The House of Defence. Volume 2. Benson Edward Frederic
intolerable. She, however, with undiminished cheerfulness, expressed a preference for the river, and made it impossible for Villars not to offer his companionship. Ruby and Jim had not been seen since lunch. Theodosia and her husband went with Thurso to Windsor, and Mr. Yardly murmured something about letters, which, rightly interpreted, meant slumber, and hastily betook himself to the house. In consequence, Maud and her sister-in-law, both of whom announced their intention of doing nothing of any description, were before long left in possession of the garden. There had been a certain design about this, though successfully veiled, on Catherine’s part. She wanted to have a talk with Maud, and the gentlest promptings had been sufficient to make other people choose other things.
The rest of the party dispersed in their various directions, and it was not till the motor had hooted at the entrance to the main road and the steam launch puffed its way past the opening in the yew-hedge that Catherine spoke again.
“Tell me more about this Mr. Cochrane,” she said.
Maud was already half immersed in her book, and had been quite unconscious of Catherine’s diplomacy. She started a little when the question was put to her, and closed her book.
“There is really no more to tell,” she said. “I think I have told you all. Ah! no; there was one more thing, but they would all have howled so if I had said it. It was this: he told me that he was demonstrating over the whole outbreak of typhoid. Well, it stopped quite suddenly. The cases had been coming in hour after hour till it ceased like a tap being turned off. And after that there were no more deaths. Of course, it sounds incredible, and if you ask me whether I really believe that it was through him that it came to an end like that, I shouldn’t say ‘Yes.’ I don’t know.”
“I should like to see Mr. Cochrane,” remarked Catherine.
“You can if you like. He is coming to town, he told me, some day this month. Oh, Catherine, it is interesting, anyhow! He did cure Sandie; also, he cured Duncan Fraser’s wife. I am convinced of that. And then the other fact of the typhoid ceasing like that! Of course, you may say it was a pure coincidence; you may say that those other cures were coincidences too. But when you get a set of coincidences all together like that, you wonder if there is not – well, some law which lies behind them, and accounts for them all.”
She paused a moment.
“A lot of apples and other things fell to the ground,” she said, “and Newton deduced the law of gravity. It accounted for them all.”
Catherine lit a cigarette, and threw the match away with great vigour.
“What a fool darling Alice is!” she observed. “I love Alice just as you do – you can’t help loving her – but, oh, what a fool! Somehow, if a person talks such abject nonsense as that about anything, one concludes that the subject is nonsense too. But it doesn’t really follow. And Mr. Cochrane doesn’t talk nonsense?” she asked.
“No; he isn’t the least nonsensical. As I have told you, he goes and cures people when they are ill, instead of gassing about it. He’s a very good fisherman, too.”
Catherine could not help laughing. Maud mentioned this in a voice of such high approval.
“But isn’t that inconsistent?” she said. “I don’t think a man whose whole belief was in health and life should go and kill things.”
“Oh yes; I think it’s inconsistent,” said Maud, “and so does he. But did you ever see anybody who wasn’t inconsistent? I never did, and I never want to. He would be so extremely dull: you would know all about him at once.”
“And you don’t know all about Mr. Cochrane?” she asked.
“No; I should like to know more. I think I never met anyone so arresting. You are forced to attend, whether you like it or not.”
“And I gather you like it?” asked Catherine.
“Yes, certainly. I like vigour and certainty, and – oh, well, that sort of cleanness. He is like a nice boy at Cambridge, with all this extraordinary strength behind.”
Catherine could not help making mental comments on this.
“Ah, that attracts you?” she said. “It attracts me also. I like people to be strong and efficient; but, oh, Maud, how one’s heart goes out to them when they are helpless and enmeshed in what is stronger than they!”
This was a clear change of subject. Mr. Cochrane was put aside for a little, and Catherine could not help noticing that Maud seemed relieved.
“Ah, you mean Thurso?” she said quickly, letting her book slide to the ground.
“Yes; and I want to talk to you about him, for I believe you are wise, and I feel helpless. I don’t know what to do. Last night, I must tell you, I went straight to his room after leaving you dressing. He had just taken laudanum, not because he had any headache, but because he longed for it.”
Maud clasped her hands together and gave a little pitiful sound, half sigh, half moan.
“Ah, the poor fellow!” she said. “Yes?”
“And – and he lied to me,” said Catherine, “and said he had not been taking it, and there was the glass smelling of it by his side. Then he was very angry with me for a little, and said I had spoiled everything, but eventually he gave me the bottle and let me pour it away. I did, and I threw the bottle into the shrubbery.”
Maud’s eye brightened.
“Ah! that’s better,” she said. “He can still fight it.”
Catherine shook her head.
“That’s not all,” she said, “and the rest is so dreadful, and so pathetic. I couldn’t sleep last night, and it must have been about two in the morning when I got out of bed and went to the window and sat there a little. And I saw Thurso come along the path, and he lit a match and found the bottle. Then he took it – it was bright moonlight; I could see quite clearly – and literally sucked it, to see if there was not a drop or two left.”
Maud had no reply to this. If it was despicable, it was, as Catherine had said, dreadfully pathetic.
“Advise me, dear Maud,” she said at length. “I am horribly troubled about it. The sight of him turning that damned little bottle – no, I’m not sorry: I meant it – upside down in his mouth showed me how awfully he wanted it. I feel one shouldn’t lose a day or a minute. The desire grows like an aloe-flower. But if he won’t see a doctor, what is to be done? I shall send for Sir James as soon as I get back to town, and tell him all about it; but I can’t force Thurso to see him. Besides – ” and she stopped.
“Yes?”
“There is nothing in the world so hard to cure,” she said. “It is deadlier than a cancer.”
“But he still wants to free himself,” said Maud.
“Yes; so does a prisoner.”
There was a pause.
“Or do you think I am taking too pessimistic a view?” asked Catherine.
Maud could not help seeing the bright side of things. Sunshine appealed to her more strongly than shadow. It was more real to her.
“Yes; I think you are,” she said. “He let you pour the – well, the damned stuff away. You influenced him more strongly than his desire.”
“Yes, than his satisfied desire,” said Catherine with terrible commonsense. “He had just taken it. Do you suppose he would have let me pour it away if he was just going to take it?”
“I don’t know. You are stronger than he, I think.”
Maud gave a great sigh, picking up her book.
“I remember Mr. Cochrane practically offered to cure his neuralgia,” she said, “but I knew it was perfectly useless to suggest it to Thurso; nor at the time did I believe in Mr. Cochrane. But since then – ”
Catherine looked up, and saw in Maud’s face what she had suspected.
“Oh, Maud!” she said. “Are