring--that it must be her mother, for she could not be Molly herself being so unkind to herself; whereas, if the face had had any pity for her it might have been herself looking at herself. But was that not nonsense? There was surely a touch of hysteria in that. Did the face really come out of her own brain? And if so, from what part of her brain? She felt sure there was a sort of empty attic, a large one, in the top part of her right brain, it felt hollow, quite terribly hollow. Probably the face came out of that. But then, how did it get inside the wardrobe? and once inside the wardrobe, how did it get out again when Molly really had the key?

She longed to speak to Miss Carew about this, but Miss Carew never could follow a chain of reasoning. The nurse was more sensible, but she thought that reasoning was too tiring for Molly--so silly! If only she could be allowed to explain it all quietly and reasonably! And oh! why did they leave her alone? She hated to be left alone, and she was sure she told them so; and yet they went away. And then she began to work her brain again as soon as the was alone, and she would be happy for a few minutes with a new plan for shutting the face into the large empty attic in her right brain and locking the door, when quite suddenly the face opened the door of the wardrobe with its loose hands and looked out again and jeered at her.

Even now, lying resting, and looking at the sun, Molly was glad that there was no hanging wardrobe in the room; only one full of shelves. She would certainly not use the same room when she went back to London. She would only be in that flat for a short time, as she must now take a big house.

As her eyes rested on the sails and the water, and were filled with the joy of colour, she had a sort of delicious idea of her new house. It should be very beautiful, most exquisite, quite unlike anybody else's house; it should be Molly's own special triumph. It must have the glamour of an old London house, its dignity, its sense of a past. It should have for decoration gloriously subdued gilding and colour, and old pictures, which Molly could afford to buy.

"And"--she smiled to herself--"as long as it is a house in the air it shall have a great outlook on the sea and the sunset." The fancy that had been so cruel in her sickness was a sycophant now that life was victorious; it flattered and caressed and soothed her now.

Within a few days two theories were growing in the background of her consciousness, not acknowledged or questioned while they took possession. They took turns to make themselves gradually, very gradually, and imperceptibly familiar to her. The first was founded on the idea that she had been very ill a little sooner than was supposed, and that she had imagined a great deal that was torturing and absurd as to her mother's papers. She had been delirious that evening, and, what was still more important, she was actually very hazy now as to what she had seen and read of the contents of that box.

"I can't remember if that's true," she could honestly say to herself when some fact of the horrible story came forward and claimed attention. Once she caught herself thinking how very common it was for people to forget entirely what had happened just before or during an illness. For instance, Sir David Bright had never been able to remember what happened on the day on which Madame Danterre declared he had married her. But how did Molly know that? And suddenly she said to herself that she could not remember; perhaps she had fancied that, too.

At another time she began almost to think that she had imagined the black box altogether. Was it square or oblong? and how shallow was it? Sometimes while she was ill she had seen a black box as big as a house; sometimes it was a little tiny cash box.

Meanwhile, under cover of so many uncertainties, the other theory was getting a firm footing. It was simply that the fact of the will being sent to her mother was undoubted proof of Sir David's having repented of having made it. If Sir David had not sent her this will, who had? It was absurd and romantic to suppose that her mother had carried on an intrigue in South Africa in order to get possession of this will. That might have done in a chapter of Dumas, or have been imagined in delirium, but it was not possible in real life. The only puzzle was--and the theory must be able to meet all the facts of the case--why had he not destroyed the will himself? The probability was that he had not been able to do so at the last moment. When dying he must have repented of the last will just too late to destroy it. She could quite imagine his asking a friend, almost with his last words, to send Madame Danterre the papers. It would look more natural than his asking the friend to destroy them. And then the officer would have addressed the papers, of course not reading them. And thus the theory comfortably wrapped up another fact, namely, that the registered envelope had not been addressed by the hand that had written its contents. Finally, all that the theory did for the will, it did also for the letter to Rose, for the two things evidently stood or fell together. So the theories grew and prospered without interfering with each other as Molly's health and strength returned, except that the delirium theory insisted at times on the other theory being purely hypothetical; as, for instance, it had to be "Even supposing I was not delirious, and the will had been there, it is still evident that----"

Molly's recovery did not get on without a drawback, and the day on which the lawyer came down to see her she was genuinely very unwell. She seemed hardly able to understand business. She was ready to leave all responsibility to him in a way that certainly saved much trouble, but he hardly liked to see her quite so passive.

After he left, Miss Carew found her looking faint and ill.

"He must think me a fool," she said, in a weak voice. "I have left everything on his shoulders, poor man. I'm afraid if he is asked about me, as he's a Scotchman he will say I am 'just an innocent'! I really ought not to have seen him to-day."

But in a few days she was better, and the house agent found her quite business-like. The said house agent had come down with one secret object in his heart. It was now nine months since the bankruptcy of a too well-known nobleman had thrown a splendid old house on the market. It had been in the hands of all the chief agents in London, and they had hardly had a bite for it. Even millionaires were shy of it so far, the fact being that the house was more beautiful than comfortable, the bedrooms having been thought of less importance than the effectiveness of the first floor. Then, perhaps, it was a little gloomy, though artists maintained that its share of gloom only enhanced its charm.

After mentioning several uninteresting mansions, the agent observed that, of course, there was Westmoreland House still going, and Molly's eyes flashed. She had been at the great sale at Westmoreland House; she had been absolutely fascinated by the great well staircase and by the music-room, by the square reception-rooms, and above all by the gallery with its perfection of light moulding, a room of glass and gold, but so spiritualised, so subdued and reticent and dignified, that ghosts might live there undisturbed.

Molly trembled with eagerness as she asked the vital questions of cost, of repairs, of rates and taxes. Yes, it was possible--undoubtedly possible. There was a very large sum of money in a bank in Florence which possibly Madame Danterre had accumulated there with a view to a sudden emergency. Molly's lawyer had not been certain of the amount, but he had mentioned a sum larger than the price of Westmoreland House.

By the time Molly was fit to go back to London, and while the theories just described were still in possession of her mind, Westmoreland House was bought. Molly said it was a great relief to get it settled.

"One feels more settled altogether," she said to Miss Carew, "when a big question like that is done with."

She strolled with Miss Carew on the smooth sand by the water's edge on the last evening before leaving, and looked up at the white cliffs growing bright in the light of the sunset.

"It has been very restful," she said. "I am almost sorry to go."

"Then why not stay a little longer, my dear?"

"Oh, no, Carey! it would soon become quite intolerable; it isn't real life, only a pause; and now, Carey, I am going to live!"

The sun presently set lower and more grey than they had expected; the wind felt sharper, and Molly shivered. Nature was unbearable without its gilding.