The Green Jacket/Chapter 20
XX
Milly slept soundly, with a sense of deep refreshment. But suddenly she found herself awake, the moonlight streaming into the room. She got up and went to the window. The whole landscape lay in the softened light—like some other world. The terrace was vacant—only the two chairs where the smokers had sat, stood near together in friendly relation. There was no sign of life in the world. The very flowers on the terrace seemed asleep. . . . She looked at her watch on the table—five minutes to two. For a minute longer she stood looking out on the magic night. Its quietness soothed her spirit. . . . The burden she had undertaken to lift seemed lighter, and her thought travelling swiftly to the three people who were sleeping in the quiet house below, dwelt on them with a little feeling almost of tenderness. They seemed to her so helpless, caught in a tangle that only her patient skill could release—and they trusted her! . . . The mood that was on her was at once a triumph and a scourge to her spirit. She knew that she would accomplish her purpose for them—already she saw the happiness that was coming to the three who lay asleep. But she saw, too, the effort that must be made, and she felt the gathering concentration of her whole being that must lose itself for a time in these other lives—become a part of the mystery it sought to solve, almost of the bone and tissue of these three people of whose existence, a week ago, she had known nothing. . . . No poet brooding on his lines was ever smitten with fiercer fire or shrank with keener sensitiveness from the final effort of concentration, the final uniting of himself with the mysterious forces of life, than this woman whose work lay in the shadow land of crime. . . .
Only by the intuition that guides all creative life and work did she know she was coming close to a moment when she must yield herself, and at the same time must guide with steady hand forces more powerful than herself to a successful issue. . . . She did not say these things to herself; she did not think them. She only stood in the moonlight, looking down at the quiet world and steadying herself to it. . . . Something that was not sound or breath passed swiftly across her vision, and her gaze rested on the brick pavement below—a block of light, faint, but deeper than the moonlight, lay there. She glanced along the windows of the floor beneath—it was as she had guessed. The library window was lighted and the curtains were not drawn.
She threw on a wrapper and went swiftly down the stairs, her feet noiseless in the soft slippers she wore. . . . The wide hall lay in the moonlight—no sign of life, and the library door was closed. She moved to it without sound and stood listening. The thick doors gave no hint of what was happening in the room behind them. She retraced her steps quickly to her room. She would dress and go down outside. Perhaps from a distance she could determine what was happening in the room with its deadened walls. . . . She entered her room and crossed to the window and looked out, and turned away. The block of light was gone from the pavement. Whoever was in the library had drawn the curtains together or had turned off the light. . . . The door had not been opened. Of that she felt sure. How ever quietly it might have been done, her ear would have caught the sound. She left her door ajar and lay down on the outside of the bed in her wrapper and slippers. When the library door opened she would see from the turning of the landing who it was that had called her from her sleep.
And when she opened her eyes, the sun was shining full into the room and resting on the bed. She got up, blinking a little, censuring herself for having fallen asleep. Signs of life were astir below.
She went to the window and looked out into a daylight world—no mystery, no subtle sense of solution almost at hand—clear, shining daylight, with the sun well up in the sky. A step sounded on the pavement below. She looked down, drawing the curtain with its thin folds across the window. On the terrace the son of the house, his hands in his pockets, stood whistling softly—almost happily, it seemed to her—and looking off on the landscape.
She dressed hastily and hurried down. In the adjoining room the family were already at breakfast. Through the closed door she could hear faint sounds. Presently the door opened. Mrs. Mason stood in it. She stepped into the room.
"I have to go away!" she said with a little vexation. "I told Elise Marshall I would help with the Red Cross work, and she has telephoned that they want me this morning—I did not mean to be away to-day! Shall you need me?"
"No. I have plenty of work to do." She said it without emphasis. But the woman started and looked at her almost suspiciously.
Milly waited while the eyes searched her face.
"Are you satisfied?" she asked, smiling.
The woman bent her head. "Yes. I know everything will be right. But I am anxious. I cannot help it. I had a dream in the night!" She spoke in a low, hurried voice. "I dreamed we found the emeralds!"
"We shall find them," said Milly.
"Yes." She checked herself swiftly. Through the door they could hear the two men talking casually.
Milly nodded, with a little gesture to the door, and raised her voice:
"I have plenty of work, Mrs. Mason, and if it gives out, I will work on the green jacket. I want to finish it before I go."
The woman smiled wistfully and turned away. She paused a moment by her son's chair as she passed through the adjoining room. She put her hand on his shoulder.
"I am sorry to be away!" she said.
He jumped up and accompanied her to the door and opened it for her to pass through. She looked up at him hopefully.
"You could drive me over and say 'how do you do' to Elise—if you liked."
He shook his head. "Not this morning, mother. I have something to do that can't be put off. Tell Elise I sent all sorts of messages, won't you?"
She smiled at him, and her hand touched his sleeve, almost protectingly, it seemed.
"I'll tell her, yes. Perhaps I will bring her back with me to luncheon."
"Good! That will be fine!" He bent and kissed her and returned to his place at table.
His father, who had just finished, and was on his feet, looked at him, smiling. "I am sorry to leave you. But Jackson has just sent word from the garden—some more of his blunders, I suppose. I had hoped we could walk to the links by and by. But you're going to be busy, you say?"
The little moment of hesitation in the son's manner gave way to quick response.
"It will not take long, I hope. I'll try to be ready, sir."
He waited till his father's step had died away. Then he stepped quickly to the half-open door.
"You wanted me to see you," he said. "But my father"
"I know," responded Milly. "And I shall not keep you long. . . . I only wanted to ask you whether anything in your wife's manner ever gave you reason to suppose she knew why your mother had changed toward her?"
He shook his head. "She could not have known—or she would have told me. We talked of it freely."
"Did you send for your mother to come to her—when she was ill?"
"No. It was Marian who sent. She had the nurse write—as soon as she knew." He stood staring before him. "They did not tell me—till the very last. I supposed she was getting well—up to the day she died. She would not let them tell me." He spoke in a low voice.
Milly got up and stood beside him.
"Why did she send for her?" she asked.
He looked at her, startled by something in her manner.
"Why—to be friends again!" he said. "She loved her dearly. She wanted to be reconciled to her."
"There was no other reason?"
His forehead knit a little. "There might have been, of course. She only told me she had sent for mother—and she must see her alone. I went away. When I came back she told me everything was just as it used to be between them. Then she made me promise to come home—" He had turned a little and was looking off to the hills—as if beyond them lay something his vision could not penetrate.
"You know she wrote a letter to your mother?"
He bowed. "I mailed it myself after she died."
"Did you know what was in it?"
"No."
She took a copy of the letter from her dress and handed it to him.
As he read it, she saw the tears in his eyes. He brushed them away.
"She did not think of herself, even then," he said. . . . "What was it she would not tell?" His face was thoughtful. "Can you imagine," he broke out, "why she would not tell—whatever it was?"
She pointed to the note. "She was 'under a pledge.’"
"But who—what?" He started and turned. His father was in the French window. He regarded the young man for a moment.
"Did you want me, father?"
"I always want you, Stephen," said the man gently, with a smile.
He stepped quickly to his father's side.
"I am ready, sir." He slipped a hand through his arm, affectionately, and side by side the father and son walked away.