The Wheels of Time

By Florence L. Barclay Author of "The Rosary" and "The Mistress of Shenstone"

ILLUSTRATED BY R. G. VOSBURGH

New York Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. Publishers

Copyright, 1908, 1910,

By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.

To one woman who said "I go not," but afterwards repented and went

Illustrations

The Wheels of Time

The doctor stood, with his hand on the doorknob, and gave a final look back into his wife's boudoir.

There was nothing in that room suggestive of town or of town life and work—delicate green and white, a mossy carpet, masses of spring flowers; cool, soft, noiseless, fragrant.

Standing in the doorway the doctor could hear the agitated clang of the street-door bell, Stoddart crossing the hall; the opening and closing of the door, and Stoddart's subdued and sympathetic voice saying: "Step this way, please." A heavy, depressed foot or an anxious, hurried one, according to the mental condition of its owner, obeyed; and the shutting of the library door meant another patient added to the number of those who were already listlessly turning over the pages of bound volumes of Punch or scrutinizing with unseeing eyes the Landseer engraving over the mantelpiece.

In former days the waiting-room used to be the doctor's dining-room, but before he married his pretty wife she put her foot down firmly on this question. He had been explaining the Wimpole Street house and its arrangements as they stood together in her sunny rose-garden.

"But, Deryck," she had exclaimed in dismay, waving her hands at him, full of a great mass of freshly gathered roses, "I could not possibly sit down and dine with you in a room where your horrible patients have sat waiting for hours, leaving behind them the germs of all their nasty, infectious diseases!"

The doctor caught the little hands, roses and all, and held them against his breast, looking down into her face with laughing eyes.

"Flower," he said, "my lovely, fragrant Flower! Am I doing a foolish thing in attempting to transplant you into the soil of busy London life? Should I not do better if I left you in your rose-garden? Ah, well, it is too late to ask that now; I can't leave Wimpole Street, and"—his voice, always deep, suddenly thrilled to a deeper depth; a tenderness of strong passion quivered in it—"I can't live without you." He let go her hands and framed her upturned face in his strong, brown fingers.

"What have you done to me, Flower? I was always self-contained and self-sufficing, and now I find I can't live without you, Flower—my Flower."

His eyes glowed down into her face. She looked up sweetly at him.

"But, Deryck," she said, "they do leave the germs of all their nasty infectious—"

The doctor's hands fell suddenly to his sides.

"My dear child," he said, and his voice instantly regained its usual evenness of tone, "have I not told you that I am a mind specialist? The people who come to my consulting-room are not, as a rule, suffering from measles, scarlet fever, or smallpox!"

"Oh, well, they leave their dreadful morbid thoughts behind them; and that is worse. I could not dine in a room where diseased minds have sat for hours, brooding. It would give me creeps. And oh, Deryck, you know that stupid article you read me the other day, about how mental impressions, when a mind was highly strung or unbalanced, could leave an impress upon walls or furniture—explaining ghost stories, you know?—I forget who wrote it.... You did? My dear boy, how clever of you!... Oh, no! How can you say I called it 'stupid'? Or if I did, I meant 'interesting,' of course. See how well I remembered it, though you thought I was not listening, because I had to keep counting the stitches in the heels of your golf stockings, you ungrateful man! And I am certain you are right about horrible thoughts sticking to furniture. And however well Stoddart arranged the room he couldn't sweep them away, and we should sit at dinner surrounded by them—oh, Deryck, surrounded!"

Her lovely eyes looked widely at him, over the gathered roses.

The doctor laughed. It is so easy for a man to laugh before marriage.

"All right, Flower," he said. "There is nothing like convincing a fellow with his own arguments. We will remodel the house. I'll talk it over with Hunt. You shall have dining-room, drawing-room, and boudoir, all on the first floor, and I and my freaks will have the run of the ground floor. You will need only to pass through the hall to go in and out of the house. So, if they drop their poor minds about, you will not come across them. Now, choose me that promised button-hole, and then let us come down to the stream. I don't like a rose-garden when half of the windows of the house overlook it!"

This was seven years ago, and it now sometimes seemed to Dr. Brand as if his tall Wimpole Street house represented in its stories the various portions of the human anatomy; absolutely distinct in themselves, but held together and kept going by the brain; the ever-busy brain controlling all.

His wife's apartments on the first floor; his life with her there, into which his professional interests were so rarely allowed to intrude; certainly they represented the heart of things; the man's whole heart rested and centred there.

The floor above was given up to the nurseries, and there, already, two pairs of little feet pattered ceaselessly, and merry voices shouted clear and gleeful, and a little flower-faced girl peeped down at him through the balustrade, and a small boy, gazing earnestly with dark, steadfast eyes into the interior of a jumping rabbit which refused to jump, reproduced absurdly his own intent professional manner.

In the basement were the kitchens, and he was as ignorant of them as, he reflected with a smile, every perfectly healthy man should be of the digestive organs of his own anatomy.

Then on the ground floor, between the life below-stairs and the life above, but generating the needful supplies to keep the whole establishment going, dwelt the Brain—his brain, his untiring, ever-growing capacity for hard work, represented by his consulting-room, where so many strenuous hours were spent, and the old dining-room, now called the library, where an ever-increasing number of patients waited daily. This floor of his life was practically unshared by any, excepting the faithful and punctilious old butler, whose monotonous "Step this way, sir," "Please to step this way, ma'am," served to punctuate the departure of one case and the arrival of the next.

Sometimes the desire to share the interest of this ever-varying daily work with another, gripped him in the throes of its human necessity. When his deep, penetrating eyes had been long bent upon the shifting, shuffling mind of a patient, at last piercing with tender mercilessness to the very core of that mind's malady; when his quick brain had grasped the case in all its bearings, and his magnificent will-power had compelled the shaken soul to see things as he saw them, to believe things as he believed them, to face the future as the future alone could rightly be faced; when his inspiring enthusiasm and belief in God and life and human nature had set that mental cripple on his feet or loosed the bands which had bound some poor "daughter of Abraham,—lo, these eighteen years"; when, conducted by Stoddart's mechanical "Step this way," they passed out from his consulting-room to tread with new hopes the path of a new life, he would stride to his window, squaring his shoulders, and taking in a deep breath of fresh air, he would say: "God, what a victory! I must tell Flower."

But once in Flower's boudoir, with a dainty china teacup in his hand and a muffin on his knee, hearing the blissful details of Blossom's new syllable, or Dicky's latest development, or Flower's own triumphal progress through the Park in the new motor-car, somehow the story of the strenuous fight, the hopeful victory, seemed out of place. This was the home of feeling; thought must not intrude. This was the domain of trivialities; the great issues of life must hide in the background. This was the home of the Heart; the Brain must abide below.

Yet matrimony and motherhood had done much to deepen Flower. The linking with his nature; the having perforce to awaken in order to meet and satisfy the deep needs of his overmastering love; the constant example of his unselfish nobility, singleness of purpose, and high ideal of life; and, above all, the pangs and joys of motherhood; all these had made of the wilful, wayward little Flower of the rose-garden, a sweet and gracious woman; in outward face and form more exquisite than ever, and in the hidden part an awakening soul, which needed only an hour of deep agony, a tearing away of the flimsy veil of selfishness and conventionality now stifling it, to bring it to the birth.

But that time of pain and stress came not to Flower, because the strong, shielding love of a man was always around her, and his care warded off the very thing which alone could have brought about his comfort and her completion. And yet he was dimly conscious of a gradual growth in her, and sometimes, half wistfully, he called her "Mary," that name so sacred to perfect motherhood, and which had seemed such an incongruous gift from her sponsors, to his Flower of the rose-garden.

On this particular morning, when the doctor stood at the door looking into the boudoir, Flower was bending over a huge bowl of daffodils, arranging each golden trumpet to her liking.

The spring sunshine came glancing through the window and touched her hair to the gold of the blossoms. The doctor noted this, and a sudden look of adoration softened the cool clearness of his eyes.

The baby's godmother, on this last day of her visit, sitting by the fire with her feet on the fender, opening and smoothing a copy of the Times, glanced up, past the sunshine and the daffodils, saw that look and promptly retired behind a leading article.

The baby's godmother was a perfectly beautiful woman in an absolutely plain shell, but, unfortunately, no man had yet looked beneath the shell and seen the woman herself in her perfection. She would have made earth heaven for a blind lover who, not having eyes for the plainness of her face or the massiveness of her figure, might have drawn nearer and apprehended the wonder of her as a woman; experiencing the wealth of tenderness of which she was capable, the blessed comfort of the shelter of her love, the perfect comprehension of her sympathy, the marvellous joy of winning and wedding her. But as yet no blind man with far-seeing vision had come her way, and it always seemed to be her lot to take a second place on occasions when she would have filled the first to infinite perfection.

She had been bridesmaid at the doctor's wedding, to whom she would have made a wife such as Flower, develop as she might, could never be. She was godmother to the baby—she whose arms ached for motherhood itself and whose motherliness would have been a thing for men to kneel down and worship. She found her duties as godmother to various babies consisted chiefly in praying that the foolish mistakes made by their parents might be overruled by an all-wise Providence and work out somehow to their ultimate good.

She had a glorious voice; but her face, not matching it, its existence was rarely suspected; and as she accompanied to perfection, she was usually in requisition to play for the singing of others. Only once, at a concert, where the principal songstress failed at the last moment, she volunteered to fill the empty place, and walked to the piano, when the moment came, in the double capacity of singer and accompanist. How she "brought down the house" on this occasion, and how a blind man's eyes were opened, belongs to another story.

Meanwhile she was a woman of tact, and when she perceived how the doctor was momentarily dazzled by the sunlight and the gold, she retired, obviously, behind the Times leader.

"Darling," said the doctor, "I am wired for to Brighton, in consultation over a very important case. I must go down by an afternoon train, and I doubt if I can get back to-night."

"How tiresome, Deryck! It is Myra's reception this evening, and I promised to bring you with me. I shall hate going alone. However, I suppose it cannot be helped. Did you ever see such daffodils? It makes one long to be back in the woods at home."

The doctor hesitated. Downstairs the bell rang again, the hall door opened and closed, Stoddart said, "Step this way, sir."

"Flower," said the doctor, "I have a jolly little plan for to-night. I want you to come to Brighton with me. We will put up at the Metropole and have a real good time. I ought to be able to get back to you there soon after seven, and we can have dinner and go on the pier afterwards and watch the moonlight on the sea. Or, if you prefer something more lively, there is a good concert on in the Dome. I will telephone for seats. It is a long while since we heard any music together."

He stopped rather breathlessly.

The front doorbell rang again.

The doctor's wife took out a daffodil and replaced it to better advantage. Then she looked up with an exquisite smile.

"Dearest, you are so amusing with your sudden plans! It sounds delightful, of course. I love Brighton in spring. I shall never forget driving along the King's Road in the sunshine, with a huge bunch of violets on my muff. It was too heavenly! Early March, and the whole place seemed to sing of how summer was coming! But we cannot always do what we like. I must look in at Myra's party, and I should really have thought you might have got back in time. If you appeared at eleven, it would do."

The doctor's face, against the pale green woodwork of the door, suddenly looked rather worn and thin.

"I am afraid I could not get back, Flower," he said. "I may have to put in a second visit in the morning. And—darling—I want you to-night. This case will be rather a strain. It will be just everything to have you down there to come back to. The moment it is over I shall remember you are waiting for me."

The baby's godmother looked up quietly over the Times. She had heard the tone in his voice and she saw on his face just what she expected to see. Notwithstanding his forty years, despite his brilliant powers, his ceaseless energy, he looked at that minute like a tired child, just needing to be gathered into a loving woman's arms and hushed to rest. He was facing, beforehand, what he would be feeling after the strain was over. He was yearning for the love and companionship, dreading the solitude and loneliness. The baby's godmother knew exactly what he needed. She awaited Flower's reply.

"Who is 'the case,' Deryck?"

The doctor hesitated an instant, then named a name so widely known that the baby's godmother bounded in her chair.

"My dear Deryck," she cried, "if you are successful there, it means fame—world wide! Oh, what can we do to help? Must you see patients this morning?"

The doctor smiled.

"I must, Jeanette, unless you will see them for me. But work fits me for work. It is only after it is all over one feels a bit tired sometimes." He looked at Flower. "Well, sweet? Can you be ready at two o'clock sharp?"

"Dear," she said, "I am so sorry, but I can't see my way clear about going with you to-day. If only it had been to-morrow! Nurse has asked to go out to tea and to stay the evening, and I promised to have the children down longer than usual. Of course there is Emma, and Marsdon could help. But I should not feel easy about it. And I promised Dicky and Blossom we would have all the stuffed animals out and play menagerie. I never can feel it right to disappoint little children. And you know you often say to me yourself, 'If you have promised them a thing, keep to it at all costs.' Besides, there is Myra's tiresome 'at home' to consider. Really, Deryck, I don't see how I can be away today."

"All right, Flower," the doctor said quietly. "I am sorry I bothered you by proposing it. Don't expect me up to lunch. Every moment will be full this morning. Stoddart will put some sandwiches in my bag. Good-bye."

The door closed behind him. They heard his quick step on the stairs and the consulting-room door shut sharply.

The baby's godmother laid down the Times, folded her skirt back over her knees, and stirred the fire with her shoe.

Flower sighed.

"Deryck really is trying," she said.

The baby's godmother bit her lip. She had found that she could help the doctor's wife best by never contradicting her.

"Very clever people usually are trying," she remarked after a pause, "to those who have to live with them."

Flower wheeled round and looked at her.

"My good Jane, I don't know what you mean! Deryck is perfect to live with, perfect! Have you stayed here ten days without finding that out? He is only trying when he swoops down upon me with a sudden plan and expects me to be ready to rush away with him at a moment's notice. If he had let me know yesterday it might have been managed."

"I gathered he only knew himself this morning."

"That has nothing whatever to do with it. The crux of the whole matter is that I had promised nurse she should have the evening, and I cannot leave the children, with nurse away."

The baby's godmother bent over the grate, took up the poker, and carefully built a little castle of molten coal in the very heart of the bright fire. Her hands looked strong and firm and very capable. Her face flushed as she bent over the glowing flame.

The doctor's wife, cool and dainty, put masses of early white lilac into a tall crystal vase.

Silence reigned.

The clock struck eleven.

Then the baby's godmother laid down the fire-iron and began to speak, her hands clasped firmly around her large knees.

"Flower, when a man such as your husband wants you, you should leave everything—everything—to go to him. What are social engagements and servants' plans, ay, even children, compared with the needs of such a man as Deryck? Oh, my dear, couldn't you hear the appeal in his voice? It was like the cry of a tired child in the dark, groping for its resting-place, which just wants lifting up into its mother's arms and hushing to sleep. Strong man though he is—and I suppose you and I can hardly realize how strong he is when coping with the great needs of others—he will always be a boy where he loves. He is so young in heart, so eternally, passionately young. He wants mothering just now. He is doing the work of three men, and doing it at high pressure. I hear of it from outside, as perhaps you cannot. And when the day is over he needs a place of rest—a tender, understanding place of rest, where he can talk or be silent, sleep or wake, as the fancy takes him, but where he will never be left alone to live again through the happenings of the day, too tired to escape them.

And oh, Flower, you, and you alone, can do this for him. Shall I tell you? I know half-a-dozen women at least who would throw over social engagements, leave husbands, children, everything, and go down to stay at Brighton or anywhere else on the chance of five minutes' conversation with Deryck, or of his needing, at the moment, a comrade and friend."

"Horrid creatures!" cried Flower, mockingly, "their husbands ought to have something to say to them for running after mine. I wonder a proper person like you, Jane, is not ashamed to talk of them. And you need not try to make me jealous. It is one of my theories that only small minds are jealous. I have always stood far above the feeling."

"I know, dear, I know," said the baby's godmother, hastily. "I had not the faintest hope of making you jealous. Besides, why should you be? Deryck has never looked twice at any woman but you. We all know that."

Flower laid down her scissors and came and knelt on the hearthrug, mollified and a little wistful. She spread out her damp hands to the blaze and looked up into the baby's godmother's plain face, with a mischievous, inquisitive smile.